Biting The Root: Scott Snyder and Yanick Paquette Leaving Swamp Thing

Remember yesterday, when Gail Simone got icked off of Batgirl? And I listed all the books from the initial DC New 52 that I could remember (of course, forgetting Joshua Hale Fialkov and Andrea Sorrentino on I, Vampire at the very least) and bemoaned the fact that so many creators and books from that first round of rebooted comics had gone down with all hands? And that I listed Scott Snyder as working on Batman and Swamp Thing?

Yeah, funny story about that…

Hey guys – was going to wait until we got a little closer to announce this, but yes, Swamp Thing #18 will be my (cont) tl.gd/ka763m

— Scott Snyder (@Ssnyder1835) December 10, 2012

Swamp Thing #18 will be your what, Scott? Your manifesto? Your articles of sessecion from the United States of America? Your Goddamned prom date? There’s a term for Tweets that are longer than 140 characters, Scott: it’s called a fucking blog post!

Hey, what’s that link at the end of the Tweet do?

A Clown Walks Into A Bar: Batman #13 Review

Scott Snyder spent a lot of his time at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con hyping his Death of The Family storyline as one of the definitive Joker storylines of all time… and at the time, it sounded like an awful lot of hype. Here’s what I wrote about his comments at the time:

“It really is our Killing Joke… this is an explanation of what makes The Joker special as a villain.”

“He will rape and kill… and do everything to break you,” Snyder said. “[We wrote The Joker] the most fucking twisted we possibly could.”

All of which sounded promising, but let’s face reality: there ain’t a comic writer alive lucky enough to get to write the main Batman title, with The Joker as the villain no less, who ever said, “The Joker? Fuck that guy. He’s no K.G. Beast, I’ll tell you what. So yeah; I fucking phoned it in… what’s that? Yeah, it’s spelled L-O-B-D-E-L-L…”

So the hype kinda slid off my back at the time, but now it’s three months later, and Batman #13, the first issue of the Death of The Family crossover, is out in comic stores. And sure, there’s been a lot of excitement over the story, and yeah, the owner of my local comic store, where they know me by name and ask me not to ask the paying clientele if they want a dose of my “Joker Venom and / or Happy Juice,” told me, “That’s the way The Joker should be written,” when he handed my my copy… but it’s all just hype still right? That’s the question I asked myself when I opened the book an hour ago, and…

Son of a bitch. Now that’s The Joker.

The Pretty Good Escape: Talon #0 Review

There are good and bad things to say about Talon #0, written by Scott Snyder and James Tynion IV and drawn by Guillem March, but in the final analysis, there’s only one thing about the issue that really, truly matters. And that is that there’s a panel of a child being chained up and straitjacketed by a clown that, no matter March’s intentions in drawing it, will make you wake up screaming like a woman.

But for now, let’s put that horrific image aside and focus on the comic itself, which gives itself an uphill battle to fight right out of the gate. Talon #0 not only has to introduce a character we’ve never seen before, but it has to do it within the DC issue 0 conceit of telling us backstory about the character… about whom we know nothing about to start with. So on one level, the book has kind of a strange feel to it, like meeting a stranger at a party and having him tell you about some childhood trauma. Perhaps the time he was savaged by a clown.

However, the book generally overcomes the obstacles that it sets itself, introducing a pretty entertaining character who gets a couple of good, funny lines, with a dark past I wouldn’t mind learning a bit more about, some hints about his upcoming supporting cast… even while it ties itself inexorably to an escape artist’s conceit that might be difficult to maintain over the long term, and tries like hell to get us to feel positively about a character not only trained as a killer, but who has at least one dead fella under his belt.

Plus, there’s a creepy menacing clown chaining up a child.

Put On A Happy Face: Batman Panel at SDCC 2012

Editor’s Note: I acknowledge that these pictures suck. We’ll upgrade our cameras once we receive your subscription check. Oh, you don’t pay for this? Then fuck you and enjoy the pictures you got.

Last year we kind of wandered into the panel for Scott Snyder’s American Vampire, mostly to make sure we’d have a seat for the DC New 52 panel that followed directly afterwards. Don’t get me wrong, we were following American Vampire in kind of a general way, but I had fallen away; the initial hype around one of the early stories being written by Stephen King hadn’t been enough to keep me in the book except in a “flip through when I happened to see it on the shelf” way. The point is that last year, we were able to walk right into Snyder’s panel without having to wait around in a line.

That was 2011. This year, Snyder’s writing Batman, which has consistently been one of the best books of DC’s New 52 and the source of the first post-reboot DC crossover event. So this time around, for the Batman panel yesterday? Yeah, we waited in line.

The Batman panel covered all the Batman family books, from Batman to Red Hood And The Outlaws… meaning walking in Amanda and I steeled ourselves for exciting news running the gamut from Batman’s post-Owls Joker encounter to Starfire’s post-Red Hood stranger’s penis encounter. However, weird former Teen Titan sex revelations or no, Snyder started the panel off with a laugh: “Avengers Vs. X-Men, who wins? Batman.” I hate it when my comic writers are funnier than I am. But I digress.

Faced: The Joker Returns In Batman #13

With San Diego Comic-Con literally right around the corner (we fly out a week from today, and I have my first airline system nicotine fit one week and three hours from today), I’d been expecting a dearth of actual comic news until then, since the big stuff usually gets held until the appropriate convention panels, giving fans good reason to attend and creators a wide sampling of attractive people in superhero costumes upon whom they can hit. Protip, creators: steer clear of anyone in a Batgirl suit. There may be… ulterior motives.

So here I was, thinking I’d have a week to recharge my batteries and prepare for the sensory overload that is SDCC by doing some quickie reviews and getting my drink on at a reasonable hour for a change, when DC Comics went ahead and announced yesterday a tiny little news item. Y’know, nothing anyone would be interested in. Just the course of the Batman main title (at least) immediately following the Night of The Owls event and opening up the New 52’s second year.

Starring The Joker.

52 Problems But A Bwah-Hah-Hah Ain’t One: DC’s Third Wave

We’re coming up on a year since DC Comics rebooted their universe with the New 52, and by the time that year ticks over, we’ll already be down to 42… which, knowing comics, will still not be the Ultimate Answer.

On top of the cancellations of original New 52 titles Men of War, Mister Terrific, O.M.A.C., Static Shock, Blackhawks, and Pile of Steaming Shit (Whoops! I meant Hawk And Dove! Damn those typos!) back in January, DC recently announced that they were cancelling Justice League International, rebooted from the 80s classic Giffen / Dematteis / Maguire title by creative team Dan Jurgens and Aaron Lopresti, at the one year mark. At that time, DC kicked off six new books to keep the number of monthlies at 52, merely for the purposes of marketing and not because Dan DiDio can only remember two double-digit numbers at once and can’t (or won’t) forget “69”, as has been rumored by sources I just made up.

Well, it is now June, and DC has just announced that they will be launching four new monthly comics come July, which means that barring additional cancellations, DC would be carrying 55 books, a number which Dan can’t remember, nor drive, nor use to easily keep track of the age of consent (We kid, Dan! Bring back your Sunday “We Love Comics!” panel at SDCC this year!).

However, let’s start with the new books launching in September:

Gotham State: Batman #8 Review

I have said before that the Court of Owls storyline in Batman has followed a familiar and well-trod path that was previously laid down in stories like The Cult: Batman is overwhelmed by an implacable foe and imprisoned. Batman is psychologically broken down. Batman escapes and returns to his cave to cower for a while. The villain that broke Batman begins to run amok in Gotham City. Batman mopes around and listens to The Shins until Natalie Portman teaches him what it’s like to really feel. Wait, something there’s not quite right… I meant Batman returns to his cave and snivels. I think. Maybe. Whatever.

Anyway, Batman #8 continues following that classic old chestnut of an arc by starting the part of the story where Batman locates and reattachs his balls, and begins his counterattack against the villain who broke him. Based on what has come before, both in this story arc and in the similar stories that preceeded and clearly inspired it, this is expected and as predictable as night following day or Natalie Portman being introduced in a meet cute in any movie in which she appears that doesn’t include ballet or lightsabers.

Just because it is predictable, however, does not mean that it is boring. Because Jesus Christ, this is an intense and fun comic book… provided you can stop yourself from saying with every page turn, “I read this when it was written by Jim Starlin, drawn by Bernie Wrightson, and Natalie Portman was meeting cute with French assassins and posssibly the occasional delighted sweaty ‘fan’  in a stained raincoat.”

Deductive Reasoning: Batman #7 Review

EDITOR’S NOTE: It’s New Comics day, and we didn’t get to review nearly as many books last week as we’d hoped. So before the comic stores open: one more review for the road. The Spoiler Highway, that is.

When the New 52 Batman arc started, I raved about how it felt like a real detective story, with clues being slowly uncovered to make it feel like we were learning what was happening along with The Batman. We’re now seven months in, and suddenly this feels like a regular superhero story… meaning that Batman not only suddenly has the Godlike ability to solve crimes without anything that a normal human being would consider to be a clue, but that he also no longer needs a utility belt. Because he can clearly pull whatever he needs to solve the crime straight out of his ass.

This is the first issue of writer Scott Snyder’s run where I just about threw up my hands and said, “You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.” Over the previous six issues, we’ve been introduced to a relentless and emotionless Batman, who was then broken about as badly as he’s ever been in the modern history of the character. The character and plot arc was logical, progressive, and was laid down a piece at a time. In this issue, however, the Snyder has Batman make ridiculous leaps in logic, imagine chemistry that doesn’t pass the sniff test, and mixes historical mythologies up like Don Draper with an industrial drink blender and a methamphetamine habit.

…A Fight For Love And Glory: Batman #6 Review

EDITOR’S NOTE: It’s Wednesday, and once again, the local bar is closed for reasons that border on the frivolous: there are very few hookers in this town to start with, and she might have stabbed herself seven times in the men’s crapper, and either way: I never saw her before. So I might as well take the opportunity to lie low and do another short comic review.

If you’re Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo, the problem with producing one of the more triumphant single comic book issues in recent memory – particularly when that triumph is based on what amounts to an engaging storytelling gimmick you can only use once that wraps a story that’s been told a million times: Batman gets driven nuts – is that you need to come out with another issue just four short weeks later. Well, it’s four weeks later, and Batman #6 is merely pretty damn good. It misses the level of great by hitting a story beat we’ve seen before, but it’s still very, very decent.

Gone Sideways: Batman #5 Review

Normally on Wednesday nights, we throw up a picture of the books we bought for the week and declare the end of broadcast for the day. This is because our local comic store is next to our local bar, and therefore by the time we get back to a computer we are normally hopelessly drunk. Tonight, however, the bar is closed for cleanup following a “human biological incident” that happened on Sunday, which is odd because I was there for hours on Sunday and can’t remember seeing anyone do anything like that. Or anything else, for that matter.

So I figured we might as well jump right in this week an do a short review of Batman #5.

This book is gonna get a lot of attention this week, for reasons that will become obvious as soon as you read it, but I’ll get to that in a minute. Let’s start with what I considered the biggest negative of this issue: it’s a Drive Batman Apeshit Crazy story. And Drive Batman Apeshit Crazy stories are pretty much a dime a dozen: Jim Starlin’s The Cult. Grant Morrison’s Arkham Asylum and, more recently, Zur En Arrh. The Jean-Paul Valley Batman / Punisher crossover… actually, that’s less a Drive Batman Apeshit Crazy story than a Batman Story that drove me Apeshit Crazy, but you get what I’m saying.