JIM DOOM: A few days ago, you left me a voicemail that said that “I just saw Iron Man, and not to spoil anything, but it’s my favorite movie of all time ever, and it’s the best thing that’s ever been created by mankind, even better than everything.”

Care to elaborate?

DOOM DELUISE: Certainly. Human beings, aka homo sapiens, evolved over many generations from monkeys. Since their development, they’ve come up with many amazing inventions, creations, works of art, etc. The wheel stands out as a good one, for example. The movie, “Iron Man,” starring Robert Downey Jr as Tony Stark, is, to date, the greatest accomplishment humans have achieved.

JIM DOOM: By “elaborate,” I meant something more like “Can you offer examples or explanations of what makes you think it’s so great,” as opposed to “Can you just restate ‘the best thing ever in the history of humans’ with different words?”

DOOM DELUISE: Oh, my bad. In that case, I think the movie is probably one of the most, essentially, fun experiences one could possibly ask for from a two-hour movie-going experience. The writing, the acting, the effects, they all come together to form a tight, hilarious, exciting, thrilling movie that, in my opinion, is super solid.

JIM DOOM: I’ll take that.

How much have you read Iron Man comics?

DOOM DELUISE: I read about two dozen in the early 90s. I’ve only since read Iron Man when he’s been involved with big crossovers. No, he’s never been one of my regularly read titles, if that’s what you’re asking. How much have you read?

JIM DOOM: Very very little. I don’t think I bought a single Iron Man comic before it was relaunched in the past couple years. I wonder if being relatively unfamiliar with his history helped me enjoy it more, because I was completely open to whatever backstory they wanted to give him.

I don’t think this movie could’ve worked without the context of the military - industrial complex and war profiteers being so present in modern culture.

They managed to do a great job of making Iron Man a product of the story rather than creating some contrived situation to justify having a superhero fight bad guys.

And I think the absolute best thing about this movie, one of the biggest failings of most superhero movies, is that this film was not ashamed to be a superhero movie. There was no self-deprecatory, “Hey, we’re making a COMIC BOOK movie — isn’t this cute?” nudge-nudge wink-wink self-neutering that happens in so many comic book movies.

All of the humor came naturally through well-defined characters and never at the expense of the story.

I think that, more than anything, allowed this movie to work.

It gave the viewers permission to get emotionally invested in what was happening.

DOOM DELUISE: Most definitely. It also deftly was able to side-step another one of the biggest problems that has plagued previous comic book movies: It never took itself too seriously. When the chips were on the table, and the villain wanted Stark dead, we saw some emotions coming through, but, otherwise, you didn’t have very many scenes of Tony Stark brooding or staring off into the night sky while contemplating his place in the world.

Here, he’s a man of action, and when shit starts going down, he steps up his efforts to stop it.

JIM DOOM: I like that they not only got good actors for this, but they let them act. I think some of the best scenes in the movie were when Robert Downey Jr and Gwyneth Paltrow were just standing a few feet from each other and conversing.

DOOM DELUISE: I agree. And I think that Jeff Bridges owned his role as the Iron Monger.

That scene where his top scientist is telling him that they just don’t have the technology to create this gizmo, and he just screams, “Tony Stark built this in a cave using a bucket of scraps!” I was blown away.

JIM DOOM: Was there anything you didn’t like?

DOOM DELUISE: No.
(more…)

I hate when comics cost $3.99.

I especially hate when I buy a $3.99 comic and I feel like I have no choice (within the realm of relative comic reading autonomy). I picked up Giant-Size Avengers / Invaders #1 because I was in a hurry at the comic shop and I didn’t look closely and thought I was buying the first issue of the upcoming 12-part series.

WRONG! Had I looked closer, I would’ve realized I was buying a collection of reprinted Avengers and Invaders stories from the ’60s and ’70s!! And for the most part, I hate comic stories from the ’60s and ’70s, especially thanks to the past few years, in which comics creators have done their best to try to convince the readers that the ’60s and ’70s were something other than hokey crap that was suited only for the seven year olds that bought it!

But as mad as I was at myself for buying the stupid thing, I was even madder at this inanimate heap of centrally stapled 4-color nonsense, and I was not about to let it have victory over me. I was going to read every page, no matter how much I hated it.

Man, it was awesome. The first story, “Endgame!” was from Avengers #71. In that issue, Kang the Conqueror and The Grand-Master are having some kind of 41st century battle by proxy. If Kang wins, he receives mastery over life and death; if The Grand-Master wins, he gets Earth. So Kang somewhat unwittingly plays the role of Earth’s protector, as it’s up to him to choose wisely and ensure victory for himself and the planet.

This issue is included because Kang chooses The Avengers and The Grand-Master chooses the Invaders, setting up what was probably the first clash between the two teams. Most of the action and all of the dialog in this issue is cheesy, but what makes that work is that this battle ends up being the delivery for a moral, as Kang becomes a tragic character who ends up giving up everything he wants in attempt at revenge. The unrealistically larger-than-life behavior of the characters ends up being more than tolerable because of the fact that this is little more than a fable, and you can totally see how a pre-teen would’ve been blown away by this issue and likely read it over and over.
(more…)

Ultimate X-Men
Read from #1 (2001) to #93 (2008)

It’s been a long time since Ultimate X-Men has been good. Since Robert Kirkman took over from Brian K. Vaughan a few years ago, the quality of the book has greatly suffered. And that’s coming from a Kirkman-apologist.

Kirkman had a few things going against him, though. He was originally just supposed to fill in while Bryan Singer got his shit together and wrote his Ultimate X-Men story. When Singer crapped out and Kirkman was given “ongoing” status, he was saddled with art teams that changed nearly every issue. See, I told you I was an apologist.

Ultimate X-Men by Robert Kirkman has not been very good, but I kept buying out of a love for Kirkman’s other work and because Ultimate X-Men was just one of those comics I’d always buy out of habit.

Now Kirkman is leaving the title. He’s being replaced by one of the writers from Heroes, a show whose quality has never been discussed on doomkopf.com as far as I can remember. Last fall before the writer’s strike, I realized that I didn’t like Heroes and was watching it out of habit and out of a loyalty to the genre. Sort of like how I don’t like Ultimate X-Men and only buy it out of habit and loyalty to Kirkman. Funny how that worked out, huh?

Dropping Ultimate X-Men also means that I’m probably not ever going to buy another Ultimate comic. I couldn’t stand Ultimate Spider-Man past the first issue. Ultimate Fantastic Four got really boring when Mike Carey took over. And Jeph Loeb and Joe Madureira ruined The Ultimates. I bought Ultimate Six, Ultimate War, Ultimate X4, and the Ultimate Galactus trilogy. But Marvel’s never going to get another Ultimate dollar out of me.

Weird…I’ve never dropped an entire universe before.

(more…)

I didn’t know what to to expect going into DC Universe #0. This is the third time DC has released a bargain-priced universe-wide one-shot, and while Countdown to Infinite Crisis was one of the best single issues of any comic ever, Brave New World was a bunch of crappy short stories designed to get you to buy a bunch of crappy new mini-series.

So when I got to page 8, and saw that DC Universe #0 was following the formula that Brave New World did, I was a little disappointed. Sure, I’d rather read short stories involving Superman, Green Lantern and Batman than OMAC, Uncle Sam and…whatever else came out of Brave New World that I’ve apparently forgotten about. But I already read Action Comics, so I know what’s going on with the Legion (and this week’s issue explained the “Legion of Three Worlds” thing better than DC #0 did). I don’t plan to read Batman RIP, WW and GL are already on my pull list, and I haven’t given two craps about the Spectre since he was seduced by Eclipso.

But then there was that last story. From the start of the issue, I had been a bit confused about who was narrating the story. It was someone that called Superman “Clark,” someone who “knows” Hal Jordan. Yet it’s was still someone who knew that Crispus Allen is the Spectre, which I’m guessing isn’t common knowledge to many people on this side of the grave. But I can’t believe that they’d actually do this.

Barry Allen is back fron the dead. Even though it could very well be a swerve and some other speedster could have returned, and even though Barry has been a better character dead than he ever was alive, that’s exciting.

When Grant Morrison was announced as the writer of Final Crisis, I was disheartened. When Countdown to Final Crisis became an unreadable piece of garbage week after week, I was disappointed. But when a “This is what you need to know” issue comes out, and I already know everything I need to know, that picks my spirits up a bit. And seeing the names Greg Rucka, Gail Simone and Geoff Johns attached, three people integral to the build-up to Infinite Crisis, makes me hopeful that DC might actually know what the hell they’re doing. Maybe Final Crisis won’t suck afterall.

I’d be willing to bet Jim Doom had a little bit of a different reaction, though: (more…)

What is the fascination with endings in comic books? It seems we just can’t get enough of them, and big comics companies just can’t stop giving them to us. Whether it’s the Ultimate X-Men or Y: The Last Man or the Final Crisis, it seems that endings are popping up around every corner, only, once we get there, it just shows a new path to a new ending, in a never-ending loop.

I don’t know how far back this trend goes, but let’s look at the most recent example of it. When 52 ended, the big tagline on the cover was, “It All Ends Here!” The very next week, the first issue of Countdown had the tagline reading, “So Begins the End!” One Year Later, the last issue of Countdown featured the tag, “The End!” Now, one week after that, DC Universe #0’s cover exclaims, “The Ending Begins Here!”

Aren’t you getting sick of it all? I know I am. I mean, it’s obvious that none of these were the real ending of anything, so why should we believe that Final Crisis will actually be the last Crisis that DC makes? Who’s to say that five years from now, there won’t be some new miniseries titled, “The Crisis of the Future” or something?

I guess I just don’t get the fascination. It’s like Margaret Atwood once wrote: “So much for endings. Beginnings are always more fun. True connoisseurs, however, are known to favor the stretch in between, since it’s the hardest to do anything with.”

Remember early last year, when DC released this image?

Countdown is now over, so let’s take a look at what all these teaser images were referring to, moving clockwise from the left side, and compare them with Dan DiDio’s comments from last January.

1. Big Barda and Scott Free are dead. They got killed in DONG.

2. The Statue of Liberty is knocked down. Cloverfield.

3. Kyle Rayner and Donna Troy are looking … beyond? They became the Challengers from Beyond in Countdown. Donna changed costumes in the middle of a battlefield. DiDio said “The color is important key to her future and her allegiance.”

4. Jason Todd as Red Robin. Dan DiDio said in the initial Q&A that physical distance could represent emotional distance. Jason become Red Robin to aid Earth-51’s Batman, but ended up not learning a single lesson from that one potentially meaningful episode in the year-long series. He’s still the same jerk he was, hence his separation from his traveling buddies Donna and Kyle.

5. Oliver Queen. Is he separated from Black Canary after getting married? I haven’t been reading that series.

6. I assume it’s a Batman from another earth, as all those Elseworlds books are now in-continuity, but DiDio said “The image is symbolic in natural and it is indeed the Batman you are reading now. As for the sword, it’s not the first time he used one.” I still don’t get this one.
(more…)

How utterly fitting. In a series where absolutely nothing of importance happened over the course of fifty tedious issues, it is only fitting that the finale is similarly devoid of any points of interest.

Still, the series accomplished what it set out to accomplish, I suppose. They killed all of the New Gods, and they established the fact that there are fifty-two Monitors watching over each of the fifty-two universes of the Multiverse. They also made it so that Brother Eye is in hiding, with only one OMAC left at his disposal, which is a far cry from before the series, when Brother Eye was in hiding, with only one OMAC at his disposal. They also turned “Mary Damn Marvel” evil and changed Jason Todd from the ruthless, loner vigilante he used to be into the all-new and improved ruthless, loner vigilante that he is now. Holly Robinson and Harley Quinn and the Pied Piper were also dealt with; they went from being lost and purposeless to being…uh, purposeless and lost. Plus, some supervillains were rounded up and shipped off-world. Oh, and some universes died and were reborn.

Why have I been so critical of this series, then? Simple. The New Gods dying wasn’t really covered here; it had its own mini-series for that. The Monitors were established in Brave New World. Salvation Run took care of the missing supervillains story, and the Challengers never really did anything of note. Well, unless you count going from universe to universe for no reason, fighting big bug monsters, eventually heading to Apokolips, leaving, watching a dead but reborn earth die again, and then going home as “something of note.” Because if that’s the case, well, yeah, sure, I guess they did something. Hit the jump. (more…)

Every time I try to make sense of a rise in Countdown’s sales, it ends up being something artificial — a reporting glitch, a change in return policy, or something like that. So this month, I’m not even going to try to justify it. Countdown’s numbers rose slightly. Make of it what you will. The book is still selling way below what 52 did, and overall, it’s still declining.

If there is one success with Countdown, it is this: both titles had a huge jump in week 13, previously attributed to the return policy. Regardless, 52 returned to week 12 levels by week 36; Countdown was able to hold off returning to that previous low until week 40.

It’s been three weeks since the Book of Doom returned with a vengeance, with a 4-day review-thon spotlighting as many books. Since then, we here at doomkopf.com haven’t been able to decide on a book that we had enough interest in to sit down and write a review. This week Superman #675, the final Kurt Busiek-penned issue of the series, seemed like it might be a good choice.

Emphasis on the word “seemed.”

Kurt Busiek’s Superman run has been pretty decent, but then again I’ve only been reading Superman solo stories for as long as Busiek’s been writing them. “Up, Up and Away,” the first One Year Later arc, was a great story. “Camelot Falls” was a nice saga that suffered drastically from constant interruptions by fill-in issues to give Carlos Pacheco time to play catch-up. Some of those fill-ins were even pretty entertaining, though.

But since Camelot Falls ended six months ago or so, Supeman just hasn’t been very good. Busiek seemed to be treading water, incorporating elements from the Richard Donner Action Comics arc that I tried my damnedest to avoid. There are only so many stories you can tolerate that involve a generic super-powered alien fighting Superman.

So imagine how overjoyed I was when I started reading this issue and discovered it was Superman versus three generic super-powered aliens. Yes, I said “discovered,” because Superman has fallen so far off my radar that I had completely forgotten what had happened in the previous issue. I thought this was going to be a stand-alone wrap-everything-up send-off issue. My apologies, Jim.

Jim Doom: “I bought this $3.99 issue because I was under the impression it was a standalone conclusion to Busiek’s run on the book. Had I known that it was just part 2 of a story, I wouldn’t have spent the money, extra pages or not. (more…)