UPDATED: Alright. Enough of me trying to do too many things at once anymore.  BtS may have limited future posts due to my work schedule, I will see how I can keep up. As William mentioned — I needed to annotate this post which I just rushed through and spat out. I have revised, please read on…

My revised rant

I am amazed to see an annotation in an event book (or an event companion book, in this case Final Crisis: Rage of the Red Lanterns) or a comic book no less. It is a format usage that has long since fallen to the wayside from the big comic book publishers. Often you used to get an annotation when the editor / publisher wanted YOU the reader to know something (like when this book takes place within the continuity of the rest of the comic book universe) to better help your enjoyment of the book. So when YOU the reader are reading the story and go “Heeeeeey!” on a scene that makes no sense, the comic already has a note letting you know, “Okay – this happens before comics X, Y and Z!”.

What I was excited about was the fact that the big two (Marvel & DC Comics) seem to be moving back to this type of notation for the reader. No longer is the reader expected to be reading the comic book with Wikipedia open trying to figure out or remember who the f***k was ZOM! Nor do they have to flip through pages and asking themselves why the writer had Angel in one panel and Arch-Angel in the next, a simple notation and your back on track.

I am very sick of how books seem to be working in their own bubble worlds that it seems they do not need any annotation or notice saying “Yes, we understand that the world is being invaded by Skrulls but at this time the New Captain America is busy fighting Red Skrull. Thanks!”. Often this is not the case and what it seems to be happening is that the big companies bend knee to the creators and let them have free reign to do whatever they wish with the title, screw the rest of the books. I feel sorry for those editors who need to make sense of it all!

So I am very happy to see this annotation in a big event book again. I may have seen it in Secret Invasion but given that the best way for me to see SI is *cough*torrent*cough* I likely missed any such notation (if any existed at att). Kudos to the big two — now if they could actually put the books out on time, sort out having the actual heroes in certain books *cough*Avengers*cough* then maybe things would be good, bright and beautiful in the universe.

I ain’t holding my breath but I dare to dream. Here is the recent annotation up close and personal for your enjoyment.

Oh and you can see the rest of the preview of Final Crisis: Rage of the Red Lanterns here on Newsarama:
http://www.newsarama.com/php/multimedia/album.php?aid=23443

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Alright folks, this is what I originally wrote just for WTF sakes and to show how poorly I write:

Looks, see it? Seriously this is not a plug for the preview of Rage of Red Lanterns but a not to say “HEY, Look at that. Comic Book Annotation. It exists!”.

This ain’t no furry gorrila suit in a broken fridge kinda thing or b&w photo of tires tired together to look like a water monster, this is cold. hard. fact.

DC Comics has finally put some comic book annotation in one of their books and finally one of the Final Crisis books is going to be slotted in between the actual Final Crisis series. I am so sick to death of books like Captain America, Justice Society of America, Astonishing X-Men in their complete disregard to the world around them. I know that you cannot make all comics synch up properly in cannon of things but now adays, some creators are given the liberty to do whatever the frig they way with their stories regardless of the rest of the books that the same publisher is putting out. Even the Brand New Day Spiderman disregard until recently was one reason I wasn’t picking up any of the issues. Once the BND came into cannon with Thunderbolts (although I still think the storyline is out of Secret Invasion theme/cannon). If the latest issue of Robin would just tell the reader WTF is going on in regards to where the book is in cannon of the rest of the Bat books, I would be happy, but I guess I should just be happy for the little things like one comic book annotation at a time. Anyhoo, here it is larger in case you didn’t see it…