What You Should Have Read #43

Last Week’s Comic Book Awesomeness

Fables #109 – I’m glad the Vertigo books, or at least this one that I read, weren’t affected by the reboot. That would have been a huge shame, but this wonderful book remains unspoiled. I’m loving the instruction of the children and their very childlike reaction to what’s happening to them. Ambrose is being singled out, and his reaction to flying is priceless. I’m sure the same would happen to me if I could fly on my own.

Invincible Iron Man #508 – I’m really going to miss Tony’s interactions with the dwarves when Fear Itself is over. Those guys are $&#)# great.

DC’s New 52: Week 3

Batman #1 – Well, this might well be the title that brings me into the Bat Family. Although I have followed him in quite some time, I’ve been a fan of Greg Capullo since his run on “X-Force” decades ago. I followed him to “Spawn” but lost track of him once I gave up on that series. Scott Snyder is one of two comic professionals I’ve ever “spoken” with (I’m counting the extremely brief back-and-forth we had on the blog when “American Vampire” first came out as a conversation), and I’ve been enjoying pretty much all of his work lately. So I was really hoping they’d be able to make me enjoy a Batman book…and they did. Capullos art resembles his “X-Force” work more than his Spawn work, which at times I found to be just plain ugly. His work now seems very reminiscent of Mike Parobek (although with more texture lines added), who brought a very simple but unique style to the early ‘90s incarnation of :The Justice Society of America” and DC’s !mpact title “The Fly.” Snyder did a great job of making this book, who’s continuity changed very little after the reboot I believe, very new-reader friendly. The facial recognition program quickly introduced us to some major players, and Bruce’s speech let us know (as if anybody reading comics doesn’t know) his past. And, since he is a detective, we’re left with a wondrous murder mystery. So yes, I’m very happy with this book, and I’m proud to be following a little corner of the Bat Universe. Thank you, Misters Snyder and Capullo.

Blue Beetle #1 – After reading this issue, I kind of want to go back and reread the previous series. I never had a real connection with Ted Kord, so I accepted Jaime as the new Blue Beetle pretty easily. I remember that he was introduced during Infinite Crisis, but I don’t remember how or what he did. All I remember is that I really enjoyed his solo series. It was a great mixture of humor, action and teen angst, the things that really drew me to Spider-Man so many years ago. If I remember correctly, the broad strokes of this Blue Beetle’s origin are the same; it’s just some details that are different. I’m okay with that for now, but as it stands I don’t see myself giving this title more than another issue or two. While the characters may be the same, the book doesn’t have the same feel of the previous series. The action is there, and the angst is there, but it’s just not the same.

Wonder Woman #1 – Holy shit. I’ve never liked Wonder Woman. I’ve never read a Wonder Woman solo story that I’ve liked, and I’ve really never cared about her in any team-ups or Justice League stories I’ve read that include her. I really liked this issue, though. As with Batman, it was a really good jumping-on point. Although she really does have a huge history, you don’t need to know it here. Actually, Diana seems like a side character in her own book. This looks like it’s going to be about God-level family squabble of which Diana is going to insert herself. It read a lot like a darker Hercules book over at Marvel, and maybe that’s why I liked it. Azzarello did a wonderful job at making this a creepy book, and I’m really looking forward to where he’s going to take it.

 Probably for the rest of the month I’m going to whore myself out with an impassioned plea: click on the ads. PLEASE click on the ads. I don’t care if you exit it out of it immediately or actually look around. This isn’t some professional blog where I believe in the products I’m shilling. These are automatic ads placed by Google. But my experiment this weekend proved to me that I actually AM making a spot of cash whenever the ads are clicked. So I’m going to put this little disclaimer on the bottom of all my posts for the next month or so, and I hope you’ll take an extra 10 seconds after reading my blog to click on an ad. Thanks so much!