Missing In Action: Image United

Valhallahan

Surprising no-one, the (alleged) hotly anticipated reunion of the Image founders (sort of) in one book has fallen woefully behind schedule suffering severe delays. They have managed to get three whole issues out in the last few years though, so more power to you, Image. Well done on losing all the goodwill you've clawed back in recent years. Who saw that coming? Surely noone's career is going to come off well from this embarrassment.

But wait! It's been announced that DC are giving Rob Liefeld a new series in their relaunch. Is it some kind of self referencing joke?

Oh, and it looks like Xombi's being cancelled.

But Rob Liefeld is getting a new series.

Fuck you too DC.

What Is Wrong With You People? (A voyage into the DC readership Part One)

Valhallahan

When DC announced that letters pages were returning to their books after a long absence, I was pleased to hear it. I enjoy anything that adds to reading time in my monthlies, even those annoying little Super 8 pull outs, I read The Walking Dead’s letter page every week and fondly remember the nerd raging fanboys in the X-Force/X-Statix issues, proving that sometimes there’s none so backwards as the fans of the fantastic. But what are today’s fan’s thinking what kind of person reads Jonah Hex? What are my fellow consumers thinking these days? How about the Vertigo readers, surely they’re my Kind of People right? Our survey says: “Hell Naw!”

Some people just don’t know when they’re on to a good thing. In this series I'll share some examples from three of my favourite books.

Scalped #48

In Scalped #48 Joe Fonseca of Kitchener, Ontario goes to great lengths to prove that not everyone in the land of Wolverine and Neil Young has the level of discerning taste we’d been led to believe. He writes:

“…Most Vertigo titles have Very good writing but poor art, Scalped is the exception…regarding the covers: I understand why Vertigo is going for a different look to their covers, but the fact of the matter is that the vertigo covers are not very appealing to the eye. The ironic thing is that of all the Vertigo books, I find Jock’s to be some of the more interesting ones (next to Bolland’s Jack of Fables covers).”

Couldn’t disagree with you more Joe, week after week the Vertigo covers pop out at you from the shelf, if anything, Bolland’s are the least interesting compared to the madness Jeff Lemire comes out with every month on Sweet Tooth, the pop art dynamism of Mike Allred on I Zombie, or the sheer force of Jock’s masterful works. Ask any grown up who hasn’t been trained for years to enjoy the stylised musclemen and women of modern superhero comics what stands out to them as something that might be worth reading...

“...If I was editor, I would let R.M. Guera do the covers as a straight scene from thee story or try some of the great superhero artists like Ivan Reis, David Finch, Gary Frank or Jim Lee.”

Well thank fuck you’re not Joe! I’d drop that book like a hot turd if you were! Perhaps you should stick to Green Lantern or Legion of Superheroes or some other artistically stunted dross. I’m just going to put up a little compare/contrast for you readers at home.

Vertigo's I, Zombie #1

Jim Lee's X-Men #1

Vertigo's Sweet Tooth #1

David Finch's Psylocke #2



Vertigo's American Vampire #1

Gary Frank's Superman: Secret Origin #2



Vertigo's Hellblazer #275






Ivan Reis' Blackest Night #0



Vertigo's Scalped #38



I guess it’s a matter of taste. Whether you have any, that is.




Stay tuned for parts two and three where I look at the letters from Hellblazer and Jonah Hex!

The Greatest Crossover Ever? No

Valhallahan

My name is Valhallahan and I’m a sucker for hype. It’s a curse many geeks share, and in some cases it leads to disappointment. This is one of those cases.

I suppose this issue did all that was needed of it, in that it set up the premise for the crossover, ready for it to sprawl out into the various mini series it encompasses, but the comic itself is pretty bad. I can’t fault the art particularly, as it is accomplished stuff and looks rather nice when the writers give them something decent to draw, but the dialogue is bloody ridiculous and the plot progression is incomprehensible. This second problem stems from the fact that this issue, although titled "Infestation #1" is actually Zombies versus CVO: Covert Vampiric Operations. For those who don’t know, let me fill you in on CVO from what I gleaned from this issue of Infestation and the two issues of CVO I once got in a grab-bag: It’s a big load of shite. More specifically, it is the story of a group of covert soldiers who happen to be -wait for it- Vampires! Yeah! Woo! Awesome! No. The team consists of two interchangeable broody tough guy types and Lady Death. Oh sorry, that’s not Lady Death, that’s the third member of the CVO team, she’s a vampire commando that used to be a supermodel! How cool is that? Not very? Oh well, I’ll continue. Interestingly, she is quite curvy and buxom for a supermodel, methinks she’s been padding out her CV. Just because the place has a stage and people are watching you, it doesn’t make it a catwalk. So the 'Glamour' model and the two angry dudes seem to work for a bunch of ghouls in suits and... you know what? I can’t be bothered.

A Pony and Trap

But what did I expect? This is, after all the set up for a story which is essentially of the kind we all used to play with our toys when we were kids. "Then Captain Kirk beams down to the planet and there’s a zombie and then the zombie bites him and then Ghostbusters shoots the zombie and then more zombies come but Snake Eyes cuts their heads off but Megatron comes down and shoots Snake Eyes because he is a zombie too and then the Enterprise crashes because Dad stepped on it by accident but it transforms into Optimus Prime and then they fight and then Leonardo Kills Mum-Ra who looks a bit like a zombie and then Happy Meal transforming Big Mac shoots Grizzlor and then John was a zombie" and in that way, I’m still hopeful for the series.

Artist's Impression of writing process

It seems that this issue has very little bearing on what will proceed it. In fact the other titles aren’t really crossing over at all, it’s more like Grant Morrison’s Seven Soldiers where all the characters face a common foe, unbeknownst to them, with Infestation serving as the book ends which tie the stories together. In fact, the types of zombie don’t even appear to be consistent judging from the previews, with Transformers opting for a Blackest Night style evil dead, while Star Trek goes the more neoclassical route. As it stands the shiteyness of this initial part, is not going to stop me from trying the others, they are all previewed in the back of this book and have completely different, franchise-appropriate creative teams, and I must say though not a fan of his super-hero work, I look forward to seeing Kyle Holtz’s Ghostbusters art.

This was disappointing start, but not a deal-breaker. I’ll be trying out the Infestation minis but skipping the next instalment of this extended CVO advert.

Survival and Land out of a possible Dawn.

I went to Dublin and all I got...

Valhallahan
Well How do, folks? I spent last weekend gallivanting around Dublin meeting up with some lovely friends and drinking in some lovely sites. I also managed to get to a comic shop and see what the Craic was there. My friend gave me a little list of the three comic shops in Dublin and I plotted course for the first. Sub City on Exchequer Street. Sadly neither of the other two were open; one was clearly closed down, the other locked up, with the surly chap in the Head shop downstairs telling me that it never really opens. Balls.

Sub City is a small shop, oddly reminiscent of Gosh! or Comics Showcase (RIP) when it was still on Neal Street. Sub City was pretty damn poor for new releases (I didn't find one book I wanted – this could be due to snow induced lack of delivery though, I didn't ask but I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt) I did manage to pick up #2 of Hellblazer: City of Demons, which I missed last month, which was a stroke. Where Sub City excels is the extensive selection of Graphic Novels and trades, they had pretty much all a seasoned pro or an adventurous newbie could want. Having to save money for cigs, gigs and lock-ins (which went rather well indeed thanks for asking) I didn't go nuts but could well have; their Trades clearance sale was particularly enticing, and on the subject of bargains, they had a marvellous selection of discounted books, recent and old. It would have been rude not to, so I picked up a 1 Euro grab-bag enticed by the Marvel UK title visible. Little did I know the horrors I would unleash...

Grab Bag A Go Go!

Warheads #6 & 7 (Marvel UK)
When I were a wee lad in the early ‘90s there used to be a real selection of anthology books for the UK market. There was 2000AD and Judge Dredd the Megazaine obviously, and others like, Toxic (violent), Crisis (righteous) and two from Dark Horse; Aliens (reprints of their US mini series’) and an odd tittle called Total Carnage, which reprinted Grendel: War Child, The Mask, Batman vs Predator, and the Army of Darkness film adaptation (I loved that magazine hard). I’ll halt my digression there and save it for a later post, but one of my favourite UK anthologies was Marvel UK's Overkill. Overkill had a few strips per issue and featured stories set in the periphery of the Marvel Universe, characters like Death’s Head II, Motormouth & Killpower, Hell’s Angel, Black Axe and Warheads (all as X-Treeeeeme! as they sound). Each strip had its own monthly printed in the states in the standard US format, which were released to varying degrees of indifference.

The Warheads were clearly -lets be charitable- inspired by the Space Marines in Aliens, but instead of dicking around in space getting killed by Xenomorphs, they dick around other dimensions getting killed by Warhammer 40,000 Rejects. At the behest of the shadowy Masons-stand-in cabal that is the MysTech board, they jump from world to world with their sass-mouths Liefeld guns and high mortality rate. In these nigh-incomprehensible issues a bunch of characters get massacred, some have a fight with Death’s Head II, some try to kill an off-model Mephisto (Spoiler: They fail), a talking gun has an identity crisis and starts talking like a Madam from the deep south and others do... I dunno, other stuff. There’s even an upside down Silver Surfer cameo. It’s a fun old romp, and I did genuinely enjoy the issues but I have to say they weren't as good as I remember. I will maintain though that these characters are ripe for a revamp. A Tigon Liger-led Exiles team anyone? Oh sod you then.

Shadowman (Valiant) Anyone remember Night Man? From Valiant? Valiant? Anyone? He had a cross-over with Aerosmith? The band Aerosmith? Now you're just being obstinate. Anyway, my words can not even begin to do justice to this '90s anti-hero, so instead I'll treat you to this scan of the final page. Oh yeah, check out the November Rain hair and brooding. So strong, yet so sensitive, a warrior and a poet. How did this ever cancelled?

Gross Point Presents #11: Mystery Meat (DC)
With a sub heading like "He turns into a monster at the touch of a pretty girl!" I was expecting something fun, but sadly this sounds a lot better than it looks. Not much to say about it other than it doesn't seem to live up to the promise of the premise and that I have never heard of this series in my life. The art is very much not to my taste. I would even go so far as to say that it's a big bag o' shite.

Team Youngblood #9 (Image)
Listen up kiddies and I'll tell ye of a time when industry hack Rob Liefeld's creator-owned super-team Youngblood was popular enough to have not one, but two ongoing spin-off series; Youngblood: Strike File, and this little wonder, Team Youngblood! Team Youngblood, as far as I understand is the more internationally active branch of Youngblood, who were US based... I think, but to be honest this issue is set in the states and from what I gather from the opening page roster shots, this issue of 'Team Youngblood' focuses almost entirely on characters from Youngblood, the parent title.

Somehow this issue, though not without some perverse charms, manages to be worse than expected. I never like to jump on a hate-wagon (this is a lie), but Good Lord this is bad! I think this deserves post of its own. Every criticism anyone has levelled at Rob Liefeld's 'art style' (pronounced 'hyperactive ineptitude') is painfully apparent here:

Nonsensical Plot? Check
Poor Anatomy? Check
Character designs ripped off from Marvel? Check
Inconsistent costuming? Check
Lack of realistic 'acting'? Check
Inconsistent Hair? Check
Even worse anatomy? Check
Lack of feet? Check
Ridiculously-spined women? Check
Weird weird weird haircuts? Check
Gigantic implausibly hanging tits? Check
Excessive 'detail' lines to disguise technical failings? Check
Total inability to draw normal street clothes? Check
Only 2 facial expressions? Check
Obscenely large guns? Check
With square barrels? Check
Pouches? Oh hell check!

I really could go on all week, but I'll stop there.

And Finally...

When I got back I picked up the latest issues of iZombe, American Vampire and Sweet Tooth. All of which were chuffing good. Also I got the unsavoury beast that is Action Ash to pick me up a copy of Taskmaster #4. I hope it’s not soiled when it arrives.

Excelsior!

Oh Do Fuck Off

Valhallahan
I was reading the review of Jonah Hex in a newspaper this morning (they didn’t like it) and they mentioned a part of movie’s plot that really got my goat. It got it good! It seems that Jonah Hex has fallen for two of the old "Comic Book Movie" fuck ups. Firstly, the movie's writers, in their infinite wisdom, have seen fit to give their Jonah Hex supernatural powers. Yup, you read it right, they have given hard boilled western (human) bastard Jonah Hex the power to raise the dead. You see what they’ve done here is to change the character to be more "Comic Book"-y. By this I mean Superhero-y, because every geek worth his salt knows that there is only one genre in the entire sequential art medium and that’s superheroes, right? Fuck off. Why the hooting heck did they not just make a western? Why? I mean I’m pretty sure they have made western movies before, but then again I’m fairly certain cinema only does Rom Coms. I guess the comic book wasn’t "Comic Book" enough for the movies.

The second bugbear, and bear bugs it does, is that they’ve made the movie’s villain the man responsible for branding Jonah’s face. Why? Because everything has to be explained and in the moving pictures (and Daniel Way's Wolverine: Origins) every single thing that happens in a character’s life has to include the four or five main characters every step o’ the way. Nothing is random, which is fine, becuase like Clark Kent in Smallville, I too have never met a new person after the age of seventeen, in fact I’m nigh-certain I’ll never meet anyone I haven’t met already till the day I die. In fact it’ll probably turn out that St Peter was that strangely wise toilet attendant at Indie-Pounder’s I gave a quid to on my 18th birthday. Fuck off.

Hollywood just can’t seem to help themselves but eradicate any aspect of real world randomness in these stories. In Tim Burton’s Batman, The Joker Kills Mr & Mrs Wayne; In the first two Punisher movies (don’t get me started on this one) Frank Castle's family are killed on purpose by the main villain because he is a copper thus totally missing the point that it was the RANDOMNESS of the act that birthed Frank’s war on All Crime Ever; In Spider-Man 3, The Sandman is revealed to have killed Uncle Ben, thus breaking Spider-Man’s entire raison d’etre, he couldn’t have stopped the murder, so I guess he’s off the hook. I bet he feels silly now.

How fucking cute, I see what you did there, it’s like so poignant and stuff.

Did I mention fuck off?

That's not my X-Force

Action Ash
What the hell are Marvel doing?

Craig Kyle and Christopher Yost did a great job with re-inventing X-Force as a black ops team created by Cyclops and kept secret from the rest of the X-men. The great storytelling was embellished with great art from Clayton Crain and even better art by Mike Choi. It was all going swimmingly and then at the end of Second Coming this had to happen...



Why this line up?
Deadpool does not need to be in another ongoing. It's like the 90's coming back to haunt me. Look at the size of those guns!
Why don't they just bring Liefeld back and let him ruin comics all over again?

It probably doesn't help that, the first time they choose to reveal this line up, they do it through the questionable art of Mr Land. I mean at least he's not drawing it. Ah well, nevermind. It looks like I'll be saving myself some money because that's one less series I'll be buying.

Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne #4

Valhallahan
As I stated earlier, I wasn't going to go in for all that Batman through time nonsense but I got suckered in and ended up being quite into it. And with issue 4 featuring my favourie comic book gunslinger, I had to check it out.

Look at that lovely art, you really feel that wild west atmosphere I'm so glad they got this artist in for---- Waitafugginminute!!!

That's not Return of Bruce Wayne, that's Secret Avengers #3! Let's have a look at what wonders Return of Bruce Wayne has to top their previously high-class series art then.

Oh. Oh well.

I guess I can look at the story?

Nope, that's pretty lame too.

What a revoltin' development.

Two soggy blanks out of a possible six shooter.

Wolverine # 900 Review

Valhallahan

I bought Wolverine #900, because (as I said in an earlier post) Wolverine is one of my favourite fictional characters in any medium, he’s up there With Batman, Jesus, Phillip Marlowe and Jeffrey Lebowski. I also really like anthologies, due to their nature they're generally a mixed bag, like revels, some people like the coffee ones, others like the toffee ones, and everyone likes the nude Minstrels. Well this was more like a bag of Revels where there where there're a handful of nude Minstrels, but every other flavour has been replaced with small pellets of excrement, so not so much a mixed bag, as a mixed sack of crap. Appallingly the highlights are reprints from a few years ago. The Wolverine/Hulk story from Ed McGuiness (#50) and the Spider-Man and Wolverine go to a bar story (Amazing Spider-Man Extra #2) are the highlights, particularly the bar story.

The Original content however veers from the OK, (Goes drinking with a graphic designer - Honestly) to the downright insultingly bad. I can’t believe anyone would pay someone to produce the trapped-in-a-cave-with-the-Morlocks story. I can only assume that it was commissioned as filler over a decade ago (when the story is set) and was found in a drawer. The plot is dire and the art seems to be entirely traced from late 90s X-Men covers by someone who's clearly never seen a real pair of breasts in his life, if his anatomy is anything to go by. I can only assume that it’s by an editor’s nephew or some such, perhaps by someone with some incriminating photographs.

Ironically, this deeply uninspiring package is actually a good staring point for the character. It’s got a 'New-Avengers-Double-Act: Wolvie and Spidey' story, a Noir-ish story where he does some investigating for an old friend (with a shameless Yellow Claw red herring seemingly thrown in just so the artist could draw him), a (shithouse) X-Men story, a Versus the Hulk Story, a Wolverine likes hanging round with young girls story (a particularly naff one at that) and a few more t'boot. So if you’re a new reader, then this is actually a good introduction to who he is and what he do, and if you like this, wait till you read the good stories! Also there is a lot of story for your money albeit of debatable quality.

Two mouldy bone claws out of a possible six shiny Adamantium sharpies.

New Avengers: Finale

Valhallahan
I’ve been reading New Avengers since Action Ash was in nappies, “but it’s only been running 6 years!” I hear you cry. Yes, Action Ash has issues.

I liked Chaos/Disassembled and was a big fan of New Avenger when it came out, I loved the banter and the intrigue. I gave up on NA around the time it was being drawn by the eminently average Billy Tan and consisted solely of crossover tie-ins and underwhelming fights with the Hood and his Handbook of the Marvel Universe army of Goons.

Well this series certainly ends as it became. In Finale, we’re treated to a pointless fight with the Hood that ties into Siege. Great. At least the art’s a darned sight better than Mr Tan. We have Bryan “Ultimates” Hitch giving us Ultimates-Lite. Now on his worst day, Hitch draws rings around his peers (literally - it’s a mental health issue) and this isn’t his finest hour, but is still head and shoulders above competitors, and several stories above Billy Tan. His Wolverine does look like a sex-offender though.

Action Ash
Although a lifelong Marvel fan I had never actually bought an Avengers comic until New Avengers #51 (I know, weird right?). I've loved the series, and to Val's disgust, I liked Billy Tan's art. Maybe not enough shadows, noir and misery for him? Maybe if Luke Cage got depressed went on a drinking binge and tried to solve a murder he'd of enjoyed "what it became"?
Anyway the Finale issue is, I agree, pointless, but it's fun. Some super heroics and cheesy dialogue about superhero camaraderie.
The artwork is alright. I'm not a massive Hitch fan but I know he can do better than this. His Ultimates stuff reigns on this.
All in all I think a nice little ending to the run

p.s. Hitch's Wolverine does indeed look like a sex offender

What I got and Why 14/05/10

Valhallahan

Wolverine #900 - I'm a fan of Wolverine, and enjoy anthologies in general; this book was proper shit though. More on it later.

New Avengers: Finale - I got this for closure, then I realised it wasn't being cancelled, so now I'm just confused.

Daytripper #6 - Loving this series. Hopefully we'll be doing something on it here in the near future.

Siege #4 - Though my interest is dwindling through Crossover Fatigue, I am still a fan of the Marvel Universe as a whole, so I feel I have to keep up with current events. I’ve enjoyed the series so far?

The Return of Bruce Wayne #1 - I'm not a fan of Grant Morrison's recent work on the character, but I do like Batman, so I got this to see what the current direction is and if it’s worth my time - Jury's still out.

Heroic Age Preview - To see how much money Marvel are attempting to leech out of me in the coming months.

What I didn’t Got:

Prince of Power #1 - The shop I was in didn’t have this in stock. They had it in Action Ash’s shop though. Bastards.

Lady Gaga Free Comic

FAME: Lady Gaga

by I dunno, Chimps?

Free Comic Book Day has now come and gone and unfortunately the pickings were fairly slim from where I was standing. Slimmest of all though was the Lady Gaga book.

I’d heard of this a while ago and was intrigued, I’m not a pop fan myself (not nearly enough songs about drinking yourself to death) but I can appreciate the spectacle and sense of theatre Lady Gaga brings to that turgid waste-pipe of a genre. Anyway, Action Ash hates Gaga so I thought I’d pick it for the next Swap-Shop Massacre and make him read it, but having read it myself I’m going to spare him the misery.

With her old school glam, avant-garde visuals and stage persona, I was secretly hoping for something cool with the comic, something like the Kiss comics of the 70s or some kind of Jem and the Holograms for the new century, but damn, was I wrong! It was only a preview, but unless there’s some kind of ‘Silencio’ switcheroo on page 8 where the writer, artist and story changes, the full book is gonna be a bona fide sack o’ shit.

Weirdly the story focuses on a miserable, fat music snob discovering Gaga and falling in love with her, ditties and all. Who’s Lady Gaga? I hear you ask. Well her apparently.

…No, me neither. I think this picture says more about the art than I ever could.

I’ll be saving my money to track down Marvel's time-travelling Billy Ray Cyrus comic.

*No Rating Earned*