Gluten Free!

Two of my friends, the great Ben Hatton of Second Printing!! and those wednesdays & James "The Franchise" Rambo of Big Monkey Comics employment, have joined forces to present to you their new webcomic, GLUTEN FREE!

Ben has a long history of being funny and writing, which meshes well with Rambo's ability to be funny and draw. The series was just started last week, but how many times have you gotten to a webcomic late and had to backtrack over weeks and weeks of past entries? I just saved you hours of catching up.

You're welcome.

Batgirl #1

sucks. Why? I'd give you a hint, but it'd be a Spoiler.

I Would Go On Strike But...

Brian Michael Bendis needs to retire. Seriously.

I commend his dedication to Marvel and the effect he has had on the direction of the line, but enough already. Even Geoff Johns limits himself to the characters he's working on at the time. The entire DCU isn't subject to his viewpoint. Bendis has taken Marvel and sent it into this incredibly depressing downward spiral. And I don't buy into any of those generalizations that Marvel is always depressing, because that is just not true. There were down swings and up swings like any other company.

I think the main problem I'm having with Bendis' Avengers(New Avengers) is that they seem so truly inept. For every situation, they have the same solution: pick up your beating sticks, it's GO TIME! The last three issues could have been a regular-sized Dr. Strange one-shot without the Avengers, for all the good they were. Spider-Man is written like he's fifteen, Bucky Cap apparently has never worked with superheroes, and the most of them are interchangeable since they never seem to have any kind of personality, except occasional jealousy.

What I'm getting for his run is that he has overwritten the Avengers with his superteam from Powers. Now the team who was called in to deal with a biological attack(Red Scare by Geoff Johns) can't stop a juiced-up gang leader and a supervillain with finger waves. It's time for someone else to take the reins.

Also, I can do without Dan Slott throwing dirt on every superhero in the Marvel U. First, Starfox is played up like a rapist and now the Inhuman royal family basically stole the throne from a benevolent king. Before, War of Kings just seemed like Black Bolt and Co. overcompensating for being stepped on for three years. Now, they have a history of douchebaggery. They wanted to use something called a "slave engine" for God's sake.

Brainiac 0.0 Vs. Nu-Starro

VS.

After reading this new R.E.B.E.L.S. series and taking in this new interpretation of Starro, I think I've come to a realization as to why I think Starro the Barbarian is a lame idea.

I know some people would read the reasoning behind this new Starro and compare it to Geoff Johns' introduction of the "true" Brainiac in Action Comics. Mainly because they both contain the line about never meeting the true (insert name). And while Johns has the benefit of using that reasoning first, it's not the only reason I accept the new Brainiac and not Starro.

If you look at the history of Brainiac, it can be seen that his physical form has never been dealt with, especially in Superman's case. Post Crisis, Brainiac shows up having taking over the body of carny Milton Fine. It could be said that the real Vril Dox escaped whatever imprisonment the Coluans had for him and he only restructured Fine's mind as a backup plan. Even the late 80's huge brained version of Brainiac was a engineered body created by Lex Luthor. With the many later Brainiacs(which apparently gets up to 13), the fact that some original body of Brainiac never actually showed up on Earth is easy to take. The universe is vast and he had lots of other planets to city-jack so he had surrogates to help speed things up.

In Starro's case, in every earlier appearance, he(it?) is a giant starfish. Even in JLA, we're introduced to another member of Starro's race and it's a ginormous starfish as well. But now, it's revealed that Starro isn't the giant starfish spewing smaller starfish on people's faces, it's this steroid-upped space viking who carries around a giant axe. This "real" Starro recruits certain aliens allowing them a measure of freewill to run his campaigns, much different from Starro's plans which all seem to be him planting himself in a bay and throwing starfish on bewildered fisherman.

To say this guy is the true Starro, and not some guy who managed to control Starro or a body Starro decided to hang on to, changes the character fundamentally and comes way out of left field. I'm interested to get the final explanation for this interpretation, but between Bedard using Johns' idea and taking ideas straight out of Annihilation:Conquest, R.E.B.E.L.S. may not stay on my pull list.

Math Makes Me Emotional

As a blogger, I have a lot of time on my hands. I've decided to use this time by writing a post that combines the color spectrum, the Lantern emotional spectrum and math to explore the relationship between the multi-colored Laterns.

Here goes:

FEAR + RAGE = AVARICE

WILLPOWER - FEAR = HOPE

HOPE + LOVE = COMPASSION

RAGE + HOPE = LOVE

WILLPOWER + AVARICE = FEAR

LOVE + AVARICE = RAGE

Death In Comics

I've been reading comics for a long time. For as long as I can remember literally.  So I've accepted that no comic character can truly stay dead. Characters people embrace are hard to come by and bringing back the ones that have been earlier killed off is easier than trying to make a new one. But every resurrection should at least have an explanation.

I was reading New Avengers:The Reunion #2 and was bothered by the possible return of Monica Rappaccini, an A.I.M. scientist supreme who was apparently exploded in MODAK's 11.  Now, explosions are the easiest way to "kill" a character but leaving enough of a loophole to bring the character back later. It's on the opposite end of the scale as a goblin glider through the chest. What irks me though is that to explain her not death, all that was given was "She must have survived."

Really? That's the best you can come up with. A woman in charge of a super-science army and just "must have survived"? Lame. It made me think of Andy Diggle's start in Thunderbolts when he really needed the second Black Widow on his team, who was mutated and killed in New Avengers. The explanation? "That's what they were supposed to think." Now, I love Diggle from The Losers, Adam Strange:Planet Heist, Silent Dragon and Green Arrow: Year One. But you don't explain away what you don't like in a continuity based shared universe with sarcastic comebacks.

Then again, a five part wank fest for a boring, quarter century dead hero probably isn't the way to go, either. Does anyone else feel like Kid Flash reading The Flash:Rebirth?

Ultimatum: Expected

The Ultimate Universe sucks.

Seriously. Think about it.

Any of your favorite stories from the Ultimate line, no matter how good, are tainted by the fact that nothing in the Ultimate Universe is remotely positive or has the slightest bit of fun to it. Does Nick Fury have to be a complete know-it-all douche? Did Iron Fist really have to sell out the "Ultimate Knights" to the Kingpin? Did Moon Knight have to be a looney toons freak who would drive a school bus through a high school and start shooting randomly to draw Spider-Man out? Does Colossus have to be a steroid case or Nightcrawler a creepy stalker?

As dramatic as a Marvel story can be sometimes, it's comforting to know that it takes in a universe where Gravity could become a herald of Galactus or a psychiatrist is a gamma-irradiated behemoth with green flowing locks. I know I may have said this before, but after reading the latest issue of Ultimate Spider-Man, the only Ultimate title I still read, I'm knid of glad Ultimatum is clearing out that line. I see it as a sign, a sign that any universe that would be overhauled by Jeph Loeb is not worth my time. So, I'm done. The last issue of Ultimate Spider-Man I read will be the last issue I buy.