The first post-pandemic Idle Time comic book trivia night turned out to be our most successful yet, with an impressive seven teams and 25 participants. Congratulations to Charles, Henry, and Dan of Team G.O.A.T. for taking home first place. That marked Dan’s third first-place finish, tying him with Ben (whose Mystique & Destiny’s Child finished in second by a mere point) for most gold medals.
Now for a chance to test your knowledge. Here’s the quiz in its entirety. Do it without Google, true believer!
Question #1 – Easy Opener
The subject of this Best Picture-nominated biopic modeled his stage cape on that of one of his comic book heroes, Captain Marvel, Jr.
Question #2 – How Hard Can It Be?
These four followed up successful music careers with forays into comic book writing. Match the writer to his former band.
A. Taboo
B. Gerard Way
C. Max Bemis
D. Claudio Sanchez
1. Coheed and Cambria
2. Black Eyed Peas
3. Say Anything
4. My Chemical Romance
Question #3 – Secret Identities
What is the not-so-secret superheroic alter ego of attorney Jennifer Walters?
Question #4 – Geography
Xhosa, the language spoken by Wakandans in the Black Panther films, is one of the official languages of which African nation?
Question #5 – First Appearances
In which comic book series does Wonder Woman make her first appearance? (First appearance or first cover appearance accepted.)
Question #6 – Fashion
Buster Brown, created by comic strip pioneer Richard Outcault in 1902, gave his name to this type of apparel, still manufactured up until the 1970’s.
You know what? Absolute Carnage #1 by Donny Cates and Ryan Stegman is, actually, really pretty good. Why the qualifiers? Because I’ve never been a big fan of the character, and what little interest I did have in Spider-Man’s stable of symbiotic super-villains dropped off considerably as the ultra-violent aesthetic swallowed up the 80’s anti-hero boom and suddenly, painfully, took precedence over any kind of decent comic book storytelling or artistry. Subconsciously I think I’ve somehow equated the Punisher/Deadpool/Venom-Carnage fanbase with the same people who can’t stand seeing a Black Captain America or a Jane Foster swinging Mjolnir. I don’t have time to waste on that nonsense. So, coupled with my disinterest in the characters, I also assume any new books featuring those guys would therefore target that audience. Pass.
I’m not lazy by any means. I’m swamped. “Idle time” isn’t what it once was and finding shit to write about every week has its challenges. That said, my experimental effort at a blog entry title that, much like a spontaneous tweet accompanied by an image or two, can communicate everything I need should, also, force me to blather on introspectively in the most blog-like of fashions. Which is what I just did.
For some time now I’d been trying to transition from straightforward weekly new release bulletins to something a little more bloggy (read: pathetically self-indulgent), but related to comics all the same. That War of the Realms rundown really burned me out. Not just with writing brief four-color reviews either — I was worried that I needed a real break from superhero books. I’ve been reading and collecting comics pretty much nonstop for over thirty years and, for whatever reason, these last few months had seen my unread stacks pile up to unprecedented heights (save for the stupid WotR tie-ins, given my stubborn insistence that I read every damn page in order and on time) and my enthusiasm for reading the latest installments of some of my favorite capes n’ tights books had stalled considerably.
Avengers #21 – Mondo Variant (Marvel)
Blade Runner 2019 #1 – Artgerm Exclusive Virgin Variant (Titan Entertainment)
This book shouldn’t be this good. It also shouldn’t only be three issues. Every year Marvel does one of these anthology tie-ins for its summer event and they’re usually a hodgepodge of tangential short stories by aspiring writers and artists that add very little to the overall storyline… and are largely forgettable to boot.
What I probably should be doing is talking about the incredible Silver Surfer: Black by Donny Cates and Tradd Moore. Or at the very least, my initial impressions of DC’s Event Leviathan by Bendis and Maleev. But instead I’m rolling ahead with more quick hits on everything remotely related to Marvel’s War of the Realms. After perusing this list of crossovers and tie-ins, however, my hope is that the casual fan will forego all this tangential crap and read one of the two aforementioned books instead. I’m getting ready to bury the hammer, Marvel. Let’s wrap this shit up, yeah?
When I started this earnest effort at charting Marvel’s big summer event, my goal was to tackle, first and foremost, the readability of War of the Realms and all of its associated crossovers, tie-ins, and supplements. The idea was to see whether or not I could recapture the wonderful anticipation I used to feel with these types of stories (Civil War comes to mind most immediately), or if disjointed and confusing narratives were going to be the new norm. I haven’t always read all the tangential crap, but I’ve felt like, in most cases, I’ve consumed the majority. Despite that, gaps in storytelling from forced compression or publishing delays have really affected that experience (Civil War II, by contrast, stands out in this regard).
Originally, my thinking regarding these weekly War of the Realms updates was to focus in on the crossovers and tie-ins that were important to properly enjoying the overall event. I (almost) always enjoy a good Marvel summer shebang, but in recent years I’ve been frustrated with the confusing continuity of some of these mini-series. Despite reading — or trying to read — every comic remotely related to a given story, I invariably feel that I’ve missed something, resulting in an event experience that feels fragmented and unsatisfying. But given how invested I’ve been in Jason Aaron’s fantastic Thor saga, and how much I love his partnership with Russell Dauterman, I didn’t want to leave anything to chance. I was going to properly enjoy this g-d event, even if it meant buying and reading every one-shot (e.g., Strikeforce), amusing albeit tangential diversion (like Squirrel-Girl), or half-assed shitrag of a limited series (the gawdawful Journey into Mystery).
An impressive stack of books on the new releases rack with that War of the Realms trade dress: eight books in all for week eight of Marvel’s summer event. Thus far, Malekith’s epic invasion of Midgard, the last holdout against his ten-realm conquest, has been a fun and colorful culmination of Jason Aaron’s Thor opus. Some hits and misses this week. Let’s navigate.
The Institute of Idle Time 