This Week In Comics: 08/23/2006

[Clayface]

Welcome to This Week in Comics for August 23rd, 2006 - August 29th, 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.

To find a comic book store near you, check out the Comic Shop Locator Service.

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Highlights of the Week!



Ace the Bathound's Picks:

..............
Action Philosophers #6: People's Choice...........Boneyard Vol. 5 TPB............



Clayface's Picks:

.........
....Eternals #3 (of 6)........Fallen Angel Vol. 1 TP



wonderfly's Pick:


Batman and the Mad Monk #1 (of 6)

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[wonderfly]

Just a quick note for our weekly comic book talkback viewers here on the CBC forum:

Our friendly neighborhood "Spider-Man" is on a temporary vacation away from the forum for right now. As he's usually the one who starts up many of the weekly talkback threads, I figured I'd put out a call for others to step up and post some of the weekly talkbacks for Spider-Man while he's gone. I'd also like to take this moment to remind you that though Spider-Man starts up many of the more popular talkbacks, (mostly Marvel titles, I believe) you don't have to rely on Spider-Man to post talkback threads for you: If there's a comic that you believe deserves a talkback thread, feel free to start one up yourself! Just make sure you contribute to the talkback thread you start. That way we'll have your thoughts on the comic along with a thread where we can discuss our thoughts as well.

[Stu]

I believe I've covered everything that Spider-Man usually posts, but I've missed any, please do bump them, or PM me and I'll gladly bump/create talkbacks.

Anyway, this week looks great so far. A nice standalone in Daredevil and the long awaited return of Matt Wagner on a Batman mini-series!

[Ed Liu]

Howdy,

Anyway, this week looks great so far. A nice standalone in Daredevil and the long awaited return of Matt Wagner on a Batman mini-series!

Both of which are previewed at Mile High Comics, along with Wonder Woman #2.

The preview pages of Mad Monk don't have quite the dazzle that Monster Men had, and I'm not quite positive that the quasi-animated sequence in the last panel of page 3 really works. Still, it's Wagner drawing Batman and, if the prior series was any indication, there's gonna be some highly entertaining head kicking coming real soon.

-- Ed

[Stuckey]

Another issue of ACTION PHILOSOPHERS arrives without my knowing. That's great.

I picked up:

Batman #656
Flash #3
JLA #1
Wonder Woman #2

If I'd known about/seen AP I'd have picked it up.

[ManicWebb]

52 WEEK #16
BIRDS OF PREY #97
ASTONISHING X-MEN #16
HEROES FOR HIRE #1

I bought these books during my lunch break, but I only got around to reading Heroes For Hire (highly amusing, but a tad too wordy). I'm so glad Misty didn't fire Otis, their receptionist, like she threatened to do at the end of the DoD mini. I fell in love with the character after his "poser mobile" moments ("I was channeling Snoop and Fitty with a touch of Hotlanta").

[Ed Liu]

Howdy,

Grant Morrison talks about his Batman run. Even if you're not reading the comic, it's worth it for Morrison's take on why Batman shouldn't reflect the headlines, the "which is his REAL identity?" question, the return of a character from the Mike Barr Batman stories, and the examination of Batman as a single, coherent character from the 30's to now.

Plus, he takes at least two jabs (one good natured and one significantly less-so) at Frank Miller's overheated dialogue and the announced "Batman vs. Al-Qaeda" project, neatly summarizing the reasons why I don't want to read about Batman punching Osama.

But by far, the best news of all from the interview is this (emphasis mine):

I'm trying to put all kinds of things back into Bat-continuity in a way that makes sense, including Bat-Mite and Ace, the Bat-Hound.

Clearly, Morrison recognizes the greatest idea out of Batman in the past 60 years .

Meanwhile, the origin of Wonder Woman and her creator William Moulton Marston at Comic Book Resources is pretty standard fare for anybody who's read anything about it, but it does come with a nice collection of panels from the Marston era and more information about Marston's unusual relationship with his wife Elizabeth Marston and his assistant Olive Byrne. For that matter, it has a bit more on Marston's wives and family life than most other accounts I've read.

-- Ed

[Anthonynotes]

I finally bought the Justice Society TPB that was released a week or two ago, no thanks to my shop being out of copies of it until now (via a special order from their sister store). I note the cover got the Earth-2 Superman's costume wrong (in that it looks like the Earth-1 Superman's version)... ;-)

[wonderfly]

Grant Morrison talks about his Batman run

I just read it, and yeah, that really was a great interview. Damn, I may have to pick up this title after all! Best part of the interview was this:

Rather than a basically unhinged individual who was driven mad , bad, and pointy-eared by the death of his parents, I saw Batman more and more as someone who had saved his own sanity by doing the one crazy thing that actually allowed him to turn his loss into something positive and proactive.

That sums up my feelings on Batman perfectly.

Not quite sure what to make of this quote though:

GM: And while we're on that subject...Batman vs. Al Qaeda! It might as well be Bin Laden vs. King Kong! Or how about the sinister Al Qaeda mastermind up against a hungry Hannibal Lecter! For all the good it's likely to do. Cheering on a fictional character as he beats up fictionalized terrorists seems like a decadent indulgence when real terrorists are killing real people in the real world. I'd be so much more impressed if Frank Miller gave up all this graphic novel nonsense, joined the Army and, with a howl of undying hate, rushed headlong onto the front lines with the young soldiers who are actually risking life and limb 'vs' Al Qaeda.

Batman's fictional, but Al Qaeda is real, so I don't see how that's a "decadent indulgence". And besides, Morrison has had terrorists in his stories as well. I for one think that Miller's tale has the potential to be helpful to the real soldiers out in the field, (it'd be a real morale boost).

[Ed Liu]

Howdy,

Following on the "Fictional Superheroes/Real-World Villains" theme, last week's Comic Book Urban Legends post has a partially-colored version of the 2-page story where Superman takes on both Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin from the often-cited but rarely seen story from 1940. Oddly, Emperor Hirohito and Benito Mussolini are nowhere to be seen, but maybe that's just because Superman has only 2 hands and they were setting up for the sequel.

The best bits come afterwards, though, with a response to the comic from the weekly newspaper for the SS. They'd be hilarious if they weren't serious.

On consideration, I should probably clarify that I have no problem with putting an al-Qaeda terrorist as a comic book villain. I do have a problem with Batman punching out Osama, mostly because I think the days when a comic could get away with making real-world villains into comic-book superhero villains is long past. If nothing else, it starts bringing up all kinds of thorny questions like, "If Batman beat up Manuel Noriega, then how old is he now?" I didn't even care too much for the Ayatollah Khomeni's cameo in Batman: A Death in the Family.

An exception must be made for Josef Stalin's appearance on The Tick, of course, but only because it's ludicriously funny.

-- Ed

[Stu]

I can't wait to see if Morrison can make The Joker interesting again. It's nice to see both his and Dectective Comics are trying to make Bruce Wayne interesting again after years of mediocrity - it's even cooler to see that he's using Batman Begins as an inspiration, as I thought they had a pitch perfect version of Wayne in the movie.

[Ed Liu]

Howdy,

A factual item in Rich Johnston's "Lying in the Gutters" this week:

Normally, it's Marvel trades that drop the word balloons and then refuse to print replacement copies. Well, now DC is jumping onto the bandwagon with the recent "Gotham Central" trade, "Unresolved Targets" that saw dialogue balloons vanish.

Greg Rucka responds, saying, "I've heard from DC about the problem, and somewhat unhappily have to report that 1) the mistakes are throughout the print run, and 2) the mistakes will be corrected in the second printing.
"Given that, at least as I understand it, a second printing comes about only after a first printing sells through, it may be quite a while before the error is corrected.

"I am very sorry to everyone who received a defective copy; if/when a second print run hits the stores, I would urge everyone to exchange defective copies for corrected ones. I wish there was more I could do or say on the subject."

Between omitting issues from the trades and now having misprints in the current ones, it's almost as though DC doesn't want me to buy Gotham Central trades.


-- Ed

[wonderfly]

Between omitting issues from the trades and now having misprints in the current ones, it's almost as though DC doesn't want me to buy Gotham Central trades.

Marvel does this as well?!? Man, am I ever glad I continue to buy the original issues on all Marvel titles...