Unfortunately not much for me to review this week. My favorite of the week was Daytripper #1, a new Vertigo series by Gabriel Ba and Fabio Moon. It was a great read but I'm not quite sure where they'll go after this first issue. It follows a day in the life of an obituary writer as he deals with the inferiority he feels towards his father. It really reminded me of a Paul Thomas Anderson movie, especially Magnolia. I recommend picking it up and giving it a read when we get some reorders in.

Otherwise, I gots myself two new beautiful statues:

You can also view my Top 5 Graphic Novel picks for 2009 here: http://alltern8.com/library/comics_and_graphic_novels/the_top_5_graphic_novels_of_2009/l-4495.html

So this week both Marvel and DC ruined the end to two late running mini-series with new issues of other series. Way to go both of you. First being,


Blackest Night Flash #1 which of course happens after the events of Flash Rebirth #6. Now I was going to say you should wait until Flash Rebirth #6 comes out before reading this but then Andy and I looked it up on the interweb and found that Rebirth #6 doesn't come out until January 27th which is a week after Blackest Night Flash #2 comes out. So it's pretty pointless to wait. Now the good news is Blackest Night Flash #1 was a great read. Geoff Johns teams up with his old Flash partner Scott Kolins for an issue that takes place right before Blackest Night #5. It also serves as a sort of sequel to Final Crisis Rogues Revenge as the Rogues take on the Black Lantern Rogues. It's also Barry vs Black Lantern Reverse Flash. Johns lays down some major plot threads for the overall Blackest Night story making this one a must read if you're into trying to figure out whats going to happen. The last page is my favorite as Captain Cold says, "Let's go shoot some zombies."



The other "spoiler" issue this week is Dark Avengers Annual #1, which also happens to be my favorite read of the week. I won't tell you what the spoiler is because it's pretty darn cool (another awesome last page). With Dark Avengers Annual #1 we find out what's happened to Noh-Varr--Marvel Boy--after his exit from the Dark Avengers after learning they're all criminals. Noh struggles to find direction on Earth, to understand humanity better and eventually where he stands in the upcoming events. Also a kick ass fight with the Sentry. Bachalo's art is superb in the fact you can actually understand whats going on, sometimes he goes off the deep end with design. And then there's the last page.

Next up is the X-force Annual #1


The main story is written by Robert Kirkman with art by Jason Pearson, who is one of my favorite action artists. It's a none important story but still a lot of fun as Wolverine infiltrates Hydra on a life saving mission. Lots of violence and Wolverine humor. The back up story is Deadpool and is connected to the Necrosha X story line. If you like Deadpool then you'll love it. If you don't then you're in the same boat as me...



Siege the Cabal is the lead in to the Siege event as Norman Osborn and Doctor Doom forgo their tea party and have a slap fest instead. Loki continues to manipulates events to beginthe siege of Asgard (and boy do I miss a female Loki, she was stacked!). We also get another shadowed appearance of Norman Osborn's "secret weapon" used to keep his fellow Cabalists in line. Anyone got any idea who it might be? Andy and I think it's going to be Marvelmen (Miracleman). We shall see but if it is I will take full credit. There's also four or five pages of Siege #1 staring Volstagg, who has quickly become my favorite Asgardian. I really liked this issue and I'm excited for Siege #1!



Finally this week, Ultimate Comics Spider-man #5 sporting one of he worst covers I've ever seen. Other than that, the issue is great. Spidey continues his battle against Mysterio with the help of who I believe is the Ultimate Hood. But as normal, my favorite part is the interaction between all the supporting cast as yet another teen joins the fray at the Parker residence.

That's it for now. I'll probably be updating in a few days with some graphic novel reviews and the next installment of my Cartoon Crazy series.

So I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving, I myself had a great one. Thirty people stuffed in a house made for five is always chaos but fun chaos at that. But on to comics, a great week of reading at that. First off, Green Lantern #48 and Blackest Night #5


Be sure you read the GL first as it has the group of new guardians coming together, leading directly into BN #5. As always, Larfleeze steals every scene he's in. Green Lantern is a fun issue to read with all the infighting between the rainbow brigade, but Blackest Night #5 really amps everything up. I didn't foresee anything that happened in this issue. Once again, so many "oh man that's awesome" and "holy crap!" I really wish I could talk more about it but I'd ruin too much of it for all the people who haven't read it yet. I really have no idea where they'll be going with this. I don't think they'll go the white lantern route as that's so obvious and so far they really haven't done anything obvious. What are your theories? Where do you think it's going? Post a comment below and let me know or shoot me an email.



After Blackest Night, I enjoyed the Powers relaunch the most. I haven't read Powers in a long time and I had forgotten how good this series is. I started reading Powers with the first number #1, way before anyone knew who Bendis was, way before he took over Marvel and way before anyone else was putting that many words in comic books. I was at lunch in the back room at the old Division store and picked it up on whim as I had enjoyed his Goldfish and Jinx series. There were little to no subscribers for it. I was blown away by it. I remember walking out and handing it to Craig and saying, "This is really freak'n good." And then I began shoving it down everyone's throat. So Bendis really has me to thank for all his success. I really love how this series has progress and changed but still kept it's basic idea of cops who investigate super hero crimes. No matter what they've done to the characters or how much everything has evolved, it's still a cop book.

With the new #1, we return to Detective Walker's crazy life as a new murder arises which of course is connected to his long, long history. Pick this book up and support it again as it's still high quality comics.



God so many good books this week, Superman Secret Origin #3 shows us Clark's first trip to Metropolis, his first meeting with Lois Lane and the crew at the Daily Planet and his first appearance as Superman. Johns does a great job of intertwining comics history and the cool parts of the movies into the origin retell. I thought I'd be disappointed once we got past the Superboy issues, but this was fantastic.

And not a comic review more a spotlighting my new addiction:


I just got my first Cover Girls of the DCU by Adam Hughes statues. This statue is amazing, totally beautiful, even my wife loves it. Take a second to click the picture for a bigger shot. I can't wait for the others (Catwoman, Wonder Woman, Zatanna, Power Girl, Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy) and keep the hope for a Big Barda in her leisure wear :)

Product review: Snapit Screen Capture Ver 3.9

If you were reading my cartoon reviews today you'll notice some pics from the episodes. I took these using Snapit Screen Capture ver 3.9 from Digeus Software. I have always wanted a screen capture program but never took the time to search one out. When this was presented to me, I thought cool I can use this for the cartoon reviews I want to do. Naturally as all things go with me, it took me nearly a month to get to the point to where I'd use it.

Now I'm on the computer constantly between home and work and I use a lot of different programs and with all things computer, many programs tend to be a pain in the butt. Not so with this program. First off the download is fast, you only need to put in your first name and email address. From there the download and install is super quick. Now the commands are insanely simple. Hit print screen, draw your box, done. The default setting is just to copy it for you to paste in a different program. But by opening the properties you can quickly change it to auto-save it to the folder of your choice, which I did. Also you can set a different key to trigger the program to take a capture. You can also change the file type that you save your captures in.

And that's it. If you need a screen capture go with this one. As I said it's fast, it's easy but it's a very good program. As you can see in my review, the pics are nice, I was quiet surprise when I first opened them. I will definitely be using it for each cartoon review I do.

Here's where you can find it HERE

I'm Cartoon Crazy

So I'm watching a few cartoons now adays and frankly they are really good. So I'm going to be talking about those too. What they do right, what they do wrong and what comics can learn from them. There are two series in particular that I'm following, they happen to be Star Wars The Clone Wars and Batman Brave and the Bold, both have just started their second season. Before we jump into the current episodes, a quick overview of my thoughts of both series.

Star Wars The Clone Wars: This is what the newest movie trilogy should have been. While those movies were overall a bitter disappointment, these cartoons have been fantastic! There isn't a bad episode among them, even--yes I'll say it--even the few episodes with Jar Jar Binks. Yes I said it. The most important characters are of course Anakin Skywalker and his new padawan Ahsoka Tano. If only they made Anakin in the movies like Anakin in this series. You would have cared about him falling the dark side, you would have felt something for him. He's an amazing character in the Clone Wars cartoon series as in, he's my favorite character. The first season just came out on DVD and if you're a Star Wars fan, do yourself a favor and pick it up, you won't be disappointed. And if you are, well frankly there's something wrong with you and I pray for your soul.

Brave and the Bold: The most refreshing thing about this series is this version of Batman is NOT the brooding, dark, psychopath that's been shoved in our faces since the Dark Knight Returns first came out. Don't get me wrong I like myself some dark and brooding Batman, but it's really nice to have a change of pace. That's one of things I like most about Batman, is that he works in so many different interpretations. This version focuses on a lighter Batman, the master detective, the master strategist, who's brain and gadgets gets him out of the worst situations. More akin to the 60s and 70s Batman or like the TV show minus the camp (well there's a bit of the camp but it's quite enjoyable). Each episode opens with a quick team up with a character not shown during the rest of the episode. After they defeat whatever villain, it cuts to the opening title scene then on to the real story which finds Batman teaming up with a different super hero (or heroes). I highly recommend this series, mixes the great stuff of Batman from your childhood, the stories and characters are fun, the animation quite enjoyable.

Now on to the episodes from last Friday night (11/20/09).

Batman Brave and the Bold Season 2 Episode 1: The second season debuted on Friday following a handful of unaired episodes from season 1. Titled "Death Race to Oblivion" we open with a great team up with Captain Marvel (not seen at all in season 1--I hope they continue to bring in new team ups).


The main story is homage the the classic Roger Corman film, Death Race 2000, Mongul comes to earth and captures the heroes Batman, Plastic Man, Green Arrow, Guy Gardner, Huntress and Plastic Man's comic side kick Woozy Winks as well as the villains the Joker, The Catwoman (donning her silver age costume), Gentlemen Ghost, and Black Manta to battle his champion, Steppenwolf in a race to be the ruler of Earth.

Naturally upon refusal, Mongul threatens to destroy all of Earth. What ensues is a classic death race as Batman's master plan unravels to save Earth and his friends. Each combatant has their own unique vehicle, with Gentlemen Ghost's dragster and Steppenwolf's war machine being my favorite.


And one of my favorite shots of the episode:


Star Wars the Clone Wars Season 2 Episode 7: We're already seven episodes into this season and progressing on a storyline started two episodes before, but this one still stands on it's own. Titled "Legacy of Terror," Jedi Master Luminara Unduli pursues Poggle the Lesser into the catacombs of Geonosis and is quickly captured by the creepy undead bugs lurking in the darkness.



This quickly turns into a homage to the Aliens movies as Anakin, Obi-wan, Commander Cody and his troopers descend into the twisted catacombs in search of their captured comrade. This episode is surprisingly scary as they really saturate it with thriller/horror themes. They even have the queen bug (again taken straight from the Alien Queen)


We are introduced to these worm things that give the queen control over a person whether its living or dead. There's quiet the comical scene where Obi-wan nearly allows Luminara to be implanted by the worm, curious to which orifice the worm will go into which follows by a nice back and forth between Anakin and himself as they bicker over which it will be. Naturally they spring into action right before leading to some great lightsaber action.



Overall a great episode, creepy and a bit scary with the same great characterization that makes this series so good (we'll talk more on that in another post).

Both Batman Brave and Bold and Star Wars the Clone Wars play each week on Friday, 7:30 for Batman and 9 for Star Wars.

And if you noticed all the great screen caps, follow my link to my next review!

So Wednesday was crazy as those of you who did stop by could plainly see. We got our books about 3pm and I literally put the last book into the sub boxes at 6:56. Thursday was spent doing all the rest of the stuff normally done on Wednesday afternoon and usually with more people that just me. So I'm quite surprised to have gotten my reading and now my reviews done. So we'll go ahead and start off with two Blackest Night tie-ins. First off Adventure Comics #4:



Now I dislike Jerry Ordway's art almost as much as Mark Bagley's art. So from the start, the issue is already half ruined for me. Now the story is not bad, it stars Superboy Prime who is one of my favorite DC villains. The problem here is that Sterling Gates is the co-writer and to me, feels like most of it is done by Gates. Mainly, the Internet gags and such didn't have the humor that was in the last issue of Legion of Three Worlds. It felt like whoever was writing it was trying to copy Legion of Three Worlds and it came across just as that. Hey maybe it was Johns and it just fell a bit flat. Otherwise it's a pretty standard super hero tie in with too much of a back story at the beginning and frankly, I just wanted more of the Conner Kent stuff from the last few issues. What I did love about this story was the Legion back up. It's stars my favorite Legion, Mysa Nal the White Witch. I've been in love with Mysa since this issue--


--which also happens to be my first issue of the Legion of Super Heroes (which is one of the reason I always call them by their real names as that's what they were referred to in this reboot). It was also my first real DC Comic. I fell in love with it instantly and went Legion nuts there after. That issue deals with the small reforming Legion going to the Sorcerer's World to get Mysa back from Mordru, where she's been held captive and tortured.

Back to Adventure Comics #4, the Legion back up story features Blok, Wildfire and Dawnstar going to the Sorcerer's World to confront/help Mysa who's story line at the end of Legion of 3 Worlds left her with Mordru's powers and a new persona, the Black Witch. I can't wait to see where they take this and I hope Levitz keeps with it.

Next up, Superman Batman #66, my favorite Blackest Night single issue tie in and it doesn't even come with a ring!
This issue stars Man-Bat, Bizarro and Black Lantern Solomon Grundy. This is pretty much just a continuation of Scott Kolin's Solomon Grundy series. But my favorite part, besides all the Bizarro speak, Frankenstein and the Bride of S.H.A.D.E.! I seriously want a Scott Kolins penned Frankenstein series. Maybe if I say it enough times it will become true. I saying it over and over in the store and people are looking at me.

Flash Rebirth #5 suffers from being late for the past three months. Don't get me wrong, it's good but I've lost the excitement I had from the last issue. This series will probably read amazing in one sitting. It'll be interesting to see if #6 actually comes out in December. Otherwise, I like the continuing story with all the speedsters and the Reverse Flash, the ending should be interesting.

Dammit, almost forgot Spider-woman #3.

I'm quite mad that this comic is so good. Madame Hydra is cool, the flying car is cool. Maleev is fantastic. Don't be putting this back on the shelves ladies and germs, it's good comics.


HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA awesome.

Well I've been trying to post for three days now and each time something happened, like one of the ancient computers giving me the dreaded blue screen of DOOM! I think that may have been a sign or a message from the Beyonder that I should cease and desist my writing but no such luck for you readers, I'm back to infect your minds.

First up this week is Warren Ellis' new Avatar mini series called SUPERGOD!

When this book was first announced, I began my tirade on Ellis, posting" finish Desolation Jones and Fell first "on every new title or issue he announced which eventually led to my being silence on his site (which made me the clear winner). Anyways as much as I'd rather see a new issue of Desolation Jones and Fell, this was a good read. It actually felt like Ellis trying to write like Grant Morrison. This new series continues his type of super hero stories he does for Avatar (Black Summer, No Hero)--deconstructing super heroes he calls it but to me he's just about how it's not fun to be a super hero. Regardless, this is his first of the Avatar super hero books I've enjoyed since the end of Black Summer. Oh and he should really finish Desolation Jones and Fell because it's a slap in the face to readers to have to wait years for a storyline to finish when you pump out issue after issue of other books.




Batman and Robin #6 despite the horrible art, I liked a lot. This would have been amazing if Quietly was still on the book. The action was great, I loved the one liners from Robin plus we get to see some character development from the kid as he feels bad for the result of his actions from the previous storyline. We get some mysterious Morrison's hints about Bruce Wayne and a cool and even more mysterious last page which would have been cooler if the artist could draw. Speaking of cool/shocking last pages, DC was the winner this week with Green Lantern Corps and Rebels both have great last pages.



Last up for new comics this week is the Batman/Doc Savage Special, which is the lead in to the new First Wave pulp characters title. The one shot is enjoyable, the writing is solid (the dialogue has some problems but I think he was trying to go for how they talked in that era) and the art is alright, but I'm not a Phil Noto fan. What I did really like was the preview for the First Wave book coming in March 2010. The Rags Morales preview art was fantastic as they ran down the characters they are planning on using including Black Canary, the Spirit, and the Blackhawks among others. Made me quite excited for it.

Finally this week:


Yeah yeah, it's written J. Michael Stryakkigaigiazikazi, and yes I swore off reading comics by him so shut up. Yes I loved this. It was great. Yes I hate that it's him. Yes I'll probably be burned at the end like normal (especially since Marvel made him mad and he flew to DC) but I wanted to be all caught up with stuff before the Siege hits. So there, it's great. I like Thor. FINE.