Ultimate Spider-Man #111

Ultimate Spider-Man #111
Stuart Immonen takes over for Mark Bagley on half of this issue, and will fully supplant him in the next. I think he's a good choice, because, while it's important that artists have their own particular styles, one of the reasons that Ultimate Spider-Man has survived this long and succeeded as the flagship for the Ultimate line is largely due to the consistency of its art from month to month. With Bagley drawing this book for the past more than nine years, fans knew that they could come back and find the same beautiful artwork every month.
Bad art pisses me off. I dropped X-Men several months ago because reading it gave me a headache. I'm seriously considering dropping New X-Men. I haven't read the last several issues of Superman/Batman, though that's largely due to the fact that Verheiden fucking sucks. Then again, an artist can only interpret the story by way of the descriptions given him by the writer's script, so in some instances it's the writer who's to blame for the bad art. Carey's a great writer. That's why I blame Bachalo. I hated every issue of Ultimate X-Men that Bachalo drew. In fact, he's one of the reasons I stopped reading that title until recent issues. And I'm not the only one who made a similar decision. Marvel's sales on UXM must have dropped measurably after Bachalo took over for Kubert. So their not wanting to make a similar mistake with the departure of Bagley is a very smart decision.
From the few pages that were drawn by him in this issue, Immonen's style seems similar enough to Bagley's that readership on this title should remain strong. Plus, I know his work, and he's really good. Plus, he'll bring a number of loyal fans with him to this title. So it's a good move.
And Bendis turns in his "The Talk" issue. Not bad.
Overall, this issue was VERY GOOD. I'm looking forward to Immonen's first complete issue.

52+ fixes

Scipio Garling of the Absorbascon posted a list of 42 (then 43) items which need to be addressed by DC in order to completely fix the stupidities they've perpetrated over the years, not to mention conflicting origins, timeline errors, misinterpreted characters, bad writing, and awful storylines. You can find his list here.
He issued a challenge to his readers to come up with 10 (then 9) additional elements that require changing by the DC PTB's.
I've expanded the list to 58.

Here are my additions:
44. Get rid of Millennium.
45. Get rid of Zero Hour too.
46. Get rid of Argent's Teen Titans.
47. Get rid of saying that Mxyzptlk comes every 90 days. That's just stupid, and it continually throws the timeline into flux. Just let him come whenever he wants to.
48. Get rid of anything Bruce Jones has ever written. And don't let him write anything in the main DCU ever again.
49. Get rid of Superman Red/Blue and Electric Superman.

50. I like the portrayal of many of Batman's rogues gallery as individuals having a difficult time keeping their hands clean, as opposed to homicidal psychopaths. Keep Ivy (not to mention Woodrue) the champion of mother nature, no matter the costs. Keep Harley out on her own. Let the Penguin continue to operate his enterprises just the other side of shady. Let Two-Face be a district attorney who occasionally resorts to dirty tactics to get convictions. And please, please, please, let Riddler remain the celebrity detective he was born to be.

51. Evil Batgirl has got to go.
52. Likewise, Identity Crisis has got to go...while we're at it, how about forbidding Meltzer from writing anything for the DCU ever again?
53. Anything beyond the initial arc in Superman/Batman has got to go. [Edit: Oh, all right, you can keep Kara if you really want to.]
54. DC should get rid of Bart becoming the Flash. He's just not ready, and neither are we. Bart needs to be a kid. That's part of his charm.
55. The Steve Niles creeper needs immediate erasure.
56. Likewise the "New Skrull on the Block". J'onn is too rich a character to relegate to second rate stupid plots.

57. Speaking of J'onn, figure out his origin already, for God's sake! I'm going with Ostrander's. Make fire for J'onn sort of like yellow for Green Lanterns - dangerous, but only if he cannot overcome his fear of it.

58. And one more thing: undo War Games so that we can have Stephanie back. She was, like, my favorite Robin...ever!

Notes on Scipio's list and associated comments:
2. ...if Jason must be around. Otherwise, let him stay dead. Better yet, erase him altogether.
8. ...but Barbara should remain in a wheelchair, or at least a chair. She's indisposable as Oracle.
9. Emperor Joker did have its moments. It was a cute story.
39. Firestorm hasn't been as good since Dan Jolley left the new title.
43. Of course there's a Doctor Polaris, he's Grant Emerson's "uncle"!

Constantine and Swamp Thing aren't denizens of the DCU proper any more? What? Why? Does that mean that we've lost Constantine's relationship with Zatanna as well? Noooo!

New Releases for 3/7/7

Geez, I can't believe it's been nearly a month since my last post. I guess Adrian Watts was right...but, c'mon, February's such a short month...

Anyways, speaking on tomorrow's releases:

I'm looking forward to Atom #9.

I had been under the impression that the Dark Tower series was comprised of new material, so you can imagine my disappointment when I found out that it's a collation of Roland's backstory pulled from the various books of the series.

Fantastic Four: The End has been entertaining so far, albeit a tad nonsensical. I'm interested in seeing how it wraps up.

Wasn't Helmet of Fate supposed to be coming out weekly? Why the delays?
I've been half surprised and half disappointed with this series. Detective Chimp was EXCELLENT. Ibis was likewise VERY GOOD. But I had such high hopes for Black Alice, and it really wasn't any good. It was actually CRAP. It and Sargon - which sucked ASS - didn't even have anything really to do with furthering the fate story. I'm very disappointed in Simone and Niles.

Incredible Hulk has been a lot of fun lately. And it was nice to see Bruce Banner get some in #103.

Justice League of America continues to meander towards the "end" of an arc...which I really can't see as being any sort of conclusion whatsoever. Even Bendis isn't THIS decompressed.

Of course, Justice League Unlimited!

And Manhunter! My LCBS guy told me this is ending with issue 30. Boo hoo. Blue Beetle just came back, Shaw is on course to be the next Azrael (wonder if he'll want Kate's gauntlets?), and Kate still hasn't gotten together with her cousin Jack Knight. There's so much more that this book could do. I really don't want to see it end. I love this book. It's EXCELLENT.

Marv Wolfman's Nightwing has been extremely disappointing so far. He teased us with the spectre of the Monitors, and then took the book way out into left field. And now he's got this new villainous couple? I couldn't be less interested. Heck, I'm more interested in Outsiders, and that book sucks.

Mighty Avengers will probably be just as bad as most of Civil War. So unless one of you deems it worthwhile, I'm not even going to bother.

Yay! More Planetary Brigade! How lucky are we to get an issue of this AND Hero Squared IN THE SAME month! Now I just have to get my comic shop to carry it.

Superman/Batman - Fuck you, Verheiden, for taking a promising title and turning it to CRAP.

I'm interested in reading the Transformers Prequel merely to get a sense of whether or not the movie will suck.

I'm wondering where Bendis is going to take Ultimate Spider-Man now. But Ultimate Vision is soooo freaking lame. And the concept is just unbearably stupid. Truly AWFUL.

I'll read Uncle Sam because I'm hoping for some Ray Terrill. Who else wants him back in the JLA???

And, of course, Welcome to Tranquility. It's a GOOD fun book to read.

Superman/Batman #31

Superman/Batman #31
I'm not even going to bother reading this. Maybe if I hear really good things. **** you Verheiden. You suck. And this title has arcs that go on waaaay too long.

Quote of the Week #6

Quote of the Week #6
And for this week, I figured that I'd posit (that's not a spelling error) the following:

"The Civil Crisis of Identical Wars"? Classic.
And in response to Mxyzptlk:

"Best Story Ever!!" or at least that I've read so far this week.
(From Superman/Batman Annual #1)

Superman/Batman #29

Superman/Batman #29
Total CRAP. I can't even figure out what's going on here. For the second issue straight. And though the art isn't bad, it appears that even Ethan Van Sciver can't figure it out either. Because the clarity of the art doesn't help in figuring out what the hell's going on...at all. CRAP, CRAP, CRAPpity CRAP, CRAP. Oh yeah, and there's a cameo from that new Skrull on the block, the hero formerly known as the Martian Manhunter. CRAP. AWFUL.
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Superman/Batman #28

Superman/Batman #28
Actually, this issue was pretty good. It has just the right amount of mystery to make it a Batman story, and just enough superhuman threats to make it a Superman story. No more internal monologues either. I'd say that this is a VERY GOOD issue, although maybe that's just because I'm so jaded by the last year's worth of crappy issues from this title, that mediocre becomes VERY GOOD. I'll see how I feel after the next issue. For now, I'll stick with VERY GOOD, and ask that we leave it at that.
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