What’s up, party people? What? You’re still partying? Goddammit, it’s Monday! Clean yourself up, put on some slacks and get to work already! Unless you’re a lady, in which case you may wear a dress or skirt. Now, we don’t want to be too heteronormative, but if you’re a guy and are wearing a dress or skirt you may still be partying. What was I talking about, again?

Right! There were some good comics last week. Or something.

DOES WHATEVER SUSAN LUCCI CAN

Now seriously, I have no idea how Dan Slott does it. Every two weeks, with the occasional exception, he puts out an issue of Amazing Spider-Man that is just about everything I want a Spider-Man comic to be. Big action! Zingers! The glorious soap opera life of Peter Parker! With every issue, it all just “fits” into what I expect, what I saw and read when I was a kid. At its best, an issue of ASM feels like a great story that’s also part of a greater whole. In #675, Peter wraps up his fight against the Vulture’s gang and deals with working with his ex-girlfriend on a case now that she knows his secret identity. And that’s not even the crazy part of Pete’s personal life! You’ll have to read the last couple of pages to see what I’m talking about, but as someone who loves the ongoing saga that Slott and his artists (Giuseppe Camuncoli here) are developing, it makes me excited to see what happens next, not even with Pete’s superhero life. It’s all part of the great continuum that is the perpetual second act of superhero comics. There’s always something awesome just around the corner, especially from Slott, who excels at setting up future storylines organically.

Isn’t that what it’s all about? Finishing a comic and being immediately excited to get the next part of the story? Caring as much as - or more - about the character’s personal life as their costumed one? Toss in a one-liner about Peter-sense tingling and I’m sold! Seriously, Marvel, I will do things I’m not proud of to get the next part of this story without having to wait.

Weird things.

In the meantime, I suppose Slott and Camuncoli have deserved the Peter-Sense Sounds Dirty Award. Whatever. (J)

HE’S AN ANIMAL, MAN.

With all of the amazing comics out there, it can be hard to zone in on just one to pick for these awards. As you can tell, we usually aim to choose three books between the two of us, each pulling a bit more writing weight on alternating weeks. This week, I get to pick one, which means I will probably spend less time on the actual writing part - but oddly enough, it means I’ll probably spend a bit more time trying to narrow down my pick. Two means I can fudge my way through picking more titles. One means I better have a god damn good reason for writing about one, and not another. It’s a tough trick to pull off, but there’s always a way to distinguish the near flawless from the merely amazing. More often than not, the distinguishing feature is a small effect, something that speaks to me personally, and not to, say, the general readership.

This week, I’ve decided to pick Animal Man #4 for a couple of reasons. The first: James and I both knew what we wanted to call The Best, and I knew better than to pull it from his fingers. Not when we both knew it was the book we both enjoyed the most this week. (Side note: which is not to belittle Animal Man - both books were stunning, but in completely different ways.) Which brings us to the second reason for Animal Man: the phrase “Little Wing”.

Any of y’all done got yourself some kids? I sure as hell don’t but I’ve got a few younger cousins, and a younger half-sister. Now: find me a parent that calls their kid by their actual name more often than they don’t. Seriously, have you ever heard a parent just call a kid by their first name, in a situation that didn’t involve the kid being in some serious shit? No. But you’ll find stuff like that littering fiction. Here, Buddy calls his little girl Little Wing almost all the time. It’s a small touch, a little gesture, in the midst of a story that’s already amazing - but it shows that extra thought was taken in regards to the characters. How they react, how they feel instead of a more generic response to the stresses within the story. Thus we award Jeff Lemire and Travel Foreman the Grant Morrison Award for Fantastic Fuckery. Because that’s entirely something DC’s PR department would love to slap on the back of the first collection, AMIRITE? (B)

If you know anything about us, there’s probably a 30% chance that we love Matt Fraction‘s comics. You might love them too, or you might not. But honestly, I really think we can come together on his latest project, The Defenders.

One of the things that apparently sold Fraction on the book was that he could write all the characters he loved but who can’t carry a solo series at the moment. And let’s be honest, that could have turned out to be completely masturbatory and frustrating for readers in the hands of a lesser creative team, but with Fraction and Terry & Rachel Dodson, the result is a fantastic team book that is weird enough to appease fans of Casanova and full of enough crazy, giant action and charm to please people who love The Avengers.

Let’s start listing a few elements of this issue:

• Unspeakable evil threatening the world
• “What if the Hulk… had a Hulk?”
• A team of some of the strongest and most powerful heroes in the Marvel Universe… and Iron Fist, who has the plane
• Zero-G kung-fu!
• The running of the Red She-Hulk at Pamplona
• A superhero reading superhero comics
• Doctor Strange as if played by James Spader
• The Silver Surfer wearing clothes
• Explosions and big-ass swords!

This is fun. It’s big, exciting and totally in love with the world it lives in. You can almost hear Fraction having fun and that, together with his love for his characters, results in an exciting comic that never sags under the weight of forced melodrama or seriousness. It knows when to smile, and when to be serious. It’s also Fraction‘s first book in the Marvel Style, though any discomfort or inexperience doesn’t show. Like I said, it’s a wonderful comic. It’s everything I want in a team book, and I can’t wait to read it again. (J)

This is Comics! The Blog. We now commence our broadcast week.