Like Mother, Like Daughter: Silk Spectre #1 Review

I will say this about Silk Spectre #1, written by Darwyn Cooke with art by Amanda Conner: these are two artists who are bringing their A Game to the very possibly losing proposition of Before Watchmen.

This is a book that, at least generally, looks like Watchmen, reads more like Watchmen than Cooke’s Minutemen (which reads more like a standard DC superhero comic, only with Hooded Justice as Batman and Nite Owl as Batman and Captain Metropolis as Batman), and embraces the character-over-action ethos of Watchmen, and what action is here is visceral and real-feeling, as it generally did in its parent book.

The book features a relatable and believable sixteen year old female protagonist, and a believable character in her mother, provided you believe that any WASPy community middle-1960s suburban community would accept a Polish former softcore porn star and her Jewish husband… but it also portrays that community being intolerant of the “family” in a way that feels realistic… for 1966. If it took place anytime after 1988, Sally Jupiter’s house would be surrounded by teenaged boys with copies of She Devils In Silk whimpering for an autograph and praying she understood that “autograph” was shorthand for “handjob.” But I digress.

My point is that, God help me, Silk Spectre #1 is a good comic book. However, it is a good comic book that takes place in the Watchmen universe, and I’m not sure my prejudices in favor of the original will ever allow me to rank one of these Before Watchmen books as great.

Does Whatever A… I Mean Those… Er, Them… Screw It – Spider Things Do (Or Does)

Well, it’s Wednesday, which means that Marvel, possibly stinging from the large-scale publicity blitz that comes from DC releasing prequels to the most critically acclaimed comic series of all time, has responded by doing the obvious and saying, “Fuck it; if one Spider-Man is good, then two Spider-Men is arguably apocalyptically good. Particularly since one of those Spider-Men has been in, like, almost three fights in nine months! Now who’s up for another eight-ball!”

But regardless, be they more Spider-Men or more Watchmen, it is an interesting week for comics, which means that this…

…means the end of our broadcast day.

But it is an interesting week, is it not? Beyond the tentpole books, we’ve got Brian Wood’s new creator-owned Dark Horse book The Massive, a new Deathstroke by Rob Liefeld that Amanda has already called her nephew Little Billy to take an artistic run at, the latest Scott Snyder-written Batman in the thick of the Night Of The Owls summer event, and a ton of other good shit!

But before we can review them (and you have my word: the busy-ness of the past couple weeks that have kept our reviews down to a minimum should resolve itself this week), we need time to read them. So until then…

…see you tomorrow, suckers!

Peter Parker Taunts Flash Thompson With Basketball – New Amazing Spider-Man Clip

“Take it!” implores Peter Parker of Flash Thompson in this new teaser clip from The Amazing Spider-Man, as he holds a precariously positioned basketball out to the jock but never quite gives it to him. Somehow I think if I’d tried something like that with the school’s sport hero/bully I’d have been eating dirt. But, Parker does have those sweet, sweet spider powers to back his play.

Note to self – acquire sweet, sweet spider powers to back my plays.

The Amazing Spider-Man swings into US theaters on July 3, 2012. I’ll keep you all posted as to when I lock down spider powers.

Getting It Coming And Going – DC Announces Final New 52 Cancellations, New #0 Issues

As Rob pointed out this past Saturday, DC was in the process of cancelling four titles to make way for new series Talon, Team Seven, The Phantom Stranger, and Sword Of Sorcery. While only Justice League International had been confirmed at the time, DC has now also announced the cancellations of Voodoo, Resurrection Man, and Captain Atom. All four titles will have their own #0 issues in September and then get put to bed. I guess the good news is that Red Hood And The Outlaws and Deathstroke: My Secret Space Romance With Lobo will still continue to be published. I supposed illiterate people need stuff to look at and line hamster cages with, too.

But…but…what do we get in return for this great *cough* sacrifice *cough*?

Emotional Rescue: Avengers Vs. X-Men #5 Review

Avengers Vs. X-Men #5 is yet another issue of this series where they ramp up the pure, lunatic, schoolyard-level, “You know what would be fuckin’ cool?” ante-upping that has been a signature of this event since day one; I am convinced that if Marvel Editorial had forgotten to put an end number on this series, we would eventually see Avengers Vs. X-Men Vs. Defenders Vs. Justice League Vs. Watchmen Vs. Godzilla Vs. Enraged Gunship Jesus.

At times in this series, the pursuit of that adrenaline rush or hormone rush or whatever rush it is that gives twelve-year-olds boners has led to writing that has placed classic characters with well-established behavior patterns in situations where they act like they are loaded on adrenaline or hormones or writing a major summer crossover event. However, this issue’s writer, Matt Fraction, avoids some of the characterization pitfalls from earlier issues by focusing his character work on Iron Man (with whom he is intimately familiar), and by putting his attention to the needs of the plot… which is basically to have superheroes bitch smack each other stupid.

Considering how the past few issues of this series has gone, this is, at least temporarily, an inherently good thing.

We Interrupt Our Regular Programming For Thirty Seconds Of Pure Awesome

While we will endeavor to post a review of Avengers Vs. X-Men #5 later this afternoon, I wanted to interject that we recently had a birthday celebration here at the Crisis On Infinite Midlives Home Office… specifically mine. I recently turned forty-go-fuck-yourself. And co-editor Amanda warned me that I might have to wait for my gift… which she presented to me today.

Allow me to present, me.

Frozen in motherfucking Carbonite.

Isabel Fay, Troll Fighter

I’m not sure who “FunkyGibbon69” is, but his or her trolling of Isabel Fay’s YouTube Channel has inspired her to greater artistic glory.

If you’ve spent any amount of time on the Internet, you know that message boards can serve either as tools of intelligent discourse about a subject of common interest or as a gathering place for foul mouthed ass hats, who view the anonymity of the Web as license to spew hate. Usually spelled poorly at that. In some situations, trolling has gotten so bad that, as Tech New Daily recently pointed out, on June 8 “British woman Nicola Brookes won a landmark case in the country’s High Court. It requires Facebook to reveal the identities of members who were cyber bullying her online, even issuing death threats, because she posted in support of a particular musical competitor on “The X Factor” TV show”, according to The Daily Mail UK. While it’s impossible to completely police the Internet, one does wonder what kind of effect this will have on social media and message forum sites long term.

Meanwhile, Isabel Fay has chosen to go the humorous, rather than litigious route with her trolls.

Check out her video, after the jump!

52 Problems But A Bwah-Hah-Hah Ain’t One: DC’s Third Wave

We’re coming up on a year since DC Comics rebooted their universe with the New 52, and by the time that year ticks over, we’ll already be down to 42… which, knowing comics, will still not be the Ultimate Answer.

On top of the cancellations of original New 52 titles Men of War, Mister Terrific, O.M.A.C., Static Shock, Blackhawks, and Pile of Steaming Shit (Whoops! I meant Hawk And Dove! Damn those typos!) back in January, DC recently announced that they were cancelling Justice League International, rebooted from the 80s classic Giffen / Dematteis / Maguire title by creative team Dan Jurgens and Aaron Lopresti, at the one year mark. At that time, DC kicked off six new books to keep the number of monthlies at 52, merely for the purposes of marketing and not because Dan DiDio can only remember two double-digit numbers at once and can’t (or won’t) forget “69”, as has been rumored by sources I just made up.

Well, it is now June, and DC has just announced that they will be launching four new monthly comics come July, which means that barring additional cancellations, DC would be carrying 55 books, a number which Dan can’t remember, nor drive, nor use to easily keep track of the age of consent (We kid, Dan! Bring back your Sunday “We Love Comics!” panel at SDCC this year!).

However, let’s start with the new books launching in September:

Watchmen Strikes Again: Minutemen #1 Review

Minutemen, the first issue of the first book of Before Watchmen, by Darwyn Cooke, will, if it’s done even remotely correctly, be impossible to review objectively and completely until all six issues have been released. I say this, because after having read it four times back to back now, I went back and read just the first issue of Alan Moore’s and David Gibbons’s original Watchmen, and I realized that it is impossible for me to read that issue objectively because all I know is the complete work.

Here’s just a quick example of what I’m talking about: in the first issue of Watchmen, there’s a panel right after Rorschach leaves Dr. Manhattan and Laurie, where Laurie is on the phone with Dan Dreiberg, and in the foreground, Dr. Manhattan is smiling. Having read the whole series, I understand that Manhattan, who can see through time like Dr. Who or a common mescaline head, is smiling because he knows that Laurie will wind up with Dan and find happiness. There is no way I could know that having read just the first issue.

So when I see things in Minutemen #1 like Hooded Justice somehow disappearing a goon on one side of a block-wide warehouse, and then somehow within instants moving unseen to the other side of the block-wide warehouse and stalking across a catwalk up to the remaining goon, making the goon piss himself in abject terror as if Hooded Justice were Angry Jesus as opposed to a stocky BDSM freak in a homemade lucha libre outfit just fucking walking toward him, I need to calm my standard, “This is a Thing That Should Not Be” rage and remind myself that Cooke might have a goal for this story that is not currently apparent. And hopefully that goal is something beyond, “I like lots of money.”

More Amazing Spider-Man Goodness: “Cross Species Genetic Breeding!”

Ok, Rob and I have been arguing back and forth over whether or not Before Watchmen: Minutemen was a worthwhile read, or even a worthwhile project. Expect posts from each of us stating our positions, that may or may not include the words “Darwyn Cooke” and “goatfucker” in the next couple of days. In the meantime, MSN was kind enough to post a clip of new footage from The Amazing Spider-Man with the first meeting between Dr. Connors and Peter Parker. Check it out after the jump!