Who's who in the Comics Bulletin Universe - Update 2009
Who is... Michael A. Diaz?
Michael Diaz lives in Michigan, but don't hold that against him.
There he works as a Sys. Admin. while fostering dreams of one day becoming a "real" writer.
Most importantly, Michael is seriously addicted to comics, something that his wonderful wife tolerates with the patience of a saint.
He also writes this weekly column that people occasionally read.
"[O]ne of the most positive
and entertaining columns going."
- Gail Simone (Birds of Prey, Villains United)
WLG #242: The End is The Beginning is The End!
I hope that everyone has had or is having an excellent holiday season; no big introduction this week, we’re just going to jump right into What Looks Good…
ALIENS OMNIBUS TP VOL 06 $24.95 (Various / Various)I only mention this book because I can't believe that there's a sixth volume and I have NONE of them. True, I have a bunch of the original Aliens trades that Dark Horse put out in the day, but I am pretty sure that I don't have enough to fill six volumes.
Dang.
I really should have put some of these on my Christmas list for this past year. Now I'm going to have to go out and buy them myself.
I'm sorry, but as I have noted before, anything that has a xenomorph (from the Aliens franchise) or a creature from Predator easily gets my attention. They're just too awesome.
Guilty pleasure here; move along, move along...
GREEN LANTERN #36 $2.99 (Geoff Johns / Doug Mahnke)Oh, it's a weekly edition of What Looks Good, and what's this? Michael is going on about a book that stars one or more Green Lanterns? Wow, that's so unlike him, he never mentions GLs ever; I wonder if he even likes them.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get, I talk about Green Lanterns all of the time. I can't help it; right now, as far as my money and my opinion are concerned, the two Green Lantern titles are the place to be. You can have your Final Crisis and your Secret Invasion, I'll take anything that has to do with the Green Lanterns over the next few months. True, the "Blackest Night" story isn't quite here and yeah, we're still leading up to it, but already we're hitting the stuff that I have been salivating for: the various colored OTHER Lantern Corps. We're seen glimpses of the Violet, Red, Yellow, and Blue Lanterns, but here we're already starting to come to a head. This issue continues from Final Crisis: Rage of the Red Lanterns and then some; we get to see Atrocitus as well as the controllers searching for colored lantern that will hopefully do their bidding: the Orange Lanterns (of avarice).
I'm obsessed right now with how these factions are going to line up. Obviously the Red Lanterns (rage) are NOT fans of the Sinestro Corps (Yellow Lanterns; fear), but just because they're out for them doesn't mean that they are in any way close to being allies with the Green Lanterns. We've only met the one Blue Lantern (hope) and he seems pretty well-allied with the GLC, but what about the Orange Lanterns (avarice)? If they are in fact going to be the arm of the Controllers, wouldn't that automatically put them against the Green Lanterns as the Controllers are diametrically opposed to the Guardians of the Universe? But will the Orange Lanterns find allies with either the Sinestro Corps or the Red Lanterns?
Who knows?
And that's why I am so exciting, because finding out is going to be SO much fun. Look at me geek the heck out right there? If my wife read this she'd probably stop having "relations" with me immediately because I was far too geeky.
But this geekgasm is too powerful for me to contain.
JOY!
In any case, as we're going to see both the Red and Orange Lanterns in this issue it is safe to say that the focus is going to be rather dark. With Doug Mahnke on art chores I couldn't think of a better artist to capture those darker aspects of this story.
Green Lantern: Best. Comic. EVER.
(OK, yeah, that's a bit of an exaggeration...)
PUNISHER WAR ZONE #4 (OF 6) $3.99 (Garth Ennis / Steve Dillon)There's really not much that I can say about this that I haven't already said the last few weeks. Ennis and Dillon are perfection when it comes to their work with Frank Castle/The Punisher.
PERFECTION.
'Nuff said.
WAR MACHINE #1 $2.99 (Greg Pak / Leonardo Manco)There are just some characters that I have a weakness for and whenever I see them I have to buy either their own comics or the comics that they guest-star in. For example, I absolutely LOVE DC's character Deadshot and any time he shows up I have to buy the comic, pure and simple. The same goes for Moon Knight. I have the entire run of his first series (from the early 80's) and I LOVE it. A friend of mine who owns a comic book store loves to tease me about Moon Knight, but hey, we all have those characters that we just seem to love no matter what. I mean, after all, he buys anything with Power Pack in it, so there.
Well, War Machine is another one of those characters that I simply have to follow. A few weeks ago when WM showed up within the pages of Iron Man I couldn't resist and had to pick the issues up. True, I really hadn't been getting into the "Secret Invasion" stories, but there was War Machine on the cover and I had to buy the issues and tear through them, which, of course, I did.
Now they're launching another WM ongoing series, and though I know little about why WM is back I don't much care; I just accept the fact that I love War Machine for some reason and I have to buy the issue.
But come on, just look at that cover: War Machine just looks so fricking sweet. Yeah, he's mostly just another Iron Man suit, but whereas Iron Man is more like a super-lethal Ferrari to me War Machine is more like a one man Abrams tank. There's just something visceral and powerful about his protruding weapons and black/white suit of armor.
Like a geeky moth drawn to a nerdy flame, I am pulled to War Machine.
I'm such a dork....
WOLVERINE #70 $2.99 (Mark Millar / Steve McNiven)Yeah, we've seen stories set in the dystopian future of the Marvel Universe before, but man, I'm just really enjoying this "Old Man Logan" arc that Millar and McNiven have created.
Sure, we've seen Wolverine broken before, but this? This is a man that has been broken and crushed into tiny little bits, and then shattered some more.
Truth be told, for all the hype we get about and from Mark Millar, this is one of his works where I've been hearing the littlest hype, which I think is interesting, because I think this also happens to be one of Millar's strongest reads. I don't know if it will stand up to some of this other stories, like Superman: Red Son or "The Nativity" arc from his run on The Authority, but only time will tell.
All I know is that for now his take on Wolverine is one that I simply can't resist.
Excellent stuff.
What comics did you get geeked out about this week? Did you get some cook stuff over the holiday? If so, let me know; I'll be listing some of my cool schwag there on the boards, and so should you. Just stop by the WLG message boards (see link below) and share!
See you next year!
-Diaz
Were Diaz's picks on the mark?
Have your say on What Looks Good at the Looking Good message board.