Boy, do I feel like a complete Zero…would really hit the spot right about now! HA HA! See, DC is putting out multiple “Number 0” issues of their comics this week, so I was doing a word play on “zero” meaning both “nothing” and as a digit for numeration.
Geez, Spider-Man makes zingers look easy. Comedy is hard. Sometimes you go to the joke crib in your mind to find the dang thing empty.
ZERO PERCENT
Action Comics #0, Detective Comics #0, Earth 2 #0, Animal Man #0, Swamp Thing #0, the list goes on and on. “#0” comics were a fad started in the 90’s for finding a special way to tell prequel tales to comics which had been running for decades. Some of these DC books haven’t even hit a years worth of publishing, and already they’re getting prequel stories.
“Dial H For Hero” is getting a special #0 comic this week, too?! I’m used to zombies, gamma-radiated super beings and alien invasions, but this is just plain weird.
I suppose it makes a certain kind of sense. All of these titles are reboots, so the prequels will set up how their origins may have been reshaped and reformed. MAYBE, for example, we will learn that Batman’s parents weren’t gunned down in an alley by a criminal, spiraling his life off into a trajectory of revenge on crime. Maybe this time he’s just a violent jerk who likes punching people in weird, fetishistic costumes.
KER-POW!
The first issue of Extermination slipped by me, but Extermination #2 hits the shelves this week and I’ll have a chance to pick up on what I missed. The premise is groovy; Aliens have taken over the world and the superheroes and the super villains must put aside their differences to try and win the Earth back. This would have made a swell DC Elseworlds story, if all of current DC continuity wasn’t already one long running, though fun, Elseworlds story.
GOOD GUYS
Dan Slott and Humberto Ramos are a two-fisted dervish of hard hitting awesome on Amazing Spider-Man, and they’re introducing a new character to the Marvel U in this week’s Amazing Spider-Man #693!
This young man is called Alpha, though maybe we’re getting presumptuous for calling him a man. For all we know he could be a mutant cactus who takes the form of a man, or a cyborg from the future or even a ghost! In comics, this sort of thing is extremely likely.
And you know what else is extremely likely? With tons of new Valiant books hitting the shelves from their recent relaunch, you’ll be picking up a few yourself! Might I suggest Archer and Armstrong by that scallywag Fred Van Lente? He is a talent, to be sure.
Oooh, and Pirates, Band of Misfits comes out on DVD this week, and you should all totally check it out! NOT ONLY is a a phenomenally fun and silly movie about claymation pirates, but…uhm…NO, that’s it. Go see it!
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More musings from Unkiedev, Earth’s own sidekick, can be read at unkiedev.blogspot.com
