Video Distractions: Batman: Arkham Origins Teaser Released

Comics aren’t the only thing in my life, you know. I am also somewhat of a home theater enthusiast, to the point where I have built my own home theater PC (Think a TiVo, only with 4.5 terabytes of storage space, that also plays home video, music, and online media, as well as skipping commercials automatically on recorded TV, and all without a byte of digital rights management), run by a small universal infrared sensor to read commands from a standard remote control.

I also just bought and wall-mounted a sick plasma TV to replace my old DLP projection job and – funny story – didja know that plasma TVs, as well as having the best contrast available, also spit out a bunch of infrared noise? Noise that, say, a universal infrared sensor can see? And try to constantly process? Making the PC that’s listening to that sensor as dumb as a brick?

However, being a clever man, I thought of a fix that requires only a small cardboard jewelry box. Really: that’s it. Well, that and about $400 of obscure hobbyist parts that require extensive programming and tweaking to allow a line-of-sight infrared sensor to listen to a remote control while the sensor is crammed into a small cardboard jewelry box.

All of which is a long way to go to explain that I am extremely busy today – trying to turn a bracelet box into an electronic home theater component will do that to you – but I do have one thing for you: Batman: Arkham Origins, the sequel to the excellent Arkham Asylum and Arkham City videogames, is due out this coming October, and the producers have released the first teaser video for the game, featuring Batman kicking the shit out of a low-level bad guy. A low level bad guy named Deathstroke. And you can check it out after the jump

Bastard Sons of The Father: James Robinson Leaves DC

Well, there goes all my hopes for another Starman story… or worse: here comes another Goddamned Starman story.

Allow me to explain. Yesterday, via Twitter, the magical service that allows people to reach into my life across time and space to show me the things that they are about to have for dinner,  DC Comics’s Earth 2 writer James Robinson announced that he is leaving that book.

So as of today I am leaving Earth 2 with Issue #16.It’s been a blast.Man, it’s a lovely day.Think I’ll take Rex to the beach.

— JamesDRobinson (@JamesDRobinson) May 17, 2013

Okay, that’s a bummer, especially considering that when it comes to alternate versions of classic heroes, Robinson is one of the best in the business – so good that the characterizations in his Elseworld’s story The Golden Age became, pre-New 52, part of DC’s Golden Age canon.

But hey: maybe this was good news! Maybe Robinson was freeing himself up to do that last Starman story he’s always been saying he wants to do! Maybe it means that he’s clearing himself up to do a complete new Starman series! Maybe it means –

Oh, what’s that? It means nothing of the sort?

Grandpa Flashpoint: Age of Ultron #8 Review

We can’t bust heads like we used to, but we have our ways. One trick is to tell them stories that don’t go anywhere. Like the time I took the ferry to Shelbyville. I needed a new heel for my shoe so I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. Now to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on them. Give me five bees for a quarter you’d say. Now where were we? Oh yeah: the important thing was that I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time. They didn’t have white onions because of the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones.

-Grandpa Simpson

What, exactly, is Age of Ultron about? This is a serious question.

We started out with a pretty straightforward end-of-the-world story with a bunch of killer robots that came literally out of nowhere and fucked up New York City. Then it was about infighting between superheroes, desperate last chances, and time travel. Okay, great. Now it’s about the Butterfly Effect, divergent timelines, and an alternate version of Marvel’s history where Hank Pym never existed, The Avengers broke up, and the world is under seige by Morgana Le Fey (“I toldja that Le Feys would be the end of America!” “Shut up, Dad!”). We’ve still got two issues left in Age of Ultron not counting crossover issues, which means we still have plenty of time for this series to tack in yet another direction, perhaps one about Friendship being Magic.

I’m not saying that Age of Ultron isn’t interesting; I was a rabid reader of What If? back when I was a kid, so I am a sucker for alternate versions of Marvel history, but I’m just not getting what writer Brian Michael Bendis is going for here. We’ve got a robot apocalypse that came out of left field, and that isn’t being addressed in other titles except in one-off “AU” issues that drop the character into the Ultron scenario for twenty pages before returning to the status quo in the next issue. And now, in issue 8, we are completely out of that apocalypse into an entirely different apocalypse that occurs when Hank Pym doesn’t exist – again, while none of this seems to be affecting the Marvel Universe as a whole. And all the while, we’ve got guys like Marvel Editor Tom Brevoort swearing that what happens in this book will have an effect on the greater 616, when it doesn’t seem to be having any effect right fucking now.

So what’s the endgame here? Is it to irrevokably change the nature of the Marvel Universe based on an apocalyptic event that led to some ill-advised time travel and cold-blooded murder? Is it to accentuate the importance of Ant Man to the Marvel Universe in time for the Edgar Wright movie in a couple of years? Is it to placate Bendis’s urge to apparently write the Marvel version of what might have happened if Arnold had blown Eddie Furlong out of his fucking socks the way we all wanted him to after two hours of bad acting in Terminator 2?

These are the questions I had when I finished Age of Ultron #8, a comic book that is cool if you like alternate versions of Marvel history, but which is yet another chapter of a story that seems to be bouncing from bad day to bad day without actually going anywhere in particular yet, and which, at this point in the story, just doesn’t feel like it matters.

A Little Light Reading

It is never a bad time when I visit my local comic store, where they know me by name and ask me not to shriek, “Who’s looking for a good time?” at the paying clientele, at least not while I’m wearing my Namor Speedos.

But some weeks are a little more, shall we say, disappointing than others. This was one of those every-few-weeks weeks where, when the owner of my local comic store, where they kow me by name and ask me to for Christ’s sake stop wearing my Namor Speedos, hands me my week’s pulls, and it’s only about an inch thick. And while it’s nice to come home from my local comic store, where they know me by name and ask me to remember that there are decency laws in greater Boston, without being a full Benjamin lighter in the wallet, it means fewer books to read, sink into, and forget that these Speedos were once my fat shorts.

But still: some new comics is better than no new comics. And any new comics means that it is Wednesday, and further indicates that this…

…means the end of our broadcast day.

But even though it’s looking like a light week, there are still plenty of decent comics this week. We’ve got another issue of Marvel’s Age of Ultron event (which contains neither ages or Ultrons. Huh.), a new Legend of Luther Strode and Ultimate Comics Spider-Man, something new from Dynamite Comics called Pathfinder that I bought on a whim, along with something called Dream Thief from Dark Horse Comics that Amanda bought on a whim, and a decent pile of other cool stuff.

But you know how this works: before we can review them, we need a chance to Johnson’s Baby Powder ourselves out of these Godawful shorts. And some extra time to, you know, read the damn comics. So until that time…

See you tomorrow, suckers!

One For The Faithful: Deathstroke #20 Review

Editor’s Note: And one last look at last week’s comics before the comic stores open late today… and it contains spoilers. But they are spoilers on a book that has been cancelled and lives no more. So do you really give a fuck? Thought not.

“So the final issue of Deathstroke was in this week’s take. You gonna review it?” I said.

“Fuck that,” my co-Editor Amanda said, “As far as I’m concerned, that book’s been over since Rob Leifeld took over from Kyle Higgins last year. DC editorial took a perfectly good book about a professional dealing with the perils of entering middle age and turned it into a book about some badly-proportioned, footless steroid head beating on space douchebags.”

“But Justin Jordan’s been writing the book for the past few months. Do you think it’s improved at all since then?”

“I haven’t been reading it.”

“Why not? Jordan writes Luther Strode, and you like that.”

“Yeah, but so what? It’s damaged goods. Taking over Deathstroke after Liefeld had his grubby mitts all over it is like watching a buddy get married to a whore. He might be totally in love and committed to making it work, but here ain’t a force on Earth that can make people look at her and not picture when she had three dicks in her mouth. Let Deathstroke go under and lie fallow for a while. I’ll try it again when it feels a little less… dirty. You review the last issue.”

Okay I will. Despite not having kept up on Deathstroke since Higgins left the book any more than Amanda did. Which means that I have no idea what the hell led into the events of this issue, which includes all the Usual Suspects you’d expect from a big Deathstroke story. We’ve got Terra, Rose (Slade’s daughter who became Ravager before the New 52), Grant (Slade’s son who became Ravager back in the 80s – c’mon, at least try to keep up), Jericho (Slade’s other son, who was a good guy in the 80s before becoming a bad guy in… ah, fuck it) and, well, Majestic (for some reason), locked in a epic battle to the death that requires some ugly choices, brutal methods, and one deus ex machina on Slade’s part.

Which is fine, but what matters is: is it any good? And more importantly: does it work as a final story? You know, with “final” in subtextual quotes, since ain’t no one really gonna kill a character that appears on The CW’s Arrow?

The Lola Is My Penis: Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Full Trailer Released

Waitaminute, Waitaminute, WAITaminute… this is a Joss Whedon show… based on a movie by Joss Whedon… and someone he killed comes back to life?

Well, someone who isn’t named Buffy?

Okay, I’m getting ahead of myself here.

It was just Friday when ABC formally announced that they had made an order for Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., and normally when a show developed by Whedon is announced, the normal immediate network response is something like, “…and we don’t know when to schedule it or how – or if – it should be promoted! The empty suits on the Top Floor, who split their time between programming decisions and rapid cocaine disposal, have recommended pretending that this program will never air! Now let’s talk about Whitney Cummings’s new magnum opus!”

But that reaction was for shows that aren’t related to a movie property that has grossed roughly a bazillion dollars in the past year. For Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., not only has ABC already announced that it will air on Tuesdays at 8 p.m. this fall (although the premier date has not been announced), but today they have released the first full-length trailer for the show, which you can search for on Google, or perhaps Altavista, to watch on the online video platform of your choice.

Yeah, just kidding; you can check it out after the jump.

Deja Vu All Over Again: Avengers #11 Review

Avengers #11 has all the components of an interesting, short-term change in direction to keep the book from getting bogged down in giant international and even cosmic events. A one-and-done that still services the longer story Hickman has been spinning out, this issue has several members of the team go undercover in an overseas resort to find out what AIM is up to and discovering that they are getting ready to auction off a superpowered weapon in a particular form. It allows the characters to show some humor, demonstrate how they play off each other when they’re out of costume, and try to deal with an independent nation-state that has diplomatic immunity when the team is not in a position to just use their powers and let loose.

So Avengers #11 really has all the hallmarks of a cool, quirky, one-of-a-kind issue, and that is good after several issues of giant stakes and a lot of bombast. However, it is also bad, because Avengers #11 also bears the hallmarks of Justice League International #16 from August, 1988. Where members of the team go undercover in an overseas resort to find out what Bialya is up to and discovering that they are getting ready to auction off a superpowered weapon in a particular form. And they show humor while demonstrating how they play off each other out of costume. And they try to deal with an independent nation-state. That has diplomatic immunity.

Seriously: there are about a half-dozen obvious parallels between Avengers #11 and Justice League International #16 and #17. And hey: these things happen. There are no new ideas under the sun, and I take it as a given that any similarities between these two books is either a matter of parallel thinking or simple homage, because while I think Hickman’s writing is often clinical and bloodless, I have never seen it be anything but relentlessly original. And I will therefore try to review Avengers #11 on its own merits as much as I can… but that will honestly only go so far. Because the fact of the matter is that my entire experience of reading this book was colored by that feeling of familiarity, to the point where the first thing I did after finishing it was to dig out my Justice League International trades to find the issue to see if my instincts were right (if you’re curious, the issue is in JLI volume three).

So yeah: I’ll try to review Avengers #11 on its own, but it’s gonna be like reminiscing about a high school misadventure with an old buddy over beers: it’s fun to revisit, but it’s not like you can forget living it the first time, when you were young.

“Legion” Is A Strong Word: DC Cancels Four Titles While DeMatteis / Maguire Tease New One

DC’s August solicitations are starting to be released and, as one will when a comic pubisher spends most of 2011 extolling their new group of 52 comics, I perused them to see which of those 52 new and exciting books are getting the ick.

And the short answer is: four of them, with two coming from the original New 52 from September, 2001. Those books being Dial H, Threshold, Demon Knights and Legion of Super Heroes, with the latter two being two of those original relaunched titles.

I have long since stopped keeping count of how many of the original New 52 titles are still sucking breath (although it’s clearly more than ten percent… because at least seven of them are Batman Family titles that will only be cancelled if some dingbat hires Joel Schumacher to reboot the Batman movie series. And by “reboot,” I obviously mean “add nipples to Batman’s boots”), but none of these cancellations are particularly a surprise to me. Dial H was clearly a Vertigo title marooned in the DC Universe; a book initially edited by former Vertigo chief Karen Berger, and given the upheaval in DC’s Editorial division, this book probably only had a matter of time unless someone changed the title to Dial B. With Gotham City’s Area Code Before The “B.” And Then Dial “Atman.”

Blessed Mother: Teaser For Marvel’s Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. Released

It is Mother’s Day, and here at the Crisis On Infinite Midlives Home Office we are  celebrating with our mothers the same as everyone else – and yes, we have mothers. You know full well that we do, or else that pejorative people shriek at us on the street would have no bearing on us.

But still, comics news goes on, including the official Go-Order for ABC’s Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. It was just a rumor on Friday, but as of Friday night it was confirmed on the show’s Facebook Page… and that confirmation included the cast photo at the top of this article.

And yes, that photo does feature Clark Gregg as Agent Phil Coulson. Agent Phil Coulson who was apparently shanked in the kidneys by Loki in The Avengers. And yes, we knew that he was gonna be involved somehow in the series despite the minor handicap of apparently being stone fucking dead… but it seems he will be walking and talking, based on this short promo of the show released by the production, that you can check out after the jump.

Mescaline Dreams: Grant Morrison Explains His Batman Decisions

It is not a secret, if you peruse the Batman or Grant Morrison tags on this Web site, that we are not necessarily fans of Grant Morrison’s seven-year Batman story that has run through the primary Batman title, Final Crisis and, most recently, Batman Incorporated… although the recent death of Damian Wayne in Batman Incorporated #8 was satisfying in the way that hitting yourself in the head with a hammer is: it feels so damn good when you stop.

Part of why Morrison’s long-form story has never completely grabbed us is that, as a generation who grew to love comics into adulthood partially due to Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns and Batman: Year One, we don’t have a lot of love or need for Batman stories from the 50s and 60s, when Batman was surrounded ridiculous leering villains who tied up the young boy who lived with Batman, not only giving the character a dull edge, but giving the jocks reasons to give us swirlies from junior high until our growth spurts occurred.

So Morrison’s embrace of the tropes of some of those early stories simply didn’t work for us, as we were unable to really understand why Morrison would bring up those old stories that got us so savagely beaten back in the early 80s. Morrison, however, has gone on record with his through process for including that entire weird and often campy history into his Batman story, in a podcast with Kevin Smith, that YouTube user swank has excerpted and paired with illustrations from the history of Batman. And while the story still leaves me lukewarm, it explains the logic behind the decisions Morrison made… and you can check the whole thing out after the jump.