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PIPELINE COMMENTARY AND REVIEW #80
14 December 1998
by Augie De Blieck Jr.
http://www.nic.com/~augie/pipeline
MARVEL'S JAMES BOND
...and, no, I don't mean the comic series based on the short-lived
James Bond Jr. cartoon. Nope, I mean Kurt Busiek's IRON MAN. Tony
Stark is just James Bond with the uber-gadget: The Iron Man armor.
He jet sets around the world, gets the beautiful women, lands
himself in trouble, and uses sophisticated gadgets. Stark is, I
dare say, a bit smarter than Bond. But Bond holds his liquor
better.
IRON MAN #12 is a pretty darn good wrap-up to the first year's
storyline. We even get the return of Rumiko, the Bond girl from
about issue 4 or so! Yay!
Sean Chen's art is, while a little off in spots, still nifty. He
gets the story told, which is all that counts. It's really
important in a double-sized issue like this, after all, which is a
lot of talking heads.
I REMEMBER WHEN. . .
When I first started reading comics back around 1989, it was
predominantly Marvel Universe comics. Spider-Man, Captain America,
the Avengers. And I was brought back there this past week by Erik
Larsen in WOLVERINE #133, in which a whole lot of forgotten Marvel
heroes show up to try to beat up the out-of-control Wolvie. This
includes Solo, a character Larsen created, and even Cardiac, who I
believe Mark Bagley created with David Michelinie when they worked
together on AMAZING SPIDER-MAN. It might have been Larsen, though.
I'm a bit unsure.
The plot itself is something horribly cliched and straight out of a
bunch of older comics, and even a Star Trek episode or two, most
likely. But Larsen pulls it off with a sense of humor, drama, and a
lot of dark fun. There's also a neat little twist at the end of the
issue as we discover who the prison warden is. Very nicely done.
Jeff Matsuda's art gets better with each issue. His stuff leaves
room for the colorist and inker to work. It's not overly
cross-hatched. It's cartoony, with lots of action.
NEWHOO! NO MORE
Last month, Netscape bought out NewHoo! and renamed it the Open
Directory Project. Basically, it's like YAHOO!, but in the open
source vein. Instead of using a central group of people to edit and
organize the links like Yahoo! does, the OSD uses volunteers.
Currently, there are over 5,000 people working on this project.
This allows the number of editors to grow as the web grows, thus
scoping better than something like Yahoo!. It allows people who are
knowledgable and interested in a given topic to be editing the
listings, and thus providing a better perspective on the list of
links. Overall, it's just a darn good idea.
And I signed up last week. I'm editing or co-editing a couple of
sections, but the one most relevant to PCR would be
Arts/Comics/Reviews. I like to think it's something I have some
vague knowledge of. I had more review links in my bookmark file
than the ODP had listed total, so it seemed like a good category for
me to take on. I wanted to invite all of you to come visit it at
http://directory.mozilla.org
and suggest any links I may have missed. After all, like much of
the web, it relies on a certain community spirit to make it work.
And in case you're curious, I'm also co-editing the brand-new
Home/Entertainment/DVD, Arts/Comics/Fanware/Image, and
Shopping/DVD/Region 1 sections. The Image Fanware page will be
undergoing a massive facelift when Wildstorm defects to DC
officially at the beginning of the year.
So please come and visit, suggest any links you might find missing,
and join up.
You should also start to find buttons to NewHoo! popping up around
the pages on the PCR web site. It will be the exclusive search
engine supported by PCR. (Yeah, I know, big whoop. =)
(Actually, the more I think about it, the more I'm unsure: It may
still be called NewHoo! But the newhoo.com URL links to the
mozilla.org site, and all the banners call it Open Directory
Project.)
UNREAD BY MILLIONS
I write a weekly review column, but I've barely read any comics
lately. I've been holding TRANSMETROPOLITAN back until the current
6 part "Year of the Bastard" storyline ended. Now that it has, I
should go back and read it. I have a pile of WALT DISNEY'S COMICS &
STORIES and UNCLE $CROOGEs sitting in a box, unread. I just haven't
been in the Duck mood lately. And continuous rumors of the line's
impending demise doesn't help any.
LOBO is officially dead. I wasn't a regular reader, but it was
enjoyable. The good news is that Keith Giffen, creator of Lobo and
sometimes contributor, will have anew book out from DC early next
year which I'm looking forward to. It's called VEXT, I believe.
DEAD-POOL is rumored to be dead. If so, that's a shame. A damn
crying shame. I'd give up all the rest of the X-Books before I gave
up that one.
CAPTAIN AMERICA: SENTINEL OF LIBERTY is likewise rumored to be
canceled, but I probably won't miss it all that much if this rumor
does pan out. The first issue was great, but the rest since then
haven't been anything to drive to the store.
I haven't read anything past chapter two of the "Search for Xavier"
storyling running in X-MEN and UNCANNY X-MEN. I'd drop the books
when Seagle and Kelly leave them, but for the fact that Alan Davis
will be drawing a few next. I'd buy the phone book if he
illustrated it.
Chris Bachalo's art has really started to bug me lately. I've
tried to be supportive, but it's just gotten ugly - a cruel parody
of itself, or at least how I remember it as once being.
Adam Kubert's art, though, is brilliant.
-Augie
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