Phantom Stranger: Shocker

Phantom Stranger is something to be excited about as long as you don’t think about the title too much. Sure, it’s meant to elicit images of mystery and the occult… but unfortunately, it has that two-and-two syllable structure, which these days elicits something a little different. In 2012, it’s hard to say, “Phantom Stranger” without hearing things like, “Dirty Sanchez,” or “Cleveland Steamer,” or “Kryptonian Armpit Gank” (sure, that one doesn’t scan, but I never get tired of saying it).

But regardless of how it scans, Dan DiDio has sprayed a Phantom Stranger right into my fucking face, which means that this…

…means the end of our broadcast day.

But Phantom Stranger #0 is a strong indicator of an exciting week of new comics, which includes a bunch of DC New 52 anniversary Zero Issues, including Green Arrow, Green Lantern, Animal Man, Swamp Thing, Detective Comics and Action Comics! Chuck on top of that a new Garth Ennis The Boys, an issue of the best of Before Watchmen – Silk Spectre #3 – and somehow… somehow… a new issue of Fashion Beast by Alan Moore from the 80s… and you’ve got yourself one uniquely exciting week of comic books.

But before we can review any of them, we need some time to read them. So give us some time to recover from the Phantom Stranger by The Boys and wipe the Green Arrow off our upper lip, and until that time…

See you tomorrow, suckers!

Revolution 9 (Commercial Breaks): First Episode of NBC’s Revolution

Previously best known for shining an irritating spotlight directly into my hotel window during San Diego Comic-Con this year, NBC’s new sci-fi show, Revolution, is scheduled to air its Jon Favreau-directed pilot on September 17th. The show extrapolates what would happen if we lost electrical power, forever (my guess? I swill warm Jack Daniels while pitiably weeping before finding a bridge to jump from), and is widely expected to be a hit with genre fans who have been slavering for a program that will meet their desires for something that will kill time until The Walking Dead season three starts on October 14th.

But if you’ve been wondering if it’s worth the sectors on your TiVo hard drive, fear not: NBC has made the entire first episode available for early viewing online… and you can watch it in its advertising-driven goodness (I don’t edit them, I just rip the embed code and post them) after the jump. Call it a way to kill your lunch hour while waiting to get to the comic store after work.

Who Wants To Be An Avenger? Jonathan Hickman’s Avengers Lineup Revealed

We’ve known for quite some time that Brian Michael Bendis’s run on the various Avengers titles was coming to an end, and it was recently announced that current Fantastic Four writer Jonathan Hickman was going to be taking over the two main titles, Avengers and The New Avengers. But one of the burning questions leading into the transfer of power has been: after the Avengers Vs. X-Men event shakes out and Hickman takes over, who’s gonna be on which team?

Well, some of those questions have been answered, as Marvel has released the first three covers to Avengers, written by Hickman with art by Jerome Opena, picturing a pretty big gathering of superheroes (and, as did Pinocchio, I question the correct term for a gathering of multiple superheroes. For today, I will eschew “gaggle” and “pride,” and will go with “wad.”):

Paper Anniversary: Our First Birthday

There will be no new comic news or reviews today, because this is our one-year anniversary here at Crisis On Infinite Midlives. And after 366 days (thank you, Leap Year!) with at least some form of new content every… single… day, well, we figure we deserve at least one day when anything we read, watch or hunt down related to comics? We want to do it just for fun.

It has been one hell of a fun year, going from a blank spot on the Internet inspired by some dingbat in a Batgirl costume who fucked up a couple of panels we went to at San Diego Comic-Con in 2011 to a kinda established spot for comic reviews, interesting news, Brain Bleach and dick jokes. We’re read some good comic books and some epically shitty ones, seen publishers hit triumphant highs and ridiculous lows, and covered one or two exciting events along the way. And we’ve done all of it either half-drunk or cripplingly hung over, so take that, big comics press.

The Fantabulous Adventures Of A Couple Of Dandy Fops: Steed and Mrs. Peel #0 Review

For the second time in as many days, I am opening a comic book and diving into a mythology I know absolutely nothing about. I’ve never seen the British TV show The Avengers, I never saw the movie with Ralph Fiennes and Sean Connery, and I never read the Grant Morrison Steed and Mrs. Peel miniseries from back in the 80s. All I know about the British Avengers is that it is about super spies in the 60s, and apparently Diana Rigg used to wear a leather catsuit that made men out of every straight male genre fan older than me who isn’t already dead. Which I can understand, but as a child of the 80s with access to Skinemax, I never felt the need hunt up reruns on PBS to dive in and see for myself.

So I can’t address whether or not Boom Studio’s Steed and Mrs. Peel, by writer Mark Waid and drawn by Steve Bryant, is true to the original TV series or the movie or some purely theoretical Stud and Mrs. Kneel porn parody or anything else. I can say that, having seen similar shows like The Prisoner and Department S (of all things), Waid and Bryant capture the general feel of British television shows from the 60s and 70s, including wildly optimistic visions of the future, cheapjack-looking “special effects”, and about 50 percent more Nehru jackets than a 21st century man should have to contemplate.

So it feels authentic enough… but is it any good? Well, that all depends on if you actually like that sort of thing.

Tales From The Crypt Door: Locke & Key: Grindhouse One-Shot Review

I’m gonna have to start out this review by admitting that I haven never read Joe Hill’s and Gabriel Rodriguez’s Locke & Key series, which is a point of shame for a serious comics fan… particularly one who’s read and enjoyed Hill’s novels Horns and Heart Shaped Box… and before you start: yes, I can read books without pictures, smartass. I simply generally choose not to, which means that Hill’s novels must be pretty fucking good for me to break that habit. Either that, or I didn’t feel comfortable waiting for job interviews with a big Howard Chaykin trade paperback. But I’m getting off point here.

The point is that I knew nothing about Locke & Key other than its good reputation when I picked up the Locke & Key: Grindhouse one shot. I imagined that there were probably locks and keys involved, but whether they were of the door or the canal transit and-Florida-homosexual-mecca varieties, I had no fucking idea. And for all I know, the original story arcs are about either, both or all of those things. But this story is a period piece about criminals on the lam with nothing to lose, which is an effective and engaging throwback to EC Comics horror and crime stories from the 50s. And it’s really pretty damn cool.

Waffleface, The Vampire Slayer: Pinocchio: Of Wood and Blood Parts 1 and 2 Review

EDITOR’S NOTE: This review is based on a review copy of Pinocchio: Of Wood and Blood Part 2 provided free of charge to Crisis On Infinite Midlives by pubisher Slave Labor Graphics and writer Van Jensen.

Pinocchio is a bad motherfucker.

Pinocchio: Of Wood and Blood is the concluding chapter of Pinocchio: Vampire Slayer, which Amanda and I came across completely by accident at San Diego Comic-Con in 2011 at the Slave Labor Graphics booth. We picked it up based purely on the title – how can you not give a book named Pinocchio: Vampire Slayer a try? If we’d seen a book titled Cinderella: Street Vigilante we’d have bought that too – and were delighted to find an action-packed, funny story about Pinocchio and his puppet crew hunting down vampires by telling lies (think along the lines of, “I will take no joy in staking your dead ass and dragging it screaming into the daylight”), which grows his nose and gives him a handy, on-demand wooden stake for bringing the stabby.

Re-Reboot: Justice League International Annual #1 Review

EDITOR’S NOTE: One spoiler! One spoiler!

I’ve got mixed feelings about Justice League International Annual #1 which is the final chapter of the book and which depicts the dissolution of the team. It has a lot going for it, including the return of writer Geoff Johns to the character of Booster Gold for the first time since 2008, and Dan DiDio’s return to writing O.M.A.C., which was one of the most underrated and unfairly cancelled books of the New 52 relaunch. It ends the story of the team decisively and fairly satisfyingly, if suddenly, and spins Booster, Blue Beetle and O.M.A.C. into new directions that could prove interestingly in the future… or in the case of Booster, in his past.

The problem is, the issue does it, in several cases, by introducing sudden and drastic changes in a couple of characters’ motivations and personalities, at least in relation to how they were depicted in recent issues of Justice League International. Which makes a certain amount of sense – you switch writers, you get new interpretations… or in the case of Booster, old interpretations. There is a sense in this issue of Johns and DiDio sweeping in to conclude the book and reclaim their characters, all while muttering, “No, no, no… Goddammit Dan Jurgens, you’re doing it wrong!”

Rebound: Justice League #12 Review

EDITOR’S NOTE: I’ve had the blues, the reds and the pinks; one thing’s for sure: love spoils.

Well, that’s the end of the first year of the first post-reboot Justice League since Crisis On Infinite Earths back in 1986. That Justice League, at the end of its first year, had established itself as a solid action book with an interesting character-based humor element… and was already on its way to becoming far more focused on the comedy than it was on the action. It short, its best days were already gone by that first anniversary, having given or on its way to giving Guy Gardner a 70s sitcom level personality change, The Martian Manhunter an Oreo fetish, and Booster and Beetle a harebrained get-rich-quick scheme of the month.

So how does Justice League #12 compete? Well, by going in the opposite direction, coming out of an only okay character-based story while promising, in a Geoff Johns patented epilogue, action-packed tales including an attack by Atlantis, battles between Superman and Batman and Shazam, and a possible conflict between The Justice League and the recently-announced Johns and David Finch produced Justice League of America.

Oh, and it seems that we will spend some time witnessing Superman boning Wonder Woman. But you already knew that, and we’ll get back to that in a minute.

Anniversary Sex

I fully intended to put up a full review of Justice League #12 this evening to address the hookup between Superman and Wonder Woman, but I was unable to complete it in time because after reading it, I found myself unable to stop masturbating. Hell, as we speak I’m typing this with one hand, and you know what that means:

It means that this…

…means the end of our broadcast day.

However, being the approximate one year anniversary of DC’s New 52 launch, it means we have a bunch of cool shit to go over this week. We have annual issues for Flash, Detective Comics, and the final issue of Justice League International, along with a new issue of The Goon, the final issue of Brian Azzarello’s Spaceman, and a pile of other cool stuff!

But before we can review them, I need to finish looking at Wonder Woman and Superman and cranking myself chafed. Oh, and we need time to read them. So until the ointment arrives…

See you tomorrow, suckers!