Love and Marriage, Astonishing X-Men Edition

Astonishing X-Men #51 (cover from Hero Complex)

Perhaps the best article I’ve read on the issue of Northstar’s impending nuptials belongs to Andrew Wheeler over at Comics Alliance.  Though he is himself a gay man who hopes to get married some day, he makes a number of solid points against the upcoming marriage – most notably, that comic book writers treat weddings as ‘endings’ – a view he himself shares, saying that “marriage shifts a character’s status quo in a way that is fundamentally reductive.”

While I personally disagree with that assessment, what I can’t deny is that comic book writers do not – and they’re the ones who will be in charge of charting the paths of Kyle and Jean-Paul after the wedding, not me.  Love and marriage have a pretty horrible history in comic book land, all things considered.

This Week In Comics: 5/23/2012

This week in comics, Marvel breaks ground in Astonishing X-Men #50, Justice League Dark gets a new writer and a new sense of purpose, and DC continues to beat up on owls, like, everywhere.

New 52 News: Justice League International Canceled

Justice League International #12, bein’ funereal…

To the surprise of… well, everyone who is paying any attention at all to sales charts, DC has a seventh canceled series of its New 52 relaunch: the mid-selling, semi-popular Justice League International - a particularly baffling decision given that fully half the company’s line is selling less than it.

According to Dan Didio in the DigitalSpy article above, the reasons for the cancellation are: “It was selling okay, but we had greater expectations for that line. There’s a lot of those characters that I feel we’ve told a lot of stories with, so at this particular moment we’ll give the title a rest, and maybe give some of those characters a rest.”

Because I have nothing better to do, let’s talk about what this means a little…

Review – Justice League International, Vol. 1: The Signal Masters

Justice League International, Vol. 1

There are a few books I gave up on within an issue or two of their launch, not because they were bad books, but because there was an overabundance of books I was more interested in, and I just don’t have the money to support every single title I see.  Dan Jurgens and Aaron Lopresti’s Justice League International was one of those books, and with my nostalgia factor never higher (thanks, classic JLI hardcovers!), I thought I’d give their first trade, “The Signal Masters”, the shot I denied the title in single issues.

The Trouble with Launching New Titles and Geoff Johns’ Justice League

Justice League #9

Like just about everyone else alive, I (for no discernible reason) am absolutely convinced that I know better than the myriad writers and editors at DC Comics, that my take on the New 52 would have been flawlessly executed, that all the mistakes they made – and I don’t think it’s any great revelation that massive, avoidable mistakes were made in the course of this enormous, ambitious project – could have been turned around if only they would have trusted me.

Which is stupid, of course.  The comic marketplace is a vastly different place than it was even ten years ago, and outside of seriously stepping out of comic shops and back into supermarkets (with the resulting drop in price and increase in age-restricted content that implies) they were never going to get their comics into many new hands… and I’m pretty sure that isn’t a feasible goal anyway.  No, they did a lot right, including the very necessary move to increase digital publication.

But one possible mistake they made that I think would be very fixable is in how they handled some of the relaunches.  Angry fans can and will claim that DC never gave their favorite canceled title a shot – though the relative dearth of this sort of outcry thus far suggests that DC picked the right titles to cancel quickly, and I’d bet the next cancellations will be met with similar silence – but, realistically, they were treated exactly the same as the rest of the New 52, given promotion, in-house ads, equal shelf space, etc….  DC treated Men of War and Batman roughly the same – and that, in my opinion, is the problem.

This Week in Comics: 5/16/2012

This week in comics, the Avengers and the X-Men settle their differences via walk-off (with special guest judge David Bowie!), Image wows with Dancer #1, and I confuse the plot of a major event comic with that of Zoolander to mildly comedic effect. Very mild.

Let’s dance!

This Week In Comics: 5/9/2012

This week in comics, owls get pissed at Batman, the Punisher fights zombies but stubbornly refuses to get at all groovy, and Vertigo drops a new anthology of sci-fi shorts.

Okay, he gets a LITTLE groovy.

This Week In Comics: 5/2/2012

This week in comics, Action Comics #9 explores the multiverse, the Avengers and the X-Men do SOMETHING with each other, I can’t remember what, and DC’s New 52 New 6 officially begins with Dial H, G.I. Combat, Earth 2 and Worlds’ Finest.

I don’t have anything clever to say about the cover. This was just my favorite issue this week.

This Week In Comics: 4/25/2012

This week in comics, the “Rise of the Vampires” crossover concludes, “The Omega Effect” crossover concludes, and probably some other event somewhere concludes.

If there's one thing DC knows, it's this: People like bats and sparkling vampires. Two birds? Meet one stone.

This Week In Comics: 4/18/2012

This week in comics, Wonder Woman #8 takes us to the underworld, the Avengers and the X-Men hit each other some more, and

It's important to point out that this is the greatest cover in the history of comics. Basically.

Review – Alabaster: Wolves #1

My pick of the week, Alabaster: Wolves #1, makes monster-hunting cool again in this nifty post-apocalyptic adventure.

Review: Demon Knights #8

Demon Knights #8 gives a fascinating, not-entirely-trustworthy backstory to two of its most interesting characters.

This Week in Comics: 4/11/2012

This week: Avenging Spider-Man #6 kicks off a mini-crossover in Marvel, Dark Horse brings us a post-apocalyptic Western with Alabaster Wolves #1, and much more!

Guardian Angels never looked so evil...

Review: Goliath

Scottish cartoonist Tom Gauld manages to find poignant, sometimes tragic, humor amidst Biblical war.

Review: Men of War #8

DC ends one of its underloved cult titles with a feature-length ad for another underloved cult title.

Men of War #8

Review: Avengers vs. X-Men #0

Most folks who know me – or who read my reviews here regularly – have probably noticed that I’m more of a DC man.  Don’t get me wrong, there are a number of Marvel titles I love (Ultimate Spider-Man, X-Factor and Uncanny X-Force are all strong ongoings, and Marvel’s recent mini-series Mystic is an early contender for one of the year’s best trade paperbacks), but on a month-to-month basis, DC tends to fulfill my comic-reading itch a little better, whether its because of their characters or (more likely) because of their more reasonable pricing structure.  So maybe it’s just that I’ve been absent from mainstream Marvel continuity for a time, but I cannot imagine how this month’s prologue to their upcoming big event, Avengers Vs. X-Men, is that much of a prologue at all.  But don’t let that stop you from checking it out: AvX #0 is definitely enjoyable – and surprisingly character-driven.

Review: Saga #1

“It was a time of war. Isn’t it always?”

I’m going to say this up front: Saga, Image’s new ongoing from Brian K. Vaughan (Y: The Last Man) and artist Fiona Staples, is my first new must-read book of 2012. Combining gorgeous creature design and playful worldbuilding with cynical, adult storytelling, Vaughan and Staples have crafted a book that is genuinely unlike anything else on the shelves right now.  Funny, bloody, dramatic and, at times, ridiculous, Saga #1 does everything an opening issue needs to do with economy and style.

Film Review: John Carter

The story was written weeks ago, even if people are only getting around to seeing the movie now: Disney’s John Carter is a flop.  (at least in America – it opened very well overseas)  But does it deserve to be?

No!  The short story: John Carter is an fun, confident sci-fi epic for the whole family that was hobbled by a poor marketing campaign.  It should be watched by everyone who enjoys Star Wars or Avatar.  For the long story, click through…

Review: Superbia #1 (of 4)

For a little while, at least, Desperate Housewives was a pretty friggin’ good show.  I know the rough demographics of the comic reading audience, and presumably that audience doubles as our readership here, so I suspect I won’t get a lot of support on that statement, but I’m pretty comfortable saying it’s true.  In its first season, at least, it was a heady combination of suburban soap and darkly comic whodunit.  With compelling characters and a simple, interesting plot, it was an easy show to enjoy.  Now, I mention all this because, in my opinion, Desperate Housewives meets the Justice League is the easiest elevator pitch for Boom! Studio’s excellent new mini-series, Superbia, a book that looks easy to dismiss but conceals some pretty fascinating stuff just beneath the surface.

Review: Green Arrow #7

Green Arrow #7

Green Arrow #1 was my vote for Worst Comic of the New 52.  It was also the first book I dropped.  I thought I’d be writing off Green Arrow for the foreseeable future, but after a few issues, DC decided to change up the creative teams on a number of titles, Green Arrow included, and with new writer Annie Nocenti (a respected veteran writer of the 80′s and 90′s) coming in with #7 to shake things up, I thought I’d pick it up and see what she was bringing to the table.