Of course, the big news this week is Identity Crisis #7, being discussed over in the series’ own thread.
My list will be forthcoming.
I just got through with the new Marvel Knights Spider-Man. I wonder if this new conspiracy theory is going to be part of the canon? It seems very very idiotic and poorly thought out, but hey, at least it’s a change.
I’ve only read Identity Crisis and *Robin * so far this week. Oh, and the Guide the Marvel’s Golden Age or whatever it’s called. Hilarious! Not too impressed with this issue of Robin. It’s a bit of an idiot plot. Fortunately for Robin and Batgirl, the Penguin and everyone he knows are idiots. I got a laugh out of the Penguin’s new taxidermy project though.
Ah, finally putting up some comments in a more timely manner.
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Identity Crisis #7 was my first read this week. I know the thread is elsewhere, so … .
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Batman: Gotham Knights #60 – It’s hard to comment without really spoiling it. The series of events that happened, I certainly didn’t see coming. There’s a hard-to-swallow moment with Alfred in the end, and a cliffhanger which seems will be shelved until who knows when (but probaby when I forget everything that previously transpired).
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Birds of Prey #77 – Well, they gave Zinda a little more to do; that much I liked. There’s some interesting behind-the-scenes moments with Oracle. I think I’ve seen enough scenes of Helena going into a rural bar this past half-year though, with predictable moments ensuing. Why does it seem she always digs for info at a local dive?
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Catwoman #38 – I really didn’t notice Brubaker’s departure, and I don’t know if that’s necessarily good or bad. Is it just me, or does a Paul Gulacy-drawn Slam Bradley look like Robert Mitchum?
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Marvel Team-Up #3 – Okay, it’s “Golden Child” part 3, but now it’s the FF teaming up with Dr. Strange, with the story making a wide turn from the previous two issues. This month’s one panel cameo is Moon Knight. Decent action, characterization and art. It just puts just enough on the table for my $2.25, no more, no less.
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And speaking of $2.25 books, I sorta have the same feelings about Robin #133. I know I enjoy this title better than the “X-Files” phase it was going thru pre- War Games. This issue became a bit too conventional plot-wise towards the end, though – not that I minded some of it. I certainly didn’t think Penguin was idiot enough to do what he did in the end though.
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Though I suppose technically it remains to be seen whether their depictions were a dream, I liked the cameos of Clea and Patsy Walker in Ultimate Spider-Man #70.
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Daredevil #68 – It’s moving right along. I think Bendis incorporates the flashback technique VERY well in telling this story.
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I picked up the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe: Golden Age 2004. I really only know a handful of who ran around back then thru my old Avengers and Invaders comics. I never really knew the origin of Sun Girl and the others.
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Betty #143 – Betty becomes a personal shopper, debates whether to wear long underwear, gives advice, and watches old sitcoms with her dad in seperate stories and column.
Also purchased: Adventures of Superman #635, Plastic Man #13, Fantastic Four #521, and Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes #3.
I got :
Madrox #4; Cable and Deadpool #10 - in which Nate battles the Silver Surfer; Birds of Prey #77; Fantastic Four #521 - with this issue, the FF made it back on my reserve list for the time being; Exiles #56 - Lovely use of the old Kulan Gath incident; Ex Machina #7; Powers #7.
I also picked up a very nice TPB : What If? Classic Vol. 1. Reprints the first 6 issues of What If?'s first volume.
Ok, as all decent-thinking human beings agree, THETRUTH.COM ads suck.
But the disgusting/disturbing ones in Marvel this and last week have actually prompted me to write in to Marvel and express how unhappy I was at them.
(The ads show a photograph of eyes that have been stitched shut and a scapel labeled “The Truth” cutting the first stitch… It’s truly disgusting and frankly, so obnoxious that I’m actually tempted to start smoking just to spite them. 
)
Fenris
Hmm… Here’s a question for you guys. I’m a Batman fan, but I like a my Batman a certain way: determined, eerily competent, a little bit grim, but not crazy (although he acts like taht around crooks sometimes, and its clear that he WOULD be ce crazy if he couldn’t be Batman). IOW, the animated Batman, but in mainstream continuity. Loeb does a good job (if a little too Uber in skills) in Superman/Batman. I also like the extended Bat family (why did they have to kill Jack Drake? Giving Tim an actual family made him unique among Dick and Bruce). Which titles should I be reading? I picked up 'Tec since it was my favorite before I went on hiatus from comics four years ago, but it seems to be in an overly melodratic megarc right now. Am I SOL and forced to get my Batman fix from Superman/Batman and JLA?
What other titles in the “Revised Silver Age” vein do you recommend? Currently, I’m enjoying the aforementioned S/B, Flash, Astonishing X-Men, and Teen Titans.
Thanks.
(Oh, and What’s up with Aquaman these days? Sub Diego? Water Hand? Where the hell’s Atlantis? Who’s the girl? I swear, you turn your back for four years and mumble mumble mumble…)
You might want to try Grant Morrison’s JLA Classified run. The current storyline in JLA is pretty silver age-ish, too.
Oh, totally. Those are absolutely horrible. There were bad ones a few months ago, too, where some long piece of string was part of the ad, and it stretched over other ads at the end of the book until it got to the insipid TRUTH ad on the inside of the back cover. Incredibly obnoxious. They’re running in DC books, too, because I’m not buying any Marvel at the moment (I want that Handbook to the Golden Age really, really, really bad, but ever since Marvel hired Orson Scott Card to write Iron Man, I’d feel dirty buying from them).
Not a big week in the comics for me. I stopped today and only picked up two; the last issue of Identity Crisis and the new Plastic Man. But I’ve been going to different stores lately and the one I was at today is not noted for having a good collection of independants. I’ll probably stop somewhere else this week and see if I missed anything.
I’m already on both of those. I loved Morrison’s JLA, and I’m liking what Busiek’s doing.
I’ve heard, althought this may be a wacky conspiracy theory, that all those “Truth” ads are actually sponsored by Philip-Morris. I have no cite, so it’s probably BS, but I’d believe it.
Madrox: Really enjoying the series but I’m glad it’s a mini. It’s almost a bit too noir for me, but the dialog is great.
OMHOTMU Golden Age: Without a doubt my favorite of the Handbooks to date. I know nearly nothing of Marvel’s golden age. In fact, I was hardly aware they had a golden age, since they are generally credited with ushering in the Silver Age. So seeing all these “new” characters and finding out how they tie in to modern day Marvel was a lot of fun.
Ultimate Spider-Man: I’m glad Bendis remembered that Pete has met the young Dr. Strange before. A lot of the Ultimate Marvel Team Up seems to have been forgotten (FF, I’m looking at you). MJ looked hot! She’s 18 right? RIGHT? But wow, Bagley canNOT draw the Ultimates worth squat and have them look intimidating. Captain America looked like a putz.
I wanted to get the What If TPB, but it was already sold out. My store ordered me a copy of it though.
No. 16 at most.
It’s hardly the stuff of a conspiracy theory. As part of the landmark tobacco settlement reached in the mid-'90’s, Philip Morris and the rest of Big Tobacco promised to fund major anti-child-smoking ad campaigns. As part of this process, they established the American Legacy Foundation, which is thetruth’s primary sponsor. I was only able to glean this supersecret hidden information by many trials and tribulations – namely, by looking at the About Us page of thetruth’s website. fnord
So yes, it’s true that Philip Morris and the other tobacco companies fund these ads, but not as part of a master reverse psychology plan – they agreed to do it to keep from being sued into bankruptcy. Of course, I’m sure the companies would be perfectly happy if the campaigns weren’t particularly effective in getting adults to quit smoking. Indeed, there was some criticism of the early ads that came out of these programs (prior to thetruth) that the message wasn’t strong enough. However, the same critique hardly applies to the ads run by thetruth, and as far as I’m aware there’s been no suggestion that the tobacco companies are vetting content.
–Cliffy
Ah, thanks for the info. Obviously I was never intrigued enough to look it up. 
It makes total sense to me that they’d start an ad campaign SO obnoxious that folks inclined to acts of moronic, self-destructive rebellion (folks like my sister!)might say, “Fine, I’m going to smoke just to piss off those ads!”. It’s pretty poor logic, but so is sucking on deadly cancer sticks. For me, having my grandmother die a slow, painful death from lung cancer when I was four did the trick.
I still prefer these ads to the “Tobacco is whacko…if you’re a teen” ads, which implied that once out of your teen years, smoking was a-OK.
I can’t seem to remember if comic book heroes were ever depicted as smokers (in a positive or neutral light, anyway). I know Wolverine chomps cigars, but his healing factor would negate any ill effects on his lungs. Anybody else?
Nick Fury pops to mind.
No need to vet them; just put the less-than-competent managers and advertising executives on their payroll.
Viola! Instant anti-anti-smoking backlash! 
Check out the cover to DC’s Manhunter #4. There she is with a cig in her mouth.
Yeah, she’s real heroic too.
Steranko’s Captain America run started with Cap lighting up a cigarette, just to convey a film noir quality. And T’Challa, the Black Panther, lit up a cigarette in his first appearance in Fantastic Four (I think Kirby was trying to convey how wealthy and swanky the Panther was). Both of these comics came out circa 1968.
Ben Grimm has always smoked cigars, as has Howard the Duck.
During the Byrne/Claremont years, Jean Grey was once depicted as a smoker! It was the storyline where Jean, thinking the other X-Men had been killed, took a trip to Europe to grieve and virtually every man she struck up a friendship with turned out to be Mastermind in disguise. Look at what’s next to her beach towel in the beach scene. Byrne also had Namor smoking in the logo corner picture of most issues of Namor in the 90s.
Maggie and Hopey from Love and Rockets smoked like chimneys.
And of course, there’s John Constantine…