Random Comic Thoughts

I don't pick up comics at a comic shop much anymore, usually if I want something I'll just wait for a trade. Yet I've been following the Blue Beetle story in Booster Gold, I've always had a soft spot for Ted Kord, so have been making a sort of random stop in to pick it up. This week I picked up a handful of others as well.

Eternals #1 - I really enjoyed the HC collection of this series that Neil Gaimon wrote last year, so I was curious to hear about a continuation of it in a regular series. To me it takes some mighty big balls in comics today to try and continue something that Gaimon did, especially since he was himself re imagining something Jack Kirby created.

Daniel Knauf tries, but at least so far he's not hitting the depths Gaimon was able to in so few pages. Daniel Acuna's art is fine, and brings the bigger than the world feel to these godly characters. Yet Knauf's story just so far lacks a punch, as there's too much too soon going on.

Leaving me feeling like I was watching TV with someone who has attention deficit disorder. With not enough time left on any particular scene or character to care before I was flipped to another.

Chuck #1 - I'm a big fan of the TV series, so when I saw the first issue of a tie-in series (which I had no idea was coming out) I decided to give it a look. I feel sort of torn on the issue in ways.

It captures the voice of the characters well, and the serious but not too serious feel of the show. Yet the art is a bit quirky, with everyone seeming to be very angular looking. Plus not only is the comic not able to pull off the sexiness of the Sarah character, but she hardly even gets to do or say a lot in the story here.

Of course the big deal for me is that I've lost a lot of my patience when it comes to comics and heck just stories these days. I don't know what I'll be doing week to week, so its hard for me to commit to running stories. One of the best things about the Chuck shows was that most of the episodes were self contained, done in one episodes.

So this book being part one of six, that I paid for as opposed to watching for free on TV, just bugs me for my own minor pet peeve that I don't expect anyone else to share. Especially since it doesn't bother me on some other continuing series, but does here.

Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season 8 #15 - Usually I pick this up off newsstands at book chain store, but it was at the shop this week. Its an enjoyable conclusion to a storyline by writer Drew Goddard who had written some of the episodes for the TV show.

So most of the characters feel like their TV counterparts, except Willow who has seemed off the entire series so far, which is what I as a fan of the show am glad of.

I did find it interesting that in the letter column the editor thanks fans for not focusing on what he describes "one incident" from the first issue of this storyline. Its odd to see that the editor didn't want to comment on or even state what I guess might be a controversial storyline in the series. (Buffy having a lesbian relationship)

It was a fairly out of the blue thing to happen, but given the show's history with matters like this. I would hope that most of the fans didn't get too upset over it.

Booster Gold #10 - I've enjoyed this series far more than I ever thought I would. Usually Geoff Johns work is too bloody/continuity picky for me, yet here a character (Booster) that most thought was useless has been given heart and made fun.

As I said in my first paragraph, I've always had a soft spot for the Ted Kord Blue Beetle. That's why I've gone outside of my normal routine to pick this series up. It has been great seeing Ted again, even though this whole storyline is built upon what I believe is an incredibly stupid story to begin with.

Hey as much as I love Ted, I have a hard time believing his death or lack there of unravels the universe to this extent. Yet then hey I'm also one of those that thought it dumb that Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman would need a reminder Ted's death that was to be you know heroes.

Still despite that its been built on such a flimsy house of cards, this storyline has been fun. Seeing Booster and Ted together again has been fun to read as they have such a nice setups to play off each other. I'm really hoping the series doesn't go for the stock end that things can't be changed, and have Ted killed off for good.

Yet we'll see I guess in the final issue of this creative team's run next month.

The Ayre Force
Written by Joseph Phillip Illidge and Adam Slutsky
Illustrated by Shawn Martinbrough
Published by Bodog

So I get this Graphic Novel in from a publisher called Bodog, who apparently have their own media empire including singers, mixed martial artists and apparently a poker site.

The GN stars real people who work for the company, of whom the only person I've heard of is singer Bif Naked.

Its drawn by Shawn Martinbrough, who used to draw Batman, back when the entire issue would have a green or red color tone. I was a fan of his work there, and here its solid if not inspiring work, with some minor quibbles in facial expressions and panel flow.

The story kind of scares me a little though, as it seems to encourage and glorify eco-terrorism. Now I can understand and put my belief behind not harming animals and that kind of thing. On the other hand its kind of scary to see the "heroes" killing the workers at a third world research center, or blowing up and killing everyone on whaling ships.

To me that's basically the equivalent of being mad at rising gas prices, so you beat up the gas station attendant. What makes this especially odd is that while they are harming and killing these workers, they know who and where the big bad guy behind this is. But don't go after him until he captures some of their members.

The book just doesn't seem to really think its ramifications all the way out, preferring to see things as only black and white. It says in the back that all the proceeds from the sales of this book will go to their organizations efforts to stop the mistreatment the heroes fight in this book. I'm not sure what to make of that, as if they can seem so enthused about fictional acts like these, I wonder what they would do in real life.