Posted in: Comics, Recent Updates | Tagged: action comics, Comics, dc, detective comics, ferals, fury max, image, marvel, muppets, thief of thieves, wolverine, world's finest

Nine Thoughts About Comics – Wolverine, Fury MAX, Action Comics, Detective Comics, Thief Of Thieves, Muppets, Ferals, Infernal Man Thing and World's Finest

Published Wed, 04 Jul 2012 11:00:23 -0500

by Rich Johnston

Last updated Wed, 04 Jul 2012 12:00:51 -0500

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In Wolverine #310 (#309 is out soon, completists!), Jeph Loeb and Simone Bianchi resurrect Sabretooth. Not literally, however, though Wolverine does the Frank Miller/Elektra trick of digging up the grave just to be sure. And giving us a little decapitation and a Hamlet pose reference too… well, you would, wouldn't you?

It's not the only comic dealing with decapitation this week as well, as Nick Fury gets nuts deep into Cuba in the sixties in Fury MAX #4 and is given the task of assassinating Fidel Castro. The CIA attempted to kill this very real world leader a number of times of course for, basically, the crime of being Communist and being close, and we get Fury narrating a number of home truths, after conducting what appears to be a very energetic fourway. And not just in the usual sex, politics, manliness and violence Garth Ennis way…

Seriously, people, heads are delicate things. Detective Comics #11, that one.

That's better, Ferals #6. A little variety in our violence. Most appreciated.

Clark Kent is dead. So who does Superman get to be now? While Matches Malone seems to get getting a revival in Batman #11, in Action Comics #11 we get fireman Johnny Clark, which a penchant for saving Friends references from burning buildings. That's right, our superhero gets to be a real hro. Just one who doesn't get burned, sufer from smoke inhalation or other dangers to life and limb. And then spends the rest of time with other superheroes or in space. It's a strange disconnect which makes the first half of this book far more enjoyable than the latter, and Rags really steps up with the Metalke fight scene that opens the book. The robot name in the foreground of page two is just great comics…

In Thief Of Thieves #5, as our heist crew get nabbed by the law, we get, again, one of those little inventive comic book tricks, of tiny slivers of time, repeated, that would look terrible in film, but beautifully simple in comics. All four on the page at the same time, repeating the same action, yet all totally separate from each other. It just works.

Marvel publish their first previously-unpublished Muppets comic, with the Roger Langridge Four Seasons story that got dumped at Boom! through licensing issues. It is spring, love is in the air, and we get a courtship between Animal and a gorilla. It actually gets rather touching and I warn the more sensitive amongst you that this may be the first time you hve to wipe away a tear of sadness reading a Muppets comic…

Not Brendon of course. He weeps buckets the second Fozzie takes off his hat.

Steve Gerber and Kevin Nowlan's Infernal Man Thing, written two decades before Steve Gerber died, and finally finished in painted form by Kevin Nowlan, effectively puts Steve Gerber, a man aware of his own creative limitations, working in comics, advertising and animation, in the story, as he tries to find a way to turn his life around – yet constantly being drawn back to the swamp, and to a very troubled Man Thing.

In World's Finest #2… well, first, could we have some sort of moritorum on overfeeding some bad guy with the energy he's trying to steal so that he blows up or something? Seriously, it was old when Torchwood did it. And secondly, Paul Levitz needs to come to London again and enjoy some decent food. If that's the London Eye, our powerful pair are on the South Bank, just 100 metres from the Slow Food stalls, with some amazing culinary delights. I'd recommend the organic chicken sausage stall or the goats milk ice creams. Maybe Marvel's CB Cebulski could escort him around? And, for shame, Kevin Maguire…

So… what have you been reading today?