Thirteen Thoughts About Twelve Comics ' Ultimates, Uncanny X-Men, Supercrooks, Deadpool Kills, Glamourpuss, Secret Avengers, Spike, Rachel Rising, Amazing Spider-Man, Wolverine Annual, Invincible and Iron Man

Ultimate Comics: The Ultimates finally has done what the series originally promised to do back in the day, but then repeatedly failed to do after that first year, offer new and different superhero stories to tell in a world where anything can happen. And here was have a United States falling apart and the Ultimates trying to stitch what is left together, knowing that they can't do the whole job but maybe just enough to prevent nuclear war. It's about winning the battles rather than the war. And the end of #14' well I think we can see where the media event of Ultimates #15 may be coming from. More on that later. But this is a much better comic than it has been in the recent past'

Uncanny X-Men is telling it's own AVX capsule story, but in a far more entertaining way than the main title. Here we have a Mister Sinister with his own Phoenix machine that's far more successful that Tony Stark's ever was, through dint of it being organic rather then technology-based. And taking the opportunity to engage in badinage with his foes, Of course we know the frog has to go back in its box, and the comic is set between earlier issues of AVX, but I don't find myself minding one bit. Especially when you have entertaining things to do with a pack of Sabretooths'

Supercrooks finally does what it probably should have done from the beginning. Gives us a super powered heist in the spirit of the great heist capers, with bluffs, double bluffs and triple bluffs' and some excellent use of superheroics to deal with the tropes of this genre. I mean getting past an array of lasers usually means someone has to jump around them, use mirrors to deflect them, and what not. But if you have someone with healing abilities' best, and last, issue of the series.

If you thought previous issues of Deadpool Kills The Marvel Universe were meta, well, you ain't seen nothing yet. Deadpool finds a novel way of dealing with all sorts of Marvel types, and then goes after the granddaddy of the Kills The Marvel Universe comics, The Punisher, before going bigger. Much bigger. And then bigger still, not so much breaking the fourth wall as reducing it to its composite atoms'

Dave Sim bows out of Glamourpuss with its final issue #26, some stunning riffs on popular cosplay and the pulse pounding retelling of Alex Raymond's car crash, both of which single Dave Sim as one of the most expressive, intelligent and innovative comic book storytellers around, both in comedy and high drama. Comic of the week, by a long long way.

Whereas you probably couldn't say that about Secret Avengers #30, but it does at least give Taskmaster the line of the week.

Which is more than Spike #1 gets. Seriously, I've always found the character's English accent to grate a little on the TV show, and now I find it grates in the comic as well. Which is in keeping, I guess, but is it me or does this sound really forced, unnatural and out of sorts? Okay, okay, it might just be me then.

Rachel Rising #10 has kept the Star Of David on the witch on the cover, instead of a pentagram, and integrated it into the story instead. A horror comic that eschews the gore, this is all about the power of words to disturb, combined with incongruous images, even when those words are written in a matter of fact way. Especially when.   You probably should be reading this comic. If not, I want notes as to why'

It's the fiftieth anniversary of Spider-Man, and in the new Amazing Spider-Man we get Alpha, a new character, born in the very same style as Spider-Man was but with a very different attitude. No guilt, no cares, no worries and an alpha-male attitude as well. This is the Spider-Man that may have been without Uncle Ben, and especially, without Uncle Ben's death. Which means, if they are going to ground the fellow, there is tragedy in his life coming'

I know that Clan Destine are a little more lighty-brighty than grim'n'gritty, but the two styles don't mix well when you have Wolverine chopping, slicing and dicing his way through one of their stories, especially when it's in the Wolverine Annual. Certainly the colouring, consistent across scenes doesn't exactly help, giving the grimmest scenes a pop art feel that distracts from the tone that seems to be present in the ink lines and it constantly threw me out of the story.

Invincible #94. Awwwww'

As Iron Man tried to turn the tables of The Mandarin by getting all scheming and planning, the Swarm continues. And despite all the clear foreshadowing of the dangers of such a technological advancement, I want one. What does that say about me? That I'd happily buy a Dalek if it was advertised as a wireless vacuum cleaner? (Dyson, get on this.) Oh and as for yesterday's story'

Comics courtesy of Orbital Comics in London.

Superman And Wonder Woman To Hook Up ' Confirmed

Next week, the episodic monthly burlesque review, Hotsy Totsy Burlesque gives us their own Avengers XXX at New York's R-Bar,  218 Bowery, tickets for $10. And yes, it's in 3D. Hotsy Totsy is known for it's geekier themed nights, with recent examples including Game Of Thrones, Doctor Who and Mad Men. Here's their write up;'

Dr Manhattan Rewrites Watchmen, And Chooses His Own Adventure

It's been an entertaining pastime for some people reading Before Watchmen to look for continuity niggles. Would Comedian's mugshot really be on Captain Metropolis' wall before the Minutemen were formed? Why did the possibility that Comedian killed Kennedy have to be intentionally removed in The Comedian? That kind of thing.

Well, they will have a field day with Before Watchmen: Dr Manhattan, published today.

And yes, there will be spoilers. Not major ones, but some. You have been warned.

More than any of the other books so far, Before Watchmen: Dr Manhattan by Joe Michael Straczynski and Adam Hughes retells scenes from the original, and then adds new experiences into those scenes. The walk on the moon with the dropped photograph, is especially revisited. But then things change.

The original Watchmen presented the world of Dr Manhattan as one of clockwork ' figuratively and literally, with references to Newtonian physics, even in the quantum mechanical world of his power base. Events happen one way, they have only happened one way, they only will happen one way, and Manhattan experiences them all, with cause and effect up the swannee. Indeed, he uses the event itself as justification for the event ' this is how it always happened.

But in Before Watchmen this is no longer the case. Manhattan can choose different routes, sees different moments of quantum singularity and choose different paths, rejecting one history for another, and we see the different routes play out, leading to a very different ending. Which feels like it will be all fixed and re-wrapped up by the end of the series, but we may see Sam Hamm's ending for his Watchmen movie script revisited here, before it all, well, gets put back in the box.

There does seem to be a problem here though, and I want to talk about it. I may have to work this out as I go along, bear with me.

Because that's the thing. In Watchmen, Dr Manhattan is the most powerful person in the book. Yet his powers reflect those of the evry day reader. He can read reality  in any order he wishes, he can flip forward, he can flip back, he can see what happens next. Just like the reader can? Who watches the Watchmen? Well you do, and as an ordinary member of the public, you have the powers of a God when doing so. However, you can't change things, Watchmen is a fixed text. For all its talk of quantum realities, it's a clockwork world.

Before Watchmen: Dr Manhattan changes that experience at its fundamental core. Instead it has now become, for the character at least, a Steve Jackson Choose-Your-Own Adventure book' an experience that the reader is now divorced from, because we cannot do that. It also either makes a mockery of Manhattan's claims about his ability to alter events in the original, or makes him out to be a liar. Which, you know, he has been. We just didn't know he was lying about that too.

Of course, in the original, he probably wasn't.

I guess it will get Star Trek Reset Button outed at the end, but even the possibility of this interpretation fights directly with one of the central aspects of the reading experience of the original. JMS walked off the final chapters of Amazing Spider-Man's One More Day when Joe Quesada wouldn't let him change the Spider-Man timeline, so that one action in the past had a radical effect on the character's life, rewriting the Marvel Universe as it went. Could it be that he is finally getting his chance to do that, but with Watchmen?

Also, I'm not happy with the Pseud-dinger's Cat explanation at the beginning of the book, but that's another post for another day.

Before Watchmen: Minutemen is published by DC Comics today. Comics courtesy of Orbital Comics in London.

 

Jupiter's Children From Millar And Quitely Moved To Spring 2013

It was originally announded at being published by Image Comics in September, through three solicitation months have passed since then, without sign.

The new issue of Supercrooks from Marvel, published tomorrow, has three pages of previews (one of which is reproduced below) and a couple of head sketches of characters from the planned twelve issue series, Jupiter's Children. And a date for publication of Spring 2013 ' which would handily be around the time of Kapow 2013.

I was told last week that Quitely was still hard at work on Pax Americana for DC Comics, which may explain the delay.

And while this page shows the classic quitely, bouncy three dimensionally formed bodies, with seam-conscious clothing, other panels in the preview indicate a looser, Hugo Pratt/Joe Kubert approach, with specific areas chosen for detail, such as this:

A Couple Of Checklists For Tuesday

Next week, the episodic monthly burlesque review, Hotsy Totsy Burlesque gives us their own Avengers XXX at New York's R-Bar,  218 Bowery, tickets for $10. And yes, it's in 3D. Hotsy Totsy is known for it's geekier themed nights, with recent examples including Game Of Thrones, Doctor Who and Mad Men. Here's their write up;'

Doctor Who Absolutely Definitely Back On September 8th ' This New Trailer Says So

The airdate for the first episode of this next series of Doctor Who, the seventh by the modern calendar, has finally been confirmed and you'll see it appear in the trailer below.

Well, that's at least for screening in the US. But in recent years, the UK and US airdates have been the same, with the Australians having to wait for seven days ' due to fear of piracy and international time differences.

In the UK, there's still a schedule gap on BBC One from 6.30 until 8.10 on September 1st, space for Who and more besides. As I was saying, though, it's far more likely that we'll see a September 8th airdate, in step with BBC America.

Geoff Johns To Leave Aquaman With Ivan Reis

Bleeding Cool has reported previously that we expect Ivan Reis to leave Aquaman after issue 16, as part of a DC reshuffle of creators and potentially more cancellations and new books commissioned for January.

And that Ivan Reis will move to draw Justice League Of America, replacing Jim Lee on the comic, and keeping the Geoff Johns Aquaman team still together, but on his one of his other comics.

But it seems that, deprived of Ivan Reis on Aquaman, Geoff Johns will also be leaving that series.

Between them they have done what many saw impossible, totally and utterly revived the reputation of Aquaman in the DC Universe, away from being a joke, to a character who is taken very seriously indeed.

Big flippers to fill' DC Comics declined to reply to enquiries.