Weekly Comics Discussion – June 10, 2009

“Blue Beetle” fans need to take note of this week’s offerings. As usual, the complete list is available here.

DC Comics

  • ACTION COMICS #878
  • BATMAN #687
  • BILLY BATSON AND THE MAGIC OF SHAZAM #5
  • BOOSTER GOLD #21 – Now with a “Blue Beetle” co-feature!
  • FABLES #85
  • FINAL CRISIS AFTERMATH ESCAPE #2 (OF 6)
  • FLASH REBIRTH #3 (OF 6) – In the review queue. We’re heading into the busiest season at my day job, so it’ll be hard to keep reviews on time for the next month. Expect a glut of backlogged reviews to hit in August.
  • GREEN LANTERN CORPS #37 – “Emerald Eclipse” continues.
  • RED ROBIN #1
  • SHOWCASE PRESENTS GREEN LANTERN TP VOL 04 – This one’s shorter than the others, including issues 60-75 of volume 2. I suspect this is because the series became “Green Lantern / Green Arrow” at that point, which has already been collected in two colour trade paperbacks, covering up to issue 89. After that, Hal Jordan went to backup stories in “The Flash #217-246” and Oliver Queen went into (I think, but could be mistaken) “Adventure Comics.” I’m hoping the Hal Jordan backups in the Flash will be collected completely at some point; I’d like to complete my Green Lantern collection, but at $200-$600 per issue, it won’t happen with back issues.

IDW Comics

  • ANGEL BLOOD AND TRENCHES #4

Image Comics

  • SAVAGE DRAGON #149
  • WALKING DEAD #62 (MR)

Marvel Comics

  • AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #597 – Dark Reign
  • BETA RAY BILL GODHUNTER #1 (OF 3) – Thor’s alien counterpart has decided Galactus has existed long enough.
  • DEADPOOL #11 – Dark Reign
  • ENDERS GAME RECRUITING VALENTINE
  • ESSENTIAL THOR TP VOL 04
  • FANTASTIC FOUR #567 – Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch’s 16 issue run continues until issue #569. Expect an editorial rather than a review talking about that run before Jonathan Hickman and Dale Eaglesham take over with #570.
  • LOCKJAW AND THE PET AVENGERS #2 (OF 4) – I admit it, I’m bugged by the press this gets for including Neils the cat. The writer has gotten accolades from multiple sources for researching the “fact” that Speedball had a cat with the same set of powers. The writer (Chris Eliopolous, best known for lettering damn near everything) has credited his assistants with the research. Well, I’m an old school New Warriors fan. I became a New Warriors fan because I was already a Speedball fan; I own a copy of Speedball #1. (That’s a bit embarrassing to admit now, as the title didn’t hold up well as I grew up.) Eliopolous also gave Neils a code name because Neils was “a stupid name.” Here, I need to editorialize and disagree. First of all, the cat wasn’t Speedball’s. Robbie Baldwin had an after school job at a research lab. The scientists there were looking for ways to tap extradimensional energy sources, and it was the head scientist who owned Neils. When I went through by B.Sc. in Physics, I thought this was brilliant: Neils Bohr was a physicist best known today for his atomic model, but his contemporaries also knew him for his habit of arguing against the conservation of energy! Seventy years later, Marvel creates a character whose power is, essentially, to violate conservation of energy in collisions, and they included a cat named Neils. That struck me as too much to be a coincidence. That’s quality research on the part of the creative team of “Speedball #1.” The cat became the source of pretty strained, “Three’s Company” style comedy as Robbie tried to prevent anyone from learning about the cat’s powers and thus deducing Speedball’s secret identity, which was made difficult because the cat wasn’t Speedball’s. (I’ve heard Robbie inherited the cat late in the run of the original New Warriors title, but I haven’t confirmed that yet. Still, unlike the interview content, it certainly wasn’t his cat from the start.) Thus ends my entirely tangential rant.
  • MISS AMERICA COMICS #1 70TH ANNIV SPECIAL
  • PRIDE & PREJUDICE #3 (OF 5)
  • UNCANNY X-MEN #511
  • WAR OF KINGS SAVAGE WORLD OF SKAAR – This is the “War of Kings” title I’m not all that thrilled with. I dropped Skaar’s title after three issues; it’s rare that I drop a series before the current story arc ends.
  • WOLVERINE #74 – Wrapping up the stories started in issue #73, which shipped before #72. I’m sure this confused nobody, especially those people who go to comic shops without checking online panicked when they thought the missed the end of “Old Man Logan.” I do understand why Marvel wanted to have “Wolverine” product on shelves when the movie hit, though.
  • X-MEN FOREVER #1 – Chris Claremont going back to “Uncanny X-Men” and “X-Men” and picking up right where he left off 15 years ago. Think of it as a “forked” continuity.

5 replies on “Weekly Comics Discussion – June 10, 2009”

  1. Thanks for the BB heads-up! :)

    I’m very, very curious about whether the Beta Ray Bill story is any good. (I’ve heard good things about BRB. But the whole concept seems kind of cheezy and inconsistent with the rest of Thor… But I know very little about BRB so maybe the writers eventually made it work. Anyone know anything about BRB or this series?)

  2. Also, IDW has another Doctor Who one-shot, and it’s running the first multi-issue Star Trek Film Adaptation comic (of Star Trek II) – all other Star Trek film adaptation comics comics were one-shots (which lost a lot in the translation)

    • One shots, as in single 22-page comics? How can you compress any film into a 22-issue comic? (Okay, there are probably a few, but not if you have any respect for the movie itself.)

      How long is the ST2 adaptation going to be?

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