Episode 141: Exposition and Necrophilia

Yes, we are late after a weird weekend, but we still have a good show for you! A show barely prepared for, fueled by caffeine and alcohol, but as far as shows go: this is one!

Anyway, for the past few years, DC Films seems to have gauged whether or not to proceed making live action films of some of their lesser-known comics properties by releasing direct-to-video animated versions of them to see if they’ll stick. They did it with Suicide Squad three years ago, and now they’re doing it with the cast of the proposed Dark Universe movie with Justice League Dark, which was released last week.

We are big John Constantine fans (and kinda fans of the New 52 Justice League Dark), so we watched the movie and discuss the return of Matt Ryan to the role, how Batman fits into a mostly magical cast, why Black Orchid is almost literally filler, and why seeing Green Lantern being lightly tazed is almost always worth nearly any price of admission.

In addition: this week gave us the first two issues of what will become Marvel’s next event, Secret Empire. We have been nothing if not vocal here about how much a bummer Civil War II was, and now that we’re staring down the barrel of a story about a literal Nazi taking over the United States, well, we have strong opinions. And we even try to have those strong opinions without talking too much about current American politics.

As a palate cleanser, we also discuss Deathstroke #11, written by Priest, with pencils by Denys Cowan and inks by Bill Sienkiewicz!

But here’s the disclosures:

• This show contains spoilers. If you don’t want to know why spending a few months with Nazi Captain America might be a depressing idea, you have been warned.
• This show contains adult, profane language, and is therefore not safe for work. If you don’t want to explain to your mom why “catharsis: isn’t the same as some form of “reaching around”, then listen in your car or something.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:27:33 — 88.1MB)

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Thanks for listening, suckers!

Episode 134: Ragegiving

Last week was Thanksgiving in the United States, a holiday where family members travel for hours and miles to share a table with family members and take a moment to express gratitude for the good things in their life. Then they follow that moment with hours of barely-suppressed acrimony, sarcasm-dipped references to long-buried grievances, and barbed rejoinders about the political beliefs of family. They then disperse to Black Friday sales around the map, taking their frustrations out on fellow shoppers and leading to those awesome fight clips on YouTube.

Rob and Amanda did not go to any Black Friday sales. They did, however, read Civil War II #7, and they do have a comics podcast.

Due to vagaries of comics publishing (and the fact that Civil War II has been late almost since it was solicited), this week we not only discovered the result of the battle between Captain Marvel and Iron Man, but we began to learn the price that certain characters will apparently pay for their roles in suspending the Constitution, ignoring the First, Fourth, Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, contributing to the deaths of at least three Avengers and arguably sending the Marvel Universe on the road to literal apocalypse.

And we found that price to be wanting.

So we spend a lot of time complaining bitterly about:

• Civil War II #7, written by Brian Michael Bendis with art by David Marquez and Andrea Sorrentino,
• Captain Marvel # 10, written by Ruth Fletcher Gage and Christos Gage with art by Thony Silas, and
• The Ultimates 2 #1, written by Al Ewing with art by Travel Foreman.

But, since we can’t be negative about everything, we also discuss:

• Deathstroke #7, written by Priest with art by Larry Hama and Carlo Pagulayan,
• Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season 11 #1, written by Christos Gage with art by Rebekah Issacs, and:
• A. D.: After Death Book 1, written by Scott Snyder with art by Jeff Lemire!

And, the usual disclaimers:

• This show contains spoilers. If you don’t want to know what happens in Civil War II, just try to forget some of your biggest disappointments before reading it.
• This show contains adult, profane language, and is therefore not safe for work. If you said to your mom what we say about Civil War Ii over the Thanksgiving table, you’d be disowned. So get yourself some headphones.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:14:08 — 73.4MB)

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Thanks for listening, suckers!

Episode 39: Filthy Manny: The Time Lord Who Tried, But Couldn’t

This week we’re joined by our longtime contributor Lance Manion, who, similarly to Amanda, has been watching Doctor Who since the 1970s. So, being most of the way through Peter Capaldi’s first season as The Doctor, we talk about the season so far, what we think works and what doesn’t, and what we individually want from a season of Doctor Who.

Conversely, Lance has very little background in the character of John Constantine. So we revisit the just-aired first episode of Constantine, discuss the key difference between the leaked pilot and the aired episode, and how the show works for fans of the character and people who only know him as the guy who was a jerk to Swamp Thing.

We also discuss:

• Deathstroke #1, written and penciled by Tony S. Daniel, and:
• Arkham Manor #1, written by Gerry Duggan with art by Shawn Crystal!

And now, the disclaimers:

• Normally, we record this show live to tape. However, we had a technical issue this week, which required some sound post-processing and some editing. However, we kept it as close to live as possible to maintain the spontaneity.
• This show contains spoilers. While we try to yell out warnings ahead of time, assume that we will spoil any surprises you might hold dear.
• This show contains adult, profane language, and is not safe for work. Unless you want to explain to your boss what the “Tuscaloosa Armpit Gank” is, get some headphones.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:45:11 — 84.8MB)

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Enjoy the show, suckers!

One For The Faithful: Deathstroke #20 Review

Editor’s Note: And one last look at last week’s comics before the comic stores open late today… and it contains spoilers. But they are spoilers on a book that has been cancelled and lives no more. So do you really give a fuck? Thought not.

“So the final issue of Deathstroke was in this week’s take. You gonna review it?” I said.

“Fuck that,” my co-Editor Amanda said, “As far as I’m concerned, that book’s been over since Rob Leifeld took over from Kyle Higgins last year. DC editorial took a perfectly good book about a professional dealing with the perils of entering middle age and turned it into a book about some badly-proportioned, footless steroid head beating on space douchebags.”

“But Justin Jordan’s been writing the book for the past few months. Do you think it’s improved at all since then?”

“I haven’t been reading it.”

“Why not? Jordan writes Luther Strode, and you like that.”

“Yeah, but so what? It’s damaged goods. Taking over Deathstroke after Liefeld had his grubby mitts all over it is like watching a buddy get married to a whore. He might be totally in love and committed to making it work, but here ain’t a force on Earth that can make people look at her and not picture when she had three dicks in her mouth. Let Deathstroke go under and lie fallow for a while. I’ll try it again when it feels a little less… dirty. You review the last issue.”

Okay I will. Despite not having kept up on Deathstroke since Higgins left the book any more than Amanda did. Which means that I have no idea what the hell led into the events of this issue, which includes all the Usual Suspects you’d expect from a big Deathstroke story. We’ve got Terra, Rose (Slade’s daughter who became Ravager before the New 52), Grant (Slade’s son who became Ravager back in the 80s – c’mon, at least try to keep up), Jericho (Slade’s other son, who was a good guy in the 80s before becoming a bad guy in… ah, fuck it) and, well, Majestic (for some reason), locked in a epic battle to the death that requires some ugly choices, brutal methods, and one deus ex machina on Slade’s part.

Which is fine, but what matters is: is it any good? And more importantly: does it work as a final story? You know, with “final” in subtextual quotes, since ain’t no one really gonna kill a character that appears on The CW’s Arrow?

Casualties of Reboot: DC Cancels More Books, Shifts More Creative Teams

It has been 17 months since DC blew up their entire line of comics, shuffled all their creators around to different books, and blew up their entire history of continuity. You know, for everyone except Grant Morrison, who has been allowed to continue his Batman saga that started several years ago in Batman Incorporated like it’s still 2009… or sometimes, considering all the Silver Age characters Morrison’s shoveled into that storyline, like it’s still 1959.

And the New 52 reboot was an unqualified success. It put DC over Marvel, in both sales numbers and dollar earnings, for the first time. It refreshed the classic characters of the DC Universe for a new generation. Truly, those 52 books signalled the start of a thousand-year uncontested reign. Nothing could stop them. They would march to victory on a road of bones. They would drive their enemies before them, see them broken, and hear the lamentations of…

What’s that? DC’s cancelling six more books?

Whoops.

Because This Champagne Won’t Open Itself: Amanda’s Top Comic Book Picks For 2012

Happy New Year! Well, almost.

This year in comics has been pretty uneven for the Big Two. Marvel finally dragged its ass across the finish line to end the pain and suffering that was Avengers Vs. X-Men, leading to a reboot relaunch of most of its major titles under the imprint of something called Marvel Now! Whatever its actual intentions (sales!), Marvel Now!’s primary functions have to have an excuse to bring Jean Grey back as a teenager (hot!) and kill off Peter Parker (cold!). The jury is out with me on the whole concept right now. Meanwhile, DC has killed off many of its New 52 titles before they even made it to middle school (oh, O.M.A.C., we barely knew ye!). On the other hand, Scott Snyder has emerged as an architect of some vision with his “Death Of The Family” concept, which is currently impacting the Bat Family of books. I’m digging this story almost enough to forgive him for taking a break from Vertigo’s American Vampire…and Vertigo’s got enough problems right now.

So, where were the bright spots? Check out my picks, after the jump.

…Meet Oceans Eleven. Have You Kids Met Oprah?: Team 7 #0 Review

During the mid-90s, when Wildstorm was an independent publisher run by Jim Lee and before it because a launching-off point for Warren Ellis’s groundbreaking writing on Stormwatch and then The Authority, I knew it less as an imprint known for publishing creator-owned comics, and more as “one of those X-TREEM Image-type publishers that’s fucking up comics,” while I spent three or four years in mostly Vertigo-fueled superhero comics exile. Oh sure, I’ve read some of the old Wildstorm stuff in reprints, and have become familiar with some of the “classic” characters via the more recent Ellis and Ed Brubaker-written stories, but when it comes to a lot of the stuff from, say, 1994 through 1998, I’m what you’d call tabula rasa.

And having read Team 7 #0, by writer Justin Jordan and artist Jesus Merino, that is going to simultaneously bite me in the ass and make me wish I hadn’t spend my mid-20s sneering so hard at books that weren’t named Preacher, Transmetropolitan or Jonah Hex.

How To Torpedo Friends And Napalm Bridges: Rob Liefeld Loudly Quits DC Comics

Earlier this evening, an monumentous event happened in the comics world that can only be adequately described by the chroniclers of the two extremes of human morality and mortality: King James and Dante:

Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, That this night, before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice.

– King James Bible (Cambridge Ed.)

Try not to suck any dick on your way across the parking lot!

– Dante, Clerks

In short: Rob Liefeld has left DC Comics, in a fashion in which we all wish we could leave our employers: by apparently screeching, “Fuck you, I quit!” and telling the world the boss sucks on Twitter.

SDCC 2012: DC’s The Edge And The Dark Panel. Oh, and Neil Gaiman’s Returning To Sandman

First of all people of San Diego: it’s a fucking e-cigarette. It emits water vapor. So please stop passive-aggressively giving me shit when I’m using it on a public sidewalk, out of doors and approaching the convention center, by muttering, “Nothing I like better than a faceful of cigarette smoke blowing into my baby’s face…” Let’s clear the air here (ha!): my e-cigarette emits no odor and bothers no one, unlike your little bundle of squalling fecal production. And since my e-cig doesn’t even burn, the San Diego Fire Marshall even considers it less of a fucking fire hazard.

Okay, I feel better now. Now that we’ve got my personal news out of the way, let’s talk about what’s been happening at SDCC 2012 that doesn’t involve self-righteous self-absorbsion.

The actual programming at SDCC started in earnest yesterday, featuring panels on everything from homosexuality in genre fiction to Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part II. (Rob: This may be redundant. Consider editing. -Amanda)

Previews Are The Best Part: SDCC 2012 Preview Night

So Preview Night is past us now, and while I know it’s not even theoretically possible that it was busier than last year – after all, Preview Night passes have been selling out since about 2009 – it sure feels like it was. A few years ago it was possible on preview night for someone to, say, get ripped to the tits on Stone Arrogant Bastard IPA for four hours before he doors opened and then cruise around the floor, staging stupid and adolescent photographs with the Jabba The Hutt prop at the Hasbro booth. If you tried that now, you would inevitably stumble into someone waiting in a truly horrific line for an exclusive S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier playset, be unable to convince said line-waiter that you weren’t claim jumping, and wind up instigating a pathetic slapfight.

There is very little convention programming that occurs on Preview Night, so the action is centered on the main convention floor. The night’s original and intended purpose is to allow people who are attending the con to obtain exclusives, or who are looking for some particular, special item, piece of art or back issue, to have access to the vendors early and get the purchase out of the way so they can enjoy the rest of the convention. As such, any actual comic news is few and far between on Preview Night… but there is certainly some, and if there isn’t? There is spectacle.