Doc Ock Saw The Watchmen on Opening Night!

Thursday night was going to be a big night for the G'nerd staff, as we had tickets for a midnight screening of Watchmen... Unfortunately, we all came down with a mysterious illness (possibly caused by a day spent trying to perfect our blue milk recipe) and had to send our new field correspondent, Doctor Octopus, in our stead. Here is his report.
"Greetings, nerds! This is Doc Ock, reporting live from a theater somewhere in Manhattan. You have fifteen minutes to find me or everyone in the building will die! Hah! I'm only joking! You are incapable of understanding my superior sarcasm skills!"

Continued after the jump...
"Who are these insignificant fools? Why are they in front of me in line? Don't they know I used Fandango?"
"These ignoramuses thinks it's cool to dress up like a runty, greasy, withdrawn psycopath who gets nervous around women. Someone should tell them their infantile game of dress up is an excercise in redundancy! Hah!""I'll take a box of Milk Duds, three bags of Sour Patch Kids, and all the Twizzlers you have, and I'm not paying for them, for with a mere thought I could CRUSH YOU with my super strong octopus arms! Hello? Why is there no one here?"
"WHAT!!? How DARE this decrepit establishment insult me so!?""I, the great Doctor Otto Gunther Octavius, DEMAND to be helped at the upper level concession stand! I will not lower myself (get it? Hah!) to use the 'main' stand! I am holding every one of these nerds hostage until I am... Ooh, they're letting us in!""Hah! Perfect center! Nailed it! No one has a better seat than Doctor Octopus! No one will witness this visionary adaptation of the greatest non-Doc Ock-starring comic book series of all time from a more advantageous position! NO ONE!""WHAT?!! Leather seats!? Who are these peasants feigning superiority to the greatest criminal mastermind of all time? This affront shall not stand!"[offscreen murder]"Ahh, I feel much better now. The lights are going down! WOOOOOO!" [Clap clap clank clap clank clank clap]

"My expert review: An admirable attempt at adaptation, though falls far short of other great comic book films, like Spider-Man 2. That effeminate imbecile Adrian Veidt, the laughably-labeled "smartest man in the world," hatched a plan that would have been amusingly adequate if not for the unfortunate side effect of establishing a lasting peace. And I really miss that beautiful squid monster. 2 out of 8 appendages up."

So that's the Doc's report... Um... We probably won't send him out on assignment in the future.

Panel Discussion: Scans from Amazing Spider-Man, Locke & Key, Final Crisis, and More

Most Hope-Inspiring Panel - Amazing Spider-Man #583

Oh noes, two Obamas! But which one is real? Let's see; one reacts to Spider-Man with angry, closed-door political paranoia. The other reacts with calm, open-minded discourse. There's no mystery here; kick that partisan imposter to the curb, Spidey! WHOO! FOUR MORE YEARS!

Weirdness, sadness, dodginess, and more after the jump...


Least Respectful Death of a Character We've Known for 11 Issues - Young Liars #11
Good old whatsherface here has been a solid supporting character for the entire run of this series, and she gets her final dismissal in a small panel on a crowded page with no great final moment and not even a mention of her for the rest of the book. Lapham, how can we care about your characters when you don't?

Most Respectful Death of a Character We've Known For 11 Pages - Locke & Key: Head Games #1
This, on the other hand, is how you do it! This guy was introduced this issue, and by the end we know him and love him, and when it comes time for the series villain to kill him, he gets his heroic moment before he sinks into the abyss and reunites with his smokin' dead wife. It makes me wanna cry just looking at it again. Goddamn this book is good.


No Comment Award - Final Crisis #6
Er, that's Mary Marvel on top, for those of you not following the series. So...yeah.

Best Splash Page - Locke & Key: Head Games #1
Shakespeare never looked so good! Bonus points for anyone that can identify the play without cheating!

The Old Alter-Ego Blues Award - Amazing Spider-Man #583
This is a classic of superhero ironies; Spidey is out saving the world, misses a civilian appointment, irony ensues. For more examples, read our comprehensive article on the subject.

Best Scam - Invicible #58
Oh, those wiley shapeshifters. Poor bastard's not even gonna get a design credit.

Most Heartbreaking Screw Up - Captain Britain and MI-13 #9
The second time I may cry during this single Panel Discussion... Captain Britain and crew are fighting an entity that tempts you with your heart's desires, so when Brit is tangled up with him and sees his long lost wife Meggan, he of course assumes it's some sort of trick. But apparently the realm they're fighting in intersects with many others--including this terrifying Hell dimension that Meggan is trapped in and only briefly escaped. Oh God, it's like Baz Luhrmann's Romeo & Juliet all over again. Hold me.

Banana Randomizer Award for Achivement in WTF - Cleaners #2

Wow, just....wow. There is context for this, but I had to go back and read through the comic a few times to really understand it. So just enjoy this goretastic Tales From The Crypt-esque panel on it's own merits, such as they are.

DC I Love You, But You're Bringing Me Down

Dan DiDio, you've been made a fool.

SPOILER ALERT for Final Crisis #6 after the jump...


DC Comics, you blew it! You took your best shot at a mainstream press event since Jason fucking Todd, and you blew it!

Remember this?


Sure you do, cause it was big news! The Death of Captain America! A sad commentary on the Post-9/11 world! Collectors item!

Well, this Wednesday, DC went ahead and killed Batman. That's right, they offed Bruce Wayne, good old crazybrain, everyone's favorite agreived sociopathic hero.

This should, by all rights, be big news. Batman is a huge character. Roughly 17 times as popular as Captain America. And now he's dead. People should be weeping. Remember when Superman died? People were horrified. And at this point, what with the Dark Knight, Batman is a BIGGER, more recognizable character than Superman. He is, perhaps, the MOST FAMOUS comic book character in the world.

How did DC manage to kill the most famous superhero in the world without anyone noticing?

Let me count the ways:

1) OBAMA!

Marvel completely pwned DC this Wednesday, and they didn't even have to try. They simply put out a comic in which Spider-Man meets Obama. It's practically a goof, based on the fact that Obama has said on several occasions he collected Spider-Man comics when he was a kid.

And what happened? Lines out the door! 1st and 2nd printing sold out in hours! ebay auctions for hundreds of dollars! I want to give Joe Quesada a gold medal to wear that says "I KNOW WHAT PEOPLE WANT". America is at a major turning point, and people want to see their cool new future prez fist-bump with Spidey! It's called monitoring the national mood, DC, look into it.

2) Batman CAN'T BE DEAD!

Batman isn't dead - we all know Nolan's third movie is coming out in a few years! Plus I could have sworn I just saw him on Brave and the Bold a few days ago. If you told someone on the street that Batman died on Wednesday, they'd react like you told them Santa Claus died on Wednesday. Batman is too big a character to die - what he does in DC is just a blip on the radar of the American public.

Killing Batman in the comics is admitting that no one at DC could figure out how to make people pick up a Batman comic, DESPITE the fact The Dark Knight was seen by every person in American three times.  People who saw the Dark Knight don't want to read about Jason Todd and Tim Drake ("Who??") battling for the cowl.  They want to read about Christian Bale's facinating new "dark" take on Batman!  Talk about EPIC FAIL.

3) DEATH FATIGUE

DC has killed roughly every single one of their characters in the last few years, including:

The Flash
Martain Manhunter
The Elastic Man
The Wonder Twins
The Ventriloquist
All The New Gods

That's like half of the Justice League right there.

4) RESURRECTION FATIGUE

DC has brought back roughly every single one of their dead characters in the last few years, including:

Jason Todd
Stephanie Brown
Barry Allen
Hal Jordan

The result of all this? NO ONE CARES.

5) Batman's death didn't even happen in his own book.

One might hope that the death of Batman would be the result of a long series of events that reflect the life and themes of the caped crusader. That there might be some sort of, I don't know, EMOTION associated with this character's death.

Nope! Batman dies shooting an evil god alien with a space-gun, thus burning his body to a cinder and sending his alternate self to another multiverse, where he will live out his days in suffering. OMGWTFLOL. So is he even dead? How can we have an emotional reaction to something so convoluted? I would hate to write his eulogy.

I would like to close this rant by saying, I love Grant Morrisson. I don't blame any of this on him. I blame the editors at the top who thought it would be a good idea to have Bruce Wayne die at the end of a immensely complicated "Crisis Event" that was clearly a financial and critical failure from the first few months of it's release. Could they not have just bailed out, and thrown a new ending on? Saved the Batman death for later, when maybe it could evoke some sort of emotion in it's readers other than, "That's it?"

The Death of Batman could have been a heartbreaking story. Batman is a deeply sad character who in many ways, I think, has always longed for death. For retirement. For escape. I'm sure his fans can imagine millions of ways that the Dark Knight could have gone out that would have made them cry their eyes out. But that opportunity is gone now, and can never be regained. Even after Bats gets resurrected, there's no death like the first death. They blew it.

Oh well, there's always fanfic.


PS, the title of this post is taken from a lovely LCD Soundsystem Song. Here is a video of Kermit singing it:

Panel Discussion: Scans from Wolverine: Saudade, Welcome to Hoxford, Final Crisis and More

A Note on Blades - Wolverine: Saudade
There've been a lot of interpretations of Wolvie's claws over the years, some better than others, but I gotta say this one really works for me. They remind me of time before it was "revealed" that he has had bone claws since adolescence, or even before it was "revealed" that the claws were an unforseen byproduct of the adamantium lacing process. These finely crafted, downright designed sumbitches remind me of those glorious days when Wolverine was an unfortunate Canadian mutant who was made into a living weapon by mysterious people for a mysterious purpose. *Sigh* Those were the days. Let's see some more of these beauties.
Awesome! So dangerous!


Best Pop Culture Reference - Runaways/Avengers #1
Haw. She said a Harry Potter thing.

Best Deal With The Devil - Amazing Spider-Man #571
So apparently Spidey's deal with the devil that made everyone in the world forget his secret identity also made it impossible for anyone to use an ounce of brain matter to rediscover the fact. Norman Osborn, actual GENIUS, finds Peter Parker's camera set up to take pictures of Spider-Man to sell to the papers, and comes to the conclusion that Peter is just a front for Spidey's side career as a photographer. Gah!


Cute Overload - Welcome to Hoxford and Patsy Walker: Hellcat #3

This was a good week for mice in comics.

First up we got a li'l rattie who comes to speak to psychotic serial killer Raymond Delagdo in the voice of his dead mother. I love the cartoony silloutte in the third panel. Things don't end well for this rat, but at least he had his moment in the sun.

Meanwhile, in Hellcat, this truly adorable snow lemming shows up to guide our hero to...something, I didn't really read this issue, I just tuned in for this adorable ball of cuteitide.

I HAS A CAREER; IZ A BOUNCER. U FOLLO NAO, KTHXBYE.

I also can see the headlines now; "Area Cute Thing Bites a Thing, Is Chubalicious". "Chunktastic Mouser Seen Hanging In There, Baby".

Too Much Information - Wolverine: Saudade
Oh, man. That's just a bit more of Wolverine than I really was hoping to see today. But what the hey, the ladies seem to love it:

Scariest Panel - Welcome To Hoxford #2This is some serious nightmare shit, right here. The way that the monster is holding the woman's glance THROUGH the door is the scariest part. He knows where she is, and he's a' comin.

Whammy of the Week - Runaways/Avengers #1
Whoo doggies! That's how I like my power bolts; all Dragon Ball Z'ed out and in full technicolor, complete with a unique and persuasive sound effect. I also like to imagine what swear word she's screaming, especially in light of the All Star Batman & Robin fiasco.

Most Unpleasant Panels of the Week - Young Liars #8
I'm not going to try to explain to you what's happening here. Not because you won't understand it, but because I don't want to understand it.

Banana Randomizer Award for Achievement in WTF - Final Crisis: Revelations #2
Good lord; so if Batwoman had her own series, is this the sort of adventures she'd be having? I don't know if my sensory perceptions could take it. I can barely parse out what's going on in this one panel, let alone a whole book.

After very careful inspection, I count three guys, five submachine guns, a lot of debris, and I guess that's Croc at the bottom? Or possibly an actual crocodile? I think with more balanced coloring this might have been a coherent but still crazy splash page, but as it's a big black, red, and green blob.

Panel Discussion: Scans From Spider-Man Summer Special, Buffy Season Eight #17, Special Forces #3, and More

Worst Battle Cry - Teen Titans #61
Truly putting the "kid" in Kid Devil, looks like someone is still hanging on to their third grade zingers.

Inappropriate baby imagery, inappropriate places to have sex, and inappropriate uses of the English language, after the jump...

Supervillainscuties - King Size Spider-Man Summer Special

Chris Giarrusso's brain-hungry symbiote and Colleen Coover's squat little Modok make for some adorable little miscreants.But what's up with the Spectacular Spider-Chub?

How They Like It - Catwoman #81
Catwoman and Batman have sex while falling off a building.

Is She or Isn't She? - King Size Spider-Man Summer Special
Hmm, that would explain her obsession with Thor--the girliest hero in all of comics. I also submit into evidence the fact that this story was drawn by Colleen Coover, the writer/artist responsible for the lesbian porno comic Small Favors. Coincidence? Perhaps.

Class Act - Blue Beetle, Teen Titans #61
Blue Beetle is such an enjoyable character to read, you have to wonder why more teen super heroes aren't written beyond petulant, angsty stereotypes. Here he tries to make piece with Kid Devil after they find their tracking the same vllian...
And though this next panel may seem like a dick move out of context, I feel that this is a honest attempt to respectfully keep KD in the loop, and to downplay the awkwardness of the situation by injecting a little humor. Tactful texts are very important in this day and age...

Stay classy, Double B.

Spider-Man is Creepy - King Size Spider-Man Summer Special
Keeping an eye on the missus? Trying to stare down her blouse? Any way you cut it, this is a little weird.

Irony Alert - Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season Eight #17

Buffy has done more than her share of twisting the english language into a near unrecognizable web of adjective-nouns and superfluous suffixes, and only a thousand years in the future does Buff realize what her valley-speak hath wrought.

Woah, Overreact Much? - NYX: No Way Home #1
What? There's nothing I understand about this interaction. Her art? What the hell? Dumpster diving? And that face! She's really really pissed about this. I just don't get it.

Celebrity Casting Corner - Army @ Love: The Art of War #1
Paris Hilton makes an appearance here as Sylvia Stein, a hot actress who just happens to spend much of the issue as a giant ape that blesses a fanboy soldier with some rough monkey sex. Oh, that sounds like something you'd like to see?

Kyle Baker Goes Too Far - Special Forces #3

Going...
Goooiiiinnnggg...
Gone.

Writer's Worst Nightmare - Army @ Love: The Art of War #1
This issue opens up with writer Rick Veitch getting waterboarded for the suspicious web research he did when writing the first series. I'm sure this scenario has played itself out in the heads of anybody who has ever Googled something like "how to build a nuclear bomb" for the sake of some creative work. Or published the words on their public blog. Be right back, someone's at the door.