Variant Covers: Sex, Drugs, and Mystical Hammers.
I got myself a stack of the fat ass funny books. ‘Stead of reading them, I have to blather to you interbeings about the shit that is dropping in the world of comics tomorrow, and I’ll be goddamned if that ain’t proof Leibniz didn’t know shit. Most perfect of all worlds? My fucking ass! Pizza gets you fat and your fucking colon kills you.
Bullshit.
This is the world of Variant Covers, a preview of the comic books coming out this week. Hit me with your pull-list.
—-
Detective Comics #875.
As the French are wont to say, j’adore the fucking readers of this fine column or some shit. A couple of months ago a few good readers pointed me in the direction of Scott Snyder and Jock’s run on Detective Comics. What fresh hell is this, I wondered, but I bit on the title. Good lord, it’s an effort in sexiness. While I’m working through the first issues of Snyder’s run so far, listen man I’m fucking busy, I’m going to go ahead and give the fucking stamp on this creative team. A worthless stamp produced by a godless fanboy, but still!
Snyder’s a bit darker, and a lot less mystic than Morrison’s Batman, but it’s refreshing. A dark as fuck Batman working through the underbelly with some glorious gadgets and technovehiclethings. Then there’s Jock’s artwork which is gorgeous, and I’m glad to see he’s teamed back up with Snyder for another run on this series.
This issue kicks off a new arc, which starts with the corpse of a killer whale showing up on the footsteps of one of Gotham’s most famous banks.
Game on, Snyder. Game on.
[Brief Aside: If you’re like me and haven’t checked out Snyder’s American Vampire, issue #13 this week is being marketed as a hopping on point.]
Also In DC:
Paul Cornell and Pete Woods’ run on Lex Luthor and the Quest for Black Lantern Power Stuff continues in Action Comics #899. The title is one of my favorites every month, mixing philosophy, humor, and some straight-out gorgeous action sequences penciled by Woods. Don’t like Luthor? Buy it. Don’t like enjoying things? Don’t buy it. Man, that’s a totally forced hard line. Just ignore me.
—-
Butcher Baker: The Righteous Maker #1 [COMIC MOST SWEATED OF THE WEEK ++ TIME].
Oh. Fuck. Yeah. I’ve been sweating Butch Baker since it was announced last December. The screaming ultra-vulgar bastard vomit of Joe Casey and Mike Huddleston, I can’t even begin to describe to you what Butch Baker is about. It’s like the Matrix, or an anal prolapse. One must see it for themselves, description fails and clarity does not manifest itself. When the title was revealed, Comics Alliance ran a fucking multitude of the bonkers amount of promos that Casey and Huddleston came up with.
Featuring gorgeous artwork and ludicrous slogans like “…oh, you didn’t know there was a president of reality?” and featuring the protagonist fucking some female in an absurdly exploitative rear-entry manner while mashing her face into another vagina, the concept was so profane that I didn’t make it through the entire promo before I was building my shrine.
Casey describes the premise as such:
“He’s seen it all and he’s got the scars to prove it,” said [Casey]. “He drives a powerhouse rig appropriately decorated in the stars and bars called the Liberty Belle. But it’s been a while since Butcher was on the front lines of superhero action, [and] as our story opens, he is called into service to tie up a loose end from his glory days. That loose end is the catalyst to a life-altering adventure that will test this guy on every conceivable level.”
It’s fucking madness, complimented by Huddleston’s eccentric artwork. I’m so fucking there.
—-
Incognito: Bad Influences #5.
Fucking buy Incognito! The brainchild of Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips is superpowered comic book noir fuzzy happy time. That is, if you’re like me and you derive your fuzziness and happiness from watching hyper-violence and scantily clad women explode across the frames of sequential art.
Tortured byronic boy of ours Zack Overkill has finally come face to face with his target, and goddammit I hope he makes it out alive. As I’ve ejaculated textually over many a times, Overkill’s seemingly futile attempt to escape the gravity of his shitty and corrupt past captures my attention. He’s a bit like Boyd from Justified, and please Jesus tell me you’re watching that show. Can you escape your past life? Do people really change? Certain typical tropes, executed in captivating fashion by the eternally solid Brubaker.
Also From Creator Owned People [Or Something]:
This week we’re getting the fifth issue of Scarlet by Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev, and I wish I was a bit more excited about the whole ordeal. I don’t know man, the title started off strong, and its sort of withered into a beautiful piece of pop culture agitprop insisting on showing us geese and the shit how rotten our underbelly is. I get it, Bendis. Now let’s go somewhere with the storyline. Since the beginning the premise has teetered between typical yet enjoyable on one side, and hokey and straining on the other, and I think you see where I’m starting to side.
Still though, I’d buy it for the artwork alone.
—-
Thor #621.
The conclusion to the Fraction/Ferry run on Thor hits tomorrow, and it’s looking to go out with a fucking bang. Fraction’s initial run on the God of Thunder, which he’ll be continuing in Mighty Thor as this title gets relaunched as Journey Into History, has been decent enough. Woof! Look at that run-on sentence. There’s been portions that I’ve enjoyed a lot. The concept of infinite universes that seems to plague our geek collective unconscious, metaphysical philosophizing about Lack and what fills that hole, and the family issues that seem to follow Fraction into every title he works on.
Yet, some of those same family issues have slowed down the title, and I’ve found the pacing to be uneven. Cutting from marauding multidimensional Planet Eaters to Thor being emo about losing Loki just slows things down for me.
This week though, shit shall be going bananas. If it wasn’t enough that last month Odin summoned Thor into existence as a Blood Giant Golem Thing, last issue left me under the impression Thor himself was about to hack down the World Tree.
Good enough for me.
Also In Marvel:
Captain America goes 70th anniversary in Captain America #616, featuring stories from Brubaker and others. There’s a thousand or so Avengers titles coming out, and Amazing Spider-Man #657 has Dan Slott tackling the concept of Parker joining FF from the Spider side of things.
—-
What are you fucks reading? Hit me.