Comics This Week 3: Now aboard the HMS Slash

I apologize for letting my inner slasher take over this post. Please not there will be SPOILERS.

Booster Gold #34

Just when I thought they couldn't stuff any more homoerotic subtext into Booster Gold, I get proven wrong.

This issue was fun. This issue was funny.

Let's talk about it.

The cover is very well done and striking by Kevin Maguire - who insists on drawing the same facial expressions on everybody, but those expressions are awesome so it's all good. Max is on the cover, which kinda makes sense since that's why Booster's going back in time to the JLI era, but Max never turns up in this issue, so I dunno.

Chris Barista is on main art duty, whose art is decent, and he has a good handle on character interaction and facial expression that lends itself to Booster. Keith Giffen does the sections in the future and it's not his best work, art wise. And I'm not even sure if I like his penciling style even when he is on top of things (he has drawn Zatara in fishnets, which gains inexplicable points in my book).

Keith Giffen and JM DeMatteis are on art. They're wordy, but hilarious, and their interaction between characters are second to none. More importantly, the new creative team has rescued a title I was loosing faith in, just above dropping into a title I get excited about and downright love.

The colourist Hi-Fi seems to like rendering and bright bold colours. I don't like over-rendering and think that some of the colour combinations are eye-twitch inducing. ...I don't think we'll get along.

Things that happened!

The first page starts with Blue Beetle and Booster Gold running away from a horde of fantasy-esque warriors in a "What crazy hi-jinx are they up to now?" sort of way. The captions are cute and fourth-wall breaking. I would be lying if I said that I wasn't giggling.

Time travel is confusing, so when I say it goes back to the earlier events in the story in the future, trust me on this. Booster's sister Michelle has come back just in time to get in on a debate Booster and Rip are having about Rani, Booster's new “daughter”. I rather like Rani, so I cheered on Michelle when she kicks Booster in the pants and gets him to keep Rani.

Booster decides to try once again to go back in time to the JLI era for proof of Max Lord's existence. The first thing he runs into... Ted "Blue Beetle" Kord!

Ted and Booster quickly settle in back to their old back-and-forth snarky ways, a trope that in general I will eat up every single time. And Booster can't take his eyes off Ted, and lets Ted drag him away from his Mission. That's tick one on the Homoerotic Subtext Sensors (HSS for short).

Also Beetle says "Look, I don't know what bug you've got up your butt today-- _{wow that was a poor choice of phrase.}" Tick two on the HSS.

Skeets is all "Booster, Mission - plus maybe hanging out with your dead best friend isn't best for your sanity." and Booster's all "I just want to hang out with him for a few hours. It's time travel! What could go wrong?"

Anyway, so a book written by a dude who took a look at the Book of Destiny^TM has been stolen from this secret Vatican church place. Booster and Beetle are going after it - but after seeing the footage of the not-Dormammu dude who stole it, they decide they need help and go to Mr. Miracle and Big Barda.

Who tell them no. Until they realize that maybe the fate of all creation rests on Booster and Beetle, so they say yes.

Booster makes a cute point about how maybe his idiocy is a defensive reflex about being in the past, and gets a punch in the nose for it from Barda. So they go to the planet/dimension where the book was taken, and they run into a dragon, and Barda punches it out.

BARDA PUNCHES OUT A DRAGON.

The four of them snark a little when they find a castle and have to decide on how to attack. In the castle, this blue guy with a terrible fashion sense is monologuing. Not-Dormammu turns out to be blue guy's servant, complete with a funny accent and calling him "master".

Not-Dormammu offers his master a foot rub. What's that, HSS? Another tick?

^{P'upik vs Dormammu}

Blue guy turns him down, and asks for the Queen, and not Dormammu says "The Qveen? Vhat do you need vith her -- vhen you haffe me! She --" [sic] Villain dudes! You're being more homoerotic than Booster and Beetle and that takes effort.

It goes back to our heroes, who are sneaking into the castle. Booster's thought bubbles reflect on how he's changed. Beetle notices that Booster's emoing and asks what's bothering his friend. Awww. Barda says: "Do you two think you can save the couples therapy for later?" Barda has a HSS too!

Then the mob of fantasy-esque guys from the beginning of the issue catches up with them.

The issue ends with a page in the Future with Michelle packing away her Gold Star uniform. Dani is rather curious about it. Hmmm.....

Justice League: Generation Lost #5

This would be the second Booster Gold title this week. I know, I know, team book and all that - but Booster's pretty much running the show. ...That felt weird to type.

Aaron Lopresti is on art this time, and his style is much more to my tastes. Booster has eyes! He does, hover do things I don't like. Beat panels that are just copy and paste (I don't mind beat panels, but people do change expressions slightly, and redrawing it makes it look a lot better than seeing the same panel repeated. And Blue Beetle (Jaime Reyes this time) looks more angry and bulky than he should (I have my priorities).

This issue starts with a flashback in Booster's past to the future (goddamn time travel) which forms the first of the bookends. I may have gotten distracted a little by the extremely pretty Booster here.

^{Thank you, Therkla}

Anyway, I'm not going to describe the entire issue (I saved that for Booster Gold this week), but it does have some very nice Captain Atom, Ice and Blue Beetle character moments. And an amusing character moment from Red Rocket.

Booster's still running the show, though. And that still feels weird to type. (Although, Max Lord is running the show too, I guess)

Sketch Parody of the Week

This Week's Comics 2: Lovin' It

This was a pretty good week. Please note there will be SPOILERS.

Avengers: The Children's Crusade #1/8

This is a Young Avengers title in everything but name. It's written exactly as if it were just a continuation of the Young Avengers story, and the Avengers are only in there about as much as they were in the first two stories. This is a good thing for me since I rather like the Young Avengers.

Allan Heinberg on writing with some nicely worked in exposition and snark. Jim Cheung is on art, and he;s quite a good artist despite his tendency to make everybody float in space during group shots and drawing everybody with the same face. The colouring is pretty decent, and one thing I like is that it changes depending on the quality of light, so good job Justin Ponsor.

Alright! So this issue starts with an intro page which has a really corny description of the Young Avengers that I skimmed the first time because cringe. It then warns about discrepancies. Excellent. MST2K mantra here we go! And seriously dudes, don't apologize for not putting Steve in his new outfit because his new outfit isn't that good. Although, maybe Cheung could've pulled it off... I just like how aware they are of the nitpicky nature of their audience.

So there's a short introductory scene with the YA fighting some crazy homophobic white supremacists, with a nice lampshade on the nature of the team, what with Billy and Teddy going out and Patriot being black and all. The little snarky lampshade Hawkeye pulls instantly warms me to the book, making me remember how much I like the Young Avengers.
Hulkling kisses one of the Sons of the Serpent on the cheek to piss him off. I think I might love this book.
The Avengers show up! Serpent dudes take Hulkling hostage! Wiccan gets pissed off and releases a surge of knocks them all comatose and freaks out the Avengers like whoa. (Counting down jokes about "It wasn't the nuke that went off... it was Wiccan" in three, two, one...)

Que pages of the YA and Avengers bickering about Billy and his powers. Them bickering is a staple of YA so I don't really need to describe it. What does happen is the Avengers tell the YA about the Scarlet Witch and House of M. Oooo. And Billy's all like "She was totally brainwashed or something right?" and the Avengers were all "No she just went crazy."

Steve Rogers forces Billy to come live at the Avengers mansion until they can figure his freaky powers out. Excellent dickery there, Steve. Teddy comes along for the ride because, you know, boyfriend. Billy and Teddy have a cute moment that Speed totally cockblocks by coming to 'rescue' them. "Making out" my ass. Putting a hand on a cheek does not "making out" make.

Anyway, so the Young Avengers bust them out and they decide to go looking for Scarlet Witch. There's a nice moment with Cassie and the whole Scarlet Witch-killed-my-dad-maybe-she-can-bring-him-back (after all, she did bring back a couple of people already).

And surprise reveal of the issue that I won't give away! Let's just say that I gasped out loud, yet if makes perfect sense. Somebody else is coming on their mission, and they're awesome.

Secret Six #23

Pretty cover. Little bit stiff, though.

Alright, so John Ostrander on writing. The quality drops accordingly whenever Gail Simone isn't writing. I don't think he quite gets Ragdoll's "voice", and his dialogue is too... plain, I guess. I miss Gail's wit. Do I have any real complaints other than "It's not Gail"? Hrm.

RB Silva on art. Decent enough, except for the heads. My god, the heads look lopsided and always slightly too small for the body, Jeannette's face was bothering me the entire time, and the eyes are all really small except on Ragdoll.


_{Oh jeeze, I'm sorry, but you should fire your plastic surgeon.}

So the story starts with a couple of dudes fighting each other, and the minute they start talking I'm all "These guys are douches, I hate them already. Am I supposed to hate them? I hope so, 'cause I do." Luckily, I'm right.

They talk and they talk and I'm just waiting for the heroe- err, protagonists to arrive. Seriously, can this intro get any more frustrating? Then a couple pages of the Six snarking to each other on a plane before they're kidnapped, separated and hunted.

Well, they defeat the hunters so easily it was almost embarrassing. Almost, until I remembered fuck those guys. The six kills them all and that's the issue.

Yeah, boring.

Thor And the Warrior's Four #4/4

1) I really like Gurhihuru's art. It's clean, it's cute, it's nice, it's expressive, it's dynamic. My life is now a better having seen Baby!Asgardians. Also, there's a couple of fun touches, like Beta Ray Bill's hair.


_Hehehehehe

2) Alex Zalben is a decent writer, and his plotting is pretty good. The pacing is great, and the emotion is good. This isn't somebody who writes a kid's comic and sleeps on the job. So well done.

3) I love this comic.

4) This comic makes me happy.

5) This comic isn't afraid to have a couple of emotional punches. Alex's character gets a couple of really good ones this issue.

6) It was worth getting the issues for the covers. Hee.

7) Coleen Coover is awesome. That is all.

Atomic Robo v.4 #4/4

See, one of these days I'm going to do a recommendation for Atomic Robo because it has recently become one of my favorite comics ever.

Last issue had Dr. Dinosaur, and I mean, it's hard to live up to Dr. Dinosaur. But this issue tries admirably. Saying this is "not the best Atomic Robo issue" is like saying that "Cars is not the best Pixar Movie" or "Hush isn't the best Batvillain" or something. Still pretty awesome.

A ghost turns up at Tesladyne (1999), and tests are done on the poor newb who spotted it. Then they do some tests on the ghost with a checklist as a framing device. "Is it incorporeal?" ect. They decide the ghost is impossible.

Atomic Robo keeps running into impossible things.

Turns out uh shadow from time is Thomas Edison, and him and Robo get into a hilarious pointing and shouting match before finally informing Edison that he died some years ago.

It looks like Thomas Edison might be a recurring villain.

And that's awesome

Parody sketch of the week!


_{Stealin' jokes from Yahtzee...}

This Week's Comics 1: Lots of Art Commentary in Here Dudes

Welcome to the first post from Geekeries. Please note that there will be SPOILERS.

Brightest Day: Justice League: Generation Lost #4
I had been wondering why I was still buying this title. Sure, I like the characters (though admittedly I haven't quite gotten all the JLI trades yet) and I'm inclined to buy anything that Jaime Reyes is in except Teen Titans because that shit is awful.

But I wasn't really getting anything out of it.

I was pleasantly surprised by this issue. Let's talk about it for a minute.

The art is okay. Joe Bennett knows how to get expressive. A little over the top, but in superhero comics you kind of want that - you can't describe somebody feeling fear, so you want to get that across in a single panel. Jo Bennett is good at that, in my opinion. He's also good at having action flowing, putting energy into the page and having it be understandable.

I don't quite like his art because 1) there's a skritchy sort of feeling to it that I'm fully aware is a problem I have with his style and not necessarily makes it bad art. 2) Totally biased here, but I think he's having a really hard time drawing Blue Beetle. Unfortunately for Jaime, some artists get his suit, and some artists drop the ball. Bennett is okay with the suit, but how he draws Jaime's face leaves much to be desired. 3) JESUS CHRIST, MAN - SHOW US BOOSTER'S EYES. Yes his goggles are yellow, but you can still see through them. I will give him props to how the shadows in the goggles do show a bit of his eyes, which would be very neat on another character, but doesn't suit Booster. Not to mention it's really distracting. Use it some of the time, not all of the time. 4) Not so sure Ice's shirt should be giving quite that much definition.


_{Look at this! Look at this!}

On a completely different note, Tony Harris & JD Mettler knocked this cover out of the park. Very nice. It feels like Russian Constructivist propaganda with the Rocket Reds and that really works with what goes on in the issue. But mostly it's just really striking. You can't really go wrong with black white and red, honestly. Well, you'd have to work real hard to be bad at it anyway. I like the softer brush-looking style of the drawings with the hark lines of the background. This is a nice cover, dudes. It is making me jealous.

What actually happened this issue!

So it starts out with a research lab that Max Lord arrives at. I'm going to be completely neutral with the whole evil Max Lord thing and not really say anything about it. Anyway, so Max talks to doctor dude, and the scientist is all: "Are you even allowed here, guy?" and Max is all: "LOL, no. I'm just making time until I can do the whole mind-control thing" and the scientist is all: D:
That... doesn't turn out that well for Max. And that's pretty cool. After the smug first page, it's nice to see him off-balance. The reveal that his powers are freaking out on him raises questions about the whole Making-The-World-Forget-About-Him thing, but it is a neat twist, and does tie it into the whole Blackest Night/Brightest Day thing.

Then it goes to the heroes and the Rocket Red team, and it turns out there's this communist rogue Rocket Red who totally fanboys over them going "OMG, it's the JLI" and the heroes are like "Wat. The JLI is totally over, dude." ANYWAY.
The neat thing here is that the older heroes are all "We shouldn't get involved in the Rocket Red fight" and then civilians get involved and then they're like "...Right, we're getting involved." Hey! Superheroes caring about people! That's nice. That's classic superheroism right there. That's what you should be taking from older comics. _{Yeah, I don't like Grim 'N Gritty (most of the time).}

Moving along. Rogue Rocket Red gets Booster Gold thinking about how everybody Just Happened to get together, and he guesses that this is more of Max Lord's manipulation. Quite literally, "Let's get the team back together". Everybody is like "LOL, wat", but Max actually responds. This is pretty great actually. It's nice to see Smart Booster. Booster's one of those characters that all the other characters and sometimes the audience thinks of as stupid and selfish. He's not, really. It's stuff like this that makes Booster a great character, and it is a great character moment. Kudos.

I figured out why I'm still reading this comic. Because I honestly want to see what happens next in the Booster Gold - Max Lord relationship. I might not like this title all the time (this was one of its better issues), but I actually want to see what happens next. So good for it.

Moving on.

Batman: Streets of Gotham
Paul Dini and Dustin Nguyen have been putting out a pretty solid comic. It's not Batwoman: Detective Comics OMG MUST HAVE NEXT ISSUE NOW, but I always smile when I pick it up.

Art first. I like Nguyen's art, but I feel like he's better when he works with his watercolours like when he does the covers. But mostly because his watercolour stuff is frikkin amazing. I mean seriously, this guy gets colour. Once, just once, I'd like to see him do an entire issue like that.
This particular cover isn't the best he's done. Compared to some of his others, it's rather bland.

I will also give him a high-five for not sexualizing the Carpenter. The comic never takes time from the story to give us needless fanservice, and I appreciate that.

Dini is a writer that writes a satisfying comic. The arc ends well, with a good conclusion. It's almost a little boring in that I can't really say anything about it! If I had started these reviews earlier I would have plenty to say about the new character Abuse (mostly good things), but for this it's just... Yeah. I do really like Carpenter. Dini seems to be developing how the villains work behind the scenes. First with the guy who buys the hideouts, and now the girl who builds the deathtraps and things. THat's pretty fantastic.

I'm not really going to say anything about the Manhunter backup, but I'll probably commit internet suicide in that I bought her first two trades and they didn't really suit me at all. I didn't like them. Her backups have been Meh for me.

Joe the Barbarian
Oh Grant Morrison. I'm pretty sure that there isn't anything I could say about you that anybody else hasn't already talked about. I am enjoying Joe the Barbarian, though.

I really, really like Sean Murphy's art. It is skritchy, but in a good way. Joe is absolutely adorable, as well as the other characters. His sense of style, the little details, the way he draws clothes, faces, backgrounds. There is nothing about this guy's art I don't like.
I'm also going to shout out to the colourist, Dave Steward 'cause that's some nice colour. The rendering is subtle and doesn't distract from the art, the way cool colours play with warm colours is very effective. It's colourful but subdued, and really helps with the mood.

People, be nice to the colourists. Especially the good ones.

Plot now. This issue was interesting. It moved forward the uh, not-real plot forward. There's a couple of brief moments that touch on Joe's reality, including one moment where it almost seems like characters from the not-real world entered Joe's Reality for a split second. This title is confusing, but Grant Morrison is good at doing that in a way that works. Other than that, I don't really have much to comment on.

Parody sketch of the week!


_{I've been, uh, playing a lot of Team Fortress 2.}