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Two Countdown spin-off minis, as well as a spin-off one-shot dedicated to how the Wildstorm universe fits into the 52 universes paradigm, not to mention three 52 spin-offs and another Sinestro Corps special tells me that, nope, we're still not out of the "massive cross-over" woods yet. Cue the complaints from people who will buy them all anyway!
The Black Canary/Green Arrow wedding gets started in earnest, and, oh my, how the fan entitlement rants are flying with confused arguments for how the marriage of two fictional characters is definitive proof that DC HATES WOMEN, with a delicious extra dash of "let's kill the people who work for DC" popping up every now and again...because, as everyone knows, marriage is a male fantasy of domination over women, and no woman in her right mind would ever want to get married because, you know, she loves the guy...You know, I can see objecting to the marriage because it's clearly a stunt. I can see objecting to it for reasons of characterization. But marriage=misogyny? Christ... On the other hand, that it even occurs to people to think of marriage that way is a sign that maybe we shouldn't let you damn breeders even get married, if you're going to debase the institution with tawdry displays instead of seeing it as a sign of bonding and love.
I mean, let's take the first book, the Black Canary Wedding Planner, written by J. Torres, a notorious misogynist, second only to Dave Sim I'm sure (that's a joke, by the way):
Now, I look at that image, and I see a jokey take on the mishaps that can occur on a wedding day. Other people look at that image and see "OMG, LINGERIE, OBJECTIFICATION! AND SHE'S KNOCKING OVER THE CAKE! SEXISM! SHE'S BEING PORTRAYED AS INCOMPETENT!"
Or this cover to the JLA Wedding Special:
Setting aside the curious emphasis on Wonder Woman's ass, and the overall business of the image, I see a harmless image of a very tame bachelorette party. Others see...well, I'm not actually sure what they see, because other than that it's not a very well composed picture, I'm really straining to see a serious problem with this picture. Okay, yeah, Superman popping out of a cake to strip...maybe not in character. Though with Lois right there, maybe it will. I can totally see Lois enjoying watching her husband strip. And though it's already been pointed out, it bears repeating; regarding this comment: But the Big Blue Boy Scout isn’t exactly who you’d recruit to be your stripper. I gave this some thought, and this is who I came up with for the beefcake: A scantily clad Arsenal/Red Arrow should be bursting out, wearing just a red-and-white toga and doing something cutesy with a “love arrow.”
Yes, just what every woman dreams of on her wedding day...her foster son stripping for her... The internet makes me really not want to know about how comic fans were raised...
Lastly, we get to the actual wedding comic:
I'm not even going to bother to scrounge up the objections to this picture. Mostly they involve the horrible, horrible misogyny of an arrow being attached to her rear end. This despite the fact that she's lifting him, putting her in a dominant position. Never mind the playful sexuality expressed so wonderfully by Amanda Connor on both character's faces. And see, now I'm all depressed and frustrated with comic fans, and I've barely started looking at the books...
Dwane McDuffie takes over as the writer of Justice League of America. This is good news, and that's coming from one of the few people who seems to be enjoying Meltzer's run on the title (pending the ending of this JLA/JSA/Legion cross-over, of course. Something about that story has set my "something really stupid and fan wankish is going to happen" senses tingling). DC manages to spoil this good response, though by taking a quite good cover: And splitting it into two pieces. No, guys, seriously, wrap-around is better.
Wonder Woman Annual ships, but we'll place that in the "believe it when I see it" category, and a Wonder Girl mini launches, written by J. Torres and with a nice "girls kick butt" style cover by Sanford Greene:
Green Lantern #23: My favorite version is still:
Tales of the Sinestro Corps Presents Parallax is leading to angst in fan circles, with it's suggestion that Kyle becomes Parallax somehow. Me, given how central Kyle seems to be to the Countdown storyline, and given that they already did that story with a Green Lantern, I tend to think it's sloppy and unclear writing.
A second run of the criminally underrated Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters begins, as do new series for Infinity Inc and Suicide Squad. II looks to continue the Steel and Everyman storylines from 52, while SS looks to fill in continuity holes. I can't say either of those prospects gets me too excited.
New Showcase Presents volumes for this month are The Great Disaster and Metal Men. Both are utterly insane, for the record, though I prefer the insanity of the Atomic Knights over the insanity of Silver Age Metal Men.
Superman/Batman #40 brings back Bekka. I'm surprised anyone even remembers Bekka. Checkmate #18 finally gets around to that "oh yeah, Amanda Waller is totally a villain...we should do something about that" storyline that's been waiting in the wings since the series launched (or, since the character was introduced way back when, if you want to get technical).
Flash #232 brings us that vagina dentata cover everyone's been having a good laugh at: I have to admit, I went from groaning at the tackiness of the cover, to being annoyed that no one at DC stopped for a minute to consider how this cover would be received, to being kind of annoyed with the escalating outrage over the cover. Yes, it's tacky and stupid, but it's hardly the smoking gun proof that "OMG! DAN DIDIO HATES WOMEN!" I've seen some commentators try to turn it into.
The also underrated Mystery in Space mini gets collected as well, though split into two volumes. This does actually annoy me a bit, because I wasn't planning on buying the trades, but volume two will collect the Jim Starlin/Berni Wrightson The Weird series, and I wouldn't have minded a stand-alone version of that book.
Jodi Picoulet's run on Wonder Woman is collected in hard-cover, and while I want to say that this is the first time the follow-up to a recent storyline has been collected prior to the initial storyline, I'm pretty sure Marvel has done that more than once by now.
I kind of want to know what Kilowog is doing in the cartoon version of the Legion:
CMX looks to have a very good month, with the launches of two mature reader titles: the horror series Presents by Kanako Inuki and Variante, a Frankenstein-ish tale of a girl with a murderous arm graft, as well as another volume of the superlative Gon.
GEN 13 #12 features the Authori-teens. Cute.
DC Beefcake for September Nothing! It's quite upsetting, really.
Am I alone in thinking that the Marvel Classics line is going down like a lead balloon?
Ultimate Power still isn't over yet?
What an ugly, overly complicated cover...
Michael Turner Ass Shot #1: Michael Turner Ass Shot #2:
Hoo-ho! A "cat" fight? Get it? Get it? Even if you don't get it, the solicitation text for Ms Marvel #19 is sure to spell it out. It's Ms. Marvel vs. Tigra…cat fight! Why is the leader of the Mighty Avengers battling a host of female heroes? What craziness are new Initiative teammates Machine Man and Sleepwalker up to? And who is pulling all of their strings? Find out as writer Brian Reed (NEW AVENGERS: ILLUMINATI) and artist Aaron Lopresti (PLANET HULK) continue their acclaimed and back-to-back-to-back sell-out run! Yes, because we never would have guessed what they were going for with the horribly literal cover otherwise...
Make fun of Shanna the She-Devil? Naw, too easy.
So, that year long "X-Men in space" storyline still isn't wrapped up, but continues in X-Men: Emperor Vulcan? I know it's traditional for the X-Men books to pad, but a year wasn't long enough to finish the story?
You know, and despite all that above, I think this month will mark the most money I've spent on Marvel comics in years. I count eleven titles I plan to buy from Marvel.
Marvel Beefcake for September Sub-Mariner #4 Ah, Venom wants to French...
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