Always A Bridesmaid: Batman #19 Review

Editor’s Note: Your have eaten Gotham’s wealth. Its spoilers. From now on, none of you are safe.

Is there anyone who saw the teaser for the WTF cover of Batman #19 and didn’t know pretty much automatically that it was probably Clayface impersonating Bruce Wayne? And more importantly, is there anyone in the comics reading world who really gives a tin shit about Clayface?

I mean, the concept of Clayface has been around 1940, and even after all that time, it’s not like Clayface is anybody’s idea of a classic character. Because even though there is clearly enough behind the concept of a shapeshifting supervillain to keep Clayface popping up now and again for the past 63 years, let’s face reality: there have been eight different Clayfaces since Detective Comics #40. The only reason to revamp a “classic” villain on an average of every eight years is if there is something fundamentally wrong with it.

The fact of the matter is “Clayface” is nothing but a set of powers behind a grotesque body, with next to no personality behind it. Hell, I’ve been reading Batman comics for 37 years, and I couldn’t tell you any of the Clayface’ origin stories, or what motivates them to crime as opposed to, say, looking at my dripping, earthy face and attempting suicide. Or maybe shifting into Brad Pitt and trying to impersonate myself into a better life (although if you’re old enough to remember Angelina Jolie back when she drank blood and was married to Billy Bob Thornton, you might think she’d be more into the whole monster thing).

My point is, I don’t think anyone really cares about Clayface. And Clayface is the antagonist of Batman #19. So the question is: does writer Scott Snyder finally do anything interesting with the character?

Short answer: nah. Not really.

Changes in The Weather: Stormwatch #18 Review

Editor’s Note: They try to spoil the world, but they make no effort to change it.

Do yourself a favor and don’t let yourself too pissed off about the fact that we’re staring down the barrel of yet another reboot within the pages of Stormwatch. Sure, it means that the continuity we’ve spent about 54 bucks on since September, 2011 is now an anomalous waste of money with no bearing in the DC Universe, and it means that we get to sit through our third or fourth origins of Apollo and The Midnighter since thinking impure thoughts about Britney Spears was icky for a whole different reason, and we’re now forced to buy into yet another mandate for the existence of a superhero team – first it was a United Nations team, and then they were self-built to save the world, and then they were the descendants of Demon Knights – on an infinite timeline we will reach the point where Stormwatch comes together in an elevator to bring justice to the real bastard: whoever farted.

So you will be tempted to spin yourself up into a screaming frenzy of rage over the fact that, only a year and a half after the New 52 reboot, Stormwatch #19 represents the team’s second full reboot – and it is a full reboot – in less than two years ago. And you might feel the urge to scream because you now need to get used to an almost completely different set of characters, from familiar ones like The Engineer to weird ones like, well, The Weird, who is probably only recognizable to serious 1980s Justice League International fans who read an obscure 1988 miniseries featuring the character – a miniseries that I don’t believe has ever been reprinted, and for which I now need to dig through God knows how many longboxes to find. And you could find yourself frothing over the changes to more familiar, classic Stormwatch characters that writer Jim Starlin has chosen to make – Jenny Soul? Really? Warren Ellis created Jenny Sparks as the Spirit of The Twentieth Century due to the rise of electricity, so the Spirit of the Twenty-First Century is Jenny Soul? What, did Bob Harras shoot down “Jenny Xenu”?

You might feel this rage – and clearly I am feeling some of it as well. But you shouldn’t feel it, for a few specific reasons that I will get to in a second. But mostly you shouldn’t feel it because the story doesn’t warrant it. Not because it’s an awesome story, because it certainly isn’t. It’s okay, inoffensive and talky on a good day, and it builds the team based on stakes that, compared to what brought Warren Ellis’s, or even Paul Cornell’s Stormwatch, barely seem to exist at all.

But you shouldn’t let it piss you off. For reasons that we shall discuss.

Bastard In Charge: Guillermo del Toro Confirms Constantine To Lead Dark Universe

We appear to have our Internet and cable issues resolved here at Crisis On Infinite Midlives headquarters, after a long and exhausting weekend digging around in wiring… and we recovered our connectivity just in time for Wondercon to be over. Which means that there is a ton of news that even we need to catch up on, and, having quickly scanned our RSS feeds, it only proves that it would have been smarter and better for us to just catch a Goddamned plane to Wondercon, because not only would we have first-person news to report, but at least our hotel would have had fucking Wi-Fi.

But we couldn’t let the Wondercon weekend slip by without reporting on at least something from the convention, and this is the main item that caught our eyes once we had full Internet: Guillermo del Toro held a panel for his upcoming movie Pacific Rim during the convention, and, as one would expect at a comic convention panel where they hold a Q & A session, someone asked del Toro about his reports that he’s working on Dark Universe – a movie focusing on pretty much all the big Vertigo / DC Dark characters.

Now, what one wouldn’t expect is that a director would say anything at all about a roject in pre-production, particularly at a panel about his latest movie that isn’t even out yet. However, this is Guillermo del Toro we’re talking about, and as the director of Blade II and both Hellboy movies, it’s safe to say that he’s one of us, which means he’s probably as excited about the concept of a Justice League Dark movie as the rest of us are.

While is a long way to go to say that: yeah, del Toro let a couple of things about Dark Universe slip.

FInal Crisis: Bruce Timm Leaving Supervising Producer Job at WB Animation

Well, this is a bummer, even though it was probably possible to see it coming based on the recent cancellations of Green Lantern: The Animated Series and Young Justice: Invasion by Cartoon Network and Warner Bros., but Bruce Timm, the guy who has been driving DC’s animated movie and TV efforts pretty much since Batman: The Animated Series started in 1992, is leaving the Supervising Producer job at Warner Bros. Animation. He’s going to be replaced by James Tucker, the guy who produced Justice League, Legion of Super Heroes and Batman: The Brave and the Bold, and he directed the upcoming Superman: Unbound movie coming from DC Animated Originals.

There’s no particular word as to why Timm is leaving beyond the wish “to develop some of his own projects,” but this news was kind of a bummer for Amanda and me, personally. The art centerpiece of the Crisis On Infinite Midlives Home Office Theater Room is a framed collection of two of Timm’s sketches, of Batman and Batman Beyond, respectively, with pictures of Timm drawing them for us… and with a bonus, a picture of Timm’s Batman: The Animated Series co-producer Paul Dini and his autograph, to boot. So to say that we are fans of Timm’s work with DC’s animated work would be a gross understatement. Just look up and to your left as proof.

But the important thing is whether or not Tucker is the right choice to continue Timm’s work on the generally excellent DC animated properties… and the answer seems to be: probably, yeah. Tucker seems to have a solid vision of what he wants to produce in the future beyond Superman: Unbound, and fans of DC characters who aren’t Superman or Batman are probably going to be especially excited.

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.

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.

Teen Titans Go! – Here’s The Crap That Is Replacing Young Justice

For the past two seasons, Cartoon Network has been offering a DC Nation cartoon block. The one hour block showcased two twenty-five minute length cartoons, Green Lantern: The Animated Series and Young Justice, as well as a variety of animated shorts ranging from a goofy take on Animal Man, voiced by Weird Al, a cute take on Supergirl, Wonder Girl and Bat Girl in Super BFFs, to an interminable anime inspired run of Amethyst: Princess Of Gemworld. While the Green Lantern series got off to a rocky start, with animation and storylines that seemed cribbed from The Clone Wars, it eventually did find its footing. Young Justice, meanwhile, was strong out of the gates and created a compelling ensemble story, proving that animation can be a vehicle that tells smart stories and isn’t just for kids.

Problem is – Cartoon Network and DC really only care about the “just for kids” part of the animation block. Neither cartoon series was moving enough toys and other merchandise to justify keeping it on the air, compounded by an uneven airing schedule that saw both shows unexpectedly pulled off the air last fall, despite having show times and episode synopses published for promotion. So, when DC Nation pulled the cord on the two series this month, it was hardly surprising.

Compounding the “no really, we’re in this to sell toys to the kids” vibe is the decision by the suits to replace these shows with Teen Titans Go!, an ultra child friendly version of the previous WB anime style Teen Titans property that aired back in 2003 and spawned a children’s comic, also titled Teen Titans Go!.

Check out the trailer for the new series, after the jump.

What The…: DC Reveals WTF Gatefold Cover For Batman #19

Several months ago, DC Comics announced that April would be their official “WTF Month,” in which every issue would include a special gatefold cover and a guaranteed moment to make readers say, “What the fuck?”

We here at Crisis On Infinite Midlives did not report on this exciting new development in the implied use of the word “fuck” when it was announced back in January because:

• We are busy people with a limited number of hours in the day to write about comics news, and not every marketing move by a major publisher is exciting news just because it implies the use of the word “fuck.” We are not immediately impressed by the word “fuck.” We fucking use “fuck” all the fucking time, for fuck’s sake.
• There have been plenty of moves by DC Editorial that have made us say, “What the fuck?” without requiring a special stamp on any special cover.
• The whole thing sounded pretty fucking contrived. We could just picture scripts being sent back to writers with “bigger fuck!” written in classic “Harras Red” ink.
• Fuck it.

Well, despite our initial feeling of, “meh,” DC has continued with their plan, and today they released the first complete gatefold “WTF” cover, for Batman #19, by artist Greg Capullo. And you can see the full cover, gatefold and all, after the jump.

Silent Lucidity: Batman & Robin #18 Review

When DC leaked the news last month that Grant Morrison would be killing Damian Wayne in Batman Incorporated #8, the company claimed that the character’s death would resonate across the main Batman Family titles, despite Batman Incorporated existing, since the New 52 reboot, in some strange continuity bubble that seems to lie outside of the New 52, and based on some weird editorial philosophy where all major decisions are tagged with the phrase, “…but keep Grant Morrison happy.” In that spirit, one would think that, compared to the maintenance of continuity spreadsheets, last-minute story changes and line editorial late nights and headaches, it would be cheaper and simpler to just dump a truckload of peyote on Morrison’s driveway, but whatever.

My big question at the time of the reveal was: how exactly were the other Batman Family creators going to handle this event? After all, Batman and Robin’s battle against Leviathan from Batman Incorporated wasn’t exactly something that had been addressed in the other books, and it seemed like those other writers already had plans for upcoming story lines. Hell, before Robin’s death, Scott Snyder had announced he was embarking on a Riddler story in Batman before more recently announcing that instead he was gonna do a long-form Batman: Zero Year story focusing on Batman’s early years, and while Riddler might be a part of it, it at least seems like a change of plans.

But my biggest question, that I couldn’t address at the time without riddling the story with spoilers, was how this would affect Peter Tomasi’s Batman & Robin, what with the tiny detail that Robin’s name appears in the fucking title. And while other Batman Family titles have clearly just shoehorned Robin’s death into previously-planned storylines as an afterthought (last week’s Detective Comics simply mentioned it in a panel or two while Batman then went on his merry way attacking Penguin and Emperor Penguin as previously planned, and in this week’s Batgirl the death gets a page and a half before going back to Barbara’s fight with James Gordon, Jr), it’s gotta be hard to move forward with any previously-existing plans when one of the title characters is taking a dirtnap. You know, until someone kicks his carcass into a Lazarus Pit (and you know this will happen).

So given the early efforts of the Batman Family titles to apparently simply slot the fact that Robin is dead into existing story plans (Please note that I don’t know that this is the case. For all I know, Grant Morrison called a staff meeting with the Batman editors and creators a year ago and announced his plans over absinthe and some form of ritually sacrificed beast of burden, and it’s just the half-assed executions that make it look shoehorned in), I was half-expecting for Batman & Robin #18 to be a standard Batman story with maybe some weird-looking camouflage art to cover where Robin was supposed to be, and a headset quickly pencilled onto Batman’s head so it wouldn’t look like he was talking to himself like an insane person.

I was wrong about that. Instead, Batman & Robin #18 takes Damian’s death head-on, with the focus solely on Batman and how he is handling the event (short answer: badly), and makes use of a bold storytelling choice to make the reader empathize with Batman by almost forcing us to try to think about what we’re seeing in his reactions. Suffice it to say that, if Robin’s death in Morrison’s playground was a forced afterthought in some of Batman’s titles, it most definitely was not here.

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.