Karaoke turns of the super-villains

Oi, Scarecrow! Sing us your favourite Martine McCutcheon song.

That's enough.

Scan from Blackest Night #7

Exposition

A rarity in modern comics: Some good old-fashioned, heavy-handed exposition!

To set the scene: Oa is under attack by Black Lanterns. Mogo the living planet has activated some huge tractor beam thingy in his core which pulls everyone off the surface of Oa into his atmosphere. Then this...

Say what you see!

Scans from Green Lantern Corps #44, March 2010

Spouting guff about some comics I read last night

I read some comics last night. Here's what I thought about them...

Blackest Night #6

At this point in Blackest Night it's become clear that Geoff Johns is more focused on providing his readers with "Fuck yeah!" moments than he is with writing a character-driven story. Thus in this issue we get Barry and Hal outrunning death, a hyper-detailed double page splash of John Stewart being pursued to Earth by a gazillion Black Lanterns, Ganthet strapping on a power ring, and a bunch of established heroes and villains becoming lanterns. There's even a moment when The Atom gets to don his old Sword of The Atom costume - FUCK YEAH!

All that's fine. I can groove on Lex Luthor being an Orange Lantern as much as the next fanboy, but there comes a point where you stop whooping for joy at the cool nerdy stuff and realise that the Fuck Yeah moments have replaced the story itself. Again, that's fine, this is after all a DC event comic not a Samuel Beckett play, it just feels like things are hurtling down a very narrow path with no allowance for interesting character led diversions.

Blackest Night Wonder Woman #2

Ah, I quite enjoyed this. A nice little story that takes place between the panels of Blackest Night #6. Basically, you've got Wonder Woman (possessed again. It's becoming a habit) scrapping with Fish Queen Mera and some other chums before realising that she's all about the love (through some imaginary kiss with Batman) and becoming a Star Sapphire. All utter nonsense, but fairly enjoyable all the same.

Blackest Night Weird Western Tales #71

Not good. Tries to clobber the reader over the head with the aforementioned "Fuck Yeah!" moments, but fails because all of those moments involve characters that nobody cares about. Honestly, is there really anyone out there whooping for joy at the sight of zombie Scalphunter?

It does have a Bill Sienkiewicz cover and the artist (Renato Arlem) does a passable impression of Howard Chaykin, but that's where the good ends. One to line the cat litter tray with I'm afraid.

Jonah Hex #51

OK, so Weird Western Tales did have zombie Jonah Hex, but given that he's got his own monthly book anyway, his appearance really wasn't very exciting. The latest issue of Jonah Hex proper was very good though. I picked it up because I enjoyed the Darwyn Cooke issue so much, but after another strong standalone story I think I'll probably continue to get the book. Bonus Dick Giordano art too. It'd be easy to patronise him by saying he does a great job for a 77-year-old, so let's just say he does a great job full stop. He really does. Alright, so there's not very much to look at in his backgrounds, but he packs a lot of anguish, fear and loathing into his faces.

Sweet Tooth #5

First arc over, and if you didn't read it then I highly recommend that you pick this one up in trade. The last few pages of issue #5 bought a tear to my jaded eye. The preview image for issue #6 had me balling up my fist and wanting to hit the baddies. Now that's a proper "Fuck Yeah!" moment.

Asking for trouble

You know, I'm really enjoying Blackest Night Titans. It's complete and utter hog swill, but like all The Blackest Night stuff so far, it scratches an itch for me. Thing is, a lot of people hate it, and I reckon the folks in editorial are just asking for trouble with the big reveal at the end of issue #2...

Yeah, yeah more dead super-people. Yawnzzzzzz. That's not the problem though. It's this that will have the haters rolling in the aisles...

Really? Is that possible?

Off the stack

Oi, Oi! How goes it? I've knocked a few issues off the old stack and felt like blathering on a tad, so let's have at it!

Firstly, I just reread Fantastic Four #571, the second installment of Hickman and Eaglesham's run on the title. I've now gone through this one three times. Why? Because it's flipping ace is why! Pretty much my idea of a perfect Marvel comic really. It hooks you right from the off with a fresh spin on the obligatory Galactus appearance, which sees Hickman resist the obvious device of using Galactus as the big reveal villain at the end of the book, and instead gets him out of the way at the START of the issue. It's a great moment rendered beautifully in a splendidiferous Eaglesham spread of all the alternate reality Reeds fighting Galactus and a whole squadron of Siver Surfers. Sort of the comics equivalent of the preludes in James Bond films and a typical piece of Hickman thinking.

The rest of the issue is also top drawer as Hickman reels off a series of big concepts all drawn very nicely by Mr Eaglesham, who seems to be channeling the bastard lovechild of Jack Kirby and Chris Sprouse. Even with a squadron of Silver Surfers, an army of lobotomised Dooms, a terraformed planet and some intergalactic DIY, Hickman still finds time for the obligatory Fan 4 family moment, a flashback to Reed's childhood and another genuinely exciting cliffhanger. All this while developing the characters of a bunch of alternate Reeds. I'm still not sure how he manages to cram all that into 22 pages without everything becoming a confused mess, but he does. Top stuff, a PROPER comic which has gone straight to the top of my list of superhero faves.

Giant-Size Old Man Logan was a satisfying enough end to a very good Mark Millar story. I have issues with the $4.99 price point, largely because the extra pages were padded out with uninteresting concept art and a gallery of covers, but the story itself was a fittingly over the top gorefest. The big moments were all entirely predictable, but they still made me chuckle. McNiven does another fine job with the art and there's an ending which leaves things open for a possible sequel - not that we really need one.

Blackest Night Superman #2 Oh now, this was just terrible, but I found myself enjoying it anyway. Basically, Psycho Pirate (of Crisis fame) comes back as a zombie and starts using his funky emotional manipulation powers to mess with the population of Smallville - making teenagers get off with old ladies, that sort of thing. Meanwhile Superman and Superboy duke it out with Zombie Superman while Supergirl has a ruck with her old man on New Krypton. There's an absolutely laughable bit at the end of the book where Ma Kent goes all pissed off action hero, brandishing a torch in a corn field and shouting at zombie Earth 2 Lois Lane that "It's On!" It's a WTF? moment that actually made me laugh out loud. The rubbernecker in me is looking forward to reading the car crash that will come as an old lady fights her zombie daughter-in-law in the next issue. Yay comics!

Reviews

After saying I wasn't going to buy or enjoy Fantastic Four #570, I went and did both. It was in my box at the new shop, so I paid for it, read it and flipping well loved it! Yes, Reed's looking all ripped, but it doesn't end up mattering that much because there is enough traditionally good Fan 4 action in Hickman and Eaglesham's first issue to make me want more.

I got a strong Chris Sprouse/Tom Strong vibe off of Eaglesham's pencils and thought Hickman hit all the necessary notes with the main characters - Ben and Johnny banter, Sue going to bed while Reed works, Reed labouring to invent cool humanity saving stuff.

Heck of a last page too.

Flash Rebirth #4 on the other hand, was an utter pile of brightly coloured impenetrable poo. I'll stick with it, but I now have absolutely no idea what's going on and can't really be bothered to fire up Wikipedia to find out. As far as I can tell, (and bear in mind I was fairly drunk when I read the latest issue), Professor Zoom is having some sort of ruck with Barry Allen and another geezer, (who I don't recognise), in the Speedforce, while Wally West charges about saying meaningful things which I don't understand. It's a right load of old bollocks. Maybe it'll all make sense if I reread it sober.

Blackest Night Titans #1 More tie-in tosh, with a horrible, horrible zombie snogging cover. But, (for shame), I grooved on it. It's got pencils by Ed Benes, who draws people in that '90s, Elfin, Michael Turneresque style which normally turns me off, but actually works very well here. His fight scenes are particularly good, and the ladies will appeal to any saddos out there who like to whack off over their comics (ahem). The story is a solid enough romp. Overall, a very pleasant piece of throwaway entertainment.

Green Lantern #45 Doug Mahnke draws the bejesus out of a bunch of different aliens in this issue. Him and Ivan Reis? Phoosh. I'm an easy sell on Green Lantern, but these two are making my fix of intergalactic punch-ups even more enjoyable. Some great pissed off Sinestro action in this issue, I'm going to soil my plastic pants when he finally faces off against Mongul for control of the Sinestro Corps.

Nekron

Oh fuck, L@@K! It's NEKRON, and he's forcing his way into the DC Universe through some kind of huge inter-dimensional space vag...

"Nekron? Who dat?" I hear the imaginary audience in my head cry.

"Ha!" I reply "Why, he's the latest D list villain to be dredged up by that cheeky Geoff Johns chap."

It's true chums. Mr Johns has recently revealed that this obscure DC character is the big bad boss behind the whole Blackest Night palaver. Yup, hard on the heels of The Black Hand, Johns is hitting us up with yet another awemungus reimagining of a not-so-classic bad guy.

Nekron's made a few appearances down the years, but his big moment (and first appearance) came in the pages of Tales of The Green Lantern Corps #1 - #3 back in 1981. This curious three-parter takes us back some ten billion years to a time when the DCU had just formed and all was peaceful. On the planet Oa, the immortal race that will eventually become the guardians spend their working days doing worthy science stuff...

and their weekends playing catch with giant crystal D&D dice style beach balls...

It's a nice life which goes on for yonks, until one rotten apple spoils everything...

All very Old Testament. Indeed, the moral of this tale is that looking for answers to life's big questions is a really bad idea. Hmmm.

Anyway, to cut a long story short the fella in the panel above is called Krona, and by prying into the origin of the universe, he unwittingly unleashes evil upon the cosmos. People start killing each other Cain and Abel style, leaving the Oans with little choice but to drop their beach balls and figure out how to restore peace to the Universe. To this end, they fire Krona off into space and form the Green Lantern Corps. Yay!

Years later Krona reemerges, gets beat down by the guardians and fired into eternity again, which is where Nekron comes in...

anyway, blah-de-blah, Nekron wants to take over the living universe and turns Krona into a super-powered space zombie complete with an army of alien undead. They bust on the Green Lanterns and the guardians. Nekron is all set to take over everything, when Hal Jordan breaks into his dimension and resurrects all the dead Green Lanterns to fuck Nekron up...

Krona and his space zombies are forced back into the huge minge in the sky...

allowing the Guardians to glue it shut with their green laser goo...

Thus imprisoning Nekron and his undead army forever. Or so they think...

So there you have it, a brief Nekron lesson. If you want to read more about the chap behind The Black Lantern Corps, the entirety of his origin story is reprinted in the trade paperback collection Tales of The Green Lantern Corps.

Story originally printed in Tales of The Green Lantern Corps #1 - #3, May-July 1981.

Very short reviews...

So yeah, I was going to write some sort of review of the first two Red Hulk trades wasn't I? No time, no time. Soz. Maybe Tuesday. Put it in your diaries...Tuesday: avoid reading Sutton's bilge on Hulk book that no-one else likes.

Briefly then...

Green Lantern #44: Martian Manhunter comes back from dead. Has fight with Flash and Green Lantern. John Stewart experiences enjoyable "Oh fuck" moment. Terrific fun.

Captain Britain #15: Last issue of cancelled series. Wraps up Dracula story. Features Space SAS who would've been a lot cooler if they didn't look so much like Buzz Lightyear...

Blackest Night Tales of The Corps #2: Throwback to the '80s GL Corps Annuals which Geoff Johns plundered for his run on GL. Nice short stories about aliens, and a bonus hokey explanation of all the various lantern colours and their symbols by Ethan van Bonkers.

Amazing Spidey #600: Read the first few pages before falling asleep. Rest of the comic could be utter pony for all I know, but as a spin on what it means to be a super-villain, this little four pager on Doc Oc is brilliant.

Captain America #601: After some humming and hawing with Mr Salmond, I eventually settled on the black and white variant of this Gene Colan pencilled special. Listen, some of the art is a bit ropey, but equally some of it is utterly glorious. Given the fact that Colan is a half-blind octogenarian, this rates as an absolute triumph.

Watched...The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters: Super documentary film about man-boys and their obsession with old school arcade games. If you haven't seen this, then go grab yourself a torrent, it's a rich study of emotional retardation and the near autistic world of competitive retro gaming. STEVE WIEBE FTW!