Variant Covers: Do Fanboys Gotta Choke A Fool?
There’s a god damn heatwave afoot here in New England. The sun scorching us nerds, casting us back into the dungeons from whence we came. What the fuck is a fanboy supposed to do in the face of such unrelenting Sun Hate? Easy, yo. Check out Variant Covers! Shameless plug, ahoy. Welcome to the weekly column where I give the weekly rundown of what I’m looking forward to in the world of comic books. Or more than likely, watch as I grouse like a bitch about the same five things I dislike in the comic book world.
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Scarlet #2
Scarlet’s subtitle should be “See motherfucker, Brian Michael Bendis can still write.” The first issue came out a couple of months ago, and the combined effort of Bendis and Maleev was nothing short of a boner-inducing wunderkind. There was a stretch of time when Brian Michael Bendis owned my nerd soul. Between Goldfish, his bullshit on Sam & Twitch, Daredevil, Powers, and Ultimate Spidey, I would fawn over him with unreserved enthusiasm. Eventually though, his strongest assest, his god damn writing ability, became (to me, alright?) his undoing. Some straight up Oedipal shit.
Why?
‘Cause the dude got something barely short of thrown into control of the entire Marvel Universe. That’s probably a wildly inaccurate claim. Whatever. And all that talent got diluted across ninety titles, and like his talent, my love for him was slowly diluted until it faded away.
Scarlet reminds me of why I love the guy.
And when he’s on his game, he’s better than roughly 95% of us wannabe writers.
Synergy. The retardedly cool concept that something can come together to become better than the sum of its parts. That’s fucking Scarlet. The story itself is cool, though perhaps a bit rote. The world’s fucked up, only one hot alt-chick can save it. The art itself is fucking gorgeous. The dialogue is beyond what feels like the Stock Campy Bullshit that Bendis pumps into the thirty-three Avengers titles he writes. You mash the Hot Chick With Guns and the Gorgeous Artwork and the Witty But Not Pressing Dialogue together, and you have a comic that I am genuinely, genuinely excited to read.
Even if you’re super-duper dissatisfied with Bendis, if you ever loved the dude at all, this is going to be an express trip in the wayback machine.
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Shadowland #3
Speaking of Bendis, one of the characters he used to lull my weeping fanboy heart into his clutches was Daredevil. I know I’ve rode Matty Murdock’s bedeviled jock throughout many a column here, but I can’t help it. Who doesn’t love watching someone as they’ve swooned into terminal descent? We’re all standing near the point of impact, hoping to get some existential guts splattered across that.
You can’t do better than Murdock’s crushed-soul.
I have to say this though, I prefer mainland Daredevil way over Shadowland. And while I dig on Shadowland, it loses a bit of the interpersonal edge that I’ve dug about Daredevil. It’s an action movie, not a detective story. And that’s cool, freal. It’s a preference thing.
But kick it over to Shadowland to watch as a man who has been pushed over the railing and into his own darkness finally combusts. The only sadness I feel is that I know whatever sort of fate Murdock meets will ultimately be mitigated by the engines of the industry. Someday he’ll be reformed, back, ready to rock. Push that out of mind and watch as shit gets real, if you can.
It’s an action movie starring one of the best characters Marvel has had to offer. Unblemished by what I would argue are editorial mandates to fit into movies, and other bullshit, a list of All-Star writers have orchestrated the collapse of the Man Without Fear.
Here’s our chance to watch him splat.
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Choker #4
Have you been readin’ Choker? What the fuck man/woman! I’ve been recommending this shit every week that it’s dropped. For people who haven’t been following this comic of mindfuckery, it’s a a futuristic noir set in a world that is something along the lines of Blade Runner meets Your Nightmares. From testicles hanging as ornaments in cars to alien hand syndrome, the comic is one bizarre set of circumstances after another.
It doesn’t hurt that the artwork is by one Ben Templesmith, hero to all of us nerds for 30 Days of Night, and generally ball of odd awesomeness.
The comic may be enough to send the more pious of us into arrhythmic arrest. There’s a level of depravity and ultra-violence throughout that is enough to make Soccer Moms crap their pants. No, seriously. Show it to the audience members of say, Dr. Phil, and you’re going to have a drooling, semi-catatonic woman asking why God has abandoned her.
In other words, this shit is custom tailored for me.
It’s odd, it’s bizarre, it’s profane to the point of hyperbole. Give it a roll.
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The Rest of the Universe(s)
Unlike myself, some people have been fortunate enough to have been reading Sweet Tooth since the beginning of its run. And while I haven’t finished the first TPB, it has garnered enough buzz to the point where I should point out Sweet Tooth #13 is dropping tomorrow. As well, the second issue of Baltimore: The Plague Ships drops from Hellboy creator Mike Mignola. It’s a fresh look at an alt-history where WWI was interrupted by a plague of death and disease. Oh, and vampires and shit. And in the land of Capes, Shields, and Repulsor Rays, I’m pretty stoked on the first issue of Thor: For Asgard.
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What are you guys diggin’ on this week? Hollaback, I’m interested.