One thing that everyone probably agrees on is that comedy should make you laugh. Whether out loud or on the inside, it makes you chuckle, chortle, and generally react favorably to whatever’s being presented. Basically, anything can be comedy.

So it’s basically about presentation. Comedy isn’t a substance so much as it is a moment, a context, an amalgam and a conflux, as it were, of personalities, words, events, and reactions that all kind of snowball together and smash into your funny bone, forcing you to laugh. Comedy is an art.

Futurama is a comedy. Or, at least, it was.

Any culturenaut worth his or her collective spit knows about the tortured life of the Matt Groening and David X. Cohen’s brainchild like the back of their hand. They experienced the elation of a show that continued a tradition of boisterous, tradition-bashing, irreverent jokes presented through absurdist scenarios and extremist personalities, felt a tinge of sentiment through a delicately crafted romantic narrative between a bumbling idiot loner and an egoistic existential outcast, and ultimately suffered the tremendous ambivalence that came from the premature termination of one of the greatest shows of our generation. And of course they felt the unimaginable joy of its resurrection, at first slowly, in 4 yearly made-for-TV movie spurts, and then gloriously in a complete return to form on dear old Comedy Central.

But the Futurama we have today isn’t the same. For all the good that’s come out of said resurrection of one of the greatest comedies of all time, there’s a terrible, unshakable feeling that the show that we’re so happy to have back has been changed. Futurama has been snatched; in its place we have…something else.

And so it’s here that I emit my piercing pod-person scream in an attempt to illuminate the truth: Futurama just isn’t as good as it used to be.

LEELA, THERE’S NOTHING WRONG WITH ANYTHING

One irrefutable fact about Futurama is that it’s funny. It’s also about everything. In Futurama nothing is sacred. There’s no crazy guy saying “you can’t do that” or “you can’t say this” or “the word ‘bastard’ isn’t on the list of approved terms”. Okay well, maybe there is, but they don’t listen to that guy.

So much of its magic comes from this; pure irreverence mixed with incisive wit. In the very first episode this is made unmistakably clear, with Fry landing in a future full of suicide booths, a jaded fate assignment officer, and the mantra “you gotta do what you gotta do”. Throw in a few decisive quips about society’s obsession with the past and its icons symbolized by rows upon rows of heads in jars and I’d say you’ve got a formula for magic.

BONDER!? IS IT REALLY YOU?

So when you take that formula and start futzing with it, you move the marble of comedy, once so precariously poised upon the acme of the comedy bell curve, out of its precariously poised balance. And what would make comedy veterans knowingly futz with such a precariously poised marble?

Premature Termination.

By truncating the proposed timescale for a show, you truncate its ability to tell a story. And in Futurama’s case, it’s like slicing open its chest, thrusting your hand inside, and then ripping out its heart. As you rip and tear the heart from its bony cage, vessels and arteries are pulled from their rightful spaces and life-giving blood sprays every which way, spattering on a liver, a spleen, and maybe a pancreas. These poor organs try their best to sop it up, soak up the life, and carry on as best they can, but it’s only matter of time until these limp pools of blood, now detached from their circulatory, oxygenating, life-giving source, turn blue and fetid, and eventually dry up, caking, calcifying, and strangling out of those organs what little life they were meant to give.

But I guess you can’t really say that they didn’t try their darndest to make that last bit of life great.

NECKS ARE FOR SHEEP

And it’s true: Futurama didn’t really give up the ghost at the end of Season 4. I mean, it looked like it, of course. And it felt like it too. Only the most important elements of the story had been resolved up to that point: Philip J. Fry, Idiot Universal Savior, proved his worth on a Scooty Puff Jr. AND Sr. Turanga Leela, forever disinclined to fully collapse into an unshakeable chemistry with the said Idiot Universal Savior finally capitulates (presumably). The Planet Express crew’s fate left uncertain, but the characters we care about finally free of doubt, danger and uncertainty, and hopefully happy. It was a good ending. But it was an ending too soon for most.

And rightfully so! There were still so many stories left untold, so many ideas left untouched and un-satirized. So they did what every good storyteller faced with a malicious emcee with a personal vendetta against him does: he keeps telling his story. Luckily for Futurama, its audience was so in love with that story that it made it easy. They drowned that stupid emcee in a pile of cash not unlike the way I stuff my face with so much fried chicken that I become momentarily apneic.

What came out the other end were 4 movies, each increasingly absurd, each appropriately themed for the year they were produced in. But most importantly of all was that it was more Futurama, which is precisely what those cash-dumping fans wanted. It was more Fry, more Leela, more Fry and Leela, but also more of everything else. But as with many wonderfully delicious things, more isn’t necessarily better. And in the case of Futurama, every bit more wasn’t just a bit more comedy. It was more Futurama.

I’VE BEEN A FOOL. A FULLY JUSTIFIED, PRUDENT FOOL

This begs a disturbingly vague question: What is Futurama? Futurama is more than just a comedy, though it is objectively funny. Futurama more than just a documentation of absurd individuals (a la Family Guy), though without them it wouldn’t be worth watching. And Futurama is more than just a story, but because it is a story, every episode is expected to push the story further. And even those that don’t, still do.

So what Futurama really is is that story, and what made Futurama interesting to watch, worthwhile to watch, and most importantly more than just funny to watch was that it was a story. A story that, under the unforgiving force of a truncated timeline, was completely and utterly betrayed by its creators. And to have to recombobulate that, to have to try and resurrect that narrative momentum (any narrative momentum, really) is nearly impossible.

So they didn’t.

TOO MANY BONES, NOT ENOUGH CASH

What they did instead was forge ahead, discarding any sentiment, substance, or significant plot facts for the sake of comedy. They called Zoidberg an Art History doctorate, turned Professor Farnsworth into a wrinkled Wikipedia, and completely destroyed what little integrity was left in Philip J. Fry’s integrity gland.

What we have now is a show built on a graveyard of aborted babies, a place where the idea that anything could be sacred has lived, died, and been meticulously documented, a place where the word “atrocity” has no more weight than the words “apples and oranges”, and a place where only a dark and absurd narrative could survive, or maybe where a bland and mundane one might seem tragically comic.

That’s what we have now. Futurama is no longer an interesting and vindictive satire of modern society; it’s just another product of it. Futurama is no longer a place where romance in destiny carries more weight than what might make a few physics nerds laugh and feel included. Futurama is no longer a show where anything really happens. Futurama is now just another joke on Comedy Central.

And the real comedy is just how tragic that fact is.

Forerunner:

Around 100,000 years before the events of the first Halo game, the Forerunners were a race of technologically superior beings that conquered and controlled the entire galaxy. They had mastered nearly every aspect of science and technology, having the ability to move planets, slow time, and trap stars.

Another key factor in Forerunner history was their relationship with humans. At a time, Forerunners and the combined empires of humans and Prophets stood as equals in the galaxy. In fact, the Forerunners were almost unable to stop human expansion, until a calamitous infection invaded the human worlds.Living for thousands of years at a time, the Forerunner would metamorphose into a class in their rigid caste system. In order of lowest to highest ranking, there were Lifeworkers, who indexed the genomes of every species in the galaxy, Miners, Warrior-Servants, who fought the Forerunner wars and were responsible for bringing every other sentient species in the galaxy to their knees, and Builders, whose great works include the massive ring worlds, called Halos, and Requiem, the Dyson Sphere-like setting of Halo 4.

A possible Forerunner depiction

The Flood War:

Millions of years ago, the Forerunners had risen to power by rebelling against the Precursors, the pinnacle civilization in the history of the galaxy. As a measure of last resort and final retribution, the Precursors sent a ship on a round trip out of the galaxy. Eons later, the ship returned and landed on a human world, carrying with it hundreds of canisters of fine powder. This powder jumped from species to species, until it started to infect humans and Prophets. The infection was a parasite that commandeered the host, gaining its knowledge and functions.

The Flood, as the parasite came to be called, was on the verge of wiping out prehistoric humanity, which was also engaged in a prolonged, widespread war with the Forerunners. Facing extinction, the humans and Prophets developed a method of vanquishing the Flood. They willingly changed the genetic code of one third of their population and placed them in the path of the Flood. When infected, these new Flood would turn on each other and destroy themselves. One ship, filled with unaltered Flood, escaped the galaxy.

Humanity was saved, but the brash tactic had taken its toll. After enduring the Flood and sacrificing a third of its people, humanity was unable to defy the might of the Forerunners. A special group of Warrior-Servants, called Prometheans, were dispatched to end the war against the humans. The Human and Prophet Empires were demolished, and the remnants of their populations were relegated to technologically devoid planets, where they would stay for ten thousand years.

Much like the canister-containing ship before it, the lone Flood vessel returned to the galaxy, this time landing in Forerunner-controlled space. The Forerunners had mostly forgotten about humanity’s brush with the Flood, leading them to treat the Flood casually as a disease, rather than a galactic parasite. The Flood, immediately able to command the advanced Forerunner technologies wielded by those they infected, was able to quickly gain the upper-hand against them.

To make matters worse, the Forerunners were in a period of disarmament, believing that there was nothing left in the galaxy that could oppose them. Instead of having standing armies and navies filled with Warrior-Servants, the Builders constructed the Halos, an array of twelve rings that, when fired in tandem, would annihilate anything with a neural system in the galaxy. The Forerunners created the most powerful, advanced AI in existence to control the Halos and all other Forerunner defenses. They called it Mendicant Bias.

The Primordial, a creature created by the Precursors and left in slumber for eons, was unleashed by Mendicant Bias test-firing a Halo on an ancient Precursor world. The creature was subsequently captured by the AI and transported for interrogation to one of the Halo rings. Over a period of decades, the creature slowly corrupted Mendicant Bias and convinced it to rebel against its creators. It commandeered five of the Halo rings to destroy the Forerunner capital.

A corrupted Mendicant Bias

The other seven Halos were saved from Mendicant Bias and transported to the Ark, which was a Halo-like structure resting well outside of the Milky Way that served several purposes. First, it held the indexed genomes of every species in the galaxy and had the capability to repopulate it. Second, it could repair damaged Halos. Lastly, it was the only way for the entire Halo array to fire at once.

Mendicant Bias and its fleet of millions of Flood-infected Forerunner ships rapidly eviscerated the remaining Forerunner forces in the galaxy. Hearing of the Ark and the remaining survivors’ plan to activate the Halos, Mendicant Bias gathered his forces and mounted an all-out attack on the Ark. The Forerunners had created another powerful AI, called Offensive Bias, for the sole purpose of stalling Mendicant Bias’ fleet long enough for the Halo array to wipe the galaxy clean of life and Flood.

A Halo as it is about to fire

Offensive Bias succeeded and the Forerunners, in their most desperate hour, fired the seven remaining Halos and obliterated all biological mass in and around the galaxy. Without the Flood at its disposal, Mendicant Bias’ fleet was demolished, and the AI was split into several pieces and scattered across the Milky Way.

Soon, the robotic Forerunner Sentinels went about repopulating the galaxy to its previous state. The Forerunner, however, were not included in this scheme. They had deemed themselves unworthy to rule the galaxy and, instead, passed on the mantle to humanity, who they labeled Reclaimers. Any remaining Forerunners and Flood Graveminds were stored on the Halo, Installation 07. Several samples of the Flood were kept in various labs around the galaxy for study.

We were without power for days, trees were flying all over the place in wind gusts of up to 90 mph, and I’m pretty sure the apartment we usually rent at the beach in the summertime is currently under water (we stay on the third floor).  Basically, 3 words: Shit got real.

So how did I keep my cannibalistic urges down as we sat in the dark with no heat or food? Easily, Brian K. Vaughan’s Saga.  Oh. My. God.  Imagine, if you will, Romeo and Juliet, set to the backdrop of the Star Wars conflict, sans its main characters.  And empire and rebelling forces battling for so long that they’ve actually “outsourced” the war to other planets and races.  The sides? Mystical, magic-users with massive goat horns vs. a technologically advanced race of fairy-people.   Sounds kinda like the old all-encompassing-war-fantasy stuff as usual right? Well 2 words: Robot sex.

Okay so the fairies have pretty much hired this race of robots which resemble statues with televisions for heads as the main forces in their army.  These robots, despite their comically inanimate appearance, are extremely human.  We are introduced to them as Prince Robot IV finds himself distracted from, graphically, engaging in intercourse with his wife/girlfriend/female serial port…

That’s the thing that sets Saga apart from all the rest. No, not the robot sex.  The humanity of its so-obviously non-human characters.  Everything is played straight faced, but in a delightfully absurdist sort of way that only adds to the comedy.  Here’s a list of some things you might find in Saga: Alligator butlers, talking cats, boobs (lots of them), topless spider women, a man crushing another mans head with his bare hands, women whose bodies are comprised of giant heads and stocking-wearing legs, a teenage-girl-ghost with her intestines hanging out,a rocketship forest, and the opening line “Am I shitting? It feels like I’m shitting.”

Look I’m really not doing the book justice here.  Let me just say this – Saga is a compelling, funny, amazing work of fiction from the writer of Y the Last Man with beautiful art by Fiona Staples that should be on everyone’s  must-read list.  As always, the first issue is free on Comixology.  Go and download it.  It definitely gives you a great taste of what’s the come, and what’s more, the first trade is only $9.99 and includes every issue published thus-far!

Saga is coming back into print next month people, catch up before you end up like Lying Cat here.

Volume 1-Issue 4

If you’re anything like me, then alternate-history “what-if?” scenarios touch your imagination at its most basic level.  The idea of top secret decade-early trips to the moon, shadowy government cover-ups, and long-armed corporations harken back to childhood, where playing pretend meant convincing yourself that the monsters under your bed were there for only you to see.

If you’re like me, then the idea of pop culture representing real-world, ultra secret happenings delights your mind.  You’re a detective, an “Archaeologist of the Impossible,” asking the tough questions; what if our movies, comics, and serials were based on the unseen, secret history of the 20^th century?

If you’re like me, you need to read Planetary.

Warren Ellis’ Planetary is a work of art, and not just because of John Cassaday’s beautiful penciling and Laura DePuy’s hauntingly drab color scheme.  It is an exploration of a world we all wished existed-A world where the Justice League and Godzilla once walked the earth (Albeit, as twisted alternatives to the characters we have grown accustomed to seeing time and time again).

Within the first 6 issues and despite the book’s done-in-one form, Ellis manages to create a world that is not only compelling, but feels surprisingly large.   Planetary is like a blind man dipping his toes into the ocean.  Behind the shadowy veil lies a history of vast proportions that we can only guess at.  This implied size of Planetary’s universe is one of the best instances of world building in storytelling that I’ve ever seen.

I’m doing my best in this edition of Back Issues to avoid all spoilers.  Even giving away the basic concept of the series takes away from the reading experience.  Just know this: Alternative versions of loved pop culture figures, especially those of Marvel and DC comics, play prominent roles within the pages of Planetary.  I still remember the awestruck paralysis that came over me as I realized, half way through a debriefing on the series’ villain’s backstory, who this evil force was, really.  It was fantastic.

The first issue of Planetary is free on Comixology, and I am begging you to read it.  Give this first issue a try, and if you find yourself hooked, I assure you, what waits is simply beyond imagination.

Spoilers? Spoilers? Spoilers? Spoilers? Spoilers?

I suppose I can’t very well ask you to read Planetary without some inkling as to what its about, so I leave you with the author’s original proposal for the series:

“What if you had a hundred years of superhero history just slowly leaking out into this young and modern superhero world of the Wildstorm Universe? What if you could take everything old and make it new again?”

Imagine a triangle. Imagine you are the triangle.

Your sides are of equal length. Your three 60º internal angles are congruent to each other. You are regular in every way. Your only affliction a terrible conformity.

One day you are exposed to something incongruous, something incredulous, something so magnificently beyond the Pale it shatters and melts the very frame by which you exist – music.

Immediately your once dependable rigidity begins to deteriorate. No longer compliant with the geometric regulations of triangular society, you begin stretching, wildly unfolding like a schematic in a hurricane until you’re left slack and limp.

Disillusioned by your disgusting display of non-uniformity, you resist the transformation. But the power of the music is too strong. Your sides begin to recoil from their loosened positions and take form.

Misshapen, disfigured, you realise that now two of your sides are longer than the other. You have become an isosceles triangle. You feel disgrace. You feel threatened. You want more. You slut.

In a thrilling display of geometric disobedience your sides begin to crackle and distort again. Acute becomes obtuse and the scaffolding of your form morphs once more. Your body begins to slouch into sickening asymmetry. You have become a scalene triangle.

Bent, torn and oblique, with no memory of the laws of conventional trigonometry, you begin to wonder, why be a conventional shape at all?

You let the music unhinge your angles and vertices until you collapse into a hashed collection of jagged lines. You’ve lost all form. You’re not a triangle at all. You are an amorphous mass, a rudimentary object of abstraction. But it’s not enough.

Malcontent with your concrete form and determined to transcend convention and become one in blissful unity with an abstract cosmos, you allow the music to vibrate the very fibres of your being. Your particles shake and shift until there’s nothing left. You have disappeared. You are not a triangle. You are not matter at all.

Freed from chains intangible but no less restrictive than the strongest steel, you have no requirement for mandates and decrees. You forsake your council. You forsake mathematics. You forsake science. You have destroyed the parameters by which you used to live. You are no longer an embarrassing paragon. In becoming nothing you have become everything.

In 25 minutes you have been crushed and distorted into the ethereal. You have learned the value of the abstract. You are not a triangle. You are not a shape. You’re no more than a wisp in the air, a whisper in the wind, a bastard.

You were just exposed to You Slut!’s Medium Bastard

and you will never be the same again.

Volume 1-Issue 3

In January of 2012, a Marvel One Point one-shot revealed the identity of the new Scarlet Spider as Kaine, former Jackal-created genetically malfunctioning clone of Peter Parker bent on making other former Jackal-created clone of Peter Parker Ben Reilly’s life a living hell (please just don’t ask, the 90s were an awful, awful time for Spider-Man).

In the series that followed, collected as The Scarlet Spider  (Volume 2) Kaine, now apparently healed of his “genetic decomposition” which had been slowing killing him (since 1995) after the events of Spider Island and is looking to start a new life.

I’ll admit, I have almost no experience with Spider-comics aside from the 90s cartoon show which did a…very acceptable job of translating classic storylines into multi-episode arcs.   I didn’t know Kaine from Adam (oh wow, Bible puns, nice…) before picking up this comic.  I actually expected the book to star Ben Reilly, albeit with a slightly updated suit, sans blue Spider-hoodie.

Surprisingly, the book does a pretty decent, although exposition-heavy job of explaining the characters entire background in just a few issues, peppering important details throughout the series’ 7-issue run.   At times, its pretty heavy handed- “My name is Kaine, I’m a clone of Peter Parker and I hated Ben Reilly.  Now I have Spider powers somehow…” while at times I barely noticed that the content I was reading consisted entirely of back story.  The collected edition even includes a timeline of the Scarlet Spider mantle, which by the end of the book felt fairly unnecessary.

*Spoilers*Spoilers*Spoilers*Spoilers*Spoilers*Spoilers*Spoilers*Spoilers*

Kaine, having recently escaped from New York, is on the run with one of Peter Parker’s Spider suits that has apparently changed from black to red, and grants him invisibility.  He has, apparently, razor sharp claws.  I say apparently because the way it is drawn he seems to be scratching people’s faces, Catwoman style, with rounded fingers.  He produces webs directly from the wrist and can see in the dark, as well, but possesses no spider-sense.

On his way to Mexico, he stops in Houston to take down some human traffickers because of a newfound sense of right and wrong, present since his mind became “less clouded”, which Kaine describes as “a feeling of Peter judging me”.

After discovering a girl among the mound of corpses in one of cargo bins, Kaine encounters a host of new characters, chiefly amongst them a gay cop-doctor couple, and his hotel’s not-very-surprisingly super-hot bartender/female side character.  Hilarity, as with most comics, is bound to ensue. Oh, by the way, the girl is psychically linked to Kaine….

*End Spoilers * End Spoilers * End Spoilers * End Spoilers * End Spoilers *

Overall, this was a pretty well rounded comic.  It did a great job of catching me up with all the wacky comic nonsense that’s been building behind these characters since the 90s, while at the same time tells a humorous, entertaining tale that is (sort of) well contained and easily accessible.

Writer: Scott Snyder

Artist: Greg Capullo

In the pages of DetectiveComics #1, readers witnessed something truly disturbing: the removal of the Joker’s face by new B-Villain, the Dollmaker.  Joker reveled in the pain and horror of the experience, laughing as the Dr. Frankenstein-esk baddie filleted his flesh like the scales of a Joker Fish.  Leaving the face nailed to the wall, the Joker ran off into the night, leaving the Dark Knight to combat the new villain, disappearing for one entire year…

…and now he’s back.

The Joker’s history is one as motley as the Caped Crusader’s, with the character taking on a number of different personalities, looks, and feels over the last 70 odd years, but one has always remained the fan favorite: the sadistic  body-mutilating killer, and in Batman #13 this Joker is back with a vengeance.

Newcomers to Scott Snyder’s work on Batman will have almost no trouble jumping into this grisly issue.  Its cover alone should be enough to get longtime fans and those green to the Batman universe alike to pick it up.  For this reason, the entire issue reads as an homage to the Joker’s long, terrible career.  To long time fans it offers a look back and some of the character’s “finest” moments, with references to the Killing Joke and his first murder in Gotham City.  It traces his origin, pulls in “sidekicks” and feels from beginning to end, like a love letter to the Clown Prince of Crime.

Newcomers to Snyder’s Batman, or Batman in general can treat this comic as a sort of Joker 101, introducing characters and important plot points from the character’s long history.  Here is the Joker’s origin, here was his first murder, here is his…”love interest”, here is the character now.

The book never losses the feel of a horror movie (no surprise as it is this genre where the writer’s strengths lie), from the strange opening-page omens to the evil laughter in the dark room.  The book’s other characters are not left behind in this exploration of the Joker’s history, as we get several key character moments with both Batman and Jim Gordon throughout.  Gordon shows real fear for the first time that I’ve seen after the Joker’s attack, and even goes so far as to ask Batman whether it, the fear, shows in his voice.  Batman, ever the stoic, does his best to block out the fear he must be feeling, but struggles to understand the Joker’s motivation in his very un-Joker-like actions.

Capullo’s art is, as ever, a delight to the eyes.  From a beautifully lit skyline of Gotham to the drab inner reaches of the ACE Chemical Plant, detail abounds in his work.  My only complaint with the book as a whole is that in certain panels, especially close ups, it can be a little difficult to discern exactly what Capullo is trying to draw in them.  I promise you this is barely noticeable.

Overall, this is a book for the ages.  From one of the greatest Batman team’s comes the return of the greatest Batman villain.  Blood is spilled, necks are cracked, faces are lost, and smiles are turned upside down.  If you are even vaguely interested in the Batman mythos, or looking for a place to break into the frighteningly convoluted post-Morrison Batman continuity, there has never, ever been a better time to do it.

You got X-Men in my Avengers!  You got Avengers in my X-Men!  Fresh off of the financial success of Avengers vs. X-Men comes the first entry into the “Marvel Now!” line-wide rebranding.  Does this latest post-crossover reshuffle offer much to the longtime Marvelite?  Is this issue, ostensibly the flagship of Marvel Now!, accessible to new readers?  Is this comic any good?  Dive in below, and let’s discuss Uncanny Avengers #1.

Before we begin, I want to briefly explain the Marvel Now! concept.  In an attempt to provide fresh stories and new situations, Marvel has Acts of Vengeance’d their creative staffs.  What this means is that you have Avengers’ vet Brian Bendis writing the X-Men, and Iron Man alum Matt Fraction penning the Fantastic Four.  Shuffling creative teams around may sound like a recipe for disaster, but it can also be just what you need to shake up the complacency prevalent in the comic book industry.

Over a year ago, many questioned how DC could pull off a line-wide reboot.  It was a gamble, of course.  Would long term readers stick with a drastically altered continuity?  Today, DC has consistently beaten, or come incredibly close against Marvel on the sales charts month after month.

Now, with more restraint than the New 52, we have Marvel Now!  So, without further ado, let’s take a look at the premise:

Marvel’s two greatest franchises combine to offer the best of both worlds.  The slick creative team of Rick Remender (X-Force), and John Cassaday (Astonishing X-Men) unite to paint the Marvel landscape post AVX.  Can these former friends turned fearsome foes set aside their differences long enough to combat a threat from beyond the grave?

Our story picks up the pieces some small amount of time after Avengers vs. X-Men #12.  Charles Xavier has passed, Cyclops is in prison, and the mutant community has come together to mourn the loss of its’ greatest dreamer.

Captain America later attempts to recruit Cyclops’ brother, Havok, in order to Avenge the mutant name in front of the public, and after a “come to (insert religious figure) moment” they battle the X-Men’s longtime foe, Avalanche. Later, Rogue and Scarlet Witch don’t realize that AVX ended with issue 6,  and finally the Red Skull unveils his most batshit crazy plan yet.

Charles Xavier’s funeral?  Cyclops in prison?  Havok has lattes with Captain America?  Does this sound like an easy jumping-on point for a new comics reader?  Does this sound like a good #1 of any comic?  I don’t think so.

The first half of this comic establishes the mind-set of its mutant characters (Wolverine, Havok, Rogue) post Avengers vs. X-Men, but the problem is that it just doesn’t work as a first issue.  It’s more than a little clunky when a launch reads like the epilogue to a bloated crossover that most everyone would likely be happy to move past.  This book needs to establish its own voice and its own purpose if its going to go toe to toe with Uncanny X-Men and The Avengers.  The new reader doesn’t stand a chance in understanding, or caring about what is going on when the book itself seems to shamble through the plot unconcerned with things like pacing and momentum.  As a longtime comic reader, I didn’t have this problem myself, but it seems shortsighted to carry the launch of a new era on the shoulders of a recent misstep.

Now, what about this new initiative offers anything to the longterm Marvelite?  I don’t mind admitting that I’m not a fan of the X-Men.  They don’t come across as user friendly.  The last story I read was Joss Whedon’s Astonishing X-Men, because it allowed a casual fan to have a jumping-on point that actually was a jumping on point.  This book has had a similar effect on me.  By putting my favorite characters (The Avengers) into a setting where they can interact with a team I know little about (The X-Men), I’ve found that I am already wanting to know more about the mutants showcased in this issue.

For the past few years, The Avengers under Brian Bendis have been the story of the Marvel Universe.  Nearly every crossover that advanced the overall “plot” of the Marvel mythos  focused on them, and the eventual line-wide re-shuffle put their books front and foremost.  In our post-Lost serialized world where people want to read and watch what “matters,”  bringing the X-Men to the primetime of the Marvel Universe can only be a good thing.  Also, if you’re one of those guys or gals that only read the X-Men, then perhaps this will open your eyes to a new set of characters as well.

Final Word:  Is this comic worth reading?  Yes.  While inserting the X-Men back into the main story of the Marvel Universe may have had a clunky beginning, the slick writing and gorgeous visuals more then give me hope for next month.  With Avengers vs X-Men firmly in the rearview mirror, I predict this book will quickly find its footing and offer stories to tantalize X-Men and Avengers fans alike.  2.9 out of 5

Next time:  The Red Skull challenges the Uncanny Avengers.  Nuff said.

So, does the Wii U, by virtue of being the first new console to launch in six years, deserve the label of “next gen?”

The more prudent question might be: was the original Wii considered a part of the current generation? Power-wise, the console was only an incremental step above the horsepower of the Game Cube and nowhere even close to the might of the PS3 or Xbox 360. The vast majority of third party games that released on other consoles either bypassed the Wii or were downgraded and infused with waggle controls.

It’s now 2012, the Wii can’t output HD signals, and it is still considered part of the current generation of consoles. To put that in perspective, the original Xbox, which launched in 2001, could output HD. Compared to its console brethren, the Wii was woefully underpowered.

Yet the Wii dominated the competition. It’s a difficult argument to discount the winner of a generation from participating in said generation, but here it goes.

What if the Wii wasn’t actually part of the current generation? The price point, the specs, and the lack of a universal online system show that the Wii should have belonged in the generation before it.

The Wii U is setting itself up to face the same questions of generation identity. The graphic potential of the device is nothing to scoff at, but only through the lens of current generation consoles, and developers still have to figure out an effective way to harness the big screen power of the Wii U, while simultaneously spitting out another video stream for the controller, an obstacle that could keep the Wii U from achieving graphical parity with true next gen consoles.

When Star Wars 1313 or Watch Dogs release for the next Xbox and PlayStation, will the Wii U versions be laughably downgraded, like the third party ports of the Wii? Will LucasArts or Ubisoft even bother with releasing one?

To figure out where the Wii and Wii U fit into their respective console generations, we need to make the distinction as to whether or not the novelty of the new functionalities they introduce (motion controls for the Wii and the tablet controller for the Wii U) propel them to the status of “next gen.”

In the case of the Wii U, the second screen controller isn’t a technology that is prohibited from the current generation of consoles. With Xbox SmartGlass and the connectivity between the PS Vita and PS3, the same basic functionality will be available for this generation. The original Wii had motion controls that set it apart from the PS2 and Xbox, making it a challenge to lump it in with that group, but the Wii U won’t have the same benefit. The argument can’t be made that “the Wii U is ‘next gen’ because it has the second screen,” because critics can point to current gen consoles with the same functionality.

While it’s not a fresh idea, my opinion is that Nintendo is like a renegade cop in an eighties movie, in that they like to play by their own set of rules. They’ll release their console when they damn well please, and if you’re lucky, they’ll put in some features that have been mastered by their competitors.

The problem for Nintendo is capturing the allure of the “next gen” label. When they released the Wii, and they had to stand toe-to-toe with vastly superior machines, motion controls and the sheepish casual market came to the rescue. With grandpas and soccer moms thoroughly over their brief affair with WiiSports, and instead planted firmly behind their iPads and Kindles, Nintendo needs that “next gen” stamp more than ever to entice their wayward hardcore audience into dropping $350 on their machine. It’s a tough road ahead without it.

So take that stupid flannel shirt out of your stupid dickies double-knee work pants and GET SOME COLOUR UP IN THAT SHIT and then sit down on your couch, chug a bottle of ipecac, and tape your eyeballs and earholes open so I can pour some of this absurdity in as your other bodily fluids get expelled, because when a wave like this comes around you want to get on it ASAP and ride it for as long as you can suppress those stupid voices in your head telling you put those wrinkle-free khakis back on. DON’T DO IT.

MUSIC

It’s my firm belief that chiptunes are coming up in the world and since I’m the one with the mic here there’s not much you can do to disagree. That being said, I like to think of myself as magnanimous, and magnanimous enough that I’m willing to substantiate claims that I don’t have to because I’M THE ONE WITH THE MIC HERE.

Foster the People – Houdini – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GMQLjzVGfw

Arcanine – Sabrepulse http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSOBBxJplBY

Veronika’s Dream – floex http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkuHVV06v-E

The Next Best Thing – George and Jonathan http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JORjWqG1kXo

MOVIES

So I’m totally over this whole “bigger is better” smash that movies have been on since Transformers did its thing on the big screen and then fizzled out like an overweight paddywagon full of half-expired fireworks crashing into a Midwestern dental school student beach bonfire, but that’s mostly because it was a pretty pathetic attempt at going over the top. So I guess  what I’m saying is that shit wasn’t absurd enough and so I present to you a set of films which have come out swinging for the fences of a universe which has yet to even exist AND THEN IT BLEW THAT THING RIGHT OVER THEM.

The Raid: Redemption – http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1899353/

Drive – http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0780504/

LOOPER – http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1276104/

SAFE – http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1656190/

The Waiting Room – http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1618399/

The House I Live In – http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2125653/

ILLUSTRATION

So music is cool and movies are great but both of these things really don’t capture the power of the internet and in turn don’t capture the full potential of the absurdity that the internet can bring because the internet is more than just a series of flashing pictures or coordinated electronic noises, it’s a series of flashing pictures coordinated with electronic noises which you can be distracted from by another series of flashing pictures coordinated with electronic noises if you so choose. And what better captures this selfish, immature insanity than static images that smush them all together?

The Pixel Art of Paul Robertson – http://probertson.tumblr.com/

The Exquisite Beast by Evan Dahm and Yuko Ota – http://exquisitebeast.tumblr.com/

Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff by Andrew Hussie – http://www.mspaintadventures.com/sweetbroandhellajeff/

BLDGBLOG – http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/

Flying Mouse Tumblr – http://flyingmouse365.tumblr.com/

Steve Wolfhard and the story of Cat Rackham – http://www.stevewolfhard.com/

WRITING

You’ve already come to the most fucking absurd place on the internet.

Congrats.