Variant Covers: Xombis Ate My Neighbors!
Ride me with! We have ourselves a rootin’ tootin’ motherfucking pull list to spit about. This is Variant Covers, the weekly column where us of the nerd predilection spout off the comic books we’re snagging tomorrow.
After a hiatus last week in which I graded final exams, wrote my own bullshit papers, and generally wept at the Sky Gods for forging such an unfavorable existence, I’m stoked to be back. There is a good goddamn backlog of comics I haven’t gotten to, and I’m using the semester break to tear gleefully into the ass of my Stack’o’Funnies. I’m coming for you, Detective Comics, Cowboy Ninja Viking Vol. 2, Black Hole, and hopefully others.
But this week, let’s gab about this week.
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Butcher Baker: The Righteous Maker #3.
I enjoy Butcher Baker more on a theoretical level right now more than I do as actual entertainment. Joe Casey and Mike Huddleston seem keen on examining what happens when we’re done deconstructing the comic book. Alright, it’s a stretch, but fucking bare with me. After years of picking apart and ferreting out the various tropes, Casey pens a Baker who is cognizant of his own era pasting, and not certain of what to do next. Baker is The Comedian if said dude had something of an awareness of the emptiness within, and maybe kinda sorta wanted to get more out of existence.
That Casey goes about this examination with a meta-fictional tinge combined with vulgarity turned up to unlimited power is just a neat little tweak. Make no mistake about the Man Behind the Madness – he’s more than creating Cosmic Waif Things with both tits and a galactic cock. Though there’s that too.
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FF #4.
Oh shit! It’s finally the War of the Four fucking Cities! Hickman has been rubbing his slimy tip against us FF fanatics for a while now, motherfuckin’ edging the whole storyline that Il Futuro Franklin and Valerie and Grampy Richards are trying to prevent. We recently got the drop on the douchebags behind the forthcoming war – Reeds from other dimensions. Three of them cold motherfuckers looking to throw the deuces up on our dimension and get back home.
War of the Cities part one! G’damn I’m excited. Sure I don’t really remember what’s going on. Hickman’s FF is dense like woah. Morrison-esque, even. Throw in the fact that his FF is crossing over with his S.H.I.E.L.D. and all of a sudden I see a good case for some sort of Keystone Guide Decrypting device that Marvel could be selling alongside it.
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Strange Adventures. [Boner of the Week!]
I fucking love anthologies. It’s why I enjoyed the copies of Marvel’s Strange Tales that I got my greasy phalanges on. It’s also why this is the title I’m sweating the most this week. Vertigo is dropping a one-shot sci-fi anthology on our asses, and we should all gape with glee. In the pages of this sexy romp are contributions from no less than Jeff Lemire, Peter Milligan, Paul Cornell, and a preview of the forthcoming Spaceman, from the 100 Bullets team of Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso.
I’ll be the first to admit that I can, on occasion, not have my ass entirely whipped by anthologies of this assort. There’s some clunkers in the midst, but the concept alone always sells me. Short stories my talented and eclectic creators, typically unhinged from the constraints they’re usually cast into.
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Xombi #3.
I’d read Xombi for Frazier Irving’s artwork alone. It’s fucking staggering in how sexy it is. Thankfully Xombi is also a dope title featuring the immortal David Kim and his jaunts through the absurd and fantastic. Pushing a post-humanist vibe that is Not Here but conceivably Going To Arrive, I love how John Rozum can throw Kim into the most ludicrous of situations and have him play the immortal straight man. Shrinking Nuns, zombie babies, and the guy with nanomachines coursing through his veins is the normal one.
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Around The Horn.
Strange Dinosaur #2 drops this week. If I wasn’t trying (and failing) to be fiscally responsible I’d snag this on title alone. Doesn’t hurt that Kirkman is writing it. Scott Snyder and Jock finish up their currently storyline in Detective Comics #877, and I can’t wait to catch up on this series with my newfound extra time. Fraction and Coipel bring Mighty Thor Guy #2, and I have to confess that I’m tired of Thor, even despite the title being did-dun-probably-gud by two of my favorite creators. Then there’s Venom #3, and I’ll happily snag a Remender penned look at everyone’s favorite symbiotic suit and its new wearer.
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What are you guys reading this week? Hit me.