comics rock. talk about them here. now. or just go to the "corn" section and wack off. i'll understand. i'll just sit here and read my spider-man comics.
Even with the symbiote worked in, the dumbest two things about this are the villain--who looks sorta cool, actually, but is totally inappropriate for a Punisher book--and the skull mask.
BTW, to make War Zone (Journal? which one is it?) even dumber, I read something interesting. Y'know a few issues back when he killed like thirty baddies at once, right after a funeral? Apparently, it was revealed in the next month's She-Hulk (of all things) they all survived with minor burns.
*--For behavior unbecoming anyone, perpetrated in real time over an extended--AH, FUCK IT! MORE MALIBU, BITCHES!!
That's gay. But I can't really fault them for retconning a series as dumb and unimportant as Punisher War Journal in the first place.
What's happening in the Marvel Universe?
Spider-Man is going to go through some top secret life altering changes in his book. One More Day. Brand New Day. The Next Day. Etc. It'll either be totally awesome, or suck so bad it will make the Clone Fiasco look like the Godfather movies.
Avengers. New. Mighty. They all rock. (Not Initiative) Mighty needs to step up and get on schedule since New is already three months ahead of it continuity wise. That's frustrating as hell, Frank Cho! You might think Symbiote invasion sounds lame, but I like it when Bendis throws big rocks in the pond to see the splash. Keeps things fun.
Black Panther. Don't read his book, but he's doing the whole Fantasctic Four thing right now.
Captain America. He died. His book still rules. You should read this.
Daredevil. Fighting Mr. Fear and defending his wife in a murder trial. Matt's book is semi back to normal. Good solid read every month.
Exiles. Fuck you Claremont. I knew this would happen. You come in and shit on my fave book and now it's getting cancelled with issue 100 so you can have your gay Exiles/New Excalibur crossover that noone will read. Fuck you, you fucking shit writer. Just fucking retire already.
Fantastic Four. Ultimates team, Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch are coming in January. That scares me. Current team of McDuffie and Pelletier are doing some underrated work. McDuffies leaving to do JLA over at DC.
Ghost Rider. A cool premise, gathering up shards of Satan to take him back to hell. Book is kinda stagnant right now.
Heroes For Hire. Cancelled.
Hulk. After Planet Hulk and World War Hulk, I don't know how they'll be able to top it, but this has been a consistently great book for over a year now.
Iron Fist. Really good book. Currently Danny Rand is in another dimension in a kind of 'Bloodsport' match with other representatives of K'un L'un like temples. Again, really good reading.
Iron Man. The DeFacto SHIELD book these days, with lots of espionage and political intrigue. Mandarin is back and he soon finds away to control Tony's Extremis armor, forcing him to go old school.
Moon Knight. Started out great. Now is rampant with mediocrity.
Ms Marvel. Was always mediocre. Surprised its lasted this long.
New Warriors. Mysterious New Night Thrasher recruits depowered ex-mutants like Jubilee, Beak, Angel, Chamber, Winddancer, etc. Oufits them with power tech suits and sends them out to stick it to the man and his registration BS. Good premise, I'll stick around for a few issues.
Nova. Basically the whole Annihilation saga has been pretty good. Keeps tabs on ALL the cosmic powered people and alien races. Nova is the only ongoing cosmic series right now, but Annihilation at any given moment has a couple or three limited series running. Quite clever of them actually. Waiting for Adam Warlock to show up. Thats inevitable, he's been off the radar for too long.
Omega Flight/Alpha Flight. Got me. I thought it was stupid to banish Beta Ray Bill to hell.
Punisher MAX. Awesome. Punisher War Journal. Not awesome.
Runaways. Not reading it. But I think the kids are in the 1880's or something.
Thor. Thor's beatdown of Iron Man is one of the most satisfying things I've seen to come out of the whole Civil War thing. JMS has my attention, but I am wary of his turd choices during Spider-Man, so I won't be as loyal this time around.
Thunderbolts. This may be the best book Marvel is putting out right now. It's this or Captain America or Astonishing X-Men. But if you are reading those two books and not this one, you should realize what that comparison suggests.
The X-Books. First, Messiah CompleX, about a new mutant baby and everyone fighting over it/him/her. Then X-Men Dissassembled, where all the books get cancelled, Uncanny goes on an Amazing Spider-Man like bi-weekly schedule, and a bunch of new books get launched. Claremont will probably be writing one or more of them shittily.
As always, I'm probably missing a key title.
NO HANDLEBARS HAN SHOT. FIRST! PERIOD. NO HANDLEBARS MORE COWBELL! NO HANDLEBARS GO FUCK YOURSELF™
I just noticed the guns apparently are produced by the symbiote. Yet, for some reason, the goggles are separate. Huh?
The fully-painted style is pretty at first glance, but upon closer inspection, this dude needs to go back and study basic storytelling skills. The flow is rather weak, especially when contrasted with such a lush painted style.
Some anatomy lessons wouldn't hurt, either, since Frank is stiff as a board in some of those panels. Properly proportioned, yes, but he shouldn't look like a rigid corpse when in mid-leap.
*--For behavior unbecoming anyone, perpetrated in real time over an extended--AH, FUCK IT! MORE MALIBU, BITCHES!!
Even with the symbiote worked in, the dumbest two things about this are the villain--who looks sorta cool, actually, but is totally inappropriate for a Punisher book--and the skull mask.
The villain looks like an old school TMNT villain.
BTW, to make War Zone (Journal? which one is it?) even dumber, I read something interesting. Y'know a few issues back when he killed like thirty baddies at once, right after a funeral? Apparently, it was revealed in the next month's She-Hulk (of all things) they all survived with minor burns.
That is exactly what is wrong with this book - The Punisher does not screw something like that up.
Runaways. Not reading it. But I think the kids are in the 1880's or something.
Read the first two issues of Whedon's run (mainly because of a certain character with a skull on his shirt. This is one of those rare times I'll slam Whedon - He screwed up The Punisher. He was useless in the story and a retard.
"As they say in China, 'Arrivederci'!"
*For the creation of the Golden Deuce Award.
Back to the original point about the symbiote: Frank's always struck me as someone who would use anything to give him an edge. Meaning that, as dumb as his techno-getup from the horribly bad 90s Spider-Man cartoon looked, he would totally use it if he knew he could use it to his advantage. So the symbiote isn't totally off-the-wall. Dumb idea, sure, but it's not totally out of character.
Now him dressing as Cap for no reason, that's out of character.
Hell, even though the whole undead shtick was possibly Marvel's dumbest idea ever (and I'm counting Heroes Reborn and the entire clone fiasco), if he were given the opportunity to, say, become Ghost Rider, I think he'd totally jump at the chance. But only if he were able to make Ghostie kill people. (I never understood that restriction on the Ketch series. He's a fucking flaming skeleton running around throwing blades at people and telling them, "You will die!" But he thinks it's amoral to actually kill them? WTF?)
Actually, on second thought, I think he'd be fine with not killing them, so long as he could use the penance stare a whole lot.
*--For behavior unbecoming anyone, perpetrated in real time over an extended--AH, FUCK IT! MORE MALIBU, BITCHES!!
They retconned all that "Ghost Rider doesn't kill" shit in after the fact halfway through the series. Those first issues, GR is clearly killing all kind of ninja and mob thug.
NO HANDLEBARS HAN SHOT. FIRST! PERIOD. NO HANDLEBARS MORE COWBELL! NO HANDLEBARS GO FUCK YOURSELF™
More like they retconned it after six issues. Suddenly Dan somehow talks to Ghost Rider and tells him not to kill. And, of course, this demonic spirit of vengeance doesn't look him in the eye and say, "Dude, fuck yourself."
I think it's because of GR's weird history. The first book tanked in the early 80s (after going strong earlier in the run), and apparently volume II was slated as a miniseries in the late 80s. But they thought it would tank, and didn't want to fund it. So it was supposed to be a graphic novel, but they decided it wouldn't do well enough, either. So, as the story goes, the first story arc was so good, they thought it should see the light of day somehow, and released it as a regular series. However, they expected it to get cancelled after three or four issues.
Of course, never underestimate a flaming skeleton killing people while riding a massive chopper. At least not in the 90s.
And then it was tanking so hard seven years later that they didn't even bother publishing the final issue! It fell through the cracks, and they figured no one cared. (Of course, the minute GR started wearing red and talking like he was from Hamlet, no one did.)
*--For behavior unbecoming anyone, perpetrated in real time over an extended--AH, FUCK IT! MORE MALIBU, BITCHES!!
I still look at some of the stupid shit that's happened, like Ghost Rider in red and Punisher as a zombie, and wonder, "What fucking retard thought this was a good idea?"
Shake up the status quo, sure. But don't shake it up so much that it vomits all over itself.
*--For behavior unbecoming anyone, perpetrated in real time over an extended--AH, FUCK IT! MORE MALIBU, BITCHES!!
Even though it was handled rather poorly (in both script and art), this whole Punisher/Venom thing was a cool/fun idea, but only as it appeared in "What If...?"
I will admit thinking the figure that recently came out was really cool though (possibly because it was such an obscure choice for a figure).
Frank needs to be handled very carefully by whomever writes him. The essence of the character should never be fucked with. Period. That would be as dumb as revealing Spider-man's secret identity or killing Captain America or revealing Wolverine's origins or...
Between Marvel Knights and Max titles, Ennis has nailed the character better than any other writer in the character's history, IMO.
In MK, Frank was handled with the perfect blend of realistic hard core sadistic violence and the absurdity of a character like him living in a world full of super powered freaks.
In Max, the only Marvel Universe characters to appear have been a bad ass, prostitute lovin' Nick Fury and his old fat fuck of an ally, Microchip. This has easily been (IMO) the best comic series I've ever read. If I had the extra cash I'd be buying the hardcover collected editions toput on the book shelf.
"As they say in China, 'Arrivederci'!"
*For the creation of the Golden Deuce Award.
That old 5 part limited series with the Mike Zeck art (which led to Punisher's first unlimited series and the original War Journal) was very good as well - but obviously not in the "Max" vein.
Finally got through some of my latest issues:
Spidey 544 (One More Day part 1): good book. Good art, good writing. I'm looking forward to seeing where PP's world gets left here. I went back and bought the white Djurdevic cover to go along with my Joe Q one.
New Avengers 34. Symbiotes, eh? Neat-o, but a bit out of left field. Is this Skrull related, 'cuz that whole thing kinda needs to get dealt with before they move on. The ad for 35 looks pretty interesting (it's a symbiote-infected Wolvie looking miserable as fuck).
Cap 30. Fuck me, the writing on this title is of the finest caliber. Tony's thoughts at the end, when taken with the old photo and Sharon's actions on the preceding page.... really, really great. This was going to be my last issue on this book..... but I'd drop Uncanny and Amazing before I'd drop Cap right now.
Hulk 110/WWHulk 4. Not sure what I'm missing, but they don't do a real great job transitioning between these titles (and I purposefully looked at the checklist - I read them in the right order, and there weren't any issues listed between them). I might try and go back later and read the whole Incredible Hulk arc followed by the WWHulk series and see how that plays out. Quick question: was Reed under some form of mind control when he was pounding Tony with the big club (the club which he'd never be able to raise with one hand since he doesn't have any real super strength, but managed to raise and wield anyhow)? He's yelling at Tony to defend himself, but that mysterious blue energy field around all of them had me a bit confused.
Thor 3. Yep, pretty darned good so far. I'll stick it out for another few issues and see what happens.
DD100. I was not underwhelmed by this issue at all. Another "showcase" art collection issue (very much like what they did for issue 50, it features a smattering of some of the all-time finest DD artists), the finished product of which should make comics "professionals" like Rob Liefeld weep with feelings of inadequacy. Some of the best comic art I've seen in 2007 is in this book - run and buy a copy quickly if you've held off thus far (and in case you're thrown off by the price, you get reprints of vintage DD issues 90 and 91 to go along with the main story).
The Last FF Story. Pretty art, good writing, but nothing of substance in the plot. This book would have hit a lot harder with a funeral at the end (I would have chosen Johnny to eat it, for the exact reasons this books spelled out - he's the only one that doesn't have a special someone) leading to the retirement of the team out of grief and respect..... but it's Stan Lee, the happy ending had to be there.
DB, I just read an interview with Matt Fraction, and if you thought PWJ sucked now, you ain't seen nothing yet.
So this is the guy that writes the Iron Fist book y'all rave so much about?
There's also an article at newsarama about a guy who bought a lunch with Joe Q for $800 (for charity) so that he could pitch a Spider-Man story. And Joe took it. Man, is the nepotism and ass-kissing there as obvious to everyone else as it is to us? The article starts out by stating Marvel's always looking for new talent, which makes it worse. And the mods look like they've been quick to jump on anyone pointing out how fucked up that is. (I never post there, but it's fun to read Liefeld arguing sometimes.)
*--For behavior unbecoming anyone, perpetrated in real time over an extended--AH, FUCK IT! MORE MALIBU, BITCHES!!
what can i tell ya? he might not get punisher, but he gets iron fist.
and if given the chance at a lunch with the editor in chief of a major comic book publishing company, tell me you wouldn't take the opportunity to pitch an idea?
