Category: books of doom

I mentioned, not long ago, my unexpected love for The Incredible Hercules (purely hetero *cough*), and along with it I mentioned that I probably won’t be able to actually convince anybody to pick it up, so what better way to force people to read something than by making it my pick for this week’s Book of Doom:

Proudly presenting, for the first time in Marvel continuity… the origin of Hercules! How did the young man who becomes the Lion of Olympus learn of his divine heritage? In what battle did he earn the title “Prince of Power?” And, most importantly, why does the goddess Hera hate him so, now that her Dark Reign begins to fall across New Olympus?

It claims to be a good jumping-on point, and is also a double-sized issue, so hopefully we—the creators and I—will have ample opportunity to convince you that it’s worth keeping in the pull-box.

So, I learned something very important. Don’t try new things. Ever. You’ll get burnt and disappointed, and your friends will think less of you. That is, at least, what I surmised from the reactions to Johnny Monster #1.

In my own views, the issue was certainly not good. It was kind of fun – you know, fighting monsters is right up there on career tracts with astronaut in the level of awesome. But this “fun” belied juvenile pacing resulting in a rushed plot placing getting from Point A to Point B ahead of figuring out how. This leaves it a good comic for someone who is, say, six-years-old who sits in rapt attention of the plot of a Mario Brothers game, but for connoisseurs of nerd books like the Doomkopf crew, it’s left sorely lacking.

Plot? Johnny Monster is a monster hunter, the only humane one. He traps the monsters, as opposed to the rival monster poachers. But something seems fishy to a name-forgotten-or-not-said reporter, who realizes that Johnny speaks monster. It’s because Johnny lives in a valley with the monsters and listens to outdated music with them. The reporter found this out by following him, and finding out that Johnny was raised by one of these monsters.

That’s a Disney Channel premise right there, complete with so-so monster design. For its audience, there are fun parts to the book. But outside of that audience, yawns follow.

A couple people reserved more hatred for it, so let’s start off with Jim Doom: (more…)

For my pick for Book of Doom this week, I’m ending the backwards hegemony of Nightwing idolatry and DC obsession perpetrated by Jim Doom and Doom DeLuise, and going with the one with the dinosaur on the cover: Johnny Monster #1, first issue in the Image Comics mini-series.

Johnny Monster is the world’s foremost super-star monster hunter, but what the world doesn’t know is that he was raised by the same monsters he’s ‘hunting!’ Now, in order to save his adoptive family…he must fight them!

I know literally nothing about the series aside from those two sentences and the fact that it has a dinosaur monster thing on the cover. Writer Joshua Williamson’s previous works include the Dear Dracula graphic novel, and J.C. Grande’s art recalls Art Adams.

Want to join in on the fun? Email doominator_at_doomkopf.com.

Nightwing has had his own series for about thirteen years now, and this is his final issue. I’d say that’s reason enough for this to be our Book of Doom for the week. Through his exploits in Bludhaven, his stint as a cop, his battles with Nite-Wing and Blockbuster and Tarantula, his time spent as a mobster, and his most recent time spent fighting Two-Face every other issue, it all comes to a head here.

To see our thoughts on the issue, come back on Saturday for the roundtable discussion, and, as always, feel free to send your own thoughts to be included with ours. Just send your reviews to doomkopf@doomkopf.com by Friday night to be included in the weekend roundtable.

Here’s what DC has to say about the issue:

Written by Peter J. Tomasi; Art and Cover by Don Kramer and Jay Leisten
It’s the fateful, final “Batman” Last Rites” issue featuring an “Origins and Omens” backup! As Robin, Dick Grayson fought alongside Batman as part of the dynamic duo, the greatest crime-fighting team in history. As Nightwing, he teamed up with his peers to combat injustice in the Titans and the Outsiders. Now, Dick Grayson faces the most important battle of his life. Batman is dead. The Mantle of the Bat must be passed, but it will require all of Dick’s training and skills to carry out the last wishes of Bruce Wayne and protect Gotham City. Will it be enough to protect himself from the dangers that await him? Or is this the last the world will see of Nightwing?

I was this close () to picking Adventure Comics #0 as the Book of Doom this week. That $1 price tag looks nice, and I’m curious about whatever “Origins and Omens” backup story there is. Given that Legion of 3 Worlds also ships this week, I wouldn’t mind having a little sense of what the future holds for the Legion, no pun intended. But I don’t want to get my hopes up too high and end up coming down hard on Adventure if it ends up just primarily being what it is, and that is a reprint of a decades-old comic book.

So with that in mind, we’re going to take a stab at a brand new series — The Mighty. With Marvel cranking out all these Dark Avengers and Secret Darkers and Dark Warriors and New Invasioners books at $3.99 a pop, it’s nice to be able to jump in at ground level for just $2.99. Thank you for that, DC.

Welcome to the world of The Mighty! Alpha One — America’s first and only Super Hero — is supported by Section Omega, an entire police force devoted to assisting him in his quest for justice. Lt. Gabriel Cole has worked his way up the ranks of Section Omega and his connection to Alpha One reaches back to his own tragic childhood and an accident nobody could have survived. But when murder strikes at the top of the organization, the case falls into his lap, and he’ll begin to learn what being a hero is really all about!

Written by Peter J. Tomasi (FINAL CRISIS: REQUIEM, GREEN LANTERN CORPS) and Keith Champagne (WORLD WAR III) with gorgeous art by Peter Snejbjerg (STARMAN, THE LIGHT BRIGADE), this new ongoing series is not to be missed!

As always, we invite you to contribute your own thoughts on the weekly pick. Just send your reviews to doomkopf@doomkopf.com by Friday night to be included in the weekend roundtable.

This is it, folks. The conclusion we’ve all been. . . waiting for? After a full year of build up (I can’t type that with a straight face), six stuffed issues, and several spin-off mini-series, this is the end of the line for Grant Morrison’s epic final chapter in the Crisis Trilogy.

For the most part, it’s been a bunch of freaked-out gobbledygook, and the spin-offs have had almost nothing to do with the flagship series, but, still, tomorrow we’ll be able to know for sure if it was worth the wait. Who knows, maybe tomorrow, everything will click into place and the rest of the series will finally make perfect sense, and we’ll all apologize for giving Final Crisis such a hard time over the past few months.

I mean, probably not, but we can at least try to be optimistic.

Oh, and, just for those of you at home keeping score, by comparison, the seventh issue of the previous chapter in the Crisis Trilogy (Infinite Crisis, duh) featured an all-out brawl between all the superheroes and supervillains in Metropolis as well as a fight across the galaxy pitting Superboy-Prime against two Supermen, every other flying hero, and the entirety of the Green Lantern Corps.

Here’s hoping Final Crisis #7 can live up to that! And, as always, feel free to send us your thoughts to doomkopf@doomkopf.com by Friday night to be included in the weekend roundtable.

Written by Grant Morrison; Art by Doug Mahnke and Christian Alamy; Covers by J.G. Jones and Doug Mahnke
The dramatic finale to the epic, seven-part saga of the DC multiverse concludes with an apocalyptic battle for the soul of humanity that must be seen to be believed! Can the heroes of 52 Earths save the multiverse? And is the only way to save it, to change it forever?