Monday, March 16, 2009

Amazons Attack #3 and #4


Issue 4 is titled "Things Fall Apart" and they do - my sanity, my will to live, my love for sequential art...



52 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yay! "I AM A MAN!!!" reference!!!! Bear!!!!

Nice reference to "It's Over 9000!!"

Great video. You rock.

Anonymous said...

Are you sure that this book had an editor? I don't think so......

http://www.flickr.com/photos/36378443@N05/3357432957/in/photostream/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/36378443@N05/3358249306/in/photostream/

Lewis Lovhaug said...

According to Dictionary.com, that's the right version of Capital.

Don't know what the heck a "childen" is, though. ^_~

Anonymous said...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4MqTCIDKhU&feature=related

Someone had to do it.

Anonymous said...

Heh. "Childen".
*Gives Lewis a copy of Action Comics #1*

日本文化のマニアック said...

Thoughts:
1) Why didn't they include the relevant tie-ins in the hard-cover release??
2) I'm used to a complete lack of comprehension of American geography from the manga I read, but American writers should really know better.
3) What would you consider a good critique of the Bush administration and the "war on terror"? Obviously this one is ham-handed and silly, but surely someone's done a decent discussion of it, right? I say this partly because I'm currently reading Urasawa Naoki's "Pluto," which plays heavily on the Iraq War, but it manages to give a more complex picture of things than this... whatever the hell you call this, it's sort of inaccurate to call it a "story," since there's really no plot continuity.

Lewis Lovhaug said...

In story form? I've yet to find a single one that did it justice, but maybe it's because I don't generally leap onto the "Bush is satan" bandwagon.

In comic form it's even worse - an entire issue of JLA was devoted to it, but in dream form, with it ending with, "Something like this could NEVER happen in reality, could it?" Ha ha. Oh-so clever. And don't even get me started on Army@Love.

Anonymous said...

How did you miss the wonderful opportunity to make a Wicker Man reference?!

The bees, oh god the bees are in my eyes... MY EYES! Oh, please no God, the bees...

Lewis Lovhaug said...

Slipped my mind. ^_~ I'll add it to my list of jokes I should've included.

Anonymous said...

Hang on, the paragraph said Nemesis got stung by a magical hornet?

So Batman is the world's greatest detective and he can't tell the difference between a bee and a large WASP?

I mean, I did watch the last video, but seriously. Bees?

Granted, it isn't that obvious to the untrained eye. But I just don't get it, didn't the writer know that there's a difference or that someone like Batman would? He's come up against insect themed villains, I'm sure he looked up most of the easily-transferrable-into-hero/villain-monikers insects.

He's Batman, that's the kind of thing that he'd do.

I'm not even sure why I'm getting so hung up about this. Possibly because I'm not familiar enough with current continuity to share your pain and I know some stuff about bees so I jumped on it.

Or the more likely, I care because if they put hornet when they meant bee; it means he was COVERED IN BEES!

... I'll be good from now on, I promise.

Lewis Lovhaug said...

I thought about making a comment on that, but I figured if they didn't know the difference between bees and hornets we might as well just go with it.

Cecilia said...

your review is awesome!

Forget the "I'm the goddamn batman" the new trend is "Bees.My God" XD, poor pollo or is it poyo? Unless you were making reference to robot chicken then it would be pollo... lol

Such a sad thing you aren't finished with it yet... nothing in that comic makes sense DX

Anonymous said...

Wait, the McCarran Act did exist, and it's really like he described...But what the point of preventing "suspected" people of becoming citizen, or even to imprison them, but what's the point when the country is ALREADY INVADED?

Gah, those guys are stupider than any manga's character that exist, you did well by eating those...Skittles? :P

Anyway, Great review, great references.This comic looks like it was never writed, or that it was writed once and with no looks back.Maybe they were under pressure of a fast release?That's the cause of lots of bombs

Lewis Lovhaug said...

Indeed, the McCarran act did exist, but from what I can tell most of it's been repealed by the Supreme Court.

Anonymous said...

Bees...my God, this thing becomes more and more like the Wickerman remake.

sirkenz17 said...

I can tell you in two words what Batman's "Bees. My God." emotion was: DULL SURPRISE!!

日本文化のマニアック said...

Lanthroviel:
If you think all manga characters are dumb (or dumb compared to American comic book characters), then you've been reading the wrong manga... (cues her recommendation of anything by Urasawa Naoki)

Anonymous said...

Just keep telling yourself, "While this is all going on, the Sinestro Corps war is waging" Thats how I advoided all of this mess!

Anonymous said...

You know i've really gotta say I'm getting pissed at comics that try to hard to be relevant in the post 911 climate. I mean for god sakes what sort of logic were the writers using in this.

Lets see, an attack on the world trade center, the pentagon, and the white house, by a small group of non-uniformed combatants who hid amongst u.s. citizens and even lived for a time on american soil, is somehow equivalent to a sudden invasion of washington D.C. by a whole ARMY of well organized clearly uniformed warrior women.

Their just not analogous. One of the reasons so much controversial legislation was passed in the wake of the attacks was the fear another one could happen at any moment by an unseen enemy hiding within the american population. I don't agree with that argument but you could still make it.

But in this case the passage of the McCarran act makes no sense because theres no indication any of this attack was home grown and there certainly no reason to expect that there are any subversive amazonian women hidden in our midst, for two reasons.

1) The freaking D.C. continuity states that until pretty recently there was no contact between the amazons of themyscira and the outside world. Hell as I understand it the amazons were actually forbidden from leaving the island until themyscira opened diplomatic relations with the rest of the planet.

2) Even if there were amazons who had left the island to live in north america wasn't one of the direct consequences of infinite crisis on wonder woman's continuity that all the amazons departed from earth's regular plane of existense?

I mean dear god. The McCarran act was passed in the aftermath of the second world war and the beginning of the cold war, as a way to hunt down so called communist and fascist subversives. How the hell does it apply in any way to the situation going on in amazons attack? And as you rightfully pointed out the McCarran act has pretty much been declared unconstitutional by the supreme court! It's okay for comics to try and be topical but not at the expense of logic.

And last but not least hasn't anyone involved in this storyline heard of subtlety? I mean if they wanna do some sort of biting social commentary on the war on terror than great more power to them, but don't treat the readers like idiots who need to have everything spoon-fed to them. I mean the whole lex news fox news stand in was bad enough but when you reached the whole police raid on the athenian women's shelter I nearly face palmed.

But again what's the point? Why are they raiding a women's shelter when there's a freaking army with nothing but swords and spears occupying your capital! There's no logic that can make sense of this series, not even comic book logic.

But I must say though linkara you've done something i'd have thought impossible. You actually turned amazons attack into an enjoyable experience. Well enjoyable for the viewer anyway... Looking forward to your next video. Try not to kill yourself.

Anonymous said...

The first thing that came to mind when I heard "Stygian Hornets" was the hellwasp swarm from Dungeons and Dragons; of course, I'm the 2d0 fangirl, so that would be my first choice. :P

And it might be my lack of history with Wonder Woman speaking, but isn't it a bit silly that the Amazons are parading around with hydras? I cannot for the life of me figure out how Amazons get a hold of giant evil dragon-things. Then again, since Circe is in this comic, maybe "a wizard did it" is the best answer.

Anonymous said...

On the Tonight Show yesterday, one of Jay Leno's jokes was, "Is there any place else besides Wall Street where you can screw up so many times and still get paid?" Apparently the comic book industry is one of them.

BTW, Linkara, I hear that some fans were so disappointed by this comic, that they actually mailed their copies back to DC comics. Would you have done the same?

Lewis Lovhaug said...

Probably not, but only because I voted with my wallet ahead of time by not buying it. ^_~ I got this as a Christmas gift.

The House of C.R.P said...

But....This.......Logic......Logic.....Pain......Stupidity......Why why why why why WWWWHHHHHYYYYY!!?!?!?!?!?

THIS is beyond awful! This defies the very concept of intelligence and reason! This has a better chance of ripping a hole in reality than the Garbage Pail Kids movie!

Lewis, don't give up!! If the Nostalgia Critic could survive Garbage Pail Kids and those 3 people on the Something Awful boards could survive a whole playthough of Sonic 2006 to record it for their Lets Play, then you can survive this! We believe in you!!

But how can this possibly get WORSE?!

J-Naps said...

My god...the fanfic about Goku and Hitler fighting was better written than this...

I was kind of bummed I was getting out of comics, but now...not so sad

Lewis Lovhaug said...

Hey, this travesty is no reason to get out of comics - just means to make sure you not buy crap. ^_~

Advice with attitude said...

Well money has been my reason for having to largely get out of comics. I've had to drop a fair few titles.
However luckily Marvel and DC have made this far easier to do with some of their latest stuff than it would've been a few years ago. (I would've NEVER considered dropping Spider-man until... Well... Y'know...!)
Also, are we sure Circe being alive is actually an intentional twist? Given the continuity we've seen so far it could just as easily be a screw-up right? =OD

Anonymous said...

I vote B for most insane plan. Evil mutant pope and dissintigration comunion wafers? 5 minutes of research on the Catholic Church makes that entire plan fall apart.

Anonymous said...

Man that was hilarious. I have a question, if I wanted to get into comics where would i start? Your reviews have made me wants to read comics

Anonymous said...

I AM A MAN!!! BEAR!!!!!

and I NEED MORE PILLS!!! were the best moments

~overkill

Lewis Lovhaug said...

Good question. ^_~ Is there any particular characters you've seen that you're interested in that you'd like to read more about before I recommend some titles?

Anonymous said...

The thing I find most ridiculous (among the many, many ridiculous things about Amazons Attack) is that the writers apparently think that the entire US government would be "shattered" just because a small band of Amazons wrecked Washington DC. As if the federal government is incapable of functioning in any location other than DC. Maybe if they'd said that the Amazons had broken into the Capitol Building and slaughtered every member of Congress they could swing it, but I don't remember reading anything about the Amazons wiping out Congress.

Anonymous said...

"Indeed, the McCarran act did exist, but from what I can tell most of it's been repealed by the Supreme Court."

And even then, it was NEVER intended to be used in the manner these clearly ignorant writers envisioned. For instance, the McCarran Act did not allow for the detention of the family members of so-called "subversives". Yet Wonder Girl's mother was one of the women arrested for her association with Amazons. And as bad as the McCarran Act was, it still required a much higher standard of proof than "has been known to associate with enemy organization(s)".

StacyHD said...

Bees. My God.

There should be some kind of litmus test for any and all crossover events at the proposal stage, and it consist of one underlying string of logic; if your hero can resolve the problem within the space of (say) 3 panels? Not really worthy of being a crossover event.

You know the lasso could solve this whole thing, I know the lasso could solve this whole thing. So what item have they painstakingly worked to downplay, ignore, and keep completely out of the characters' minds? That'd be the goddamned lasso of truth for five hundred Alec!

The only reason I might concievably peek at this debacle beyond your review would be as a basis of comparison for Fred Van Lente and Greg Pak's Love And War storyline for Incredible Hercules, which features a group of Amazons attacking, led by a warrior maiden sculpted from clay by Hippolyta. . .

Be strong soldier. One last charge and you'll be over the hill. Just keep those Blue Beetle trades handy to balm the pain.

Stac

Lewis Lovhaug said...

And from what I can tell, that storyline was apparently pretty damn awesome, though I admit I haven't read it.

StacyHD said...

Incredible Hercules is bliss. With the cancellation of She-Hulk, it and Nova are about the only Marvel titles I follow with any regularity. You should definitely check it out. I'm making my way up to the L&W storyline, so I'll let you know how it matches up against its Distinguished Competition.

Stac

Anonymous said...

I AM A BEE! My God. :D

Anonymous said...

This is a response to a cemment made to my comment about asking about what comic to read so I can start getting into them. I'm not sure about what super hero I would want to read about. I do have a like for iron man though.

Anonymous said...

Wow.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Welcome to Idiot Land.

Hi, it's me again. I have another request. "New Mutants #98". A Liefeldian nightmare of the highest order. It has inane writing and the art, of course, is atrocious with everyone suffering from Youngblood's disease.

There is one good thing about this comic. It gave us Deadpool.

What do you think?

Anonymous said...

Something that bothers me with anti-Bush rants is that those giving them often over look that as bad as Bush was, he was not uniquely bad. Civil liberties have been suspended at several points in our nation's past. We have the Alien and Sedition acts, Andrew Jackson's infamous "the Supreme Court has made their decision, now let them enforce it", suspension of habeas corpus during the civil war (which was admittedly constitutional, because of the state of rebellion), the WWI acts (can't remember their names, were pretty similar to Sedition)...the list goes on and on.
On a lighter note, is ^_~ your new sig?

Anonymous said...

Gail Simone(the current writer of the WW title)said months ago on the Comic Bloc forum that "Amazons Attack" actually has good stuff in it?!! It would only take time and reflection for WW fans to realize that. She never explained what that good stuff was and I really wish someone would ask her about it. Because as you can,it was pure & total drek.

Lewis Lovhaug said...

Yeah, one of the things I both love and kind of shake my head about when it comes to Gail Simone is she NEVER says anything bad about other creators' work. If they're legitimately evil people? Oh my, yes, she'll swear up a storm (just look up Rick Olney some time for that). But when it comes to stuff like this, she'd never publically say anything bad about it. It's really endearing and sweet of her.

Anonymous said...

Wow, this comic is worse than the first 2 issues, but at least it had some more Wonder Woman...which didn't really contribute anything. Better stock up on some more pills for the last 2 issues...what are those anyway? Hot Tamales?

Oh, and my answer to the poll question is B, but that's because I don't know much about Wonder Girl.

Carol A. Strickland said...

The number-one, absolute worst thing about AA is:

That DC is determined to keep it in "official" WW continuity.

You can bet that if something this awful happened in the Superman or Batman books they'd be turning their backs on it and shouting, "Never happened!" Of course, nothing this awful would be allowed to take place in the Superman or Batman franchises. Or Green Lantern, Flash, Blue Beetle, JLI, Prez...

Great reviews, btw!

Anonymous said...

LOL! Bear! Epic awesome video! So until Terror-Dawn (from Sinnamon) makes a comeback as the spokesperson for Tetris, Make Mine Linkara!

Romanticide said...

While I'm sorry you had to suffer this whole piece of fecal matter for our entertainment, I haven't have this much fun in days. So thank you.

Homie David Andrew said...

How different this world would be if there weren't horrible comics for your to make fun of. Good job, Linkara.

Anonymous said...

Is Amazons Attack still in continuity or has it been retconed out?

Lewis Lovhaug said...

Still in continuity, sadly.

Anonymous said...

I believe the bees to be magic.
That's why the Amazon's bows, arrows, swords and spears were
able to pierce through the plane
that the president was in (among
other stuff too).

Just my opinion on "swords and such" thing, but you all can
take my opinion for fact, if
you want.

ConMan said...

I've worked it out! (New viewer, by the way, working my way through your reviews.) When Batman says "Bees. My God." he's not expressing his feelings about bees, he's telling us a deep secret - he worships Apia, the God of Bees! And now he must act against his god to protect someone who is apparently going to die in the next hour/day/millennium.

Lucy McGough said...

If horses can fly, they can fly as fast as AF1.

J Gall. said...

Bees. My God. Don't they know I'm the Goddamn Batman?