Freak Comics

Robert Kirkman, the Zombie King of Comics (George A. Romero is still overall zombie king), has written Marvel Zombies 2, slatted for early October. To say I’m excited about this is an understatement.

It seems this sequel will deal with a zombie Civil War. First off, there’s the cover that was floating around for quite some time which is an Arthur Suydam variant of Michael Turner’s Civil War #1 cover.

And then there’s the highly intriguing story line:

Are you ready for Marvel Zombies Civil War? Forty years have passed and the zombies have come back home after eating just about everything else in the universe. Yum yum! What awaits them back on Earth, though, is beyond anything even these shambling monstrosities could have conceived!

Although I was somewhat let down by Marvel Zombies Dead Days (felt like a quick way for Marvel to keep the franchise fresh in our minds), I have faith that Kirkman will meet the same level of quality that the original Marvel Zombies had.

My only worry is that this will turn in to one big money scheme by Marvel. I could see them doing a Marvel Zombies Civil War event in which there are zombie crossovers dealing with their Civil War. At least it would be more interesting than the real Marvel Civil War. That sucker was boring.

Joe Kelly (writer) finally ended his amazingly horrible run of Supergirl… and what a way to go out! Thanks for giving me a really terrible issue to trash, Kelly. This thing was so bad I don’t even know where to begin.
I guess I’ll start with the cover even though this doesn’t fall under the writer’s jurisdiction. The cover of Supergirl #19 shows Superman laying dead on the ground with Supergirl (Kara) standing over him, her arms covered in his blood. A caption reads “The Death of Superman Again!”
Nowhere in this issue does Superman end up dead. There is no fight between him and Supergirl. In fact he doesn’t even appear in the issue until the final three pages. Thanks for the false advertising, DC.

This had to have been the most confusing and poorly written issue of Supergirl to date. I swear, Joe Kelly must have thought to himself “Wow, I’m nearly finished writing this crap series, I’m going to get drunk, smoke some crack, and then dictate this issue to my blind, retarded pet monkey who will type it up on a tandy with his tongue.”
Even the title of the issue, “Goodbye, Hello” is absolutely inane.

For those of you who haven’t been foolishly wasting your money and life reading this tripe, here’s a summary:
Kara has been going through some really strange things over the past 12 issues or so. None of those things have been explained in a satisfactory manner. The stories are disjointed at best. As soon as you would start to feel comfortable with one of the lame story-archs, the plot would shift to something else. It wasn’t a smooth shift either… it shifted like a car with no transmission.

Most recently Kara was fighting her psycho stalker boyfriend, Powerboy. At the end of the battle (in space) she suddenly came in to the possession of his most favorite thing in the world: a box. “Father Box” to be more specific. I don’t know the background of this box, but Powerboy was upset to see it thrown in to the sun by Supergirl. A big explosion happened and Kara started tripping. Suddenly she was having hallucinations of her dead father which filled her and us in on her past. This was somewhat entertaining… and then we found out that past was totally bogus. After that she went back to earth to fight Phantoms and ended up killing Superman and fighting a weird version of herself for the second or third time… I’ve lost count.
In issue #19 Kelly gives us one of his completely unexpected story shifts and Supergirl is talking to Pariah. This meeting with Pariah attempts to gain the reader’s forgiveness for the shoddy writing of the past several issues by Supergirl finding out that the visions were presented to her by Pariah.
So there… you’re more or less caught up to date on the history of Supergirl.

Some really odd things have happened over the past few months. Most notably, Kara is looking way younger. I assume this is a response to readers such as myself who have complained that she doesn’t look her age (16 years old) but rather looks like an anorexic 23 year old supermodel. Fine, I’ll forgive the shift in looks even though it’s highly inconsistent and DC shouldn’t have made the mistake to begin with.
Then there’s this weird conversation with boomer in issue #19. In this conversation we’re given a little bit of closure on the whole Boomer totally crushing on Supergirl dilemma: you know, him being in his late 30’s (guessing here) and her being 16. Basically Supergirl apologizes to boomer for leading him on.
He responds: “For me to have been ‘led on’ would presume I thought I had a shot with you… for me to think I had a shot with a sixteen-year-old girl– crystal-powered hypersleep whatever junk aside… that would mean I was a dirtbag with a thing for jailbait. Which I am not.”
Wow, thanks for clearing that up Boomer. I could have sworn that’s where this whole friendship was leading. Guess I was wrong. I’m glad to see Joe Kelly tried to clean up the comic a little… oh wait, never mind. He failed miserably! This picture completely negates any damage control that was being performed on the preceding page. What was the thought process here? “I have an idea for a page, retarded monkey secretary! I know DC wants to clean up the misconception of Boomer’s lust for Supergirl, but I don’t care! Now that she’s looking her age, let’s get Ale Garza to draw Kara pounced on top of boomer in order to sexily seduce him!”
I love the fact that Boomer just got through admitting he would be a “dirtbag” if he “had a thing for jailbait” and 3 seconds later is visually and audibly struggling with his dirty-old-man crush on Kara.
And that’s not the half of the weirdness… no that just triggers a downfall for the entire comic.
The next “scene” brings us to the Titan Tower. where we find the Teen Titans dramatically discussing not washing the dishes. Did I miss something here? As best I could figure after reading this and the following page a couple of times, the Titans are split in to two groups and are playing a game called Manhunt to determine which team will have to wash the dishes that night.Supergirl and Wondergirl are about to make out when Ravager shoots them, winning the game. From there on out Supergirl flys around attempting to make amends with Powergirl, some fat chick she made fun of, and Superman, who incidentally must have been having a really bad hair day.

Good riddance Joe Kelly. Please stop using drugs.

During the Civil War event earlier this year I was pretty bored. I was just getting in to Marvel and decided to read the entire event… every single tie-in. That was a mistake. Most of the tie-ins were poorly written… an attempt to ride the coat tails of Civil War’s great promotional success.
Out of all the Civil War comics I read, Front Line was by far my favorite. It gave the reader an alternate perspective on the war by following two reporters Ben Urich and Sally Floyd.

I’m now on board with Marvel. After the Civil War ended I decided to keep being a sucker and signed up for all the Initiative titles. This was a smart move because the Initiative is actually good. Then World War Hulk came along. I took a quick look at the check list at my favorite comic shop and decided to skip most of the tie-ins. I even decided not to sign up for World War Hulk: Front Line, assuming it wouldn’t be able to hold a candle next to the excellent writing of Civil War Front Line. I did however purchase the first issue and quickly found out that I was wrong.

Brought to us by Paul Jenkins and Ramon Bachs (the same creative team that gave us Civil War Front Line), World War Hulk Front Line fills in a few gaps between the events of Civil War and World War Hulk by briefly telling us how the Front Line newspaper was started. I love the fact that Ben Urich and Sally Floyd now own a secretly funded corporation-independent news paper (My guess is that this paper is being funded by Tony Stark AKA Iron Man… then again I could be way off).
Later we get a unique perspective of the Hulk’s Warbound as they deal with the city of New York as political delegates.
This comic is smartly written. It’s also well illustrated and fast paced. Front Line does a very nice job blending in with it’s events without rehashing the stuff we already know, just as it did with Civil War.

If you’re reading World War Hulk, I highly recommend pairing it with Front Line.

At some point in time during one of my posts I lamented the fact that I failed to write about each issue of 52. It was a great series and I was sad to see it go.
At that time I had grand plans to write about each and every issue of Countdown… then I actually read the first issue. It was horrible. I thought this thing would eventually pick up and get better, but alas it was not meant to be. After giving this series several months I have finally dropped it from my list. It’s poorly written, poorly illustrated and generally boring. Honestly I’m not hooked by the Jimmy Olsen suddenly gaining powers thing… it’s been done.
In case you don’t know, the entire comic is centered around the Multiverse. This is the first time ever that DC has centered a major event around the Multiverse. Oh wait, no it’s not. Nearly every DC event is centered around either multiple Earths or multiple universes or parallel dimensions. Even 52, which I enjoyed, ended up being all about the re-birth of the Multiverse.
How about pushing the boundaries and actually allowing the writer’s to exercise their imaginations?

Not only is Countdown boring, it’s extremely confusing. Did I miss the issue where the Flash dies? I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure that happened outside of Countdown… and that’s the problem. Countdown makes an attempt to be a continuous crossover between each and every DC title, yet in order to keep some type of consistency in the way of characters, we’re tossed the crumbs of the DCU: Jimmy Olsen, Mary Marvel, Trickster, Pied Piper and a few other lame characters that no one cares about.

For nearly two years I’ve bashed Marvel, but in all honesty, they’re doing a much better job than DC. Yes Civil War was over-hyped and largely disappointing, but at least it was an attempt to do something new. World War Hulk is great fun thus far and Thor looks promising. I love reading the Initiative titles, Iron Man and Captain America are great comics and even the X-Men Endangered Species event has been good thus far.

Don’t be an idiot: avoid Countdown. It’s a pathetic attempt to keep pulling in cash from loyal 52 readers. Regardless of what DC claims, you don’t need to read Countdown to keep your finger on the pulse of the DC Universe.

Nedroid of nedroid.com was issued a challenge from Brian Brown to make 200 “bad” comics. He complied… kinda. If you like non-sequiters and bad drawings, check out nedroid’s 200 bad comics… they’re worth a read.

Remember the Gotham Bank photos from April? The producers of the Dark Knight used an old post office here in Chicago for the set. Well they’re at it again. This time they’ve converted the side of the building in to a Gotham Police Department, complete with cop cars, Gotham City Bombsquad trucks, and even a few SWAT vehicles. Very cool!
As always, click the photos for a larger view.

May Reilly Parker is a kindly old woman. She’s Peter Parker’s Aunt. She’s also old and gross. She’s been alive for far too long and it’s about time she was welcomed by Death’s sweet embrace.
Here are eight reasons why Aunt May must die:

1. Aunt May is unbelievably old
   Aunt May’s first appearance was in Amazing Fantasy #15 along with her Nephew, Peter Parker (Spider-Man). That was way back in 1962. Although I can find no information as to how old she was back then, my guess is she was pushing 70. If this is true, that would mean she’s around 115. That’s really old… disgustingly old actually. Most people are fortunate if they make it past 90. Surely she’s lost control of her bodily functions by now. Death would be a mercy to this decrepit old hag.
2. Aunt May is useless
   Why is Aunt May still alive? She contributes nothing to society. She’s retired and only serves to complicate Peter Parker’s life. Easily swayed by The Bugle’s Anti-Spidey propaganda, she was opposed to Spider-Man for years before finding out Parker was actually her Friendly Neighborhood web-slinging nephew.
3. Aunt May calls pancakes “wheatcakes”
   If that’s not deserving of death, I don’t know what is!
4. Aunt May bleeds Spider-Man dry… literally!
   Peter Parker is constantly on the hunt for money to support himself and his Aunt. But money isn’t the only thing Aunt May consumes in mass quantities… she also saps Parker’s blood like a fat kid saps a milk shake! That’s right… Parker has saved May from certain death not once, but twice by letting her leach his precious spider-blood.
5. Peter Parker is oddly obsessed with his Aunt May
   Ever since Aunt May took a bullet, Spider-Man has been running around in his black costume breaking laws and bad guy’s bones. Although I like the duds, I’m sick of his attitude. Aunt May has Spider-Man behaving like a rampaging little brat who just found out Mommy threw away his favorite toy. The only way Parker will ever become a man is if Aunt May kicks the bucket.
6. Aunt May is a traitor
   Doctor Octopus is Spider-Man’s archenemy. Aunt May dated and was engaged to him. Although this engagement fell through it can only be assumed that May is now an enemy of justice. She must be considered hostile and should be shot on sight.
7. Aunt May was a terrible guardian
   Although May attempted to keep a close watch on young Peter Parker, she failed miserably. She let Peter get a little too friendly with his old friend Skip… and well, Read the rest for yourself.
8. Aunt May is a hideous creature of the night
   Aunt May dies every so often, only to return to life. As we all know, laws of nature state: once you’re dead, you need to stay dead, or else you’re an undead. This means Aunt May is either a Zombie or a Vampire. I’ve never seen Aunt May walk around eating the flesh of the living, although this could be due to a lack of teeth. My guess is that she’s actually a vampire. This is partially based on her constant draining of Peter’s blood (see above) just to sustain her own pitiful life. A boomstick ain’t gonna keep this old biddy down. Blade needs to drive a nice big wooden stake in to her heart, chop off her head, and stuff her mouth with garlic.