Crushing Krisis

Back Issue Review: Lumberjanes, DC Comics Titans, & Unstoppable Wasp

February 18, 2018 by krisis

I haven’t been doing much back-issue reading this week, which means this Back Issue Review isn’t as sprawling as its been in past weeks.

I did manage to knock out four volumes worth of youthful titles. None of the were major standouts, but they all presented nuanced looks at the meaning of friendship and identity.

Lumberjanes (2014) #25-28(AKA Vol. 7 – A Bird’s-Eye View), Boom! Entertainment, Inc
Titans (2016) Rebirth & #1-6 (AKA Vol. 1 – The Return of Wally West), DC Comics
Titans (2016) #7-10 & Annual 1 (AKA Vol. 2 – Made In Manhattan), DC Comics
Titans (2016) #12-18 (AKA Vol. 3 – A Judas Among Us), DC Comics
The Unstoppable Wasp #1-4 (AKA Vol. 1 – Unstoppable), Marvel Comics

RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars Season 3 Power Rankings Episode 04 – All Stars Snatch Game

February 17, 2018 by krisis

This week’s episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars Season 3 brings what is usually the highlight of the season – Snatch Game! It’s a kitschy, 70s-style game show where queens win not with their answers but with hilarious impressions of famous figures.

Weirdly, this season’s game is the weakest we’ve seen in years. That’s partially down to three queens totally flatlining on the panel, but also down to RuPaul being downright mean to the girls and due to the oddball choice to place actual celebrity Kristin Chenoweth in the Snatch Game with a set of highly-scripted answers that come complete with props.

Maybe having a real life famous person sitting next to the queens would make for a good litmus test of who seems the realest (“real is what you feel, feelings aren’t real…”), but not letting the hilarious Chenoweth think on her feet anchored the Snatch panel with a leaden quality.

The same goes for having judges Michelle Visage and Carson Kressley as the contestants in the game instead of low-grade celebrities or past queens. Delivering Snatch performances directly to the toughest pair of judges takes all of the fun out of the proceedings.

Despite all my complaints, we still wind up with some memorable performances – and a new all-time Snatch Game champion! That doesn’t do much to shake up the top of the ranking compared to last week, but the queens competing for the third spot in the finals get quite a shake-up.

The Pull List: Avengers, Death of Love, Detective Comics, The Flash, Paradiso, Sideways, & more!

February 16, 2018 by krisis

I’ve managed to one-up last week’s edition of The Pull List! This week, the list is a whopping 27 issues deep – one more than last week. However, its also a tick worse, with an aggregate rating of 3.055 compared to 3.17.

What did I pull this week? I caught up with Birds of Prey, Flash, and Titans to add to my DC pull list, sampled four new number ones, and dropped a pair of weak books. Here’s what I reviewed in brief:

DC Comics
- Batgirl and The Birds of Prey (2016) #19
- Detective Comics (2016) #974
- The Flash (2016) #40
- Sideways (2017) #1
- Titans (2016) #20
- Wonder Woman (2016) #40
Image Comics
- Dark Fang (2017) #4
- Death of Love (2018) #1
- Paradiso (2017) #3
- Port of Earth (2017) #4
- Sleepless (2018) #3
- Slots (2017) #5
- Twisted Romance (2018) #2
Marvel Comics
- Avengers (2017) #680
- Cable (2017) #154
- Captain America (2017) #698
- Marvel Two-in-One (2018) #3
- Old Man Logan (2016) #35
- Weapon X (2017) #14
- X-Men: Blue (2017) #21
Smaller Publishers: Aftershock, Boom! Studios, Dark Horse, Dynamite, & Zenescope
- Babyteeth (2017) #8, Aftershock Comics
- Barbarella (2017) #3, Dynamite Entertainment
- Black Sable (2017) #4, Zenescope Entertainment
- Cold War (2018) #1, Aftershock Comics
- Giants (2018) #3, Dark Horse
- Judas (2017) #3, Boom! Studios
- Xena (2018) #1, Dynamite Entertainment

Pick of the Pull

Big Two (Marvel/DC) Issue of the Week: The Flash (2016) #40, DC Comics

I have never before been so viscerally scared of Grodd. He is utterly terrifying here, and I was really concerned that we could be seeing the end of Flash at multiple points – and, in a way, we did.

Joshua Williamson is proving that he is one of the best writers in the business with this constantly thrumming plot that has been building non-stop rising action for 40 straight issues. While you could easily jump right one with every arc, each of them builds off of everything that came before. That means this run has notched itself as the third or fourth best extended Flash run of all time in under two years, and it shows no immediate signs of stopping.

Carmine Di Giandomenico continues to stun on artwork with vivid coloring from
Ivan Plascencia. This issue includes some of the most inventive action paneling I can think of reading in recent memory. The paneling of Avery catching the lighting rod is breathtaking.

An A+ book through and through, with a thrilling final moment.

Best Small-Pub Issue of the Week: Giants (2018) #3, Dark Horse Comics

There’s no denying the craft, power, and charm of Giants. For a third issue in a row The Valderrama Brothers. turn in a beautiful, action-packed comic full of heart.

We begin our story with Zedo, the boy left for dead who is now making a cavalier power-play to control the gangs of the underworld. Only a child could see things as so black and white, yet both in the last issue and here he is making vicious choices that he can’t take back.

In stark contrast, Gogi has found a group of other children who are necessarily tough but still enduringly kind. Their acceptance and willingness to give without asking anything in return is alien to Gogi. At first he resists it, then he resents it, but finally he understand that’s it’s easier to live openly then be on guard and full of distrust.

Gogi’s journey from underground child to hero in the wider wider stands in stark contrast to Zedo’s dark turn at the end of this issue. Neither boy can entirely blame fate, nor can he say that the choices were all his own. That makes Giants a powerful allegory for the role of environment on our lot in life.

We might not all be fighting giant monsters, but we’re frequently either the child who ran away or the child that was left behind. [Read more…] about The Pull List: Avengers, Death of Love, Detective Comics, The Flash, Paradiso, Sideways, & more!

This Week In X: Cable #154, Old Man Logan #35, Weapon X #14, & X-Men: Blue #21

February 16, 2018 by krisis

It’s the seventh week of new comics in 2018, and This Week in X brings the end of three arcs and the next chapter of a crossover.

Cable #154 ends the bad math of a time traveling Externals arc and the end of Ed Brisson’s run, but Brisson continues after the end of a strong Scarlet Samurai story in Old Man Logan #35.

Weapon X #14 ends it’s Nuke arc, which was maybe about Warpath all along?

Finally, X-Men Blue #21 brings us the second chapter of “Poison-X,” a deep space team-up with Eddie Brock as Venom by Cullen Bunn.

Plus, a must-buy collected edition: the New Mutants by Zeb Wells Complete Collection!

The Glorp

February 15, 2018 by krisis

Imagine that there is a scary beast native to your area. The Glorp.

The Glorp is an important part of the food chain. It’s actually part of your culture to respect it. There are more and more Glorps every year, and they are only legal to hunt in very limited situations. Having that many Glorps running unchecked is wreaking havoc with the environment.

The Glorps are starting to show up in town. While they don’t naturally prey on humans, in some situations they can be violent towards people. People have died.

For a long time, many people say, “There’s no doing anything about it. You know the Glorps are sacred.”

When the first feasible Glorp Control Plan is proposed, those people say, “There are so many Glorps, how can we possibly stop them from killing people?! Even getting rid of SOME of them won’t make a dent.”

When you try to reason with them, they insist, “Just be careful of Glorps. Honestly, the Glorps also attack each other, so having Glorps around is sometimes the best deterrent to other Glorps being violent towards people. If you see something, say something.”

Finally, due to overwhelming popular opinion, local government authorizes a Glorp hunt to legally thin the population down to the 20% mark. The Glorps won’t be endangered at all at the 20% mark, and there are rules about the size of Glorps that can be hunted.

After a long, difficult period, the Glorp hunt is a success! There are far fewer Glorps and now there is a Glorp breeding control program in effect. Of course Glorps are still dangerous. Glorps are scary beasts. But, now they are functioning appropriately as a part of the food chain. They aren’t showing up everywhere.

One day, a few months later, a Glorp does wander into town, and it kills several people. The details are unclear right now. It could be that it was one of those small ones that wouldn’t have been hunted. It’s very tragic.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

Do you think the Glorp hunt should have never occurred since it didn’t get rid of this recent killer Glorp?

Since the Glorps are culturally important, should Glorps have been left to multiply unchecked?

If the majority of people in town told the government they were okay with some check on the Glorps and half the government did nothing, how should the people have responded?

Glorps started showing up disproportionately at schools, killing about half a class of children every 3-5 school days. Prior to the hunt, should children have simply been homeschooled if their parents were concerned about their safety due to Glorps?

Occasionally, Glorps would show up and kill people at movie theatres, clubs, and concerts, despite anti-Glorp safety measures. Would you continue going to those places, knowing a Glorp attack could happen? How would you take measures against becoming a Glorp victim?