Comic Books

[benji]

More like Adoxolips amirite:

[benji]

Read all of Jack Kirby's Fourth World, the original 1970's stuff, and I think The New Gods series is the worst of it. Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen might actually be the best of it, it's kind of amusing how Olsen is totally unfazed by any of it which contextually makes sense because of all the weird ass shit he saw in the pre-Crisis Superman books anyway. The Forever People are kind of dumb but the Apokolips stuff from that was fun. The weirdest part about Mister Miracle is how the voice of all the characters is there from the start. It doesn't feel like it comes nearly 20 years before the next iteration of Mister Miracle, the other stuff all does. A lot of it, for obvious reasons, feels very 1960-70's Marvel in the way characters talk and describe things. Though it feels less like Thor and more like Fantastic Four in that regard.

[benji]

Got a free month on DC Universe Infinite again. It seems to suggest I could use it despite having used one before. Since I don't really need or want it, I can send the key to someone else if they want it otherwise I'll use it before it expires in September.

[benji]

Speaking of comics and multiverses and so on. Coming out of the Absolute Power crossover, DC is launching an "Ultimate Marvel" style imprint known as Absolute.

Snyder launches this new universe with the release of Absolute Batman #1, featuring art by Nick Dragotta. In this iteration, fans will be introduced to a version of the Dark Knight that doesn’t have the money, mansion, or butler of his core-line counterpart. Readers will quickly find out what makes this the “Absolute” version of Batman when the debut issue arrives at participating comic book shops and digital retailers Wednesday, October 9.

For Diana, there is no island paradise, no sisterhood to shape her, nor a mission of peace—so what is the purpose of an Amazon warrior in this new universe? Eisner Award-winning writer Kelly Thompson and breakout artist Hayden Sherman reinvent her from the ground up in Absolute Wonder Woman #1, on sale October 23.

Writer Jason Aaron and artist Rafa Sandoval join forces to present a new Man of Steel with the launch of Absolute Superman #1. This Superman has no family, no Fortress of Solitude, and no home. Will he still stand for truth, justice, and a better tomorrow in this new universe? Readers can find out when Absolute Superman #1 hits participating comic book shops November 6.

It's going to be essentially exactly the same as Ultimate Marvel was unlike the All-Star attempt before where it splintered immediately. There will be regular DC in all the regular books and then Absolute in its own universe but together in the same multiverse. And like Ultimate Marvel was (is, since that's back now) it's going to be cut off from the existing DC canon and will just be the basics of the characters everyone knows. They also are suggesting it will be more "chaotic" like Ultimate Marvel was with a stupid explanation of it having "Doomsday Energy" instead of "Superman Energy" and no I did not make this up. Snyder is the line editor for it so he won't write every book but oversees keeping the universe coherent. (Something Ultimate Marvel didn't have at the start lol)

I assume this is also confirmation that Earth One is officially dead. Black Label will still be for stuff set outside any kind of "universe" but I imagine lots of writers will be repurposing stuff that would have been Black Label for Absolute.

[D3RANG3D]

[benji]

[D3RANG3D]

Have they not seen the real life examples of women sweating serial killers in real life?

[benji]

This is like half a good idea combined with half a story where half the pages are white with logos on it. It's pretty much all setup for like a four page resolution that still needs to be expo dumped so it makes sense.

[benji]

edit: The context makes pretty clear he's looking up her skirt here.  

[benji]

[Eric Cartman]

oh yea, thats from when dr light was a dr zachary smith type, not a rapist

[benji]

https://www.humblebundle.com/books/black-hammer-jeff-lemire-from-dark-horse-books

I think this is all of Black Hammer.

[D3RANG3D]

[Eric Cartman]

Bone is great

[chronovore]

There are several small format reprint collections that are thicker than most trade paperbacks, and are selling for only US$9.99. I picked up the Darwyn Cooke Catwoman one. 

There was one for BATMAN: HUSH that I didn't grab because I thought I already owned it. 

I don't. 

[chronovore]

Whole bunch of digital stuff is on sale at Amazon/Comixology. 

At Cormacaroni's suggestion, I picked up Ryan North's Fantastic Four, Hickman's Ultimate Spider-Man, Dini's Zatanna, and Birds of Prey: Megadeath.

[Polident]

Read what’s out there for Absolute Batman. It’s entertaining. All these elseworlds stories have a similar formula. I like it when the chest symbol has some other use. Here, it’s a giant axe to chop hands off.

[benji]

Sweet Tooth was kind of meh initially, but I liked it more as it went on. Book One of the Deluxe Edition includes the original proposal and in it Lemire suggests that it will be like The Walking Dead and not explain things, yet Book Three is about little else. I guess the show is quite different except for the premise but I don't know anything about that.

The Dune: Graphic Novel trilogy is pretty lame. Most of the explanation and background for everything has been stripped out. The layouts and art are often confusing and you could be forgiven for thinking the entire plot takes place over a couple weeks.

[benji]

From 1986:



edit: What did Marv Wolfman know???

[Gamegirl Nostalgia]

Goku beats Superman 10-0 btw

[Polident]

I've discovered Ketchup Man. Who, from what I can tell, is a depressed ketchup bottle that shoots ketchup when he bends down.

[benji]

A bunch of comic Humble Bundles happening right now:
https://www.humblebundle.com/books/return-leading-ladies-image-comics-books
https://www.humblebundle.com/books/star-trek-comics-megabundle-books
https://www.humblebundle.com/books/frightening-and-fantastic-worlds-james-tynion-iv-books
https://www.humblebundle.com/books/dynamite-20th-anniversary-20000page-mega-bundle-books-encore
https://www.humblebundle.com/books/ign-sdcc-massive-comics-bundle-books

[benji]

Another one:
https://www.humblebundle.com/books/millarworld-collection-books

[benji]

edit:

[Eric Cartman]

Thats definitely Shawn McManus art, and I'm pretty sure that talking doggo is a Boston Brand cameo, and dude in a trenchcoat could be John Constantine, so those might be panels from Swamp Thing, but my gut tells me they're actually from the J.M. Dematteis Dr Fate, and that trenchcoat wearer is "Call me Kent" Nelson.



Which is a pretty good run, even if it does uhhhhhhhh climax with a magically aged up 10 year old boy banging his step mother

[benji]

edit:

[Eric Cartman]

got 'em, get rekt black lightning

[benji]

I love that this works because Apokolips has no paper (of course it doesn't why would it) and also that Darkseid is just like "finally!":

[benji]

Read a bunch of the Absolute Universe stuff.

First of all, Absolute Power is just awful. 

Absolute Batman feels like Snyder just writing shock crap. I did like the origin story aspect of Batman's rogues but the rest including why they were Batman's friends is very dumb. There's also a great big hole in the world: where does he get all those toys? He has no money but he's spending as if he has the Wayne empire!

Absolute Superman is better but a lot of it seems entirely unnecessary. Braniac is the most interesting part of it probably and even that is overwritten yet doesn't make sense. The metacommentary is too much, I don't usually complain about this in comics because comics are dumb but dear god, we fucking get it. Can we have something happen? Lois makes no sense but she has the best line in the run when she says journalists are stupid. (She's not one in the Absolute Universe.) The whole plot is obvious but I don't mind it if it was setup and also if every other issue didn't involve SUPERMAN IS CAPTURED HE CAN'T BE CAPTURED LET HIM GO SUPERMAN ESCAPES repeat again and again. Ra's "plan" doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

Absolute Wonder Woman is better but it's also the most like its regular universe version. It's really not that different, the Amazons are missing but whatever that seems entirely irrelevant, everything else is exactly the same. Even the Gods are all the same as they've always been.

Absolute Martian Manhunter is the best one (not read Flash or Green Lantern yet) but even it is a bit up its own ass for too many pages sometimes. Also his wife is the only one who noticed he's being weird so far. This was supposed to only be six issues but got extended before the run ended so I'll withhold total judgement until then.

The thing I can't understand though is this is supposed to be one universe and has Darkseid's influence and both of these are the biggest issues. It's not really "darker" except all the heroes are loners, which is hilarious because Bruce in this universe has tons of friends and family but is still Bruce. At least Kal-El and Diana are strange visitors. I get it's "darker" because look at how horrible a lot of these evil things are and like, have you seen the normal DC stuff? Did Snyder see his own run and the Dark Multiverse? Darkseid's really making this universe underwhelmingly evil no matter how many times an issue Alfred has a long monologue about how DARK AND EVIL things are in the world.

The other problem is that Absolute Superman seems like it's happening in a completely different universe. Stuff is name dropped in each series from other series and it's pretty obvious already how all those "pieces" fit entirely together when they eventually team everybody up. But, like, the entire world in Absolute Superman is ruled by Ra's and his totally evil corporation. But in the others the cities along with the federal government are operating like it's normal DC. It can't be that Ra's rules everywhere but America because in Superman he controls Kansas (or at least Smallville and the general area) like he does everywhere else. Ra's could be the "evil" power behind the other stuff, but, uh, then why in Superman is it his company and HIMSELF doing everything everywhere so everybody knows how evil and powerful he is? You sort of wonder if these are getting canon-welded together after the fact.

Also way too much, HEY HERE'S A NAME, LOOK HOW DIFFERENT FROM NORMAL DC THIS IS, ISN'T THAT NUTS. One of the reasons Ultimate Marvel worked is because it didn't do that too much, things were slightly different and updated for the new time period. You rarely questioned if regular Marvel's versions of characters wouldn't act mostly the same in this version of the universe with the changed life history. (Until everybody goes nuts during the period around Ultimatum.) Diana (and Bane) aside you don't get the sense that any of these characters are the same people in different circumstances except for the fact that Snyder and Aaron can't stop themselves from writing Bruce and Kal-El in certain ways and doing callback references.

Maybe funniest moment is Bane telling Bruce how Venom makes you more jacked and epic and shit. But Bruce in the Absolute Universe is 6-9 and 421 pounds of pure muscle already. (Plus he inexplicably knows all the martial arts he does in the normal universe.) How much more jacked is he supposed to get? Also, Bane is somehow BIGGER than this?!? Diana is also giant in this universe, not just TALL like normal Diana. So is Ra's who is also epic jacked and probably should consider getting on Venom if he isn't since in this universe it makes you know and remember everything you read. Kal-El might be more normal sized depending on the issue.

[Eric Cartman]

I haven't read any of the absolute stuff, but AFAIK the darkseidness is all the heroes lost their safety nets, so Superman was never raised by loving kansas farmers, Batman was never rich and Wonder Woman never had the Amazonian upbringing.

I think you undersold the Ultimate universe a bit too, it did some crazy shit and was more intended as a fresh jumping on point that hit most of the continuity story beats that made the originals popular, but was never chained to any continuity beyond the loose idea - so Tony Stark is an alcoholic playboy genius because he has a brain tumour that could kill him at any moment, Thor claims to be a god, but a lot of people think hes just crazy and using stolen tech, the Hulk is much closer to a Mr Hyde figure, Cap is a MAGA asshole, Hawkeye is a black ops wetwork dude etc.

The MCU kinda sorta dipped in and out of 616 and Ultimate story beats, but couldn't even keep that consistent - like how Thor has drifted from Sufficiently Advanced Technology alien to literal God of a specific Pantheon.

Pre-Ultimatum Ultimate Universe is a pretty good and mostly internally consistent world, which is why it got shit canned because creators would rather work on that than the 'real' marvel stuff, and readers would rather read it. Its like a lot of Post-Crisis silver age nostalgia bitching dried up when the post-crisis DCU was really fucking good, and a lot of the big picture changes they made generally worked for the better.