The Walking Dead # 34

The Walking Dead # 34

Robert Kirkman/Charlie Adlard/Cliff Rathburn/Rus Wooton
January, 2007 (released January 31, 2007)
B&W (with shades of gray)
Image
$2.99

Plot Highlights: Characters battle zombies while making their way back to their car. After getting on the road, a startling revelation awaits. A reprinted Christmas story closes the issue.

Aside from having read the first issue of the series online some time back, this is my first issue of The Walking Dead. There have been no shortage of zombie stories crossing the comics racks of late. The stuff is relentless, like the zombies themselves. Zombies, zombies, zombies. What is the deal with all the zombies? I had to finally read something to find out. Also, I like to sample, from time to time, comic settings with fundamental world changing events, like Y: The Last Man or newuniversal, for example. Kirkman's epic seemed like a good choice for giving a zombie version a chance.

Maybe the cover is a bit of misdirection, or maybe it was completed in advance of knowing the eventual contents of this issue, but I can make no connection between it and the story on the inside. The back cover has art as well, which is nice to see.

While not much actually happens in this issue in terms of plot, it does give an effective glimpse of the setting. The discussions and reactions feel authentic for the situations. One character, who may be new, relates some of his background and experiences to the others. While introducing him, it also gives a newer reader more feel for the setting. The nearly constant pressure from zombies is palpable.


The art is well done throughout from action filled encounters with the zombies to more mundane moments of conversation all the way to delivering a scene of large scale zombie devastation. Gore is limited to dispatching zombies, though there are indications this would not be the case in every issue.


Update (2/12/2007): Image Comics' "Walking Dead" #34 Sells Out

Civil War's Registration Side Finally Lost Me

I took down my "Civil War: I'm With Iron Man" banner from the sidebar.

Iron Man, Mr. Fantastic and Yellowjacket finally lost me with the decision to strip the freewill of their Thor clone in a marathon 36+ hour operation in the pages of Civil War # 6. While the death at the hands of the Thor clone earlier in the series was shocking and unacceptable, that doesn't mean that I'm going to support stripping him of freewill.


If I'm somehow deemed heroic enough or find myself wealthy enough for cloning sometime in the future, I can posit some scenarios where the current me would find such cloning acceptable.

Perhaps the clones could somehow house my current consciousness, so I would never have to die of old age (cf. Altered Carbon). Is someone working on portable compressed digital brain storage? Enough with the MP3 players already.

I could even see possibly giving my current DNA a few extra lives starting from scratch with no influence from my current self. Either way my clones would have lives to live as they saw fit.

Could I bear to harvest them for body parts to perpetuate my own existence (cf. The Island)? Possibly, I am forced to admit.

But cybernetic versions of me running around at the beck and call of whoever sponsored them? That sounds more like something out of RoboCop. I suppose that might be better than having my DNA wiped from the Universe in death, but probably not by much.

I'm still rooting for Iron Man, Ms. Marvel and the other Registered heroes to demonstrate the good in these initiatives. With the laws as they are and the shift in thinking among the normal populace of the Marvel Universe, though perhaps ultimately too swift, too ungrateful for past good deeds, and overzealous, what choice do they really have. I just can't keep the banner up any longer though. I certainly don't have a handle on how to justify the anti-registration stance, so that won't be going up either.

Hopefully soon the heroes will realize there are things happening outside of their Civil War and stop thinking so much in those terms, like they appear to do here in Eternals # 6:

Variant Covers

I like comics covers, but covers hopefully are primarily attracting readers. And I don't see how variants help with that.

These days if variants for an issue I am buying ship in equal ratios, I'll almost always just pick the _one_ I like best, or the best _one_ of what is still available on the rack, as the case may be. I learned my lesson long ago on these. Buying more than one is not worth it to me.

Most people have a budget, so I have to wonder if spending on variants is reducing the variety of comics people purchase.

I essentially ignore the rarer variants that are printed these days as sales incentives (1:10, etc.). I certainly won't pay extra for them. If a person enjoys collecting them that is fine, but I hope people are cautious about using these as an investment. I have a hard time believing these will have lasting value, as people who crave them will snap them up, and the rest of us won't care. So where is the market down the road? I suppose "the Internet" may have a source that records the actual rarity of all these variants and how they look, but I'm certainly not going to do so in my own head. So if I'm randomly given a chance to buy one, I won't have any clue about the rarity, and, in many cases, if it was a genuine variant in the first place.

I'm concerned that these incentive variants may be inflating inventory of the normal covers. When I think about it, if a variant is worth more than cover price, why isn't my regular version selling for less? The retailer paid the same for all of them. And if he bought extras to get more variants that isn't my fault. I'm not generally in the habit of turning my comics over in the market after I read them, but if I were, I imagine the extra plain copies lying around are hurting the value of what I've collected.

I don't actually mind too much when later printings have a different cover. Of course, sometimes I wish I could just get the original cover or think the later version is cooler when I'm already stuck with the original, but that's not what I'm talking about here. If the printing matters to people enough to mark it on the issue in the first place when more are printed, then it might as well have a different cover because people consider it a different product. It makes it easier to tell it is not a first print.

Update (Feb. 8, 2007): Some more thoughts on variants from me (originally posted here):

Are Variant comics something you love or disdain in the comics collectibles market?

I have a feeling I know much less about the comics collectibles market and variant covers than I think I do, and I don't think I know that much. I just read the stuff I like, has me curious and can afford and store, and that generally does not include variants.

That said, perhaps variant covers have restored the thrill of the chase to modern comics collecting. These days between pull lists, mail order, ebay, and plain old making your way to the new issue rack of a competently run operation like [my local comics shop], how hard is it to really get an issue you want? Beyond an industry wide underestimation of how well an issue will be received, or the unwillingness to part with a few extra dollars, I'd say, Not very. That's pretty much how it should be, in my opinion, but some people want more.

So if variants are keeping people who need a challenge in everything they do or love having things not everyone else can have in the hobby, that could be a positive. I just hope they stick around as readers on some level if the thrill ever wears off again.

Variants may bring in extra dollars to retailers, who price them higher than cover, and publishers who get a sales bump as retailers try to acquire more variant copies. This is the tricky part for me. Building buzz and excitement can be fine. Yet greed is very dangerous and has hurt comics badly in the past.

Smaller publishers may feel doing variants is a way to survive by pushing up sales for their more limited product lines, but I have to wonder if Marvel and DC decided to do 4 variants of every title, like say Dynamite or Avatar, wouldn’t the smaller publishers get pushed off the shelves? I think they would, and I don’t think we want to find out if that is true.

I agree that sometimes a little choice of covers is fun. But is it worth slowness and lateness because artists are banging out extra covers instead of doing interiors on their monthly?

I can't say for sure if variants are a net positive for comics or not. It doesn’t feel like they are to me, but I'm far from fully informed, and I doubt there really is a solid answer.

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight # 214

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight # 214: Superstitious and Cowardly

Christos N. Gage/Phil Winslade/Phil Balsman/Mike Atiyeh/Michael Wright/Joey Cavalieri
March, 2007 (released: January 31, 2007)
DC
$2.99

Plot Highlights: Batman wants a reluctant individual to testify. Costumed assassin Deadshot is hired to stop that from happening.

I remember buying the first issue of Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight [LotDK] when it was released, and I still have it. That said, I have kept less than ten issues total of this series and none after # 43, so it really has been some time since it has attracted my interest enough to even purchase an issue.

Given the recent creation of Batman Confidential, which looks to overlap the original mission of LotDK, in an obvious attempt to streamline the naming conventions across DC's Batman and Superman lines, it was not a surprise that this title would be ending. I hoped this last issue would provide a good closing chapter worth purchasing, and it did.

The mostly gray scale figures fronting the black targets, cityscape and red background were an interesting choice for the cover that gave it a unique look among other issues on the racks this week. I thought it was neat to return to it after reading the comic. At that point I could place all the images.

This makes a good sample for the frugal commitment phobic comics fan. The story is complete in one issue. The series is over. And if it strikes your fancy, back issues are sure to start devaluing as people forget about this series, so perhaps some bargains will become available eventually.

With so many Batman issues in print between Detective Comics, Batman and LotDK, I really do not expect anything stunningly original at this point. This doesn't confound that expectation, but it is a well crafted effort. I now know to watch for artist Winslade in the future as I enjoyed his combination of small panel and larger image layouts.

Deadshot might want to consider ditching the red and white costume in order to blend into the background more easily during his assassination attempts and better escape Batman's attention. Since he has apparently been around in stories since 1950, that probably won't happen soon. He is pretty much a new character as far as I was concerned, so I felt the portion of the story devoted to his youth was informative and interesting.

Batman hallmarks from his detective skill and dogged effort to use of a key insight are displayed by the story. It does have the feel of a LotDK setting, in that this is something that Batman could have probably handled even in his early days. Batman does imply he and Deadshot have tangled often in the past, so maybe Legends eventually gave up the focus on early career stories.

I don't know that people will be talking about Batman's exploits here as legendary in the future, though there is an element that could qualify if Deadshot were a more well known adversary. This is, nevertheless, a well done standard Batman story.

Congratulations to this title for such a long run, as titles hitting 200+ are a rarity these days, and it ends on a quality note.