Episode 89: Do You Want G’nort? Because That’s How You Get G’nort

Well, New York Comic Con was this week… and we were not at it. And what with the impending Home Office move, we were too busy to follow nearly as much of it as we would have liked. But still, we open the episode gamely trying like hell to round up some of the news and announcements from the convention… before realizing that there is one activity that no amount of bad scheduling or work commitments or lack of funds can keep us from experiencing: television.

This week gave us the debuts of the new seasons of The Flash and Arrow on The CW (or, as Rob continues to insist upon calling it, The DCW). And these debuts brought some interesting new angles to old familiar characters, like Arrow trying to find love, and The Flash trying to nuke a guy to death. So we discuss the episodes, some of the changes that seem to be in store for the characters in the coming season, who we think will die, who we think will receive either a power ring or villain helmet… and most importantly, how Arrow and The Flash seem willing to take standard superhero story tropes and turn them delightfully on their heads.

We also discuss:

• Dr. Strange #1, written by Jason Aaron with art by Chris Bachalo, and:
• The Amazing Spider-Man #1, main story written by Dan Slott with art by Giuseppe Camuncoli!

And, as usual, the disclaimers:

• We record this show live to tape, with minimal editing. While this might mean a looser comics podcast than you are used to, it also means that anything can happen. Like a discussion about how the best Inhumans movie would feature Lockjaw, a green screen, and piddling on a baby.
• This show contains spoilers. While we try to shout out warnings ahead of time, be warned that you will learn whether or not we were serious about The Flash nuking a dude to death.
• This show contains adult, profane language, and is therefore not safe for work. Do you want your employer hearing about the surgical alternative to Method Acting? You do not. Listen with headphones.

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Thanks for listening, suckers!

Comedy Of Errors – You May Ask Yourself: Where Is That GD Podcast?

Of all the weeks to be running into issues every time Rob and I want to sit down and try to bang out the damn podcast.

So, you may have noticed for the last couple nights we’ve thrown up a quick site business to explain the delay of our typical Sunday night podcast, which tens of you have come to know and rely on. If it wasn’t full on internet drought in the wilds of northern New England (and, frankly, how dare the White Mountains have no fucking Wi-Fi, amiright?), it was traffic and travel related. Tonight? Skynet. No, but seriously, Rob has run into an issue at his job he needs to stay ridiculously late for. I’d do the podcast myself, but I think we all know that while I’m good at saying really awful things at inopportune times, the show really needs Rob’s dick jokes to bring the whole thing into full focus. They say write about what you know and I am, well, dickless. It’s true. I checked.

It’s absolutely the worst time to find life hamstringing us like this; there are a lot of really interesting stories that have come out of New York Comic Con. For example, the attendance numbers at NYCC reportedly exceeded those of the San Diego Comic-Con. This year, 151,000 separate attendees all washed up on the doorstep of the Javitz Center. That is 21,000 more than San Diego. Given the crush of humanity that is the SDCC experience, I can only imagine what it must have been like to try to move around in that. It’s a mixed blessing. As more and more folks come out to see what all the geek fuss is about, the harder it is to actually get around to see all the panels, pros, vendors, and general weirdness that we’re all coming out to celebrate. NYCC has already set a date next year for October 8-11, 2015. The good news for folks who are specifically out to celebrate comics culture though is that there will be a special comics oriented edition in June on the 13th and 14th. This is actually a trend I’d like to see continue for some of the bigger cons. I hope it is a sign of more mindfully planned, better targeted convention experiences for fans going forward.

And then there is some of the news coming out of comics entertainment press in the past couple days.

I Hate Being Right All The Time

The New York Comic-Con is under full swing, and news is trickling out fast and furious. We reported yesterday about the announcement that Marvel will be releasing The Superior Spider-Man after The Amazing Spider-Man closes up show with issue 700, and how writer Dan Slott is playing things close to the vest as to what will happen to Peter Parker in Amazing Spider-Man #700, who will be under the mask in Superior Spider-Man, and what makes this version of Spider-Man darker than Peter Parker currently is. And in the course of our reporting, I spun out a couple of theories of what is going to happen and who might be behind the mask and why.

Well, that was Thursday’s big story. Yesterday afternoon, at the NYCC Marvel Now panel, Marvel Editor in Chief Axel Alonso revealed the cover to The Superior Spider-Man #2.

The Dame Said Ph’nglui Mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh Wgah’nagl Fhtagn: Brubaker and Phillips Announce Fatale

At Friday’s Creator-Owned Comics panel at the New York Comic Con, hosted by Robert Kirkman, who is arguably the poster boy for creator-owned books what with his walking away from Marvel at the height of his popularity and his 427 bazillion dollars of Walking Dead TV money, announced that Image Comics will be producing Fatale, a supernatural crime book by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips, the creative team behind Criminal, Sleeper and Incognito.

Tell us about the book, Ed!

“I’ve been wanting for a while to do something with a more supernatural element to it… ‘Fatale’ mixes what [Sean and I] do and all the ways we’ve poked fun at the noir genre. If ‘Incognito’ was us doing ‘What if Doc Savage, Dashiell Hammet and Raymond Chandler had all existed in the same universe?’ then this is a weird combo of James M. Cain and Lovecraft…

The story involves all these characters that spin around a woman who may or may not be the living incarnation of the femme fatale. Parts of the story are told from her point of view.

I’m gonna let you insert your own Cthuhlu / tentacle porn joke here. Because I am one classy motherfucker.

With A Magic Word: REBOOT! I Mean: SHAZAM!

DC’s Justice League panel at the New York Comic Con was held earlier today – well, they called it the “Justice League” panel, but it pretty much had every creator on the New 52 except for Scott Lobdell, who rumor has it was unavilable due to a prior commitment to be in a fetal position, rocking, crying and ignoring the constant ring of the telephone.

There were a ton of revelations in the panel, one of which being that DC didn’t open the panel to questions from the audience until more than halfway through, which is a MAJOR departure from the DC panels we’ve see at SDCC since 2006, where Dan DiDio has historically said, “This is a panel about INSERT SUBJECT HERE! Let’s take questions!” Thanks again, San Diego Batgirl!

But one of the other bigger revelations was that DC is rebooting and relaunching Captain Marvel.

More Justice of Fisting

DC Comics’ New York Comic Con panel on their Edge / Dark line of New 52 books happened today, and while we haven’t come across any specific coverage of the panel yet that we can cannibalize, regurgitate and spit back at it in lieu of actual journalism Rob: edit this shit out now. We can at least act like we know what the fuck we’re doing -Amanda

Whoops! Sorry, technical difficulties, folks! Sorry about that. As I was clearly saying, while we haven’t been able to diligently ferret out any details about what happened in the panel, DC’s Source blog helpfully published the covers to the upcoming Frankenstein: Agent of S.H.A.D.E. #5 and OMAC #5, by J.J. Jones and Keith Giffen respectively, which you can see after the jump:

But How Do You Really Feel?

It’s not all bad news at the New York Comic Con. Some of it is absolutely wretched news. And sometimes there is the odd apocalyptically terrible, awful, no-good news.

And then there is the occasional brain-dead, redneck, dumbfuck, “Hey guys! Lookit THIS!” news that would normally involve mescaline, a healthy infant and a 110-volt blender in a 220-volt socket news:

Announced [yesterday] at New York Comic Con, Image Comics announced [sic] that Rob Liefeld is returning Extreme Studios to active status!

Son of a…

Okay… so this is a… thing that’s happening… tell us about it, Robbie-Boy!

Who Wants To Give The Man A Second Glance

Hi. I'm Stan Lee. Like X-men? Yeah, I thought so. Daddy's got a new plan. I will own your children.

I’m not in New York right now. This bothers me on a certain level. New York Comic Con is in full swing. I’m not there. I’m drinking box red wine and listening to Skunk Anansie on a Friday night. I know one hundred ways to be a good girl, but none of them are putting me in front of comic book creators or cognoscenti right at this very moment. I keep pointing out to Rob that we are a Fung Wa Bus ride and an Avatar Press VIP Package away from rectifying this situation. He points out that he likes his interstate travel to remain upright and cause him to, you know, not die. Also, the cheapest Avatar VIP ticket is $275. Times, well, 2. I’d bring Rob with me, after all. Hello? I have a bar tab two blocks from my house. One block from that is the comic book store. The owner knows us and only mostly never closes early if he notices us wandering down the hill from our place at 6:45 pm on a Wednesday. Based on the motley, rather Mos Eisely like crew already gathered there by the time we make last comic call, most Wednesdays are a kind of impromptu con within staggering distance from where we already live. Why should I feel the need to cross state lines?

There Was No One Left To Speak Up

We here at Crisis On Infinite Midlives have decided that, no matter the cost, hardship or obstacle, we will attend and report on next year’s New York Comic Con. Because we feel that we have a responsibility. A responsibility to you, to us, and to every comic book reader who lived through the last 35 years of comics publishing. To prevent anything like THIS from every happening again:

Marvel then showed off the teaser already seen of the burning hoodie of the Scarlet Spider. “What’s this?” [Manager of Sales & Communications Arune] Singh said for [Spider-Man Editor] Wacker to respond “The worst costume ever!”

…and when they came for the people who fucking hated the Clone Saga, there was no one left to speak up.

Sorry, that was unnecessarily pessimistic. Hell, they made FUN of the Scarlet Spider, right? Maybe things’ll be okay, right? RIGHT?

That exchange prompted the announcement of a new “Scarlet Spider” ongoing by writer Chris Yost and [penciler Ryan] Stegman.

NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO N-

*deep breath*

Okay, let’s all calm down. Maybe this isn’t all bad. Maybe they’re bringing the Scarlet Spider back to make fun of him. It could happen! Maybe they’re making Ben Reilly the Forbush Man of the Spider-Man books! It’s a light-hearted gag! They can’t possibly be taking this seriously, right? RIGHT?

The Lamentations Of Their Artist

The first big announcement from the New York Comic Con came from Dark Horse Comics yesterday, when they announced the new creative team for the upcoming Conan The Barbarian: Queen Of The Black Coast miniseries: Stan Lee’s lawyers!

Just kidding! It’s actually gonna be Brian Wood and Becky Cloonan, the creative team behind the Generation X-focused emo superhero book Demo!

Just kidding! It’s actually going to be – oh wait, that one was real?