It’s the beginning of the fucking New Year, and I can’t think of a better way to drag the Year of Mayan Doom slithering into the world than with some comic books. Fuck if we like our myths and narratives and actions of creation, let us slather it in some sequential artwork and the occasional uncomfortably inappropriate latex-sliding-up-ass panel of horndog High Heaven.

Let us do it together in this Year of Advancing Oblivion. These are the comic books I’m feeling this week. Interested In. Intrigued By. What are you picking up?

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Defenders #2
Despite worshipping at my scuzzy altar of Matt Fraction, I wasn’t too high on the prospects of a Defenders title. It seemed forced, and I’ve never really dug Terry Dodson. Thankfully for me, supplication to my Heroes is a constant. (And my brother bought it despite me saying I wasn’t interested.) Bam! What a fucking title. It feels the closest to Casanova-quality Fraction in a Marvel skein in a long, long goddamn time. A bungling band of depressives and egomaniacs battling against Biblical Myths is the premise. The execution is witty and glowingly metatextual. If you skipped this shit last month, unpass on it. Yeah, unpass.

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The Jeff Lemire Corner
Speaking of fanboy status, two titles are dropping from Jeff Lemire this week. Oh I love him so. It’s not just because we share the writhing conduit of Canadian hemoglobin within our veins. No sir. No ma’am. The good sir is dropping Sweet Tooth #29 as well as Animal Man #5. Lemire knows how to bring the horror into the story and wrap it around some beautiful mundanity. I insist, Chrome. Mundanity is a word. Not to be forgotten are the fantastic pencilers he is working with. Travel Foreman is particularly revelatory to my ignorant ass, and his work on Animal Man was some of my favorite of last year.

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Fatale #1
Controversy! While Brubaker and Phillips often ignite the Beast Mode Transformation of dynamite collaboration, I wasn’t too thrilled about Criminal: Archie Comics last year. I didn’t hate it, but it clunked in its conclusion and left me with a resounding eh! Even still, I’m very enthusiastic about snagging their latest dropping. Isn’t it great when you can watch two creators work together over the years? Marking their highs and their lows, their evolution and changing expressions? Almost, almost brings a tear to my eyes. Anyways, behold Fatale! Warren Ellis digs it, provided a preview.  Noir meets horror meets a new publisher in Image Comics. Yes please.

(more…)

Oh humans, bless you and your endless propensity for strangeness, your preoccupation with minutia, your ability to make real life surpass fiction, and your beautiful nerdiness. The podcast Radiolab, which is really good if you’ve never listened to it, had a great episode last week where they discussed a particularly interesting maneuver made by Marvel’s action figure division some years ago.

After discovering essentially a loophole in tax laws, two Marvel employees convinced them that if they could get their X-Men figurines classified as “toys” instead of “dolls,” they could manufacture and import them for half the price. The only catch: to classify them as toys, they had to convince a court that the characters being represented were not human. That’s right Professor X: after all that talk, not even Marvel acknowledges you as a real person! How wonderfully devious. It’s 20 minutes, give it a listen, it’s incredibly interesting. Even Bryan Singer weighs in.

Near Mint Condition. The comics I’m interested in this week. I have poor taste, help it out by recommending titles from your own brown paper bag.

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DMZ #72
The final issue of DMZ drops today, and I’m not caught up in time to check it out. There’s a greasy sadness lining my armpits where there should be anticipatory precipitation. DMZ’s a bit of a special comic book of mine, having followed it for the better part of five years through curious denials and momentary binges. Last week I finished up yet another semester of graduate school, and the first time I did was crack open the latest TPB, Collective Punishment.

Wood and Burchielli have guided the reader through a gorgeous journey into the perpetually not-too-hard-to-believe second American Civil War. From allusions of the Iraqi War, to a stark fucking knife into the post-Obama disillusionment, the comic has been a guide post on our cheesy poof-covered culture and political descent into Oblivion. I’m going to miss the warmth of the comic. The warmth of finding a creator who can make sense of the nonsense in a way that I wish I could, if I only had the inclination or talent. Not only that, but finding solace in knowing someone else is feeling the same as you do, in these Bananas Times.

I’ll miss this fucking comic book.

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Secret Avengers #20
Speaking of final issues, tomorrow is also the final Warren Ellis-fueled Secret Avengers. I’ve dug on his stand-alone blasts of typical Ellisian madness filtered through Marvel’s Rogue Avengers team. Not to be confused with the variety of other Rogue Teams the publisher has, such as Uncanny X-Force. What do these motherfuckers do when they run into one another during mutual covert operations? Especially since it seems like Beast, if not Wolverine, is on all of them.

Ellis is joined by Alex Maleev for this final installment, and that doubles my pleasure. Watch as I writhe in his pencil-powered-glory. Cramming crayons and pastel finger paints into my pants, trying to slather myself in the powers that grant him such utility. Yes, Maleev! Yes!

As I was saying, I’ll miss Ellis and his one-offs.

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Spaceman #3
Boom! Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso are brining the crackling science-fiction glory in this mini-series. Of nine issues. Does that make it a maxi-series? Maxiseries? Quasi-maxi-post-mini-series. Something of that such. We got ourselves here a failed Mars program, Dystopian nightmares, riffage on the depravity of our Empty Celebrity Syndrome culture and more. All in a series you would have snagged the initial issue of for one measly dollar.

Jump aboard this pig before she’s blowing up in a glorious tits-science-American-Nightmare fireworks display high in the atmosphere of our Organic Spaceship. You’ll be happy you did. Or you’ll be unhappy you did and keep it yourself. Thereby ensuring my much needed ignorance.

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Ultimate Comics Ultimate Avengers Ultimate Time! #5
Jonathan Hickman. Esad Ribic. The Ultimate Universe. Short choppy sentences. Yo I have to be honest I just watched this video and I can’t get it out of my head while I’m trying to type. It’s difficult. Anyways yeah if you can survive that I love you. The Force is strong in your loins. Perhaps you were birthed up by the Force itself in some shitty sand-scarred planet to Shmi and now you have to podrace all day? Sand storms are very dangerous! Shit we’re off the tracks. Way off the tracks, and it don’t matter! Why? ‘Cause I got carte blanche! Just like Hickman. Just like Hickman does when it comes to the Ultimate Universe. [Phew.] It’s glorious to see the dude unchained from the typical bureaucratic nonsense that everything in the Mainland Marvel Monstrosity has to be funneled through. “Oh yeah, Hickman! You wanted to have Rachel Grey join FF? Well uh yeah here’s the thing she’s in the Avengers X-Cepted storyline this year, and next year she’s going to be in Fright Night: Vampire’s Children Crusade and then…and then…and then…” and so on.

Dude gets to play for keeps in the Little Universe On The Side, and it shows. Destroy Valhalla? Sure. Bring back Reed Richards from his heinous Jeph Loeb penned death? Double sure. Tweak everything out in a quasi-Authority vibe and give Caffeine Powered a raging dork-on? Filling in the applicable circle with violent pencil-on-paper force.

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Those are the titles I’m most interested in this week. I’m sure I’ll arrive at home with a panache of other fillings to faithfully frak my wallet’s chasms. What are interested in this week? Hit me.

Well this is fucking cool. TMNT co-creator, current Heavy Metal editor, and all around kewl dood Kevin Eastman has just decided that he wants to auction something quite sizable off on eBay. That something being the entire contents of his office, as is, Redbull cans and all.

Not only have I never heard of something like this (am I being oblivious) I’m sure Eastman has some really fucking great stuff in there, especially for us TMNT fans. Not to mention, according to the item description, a hefty box of porn and a signed Elizabeth Hurley Austin Powers photo. Bizarre! Check it out, and if you’re feeling saucy and rich get your bid in before the auction ends on January 4th.

Glory be to you, comic book friends. It’s 10:42 on Tuesday evening as I burp this out of a chemical-coated caffeine ravaged mind, and I’m writing it with a bit of a grin. ‘Tis the season for days off and leisurely loitering as we go into a collective slumber until January 2.

How are you? Not rhetorical, how you doing? Hit me. This is Near Mint Condition, the comics column where I talk about this week’s releases that I’m either snagging, wish I was snagging, or am curious about. Per usual drop a line on what you’re digging, I’m always looking for new hotness in my greasy mitts.

Let’s party.

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Fantastic Four #601
What a fucking year it’s been for the Fantasti-Family. So yeah Johnny Storm bit the bullet and has recovered in an admirable amount of time. Though! Though!, if you’ve read #600 you know he did in fact die like a zillion times only to return. Even though dude rallied in something around ten months, his death earlier in the year is still one of my favorite caped occurrences of 2011. Damn man, just thinking about it gets the eyes all Cutting Onions-esque. My therapist says I “feel big”, leave me alone.

Hickman’s F4 journey spouts a lot of philosophical wunder-rock, but when you cut it to the core the title is really about the importance of family. While some without souls and dead eyes can call it hackneyed, I’m feeling it. Reminds me a lot of what Kurt Vonnegut used to espouse about the importance of having an extended family to enjoy your blip on the Blue Marble.

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Charles Burns’ 12 Beers of the Apocalypse
No, not a comic book. It’s a light week for me, as I am awash in stupidity and an inability to follow the indie market. So instead of blathering about the newest issue of Savage Dragon which I have neither read nor care to read, let’s talk like comic book alcoholics. How is this for some cross-promotion. As everyone knows, the scientifically adroit and technologically advance Mayans predicted that the world was going to end next year. As astute fans of myth and nonsense, many of us have come to accept this to come to pass. Speaking of this, if you are one of those people please send me your money. You won’t be needing it come Oblivion, and I’m going to have student loans to pay off shortly.

Where was I? Oh yeah! Fucking Charles Burns. The good Burns has teamed up with Fantagraphics and Seattle’s Elysian Brewing Company to bring the 12 Beers of the Apocalypse. Every month will find a new beer dropping, complete with artwork from Burns’ Black Hole.

This is fucking awesome.

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Memorial #1
The creator of iZombie, Chris Johnson is dropping a new title this week. Memorial! I read about it a couple of months back on io9, and Johnson’s description sold me on it fucking immediately. When asked to spit a bit about its premise, he commented that the “bumper sticker pitch is “Doctor Who meets Sandman meets Hayao Miyazaki.”

If that doesn’t sound like something worth chancing a few bucks on, I’m frankly not sure what would be. It’s like a blender of geek culture revelry, isn’t it?

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Batman Incorporated: Leviathan Strikes #1
Let me be blunt: Grant Morrison’s final issue of Batman INC before the DC Universe was awash in rebooty-ness was fucking dreadful. It was some inane VR nonsense. The worst sort of virtual reality blathering since that X-Files episode FPS. Where Mulder is totally like in the Lawnmower Man or some shit. Anyways. Batman INC is thundering back and its being helmed by Sir Grant and Cameron Stewart in this thickie of a comic book. Nice. And thick. A thickie.

I’m not really certain if I’m going to enjoy this, since I’m beginning to adjust to the Snyder/Capullo take on the rebooted Batman. (Issue #4 out this week.) They’ve hemmed the title down, taking out an intertextuality that was frankly fucking mindboggling by the end of it. Pruned it down to some solid detective work, gadgetry, and a writhing City as Character.

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A Potpourri Of Capes and Carnage
There’s a bunch of cape action dropping tomorrow that my fat-headed, chubby-gutted self is going to snag. I can’t help it. I grew up fat and detached, I lose myself in the superpowers. BPRD: Hell On Earth Russia #4 is coming, and it is full of awesomeness that I have heard about but not directly experienced. File under: the TPB purchase will redeem me. Invincible Iron Man #511 is coming, and goddamn if I don’t love me some Stark on Mandarin action. We could be finally be seeing the culmination of Fraction’s seemingly forever-plotted showdown.  Jim Lee and Geoff Johns continue on their not-really-good-at-all-but-not-awful Justice League relaunch with issue #4. There’s also new issues of Invincible, Wolverine and the X-Kids, Ghostbusters (yes), Uncanny X-Force and Sonic. Big fucking loot week!, and I haven’t even named all the bullsquash I’ll be expunging imperial credits on.

What are you lads and lasses grabbing? Hit me.

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For more of my patented stupidity, find me at Omega Level.

So, as I mentioned earlier in my Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol review, as a special treat the IMAX theater I was in was treated to the special 6 minute prologue of the upcoming The Dark Knight Rises, in full glorious 70mm IMAX. Christopher Nolan did the same thing with The Dark Knight, running the Joker bank heist that opens the film in front of I Am Legend. Much like that clip, this one is devoted to introducing the character of Bane. Light spoilers ahead, but I won’t spoil any of the good stuff, promise.

This clip is another heist sequence, though of a very different sort, and if nothing else sets the tone for how large this third movie could be. It’s definitely not set in Gotham, and doesn’t even appear to be in the US. It involves a truly incredible action sequence aboard a plane. I won’t say anymore about that, but believe me: it’s like nothing I had seen before, especially since it was definitely NOT CGI, and Tom Hardy looked like he put himself into some crazy situations for this part.

Speaking of Hardy’s Bane, he looks and sounds quite terrifying, the mask looks great. He also has packed on some serious bulk mass, and looks almost unnaturally large, which is exactly what you’d want for Bane. One complaint that many people have leveled at the prologue is that through the mask (which provides a vocoder like modulation) and Hardy’s english accent, it’s a little hard to understand everything he says. I found the effect unsettling instead of annoying, but I know other’s feel differently.

On the whole however, it made me even more excited for a movie that I was already really pumped for. The prologue ends with about a minute of sizzle footage from the rest of the film, and it all looks epic and great, including some looks at Anne Hathaway’s Selina Kyle, and the last shot will definitely leave you gasping. Seek out an IMAX theater and see this thing. Can’t wait ’til July.

Oh, wow this is so incredibly 90s it’s amazing. In 1992 Stan Lee enlisted Rob Liefeld and Todd McFarlane to create a superhero in only twenty minutes based only on a name of Lee’s creation for some sort of VHS collection. Though Overkill never ended up becoming a reality beyond this cover, it’s a really fun watch, and is in a way incredibly defining of Marvel comics in the 90s.

I know a lot of people aren’t quite as onboard (i.e. they hate him), but I like Liefeld (I actually got him and Stan Lee to sign my X-Force #1 at NYCC this year) and the ways he and McFarlane and others pushed Stan Lee out of his comfort zone at Marvel, and really layed the groundwork for where it is today. The video is also cool to see how quickly these guys can whip out a fully fleshed out character, not to mention McFarlane’s cream-colored cardigan. Check out parts 2 and 3 as well.

Via io9

There’s! There’s! There’s comic books dropping this week. As per every week, lest the Good Lords strike me dead. I can’t fathom living in a world without the weekly comic book shuffle. Snag the rags, dissect the diegesis and party until my pants come off. This is Near Mint Condition, the column where I blather about the funny books dropping this week that are keeping my sanity afloat.

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Spaceman #2
Brian Azzarello and Edwardo Risso are dropping their second installment of the dark, entertaining science fiction book. Did you miss the initial issue? C’mon man! Or woman! It was only one buck. That’s like, inconsequential at this point in our wonderful times. That sort of deal is enough to get a thousand-ravaged Soccer Mom keeping in your sternum. The only problem is that it was a comic book and not some limited edition Fuzzy Gender Enforcing Doll. It also didn’t hurt that it was madcap wonky fun.

Yeah, I’m just combining words right now.

Shazam!

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Haunt #19
What the hell is Haunt? I have no goddamn idea. Why am I recommending it? ‘Cause it’s a new creative team jumping aboard, and the diabolical bastard penning the story is none other than Joe Casey. My boy Casey has been pumping out issues of Butcher Baker this year which are seven shades of fucking insanity. It’s a slow comic book week here for me (yeah I’m too far behind to read Fables #111, lay off) so I think I’m going to rub my fingers across the swollen glory of these pages.

If I remember. There’s a good chance I’ll forget, too busy oogling a life-size Buffy cut-out or some shit.

Seriously though, does anyone know what the fuck Haunt is?

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Ultimate Comics Ultimately Ultimates #4
The comic book with the worst title in the Marvel branch is also home to some of the most delicious, nutritious, and entertaining superhero team-up time you’re going to find anywhere. Fuck the Lee/Johns Justice League reboot. This is the hotness. Esad Ribic over Lee’s stale-assed pencils any day! Any day. You disagree? Meet me outside. I’m the kid in the fudge-rifted fruit of the loom undies. Eyes drunk with caffeinated oblivion. Just wait until my heart stops momentarily as it does once a day, and kick me in the ribs until I yield. You’ll be doing me a favor.

No seriously though this comic is fantastic, and since it is in the Ultimate universe, Hickman is given carte blanche to do whatever the fuck he wants. It smells like Ellis’ Authority, and looks like Heaven’s Bosoms. I’ll take it.

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Shaman Alan Moore’s Future Shocks Completed Edition
Big-ups to Douglas Wok over at Comic Alliance for bringing this bastard to my attention. Back in the wayback days when I was but a nascent tickle in my dad’s testicles (one I’m certain more than one person has wished he never answered), Moore wrote a great amount of short one-off science fiction stories for 2000 AD. Stapled into the gaping cavity is the entire collection. Santa Claus is coming soon guys. If you’ve been a good little soldier for Capitalist Jesus, I suggest you ask for this little puppy. I know I will be.

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Around The Horn:
Everyone is continuing to cheer for Daredevil, whose sixth issue is coming out this week. I may have to discard my antipathy forged in the fires of the first issue of Waid’s reboot and check it out. Also from Marvel comes the Kathryn Immonen penned Avengers: Thor: Origins: For The Movie Tie-In Duh #1. I don’t read the title, but Angel And Faith #4 features Rebekah Isaacs on art. That alone is tempting. Super Dinosaur #6 has dinosaurs…super-ing? I’m not sure.

Anyways I’m done blathering. What (better) comic books are you snagging this week?

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For more of my utter drivel, hit up Omega Level.

Gobble, gobble, gobble! How’s it going? We’re getting ready to celebrate LOL Sucker Indians Day! You know the one I talk about! We show thanks for everything by generally behaving like we really don’t appreciate anything. Packing in an inordinate amount of food, telling Uncle Steve he better pass that fucking drum stick, and then smashing Old Ladies in the nose for a good Black Friday deal.

Makes the human spirit sing!

Thankfully we have mofuckin’ comic books to hide within. Crack the spine, it shall provide an escape.

What are you reading this week?

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Fantastic Four #600, Mashed Potatoes
This comic book is the goddamn mashed potatoes of my Thanksgiving Week comic book loot. Johnny Storm bit the bullet back at the beginning of the year in one of the more poignant deaths. To me. It seems like he’s going to be resurrected. Poor Hickman. Like all writers, slave to the Editorial Mandate. It’s all going down in this enormous comic book. 100 pages of new content! Like mashed potatoes I’m going to plow through a considerable amount. Belly bulging, gas amassing. I’ll continue on! Nothing can stop me! Just you try.

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DMZ #71, That Cousin That You Miss
DMZ is coming out this week, and I haven’t read the latest arc. I’m sitting on a TPB that I need to march through. To arms! This title is like that cousin U really miss and want to catch up with at dinner. She’s not here, she’s out building houses in some storm-torn neighborhood. Or maybe Occupying Somewhere. It’s been forever though, and I’m really hoping she’s not just ducking me since I stared at her bust a couple of years ago when she accidentally blasted her breasts with gravy. It wasn’t an audible sigh, okay? It was a groan. No shit it wasn’t that. It was a concerned murmur. Deborah, I miss you. Come back! It isn’t weird, we’re second cousins.

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Secret Avengers #19, Stuffed Mushrooms. Oh Shit I Love This!
Secret Avengers is Warren Ellis’ currently mainstream comic book wunder. It’s a small bite sized morsel every month. A stand-alone issue that takes you through the Marvel Universe courtesy of the warped Ellisian logic that us fanboys of him have come to know and love. This shit right here are those little stuffed mushrooms my Aunt makes. I can mow them in a few seconds, pausing to belch little bready bits into the atmosphere. I’ve forgot that I ate the son of a bitch almost as soon as enamel-bones stop clicking. Don’t mean I don’t dig it though. Small. Tiny. Enjoyable.

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Infinite #4, Your Roided Out Football Playing Nephew
Rob Liefeld and Robert Kirkman’s title drops this week. This title is totally the nephew who is in high school. He’s totally roided out and plays a mean linebacker. He’ll never get into a D1 school, and he’s one awful pivot away from blowing out that loosey-goosey ACL. He’s awesome though. He looks like a physical aberration. Pecs for days, raging eyes. He’ll talk too loudly about some broad he was “totally boning on” while your sister looks on aghast at her son. Insanity, physically disproportionate nonsense. Definitely a Liefeld comic book.

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Wolverine And His Slap Ass Kids #2, Turkey Son!
I don’t like turkey very much, but I appreciate it. I think that’s the best way to describe the first issue of Wolvie and the Kiddos. The script was a nice work of exposition to bring readers into the situation. However the artwork wasn’t my speed. Cartoony, a little over the top. Veiny bullshit in the turkey guts. Just close your eyes and try and enjoy the taste. God, if I had every time I’ve heard that in a bathroom stall. Teary-eyed, telling myself it’s just to get Video Game X and getting it over with.

Where was I?

Oh Yeah! Turkey.

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Other Bullshit On The Table:
All-Star Western #3 is dropping! That’s the delicious shit my brother mows on, and I can’t grasp enjoying. Stuffing or some shit. He’s smiling and I’m like “Dude that was pulled out of the Turkey’s ass-cardiac-piece. Dark Horse Presents #6 is coming out, and it’s featuring a new story by Fábio Moon. I know I’ll forget to snag it tomorrow, so this is the side dish that I always forget to plow down gullet. Something like the asparagus or something. I’m too busy barely-not-dry-heaving mashed potatoes to notice those. Finally there’s a panoply of titles coming out involving your Iron Men, Flashes, Thors and others of the world.

Well enough with my horribly forced conceit. What are you buying this week?

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I kick this stupidity-nonsense-time over at Omega Level too. Come hang out. I have treats and no pants.

In the dismal dusk that accompanies every earlier falling light comes the opportunity to snuggle up with a comic book. Pull the blankets over yourself, dust the Chez-It crumbs off your chest and get your funnies on. As the Earth tilts slightly, ever so slightly, the temperature here on the Eastern seaboard dips. Not even climate change can prevent that. With the dip and the tilt comes the desire to over-analyze panels of Iron Man’s remarkably phallic repulsor rays rocketing off Thor’s chiseled chest. By myself. With you. Don’t matter.

Near Mint Condition. My pull-list for the week.

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Justice League #3
My exact reaction to the first two issues of Justice League has been as follows. Issue #1: Sweet Christ spread ass across a cracker, I don’t need this shit. I don’t need it one lick, let alone two. Jim Lee! Someone give his tired ass posturing and posing and panels CPR, they dead yo! Issue #2: Damn man Lee’s still got some dynamism in him. Superman’s costume ain’t that bad. Aiight, aiight, I’m enjoying the interaction here. Witty banter. Fun enough.

Where my allegiances will fall for the third issue is anyone’s fair guess.

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Northlanders #46
As the temperature tips, the beards grow. Ancient swords and horns of plenty resound in our heads, as we pray to Oden and all of his minions. We are but Vikings temporarily tamed before the grand fall. Brian Wood’s rocking out with Paul Azaceta for part five of his Icelandic trilogy. As the comic book closes in and in on its end, the storytelling continues to swell and riff on all the tropes you’ve come to know and love in the series. Blood. Betrayal. Politics. Fucking. Existential contemplation. More fucking. More blood.

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Morning Glories #14
When is the last time this comic book dropped? I’m having a hard time keeping track of both its releases and its plot. That’s one problem for such a knotty naughty comic book. Spencer and Eisma’s LOST meets Saved By The Bell brings the mysteries, but they’re such a multitude that it serves the title a disservice to read it one issue at a time.

Wait for the trade, crack it open, and let the vapours rub against you. Let the evil in, it’ll suffocate you with the honeyed-scented glimmer of malaise. (I have no idea what that last sentence even remotely means, but the 64 ounces of Mountain Dew in my blood makes everything seem very a-okay.) (more…)