Needing to know about comic

Its Friday, April 1, 2011, I feel pretty guilty, and this is The Side. Anyone who reads this thing on the regular knows I'm pretty opinionated, and there's certain folks I give a hard time to, but typically I don't genuinely wish ill on people. So when I found out that Lady Gaga passed away yesterday due to sudden and extreme anaphylaxis brought on by something in one of her outfits, I wasn't gleeful about it. I'm sure she'll have many devastated fans, and I hope her friends and family can find some comfort in this time of grief.

COMIX!!

ACTION COMICS #899 starts things off for us this week. We have another fill in artist for Pete Woods, which is a bit of a bummer, but Jesus Merino is pretty sharp. This is the issue that brings together everything that has been going on in this storyline. We've been treated to a highly entertaining world tour of the DCU with Lex Luthor being an incredibly engaging protagonist with his sidekick, Robo-Lois. There's been a lot of questions as to what was going on. What were this black sphere's that Luthor was questing after? What would happen when and if he got all of them? Did he know we was walking into a trap set by Brainiac? Would Robo-Lois make it out of this story, because we all really love her and hope she does? Who is Mister Mind working for? We get all the answers here. How good has this story been? I've gotten every issue and I'm still going to be buying the trade when it comes out because I want all this awesomeness in one easily to grab place.

Onward to JIMMY OLSEN #1 which collects the back-ups from ACTION COMICS and completes the story. This book came about in a weird way. ACTION COMICS was serving up Paul Cornell's Lex Luthor epic and with Nick Spencer's Jimmy Olsen story as an awesome side dish. This back up story got some press because it officially introduced Chloe Sullivan from SMALLVILLE into official DCU canon. Dc stopped doing back-up in their books so they could do their $2.99 price cap (which I'm very grateful for since I am poor white trash). So, this story was going to be collected in the issue we have this week, but since them Nick Spencer signed exclusively with Marvel. So this comic is all about things DC isn't having anymore of. Which is unfortunate, because its really awesome. I had a conversation with some friends in that we determined that we like that Jimmy Olsen is just "That guy that these weird things happen to". That's all this is. Just a complete ton of completely weird stuff hitting one guy in the space of a week. If its gotten under your radar thus far, do yourself a favor and go buy this book.

DETECTIVE COMICS #875 continues the chilling tale concerning the return of Commissioner Gordon's son James. Scott Snyder and Francesco Francavilla outdo themselves here. And old murder mystery with Gordon's family right in the middle of it as years later a criminal's confession may mean Jim Gordon had made the worst decision of his life. We don't see much of Batman here, but frankly that's fine. This is a double-tough detective story, and Francavilla settings the tone in amazing fashion. This is such a pot boiler. Its sedated, and well paced, but absolutely engaging. Brilliant stuff.

TEEN TITANS #93 introduces new hero Solstice to the team. Nicola Scott is back doing the pencils and its great to have her back. Red Robin leads to team to investigate the disappearance of Solstice's parents in some ancient ruins. Krul is being really good about not falling into the trap of putting Raven in the middle of every story she's involved in, and that's great. Solstice is a very nice character, but a bit of an "Anti-Raven". Her power set and open attitude make her a polar opposite, but at the same time she's very charming and a nice cast addition. Krul's definitely improved his game since last year's Arsenal debacle. Glad to see it.

Let's wrap things up with ZATANNA #11. Jamal Igle jumps on board to help wrap up the case of the murderous puppeteer. I love this guy's work. Its like this week knew i was going to be disappointed that Pete Woods wasn't on Action, so it gave me Igle to help sooth me. Paul Dini continues to please. This is really a rock solid book, and is doing a great job at establishing Zee away from ensemble casts. I'm looking forward to seeing where things will be going now that Brother Night has returned.

MUSIC!!!

Great tune.



That's all for today. I'll see y'all Sunday, and do hope that Lady Gaga can rest in peace.

"So you're saying... that's me lying there."

It's Friday, October 29, 2010, It finally got cold out, and this is The Side. Time for a bit of Nozz History.

Last time we talked about age limits on trick-or-treating and how that was the norm for me growing up. I only really lived in two areas when i was a kid and both those spots had cut off ages for trick-or-treating. So where was I on the last year I could legally trick-or-treat? San Miguel Marine Base in the Philippines!

The advantages to being on a military on Halloween night are simple. The houses are packed pretty tightly together and most of those were duplexes. Also the base had security, so my parents were cool with me striking out on my own to trick-or-treat. For a long legged kid well motivated by a powerful sweet tooth, that's a winning combination. My costume was a very simple one: it was my karate gi with a mask. We had a two hour window to trick-or-treat. In that time I had covered the majority of the base and managed to load up two whole bags with candy to the point of them nearly over flowing. I still had Halloween candy all the way until the next Easter.

What got interesting was walking home and I ran into my buddy, Joe. Joe was a Filipino kid about my age who lived off base, but was frequently allowed on base to hang out. Nice enough guy, but a bit surprised by seeing me in a mask. You see, he had no idea what Halloween was. He was pretty amped to try to get my candy. That wasn't going to happen and I told him to get his own and this led to me explaining the trick-or-treating process and lending him my mask and a bag after I dumped the candy into my gi jacket. The first house was a riot.

Joe: "You are messing with me."

Me: "No. I swear this works."

Joe: "So I ring the doorbell, and when they come to the door I hold out the bag and... what do I say again?"

Me: "Trick or treat."

Joe: "Trick or treat."

Me: "You got it."

So he rang the doorbell and waited.

Joe: "I'm going to kick your ass if you're screwing with me."

But the lady came to the do, he recited his line, and bingo, candy in the bag. We hit about twenty houses. I had to explain Jack O'Lanterns as he thought there might be candy in there. But once we got back to my house, he loaded up all the candy he got into his pockets and thanked me profusely for telling him all about "the coolest holiday ever".

SPOOKY COMIX!!

Let's start with the end, and by the end I mean death, and by death I mean ACTION COMICS #894. Lex Luthor is sort of a little bit dead. As such he meets Death. As one could probably predict, he's not terribly glad to see her. In fact, the whole situation is completely unacceptable to Lex. Death is pretty understanding about it and they have a nice conversation about the matter. Despite the tag line on the David Finch cover saying "Death in Action" there's pretty much no action in the entire book. However, this was utterly riveting. This was easily far and away my read of the week. I'm not a Neil Gaiman fan, and not because I dislike him, but because his work never really grabbed me, so having his interpretation of Death in here, while novel, isn't the selling point. Its Lex Luthor's reaction to his own demise that makes this book sing.



Also, Lex is kinda a freak. Just sayin'.

Moving on, DETECTIVE COMICS #870 also hit this week. The big reveal I predicted two months ago was revealed in completely predictable manner. This was immediately followed by our bad spilling his guts about his motivation and coming off as the biggest douche ever. It felt like Hine was imitating JMS's crap SUPERMAN story with the "why couldn't you save my loved one, you asshole" bit. I'm expecting Hine to write batman walking across the country now. The story was with gory detail hitting the reader smack in the face with exactly how horrible the loved one in question died. This whole story has gone straight to hell since the beginning. Completely awful and if Hine's frankly if I see Hine's name on anything else, I'm going to pass on it. That's how bad this issue was. It turned me against a writer.

In lighter news, I grabbed up TEEN TITANS #88 because I am a big Nicola Scott fanboy. I absolutely adore Scott's work. I had dropped this title due to it being pretty damn lame, but I couldn't pass this up. J.T. Krul is the new writer on the book, and this is the first thing of his I've read. The roster has been streamlined a bit to Superboy, Wonder Girl, Beast Boy, Kid Flash, Raven, and Ravager. The current Robin, Damien Wayne, is set to join up too. This book was a pretty good time, and I'm definitely on board with it for now. The characters were all likable and well handled. I don't really dig the romantic tension between Connor and Cassie, but that's because I want that coupling to work out. I also dig how Krul handles Kid Flash. Good stuff.

ATOMICA #2 hit this week. This was interesting in that the issue was split into two separate stories. It kind of gave it an old school ARCHIE COMICS kind of feel to it. The stories were pretty light-hearted fair as well. In “The Time Loop Team Up”, Atomica is up against the dreaded Captain Doom. I think his name is the most dreadful part, but he’s pretty formidable. There’s just enough plot to get us to the fight itself, something about that bad ol Captain trying to steal something from Doctor Colluns. What is interesting in here is Atomica gets saved by herself. Literally. It seems her Atomic Power Pendant gives her limited time travel powers, so she popped back from the near future to help defeat Captain Doom and after the win the one that got saved popped back in time to help her past self. Stephen Hawking would probably get up and walk if he read that one. The other story was a bit less trippy. “Atomica’s Day Out” featured her in her secret identity, Rose Lockhart, out and about in the city. It was pretty tame with her shopping and enjoying the park. She met a guy, Ray Ringer, who may or may not end up a love interest. Ray was sketching at the park, and Rose was admiring his work when I random giant spider attacked. I guess that’s what giant spiders do. It was pretty amusing to see such a calm pedestrian story take such a sudden weird twist. This issue was really a lot of fun. So far its surviving my “three issue” test.

SPOOKY MUSIC!!

Because its that time of year, I had to include something from local musician and spooky dude Lucan Wolf.



That's all for now. See you on Halloween!

Bieber's Cowboy Caterpillar Crisis!

Great Caesar's Ghost, its Friday, July 30, 2010, and I'm talking weird smack lately.

Putting the kids to bed...

"If you don't get in those beds and stay in them so help me I'll whup you both until you have to repeat pre-school!"

Dealing with cashiers...

Cashier: "How are you today, sir?"

Me: "I dunno. I had all these plans for today, but some guy rocketed to Earth as a baby from a doomed planet keeps screwing up everything? That ever happen to you?"

COMIX!!

Right now Lex Luthor is so much cooler than Superman its not even funny. ACTION COMICS #891 was the read of the week. Bobby Fresh was stunned that he was picking up a Superman book this week when I saw him at Kings. We all told him "Its not a Superman book. Its a Lex Luthor book and its awesome." Paul Cornell is just kicking complete ass on this. Right now the main Superman title is boring as hell, and really needs to take some cues from what's going on here. While Straczynski has Superman walking around dealing with "real world issues" and being kind of a douche about it, Cornell has Luthor matching wits Mister Mind in a COWBOY CATERPILLAR CRISIS! It a completely wild and all out fun tour through the brain of Lex Luthor, as well as offering a bit of a tribute to the entire Bruce Wayne bouncing through time bit. Read it, because its awesome. And Robo-Lois rules.

Quick note to anybody who wants to step up with an argument about how Straczynski's run is superior because of the realism it brings to storytelling and the intellectual content: Fuck off. If I want realism, I'll watch the news, or the History Channel. These are comic books. Superhero comic books. I want big damn action! I want asses kicked! I want evil thwarted, or at least being really freaking fun to watch. I don't want a guy who wrestled the King Angel of the Bullhost and sang the God of Evil into submission walking down the street being utterly pedestrian. OK, that note wasn't so quick.

BATMAN: THE RETURN OF BRUCE WAYNE #4 hit this week as well. The mystery of the time traveling Dark Knight goes gun-slinging as he goes up against Jonah Hex. Each issue has dealt with Wayne reclaiming an different aspect of what made him Batman. This time it dealt with his grit and dogged determination to see evil doers brought to justice. The veil is lifted a bit as we see some more clues as to The Black Glove's role in things. There are two things bothering me. Both are minor. First, we haven't seen anything of Rip's Rescue Rangers in two issues and last we left them the universe was ending. Second is the art. Not that I don't like Georges Jeanty's artwork it's just that there's so much going on and a lot of it is visual clues that I wish there was one artist to make picking up on things easier. But the tale moves onward, and so does Wayne, which may be a good thing because those super villains ain't resting while he's gone.

Speaking of Batman, DETECTIVE COMICS #867 started a new storyline which has me hooked in. David Hine is a bit hit and miss with me, but when he's got me, he's got me good. This story has nothing to do with the Morrison "The Once and Future Batman" story, so readers can jump right in. I dig it because there's a team-up with The Question that makes it look really natural like it happens all the time. I also like that we've got Scott McDaniel drawing Batman again. I loved his NIGHTWING run, and his art isn't to everyone's taste, but I've always thought he was a great fit in the Bat-corner of the DCU.

On to unpleasantness. I read WONDER WOMAN #601 so now you don't have to. This story is crap. Its actually worse than the Jodi "Derp, I dunno how to pump gas, derp" Piccoult run. Its like a really lousy Elseworlds story. And I know this isn't permanent and once this runs a ways things will be set right with WW's proper origin restored, but really we don't need to see the character drug through the gutter for people to realize how special the character is. Last issue Gail Simone gave us "Keep faith, trust to love, fight with honor, but fight to win." This month Straczynski gives us "I'm going to kill them. I'm going to kill all of them." That's on top of Hyppolyta committing suicide by jumping to a fire and burning to death as she cursed her enemies, and a thug dressed a clown in an ice cream truck expressing a desire to shoot a little boy.

Shame on you J. Michael Straczynski. Shame on you for making me leave this comic which I used to support with every bit of my geek heart.

THE BIEBER REPLACEMENT!!

Sitting around the house the other day I did some channel surfing. The loin spawn were distracted by toys so I was happy to watch something besides PBS. I landed on The Ellen Show where there was some kid on the piano getting ready to sing. People were cheering and young girls were going bonkers. The song was lame and ridiculous that some 11 year old was singing about a girl breaking his heart when he looks like he's still slightly worried about cooties. And of course he's coming out with an album. It quickly became obvious that this kid, Greyson Chance, was created in a lab in Hollywood to replace the aging Justin Bieber.

Let's face it, Bieber ain't getting any younger. He can't keep posing on those Tiger Beat covers forever. Heard a rumor he's actually driving now and this won't do. Won't be long until he's just another burned out has-been hanging onto his past as he's mistaken for a lesbian.

Chance has every advantage over Bieber. He made is big splash singing a Lady Gaga song so that's going to attract the weirdos thinking this kid has depth and soul because they think Lady Gaga music has some mysterious brilliance to it. He's got a much cooler name, which is totally wasted on a pop star and would better suite an action movie star or comic book character. Imaging preparing to due epic battle with Greyson Chance and then actually seeing the kid. It would be a bit of a let down. You prepare to do epic battle with Justin Bieber and you know just from the name that the battle is going to be less than epic. Much less.

AIRING ALL THE LAUNDRY

I dumped Facebook a while back and I'm really glad I did. More people's info got leaked to the public. Just remember this: anything you put on Facebook will be made available to public. Forget privacy settings. They're worthless. If there is something you don't want out in the public eye you're better off keeping it off the web altogether.

MUSIC!!

I'm going to continue to give you people a break from my taste in music and mine a little more from Pickle's Pantry Parlour! Enjoy.



That's it for today. Remember: TGIF. Tiny gnomes in fuchsia.

Wonder Woman dances in HELL!

Alrighty, its Friday, July 2, 2010, and today I'm getting my nerd on.

COMIX!!

OK, let's start with the big one: WONDER WOMAN #600. This of course rounds out the trifecta of centennial issues of the trinity of super-heroes, and unfortunately this one did not make it through without big funny book controversy. I'll get to that in a second, but first I want to focus on everything great about this issue.

First off, it featured some really great pin-ups by some of the hottest talent in comics. This includes work by Adam Hughes, Nicola Scott, Phil Jimenez and many others. The double page pin-up by Jimenez gets a special nod because in it we get to see almost everything related to Wonder Woman in one picture. He really outdid himself. It also has a nice little forward by Lynda Carter, which was pretty cool. The first story by Gail Simone and George Perez featured a ton of guest stars and was a who's who of the ladies of the DCU. And it wrapped around into a very fitting and quite touching little story after all the butt kicking was done. Next up was a little team-up with Power Girl thanks to Amanda Connor which was a lot of fun and a real treat. Then there was a team-up with Superman served up by Louise Simonson.

And then things get ugly.

The next story was seeming really off and weird. It was like it trying to talk about the character of Wonder Woman from the perspective of two people who didn't quite understand her but though that they did. Its supposed to be the prelude for the next Wonder Woman story. And then I see the credits. Geoff Johns: writer.

Oh crap.

And then the J. Michael Stracynski story kicks in and and I'm ready to throw up my hands in frustration. I had heard that Stracynski's THOR run had been good, so I had some consolation when I found out Gail Simone was leaving the book. And we have our new Wonder Woman. And its wrong in just about every way. I don't want to be this guy. I don't want to be the douchebag who gets pissed off when a writer decides to take a character in a different direction and gives them a new costume. But, this whole thing is just a bad idea from top to bottom.

The entire Wonder Woman story has been reimagined. Everything in that beautiful piece of work by Phil Jimenez never happened. The stories preceding this one in that very same issue high lighting everything that is just so great and awesome about the character are washed away. People used to wonder how she fought in the old costume. That's easy, the old costume was not cumbersome. She had complete freedom of movement. I'm wondering how she even gets into the new outfit.

In an interview Stracynski said that the character needed to be toughened up. The top hand-to-hand fighter in DC comics needed to be toughened up. The woman who kicks Batman's ass needed to be toughened up. She also needed to be modernized. So the character that is a link to mythology and the past in the genre needs to be modernized. Oh, and she gets a new and "improved" tragic origin now.

This the way it is set up, it seems like Wonder Woman has been dropped into some weird pocket dimension, so one she finds her way out things will return to normal. Also, hopefully this won't have an effect on Donna Troy or Wonder Girl, because if history has change in this fashion for Wonder Woman then the entire DCU is effected and not in a good way. So here's hoping the foresight has been there to keep this little experiment centered in one book.

So Stracynski is responsible for stories that will make Superman more human and Wonder Woman more modern and tough. He can go back to Marvel, the sooner the better, because he seems to not understand what works for these characters.

This while our heroes are in store for some pretty shabby treatment coming up, ACTION COMICS #890 hit the stands this week featuring none other than Lex Luthor. Its freaking awesome. While i don't care one lick about the Hal Jordan and his techni-color dance party-a-go-go which was "Blackest Night" there has been one very interesting thing come out of it: Lex Luthor has a new hobby. Penned by Paul Cornell, this Luthor is still a completely evil prick, but my God is he an enjoyable one. He's egotistical and just a complete bastard. Its like if Greg House decided, 'You know what? This whole helping people and dealing with my pain has gotten old. Its time to take over the world." Love it. Love it. LOVE IT!!

BREAK IT DOWN!!

This is what happens when reality TV goes above and beyond the call of duty. On SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE ballet dancer Alex Wong was made to do hip hop and partnered with Twitch Boss, the first guy/guy partnering the season. Alex was absolutely beside himself be cause everything he has been trained to do as a dancer had to be cast right out the window and he was partnered with one of the top hip hop dancers you're going to find. A recipe for disaster, but how did it turn out?

MUSIC!!

And now a little dedication. This one goes out to the YouTube used whole randomly sent me nine videos to let me know that Hell exists that I need to accept Jesus Christ as my personal savior. I did not watch the videos as I'm pretty sure that they contain BATMAN AND ROBIN with Schwarzenegger as Mister Freeze is its entirety. However it didn't contain this video, so I'm just helping out the misguided do-gooder.

POP QUIZ!!

1: What do you think of the new Wonder Woman costume?

2: Who is your favorite bald dude?

3: What is your favorite style of dance?

That wraps things up for today. Remember to check out UFC 116 this Saturday because the main event should be awesome. Enjoy the weekend. See you Sunday.