Humberto RamosTag:

Posted on by Brandon Schatz Posted in Comics
1 Comment
0 Likes

Best of the Week // Death and Goblins

Award 01

Welcome, dear readers, to another week of comics and commentary at Comics! The Blog! We kick things off, as always, by handing out awards for the Best of the week – beginning with two Award postings, followed closely by the past week’s Best.

And the noose around Otto’s neck tightens further.

SupSpidey26
art by Ryan Stegman and Jason Howard

As Superior Spider-Man nears its conclusion, every plot line has come together to make a giant mess for Otto’s last act. The Green Goblin’s army is complete and he’s making his big move against the Spider, and New York - all he has to do is take care of a Hobgoblin problem. Meanwhile, Otto continues to push any and all help he can get away for him, and Peter fights his way back into existence, because… comics!

Slott is joined by three fantastic artists for this issue, taking on sections of the story that seem to best suit their strengths. Even coming off an extra sized conclusion to the latest Superior Spider-Man, Humburto Ramos hands in some strong pages depicting the Hobgoblin’s opening salvo against the Green Goblin and his amassed army. Javier Rodriguez (the colourist and swing-artist for Daredevil) steps in to depict Otto’s confrontation with the Avengers, in which the Superior Spider-Man severs the ties with some of the only allies he has left. And finally, Marcos Martin returns to Spider-Man with some stunning pages of Peter Parker traversing his mindscape, bringing forth memories of Martin’s stellar arc near the beginning of Slott’s solo run on Amazing. The combination came together at what must have been the last minute, in the wake of Pascual Ferry’s unavailability to complete (or start, perhaps) the issue as solicited, and even under tight deadline pressures, this book sings. It’s a testament to the entire team’s talent and work ethic, and is something to be admired for sure.

As this book waits at the precipice of it’s final arc, I can’t help but marvel at what Slott put together. Marvel’s editor-in-chief Axel Alonso has long recently said in several interviews that he was not sold on the idea of Superior Spider-Man until Slott pitched him on the book’s conclusion, and sitting here, without the knowledge of how everything wraps, I can still see why. This story can go anywhere, and the fact that the ending has been mildly spoiled with Peter returning in April has done nothing to douse my enthusiasm. The ride to that point is riddled fraught with so much danger, I can’t wait to see how it all plays out. Regardless, we’re giving this book our <strong>Jay-Z Award for 99 Problemsing</strong>.

C!TB’s Best of the Week | April 8th, 2013 (Part 1)
Posted on by James Leask Posted in Comics, Recommendations
Leave a comment
0 Likes

C!TB’s Best of the Week | April 8th, 2013 (Part 1)

hey girl wanna talk about comics we read last week aw yeah

As you may remember, Brandon is currently away kissing his girlfriend in another country, which means for the next two weeks, it’s J!TB around these parts! Unfurl the banners!

Unfortunately, being in charge of all this means I have to write it all myself, so to make things a bit easier, the we’re gonna do something different until Brandon’s back. On Monday and Tuesday, I’ll write briefly about two comics I loved from last week. You Read These With Your Eyes will be pushed to Wednesday, and I will continue crying as I await Brandon’s return.

Continue Reading…

Posted on by Brandon Schatz Posted in Comics
Leave a comment
0 Likes

Final Order Cut-Offs // An Introduction


Cut Offs

At the end of this month, I will be setting my shop’s order for comics shipping in May. We received this information digitally in mid December. We received our ordering catalogues earlier this month. During that time, we’ve gently probed our customer base, getting a feel for what books people are most looking forward to. We’ve taken a few orders and gotten the shape of a few orders. In a few weeks, I’ll enter in our initial orders. In some cases, I will be setting my orders for a series’ second issue before the first hits the stands. In others, I will be setting orders for the fifth before the first issue comes out. This is a pretty stupid thing, asking someone to guess at what people will love before they have a chance to experience it. But whatever. The industry is what the industry is, and barring massive sweeping changes, or the influx of (let’s say) a few billion dollars, things aren’t going to change. Books will have to be ordered as they are, with a huge gap filled with guesswork. Thankfully, the somewhat-new final order cut off policy many of the companies have adopted has helped make the process infinitely less stressful.

See, back in the day (and by this I mean roughly 3-5 years ago) the initial orders you placed for a book were fairly concrete. Barring a change in the book’s contents, you would not be able to adjust your numbers for that book. You might have been able to increase your order on certain items if extra stock was available or printed, but a decrease? Forget about it. This meant that if you ordered 100 copies of a first issue and 90 copies of a second issue, only to discover the series was selling around the 60 copy mark, you would be stuck with your bullish order until you remaindered them in quarter bins. Nowadays, a retailer can adjust their orders on a large quantity of their single issue comic book orders, including all of the companies in the front of the catalogue, alongside recent additions (or soon-to-be-added) companies like Oni Press, Dynamite Entertainment, Boom! Studios and Valiant.

Quantities from those companies can be adjusted right up until the moment companies need to set a print run. This week the list includes single issues shipping on February 6th. This means that shops are now taking a look at the last few months, and gauging what they will get for shelf. It also means that if you want a big book coming out at the start of February, this weekend is the absolute last time you can let your retailer know you want those books. Sure, you can chance asking them for copies of something later, but if your shop is cutting things close to the bone, you might be fresh out of luck. Even if your shop is proactive, and will have shelf copies of bigger books, it always helps to let them know what you want in advance so that they will have more shelf copies for others. Think of it as “helping the industry grow” by making sure more product is available for others.

Anyway, all of that pre-amble exists to introduce a new weekly look at some of the bigger books that are hitting their cut-offs. We hope it will serve a dual purpose of getting retailers to look at their numbers, and get customers to make sure they’re getting all the books they want. Onwards!

Continue Reading…

Posted on by C!TB Staff Posted in Comics, Recommendations
Leave a comment
0 Likes

You Read These With Your Eyes! | August 22nd, 2012

Every week, Comics! The Blog goes through the list of new releases and we tell you which comics to plug into your mind hole. Your mileage may vary.

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #692 (Marvel Comics)

It’s finally here, people! The 50th Anniversary issue of Amazing Spider-Man is here! Half a century into his life, Peter Parker is still going strong and Issue #692 is dead set on proving it.

This is an anniversary issue very much in the spirit of Fantastic Four #600 from last year; while full of back-up stories from great creators like Joshua Hale Fialkov, it’s also got an integral main story, one that pushes forward Peter’s story while celebrating his past.

Issue #692 introduces Alpha, a teen sidekick for Spider-Man. And while that may make some of you groan, the way in which Dan Slott is doing it, like the recent “No Turning Back” story, is simultaneously something old and new. The idea of a teen sidekick for Peter, is certainly new, but the execution of it is something that mirror’s Peter’s own origin as a fellow teenager gifted with extraordinary powers and a need to use them. But like Peter was responsible for the events that caused his Uncle Ben’s death, he feels similarly responsible for Alpha’s origin, and he sets out to be something he never had: a mentor.

That’s the part I’m most interested in seeing. The Avengers Academy crossover showed that Peter as a teacher to young superheroes could work, but there were no ongoing stakes involved; he was a substitute teacher. With Alpha, Peter gets to try out a truly new role for himself: that of Uncle Ben.

What better way to celebrate the history of the character and the nature of the medium than that? It would be easy to have a Spider-Man: Blue-esque story of flashbacks and narration, revisiting moments in Peter’s past. Amazing Spider-Man #655 from last year showed that not only can you still revisit Peter’s past, but you can still generate incredible emotion from it. But even that moved forward an entire year of Spider-Man stories. What’s special about Slott‘s run is that it loves the history of the character but never tries to generate new ideas. And for the House of Ideas, what is an anniversary better for than a new beginning?

ARCHIE #636 (Archie Comics)

One of the most consistently impressive things about Archie Comics is how they’re able to consistently tell new, entertaining stories despite the fact that the characters have been around for as long as 70 years. With a cast so old that they’ve actually become archetypes in their own right, it’s great to see characters like Kevin Keller and series like Life With Archie. But more than that, it’s great to see the company doing interesting things across the board in all its series, whether it’s “Occupy Riverdale” (somehow one of the more cogent discussions of the issue I’ve seen in the last year), last week’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer spoof in Betty & Veronica or the fact that this week’s Archie issue is a story about how everybody in Riverdale gets gender-flipped in a story that probably legitimizes at least three dozen fanfiction stories out there.

Yes, you are absolutely correct in what you’re thinking right now. Archie #636 literally out-internets the internet.

Basically, the issue starts quite simply, with Riverdale’s boys and girls arguing about which gender has it harder. You know, like ya do. Then, in an effort to be an outrageous dick have some innocent fun, Sabrina’s cat Salem decides to give everybody a taste of their own medicine and Freaky Friday their butts.

It is impossible to overstate how much I have been looking forward to this. With great art by Gisele, the issue looks great while being both familiar and just slightly “off” enough to heighten the sense of other-worldliness, this really isn’t a comic you want to miss, if only to find out that yes, Archie is still completely unfair to both Veronica and Betty even when they’re Archina, Billy and Ronnie. The more things change, people.

THE BEST OF ARCHIE COMICS BOOK TWO (Archie Comics)

Stop right here, everyone! You have found the BEST DEAL OF THE WEEK.

You might remember the original Best of Archie Comics from last year. Over 400 pages. Introductions and explanations for a selection of the publisher’s greatest stories spanning 70 years. Full credits for the creators of iconic characters - better late than never. And all for the insanely low price of $10.

Well, it’s back.

Because of course it’s back. The best of Archie Comics can’t just be contained by 400 pages, just like there isn’t one “Best Of” collection for other comic icons like Batman or Spider-Man. And thus, a year later, a second volume has arrived.

Truth be told, you might have read some of these stories before. We all had truckloads of double digests as kids and in my family’s case, they basically came home in plastic grocery bags from the used book store and quickly went back, to be replaced with more, so a lot of the stories bled together. The Best of Archie series remedies that, by condensing all of those amazing stories from the decades into manageable and affordable digests, and there’s really no reason you shouldn’t pick this up. If you can think of even one Archie story you liked, just one fond memory, you’ll be able to either find it or make a dozen more like it with this book.

CAPTAIN AMERICA & NAMOR #635.1 (Marvel Comics)

Long after Ed Brubaker stepped away from Captain America & Bucky, the series has maintained a vibrant life of its own. A big part of the credit for this goes to the creators, including writer Cullen Bunn, who is proving himself to be a worthy successor to one of the greatest Captain America writers of all time. Another big part of it, however, goes to the editorial team for creating a book that’s a lot like Avenging Spider-Man or Marvel Team-Up in how it gives a big open page for the creators, and for letting Bunn and his artists play with the whole of Captain America’s history.

It’s hard to imagine the regular Captain America book having an entire story that takes place in World War II as Cap and Namor fight occult Nazis and a kraken. It plays with Cap’s history, but generally in a more modern setting. The Captain America and… series is then free to make things as big and crazy as a summer blockbuster movie and focus on a different part of the character. It drives home how big the Marvel Universe is and why there’s so much possibility in it. It also has Nazis with giant squids and secret societies, which I can’t even pretend isn’t a big selling point.

(Plus, colours by Team Casanova member Cris Peter!)

PUNISHER #14 (DC Comics)

With every month, The Punisher just gets darker and darker. For a series that is already about a man haunted by loss to the point that he’s become a mass-murdering vigilante never able to see past his ongoing grief (even if he tells himself otherwise), this is a hard thing to do. Greg Rucka has found a way, however:

He made himself a new Punisher.

Of course, Frank Castle is still there. At this point, he’s a terrifying constant in the Marvel Universe, always tiptoeing towards the line of acceptability among the world’s heroes (at least until Rucka‘s Punisher: War Zone in October). There’s little real emotion to carve from him at this point, but Rucka and his artists have found the corollary in that: if Frank is a constant, how does that affect the variables - the people - around him? With Marine Sargeant Rachel Cole-Alves, they’ve found an emotionally resonant version of the Punisher by finding her earlier in her timeline than Frank is now. There’s still room for Rachel to avoid becoming Frank, and for a while, it looked like she was going to. After the previous two issues, however, her jumping-off point looks even smaller in the rear-view mirror, and the series now carries a lingering sense of dread and tragedy. We still remember when Rachel was truly trying to do the right thing, and that sense of fresh loss is that drives the series’ emotion. Is there still a happy ending for her? Or are there only different types of bad ones, where she either dies or keeps on her path? With this week’s issue, we’ll get closer to finding out… if we’re up to it.

Frank Castle is never going to be a hero. By understanding that, the team working on The Punisher have found a way to make the series and the character more vital than they ever have been. Most of us have long since stopped caring about Frank as a person, but with every month, these creators make us care more and more about this world.

[Also, buy Scalped #60! It’s the series’ final issue and, while I haven’t actually read the series, if you have been, this is something you don’t want to miss.]

These are five of the many great books being released this week! You can find the full list of comics being released here. If you have any other recommendations, let us know in the comments below.

Posted on by C!TB Staff Posted in Comics, Recommendations
Leave a comment
0 Likes

You Read These With Your Eyes! | February 1st, 2012

If it's good enough for Elvis, it's good enough for you, dammit.

Every week, Comics! The Blog goes through the list of new releases and we tell you which comics to plug into your mind hole. Your mileage may vary.

AN ABUNDANCE OF “A” ADVENTURES (Marvel and DC Comics)

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN # 679

ANIMAL MAN #6

Listen, I know this is supposed to just have five issues in it every week, but I needed to talk about Spider-Man or this bus would explode and I also couldn’t not talk about the consistent brilliance that is Animal Man.

First, in Amazing Spider-Man #79, we get to see conclusion to the last issue’s story where Spider-Man is racing against the clock to prevent a catastrophe from occurring at 3:10pm, the aftermath of which he saw when he went “missing” for a day to briefly travel to the future where he was missing for a day and couldn’t prevent the mystery disaster.

It’s… all very complicated.

Unfortunately, it’s 3:09pm and Pete has no idea what to do in the next minute. Could this be the end of our hero and of New York? Oh come on, pull your head out of your ass. There’s a giant Spider-Man event starting in like a month and he kind of has to be alive for that. Plus, killing the company’s mascot wouldn’t be good for business. Still, I have no idea how he’s going to get out of this and there is no better feeling in comics than that. Dan Slott, you complete me. You too, Humberto Ramos. Hug? Hug.

Instead of an ending, in Animal Man #6 we’ll see a brief interlude after the terrifying conclusion to the first arc in Issue #5, where, you know, Buddy and his daughter accidentally helped the evil force known as The Rot spread throughout the world, risking the very future of the earth as we know it! GODDAMN, comics! In this interlude, we get a callback to the series’ first issue, where Buddy mentioned trying his hand as an actor in a low budget but critically-acclaimed superhero movie, except now we get to watch the movie, starring a comic book character, in a comic book about the fictional actor, giving me my first meta-storytelling fix of 2012.. Eat your heart out, Grant Morrison!

This is either gonna get really sexy or really NOT.BETRAYAL OF THE PLANET OF THE APES #4 (Boom! Studios)

Okay, to be totally honest, I missed the third issue of this because I am an idiot and I am kicking myself over it. Corinna Bechko and Gabriel Hardman’s story set before the first Planet of the Apes movie is actually making me want to watch all those old movies and have some serious Ape Talk because even from just the two issues I’ve read so far, it is exactly the Apes story I want. It’s got intrigue! Politics! Hard questions about society! Violence! Bearded men with loincloths! Everything you could want, really.

Betrayal of the Planet of the Apes tells the story about how the world of the original Charlton Heston movie became aligned the way it was in the years preceding it. However, instead of just being a prequel and contributing little other than nostalgia, Bechko and Hardman have taken a world that is familiar to even the most casual Apes fan (me) because of its timeframe and used it to tell an ambitious story about society and how it treats change. Plus, it certainly helps that Hardman is producing one of the most beautiful, breathtaking books on the shelves. That dude just loves himself some apes and hey, if he wants to draw the heck out of those and some gorgeous environments, who am I to not start giving him all my money?

DEFENDERS #3 (Marvel Comics)

If you’ve visited the site before, you’ll be familiar with this drill. There is a new Matt Fraction comic! You will buy it! It has pretty Terry & Rachel Dodson art! Where did all your money go?

For those who are less familiar, I’ll elaborate. Defenders is a book about the Hulk bringing together a group of the few people in the Marvel Universe that he believes he can trust, and asking them to take care of a little problem: a being of pure rage and destruction – and for the Hulk to be saying this, I imagine this qualifies as Serious Business – that might destroy everything if they don’t stop it first. But they can’t tell anyone, so they ask Iron Fist to come along so they can use his experimental billion dollar private jet to get around secretly. They immediately get it destroyed and then the team gets involved in sci-fi religious fanatic’s desire to also destroy everything so that he can get to a better universe.

Comics!

Defenders is an exciting book, full of big, bold ideas and a relentless enthusiasm that the creators get to tell this story in this medium. Fraction has described Tom Brevoort selling him on doing the book by reminding him that he could write all the characters he loves but who couldn’t carry a solo series at the moment, and his love for all of them, from Iron Fist to She-Hulk, shows. Reading it, it feels like a modern spin on old Silver Age styles of storytelling, with a voice that’s unmistakably Fraction’s. It’s a team book that has the kind of action you expect with a sly, subversive note running through it. Plus, the Dodsons make some super pretty art!

I think things are gonna work out just fine!FATALE #2 (Image Comics) (BONUS: FATALE #1 second printing!)

I am not usually a horror fan, though I am definitely a crime fiction fan. Despite this, it took me a shockingly long time before reading Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips’ series Criminal last year. Of course, I fell in love because a) it is brilliant; 2) Last of the Innocent has some riffs on the Archie Comics characters and that is just wonderful. Fully jazzed on the power of comics (and murder), I jumped wholeheartedly into Fatale, the pair’s latest creator-owned story combining crime fiction and horror, with a mysterious woman with an unnatural lifespan and strange power over men at its centre. Fatale #1 blew me away with how elegantly it presented the world of the comic – a recognizable world with something sinister peeking in at the periphery of the mind – and drew me into the emotions of its lead characters. As always, Phillips’ art was beautiful and he and Brubaker remain one of the partnerships in the world of comics.

Fatale #2 looks to deepen the world of the comics with more exciting, terrifying events and I can’t wait to get my hands on it. There’s a bonus, too! If you didn’t manage to get a copy of the first issue, its second printing arrives in stores tomorrow, so pick both up at once and thank me later (preferably with baked goods, email me for my address, non-perverts). If you like it, remember to tell your shop to order it in for you so that you never miss an issue!

WINTER SOLDIER #1 (Marvel Comics)

In his first Captain America story, Ed Brubaker brought back the character of Bucky Barnes, long thought dead, as the Soviet-brainwashed covert operative known as the Winter Soldier. Throughout Brubaker’s years on the title, we’ve seen him kill Steve Rogers and have Bucky take over for his friend and mentor. What many heralded as a cheap storytelling ploy became one of the most rewarding serial stories around, as we got to see Barnes grow into his new role, become accepted, and eventually “die” in the service of the country, allowing Rogers to take up the shield once again. Throughout his rise and public fall, readers grew to love and accept Barnes all over again and now, in the next phase of Brubaker’s operatic story, we get to see what Barnes does after taking back his Winter Soldier persona to right the wrongs he committed before. Basically, I am on board because this sounds incredible.

This could blow everything about James Barnes open all over again. He grew into the role of Captain America, growing up and finding himself, but never really finding peace. That seems to be the goal of his new series, with one part road trip/travelogue and another part tension-fraught action-espionage story. What will Bucky and the Black Widow do? Who will they cross and how will they grow? I feel like the sky’s the limit. And with Butch Guice and Bettie Breitweiser bringing their artistic chops to bear, the series is going to look absolutely gorgeous, with both realism and a smoky, distorted feeling to give the series a riveting, ghostly air.

Guys, I fuckin’ love comics and stuff like this is a big reason why.

These are slightly more than five of the many great books being released this week! You can find the full list of comics being released here. If you have any other recommendations, let us know in the comments below.

Posted on by C!TB Staff Posted in Comics, Recommendations
Leave a comment
0 Likes

C!TB's Best of the Week | January 23rd, 2012

Ta-daaaahhh

S’up Nerdlingers! Welcome to another week of comics and awesomeness, hosted by those veritable monsters of mirth, James Leask and Brandon Schatz! We have some swank stuff coming into your face holes this week, so howsabout we get things started with some awards!

COMICS RULE EVERYTHING AROUND ME

DOES WHATEVER A SOMETHING SOMETHING WHATEVER

In the last two weeks, we’ve seen an incredible Daredevil/Spider-Man/Black Cat team-up story in the pages of Amazing Spider-Man and Daredevil, and it would have been easy for even the impressive Spider-talents of Dan Slott to lose a bit of their shine in comparison. Again, that’s not because Slott isn’t the best writer to take over Spider-Man in years, but because Waid is hitting every single note correctly over on Daredevil. It’s lucky, then, that Slott follows Waid’s crossover issue with a giant sci-fi time travel extravamoganza in Amazing Spider-Man #678!

First off, I love that one the Horizon think tank employees making a localized time travel gateway is treated as a relative ho hum another quarterly project done event until Peter being “missing” for a day basically causes the destruction of New York and he has to retrace his future steps from a newspaper in the “good” future as Spidey while his coworker Grady directs him over Bluetooth. By reading the newspaper.

Comics, everybody!

Second, I love that the issue isn’t only a high-stakes sci-fi action movie but also a story that shows a fundamental understanding of who Spider-Man is as a character in some really neat ways. I love that Grady was so impressed and surprised with all Spidey does in a single day because the message there is that the reason the Daily Bugle reads “like [Spider-Man’s] blog” is because Spider-Man does so much for New York and it’s not until you read it all at once that you realize it. A big part of the Spider-Man mythos is that he’s underappreciated by his own city and Grady’s realization fits into that perfectly.

Slott also sneaks in another genius little moment. Grady, impressed with everything Spidey does, tries to encourage him to cut a corner when recreating the exploits of his “missing” day (while he was momentarily in the future, which took him “out” of his timeline for that 24 hours, thus causing all the destruction. Come on, keep up.) and suggests he not stop the last few of the muggings the paper listed him getting involved in. Spidey, without a beat missing, tells Grady that he can’t do that, because he knows how much one mugger than change someone’s life. After all, he found out the hard way with Uncle Ben. It’s such a little moment, but it belies such a massively complete understanding of who Peter is. And it’s almost a throwaway moment! Together with everything else, however, it reiterates why Slott is the perfectly person to write Amazing Spider-Man. He gets the character like nobody else does, and together with an artist like Humberto Ramos, he creates gold, almost every time. Sirs, you have earned the Web of Justice Award. (J)

BRANDON WRITES THINGS ABOUT DD

The man might be a little crazy, but you can not possibly deny the effect that Frank Miller has had on the comic book medium. Between Sin City, his early Batman stories, the original Wolverine mini series, and countless others, he has left his indelible mark on many characters - the least of which being Daredevil.

When Miller was given the reins to the Daredevil book, it was shipping bi-monthly as a stop gap before cancellation. Everyone had written the book off, and decided to give Miller - primarily known at that time as just an artist - full creative control over the book. What resulted now rests in that metaphorical Comic Run Hall of Fame alongside such other gems as the Claremont and Byrne X-Men run, Walt Simonson’s Thor and many others of its ilk.

Flash forward a few decades, and the Daredevil title is struggling for air. The stories are still good, mind you, but the character had been living in the dark shadow of Frank for so long that his life had become an almost comical string of unfortunate events. A change was needed, especially with the diminishing returns that were the result of years of dour storytelling. It was a tactic that was tried before, but to no real sales acclaim. Hell, when Brubaker was writing the book, he would oscillate between making Matt’s life a living hell, and giving him moments of relative swashbuckling peace. The result (both heard from the writer’s mouth, and within the walls of the comic shop that I managed) would be cries of genius when Matt was being put through the meat grinder, and mumbles of hate and boredom when he was having just the tiniest bit of fun. In my opinion, the quality of both kinds of stories were consistent, but again, the long shadow of Miller was far too dark to emerge from.

Enter Mark Waid, editor Stephen Wacker, and their supreme band of artists (including, but not limited to Paolo and Joe Rivera, Marcos Martin, Emma Rios, and Paul Kano). Right from page one, Waid injected a sense of levity to the book, one that was matched beat for beat by his artists. The storytelling was bold, brash and almost classic, but with that hint of darkness looming at the edges, signaling to readers that the past still happened, that Matt’s life really had been hell and he had not merely forgotten - but had a change in perception. After all, once you’ve been through everything, you can’t really be afraid of anything life could throw at you again - so why not truly become a man without fear?

That sense of fun has carried the book quite far, and even permeates this tie-in with Amazing Spider-Man. The characters - such as they are now - play off each other perfectly, and tossing the Black Cat into the mix (even going so far as to shifting her to the Daredevil cast of characters for the foreseeable future) was a genius touch. And the art by Emma Rios in the ASM issue, and Paul Kano in this DD part have both been phenomenal - well deserving to follow in the footsteps of Rivera and Martin.

Daredevil is consistently one of the best books on the shelves, and this issue was no acceptation - thus it is awarded the Wrapped Up Like a Douche Award. (God, I hope those are the right lyrics.) (B)

Better than alllll the rest

At this point, it should not be surprising when we or anybody else raves about Batman or Scott Snyder in general, because that man has quickly become one of the best writers in the business and that makes me so very, very happy. By “very, very happy,” I of course mean “Freaking me the hell out.” Obviously.

It’s one thing to be freaked out by, say, a horror comic like Severed, but it’s something I’m just not used to in a Batman comic despite having read Snyder’s work with the cowl for well over a year, now. Before, if you’d asked me what his best and most unnerving script to date was, I’d likely have mentioned the front half of Detective Comics #874 [Ed Note: In 2 days I will incorrectly describe it as a backup in an episode of Podcast! The Comics], featuring Jim Gordon’s fears that his son might be a serial killer while meeting him at a diner after his son “jokes” about murdering a waitress and clogging the bathroom sink with her severed head. Or something from the aforementioned Severed. After last week, I might have to go with Batman #5.

The issue is unnerving not just because of the final cliffhanger, though. It’s frightening and unnerving because of everything that came before it. Why? It’s an easy answer to a complex, riveting issue: this is a Batman who has lost any and all control. He’s completely at the mercy of the Court of Owls, who have spent over a week wearing him down physically and mentally in their subterranean labyrinth. By the time we catch up with him, he’s broken. He’s seeing things and lashing out at the emptiness around him. It’s a Batman so out of his element, so outside of what’s familiar to the reader, that it becomes intensely terrifying. Batman is all about controlling a situation. Ninja shminja; if he can’t plan for every circumstance and have a contingency plan to establish dominance in any situation, he’s just a guy. This is a story of Bruce as just a guy and it’s incredibly disorienting.

Of course, the issue’s art absolutely enhances that with its innovative layout. It’s a comic that you literally end up turning in your hands to read, eventually making a full circle. At some point, you probably got confused and asked yourself if you were doing it right, if it was supposed to be like that, being read upside-down. It draws a parallel between the reader and Batman, encouraging you to experience things the way he is. Which is to say, literally not knowing which way is up.

Congratulations, Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo! You are making one of the best comics being published and turned in your best issue yet. (J)

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

Posted on by C!TB Staff Posted in Comics, Recommendations
Leave a comment
0 Likes

C!TB’s Best of the Week | October 31st, 2011

Ta-daaaahhh

Howdy, y’all! Now, before you say anything, both of us are really sorry for not getting a You’re Welcome, Internet article up this weekend. We fully intended to, but burnout and other things got in the way. As poor of an excuse as that is, it’s all we’ve got.

Well, okay… we also got you a sex picture, in honour of the Walking Dead/autumn dinner party James threw last night:

You’re welcome, Internet.

But that’s not all! There were also comics last week, and the sheer volume of amazing ones made it hard to pick the best ones of the week. But because we love you, we toughed it out. Oh no, comics are so good we have it so tough whatever will we do oh no oh no.

COMICS RULE EVERYTHING AROUND ME

TANDY AND TY, DETECTIVES AT METAPHOR

Part of me cannot believe that one of my favourite comics of the year has been a Cloak & Dagger comic, considering my general ambivalence towards the character. Then I remember that this was a comic written by Nick Spencer with art by Emma Ríos and it all makes sense. Spencer has an incredible ability to capture a character’s interior life on the page, and Ríos is one of the best artists out there today. Period. She is a goddamn wizard. Just look at this!

Preview courtesy of Marvel Comics and Comic Book Resources, who are wonderful

She does things that nobody else does, in terms of style and layout and just everything. Nobody else’s art looks like Ríos‘, and that’s why I need to lap up every bit of it I can. She can make something light and friendly or completely and genuinely terrifying, as both this limited series and Osborn demonstrate. But it’s always unmistakably her own, and this is one of very few comics that I have to read more than once, not to pick up the hidden secrets in the writing (though I do that too in a third reading), but because I just need to look at the art all on its own, with nothing else interfering.

Spencer is equally up to the task of matching the art. Cloak and Dagger are pretty minor-level heroes in the Marvel Universe, but here they feel as big as anyone else. This is a Spider Island story in little other than name and location, but sneakily makes it something bigger and much more important. This isn’t just a story of Tandy and Ty during the Spider Island outbreak, though it succeeds on that level, too. This is the Cloak and Dagger story to date, the big one that explores and redefines the characters in terms of how they relate to the world around them, each other and themselves. If putting “Spider Island” on the cover and including a few scenes with arachnids put this comic in extra hands, that is wonderful, because I want as many people as possible to read this and I hope the title helped.

Before the issue was released, Spencer mentioned that this was a comic that changed everything for the characters and that it was a significant - and sticking - change. And he’s absolutely right; my jaw very literally dropped when I saw the final twist to the issue, and then metaphorically when I realized it made complete sense and had been telegraphed in plain sight right from the beginning of the series, as in from the very first pages. It just didn’t make sense until the very end, and that is Spencer working at his best, with a complete and full understanding of his characters and what makes them work. If anything, asking that question is what ties it in most to Spider Island and its core question to Peter Parker.

So for both sneaking in a story like this under the Spider Island banner and for that incredible twist at the end, I happily give Spider Island: Cloak & Dagger #3 the Ol’ Switcheroo Award. (J)

YOU CAN’T STAB FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

But oh, if only we could.

This week, the X-Men line began a new season of comics with the release of Wolverine and the X-Men #1, and I have to say, it was a damn fine read, and a perfect way to start a new set of stories. In a short span of time, Jason Aaron gives you the lowdown on the series, and why it exists. Wolverine and Cyclops came to a parting of ways, and took chunks of the team along with them. Cyclops is off on Utopia still, fighting for the species’ survival in his own way, while Wolverine has decided to re-open the school (or a version of it) to help train kids for the future, rather than using them as soldiers.

Applied here are all the lessons Aaron has learned about writing Wolverine so far. Mainly, that pretty much every kind of Wolverine story has been told before, so you have to find stories in which the character is out of his comfort zone, and just drop him right in the middle of them. In times past, Aaron has written Wolverine into a kung fu tale, a B-movie horror flick, has sent him to hell, and so forth and so on. All tales that don’t quite fit the regular Wolverine mould, really. And here, we see Wolverine as an idealist and an administrator, struggling to deal with troubles he can’t stab in the face. It’s nice to see, and is played pretty straight, resulting in some big laughs.

From top to bottom, this book was fun. The pace was brisk, the ideas were abundant and the story, once established, began pushing towards some big crazy fights. The art by Chris Bachalo was energetic, and perfectly fitting. And damn, this was just exactly what I want from an X-book. Thus, we award this book the Red Dawn Award. For being rad as hell.(B)

Better than alllll the rest

Bam.

Goddamn, right? Spider Island had a massive build up, and might have been overtaken by Fear Itself, Marvel‘s bigger and longer crossover event, had it not been so absolutely wonderful. The premise of the action, what happens when millions of New Yorkers all develop spider powers?, ensured a lot of crazy, complicated action spreads, which Humberto Ramos delivered with glee and aplomb. How many other people could draw the chaos of dozens of people on a page all swinging and wall-crawling and have it be perfectly readable, let alone as thrilling as it was? It’s not a big list, and that’s a reason why Ramos is perfectly suited for Dan Slott‘s writing.

Spider-Man comics are seldom just about the action, though. Peter Parker’s life is a glorious four-colour soap opera, and Peter’s self-doubt and conflicts are what make him truly interesting. Plus, you know, he has SPIDER POWERS. But when everybody has spider powers, of what use is Spider-Man? That’s the emotional core of Spider Island, and despite some already great moments - like the various Avengers telling Peter to go home because they don’t want to accidentally mistake him for one of the criminals dressed like Spidey and collapse his skull - this week’s finale issue, Amazing Spider-Man #672, got in one of the best ones yet.

A big part of Amazing Spider-Man since “Big Time” has been his promise to save everyone, that nobody will die on his watch. It’s a promise, like the best of them, rooted in tragedy, and so far it’s been idealistic but somewhat hopeless. But in #672? Peter does it. He saves everyone, and his smile when he realizes that he’s done it is one of the best moments of not just Spider Island, but also of Slott‘s run as a whole. Spidey doesn’t get the big wins very often, and seeing him actually get to accomplish his life’s goal, even if it’s just for that one day, got the pollen in here so crazy it’s unbelievable.

Spider Island was a crossover comic that happened in the middle of a bigger crossover comic, that featured lesser-known villains, referenced one of the most polarizing Spider-Man stories of all time - the Clone Wars Saga - and had Peter spend most of his time not being Spider-Man. He’s not even wearing his mask when he saves the day. It shouldn’t have been as good as it was, but Slott and Ramos forced it to through sheer talent, willpower and their secret weapon: that they understand Peter Parker and what makes him important. Any jackass can write a Spider-Man story, as my magnum opus Spider-Man: Springtime for Shitler can attest. It takes real talent to make a story about millions of people getting his powers and still showing, completely and convincingly, why he’s the only Spider-Man. He’s the only one who could save New York, no matter how many clones and people with his powers there are. This is a love letter to the character and what makes him who he is, and I loved every single page of it. (J)

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