Sunday, June 26, 2011

So you want to read about: Hal Jordan

Welcome to So You Want To Read About, Part One.  More than most other characters, there are some very specific, and very named events in Hal Jordan's life.  Being the DCU, I don't recommend this for beginners. 

If I were DC EIC, how would I restructure the DCU...(A What-If scenario)

Alright so If I was EIC of DC, then obviously I'm going to have my own eddicts and the first is this:
Number one:  No character shall star in more than 2 books.

Thursday, June 23, 2011

The True Secret of Pottermore. No joke.

Oh wait.  I lied. 
OR DID I?!?
Okay, no I didn't.


Monday, June 20, 2011

The top 11 DCnU titles that I believe are going to be terrible.

This is the companion piece to my top 11 most excitable titles.

Sunday, June 19, 2011

The Marvel Restructuring (A What-If Scenario)

So CBR posed an interesting question, if Marvel was to reboot their whole line of books, which books would I want hitting the shelves.  Well here is what I would want.  52 titles to make up their entire line of titles(not including the Icon imprint).  Every book that is branded Marvel with the Marvel logo is listed that I would want.

Saturday, June 18, 2011

The Top 11 DCnU titles I'm excited about

Well after a strong two weeks of announcements, I suppose we are going to see a little bit of a slow down, but as a response I'm going to spend the rest of June talking about the DCnU as the subject seems to have a lot of things to talk about.

Friday, June 17, 2011

Why The World Needs Jean Grey to Stay DEAD.

Why The World Needs Jean Grey to Stay DEAD

The Secret to Pottermore.com

What is the secret? Well....

A PSA: Avoiding corupt reviewers

Capone of Ain't It Cool News has this to say:
http://www.aintitcool.com/node/50065


[...]let me warn you about some terminology that you may stumble upon variation of while reading any positive reaction to this film.

Thursday, June 16, 2011

What do the DCnU titles mean to you(Giant Sized Finale)

And now the moment like four people have been waiting for. 

Why did I choose the books I am going to read:

Superman is about to leave his Wife

READ ON DEAR READER'S, YOU CAN'T MISS THIS ONE.


What do the DCnU titles mean to you (Part Five)

Here we are,continuing to examine what little infomation we have on the upcoming books.

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

What does the DCnU titles mean to you?(Part 4 of 5)

Here we are,continuing to examine what little infomation we have on the upcoming books. 
Now in next to no detail!

Monday, June 13, 2011

What do the DCnU titles me to you? (Part three of five)

In Day three we continue to look at the various titles being launched!

Sunday, June 12, 2011

Where to start reading comics: Appendix number 3

Appenix 3: Great stand alone stories.

The idea behind these collections is that they don't require you to be familiar with their concepts before hand. You can go in and enjoy the story. They are meant to be single volumne adventures that continue but do not require you to continue.

Saturday, June 11, 2011

June 2011: What is Marvel Planning?

To think that Marvel isn't planning something would be silly.
For every DC action Marvel usually has some kind of reaction.  And so far, they've been silent.  And moreso, Marvel has far less options than DC since Fear Itself won't end until November. 

Where to start reading comics: Part Two

The Best places to start reading comics.

What do the DCnU titles me to you? (Part two of Five)

Previously on what do DCnU titles mean to you...  We discussed the titles billed as the Justice League Titles.  Today we tackle the Green Lantern and partially the Batman franchise.

Friday, June 10, 2011

Oracle. Batgirl. Let's Talk.

Oy.
In case you weren't aware the DC comic universe is changing.  In massive, strange, wonderful, exciting, and frightening ways.  For some, it's a new beginning.  Or others, this is their getting off point.  And a few of the changes are extremely polarizing and the changes that are undergoing are painful and frightening for some of us.  And one character in paticular is about to change in a way that is devestating.  In fact, this is one of several changes that reverts things to a pre-Alan Moore state.  The character I am talking about is Barbara Gordon.  Former Bat-Girl.  Now Former Oracle.  Bat-Girl again. 

Thursday, June 9, 2011

What does the DCnU titles mean to you?(Part 1 of 5)

Absolutely nothing, say it again.
Hoorah.


Okay but seriously, Let's talk about these titles.

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Where to start comics: Glossary

Terms you might need to know.
(this is constantly being updated over time, so check back with each new article posted to see if any new terms were added.)

Embracing the DCnU

To say I was furious at DC when they announced their relaunch(then misquoted as Reboot) is an understatement.

A Classic Spielberg film, with someone else directing - a review of Super8

Do you ever wonder what happened to blockbusters nowadays? That mystery, that magic. It's pretty much gone. We know every film that is coming out and when it's coming out. Hell, we know when they are filming, when they are working on effects and how long it takes for one of these projects to come into existence. We can figure out entire plots just from a brief description, a title, and the trailer. We see so much footage that we can piece together the movie into a cohesive adventure without much effort. The magic of wonder, the mystery of having no idea what a movie is about except a title and brief teaser trailer is gone. Now we have interviews upon interviews, clips everywhere, stills, leaked scripts, early screenings. All of our progress in communication has destroyed the mystery of movies. Super 8 tries to recapture that magic.

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Where to start reading comics: Appendix one Intro Books

Appendix one: intro books


The idea behind each of these volumes is that you can start with just this volumne and get a full, complete, enjyoable story. They are jumping on points and at the same time are great sign posts for how to expand outward towards other books.

Where to start reading comics: Appendix two

Appendix two: Intro indie books

Monday, June 6, 2011

DCnU Complete List

DC has announced 52 new issues to rekickstart the universe.
Here I am going to write down each and every title as they are revealed. More to come on this subject.

Saturday, June 4, 2011

Where to start reading Comics: Part one

Part one: Where not to start.

I've actually been asked this question a few times: "Holy F. Where do I start reading comics?"
And I usually tell them to start with what looks interesting. For starting comics you kind of need to start with characters you like. There are plenty of stories I love but I know that a large number of them aren't for new readers.

Friday, June 3, 2011

Using Telepathy to get chicks? Winning. - a review of X-Men First Class

Once upon a time two boys had very different, very startling changes occur in their life. For Erik it was the loss of his mother. For Charles it was the discovery of a young girl named Raven who had wandered into his house. These two events would send these men in search of answers to a problem that exists in the world. An issue of Fear and Xenophobia. And for almost everyone these themes will ring true. And soon enough these two boys would become men. And those men will seek out answers in their own way, only to one day have their paths colide and be changed forever. Two men who have very much united in a cause.

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

FlashSchsFearPointItselfIsm - Part one a discusion of event comics.

There are a handful of Event Comics out there.
The Flashpoints and the Fear Itselfs.
Then there are the Schisms and the Battle for the cowls.
The Return of Bruce Waynes and the Messiah Wars.

Then there are the Second Comings and Chaos Wars.

There are also the Three's and the Death of Spider-Mans.

The Final Crisis and the Ultimatums.





So to write this up into categories.
Some events are line wide and represent a through line, a marker post.
These are books like Flashpoint, Fear Itself, Final Crisis, Blackest Night, Brightest Day, Infinite Crisis, House of M, Civil War.


Some events are family wide.
These are the events like X-Men Crossovers, Shadowland, Ultimatum, Batman Inc./Batman Reborn, War of the Green Lanterns, Sinestro Corps

There are also crossover events. Things like Utopia, Widowmaker.

And some are simply events in their own right out of their solo books.
These are Fantastic Four Three, One More Day, The Death of Captain America, Return of The King.




Some books are events in their own right. Some books are merely stepping stones to the next thing. That isn't to say they can't be both. And often they want to be one and end up being another.

Let's start with when books are events in their own right. Civil War. While Marvel had been teasing this event for months and months leading up. the only time we really saw books that lead into it were right before civil war. And even they just layed the ground work for really show casing the event. Spider-man showed off Tony Stark going to congress. But if you look at Civil War it was just this precursor that set up Tony and Peter's relationship and Tony's connection to congress. And as we approached the end, we speculated the ending but never it was never hyped. And when it came we had a new landscape for comics. But Civil War still mattered. We were still talking about the contents of Civil War as this new era came on.
Then jump forward to Marvel's next big event. An event they spent years setting up. Secret Invasion. for months and months before hand we were watching as the conspiracy and the distrust built. It played on the setup and fallout of Civil War. But after the event started we were suddenly told about this mysterious end point. Kept Hush Hush and called only Dark Reign, we were told that the entire event was pitched on the ending. And once the Dark Reign happened, we didn't care about Secret Invasion. We didn't talk about secret invasion or the big moments. Except to complain about how illogical the ending was. Sure the Dark Reign was a really interesting idea, but the logistics about how it happened didn't work and everyone knew it. It suddenly didn't matter about the events of that transpired before. It was merely a transition event.

Now looking forward we see three major events. Flashpoint. Schism. Fear Itself. In all honesty, I have heard nothing about the end game of Fear Itself, much less the post Fear Itself landscape. and while we haven't heard about the post Schism landscape we know that "things will never be the same." Which means that the entire event might become a one line in a recap, not unlike secret invasion. And then we have Flashpoint. This is likely the most talked about event since Civil War. If you follow comics news then the only thing you've heard in the last few days is about September. DC is relaunching the whole line at number one. We don't know the exact details but the common rumor is that the main continuity and the Flashpoint continuity will merge and create a new younger continuity. But the problem is, we've stopped talking about Flashpoint. We've stopped caring. We know that most of it doesn't matter. We only care about September. Not Flashpoint. Geoff Johns(writer of Flashpoint) has said the first rule of Flashpoint is don't talk about what comes after Flashpoint. And yet here we are, talking about it. DC dropped the ball. They needed to transition us into this, not force us to accept this change. WE needed to be eased into it, or better, kept in the dark until September. I know I was bashing the way marvel transitioned into Dark Reign story-wise, but preview wise they handled it skillfully. They put out solicits with titles, numbers, and creators, but ever solicit and cover said Classified or "Not final title." It was an expert way to hide the truth. And in the end it got us to a good point where we could see some unique stories. Flashpoint was not good at this. They let the reboot cat out of the bag, and whether or not you agree with the change, all it did was stir the pan, not flip the flapjack.
When done right, an event book is a book everyone wants to read because it's well written. This is the civil war's and the Blackest Nights. The bad ones are the events that make us consider them non events designed only to get us to point B, I.E. Battle for the Cowl and X-Men's Utopia. And so we have to stand back and watch as Schism, Fear Itself, and Flashpoint stir until we reach the end of the summer and find out what really happens.


(End of Part one)
Look for Part two this fall upon the completion of Flashpoint and Schism and part three upon the completion of Fear Itself.