Panel Discussion - Scans From Astonishing X-Men, Rage of the Red Lanterns, Joker HC, and More

Celebrity Casting Corner Pt. 1 - Astonishing X-Men: Ghost Boxes #1
Never have I seen better ringer for Ed Harris than Inspector Slipper from this steampunky X-Men tale. And well cast, I say--the man's got quite a face. As fun as it is to spot celebrity likenesses in comics, the excitement is multiplied big time when you can find the exact image the artist used as reference!

Cute OverloaaaAAAHHH OH GOD NO - Final Crisis: Rage of the Red Lanterns #1
My goodness. What is going on at the DC Offices? Did their medical plan stop covering anti-psychotic perscriptions?


A Moral Confusion - Avengers: The Initiative #18

Why is it that all of these superheroes that "don't kill" have no problem exploding Skrulls all over the place? Because they aren't from Earth? Because they have wrinkly chins and green skin? Seriously, they don't even look that different from humans... It makes me very uncomfortable in a very political way.

Achievement In Joker Creepiness - Joker

How do artists keep finding ways to make the Joker seem creepy? Lee Bermejo has him dig into a plate of shrimp the same way he does everything...with perverse, life-threatening glee. *shudder*


Celebrity Casting Corner Pt. 2 - Kick Drum Comix #2
It's nice to see that EVE is getting some work post-Wall-E. It must be hard out there for old cartoon characters, sitting around waiting for direct-to-DVD sequels and crappy movie tie-ins and praying for another Roger Rabbit.

Futurama Alert! - The Avengers: Initiative #18
Well don't these wisecracking heads in jars look familiar! Any Futurama fan should be looking around for Nixon.

A Fitting Weapon - Joker
Only the Joker would think that sticking shards of glass in his fingers so he could razor slap people is a good idea.

Best Use Of A Repeated Panel - Final Crisis: Rage of the Red Lanterns #1
Okay so this is not exactly a repeated panel, but the fact that everything in the panel remains the same except for the head exploding really hightens the sense of surprise in this split second turn of events. In other news, we're all very upset that fuzzyhead Green Lantern didn't make it out of this issue. He was our favorite.

Best Case of Hat Hair - Joker
How frustrating for Harley Quinn that she can't put that Jester hat on without looking like this until her next shower.

Best Acting - Bot-E, Kick Drum Comix #2
She just does surprise so well!

Panel Discussion: Scans from Invincible, War Heroes, Ambush Bug and More

Every week we at Geekanerd rip panels from our comics and put them on display here, recognizing the best, worst, and weirdest moments of the week. Beware some major SPOILERS.

Click these suckas for high res!

Try It, You'll Like It - Invincible #51
Knowing that comic fans are surpassed only by the Amish and conservative talk show hosts in their unwillingness to accept change, Robert Kirkman seems to be directly addressing his audience here through Art the costume tailor. Doesn't really make much of a difference to me though, because I've always found Invincible's look to be extremely generic, he reminds me of the fake, generic superhero suits seen in The Boys.

Scans from Ambush Bug: Year Zero, Avengers: Initiative, CBLDF Presents: Liberty Comics, and War Heroes: Colon after the jump!

Gag Highlight Reel - Ambush Bug: Year Zero #1

Ambush Bug was chock full of gags, but these were my faves:Seeing Women in Refrigerators Syndrome get an extended gag in a comic is pretty sweet.
I always go geek-kneed for this meta shit. (And for those that don't remember it, those checkers appeared at the top of all DC comic covers in a bygone era.)This one is probably a little to easy, but I like the idea of Sandman escaping across the Multiverse (or whatever it's called these days) from the long hand of DC Editors.

Saddest Moment - CBLDF Presents: Liberty Comics
I never thought I liked Mark Millar all that much, but all it takes is one five-page comic about a sad and lonley old vampire to get me completely on his side. This little moment of supermarket weeps is great because it shows how lonely it would be to be a vampire; struggling to keep up with the changing world around you, and getting attatched to things that you outlive by centuries. I also really love three-cheese pizzas, and they are harder to find now. Single tear.

Suggest Much? - Avengers: The Initiative #15
What a line! "Hey foreigner, you've really been "boning up" on American customs... (Howsabout boning up on mine?)"

Just a Great Panel - War Heroes #1

Snap Judgments: Reviews of Invincible, Liberty Comics, War Heroes and More

Short comic reviews based on initial, lizard-brain opinions. Arranged from BEST to WORST.

There are probably some minor SPOILERS herein.

Liberty Comics: A CBLDF Benefit Book gets an A- from AHR
Mark Millar's tale of Vampire ennui is reason enough to get this book. I've been asking Albo for a while why Mark Millar is considered such hot shit when all I've read by him concerns former-nerd baddasses in rubber suits, but this five page story surprised me. I do wonder why it's the only story in here with nothing to do with censorship. The minus grade is only for the Criminal story, which is as emotionally bloodless and by the numbers as every other issue of Criminal I've ever read.

Ambush Bug: Year None #1 gets a B from Albo
I usually don't like humor books, but this book is full of genuinely funny gags. I'm sure I'd get even more out of it if I wasn't such a Marvel Zombie, because most of the humor is DC in-jokes (Ambush Bug inspiring Jean Loring to kill Sue Dibny, for instance--and even accidentally suggesting the method!). Anyway, some of it is very meta (Ambush Bug wondering why his thoughts don't appear in clouds anymore), which is always exciting to me. Recommended for you DC freaks.

Reviews for Avengers: The Initiative #15, Invincible #51, Two-Face: Year One #1, War Heroes #1, Joker Asylum: Scarecrow #1 and New Avengers #43 after the jump!

Avengers: The Initiative #15 gets a B from Albo
Dan Slott's finding a way to make his Avengers book relevant to Secret Invasion but compelling on its own, something that Bendis isn't quite managing over at Mighty and New. This story, brilliantly titled "The Only Good Skrull..." is about just that--the only good Skrull. It's a little hokey in execution, but somehow I think that's the style Slott's going for. It's like an after school special about a closeted gay teen. Except this one's about a Skrull who's been in hiding and operating as an Earth hero and who worries that the current Skrull invasion might reveal his true colors, at which point it'll be too late to convince the Earthlings he's a good guy. Anyway, far from perfect, but Super-Mega-Colossal-Event tie-ins are so tough to do well that I'm giving it serious props.

Invincible #51 gets a C+ from AHR
"Jump on!" they said. "The new story starts here!" they said. Feh. Only having read a bit of Invincible before, about half of this issue felt like talking heads, and heads that belonged to people I didn't know. The half that followed Invincible and his kid brother, however, was fun enough and the art in this book is appealing enough to get me through. Don't like the new costume though, and I don't even remember what the old one looked like.

Two Face: Year One #1 gets a C from AHR
It's always nice to see some familiar faces from Gotham Central (Maggie Sawyer, GCPD lezforce go!) and it's neat that they integrated the crime boss from Dark Knight, but then they destroy any continuity with the movie by offering the tried and true split-personality acid origin Harvey's always had. Throw in some really strange writing choices in which white-collar characters brush-off random acts of agression by their colleagues like it happens every day, and this feels like a rush-job.

War Heroes #1 gets a C from Albo
I believe I'm getting Millar fatigue. Maybe I still have a bad taste in my mouth from Wanted. I wanted to like the film, some reviews said I would like the film, but... ugh. Anyway, there's been so many Millar books recently (Fantastic Four, Wolverine, 1985, Kick-Ass, on and on and on) and more often than not I like them. But I think I've reached my saturation point, because I found very little to enjoy in War Heroes. Just that same slick Millar attitude with not much below the surface. I might be being too harsh, as it's only the first issue, but... Millar has wowed in the past with first issues (Kick-Ass, for instance). It doesn't help that in the back of the book he spends half a page declaring how awesome he is.

Joker Asylum: Scarecrow #1 gets a C- from AHR
It's really cheesy that all the issues in this miniseries are #1's, even though they're all part of a sequential anthology. Also the plot is like one of those teen horror movies from the mid-90s, except instead of a killer in a black cloak the bad guy is the Scarecrow. What a sad excuse for a spotlight issue. But I couldn't bear to give a book with such awesome art a D. It's chunky and colorful and very web 2.0. Sure it's not very scary, but with a script like this it was never going to be.

New Avengers #43 gets a D from Albo
Bendis, you have really blown it. You spend years setting up the Marvel Universe for one huge event, and then when it's finally time for shit to hit the fan--you hit the pause button. Let's see, what has happened in Secret Invasion thus far? A ship of Skrulls posing as heroes have crashed in the Savage Land and are fighting our heroes. A handful of Skrulls have appeared in Times Square and are fighting our heroes. That's it. Oh, sorry, last issue of Secret Invasion had Nick Fury show up and fight. Bendis' Avengers books, meanwhile, are stuck in the past, telling us all about how we got to this moment but not progressing the "event" in any way. I'm sure this Invasion stuff will make a great hardcover one day, when the stagnancy of it is softened by the absence of month long waits between issues, but for now it's growing more and more fetid.

Panel Discussion: Scans From Robin #174, Amazing Spider-Man #560, The Initiative #13 and More

Every week we at Geekanerd rip panels from our comics and put them on display here, recognizing the best, worst, and weirdest moments of the week. Beware some major SPOILERS.

Click the pics for high res goodness!

Most Surprising Scene - Avengers: The Initiative #13
Despite the fact that no skin is shown and few sex acts take place, this is a boundary pushing sequence.

Here we have Emery, a nerdy, shy teen who happens to be indestructible, and a ex-villain who burns up anything she touches. Alone at an unauthorized Initiative beach party, she realizes that his powers would allow her to have sex with him. So she gets on him and starts, despite the fact that he's not into it. Is this rape? That's a yes. In a medium dominated by male sexual power fantasies, it's extremely surprising to see a scene in which a young man receives genuinely unwelcome sexual attention, and in a way that's not played for laughs or irony. Here the reader is made to feel the discomfort and confusion of this young man, and it's a powerful, sad moment. The last time I remember seeing anything like this in a comic is in Bomb Scare, a great Optic Nerve story. Here's to Christos Gage and Steve Uy for pulling off something truly unconventional in a mainstream book.

Pop Art, Stephanie Brown, Reed Richards: Ladies Man and more, after the jump...

The Reclamation of Pop Art - Amazing Spider-Man #560
The villain in this Spidey storyline is "Paper Doll," a 2D woman unhealthily obsessed with celebrity Bobby Carr. Her and Spidey have a dustup in a Pop Art gallery in this ish, which justifies the awesome cover with Paper Doll actually becoming Pop Art and creeping up on our hero (look at those nails! Creepy!). Later Spidey lands a well-placed punch in front of an explosive WHAAM! piece. Awesome!


The Power of Fans - Robin #174

Wow. Those who hated the way the War Games storyline ended have had just about all their demands met as of the end of last week's Robin. Let the retconning begin!

Exhibit A: Steph never got a memorial because Batman never really thought she was dead. This also explains his insensitive-even-for-him reaction to her death in the first place.

Exhibit B: Dr. Leslie Tompkins, heretofore believed to have actually allowed Steph to die as an outrageously irresponsible warning to teen superheroes across the nation, actually helped the poor girl fake her own death in order to start a new life.

Exhibit C: Editor Dan Didio is killed. Guess that ties up all the loose ends!

Smooth Operator - Reed Richards, Fantastic Four #557

Mr. Fantastic gets a bad rap sometimes for being cold and inattentive, but Mark Millar has a very different view of the smartest man on Earth. In fact, he writes him as a superbrained George Clooney. What a smoothie! Not to mention the fact that the location of their anniversary dinner is back in time for front row seats to when they first met.

Reputation Alert - Avengers: The Initiative #13
As seen in a previous issue of this series, Hank Pym's greatest fear is that he will be forever remembered not for his years of heroism, but for being a vile dirtbag who beat up his wife (BOOO!). He supposedly came to terms with that fear in that same issue, but now it looks like even the younger generation of heroes (who probably grew up on The Ultimates) aren't so forgiving. Sorry dirtbag!

Panel Discussion: Scans from Mighty Avengers #10, Wonder Woman #18, Avengers: The Initiative #10 and More

Every week we at Geekanerd rip panels from our comics and put them on display here, recognizing the best, worst, and weirdest moments of the week. Click the pics for high res goodness, and if you didn't read your books last week, beware some major SPOILERS.

Super Shop Talk - Mighty Avengers #10
I love the casual "Oh, that was you?" Bendis has a real talent for stripping heroes and villains of their glitz and glam and having them talk like normal humans. Though it should be noted that a few pages earlier Doom was swearing on his mother's eternal soul that Iron Man will pay for what he's done with his dying breath.

Arm-rippin', Skrull watchin', sneak attackin' good times after the jump...

Best Actor - Dr. Doom, Mighty Avengers #10
Even through the mask, Doom is like "WTF?!"

Danger! Sneak Attack! Spooky! - Abe Sapien: The Drowning #2
Terrifying.

Most Refreshing Exchange - Avengers: The Initiative #10
I was really worried when Robert Kirkman's awesome Irredeemable Ant-Man series ended and the titular character headed off to join the Initiative. I was sure that his hilariously shit-headed personality would be forgotten and he'd become a generic superhero, but this moment where he decides to watch Chuck instead of attending to the murderous rampage going on downstairs is classic I.A.M.

Most Severe Beatdown of the Week - Avengers: The Initiative #10
Not gonna be doing much constricting without those arms, Constrictor.

SkrullWatch '08 - Wonder Woman #18It seems Wonder Woman is a Skrull, or at least one Khund sculptor wishes she were.

Albo's Comic Book Pick & Pan for March 12, 2008

Pick of the Week: The Mighty Avengers #10
Story by Brian Bendis
Art by Mark Bagley, Danny Miki, Allen Martinez & Justin Ponsor

I’ve been feeling like this book has gone off the rails a bit since artist Frank Cho left, with bullet point storytelling and some seriously ugly art by Mark Bagley. But this issue was a nice side adventure that did away with both of those problems. It was rather self-contained and well-paced, and somehow the 70s era coloring (this is a time-travel story!) vastly improves the look of Bagley’s linework. The story itself primarily follows The Sentry, who doesn’t realize he has traveled back in time to the 70s and is trying to make sense of everything—there’s no Avenger’s Tower, Thor is alive… It’s all very confusing for a man with a history of severe emotional disorders, and he starts freaking out a bit. What’s cool is that he hasn’t traveled back to the Marvel 70s that we remember, but the one that REALLY happened, before everyone forgot The Sentry ever existed (Confused? Go read his Wikipedia page). The Sentry’s unique position in the universe is integral to Iron Man’s plan to get back to our time without mucking up the space-time continuum. It’s just good storytelling when things can come together so elegantly.

Hit the jump to see what got panned...

Pan of the Week: Avengers: The Initiative #10
Story by Dan Slott & Christos N. Cage
Art by Stefano Caselli & Daniele Rudoni

I don’t even know what to say about this book other than that I’m just not sure what I’m supposed to get out of it anymore. This was a really fun series back when it was about these kids training and whatnot, but now we’re building towards the end (?) and I’m not sure what the hell is going on. I mean, I know who is fighting who and all that, but there’s a lack of import to the proceedings… For some reason I just don’t care about all these people dying (and gruesomely so!). There’s so much crap going on at once that I can’t focus on the characters… And not to spoil anything, but if the whole point of this series was to re-introduce the New Warriors with D-List characters then consider me swindled.

These reviews were originally published as part of Pop Culture Shock's Picks & Pans.

Panel Discussion: Scans From Captain America #34, Batman #673, Black Adam #6 And More

Every week we at Geekanerd rip panels from our comics and put them on display here, recognizing the best, worst, and weirdest moments of the week. Click the pics for high res goodness, and beware some major SPOILERS.

Scariest Silver Age Refugee - Bat-Mite, Batman #673
We all know Grant Morrison loves to take the goofiest possible characters from the Silver Age of DC and imbue them with all sort of dramatic significance. He turned Egg Fu into a monster of the atomic age, and the Club of Heroes into a portrait of unanswered ambition, and here we have his reimagined Bat-Mite, who appears in Bruce's hallucination as a sort of herald of things to come. I actually found his appearance to be a little restrained, i.e. not as horrifying as Grant could have made him. That is until I looked closely at these panels and saw frigging SPAWN peaking over his shoulder - thanks for the nightmares, Tony Daniel.

A boatload of scans from all the Avengers books, Black Adam, Y: The Last Man, Captain America and more after the jump...

SkrullWatch '08 - Avengers: The Initiative #9 and Mighty Avengers #8Take special note of this spooky suit's comment: "The Tactigon is the deadliest weapon in the universe. It's not doing us any good sitting here." Huwha? Aren't we supposed to say "The Tactigon is the deadliest weapon in the universe. Let's keep it safe here or destroy it or something, but whatever we do we can't give it to an unstable clone of a super-soldier." For those keeping score, that's exactly what he does. And when said unstable clone of a super-soldier begins KILLING ALL THE SUPERHEROES in the building?
Translation: "Meh. Let's give him the space he needs to kill all sixty of these guys, and then we'll start worrying about other possible sources of resistance to our Skrull invasion." You heard it here first, folks...

GYRICH IS A SKRULL!

Meanwhile, the big Avengers are fighting off a symbiote infestation that is turning New York's population into a swarm of rampaging Venoms and Carnages and whatevers. A lot of our heroes are affected, but some aren't. A couple have good excuses: Iron Man's suit protects him and Wonder Man is ionic, not biological. But a couple of others have no evident excuse for not changing into Skrulls.
Sentry? Ms. Marvel? Luke Cage? I can almost give Sentry a pass because he's a Golden God or something like that, but I don't think Marvel editorial will be able to resist the heart sinking moment of having humanity's best hope against the Skrullian hordes turn green and smile a big ole wrinkly smile. And Luke Cage? He really should have been affected, he's like a half step away from being a normal human.

SENTRY, MS. MARVEL AND LUKE CAGE ARE SKRULLS!

Brand New Complication - Mighty Avengers #8
So part of this whole "Brand New Day" business is that no one knows that Peter Parker is Spider-Man. Not one person. Everyone remembers that Spider-Man revealed his identity during that whole Civil War fracas, but no one remembers whose face was behind the mask. What they apparently do remember, as shown in this panel, is the secret identity of the Scarlet Spider: Ben Reilly, the identical Peter Parker clone who dressed up like Spider-Man and had all the same powers. I think Tony Stark would have a good lead on the identity of one of the unregistered fugitive heroes if he'd just think about it for a second. And wouldn't he want to investigate after realizing that there must be some funny business going on to make him (and all of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s records) forget what Spidey revealed on national television?
UPDATE: It's been pointed out on the Newsarama forums that this book (and most current non-Spidey Marvel books) takes place BEFORE "Brand New Day," because Spidey is still in his black costume... But then why doesn't that screen say "Peter Parker/Spider-Man?"

Most Satisfying Payoff - Black Adam: The Dark Age #6
The big question in the Black Adam series is how bro got his powers back, after having his magic word changed in secret by Captain Marvel. Well, within mere hours of traveling to Billy Batson's hometown and saying everything he sees out loud, Adam hits on this Rockwellesque diner and figures it out. While I don't completely buy that even a dim-bulb like Capitan Marvel would change Adam's word(s) to what amounts to an inside joke (P.S, if it could be more than one word, how about a 500-word string of gibberish, Cap?), his panel is hilarious. There's the silhouetted soda-jerk frozen in shock, with only the all-important egg cream in color. Adam's extremely understated look of satisfaction, and barely a hint of surprise. And that kid....love the detail of his blown-in-half straw, but here's what's killing me; that kid looks like someone. At first I thought it was the boy from the Incredibles...
And while the expressions are similar, I can't help but think I'm missing the most obvious visual reference. I thought maybe a Norman Rockwell print, but no. Anyone?

The Power of Fandom - Batman #673
As I mentioned last week, Batbooks have been throwing out references to a Batcave memorial (or the lack thereof) to former-Robin Stephanie Brown for months, and in #674 we finally saw what so many fans have demanded and petitioned for. Sort of. This is a fantasy sequence, but as Project Girl Wonder curator Mary Borsellino points out, this panel at least shows Batman mentally equating Stephanie with his other Robins, and shows that she has an equal place in that lineage. Funny when you consider that while it took solicited fan opinions to kill one Robin, it took unsolicited fan opinions to give another Robin a life after death.

Cute Overload - Black Adam: The Dark Age #6
That is one cute seal. Or is a manatee? The face kinda looks like an otter. Let's just say it's an adorable sea creature, and for your information Black Adam does not punch through it's brain, he instead enlists his little guy to help him escape his persuers. I assume a Sea Buddies: Black Adam and Otterseal one-shot is already in the works.

Massacre of the Week - New Avengers Annual #2
Ooh, Steven Strange never shoulda taken Zom outta that bottle to battle the Hulk. When The Hood's hoods attack and things are looking bad, the Master of the Mystic arts snaps and lays out everyone in the room, heroes included. Looks like somebody doesn't have the power to court what he has called upon.

Biggest Deal - Captain America #34
Man, that Death of Captain America story really had legs. Unlike those guys! Get it, cause Bucky permanently crippled them! Oh, Marvel! Who's legacy won't you piss on?

Sympathy for a Skrull - Avengers: Initiative #9
This Skrull in disguise is sitting there being like "Oooh, if only they knew the power I held in this ring, things'd be different. They'd fear me, respect me! Soon, I'll show them my ring of power, and th....AAAACK!
Shit gets torn off.

Corniest Pun - What If? Spider-Man Vs. Wolverine
Alternate category: Best Panel Ever.

Most Needlessly Disturbing Image - Captain America #34
Jeez, I know things are rough in the Marvel Universe these days, but do we really need to see non-violent protesters at the gates of the White House get shot to bloody pieces by S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents? Okay, mind control, blah, blah, still, this is over the top, there's not even a point being made. The story just called for something to happen that would cause a PR crisis for Tony Stark, I see no reason to bring up the loaded associations that come with images of government agents firing guns into crowds of protesters. I see we're tastefully spared the sight of bullet-riddled female corpses, I guess that would be going too far.

Best Spin On A Classic - Wormwood: Gentleman Corpse #1
The superhero suit-up sequence has been parodied to death, and was probably killed for good by that butt-shot in Batman Forever. BUT, I've never seen the sheer childlike sense of empowerment these boys-and-their-toys montages evoke demonstrated as well as it is in that first panel.

Saddest Moment Ever - Y: The Last Man #60
SPOILER REMINDER
You can have your 355 death. That had nothing on this heartbreaking end of the road for two best friends. The last men.

More of Geekanerd's Panel Discussions...