Snap Judgments

Captain America #604

What Happens?: In this issue The Falcon, and a real falcon, beat the crap out of a bunch of guys on a train. The Falcon also talks to the bird while he is doing this. It makes him look like a lunatic, while his throwing dudes off of a speeding train. So much action!

Meanwhile, the 1950's cap forces Bucky to don his old costume. He fills Bucky in on his master plan, which is pretty DAM explosive! Haha! If you read this issue, then you got that pun!

Should I buy it?: If you have ever been watching a UFC pay per view and thought "This would be so awesome if they had birds fighting humans too!", then you should buy this issue.


Nemesis #1

What Happens?: This book starts off with Nemesis helping the police chief of Tokyo catch his train. Haha just kidding, he ties him to a chair so that a train can run him over. This happens while he blows up a building full of cops across town. Nemesis! You are such a cad!

Meanwhile, in Washington D.C. a super cop is cleaning up America. He is feeling pretty good after killing a few bad guys, and then he receives a note from Nemesis that he is coming to kill him! Yikes, sounds like it's bad day after all!

We then jump to Air Force One, where Nemesis jumps onto the plane and kills the pilots. He then lands the plane in the middle of a busy street in D.C.... very similar to the final scene in Con Air, I loved that movie! I would just like to point out that if this was the movie Air Force One, then Nemesis would have been beat up by Harrison Ford. He then goes on TV, with a bound and gagged President of the US, and says that he is going to destroy everything. Nemesis is pretty awesome guys!

Should I buy it?: If you enjoy awesome things and are not a total loser...then yes you should buy this.


Mighty Avengers #35

What Happens?: A couple of people with bad costumes show up to kick Hank Pym out of their science group. Pym is pretty apathetic about this and seems more concerned with repairing Jocasta...that robot he's banging.

Meanwhile, Ultron is back and he's taking over the Infinite Mansion. They don't really explain how Ultron survived the end of Annihilation: Conquest, which bothered me because that was a great Ultron story. He storms the mansion and forces Hank Pym and his cohorts to head outside of the mansion.

We then find that the mansion exists in a different reality, and it's built upon his dead ex-wife....somehow... I don't know.

Should I buy it?: No, Hank Pym is a weirdo. With any luck, Ultron will kill him in the next issue.


Breaking into Comics: The Marvel Comics Way #2

What Happens?: This cover is horrifying! I didn't even read it!

Should I buy it?: Not unless you want to have nightmares forever, I hate this cover! Get it away from me!!

I'm giving stuff away!

Hey guys! I haven't updated in a couple of days, because I've been ridiculously sick. I feel pretty bad about it, so I decided that I'll be giving stuff away all this week to make up for it. I'm not doing $50 gift cards again, but maybe some small figures, posters, and some comic books.

I'll be asking a trivia question each day via the facebook fan page for the blog. The first one to email me at chad@coastcitycomics.net with the correct answer will be the winner. If you're not a fan yet, I highly recommend that you become one. There is even a link to it on the right hand side of this page!! How convenient!

Also! We have a new arcade machine in the store! It has 60 classic arcade games in it! I dare anyone to come in and beat my score on Shaolin Road. I am a beast at that game!

-Action Chad
chad@coastcitycomics.net

Another Bad Joke

Looks like that skrull just got STORMED. Good one Blue Beetle!

Iron Man Display

Hey guys! We made an Iron Man display in the store, because Iron Man 2 is coming out in theaters soon. We are just so smart when it comes to marketing. What's different about this particular Iron Man display is that Robert Downey Jr. himself tells you why you should buy each Iron Man product that is displayed. Robbie and I go way back, so he was happy to do this for us.


Alright, I'm kidding. I actually wrote these myself. You should come in and check it out though. I personally guarantee that, at least, two of these signs will make you laugh.



-Action Chad
chad@coastcitycomics.net

The Blue Beetle Debate Part 2

The debate continues! I now present to you my take on Jaime Reyes.

Jaime Reyes, the new Blue Beetle, is a good character that has been the victim of poor decisions made by the editors of DC. In my opinion, there is no reason why this character should not be accepted by the comic communities that are young and old.

The new Blue Beetle has an extremely well designed costume. It's cool looking, and definitely stands apart from his predecessors costume worn by Ted Kord. I even dare to say that he's probably the best looking new hero created by either Marvel or DC in the past ten years. The suit itself, the Blue Beetle scarab Ted Kord could not figure out how to use, is an advanced piece of alien armor. It grafted itself to Jaime and now appears out of him whenever he is in danger, which is pretty rad. It can reconfigure parts of his body into weapons, like laser canons, and can even survive in the depths of space. That's a pretty cool suit that you can tell a lot of fun stories with. The Beetle scarabs were also made by a group of aliens that are enemies of the Guardians, of Green Lantern fame. He even has a tie in to biggest series that DC is running right now!

Jaime is also a teenager, which means he is easily related to by kids. I can't imagine a kid who wouldn't think it was cool to have a costume like the one I just mentioned. In fact, Jaime Reyes toys sold very well after his numerous appearances on the kid themed Batman cartoon The Brave and the Bold. The cartoon presented Jaime just as I depicted him above, and kids/teens reacted positively to him. That proves that there is nothing wrong with the concept of Jaime Reyes, it's just the writers of his series.

The writing of the series itself was solid for the first ten issues, when the creator of the character was writing it. After that, they switched creators. Even though sales began to fall with this new writer in place, they did not take him off of the book. The series lasted until issue 36, which meant this new writer had 26 issues total. That's over two years where no one decided to take him off of the book due to poor sales. Did they lose his number and e-mail? How come nobody took him off of it? Dan DiDio later stated that the new Blue Beetle was "a book that we started with very high expectations, but it lost its audience along the way." I don't care what book it is, 26 poorly written issues means a book will be canceled. Someone should have stepped in long before. That's not the characters fault, that's the writers/editors.

Placing him in books like the Teen Titans and Booster Gold does not help the character. Teen Titans is terrible and Booster Gold's sales, while a fan favorite, are touch and go at times. That's like putting a band-aid over a wound that needs stitches. Once again, someone at DC should have stepped in really fixed to the problem.

There is also the argument that Jaime Reyes is not Ted kord, so I don't like him. Jaime Reyes isn't supposed to be Ted Kord, that only makes sense from a creative point of view. He has a connection to Ted and has the same name, but is still different. Just like in real life, everybody does the same job differently. I don't think it should be a detriment that he is a different type of Blue Beetle. I know that many people felt the same way when Wally West took over as The Flash when Barry Allen died all those years ago. Wally was a fast talking womanizer as opposed to Barry's by the book, crime scene investigator self. Flash forward (unintentional pun) to now and people are complaining that Barry Allen is taking over for Wally West as the Flash. People always react negatively to changes in the super hero status quo, it's just the nature of the beast. Once again, this isn't Jaime Reyes fault.

Simply put, Jaime Reyes is a solid character. He reminds me of when Spider-Man first started out, except that he had a now legendary creative team behind him. This character can be extremely successful if marketed and handled well by the titles creative team. It's just that for some reason they don't want to do that, but that's not Jaime's fault.

Until next time
Action Chad
chad@coastcitycomics.net

The Blue Beetle Debate Part 1

About a month ago, there was a debate on our Facebook fan page for Coast City about the new Blue Beetle character. Things became pretty heated, some things were said that can't be taken back, and one marriage ended because of it. I'm kidding about the marriage, but it was pretty heated. I asked my good friend, Chris Morey, to write up an anti new Blue Beetle article. I would post it on the blog, and then I would respond with a pro Blue Beetle argument. It sounded like a good time to me, so hopefully you guys will feel the same.

Without further ado, here is Chris Morey's anti new Blue Beetle article.

So a few weeks ago i posted a comment in response to Chad's opinion of the new blue beetle always getting the shaft. Either he or Gerald had an idea that Chad and I do a sort of point/counterpoint deal with how we feel about the new Blue Beetle, Jaime Reyes.
I feel this character has had more chances than most in the DCU. He started out as a break out character in DC's big event of the year, infinite crisis. Right off the bat, he's got a lot of attention. Next, he's right into his own series with one of DC better writers,Keith Giffen, and yet he really didn't draw much interest. Onto a new writer and a new story arch, and his title is still having trouble finding readers. Even after attention from a much publicized special Spanish language issue and even after hitching it to a popular title like teen titans still the readers aren't coming.

The title was around for basically three years, with low readership, most characters do not get that long. Then when his title was finally canceled, really due to a lack of interest, the new blue beetle is shoehorned into another title as a back up story. Meanwhile other characters introduced at the same time as the new blue beetle don't receive the same chance. Characters, like the new Question or the new Atom, are pretty much reduced to guest shots in other titles.

Finally the event that pretty much triggered this commentary happened, DC dropped the Blue Beetle back story from Booster Gold. Is this the last we'll see of little Jaime? Probably not. There's already rumors floating around about him appearing in the new series Justice League: Generation Lost. This is another chance for this character, that no one really seems to want around. This is the same character that they killed off the last Blue Beetle, a character that people are still asking for to return, to create. Is this the best they can do?

The last three years of this Blue Beetle have been almost like a giant junk shot to fans of the old bwah-ha-ha era of the justice league. Now if they had done the series right, and given us a decent successor, it wouldn't be such a big deal. Instead what we get is three years of floundering, a character with no clear focus, and not really in the spirit of the character who's legacy he supposed to be carrying on. I feel that Jaime Reyes,the new Blue Beetle, has had his chance(s) and it's time for dc to move on/back to what most readers want: Ted Kord,(who if you ask me, is the one who got the shaft.)

I'll post my response to Mr. Morey tomorrow.

-Action Chad
chad@coastcitycomics.net

We have a winner!

The winner of the $50 gift card contest is Christopher Seavey! I want to give a huge thanks to everyone who entered, and keep in mind that there will be more contests in the very near future!

Here is Christopher's picture

and here is another entry from Lani. Lani wins the "entrant that lives the farthest away from the comic shop" award...which has no prize, except honor. She lives in California by the way!

Until next time-
Action Chad
chad@coastcitycomics.net