dirty ol' butler

whodathunk??

with the sheer power of the Batcomputer (ugh), its not impossible to conclude that Alfred has amassed a sizable porn image nest egg!

the other scary thought here is, is Batman smiling because he thinks Alfred is merely jesting, or he's privy to old man Pennyworth's habits and checks his database from time to time? (remember he can remote connect to his systems wherever he is)

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Batman: The Dark Knight #2

still haven't found what they're looking for

drive-by readings

Brightest Day #9 (DC) "Lost and Found" Geoff Johns/Peter Tomasi Patrick Gleason/Ivan Reis/Joe Prado Rebecca Buchman/Keith Champagne/Tom Nguyen Peter Steigerwald Rob Clark Jr. David Finch (cover) Reis/Hi-Fi (variant cover)

what we learned: ah, so the black dude with the eel tattoo is Black Manta's son. why did it only take this long for him to get up his butt and look for him? J'onn's search for the telepathic black hole lands him in Oliver Queen's enchanted forest and they needed to hightail it out of there before the forest ate them up.
oh shit moment: never saw Black Manta this cool and aggressive. but that costume is still funny.
what's next: message in a bottle, yeah.


Ollie didn't like his first session with The Mentalist.

buildup

drive-by readings

Brightest Day #8 (DC) "Defiance" Geoff Johns/Peter Tomasi Patrick Gleason/Ivan Reis/Ardian Syaf Vicente Cifuentes/Rebecca Buchman/Mark Irwin Peter Steigerwald/John Starr Rob Clark Jr. David Finch/Scott Williams/Steigerwald (cover) Ryan Sook/Fernando Pasarin/Joel Gomez/Randy Mayor/Carrie Strachan (variant cover)

what we learned: Shiera fights for her life with her mommy issues, and while Carter finds himself an army to fight against Queen Shrike. meanwhile, J'onn tries to find out where's that Green Martian who jumped M'gann and it leads him to Star City. the White Ring is still messing with Deadman's, Dove's and Hawk's heads. i have no idea what its rapping about.
oh shit moment: how many creators does it take to finish a book? or should we just blame Blogger for having a 200-character tag limit???
what's next: they promised us an Aquaman/Black Manta rematch. they promised!!


and so Hawkman found himself leading the Thundercats AND the mutants ...

worming up

drive-by readings

Action Comics #891 (DC) "The Black Ring Part 2" Paul Cornell Pete Woods Cafu Bit Rob Leigh Brad Anderson David Finch/Matt Banning/Peter Steigerwald (cover)

what we learned: Mr. Mind is much more cuter than you think, and i hate caterpillars or multi-legged creatures (even Spider-Man has only two!). and turns out he's the son of the original and he almost got Lex trapped in a state of mind. but "almost" doesn't count with Luthor.
oh shit moment: Superman as an outlaw in Sheriff's Luthor's mind? i smell a mini-series!
what's next: who put up the worm to this? suddenly i want Lex Luthor to kick his ass. Paul Cornell got me hooked. in the absence of Captain Britain and MI:13, this will do for now.


aaaaawww, isn't he cuuuuute??

snaps: Batman #700

... where Grant Morrison and a bunch of artists craft a time-tossed tale that's not the Return of Bruce Wayne. whodathunk? anyhoo, anything related to time and history is Morrison's bailiwick so i end up going whoa several times during the read. and he certainly puts it out there that Damian IS going to be the Batman soon (wait, how does Terry McGinnis figure into that when Bruce is still alive in McGinnis' time?). ok, maybe in some alternate branch of reality. or Bruce is just reaaaally old. whatever. added bonus: various pinups by major talent (love Shane Davis' and Juan Doe's), and a Batcave tour courtesy of Freddie Williams II.

you know the implication, right? Joker's CHOKING THE CHICKEN.


weren't those his staves during his time as Nightwing?


like they needed any more rumors about their relationship


I, blogging.


McGinnis? Terry McGinnis? is that you??


but who's watching your teef?

aaaaaaaaaaand ... she's back.

and here it is. the closing chapter of the Messiah trilogy in the X-books, billed as the return of Hope Summers in the 616 universe and determination of her role in the future of the X-Men. she was born during Messiah Complex, and spent the rest of her life so far surviving in multiple timelines in the company of her foster father, Cable (whose own trials as a time-tossed baby she's echoing), and dodging her would-be murderer, Bishop. having Lucas Bishop turn into a caricature villain may have made sense with the X-writers, but it always bothered me. he just simply turned into an unkillable and unlikeable cockroach whose sole purpose in life was to put a bullet into a little girl's head. my fondest memory of Bishop was in a '90s sort of way, a cop out of his time, colorful, scarved, long flowing curly hair, and also single-mindedly out to find the X-traitor that presumably betrayed his boyhood heroes. his struggles to fit in were somewhat endearing. past that, he's been yo-yoed around the X-universe, and now he really struggled to find his place. i can get his being a cop for Mutant Town and being the resident mutant detective (remember him trying to find who shot Emma Frost into itty bitty diamond bits?). but shacking him up with Deathbird? being a flat out government stoogie during Civil War, putting him at odds with rest of his friends? and now a bald headed angry stereotype, like if Michael Clarke Duncan suddenly became this raving mass-murdering lunatic? good thing for me he's stranded in 6700 AD (but am sure there's a storyline being written as i type this, bringing him back to unleash holy hell on his former friends).


but back to Hope.

the first mutant born after that crazy stunt pulled by the Scarlet Witch ("oh hey, am crazy, i hate my kind, let's just wipe out everyooooooooone!"), Hope seems like the idea born out of "hey, we need a Jean Grey back, how do we do that?" well, first they send Rachel up into space to be part of the new Starjammers (speaking of which, how come no one's been talking to each other - imagine all the stories missed? Gabriel's probably dead, and Alex doesn't even bother to tell Scott.). now we get a new red-haired young telepath/telekinetic who's sure to rile up Emma, for starters. Cable, by virtue of his raising Hope, is sure to keep her under his wing (hey, watch those young mutant boys in Utopia go after this new bombshell). Cyclops, de facto leader of all the mutants (probably annoying the hell out of Xavier and Magneto), has faith that Hope will be the, well ... savior of the beleaguered mutants. Bishop believed otherwise. if that's true, Cyclops would be doing some kind of twisted Kool Aid commercial, shown below:

well before and after Necrosha, writers Craig Kyle and Chris Yost have been (not-so-quietly) assembling all of the old X-villains in the pages of New X-Men and X-Force. despite the annoying style of resurrecting comic characters, i like the fact that they put in touches where the new generation of actual readers can learn through the reaction of the new generation of characters. here we see Pixie making an observation of a Right soldier.

the Second Coming crossover will also deal with the repercussions of the (re)formation of X-Force as a mutant black ops team, and this will presumably split the X-ranks. right in this issue, we get X-23 staking a Sapien Leaguer in the head with a claw during interrogation. the pro-life Nightcrawler takes exception to this. i expect lots of yelling and screaming and punching in the coming days, and that's within the X-Men.

sidebar: the Simster thinks Kurt has the highest odds of not making it through the summer alive.

and there might still be a higher body count. i wasn't really sold when he first appeared, and not even when they brought him back, but now i feel there isn't any better villain out there who fits in this whole storyline than Bastion. Scott Lobdell, take a bow.

they've always been able to beat this Nimrod/Master Mold combo before, but they need to ground him to a fine dust this time around. or else there's no hope.

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X-Men: Second Coming

ninjas don't like sexy chicks who can kick their asses

am sure the plot - Psylocke hunting down the already-forgotten '90s X-villain Matsu'o Tsurayaba, complete with Kill Bill references ("Kill Matsu'o", 77 Club/Crazy 88) - will all be about a misunderstanding, especially if it involves fighting Wolverine and Yukio.

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from Psylocke #2

some Devil

"The Universe"
v2, #65
Brian Michael Bendis/Alex Maleev/
Michael Golden/Greg Horn/P. Craig
Russell/Phil Hester/Ande Parks/
Chris Bachalo/Tim Townsend/
Jae Lee/David Finch/Frank Quitely

yeah, so that's another 2 months off the books ... geez. if this was a paying job, i'd been fired oh-so-long-ago. so i'm grateful it isn't.

but what about my minuscule audience, who have been starving on my take on DD for the longest time? i apologize, but i probably will get to issue #100 when in real time, they'll be putting out issue #200.

for now let us subsist on the 40th anniversary of the man in red tights, issue #65, an all-star extravaganza, which doesn't advance the current storyline, but adds layers to the mythos and makes Daredevil the treat that it is.

back to where we left off ... Daredevil's been outed to the press, his personal life is a mess ... what else is there to say? well, apparently, the ageless Mr. High and Mighty Nick Fury has a few words.

"i'm THE SPY. it's what i do." that made me chortle.

very few people would not shit in their pants when Fury starts talking tough. Matt is one of those (uhm, on account of being blind, perhaps ...?).

Fury offers Matt a way out, to be a full-fledged S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. he would have an easier time rehabbing A.I.M. and make them all Red Cross volunteers.

ok, how much does anybody want to bet that the reason why Fury has been missing all these years is that he went underground to prepare against the upcoming Skrull invasion (the future crossover i call World War Skrull, but commonly known as Secret Invasion)?

this special issue is an all star jam showcasing Matt's relationship with certain characters in the Marvel Universe at this particular juncture, and is led off by the highly esteemed Michael Golden. next up is a splash page special by one of my favorite cover artists, Greg Horn, whose brilliant visuals on Spiderman's reflections on Matt keep fueling my dream that he'd be doing interiors one day. wait, that's not Mary Jane! that's Tila Nguyen, a.k.a. Tila Tequila!!

then we have Mr. Killraven himself, P. Craig Russell, contributing a quiet scene with Captain America in Central Park (?). i guess if Nick Fury can't convince Matt to cut and cut cleanly, neither can the figurehead of freedom.

a couple of nice bits was Matt being paranoid about being seen with Cap - he senses "fourteen people within shouting distance" and "a couple making out under that bush". which means whenever i'm in Central Park, i never look at the right places!!!

then there's the Punisher sequence, courtesy of the Irredeemable Ant-Man team of Phil Hester and Ande Parks. it turns out the Punisher was present in that Hell's Kitchen bar when Matt uttered his "I am the Kingpin" soundbyte. i'm sure he's more than a little pissed that Daredevil beat him to the Fat Man (hello, Frank, you've racked up a high body count, but very few majors).

running into each other 2 months later, Matt and Frank get into it, and there's no doubt who's gonna win in this book. this is payback for that humiliating scene over in Punisher #3, where he hogties DD enough to equip him with a gun, and makes him choose between letting Frank assassinate a bad guy, or stop the whole thing by taking Frank's life.

the inimitable Chris Bachalo/Tim Townsend duo seems to be in the wrong book (i thought i walked in the Joe Kelly X-Men set), but this is fine ... its the Dr. Strange sequence. Matt pays the good doctor a visit after pwning him when the guys met in Central Park.

well, whaddayaknow ... the Devil knows how to apologize.

Matt allows the Doc to complete his sentence about the proverb this time, although Strange senses that Matt "may not be the proverb type." but advice is what Matt came there for, thus Doc gives sage wisdom as befits his stature. however, it must be the tea sometimes ...

ouch. for such a sorcerer supreme, you don't watch TV, don't you? i almost sense a billy club striking you on the head.

Matt tries to know if there's an easy way out of his problems. but as we all know, whether you're a fictional hero or a real one ... there really isn't a magic pill for life (ok, the Scarlet Witch's reality-altering powers not included!).

Messrs. Jae Lee, David Finch and Frank Quitely all contribute splash pages, and i like the latter because fighting ninjas over the edge of a building is not the usual Quitely fare.



to end, we learn that the kingpin before the Kingpin is getting out of jail. of course, there will be a connection.


addenda (12/10/2007):
i should have thought of this sooner, but my friend (and sole regular reader - hahaha) Gloria pointed this out to me. Brian Michael Bendis, bless his cranium, had a rare brain freeze and ...


well, okay, if anyone can tell me that wasn't Doc Stephen in Daredevil #8, then i'll give you a free chai latte. just go to your local Starbucks and tell 'em i sent you.

lonely is the knight

Moon Knight
Charlie Huston/David Finch/Danny Miki
Marvel


Moon Knight is one of those fringe B-List characters who can wow you a few times, then be uninteresting most of the time. it was nuts to make him an Avenger, because basically he's Batman without the capability to work well with others. but left alone, he can be a little iffy sometimes, and mostly better left with cameo appearances, not a full-fledged ongoing series. that being said, the Doug Moench/Bill Sienkewicz run of the '80s seems to be the defining period of the character.

apparently, someone at Marvel (would that be you, Mr. Joe Quesada?) thought this soldier-of-fortune/avenging-knight-of-an-Egyptian-god shtick still had some legs in it, so they brought in crime fiction writer Charlie Huston to pen a few stories. if this is gonna be a successful experiment like Brad Meltzer over at DC, that remains to be seen.

the new series serves as a re-introduction for casual readers who Moon Knight is, but at the same time keeping his previous timeline intact. we find Marc Spector (who used to have to two other aliases and a gazillion multiple personalities) a broken man, doing nothing but pop pills and brood all day. he has apparently lost all hope to live, abandoned by his girl and his friends, and subsequently has no desire to continue the work for his god, Konshu.


he even talks to Konshu, blaming him for his ills, because he feels abandoned. even his ex, Marlene thinks years of doing the superhero thing made him completely lose his marbles (if not his balls). having died and resurrected a couple of times can do that to you (that, and being demoted to the D-List and not being invited to superhero Christmas parties).

"uh ... you mean, like Iron Man?"

this six-issue arc devotes its energies to getting Spector back into the game, and practically reintroducing himself to his supporting cast. Spector apparently seems to have been in a daze for a long time, as he discovers his driver/pilot/sidekick Frenchie is ... gay.

that should make you choke on your italian sausage

long story short: somebody tries to kill Frenchie, Spector is galvanized back into action. so why didn't anybody try to do this earlier? the villains of the piece are the new Committee, children of the previous one, who instead of whacking Spector while in a vulnerable state, try to toy with him and recruit him to their cause, before giving up and finally giving him a thumbs down. if there's one thing we've learned over the years on how NOT to get things done, its by forming a committee.

the Committee hires the Taskmaster, the ultimate mercenary, whose "special power" is his ability to mimic anyone's skills, to kill Moon Knight. Taskmaster doesn't usually indulge directly in these pursuits; he prefers training the bad guys in the Marvel universe. however, the new Sony Bravia came out and he needed the fast cash to avail of the post-Christmas price slash at Best Buy.

"H-D-T-V, babyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!"

so Marlene, despite being an ex, knows what to do in emergency situations, and brings an injured Spector to his secret lair in Long Island (what th-?) where he has a storage facility of vehicles, weapons and costumes (what th-?, again).

to the Batc- ... eeep! wrong Cave!


here we have a Lambda-class shuttle taking off from - oops. wrong movie set.

Moon Knight goes off and does the avenging work he does so well, not to mention, reciting the slogan he learned by rote.

"gimme a V, gimme an E, gimme an N, gimme ... ah what the crap, just say it!!!"

Taskmaster, like most teachers, is big on the theories and sorely lacking on the practical execution. once Moon Knight gets back into the cowl, he's toast.

at least he has a sense of humor

Huston leaves us a twist wherein we are left to ponder whether Spector was indeed jumpstarted by the events around him, or whether ... his fractured brain concocted all of this crap.


i have no doubt Finch's art fits the bill here. its just that i can't help seeing his previous works, Ascension and/or The Darkness, in most of it. at least the New Avengers have bright colors. that being said, i managed to snag his autograph for a couple of my books, and wonder if he was undergoing chemotherapy (really, he slightly resembles the ex-KGB agent who claimed he was poisoned by Russian President Vladimir Putin's minions, but with a bright, unpoisoned smile of course).


gratuitous violence? what gratuitous violence?

now that we got one more psycho hero loose on the streets, let's see if the next storyline keeps us interested.
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issues read: #1-6