Non-Reviews for Comics Not Bought, June 27 2007:

Non-Book of the Week: Amazons Attack #3 -

This is the third issue?

The art of underrated Pete Woods isn't enough to make me care about this odd little pocket event. That I place Countdown ahead of this in terms of my interest is your first hint that it's probably not worth $2.99. That DC isn't inserting Amazons subplots into every single one of its books tells you they don't think it's worth it, either.


Other Non-Worthy Non-Books for June 27th:

Countdown #44-

On Earth 38^[1], this series is titled DC's Four Color Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility. Too much of a good thing is a bad thing, and too much of a bad thing is staying on the racks, unsold.

X-Men: First Class, Volume 2 #1 -

I'm a numbers geek. I'll own it. I just can't get past this numerically awkward title, and I hope it overcomes the psychology of "selling more of a new #1 than you would've of plain #7" and sells about 7 copies.

World War Hulk: Frontline and World War Hulk: X-Men -

As discussed in our reviews of WWH #1, we here at JOB are excited at the possibility of a self-contained Big Story. And while it's nice of Marvel to offer supplemental books (from House of M through Civil War, and Civil War, and Civil War...), until it commits to making them at least minutely effective as stand-alone pieces and to not making them essential pieces of the main storyline, we're ignoring them.

Two and a Half Brubakers: Daredevil #98, Immortal Iron Fist #6, Criminal #7 -

...

Just kidding. We do like comics here. Especially really good ones.
_________________________________________
[1]I claimed this DC Earth as mine between the events of 52 #52 and Countdown #51. You snooze, you lose, suckers.

Worst toy tie-in ever?

I don't really pay attention to these things much anymore -- most of my toy buying is comics-related rather than movie-related (and, every so often, kid-related) -- so I have absolutely no clue if this toy is indeed the single worst movie tie-in ever, as Wm. Steven Humphrey of the Portland Mercury posits. But I think the man's certainly got a valid point:

The Human Torch has no need for an "All-Terrain Vehicle" -- because the last time I checked, the Human Torch can f&@$ing FLY.

Point well made, sir. Point well made.

New Comics Reviews for 6/20/07 with Special Guest Reviewer: The Late Bart Allen

Co-Book of the Week: Flash #13
Now that I'm free from the time-wasting chore of y'know, being alive, I can finally catch up on my blogging. I've got a few things to say, starting with this week's Flash.

To the Justice League, the Justice Society, the Teen Titans, the Outsiders, Checkmate, and (coming soon) Infinity Inc.:
Thanks for the invites! And more importantly, thanks for all that help back there in L.A. where I was making my final stand against EVERY SINGLE FREAKING ONE OF MY ROGUES while simultaneously trying to keep the city from exploding. Oh yeah, and WITHOUT MY POWERS.

To my Granny Iris and to Valerie:
Of all the times to listen to me, you pick now? You didn't think to call anyone before I was kicked to death, but afterwards, you were more effective at spreading the word than TMZ.com. I assumed some of that "Fastest Man Alive" juice would've rubbed off on you two.

To whoever picked up the phone at JLA headquarters:
Now I get it! Ha ha ha! "Sorry, only the Flash could get to you in time. If only we had a Flash on the team..." Hilarious! Kiss my now-burned, frozen, and electrocuted ASS!

To writer Mark Guggenheim and artist Tony Daniel:
Nice job overall, but could you have presented the events leading up to my death a little more clearly? It's going to be awfully hard for my friends to exact vengeance (and while there was apparently no time to save me, there's always time for vengeance) if we can't decipher who did what to whom.

To DC Executive Editor Dan DiDio:
You've finally painted yourself into a corner. You spent all this energy and soaked up a year's worth of negative response and kept my book around, only to "Black Flash" me anyway. Good luck finding the next Flash, smart guy...





Co-Book of the Week: JLA #10 -



...God damn it.

Just in time to not save me, Wally's back. Maybe if the Legion of Super-Heroes hadn't spent so much time keeping their plans secret for no good reason, they could've brought him back a little quicker and I'd at least still be alive. Mark Waid would never have gone for this kind of shabby treatment of any Flash. If he was writing the book, I'd be back as the Fastest Man Alive any month now...


DC News of the Week: Mark Waid Returns to Flash; Wally West on Cover of First Story -

...God damn it.

To hell with this, what's Marvel doing these days? Their resident speedster's off his rocker again, maybe they could fit me in as a temp. Ex-freakin'-celsior!

___________________________________________
Editor's note - Bart would later apologize for his bitterness; he has since come to grips with his untimely demise and is comforted by the fact that any comics writer of any skill level could return him to comics in about three panels.

I Hearby Elect For JLA Membership...

Thanks to Brad Meltzer for putting the template up his MySpace page. And here, kids, you too can play along at home:

Send us your entries, or put 'em up on your own site and tell us about it!

On Kid-Friendly Comics, Or Not So Much

While there's several things I'd like to discuss about the news coming out of the conventions in Charlotte and Philadelphia this past weekend, it's one tossed-off line reported in CBR's wrapup of the DC Nation panel in Charlotte Friday that irked me a bit:

Will any Vertigo characters like Swamp Thing or Constantine appear in the DCU? DiDio said that he didn't want any mature reader books to cross over, because of the all-ages nature of the DCU's audience.

I agree with this sentiment -- in part. I do believe that the DC Universe should be, for the most part, all-ages territory. If we want to get kids hooked at an early age, like so many of us life-long readers were, then the comics need to be something their parents feel comfortable buying for them or at the very least feel comfortable with their reading. There's plenty of places for comic with more adult content, both in other avenues within the Big Two and from other publishers. But I think in general, the main books with the iconic superheroes should be somewhat kid-friendly -- and by that I don't mean that they need to be "kiddie books," but kids should be able to pick them up and not be subjected to graphic sexuality and violence.

The problem with DiDio's "all ages" statement is that it does not represent the DC Universe as it stands right now. Not as much as the statement might imply, anyway.

Case in point, or case which is pointedly on my mind: Justice League of America #6.

You can certainly argue that Brad Meltzer isn't writing this book with kids in mind. For one, he's a novelist more used to writing fiction geared toward adults, but even more to the point, with this series he's writing for himself and people roughly the same age he is. The current JLA is aimed squarely at the people who grew up reading comics (specifically DC comics) in the seventies and eighties and who now are thirty- and forty-year-olds with (theoretically, debatably) more sophisticated tastes in story theme and structure. But what that means is the current JLA is not friendly to kids. (I don't believe sophistication or maturity has to equal kid-unfriendly, but in this case it does.)

At that point in the story, the Red Tornado had achieved his long-held desire to be human. His robotic consciousness and powers had been transferred into a human body, so he was able to experience all the sensory highs of being human -- and, of course, the sensory lows. And it's in JLA #6 that Meltzer lets Reddy really feel those lows. Solomon Grundy beats the holy hell out of the Tornado, pummeling him nearly to death, breaking his ankle and other body parts...

...and then he rips the Tornado's arm off just below the elbow. Very, very graphically. We get Ed Benes' lovely depiction of de-meated and de-handed bone stuck out from the stump of Red Tornado's arm as he (Reddy, not Benes) screams in agony. (For bonus points, Grundy then eats the hand, though at least that act happens in shadow.)

This, in Dan Didio's "all ages" DC universe.

(Also, good times in Justice Society of America #3: as neo-Nazis tear apart a family reunion, little kids included. Not quite on par with the hand-eating in JLA, but a bit disturbing nonetheless. And let's not even touch on the amount of gratuitously graphic violence in Infinite Crisis.)

Look, I'm not squeamish when it comes to violence in comics -- Preacher is one of my all-time favorite series, and the sorts of violence routinely featured in that book far, far outpaced the recent events in JLA or JSA. But Preacher was in no way intended for kids and it didn't feature the big recognizable DC icons. Books like JLA and JSA should be treated as gateway books, comics that new readers (including kids, especially kids) interested in mainstream superhero books can pick up and get hooked by. Same goes for the main Avengers books, Teen Titans, the main X-Men books (just to touch on teams). There's plenty of places for the more mature, more graphic storytelling, even within the mainstream Marvel and DC lines.

Also, I'm not saying that violence shouldn't be part of JLA and its ilk. Violence is a large part of the tapestry of mainstream superhero comics and always has been. But the violence can certainly be treated a little differently, can't it, in certain books? What Grundy did to Red Tornado was thematically central to what Meltzer was doing with that story -- that scene might have been the central point of "The Tornado's Path." I believe, though, that the theme would have been as well served with, say, a shot of the Tornado on his back on the ground, Grundy clearly having him pinned and gripping his arm; appropriately disturbing sound effects; later shots where it's obvious that Reddy is missing part of his arm. The same events, the same meaning to Red Tornado (and therefore to the audience), but done in such a way that's at least closer to being truly an all-ages book. Less visceral, perhaps (in more than one sense), but still effective.

I'm a parent. I want my kids to read comics. I've already gotten my girls hooked by buying them their very own issues of Krypto the Superdog, based on the animated series. My older daughter loves to try to find comics from my stack I can read to her, but I'm very careful about what I let her look at -- y'know, one of my main responsibilities as a parent. When I was a kid, probably eight, nine years old, Justice League of America was one of my favorite books, one of the few I bought every month without fail. I don't remember anything in those issues my dad would particularly have objected to. But no way in hell would I want my kids reading something like the current JLA #6 until they were teenagers, and I think that's a shame and a disservice to a book which I think should be a way into comics for younger readers.

Am I wrong here? Am I being entirely too old-fogey for my own good? Do we just say "Well, there's the Johnny DC line and the Marvel Adventures line for the kids -- let us adults have our bloody arm-severings in our mainstream superhero comics?" Or are we assuming that kids aren't reading these books anyway, so we don't even have to worry about making them kid-friendly? Would all be made well if Dan DiDio just gave up on the myth that the DCU is truly all-ages and admitted that DC's mainstream output is geared toward adults? I'll readily admit that I could be wrong on this topic and that my views could be outdated or outmoded -- I'm really curious to hear what all seven of our readers have to say on the subject.

REVIEW: Sub-Mariner #1... but not here!

In lieu of the actual new content I'm still working on, I'd like to point out that I was the "Celebrity Guest Blogger" (for some bizarre definition of "celebrity") over at Doomkopf.com this last weekend. What that meant was that I got to throw my opinionated hat into the Doomkopf ring and give my take on last week's Sub-Mariner #1. Did I love it? Did I hate it? Did I think it had far too few mostly-naked Atlantean kings on display? You'll have to hop over to Doomkopf.com to find out for yourself!

(Hint: it had exactly the right number of mostly-naked Atlantean kings.)

REVIEW: World War Hulk #1

I've gotta tell you, I absolutely was not looking forward to World War Hulk. I've been less than ecstatic about the state of the post-Civil War Marvel Universe in general, and the prospect of yet another Epic Crossover, one which had been hyped and teased since last summer, didn't exactly fill me with glee. I'm not a tremendous Hulk fan to begin with, and the whole "Planet Hulk" storyline didn't look all that interesting to me. So all the ingredients were there for me to bake up a big ol' Hulk-sized batch of apathy cookies for this series.

But I grabbed it on the spur of the moment based on the couple of positive previews I'd read. And I'm really glad I did.

I'm man enough to admit when I'm wrong about something, and yes, I was wrong about World War Hulk. Very wrong. This book kicked my ass almost as thoroughly as the Hulk kicked Black Bolt's. (Well, OK, maybe not that thoroughly.) WWH #1 had exactly what I want out of a Big Event Superhero comic: big fights, posturing, lots of property damage (always bonus points for property damage to recognizable locations, fictional or otherwise), and, in this case, some characters getting some long-awaited schadenfreude.

This book had several quality "oh, shiiii--*" moments in it, moments where you just knew something big or something awful (or something hugely awful) was about to happen. Greg Pak wrote both the big violent moments and the smaller, personal moments in this story well, almost like a "widescreen" story written by a Mark Millar who actually gave a damn about characterization. Pak has a great match here in John Romita, Jr., an artist long known for his ability to both the big and the small, and Pak's script gives JRJR plenty of opportunities to show off (I love the design of the "Hulkbuster" Iron Man armor).

Also, it was nice to see Iron Man acting heroically, which it seems we haven't seen much of lately during his guest appearances in every single comic Marvel publishes. (I think he was even in the latest issue of Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter.) I'm not going to say that his actions in this issue redeem the dickishness he's displayed over the last year or so, but they certainly help.

Even though I'll definitely be picking up the rest of this series, I'm not planning on buying any of the ancillary World War Hulk titles with the possible exception of The Incredible Hulk, since that seems like the most logical place to assume other Big Stuff might happen. That book also has the advantage of also being penned by Pak, and after WWH #1, that means I'll give it a shot.

Automagical

You might remember that last week, we had this thing going around here where you, our loyal readers, could decide for yourself what Captain Marvel should've changed Black Adam's magic word to.  Well, my buddy Ryan took it one step further than my simple have-a-blank-image trick.  In an effort to keep from having to do his real job (and, really, that's why anything ever happens at all here at tha J.O.B.), he put his phat web programming skillz to work and threw together a Make Your Own Magic Word web app.

So here, Ryan, this is for you, using your own tool (so to speak):

And as a bonus, my friend Doug (who works with Ryan) was inspired to craft the following:

Thanks, guys! And everyone else, go try it out and let us know if you come up with something cool!

Special Guest Reviewer: Danny Rand, Iron Fist

Got so lucky this Wednesday--walked into the local Slipperworld to use the mens' room (some undercooked KFC did me in) and who did I run into? Danny Rand, wielder of the Iron Fist, current New Avenger and principal player in the Book of the Week. Surprisingly, he wasn't too busy to sit down and peruse my comics haul for the week...

Book of the Week: Avengers #31--

Tim: After a few months' advance warning, Bendis springs his latest internet-cleaving plot twist. And because he cares enough to spell things out to you, Bendis has this week's special guest give your confusion focus and deliver the Line of the Year...

Um...

(Danny, that's your cue.)


















Tim: Here's what it means. It means I'm going to be buying many, many more issues of New Avengers. Dammit.

Justice #12 (series finale!) -
You first this time, Danny.



















Tim: It means that Justice is completed, after 2 years. With that much time invested, you'd think there'd be a more memorable story told. With no real issue-by-issue cliffhangers, it seems pretty obvious that this story was always intended to be read as a single collected work. So why not just sell it that way? Probably because suckers like me will invest $40 in the singles, then turn around and blow $60 on some Absolute Justice hardcover too.

As series closers go, Justice has its share of good moments: a Wonder Twins reference, yet another addition to the surprisingly large collection of cool scenes involving Batman and Lex Luthor, and a Joker sequence that you can just tell Alex Ross has been waiting to use since he first formed his religion, Superfriendsruledology.

Punisher War Journal #8 -

Tim: Writer Matt Fraction continues to give us the Charles Bronson/Jan Michael Vincent/Tom Laughlin Punisher that you'd think we'd always had. As a 70's child, you've got to dig this action, right Danny?



















Tim: (sighing) It means that with Super Nazis besmirching Captain America's legacy and terrorizing an entire town, Frank's going to be shooting a lot of people in the face soon (as we were promised at the arc's opening). And Fraction's villains are so edge-of-preposterous loathesome, you'll hope your $2.99 goes straight to Frank Castle's bullet fund.


That's all the meaning I can dole out for now, true believers. Watch this space next week, as I hope to sit down with Black Lightning, so he can explain whatever the hell's just happened in Justice League of America #10. (And I'm going to check IDs this time--I'm starting to think that I didn't just talk to Iron Fist at all. I think it was just some dude, trying to score what was left of my Chicken and Biscuit Bowl)

Illuminati-dati: World War Hulk #1

It's possible for a grizzled capes-vet like me to accept and enjoy a new status quo or a "perfect jumping-on point", even if on occasion these result from varying levels of contrivance. I get that the Big 2 want to actually publish comics for money and promote series like Civil War or Infinite Crisis/One Year Later/52/Countdown as Giant Events Laden With Ramification and Consequence. But, after what seems like endless universe-shuffling, I've gotta ask:

When are we going to get there? When are we going to get somewhere?

Marvel may be answering me with World War Hulk. Finally, a Marvel comic that breaks free of the Civil War Fallout Inertia that most of their other books are still locked into. I haven't cracked open many Marvels lately without having whole sections grind to a halt so that two super-powered beings can debate Registration and whether Tony Stark is evil or not.

When is someone gonna try and take over the world again? When are we going to see someone throw a building on someone else again? And most imporantly here... when am I going to discuss the comic in the title?

Okay, fine...

If #1 is any indication, then World War Hulk might just be the blockbuster epic Marvel's been promising all this time that satisfies us without requiring 12 titles a month to follow or explain.

Blissfully absent from Civil War, a supremely pissed Big Green has finally returned to Earth, apprarently traveling through space on grudge alone. Greg Pak appears to be a very smart cookie, playing to artist John Romita Jr's strengths and cramming this first issue with action, and even the opening recap pages have movement in every panel. Yeah, there's some stray Civil War-speak, but only to illustrate that there's something way more dangerous out there than unlicensed superheroes.

Hulk's agenda is far simpler: smash the Illuminati members who shot him into space and into horrible tragedy that cost him nearly everything. He intends to point out that it's not the smartest move to anger anyone whose strength feeds on that rage (as Black Bolt finds out very quickly this issue). The smashing is all there is to see (and all you need to look forward to) in World War Hulk.

Paris Hilton's Blues

Don't know who snapped this photograph, but it wasn't any of us. (Perhaps Patron Saint Jimmy Olsen?) At any rate, we refer any thoughts of litigation to the very bottom of this page.

Not-So-Great Moments In Metropolis's History, Part One

Yeah, 'cause what Superman really needs is a couple of thirteen-year-old kids writing programs in BASIC to fill him in on the physics necessary for keeping a plummeting 300-ton airliner from smashing into the center of Metropolis.

Not Quite Done-In-One

For those of you interested in such things (and I know this includes all three of us here at Tha J.O.B.), Warren Ellis has a thread at The Engine dedicated to single pages from scripts-in-progress from the writers who hang out there. One particular passage from the page of script posted by Matt Fraction (from an upcoming issue of The Immortal Iron Fist) only made him climb a couple of notches higher on my Writer I Dig list:

2-- NIGHT. We’re angling on a humble bed-- think a futon mattress on a floor, placed next to a large, open window out of which we see a full moon bathing K’un-Lun in light. On that bed, sitting up, naked but wrapped in sheets are the FISHERMAN and WU. Totally DOING IT.

Some Hope for Supergirl

(Yes, we're a little behind on The Great Supergirl Controversy of '07, but give us a break, we just started doing this last week.)

Is it too much to hope that maybe DC editorial has finally realized that what readers want out of Supergirl is not a hyper-sexualized stick figure who alternates between angry and pouty? If that's what we wanted, there's plenty of reality shows out there offering nothing but. But it's starting to look like either DC has noticed and heeded all of the backlash online to their current incarnation of Supergirl, or have met some actual teenage girls and realized that they're not all as atrocious as they've made Kara. First we had Mark Waid and George Perez' relatively wholesome[1] and not-so-annoying version of the character in The Brave and the Bold, and now Supergirl's own series looks like it might be following the same path.

The initial concept designs by incoming Supergirl artist Renato Guedes (I was going to call him "the underrated Renato Guedes," but I don't think "underrated" is going to describe him much longer) certainly make it look that way. She looks like -- shock! -- a normal teenage girl. A healthy teenage girl with regular teenage-girl proportions.

And the one shot included of Supergirl's skirt flying up? She's wearing shorts underneath rather than ass-bearing bikini briefs. (I'd imagine that's specifically why the shot was included, actually.)

(Many more excellent Guedes drawings at the link above.)

Now we'll have to see if new writer Tony Bedard can make her characterization more appealing. He's certainly saying the right things beforehand:

"I have basic expectations about what's appropriate for a character with the "S" on her chest. I don't think that's a limitation -- it points the way toward the proper area in which to search for fresh material. She's not a dark avenger or Goth punk. She's a strange visitor from another planet who should embody all that's best in humanity and in America. That's right, America. The land of immigrants who make good. "

We'll see. I'm hopeful. Good luck, guys. You don't want to bring The Supergirl Internet Fanboy Brigade down on top of your heads.

[1] Yes, she was crushing on Green Lantern, but I totally believed a seventeen-year-old girl would have a crush on Hal Jordan. C'mon.

On Legions of Legions

I've had this notion itching in my head that I wanted to talk about the Legion of Super-Heroes as they're currently appearing the the JLA/JSA(/LSH) crossover and some of the continuity discrepancies therein, but luckily, Matthew over at Legion Abstract did a fine job of doing exactly that so I don't have to (and, I believe, did it better than I was going to). I do have some thoughts and opinions to add, but you should go read Matthew's post first. Don't worry, I'll still be here when you come back.

Some of what Matthew had to say there got me thinking about the Legion and general and my reaction to their various incarnations over the last twenty-five years (oh my god, have I really been reading comics for that long?). My first reaction to seeing the almost-but-not-quite-pre-Crisis Legion (what Matthew calls the 2x+unboot Legion) in "The Lightning Saga" was probably much like many other fanboys in their thirties: I was thrilled at the prospect of seeing what's still my favorite Legion era represented again. Really, we haven't seen that Legion in almost twenty years, not since the Paul Levitz-penned series ended and the Five Years Gap series began.

Part of the thrill, yes, was seeing the costumes I remembered so well from when I was such a huge Legion fans as a kid, but it's more than that for me. Seeing these characters, these particular versions of these characters, strikes a powerful chord with me. It's not just "I liked it when I was a kid" nostalgia kicking in, either (not entirely, anyway): the way Levitz built up these characters and their personalities and relationships, informed an awful lot of what I still like in my superhero comics today. For all of the futuristic science fiction adventure aspects of the Legion, what really got me excited more were the soap opera aspects that Levitz did so well. Just as a f'r instance: when Colossal Boy finally got to get together with Shrinking Violet after years of harboring a crush on here -- and then we found out that Violet had actually been captured and tortured for months, and the Vi who fell for Colossal Boy was a Durlan?! And that he'd married her? That stuff absolutely blew me away when I was twelve.

(Don't even get me started on The Great Darkness Saga and how many kinds of ass that kicked. Since I was eleven and not exactly steeped in my comics history, I figured out exactly none of the clues in advance, and was truly stunned to see Darkseid stand revealed as the villain. Can't get that kind of surprise from any book these days.)

I grew really fond of those Legionnaires, even sticking with them through the Five Years Later era which, as fascinating an experiment as it was, didn't treat those characters particularly well. (On purpose, yes; that Legion was intended to be the exact opposite of the shiny utopian future the Legion has always inhabited before.) And from the bleakness of that series, we then got the SW6 batch of young Legion clones, and then soon came Zero Hour, and we essentially those same young clones became the rebooted Legion. (Yes, it's confusing; I'd say go read the Wikipedia articles, but I'm not sure those would help clear things up much if you don't already know the stories.)

And I enjoyed that version of the Legion. I did, at least somewhat. Enough to keep reading for awhile, anyway. It was bright and happy and flush with relationship angst and character interaction, which I dug. But the characters just weren't the same. They were superficially similar, sure, but many of them were quite different underneath and most of the relationships between them were totally changed... and I just didn't feel as connected to those "new" Legionnaires. Eventually I lost my interest in that Legion and stopped reading. I'd pick it up from time to time -- especially after they started the new, more simply-named The Legion series -- but this version just never grabbed me all that much.

Then came the Waid-Kitson "threeboot," wiping the board clean and starting from scratch again. This reboot was even more of a radical change than the previous one, changing even the team's reason for existence. I'm a longtime fan of Mark Waid's writing, but this series hasn't quite connected with me, either. I'll admit I haven't read every issue, but the current series seems far more plot-driven than it is character-driven... and I don't even really like most of the characters all that much. I think the Cosmic Boy-Brainiac 5 tension is interesting, but neither one is an especially likable character to me, and the personalities of very few of the other Legionnaires have stood out at all. If I recall correctly, that's on purpose to some degree; I believe I remember reading an interview with Waid saying that while they wanted to show that there were a large number of heroes on the team, they'd be focusing on a relatively small number of them. I understand, but it still irks me; part of what I loved about Levitz' run growing up was that even with the huge cast, all of their personalities stood out to me. I'm not saying that as a knock against Waid or saying Levitz was a better writer -- they had different intentions with their books, and that's fine. But I know that one approach appealed to me more than the other.

And that's the one that I'm being teased with in the pages of "The Lightning Saga."

As Matthew pointed out so clearly in his post, it's obviously not exactly the pre-Crisis Legion, though it's certainly very close. Close enough that the thought we might see more of them makes me just a touch giddy. So the big question for those of us who've long missed that team becomes: are there any intentions of doing more with them after this crossover is complete? Now that we have a multiverse in the DCU again, there's no reason to assume we can't see more stories about this Legion, though I think we can assume DC's not going to publish concurrent books about two radically different versions of the same team. [1] It's too soon, it seems, to give up on the current version of the team, even though Waid and Kitson just wrapped their run. At the very least, DC has some serious 'splainin' to do to make sense of the fact that the Legion Supergirl belongs to and the Legion Superman once belonged to are entirely different, and that means we're going to see more of the 2x+unboot team.

That's just fine with me. I've missed the Legion.

[1] They can leave that to Marvel.

More Magic Words: From the Marts of Eternity

From the weekly Newsarama "Countdown" interview with editor Mike Marts:

NEWSARAMA: Back to Black Adam - his word was "sorry?" Captain Marvel changed it to that? And he has the wisdom of Solomon? I mean - wasn't that, or wouldn't that have been one of the first words he said or at least a really likely one if say, he visited Isis' grave?

MIKE MARTS: Did you read the end of 52 or World War III? Did you see what Black Adam is capable of? Still think the word “sorry” is even in his vernacular?


MM: ...Black Adam editor Michael Siglain assures me that there are still one or two big pieces to Black Adam’s puzzle to be discovered in his upcoming August mini-series.

Pffft. I checked Amazon.com and couldn't find a listing for "Defend Your Shoddy Plotting" anywhere; apparently Marts and Joe Quesada are the only people lucky enough to own this book on dealing with silly fan complaints. Never straying from his programming, Marts deftly pushes still more comics without the inconvenience of y'know, addressing a fairly direct question. Newsarama plays it civil, and what they get back sounds like:

You obviously didn't grasp how kick ass the writing was in those books. So far over your head it's unbelievable, fanboy.

Just wait and see. It'll all be explained perfectly in a separate mini-series that you'll have to buy to understand our otherwise self-contained^[1] mega-event.

Addled by the DC bigshot's defensive offense, the poor Newsarama staffer didn't even get to raise the second question of just how Black Adam has somehow changed his magic word back to "Shazam".

Here's to you, Mike Marts. Here's two more Magic Words, especially for you. Shazam!




____________________________________________
[1]With only 3-4 more exceptions between now and the end of Countdown.

Whoa!

Here it is, post number five, and already we're getting into the "plays well with others" groove! Our man Teth-Adam has gotten some new words put into his mouth both from the Fortress Keeper over at the awesomely-named Fortress of Fortitude and from Vaklam at the awesomely-named-even-if-we-don't-know-what-it-means Noetic Discordance. Pop on over for proof that those guys are clearly way smarter than that Solomon dude.

And remember, you too can play along! C'mon, you know you wanna.

Magic Words

Tim and Ben jump into the Black Adam's Magic Words fray:

A Night at the Club

OK, yes, I'm sure we've all seen some of these "I'm a Marvel/I'm a D.C." movies before, but I hadn't seen this particularly brilliant one and had to share. Enjoy.

What Shoulda Been: Black Adam's Magic Word

As a follow-up to Tim's post from last night about the extraordinarily poor answer to the "Just what did Captain Marvel change Black Adam's magic word to?" question, we here at the J.O.B. would like to present a few words we thing the Big Mentally Deficient Cheese could have used instead. While we wouldn't go so far as to guarantee that these words would be un-guessable, we're thinking they might have made Teth-Adam at least have to work at it a bit more before retaining his godlike powers.

Want to play along at home? Here you go, have a blank one and see what you can come up with:

Send your best shots to jimmyolsen-AT-geex-dot-ws and we'll post the best ones later. Assuming we actually get any responses, of course... I mean, c'mon, this is only our third post. No one even knows we're here yet.

...hello?

Ask Cerebra: Comics Blog Searching Made Simple

Kevin Church has beaten my too-damn-lazy-to-do-the-work self to the punch and just launched Ask Cerebra, a search engine dedicated just to comics-oriented blogs. It's not foolproof, of course; it would appear he's not yet indexing Tha J.O.B. Of course, being as this is just our second official post, I suppose I shouldn't come down him too hard to for that just yet. But he is indexing more than 450 other comics blogs so far with the promise of more to come.

So head over to Ask Cerebra (great name, by the way) for all of your one-stop comic blog search needs. Tell him Jimmy Olsen's Blues sent you.

(Hey, Kevin, if we ask nicely, can we get indexed too? I promise that real soon now we're gonna have more than just these two posts up.)

Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Easiest Word: Countdown #47

I'm about to discuss the only part of this week's Countdown that I paid any attention to (and only because it severely pissed us off here at the J.O.B. offices). I'm not moved to writing by that cheesy cover^[1], or the other subplots (Super Jimmy Olsen Must Die, The Monitors Who Don't Like Ex-Teen Titans Who've Died, etc.).

If you need to be warned that spoilers are coming, and somehow weren't already spoiled by the post title above, you may not be adversely affected by reading further--English isn't your bag.


Sorry?

Apparently, the first big reveal so far in Countdown is that henceforth, Billy Batson's magic word will be Hazam. Solomon was apparently slain somewhere during the last month of 52, or he was still recovering from a 10-day Ecstasy binge with Power Girl and was unavailable for consultation when "Lord of Magic" Captain Marvel dropped Black Adam by changing his personal "magic word".



Sorry?

From the start of his epic-length (3 issues!)sitdown with wayward Mary Marvel, it's obvious Black Adam has somehow hacked Captain Marvel's encyrption of his personal Shazam Hazam password, thus unblocking his firewalled powers. How could this happen? Captain Marvel would tell no one the new word (during 52), and guaranteed that "he (Adam) would never guess" what the word was. So of course Adam figured it out in seconds^[2].

Sorry. Are you serious?

Captain Marvel, you gigantic putz. Millions of words to chose from in any number of languages, including ones you could just make up, and you choose sorry?! Good use of the Wisdom of Solomon, genius.
He'd never suspect you of irony, ya Big Red Retard.

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[1]Though Ed Benes' redrawn Vampirella fan-sketch cover did inspire several readers (including A.J.) to ask, "Does Mary Marvel nail Black Adam to get her powers back?" Personally, I angled for the "Black Adam's kinky Lightning Necklace" gag. But I'm a reprobate.

[2]... and then he somehow easily changed it back to "Shazam"? Go back and re-read it. Adam's back to the old school lingo to call down the thunder and give his Black Adam-ness to Hot Topic Marvel. It sure seemed like it was a really big deal for the Lord of Magic (Cap Marvel) to change said magic word the first time. Now it seems more like Cap hacked Adam's MySpace page for a little while.