Batman, Inc. #2

If you don't get this one, two things - one, bless your sweet innocent heart. Two, Google "Japan" and "tentacles" sometime. If you do get it, then you have to admit that this is exactly where Grant Morrison was going with that scene. And you have to give him props for getting as far as he did with it in a top-tier DC book.

I had a lot of trouble figuring out how to get across the events of the second and third panels, because the mechanics in the comic itself are a little confusing - Bats swings into the window and breaks it, okay, but then the water starts pouring out of it, so where does he go? Does he just bob there until the room empties out completely? Does he let go and ride the wave down?

By the way, I'm very excited for next week's strips, because I finally get to change the year on my little copyright watermark thing. W00t, and so forth.

Chaos War #4

I feel a mostly bland sort of approval of Chaos War so far, so I have nothing to add to this, except to say that I'm very proud of that Earth picture. Oh, and hooray for my first-ever fart joke! What fart joke, you ask? Shame on you for not checking the alt-text.

Uncanny X-Force #3

After reading this issue, I had an odd mental picture of Deadpool and Warren being stuck in that tent for months. Hilarity, I'm sure, would ensue.

Merry Xmas, everybody. See ya next week!

The Heimdall Identity

Unapologetically inspired by yesterday's Penny Arcade on the same subject.

I'm basically in the same area as Gabe and Tycho on this - yeah, I guess technically the Norse Gods were all conceived as white characters, but my guiding star in these circumstances is who can best play the character. Norse or not (and this is coming from someone who actually is Norwegian), if Idris Elba and whoever that one Asian dude is do a good job in their roles, then I can't get myself too worked up about their races. I felt the same way about Michael Clark Duncan as the Kingpin, and if I'm honest, the white kids in The Last Airbender.

I'm not an Airbender fan at all, and haven't yet bothered to see the movie, so maybe I'm less qualified to have an opinion - but it's just not something that affects me. I can sympathize intellectually with the people who were pissed about Airbender because there isn't exactly an overabundance of starring roles when you're a young Asian actor in Hollywood, but I can also sympathize with genre fans who want their favorite characters portrayed as faithfully as possible - and that could apply, at least theoretically, to someone upset about Idris Elba or Michael Clark Duncan. Theoretically.

In practice, though? These guys? Totally racist.

Heroes For Hire #1

I almost had the strip end with the guy alone in the warehouse, but I couldn't get over the notion of Dr. Doom pulling the ol' shark-tank-in-an-abandoned-warehouse routine.

Aside from their Authority run, I've never really been overly into Abnett and Lanning's stuff. They seem to be pretty well regarded, but I could give two craps about Marvel's cosmic stuff on the whole, so I never really gave it my attention. Likewise, I have no particular interest in Falcon, Misty Knight (to the point that she made me less interested in Shadowland), Moon Knight (to the point that he makes me less interested in Secret Avengers), and Puppet Master - but I have to say that I really liked the first issue of HFH, and I think I just might keep with it for a bit. I can see this set-up leading to a good, long string of storylines, and I'm genuinely excited to see who'll show up.

And the Global Frequency vibe doesn't hurt either.

New Avengers #7

Sometimes there's no real point behind these strips - I just think Squirrel Girl being a secret racist would be hilarious.

Anyway - this series is very good at entertaining me while irking me in numerous small ways. I'm still bothered by Wolverine and Spider-Man being on this team at all, and every time Bendis calls it out in some way, it pulls me entirely out of the story. The thing this issue with Spidey not being able to get a paycheck - which actually helped support ASM's current continuity - dredged up not only my issues with him being on two Avengers teams at once, but also the nasty Brand New Day wounds that never seem to close, no matter how much time passes. Peter even unmasked a second time to around 2/3 of the people in the room here - not one of them can take checks on his behalf and just pay him back in cash? As weird as it is to get into Avengers getting paychecks at all, it's hard to accept that no one can think of any way around the identity issue, for the sake of the one guy on the team who needs the money the most.

And as long as they're reminiscing about Dr. Strange sheltering them in his old house - if none of them remember the first time he unmasked at all, how do they think he ended up on the team at that point? What exactly does everything think Spidey was doing during the Civil War?

Daredevil #512

So Shadowland is over, and while I greatly appreciated this issue's acknowledgement that Daredevil's killing of Bullseye in Shadowland #1 - easily the most defensible murder ever - was in fact Matt acting of his own free will, I'm feeling rather indifferent to this story on the whole. It's an acceptable climax to the last several years of DD storytelling, and it was done well, I suppose, but the forced event-iness of it has kind of left me with a bad taste in my mouth. I'm curious about the upcoming Black Panther storyline, but I haven't decided yet if I'll read it or just take this opportunity to cut Hell's Kitchen loose from my weekly pile for the time being.

Superman: Earth One

Okay, so I kinda cheated on this one - the book in my hands is drawn to be a flimsy single issue, but in this case I'm technically holding a hardcover. Oh, well.

Earth One was pretty good - not quite as good as all the hype had led me to believe, but I don't regret having bought it. I want to be excited for the Batman one next year, but Geoff Johns can't write his own ticket with me like Straczynski can. And everything Gary Frank does from now on will only ever remind me of how much better Supreme Power was. So we'll see.

Fantastic Four #585

So I've been reading Fantastic Four since Hickman took over, and it's been reasonably interesting, but I'm so iffy on the FF as subject matter that I never officially added it to my pull list until now. I knew that if anyone could sell Reed Richards it's Hickman, but he's been juggling so much stuff in the last year that it's kind of felt like waiting for the other shoe to drop - not in a good suspense way, but in a bad "I officially can't comprehend this anymore" way. Which is kind of what happened with Secret Warriors, to me.

Anyway, while I'm still a little leery about the impending death, I've decided that he's earned enough trust from me that I'm gonna stick with it for the immediate future. And if by some miracle it's Johnny he kills, I might even start buying two copies.