Very Krutacking Decent: Guardians of The Galaxy #1 Review

Let’s stop for a second and remember that, back before the turn of the century, Guardians of The Galaxy writer Brian Michael Bendis got his start writing small-scale indie crime comics. There was Jinx, about a small-time bounty hunter, and Goldfish, about a small-time grifter, and Torso, about a real small-time serial killer (yeah, his victims would probably argue the “small-time” point, but let’s face it: “The Cleveland Torso Murderer” ain’t no Jack The Ripper. That name sounds dangerously close to “The San Diego Goofball”). When he moved into superheroes, it was Powers – more about a couple of street-level detectives than about superheroes – and then Alias and Daredevil for Marvel – again, street-level, crime-based superheroics.

It’s easy to forget now how nervous many of us were when Bendis took over Avengers back in 2004, because there was just no indication that the guy could really handle anything beyond street scumbags bullshitting each other, or maybe a mildly depressed former superhero taking it in the corn chute from a 70’s B-Lister. But if you take a step back and really look at Avengers Disasssembled, part of why it works is that, at it’s lowest level, it’s about a depressed woman who is lying to and betraying everyone in sight to hide her most personal shame. That’s a noir femme fatale story right there… sure, one that includes Hulks and exploding arrows, but a femme fatale story nonetheless. Bendis found the street-level story in the superhero epic, and made it pretty damned good.

So it has been a long ride for Bendis to go from giving us stories about no-hope dickheads running the Three Card Monty scheme in Portland to a story about the son of a planetary king and his alien buddies trying to defend the Earth from alien invasion. But the good news is, it generally works. If you’re a fan of Star Wars or the rebooted Battlestar Galactica, you’ll find some good stuff to like in Guardians of The Galaxy #1.

You’ll find those things because they are really damn reminiscent of those properties, but still: they are there.

Now With Added Ninja (Deadpool Sold Separately): The Wolverine Teaser, Posters Released

When it comes to this summer’s upcoming geek flicks, we here at Crisis On Infinite Midlives are obviously, based on the generally increased level of our coverage, most looking forward to Iron Man 3. Call me an old-fashioned Generation X-er, but I’ve got a soft spot for seeing Robert Downey Jr. swilling whiskey, acting inappropriately anti-social, and losing everything important in his life. It reminds me of the 90s.

Iron Man 3 is not, however, the only comic book movie coming out this summer. There is also The Wolverine, the sequel to 2009’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine. On paper, there’s a lot to look forward to in The Wolverine, what with it reportedly being at least somewhat influenced by Chris Claremont’s and Frank Miller’s Wolverine miniseries from back to 1982, which brought us the catchphrase, “I’m the best there is at what I do,” as well as internal monologue captions obviously pasted in at the last minute by Marvel editorial to make it seem, all visual evidence to the contrary, like Wolverine didn’t just kill a room full of ninjas. But on the other hand, The Wolverine is the sequel to a movie that gave us Deadpool – The Merc With a Mouth – with no mouth.

The Vegas Line on this movie is a living document, that’s all I’m saying.

However, as the movie’s release date of July 26th approaches, we are beginning to get some promotional materials about the flick, and there are some reasons to be encouraged. For example, the director released six seconds of video from the movie to Vine (which we can’t embed here, but if you watch closely, you can see Famke Janssen – presumably as Jean Gray – will be making a cameo appearance), but not only that: they just released a teaser to MTV with some new footage that we can embed… along with a couple of posters for the movie showing Logan in what appears to be less-than-happy demeanor. Almost as if he spent a year having to listen to Russell Crowe singing in his ear.

Anyway, you can check out the teaser and the posters after the jump.

Doog Yrev Ton: Action Comics #18 Review

Grant Morrison is done with Action Comics now. And I am okay with that.

I am okay with that because, with the benefit of  hindsight over the entire run, his story was meant for Superman fans. By which I mean, real, hardcore, longtime Superman fans. The kind of Superman fan who thinks Superman will never look right again now that Curt Swan is dead. The kind of Superman fan who knows, without consulting Wikipedia, that Silver Kryptonite makes Superman PCP-level paranoid, while Red Kryptonite makes him grow four dicks in each armpit. The kind of Superman fan who calls his penis “Beppo.”

Morrison’s run started with Superman fighting corrupt businessmen, as he did in the early issues of the original Action Comics, and ended with a battle with Mr. Mxyzpltk, effectively “modernizing” Superman for the New 52 by bringing him from 1938 all the way to 1965, via a mescaline bender. Sure, there was the odd stop to examine what Superman might mean to the modern world, but all in all, this series started out, and ended, as a celebration of the earlier, more out-there elements of the Superman mythos.

So, as I’ve said in other reviews of Morrison’s Action Comics issues, how you feel about Action Comics #18 will largely depend on how nostalgic you are for Fifth Dimensional imps, multi-colored Kryptonite, super-powered animals, the Legion of Super Heroes, and yet another bold statement about how important Superman is to the DC Universe and to America. You know, bold statements like Morrison made in All-Star Superman and DC One Million.

Personally? I can take them or leave them.

Hope(less): Storyboard Animator Teases Nonexistent Green Lantern Season Two

Green Lantern: The Animated Series and Young Justice: Invasion on Cartoon Network are over now, cancelled apparently due to the low sales of associated toys and DVDs… although to be fair to fans of the shows like me, I would be more than happy to buy a decent high definition Blu-Ray version of either show. Blu-Rays that do not currently, you know, exist. Some of us are adults, people at Warner Bros. Animation, and are not moved by a ten-buck, standard definition “volume” of a couple of episodes in the way, say, a mother looking to buy something that will shut their child up for a Goddamned minute might be.

But regardless, what’s done is done. The shows are cancelled, to be replaced with, well, some crap… although is seems that no one told the respective creators, since each series ended with a massive tease: Young Justice ended with a reveal of Darkseid, and Green Lantern showed Red Lantern Razer flying off into the void, looking for his lost love Aya… with a Blue Lantern ring following him into the darkness.

Ending on what amounts to cliffhangers is a hell of a thing… but Jake Castorena, a storyboard artist at Warner Bros. Animation, took some pity on fans by at least extrapolating what might have been in a Green Lantern season two. It ain’t much, but it’s a small balm to show us what we might have been in for, while we wait in resignation for a cartoon about bubble-shaped Teen Titans making puns about defecation. And it’s available after the jump.

Heckblazer: Constantine #1 Review

Editor’s Note: I’m the one who steps from the shadows, all trenchcoat and cigarette and arrogance, ready to deal with the spoilers.

Let’s start by talking about that cover. It is terrible.

It’s not terrible in a visual sense; it is a perfectly serviceable Ivan Reis cover with a sense of dynamism, and enough flashy lights to attract the casual browser’s eye as he or she wanders through the comic store. So from a pure advertising standpoint, the cover does its job. The problem with the cover is that, for a Hellblazer fan trying Constantine #1 in the hopes that this new title will deliver something even close to what they loved for about a quarter century in the earlier series, it delivers the worst message in the world.

Hellblazer’s John Constantine was a dude who worked in the shadows, mostly by reputation, braggadocio and ruthless cynicism, who used the traditional magics of sigils and binding when he needed to use it at all. The cover to Constantine #1 advertises Constantine as a refugee magic user from Diablo III, chucking force bolts around like there’s some pimply teenager driving him with a joystick while mashing the A button.

The cover promises John Constantine as fantasy action hero, throwing around “magic” ways that Gandalf would find ostentatious and flamboyant. It hints at the polar opposite of what Hellblazer fans like, and it gave me a sinking feeling in my stomach… particularly since I know that it wasn’t the first cover planned for the book. The original cover featured Constantine in a graveyard surrounded by monsters, before it was replaced by this monstrosity… and even then, someone made the decision to airbrush the cigarette out of Constantine’s mouth, further emasculating the character. Hell, based on that carefully-placed force bolt, for all I know they actually took John’s balls as well.

This was the wrong cover if anyone at DC editorial wanted to attract Hellblazer readers in the wake of that book’s cancellation. It is the equivalent of a bar pulling all the single malt scotch off their shelves and replacing it with Four Loco; sure, scotch isn’t a taste for everybody, but you ain’t attracting Islay aficionados with cans of Teenager-Punches-Cops juice.

And finally, this cover is a huge misfire because it commits the cardinal sin of comic covers: it in no way reflects what’s happening in the actual comic book. Constantine #1 has no force bolt slinging action hero in it. Sure, there’s some more straight-up action in the book than you’d find in Hellblazer, including more ostentatious magic of the force bolt variety than you’d find in the original title. But none of it comes from John Constantine, who writers Jeff Lemire and Ray Fawkes seem to have a pretty decent handle on.

My point is, for an old Hellblazer fan, there is enough good character stuff in this book to make it worth checking out, despite that Godawful “Pew! Pew! Pew!” cover.

A Lot Of Talk And A Badge: Avengers #8 Review

Editor’s Note: A White Event creates / alters heralds to spoil this ascension.

Since taking over Avengers back in December, writer Jonathan Hickman has clearly been pushing toward some kind of huge, extinction-level event that is meant to go down in legend – he all but comes out and says it in his movie trailer-like first issue. And since that time, Hickman has marched Avengers through ever-increasing threats, cosmic and not, moving inexorably to whatever massive event he has in mind. And all that has occurred in the series has been used in subservience of that plot, including little things like consistency of characterization or focus on anybody in particular.

Which means that, in Avengers #8, Hickman has given us an portrayal of The Avengers where Captain America is ignored by several members, three members of the team actively try to kill or demand that someone kill a teenaged boy, and all in all lead with their fists against a confused kid who doesn’t know what’s happened to him and in no way acts as an aggressor until several of The Avengers big guns take a poke at him. All to allow Hickman to put a bunch of power in front the Ex Nihilo guy he introduced back in the first issue.

In short: yeah, I’m pretty close to giving up on Avengers entirely.

Meet The New Boss

Remember when John Constantine was a charming and talented bullshit artist? A dude with a cigarette and a reputation and a line of malarkey a mile wide and a yard deep, who walked into trouble and talked his way out of it? The guy who made a deal with all three demons of Hell’s Triumvirate and walked away from damnation with no more power than a savvy negotiating sense, a middle finger and a hearty “Up yours”?

Yeah, that was the Vertigo John Constantine. These days, what we have is the DC Universe John Constantine. You know, the one who shoots force bolts that look like he’s using magic to force people to contemplate the logo of Rush’s 2112, and who looks like the closest he’s come to a punk band came from watching that Very Special Episode of Quincy.

All of which is a long way to go to announce that Hellblazer has ended, Constantine is here, and this…

…means the end of our broadcast day.

And while we have cautious hopes for Constantine (hopes that that action-packed cover ain’t bearing out), even if it goes sideways, there is some other cool-looking stuff this week. We’ve got the first issue of David Lapham’s X-Termination, a new Brian K. Vaughn Saga, the latest Dan Slott The Superior Spider-Man, Brian Michael Bendis’s All-New X-Men, and a bunch of other stuff!

But you know the drill: before we can review any of them, we need to infuse some Nergal into our blood (and by “Nergal,” we personally mean “bourbon”), and take the time to read them. So while we do that…

…see you tomorrow, suckers!

Glimpse of The Golden Age: Miracleman Triumphant Pages Released By Inker

Back in the halcyon days of 1993, (not the Halcion days, at least not that I’ll admit on a public Web site), when Kurt Cobain was alive (if you can call cohabitating with Courtney Love living), a man could light a cigarette in a bar where people were disintegrating their livers with cheap domestic bourbons without someone getting all self-righteous about their health, and Eclipse Comics was still a going concern. A going concern with, on paper at least, the free and uncontested right to publish Miracleman.

Back then, Neil Gaiman had blessed a miniseries to fill in some of the gaps as to what happened between the end of Alan Moore’s run and the start of Gaiman’s The Golden Age arc. The miniseries, Miracleman Triumphant, was to be written by Fred Burke – the writer of, well, some stuff you’ve never heard of –  with art by recent New Avengers artist Mike Deodato and inks by Jason Temujin. Here’s what the story was to cover:

Miracleman Triumphant #1, entitled “Oracles,” begins where Miracleman #22 leaves off, focusing on the aftermath of the annual Carnival memorializing Kid Miracleman’s slaughter of London in Miracleman #15. The opening pages were to show Miracleman, disguised as an ordinary human, surveying the closing moments of the Carnival, wondering to himself if the changes he has brought to the world were the right ones. While ruminating, he stumbles onto a flier advertising a family of fortune-tellers and, interested in their opinion, seeks them out.

That miniseries was in the works when Eclipse Comics choked on its own debt, going down with all hands and throwing the rights to Miracleman into a legal black hole that would make Stephen Hawking scream in existential horror were he to contemplate it.

And that was pretty much that; sure, the odd partial page has popped up now and again, but not much in the way of completed art… that is, until this morning. That’s when Temujin posted the latest of four pages that he had finished inking before Eclipse went out of the comics business and into the asset auctions business. There’s no dialogue attached, but considering that these are pages from one of my favorite comic sagas, drawn by one of my favorite comic artists, I figured they’re worth making note of. And you can check them out after the jump.

Info (Star) Wars

When I was a young lad back in 1977, I used to argue with my friends at the schoolyard during recess over which one of us would get to pretend to be Luke Skywalker as we relived the daring rescue of Princess Leia and the subsequent destruction of the Death Star. We were young, innocent, and simply eager to mimic one of the greatest heroes of modern times. Or at least, that’s what we thought.

What if we were lied to? What if Luke Skywalker – Red Five himself – was part of a secret plot hatched by the entire Skywalker family to destroy the Death Star from the inside, as part of a conspiracy to kill much of the Empire’s top military personnel, profit from the military / industrial complex that would inevitably demand the reconstruction of the Death Star, and eventually seize control of the Imperial government. We’ve heard of the Old Republic… but why haven’t we heard of the New Galactic Order?

I mean, sure: we’ve all seen video of the X-Wing Red Squadron flying the trench and launching their proton torpedoes – we’ve seen that video on film, on VHS videotape, on DVD and on high-definition Blu-Ray so far – but what if it was faked? What if some insidious, shadowy figure behind the scenes kept doctoring that video, to the point of repeatedly tinkering with it, without our consent? All in the interest of muddying our memories of that momentous event, in the pursuit of simply cynical profit?

Clearly, I’m not the only person who thinks this might be the case. Because free-thinking patriot Graham Putnam has created a video that just might change your thinking about the fateful day we witnessed the thousands killed in the tragedy that is the Battle of Yavin IV… and might make you question whether or not The Force, is in fact, with any of us. And you can watch this eye-opening video after the jump.

We are through the looking glass, people! Tarkin was martyred!

I’m A Superhero: Wolverine #1 Review

Editor’s Note: Many years ago, a secret government organization abducted the man called Logan, a mutant possessing razor-sharp spoilers and the ability to heal from any bad comic…

I don’t know about you, but I really didn’t feel like I needed another Wolverine book. We got the debut of The Savage Wolverine just two months ago, we’ve had Wolverine & The X-Men going since the end of the Schism event about a year and a half ago, and then there’s that good old Wolverine comic that, until recently, had been running since Logan put on an eyepatch and started acting like it would make people without massive traumatic brain injuries think he was a completely different dude with fucked-up hair and adamantium claws back in 1988. Even forgetting the recent Wolverine: The Best There Is series, throw on top of those books Wolverine’s appearances in X-Men, Avengers, New Avengers, and even fucking X-Babies, I wasn’t exactly waiting with bated breath to bring my monthly Wolverine expenditures into the three figures.

But still, I picked up the first issue of writer Paul Cornell’s and artist Alan Davis’s new Wolverine, partially because I generally dug Cornell’s recent work on DC’s Demon Knights, partially because I’ve liked Davis’s work since Captain Britain and more importantly (to me, anyway) Miracleman, and partially because I co-run a comics Web site and part of my job is to read stuff that I don’t necessarily give a damn about and write about it.

And it turns out that that’s not a bad thing, because Wolverine #1 is good. Really fucking good. Better than the opening to about any solo Wolverine story in recent memory.

Particularly that first page, which is one hell of a cool shot across the bow.