What About The Twinkie? or: Site Maintenance

We’re performing some much-overdue site maintenance today, and since we’re a two-person operation, that means that the editorial staff is also the IT staff. Purely by coincidence, we’re also the janitorial staff, the joy division and the town drunks. We’re truly a full-service comics operation here at Crisis On Infinite Midlives.

The point is that, not only might you see some weird-ass shit today (Dogs and cats, living together… mass hysteria!), but updates might be sporadic. Or at least more sporadic than usual.

Please bear with us, and we’ll be back to full operation as soon as possible..

What Happens When Batman: The Animated Series Meets The Dark Knight Rises?

Awesomeness. That’s what.

Over on The Mary Sue, Jill Pantozzi, who you may know as @TheNerdyBird on Twitter, recently shared this video mash up of Batman: The Animated Series and the sound footage of The Dark Knight Rises trailer (via Geek Tyrant):

It’s weird, but I somehow understand Bane better in this version. Maybe because I don’t have to look at the weird face mask/grill thing he wears in the movie:

That's some head gear! You need to look into other orthodontists.

The Dark Knight Rises is set to be released in US theaters on July 20, 2012.

Mixed Martial Artistry: Batgirl #5 Review

The latest issue of Batgirl opens with a shot of Batgirl’s splayed-open ass and ends with her at about crotch-level to Bruce Wayne, who is in the process of preparing to beat her with a crowbar. In between, in at least three different panels, she is hit so hard her face is temporarily deformed – literally, the pretty is smacked off her face. If I had written this, my writing would be decried as reprehensible on every female-centric comics Web site in the world. This book, however, was written by Gail Simone, so y’know… women power?

Don’t get me wrong; I liked this book. It’s the start of a new story arc so it’s a good jumping-on point, it’s got a new villain we’re just beginning to learn about, some interesting character background beats involving Barbara Gordon’s mother, and plenty of action. And frankly, there is a lot of fairly graphic violence for a superhero book, and while I talked a little shit before, it was actually kind of refreshing; fighting crime in Gotham City would not be good for you. Plus, I’ve got a thing for redheads, so it’s got that going for it.

How To Terminate A Terminator In One Easy Step – Rob Liefeld To Take Over Deathstroke At DC

According to Comics Alliance, comics illustrator and mangled foot enthusiast, Rob Liefeld, is set to take over both art and writing duties on Deathstroke from the current team of writer Kyle Higgins and artist Joe Bennett beginning with issue nine. This is a very interesting turn of events, particularly in light of the fact that DC also recently turned the writing of Hawk and Dove over to Liefeld from Sterling Gates (best porn name ever, by the way), a title on which Liefeld already had penciling duties, only to then turn around and cancel the whole damn thing. So, in order to save the title, it was necessary to destroy the title. Apparently.

Seems auspicious for Deathstroke, eh?

But, on the off chance DC decides not to send Slade Wilson off to the great Retirement Home In The Sky For B List Villains, how does Rob Liefeld plan to ruin plot the book that I’ve currently been enjoying for the past five issues?

Look, Ma! Deathstroke! No feet! After the jump.

Some Walk By Night, Some Fly By Day: X-Factor #230 Review

A beleaguered detective agency. A hot blonde who doesn’t fit in. An ill-advised love story. A bizarre cast of supporting characters. Celebrity cameos. Breaking the fourth wall. Snappy patter by the bucketload. I finally figured out why I like X-Factor so damn much: it’s Moonlighting. Moonlighting with superpowers. And a more reliable production schedule.

X-Factor #230 is the second part of a decompressed storyline and there’s next to no action in it… but I wholeheartedly recommend it anyway, even for new readers. Because it is just so much damn fun to read, and that’s saying something for an issue where the male lead is dead, the female lead is depressed into inaction, and the only fights-and-tights action happens in the in-house ads for Avengers Vs. X-Men.

To bring you up to speed (Although Amanda is perfectly capable of doing so… go ahead; I’ll wait), Madrox The Multiple Man is dead… although he appears to be alive and jumping through multiple alternative dimensions. But his team at X-Factor Investigations isn’t aware of that, mostly because the evidence all points to his being dead… that evidence being that they’ve got his body in a Frigidaire in the conference room. It’s a tragedy… because that means the office beer must be sitting on a desk getting warm somewhere.

Roll Me Over, Lay Me Down and Do It Again: DC Comics New New 52

Well, we knew it was coming – the DC brass all but told us it was – but DC’s New 52 is now the New 46.

DC has announced that they are canceling Men of War, Blackhawks, O.M.A.C., Mister Terrific, Static Shock, and, in the interest of at least some justice, Rob Leifeld’s Hawk & Dove, after their respective eighth issues.

But since DC’s multiverse includes 52 worlds, and because the only words that rhymes with “46” are “ticks,” “dicks,” and “pricks,” they will be releasing six new regular books in May, including:

Wednesday Night Fights

EDITOR’S NOTE, 1/12.2012, 10:20 p.m.: Three new Avengers Vs. X-Men fight promos have been added to the media gallery below!

It has been a busy and interesting week, including the release of a bunch of Avengers Vs. X-Men promo posters, which we’re just too shitfaced to post for you.

Don’t look at us like that.

Okay, since you’re so nice, and not calling us racist, sexist pigs (Don’t ask. Please).

Now that we have the business out of the way, it is, in fact, Wednesday night, which means this…

…means the end of our broadcast day.

But it’s a decent-looking take (Then again, so was last week’s and other than Fatale? Guh.): New Frankenstein: Agent of S.H.A.D.E. with O.M.A.C. guesting (More Goddamned periods to type? Seriously?), Bendis’s and Bagley’s Brilliant, Batman & Robin, and Crisis on Infinite Midlives’ favorite: The Strange Talent of Luther Strode!

Plus we’ve got new Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Batwoman, Batgirl, and many other female-friendly comics! That we read and enjoy (I told you, don’t ask)!

But to review them, we gotta read them. Which means: see you tomorrow, suckers!

Back In Thine Saddle: Simonson Returns to Marvel for Avengers

There was big news yesterday afternon from Marvel via their Next Big Thing liveblog with Brian Michael Bendis: starting with issue 25, the main Avengers title is gonna tie into the Avengers Vs. X-Men event for six issues! Wait, that’s not news… after Fear Itself and Avengers: X-Sanction so far, a Marvel event tie-in unfortunately sounds less like news than it does a diagnosis.

Then again, maybe not. Because Walt Simonson is returning to Marvel for the first time in around a decade to draw it. Not that image above; that’s a sketch for the Hero Initiative from a couple years ago, but I figured it’d be a nice taste of what we’re in for.

Cable’s Out: Avengers: X-Sanction #2 Review

EDITOR’S NOTE: This review contains spoilers. Also rage, but mostly spoilers. Look at it this way: it’ll save you four bucks.

God damn you for making me do this, Jeph Loeb. I defended you after Heroes hit the skids. I didn’t scream at you for Ultimates volume three. you brought Jason Todd back from the dead and I didn’t insist you take his place (Yeah, I know it was actually Clayface impersonating Jason in Hush, but you planted the filthy idea in Judd Winick’s head). I tried, man.

But Avengers: X-Sanction is so wretchedly and abysmally bad it boggles my mind. For a time travel story it is heartbreakingly tiny in scope. The storytelling is flawed and full of holes, and required every character involved to act like a complete fucking idiot. As an event, it makes me miss Fear Itself, which is like being nostalgic for a canker sore.

The Dame Wore Tentacles: Fatale #1 Review

I am probably not the best person in the world to review Ed Brubaker’s and Sean Phillips’s Fatale, because I’ve spent the past several months, on my wretched morning commute, plowing through old crime and detective novels. Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, Richard Stark; basically anything with a meaty crime in the middle of it that isn’t a comic book, if only so I dont have to attract a conversation with a comic book fan on a city bus. Have you seen us? We can be… awkward. But I digress.

The point is that someone like me would be the prime audience for Fatale, which if distilled down to its elevator pitch would be: “Philip Marlowe vs. the Cult of Cthulhu and Brigid O’Shaughnessy, provided Brigid’s powers of seduction were somehow supernatural in nature as opposed to the half-decent set of jugs that women need to seduce dudes in real life, by which I mean it’s okay if she only has one.”

So in short, I generally liked this book a lot… but someone like me is supposed to.