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[Thad]

Dunno; it's not the typical team and there are two guys with writer credits too.  Stylistically, it's flashback-versus-present.

[Zaratustra]

The last page of Teen Titans has a "flashforward" featuring a pregnant girl in silhouette and Wonder Girl kissing Blue Beetle.

GODDAMNIT WONDERSLUT STOP HOGGING EVERY MALE BETWEEN SEVENTEEN AND TWENTY TWO. LET THEM HAVE THEIR OWN LOVE STORIES.

[Thad]

There's a new printing of Alan Moore's The Courtyard out this week.  I hadn't seen it before, so I gave it a read.  It's a self-contained 48-page Lovecraftian murder mystery.

Most of it feels more like an Ellis book than a Moore one -- the unlikable (and inexplicably British) detective faced with a weird crime to solve, wending his way through a series of colorful characters hunting for clues, wrapped in a distinctive layout -- every page being split into two vertical panels.  The artist, Jacen Burrows, has also worked with Ellis (and Ennis), so that's probably part of why I make that connection too.

The ending is not only Lovecraftian in content but in flavor and execution; don't expect an explanation or a tidy resolution, merely a mind opening to a world of elder horrors.

All in all, at $8 it's about the going rate for 48 pages with no ads, and worth the price.  It's not Moore's finest work or anything, but it's a decent read.

There's a sequel coming called Neonomicon, which is presumably the reason this one's been reprinted.

[Thad]

...so despite my general dislike of Bendis and crossovers, I've picked up a few Dark Reign tie-ins.  I love the premise of Dark Avengers (it's the original Thunderbolts premise, except instead of villains pretending to be NEW heroes, they're villains impersonating EXISTING heroes), though so far I think it's slow and don't know what the fuck Morgaine Le Fay has to do with anything.

Also, I haven't read Deadpool in several years, but I picked up the latest issue and think I will be picking up more.  Although I am not sure who the two different narrative boxes he is talking to are.  (Two split personalities?)

[Zach]

... so far I think it's slow and don't know what the fuck Morgaine Le Fay has to do with anything.

Inside the story or from a bird's eye view? The writers don't want the Dark Avengers to immediately move on the established heroes, so they've pulled out a larger threat that everyone can agree on for a while.

I've really been enjoying the new Dark Reign: Agents of Atlas. The team's methods are different enough from standard Marvel to keep my attention, and there's a talking gorilla! It looks like the fifties flashbacks are going to become a regular part of the story too, so it's a talking gorilla (and a robot and a Uranian and a siren and a super-spy and Namora) caught in Cold War espionage!

[Thad]

Inside the story or from a bird's eye view? The writers don't want the Dark Avengers to immediately move on the established heroes, so they've pulled out a larger threat that everyone can agree on for a while.

No, I get that.  I just don't get why, out of the entire Marvel stable of villains, Bendis settled on one who seems to have so little to do with the premise and setting.  It feels like a mashup between two completely different stories.  (Because "Morgaine le Fay wants revenge on Doom for banging her, stealing her secrets, and then leaving her" isn't necessarily a bad premise either, it's just a bit of a jarring contrast to the main plot.)

[Royal☭]

No, I get that.  I just don't get why, out of the entire Marvel stable of villains, Bendis settled on one who seems to have so little to do with the premise and setting. 

Why out of the roster of mighty Marvel heroes did Bendis feel the need to stick Spider-Woman in the New Avengers?  Not that it makes a difference, as Bendis's writing means we don't have to bother with differentiating between characters anyway.

[Thad]

No, see, that I get.  Picking a roster for the Avengers (or, to a lesser extent, the JLA) means you have to have a hook, you have to surprise the audience.  Given that Spider-Man and Wolverine were the two most conventional choices he could have possibly made, the team needed a wildcard.

(I still want to see Songbird join the Avengers, as foreshadowed in Avengers Forever.  Of course, given that the Thunderbolts are front-and-center in Dark Reign, it's quite possible that's part of the plan.)

Le Faye is different.  She's a time-traveling, magically-based villain smack-dab in the middle of a story that's deliberately modern and technologically-based.  And while that contrast could theoretically prove interesting, it very much has not, at least in the first two issues.

[Bal]

Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps has been a ton of fun lately. I thought the rainbow of Corps would be at least a little corny, but it's all coming off very well, and it's allowed them to bring back all kinds of old DC's cosmic villains with a new bent. So far we've seen the Star Sapphires retooled to fit the concept more closely, we've seen Ganthet and Sayd begin the Blue corps (hope), and try to recruit Hal as their new leader, and we've seen the Red lanterns (rage) become very active. The Sinestro Corps has also experienced some changes with Mongul leading one faction and conquering Daxam as his new base, feeding off the fear Daxamites have for all aliens species, while Sinestro jockeys to get back in control.

The whole thing is a great example of what DC does best. These big, cosmic adventure stories. Gods and monsters kind of stuff.

[Thad]

Huh.  And I just dropped the GL books because I'd gotten sick of the whole buildup.

My testing the waters of Dark Reign notwithstanding, I have Event Fatigue.

[Bal]

It helps that I totally skipped Final Crisis and Secret Invasion.

EDIT: And am skipping Dark Reign, because nothing about it appeals to me.

[Zach]

Final Crisis was full of wacky cosmic stuff. I'd recommend checking out the TPB, at least -- as long as it comes with the two Superman Beyond issues.

(I'm a pretty blatant Morrison fanboy though, so grain of salt.) 

I've worked through my recent Fantagraphics order to balance out the increase in superhero comics that I've been reading lately. Tales Designed to Thrizzle #4 did not disappoint. I'm surprised that Kupperman isn't more prolific. A lot of his humor is grounded in running gags, and it hasn't grown stale yet. That suggests that he should do more to appease me! I also picked up The Left Bank Gang based on its description in the catalog. It was a little sparse for the acclaim that it has received, but I doubt that I'll be giving it away. They ran out of the third book that I ordered, so now I have $20 store credit. I'll sit on that for a while and see if a new Castle Waiting collection comes anytime soon.

[Envy]

After much pestering from a friend I started reading 100 bullets. This is pretty interesting and I rather like the art.

[Mongrel]

After much pestering from a friend I started reading 100 bullets. This is pretty interesting and I rather like the art.

Kind of a funny time to start reading, since the 100th and final issue is due in a week or two (or mybe even this week... I could be out of my reckoning).

[Envy]

Kind of a funny time to start reading, since the 100th and final issue is due in a week or two (or mybe even this week... I could be out of my reckoning).

Great then by the time im caught up a final trade will be out then.

[Mongrel]

I actually have all the individual issues from #15 onward.

I wish I could trade them for the matching run of trade paperbacks. 

[Mongrel]

Joe Shuster confirmed as illustrator for old S&M series.

There's two schools of thought about this. The first is that he took this as a 'desperation' job, either because he needed the money or owed someone something etc. The second is that he was always into this kind of thing, and that some of the snide comments about the early origins of the superhero genre are quite valid (or, slightly more valid than previous).

[Büge]

Joe Shuster confirmed as illustrator for old S&M series.

There's two schools of thought about this. The first is that he took this as a 'desperation' job, either because he needed the money or owed someone something etc. The second is that he was always into this kind of thing, and that some of the snide comments about the early origins of the superhero genre are quite valid (or, slightly more valid than previous).

I'm inclined to believe the first, but so long as you keep in mind that

a) Comic illustrators were frequently underpaid for doing their work. Most of them lived in fear of being replaced, so they often took many jobs at the same time (Dan DeCarlo, f'rinstance).

b) Just about every decent comic illustrator has drawn fetishy pics at one time or another, for work or otherwise. The book 'Good Cartoonist's Dirty Drawings' has a neat selection.

It could be that your second supposition is correct. After all, did you not say that if you wanted porn, you would draw it yourself?

[Mongrel]

Joe Shuster confirmed as illustrator for old S&M series.

There's two schools of thought about this. The first is that he took this as a 'desperation' job, either because he needed the money or owed someone something etc. The second is that he was always into this kind of thing, and that some of the snide comments about the early origins of the superhero genre are quite valid (or, slightly more valid than previous).

I'm inclined to believe the first, but so long as you keep in mind that

a) Comic illustrators were frequently underpaid for doing their work. Most of them lived in fear of being replaced, so they often took many jobs at the same time (Dan DeCarlo, f'rinstance).

b) Just about every decent comic illustrator has drawn fetishy pics at one time or another, for work or otherwise. The book 'Good Cartoonist's Dirty Drawings' has a neat selection.

It could be that your second supposition is correct. After all, did you not say that if you wanted porn, you would draw it yourself?

Two of the most interesting points the article made: 1 - That there was a time in which Joe and Jerry were raking in cash like gangbusters for Superman. It was a short-lived time, but the description seems to be that of something of a rakish high-roller, with big houses, flashy cars, and dates with showgirls (this is leaving aside the "they were shafted" argument that usually comes up). 2 - That a good number of the drawings from the later work were actually copies of earlier Superman panels.

The latter is far from conclusive of course. Okay, so there's a non-zero chance that it instead means that some of the old panels removed from their contexts on Superdickery were in fact that bad, but it's far more likely that Shuster was lazy because it was work he didn't care about and was doing it just to get by.

At any rate it adds a small and amusing debate point to the origins of the Superhero genre.
 

[Thad]

It also bears noting that DC itself started off as a Mafia-owned publisher of softcore porn.