Comments on: What I bought – 12 September 2007

By: Greg Burgas

Greg Burgas — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 02:48:03 +0000

The sheriff’s dad says that the Bible is basically a superhero comic. He lays it all out for her. It’s pretty interesting.

By: Matt Brady

Matt Brady — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 01:21:23 +0000

So, Greg, what was the interpretation of the Bible? You’ve got me curious, but not curious enough to buy the comic.

By: SwanShadow

SwanShadow — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 00:19:13 +0000

My two reasons to love comics this week:

McDuffie on the JLA.

Ostrander back on Suicide Squad.

Both of the above make me so giddy I could plotz.

By: MarkAndrew

MarkAndrew — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 22:21:54 +0000

Continuity Porn?

Barring Damage Control (Which I really didn’t like) and Beyond (Which I mostly did) hasn’t the vast majority of Macduffie’s work been for Milestone, with characters he mostly co-created?

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen the cartoon and I was broke when he was doin’ Fantastic Four so I dropped everything by Marvel and DC… But I’m hopeful for his JLA run just on the strength of Icon.

Man, I love Icon.

By: T.

T. — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 20:13:43 +0000

I think McDuffie is paint by numbers, continuity porn writing that gets good reviews for the exact reasons brian lockhart mentions. I disagree wiht brian’s claim that what is needed for a good comic is different than what is needed for a good cartoon. I think any JLU episode actually written by McDuffie is just as inspiring and paint by numbers as his comics work, it’s just that it benefits greatly from story editors, great animation, excellent voice acting, great music, etc. In JLU, no matter how strong a season was, I hated the McDuffie episodes for the exact reasons I hated his comics.

By: brian lockhart

brian lockhart — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 17:05:14 +0000

McDuffie’s first shot at the JLA comic was pretty underwhelming.
First off, as other reviewers have noted, we have yet another return of a “secret society” of arch villains taking on the JLA. Nevermind that McDuffie tackled this in the animated cartoon. But we just had this happen a few years ago as part of Infinite Crisis and, more recently, Alex Ross and Jim Krueger did a fantastic take on the idea in the Justice limited series.
But for my money the best Injustice League story was by Morrison in the late 1990s. McDuffie’s take doesn’t even come close.
There was a cool kind of comic-booky logic to Morrison’s grouping. Here it all just feels forced, with Luthor and the Joker and Cheetah standing in for the JLA’s “Big 3″.
And the action is just plain boring. Wonder Woman gets taken down by Killer Frost and calls for backup.
Batman and Arsenal get punked at a crime scene by Fatality, the Joker and Shadow Thief.
There’s no excitement. It’s just paint-by-numbers.
I’m sure fans of standard superheroics will eat this up claiming it is a huge improvement over Meltzer.
But taken on its own it’s just boring.
I’ve read some of McDuffie’s Fantastic Four and think the same thing. I think his success on that title is due to the fact that many folks view him as a breath of fresh air after J. Michael Stracynski. But again, taken on his own, and compared to some of the greater FF runs, McDuffie’s work is average.
Don’t get me wrong – I loved the JLU cartoon and just recently bought several of the DVDs. And I can understand why folks think McDuffie is the right guy to take over the JLA book. But what makes a successful, all-ages, 20 minute cartoon is not what makes a successful monthly comic book.

By: Comics Should Be Good! » Friday in the Mailroom

Comics Should Be Good! » Friday in the Mailroom — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 14:17:04 +0000

[...] Addendum: I just noticed that our other Greg alsoÂ reviewed this, and though we may quibble about a point here or there, we more or less agree that it’s a fun book that probably costs a little too much. However, that’s two ofÂ us CSBG reviewers that liked it, and I believe we both liked it enough to go spend actual money on it, rather than just read our online review copies — which is to say, we are genuinely enjoying the stuff and not just whoring ourselves for more freebies. Between that and Potter’s Field it makes for a pretty good batting average for the crew at Boom! here. Make of that what you will. [...]

By: suedenim

suedenim — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 14:14:33 +0000

My assumption was that the “two years ago” thing in Suicide Squad was actually an editorial mandate, not Ostrander’s doing.

Mainly because it looks like the sort of thing that would ONLY come from someone taking rules of thumb like “Superman first showed up 10 years ago” a little too literally and seriously.

By: Greg Burgas

Greg Burgas — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 13:47:32 +0000

Yeah, you’re right, Fisk. Sorry. For some reason I had it stuck in my head that the final issue of volume 1 was 372. I’ll go back and change it. Thanks!

By: Fisk

Fisk — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 10:40:27 +0000

Why is Daredevil v2 #100 the 472nd issue?
The first volume ended with issue 380.

By: FunkyGreenJerusalem

FunkyGreenJerusalem — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 04:03:12 +0000

I donâ€™t mind the first names and the sex canâ€™t possibly be as creepy as Meltzerâ€™s version.

He had them all sit around and discuss sex?

Tell me they were wearing their costumes.

By: MarkAndrew

MarkAndrew — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 03:24:02 +0000

The art was a little scratchy, sure. (Which is probably caused by the bi-weekly-or-somethin’ schedule.)

But Cover Girl was all sorts of fun this week. Best issue by a lot.

By: Seamus G

Seamus G — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 02:59:13 +0000

Naw, if the Wedding Special was written by Meltzer, we’d have needed to play Guess The Caption and 95% of the action wouldn’t have been shown.

I did crack up at Geoforce’s entire contribution to the comic, though. He appears in exactly one panel and is already unconscious.

By: Greg Hatcher

Greg Hatcher — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 02:51:38 +0000

Since when did a crappy cartoon from the 1970s become the template for the Justice League?

This was described by one of our commenters a while ago as ‘nostalgia porn,’ and I think that’s about right. I don’t get it either — I was a kid then too and *I* thought it sucked. In fact I thought the Filmation cartoons where the heroes were allowed to actually punch things and shoot people were sort of dumb compared to the books, and I was the actual target audience. So this childhood-affection excuse doesn’t really wash for me. Sometimes bad is just bad, even if you’re a kid.

I loved McDuffie’s writing on the animated Justice League, though, so I may have to give this a look. I don’t mind the first names and the sex can’t possibly be as creepy as Meltzer’s version. Although I prefer a don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy regarding the entire issue of superhero sex lives, and I really don’t think it’s appropriate in JLA.

By: Greg Burgas

Greg Burgas — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 02:29:48 +0000

As I’m trying to stay positive, the only thing I’ll say about the JLA Wedding Special is that it was marginally better than Meltzer, but McDuffie seemed to retain a lot of what made Meltzer’s run annoying. The characters use first names, are obsessed with sex, and the logic is a bit annoying. Plus, Luthor in his armor is dumb, as is the Legion of Doom HQ from the Super Friends. Since when did a crappy cartoon from the 1970s become the template for the Justice League?

Oh. I guess I did have some things to say about it. It wasn’t bad, but compared to Meltzer, it’s brilliant.

By: Paul

Paul — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 02:09:43 +0000

Yeah, I would’ve appreciated a bit more of a review on the JLA book. Yes, Meltzer’s run was terrible…but how was this comic similar to that?

By: FunkyGreenJerusalem

FunkyGreenJerusalem — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 01:50:01 +0000

Is someone else going to write a review of the JLA wedding special?
Because I like it when you guys review big ‘event’ books that are terrible.
Just lets me know what I’m not missing out on.

By: jocutus

jocutus — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 01:09:52 +0000

In Casanova, Zephyr only tells the punchline of the joke:

“Two bulls are standing on a hill. Off in the distance, they see a group of cows.
The young bull excitedly nudges the old bull and says, “Hey! Hey! I know! Let’s run over there and f*** one of those cows!”
The old bull looks at the young bull, then turns and takes a long look at the cows. He turns back to the young bull and says, “Son, let’s walk over there and f*** all them cows.”
The Moral: Don’t get too excited about doing something, or you might do a half-assed job.”

I guess it was a cautionary tale not to miss the second David X. Although I continue to enjoy Casanova, the predominant shade of blue they are using is burning out my retinas. I much prefer the look of the water color looking blues used in the sketches in the backmatter section.

By: Anun

Anun — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 01:06:57 +0000

If McDuffie had written JLA like Meltzer, the issue would’ve been unreadable. Instead, it was highly enjoyable.

By: Dave

Dave — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 00:57:27 +0000

I need to reread this last arc of Moon Knight, because while I found issue #12 incredible confusing, I hadn’t read issue #11 in about a month, and #10-12 all played around with the sequencing of events quite a bit. I get the feeling that this is going to be one of those stories that reads a lot better in trade than it did in single issues. Oh, and Suayan’s art was horrible. I was initially hopeful for him, but his narrative flow has just been getting worse with each issue and makes understanding what’s going on with Huston’s script that much harder.

Oh, and the new writer after issue #13 is going to be Mike Benson, who used to write and produce for Entourage, although Huston is going to help him with co-plotting for the first couple issues. Suydam is doing the covers, and they haven’t announced the new artist yet.