Wonderwoman, Valkryie and Green Arrow

What a combination!

My pull list this week was small compared to last week when I picked up a backlog of stuff that my schedule had not allowed me access to. Whew.

Here's what I got:

Wonder Woman 603

We are a few issues into the new storyline and the infamous costume. How's it hold up? Well aside from the changes in costume and this completely different origin the essence of Wonder Woman is there. The first two issues were gritty and urban in appearance and since then we have transitioned to a sparese, mountainous region and...minor spoiler, the underworld itself. It's still very unclear what is going on in the grand scheme of things, but continues to be engaging. The new costume looks awesome when she fights by the way.

Valkryie

This is a Women of Marvel 1-shot. My enabler, er... the shop guy had a stack of them to put out and told me to check it out. Marvel's 2010 Year of Women continues to be really fantastic and I hope that they realize they can keep it going. I'd hate to see these one shots stop. Hopefully they continue to highlight female characters as the years go on, even if it's a few a year. The art is really nice. Many pages have a golden sheen to them that is very subtle.

Green Arrow 4

Wow. Green Arrow's world has been very interesting and messed up. I have really been in to the Blackest Night to Brightest Day elements since they started. I love it. I don't want to go to much into this issue because there has been a lot of storytelling up to now. It's the Fourth out, so if you haven't checked it out yet you can probably still get a hold of the earlier issues.

It's Fishnet Friday!

On the hunt for items from the past we came across Marvel Triple Action 23 a comic book from 1974 featuring The Avengers, Goliath, Power Man, and Black Widow. Stan Lee, Frank Giacoia, Don Heck and Sam Rosen worked on this.

The existence of this book in the old collection is kind of an anomaly, so it must have been picked up on a whim of some kind. Everything else was from the late 80's up to the mid 90's.

The cover tells you what is going on. Goliath can't change back to normal size and the Black Widow is up to no good. However, the cover version of her outfit is vastly different from what I found inside the book.

Since it's fishnet Friday you can probably guess what she looks like...























Madam Natasha has been brainwashed to destroy the Avengers as we learn from the panels in the image on the right. She goes to see The Swordsman and even though he's at a circus he seems surprised to see "A girl in costume". I think he resembles Lando a little bit in this image and when I did a search for images of Lando I immediately found this:

Kindred spirits divided in by several years, space, and franchises...

But, back to the fishnets.


I think what we see in this comic book is an example of the liberalization of the Comics Code that began in the early 70's. This book is also part of the Bronze Age of comics and you can see the artwork is pretty colorful and sharp.

Sometime in the future I'll scan in some of the ads and do a post about them because they are truly awesome!

It's Fishnet Friday!

Vampires vs. Mutants. There's no way with a title in that vein that those black criss-cross stockings can be ignored. We are, of course, talking about

X-Men issue #1.

Yes, that's right, this vampire invasion is starting the X-Men off back at #1. The Marvel website calls this " a war of the species that will wrack the Marvel Universe". This first issue is a flawlessly beautiful piece of work. The writing is engaging, intelligent and sometimes darkly funny.

The art is beautiful and I want to point out that they have done an amazing job using lighting in every panel. This is incredibly important to a vampire story since light and the absence of it is such an integral part to what makes a vampire, a vampire. For instance just look at the light and shadow on this vampire in an alley. This is a tiny fraction of the whole panel and the whole page and yet the detail is intense and perfect. The layers of darkness, night fall, the lighting in medical rooms, and outdoor spaces is the most naturally rendered I have ever seen in a comic book. The way the sun and sunset are colored in contrast with the moon is breath taking. I am so pleased to see a proper vampire story like this.

I could go on and analyze this and the clever use of the gutter and floating panels....but FISHNETS!

This guy luckily had just the right clothes on hand from his past as a Bass player or maybe from his many times LARPing Vampire the Masquerade.

Fishnets and Female Characters!

Here it is, the inaugural issue of Zatanna.

Tub woh si ti?

Maybe we often miss or overlook the layout of the panels and the gutter in comic books, but they are crucial to the story. I really got into reading manga because of way the panels moved in many of the titles.

DC Comics has not disappointed me in its creative layouts. For example in Zatanna the panels sometimes have a clear, white gutter between scenes that then switches to floating over other panels. When Zatanna reads someone's mind in the story each panel is surrounded by a smoky looking and messy frame that really emphsizes the action and what Zatanna is doing with her powers.


Ok, what about the fishnets? They come out when Zatanna has to confront the story's villain. Gl

For a first issue of a series I thought this book worked rather well. There wasn't a lot of back-story exposition and yet we still got comfortably situated into Zatanna's reality.

The ending promises much more to come.

Finally, I had an observation about the two big American comic book publishers that came out of my pulls for this week. A few years ago I passed the time in my life that I happily read media that contained mostly male driven plots and played games with only male PC's. It had never bothered me, but I also don't believe in gender roles aside from the social constructs of individual cultures. I don't fit into what the American female gender role is and I don't care.

At some point in my mid to late twenties I realized that I wanted to see more female characters just being people and doing things like any one else. I realized that male was the default in almost anything I liked and I started to realize that maybe that's what kept so many other women away from the media I liked. Maybe the media saturation of our culture with traditional, outdated ideas about gender is a contributing factor to staunch gender divides and all those related problems. I've always just felt like a "person" and not one particular gender, although due to what I liked I often found myself cast in the role of being masculine.

Well, Marvel Comics declared 2010 their year of women and have done several things to spotlight women artists and have put out some good one-shot titles with female characters. I think drawing attention to the issue and writing about is important. Meanwhile, DC is just releasing a bevy of great comic books with female leads. Both approaches are awesome.

Wednesday Comics: Loki

Earlier today I picked up the one-shot Siege Loki.

The art was stunning and the story had many threads to it which made for what felt like a much longer book, in a good way.

It makes me wish we could see a semi-regular Loki title published, or at least a short series.

Here's a view of Loki and if you think that looks good wait till you see the breathtaking work on Hel.

Honestly, I'd judge this one-shot to be superior to the Sif title, which is kind of a shame. Don't get me wrong, Sif was intense and moody and a great read, but this Loki book just had, well as the guys in Metalocalypse would say, "ZAZZ".


Just for kicks here's a view from the Sif one-shot.
She looks fantastic and she certainly kicks some ass while battling internal demons from her past.

Ultimately, I'm just delighted that Marvel did both of these stories and I'm looking forward to more.

Always Looking Ahead

Yesterday I reserved a copy of Lego Harry Potter for the Wii and bought advance tickets for a friend of mine (Master Justice) to see the midnight showing of Iron Man 2 with me.

Today aside from picking up a few titles I set up a subscription at Castle Perilous (the ultimate geektastic store) for Birds of Prey and Zatanna.

I live very much in the moment and I'm glad that the things I enjoy give me something to look forward to and help me to look to the future every once in awhile. I might end up just playing games or drawing all day instead of thinking ahead! (It doesn't hurt that a lot of this stuff costs money, which reminds me to budget).

There is something inherent to geek culture that encourages anticipating the future. We are always waiting in lines for something to open or to get an autograph. The things that we adore invariably get some kind of pre-order hype and that's part of the fun.

Some of my best memories are the conversations that happen or the things I get to observe when waiting in line for stuff like WoW expansions or even going back to the past, the time I camped out all day to see Jurassic Park. Speculating on the content of upcoming title releases makes for good discussions and often leads to analyzing past stories. For instance today at Castle Perilous I talked to the guy working there about Marvel's Girl Comics versus Her-oes What we were engaging in is the same kind of intelligent analysis that goes into literature critique in college classrooms, but it was right there in the midst of the culture.

To infinity and beyond!

Tokidoki Thor

A good friend picked this delightful Thor t-shirt up for me in a comic shop hours from my home. I don't usually wear t-shirts that aren't black, but I'll be making an exception (or just wearing a black long-sleeve under it, ha!) for this piece of goodness.







Here's a view of the back. Since I love anything that is manga-style and I love American comics this is a fun mash-up of styles.

So, I guess it's T-shirt Tuesday around here! Although, since it's Thor related I debated posting this on a Thursday, since that would be more in keeping with our hero....


Since we are on the subject of Thor and Marvel I want to also mention the excellent one-shot comic about Sif. If you haven't read it yet check it out. The art and storytelling is wonderfully dark. The Sif one-shot is part of Marvel's focus on women in comics in 2010 and I couldn't be happier with what they have done so far this year to spotlight women in comics. As a comic book reader for now over two decades it's exactly the kind of move I think the industry needs.

Check out Sif at http://marvel.com/catalog/?id=14267