Comic Picks By The Glick

This has been old news for a few weeks now, but I wanted to say a few things about DC’s new “Earth One” graphic novel initiative. A lot has been made already about how this is going to be an ongoing series of graphic novels featuring continuity-free reboots of Batman and Superman and the differences between publishing these as original hardcover graphic novels versus serializing them as single issues. If you’ve been following my podcast and these posts for any length of time, you’ll know that I vastly prefer my comics in trade paperback or OGN form than single issues, so I like this development. That said, all of the concerns about price, format, release schedule, creative teams (Geoff Johns writing and Gary Frank drawing “Batman,” and J. Michael Straczynski writing and Shane Davis drawing “Superman”) all become irrelevant in the face of one thing:

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Last time it was a man, this time I talk about one of the most exciting female talents working in manga today.

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It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these, and the list of titles to review just keeps getting bigger. Let’s see what I can get through tonight…

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WE LIVE AGAIN!!!  And to celebrate — here’s a podcast about one of the most exciting talents in manga today.

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When “Avengers/X-Men: Utopia” was announced, one of its selling points was that it was the first direct crossover between the two teams since “Bloodlines” over fifteen years ago. Technically that’s not true since this crossover involves the X-Men fighting Norman Osborne’s “Dark Avengers” team, which is made up of villains working for him. Early word of mouth indicated that this crossover wouldn’t have to work too hard to be considered the better of the two since “Bloodlines” was reputedly pretty dire. Mainstream comic book writing has come a LONG way in those fifteen years, though, and while I haven’t read “Bloodlines,” I can say that “Utopia” is well worth reading for X-Men fans.

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The podcast is done, but we’re having some technical issues getting it up. It should be up sometime this weekend, though. In the meantime, I hope everyone is having a happy Thanksgiving and in lieu of not having a podcast up right now I figured I’d talk about the two large “X-Men” hardcover collections that arrived in the mail yesterday. Ideally “X-Force/Cable: Messiah War” and “[Dark] Avengers/X-Men: Utopia” are meant to be meaningful chapters in the ongoing saga of the franchise, but only one manages to have any real ramifications. Both of them also collect a number of tie-in issues in order to pad out the collected editions’ page count beyond their core stories. While it’s certainly… “thoughtful” of Marvel to throw in everything that was related to these storylines, they’re not really necessary to enjoying or understanding the storylines they’re tied into.

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Yeah. I’ve got nothing this week. For this space, anyway. On with the reviews!

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Almost in time for Veterans’ Day — my thoughts on the genre that Ennis keeps coming back to time and time again.

(Sorry about the delay.  My computer has been giving me crap all week and I’ve finally bludgeoned it to the point where it’ll go on the internet, but keeps throwing system errors at me.)

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Okay, so I meant to get this retraction up earlier, but other commitments *cough*BORDERLANDS*cough*RE-READING 18 VOLUMES OF “MONSTER”*cough*GENERAL LAZINESS*cough* conspired against me.

Anyway, that bit I wrote two weeks ago about Miracleman being Norman Osborne’s “secret muscle” – completely wrong. As it turns out, the “MM” that Rich Johnston was referring to was “Secret Wars” veteran “Molecule Man.” While I understand he has a place in the hearts of many fans of 80’s Marvel comics, he’s also gifted/burdened with a power that makes him almost impossible to write in a shared superhero universe. That power being the ability to rearrange molecules into any form he wants. It’ll be interesting to see how writer Brian Michael Bendis has wrangled this character and his powers into a believable plot element for the upcoming “Siege” event, but that’s why I like waiting for the trade – you get to hear how these things work out before putting your money down. That said, the fact that Osborne’s secret muscle isn’t Miracleman has diminished my interest in this storyline considerably. More shenanigans with Osborne and his “Dark Reigin” after the break. Keep reading →

And now for a series, and a creator, that should have been around much longer than they were.

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