* Grant Morrison’s Final Crisis #2 came out today; Douglas Wolk has annotations, while Grame McMillan wonders if it’s too smart a book for its own good, or DC’s good at least.
* It’s a good day for reading Tom Spurgeon, as he spotlights 12 unjustly overlooked comics from the past 12 years (including works from Gilbert Hernandez and Michael Kupperman, as well as Chuck Austen’s wonderful, balls-out R-rated Marvel comic U.S. War Machine) and reviews Matt Furie’s brilliantly funny Boys Club, serving up your quote of the day:
Like some of the best comics out there, one can imagine the reading of Boy’s Club to be an act in the same vein as the way of life promoted in its pages.
* I like that I found out about the November release of a 28-DVD, 2-CD, 10-pound, $400 Complete Sopranos box set at The Soup‘s blog.
*And Now the Screaming Starts’ CRwM reflects on the sexlessness of torture porn.
* Brian Heiler salutes the 10 Greatest Playsets of All Time. I’m the proud former owner of three–the Terrordome, Castle Grayskull, and the Hall of Justice. Notable omissions: the USS Flagg, the Defiant, the Fright Zone, Snake Mountain, Ewok Village…
* Cryptomundo’s Loren Coleman examines the strange case of the Giant Alaskan Ocean Platypus. I have to say that a six-foot seafaring platypus would basically be the greatest water monster ever.
I can’t access the Savage Critics site here from the work pit, so forgive if this is redundant to what McMillan says…
Issue 2 was pretty damn good – it continues to amp up the dread on every level. Where most of the Crisis Mega Ultra Hype Events (with the exception of Identity Crisis, which…well, was it’s own bag of Alpo) have been all about the grand superheroics – the heroes smacking each other in the kisser and fighting against the cosmic pricks, Morrison’s book is all about instilling this sense of uncertainty in the reader. He gives you the sense that what’s going on really is too big to grasp at first glance. I love that.
This isn’t cosmic horror by way of super novas and crackling energy fists plunging into the heart of the universe – this is a threat of existential terror. We know the heroes will come out on top, because the story really is about reaffirming their mythic status as heroes when contrasted with ULTIMATE EVIL, but for the first time in one of these numbers I feel like what’s going on has to potential to shake shit up on a truly “spiritual” level for the characters (caveat being that I felt the same way about his run on New X-Men and that was promptly unwoven by Marvel as quickly as possible). It’s about the superfolk of DC coming to see that evil is not just the flaming spear flying into your Martian chest – beneath all their day-to-day conflicts with the various baddies of the physical world, the real battle has been fought and lost already. A crisis of faith – that what you do makes no difference at all when Secret Gods are pulling the strings. It’s almost Kirby by way of Lovecraft in a way?
Like I said, none of it will probably matter at all in how the characters are written after the Crisis, no matter what Morrison may intend, but for now it’s genuinely kinda creepy.
So, yeah, a smart, insidious book – not what people were expecting, perhaps, but in it’s own way very satisfying.
“Kirby by way of Lovecraft”
Brilliant and dead-on.
Man Sean,
I totally came here for the Final Crisis talk, but that playset article took me off into left filed. I too owned the Terrordrome and Castle Greyskull, but The Hall of Justice? It must have been pretty rad to be you at age 7.
Ditto on the Ewok Villiage being rad. I was also quite partial to my Degobah playset which had a fake quicksand pit which was only supposed to emerse the figure up to his waste until my brother and I push poor Luke into it so hard that we broke a hole in the hard plastic bottom.
Back on topic:
I’m guessing that when the 3-D Supermen of the Multiverse 2-parter or whatever it’s called and Final Crisis #4 hit, all the people wondering aloud about whether or not this will live up to their ideal of big summer crossover comics are going to whistle a different tune pretty quickly. I could be wrong though.