Approached by one of its co-authors, Tim, Mulele, and Kumar take him up on his suggestion to review “Kill Shakespeare” from IDW. However, we didn’t promise to like it.
Harvey Pekar, author of “American Splendor,” died recently at age 70. A remembrance of some of his work.
San Diego Comic-Con is over for another year. What are some things that we WISH would have been announced there?
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Great show, guys.
I think the motif of the guy being walled in might be a call-back to “The Cask of Amontillado” by Poe. Maybe E.C. Comics did an adaptation of that story and that’s what you’re remembering.
The idea of “not caring about current Superman comics because you can always go back and read old Superman comics that you haven’t read yet” really resonated with me. I felt much the same way a year and a half ago when DC got rid of Bruce Wayne as Batman in current continuity. I’m sure that the people who didn’t like that move have not read every Bruce-Wayne-as-Batman story, and indeed there were and continue to be new out-of-continuity stories published in which Bruce Wayne is Batman. Obsession over the tiny little spectrum that is “current continuity” is baffling to me. There are so many options to choose from, especially regarding marquee characters.
I really enjoyed your lambasting of Kill Shakespeare. You guys have great critical senses, and I love how you don’t hold back. Because of that, I wish you’d review some of the new Avengers revamp sometime soon (the renumbered “Avengers” and “New Avengers” and “Avengers Prime”). I’ve wanted to get into Avengers for so long, but Bendis’s writing keeps turning me off no matter how many chances I give him. Then again, this is supposed to be a good jumping-on point for Marvel’s premier franchise. So please just review the books and lambaste them, so I know to stay away again.
The only thing I didn’t like hearing was the criticism of Chris Claremont. Don’t get me wrong, I think most of his recent work is pretty bad; for the last twenty years his characterization skills certainly warrant strong condemnation. But the old X-Men stuff? I honestly think the depth he gave those characters in the ’80s was outright Shakespearean. So many other superheroes (especially in recent years) are so superficial that Claremont’s Storm seems like Shakespeare’s Cleopatra, Charles Xavier is nearly as deep as King Lear, etc. I don’t even think Claremont’s stuff up through the Dark Phoenix Saga is as deserving of the super praise it gets, but from around issues 160 to 275, I really think that wordy-ass Chris Claremont conveyed a hell of a lot of humanity and complexity in those characters.
Thanks, Drazer90!
Yes, I’m really puzzled by all the adulation Kill Shakespeare is getting, from people who apparently have actually read it! (But possibly the first comic they’ve picked up in decades?)
I’m not as harsh on Claremont as Mulele is. I enjoyed the X-men stuff I read in the early ’80s — haven’t read it in so long, though, that I can’t really comment on its merit one way or the other!
Thanks for your comments, Drazer90.
Yeah, Mulele definitely has an issue with Claremont, mostly — I think — stemming from making a powerless Storm team leader — a concept which I actually loved at the time. I haven’t actually read *that* much of Claremont’s first X-Men run, but I have been trying to convince Tim to do an episode with me about DARK PHOENIX saga lately.
Also, just last night we discussed the Avengers (the team not the actual books) a bit as we recorded an episode partly about the THOR movie trailer. As I was never into Avengers as a kid, and the series you mention are supposed to be a “good jumping on point” I think it would be a good idea for me to actually try jumping on there to see what happens so we can do an episode about it.
KS