Or my original title: a Couple of Losers. Make that Three Losers, if I include myself for buying these two comics. Ron and I went to the Downtown Mall to try out the Grounded Café for their pizza. That turned out to be a good decision, as the meal was excellent.
Before going there, we went by Coas Bookstore. Ron was
looking for a couple of books. I
couldn’t find anything I was interested in there, but did finally find their
used comics bin. (I’d lost it in their
reorganization.) They had several Aliens magazines from Dark Horse from the UK from the
90’s. They were pretty cool artifacts,
but I didn’t care.
We also stopped by Zia
Comics. I was looking the new Batman/Joker team up book by Marc Silvestri. This was pretty well hyped, looked great, and
was well reviewed. Of course like every
time I’ve gone there looking for a specific new book, they didn’t have it. They’d sold out. I assume they had a bunch of them
(maybe). However, there were a couple
other new comics that caught my eye.
The
New Mutants #98 (Reproduction)
It’s a reprint of the first appearance of Deadpool. I’ve had a long history with the New Mutants, starting with getting the
first 10 issues. I might have had Rob Liefield’s first issue back in the
day, but dropped it soon after. As
popular as comics were in the 90’s, I gave up on them then. I’m sure I left a lot of valuable
collectibles on the table, but just looking at this comic, I have no regrets. I didn’t participate in the “big guns and big
muscles” era.
I appreciate the raw energy and creativity, but this comic
is just senseless fighting. It’s two
training fight sequences and then Deadpool suddenly shows up and starts a real
fight, which ends quickly when Domino
appears. That’s it. Liefield was clearly dictating the
contents. Credit to writer Fabian Nicieza, it’s not a complete
parody of a 90’s Marvel comic. There is
some character development and plot progression. In spite of looking like a modern “decompressed”
comic, it actually doesn’t read like one.
If you’re a Deadpool fan, you’re not getting much out of this. He’s a bit of a smart aleck, but nothing clever. Domino is likewise mysterious. Gideon, who I’m not familiar with all, is brought out as a powerful, but subtle villain with unknown motives (like the rest of them). The New Mutants are being deconstructed here to be replaced by X-Force in a couple of issues. It’s just nostalgia. You got me.
I admit to liking one thing from these reproduction comics. It’s always interesting looking at the
monthly checklist and the subscription form.
It’s hard not to look at these lists and not want to go back in time.
Punchline:
The Gotham Game #1
And then it gets worse.
Punchline is the Joker’s new girlfriend. Scratch that.
She’s his platonic business associate?
Harley is now a lesbian and
is emancipated from the Joker (and from any interesting storylines). So, Punchline is attractive like Harley, but criminally
psychotic like the Joker, but smart and calculating instead of just crazy like
the other two. In other words, she’s
uninteresting and unnecessary.
It’s hard to justify the Joker, Harley, and some of these
other non-super-powered Batman villains.
Any dummy with a gun could kill them.
You can live with a couple, but they get ridiculous the more you see
them in combat. In the movies, these
villains generally get killed by the end, unless you’re a hot chick or you’re
watching the Batman ’66 movie.
I’d heard of Punchline and liked the look, but clearly this actual first impression didn’t go over well with me. She’s a real villain. Punchline is violent and efficient in her criminal activities. She’s also unlikeable in any sense, not even as a compelling villain. She is the star of this comic book, so if you’re interested in her, you’ll get enough of her to not be interested anymore.
The story is disturbing, because it’s too close to real
life. The garish genre elements just
highlight the less fantastic elements of the story. If only real mass criminal activity were just
the fault of supervillains. The only
story redemption is a Batman cameo. At least somebody is trying to stop crime in
Gotham City (but not in the real world).
The artwork is good. I may get some use out of this for sketching, but it wasn’t worth $5. The only other thing I’m getting out of this is a hard lesson: new comics really suck. Am I done with buying comics . . . the tenth time? Probably not. There just don’t seem to be any new comics to buy that are safe bets for entertainment anymore.
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