I’m not sure what’s going on, myself… but
Cap - Soldier
Iron Man - Robot
Giant Man - Skyscraper
etc, etc. Oh, Viking - Thor
Clearly, Avengers, and no, I got nothing, either.
“Maximums” = Ultimates, and Loeb is doing whatever he’s doing as a little jab at Brian Michael Bendis killing a Lois Lane analogue in his Marvel series The Pulse.
Part One seems to be a clear retelling of someone setting up a feud between the Maximums and S/B. Part Two was just an amusing little window into Bizarro-World. At least one, if not both of these parts take place on an alternate Earth. I’m not sure about the Bizarro part, because the murder victims look like normal humans. Part Three’s really straightforward.
The Bizarro stuff could be there to foreshadow a role they’ll play next issue, or the Bizarros might be cast-offs from the cloning process used to create the S/B doubles used to tick off the Maximums.
Big week for me, the first time I made it to the LCS since early June
SS: Guardian #2 – Awesome. Great exciting action, while at the same time going a little deeper into the morality of superheroing – Jake doesn’t care who his allies are if he can get to his wife, and he saves her whle leaving other hostages to fend for themselves. What’s Morrison going to do for the (two-issue) encore?
Y - The Last Man #34 – Who the hell is this Vaughan guy and what does he think he’s doing putting moral complexity in my comic books? Great dialogue. Yorick made a choice that I wouldn’t have made, but Yorick’s a doofus – that’s established – and he is much easier to lead around by his dick than he thinks he is. Hope they’re not all dead next ish.
Ex Machina #11 – Good issue, if a bit disjointed. Clearly setup for what’s coming down the road. I liked how surprised I was by Mitch’s decision at the end, but I shouldn’t have been. The clues to Mitch being a bastard were all there, I’d just gotten swept up in his charm like his staff has. I can’t wait for the shit to hit the fan in this title.
OMAC #2 – Much better than #1. Interesting dynamic between Batman and everyone else. I don’t know how anyone who didn’t read Rucka’s 'Tec run could enjoy this title, but I did and I do, so it’s no skin off my nose.
Day of Vengenance #2 – Also better than #1, which I liked. An explanation for what’s going on, and a good setup for a potential resolution. All in all, a good Act II, with some unexpected character bits as well.
Runaways #4 – Well, that was obvious, so if it isn’t misdirection, I’m glad we’ve got the reveal. But otherwise, this issue retained the juice of #3. The dialogue and relationships continue to sparkle, and it’s fun to watch Mancha’s halting integration into the group – I hope he doesn’t go anywhere when the arc is over.
Spellbinders #3 – Another enjoyable bit of fluff. It’s clear that this thing is being paced to be the opening arc of a much longer series. I’d be interested in that, but I don’t know that it’s going to do this miniseries any favors – I doubt there’ll be much satisfactory resolution. But the reveal on the last page caught me by surprise. If it’s what I think it is – Perkins, who is an artist I like, does not always have control over his faces. People sometimes look unnaturally posed, and sometimes they don’t look like themselves. The art in this issue in particular was not as good as it has been.
Manhunter #10 – This was itself a good issue – I like that we’ve gotten back to the banter between Kate and Dylan, because I find their growing friesndship (despite Kate’s horror about it) very realistic. The action of this issue was good. Kate’s “mission” is so fucked up, but it’s consistently hers. But man o man, every time a hero takes on a legacy name, do we have to have the arc where all the former people with that name get killed. Cliche.
Also, Villians United #2, Zatanna #3, Simpsons Comics #105, and maybe some other stuff.
–Cliffy
Early May, obviously. :smack:
–Cliffy
I didn’t, and so far I don’t, but I’ve already posted my reasons for disliking this mini so far. Basically I wanted more Booster and more Max, and not another storyline about the saintly, infallible Big Three.
Ah…okay. I don’t read Marvel, and though I am of course passingly acquainted with those characters, my mind doesn’t automatically go there.
I, too, was thinking Authority, though I didn’t see any overt similarities. In DC-land, whenever there’s copious exposition about how violent a just-made-up-for-that-storyline team is, it’s usually a dig at the Authority.
Now that I see the Avengers in the Maximums, I recall that the Avengers were similarly riffed in the Authority:
Cap = Commander
Wasp = Hornet
Iron Man = Tank Man
Thor = Storm God
Giant Man = Titan
Yeah, in Superman/Batman it was hard to tell what was supposed to take place in the main DCU’s earth, and what was another world. We didn’t know the Maximums were on another earth until they failed to recognize our heroes (if they were our heroes, coulda been imposters, or from yet another alternate reality, or there’s some time travel funkiness involved).
For example, I’m pretty sure that there is a Bizarro #1 running around. I think he was created when the Joker was briefly God. I don’t know about Batzarro (who looks a lot like Spawn, come to think of it). And the blue K could have come along with teh rest of it when Supergirl showed up. So do they have their own world, or are they just running around in Superman/Batman’s? Yeah, that part was nonsensical, but I can enjoy Bizarros just for being Bizarros.
As for OMAC, I didn’t know who Sasha was either, and it is taking away from my enjoyment of the book. But, as of #2, it’s still worth reading.
New Books for June 2nd, 2005.
Unfortunately, my store did not get it’s copies of Gail Simone & Dale Eaglesham’s Villains United (#2). They said they might get copies sometime Saturday, so my figures are crossed.[list]
Women, Beautifully Rendered & Written with Charm.
Shanna the She Devil (#5) opens with a stark reminder that death comes quickly to the unwary in the forest primeval, and though we don’t get to see Shanna in action this issue, her pensive face speaks volumes. Frank Cho’s art is to die for, though the story, however suspenseful, is as light and airy as a loaf of Wonder Bread. Happily the issues closes with foreshadowing of fast and furious action to come.
For once, Grant Morrison’s prose charms instead of obfuscates in Seven Soldiers: Zatanna #2, as Zee faces down her “perfect man” in a San Francisco curio shop. It’s great seeing Cassandra Craft again (like the dear departed Terrance Thirteen, another veteran of the Stranger’s long-defunct monthly) though she hardly looks like her old self. (She sported wavier hair and billowing, gothic dresses back then) It’s all great fun, especially if you remember the old stuff (though knowledge of the characters past hardly necessary here - another feature of Silver Age DC). When people talk about DC going back to the “Silver Age”, at best they mean books like this Fanciful Vertigo titles once had (and should aspire to) this kind of sensibility (again). I’d be remiss if I didn’t say that Ryan Sook’s art has never been better. Mick Gray’s inks really brings Sook’s women to life. (If only he or the Dodsons had lent Vankin’s The Witching this kind of style, Vertigo would have had a real hit on it’s hands.)
Get Over It.
There comes a time in most persons’ lives (at least in the relatively comfortable West, where we experience a minimum of daily life-threatening civil strife, and thus have the luxury of neurosis) when circumstances force us to put aside resentments harbored in our youth. If we’re lucky, it’s because we realize it’s time to “grow up” (like Tilt and Alice in The Monolith). Sometimes carrying them gets too costly (I can relate.) In the comics (God Bless the Comics!) it’s because the fate of the world is in the balance. In Twilight Experiment #5 the young adjust (perhaps a bit too easily I thought), though hormones distract, and the Righteous proves himself pretty d@mn righteous, even more so than The Authority in it’s glory days. This guy is Ellis’ Changers, all rolled into one. Despite next issue’s “race against time”, I’m hoping that somehow, everyone gets together before the end of next issue; and though there’s sure to be a sacrifice of some kind, I’d like to see some sign this where this ‘next generation’ is going, ‘fore the curtain falls.
Blood & Thunder: Minute Men with Swords
It’s hard to believe it’s been five years since I wrote that, and this series is still going strong.
Blood & Thunder: Minute Men with Swords.
Long awaited, the fourteenth volume of Hiroaki Samura’s Eisner Award Winning Blood of the Immortal (comprising the Last Blood, Confession and Twilight story arcs) is finally in my hands. For a series rightly noted for the depth of it’s character work, this volume is all blood and thunder. In Last Blood the blood runs red across (and almost off) the page, as four of the series’ “baddest” converge, and we’re treated to a tight sequence of explosive sword fights, that reminded me of the gun battles concluding 100 Bullets #39 & 50. The sensibility is much the same, except, owing to the nature of the weapons of the day, these fights are much more personal (the Minutemen are ‘all business’ after all), and much more beautiful. The single issue story, Confession introduces a new crew of bastards, and ratchets up the suspense. BoI: Twilight just pays off with another protracted fight scene. This is a great series: the only draw back, is waiting a year for the next trade paperback.
By the way, this volume, could serve as a decent introduction to the books trademark ‘beautiful mayhem’, for the curious out there.
Anyone reading this series?
I saw very little that was saintly or infalliable of the big Three in this issue. To a certain extent it was a rehash of an argument already played out by Mark Waid in his great JLA run, but all three of them have both good and poor reasons for their positions.
–Cliffy
For more information see: http://www.z-builder.com/manga/mugen/
When you get right down to it, can you not imagine a better name for a villain than “Captain Nazi”? That’s as good as “Professor Puppyeater” or “General PervertKlown.” 
Zatanna #2: Good issue overall…I gotta know, though… what does it take to get Phantom Stranger to do your shopping for you?
Villains United #2: Interesting selection of villains in the group shot. I couldn’t identify the green-clad chick in the back, or the fuzzy guy behind Killer Frost at all, and the guy in the tophat, I’ve come up with a couple possibilities…The Wizard (either the first, having his death at Ragman’s hands ignored or a new one)…Abra Cadabra with a new costume… Outside chance on the Shade, I suppose, but he seems very unlikely.
The gal in green, in the domino mask with red hair, is Knockout. She’s an escapee from Apokalips with superhuman (nearly Superman’s level) strength. She tangled with Superboy, quasi-reformed, and then tried to drag SB over to the dark side by offering to do him.
Which is a very good plan when you’re target is the post-Crisis Superboy. It almost worked.
I assume it is the Wizard, since he had the mustache and domino mask. Hellhound was in that picture too, and he’s supposedly dead as well. It would NOT be the Shade. He might as well be a hero now, and even if not, he certainly wouldn’t have thrown in his lot with Luthor’s Society.
This is true.
The latter’s the big reason I considered Shade a low probability. On the other hand, there are a few they did get who I’d call unlikely, too, so I wasn’t willing to completely dismiss it without being sure who it actually was. Wizard seems a fairly safe possibility, though.
Mennochio - not Knockout, who’s standing next to Captain Nazi in the foreground. The other one, behind Wizard, right below Weather Wizard’s left foot. (Who, when I first saw it in a low-res scan, I thought was Ches, having turned.)
Ah. That’s Fatality. She’s an alien serial killer whose favorite targets are Green Lanterns (and former Green Lanterns).
I’ve got a theory about the identity of Mockingbird.
Someone who has very powerful reasons not to join Luthor’s society.
Someone with the resources to run that kind of counter-group.
Ra’s al Ghul.
If he were IN Luthor’s society, he’d be on the council - a chauvinist like Ghul would never take orders from his daughter. And he may well resent Luthor for co-opting Talia’s current loyalties.
Isn’t he dead?
Supposed to be.
This would be a fun way to reveal that the rumours of his demise were highly exagerated.