Commentary Track for The Buy Pile, January 27th 2009

This week's reviews were kind of like wading through hip deep mud, but it's better than actually wading through hip deep mud for reasons of cleanliness and coolness. Plus, a bad day reading comics is better than a good day doing real work, or so I've always believed.

So there was a handbook style issue this week, and people always ask me,"why do you buy all of these things?" I had to let somebody know once: buying handbooks is like buying the right to be right. When somebody says, "I know for a fact that D-Man guest starred in issue seven of Invincible Iron Man," or if they posit, "Well, everybody remembers how Spidey had sex with that chicken after he switched sides in 'Civil War,'" there's two ways you can shut them up. Have the actual issue or have a guidebook that tells them otherwise. It's an argument stopper, it's like having the old Encyclopaedia Britannica on the shelf and going to it every time there's an argument about aardvarks (and really, how many of us haven't had an argument about aardvarks?) -- well worth the money. The mix of issues was weird this time -- leading with modern SHIELD-era stuff for Tony Stark and then stepping back in time for Rhodey's first weird War Machine run (which was similar tonally to the start of this incarnation) -- but it had its benefits. I was shocked with how little of the real character and flavor of Fraction's run translated in this cut and dry presentation when so much of, say, the Clone Saga's idiocy came shining through.

In any case, there's that. Also, Kurt Busiek and Brent Anderson's immersive Astro City experience is worth the ride, almost every time, even when it isn't. Yes, that didn't make sense. I have a newborn at home, shut up.

Lessee, event comics ... I still can't believe how badly things are going if the last issue of Captain America: Reborn hits stands after Steve Rogers has been shlepping around the 616 for a few issues, with Bucky still looking moon-eyed at his side. The "Avengers Reassembled" shtick (bring back Cap, rebuild Tony as a hero, bring back Thor from his exile) is superbly transparent in the face of Norman Osborn's much more interesting machinations (his flaws make "Dark Reign" work as well as it does, although when they get predictable it's easy to take a pass) but that's just the way it is like Bruce Hornsby was on deck.

Back when I was on Twitter (oh, you didn't know about my yearlong sabbatical from social networking spanning my 37th and 38th birthdays?), there was this one guy who would at-sign me the angriest, wildest stuff after my reviews hit, especially in regards to anything Green Lantern or "Blackest Night" related. I found it hilarious -- he didn't follow me, didn't wanna engage in dialogue, he just wanted to curse at me. As previously noted, that's just fine with me -- hate mail is awesome. Any passionate response to my work is fine, because there's such a thin line between love and hate (apologies to The Persuaders) -- indifference is what I hate to see.

So when I got Green Lantern #50 in my hands, I could just imagine veins throbbing on foreheads and frustrated grappling. It amused me a little, because given the tools at hand, it's hard to make a "Blackest Night" story I'd like. Me, I appreciate the more mature perspective of another, older comics writer, who emailed me once saying that he wished I liked some of his work more but he appreciated the directness of my opinions. It was nice because he appreciated that they are opinions. I can't guarantee that anything I write will help or hurt anybody's sales. I certainly don't know anybody personally to the point where I'd have that much of a vendetta against them (well, nobody in comics anyway). I may toss a lob towards the rowdier sections of the peanut gallery if I'm already deep in the "this won't work" grass, but that's largely for kicks. If there's anything the internet loves, it's hyperbole. Maybe even Hyperbole and a Half.

So that was the big event comics this week, what else happened? Oh, despite the fact that I'm most likely to run him over with a car (mostly kidding, that's actually Brandon Jerwa), John Layman's writing some interesting stuff in Chew that has a lot of fans talking. It's always close to the mark, and when it makes it, it's really a delight.

I was happy to see Prometheus back as the galaxy-class bad guy I respected when he whispered, "... here comes justice!" There's still something critically wrong with Justice League Elite, er, Justice League: Cry for Justice that never connects. It's partially Congorilla, admittedly, but Hal's self righteousness doesn't help. Prometheus took a lot longer to improvise when his Wikipedia stylings failed him than I expected, but his overall plan made it kind of all right. The fight scenes looked so stiff, though, and his actual plot was like an old 1980s Dr. Doom scheme -- even Doom's gotten smarter after all these years. Just saying ...

Another thing ... ooh, what's that shiny, gotta go ...

Watching (Hulu): White Collar "Bad Judgement"