Panel Discussion: Scans from Secret Six, Red Robin, Dark Reign: The List, and More!

Every week (usually) 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 for higher res.

Oh Hell No - Thunderbolts #135

Crazy unbelievable things happen all the time in comics, and this is how things should be. But every now and then there's a panel or two that just makes you go, "Oh hell no." These panels are fine examples. Lightsabers deflecting laser blasts, that I buy. Little metal bracelets attached to superhuman arms deflecting bullets, okay. But a thin metal blade deflecting a hail of near point-blank gun fire? You pushed me too far, comics. I just don't see it happening.

Best Punchline - Secret Six #13

So maybe this joke is actually not any funnier than any other bit in a Gail Simone book (it's a high bar), but the rarely used "PUNCHLINE SPOTLIGHT" really brings it home. If this were a cartoon, there'd be a wacky musical stinger and all the other Sixers would yell "waaaughh!" and fall down. This is why there should be a Secret Six cartoon. I will fund it.


Worst Peer Counseling - Red Robin #4

Regardless of whether or not Tim should be in therapy, Dick should not be suggesting it mid-fight as Tim throws a kick to his face. Tim is not likely to be receptive, and it's not going to defuse the the tension at that particular moment.

Most Unintentionally Hilarious Panel - Political Power - Barack Obama
But does young Barry Obama actually smoke that gigantic blunt? We'll never know, because this is the end of that scene. Either way, that picture of the beatifically young and innocent Mr. Obama with a huge joint in his face is totally awesome.

Best POV Shot- Secret Six #13
In case you ever wondered what it would be like to be Deadshot, here you go! Bursts of light, dead people, and bullet casings, in that order.

This one-panel sequence is just a idle daydream, but it's worth noting that in Deadshot's rebellion fantasy he kills his teammate Ragdoll along with his employers. Is that really necessary? I understand wanting to make a clean break of things, but Ragdoll tends to just go with the flow; I'm inclined to believe if Floyd decided to revolt against his employers (which I suspect he will by next issue), Ragdoll would switch sides just as easily - he's not much of a threat on his own anyway. I think the choice to include Ragdoll in the carnage is a way to indicating Floyd's distaste for the mission, and anyone who'd go along with it, despite how he himself has rationalized it.

Nitpick Alert - Red Robin #4
It's great that Tim hearts the troops, but I think he may be selling himself just a leeeettlle bit short here. This kid has taken on trained ninjas from the League of Shadows, not to mention all manner of alien/demon things during his Teen Titan adventures. I think he can handle a trio of soldiers.

Achievement in Rudeness - Dark Reign: The List #1

Context: Hawkeye (or Ronin or Clint or whatever) wants to pull a CIA style assassination on Norman Osbourne, cause why not!
DAMN! This is why people hate superheroes in your universe, Ms. Marvel. They're so damn superior! Can you please give whatshisname a real answer about why it's not okay to just kill Norman Osbourne? At least pull out the old "because we're better than that" or "it's a slippery slope" or "at what cost" or "who's next?". Don't just pick at your gloved fingernails and look at him like he just peed on the carpet. This is why I only read Marvel books for the villains.

Best Detail - Secret Six #13
Look, I know there are multiple scratches on the walls in Scandal's bedroom. She wears huge knives on her hands, it'll happen. I get that. But I just feel that it would be remiss not to point out that the wall above the headboard of her bed appears to be splintering apart. I appreciate that.

Panel Discussion: Scans from Wednesday Comics, Batman, Dark X-Men, and More

The Magic of Comics - Wednesday Comics This could be a silk screen print hanging on a gallery wall of a pop art exhibit. It looks unlike anything you expect to see in most mainstream superhero comics because it's extremely flat, the birds in the backgrounds almost just look like stamps or stencils, and yet there's a fantastic sense of dynamism. It gives up the illusion of movement and instead just gives us a single moment frozen in time. Kyle Baker rules.


Simile of the Week - Batman #688
For those of you who don't have amazing eyesight and don't want to click to enlarge, Dick is comparing wearing Batman's cape to "wearing a ball gown made of Kevlar". Judd Winick, every now and then you really come through. Dick's complaint is certainly valid, but how can anyone pass up a chance for effects like this?

Achievement in Character Design - Wednesday Comics
Karl Kerschl is pretty much my favorite comic artist working today. Here, he gives us Iris West in the classic newspaper comic style that inspired Wednesday Comics in the first place. The result is a strikingly beautiful character design that is on one level an homage to an older time, but the clean lines and quality of expression is timeless.
Even though Iris is emoting Roy Lichtenstein-esque pangs of lovesickness, Kerschl brings a gravity that keeps it away from camp, and allows these panels a sort of unironic dignity that really caught me by surprise.

Fun with Lighting - Dark X-Men #1
Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but to me this looks like a photo that was taken with almost no light, so the exposure had to be cranked way up. This would make the dark stuff visible, but the bright spots, such as the monitors, would be crazy blown out. Taking this image into that level of realism makes the freaky character design of Evil Beast all the more creepy.

Best Head Trip - Wednesday Comics
Ben Caldwell takes a simple concept (Wonder Woman suddenly finds herself in "the land of men" for the first time, with no idea how she got there), and makes it extremely trippy by ramping up the fish-out-of-water feeling by making our world seem as bizarre as any alien world seen in comics. The neon gaslight colors of this night cityscape make the whole thing seem like a terrible dream....and check out that Shreck building - is this taking place in the Tim Burtonverse?! Crazy!
Even something as familiar as a pigeon looks like a horrible alien when viewed through the eyes of someone who's never seen one before. Still kinda cute though.

Best Running Gag - Ms Marvel #40
Deadpool isn't even IN this panel, but his inner-panel-voice is still doing the editor's job of catching readers up on references to past issues. He does it a few time in the first part of the book, and you know when Deadpool does something more than once he's setting you up for an awesome joke...
Boom! Goodnight, everybody!

Panel Discussion: Scans from Dark Reighn: Fantastic Four, Superman/Batman, and Manhunter

Burn of the Week - Dark Reign: Fantastic Four #4
Valeria Richards, ladies in gentlemen. Totally unimpressed by Todd McFarland.

Banana Randomizer Award for Achievement in WTF - Superman/Batman #61

Mash-Up Madness! In this issue, pairs of Batman and Superman characters meld together to form various comical combos, such as Jimmy Two-Face and Lex Joker. But this metal "waddle-clicking" mob boss penguin skeleton thing...there's just no justifying that.

Unless...
It's MEPENGTELLAO! The mostly deadly of them all.

Best Actor - Streets of Gotham/Manhunter #1
Gordon continues to be the most likable Regular Joe in comics. This moment is small, but Geroges Jeanty gives Gordon a really cute look of flattered surprise when SuperLawyer gushes over their introduction. The classic Tie-Straighten move in the second panel is a great touch.

Panel Discussion: Scans from Fantastic Four: Dark Reign, Battle for the Cowl and Terror Inc

Warning: After the jump, the last panel of this post contains spoilers for the ending of Battle for the Cowl, ie who the new Batman is.

Worst Splash Panel - Terror Inc: Apocalypse Soon #2
The first series of Lapham's Terror Inc was great fun. But I am now realizing that a big part of what made this book cool and not ridiculous was the grimly realistic art by Patrick Zircher. Splash panels like the one above should have died in the 90s. The arc of the machine gun blast is like looking into another dimension where time and space have no meaning.

Reed Richards finally loses it, Batman is one cold sonofabitch, and Damian Wayne gets his bratty little way, after the jump...

Best Acting - Dark Reign: Fantastic Four #2
Here we see an alternate reality timeline in which Reed Richards, realizing that the formation of the Illuminati would lead to the current mess the Marvel U is in, decides to kill everyone to ensure the group is never formed. It worked! Here is what Reed's expression says to me: "I uh...okay. This - was this right? Yes. No. Yes. Hm. Oh boy. Ohhh boy. Hold it together Richards."

Clearest Example of Batman's Insanity - Battle for the Cowl #3
When making his video will, Batman thinks to himself; "I shall leave each of my adopted sons a special fatherly advise voicemail to cherish after I'm gone." So he records one for Tim and one for Dick, and then thinks to himself "Oh, Jason's alive now too, I guess I should record something for him. What would help him be less awful? I've got it - telling him he's the single biggest failure of my entire life will give him the motivational push he needs to start anew."

Batman, you should not be allowed around children or the mentally ill!

Also: note that at the end Bats says, "...but don't worry, I know this great doctor...." I like to think Bruce recorded this before the Black Casebook saga, and is in fact about to recommend his trusted physician Dr. Simon Hurt.

Banana Radomizer Award for Achievement in WTF - Battle for the Cowl #3
So the new Batman is Dick Grayson, and the new Robin is....DAMIAN WAYNE? Whaa? Um, Dick, I know you've been busy with your own career, but Damian is like, really, really evil. In fact you are actually the only member of the inner-circle Batfamily that he hasn't ALMOST SUCCEEDED in killing.

Look, he tries to kill Alfred earlier in this issue!

Um, Alfred, he'll do it.

First of all, why does Dick even NEED a Robin? He is a Robin. As Nightwing, he was both Batman...AND ROBIN. Teaming up with a homicidal tween seems like a step backwards in Dick's crime fighting career, and it's probably not good for his self-esteem either.

I also wonder what Tim is going to do with his nights, since he gave up being Robin to be Batman, and can now be neither. Oops! Guess you shouldn't have quit your Teen Titans dayjob, nerd!

Panel Discussion: Scans from Rasl, The Cabal, Runaways, and More

Every week Geekanerd throws their books in a scanner to bring you the best, worst, and weirdest panels from the week's comics. Moderate SPOILERS after the jump.

Project Runway Award - Ms. Marvel #38
Wow, Emma Frost. We all knew your original costume was purposefully sexy but...you just grabbed it out of one of those sleazoid porn/lingerie stores on 8th avenue? Girl could have at least paid for it, it probably cost like $30 bucks. Stay classy, Marvel!


Most Horriffic Death - Rasl #4
Make sure to click this for the full effect. These saliors crewed a ship that was teleported as part of a millitary experiment. But every sci-fi geek knows if there's one kind of future-tech you don't want to mess with before it's ready, and that's teleportation. The guy in the middle panel is the most horrifying, with the majority of his head and face stuck in an iron beam. The guy behind him is so scared he turned into The Scream!

Movie Moment - Runaways #10
Even superheroes like to pretend that they're Jedi.


Most Irresponsible Use of Superpowers - Ms Marvel #38
As previously seen in other Dark Reign titles, now that the Avengers team is staffed entirely with villains, cops on the Superhero Cleanup Beat will have to get used to dealing with a lot more corpses.

Banana Randomizer Award for Achivement in WTF - Runaways #10
In comics, the whole dramatic premise of "magic" is anything can happen at literally any time. In this climactic scene, the villian manages to steal whatsername's powerful staff, when a heretofore undiscovered giant dragon EXPLODES OUT OF IT and eats him alive. Problem solved!

Best Acting - Dark Avengers #4
Usually we don't give out the best actor award for one panel, and we ESPECIALLY don't give it out to a character as photo referenced as the new Tommy Lee Osborn. BUT: I just love Norman's expression in this issue-ending panel. I've really enjoyed Osborn since he's been on anti-psychotics (OR IS HE), we've seen him in a lot of very desperate moments that are generally rare in mainstream supervillians. His palpable fear at seeing the Sentry alive and well after being killed for like the BILLIONTH TIME is a nice moment to end on.

Panel Discussion: Comedy Edition! Scans From Dark Reign: Fantastic Four, Hack/Slash, Irredeemable and More!

One-Liner of the Week - Dark Reign: Fantastic 4 #2
Here we find the Fantastic Four in an alternate reality where Sue Storm holds court as a tyrannical monarch. The second panel of a monacled and dandified Thing contains the best one-liner of the week. It is perfect in it's corniness. If I had a Livejournal account, I would have just found a new icon.

Classic Gag - Deadpool: Games of Death #1
Okay this is more of an Samurai Movie Trope, but since it's in a Deadpool book it instantly BECOMES a comedy classic. I know I've seen this sort of move a million times in movies, but I couldn't think of one example. If you have one, please let me know in the comments. PS: Googling "cut in half samurai sword" returns some really unfortunate news articles.



Best Acting - Hack/Slash #21
This is another comedy classic! It's the old," dumb wimpy character freaks out and unadvisedly hits the superbadass character" bit. And everyone is like, "OH. SHIT." I particularly like Cassie's expression in the upper right hand corner. Shocked indignation, with just a tinge of homicidal rage. Love it.

Worst Superhero Names - Irredeemable #1
I sympathize with how hard it must be for writers to keep coming up with new superhero names everytime they want to invent an alternate reality to play around in. But to Scylla and Charybdis, I say if you are going to name yourself after some mythological monsters, try not to pick two that sound like STDs. And Gilgamos doesn't sound any better than Gilgamesh - let's drop the facade. Volt is fine, but I don't think citing this as parody excuses inventing yet another electricity powered black superhero.

Panel Discussion: Scans from Daredevil, Secret Six, Locke and Key, And More!

The Magic of Comics - Daredevil

Its been a long time since I've stumbled across an image this striking in a comic. The simplicity and economy of design on this page tells more of a story than the words... and that's comic book art at its best. This is a beautiful and simple way to sum up Kingpin's life as a supervillain in New York. My particular favorite is the subtle Bullseye within Daredevil... and notice he's holding Elektra's sai. They really jammed alot of history in a single, beautiful image.

Movie Moment - Dark Reign: Fantastic Four #1
Oh. Man. It's a fargate!

PS: I feel kind of bad that the only panel that I pulled from this fun and awesome issue by one of my favorite indie writers (Jonathan Hickman!) is just an excuse to make a stupid Aqua Teen Hunger Force joke. But honestly; why are people still making interdimentional portals look like Stargate? Have we reached the limits of our collective imagination when it comes to giant sci-fi gates?


The Magic of Comics Part Deux - Locke and Key: Headgames #3

This book never ceases to amaze. Here's an awesome (and rather hot) use of the repeated panel-a comic classic! In this case, bringing us from the realm of daydreamed fantasy to embarrassing reality. Notice her smile turns into a frown in the second panel. Classic!

Banana Randomizer Award for Achievement in WTF - Secret Six #7

Its easy to forget in a cloud of d-list super villains that Bane is as A-list as they come... he literally broke the Batman... very few villains in the DCU have street cred like that. Its nice to be reminded of that sometimes. But that's not what's crazy about this page-its Bane's venom fueled vision of the world that's nutty-go-crazy. Apparently when he's all juiced up, he sees the world as a series of twisted Batmen. Somebody's got some serious bat issues. Heh, be sure to look closely and check out the Ragdoll batman!


Most Hardcore Move - Terror Titans #6

So Clock King doesn't want to get to close to Ravager, cause his pre-cog skills don't work in close combat. So he throws these little saw-blade ball thingies at her, which for some reason she doesn't have time to dodge. So she just reaches out and CRUSHES them with her hands! KRAK! SMASH! That's some Wolverine shit right there, minus the sissy healing factor.

Clearest Example of Batman's Insanity - Gotham Gazette #1

If you can't see a lady in person, but still want to make an impression, what's a gentleman to do? Nothing says "refined elegance" like rigging suspending a champagne bottle from the ceiling and rigging the cork with a miniature explosive device so the cork explodes off when she gets home! JESUS CHRIST, BRUCE! Even from beyond the grave you embarrass us all with your horribly cold and twisted ideas of intimacy.

Best Line of the Week - Secret Six #7

It's great when comic characters are able to see beyond the absurdity of their situation and just speak bluntly for a change. Sometimes it takes no name D-list villains to get us there (is the Electorcutioner or something like that? Anyone?) The broken jawed mumblings of the shark dude are funny enough, but its the electric dope's blunt "screw this, I need a hospital" that takes the cake this week. Understandably, you'd be pretty fed up with all the convoluted BS going on in this scene too... he's the voice of the everyman-or at least, every man with shattered ribs and 3rd degree burns... I don't know what goes down in a super villain fight but I'm sure it hurts like a mofo.

Beatdown of the Week - Daredevil


David Aja has quickly climbed to the top of Geekanerd's fave artist list with his offering this week in Daredevil. As far as visual storytelling goes, this issue is top notch. You could erase every word bubble and narration box and completely understand what's going on. And the icing on this brilliant cake? A giant monster fat man fighting 3 dozen ninja! What more could you ask for in a single comic? Not only is the action dynamic and exciting, but Aja punctuates it with stark black, white, and red panels of weapons and blood-you can practically feel each strike. I love the black and white rising sun effect as the ninja nails Kingpin in the back. And to end it, the massive Kingpin is beautifully brought to his knees with katanas jutting from his back in a series of 5 panels. This is comic book fighting at its finest. Well done Mr. Aja.


Slashiest Exchange - Terror Titans #6
JUST KISS ALREADY! Actually, there's not much in the dialouge to suggest any slashiness, so don't even bother reading it. But let's just say I happen to know, FOR REASONS WHICH ARE TOO NUMEROUS AND CONVOLUTED TO EXPLAIN, that on the internet there exists a bizzare amount of of Rose/M'gann fic, so this exchange just sort of ping'd that on my radar screen. I'm just. Saying.

Panel Discussion: Scans from X-Men: Noir and Dark Reign

Celebrity Casting Corner - X-Men: Noir #1On the couch today are Tom Halloway and Remy Le Beau, played by The 39 Steps' Richard Hannay (Broadway version pictured) and Adrien Brody.

Computers have a bad influence on comic art, plus ugly Namor and Norman Osborn going insane, after the jump! (There may even be a bit of Darth Vader for those that stick around.)

(Mis)Adventures in Computer Coloring - X-Men: Noir #1 How do you ruin some decent linework? Why, by throwing some blurry uprezzed computer art and too-crisp Photoshop text behind it! (You may have to click that second one to see just how blurry that book cover is). Am I the only one that can. not. stand the use of computer text in comics for stuff like signs and books? The world of the comic is already being filtered through the pen of the artist, why make an exception for the text? It NEVER looks like it belongs.

Best Actor - Norman Osborn, Dark Reign #1
Oh hell yeah.

The Beer Goggles Are Off - Dark Reign #1
Eww, I thought Namor was supposed to be a hot, exotic Atlantean prince, not a slimy booky from the Bronx. Or some undesireable part of Europe. Or Hell. I mean, hot as fire Sue Storm has a mad crush on this guy! I like to think that every FF book he's in, we see him as Sue sees him, and since she's not in this book we see him as he really is. OR Atlanteans have the ability to cast a charm spell like a vampire's thrall, and he's been projecting how he'd like to be seen into everyone's mind, but since he just walked into a room with superpsyche Emma Frost and magically-enhanced Dr. Doom, all that bullshit has gone out the window. What do we think?

Look Familiar? - Dark Reign #1
It's not just me, right? There are certain images that are as part of the geek consciousness as the Last Supper is to all those other schlubs. Totally Doom Vader.