Gay Hype and Magic
The Pull List:
Astonishing X-Men #50 - Marvel
Justice League Dark #9 - DC
Also Read:
All-Star Western #9 - DC
Aquaman #9 -DC
Because of the new DC Comics reboot, everything this week, and for the most part this month, is a number nine, but before that, we need to talk about the X-men. I started my comic reading in the 90s on X-men books and really tried to keep with them, but I fell off that train a while ago...well, more like disembarked. There were just so many X-books and mutants it was getting too hard to keep up, plus I couldn't get a full story line because of all the crossovers going on at Marvel. I have jumped back onto an X-book when a writer I really enjoyed showed up. I read through Grant Morrison's run, Warren Ellis' and Joss Whedon's work with the characters were also enjoyable. And a writer I like is what brought me to Astonishing X-Men. Marjorie Liu started up writing duties on issue #48 and #50 has been all the buzz of late. This is the gay proposal issue. Northstar, a Canadian X-Man, has been in a relationship with his boyfriend Kyle for quite sometime (at least that's what I've gotten from the text, again, haven't been following the X-books a lot lately) and the last couple of issues have shown a bit of a rift growing between the two. Marvel has really been trying to promote this issue, in fact, they gave special acces to the issue to The View. I don't know if this was a good promotional move or not. My only real knowledge of The View is filtered through the clips I get from Joel Mchale on The Soup. I just don't know if the regular audience of The View is going to run down to their local comic shop (LCS) to pick it up. I'm certain there will be some upset moms going down and picketing the LCS over it though. I still remember when they ran a news story in the 90s about making Northstar gay, the instant my mom saw the story she wanted to make sure I wasn't reading that comic. I told her no and then went down to buy something with Northstar in it as soon as I could...So maybe this is a great way to bring up sales of the issue.
With my copy of #50, I was also given a cute little save the date card for next months issue which is suppose to have the actual wedding. I guess that's why I was a bit surprised when reading the issue that they don't actually get engaged here. Yeah, Northstar proposes, but Kyle gives it a big no. So the hype is wrong, but I really appreciated the way Liu writes it. As apposed to writing two gay characters in a comic book, she is writing two people in a relationship, and she does it really well. I do appreciate a writer who writes characters that are more than "the gay one". I do realize that someone in PR had to get the buzz machine going, get some people at Fox News pissed off and get MSNBC to endorse Marvel for a GLAAD award. Not to be outdone, DC decide - quite randomly I'm sure - to announce this week that an iconic character of theirs will be coming out as gay next month. I'm curious who DC will give the advance story to. They don't have the best track record for this kind of stuff, most of their Batwoman (An already out lesbian character) previews end up in Maxim magazine...can someone explain that marketing choice to me? Whoever it turns out to be, the big two comic companies are making June the gayest month of 2012.
I've been really looking forward to this months issue of Justice League Dark. For those unaware, Justice League Dark is DC's new superteam comprised entirely of magic users and deal with magical problems. I've been following the book since issue #1, but really slowed down with the last few issues since they were deeply tied to a crossover with I, Vampire, a comic that I just haven't enjoyed. But, that's over now and a new writer, Jeff Lemire, has taken over. Lemire is also currently writing Animal Man, one of the best books DC is putting out right now and I appreciate his take on horror. This issue lived up to my expectations completely. John Constantine, one of our lead characters, is contacted by a black ops arm of the US government to gather up the rest of the team and stop a crazy cult leader in South America. In exchange for this, John gets access to the Black Room, a high security vault that holds every magical item the US government has ever run across. They also promise to look the other way if John walks out with his pockets a bit more full than when he entered. The problem with this deal, John is a bit of a bastard and really can't convince his teammates to march to the edge of Hell with him. And that's really where Lemire shines, in writing John Constantine. He captures John's British snark and attitude perfectly. There is a beautiful moment when John, hungover and unhappy to be woken up, pokes fun at Steve Trevor and his past relationship to Wonder Woman. "Yeah, I've seen you on the telly. Used to be the Amazon's boy-toy, yeah?" The next panel being just Steve's pissed off expression makes it all that much better. If you prefer dark and spooky to the standard capes and masks, Justice League Dark is a great option, and this issue is a perfect jumping on point.
Here is a sentence you probably thought you would never read: Aquaman is so freaking awesome. I find it kind of hard to believe I'm writing it, but those are the facts. Yeah, I know all the jokes, the taking to fish, not being effective away from water, the whole deal, but somehow Geoff Johns has taken all that in stride (He even put most of those jokes right in Aquaman's face the first couple of issues of the series) and made a really engaging character that at times feels as though he is channeling Samuel L. Jackson. This issue is chapter three of the current story arc, so not the easiest story to just jump into, but I feel the previous two issues are worth tracking down. Geoff Johns has been a little hit and miss on his current Green Lantern and Justice League runs, but this book has been great every issue. I am tempted more and more to put it onto my official pull list, and this issue feels like the tipping point for that.
All-Star Western is the closest I got to a Bat book this week. Since the book takes place in the wild west of Gotham City, they give a shout out to the huge Court of Owls crossover going on in the truck ton of Bat-family books. It was actually nice to have a break from the big crossover. I've brought them up a few times this week, and I realized that I have very little patience for these big crossovers, or even the little ones. Right now at Marvel is their big summer Avengers Vs. X-Men event that is thankfully absent from Astonishing X-Men (yet another reason to get it). These crossovers just feel like an excuse to get readers to buy the 7 or 8 parts of the story and then the 32 tie in issues that you wouldn't be buying anyway. There is also the fact the all the different writers never seem to keep things in cohesion. That was really the big problem with the Justice League Dark thing a few months ago, no consistency from writer to writer (and the needing to read two issues of a series I had zero interest in). However, I have been enjoying the Batman Court of Owls, maybe I'm a hypocrite when it comes to this kind of stuff, or maybe putting Scott Snyder in charge of things has made it more consistant, or maybe I'm just a bit more forgiving when it comes to Batman.
Astonishing X-Men #50 - Marvel
Justice League Dark #9 - DC
Also Read:
All-Star Western #9 - DC
Aquaman #9 -DC
Because of the new DC Comics reboot, everything this week, and for the most part this month, is a number nine, but before that, we need to talk about the X-men. I started my comic reading in the 90s on X-men books and really tried to keep with them, but I fell off that train a while ago...well, more like disembarked. There were just so many X-books and mutants it was getting too hard to keep up, plus I couldn't get a full story line because of all the crossovers going on at Marvel. I have jumped back onto an X-book when a writer I really enjoyed showed up. I read through Grant Morrison's run, Warren Ellis' and Joss Whedon's work with the characters were also enjoyable. And a writer I like is what brought me to Astonishing X-Men. Marjorie Liu started up writing duties on issue #48 and #50 has been all the buzz of late. This is the gay proposal issue. Northstar, a Canadian X-Man, has been in a relationship with his boyfriend Kyle for quite sometime (at least that's what I've gotten from the text, again, haven't been following the X-books a lot lately) and the last couple of issues have shown a bit of a rift growing between the two. Marvel has really been trying to promote this issue, in fact, they gave special acces to the issue to The View. I don't know if this was a good promotional move or not. My only real knowledge of The View is filtered through the clips I get from Joel Mchale on The Soup. I just don't know if the regular audience of The View is going to run down to their local comic shop (LCS) to pick it up. I'm certain there will be some upset moms going down and picketing the LCS over it though. I still remember when they ran a news story in the 90s about making Northstar gay, the instant my mom saw the story she wanted to make sure I wasn't reading that comic. I told her no and then went down to buy something with Northstar in it as soon as I could...So maybe this is a great way to bring up sales of the issue.
With my copy of #50, I was also given a cute little save the date card for next months issue which is suppose to have the actual wedding. I guess that's why I was a bit surprised when reading the issue that they don't actually get engaged here. Yeah, Northstar proposes, but Kyle gives it a big no. So the hype is wrong, but I really appreciated the way Liu writes it. As apposed to writing two gay characters in a comic book, she is writing two people in a relationship, and she does it really well. I do appreciate a writer who writes characters that are more than "the gay one". I do realize that someone in PR had to get the buzz machine going, get some people at Fox News pissed off and get MSNBC to endorse Marvel for a GLAAD award. Not to be outdone, DC decide - quite randomly I'm sure - to announce this week that an iconic character of theirs will be coming out as gay next month. I'm curious who DC will give the advance story to. They don't have the best track record for this kind of stuff, most of their Batwoman (An already out lesbian character) previews end up in Maxim magazine...can someone explain that marketing choice to me? Whoever it turns out to be, the big two comic companies are making June the gayest month of 2012.
I've been really looking forward to this months issue of Justice League Dark. For those unaware, Justice League Dark is DC's new superteam comprised entirely of magic users and deal with magical problems. I've been following the book since issue #1, but really slowed down with the last few issues since they were deeply tied to a crossover with I, Vampire, a comic that I just haven't enjoyed. But, that's over now and a new writer, Jeff Lemire, has taken over. Lemire is also currently writing Animal Man, one of the best books DC is putting out right now and I appreciate his take on horror. This issue lived up to my expectations completely. John Constantine, one of our lead characters, is contacted by a black ops arm of the US government to gather up the rest of the team and stop a crazy cult leader in South America. In exchange for this, John gets access to the Black Room, a high security vault that holds every magical item the US government has ever run across. They also promise to look the other way if John walks out with his pockets a bit more full than when he entered. The problem with this deal, John is a bit of a bastard and really can't convince his teammates to march to the edge of Hell with him. And that's really where Lemire shines, in writing John Constantine. He captures John's British snark and attitude perfectly. There is a beautiful moment when John, hungover and unhappy to be woken up, pokes fun at Steve Trevor and his past relationship to Wonder Woman. "Yeah, I've seen you on the telly. Used to be the Amazon's boy-toy, yeah?" The next panel being just Steve's pissed off expression makes it all that much better. If you prefer dark and spooky to the standard capes and masks, Justice League Dark is a great option, and this issue is a perfect jumping on point.
Here is a sentence you probably thought you would never read: Aquaman is so freaking awesome. I find it kind of hard to believe I'm writing it, but those are the facts. Yeah, I know all the jokes, the taking to fish, not being effective away from water, the whole deal, but somehow Geoff Johns has taken all that in stride (He even put most of those jokes right in Aquaman's face the first couple of issues of the series) and made a really engaging character that at times feels as though he is channeling Samuel L. Jackson. This issue is chapter three of the current story arc, so not the easiest story to just jump into, but I feel the previous two issues are worth tracking down. Geoff Johns has been a little hit and miss on his current Green Lantern and Justice League runs, but this book has been great every issue. I am tempted more and more to put it onto my official pull list, and this issue feels like the tipping point for that.
All-Star Western is the closest I got to a Bat book this week. Since the book takes place in the wild west of Gotham City, they give a shout out to the huge Court of Owls crossover going on in the truck ton of Bat-family books. It was actually nice to have a break from the big crossover. I've brought them up a few times this week, and I realized that I have very little patience for these big crossovers, or even the little ones. Right now at Marvel is their big summer Avengers Vs. X-Men event that is thankfully absent from Astonishing X-Men (yet another reason to get it). These crossovers just feel like an excuse to get readers to buy the 7 or 8 parts of the story and then the 32 tie in issues that you wouldn't be buying anyway. There is also the fact the all the different writers never seem to keep things in cohesion. That was really the big problem with the Justice League Dark thing a few months ago, no consistency from writer to writer (and the needing to read two issues of a series I had zero interest in). However, I have been enjoying the Batman Court of Owls, maybe I'm a hypocrite when it comes to this kind of stuff, or maybe putting Scott Snyder in charge of things has made it more consistant, or maybe I'm just a bit more forgiving when it comes to Batman.
Comments
Post a Comment