Grant Morrison is one of comics’ superwunderminds in the past, god, I don’t know how many years. The Brothers Drinkwater here at Omega Level share a special source of reverence for the guy. And out of that reverence is born an extreme, extreme excitement for an upcoming documentary regarding him. Grant Morrison: Talking With Gods is bound to be ridiculous win. Not only is his writing surreal, essential, and just fucking enjoyable, but the man is a character. Heavy drug use back in the day, claims of communicating with aliens? Yeah bro, he done claimed that.

The trailer dropped for his documentary, and it pivots around an absurd moment that spawned his inspiration for All-Star Superman. Don’t like Superman? A) You’d like his run, B) The story behind the inspiration is amazing.

Hit the jump and check out the trailer.

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And a thousand thunders uttered, welcome to Variant Covers! Your hostel, your refuge from intelligent comic book talk. No sir, here at Variant Covers I pledge to inundate your unsuspecting brainstem with talk of superheroes, superpowers, and super fanboy-boners over things that are exciting me this current week in comic books. Don’t say I didn’t never warn you, ya’lll!

This week is chock full of fucking righteous comic book dalliances awaiting all of my kindred spirits. The sort of week that makes up for every installment of my blathering here which sounds like “Oh golly gee whiz, ain’t nothing droppin’ whine whine whine blah blah.”

Buckle up, I got a chubby for panels and pencils and dialogue boxes this week.

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Casanova #1
If you spend any amount of time loitering within the halls of Variant Covers, you know that one of my most revered writers is Matt Fraction. I think his ability to manipulate serious political issues within the realms of robot suits and billionaire playboys is amazing. In my more fanboyish moments, I am certain he’s doing something special with Tony Stark during a period in which the character’s popularity is unfathomably enormous. Pick up Invincible Iron Man, and you’re getting all the big budget theatrics of the movies interfacing with all the sort of culturally aware political commentary that you wouldn’t expect.

This week, Fraction’s getting his original work, Casanova, reprinted through Marvel’s Icon line. If you didn’t check out Casanova, you’re not alone. Penned back in 2006, it was where Fraction cut his teeth, and was to my understanding, not widely printed. I also understand nothing, so I could be completely incorrect. Whatever! Fraction takes you on a journey with intergalactic superspy Casanova Quinn, and it is absolutely insane. I’ve gotten to read the first couple of issues, and it really rocks out like nothing in Fraction’s Marvel catalog.

The series is getting reprinted in two four-issue arcs and in full color for the first time, and then Fraction is going to tackle the third volume of the series. I’m looking forward to it; it’ll be intriguing to see embryonic Fraction, fumbling through his first moments in comic book crafting. It’s a bit gushy, but the guy is extremely well-spoken, and beyond talented, and this is going to dominate my reading tomorrow.

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Batman: Odyssey #1
This week, we be getting the first issue of Neal Adam’s extravaganza. Adams has been instrumental in crafting the god damn Batman that we’ve come to know and love. His work in the 1970’s, were the “eggs [he] laid all those years ago” that have resulted in what “Batman has finally become”. Adams has returned to the Flying Rodent to examine the “now what” of Batman in this day and age. This meditation is arriving in the form of a six-issue extravaganza, and the man himself will be writing and drawing the entire storyline, as well as inking the first two issues.

I’m stoked.

Whether or not you’ve read Adam’s work on Batman, you’ve felt the repercussions if you’ve dallied in the world of Bruce Wayne. For someone who helped sculpt the character to return and give us a new storyline is pretty stellar. Frank Miller tried to do that with All-Star Batman and Robin, but I have a better chance of actually graduating from my Master’s Degree and entering the real world before it actually wraps up. So I’m going to have to cling Adams to deliver me some interesting new spins by someone who delivered a seminal work.

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Wonder Woman’s getting a new costume, and she’s covering up. Like, woah. Sorry perverts! But the outfit which really never made sense and only got more ridiculous with time has been replaced with something “modern” or whatever. Designed by Jim Lee! Let’s get the downlow on the outfit:

Writer J. Michael Straczynski via Robot 6:

Form follows function. She has to exist a great deal in an urban setting. So I wanted her to have an outfit that she can close up and pass more or less without notice, or open when she’s in a fight to reveal her full appearance. I wanted the outfit to express her own situation, in that she lives in two worlds, which is also in a way the trap in which she’s found herself.

I also wanted it functional. As so many female fans have said over the years, “How does she fight in that without all her parts popping out? Where does she keep stuff?” She can keep or shed the jacket, there are pockets, it’s tough and serious looking while still attractive. It’s a Wonder Woman designed for the 21st century. Not to get all “Project Runway” on this, but what woman wears the same outfit for 60 years without at least accessorizing?

I’m for it. I really am. As much as I enjoy boobs and butts, the outfit was impressively outrageous in the amount of flesh it displayed. Even if that flesh was carved from clay or whatever Wonder Woman’s origin is, I know. The cynical part of me wants to start counting down until they return to the horndog wunderkind that she’s worn since forever, but hey, for the moment, enjoy some new Jim Lee artwork.

[click images to enlarge]

God damn! Maybe golfing isn’t for yuppie douchebag pussies! I mean, if Batman, and no, not Bruce Wayne!, does it, it can’t be that bad.

Via: Comics Alliance:

This LA Life was the first to post pictures of the Tumbler Golf Cart, based on the vehicle’s design as seen in “Batman Begins” and “The Dark Knight.” A golf cart with a jet engine and armored plating is pretty darn hilarious and impressive on its own, but pushing this vehicle’s coolness factor over the edge is its place of residence: the Warner Bros. studio lot. The original rumor suggested that this golf cart actually belongs to director Christopher Nolan himself, that he’s been using this to get around the WB lot while finishing post-production on “Inception.” That rumor has since been squashed, but the fact that it’s hanging around the studio at all? That’s pretty darn priceless!

Fucking amazing. I really hope that it was Topher Nolan riding around in this wagon of bad assery and destruction while finishing Inception. And if it wasn’t him, whoever the fuck it was, kudos.

[click to enlarge]

To commemorate the release of All-Star Superman’s Absolute edition this Fall, Frank Quitely pimped out a new cover. Saving for my own selfish posterity.

Variant Covers: guaranteed to aggrandize superpowers, outside the pants underwear, and splash pages. I spent a lot of last week catching up on the ridiculous backlog of comic books that I hadn’t touched in a while. And I remembered something: good god damn, I fucking love comic books. Seems a bit obvious, dunnit? Alas. Sometimes I get so overwhelmed with the concept of ingesting the funny mags that I forget that at the core of them are the same tireless themes that I could read ad nauseam. Aristotle rocked out in the Poetics stating that not only do us wacky monkeys with self-awareness love narrative, but we can never get full, and we seem to gravitate towards the same concepts over and over again.

I think the dude is on to something. I’ve watched Magneto get his ass owned so many times, and yet his ironic struggle towards fascism born out of his own oppression still gets me. Bravo Aristotle, we may keep you around yet.

Superman #700
Superman turns 700 this week. Good lord, that’s a lot of dialogue bubbles. Superman hits its 700th issue, and of course, like every comic that hooks a something-hundredth milestone, the issue is packed to the brim with stories, artists, blah, blah blah.

I’m bored with Superman. And I love him. That’s the tragedy really. Everyone seems to dog on the dude, and even I, who loves the guy, can’t stand him. 700 issues. Let’s do something new with him. J. Michael is coming aboard with #701, and I’m hoping he uses it as a springboard towards something new.

Maybe I’m alone in this, but can we stop jerking off a 32 year-old movie? Am I the only one who is tired of seeing Clark Kent/Superman drawn to reflect Reeves? There’s so much homage paid to it, that it feels creatively stifling to me. I’ll take Kingdom Come’s Superman, or All Star-Superman, or Superman: For All Season’s depiction of the Man of Steel any day. I get it – we all love Reeves. It’s fantastic. But I prefer the beefy bumbling Clark Kent as a farm boy to the sexy grin of Reeves as Superman that Gary Frank loves penciling.

It isn’t about a disrespect for the movie, it’s about turning the page.

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Elsewhere in the DC Universe:
I’ve spent a good amount of time masturbating to Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne, and perhaps its because it does everything that Superman doesn’t do in comics today: something new. The third issue comes out this week, and if it is as ballin’ as the first two, I’m fucking sold. As well, the newest issue of Green Lantern Corps is coming out, and you can get your sexy magician fix in Zatanna #2.

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Yeah, welcome to Variant Covers! I’ve been slacking like a fucking asshole. I have a thick ass stack of stretchy-limbs, sociopaths, mutants and blind dudes with nunchucks to catch up with. Float me this week and I’ll float your boat. Instead of previewing what is coming out this week, I’m going to give you the lowdown on the shit I heartily recommend you check out, if not follow with an insatiable ass-lust.

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Choker:
Choker is the demented love child of Blade Runner and super-vulgarity. It’s super profane, super gritty, superly super. It’s a detective story at the peak of expletive-laden blood-soaked awesomeness.

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Daredevil:
Daredevil. Oh, do I love thee. One man’s internal struggle with his demons made literal, as the bro attempts to control the Hand. This is going to end in tears. Or maybe it already has. Like I’ve said, I haven’t read the latest issue. Inorite? Fuck me.

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Fantastic Four:
Jonathan Hickman is fucking fantastic. Puns ahoy! But seriously. I don’t read enough comic books that can intertwine the intergalactic with the heart. Or really, I don’t read any besides this.

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Joseph Gordon-Levitt is one hell of an actor. 500 Days of Summer? Word. Brick? Double word. GI Joe? TRIPLE.FUCKING.WORD. And this summer he’s in Christopher Nolan’s Inception. But is the dude in Christopher Nolan’s Batman 3? It just might fucking be!

via slashfilm:

First up, Mr. Gordon-Levitt. This comes from Deadline and Movieline sister gossip site Hollywood Life, which claims that JGL has been tapped to play the Riddler in Batman 3. There’s no substantiation to this, and since we don’t even know if the script is finished (fairly certain it is not) it seems too early to call. But JGL is in Christopher Nolan’s Inception, which makes it a lot easier to believe than almost every other Batman 3 rumor we’ve heard;   supposedly the rumor originated in a joke or comment made on the Inception set. And it certainly seems like a good idea.

For what it’s worth, however, JGL’s reps have already denied this, according to The Wrap. So leave it alone for now and wait for the script to be delivered

So it’s already been denied, but fuck, what does that really mean? At the very least it’s intriguing, and gets my pants in a twist. I’d be on board. Quadruple word!

Variant Covers is the only weekly comic book column to feature headlines featuring puke covered boobs! Welcome to all ye enter, and I sure hope you’ve got a good taste for the depraved. Here at Variant Covers I give a run down of the comic books I’m excited for, catch my eye, or seem hilariously rotten in a given week.

Astonishing X-Men: Xenogenesis #2
The second issue of the most ridiculously named X-Title ever is arriving on shelves this week covered in puke, tits, and sociopolitical commentary. While I didn’t dig Warren Ellis’ first run on Astonishing X-Men that much, I really got into the first issue of Astonishing X-Men: Xenogenesis Fun Pukey Time. The storyline is centered around an African village that is giving birth to particularly mutant-looking children. The whole OMFG stems from the fact that once Scarlett Witch went all fucking insaneo and banished mutants from the Earth, ain’t none been born. Let alone the fact that generally muties manifest around puberty. Because you know, they’re an extended metaphor for adolescent longing as well as commentary on ostracized ethnic and cultural groups.

So shit is going down! What I really enjoy about the title is how Ellis manages to float political commentary rather elegantly into the affairs of a bunch of latex-bound demi-gods. In the middle of the first issue, Wolverine drops some knowledge bombs about Nelson Mandela that even if you disagree with, are pretty interesting to hear coming out of a mainstream comic book.

It’s a fun romp, and features ridiculous postures and absurd ass and tit shots by Kaare Andrews. And while I’m ultimately a horndog who finds himself aroused on occasion by the curve of inanimate objects, the artwork stems the line between ridiculously sexualized and rousing the inner feminist in me. There’s some sort of line that Andrews is straddling for even the most reluctant readers as myself, and definitely sending more engaged feminists into apoplectic aneurysms.

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Meta 4 #1
Meta 4! Metaphor. See what they did there? This comic comes out this week, and I’m particularly intrigued. I hadn’t read about it, but while skimming the release list this week it caught my eye. Even the title is a metaphor! Intriguing. And then I read the plot description which seems trippy enough to at least try out the first issue:

An amnesiac astronaut is helped by Gasolina, a muscular woman who dresses up as Santa all year round. As they travel New York City for one man’s answers of self, it becomes an expedition to overcome barriers that stand between us and a recognition of our inner selves.

Too bizarre to pass up for me. I have the feeling that the comic book is either going to be a refreshing exploration of metaphors and life through metaphor, or really just a pretentious bunch of hogwash. I’m hoping it is dope as fuck. If you stop and ponder how essential metaphors are to not only understanding and communicating with one another, but also as means to make sense of the world, the idea of the comic books pretty cool. Metaphors layered upon metaphors! I know, I’m a lame-ass literature nerd.

Mea culpa, mea culpa.

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Welcome to Variant Covers, the joint where every week I glance at a Release List for the comic books coming out and mention anything that catches my eye in the world of Telekinesis, Perpetual Resurrections, and Really Firm Pectorals, Buttocks, and Breasts. Or generally, that’s what I do. But seeing as this is my column, fuck it, I’m going to do whatever I want to. Let not the column dictate my writing, let my writing dictate the column! Or some shit. Word.

Memorial Day and a five-week month have seemingly conspired to draw a really fucking boring week on my ass. I say this full aware that people who are reading this are probably excited for roughly nineteen titles and think I’m a complete dickhead. Whatever. Like I say every week what are you reading? Recommend something to me. I’ll read it, I’ll even probably enjoy it. But on a budget that is stuffed with comics and countless energy drinks, I don’t take many risks on my own. That said, the comic books are coming late this week, and what are coming don’t really catch my attention.

Nonetheless, it always saddens me when shit comes out a day late in the Comicverse. Fucking Memorial Day! I’ll trade a day of eating lobsters and drinking for the ability to snag my funny books on time. Who stops shipments of anything, anyways? This America! Dost Capitalism dare slow down for something as insignificant as recognizing those who have fallen for our right to pound Double Gulps and watch endless repeats of Sportcenter as we bloat and fart? [If you don’t get my sarcasm just close the window. I beg you.

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Cosplay Fever
You know it’s either a slow week or an awesome week when one of the most geeked out things I’m interested in is a compendium of all things cosplay. Cosplay is also amazing in my book. It operates on so many levels of rock, that it takes something calamitous for it to fail me. If the cosplay is awesome, it’s generally a woman or man wearing way too little and giving convention goers a look at some flesh. If the cosplay is terrible, then it works on a car crash sort of way. Either way, it is something to be entertained by.

I’ll never forget the four-hundred pound Jean Grey I saw at last year’s New York Comicon. She was a bulging sea of green and red. As I was sitting in line, it was probably the gravitational pull of her various oceanic waves of cellulite that caught my eye. But I was transfixed. Whatever sort of superfabric she was wearing was screaming for relief. Pulled so tight, it captured every cottage-cheese dimple across her biomass. I thought it was astounding. The lady was tremendous because either a) She didn’t give a fuck about her figure, she was dressing up. I respect that. Or b) she as delusional and thought she had it going on. Like I said, either way, kudos.

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Since I usually spend my time commenting on comic books that are coming out, as opposed to that I’m digging on, I don’t get to highlight titles rocking my ass. Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne is currently deeply embedded in the windings halls of my fanboy heart. Morrison has the Man of Flying Rats tripping through time. It’s fucking odd, which I suppose isn’t anything new from a writer who has thought he’s communed with aliens. Wayne is falling through time, while also posing as a Biorganic Archivist at the end of linear timespace? Or something? Like I said, it’s insane. But it’s also an enjoyable examination of myths and superstitions throughout various timelines, from that of cavemen to the witch trials. Seeing how humanity has a tendency to make the supernatural out of what cannot be easily explained, and how fears play on one’s ability to reason clearly.

It’s super odd, and really, really different from the usual superhero event.

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