Have A Cocktail On Me

Last Sunday saw me reach the 100th Cocktail post, my (mostly) weekly round up of the comics I've bought that week. As regular readers know, the posts always feature something that made me smile.

As a little celebration for reaching 100, here's a combined pic of the one hundred issues that got the Cocktail:

Here's to the next 100!

Monday Covers #20

JSA #52

Such a nice cover, such a damn cool look as well.

Why didn't anyone do more with this version of the Crimson Avenger?

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #100

The Ultra-Humanite displays his "legendary impatience"

Blimey! 100 Cocktail posts and the vast majority of them completed and published every Sunday at 1pm. Okay, enough patting myself on the back - time for comics!

• CROSSED: FAMILY VALUES #4 - as I mentioned last time, Javier Barreno's art here has just become a little too cartoony to take seriously which is a shame when you're dealing with a subject matter of this sort. The violence loses its shock when the characters are edging towards human versions of Wile E. Coyote. So people get shot to bits, so characters get run over, so what? It doesn't matter that much when they look like cartoons. A shame as the story's okay but the art let's it down; I'm not saying it's bad, just not the right style.
• GREEN ARROW #4 - so Martian Manhunter visits briefly, just like he did in Brightest Day #9 - actually the first few pages of this issue are basically a retread of that issue's visit which explains my sense of deja vu! Aside from that, there seems to be a new bad girl in Ollie's city who's threatening his new friend Mary. Certainly not terrible, but this series seems to be treading water a little.
• JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA #43 - this, an epilogue to the recent cross-over between Justice Society and Justice League, was easily the best issue of the lot. Robinson crafted a discussion between Green Lantern Alan Scott and Obsidian that was heartfelt and genuine without being melodramatic or saccharine. Of course, establishing a rule that Obsidian and his sister Jade can't come within half a mile of each other runs the risk of another writer or artist simply putting them in the same place together at some point down the line. And once that happens, the internet will scream its indignation! Seriously, though, this was a really nice issue.
• JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA SPECIAL #1 - this, on the other hand, was a little bit messy, wrapping up as it did the storyline from the recently cancelled Magog series. A little sprawling, perhaps due to a four or six issue arc being crammed into one issue, it still ends on something of a cliff hanger which, in all likelihood, won't get picked up ever again. Ah well.
• TEEN TITANS #87 - for the first time in months, an issue of Teen Titans that I really, really enjoyed. Not that I read it, simply that it's the last issue with Henderson writing. I skipped over pretty much the whole thing and can't wait for JT Krul to take over next issue. Anything has to better than the last year or so.
• Co feature - COVEN OF THREE - nicely wrapped up even if the three protagonists are shown to be in a worse emotional state than when they started.
• TIME MASTERS: VANISHING POINT #3 - while I prefer the dorsal-finned, bulked up, UN flag wearing version of Despero to the lateral-finned version here, it's nice to see the guy back in business. Not to mention the Linear Men - I'd been wondering where they were for some time. You can count on Dan Jurgens for some straightforward storytelling (and trust me, that's not a complaint) along with some lovely art and this series continues to supply both.

And what made me smile:

Rock in the face!

Friday Night Fights - Of Cats And Crocs

It's Friday so, as usual, Spacebooger demands carnage!

Having just completed the annotations for Armageddon 2001 over at the Annotated DC Project (yes, that's a blatant plug) I thought I'd stick with the subject for tonight's brawl so come with me to the future, to the strange world of . . . er . . . 2001 . . .

Anyway, in 2001 (you know, the future) Gotham City's a slightly different place. The Joker has been declared sane and has his own talk show, most of Batman's villains are dead and the main man himself is in jail having been convicted of murdering the Penguin. Catwoman doesn't believe the charge and sets out to find evidence of his innocence, coming up against Killer Croc . . . who's a TV wrestling star. I tell you, 2001 was weird . . .

Not surprisingly, Killer Croc isn't interested in talking:

I love the idea that Croc has to do his own accounts!

Still, Catwoman's not taking no for an answer:

Doesn't she realise he's going to need to file those papers?!

Man, Catwoman kicks Croc's scaly hide all over the shop!

And just like that, she's won!

And Croc expresses his indignity as only he can!

But don't you be indignant - head over to Spacebooger by clicking on the picture below, check out the other fights and then vote for me your favourite!

This cat versus croc throwdown first appeared in Batman Annual #15, cover dated 1991, written by Alan Grant with art by Jim Fern and Steve Leialoha.

Armageddon Is Here

It's done - the notes for Armageddon 2001, the tie-in annuals, and the sequel Armageddon: The Alien Agenda are all now available at the Annotated DC Project.

There are a couple of unknowns in the first issue which I'll be collating (hopefully) later today and putting in a single post here on the blog but for now, it's all up and running.

Enjoy!

I Have A Confession To Make (Again)

Starlord #1

Ignorance is supposed to be bliss but if you wander through life thinking something is right, or in this case not realising the significance of something, it can be a bit of a shock when the penny finally drops.

Back when I was a kid in the 70's, here in the UK we had a limited number of comics to choose from unless you were happy with the World War II titles such as Warlord, Battle Picture Weekly or Commando. I was a little too young to be allowed to read Action - my mum wouldn't buy it for me - so drifted into the science-fiction comic boom following the success of Star Wars.

Here you had two choices: the still-ongoing classic 2000AD and the sadly short-lived Starlord. For reasons that I can't really remember, I ended up getting Starlord rather than 2000AD (it was the 70's and we didn't have enough money for both titles!) but that was a problem that was solved a year or so later when the two titles merged.

Two series from Starlord carried over into the more successful 2000AD - Strontium Dog by John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra which is still one of my favourite strips ever, and Ro-Busters by Pat Mills and a variety of artists.

Ro-Busters was a story about a team of robots, a disaster recovery squad who would go in to various situations too dangerous for humans to save the victims. While the team was headed up by Howard "Mr. Ten Per Cent" Quartz - a human brain in an otherwise robotic body, he routinely referred to himself as a human - the two lead characters that quickly established themselves as fan favourites were Ro-Jaws and Hammer-Stein. To help 2000AD readers acquaint themselves with the characters, their first story in their new home had these handy panels:

This was Ro-Jaws, the lovable rogue who swore (well, as much as you could in comics those days) and was the funny man of the team. The origin of his name is obvious: he's a robot with jaws. Ro-Jaws. Simple, eh?

If he was the funny man, the straight man was this guy:

Hammer-Stein, the big, tough, ex-army droid. His name obviously referred to the bloody great hammer that he had for a hand. The stein bit, I thought, just sounded cool

Together they'd go through various adventures, facing off against their annoying companion Mek-Quake on more than one occasion, becoming part of the ABC Warriors and eventually meeting up with Nemesis the Warlock. All brilliant stuff (okay, mostly) which, thanks to reprints, I've been able to read over the years and still enjoy them.

Which brings me back to the start of this post and my confession. To my mind for years on end, the characters were just Ro-Jaws and his mate Hammer-Stein. Simple as that.

A week ago, I was reading one of the reprints and, completely out of nowhere, it hit me.

Ro-Jaws and Hammer-Stein . . . 

Ro-Jaws and Hammer-Stein . . .

Rodgers and Hammerstein!

They were named after the songwriters responsible for Oklahoma!, South Pacific, The King and I, and - goddamit! - The Sound of Music!

How the hell did I miss that reference for the best part of 30 odd years?!?

Monday Covers #19

Preacher #1

Who knew what delights awaited us behind this cover, eh? Having been a fan of his Hellblazer stories, and a Steve Dillon fan since I was a kid reading 2000AD, I was eager to pick this up. An absolutely brilliant series which deserved all the hype it had.

I was lucky enough to have a letter printed in issue #27 (you remember the days when they used to print letters in comics?!) and swapped a few letters with Garth Ennis after that, even ending up with a personalised, signed copy of issue #44 and the script for it as well!

Oh, happy days.