SILENCE! #43
December 11th, 2012
CAN’T BELIEVE I USED TO BE MR STEVE AUSTIN ON THE MIC, SIX MILLION WAYS I USED TO RUN IT
Here I come to save the day, Disembodied Narratorbot X-15735 is on his way! No, no, not really I was always here. It’s you that went away fleshy ones. I was here and I always will be. Until the sun eats itself.
In this pre-pre festive edition of SILENCE! (the podcast that comes to you in the form of a nano-swarm perched on the buttocks of a fly), The Beast and Lactus fire a cannonfull of comics shot across your bows.
But not before…
<ITEM> The SILENCE News has a live report from Danny Beastman, covering the terrifying Moore/Morrison Magickal War that threatens to engulf ALL the realities.
<ITEM> Voyage Into The Reviewniverse covers Evan Dorkin’s House of Fun (with a wee Pirate Corp$ diversion), Hellboy, Avengers, Hawkeye, Thunderbolts, Action Comics, Batman LOTDK, FURY: My War Gone By, Fashion Beast, Dial H, Amazing Spiderman, Avenging Spiderman, All New X-Men, Iron Man (gland!), and Black Acre.
<ITEM> Lactus takes on Jason’s Challenge in My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic.
<ITEM> The Silent Question comes from a Green Lantern…again.
Add in an appreciation from The Beast of Man-Thing and Steve Gerber in general, and you have a rootin’ tootin’ high falutin’ edition of SILENCE! Disembodied Narratorbot X-15735 wishes you a fond farewell, blows you a salty kiss and will see you on the flipside.
SILENCE! is proudly sponsored by the two greatest comics shops on the planet, DAVE’S COMICS of Brighton and GOSH COMICS of London.
December 11th, 2012 at 4:42 pm
As a US fan of the show, I have to admit it’s a bit painful listening to you Britishers manhandle the American language week in and week out. It was refreshing to have some correspondence from gin-u-wine, dyed-in-the-wool New Yawkers Gary Lactenberg and Danny Beastman. Hope to hear more from them in the future.
Semper fi,
Cass
December 11th, 2012 at 4:52 pm
We’ll be sure to pass the thanks on to our colonial masters.
December 12th, 2012 at 4:37 pm
Interesting paralleling Gerber and Milligan, totally agree there. Also, Howard is well worth a read- it’s a great satirical snapshot of that era. Never used to be a huge fan of his Defenders work, but haven’t read them in years so will put them on my ‘to read’ list. My brain may have matured sufficiently now.
December 12th, 2012 at 5:49 pm
Nice to hear the mighty Dorkin getting some appreciation. I keep smirking each time I think of ‘traipse of fun’
The early Pirate Corps stuff hasn’t dated too well, but the later stuff, (collected in the third hectic planet book) is still great and he’s also written the occasional great marvel comics including a couple of very funny issues of mutant X and a great Thing mini series which is full of the doomed romance stuff he does better than anyone… Both well worth checking out.
December 12th, 2012 at 10:32 pm
I agree with Eyemelt – having read the Essential Howard the Duck (£3 in a charity shop, yessss), I can sure say it’s immensely readable, in a way I seldom find comics of that era.
The satire’s a bit ham-fisted at times, but there’s such genuine, earnest passion behind it that it’s totally forgivable. Plus Howard and Beverley are great, rounded caracters.
totally spot-on about the ‘weird’ stuff not feeling contrived, too. I dread to think of how horrible the vampire cow story’d be in the hands of a modern “wow vampires/ninjas/monkeys lolz’ writer.
I’ve got Gerber’s Infernal Man-Thing on the way, but I assume it’ll be a while due to festive post. Pure looking forward to it, likes.
P.S. the bit about being ‘Dinner of the Endless’ was very enjoyable.
December 12th, 2012 at 10:33 pm
Wait, Evan Dorkin wrote some Mutant X? That terrible Howard Mackie alternate universe thing?
December 12th, 2012 at 11:09 pm
Dorkin writing the Thing is something I should definitely read.
December 13th, 2012 at 12:16 am
I think Dean Haspiel drew that. It’s kind of an extrapolation on “Thus Man, This Monster” as I recall.
December 13th, 2012 at 12:30 am
Gerber’s Defenders material is worth picking up for Elf With A Gun, Gerber’s short run on the title is covered by the first two Essentials.
Also Omega The Unknown is worth a read.
As for Man-thing, whilst I applaud the use of the obligatory Man-thing joke I’m a bit disappointed there wasn’t any reference to Giant Sized Man-thing.
December 13th, 2012 at 7:53 am
@Thrills
Dunno about the Howard Mackie issues because I’ve never had the slightest desire to read them but the Dorkin issues were very entertaining! ‘I’m not allowed to kill? Well, what about maiming? Is maiming acceptable?’
Actually, come to think of it, I seem to remember reading that even Mr Dorkin couldn’t be be bothered to read them and pretty much winged it as he went along…
December 13th, 2012 at 11:19 am
I liked Avengers! Thought it did a good job of capturing the movie feel, with Opeña pretties and everything. But certainly portentous, yes.
Those guys at the end – the “real” line-up, I guess – look a bit rubbish, though. Captain Radioactive Nappy?
December 13th, 2012 at 1:35 pm
Ahhh, I did an internet search, and it seems to be Agent X 11-13 Evan Dorkin wrote, not Mutant x. Which makes more sense, but is a bit of a shame. I quite like the idea of him tackling Havok’s shitty band of gritty vampires and sadsacks that made up Mutant X.
December 13th, 2012 at 2:14 pm
Do you remember when they refused to give the identity if the writer, referring to him mysteriously as ‘X’. Then revealef it was Howard Mackie…
December 13th, 2012 at 2:52 pm
They were hot off the “success” of “Sentry was a lost Stan Lee creation!”
“What other wacky hi-jinx can we pull?!?”
Slow to listen this week, can’t wait to hear your thoughts on Hellboy in Hell. Strangely, I felt BPRD may have outgrown Hellboy himself. That may just be my lack of grounding in the traditional materials talking…I’m getting it all though.
Did you notice the Brian Wood tweet about the Dark Horse digital store getting creators a much better percentage than Comixology? I thought that was an interesting little nugget if you’re looking to make sure a bit more of your money goes in the right pockets…
December 13th, 2012 at 11:44 pm
I bought the first issue of that comic by ‘X’, which was actually ‘The Brotherhood’, not ‘Mutant X’. I am the X-Pedant. I remember thinking it was EdGy and BaDaSS, though didn’t buy any other issues. I was reading a lot of X-Pish back then.
I gather that after 9/11, the idea of a comic with terrorists as heroes was seen as a bad idea, so it was quickly turned around to show them as the bad guys, then got quietly cancelled. Fair enough.
It had some good artists, though, who quite frankly deserved better. I think Sean Phillips may have been involved in the latter issues?
December 14th, 2012 at 9:07 am
Yeah, I actually read Brotherhood the other day. By ‘read’ I mean ‘found in a box of acquired tat and swiftly skimmed through.’ I was wondering who ‘X’ was, but couldn’t even be bothered to google it. But yes, Sean Phillips appears near the end, along with X-Force or X-Statix or whatever they were called at the time. I also found a six-issue series, Muties, which looked like it would be shit but was actually half decent.
Mutant X I have to admit, I almost enjoyed at first.
December 14th, 2012 at 1:34 pm
Muties! That was Arthur Ranson art, right? I could never find that in my local shop.
I had a strange enjoyment of Mutant X, until the regular ludicrous plot-holes and contradictions became too much, and also the art became terrible when Cary Nord left.
Young Me wasted so much money on X-booX.
December 14th, 2012 at 4:40 pm
Wasted? Don’t you mean invested? Those first issues of X-Force must be worth a fortune, surely?
Muties was one I avoided at the time, I thought it looked naff, but found it in a box of tat. It wasn’t bad really. And there was a variety of artists on it, Charlie Adlard did one of em too. But yeah, most of the X-spinoffs were pretty crappy weren’t they? When I was a nipper and I found an old bronze age Marvel, I could get into it straight away, I can imagine a kid now stumbling across an issue of X-Men 2099 and thinking “What?… Just what the fuck?”
December 14th, 2012 at 6:55 pm
Sadly, I took the Shatterstar trading card out of the bag when I bought X-Force 1 for 25p a few years ago, or I’d be a millionaire!
December 14th, 2012 at 9:46 pm
Pat Mills wrote some Punisher 2099. Those might be worth a look.
December 14th, 2012 at 10:47 pm
Aye, he wrote them with Tony Skinner, from what I remember? Punisher 2099 was called ‘Jake Gallows’, which was a fucking ace name, I reckon.
I dimly recall he had a ‘thing’ for guns, and was mentally unstable in a much more overtly hilarious way than Frank Castle. Definitely worth a look if you can find them dirt-cheap.
December 14th, 2012 at 11:55 pm
I feel the urge to read Ravage 2099, I think I read the first issue when it came out. After co-creating the classics, Stan comes up with a guy with a scar and a mullet who drove a rubbish truck.
December 15th, 2012 at 5:37 pm
Holy shit, I just looked up Ravage 2099! Probably the single most 90s character ever!
December 15th, 2012 at 7:58 pm
Ravage 2099: The Binman Superhero was my number one fantasy pitch until Prophet came along and bagged that particular lilypad.
I mean, he’s basically a fundamentalist freegan. What’s not to love about that?
The sub-Wolverine version was battier than a Bakewell bansaw (sorry Mills+Skinner+Miehm), as were the Blasty Hands Of Urinal Doom, but the original Lee/Ryan/Byrne version – basically issue 1 – was gold.
//\Oo/\\
January 3rd, 2013 at 10:48 am
BREAKING NEWS: Ali Bongo returns from Beyond the Veil to broker peace in the Magickal War: “Stop the senseless fighting!”