New Comics: 1, New Superpowers: 0

Okay, holiday travel is finally over, and if you sat next to me on the plane yesterday evening, I humbly apologize. It turns out that eating alligator doesn’t give you any superpowers unless you count asphyxiating passers-by. But for silencing the screaming little bastard in 4F with a little impromptu unconsciousness? You’re welcome.

But we are all back at the Home Office in time to slough off ten hours of airline ball sweat and backscatter x-rays (Which also causes no superpowers unless you count this angry mole) and to make the local comic store to pick up this week’s take!

We’ve got a big week this week: new issues of most of the DC Dark books,  Brian Azzarello’s Spaceman, Warren Ellis’s Secret Avengers, Joe Hill’s The Cape, Ultimate X-Men, and a pile of other books about six inches high! Throw on top of that out upcoming review of the Barnes & Noble Nook Comics application, and we’ve got a big week as we get back on the horse… just in time for New Year’s when we fall off the wagon!

But to crank all that out, we need an evening to read them, so this means the end of our broadcast day. See you tomorrow, suckers!

Quick Hits – Wolverine And The X-Men #3, Green Lantern Corps #4, And Ghost Rider #7

Call this post “The Good, The Bad, and WTF”. Here are some books we’ve talked about before. Let’s check in to see how they’re doing now.

The Good

Wolverine And The X-Men written by Jason Aaron with pencils by Chris Bachalo, Duncan Rouleau and Matteo Scalera wraps up the opening story arc of Wolverine’s first day trying to run a school for young mutants. I enjoyed the first issue. Aaron continues to bring humor to this tale, now up to issue #3. He pens an engaging story that reminds the reader that your typical teen can be an obnoxious handful who believes deeply that they are the hero of not only their own story but everyone else’s. Still, all the kids want to do is fit in somehow, in his or her own way.

More goodness, badness and wtf-ness after the jump…and spoilers.

Batman And Bane Use Their Words

Howdy, folks! Crisis On Infinite Midlives is recovering from an overdose of holiday cheer here in the home office. Did you know that no matter how many times you put a bottle of Poland Springs vodka through a Brita filter…it still tastes like burning death? And if you drink the whole bottle, you’ll find yourself sharing your Christmas wishes with the porcelain god rather than Santa. It’s true!

However, the internetz were still busy compiling awesome geek goodness while I was fetal in the bathroom. Comics Alliance reported that Christopher Nolan doesn’t care if you can’t understand Bane in the new Batman movie.

The filmmaker has acknowledged that the dialogue may be difficult to understand at times, but told Heat Vision earlier this month that the visuals are meant to help carry the load, “Otherwise it’s just a radio play.” An unnamed studio executive elaborated, saying, “Chris wants the audience to catch up and participate rather than push everything at them. He doesn’t dumb things down. You’ve got to pedal faster to keep up.”

In a follow up interview, Nolan was asked, “Well, has anyone come forward and told you that Bane’s voice is awesome and you shouldn’t change a thing?” to which Nolan replied, “Yeah, your mom. While I was doing her in the sound editing room! Boom! Sick burn!”

Ok, that might have been funnier in my head when I thought of it. Stupid Poland Springs vodka.

Here’s something that’s funny though, after the jump.
Really. It’s funny. I promise.

Merry Christmas! I Bring You The Gift Of Cinema (Sort Of)!

Christmas celebrations are in full swing here at the Crisis On Infinite Midlives Home Office today. There’s a good chance you’re probably busy today with holiday related drunkenness celebration yourself! Good for you! However, if you’re not and home alone today, looking for something to take your mind off that fact, I have just the thing to make you feel better about yourself. Go get a beer or twelve and come back. You’ll need it for what I’m about to show you.

Have you guessed our little surprise yet?

Our Christmas present to you, after the jump!

This Is Not Gratutitous Self Boob Groping By Wonder Woman

Feels like I'm made of clay. Is it supposed to feel like that?

Xeni Jardin, of BoingBoing, recently wrote about an ad campaign in Mozambique that is a series of super heroines giving themselves breast exams to increase breast cancer awareness.

There is some controversy in the medical world about the value of breast self-exams. Even if it’s not the best way to detect cancer (mammography or thermography can “see” more than your hand, and many if not most lumps that can be felt are benign), I think more awareness and more data is generally a good thing. Even for superheroes.

As an aside, the ads are fun but I’m gonna guess that the creative team on this one was all-male…ever notice how public health ads about testicular cancer and prostate cancer don’t tend to feature fondle-y sexualized close-ups of those parts?

What? This isn’t “fondle-y” and sexualized?

Robin, quick! To the Bat Ball!

More breast aware superheroes after the jump.

Down And Outside The 616 – X-Factor #229 Review

Ed. Note: Look, I’m just going to warn you up front that there’s spoilers in this. Starting immediately. Merry fucking Christmas!

And you may ask yourself
How do I work this?
And you may ask yourself
Where is that large automobile?
And you may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful house!
And you may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful wife!
-T. Heads

Madrox, The Multiple Man, is dead. Long live Madrox, The Multiple Man.

And, if you’re Madrox, you may find yourself in a parallel universe. With a beautiful rented tux. And a beautiful wife. And you may ask yourself, “Well, how did I get here”? Especially if said wife is dead and you seem to be standing over your own corpse as well. Cue “MY GOD!…WHAT HAVE I DONE?”

More on what Madrox did or didn’t do after the jump. Also, there’s water at the bottom of the ocean.

Where’s Waldo: Amazing Spider-Man #676 Review

Dear Dan Slott: when I spend four dollars on an issue of The Amazing Spider-Man, I have only one expectation. It’s not that the art is always exemplary, or that it end on the finest of pants-shitting cliffhangers, or that it even showcase a member of the supporting cast in an entertaining fashion… which is a good thing since this book contains none of those things.

No Dan; I’m a reasonable man. All I want from an issue of The Amazing Spider-Man is that somewhere, somewhere in the issue there is at least one appearance of The Amazing Fucking Spider-Man.

That’s right – the only appearance of Spider-Man in this issue is on the cover. The only places the word  “Spider-Man” appears are on the cover, the letter column and the in house ad for next month’s Daredevil… where Spider-Man apparently appears more often than he does in this issue of The Amazing Spider-Man.

Instead of a Spider-Man story, what we have here is a battle between the Sinister Six – which I’m sure was a bitchin’ name back in 1964, but which in 2011 sounds like a moniker you adopt when you find out that someone’s already trademarked “Democracy of Douchebags” – and the Intelligencia (The name you grab when you discover even “Sinister Six” has been sponged off the bottom of the barrel).

Brain Bleach – In Which Captain America Speaks German Edition

Bleeding Cool is speculating as to whether The Hindustan Times has spoiled a surprise cameo in the new Avengers movie:

Casting is apparently underway for actors to dub the dialogue in The Avengers into Hindi for release against the English language version in India next April. The Hindustan Times (via CBM) have built a story out of this, specifically noting that sometime celebrity couple Ranbir Kapoor and Deepika Padukone have been offered a pair of key roles.

But which roles?

The Iron Man couple…Iron Man and his love interest Pepper.

 
Gwyneth Paltrow has publicly denied that she will be in the upcoming Avengers movie. Gwyneth Paltrow also likes to name her children after fruit. And thinks it’s possibly to “detoxify” the human body through Broccoli and Arugula Soup, among other things. It’s like she hasn’t even heard of that organ called a “liver”. Or, if so, certainly not my liver – which is probably the strongest muscle in my body. It’s godlike, I tell you. If she’s living on a diet of Broccoli and Arugula Soup, she’s probably light headed all the time and likely to say any damn thing, like “No, I’m not in The Avengers movie” or “Yes, Chris Martin, I will marry you despite your wuss rock” or “Yes, I should totally be in the Glee concert movie!”

You see? Completely batshit out of her head.

Oh, and I promised you Captain America speaking German. It’s after the jump.

Seriously. It’s after the jump.

Jesusfall, or: Apocalypse, or: LEONARD BERNSTEIN

The Aztec calendar says that the apocalypse happens next year, but the fact that yet another issue of Catwoman has found it’s way into another week’s new comics take…

…possibly means the premature 2011 end of the world. And if not, it totally means the end of our broadcast day.

But if you gotta go out, there are worse ways. After all, we’ve got the last issue of Butcher Baker Candlestickmaker from The Boys, Justice League #4, a new X-Factor, Ultimate Spider-Man #5, and a bunch of other cool stuff to bring us into the Christmas weekend!

And speaking of the Christmas weekend: both Amanda and I are traveling this week to spend time with either loved ones or people who will give us free shit without hissing, “What have you done with our family name?” Because of that, posting may become sporadic between now and the new year… and what we do post might be reviews of fifteen-year-old trade paperbacks we left in our folks’ houses around our college graduation (Hello, Death Of Superman reviews!).

But if we’re gonna get any reviews of this week’s book in, we need some times to read them. So in case shitty flights, rotten airport wi-fi and / or squinting parents muttering, “Why are you calling Spider-Man ‘Ultimate?’ And a ‘Fucking longwinded douchebag’?” slow our output…

Have a happy holiday, suckers!

Basic Cable: Avengers: X-Sanction #1 Review

EDITOR’S NOTE: And one last very quick review before the comic store open… and one that contains spoilers to boot. You are warned.

Okay, let’s start with the fact that The Falcon isn’t an active member of The Avengers. Not active, not honorary, not a Secret Avenger, not a West Coast Avengers… nope, not an Avenger. Which means that there is no reason for Cable to think that he would make an appearance in battle with The Avengers. Which means that the first step of his “master plan” against The Avengers is based purely on wishful thinking and the needs of Jeph Loeb’s plot.

But let’s assume that Falcon was a member of the Avengers, and that Cable’s plan therefore makes some sense on it’s face. Cable takes Falcon out with a sniper rifle during a battle that includes not only Falcon, but Captain America, Iron Man, the Red Hulk, Spider-Man and Wolverine, but which proves that Cable’s master, time-spanning plan was based on every science fiction movie ever made.