What's On Deck for This Week?

What am I planning to read this week? Well... let's find out. (With comments!)

• ACTION COMICS #872 NEW KRYPTON - SEE lots and lots of Kryptonians on Earth! SEE Superman try to mediate the differences between his native and his adopted people! SEE if I stay with this book after Johns and Frank move on.
• BOOSTER GOLD #15
• CAPTAIN BRITAIN AND MI 13 #8
• FINAL CRISIS #5 (OF 7) - sure hope something happens after all this waiting.
• FINAL CRISIS REVELATIONS #4 (OF 5) - I'm liking the Spectre enough to keep this rolling.
• GEN13 #25 - ...
• GREEN LANTERN CORPS #31 - looks like Kyle vs Kryb for all the marbles (or infants, or whatever)
• JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #27 - the Milestone-verse comes to the DCU at last!
• SECRET INVASION DARK REIGN - gotta see what they do, coming out of SI. Has lots of potential.
• TITANS #8 - at least we're done with Trigon's version of "My Three Sons"...
• TRINITY #28 - you may be surprised that I'm hanging in with this title but I have faith in Kurt Busiek and Fabian Nicieza. The story may be slow now but I figure it'll pick up speed until it's a runaway train this spring. Gotta hope, right?

See ya Wednesday!

Forrest J. Ackerman, RIP

I wrote to friends that sf and horror fandom (heck, the whole genres, from books to movies to videogames) might not exist as they are now without Forrest J. Ackerman (aka "Uncle Forry"). He really was that influential.

Ackerman passed away last week at the age of 92. I never met the fellow-- which I think puts me in the minority-- but from all accounts he was the best of us ("us" being anyone who enjoys a good story or is excited, even passionate, about their favorite things).

In his home, the "Ackermansion," he amassed a legendary collection of memorabilia (much of which was sold, I'd heard, to cover his growing medical expenses) and published FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND, one of the earliest horror-specific entertainment periodicals. He is closely associated with Ray Bradbury, having been an early fan and supporter of the great writer's work.

The passing of a tremendous talent is always cause for sorrow and reflection. But the passing of a man whose enthusiasm, generosity and greatness of spirit made the careers of so many talents possible is, if anything, an even greater loss. Many modern fans may never have heard his name, read his work or realized what role he's played in science fiction-- but there are not many who will be regarded by historians as more vital to the creative fields he so loved and nurtured.

RIP.

Grading the Comics - December 3, 2008

Hey folks,
As Jeff points out in his comment, it's been awhile since I've done my usual reviews. So let me cue up what I'll be reading this week and (with luck) catch up later today/tomorrow on the huge mass of stuff I read last week.

UPDATED! All right, I have read my list for this week and here's what I think. (Drum roll please.)

• AUTHORITY #5 - Continuing the post-apocalypse storyline, this features the Engineer racing to save a handful of refugees from "Warhol fever" victims in the wreckage of the Carrier, while her teammates both help and hinder her progress. Sets up some nice ongoing tension within the ranks. B
• BATMAN #682 - a true Final Crisis tie-in and (I hope) the wrap up to RIP, this is a brilliant done-in-one about Batman's career--the start, the early days, the advent of Robin, the painful aftermath of Robin's departure, and the notion that something very wrong is happening inside Batman's noggin. Better than #681! A
• BOYS #25 - Wee Hughie learns more than he wanted about the expansive "G-Men" and their myriad franchise teams, while Mother's Milk talks about the job and Butcher contrives something interesting in the name of research. B+
• JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA #21 - the $h!t is hitting the fan, boys and girls, with Gog setting a price for his miracles and the JSA deciding if they're going to pay it. And Superman-Grim punches a lightning bolt. Classic! And this is NOT yet the end of the story--that happens next month. A
• MARVEL ZOMBIES 3 #3 - as Machine Man confronts (and rips through) legions of Marvel zombies (including lots of the Inhumans, Ghost Rider, et al), Jocasta finds what they're looking for, even as ARMOR finds that they have a mole from the zombieverse. Solid storytelling and I like it MUCH better than MZ 2. B
• SECRET INVASION #8 - Wow, what a wrap up. Fans will love it or hate it; I thought it was pretty damn good. A major death very early on, a gigantic shake up to the status quo, and Iron Man pretty definitively falls from grace. A few loose ends and a heartwarming moment or two, all of which launch us into DARK REIGN, coming soon! A+
• TERRA #3 - interesting story, setting up a subterranean culture (something that AQUAMAN got around to doing very, very late) that justifies spending lots of time underground. Plus Terra explains her origin, Geo-Force gets slapped around some and "Diamond Boy" has some ups and downs of his own. B
• TERROR TITANS #3 - lots of fighting but not much to show for it, except an already-spoiled reveal on the last page. Three more issues of this? C-
• TRINITY #27 - again, not a lot happening. If this weren't a weekly, I'd have dumped it by now. C+
• WHAT IF... HOUSE OF M - "No more powers." Kind of says it all, except that a very old and very evil supervillain has an ultimate weapon that the nonpowered heroes can't fight. A pretty good look at what the heroic do when they don't have powers to prop them up. Plus a backup that'll run through all the What Ifs: What if the Runaways had become the Young Avengers? B
• X-INFERNUS #1 - Magik is back (okay, the Darkchilde is back; not exactly the same thing) and she's kicking butt. Colossus wants to go after and rescue his little sister Illyana but it looks like she doesn't need rescuing. Who does? Oh, probably the whole X-team, once a teleportal opens up in the wake of Pixie's discovery. Nice to see S'ym and Nastirh back again too. B+

And that's it for this week. Thoughts, comments, agree/disagree? I await word from you.

Drew

Last Week's Comics

=sigh=
Even with the best of intentions...
Turns out the new books did not come out yesterday, so I'll stall for time by listing the ton of books I got last week, plus some quick grading and thoughts.
First, though, a mini-rant.
I'm not enjoying reading comics as much as I did. Why? Partly because of a big sense of "been there done that" that infecting everything on the market now. There's no real sense of anything truly new breaking in (with sporadic exceptions).
It leads me to wonder how much longer I'll indulge my hobby on a weekly basis. Could be the time's come to make a break. We'll see, but 2008 has not stoked the fires of my fanboy heart.
Now, as for last week, what'd I buy? Well... (SPOILERS BELOW, FOLKS!)

• BATMAN #681 RIP - Okay, it's finally over. Batman meets the Devil (borrowing the image of his long-dead daddy) and blows up a helicopter. I'm surprised Nightwing and Robin bought it--this is the kind of faux-death that every Bat-villain has come back from bigger and badder than ever. Hell, the Joker does it every other month. Speaking of, let's retire the Joker for awhile, okay? I'm sick of that green-and-white freak showing up EVERYWHERE. B-
• BODY BAGS (ONE SHOT) - why the hell doesn't Jason Pearson do Body Bags more often? Geez! I love this guy's stuff and it shows up, what, every two or three years? How the hell does he make a living? It's frustrating as hell to enjoy a creator's work so much and get it so infrequently. Clownface and Panda absolutely rock. Buy this book and write to 12 Gauge--tell them you want more Body Bags! A
• HULK #8 - whew, talk about stinky cheese. Two stories that add up to more filler. Honest, is there any reason why three superheroes show up in Vegas at the same time as Bruce Banner and a busload of Wendigos? As for the other, I've lost any interest whatsoever in the Red Hulk (for the record, I think it's Talbot [aka Grey from Gamma Corps]) and just hope somebody will off this mort sooner rather than later. The art's nice (Art Adams and Frank Cho could illustrate the phone book, for my money) but the story's on life support and fading fast. D- (story), B+ art
• JSA KINGDOM COME SPECIAL THE KINGDOM #1 - most spinoffs and tie-ins have nothing to say; luckily, this is the rare exception. The killer final page gets to what Geoff Johns has been building to throughout this arc, setting up JSA for a big smackdown and some payoff to long-running plot threads. Gog shows who he really is and the JSA, divided along ideological lines, has never been this unready to meet the challenge. And the artwork rocks too! A
• PUSH #2 (OF 6) - Used to work with Marc Bernadin back in my freelancing days, when he was at STARLOG and I was scrambling for work. Now he's a bigshot comics writer (with a gig at ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY, no less) and I'm... well, I'm reviewing his stuff. Dammit. At least (as I recall), he was always a nice guy; pleasure to find out he's so talented at writing too. Read PUSH and you'll have a whole new appreciation for the psychic/espionage microgenre. A
• REIGN IN HELL #5 (OF 8) - Can somebody make sense of this story? I'll settle for being told why any DC reader ought to care at this point. C-
• RUNAWAYS 3 #4 - This one is Kat's specialty. I'll post her comments when I get them.
• SAVAGE DRAGON #141 - A big climax to the Solar Man story, along with a new vs old superhero throwdown. Erik Larsen does what he does best. B+
• SECRET INVASION X-MEN #4 (OF 4) MD - Always a big fan of Mike Carey's work, and this does not disappoint. Sets up a classic "should we go there?" dilemma for Cyclops, with Beast acting as Jiminy Cricket, and a splashy payoff as the X-Men deal with the Skrull threat to San Francisco in a pretty definitive fashion. Next question: is Tony Stark going to ask for their final solution? B+
• SUPERMAN #682 NEW KRYPTON - This is probably the most interesting way to go with Kandor that's been tried in a long, long time. Unfortunately, it's still not holding my interest. We all pretty much know 100,000 Kryptonians are NEVER going to assimilate on Earth--and is there any other reason to send Superman into deep space (2009) than to find them a new homeworld? Didn't think so. B-
• TEEN TITANS #65 - Wonder Girl gets empowered and celebrates with a new look, as well as kicking the ass of her psycho nephew. Okay story but nothing I'll recall in detail three months from now. B-
• TRINITY #26 - Earth is falling apart without the Big Three, I get it. Next. C+
• ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #128 - More about Venom and Carnage finally got interesting. Also, a fairly intriguing return. B
• ULTIMATE X-MEN #98 - An Ultimatum tie-in with the X-Men convinced that three of their teammates are dead in flooded Manhattan. Not bad at all. B-
• UMBRELLA ACADEMY DALLAS #1 - Hilarious stuff, setting up a truly grim-feeling storyline. A
• WALKING DEAD #55 - Rick's finally getting his head together, even as the little caravan makes some interesting discoveries (why are some of the zombies getting weak?). B+
• WILDCATS #5 - We get inside Spartan's head a bit, with help from Nemesis and Voodoo, and see that Hadrian is not a happy camper (and is also suffering a bit of an identity crisis). Good stuff. B

And that's what went on last week, friends. Till tomorrow! DB

Other News

November was kind of a "lost month" for me-- I had some health issues that weren't life-threatening but were debilitating, painful and frustrating. But these things happen and I'm getting better. Felt like my old self for the first time in weeks as of Monday.

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Reading Batman: Gotham Knight, Louise Simonson's adaptation of the direct-to-DVD animated feature (which, sadly, might be the last time Kevin Conroy voices the Dark Knight). I'm enjoying it greatly-- I hope we'll be seeing more from her real soon!

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Did an interview for SFRevu last month with Jim Butcher. Turns out he's a real nice guy, funny as heck and about as down-to-earth as a novelist can be. There are some real good anecdotes about Harry Dresden in the piece, so give that a look too.

Same issue has my review of By the Sword, the latest Repairman Jack novel by F. Paul Wilson. Paul's a great guy, too, and a fellow Jerseyan, plus one heck of a great writer.

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Brielle is now kicking up a storm. Kat thinks she'll be a soccer player. 27 weeks and counting.

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That's all for the moment. More soon!