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Yeah. I’ve got nothing this week. For this space, anyway. On with the reviews!

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Almost in time for Veterans’ Day — my thoughts on the genre that Ennis keeps coming back to time and time again.

(Sorry about the delay.  My computer has been giving me crap all week and I’ve finally bludgeoned it to the point where it’ll go on the internet, but keeps throwing system errors at me.)

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Okay, so I meant to get this retraction up earlier, but other commitments *cough*BORDERLANDS*cough*RE-READING 18 VOLUMES OF “MONSTER”*cough*GENERAL LAZINESS*cough* conspired against me.

Anyway, that bit I wrote two weeks ago about Miracleman being Norman Osborne’s “secret muscle” – completely wrong. As it turns out, the “MM” that Rich Johnston was referring to was “Secret Wars” veteran “Molecule Man.” While I understand he has a place in the hearts of many fans of 80’s Marvel comics, he’s also gifted/burdened with a power that makes him almost impossible to write in a shared superhero universe. That power being the ability to rearrange molecules into any form he wants. It’ll be interesting to see how writer Brian Michael Bendis has wrangled this character and his powers into a believable plot element for the upcoming “Siege” event, but that’s why I like waiting for the trade – you get to hear how these things work out before putting your money down. That said, the fact that Osborne’s secret muscle isn’t Miracleman has diminished my interest in this storyline considerably. More shenanigans with Osborne and his “Dark Reigin” after the break. (more…)

And now for a series, and a creator, that should have been around much longer than they were.

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I read an interesting bit of comics rumermongering earlier this week. While it has been shown that Norman Osborne has some superpowered character at his beck and call to keep the members of his Cabal (Namor, Emma Frost, Dr. Doom, Loki and The Hood) in line, this person’s identity has been one of the best-kept secrets in comics at the moment. (Which is probably because people at Marvel haven’t figured it out yet. But I digress…) Rich Johnston over at Bleeding Cool thinks has some inside info on the character’s identity, as he reported that at the Big Apple Comic-Con last weekend that the character’s name involves the letters “MM.” This leads Johnston to believe that it’s Miracleman (or Marvelman if you live in England). To be honest, even I’m having a hard time believing this as I type it. The Moore/Gaiman series of comics featuring the character has been the center of a decades-long legal battle that few thought would ever see resolution. Marvel has apparently made some headway with that as they announced at Comic-Con last year that they now have the rights to creator Mick Anglo’s original “Marvelman” comics, and most are believing that resolving the rights to the contested comics will be a matter of “when” not “if” anymore. As far as Miracleman being Osborne’s strongman? That seems to be so obviously BS that Johnston should’ve recognized it, but he seems to believe it for now. All I can say is that if this is the case, then it would be one of the rare, RARE times when one of their “big reveals” actually feels satisfying. The actual truth of the matter will probably bear out sometime in 2010 – and now, reviews!

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In which I drag the NPFOM crew into a discussion on some of the more noteworthy Star Wars comics published by Dark Horse.

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No burning comics news to report today. I did record new podcasts this weekend, so you can look forward to hearing my next crossovercast with the “No Podcast For Old Men” crew next week on a subject near and dear to all of our hearts – “Star Wars.” Two weeks from then I’m going to make good on a promise from an earlier column with my thoughts on the late Drew Hayes’ “Poison Elves.” After that? Well, thanks to RightStuf.com’s Viz sale, I finally picked up the rest of Naoki Urasawa’s “Monster” (after reading it years ago in scanlated form). So a podcast on that and “20^th Century Boys” might be in the offing. Though what I’d really like to do is get the “NPFOM” crew to read “Pluto” since the result of trying to write a sci-fi manga with hard sci-fi elements, but no actual hard science would make for interesting discussion. Anyways, on with the reviews:

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Almost in time for the movie, my thoughts on the graphic novel(s) by Robert Venditti and Brett Weldele that inspired it.

In case you were wondering, I recorded this before I went out and saw the movie last weekend.  Had I seen the movie before recording this, I would’ve recommended that those of you who were planning on seeing the movie to just take the money you would’ve spent on the ticket and put it towards buying the graphic novel that inspired it instead.  It’s not that the movie is awful, but it demonstrated a clear lack of faith in the source material as it replaced the majority of the graphic novel’s plot with something of the screenwriters’ own devising.  So if the idea of “The Surrogates:  As done by the people who brought you ‘Terminator 3′” sounds like a can’t miss idea for you, then run — don’t walk — to see this.  Otherwise, go read the graphic novel and follow it up with a good Bruce Willis sci-fi movie (”13 Monkeys”) instead.

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So while I’ve been talking about everything I bought at Comic-Con in these posts for quite some time now, it means that now I’ve got a backlog of new (well, “new-ish”) stuff to talk about now… As well as some more stuff from San Diego that still hasn’t been reviewed yet.

Also, I am planning on going to see “The Surrogates” this weekend. The graphic novels were good and the trailers are promising. Of course, I could wake up on Friday and find out that it has received reviews that make “Transformers 2” look like Oscar material, but that doesn’t seem likely. On that note, look for my thoughts on the original graphic novel and its prequel here next week.

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Just so you know, Marvel’s “Annihilation” and DC’s “Green Lantern:  The Sinestro Corps War” are as good as you’ve heard.

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