Ambush Bug Year None #4 (lcs)– It’s inside baseball for the comic set as Giffen and Loren-Fleming continue to poke fun at the massive corporate entity that’s paying them to make fun of them. It’s fun and amusing.
- Justice Society Of America Kingdom Come Special Magog #1 (lcs)– Hopefully we get more than 20 pages of story followed up by 20 pages of sketchbook material. I actually enjoyed Ross’s art on the Superman special but the story was filler, offering little insight into the current JSA mega-arc. I’m probably switching to just the collection on this book once this arc is over.
- Heroes Vol 2 HC Standard Edition (dcbs)– Why did I order this again? I’m still enjoying the show on a Claremont/Byrne/Wolfman/Perez level of superhero soap operas but the first volume still sits in a pile somewhere, mostly unread.
- Doctor Who Forgotten #3 (lcs)– For as much as I enjoyed the first issue, I haven’t read the second one yet. I’ll need to dig out the first couple of issues, read them all together to decide if I’m going to continue reading this series or drop it and save up my pennies and just get the DVDs of the series.
- Spider-Man Kravens First Hunt HC (dcbs)–Now this I’m looking forward to and won’t get it for another couple of weeks. I’ve been enjoying the Brand New Day stories, feeling that this is more of a return to “my” Spider-Man, one who wasn’t married and has money problems. Someone a bit smarter than me has compared BND to the Gerry Conway era of Spider-Man, the first era of that character that I really read, and it’s totally accurate. It’s been a long time since I honestly waited for and enjoyed a Spider-Man story (Roger Stern and J.M. DeMattiess were probably the writers) but I’m really happy with this new stuff.
With the Marvel and DC solicits for February up, it’s striking me how little I’m currently interested in either company right now. If I drop JSA, I don’t think I’ll have any regular DC series on my pull list. Marvel has a couple of quirky superhero titles in Guardians of the Galaxy and Agents of Atlas (Carlo Pagulayan on art!) that I’m still kind of excited about and I’m still sticking with Astonishing X-Men no matter how much of a rip Ghost Boxes was. And of course, there’s always Criminal. Just a couple of years ago, I thought both companies were at top of their game, revitalized and energized with new talent shaking things up. The new talent in 2004 (Bendis, Johns and Millar) have become the establishment of 2009, producing corporate comics for their corporate overlords.
Cynical? Yes it is.
Yet I’m more excited about creators right now than I’ve been in a long while. The independent work of Brian Wood, Ed Brubaker and Matt Fraction is the stuff from Marvel, DC and Image that I’m looking forward to today. The year should provide plenty of Urasawa and Tezuka, two of my favorite creators of all time. New Scott Pilgrim and Casanova, hopefully new Greg Rucka, Vertigo series from Jeff Lemire and Gabriel Ba & Fabio Moon, and Brian Wood and Becky Cloonan’s reunion on Demo 2 are just a few of the things that I think will make 2009 great. Oh, and I can’t wait But notice, none of those involve superheroes.
I wonder if after a 30 year love affair with superheroes if it’s finally over for me. Avengers? Eh. Justice League? Eh. Batman? Eh. Captain America? Eh. All books that I’ve enjoyed and have significant runs on and I feel my excitement over them winding down. I just can’t figure out if I’ve changed or if the comics have changed.