the bitches of vegas

drive-by readings

Zatanna #4 (DC) "Playing With Fire" Paul Dini Chad Hardin Wayne Faucher Pat Brosseau John Kalisz/Lovern Kindzierski Stephane Roux (cover) Brian Bolland (variant cover)

what we learned: Zee, aside from being a Vegas showgirl, has to do part-time asskicking of troublemakers like the Royal Flush Gang (these mooks have no other M.O. except rob casinos? why not hit the Indian ones? there are no superheroes there!). problem is her current (flirty) employer looks like a dealmaker with the devil Mammon, and looks younger than he really is. Mammon meanwhile, is in the habit of employing red-hot witches masquerading as 90-year old bitches.
oh shit moment: its 2010 and Zatanna still has no defense against mouth attacks, and she can't make a spell without talking?
what's next: Zee needs a healing factor. pronto.


i've burned my tongue before but this is ridiculous.

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: Batman: Streets of Gotham #3

Batman: Streets of Gotham #3 (DC) "Hush Money" / "Under My Skin" Paul Dini Dustin Nguyen Derek Fridolfs John Kalisz Steve Wands Marc Andreyko Georges Jeanty Karl Story Jack Purcell Nick Filardi Sal Cipriano

Victor Zsasz, in Paul Dini's more than capable hands, is currently replacing the Joker as the preeminent scariest Gotham psycho. and with the Black Mask positioning him to be the Man, well ... the Joker better get back to killin'. on a much tamer level, but no less to be wary of, is ex-BFF Thomas 'Hush' Elliot doing his Bruce Wayne shtick, prompting the new Dynamic Duo to put roadblocks along the way so he doesn't squander the family wealth. i dunno. i'm with Damian on this one - give him a good beating, then knife him in the back and dump him in the sewer. the bad guys keep getting chances. speaking of Damian - "he hearts Katanaaaaa". thanks to Grant Morrison, this post-Wayne's world might turn out to be interesting after all.

and still not biting on the Manhunter backup story.

ferocious?

really? Harley Quinn? Poison Ivy? i'd wager Selina Kyle could be, but the clown princess and the plant girl?

ok, let me play the game and i'll decide.

[via]

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.

drive-by readings: Captain America #600

Captain America #600 (Marvel) "One Year After" Ed Brubaker/Paul Dini/Roger Stern/Mark Waid/Stan Lee Alex Ross/Butch Guice/Howard Chaykin Rafael Albuquerque/David Aja/Mitch Breitweiser Kalman Andrasofszky/Dale Eaglesham/Al Avison Frank D'Armata/Edgar Delgado/Matt Hollingsworth Marte Garcia/Paul Mounts Todd Klein/Joe Caramagna/Chris Eliopoulos

the landmark 600th issue arrives, with all the hype building up for some time back, with the intent on putting fans and non-fans alike on the edge: how is Marvel bringing back its greatest super-hero? (Spider-Man just looked at the chart of incomes generated by Marvel properties and snickered) the answer to that is coming next month actually. for now, we have a lead-in anniversary issue of sorts, containing previously-published work and new stories examining the support characters in the Captain America mythos - Bucky, Sharon Carter, his Avenger pals, mortal enemy the Red Skull, Tony Stark (via proxy - but is it him really? i thought he was M.I.A.), Crossbones and Sin, the crazy 1950s Cap, Elijah Bradley, even the alternate-Earth "Bucky" Rikki Barnes. but my favorite has to be the return of Bernie Rosenthal, whom Steve squired during my early reading days.

of course, the meat of this comic lies in the fact that Sharon may have found a way to bring Steve back to life (ooooh, do tell), and this seems confirmed by the fact that Sin refers to something about his death that the general public doesn't know. oh yeah, do tell!

drive-by readings: Batman: Streets of Gotham #1

Batman: Streets of Gotham #1 (DC) "Ignition" / "Strange Bedfellows" Paul Dini Dustin Nguyen Derek Fridolfs John Kalisz Steve Wands Marc Andreyko Georges Jeanty Karl Story Nick Filardi Sal Cipriano

Paul Dini re-teams with his ex-Detective Comics cohorts Dustin Nguyen and Derek Fridolfs on Streets of Gotham, which seems to be more from supporting characters' POV. with the new Batman and Robin still gaining traction, Gotham City seems to be always in freefall but never completely flatlining. and why bother with the city really? does it have overflowing coffers of gold that everyone wants a piece of it? i'm sure Gotham qualifies as one of the cities with the highest crime rates (and that was with Batman). with such a rosy outlook, one would pull up stakes and move elsewhere. its a miracle people still live in a place where you could get bombed by the Joker or get ripped in half by Killer Croc any given moment.

so for this moment, we have B-lister Firefly setting everyone afire because, hey that's what he does. so Gotham's burning again. Commish Gordon keeps a steely silence in the face of it all, and just keeps doing his job (how old is he? 73?). with the narration flowing smoothly between heroes, villains and victims, Dini keeps us engaged, and eagerly awaiting the next issue. didn't care much for the Manhunter backup story though.

by the way, this is only one of two new Batman series being written by Dini. the other one is called Gotham City Sirens, which features more Guillem March. hubba-hubba.

pointing out the obvious

let me direct your attention to the ... oh heck, you got eyes, use 'em!



oversized? you don't say.


actually, this comic is intriguing (and i don't mean because of those oversized thingies). go check it out.

$40 A Day (or how i love Alex Ross)

if Rachael Ray (didn't she die of rabies yet?) had given me $40 to spend for a day, this is what i'd buy:




that's the collected edition of various works done by Mr. Batman himself, Paul Dini, and painter extraordinaire Alex Ross, The World's Greatest Super-Heroes. it comprises the following releases previously in an oversized format:

Superman: Peace on Earth
Batman: War on Crime
Shazam!: Power of Hope
Wonder Woman: Spirit of Truth
JLA: Secret Origins
JLA: Liberty & Justice

i mean, if Rachael Ray did give me $40.


since she didn't, i used my 20% discount coupon at Borders to get it off the shelf before someone else decides to. granted, it was a spur of the moment thing, but its why i love Alex Ross. once you hold his magnificent works in your hands, you can't let go.

and its not even as pristine as i'd like. but i'm not a tightass comic collector. i read because i like to read. 20 years from now, my kids will enjoy these things as much as i did when i was younger, and as much as i do now.