Monthly archives: October, 2006

Robert Kirkman just gets Spider-Man. Sure, there are a lot of guys that get Spider-Man, but most of them aren’t writing Spider-Man stories. And there are a lot of guys that don’t get him that are writing his stories. So when Spidey does something very Spidey-esque, I can’t help but get giddy like a school girl. And that happens every single time Spider-Man showed up in Robert Kirkman’s Marvel Team-Up. It’s a shame #25 was the final issue, because it means no more great lines like this one.

Nobody liked Bruce Jones’ Nightwing. Literally. Show me someone that says they liked it, and I’ll show you a liar that I will proceed to punch in the face, chest and abdomen until I get tired and Doom DeLuise has to take over.

But y’know what? Marv Wolfman seems to know what the hell he’s doing. Hell, the character even seems to acknowledge that he sucked there for half a year or so. Nightwing/Wolfman pretty much just come out and say what we can all agree with: Nightwing’s at his best when he’s kicking ass like Batman but not being a dick afterwards. Or, to phrase it differently: Nightwing’s at his best when he kicks ass like Batman but is still being Dick afterwards.

Oh, and in your breaking-the-fourth-wall moment of the weak, a mysterious character announces that Nightwing should have died in Infinite Crisis. Then, in your ominous-foreshadowing-by-the-villain moment, the same mysterious villain says he plans to rectify that mistake. And by “mysterious character,” I of course mean one of the new Watchers Monitors, which DC already revealed was going to be following Dick Grayson around. I’m not sure if anyone told Marv Wolfman that we all know that, though.

Oh well. It’s still leaps and bounds ahead of albino twins with opposite superpowers hiring a giant spider guy to eat Jason Todd only to get soundly defeated by some uninteresting chick in Nigtwing’s costume while the actual Nightwing acts like a dick. No capital D.

Paul Dini is writing the best Batman stories I’ve ever read. Okay, to be fair, I didn’t start reading Batman until OYL, but it’s definitely better than the “Face to Face” arc and much, much better than what Morrison’s doing over on Batman (you don’t know how bad I wanted to do a pun on that title, but they all sounded really juvenile–all right, check the bottom of the post for my stupid jokes).

Where was I? Oh yes, Paul Dini’s Detective Comics. The Riddler’s new role as a legit private dick that’s a sex machine with absolutely no one is sweet. Now Penguin’s started a legitimate nightclub/casino (gambling’s legal in Gotham?), albeit it with non-legit start-up funds. So when Misters Nigma and Cobblepot get a chance to chat amongst themselves, what do they talk about? How much easier it is to legally take loads off cash from people instead of stealing it, of course. Sure took them villainous folk long enough to figure that one out.

Okay, now my bad puns (I’m warning you here):
Buttman- because it’s barely a step up from ASSBAR
Badman- because it’s bad
Crapman- because it’s crap
Defective Comics- too bad Morrison’s writing Batman or else this one actually would have been great

For awhile now, we’ve been on a sort of Nightwing Watch here at the Legion of Doom. He should have died in Infinite Crisis. Everybody agrees on that now. Instead, Dick moved to New York, acted like a Grade A Asshole and fought some pointlessly retarded villains. Instead of a real conclusion to the story, DC disappeared Bruce Jones and brought in old-time Teen Titans scribe Marv Wolfman. Now, here’s a guy who knows Dick Grayson.

Nightwing #125 came out this week, Marv’s first stab at rehabbing Nightwing, who was fast on his way to becoming an utterly worthless hero. So, what did we get?

First, the best parts: Tops were the mysterious voice telling Dick that he should have died in the Crisis. I have no clue where this is going, but it’ll be interesting to see. Also, Dick’s alter ego, Captain Cockhead, is nowhere to be seen. Hooray.

Now, the bad: Wolfman and artist Dan Jurgens desperately need to realize it’s not 1986 anymore. You sort of have to read the book to get the complete feel of this (and I’m too lazy to scan pages), but this book felt like something I pulled out of the quarter bin. It has the now rarely used thought bubbles – “This is great. I want to enjoy it, but the more I try to think about things other than crime fighting, the more I can’t stop thinking about it.” It has a hokey new villain – Raptor, who’s strikingly familiar to Spider-Man’s Killer Shrike. It has numerous encounters between Dick and two random hot chicks living in his apartment that seem right out of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.

And, while both Dan Jurgens and Norm Rapmund are decent enough artists on their own, somehow together they turn in one of those standard ’80s type books that almost reminds me of why Rob Liefeld was popular when he first came on the scene to shake things up. Everyone wears ’80s clothes, most notably the aforementioned hot chicks (an orange sports bra and purple bicycle shorts???).

And yet, the main thing to say about Nightwing #125 is that it’s infinitely better than the series’ previous run.

Because I’m lazy, I’m making this #4 because then it posts the same day as the group review. Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man or The Irredeemable Antman probably deserves it more, but like I said, I’m lazy. I did four other heartfelt ones and two countdowns last week. Give me a break, will ya? Anyway, I wish this woman was real, so I could see her freak out somewhere. That’d be funny as hell.

Y’know, Dr. Strange is a really cool character. Unlike the DC Universe, there aren’t a gazillion magic-type guys to fight back the forces of all the dark dimensions surrounding our own. It’s pretty much all on Dr. Strange. And he must be really, really good at it, or else we wouldn’t exist. Or he’s just lies about it all, which is cool in another way.

But Dr. Strange hasn’t been really cool for a while. He was in Avengers: Disassembled for about two seconds and stole what little glory there was from the Avengers, who deserved any glory there might have been after what they went through. Not cool. He’s in the Illuminati. Not cool. He was in a stupid Matrix rip-off mini-series which should have been Ultimate Strange but was supposed to replace the 616 origin (but thankfully didn’t) drawn by Jim Doom’s favorite artist. Definitely not cool.

But the Oath is cool. Very cool. But what else do you expect from Brian K. Vaughn, the best writer working in comics today that isn’t really considered a “superstar” (and a better writer than a lot of those that are).