Nerd alert!

I still read comics, as I have for most of my life. I know the first issue I bought (Web of Spider-man 13), but this was a natural course — my parents and grandparents had bought random issues for me for years, from the spinner racks in grocery stores. (See Stars Wars [I still love this cover], random cartoon issues and even a random issue from my father’s childhood.)

But I stopped buying as regularly a while ago, driven away by rising costs and frustration over how DC comics was marketing their books. I had quit reading cold before, back when I went to college; that time lasted about 3 years. This time it is likely I won’t go back to buying issues, opting for other ways to read issues. (I’ve been especially drawn to the DC Showcase phonebooks — cheap, easy and fun).

Ok, so what?

So I limit my comic nerdiness on here because I know almost no one who follows stories like I do. That’s ok: I’m posting these thoughts and links because I think there is a passing chance you’ll be amused if you have a passing interest or fondness for comics.

Want to hear someone rail against the latest Marvel crossover, Secret Invasion? (This is about #6, which is arguably the funniest review.) Done. In fact, check out parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8. If you want to read all the review in order. (Bonus: a review of the new Marvel cross-over, Dark Reign. I’m throwing it to you as I love the reference to “super-hero board-room” genre. It’s totally Bendis and totally true. I’ll go one farther even — Bendis writes groups of people, usually heroes, sitting around talking. That’s his thing. His cross-overs are generally board-rooms, but I would say that his regular issues are more water-cooler.)

Or would you rather read a review of DC’s latest crossover? (I’m biased here, I love what Morrison has done with this series throughout; this might be my favorite comic in years.) I mean, where else can you read a review that says:

And yet: a certain energy still erupts.

I know exactly when it happens too – over halfway through the issue, with Evil Mary Marvel literally thrusting her leather-clad crotch into Freddy Freeman’s face, then Talky Tawny descending from the sky in a steam-powered jetpack, dressed in slacks and a checkered jacket while declaring things like “This is the quantum blunderbuss we confiscated from Professor Sivana’s son,” while an evil tiger-person in a Thundercats-style leotard waves a metal club and rides in on a giant mutant dog. This follows a ground war in the middle of a ruined city with human and animal superheroes and their capes and hoods and horns and tails and quivers of arrows riding motorcycles and jeeps while the sky fills with Supergirl and a Green Lantern and robots and things.

Even if you don’t know the sorted history of the Marvel family or why any of this might possibly matter, the sheer madness of a bunch of disparate elements swirled up like this is so overwhelming; it shows Morrison at his best.

Ok, ok.

Fine, you aren’t into current cross-over reviews. But can you at least dig the reminiscing about awesome covers to the GI Joe comic? Yes. You can.

And if you can’t, Keren wanted me to share this picture of an anteater with you.

Wow. I didn’t expect to just have a giant post about other people’s recent comic reviews, but so be it.

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