Hero Goggles - All things comics and maybe a little more!

Prince Valiant vs Flash Gordon

2012-02-09T14:02:00.001-05:00

One of the benefits of my prepress job at the old paper is being able to read the Sunday funnies again. Little over a month ago a new Prince Valiant arc began. Some things had changed since I last checked in, most notably, his wife Aleta apparently has real magical powers. The new storyline introduces an amnesiac blond giant that Aleta recognizes from some point when she was trapped in a limbo like realm. Meanwhile, I'm thinking I recognize the character only from a different strip. The week's strip reprinted above clinched it for me... it's Flash Gordon! Due to copyright and trademark concerns, I'm sure there's a reason why he's not outright identified, but it makes for a cool cross-over. The story is also quite interesting as Valiant, Gawain and Flash (called St. George after that famous dragonslayer) pursue a gigantic golem terrorizing the countryside. And, it's all done in clean, clear and detailed artwork that should really shame some current comicbook versions of the character, especially considering the strip is printed under far more restrictions (poorer paper-stock, less and inconsistent printing capability which means less color range and less resolution). Go here and you can read about many comics free. Check out the Phantom, Mutts and a few other strips while you're there.

Section Zero: Also under cool comic things that can be found on the web, Karl Kesel and Tom Grummett are relaunching their too-quickly aborted Section Zero comic on the web. A labor of love being done in between paying gigs, right now it's re-releasing the pages from the published comic on Thursdays a few at a time. There's also some pages with notes and character sketches. I consider Grummett to be one of the top superhero artists working in comics today. So, I think it's a crime that he has free time to work on something like this. His work schedule should be kept full. Of course, I also think that this book should be on it's hundredth something issue right now.

Black Beetle: Not the DC villain character, this is a pulp fueled character from the mind of Francesco Francavilla who initially got his start serialized over time on his website and available for purchase as an ashcan. Dark Horse has wisely recognized him as an up and coming talent and is publishing a three part Black Beetle story in Dark Horse Presents #11 out April 18th. Get your orders in now!

And now for something competely different

2011-10-10T14:46:00.000-04:00

Was hoping to write a bit about reading the first issue of Aquaman, only the store I have my pull list was shorted, not enough for even those that were a little late in adding it to their pull lists and they've not gotten any more in yet.

So, instead are a couple of neat little videos and links.

SPCA of Wake Co., NC: My brother showed me this one, of volunteers lip syncing to Abba in one continuous take and full of kittens and puppies. Think my bro should volunteer with them. He likes animals and it looks like there are quite a few cute girls who hang out at the shelter. As he noted, this would make a far better commercial than the one with all the abused animals with the Sarah McLachlan son. One video that has you humming and smiling vs one that makes you change the channels or want to gouge your eyes out. Hmm. Which to choose? One warning. After this video, I have spent 3 days with the song running through my head.

Curse of the Phantom Shadow: This popped up in one of the pulp-related newsgroups I follow. Some guys in Vegas are trying to make a low budget superhero movie inspired by the pulps and movie serials of days gone by. You too can contribute and be part of it. Not too keen on the computerized backdrops and such in the little preview. Can we finally just admit that computerized coloring and special effects are by themselves no more realistic than other methods? They may look more modern but at the end of the day they are often just as fake and obvious as the old stop-motion techniques, just different. What made Jurassic Park work was a melding of all techniques, depending on what each scene demanded. But an obviously computerized background is just as bad as one that's obviously a physically painted backdrop or obvious miniatures representing a town getting flooded. Still, check it out here.

Guy on a Buffalo: Again, thanks to my brother for this little piece of surreal 1970s cinema set to a song lampooning it while explaining exactly what is going on in the scenes. There's a couple of these (with the footage taken from a pair of actual movies). Minor quibble... it's a BISON not a buffalo. Calling a bison a buffalo is like calling a fox a wolf.

Some first issue thoughts

2011-09-22T16:34:00.002-04:00

I finally broke down and bought a couple of DC's new 52 books. Well, that's not entirely true, one of them I was already planning on getting. While I've been going to the store each week, most of the new #1s have failed to have really the right combination of characters, creators, concepts or tones. Such as Batwing sounded like it could be interesting, and I find Judd Winnick a decent enough writer for a series for a year (he just tends to outstay his welcome), but the painted artwork didn't appeal. Stormwatch's artwork looked cool in b/w online but the over-colored printed version obliterated that. Detective looked interesting a few pages online but the printed version, when leafing through it was just a dense, complicated looking mess of panels and confusing layouts that it was difficult to get a sense of the story (Batgirl had this same problem, I like Simone's writing but just scanning through the book, it looked like it would give a head-ache to try to read. Sadly, Green Arrow, JLI and Hawk & Dove had almost the opposite problem. Clear and easy to read artwork betraying there didn't seem to be enough interesting going on to warrant picking up. Swamp Thing... I had to check to see if Kevin Nowlan was inking but nope, the artist seems to just draw faces in that same constipated or sour-faced way. It's nit-picky to be sure, but it's hard to read a comic when you cannot stand how the faces look. Meanwhile, I must be the only person that sees something fundamentally wrong with Omac, a series that is built upon the names of characters, ideas and concepts by Jack Kirby but doesn't make use of the actual character by Kirby and then it's drawn in a Kirby pastiche style as if to give it some legitamacy. Can you say "rip-off"? I thought you could. And, it's being done by creators who are championing freeing DC up from continuity and supposedly old concepts. Then why aren't they doing something that's truly new than ripping off Kirby without actually trying to get the character right? So they can get credit for "creating" Omac? And, really, you might have a case saying that every story of a character cannot be kept in continuity, but that was never really a concern was it? You can keep five Robins in continuity, the convoluted mess that is now Green Lantern, but a character whose entire publishing history is hardly two dozen stories has it all jettisoned?

So, what made it home was Legion Lost; Frankenstein: Agent of S.H.A.D.E, and Resurrection Man.

Legion Lost: Based on previews I had hopes for. I liked the idea that some Legionnaires aren't entirely human looking so there's a certain fondness for Tellus and Gates. Dawnstar was always hot and the tragic love between her and Wildfire was always interesting. And, Timber Wolf has long been one of my favorites though he hasn't had a decent costume since the 1980s. But, this story is a mess. These and the other Legionnaires end up in our present tracking a criminal about whom very little to nothing is revealed. The heroes don't do anything more other than complain and vomit and when they catch up to the villain who has destroyed a small town, he's already unconscious. While taking him to the future, something happens and he blows up while two Legionnaires are apparently killed either through their own ineptitude or something else, the artwork is unclear. This leaves the remaining characters stranded in our time. As a first issue, there's no effort given to make readers want to return the next issue. Instead of showcasing the heroes, they are shown to be ineffective and quarrelsome. You aren't made to care about the characters who are killed, and the villain is a complete cypher. Thanks to previews and solicits we know he's returning so we'll probably learn more in the future, but here's the crux of that. It's ok to make a character seem a cypher if it's actually given proper set-up as a mystery or sub-plot that will be explored later. As presented on the page, he just seems a plot device to strand the heroes, set up the status quo and then promptly gotten rid of. Likewise there's no build-up or presentation of the Legion to readers, to give an idea of what the characters have "lost" by being stranded here.

Resurrection Man: It has some of the same problems. I was looking forward to this book as I was a fan of the original series and there's little to no reason that changes in the continuity or history should overly change the series that much. And, it was being handled by the same writers. However, they do much the same with the hero that Legion Lost did. We get the main character's name and powers, but nothing else about just who Mitch Shelley is or how he got that way. It was a big part of the character and mystery of his first series, but it is neither recapped nor presented as being intentionally a mystery to the readers. As such, why should we care about him? It took me a while to figure what else bothered me about the story and then I realized it was because, there actually was none. There are some scenes including a fight where a bunch of people die. What we got was just several set-ups of long reaching plotlines but no story in and of itself. A sequence of events is not a story. Even so, it's confusing. Why was the demonic angel (angelic demon?) on the plane. Was it to cause the crash and deaths of the passengers? To simply insure that Mitch didn't alter things and save those fated to die? To try to kill Mitch and collect his soul? All of the above? Why are the two women torturing and killing people in trying to get a lead on Mitch? Exactly who are they and what abilities do they have?

This is like an episode of Supernatural or other similar show where it is giving you all these hints and teases to the larger season-long plot and down the road pay-offs but forgetting that it still has to deliver a more immediate story and concern as well. These long form plottings are fine for writing for the trade, and some fans like it, but I thought that was something the writers were supposed to be getting away from.

Artwise, I was a little concerned with having to have someone else in Butch Guice's shoes. His scratchy artwork grounded the original series with a level of realness, dirt and grime that the typical super hero comics didn't have. His character had a certain world-weariness, homeless look to him. The book still looks good though. The artwork is a bit cleaner but it still goes for a more realistic look without looking traced in every panel. Once or twice I had to linger to figure out the point of a panel, I still don't understand the handshake panel, the woman is holding out her hand but the text asks if she doesn't know how to give a handshake properly... is it because it's her left hand?

Since I get so few titles and fondness for the original run, I'm willing to give this at least one more issue to prove itself.

Frankenstein: Agent of S.H.A.D.E.: This was the surprise hit for me. Not really a fan of the artwork, but the idea seemed appealing enough. It comes across a bit as DC's version of B.P.R.D. with a little more focus on action and no frogs. I liked the Monster Commandoes but wonder just how much supernatural went into their creation. The vampire is listed as being the result of a variant form of the Langstrom (Man-Bat) formula for instance. Which then makes me wish they had actually used Langstrom instead. The time period is a little unclear as it implies that the public presence of Superman and Batman is recent, but the official line is that the events of Justice League and the public debut of the heroes is about five years ago. Still, it managed to live up to the title's premise, introduce the characters and set up a monster-invasion plotline and deliver plenty of action. Definitely picking up the second issue.

Mystery Men: The final issue rushed the ending. There's little to no character fall-out from the events of the last issue making the inter-racial relationship little more than a plot excuse to have the team break-up. After all the build-up, the General is taken out too quickly and then the little twist at the end robs the heroes of a clean-cut victory and makes a supreme sacrifice needless. For once, maybe a story was too compressed, needing another issue to properly fill it out beyond moving from Point A to Point B. Yet, the little touches in the story, such as the almost crossing swords with one of Marvel's big name bad guys make this title still a fun read, worthy of picking up the trade if you hadn't gotten the monthlies. Will we see them ever again?

Kirby Genesis: With no breaking of the fourth wall this issue, the comic moved up a notch. It occurs to me that so far it's still mostly just talking and a travelogue of Kirby characters and concepts with no one really doing all that much. As such, the only way we know the heroes from the bad guys is because we know some of these characters already. The villains haven't done anything particularly villainous yet other than half of them being pursued and shot at by other-worldly bounty hunters and pursuers. One culture's villains may be another culture's Freedom Fighters.

Kirby Freeman almost has a theory that puts everything together before he loses it. The hints laid down make me wonder if it's something akin to Clifford Simak's Out of their Minds. I like the look and feel of the Phantom Continent, but if the U-Boat commander has been there since WWII and the two kids almost that long... where do they get their bullets and cigarettes?

The coloring so far has actually been top notch, given a painted look without feeling computer generated (maybe it's not?) and without overpowering the line-work and robbing it of its energy and vitality.

That ole sinking feeling..
Interest in the new Aquaman series continues to flounder. In the December solicit, we have our hero again stabbing a foe through with his trident and blood going everywhere. This seems to be in keeping with many of the books featuring characters that should be more all-ages marketed. In the Red Lanterns and Green Lantern Corps titles of the Green Lantern family of books, there's dismemberment and gore everywhere. Detective is about a villain who cuts off faces and concludes its first issue with a fairly gruesome sight. The Hawkman book is selling itself on being savage and gory. I expect certain lines of books to be more violent and explicit, especially with titles like "Suicide Squad" and "Deathstroke". But, it seems wrong when it's the mainstream versions of some of the core hero books, characters that people are going to be most familiar with. If their goal is to really attract new readers, shouldn't they aim at not turning their stomachs when they pick up something that is supposed to be a super hero book with characters that are featured in all-ages cartoons and such?

Johns follows up though with heaping high praise on the Peter David run on Aquaman. Don't want to call him a liar, so let's be generous and say it's mostly spin and him throwing David's fans a bone, because otherwise he's just delusional when he says:

Yeah, great book. Peter David's the only one that's gotten Aquaman right, beyond his creator. I don't think anyone's been close to getting Aquaman into a book that's sustainable or very interesting, except for Peter David. I say that because I'm going to go a very different way than Peter David.

Really? David's run was better and the only one to get the character right other than his creator some five decades earlier or other writers the two decades after? First off, David's run was nothing like the character created by Mort Wiesinger and Paul Norris who only did a handful of small stories anyway. Much of what we associate with Aquaman was done by Robert Bernstein (The Tom Curry-Atlantis origin, Aqualad Garth), Jack Miller (Mera, the marriage) and Bob Haney (Black Manta, Ocean Master). With that single statement he pretty much insults all the other writers over the years that wrote Aquaman in his own strip, one-shots and the JLA and kept him in character when David did not: Steve Skeates, Otto Binder, Gardner Fox, Haney, Denny O'Neil, Gerry Conway, Len Wein, David Michilinie. Not to mention the art alone of those decades, Aquaman drawn by Ramona Fradon, Nick Cardy, Jim Aparo, Don Newton, Dick Dillin. They all made him look heroic and epic, worthy of standing next to Batman and Superman without having to make him look edgy. It's one thing to say you like David's version better than the others, but to make a statement that he got the character better than anyone else in seventy years of history when his run is predicated on changing everything about the character and grafting on the typical snarky "i play dirty" personality that David tends to give all his leads. That's just wrong.

Much of the success of David's run was that at the time he was one of the hot writers and fans followed him from book to book. The book was sustainable as long as it was David that was writing it. Thus, it's hard to say if what he was doing was really good for the character in the long run or not. Some creators can make something work, as long as they are the ones doing it. But, once they are gone, it's a struggle to build on or even maintain those concepts and readers. It's a reason why resets and reboots at DC are felt like they are needed. Allowing creators to take concepts into extreme directions is often damaging to the long-term viability even though profitable in the short-term.

We can look at the works by the other writers that handled the character from 1959 to the early 80s and say that they did keep the character viable and sustainable. They developed his world and mythos in long-lasting ways from giving him an extended family from sidekick, wife, and baby. He was dealt with as an equal member of the JLA of the likes of Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman without needing justification (or acknowledgement of so-called comic fans' jokes). And, post-David, writers and artists have been working over time to getting more back to center. Indeed, if Johns and DC really felt that David's run was all that sustainable, we'd be seeing a take on that. If he really thought that no one else made the character interesting or sustainable, then why is he obviously going for the look and characters of the 1960s run, where he fought human opponents as well as underseas monsters alongside his supporting cast? I think what we're seeing is Johns following David's cue in making the character seem more bad@$$ by giving him a lethal weapon that he doesn't mind using and upping his powers considerably but giving him a silver-age coating of the old costume, inclusion of Mera. And, we can look forward to him expanding Aquaman's family as he seems to want to turn every book into a team book. In other words, it'll be like the 60s run all over again. Just with more blood-shed.

Mighty Fine Comics

2011-08-30T15:54:00.000-04:00

Ratfist
If you take Bill Watterson (Calvin & Hobbes), Grant Morrison (Animal Man), Erik Larsen (Savage Dragon) and Michael Jantze (The Norm) and locked them up until they completed a superhero comic, the final outcome would be something like Ratfist. Or a bloody mess as they kill each other but for the sake of the review, we'll go with the former.

Ratfist is a webcomic (http://ratfist.com) by Doug Tennapel (Earthworm Jim) and colored by Katherine Garner who did a fantabulous job. It starts off pretty much as the exact opposite of what I want from superhero comics. First is the artwork which is obviously very cartoony and exaggerated to the point of being completely over the top. Ratfist's ears aren't even attached to his head for goodness' sake! Then there's the story as it starts in the middle of things setting the character up as being not only eccentric (he has a pet rat that he talks to and takes on his adventures fighting crime) but as the typical loser/loner that retreats from reality by putting on a lame costume, taking a lamer name and fighting crime while the creators can sit back and mock the genre and show off how much more intelligent and sophisticated they are, modern day Cervantes with all of their fifth-rate attempts at recreating Don Quixote with less than an ounce of talent.

However, the comic quickly shows that it's not that at all. Sure, he's a bit of a loser, a man-child that has some growing up to do, but his taking on a superhero identity isn't that much of retreat from reality. His reality is one with comic-book science, where people do get bit by strange things and gain powers and put on costumes, or are victims of bad magic mojo or science experiments. Deciding to be a supehero is that context is less insane than appearing on "Jerry Springer" because you are told someone has a secret to share with you. Or appearing on "Big Brother". It may be stupid, ill-advised, and a tactic to avoiding some problems, but it's not insane in and of itself.

And, Tennapel is actually truly funny, writing and drawing hilarious scenes. He moves from one improbable, absurd scene to another. He's not making fun of superheroes, he's reveling in them and the concepts and scenarios they allow. Notice the creators I listed above? It has Morrison and Larsen's sheer creativity on their good days unbound by cynicism and self-importance, it has Watterson's exuberance and sense of whimy and humor coupled with Jantze's gentle, wry humanity and outlook on the life of the modern adult male.

What makes this truly stand out, though, is the transformation that takes place. As the character goes from one absurd situation to another, there's a point where your point of view changes. You'll recognize it when you get to it. You get to the point that you realize that Tennapel has a real story that he's telling, this is not just random events to merely see what happens next and what corners he can write himself into and out of. Underneath the humor, the absurdity, the jokes, there's an actual story being told here that has real emotion to it. And, you realize Ratfist may just have it in him to be one of the greatest, noblest heroes of all.

Do yourself a favor and don't read the characters tab first. It'll give away some of the surprises in store for you. And if you don't know who Michael Jantze is or "The Norm" comic strip, head over to thenorm.com as well.

Until last night, I would easily have said this was the best comic I have read in a year if not more. But, that's because last night, I read the following book.

Beasts of Burden: Animal Rites
This is a hardcover collection of the Beasts of Burden stories by Evan Dorkin and Jill Thompson with the exception of the Hellboy crossover. Which works out fine for me because that is the one issue I have. When I read that, I promised myself to keep an eye out for the trade when it came out. I was a little put off by it appearing in hardback but the price for it is equal if not better than many trades.

The stories concern a group of dogs and one cat in suburbia who protect their neighborhoods from various strange ie supernatural and increasingly deadly occurrences. Dorkin's writing keeps the animals looking and acting just appropriately animal enough but with distinctive personalities and their own sense of magic, faith and mysticism. Likewise Jill Thompson's watercolors are lush and balance being realistic when need be without sacrificing sense of expression and well placed sense of whimsy.

The look of the book at first glance would lead one to think it's one for kids, but it treats the supernatural and mundane in honest ways. There's deaths by monsters but also by cars on the highways and it treats both with equal somberness and detail. You never forget that as much as the animals act human and they face supernatural threats, some of the biggest dangers are the everyday ones that pets and strays face. The familiar grounds the fantastic and you feel for them.

If the book does stray it's that there's an occasional crude or crass word that seems completely at odd with both the artwork and the characters. It's far less colorful language than in most of today's comics, and only happens three or four times but each time the word choice stuck out like a sore thumb. Probably because otherwise the language was clean and the storytelling was so intelligent, it didn't really need such language to seem adult. Instead, it came off as suddenly trying to sound adult, "look, no one will take this book seriously if we don't add at least one cuss word in here."

The Defenders: From the Vault
Since I ragged on the storytelling of The Canterbury Cricket as to how not tell a one-shot comic, I feel I should lift this comic up as how to properly do it. The CC comic had the hurdle of having to fit into a larger story, a company-wide event. This book had the problem of having to fit into another creative team’s run on a title without seeming like too big of a hiccup. Then there were further problems. Fabian Nicieza plotted the book and Bagley drew the book, but neither could recall what the actual script was to be and copies were lost. Nicieza was also now on exclusive with another company so Kurt Busiek, the writer of the run the comic was to fit in, was hired to basically come up with a story and script that matched the artwork already done.

He does so to the degree that it’s hard to envision the story being substantially different any other way. While it is to fit into the run he and Larsen had on the book, other than a single panel and a few artistic stylings, the story is such that it could have been in any Defenders era. The one panel inclusion actually does a good job at just summing up the purpose of the four heroes as the Defenders for any that are totally lost.

What makes this story really stand out is that despite the characters visibly being the Hulk, Namor, Dr. Strange and the Silver Surfer, for the most part it’s a group of roleplaying gamers whose minds are in those bodies and they carry the show. In typical Busiek fashion, he makes the story be one about human emotions and interactions, what ties us together. It’s both a superhero story and a human interest one. Even though we never actually see the four gamers that we know of, we are left kind of wishing to see a short-story that followed up on the events and character revelations revealed here. But, you aren’t short-changed. The plot is addressed and resolved, new characters and concepts were introduced and developed. It runs the gamut of humor and pathos, superheroes and villains and every-day people, science-fiction and magic, love lost and love from afar. An old joke was told along the way (though left out the follow-up joke). When done, you’re left wanting more but not needing more like a delicious meal that satisfies.

Captain America Corps
The premise of this mini-series written by classic Captain America writer Roger Stern is that someone is removing the Avengers finding Captain America across the various timestreams. An Elder of the Universe called the Contemplator seems to be the only one seeing the timelines being manipulated so he calls forth various heroes that have been the mantle bearers of Captain America to make things right. The heroes called are Captain America from 1941-42 (he still has the triangular shield), Bucky when he was Captain America, USAgent from shortly after his stint as Cap, American Dream who is the daughter of Sharon Carter in the MC2-verse, and Commando A who stands about seven feet tall and is from centuries in the future.

The timeline they travel to is one where the heroes are strangely absent and the Americommand, a group of dark reflections of Captain Americas, hold the country in the control such as Americop and his legion of Americops, Major America, the Ameridroid and two women called Broad Stripe and Bright Star who from the get go seem to know more than they let on.

Each issue starts off focusing on one of the Captain America mantle-bearers, what he was doing when called by the Contemplator. Under Stern’s hand, each issue is a dense read, full of story, characterization and action with twists and cameos along the way. Effort is made that each member has their own style and voice. As one of the Americommand is revealed to be a somewhat minor grandiose villain that fought Captain America a couple of times and seems to be behind it all, the question rises are any of the others somewhat familiar faces? Could Major America be this timeline’s John Walker (USAgent) or Jack Monroe (Nomad/Bucky) or even a former Captain America such as Jeff Mace or the 1950s Cap?

A minor quibble or two with the characters Bright Star and Broad Stripe. The former is depicted a little too similar to DC’s Stargirl. Some similarity is almost unavoidable as their costume and name are pretty much from the same source. However, to give her the same hair style, color and mask was something that could have been easily modified. With Broad Stripe, I don’t know if it was meant to be a pun or not, but as “broad” is a somewhat crass slang word for “woman”, the name is not really flattering. And, considering who she is supposed to be, a little uncharacteristic. It’s not a name that a woman would choose for herself.

This is an old-school mini-series. It’s not tied to any mega-event. It uses continuity and plays with it, but everything you really need to know is covered in-story. And, despite playing with an alternate time-line, it’s not really about rewriting present continuity and history to suit the writer’s preferences. The characters are all on model. It’s accessible to new readers while showing off the rich tapestry of the Marvel U. and the role Captain America plays in it. Most of all, the title is fun, enough so to make me actually enjoy Bucky-Cap for once.

John Byrne’s Next Men
The last two issues didn’t really work for me. The penultimate issue explores the life of Gillian, the Next Man who only exists as a separate consciousness in other people’s bodies. The issue speeds forwards through generations as it shows the different lives (s)he led, usually staying with a body for years until eminent death or circumstances require that Gillian move on. As such, the reader is really only shown two points in each life, the point that (s)he moves in and the point (s)he moves out.
This issue would be the best place to really explore why Gil is obsessed with changing the past, mostly to wipe out Sathanas’ existence. But, it doesn’t do that. In fact, other than a single war, humanity’s future and Gil’s present does not seem that bleak and Sathanas’ impact seems minimal. After doing a great job in past issues of showing bleak and barbaric moments of humanity, the issue is one of relative peace of people living their ordinary lives. Sathanas is not mentioned at all.

The final issue actually mentions Sathanas and touches on that history. There’s a brief aside as Jazz flees to the past to meet with an older Jack and we see Tony one more time. Other than that and Jazz’ ultimate decision to not travel with Nathan and Beth to the past to undo Sathanas’ time loop, there is no actual hiccup to the plan. Everything goes exactly according to plan without a hitch. This makes for a final issue that’s full of great character moments and characters not necessarily making the decisions you’d expect but is otherwise very lackluster and boring in the plotting. There’s no real story twist or even feeling of personal danger or jeopardy to the plan succeeding. Even Jazz’ decision is admitted to not really changing or jeopardizing things as she didn’t really have a role to play. It would be more dangerous if she went and decided at the last moment to not risk non-existence and started fighting Nathan and Beth, trying to prevent changing the past. Instead, she just simply takes herself out of the equation.

Then you have the whole thing ending there, at the moment that time has been changed. Of course this leads into the next series titled “Aftermath” but I still feel a bit cheated as to not knowing even in general terms what any repercussions are for their actions. Does Aldus become Sathanas another way (maybe the whole time loop just made the transition easier and cleaner than his original history)? We know through Nathan’s experiences in WWII Germany the doctor that created the Next Men was already doing research in that area before the involvement of Sathanas and his examination of Nathan may have set off other changes. There’s Mark IV and Cornelius Van Damme to consider. And, poor Jack was just simply wiped from existence. I am content to know that a lot of that may be answered in the next series, but just felt that if the story is going to end with them changing time, we should see some little hint of what that actually resulted in, at least on the personal level.

Everything we’ve seen was to build towards this moment. But, while the first Next Men arc was largely about Sathanas, this one hasn’t been and it’s been too long between arcs. It fails to build the case in the readers’ minds why it’s necessary to stop Sathanas as opposed to Christopher Columbus’ trip to the New World or Hitler or Genghis Khan or World War I. It then fails to show or even suggest any of the fallout of the characters’ actions. And, it fails to provide any twists or real jeopardy to the plan, which might allow for the other shortcomings. If carrying off the plan has significant problems and jeopardy, the success of the mission is a reasonable resolution because the story is “a caper”. But, even though there’s this massive explosion in the end, it ends with a whimper, not a bang.

There’s also problems with Gil’s plan. While Nathan and Beth are given a cover story, it isn’t one that actually will bear up under any kind of scrutiny. This is Antarctica. You don’t have unknown helicopters with unknown persons on board crashing. Every person on the ice or flying over it is known by someone or some agency. Especially two people carrying quite a bit of cash on them. The holes in their story and that much cash would be uncovered before they ever have a chance to leave the continent.

Kirby’s Genesis
This is a schizophrenic book and my feelings are likewise divided. Busiek excels at and delivers the common man feel and characterization of the main viewpoint characters. The Kirby characters are kept mostly intact and delivered in proper grandiose style (although I don’t like the Secret City heroes neon lit black costumes, the premise is this is the characters as Kirby designed them, go ahead and give them to us).

Part of the problem is the plotting. There’s a lot of effort of presenting an everyday world and then all this madness hits at one time. Silver Star is rumored to have existed before but is just now being confirmed. Confirmed sightings of Thunderfoot aka bigfoot. The discovery of the Secret City and its heroes. Space heroes and villains suddenly popping up all over the globe. Etc. I am sure it’s supposed to be part of the plot but it serves as a dividing wall between the reality of the everyday world and the Kirby world. No time is really spent on developing any of the ideas other than to seemingly throw them at the reader as fast as possible.

The viewpoint characters are distractions and annoying (doesn’t help that the central character is visibly based on an actor whose whiny nasally voice and emoting makes him almost as annoying as Woody Allen) especially when they break the fourth wall, thus breaking even the relative realism they already exist in. Characterization and relationships between the characters are great, but it should come through the scenes and the action and the plotting, not through expositional scenes of the characters addressing the reader. Leave those out and get to the actual characters and plots that we are chunking our money down to see.

The artwork carries the schizophrenia through. It’s hard to tell just how much is Alex Ross’ underlying pencil or Jackson Herbert’s re-penciling and slightly too heavy inks. The realistic sections are done well. The grandiose, fantastic parts are done well. But, the two don’t really jibe together well here. It may be because the story itself is already setting up that wall between the real world and the unreality of the superhero world and it just carries through with the artwork.

Kirby drew the epic as if it was everyday stuff. But, he also drew the everyday as if it was epic. Under Kirby’s hand, ramshackle buildings, ill-fitting clothes and garbage was larger than life. There was a consistency of style and approach. Thus, when police officer Dan Turpin battles Kalibak in an effort to arrest him, you believe it and you feel it. I think that’s why this misses when it does. Kirby gave everything the same level of realism and convinced you of the central integrity of his vision and world. The gods talked in grandiose ways but they struggled with love and fitting in. They felt as real as the everyday people. Kirby dealt with the clash of the fantastic with the everyday, but there wasn’t a lot of naval gazing about it, as usually there was some war or cosmic event occurring. So far, this is about the unreality of it all as if there needs to be an explanation for the presence of all these disparate characters, acknowledging the unreality of magic, super-science, etc in a real world situation. That’s not really what I buy superhero comics for.

I’m willing to cut a little slack, because I get so few comics and this is still better than most out there. It’s still with good guys who are good, and bad guys who are bad while being true to the vision of Kirby without simply being a pastiche of his surface style. The characterization is strong, and it’s setting up a world of wonder and possibility without resorting to graphic violence or language. Sophisticated without being crass. And, the book has the hurdle that it is introducing a ton of characters in a very short span of time. It's better than the dark superhero comics offered by the other companies, and better by far than the decompressed storytelling that plagues most of Dynamite's Comics. If the plot is slow in developing it's in part because there's so many characters and concepts to set up. The chance to see so many of Kirby’s characters and creativity, even if distilled through other hands is too good a chance to simply pass up.

Mystery Men
Another mini-series by Marvel, this one explores several masked men coming together in the 1930s America. As the name implies, this group draws largely from the heroes and adventurers of the pulps. David Liss does a good job at credibly reproducing the time and attitudes and a story that straddles the world of the pulp heroes with that of the Marvel U. and a modern look at the attitudes.

The central character in many ways is the man known as The Operative. Born of wealth and privilege, he carries a certain amount of guilt in the time of the Great Depression. Part of it is knowing what kind of man his father is and him setting out to be the opposite. So, he steals from the wealthy in order to give money to the needy. But, when he’s framed for the murder of his fiancé, to prove his innocence he ends up teaming up with a group of odd would-be heroes and adventurers: The Aviatrix, inventor and sister of his fiancé; The Revenant, African-American stage-magician turned masked man; the Surgeon, a doctor horribly scarred and driven insane by the actions of the cabal they are up against and who has a case of hero worship of the masked men; and Achilles, an archaeologist hired to find an artifact and discovers himself thrust into the role of hero with fantastic powers but at great cost.
Liss is primarily a novelist and maybe it’s because of that background and writing in comics for almost the first time that the mini-series does have the few faults it does.

The problem is that everything is actually too tight and neat, many things presented in the most obvious and simplistic terms that betrays an artificiality to the world he is setting up as if he is giving us a shorthand version of world creation because there’s not enough space to develop further. First the names. Other than Achilles, all of the names betray the hand of a single creator not giving too much thought to it or used to developing colorful code-names. The pulps gave us the Shadow, the Spider, Doc Savage, Thunder Jim Wade, G-8, The Phantom, The Green Ghost, Domino Lady, Black Bat, Park Avenue Hunt Club, Secret Six, the Green Lama, the Picaroon, the Crimson Clown, etc. What we have here are not names, but generic titles, one word descriptions and not identities. They come across more like names given to serial killers on “Criminal Minds”. Even the title “Mystery Men” becomes the default name of this specific group as opposed to a general term applied to a larger sampling. Keep in mind, this is the Marvel Universe. They have seen masked heroes before, in the Old West and in WWI.

In the case of the Operative, the name doesn’t even make sense. According to the notes, the name is meant to reflect the Continental Op, and in the backdrop of the pulps, the name conjures up the likes of Agent “X”, Operator 5, Secret Agent X-9, G-8 and so on. Only, he’s not a masked spy, freelance or otherwise. He is actually drawn from the likes of characters written by Frank Packard, Frederick Davis and Johnston McCully: a crook who breaks the law in order to serve a greater justice.

According to this story, all cops are corrupt or at best, lazy. Again, this makes the world seem smaller and obviously being viewed by someone writing today. It’s an easy shorthand and able to paint the heroes as being obviously right and not worry about the dangers of fighting cops.

The General, the bad guy is then linked to the Operative. Makes it easy to connect the dots and solve the mystery when the heroes already know the identity of the man behind it all.

The latest issue then has the one white woman hooking up with the single African-American guy who she’s known for just days at best. Again, it’s too easy and obvious to go for that particular race card. And, it just happens without any build-up of any romance between the two, that all happens off panel.

The Revenant himself is a bit of conflicting. It’s interesting to do a reverse-Shadow, an African-American dressed all in white. However the writer of the Shadow and several other pulp writers were magicians and understood magic. They could convince us of reality of what the heroes did, when they used magic tricks to pull off their stunts. Again, here Liss seems to use the stage magic background as a shorthand to explain things without actually selling it to the reader. How does a man dress in white sneak up on people at night and attack from clouds? How does he present multiple images of himself in the Operative’s apartment? The idea of the character and his background is interesting. He falls down as being presented as being credible.

But these are minor quibbles against the backdrop of the story and comic itself. The story is intriguing. Since Liss is a novelist and not someone whose credentials are primarily writing comics, he delivers an actual story. Despite being set in the past and in the Marvel Universe, it’s not actually about continuity and comicbook history. The heroes are active and pro-active though most are driven by circumstances to become heroes. The villain is frightening. The third issue cranks up the danger as the supernatural elements come into play and the heroes are suddenly out of their depth. Against normal crooks and men, they excel but actual horrors are another thing entirely. It is taking what was part pulp and weird menace and reminding the reader this is the Marvel Universe. Things like this can and do happen. But, it doesn’t break the mood and atmosphere of the story that is being crafted by Liss and ably executed by Patrick Zircher. The world has corruption and is dark and dangerous, but it’s not a cynical or dark comic. The heroes are less than perfect without actually having the concept of heroes being mocked or treated cynically. It understands that not all pulp or crime stories need to be urbane or noir just as all horror stories need not be gore fests (a distinction that many “pulp comic” fans don’t seem able to make).

Something that struck me interesting was that in many ways, this story could easily be set in the modern day. The issues and themes that root this story in its time, racial and class inequality, the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer, economic downturns and future instability at home and wars and unrest abroad, they are all elements that would make the same story and the pulp heroes relevant today. Maybe that’s part of the reason why we’re seeing a resurgence in popularity and interest in them.

Aquaman already sinking

2011-08-15T15:23:00.000-04:00

I was actually looking forward to the Aquaman book. Not crazy about the trident, mind you. Afraid it will be like Bucky and guns. What good is a weapon if he's not going to use it and often? I should listen to my inner voice more often, as this cover for issue 3 shows.

And, my interest just dropped, seeing Aquaman spearing a foe through the chest with blood spurting out in both directions, and on the cover no less. The cover could be just as interesting and far more all-ages appropriate with him just fighting them off with his fists, without the gratuitous depiction of lethal violence BY THE HERO! And, if you don't know what Mera's powers are, you'd have no clue what she's doing in that pic as she doesn't seem to be interacting with that arc of water at all which is taking out a foe she's not even looking at.

Welcome to the new DC, same as the old DC. Bleh.

Canterbury Cricket - How not to write a one-shot

2011-06-29T19:05:00.000-04:00

So, not really interested in the Flashpoint event overall, but I thought the Canterbury Cricket looked pretty cool and it's a one-shot so I thought it would be a safe purchase. I was wrong.

The story starts off as a small crew of UK Resistance fighters are fighting against the Amazons. The crew consisting of Godiva, the Demon, a Ms. Hyde and a green ghoul girl are in over their heads until they are rescued by the strange Canterbury Cricket. While waiting for the leader of the resistance that they are supposed to meet, the Cricket regales them with his origin story. Even this extended flashback hinges on the plot of the Amazons vs. Atlantis storyline of other Flashpoint minis. It's a somewhat comic tragic origin of an aspiring conman and hustler who gets caught up in an attack by the Amazons as they invade England. Everyone he knows quickly dies as he runs away, seeking refuge in Canterbury Cathedral. A cricket chirping leads him to the skull of a saint interred there. When the church is destroyed, the boy somehow finds himself a humanoid cricket. Thinking he's been given a second chance and a holy mission, he joins up with some other bug themed characters (Jaimie Reyes Blue Beetle, Firefly, Queen Bee and a new one to me, Cockroach) to fight the Amazons. They are quickly killed and he's again fleeing for his life. Then he meets up with this new band and just as a character seems to get close to him, she's skeletonized by attacking Amazons. This is where it ends, with a blurb to get more of the story, get the Flashpoint Lois Lane comic.

This is what doesn't give me much hope for the future reboot. Even going into it, we have the same storytelling philosophies of past events and such. A one-shot should be largely self-contained. This one is not, it's barely a teaser, spending all the time explaining the character's origin and motivation and establishing the backdrop of the Amazon-Atlantis War as it pertains to England. It tells us what the story should and could be, but it's really just delivering background information via exposition. The origin story could be interesting but it's presentation as a flashback tale robs it of power and any real conflict. It tells us who the character is and what he's about, but with no conflict there's no actual story there. There's something comically tragic in a scoundrel and coward who seems to want to be a hero but has everyone around him continually getting killed and him just barely surviving each time by running away. One would almost think that his whole thinking of a Holy Mission could be delusion or simple desire on his part to see meaning and redemption of the events. Except, of course, that Etrigan smells the stink of holiness about him, suggesting that he's indeed the victim of some holy intervention and not just a weird Kafka turn in a world already gone insane. The ultimate effect is that the comic is mostly a non-story by itself, more of a side chapter introducing characters that will play a role in a larger story that's being told in other books.

Forget a Reboot, can we get a Reset?

2011-06-02T18:12:00.002-04:00

I was in Target the other day, getting some dental floss and fishing line, but otherwise browsing. Takes me about 30 minutes, my wife 3 hours and then she can go back in a week. Me? I'm good for a month. Anywho, I'm cutting through the aisles from the back of the store and end up going through stuff for school kids where I see a couple of floppy binders for papers based on comics. One is Wonder Woman. The other is the Justice League. Only, it's a Justice League cover by Perez from 1983! It includes some other marketing artwork from about the same time (judging by the appearance of Starfire). The source of the Wonder Woman artwork is not readily apparent, but the design also places it from about the same time period.

It highlights a problem with much of the DC comics. Here's material marketed for kids. But, it's material from almost three decades ago! Makes sense, because that's the last time that most of these characters still looked iconic. Hawkman hadn't been changed to wearing body armor with mechanical wings. Firestorm hadn't gone through his transformation into a fire elemental, much less other changes. Aquaman hadn't had worn his blue costume much less grown long hair, a beard, lose a hand and become the sour underwater character. Hal Jordan hadn't yet gone crazy and been replaced nor taken on the job of the Spectre. Elongated Man hadn't gone through a succession of bad costumes, was still alive and not more or less replaced by Plastic Man. The Atom was still happily married and the second and latest person to make use of the name.

Marketing obviously recognized something that the people writing the comics don't. Building a brand demands a bit of consistency. Not knocking creativity and trying different things, but there's inherent problems when trying to shake things up and write creative stories. If you go too far, change too much, you weaken the brand. Take Aquaman. When fans talk about what they think it will take to make the character successful and what they want out of the character, it's divided. Some people want the pre-Crisis Aquaman. Others want the Peter David version. In an effort to modernize the character and get away from the jibes the character often gets, the David version ultimately proved polarizing. It was good for short-term sales, but now it's an "either-or" proposition. Despite the acclaim of David's series, the Aquaman that's marketable is the one in orange and green. Kyle Raynor as Green Lantern did the same thing for that franchise. You can see the polarizing of fans over Blue Beetle and Firestorm, only with the added fuel of racism charges if you so happen to like the original versions over the newer ones. Or those that like Morrison's Doom Patrol versus the ones that didn't. Truman and Ostrander's Hawkworld proved to be damaging to the whole concept of the DCU as a shared continuity that the character nor company fully recovered from.

I'm not saying that the modern versions were badly done. But, they were badly thought out. When Superman became the electric blue Superman, it wasn't thought to be permanent. Likewise the death of Superman that launched several new characters. They were temporary changes to the status quos that allowed some character exploration. When John Walker took over the identity of Captain America while Steve became the Captain, it was obviously nothing more than a chapter in the ongoing story. Status quos were reset in about a year's time or less. Peter David claims that he was going to restore Aquaman's status quo when he was done, but there was no sign of that in the actual book. When Morrison was done with the Doom Patrol, every previous member was dead or completely changed into an unrecognizable character and the team hasn't been able to recover.

DC seemed to recognize that a little bit. Hal Jordan was made Green Lantern again. Barry Allen returned as the Flash. Somewhere, Ray Palmer is the Atom. Recently Aquaman was brought back in his green & orange suit. Hawk and Dove returned. But, for each course correction we get Firestorm struggling out a compromise solution between the Ronnie Raymond and Jason Rusch fans. PC versions of the Question and Blue Beetle. Roy Harper (Speedy/Arsenal) becoming villainous and a cyborg. Green Arrow killing criminals again, still ruining his relationship with Black Canary. Hawkman maiming opponents. Wonder Woman gets a badly designed costume. Superman and Batman both absent from their core books for extended period of time at the same time. Redesigned and "revamped" versions of the Red Circle and pulp heroes to the point they have little to nothing in common with the source material.

So, I was thinking, "What DC needs is a reboot of all characters to about the 1983 continuity."
I was a bit surprised when it was announced that DC was indeed rebooting their line. With talk of making characters a bit younger, stories accessible. Sadly, it also carried buzzwords like "modern". In fact, what makes sense about saying Jim Lee is going to redesign 52 characters so that they are more modern and recognizable? How do you redesign Wonder Woman, the Flash, Superman or Batman to make them MORE recognizable? The very nature of redesigning an iconic look is the EXACT OPPOSITE of their proposed intent. Then, there's the inherent conflict of goals. Making something modern doesn't make something necessarily recognizable. As I started off with, the problem is that DC has some iconic designs, but they and Hollywood seem intent on moving AWAY from them when what they need to do is move back towards them. The designs of the characters have stood the test of time for decades with minimal tweaking. I have no problem with redesigns, if the character truly needs it. But, the goal shouldn't be MODERN. It should be TIMELESSNESS. There's a reason when talking about character designs, people mention words like "iconic" and "classic". Most costumes are iconic because they are timeless. This usually means there's a simplicity and instantly identifiable and reproducible elements to the costume. Don't know who said it, but a comment I liked was a good costume should generally be akin to one that an eight year old can reproduce in his own drawings. The recent Doom Patrol relaunch had new uniforms for the team, with piping and such. Not bad designs per se, but instantly forgettable in they were not only generic but needlessly busy with extraneous details. When redesigning costumes, one should look at a few factors. Has this costume been worn for two decades or more and do you understand the difference between "classic" and "dated"? Was it designed by Gil Kane/Steve Ditko/Jack Kirby/Dave Cockrum? If the answer is "yes" to either of these, then the answer to redesigning the costume should 95% of the time be "Hell no".

The other problem is that they have ONE artist and writer redesigning the line. On the artist end, it's an artist whose last design has met a lot of resistance and who has yet to produce a design that can be said to stand the test of time. Not to say he isn't talented and produces pretty pictures. But, a less than zero track record. On the writer end... the concept of a "planned" shared universe just doesn't work. Every company that has tried to launch a planned universe with a central vision has ultimately failed. EVERY. ONE. Valiant. Dark Horse. Marvel's New Universe. Malibu (with two different universes). Defiant. DC doesn't even have to look any further than last year with their Pulp and Red Circle launches. Yes, I know. Red Circle was within the context of their regular Universe, but it was still formed, linked and sold on mainly one man's name who had nothing to do with it after creating the bible and the first issues. Not saying go in without a plan. But, what made DC and Marvel work was that it was organic. Continuity was built by telling stories, usually trying not to conflict with events elsewhere. It wasn't about continuity in and of itself. However, launches like this ARE about continuity, even when it's trashing old continuity and establishing new ones. (There actually is ONE exception: Marvel's Ultimate line which is still going strong. However, it's a shared universe that is built on the concept of a previous one, not an all new continuity. Even when it's going somewhere different, it cannot help but be a reflection of the main line. I don't read the comics, but I've never seen any advertising for pushing a NEW character in the Ultimate Universe that didn't already exist elsewhere.) Unless you're Kirby, one creator generally doesn't have that much creative variety in him to really fuel a whole universe. And, even Kirby's Fourth World books didn't succeed.

The first descriptions and covers of the relaunched titles further shows that while they seem to recognize that the line has problems, characters too convoluted and written into corners to the point of not being viable, they don't seem to realize the source of the problem. From indicators, Captain Atom has nothing to do with any previous version, visually or story wise. Striving for a compromise with Firestorm, he is now Ronnie Raymond AND Jason Rusch who are high school buddies. The Hawkman description tells us a little about Carter Hall but not anything about Hawkman himself, other than it seems to be an all new take on the character with some nods to original elements. It was messing with the concepts to begin with that lead to he mess we're in. It's partly why Red Circle and the pulp line failed as it sacrificed built in readership and built in character identification. It's why Target has binders with artwork of the characters as they were 30 years ago. Green Arrow and Mr. Terrific sound like they could be all right, but the redesigns are horrible. The latter looks like he stole a costume from the Emo-LSH and reflects none of the character's legacy and history, but otherwise he didn't need a new universe setting to launch a book. It looks more like change for change sake in his case. Green Arrow's costume looks like it came from Hollywood and is overly busy and looks fated for early shredding and return to a more classic look. The fact that Green Arrow has been written into corners twice now by being taken too far from center and requiring a resetting and looking at what's being solicited with other heroes, doesn't bode well that the creators have learned anything from the past.

If anything, the ability to reboot and reset seems to allow writers the freedom to continually move characters in extreme directions as well as the freedom to just ignore or contradict what a previous creator wrote just last month. Every writer that came along felt the need to redefine or rewrite the origin of Powergirl, Donna Troy. Or a new Legion of Superheroes every couple of years after previous writers kill off several characters. We're not seeing anything in the new reboot that DC has learned from that, instead just the opposite. With new and ugly designs, more casual rewriting of some pasts and leaving some in place (such as Blackest Night), it's setting up for more of the same mistakes they've been making and the problems that have plagued DC since post-Crisis on Infinite Earths. The exact opposite from what they need if the goal is to make the characters memorable. Want them to be memorable, don't make long term lasting changes every time the wind blows. Get back to telling compelling action and adventure stories using continuity as a tool and backdrop but not making the stories be about continuity. The one book that looks the most appealing to me is Aquaman. In part because his costume is the least re-designed although now he seems to be incomplete unless he's carrying a trident weapon, much as Bucky now must always be shown with a gun. Ironically, the title will be by the artist I took to task for not knowing how to draw gloves and drawing his gloves inconsistently from one panel to the next.

The Firestorm description makes me wonder if Blue Beetle will be the same. I think we can safely assume it's NOT going to be Ted Kord, the question is will he still be dead, a mentor to Jaimie or just written out of continuity altogether?

Thor Movie

2011-05-29T00:03:00.000-04:00

Went and saw the Thor movie on Mother's Day. With wife, brother and mother! We all enjoyed the movie for the most part. I think it was a good movie, that could've been great. The acting, especially of Thor and Loki were superb and fit their roles very well.. I liked the guy playing Fandral, the several quick scenes managed to capture his swashbuckling attitude and he comes off more memorable than the other warriors three. A little more work to get the scope and scale of The Lord of the Rings and the movie could have transcended good to great. Right now, it's around the same level of The Shadow movie or the FF movies. It did some things better, some things worse. Definitely better than Daredevil or X-Men though.

The story of the movie presents the Norse gods and their foes as alien beings, not true gods. What was construed as magic is really just super advanced science. After a few Frost Giants are caught skulking through the Asgardian equivalent of the warehouse at the end of Raiders, Thor is eager to take battle to them despite a long-standing peace treaty between them and the Asgardians. Balked by his father, he leads a small group into the world of the Frost Giants and almost gets them all killed. Enraged, his father Odin strips him of his powers and banishes him to Earth to learn humility. Almost immediately Odin falls into a coma like state called "Odin sleep" and Loki takes the crown and schemes to keep Thor on Earth. On Earth, Thor meets up with Jane Foster and a few other scientists in a small town in New Mexico and runs afoul of SHIELD agents who take possession of his hammer which no one can lift and is played off in terms of the sword Excalibur.

Going in to the movie, it generated some controversy buzz over the casting of Idris Elba, an African American actor as the Norse god Heimdall. While he does a fine job, it's stupid stunt casting. It's an adaptation of a comic which is based on Nordic myths. Is he black in the comics (or Hogun an Asian)? In the mythology, is it likely the Norse would create a black god and then give him the name "White God"? Would you want a blond, blue-eyed caucasian playing an Egyptian or Indian god with no make-up to make him look like the ethnicity of the character he's playing? It's stupid and pandering casting. There are several characters created for the movie that could have been black such as any of Jane Foster's crew, a new SHIELD agent in charge of retrieving the hammer. That said, I like the scenes with Heimdell in them, especially the interplay between him and Loki considering that come Ragnarok, they are fated to slay each other.

In fact, in talking about race, they are in New Mexico but we see no Native Americans, no Hispanics. The town is little more than a set piece with absolutely no character, chosen because it's remote but otherwise has no identity or story purpose and is apparently all white. Making the choices to make a couple of Norse gods racial minorities even more tokenism.

Quibbles:
- Frost Giants. Seemed to change sizes from scene to scene. Some were no larger than the humans, others around eight or ten feet tall, but no explanation on discrepancies.
- Warriors Three: Not really enough effort to give them distinctive looks beyond their faces. Fandral should be in green and leathers, Volstagg in loud and brash colors, Hogun all dark and regal. Kirby was great at giving totally creative designs for his characters, here most characters look like they are all wearing the same basic armor. Even Loki. He has the helmet but otherwise looks much like the others.
-Climactic Battles: Not so climactic. After all the build-up, Thor takes out the Destroyer rather easily and quickly (and they managed to evacuate the town very quickly). Loki vs Thor in final battle doesn't seem much like a match-up. Maybe if we saw him use other powers other than illusion and the spear. After all, Loki was a shape-changer and god of fire as well. What were the Warriors Three and Sif doing once they got back to Asgard? Should have been a full on Frost Giant invasion and seen gods right and left fighting with Thor and Loki in the middle of it all. As it is, it pales in comparison to the earlier foray into the land of the Frost Giants. It feels that somewhere along the way, the budget was exceeded and many things got rushed and glossed over during the second half of the movie.
-Romance with Jane Foster: Just seemed to come from nowhere. The movie ends with them pining for each other, but really the story doesn't develop an actual romance between them or even a relationship beyond an alliance due to overlapping goals.There's no real chemistry between them as a couple as opposed to Thor and Sif. Are we supposed to just simply accept that since they are the leads, they are supposed to be a couple, that the writer and director don't have to do any work?

-Dismissing magic and myth as superstition of primitive people. It takes away a bit of the scope and grandeur of the comic character. Magic is actually treated contradictory. Thor claims to the Asgardians, what we call science and magic are the same. Yet, Loki is also referred to as using magic, implying that magic then is not the same, that there is a distinction between his abilities and others. Also by ridding themselves of magic, they pretty much rid themselves of the one thing that distinguishes Kirby's treatment of Thor and the Asgardians from his work on The New Gods, The Eternals or Starlin's Kirby riffs with Thanos and the Titans. His work on Thor had a culture that developed science AND magic (which isn't the same as claiming they are the same), the others are of races and beings so advanced that their science was indistinguishable from magic to more primitive races.
-Loki's story is some of the best parts of the movie but it's also inherently flawed, a huge contradiction. A lot of effort is made to dismiss the myth aspects of the Asgardians, to call attention to the fact these beings are who the myths are based on, though some details are not the same, that the myths are simply tall tales, such as the story of Odin losing his eye. However, some of the myths describe Loki as being of the giants and not Asgardian. The myths tell us that Loki starts off as a god of mischief, but grows increasingly dangerous and evil and will in the future betray Asgard and that this should be common knowledge to the gods. To accept that the myths are simply stories written centuries ago about these real beings manage to get so much wrong but accurately get secret details concerning Loki as well as predict his future behavior is a sking the audience to buy a huge coincidence that he just happens to follow the same path told about him in the stories and for some of the same motivations. On the other hand, there would be no contradiction if that part of the story occurred during the times of the vikings and thus became the basis of the myths, and in the present day he's a known villain to the Asgardians.

Has me looking forward to the Green Lantern movie. Which is interesting, because at one time I would have said the hardest movies to do would be Thor, Green Lantern and Fantastic Four.What we're seeing now is that the special effects and capabilities are there to do these movies. We just need directors that actually trust the source material and deliver decent scripts and stories now.

The Spider in Comics.

2011-04-02T19:45:00.000-04:00

The Spider - Thanks to Chuck Wells for recommending this title by Moonstone. I've not been enamored with their illustrated prose versions and the Spider is a really difficult character to capture in comic form. But this issue with a cover by Dan Bereton and story by Martin Powell and Pablo Marcos really manages to deliver the goods. Likewise is a slightly re-done version of Mark Wheatley's Spider comic story "Burning Lead for the Walking Dead". Both stories feature the Spider against incredible odds and monstrous foes, both physically and psychologically. A secret to the Spider pulps, the extremes his foes go to in their campaign for fortunes and power justify his own extreme response. No one questions John McClane's sanity in the "Die Hard" movies, we accept that he's in bad situation and his response is justified for saving many innocent lives. The same is true for the Spider. And, these two comics deliver that.

Wheatley's comic is longer and is especially strong. His artwork at times reminds of the stylish Tim Sale. Out of his Spider garb and in tattered shirt, Wentworth looks like he could hold his own against Doc Savage. Many elements of the pulps find their way into the comic and as a stand-alone, it works as a very good comic pastiche of the pulp hero. Anyone that likes it should probably try out the pulp stories that inspired it. As an added bonus, Wheatley talks in the back how the story came about and his love for the character and pulps (constrast that with how Azzarello talked about Doc Savage and the pulps).

The Powell Spider comic also has a back-up, in this case the start of a story of Operator 5. It does little to really define the character and he's one of the few pulp heroes I've yet to be able to get into. I have several reprints but I've never been able to finish one of his adventures. This back-up is about the same in that regards, I couldn't really get into it or read it straight through without it being a chore.

John Byrne's Next Men # 34: This comic continues to be a tour-de-force. Again, the story starts in a way that intentionally keeps the reader a little off balance as it does not directly tie into cliffhanger of the previous issue, but instead is telling a "present day" story that is seemingly at odds with the events of the previous issues. As it nears the end, it becomes readily apparent at what's being set up as some motivations come clearer.

The artwork is top-notch. My only complaint is where the coloring is used to illustrate the lava that swallows Bethany. It's obviously computerized and is at complete odds with the style and relative realism of the rest of the artwork. It's not coloring complementing the line work but taking over the role of the line work in that regard. It's a mish-mash of style.

Thunderstrike #4: This mini rocks towards its final issue and despite being the next to last issue, the issue doesn't lag as many comics do at this point. Partly because DeFalco knows how to tell a story on two different levels. On one hand, this is about a man coming to understand his deceased father and coming to terms with his leaving him and what it was that made him a hero. It's a teen-ager learning how to be a man. On the other hand, it's a superhero story and so we have a villain's master planning that has gone haywire. There's plenty of action, and while one threat is dealt with, an even larger one emerges that young Kevin Masterson realizes that he must somehow handle. We see him finally learning hard lessons that many have been trying to get through to him with the promise of a big fight the next issue and him showing just how much of a man he's finally become.

Adam Mann makes an interesting villain with interesting motivation, one that's fitting in a story with mythological overtones, he seems straight out of myth himself. Thus, its a bit sadness with his sudden end. Maybe he'll have a Jonah/Pinocchio experience and not as dire experience as it appears.

Oddly, the artwork is mostly inked by Sal Buscema, but in places it appears to be shot and colored straight from the pencils. Strange. Enjoyable nonetheless

---------

Recently read a story where Bryan Singer apologizes for the mistakes he made in his movie "Superman Returns". He apologizes for it being a bad movie and explains how it was intended to be a "romantic" superhero movie, one that would draw women in as well as a love letter to the Donner films with Christopher Reeve. I guess he thinks the romance women want is one of a lover (Superman) abandoning her while she gets pregnant and has to raise a kid on her own as well as her lover secretly spying on her. Singer doesn't apologize for how he turned Superman into an absentee deadbeat dad, voyeur and stalker. Nor the huge plot hole at the center (that Lois had sex with Superman and pregnant by him but doesn't remember that Superman is Clark Kent). Nor does he apologize for the horrible changes to the costume or having Brandon Routh not playing Clark Kent/Superman but Christopher Reeve playing Clark Kent/Superman.

The "Thor" and "Green Lantern" trailers look like fun superhero movies. Although, the changes to Green Lantern's costume really weaken a strong iconic design. But, the proper story elements all look to be in place. Not so much from the stills and interviews concerning "Captain America" and "Spider-man". There's one trailer of "Captain America" that at least looks good, watching Evans running around in action in a t-shirt and you can easily see Captain America. A pity it's all lost as soon as he puts on the baggy dyed army uniform that they've given him that's supposed to communicate a symbolic costume. I love the scene where he's got the shield and a rifle. Does he drop or toss the shield aside when he uses the rifle? Or toss the rifle when he wants to fight hand-to-hand while using the shield? If you're carrying a shield, you don't carry a two-handed weapon.

Smallville - They released images of an episode with Booster Gold and the new Blue Beetle. Booster looks like he's supposed to be a race car driver and not an actual superhero. The gold elements being obviously material and not metallic. And, how does the new Blue Beetle exist BEFORE the Dan Garrett and Ted Kord Blue Beetle? I imagine they'll probably explain it away as these are previously unknown heroes. However, this season has been weak by revealing these other previously unknown heroes that have existed and were active such as the JSA, that somehow no one has talked or known about. Hopefully, it will be more of Booster and Blue Beetle time-traveling from the near future, that Ted hasn't become Blue Beetle yet. And, it's yet another episode of other heroes telling Clark how he needs to be in the light and an inspiration for others, replacing the tired refrain of past seasons of everyone talking about Clark's "destiny". It's too much talking about being a legend instead of showing him doing things that are actually legendary and epic building. If you have to constantly remind the viewers why he's great instead of showing him as being great, you're doing something wrong. And, it lessens Clark to have everyone repeatedly tell him this instead of coming to the conclusion himself. It feels like a series just treading water, padding out the season instead of actually delivering some solid plots with scary powerful threats.

2011-02-25T19:56:00.002-05:00

One of the things that has bothered me about the recent depictions of Captain America was not the sudden shift in how Captain America's costume was drawn (with the mail armor being on the outside and covering just his chest and shoulders, and pouches on his belt), but the depictions became retroactive. And the costume underwent other changes. The boots, the pouches on the belt, the mask, and the "A" on the mask differed depending on which "realistic" artist was drawing. Since no one seems willing to call the artists to task on keeping the character actually on model, there's no consensus on just what constitutes Cap costume. For decades, artists had no problem with each drawing Captain America in keeping to his actual costume and still being true to their artistic vision. Now as shown in issue #616, the artist on the cover and the artists doing the interiors cannot even agree what Captain America's costume looks like.

Issue 616 is meant to be an artistic tour-de-force, yet the artists all are drawing different costumes. It's not merely artistic license, some of the artists are being more detailed than others, some depict his mask as a cowl another as a helmet, some are drawing plain leather belts vs the belt with pouches. One artist gets a pass in that at least the costume he's drawing is a variation of his first appearance with the triangular shield, but the others should all be the "same" costume and they clearly are not. I'm not saying we should go back to the days of having Neal Adams redrawing Kirby's faces of Superman, an artist should be able to express his style providing it's in keeping with the appropriate tone of the book, but the character should at least look "correct". Can you imagine a similar book starring Superman and each artist drew him with different belts and boots and chest emblems, but with all the stories taking place around the same time in his history (and none of them close to being accurate to how he was depicted during that time period).

Dwayne McDuffie Still a bit stunned by the death of Dwayne McDuffie. As a fan of golden-age comics, I'm not shocked when hearing of creators from the forties passing away. Heck, even many of the greats that came to prominence in the Silver-Age are at least in their late 50s now.

That his death came just as a big project of his was garnering press and about to come out makes it doubly tragic.

I won't say I was a huge fan. He was a name I recognized. And, I looked forward to his taking over the JLA book as his work on the JLU cartoon as writer and story editor showed a man that knew how to tell complete stories while layering in themes and subplots, so each story was enjoyable on its own but regular watchers/readers would be rewarded with more subtext and richness overall. But, otherwise, I cannot say I followed his writing with any great faithfulness.

Sadly, it didn't translate well to his work with the JLA book. A big part of that was that he was hampered first with subplots that the previous writer introduced but had no intention of staying on the book long enough to follow through on. And, when that was not dictating the shape of his stories, editorial fiat of who and who could not be on the team, of doing stories that would be continued in other books, and other crossover tie-ins (something he obviously disagreed with as he wrote a manifesto arguing against that very thing among others). He was sadly dumped from the book unceremoniously after he spoke out against editorial practices. This didn't seem to hurt his relationship with DC too much as he still worked on their animation projects such as the upcoming All-Star Superman animation video.

Reading his views on continuity and how it should probably be used is wonderfully insightful and funny. I have thought a similar thing myself in the last couple of years, but he was apparently arguing about it some time before even I came to that conclusion (though my buying was already reflecting it, as I was bailing on "family" books since it was impossible to get just one without a storyline suddenly arising that required buying the whole family of books).

One of the things I respect him for was his work on bringing more minority characters to comics, especially when he and a couple of other creators created the critically acclaimed Milestone Universe of characters published by DC Comics, being a showcase for various all-new non-cliche minority heroes as well as a place for minority creators to have a voice with characters that weren't mainly white heterosexual males. He and Milestone didn't merely champion minorities of their own cultural background, either, but worked for a better presence of minorities in general. He co-created Shadow Cabinet, a superhero group made up of multiple ethnicities and sexual persuasions. Milestone also published Xombi, created by John Rozum, featured an Asian American, one of the very few in comics, much less one in his own book. McDuffie would later use him in his Justice League book where in an alternate reality the character became Green Lantern, and a cool one at that. It's another one of the sad ironies, when he was doing the Justice League book, DC was talking about bringing the Milestone characters into the DCU continuity and back to prominence. But, other than a crossover with the League title and a mini, it's only now that several of the books are being solicited. Looking forward to Xombi myself.

An outspoken passion for the medium, always striving to move it forward and expanding the readership. Helping to open the way for creators and minority characters (mostly by creating NEW characters and riding the coat-tails of talent NOT the corpses of previous characters). And reaching out to kids and potential new readers though helping create hours of entertainment with superhero cartoons with solid quality writing. He died young, but what a legacy and challenge he leaves for the rest of us.

Byrne goes Jurassic!

2011-02-04T16:38:00.001-05:00

John Byrne currently has two mini-series out. One, the continuation of his independent series a while back Next Men. The other is a mini set in the Jurassic Park universe titled Jurassic Park: Devils in the Desert. While the latter naturally has dinosaurs, the former also featured a down covered Tyrannosaurus Rex who has eaten one of the central characters of the series! With the second issue of both out, Byrne reveals a talent that doesn't manifest itself very often: dialect.

I talked last time how in Spider-Girl we had a writer not only having Johnny Storm and Reed Richards talking in the same voice but used the exact same words! Byrne isn't one I normally associate with strong dialogue. Generally the opposite actually. His heroes often have a tendency to talk in a universal formally educated dialect of stilted dialogue. But, in the second issue of JBNM, we have the African American woman Tony thrust into the Civil War South, Nathan finds himself among soldiers of WWII, Jasmine is in Elizabethan England, while Jack is a priest some decades in the future. Not only does Byrne nail the atmosphere in the artwork, but he establishes each group with believable speech idioms and dialects. In "Devils in the Desert", the differences are a bit more subtle as almost all of the characters are from the same area of the American West. Indeed, there's even a clunky expositional "As you know, Bob..." type speech as the Sheriff explains his relationship and personal past to a deputy who should already be privy to the information unless one or the other is new to the area. Overall, though various characters show individual characteristics through the way they talk. It's no Coen Brothers film, but it's refreshing nonetheless.

Interesting to note, with the second issues of both comics, I had to wait a week to get a copy. As I moved, I go to a new store to pick up any comics I decide to get. With JBNM, they sold out, with "Devils in the Desert" they claim to have been shorted in their series. Might hold more weight with me if I hadn't on another occasion overhearing the owner talking with a customer, disparaging Byrne, his fans and his forum with half-truths and exaggerations.

In "Devils in the Desert", he includes a Native American deputy. Made me think that a comic featuring the modern American West with a Native American hero would be interesting. America is a big country and its different regions are micro-cultures amongst the larger landscape. Factor in Indian tribes and traditions, there could be fertile ground with the right writer and artist. Imagine Pow Wow Smith mystery series for DC or Red Wolf for Marvel. It was one of the neat things about Gerard Jones and Mike Parobeck's short-lived series El Diablo featuring an Hispanic-American hero in Texas that seemed to faithfully get across the sense of place and culture, something as important in that type of series as it is in a D&D fantasy story. Maybe moreso since you cannot simply make it up.

Black Terror by Dynamite is one of the last hanger-ons of my collecting. Partly because rumors of it being canceled. Plus, it has either been improving or the rest of the comics have denigrated so much, it's a mostly enjoyable series. The art has definitely improved somewhat. There's still stupid or bad writing. With issue 12, he gets a new sidekick called Parrot. Who or what she is, is unclear as she seems to be some sort of by-product of the flying pirate ship. Seriously, the pirate motif is way over-done, especially considering how wrong-headed it is to begin with. It obviously springs from what the creators want his costume to symbolize over the character's actual background and history. He wears the skull and crossbones because he was a pharmacist and it's the symbol for poison. Expanding on the character should build on that, not from what we associate Skull and Crossbones with and is all the rage right now.

The writer does seem to have plans on moving the character to center. Since the beginning, he's been angry and belligerent but in the last two issues we see there's a Dr. Bob Benton also walking around, maybe he's a fractured soul (though issue 13 calls him Benson several times even as the character is sporting a name-tag to the contrary). We also get several Nedor Villains appearing although substantially changed from their GA appearances: Red Ann, Lady Serpent, a Nazi Torchman, and Electru. The writer doesn't do much to flesh them out though, they are just hirelings. All new guys? Old ones somehow still around? It's a shame because the original Red Ann wasn't really a villain and is one of the better written and drawn GA Black Terror stories. Should be noted that only Red Ann and Lady Serpent were Black Terror villains. Electru faced Doc Strange and the Nazi Torch I think was an American Eagle villain. Also, the Nazi Torch has a flame thrower attached to his forehead. Terror cuts it off and chides him for having it as his nose? I know he hangs around with superheroes and not normal people all the time, but seriously, how many people does he know with noses above their eyes? Another bit of writing that makes no sense, the Black Terror meets up with a character calling himself Black Satan. Terror recognizes him as being someone he met during the War, only that guy was a hero. Thing is, the original Black Satan looked nothing like this guy, this guy looking like an all black devil complete with pitchfork while the original wore a loose fitting white shirt, tight red pants and sported a domino mask. Nothing particularly black or Satan abut him. Terror might recognize the name, but he wouldn't find the guy looking familiar at all. I think they have gotten so caught up in re-designing and re-imagining characters willy nilly, they forget that at one time, these guys are supposed to have looked and acted like they did in the comics originally.

There are also cameos of sorts of a lot of characters we haven't seen since the early issues of the first "Superpowers" mini: Airman, Man O'Metal, Flintman, Martan (I think), Amazing Man, etc.

Hester seems to be the go-to guy to take over series that star-creators start but don't stick with. He's taking over for Kevin Smith's Green Hornet series, JMS' Wonder Woman, of course picking up the Black Terror from Alex Ross and Jim Krueger.

Time Masters: Sadly, my last DCU comic for the foreseeable future had to be the final issue of this mess of a mini-series. It started off with a mediocre premise but with some classic Silver Age and Bronze Age characters looking pretty nifty that it over-rode my internal warning bells, thinking there could be something fun in this. Should have listened. The art was inconsistent, looking like a bad Jurgens impersonation over the course of the series, there was no real central plot or story despite the premise (which wasn't really the plot or story, just the device to get the heroes together).We get an explanation of sorts that makes no sense in the final issue as to motivations of the the Black Beetle but there is still no story to it. And, all the talk about the destruction of Vanishing Point over the first half of the mini is solved by sci-fi magic as if no big deal all along. Even Rip Hunter's exposition seems to acknowledge that this was just a big waste of time. Oh, and there's a big reveal at the end that you can tell was supposed to be a surprise, but no effort was really made to set it up beyond the final issue.Oh, and the whole purpose of the Reverse Flash the last issue and this was so this could lead into/tease the next big event. If it didn't cost me money, I'd just mail the issues to DC with a note saying I didn't want them stinking up my collection and I don't want simply my money back, but the money spent on gas driving to the store and the time wasted reading it. If you are going to produce such a waste of non-story, at least follow the example of DCU Legacies and put some top creative artists on some of the issues to make the pictures nice to look at.

Hornets, Spiders, and Vampires, oh my.

2011-01-18T17:16:00.000-05:00

Green Hornet Remastered: There are really only two things to recommend for these books. One, the wonderful covers by Joe Rubinstein that capture the Green Hornet in the middle of a dangerous situation. However, the Hornet is rendered with a simple domino mask and not the gangster style mask that covered the lower half of his face that he wears inside the comic. It also shows off just how minor of a character Kato was at the time, barely appearing in the majority of the stories. There's no doubt that the hero and star of the book is the Green Hornet. Otherwise, these stories are painfully dull and the artwork is either heavily damaged during the remastering stage or/and is really on the low end, even for GA standards. And, this is coming from someone that is generally a fan of the comics from this time. Stick to the radio shows and serials to get exciting adventures of the Green Hornet of this time.

Green Hornet: Year One #7: Not sure how long this comic is going to last and continue being called "Year One." The last issue brought together all of the various threads and backstory of how Kato and Britt Reid would find themselves coming together to fight crime as masked men and how it would result in them being thought of as rival mobsters. This issue picks up on that status quo and continues the story, but it no longer has that feeling of an extended origin tale of neophyte characters. The only change in creative staff seems to be the colorist, the new one going for more traditional color palettes. It's still a good comic, full of atmosphere and mood and feels like an honest attempt at being faithful and true to the source material while being readable by modern audiences. It feels authentic and should have DC kicking themselves for not doing something similar with the Crimson Avenger.

Hellboy: The Sleeping and the Dead #1 of 2: Written by Mike Mignola and painted by Scott Hampton, this is a beautiful little comic. Like most of Mignola's writing, it is basic and bare in the plotting and storytelling, going for creepiness, mood and the visceral experience. Hampton's artwork with Dave Stewart's colors elevate it into something that's darkly beautiful and romantic, like an old Southern mansion falling into disrepair.

Justice Society #45 and 46: If there was a book that screamed it was the right time to stop getting regular monthlies, this title is it. When the day comes that the Justice Society is so bad that I want to stop getting it as a mercy killing, then the comic companies really have passed me by. This comic isn't merely bad but just plain stupid.

It was bad enough suffering looking at pictures of the Captain America movie and reading posts by fans about how faithful and accurate it is, but then I open up #45 and see The Flash and Green Lantern on some secret mission, dressed in military versions of their costumes, complete with grenades and various packets and straps. Words fail me in just how wrong minded this is. Then, the whole mission is a black-ops one, sent to destroy a secret weapon which turns out to be a baby. Why would you send two (and only two) JSA members on a mission like this?

Then, we have the writer telling us that Drachen (the name of the Nazi project) means "Scythe", the name of the super powered terrorist. Of course, Drachen doesn't mean that at all. It means Dragon, kite and even a vixen or harpy.

We're also asked to believe that a politician from the 1950s still holds office some sixty years later. Impossible? No. But, highly improbable and like everything else in the book, it shows the hand of the writer demanding things to be so for the sake of the story he's writing with little logical extrapolation.

We also have over the course of two issues, three instances by different characters using the term "gallows humor". When a unique phrase gets used that often in so little space and by different characters, it sticks out. Again, it shows the writer behind the scenes as it becomes obvious that the dialogue by different characters are coming from one mind.

We get an appearance by Superman and Blue Devil which is fine. But, there are a whole lot of JSA'ers and hanger-ons that would be better served. Then again, interviews have indicated that Blue Devil is going to be a member for some bizarre reason. Because, there aren't enough JSA and Golden-age related characters that could be used or team members we haven't seen.

Obsidian gets all violent and dark. Again.

Dr. Mid-nite finally gets called in for a consultation on Alan Scott's condition. He claims it's taking too much energy to just keep the Starheart in check for him to heal despite his being an energy being he only sustains physical injury because he thinks of himself as human. Thus, if he's conscious and able to think at all, then his body should become normal without actually having to "heal". And, if it takes that level of concentration, then what the heck is he doing fighting crime when a slip in concentration could cost lives or letting loose the Starheart? What happens when he falls asleep? And, where does he get the power then to build himself a godawful new costume AND GROW HAIR as we've seen in previews?

In both issues and one coming up, Dr. Mid-nite is said to have "ultra-SONIC lenses". What the heck are those and what do they do? Make his eyes able to hear? Allows him to SEE sounds that people cannot hear? Apparently this comes from the Matt Wagner mini that introduced the character, as I've never read it. Just seeing in the dark and outside of the normal vision range just not good enough I guess. It's something best left forgotten unless we are actually going to see him use said "ultrasonic lenses". Otherwise, it just comes off as sounding stupid when thrown out with nothing to back it up or explain it as in these issues.

I'm not a fan of Kolins artwork, generally the opposite. To give credit where it's due, other than the military styled Flash and Green Lantern (and GL's upcoming new "costume"), the artwork has been good and easily the best thing regarding the book. But, I miss the days of the real JSA when it wasn't a team of legacies, but the original heroes.

Project Superpowers: X-mas Carol: This book is merely "meh". It gives us an origin and background of the villain known as the Clown and updates him for the modern age with powers of his own by him taking over the body of a clone of his foe, the hero Magno. It started off strong with a flashback sequence of the Clown before he became the masked villain with his girlfriend, giving him some sympathetic background juxtaposed against scenes with a mother and son Christmas shopping in the modern day as well as the American Spirit propheting that someone was about to make the ultimate sacrifice for their country. But these scenes ultimately go nowhere, serving as little teases to completely different type of tale, one of impending tragedy and sadness. Part of this is because the book is constrained by the fact that it is to follow the construction of Dicken's A Christmas Carol so we have the Clown visited by the ghost of a past associate and then heroic ghosts of the Superpowers line: The Fighting Yank, the Ghost and American Spirit. Each tries to capture the Ghost and relating events from the past, present and a possible future. But, it only has a few pages to devote to each hero. It then ends on ambiguous ground as we are not sure if the Clown has undergone any kind of spiritual transformation in relation to his physical one or not. We aren't sure if we are to take anything from this tale, if there's anything to take. It might be a foreshadowing of upcoming plots, that the Clown may betray the Supremacy and thus avert the disaster that the American Spirit shows him. Or the Clown may bring about that very future. There's nothing in the ending to really grab hold of, to see a reason as to why to read this story. We understand a little more about the background of the Clown but it's all upset by the non-descript ending, it cannot be applied to the future. It becomes a tale that's unfinished all the way around, imparting little knowledge, truth or emotion.

Spider-Girl #2: Tying the JSA of a book being not merely bad but incredibly dumb. Part of it is the simple fact that it's merely the second issue and yet managed to go so wrong so quickly in so many different directions. Part of last issue's biggest disconnect was the idea that a father would let his teen-age daughter with no powers go out and fight crime. This was a big source of conflict between Mayday and her parents in the DeFalco series, resulting in her just doing it anyway, and she had powers. Arana doesn't have anything other than good training. This is compounded by that Sue Richards, adult and mother, also supports and aids her in these actions. Well, we don't have to worry about that because the writer decided to go for that standard cliche and kill off the girl's father. And, then spend the whole issue of the character dealing with it. I could see this being done somewhere down the road, it's a big cliche but it does up-end the status quo and gives a change-of-pace story. BUT IN THE SECOND ISSUE? And, it's not a villain she can take on, but the Red Hulk. So we have a story where the character is not only sad and depressed for the whole issue but completely ineffectual. Again, this might be fine later, but it hardly makes me want to read more about this character. She comes across useless, her book is depressing, and now two issues in, there's no status quo or regular supporting cast and relationships to draw me back to.

This issue at least shows that the line she swings by is some grappling line although where she keeps it and the mechanisms that control it is a complete mystery. I guess it's in the same place where she manages to find coins to buy newspapers to fling in the Red Hulk's face.

More bad writing: there's zero introduction of just who or what the Red Hulk is. My brother's first question was, "why is the Hulk red?" I could answer a little of it as I keep up with some of the general goings on in the Marvel U, but there is zero in the story to tell us anything about the character, that it's not even the real Hulk just in different Christmas colors. Remember, every issue is someone's first exposure to the characters. Why should I, reading a Spider-man family book, be expected to know what's going on in the Hulk books?

The book tops the JSA with writing characters with the same voice with this bit of dialogue.
Johnny Storm: Did he seem...crazy to you? He's never talked like that before. Let's find him and find out.
Reed Richards: It was...strange. Let's find him and find out."
In the same panel, we have the world's smartest man and leader of the FF simply repeating verbatim what a high school graduate just said, proposing the same action as if it was his idea. My guess for the future death in the FF, Johnny kills Reed for constantly undercutting him like this. Or Reed is already dead and they are hiding it from the world by using a robot.

We are lead to believe her father was this respected journalist and the go-to press-guy for the celebrity heroes the Fantastic Four, yet his funeral is practically empty, the FF don't even show up. His daughter wears plain clothes but not black and her friends wear nice colorful clothes. Instead of a powerful scene, all I can think is "this is supposed to be a funeral?" Bad, bad storytelling.

Thunderstrike #2: At least this title has a teenager acting like a teenager, albeit a surly petulant one, and parents acting and reacting in ways that seem like real human beings and parents would. And, with DeFalco and Frenz at the helm, there's lots of superhero action. If we cannot have the real Spider-Girl or even the real Thunderstrike, this fills the gap nicely.

Victorian Undead: Sherlock Holmes vs. Dracula #3 of 5: The story shifts a bit from how I remember the Dracula story going as Mina has died and one of Lucy's suitors has become a betrayer, thus we are no longer following Stoker's script even discounting Holmes' involvement. It sets things up as the conclusion no longer being pre-ordained. Despite that, it's a fun book, pitting the world's greatest sleuth against one of its biggest villains.

Warlord of Mars #3: A switch-up in artists. The new guy draws Carter as being a little too muscle bound for my taste and doesn't have quite the same texture to his pencils but he does a great job at drawing an alien city. In this day and age, I don't think it's too much to ask that an artist be able to draw faces differently, so that the only way to tell the green-skinned martians apart is whether they have both tusks or not. The series seems intent on having them all drawn as four-armed Hulks as opposed to the more lanky, almost skeletal proportions they are generally shown as. These are small complaints though as overall the book has looked very good and it's going to be hard for anyone to really top what Gil Kane and John Buscema could do with sci-fi/fantasy sword fighters.

Some reviews and the Green Hornet director mouths off

2010-12-17T16:22:00.000-05:00

Recently got married, moved to Greensboro and got a laptop computer. Means I have some hard choices ahead of me. Or maybe not so hard after all. My wife's place is smaller than mine (I moved because she has a good, steady job, I'm still looking). There's just no room for 23 or more boxes of comics and looking at things with my mom and my grandmother, I wonder at the need for that many comics, comics I'll never read again. I had posted them for sale at Craigslist at one time but only got a few nibbles and I'll probably post it again. But, as I started going through the comics, I realized that out of all those boxes and thousands of comics, I could probably whittle it down to two boxes. Almost all of the works by George Perez, Walt Simonson, Mignola, and John Byrne have been collected so I don't need all the individual issues of Avengers, Thor, Fantasatic Four, Hellboy, Next Men, etc. All of the JSA and appearances by individual heroes of Earth-2 have been collected, so no real need for all of those All-Stars, JLA-JSA crossovers, etc. I don't even need Ditko's Charlton work as those have likewise been collected. Trades and hardbacks are so much more easily manageable and readable. And, there's a lot of critically acclaimed comics that I just don't re-read though I'm glad I got them at the time: Morrison's Animal Man, Gaiman's Sandman, Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Top Ten. The stuff I'd keep is probably the stuff that is almost worthless to most people but the most fun to me: the various Doc Savage comics (before the current stuff), Gerard Jones' El Diablo and Shadow Strikes. Roy Thomas' All-Star Squadron (not collected). Aparo's Phantom Stranger. My Phantom comics, especially those by Newton and Aparo. At least until a publisher gets around to reprinting them. Giant-Size Superheroes pitting Spider-man against Morbius and the Man-wolf. Tom DeFalco's run on FF, Thor, Thunderstrike, and Spider-Girl. Various comics by Butch Guice, specifically Micronauts and Resurrection Man. My Rom comics. Uncollected works of Gil Kane. But, it's getting so that I don't even expect to see those uncollected forever. After all, we're seeing other publishers publishing reprints of Marvel's past licensed titles.

I don't buy that many more new comics, and I get fewer all the time. I mostly get minis, but those have been souring on me as well as more than half seem to drop the ball in the last issue (see Shadowland: Blood on the Streets for the most recent example or Union Jack, Agents of Atlas, and Sable and Fortune for past ones). Waiting for the trade seems to be the best course on those unless by proven creators and talent. Case in point, I'd really like to get the Dead Avengers mini that is spinning out of Chaos War storyline. It features art by one of the best and under-utilized superhero artists out there, Tom Grummet. But, I've seen how this usually pans out, and with the price, I decided I'd just wait until it gets the inevitable trade. Meanwhile, I am getting DeFalco and Frenz's Thunderstrike.

The prices, decompressed storylines and increasingly unrecognizable characterizations further distance me from the various ongoings. One of the few that I never thought I'd seriously consider dropping was the main JSA book. Putting Scott Kolins on as artist almost did the job, but the recent revelations that Blue Devil and Manhunter were being added to the team hammered that final nail. Manhunter is one of the few characters I cannot divorce from the ego of the creator, whose approach to writing is so diametrically opposite my own philosophies, I am not able to buy a book with her in it (Bucky-Cap is another). I find, if I can drop the JSA book, it's easy to say adios to the rest. I'll stick with odd minis here and there, but the desire to actually "collecting" monthly comics is gone.

Another factor, although small one is the move divorces me from the shop I've long done business with. There's a good store in town, maybe even better in terms of layout and availability of material. And they seem excited about comics, enjoy them to no end. Which is good, but it's an excitement on the stuff and creators I find dreary while likewise they will disparage creators I like, often with ill-founded rumors. Not to me, mind you. They don't know me well enough to make that realization. Just stuff I overhear while they are talking with other customers. They carry tons of classic stuff that you don't normally see, but an actual love over the vast history of comics doesn't come through. I will probably go there for my off and on fixes of the most recent issue of this or that comic, but I'll just make monthly trips to Raleigh for my pulp stuff.

Green Hornet Movie: Read this at the comicbookresources site and just couldn't let it pass without commenting. Apparently, Green Hornet director Michel Gondry complained about comic fans walking out on a viewing at Comi-con, saying, "These ones just reinforce the social rules. Their values are fascistic. All those people marching around in capes and masks and boots. The superhero imagery is totally fascist! When you step into this genre, they feel it belongs to them. They want you to conform, or they won't like you. They want the conventional." He also says the film plays fine for "normal people." Ok. So, comic and super-hero fans equal "Fascist" and low-brow humor, bad-acting and Seth Rogen fans equal "Normal". There are just so many things wrong with his statements. Like many of the modern comic writers, he is basically screaming his disdain for the very characters and concepts he has chosen to work with and the fans of those characters. And, he expects people to like it. Oh, wait, he expects they won't because they aren't "normal". So, anyone that doesn't like it is apparently not normal either. I guess that's one way to shield yourself from any honest criticism or self-evaluation.

Notice all of the inherent contradictions in his statements. On one hand he calls them "fascist", then they dress up in costumes, capes and boots, but somehow reinforce social rules and want conventional, none of which go hand in hand with wearing costumes. Yet because of wanting "social rules" and "conventional" they are not normal (which would be about two of the most basic qualities I'd expect from someone that was "normal").

Yet, it also betrays a very fundamental misunderstanding of superheroes in general, their tradition and history and that of the Green Hornet specifically. It shows us a man that chose to make a film without the least bit understanding the source material beyond looking at the 1960s television show and probably reading Watchmen. How else do you make a blanket statement that all superheroes are fascist? Are cops and soldiers by their nature, also fascist? Private detective fiction? Modern comics have gotten away from their roots a bit, to be sure, but superheroes were originally voices against corruption, complacity, the feeling of powerlessness against the larger injustices of the world. Especially those that came along in the 1930s and 40s, growing out of the pulp movement. They were to serve as voices for justice when the law wasn't enough or when the law was part of the problem due to unfair laws, discrimination, laziness, graft and bribes. They were avatars for the normal people, acting in ways we couldn't.

By his nature, the Green Hornet has in his concept to be every inch a success the way that Nolan's Batman movies are. But, it takes a director that understands a bit more of the concepts of the character, that doesn't attack the characters and fans basic integrities by making fun of them and calling them names.

Reviews: Ironically, the week I decide to cut back on comics turned out to be a "heavy" comic week for me. Although, at one time the money I spent and the amount of comics I got would be a normal or light week.

Archie and Friends #150: Not a title I normally get. But, how could I resist a title that features various and extremely minor MLJ characters such as Kardak the Mystic, Fu Chang, Sam Hill, Inspector Bently, the Midshipman Lee Sampson, and Sgt. Boyle as well as appearances by L'il Jinx, Danny in Wonderland, Suzie, Catfish Joe and probably others I don't recognize? Answer, I couldn't. Not normally my cup of tea, but it's great to see them. Maybe with the failure of the Red Circle line at DC, maybe Archie is looking at the reception of the characters presented in a non-reimagined albeit more cartoony form?

Avengers Academy #7: I got this solely for Hank Pym going back to being Giant-Man. He's had a history of costume and name changes and some of those costumes were badly designed, but his turn of being the Wasp was one of the more ludicrous in a history of bad decisions and bad designs. McKone's redesign manages to echo the classic and iconic with a few modern touches (don't really care for the pin-stripe lines as they don't really seem to add anything to the design other than a desperate attempt to make it not look dated). And, the concept and idea behind AA struck me as the most interesting of the various Avenger relaunches, but I just couldn't accept the Hank-as-Wasp idea.

I wish the writing lived up to the fun aspect of the cover or even the idea of Giant Man throwing down with the Absorbing Man. Like all stories featuring Hank Pym, it just cannot let go of the past and all the bad decisions regarding the character. I haven't read an Iron Man comic in years, but surely not every single writer fashions every important story around him focusing on his arm-dealer days, alcoholism, betrayal of friends in Armor Wars and the Crossing. But, that's what we get here. Instead of actually seeing how powerful a character he is, the writer first has to bog him down by rehashing his "relationships" with Tigra and Jocasta, his history of mental issues, his tumultuous relationship with Janet Van Dyne, psycho-babble of rationales for taking on various identities, etc. Given a few extra pages, I'm sure we'd have seen scenes showing the infamous slap, betrayal of the Avengers, and creating Ultron. By the time we get to the actual fight scene, the writer has done a thorough job of making me not liking the character, I don't really care that he wins the day. He's still a putz.

And, his manner of winning... I am all for characters using their powers in new and interesting ways. But, here we have Pym using his powers in ways that defy logic and any sense of his use of them in the past. One of the traditional differences between Marvel and DC was the scope of the powers. The Flash can run faster than the speed of light, vibrate through solid matter, and use his speed to travel other dimensions including time. Quicksilver doesn't even routinely break the sound barrier. Superman has a host of powers, Thor is strong and has a hammer. Almost every scientist in the DCU is as smart as Reed Richards. Plastic Man can make himself into any shape, Reed Richards merely stretches. Thus, you have the Atom who regularly visits sub-atomic worlds whereas Pym rarely gets smaller than, well, an ant. Likewise, his giant-size growing has always been shown to be as routinely "realistic" in scale. Lately, he's been depicted as tall as buildings, and as such I have a hard time accepting seeing him going through the city without doing extensive property damage or stepping on someone in a densely populated city like New York. We see that several times in this fight. It's not two men twenty feet tall duking it out, which would be impressive enough with the right artist, but hundreds feet tall or more while leaning on suspension bridges for support. It's stupid. If the battle was at that scale, I'd expect to see dialogue and scenes of the hero trying to control the battle. Then to add insult to injury, Pym gives a speech about their being a limit to the physical growth of a human body, which is in reality much less than what's shown here. Don't bring in an actual physics statement while violating it. But, the statement is to show something never shown before as being part of his power and ability, that at some point, you leave physical reality to one of abstract and conceptual. He can grow so large, that he is able to be in the realm of Order and Chaos, Eternity, the Living Tribunal. How large is that, though? He doesn't just magically immediately go from 6 ft to 12 ft or 100 ft. He grows and shrinks. This means to get to 12 feet, he must go through 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11 feet tall. How tall would he have to grow to actually change his reality? Two-hundred feet? Five hundred? A mile? Imagine what kind of damage that two such growing bodies would do before they make the transition. It's one of those kewl ideas, but is not thought out and is too extreme of a device to be used so casually and easily.

I went into this comic, preparing to like it. Wanting to like it, especially with how many comics I'm not getting these days, I wouldn't mind having one ongoing title to get from Marvel. But, they blew it.

Captain America: Patriot: There's not much to add to this that I've not said about the previous issues. It ends on a happier note than I would have expected and with un-resolved subplot elements such as what happened with Mary Morgan and was she a spy. Done several years ago, I think this book would have been an excellent read and as such, it might stand the test of time. However, in the context of today's comics that are so bent on giving heroes feet of clay, "realistic" costumes and so on, this book doesn't really stand out. Jeff Mace is portrayed as being dull and luke-warm, second rate in his own title. He's likable but in a girl/boy-next-door way when you really want the bad boy or head cheerleader. The scenes where he exerts his personality and shows backbone are too few and far between.

John Byrne's Next Men #3/1: After a long hiatus, an oft requested title is back after ending its last chapter on a cliffhanger. It doesn't matter if the reader has read the original books or not as Byrne incorporates a summation of the previous plotlines in such a way that it's part of the story. All that has gone before is called in to question as Jasmine/Bounce seems to "bounce" between realities and timelines. How much is her dream and how much is time and reality being flux is left open to question by the issue's end. At its heart, the story has always been a time-travel story, something Byrne has professed to loving to do and many of his best works have been time-travel stories: Days of Future Past, OMAC. The fast-paced transitions serve to leave the reader and Jasmine unsettled as to what is really happening and what really happened and that's a good thing. By the end, both new readers and returning ones are pretty much on the same page as to having insight into the real reality. Of course in the last series, often what I thought was going on was not really what was happening. Making this a good series for those people who actually enjoy television shows like Heroes, Lost, No Ordinary Family. Here is the same thing without actually dragging stuff out.

This is the best artwork that Byrne has ever produced, with the possible exception being the aforementioned OMAC mini-series. It incorporates the best elements from the different periods of his career and make them all work seamlessly together. The only disconnect for me is that somewhere along the way, he picked up a cartooning style of portraying mouth expressions at times. It shows up here where Danny is complaining about his back, while it would work in something like a humor strip, it seems out of place in the relative realism that this strives for. But old Jack's beard on the final pages more than makes up for that, it has feathering and texture and no hard boundaries or outlines. Wonderful stuff.

The colors by Ronda Pattison are wonderfully subdued, often providing just the right amount of shading without looking like it's trying to do the penciler's job for him in providing detail.

Sea Ghost: I recently had the fortune of winning this comic from comicbookcatacombs. I like aquatic heroes in general, and this one has a wonderful old school design behind him. The cover is a neat nod to Bronze-Age Marvel books and the art on both it and the alternate back cover is nicely done. The interior story, style and characterizations have a retro Filmation style to them, deliberately so. Unfortunately, I'm not really drawn to comics drawn in animation style. Partly because it's really a faux or pastiche style. Animation has specific concerns and limitations it has to deal with that have nothing to do with comic books. Adapting that style for a print medium is a deliberate limiting style and usually used to communicate things that weren't really part of the intended message of the animation itself. Such as, when animation style is used in comics, it communicates that it will probably be toned and dumbed down in order to be suitable for kids. The Incredibles movie was suitable for all ages, many adults enjoyed it as much or more than kids. You do a comic drawn that way and it's suddenly aimed solely at 8 year olds.

Yet that style is compromised by the heavy use of computer to color and illustrate it, making it look more like a daily web-comic. So, the end result is feeling like reading a collection of strips of a web-comic that was heavily influenced by Alex Toth's work in animation. Not necessarily a bad thing, but not really what I was expecting when looking at the covers and it struggles in some places trying to mix it all into one style. And, the covers and some background scenes show that the artist really does have a wonderful line along the lines of Guy Davis as well as a strong design and layout skills so some panels are really beautiful where it all works. Give me Sea Ghost in a book with a more conventional style (though can still be influenced by the designs of Toth, just try not to actually ape it) and I think you'd have a winner.

Shadowland: Blood on the Streets: If I had known the mini was going to end the way it did, I wouldn't have bothered. I wasn't getting the main mini-series, because by all accounts reading it was not required to enjoy the related minis and in this it was true. I was drawn by the inclusion of the Shroud, a long time favorite and the Paladdin who I do find interesting on occasion. Misty Knight and Silver Sable, don't really care one way or the other.

Sadly, most of it really seemed to be from Misty's point of view as the various heroes get drawn into investigating murders by the Hand, controlled by Daredevil. I liked the idea. I liked the idea of a good pulp story mixed in with heroes actually trying to solve a crime and the prospect of heroes fighting ninjas.

As it progressed, it seemed someone was setting the Hand up, using them as a scapegoat. Fine. Maybe not the Hand but some other hidden mastermind using ninjas, or at least well-trained killers, as henchmen. Only that's not where it went. Instead, it went for the cliche, a group of disgruntled cops turning vigilante to kill perps who got off using Daredevil and the Hand as cover. Completely anti-climactic considering the likes of the Shroud, Palladin, Misty Knight AND Silver Sable working on the case. Very little for them to really do and certainly no real physical action or viable threat level from the bad guys to the point that it takes the Hand trying to exact their revenge on the rogue cops that give them a reason for really being there.

It furthers the crime by making the head bad cop be Lt. Scarfe, longtime good cop and supporting cast member of Iron Fist. Another story that chooses to make the bad guy be a formerly good guy just out of the blue with no real supporting rationale. It works for the story being told barely, if he was a character never seen before. That would make the story merely mediocre with nothing to recommend it as it covers ground that other works have done better. But, to take a long-standing if minor character and turn him into the villain screams desperation of trying to make an otherwise dull story be shocking and have real ramifications. The character and the readers deserve better than that. There should be a real story behind it beyond just tired of seeing bad guys getting away.

Spider-Girl: I wouldn't have normally picked this up. It happened to be in my bag since I was signed up for the old series with a different character by the same name. And, I shouldn't like it for many reasons. I was a fan of the other series and hate to see it cancelled just so another character can use the name; while the art was clear, the coloring tried to give everything a sorta faux 3-D pixar feel to it, a popular coloring style these days but not my cup of tea as it just looks false and cold to me; several scenes and just the basic concept that just threw me out of the story; and her and her father's motivation is never explained. Yet, I found myself enjoying it despite that. It had a charm to it that is often lacking in Marvel's comics today outside of something with Squirrel Girl.

I doubt it's enough to make me pick it up on a regular basis. There were too many things just glossed over or ignored. It was one thing with May fighting crime, she had superpowers. But, here we have a teen-aged girl fighting crime but with no motivation beyond being a bit of a superhero groupie. She is supposed to have been trained by the best, but that's not really shown or explained. After all, she also once had powers. How much training since then has she had that really prepares her to take down grown men or mediocre supervillains that cops couldn't handle? It's a fine line between suspension of disbelief of having a teen-aged girl manage to outfight and outwit some minor supervillain and the cops commenting on how they had been unable to do so, you either build her up to be exceptional or make the cops seem completely inept. Sadly, the lame villain made the scene veer to the latter. How does she swing through the city, starting from a sidewalk? Did she somehow snag a nearby helicopter? And, is that Spider-man's webbing she's using, otherwise, where is all that line coming from and how is she shooting it? And, even if she's a capable fighter, what kind of father actually would allow his teen-age daughter fight criminals? It's a tired cliche of irresponsibility when there's an adult hero at least supervising it, how irresponsible is it to just allow her to do it unsupervised?

While not enough for me to warrant to continually get it, I do hope it's successful. I think a book of it's type is needed in the marketplace and fills an underserved niche. However, it's the same niche that the other Spider-Girl filled and she struggled to find a readership and marketplace. Maybe they are hoping with this one tied to the mainstream continuity, it can get needed boosts by crossovers with the Spider-man books and other titles which the other book could not do. Although in my case it was part of what made it attractive, I didn't have to worry about the book getting highjacked by outside storylines.

Thunderstrike #1: Meanwhile DeFalco and Frenz return with another hero. I enjoyed Eric Masterton's turn as Thor and later Thunderstrike. There was a bit of the well-meaning nice every-man about him, struggling to balance job, family and a sideline business as a superhero. In many ways, he was of the same stripe as Peter Parker. He was a nice guy with a big sense of responsibility, struggling to find his way in an increasingly bizarre world without an operator's manual. And, ultimately it killed him. Ads from Marvel suggested that Eric was coming back, but the art and previews pretty much hinted that it's someone else that has inherited his powers and looks. It's no big surprise as it turns out to be his son Kevin who has struggles of his own. He's a teenager and he's never really come to terms with his dad's death. He resents his dad and almost all adults and their involvement in trying to tell him what the right things to do are, he's seen what doing the right thing gets you. He's a supervillain in the making. But, he's a teenager. That means he's full of contradictions and how he deliberately acts and how he instinctively acts are not always the same thing. It's a great beginning, to see how he grows and which paths he ultimately chooses to follow. And, being a DeFalco book, it means there's plenty of action, before the first issue is done, we see the new hero-to-be and a slam-bang fight with the Rhino. More first issues should be like this: introduction of principal characters, external and internal conflicts, angst, and plenty of action of superheroes fighting supervillains.

Time Masters #5: This mini is nearing its end and about the only thing that would make me get the final issue is I got the other four. It might just be easier to list where the comic goes wrong.

The cover shows us the climactic reveal from the END of the book. The final scene is played out as the heroes are being attacked by someone moving too fast to be seen. But, thanks to the cover, we already know who it is. Otherwise, has nothing else to do with the rest of the story.
After several issues with Claw and non-Titan Starfire, they are returned home without doing much of anything storywise other than to gripe and complain.
Likewise, their villains are taken care of in such a casual manner it makes you wonder what the whole point of it was other than to give the heroes something to do other than looking for Bruce Wayne while giving time to relate the story of the Black Beetle's plot to catch up.
What happened to Per Degaton, Despero and the Ultra-Humanite? After being in the book from the beginning, they went from interesting classic time-traveling masterminds to mere henchmen and are now gone, disappearing in between issues.
Lastly, the art continues to look as if it's drawn with eyes for the sale on the original art market as Green Lantern continues to face the reader while reacting to things and making constructs behind him or the whole group holds a conversation facing the reader instead of each other. Bad storytelling.

Victorian Undead: Sherlock Holmes vs Dracula: I bypassed the Sherlock Holmes vs Zombies book, but Holmes is a character I love and with the increasing dearth of comics, a mini I thought I could live with. And, I've read several Sherlock Holmes and Dracula books in the past, so a comic is also going to appeal.

What's great about this mini is it doesn't try to be a pastiche. The art doesn't try to be Victorian illustration and the storytelling doesn't try to do it through Watson's eyes. It is using Holmes, Watson and Dracula as characters and being true to their characters without actually pretending to be done by Doyle or Stoker. Watson is drawn as the cliche'd older man while Holmes looks decades younger and a bit more good looking than he should but otherwise it all looks good. The covers to the first two issues have a great sense of design and color that really stand out, almost like vintage movie posters.

Likewise, the writing provides plenty of space for art and action to move the story, recognizing that it's a modern day comicbook with all the strengths and weaknesses of that vs prose (especially Victorian prose). It tells the story in according to the strengths of its media without seeming anachronistic or out of place. It's been years since I read Dracula, but so far the story seems to follow along the lines of Loren Estleman's Holmes-Dracula book, keeping to the story that Stoker told but telling the previously unrevealed roles that Holmes and Watson played from their point of view, changing very little of the original narrative.

The last mini had zombies and revenants, this has Dracula and vampires, will the next be mummies?

Hellboy, Green Hornet, JSA, Hawkman's war crimes

2010-11-10T15:24:00.002-05:00

Hellboy/Beasts of Burden: Sacrifice: One has to give Mike Mignola credit. In creating Hellboy, he has arguably created one of the more significant and successful comicbook heroes created in the modern age. And, he did so by following what interested him. He liked drawing monsters. Big monsters and big fights. So, he created a character that was himself somewhat monstrous and a world that had even bigger and badder monsters. His art-style which was already developing into something unique was well-suited for it. Now, quite a few years later, his creation has developed into an empire and universe by itself. It's spawned two successful big budget movies, a short-lived cartoon series, several novels, a regular spin-off comic in B.P.R.D. and regular mini-series with the main character himself. Mignola doesn't do as much of the art these days, but he keeps a hand in and regardless of the writer or artist so that each book still manages to keep to his vision. In the days of constant retcons, complex continuity and overly ornate and rendered artwork, Mignola has managed to still follow the K.I.S.S. method, Keep It Simple, Stupid. Part of the appeal to Hellboy is his relative simplicity and iconic background and design. While the character has had his status quo change and various things concerning his destiny revealed, and a large supporting cast and world developed, the character himself is still basically the same guy from all those years ago. It is also interesting to note that this was all done by not having a regular ongoing series with interminable storylines, flooding the market with different continuity versions, but through minis, specials and one-shots. Along the way, he developed a storytelling style that incorporates the best of gothic horror, German Expressionistic silent films, Lovecraftian menace and even the Hammer films. His art grows more abstract, but still recognizable. He uses non-storytelling panels interspersed through pages to set mood and reinforce the story's symbols and themes. You have to wonder if the people at Marvel ever look at Hellboy and think about what they could have done if they just let Mignola run amok with Thor, the Thing and their horror books. Would Mignola have been just as happy doing the same thing only using characters like the Living Mummy; Deathlok; Blade, the Scarecrow; the Golem; Frankenstein's monster; It, the Living Colossus; Ulik the troll; Adam Warlock; and Morbius the living vampire?

The simplicity of the character has lead him to be able to fit alongside many other characters. At this time, he's appeared with Batman and Starman, the Savage Dragon, Dark Horse's Ghost, Painkiller Jane, John Byrne's Torch of Liberty, and now a bunch of talking dogs and cats protecting a town from supernatural threats in Beasts of Burden. Which is what this review is really about.

I missed out on the first arc of Beasts of Burden, it was halfway through when I first heard about the series and it looked interesting. Yet this one-shot is not marred by that at all. Ivan Dorkin and Jill Thompson manage to create a group of animals with mostly distinct and yet familiar personality types that even being thrown into the world, it feels like suddenly finding old friends. When revealing the villain and that he is a foe the beasts have met before, enough information is given that as a new reader, I don't feel left out of the story, I'm given all the info I need to continue on without a hiccup. The art manages to make the animals expressionistic without devolving into being cartoony, almost Disney-esque in manner. Their variety in looks and personalities is almost bound to remind a reader of a favorite pet, endearing them instantly. The book is lushly colored in a water-color style that's evocative of many children's books, yet not becoming at odds with the supernatural story or the odd guest-star. Instead, it gives the book a certain level of realism, that allows you to buy into the world of talking dogs and cats fighting undead monsters and such. The animals retain a certain cuddliness and cuteness while the danger and threats seem real and mystical.

Overall, one of the best single issue comics I've read in a long, long time. It makes me want to go out and buy the trade of the first Beasts of Burden mini and continue on reading about them.

Baltimore: The Plague Ships #3 of 5: With this issue, I realize there has been a bit of decompression in the story-telling. We're at the middle issue of the mini, but in reality the plot behind the title is just now getting introduced. The first issue introduced us to Baltimore as a character, the current status quo and his traveling companion. The second issue spent quite a bit of space going over the back-story of the events of the novel, explaining just who Baltimore is and what happened to him. This issue we get even some more back-story of what his mission is, why he does what he does and why the vampires and the plague exist. After a storm with giant sky floating jellyfish, Baltimore and Vanessa find themselves washed up on the shore of a graveyard for German submarines as well as other ships full of plague victims and a strange mold. And, the blurb for next issue reveals that even more of Baltimore's back-story will be revealed.

The trade-off though is that this pacing does help maintain the mood, the sense of ever impending doom, that we're looking at the last days of man even though it's set in the final days of WWI. With the aid of the dependable Dave Stewart on the colors, this is a world of bleakness and depression. The sun never shines and mankind has found itself to be small ineffectual beings in the world, subject to arbitrary rules and events. The average man has gone from fighting on the battlefields at the behest of their nation's leaders for unclear political reasons in a war that encompasses the world, to finding out that even this man-made construct of war must give way to unknown disease and plague, and other dark things that man's science is unequipped to explain. Telling a horror story in comic form that can truly scare and linger with you, needs that feeling of mood and impending doom. It has to take time to develop characters that you care about but also can believe that something truly horrible can happen to. So, despite the decompression, I think overall it works for this type of story and I'm interested to see what new horrors can be visited upon the long suffering soldier Lord Baltimore.

Captain America: Patriot #3: The cover is very strong and could almost serve as a lead-in page for the comic, as this was the climactic moment of the previous issue. Yet, I cannot help but feel it would have been better as the cover to the second issue, setting up an inexorable fate for the end of that issue. It's not like that Bucky II's fate is uncharted territory and would thus be revealing some new twist. The cover's power is completely undermined by having the day-glo green Hulk in the box in the corner serving as an advertisement for a cartoon. I grew up when the boxes used to have little thumbnails of the characters' heads or full body shot, so I think it would have been kind of neat to see one of the Patriot there. The Hulk is just a little jarring though.

The book maintains its strange dichotomy of being both well-written and well-drawn in some regards and disappointingly cliched in others. Heck, even on the first page you have it. Mace is a reporter, so it's kinda neat to have the first page be a pseudo mock-up of The Daily Bugle relating the story so far in a couple of articles. Yet, the effect is ruined in the main article as the writing style is clearly just a recap and not a faux news article though the secondary article on the page manages to maintain the illusion of a news article. Kesel delivers on making Mace a likable and stand-up guy with a sense of tragedy about him. Yet, Mace is consistently played as being a second banana to almost every one else, even the second Bucky. He has a few nice moments but at no point does he really come off as a really cool character in his own right. Instead, he seems to be defined by his mediocrity, deserving his obscurity beyond a single defining moment. Kesel gets points though for remembering the second Cap's bullet-proof cloak when he was the Spirit of '76 and was a kewl moment to have Golden Girl to be wearing it. An odd bit of synchronicity trivia: she dyes it green. The Spirit of '76's cloak was blue but he was visibly based on the Fighting Yank who had a mystical cloak that gave him powers including being bulletproof. The Yank's cloak was already green. Kesel also manages to tell a story, a complete in each issue while delivering a longer story, something that is a lost art amongst many more critically acclaimed comic book writers. The heavy handed foreshadowing of the previous issue was indeed meant as a red herring as surmised being possible and that there might be more to Mary, something more mundane and less obvious than just going bad.

The art continues the dichotomy in that the cover is very powerful and there's quite a bit of subtlety in the Breitweisers' colors and pencils. The fighting mad Captain America is very well done. But, the toned down colors keep characters like Golden Girl to really stand out and seem, well, golden. For the sake of realism and a nostalgic mood, we have none of the sense of wonder inherent in the superheroes. Yet, we have the Torches standing around in full flame for no reason, in a hospital no less.

Green Hornet Year One #6 of 6: The mini chronicling the origins of the golden-age Green Hornet draws to a close. Storytelling and artwork holds to much of the standards set by the other issues and there's a neat little nod to the movie serials as the last page of a newspaper headline reveals "Green Hornet Strikes". Yet, I found this all anti-climactic in the end, despite a nice long fight scene. It's an origin storyline and so there's only so much that can be done. The status quo is introduced but the hero cannot be so successful that it renders it senseless for him to continue to fight crime. Hence the problem of tying the hero too strongly to a specific menace or mission, in this case organized crime. Instead of opening the way up for many types of stories, it's limiting and confining. What you are almost forced to end with is the hero successful in establishing a status quo but no strong victory otherwise in order to stay within the character and story's themes and limitations. The main reason this feels flat at the end though was despite all the small menaces and dangers met and overcome over the course of the story, there was no real sense of danger or threat to the main story or menace. There was no Third Act twist that upends the hero's plans, that sets things to a feeling of the real danger of unraveling. No sudden new or unrevealed menace or twist to the villains' plans. We know the Hornet and Kato won't die, but there's not enough of other characters established whose lives we should care and fear for that can suddenly be threatened to up the ante.

JSA #44: It's probably saying something that of all the comics I'm reviewing and reading, this is the only ongoing. And, if it was of anyone else other than the JSA, probably wouldn't be getting it.

Marc Guggenheim is a good writer. As a writer for Law & Order, he knows his way around characters, plotting intricacies and dialogue. I enjoyed his brief stint on Aquaman. I wish we saw some of that writer show up here. Much of what I didn't like isn't what I've seen panned on other reviews. I'm not especially bothered by Mr. Terrific discovering himself losing his intelligence. It seems to be a separate sub-plot and that is the whole purpose of plots and stories, to set up obstacles, trials and tribulations for characters to go through and hopefully emerge from the other side. I thought that was well handled showing a Mr. Terrific losing his intelligence is still smarter than most every one else in the room. Nor was I bothered by a previously unknown villain showing up and handing the JSA's butt to them. We need new villains other than seeing Mordru, Karkull or Solomon Grundy trotted out again. Sadly, the way that was done, not handled nearly as well though. Just as, I don't have a problem with Alan Scott being able to be physically taken out, but it's still done badly for several reasons.

First off, we have the fact that this overall plot is similar to the one-off by Robinson revealing Alan Scott heading up a mystical city on the moon. So, already we are covering the same ground in revealing Jay Garrick is slated to be mayor. The Fourth Reich storyline was kicked off with Alan Scott being killed and the JSA/JLA story of him being taken over by the Starheart. So, again we have him taken out first and with incredible ease and somehow being the blamed for what went wrong. And, while it has been established that he is really mostly an energy being, he has a physical body because mentally he still thinks of himself as being human. So, it's no surprise that a sudden attack could kill him or even break his neck or back. But, by the same token, short of immediately killing him or putting him in a coma, it's hard to injure him in such a way that he cannot come back once he's conscious. So, why is he being treated in a hospital as if he's like every body else and obviously with not Dr. Mid-nite overseeing as a ridiculous diagnosis as being paralyzed for the rest of his life would be ludicrous? Then there's the whole bit about them being somewhat surprised by the idea of super-powered terrorists despite a twelve issue series pitting them against Kobra. At some point, the editor should have stepped in.

The comic starts off with a modern day sequence of Jay being chosen as mayor and then jumps back in time to tell how they got to that point. Yet, the comic doesn't end at closing the loop, it doesn't answer the central and simple question posed by the first page. See where I praised for Kesel managing to tell a complete story that was part of the larger whole, this is where this is falling down. We have a deliberate and awkward storytelling device and it's used badly in terms of the issue. One, such scenes are usually ones of cliffhanger manner, rife with angst, questions and durm and strang. However, this is a very mundane scene played almost comically melodramatic. Second, despite the rather simplistic and mundane nature, it fails to deliver the payoff.

Then, we have the villain. As I said, I don't mind he's a new threat. But, he's a complete cypher. We don't know what his powers are, how he's able to handle the JSA with such ease, what his motivations are. He's being held by the CIA, and yet the JSA is sent to handle him with zero intelligence on the guy. Then, we are asked to believe that he can easily reach through the energy constraining bubble generated by Green Lantern, shrug off the magic by Dr. Fate not to mention the attacks by the others yet Lightning has enough juice to take him out?

It's hard to objectively judge the artwork because traditionally, Kolins' artwork can lead me to drop a book. The heavily painted style manages to sublimate the normally negative physical reaction I have to the point that I look at it and can say "it's readable" and be happy with that. There were scenes that confused me such as when the villain uses a sword to take out the t-spheres. The spheres are so obscured by the lightning effect in the earlier panel that I actually didn't realize it was them hitting the villain with the electric bolts since we have a character with that exact power. So, I was confused to see him swing his sword with what looked like blood streaming off of it and wondering how Mr. Terrific was continuing his cold logic internal monologue while being eviscerated. The villain's taking Green Lantern out was likewise poorly done as it doesn't really portray anything. I'm not asking for a graphic scene of the character getting his back/neck broken, but all we see is the villain reaching out and grabbing Green Lantern by the neck and just tossing him aside. Nothing suggesting the possibility of severe physical trauma. My only gripe concerning Wildcat who's left with not much to do is that the art for some reason makes him look to me like he's wearing Get Fuzzy's Bucky cat as a mask.

Here's hoping that the second issue will prove to be stronger than this initial foray.

Nature of Comics today: Here's a panel of one of the current comics put out by DC, the so-called Brightest Day. In it, we have the superhero Hawkman not merely torturing a villain but actually maiming him and tearing off of limbs. This is what passes for superheroes and the return of heroes? Who actually okays this stuff? Seriously, I see a scene like this and there's no way I could support a new ongoing Hawkman series unless there was some fundamental changes being made to the character and his nature. And, why I feel justified in staying away from the larger DCU in general and these massive continuity driven stories and events. And, I wonder why I don't see people on the comic boards reviewing the comics and interviewing the creators asking these questions. How the mighty and noble JSA have fallen.

Random Thoughts: Costume Design and Telepathy

2010-10-27T12:35:00.000-04:00

Here is a pet peeve of mine. One of many I guess. The artwork to the left is from JMS' new series Superman: Earth One. Forget that the concept itself is a bit over-done and only serves to dilute the power of the original and we saw exactly where this kind of thinking and publishing goes with Marvel's Ultimates line. No, my peeve here is about the costume redesign as it illustrates perfectly one of the more inane features of 21st Century costume designs. In ten years or so, we'll be talking about the bad designs of the early two-thousands and this will stand out much the same way we talk about 1990's costumes with mullets, shoulder-pads, bulky pouches on every single body part that could conceivably hold one and over-sized handguns that are in inverse proportion to the size of the hero's wrist holding it. This modern costume feature? Piping. Blow the image up and you'll see it, clearly used to define the edges of the chest and overly rendered sixpack abs. Another bit is on his inner thigh.

The stupidity here is that the piping in superhero costumes come from movies and television shows such as "Who Wants to be a Superhero". There the piping makes a bit of sense as its purpose is to do for real life costumes worn by real people what the comic book artist does for the costumes and characters in the comics. In real life, a person wearing tights, the costume isn't going to show off or delineate his muscles. Depending on the costume and fabric, it's going to wrinkle and be a little bulky looking or it's going to flatten the build and muscles (the difference being the George Reeves Superman look and the Christopher Reeve Superman look). Depending on the person's build and proportions and the costume design, the large areas of flat color with no detail may not be all that flattering a look. Thus, piping makes sense. It generally follows the contours of the human body, highlighting the shape and musculature of the body underneath while breaking up large blocks of flat color/no detail area. It's not needed here because you have the artist already working overtime to render every single muscle as if the hero has been flayed open. Here, the only purpose the piping could serve is to re-assure the reader that Superman is indeed wearing a costume and not just having his body painted blue and big "S" sticker affixed to his chest.

No Ordinary Family: This has been a guilty pleasure of mine. I say guilty because in many ways it isn't really very thought out or well done. Chiklis is a police artist, his job is drawing pictures of suspects, yet he routinely goes out to fight crime without the least care in disguising himself, especially since he is physically very memorable looking. Last week's episode showed the dangers of such and he does attempt a bit of a disguise with a hood, showing they are aware of the problem. This week? Back out confronting criminals with no type of disguise. Julie Benz keeps doing things with her super speed that works fine in comics but when you see it played out on the screen, it just screams that in no way it would work. The son deciding to use his math play football makes sense as a decision that a teenage boy would come up with, but again, the reality of it would play out very different. Knowing the angles and what to do is one thing, being able to physically do it is another. Thanks to this week's episode, I got to thinking about telepathy and mind-reading. It is so ingrained in us through tv, comics, classic sci-fi, and movies, I don't think anyone has really given it that much thought. Even when not talking about telepathy, when we see/hear/read people's thoughts in novels, comics and film, it's almost always in printed form, we get their thoughts spelled out for us in complete sentences. To the point, that we take it for granted, forgetting that the presentation is really a short-hand for something that is abstract and nebulous. We don't actually think that way (or only that way) and thus telepathy would probably work very differently.

Think about this, you're driving down the highway with the radio on. Your mind is doing several tasks at once. One, paying attention to where you're driving. You may be singing to the radio, thus you're also thinking of the song and the words coming up and the tune. You're also processing all the fall leaves and color, reading the signs for your exit. The song itself may summon up images of a childhood sweetheart or a scene it's illustrating. Now, as a writer I spend time driving thinking about things to write, or in this case, telepathy. Otherwise, most times, we don't think in concrete direct complete sentences. Trapped in a secret or to tell a lie, we don't think in sentence about what we're trying to cover up, but often what can we say instead and does the person in front of us believe us. If I look at someone that's attractive, I don't usually literally think, "wow, she's attractive" but is a far more visceral response. If I tell you to think of a Pink Panther, are you thinking the words, the cartoon character, Steve Martin, or Peter Sellers or all of the above. A telepath wouldn't hear sentences, and if they did, most of them would be jumbled, stream of consciousness or one word responses. They should pick up the various stimuli the person is being exposed to and maybe in the varying degrees of strength that those are imprinting on the person's thought processes jumbled with words and abstract thought that the person may be going through. A few times, someone will be shown to be telepathic in such a manner, but in those cases, the thought processes are even more fragmented, to be almost all dream-like and nebulous, as if the person being read is high on some kind of mind altering substance, it's all external stimuli but no reading of actual thought processes.

Imagine what it really would be like being a telepath in high school and not being able to turn it off, able to read the minds of every hormone sexually charged and frustrated teen-ager, of all their insecurities, focusing on class subject matter, dreading tests. It would be a nightmare. And, probably not at all conducive to any kind of linear storytelling.

Halloween equals good comics

2010-10-19T16:10:00.009-04:00

I am finding that October and the time of Halloween is a time for some good comics. It's been perfect time in past years for dipping into the back-issue trades and picking up some of the Horror-hero characters from Marvel such as Essentials starring Ghost Rider, Doctor Voodoo, the Living Mummy, and the Scarecrow. This year there is a nice smallish volume featuring some of the b/w magazine stories featuring their various vampires including Morbius (one of my favorites, especially when done by Gil Kane). There is also a hardcover sampling of Dick Briefer's Frankenstein stories, a series that ran the gamut of being straight forward horror, to a supervillain, to an almost cuddly affable monster ala Herman Munster, years before that series ever did it.

Angel vs Frankenstein II: John Byrne returns this Halloween to Angel & Frankenstein. As with the first one, the only real drawback is that it could use another issue or two to really bring out the tension and horror as there is so much for one issue to do. It's a period piece, so it has to establish both the physical place but also the status quo and supporting cast and make us care for them and worry about them. Byrne manages in a few short pages to introduce various characters, some with secrets, relationships and pasts all of their own and make them compelling enough that a one issue story just seems too short for them. His version of the Frankenstein Monster is in keeping with the classic novel. He's bizarre and scary looking and presented as a sociopath and not some misunderstood Romantic Hero. The story presents about as definitive a death scene as you can possibly get when dealing with a creature that seems too tough to die.

Batman: Hidden Treasures: Most new fans think of horror comics and they no doubt think of the likes of the dark fantasy of Neil Gaiman or Alan Moore's Swamp Thing. Older fans will think of the works of Tom Sutton, Mike Ploog and the legendary Berni Wrightson. Berni is one of those creators like Steranko, Barry Windsor Smith, Dave Stevens and Neal Adams, men who don't have many lengthy credits or long stretches of work to their name, but the little they have done was game changing and influential on so many levels. Wrightson's name is inextricably linked to Swamp Thing, but he's proven to be a great Batman artist. This book presents two Batman stories, one previously unpublished and one that has been published many times when he and Swamp Thing first crossed paths.

The first story part prose and part pin-ups as Batman investigates a serial killer of homeless people and it leads him to Slaughter Swamp and comic's first swamp monster, Solomon Grundy. The prose of the story is a little confusing at first as the identity of the narrator is kept purposely obscure until the end. However, I spent considerable time in the first two pages trying to figure out the point of view of the story, who the narrator was as it doesn't make it clear that the narrator is not supposed to be a witness to the events of the story. It's only by the tone that you first rule out Batman and then Commissioner Gordon and after that point, I was sufficiently hooked into the story to not care. In fact, when the revelation did come, it just seemed a bit too cutesy and I really no longer cared.

Wrightson's art is excellent and strong enough that Kevin Nowlan's usually overpowering inking was kept to a minimum annoyance. Most of the time I could forget Nowlan was the inker until certain panels with people's faces and his habit of going cubist on straight on head-shots of characters by making their mouths look like they are being viewed by an extreme angle, at odds with the rest of the face. It tends to give all his faces this puckered or constipated expression. Plus, his line is often thin and inorganic, something I wouldn't think to match up with an artist like Wrightson whose art is practically synonymous for being natural and organic. However, for the most part the pairing works surprisingly well.

The second story is the reprinted "Night of the Bat" by Lein Wein and Wrightson from Swamp Thing #7, first series. The story has obviously been re-colored which makes its presence known in several places, such as putting a leaf pattern in Swamp Thing's thought balloons. I miss this version of Swamp Thing, when he really was Alec Holland and before he went all supernatural and elemental.

JSA 80-Page Giant 2010: This is one of those books that if I looked at it first I would have returned it. It was a JSA book so it got put in my bag automatically and I did not realize it was not the regular monthly title since it had the Justice Society of America title logo in the usual place. Instead it's just a big book focusing on the legacy characters in short story bits with varying degrees of lameness. The Obsidian story contained the overpowering and scratchy inks of Bill Sienkiewicz in a story that was little more than the writer recapping Obsidian's lifestory and homosexuality, reinforcing his total misinterpretation of Obsidian's story in the JLA. And, as the plot is about Obsidian and his boyfriend trying to adopt and thus the regaling of his life-story, it's lame in that we don't get a reason they are turned down. Especially as the most logical conclusion of him being a superhero is denied. Told what it's not, but not what it is. The Jesse Quick story was passable with nice art but otherwise unforgettable. Mr. Terrific's story was confusing as it starts with a guy in a coma, I at first figured everything after that was meant to be a flashback on how he got to be in a coma. Instead, it was supposed to be about him coming out of the coma. A pity the artist drew him asleep then. And, we see Mr. Terrific now flying with some kind of jet-boots? Cyclone's story reinforces her contradictory nature. In many ways she's annoying and she's meant to be and yet I find her all the more likable and fresh for that. The best thing about the Wildcat and son story was that for once his son didn't annoy me in a bad way too much and the artwork was far better than I had seen by Williams in JSA All-Stars. Sand and Dr. Fate were just boring, to the point that I kept nodding off in between word balloons in mid panel. Then there's the whole idea that the latter story is telling readers it's ok to commit suicide in order to be reunited with the ones you love.

Magnus #2: A solid comic that updates the future of Magnus for modern sensibilities but still has enough of the style, themes and background to be familiar with the other versions. The artist at times seems a little overwhelmed at times in depicting the action scenes or small things like a character's hairstyle. As the story concerned itself with white slavery and exploitation of women, the comic veers close to being too adult and prurient when it doesn't really need to be.

We get signs that in the future, there are other threats other than just the robots, including cyborgs and what appear to be aliens that consider human meat a delicacy. This brings a needed variety to Magnus' future world. Even more development of that world is needed, though. The book was originally created in the 1960s, we could use a book that is more multi-cultural, with more strong female characters other than Leeja who offers herself up as victim-bait this issue.

Warlord of Mars #1: Calling the book "Warlord of Mars" and I'd expect that ideally, John Carter would be on Mars by the third page. I don't think you need to drag out his past, it's not really that important. However, this is a Dynamite book so I don't really expect to see John Carter get to Mars until the fourth issue, they like their decompression too much and dragging out the origins of the characters.

Surprisingly, it didn't bother me too much with the first issue in that they decided to tell a dual story giving us the backgrounds of both Carter and Tars Tarkas so we see still get quite a bit of Mars. I think the backdrop at least gives us an idea of what kind of man John Carter is, fiercely loyal and quick to fight if the situation demands it. What is missing is the idea from the books that Carter is some kind of immortal with little memory of his past but always finding himself embroiled in conflict and battles.

Sadowski delivers on the art and it's not so colored that the pencils are lost. However, the story is a bit confusing as Union Soldiers are colored to be wearing grays, the short-hand identification of the Rebels. Maybe the colorist didn't know that the bad-guys in the story were supposed to be the Northerners and not the South for a change?

Multiple covers, so I chose the Joe Jusko one myself. Reminded me of when I first discovered John Carter, Deja Thoris and Tars Tarkas and those paperback covers.

Legend of the Guard, Baltimore, and Dr. Solar

2010-10-11T10:13:00.005-04:00

Was cleaning up for my girlfriend's visit and came across a few books that I had thought were worth recommending and somehow just fell by the wayside.

Mouse Guard: Legends of the Guard #3: Mouse Guard is one of the best Independent comics out there and something that is designed to appeal to a wider range of ages and audiences than your typical superhero comic now put out by the major companies. I normally don't get it for a couple of reasons. One, the price on them always seemed a bit high to the actual time it would take to read it. Two, the art which I like on browsing the comic I discovered didn't really work for me in large dosage after I sat down to read one of the trades that I checked out of the library. In small doses, for a page or two, I find the art and print quality striking, but I cannot put my finger on why it doesn't work for me in the longer form. However, Legends of the Guard #3 has smaller stories by other creators such as B.P.R.D.'s and The Marquis' Guy Davis. The other creators in this issue I'm not as familiar with, but the stories are all top notch, most with a humorous bent. "The Ballad of Nettledown" by Nate Pride has a certain Jeff Smith feel in places and delivers a wonderfully whimsical tale. The final story is a truncated adaption of Edgar Allen Poe's "The Raven" with appropriately gloomy art, perfect for reading in October.

Baltimore: The Plague Ships: A while back, Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden wrote the novel Baltimore or the Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire. As a novel, it fits firmly the style of Mignola's original Hellboy comic book tales though it does not take place in that world. Instead, its action is in the final days of World War I, where Captain Baltimore discovers something worse than the War, vampires who are responsible for widespread sickness and deaths that are being passed off as a plague sweeping England. Plus, he earns the personal enmity of one that he had dared to defy and scar during the War and whom he vows to hunt down and kill. Most of the novel, Baltimore is little seen, as it centers largely around several of his friends that are waiting for him in an inn and their sharing stories of horrors and terrors they have personally seen and experienced.

"The Plague Ships" is a mini-series set largely in the missing years of the novel, after Baltimore's experience in the War but before his climactic meeting with his friends and the final confrontation. As such, the mood and atmosphere of a world that is gray, dismal, and claustrophobic in its feel of impending doom is carried over from the novel. The second issue slows down the story to take time to visibly recount Baltimore's war-time experiences and encountering the vampire. The art by Ben Stenback is not as stylized as Mignola's but it grounds the story with a relative down to earth realism that underscores the horrors. Colorist Dave Stewart knows his craft well, how to use color to supplement the mood and atmosphere of the story without being distracting.

Another beautiful book by Mignola and the people at Dark Horse is the slim hard-cover volume The Amazing Screw-On Head and Other Curious Objects. The book collects various one-shot stories and stories produced as part of anthologies: "The Amazing Screw-On Head", "The Magician and the Snake", and "Abu Gung and the Beanstalk" (which is actually re-done and expanded for this volume). To round it out are also a trio of stories done specifically for this book and a sketchbook which are always fun to look at. It is also one of the most affordable buys around, $17.99 at full US price. That's cheaper than many trades and this actually has substantial new material and will look good on any bookshelf.

The only drawback is a backpage of advertising for other books by Dark Horse and collections of Mignola's. Not something I look for in my hardbacks.

Lastly, also from Dark Horse, is the trade paperback collecting the first seven issues of Doctor Solar, Man of the Atom. First published in 1962 and 1963, one can see how the title reflects the times but manages also something different. Think of the first issues of Green Lantern, the Flash, and the Justice League. Think of the first few stories of Spider-man, the Fantastic Four, and the Avengers. While Stan Lee talks about how he was trying to write superheroes for a sophisticated audience, Western's take on superheroes seemed to really walk the walk. Doctor Solar was the type of science fiction hero one would almost expect to see on television. His powers had a severe drawback that provided tension between him and his would be girlfriend. The stories themselves were more along the lines of popular spy shows or science-fiction shows like The Man From U.N.C.L.E. or Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. There was something more literary and even more real-world than anything going on at DC or Marvel. While Charlton had the similarly powered Captain Atom whose appearances bracketed these stories, it might be their Peacemaker that came closest to reflecting a real-world superhero. Added to that are early stylistic covers by Richard M. Powers reflecting many of his science fiction covers at the time while the later painted covers by George Wilson was reminiscent of many 1950s lurid paperback covers (I believe he also painted the covers of a few Phantom paperbacks). Wilson painted covers for much of Western Publishing's line, easily separating them visibly from the standard comic book covers of the other companies on the racks. His covers alone are often worth getting the books for, Dark Horse should do an art book just collecting all his various covers, though that may mean working out a deal from the property holders of Twilight Zone, Star Trek, Dark Shadows, etc.

Likewise, the artwork by Bob Fujitani and Frank Bolle are decidedly not flashy as Jack Kirby, Gil Kane, or even Don Heck. This is interesting as in the 1940s, Fujitani was one of the more bombastic and stylistic artists around. Otherwise, the illustrations looked like it belonged more to a slick magazine than one of a superhero. Even when he finally does get in a real costume like a more standard superhero, it's still very utilitarian looking and possessing wrinkles and folds.

Looking back, at least to this volume, the stories might seem a little dull. His powers are ill-defined and powerful yet often leaving him vulnerable to wearing himself out. In fact, that was the biggest danger, no one was really a direct threat. In that way, the stories were not too dissimilar to the adventures of various television heroes in the 1970s where we saw the likes of the Bionic Man, the Invisible Man, and the Incredible Hulk taking on fairly mundane type threats. Yet, it's this grounding that makes the character and stories seem more serious about the science and basic realism that it's going for. It's not the 1950s science fiction and characterization still fueling DC nor the over-wrought teen-age angst and pop culture science fiction storytelling that drove Marvel. Doctor Solar and the rest of their line looked like they were truly offering something for more discriminating readers.

And, this carries over into the trade's appearance as well. With the cover being a reproduction of one of Richard Powers abstract covers on the front and the more pulp-paperback influenced painting by George Wilson on the top half of the back, even the trade looks like it takes itself a bit more seriously than most comic book reprints.

I'm glad to see Dark Horse reprinting these in paperback as well as the Archives, which are just a bit out of my price range.

Todays Comics Looking to the Past

2010-10-06T10:24:00.006-04:00

Since I probably won't be getting any new comics this week and I've not talked about comics in a little while, here's my chance to plug away.

Captain America: The Patriot: Two issues have come out and I'm conflicted on the book. General consensus on the web seems to be as well. Most seem to praise the artwork over the writing (I guess because Kesel is not Brubaker) whereas I'm a bit the other way around. Kesel does seem to be writing Brubaker-lite, but I think he does an admirable job at writing the history of a man whose history is generally known. He succeeds in doing so without actually changing known facts and keeping the focus and point of view on Jeff Mace and his view of things. The art is passable in most places and is in keeping in toning down the gosh-wow factor of superheroes and their costumes that passes for good superhero art these days as half the artists seem embarrassed at drawing superheroes.

The second issue is where it really begins to falter. The problem is that while it is telling a good character-centric story and makes Jeff Mace seem like a decent and likable lunkhead, it and the art never get across why the characters are cool characters. The highlight of the whole issue is when he gets fed up with Namor's snarkiness and attitude and punches him. There you see his passion. Otherwise, as soon as Mace puts on the Captain America costume he becomes a second-rate hero in his own book. Every story of the fill-in Captain Americas center around why they were bad Captain Americas. As this is his chance to shine, it would be nice that the focus went the other way, why he was such a good choice for Captain America. Maybe the best choice for the time period. There are little bits where he shines such as the afore-mentioned conflict with Namor, but otherwise it is more about his shortcomings.

Other little things that bug me, Kesel seems to forget that the Bucky he's writing is not the original Bucky, at least in the way he writes him. Bucky comes off as a better fighter and hero and constantly berating Patriot-Cap, even though Patriot would have been a superhero for much longer. And, this Bucky has only been Bucky for just a couple of months longer than Jeff has been Cap, so it seems especially strange for Bucky to constantly be talking and acting as if he has so much more experience.

Kesel also uses the term "blue ticketed" to explain the discharge of a friend of the Patriot's and his subsequent suicide and why Jeff cannot appear as Captain America at the guy's funeral. It is also used to explain why Jeff would never become the Patriot again as his appearance and impassioned speech at his friend's funeral in the guise of the Patriot would make that identity a pariah. However, what Kesel doesn't do is explain what "blue ticketed" actually meant. He gives us the effect, but the closest he gets to the cause is the Whizzer asking if his buddy had a girlfriend. A Blue Ticket discharge was a way to get undesirables ie blacks and homosexuals out of the service without it actually being a formal dishonorable discharge and such a discharge haunted the men back in civilian life. Sure, we don't want clunky exposition, but it could have been handled a little better.

One of the pleasures was seeing the focus on Miss Patriot in this series. Appearing only once in the Golden-Age, here and her identity as a fellow co-reporter of Jeff Mace's she plays a central role. From the start of the second issue, we get the hints of bad things to come, that is if you know the history of Captain America and Bucky. After WWII, there was an explosion of good-girl art and characters. Most of them were jungle queens, but Timely/Atlas/Marvel explored shapely female heroines along the lines of Sun Girl and Golden Girl. Thinking that Captain America might do better with an adult female sidekick, Bucky is shot by a lady criminal called Lady Lavender and Cap recruits the help of Golden Girl who is Betty Ross, a long recurring character and possible romantic interest in the Golden-age Captain America tales.

That's a lot of threads being tied together in this one comic. We see Mary/Miss Patriot several times with a mention of her Lavender perfume each time. One discussion even centers around Jeff accusing her of hoping that Bucky is shot so that she could become his partner. Then you factor in that Jeff is generally oblivious of her romantic feelings for him and that he pretty much ruins her career as Miss Patriot when he destroys the Patriot's reputation. Mary's path is obviously becoming a sad tragic one. And, when Bucky is shot at the end of the issue with the smell of lavender in the air, Cap will get a future female partner but it will not be Mary. What we don't really get is the feeling that Mary has gone over the edge. We see her as being sad, but we don't actually see the bitterness. You feel sorry for her but don't see that final step or sign that she has gone over the edge, it's a huge gap in the portrayal of her characterization. It might be Kesel just trying to be coy for just a little too long, or a sign that she's not really the villainess (after all other women probably wear the same perfume). Either way, it's obviously going to be a story that doesn't end well for Jeff or Mary.

DC Universe Legacies #5: I had sworn off this book, didn't get issue four because the writing had so many holes and internal discrepancies in it that it was a chore to read to try to figure out exactly what the point of it was. However, issue five shows this book's perspective of Crisis on Infinite Earth's and with it, the wonderful George Perez doing what he does best: drawing scores of superheroes on model in big battle scenes. Not only that, we get an appearance by one of my favorite wonky silver-age characters Ultra, the Multi-Alien, who was left out of the original mega-mini. Couple that with a great little back-up with art by Walt Simonson teaming up Space Ranger, Adam Strange, Captain Comet and Tommy Tomorrow. Other than Adam Strange, the others don't have much to do, but it's great seeing them again looking the way they should.

And, as I usually come down hard on colorists, this is a book where the colorist gets it. His skin tones are natural and subtle, no obvious banding to the point that under most lighting conditions, people's skin appears only to have two tones, you generally don't have bright highlights on skin. No blurring of speed lines and edges of super-speed characters, no obvious texture fills, etc. In general, no special effect that actually draws attention to itself, the coloring instead serves to help the art to tell the story, something important in artwork that's dense like Perez.

While the writing still makes as little sense as ever (we have references to Judomaster as a modern day hero and Captain Atom in a costume he didn't actually wear in the DCU other than as part of government cover-up suggesting a career that was longer than it was), it's at least a book that looks good.
JSA #43: It read like a setup issue by a writer who is not the regular writer of either principle character of the story or title with a plot that has similarities to the upcoming story arc by the new regular writer, the JSA take over the running of a town. Just as Robinson's JLA/JSA arc featured heavily Obsidian going bad/being taken control of immediately after a series culminating with Obsidian stating that would never happen again. Serious, what is the editor doing on this book?

I think part of this was to actually give some kind of reason that Robinson's storyline mattered. Because, otherwise, it's no big deal that Obsidian and Jade cannot be in proximity because other than their days as part of Infiniti Inc, they rarely are featured together, each following different paths and teams. And, she's been dead. So, he needed this bit of durm und strang to make it seem like what just happened was this really big deal. However, just how much time has passed between issues? For everything that Alan Scott has done on the moon it would have to be close to a year at least, that he's been able to master talking to different races in their speech patterns, broker truce treaties with various worlds and realms AND research with Fate Obsidian and Jade's condition and the various futures.

Project Superpowers: Chapter Two #12: The final issue of the second series, the big Claw battle seems almost like an afterthought. In many ways it's a retread of the previous battle with Zeus, the heroes fighting a giant god-like being that they don't have the power to kill. The Claw battle has a bit more of a philosophical/moral dilemma in that his body is made up of innocents and thus to defeat him means killing or condemning thousands of people who don't deserve to die, drawing parallels to dropping the Atomic bomb to end the war with Japan. It's an anti-climactic ending though. Part of that was rendering the heroes ostensibly immortal and another that the Claw is such an ill-defined threat. And, you have the heroes apparently readily accepting Dynamic Man and Power Nelson into the folds despite their traitorous crimes.

In Chapter One and the Death Defying Devil minis, the Claw was a terrorist organization and an almost demonic entity that possessed others. It was a storytelling device that could have been used to fuel quite a few different type of stories or a long series in and of itself ala the mostly excellent JSA vs Kobra mini. But, much of that is dropped in making him a more physical threat. He goes from some kind of long plan insidious goals to one of more direct physical confrontation and easily handled. The actual terror of what he is and what he does doesn't really come across as it has been too far into the background of the storyline that focused more on Zeus and the identity of DDD. What could have been a heart and gut wrenching tale is ho-hum. After all, the Claw only absorbed one person we could even possibly care about.

The drawing AND the coloring improve. In a book like this, cannot really separate the two, but for the most part, the two do merge to make single whole. Although, the style has its shortcomings such as a page that has a 15 panel grid of single heroes in battle. The panels are too small, the detail needed too tight for such over done coloring.

Time Masters: Vanishing Point: The mini suffers from not having any clear direction or plot. We know the over-arcing plot, that the small group of heroes are traveling through time to rescue Batman. But, as his return is the focus of another book, that's obviously not the point of this one. So, instead, we have a battle alongside heroes of other times against other ill-defined threats. Meanwhile some classic mastermind villains are exploring the remains of Booster's headquarters, Vanishing Point, for some clues and power to reshape time. Despite these villains each being scientific masterminds, they are give little to do. The Ultra-Humanite is used mainly to being a short-tempered foil and for his brute strength. Jurgens does little to really explain or characterize many of the characters, some of whom who haven't appeared in comics for decades.

With the second issue, I noticed the art looked off. It looked a bit like Jurgens but it seemed to be more of all of his shortcomings and not his strengths, that bodies looked stiff and disproportionate, reminding me of bad Jim Starlin in places. I looked at the credits and saw that Jurgens was only the layout artist and with two different finishers, explaining the inconsistencies. With issue three, we still just have Jurgens on layouts but at least only one guy doing the finished art. However, it still looks like "bad Jurgens" art. One of the big problems is that with both issues, the art is trying hard to have all the principle characters with their bodies facing the reader. Heroes are constantly fighting threats behind them and looking over their shoulders, having conversations while not facing each other, and so on. One panel has Booster and Starfire talking about being surrounded. Not only are they hardly surrounded, but half of their foes are not even looking at them. It looks more like a group of people just milling around than any kind of threat. The one good news is that either the coloring is not as bad with the computerized effects or it just distracts you from it.

And, why is the Black Beetle almost completely red?

The only reason to get this book is the chance to see Bronze-age characters like Claw and the original Starfire, Despero and Per Degaton in their original looks. For that, I'm a sucker.

Peter Cannon, Whereforth Art Thou?
The story goes that shortly after DC canceled his series and he made a couple of appearances in Justice League Task Force, the rights to Peter Cannon, Thunderbolt returned to his creator Peter Morisi, shortly before he died. As such, he was the only character that was part of a Justice League book to not appear in the JLA/Avengers mini. Of course, there was some justification that that the heroes that appeared in Task Force were never actual JL members and so didn't require an appearance, but he is still the sole notable exception. Even Hourman from the same story was in there.

However, we have Thunderbolt appearing in TWO different DC books this past month. One, alongside the other Charlton heroes in DCUniverse: Legacies #5 which admittedly has other problems in the same panel: the WWII Judomaster and Captain Atom appearing in his red, blue and silver outfit when he wasn't really on the scene at this time, in this costume, both being government fabrications. Meanwhile in Justice League: Generation Lost, we have a retelling of the scene in Kingdom Come where the Charlton heroes alongside Magog track down the Parasite who uses his powers to split open Captain Atom and setting off an atomic explosion and is pretty much the kick-off event of that mini. In the comic, Thunderbolt is identified by name and is show in the more GA Daredevil influenced costume.

Makes you wonder what is going on. Do we have two blatant examples of editors just not doing their jobs and allowing the exact same copyright infringement? Is the original story about the character's rights reverting to Morisi just a comicbook legend? Did DC buy the character back? Of the three, I'd say the latter is the most unlikely. Why buy the rights back and debut him back into the DCU in what are largely throwaway scenes where the character does absolutely nothing? Either of the other two are the most likely though it's strange to see him appear in two completely different books out of the blue. But, no love for the Son of Vulcan (I like the name, design and concept of the character, his actual comic though was beyond bad).
Black Terror Canceled. Been seeing references that the Black Terror book has been canceled. A shame but not surprising. The book never gelled, the plotlines and the stories never actually developed the character other than to add kewl pirate motif elements. What could have been a decent book about a super-powered Batman type character fighting super-criminals and bizarre mysteries never became anything more than a book about a perpetually angry and gruff hero. No supporting cast or characterization was developed over just following up plot threads left over from the Superpowers book itself. A shame as I believe Dynamite was right in focusing on him as a character to launch a single character title. He has one of the more iconic costumes, names and storytelling potential. If only they had approached it as they were telling a single character comic and not a "comic universe" comic and actually looked at the source material that made him such an enduring character and concept to begin with and not just the revisionist ill-tempered Black Terror of Superpowers.

The Return of the Originals: On the subject of pulps, I have started my own blog reviewing various pulp novels and characters. So far, two entries. One, a Secret Agent "X" novel and two, the Doc Savage rift Thunder Jim Wade and his final novel. This blog started off as a pulp and comic review site, but it's difficult to do both subjects justice in one place. Plus, the overlap may not be all that great as many fans and readers of pulps don't translate to being fans of modern comics, as we will see below.

Moonstone is getting ready to launch what they call the "Return of the Originals", ie seeing many of the original pulp heroes into their line of comicbooks. They've already been using Domino Lady although the first issue failed to me in any way other than just being badly done and the Spider has been appearing in some illustrated prose "comics". They have also published a couple of really good books, one being radio scripts of Doc Savage written by Lester Dent and an Avenger anthology of short-stories by modern writers, most of whom get the character far better than anyone at DC does (it could have used an editor overseeing the original stories as many centered around introducing various characters from Richard Benson's past).

This website has a host of interviews with people involved in reprinting and writing modern pulp stories and comics as well as many of the people behind Moonstone's upcoming foray (you'll have to scroll down to get to them).

One of the standard questions they ask is how the interviewee feels about DC's take on Doc and the Avenger and modern revisions/reimaginings of the characters. It's almost funny at the spin that each writer gives as they are all doing pretty much the same thing to different degrees. I give Hopkins a break with the Golden Amazon because she did have a couple of different irreconcilable back-stories. Sort of like the Alec Baldwin Shadow movie which tries to combine both the radio Shadow and the pulp Shadow into one character. The creators behind the Green Ghost and the Phantom Detective both talk about using as much of the original published history as possible. But, both decide to give them powers. While the writer of the Moon Man changes the gender of his chief assistant for no good reason (there's already a capable love interest in the original stories).

The Ghost gets his new powers through a new mask and the Phantom Detective gains abilities through using performance enhancing (and mind altering drugs). What's really funny about this is the Phantom Detective writer brings out all sorts of psycho-babble to justify it, that he feels he's being made obsolete due to the explosion of costumed heroes with real powers. This is sorta true meta-fictionally. The pulp heroes did give way to the costumed comicbook heroes. In fact, the Phantom Detective was also in the comics as his publisher was one of the big companies at the time. HOWEVER, Moonstone does not have that superhero-universe. There are no true super-powered heroes bursting on the scene unless this writer creates them. Plus, it's a flawed argument in that the presence of superheroes does not make police, soldiers, firemen and detectives superfluous. It's a writer that truly does not get the character or subject matter.

Likewise, the interview concerning the Black Bat goes along the same lines. The character debuted the same time as Batman with a similar look. More importantly though, his origin was pretty much lifted for both Dr. Mid-nite and Two-Face, at a trial he has a vial of acid thrown at his face which scars him (and leaves him blind). After a secret experimental surgery, he discovers he can see in the day and night and with a small gang of aides, he fights crime. He's not above killing criminals especially the ringleaders beyond the touch of the Law, but he doesn't set out to kill them. Of course in the one online preview, we see him killing drug dealers execution style and driven by voices in his head. Yet, this complete revision of the character isn't seen as being the same as Azzarello's handling of Doc Savage? Maybe it's because they talk about how much they love the characters vs his professed disdain of the source material.

What's sad is that this was not their approach to the Phantom. They wrote the character as he was classically but with modern threats and credibility. The character stayed in keeping with the way he was portrayed in the strips. You could go from their comic to the newspaper to old reprints and still see character as being completely recognizable, that you're obviously reading about the same character. But, their interviews are along Ross' and Dynamite's promos and talking about their Phantom comic. "Here's how much I love the character, so I'm going to change all this stuff about him."

Secret Agent "X" is about the only one we know that's going to be appearing that they haven't talked about. "X" has a lot of potential, especially as his past is a complete mystery so there's plenty that could be developed. However, based on what we've seen so far, I expect a lot to be changed concerning what the character already is.

A little interesting tidbit, the principle characters we know are being used, this is not their first time in the comics. As noted, the Phantom Detective appeared in the Golden-age comics, mostly intact. Secret Agent "X", Black Bat, and Captain Future all had their first stories pretty much straight-forwardly adapted though they all became Phantom Fed "X", the Mask, and Major Mars (the Captain Future id was used by a "standard" superhero). The Moon Man also made it into comics but with a name and costume change to that of the Raven. The Ghost got re-imagined in comics as superhero magician with true magic powers, dumping much of his pulp influences.

The comic store I frequent actually has several pulp fans, about five I think. Plus, he just got one more whose tastes seem to mirror mine own in modern comics only he gets even fewer than I do. However, he's only getting one issue each of these books and it's not going on the shelf. As the longest customer apart from the owner, more than likely I'll get first refusal. But, it doesn't speak well when the books don't even seem designed to appeal to those who should be their most core basic audience. Especially considering that pulp reprints are fairly popular these days and very pricey. If we're willing to spend $12-$16 for a forty year old reprint, we might be very willing to buy a comic for a fraction of that price if it at least played fair with us instead of pulling a bait and switch.

The Sorcerers Apprentice

2010-10-01T18:48:00.005-04:00

The Sorcerer's Apprentice

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

That old sorcerer has vanished
And for once has gone away!
Spirits called by him, now banished,
My commands shall soon obey.
Every step and saying
That he used, I know,
And with sprites obeying
My arts I will show.

Flow, flow onward
Stretches many
Spare not any
Water rushing,
Ever streaming fully downward
Toward the pool in current gushing.

Come, old broomstick, you are needed,
Take these rags and wrap them round you!
Long my orders you have heeded,
By my wishes now I've bound you.
Have two legs and stand,
And a head for you.
Run, and in your hand
Hold a bucket too.

Flow, flow onward
Stretches many,
Spare not any
Water rushing,
Ever streaming fully downward
Toward the pool in current gushing.

See him, toward the shore he's racing
There, he's at the stream already,
Back like lightning he is chasing,
Pouring water fast and steady.
Once again he hastens!
How the water spills,
How the water basins
Brimming full he fills!

Stop now, hear me!
Ample measure
Of your treasure
We have gotten!
Ah, I see it, dear me, dear me.
Master's word I have forgotten!

Ah, the word with which the master
Makes the broom a broom once more!
Ah, he runs and fetches faster!
Be a broomstick as before!
Ever new the torrents
That by him are fed,
Ah, a hundred currents
Pour upon my head!

No, no longer
Can I please him,
I will seize him!
That is spiteful!
My misgivings grow the stronger.
What a mien, his eyes how frightful!

Brood of hell, you're not a mortal!
Shall the entire house go under?
Over threshold over portal
Streams of water rush and thunder.
Broom accurst and mean,
Who will have his will,
Stick that you have been,
Once again stand still!

Can I never, Broom, appease you?
I will seize you,
Hold and whack you,
And your ancient wood
I'll sever,
With a whetted axe I'll crack you.

He returns, more water dragging!
Now I'll throw myself upon you!
Soon, 0 goblin, you'll be sagging.
Crash! The sharp axe has undone you.
What a good blow, truly!
There, he's split, I see.
Hope now rises newly,
And my breathing's free.

Woe betide me!
Both halves scurry
In a hurry,
Rise like towers
There beside me.
Help me, help, eternal powers!

Off they run, till wet and wetter
Hall and steps immersed are lying.
What a flood that naught can fetter!
Lord and master, hear me crying! -
Ah, he comes excited.
Sir, my need is sore.
Spirits that I've cited
My commands ignore.

"To the lonely
Corner, broom!
Hear your doom.
As a spirit
When he wills, your master only
Calls you, then 'tis time to hear it."

I quote this poem because this will be an unusual post. I've talked in the past about creators and critics trying to glamorize their profession and hobby as high art, drawing correlations between high art and pop culture with badly conducted so-called scholarly studies, articles and books. In some cases, they do overlap though. While doing research for my website, I came across Red Band Comics #1 (and 2 which was just a reprint of the first) and a story called "The Sorcerer and his Apprentice". Like most, I'm most familiar with the story through the Disney cartoon, but it's easy to see that it's a pretty straight adaptation. The GA story takes a few liberties but one can see the elements from the poem.

What struck me as especially interesting wasn't just the story being lifted from the poem or even the wonderfully illustrative quality of the artwork but how it connects to some popular literature of the time and upon other research, some of the works of Alan Moore. When he's casting his first spell, he calls on both Cthulu and Melek Tawus. Cthulu is of a fictional cosmic being from the mind of and works of H. P. Lovecraft. Melek Tawus is a bit more complicated. Melek Tawus is of the Yazidis faith. He is the head of a group of seven angels who oversee the Earth. According to their faith he's rewarded for not bowing down to Adam (he received conflicting orders from God). Because of this, by Christians and Muslims identify him with Lucifer and Satan and the Yazidis as devil worshipers. Reputedly, Yazidis and their faith were portrayed as evil devil worshipers in at least one work of Lovecraft as well as his collaborator E. Hoffman Price. This would seem a bit strange as it implies that the Sorcerer is then calling on evil gods for his spell and possibly a devil worshiper himself. Of course, wizards, warlocks, and witches have long been identified as devil worshipers and consorts of demons according to many religions but much fictional literature draw certain distinctions between "white" and "black" magic.

Where does this connect to Alan Moore? Well, Moore is a fan of Lovecraft's and has adapted some of his works. Plus, Melek Tawus is identified as being the Peacock Angel. A major character in Alan Moore's Top Ten comicbook is a superhero police officer King Peacock, who is generally portrayed as a sympathetic character. Of course, Moore does little straight-forward and being Alan Moore, he must put a twist in there to stab at and offend Western culture and societal norms. Thus, it's not enough for King Peacock to be of the Yazidi faith, but identifies himself as actually a devil worshiper. This would be an actual affront to those of the Yazidi faith who do not identify Melek with Satan and would consider it taboo and deeply offensive.

Thanks to goldenagecomics.co.uk for the scans

News & Reviews

2010-07-28T14:14:00.006-04:00

Comic News: It has probably been a while since there has been quite a bit of good news concerning upcoming comics, especially linking the names "Dynamite" and "Alex Ross".

Dynamite has gotten the rights to various Kirby characters, specifically Captain Victory, Silver Star, Phantom Force and his various Topps-verse characters and Alex Ross is associated with the project. That's not the good news, though. The good news is that Kurt Busiek has been roped in as writer! Kurt Busiek frequently proves himself as a writer that understands the power of continuity and history, that they are tools to be used not hindrances. His writings show that he understands the genres of superheroes, where they overlap other genres and what defines them. He has proven time and again, that he understands characterization and how continuity and history plays into that. His characters are defined by their history, the choices and lives they have lived. Even if you don't really agree with a particular characterization or direction he may take, you cannot argue that it's not at least grounded and reasoned out. So, instead of seeing the typical project by Dynamite and Ross of re-writing the characters to fit an arbitrary artistic vision, we can look forward to a book that truly starts with the basic concepts and characters Kirby came up with and grow out of that. Already, the promo art looks more faithful to the source material than the Phantom artwork did.

And, Busiek already has a history with some of these characters as he had been working on many of these characters for Topps with first issues being published of his Silver Star and Victory mini-series. Hopefully, we'll be seeing more faithful renderings by the artists this time around than Giffen's wholesale redesigns for the Victory comic.

Jurassic Park, Angel & Frankenstein, and Next Men! In the space of a week, three different titles have been revealed coming from John Byrne. Admittedly, the first two are just mini's or one-shots, but all should be a lot of fun with plenty of mayhem. Personally, I liked Danger Unlimited and the Torch of Liberty more than Next Men. But, I'm a superhero type of guy. Still, Next Men was some of the best out and out genre breaking writing to come out of John Byrne with complicated characters and motivations and intricate plotting, the top of his game. It will be interesting to see if he can recapture that lightning for I've felt that sense of depth hasn't been in the majority of his work of late. I'd like to see Byrne create and do his own full-blown superhero universe, full of costumed heroes, super-villains, magic monsters, lost civilizations, prehistoric jungles, alien invasions, etc. The stuff that actually makes superhero comics fun to read. The type of stuff we found in his Fantastic Four, Namor, Alpha Flight, Superman, etc.

Reviews:
Astro City: Silver Agent #1: After all this time, and a very long arc looking at him from the outside, we get an inside look at the Silver Agent, his origins and motivations. First up, Ross pulls off a nice Steranko pop-art feel to the cover. I love the start of the book, looking at some of the heroes of Astro City's past in action filled cameos then moving on to the far future with the Silver Agent fighting alongside a Legion of Superheroes/Alien Legion mish-mash against a cosmic menace that comes across as something that Jack Kirby would have come up with. Unfortunately I just don't buy that anyone would willingly choose to be innocently executed when there were other viable options available that wouldn't damage the outcome of history. He could still travel through time making those sporadic appearances and sending a "geneti-copy" to be executed. The problem is that with the sci-fi elements and raising the issue that they do have the technology to send a copy back through time, it's next to impossible to come up with a truly plausible reason not to take advantage of any logical outs.

There's some art issues. To be a broken record, we have instances of coloring that's too heavy and intense, muddying the clarity of the artwork. In fact, there's one scene that's almost laughable as the coloring of the Silver Agent out of costume with him looking at his palms, it looks like he's fondling his own chest. Then the flashbacks, look like they are going for that large dot pattern of comics past effect, but in this case we are getting a moire pattern that just mars the whole thing. Instead of going for a printing trick or special effects, such scenes would really work best by simply using a limited or muted color scene. It's not as if Anderson is trying to make his work look dated or old, so why should the printing?

Still, page for page, there's more story, more depth and pathos and action than found in many of today's comics.

DC Universe Legacies #3: Wow, three issues in and it already jumps the shark. Tthis issue even has more problems than the others. It seems like it cannot really decide what it's supposed to be. On one hand it seems to be a version of the modern history of the current DCU, which would be fine. On the other, it's a meta-fictional history, explaining superhero continuity and publishing trends through a story such as the fall of the GA heroes, the rise of the detective heroes and western stars (using television to stand in for comics, and the coonskin hat craze explained as a Tomahawk fad...). Except for the fact that the timeline in this issue is all sorts of screwed up. If the kid was around 8-12 in 1939, this story (and many of the characters used and referenced events) suggest that it's taking place in the 1950s. Which is fine when talking about the rise of the cowboy heroes after the GA masked men mostly leave the stage. But, the story then has that the Silver-Age heroes Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Green Lantern and the Flash all debuted in the mid to late 1950s while our older narrator was still a young man! Which is true publishing wise (for Green Lantern and the Flash anyways, the other four never really left), but no way that jibes with modern continuity! And, considering the age of the narrator, that means that he would have to be narrating from some point in the future, or we're going to acknowledge on some level that the modern heroes have been active for 50-60 years! Where's the editor on this thing? He's definitely not trying to have the story make sense. Or even correct spelling errors unless there's an alternate spelling for "brunette" out there. The only thing going for it is the wonderful art as in this one issue, the comic has no reason for being. It's telling a retcon history so it's all about continuity but it is a history that is completely inapplicable to any known incarnation of the DCU. Worthless.

Green Hornet: Year One #4: This is the first issue that falters a bit. Aaron Campbell's artwork is a bit inconsistent with the faces of Britt Reid and Kato, the two sometimes seem to be drawn from the same model, one with a rather sizable nose and weak chin! Nor do Francavilla's color combinations work as well this time out. The opening page with magenta and purple skies while the city is bathed in reds and yellows and carrying through to the interior scenes makes the color choices seem almost random and work against establishing mood or even place as it lends an otherworldly alien atmosphere to everything.

We get yet another story that depicts Reid being trained by Kato, but that is at least defensible in that a) it's four issues into the story, b) so we've seen how Reid is a hero and the driving and passionate force behind the team without sacrificing Kato as a developed character and c) we promptly see him in physical action showing himself to be a quick study and very capable fighter in his own right. So, while it's Kato training Britt how to fight, it's not Kato being the mentor and dominant factor of the team with Britt just stumbling along the best that he can that most modern Green Hornet takes fall into.

Justice Society of America #41: Not really impressed with Robinson's JSA story. We have have an inappropriate comment between Mr. America and Lightning, Wildcat doing the cliched "poor me with no superpowers but a good left-hook and on an adventure involving magic/superpowers/etc" monologue, Obsidian taken over right after a whole arc whose ultimate issue was about how he'd never be taken over again, Dr. Mid-nite getting sidelined out of an adventure in order to do real doctoring yet again, and by the end, the story's main heroes being just legacy heroes as all the originals or primary ones taken out. And, conflicting accounts as to how the starheart's possessions work. Is it random, possibly targeting anyone with a modicum of superpowers, or just the ones powered by starheart/chaotic energy? We are pretty much told both by Dick Grayson. As the majority of the team that Batman nee Nightwing nee Robin are superpowered, exactly what is his logic that these heroes are the least susceptible, when the whole start of the comic points out to both the reader and Dick Grayson that it is targeting even those with very little super power, that his original assessment was wrong? It's not that the story is following an internal logic we and the characters cannot see yet, it's there is no internal logic between what the characters know and their decisions and how they react.

Otherwise, Robinson does a decent job at telling the story without actually requiring a reading of the previous JLA. Of course part of that is that it's a relatively simple plot despite it's internal inconsistencies. And, Bagley does a good job on the artwork.

I am a bit surprised by how many people don't see anything wrong with a mid twenties at his youngest federal agent Mr. America making innuendo flirtations and holding hands with a girl of about sixteen years old and actually defend it.

Spectacular Spider-Girl #3: Not more that I can say that I've not already. Each issue is better and stronger than the one before. There's plenty of superhero action and characterization. As I've been a long time reader of the character, I'm not the best to judge on the reader friendly quality. New readers might wonder exactly what the Black Tarantula's relationship with Arana and Spider-Girl is, what the whole deal is about April and May and who's the clone questions. Heck, I'd be hard pressed to sum it all up and I'm not really sure exactly what the deal with Arana is, but it didn't hinder my enjoyment of the ride on this title. I give DeFalco props for not trying to draw out the mystery of who Wild Card was as it was very obvious. Of course, it was obvious because DeFalco wrote him as being in character even with his identity hidden. Straight-forward superhero fun by all involved.

Time Masters: Vanishing Point: This title has a few strikes against it. One, the comic has a built in flaw in its very premise of a plotline. It's all about Rip Hunter, Booster and several of the heroes looking for the Bruce Wayne Batman who's lost in time and whose very present is damaging the time stream. That's the mega plot to the story. The problem with that is it's a plot whose resolution will not be in this title as Batman's journey to the present is a whole other mini-series. Either this and that series will cross over before they are through or one of the two cannot really deliver on the story it's promising. Remember the "Death of Batman" mini from not too long back when the actual "death" of the character was in completely different title? It's the same thing here. Imagine a Star Wars story where a young man blames the jedis in general and Darth Vader specifically for the death of his father and sets out to kill him. Only that young man is not Luke Skywalker. You've set up for yourself a story whose logical climactic conclusion cannot be contained in your story because it's covered pretty well in another story. What Dan Jurgens has to deliver is that while the search for Batman is the goal of the heroes, it's only the starting point of the story, what gets the ball rolling and what the story is really about is something completely different. Jurgens does a little bit of that as he throws in a lot of other stuff such as the destruction of the Vanishing Point, where/when Booster and company normally make their home. Of course, that leads to the next problem... if like me you haven't been reading Booster Gold or really following all that's going on, it's hard to keep up with the storyline and characters. I don't know if this Rip Hunter is the same as the old Rip Hunter or the retcon post-Crisis Rip Hunter. He's not blond, no hint of a team nor a Time Sphere and he's a bit too world weary for my tastes, I like the idea of a time-traveling swashbuckler adventuring scientist. I don't know who Supernova is or his powers and we have three pages of him without identifying him. This is endemic of modern comics across the board. In trying to avoid clunky exposition whether in dialogue or captions that slows down stories for long time readers, we have more and more comics written as if everyone reading it has the complete scorecard, knows every character and their stats by heart. It's watching a sporting event that never bothered to tell you what player is wearing what number, what the team or player's stats were nor even bothered to tell you the score because you should be tracking all of that by yourself. That's modern comic book writing.

So, why did I get this? Because I like Jurgens' artwork. Even with the over-coloring and computerized effects (which there is plenty in this alas), his work stands out. I like odd pairings of heroes and characters (personally, I'd love to see obscure out of the past characters such as a pre-Alan Moore Swamp Thing, Ultra the Multi-Alien, DC's original Black Orchard and Shade, the Changing Man, or Prince Ra-Man and Mark Merlin). I generally enjoy time-travel stories though they can be overdone. And, I thought it was cool seeing Per Degaton and Despero in a story that doesn't involve a team-up of the JSA and JLA. It's an odd super-villain team-up and I'd like to see how that comes out. And, despite the link to the Batman mini, I hope for an enjoyable adventurous romp that doesn't require me to read too much of other DC comics as it jumps around in time. Heck, in a mini like this is about the only place where I stand a chance of seeing the above characters without a veneer of cynicism and darkening applied to them. So, I'm willing to give it an issue or two to establish its story and themes before deciding whether to continue or not.

Aquaman's Gloves and some comics

2010-07-10T18:56:00.005-04:00

Notice a couple of things off in the picture to the right? Hint #1: there's two things not quite right. Hint #2: Both concern the gloves, though you may have to blow the image up to see the second one.

Give up? Well, the first thing is, Aquaman's gloves aren't like Captain America's gauntlets, loose fitting with a split. At times they have been drawn as flaring at the end, but traditionally, they are form fitting with a fin that flares out at the side (see image below for how they were drawn, sometimes subtly but still obviously not the gloves above as you can see the musculature of his forearm underneath the glove). The finned gloves makes sense as a design element in terms of an aquatic superhero and the fins on the forearm then reflect the fins on his calves, so it's good basic design. Here, we have more standard superhero gloves that not only don't reflect his character-theme, they now obviously look odd and out of place on an aquatic character.

The second design flaw became obvious once I focused on the fact they were the wrong type of gloves: the seam and the split. Over the course of the comic the artist is unable to decide whether the split is on the top or the bottom of the gloves as he draws them both ways depending on the scene while Finch draws the seam on the side on a few of the covers. The correct placement of course is on the side so that the split and the seam line up. The place for a split in clothing is along the seam and seams on gloves are along the sides. Ironically, the whole reason for an artist to go through the effort of rendering seams on superhero costumes is to make them somehow seem more realistic, more like real clothing. However, the effect here is that it makes the gloves more unrealistic! If he had left the seam off, I probably wouldn't have even noticed that the splits changed positions depending on the panel, or I'd have simply chalked it up to artistic license. But, with the seam, I couldn't help but think, "gloves wouldn't be made that way, the split would be on the side along the seam where the material meets." The artist made me aware of the placement of the split by his use of a realistic detail in an unrealistic manner which then lead me to noticing the split constantly changing whether it was the top or the palm side of the gloves!

Doc Savage: Man of Bronze:Went into the comic store the other week and found something I wasn't expecting. DC reprinted Marvel's Doc Savage color series! Marvel produced two distinctive Doc Savage books. One was a large b/w magazine with art mostly by John Buscema. These were all new stories and had Doc running around in a t-shirt (though the covers mimicked Bama's paperback look with the torn shirt). The other was a color series that adapted several of the pulp novels with art mostly by Ross Andru and some great covers by Steranko and Kane. Here Doc wore simply an open vest over his bare chest! In addition to this series, Doc would crossover and appear with the Thing in Marvel Two-in-One (one of my all-time favorite comics) and with Spider-man in a Marvel Team-Up annual (not nearly as good). Marvel would also reprint the first couple of issues of their color mag when they were publishing the b/w mag a few years later, no doubt to coincide with the Ron Ely movie. So, on the cover Doc was re-drawn as sporting the t-shirt look from the magazine!

Because Marvel no longer has the rights to Doc, when they were reprinting Marvel Two-in-One in their Essentials format, there is an issue missing. Likewise, this trade sadly is unable to include the cross-overs with the Thing and Spider-man.

The stories it adapts are "The Man of Bronze", "Death in Silver", "The Monsters", and "The Brand of the Werewolf". Like Doc the villains get a little bit super-fied for their comic appearances and there's quite a bit of heavy editing. For example, in the original pulp story "The Brand of the Werewolf" readers are first introduced to Doc's cousin Pat. However, this is the last of the pulp stories adapted in this comic series and Pat had appeared in one of the other stories, so the story is written so that Pat is merely on vacation in Canada. Likewise, a werewolf is only hinted at and never actually seen in the pulp. Here, one of the villains actually sports a werewolf costume and engages Doc. And, while I usually like Rich Buckler despite his reputation as a swiper, his artwork here is a real disappointment and fails to tell the story. One scene would imply that Doc either can make himself immaterial or is invulnerable as the werewolf slashes at Doc who is standing still. Naturally both crook and reader are understandably a bit surprised that this doesn't affect Doc at all!

Despite the flaws and clunkiness in having to compress hundreds of pages of prose in about a tenth of comicbook space, the stories are a breath of fresh air compared to how decompressed modern comics have become while page counts get shorter and shorter. There's variety of story without skimping on characterization all balanced against plenty of action and mystery. Ross Andru's art excels and I love the issue with Tom Palmer on inks.

Wonder if DC would be able to follow up and reprint the b/w series by Marvel as well? Those are great reads, capturing a lot of the spirit of Doc but as they are all new stories, without the necessarily force-fitting and clunky editing required in adapting longer works in prose form to a different medium.

Justice Society of America #40: Disappointing end to what is ultimately a mediocre and overly drawn out story. The biggest flaw is the whole issue is essentially an epilogue. After ending on a bit of a cliffhanger, we get that basically Mr. Terrific woke up and the rest is Obisidian narrating matter-of-factly how being set free changed things over the past year's worth of stories so that pretty much everything happened as before with the exception of Green Lantern getting blown up and the Fourth Reich winning. Zero dramatic tension and can be used as a text book example of the definition of "anti-climactic". Still unanswered is who was leading the Fourth Reich and where did the army come from that they had amassed to take over America and the world. For all that is shown here, the JSA seems content with taking down the few super-Nazis and not worrying about whatever mastermind had put this together and the obviously huge and powerful organization he has at his disposal.

I'm probably about the only person that thinks it would have been perfectly ok to make Obsidian straight again as the reasoning and execution behind making him gay was some of the worst to come down the pike as it purposely completely mis-read and invalidated a story that was all about him not being gay and to not make judgments about people based solely on stereotypes. And, as this retcon was by a writer that went out of his way to completely re-write another writer's entire run and character (basically saying the creator got his own character wrong) AND killing the character off, and then boasting that people hadn't solved his little mystery story because they hadn't figured out the motivation that all hinged on a massive retcon history that the writer hadn't bothered to reveal yet (whereas, almost all of the readers had figured out the who part of the mystery). To say the least, I don't feel especially beholden to honor anything he wrote in his title and an appearance by the current female Manhunter is enough to keep me from purchasing a book.

Lastly, Mr. Terrific is a little too gadget happy, that the writers are working too hard at making him seem all that uber. In talking about the Legion of Superheroes online, I wrote one of the things I think that hurts them these days is that super sci-fi tech exists as being very common every-day in the pages of superhero books set in the present day. Such as I don't mind the Avengers having the occasional space mission but when they investigate an Earth corporation mining on Mars, it completely throws me out of the book as being set in the here and now. Here is a prime example as Mr. Terrific has given his T-spheres the ability to allow his team-mates to fly. Considering some of the spheres' other abilities, he has shown himself to be able to invent things consistently on the level of Brainiac Five if not surpassing them. Look at the things they are able to do vs the Legion's flight rings which basically have only two functions. How long is it before he is able to recreate Starman's cosmic rod in ring form thus putting him on the level of the Oans?

The art on the book looks good, especially Obsidian. Ordway really knocked the ball out of the park with that one. He does a good job on Green Lantern and the Flash without making them look too old or too emaciated but iconic and powerful. Although he does overdo the wrinkles in the clothing a bit making it look like Alan sleeps in his clothes.

Project Superpowers: Chapter Two #10: Wonderful cover by Ross of Skyman, the Face and Marvello. Their role in the story just highlights there's no reason for the Face to be involved in this part of the plot. He adds absolutely nothing, his whole reason being that the three of them appeared in the same comic in the 1940s.

Justine's role as a sleeper agent of the Claw comes to light as she and scores of other followers go Voltron and start combining and merging into one huge body if the cover of next issue can be taken at literal value. We also get a possible explanation as to who or what the current Death Defying Devil is. Although in the space of two panels we got conflicting accounts. The first says that Bart Hill, the original Dare-Devil didn't enter the urn but that he put his costume in (implying that Bart knew the Fighting Yank's plans and likewise that the Yank should have known from the start that this wasn't Bart but never mentioned or hinted otherwise). The second panel claims that whatever is masquerading in the costume took it from Bart and cast him out of the urn. And, both accounts are from the same character, so which is it?

Again, a relatively all-ages friendly comic marred by over graphic ad for Ennis' The Boys.

Comic stores and Comic shops

2010-06-29T15:57:00.007-04:00

I was in Chapel Hill on Saturday with my girlfriend, heading over to their Botanical Gardens. Along the way we saw the storefront for Ultimate Comics along with Season's Greetings. So, after lunch at a Persian restaurant, she went to Season's Greetings for a little shopping so I went to the comic store although I wasn't actually looking for any comics at that time.

I was confronted with a bare bones store as the store was in the process of moving and was in its last days. The clerk was helpful in telling me about the sale and the location of the new store that was already open. We talked a bit, he showed me the old sign to Second Foundation, THE comic store of Chapel Hill when I was in college. After several minutes hanging around, I decided to go to the new store just about four miles away near I-40 on 54.

The new store is very nice and spacious. Along the wall by the entrance are shelfs spotlighting various single titles while the middle of the store is devoted to bookshelves of trades, arranged solely in alphabetical order, no differentiation between companies. Near the front by the checkout desk is an area devoted to comics AND collections for kids and all-ages. Which is interesting because this means that the shelves with all of the current and new monthly comics is actually two-thirds to the back of the store with back-issues behind those shelves, almost blocked from view.

Like the clerk at the other store, the clerks here seem focused on customer service, engaging customers in conversation and freely talking about the history of the store and what they are doing in the community in regards to organizing comic shows and such. They also push a mailing list for people interested in order to communicate sales and such and talked of business, of being open to buying comics for trade, etc. They communicated their love of comics and such without actually denigrating any creators or particular style. Despite my rather odd choices for purchase, two different clerks spoke positively of them. All giving a positive shopping experience (compared to going to Acme Comics where I feel like a dinosaur as clerks freely talk about their favorites of current crops of writers, their disdain of others like Byrne).

Overall, the store communicates a very professional atmosphere. It is interesting to see the subconscious message that it communicates due to the prominent placement of trades over the monthly comics, where it sees the direction of comics going and where the money is to be made.

The store really only had two flaws against it in my eyes. One, it actually needs more trades. The place has the space to easily double or triple the shelves they have and what they carry. Especially as that seems to be their focus. Maybe that's the plan as they get more established. I didn't see any Manga collections nor recall many if any copies of the b/w Showcase and Essential volumes. While they give prominence to the trades and a professional and uncluttered look, they don't have a bigger selection of said books than Acme Comics out of Greensboro, really not much more so than your Barnes & Noble when you take into account the mega bookstores DO carry manga.

The other is that all of the current comics are already bagged and boarded. This cuts down on people handling and reading comics in the store without buying them, but it cuts down on browsing and casually checking various titles to see if you're interested in picking them up. Such as I saw they had Birds of Prey and had heard some good things concerning the title now that Gail was back on it and was a bit curious to try it out despite my ban on buying Black Canary these days. However, I wasn't going to pick it up without looking inside of it first. And, there was nothing on the racks that prompted me to go through the trouble of asking the clerks if I could open it. In fact, it did bite me in the posterior when I did pick up one book without checking the insides based solely on the fact it featured GA characters, Larsen and Image's issue of Silver Streak Comics.

I also picked up a collection of the color strips of The Norm, an overlooked gem of a comic strip from a couple of years ago. The fact that I didn't know this latter book existed and had not seen Silver Streak at any of the other stores I frequent though I had heard it had been published does speak at the very decent variety actually offered. I don't know if it will ever replace my shopping at Foundation's Edge in Raleigh, which is closer after all and I have two decades of knowing the owner nor the convenience of Acme Comics as I'm in Greensboro half the time. However, if I'm looking for something specific or they have a good sale going on, it's only an hour away from either place I call home.

Comic Reviews:
As I've already talked about them, we'll start off with the recent purchases before moving on to to other titles.

The Norm: A great collection of the Sunday strips and a few notes in the back talking about a few key strips and what the Michael Jantze was trying to do. Norm is a twenty something working in the world of publishing, navigating the worlds of best friends, girl friends, and later married life, in-laws and unemployment and having a baby conversations. Along the way, we get what it is to be a man in the modern age, of being a man on the inside but often feeling like a boy in a man's body given to flights of fancy. Unfortunately, the Sunday strips don't really show the strip always at its best and it seems to skip many of the ongoing events and narrative of the overall story such as him just waking up one day married and a whole year of his life gone by. Instead, we move from strips with him hanging out with whatever girlfriend he has and his best friends to just being married. Funny when it was part of the narrative, but this snapshot approach, it feels clunky and non-sensical. Also a downer is that the strips are at different sizes, a couple of them done at an extra large size that a single Sunday strip extends across the spread of two pages. This doesn't work as it doesn't take into account the center fold of the spread and so details and text are completely lost in the gutter. Still worth the money for the creativity that Jantze shows in his approach to the medium and storytelling. If you want to see a bunch of the strips and just how much his art and storytelling grew over the years go to gocomics.com.

Silver Streak Comics: I really have myself to blame. I wasn't too impressed with their Fantastic Comics in the Next Issue Project and given the fact that the comic was bagged and boarded so I couldn't check the insides first, I should have listened to that little voice in my head.

Larsen's Daredevil story is a thin-bare plot suitable for a Hellboy comic but without the charm or spookiness. Larsen's writing has always been episodic, much like a soap-opera. He writes action scenes and vignettes that build into a larger narrative. However, as standalone shorts like this, what we have is just a vignette or a scene not a story.

And, it's the best out of the bunch. The rest is full of self mockery and pastiche, not playing the characters as straightforward heroes but as commentary either on superheroes or the differences in the times. Silver Streak and Captain Battle almost succeed but have that same undercurrent of not taking the characters seriously. The one-page comedy strip has to do it with a post-modern bent and instead of coming up with something funny delivers something that makes you want to slash your wrists. Actually makes you want to read the Superpowers versions of the characters.

Speaking of Larsen's comics, I recently picked up an issue of Savage Dragon as it guest-stars Daredevil. Sadly, it looks as if he has embraced modern coloring. Everything was dark and intense, and the colorist putting highlights on individual muscles making them look plastic. I couldn't get past the coloring to even see if the story itself struck me as being any good.

DC Universe: Legacies: DC has launched a new mini-series, a sorta Marvels as a look at the history of DC comics starting with the golden-age and working more or less towards the present through the eyes of a common man.

As the first two issues deal with the JSA and the golden-age, and has artwork by Andy Kubert inked by papa Joe Kubert, they were pretty much must buys. It is interesting to note that the title is fairly literal. The heroes prominently featured are ones with modern day legacies: the Atom, Sandman, Crimson Avenger (though his legacy is very minor), Dr. Fate, Spectre, etc. The scenes of the various heroes also seem to be mostly from actual GA stories, the exception being the Atom and Sandman working together on a case but not as part of the JSA.

Now, with a universe that undergoes major continuity revisions every couple of years and minors ones constantly appearing in ongoing titles, a series like this can be helpful in smoothing out a few wrinkles and setting stuff up. Yet, with the second issue, the mini already goes astray in that it applies an all new retcon on top of other retcons ie it makes TNT and Dyna-mite the replacement heroes for Green Arrow and Speedy in the Seven Soldiers of Victory.

This is a bad retcon on several layers. One, the Seven Soldiers are a team of non-powered heroes. The Shining Knight is the powerhouse in the sense he has magic armor, sword and a flying horse. TNT and Dyna-mite upset that dynamic. Not only that, they are so powerful that although they are the retcon characters, they are now the power-houses of the team. It violates the spirit and balance of the team. Two, there are already retcons in place that explain who replaced Green Arrow and Speedy. Two retcons actually. The first was just the promotion of Billy Gunn and Wing to full status. Not a good explanation really since both are partners of other members it still leaves no one to plug into Green Arrow segments of the adventures. A second retcon was of the Spider whom James Robinson had made into a villain and traitor. Again, not a comfortable fit since it adds un-necessary baggage and not one I like as it takes a hero and recasts him as a villain, a specialty of Robinson's. But, it is an explanation. So, unless a later retcon is going to come along and clear things up and be a better fit... but, that brings us up to point number three. Some fans with whom the Spider as a traitorous member and/or TNT's death in Young All-Stars doesn't sit well, optimistically rejoice, seeing this as over-writing both events. Others, are just curious what this actually means for TNT and Dyna-mite as well as the Spider. The story involved does not implicitly contradict anything concerning previously published history of TNT and Spider as TNT may have just been a member before his death and it was that death that lead to the Spider joining. Which means, this would be a retcon without any purpose since it doesn't really correct anything. But, it's also one that instead of answering or addressing any questions, it raises questions and concerns, instead of simplifying things it complicates them.

The lead story of issue two covers the influence of the JSA, causing a heroic explosion of individual heroes along with other super groups such as the Seven Soldiers and the Freedom Fighters in a nice two page spread. The spread shows the core heroes of both groups along with others such as Mr. America, Air Wave, Sargon and Zatara. Of course, in the real publishing history Zatara preceded the JSA. And, there are no depictions or mention of the Fawcett characters such as Minute Man, Bulletman, Mr. Scarlet, etc and their GA superteam Crime Crusaders Club. In addition to an overview of the history and the dissolution of the JSA we get a wonderfully rendered look at the Guardian and the Newsboy Legion. Wonder if we'll see an account of what happens with them over time in the future issues?

The back-up story covers an adventure of the Seven Soldiers establishing TNT and Dyna-mite as members. It also may be a retcon of an actual story as in this story the team is challenged to stop a series of crimes by Black Star. Which they do in individual vignettes before teaming up to take down the master villain... the Dummy! Only, the Soldiers really did have an adventure fighting against a mystery villain called the Black Star. Just like the retcon of TNT, this story only raises questions.

Justice Society of America #39: Mr. T's plan on undoing the bleak Nazi controlled future is revealed and we see the powerless heroes fighting back to give him a chance. We also find out a little more just how the Fourth Reich took over the world with a little snide remark about America not liking having casualties while waging a war. The more time they spend on this, the more holes it has. We don't see who actually organized all of this, that came up with a way to neutralize ALL superpowers on the planet including power-rings and magic. And, how, realistically they managed to take over America so seamlessly with only a handful of super powered joes that they couldn't even use while keeping the powered heroes in check... so how did they have a huge enough army to fight America's armies AND non-powered heroes? The longer they spend on it, the more glaring these improbabilities become.

Overlooking that, it's a fun issue full of slambang action and a bit of fun in picking out the characters with them looking quite a bit older and out of costume.

The Phantom: Moonstone may have lost the rights to the Phantom so that Ross can do his revision update on the character, but at least they are going out with a bang by putting out several Phantom comics at a time. There's the monthly Phantom (with a purple cover and no logo this go around) that sports the wonderful art by Silvestre Szilagyi. Then Phantom Generations that has text stories and art by a different creative team each month focusing on Phantoms of different eras. And, the weakest of the bunch, The Phantom Double Shot with b/w artwork and two stories, one featuring the Phantom and the second another luminary of Moonstone, this time Captain Action.

Moonstone is also advertising "The Return of the Originals" ie various pulp heroes such as G-8, the Black Bat, Phantom Detective and Domino Lady whom they already publish. I'd be excited if not for the fact that so far, the Phantom has been the exception and not the rule in regards to Moonstone's handling of the various characters. They are just as guilty of modern revisionistic takes that bear little to the spirit of the original characters beyond superficials.

Alex Ross meanwhile sees the Phantom running through the jungle in a purple costume as being unrealistic, that painting himself in red berry juice is more realistic and edgier. And, he's right. It is unrealistic. So is Batman wearing a costume that limits eyesight, a cape that enemies can grab, and spending all that money on gadgets and such to fight crime when he could have just joined the police or FBI. Or teenage Peter Parker who could make a fortune with his temporary adhesive (but thought the best way to make money was entering a wrestling ring) and then uses a costume to fight crime that makes him a target of both crooks and the police. Or pretty much every other costumed crime fighter. What part of the Phantom is a superhero does he fail to understand? It not only works within the conventions of the genre, the Phantom is pretty much the first guy to do so and establish it! Tell you what, Alex, how about we see you actually create a character and story and stop trying to put your name on everyone else's.

The Spectacular Spider-Girl #2 of 4: Gang war has engulfed NY and half the crooks are running scared due to reports of the Punisher returning. The balance already upset, his quarry decides to bring his own powered operatives into play, one of whom seems to be May's clone who has the venom symbiote and is calling herself Mayhem. Great, old fashioned fun and artwork by Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz. This time out, the back-up serves more of a purpose as it follows up on one of the scenes in the main story and follows how the gang war is affecting other heroes of the MC2-verse, in this case the Buzz and American Dream.

Star Trek: Leonard McCoy, Frontier Doctor #2: The review of this issue is a bit late due more to the fact that it either 1) didn't show up at my usual store or 2) they sold out. So, I didn't get it until the same time as #3. Byrne tells the story of an alien race that is mysteriously dying of no apparent cause. Dr. McCoy's irascible nature gets the better of him as the race has very specific customs and laws that not only hinder his work but gets him into legal trouble as he tries to delve into the mystery of both the deaths and the secret that the race is guarding. We see Scotty appearing in a guest role. Romance between Duncan and Theela move along at a quick pace.

The coloring is not as much a distraction this time out, a few places where it creates patterns on the alien skin and adding definition in the faces where the artwork doesn't call for it. In places where less is more, the coloring seems to want more is more, over-doing it. At least the coloring is not too dark and dense.

Star Trek: Leonard McCoy, Frontier Doctor #3: This issue brings in various characters from Byrne's little corner of the Star Trek original series universe all together, as McCoy and company end up on the planet where warlike clones were left in the Assignment Earth mini and so Gary Seven and Roberta Lincoln aren't too far behind. However, everything needed to follow the story is pretty much explained in the issue, not requiring the reading of the other minis.

I don't know if it's deliberate, but Byrne's inking seems harsher, both grittier and splotchier in the blacks fitting a grim and gritty world. The flashback is marred by the benday dot screen, meant to get across that it was from an older comic. Of course when that is used, it usually refers to a comic printed in the 1980s or before or a comic within a comic, setting up a level of unreality between the comic and the story-within-a-story. The only other throw-out is the space battle where the explosions in space are obviously generated through the computer and thus not fitting the style of linear artwork. Like the previous issue, a little too much effort is given to painting in definition on the faces.

However, Byrne's handling of the Star Trek characters and his telling single issue stories makes me wish they'd just go ahead and greenlight an ongoing series set in the original series universe and time period (and maybe incorporate a few of the alien crew members from the cartoon, giving the crew a more interstellar mix beyond just Spock).

The Torch #8: The mini ends about where one would expect where Torch and Toro must fight a more powerful version of themselves but leaving both characters intact to continue along their way in the Marvel U. What it doesn't really do is set them up with any kind of lives or status quo beyond existing. It does establish the Mad Thinker though as a major bad guy and a veritable threat as he tends to stay one step ahead of everyone else. May not be the definitive Torch storyline, but it comes almost off as the definitive Mad Thinker story.

As I talked about the coloring of the Star Trek books, this one is full of all the bad coloring that is pretty indicative of the Dynamite books. It's often too saturated and dark. So flesh tones are high contrasts and orange where the Star Trek books excelled in subtlety. Several scenes of blurring backgrounds, using the coloring to providing textures, etc. It's hard to judge the pencils due to the overpowering colors.

Sadly the followup is a modern Invaders comic. As much as I like golden-age comics, my interest in Bucky-Cap is in the negative numbers. And, the work on this comic was passable but never outstanding and it's the exact same team. So, we'll wait and see.

** Interesting little note, while writing this, I was listening to an old radio show of the Green Lama. In the radio show, everyone knows Jethro Dumont is the Green Lama, his phrase accompanied with "the Green Lama strikes!" seems to give him some super-strength. It also gives an explanation of why the color green. In "The Last Dinosaur" the script is peppered with educational proverbs much like the pulps were. Strangely, his assistant is not called Tsarong but Tulku, a form of address of honor generally used by Magga and Tsarong in talking to the Green Lama. With the Green Lama calling his assistant Tulku, it would be establishing Tulku as his mentor and teacher.

2 steps forward, 3 steps back

2010-05-19T15:52:00.006-04:00

Heroic Age... Yeah, right.

So, in the new Agents of Atlas series, they killed half the duo that made up the original 3-D Man and left the other comatose so that the minority legacy character can have a stronger hold on the title...

If there was any lingering doubt that the big 2's posturing of their transitions to "heroic age" and "brightest day" being anything other than just business as usual...

I think I was one of the few that didn't mind Triathlon as being a legacy hero and actually liked him and his costume in the pages of Avengers. Part of that was that he didn't actually usurp the original identity. Through his powers, costume and name, he referenced and updated the retro-hero without being an actual minority copycat replacement. Once they started with actually changing him to BE 3-D Man, I knew that something like this was coming. By turning him to the 3-D Man via name and costume, it robbed the character of what made him unique. Now, he's just like all other minority replacements of established heroes. See, the name "Triathlon" was uniquely his and tied to his powers and background just as the retro name "3-D Man" fit the original character as a retcon retro character of the 1950s. Re-naming Triathlon to 3-D Man lessens the identities of both men. And, where Marvel had two separate heroes that were unique but with bonds to each other, they now just have one. How is it a good thing to actually lessen the variety of a company's assets?

Astro City #4: Meanwhile, Astro City brings to a close its own "Dark Age" storyline. I've enjoyed the meandering stories of the past in Astro City such as the Confessor and Steeljack storylines. This one never quite gelled for me. I think there are some interesting themes in there of the evolution of the characters Charles and Royal Williams from being brothers who were a cop and a street hustler to the men driven to avenge the deaths of their parents years before to the point of them transforming into what they hate. Somewhere along the way, their personal journey became tiresome as the story delved into the death and resurrection of the Silver Agent, time travel, dimensional rifts to an evil dimension and the man they pursued becoming almost a cosmic level threat.

There was just too much stuff the story had to cover that was tangential to the core story, the conceit of trying to follow it through the eyes of the two men and their own journey wore thin. The story became bloated. Busiek may be one of the few writers that when one of his stories becomes padded, it gets denser with more story and characterization as opposed to just making a four issue story fit 6 issues by just adding action and frame-by-frame sequencing in the art so that something would normally fit in two panels takes a whole page or two (Batman taking two pages to change clothes and drive across town in a JLA Classified story a few years back comes to mind. Used to be such things would happen between panels). This time, it works against Busiek and the story he's telling though. The brothers' metamorphosis and its symbolism and themes become heavy-handed from having to constantly revisit it for several more issues beyond the story's natural end as the villain Aubrey gains powers and escapes, extending the storyline for several more issues.

Ironically, as the story became so bloated, there were elements that never got developed as much as they probably should have, feeling like they were tacked on to draw the story out. Such as the rift that was either darkening the public or feeding off of their darker natures, what and who the Pale Horseman was, the story of the Street Angel (I was left wanting more of this guy), as well as the Black Badge. Other than being a cosmic threat, I felt like I was missing something somewhere and just how it all actually connected to the why's of the Silver Agent and his time jumping. It all was just too big of an epic for the limited dual 1st person narrative of the Williams brothers.

The Spectacular Spider-Girl #1: Somehow, the news of this mini completely passed me by. Didn't see any reference to it at comicbookresources or any of the other usual blogs and forums. A pleasant surprise. It' had been awhile since I last saw Spider-Girl, I didn't follow her over to the Spider-man Family books as I don't see a reason to buy an anthology just for one feature, especially with today's prices. This doesn't seem to pick up too far after her series though. However, I still had to play a little catch-up as I didn't remember all the details of the status quo when the series ended such as the status of her clone and that she was living with May as a "cousin". Still, it has all of the elements that made her series a joy to read. Heroic characters, clear concise art, plenty of action and all done in an all-ages classic style. The main story concerns a gang-war enveloping the city, one that draws an older Frank Castle from his self-imposed exile in South America. While Spider-Girl is saving lives from a burning building, the Punisher shows he's still the toughest guy around as he fights his way onto a plane heading for the States. Fun stuff.

The book also contains a couple of short back-up stories, one featuring American Dream, re-introducing her to the readership. The second back-up is the one that falters as May has a dream that she has to play basketball against several of her foes. It's not that the story is just filler with no real insight or purpose but that the usually solid Paul Ryan fails to deliver on the artwork. Ryan's biggest flaw as an artist is that like Frenz, his style is about 20 years too late. He's wonderfully suited for books with a more traditional and classic style without an inker or colorist doing all sorts of filters, fills and special effects to jazz it up and fighting both the penciler and the writer for dominance. In short, in this day and age, a book with his artwork is normally a step in the right direction. Unfortunately, it is lacking here. It feels like it is trying too hard to be Pat Oliffe (the artist that started Spider-Girl off) instead of his own style and lacks the energy that he normally is able to deliver. Nor does it impart any mood or atmosphere or surreal aspect to what is supposed to be a dream. A weak ending to an otherwise enjoyable first issue overall.

Hellboy in Mexico: Love this comic. Mignola and Corben make a great team, I've praised their Hellboy comics in the past. It helps this is a self-contained story as well. Add in the phenomenon of masked Mexican wrestlers and make it a set of three brothers who get the calling to stop wrestling and hunt monsters and team up with Hellboy for monster butt-kicking, drinking and carousing, and you have the makings of a great story. Pick it up and you'll be entertained. Wouldn't mind seeing a return of the brothers.

JSA #38: As the story unfolds how the Fourth Reich managed to take all the heroes out and take over America, it stumbles. I've talked about how one of the problems with the Fourth Reich as a villainous group in this storyline is that it doesn't really have a head, we don't see who's pulling the strings. A bait and switch is pulled here as we are shown who is the "current" leader in the future, an adult Kid Karnevil. The flaw is that in explaining how the future came to be, it also glosses over many of the important details. Somehow, the darkness engine robs all heroes of its powers including Atlanteans of their natural ability to breathe underwater and the technological GL power-rings, while at least trying to give some lip service at explaining it. But, we are then expected to believe that the Reich is able to take over and people quickly align to their way of thinking, seeing the new government as being the rightful one and former heroes the criminals. It never explains how that transition happened, how the Fourth Reich went from a small band of a few super-powered Nazis to a movement that was able to take over the government and world and defeat all the non-powered heroes as well as the common men and women that would stand against them. It goes straight from the men and women on the street fighting to save the life of a now powerless and severely wounded Superman to a mob seeking to burn Power Girl at the stake in support of the Nazi regime. Nor does it explain exactly who came up with the idea of the Darkness Engine, knew that it would depower the heroes and put the Fourth Reich together in the first place. Some crucial parts of the story are missing for the presented sequence of events being at all credible.

Black Terror #10: After a promising improvement last issue, this one slides back into almost everything that makes the Dynamite titles a chore to read. Literally a chore in this case as the artwork is so darkly and heavily colored, it's a wonder they even bothered to do this as a comic book. Half the time Miss Masque's costume is more purple than red. It makes it difficult to really critique the storytelling skills of the penciller since it takes so long to just get past all the dense coloring to even figure out what he's trying to draw. Likewise, the ghostly flying pirate ship has a kewl special effect, done as a negative against the backdrop of everything and everyone else done as positive. But it makes the ship even busier and harder to read as a figure in already too dense and crowded artwork.

The primary purpose of comic art is to TELL THE STORY. This means everything, from penciling to inking to the coloring should work to that end. If any part actually impedes the movement of the story or the central message of a panel or page, then it fails. When you get a hyper detailed page by George Perez, the storytelling is still paramount and clear. The detail enhances, not impedes the process.

Unless I have forgotten something, it was Mystico from last issue that gave the Black Terror the ship. However, they refer to him as the Scarab several times, a completely different hero. Oops. And, the plot goes back to being about the Urn instead of just giving us a new threat and a little more variety to their world.

I did like the opening scene with the Magi. Still a bit curious as to which golden-age villain he's supposed to be, if any. We could use a little more development of the villains and surely not all the supervillains are part of the Supremacy or Claw.

Brightest Day?

2010-05-13T15:07:00.004-04:00

So, in spinning out of the Blackest Night mini's DC announced a brighter future and even have a series called "Brightest Day." But, to show that this is really just meaningless lip service and it's standard business as usual, Green Arrow has become even more violent, again eschewing trick arrows and using maiming and disfiguring shots. Remember the last time he did this, the book was actually labeled "For Mature Readers Only" and it started the downward spiral that lead to the character being killed off? The whole point of his resurrection and relaunch was to turn the clock back a bit to when the character was actually a viable superhero within the rest of the superhero community. What's next? Hal Jordan going nuts and massacring the whole GL Corps? Superman getting killed and replaced by four others? Hawk going nuts and getting enough power to kill off half the JSA?

Also, as part of this supposed focus on the heroes and brighter future, we have a new Titans book starring villains. First order of business, kill off the Ryan Choi Atom! Ok, I was a bit surprised that he hadn't died already since his book was canceled. And, once Ray Palmer started making appearances again... Still, of all the "new" One Year Later titles, his was the only one that had any legs to it, lasting for 25 issues. Part of what made it work was it didn't invalidate previous continuity nor build up the current character at the expense of the previous one. Of course, it is what ultimately doomed poor Ryan as the back door was always open for the return of Ray Palmer.

Meanwhile, the writer Eric Wallace defends the killing by talking about how much he likes the Ryan Choi Atom and what a great character he is. Just as Scott Beatty and Alex Ross talk about how much they love the Phantom character which obviously translates to not actually wanting to write the character as is but changing him. Geez, with friends like these...

Stories like this and James Robinson's JLA mini and ongoing book likewise built on a bunch of corpses are what are keeping me away from the majority of the titles by Marvel and DC. Even when they say they are going to focus more on the heroes and a "brighter day", their deeds show that it's all meaningless hype. It's an attempt to lure back lapsed readers, hoping that they won't notice that the majority of the line is still the exact same morose and dreary writing that drove them away the first time. If they really wanted to focus on producing brighter, more accessible and more heroic comics, they'd just do it.

Thought the recent promo of the new relaunched Avengers title was interesting in that the conversation between Wonder Man and Steve Rogers, if you substitute "Bendis" for the word "Avengers" and it pretty much sums up my feelings.

Iron Man 2: Saw the movie last night and I really enjoyed it. Sure, it's not a Tony Stark that I remember, but it doesn't seem out of kilter with the way the character has been portrayed in the comics in the recent past. I was happy to see Happy Hogan with significant screen time and actually doing stuff. His scenes are funny but they show that he has a heroism to him even if he's not of the same caliber as Iron Man or the Black Widow. The movie did a great job at really playing up Stark's intelligence and drive, even when he's not in the suit. At times it's unclear just how much of his personality as a egotistical shallow genius is really that or a show. There's one point after he really makes a complete jerk of himself that it's implied that he engineered the whole debacle so that Rhodey would steal the suit and become his replacement.

Only a few things bothered me in the movie. One, the armored threat. It seems to be the tact of the movies to make the hero and villains too much of the same cloth. He fought an armored villain the first movie, it would have been nice to see a different kind of threat. The Hulk movies went the same route, where the villains were just reflections of the hero.

I thought Hammer was too lightweight of a bad-guy as well. If not for Sam Rockwell's performance, he would have been a complete joke. I never felt that Stark or his business was ever in any actual danger from Hammer as he was completely shown up by Stark in every single situation. He was never a credible or serious threat, just an annoyance. In fact, Stark's enemy was really only himself and his own shortcomings and not Hammer. This backfires a bit as it distances Stark from us. It's a role reversal of the Doctor Doom and Reed Richards relationship in the first FF movie. Stark and Doom are the arrogant and more successful men and who come out on top continuously throughout the movie, their undoing more from the worse parts of their nature. The difference being that at the end of the day, we know Stark will redeem himself, while Doom will ultimately pay the price for his arrogance.

Census: I'm temporarily working for the census and it really amazes me the resistance and anger to it that I've been seeing in the field and online. How does the line go? I like individuals, it's people I can't stand. And, it's not in the places you'd expect. I am in a rural county, lots of nice subdivisions alongside mobile home parks and farms. The people in the nice homes, the ones that benefit the MOST from the information gathered are the ones that are the most resistant, rude or won't even answer their doors. The simple fact is that government is only a small part of who makes use of that data.

Unless you live in the woods in a house that you built yourself by chopping down the trees, dug your own well, have no power and grow all your own food, you benefit from the information gathered. A recent news story talked about how whites were moving from the suburbs into the city, guess where a lot of that type of statistical information comes from? When businesses look to locate, it's based on demographics gotten from the local governments. Your roads, emergency services as well as local services such as power, water, trash pickup, schools... all based on statistics gathered from the census and which drive the value of your property. The building you are living in exists because some builder made a decision based on local demographics, largely built from census info.

Ironically, by not filling out the census, it causes the government to spend MORE of taxpayers' money in trying to get that info, the going door-t0-door is the most expensive part. And, it only guarantees that someone is going to come to your front door, and keep coming to pester you. If you seriously have something to hide or don't want to be bothered, the smart thing to do was to actually mail it in and the government won't come snooping around your door trying to get or verify the information.

JSA: Unstick in time?

2010-04-25T15:14:00.003-04:00

I'm a stickler for context. When dealing with established characters and stories, I'm all about context. It's the context that makes them matter. It's why I don't like it when DC or Marvel touts the latest character revival or ongoing and then pull a bait and switch, either by creating a totally new character making use of the name or powers and treating them as if they are the same or just radically altering the originals past the point of recognizability. It's a big reason why I don't like DC's take on the pulp heroes or the Red Circle heroes after all their talk about bringing them into continuity. So, it may come as a bit of surprise and seem hypocritical that I propose the following: take the JSA out of WWII. Or, rather, take WWII out of the JSA.

This would solve so many problems that are inherent with the JSA and modern continuity. Plus, it's not as hypocritical as it seems. In the 1940s, the owners of National and All-American didn't think the readers wanted to read about the War, so for the most part the stories didn't center or involve the War. Incidentally, this tactic is about the exact opposite taken at every other comic company at the time. What this means is that unlike Captain America and the Shield, the War plays little part in the original history of the JSA. In fact, it doesn't really play a major part in their history until Roy Thomas' excellent All-Star Squadron.

Where the context of the JSA matters is that they are the older heroes compared to the JLA. They don't need WWII for that. If the current heroic age is about ten years long, then the JSA should be permanently be around 15 - 20 years before that, about the same relationship they shared when the JLA and JSA first met. Just as the main DCU is in an eternal now, the JSA's prime should then be in an eternal now minus a decade or two. Since the original JSA stories didn't center around WWII, this means that very little apart from Roy Thomas' All-Star Squadron books need to be thrown out. They still fought their big villains Brainwave, Icicle, Vandal Savage, Per Degaton, Solomon Grundy, Psycho Pirate, etc. It solves a host of other problems.

Wildcat's secret identity is that of a celebrity and most of his solo stories center around that but don't address why no one is surprised that he looks half his age. Now, as Ted Grant, he'd be expecting to look middle-aged.
Likewise, the JSA's spouses now don't need to look several decades older than their husbands.
Infiniti Inc. As the eternal now progresses, the Infinitors stay the relatively same age as the original Teen Titans meaning that the JSA had to have children later and later in life. This allows them to have had their children in their mid- to late-thirties as opposed to well into their senior citizen years.
Wonder Woman can be made into a member of the JSA again. She served with them, possibly Steve Trevor died. Regardless, she retires to Paradise Island and raises/trains Donna Troy and Fury. Returns to help the JLA no older than before.
A little time manipulation/time travel and we only have to have ONE Black Canary again.
Don't need as many "legacy" heroes as the originals are hardly senior citizens. Johnny Thunder, Dr. Mid-nite, Dr. Fate, Sandman, Starman and the Atom can return to active duty without a problem (after un-killing them)
Green Arrow & Speedy served with the Seven Soldiers... wait, what does that have to do with the JSA? Well, along with the JSA, I'd unhook the Seven Soldiers of Victory (and almost every character that made up the GA DC) as well. They'd still get thrown through time and rescued by the JLA & JSA. But, by making Green Arrow being only from a few years and not several decades earlier, it doesn't make him quite the man out of time with a complicated back-story while the rescue sets him up as still being the same age as the JLA and leaves the JSA as the team with the most experience.

So, what about WWII? What about heroes that were definitely tied to that era such as the Blackhawks, Steel, Spy Smasher and Minute Man? Remember Earth X and the Freedom Fighters? Originally, it was a place for the Quality heroes but with the added quirk that Hitler more or less won, WWII was never really over until after the help of the JLA and JSA. Instead of another Earth, they become THE heroes of WWII alongside the non-Marvel family Fawcett characters and WWII retcon heroes like Steel and Judomaster. If a story involves traveling to the time period or referencing it, they are the heroes of the time. The idea would also involve for the most part leaving them there. No referencing their final battles, seeing them as 90 year olds in the present or a host of legacy characters. Modern age appearances would be due to the nature of the characters themselves lend them to such for example Uncle Sam.

In the end, I think this one retcon would allow the undoing and uncomplicating a host of other retcons from over the years. It would allow the original JSA be the JSA again as you don't need countless explanations and legacy heroes to make up the team (though it does mean undoing some senseless deaths along the way). And, they'd still serve as the previous generation's team of heroes and inspiration to the modern heroes which is the important context they provide.

Green Hornet Year One #2: This continues the separate paths that opened the eyes of Kato and Britt Reid to the injustices of the world while also depicting the events that lead them to have the persona of Green Hornet be of a rival gangster. There's a lot of wonderful layering of the story as we see the idealism of justice of young Britt being challenged by the face of real violence and brutality just as Kato sees the difference between the honor of the ideals of martial skills and the way of the samurai against the backdrop of the horrors and modern warfare. There's real meat to this story, providing in depth characterization and motivations of all of the characters.

Doc Savage #1: The Doc story wasn't all bad. Most of the bad notes were dictated by the First Wave "bible" ie Renny being the ugly one, the total mix-match of science and technology (Monk is talking about quantum physics, but Doc flies a blimp from Africa?). None of the aides look quite right, Ham looks too vintage in manner of dress as opposed to best dressed, Long Tom has brown hair and looks fairly normal, and the torn shirt seems to be treated as Doc's uniform as he never bothers to change to a fresh shirt. The plot and storytelling seem fairly solid though, a very pulpish threat and beginning and introduces the individual characters quite well. If DC had lead with this instead of a mini-series whose second issue hasn't come out yet. How is a mini-series late by issue 2? Throw out everything dictated by the First Wave bible, and you'd have a solid Doc Savage adventure story that doesn't really contradict much of the Doc canon.

The Avenger was worse than I even thought it would be based on reading prior reviews. Other than the character names, the story and art completely miss the boat on the character. It has less in common with the source material than the FF and X-Men movies did with the comics. Honestly, it takes deliberate work to depart that far from the source material without just creating a whole new character by the same name. It left such a sour taste in my mouth, that when The Spirit relaunch from the First Wave imprint showed up in my bag, I returned it and told the store owner no more First Wave books. Instead of being a built in buyer, they made me decide to actively avoid the whole line.

Leonard McCoy: Frontier Doctor #1: John Byrne's work on the Star Trek and Angel related projects play to his strengths as a storyteller. His best stories tended to be the more science fiction and horror ones, even when doing superheroes such as the Fantastic Four and Alpha Flight. His art has changed, grown far more organic in its depictions. He has a wider range of body types and faces, but his figure work has also become a bit looser and less iconic looking. With his books for Angel, he explores the genre of horror that did so well with the overlooked Blood of the Demon. With the first issue of "Frontier Doctor" we get those exploration sci-fi stories that he did with the FF so well. The first issue is a stand-alone that takes place some time in between the original series and the first motion picture. It's a slightly older McCoy (and Kirk) doing medical work in the vast reaches of space. The story has a feel of one that could easily take place in the original series, provided they had the budget and ability to do the fx. The only discordant note of the whole thing is when the nature of using computer technologies to produce the inks and colors shows its hand ie, you see the computer enhanced backdrops in some scenes that throws you out of the narrative due to their obviousness.

Other natter:
Probably the funniest thing coming out of the new Rawhide Kid mini is that in an interview, Zimmerman references Blaze of Glory and then talks about how the new mini is an homage to The Magnificent Seven indicating he doesn't realize that whole point of Blaze of Glory was to rip off that classic Western. Can count on Zimmerman trying to write Rawhide Kid as being more stereotypical gay than Jack of Will & Grace not being nearly as humorous.