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Originally posted at PrimeTimeGeek.com
PTG Episode 48 is brought to you by the art of comic book artist Ed Benes. Now, before I lose any of my female listeners upon sight of the image accompanying this article, there is a point to this, and it IS related to this hour’s content. Benes is the artist currently working on Blackest Night Titans, one of two Blackest Night tie-in titles to hit stores during the week ending 8-28-09 that we cover in this week’s ‘Blackest Night Spotlight.’ Though normally I’m a fan of Benes’ comic book work, I think his particular style works against him and the story being told in Blackest Night Titans. In the course of describing that style and why it doesn’t quite work for this book, it was necessary to talk a bit about Benes’ recurring … ahem … artistic focus. I certainly admit that Benes seems to show a preoccupation with a particular portion of the female anatomy, but I don’t think he deserves all the “hating-on” he seems to get from a great portion of comic fandom. I just wish he’d work on making his women look a tad more distinct from one another. Aside from hair color, hair style, and uniform/costume, his female characters attributes seem at times to be interchangeable. More on that during the episode.
In this installment we also talk a little bit about Fan Expo Canada 2009, the largest comic book, sci-fi, and pop culture convention in Canada, and one bit of news that was announced at FEC 2009 that we didn’t get to during the broadcast was Marvel’s announcement of its upcoming Hulk family crossover event … (wait for it) … WORLD WAR HULKS!
Yes, the brain trust behind the current assortment of Hulk comic book titles (Hulk, Incredible Hulk, Incredible Hercules, Savage She-Hulk) are bringing all their storylines together in this mega-event that finds all the various Hulks (Banner Hulk, Red Hulk, Skaar, son of Hulk, original She-Hulk (we think), “new” Savage She-Hulk (from the future!!), Red She-Hulk (WTF?!?), and who knows who else) facing off against a conglomeration of the world’s greatest evil geniuses, including The Leader, MODOK, Dr. Doom, Egghead, Mad Thinker, and probably a few more would-be world conquerors calling themselves “The Intelligencia.” Sound like silly, crazy, Hulk-Smash fun? YOU BET! Honestly, I don’t read the Hulk books, and Jeph Loeb’s work on “Hulk” was offensive enough to my comic book reading sensibilities that I wanted to fight ANYBODY who willingly shelled out money for the title on a monthly basis. But just for the sake having all the mysteries behind the Red Hulk and who’s who and what’s what in that messed up gamma-irradiated family, I might be tempted to give this a try and report on it for PTG. Don’t hold your breath, though–I passed on the entire World War Hulk storyline from a few years back, David Finch and John Romita Jr. artwork and all, just because, well, I’m not a Hulk fan. End of story. I may have to overcome my distaste, however, for the sake of covering the “news.”
Who says I’m not devoted to my craft? Watch out for World War Hulks coming to comic book stores starting in December. Yay.
Stumble It!
