Occasional Personal Discomfort: Powers: Bureau #2 Review

This is a hell of a thing to say, but Brian Michael Bendis’s creator-owned books remind me of having herpes.

Hear me out.

To get herpes, you have to get laid (or really enjoy the taste of toilet seats, but I’m going to assume that if that’s your thing, this isn’t the Web site you’re likely to be visiting, what with the lack of the words, “girl” or “cup” in the URL). And that’s good. But then after a while, there is an itch. And that itch lasts for a good, long while, and while you’re waiting for it to pass, it is maddening. And then one day the itch is satiated, and that is awesome… until the itch comes back. And the itch stays for an indeterminate period of time, until the next respite. Which is great… but the whole time, you’re hesitant to get laid again, because as weird and satisfying as the agony-and-the-ecstacy cycle might be for you, it would be a hell of a thing to pass it on to someone else.

[ED. – Rob – this is STUPID. Bendis’s books have nothing to do with herpes. You just seem to want to write about herpes. Get to the Goddamned point… unless there’s something you want to tell me… Amanda]

Okay, here’s the point: Powers: Bureau #2 is the middle of a story in a book that is known as much for being delayed as it is for it’s general excellence. And this issue delivers the best of Bendis’s dialogue, with delightfully perverse imagery and some well-executed suspense and action, albeit with some leaps in logic and mildly confusing story points along the way. However, this issue was a week late from its last solicitation in November, and while the next issue is currently set for two weeks from now, I’ll believe it when I see it. So even though it’s a good issue, it’s like walking in mid-boink… and not knowing when the itching is likely to stop.

Call Me Snakeeye: Age of Ultron #1 Review

Look, let’s get the obvious out of the way right out of the gate: Age of Ultron #1 is what happens when you take The Terminator and Escape From New York, throw in a dash of John Carpenter’s The Thing and mix in Alan Moore’s Captain Britain for comics flavor, and chuck in a couple of superheroes.

You have seen flying killer robots ruthlessly enforcing order over the ruins of New York City while the citizens scuttle under cover and sell each other out for the favor of authority. You have seen isolated and paranoid people willing to turn each other out because there is a chance that they have been possessed by an infiltrator wearing their faces. And you have seen superheroes working from the shadows against an incredibly powerful authority figure while the general populace either cowers or appeases the dictatorial force. Frankly, given artist Bryan Hitch’s penchant for photorealism in his faces, I kept expecting to turn the page and see Mel Gibson in the background, telling Hawkeye that he can drive that truck. Or maybe Linda Hamilton, circa 1984, getting soft-focused railed by some filthy animal from the far future. For which I am available for photo-reference, Bryan. But I digress.

The point is, Age of Ultron #1 is not the place to go is you’re looking for ground-breaking, perception-altering science fiction. But it also doesn’t make any bones about that fact; of any book I’ve read in the recent past, this is one that wears its influences on its sleeve. And the good news is, I like The Terminator, Escape From New York and The Thing, so a story that’s obviously influenced by them isn’t gonna be a deal breaker… provided the story is rock-solid and entertaining.

So therein lies the question: is it entertaining?

Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto

It has been a tiring week here at the Crisis On Infinite Midlives Home Office. We are not only just now recovering from the Vulcan Midichlorian Flu (Hey- if the Goddamned President of The United States can mix his geek references, well, then he… was just stressed. We, however, spent a day or two double-seeing the ghost of Sir Alec Guinness filing down his fingernails, looking critically at our uvulas and saying, “I’m using The Force… prepare to let go, Luke… or whoever you two shivering dipshits might be…”),  but we are also in the process of making capital improvements of our IT infrastructure (or, for laymen: co-Editor Amanda just bought a blistering I7-processor computer with a monitor so large I’ve taken to despairingly calling it “The Wadd”),  all of which means that it is yet another week where our content production hasn’t been what we hoped.

But it is Wednesday, and that means that it is a big old “do-over” in the world of comics… particularly in the world of Marvel Comics, where a killer robot has taken over, meaning it seems that we are doing over The Terminator.

But regardless, Wednesday means new comics, which means that this…

…means the end of our broadcast day.

And frankly, beyond the first issue of Brian Michael Bendis’s and Bryan Hitch’s Age of Ultron, this is a quieter week than many. For example, we have the first couple of post-Rotworld issues of Animal Man and Swamp Thing, which, occurring after the events of Rotworld, are the epitome of “anti-climactic”… but on the plus side, there are also new issues of almost everything being written by Brian Michael Bendis that isn’t about Ultron. We’ve got Bendis’s Daredevil: End of Days and Powers: Bureau… but there’s also the first issue of Detective Comics following the events of Death of The Family, a new issue of Dan Slott’s The Superior Spider-Man, a new issue of Hellboy in Hell, and a reasonable amount of other good stuff.

But you know the drill: before we can review them, we need to stop drooling mucus onto The Wadd (context is for assholes) and take some time to read them. So until we stop sloppily servicing The Machine…

…see you tomorrow, suckers!

Finish Him: Injustice: Gods Among Us #2 Review

Editor’s Note: These spoilers take place before the start of the video game.

Years and years of reading comics have taught me that, with almost no exceptions whatsoever, comic adaptations of other mediums are normally not very good. Sure, there’s Alien: The Illustrated Story, and there’s the original Star Wars adaptation by Roy Thomas and Howard Chaykin, but let’s face reality: in those heady, pre-VCR days of 1977, they could have had Amanda’s cousin Little Billy draw the damn thing and we’d have bought it.

Even worse are the comic book adaptations, which are generally even worse than the TV and movie ones, dating all the way back to Atari Force which, despite the obvious nostalgia for the book by Ernest Cline, might have been an awesome read for video game fans, but wasn’t all that great a shake for actual comic readers. Hell, in 1984 I was a 13-year-old comic book fan who owned the first Atari on our block (back when it was the Atari Video Computer System, before they renamed it the 2600) and I still thought that comic sucked. And the reason video game adaptations almost never work is for a very simple reason: in a comic book, you are a spectator, but it an video game, it is you. And no matter how good the story in the video game is, no comic book ever really captures that feeling of you being in the driver’s seat.

And while I’ll readily admit that I generally don’t seek out video game based comics because, well, I don’t usually like them, there has been one in the past couple of years that was pretty damn good, and that was an issue of DC Universe Online, written by Tom Taylor, that took the conceit of a Green Lantern expansion pack in the video game and used it to examine some of DC’s Lantern characters, and some real questions of moral ambiguity. It was successful because it while it was ostensibly about the video game, it instead used the game as an excuse to make it really about the characters, who just happened to be in this situation. By completely ignoring the first person element of video games, Taylor succeeded in making a pretty good comic book.And this continues in his second issue of the comic adaptation of the upcoming fighting game Injustice: Gods Among Us. As a Mortal Kombat-style fighting game, most comic books about it would be wall-to-wall dudes in spandex smacking on each other. But instead, Taylor makes this book about the characters leading up to whatever causes the dudes in spandex to smack on each other in the game… and even though you will see more than a little of Mark Millar’s The Authority in this issue, it is still vastly better than a simple comic book adaptation has any right to be.

Re-Snoogans: Trailer For New Jay And Silent Bob Animated Movie

We are a couple of days late on this one, but we wanted to deal with it for a couple of reasons. The first being that we at Crisis On Infinite Midlives are big fans of Kevin Smith’s Askewniverse movies – a sneak preview of Smith’s Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back in 2001 was Amanda’s and my first night out together – and we will always have a soft spot for those first few movies from Smith, when he was a crappy 20-something making movies out of love, rather than a 40-something pothead leveraging his name for quick profits on what amount to stand-up tours and podcasts, who makes movies when the urge strikes.

The second being that the Crisis On Infinite Midlives Home Office has been invaded and laid low by the Bolivian Glandfucker Flu, meaning that watching and talking about cartoons is about the best that we can handle at this point.

So on that basis, we’re at least mildly excited about this trailer for the new Smith-produced (not written or directed, however; Steve Stark directed it and supposedly it was at least cowritten by Jason Mewes) movie, Jay and Silent Bob’s Super Groovy Cartoon Movie, which you can check out after the jump.

The Cat Is Dead: Dr. Manhattan #4 Review

Editor’s Note: The spoilers… the spoilers are taking me to pieces.

The final issue of Dr. Manhattan, written by J. Michael Straczynski with art by Adam Hughes, extends what is arguably the greatest comic book story of all time, provides additional perspective on one of that classic story’s great mysteries, and it does it with bold storytelling choices, both in the writing and in the art, that play on one of Watchmen‘s original themes of symmetry.

Or, to put it in plainer terms: Dr. Manhattan #4 is fucking awful.

Straczynski uses the framework of Before Watchmen – a book that was partially sold to a seriously skeptical public as a prequel that would not attempt to modify or circumvent Alan Moore’s original Watchmen – to completely blow away one of the key ambiguities of Dr. Manhattan’s story from the original. Further, halfway through the issue, he switches point of view to that of Ozymandias to show his motivations at a key point leading into Watchmen, but not only are they motivations that really have no real bearing on how that story turns out, but they are presented using a visual gimmick that makes the story difficult to read for no reason beyond either Straczynski, or Hughes, or both, making the decision to say, “Lookit me! I’m dicking around with the established language of comic storytelling! Why? Because fuck you, that’s why!”

There are baseball analogies that could be applied to Dr. Manhattan. “Swinging for the fences” is one, although it’s not really accurate. I’m thinking more along the lines of “Running onto the field and mooning the pressbox,” because Straczynski and Hughes are playing around in areas where they shouldn’t really be in the first place, and they’re sure as hell not playing the game by any of the rules that anyone wants them to.

Plus, there’s one panel where Hughes all but rubs our faces in Doc’s dangling blue wang.

It’s really not that good, guys.

Shark Infested Waters: The Legend of Luther Strode #3 Review

Editor’s Note: Did you know a young boy drowned the year before those two others were killed? The editors weren’t paying any attention… They were making spoilers while that young boy drowned.

Justin Jordan needs to stop, take a breath, and be very, very careful from here on out. Don’t worry, I will explain.

If 2011’s The Strange Talent of Luther Strode was inspired by a 1980 horror movie, then its sequel, The Legend of Luther Strode, is clearly shaping up to be at least somewhat inspired by a 1980s sequel to a horror movie: Aliens. I say this in the sense that, where Alien was a moody, claustrophobic story about an unstoppable monster picking people off one by one, Aliens instead was a big damn action movie that used the trappings of the original movie, like facehuggers, soldier aliens and acid blood, as a plot device to allow people to blow a bunch of shit the fuck up.

And for most of the first three issues of The Legend of Luther Strode, writer Justin Jordan has delivered a very similar experience. He has taken the details set up in the original series – superhuman strength and speed, the ability to see and foretell the physical effects of pending violence, and being pretty much all but bulletproof – and used them to set up not only big action setpieces of Luther stomping the crap out of gangs of criminals who are a motion tracker and a “Game over, man!” away from being Colonial Marine cannon fodder, but long battle sequences between Luther and similarly-powered Binder. Throw in Luther’s friend Petra – a regular woman with a surfeit of cojones running around this superpowered mayhem with just a gun – and Jordan even has his Ripley, albeit in a supporting role. All we’re missing is the damn ship’s cat and Lance Hendriksen… and based on his current filmography, he’d probably show up if Jordan asked nicely and offered a hot meal.

But if this latest Luther Strode series is, in fact, Aliens, then there must be an alien queen. And in The Legend of Luther Strode #3, we meet a contender – I say “contender” because halfway through the series is a little early to be really meeting the final Big Bad – and this contender is… shall we say, problematic. Problematic in the sense that his identity is such a bold move that it can really only elicit one of two responses.

Those responses being either, “Wow!”, or “…are you fucking kidding me?

This Would Be A Good Death: Batman Incorporated #8 Review

Editor’s Note: Holy Spoilers, Batman! …yeah, that’s all I got.

And with that, our long national nightmare is over. Maybe.

For the second time in my life, Robin has been murdered, only this time I didn’t get the perverse satisfaction of dialing a 900 number to strike one of the killing blows myself. Back in the late 80s, I called to kill Jason Todd because he had become a petulant, impulsive little snot who had slowly drifted into becoming a murderer. Conversely, Damian Wayne was introduced as a petulant, impulsive snot, who was a trained assassin before he even made an appearance on the page. Damian Wayne was hateful, an entitled, imperious little prince who, if you found yourself sitting in front of him on a crowded airplane, would make you willing to gladly do time in Guantanamo for attempting to rush the cockpit and crash the plane just to make the self-important yammering just fucking stop.

In the six and a half years since Damian was introduced (not counting his appearance as an infant in Mike W. Barr’s 1987 Son of The Demon, which also included the Batman / Talia al Ghul fuck scene I used in high school to stop the abuse I took claiming Batman was gay. It didn’t work.), Grant Morrison and other writers like Scott Snyder and Peter Tomasi have been somewhat successful in rehabilitating Damian, slowly edging him away from a kid you would happily pepper spray just to see the superior light in his eyes go out, and more toward a hero with a tragic upbringing that he is trying to overcome. Which is a long road to travel for a character who was designed to initially cause intense dislike toward him, but one that must be traveled to make his death, in Batman Incorporated #8, anything but a blessed, bloodthirsty relief.

Well, that road’s over, because the kid’s dead now – for the moment, anyway; after all, this is a comic book. So the immediate question is: does Morrison make Damian’s death poignant because it is the death of a hero? Or because you realize you’re reveling in the death of a 10-year-old boy?

…Every Day You Get One More Yard

So who’s spending all their waking hours nervously glancing at their smartphones, imagining vibrations or half-ringtones, praying fervently for an email from San Diego Comic-Con’s booking agent Travel Planners to find out whether or not they got the SDCC hotels they want?

Yeah, us too. And, being the even-keeled, patient types that we at Crisis On Infinite Midlives are, we made a measured and reasoned decision this evening while visiting our local comic store, where they know me by name and ask me to stop shrieking, “I’ll suck your dick for a couch to surf within a block of the San Diego Convention Center!” at the paying clientele, to remove the distressingly silent Android phones from our hands and fill them with glasses of tequila.

Which means that, even if we didn’t find out where we’ll be staying in San Diego, we did make it to the comic store, which means that this…

…means the end of our broadcast day.

But that is one hell of a take, huh? Starting with an Alan Moore / Kevin O’Neill installment of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen so new and relatively unexpected that even our local comic store owner wasn’t certain it wasn’t actually an arty sequel to Marshall Law, and continuing with the recently-spoiled Grant Morrison issue of Batman Incorporated, a new issue of The Legend of Luther Strode, a new Matt Fraction Hawkeye and last, but not least: Brian Michael Bendis’s first issue of Guardians of The Galaxy! Plus a pile of other good shit!

But before we can review them, we need to swallow the worm and have some time to read them through the double vision. So while we process the fact that this is the way we live on a Wednesday in our early 40s…

…see you tomorrow, suckers!

150 Seconds of Pant-Crapping Terror: SDCC Hotel Registration Is Complete

Our apologies for the dearth of content today, but is has been a busy one here at the Crisis On Infinite Midlives Home Office, between significant personal business, day job obligations… and, of course, the application for convention-priced hotel rooms at San Diego Comic-Con 2013, which occurred in a white heat starting at noon Eastern Time today.

Now, you can say what you want about the fact that, these days, you need to fill out an online form, list some favored hotels (this time, six. No more, no less)… and then wait for a few days to find out if you got what you wanted, what you were willing to settle for, or if you’ll be fighting for space in the men’s room stalls without the glory holes. And that’s after you have to wait for several hours after completing the online form just to get an email confirmation that they even received your application.

But I will say this: compared to the experience of reserving a convention room through Travel Planners, SDCC’s preferred booking agent or hotels, just five years ago, the current twitchy anticipation of waiting a few days to find out what you got is a small price to pay to avoid that tooth-shattering pure, animal rage that the process used to be.

Back in 2008, the Travel Planners site opened at noon on the appointed day… and promptly shit the bed like an infant on Seconal. It took me two and a half hours to get through to where I could actually purchase a room, and by then, well, I’m lucky that finances meant that we were looking for a hotel more than a mile away from downtown. That experience taught me: if you want to maximize your chances at attending SDCC, book a backup room that you can cancel later at a non-convention hotel within a month after the Comic-Con you just got back from… and no, I won’t tell you our backup hotel of choice. I know we’re a news site, but we’re not saps. Do your own damn legwork.

Compared to that pure hell, a little anticipation and apprehension is a small price today, because the process was surprisingly simple. During last year’s hotel reservation process, my browser chugged briefly when the site opened at noon, but I was able to get through the process in about three minutes… with a few minor complications.

So how was it this year?