So
every month a new edition of Previews
is sent out to comic book stores. Contained in the pages within are
products that might be currently available or could be released
anytime in the next year; but typically about two months away. Or
sometimes never. I’ve ordered lots
of things that have just never come in. Without getting into the
specific politics of Diamond, let me just say that they aren’t
quite
a monopoly and also aren’t quite
the worst distributor anybody has ever dealt with in the history of
the universe.
But
I’m not here to discuss that. I’m here to discuss a few of the
weird and/or wonderful items offered in this month’s edition.
I
hated to push this back to Friday, but I like to have my Best Of list posted before the end of the year so as not to drag
old stuff into the new year.
Technically
this is the back cover, but since it is the most awesome cover I have
ever seen on Previews I am treating it like the front. I doubt you
can tell from my lousy picture, but “Previews”, “Jem”, and
the stars on Jem’s dress are all printed in glossy, glittery,
raised ink. It looks really cool and makes this new comic seem like a
HUGE deal. Marvel’s reacquisition of Star Wars didn’t get fancy
glitter ink.
As
far as the comic itself, I’m not familiar with the creative team of
Kelly Thompson and Ross Campbell, but I think this cover art is
great. It looks like a neat update of the original franchise. I can’t
say that I’m interested in reading it, but I wish the book and its
creators all the best.
Hellboy:
House of the Living Dead
is my favorite Hellboy story. This is the sequel and it stars
Frankenstein’s monster, who Hellboy had to wrestle in House.
I AM IN.
I
may not have any plans for Free Comic Book Day yet, but this month’s
Previews has the full list of comics that will be available. Looks
like some fun stuff this year. Maybe I can find an event to crash
between now and May.
Has
DC always done variant covers every month? Because it seems like they
do now and for the most part they’ve been really cool and, more
importantly, not hard to get (granted, that may be because my wife
works at the comic shop). The Darwyn Cooke covers for December have
been awesome and I’ve liked most of the concepts so far. March
looks no different, with a theme of movie posters. Some are better
than others, but my favorites are Flash
as North
By Northwest
(my favorite Hitchcock film), Batgirl
as Purple
Rain,
Green
Lantern Corps
as Forbidden
Planet,
Sinestro
as Westworld
(one of my favorite movies, period), and Batman
as The
Mask,
which is so weirdly meta that my head kind of hurts. Free
Willy Aquaman
is pretty funny, too.
It’s
also worth noting that DC is cancelling a bunch of titles with this
month. I don’t know what that means for the future, but the less
New 52 books, the better.
Sorry,
that probably sounded dickish.
I
understand exactly how odd it is that the guy that dismisses the New
52 because it feels like it isn’t a part of any greater continuity
and is disorienting because of its lack of foundation is interested
in this “Convergence” nonsense. But I liked “Flashpoint”
(another somewhat untethered event) and hold out hope that someday DC
will give up on this New 52 thing that I don’t like and bring back
the old DCU in some form, even if it’s an Ultimate-style separate
brand.
“Every
Story Matters” is the tagline, which suggests to me that DC
understands how irrelevant some of us find their current product. The
question is how they will address that irrelevancy.
Normally
I would be reluctant to sign up for a media tie-in, but 1) the Arkham
games are some of the best video games I have ever played, and 2)
Peter J. Tomasi is responsible for a lot of my favorite DC books. So
I’ll check this out.
I
absolutely loved Earth
One. I
still say that if DC was going to reboot, they should have rebooted
with this. But at least we’re getting a second chapter to this
Bruce Wayne’s life. When things are this good, I don’t mind
waiting. I hope this lives up to its predecessor. And maybe provides
us with figures of Alfred and Batman.
The
Multiversity Books – DC (92/93)
Grant
Morrison’s wild vision of the worlds of the DCU is coming to a
close. I’ve enjoyed each chapter immensely, though I found The
Just to
be way too long. I’m glad Morrison has stuck to his original plan
and didn’t extend this narrative out to some sort of years-long
thing. I’m enjoying it, but more often than not this sort of thing
is better served by a time limit.
I
haven’t been reading this, but if this had been the cover to the
first issue I would have. I love this kind of thing. That’s some
nice art, too.
I
stopped reading Batman
when “Zero Year” concluded because I didn’t particularly enjoy
the story or its length. My problems with current superhero comics
could certainly fill up a post, but one big one is the idea that
every story now has to have some epic
impact on the very foundation of the character and challenge their
very reason for being and COULD CHANGE EVERYTHING FOREVER FOR REAL.
Anyway,
I’m sure I’ll wind up reading “Endgame” after Mike Gordon
tells me how great it is. That guy is convincing.
I
am loving Cameron Stewart, Brenden Fletcher, and Babs Tarr’s vision
of Batgirl. The book has the fun of Bryan Q. Miller’s run while
still retaining the character traits that make Barbara Gordon who she
is. And the art is fantastic – it’s kinetic, colorful, and
expressive while not venturing too far into the realm of cartoons. I
recommend this collection.
This
batch features Batman, Riddler, and Penguin from The
Animated Series
and Batgirl from New
Adventures.
I love this line and hope it lasts forever. I’m also thrilled that
they’re doing Animated
Batman this early (seven months from now) and hope that we see a
Justice
League
Batman soon because that would open the gateway to ALL OF ANIMATED
DC. Which is what I want.
If
DCC would just go ahead and pull the trigger on that, I’d trade in
all of my other toys.
Okay,
not really. But I’d be happy.
This
is just awesome. It has lights and sounds. I love the sculpted detail
and the translucence, and the lighting effect looks fantastic. I
would like to see a video before I commit to buying one, though.
Sixty bucks is very reasonable if
it sounds and looks good in action.
I
hate to list books only to say I don’t care about them, but I feel
like I have to mention this sequel to David Cronenberg’s incredible
remake of The
Fly
(and its sequel, apparently). There was a time when I was dying for a
continuation of the story of Seth Brundle’s son, but that time
seems to have passed. Cronenberg’s The
Fly is
another one of those movies – like RoboCop
– that was strangely obsessed with for a while. I watched it a
lot.
Obviously the effects and story are great, but Jeff Goldblum’s
descent into outright villainy is one of the greatest performances in
modern horror. I suppose if Cronenberg had any direct input on this
book (the way John Carpenter supposedly does on Big
Trouble in Little China
and Escape
From New York)
I might have to check this out.
More
on those books later. Long time Needless Things readers who have read
the books probably know what I am going to say.
Kyle
Starks – creator of the incredible Legend
of Ricky Thunder
– has created this new thing about The World’s Greatest Assassin
trying to retire to a small town. I haven’t read it yet, but I’ll
go ahead and guarantee its awesomeness based purely on how good Ricky
Thunder
is. Just order this. Do it.
I
like the new costume, though I’m well aware that this seems to be
an attempt to mimic the success of Batgirl’s costume change, though
without the critical element of a female creator. I like Hopeless
well enough and I’m a fan of Rodriguez’s artwork.
I
promised myself I wouldn’t buy all of these new Star Wars comics
from Marvel just because they were shiny and new. But they keep
putting people like Mark Waid on them. What the heck am I supposed to
do? Besides, Marvel has addressed my usual concerns about retaining a
creative team by making this a limited series. I’m in for five
issues. Like Spider-Woman,
though, I think Marvel missed an opportunity to utilize a female
talent on this one.
Sure,
it would be super if female creators could just hop onto big-name
marquis books like Avengers and Justice League. But that’s not the
world we’re in, and forcing that is only going to make that world
take longer to get here. Instead, create hype around popular female
characters’ books. Let those talented females gain a following.
Then
put them on big books. I’m not sure why we aren’t at the point
where Gail Simone or Amanda Conner could have their names in some of
the top-tier books (in terms of sales and brand recognition, not
quality obviously), but we’re not. Small steps like making sure
female creators at least had a hand in big female books would help. I
don’t believe one bit that it’s ghetto-izing them. It creates a
logical platform for them to hopefully spring onto other projects.
Alternatively,
fill-in issues like Batman
#12 can do wonders. Thanks to that one I am a fan of Becky Cloonan
and will check out anything she does. That’s how these things work.
Not everything is for everybody, but if we have the opportunity to
see new stuff in the right format it can be very exciting. It’s not
a perfect system, but let’s at least try to work it a bit.
I
also promised myself that I wasn’t going to jump on the Howard the
Duck bandwagon after his great cameo at the end of Guardians
of the Galaxy.
But then Marvel offers a book by Chip Zdarsky and Joe Quinones. I’m
going to have to check it out, if only in the hopes that it might be
the next Silver
Surfer,
a solo book unrelated to anything else that I can enjoy immensely.
Side
Note: I secretly liked the old Howard
the Duck
movie. I don’t know if I still would, but as recently as fifteen
years ago I did. Lea Thompson is hot,
man.
I
was going to say that I didn’t have any of these tie-in
coloring/activity books when I was a kid, but then I saw that tower
on the cover and I feel like I remember coloring that thing.
Either
way, this is a neat piece of nostalgia and I hope it does well
because I really love old pieces of licensed stuff like this. At
$24.99 it’s a little pricey to let Lil’ Troublemaker color in,
but I’m probably going to anyway. Plus it has stickers!
Could
this be the return of my beloved Rock
N’ Roll
comics, from which I learned the most intimate secrets of my favorite
bands like Anthrax (with a Faith No More backup story!), the Red Hot
Chili Peppers, and ZZ Top (with a Mojo Nixon backup story!{!!!!!!!})?
It
kind of sounds like it. And even though Slayer isn’t one of my
favorite bands – I like ‘em a lot, but they’re not a favorite –
I want to buy this just to support the book, which promises future
issues with Primus, NOFX, and a special Faith No More/ Mr. Bungle
flip book!
This
is either s new publisher or one I happened to have not noticed
before. Their first two pages stood out, but what caught my eye was
the above Puppet Master comic. I
love
Full Moon and the Puppet
Master
franchise in particular, and was surprised to see a comic book based
on those wacky, murderous little jerks. And now I’m noticing the
Vamplets
comic, which I know I’ve seen before. I think maybe Action Lab just
rented more space in this thing.
Might
want to rethink printing “Ghetto Blaster” on the shirt featuring
the Autobot named Blaster that is voiced by a black guy with
stereotypical black inflection. I understand that back in the day the
kinds of radios he transformed into were actually called ghetto
blasters and that’s literally where his name came from, but this is
not back in the day. People are very
sensitive now.
I’m
not actually talking about black people here. I doubt they’d care.
But the white people who get super upset on behalf of black people
might jump all over this one.
My
Granny would call this frumpy. Which fits, because with the haircut
he has on the show Daryl kind of looks like a grandma.
I
would absolutely order this except for the fact that the last
baseball style shirt I ordered from Previews was an XXL that fit me
like a medium. And had a huge neck hole. And made me look super
ticklish. I ended up giving it to Mrs. Troublemaker and she looks
great in it. I’m not falling for that shit again.
I’m
not buying a Hot Topic word shirt. I don’t care if it is licensed.
Put a cool picture of Roddy on there and I’ll buy it. But this just
looks too much like something a stupid high school kid would wear.
I
mean, yeah – that describes half of my wardrobe, but SHUT UP.
I’m
buying one for Gary Mitchel so he can start saving up to move to
Atlanta. Enough of this Seattle bullshit, already.
I’ve
never done an official review on these, but as I’ve mentioned on
Earth Station Who
multiple times, they’re excellent. These are sturdy toys that fall
just a tiny bit shy of being prop replicas (mostly the materials used
– visually they’re almost perfect). They have great sounds,
including hidden ones. This is a good opportunity to grab one or more
since they aren’t easy to find in the States.
I
want this SO BAD. But no way am I paying $250 for it. It looks
fantastic, but I just can’t justify that.
I
am absolutely ecstatic that NECA’s Pacific
Rim
line has lasted long enough to produce Otachi, but I can’t help but
be a little disappointed that it isn’t deluxe enough to include
winged arms. I can only assume that NECA wants to get the winged
Otachi just right and knew they simply wouldn’t be able to do it
without producing a whole other figure.
Look
at Gemma’s accessory:
Every
once in a while me or the missus will buy one of these POP! figures
to put on a shelf in the living room. I wouldn’t say we collect
them, but if it’s a character we mutually love or think is
irresistibly cute, we buy it.
This
is a whole different story.
Big
Trouble in Little China
is my favorite movie of all time, so I’m buying pretty much any
related toys that come out. Including this whole line of POP!
figures.
I
would get this for Gary as well, but I don’t see how it would help
get him out of Seattle.
I
feel like Underground made a mis-step here. I would much rather these
be traditional steins with tops influenced by the characters’ heads
and designs and murals on the mug portion. This figural thing does
not work for me. I’m a sucker for Boba Fett merch and I have no
interest in this thing.
That's all I've got this konth. I hope you guys enjoyed the higher quality pictures. I got a new scanner and it's much easier to use than the old piece of crap I had. I would like to thank Phantomaniac Money Ham for offering to scan this month's book for me.
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