Don’t Mind Stepping Into The Twilight Zone: Carnage USA #1 Review

EDITOR’S NOTE: This review contains spoilers. Because I’m a bad man! And I keep thinking bad thoughts! But since I live nowhere near a cornfield, all I can say is that you have been warned.

People talk about the Spider-Man Clone Saga as if it was the low point of comics in the 90s… and those people are arguably right. But the problem with designating something as the worst thing ever is it makes it easy to forget, and sometimes wrongfully forgive, other things that were also awful, just not quite as bad. After all, it’s hard to bitch about a stubbed toe when it happens on the way back from a botched colonoscopy.

The Clone Saga was the worst. That doesn’t mean that Carnage wasn’t also truly, truly horrible.

A knockoff of Venom introduced at the height of Silence Of The Lambs mania who was probably created at an old-school Marvel Summit (Two guys in a Manhattan nightclub men’s room saying, “Hannibal Lecter as a Venom whatchacallit!” “Genius! Let’s gack up another rail!”), Carnage was unoriginal on his face.  And he became so prevalent and irritating that it only took Brian Michael Bendis two issues of New Avengers to have Sentry not only drag Carnage into outer fucking space, but also tear him apart. For a writer of slow, decompressed, all-foreplay comics like Bendis, that was the equivalent of hatefucking Carnage and wiping his dick on his knee on the way out. It was awesome.

Recommended Daily Allowance of Carnage

Man, what a busy week. It’s the end of the busiest season for Amanda and me at our respective day jobs, which sadly are not in the comics industry… but then again, that should be obvious considering that we still have jobs.

But as kicked as our respective asses are, we can finally relax for a single evening, because it is Wednesday, which means that this…

…is the end of our (admittedly meager) broadcast day.

But it’s only an evening of rest, because there’s just too much good shit in there to try to review this week: check out that new story about the unkillable, walking dead: Carnage USA! We also have a zombie story to read!

There’s also a new Battle Scars, a J. H. Williams’ Batwoman, the latest New Avengers, and Palmiotti’s and Gray’s The Ray #1!

All of which means that this is gonna be a busy week trying to review it all… but first we need to read some of it. So see you tomorrow, suckers!

Shaolin Ninja: Geof Darrow’s Wolverine #300 Cover

If you’re not an old school comics fan going back to the 80’s or into more indie stuff, you might not know who Geof Darrow is, since he’s done most of his work for the movies and TV. He started out in animation doing character designs for the Pac-Man Saturday morning cartoon, so you know he must smoke pot. Then he did the concept art for Neo’s biopod in The Matrix, so you know he must smoke laced pot.

Comics-wise, he wrote and drew Shaolin Cowboy, which has been out of print for years.  He drew The Big Guy and Rusty The Robot and Hard Boiled, both written by Frank Miller. And at the 2009 Boston ComicCon, he grabbed my 1990 first print copy of Hard Boiled #2 and used it to give some kid who he was talking to when I shuffled up an impromptu art lesson without my having to ask or buy something or shoot his loved ones in the face.

Room At The Inn? – The Punisher #6 Review

Merry Christmas, Frankie Brown Castle! Or at least close enough in that kind of “horseshoes and hand grenades” sort of sense. You know all about hand grenades, don’t you Frank? Of course you do.

Issue #6 of The Punisher finds Frank Castle continuing to follow the trail of the shadowy, yuppie criminal outfit, The Exchange. The trail takes him to an exclusive ski hideaway inn somewhere in upstate New York – where Exchange management is having some sort of winter spa retreat to discuss the “emerging Punisher threat”. How evil! And, yet, relaxing! I wonder if the rooms come equipped with Jacuzzis? Because that would be awesome! I totally want to work for these guys.

Or, do I?

Spoilers which may or may not incorporate mayhem, sausages and ketamine after the jump!

Jiu-Jitsu Hot Dogs: TMNT: Raphael #1 Review

When I was five years old, I ate a bad hot dog on Christmas Eve and spent Christmas Day hurling like an inveterate alcoholic on an Antabuse drip instead of playing with my shiny new Maskatron. The experience was so bad that I literally couldn’t even look at a hot dog for about ten years afterwards; the thought of them made me sick, even though I knew that I might like them if I could put the bad memories behind me and try them again.

It was in this spirit that I bought Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle: Raphael #1.

Intellectually, I know that TMNT started as a pretty hard-edged satire of Frank Miller’s Daredevil and Ronin, and that any humor in the book came from the inherent absurdity of turtles being involved in a ninja story played completely straight. And that I actually liked those early stories. And that there was a reason that those books were so sought-after in the middle, late 80s. I know this.

But then there was that fucking cartoon.

The Price Of Friendship – Hellblazer Annual #1 Review

Last night I got into an argument with a bottle of vodka and the vodka won. I woke up feeling pretty low, but you know who probably feels worse? Anybody who makes the mistake of palling around with John Constantine, that’s who. This is a fact that we are told goes back as far as Constantine’s childhood in John Constantine: Hellblazer Annual. “Suicide Bridge” takes Constantine back to his old stomping grounds in Liverpool. The mother of a long missing childhood friend is dying and his family would like him to work his mojo to determine what happened to her son, so she can die with some piece of mind. As is typical for Constantine, the search for answers never goes smoothly.

Spoilers after the jump!

Same Symbiote, Different Day: Venom #10 Review

EDITOR’S NOTE: This review contains spoilers, such as the fact that Venom rides Captain America’s motorcycle. Which you learned from the cover to your left. Damn covers have no regard for spoiler alerts. However, consider yourself warned. 

Stop me if you’ve heard this one: a guy walks into a Marvel comic, and he gets confronted by Captain America. Cap tells the guy that he’s out of control and he needs to be brought in, so the guy tells Cap that he’s always respected him and that Cap’s been a big influence on him, and then he punches Cap in the temple, steals some of his shit and gets away clean! Ha! Get it?

Oh, you’ve heard that one? Of course you have. It’s been a staple of Marvel Comics at least since Daredevil: Born Again. So much so that Mark Millar and Matt Fraction hooked it for The Punisher during and just after Civil War. And then Mark Waid took it for Daredevil #2 just three or four months ago. Hell, Daniel Way used it in Deadpool this fucking week. And now Rick Remender’s dusted it off for Venom #10. And considering all these characters wind up kicking Captain America’s ass when he shows up, it’s reaching the point where I’m beginning to think that Captain America’s Kryptonite is simple respect; if Baron Zemo had offered to shake Cap’s hand before shooting off that rocket, this book would take place in the Wunder Universum and everyone would be eating schnitzel right now.

This time around, Cap shows up to shut down the government program that hooked Flash Thompson up with the Venom symbiote. Unfortunately, Cap’s timing leaves a little to be desired, since Thompson is being blackmailed to do crimes as Venom by Jack O’Lantern and Crime-Master – because nothing proves you’re a master criminal like telling everyone you’re a master criminal. Ask Keyser Soze. But I digress.

Should You Have A Burning Need – Valen The Outcast #1 Review

I know we’re heading into December and that, as the season gets colder, we all try to find ways to keep warm. Me? I go to my day job and get money to pay for utilities, like gas and electricity to run my heat. Maybe I throw on an extra pair of socks and pop open a bottle of Bowmore. Scratch that. I definitely open the bottle of Bowmore. Michael Alan Nelson, on the other hand, burns books, specifically, his own. Why?

Even though I’ve been writing comics for seven years and have written over 120 single issues for dozens of series, most comics readers have never heard of me. Now, that’s not a woe-is-me-nobody-reads-me-wah-feel-sorry-for-me statement. Not at all. Let’s be honest. If you’re a customer and can only afford one comic, are you going with the book about a character you’ve been reading since childhood or a book by some guy who includes his middle name in his credit like some self-important twit? The math is simple. Childhood Hero > Self-Important Twit.

That said, I’ve been fortunate enough to have people take a chance on me and many of them can now be called my fans, for which I am incredibly grateful. I believe, as does BOOM!, that if you read one of my books, chances are you’re going to enjoy it and want to read more. The problem is getting enough people to pick up that first issue.

Um, ok. Seeming self esteem issues aside, this lead you to burn your own books in what appears to be some kind of publicity stunt? Really?

Yes, really. Check it out after the jump…oh, and some spoilers on the book in question.

Bitter Old Bastard: Amazing Spider-Man #675 Review

Okay, nobody panic, but recently someone was wrong on the Internet!

A couple days ago, J. Michael Straczynski posted a chart with a horrifying, Killington black diamond descent slope that he found at some undisclosed location on a Facebook page with the comment: “Sales on The Amazing Spider-Man since my departure. Just sayin’. ”

Now, here at Crisis On Infinite Midlives, we love us some JMS. We make it a point to hit the Spotlight on JMS panel at SDCC every year, and we’ve even watched Jeremiah because of his involvement, and not to watch the final career destruction and public humiliation of Luke Perry. Well, at least mostly because of JMS.

And there was a time when I would have cheered a post like Joe’s, because there is, in fact, a bright and shimmering line between JMS’s run on The Amazing Spider-Man and what came after. I call it a bright, shimmering line because to me, it resembles a steaming, stinking arc of urine: One More Day.

One More Day was abominable. It was a wretched and cynical move to eliminate Peter Parker’s marriage from continuity without rebooting the whole character… because Marvel doesn’t reboot! Making a deal with the devil to eliminate your past is just a minor course correction! And exposing your genitals to school children is just a form of enthusiastic mime!

And frankly, the early issues of Amazing Spider-Man after One More Enthusiastic Mime were almost as bad. A rotating writing and art staff, with some kind of apparent editorial mandate to chuck a bunch of villains for Spider-Man to fight and a pile of new tail for Peter to chase felt forced. Sometimes almost desperate. I mean seriously: Paper Doll? Who makes people thin and kills them? A little on the nose, dontcha think? What, did Dan DiDio throw a trademark on the name Teabag?

So yes, there was a time I would have been on JMS’s side with his post, despite it being so passive aggressive it makes a Jewish grandmother look like John Rambo. There were several months where I kept The Amazing Spider-Man on my pull list on a week-by-week basis. However, these days the book is exclusively written by Dan Slott. It’s gotten over it’s weird need to come up with new villains no one gives a shit about, and, recent only-okay Spider-Island event aside, it has been a source of damn fun comics stories. And Amazing Spider-Man #675 is no exception.

Getting Some Strange: The Defenders #1 Review

In a sentence, The Defenders is Matt Fraction trying to write Warren Ellis’s Nextwave.  Nextwave was some of the biggest, purest, dumbest comics fun I’ve see in years before or since, so there are worse things to aspire to.

Does Fraction succeed? Kinda. And for now, “kinda” is good enough.

For those not familiar, The Defenders was born as a team book back in the 70s, and they were the very definition of Nobody’s Favorite – a bunch of second-stringers, to the point they were led for a while by Marvel’s knockoff pastiche of Batman (Yes, there is another one besides Moon Knight). The book consistently came in behind Marvel’s big hitter team books, Avengers and X-Men, and died mostly unmourned in the early 80s. To give you an idea how a lot of people felt about it, one of the most recent revivals was helmed by Keith Giffen, J. M. DeMatteis and Kevin Maguire – the guys behind Justice League in the 80s, which was another team of inveterate second stringers – and, as they eventually did with Justice League, they played the Defenders mostly for laughs.

The original Defenders series was only notable for being a place where more experimental writers like Steve Gerber could run wild – they teamed up with Howard The Duck once, for Christ’s sake. And it seems to be in this spirit that Fraction is trying to ground his new Defenders.

The lineup is just about the same as it ever was – Dr. Strange, The Silver Surfer, and Namor, with Red She-Hulk thrown in instead of The Hulk, probably because Ike Perlmutter will be damned if he pays four people to draw The Hulk on a monthly basis. Fraction also throws Iron Fist into the mix; an optimist might say it’s because Fraction made his Marvel bones writing Iron Fist with Ed Brubaker… a pessimist might say it’s because he’s developed a taste for giving comics fans the fist. But I digress.