Cominatcha! Mr. Chair's Comic Book Pick of the Week!!!
I'm struggling this week, but I guess the best was Daredevil, by Brian Michael Bendis. I could go on and on about how Bendis is an overrated, self-promoting whore who is clearly more interested in making a name for himself and getting into screenwriting than he is about making anything new or exciting in comic books. Hey look at that, I just did. But the fact of the matter is, sometimes he writes a pretty entertaining comic book. Daredevil is usually good, largely because of Alex Maleev, but this recent storyline with fabricated silver-age storylines intertwined with a current plot is particularly fun to read. It's a throwback to old superheroes and crime comics, when Batman fought local grifters and mob bosses instead of the Joker. While he's far from a Will Eisner (RIP, sniff sniff), Bendis may be an appropriate heir of Stan Lee. And his fun superhero stories make a pretty good case for it.
Also good: Brubaker's Authority is coming along nicely. It's not quite the Authority of yore, but pretty good still.
Good last week: 100 Bullets had some dramatic major plot points this last New Orleans-based arc.
7 Comments:
Gee, Mr. Chair, did you let your cat write this one for you. This week was huge for me in comics. I'll start by saying, I don't read DAREDEVIL. I hear it's great, but I just need to pick up the trades first.
But you missed so much. First, a couple of great stories came to an end this week. Peter David returned to Marvel with his MADROX limited series. It's a crime noir look at the Multiple Man, but it's more a post-modern look at noir. It ended this week with number five and may move into a on-going X-Factor series. I know that there are already too many X-Books, but this one will be more like DISTRICT-X, which is one of the best things coming out of marvel.
Also Mark Millar's WANTED #6 FINALLY came out after however long. If you haven't been reading it, pick it up in trade. It's the drunken Scot at his best.
Also, and I can't believe I'm about to say this, ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN was fantastic. Rucka is writing it and Rags Morales from IDENTITY CRISIS did the art. Mr. Rucka is working on something and this issue is just the beginning. Actaully, it's somewhere in the middle, but we've definately hit a scary point with this issue.
Also, My under-the-radar-love is ULTRA by the Luna Brothers from Image. It's a soap-opera, but it's a good one. The art is clean and the story-telling is great. It hit number six this week and is just getting better every week it comes out.
And back to the drunken Scottsman. Millar's WOLVERINE is something to read. VIOLENCE VIOLENCE VIOLENCE. And maybe that doesn't make a comic, but wolverine attacking Daredevil with the help of a bunch of zombie Ninjas, that does make a good comic. Plus the art of my favorite artist, Mr. John Romita Jr.. Millar has made Wolverine the bad guy in his own book, and he keeps getting scarier and scarier.
But this is my pick of the week and if you didn't buy it, you must have missed it. It didn't get a lot of press, but I was waiting for it. Peter Milligan on X-MEN. Milligan is known for his Shade stories from Vertigo and his great run on X-Force and X-Statix, where if a character was loved by the audience, chances where, they were going to die in the next few months. This book is up there with Morrison's run and it's only the first issue he's done. I promise, this is going to be remembered.
Okay, I know what you're saying, "Jack, you named three X-Books and a Superman book. Comics are more than guys in tights." I know. But there is a move in comics where the exciting writers are doing superheroes again. Rucka is great at GCPD, but he's doing great stuff at Superman, too. Milligan wrote some weird stuff for Vertigo and now he's writing weird stuff for Marvel. And Mark Millar is always good. Even if it does take five months for an issue to come out (wanted #6).
It's not that I'm altogether opposed to superhero comic books. I do think there are a lot of great writers working in superheroes. I just think it's unfortunate that that's the case. When I rush to the store Wednesday first thing after work, and damn near the entire last third of the new release shelf has "X" in the title, it's like getting kicked in the balls.
Honestly, all of those books you mentioned, I never even saw most of them. I block them out. I can't buy every book on the shelf, so I have a subconscious weed-out process by which my vision becomes terrible when cast upon a superhero book. And I think as a very rough rule, when an original writer puts on the tights, his work goes down a few notches. Cases in point: Bendis' torso vs. everything else. Brubaker's Sleeper (it doesn't count as superhero) vs. Catwoman. Rucka's Queen & Country vs. Ultimate Electra. Vaughn's Y:The Last Man vs. Mystique. Warren Ellis' Transmetropolitan vs. Fantastic Four. And so on.
Not to say that the latter books are bad, quite the contrary. But they certainly tread tired ground, and lack that edge and sparkle that make us read comics in the first place. Imagine a world in which novelists could write whatever they want for small publishers, but if they want to make any sales at all must only write about football. There might be a hell of a lot of good football books out there, but what's the point in reading them? Comics are a peripheral, alternative artform for the most part. So why are they all about the same damn thing? Sorry that was so long, but I'm trying a caffeinated Budweiser and I feel kind of funny.
OH!
Look at you. Above everyone else. You sound like the Fin when he's talking about the TV. There are mediums and genres that are over used (like teen-age soap-operas) and yet good writers can come in and do something really amazing with them (such as all those cats on the OC), and then you break the convention of a genre (such as Buffy).
Writers can take tired, old ideas and twist them into something new and exciting. MARVELS was just a look back at Marvel history... or was it more?
Morrison was just doing X-men... or was he doing something different with the title?
ASTRO CITY is just a nestalgic look at silver age comics... or is it?
You, my friend, are a comic snob. "If it's reviewed in WIZARD, then it must be garbage." I know you grew up, and openned your heart to more edgy things, but I remember the old days. For a time we only read two comics, PREACHER (which you bought) and STARMAN (which I bought). But you can't be so grown-up that all you read is the edge.
I love the indie stuff, but I also love the super hero stuff. I love detective stuff and romance and western stuff. the weird stuff and the really lame, stupid stuff. And maybe you're right. i do pick up a lot every week. But don't give me that crap about about some writers giving more with some books and less on others. We had a long talk one night about TV and the format and craft and limitations of TV. Those limitations bring ideas. They make the mind think about how to overcome them. This is how great story tellers deal with the superhero limitation. They just get bigger and tell more amaizing stories (unless you're Kirkman, then you just suck).
You said that original writers doing super hero stuff makes you think less of them, but you loved Ellis's Iron Man. HUH? And You talk about Vaughn, but did you ever try RUNAWAYS. Not really super hero, but very marvel.
Mr. Chair, I'm not mad, I'm just... disapointed. You're talking about what made us read comics in the first place. What was it that made us pick up our first book and say, "man, I need to have Mom pick me up the next one." Unless you had a really cool older cousin or friend, it was probably the art, or the character. The first book you read was probably TRANSFORMERS, GI JOE, or ARCHIE. And all of them are super rad.
I'm sorry, but how can you look over my superhero books and name BENDIS's Daredevil the book of the week.
Jack
ps: I just read over this and it sounds almost mean. I didn't want it to, but I'm drunk and it's way to early and whatever.,,
I can't really argue with anything you just said. I agree it's a snobbish position, and not really fair. But I did try to make it clear that I'm not opposed to superhero comics, quite the contrary. I love many of them. I'm just so bored with how many of them they are and their disproportionate hold on the industry. That's all. Don't worry about me, I'll be just fine. I still read at least two spider-man titles regularly.
My last post WAS snobbish and rude and uncalled for. My point was that with many books it's hard to know what kind of book it is. Superhero books are not as cut and dry as the were before. That's it, but I think I just got riled up because I was so drunk and tired.
Anyway, sorry about the rude words.
Jack
Are you kidding? I've said way worse to Tim Finnagain.
Thanks mate
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