39 users responded in this post

Subscribe to this post comment rss or trackback url
mygif

He puts his faith in a right cross.

Meanwhile, the illustration shows him punching out a genetic Aryan Brotherhood knifeman with a left hook.

Come to that, he’s wearing his shoulder holster on the right.

Please don’t ask me why I’m getting so picky over this inconsistency; I just do.

ReplyReply
mygif

I’m one of those people old enough to remember those bygone days of Wonder Woman. Remember those were the days of Women’s Lib and DC had this mandate that their female characters had to be able to go undercover (Look at Lois Lane during this same period).

BTW I’m one of those people who still doesn’t see why Kirby was called a ‘great artist’. It use to get me beat up in high school.

ReplyReply
mygif

PBR is the least terrible of extremely cheap American beers. Other than that, I agree.

ReplyReply
mygif
solid snake said on September 3rd, 2009 at 12:09 pm

How the hell does he read on his his with the lamp positioned the way it is? Also FYI, not a shoulder holster, it is his purse.

ReplyReply
mygif
solid snake said on September 3rd, 2009 at 12:10 pm

I mean on his desk. stupid fingers

ReplyReply
mygif

You’re just upset because there was that one morning during a stakeout of a Smallville anti-tax militia group that Trench caught a glimpse of Diana Prince coming out of the shower. That awkward minute of the two of them standing there before Diana reached for a towel…

ReplyReply
mygif

Comics of the seventies were littered with Tim Trenches, with their faux-Chandler narration and their disdain for the modern and their “Forties tough guy” demeanor. Writers of the time loved that shit.

Twenty years later, the same urge, adjusted for era, led comics to be filled with trenchcoat-and-sunglasses-wearing, laconic shoot-em-up tough guys.

All of them need cock-punches. Stat.

ReplyReply
mygif
K. McAleese said on September 3rd, 2009 at 1:24 pm

Well, what do you expect from a St. Louisian-turned-New-Yorker? St. Louis’s got a gigantic “keeping up with the Joneses” complex.

On another note: does anyone read “[he]hooked up with Diana Prince…and I Ching, her mentor” and need brain bleach?

ReplyReply
mygif
equinox216 said on September 3rd, 2009 at 2:07 pm

“I can resist everything but temptation.”
– Oscar Wilde

“One thing I never could resist is temptation.”
– Tim ‘Trenchmouth’ Trench: shitty plagiarist, dick, and private dick to boot.

ReplyReply
mygif

Trucker hats? Way to be three years out of date, maaan.

ReplyReply
mygif

I forgot to mention the the 70’s trend toward noir-ish comics did bring about one good thing.

The Manhunter. Super-elite, ninja, kung-fu assassin clones.

ReplyReply
mygif

Those WW issues are bad, but cut them some slack, Mike Sekowsky’s art is really good and stylish.

ReplyReply
mygif
Craig Oxbrow said on September 3rd, 2009 at 3:23 pm

The picture’s quite nice.

Really, though, if you’re going to reinvent yourself as a 40s private eye, lose the name “Tim”. Tim is only a tough name if followed by The Enchanter.

ReplyReply
mygif

His name really isn’t helping him.

If his name was Dick Manly, P.I., I guarantee his score shoots up about 10 points.

ReplyReply
mygif

The backwards-facing lamp isn’t the only thing wrong with the desk. Judging from the size of the wastebasket (mysteriously placed outside Trench’s line of sight, such that he needs to blindly lob his wadded-up paper over the far corner), it is very short. Possibly even child-sized. This would account for his bad posture.

Also, the desk’s wood veneer seems to be melting.

ReplyReply
mygif

And the “Diana Prince era” of Wonder Woman isn’t actually even by any great creators, so really it’s just the same old nostalgia for stupid old crap that motivates so much of modern comics fandom.

Folks would argue over whether or not Denny O’Neil deserves this slur or not. I won’t be one of them though – his good work is overshadowed by some mighty powerful crap like his issues of the de-powered Wonder Woman which when I finally read them almost made my eyes bleed they were so goddamn bad.

The later stuff written by Mike Sekowsky was far less terrible than O’Neil’s initial outings. Still not the kind of classic superhero stuff that a lot of folks want it to be, but tolerable 70s-era DC that doesn’t make me want to commit physical violence on random strangers or gouge my own eyeballs out with a spoon.

ReplyReply
mygif

Meanwhile, the illustration shows him punching out a genetic Aryan Brotherhood knifeman with a left hook.

A hook often follows a cross, doesn’t it?

It’s not because of his association with the nonpowered era of Wonder Woman comics. Which, incidentally were bad comics…

To illustrate just how bad they could get, I thought of asking if “THEM!” had a “Who’s Who” entry. Of course, what can you say about that particular team of stereotypes-born-of-homophobia-and-hippiephobia that hasn’t already been said?

ReplyReply
mygif
Michael M. said on September 3rd, 2009 at 4:23 pm

I’ll note that apparently, DC writers after that time had about as much respect for the guy as you. First he joined Hero Hotline, got a costume, and missed out on an adventure because he was stuck in traffic. (Yeah. He was incompetent even by Hero Hotline standards.)

Overcoming that embarassment, he was turned into water as part of a complicated plan by Felix Faust. Turned into water. By Felix Faust. I guess his first name should have been … /slips on sunglasses/ Marianas. *yaaaaaaaahhh*

Sorry, that was bad.

ReplyReply
mygif

I like how loving the description gets. “He’s a tough guy, with sinewy, taunt, well-muscled arms..Oh Timmy…”

ReplyReply
mygif

Ah, Flesh, my number two source of childhood nightmares. Right behind that Warren Ellis story in which a guy gets half-eaten by mutants, and then finished off by his hungry ex-wife.

2000 AD. For kids!

ReplyReply
mygif

His partner was named Archie Miles? Seriously? That’s the name they went with? That’s not even an homage, that’s something a 7th-grade boy named his fanfic character.

ReplyReply
mygif

Devil Dinosaur is the best comic about a dinosaur kicking other dinosaurs to death ever made, and you know it.

ReplyReply
mygif

Warren Ellis’s Devil Dinosaur, on the other hand, was amazing. 🙂

ReplyReply
mygif

Too many comics fans suffer from the delusion that the great creators were/are infallible, which is why people can actually say that Devil Dinosaur is a work of genius, rather than the far more obvious answer of “Jack Kirby having an off-day.”

Pistols sir. Pistols at dawn.

(All right, yeah, so it’s no Mister Miracle but c’mon. . .it’s a big red dinosaur stomping the hell out of other dinosaurs and aliens. May we all have off-days that epic)

ReplyReply
mygif

“Moon-Boy hated me. Moon-Boy had to die. Moon-Boy tasted bad and gave me considerable rectal distress.” 😀

ReplyReply
mygif

So your idea of a Devil Dinosaur crimelord for a Gambit series was what? Trying to polish a turd into a diamond?

ReplyReply
mygif
Craig Oxbrow said on September 3rd, 2009 at 7:05 pm

Actually, there’s a better kicking dinosaur story. And it has time-travelling cowboys.

ReplyReply
mygif

Considering what Jack Kirby did in the ’70s, it would be more accurate to say he had an off decade.

And Geoff Johns probably has an idea to bring this storyline back, continuity be damned.

ReplyReply
mygif
solipsistnation said on September 3rd, 2009 at 8:16 pm

Aw, come on. The issue where Diana Prince travelled into a different universe to hang out with Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser for a while was TOTALLY good comics!

Well, okay, I guess it wasn’t actually.

ReplyReply
mygif

So your idea of a Devil Dinosaur crimelord for a Gambit series was what? Trying to polish a turd into a diamond?

Well, actually it was taking what Warren Ellis did with Devil Dinosaur and using it a little more extensively, but yeah, basically.

I like dinosaurs, but Devil Dinosaur is just a dinosaur who beats up other dinosaurs and really, that’s kind of boring after one issue, much in the same way that a comic about ANYTHING doing what it would normally do gets boring after one issue. (This is why, for example, most of the great war comics have really awesome story hooks. This is also why Man-Thing is only really entertaining in a cameo.)

Give me a dinosaur who does something non-dinosaury. Preferably with lasers and explosions. Or, if not lasers and explosions, intrigue and daring. But not STOMP STOMP STOMP. That gets old fast, even if it is Jack Kirby drawing it.

ReplyReply
mygif

Folks would argue over whether or not Denny O’Neil deserves this slur or not.

Denny O’Neil is one of those comics writers who started out kind of crappy and then got really good in a hurry. This is fine; almost nobody is really great right off the bat.

ReplyReply
mygif
ladypeyton said on September 3rd, 2009 at 9:22 pm

Well, IMO Kirby was completely fallible. He couldn’t draw a decent female costume to save his life. I cry inside every time I see an artist revert a modernized Kirby woman back to her original look.

If Big Barda had really been alive she’d have killed Kirby a week after he invented her in retaliation and she’s one of the good guys. Could you imagine what the Enchantress would have done?

ReplyReply
mygif

Give me a dinosaur who does something non-dinosaury.

REX SAURUS: DINOSAUR ATTORNEY.

ReplyReply
mygif
Lister Sage said on September 3rd, 2009 at 11:29 pm

Here is my non-Nextwave related defense of Devil Dinosaur: he fought Godzilla to a standstill.

It still goes without saying that DinoRiders is still the best thing dinosaur related ever. Yes, even Jurassic Park.

ReplyReply
mygif

So Tim is a real douche and an asshat and he still gets 12%? What does a guy need to do to get 1%?

ReplyReply
mygif

MGK Said:
“Denny O’Neil is one of those comics writers who started out kind of crappy and then got really good in a hurry. This is fine; almost nobody is really great right off the bat.”

“Off the bat” totally rocking pun.

ReplyReply
mygif
Thousand Sons said on September 4th, 2009 at 3:32 pm

I love the fact that he’s a gritty, tough guy noir type character and he fought a guy named Dr Cyber. Kind of like sending Sam Spade against Modok.

ReplyReply
mygif

So he’s kind of a PI version of James Robinson, then?

ReplyReply
mygif

Thousand Sons: Dr. Cyber is a chick, not a guy.

ReplyReply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Please Note: Comment moderation may be active so there is no need to resubmit your comments