In no particular order:
A PEOPLE’S HISTORY OF AMERICAN EMPIRE BY HOWARD ZINN: I haven’t seen anybody on the comical interwebs really discuss this at all, but I picked it up yesterday and it’s really very good; it’s meant to be a more easily read and accessible version of Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States and mostly succeeds. It’s not funny or cute, but it’s compelling and hits its points thoroughly, and the occasional divergences into sorta-memoir by Zinn (acting as the book’s narrator) give it a nice personal touch. Also, it’s pretty cheap considering the size of the book. Recommended. (SPOILER: Woodrow Wilson is a Skrull.)
IRON MAN THE MOVIE: Excellent, probably better than any superhero movie in recent memory other than maybe Batman Begins. By this point you’ve already read at least two dozen glowing reviews all saying the same things, so I will simply add my two cents and mention that what far and away got the most enthusiastic reception out of my audience was Tony Stark’s robots in his lab – biggest laughs, biggest cheers, biggest “wows” all went to Tony, in his lab, building the suit with the funny robots. This continues to confirm my theory that the best superhero movies have some form of comic relief in them, usually a sidekick, or as I like to call it, Alfred-Gets-All-The-Best-Lines-Syndrome.
DC UNIVERSE NUMBER ZERO: I wouldn’t have paid fifty cents for what’s essentially an advertising flyer even if it is written by Grant Morrison, but I got a copy for free. And… it’s an advertising flyer written by Grant Morrison. Worse, it’s an advertising flyer that’s really, really bad at advertising its product to the supposed new readers to which a comic sampler thingy like this should be advertising. If I had no idea what was going on in the comics, this sampler thing would not help in the slightest. Heck, I read some issues of Grant Morrison’s Batman and I’m still not sure what “Batman, RIP” is about, other than the obvious. Ditto the Wonder Woman thing. And I only understand the “Legion of Three Worlds” teaser because I’m a giant DC nerd; were I not, it would be as impenetrable as all the rest, albeit with George Perez art making it at least tolerable.
BRINGING BACK BARRY ALLEN: My word, it’s like comics are being written by and for people essentially opposed to change!
Incidentally, on a related note, will people stop saying things like “the new storytelling model on Flash is terrible and doesn’t work?” Because it’s not true; it’s a direct lift from The Incredibles, which is one of the best and most successful superhero movies ever, and if you’re going to argue otherwise then tell me with a straight face that you would skip Return of the Incredibles, Trial of the Incredibles and The Incredibles Versus The New Superions. The new concept on Flash is just fine, and honestly it’s not like the comics post-Wally’s-return have been bad; they’re just tainted by DC completely mishandling the franchise for the better part of a year and a half. “Wally And His Super Family” is a good idea.
(People seem to forget that Flash: The Fastest Man Alive was easily one of the worst single runs of comics in the last decade if not longer: mean-spirited, incoherent, ugly, boring and just the antithesis of fun. Fans were stoked for a new, bold reign on Flash, which is why the debut sold so high, and then they dropped it in droves because it was total dogshit. I’d say it’s now the textbook example of how to actively destroy a fanbase.)
SATURN GIRL TALKING DIRTY: A minor kerfuffle over this at Chris Sims’ joint, where some people said “god, that’s creepy” and other people said “wait, a girl expressing sexual desire is creepy?” Which of course misses the point, because it’s a superhero comic which is ostensibly marketed to all ages last I checked, even if that’s only a convenient fiction at this point in time, and in an all-ages work of fiction, yes, it’s a little bit creepy, because even if it is PG-ish in actual vocabulary it’s R-ish in spirit.
Let me put it this way: if ostensibly romantic dialogue would sound creepy in, say, an episode of Gilmore Girls, it will probably be somewhat out of place in a superhero funnybook. That’s all I’m saying.
SECRET INVASION: So far, so good. Yes, it’s a wildly silly concept that requires a lot of handwaving to work (I particularly appreciated the scene in New Avengers where the Skrulls explained their newfound ability to transform and be totally undetectable by any means available with a short speech basically summing up with “well, we used science a lot!”), but so what, these are superhero comics and the point of the sausage is not how is it made, but that it is delicious with mustard. And Secret Invasion thus far is hitting what it needs to hit, which is little green men invading in dangerously sneaky ways and creating an enjoyably paranoid atmosphere.
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I liked how once Reed put his mind to it, it took about 3 hours for him to figure out how the Skrulls were hiding in plain sight. People can never decide how smart they want Reed to be, but that seemed about right.
Also, ditto on the DC Universe 0 thing, I had to read it again just to make sure, but that was impenetrable, and I read a lot of comics. I got a free copy for my brother and I now regret it, except for the Wonder Woman one, it doesn’ t make a damn bit of sense. Good idea catching onto whatever 300 zeitgeist is left though.
Saturn Girl talking dirty isn’t inherently creepy. Consenting adults in a loving relationship and all that jazz. What’s creepy is that Jim Shooter sat down and thought to himself “gee, what sexual kinks would I like Saturn Girl to have?”, and then having decided (creepy), he then wrote a scene with them (creepier) and thus made us all into unwitting voyeurs (very goddamned creepy).
Shooter writes good Legion, but if he doesn’t tone down his extremely pervy love of making all the Legionairres fuck each other as explicitly as DC will let him get away with (and also the stupid fake swearing), I may have to drop the comic.
I liked Flash FMA. I’m just saying. After having to put up with years of Johns’ horsecrap about the Rogues having some code of honour crap – instead of writing about, you know, Wally (which makes perfect sense because in Johns’ and Alex Ross’ perfect world, Wally wouldn’t exist anyway) – I at the very least, appreciated a different direction, and I thought the new villain was interesting enough.
Was it boring in places and slow as molasses? Yes. But, frankly, Bilson and DeMeo never got the chance to improve on it. I’m not saying it was in any way the best Flash comic ever – but they deserved more than what they got – from both retailers, and the readers.
Then, when Waid came on board, everyone directed their bile towards Daniel Acuna and I just said to hell with it and gave up caring.
Which of course misses the point, because it’s a superhero comic which is ostensibly marketed to all ages last I checked,
Wait – really? Legion is an “all-ages” comic book?
Jeez – I don’t think I’d be comfortable with an 8 year old reading the current Legion book. Even Waid’s take on the book – which I enjoyed a lot – was way too much for me to hand over to an 8yo (especially the excess of the Dominator War at the end). Heck I didn’t even think DC made all-ages comics anymore – I figured they’d segregated all the different age groups off into their own little ghettos and we should all be working hard to make sure little Timmy didn’t get his hands on an issue of Batman that wasn’t age appropriate. Like, make sure little 35-year-old Timmy doesn’t get his hands on “The Batman Strikes” because he’d start frothing at the mouth about how terrible the animated version is…
I wouldn’t have paid fifty cents for what’s essentially an advertising flyer even if it is written by Grant Morrison, but I got a copy for free.
Hooray for Free Comic Book Day – my comic shop was giving these away with the other free comics so I didn’t have to pay for mine.
Boo for Free Comic Book Day – I read my copy. It’s like anti-advertising. I went in excited about this summer’s big event for the first time in years and now I’m wondering if my money might be better spent elsewhere. Like, perhaps on some new paint that I could watch dry. Yeesh. I hope that the actual event is done a bit better than the advertising flyer.
SPOILER: Woodrow Wilson is a Skrull
I KNEW IT!
Jeez – I don’t think I’d be comfortable with an 8 year old reading the current Legion book. Even Waid’s take on the book – which I enjoyed a lot – was way too much for me to hand over to an 8yo (especially the excess of the Dominator War at the end).
For purposes of comparison, when I was eight years old, Legion had Nemesis Kid basically beating Karate Kid to death, then Princess Projectra in turn executing Nemesis Kid by breaking his neck. This was of course shortly after Darkseid mind-controlled the Daxamites into killing god knows how many people in the universe.
Just because the stakes are high on Legion doesn’t mean it’s not all-ages appropriate. Kids understand that war is serious and that the bad guys are bad guys.
I have to disagree and say Flash and his Super Family was awful. Not as bad as Flash: FMA, but still bad. Johns’ needs to go back and save Wally before it is too late.
I’m still not sure how I feel about Johns trying to outdo Emerald Dawn by rewriting Hal’s origin. Emerald Dawn/Emerald Dawn II were great, IMHO, so I don’t think they need drastic revision just to fall into line with the “Blackest Night” silliness.
I realize this wasn’t a “hullabaloo” from your post, but I just thought it warranted mentioning. 🙂
It seemed more like, with the Saturn Girl thing, that one group said, “whoa, that’s kinda creepy,” and the other group said, “haw, you need to get out of your parents’ basement, NERDS, because REAL GIRLS, which -I- frequently talk to and HAVE SEX WITH ALL THE TIME unlike you, talk like that all the time and you’d know that too if you weren’t such NERDS in your PARENTS’ BASEMENT, NERDS.”
I dropped Flash before Wally returned, so I don’t know what the book’s like now, or whether Flash and His Super-Family works there.
I will say, however, that the issue of B&B that featured Wally and His Super-Family was complete ass, full of deeply unlikable, dull people doing stupid, stupid things suffused with pseudoscience that was just pathetic, not even bad enough to be mind-bendingly entertaining. In case my point is not clear, it was truly awful, a credible candidate for top ten worst single issues I’ve ever read.
It is the case, is it not, that the same guy who wrote that is responsible for the Flash comic.
I was going through my bag today offering random freebies from the comic con to my students. I also had the weeks comic haul in there.
“Anyone want a preview of some upcoming comics?”
“Sure!”
(Minutes later) “Mr. Lynch, all these comics are stupid.”
About seven kids read that preview book. Seven kids who are naturally inclined to comics. None of them were even slightly into anything that book had to show, although it was generally agreed that all the different Lantern Corps were a neat idea.
Howard Zinn: I thought Alex Ross already did that and called it Uncle Sam?
Iron Man: I’m seeing it tonight, but holy crap somebody say something bad about this movie already. Some niggling fanboy complaint. Anything.
DCU#0: I unequivocably disagree. I think it was a hot little advertisment full of promise and vim.
I also think you suffer from fandom’s misbegotten claim that comics have to slow down to be accessible. My first comic was the second half of a two-part story. I never did get the first half but I’m still reading comics 20 years later. I didn’t know what was going on either, but it got me excited about the season.
I got into comics to be part of something larger, not to read one issue, put it down and dab the corners of my mouth with a kerchief. Which is so what you’re implying and you know it.
You’re an elitist just like that OJ-supping Osama Baraka!
Barry Allen: I am squarely in the camp of “Wow! Who cares?!” If they write Barry like crap he ain’t going to sell either. However, I agree on all points Wally. I think Wally and his Amazing Family is a fine mine to plunder. It just has to be written well. Presumably by someone with a family.
Oddly I felt Wally in B&B was considerably better than anything Waid was doing with them in Flash.
Saturn Girl: I finally put my finger on what bothers me about the whole thing. First, the Legion is one of the few books I would recommend to any-age, but this made me hesitant. I don’t mind inuendo or even confirming that teenagers have sex. They do, and that’s fine. More to the point, if a girl-friend of mine said that to a boy-friend iof mine in front of me, I’d feel just as uncomfortable as I did reading that.
Saturn Girl and Lightning Lad are my friends, and I don’t need to know how they get down on a Wednesday night. I really don’t. That’s a private moment made all too public. Show them in bed, going to bed, waking up, sharing knowing smiles, whatever, but I don’t need to know that Titan girls like it rough, y’know?
Secret Invasion: Is alarmingly well-done. Just sick-good. I also loved that their shape-shifting super-chops amounted to:
Skrull Science-Priest: You know how we shape shift?
Skrull Princess Empress: Yeah?
Skrull Science-Priest: Now it goes up to 11.
Skrull Princess Empress: Couldn’t we just have made 10 louder?
Skrull Science-Priest: Well, but it’s one more, isn’t it?
Awesome and thanks as always for getting back to comics once in awhile. You always entertain, but I come for the comics, stay for the News Radio, Canadian Politics, and TV listings I don’t have.
I also think you suffer from fandom’s misbegotten claim that comics have to slow down to be accessible.
Not at all. To be accessible, comics have to be accessible.
Less jokingly, the old maxim of “every issue is somebody’s first” should be taken to heart. Say what we will about Jim Shooter’s interest in Legionnaire sex lives – he is excellent at making each issue of a comic accessible and easily adopted as a jump-on point.
“People seem to forget that Flash: The Fastest Man Alive was easily one of the worst single runs of comics in the last decade if not longer: mean-spirited, incoherent, ugly, boring and just the antithesis of fun.”
I’m going to take issue with that, at least a little. While the first two arcs were horrible, once Guggenhiem came on, it was really good though, and easy to read in issues. In fact it was probably the most I enjoyed the Flash since the first half of Geoff Johns run
I found Saturn girl’s pun creepy
Hasn’t the Legion always had strong teen/young adult soap opera elements? Isn’t dealing with the team’s relationships a pretty fundamental part of the title’s appeal? (Especially given that we’re dealing with teenagers who find themselves operating independently of adult authority?) Would that type of innuendo really raise any eyebrows in, say, Gossip Girl? Or Buffy for that matter?
Or, put another way:
Don’t see why superhero funnybooks whose core concept involves a heavy dose of teen soap elements is required to draw the line at Gilmore Girls. Why not The OC?
Also, I am way less creeped out by this line than I am by the seemingly relentless stream of on-panel dismemberments, decapitations, arterial spray, and, you know, kids getting eaten alive.
So, uh, I guess the blockquote tag doesn’t work here. Second graf above should be in quotes.
DC Universe 0: I didn’t mind paying fifty cents for an advertising flyer because it was one of the few times in recent years that I was thinking “Hey, this looks pretty good!” and actually looking forward to something. …instead of, y’know, dreading it. Of course, since that succeeded, it’ll be buggered up two thirds of the way through, everybody I like will die, and it’ll end ridiculously, just like the rest of DC…
Saturn Girl: I think what’s so bothersome was “Own me.” We like to pretend that in The Fewchah, we’ll be all emotionally advanced and beyond such concepts as racism, sexism, sexual preference, Barbie and women as property. Unfortunately this is the Threeboot Legion, which is making us look like the sociological advancement, here. Sad. And will someone please wash out “Brainy’s” 31st-century pottymouth with soap? You’d think a 12th-level intellect could find less vulgar means of expressing himself. Oh right, this is *Threeboot,* it’s not like it’s really the Legion or anything… That’s over in Action Comics :-B
“Saturn Girl: I think what’s so bothersome was ‘Own me.'”
I agree that line would be bothersome if the character was submissive outside the bedroom, or if she wasn’t the one doing the instigating, but neither of those things is true.
Took the words right out of my mouth, DJA. Sexism is about not letting someone compartmentalize their sexuality. If Saturn Girl wants to be “owned” in the bedroom, if that’s fun and entertaining for her, she should have the right to go for it. But that doesn’t mean Lightning Lad has the right to overrule her when, say, fighting Darkseid, and say, “What, you want to be owned!” She gets to decide when she wants to be independent and when she doesn’t, that’s the most enlightened way of doing it.
Don’t see why superhero funnybooks whose core concept involves a heavy dose of teen soap elements is required to draw the line at Gilmore Girls. Why not The OC?
Because The OC was targeted at teenagers. Superhero comic books should be inclusive of the 8-12 age bracket – the fact that they largely are not is partially the reason why manga sales have exploded.
Well, first off, by the time I was twelve, I was watching a lot of teen-targeted soap-type shows. And I think a lot of 8-12 year-olds were watching Buffy in its heyday. And I’m pretty sure a lot of 8-12 year olds are playing Grand Theft Auto 4 right now. I don’t think this did any of us any lasting harm.
That aside, I actually am generally in agreement that superhero comic books should not deliberately exclude the 8-12 demo, especially not with explicit on-panel gore and sexual violence and the like. Mainly because these things tend to be Not Fun for readers of any age. But as regards sexualized banter between consenting partners in a teen soap book like Legion, provided the vocabulary is, in fact, PG, well — IMO, if the kid is old enough to recognize the R-rated double entendre, then they have earned the right to appreciate the R-rated double entendre.
Obviously, I’m not in favor of having the next panel actually show Garth “owning” Imra, any more than I’m in favor of the currently inescapable on-panel gorefests.
I also think different titles imply different standards. Would this line be appropriate in Superman? Hells, no. JLA? Probably not. But Teen Titans or X-Men or Legion? These books are (or should be) coming-of-age soaps, and I think it’s okay if they are geared towards the same demo as coming-of-age soaps in other media.
And yet, no one seems to be complaining about the references to group sex in [i]She-Hulk[/i].
For the record, I don’t really think it’s the family issues that are causing problems with the Flash. Instead, it’s the money issues/Flash’s inability to get a job that are the problem, since they are distracting from the Flash’s ability to actually be the Flash and making him wallow in more self-pity than is appropriate for the character.
(Frankly, if Flash was actually in control and not panicking about finances, he could solve his problems by having a three minute talk with Batman about getting a job with Wayne Enterprises. Heck, Batman’s likely picked out a suitable job for Wally already.)
Or to recap, stealing from the Incredibles is a good idea. Stealing the obsession over finances from the first volume of Booster Gold is not such a good idea.
As an old lady who has been reading comics since before many of you whippersnappers were born, I have to say that there’s a world of difference between inappropriate and creepy. What Saturn Girl says is inappropriate for an all ages comic book, not creepy.
Using the word creepy to describe a woman’s sex drive in any way shape or form is just a touch offensive.
@ ladypeyton:
“Any way, shape, or form”? So there is no conceivable sex act that you would find creepy if a woman were doing the asking? I won’t be so crass as to give specific examples, but I think we can all agree that women are quite capable of creepitude.
I’d say it’s more likely that people are bothered by the unsubtle “undercurrent” (it is lightning lad hurrr) of teenage sadomasochism in an ostensibly all-ages book.
Why does everyone go to BDSM with this? Seriously?
I think she’s asking Garth to obliterate her uterus in a vigorous and altogether unapologetic round of Hide the Bishop in order to have difficulty walking for the next several hours. I don’t think Saturn Girl is asking to be tied up and electrocuted. Only to have her thighs bruised e’er so slightly.
I’m more creeped out at the amount of people who immediately think b/c she wants her boyfriend to toss her against the pillows a little this makes Imra a Bottomer.
Granted, this is precisely why it’s a poor choice of words if (presumed) adults aren’t catching the subtle undercurrent I would feel less confident about my 15yo nephew appreciating why it’s only polite to “own” girls who ask nicely.
It’s all right to say superhero comics should serve 8-12-year-olds. That’s constructive. I don’t think it’s all right to say that *all* superhero comics should serve 8-12-year-olds, and the ones that don’t are to be ridiculed. That’s destructive.
The reasons that we conflate the two ideas have to do with the constricted, interlocked nature of the superhero market as it exists today. We all know that there just isn’t ROOM, in the market as we know it, for a new line of American comical books that are clearly all-ages appropriate and channeling the best aspects of shonen and superhero. But maybe we should spend more time thinking about the market as we don’t know it.
I do think it’s kind of bizarre for DC to be running multiple comics aimed at different audiences yet featuring the same characters. (The all-ages Legion is the one with Superboy, right? And the fan-focused Legion had Supergirl last year? Will they switch?)
But that’s not on Shooter. His primary responsibility is to pique the interest of an extremely jaded older audience. Sounds like he’s making some headway.
Chris Russell Says:
““Any way, shape, or form”? So there is no conceivable sex act that you would find creepy if a woman were doing the asking? I won’t be so crass as to give specific examples, but I think we can all agree that women are quite capable of creepitude.”
If it’s legal and both parties are consenting who the hell are you to decide it’s creepy?
As for BDSM, wow. You really went *there*? Really? I think that says more about you than it does the comic book.
I don’t normally read Flash, but I found the B&B with the characters terrible. But I’ve seen some of them on Scans Daily and they normally seemed to be written much better than that.
Is it certain that Barry will replace Wally in the Flash book?
Honestly I think it might just be so every team book can have a Flash without Wally having to do double duty in JLA and Titans
let me put it this way:
You need to be arrested for promoting illegal floppy downloading.