Reviews, ruminations, and (occasional) ramblings
Yes, I’m cheering for England–my dad is from there, after all–so I hope they make it through to the final. (Off to a good start … Trippier just scored from a free kick.)
Of course, there’s no doubt who Gulliver is cheering for either …
(I know that’s a UK flag, not an England flag, but I don’t have a St. George’s flag, so it’s the best I can do.)
UPDATE: Well, Gulliver’s not happy at all now. Congratulations to Croatia on making it through … France will be quite a challenge, I’m sure.
Gulliver is sad today because Koko, the famous sign-language gorilla, has died at the age of 46. She was one of a kind 😦
Well, that’s 1979 down … bring on 1980! Yup, it’s time for my semi-annual preview of what’s to come on the blog over the next six months. I’ll be reviewing pretty much the same comics I did for the first half of the year, with a notable addition near the end. As you can see, Gulliver is concentrating on his chess game; he’s upset that there aren’t more apes in the comics I’ve been reviewing. For the rest of you, read on to get the lowdown on what’s coming up over the next six months. Continue reading “1980 Preview”
Batman #313 – “Two for the Money” – Len Wein/Irv Novick/Frank McLaughlin
This one starts with a guy making an anonymous call to the police to report the theft of some nuclear codes (which we saw last issue). The tipster turns out to be the hacker who stole the codes, but before he can tell the cops where he hid them, his boss shows up to chastise him. Since his boss is Two-Face, that’s gonna be some heavy chastising. The hacker says he was worried about Two-Face’s idea of selling the codes to a foreign country. Two-Face says he wasn’t planning on committing treason, he was going to work out some kind of a double-cross. Continue reading “Comics Reviews: Batman 313, Brave & the Bold 152, Warlord 23”
I don’t usually shill for people on my blog, but I’m making an exception in this case. Ron Randall is doing a Kickstarter campaign to bring his latest Trekker adventure to print. I’ve already donated, and he’s getting close to his target, so I thought I’d spread the word. Trekker is a cool sci-fi story about interstellar bounty hunter Mercy St. Clair, who’s trying to make her way in a dangerous world while learning some hard truths. The art is great and the characters are compelling, so check it out.
Okay, sales pitch over!
Welcome to the wrap-up for 1978, which also marks the end of my first year of blogging. The end of the year is traditionally a time for looking back (as with this olde-tyme photo of Gulliver), but I’d also like to look ahead. 1978 has been fun and there were some pretty cool stories, but I’m looking forward to reviewing some 1979 comics. Because of the DC Implosion in late ’78, DC canceled a bunch of titles and cut the page counts of their existing comics drastically. So 1979 is a pretty stable year, at least for my purposes; I’ll be reviewing thirteen titles, all but one of which were monthly (the sole exception being Detective Comics, which was bi-monthly, but mega-sized). I’ll be reviewing three comics per post (except for the posts with Detective Comics, where there’ll be four), so it’ll be easier to keep track of when your favourites will be reviewed. As for specifics, keep reading. Continue reading “Year End (P)review”
Apparently, long-time comics writer Len Wein has died at the age of 69. I’ve read a lot of Wein’s stuff over the years and most of it was pretty good. Of course, he’s probably best known for co-creating Swamp Thing and the All New X-Men, but I remember some of his other work fondly: JLA (he’s the one who brought back the Seven Soldiers of Victory); Batman (with some classic villains); Amazing Spider-Man (where he used plenty of classic baddies like Molten Man, Shocker, Hammerhead, Doc Ock, Silvermane and brought in some new ones, like Will o’ the Wisp and the third Green Goblin). He had fairly long runs on Incredible Hulk, Thor, Deadman (in Adventure), Green Lantern, and wrote all of the first Blue Beetle series. He also wrote the Legends miniseries, which helped redefine the DCU after the Crisis.
I haven’t read all his stuff, but what I have read I generally like. Wein respected history, but wasn’t afraid to give long-established characters new personality traits. I’ll be reviewing his late 70s/early 80s Batman run next year and I’m looking forward to re-reading those issues; I seem to recall liking them. Len Wein will be missed.
