Mixed Martial Artistry: Batgirl #5 Review

The latest issue of Batgirl opens with a shot of Batgirl’s splayed-open ass and ends with her at about crotch-level to Bruce Wayne, who is in the process of preparing to beat her with a crowbar. In between, in at least three different panels, she is hit so hard her face is temporarily deformed – literally, the pretty is smacked off her face. If I had written this, my writing would be decried as reprehensible on every female-centric comics Web site in the world. This book, however, was written by Gail Simone, so y’know… women power?

Don’t get me wrong; I liked this book. It’s the start of a new story arc so it’s a good jumping-on point, it’s got a new villain we’re just beginning to learn about, some interesting character background beats involving Barbara Gordon’s mother, and plenty of action. And frankly, there is a lot of fairly graphic violence for a superhero book, and while I talked a little shit before, it was actually kind of refreshing; fighting crime in Gotham City would not be good for you. Plus, I’ve got a thing for redheads, so it’s got that going for it.

Some Walk By Night, Some Fly By Day: X-Factor #230 Review

A beleaguered detective agency. A hot blonde who doesn’t fit in. An ill-advised love story. A bizarre cast of supporting characters. Celebrity cameos. Breaking the fourth wall. Snappy patter by the bucketload. I finally figured out why I like X-Factor so damn much: it’s Moonlighting. Moonlighting with superpowers. And a more reliable production schedule.

X-Factor #230 is the second part of a decompressed storyline and there’s next to no action in it… but I wholeheartedly recommend it anyway, even for new readers. Because it is just so much damn fun to read, and that’s saying something for an issue where the male lead is dead, the female lead is depressed into inaction, and the only fights-and-tights action happens in the in-house ads for Avengers Vs. X-Men.

To bring you up to speed (Although Amanda is perfectly capable of doing so… go ahead; I’ll wait), Madrox The Multiple Man is dead… although he appears to be alive and jumping through multiple alternative dimensions. But his team at X-Factor Investigations isn’t aware of that, mostly because the evidence all points to his being dead… that evidence being that they’ve got his body in a Frigidaire in the conference room. It’s a tragedy… because that means the office beer must be sitting on a desk getting warm somewhere.

Cable’s Out: Avengers: X-Sanction #2 Review

EDITOR’S NOTE: This review contains spoilers. Also rage, but mostly spoilers. Look at it this way: it’ll save you four bucks.

God damn you for making me do this, Jeph Loeb. I defended you after Heroes hit the skids. I didn’t scream at you for Ultimates volume three. you brought Jason Todd back from the dead and I didn’t insist you take his place (Yeah, I know it was actually Clayface impersonating Jason in Hush, but you planted the filthy idea in Judd Winick’s head). I tried, man.

But Avengers: X-Sanction is so wretchedly and abysmally bad it boggles my mind. For a time travel story it is heartbreakingly tiny in scope. The storytelling is flawed and full of holes, and required every character involved to act like a complete fucking idiot. As an event, it makes me miss Fear Itself, which is like being nostalgic for a canker sore.

The Dame Wore Tentacles: Fatale #1 Review

I am probably not the best person in the world to review Ed Brubaker’s and Sean Phillips’s Fatale, because I’ve spent the past several months, on my wretched morning commute, plowing through old crime and detective novels. Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, Richard Stark; basically anything with a meaty crime in the middle of it that isn’t a comic book, if only so I dont have to attract a conversation with a comic book fan on a city bus. Have you seen us? We can be… awkward. But I digress.

The point is that someone like me would be the prime audience for Fatale, which if distilled down to its elevator pitch would be: “Philip Marlowe vs. the Cult of Cthulhu and Brigid O’Shaughnessy, provided Brigid’s powers of seduction were somehow supernatural in nature as opposed to the half-decent set of jugs that women need to seduce dudes in real life, by which I mean it’s okay if she only has one.”

So in short, I generally liked this book a lot… but someone like me is supposed to.

It Came From The Past – Revisiting Jamie Delano’s Outlaw Nation

Back in 2000, Jamie Delano, wrote a nineteen issue series for Vertigo called Outlaw Nation with co-creator Goran Sudžuka. In 2006, Image and Desperado Publishing released a 456 page bound edition of the collected issues, printed in black and white. The series is inspired by the idea of “Johnsons”, not a cock euphemism here but, rather:

Derived from a 19th century slang term for hobos and petty thieves, “Johnsons” were characterised by Jack Black in his 1926 autobiography as a society of “yegs” – outlaws and small-time crooks – who were nonetheless honorable in their dealings with one another and always ready to help out those in trouble. Black’s concept of the Johnson Family was inspirational to William S. Burroughs, who developed his own inimitable version in The Place of Dead Roads . . . to Burroughs, a person is either a “Johnson” or a “shit”. – Delano, from the introduction of Outlaw Nation, Collected Edition

“Shits” are lawmakers, “busybodies who persecute those engaged in victimless crime”. The “Johnsons” would see that put to an end.

Delano takes this idea and creates a vast collection of characters in an extended Johnson Family, outlaws and anti-heroes carved from every conceivable American cultural icon from the past 100 years and then some – Old Time Western Law Man, Hippie Chick (Now Older And Wiser), Biker, Saloon Owner, Lost War Veteran and more. They’re all here and all seemingly related.

In a week in which Marvel continues to drag out Fear Itself: The Phantom Menance The Fearless, in which I finally was subjected to saw the Green Lantern movie, and, in which the newly rebooted DC Universe has decided that it’s already so bored with itself that it needs to begin crossovers among its books to try and keep its readers interested and buying them, it’s safe to say that this five year old graphic novel was far more interesting than anything else that was in my pull pile or other viewing this week.

More, with spoilers, after the jump.

Occupy Gotham: Detective Comics #5 Review

EDITOR’S NOTE: Spoiler alert! No, not Stephanie Brown, I just ruin the story for you.

The first four issue arc of Detective Comics was one of the most pleasant surprises of DC Comics’ New 52: tightly written with an interesting new villain, excellent art, and with the best cliffhanger of all September’s comics where The Joker’s face is apparently torn off and nailed to a wall. And what was most remarkable about the run to me was that it was written by Tony Daniel, who is first and foremost an artist. Now we’re on issue five. And it turns out that as a writer? Maybe Tony Daniel is a hell of an artist.

This  issue really felt like Daniel said, “Okay, I put my all into those first four issues… now what the fuck am I gonna do?” He opens up with a riff on Occupy Wall Street – which means he probably only came up with this arc within the past couple of months – and since this protest is pro-Joker, it just falls flat to me. Don’t get me wrong, as a Watchmen fan, I am totally willing to accept the concept of a good anti-vigilante demonstration in comics, but pro-Joker? In Gotham City? That’s about as believable as a pro al-Queda rally in lower Manhattan, or a pro-Beiber riot in Max’s Kansas City. It just doesn’t ring true.

There Will Be Trouble: Robocop: Road Trip #1 Review

EDITOR’S NOTE: This review’s Prime Directives: Serve the public trust. Protect the innocent. Spoil the book.

Dear Marvel Comics: please hire Rob Williams back. His work on Daken: Dark Wolverine was compelling and entertaining. Amanda liked his Ghost Rider a lot. Hell, I think his Classwar is a damn fine book, and that was his first time writing comics. He needs you to give him work. We need you to do it. Because if you don’t give him something to do, he might write some more Robocop for Dynamite Comics, and I don’t think I can bear that.

I’ll start with the positive: this isn’t as bad as Williams’s last run on Terminator / Robocop: Kill Human a few months back. That, however, is not an endorsement; a massive concussion isn’t as bad as an impacted skull fracture, but ain’t nobody lining up for either of them.

Extra Pulp: Black Panther #527 Review

EDITOR’S NOTE: And once again, one last review of last week’s books before the comic stores open… and somehow once again, it’s about Black Panther. Although it might seem like it, Black Panther is not the last book I read every month. It’s just that since it comes out a week before Hawk & Dove, I need it to steel myself for the inevitable.

Black Panther has been canceled; the last issue of David Liss’s run is in two months, closing out the currently running Kingpin of Wakanda storyline. Which is a Goddamned shame on a couple of fronts, the first being that Liss has put together a great run of comics. The second being that, after all this time – I got an inkling of it back when I reviewed issue #524 a couple months back, but I didn’t totally get it – I’ve finally figured this book out. It’s old-school pulp, pure and simple.

A rich guy with a background in adventuring in the jungle, genetic superiority to normal men, who’s battling to defeat colonial encroachment? That’s Doc Savage when it isn’t Tarzan or Alan Quartermain. A rich guy who puts together a team of specialists to battle corruption in an urban jungle? That’s The Shadow –  yeah, okay; it’s also Batman, but if you look back at Detective Comics #27, Batman was also The fucking Shadow. Not to be confused with fucking The Shadow; that was Margo Lane. Or maybe Alec Baldwin. But I digress.

Gotham City, 90210: Teen Titans #4 Review

We’ve had a lot of fun at Scott Lobdell’s expense here at Crisis On Infinite Midlives because, well, if you’re gonna relaunch a tentpole character of the DC Universe as an blank-slated set of jugs trolling for cock, you kinda deserve what happens to you. Just because Starfire happens to be Snooki-orange doesn’t mean you need to write her that way. We’re just sayin’.

Lobdell’s writing on Red Hood and The Outlaws was such a juvenile misfire we almost dropped his Teen Titans book because, well, if a man opens up with a blatant Southern Trespass, you don’t stick around to see what he has in mind after he gets comfortable fucking you and decides it’s safe to try the weird stuff. Frankly, we only held onto it because Amanda liked Brett Booth’s art, and while the story did seem like it was born from the pitch, “X-Men! Only in the DCnU!” it had enough potential to at least see where it was going.

Well, we’re four issues in now, and I have to give credit where it’s due: it’s been a while in coming, but I actually enjoyed this issue. Lobdell might be a juvenile writer, but on a book about juveniles, it’s finally working for me.

Uncomfortable Examination: Witch Doctor: The Resuscitation Review

EDITOR’S NOTE: This review may contain spoilers. Hey, it’s not my fault that all the best, most quotable lines give away the plot. Blame the writer. Clearly he’s an asshole.

Don’t mock my faith!

Your god has no junk.

Yeah, Image is gonna get some angry letters about this one, Angry, poorly spelled letters with threats of “deevine retrobyushun.” Because for good or ill, writer Brandon Seifert makes some broad generalizations about the nature of deities – at least in the world of Witch Doctor – of the kind that some lead people to make “God Hates Fags” placards, and other people to begin to suspect, or at least hope, that Seifert is right.

My point is that, if you have the right mean and sick sense of humor, Witch Doctor: The Resuscitation is a comic well worth picking up, particularly if you missed the original miniseries and don’t want to risk fifteen clams on the recent trade without getting a taste first. Not sure if you have the right sense of humor? Okay: what was the last thing to go through Princess Diana’s mind? The steering column! Didja smile at that? Then you should buy this book. If you didn’t? Not only is this the wrong comic for you, it’s the wrong comics Web site.