The Comics I Read Today - July 15th, 2009

ALL SELECT COMICS #1
Michael Kupperman tackles Marvex, The Super Robot! Fuck, this was hilarious. Are you a TALES DESIGNED TO THRIZZLE fan? Have you heard of TALES DESIGNED TO THRIZZLE? This is a must own comics if you are. Boring, shithead comics fans will hate it, but if you're a Michael Kupperman fan, this cannot disappoint. What's most fucked up is that I thought Kupperman was totally playing around...and then you get to the reprinted original Marvex, The Super Robot story...and he was playing it Almost straight. Compared to the shit I'd be reading very soon, this was the best comic pamphlet of the month.

Even the Javier Pulido-drawn story looks really nice (didn't bother to read it though).

WEDNESDAY COMICS #2
(Apparently DC refuses to put up a cover for this, so here's my lousy scan). Azzarrello/Risso BATMAN continues to be serviceable. Gibbons/Sook's KAMANDI is sticking to its PRINCE VALIANT riffing, and you'll either admire it or will just skip it. Arcude/Bermejo SUPERMAN is just a dull, bitchy conversation between a Superman and a Batman made even sadder when you know they are printing this in USA TODAY, and not Paul Pope's ADAM STRANGE or Kyle Baker's HAWKMAN. Bullock/Heuck DEADMAN continues to showcase a very Darwyn Cooke look to it that I love to look at, indifferent to read. Busiek/Quinones I've already completely forgotten (it looks ok?). Gaiman/Allred's METAMORPHO deliver one three-panel comics, and a second utterly stupid additional strip that makes me think about how much more Neil Gaiman got paid for this page compared to everyone else. Berzanga/Galloway TEEN TITANS continues banality. Paul Pope STRANGE ADVENTURES is just beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, and probably the true success of this project right now. Palmiotti/Conner SUPERGIRL makes me wish Amanda Conner would draw a comic for someone who can write well outside of JONAH HEX. Didio/Garcia Lopez's METAL MEN can just go away, as well as Caldwell/Marston's WONDER WOMAN. The Kuberts' SGT. ROCK continues to turn at a snail's uninteresting pace. Kerschl/Fletcher/Leigh/McCraig's FLASH/IRIS WEST is just so nice to look at, and in many ways far more interesting than the event FLASH: REBIRTH. Simonson/Stelfreeze create an attractive looking page that I just don't want to read. And Kyle Baker HAWKMAN continues to really leave me happy. You know, they could really do something interesting with HAWKMAN, based on this and that one HAWKMAN strip in BIZARRO COMICS!

"A Very Special Issue of" CAPTAIN AMERICA #601
O-oh. Maybe we did order just right. Total placeholder comic while the whole CAPTAIN AMERICA: REBORN thing gets rolling. In some ways, I think this was a complete missed opportunity. You have a vampire story and Gene Colan...and you don't throw actual DRACULA in there? I love ol' Baron Blood and Union Jack (that Roger Stern written story from the #250s of CAP? Awesome! Or, hell, Paul Grist's JACK STAFF), but I kept hoping and hoping, and just got Old Man Gene Colan art, and a flashback story with Winter Soldier and Nick Fury watching videos at some undisclosed place and time.





CREEPY #1
Wow, that was shockingly stupid and bad. Ok, "The Curse" and "All The Help You Neeed" were typical and only guilty by association, but "Hell Hound Blues"? "Chemical 13"? What the fuck was the point of this? Don't try to appease me with old Alex Toth art either!

Did the original CREEPY and EERIE have this EC Horror Comics Intro/Outro bit character "Uncle Creepy" in it?








BLACKEST NIGHT #1
SPOILERS AHEAD, chit'lins!








Remember what I was saying about HAWKMAN in WEDNESDAY COMICS and BIZARRO COMICS? Geoff Johns and DC Editorial seem to think otherwise about his future.


Summary: So zombie Elongated Man and zombie Sue Dibney show up inexplicably in Hawkman/Hawkgirl's house, spearing Hawkgirl and smashing Hawkman's head in with his own mace. And THEN Elongated Man tears out Hawkman's heart, and then we're left hanging off a cliff (as the saying goes) with the promise of Hawkman/Hawkgirl coming back as zombie Hawkman and zombie Hawkgirl. And a man wearing a costume made out of a bodybag (revealed last issue!) who just shot himself in the head after murdering his family is carrying around the skull of Batman (?), watching.

Before all this goes down, there's a lot of creaky setting up of all these dead folks which makes sense from a marketing/selling perspective as DC is trying to make this their big selling book of the year, and since almost no one reads DC or DC comics, they have no idea who the hell any of these dead characters are (the logic goes if they were popular, they wouldn't be dead). And a blue scarred midget attacks another blue midget by biting into the neck, and greenish yellow goo comes pouring out because they are aliens.

Ok, one genuinely good bit in this? The swarm of black rings spreading through the galaxy, making sounds like flies. The rest of it is all kind of funny in the way I've always found Geoff Johns' comics to be.

Poor Hawkman. *Sniff*



-Jarrett