Pick of the Week Podcast
Show Notes
Paul Montgomery has returned to join Conor Kilpatrick and Josh Flanagan in discussing the week in comic books! Plus — just how cool of a lady was Martha Washington?
Total Running Time: 01:07:40
Pick of the Week:
00:02:23 – All-New Invaders #1
Comics:
00:10:03 – Batman #27
00:15:11 – Deadly Class #1
00:21:25 – Star Wars: Legacy #11
00:23:57 – Bad Dog #6
00:27:24 – All-New X-Men #22.NOW
00:32:57 – Harley Quinn #2
00:34:01 – Pretty Deadly #4
00:35:22 – Zero #5
00:37:09 – Captain America #15
00:39:18 – Wolverine and The X-Men #40
00:41:10 – Sex #10
Paul and Conor Talkin’ Trades:
00:43:07 – The Walking Dead, Vol. 19
00:45:27 – Old City Blues, Vol. 2
00:47:43 – Revival, Vol. 1
00:50:10 – Sabertooth Swordsman and the Mayhem of the Malevolent Mastodon Mathematician
Audience Questions:
00:52:41 – Ryan C. is worried about Marvel’s publishing strategy.
00:56:44 – Monty D. is confused by DC’s recent cancelations (and non-cancelations).
Music:
“Paperbird”
Hawk and Steel
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All-New Invaders #1 was stellar! The art was kind of weird in places but I’m ok with a bit of goofiness, so long as the product as a whole does not overtly suffer. Speaking of Flaming guys, doesn’t Johnny Storm just un-fire his hands and carries people around? That, to me, would seem to have the same problem of cooking those you save, given that their heads will be less than an arms length away from Johnny’s blazing chest…
A lot of people are complaining about Harley Quinn #2’s characterization of Poison Ivy as being very out of character for her New 52 persona. It kind of is, given that she is an anti-hero(-ish) now but on the whole I like the return of Ivy and Harley’s girlmance. Also, many are outspoken haters of the Beaver. I really don’t get why, I think it is a cool way to get into the inner workings of Harely’s mind without spending obtuse amounts of time listening to her debate things in her head.
I think double shipping is good and bad. On the one hand, I like getting my stories faster, especially on books I love. On the other hand, it costs twice as much, which invariably crowds out other great books you may have otherwise purchased and enjoyed. This is doubly true for those on strict budgets.
However, I was thinking about the fact that DC was, essentially, releasing Batman weekly (4 Batman titles). The only difference between that and a double shipped book is the fact that you have different ongoing stories, rather than one continuous one. That makes it easier to pick and choose, as some will appeal to you but others may not but at the same time, you won’t get the “whole story” unless you buy all of them.
From my own perspective, I am collecting All New X-Men and Superior Spider-Man, both of which are double shipped (well the former is double shipping like every other month it feels like but still). When I look at my pull list, those two titles definitely pop two other titles out of my pull list since I have a budget. However, I like those titles, so it doesn’t bug me. Back when Marvel NOW started, many books were being double shipped, which caused me to drop Cap, Iron Man, Thor*, Avengers, etc. These were books I liked but did not love. I couldn’t justify crowding out two titles I could like to keep a single title I kind of liked on my pull list. That to me is the real problem with double shipping – it absolutely kills (at least my) interest in books that are good but not great.
Moving forward, I believe the model to take is not double shipping, per se, but pull the same maneuver Marvel made with Avengers. It was double shipping but now it has been split into two titles – Avengers & Avengers World. Both books’ stories are written by Hickman** but they follow different sub-sets of characters and have different plots. However, given that the two titles share the same cast of characters and have the same creator, it is easy to foresee crossovers abounding and plot elements migrating back and forth between books. In that way, I could just buy Avengers and not worry about World (or vice versa). It’s almost like middle ground between Double Shipping and Two Independent Titles. I’m sure many would dislike this method as well though.
* Thor is a cool book but reads way better in trade.
** Hickaman crafts the overall story for World but lets his buddy do the actual writing
Interesting ideas, Scarlet-Batman. I definitely prefer the Hickman Avengers model over the straight-up double shipping of a title. With the Avengers model, you could conceivably just decide to buy one of the semi-connected titles, but with All-New X-Men, you can’t really decide to just buy all the even-numbered issues. Of course, the publisher might prefer the double-shipping for that very reason. But you’re right, it’s a double-edge sword since it may cause a lot of people just to drop the title all together. But with double-shipping (or quadruple with Batman Eternal) and increasing prices (Batman, Daredevil), it seems like the Big Two are fine with a smaller readership that’s willing to pay more and more. But I worry that the bubble may burst again using that model.
“Speaking of Flaming guys, doesn’t Johnny Storm just un-fire his hands and carries people around? That, to me, would seem to have the same problem of cooking those you save, given that their heads will be less than an arms length away from Johnny’s blazing chest…”
It’s definitely a problem for all flame people.
And by problem, I mean a funny thing to talk about.
Bad Dog #1 came out in February 2009. Five years ago…
That means they are averaging more than one issue a year! Huzzah! 😛
Hmmm surprised that ALL NEW INVADERS #1 got PotW. I Didn’t really like it that much, but enjoyed Deadly Class #1 a lot. First ever Remender comic that I actually liked.
MY pick of the week was BEDLAM #11. ANOTHER awesome Nick Spencer series
“I want to see him go berserker on Aetna.” I’d buy that comic.
I sympathize with Josh about there being too many good titles right now. A book like Deadly Class a couple years ago would have stood out as something I HAD to read. But now it doesn’t make the cut unfortunately.
I know it’s fairly frequent that someone will mourn the loss of the iFanboy pull list here in the comments. I wanted to mention a site I recently stumbled across. It’s a critic review aggregator that also allows user reviews. Just last week it added a comments section as well (to be able to discuss each comic individually). The site is pretty elegant in it’s design and functionality, but right now it’s like a vast, beautiful playground with very few kids playing. I wanted to invite members of the iFanboy diasopora looking for a place to discuss each week’s comics to come check it out. comicbookroundup.com
For Ryan C (and anyone else burned out on Marvel’s high prices and double shipping), if you’ve got a tablet (or like reading on your computer) you should absolutely check out Marvel Unlimited. If you’ve dropped those books you clearly don’t mind being “Behind” on things so MU’s 6 month lag probably won’t be an issue. It’s easily the best bargain in comics and totally renewed my love for Marvel
That’s a good suggestion!
I don’t see where you guys are coming from with “Batman” at all.
“This is Batman before he knew what he was doing!”
Yes, that’s a well-established trope of all Year One-ish storylines. You’re acting like Snyder thought of it. It’s fine, but par for the course.
“Wow, unlike ‘Year One’ you actually think that Bruce is in jeopardy with the cops!”
I fail to see how Year One had any less dramatic tension in that regards.
“Wow, Gordon is actually on his own here without any support!”
He didn’t have hardly any support in Year One either. He had the one female policewoman for an issue or so; that was it.
I’m enjoying Zero Year okay, but your reviews of it here just scream “We are homers for Snyder who will believe anything he tells us and figure out ways to justify it.”