Retroactive - The 90's Part 1

As DC Comics are celebrating the creators that made an impact in the 70's, 80's and 90's, I thought I'd wander through the same decades and pull out my favourite comic of each year.

And here we are, finally in the 90's.

Monday Memes #22

Like I said about the Iwo Jima image a couple of weeks ago, if there's a classic image, it'll be updated, reworked and used time and again. Take the cover of Crisis on Infinite Earths #7, for example. The original had Superman holding Supergirl's broken body but it could just as easily be

Green Lantern Kyle Rayner holding Donna Troy . . . Black Adam holding Osiris . . .

Red Torpedo cradling Red Tornado . . . or some lunar mummy thing holding Seaguy.

It's so versatile!

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #131

Oooh, she's feisty!

What Brings You Here?

Glancing at the search keywords that people use to find (deliberately or otherwise) this blog, I noticed something odd:

More people end up here looking for eunuchs than they do for Judd Winick.

Is that a good thing or not?

A Branding Issue

This is Kobra:

Whether under the original leader Jeffrey Burr or his murdered and ressurected twin brother Jason, the Kobra Cult has killed thousands of people. Ruthless terrorists, they will stop at nothing to bring about the Kali Yuga, the Age of Chaos

There is nothing redeemable about this group.

Alan Moore: A Bit Of A (Future) Shock

I've mentioned before that as a young lad growing up in "Fascist Britain" my first introduction to comics was via the British weeklies rather than the American monthlies. Titles such as Action and Starlord remain dear to my heart but the ubiquitous 2000AD easily had the greatest impact.

One of the regular features of 2000AD was the Future Shocks, usually two to four pages in length, they were done-in-one tales, almost always having a twist in the tail, and often used for new and aspiring writers as well as the more established.

The weekend just gone, I picked up this little beauty:

All (well, most) of Alan Moore's 2000AD Future Shocks in one volume, along with his Time Twister stories - another type of short story that featured, as you can probably guess, time travel as it's theme.

Retroactive - The 80's Part 3

As DC Comics are celebrating the creators that made an impact in the 70's, 80's and 90's, I thought I'd wander through the same decades and pull out my favourite comic of each year.

Welcome back to the 80's!

Monday Memes #21

As I mentioned the first time I feartured Friendly Fire as a Monday Meme, this is the one that I've got loads of examples of. It's almost as if heroes just can't stop beating the crap out of each other!

Green Lanterns Hal Jordan and Guy Gardner have knocked seven shades of shinola out of each other on numerous occasions - hell, they were at it only a couple of weeks ago in Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors #8.

A nicely done conceit here - original heroes beating the crap out of their legacy name-sakes.

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #130

The Spectre gets all snitty with Zatanna

At Least He's Not Tom Cruise

A couple of days ago I talked about Green Lantern deciding whether to split up with Carol Ferris or not and asked "It's not like he could end up on the Oprah Winfrey Show, is it?" That whole situation was in 1984. Jump ahead four years to 1988 . . .

A silly idea, Hal? From you? Surely this will be great PR . . .

Yeah, Hal, you could explain the whole "Carol Ferris incident" where your friend John Stewart is framed for killing her . . . or we could just skip ahead half an hour and talk about you again:

For a man without fear, you look kinda scared there, mate.

Secret Six #36

From the solicitation:

Bane’s ambitious plans turn darker and deadlier than anyone imagined, putting The Secret Six in the most perilous position of their nasty little lives! No one escapes unscathed in this one – and the Six won’t ever be the same!

Flashpoint #1 - A Few Things Of Note

Unlike previous years' big events, I won't be annotating Flashpoint and it's various associated spin-off titles, but last week's Flashpoint #1 did contain a couple of things that either made me chuckle or wonder if there was any real significance. The annotater in me couldn't help but then think: hmmm, there may be a blog post in this.

The big two-page spread (click on the above to embiggen) that gave us our first look at the Batman held a few things: the "Wayne's World" sign in the bottom left was obviously a call-out to that dreadful, goddam movie; the "Queen of Hearts Roulette" sign probably references the JSA villain Roulette, created by Geoff Johns; and as with the best alternate worlds, there's zepplins in the air.

Retroactive - The 80's Part 2

As DC Comics are celebrating the creators that made an impact in the 70's, 80's and 90's, I thought I'd wander through the same decades and pull out my favourite comic of each year.

Welcome back to the 80's!

Monday Memes #20

I've said before that I really like the old Soviet style propaganda artwork and when applied to comics it seems to work just as well.

I love the Green Lantern Corps cover with Kilowog embracing the Soviet ideal when the Cold War was still going on!

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #129

I guess Captain Thunder isn't talking about the David Kelley pilot

Here be Flashpoint #1 spoilers, people so continue reading at your own risk . . .

Superman En Un Sombrero

Sometimes I get a little weary of some comic blogs - there's a little too much bitchiness out there on occasion.

However this picture:

restores my faith in the wonderful world of comic blogs.

Borrowed from The Daily Superman.

In A Perfect World

Power Girl #26

I like Matthew Sturges' work, particularly his superhero comics.

Shadowpact and Blue Beetle were consistently good and it was a shame to see both series get cancelled way before their time. Salvation Run provided us with one of the best fights ever - Gorilla Grodd bludgeoning Monsieur Mallah to death with Brain's holding tank and raised questions about the centre of gravity of gorillas and their tipping points. Of the four Final Crisis Aftermath series that came out, Sturges' Run! was by far the best and JSA All-Stars has been a great read on the whole, again cut far too short.

Now with issue #26, he begins a two-issue fill in on Power Girl which regular readers will know has long been one of my favourite titles and there's an interview with him about it over at CBR and it's clear he gets the character:

"The thing about Power Girl is that she's a character that hasn't been around as long as [Superman or Batman] and isn't as iconic as those characters. She is herself a comment on superheroes because she's this alternate version of Supergirl. The fact that her personality is a little more aggressive and a little brasher gives you a lot of comedic opportunities and certainly that's something that I always play into. It's fun to watch her get annoyed by the things that are going on around her. She's not the most patient person and she doesn't have time for a bunch of crap."

I was frankly dismayed when Judd Winick was announced as the writer for PG but over the last year or so have come to openly admit to being pleasantly surprised by his work on the title. Ably assisted by the gorgeous artwork of Sami Basri, Winick's stories have been funny and warm after an initial couple of issues where crap hit the fan.

However, if Winick were to leave Power Girl for the proposed new Justice League International title, I'd really, really like Matt Sturges to take the reins.

As long as it then doesn't get cancelled, of course.

Perusing Previews - May 2011

If I wear a T-shirt with a design on it these days, it's mostly either a DC related image or something from the excellent Last Exit to Nowhere site. However, I'm kinda tempted by the Boba Fett T-shirt here:

Though I have to admit to being slightly baffled by the Vader Gonna' Knock You Out! shirt . . .

Retroactive - The 80's Part 1

As DC Comics are celebrating the creators that made an impact in the 70's, 80's and 90's, I thought I'd wander through the same decades and pull out my favourite comic of each year.

Welcome back to the 80's!

Monday Memes #19

One of the enduring images to come out of World War Two is that of Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima. And if there's one thing that a classic image invites, it's pastiche:

Whether it's fighting an alien invasion or zombie hoards . . .

. . . traipsing across multiple Earths or battling for the future, if someone's got a flag, someone's going to raise it.

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #128

Deadshot espouses his own particular outlook

All Change For Power Girl (70's Redux)

Wow, was it over a year ago I used the post title All Change For Power Girl to wonder who was taking over from Palmiotti/Gray and Conner? Anyhow, that's got nothing to do with this post.

A couple of days ago I ran through some of the late 70's comics I own including this one:

I've read that story plenty of times but it was only when putting together that post that I noticed something.

"Part Of Some Larger Purpose"

Justice League: Generation Lost finished up last week with a relatively satisfying end, at least from the point of view of a new Justice League International book being confirmed. Sure it would have been nice to have Max Lord brought to justice but the new team's going to need a bad guy to fight and he's the perfect candidate.

But one thing's still niggling at me and long time readers will probably be able to guess what it is while they stifle a groan: Ice's ret-conned origin. In #12 of Gen Lost, Winick revealed that Ice's whole background was a lie she had created to replace the supressed memory of her accidentally killing her father which I talked about at length here. And here.

In an interview with Comic Book Resources, Winick stated:

"As much as folks think we're doing it for shock value, nothing we did in the story was for shock value. In my opinion, everything that's done builds upon other things. The Creature Commandos don't show up just because I think they're cool, they show up because they are part of some larger purpose."

See that? Everything that was done in the series was done to "builds upon other things" which of course includes Ice's ret-conned origin. This leads me to ask what was the purpose for the ret-con? What built upon it or what did it build upon?

I probably have too much time on my hands, but I'd like to try and find out.

Happy Star Wars Day!

Retroactive - The 70's Part 3

As DC Comics are celebrating the creators that made an impact in the 70's, 80's and 90's, I thought I'd wander through the same decades and pull out my favourite comic of each year.

Any excuse to look at old comics, eh? 

Monday Memes #18

In the midst of comics, we are in death it seems.

Two big events, two deaths, two funerals. Sometimes comics aren't as much fun as I'd like them to be.

Hell, even the funny comics couldn't stay away at times.

No flowers, please.

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #127

Power Girl describes Zatanna's magic household goods