I get so annoyed by the Manhattan pigeonhole.

And because this is six issues, it can't possibly be cut short! Or can it, his luck has been really crappy in that regard.

Today there is yet another entry in the "DC is catering in unbelievable and specific ways just to me" with the announcement of a Bates/Weisman Captain Atom mini. Hol-ee shit. I don't know what I did to deserve all of this.

Yeah, this is relevant to your interests:

He's not just there for US box office—he's apparently immensely popular in China for those Mr. Ripley movies or something, I'm told? So there's this appeal of "This famous Hollywood actor is in a movie with all these other Chinese stars that I love!" And there's lots of cultural messaging about how awesome…

With Casey it's always fascinating to read the interviews and the front/back material. "I cracked the Spider-Man code! I won't tell you what it is, but I got it! Wait, no, I was just saying that to hook you, the secret is that there IS no Spider-Man code." (About The Bounce.)

Monstress just gutted me when I read that run about a year ago. :|

I'm finding it a small mercy that he can't write the Fantastic Four right now like he'd said he wanted to (and that he'd model on his family, yes).

I admit that outside of some of Alias, some of Daredevil and some parts of New Avengers volume 1, I can't think of anything Bendis I'd give above a C, and a lot that falls below, especially in the past decade. Johns tends to hit at least solid B work with some flares of real quality in there. YMMV.

from a lapsed academic, pour one out for the librarians who make stuff keep working

Oh, he's funny to read because he's so contrarian but with very particular tics. 95% of the time if he hates something I'll love it. It was weird to have almost the exact same dislike of Hickman's Avengers run, and right now he's one of the few people who absolutely hates TNC's Black Panther (which I have no…

I don't see the nuance in the character that you do but you make a good enough case for me to go back and work through it. But I'm still not fond of the whole "Whoops, Agent Wax is a rapist", or the way that the dude and the party of older women pegging him in SEX was portrayed, or the recurrent "I'm going to show…

Orlando also consistently seems to have read the material and not just wiki'd it, and it's done with affection as opposed to "who can I use to be shit on in this plot".

Yeah, agree to disagree on that one.

I will admit that I have a low opinion of Bendis as a writer on several fronts. I think he's lazy as shown by things like "Cambridge is in London" and the "didn't even look that D-lister up in the OHOTMU" uses of characters. His pacing is talky and glacial and all over the map, so you get things like UXM still on…

Scott inking herself/the watercolor style is just lightyears beyond most of her DC stuff with someone hacking up her pencils, it's astonishing.

I'm deeply ambivalent about Casey's run in the same way I am about so many of his comics—there are neat to great ideas, the dialogue is snappy and the plotting is dense, he can't write women to save his life, and there's inevitably something puerile in a just-can't-help-himself way that sticks out like a nail.

Their home really is Wildstorm and yet 1) They've now got a niche in the DCU thanks to some dedicated advocacy and I kind of like them there 2) as more a WildC.A.T.S. than Authority fan (come at me, bros) it's interesting to see what can be done with some of the most famous pieces off the board.

I was really gratified to see that other women immediately twigged onto "Why is the go-to woman-to-woman insult in this comic 'bitch'"? Because if it were just Jessica okay, she's meant to be foul and unpleasant. But Misty? Twice? And oh lordy, "I never liked you, bitch" is an unpleasant trope.

I bought Omega Men in floppies (yes, I was one of the 7k people buying it by issue #12, I feel vindicated by its success in trade) and that was a great experience, so I definitely encourage reading it an issue at a time and making yourself wait instead of just barreling through it.