I love the devil. I will kiss his tongue. I will kiss the devil on his tongue.

The first of the summer cons is over and, like, every year when it's convention season, one must ask, "What the fuck do I care?"

First, Newsarama has a lovely little list of links to convention news.

Second, I was actually impressed by a few things I heard this weekend.

The thing that impressed me the most was DC admitting that they lied to everyone by soliciting issues of Flash that will never come out. I love that sort of bold gambit designed to circumvent Previews and actually maintain some sort of surprise. Now, if it were me, I would have waited until the next convention after Flash: The Fastest Man Alive #13 was released just to fuck with people more. But, that's me. I understand the need for Previews and all, but I hate the whole thing. Takes a lot of the surprise out of stories. Marvel did a similar thing post-Civil War and pissed off people doing it, but what's the point of writing stories that rely on surprises if the ending is spoiled three months in advance?

Apparently, readers will be treated to a series starring Angel. You know Angel, that lame member of the original X-Men who has wings and was rich and only did one thing interesting since, which was becoming a Horseman of Apocalypse and nothing since. Yeah, that Angel! Oh, X-minis devoted to characters people barely care about as part of a big team, how I miss thee.

Amazing Spider-Man will be coming out three times a month! This move actually makes sense. It provides Spider-fans with the same number of books, but doesn't have to worry about over-exposure at the same time in a weird way. Spider-Man having three different adventures that don't connect at all per month? Fucked up. Spider-Man coming out three times a month in connected stories? Awesome. It's also a lovely ploy to get people to buy three comics per month when they previously had the option of only one to fill that Spider-void inside their heart. What I find funny is that I was never an Amazing Spider-Man guy. Back in the day, I was all about Web of Spider-Man, which was the superior title. But, I also read the books mostly during the Clone Saga and Web and "adjectiveless" were devoted to the Scarlet Spider, while Amazing and Spectacular were plain ol' fashioned Spider-Man. When you're . . . what, eleven? (Maybe twelve?) what seems cooler: Spider-Clone or Spider-Man? SPIDER-FUCKING-CLONE! It's the exact same guy, except all mysterious and interesting and cool. Plus, he had those cool stingers and web-balls that just exploded webbing. Why didn't Spider-Man ever begin using those? Someone should bring back that "impact webbing" stuff (I think it was called that because it exploded webbing on impact). As for the new Amazing schedule, no word on the creative team, which is kind of lame.

Nothing else really impressed me (oh, Immortal Iron Fist annual!), but Brian Michael Bendis did have the best line of the weekend: "Spider-Man will never kill someone with his bare hands just to get an erection."