Reading Comics #130 "Bull Moose Grab Bag IV"

Local physical-things shop Bull Moose has recently changed the way it sells comics.  It remains to be seen whether it will be selling comics much longer.  But until recently it sold new comics and then slightly-less-new comics in grab bag form.  I like grab bags, and on the whole I liked what I got in these Bull Moose grab bags.  This is the last official Bull Moose grab bag, though I get to continue this sub-feature in future editions of this column as Bull Moose Bargains.  More on that when it happens!  Until then, the contents of the last grab bag.

Batman '66 #12 (DC)
The comic based on the '60s TV series that has swung back around to being culturally tolerated remains amusing for what it is.

Bravest Warriors #21 (KaBOOM!)
One of those cartoons clearly inspired by the success of Adventure Time.  Bull Moose Grab Bag did me wrong in giving me two copies, thanks to there being two different covers for some reason.

Chew #42 (Image)
I read some of the earliest issues of Chew, liked them well enough, but it was also fairly easy to...not read Chew anymore.  When John Layman wrote Detective Comics I was actually more impressed with him.  In his own sandbox, Layman is free to do what he wants...and I don't know, I guess he just wants to screw around.  These days I compare this kind of comic to Atomic Robo, and bottom line is, Chew doesn't seem as inspired.  Weirdo concept though it sports and the ability to exploit said weirdo concept, Chew is ultimately fairly throwaway.  Hey Layman, feel free to jump back into the mainstream.  Or find something more interesting to do with Chew.  Apparently he's one of the Batman Eternal writers, but does that really count?  I guess I'll keep myself posted...

C.O.W.L. #2 (Image)
A few years back I was ready to consider myself a pretty big fan of Kyle Higgins.  These days I'm wondering what happened.  Something that bothers me is that he often has a co-writer.  This is not in itself a bad thing.  He first burst onto the scene with Scott Snyder as co-writer (Batman: Gates of Gotham).  Given Snyder's reputation these days, that's not a bad association at all.  (Even Snyder had a co-writer tagging along when he worked on Severed for whatever reason.)  With C.O.W.L., Higgins is working alongside Alec Siegel.  I have no idea.  What I've read of this project, Higgins has been getting all the credit.  As far as the need for co-writers goes (it should be noted even Geoff Johns worked with James Robinson in his early years, and Robinson worked with a co-writer, too, for part of Starman), I'm wondering if this is something he really does need.  Maybe as a kind of focusing lens?  Because as far as his Nightwing ended up going, I wonder if he needed such a lens, and just never got one.  C.O.W.L., like the final issues of the Nightwing run, is set in Chicago.  There's been speculation that this is, in fact, what Higgins would have done if given the chance in his mainstream effort.  Well, maybe?  Anyway, regardless of my personal feelings on its (co-)writer, this series has gotten a fair bit of hype.  "C.O.W.L." is short for Chicago Organized Workers League, otherwise known as the World's First Superhero Labor Union.  That's interesting and all, and this is even a period piece, for whatever reason.  Maybe I just can't figure Higgins out.  Maybe I'm approaching this wrong from the start, but as with my Higgins experience in general lately, I...just wish there was as much on the page as I wish there was.

Deadly Class #6 (Image)
Speaking of Image series from writers I really wish I could like as much as it sometimes seems I should, this one's from Rick Remender, who's recently impressing me with the scope of what he's doing in Captain America.  Apparently, Deadly Class is a personal project for him.  I wish I could say I loved it and totally understood how it's so important to him, but I can't.  This and C.O.W.L. are the kinds of disappointments I think I probably need to reread.  Maybe I will.  (I generally don't do a lot of that.)

All-New Doop #3 (Marvel)
Peter Milligan is a writer I feel guilty for not liking.  He's like the advanced stage of where Higgins and Remender could be years from now.  Milligan has been around for years, a kind of junior member of the British Invasion who helped forge the early years of Vertigo.  His most recent prominent work was nearly the first two years of Red Lanterns, a series I've recently fallen madly in love with...under the auspices of Charles Soule.  As for what Milligan is doing now (not meant as a pun, but there's that, too), I...guess this is related to his earlier X-Statix, a cartoony corner of the X-Men franchise that was much cult-loved at the time.  But Doop reads like instantly pointless drivel.  I'd read Chew over this.

The Flash #32 (DC)
And what is this, a trend or something?  Another writer I wish I liked is Robert Venditti, who happens to have been the guy who took over Green Lantern following the historic near-decade Geoff Johns run.  I haven't read too much of that.  Sometimes I wish I did, because I've liked what I have read.  But then I read something like this.  I have great history with The Flash.  For some reason that history ended with the New 52 relaunch.  No disrespect to the early run, because I just never really got around to reading it, probably because I was disappointed that Johns ended a pre-New 52 run prematurely following the excellent Flashpoint event.  So I wish I liked what I read here.  But I just didn't.  The best material is still pretty weak, Barry Allen bonding with the new version of Wally West.  I don't know if Veditti's heart just isn't in this title, but it just reads so tepidly, a very far cry from Johns or Mark Waid.  For a Flash reader who wishes The Flash would always be a must-read, as it certainly was under Waid and a slightly lesser extent Johns, this is not just disappointing, it's kind of disheartening.

Justice League Dark #32 (DC)
I actually like this series.  I'm waiting to be really wowed by it.  Hollywood was wowed enough to option a movie based on it, so there's that.  Frankenstein is usually featured in it, but not this issue.  As referenced during his recent appearances in Batman and Robin, he's been on a sabbatical.  We've got Zatanna, Deadman, and we-have-our-own-titles-too guys Constantine and Swamp Thing.  J.M. DeMatteis is a writer I greatly respect, but he doesn't always write to potential.  He's someone who's better than the lot I've been grappling with in this column, but I sometimes wish he'd be better.  If this were a truly dark series, maybe that might be the case here.  I don't know.

The New 52: Futures End #8 (DC)
Futures End badly wants to be a new 52.  I know, with wording like that, I could easily confuse you.  52, as opposed to the New 52, was the 2006-2007 weekly series that helped prove possible the modern viability of such a format.  I loved it.  I mean, I loved it.  (It ranked fourth in my list of all-time favorites.)  I've been trying to make comparisons between Futures End and 52 since the newer title launched, based on my sporadic experience with it.  Maybe if I read it every week my opinion would be different, but I just don't see it as hitting the mark quite as truly as its predecessor.  This is disappointing, too.

...Yesh.  With all these disappointments, is this because this was all part of the final Grab Bag?  The world may never know...