Play From Your Heart: Batman Incorporated #1 Review

Let’s start with the thing about Batman Incorporated #1 that stuck out the most for me: the next time some comics writer namechecks Bill Hicks for the sake of namechecking Bill Hicks, I’ll fucking glass them. Yes, the man was a genius, but that was twenty years ago; to put it in terms music people might understand, referencing Bill Hicks is the equivalent of trying to look hip by dropping Queensryche references. It’s irritating hipster behavior. Stop it.

Other things that should probably be avoided in order to prevent raising my ire include, but are not limited to: referencing old stories, some of them classics that were never meant to be part of current continuity, as a wink and a nod to the reader… and coming up with another “Bat{$animalName}” just because you thought that shit was cool when you were twelve, even if that new animal is pretty fucking funny.

Little things like this press my buttons, and they expose an endemic problem I am likely to have whenever I review a Batman comic written by Grant Morrison. He has been riding on gimmicks like this since the start of his run years ago, and they thoroughly turned me off. Because of this, I have an inherent bias when I read his Batman stuff; I expect to not like it, and therefore I start looking for things in the book to support that hypothesis. When the reality is, if I’m honest, there is a potentially decent Batman story at the core of Batman Incorporated #1… the only question is whether it will survive the comics hipster references that have collapsed Morrison’s prior Batman work under its own weight.

Feets Don’t Fail Me Now

Things are a bit busy today here at the Crisis On Infinite Midlives Home Office. Between an upgrade we need to run on a major site component on the Web server, and putting the finishing touches on our application for press credentials for San Diego Comic-Con, we are simply balls-out today.

So please forgive any outages you might see as we run the overhaul, and in the meantime, here’s the latest released television spot for The Dark Knight Rises, as well as three banner posters recently released by Warner Brothers for the flick.

And not only that, but we’ve got a sooper seekrit hidden The Dark Knight Rises one-sheet poster that could only be found by scanning the QR code at the bottom of one of the official one-sheets WB released last week. It’s a different kind of image than we’ve seen associated with the movie, and one that should appeal to foot fetishists and… well, probably just foot fetishists. Let’s just say somewhere, Quentin Tarantino is probably taking a break from firing off the cast of Django Unchained to look at this poster to do a completely different kind of firing off.

All are available after the jump.

I Never Get My Own Cult – Review Of The Unwritten #37

Let me let you in on a dirty little secret of mine: when I was a child, I had no imaginary friends.

“Yes, and?” I hear you saying. Also hearing things like “Big deal.” Ok, stay with me.

As a child myself, I would see the idea of imaginary friends all the time in movies or tv shows for kids. Some darling little urchin would get so involved in a world of their own building that they’d be swept away into The Land Of Make Believe, some magical place set up by their own brain that felt so real as to be so. Calvin had his Hobbes. Big Bird had Mr. Snuffleupagus (until the Stranger Danger hysteria, anyway). The kids in The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe cartoon had their group hallucination…whatever that was. But me? No matter how hard I tried to make it so, every time I opened up my closet hoping to find a mystic realm, all I found was a pile of laundry. Oh, and some dry dog food a mouse had been hoarding from my dog’s food dish. The hard slap of reality, brought to me by Purina.

So, I turned to books for my escape.

Then, with a little assist from somebody else’s printed words, I could lose myself for days or weeks at a time in an alternate world, surrounded by characters as vivid and real as any I’d have to actually interact with in the real world. Even now, a good book, or even better, series of books, is still my escapist avenue of choice. The characters in the books didn’t contribute to my bad day and their world is not the one with the problems I’m trying to avoid. What’s not to like?

But, in the end, I know when to put the book down. Whatever I’m avoiding, needs to be dealt with. Bills paid; bosses appeased. Someone has to be there to put Rob to bed when he falls asleep on the couch watching old pro wrestling documentaries, preferably before he spills beer on the couch.

So, what does this have to do with The Unwritten #37, written by Mike Carey with layouts by Peter Gross?

A look into the crazy world of Twihards…and comic book spoilers…after the jump!

Fantastic Voyage: Fantastic Four #606 Review

Editor’s Note: Come along and ride on a Fantastic Spoilage! 

First off, let’s stipulate that Fantastic Four editor Tom Brevoort was having a bad day when he recommended that an issue about alternate Nazi versions of the Fantastic Four be labeled as a Point One entry issue, rather than this simple, classic-feeling one-and-done about the core team performing the type of weird, over the top science adventure that is the team’s stock in trade. Yes, a bad day, and not simply colossally poor judgment, or perhaps rampant alcohol abuse. But more likely an off day. Sure.

Let us also stipulate that, while this is an entertaining and charming issue that services all four core characters extremely well and captures the feeling of a classic FF adventure, part of the reason it feels classic is because the plot has been done before. And done, and done, and done, both in movies and in other comics. The thing works, but it works because it’s hung on a proven framework… the same way The Magnificent Seven is cool, but mostly because it’s taken straight across from The Seven Samurai.

This Is A Video Of A Dog. Not Spider-Man.

The preview image on the video embedded after the jump is of a dog.

For someone to imply that it actually contains a bootlegged cell phone video of an extended six-minute trailer of the upcoming The Amazing Spider-Man, with not-yet-seen footage, would be irresponsible and potentially libelous.

We just really like dogs. Honest. There is no Spider-Man here.

Assembling: Justice League Dark #9 Review

Editor’s Note: won nigeb sreliops!

Before I say anything else about Justice League Dark #9, the first issue written by Jeff Lemire, I feel I must protest and state, with the authority of a seventeen-year two pack a day smoker who quit two years ago, that the only way John Constantine would be able to make it up the steps of the ziggurat we see mid-issue – a ziggurat in Peru, meaning a minimum of 5,000 feet above sea level – would be if Superman miracled his ass up there.

Other than that misstep, this re-reboot of Justice League Dark is generally effective, given that Lemire has the unenviable task of having to introduce a new status quo, including a new cast of characters, team raison d’etre, and mission, all in 20 pages. That is a lot of expositionally heavy work to have to do, and it does show in several places; for example, you can clearly see the man behind the curtain saying, at one point, “Oh shit; Andrew Bennett could wrap this conflict up in ten seconds. I have, let’s see… 20 words in which I can resolve that.” However, it is a generally promising beginning… with a few obvious problems.

The most major one being that, intentionally or not, the guts of the plot to this story is so close to that of the Avengers movie that one of them has to be getting an unintentional boner.

Ihre Papiere, Bitte, Or: Let’s See Some ID, Fat Indian Superman (If That Is Your Real Name)

San Diego Comic-Con is only six-ish weeks away, which takes it out of the ephemeral realm of “some thing I’ve been planning to do for 45 weeks” and puts it firmly in the area of “something concrete to look forward to other than the sweet, sweet release of death.”

That’s right: only six weeks before the biggest pop culture event of the year, with exciting comics news! Unparalleled access to the biggest comic creators and TV and movie stars! And random stops by red-shirted security goons, stopping you on your way to a photo op with a fat dude dressed as Batwoman, to ask for your papers.

Wait, what?

Curiouser And Curiouser…

It has been a busy day at the Crisis On Infinite Midlives Home Office, what with trying to get into the recently popular comic spirit and deciding which of our contributors will be turning gay (the smart money’s on Lance Manion, but I have a fiver on Trebuchet).

But time waits for no comics geek, so regardless of our handicapping of which member of the masthead is most likely to change teams, it is Wednesday, which means that this…

…means the end of our broadcast day.

But it’s a pretty decent week, huh? There’s yet another solid-looking Jamie Delano Crossed: Badlands, a ton of new DC stuff (including Jeff Lamire’s first issue of Justice League Dark), and the continuing Spider-Man: Ends Of The Earth story!

But before we can review any of them, we gotta read them. So until that time:

See you tomorrow, suckers!

In Case You’ve Been Under A Rock On The Internet Today – Marvel’s Northstar And Boyfriend To Wed

As Rob teased yesterday, the hot topic for both Marvel and DC recently has been upping the profile of its gay characters, either by increasing their numbers or the prominence of their story lines. Today on The View, it was formally announced that in Astonishing X-Men #50, Northstar and his boyfriend Kyle will indeed wed. Here’s your invitation to the joyous event:

After the jump, check out the announcement of the impending nuptials by Whoopi Goldberg on The View. Please pardon the unfortunate “Now Batman and Robin can come out of the closet” comment by Joy Behar. She apparently is unaware that Robin is Damien, Batman’s son. Also, she’s not funny.

Astonishing View of Gay Marriage: X-Men Announcement on Tomorrow’s The View

According to Amanda, the Crisis On Infinite Midlives Social Media Director and Marketing Guru, it is safe to say that if you are a devotee and regular reader of this Web site, the research numbers indicate that you are a comics enthusiast, a geek culture devotee, and an unemployed degenerate alcoholic.

And demographic point number three indicates that you will be home tomorrow, watching daytime television and sobbing into your Mad Dog 20-20 Red Banana Flavored Semi-Gelatinous Bevaraje (because calling it “Beverage” would imply that it was legally intended for human consumption). Which means I am the bearer of good news! You’ll be around to see Barbara Walters and the other horrible, horrible harridans of ABC’s The View announce some of the details surrounding this week’s Astonishing X-Men #50!