treehugging

drive-by readings

Gotham City Sirens #14 (DC) "Strange Fruit Part One" Tony Bedard Andres Guinaldo Lorenzo Ruggeiro JD Smith Tomeu Morey Steve Wands Guillem March (cover)

what we learned: Paula Irving a.k.a. Poison Ivy's Star Labs career moves on to its next chapter: getting taken over by an alien plant life form! and you thought The Happening was bad.
oh shit moment: Ivy may be doing this out of her own accord. naah, there'll be a twist/reversal next issue.
what's next: we need saltwater!!!


you never met Plantman yet, have you?

things i liked this week

X-Men Second Coming one-shot (Marvel)
Craig Kyle/Christopher Yost/David Finch/Matt Banning/Peter Steigerwald/Joe Caramagna (cover: Adi Granov, variant cover: Finch with Jason Keith)

has Finch been around too long that i think of this dirty rough-edged work with old colleague Batt kind of a throwback? is Hope Summers a positive or a negative? also, see X-23 make a point!

Blackest Night #8 (DC)
Geoff Johns/Ivan Reis/Oclair Albert/Joe Prado/Alex Sinclair/Nick Napolitano (variant cover: Doug Mahnke)

did anybody notice that this was released leading up to the Easter weekend? the conclusion, although nothing totally surprising, has mixed results with the fan base. certain characters were brought back for a reason (and the reason being "we can have more events with them!" - they weren't randomly pulled from a bag). and i can certainly agree with Geoff Johns that Ivan Reis is a god - imagine drawing all this craziness for eight straight issues. we need to give him a White Lantern ring. wait, that's totally gay.

X-Factor #203 (Marvel)
Peter David/Val De Landro/Pat Davidson/Jeromy Cox/Cory Petit (cover: David Yardin/Nathan Fairbairn)
Monet goes to rescue her father in South America. probably kidnapped by Nazis hiding there. anyhoo, look who's got a mad-on for her! woooohoooooo!!!


Gotham City Sirens #10 (DC)
Paul Dini/Andres Guinaldo/Raul Fernandez/Ian Hannin/Sal Cipriano (cover: Guillem March)
listen, there's only one Fable that works - its that book by Bill Willingham. anyway, Doctor Aesop? pffffft. also: the girls' relationship with Riddler? pffffft.


Realm of Kings: Inhumans #5 (Marvel)
Dan Abnett/Andy Lanning/Pablo Raimondi/Tim Seeley/Victor Olazaba/Adriano Lucas (cover: Stjepan Sejic)
say what??? this is all a sham? oh, wait till Thanos returns. and the real Maximus comes back.


X-Force #25 (Marvel)
Craig Kyle/Christopher Yost/Clayton Crain/Cory Petit

Attack of the 50-foot giant, blue, goth goddess sexbomb! hey, question: doesn't anybody question why certain mutants show up in Cerebra as Colorado visitors every so often? do the Cuckoos mindwipe those who notice?

Cloak and Dagger #1 (Marvel)
Stuart Moore/Mark Brooks/Walden Wong/Emily Warren/Dave Sharpe
riddle me this, Batman! are Tandy and Ty doing what they do as a woman and a man?

Green Hornet #2 (Dynamite)
Kevin Smith/Phil Hester/Jonathan Lau/Ivan Nunes/Simon Bowland (covers: Alex Ross/John Cassaday/Joe Benitez)
out with the old, in with the new. one thing sure, Southwest Airlines is not a sponsor of this book.


Punisher #15
Rick Remender/Roland Boschi/Dan Brown/Lee Loughridge/Joe Caramagna (cover: Mike McKone/Morry Hollowell)

Frank versus dead Nazis, samurais and Hellsgaard! what more do you want? oh wait, is Frankencastle concept ending?

The Sword #23 (Image)
Joshua Luna/Jonathan Luna

you know that line that goes 'that the greatest trick the devil played was to make everyone believe he never existed' or something like that? well .... kinda something like that.

snaps: Catwoman #83

... where we have the requisite Blackest Night crossover. is this a one-shot deal? the original Black Mask comes back to haunt Selina, and even with help from her little friends in Gotham City Sirens, this battle may have even more damaging consequences. man, i miss Adam Hughes covers on Catwoman (Jim Balent slowly shaking head at me).

zero points for originality, Black Mask; somebody already did that.


somebody mistakenly believed in Luke Wilson and AT&T.


really, there should be a Blackest Night video game. should be as fun as Left for Dead or Dead Rising.


awwww, look who needs more practice in Batman: Arkham Asylum.


Warrior Nun Areala, anyone?

snaps: Gotham City Sirens #6

... where Paul Dini and Guillem March provide some subtext with the imagery. judge for yourselves.

1) right on the opening page, we get a midget rubbing himself against former Joker lover and sexualized court jester Harley Quinn. sure, he wants to kill her but come on! Verne Troyer would like to be cast in this movie.

2) "Jenna Duffy" - doesn't the name sound a little too ... hmmm, porn-ish, perhaps? if that's not a subtext, does her work van have to be depicting the wench riding a pipe wrench? (hah! "pipe!")

3) whooops. an adult midget and a teenage boy wonder. draw your own conclusions. ("bring down"? from the looks of it, "go down" might be more appropriate)

drive-by readings: Gotham City Sirens #1

Gotham City Sirens #1 (DC) "Union" Paul Dini Guillem March Jose Villarubia Steve Wands JG Jones (variant cover)

now that Birds of Prey has been taken off the board, DC tries the same tack with the Bats' female Rogues Gallery - Catwoman, Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn team up to ... wait, what exactly are they teaming up for? definitely not to roast marshmallows and exchange slumbooks. do girls still make slumbooks? anyway, bad girls wanna have some fun but not before getting into a fight first with ... Crossbones?! what is Crossbones doing here?? is he fleeing arrest after a prison break for his role in killing Captain America? oh, that's not Crossbones?!

i have to say that if i bought stock in Guillem March, i would have lost quite a bit on it after this issue. his covers were fantastic (well, in an immature fanboy-ish kind of way), but it doesn't seem to translate well to sequential pages. he seems to be a fan of manga with the whooshing motion of body parts, conveniently or purposely distracting you from the lack of details. is he trying to be Rob Liefeld? beyond the boobs and butts ... you can only hold our attention so long.

thankfully, writer Paul Dini neatly ties in the events from months past (this is still a Batman tie-in, after all). Pamela and Harley need to know why Selina is not the same Selina she was prior to undergoing open heart surgery courtesy of Hush. and yeah, they want to know Batman 's secret identity. pure light-hearted fun. i just think March should rethink his approach here, because this book has potential.