First part of Black Reign, as I recall.

Makes me wonder if that’s prevalent enough to be a cliche. The superhero showing his compassionate side by telling a hooker to clean up her life, I mean.

Hmmm…. no wonder that thing with Black Canary didn’t work out.

It has no american distributor and from what I understand is unlike to get a theatrical one. It was more or less unanimous hated by everyone when it played in the festival circuit and not only by critics. After that it sort of disappeared, I guess it will show up on DVD one day, but I got the feeling that by this point even Ritchie is trying to distance himself from it and yes it got a lot of reviews like “it’s actually worse than Swept Away!”.

http://geniusboyfiremelon.blogspot.com

Morrison must have something up his sleeve with this “Black Casebook” storyline, and as a first issue of a new arc, it certainly poses some interesting questions.

Oh, and I don’t hate Kubert’s art either. I think it’s perfectly good in this issue, but I don’t talk about the art at all in my pseudo-analysis.

and maybe, just maybe it’ll be more exciting than its predecessors.

Yes! What he said.

Also, Pfiefer’s skill on Catwoman is why I’ll be buying Amazons Attack, although DC seems to have mucked up everything else about Wonder Woman in the past two years — a shame, since I think Rucka had done a really great job with her book, better than we’ve seen in years. But Amazons will be a shot for Will Pfiefer (did I spell that right?) to really run with a (potentially) high-profile title. It will be fascinating to see if he can still pull off such an ace comic when handling a much more corporate-directed storyline.

Is that one actually readable? Even just for laughs?

I flicked through it and the stories didn’t seem all that great, and I didn’t spot any laugh out funny moments (even so bad it’s funny type one’s), like I get when I read Elongated Man or Haunted Tank.

…anyway, my defense is that it can’t be nostalgia, because I didn’t read this stuff as a kid. This is the first time I’m reading Power Man, Iron Fist, Marvel Team-Up (which I wouldn’t have been caught dead reading as a kid–at the time, I thought it was lame that it was always Spider-Man and someone else.) And as for ‘Showcase Presents’…every single one of those, that’s me reading it for the first time. If I like it, it’s because it’s good.

(Or because it’s so bad it’s funny. “Duck Decoy Arrow”? “Fake Uranium Arrow”? “Cat Arrow”? “Mascara Arrow”? And don’t get me started on Aquaman…although I was surprised at how much I liked Quisp. Grant Morrison has much to answer for.)

Grab the first trade man, it’s good fun.

“I didn’t realize Ritchie had made another movie. This is what happens when you have a couple of small children and your social life revolves around Sesame Street.”

I don’t think anyone knew – me and my mates were huge Ritchie fans after Lock, Stock but I’ve never heard mention of this film being released. I thought it was forthcoming.

” So, have you read ‘Essential Iron Fist’? It’s freaking awesome. Vintage Claremont/Byrne comics from the same time as they were doing X-Men, only it’s got kung fu. (And Captain America, Iron Man, and yes, a great X-Men guest spot that continuity wonks could probably pin-point where it fit into…oh, and the first appearance of Sabretooth. Even back then, they were laying the groundwork for the Sabretooth/Wolverine thing.)”

I remember as a young lad in the 90′s really digging the book ‘Sabretooth Classic’ which reprinted Sabretooths appearences in order of release. I liked it less for Sabretooth and more for the Powerman/Iron Fist stuff.

Hilariously, when I first an issue, in a newsagent, I brought X-men Unlimited #4 instead.
And some random guy, who was also looking at comics, told me that I should get Sabretooth Classic #1 instead because it was a #1, and was cheaper, so it would go up in value quicker.
That’s right, some idiot decided to tell a 12 year old to pick comics based on the potential to go up in price value.
I nodded, waited for him to leave, and brought the X-men book (I got the Sabretooth a few weeks later when there wasn’t much else going).
Ironically enough, according to Wizard that X-men issue did go up in value by a few bucks, because of the story that happend within.
The Sabretooth REPRINT book did not (but that wasn’t why I’d brought it anyway).
So kids, don’t listen to strangers hanging by the comic book stand.
They’re probably a moron.

I do hope you give it another shot in the future, though! I fully agree with Grant’s suggestions for trade paperbacks, should you want to go that route at some point.

Further clarification: Andy Kubert tends to compose panels from really funky angles, and then places objects within the panels at odd and seemingly incorrect angles. Take a look at the splash page or the restaurant scene or the tied up body in the shower. None of this seems to sync up. I suspect it’s a problem of perspective combined with a poor sense of mise-en-scene, but I’m sure someone who knows more about art and film would have a better answer.

Furthermore: his faces are really terrible (especially the pimp, who bizarre, quasi-golfing attire also makes me question Kubert’s sense of clothing design) and his storytelling is a confusing (it’s hard to follow the scene where Batman is using the pimp’s own switchblade to pin him to a wall). And the panel where the lower half of the body disappears is the first one below the double page splash where Batman swings in and kicks someone in the face. I suppose that the figure in the foreground could be blocking out the background character’s legs, but that would mean the latter is flying toward the ground at a pretty severe angle, which would necessitate his standing on a garbage can when Batman kicked him.

The whole thing is baffling given that Kubert is a trained artist. I mean, he teaches at his father’s school, right? I really get the idea that Andy Kubert uses limited photo reference and doesn’t spend much time composing his pages before he starts drawing on the Bristol board. The whole thing really kind of puts the lie to Christopher Butcher’s recent spiel about aspiring artists needing to learn their craft. I mean, this guy TEACHES OTHER PEOPLE HOW TO MAKE COMICS, for Chrissakes.

Agreed on Fables.

Well, I look forward to that turning up again when the young lady in question is mangled by the Fantom Flan-Flinger, or whatever.

Dude! You were JUST in JAIL for KILLING your GIRLFRIEND. Quit handing out your MSN handle to hookers!

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