Variant Covers: John McClane and Jennifer Love Hewitt Save The Comic Book Industry
[variant covers is a comic books column every tuesday that breaks down the various titles coming out that week in the world of hyper-exposition and immortality]
Jennifer Love Hewitt’s Music Box #2
Don’t worry guys, the comic book industry is saved from the precipice of doom. You see, Jennifer Love Hewitt’s Music Box comes out this week, and Jesus Christ, I can’t wait. As I scanned across a barren release list – as usual, your recommendations welcome, I’m comic-curious – I saw this gem. Beckoning to me from across the wasteland. Ian it said. Hold me. Buy me. Love me. I am Jennifer Love Hewtti’s Vaginal…er, Music Box, and I’m here to pleasure your geek senses.
Alright fuck that, what the hell is going on?
The Music Box brings us a unique and amazing story every issue, from time-traveling to chicks kissing guys judging from this cover. I read up on some interviews with Love Hewitt regarding the comic, and this is what I distilled from them: Blah blah, yadda yadda, my name is carrying the title while I still go out with David Spade or whoever.
Not only is the most absurd comic book I’ve seen this side of Tyrese’s Mayhem! comic book, but it also features a relic from my comic book past: Scott Lobdell. Nerds like me grew up on a steady diet of X-Men comic books, and the dude manning the helm was Mr. Lobdell. While I did due diligence and gobbled up the glorious years by Claremont, it was Lobdell who was responsible for the new issues coming out every month. And now? Now the dude is writing a comic that was vomited out of the empty shell of Hewitt’s skull.
How my heroes have fallen. Sure, when I went back and looked at Lobdell’s run on X-Men it was filled with hyper-exposition, countless hanging plot lines, and general blah, but I have a nostalgic love for the guy. He gave me Onslaught, the Age of Apocalypse, and is a big part of the reason I even fell in love with the funny book. I love you Scotty, come back to us.
Action Comics #885
I don’t have any clue what is going on with Action Comics at the moment, but reading through the promo, it says that Nightwing is in the title. What the fuck is going on here? Are we going to get to the point where there’s two Bruce Waynes, Nightwing as Batman, and Nightwing as Nightwing? Or something? I have no fucking clue what’s going on. Dil-Hole is stepping into Superman’s shoes while he is being prosecuted for killing someone, Nightwing is running around while Dick Grayson is Batman and uh, stuff?
Brightest Day
Not coming out tomorrow, but worth mentioning in the comic book world is BRIGHTEST DAY. DC is unveiling their next step in Operation: Fuck Your Wallet. Following up Blackest Night is a biweekly, 26-issue title written by Geoff Johns. With a gag-worthy tagline, “After the Blackest Night, comes the Brightest Day!”, DC seems ready to drag their universe into something decidedly less depressing. I’m down with that. Listen man, we got enough shit going down in the real world – like Jennifer Love Hewitt writing comics and Conan O’Brien getting axed. Let’s get some happy fluffy bullshit going on in the DC universe.
However, anything that comes out weekly, or biweekly really fucks your wallet in the ass. And I haven’t been a fan of all of DC’s other attempts at an enormous weekly comic, be it Trinity, or 52, or Money Grab or whatever they’re called. Wednesday Comics was decent, but it was more of an experiment than the aforementioned 52 and gang.
Die Hard Year One #4
Friends, your prayers have been answered. How many times during Live Free or Die Hard did you say to yourself, “Fuck, I really wish I could get the story behind the formative years of the American Hero John McClane!” Well, now you can! Straight off the alps of Awesomeness and into your pull list is Die Hard Year One! And this week issue #4 sees the epic conclusion to the first arc! John McClane is stuck on a luxury boat that has been targeted by ecoterrorists! Oh. Snap. Not 1980’s ecoterrorists! I bet they’re dumping a shit load of those old school styrofoam McDonald’s packaging into the ocean! They must be stopped! If there’s one thing that John McClane hates more than having to hop harrier jets, it fascists that don’t respect the environment!
They’re so fucked!