Archive for Models Inc.

Bite the Wax Tadpole

I’m in a bit of a rotten mood. Nothing real serious, but I’ve taken on some very big, very daunting personal projects, with very scary upcoming deadlines, and I spent most of this weekend not making any real progress on them, even when I tried to work on them. It was a pretty frustrating weekend, coupled with the fact that I haven’t really done anything for fun in a while.

So basically, I’m a bit grim, and I feel like reviewing some comics that just plain bite.

BoosterGold24

Booster Gold #24

Booster fights Trigon in the future world where Trigon has killed almost everyone. He gets captured with the help of the Black Beetle, but Lex Luthor ends up helping him escape. Luthor leads Booster, Skeets, Rip Hunter, Raven, and the future rebels, including Zatanna, Kyle Rayner, and Green Arrow, to Trigon’s secret vault, which is full of superheroes’ skeletons and a few trinkets. Black Beetle follows them in, grabs a red scarab that he claims will make him invincible, and the rest of the team gives Kyle Rayner a Green Lantern ring. Then Booster, Rip, and Raven return to their original time, where — get this — Booster beats up Deathstroke off-panel so he can impersonate him and save the Teen Titans. Yeah, Booster Gold beats up a guy who can trash pretty much anyone in the DC Universe, and he doesn’t even break a sweat. The backup story with Blue Beetle, for once, isn’t a lot better. Jaime and his friends and family are hiking in Big Bend when they’re attacked by the Black Beetle. Jaime’s been worried that his scarab has been more bloodthirsty, but he just gives in and decides to see if he can kill the Black Beetle.

Verdict: Thumbs down. Once again, there’s no reason for Booster or Rip Hunter to be goofing around in FutureLand, when the only thing they were supposed to fix was in the past. And the utter ridiculousness of Booster beating Deathstroke is just the cherry on a big fat horsecrap sundae. And even Paco talking like Mr. T can’t save the backup story from being a lot of uncharacteristic no-fun.

ModelsInc1

Models Inc. #1

Hey, ya know what girls want in their comics? A bunch of self-obsessed fictional models talking about clothes and about being famous and about people they don’t like, with minimal action and shallow characterization! Ya know what else they want? A heavily-promoted backup story starring Tim Gunn from “Project Runway” in which he puts on a suit of Iron Man armor that’s on display at a fashion museum and then beats up on bad guys!

Verdict: Nine million thumbs down. I lost numerous brain cells reading the main story, and the backup — listen, I hate to go all continuity-obsessed-fanboy on everyone, but if you were going to display Iron Man armor at a museum, wouldn’t you deactivate it, to keep bad guys from getting it? And even if most Iron Man suits these days weren’t programmed to respond only to Tony Stark, how the heck would some random fashion guru be able to use the blasted thing with any sort of competence? Bad comic. Bad, bad, bad comic.

JimmyOlsen2

Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen Special #2

The last issue of this came out last October, and I liked it pretty well. But wow, what a whole year stuck on the shelf will do for ya. Good luck making heads or tails out of this one if you haven’t been following the Superman comics. Superman ain’t around, but Mon-El, from the Legion of Super-Heroes, is filling in and promises to keep Jimmy safe from Codename: Assassin, a guy who is able to fly and kill people with guns. Jimmy is trying to find out — umm, I forget — which leads him to a housefire — he saves someone inside, who turns out to be a former member of Lex Luthor’s Everyman project. He keeps randomly switching gender for some reason. Before he dies, he puts Jimmy in touch with Natasha Irons, who rattles off some stuff about Captain Atom and Breach and stuff. Then Jimmy gets ambushed by Codename: Assassin and gunned down.

Verdict: Thumbs down. Sooo confusing, sooo boring.

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