Action Comics

Going Negative: A Farewell to the Man of Steel

October 1, 2019 // 5 Comments

So I spent some time this weekend getting caught up on some comics I hadn’t gotten around to in the last month, and… I think I’m done with the Superman titles. It was fun when it was just Action Comics and Superman, but now Jimmy Olsen and Lois Lane have their own books, and the stories are festooning out into spin-off mini-series, and being impacted by things happening in books I’m not reading and don’t care about, and… To hell with it. I just want a good [...]

Lois, Jimmy, and Harley

February 5, 2019 // 2 Comments

So we’ve got a bunch of funnybooks to discuss, but it seems I’ve gotten distracted by Harley Quinn. First, though, here’s a little discussion of Jimmy Olsen and Lois Lane… Action Comics 1007 by Brian Michael Bendis and Steve Epting The better of the two Superman books continues to be better, as Brian Bendis pulls the trigger on the Leviathan storyline he’s been developing in the background of this book since he took it over seven months ago. Now, this will [...]

More Heroes, More Crisis: FUNNYBOOKSINREVIEWAREGO!!

January 8, 2019 // 2 Comments

So after a few weeks of holidays and Doomsday Clock dissection, the review stack’s gotten pretty tall. But the amount of time I have to deal with it is still pretty short. So let’s see how much we can get done before deadline, shall we…? Heroes in Crisis 4 by Tom King and Clay Mann After last issue’s really quite affecting flashback to Sanctuary before the bloodshed, this issue returns to the aftermath, and to the frustrations I had with the series’ first two [...]

Pain and Beauty: FUNNYBOOKSINREVIEWAREGO!

December 4, 2018 // 2 Comments

So here we are again, leading off with some corporate spandex that I just can’t quite quit… Heroes in Crisis 3 by Tom King, Lee Weeks, and Clay Mann. I remain torn on this book, but the sheer quality of the writing keeps bringing me back. And I’m really glad of that, because this issue is quite good. It shows us Sanctuary before the murders, revealing something of how the place worked, and digging deeper into why some of the patients were there. Lagoon Boy, for instance, seems [...]

FUNNYBOOK BATTLE: Heroes in Crisis vs Action Comics!

November 6, 2018 // 0 Comments

So it strikes me that there are two dominant strands of super hero writing these days: the Iconic Take, and the Revisionist Approach. I know I’m over-simplifying there, and maybe stating the obvious, too. But I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. With long-running corporate franchise characters, writers tend to either look at what’s made them work in the past and polish it up for a new generation, or they look for conceptual weaknesses and try to explain or retcon [...]

Hell is Other Super Heroes, and Other Uplifting Funnybook Tales

October 2, 2018 // 4 Comments

So we’ve got a big new corporate spandex cross-over to talk about this week, and for once it looks like it might not completely suck! Let’s get right to that, then. FUNNYBOOKSINREVIEWAREGO!! Heroes in Crisis 1 by Tom King and Clay Mann Tom King’s work is very concerned with trauma. Post-Traumatic Stress, in particular, figures prominently in Mister Miracle, and to some extent Omega Men and Batman as well. And that makes sense; considering his military background, I’m [...]

Great Adventures and Grand Designs

July 31, 2018 // 0 Comments

So I’ve got a great big stack of funnybooks sitting here waiting for my attention. Which I suppose means that… CAPSULE REVIEWS ARE GO!! Fantastic Four #1 Preview Spotlight Give-Away Thingie by Dan Slott and Sara Pichelli The new Fantastic Four comic is launching next week, and I’m glad to hear that the book’s coming back. FF is, as I’ve said more than a few times, my favorite super hero comic, so I’m psyched that it’s getting a relaunch. That said, [...]

Dork Awards: The 25 Best Funnybooks of 2013, Part One

January 1, 2014 // 2 Comments

It was a good year to be a funnybook fan. I mean, they all are. There’s always SOMEthing good coming out, even in bad years. But 2013 offered up an embarrassment of riches, with exciting new talent, continuing excellence from old masters, and a blitz of original projects from the cream of the big-time comics crop. There was so much good stuff, in fact, that it was tough paring it all down for our annual list of the year’s best funnybooks. We persevered, though, and settled on 25 [...]

Corporate Supermen of the Brave New World: Catching Up on February Funnybooks

February 25, 2013 // 3 Comments

Lotsa time to read of late, little time to write. Which means that I need to abandon my usual long-winded review style, and settle in for something a little faster. So, without further ado… QUICKIES! ARE! GO! Action Comics 17, by Grant Morrison, Brad Walker, Rags Morales, and A Host of Inkers So ultimately, I think this will be looked back on as the “Vyndktvx for Dummies” issue of the Grant Morrison Action Comics run. In it, as Our Hero fights the ultimate test-marketed [...]

Matters of Perspective

January 21, 2013 // 0 Comments

So the new year’s been a long one thus far here on the nerd farm. Too much to tend to, not enough time to write. That’s less true now, though it may be another week yet before we’re back up to the rate of posting we were at last year. But a window of opportunity has opened, and I thought it might be nice to get caught up on all the funnybooks that have come out the last couple-three weeks. Or at least the more interesting ones. Or whatever I’ve got energy for. Which is [...]