You can do some of the work, you lazy bums!

While I am writing my next post (and it is going to be a long one since I have a lot to say about the topic), I'm hoping to get some help from teh intarwebs. Here's the deal. If you are reading this, than I want you to toss out a title, character, team, storyline, year of publication, anything. The first one mentioned that I can find buried in my longboxes will be the topic of an upcoming post. Basically, I want to read something, but I want it to be totally random and out of my control. So post a comment, send me a twitter, yell in my face, etc., and tell me what to read.

Random Dive #3

Last Wednesday, I had a very nice surprise at my local comic store. They were selling bundles of ten random comics for $1.50, and all you could see were the two books on the outside of the bag. It is pretty obvious that there is no way I could pass this up. So I grabbed my new comics and tossed two of these mystery packs in there too. The reason I bring this up is because as soon as I opened them up to see what books fate had dealt me, I thought I should grab a couple that look the most interesting and write some notes about them here. So here we go with the three books that I thought looked the best just from their covers.

The first book I found that piqued my interest was The Spectre #4 by J. M. DeMatteis and Ryan Sook. While the cover is very nice, it was actually the creative team that drew me in. I am a huge fan of both DeMatteis and Sook and having them working on the same book made this a must read for me. Basically, the story is that the Spectre, Superman, and Batman must stop this demigod woman and Zauriel who has been possessed by the literal "Wrath of God." The story gets pretty interesting and metaphysical which was a welcome change to the books that I normally find in the bargain bins. Now the thing that I really think is worth noting about The Spectre is the art. I became a big fan of Ryan Sook's art with his run on X-Factor. When I read those issues though, not once did Sook's art remind me of Mike Mignola and Hellboy. The Spectre on the other hand is very reminiscent of Mignola and his Hellboy work. Don't get me wrong. This is not a negative at all. It works with The Spectre's story. It is just interesting that Sook's art style seems so different to what I know from more recent books.

The second book that grabbed my attention was The Flash #220 by Geoff Johns and Howard Porter. I like the character of the Flash, but I must admit that I have never really read a lot of The Flash. Most of my knowledge of Wally West comes from team books like Justice League of America and not from his own book. From the cover, I got the feeling that this might be one of those "big bang for your buck" books where you get a whole lot of characters and action. Luckily, the book did not disappoint. This was a great primer on Flash's famous Rogues Gallery as Captain Cold introduces all the Rogues and what they are doing post-Identity Crisis. I couldn't have asked for a better crash course through Flash's villains. I will definitely be on the lookout for the rest of the issues in this storyline.

Saving the best for last, we have a cross company team up as the X-Men visit the Malibu Comics universe in The Phoenix Resurrection: Revelations. It apparently took a small army to bring this book to life with Ian Edginton and Dan Abnett on writing duty and Kevin West, John Royle, Randy Green, and Rick Leonardi on art. Now I knew that Marvel acquired Malibu Comics in the 90's and tried to integrate some of their characters into Malibu's "Ultraverse." (Nerd fact: The Ultraverse is still part of Marvel multiverse and is designated Earth-93060). This book has characters crossing over every which way and the Phoenix force going nuts and being used by an alien supercomputer to destroy the Earth. We can't have that, now can we!? So all of these heroes all team up in order to save the world. The thing that kept creeping into my head while I was reading this is that Marvel could take a page out of DC's play book and bring some of these Malibu characters back. DC owns the Impact and Milestone characters and is folding them into the DC Universe. Why couldn't Marvel do the same with Malibu? Honestly, even in this book, there are a couple characters that could be pretty interesting. Marvel's Exiles series jumps around to other universes and would be a great way to mine some characters from the Malibu books. Well who knows? Maybe we will see Night Man or Topaz again. Like they say, all it takes is a creator with a good story and any character can have a comeback.

Random Dive #2

Now that the events from the "Big Two" are either done or winding down and neither company has left a really great taste in my mouth, I decided to just grab some random comics out of the boxes to clean my palette. I'm not in the mood to read about "Dark Reigns" or "Final Crises" for a little while, so I looked in the boxes for something different. Of course, the best place to start when trying something new is pick out the first issue, right? With only a peek at the issue number (to make sure I was starting a story at the beginning), I grabbed four #1 issues hoping that something was worth the paper that it was printed on. Let's see what I ended up with.

The first book was The Comet #1 from Impact Comics, story and art by Tom Lyle and script by Mark Waid. OK, I like Mark Waid. I can be hopeful that this book might be a good read. The issue was purchased entirely due to the fact that I know DC owns the rights to the Impact characters and is planning to fold them into the DC universe. The thought crossed my mind that I might like reading something about them before DC just dumps them into our laps. I can tell you now that I don't. Honestly, the origin of the Comet is pretty mundane and common. Young guy gets electrocuted, but instead of dying, he gains superpowers. After reading the book I ran to Wikipedia to find out a little more about Impact comics and found that the entire imprint was aimed more at kids. That explains it. The book just isn't for me. Keep it simple for the kids so that they can get into superheroes. I am a huge proponent of getting kids to read comics. If you have a copy of The Comet lying around, give it to a kid. They might like it.

We go from kid friendly to adults only with the next book, Power & Glory by Howard Chaykin for the "Bravura" imprint of the now-defunct Malibu Comics. From what I can gather, "Bravura" consisted of multiple titles of original stories from some big name creators like Dan Jurgens, Jim Starlin, Peter David, and others. When I started reading, I found that I fell into the "seen it before" trap twice in one day as Chaykin tells a story of the government creating a fake superhero to rally the American people. The thing that I found interesting though had nothing to do with the story. At the end of the book, there is a sign-up form for the "Bravura Gold Stamp Program." Listen to this great deal! All you had to do was buy every Bravura book (which, of course, you were going to do anyway) and you will be rewarded with FOIL VARIANT COVERS! Ah, only in the 90's could a company even think that something like this would fly.

After seeing how Malibu tried to steal money out of people's pockets, it was only right to read a book set in Las Vegas where money is stolen from people's pockets every day. Don't get me wrong. I love Las Vegas and as soon as I saw Nevada #1 in the quarter bin I had to buy it. Written by the great Steve Gerber with art by Phil Winslade and Steve Leialoha, Nevada starts out as a murder mystery set in a Vegas casino that looks a whole lot like the Luxor. Of course, it is full of Steve Gerber's signature weirdness. With victims cut in half, the main character's pet ostrich, and a crime boss with no head, the book got very strange very quick. Honestly, I was sort of hoping for a more realistic crime story but the well written story and the amazing art was enough to keep me entertained. Fables fans can really see Leialoha's ink style and where his own sensibilities influence the art. I do plan on going out and looking for the rest of this series or for the trade.

Lastly, I moved from the city where every dream comes true to a city where dreams actually are real. Dream Police by J. Michael Stracznski and Mike Deodato, a one shot from 2005, tells the story of two cops who patrol the streets of the city where people's minds go when they dream. Yeah, the concept may seem a little out there but JMS made a good little story. Dealing with the crazy things that people's minds come up with is hard work. I actually laughed out loud when they were get stuck in traffic because "as usual, it's filled with people finding themselves suddenly naked in a crowd." You have to give JMS some credit for a very original idea. Dream Police is definitely worth a read if you come across it in the cheap boxes at a convention.

Random Dive #1

Originally, this week was going to be about a bunch of Marvel books, but Marvel pissed me off recently. They don't deserve free advertising right now. Paying more than full price for less than 22 pages of Astonishing X-Men: Ghost Boxes is definitely not cool. Before I go off on a anger induced tangent not appropriate for this blog, I think I should take my mind off it and talk about something fun and as far from Marvel as possible. So, let's take a dive into the longboxes and see what I can find. I plan on making this a regular thing with just random pulls out of the boxes just to see what comes out.

Practically every person I know around my age has fond memories of a very particular block of television, the "Disney Afternoon." For two hours every weekday, Disney controlled my TV. I would run into the house after school just so I could watch Ducktales, Chip N' Dale Rescue Rangers, and the others. Now when I saw Uncle Scrooge #230 and #236 sitting in a quarter bin, a wave of nostalgia came over me and I added them to the pile of books I was purchasing. Tom Katers of Around Comics once said that adults are the only people that read Uncle Scrooge anymore. Sadly, I bet it is true. They have a lot of great stories of stinginess but they are only read by old people looking for that same nostalgic feeling I had. With so many people asking about what comics are appropriate for young readers, here is some advice. Go find a couple issues of Uncle Scrooge in the quarter bin and give them to the little ones. You won't be sorry.

Next on the docket is Ambush Bug #3 written by one of the greatest writers in comics, Keith Giffen. This issue has been sitting in my collection for some time now because I was worried that I wouldn't get any of the jokes. I bought it since I had heard of Ambush Bug a little and the title of this issue was "The Ambush Bug History of the DC Universe" which sounded like fun. I've explained before that as a kid, I never really read a lot of DC comic books. Now that I have immersed myself in DC history, I thought that I would be ready for some Ambush Bug. (Plus the fact that I have really been enjoying the current Ambush Bug: Year None series didn't hurt either.) Now that I have the background to get the jokes, this issue was really hilarious. I really don't want to spoil anything since I think real DC fans should go out and find this issue. I love it when a company can take a step back and make fun of themselves. Comics are always so serious lately and having a laugh about them once in a while is always a good idea. All I can say is that seeing what Ambush Bug would look like if drawn by Jack Kirby, Gil Kane, and Frank Miller made me crack up and made this book worth all the time I have spent learning all about DC continuity.