castewar's Blog

Rumour from various retailers in town is that Diamond, at long last, will take into account holiday Mondays, and adjust the shipping schedule to accommodate. This means, no more “books are in on Thursday.” And it only took them decades to get around to it.

One more thing – Spider-man never actually fights Wolverine in the comic. It should have been called;

What If? Spider-man and Wolverine Vs. A Lot of Spies #1

So, has the Marvel crew decided that Uatu is stupid or something? I just got the new What If? Spider-man Vs. Wolverine one-shot and two things popped out at me.

1) The book just assumes you know the original story. A 20 year old story. Admittedly, you get some background, and you don’t HAVE to know the original story, but What If comics used to always tell you what issues they were talking about.

2) Where the hell is The Watcher? Isn’t he, like, supposed to be watching all this somewhere? Nope. This one went down without him. I noticed in the other, recent What If books, that he’s heavily downplayed in some of the stories.

You know, Alex Ross made do with The Watcher – even found a way to make him purposefully creepy (instead of just generally creepy.)

But I guess those days are over – as Marvel embraces the idea of a multiverse more and more, I guess a guy who can see them doesn’t get to play any more.

<font class="plain_title_big">I'm having a little trouble here. Besides the obvious, and contradictory cash-in of having a "final days of" storyline for a character we saw shot dead in the Summer, there's another elephant in the room for the Captain America: The Chosen series.

That would be the fact that it's being written by the guy who created Rambo.

I have not read first blood, but assuming the movie is close, then I can see the plan. Post traumatic stress suffering Vietnam vet has a run in with a powerful and corrupt small-town sheriff. You can see the concepts involved - extraordinarily trained, war weary soldier stands up for what's right - translating over to Captain America.

The trouble is, the guy has written a lot of books since then, including the one that became the movie that made Rambo the character everyone remembers - ass-kicking extension of Regan-era foreign policy.

So.

I'm going to have to check these books out now, if only to see if they're continuing to molest the corpse of Captain America.
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I had a mild shock recently, while watching an old episode of M*A*S*H.

And you can too. Please, lick your fingers, then touch them here.

I was at the local shop, perusing the new crop of toys. 15 tall talking Daleks. Nice. The Shazam Marvel Family action figures. Nice. The 8" John Horus action figure, from Warren Ellis' Black Summer series.

WTF?

This picture does not convey enough information, but it'll help you see what I'm saying.

The John Horus action figure is essentially an Aquaman MEGO doll in a cheap John Horus outfit. I say "essentially" since it doesn't say "MEGO" anywhere on the box. I looked. Hard. But I know that head. I know those boots. I know those pants and jacket. Those are totally MEGO.

Dear lord.

So, Hulk is gone, Sentry is gone... I think that makes Hercules the toughest tank going. If Thor were a little more in the game, it would be a toss up, but he's not around much right now - plus, he was always kind of toe to toe with Herc. If it weren't for that ghey hammer and lightnin' thing...

Anyways, judging from the back of the latest Marvel issues, I think we're going to be seeing a lot more of the the mythological strong man.

Hercules is here, so raise a mighty cheer!
At the might of, Hercules!

Actually, I've known for awhile, but this is the first official word (plus, screenshots.)

Don't read this, go read this.

I know it's not comics related, but... GHOSTBUSTERS VIDEO GAME!

World War Hulk #5
Finally, a real fight. Heavily steeped in "who we are and the choices we make", but a fight nonetheless - better still, it looks like they corrected their error of there being two Strongest One There Is. But I will say no more, except that I've never liked Bob. Not a bad wrap up, but like all things Marvel these days, it's mostly a set up to get you to buy a bunch of new titles. Son of Hulk. Red Hulk. Gamma Corps. Just... (shrug)

I small tale for you - gather round.

I'm at my local shop, and a friend calls. When I say where I'm headed, he asks me to check for copies of Thor Visionaries Walt Simonson, volumes 2 and 3. No prob, I say.

Prob.

I ask, and while they have volume 1 (as does Heavy Ink) and volume 4 just came out, they didn't have 2 and 3. Nor would they, as they weren't being reprinted.

So, I can get hooked on 1, and never be able to fill the gap until 4. Or I can pick up 4, get hooked, and never be able to complete the collection.

Wha?

When BoingBoing hypes a website and Ape Lad signs up, you know there's a party gettin' started right here. A celebration, to last throughout the year. So bring your good times, and your laughter too. We're gonna celebrate your comics with you.

(come on now)

Well, dammit. Really, what's the point? There does come an embarassing point in the continuity of a comic company, where all the big heroes are sitting around, chatting, and realize that they've all been dead at one point or another.

Superman? Check.
Green Arrow? Check.
Green Lantern? Check.
Flash? Again and again.
Supergirl? Check.

The list goes on. And there, at the bottom. Circled in red and underlined twice...

Batman.

Can't say I'm that thrilled. Mind you, it may possibly get me on National television again.

I can't get enough of these Mythos books. I have not heard, but can only hope, that they'll put two and two together and collect all of them into a single book. Oh sure, a hardcover, but also a modestly priced TPB. Because if you want to introduce a new generation to comics, and catch them up on the basics in the shortest and best looking way, the Mythos books are awesome.

Ghostrider was a bit of a cash-in, given the movie was released at the same time, but one could argue that if you've got a movie, you're important enough of a character to get a Mythos issue.

The latest, covering the Fantastic Four, is a nice tweak to the tale, almost New Frontier-esque. Whereas they nicked their rocket originally, the 60s feel of the origin is retained, but the spacestation caught in a cosmic storm is lifted from the film. And given how goofy the idea of stealing a spaceship is today, it's not a bad alteration to the tale.

What's next? X-men? Bring it.

So, against my better judgement, I picked up the first of Marvel's "Imagine we could sell you on the same series twice" line-up - and I liked it. It's not deep - two stories in one book, covering two alternate takes (three, if you count a single Fred Hembeck spoof) of the same epic event makes things a little short and sweet. But seeing as the What If...? spin allows the writers to do a few things they couldn't do with the real story (like kill a few beloved characters, in order to give some real weight to their story of revenge), it's a much more satisfying read.

Meanwhile, in the real World War Hulk series, the Hulk continues to be the chattiest one there is.

...and I'm still not convinced I want to buy the new What If.... series.

And I'm tossing a stink eye at the new Countdown series.

I never wondered if Gotham by Gaslight Batman was better than Vampire Batman.

Ever.

The first of six comic adaptations of Cory "BoingBoing" Doctorow's stories came out today. I had a look at Futuristic Tales of the Here and Now #1 (Anda’s Game) on the new release shelf at my local shop here in Vancouver and overheard one of the employees mutter, "Oh great. Another comics by someone I've never heard of."

A little insular, perhaps, but not exactly unfair. Doctorow has always displayed a large amount of disdain for most comics, to the point of adopting a Warren Ellis gag as an hipster affectation - he's not a comic nerd, oh no no. But really, when you call Superman an "Underwear Pervert", you can't be surprised when you're not greeted with enthusiasm by the comic reading core.

You can preview the series here.