Bent Corner

The NY Daily News reported today that Bucky Barnes, the one time teenage Nazi killing sidekick of Captain America is taking on the persona of Captain America in this week’s issue of CAPTAIN AMERICA. From today’s NY Daily News:

Fans were devastated when Steve Rogers - a 1941 creation of artists Joe Simon and Jack Kirby - was gunned down on the steps of a courthouse last March. It was the industry’s biggest shocker since Superman temporarily went up, up and away to the great Fortress of Solitude in the sky in 1992.

Fans were devastated? That’s news to me. I remember people being pissed off that they had to read about it in the newspaper before they could get a chance to read it in the actual comic. For as long as Joe Quesada is the Editor-In-Chief of Marvel Comics, that’s just the way it will be. He is addicted to seeing his name in the newspaper. Joe Quesada just can’t keep a secret.

If Joe Quesada had his way, you would have found out that Darth Vader was Luke’s father a week before the The Empire Strikes Back came out in theaters.

The newspaper article not only tells us that Bucky will be the new Captain America, it says that Buck will be carrying a firearm. I almost wonder if this is paid product placement from the NRA. At least he won’t be all juiced up like the first Captain America. Steve Rogers was a scrawny kid before a took a shortcut to physical strength by turning to the needle.

Writer: Jeph Loeb
Pencils: Joe Madureira
Colorist: Chris Lichtner

I really got my money’s worth with this book. Usually I only read a comic once. With this book, I read it twice. Not because I enjoyed it so much that I had to experience the joy one more time. No, I read it again because I didn’t understand what happened.

The art was nice looking, but I couldn’t really figure out what what transpiring from one panel to the next. The colors were extremely dark. I thought the story was going to include Venom and Magneto. They were on the cover. I don’t remember seeing them in the book. Then again, it was kind of dark in there.

I did enjoy the part were Captain America told Wanda the Scarlet Witch that she needed to show less skin when she went out in public. I didn’t like the part that showed Wanda and Pietro in a romantic relationship. With each other. They are brother and sister. That’s creepy and disgusting even for mutants.

There’s been an uproar on some comic book blogs over the fact that Wizard has decided to crown itself the #1 men’s pop culture magazine. The idea is that by Wizard declaring themselves to be a men’s magazine, they are purposely and unnecessarily going out of their way to exclude female comic book fans.

I don’t see why that is such a bad thing. To be excluded from the intended demographic of this particular magazine can only be looked at as something positive. To be excluded from Wizard is a good thing.

I can’t imagine why anyone - man or woman - would want to read Wizard. Anything that can be learned from the pages of Wizard could have been learned months ago online on Newsarama or Comic Book Resources. When was the last time something broke in Wizard? It was the New York Post and not Wizard that broke the story that Spider-Man was going to take his mask off in CIVIL WAR #2. It was the New York Daily News that broke the story that Captain America was going to be killed in CAPTAIN AMERICA #25.

It wasn’t Wizard magazine that broke these stories.

Wizard has become irrelevant and outdated. I get my comic book news and information from sources that update content on a minute by minute basis, not on a month to month basis like Wizard. That’s not to say there wasn’t a time for a monthly comic book magazine that could be purchased at any grocery store. That time has simply passed.

Sometimes I wonder if the only people still reading Wizard are female comic book fans looking for something that offends their feminist sensibilities. One has to look no further then to the website When Fan Girls Attack to see this strange phenomenon in action. Why else would they go out of their way to read something they know they’re going to find offensive?

If Wizard is in fact the #1 men’s pop culture magazine, whatever magazine came in at #2 must be really bad.