This Week In Comics: 04/12/2006

[Clayface]

Welcome to This Week in Comics for April 12th, 2006 - April 18th, 2006!

This is the place to discuss the comics you've bought this week, whether it be a brand new title or old back-issues. We also welcome and encourage talk about comics in general - news you've read on comic news sites, the state of the industry in general, upcoming issues you're excited about, etc. All we ask is that you please use spoiler brackets in the event that your comments get too detailed concerning a particular storyline. This way the book won't be ruined for anyone who hasn't read it yet.

For a list of the new items shipping this week, please consult Diamond Comics' Shipping List (http://www.diamondcomics.com/shipping/shipping_041206.txt).

To find a comic book store near you, check out the Comic Shop Locator Service (http://csls.diamondcomics.com/).


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Highlights of the Week!



Ace the Bathound's Picks:

http://www.eviltwincomics.com/action/images/ap5small.jpg (http://www.eviltwincomics.com/action/ap5.php)
Action Philosophers #5: Hate the French



Clayface's Picks:

http://www.dccomics.com/media/covers/5149_180x270.jpg (http://www.dccomics.com/comics/?cm=5149).....http://www.dccomics.com/media/covers/5012_180x270.jpg (http://www.dccomics.com/comics/?cm=5012)
American Virgin #2.....................Desolation Jones #6



randomguy's Pick:

http://www.dccomics.com/media/covers/4940_180x270.jpg
Batman: Dark Detective TPB


wonderfly's Pick:

http://www.marvel.com/comics/onsale/covers/0406/SONOFM005_flcov_sm.jpg
Son of M #5 (of 6)





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[wonderfly]

My pick of the week goes to Son of M #5. Perhaps the best thing to come out of the "House of M" miniseries, every issue of this title finds new ways to "shock and awe" me! Every issue shows Quicksilver turning into the pariah of the Marvel universe, and how he deals with it isn't looking pretty. :eek: The story is radically altering the status quo of several favorite Marvel characters, and leaves me wondering if next issue there will be a "reset button", or whether Marvel will have the courage to stick with some of these changes. If so, I can only sit back in shock and applaud them.

[Ed Liu]

Howdy,

I came very, very close to naming Thunder Monkey #1 (http://www.midtowncomics.com/eshop/pop_product.asp?sKey=thunder+monkey&crypt=HPcog?%28NPcog?%28WugtKF?:5288:;3;%28WutPcog?%28WutV%7Brg?%28WutNgxgn?&ADV=2&SearchCat=&CT_PARID=61&PRID=42900&CGID=78&mysearch=yes&Page=&Ref=Search&InCart=0) as one of my Picks of the Week simply because of the name and the cover, but I didn't pre-order it and would probably need to take a good, hard look at it before I bought it.

Still, it's a great name, innit? There's another one at the end of this mini-Pile of Links.

Those with particularly long memories will recall Ronee Garcia Bourgeois' posting earlier this year about a sexual assault case earlier this year that happened at a comic convention. Her column this week (http://popcultureshock.com/features.php?id=1357) names the victim (if not the assailant) of the assault, and kicks off the Friends of Lulu Empowerment Fund, which aspires to do for sexual harassment and assault cases in the comic book industry what the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund does for free speech cases.

Jeff Smith babbles (http://www.comicon.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=36;t=005004) about the Scholastic Bone reprints (which rock), the new Bone video games (which don't play on a Mac yet -- Smith had to buy a PC to play them, if you can believe that), and the Captain Marvel mini-series he's doing for DC, which sounds like he's finishing before they solicit to avoid any undue delays. Seeing as the project is 2 years late already, I can't say I miss it yet.

Check out Steven Grant's latest Permanent Damage column (http://www.comicbookresources.com/columns/index.cgi?column=pd&article=2426) for his take on comic book artist Dan Barry, who he claims is one of the defining comic book artists of his generation despite very few people knowing of him now. I was totally blown away by this Vigilante splash page (http://www.comicbookresources.com/news/preview.php?image=pd/20060412/pd20060412_02.jpg) by Barry, and am now really curious to learn more about him. Grant does also bring up a good point about growth and development (or lack thereof) of modern day comic book artists (to which I say "Stuart Immonen," but that's another story).

Finally, a borderline "Comic Book Science" link. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Urban Combat Skateboard (http://www.defensetech.org/archives/002321.html). Not a hoax. Not a "What If?" Not an imaginary story. There's a MIGHTY big image (http://www.dodmedia.osd.mil/Assets/2000/Marines/DM-SD-00-02959.JPEG) you can download from the Department of Defense. "Urban Combat Skateboard" is almost as cool a phrase as the "Tactical Atomic Bullet (http://static.flickr.com/48/128229722_ceb8adc934_o.jpg)" Grant Morrison tossed into a JLA arc. Except you can't do some Seriously Mad Grinds with a Tactical Atomic Bullet. Somebody in comic books MUST be armed with an Urban Combat Skateboard sometime very, very soon.

-- Ed/Ace

[wonderfly]

http://www.cosmicclutter.com/store/images/t_9669.jpg

Red Sonja vs. Thulsa Doom #1, (of 4):

As I just finished reading "Book of Thoth" last week, I figured it was worth reviewing another miniseries starring another Conan-verse baddie.

Quick History Lesson:

In the original Robert E. Howard stories, Thulsa Doom was originally a King Kull villian, (Kull was Conan's ancestor, from about 8,000 years prior to when Conan lived). Doom, as presented in that original story, was an undead sorcerer, (when not wearing one of his disguises, the story described him as a Skeletor lookalike!). In 1980, Hollywood decides to make Doom the villian of the first Conan movie. They decided to play up on Doom's ties to the Snake Men of Set, (thus all of the snake imagery in the movie). Doom quickly follows suit in the comic books, by becoming a reaccuring villian to Conan in the Marvel comics, (his surviving to Conan's age rationalized through Doom being undead). Fast forward to today, and all of the Howard characters have been divided between Dark Horse, (which published Conan) and Dynamite Entertainment, (which published Red Sonja). Thulsa Doom somehow ended up in Sonja's company, and thus, Dynamite's decided that it's worth doing a "versus" miniseries.

Now, for all of the detailed history which I just laid out, this miniseries chooses to ignore all of it. What we have here is a straight up "versus" tale, with Doom's army raiding and pillaging Hyrkania, (reports of which draw Sonja home to her native land, ready to defend it). This first issue is really one big long fight scene, and we get little of Doom's history, (though we do get brief glimpses of Sonja's past, growing up in Hyrkania). It's apparent that Dynamite wanted to keep things simple and just go off of people's memories of the first Conan movie, (the Doom we see here clearly resembles a young James Earl Jones), but this ignores the rich history of the original Howard tales.

Once again, I'm left wondering why Dynamite Entertainment chooses to use these characters, (Red Sonja, and now Thulsa Doom) if they don't want to clearly use the backdrop of Howard's Hyborian Age. If they're going to have a Doom commanding an army sacking Hyrkania, at least tell where the army comes from!! Give us the history of Doom! Give us Sonja's history in Hyrkania!! Over on the Conan title, Kurt Busiek's strength is in his use of Howard's creations, using the smallest of passing comments in Howard's old tales to weave together a rich tapestry of continuity. Dynamite's stories read more like timeless action pieces, (there's no real hint at where this takes place in Sonja or Doom's lives...is this early in Sonja's career? Early in Doom's reign of villiany??).

All that aside, the story has some nice artwork, and the painted covers by Gabrielle Del'Otto are lovely to behold.

Grade: C+

[BlackCat]

Since I just recently received my pull list, my thoughts are a little late on some of these issues. Although I tried to avoid spoilers, much of what I read didn't surprise. However, I've been mostly impressed with DC's IC/OYL work.

Teen Titans Annual #1 - Even though the main plot point I've heard about was the Conner/Cassie scene, I thought this served as a good IC fill-in and some great character development. With Cyborg and Starfire gone, seeing Robin step up and take charge of the Titans and the Bludhaven recovery was appropriate. Getting a look at Conner's thoughts and motivations, especially with his recent self-identity issues, was a nice touch that rounded out his character and made his death more impactful.

Teen Titans #33 - Some great Nightwing/Superboy moments. Didn't really have much else except to fill-in the IC gaps. With all the things I've heard about Nightwing OYL, it puzzles me how much things changed for Dick, especially since he, Bruce, and Tim went on that trust-building trip.

Infinite Crisis #6 - Things are wrapping up nicely. Much like the other major events in IC, it all feels very rushed. The Superboy fight and death should've had more elaboration than what it received.

Robin #148 - After hearing so many great things about Robin OYL, I decided to check out what the fuss was about. Much like with Batman and Detective, it's great just seeing Gotham return to status quo. Seeing Tim and Bruce act like real people again is an impressive feat itself. Although not completely original, I like the detective path Beechen is taking the series. He has me optimistic.

Teen Titans #34 - Nice recap on what's happened post-crisis. Although I heard Johns comment about the Wonder Twins appearing, I definitely wasn't expecting what I saw. I'm also curious where Robin's cloning experiments are going to lead.

Catwoman #53 - I commend Pfiefer for trying to appease both the old and new Catwoman fans, but it's just not working too well. I still think making Selina pregant was the wrong way to go OYL, but at least they're attempting to doing it justice. I couldn't care less about the other half of the issue dedicated to Holly/East End/goggle-suit.

Batman #651/Detective #818 - Like what I said earlier, I'm just glad Gotham is returning to a state of normalcy not seen in a very long time. That alone has me praising Robinson.

[Ed Liu]

Howdy,

Attention G.I. Joe fans: Scarlett is getting an origin story (http://www.newsarama.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=67148). My interest in this is purely due to Phil Noto's artwork, starting with the absolutely killer cover image (http://www.newsarama.com/devilsdue_new/Scarlett_noto.jpg) that's included with the article. It is not, I repeat NOT, due to any kind of boyhood crush I had on Scarlett.

Honest.

...

I'm a rotten liar, aren't I?

While I'm here and babbling about artists I like, Cliff Chiang gets featured on Comicon.com's PULSE News (http://www.comicon.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=36;t=005009). I'm not as taken with his new Spectre stuff, though.

There's going to be a CSI comic book that will take place at a comic convention to solve the murder of "Who Killed Rich Johnston?" (http://www.comicbookresources.com/news/newsitem.cgi?id=7105) Apparently, several known comics luminaries such as Joe Quesada and Peter David will be drawn in-story. According to IDW chief Chris Ryall, "we wanted to find some way to get comic fans involved who may not pick up the comic regularly." Mission accomplished, I think.

Brian K. Vaughan interview at CHUD.com (http://www.chud.com/index.php?type=interviews&id=6437). Long, but really good.


Dynamite's stories read more like timeless action pieces, (there's no real hint at where this takes place in Sonja or Doom's lives...is this early in Sonja's career? Early in Doom's reign of villiany??).
I suppose that's a fair criticism, but I've always viewed Marvel's Conan as a step removed from the Howard source material, and Red Sonja a step even further removed. As a result, ignoring Howard source material isn't as much of a problem for me in the new Sonja comics, since I've never really strongly associated her with Howard. Having just plowed through all her original 70's Marvel comics, it doesn't really take much to extract her from that world entirely, which is what Dynamite has had to do for the most part due to ownership issues.

This is probably why I liked the RS vs. TD issues better than you did. I was puzzled initially why they'd introduce Thulsa Doom in the first place, since it seems that it's only going to confuse the issue of who owns Red Sonja and who belongs where. However, I think the comic does a decent job of making him an effective fantasy story bad guy independent of whatever they did with him in other works.

However, I am punting anything from Dynamite for at least the rest of the year, since I'm still annoyed at how badly they bungled being a comic book publisher for nearly all of last year. How Diamond could possibly name them "Best New Publisher of 2005" (http://www.newsarama.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=65832) when their flagship titles didn't manage to ship until 2006 is utterly beyond me.

-- Ed/Ace

[Max Mercury]

Brian K. Vaughan interview at CHUD.com (http://www.chud.com/index.php?type=interviews&id=6437). Long, but really good.
-- Ed/Ace

Thanks, that was really good. Few things I liked from the article:

- Vaughan mentioned how he wanted to keep his stories/universes as self-contained as possible and try to limit the crossovers in books like Runaways. I think this is one of the reasons why his writing is so popular with new readers, and its something that I'd like to see in more books.

- I also liked how the interviewer commented on how Sandman kind of grew beyond its own constraints to find an audience entirely outside of comics. With one of my roommates getting into Sandman and another one already a big Sandman fan (and neither being comics fans), I can definately attest to how these kinds of stories reach far beyond the traditional targeted audience.

- I'm also glad they're giving him a shot at writing the Y: The Last Man screenplay.

[randomguy]

I finally bit the bullet and bought Action Philosophers the day it came out, instead of waiting a period of a few weeks to pick it up whenever it was convenient, which has previously been my system. And I'm glad I did... it's a funny and very informative issue which finally, finally, finally allows me to understand Descartes, who I've been grappling with for years. Yes, years. I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed.

Other than that, it was a slow week for me. It's been a long time since I posted, so I'm going to go with super-quick updates on all the superhero books I regularly read and review here in TWIC so I can get back to regular next week. With that: Captain America has an anniversary special that's beautifully illustrated and loads of fun, Young Avengers continues to incorporate Marvel history in a great way, Ultimate X-Men is more solid superteam soap opera, the Batman OYL titles are solid although Superman is excellent, Jonah Hex is depressing and ugly and grim and all the better for it, She-Hulk has lots of cute romance stuff going on right now, Green Lantern bored me, and Superman/Batman is incomprehensible and awful but I've come this far so I might as well ride it out till the end of Loeb's run.

Whew.