Last time, we lauded Bendis’ popularity. This time, we goof on his horrendously drawn-out, ultra-boring Dark Avengers/HAMMER returns story line. Them crazy sumbitches at Comic Critics!, you never know what they’ll do next.

Not much to talk about this time. I’ve let my comic pulls stack up for a couple of weeks at my LCS, something that is becoming distressingly easier and easier to do. I’ve even cut my pull list substantially so I could start downloading more off of Comixology (as a MUCH needed space-saving attempt), but I often can’t even work up the energy to do that.

By far the best comic I’ve read in recent months has been Kate Beaton’s Hark! A Vagrant, a hardcover collection of her web comic of the same name. It’s a brilliantly funny collection that casts a much wider net than your average web comic, skewering all of American (and pre-American) history. It’s great to read a comic that actually teaches you things as it entertains. I haven’t been able to say that since Reed Richards taught me how far away the moon is from the Earth, many years ago.

For instance, did you know Jules Verne had a problem with fellow science fiction writer H.G. Wells? Me neither! Turns out Verne didn’t like how Wells would just make up outlandish technology for his stories (time machines, Martian spaceships, yadda yadda) instead of basing them in real-world science. Can you imagine the Twitter wars those two would have today?

Like Josh, I worked in a comic book store for many years. It was a much better place than the exaggerated store of the strip, but it was a business of modest means and clientele that invested heavily in the 90s speculator market. So on any given day, I might spend a good two or three hours in the back room, watching the monitor for customers who never came, surrounded by a veritable mountain of Archer & Armstrongs, Brigades, and copies of the Death of Superman. So sometimes I wonder how many of my little jokes are actually relevant to anyone else out there who’s worked in retail comics, and how many serve only to amuse me and my unique brand of nostalgia.

Quotable quotes from the world of comics:

“I’ve often said I miss text on covers, but I mean as part of the actual cover. On [Avengers Academy #27] we get the idiotic Avengers vs. X-Men shit on the top (why is the “It’s Coming” in quotation marks? is someone saying it, or are they being ironic?), but we also get the side bar telling us that the Runaways are guest-starring in this issue, which I guess we needed because it’s not like they’re right there on the cover…can’t people look at the cover and figure out that someone is guest-starring, even if they’re not familiar with the Runaways? Because if they’re not, telling us that the Runaways are guest-starring isn’t going to help.”
Greg Burgas, Comics Should Be Good

This comic features a couple pet peeves of mine that pop up from time to time. One of them is super villains being kept in jail in their costumes, and the other (which doesn’t happen as often, but enough to be worth goofing on) is villains who don’t have any mental problems ending up in Arkham Asylum, usually in splash pages and group shots and the like. Penguin was the funnier one to use, but this more often happens to guys like Killer Croc and Clayface.

(Then again, depending on who’s writing Croc at the time, he might actually be insane. But characterization inconsistency is a whole ‘nother topic.)

Quotable quotes from the world of comics:

“That said, I seriously question the wisdom of using Lord Deathstrike in [X-Men #26] before Jason Aaron has even finished his first arc in Wolverine, and at a stage when he’s still being used in that book as an unstoppable newcomer.  Once Wolverine’s beaten him, then he can have a sword fight with Jubilee.”
Paul O’Brien, House to Astonish