While I was putting together the toy column and I mentioned that I go long periods without buying comic books regularly, it occurred to me that since I am currently in a period where I am buying comic books regularly, I might as well share some recommendations with you.
That’s right — another column! Ambitious! Foolish! Let’s do it!
New comic books hit stores every Wednesday. But I don’t always get to a store on Wednesday, exactly, so this column will hit when it hits. Weekly, yes. As long as I can manage it. Which… you know. We shall see. Anyway, here are some new comic books I picked up over the past week.
First and foremost:
CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON LIVES! #2
Image Comics has the rights to publish comics based on the Universal Monsters. A four-part Dracula series earlier this year was really interesting, so I’m even more excited about this series about my favorite or second-favorite monster, the Creature! (It’s always either him or Wolf Man. Depends on the time of month.)
This is a four-issue limited series about the Creature, with really engaging art and flat-out incredible covers. For those who aren’t current regular comic-book readers, something that is great and maddening is how many variant covers are routinely offered for a single issue. It’s great because LOOK AT THAT ARTWORK, and it’s maddening because I’ve many more times than once picked up multiple copies of the same story on separate trips to the store because I saw different covers and assumed it was an issue I hadn’t read yet. But maybe that’s a me problem. And in this particular case, I can totally live with buying multiple copies of the same issue just for these covers.
Forgive me, but from here on out, it’s all Marvel Comics. I like DC (mostly Batman) and my ethos is heavily pro-indy, but Marvel Comics are what brought me in, and Marvel Comics are what are sure take me out. Or at least, they’ll take this new column out. But not without a fight!
JACKPOT & THE BLACK CAT #3
The Black Cat is one of my favorite comic book characters. She’s Spider-Man’s ex-girlfriend, but she’s a cool, compelling character even without him, and in recent years, Marvel has been doing more with her than ever. Who is Jackpot, you may ask? Well, she’s Mary Jane Watson, who is another of my favorite characters, but until recently Mary Jane was not a superhero, which uh… is what I kinda liked about her, no offense. She’s called “Jackpot” because of her first appearance in Spider-Man #42, written by Stan Lee and drawn by John Romita Sr.
The early gag was that Aunt May was trying to set Peter Parker up with the girl next door, and for something like two dozen issues, Peter kept avoiding her, and then BANG! POW! MJ shows up. And the rest is history.
In the last couple years, MJ and Peter have split up and MJ has superpowers for some reason. Again, no offense, but I’m not even gonna get into it. I don’t really know why and I don’t really want to look it up, but here’s an explainer of how her superpowers work if you want one. I don’t really like the idea of Peter without MJ, but that’s the neat thing about comic books, if you don’t like it, just wait. No need to get all worked up.
I don’t like the idea of Peter without MJ, but I do get a chuckle out of two of his exes teaming up without him. That’s the old Parker luck right there. I’ve been picking up this series because the great Adam Hughes did the first couple covers, and a guy named Pablo Villalobos did the newest one. He may not be Adam Hughes, because nobody is, but I dig his style too. I enjoy how gigantic he made the Black Cat’s hairdo. It’s not practical, but it’s fierce.
AVENGERS ANNUAL #10 (1981)
For the last several years, Marvel has been doing this fun thing where they reprint old comics in reasonably affordable additions, with new paper quality but otherwise printed exactly as they were originally released, meaning all of the original advertisements and letter columns and all that are in there for you to see.
An original copy of AVENGERS ANNUAL #10 will run you a couple hundred bucks, and probably a whole lot more if it’s in good condition. The reason is that it’s the first appearance of Rogue, another favorite character of mine. This issue is also an extreme rarity in the world of comics, and I don’t want to be rude, but usually it’s the cover that has the most amazing art and frequently the interior artwork is a little less awesome. In this case, the dependable Al Milgrom did the cover, but the interiors were done by Michael Golden, who worked relatively infrequently in superhero comic books considering his incredible influence on fellow artists and the huge energy of his artwork. No offense to Al Milgrom, and maybe it’s because I’ve read hundreds of comics drawn by him and only a handful drawn by Michael Golden, but this was an exciting issue to get to look at in its entirety. Written by Chris Claremont! Not known for writing the Avengers, but absolutely inseparable from any discussion of the X-Men. Along with Rogue, Claremont created or co-created just about every major X-Men character aside from the original 1963 line-up and Magneto. I think Chris Claremont is well-known and beloved to most X-Men fans, but I also think he’s even still probably a little underrated as far as his innovations.
All that and Spider-Woman too!
ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #5
By now, it’s maybe apparent I’m a little bit of a Spider-Man fan. I’ve been picking up this series, but I have to be honest, I haven’t read beyond the first issue yet. “Ultimate” is the designation for Marvel’s kind of square-one relaunch of its most famous characters. You can still follow Spider-Man or Black Panther or the X-Men in their ongoing series that are dozens or hundreds of issues deep, or you can opt for these similar-but-different re-imaginings. The most dramatic difference here is that the series stars an early-middle-aged Peter Parker who has kids with MJ, and also…
SPOILER WARNING
Remember Aunt May?
Well…
She ain’t here.
Uncle Ben is the beloved older family member who lived. Also, he’s BFFs with J. Jonah Jameson, who is sort of nice, rather than being a total dick as we know him in our universe.
(I think. Forgive me. I read Issue #1 four months ago.)
I’ll catch up on this series and maybe write more about it down the line. As for the variant covers, I picked up the one above, by Leonardo Romero. Pretty cool image, huh? Fresh and retro, both at the same time.
HULK: GRAND DESIGN Trade Paperback
I was a fan of the X-MEN: GRAND DESIGN series by the late indy cartoonist Ed Piskor. For those who haven’t read it, it’s a sort of primer that distills over six decades and I don’t know how many X-Men stories into one very readable piece of work. So HULK: GRAND DESIGN is similar business from fellow indy cartoonist and Piskor’s podcasting partner Jim Rugg, who is able to work in a panoply of styles but keeps it simple here. I’m sad about Ed Piskor, and one day when I am up to it, I may write more about him and his work, but this isn’t the time or the place so let me just highly recommend that you pick this volume up – it’s extremely affordable, as comic books go, and if you love the Hulk like I do, it’s a no-brainer.
And finally… If you’ll allow me… a short riff on a ridiculous topic…
So many, maybe too many, of modern superhero comics are Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. Marvel is most obvious about it, although DC does it too. You like this character? Yeah? How about this one? Yeah? Okay. How would you like it if we smooshed them together? Pretty awesome, right?
I’m trying to figure out where it really started. Storm got to be Thor once! But I keep thinking of Venom. Do you like Spider-Man? Did you like his black costume? Yeah? Now how would you like it if a fucking monster wore that costume? Or maybe it was Deadpool. You like Spider-Man? Wouldn’t he be so much cooler with swords and guns? (Spider-Man plus Snake-Eyes from G.I. Joe, maybe.) Still, I’m not sure these two are the answer. This trend feels a little more recent.
In the past couple decades, Marvel has given us Infamous Iron Man (Doctor Doom in Iron Man armor), Iron Patriot (Norman Osborn, aka the Green Goblin, in Iron Man armor), Red Goblin (Green Goblin plus Carnage), the Punisher in War Machine armor, Cosmic Ghost Rider (the Punisher as Ghost Rider in space), Elektra as Daredevil, Colossus as the Juggernaut, the Silver Surfer as Thor, Thor as the Herald of Galactus, Weapon H (a Hulk with Wolverine powers), GwenPool (Deadpool plus Spider-Man supporting character Gwen Stacy), and VenomPool (obvious), among others that I’m not fluent enough to recall. What would you call these? Chimeras? Mash-ups? Composite characters? Stan Lee used to refer to Marvel as the House Of Ideas, but this trend is giving Amalgam Comics.
All I know is that this is a strange trend that makes me wonder if maybe superhero comics could stand to see a few more original ideas, even semi-original ones, only because mixing and matching previous concepts is getting fairly commonplace, and personally speaking, I always turned to comics for ideas I hadn’t seen or thought of before, not two old ideas smashed together. (Always feel free to note that these characters appear to be very popular with most current comic readers, and dismiss my opinions accordingly.)
All of the above said, I bought the shit out of this comic:
HELLVERINE #1
Yes, that is Wolverine mixed with Ghost Rider. It’s so incredibly stupid. Don’t get mad at me. I am pretty sure I mean that as a compliment. Combining Ghost Rider with Wolverine is so obvious (and so stupid) that I almost can’t believe it’s not the absolute first thing that was done as soon as this comic-book chimera trend started, but nope: It’s the year of Our Lord 2024, and here’s Issue #1.
I am a massive Ghost Rider fan. If you ask me, a skeleton on fire riding a motorcycle is one of the most perfect concepts in the history of the artform. Really, why not make him a shirtless hairy guy with claws coming out of his hands who rides a motorcycle? I’m not sure why his head is a skull, and only the head, but I guess that’s why I bought the comic book almost the second I saw it. More will be revealed.
There was a brief moment of doubt, on the short walk to the register, as I thought to myself, “Well, I’m a grown man with real-world responsibilities and maybe the $4.99 this pamphlet costs might be better spent on… oh, I don’t know… lunch? Am I really doing this? I’m hungry. Greek food? Maybe Greek. Man. A gyro would really hit the spot.”
Then I looked again at the cover by legendary Ghost Rider artist Mark Texeira and noticed that those burning flames on the skull of “Hellverine” are forming a demonic aura clearly meant to resemble Wolverine’s distinctive Sally-from-Peanuts bedhead hairstyle, and I bought the goddamned thing without another thought.
See you next week!
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Tags: Adam Hughes, Al Milgrom, Chris Claremont, Columns, Comic Books, Ghost Rider, John Romita Sr., Mark Texeira, Marvel Comics, Michael Golden, Spider-Man, Spider-Woman, Stan Lee, the avengers, The Creature From The Black Lagoon, The Hulk, Universal Monsters
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