Gardner & Dex-Starr: Red Lanterns #23 Review

I had stopped following Red Lanterns all that closely because, well, it wasn’t ever all that good.

I’m sure original writer Peter Milligan had some kind of message he wanted to convey about the destructive nature of hate, and a little something about violence toward women maybe, but I always felt like whatever he was trying to say was being gently masked by ugly monsters puking blood on each other while Bleez shook her ass at people while simultaneously denigrating them. And while I’m sure that description just lit up someone’s hidden and deeply shameful fetish buttons – you know who your are, pervert who found us by Googling “chemotherapy submissive S&M porn” – it really never did a lot for me, and I categorically deny that I’m just saying that as an excuse to click-whore for that lucrative chemotherapy submissive S&M porn dollar.

But I decided to give Red Lanterns #23, written by Charles Soule with art by Alessandro Vitti and Jim Calafiore, a try mostly based on this cover, which, after a couple of beers, seemed to me to depict Atrocitus losing a Declared Thumb War with some kind of energy demon, despite that demon’s obvious distraction from being skullfucked by Dexstarr.

(And before you ask, yes, I take my comics seriously. But after a week that brought us an event without an ending and a stack of comics so generally weak I felt the need to praise Scott Lobdell for writing a nearly actionless teenaged soap opera because it might be friendly to new readers, I think I might be suffering from a bit of disappointment hysteria).

So I cracked the book expecting more of the same weird action and musing about rage and tits… and make no mistake, some of that stuff is still here. But Soule has wrapped the whole thing up in a pretty believable and relatable tale about an undercover cop who’s in too deep and losing his moral compass fast.

Granted, it is a pretty believable and relatable tale that includes a talking cat, but what the hell.

Blackest Night: Everyone Quits Green Lantern

DC’s been releasing their May solicits over the past few days… with one exception: they’ve been holding back their Green Lantern solicitations. Which has led to a certain amount of anticipation, at least here at the Crisis On Infinite Midlives Home Office, because some of the best crossovers and events in DC Comics over the past several years have come from Green Lantern writer Geoff Johns in those books.

So we’ve been waiting for what Johns had planned starting in May with bated breath, with images and memories of classics like The Sinestro Corps War, Blackest Night and Brightest Day dancing in our heads. What would it be? Another big crossover? Rainbow Lanterns? A new Lantern oath involving the prominent use of the word “sack”?

Turns out, not so much. It seems that Geoff John’s next big plan for Green Lantern is to, well, quit the book.

And apparently it was such a good idea that every other writer on the Green Lantern books has made the same plan. That’s right: everyone is leaving the Green Lantern books.

Um… what the hell, Geoff?

Explosive Hemorrhage: Red Lanterns #7 Review

EDITOR’S NOTE: This review was written when the writer was extremely hung over. This has affected his mood, and his ability to remember if he has included spoilers or not. You have been warned.

Red Lanterns is one of the damnedest comics on the stands right now. Every issue I’ve read feels like it has some kind of underlying theme, some kind of Big Message it’s trying to impart. Issue one felt like it was hinting at the underlying motivations and effect of vigilante violence. The third issue teased themes of the effects of sexual violence. This issue intimates a greater examination of the vary nature of what it would mean to become suddenly superhuman. These are all admirable aspirations for a monthly comic book, and it would be exciting and interesting to read… if those themes weren’t buried in hamfisted storytelling that seemingly goes nowhere and gratuitous ass shots and brokeback poses. This book serves up more ass on a consistent basis than a back alley Chinese food place… in more ways than one.

I Never Thought This Would Happen To Me: Red Lanterns #3 Review

EDITOR’S NOTE: This review contains spoilers. It also contains at least three euphemisms for male ejaculation, several vulgar terms for female genitalia, and more than one filthy joke. With the entirety of Red Lanterns #3 being one of those filthy jokes. You have been warned.

I’ve read three issues of DC’s Red Lanterns now, and having done so, I have one obvious question: who hurt you, Peter Milligan?

What was her name? Sit on down, crack open a beer and tell Uncle Rob aaaaallll about that cooze. Get it out of your system. And then maybe you can get back to writing a superhero book that makes some fucking sense.

Red Lanterns #3 opens with a bat chick with big knockers (You remember Bleez, right?) inverted, look of terror on her face while she chokes on thick, viscous liquid, while Atrocitus narrates:

With luck, the pain will be intense.

That’ll mean it’s working. the gelatinous liquids of Ysmault entering her brain.

Sure, Atrocitus. I call mine “Old Sparky,” but “Ysmault” works too, I guess. Seriously, Peter: where’d you salvage that narration from? Your letter to fucking Penthouse?

Down At The End of Lonely Street

It is Wednesday, as occurs every week, and as with every other Wednesday, this…

…means the end of our broadcast day.

And if I were you, I might complain, but if you’re a regular reader of Crisis On Infinite Midlives, you too went to the comic store, and therefore also have a new issue of The Goon! Plus Action Comics #3, and The Goon! And the first issue of the rebooted (But Marvel doesn’t reboot! Or publish The Goon!) Uncanny X-Men, not to mention The Goon! Plus a parody of Fear Itself! And the Red Lantern blood shower girl, underneath The Goon! Not to mention new The Goon!

Hard to say what we’re looking most forward to reading, but we must take the time to read them so we can review them for you, and – holy shit! Is that a new issue of The Goon?

See you tomorrow, suckers!

Crisis On Infinite Midlives Podcast Episode 1: The Sack Of Justice

You didn’t ask for it. We didn’t want to do it. And yet we own microphones and whiskey, so Crisis On Infinite Midlives is proud to present our the first episode of our podcast: The Sack Of Justice!

EDITOR’S NOTE: You might ask what the title means. It means we had whiskey, and sack is a funny word. Don’t overthink this. God knows we didn’t.

This weeks topics include: the first two weeks of DC’s New 52 (Including Batgirl, Deathstroke, Detective Comics, Red Lanterns, Men At War, and Hipster Douchebag Superman – I mean Action Comics), Ultimate Spider-Man Miles Morales, Williams’ Batwoman and associated Bat Nipples, and Atomic Robo vs. Frankenstein: Agent of S.H.A.D.E. vs Hellboy!

Let’s make this a drinking game: every time you hear us slur or misname a creator, drink! Then by the time this is done, you’ll be as drunk as we were when we recorded this!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 36:52 — 33.8MB)

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Ring Of Fire: Red Lanterns #1 Review

EDITOR’S NOTE: This review contains immediate, thoughtless, prejudicial spoilers. It is even possible that the story has already been ruined for you. So you might as well keep reading.

If you’ve been a comic book fon for the past couple of years, particularly if you’ve been one who followed Geoff Johns’s Green Lantern saga from the Sinestro Corps War through the Blackest Night event of 2010, you are going to cream your pants over the first seven pages of Red Lanterns #1. Peter Milligan NAILS everything fun and cool about the Red Lantern Corps, so much so that at one point I stopped what I was doing and I told Amanda, “You know what? Red Lanterns has the opening I’ve liked best of any of DC’s New 52 so far.”

“That’s great, Rob,” she said, “But I’d appreciate it if you’d put the comic book away until after we’re done having sex.”

But I digress… actually, I don’t, because that seven page opener is as much a non-sequiter as the above joke was. It has next to nothing to do with the remainder of the story that follows, and frankly? If you’re one of those ephemeral “new readers” that the New 52 is supposed to be reaching, I’m guessing you’ll quit somewhere during those seven pages and never read the book again.

Because if you don’t already know the characters, their backgrounds and motivations, what you’re seeing as an introduction to the Red Lantern Corps is an angry kitty in a red jumpsuit who bites some space dicks (The aliens in question being dicks, not ACTUAL, dangling space wangs. And the aliens themselves aren’t actually penises, they’re DICKS. Oh, forget it.), and his owner, who appears to be Mike Tyson if he ate too many carrots and tore his own lips off to give his teeth room to reproduce in his own mouth. And you’ll close the book, say something like, “Huh. those comics people DO eat mushrooms,” and go back and read Harry Potter again.