Battle Royale Rip-offs and Neil Gaiman

Yeah so I read Avengers Arena. I like to think of it as one of my guilty pleasure books. That and the new Nova, god I miss Rich. Hey it wouldn't be my blog if I didn't mention Nova, right? This week's issue of Avengers Arena, also known as the comic that ripped off Battle Royale/Hunger Games, starts in semi-high gear and then spins down to first. After that it shoves down the accelerator like a pile of Scrooge McDuck's money. Sentinel Kid Juston is a character in this series, so is Chase from Runaways. Chase grabbed the power of Darkhawk from Chris Powell. Okay, all of this is going over your head, why should I bother? 

Basic point of why I like this book and I've continued to read it for nine issues is pretty basic. Why do old ladies like to watch soap operas? No, I'm not trying to be mean saying only older women watch soaps. I know a few people who watch them and they're around my age or younger. The point is simple, I like to watch people be conniving jerks, I also like to see people try to be nice and mediate situations with said jerks. It like watching Thomas the tank-engine drive(rail?) into a tornado. "I think I can, I think I can!" Doesn't usually work out, sorry Thomas. I really enjoyed the British show Skins, mostly for this fact as well. Yeah it's essentially a soap opera or one of those reality TV shows like survivor. Big thing about this book though is people die. Some very beloved characters by certain groups of Avengers Academy, or more recently, oh wait that's a spoiler. I'm trying to not do those anymore.

Bottom line, if you like just stupid mindless dribble where kids punch and yell at each other and get decapitated, but with super-powers. Read this book. Get out of your, "Oh, it's just a rip-off of 'X' thing", and  try something new. You might end up liking it. I'm not trying to tell you want to do... please don't stop reading.

I like the big belt

In other news Angela's re-design for the Age of Ultron issue written by Neil Gaiman is looking nice. Doctor Strange movie is a go. Daredevil and Ghost Rider are back in the hands of Marvel Studios, but nothing is currently planned(Poor DD). I'm getting really hyped for the Man of Steel movie. I haven't seen Iron Man 3, but from what I know of it I believe I'll enjoy it. The Walking Dead comic that came out this week was fantastic, and I'm hoping things start to speed-up. Uh, yeah that's pretty much all I wanted to talk about.

As always, Thanks for reading. Here's your Suggested Listening. I couldn't remember that Danzig song, you know the one, about Angels falling... Crap.

Free Comic Book Day

So this Saturday was Free Comic Book Day. It was good. I haven't gotten around to reading what I got, but I figured I'd post pictures of what I grabbed. Really happy about the New Avengers poster I got from Realms. All in all, like Ice Cube said; today was a good day.

Don't tell me to make my bed

Jupiter's Legacy Review

First issue, while not available digitally upon it's release was an enjoyable read. What was Mark Millar(guy who wrote Kick-Ass and Ultimate X-men) thinking? He was thinking, damn this is a great book I hope people enjoy it in the paper format! Besides it's antiquated political undertones this book was enjoyable for being a cape comic. It's delivery was perfect, and not short on information to setup the series in the long run. A lot of first issues about super-heroes leave you wanting. This one conveyed it's general idea quickly and precisely in it's first issue. I say bravo to that!
The general idea is this; some people in the 30's searching for an answer to the woes of the depression and America's hardships venture to an island foreseen in the dreams of Sheldon Sampson. They are delivered there and blessed with being the first super-heroes of their age. Fast-forward to the present and their descendants have totally misconstrued their parent's values. Abusing their powers for fame and endorsements, while the regular people fall to the whims of the government's failing economy and even super-villains they could care less about fighting. The story seems to follow the idea of Robert Kirkman's(Walking Dead) Invincible, but makes it much more adult in it's tone. I'm not bashing Invincible, but it always felt a bit too corny for what I read. The idea of what real super-heroes in a real world setting is nothing new, but this felt inventive enough to be a good start to an endearing story.
On the flip-side it could also end up being a horrible story where people's values are washed away to make way for the superior beings and controlled by them in a police-state fashion to earn a dishonest Utopia. Which we've seen plenty of in comics (Evil Superman for President!). I don't think it will be long before we get this answer since two brothers who have opposing views on the current government structures are already butting heads towards a meltdown. I see one becoming a villain and the other standing by the current regime and believing that the people can work it out for themselves and not fail. These two brothers are two of the first people to go to the island, and one of them happens to be Sheldon Sampson.
A nice cliffhanger ends the book, I won't spoil it, but it does involve one of the degenerate children. A child who sounds so yuppy I wish I could squish her like Galactus on a bad day, or good depending on your outlook of Galactus. It's a good read, I advise everyone to check it out!

Suggested Listening

Daredevil is Awesome

DD was confirmed back in the hands of Marvel Studios today, by Kevin Feige: here's an article about it. Daredevil has recently become one of my favorite characters and books from Marvel. Mark Waid's run really had a lot to do with this. Whether it's saving blind kids from a wrecked bus ontop of a snowy mountain, or making the reader hate Foggy Nelson and then make you feel bad you did. Daredevil recently has been a pound for pound great superhero book. The art is top-notch and much like Fraction's Hawkeye fits well with the type of story we're reading.

Last week Daredevil #25 was my favorite book that came out. Hence why I didn't really write a pull-list bit. The new villain they introduced and his shocking twist towards the end just made me happy. Even his design and attitude feels like a callback to Frank Miller's run on the book. Ninjas are cool again. I really want to know where we go next on this crazy roller coaster known as Matt Murdock's Melancholy Life. The turns and reels of emotion when he falls and then comes back to triumph are perfect comic book mechanics. That's why I'm saying it now DD is my favorite current on-going book. I may do a top-ten of this in the future... So uh, spoilers.
Ideas of how to introduce Daredevil into the Marvel movie universe? Someone on Reddit had a great idea for street level hero movies eventually combining in a New Avengers movie. I like this, and also this would give a good home for the Dr. Strange movie coming out soon. Iron Fist, DD, and Hawkeye on the same screen?! Yes please.

Suggested Listening Red Batman approved.

Batman and Robin's Prof. Pyg Versus Beware the Batman's

So Beware the Batman is coming out soon. One of their villains has no chance in hell of being true to it's bone. That poor bastard is Professor Pyg! First gracing his smug oinks in Grant Morrison's post Bruce death Batman and Robin series. He did become something of a significant villain with the first three issues. His hack and slash attitude, and poetic non-sense leads him to a combination of the Mad Hatter and The Joker of insane crack cocaine. He literally carved the faces of his child victims off and replaced them with faces of that he felt suited his life all the whilst quoting Darwin's Origin of Species.

Oink, Oinkety, Oinkety, Oink

How in the 9 levels of Hell could this character possibly translate to a cartoon presented by Cartoon Network's series Beware the Batman?! I have no clue, but I do intend to show you how it will not work. It even makes Damian Wayne vomit with rage! I have to say I do understand the need to re-invigorate new readers/viewers of Batman with villains that are contemporary  but maybe Pyg isn't the right choice... Oink Oinkety, Oinkety, Oink. I mean I could understand Black Mask who is featured in "Under the Red Hood" a movie I really liked, but still not suitable for children under the age of 12? He could be re-worked to fit the mold and break away from the Joker, Penguin, Two-Face, and Mr. Freeze.
Regardless of that this villain was introduced after Bruce's death, post Final Crisis. Which means the first Batman to face him was Dick Grayson, and his Boy Wonder, Damian Wayne. Maybe I should say Robin, and Batman the Boy Wonder... Even if eventually Damian grew to respect Dick, the man who taught him how to be nicer than just wanting to fight justice and for his father's memory. Nothings ever good enough!

Pre-Boston, He'd been there though.

Back to the poor children, seriously that's what Pyg does... He takes their faces and replaces them. Essentially he's just a bat-crazy(heh) individual with a penchant for saws and surgery. I really can't see how they pull this off like a poor child's face, on Cartoon Network. Professor Pyg is going to be the worst villain on that channel since they cancelled Young Justice and the Green Lantern Animated Series on the same day. Whoever that guy is serisously, I want to shank you. I wanted a Young Justice VS. Darkseid as much as I wanted Wolverine and the X-men's show heroes fighting Apocalypse. Sheesh. Channel Executives are sometimes un-caring to us fans...
I don't know how they'll handle Lazlo Valentin and his "Pig Pen", but I know it can't be regarded as a great endeavor. Maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised. The Le Cirque D'Entrange continues without me.

Thanks

Yeap, so uh... A suggested listening is what you'd want here right? Well while re-reading Batman & Robin 1-3 and thinking about writing this article I was to listening the new Fall Out Boy CD. Yeah, that may sound gay, but meh. They grew on me and aside their recent "Light It Up" song, I have to say half their new CD isn't terribad, and I like that song a lot. I'm sure you've heard that already a lot, so let's do something different this week. The Pheonix? Oh Jean Grey!

Suggested Listening Oh Yay videos are now a regular thing! Thanks Youtube! Now imagine Prof. Pyg disco dancing to this song...

Action Comics New 52 1-8

I just recently finished reading the first arch of Action Comics for the New 52. It's written by Grant Morrison, and I've expressed my interest in him before on this blog, so I don't see any reason to re-hash said interest. His work on this book is pretty great in my opinion. Not excellent or bad, just great. I'm sad that he left after issue 18, and that after his tenure with Batman INC. he will be leaving cape comics for a while(I read this somewhere, not sure where though). After the reboot, Superman needed a fresh take, I think it was prominently delivered with this title. I like that we get not one but multiple villains origins in this run. Metallo's is great, and also gave us the birth of the new Steel. Lex's xenophobic sensibility is prevalent through the first arch, even if he sides with another alien in order to remove Superman. The collector of Worlds/Brainiac... Internet? Plays the main villain throughout, and did what he always does to Kal-El, torture his friends and city. Jimmy plays the perfect best-friend in this series while Lois is... well Lois, and not much more. The Legion of Superheroes short story in the middle did distract, but I still enjoyed the story it presented. I liked the idea of a Tesseract being in his brain, regardless of how it got there(a bullet...). This allowed his villains to enter there with Kryptonite. It's something I would've never thought of, and something that the writers of Dr. Who should look into. "The Tardis... it's well, it's inside your head Doctor." Awesome!

All in all I recommend reading it, at least just issues 1-4, and then 7-8. The Legion issue is 6 if you want to check out that Tesseract story. 5 is just baby Kal-El riding his ship to Earth and being saved by the Kents, with some slightly depressing undertones. The latter to which I listened to Rocket Man by Elton John, which I guess would be the suggested listening for this piece. I plan to finish Morrison's run, and then check out Andy Diggle's issue((s?)He wrote Green Arrow: Year One which I liked). Scott Lobdell will be taking over the book after that and I think I'll give his first issue a look-see. He however is writing almost every other Superman book, and I've heard those are pretty bad.

I still can't wait for Batman/Superman, I hope it's great. Especially after that last bit at the end of Batman 19, which I thought was the best part of that book.

Suggested Listening

They Avengered it out of me!

Left to Right
Black Widow, Mockingbird, Spider-Woman

Hawkeye 9 was pretty good, continuing the events from the last issue the tree ex-lovers of Clint Barton, Black Widow, Mockingbird, and Spider-Woman all go about finding Hawkguy and finishing what seems to be an awful Valentine's day for him. Good old Kate, with her Lolita movie poster on her bedroom wall is confronted by the trio. It's at this point that it may seem that Matt Fraction wants us to believe Kate and Clint might have a thing. Even if it's one-sided. Considering her a fourth in the "affairs" of Hawkeye. Mockingbird and Hawkeye's marriage is finally put out to sea, as he finalizes the divorce papers, and some bro's get beaten up. Then some guy comes up and shoots a fan-favorite of the book in the head, Oh no... Oh da.

Why is Bruce Wayne pointing a gun at Jim Gordon on the cover of Batman 19? Better yet, why is he robbing a bank. Oh it's Clayface. That's dumb. I was hoping it was Hush, or Bruce finally lost his marbles after Damian's recent death. Nope just Clayface, and he's "evolved". Seriously this book is starting to go down the pooper. It was really good, and one of the best at the start of the whole New 52, but it seems like Snyder has gotten lazy with his recent acclaim and is pumping out slop monthly with the title. That slop just happens to look like Clayface, sigh...

Poink!

I like how Bendis is essentially writing a weekly X-men books even if it has two titles. After the events in All New X-men where Cyclops comes to the Jean Grey school, and offers the students an alternative. We see that the Stepford Cuckoo's are a dominant telepath over Emma now, and Cyclops gets Goldballed. Also past Angel joins present-time's Cyclop's team. Where does the story go from now? Magik is having troubles controlling her powers now, just like Cyke and Emma.

More stuff to come this weekend. Hope you enjoyed this. Also, Apple is dumb, and stupid.

Suggested Listening: Neko Case - I Wish I Was The Moon