Or – “Sir, I Protest! I Am NOT A Merry Man!!!”
Once again, we’ve come to the situation where Stately Spoilers Manor contains far more comics than there are days to review ‘em, leading once again unto the Final Frontier… NUQNEH – NOOKNEHH! Phasers on summarize!
Or – “Off To Meet My Doom, Mom! See You After School!”
Comic book publishing schedules puzzle me. The Twelve hasn’t come out in what seems like a year, while Agents of Atlas is apparently on a bi-weekly status, and Spider-Man is coming out every sixteen minutes or so. Wolverine alone accounts for half the forests destroyed in the United States every month. The major publishers can’t seem to decide whether it’s a market for the celebrity auteur writer, or whether it’s the characters who sell the books regardless of creator. When Wolverine #73 came out a few weeks ago (before the publication of #72) it occurred to me that the entire industry is run by the pointy-haired boss from Dilbert, and that I should really just relax.
Yesterday, Paul Cornell confirmed what had been rumored for some time – Captain Britain and MI: 13 were getting the axe by Marvel.
Lastly, and this is really important, while we didn’t know this would be the last arc until comparatively recently, I had it in mind that it was possible it would be from the time I started plotting it. Indeed, the end of this arc marks the end of what I had planned for the book when I started. One of the images right at the finish is what I always felt I was heading towards, and I’m very pleased I got there. So: you will get a real, thorough, proper, ending, not just of ‘Vampire State’, but of the whole run. It hasn’t been rushed to fit the space, it hasn’t been compromised, it won’t just suddenly cut off: it’s what I intended.I think the Annual and the two remaining issues finish off one of my best stories in any media, and that story is actually the entirety of Captain Britain and MI-13.You’ll see what I mean a bit more next issue. This is a comic with a proper ending.
It’s interesting Marvel is giving the series the ol’ Heave-Ho as the last couple of months the title has finished in the top half of all comics being sold. In April, issue #12 sold an estimated 20,000 issues, while Wolverine: First Class #14 sold a mere 14,000 copies, and it doesn’t appear Wolverine is being canceled any time soon.
At least the series is getting a proper send off.
Or – “Freakin’ In The Purple Rain With A Flying Hippo!”
Hey, kids! What time is it?
Time to get a new watch!
Return with us now to those glorious days of yesteryear, when comics came out every Wednesday, there was a new car in every a garage, a chicken in every pot, and a pot calling the kettle collect! When the review pile gets high enough to fall over, it’s time for Rapid-Fire REVIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEWWWWW  OOOOooooOOOOOO!
Or – “Wasn’t There Another Reviewer At Major Spoilers? Some Old Dude?”
It’s a little known fact that the month of December contains space-time anomalies that keep you from ever completing anything on time. Add to that a new paradigm at my office, wherein my team load has doubled and my patience halved, a tendency to want to spend time with my friends around the holidays, a scanner that works about half the time and my recent birthday, and I admit it… I may have been neglecting my reviews. Still, t’is nobler in the mind to beg forgiveness than it is to ask permission, so I’m back with a new batch of things you may have already read, but forgot to ask for my opinion on the first time.
Or – “I Just Noticed That…”
When I was a kid, I used to get irritated when I would read the Defenders because the Valkyrie never got to actually use her way cool sword. It’s an inherent problem with sword-wielding characters, from the Black Knight to the Swordsman to the Grim Ghost, that they can’t just go dismembering people at random. And now, this book has not one, but TWO sword-characters at the same time. I haven’t really been paying too much attention to whether they get to chop up the bad guys, but it’ll be interesting to see how it goes.
Or – “I Honestly Have NO Idea When These Books Came Out…”
Welcome back, my friends, to the show that never ends… much like the harassment you get when you wear the pizza suit and dance on the corner in front of a Cici’s. Even when you’re cutting back on comics purchases, like I have, the urge to review more comics than there is time to review them is strong. Makes me with there were 8 days a week, actually. Thus, we at Stately Spoilers Manor have created this handy, dandy method of touching upon things going on at Penny Lane, down the long and winding road, even across the universe. So why don’t we do it in the road, throw some Norwegian wood on the fire, cause it’s a helter skelter ride through a day in the life of comics!
…
Yellow submarine.
Sometimes I think these publishers take potshots at one another just because they can. Call me crazy, but the variant cover to the upcoming Captain Brittain and MI-13 #18 and Ghost Rider #30, seems to be a direct smack at DC’s upcoming Faces of Evil covers.
Or – “Three Weeks Of Comics In Handy Bite-Sized Servings!”
A side-effect of reading as many comics as I do comes when, after a particulary heavy week of reads, you find all the stories kind of blurring together into one. It makes for some pretty entertaining nightmares as well, like the one where Wonder Woman was guarding the galaxy against marauding zombies who wanted to shape-shift into teenagers and make out while simultaneously refitting all of our cars to fly and emit fire, and also giving our grandparents cyborg limbs that glow in the dark. So, I got that going for me… which is nice.
Or – “Because I’ve Fallen Further Behind Than Ever Before…”
I have to tell you, two weeks of being unable to type without crying like a little girl really makes your work pile up. The last couple of weeks of comics have been a tumultuous ride, with a whole lot of minor things happening that made me happy. An old favorite disappoints, while a surprise contender impresses the heck out of me. British vampires, time-lost Arcturans, underground civilizations, the chupacabra, and a fifty-foot stalk of marijuana await you, beyond the fold!
Marvel has announced Captain Britain and the MI: 13 have sold out at the distributor level and will be sending the third issue back to press with a new variant cover using interior art once again.
