New Book Wednesday Pick of the Week: Kiss # 2

I'm humming a medley of "Room Service" and "Love Her All I Can" right now, two of my all-time favorite Kiss cuts from one the band's coolest slabs, Dressed to Kill.   Kiss fans will call to mind that album's dapper-glam cover and go nuts (as I did) for this dud-sporting variant cover for Dynamite's Kiss  # 2.  The photo on this variant was supplied by the band specially for Amy Chu's Kiss comic revival series.

Chu and Kewber Baal continue their comic book interpretation of Kiss' 1981 pseudo soundtrack, The Elder.  Check out my review from last week of the debut issue for further details about this cool project, Kiss' umpteenth appearance in comic form.

Keeping a rock 'n roll theme, be on the lookout this week also for Acme Ink's comic bio of Rob Zombie/White Zombie.

New Book Wednesday Pick of the Week: Evil Dead 2: Dark Ones Rising

Now I know conventional comics wisdom would have me taking the overdue sixth issue of Frank Miller's DK III:  The Master Race  for this week's pick or even DC Rebirth's Batman  # 9, which looks to be a monster story with Bats recruiting the Suicide Squad for a hard run at Bane.  Both are on deck in my reading pile, along with another contender, Black Panther  # 7 and Usagi Yojimbo  # 158 from the inimitable Stan Sakai, a guaranteed pleasure pill.  The debut of Infamous Iron Man  today featuring Dr. Doom in his own special battle suit?  Intriguing and no doubt flying off the racks this week.

 Hey, Halloween will be here faster than you can say "Bubba didn't do it!!!" (i.e. the superb teleflick  Dark Night of the Scarecrow) and we're knee-deep in blood and shit with Season 2 of Ash vs. Evil Dead  on the Starz network.  Me being as much a gonzo horror geek as well as comic book nerd, it was a lock the minute I saw the mock Friday the 13th  variant cover to Space Goat Publishing's second Evil Dead 2  spinoff miniseries, Dark Ones Rising.

I'll never forget 1987 when Evil Dead II:  Dead By Dawn  hit theaters.  I was precisely two months shy of my 17th birthday when the film came out, which you'll recall (assuming you were alive that magnificent year) was rated NC-17.  Now I'd gotten myself and my neighborhood posse into the Friday the 13th  slashers as early an age as 14, so suffice it to say, I was livid to be denied entry into Evil Dead II  over a two month technicality.  Yeah, I tried.  I even bribed an usher I was friendly with by offering him a batch of Hustlers  I'd pilfered from my dad's bachelor pad.  No dice.

I've thought of this during every episode of Ash vs. Evil Dead,  in particular the barf-inducing second episode of this season.  You know where I'm going if you've seen it already.  The same place Ash went, where nobody, not even James Tiberius Kirk himself has ventured:  up the scrote and bunghole of a cadaver.  As a Facebook friend of mine posted, you can't unsee that sequence ever.  Here I thought The Human Centipede  had set the bar on debauchery decades after the nauseating Cannibal Holocaust  and Make Them Die Slowly.

Thus, it's anticlimactic coming to SGP's Evil Dead 2:  Dark Ones Rising,  thus far a much tamer ride, largely due to slowly cruising in expository mode.  Dark Horse Comics and Dynamite Entertainment already ran their courses through expansions of Army of Darkness.  SGP has since acquired the licensing to take Evil Dead 2  to all sorts of looney places (to the feet of martians, Jack the Ripper, Krampus and freaking Adolf Hitler via the Evil Dead 2:  Revenge  one-shots) with the proposal a lot of crazy crap occurred along Ash's trek to Hell's version of Medieval Times.  This involves resurrecting Professor Knowby's daughter, Annie as Ash's enduring sidekick, this despite her biting it at the end of the Evil Dead II  film.

Prior to Dark Ones Rising,  SGP ran the Evil Dead 2:  Tales of the Ex-Mortis  miniseries, where Ash and Annie fought their trans-dimensional way back to Earth, which is where this new one picks up.  Annie has survived, and presenting the first "hmmmmm" moment, she torches the Necronomicon and breaks the demon dagger in half.  Now, you Evil Dead  freaks are likely to be doing what I did pausing on this page:  singing "Weeeee'rrrrrrrre goooonnnna geeeeet youuuuuuu...weeeeee'rrrrrrrre goooonnnna geeeeet youuuuuuu..."

Though Annie's presumed Ash to be dead upon her re-entry into the real world, this is  the Evil Dead-verse, which means Ash's return is somewhat of a spectacle.  Writer Frank Hannah brings Ash back into the picture through the mud hole of a cow pasture.  The way the scene is artistically portrayed, one could interpret Ash being shat out of bovine butt, which would've been one to rival Episode 2, Season 2 of Ash vs. Evil Dead.  In fact, we being the degenerate horror hounds we are, we kind of expected  such a grody arrival.  This is a teen-rated comic, though.  NC-17 doesn't bind it to the same splatter convictions as its namesake, though we're hoping for the red red groovy in the next two issues.

Seemingly defenseless without the proper artifacts needed to take on deadites (including Ash's missing stump-saw, his restored hands being more in line with the original Evil Dead  film), a soul-collecting Goliath emerges from a massive chunk out of the road where a small town used to be.  With Ash finally starting to get back to his wisecracking self after coming off as vulnerable and shell-shocked, he and Annie are forced to hightail it.  Annie has a plan on the assumption this is the only force of hell they're contending with for this round.

We know better, don't we?   Theyyyyy'rrrrrre gooooonnnnna geeeeeet themmmmmmm... 

New Book Wednesday Pick of the Week: Darth Vader # 25

Hard to believe 25 issues have flown by in more than a year-and-a-half's time, but that helps when you employ the trendy doubling-up inside a month method as Marvel did on occasion with its largely superb Darth Vader  series.  In the blink of a Force flick, Vader's solo run comes to a wrap within reach of the forthcoming Rogue One:  A Star Wars Story  film.

UK sensation Kieron Gillon has done a slamdango job on the Darth Vader  series, which felt more like a longer investment than the finite run it was.  Considering the onslaught of miniseries and the regular Star Wars  run from Marvel (Han Solo  # 4 also came out today, FYI), it's appropriate they devoted the extra time to sci-fi's most venerable villain.

What's been a pleasure throughout Darth Vader  aside from Salvador Larocca and Edgar Delgado's reliably breathtaking graphics has been the extra characters introduced into the Star Wars  canon.  Vader's cunning henchwoman, Dr. Aphra, stands to take a firm place alongside Grand Admiral Thrawn and Prince Xizor as most memorable associates of the Empire without a "Darth" designation affixed to their names.  Then there's the wonderfully hedonistic anti-counterparts to C3PO and R2-D2, 0-0-0 (aka Triple Zero) and BT-1 (Beetee).  Considering Vader, as a young Anakin Skywalker, originally built C3PO, the nihilistic, nattering Triple Zero presents dark gallows humor, nervously grounding a series that moved at hyperspeed.  Think about it, Darth Vader has zilch in the way of a personality, thus Triple Zero is his representative, ungovernable comedy relief.

"End of Games, Part VI" wraps this series on a high note (even if if this might be the fastest you'll consume a six dollar comic all year) as Vader is set to vanquish his semi-cyborg nemesis Cylo and wholly redeem himself in the eyes of his master, Emperor Palpatine.  Vader was effectively demoted at the beginning of this series as consequence for losing the original Death Star in the battle of Yavin.  Darth Vader  has represented the lost-forever Anakin Skywalker's atonement, but it's been more his evil catharsis, a solidified pact with the Dark Side, if not wholly obliging to his master.

While Vader's loyalty to the Emperor has been tested all along, so too has Dr. Aphra's constancy to Vader.  As suggested by the end of Darth Vader  # 24, in this final issue, Aphra betrays Vader to the Emperor.  Throughout the story, Vader has exploited Imperial resources in an attempt to thread his lineage and rectify a latent sense of guilt pestering him, that thread naturally being his son, Luke.  Despite Aphra's betrayal, Palpatine praises Vader's wiliness, re-escalating him to his right hand.

The story is brisker and tighter than a Volbeat album, but it's the epilogue to "End of Games Part, VI" that'll get ya.  No spoiler here, the punchline is too rich.  The bonus story, "Coda" is one of the few told from the point-of-view of the Tusken Raiders and if you're likewise a fan of The Wicker Man,  you'll trip on this wordless narrative.

Part of what's been building up through Darth Vader  is witnessing the ultimate fate of Dr. Aphra, who was at one point captured by the Rebel Alliance.  All this time, you just know she's been bound to get it  in this series.  Yes, we've detoured into the quite awesome "Vader Down" crossover tale where even a legion of Rebels is no match for a grounded Sith.  Vader has toyed with an Imperial detective, Inspector Thanoth, practically for fun.  Vader has squashed an insurrection on the planet Shu-Torun in his inimitable, brutal fashion.  He's made mincemeat of young warriors bred into the Force, Morit and Aiolin, whom he views as abominations instead of peers.  He's debunked science as a harbinger of controlled chaos, defeating Imperial scientist Tulon Voidgazer and her cyberanimate rancor.  Hey, Vader's kid took on the real thing in Return of the Jedi,  call it kismet.

Still, the core of the Darth Vader  series comes down to a singular relationship, one devoid of emotional chemistry, given Anakin's Skywalker's only true love was killed by his own hand.  Dr. Aphra is as close to an organic companion in Vader's malformed life as he'll ever get, post-Padme.  Having made a deal with the devil (or worse, a Sith Lord) though, even a drunken Rodian can tell you Aphra figures less into Vader's master plan than the plot of Splinter of the Mind's Eye.  Regardless of how integral Dr. Aprha's been to this story line and as a crossover character in Jason Aaron's regular Star Wars  run, no matter how long Vader has spared her (even exhausted measures to rescue her), it's all control freakism.  Aphra stands to be disposed on his  terms.

Does  Aphra bite it in the end?  I know.  Bleeding Cool  and many comics hubs likewise know and will give you the answer now if you wanna cheat.  If you're a purist, you'll take my bait here, grab Darth Vader  # 25 and find out for yourself.  Like I tell my son, who lacks proper start-to-finish reading etiquette at age eight (as Yoda would say, the boy has no patience) don't you dare be skipping pages!!!

New Book Wednesday Pick of the Week - 10/5/16: Archie Meets Ramones

Gabba Gabba Arch!


In the late Eighties, the Ramones saved my soul.  My then-girlfriend had left for college and broke up with me long-distance, thus leaving me stranded without a prom date.  I had car problems, I had high risk, high premium car insurance for being a dumb, defenseless 17-year-old male.  So too did the Ramones, apparently, if you listen to Joey croon sardonically on the End of the Century  album.   I'd lost one job, then another one based upon a misunderstanding after I'd tried to be a hero and help a colleague, instead taking a bum rap for my troubles.  Being that dumb, defenseless 17-year-old male, I got railroaded on a set of lies and ushered out.  Said fabricated events inadvertently cost me a date with an old friend in school, someone I'd had a crush on and was thrilled to pieces her mother had set us up.  Considering I was a longhaired grit, I took it as huge praise I'd won over the mother. Unfortunately, this person's mom had bought into the lies and subsequently forbade me from going out with her daughter without giving me a chance to defend myself, yadda yadda yadda, you get the picture.  Senior year high school drama at its best.


Kinda sounds like a slice out of life of ol' Riverdale, doesn't it? 


It was the Ramones who brought me out that rut every teenager goes through at some point, the doldrums that hang about like kudzu, the adolescent ball of confusion that persistently rolls and nips at the heels of threadbare Chucks or Vans checkerboard loafers.  Hey, sorry for the outdated references, I'm old school.  All those problems back then seemed like the weight of the world to a teenager, but sheesh, I'd kill to have those dilemmas again compared to my adult troubles.  It's all relative, of course, but in retrospect, it's so silly I'd let all that static get to me so badly.  Thus the Ramones were there for me when I needed them most.  Three chord nirvana, no-frills punk rock with more omnipresent buzz than a pot convention.  "I Don't Wanna Go Down to the Basement," "Beat On the Brat," "Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment," "We're a Happy Family," yeah, man...that's what was up.

Archie Comics today...dag, is there anything cooler than what these guys are cooking up?  For eighty years, the ginger teen swinger has defined coolness in teen life, despite his everykid's klutziness.  For each trend and each fad, Archie and his pals n' gals have been there, sporting them like comic book models, Veronica Lodge being the drawn and colored embodiment of Elle.  The Riverdale gang has entered the new millennium not so much occupied with trying to keep up with a highly complicated, tech-based new frontier, but to redefine the characters for another generation of comics readers.  Yet it's more than even that.


Archie 2.0 just may be twice as hip from his nutball, free-spirited exploits of the past.  In modern day Riverdale, Archie's gone toe-to-toe against The Punisher and Predator, both hysterical mash-ups any comic reader should own.  He's faced down a Sharknado.  Arch, along with Jug, Reg, Betts and Ronnie have been catapulted into a zombie apocalypse, their distant comrade Sabrina, an unwitting pawn of Satan.  Afterlife With Archie and The Chilling Tales of Sabrina  are in the upper echelon of books in both contemporary comics and horror fiction.  Even an alter form of Josie and the Pussycats have been reinvented as vampires in Afterlife,  this being an indirect pre-launch of their new rock n' roll comic.  The Married Life, where we got to explore dual paths as to what Archie's life would've been like with Veronica and Betty as his bride(s).  Sheer brilliance.  Then what can you say about Mark Waid's super-slick current rebrand of the original Archie  series?  If you're not down in Riverdale these days, you're just not down.

We all know Archie has a musician's soul and his friends have obligingly outfitted him with a backing band.  The 1960s saw The Archies as both a cartoon band and transitory "recording artists."  "Sugar Sugar," anyone?  It's thus no surprise that Archie has already crossed guitar necks with Kiss in the past, a band thriving the same time period Archie Comics did during the 1970s and early Eighties.  Now comes Archie Meets Ramones, yet another one of those books making you think at face-value, "WTF?"  By now, though, one can expect the Archie Comics heads know their turf and better yet, their ever-changing demographic, one that has come to expect "WTF?" in Riverdale.  As with everything else from the imprint lately, this proposal is a wild success.


It's too bad Joey, Johnny, Dee Dee and Tommy aren't alive to witness their legacy.  As with many bands and artists, death is often the "it" factor to gaining worldwide attention that may have been elusive to them in life.  The Ramones fought harder than most for the meager success they enjoyed and only after they retired did the music world begin to see their value.  Sports arenas made them outright posh by hijacking the trademark "Hey! Ho! Let's Go!" chant from "Blitzkrieg Bop," even if the Rock and Roll High School  movie from 1979 still remains only a cult phenomenon.  The filmmakers behind the adaptation of Stephen King's Pet Sematary  did try their damnedest to break the Ramones, albeit it wasn't until the summer festival circuit on the Ramones' farewell tour when they finally did break.


I took the death of Joey Ramone brutally hard and Johnny, Dee Dee and Tommy followed suit while I was building my career in music journalism.  I felt an emptiness in my heart without having had the chance to interview those guys.  By the time I finally got to sit with Marky Ramone, it was one of the greatest moments of my professional life--and music-listening life, at-that.  Thus, I came to Archie Meets Ramones  with instant flightiness and echoes of "I Don't Wanna Walk Around With You" reeling inside my giddy skull.

This one-shot story was written by Alex Segura (Silent City, Down the Darkest Street)  and Matthew Rosenberg (We Can Never Go Home, Rocket Racoon)  and art provided by Gisele Lagace.  Well, funny enough, time capsule rules apply here as we go back to retro Archie and the gang trips into a fateful rock summit with the Ramones.  The quick recap of the story is thus:  The Archies have an epic fail at the Riverdale High Talent Contest and by enchantment of the comic gods (or was  it Sabrina, hmmmmm...), they're whisked away to the old punk club, Max's Kansas City in New York circa 1976.  Suffice it to say, it's up to Joey and the boys to restore the gang's sullied musical confidence on a cross-time journey that's pretty far out.

The Ramones are snide and sarcastic, but they send our Riverdale friends through a Ramones-based scavenger hunt in order to find their verve and ultimately, their way home again.   For us old school readers, it does take a bit of getting used to the Archie crew presented as millennials while the time-honored adult populace such as Mr. Weatherbee, Pop Tate and Archie's parents are effectively us Gen X'ers.  Archie's dad is the big Ramones fan, which is like a sucker punch if you've read the Archie books longer than 2010.  Still, with everything to this story, apply suspension of belief and you'll have a blast.


How many tantrums between Ronnie and Betty will Archie and the Ramones have to weather?  How many "I Wanna's..." will emit from the leather-clad punkers of yesteryear? 


You'll have to read to find out.  1, 2, 3, 4!!!