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It’s true… I’m moving my blog to a new site. I’m starting over in a way. I wanted to get a better and fresh new start, but don’t worry the quality of the post will stay as they have always been: awesome and eye-opening!

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Comic Book Weirdness of the Week

Well here we have a… funny cover. I guess the writer was having trouble coming up with new stories and plotlines, eh? I am going to have to keep a eye out for this issue. Guess Superman was one hungry guy… oh jeez I just realized the hundreds of ladies with trays of burgers… Superman wasn’t joking was he… wow… I really want this issue now!

Blackest Night#4 REVIEW (More people die in Blackest Night??? noooooo…)

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS!!! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!!

Blackest Night#4

Writer: Geoff Johns

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

Price: $3.99

Publisher: DC Comics

Were only half way through this mini-series and I’m already asking myself, “How can this get any worse?”. knowing full well that it will get worse. I. Love. This. Mini-series. Geoff Johns really knows how to torture not only the characters in his stories, but his fans as well. This story is way deeper than the average zombie story. The Black Lanterns use their words more than their fists and are verbally beating the crap out of the heroes (and villains). What I specifically loved about this issue was how The Flash, Mera, and The Atom were working their butts off to save everyone. They were doing what not many heroes are doing in comic books nowadays. They were acting like true superheroes and I’m glad there is still someone who still understands what a hero is. Thank you Geoff Johns! You have restored some faith in me that I have lost.

Another thing I appreciate about this book is how fast paced it is. There is almost no slowing down for this story. We’re only halfway through and the power levels for the Black Lanterns has already reached 100%. It can only go downhill from here… As awesome as this story is right now it is also an extremely tough read for me. A lot of my favorite DC heroes are dead and are now black lanterns (i.e. Ronnie Raymond, Sue Dibny, Hawkgirl, Martian Manhunter, etc.) so seeing them as zombies is kind of hurting right now and only increases my wanting for them to return to the living. The toughest part of this issue was seeing the black lantern version of Jean Loring ripping Damage’s heart out… right in front of her husband, Atom and oh man is Flash screwed right now…

It would be remiss of me not to mention Ivan Reis’ artwork. For what he does he does very well. All of the gore scenes are illustrated very well and add to the shock of it. I literally stared at the page of Damage’s death for about 10 seconds in shock and awe. Overall the art is very nicely done and blends in nicely with Johns’ style of writing for this story.  So, yeah I really am having a blast reading this story and its always top on my buy-list when it comes out. The wait for the next issue is painful I tell ya!!! So hopefully the story doesn’t lose its awesomeness.

Happy Halloween everyone! 

Rating: B+

Comic Book Weirdness of the Week

Ummm… I may never go to McDonalds ever again after seeing this picture… Does anyone know what comic book this is from and what issue it is? I’d like to find it. Thanks.

Reasons to Love Comic Books: Awesome Stories

One thing that I love about comic books is the awesome stories that can be told. As an aspiring comic book writer I always am excited when I come across an awesome story. I have read mostly Marvel my whole life so that is why there are so many Marvel stories on the list. These are some of my favorite comic book stories (in no particular order except for the first five):

-The Master Planner (Amazing Spider-Man#31-33) Reprinted in Marvel Tales#170-172

-Dark Phoenix Saga (Uncanny X-Men#129-137)

-Hobgoblin Saga (Amazing Spider-Man#238-239, 244-245, 249-251)

-The Dark Knight Returns (Batman: Dark Knight Returns#1-4)

-Sasuke Retrieval (Naruto vol. 21-27)

-Batman: Year One (Batman#404-407)

-Demon in a Bottle (Iron Man#120-128)

-The Night Gwen Stacy Died (Amazing Spider-Man#121-122)

-Death of Captain Stacy (Amazing Spider-Man#88-90)

-Galactus Trilogy (Fantastic Four#48-50)

-Green Goblin Reborn (Amazing Spider-Man#96-98)

-Batman: Death in the Family (Batman#426-429)

-Camelot 3000 (Camelot 3000#1-12)

-Ultimate Clone Saga (Ultimate Spider-Man#97-105)

-The Tomorrow People (Ultimate X-Men#1-6)

-Death of a Goblin (Ultimate Spider-Man#112-117)

-Batman: Hush (Batman#608-619)

-Frank Miller’s run on Daredevil

-World’s Most Wanted (Invincible Iron Man#8-19, current volume)

-Invincible War and Conquest (Invincible#60-65)

That’s all I can think of right now. Well… what’s your favorite comic book stories guys?

Uncanny X-Men#516 REVIEW (Magneto Returns!!! Yeah?… so what?)

Uncanny X-Men#516

Writer: Matt Fraction

Artist: the second coming of Jack Kirby Greg Land w/ inks by Jay Leisten

Price: $2.99

Publisher: Marvel Comics

So here we have the first part of the new storyline called Nation X. Here is the main problem I have with this story:

1). It’s seven parts. Why? Why does Marvel seriously decompress some of their stories? Oh yeah… its because they want your money.

Here are the problems I had with this issue:

1). Little to nothing happens in this issue. You could’ve written what happened in this issue in about 6-7 pages.

2). Greg Land does the art.

3). It didn’t excite me enough to continue with this story.

I understand that Matt Fraction is setting up the story, which he usually does in most of his stories and then he gets things going nice and smooth. But he has always intrigued my interest in what’s going to happen next. Here… not so much. So Magneto comes to the X-Men on Utopia (an island where mutants are being kept safe. Formally Asteroid M, the headquarters of Magneto and his Brotherhood). Cyclops and Professor X argue about what they should do to Magneto for about 3-4 pages. Yawn. Then they decide to hear Mags out and Mags then tells everyone about how he got his powers back and how he was refreshed after the events of House of M which was kind of interesting. Then a big plane calls in to Utopia saying its going to crash so instead of trying to save the falling plane Cyclops tells Nightcrawler to see what’s in it. Nightcrawler then teleports out of the plane after seeing something that apparently frightens him and shouts at Cyclops to shoot the plane down. Then Cyclops orders the X-Men to take their battle stations and then its to be continued…

This issue was a whole lot of meh for me. The art was bad, although it was actually more tolerable than I expected. The story was mediocre and didn’t have a good enough hook. I usually love Fraction’s stories so I gave this a try a didn’t care for it too much. I may stick around for a couple more issues because knowing Fraction’s type of storytelling he will get things moving nicely soon and things will get interesting. It wasn’t really worth $3. I expected more from you Matt Fraction. Maybe its because I expected a lot that caused me to not care for this issue much… maybe.

Rating: C

Alrighty guys and gals I gotta get back to reading Deadpool#900 (I’m only halfway through it and yes I will do a review of it when I’m finished) and kicking butts and taking names on Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2! Stick around for a review of Batman#691, Green Lantern Corps#41, + Deadpool#900!!! (hopefully)

Marvel gives Jeph Loeb the reigns to two new Ultimate Marvel books

So a’ight doods so this mornin’ while I chowin’ down on a donut I checked CBR and ya know what the first thing I saw was? Jeph Loeb is gonna write two new Ultimate Marvel books!!! You mean the second coming of Stan Lee Jeph Loeb??? Dood I loooooooved how he killed some of my fav characters in the most awesomest book of the year Ultimatum. XD XD XD!!! These two books are gonna blow all those crap books like Agents of Atlas, Invincible Iron Man, Detective Comics, etc. outta da ballpark, doods! XD XD XD!!! Jeph did such an awesome on Ultimates 3, Ultimatum, and Hulk! I can’t wait y’all!!!! XD XD XD!!!

Some people critisize Loeb for bad dialouge and for his dialouge not making much sense. Can u guyz believe it?!?!? His dialouge makes perfect sense! When A-Bomb says to Ares, “The god of war? You’re more like the god of whatever!”, come on guyz!!! That makes perfect sense!!! Also when Red Hulk sayz, “This is the most fun I’ve ever had with my pants on!”, is so cool. Plus Frank Cho and Art Adams are gonna be doing the art for these books as well! Awesomeness!!!! XD XD XD!!! Red Hulk is the greatest and most original character ever created in decades doods!!! DECADES!!! Loeb+Cho and Adams= Awesomeness!!! XD XD XD!!! Loeb’s books are totally worth the cheap price of $3.99 doods! Everyone should be buying- hey! What are doing here? I’m just talkin’ bout the two new Loeb books that are gonna come out real soon! I didn’t know he could write two books in a months time to save his life. Well you know he never lets us down, right? Um… right. But why are you writing this post? Well I know you’ve been busy with school and with all the stuff you’ve been going through recently so I thought I’d do this post 4 u! But… I didn’t ask you to… But- Wait… you’ve been praising Jeph Loeb!?!? Heck yea dood! He rox!!! Ok that does it. Get outta my brain! But- Go! ……………….. Ok sorry about that guys. That was my fanboy part of my brain. He occasionaly creeps out of me…. my apologies.

I am a huge fan of Frank Cho and Art Adams’ artwork, but because I refuse to buy anything by Loeb I can’t enjoy they’re art. What a shame. Plus the Ultimate Universe is what brought me back into comics. Without it you wouldn’t have this awesome blog! To see it be wrecked by Loeb really disheartens me greatly. What happened to the Jeph Loeb that wrote Batman: Hush and Spider-Man: Blue? I haven’t read Batman: The Long Halloween… (prepares for firing squad) I have! When? Just a few weeks ago. No you haven’t. Got any proof? Yeah… I’m you! I haven’t read it. Oh… Yeah… The fact that these books are going to be top sellers makes me sad. Oh well… I don’t want to dwell on this anymore so I’ll just leave it at that.

This has been comic book dude89 (and A to the E!!!!) and I hope you guys stick around for more stuff. Like reviews!!! I promise I’ll do more than one review this week! Take care everybody!

My experiences at Fallcon 09

Whattup guys and gals? Yesterday I went to the Fallcon and here are my experiences in a nutshell:

-Met Gerry Conway and Doug Mahnke. Pictures of autograped books will be up soon.

-Bought Camelot 3000#1-7, 9-12 for .50 cents each and #8 for $1.

-Laughed when my friend bumped into a Clone Trooper.

-Finished my collection of Final Crisis and Infinite Crisis (the main mini-series)

-Got a Flash: Rebirth, Batman and Robin, and a Blackest Night poster. I’m putting them up as we… uh, type.

-Talked to a vendor about variant covers. We both agreed that variants are a waste of money, time, and space.

-My name was drawn for a free prize so I got a free variant cover of Dark Reign: The List- X-men. Hey, c’mon… it was free.

-Bought a whole bunch of stuff. The pile is enormous. Thank God I have two days of school this week!

-Bought Hulk#13 for a dollar. It was barely worth it. I read the cartoon in the back as well and I now have  new favorite quote, “Green Hulk want dog.”

-A guy commented on me buying a few issues of Agents of Atlas. I couldn’t hear/remember what he said, but he had a look of shock/disbelief on his face.

-Saw a grown man buy issues of Loeb’s Hulk. He did have his son right next to him. Maybe he was buying them for him???

-Got a free copy of Batman and Robin#1 and Detective Comics#854. So did my friend. So did my dad. So did everybody else that came to the convention.

-Saw Freddie Kruger and Princess Leia talking to each other. On a date maybe?

-Saw a lot of kids there. That always makes me happy.

-The building where the convention was held was toasty warm, while it was freezing cold outside (it had snowed the night before).

-Went to a Half-Price Books afterwards and bought Batman#429 (Part 4 of Batman: Death in the Family) for a dollar and the trade paperback of Powers: Who Killed Retro Girl for $3.

-I’m running out of things to say…

Well I gotta get back to reading comic books and… homework… pictures of books I got autographed will be up in a day or two. If I think of other things that happened I will not hesitate to update this post!

Stay cool and take care everybody!

Amazing Spider-Man#608 REVIEW (Am I going to stay with this series or not?)

Amazing Spider-Man#608

Written by: Marc Guggenheim

Art by: Marco Checchetto, Luke Ross, and Rick Magyar

Price: $2.99

Publisher: Marvel Comics

(Sweet) Cover by: Adi Granov

So in this issue we have- woah woah woah! Hold the phone! This issue doesn’t focus at all on Peter Parker’s love life!?! Am I reading the same book??? Special thank you to Marc Guggenheim: Thanx for not focusing on PP’s love life. It was getting really old. Like that one and a half year old cracker that I ate a couple weeks ago. If anyone knows Marc show this to him. Thanks. Anyway, after the last issue and disliking it because of the first three pages I decided I was going to let this issue be the deciding issue on whether or not I would keep reading this series for a while. I’ll tell you my answer at the end of the post… even though you’ll probably figure out my answer halfway through…

I was really worried when I heard Marc Guggenheim was going to be writing this because I’ve liked some of his ASM stuff and I’ve disliked some of his ASM stuff. I was even more worried when I found out that the story was going to be focused on one of the most hated comic book stories ever. The Clone Saga from the 90s. But… Guggenheim pulls it off… just barely. The issue is entertaining most of the time and boring some of the time. I didn’t care for the Ben Reilly and Doctor Ryder talk scenes. It nearly put me to sleep. I really thought it was cool when Nora asks PP if he knows who the guy, who is calling him Ben Reilly, is. Then PP explains the truth basically revealing that his is everyone’s favorite web-head. I was like, “WHAT THE F???” But then it reveals that was a scenario going through PP’s mind and it never actually happened. This should come as a surprise to no one who read the Amazing Spider-Man sketchbook, that came out a couple weeks ago, that Kaine is back. Overall the story is good, but nothing perfect.

The art is really good. Checchetto gives PP a funky hair-style that is… kinda weird. I had high expectations for the art team and as I guessed Checchetto and Luke Ross didn’t disappoint. So my answer to am I still going to stay with this series is… (un-needed drumroll)… yes. But just barely. I hope that this series gets better. I have a feeling it will. I mean c’mon! Mark Waid is writing The Gauntlet storyline!!! How can it be bad??? We’ll see…

Rating: B-

Back Issue Review: Identity Crisis

So a couple weeks ago I was in the mood for a DC story. So I ended up buying the trade paperback of Identity Crisis which is:

Written by: Brad Meltzer

Drawn by: Rags Morales w/ inks by Mike Bair

Because of other stuff I had to do I was only reading about 1-3 pages of this a day for about 3 days. I finally started reading it on my school bus and after reading the first chapter I was hooked and finished the rest of it in about 2-3 hours. This story is very depressing throughout the whole story. Why? Well at the very beginning Sue Dibny (the wife of Elongated Man) is killed. Also Ronnie Raymond and Jack Drake die a little after halfway. Captain Boomerang also gets killed, but that wasn’t sad at all. Sue Dibny and Ronnie are some of my favorite characters so seeing them die was dis-heartning. It still made me cry a little even though I knew they died in the story before I read it. Jack Drake’s death took me by surprise though.

Although the story didn’t really feel like a crisis, but more like a bad few weeks in the life of the heroes of DC. Although it was really cool to get a more realistic story. It was cool to read a crisis event without an Earth-meshing, world conquering, space battle related story. The story had a heart pounding feel to it. Like in the story when Batman found out who was responsible for Sue Dibny’s death and then the story would switch to a different scene. The story did that a lot and it would get a little annoying sometimes. But it lives up to the hype of a thriller story. The story is good and well written.

The art was good also. The fight scene between the JSA and Deathstroke was pretty cool to see how it was drawn out. The scenes where The Atom would be walking through a rope or a carpet were pretty cool to see drawn out. The only problem I had with the art was how Morales drew eyes. It was kinda weird seeing the eyes sometimes instead of the white coloring that usually is drawn. Other than that the art was good and nice to see.

If you like a good mystery and thriller story I recommend this story for you. If your a DC fan and have never read this before you should read it. I am hoping to do a Back Issue Review of the following stories:

-Superman: Red Son

-Batman: The Killing Joke

-Crisis on Infinite Earths

-Daredevil: Born Again

-Man of Steel

-Captain America: Operation Rebirth

-JSA: The Nail

With the comic convention where I live coming up I’ll probably get a chance to get these stories and other stories that aren’t mentioned above.

This review is dedicated to the memory of my dog Prince. I’ll miss you buddy.