Hey everybody,
Those of you who've asked me what I want to do with myself now that the shop is closing know that my primary interest is writing. It seems fitting, then, that I would join an actual comics-focused website as a blogger, and that's what I've done. You can now see my comic-based writing at nerdynothings.com. I'll be doing one long review of a new title and several "quick hits" every week. My first post, on Green Lantern #57, went up today, and you can view it here. I know that reading what I think about comics isn't quite the same as talking about it with me at the shop, but it's the next best thing!
I'm really excited for tomorrow's Avengers #1.
Marvel Comics was gracious enough to send retailers participating in their Avengers Day Launch Party a personalized (!) advance copy of the comic, which obviously is really sweet. I broke my rule about not reading comics I care about in the shop (too hard to concentrate) to check it out, and, well, I was impressed.
Avengers #1 is a good comic. Hell, it's a great comic. Well, I think so, anyway. And that kind of took me by surprise. You'll know if you read my earlier post about Siege that I didn't really like that series when it started, and my feelings toward it didn't change at the end. It just didn't grab me; it still felt more like a Cliff's Notes outline of a plot than an actual, honest-to-goodness STORY. It truthfully made me about ready to give up on Brian Michael Bendis and the Marvel crew. There was redemption to be found, though, in last week's New Avengers Finale, which I found to be an engaging and even touching send-off to a series I'd followed (and mostly loved) from issue #15, and, well, it gave me hope for this newfangled Heroic Age thing Marvel's doing.
Avengers #1 has turned that hope into full-blown optimism. It's true, I'll always be more of a DC guy at heart, but if Avengers #1 is indicative of what I can expect from Marvel's team books in the coming months -- well, I'll be reading a lot more Marvel books than I thought. In the interest of not spoiling anything I'll save my actual critique of the book until it comes out, but, yeah, I'm a fan.
To end this post on a bit of a promotional note, I'm quite looking forward to Stand-Up Comics hosting the Avengers #1 launch party tomorrow. I hope the comic-buying public is as stoked for the new Avengers series as I am, and I also hope they're ready to get one of these killer prints from JRJR:
So join us for the Avengers Launch Party tomorrow! EXCELSIOR!
1) Superman was not on it.
2) The spot that names who wrote the book said "James Robinson".
Here's the cover for the issue that came out today...
So... I guess we're halfway there.
