Ice cream van

Spotted in Primrose Hill, north London

Click it for closer inspection.

Note that he seems to be flying over Canary Wharf, not Metropolis.

Walking Back to Crappiness

I'm not the biggest comic news reader. Don't have the time. It's read the comics or read the news about comics. What you gonna do? As a result, I was largely unaware of the big Superman news until Mr Kirkham alerted me to it. To summarise, after a year or two when Superman hasn't even appeared in his own book, he's back, but instead of smashing up meteors and burning stuff with his eyes, he's walking across America.

Yes, walking.

The man who flies faster than a speeding bullet and leaps tall buildings in a single bound is going for a gentle cross-country stroll. Ridiculous. It wouldn't be so bad if during that stroll, Braniac landed on earth and smashed Supes over the head with a red kryptonite hammer, but apparently there aren't going to be any super-villains in this story.

None.

Instead, Superman is going to chat to people. That's right chat. Chat and, (these are actual plot points from the first installment, by the way), fix cars, burn drugs and comfort suicidal women. OH MY GOD!

Now, I understand that I'm sounding like some precious, entitled fanboy by slating this nonsense without even reading it, but come on! This is Superman! Why on earth would anyone want to read twelve issues of a Superman comic in which he strolls across America having mundane conversations with a bunch of nobodies? It's a stupid idea!

Not that it should surprise us given that the whole concept comes from the mind of J Michael Straczynski, the man whose most recent stories include an arc on Thor where he put Asgard in Oklahoma and had Thor eat pancakes with pensioners - or something like that, I don't know how it turned out, because after two issues without Thor hitting anyone with his fucking hammer, I gave up.

I don't have a total downer on Straczynski. He's done some good stuff (be nice if he'd finish The Twelve). Who knows, this might even be good. I've heard a few people say that Thor got better, so maybe I'm doing it a disservice. But honestly, Oklahoma? Walks? Chatting? This is the kind of bollocks my two-year-old-son comes up with. He's always pitching me this one Spider-Man story where Spidey goes to Sainsburys to buy some pasta and cake for a party at Rhino's house. Straczynski would probably nick that idea if he could. It sounds more exciting than Superman's walk, at least it's got a villain in it.

So yeah, I'm less than enthused about this thing. Part of me wants to read it to see how bad it is. But it probably won't even be "funny bad", more likely it's going to be a bunch of earnest claptrap - Superman discovering the soul of America. Christ. I know there's a place for this sort of thing, but Superman's been shit for a while now and the last thing the character needs is to slow down. What's wrong with Lex Luthor blowing up The Fortress of Solitude or Bizarro kidnapping Lois Lane? Why do we need introspection in a Superman comic? Alright, a little bit perhaps. But a whole year's worth? I say thee nay!

IT'S A SUPERHERO COMIC, PUT SOME FIGHTING IN IT!

Notes on some comics I read yesterday

I read eight comics yesterday and they were all good. Here's the what and why of them all...

Green Lantern Corps #31

Delayed, delayed, but worth the wait. Krib - a particularly creepy lady alien from the Sinestro Corps who steals babies and stores them in a cage that grows out of her back - goes toe to toe with a giant green foetus. Meanwhile the guardians say no to jiggy jiggy while Mongul says yes and chills with some scantily clad extra terrestrials. Bonkers brilliance.

Fantastic Four #562

At this point I realise that I'm the only person in the world enjoying Millar and Hitch's Fantastic Four. Well yah boo sucks to the rest of you, you don't know a good Fan 4 comic when you see it! Big super-hero funeral shenanigans that give Hitch the chance to draw EVERYONE. Some nice characterisation of Franklin Richards, and a decent dash of talking heads between Doom and Reed.

Captain America #45

Not much to say really, just another solid issue in a consistently good run. Luke Ross and the mighty Butch Guice provide pencils, but it might as well be Steve Epting, because it looks as good as ever.

Incognito #1

Brubaker and Phillips new book from Marvel's Icon imprint. The Super-Villain in witness protection thing is a decent idea and this issue does a good job of setting the scene for what promises to be an interesting tale. It is slightly reminiscent of Millar's Wanted, but given how good that was, this is no bad thing. Lovely colouring job from Val Staples, and a very interesting text piece in the back on the early days of The Shadow.

Marvel Zombies #3

This Fred Van Lente fellow is a proper geezer. First he produces Comic Book Comics, one of my favourite books of last year,  then he does this - a sequel to a sequel that not only succeeds in outdoing the first two chapters in the zombies trilogy, but is also quite easily the best Marvel comic on the stands at the time of writing. 

Honestly, this comic is ACE. First off, van Lente has taken the Aaron Stack Machine Man from Warren Ellis's Nextwave and made him even more awesome than he was in that book. Then he's somehow made the whole Marvel Zombies thing seem fresh and exciting DESPITE the fact that (pardon the pun) it's an idea that should be dead in the water by now. AND, on top of all that he's produced an action packed page turner of a story loaded with witty dialogue. 

The art by Kev Walker looks just like Sean Phillips' stuff on the first two books which lends the story the feel of a proper continuation and also means that it looks flat out fantastic. Issue #3 features a quite sensational sequence where Machine Man nicks the bike of zombie Ghost Rider and outruns a trio of Marvel's most famous speedsters. I read it, put it down and muttered "fuck, that was excellent!" 

THIS is why I buy super-hero comics folks. Sadly there's only one issue left. Make sure you buy the trade.

Gigantic #2

Robots, satire and sick humour - this is sooooooooo 2000AD. Which is excellent given how shite the real 2000AD is these days. Rick Remender is kicking arse at Dark Horse, and this tale of intergalactic reality TV gone wrong is threatening to top the other grade A goodness he's been producing for the company. I still think that the colour palette is a touch muted for the robot smashing, planet busting style story, but it's a minor quibble. Top notch sci-fi.

Superman #683

What happened to the Creature Commandos? I'm getting confused. Oh well, I still enjoyed this. Part nine of the New Krypton saga and those pesky Kandorians are getting madder by the minute. An enjoyable super-hero romp.

Final Crisis Secret Files

Written by Len Wein, this is a look at Libra's origin. I enjoyed it quite a bit, but do have a couple of reservations about it. Firstly, the interior art isn't much cop. Sorry, but it isn't. I think my main gripe with it is that the artist chooses to ignore drawing backgrounds in a lot of his panels, thus we get a shot of Big Ben with no Houses of Parliament, and a warehouse which is quite literally empty and, as a result pretty uninteresting to look at. Several of the figures are also out of proportion. There you go. 

NEVERTHELESS, the story was OK. It's a heavy-handed retelling of a tale originally written in the 70s (I think) complete with exposition heavy dialogue and corny set pieces. Sounds dreadful, right? well it is in a way, but I also found it strangely refreshing, a nice change from the well written comics we've got used to. 

I say DC let that Len Wein fellow write more throwback super-hero romps, but next time give him an artist who can bring his work to life - Berni Wrightson would be alright I reckon!

Panel of the Year

Swiped from the excellent Superman: New Krypton Special.

PS I've been described as "a bit bitchy and hard edged"

And I thought I was a big old softie.

Shopping List

No visit to London's magical West End last week as I only had one title on the old shopping list. My brain barely survived the disruption to its weekly routine of course, but I felt better about myself for not dropping a wad of cash. Still, one week without new comics is enough for any emotionally retarded man to bear, and I'm straining at the leash to lash the cash on some overpriced funny books. Here's what I'll be picking up this week...

The End League #5
Relentlessly depressing, deliberately derivative superhero team book by Rick Remender. The End League gets darker and more difficult to follow with every passing issue, but it's well written, cool stuff and I'm a big fan.

Action Comics #870
Geoff Johns' mission to clean up any discrepancies in DC continuity continues apace with part four of his Braniac story, and very well done it is too. He's successfully managed to build a new Braniac out of all the old versions of the character while still telling a rollicking good Superman yarn.

Final Crisis: Revelations #3
Oh dear which one is this again? I'm getting a bit confused by all the tie-ins that I swore I wasn't going to buy but in fact am. Ah yes, the Spectre threatening to kill the Question at some indeterminate point in the Final Crisis timeline, lots of quotes from the bible and some horrible art from Philip Tan. Still, I enjoyed the bit where Dr Light got turned into a candle and I'm now irreversibly locked into buying everything related to Final Crisis so...

Green Lantern #35
More house cleaning from Johns as he retells the origin of Green Lantern. This arc was obviously designed to be a bit of a filler while Hal Jordan gets on with all the Final Crisis stuff elsewhere, but it's turned out to be one of Johns' finest moments on the book. Lots of Sinestro, plenty of Hector Hammond and a plausible fusion of current events in the GL universe and the original Silver Age origin of the character.

Green Lantern Corps #39
How do you follow up the last story where a bunch of evil alien insectoid types dumped a truckload of eyeballs on the Green Lanterns for a laugh? Answer: You can't. What you can do is whet the appetites of your slavering audience for the upcoming Blackest Night story with an origin story for one of the multitude of new Lantern Corps. Yay!

Wonder Woman #25
Hmmm. I'm getting closer and closer to dropping this. The first few issues of Gail Simone's run were really strong, but the glory days of talking apes v techno Nazis on the beach are long gone and let's be honest, it's been downhill since then. Last chance to get good or it's off the list.

Avengers Invaders #5
Yeah, this is shit awful but I've bought four issues already so what are you gonna do? Ahh the mindset of the comic fan.

Invincible Iron Man #6
Eziekel Stane is the best NEW villain to hit the Marvel U for a long time and Invincible Iron Man is as good a reboot of a Marvel property as there's been in recent years. Can't say much more about this book than that. A gem.

Marvel Zombies III #1
Really? It's by Fred van Lente though, so it's might be OK.

The Twelve #8
Given that we're eight issues in and the Twelve still haven't done anything but moan about how shit modern life is, I should be hating this, but for some reason it works. Not only that, it's spawned a fine Big Dave F impression. Really, you should see his Mastermind Excello, it's uncanny.

The Mental Movies

Why does Lois look so worried?

Everyone else is clearly enjoying The Mental Movies.

Mmmmmmmm. Mental Movies.

Scans from Superman's Girlfriend Lois Lane #21, November 1960

Saturday 8am...

...and your attractive host is preparing to read Superman Beyond 3D!

Note that the specs are from League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier, and not those provided with Superman Beyond 3D. As any true comic cunt knows, cutting the glasses out of Superman Beyond 3D would destroy the value of a comic which is CLEARLY going to be worth a FORTUNE in the very near future.

And now...King Superman!

50% King

50% Pope

100% CUNT!

All scans taken from Action Comics #312 (One of the comics I bought for 25p at Sunday's mart. Sadly also one of the comics with missing pages)

A visit to a London Comic Market

To the mart with Mr Wheatley and chum Gareth.

A particularly shabby affair I must say. Turnout was way down on July's stinkfest, leaving most of the dealers ashen faced. The rows of 25p and 50p boxes grow longer by the month and the dealers trying to get rid of expensive silver age books are virtually redundant. There might still be money at the top end of the back issue market, but for the boys knocking out mid-grade bronze and silver age comics the game is almost up. No wonder these purveyors of four colour treasure look so fucking miserable.

Still, as Gareth remarked, they could improve their chances of survival by at least trying to be customer friendly. He's got a point. To the newcomer many of these scowling misery guts can be off-putting. Often they're too engaged in discussing how terrible business is to pay any attention to potential customers. In the case of those knocking out comics at basement prices, they can't even be bothered to put their stock in alphabetical order.

Yeah, yeah, I know that bargain bins are traditionally chaotic and non alphabetical. But if you were having a hard time making cash (as a lot of these blokes seem to be) wouldn't you consider organising your stock? I'm sure it would boost sales among casual punters looking for specific titles. Not that the dealers seem to agree.

"Have you got any Batman?" I heard one bloke (who was clearly frustrated by the chaotic jumble of yellowing junk he was faced with) ask.

"Yes" smirked the dealer "They're filed under TW for twenty five pence"

Ho-Hum. Didn't stop me buying a stack of cheap tat from him obviously. Not that I was too happy with him when, on returning home, I discovered that a couple of his comics had pages missing. CUNTTTTTTTTT!!!!

It wasn't all bad news. I picked up a few lovely bargains including Adventure Comics #390, which features a quality story about Comet the Super-Horse and his frankly species inappropriate feelings for Supergirl...


Needless to say he gets his wish, transforming (via some goddess or other's spell) into a cowboy before getting it on with Supergirl...

Click the image to enjoy this inappropriate moment in full

Marvellous, if mildly disturbing, stuff, I'm sure you'll agree.

Also shoved in the old nerd sack: this copy of Action Comics...

I like that cover a lot, Superman looks like he's straining to have a shit while laying waste to Metropolis. Class.

A couple of crappy old Cap issues including this one...

Margaret Thatcher: Nazi Hunter
(Actually that's quite a good idea)

And various mouldering horror comics, full of brilliant old ads like this...

Strangely old looking teens? Or...

ZOMBIES!!!!!!!!!!!

So yeah anyway, shit like that is what keeps me going back, but every month's mart is shabbier than the last. Let's face it, there's just no place for it in a world of cheap reprints and Ebay bargains. The event is dying on its arse, and pretty soon it's just going to be me, a desperate dealer and a couple of boxes of Bunty in a huge and otherwise empty hall.

Until next month...