Variant Covers: Posthuman Coffin Orgies.
If it ain’t Wednesday, I ain’t happy. This is Variant Covers, the weekly comic books column where I unfurl my pull-list and let you see what I’m eager to check out. I can’t snag every comic book worthy of purchase, being a poor bastard with little time. So with that in mind, hit the comments section with your own favorites for the given week.
Today is seeing the accumulation of posthuman nano-madness, incensed heralds of the apocalypse, horny murdering school kids and more. I’m ready to fucking rock.
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Bulletproof Coffin TP.
David Hine and Shaky Kane came together last year to put out my favorite comic book series that I couldn’t fucking find anywhere. So I gave up. I know man, burying the comic book industry with my apathy. The series is a golden-hued metafictional gaze back at the good ole day of comic books and middling existence. Equal parts oddity and meditation, and the first issue that was issued for free online rocked my socks. And my jock.
Now that the son of a bitch is going to be snaggable via a simple Amazon point and click, I’m looking forward to picking up the collection.
Also From Image:
Yeah I know I’m the only asshole around here reading it, but Morning Glories #9 drops this week and I’m excited. This shit is pure creampuff mind-filler, but what the fuck, why not? The guy smashing his keyboards with some scintillating Freudian reading of the title to prove that it has some depth? Spare me. I read it, it entertains me, it’s like the LOST of my pull-pile.
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Xombi #2.
I didn’t get to read the original run of Xombi back in the mid-90’s. That was back in the days when I was barely pubescent, and I didn’t yet covet bizarreness with the same fervor that I did a pair of ludicrously rendered tits. These days the two warring factions are best handled together in my eyes, and I really dug the first issue by John Rozum and Frazier Irving.
Let me just say, Frazier Irving’s artwork is fucking gorgeous. Jesus Christ. I fell for the dude (belatedly, I know. Shut the fuck up.) during his stint on Batman and Robin, and the boner jam is rolling right over into this title.
Xombi’s a dope examination of a world gone askew, where the posthuman isn’t hypothetical, but achieved. I love the idea of the posthuman as not something to be looked after, but instead as the protagonist of the narrative. What sort of other formerly impossible nature lurks at the rim of our imagination, when we conjure up the self-sustaining human?
All this shit sounds way more sensible in my brain. I promise.
Also From DC:
The fifth issue of Batman Incorporated is dropping, and goodness me, is Morrison’s currently storyline dense as fuck. I know he refuses to rock it any other way, to the detriment of the narrative in the eyes of some, but B&R #4 left me in the fucking dust. Even David Uzumeri’s annotations couldn’t take me to referential Valhalla. Also, Superman returns in Action Comics #900, which is a bit sad. The supersized comic is suffuse with story, but I was happy with Paul Cornell rocking the Lex Luthor tip on the title.
All good things, I suppose.
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FF #2.
Oh fuck yeah! Jonathan Hickman and Steve Epting continue to ponder what fucking tomorrow brings in the second issue of FF. The first issue had us morning the loss of Johnny, snacking on dinner with a sleazy pony-tailed Poppa Richards, and a pretty humorous jab at the various deities of this lovely Universe.
It’s odd for FF to be numbered so low, because everything that is coalescing in its pages has been ruthlessly plotted for the past year or so through Fantastic Four and S.H.I.E.L.D. So yeah, it’s issue #2, but fuck I’m ready to see the culmination of a variety of evens.
Still though, Hickman is my boy. The only one who can combine Galactus, Marxist dialectics, and ethical debates and not have me snoozin’ my way out of the pages.
Must get.
Also From Marvel:
Fraction and Coipel are teaming up to bring us Mighty Thor #1. For those at home with an abacus, you can confirm that this brings the number of Thor titles up to something like 33. Thereabouts. Well fuck, the movie is coming out! So we have to dilute the stock, so when the people don’t go from the theaters to the comic book stores, they’ll have a shitload of easily accessible titles to not choose from.
Snarkiness aside, it’s fucking Fraction and Coipel. I’m there. Also this week we finally fucking get Venom #2. Watch in amazement as Rick Remender and Tony Moore rehabilitate one of the most abused icons of the 1990’s. Abused in the same sense as porn actress’ crotch. Blow apart, worn out. Remender and Moore have breathed life into the concept, tightened up the thematic labia.
It’s dope.
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What are you guys reading this week? Hit me.