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Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man 92 (July 1984)
Milgrom spends the majority of the issue on Spidey and the Black Cat fighting a new villain, the Answer, who’s one of Kingpin’s henchmen. It all ties into the Black Cat getting her powers from Kingpin and… and… and I’m bored already. The first half of the issue isn’t terrible. I mean, the art’s weak.… 📖
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Scarlet (2010) #3
Okay, Bendis is still pretty heavy into the silliness–he needs to do a comic about being a middle-aged comic book writer who decides he wants to be a woman, it would fit him–but it’s hard to complain when the ending has protagonist Scarlet shooting some cops in cold blood with a sniper rifle. That commitment… 📖
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The Amazing Spider-Man 254 (July 1984)
Here’s my issue… yes, Spider-Man has lots of human problems–his aunt’s pissed at him, he’s got girlfriend trouble, he’s got job trouble. He’s apparently the only superhero in New York when there’s a superpowered terrorist blowing up toy stores. The list goes on and on. But let’s look at these problems. Aunt May’s pissed he… 📖
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Scarlet (2010) #2
Bendis does write himself some likable hipster chicks. Scarlet is basically just Alias applied to something else, which is fine. This issue is a lot better since the reader already has had to accept Bendis’s silly plot line (one has to wonder how much Criminal influenced him), so coming back to it… it’s just based… 📖
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Detective Comics 525 (April 1983)
Hmm. Young Dan Jurgens. Guess it’s why Bruce looks like Clark Kent without glasses. I’m curious to see Conway’s original script–he includes expository scene after expository scene, all the fill in space–and there only good scene is incomplete. Bruce breaks it off with Vicki by acting like a thoughtless ass, but it’s never made clear… 📖
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Batman 358 (April 1983)
It’s a strange use of Curt Swan. Something about his Killer Croc just doesn’t work. The scales, the figure… he like a Gold Key Star Trek alien. Otherwise, the art is fantastic. Swan does something with Batman’s cowl I’ve never seen before and it’s just great. The story isn’t bad. It’s Batman hunting Killer Croc… 📖
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Scarlet (2010) #1
For a second, maybe the first half of the issue, I was going to say Scarlet is the best writing Bendis has done since Alias. Then the second half happened and I realized it’s just Bendis on a podium, but not one he’s going to take any responsibility for. I mean, the story turns out… 📖
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Scarlet 3 (November 2010)
Okay, Bendis is still pretty heavy into the silliness–he needs to do a comic about being a middle-aged comic book writer who decides he wants to be a woman, it would fit him–but it’s hard to complain when the ending has protagonist Scarlet shooting some cops in cold blood with a sniper rifle. That commitment… 📖
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Mars Attacks! (1996, Tim Burton)
I remember seeing Mars Attacks! in the theater–in those days, the pre-Sleepy Hollow days, I was quite the Tim Burton aficionado. That affection has changed (changed is the polite word) in the last fourteen years, but Mars Attacks! has just gotten better and better on each viewing. At present, it’s my vote for Burton’s most… 📖
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Scarlet 2 (September 2010)
Bendis does write himself some likable hipster chicks. Scarlet is basically just Alias applied to something else, which is fine. This issue is a lot better since the reader already has had to accept Bendis’s silly plot line (one has to wonder how much Criminal influenced him), so coming back to it… it’s just based… 📖
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Scarlet 1 (July 2010)
For a second, maybe the first half of the issue, I was going to say Scarlet is the best writing Bendis has done since Alias. Then the second half happened and I realized it’s just Bendis on a podium, but not one he’s going to take any responsibility for. I mean, the story turns out… 📖
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Detective Comics (1937) #524
Once again, if Bruce, Dick and Alfred weren’t stupid enough to leave the door unlocked with Vicki Vale, Jim Gordon and a bunch of strangers in Wayne Manor, they wouldn’t have to kill Jason Todd’s mom for finding out Bruce is Batman…. Oh, wait, some of that statement is incorrect. I guess they don’t decide… 📖
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Batman (1940) #357
Okay, now I get why Conway’s wasting time with Dick going to the circus–it’s to introduce Jason Todd (pre-Crisis Jason Todd, who has the same origin as Dick, but blond hair). What’s funny about that story is how out of touch Batman is with the Gotham underworld–Killer Croc (who I don’t think Batman even knows… 📖
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Detective Comics 524 (March 1983)
Once again, if Bruce, Dick and Alfred weren’t stupid enough to leave the door unlocked with Vicki Vale, Jim Gordon and a bunch of strangers in Wayne Manor, they wouldn’t have to kill Jason Todd’s mom for finding out Bruce is Batman…. Oh, wait, some of that statement is incorrect. I guess they don’t decide… 📖
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Batman 357 (March 1983)
Okay, now I get why Conway’s wasting time with Dick going to the circus–it’s to introduce Jason Todd (pre-Crisis Jason Todd, who has the same origin as Dick, but blond hair). What’s funny about that story is how out of touch Batman is with the Gotham underworld–Killer Croc (who I don’t think Batman even knows… 📖
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Unknown Soldier (2008) #25
For a moment, I thought Dysart had lost his mind and was going to do some kind of Inglourious Basterds wish fulfillment kind of thing. Instead, I suppose… he makes Moses’s failure a success for his personal humanity. It’s hard to say. I estimate Dysart had about twenty more issues before coming to a conclusion… 📖
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Unknown Soldier (2008) #24
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, but it appears Dysart might take the series in a wholly different direction than I assumed to finish it off. Here, Moses (or whoever Moses was) meets the Unknown Soldier (I really didn’t expect the series to tie in to the original character, but Dysart does it nicely) and… 📖
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Unknown Soldier (2008) #23
Yeah, this is not going to end well. If for no other reason… Joseph Kony is still alive. Of course, whether Unknown Soldier went on as long as initially intended (I think all Vertigo series have a finite intention, don’t they?), Kony would still be alive. So, even though the series was cancelled prematurely, Dysart’s… 📖
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Unknown Soldier (2008) #22
A strange issue. It’s Sera’s issue, maybe the one I’ve been waiting for since she showed up again a few issues back. It’s also the first issue of the series’s final arc, so it’s interesting to see how Dysart’s going to handle it. Ponticelli takes a new approach, mixing his old and new styles of… 📖
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Detective Comics (1937) #523
Batman kills Solomon Grundy at the end of this story. I wonder if it was easier for writers to do Grundy stories because he’s not human or alive so they could kill him off every time. There’s not even a real explanation of how he comes to Gotham. The issue’s okay. DeZuniga’s inks aren’t the… 📖
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The Incredible Hulk (2008, Louis Leterrier), the extended version
Fan-made extended version–putting in deleted scenes to flesh things out to star and uncredited co-writer Edward Norton’s original intent–suffers from most of the theatrical version’s problems, but does give Norton a much better arc before he bows out to let the CG take over. Some great stuff for him and love interest Liv Tyler. It’s… 📖
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Detective Comics 523 (February 1983)
Batman kills Solomon Grundy at the end of this story. I wonder if it was easier for writers to do Grundy stories because he’s not human or alive so they could kill him off every time. There’s not even a real explanation of how he comes to Gotham. The issue’s okay. DeZuniga’s inks aren’t the… 📖
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Batman (1940) #356
It’s a somewhat anti-climatic end to the Hugo Strange storyline Conway had been working on for… a couple years? Hugo shows up, back from the dead, with an army of androids, and Batman doesn’t bat an eye. The art is so gorgeous, it doesn’t really matter. I’m not sure if Giordano is my favorite inker… 📖
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Batman 356 (February 1983)
It’s a somewhat anti-climatic end to the Hugo Strange storyline Conway had been working on for… a couple years? Hugo shows up, back from the dead, with an army of androids, and Batman doesn’t bat an eye. The art is so gorgeous, it doesn’t really matter. I’m not sure if Giordano is my favorite inker… 📖
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The Incredible Hulk (1968) #300
I don’t think I’ve ever read such an overwritten comic book. Mantlo’s endless expository narration is, no pun intended, incredible. It’s not well-written narration–it does get better after a while, once he’s done introducing guest stars (I’m pretty sure he retcons out Daredevil getting doused in radioactive goo). The story–if the issue has a story–is… 📖
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The Incredible Hulk 300 (October 1984)
I don’t think I’ve ever read such an overwritten comic book. Mantlo’s endless expository narration is, no pun intended, incredible. It’s not well-written narration–it does get better after a while, once he’s done introducing guest stars (I’m pretty sure he retcons out Daredevil getting doused in radioactive goo). The story–if the issue has a story–is… 📖
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The Amazing Spider-Man (1963) #253
Where to start… I’m tempted to start with Rick Leonardi, who comes up with these great layered panels (or maybe Bill Anderson inked them to make them layered), but simply cannot keep any consistency when drawing people. Maybe he does all right when he’s got football helmets on them–it’s a football corruption story, luckily Peter… 📖
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Detective Comics (1937) #522
Starting the issue, I kept thinking Conway had already done a Batman versus the abominable snowman issue. Then I slowly came to realize it was a sequel to that issue I had already read. Maybe the Irv Novick art threw me off. Even with Marcos inking him, the art is painfully mediocre. The story’s kind… 📖
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The Amazing Spider-Man 253 (June 1984)
Where to start… I’m tempted to start with Rick Leonardi, who comes up with these great layered panels (or maybe Bill Anderson inked them to make them layered), but simply cannot keep any consistency when drawing people. Maybe he does all right when he’s got football helmets on them–it’s a football corruption story, luckily Peter… 📖
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Muppet Treasure Island (1996, Brian Henson)
As a Muppet fan, the thing I miss most about Muppet Treasure Island is the Muppets. Oh, they’re around, but in neither of the film’s principal roles. Instead, it’s Tim Curry and Kevin Bishop–and their performances both have ups and downs. But neither is wholly responsible–in Bishop’s case, the script changes his character quite a… 📖
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Detective Comics 522 (January 1983)
Starting the issue, I kept thinking Conway had already done a Batman versus the abominable snowman issue. Then I slowly came to realize it was a sequel to that issue I had already read. Maybe the Irv Novick art threw me off. Even with Marcos inking him, the art is painfully mediocre. The story’s kind… 📖
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Batman (1940) #355
So does Conway ever explain why Selina has gone nuts? Nope. He resolves it all in a page–a beautifully illustrated one–where Bruce basically admits he was only taking up with Vicki (who Catwoman hospitalizes early in the issue) because Selina left him. It’s a very problematic issue because Conway does lots of it well. It’s… 📖
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Batman 355 (January 1983)
So does Conway ever explain why Selina has gone nuts? Nope. He resolves it all in a page–a beautifully illustrated one–where Bruce basically admits he was only taking up with Vicki (who Catwoman hospitalizes early in the issue) because Selina left him. It’s a very problematic issue because Conway does lots of it well. It’s… 📖
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Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man (1976) #91
It takes them a while–almost the entire issue–but Milgrom and Mooney eventually get a couple good panels in here. When I say good panels, I mean good close-ups. I wasn’t really paying attention to the art (it’s marvelously mediocre) as there’s so much else to get the reader’s attention. Like Peter Parker thinking crappy thoughts… 📖
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Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man (1976) #90
People used to read this comic on purpose? Like, they’d go to the store and buy it and want to read it? Maybe this issue isn’t the norm, but something tells me Milgrom’s writing isn’t going to be much better when he’s writing Spider-Man than when he’s writing the Black Cat. I mean, the issue… 📖
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Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man 91 (June 1984)
It takes them a while–almost the entire issue–but Milgrom and Mooney eventually get a couple good panels in here. When I say good panels, I mean good close-ups. I wasn’t really paying attention to the art (it’s marvelously mediocre) as there’s so much else to get the reader’s attention. Like Peter Parker thinking crappy thoughts… 📖
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Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man 90 (May 1984)
People used to read this comic on purpose? Like, they’d go to the store and buy it and want to read it? Maybe this issue isn’t the norm, but something tells me Milgrom’s writing isn’t going to be much better when he’s writing Spider-Man than when he’s writing the Black Cat. I mean, the issue… 📖
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The Speckled Band (1931, Jack Raymond)
I think The Speckled Band is a period piece but maybe not. There aren’t any exterior establishing shots in London, so no automobiles. It’s a question because the Sherlock Holmes in this film isn’t some recluse… he’s got an office and three secretaries. The film has a very episodic feel to it, but not in… 📖
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Marvel Team-Up (1972) #141
Wow, Priest can write. I’ve liked his stuff, been impressed what he could do with Marvel superheroes, but this issue is just fantastic. Maybe because he… he writes thought balloons like they’re internal monologue and not declarative statements, not opportunities for expository shortcuts. He also should write Batman, because he borrows Batman and Jim Gordon’s… 📖
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The Amazing Spider-Man (1963) #252
Tom DeFalco really likes expository dialogue and thought balloons, not to mention narration. Peter Parker cannot shut up he’s talking to himself so much, then there’s the Black Cat thinking about recent events to catch the reader up. Strangely, the issue opens on this amusing exchange between Jonah and Robbie about the best way to… 📖
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Detective Comics (1937) #521
Good to know editorial disconnect isn’t something recent. Conway apparently hadn’t been reading the excellent Catwoman backups running in his issues of Batman and Detective because here he’s got her guest-starring and menacing Vicki Vale and acting… well, cat-shit crazy. Sadly, the issue features some of the best Vicki Vale writing Conway has done since… 📖
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Batman (1940) #354
Conway’s starting to wrap up his big storyline and, again, it’s bumpy. He’s got Vicki Vale rushing off to see Bruce–Bruce who hasn’t thought of Vicki since she first showed up two dozen issues ago (she’s been around as a plot twist)–not to mention Hugo Strange showing up at the end, back from the dead.… 📖