http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news//newstopics/celebritynews/3517456/Batman-to-be-killed-off-after-70-years.html
Deal:
Gotham Central - This is a police procedural showing the Gotham homicide division. It's really great because these are normal cops are trying to solve crimes in a hopeless city where The Joker and Scarecrow and company run wild alongside the normal assortment of murderers and crooks. The cops tend to resent Batman because he makes them all look like chumps, and because he attracts all the crazy villains to their town. After the cops use detective work to 'arrest Firebug, one of them goes up to the roof and turns on the Batsignal. Batman shows up and the cop tells him off, saying that the Gotham PD doesn't need Batman's help to solve crimes, and that they arrested Firebug by themselves. Batman says "Good. Thank you."
The officer yells at him "That's all you have to say to me? A good cop died trying to stop one of YOUR crazies, and that's all you can say to me?!?". Batman says "No, it's not. Don't ever use that signal unless it's an emergency."
Another Batman story:
I was reading a JLA comic and aliens had ambushed JLA headquarters. They had captured, beaten and tortured Superman, Wonder Woman, Flash, and Green Lantern. One of the aliens says "Ok, all the heroes are accounted for except for Batman." and his boss says "Batman doesn't matter, he's the one that doesn't even have superpowers." Superman coughs up blood and laughs - "Batman is the most dangerous man on Earth." Then Batman ends up taking out all the aliens John McClane style.
I like some of Ennis' Punisher (for example, the Punisher himself) but it's kind of depressing how every single individual character bar none is the world's worst person. He can not write a supporting character that is normal. Every last one is a cruel, inbred, pedo, backstabbing, cheating, lying, clavo, murderous, evil simpleton. After reading a few issues I just want to kick the next person I see right in the fork.
I read a whole bunch of Walking Dead in one go, something like 45 issues in one weekend. I know that they got to the prison and had started to make it a home, but they had not yet found that guy in the next town named The General or The Mayor or whatever his name is. I enjoyed it but it's been a while since I read them and I kind of forget who is who and what their backstories are. I guess the smart move is to read the wikipedia article to remind myself of those details and then pick up where I left off.
Prescott:
Garth Ennis is good to the Punisher, in much the same way he is bad to everything else. How much of The Boys did you read? I have read like the first say 25 - 30 books and while the storyline is interesting, I haven't found it really compelling. Similar to Scalped, I don't dislike reading it but I am never really excited about it. Also, I hope you are all aware that the Aliens, Predator and Aliens vs. Predator books are wonderful. Really wonderful. Also, I really have to recommend that Walking Dead, the zompocalypse really is brought to life.
Deal:
Kingpin - This is a 2004 miniseries showing his rise from the street to power. It's like the movie American Gangster in that it shows Fisk in 1960's Harlem uniting black dealers against Italian suppliers. It's only four issues and I'm only on issue 2 but it is pretty great! The Kingpin is awesome and the story is a (mostly) plausible and realistic depiction of criminal life.
Hitman - Garth Ennis is a short-sighted hypocrite. Every month he writes 20 pages of incredible stories with interesting, plausible characters. Then, he writes 4 more pages of mutant trannies shitting in the Pope's ear and he crams these pages back into the original 20. He obviously thinks that he is too good for the comic book industry and therefore he is terrified that people might think that he cares about his job, so he has to shit up a bunch of pages every single issue just so that if his friends read one of his books he can point to the shit parts and pretend that he's only having a laugh at DC's expense. Screw him. As soon as he dies the first thing we'll do is remove his 15% shit contributions from every comic and put his name down in history as a guy that LOOOOVED comic books and was SOOOOO PROUD to write them. Also he loved showtunes and dressed like a clown.
Anyway, Hitman is written by Garth Ennis and is 85% excellent. It's about a hitman named Tommy Monaghan living in Gotham who only wants to hang out with his pals in a sleazy neighborhood bar. As part of DC's Bloodlines story arc Tommy got x-ray vision and telepathy, although using either power tends to give him a splitting migraine. These limited powers are still enough of an edge to allow Tommy to take contracts on superbeings, aliens, demons, etc.
The best part of the comic is the dialogue. Tommy and his friends act like actual friends, and when they are just hanging out playing cards or having some beers they are constantly screwing with each other and it really works well. Tommy is a genuinely funny character, which is rare in comics. He mostly just uses his powers to hit on chicks or to look at Catwoman naked. There's also some action and stuff but that's usually where Garth Ennis gets his gay on - Tommy fights zombie trouts! Tommy fights a mobster that can't stop pooping and someone falls down and lands in the poop and the poop splatters into someone's elses mouth and they eat the poop! Tommy teams up with a guy that welds dogs to people (which does not even make sense)! IS THIS ZANYTOWN OR WHAT? Yaaaaawn.
The Boys - This is another comic written by Garth Ennis, but here's the good news! After Ennis completely shat up the first four issues, his label assigned him to an editor that ran a tight ship. As a result issues 1-4 are ass and issues 5 and above are completely excellent. I say 'his label' because this comic is produced by some independant whozit that nobody never heard of nor cares about.
The Boys are a group of operatives that use dirty tricks to keep the superhero community in line. In this universe, superheroes act like a rich Hollywood megastars in that they are selfish assholes that just run around drinking and whoring and snorting cocaine and getting into fights over bullshit and breaking a bunch of shit with their superpowers on accident. They have little to no training which means that when they go to rescue someone they are likely to end up killing as many people as they save. The public loves the heroes because the comic book industry whitewashes the heroes' drunken rampages by pretending that they were actually fighting an alien invasion or maybe they were mind-controlled and their powers went bezerk or something. Sometimes, however, the heroes will screw up big time and that's when The Boys come in to set things straight. The Boys are no match physically against a superheroes so they rely much more on blackmail, divide-and-conquer tactics, and guerilla warfare. It's pretty dark but also pretty fun to read, ESPECIALLY after the editor cut out all the baloney. There's also some genuinely funny jokes and situations in this comic, which is amazing considering how terrible comic book "jokes" usually are.
Side note: In the comic, the main character is Billy Butcher. He's always talking about how much he hates superheroes for being arrogant assholes that use their powers to shove around normal innocent human beings. In fact, one of the heroes even raped Billy's wife! However, even in the first goddamn issue Ennis writes Billy Butcher as an arrogant asshole that uses his powers to shove around normal innocent human beings, and a running sub-plot is that Billy is fucking another guy's wife. Are we supposed to root for Billy Butcher just because he's the main character? Garth Ennis can be a fucking retard sometimes.
In conclusion: Kingpin is good without reservation. Hitman is pretty good but you have to look past a lot of crap in order to see it. The Boys is crap for four issues and then gets pretty excellent.
Prescott: I also meant to send out a list of great comics that should be read if reading comics interests you.
In no particular order
DMZ
Fables
Naruto
New Avengers - For two reasons, Spiderman is witty again and Tony Stark always leaves in secret to meet with the Illuminati
The Illuminati #1 -5
Naruto
World's Finest - In the most recent one Superman and Batman switch powers
The Exterminators
Naruto
Justice Leagues Tornado's Path - Oldy but goody.
The Walking Dead - The Zompocalypse comes to comics every week.
Naruto
Kaz: Did you read all of these comics this week? I thought you lost your stay-at-home-reading-comic- books job and traded it in (like an idiot) for a leave-home-for-work-do-work job. I quite my job all together and you still have more time than me!
Prescott: This is horrible horrible news
Schmidt: I read this "Batman Dies" story a couple of weeks ago, and that reporter made it seem he was only being killed in a side universe publicity stunt, so I didn't take this too seriously. Apparently, they're still kicking around how/if/when they want to temporarily "kill" Batman to sell a couple million comics. If you think about it, it's like deciding when to harvest your money tree. Then, obviously, replant it.
Kaz: Yeah Buddy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ziOhn-rD7Y
Prescott: Why do you send stupid shit?
Kaz: Yeah Buddy! That guy is bigger than Griff's TV is small, but he still sounds like a fourteen year old for the first time in a gym. That's the kind of guy I want to have protecting me from other guys.
Kaz: This is unacceptable:
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/showbiz/film/article1982939.ece
Prescott: This is why DC is so terrible. Bruce Wayne was a function of Batman, not the other way around.
