Every week we at Geekanerd rip panels from our comics and put them on display here, recognizing the best, worst, and weirdest moments of the week. Beware some major SPOILERS.
Click the pics for high res goodness!
Most Surprising Scene - Avengers: The Initiative #13
Despite the fact that no skin is shown and few sex acts take place, this is a boundary pushing sequence.
Here we have Emery, a nerdy, shy teen who happens to be indestructible, and a ex-villain who burns up anything she touches. Alone at an unauthorized Initiative beach party, she realizes that his powers would allow her to have sex with him. So she gets on him and starts, despite the fact that he's not into it. Is this rape? That's a yes. In a medium dominated by male sexual power fantasies, it's extremely surprising to see a scene in which a young man receives genuinely unwelcome sexual attention, and in a way that's not played for laughs or irony. Here the reader is made to feel the discomfort and confusion of this young man, and it's a powerful, sad moment. The last time I remember seeing anything like this in a comic is in Bomb Scare, a great Optic Nerve story. Here's to Christos Gage and Steve Uy for pulling off something truly unconventional in a mainstream book.
Pop Art, Stephanie Brown, Reed Richards: Ladies Man and more, after the jump...
The Reclamation of Pop Art - Amazing Spider-Man #560
The villain in this Spidey storyline is "Paper Doll," a 2D woman unhealthily obsessed with celebrity Bobby Carr. Her and Spidey have a dustup in a Pop Art gallery in this ish, which justifies the awesome cover with Paper Doll actually becoming Pop Art and creeping up on our hero (look at those nails! Creepy!). Later Spidey lands a well-placed punch in front of an explosive WHAAM! piece. Awesome!
The Power of Fans - Robin #174
Wow. Those who hated the way the War Games storyline ended have had just about all their demands met as of the end of last week's Robin. Let the retconning begin!
Exhibit A: Steph never got a memorial because Batman never really thought she was dead. This also explains his insensitive-even-for-him reaction to her death in the first place.
Exhibit B: Dr. Leslie Tompkins, heretofore believed to have actually allowed Steph to die as an outrageously irresponsible warning to teen superheroes across the nation, actually helped the poor girl fake her own death in order to start a new life.
Exhibit C: Editor Dan Didio is killed. Guess that ties up all the loose ends!
Smooth Operator - Reed Richards,
Fantastic Four #557
Mr. Fantastic gets a bad rap sometimes for being cold and inattentive, but Mark Millar has a very different view of the smartest man on Earth. In fact, he writes him as a superbrained George Clooney. What a smoothie! Not to mention the fact that the location of their anniversary dinner is back in time for front row seats to when they first met.
Reputation Alert - Avengers: The Initiative #13
As seen in a previous issue of this series, Hank Pym's greatest fear is that he will be forever remembered not for his years of heroism, but for being a vile dirtbag who beat up his wife (BOOO!). He supposedly came to terms with that fear in that same issue, but now it looks like even the younger generation of heroes (who probably grew up on The Ultimates) aren't so forgiving. Sorry dirtbag!
Read More...
Summary only...
Every week we at Geekanerd rip panels from our comics and put them on display here, recognizing the best, worst, and weirdest moments of the week. Click the pics for high res goodness, and beware SPOILERS.
Earth Prime Cameo - Dan DiDio, Robin #170
In the grand tradition of comic creators appearing in ink, a man bearing the distinctive goatee and bald pate of DC Editor Dan DiDio showed up as a thug in the latest issue of Robin. The in-jokeiness is pushed a step further given that in the first few pages DiDio gets beaten up and robbed by a new vigilante who we're meant to believe may be ex-Robin Stephanie Brown, who's torturous death and subsequent lack of respect is an injustice many place on DiDio's shoulders. Given the perceived jab at Stephanie's fans earlier this year, perhaps this cameo amounts to a sort of mea culpa. I don't expect this girl to actually be Stephanie Brown (we can't have all the personifications of Batman's failures come back to life, what's next, his parents?), but hopefully this new arc by Chuck Dixon will bring a more emotionally satisfying climax to Stephanie's story. And for the sake of comparison, here's how DiDio was previously drawn in the 2006 DC Editorial Christmas greeting.
Some weird, kinky shit after the jump...
Best Reason Not To Date Online - Shadowpact #21
Detective Chimp, what you are doing is wrong. So very wrong. You are not a furry! You are an animal! Furries are people! People who's strange lifestyle choices do not necessarily mean they're into bestiality, and whether they go there or not is certainly not up to you!
In other, even more traumatizing monkey comic panels...
Banana Randomizer Award For Achievement in WTF - The Umbrella Academy #5
Not since Grant Morrison's run on Animal Man have we seen such a horrifying depiction of animal testing. The problem is it comes of absolutely no where. I love this series, and up to this point didn't mind it's challengingly complex storyline, but no matter how many times I re-read this issue, I couldn't figure out how this flash-back fits in to anything that precedes or comes after it. The setup of this scene has another character about to launch into his own life story, when suddenly this nightmare is splashed across the page, apparently psychically broadcast by the monkey character in the lower left hand corner. Why? How? To what end? The monkey doesn't seem to actually be DOING anything to make this happen, there's no universally accepted symbol of psychic transmittal like closing ones eyes or holding up their hand. I can accept some mysteries left open in an on-going storyline, but leaving a provocative image like this completely unresolved is unacceptably confusing.
Finally, a bonus panel I forgot to include last week...
How They Like It - Green Arrow Black Canary #4
Wonder Woman, are you suggesting you plan on individually tying up every person who happened to be in the hospital hallway? I wonder what Golden Age Wonder Woman would think about that idea?
Oh. Well. I'll just leave you to it, then.
Read More...
Summary only...
Despite the fact that no skin is shown and few sex acts take place, this is a boundary pushing sequence.
Exhibit A: Steph never got a memorial because Batman never really thought she was dead. This also explains his insensitive-even-for-him reaction to her death in the first place.
Exhibit B: Dr. Leslie Tompkins, heretofore believed to have actually allowed Steph to die as an outrageously irresponsible warning to teen superheroes across the nation, actually helped the poor girl fake her own death in order to start a new life.
Exhibit C: Editor Dan Didio is killed. Guess that ties up all the loose ends!
As seen in a previous issue of this series, Hank Pym's greatest fear is that he will be forever remembered not for his years of heroism, but for being a vile dirtbag who beat up his wife (BOOO!). He supposedly came to terms with that fear in that same issue, but now it looks like even the younger generation of heroes (who probably grew up on The Ultimates) aren't so forgiving. Sorry dirtbag!
