Review @ PopSyndicate: The Brave & The Bold #33

Today at PopSyndicate, my review is up for The Brave & The Bold #33, and I am less than enthused.

J. Michael Straczynski continues his mining of continuity for new stories and comes up with mixed results.

There are fewer books that I've gone into this year that I wanted to like more than this one.  It featured three characters who I enjoy quite a bit (Wonder Woman, Zatanna, & Batgirl) but who rarely seem to socialize, and that was part of the hook for me, them socializing.  As much as I love punching in comic books, I also enjoy seeing heroes living and interacting in situations where they're just having fun and not trying to save the universe.  

Head on over here to read the full review.

Buy My Stuff...Please

So it's come to this, I've got way too much stuff.  So why don't you help me out, dear internet person and take some of this stuff off of my hands!  Below is a list of books I'm ready to say goodbye to, all are in good shape, some minor shelf-wear but other than that almost like new. Pricing is: Over-Sized HC's are $10, HC's are $7, and soft covers are $5.  Prices are negotiable, especially if you're buying several. If you're in the Chicago area, I'm sure we can work something out to meet up, if not, I'll be happy to ship anywhere in the US, however shipping will be extra.  You can pay via Paypal or just shoot me a check.  If you're interested, send me an e-mail at jurbanciz [at] gmail [dot] com and we'll work it out.

[Edit: obviously stuff that has a strikethrough has been claimed.]


Hardcovers

Justice League: The Lightning Saga
JSA:  The Next Age
Wolverine: Enemy of the State Vol. 1 (Premier)
Ultimate Spider-Man Vol. 2 (over-sized)
Ultimate Spider-Man Vol. 3 (over-sized, missing dust jacket)
Ultimate Spider-Man Vol. 4 (over-sized)
Batman: Hush Vol.1
Batman: Hush Vol. 2
Superman/Batman:  Supergirl
The Walking Dead:  Book One (over-sized)
The Best American Comics 2006
Justice Vol. 1
Identity Crisis
Secret War (over-sized)
Uncanny X-Men: Manifest Destiny (over-sized)
Ultimate X-Men Vol. 1 (over-sized)
Ultimate X-Men Vol. 2 (over-sized)
Captain America: The New Deal (over-sized)
Marvel Zombies (over-sized)
Catwoman: When in Rome


TPB's

Outsiders Vol. 3-5
Hawkman Vol. 3
Teen Titans (recent series) Vol. 4, 6 & 7
Ultimate Spider-Man Vol. 9 - 16
Avengers: The Search for She-Hulk
Avengers: Red Zone
Avengers: World Trust
Supreme Power Vol. 1 - 3
Supreme Power: Nighthawk
Supreme Power: Hyperion 
Superman: Birthright
Girls Vol. 1 & 2
Noble Causes Vol. 1
Batman: City of Crime
Green Arrow: Moving Targets
Captain Britain:  Vampire State
Rising Stars Vol. 1
Justice League International: The Secret Gospel of Maxwell Lord
Wanted
Sachs & Violens
Grendel: Devil's Legacy
Rex Mundi Vol. 1
Just Imagine Stan Lee Creating the DCU Vol. 1
Gotham Central Vol. 1-5
Chosen
Fallen Angel Vol. 1-2
Amazing Joy Buzzards Vol. 1 & 2
Starman: To Reach the Stars
Starman: Sons of the Father
Starman: Stars My Destination
Starman: A Starry Knight
Starman: A Wicked Inclination
Starman: Grand Guiginol
X-Men: Phoenix: Endsong
Ultimate X-Men Vol 5 - 15
Top Cow's Best of Warren Ellis (includes Down & 2 Witchblade stories)
Ultimate Fantastic Four Vol. 4-6
Wolverine: Enemy of the State Vol. 2
Teen Titans/Outsiders: The Insiders
X-Men: Supernovas

True Geek Confession: Lois & Clark

Following up on last year's cross-blog event, "My Scott & Jean", the Alert Nerds have thrown down the gauntlet once again. This year's event is "True Geek Confessions" and I'll let them explain it:

Unpopular opinions: we can haz them. Sometimes you stand alone in loving a super niche-y run of a popular comic book series. Sometimes you’re the only person on the entire planet to ’ship a certain ’ship. Sometimes you simply Do Not Get a movie the rest of your geeky brethren is falling all over themselves about. And because a lot of fandom is about sharing loves and hates and communing with your fellow geeks, this can feel awfully lonely.

For a while there, I didn't think I really had one, but reading through Dan Faust's excellent post on the Family West, I realized that I had a similar love that largely goes unshared by the geek community: the marriage of Clark Kent & Lois Lane. Even as child, the dysfunctional love triangle that existed between Lois, Clark & Superman bugged me. Superman always seemed like kind of a dick, and Lois was necessarily portrayed wither as clueless, or as a shrill harpy, bent on getting Superman to marry her*. As befits the premiere investigative journalist of a major metropolitan newspaper, it seemed silly that Lois wouldn't be able to defeat Clark's cunning disguise of horn-rimmed glasses and brylcream eventually.

So in 1996 it happened, though Lois didn't figure it out for herself, the reveal was well done, with her slapping Clark for leading her on as two separate men for years, but their love won through and they were married. though the writing of their marriage hasn't always been perfect, there have been some wonderful moments that make me so happy that DC allowed them to "take the plunge". A personal favorite is the moment in Superman: Up, Up and Away by Kurt Busiek & Geoff Johns. After Superman lost his powers post-Infinite Crisis, he and Lois got to spend a blissful year as a "normal" couple, but eventually his powers started to reemerge. Though Clark thinks that his wife will be angry or upset that she will be "losing" her husband once again to the craziness of the superhero lifestyle, she only has three words for him: "Go get 'em".

Lois and Clark as a married couple compliment each other really well, she's not the hand-wringing wife, waiting for her man to come home from the fight, she's out there on the street getting the story, and though she needs saving every once in a while, she does a fair bit of saving her man's ass as well. It's nice to get to see my childhood heroes get to behave, and grow, like adults.

*Not to say that Silver Age Lois stories weren't freaking hilarious.

2010 Media Journal 2

Movies:

Raiders of the Lost Ark: Rewatched this again this week, and holy shit, I forgot how great this movie is. It's one flaw is that after the amazing truck chase after the ark, the whole movie just kind of groans to a close. I mean, the whole "dudes faces melting off from viewin the glory of God" thing is pretty boss, but after Indy chucks a guy through the windshield of the truck, you can't really top that. I think I'm going to have to watch the other three over the next few days/weeks (yes, I even own Crystal Skull, don't judge me) to see how they feel. Raiders just has a different look to it than the others as far as I can remember. It looks and feels more organic. While Spielberg was going after those old school movie serials, it also has a strong noir vibe to it. Especially with his use of shadows. More on this as I watch the rest.

Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Wild Wild World of Batwoman: Since me and my girlfriend are big fans of MST3K, we watch a lot of it, and this may very well be the worst movie we've seen yet. Worse than Manos: The Hand of Fate. Yes. really. Mike & the 'Bots do their best, but it wasn't quite enough. You'll want to avoid this one at all costs. I'd give you a plot description...but I think I'd pull something in my brain if I even tried to igure it out.

Comics:

X-Factor: Nation X - A fun little one-shot. Apparently the X-Men have set up their on little island somewhere so they can just stay away from everyone who hates & fears them? X-Factor gets invited to come live with them and they stop by mostly to just tell them that it's a stupid idea and have a (good-natured) fight. Not much to speck of, but a good way to pass the time. Can anyone explain to me why Dazzler is now blonde?

Stumptown #2 - Another very good issue of this book. While the first issue seemed more self-contained, this one gets deeper into the story, so it doesn't hit as hard, but still very well done.

Sports:

So my girlfriend is a Packers fan, and needless to say, Sunday was gutting. The game was probably the best game I saw all year, but did not have the desired outcome

So that's it for this week.

Review @ PopSyndicate - Siege #1

Over at PopSyndicate.com I offer my thoughts on Siege #1:

I have not been a fan of Marvel Comics’s recent run of “event” comics.
Starting with Avengers: Disassembled five years ago, Marvel, with Brian Michael
Bendis at the helm has put out a series of ever-escalating events that seemed to
be leading…somewhere, but just never quite got there. It was incredibly
frustrating because they always seemed to be stories that had a beginning, a
middle, and then a “to be continued” that was in no way a satisfying
ending. While I understand that in on-going comic books, there really is
no such thing as “The End” since Spider-Man is still going to come out next
month whatever happens, but each one of these events simply ran into the next,
constantly losing momentum until it seemed the endgame was to simply get people
not to care anymore. So with Siege, we’re faced with what Marvel claims to
be the end. This is where it was all leading and, frankly, it’s pretty
darn good.

Head on over to read it in full.

Also, I am still going to be doing my weekly media journals, but I'm switching the scheduling so they'll publish wednesday mornings. Just works better for me, and this is all about me, after all.

2010 Media Journal 1

Hey all, this year I'm going to attempt to post once a week with my thoughts about new comics/books/movies/TV shows I've read and seen each week. I probably won't post too many full-on reviews, but mostly just random thoughts associated with what I've been up to. Mostly this is to help me remember what I've been up to and also help organize my thoughts.

Comics

It was a slow week this week, with only one new release, but I took the opportunity to pick up a few books I had been eyeing.

20th Century Boys Vol. 2 - The near-universal acclaim that has been following this book on the internet made me very excited to pick it up, but the first volume left me kind of cold. It was certainly good, but it was a rather slow burn of a story and I didn't feel compelled to keep on going. Vol 2 still didn't make me a full-fledged addict, but it definitely has e eager to grab volume three. The only thing that bugged me about this volume is that it used a story-telling trick that has always bugged me. A character has information that is pertinent to the plot, he even tells other people this information, but the author covers up what he's saying so that the reveal is hidden from the reader. I understand that it's important to show the reader that the information has been discovered, but it just feels like such a tease.

Sugar Shock One-Shot: The shop was giving this one-shot by Joss Whedon & Fabio Moon out for free during their New Year's Eve Eve sale and it's a fun little book (collecting stories that were originally put up on MySpace). The story is about a punk-rock band called to perform (maybe) at a galactic battle of the bands and it reads lie The Amazing Joy Buzzards had it been written by Whedon. There's not to muc heft there, but certainly worth the price I paid.

TV

Doctor Who: The End of Time 1 & 2: Though I'm not a huge Doctor Who fan, David Tennant's run on the series has been a favorite of mine and these final two episodes were certainly very good, if a tad melancholy. A lot of people on twitter were complaining that the Doctor came off rather unheroic as he met his end, especially compared with his direct predecessor, however it felt fitting to me. Tennant's Doctor always was the reluctant hero who seemed that he'd always prefer be out having fun instead of saving the universe, so his final words seemed right to me. Also, Timothy Dalton chewed the hell out of the scenery in that episode and probably took some home in a to-go container.

Re-watched the ending of Battlestar: Galactica this week and was still really impressed with it, though I could have done without the "present day" coda. Still, really good.

Can't think of too much else I watched other than a few bowl games and repeated watchings of this one episode of The Batman that my youngest has become fascinated with.

Movies:

For Christmas I got myself a Blu-ray player that also is compatible with Netflix Watch Instantly, so I'm going to be watching a lot of movies, some of which will not be very good, such as:

American Ninja: BeaucoupKevin was twittering about watching this yesterday ad so I threw it on late last night, thinking I'd be asleep in a few minutes. But shit, it was fascinating. In discussing it on twitter, Kevin said that it was "such an artifact" and it was. It hearkened back to watching awful movies just like it on cable on at my friends' houses back in grade school. Plus, there was a ninja that shot lasers at the end, that shit was off the hook.

Chocolate: The plot of this Thai martial arts movie: an autistic girl is able to repeat just about any movement she sees someone perform, so fo course she watches a bunch kung-fu movies so she can go collect the money owed to her former-gangster-mother in order to pay for her mother's cancer medicine. It was shockingly not nearly as exploitative as I thought it would end up being and was quite a good movie.

So that's about it for this week. Hopefully I'll have more for you in seven days.

Happy New Year!

Yeah, so I failed at the whole "posting daily" this year, didn't I. Anyway, it's New Year's Eve, so have yourself a good one, and more importantly a safe one.

I do plan on posting much more often in 2010, so I've got that going for me. See you in the future!

Favorite Things II - Day 23

I saw a fair amount of live music shows in 2009, but without a doubt one of my favorites was seeing a cover band. Tributosaurus is a Chicago collective that, once a month, picks a band and performs one show "as" that band, playing pitch-perfect renditions of their songs, obtaining all of the necessary musicians and instruments required. Though I've only seen them once so far, I got to see them "be" one of my absolute favorites, XTC. Which is nice, because we're not likely to see XTC ever tour, should they ever choose to reform, that is. Here's a infomercial they did to promote it:



They started of with a version of Life Begins at the Hop that blew the doors off, cycling through multiple vocalists and musicians in order to get every song exactly right, and they did.

It was a great night, both from my overwhelming familiarity with the music and with the fact that they played it so well. I can't wait to see them in just over a week when they play a New Year's Eve show "as" Tom Petty. I'm sure it'll be a fantastic evening.

Favorite Things II: Day 14*

A quick one for today, here's DC Comics Holiday Card, featuring Jonah Hex, with pencils by José Luis Garcia-Lopez, inks by Kevin Nowlan and colors by Matt Hollingsworth. Just a beautiful card.

click to Santa-size

Art via Kevin Nowlan's blog.

*I know, I know, I'm three days behind here. Will catch up tonight!

Favorite Things II - Day 13

Today's favorite thing is a repeat from last year, it's the internet. Mostly because of shit like this:



A compilation of all of the deaths from Total Recall. YES.

Favorite Things II - Day 12

Since it's a lazy Saturday here at the Phoning It In Industries compound, let's pull out an oldie but goodie, what is probably my favorite single comics panel:



It's from JSA: The Liberty Files, a DC Elseworlds title reimagining a Wolrd War II era Justice Society. But even on an alternate earth, Batman's still The God Damn Batman.

Favorite Things II: Day 11

Whew, almost missed today, well shit. Sorry about this, but I've been on a business trip, but let's go with one of my favorite artists of the last few years, Gene Ha. I got the chance to meet him at my local, Amazing Fantasy Books & Comics and he's a darn nice guy, he even did this awesome sketch for my youngest.

Anyway, though he hasn't done any interior work this year, he did do the covers for what was probably my favourite mini-series of the year, JSA vs. Kobra, here's one of those covers.

Anyway, he's a cool guy, and it just so happens if you're in Chicago, he'll be appearing at 3rd Coast Comics tomorrow from 12 - 5. Swing on by and meet him, grab a sketch and buy some books.

Favorite Things II - Day 10

Sorry, on a business trip this week, so I'm kind of out of sorts but here's an album that I love so very much from this year and it's great and you should get it*. Mayer Hawthorne's A Strange Arrangement is as fine an R&B record as I have heard this year and it is the JAM.



*Can you tell I'm a little drunk as I write this?

Favorite Things II: Day 9

Skottie Young has been on my radar for a couple of years, and though I generally enjoyed his cover work, I never eally got into his storytelling. However, this year saw the release of his & Eric Shanower's excellent adaptation of the Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Young's cartoonish art perfectly fit the book and it brought a wonderful story (that I was thus far only familiar with from the movie) to life. I highly suggest checking out the book, especially if you have kids as it is easily the best all-ages book released this year.

Favorite Things II - Day 8

Well, I've already gone over my favorite movie of the year, now let's talk about the movie I thought was the best.



Moon is easily the best movie I saw this year. Sam Rockwell puts in an amazing performance as a man working alone on the moon, waiting for his tour to end so he can return to his wife and child. One morning, he has an accident and from there, things get strange. I hesitate to say more and if you don't know anything else about the movie, I urge you not to seek out any more information before seeing it. While foreknowledge of the plot does not lessen your enjoyment of it, but the movie is best if you go in with no expectations. This is just a great movie and Rockwell is great in it. Co-Writer & Director Duncan Jones takes a simple story and did not go the easy route with it, so many times I expected him to take a different approach to the story, but where he went ultimately felt much more natural and "real" than most genre films. Unfortunately, the movie doesn't come to video till late January, but I urge you to seek it out, it's a winner.

Favorite Things II - Day 7

A few months ago, I wrote a post talking about my problems with Fringe. Fortunately, most of my problems were solved through the remainder of the first season, opening up the series universe(s) to show where creator JJ Abrams and co. were going with the show. The thing I like most about the show, and something it shares with his previous show, Alias, is that he's not afraid to blow up the shows status quo from season to season. Initially, we thought The Pattern was to be the big bad of the show, the enemy for our heroes to fight each week, but by the end, The Pattern were shown to be much more complicated than previously thought and then pushed aside to show what the true enemy was: another Earth, one that wants to take over our own.

Throughout this, they've kept the stuff I liked, Crazy Walter is still crazy, but his madness has been deepened and given reason, something that just about anyone can understand. Peter's mysteriousness has been given an edge, one that the character himself doesn't yet understand. And Olivia has been further humanized, both by the inclusion of her sister and the fact they've since allowed her to smile once or twice.

I've really been enjoying the second season thus far, though I could have done without the baseball playoffs throwing a wrench into the scheduling, but it's quickly risen to be one of my must watch shows. Glad to know there's something that will still keep me guessing in a few months once Lost is gone.

Favorite Things II : Day 6 *UPDATE*

Well shit, not 12 hours after I hit "publish" on today's post, does Saturday Night Live do a parody of the very same infomercial. Probably the finest thing they've done this year:

Favorite Things II - Day 6

Another lazy day here at the headquarters, but do I have a treat for you. This had undoubtedly been my favorite viral video of the year. Though you may be unfamiliar with the uniquely awful "musical" stylings of the Insane Clown Posse (once notable for being kicked off their label for being too obscene...and awful), but they have built up quite a large following, called Juggalos. This following is so large that they hold a massive, three day festival called the "Gathering of the Juggalos". To promote it this year, they made an infomercial. The most awesome infomercial I have ever seen. I warn you, it is close to 15 minutes long, but goodness, is it worth it. I'd recommend reading The International Society of Supervillains running commentary on the video as you go, as it is one of the best pieces of of internet comedy writing of the year:



Are you entertained? Disturbed? Good.

Favorite Things II - Day 5

As you may remember, Saturday's are lazy days of the Favorite Things. So here's a video featuring one (or rather two) of my favorite things of 2009: DRUNK EWOKS.

Favorite Things II - Day 4

As with most previous years, I only managed to see a few movies in the theater this year. Most of those were with the boys and for some, the less said, the better . Part of the reason I didn't see a lot was simply because this Summer's blockbuster movie season was rather lacking. No big releases that made me block out time in my schedule just so I could see it on opening night or make an evening of it with some friends...save one. That is the new reboot of Star Trek.

While I am a Star Trek fan, I am not a STAR TREK FAN. I am in no way scandalized that Paramount chose to re-boot the original series with an all-new cast. It makes perfect sense if you are trying to cast the net past the same fans that are going to see the movie no matter what. People who aren't fans know certain things just because they are ingrained in the culture: Kirk, Spock, "Beam me up Scotty", etc. To drop $150 million or so on anything that lacked those makes no sense.

Going into the movie, I expected some pretty explosions, and hopefully a few nods to the things that made Star Trek such a great show, the relationships, the nobility and promise of a hopeful future...and they nailed it. Instead of having the actors simply impersonate Shatner, Nimoy, etal, they managed to capture the spirit they brought to their roles and still make it seem new. And it's just all such a good time. Saw in twice in the theater and have seen it now a few more on DVD and it's just excellent. It certainly isn't the best movie of the year, but it certainly is my favorite.

*For more, go ahead and click over to my original review of the movie from this Summer.