Pick of the Week Podcast
Show Notes
This week, Conor had a really hard time with the cold open. But we cut that out, and it was just for us. Also, Josh’s mic was set wrong for….well, quite a bit. And what is the plural of Vox? Let’s all have a crisis, but the good kind.
Running Time: 01:12:35
Pick of the Week:
00:02:03 – Farmhand #5
Comics:
00:11:56 – The Green Lantern #1
00:20:08 – Death of the Inhumans #5
00:25:16 – Nightwing #52
00:34:04 – Batman #50
00:37:16 – The United States vs. Murder Inc. #3
00:40:36 – The Outer Darkness #1
00:43:01 – The Immortal Hulk #8
Patron Pick:
00:45:48 – Marvel Knights: 20th #1
Patron Thanks:
00:57:35 – Ryan Tardiff
00:58:17 – Aaron Turner
00:59:06 – Rego Nurse
01:00:04 – Matt Wiggins
Audience Question:
01:01:41 – Andrew from Barcelona needs to know more about his Crisis options.
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Music:
“Sinking Ship”
Cake
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The Green Lantern made me feel like I had been transported back into the 80’s when I first started reading comics. It perfectly captures that vibe and man, I loved it!
I know I sound like a grumpy old man – “Back in my days comic books were COMIC BOOKS!” – but the current trend of making comics seem more “theatrical” and “widescreen in scope” does a disservice to the medium. Comics don’t need to compete with movies and TV. While they may share the same subject matter and characteristics, comic books are a completely different art-form and should be approached as so.
Alan Moore understood this and created Watchmen to be “un-filmable” (sorry Zack Snyder, Alan was right). Morrison comes from the same school of thought – he understands the nature of comics better then most writers out there today. And that’s why when you read The Green Lantern you get a sense of something special happening – Morrison is reminding you of why we love comics in the first place.
The Green Lantern is a breath of fresh air.
I haven’t read Green Lantern yet but I’m with you on the rest. Not that there isn’t a place for “widescreen”, cinematic comics but I don’t like that it became the default. There was a certain literary aspect to many comics in the late ’80s, early ’90s that just isn’t being used enough today. It’s probably why something like Mister Miracle is a standout – I mean, aside for it just being a fantastic comic book, of course.
Ladies be loving the Harry’s razors too.
Boucherie: a method of preserving wood involving impregnation with copper sulfate under pressure.
Charcuterie is the branch of cooking devoted to prepared meat products, such as bacon, ham, sausage, terrines, galantines, ballotines, pâtés, and confit, …
Interesting to hear Conor talking about Nightwing because that’s exactly how us Wally West fans feel about our favourite character. And, to be clear, I don’t think he will be dead by the end of HiC – but I do think it’s a strong chance that he will be a villain.Wally is probably the one character that Didio hates more than Dick Grayson.
As for the DC Crises, I have a somewhat different view on them so I’ll throw my 2c in for Andrew’s question. First, shockingly, I still haven’t gotten round to Crisis on Infinite Earths despite having been reading comics for 25 years, regularly. I will say this, though, along with being like 500 pages long, Crisis is probably like most ’80s mainstream superhero comics in that it is extremely verbose and the dialogue pretty stiff so, while I do agree that it is the most logical place to start, it’s a huge investment time-wise.
Zero Hour is the next Crisis – and it is a far closer follow up to CoIE than some of the other comics with Crisis in the title. I loved the hell out of it when I was a kid but I haven’t gone back since. There’s a very strong chance that the story has not aged well at all but a) the art was undoubtedly pretty great being peak Jurgens and b) the Zero Hour tie-in comics (including both #0 issues and those with Zero Hour somewhere on the cover) were often exceptionally good. They seem to have started collecting those #0 issues in affordable trades so they might be worth picking up.
Skip a bunch of years to Identity Crisis. This series stands almost entirely alone and I would recommend it as the perfect place to start if it wasn’t so, ya know, terrible. Great Rags Morales art and some decent craft in the writing don’t change the fact that it’s one of the most cynical, ugly and wrong-headed DC comics ever. It ushered in a new age of “grim and gritty” DC comics that proved to be more resilient than the one in the early ’90s and quite a bit more mean-spirited too. Plus, it has nothing to do with any of the other Crises so, meh, avoid it like the plague.
Infinite Crisis has some nice art but is mostly largely disposable as it did play a bit too heavily on the “continuity porn” that Geoff Johns was criticized so often for at the time. It also (re)introduced the fairly unbearable Superboy Prime and pretty much screwed up the Flash for the last decade-plus. It did have its moments, though, and there were so good tie-ins, especially those by Rucka and Simone. Also, it led into 52, which was pretty great.
Final Crisis. It largely ignored all the build-up to it (Death of the New Gods anyone?) but it’s probably the most impenetrable Crisis, just because of how Morrison wrote it – though it’s much easier to come to grips with ever since it was collected (in a surprisingly cheap trade paperback edition) and all the issues and tie-ins were put in the correct reading order. It does suffer from inconsistent art, though, as JG Jones was unable to keep up with its schedule and the fill-ins by largely really good artists were often rushed. This was apparently also at least partially fixed in the trade, with some pages redrawn and recoloured. I say all this because it is, for my money, by far the best Crisis comic that I have read, with Morrison’s high-imagination, experimentation with format and on-point characterization (not to mention further embellishments on the themes that he has been exploring in superhero comics since Animal Man) elevating Final Crisis beyond most Big 2 events, which, even at their best, tend to largely be an excuse for fan-service above all else. Reading some other Morrison first is probably the way to go, though.
I love Identity Crisis. I do enjoy dark and gritty, though. That said, I think it was well-crafted, had a good mystery, and definitely caused the reader to have feelings. I don’t think being dark and gritty is bad (I know, you didn’t say that), but it does have to be something the reader enjoys.
Concerning Crisis on Infinite Earths, I’m biased as I read it when it came out from the creative team of one of my top two comics. One thing I’ll say about the dialogue is that Wolfman had a knack for helping he reader understand the character through dialogue, which was immensely helpful in a book with a cast of so many. I have my complaints about the series, but overall think it’s very worth it.
Can’t agree with Josh more about the credits pages. Perhaps, I’m just getting old, but back in the ‘80’s when I started reading I didn’t feel that I’d read an issue if I didn’t read the credits and now I feel unsure when I’m gonna’ find out who the writer and artists are. I know it’s on the cover often with the Big 2, but, I don’t feel it causes a sense of drama, as much as, causes me to not give credit where it’s due.
As far as Marvel Knights goes I think the art is disappointing ( not Travel Foreman enough), but I love that it’s not what you expect. An event not called an event. Kinda’ how things used to be. I’m all in on this craziness with Doc Doom in what you would expect to be crime or noir. Instead we get comic crazy. Pretty neat so far.
I’m with Josh, I want the credits to be in one place – preferably within the first three pages so I can settle back and enjoy the storyy. And preferably NOT WASTING TWO PAGES, Marvel! It’s like those TV shows that delay the credits… one episode of Alias took 19 minutes to properly start… how I hate cold opens.
The Eero box sounds great, next time they sponsor, I hope they let us know whether it’s a US-only product.
I had to figure out my login again so I could weigh in on the Crises question!
I own them all and most of the tie-ins and I think that the Infinite Crisis is the best for someone kind of new to DC. It’s a great exploration of the personalities of the trinity (Clark, Diana, Bruce). It picked up threads from the Crisis on Infinite Earths, so it’s helpful to know that for backstories of Alexander Luthor, Superboy Prime etc but not essential
It also led right into 52 which is probably the best DC event.
Final Crisis had tons of interesting concepts and you should definitely track down some of the tie-ins if you read this event. There’s a Japanese superhero team that’s really fun and a powerful one-shot about Martian Manhunter.
So if you only read one, make it Infinite Crisis.
I love Josh’s reaction to hearing how Dick’s new name is spelled.