No Nukes: The Fury of Firestorm: The Nuclear Men #1 Review

The one thing I’ll give the first issue of Gail Simone and Ethan Van Sciver’s first issue of The Fury of Firestorm: The Nuclear Men is that it compelled me to go on an all-day hunt for the 1978 first issue of Firestorm: The Nuclear Man.

I called my local comic store owner, who knows me by name and asks me not to come in to the store until my sinus infection passes and I stop dribbling green snot on the copies of Obama The Barbarian (or at least until I start pretending that I’m not doing it on purpose), but as good as he and his store is, he didn’t have what amounts to an obscure back issue just lying around. Or maybe he had ten of them, but allow me to refer you back to the whole snot-dribbling thing.

I had reached the point where I was willing to purchase it as my first digital comic from Comixology, who has the issue available for less than a buck… right up until I reached the point in my registration process when I discovered that they don’t take my credit card and worse: that I don’t own an iPad, so I couldn’t read their comics even if I wanted to. Sure, they have a Web reader, but if I’m going to blind myself I’m going to do it the old fashioned way: frantic masturbating. But I digress.

The new Firestorm made me want to find the old 1978 origin issue, which I haven’t read since I was seven or eight years old, because I have vague memories that Gerry Conway wrote the relationship between Ronnie Raymond and Professor Stein as an examination of the generation gap. And why is that something so important that it made me spend a drinking day hunting for a 33-year-old comic that’s nobody’s idea of a classic and when at the time I liked Nova better anyway?

Because if that element to the characters were, in fact, there, then I can extrapolate that Simone and Van Sciver made high school race relations a cornerstone of Firestorm in an attempt to modernize Conway’s original character intentions. If it isn’t, then this book just is a ham-fisted racial parable that’s a sparkly vampire away from being Twilight with nukes. Which is, actually, a book I would line up to buy. The new Firestorm? Not so much.

Geoff Johns Gives Aquaman A Hand: Review of Aquaman #1

According to USA Today, Geoff Johns has the following to say about Aquaman, the latest superhero to get the patented Johns Silver Age spit polish:

“Everybody around has at least heard of Aquaman, and they’ve probably heard all the jokes — the same jokes Aquaman’s heard — and they have their opinion on Aquaman,” the writer says. “Whether it’s good or bad, that’s what the book’s all about.”

All you need to know to jump into this book is

He talks to fish. And he swims.

What? I’m not going to need to bone up on my knowledge of The Elder Gods, the way I benefited from my previous knowledge of Greek mythology while reading Wonder Woman (which I still think was pretty awesome, but Rob resented having to, you know, know stuff)? I can just sit down and blow through this without having to think about it or have any real knowledge of the DC continuity? Really?

Ok.

Tell Me A Story. And Make It Good. – Review Of Teen Titans #1

Call me a pessimist, but after reading Scott Lobdell’s take on Starfire, Red Hood and Roy Harper in Red Hood And The Outlaws, I wasn’t entirely sure that Lobdell could write his own name correctly without the intervention of special education services. I mean, sure he’s been writing comics for over twenty years, but people also buy art made by zoo animals, so the fact that people kept buying his X-Men titles after Chris Claremont left Uncanny X-Men means they call Marvel fans Marvel Zombies for a reason places a, perhaps, suspect light on the buying habits of Joe Q. Public. However, I found myself pleasantly surprised by Teen Titans #1. Still, I’m going to proceed with caution; it’s just the first issue and we haven’t met all the players, yet.

Neither, Nor: All-Star Western #1 Review

I really wanted to like All-Star Western #1 because I was a big fan of Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray’s Jonah Hex, and if you were too, great to meet you! I was wondering who the other one was!

If you were a western fan the way I am – by which I mean you think “western” means “starring Clint Eastwood and directed by Sergio Leone” – then Jonah Hex was about the perfect comic. The stories were solid shoot-’em-ups, set in the wilderness and the boomtowns of the still-unsettled west, filled with saloons, crooked lawmen, morally-questionable entrepreneurs, and filthy, gunslinging outlaws. They were stories where then Men were Men and the Women were Whores with Hearts of Gold and Groins of Chlamydia.

And at the center of it all was Jonah Hex: a bounty hunter with a face like Clint if Clint never bothered to get that thing on his lip looked at. Fast with a gun, implacable, unstoppable. A man of few words and fewer baths.

You know: a fucking western.

Alas, to my disappointment, Jonah Hex was canceled last month to make way for DC’s New 52 and replaced with All-Star Western. All-Star Western stars Jonah Hex. However, All-Star Western is no Jonah Hex.

Professor Charles Xavier Explains It All For You

Just found this over at Comics Alliance. College Humor has published The X-Men Guide To Puberty by Caldwell Tanner, who you may also know from Five Easy Ways To Show You Don’t Give A Fuck. Read along as Professor X tell you everything you did, and maybe didn’t, want to know about your unholy mutant aberration rapidly developing body!

I remember when my mom said the same thing to me. I think it was shortly after she admitted she didn't really like kids.

Read the rest of the “What’s Happening To My Body Book For Mutants” here.

I’m Batman: Frank Miller’s Holy Terror Review

Wow. My two-day hangover tells me that Red Sox season finish was certainly worth staying up for. Let’s pretend that atrocity didn’t happen, and that even if it did that there was something we could do about it, and move back to comics, where the good guys always win, shall we? After all, if that kind of fantasy’s good enough for Frank Miller, it should be good enough for the rest of us.

I’m gonna withhold judgment for just this second as to whether Holy Terror is a good book or not and start with what will be obvious for anyone who reads it: this is a Batman story. It started it’s life as Holy Terror, Batman! when Miller announced it in 2006, and he maintained that it was Batman story until 2008, when he started telling people that it was about a “new hero [he] made up that fights Al Qaeda.”

Sure, Frank. A new hero. You made up. In a cape and a cowl. With a utility belt. And gadgets. And an archenemy who’s a cat burgler. With claws. Who has “nine lives.” And I’m sure it’s purely by coincidence that you technically pulled Batman out of your story about a vigilante who tortures and kills terrorists in 2008, when Warner Brothers was releasing The Dark Knight and making about a bajillion dollars. Sure you made it up, Frank… if by “you” you mean “Legendary Comics’ team of entertainment lawyers.”

So yeah, this is a Batman story. It started its life that way, and Miller clearly left the obvious parallels in there so we’d KNOW it was a Batman story. So let’s just treat it that way – none of the “The Fixer” or “Natalie Stack” or “Detective Dan Donegal” crap Frank ginned up to duck the lawsuit. It’ll just be Batman and Catwoman and Commissioner Gordon for the purposes of this review, partially because I think Miller wants it that way, and partially because I’m too damn lazy to keep flipping back through the book to remember pastiche names.

So anyway – here be spoilery chunks:

I’m Assuming There’s A Point

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story was updated 10/1/2011 with details about the fifth teaser. You can read more after the jump.

Earlier this year, Marvel rolled out the concept of a “Point One” issue of their books – an issue outside a book’s normal 12-issue run that would be written as a one-and-done book that wasn’t heavily tied into ongoing continuity to act as a jumping on point for new readers. Meaning that they’re old-school annuals, for all intents and purposes, but I’m guessing somewhere along the line Marvel realized “.1” is more attractive than “Annual”… or at least it is when you’re paying the printer by the letter.

Apparently the Point One initiative’s been pretty successful, and I tend to agree – we’ll probably be reviewing Black Panther 523.1 later week, and while we didn’t get a chance to review X-Factor #224.1, it was a tight story that was one hell of a way to get into the best X-Book you’re not reading. And it seems it’s been successful enough that earlier this week, Marvel announced a 64-page Point One issue for the entire Marvel Universe, where they’ll be teasing their events for 2012 and “the return of fan-demanded characters.” (But Marvel doesn’t reboot! Because Marvel makes no mistakes! And pay no attention to the fact that Bucky Barnes has been dead twice since 2005 while still co-headlining his own book!)

All week long, Marvel’s been rolling out teaser images for the one-shot, including stuff you’d expect for an event teaser, like Brian Michael Bendis’s and Bryan Hitch’s upcoming Ultron arc in Avengers and Matt Fraction’s already-announced Defenders book with penciller Terry Dodson… but they’ve also teased a return of Nova by Jeph Loeb and Ed McGuinness… and yesterday they teased, well… THIS:

“Beast In The Cave” – Not A Euphemism: Review of American Vampire #19

In March 2010, American Vampire debuted through Vertigo. The premise of the book is that in the United States a new breed of vampire has been born, one with that is faster and more powerful than its European counterpart. It’s also impervious to sunlight. USA! USA! USA!

The first five issues of the series drew a fair amount of buzz because in addition to stories written by creator Scott Snyder, there were also stories written by horror master Stephen King.

The initial arc follows the story of the first American vampire, Skinner Sweet, who was a deadly, notorious outlaw well before he was ever infected with vampire blood. It also follows the story of Pearl Jones, a struggling actress in the era of silent film, who Skinner saves from European vampires and turns into his first progeny. Both sets of stories were drawn by Rafael Albuquerque. Albuquerque’s a man who knows his way around an art panel. His stylized use of heavy contrast shading, mixed with pencil sketches, ink washes and more traditional inking, have given the books a look that sets them apart from other horror comics and helped to win the book IGN Best New Series of 2010 and an Eisner Award for Best New Series this year in San Diego.

Sounds good, right? Well, if for some reason you’re not reading this book yet – say you are from Brockton Mars, or have been trapped under something heavy for the past year and a half – Snyder gives you a great place to jump on with issue #19, The Beast In The Cave. Spoilers ahead.

Does DC Actually Care What Readers Think About The DCnU?

Does DC actually care about what new and returning readers think about the reboot of the DC universe? Well, according to Bleeding Cool, they’ve actually gone and hired Nielsen, who is most well known for its television ratings and surveys, to get the pulse on US reader and retailer reactions to the new #1s.

DC Comics have announced they have hired the rather respected monitoring company Nielsen NRG to survey comic book retailers and readers about the New 52 line – and who is reading it, what, why and how much…But as well as onlne surveys, they’ll be going into comic shops, meeting and talking to retailers and readers alike…the results may affect what DC will publish next. And results will be released next year…

If you want to participate in the survey, it can be found here.

Brain Bleach: Friendship Is Magic Edition

In the spirit of providing you with more disturbing art based on comic book characters, I thought I’d pass along this gem I came across while browsing the Reddit Comic Book subreddit (forum thingy). This is the work of Jodi Moisan. Jodi has decided to create art that brings together her love of all things comic book…and My Little Pony – the My Hero Pony. Behold:

Yay! Ponies! Now, I would also like a Transformer and a rocket launcher and a...