FCBD 2011

Rejoice! Rejoice! That special time of year has come once again when comic fans everywhere get to go forth and get free comics! That’s right, Free Comic Book Day is Saturday and everybody should take the opportunity to head over to your friendly Local Comic Shop and check out the free comics. The official FCBD website has a list of the free comics that will be available, the stores that will be participating, and what comic creators will be at different stores doing signing. Kris and I will be hitting up our local Bedrock City Comics as well as the Pop Culture Company to see what festivities they have planned.

Earlier this week the brand new trailer for Green Lantern was released. I believe this is the trailer that will be screened in front of Thor this weekend. Not only does this include our first view of the Guardians, you also get a deeper feel of the story, and we get to hear how Michael Clark Duncan sounds as Kilowog. No, Kilowog does not say “Poozers” (the Gnome was very upset), but he does totally punch Hal in the face (which was awesome). Kris and I are pretty disappointed with the look of the movie and Kris has gotten to the point that he just doesn’t care about it at all. It feels like the movie was designed by committee instead of someone with a clear unifying vision of a story they wanted to tell. The result is to cram everything into the movie together. Also, I guess they thought Parallax as a giant yellow fear bug was too complicated for people to accept, so instead it’s a shapeless black death cloud. Meh.

On the other hand, they’ve released the first trailer for Conan the Barbarian and it looks pretty awesome. We’re big fans of Jason Momoa from Stargate: Atlantis and I’ve also been enjoying his work as Khal Drogo in Game of Thrones. He looks perfect as Conan, although this is the first thing I’ve seen him in without some sort of facial hair and he has such a baby face. Definitely going to be seeing this when it comes out.

Travis, what’s on your pull list?

• Atomic Robo & The Deadly Art of Science #5 - This hasn’t been my favorite Robo series, but it definitely ended very well.
• Axe Cop: Bad Guy Earth #3 - I wish I still had the imagination of a six year old.
• Batman Beyond #5
• Secret Six #33 - Interesting arc, but it ended fairly predictably. I’m really interested in the next arc with Bane.

Kris, what’s on your pull list?

• Adventure Comics #526 - I’m falling in love with these characters. It feels like I’m getting a set of Legionnaires to call my own. I suggest anyone wanting to get into the 30th century story pick up this book next month, it will be the start of a new arc.
• Avenger Academy Giant Size #1 - I’ve gone back and forth with Paul Tobin on Spider-Girl, but decided to stick it out when I heard it was cancelled. I’m glad I did and I’m glad I picked up this book. I might even look into Avengers Academy because of how impressed I was by the characters here.
• Batman Beyond #5 - A much better book than the last arc. We are finally getting into new, interesting stuff, and pulling from Batman Beyond history, rather than current Batman continuity.
• BRPD: The Dead Remembered #2 - I’ve never got too into Hellboy, but I love Liz Sherman and this book is basically her Year One.
• Doom Patrol #22 - Another awesome issue and the end of the book. I’m happy this book lasted this long. It was something different and it ended in a way that was simple and fitting for the book.
• Freedom Fighters #9 - I don’t think this is the end of this book, and I hope it will be reborn in some form after the onslaught that is Flashpoint. Also, Human Bomb is my hero.
• JSA All-Stars #18 - I’ve loved every issue of this book, and I’m sad it’s ending, especially with the main JSA book being grade A awful. Sturges is getting a two issue arc on Power Girl, and I’m confident he’ll do a great job.
• Secret Six #33 - The story was good, and the dialogue was great, and ignoring the cliche Catman story, this arc represents a return to form Simone. I hope the Bane arc continues this trend, and doesn’t fall into the boring old Bane Simone managed to do away with.
• Superboy #7 - This book is weird. After the mediocre Superboy/Kid Flash race issue and the painfully bad Doomsday issue, we are getting back to the meat of the story. I’m not sure I care for it in comparison to Johns work with Connor, but I’m willing to give it a chance because it’s Connor.