Cocktail Of The Year 2012

Yes, it's that slightly embarrassing, self-concious moment once again when I tally up which comics have made me the happiest throughout the year.

As regular readers know, each week I get my comics and run through them, posting a short review and what I did or didn't like about them. At the end of each week's reviews, I post a panel that, quite simply, made me smile that week and it's those panels that earn their respective titles the Cocktail for that week. I've gone through the 2012 Cocktail posts and using a hideously complicated process that I'm not going to bore you with worked out who gets the awards.

Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray's work on All-Star Western has been consistently good, not to mention the Freedom Fighters mini-series that they've been producing (hopefully) with plans for a new series sometime soon but it was the work of Paul Cornell on Saucer Country, Stormwatch but most of all for Demon Knights that pipped them to the post.

Sad to say Cornell's long gone from Stormwatch and has finished his run on Demon Knights so no more Vandal Savage to make me smile month in, month out.

The afore-mentioned All-Star Western and Demon Knights were both strong contenders for the series that provided me with the most laughs but - despite many people not liking it - the one that made me smile consistently was Worlds' Finest. It's not the best written series out there but remember, this is just about what gives me a chuckle and throughout the year and Levitz's writing, principally with Kevin Maguire's art, did it for me.

Thanks for stopping by and leaving comments - there's a whole ton of comic blogs out there so I really do appreciate it when someone spends some time in my little corner of the internet.

Have a great New Year and see you in 2013.

Merry Christmas!

Poor Captain Britain . . .

Have a good one, everyone! I shall be taking a few days off so will be back next week.

Who Was Who Is Who #52

Throughout the whole of 2012, I've been using Monday's posts to go through all my copies of Who's Who and see if I could predict who would make it over to the new DCU by the end of 2012, who might make it and who hasn't got a Knodar's chance.

In issue #26 of the original Who's Who they had a bit of a catch-up and looked at characters that had been missed in the earlier issues, hence the sudden change back to earlier letters.

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #209

Which is why you should always read the instruction booklet

The Mayan's Got It Wrong

The world doesn't end today. It ended back in the mid-80's.

Who you going to trust? A bunch of New Agers who've decided that the end of one calendar = the end of the world, or Marv Wolfman?

Thank You, Keith Giffen

Above is the cover of the forthcoming Threshold #3 wherein Keith Giffen introduces a "new character with a familiar name" - Captain K'Rot, a talking, psychotic rabbit with one dead eye and a wooden leg.

In an interview with Newsarama, Giffen shares his big beef with comics at the moment:

Giffen: ...with Threshold, I'm trying desperately to have fun. Comic books are supposed to be fun. Comic books are supposed to be big and loud and bombastic and fun.
I don't want to do European style comic books. I want to do good, old-fashioned American comic books. And I'm not saying that out of some desire to be patriotic or something. No. I'm just saying there's nothing wrong with what we were doing in this country with comic books. Alright, maybe they didn't appeal to adults. But they were big and just a lot of fun. 

Nrama: And you want to get back to that. 

Giffen: Yeah, I just want to get back to it.

I've said time and again how much I enjoy fun comics: the last version of Blue Beetle (not co-incidentally written by Giffen), the current Demon Knights, Shadowpact, Gail Simone's All New Atom, Giffen's Doom Patrol, All-Star Western and, top of the list, Power Girl.

If there's another title to add to that list in Threshold, I for one will be picking it up.

Who Was Who Is Who #51

So for want of anything better to write about on a Monday, I'm going to go through all my copies of Who's Who and see if I can predict who will make it over to the new DCU by the end of 2012, who might make it and who hasn't got a Yellow Peri's chance.

THE WIZARD - despite being an old Justice Society villain, I think it unlikely that the Wizard will make an appearance in Earth-2 so I don't expect him to be around too much.

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #208

And yes, Jaime, your butt does look fat in that.

Earth 2 #10

From the solicitations:

As Wotan holds The Flash’s mother hostage, Khalid must finally come to terms with his destiny as Doctor Fate!

Wotan! The new Dr Fate! Man, this series just keeps getting better.

Dan Didio's Diabolical Dialogue

With last week's Phantom Stranger #3 it looks like I was right when I said I might be returning to Dan Didio's Diabolical Dialogue sometime soon.

The story's not terrible - it's not really making the most of the mystery surrounding the Stranger's apparent normal family; no-one's questioning who the wife and kids are or where they've come from - but it's not bad.

What does hurt for me is reading the leaden, clunking dialogue that Didio has his characters, and particularly the villain in this issue, speak:

"Dawn breaks, and I must return to my unholy resting place."

Sweet Cthulhu, even villains in the 70's didn't utter such nonsense.

That's right, mate - you go ahead and unleash your demon fury on the bloke. See how that works out.

You know, when DeMatteis takes over, I hope he's doing the dialogue.

Perusing Previews - December 2012

Chief among the many, many, many crimes committed in Episode I: The Phantom Menace was the way one of the coolest villains ever was casually discarded at the end of the film. The death of Darth Maul was a shocking waste of a great character - imagine if the first Star Wars film had killed off Darth Vader at the end of the battle of the Death Star instead of sending him spinning off into space. Why couldn't Lucas pull a similar stunt with Maul?

Anyway, his apparent return in the animated Clone Wars series has been all over the place lately but bringing him back with the lower body of a mechanical spider?! I think I'd rather have left him dead.

The Shirt Off Her Back

I mentioned in Sunday's Cocktail post about the character of Joan from Human Bomb and her apparent lack of suitable shirts to wear to work. Just in case you missed it, here's what a normal S.H.A.D.E. operative gets to wear on the shop floor:

I'm sure they're perfectly functional, all-in-one high tech romper suits.

The head honcho, Uncle Sam, does the standard boardroom look:

while Joan? Poor old Joan gets to come to work like this:

Who Was Who Is Who #50

So for want of anything better to write about on a Monday, I'm going to go through all my copies of Who's Who and see if I can predict who will make it over to the new DCU by the end of 2012, who might make it and who hasn't got a Whip's chance.

THE WANDERERS - far as I know, they're unlikely to be wandering around the Legion's time line before the end of 2012, and Dave Sopko, the official COEP Legion go to guy, agrees "Have not been seen for a long time. Doubt we will see this roaming band of adventurers again."

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #207

Hawksmoor paraphrasing Oscar Wilde. A Haaaawwwksmoooor?

How Times Have Changed

I've said before that I'm not the biggest fan of video games but there's a couple of series that'll keep me coming back, not least of all the Grand Theft Auto franchise.

With GTA V coming out early next year, I've gone ahead and pre-ordered it and would have done it, even if I hadn't seen this a couple of months ago:

That's pretty slick, right? Big change from how they marketed the first game back in 1998:

No, Mr Bond

I have to admit to not being the biggest James Bond fan in the world. Nowhere near the biggest, actually.

I find the films enjoyable enough but even the latest, Skyfall, I really couldn't see what the fuss was all about. A bad guy surfaces with a grudge against M, Bond gets all growly and mean-faced for a while, Q gives him just the right gadget and the day is saved. There are gratuitous nods to older Bond films which really make no sense in this new, rebooted universe - if Bond only came into active service a few years ago, why oh why would he have a 1960's Aston Martin with an ejector seat tucked away in a garage? It's just there for the older fans to nod and smile and feel nostalgic - and the product placement is horrible.

But hey, other people seem to like them. Over at his blog, Ty Templeton sums it up nicely:

Click to see the rest

Who Was Who Is Who #49

So for want of anything better to write about on a Monday, I'm going to go through all my copies of Who's Who and see if I can predict who will make it over to the new DCU by the end of 2012, who might make it and who hasn't got a Vanquisher's chance.

THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER - one of the stories in the soon to be released (this is written in early April) G.I. Combat is a back-up featuring the new Unknown Soldier so he's in place.

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #206

Break it to him gently, Jen