Slight Delay

There'll be a slight delay with the Annotations for Blackest Night #5 as my wife and I have just had to have our very ill cat put down.

I'll get round to them as soon as.

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #61

Yet another double sized issue this week as I was away celebrating my wife's birthday last weekend. Had I been around, this is what I would have picked up:

• The Brave And The Bold #29 - not a terrible story, but neither did it really do anything either. The Geek's jaded view of the present when compared to the 60's is naive to say the least: the 60's were all peace and love but the present's all gloom and isolation? Nonsense - both the past and the present are much too complicated to be summed up in six panels.
• Justice Society of America 80-Page Giant #1 - I've long enjoyed the occasional 80-Page Giants as the anthology format allows for a good mix of stories, throwing out some gems along with others that are a little so-so. Unfortunately, this whole issue landed on the so-so side of the fence with nothing really standing out as anything special for me. That's also the risk you take with anthologies, I guess.
• The Stand: Soul Survivors #2 - the survivors start coming together as they head for Mother Abigail's place. Excellent art as always but, by necessity, still a somewhat truncated story.

And what made me smile last week:

Black Lantern Turkey!

But on to this week's comics now:

• Blackest Night #5 - man, those last couple of pages? I read those and just said "Holy crap,"
• The Dark Tower: Fall of Gilead #6 - the fall finally came despite the boobytraps and defences the gunslingers put in place.
• Green Lantern #48 - the All Lantern Corps finally gets together and romps straight into the pages of Blackest Night #5. Damn, I'm enjoying this series!
• Justice League: Cry For Justice #5 - Warning! Events depicted on the cover of this comic do not represent the contents of the same! Ollie? You're really going to leave Roy bleeding on the floor just to run off and get the bad guy? Man, you should be looking after your boy first.
• Justice League of America #39 - yay! Vibe's back! Steel's back! Justice League Detroit's back together! (Hey, I liked the Detroit-era League and I'm not afraid to say it)
• Justice Society of America #33 - well, we knew the big split was coming so no surprise there, but the story itself was still satisfying.
• Project Superpowers: Meet The Bad Guys #4 - is that an ED-209 the Scarab's fighting?!
• Teen Titans #77 - you know, I almost feel sorry for Deathstroke with the amount of Black Lanterns he's got against him!

And what made me smile this week:

Heh - Agent Orange may be a psycho but he's funny with it.

What's Behind The Cover Of Blackest Night #7 (Part 5 - The End!)

So what's behind the Top Secret cover of Blackest Night #7?

I sneaked into the DC offices, grabbed a few copies, took a coin to the covers and gave it a scratch and what do you know? That black cover comes off nicely . . .

Finally, the real villain of the piece is revealed!

And The Winner Is . . .

Underworld Unleashed, with 41% of the votes, is the next DC storyline I'll be annotating over at the Annotated DC Project, probably some time over the coming Christmas holidays. You can be notified of what's happening over there by signing up to the RSS feed.

Thanks to everyone who voted!

Friday Night Fights - Religious FundaMentalism

So tonight's the last round of Spacebooger's Feet of Fury! fights where every combat waged has to end in a kick.

As it's the last one, I've turned to one of the gods of ultra violence, Spider Jerusalem, who has himself turned to God.

Kinda.

Disgusted by the proliferation of religions in the City, Spider runs riot at a convention of new religious movements taking them on one at a time until, faced with the preacher of Release - a church which practices "sacred trepanation" - he turns violent:

Here endeth the lesson, my friends.

Remember to head over to Spacebooger, check out the other entries and vote, vote, vote for your favourite fight!

This fight with a message was originally shown in Transmetropolitan #6, cover dated February 1998, though the scans are taken from the Transmetropolitan: Lust For Life trade paperback, written by Warren Ellis with art by Darick Robertson.

What's Behind The Cover Of Blackest Night #7 (Part 4)

So what's behind the Top Secret cover of Blackest Night #7?

I sneaked into the DC offices, grabbed a few copies, took a coin to the covers and gave it a scratch and what do you know? That black cover comes off nicely . . .

Blackest Night turns into a cross-company-crossover! (Props to the original artist, by the way)

What's Behind The Cover Of Blackest Night #7 (Part 3)

So what's behind the Top Secret cover of Blackest Night #7?

I sneaked into the DC offices, grabbed a few copies, took a coin to the covers and gave it a scratch and what do you know? That black cover comes off nicely . . .

Hmm, a reference to an obscure Frank Frazetta-inspired rotoscoped film? That'll have them rolling in the aisles . . .

What's Behind The Cover Of Blackest Night #7 (Part 2)

So what's behind the Top Secret cover of Blackest Night #7?

I sneaked into the DC offices, grabbed a few copies, took a coin to the covers and gave it a scratch and what do you know? That black cover comes off nicely . . .

Okay, so I wanted to do a Star Wars joke and this was all I came up with?

What's Behind The Cover Of Blackest Night #7 (Part 1)

So what's behind the Top Secret cover of Blackest Night #7?

I sneaked into the DC officers, grabbed a few copies, took a coin to the covers and gave it a scratch and what do you know? That black cover comes off nicely . . .

So that's what happened to it after all . . .

Vote For Annotations

Only eight votes on the poll? I'm saddened - I know I get more people per week than that visiting this blog!

Only a couple of days left to vote, folks.

And not a single vote for Bloodlines? I'm surprised . . .

Blackest Night #7

I mean, seriously - who isn't going to buy this?!

The Annotated DC Project - Help Needed

No Friday Night Fight tonight, I'm afraid - been way too busy to do much of any fun and I'm away this weekend as well.

However, just time to sneak in a quick announcement - with cries of "You have too much time on your hands!" ringing in my ears, it's my pleasure to reveal yet another site full of annotations:

Back when I first annotated Infinite Crisis, I made no secret of the fact that Jonathan Woodward's excellent site annotating Crisis on Infinite Earths was a huge influence on me. As good as Jonathan's site is, I have to admit I was always a little annoyed that I didn't get the chance to annotate COIE, one of my all time favourite stories.

A few months ago I kinda thought - well, what's stopping me annotating Crisis...? Or, indeed, any of the other big DC stories? Thus was born the Annotated DC Project.

So far it has notes for Crisis... as well as Zero Hour - while most people into Crisis... and who read annotations will have been aware of Jonathan's site and may not find that much new in my notes (though I did find a few things he had missed!) I wanted to launch it with something new as well, hence the notes for Zero Hour.

My intention is to write up notes for other series as well and this is where I need your help. Over on the right is a poll listing the series I'm considering doing next. Click the ones you'd like to see done (you can select more than one) and the series with the highest number of votes gets picked - if you think of something not on the list, leave a comment and let me know. The poll will be up for a week so vote away!

Damn Spam!

Just a quick one, folks - some of my older posts have been spammed; I've deleted the comments but have enabled comment moderation for the older posts.

Apologies if that causes anyone any hassle.

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #60

As I was away last week, this week's Cocktail is yet another bumper sized double issue!

• The Boys #36 - the violent yet poignantly tinged origin of Mother's Milk comes to a close.
• The Boys: Herogasm #6 - Ennis's ability to lay sub-plots down that probably won't be referenced or see fruition for years to come is often overlooked by those concentrating on the profanity/violence or humour of his stories. The repercussions of this series will be worth looking out for.
• Doom Patrol #4 - the Blackest Night comes to the rest of the DCU and there's got to be nothing weirder than fighting your own resurrected corpse as Robotman finds out!
• Metal Men second feature - oh, I swear, it's like Justice League all over again with these guys! And hey, I'm not complaining!
• Magog #3 - more Giffen this week and while the main character isn't engaging me fully yet, I'm happy to tag along for Keith's writing.
• Project Superpowers: Chapter Two #4 - hmmm, that's a different take on Zeus.
• Project Superpowers: Meet The Bad Guys #3 - kinda strange introducing a bad guy for Samson considering what happened in Chapter Two #4 . . .
• Red Tornado #3 - ah, the old bad guy fooling newbie ploy. Like that isn't going to back fire on Red Volcano.
• Secret Six #15 - how cool is it to have John Ostrander writing Deadshot again? And how gratifying is it to have it be a damn good story?

And what made me smile:

Magog tuning out the usual supervillain blabbering!

And here's what I picked up this week:

• Black Terror #5 - honestly? I thought this series ended last issue. I'd forgotten all about it. Saying that, when it does turn up, it's still pretty good.
• Booster Gold #26 - nice to see Jurgens hasn't forgotten a couple of things left over from earlier issues (like the whereabouts of Goldstar for example) but at the same time this was something of a sentimental issue; you couldn't help feeling sorry for Booster and his inability to find the right words at Blue Beetle's eulogy.
• Chronicles of Wormwood: The Last Battle #2 - man, this series just gets better and better!
• Green Arrow / Black Canary #26 - still don't like Sienkiewicz's art. Sorry.
• Black Canary second feature - hmmm, you know, for once Kreisberg has me interested again in the story he's thrown together here.
• Green Lantern Corps #42 - that last page: damn it. I really liked that guy. Yeah, yeah, Hal's the one and only and all the rest of that but I've been with this guy from the start. Crap.
• JSA vs Kobra #6 - I've really enjoyed this story and it's a shame to see it end.
• Punishermax #1 - I pay next to no attention to Marvel continuity but isn't Kingpin the long time Daredevil/Spider-Man foe? Does this take place before then or what> Methinks I need to hunt round on the interwebs for the answer . . .

And what made me smile this week:

Steve Dillon, back on the Punisher!

Notes for Green Lantern Corps #42 Done

Just published the notes for Green Lantern Corps #42 over at the Annotated Blackest Night.

I'm still in shock over that last page.

Friday Night Fights - What's That On The Sole Of Your Boot?

Crazy broads. Where would comics and hardboiled detective novels be without them, eh? Some you know are going to be trouble just as soon as you clap eyes on them and some you just can't help liking. Most are a combination of the two - just like this gal!

Yep, we're jumping over to Earth-9 this week as well as jumping back to 1998 to go play with the craziest broad of them all, the Joker from the Tangent Earth.

And what's a DC comic without a Justice League pun, eh?

And what a comeback! Who said intellectual discourse was a thing of the past?!

If only that bad guy had read the bottom of her boot he'd know what to expect!

As ever, this mayhem is brought to you on command of Spacebooger - head over there, check out the other fights and remember to vote for your favourite.

The colourful clown in the costume originally appeared in Tangent Comics: The Joker's Wild #1, first published in 1998 (though the scans are from the Tangent Comics Vol 3 trade paperback published in 2008), written by Karl Kesel and Tom Simmons, with art by Joe Phillips and Jasen Rodriguez.

Updates On The Annotated Blackest Night

Going away for a week was good fun but it also means you spend a bunch of time catching up on stuff when you get back.

One of those things was finishing off the Black Power Ring Percentage Level table over at the Annotated Blackest Night - now that the rings are up to 100% it's unlikely I'll need to edit that page again!

Something I've worked on over the last couple of days, though, is a new page over at the site: say hello to the Character Map.

As you can see, I'm trying to chart where the important characters of Blackest Night appear - I can't keep an eye on every character because there's simply too many of them! However, those that I think are going to be important (most of the GL Corps, Sinestro, Atrocitus and even Dove following the events of Blackest Night: Titans #3) will be followed from one issue to the next and the map will be updated as it goes along with those updates being posted to the site.

Interested to hear what you think of this.

Enjoy!

Annotations For Blackest Night #4

I'm back from holidays and have just posted the annotations for Blackest Night #4, Blackest Night: Titans #3 and Green Lantern #47 over at the Annotated Blackest Night site.

There's also a query about a couple of characters I can't identify which can be found in the Help Needed page.

Enjoy!

Friday Night Fights - A Taste Of Leather

Spacebooger demands another fight ending with a kick so here goes nothing!

What's worse than a couple of pesky, mindless minions?

Too many to count, that's what!

She may be new to the superhero game at this point, but the Star-Spangled Kid knows what to do.

And a double-booted kick in the chest is just what the mad doctor ordered!

The early exploits of the Star-Spangled Kid and STRIPE come from the collected edition of Stars and STRIPE, published in 2007, written by the ubiquitous Geoff Johns with art by Lee Moder and Dan Davis.

While I'm Away - Superman

My wife and I are on holiday this week, celebrating our anniversary. Just in case you miss me, here's some posts based on the most popular characters I've tagged in my posts.

No 5 - Superman

While I'm Away - Green Arrow

My wife and I are on holiday this week, celebrating our anniversary. Just in case you miss me, here's some posts based on the most popular characters I've tagged in my posts.

No 4 - Green Arrow

While I'm Away - Batman

My wife and I are on holiday this week, celebrating our anniversary. Just in case you miss me, here's some posts based on the most popular characters I've tagged in my posts.

No 3 - Batman

While I'm Away - Power Girl

My wife and I are on holiday this week, celebrating our anniversary. Just in case you miss me, here's some posts based on the most popular characters I've tagged in my posts.

No 2 - Power Girl

While I'm Away - Green Lantern

My wife and I are on holiday this week, celebrating our anniversary. Just in case you miss me, here's some posts based on the most popular characters I've tagged in my posts.

No 1 - GL Hal Jordan

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #59

With the wonders of technology, I'm not even here when I'm posting this!

• Ambush Bug #7 - the mini-series that almost died finishes in typically bizarre fashion. Marvellous series but I think this might be the end of the Bug.
• Blackest Night #4 - Damage is done for! 100%! Nekron rises! Oh crap!
• Blackest Night: Titans #3 - who'd have thought Dove would turn out to be the saviour of the day?
• Final Crisis Aftermath: Ink #6 - a bit up and down, this series, but at least that ending's kinda cool.
• Green Lantern #47 - waaaaait a second . . . did Sinestro just get a first name after almost 40 years? Or have I somehow missed that in the past?
• Justice Society of America #32 - Power Girl gets ready to hit someone!
• The Last Days of Animal Man #6 - and this mini-series wraps up nicely. Really enjoyed this and, if you haven't been reading it, I recommend picking it up once it's collected.
• Teen Titans #76 - Beast Boy acts like a dick; Aquagirl and Bombshell bitch about each other; Blue Beetle and Static bitch about Beast Boy. That's the entire issue. Anyone remember the days when this team liked each other?
• Ravager co-feature - Ravager over steps herself and, for the first time in a while, gets her arse kicked.

And what made me smile:

The bare faced cheek of Keith Giffen!