Thursday, November 19, 2009

Martian Sightings for February, 2010



A couple days later than I would have preferred, but something near a month earlier than usual come advanced solicitations related to our favorite...

MARTIAN MANHUNTER CLASSIC
DC COMICS CLASSICS LIBRARY: THE JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA BY GEORGE PEREZ VOL. 2 HC
Advance-solicited • On sale April 28 • 192 pg, FC, $39.99 US
Written by Gerry Conway
Art by George Pérez, Gil Kane, Brian Bolland, Joe Kubert & others
Cover by George Pérez
The second half of the 1980s JLA stories illustrated by George Pérez is collected from JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #193-197 and 200. Also includes select covers by Pérez!


I envy those experiencing these issues for the first time and/or those prepared to shell out forty bucks for this sucker. JLofA #200 is an art lovers dream, and features Martian Manhunter vs. Firestorm by Pat Broderick, plus Pérez on flashbacks and an all-inclusive team-up! Hopefully his two page JLA/JSA spread will also be reprinted.

JLA DELUXE EDITION VOL. 3 HC
Advance-solicited • On sale April 28 • 256 pg, FC, 7.0625" x 10.875”, $29.99 US
Written by Grant Morrison
Art by Howard Porter, Mark Pajarillo, John Dell & Walden Wong
Cover by Howard Porter & John Dell
The JLA’s very first foe, Starro the Conqueror, returns in this new Deluxe hardcover collecting JLA #22-26, 28-31 and 1,000,000.


A pretty weak collection, but only compared to the grand work Morrison/Porter had already done. Also, Pajarillo's fill-in art was consistently terrible.

JUSTICE LEAGUE INTERNATIONAL VOL. 4 TP
Advance-solicited • On sale March 3 • 192 pg, FC, $17.99 US
Written by Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis
Art by Kevin Maguire, Mike McKone, Bill Willingham & others
Cover by Kevin Maguire & Joe Rubinstein
This new volume collects JUSTICE LEAGUE INTERNATIONAL #23-25 and JUSTICE LEAGUE AMERICA #26-30 as the team deals with a captured Thanagarian spacecraft and more.


On the other hand, this trade collects some of the funniest and best drawn issues of this book's run. A must read for the uninitiated, including a great heart-to-heart between J'Onn and Wonder Woman, and Manhunter's worst team-related headache yet! Sadly, the second half, after Maguire's run, skimps on the Alien Atlas and compelling material.

BLACKEST NIGHT
BLACKEST NIGHT #7
On sale February 24 • 7 of 8 • 40 pg, FC, $3.99 US
Written by Geoff Johns
Art and cover by Ivan Reis & Oclair Albert
Variant cover by Rodolfo Migliari
Sketch variant cover by Ivan Reis
As Nekron continues to wage war on life throughout the universe, Hal Jordan discovers the grim, true mission behind the villain’s return. But the truth is so cosmically abysmal that it threatens to expose a secret that could tear the very universe asunder. You can’t miss this stunning, penultimate issue to the year’s biggest event!
Retailers please note: This issue will ship with three covers. For every 25 copies of the Standard Edition (with a cover by Ivan Reis & Oclair Albert), retailers may order one copy of the Variant Edition (with a cover by Rodolfo Migliari). For every 100 copies of the Standard Edition, retailers may order one copy of the Sketch Variant Edition (with a cover by Ivan Reis). Please see the Previews Order Form for more information.


I don't know the where/if of Black Lantern Martian Manhunter's appearances this month, especially in light of a bunch of blank cover solicitations, so we'll treat the primary book as a catch-all.

The Vile Menagerie

Professor Arnold Hugo
SUPER FRIENDS #24
On sale February 10 • 32 pg, FC, $2.50 US
Written by Sholly Fisch
Art and cover by J. Bone
It’s a super-science conference like none other when all the Mad Scientists gather together on Oolong Island to share their latest inventions -- and to plot against the Super Friends!


I dropped 52 at 25, but tossed through those Oolong Island issues looking for the only super-scientist that could have kept me buying, Professor Arnold Hugo. I never found him there, but... could that be... Hugo's own bad melon-headed self on this here cover? His first non-reprint appearance in forty freakin' years? I'll but it just to be sure!

Despero
R.E.B.E.L.S. #13
On sale February 10 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US
Written by Tony Bedard
Art by Claude St. Aubin & Scott Hanna
Cover by Kalman Andrasofszky
It’s the penultimate chapter of the rebellion against the new Starro the Conqueror! With Despero’s head in hand, super-genius Vril Dox harnesses the alien cranium as the key weapon in Starro’s defeat. But with the conqueror’s horde closing in, Dox calculates a 4.3% chance of success. Uh-oh.


I really thought I was going to drop this book, but between improved pacing, cast and increased relevance, I'm glad I kept it up. Also, Despero's severed head is more powerful and dangerous than most other super-villains' whole bodies. Hah!

The Human Flame
Nope! Hah! Eat it, loser!

Comrades of Mars

Miss Martian
TEEN TITANS #80
On sale February 24 • 40 pg, FC, $3.99 US
Written by Felicia D. Henderson • Co-feature written by Sean McKeever
Art and cover by Joe Bennett & Jack Jadson
Co-feature art by Yildiray Cinar & Júlio Ferreira
The Teen Titans rush to rescue Static from the clutches of the sadistic thug Holocaust. Plus: Slave-girl Ravager — unleashed!


Anyone still following this? The Titans franchise seems to have withered considerably.

WEDNESDAY COMICS HC
Advance-solicited • On sale MAY 26 • 200 pg, 11"x17.5", $49.99 US
This is it! The oversized, hardcover collection of DC’s 2009 weekly comics sensation that USA Today called "cool, classic-looking." Featuring composite cover art, the WEDNESDAY COMICS HC includes:
• ADAM STRANGE written and illustrated by Paul Pope
• BATMAN written by Brian Azzarello with art by Eduardo Risso including additional panel art on each page!
• METAMORPHO written by Neil Gaiman with art by Michael Allred
• DEADMAN written by Dave Bullock and Vinton Heuck with art by Dave Bullock
• THE DEMON AND CATWOMAN written by Walter Simonson with art by Brian Stelfreeze
• THE FLASH written by Karl Kerschl and Brenden Fletcher with art by Karl Kerschl
• GREEN LANTERN written by Kurt Busiek with art by Joe Quinones
• HAWKMAN written and illustrated by Kyle Baker
• KAMANDI written by Dave Gibbons with art by Ryan Sook
• THE METAL MEN written by Dan DiDio with art by Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez & Kevin Nowlan
• SGT. ROCK written by Adam Kubert with art by Joe Kubert
• SUPERGIRL written by Jimmy Palmiotti with art by Amanda Conner
• SUPERMAN written by John Arcudi with art by Lee Bermejo
• TEEN TITANS written by Eddie Berganza with art by Sean Galloway
• WONDER WOMAN written and illustrated by Ben Caldwell
Plus: Don’t miss previously unpublished pages — one starring The Creeper (written by Keith Giffen with art by Eric Canete) and one starring Plastic Man (written by Evan Dorkin with art by Stephen DeStefano)! And, as if that weren’t enough, this can’t-miss collection also includes a bonus sketchbook section and intro by series editor Mark Chiarello!


I'm pretty sure nobody's buying this just for Megan, but just in case...

16 comments:

mathematicscore said...

If memory serves, there's a J'onn cameo at the end of the Hawkman strip.

Diabolu Frank said...

Wednesday Comics?

LissBirds said...

I'll have to go look at my pile of Wednesday Comics to see...and $50 for the collected version? No! Wednesday Comics should be all about initiating new comic readers. And therefore it should be affordable!

Seriously, I was all excited when I saw the picture of the Super Friends at the beginning of the post because I thought that meant J'onn would show up there. That would've made my day.

And thanks for posting the write-up of JLA Deluxe #3. I've been looking everywhere to figure out which issues it collected. They left out the Adam Strange issues, though! (#20 and #21.) Adam Strange gets no love.

Diabolu Frank said...

I expect we'll get a $25-30 Wednesday Comics softcover, which should then haunt Half Price Books to the tune of $12.50-$15.00, which sounds reasonable enough. Ideally, it would have started in the $10-20 range, but then the "newspapers" should have been printed as cheaply as possible and sold for about a buck on the newsstand. They were doing full comics for a dime a few years back, you know?

You weren't all excited about Professor Arnold Hugo? For shame! Forty years, Liss... forty years. Plus, unlike the Human Flame, he's worth the revisit. He's bringing craniodiaphyseal dysplasia back! You Martian lovers don't know how to act!*

I'm suddenly very pleased about having blown off the JLA Deluxe Editions. Why skip the solid Adam Strange story and include a confusing DC One Million tie-in? Just so they can't slap Morrison's name in big letters without concessions to Mark Waid or Arnie Jorgenson? Did they catch the Promethius New Year's Evil one-shot last time, at least?

*Justin Timberlake reference. I didn't want to come off as rude, in case that song wasn't as omnipresent as I thought.

mathematicscore said...

Oh, JT... :)

mathematicscore said...

Ah! Yes, I was referring to Wednesday comics. It's smaller than you'd hope but cool just the same.

LissBirds said...

Yes. They should reprint Wednesday Comics on newsprint.

lol...okay, introducing Hugo to the next generation of comic readers does make me somewhat happy. But I'm reserving all my villain-excitement for when The Human Squireel shows up in Super Friends. LOL..Frank, I think you need to write Arnold Hugo's theme song now and put Timerlake to shame.

Of course I just recently bought JLA Deluxe 1 and 2 without really looking into it. And of course bought the entire JLU cartoon on separate DVDs...right before it was released as a complete set.

Well, Morrison's the "it" man now when it comes to selling stuff, I guess. Though I really liked Waid's stories. The return of the White Martians was I think written by Waid and I really enjoyed it. (Occurs somewhere in the 8th or 9th trade, if I remember correctly.)

Tom said...

"Hugo Back" is Justin's BEST SONG EVER!

Bringin' Doctor Arnold back
Martian lovers don't know how to act

LissBirds said...

And I might buy the second Perez book. I've actually never read those. Though the first one was poorly reviewed on Amazon. (People don't think the price is worth it for six issues, etc.)

Diabolu Frank said...

As I recall, the first Perez hardcover reprinted the JLA/JSA/New Gods crossover, which was pretty good, but the art wasn't 100%. The Secret Society/Injustice League 2-parter looked much better, and a recolored JLofA #200 on quality paper almost validates the price of the second volume. By my previously quoted price scale, I mean. $40 is a tank and a third of gas, not a stinkin' comic book!

I think Waid's JLA work is criminally underrated, in part because he was the fill-in guy saddled with some of the worst artists of the day. Then, he gets Bryan Hitch, who looks fantastic, but fails to stick to Waid's plot. Can't win for losing, but I think "Terror Incognita" held together well.

LissBirds said...

Frank, the one thing that stuck out to me in your comment was the price of gas. Dude, $40 can't even FILL a 16-gallon tank up here!!

I like Waid on JLA a lot, from what I've read. Not only were his stories plotted pretty well, but there were some pretty clever ideas in there, too. (Like the bit in Terror Ingocnita about changing the oxygen in the atmosphere so it can't ignite or somesuch.) I'm liking the JLA trades, but still, nothing really blows my mind. I have yet to find a full-out-blow-your-mind-away JLA story.

Tom said...

I didn't bother with the first Perez hc because I remember Conway's mediocre writing on those issues. But the stories in Vol. 2 are better, especially the JLA/JSA vs. Secret Society of Super-Villains epic in #195-197. Perez also has better inking in the Vol. 2, Brett Breeding instead of Frank Chiaramonte (who I will never forgive for ruining most of Curt Swan's late '70s work).

The artists in #200 (in addition to Perez) are:
Pat Broderick (Martian Manhunter vs. Firestorm sequence)
Jim Aparo (Aquaman vs. Phantom Stranger)
Gil Kane (Green Lantern vs. Atom)
Carmine Infantino (Flash vs. Elongated Man)
Joe Kubert (Superman vs. Hawkman)
Brian Bolland (Batman vs. Green Arrow and Black Canary)
Dick Giordano (Wonder Woman vs. Red Tornado)

Diabolu Frank said...

Liss, I took a trip up to New York to pick up a car from an eBay auction a few years back, and the price of gas was nearly a dollar higher than Texas. Got to keep Bush country happy, I guess, and it helps I ditched the antique Rambler for a modern compact.

I enjoyed Morrison on JLA quite a bit, but for gentle characterization, novelty and scale more than "mad ideas." Things got out of hand in unnecessarily messy ways, and pacing was awkward. Waid was much better at telling a more traditional story, but the melodrama wore on me.

Tom, it occurs to me that I've probably only ever read two of the three SSoSV issues. I recall Aquaman crashing in on the Monacle, which I assume was in Part 1, so maybe I've never read the conclusion?

LissBirds said...

Yep. In NY we believe in taxing everything, including gas, to the point of insanity.

I'll defintely have to pick up a copy of the new Perez HC now. I'm intrigued by the heroes vs. heroes storyline.

Tom said...

I no longer have those issues and it's been years since I've read them, but I know that the JLA/JSA 2-page pin-up that you mentioned earlier is in Part 1, #195. So it sounds like you at least had that issue.

Oh, and the Vol. 2 hc will begin with a 2-parter from #193-194: a revisionist origin of your favorite emo robot. I know you can't wait to reread that.

Diabolu Frank said...

JLofA #200 doesn't have a great story, but the pretty pictures and geekery make up for that.

Tom-- no-- not the Usurper!