Cocktail Of The Year 2013

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 2013 Cocktail posts and using a hideously complicated process that I'm not going to bore you with worked out who gets the awards.

Taking over from Paul Cornell on Demon Knights was, in my opinion a hard act to follow but Robert Venditti managed it; he did the same picking up the reins from Geoff Johns on Green Lantern as well. The team of Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray are consistently good on All Star Western which is a delight to read month in, month out.

However, it's Geoff Johns who with his work on Justice League, Justice League of America, Green Lantern and even Forever Evil that gave me something to smile about the most this year.

Johns's work on Justice League of America helped it make a good run for the top three and, as mentioned above, All Star Western is still one of the best comics around - each month in terms of writing and art it's consistently excellent.

That said, though, with writing duties being split between Geoff Johns, Robert Venditti and a splendid one-shot contribution from Charles Soule, it's Green Lantern that takes the top spot this year.

Thanks very much for reading Crisis on Earth-Prime whether you do it regularly or have come here looking for some very specific things - there's a lot of comic blogs on the net and it's appreciated that you spend some time here. Even more so if you choose to leave a comment! :)

Have yourselves a great New Year whatever you're doing and see you in 2014.

Monday Memories #52 - Young Justice #31

Each Monday this past year I've been taking a look back at a random comic, prestige format issue, graphic novel or collection of reprints from amongst my 3,000 or so comics that date from 1962 to 2003 - I figured anything in the last ten years would be too recent to hark back to.

The comics were chosen completely at random and apart from a four week lead-in period, even I didn't know what I'd be looking at in the weeks ahead!

And now here we are, number 52, one entire year's worth of posts completed. What am I going to do on a Monday now . . . ?

Christmas Comic Books

The lovely Mrs Earth-Prime bought me two comic-related books for Christmas this year: Mail-Order Mysteries by Kirk DeMarais looking at all the old stuff that used to get advertised in comics in the 50's to 70's:

and The Horror! The Horror! by Jim Trobetta which discusses and reprints a whole host of old horror comics that fell victim to the US Congress censorship mania in the 50's:

That's my reading matter sorted for the next couple of weeks!

Hope you al had a good Christmas, folks.

Merry Christmas!

Judge Dredd by Carlos Ezquerra - does it get much better?

Have a good Christmas everyone!

(I told you this was coming months ago...)

Monday Memories #51 - Eclipso #5

Each Monday this year I'll be taking a look back at a random comic, prestige format issue, graphic novel or collection of reprints from amongst my 3,000 or so comics that date from 1962 to 2003 - I figured anything in the last ten years would be too recent to hark back to.

The comics are chosen completely at random and apart from a four week lead-in period, even I don't know what I'll be looking at in the weeks to come!

No Cocktail Today

A combination of being busy in the run-up to Christmas and a couple of other things meant that I didn't get to pick up my last delivery before Christmas hits in a few days; not a massive worry as there was only three comics this week.

With the exception of a couple of pre-planned posts I'm probably not going to be around much this week so will take this opportunity to wish you all a very Merry Christmas from Earth-Prime - have fun however you're celebrating (or not!) and be nice to each other.

See you in a week or so!

Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes Trailer

I thoroughly enjoyed the Rise of The Planet of The Apes from a couple of years back - for all my bitching a few days ago about reboots and remakes, that was one that worked. It took the original story and built something new from it rather than simply hitting reset and remaking the same thing again.

With that in mind, I will definitely be watching the sequel:

Monday Memories #50 - The Punisher #8

Each Monday this year I'll be taking a look back at a random comic, prestige format issue, graphic novel or collection of reprints from amongst my 3,000 or so comics that date from 1962 to 2003 - I figured anything in the last ten years would be too recent to hark back to.

The comics are chosen completely at random and apart from a four week lead-in period, even I don't know what I'll be looking at in the weeks to come!

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #254

Oh, that's going to end well

DC's March Solicitations

FOREVER EVIL #7

It’s evil versus evil in the shocking “take-no-prisoners” conclusion to FOREVER EVIL! What will be the fate of Lex Luthor and his Injustice League? Who will live – and who will die? And why is The Hooded Man the most feared being from the Syndicate's world? Do not miss this startling finale that will leave the DC universe reeling and reveal the secrets to the future!

Yet another "things will never be the same" promotion for the end of the first line wide crossover that, with the exception of Villains Month doesn't really seem to have impacted most of the titles I read.

And I'm still betting on Earth-3's Alex Luthor as the Hooded Man's identity.

You're Looking For What, Now?

As regular readers now, I occasionally dip into the search terms that people use to either find this blog deliberately or find it by accident while looking for something else. In today's search terms I noticed what has to be the most . . . ummmm . . . shall we say "specific interest" in the comics world?

Skipping over the "angry cuckold comics" I'd just like to highlight this one:

Someone out there (and it was a single person on one day) found their way to my little corner of the web by searching for crisis on infinite earth detroit breasts.

Lord knows there are plenty of places on the web to find the most debauched variation of whatever your hobby is - not for nothing has Rule 34 (link is SFW) become well known - but I have to admit to being surprised as the exactness of the term.

Not just breasts but breasts from (presumably) the Justice League Detroit era. And not the whole era, either, just the Crisis on Infinite Earths.

I'm really not judging someone else's particular interest, but if you know that much, if you know of Crisis and the Detroit League, would it not have been simpler to search for Zatanna, Vixen or Gypsy followed by breasts?

Man, with that many mentions of breasts I'm going to get a lot more people looking for superhero boobs now, aren't I? Best if I get the Power Girl cosplay out of the way:

Wait, What? There's A Terminator Reboot Coming?

Have I been living under a rock recently? I know this blog's comic related but I read a lot of news sites that talk about films as well for a good reason: I love films as well as comics.

But somehow I appear to have missed the news that The Terminator is being rebooted and might even have a title of Terminator: Genesis.

Admittedly Terminator: Salvation wasn't as good as it could have been but, to my mind, I don't think it was as bad as many people think, either. I'd much rather see a new film set post-Salvation than starting over again; it just seems a little tired and predictable to think "Most people who saw the original are old now - hell, they must be at least in their forties - so it's time to bring the original story to a new generation."

Yeah, you know, the generation that can watch the original any damn time they please just by putting a DVD in the player.

I'm not against remakes - John Carpenter's The Thing is still one of my favourite films - and some reboots do work - I'll take Batman Begins over Batman any day - but I think there's a difference between the Batman films and the Terminator series. Just about any actor can put on a batsuit and pretend to be Batman (may I refer you to Val Kilmer and George Clooney) but with the Terminator film, hell the entire series of films, you have something that are so closely associated with one actor - dear old Mr Schwarzenegger - that it's impossible to separate him from them. Even Salvation found a way to put him in there in a believable manner and any reboot is going to have to deal with that somehow, in the same way Fury Road is going to have to cope without Mel Gibson.

Why can't we have something new in the same universe, a continuation of the post-Judgement Day world? Who here who saw T2 in the cinema twenty odd years ago didn't think the future battle scenes were the most intriguing aspect of the film? Who didn't want to see more of that terrible, blasted landscape littered with human skulls? And who wasn't disappointed when the glimpse we got in Salvation and the promise of more was cut short?

Another reboot?

Monday Memories #49 - Spider-Man/Black Cat #1

Each Monday this year I'll be taking a look back at a random comic, prestige format issue, graphic novel or collection of reprints from amongst my 3,000 or so comics that date from 1962 to 2003 - I figured anything in the last ten years would be too recent to hark back to.

The comics are chosen completely at random and apart from a four week lead-in period, even I don't know what I'll be looking at in the weeks to come!

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #253

Judging by the construction of his sentence, I'd say it's fairly obvious he's not using it

Killing Joke - Spot The Difference

Here's a published page from Alan Moore and Brian Bolland's Batman: The Killing Joke which I'm sure we've all seen before:

(And yes, that's from the original - I'm not breaking the spine of my Deluxe Edition copy for a single page)

Over at Brian Bolland's blog, he posted the original version of that page:

which I'd never heard of, let alone seen so I figured I'd share it.

Presumably DC Editors were happier with blood stained buttocks than they were with bare breasts in a Batman book.

"breasts" and "Batman" in the same sentence - I dread to think who's going to find this blog with those search terms.

Perusing Previews - December 2013

Apart from the Star Trek Enterprise pizza cutter I've mentioned in a previous Previews post, I think this might be the epitome of merchandising.

Monday Memories #48 - The Gunwitch: Outskirts of Doom #1

Each Monday this year I'll be taking a look back at a random comic, prestige format issue, graphic novel or collection of reprints from amongst my 3,000 or so comics that date from 1962 to 2003 - I figured anything in the last ten years would be too recent to hark back to.

The comics are chosen completely at random and apart from a four week lead-in period, even I don't know what I'll be looking at in the weeks to come!

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #252

I hear that all the time, though thankfully never from Mrs Earth-Prime