Character of the Week: Larfleeze

Don't worry... I'm still sane and all the turkey I had last night hasn't altered my frame of mind. This week marks the return of the post: Character of the Week and the character of the week this week is... Larfleeze. I never thought I would EVER care for Larfleeze because I hated him in the Agent Orange storyline in Green Lantern, but this week Geoff Johns changed all that. In Green Lantern#48 Larfleeze is one of the highlights and in my opinion there is no better way to quickly get a reader emotionally invested in a character than have an issue or two devoted to a particular character. A lot of cool stuff happened with Larfleeze's character in GL#48 and some humorous stuff happens as well. With that I have a new favorite character! :)

Blackest Night#5 REVIEW (Most of the DC Universe... DIE!)

SOME SERIOUSLY MAJOR MAJOR AND I MEAN MAJOR SPOILERS ARE IN THIS REVIEW SO IF YOU HAVEN'T READ THIS ISSUE YET DO NOT READ THIS REVIEW.

Blackest Night#5

Writer: Geoff Johns

Artist: Ivan Reis w/ inks by Oclair Albert and Joe Prado

Price: $3.99

Publisher: DC Comics

A month ago after reading Issue#4 I asked myself, "How can this get any worse???" Well after reading this... Geoff Johns has easily shown us that it has gotten much, much worse. At the beginning Johns gets your hopes up by having all the Lantern Corps leaders in one place and you think, "Alright! Something good is going to happen!" So for a while you have a happy feeling but then Johns takes that away from you and plunges you back into the bad news. Not complaining... that's the sign of a good writer. So Nekron, the lord of the dead basically, has been risen by Black Hand. Nekron has risen all of Coast City, which is about 7 million people, and things don't look very good. So then a bunch of heroes and all of the Lantern Corps leaders come together and it looks like things are going to be fixed and well. But then... Bruce Wayne is risen from the grave. Then Nekron says that he has connections to everyone who has died and came back. Then commands those who have died and come back to life... (SPOILER!!!)... to die. So we're talking a huge amount of the heroes have just been killed and turned into black lanterns. Superman, Wonder Woman, Kid Flash, Green Arrow, Superboy, Animal Man, and others have died and Hal Jordan and Barry Allen are next...

I. Love. This. Series. I'm gonna come out and say it... this could possibly be the BEST event comic book EVER. Blackest Night is better than Secret Invasion, Civil War, and House of M combined... times five. Seriously if you aren't reading this series you need to go to your local comic book store and buy the issues that have come out so far. Now. You may be asking yourself, "Why does this guy love Blackest Night so much?" I love Blackest Night because it has you emotionally invested in all of the characters involved with the event. You care for them and wonder what's going to happen to them. Plus the heroes act like heroes. They don't bite people's heads off, or kill people, or rape anybody, etc. Geoff Johns knows how to torture the characters he writes and his fans, which is the sign of a good writer.

Ivan Reis' art is great. I would be remiss if I didn't praise his art. For what he does on this book he does really well. His art is spooky, creepy, etc. His art works nicely with the whole story of Blackest Night. The only complaint I have is that there are two inkers working on Reis' art. I understand that they have two inkers working on the art to get it out on the deadline. That's fine and I understand that, but a times the art looked different and a little inconsistant because both Oclair Albert and Joe Prado have different take on Reis' art, but that's just a minor complaint. Otherwise Blackest Night is my favorite book now and I can't wait to see the outcome of this story. DC has yet to disappoint me with this series, so DC: keep up the good work!

Rating: A

Amazing Spider-Man#612 REVIEW (The Gauntlet Begins!!!)

Amazing Spider-Man#612

Writer: Mark Waid

Artist: Paul Azaceta

Price: $3.99

Publisher: Marvel Comics

The Gauntlet has begun! All of Spidey's classic and most deadly villains are coming back and I am totally on board! ...This is about the when Marvel gets me pumped up for something and they fail to live up to the hype. Example: Mary Jane's return, I was sooooo happy, but Marvel was only teasing me and did little to nothing with her return. Chameleon came back! Cool! That could be a cool story, but it turned out to be one of the worst Spider-Man stories I've ever read. Ooh! Steve Rogers is coming back!!! Awesome!!! I stopped buying Reborn at #2 because it was boring me to tears, wasn't worth $4, and quite frankly... there was MUCH better stuff out there. I could go on but it's time to talk about ASM#612. When I first heard about The Gauntlet I thought, "Finally! The old but good villains are returning!" Because I spent a majority of my childhood living off of ASM reprints that my dad gave me and having loved the old villains I was stoked for this new storyline. It was even better when I heard that Mark Waid would kick off the first few issues of this story. After the sucky Black Cat arc and the extremely tedious Guggenheim arc I was desperate for a good Spider-Man story (I even started reading the older Ultimate Spider-Man issues and those classic ASM reprints). I did enjoy last week's issue by the way. Did Waid give me what I longed for? For the most part, yes.

In this issue Electro returns and Waid does a really nice job writing the character of Electro. The inner monologue of Electro was really cool and I gave you a good feel of the character and how he thinks and what his life is like. One of the coolest part of the book is when Electro takes a stand against The DB! and Dexter Bennett on T.V. and this results in people following his beliefs. I was surprised by how much humor was in the book. Waid does a nice job writing Spider-Man's/Peter Parker's inner thoughts and doesn't take it too far.

Azaceta's Spider-Man drawings reminded me of how artist-extraordinaire Ross Andru would draw Spider-Man and since I grew up on reprints of ASM this was pretty cool to see. His new Electro design is cool, but I personally liked the old-school costume he had. The art is nice, but nothing to get crazy about.

The only problem with this book that I had was that it didn't really generate the exciting feeling I was expecting. That could just be because the story just started and hasn't really gotten anywhere yet, so hopefully that will change and this story will be more interesting and more heart-pounding. I can't wait to see where this story goes and what it for our favorite web-slinger.

Rating: B+

Deadpool#17 REVIEW (Deadpool... an X-Man?!?!?)

Deadpool#17

Writer: Daniel Way

Artist: Paco Medina w/ inks by Juan Vlasco

Price: $2.99

Publisher: Marvel Comics

So here we have... Woah woah woah! What? You're actually doing more than one review a week?!?!? Uh... yeah... Is this the same blog??? I believe it is. Uh... guys? Can I just do this review? Oh fine... Wait! Why aren't you reviewing the greatest effin book of the week: Batman#693? I totally dug the Tony Daniel art! XDXDXDXD!!! Sorry... I didn't like Battle for the Cowl... YOU DIDN'T?!?!?!? I didn't either... What's wrong with u guyz??? Do you guys have an off-switch? I'm trying to review a book I liked here. Well we HAD one... Hey! Don't pin that on me bro! Guys! Can you both shut up?!? Naw dood! We're gonna help u do da review! Yeah! You never let us help with your reviews! There's a reason for that... What did you say? Uh, nothing. So do we get to help you? Fine. Just as long as you don't bug me too much. Yay! YAY!

So in the previous issue Deadpool decided to become an X-man, so Cyclops offers him a position until they figure out what to do with him. So then later Deadpool tells them that he's going to assassinate Ellis Kincaid... and then the x-doods are all, like, "Oh Snap! We gotta stop him!" So then at the beginning of the issue Deadpool attempts to kill him and Domino (meow)... That was... unnecessary... Hey I wuz just tellin' u guyz what I thought of her. ... So moving on Domino shoots some lights down from a far away thwarting Deadpool's plans of assassination. What does thwart mean? That's too big a word for my vocabulary. Oh and 'vocabulary' isn't? Guys! Seriously! I'm trying to get this done! Oh, sorry dood. Keep going... Thanks. So then Domino and Deadpool meet up later and then she invites him to her motel room lucky son of a- would you STOP interrupting me?!? Seriously. I think we've already found out how you feel about Domino by now. Then at the motel room Deadpool and Domino talk and Deadpool keeps telling himself, "Please don't be a hallucination... please don't be a hallucination...", which I thought was pretty funny.

What I thought was interesting was- Page 19, panel 2. Um... what was that? Just tellin' you what my favorite part of the book was... I was also trying a different color scheme... well what I was going to say was that I liked how some of the humor was not just heavily put on Deadpool. We also find out that Deadpool is scared of cows and chickens. Then Wolverine says that the X-Men won't find him at a farm. I enjoyed that too. zzzzzzzzzzzzz. Throughout the whole issue a lot of humor appears and is truely a fun ride. Both the story and art is great. This book is one of the more consistantly good Marvel books out there right now.

Rating: B

... huh? Wha---? The review's over already...? Yup. Do you think he'll let us help him with his review of Amazing Spider-Man#611? Maybe... guess we'll have to wait and see...

Green Lantern Corps#42 REVIEW (Another one bites the dust...)

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS! READ AHEAD WITH CAUTION IF YOU HAVE NOT READ THIS ISSUE YET! FOR THOSE WHO READ THIS ISSUE... I HOPE YOU ENJOY THE REVIEW!
Green Lantern Corps#42

Writer: Peter J. Tomasi

Artist: Patrick Gleason w/ inks by Rebecca Buchman and Tom Nguyen

Price: $2.99

Publisher: DC Comics

Peter J. Tomasi sure knows how to torture the characters and the fans doesn't he? Tomasi gets you quickly emotionally invested in the characters and then he breaks your heart when bad things happen to your favorite characters, which is the sign of a good writer. Throughout the whole issue the Green Lanterns keep getting pummeled with bad news after bad news after bad news. First the Black Lanterns all gather to destroy the green lantern power battery. When I saw that double splash-page of all the Black Lanterns heading towards the power battery I said, "Holy $#%^! How are the good guys gonna get out of this?" The remaining good guys fight off the black lanterns and it's pretty cool. Then... Tomasi does something I didn't see coming at all... I'll talk about that later on.

Patrick Gleason continues to show that he is one of the best artists out there. All of the splash-pages and battle scenes are drawn beautifully. I hope Gleason stays on GLC for a looooooong time because he's in my Top 5 current artists right now. I can't say anything about the art other than what I've already said.

Now for the part that EVERYONE will be talking about. So towards the end of the book Kyle Rayner takes the alpha lantern battery and this attracts a lot of the black lanterns. Then the detonation of the power battery is activated, killing Rayner and thousands (hopefully) of black lanterns. This scene broke my heart because Kyle Rayner was just starting to be one of my favorite characters. I even cried a little... We're only halfway through Blackest Night guys... it's only gonna get worse from here unfortunately. That aside... Rayner's death is one of the better deaths I've seen in comic books in a long time. He didn't die in vain at all and was a true hero. I can hardly wait for the next issue to come and see the reactions of especially Gardner and Soranik. We all know Gardners reaction is going to have some anger in it...

Rating: A

X-Men vs. Agents of Atlas#2 (Why is Agents of Atlas my favorite Marvel book?)

X-Men vs. Agents of Atlas#2

Writer: Jeff Parker

Artists: Carlo Pagulayan, Gabriel Hardman, Chris Samnee, and Carlos Rodrieguez w/ inks by Jason Paz, Hardman, Samnee, and Terry Pallot

Price: $3.99

Publisher: Marvel Comics

So here we have the second and last part of the X-Men vs Agents of Atlas mini-series. This has to be the best Marvel mini-series I've read in a loooooong time. Jeff Parker yet again shows us just how well he can write superhero teams: pretty darn well. In fact in my opinion Parker is the best at writing superhero teams currently. When certain writers write teams poorly *coughbrianmichaelbendiscough* Parker comes along and shows everyone how it's done. He has the teams working together, helping each other, planning ahead, etc. With each issue of Agents of Atlas I read I slowly become more emotionally attached to each member of the team. When I first read AoA I thought, "Who the heck are Namora and Venus?" Now Venus and Namora are some of my favorite comic book characters. I think the reason why not many people are buying this book is because most people probably don't buy this book is because they don't recognize the characters. At first people didn't care about Wolverine until the Claremont/Bryne run on Uncanny X-Men and look at him now. He's in just about every Marvel book! The characters in AoA are awesome and should be more recognized.

In the previous issue there was a back-up story which I assume most people thought that it wasn't part of the main story. But in this issue Parker does something I didn't see coming at all. He made the back-up story part of the main story which I thought was pretty clever. At the end of the story it sets up something that I'm looking forward to and since I am not a fan of spoilers I will rarely provide any in my reviews. I'll put a warning at the beginning if there are any. This book is definetly worth 4 dollars. It's double the size of a standard comic book and contains an awesome story and awesome art. And you know what the best part is? It's only two issues. So you don't feel like you're wasting money. This book is great and an excellent spot to jump in on Agents of Atlas. So, if you're not reading AoA... READ IT! If you don't want to buy it, that's fine, then just read it in a comic book store. Trust me, it's that awesome of a book! :)

Rating: A-

Reasons to Love Comic Books: Strong Portrayal of Female Characters

Heh heh… I love that picture. For those of you who have been following this blog since the very beginning or know me personally really well will know that I hate it when women comic book characters are treated inferior by men comic book characters. I know I keep talking about this but it really is a topic that must be made more aware of in the comic book community and as much as I love Brian Michael Bendis’ work he has recently been letting me down because of his unfair portrayal of women characters. I’m not saying this problem should be completly erased in comics, although that would be nice, but it needs to happen way less often. This problem wasn’t brought to my attention until I watched an episode of Comic Culture Warrior on Youtube. They complained about how Bendis and other comic book writers as well were not respecting women as well as they should be. They brought up New Avengers#35. The issue were Tigra is beaten/raped by the Hood, while being filmed live to a secret lair of guy super villains. I immeadiatly grabbed my copy of New Avengers#35 and re-read that part and thought, “Oh. My. God. I have been completely blind to this whole problem”. So I continued to re-read some of Bendis’ stuff and it was horrifying to see what he was doing. Again I really have a lot of respect for Bendis (not so much after what he said about Wonder Woman) and he is one of my many inspirations (I want to be a comic book writer when I grow up).

Don’t get me wrong there are plenty of writers out there who write female comic book characters really well. For example:
-Matt Fraction when he writes Emma Frost, Pepper Potts, and Maria Hill. Heck, even Black Widow.
-Greg Rucka when he writes ANY female character.
-Chris Claremont also writes female characters as well
-Gail Simone when she writes Wonder Woman

There are many others that I’m forgetting, but still these three writers are amazing. Don’t get me wrong I like guy comic book characters as well. I like female and male characters equally. I still don’t understand why some of the Top-Selling books are the books that commonly cruel towards women characters. What if a girl tried reading a comic book for the first time in her life and then sees the Sentry ripping Morganna Le Fay’s head off? I would love to see more girls reading comic books (I’d be thrilled), but because of the junk that some writers do that may not happen. If you guys have no respect for Wonder Woman or Batwoman do yourself a favor and buy Gail Simone’s run on Wonder Woman and Greg Rucka’s current run on Detective Comics and his run on Wonder Woman he did a while back.

Again this is just my opinion and others as well. If you disagree with me I will respect that. Thanks for bearing with me and listening to me with an open mind (hopefully).

Cover of the Day: Fantastic Four#82

With a new month comes a new kind of post and that's: Cover of the Day!!!! Not of the month, but OF. THE. DAY!!! This cover is brought to us by the genius Jack Kirby. This is without a doubt my favorite comic book cover of all time. I love this cover because it's exciting and is just plain awesome. I wish more covers nowadays were this cool.

Hello out there! comicbookdude89 has moved to a new site!

It's true! I have moved my blog to a different site mainly because of technical difficulties and I wanted to get a fresh new start. I have changed my name to: ItsJustSomeRandomGeek. Sound familiar? Yeah I know I sorta, mighta copied someone else's account name... but oh well. Is anything truly original nowadays? Anyway I have switched sites, but the quality of posts will be as they have always been: awesome and eye-opening! I hope you guys and myself enjoy the new look. On your left is a picture of my copy of Final Crisis#6 signed by Doug Mahnke. The signature is at the bottom.