Episode 1421: Comic Talk
Pants
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There are spoilers ahead as we each discuss some of the books we've recently read including Rachel Rising, Hawkeye, Journey Into Mystery, Batman '66, Star Wars, and some of the Villains Month books from DC. (1:16:28)
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Superior Foes - This is a really fun book, if you like Hawkeye, chances are you'll like this. When did Shocker become such a scaredy cat or is that his anxiety taking over? I don't remember him being a full on coward back when reading Spidey books as a kid.
Notice the continuing theme that these villain one shots have nothing to do with the ongoing story and none of them are spectacular? That's because they were cooked up in a business meeting, selecting names of villains and finding creators to plug into them as an afterthought. Adding insult to injury, the extended production schedule for the gimmick 3D covers caused several titles to omit creator credits. There's no chance this material would be released merely as a collected edition for you shelves because it's merely a stunt inflate DC's market share.
I'm with Jamie on Hawkeye. The recent issues haven't been up to the high standard set by the book earlier in its run. It's still a very good series and I look forward to it every month (or two), but there's been a bit of a lull, and the last three issues or so felt like they were overly fixated on certain events that didn't need to be shown that many times from that many different perspectives. But once the book gets back on schedule, however, and once Aja is able to do more issues in a row, I fully expect to love the book as much as I did 6-8 months ago.
About that Joker issue: The villainous monkey "Jackenapes" character first appeared in Batman #666 by Morrison & Andy Kubert. That was the issue set in the alt-future that showed Damian as Batman. Andy Kubert wrote this Joker issue, which shows the origin of the Jackenapes character in the New 52 continuity, and he's also writing and drawing a Future Batman/Damian Wayne mini-series starting next month, I believe. So that's how that all fits. All-in-all, I thought the Joker issue was, eh, okay. The art was good; the writing was barely passable, but the Jackenapes/666 connection was a treat.
About the Villains Month issues in general... at least the ones I've read have been "meh" overall, at best. Darkseid and Lobo were both absolutely horrible. Harley Quinn was okay, but shocking in a way that seemed unnecessarily violent for no reason. The Court of Owls one was okay and had worthwhile substance to it. The Two-Face one was okay, but it seemed to have a connection to an upcoming Bat-storyline that I have zero interest in. The Riddler one was good but not great. The best one I read so far was the Arcane issue, written by Charles Soule, which seemed like an excellent epilogue to Rot World and a good setup for some things that will surely transpire in Swamp Thing in the future.
Very funny discussion on Peter's "surprise mail (or was it male?) package" - haha.
Overall, another fun episode guys, as expected.
Shifting topics, I was wondering... can one of you CGS peeps repeat the names of the mangas mentioned in this podcast? They sounded real interesting to me and I'd love to pick them up at some point.
As always, great job guys, I love your podcasts... BD
In general, it would seem that sales are definitely pretty good on all books. However, there are a few interesting observations from a few of the retailers. One notes that the event heralds the return of the customer who cares less about the book's content than he does about its collectability; another acknowledges that while most retailers sold the 3D cover issues at the listed price, there were rumors of a few outlets selling them at inflated prices, some as high as $10. At the moment, it appears to be a mixed bag: the sales were very good, but it appears it was selling chiefly among the collectors rather than the average fan/reader.
They're also bringing out the worst in people. I had two different people cut me off from the rack last week (tried to muscle me out, really) so that I didn't get get to the 3D covers of their choosing before they did (um, guys, only DC book I buy now is Batman '66... you're safe), and several times I've seen people grab the entire stack from the shelf so no one else can look at them while they carefully eyeball each and every copy to find the one in the best (and I assume most slabbable?) condition.
All we needed was Dane Hall over-enthusing about these covers on Home Shopping Club and it would've been 1992 all over again. 8-|
I didn’t get any of the 3-D covers, but I did get the regular Black Manta issue as part of my mail subscription I got through Tanga. I guess I'll be getting the other Aquaman villain issues in the mail too. At least they only cost me about a buck apiece.
I'm generally more pleased with the issues I read this week. I thought the Ventrilloquist one was very good. The Penguin one was solid. The Bane one started off wonky, but halfway through it seemed to find its feet, and it was nice seeing Graham Nolan's art (which was ALMOST as good as I remember it being). I was really happy with the Doomsday one as well -- and Tony Daniel's cover on that one looked AWESOME in 3D.
Lastly, the Joker's Daughter issue was just... BIZARRE. I've seen several excoriating reviews of it, but, like the Catwoman 23 issue before it, it earned major points with me simply because the story is so weird and different. Not sure I'd recommend it, but it at least has me interested in picking up more of Nocenti's story here. The storytelling and art have some clear flaws, which many reviews point out like it's a dirty laundry list, but I just thought that the overall idea was interesting. (How did she stick the metal crescent onto her staff? No idea, but I don't really care about that minor point.)
So, while I got a little more positive on Villains Month by the end, I still feel like I have to look for reasons to like it, while, at the same time, I'm reading like eight Marvel series that are just flat-out solid/awesome, issue after issue after issue. Villains Month was more fun than I thought it'd be, but I'd much rather DC would just get their house in order, get more stable creative teams doing stories that they want to tell, and start firing on all creative cylinders.
As far as my LCS goes, well the one comic shop I go to once or twice a month . . . The owner tells me that he's getting new/lapsed customers coming in, and he's also getting a LOT of phonecalls . . . but then the people just hang up once he tells them that all of his Harley Quinn and Joker's Daughter 3D covers were spoken for weeks ago.
Finally, "no reserves, 1st come, 1st served."
They need to get their lazy asses into the store & not call for a status. Chances are, they aren't regulars.
M
Bring back Wally West and get back to the DC that legends were made of...
I actually liked both WW Villains Month issues as well. I didn't read them till the end. I thought the First Born one felt more or less like what the next issue of the series should have been anyway. We were due to see the character's real origin explained in full, and there was plenty of time spent in the present as well. I didn't notice that it was only 18 pages.
The Cheetah issue was good too, I thought. Maybe it's just because I read the early Perez WW issues a week or two ago, but I really enjoyed seeing how Cheetah was introduced into the New 52 continuity. It felt like a really meaty one-and-done.
SPOILERS
SPOILERS
SPOILERS
not Wally. It is Daniel West, Iris' brother.
Rachel Rising: Oh man, I quit Rachel Rising at around issue 12 I think. The artwork was beautiful as you said, but the story...just seemed to be dragging on and on....
Hawkeye: I agree with Jamie about most of the Hawkeye' series recent issues, EXCEPT that I did like the Pizzadog one! Well, it could have been longer though!
Journey Into Mystery: I liked what I read of that when I got the Marvel Bundle, but it wasn't enough to sustain my interest to keep ordering it.
Batman 66: oh, I didn't notice a lot of the cool stuff inside issue 2 that you guys mentioned, but I liked it. I also liked issue 3 which I just read.
Star Wars: I tried, tried, tried to keep up with this series including having to pick up issues I missed (4, 6, 7) in Toronto. It's quite good and I'm not enough of a Star Wars otaku to be nitpicky about anything, but I've dropped it for now.
Villains Month issues: Uh, I only ordered the Wonder Woman one for now...but I loved the 3D cover that I got. Makes me want to get more of them. I wonder if that's possible...