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!
Skrull "Humanity" - Secret Invasion #3
Two separate scenes in this issue of
Secret Invasion featured Skrulls who really didn't seem to be all that into the mission at hand. The first, above, appears to be some sort of priest or something, and he looks pretty distressed about old whatsherface getting a gun pointed at her.
The second is the Skrull S.H.I.E.L.D. agent in the lest of the above frame backing up Skrull Jarvis. He looks positively distraught about pointing a gun at Maria Hill. I like to think that during his time posing as a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent he grew a certain fondness for Ms. Hill. These two frames alone really make me want to see a "
Frontlines" style story about the Invasion from the Skrull POV. I want to know what's going through these non-agressive Skrulls' heads. So c'mon--where's my
Secret Invasion: Behind Enemy Lines?
Worst Dialogue - Green Arrow Black Canary #10
When in need of a snappy banter, steal from 300.
Clearest Example of Batman's Insanity - Final Crisis: Requiem #1
I think these panels speak for themselves, so I'll just comment on the great use of "Hnnn".
Best Custom Contract Job - Secret Invasion #3
I love that some team of lowly Skrull contractors were hired to design and construct this giant room that serves only one purpose: stretch Mr. Fantastic out so much he can't wiggle out.
Banana Randomizer Award for Achievement in WTF - Detective Comics #846
So, we knew that as a child, Hush cut the brakes on his parents car, killing his dad and almost killing his mom. What we did NOT know is that he based his whole bandaged-face supervillian costume on the memory of his hospitalized mother, who of course was hospitalized because of his unsuccessful murder attempt. That...that's messed up.
Most Horrific Villain - Young Liars #5
Just looking at this section of the book again to post it makes me a little squemish. This crazy little man ambushes these poor bastards during sexy time, removes our protagonist's "Mr. Johnson" (Lapham's phrase, not mine) and proceeds to do some really bad things to his companion. Thankfully they "cut to black" right after that unsightly unzipping panel, but the absence of illustration might actually just make it worse. There's a taste of satisfaction when the little bastard gets a toothbrush to the eye courtesy of his female victim, but he jumps out the window and gets away. Which just means he'll show up later, even more grotesque than before with an eyepatch and a taste for revenge. Shivers.
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Summary only...
Gnerd is still recovering from our 4th of July Blowout, sorry for the junior sized Panel Discussion. More interesting stuff was probably going on in the Marvel Universe, but that's not my department. As always, beware of SPOILERS after the jump. -AHR
Achievement in Sound Design - House of Mystery #3
That's a hell of a KA-THOOOM. The "KA" is igniting, the "TH" is made of bricks that are shattering against the inky black "OOO" and the "M" is...well it's just a big chunky red M in sort of Sam Kieth font.
Grant Morrisson's master plan and Slayers on Broadway, after the jump...
Most Underwhelming Payoff - Batman #678
Yeah, so....Grant Morrisson's run on Batman has been referencing "Zur-En-Arrh" since it started over a year ago. Zur En Arrh is the name of a futuristic (circa 1950) planet with it's own super-tech powered Batman (here's the long version). I have to hand it to artist Tony Daniel for making this purple, red and yellow eyesore look even slightly wearable (the torn up coat is a nice touch, evoking a swarm of bats). But Bat-Radia? Molecule Guns? Old School Bat-Mite? I want to trust GM wherever he goes, but future-techspeak and alternate universe crap is my least favorite part of DC, and till now it had stayed safely out of my Bat books.
Broadway Shout-Out - Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 8, #16
Trust a musical theater nerd like Joss Whedon to reference Xanadu, the most cultastic new musical on the boards today. First episode of Doctor Horrible is online July 15th, I'm waiting with baited breath...
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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. Beware some major SPOILERS.
Click the pics for high res goodness!
Celebrity Cameo Corner - Thunderbolts #121
How long has Penance been Edward Norton? I read the entire Deodato Thunderbolts run and only now did this jump out at me. And regardless of how you feel about photo referencing, isn't it a little unadvised to model a Marvel character off an actor who is playing a DIFFERENT Marvel character at a theater near you?! Or is this some sort of insane cross-promotion? Are they trying to tell us that Penance is really Bruce Banner? I'm sure it's all something to do with Secret Invasion. - AHR
Every Man's Worst Nightmare - Mighty Avengers #15
Hank Pym experiences every man's worst fear: that the cute naked co-ed you're sitting in bed eating ice cream with will transform into a Hulk tranny and kick your ass. -Albo
Hero Most In Need of A New Costume - Robin, Teen Titans #60
Tim, you're not the Boy Hostage any more. You're not flipping around the sidelines while Batman does the dirty work. With this in mind, you MIGHT want to re-enforce the spandex outfit at least to the point where Clock King (CLOCK KING!) can't stab you in the stomach like he's punching a hole in a Capri Sun. - AHR
Someone Call Tony Stark... - Avengers: The Initiative #14
A method for detecting Skrulls has been found! They loooooove pickles and strawberries! And I love Dan Slott for being goddamn hilarious. -Albo
What I loved about that moment is that Skrull Man uses quotes when he names the food, because it's so unfamiliar. You know he's internally pronouncing them as "pick-ELLES" and "straw-BERRIES". -AHR
Most Chilling Ending - Avengers: The Initiative #14
This issue has a hell of an ending, with the first actual method of detecting Skrulls (other than the aforementioned Skrullian T'Manja berries mention earlier) being fritzed by a Skrull who's actually a good guy but happens to be in hiding because he's genuinely afraid of the predjudice that will be leveled against him if he is revealed. So he "hacks" the Skrull-detecting goggles, and now poor Delroy faces the very Twilight Zoney twist of "seeing" that EVERYONE IS A SKRULL. I fear for his mental health. Great end to a great issue. -Albo
Snappingly Good Dialogue - Mighty Avengers #15
"I didn't kiss anyone. And I could have." I know it doesn't seem like much, but it's just the sort of biting non sequitur that you rarely see in comics but often hear in actual relationship arguments. Not that I would know, because any ladies I let into my life worship the ground I geek on, but that's beside the point. -Albo
Project Runway Winners - Final Crisis #2
Japanese club kids plus superhero outfits = the height of geek chic. I wonder if these are all J.G Jones originals, or if he found some superhero fashion reference material? I thought I recognized some of these looks from the recent exhibit at the Met Museum, but no dice. Fashion aside, the best thing in this panel is the guy in the Stormtrooper/Samurai suit, proving once again that Star Wars fans will use any event as an excuse to cosplay. - AHR
What I Hate About Secret Invasion - New Avengers #42
So much of Bendis' "flashback" stories are just a slew of Skrulls hanging out in some dark New York warehouse talking. Not about anything all that interesting. You know, "Sentry is a threat... We should figure out how to get Stark out of the picture... The plan is coming along nicely..." Blah blah blah. It doesn't help that I often can't tell who the hell everyone is supposed to be.
Malpractice Lawsuit in the Making - New Avengers #42
I've really racked my brain for any plausible explanation, but... Can those blobs on the operating tray be anything BUT breast implants?
Hydra Nurse: "But Doctor, her chart says she's in here for power renewal, not--"
Hydra Dr.: "Silence, Nurse! Scalpel!"
And I guess that's how she went from manageable C-cups to these monstrosities in the same issue:
It's only fair to note that the second Spider-Woman is actually Spider Skrullette. Which only raises more issues. -Albo
Cute Alert - Teen Titans #60
That long gaited, big feet teenager walk is too adorable. I like it when action books aren't afraid to get a little cartoonish, when appropriate.
Someone Please Explain... - New Avengers #42
What exactly is supposed to be happening at the end of this issue? What's the "film melt" effect supposed to mean? Surely I'm overlooking something obvious... Help, Geekanerds of the world! -Albo
[UPDATE: The internets work fast, ladies and gentlemen. Alex Zalben of Pulp Secret and Comic Book Club stepped in like the crack of Indiana Jones' whip to let me know the same film melt effect was used in the first issue of House of M, which coincides with what's happening in these panels. Guess I should have read that. Thanks Alex!]
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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. Beware some major SPOILERS.
Click the pics for high res goodness!
Celebrity Cameo Corner - Red Mass For Mars #1
Not only did the artist base this character on Paul Giamatti, he based him on the first Google Image result for the actor. Can I restate again my distaste for "casting" comics? -Albo
Blood, bad t-shirts, blood, and a big freaking shark (that's bleeding) after the jump!
Composition Counts - Simon Dark, #9
Gnerd's love of Scott Hampton's art for Simon Dark is well-documented. Issue #9 serves up plenty of flashy violence which, while fun, didn't impress me as much as this lonely moment in time, as this nearly disemboweled guy waits for help to arrive. Having the light from the window hit the empty bed instead of the figure on the floor adds a touch of voyeuristic realism to the image, and allows the blood to pool into complete blackness at the bottom of the page. I'd love to own a print of this, though I'm not sure where I'd put it. -AHR
Keeping It Interesting - Locke & Key #5
This "light on, light off" approach to page layout is basically the same thing Dave Gibbons does in that famous sequence from Watchmen, but it's still a cool trick. Especially since this static conversation probably didn't sound all that visually interesting in the script. Also, click on that sucker and check out the little touch of having the lightning bug blink at the same rhythm as the flashlight. I just think it's a nice looking spread. -Albo
Movie Ripoff Alert - Locke & Key #5
Uh... Scraggly haired scary woman dressed in white emerging from a stone well? I do believe I saw this before in a little flick called The Ring. Oh, I kid I kid. I love this book and this moment spooked the shit out of me. -Albo
Banana Randomizer Award for Achievement in WTF - Wonder Woman, #21
Look, I read and enjoyed the recent WW storyline about the Amazon Queen's super Secret Servicesque bodygards. I followed it. I get that the big bad of that storyline is back, not having died by the heretofore sure-fire method of falling off a cliff. But why does this shark indicate proof positive that "she lives"? Did she kill the shark then ride to safety in it's carcass, as may be indicated by the emphasis on the open mouth? Are we meant to recognize that perfect triangle as her favorite cut of meat? And that shark wasn't there in the previous panel - did it just wash up on shore seconds before Hippolyta sees it? The seagulls and non-waterloggedness of the body would seem to indicate it's been there for a while. Oh I'm confused. Thing is, this was still my favorite part of the issue. - AHR
Crimes Against Good Taste - Kick-Ass #3
I think it's hilarious that we're supposed to like this kid but he's drawn with t-shirts that make me want to strangle him. "Whateveritis... Amagansett"??? Seriously? Maybe we're NOT supposed to like him... -Albo
Reality Check - Kick-Ass #3
This book is all about bringing a superhero into the "real world," and while this scene is actually a kinda trite I still couldn't help but smile. -Albo
Best Actor - Kick-Ass #3
Look at Kick-Ass's eyes. They aren't trying to be intimidating, they aren't afraid, they aren't anything... At best, they're bored. At worst they are the dead eyes of an utter psychopath. Both possibilities would make me think twice about tangling with this dude. It's really an alternative approach to the illustration of the moment, and I dig it. -Albo
Beat Down of the Week / Most Shocking Moment - Kick-Ass #3
It's a testament to the world that Millar spent three issues setting up that this kind of ultraviolence actually shocked me as I turned the pages. I see this kind of thing all the time in other books and never give it another thought, but these few pages had me blurting out exclamations of shock. That's something I don't do but maybe once a year. -Albo
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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!
Tou-flippin'-che - 1985 #1
More awesome shit from the books you love (or hate, or whatever) after the jump...
She Must Get That All The Time - New Avengers #41
Spidey's pretty confident he's caught some Skrulls when really he's just confusing his Queens of the Jungle again.
Visual Repetition Alert - Teen Titans #59
It doesn't really matter what's going on in the following panels, all you need to know is that they're from two completely different scenes in the same book.
And later....
The weirdest thing about these panels is although they're conveying the extact same expression in the exact same way, the artist actually took the time to draw it twice with very small differences, most notably Robin's hair. If Robin is going to keep hammering us with this look, it should have a name a la Derek Zoolander; I nominate "Red Dawn". - AHR
All In The Timing Award - All-Star Superman #11
These two panels actually made me laugh out loud. An evil sun-planet/supercomputer crashing to earth could have easily been drawn in one panel, showing the spectacular moment of impact from a distance, or could have been dragged out over several panels to build suspense. But by giving us one quick taste of what the approaching sun looked like from a bystander's point of view (just enough to merit a "wha?"), and then going directly into this ridiculous bounce....beautiful. -AHR
Millar Rips Marvel in Marvel? - 1985 #1
Millar sets up the 1985 world as "the real world" the same way he did in Kick-Ass... By having them talk about comics! This time the convo takes place in a comic shop, and a disgruntled employee interrupts a conversation about Secret Wars to denounce mainstream comics. Funny, though, that he looks like the mangiest, loneliest, grumpiest kid in town. - Albo
I'd hit it. - AHR
Naturally. He looks like you in a stocking cap. -Albo
Artistic License - Final Crisis #1
If an artist wants to reveal a superhero via his alter-ego, they can get away with pretty much anything. Think of all the bat-shaped shadows has Bruce Wayne has cast over the years. J.G. Jones is a master of composition, as notably displayed by his stellar 52 covers, and I adore his spin on the classic opening-shirt-to-reveal-costume bit. It's nonsense, but who cares? It's an expressionist medium, people! - AHR
Clearest Example of Batman's Insanity - Batman #677
Okay, so this entire issue is centered around Jezebel Jet telling Bruce that he is nut nut nutty as a nutbar, mostly based on the fact that he owns and operates a giant cave filled not just with surveillance equipment but with dinosaurs and and other loopy items of interest one might expect to find at a roadside tourist trap. But nothing sums up Batsie's unique brand of clinically formal obsession like this drawing of Jason Todd's costume; I don't think I've ever seen it portrayed as all torn up and perforated. This of course implies that this is not just one of Jason's costumes, but the actual outfit taken off of Jason's corpse. I've said it before and I'll say it again; Yikes. -AHR
The Subtle Touches - 1985 #1
There's a fun little coloring trick in this panel that works so well! The black level is lighter in the upper left than it is in the rest of the pic, simulating a lens effect that occurs when you've got a lot of bright light coming right into the lens. The boy here is squinting up to the top floor of a spooky house where he may-or-may-not see something. Lining the subtle coloring effect up with the boy's gaze doesn't just emphasize the squint--it makes it a squint! Look in his eyes and see if you can even fight the urge to squint along. This is something I recall feeling on my first read-through but it wasn't until another flip-through that I realized what was going on. You're a star, Tommy Lee Edwards! - Albo
Realism 0, Expressionism 1 - Batman: Gotham After Midnight #1
I know that some people hate this shit, but Kelley Jones really wowed me this week with his return to Gotham City. I'd forgotten how much I loved his valuing of mood and graphical impact over realism. There's a magic and a theatricality to his portrayal of the Batman, something he is given the most freedom to exploit in the Caped Crusader's, uh, cape. - Albo
Eschery goodness! - AHR
Look at that! Is that the Batman, or a demon emerging from the mists?! Or *gasp* Is there a difference? Jones doesn't shy away from anatomical inaccuracy (re: Batman's gigantic knee) in his quest to deliver a kick ass image. Oh, and about that theatricality I mentioned...
Yeaahhhh, there she is. I love the idea that Batman is so intent on maintaining his image that he strikes scary poses even when talking to friends. But really, in context it's almost immaterial what position Bats is standing in, because you get the impression that the story is more of a foggy nightmare recollection than a video recording--Bats was probably just leaning against a wall picking his teeth or something, but the memory of it is so clouded by his weighty presence that the ordinary becomes fantastic, like in the stories where eyewitnesses actually identify Bats as a man-sized bat creature. He's just that terrifying.
And I couldn't resist one more killer cape shot. Our hero "dead," his faithful cape companion slumped and lifeless all around him. Awesome!
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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!
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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. Beware some SPOILERS!
Click the pics for high res goodness!
Beatdown of the Week - Young Liars #3
Little Sadie here apparently attended the Jason Bourne School of Resourceful Dustupping. Not only does she pull an IV out of her transsexual junkie friend and jam it in her attacker's eye....
...she then proceeds to squeeze the remaining contents of the IV bag into the guy's face! Holy crapsticks that is hardcore.
Hit the jump for the highs and lows of Amazing Spider-Man #559's art!
Art Worth Praising - Marcos Martin, Amazing Spider-Man #559
I praised Marcos Martin in my review of the book but I'm glad I get to do it with some visual reference now! You can see in this page how deceptively simple his linework is. It feels very spare and uncluttered, but really there is a high level of detail crammed into every inch. The panel-to-panel storytelling is especially great on this page. Martin tells a fun little story with all the details he's packing into Spidey's characterization: the subtle wringing of hands behind the back as he worries about being seen as a psycho, the contemplative hand on the chin in the next panel, and the resolute fist in palm at the end... You would know what was happening in this page even without word balloons, which is really as good as it gets.
One more thing I want to say about Martin's art in this issue of Amazing Spider-Man is that his sense of architecture is spectacular throughout the issue--so many comic artists draw cities as block after block of homogenous rectangle buildings, but Martin does a great job of keeping his setting just as varied as real world New York.
Also contributing to the great look of this issue is Javier Rodriguez on colors. He is a perfect compliment to Martin, with a coloring job every bit as subtle and smart as Martin's linework. EXCEPT...
(Mis)Adventures in Computer Coloring - Amazing Spider-Man #559
Yes, this is the third time I've gotten on this book for grievous misuses of Photoshop. What happened, Javier? Every other page of this book is beautiful, so why did you lose all sense of subtlety and restraint for the nightclub scene? It's so unpleasant I can only hope you were just trying to make a statement about how distasteful you find clubbing.
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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 HUGE SPOILERS, including character-death related panels for a few of these issues!
Click the pics for high res goodness!
Emotion Without a Face - Iron Man: Viva Las Vegas #1
It's always been a problem showing emotion with fully masked characters. Spider-Man bends reality by having his eye shapes change around, Dr. Doom often has metal eyebrows that furrow with anger. But artist Adi Granov goes old school with good ole SURPRISE LINES!!! - Albo
Death scenes, a return to mid-90s fanboy hell, X-Factor jailbait and more, after the jump...
Making Light of a Bad Situation - Secret Invasion #2
Amid all the double hero scuffling going on in this issue, these two Spider-Men find some common ground. -Albo
Best Death - The Ventriloquist II, Batman #844
No sooner do we discover the second Ventriloquist's tragic origin story then do we see her meet an untimely end, mourned only by Scarface himself...
Chilling. No one can make fractured personalities seem quite as poignant as Paul Dini. Of course no villain has really ever died from a falling/drowning death, so here's hoping we see Sugar/Peyton again. -AHR
Worst Skrull Invader Design - Secret Invasion #2
Oh man, Wolvercyclopollus here is swimming in a sea of 90s cheese. I used to design guys that looked just like this all the time... When I was nine. -Albo
Visual Foreshadowing Alert - Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season Eight #14
Oh these two lovebirds are so adorable, but my goodness Xander is certainly doing a lot of gesticulating with those knives. I mean I know they're getting ready for battle here, but it's like knives a-go-go up in this joint, and specifically pointed at Renee. Could this be...visual foreshadowing?
...that's a yep. But Is She Dead? As mentioned earlier, it's premature to characterize a comic character as dead unless you see them with their head cut off or have a panel in which someone cradles the victim in their arms and says "....she's dead....". But there is a lot of precedent in the Buffy cannon for killing off characters, particularly love interests, in abrupt and shocking ways. Renee is (THEORETICAL SPOILER ALERT) on the next issue's variant cover, though Tara had her first appearance in the show's opening credits in the episode she died in (HAHA, Joss, hilarious), so that doesn't necessarily prove anything. I'd give it about 3 to 1 odds she's actually dead. Anyone think otherwise? -AHR
Jailbait! - Mighty Avengers #13
Isn't Layla Miller supposed to be like... 12? At most 16? This is some risque attire for a young lady to run around X-Factor HQ in. I don't trust that Strong Guy guy. -Albo
I saw that panel and I thought, "Who's the hottie in boyshorts? Layla Miller...why does that sound familiar...AHH! Unclean!" I don't think her age has been stated in the books, but I feel like it was always implied that she was like, EARLY teens. Pretty sketchy, Marvel. -AHR
Greatest Supporting Character - Omega: The Unknown #8
Nowhere Man really steals the show in this issue of Omega. He's only there for a couple pages, but the surreal awesomeness of his scenes is so so so great. -Albo
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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. Beware some major SPOILERS.
Click the pics for high res goodness!
Only In Comics: Hack/Slash #11
You know you're reading a comic book when a girl like that gives a look like that to a dude wearing a replica Star Trek uniform. Also unlikely; that a guy with such model-esque looks would be wearing a Star Trek uniform in the first place. But this part of why we read comics; they're better than real life.
After the jump, farewell to Countdown and Bruce Wayne just like we like him; violently insane!
Writer Self-Commentary: Countdown #1
This may not in fact be meta-commentary, but I'd guess that many folks on the Countdown team are glad to be done with what must have been a pretty unrewarding book to work on. That and Donna and Co's laughably self-important hero stances makes me think that Ray Palmer speaks for the DC creatives as well as DC readers.
Best Actor: Bruce Wayne, Batman #675
These panels could also be filed under our "Clearest Example of Batman's Insanity" catagory, but I really want to give props to artist Ryan Benjamin, whose work I've had problems with in the past, but who really brings it with his depiction of Bruce Wayne going from smarmy jerk to monstrous bat-demon.
First we get several of these shit-eating grins as Bruce attempts to smooth things over with his girlfriend...
But as she presses him on his increasingly evident dark side, the cracks begin to show...
This pic is a little silly, but I love how Bruce's bulk is accentuated and his eyes are just black silvers of nothingness...almost fully into Bat territory here...
One terrorist attack later, Bruce goes Bat for reals, sans costume. Nothing scarier than Batman with out the cowl.
This classic splash panel makes no apologies. Lightning crashing in the night sky before the bat signal? I'll take it!
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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!
Coolest Demon: The Damned: Prodigal Sons #1
That is some ballsy character design! There's almost something cute about him, which makes it so much more unsettling.
Um... Sorry for the thin PD, it's been a busy weekend. Why don't you spend your newfound time catching up on some of our Panel Discussion Greatest Hits?
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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!
20% Percent Gratuity: Wonder Woman #19
AHR: Here is how I believe this panel came to be....imagine if you will a conversation between artist Bernard Chang and editor Matt Idelson...
"I'm supposed to set this conversation between two men in the shower, but I don't want it to be too homoerotic."
"No problem. Put a sultry naked woman in the foreground."
"....in the men's shower?"
"Military bases can have co-ed showers. Didn't you see Starship Troopers?"
Great art, bad art, an evil Russian girl and a compromising position after the jump!
WTF Happened? - Young Liars #2
Albo: One minute the girl is whispering in the guy's ear and the next she's getting the "protective friend" hand on her shoulder and our hero is getting flipped off. Did he somehow project his fantasy for the world to see? Surely he's not getting the finger because the tickets aren't his? And just what WOULD that girl do to see Spoon? Especially considering that the book is set in 2005 Austin, where Spoon lived and assumedly played pretty frequently.
Best Actor - Evil Russian Girl, BPRD 1942 #4
AHR: I think this character has a name, but I can't be bothered to look it up. All you need to know is she's an evil demon in the form of a Little Russian Girl, and she displays a wide range of both evil and childlike emotions...
Two separate scenes in this issue of Secret Invasion featured Skrulls who really didn't seem to be all that into the mission at hand. The first, above, appears to be some sort of priest or something, and he looks pretty distressed about old whatsherface getting a gun pointed at her.
The second is the Skrull S.H.I.E.L.D. agent in the lest of the above frame backing up Skrull Jarvis. He looks positively distraught about pointing a gun at Maria Hill. I like to think that during his time posing as a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent he grew a certain fondness for Ms. Hill. These two frames alone really make me want to see a "Frontlines" style story about the Invasion from the Skrull POV. I want to know what's going through these non-agressive Skrulls' heads. So c'mon--where's my Secret Invasion: Behind Enemy Lines?
When in need of a snappy banter, steal from 300.
I think these panels speak for themselves, so I'll just comment on the great use of "Hnnn".
I love that some team of lowly Skrull contractors were hired to design and construct this giant room that serves only one purpose: stretch Mr. Fantastic out so much he can't wiggle out.
So, we knew that as a child, Hush cut the brakes on his parents car, killing his dad and almost killing his mom. What we did NOT know is that he based his whole bandaged-face supervillian costume on the memory of his hospitalized mother, who of course was hospitalized because of his unsuccessful murder attempt. That...that's messed up.
Just looking at this section of the book again to post it makes me a little squemish. This crazy little man ambushes these poor bastards during sexy time, removes our protagonist's "Mr. Johnson" (Lapham's phrase, not mine) and proceeds to do some really bad things to his companion. Thankfully they "cut to black" right after that unsightly unzipping panel, but the absence of illustration might actually just make it worse. There's a taste of satisfaction when the little bastard gets a toothbrush to the eye courtesy of his female victim, but he jumps out the window and gets away. Which just means he'll show up later, even more grotesque than before with an eyepatch and a taste for revenge. Shivers.
