Comic Book Resources

As a rule, solicitations probably shouldn’t include the phrase “He ain’t buyin’ it”. It invites a pretty obvious response.

And this reminds me that I really have to get my hands on the Batman and Superman “Chronicles” books.

I say Madman rocks! I don’t know if the new series will be a good place to start, but I love Mike Allred’s art and storytelling, so I’ll go ahead and recommend it.

Madman is pretty awesome. It’s a great, fun superhero book with lots of creativity and bits of philosophy scattered about (but in a funway). I can’t wait for the new series, or the big Gargantua collection.

For the MARVEL “Fallen Son” issues, it’s supposed to be

***SPOILER educated GUESSWORK below***
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Captain America who “buys it”.

That’s why he isn’t shown in any Avengers titles.
The scuttlebutt is he’s EITHER going to become…

***EVEN MORE educated guesswork SPOILERS here***

… either the new RONIN (since that identity is supposed to be assumed by someone who has a history of “changing costumes to match their mood” or something like that)…
Well, whenever Cap gets disgruntled, he ditches the U.S.-flag-costume and becomes someone else;
ie; NOMAD, “the Captain” etc…

- OR he’s to become the new IRON MAN (since Stark is to be the new head of SHIELD.

In preview art for MIGHTY AVENGERS, whoever is inside the Iron Man armor is supposed to be “very polite” and not used to the suit’s functions.

Whichever new identity CAP is NOT will be filled by Clint Barton (Hawkeye).

MY vote is CAP becomes RONIN & Hawkeye becomes the new IRON MAN.

My reasoning?
While Clint worships CAP, he must feel pretty burned by superfolk gone haywire (killed 2X by Wanda), and would sign up to the Pro-Reg side pretty fast.
PLUS, he has a history with Stark.
Iron Man brought him INTO the Avengers in the FIRST place.

CAP fakes his death, is rescued by the underground NEW, NEW AVENGERS and becomes RONIN.

That’s just my insane ramblings.
But…I have been nearly 100% correct on just about every call I’ve made (with Civil War, the Return, Speedball/Penance, Thor, Spider-Man titles and more).
If I’ve missed any, I don’t recall.

You have been warned.

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***END ALL SPOILERS***

~P~
P-TOR

Of course, now that I’ve stated that my track record is just about perfect… I’ll be dead, dead wrong.

~P~
P-TOR

Nobody in the older JLA story referred to the event as World War III. It was just the title of the story. From the characters’ point of view, the name is still open.

It’s been a long time since I’ve looked at Spider-Girl, but I seem to recall Ben Reilly still being alive in that universe. So I can say with some certainty that it’s not Earth-616 continuity.

My guess is that Tony Stark is going to buy the farm at the end of Civil War. My track record for such things, though, is often very, very wrong.

I’m pretty sure Spider-Girl is a separate universe from the 616.

And I’m glad to see some love for GrimJack. I’m not picking up this trade, because I already have these issues, but I’m eagerly awaiting the point when the trades get to the issues I don’t have.

Spider-Girl is in a mid-90’s version of the Marvel future. Therefore, they have the Fantastic Five with Lyja Lazerfist. The Skrull Woman who impersonated Alicia Masters and when the Thing stayed on the world of the Beyonder, she began to date the Human Torch, so she could continue spying on the F4.

Milligan? Is this FINALLY Kid Amazo? Do I dare to hope?

It is Kid Amazo!

“And I’m glad to see some love for GrimJack. ”

- Hear, hear! GrimJack is one of my all-time favorite books, so I’m glad to see it (and Grell’s Jon Sable, another good one) getting the trade treatment from IDW. John Ostrander also mentioned a new GrimJack mini being due out later this year.

- Not sure whether to recommend the new Madman book or not. I loved the previous series, and have pre-ordered the gargantuan omnibus edition that Image is putting out, but I haven’t read anything in the last few years from Allred. I don’t know if his style will still appeal to me now or not…

“You know, I wandered into the non-comics section of Previews, and now I’m transfixed. On page 383 you can order The Big Book of Breasts, which is just what it says it is: a look at the obsession with breasts that our culture has. Right underneath it is The Bunny Book: How to Walk, Talk, Tease & Please Like a Playboy Bunny. Why would anyone buy this? I’m just wondering”

- Not buying either of those, but I do plan on buying the DC Covergirls book. I think that sounds to be very entertaining, even if they could have “celebrated girlpower” by picking a better title…

“I know I’m flogging a dead horse here, as others have gone over this a lot, but, um, no female creators? I’m not going to advocate for quotas, but not one? That seems kind of strange.”

Cecil Castellucci is a woman. A lot of people have been confused by that. I guess it hasn’t been gone over quite enough, eh?

Thanks! It DOES look like we need to go over it some more!

Why do they keep doing this instead of allowing creators to do their own stuff?

As a general rule, creators who do their own stuff DON’T do it for DC and Marvel, who would end up owning said stuff anyway. If you go to the Big Two, it’s because you want to write [favorite character here]. Or need money, but if it’s for the money why bother creating an all-new property?

To be fair, I’ll have someone ELSE kick you in the groin for your bad taste.

You never read Blankets, just realized Bone is awesome, don’t understand what the fuss is about Hellboy and BPRD and never read Madman. Didn’t you mention not reading any Will Eisner Spirit also?

You realize the blog is called “Comics Should Be Good.” That’s a whole mess of good comics you haven’t read.

Gotta say, as much as I generally enjoy Comics Should be Good! and your posts, Greg, these trips through Previews always annoy me a bit. I get it: you don’t like superhero comics. That doesn’t mean you need to dig for reasons to bitch about them that are usually simply misinformed. You can just not like them, not pick them up, and encourage us readers to try out other stuff. That’s cool enough. I’ll definitely be checking out some of the indie stuff you put up there.

Grant - I would bet there are a lot of good comics you don’t read, either. That’s the whole point of discussing things - so we can all find out about new stuff that might interest us.

And Philip - I love superhero comics, when done well. I bitch about the idiocy of DC and Marvel because they seem to actively encourage this rabid continuity-obsessed fan base but then ignore said fan base when it comes time to actually publish their comics. If you’re referring to me bitching about World War III, I would say that Invasion! counts as a world war in DC parlance, as does the War of the Gods. That means we should be up to about World War VI in the DCU. It’s not that I hate what DC and Marvel are doing, I just don’t see any coherent business plan. Apparently, neither do readers, who are abandoning DC titles in droves.

The reason I’m abandoning DC titles is because they failed to live up to their promise of having a more cohesive universe. Not to mention the fact that 52 is now 56 (I don’t care what they say…you know those 4 issues are going to be essential reading. Makes me damned glad I stopped reading 52 weekly around week 8, but I digress…)

My problem with Marvel is much the same. Too many tie-ins and too much crap. I still like some books to an insane (She-Hulk, Hulk, Cable/Deadpool, X-factor…) but mostly I really don’t care about anything they’re putting out.

Oh…and I’ve read Eisner’s Spirit. Not to sound all heretical, but it didn’t really do anything for me. I much prefer Cooke’s version to be perfectly frank. Madman is awesome though…one of the best comics I’ve ever read and I wish I had the funds to buy the Gargantua version (methinks some hunger will have to be ignored for the next 2 months…)

Oh, and for those curious, I still like Catwoman, Superman, Birds of Prey, Manhunter, and I’m slowly begining to get into Atom and Shadowpact. Everything else? Not as much…thus the impending drops from my pull…

“I guess Ennis won’t be working for DC again any time soon!”

Well, of course technically he is still currently working for DC, doing Midnighter for Wildstorm.

I know Brian K. Vaughan is writing #7 of that, but apart from that I haven’t heard about any creative team changes past that.

Greg–

Abandoning DC titles in droves according to what stats? I don’t feel like saying that has much basis in reality. Either way, the World War III thing is an insanely minor bitching point at best. You say DC encourages this fanboy continuity niggling, and maybe they do, but that’s the same thing you’re doing here. As others have pointed out, the JLA Grant Morrison storyline never actually had World War III *happen* or be referred to as that by the characters. Morrison, being one of 52’s writers, probably realizes his story was named that. And while the other titles you name certainly are huge wars, they still weren’t called World War III.

But, see, that whole paragraph and this whole conversation? It’s totally pointless. That’s sort of what I meant. If you want to complain about some superhero books, there’s real and worthwhile things to complain about, but too often you’re finding these small ridiculous things to point out that don’t affect anything in terms of whether or not the book is actually going to be a good read.

Yeah. I give it another..oh… six months to two years before folks get sick of all the crossovers and abandon DC (and Marvel) in droves. According to the year-end reports that I read on DC, their sales and profits are up.

Y’know. Short term.

Philip - According to the stats that The Beat goes over every month, DC is losing readership. I’d find a link, but I don’t feel like it.

You’re right - it is pointless. Most of the DC and Marvel stuff I ignore, even if I’m buying it, because everyone knows about it. That’s the point of these posts - to highlight some stuff you might not know about. I’m glad you get some ideas from it, even if you don’t like my nitpicking. I think I’m relatively easy on the nitpicking compared to some people, but maybe I’m not.

And I’m sorry, but Frank Cho drawing a female Ultron with hair just screams to be made fun of!!!!

And we’ll see how long Ennis’ stint on Midnighter lasts, Brit. Perhaps he’ll take the high road and not have a snit like some writers. I wonder.

Yeah, Mark, but that’s because of Infinite Crisis. I found the link! Some books are doing okay, but most of the books that came out of Infinite Crisis are doing poorly.

You’re absolutely right about Frank Cho drawing Ultron. I can’t deny that. :p

BTW, according to the most recent Beat post I could find on DC’s sales:

“DC Comics placed six of its releases in the Top 10 in December, including two issues of Justice League of America, three issues of the weekly 52 and the debut of new ongoing series Justice Society of America, by writer Geoff Johns and artist Dale Eaglesham. The publisher’s output rate, which had seen a drastic 25% increase in November, was only marginally down from 88 titles to 85 (not counting magazines and cartoon adaptations).”

The post doesn’t reveal anything particularly negative or startling about their numbers.