Variant Covers: Joe Madureira And The Objectified Genitals.
Variant Covers. The comics on my mind this week.
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Avenging Spider-Man #1
When I was a young kid, it was issues of Danger Girl and Joey Mad’s Battle Chasers that gave me the first tingles in this rotten scrotum of mine. If you are to know me, you should appreciate that I was, in fact, totally turned out by the caged cantaloupes that were slathered rather shamelessly across panel after 1990s Extreme panel! It’s something I fail to recall when I lament the fact that women are so ruthlessly objectified in comic books. How do they get away with this shit?, I ask. What I do not remember, what I perhaps don’t want to remember, is burping my fleshy pink stump all over my newly-minted hairy navel.
Joey Mad is back this week with a stint on Avenging Spider-Man, joined by writer Zeb Wells. I’m a bit excited, his return bringing a faint wind of nostalgia across my pants. The faint wind, of course, reeking of honey-lensed recollections of Onslaught, Heroes Reborn, and the chlorine wiff of all those children I dedicated at the altar of his Jean Grey.
Is there a point to this diatribe? I’m not certain. I know that the comic book industry is hungry for cranking the Way Back machine and chugging us all back into The Days when sales were up and Foil Covers sent shivers up the spine of comic shop owners. And while I’ll acknowledge that Women Are Fuck Objects in most comic books still, I hope that this shit isn’t parlayed into yet more regression back to the incessant spread-eagle phallus flings that used to get my Iron Maiden so furious.
I am uncomfortable with the problem, while recalling just why it is one. Because of Adolescent Me.
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Frankenstein: Agent of S.H.A.D.E #3
Jeff Lemire and Alberto Ponticelli continue on their light-hearted Monster Mash, and I’m glad the title is still in existence. There’s something to madcap titles that don’t have to push me towards an Existential Pontification, or murmuring in acknowledgement of some grandiose point. As a Hickmanian, I’m prone to such indulges. Still though, the action is also a devitation from the usual Thousands of Fighter Jets Explodey time! nature as well.
It’s fun! That ain’t a fuckin’ crime yet, is it?
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Ultimate Comics Spider-Man #4
One of my favorite titles on the market right now. Make Mine Miles Fucking Morales. We haven’t seen Miles in the Spider-Man outfit, and I’m silently worried for the kid. I haven’t been able to ascertain the young one’s age, but he seems almost don’t seem ripe enough for the World Saving business. I won’t complain though.
One small request to Marvel: pump the brakes on the distribution of this title. Shit started in September, and we’re already onto issue #4. Give Bendis and Pichelli at least the monthly siesta to spit shine the pig. Pichelli’s artwork on the prior issue wasn’t up to her previously established par, and I’m wondering if it’s from the churn factory becoming too demanding.
(A second Spider-Man title featured? Calm down. The first one was more a vehicle for somethin’ that was on my mind. Indulge me.)
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Titles I Should Be Reading
I don’t feel like I’m short changing anyone to openly admit that I can’t keep up on every title that drops that may resonate with some icy hotness. I’m but a man! A poor, poor man. With books to read, papers to write, and a desolate bank account. Cue imagery of empty Western sets. Pigs #3 comes out this week, and this title was a casualty of war when it first started. Ain’t no copies around! Wait for the trade, wait for the trade, and pray my insolence isn’t shared with enough people to submarine the title. A lot of people seem to enjoy Journey Into Mystery, so keep your eyes out for that. Me? I don’t really get down with Kieron Gillen. Unwritten gets a new issue this week, and with it comes my monthly (twice monthly now?) comment that I know I’m a slithering asshole parrot for not buying it. Baltimore: Curse Bells #4. I enjoyed the first jaunt with Lord Baltimore, but this one has slipped through my grasp. It’s dope in the same vein as Frankenstein. A bit more self-loathing though.
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Point One
Marvel’s dropping some seventy-page wunder-comic on our asses this week. Is your solar pexus still hurting from the Tiger Claw of Boredom that was Fear Itself? You may want to throw in the towel and duck out of this one. Not a month after that event ended are we getting another Universe Setting comic book. Fucking Hell, Marvel. Give your characters some time to breath. You’re getting your ass whalloped by DC these days, why not try and build some good will with creator-driven tales.
Ludicrous? I know.
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What are you guys and gals of the splash page and graphic text reading this week?