I’ve happened across a couple of other Burger themed blogs this week. I can hardly bitch about them too much, as shortly after creating this blog I realised it shared a name with a burger joint in Brooklyn, but given that it’s half a planet away and that this blog is meat free, coupled with the fact that no-one seemed to give a shit, I’m happy to accept the coincidence.
The first one is Comics Burger. At least, I think it’s a blog, but so far all I can turn up is a facey page that’s locked up tight on info until I become a friend. It seems to be in South America, and seems to have very little to do with actual comics, apart from a couple of photos from cons. The other one, well…. I’ll not name it here because it shares my home city (God forbid I start some kind of blog war, because I would likely lose utterly). It gets a million more hits than mine. Despite the theme in common it’s a world away from what I offer. The woman that writes it is way cuter than me, and has more energy in a ten minute youtube vid than my headache prone, hockey jersey wearing butt can muster in a six month period.
What I do here is really from a very tired person’s perspective. I write it in the hopes that a few of you out there can relate. I mostly read comics about superheroes because I’m jaded from living in a world where we have the Illuminati in place of the Justice League (last time I mentioned the Illuminati the post rated pretty hot, so I thought I’d put it out there again). The whole nerd culture explosion of recent years seems to be pretty overblown, loud and obnoxious to me. I’d frankly rather stay at home and read comics.So if you are satisfied with the scribblings of a thirty-something (fuck, alright, thirty six) reading comics in the western suburbs in between coffee and cigarettes, swearing and inventing tortures for creative teams that fall short, while telling you that Grant Morrison, Greg Capullo and Marc Silvestri are some of the greatest people alive, then welcome aboard and welcome back. For those of you that just visit to copy and paste my scans, fuck it, you guys are cool too.
Threshold Presents The Hunted #1 This one of those number ones that passed me by earlier in the year, however now that I’ve tracked it down and read it it appears the universe was trying to tell me something. The initial premise of an intergalactic Running Man seems to be enough to build something potentially fun and/or crazy on, but it’s a wasted opportunity here. The characters are twats. The dialogue is at times indecipherable. And in an effort to exclude me from plausibly investing myself in the story, there’s another fucking human Green Lantern. Or Ex-Green Lantern. Some backstory may have actually interested me a little, but nope. This comic should have been cool, but it’s a mess. There’s a Larfleeze “issue zero” of sorts tacked on the end that’s much better. Hopefully writing these back to back, Keith Giffen learned that if you are going to make your characters be buttholes, make them funny buttholes.
The Movement #1 Another first issue that has taken a little while to get around to, however this one was much more enjoyable. The Movement seems to be some sort of flipside to Green Team, as the setting is a destitute and rough end of town – dark alleys, corrupt cops and street kids. As an additional flipside to Green Team, it’s also good. There’s a formula to the issue ones I have enjoyed, and it’s that there needs to be questions about the story for the reader to be interested in enough to buy the next issue (and the next and the next, goddamnit) for the answers, especially stories like this that are away from the Justice League characters. Gail Simone has nailed this, and although I don’t have room for it I’m seriously considering adding this to my monthly list. There’s another reason though: the artwork Freddie Williams II has a nice Capullo influence in some parts, suitable to the material that for me conjured early Spawn in style and tone. I liked it. Fuck it, I’m going to start buying it.
Batman Incorporated #13 Grant Morrison’s Batman Incorporated, the only book to truly survive the cull that made way for DC’s 52. Returned from the Lazarus pit, the story was allowed to play out in the new universe until it’s final issue this month. Batman Inc. even busted into mass media when Damian Wayne met his horrible end, and while that was arguably the apex of the story, there’s still enough violence, shock and cows to keep a smile on your face before it goes out of business. In a way, I view this book as a Talia story, and Morrison presents her as everything she should be: sexy, evil, and absolutely twisted by her own sense of destiny, and she’s never stooped lower in her pursuit of that destiny than in the pages of this book. It’s almost as if it’s not enough for her to just win (she could probably do that quite easily), but her victory must also be a grand tale of conquest, perhaps why she throws Batman one of her swords to duel her to the end, rather than just butchering him with both of them. Morrison finishes with an epilogue that provides the League Of Shadows with a new nefarious plan, perhaps to give himself a re-entry point should he decide to return to the character, perhaps to throw one of the keys to the Bat-kingdom on the ground to see who’ll pick it up. Batman Incorporated has been the Bat-universe’s messy genius little brother who refused to go away, and I look forward to re-reading the whole bloody lot uninterrupted, and in order this time.
Superior Spider-Man #14 Superior Spidey has been one of the very few Marvel books I’ve found to be consistently entertaining, and it’s a huge oversight on my part not to present one of the issues post Amazing Spider-Man #700 until now. For those not aware, that issue marked the point where Otto Octavius successfully implemented his plan to transfer his consciousness out of his disease ridden and dying old body into that of Peter Parker, so long story short, Otto Octavius is now Spider-Man, and while he wants to do good, his methods are pretty villainous and un-Spidey. With Otto recently mentally pushing the last remnants of Peter’s voice in his head out (just when it looked like Peter was about to return), it’s all Otto, who isn’t afraid to slash crims to ribbons and blackmail Mayor Jameson to achieve his ends. This issue sees Spider-Man unleash his robot army and “spiderlings” on Shadowland, going absolutely bananas on the base of Wilson Fisk. But what of the spiderbots protocol of ignoring anything related to the Goblin? Damn this is getting good. Spidey is the best it’s been in ages, thanks to Marvel being brave enough to take a huge leap with their flagship character. Bravo.
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DC Villain's Month reviews coming soon. Thanks kids.
DC Villain's Month reviews coming soon. Thanks kids.