Variant Covers: Spider-Man Goes Multiethnic, While DC Continues Its Regurgenesis.
The grinding in the temples reminds me that I’ve only slept for three hours in the past forty-eight. The pain in the clenched jaw. Life! Gets busy. How the fuck you doing? This is Variant Covers the column where we dance the dance of funny books, speech balloons, splash pages. And the et cetera. We tell the tale of what we’re buying this week. Quickly! We must do this quickly. The sleep approaches, but as per usual. There’s wood to chop. Always wood to chop.
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Ultimate Spider-Man #1.
Last week’s Justice League #1 is the top selling comic book of the year, but I’m quietly and perhaps not quietly hoping that Ultimate Spidey #1 swings and knocks it onto its unremarkable ass. Oh! A reboot! Wee! Chitin armor and super-posey time! Don’t mind me. The voices call. Ultimate Spidey is dropping this week and its bringing with it the new Spider-Man: multiethnic like a motherfucker Miles Morales. I’m too tired to disguise the writhing ideologies underneath the blase facade: I love the idea of taking one of comics‘ most prominent masks and slinging (Spider-Man pun!) a more diverse fan inside of it. Don’t agree? That’s cool. I respect you. I love you. We’re all just human man, stuck on this floaty rock. I’m glad that a superhero can represent a different slice of said former-sea-goop-fish-men.
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DC Relaunch Madness Continues.
Don’t mind my strong-armed words about the DC relaunch. You know, the awful, anticlimactic event that they used to springboard into it. The boring as fuck Justice League #1. Grant Morrison having Clark Kent run around in jeans and acting like a shitbum. Snore. The reboot summed up right here. However here’s your home for titles that may rock in the reboot. This week is Jeff Lemire’s Frankenstein: Agent of S.H.A.D.E. The mini-series that took place during Flashpoint was one of the highlights of the entire event. Also awesome, also spinning out of a Flashpoint miniseries is the first issue of Deathstroke. No seriously, enjoyable as fuck pulp. J.H. Williams’ ridiculously delayed Batwoman gets its launch with the rest of the New 52. Maybe Paul Cornell’s Demon Knights is worth the cheddar? I honestly don’t know. Something is becoming evident though: at $3 or $4, there’s simply too many titles to try everything that seems interesting in a launch of 52.
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Pigs #1.
I’m going to try and not be sad that Ben McCool is launching a new title without having finished up his cyberpunk-horror story Choker with Ben Templesmith. I’m sure there’s extentuating circumstances. (He’s also writing Memoir with Nikki Cook on art. You should check it out.) Co-written by Nate Cosby and art by Breno Temura, the comic sees a second-generation Cuban KGB sleeper cell activated with a plot to overthrow the government. You’re not sold? There’s a tin can with a label that reads “Campbell’s Chunky Soup” in which I’m going to stuff your mashed and mushed remains.
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Criminal: Last of the Innocent #4.
You buying this shit? Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips’ crime pulp noir tip mixed with a bent twist on classic Archie comics comes together to tell the tale of a true bastard. Warped by nostalgia, willing to murder and connive his way out of his current Hell. This sort of behavior never ends well. Neither will it for you should you not snag this finale. Remember the tin can. Donovan McNabb will be hocking you on television to the unknowing masses. Campbell’s Chunky Soup is people.
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Fear Itself and Friends.
I can’t abstain from mentioning that Marvel’s summer event trudges into fall and I’m ready for the exercise to be over. Well ready for it to be. Fear Itself #6! I love me some Matt Fraction, I love me some Stuart Immonen. Favorite writer, one of my favorite artists. They just can’t get me jazzed on this event that awkwardly juxtaposes the oh-so-human fear mongering with the other worldly Asgardian riffage. You want to see some fear mongering run amok amid global catastrophe? See Contagion. Baltimore: Curse Bells #2 is dropping, and I’m still enjoying the adventure as Lord Baltimore continues his quest to slay the one vampire who took it all from him. From the horrors of war comes an evil that possesses the power to ruin a man. There, I read the text for you. Finally, Rick Remender and Jerome Opena’s work on Uncanny X-Force continues its calamitious rockitude this week. You should be reading this for Opena’s stunning work alone.
Or the Chunky Campbell’s soup can for you.
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That does it for me. Kindly ignore any typos, I’m going to bed. Share your pull-list and let’s party when I reconnect with the conscious world.
