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Although growing up I was more into Transformers and Voltron, I’ve always been a GI Joe fan. I think the Marvel series had some of the best stories and most compelling characters in comics history, and was thrilled when Devils Due not only revived, but continued the story begun by Larry Hama. Last year when Devils Due lost the license they ended the story begun by Larry, allowing the new license holder, IDW to reboot the franchise. I can honestly say after reading IDW’s GI Joe # 1, I can relate to Superman fans after their favorite character rebooted in 1986’s The Man of Steel - I have feelings of both excitement and skepticism.
Click to continue reading Yo Joe
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Well, of course, we all know that Warren Ellis, Mark Evanier, and Neil Gaiman have blogs (and all three are highly recommended), but there are some other blogs by comic book professionals past and present that are worth a look as well. Here are some of my favorites – check ‘em out this weekend and see what you think:
CARL POTTS is a former Editor-In-Chief at Marvel Comics during the go-go 1990s. He’s also the co-creator of Alien Legion. At his blog, General Eclectic, he writes regularly about his days at Marvel (with a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff about the business), creates well-illustrated essays on visual storytelling, and more. Favorite recent post: Marvel Tales: Making Comic Book Editors.
DAVE OLBRICH is a good buddy from my Ultraverse years. At his blog Funnybook Fanatic he posts regularly about the comics of his youth, his Ultraverse years and his adventures in comic book land with guys like Marv Wolfman, Jack Kirby and Stan Lee. Favorite story so far: freezing at a luau in Hawaii with Stan.
GERARD JONES was a writer for DC Comics, Epic, Malibu Comics and the Ultraverse and Dark Horse during the aforementioned go-go ‘90s. At one time a writer for National Lampoon, he was also the co-creator of The Trouble With Girls with writing partner Will Jacobs. He has since become a writer of more serious fare, including Men of Tomorrow. He’s also occasionally posting his novel-in-progress, My Pal Splendid Man, that he’s writing with Jacobs. It’s about a would-be writer who befriends a superhero. Gerard doesn’t post that often, but he’s still worth a visit if only to read chapters from his upcoming books.
TOM RICHMOND got his start at NOW Comics working on their Married…With Children licensed comics. He has since become a mainstay at MAD Magazine, among other places. At his officially unofficial MAD Blog, he posts regularly about MAD, his illustration assignments, the business of cartooning and caricatures and highlights a lot of his wonderful artwork, taking the reader through his process from concept to sketch to pencils/inks/color. Tom also blogs about his non-publishing-related second career, as a caricaturist. Favorite Post: Reviewing The Cintiq 12wx (Seriously, it’s a great review.)
TODD KLEIN is one of the most in-demand letterers in the comic book business. He currently letters Fables for DC, Nexus for Mike Baron and Steve Rude and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen for Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill. Most recently, he did the cover lettering for Amazing Spider-Man #583, the Obama issue. On his blog Klein Letters he posts regularly about the business, does logo studies of long running comics like Fantastic Four, House of Mystery and Justice League, reviews comics and books, and highlights classic lettering samples from DC’s files. Occasionally he throws in some nifty bird photos and vegetarian recipes. Best post: Celebrating Gaspar Saladino, the legendary DC letterer. It’s a 3-part post and worth every second you spend reading them.
What’s next for Batman after Final Crisis?
Posted by David Torres Categories: Editorials, DC Comics,
Batman is dead. In this week’s issue of “Final Crisis”, Batman died at the hands of Darkseid. I always felt that if DC were to ever write this story, (I’m not including the death of Earth 2 Batman or any Elseworlds stories) Batman’s death would come at the hands of one of his rogues. It would be an epic tale where the Joker or Ra’s would finally succeed in getting one over on Bruce in a moment of weakness.
So now that he’s dead, where do we go from here? Well we know DC will be putting “Detective Comics” and “Batman” on hiatus and in it’s place will be a three part miniseries entitled “Battle for the Cowl”. We can assume from the title that there will be a fight of some sort to see who will take over as Batman. The players are: Nightwing, Robin, Jason Todd, and Hush.
This is much different that what we saw during the “Knightfall” trilogy where the mantle was simply given to Jean Paul Valley aka Azrael. Bruce’s relationship with Dick Grayson was estranged at the time and Tim Drake was too young, so for some reason it was deemed fitting that the character of Bruce Wayne would rationally relinquish the most important thing in his life to this guy he barely knew - but that’s ancient history now.
Click to continue reading What’s next for Batman after Final Crisis?
DC Comics Review: Batman: Confidential #25
Posted by David Torres Categories: Reviews, DC Comics,
This is the final chapter of the “Batman: Confidential” storyarc, “Rites”. I’ve blogged about this story before and how it’s been a breath of fresh air over the past few months in contrast to what Grant Morrison has been doing over in “Batman”. Overall this was a very good story. It’s a story so good that I think it would be accepted by fans if this story was incorporated into the current Batman continuity.
The story continues with the rogue police officer looking to get revenge on the Joker for tricking his wife into committing suicide. The story has no surprise endings really. The cop doesn’t kill the Joker obviously and Batman of course comes in to save the day. However, there are some cool moments like the birth of Arkham Asylum where the Joker tortures his fellow inmate the rogue cop with cruel jokes about his dead wife.
The cover of this issue gives away the ending as the story comes full circle and shows the Batman bringing in a new villain to police headquarters for booking - the Riddler. The writer of this story Andrew Kreisberg is a Hollywood writer and producer. I doubt he would give up his day job to come and work for the comic industry full time. It’s our loss as he has done a fine job here. Scott McDaniel is on the money here as always with the art work.
The next storyarc is the introduction of the 1960s Batman TV show villain King Tut into Batman comics. Whether this story will be in continuity I have no idea. The story will be written by Christina Weir and Nunzio DeFilippis who wrote the very underrated “New Mutants” relaunch a few years back and its next incarnation “New X-Men Academy X”. I’ll be sticking around as there won’t be any Bruce Wayne/Batman stories hitting the stands for a while. Whose idea was it to kill off Batman as we enter his 70th year of publication? Nice move!
With all the rumblings about the economy going on recently, I asked a retailer friend the other day how that was affecting his shop. And he gave me the following anecdote, which I’ll paraphrase:
The other day, one of my box customers came into the shop and asked to see his pull list. After crossing off about half the titles on the sheet, he handed it back to me and then asked with a straight face: “So, how’s this economy treating you?”
My friend, good retailer that he is, didn’t actually react as I might have, which probably would have been to leap over the counter and try to strangle the guy.
With maybe the exception of the recent Obama issue of Amazing Spider-Man, which looks to be selling for ridiculous amounts on ebay, it’s tough to see how comics retailers wouldn’t be affected just like everybody else by the economic downturn. But it’s one more reason to support your local comic shops right now to help keep folks in business for the long haul.
While I haven’t cut back much yet, I’m definitely not making as many spur-of-the-moment purchases as I might otherwise do. Of course, it would certainly help if the prices would stop going up.
Read More 
| Bridge City Comics
Let me start on the Spider-Man variant story. Marvel and DC usually make dealers buy 20, 40, or even 75 copies of a book to get one variant. Sometimes you can buy as many copies of an unimportant variant as you want. Now, dealers can change their orders via an FOC three weeks before they arrive. In this case, Marvel announced that any dealer that ordered more copies of Spider Man 583 than 575 could get as many copies of the Obama cover as they wanted. This slipped by most of the dealers. And who knew that Joe Quesada would be all over TV to plug it ? So I didn’t get any, but I could have sold plenty.
And next week they are printing a second printing with the same Obama variant cover except it has an orange background instead of a blue one. Don’t be fooled as some people on E-Bay who are buying the second printing thinking they are getting the original variant. The original variant is worth up to 100 dollars on E-Bay.
Now the real random thoughts (SPOILERS!!!):
- You’ve been warned about SPOILERS… stop now! Okay…
- So Darkseid kills Batman in Final Crisis 6, but which Batman died in RIP? And if the continuity was screwed up by having a live Batman in the next two issues of Batman, what the heck is going on now? Even DC couldn’t straighten it out to me on our weekly call. Luthor zapping Libra was cool, but Sivana saying “and that’s the classic we haven’t heard the last of him” was priceless. Batman and which Superman were flying around in Crisis 6 heat visioning everybody in sight? For a non-killer he seemed to kill a lot of who? Good guys or bad guys? Can’t tell. Is it the same Supes carrying Bat’s body in the end? Final Crisis 7 comes in two weeks and we are promised that Grant Morrison will clear everything up. I am holding my breath.
- In Faces of Evil - Prometheus, it seems he goes off to a secret monastery in the Himalyas to learn all about evil. Holy Dr Doom, Batman, where have we seen that before?
- Adam, Legend of the Blue Marvel was great. What they plan on doing with a hero who has talks with the Watcher after the series is over is interesting. Calling the Watcher a white guy with attitude is classic.
- Batman Confidential is a fun way to introduce all the old villains but I am sure they are screwing with continuity? But, who cares?
“Final Crisis” is garbage. There I said it Grant Morrison fans. I can’t believe there are people who defend this man and say his work on “Batman” and “Final Crisis” has been great - they’re not. But that’s not why we’re here. We’re here for a review of the 6th issue of the “Final Crisis” mini-series which features the final fate of Batman.
For those of you who haven’t read it yet, do not read any further. I can’t review this issue without revealing that piece of information.
Click to continue reading DC Comics Review: Final Crisis #6
It’s been a long time since a good adventure strip debuted in the newspaper, and it’s great to see one come along. Even better when the creator, Dan Thompson, has a fresh take on the genre and a style that pops off the page. “RIP HAYWIRE” debuted on January 12, 2009 and from the moment you see it, you know it’s not your grandfather’s comic strip. Thompson has crafted a wonderful and funny homage to the era of Steve Canyon and livened it up with a sense of humor, great draftsmanship and a lot guys and gals getting popped in the head and blown up real good. I can’t wait for the pirates to show up!
Click to continue reading Q&A: Dan Thompson and RIP HAYWIRE
President-elect Obama To Team-Up With Spider-man
Posted by Jeffrey Harris Categories: Editorials, Reviews, DC Comics, Marvel Comics,
USA Today recently got the scoop about the latest issue of The Amazing Spider-Man #583, appearing on store shelves today. In the issue, Spider-Man gets to team up with the next President of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama. The story penned by Zeb Wells, Todd Nauck, and Frank D’Armata will depict the Chameleon trying to thwart Obama’s inauguration. The issue will be sold for a cover price of $3.99, and the limited-edition cover by artist, Phil Jimenez, will be limited to half the printing run.
Preview panels from USA Today show Obama going up to Spider-Man and performing a legendary fist-bump to end all fist-bumps as Obama expresses his fandom and support for Spider-Man. Reflecting on the incident, Spider-Man thinks, “I can’t shake the feeling that if I hadn’t showed up, he would have handled the Chameleon all by himself. Guess it’s time to head back to New York. It looks like Washington is in capable hands.” Joe Quesada, Editor-In-Chief of Marvel Comics, was excited about Obama having a cameo in a Spider-Man comic after the President-Elect said he was a fan of Spider-Man in an Entertainment Weekly pop-culture survey. Obama’s then opponent, Senator John McCain, only mentioned liking Batman, the flagship character of Marvel publishing rival, DC Comics.
The mainstream media outlets and the overt love over Obama getting elected is hardly a secret. But this appearance just feels so blatantly overt with Spidey basically hero-worshiping Obama in the story. Yeah, Obama could’ve handled Chameleon because everyone knows Obama has had training sessions with Captain America like Spider-Man. Also, if I was Spider-Man, I would be telling him to watch out for Norman Osborn, who is now in charge of HAMMER in the Marvel Universe in the fallout of Secret Invasion. Just saying, if Obama trusts Spider-Man and the admiration is for real, “Mr. President, the guy in charge of HAMMER is a psychopath and admitted former super-villain that’s killed a ton of people. Might want to do something about that.”
Just saying.
Read More | USA Today
Wacky, weird, and wonderful, The Umbrella Academy was the surprise hit of last year. Created and written by My Chemical Romance vocalist Gerard Way, The Umbrella Academy: Apocalypse Suite is the story of a group of children spontaneously born at the moment “Tusslin Tom” Gurney knocked out the space squid from Rigel X-9 with an atomic flying elbow. (I told you it was weird). Millionaire inventor Reginald Hargreeves, who along with his talking chimp Pogo, adopts seven of the children, who he trains as superheroes at the Umbrella Academy.
I’m not a fan of My Chemical Romance (I’m more of a classic/hard rock kind of guy), so I thought nothing of this title when it first debuted on Free Comic Book Day. But, when people like Grant Morrison are saying it’s one of the best books out there, my curiosity gets piqued, so I decided to check out the first trade paperback. What I found was a mix of the plot of Rising Stars, the familial dynamic of the Fantastic Four, and the weirdness of Grant Morrison’s Doom Patrol all dressed with a dark, expressionistic, art style.
The story’s main thrust is Hargreeves has died and the team has reunited for the funeral. It is not a happy one, as the team must deal with not only an old villain’s last plot, the family issues that tore them apart in the first place, the Orchestra Verdammten, who have composed a piece to destroy the world, and the revelation that their estranged non-powered sister Vanya is really the most powerful of them all. Add battles with the Eiffel Tower, a journey to the future, and a talking monkey professor, and you have one fun and unique book. I don’t know what else to say other then you won’t see anything like this from Marvel and DC.
Click to continue reading Review- The Umbrella Academy
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