- Rob M. looked at Joe Christian Gill's comics on black Republicans.
- Rob M. praised Alec Longstreth's Basewood, a comic highly worthy of your time and enjoyment (one of my personal favorities of 2014.)
- Brianne R. enjoyed Otis Frampton's Oddly Normal.
- Rob M. dove into the superhero deconstruction that was Jay Faerber and Jamal Ingle's Venture.
- Scott C. spent a few endless evenings with Simon Moreton's Plans We Made.
- Scott C. hit the Gotham beat over at PopOptiq with a look at Batman #46 by Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo.
- James K. enjoyed Jonathan Hickman and Esad Ribic's Secret Wars #7 over at Comicosity.
- Mark D. covered Ivar: Timewalker #10 and Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season 10 #20 over at The Green Gorcrow (as well as others that you should check out at his site.)
When people ask us what the early 2000s were like, all we need to do is show them these comics. pic.twitter.com/nYrQ4oBLe3
— Scott Cederlund (@ScottCederlund) November 6, 2015
** Jupiter's Legacy: Its real legacy will probably be a not-very-good movie (Warren Peace Sings the Blues)-- It's almost like Matt knows what's sitting in my to-read pile right now and is trying to warn me against going down this particular rabbit hole.
Here's the thing with Millar: he tries to seem relevant, or at least new, when he's creating these takes on superheroes, but there's never anything going on below the surface. In this case, he seems to be going for a generational story, possibly commenting on where society is now versus where it was when superheroes were first created. But he doesn't actually have anything to say about either generation or time period; they're just the latest mold into which he can pour a violent superheroic conflict.
Now, it's interesting timing to see this because James K. and I have been talking a bit about Millar this week. I honestly can't remember the last things of his I've seriously read. I really enjoyed his Ultimates when it was coming out but the legacy of that title makes Millar's work on it really suspect (as if his own writing hadn't done that.) And that Communist Superman story really could have been something if it hadn't tried so hard to be Alan Moore (and from Matt's review of Jupiter's Legacy, I think that book is trying to be Alan Moore as well.) And at least Chosen help up decently after a second read a few years ago.
Millar's a writer I try to like but who I just don't trust. I like to think he's being honest when he creates his comics (even though they're pretty much movies before the first issue hits the stands) but so much of his comics are built on their simple Hollywood pitches and I don't know how much farther they go than that. I've got Jupiter's Legacy and Jupiter's Circle sitting on my to-read pile because the artwork looks lovely in both of them.
It goes back to that big F-U at the end of Wanted. Ever since then, I just don't know whether Millar's joking with his audience or subconsciously in contempt of them. The truth is probably a little bit of "a" and a little bit of "b."
** Alias Was Marvel's First Adult Comic That Was Actually For Adults (the site formerly known as io9)-- Because, you know, butt sex.
(That's a bit of a cheap shot. And not to go too far into the weeds of Panel Patter: Behind the Scenes, this is a series that Rob M. and I recently were discussing in prep for the Netflix show. I have read all of Alias and its followup The Pulse and fondly remember them. Jessica Jones and Luke Cage's relationship was probably the best thing in Bendis' interminably long Avenges run. I really need to check out this comic again to see if it holds up better than Bendis' Powers, another of his books from the same time period that feels so much a part of its time that what he and Oeming are doing now reads like them trying to recapture that lightning in a four-color bottle.)
Millar's a writer I try to like but who I just don't trust. I like to think he's being honest when he creates his comics (even though they're pretty much movies before the first issue hits the stands) but so much of his comics are built on their simple Hollywood pitches and I don't know how much farther they go than that. I've got Jupiter's Legacy and Jupiter's Circle sitting on my to-read pile because the artwork looks lovely in both of them.
It goes back to that big F-U at the end of Wanted. Ever since then, I just don't know whether Millar's joking with his audience or subconsciously in contempt of them. The truth is probably a little bit of "a" and a little bit of "b."
** Alias Was Marvel's First Adult Comic That Was Actually For Adults (the site formerly known as io9)-- Because, you know, butt sex.
(That's a bit of a cheap shot. And not to go too far into the weeds of Panel Patter: Behind the Scenes, this is a series that Rob M. and I recently were discussing in prep for the Netflix show. I have read all of Alias and its followup The Pulse and fondly remember them. Jessica Jones and Luke Cage's relationship was probably the best thing in Bendis' interminably long Avenges run. I really need to check out this comic again to see if it holds up better than Bendis' Powers, another of his books from the same time period that feels so much a part of its time that what he and Oeming are doing now reads like them trying to recapture that lightning in a four-color bottle.)
** DK III The Master Race The Bait and Switch
So this poster has been hanging in the front window of my comic shop for a while now and I'll admit that I bought into the hype.
Can we count the things now wrong with it?
1.) The Epic Conclusion to The Dark Knight Returns Trilogy? (The first quote is from an interview Miller did for Vulture. The second quote is from Newsarama's latest interview with him.)
2.) Frank Miller?
Heck, here's even the current ad on Comic Book Resources that's running as I was trying to look up their original announcement of DKIII.
Written by Frank Miller?
Or as CBR quoted Jim Lee back in April, 2015?
Can we count the things now wrong with it?
1.) The Epic Conclusion to The Dark Knight Returns Trilogy? (The first quote is from an interview Miller did for Vulture. The second quote is from Newsarama's latest interview with him.)
How did DC’s publishers react when you told them you wanted to do a fourth installment? "
Absolutely not," they said. They said it wouldn't sell. ... Of course they were up for it!
2.) Frank Miller?
Newsarama: Frank, I know you always wanted a third part to the story. Did you always know what this third part would be about?
Frank Miller: It is in Brian Azzarello's hands right now, and I thoroughly applaud what he's doing. But now that he's doing his, it's now a four-part series. I'm doing the fourth.And perhaps only mildly surprising, neither site published any kind of followup aksing about his involvement in the next week's Dark Knight III, even though it was pushed from the very beginning as Miller's return to the character.
Heck, here's even the current ad on Comic Book Resources that's running as I was trying to look up their original announcement of DKIII.
Written by Frank Miller?
Or as CBR quoted Jim Lee back in April, 2015?
Oh, well, Maybe we can start living in hope of All Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder, written by Frank Tieri.
"We are thrilled to have Frank back home at DC writing Batman," Dan DiDio and Jim Lee, Co-Publishers for DC Entertainment, said in a joint statement. "The story he and Brian have crafted is an astounding and triumphant conclusion to this seminal body of work which influenced and shaped generations of readers and creators alike."
