No Evil Shall Escape My Site

Oh, I'm probably going to regret this - I haven't half as much time as I need to do half as many things as I want but damn it, I'm annotating the Blackest Night despite having said that I wasn't going to.

You can find the site here but bear in mind it's early days so there's not going to be a lot of stuff over there right now.  Obviously as the series continues, I'll be putting more stuff up and, as happened with the Annotated Infinite Crisis and then the Annotated Final Crisis, I'll be happy to have your input.

See something I've missed?  See something I've got wrong?  Mail me at jigsawmen [AT] googlemail [DOT] com and get your name in the Acknowledgements page.

Wish me luck!

Finally Annotated?

Back last year, I mentioned that the platform I used for both my Annotated sites - Infinite Crisis and Final Crisis - was going to change from Google Page Creator to Google Sites.  Everything seemed to go a bit quiet after that so I carried on using Page Creator to make any updates to either site.

About a month or two back I had an automated mail from Google saying they'd be migrating both sites over to the new platform but nothing's happened yet.

I'm loathe to make any more additions/changes to either of them (which is my way of saying I'm getting out of finishing the few odds and ends on Final Crisis for a while) until they're migrated.  I still feel the urge, though, to throw something together and get back into annotating . . . if only there was another big DC event coming up that I could have a go at . . .

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #45

Another quick round up of this week's comics:

• Booster Gold #22 - anyone want to take a guess at the shadowy guy directing Black Beetle? Booster's dad again? Too obvious?
• Green Arrow And Black Canary #22 - since Andrew Kreisberg took over this title, all Canary and Arrow seem to do is bitch at each other - dude, they were happily married before you came along!
• Green Lantern #43 - Blackest Night is shaping up to be one hell of a story line!
• The Punisher #72 - wait a minute . . . two people manage to creep up behind Frank in one issue?!
• The Stand: American Nightmares #4 - Flagg and Lloyd Henreid in the prison is one of my favourite scenes from the book and while it's necessarily contracted here, it still works.
• Wednesday Comics #1 - on the whole this was pretty good though I have to wonder whether Amanda Conner illustrating the Supergirl strip will impact on her work on Power Girl - as much as I love her work, she's not exactly known for being fast and with two gigs at once . . . ?

And what made me raise an eyebrow this week:

Sapphire's hoping for "the mother of all pearl necklaces"?! I can't be the only one to think Neil Gaiman can't be ignorant of the double meaning of that phrase can I?

How Many People Did Tommy Monaghan Kill? Part 1

Sometimes, I really do think I have too much time on my hands.

Over the weekend just gone I was working through a batch of comics, cataloging them for the lovely people over at Collectorz.com.  I'm currently working through a long box that stores most of my Garth Ennis written titles and have started going through the fantastic Hitman series.

I know, I know, I should be working on the Annotated Final Crisis, finishing off those last couple of issues that I still have to breakdown but, well . . . honestly, this is just a bit more enjoyable.

In issue #1, Tommy meets Wendy, a girl he's attracted to and starts dating.  Trouble is, he doesn't tell her that he's a hitman and that he kills people - okay, technically he does but she thinks he's joking and he doesn't correct her.  When she eventually finds out, they have a blazing row:

I have to admit, I read that and thought . . . how many has he killed?

Armed with a day off work and a penchant for prevarication, rather than do half a dozen things that I should do (like the Final Crisis stuff) I decided to count through the first 20 issues of Hitman that I've cataloged so far and tot up the numbers of deaths caused by Tommy, Natt the Hatt, Sean Noonan, Ringo Chen and Hacken.

So what's the score so far:


There's a bit of estimation in there - there's plenty of scenes where Tommy and Natt are both blowing the crap out of the bad guys, but it's close enough for government work, I think.

Of course, I'm opening up a Pandora's box here - after Hitman, I really should go through The Demon and include any killings there, not mention anywhere else Tommy turns up.  Thinking about it, though, all that means is I get to read more comics again . . .

Dear Mr Palmer

Isn't this how your bat-shit crazy ex-wife killed one of your best friends?  By entering her skull at microscopic size and then growing?

So she ends up in Arkham and you become a member of the Justice League again, eh?

Thank goodness you're one of the good guys.

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #44

Busy, busy, busy in work lately but still get my comics on the weekend.

• The Boys #32 - Butcher is so pissed off!
• Crossed #6 - obvious comparisons aside, this books needs to get as much attention as The Walking Dead. The comics, not the zombies. Don't pay them any attention.
• Final Crisis Aftermath: Run #3 - "This isn't over, hot nips!" Man, I'm enjoying this series more than Final Crisis!
• Green Lantern Corps #38 - what an ending: FLESH.
• Justice League: Cry for Justice #1 - I know it's come in for some stick on other blogs, but I thought this was okay as a starter.
• Secret Six #11 - "Nasty little prunes they were!"
• Strange Adventures #5 - the Weird's gone . . . errr . . . weird.

And what made me smile:

Even though I knew something was coming, that pay-off line made me laugh out loud! Humour at its blackest from Garth Ennis in Crossed #6.

Following Recent Events . . .

. . . could this be seen as disrespectful?

Nah, I don't think so.