comics

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Superman/Batman: Public Enemies – World’s Finest Couple

Did anyone else notice the sexual tension between Batman and Superman in this movie? And by sexual tension, I mean way more than even there usually is. The closeted gay subtext is made even more startling obvious by the Tom of Finland-looking animation style based on the comic book’s art by Ed McGuinness.

Whenever Lois Lane is mentioned, Batman acts exactly like a petulant, jealous boyfriend. There is a scene when they are pressed up against one another, buried alive and they exchange these quips with cute little smirks and I was sure they were going to make out.

As a straight-up (heh, get that joke, there?) comic book movie it was fairly flat. If the movie was about their gay relationship, with Lex as the president who is out to ruin Superman after their failed relationship back in the Smallville Superboy days it would have kinda rocked. Instead it never acknowledged where the story’s real tension was situated and just didn’t really work as well as the other DC animated movies.  The movie ends with the first appearance of Lois Lane and Batman skulking away, exactly like a spurned lover.

As it is, we already have Apollo and Midnight, the World’s Finest couple, who are out to the world and that will have to be enough.

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Ingition City

Ignition City is a comic book, “an ongoing epic told in five issue series,” written by Warren Ellis, drawn by Gianluca Pagliarani.

Commando Cody, Flash Gordon (along with a few of his back-up characters), Buck Rogers and so on are all characters, thinly veiled Planetary-style on Ignition City. In a science fiction reality 1956 where the retro-future pulp science fiction heroes have all gone to the stars and faced the aliens on Venus, Mars and beyond earth nations have still abandoned their space programs. Ignition City is the only place where space ships can take off or land.

The protagonist is Mary Raven, whose father was killed in Ignition City and she shows up to figure out the mystery. For some reason her midriff is showing.

Raygun fights in the street, flashbacks to alien worlds, martians sell alien food from stalls and space crabs eat human remains while cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin, staggers around drunk muttering on about what a hero he is. Everyone in the series is earth-bound, wanting to get back into space and not able to do so.

Pagliarani’s art is amazing and he really brings the city to life. The buildings are all grounded, rotted out space ships, tremendous pulp rockets with fins; they’re glorious. His art brings Ellis’ mad ideas to life. Ellis gets to vent about our stuttering steps into space while playing with pulp toys, something he does well and with gusto. The first three issues have been solid fun and I’m looking forward to seeing more of pulp sci-fi space.

This comic, combined with talking about pulp sci-fi heroes last night with Pete prompted me to pick up another edition of Alex Raymond’s Flash Gordon series, the Flash Gordon Saturday morning cartoon series on DVD and a collection of Buck Rogers.

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A beautiful Friday

Reading: I should finish up the second hard-cover graphic novel of Invincible today at lunch and I’m fairly underwhelmed. Other than an interesting reveal towards the end of the first graphic novel it is a fairly tepid Superboy ala Spider-Man’s school life ala Teen Titans with only a few little tidbits that leave me interested at all. But well worth utilizing the inter-library loan for; I’m glad I didn’t buy ’em.

Planning: Some Shock: tonight with the lady-friend and a few of the Friday night gamers, some schoolwork this weekend and just hang-outs.

Wearing: My Suffer-Jets roller derby t-shirt under a black button down and some jeans.

Writing: I started writing this biblical super-hero passages called the Book of the Cowl that was fun. I might very well pair some of the passages up with some of Storn’s super-hero art from his site and post them to this blog from time to time.

Tinkering with a short story and the next bit of Daggers & Deviltry.

And you?

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Dr. Doom makes me happy.

I was reading Daredevil, almost excited because it seemed like my prophecy would come true and Matt Murdock would be the Kingpin of Hell’s Kitchen, leading a ninja clan to keep the peace. Oh yes, he has become his own greatest enemy but also awesome.

So, the Hand offers him leadership.

Oh yeah.

He turns them down.

Oh well.

I read through the latest Thor, which was some kind of anniversary issue. And its all ho-hum kinda boring. Odin’s father returns, Loki’s shenanigans cause Thor to kill his own grandfather, so Thor is banished from Asgard.

Here’s where it almost get’s interesting. Asgard is plopped down in the American midwest right now. Loki (in the body of a woman now…why?) is talking to some Asgardian shmoe in a bar, saying that he knows a place where they could relocate Asgard, a mountainous place with lots of good hunting…LATVERIA!

BAM!

It almost made me want to keep reading that series. Almost.

I had to buy Captain Britain and the MI13 when the issue started off with Dr. Doom and Dracula having a discussion on the moon near the lunar lander. The rest of the issue was shite (except for when some British lads in a pub gave Blade shit for being too tragically hip to just sit in the pub and enjoy himself) but that bit was fun. I’ll likely buy a few more issues just to see some four-color Marvel Dracula madness.

EDIT:

I forgot to add that Doom took Dracula to task for being a racist prick about Muslims. It was kinda cool, actually.

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Daredevil lately

I took Daredevil off of my pull-list after the Lady Bullseye issue but the order didn’t go into the computer in time, so I got three more issues with my last batch. And Lady Bullseye kinda sucks but the plot is all ninja-y and such. It isn’t as good as the Bendis run or the first Brubaker arc in prison with Kingpin, Bullseye and Punisher locked up with Murdock but it passed some time on the toilet for me.

There is one way this comic can get me back. If we see Matt take control of The Hand, declare himself Kingpin and rule Hell’s Kitchen as the Grand Master of a band of ancient ninja, then they will get me back.

C’mon, Grand Master Ninja Kingping Daredevil, it almost has a ring to it.

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Why so serious?

Batman Lightens Up With Brave and the Bold

“Holy optimism, Dark Knight! Batman: The Brave and the Bold has arrived to counteract the depressing void left behind by summer blockbuster The Dark Knight and the unfortunately canceled anime of television’s The Batman.”

I am intrigued. Some well-written, Silver Age-inspired Bat-goodness would be kind of neat and certainly a nice change of pace. I like the idea of taking Batman out of Gotham for a while, seeing him kick some ass in Atlantis, Gorilla City, the Moon, etc.

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Comic Book Therapy

Work was rough today and on my way to get my cell phone fixed, I stopped off at the comic book store for some therapy.My monthly regular comics habit is supplied from a comic shop online that gives me a deal but I occasionally stop by the local store for impulse buys or to pick up a single issue that is eluding me.

So, here’s what I got:

The Amazing Spider-Man #569: After reading Ellis’ take on Norman Osborn (two parts George W. Bush, one part Joker) I was curious to see how Norman would be in a spider-book. Also, after years of reading and digging Ultimate Spider-man I am curious to see how a Spider-man my own age is doing.

The use of Eddie Brock was nifty, as a kind of recovering addict of the Venom symbiote and Osborne is cuh-razy, though has amnesia apparently, so he only remembers that there is some link between Parker and as Osborne calls him, “the bug.” I waited all issue for Spider-man to correct him about being a bug and it never happened.

It was okay, nothing special. If it is a late night at Wegman’s and I need something to read with my sherbert binge, I’ll give a future issue a shot.

Air #1: It is a Vertigo title and it had an endorsement quote from Neil Gaiman. It was about a stewardess and it was trying to make some kind of a statement about terrorism and airlines. I couldn’t get through it and skimmed to the end just to make sure there wasn’t some kind of a big reveal that would blow my mind.

There is always that feeling when you pick up a Vertigo title. Am I getting on the ground floor of a Sandman, a Preacher, a 100 Bullets, or a Fables? No, not this time.

Doktor Sleepless #3 & 4:I wasn’t thrilled with the first issue of Doktor Sleepless and Elllis’ work on Avatar’s label has been hit or miss for me, mostly miss. But issue 3 had the words, “Don’t worry ma’am we’re from the internet” on the cover and I couldn’t deny it.

I came away with the same feelings I had from Global Frequency, each issue had a cool idea and just not enough going on around it to make it worth my while. Ellis has cool ideas about the future but there wasn’t enough character meats to keep me chewing.

But I’ll always go back to Ellis and give him a few issues worth of a shot because you never know when you might stumble into Planetary, Stormwatch, The Authority, Black Summer, Transmetropolitan, or my favorite of his, Fell.

Anna Mercury #1 and 3: I have no idea what is going on. Maybe this is because I am missing issue 2. It is perhaps more telling that I just don’t care about not knowing what is going on. This is a neo-pulp comic book about a fictnaut (yeah, he doesn’t use that word but its right out of Planetary) with red hair, wielding two guns in a tight leather outfit in a fictional zeppelined out city called New Ataraxia. The city is stunningly rendered with signs that say things like, “Magnetism: The way of the future.”

No idea what is going on but I’m in.

The reveal at the end of issue 3 is fun stuff and the constant banter with Mercury Launchpad reminds me a whole lot of Lacuna’s Control.

I’m in. You got me.

Batman R.I.P. #679-678: What is Grant Morrison up to? I had read the first arc of his Batman run and while the introduction of his son via Talia from the Batman: Son of the Demon graphic novel, the first hardback comic book I ever owned, tickled my geek, it just wasn’t that damned compelling.

I talked with my buddy, Pete, about Batman comics and neither of us knew what was going on with it. So, I picked up the most recent issue off of the rack and it grabbed me.

Also, Marvel announced a big, purty hardback for Morrison’s six issue mini-series, Marvel Boy and that was a doozy of a fun, rockin’ comic.

Long story short, Batman is having a nervous breakdown, folks are digging up stuff on the Waynes and it isn’t all that nice. Turns out Martha and Thomas had a hard party streak and there were even rumors back in the day that their first born son, Bruce, might’ve really been the son of the BUTLER!

I have no idea if the villain of the piece is really a fractured piece of Bruce Wayne or what.

I’m intrigued.

I’m in.

A nice phone conversation with Janaki while watching some pretty people play volleyball, nine comics, a talk with Bret about Dogs in the Vineyard and our yearning to play us some Darkpages and the work-day is long behind me.