I liked The Twelve #1 more than the reviewer did. I'm not bringing much JMS bias into it, because I frankly haven't read much of his stuff, but the series is reading like a post-Decompression era Watchmen, albeit with 20% of the literary depth. Which is fine, since that's already more than most of the shlock that sees print.

As a complete stranger to the Hulk books, Hulk #1 was a solid entry, even with the protagonist missing for most of it. The setup device was solid, having a neo-noirish feel to it, and I like the team of Samson and She-Hulk. Also amused that Red Hulk never makes an appearance, although he's prominently featured on the cover.

Just so you know, a friend of mine works at Marvel and he’s seen all the scripts to date on the Twelve.

Wow.
He must be the coolest guy ever, making you cool by default.
Yay for you!
Do you ever drop lines like that at bars to pick up hot chicks?

And guess what? Other than the part about one of the guys dying (not hard to predict since that happens in the very first issue), NONE of the rest of the things you “predict” in your review happen.

Then it sounds like it will be the bestest comic ever in the world!

Especially as, if none of Greg's predictions come true it will end on an anti-climax, like all JMS comics seem too!

I seem to find JMS comics like a chick you pick up at a bar (perhaps because you know a guy who reads comic scripts - before they are published), who you are really into for a bit, but then as the night goes on, notice that they aren't as cute as they were at first, their conversations run out of steam, they've contradicted themselves twice, and are now so drunk, on expensive drinks you paid for, you just know the sex will be average.
So you either just leave them there, and maybe have one passing thought, later on when the memories are dimming, that maybe you should have gone there, or, you go home with them, and if not regret it, wonder why you even bothered, taking their number, knowing you'll never call it again.
(If I were ever to write a review of Midnight Nation, that would be it).

So when the series has run its course, will you be as quick to say you were wrong as you were to insist you’re right?

Not only that, he'll shave his head, give away all his possessions, give his wife and children over to slavers, and spend the rest of his life in a quarry eating rocks.

Otherwise, as you say, what’s the point?

Making you feel like a man?

I found the Teen Titans special to be pretty lame, actually; but then, what could live up to the blogosphere hype? I've been awaiting this thing since it was originally announced as a Swingin' Elseworlds Special, and begging for its release more and more as I fell deeper and deeper into lust with the work of Bob Haney, who wrote some wonderfully bizarre stories and had a complete disregard for continuity: basically, he's everything I want in a comics writer.

It's a damn tragedy they didn't release what became his final work while he was still alive, but we've got it now. It was certainly bizarre and thoroughly '60s-y-- I think it really captured that era. Hell, it was lettered by Gaspar Saladino! Awesome! But it didn't thrill me as much as I would've liked. I didn't find it offensive or off-putting, just a little less wacky than I'd hoped.

Well, they do, just not in the common sense of the word. "Prove" used to mean "test," and "the exception that proves the rule" was coined with that meaning.

*inserts "The More You Know" graphic*

but it’s tiring to never hear about any good companies in comics.

Really? I guess someone has to care about the reputation of corporate America.

Me? Not so much. I think they're doing just fine for themselves.

(it's probably someone obvious, cause despite loving the fox cartoon growing up, I've never read X-books at all really, and I started checking them out shortly before Messiah Complex to try to get into them, which has resulted in much wikipedia-ing to figure out what's going on)

I wish them luck with the new-and-improved Spider-Man. The great thing is, I don't need to read a certain character to enjoy comics, so I'll just read stuff that appeals to me. If Marvel and DC want to turn all their superhero books into "kid-friendly" stuff to convert a new generation, good for them. I encourage it, because there's plenty of stuff for adults. I'm just not sure that either of them ever study the issue. Maybe they'd have a better idea of how to reel kids back into comics then.

I'm the last person to defend One More Day, but I am curious here: What do you think they should have done, in terms of the Spider-books? Like, leaving aside the awful comics that led to the new status quo, now that they're at a new status quo entry point, what should they have done differently? Because for years all I've heard is that Marvel and DC publish superhero comics that are neither fish nor fowl -- inherently impossible to take completely seriously, being that they're about men in tights, yet too grownup to sell to kids, ostensibly their target audience. So now Marvel's actually made Spider-Man a kid-friendly book again (the price point aside), and the argument is suddenly: Well, what kid is gonna read this, anyway? I'm unsure myself whether a comic that reads as if it could just as easily have been published thirty years ago is really the solution -- though I'm damn sure I'd read it well before I picked up a ninety-part epic about Marilyn Manson eating Spider-Man's eyeball and beating him to death or whatever "The Other" was supposed to be -- but it does seem to be at least a step in the right direction, if Marvel would like these books to sell beyond the graying fanboy crowd. Or am I totally wrong, and this is what the graying fanboy crowd actually wants -- a throwback to the comics we read as kids? And if no one at all wants this...

Well, you see what I'm saying here. What are they getting wrong?

Actually they can but not in the sense that people usually think:

http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_201.html

About mutant death I think Caliban will really stay dead for a very very long time. On the other hand I don't believe that lady mastermind is already dying, nor - for even a moment - that sinister, of all people, died in such a stupid way because he trusted gambit and mystica - of all people - too much.

I'm also losing my patience with Exodus, that it's practically being ignored since issue number 2. This crossover is better than I hoped, but it's honestly overcrowded.

I won't go into The Goon (which did come out this week) except to say I don't like it. So I don't buy it.

Exceptions don't really prove rules.