Awesomed By Comics

This episode of Awesomed By Comics is brought to you by Asparagus. It will cut you. We mourn the loss of a top-notch Runaways creative team that got cut too short, and marvel (small "m") at the shagtastic thriller that is Herogasm. A very intriguing first issue of Mark Waid's The Unknown: The Devil Made Flesh leaves us wanting much more, and Marvel Divas rends Aaron's heart in fricking TWO.

Download/subscribe to the show here or in the right sidebar, and leave an iTunes review! Tell us what you think in the comments, or visit our show forum.

Cover(s) of the Week

Evie's pick, from Runaways #14, cover by David Lafuente and Christina Strain:


Aaron's pick, from Unknown Solider #12, cover by Dave Johnson:


Panel(s) of the Week

Aaron's pick, from Bomb Queen IV #1, by Jimmie Robinson (click to enlarge):


Evie's pick, from Herogasm #5 by Garth Ennis, John McCrea and Keith Burns (click to enlarge):

God, I'm so busy, for serious. Between work and a missing hallway floor and dropping rhymes, it's like, whoa. But I did want to jump on here for a sec and say that what are maybe my two most hotly anticipated series of the year, Greg Rucka's run on Detective Comics starring Batwoman and Kathryn Immonen's run on Runaways both arrived this week, and they both knocked it out of the proverbial motherfuckin park. J.H. Williams III's art on Detective is beyond stunning, Sara Picelli captures the glee and humor and sadness that Immonen nails, and I'm as happy as a kitten in a sunbeam. Well, there was the one horrible, awful, no good very bad turn of events in Runaways that made me throw shit, but it was still damn good writin.

This episode of Awesomed By Comics is brought to you by a special EXCLUSIVE sneak preview of a special upcoming Marvel special Noir special event, and also a shout-out to Iowa Lieutenant Governor Patty Judge. Abnett and Lanning give Aaron a double cosmic nerdgasm, while Joe Kelly continues his inexplicable killer tear by jumping on Amazing Spider-Man, because why the hell not. You'll never guess which new creator team RUNS AWAY with with the gold. Sigh, is it June already?

Download/subscribe to the show in the right sidebar, and leave an iTunes review! Tell us what you think in the comments, or visit our show forum.

Cover(s) of the Week

Evie's pick, from Runaways #10, cover by David Lafuente and Christina Strain:


Aaron's pick, from Unknown Soldier #8, cover by Dave Johnson:

Panel(s) of the Week

Aaron's pick, from Amazing Spider-Man #595, by Joe Kelly and Phil Jimenez:


Evie's pick, from Amazing Spider-Man #595 by Joe Kelly and Phil Jimenez:

We are extremely excited to announce that this episode of Awesomed By Comics is sponsored by an official exclusive preview from DC Comics that YOU DO WANT TO MISS. Landridge's Muppet Show charms, Abnett and Lanning deliver across the cosmic board, and Ubu Bubu wraps up with what is easily the most enterprising use of rectal vomit in a comic book this month. Also, we totally sing "Rainbow Connection" at the end of the show, bitches.

Download/subscribe to the show in the right sidebar, and leave an iTunes review! Tell us what you think in the comments, or visit our show forum.

Cover(s) of the Week

Evie's pick, from Ms. Marvel #37, cover by Phil Jimenez and Chris Chuckry:


Aaron's pick, from Amazing Spider-Man #589, cover by Paulo Siqueira:


Panel(s) of the Week

Aaron's pick, from Runaways #8 by Terry Moore and Takeshi Miyazawa:


Evie's pick, from Muppet Show #1 by Roger Landridge:


Bonus Molly Hayes costume designs from Runaways #8:

According to a post today on colorist Christina Strain's DeviantArt blog, Hellcat writer Kathryn Immonen will be taking over Runaways as of issue #11. Um, that is AWESOME NEWS. Hellcat was the craziest, most absurd, most whacked-out series of 2008, and I loved every minute even when I had no clue what the fuck Patsy was doing. I can't speak for her long-range plot planning, as that was not really the point of Hellcat, and is a strength of the strongest Runaways stories, but the dialog at least will be SMOKIN nuts.

The penciler is Sara Pichelli, who did Marjorie Liu's NYX--not sure if it was the first or most recent series, which I was ambivalent about but I'll keep an open mind. Christina herself did wonders for Humberto Ramos' confusing art on Terry Moore's run, and I told her as much when I met her briefly at New York Comic Con this year--she was a delightful person and a genuine fangirl, so if she's this excited about the team, then bring it on.

This very special episode of Awesomed By Comics is brought to you by Hilarious Reasons That It's Better To Be a Woman than a Man, am I right ladies? Abnett and Lanning hit one out of the space park with Nova #21, we say farewell to the Legion, Terry Moore quietly excels and Wonder Woman makes a move. Last but certainly not least, DO NOT miss our EXTRA SPECIAL EXCLUSIVE interview with the God of Sea Mammals of Comics, who answers ALL of your undoubtedly many, many, many questions about Final Crisis #7.

Download/subscribe to the show in the right sidebar, and leave an iTunes review! Tell us what you think in the comments, or visit our show forum.

Cover(s) of the Week

Aaron's picks, from Runaways #6, cover by Humberto Ramos:


And Greatest Hits #5, cover by Glen Fabry:


Evie's pick, from Legion of Super Heroes #50, cover by Francis Manapul, John Livesay and JD Smith (note: in the podcast I say something idiotic about not knowing who "Livesay" is, but that's because I didn't look two lines up to see that he was the inker for the book and in fact does have a first name. This is one of about six incredibly idiotic things I say during this episode, it's one of those days):


Panel(s) of the Week

Evie's pick, from Wonder Woman #28 by Gail Simone and Aaron Lopresti:


Aaron's pick, from Daredevil #115 by Ed Brubaker and Michael Lark

So, about five years after everyone else in the world, I'm finally reading Y The Last Man. It's curious that it took me this long, seeing as Brian K. Vaughan's Runaways was, as pretty much anyone who's visited here for half a second knows a million times over, basically responsible for my comics habit to begin with. Maybe it's because I was afraid of disappointment, with all the expectation of it being, you know, supposedly the best comic of all ever. I'm pleased to report though that I'm enjoying it immensely, although I might be able to make a case that Ex Machina is at least as good. If you'd like to fight about that, let me know.

But really the main point I want to make is this: Yorick Brown is Peter Parker if he were written really, really well. I don't expect him ever to be, but now I can imagine what it might be like.

Runaways comes out this week. Also, Terry Moore's run on Runaways starts on Wednesday. Other books I'm looking forward to: Runaways, Vol. 3 #1.

So I made a hypothetical comment below about "if I were to compile a list of my 20 favorite runs."

And within seconds of my fingers lifting off the keys, my brain kicked into gear, as the brain of a comic fan always does when presented with such an idea, and I decided to compile a list of my 20 favorite runs.

This list is not even remotely final or complete or even correct. (I probably have a few creators wrong.) But working off the top of my head at 2 in the morning last night, here's what I came up with.

New Warriors V1 Nicieza/Robinson
Avengers V2 Busiek/Perez
Ex Machina BKV/Harris
Runaways BKV/others
Y The Last Man BKV/Guerra
Daredevil Bendis/Maleev?
Ult. Spider Man Bendis/Bagley
Planetary Ellis/Cassaday
Warlock Starlin
Defenders Gerber/???
Ult FF Ellis/Immonnen, (Ellis/Kubert?)
Animal Man Morrison/???
New X-Men Morrison/Quitely
52 Morrison, etc.
Sentinel McKeever
Ultimates 1&2 Millar/Hitch
Fables Willingham/Buckingham
Ult. Galactus Trilogy - Ellis
Marvels Busiek Ross
Birds of Prey Simone

I figured I'd post the list here in its outline/barebones/incorrect form, and do a little series of posts tracking the changes until I get to my final list. Obviously there's a lot more modern stuff in here, because I've read a lot more modern stuff.

And besides. Why the hell not? I've got a comic blog. This is what comic blogs are for.

Episode #3 is posted in the right sidebar, so please download and enjoy (and leave a review on iTunes if you would be so kind)!

Episode description:
Episode #3 of Awesomed By Comics is brought to you by Brian Michael Bendis, so please tune in each week for the next eight months to learn what happened on this episode. Evie and Aaron brag about watching an advance copy of "Batman: Gotham Knight," and fight about Runaways #30 and how literally to consider the Crap of the Week category. Much praise is heaped on punching the Watcher in the head.

Aaron tells me I was too generous in my assessment of Runaways #30, below, and that in fact it was crap. Granted, I had such low expectations that perhaps I had a sensitive gush meter. But we'll definitely be "discussing" it on the podcast this weekend.

...Not only did Runaways #30 tie up every loose end, have some true surprises and give Molly multiple winner lines, it made me tear fucking up. This story arc has been so drawn out that I had forgotten what we were even waiting for, but Whedon managed to make it all come back and make sense, and give Chase one of the tenderest comic book moments in recent memory. Despite my spaz-out yesterday, I must remind myself that I did name this blog and the podcast after a piece of dialog that Joss Whedon wrote for this very series, and that he did have the characters pretty well nailed. Which I think made the delays and clumsiness of the set-up that much more disappointing. Anyway, there's really no doubt that this issue will be my First or Last of the Week for the next podcast, so I won't go into it all here, but suffice it to say I am relieved and now almost sad to see Whedon go. Stupid comics fans, you can't win with those bastards!

So, moving on, before the guilt of not doing the work I'm supposed to be doing takes over--as the few of you who know me personally know ten times over, I have a back issue for which I had surgery in December, and the surgery apparently didn't work so now I have the same problem in addition to residual crap from being cut open. Yeah, wah wah wah. Anyway, I have physical therapy in the late afternoon on Mondays and Wednesdays, so depending on how my work day plays out, I'm sometimes able to go straight home afterwards instead of back to the office. I was having kind of a shitty day pain-wise, so I was feeling frowny-faced and being kind of babyish with my therapist and in a general state of orneriness. The weather was unbelievably beautiful when I went outside, so instead of going back to work or getting on the train, I decided my mood could use a comic book and a frozen treat. So I detoured to Forbidden Planet on Broadway and 13th (where, incidentally, way too many dudes think it's ok to read all of their books right there in the too-skinny aisle), brought Final Crisis #2 to Red Mango on 14th and 6th, and decided pretty rapidly that I will be doing this every Wednesday this summer. Seriously, it was a substantially pleasant half hour (I don't race the clock when Morrison is involved), and lifted my spirits several notches.

I don't care who's bitching about what, Final Crisis was great--well paced, cinematic and very nearly terrifying in the right ways. I'm pretty much in the camp that thinks Morrison has been a tad of a dick in the press lately, but it's gotta be said that his storytelling is several levels above the norm. Like, startlingly so. I'm still trying to spelunk my way through Seven Soldiers of Victory with erratic success, but that's my own stupid, and I'm quite willing to read it multiple times to fully appreciate it. And Final Crisis is clearly building from SSoV quite nicely, so I am patient enough to wait for the slow, thinky unravel.

Anyway, if you happen to live in New York and wander into Red Mango on a Wednesday at around 5:00, and see a girl eating a medium yogurt with strawberries and Cinnamon Toast Crunch and reading a Secret Invasion tie-in, say hi. Or ask me how my back is doing, I love to tell people about it.

No matter how late, confusing, convoluted or unwieldy it is, I CANNOT WAIT for Runaways #30 to drop tomorrow. Because it means the kids will get back home just in time for a Secret Invasion crossover, and it means the awkward Whedon run is finally putting in its notice. I don't know anything about anything, but I have a feeling Whedon got so excited about taking over Runaways that he lost his mind a bit, and got a little manic, and said "oh let's do this! And this! And omg this with these 16 new characters here! Time travel and funny clothes and it will be so exciting that everyone will be totally engrossed and no one will forget what's going on even if I take a six-month break between issues!"

That's how I feel when I read it, anyway. Or at least I think that's how I feel, I don't really remember (GET IT?).

p.s. I should add that I don't think it's cool to thoughtlessly trash on creators, especially those that have proven their talents in many ways--this is just a case of one of my all-time favorites going a little off the rails, and I'm excited for a new start. So Joss, when you read this, because I know you totally will obvs, don't sweat it.