Variant Covers: Get Friggin’ Drunk, Batman’s Black Hole Is Coming.
Glory be to you, comic book friends. It’s 10:42 on Tuesday evening as I burp this out of a chemical-coated caffeine ravaged mind, and I’m writing it with a bit of a grin. ‘Tis the season for days off and leisurely loitering as we go into a collective slumber until January 2. How are you? Not rhetorical, how you doing? Hit me. This is Variant Covers, the comics column where I talk about this week’s releases that I’m either snagging, wish I was snagging, or am curious about. Per usual drop a line on what you’re digging, I’m always looking for new hotness in my greasy mitts.
Let’s party.
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Fantastic Four #601.
What a fucking year it’s been for the Fantasti-Family. So yeah Johnny Storm bit the bullet and has recovered in an admirable amount of time. Though! Though!, if you’ve read #600 you know he did in fact die like a zillion times only to return. Even though dude rallied in something around ten months, his death earlier in the year is still one of my favorite caped occurrences of 2011. Damn man, just thinking about it gets the eyes all Cutting Onions-esque. My therapist says I “feel big”, leave me alone.
Hickman’s F4 journey spouts a lot of philosophical wunder-rock, but when you cut it to the core the title is really about the importance of family. While some without souls and dead eyes can call it hackneyed, I’m feeling it. Reminds me a lot of what Kurt Vonnegut used to espouse about the importance of having an extended family to enjoy your blip on the Blue Marble.
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Charles Burns’ 12 Beers of the Apocalypse.
No, not a comic book. It’s a light week for me, as I am awash in stupidity and an inability to follow the indie market. So instead of blathering about the newest issue of Savage Dragon which I have neither read nor care to read, let’s talk like comic book alcoholics. How is this for some cross-promotion. As everyone knows, the scientifically adroit and technologically advance Mayans predicted that the world was going to end next year. As astute fans of myth and nonsense, many of us have come to accept this to come to pass. Speaking of this, if you are one of those people please send me your money. You won’t be needing it come Oblivion, and I’m going to have student loans to pay off shortly. Where was I? Oh yeah! Fucking Charles Burns. The good Burns has teamed up with Fantagraphics and Seattle’s Elysian Brewing Company to bring the 12 Beers of the Apocalypse. Every month will find a new beer dropping, complete with artwork from Burns’ Black Hole.
This is fucking awesome.
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Memorial #1.
The creator of iZombie, Chris Johnson is dropping a new title this week. Memorial! I read about it a couple of months back on io9, and Johnson’s description sold me on it fucking immediately. When asked to spit a bit about its premise, he commented that the “bumper sticker pitch is “Doctor Who meets Sandman meets Hayao Miyazaki.” If that doesn’t sound like something worth chancing a few bucks on, I’m frankly not sure what would be. It’s like a blender of geek culture revelry, isn’t it?
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Batman Incorporated: Leviathan Strikes #1.
Let me be blunt: Grant Morrison’s final issue of Batman INC before the DC Universe was awash in rebooty-ness was fucking dreadful. It was some inane VR nonsense. The worst sort of virtual reality blathering since that X-Files episode FPS. Where Mulder is totally like in the Lawnmower Man or some shit. Anyways. Batman INC is thundering back and its being helmed by Sir Grant and Cameron Stewart in this thickie of a comic book. Nice. And thick. A thickie. I’m not really certain if I’m going to enjoy this, since I’m beginning to adjust to the Snyder/Capullo take on the rebooted Batman. (Issue #4 out this week.) They’ve hemmed the title down, taking out an intertextuality that was frankly fucking mindboggling by the end of it. Pruned it down to some solid detective work, gadgetry, and a writhing City as Character.
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A Potpourri Of Capes and Carnage.
There’s a bunch of cape action dropping tomorrow that my fat-headed, chubby-gutted self is going to snag. I can’t help it. I grew up fat and detached, I lose myself in the superpowers. BPRD: Hell On Earth Russia #4 is coming, and it is full of awesomeness that I have heard about but not directly experienced. File under: the TPB purchase will redeem me. Invincible Iron Man #511 is coming, and goddamn if I don’t love me some Stark on Mandarin action. We could be finally be seeing the culmination of Fraction’s seemingly forever-plotted showdown. Jim Lee and Geoff Johns continue on their not-really-good-at-all-but-not-awful Justice League relaunch with issue #4. There’s also new issues of Invincible, Wolverine and the X-Kids, Ghostbusters (yes), Uncanny X-Force and Sonic. Big fucking loot week!, and I haven’t even named all the bullsquash I’ll be expunging imperial credits on.
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What are you lads and lasses grabbing? Hit me.