Collected Editions

Beginner's Guide to Marvel Masterworks, Essential, and Omnibus Spider-Man

noreply@blogger.com (collectededitions) — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 13:05:00 +0000

[The following article comes from Collected Editions reader Davie Chin]

In recent years Marvel has released many reprint collections in trade paperback form containing their classic comics from the 1960s and 1970s. It can be a bit confusing which ones to buy as Marvel has three different lines of books which aim to reprint the same material but in different formats. Those lines are Essential, Omnibus and Marvel Masterworks.

The Essential line is the most economical as the softcover volumes are printed in black and white on newsprint quality paper. The book dimensions are virtually the same as the standard sized comic. The artwork comes out quite clearly in black and white and is perfectly readable. These trades are very convenient and lightweight, offering over 500 pages of content per volume. On the flipside, they are a bit flimsy and there have been reports of the occasional book falling apart due to their less-than-sturdy construction.

In 2007, Marvel began releasing Omnibus editions. These are massive hardcovers ranged from 700 to over 1,000 pages long. The dimensions of the reprinted issues are slightly larger than the standard comic book, and they feature artwork that’s been restored with remastered coloring to match the original comics as closely as possible. This makes the Omnibus books the most expensive, but you certainly get what you pay for. The main issue you may have is that these books are so big and heavy that you will need to put them on a table to read them. They aren’t books you can hold in your hands comfortably. As far as quality of the reprints themselves, you won’t find anything that looks better or more authentic than those contained in the Omnibus.

Marvel Masterworks were a series of hardcover reprints originally released in 1987. The original Masterworks are relatively hard to find and expensive, but luckily Marvel began re-releasing them in early 2009 in softcover trade paperback form. They have standard comic book sized dimensions and are printed in color. They offer the least content per volume, offering around 250 pages or more, but are a good compromise between the Essential and Omnibus editions.

Which you should purchase depends on what you’re looking for and what your budget will allow. In the Omnibus editions, all the issues appear inside with full page covers, but with few extras. For first time readers that are curious I think the new Marvel Masterworks TPBs are the best option, but if you don’t mind black and white you can get almost twice the content per volume at a lower price with the Essential books. It should be noted that the Essential line covers the largest amount of classic comics. For later issues published in the 1970s, the Essential books are your only option at least until the other books catch up.

Here’s a rundown of these volumes as relates to my favorite hero, your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.

Created by writer Stan Lee and artist Steve Ditko, Spider-Man made his first appearance in Amazing Fantasy #15 in 1962. Months later that same year he would appear in his own monthly title called the Amazing Spider-Man. Up to now there are eight volumes of Essential Spider-Man which reprint Amazing Spider-Man.

Whether you choose to buy either the Essential, Omnibus or Marvel Masterworks reprint collections, you’ll be getting Amazing Fantasy #15 and at least Amazing Spider-Man #1-10. The stories in these issues encompass a lot of what fans love about Spider-Man.

Amazing Fantasy #15 details his origin story. It’s a simple story that gets straight to the point and in my opinion is an almost perfect origin story. It introduced the social (or lack thereof) life of Peter Parker as well as his Aunt May. It also showed how he got his powers and costume, and the event that motivated him to become a superhero.

Amazing Spider-Man shows his exploits as he encounters many villains who would become mainstays of his rogues’ gallery like Doctor Octopus, Lizard, Sandman, Vulture, Electro and Chameleon. Early on Spidey tackles other popular Marvel characters such as the Fantastic Four and Doctor Doom. J. Jonah Jameson also makes his first appearance in Amazing Spider-Man #1 as the Daily Bugle’s ranting editor. Later issues would introduce his secretary Betty Brant whom would be Peter’s first girlfriend. This is what you can expect from Marvel Masterworks: Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 1.

In Essential Spider-Man Vol. 1 you’ll get ten more issues of Amazing Spider-Man and an annual. Other Marvel heroes such as Daredevil and Hulk make appearances, as well as new villains Mysterio, Green Goblin, Kraven and Scorpion. The annual features the formation of the Sinister Six which is a great action-packed story. Throughout all this Peter has to deal with his fair share of personal issues at school and at work but I’ll leave that for the new reader to discover.

Amazing Spider-Man Omnibus Vol. 1 collects Steve Ditko’s entire run up to Amazing Spider-Man #38 before his departure from the title. Compared to the first twenty issues of Amazing Spider-Man, the next ten or so feature some rather forgettable villains although some of the A-list villains do return. The first “appearance” of Peter’s future wife, Mary Jane Watson, also occurs but with her face obscured. You never actually see her face in this volume. Peter graduates from high school and goes to university where he meets Harry Osborn and Gwen Stacy. Harry’s dad Norman is also introduced. These characters would become very significant in the overall Spider-Man mythos. A real highlight are issues #31-33 comprising the Master Planner story arc which is considered by many fans to be one of the best Spider-Man stories ever.

To summarize:

Marvel Masterworks: Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 1 contains Amazing Fantasy #15 and Amazing Spider-Man #1-10 plus an introduction by Stan Lee from the original 1987 release. Volume 2 will be released in 2009.

Essential Spider-Man Vol. 1 contains Amazing Fantasy #15, Amazing Spider-Man #1-20 and Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1. There are eight volumes in total with volume 9 being released in late 2009.

Note: If you intend to buy volumes 3 and 4 read the next paragraph as there are some discrepancies between different printings.

The more recent printings of volumes 3 and 4 are actually called second editions if you read the fine print inside the books. Older printings of volume 3 and 4 collect Amazing Spider-Man #44-68 and Amazing Spider-Man #69-89 and Annuals #4-5 respectively. The second edition printings of volume 3 and 4 collect Amazing Spider-Man #44-65 and Annual #4 and Amazing Spider-Man #66-89 and Annual #5 respectively. When you buy volumes 3 and 4 make sure to check that they’re both edition 1 or both edition 2 so that you don’t miss out on any issues. Edition 2 volumes have the title Amazing Spider-Man on their front covers (along with different artwork) while Edition 1 volumes do not. Issues reprinted are also indicated on the front cover.

Amazing Spider-Man Omnibus Vol. 1 contains Amazing Fantasy #15, Amazing Spider-Man #1-38, Annual #1-2 and the Spider-Man stories from Strange Tales Annual #2 and Fantastic Four Annual #1. All the issues are sequenced in the order they were originally published. Introductions from the original 1987 Marvel Masterworks volume appear at the beginning and every ten issues of Amazing Spider-Man. Extras include a full page copy of Steve Ditko’s original cover for Amazing Fantasy #15 as well as a few other unused Amazing Spider-Man covers. There is no release date as of now for volume 2.

Stan Lee knew how to create memorable characters and Steve Ditko knew how to draw them. Most of these tales were self contained and covered both Peter Parker’s personal life and his exploits as Spider-Man with the latter, often interfering with the former in humorous yet believable ways. Peter’s social outcast status at school made him relatable and his adventures as Spidey entertained us with acrobatic fights and funny quips. The more contorted, flexible body positions that Spidey artists draw today may make Ditko’s Spidey look stiff by comparison, but the art still holds up pretty well.

Even though the stories are dated and some dialogue super cheesy by today’s standards, they’re still a joy to read. Spider-Man had cool powers but often used his intellect to defeat his foes. There were certainly some lame villains whom would never be seen again, but the majority of them would be used by future writers for decades.

I highly recommend these early stories, no matter the format, to new and old readers alike.

Review: Justice Society of America: Thy Kingdom Come Vol. 3 hardcover/paperback (DC Comics)

noreply@blogger.com (collectededitions) — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 13:02:00 +0000

The third volume of Justice Society of America: Thy Kingdom Come ends an interesting experiment in trade paperback comics.

As much as has been beneficial about the rise of trade paperback collections, it's also at times been an excuse for writers to pad out shorter storylines to a neat six-issues in order to fill a trade, with done-in-one-trade stories that don't much forward the title's status quo (see recent volumes of Teen Titans). Thy Kingdom Come instead introduces a seemingly new kind of long-form superhero comics, a storyline with a distinct beginning and end, but with a number of digressions along the way and unrelated storylines which weave in and out of the main thread. At times this is a mini-series, at times these are single issues of Justice Society -- it's a novel, it's a comic, it's a collage. I have a sense that what writer Geoff Johns attempts here is wholly new, at least in terms of DC Comics superhero collections.

In a fashion, we could argue, Johns attempts the same thing with Green Lantern, as Grant Morrison does with his run on Batman. The difference is that both Green Lantern/Blackest Night and Batman RIP remain individual storylines among separate-but-connected storylines, whereas Thy Kingdom Come is just one storyline at the near unheard-of size of twelve-plus issues. If anything, perhaps only Johns and James Robinson's open-ended Superman: New Krypton story comes close; it remains to be seen how long this storyline will be or to what extent DC Comics will collect it under the "New Krypton" bannerhead, but that too may produce connected multiple volumes during its year-or-longer run.

This is important, I think, because as a trend it would cause a certain equilibrium to enter the trade paperback reading experience. No longer would trade paperbacks be collections of self-contained storylines on one hand, or a collected series of done-in-one issues on the other. Instead this kind of long-form storytelling combines the best aspect of monthly comic book collecting (a deepening story that builds over time) with the more sustained reading experience one gets from a trade paperback. At the outset I felt some frustration that Thy Kingdom Come would take three volumes to tell, but in the end I marveled at how each issue and volume stood on its own, but combined to create a massive and involved storyline.

Writer and artist Alex Ross talks at the end of Thy Kingdom Come about how the story is not as much a sequel to Ross and Mark Waid's original King dom Come as it is an homage and a "checking back in" with the Kingdom Come characters. I much prefer thinking about it this way, as the second volume of this series all but drops any ties to Kingdom Come short of the presence of that series's Superman. The third volume returns to the subject; though ultimately Thy Kingdom Come might've been told without Kingdom Come at all, Ross and Johns flesh out a couple of the original's scenes, and integrate enough of the new and old in the end that one might almost believe Thy Kingdome Come really fits between the pages of the original. I for one wouldn't have minded the Kingdom Come Superman sticking around a while longer, though likely that would cause more confusion for new readers than it would be worth.

At the center of Thy Kingdom Come are Gog and Magog, and I found the latter as fascinating as the former ridiculous. No reader very well believed Gog would turn out to be the benevolent god he seemed, but his downfall left me shrugging; I was sure that the "gifts" he provided had some ulterior motive (restoring Dr. Mid-Nite's sight at the cost of his powers; sending Power Girl to her home universe, except everyone tried to kill her), but it turns out instead that Gog's just a very bad gift-giver. Gog turns out to be in the end just what he says he was, a god of the Third World buried underground, and ultimately how the Justice Society members fought over Gog's presence was far more interesting than Gog himself.

The new Magog, however, provides one of the most chilling chapters of Thy Kingdom Come. Writer Peter Tomasi steps in for a surprisingly bloody chapter where Magog, former Lance Corporal David Reid, seeks out his captured former unit and takes gory revenge on their captors. The chapter, which comes right in the middle of this volume of Thy Kingdom Come and at a time when much of the Justice Society is at odds with one another, reveals Magog quite nearly as a villain, certainly someone Superman would sooner put in jail than team-up with. It posits Magog as nearly the Black Adam of the new Justice Society (though he's back, too), a time-bomb waiting to go off, and it's a harrowing example of the powerful digressions Thy Kingdom Come contains. Based on this, I'm not running to read a new Magog series, but I'll be curious to see how it goes over.

Another of Thy Kingdom Come's digressions is Power Girl's trip to Earth-2, supposedly her long-lost home until that world's own Power Girl shows up (see "Gog-the-really-bad-gift-giver"). Here, Geoff Johns turns DC Comics's revamped Multiverse concept on it's head; Power Girl, we learned in Infinite Crisis, is the last survivor of the Earth-2 that was destroyed in Crisis on Infinite Earths, though seemingly at the end of 52 Earth-2 returned. Except, what we come to understand is that the "new" Earth-2 isn't the same planet as the old Earth-2, but rather a recreated Earth-2 with its own Power Girl. Maybe it's better that Power Girl can now see "our" Earth as her home, but it seems Johns causes no end of confusion here -- Power Girl is the last survivor of Earth-2 "but not that Earth-2, the other one." The Earth-2 sequences in this book (with art by Jerry Ordway) are much fun, but I'm stymied as to the story's ultimate purpose.

Geoff Johns reunites us for a while with the Kingdom Come Superman in Thy Kingdom Come, in a powerful story that shows the depth of the Justice Society characters even if it winds and rambles and doesn't tie all of its strings quite together. Ultimately Thy Kingdom Come strikes me as nearing what may be the next iteration of trade paperback comics, something that reads more like a series of novels than a collection of comic book issues; I'm curious if anyone else had the same reaction.

[Contains full covers, character bios and summary section, sketches and thoughts from Alex Ross.]

A bunch of new Superman reviews coming up!

DC Universe: Origins, Brave and Bold: Milestone Top DC 2010 Collections

noreply@blogger.com (collectededitions) — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 13:02:00 +0000

A couple unusual collections stuck out to us from the list of DC Comics early 2010 collected comics solicitations that we wanted to bring special attention to.

DC Universe: Origins - Could this be a collection of the 52 and Countdown hero and villain profile pages (and maybe the Blackest Night "Origins and Omens" lead-ins)? Long rumored, it looks like this collection is finally here. Of course, the other possibility is that this collects a new History of the DC Universe ... (Remember when you read about DC Universe: Origins later, you heard it on Collected Editions first!)

Batman: Under the Cowl - With all the hubub these days as to who wears Batman's cowl, this collection by various authors surely contains stories from the Golden Age to today of times when someone else was behind Batman's mask.

Brave and the Bold: Milestone - Written by Dwayne McDuffie and others, this collection surely includes Brave and the Bold #24-26, which teams the Milestone characters with the heroes of the DC Universe, but three issues isn't enough to make a collection. Surely DC won't reprint the entire fourteen-issue DC Comics/Milestone Worlds Collide miniseries from the 1990s, but I wonder if parts of it will end up here.

Kobra: Resurrection - Kobra's experiencing a comeback in the DC Universe right now, between the "Faces of Evil" story and Eric Trautmann's JSA vs. Kobra miniseries. I've heard rumors there's more to come, and this collection undoubtedly contains recent stories plus selections from the 1970s Kobra series. (Or maybe DC's trying to horn in on the upcoming GI Joe movie.)

The Creeper by Steve Ditko - This hardcover, which seems akin to the Jack Kirby Demon Omnibus and like titles, seems to collect at least Steve Ditko's Creeper stories from Adventure Comics #445-447, World's Finest Comics #249-55, and The Flash (vol. 1) #318-323. Could a The Question by Steve Ditko hardcover be far behind?

Starman Omnibus Vol. 4 - The fourth Starman Omnibus would seem to contain the sixth and seventh Starman trade paperbacks, To Reach the Stars and A Starry Knight, roughly issues #39 through #53 of the series. That leaves three more trade paperbacks left to be collected, but two omnibus volumes planned. Will some additional Starman material round out the sixth?

Doc Savage: The Silver Pyramid - With the apparent return of Doc Savage, the Phantom, and others to the DC Universe, here's a collection of Doc Savage stories by Dennis O'Neil.

Tiny Titans: Sidekickin' It! - Just liked the name of this one, pure and simple.

Your question of the day: - What's the biggest, most ostentatious comics collection not year produced that you'd like to see? Dream big!

Review: Justice Society of America: Thy Kingdom Come Vol. 2 hardcover/trade paperback (DC Comics)

noreply@blogger.com (collectededitions) — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 13:02:00 +0000

While writers Geoff Johns and Alex Ross, and artist Dale Eaglesham, have created an interesting, visually striking story in their second volume of Justice Society of America: Thy Kingdom Come, it's a seeming departure from the intended point of this series. While Thy Kingdome Come part two sees the culmination of Johns intent to make the former JSA into a real justice "society," the aspect of this meant to be a sequel to Kingdom Come fades away.

A fun pin-up that Eaglesham includes at the end of this book sports twenty-five Justice Society members, and even the first pages of the book involved Jakeem Thunder and Stargirl discussing how crowded the Justice Society brownstone has become. Indeed Johns has suceeded in making the Justice Society a real society of heroes (that "society" didn't mean the same thing back then as now not withstanding).

With so many characters, it's understandable that some of them fall by the wayside -- Thunder, Hourman, and Judomaster, to name a few, while the young Cyclone somehow suddenly manifests a monkey -- but each also has a distinct personality as evinced by Eaglesham's pin-up. One of my favorites without doubt is the new Amazing-Man, tied to a civil rights legacy; he shines in his success talking with a risen god as a man of faith, when Mr. Terrific fails to communicate using secular means.

Indeed, even as the plot of Thy Kingdom Come tends toward the scattered and predictable, what's striking here are the pages upon pages that Johns devotes to discussing the different faiths and philosophies of the characters. Justice Society has mildly dealt with the beliefs of Mr. Terrific and Dr. Mid-Nite before, but here the amount of dialogue was akin to Greg Rucka's Checkmate. There are full-blown action sequences here, but also a lot of talking and comparing among the heroes, and I welcomed it. In three volumes, Thy Kingdom Come is a decompressed story to be sure, but Johns uses the decompression to give a great amount of depth to the heroes.

Thy Kingdom Come didn't work for me in two places. First, Johns replaces the initial villain of the piece with a second villain half-way through, and it has the effect of making many of the events of volume one rather unnecessary. Second, the replacement villain has even fewer ties to the Kingdom Come Superman that appears here than the first one did; for a story that's supposed to be a sequel to Kingdom Come, it begins to seem that the only tie between one story and the next is Superman.

Frankly, the initial story was the more interesting to me. Volume two involves a resurrected god providing wish fulfillment that the reader just knows is going to go wrong. I enjoyed the Multiverse aspects of this, as the god sends Power Girl to a Jerry Ordway-drawn Earth-2 to meet that world's equivalent of Infinity Inc., but ultimately it seems Johns spends too long suspending a hammer over our heroes heads, pretending it won't drop when we all know it will.

Certainly in terms of depth and personality, it's no question why Justice Society of America remains one of the best books on the shelves. I'm just hoping part three of Thy Kingdom Come binds the pieces together better, making the story more than just a frentic superhero romp.

[Contains full covers, Dale Eaglesham Justice society pin-up, "What Came Before" pages, brief character bios.]

Collected Editions is back! We continue next time with Thy Kingdom Come volume three.

Odds and Ends for 7-1-09

noreply@blogger.com (collectededitions) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 13:02:00 +0000

And we're back!

A big round of applause to Scott Cederlund, Adam Noble, Angela Paman, Erika Peterman, Bob Schoonover, and Kelson Vibber all for contributing guest reviews this past month. You're welcome any time! I love the different perspective that all of them brought to the blog, and we'll have more guest reviews coming up interspersed with the regular fare.

Collected Editions is back in full force starting tomorrow with reviews of Justice Society of America: Thy Kingdom Come volumes two and three. Coming up we've got Superman, Legion of Super-Heroes ... and the much-anticipated Collected Editions review of Final Crisis! We're also looking forward to some new features and a major update to the DC Trade Paperback Timeline, so don't go anywhere!

We love writing Collected Editions and we appreciate everyone who reads it. Stay tuned ... great things to come!

Review: American Splendor trade paperback (Vertigo/DC Comics)

noreply@blogger.com (collectededitions) — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 13:02:00 +0000

[This review comes from Adam J. Noble, a public librarian living in Eastern Canada. At Noble Stabbings!!, he is blogging his attempt to read all of the comic series Cerebus in 2009.]

“This guy might be the worst thing for comics.”

That summary of Harvey Pekar’s current standing comes courtesy one Tom Scharpling, host of the radio program The Best Show on WFMU, when Scharpling and regular guest/comedian Paul F. Tompkins were debating whether Pekar still has any relevance in modern comics. Scharpling posited that Pekar’s most recent issues of his autobiographical comic American Splendor (published by DC/Vertigo in 2006-2008) have gotten so dull that the only way to spice them up would be to have Pekar develop super-powers and be forced to write about the very thing that he loathes more than nearly anything on Earth: superheroes. (One industrious listener of the Best Show created a mock-up page of what American Splendor: Super “Hero” Harvey might look like and it is, one has to admit, pretty awesome.)

Scharpling and Tompkins’ shots at Pekar are pretty funny and, one has to admit, pretty accurate (“Are you seriously gonna leave me hanging? How did he like the oatmeal cookies?!” sez Paul). But the FM funnymen are being unfair: yes, Pekar’s living situation has changed – he had his comic made into an award-winning movie; he is retired (his sweetly autistic former co-worker Tobey Radloff is nowhere to be found within these pages, sadly), and, yes, Pekar does spend a lot of time in these twin volumes in the role of “writing about the life of a guy who writes about his life.”

But criticisms like this miss the point of these two volumes and of The American Splendor Project in general. First of all, American Splendor was never a thrill-a-minute cavalcade of laughs and tears, even in its “file-clerkin’/getting pilloried by David Letterman/going through a succession of romantic failures” heyday. It was always dull. That was kind of the point. And the hit-to-miss ratio has at least improved since the early-90s Dark Horse era of the book, which contained far too many lectures about jazz for anyone’s RDA. The second attraction of the book was/is its dare to the revolving door of artists: “hey, make this schlubby guy and his misadventures visually interesting!” And in that regard, the DC/Vertigo volumes trump nearly anything done in American Splendor before (excepting of course R. Crumb’s seminal work on the book).

In Another Day (reprinting DC/Vertigo’s first four-issue mini), we’ve got Ty Templeton, Eddie Campbell, Chris Weston (never been a huge fan, but his two-tone art sells me), and Gilbert Hernandez, as well as Pekar standbys Dean Haspiel, Greg Budgett and Gary Dumm. Recurring themes throughout the book are Pekar’s interactions with sales clerks, difficulties getting/taking medications and the everyman’s struggle with that most essential and infernal of household fixtures, the flush toilet.

Another Dollar (reprinting “Season Two,” another four-issue mini) sees a greater continuity between issues, as our hero injures his arm in #1 and struggles with this latest health crisis through subsequent issues. He is aided by some returning artists from the previous series, as well as Darwyn Cooke, Warren Pleece and Sean Murphy. David Lapham illustrates what is perhaps the funniest post-movie-era Splendor story, in which a neighbourhood teenage pseudo-fan awkwardly drops by the Pekar residence to ask our hero advice on how to break into film – during which Harvey gets so bored, he gets up to grab himself a drink of juice, abandoning the kid on the front porch for a spell.

And speaking of artists whose work is pleasantly surprising in black-and-white, Darick Robertson, who has always seemed to lack focus on Transmetropolitan and The Boys completely wins me over here. I’m guessing that doing a real-world story forced Robertson to reign in his tendency for over-the-top reaction shots which makes it a lot easier to admire his finely detailed, expressive and humane depiction of a Pekar faced with a broken-down car and the receptionist who proves his only ally against this crisis. In a comic where Pekar tries to come to grips with a reviewer who praises his comic but trashes its author, illustrator Chris Samnee reminds me of the early work of Stuart Immonen, which probably shouldn’t work, but does, terrifically – every ambivalent line on Pekar’s face is hilarious.

Harvey Pekar is a survivor – of failed relationships, of financial hardships, of a go-nowhere job, of cancer fergawdsake – all of which were chronicled wonderfully in decades’ worth of comics as well as in the filmed adaptation of said comics. The movie may have provided some validation to The American Splendor Project – the damaged-but-not-broken everyman putting his life on display for any who care to look, and thereby exalting that life – but it didn’t end it. Pekar’s journey to the finish line continues, financial success and retirement from civil service be damned, and these volumes do a superb job of capturing that journey and presenting it for any who care to follow him.

And in case you were still wondering, he liked the cookies.

[If you'd like to write a guest review for Collected Editions, email the address listed on the sidebar. You can also see our full Collected Editions review index.]

DC Comics Trade Paperback Solicitations for Early 2010

noreply@blogger.com (collectededitions) — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 16:21:00 +0000

I'm interrupting our Guest Review Month one more time for some early 2010 DC Comics collected solicitations for your comics library:

Final Crisis Aftermath
* Final Crisis Aftermath: Run

* Final Crisis Aftermath: Dance

* Final Crisis Aftermath: Ink

* Final Crisis Aftermath: Escape

- For those of you waiting for the trade to add Final Crisis to your bookshelf, all the spin-off mini-series are on their way.

Superman
* Superman: New Krypton Vol. 3: James Robinson

* Superman: Mon-El Vol. 1

* Superman: Nightwing and Flamebird Vol. 1

- The headline here is that New Krypton will run three volumes in hardcover before we see the various titles split into their own collections. In this case, here's Greg Rucka's run on Action Comics (and added, Superman: Mon-El, currently listed by mistake as from Vertigo on Amazon. This lists Richard Donner as one of the authors, suggesting it does indeed contain a story from a recent Action Comics annual).

Batman
* Batman R.I.P. SC

* Batman: Heart of Hush

* Oracle: The Cure

- Batman RIP and Heart of Hush both make their softcover debuts here, along with Oracle: The Cure, which I hope includes the final issues of Birds of Prey.

DC Universe
* The Flash: Rebirth

* Solomon Grundy

* JSA: Strange Adventures

* R.E.B.E.L.S.: The Coming of Starro

* Brave and the Bold Vol. 3: Dragons and Demons

* Batman: King Tut's Tomb

* Titans: Old Friends

* Strange Adventures

* Hardware: The Man in the Machine

* The Last Days of Animal Man

- New debut collections include R.E.B.E.L.S.; Titans: Old Friends finally comes out in softcover; glad to see Jim Starlin's Strange Adventures and Last Days of Animal Man both in one volume, not two; Batman: King Tut's Tomb reprints Batman Confidential #26-28, if not more; Hardware continues DC's new printings of the Milestone series.

Special Collections
* Starman Omnibus Vol. 4

* Hitman Vol. 2: Ten Thousand Bullets

* Justice League International Vol. 4

- New volumes of Starman and Hitman should make readers happy.

What are you most looking forward to next season?

Review: The Perhapanauts: First Blood trade paperback (Dark Horse Comics)

noreply@blogger.com (collectededitions) — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 13:02:00 +0000

[This review comes from Kelson Vibber, whose websites include Hyperborea, K-Squared Ramblings, and the Flash-centered Speed Force.]

Perhapanauts is a fun, rollicking adventure featuring a team of supernatural troubleshooters as they track down creatures like vampires, chimeras, demons and Bigfoot. Actually, that's not quite right.

Bigfoot's actually a member of the team.

The series chronicles the exploits of a field team for BEDLAM, the Bureau of Extra-Dimensional Liabilities and Management. It's sort of a cross between the BPRD in Hellboy and the movie version of Men in Black, with a tongue-in-cheek tone somwhere between MiB and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

The leads are Blue Team:

Arisa Hines, a psychic and the team's leader.
M.G., a mysterious guy who can slide between dimensions. A condition of his employment was that BEDLAM would not dig into his past.
Bigfoot a.k.a. "Big", a Sasquatch who was exposed to an "evolvo-ray" which made him a genius.
Molly MacAlister, a timid ghost who hasn't quite adjusted to her status.
Choopie, a chupacabras who was exposed to the same evolvo-ray as Big, and has the mind of an 8-year old boy.

The cast is rounded out by BEDLAM's staff -- an administrator whose face is always in shadow, a telepath, a man whose eyes can erase memories -- its researchers, and Red Team, led by a no-nonsense ex-Marine whose training sometimes gets in the way of managing a team that includes a Mothman and a water sprite.

First Blood features two main stories. In the first, the team is dispatched to locate and detain a hulking, seemingly unstoppable monster from the dawn of time. By the time the story is through, the reader has a solid sense of each character's skills and personality, and how they manage when Plan A falls through. (One of my favorite moments is Molly's response to a plan that involves sending cement-eating slugs back in time to the precise moment needed to arrange for a building to collapse now.)

The second story pits them against an aswang, a vampire-like creature from Filipino mythology, and you get to see how they handle a somewhat less successful mission. Actually, "less successful" is putting it midly, as the book ends on a cliffhanger -- a gutsy move, considering it was originally published as a miniseries, with no guarantee of a sequel!

Like Buffy, Perhapanauts can switch between action, horror and comedy at the drop of a hat. BEDLAM learns about a breakdown in the fabric of reality...from a man who talks to butterflies. Choopie dismisses the aswang as a "stinking vampire...and then the scene shifts into intense character drama as Choopie struggles with his own bloodsucking nature. Craig Rousseau manages give his characters a full range of expressions matching the tone shifts.

All of the leads have at least a moment in the spotlight (I particularly like Arisa's psychic battle in the first story), but it's Choopie who steals the show with his hyperactive personality, his tendency to shoot first with his "mess-you-up gun," his penchant for mischief, and the fact that despite a need to drink pre-packaged goat's blood, he still has a thing for sugary junk food. (Fruit pies become a running gag in later volumes.)

In addition to the lead stories, there are three short character pieces. "The Terror from Within!" introduces Karl, the Mothman, whose ability to project fear is matched only by his inferiority complex. The story provides a glimpse into the minds of the heroes, as well as a first look at Red Team. "Seven Months Earlier" is a more action-oriented tale of the last disastrous mission of the previous Blue Team, and how Arisa proved herself capable of becoming its leader. "Fiepick" is a comedic piece in which Choopie tries to "help" as Big and M.G. tinker with highly advanced machinery.

Rounding out the book is a dossier with profiles of the BEDLAM agents, staff, and targets, and an art gallery featuring Kevin Nowlan, Nick Cardy, Mike Wieringo (who also wrote the introduction) and others.

First Blood is followed by Second Chances. With the third volume, Triangle, the series has moved from Dark Horse to Image. The later volumes broaden the focus considerably, allowing characters like Hammerskold the ex-marine, Karl the Mothman, and the Merrow to grow past the one-note caricatures glimpsed in the background of "First Blood." We also learn more about Blue Team, particularly Arisa and Big...and a surprisingly poignant revelation about Molly. Seemingly random events from volume one turn out to be setup for future storylines, and the title begins to make sense as the team begins to navigate "the Perhaps."

One word of warning: Image started the numbering over, so First Blood and Triangle are both labeled #1. Just go with the numbers in the titles, and you'll be fine!

If you'd like to check out the series, Todd Dezago has made the 2008 Perhapanauts Annual #1 available for free as a PDF on his website, http://www.perhapanauts.com/.

[If you'd like to write a guest review for Collected Editions, email the address listed on the sidebar. You can also see our full Collected Editions review index.]

Review: Star Wars: Legacy: Broken trade paperback (Dark Horse Comics)

noreply@blogger.com (collectededitions) — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 13:02:00 +0000

[This review comes from Bob Schoonover, who's annotating NBC's Chuck on his blog.]

Broken, the first trade in the Star Wars: Legacy series, is really a primer on how to start a new series in a shared universe. John Ostrander and Jan Duursema have crafted a truly worthy successor to the Star Wars Original Trilogy by creating a cast of compelling characters that comes close to equalling the characters everyone loved in the original movies. Each character has their own arc and motivations, and screen time is not given exclusively to the "protagonist" of the series, Cade Skywalker.

For those of you that feel daunted by the fact that there are approximately 300 comics and 50 novels in the Star Wars universe that you haven't read, let me sum up everything you need to know to hit the ground running in this newish series: Luke Skywalker and the Rebel Alliance started a new Jedi order and Galactic Republic; the Empire was defeated, but not destroyed, and became an ally of sorts with the Republic; the galaxy far, far away was invaded by an extra-galactic alien race called the Yuuzhan Vong, a warrior race that used biological, rather than electronic technology; the Yuuzhan Vong were defeated and allowed to remain in the galaxy, despite killing billions (they dropped a moon on Chewbacca!); Luke Skywalker married a redhead named Mara Jade and had a child, Ben. Okay, everyone is caught up.

Broken begins about 120 years after Return of the Jedi ended. The Empire is again at war with the Republic/Alliance (the reason for this becomes clear later). The Jedi are attacked by a horde of Sith warriors, and Kol Skywalker, among others, falls in battle. His son, Cade, in an attempt to avenge his father's death, sets out in a fighter to attack the Sith. Shot down, Cade is thought dead, and abandoned by the fleeing Jedi. Meanwhile, Darth Krayt, the newest Dark Lord of the Sith deposes the Emperor, Roan Fel, and takes over the Empire. And that's just the first few pages.

The story continues seven years later, following Roan Fel and his attempts to retake his Empire, Darth Krayt and his Sith minions ruling the galaxy, the scattered Jedi and their plans to fight the Sith, and Cade Skywalker: bounty hunter. Ostrander and Duresma (artist and co-plotter) have managed to find a new path for a Skywalker to follow. Cade, a reluctant adherent to the Jedi code in the first place, was recovered from his starfighter attack by mercenaries, scavenging the wreckage for Jedi artifacts. Cade joined up, and became a pretty good bounty hunter. Of course, as with every Skywalker, destiny calls, and Cade is thrust into the middle of the war between Fel and Krayt. However, Cade does not make a sudden turn to the Jedi way. Bucking conventional wisdom, Ostrander and Duresma keep Cade on the fringe, trying to sit out the galactic war, but always willing to use his Jedi training or natural Force skills if circumstances dictate.

What makes this story works is that the Sith have the variety and depth of the Sinestro Corps from Green Lantern. The many named Sith - Darths Krayt, Wyrrlock, Talon, Maladi, Nihl, etc. - each have an agenda, skill set, and personality, and could probably carry their own series (and yes, if Tomasi or Johns was writing it, I would read a series about Sinestro, the Cyborg Superman, or Ranx in a heartbeat). Likewise, Cade is not one- or two-dimensional - he's a protagonist who has been given a pretty bad hand in life and is doing his best to avoid being re-dealt a new, worse one.

I think my favorite thing about the new characters, though, is Marasiah Fel, the daughter of the deposed Emperor. She is the idealistic, fight-for-what-is-right character that most writers would put front and center. It would be easy (and predictable) to have her be the Skywalker descendant, fighting the Sith and standing for truth and justice. Instead, she is relegated to the second tier (at best). She may be fighting the good fight, and she might beat the Sith (it's hard to say), but that's not the story Ostrander is telling. He's telling a story about Cade, a complicated young man that finds his family heritage too much, and has just shrugged it off.

I can't finish this review without praising the artwork of Jan Duursema. The art in this book is top-notch. There are roughly 20 or 30 important characters - both alien and human - contained in this volume, and each is distinct and consistent throughout. There are also a ton of new starships and alien species, and each looks different than anything from before (although Imperial fighters have the same cockpit design they had 150 years earlier). The sheer effort at making this book look so good must have been phenomenal. The only disappointing thing about Broken, and in fact, all Star Wars trades by Dark Horse, is that not all of the cover art for the issues contained inside is displayed. The front and back covers of the trade display two covers, and I believe one more is shown in the interior, and that is it. With such great art, it's a shame Dark Horse can't give us everything.

[If you'd like to write a guest review for Collected Editions, email the address listed on the sidebar. You can also see our full Collected Editions review index.]

Review: Saga of the Swamp Thing: Book One hardcover (Vertigo/DC Comics)

noreply@blogger.com (collectededitions) — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 13:02:00 +0000

[This review comes from Adam J. Noble, a public librarian living in Eastern Canada. At Noble Stabbings!!, he is blogging his attempt to read all of the comic series Cerebus in 2009.]

This hardcover volume, entitled Saga of the Swamp Thing: Book One reprints "Saga of the Swamp Thing" issues 20-27, the opening eight issues of Alan Moore's mid-eighties run on the series. It includes the famous story "The Anatomy Lesson," in which the titular muck-man discovers that he is not a man transformed into a mossy beast, but rather a vegetable-creature who has deluded itself into believing it is a man.

As an "archival" edition, this new hardcover is ... durable, I guess, which you want in something calling itself "archival." Gone is the original beautiful Michael Zulli painted cover from the trade paperback, replaced by a lot of black, Alan Moore's name in big lettering and Swamp Thing's head in profile.

There are other problems with this volume, and they also have to do with how it stacks up to the earlier paperback edition. Yes, this hardcover is a big deal because, for the first time, it reprints "Loose Ends," issue #20 of the original series, where Alan Moore tied off the stump of Martin Pasko's run, and sowed the seeds of Moore's own story-to-come. However, there is always a price to be paid: we got some Moore, but we also lost some Moore. The original text introduction by Moore is gone in the new edition, most likely because it did its best to summarize Swamp Thing's back story for the new reader, up to and including "Loose Ends." Fair enough, death to spoilers and all that, but in the process we also lost some excellent musings on the horror genre, DC continuity, comic book continuity in general and storytelling in general including a tangent in which Moore discusses the possibility of Dr. Frankenstein performing experiments on the heroines of Little Women, a notion that seems to anticipate both League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Lost Girls.

(When this volume was announced, months ago, I donated my "Loose Ends"-less Saga of the Swamp Thing trade to my local library. After the hardcover came out, I quickly made a photocopy of Moore's intro to stick between the pages of the new hardcover. Don't laugh, there but for the grace of God go you.)

It's also a shame that Moore's intro has been lost because new readers may find themselves surprised at how easily Moore's Swamp Thing bumps up against other denizens of the DCU proper. After all, Gaiman's Sandman usually tried its best to ignore those early cameos by the Martian Manhunter and Mister Miracle. Same goes for much of Hellblazer. But Moore's Swamp Thing is a "mature readers" book that happily co-exists alongside Jack Kirby's Etrigan, the Justice League, and later, the Crisis on Infinite Earths itself. The DCU is a true cosmos of fiction that we're often in danger of taking for granted, and the lost Moore intro illustrates that point explicitly -- although we've still got the comics themselves, so I guess it's not so bad.

Oh, incidentally: instead of Moore's intro, we get a chummy, backslaps-all-around intro by Swamp Thing creator Len Wein and another by horror author Ramsey Campbell, who gives a brief history of the "mature reader" comic up to the point before Moore began to work in American comics ("My ward is a junkie!" et al).

It's necessary to read Swamp Thing now with the proper context in mind. Moore's prose is sporadically overblown and purple; the art by Moore's former Miracleman cohorts Stephen Bissette and John Totleben, while evocative and atmospheric, is sketchy and at times bogged-down with "inventive" (read: difficult-to-follow) panel layouts; the "horror" is, to be honest, pretty conventional. But the characters shine through all the rough patches: "Alec," the Thing himself; his lover Abby Cable; Abby's husband Matt (later to be seen as the pet raven of Dream); and perhaps most indelibly, Jason Woodrue, the villainous Floronic Man, who delivers to Alec the truth about his inhumanity, before trying to Take Over the World with only Alec to stop him.

Whatever its flaws and growing pains, without Moore's run on Swamp Thing, modern comics would look very different indeed, and we certainly wouldn't have Vertigo, which is the biggest evolutionary step that mainstream comics has ever taken.

And, finally, did anyone else's copy arrive slightly sticky, as if slicked with chlorophyll? If so, DC, I am declaring this the worst cover gimmick ever.

[If you'd like to write a guest review for Collected Editions, email the address listed on the sidebar. You can also see our full Collected Editions review index.]

Review: Ex Machina: The First Hundred Days, Vol. 1 Trade Paperback (Wildstorm/DC)

noreply@blogger.com (collectededitions) — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 13:02:00 +0000

[This review comes from guest reviewer Erika Peterman of the I Don't Read My Blog Either blog.]

Writer Brian K. Vaughan set the bar high with Y: The Last Man, an epic series set in the aftermath of the sudden, mysterious death of (almost) every male on Earth. While the circumstances in Ex Machina aren’t quite that dire, the story of an unlikely superhero-turned-politician in the post-Sept. 11 era is gripping in its own way.

After a disfiguring explosion, civil engineer Mitchell Hundred emerges with the ability to hear – and command – certain machines. With the aid of a flying contraption he built, Hundred embarks on a brief, bumpy career as “The Great Machine,” a hero that his fellow New Yorkers greet initially with skepticism and flat-out scorn. Hundred’s first meeting with salty Police Commissioner Amy Angotti is comically ill fated, but it also forces him to consider the unintended consequences of his crime-fighting activities. However, one particular act of heroism plays a key role in Hundred’s retirement as The Great Machine and his ascent to an arguably more intimidating job: Mayor of New York City.

The opening pages, which show a dejected Hundred partly in shadow, strongly suggest that his term doesn’t end well: “This is the story of my four years in office, from the beginning of 2002 through Godforsaken 2005,” he says. “It may look like a comic, but it’s really a tragedy.”

Ex Machina is often described as having the feel of a top-notch television drama, and the fast pacing and layers of intrigue are especially satisfying to experience in trade form. In the first few pages alone, Mayor Hundred faces down a would-be assassin and a bold journalist who interrogates him about his origin. As Hundred’s administration handles one crisis after another – a racially incendiary painting at a publicly-funded museum and murderous attacks on city snowplow drivers – there are revealing flashbacks to his childhood and his unconventional journey to the mayor’s office.

Vaughan has surrounded Hundred with a rich supporting cast, including longsuffering Deputy Mayor Dave Wiley, irreverent bodyguard Rick Bradbury, and intern-turned-staffer Journal Moore. But Hundred’s most emotionally loaded relationship may be with his longtime friend Kremlin, an old-school radical who pressures him to suit up again as The Great Machine. Kremlin has known Hundred since he was a boy, and there’s a sense that Hundred’s status as a politician – the ultimate insider – has come between them.

Such a complex story must have been a challenge to illustrate, but Tony Harris’ pencils expertly capture the sweep of the city and the authentic facial expressions of a diverse set of characters.

There’s a saying that people who enjoy sausage and politics should never see how either are made. In the case of Ex Machina, however, the down-and-dirty nature of politics – with a helping of superpowers – makes for a highly recommended comic series.

[If you'd like to write a guest review for Collected Editions, email the address listed on the sidebar. You can also see our full Collected Editions review index.]

DC September 2009 Solitications: Wonder Woman in simultaneous HC, TPB release

noreply@blogger.com (collectededitions) — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 21:12:00 +0000

Wonder Woman: Rise of the Olympian, to be released in hardcover and trade paperback on the same day!

Wow. I mean, wow. Wowser-wow-wow-wow. Wow.

Hate to interrupt Guest Review Month, but I couldn't let this one go by. For all the discussing, all the back and forth we've had on the Collected Editions blog about hardcovers versus trade paperbacks, how some people have collected paperbacks all along and that's what they like, while others find the hardcovers sturdier, how hardcovers may have better production values but they slow the release of the paperback, how if you want to stay current many feel they're roped in to paying more for a hardcover ...

Could those days be over?

I won't jump right now to how this could radically change trade paperback comic book collecting as we know it (but it could!). DC Comics is not doing this with every collection release, at least not as far as September 2009 is concerned. This could just as much be a fluke of the scheduling as a marketing attempt to get more people reading Wonder Woman. There could be a lot of reasons. But this really, really bears watching.

In the same vein, thumbs down to DC for switching Green Lantern Corps over to hardcovers with Emerald Eclipse. Yeah, I know it's all part of the big run-up to Blackest Night, but I dislike that this series that started in paperback now switches format (and expense). Wish they'd taken the cue from Wonder Woman and released both formats simultaneously; I tell you, what Blackest Night has to live up to gets greater all the time.

So which Wonder Woman collection format will you buy? What else caught your eye?

More guest reviews coming this week. And next month, the Collected Editions blog returns to regular programming as we head toward our review of Final Crisis. Don't miss it!

Review: Batman: The Man Who Laughs hardcover/trade paperback (DC Comics)

noreply@blogger.com (collectededitions) — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 13:02:00 +0000

[This review comes from Adam J. Noble, a public librarian living in Eastern Canada. At Noble Stabbings!!, he is blogging his attempt to read all of the comic series Cerebus in 2009.]

This edition has, like Batman and The Joker themselves, a really weird and convoluted back-story. Here goes. Batman: The Man Who Laughs was originally a 2005 prestige one-shot by Ed Brubaker and Doug Mahnke (The Mask, Major Bummer) that told the story of The Joker's first caper, a direct sequel to the penultimate page of Batman: Year One, a.k.a. the best comic ever in history. The Man Who Laughs went out-of-print, and Brubaker's name gradually became more and more of a selling point.

Early last year, DC republished the book as a hardcover, and ~~found some Brubaker-penned filler~~ bound The Man Who Laughs together with three issues of Detective Comics in which Batman teams up with Alan "Green Lantern, no not that one" Scott, who is significant to the Bat-mythos in that he was the first superhero (in current DCU chronology, at least) to operate out of Gotham, and if you go by Hush, then Scott served as a major inspiration to young Bruce Wayne's initial idea to become a crimefighter.

Now, in 2009, The Man Who Laughs comes to us in softcover once again, still including the GL-team-up. And here's the thing: I bought this knowing that the titular story isn't very good. Brubaker is a great writer whom I've admired for more than a decade -- Criminal, Scene of the Crime, the under-read The Fall, Daredevil, Gotham Central (-- and Catwoman! -- ed.) are all masterworks of the crime comic form. Some of those books may feature superheroes, but nevertheless ... Brubaker is not a great superhero writer.

He doesn't know how to just let superheroes be ridiculous/stupid/fun, which I think is one of the criteria for the title of "great superhero writer." And if you are writing a Batman comic that attempts to fill in the gaps between Year One, The Killing Joke and Matt Wagner's twin Hugo Strange mini-series Mad Monk and Monster Men, you are one-hundred-percent obligated to provide another masterpiece, or just don't bother. This is not that thing, particularly in hindsight, now that a certain billon-grossing movie has given us (arguably) the definitive Joker, and at least the definitive Batman-fights-The-Joker-for-the-first-time story.

Doug Mahnke does a great job here, but the wild energy of his MAD Magazine-meets-George Perez style isn't right for Brubaker's psychological, low-key writing (a year later, Mahnke would be matched with his perfect writer on Grant Morrison's Seven Soldiers of Victory: Frankenstein!, a book which is made of such unadulterated "win" I'm astonished it still isn't an ongoing). (Seconded! -- ed. again)

The Man Who Laughs' plot itself is just a re-hash of Batman '89 and Batman #1 with Joker seizing the airwaves to terrify Gothamites and assassinate prominent fat rich guys. But! I shelled out for the softcover, ultimately, because, primed by the silly and wonderful Batman: The Brave and The Bold, I wanted to see Batman on a really dopey team-up with Alan Scott, an 80-year-old media baron who wields the world's most powerful weapon, whose existence makes no sense in a Post-Crisis DCU, and whose only weakness is wood. (If Alan Scott didn't already exist, Jeff Parker would have had to invent him.)

But I should have known better: Brubaker is far too left-brained a writer to really have fun with this team-up. Something like a goofier, super-powered version of the "Beware the Grey Ghost" episode of Batman: The Animated Series should ensue, with Batman discovering that not only is one of his inspirations fallible, but, really, if GL had decided to remain in Gotham instead of joining the Justice Society and moving to New York, really could allow Bruce to take a weekend off now and then (maybe even the occasional Spring Break!).

Instead, we get a story of supervillain revenge that could have featured just about any other superhero. Brubaker manages to script a touching moment between the two heroes in the Batcave at the end of the final chapter, but it doesn't really feel earned. It feels like the end of a more interesting story, where Batman got to work out some super-abandonment issues with Alan Scott as a surrogate dad like those wire monkeys from the experiments, only powered by alien ore.

Anyway -- Tim Sale provides the original covers for the Green Lantern story, so those are at least unique and striking. I also have to wonder why DC didn't take the opportunity to cash in on the popularity of Brubaker's Criminal and Marvel's superhero Noir line and re-package Brubaker and Sean Philips' similarly out-of-print Gotham Noir one-shot here. But regardless, the book we have fails to live up to any of the potential the characters or creators should have brought to the table.

However, if you're anything like me, you will buy this trade anyway, because it is, after all, a sequel to Year One, after all, and you'll stick it on your shelf next to The Long Halloween. I guess the joke's on us.

[If you'd like to write a guest review for Collected Editions, email the address listed on the sidebar. You can also see our full Collected Editions review index.]

Review: Supermarket graphic novel (IDW Publishing)

noreply@blogger.com (collectededitions) — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 13:02:00 +0000

[This review comes from guest reviewer Angela Paman (@acomicbookgirl) of the 2 People Talking podcast.]

Brian Wood is one of those writers that I will buy whatever he writes in trade. He got me with DMZ. Since I couldn't exactly buy all of the issues, I decided to just buy it in trade. I made a pact with myself that I'll only buy his work in trade; makes collecting a little bit easier.

In between catching up with reading Scott Pilgrim and the gap for the latest volume to be released, I stumbled upon a comic in an issue of Previews titled Supermarket. Supermarket had similar art, and low and behold I saw the writer was none other than Brian Wood. I ordered it and a few months later it was in my hands.

Supermarket starts off with Pella talking about her typical day living in Woodland Hills, where everyone pays no matter what the charge. Pella works in a convenience store, not out of convenience, but because she likes sales and making her own money. When her parents are murdered, Pella learns of their past lives as members of the Yakuza gang and the Swedish adult entertainment industry. Pella must run for her life, learning along the way that Woodland Hills isn't as nice as she thought..

While the cover of the book by Kristian Donaldson reminded me of Scott Pilgrim, the darker art suits the story better. I especially liked the varied color palette that changed throughout the story.

Brian Wood is very versatile in his storytelling. Whether politics in DMZ or a girl finding her identity in Local, Wood brings it all together in Supermarket.

This trade is published through IDW and includes an art gallery of the original covers of the issues by Kristian Donaldson, as well as a pin up gallery that includes artwork by Evan Bryce, Jim Mahfood, Nick Derington, and Mike Huddleston.

Please check it out if you are fan of Brian Wood or Kristian Donaldson's work.

[If you'd like to write a guest review for Collected Editions, email the address listed on the sidebar. You can also see our full Collected Editions review index.]

Review: The Death of Captain America: The Man Who Bought America hardcover/paperback (Marvel Comics)

noreply@blogger.com (collectededitions) — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 13:02:00 +0000

[This guest review comes from Scott Cederlund of Pop Syndicate and The Secret of Wednesday's Haul]

In Daredevil: Born Again, Frank Miller wrote one of the most succinct and concise descriptions of Captain America:

"A soldier with a voice that could command a god ... and does."

A soldier that can and does command a god. The Captain America that Miller described was Steve Rogers and he's dead. Bucky Barnes now has the shield and wears the familiar stars and stripes but, as we saw in The Death of Captain America Volume 2, when he needed to inspire the American people and rally them in times of political and financial trouble, he wasn't able to. He failed where Steve Rogers most likely would have succeeded. Fighting the Red Skull's terrorists and soldiers, Bucky had all the moves and fighting skills but when it came to getting the people behind him as Captain America, he failed. He was learning how to be Captain America but he still had a long way to go.

In the third and final volume of the trilogy, The Death of Captain America: The Man Who Bought America, Bucky Barnes has two loose ends after the murder of Steve Rogers. Sharon Carter, Steve Rogers' lover, is still under the Red Skulls' control and the Skull is still poised to attack America on a financial, political and terrorist level. And then there's the little issue of someone else running around in a Captain America costume, saving Presidential candidates getting the American public excited about the return of a hero. And what can it mean when the second Captain America endorses a candidate who's a pawn of the Red Skull?

While this story is called "The Death of Captain America," maybe calling it "The Birth of a new Captain America" would have been much more appropriate. Over the course of three books (and more if you count the entire Brubaker/Epting run on Captain America,) Bucky Barnes is learning how to live up to the dreams and aspirations of Steve Rogers. By this book, he's finally figured out that they way to do that is instinctively to fight for what is important. Ever since Steve Rogers was shot down, Bucky has thought through and questioned every act. He's spent a lot of time inside of his own head, asking himself "what would Steve do?" Trying to be Steve Rogers and Captain America got in Bucky's way. There's still that questioning and probing in this final book but when it comes time to act, Bucky fights like he always has, even like he did when he was the kid charging into battle with Captain America -- act first and think later. Actions are what makes the hero and Bucky has finally learned and accepted that by this last book.

It's an oversimplification to say that Brubaker and artist Steve Epting have created a Captain America for the twenty-first century but that's exactly what they've done. For the past eight years, Captain America has tried to be relevant and topical and failed. All you need to look at is the Marvel Knights relaunch post-September 11th that tried to address the attacks on America and the heroes reactions to them. The character floundered around after that, trying to comment on current society while getting sucked into typical superhero shenanigans with Avengers Disassembled. Let's be honest for a moment; it's been a long time since the character really mattered. And that's a harsh statement for someone who may be the top American icon behind Uncle Sam and maybe even Superman.

Somehow with this new Captain America, Brubaker and Epting have finally made him a reflection of society without being jingoistic or patronizing. Brubaker's Captain America isn't the relic from the 1940s that Steve Rogers could easily become even though Bucky also is a relic from the 1940s. Steve Rogers was just too much "your father's Captain America," a soldier and an American cut out of an old and outdated cloth. Considering that he was revamped in the early 1960s and still espoused a very 50s/60s viewpoint of America, it was hard to take him seriously after everything that's happened in the last 50 years or even in the last 10 years. Bucky allows a younger view of America and gives the writer a chance to explore and rediscover what makes Captain America a hero and what makes him an American hero.

In all three volumes of The Death of Captain America, Ed Brubaker, Steve Epting and a few other artists redefine Captain America. Spider-Man, Green Lantern and even Superman have all had new or different characters step into the costumes and we know that never lasts. In the back of our minds, we know someday Steve Rogers will be back wearing the blue chain-mail costume and slinging the shield but Brubaker and Epting have been pulling off miracles since they began on Captain America. They killed the Red Skull, brought Bucky back, killed Steve Rogers and now have Bucky stepping into the costume and role of Captain America.

In any lesser creator's hands, none of this would have worked. It would all have felt like cheap stunts to increase sales. Brubaker and Epting have created an instant classic with The Death of Captain America, redefining the character in a time of political, financial and international uncertainty and war. Bucky Barnes may not have the voice to command gods yet but he's on his way to being a hero and an icon. Maybe a new Captain America can be a symbol for a new America.

[If you'd like to write a guest review for Collected Editions, email the address listed on the sidebar. You can also see our full Collected Editions review index.]

Review: The Death of Captain America: The Burden of Dreams hardcover/paperback (Marvel Comics)

noreply@blogger.com (collectededitions) — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 13:02:00 +0000

[This guest review comes from Scott Cederlund of Pop Syndicate and The Secret of Wednesday's Haul]

What is a hero? That's one of the main questions that writer Ed Brubaker has been asking during his run on Captain America. What characteristics and qualities do you find in your heroes like Captain America, the Falcon or even Iron Man?

Ever since Brubaker revealed that Bucky Barnes was still alive and brainwashed into being the Winter Soldier, we've seen Steve Rogers doing everything he could to rescue and redeem his former sidekick, friend and fellow hero. As Steve Rogers struggled to believe in and help Bucky, we've had to ask if redemption and freedom was possible as we've seen the Winter Soldier be used and kill. The Winter Soldier was more weapon than man and he was a weapon in the wrong hands. Bucky, one of the great deaths in comics, was back but Steve Rogers was the only person who believed he could be saved and we watched as Captain America fought to reach out to his friend, his ally and his brother-in-arms. Now Steve Rogers is dead, killed by the Red Skull and Bucky is out for revenge. Without Steve Rogers around to guide him, can Bucky Barnes truly be a hero again?

In The Death of Captain America Volume 2: The Burden of Dreams, events begin to come more into focus following the killing of a national hero and icon. The book opens with two of the main characters, Sharon Carter and Bucky, captured by the Red Skull, one brainwashed into serving him and the other being tortured and brainwashed. Even as the Red Skull fights to keep control of his ally General Lukin, no one is in complete control of themselves or their actions but it does look like the Skull has the upper hand. But the Red Skull does not have as strong of a hold over everyone as he likes to think and Bucky soon winds up on a SHIELD helicarrier, under the control of Tony Stark.

While it is still part of the same larger story, The Burden of Dreams is a very different book than the The Death of Captain America volume one. Brubaker shakes up his storytelling, abandoning the quick and choppy transitional storytelling of the first volume and spending more time developing his scenes while he concentrates firmly on the growth and development of Bucky, who takes center-stage in this story. The chaos and confusion following the death of Steve Rogers is replaced by planning and action as Tony Stark and Bucky begin filling the void left following Steve Rogers' death. Borrowing a term from another superhero's famous death, what do you do in a world without Captain America?

I don't think it's much of a spoiler at this point to say that by the middle of this book, Bucky Barnes is wearing Captian America's uniform and slinging his shield. Does the fact that he's got the look make him Captain America? Does that make him a hero? Brubaker has shown since the beginning of his run on this title that there's more to the hero than the clothes and the shield. It's the man who's wearing those clothes that's important. Steve Rogers wasn't a hero because he was Captain America. He was Captain America because he was a hero first. That's the man he was, sacrificing himself in his last moments to save one of his guards from the assassins bullet. Brubaker has continually shown that Bucky Barnes was a fighter and that he was loyal but his heroism is still questionable.

Brubaker doesn't give any easy answers to the questions he raises. His story is a fantastic thriller, equal parts Bourne Identity, All The President's Men and old school Marvel. The best Captain America writers like Steve Englehart, Jack Kirby and Roger Stern have used the character to explore heroism and the American way. Brubaker continues the heritage of Captain America, questioning the characters role in the twenty-first century. Setting up the Red Skull as the now head of a large mega-conglomerate corporation, Brubaker shows America being attacked on many levels, from within and without. As well as the obvious and overt actions of Sin, the Skulls' daugther, at causing chaos in Washington DC, the Skull's company begins undermining the fabric of America, striking at Wall Street and Main Street through weak financial institutions. On all fronts, America has been beaten and weakened and is in need of a hero. It's in need of Captain America.

Bucky may have the costume and the mask but he's still not Captain America in The Burden of Dreams. It takes more than a costume to be a hero just as it takes more than a hero to be an icon. In this book, America is under attack and looking for a hero and that may be Bucky Barnes but he still has the same doubts about himself that others have -- can he fill the void left by Steve Rogers? Can he be a hero like Rogers was, fighting for something larger than himself? Of course, Steve Rogers wasn't the national icon overnight, so how can Tony Stark or the Black Widow expect Bucky Barnes to be?

[If you'd like to write a guest review for Collected Editions, email the address listed on the sidebar. You can also see our full Collected Editions review index.]

Review: Captain America: The Death of Captain America hardcover/paperback (Marvel Comics)

noreply@blogger.com (collectededitions) — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 13:02:00 +0000

[This guest review comes from Scott Cederlund of Pop Syndicate and The Secret of Wednesday's Haul]

Steve Rogers has been a hero, a soldier and an icon. When he is in the hands of the best writers and artists, he's a man of our times even when he was a man out of time. Since Ed Brubaker and Steve Epting took over the character in 2005, Steve Rogers struggled with the idea of Captain America. In Brubaker and Epting's first issue, they killed the Red Skull and introduced the Winter Agent, a shocking face from Captain America's past. In a move that most comic fans said could not and should not be done, Brubaker and Epting brought back Bucky, Captain America's WWII-era sidekick, long dead and a part of Captain America's legend for over 80 years. It was a bold move by the creative team that surprisingly worked out better than anyone actually thought. So, after bringing Bucky back, what could they do next?

They killed Steve Rogers. Shot him dead on a courthouse steps in front of hundreds of witnesses and broadcast around the world, thanks to the ever present live media coverage.

Captain America: The Death of Captain America literally begins with a bang as Brubaker wastes no time. There's no long, drawn out death scene, no final words or last rights; just a simple bullet in the early pages of the book. Even in the end, Steve Rogers dies a hero, saving the life of one of his guards. After the events of Marvel's Civil War, Rogers was arrested for his rebellion against the Super Hero Registration Act and was ready to meet his fate at the hands of the justice system. Brought to the court house by U.S. Marshalls, he is the only one in large crowd who notices a sniper's rifle in a far off building, trained on one of his own captors. Knocking the officer out of the way, Rogers apparently takes the bullet, saving a life as only he would.

The rest of the book deals with the mourning and grieving of an American hero by those who knew and loved him. Sharon Carter fights to understand her own role in the tragic events. Tony Stark, the "winner" of the Civil War, tries to hold the country together. The Falcon and the Black Widow, two allies of Captain America, fight on, looking for the killers while trying to protect the legacy of Steve Rogers. Bucky Barnes, the Winter Soldier, faces the toughest battle, believing in everything Steve Rogers did even after witnessing his assassination. The Death of Captain America is about the survivors trying to make sense out of actions that should not make any sense at all to them. Sharon Carter and Bucky face the worst in this story. Each, in their own way, have betrayed Steve Rogers and have to come to terms with their failures.

In a brilliant move, Brubaker hides almost nothing from the reader from the moment that bullet is fired. This is not a "whodunnit" type mystery, looking for clues as to who pulled the trigger or why. From the outset, Brubaker lets us know who is behind the murder and how it was done. The motivations are clear and make perfect sense within the story that Brubaker has been working on for the last couple of years. The hows and whys of the act are not what Brubaker is particularly concerned about here. He is concerned with how all of the characters react to it.

Ed Brubaker and Steve Epting killed a hero and an icon. It's a gutsy move to take your main character, a hero of several generations, and completely remove him from the book but this is not some cheap death, designed to boost sales and ultimately be forgettable. Brubaker and Epting have a story to tell about the loss of an icon. Steve Rogers may be dead but the dreams of Captain America still live on in his friends and allies.

[If you'd like to write a guest review for Collected Editions, email the address listed on the sidebar. You can also see our full Collected Editions review index.]

Review: Marvel Boy hardcover/trade paperback (Marvel Comics)

noreply@blogger.com (collectededitions) — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 13:02:00 +0000

[This review comes from Adam J. Noble, a public librarian living in Eastern Canada. At Noble Stabbings!!, he is blogging his attempt to read all of the comic series Cerebus in 2009.]

There's always the question of what to listen to while you're reading. Grant Morrison probably would have picked something with more synth in it ("The Fall" is always a safe soundtrack for good superhero comics) but I went with Propagandhi's "Less Talk, More Rock" while re-reading the new hardcover collection of the 2000 Marvel Knights mini-series Marvel Boy, and it seemed to work OK -- both works are loud, dynamic, singular and explicitly in love with anarchy and hostile to corporations.

Until very recently when Marvel Boy (a.k.a. the Kree soldier Noh-Varr) joined the cast of something called Dark Avengers, debate raged as to whether this was the "secret first Ultimate Marvel book" which Joe Quesada had spoken obliquely of. Well, it's pretty clear now that it is in Marvel continuity proper (Earth-616) for better or worse, but the book definitely carries the smell of Ultimate Marvel and that imprint's mandate of "bringing Marvel Comics into the twenty-first century."

To me, the operative question is not "what universe is this book taking place in?" but rather "How does Marvel Boy figure into the oeuvre of Grant Morrison?"

On close examination, you can see Grant Morrison taking the opposite tack at Marvel than what he does with DC's stable of superheroes. At DC, everything he writes is connected, and Morrison is the first writer to use the notion of comic book continuity to its fullest literary potential. Animal Man connects to JLA connects to Batman connects to Seven Soldiers connects to All-Star Superman connects to DC One Million, and so on, enriching and enlivening the work. Of his three major works at Marvel, each has been self-contained to the point of barely needing to exist in a "comic book universe." The X-Men living in their own corner of the world is nothing new, but in four years' worth of New X-Men, Morrison never acknowledged the wider Marvel Universe. Fantastic Four 1234 was the same old FF story told on a broader scale and barely mentions any other superheroes. The same goes in Marvel Boy, except . . . not.

We never see the other superheroes, but their presence is felt. The villain, Midas, wears one of Iron Man's old suits, and is obsessed with giving himself the powers of the Fantastic Four. Marvel Boy is attacked by bastardized versions of Captain America called "Bannermen." Dum Dum Dugan and S.H.I.E.L.D. are present and accounted for. What's most important here is the sense of Marvel -- its ghost. As a logo, as a brand. Angry, alienated, rebellious ... Noh-Varr is almost the distillation of all the Marvel heroes, of Marvel as a brand\u2026 and so quite appropriately, Noh-Varr does battle with a living corporate identity at one point in the comic. (If not for thorny legal complications, I'm sure Morrison would have preferred to call this book Marvel Man.)

In both pacing, art style, coloring and dialogue cadence, Marvel Boy owes a lot to the then-recent Warren Ellis runs on The Authority and Planetary. And while J.G. Jones may be just a little less polished and fluid than Bryan Hitch and John Cassaday, his page layouts are more inventive, which serves to draw you back in for multiple reads. (However, Jones' at-times-stiff facial detailing recalls Bryan Talbot, who would is the last person you want drawing a Grant Morrison superhero comic.)

Noh-Varr is a punk superhero. He blows up an evil corporation with a cosmic bullet, carves obscenities into blocks of NYC and has his girlfriend blow up Epcot Center. Also, his best friend is his spaceship's living computer. (Is that punk? Sure! Why not!)

Superhero comics run on nostalgia and the veneration of decade-old concepts, so it's not surprising that something like Marvel Boy, which flies in the face of the familiar, takes some getting used to. But once you realize the hopefulness that's present in Noh-Varr's parting promise to turn Earth into the capital of the new Kree Empire, and also realize that Morrison will probably never complete this saga, it makes you love this unlikely volume all the more. Thanks, Marvel, for re-issuing this book as a hardcover, in an attempt to cash in on Final Crisis like the corporate shills you are.

[If you'd like to write a guest review for Collected Editions, email the address listed on the sidebar. You can also see our full Collected Editions review index.]

Review: Batman RIP deluxe hardcover/trade paperback (DC Comics)

noreply@blogger.com (collectededitions) — Thu, 28 May 2009 13:02:00 +0000

Must Batman be crazy? Superman uses his natural alien powers to protect Metropolis and finds time to marry Lois Lane in the process. Spider-Man swings across New York cracking wise as he goes. But Bruce Wayne dresses like a bat every single night without time off and makes it his utmost goal to strike fear in the hearts of his opponents -- and, as writer Grant Morrison posits, trains relentlessly to prepare himself for any eventuality he might ever face. For that kind of life to be believable in the comic book medium, must we also believe that Batman is inevitably insane?

In his much-acclaimed storyline Batman RIP, Grant Morrison sets as Batman's mind the battlefield for a war between Batman and his enemy the Black Glove. From the beginning of Morrison's run, the Glove has worked to drive Batman insane; in RIP, the Glove succeeds, but with the unforeseen consequence of pushing Batman to a hidden second persona. In this alternate guise, Batman recalls some of his strangest cases -- including Bat-Mite and the Batman of an alien world -- leading both Batman and the reader to wonder how Batman could have kept his sanity all this time.

It is at the point when Batman's newest paramour Jezebel Jet says she understands Bruce Wayne's pain that Batman suspects she's part of the Black Glove's trap; the implication is that Batman knows no one can ever truly understand him. Toward the middle of the book, Jezebel questions whether Bruce Wayne might be the Black Glove, challenging himself to a battle of wits, and indeed in this scene Batman does seem paranoid and self-destructive. Morrison succeeds in causing the reader to doubt Batman and making Batman seem insane, and now must either confirm this insinuation or refute it.

That Morrison reveals Batman has a long-time "scar on his consciousness" -- a post-hypnotic suggestion that may explain away his "grim and gritty" era -- only furthers the argument for insanity.

The arguments Morrison offers for Batman's sanity are varied and -- likely on purpose -- inconclusive. First, Morrison puts a great deal of pressure on Robin both in RIP and the "Last Rites" storyline included in the Batman RIP collection, as the force that's kept Batman sane all these years. Here, Robin is the yin to Batman's yang, the bright spot that keeps Batman's darkness from growing too great. There's also the sense that Robin speaks truths that Batman, captive to his own superheroic delusions, might not want to face, as when the young Robin Dick Grayson asks whether an apparent romance between Batman and Batwoman Kathy Kane might end the Dynamic Duo's partnership.

This is the same theory Jeph Loeb puts forth in Batman: Dark Victory, and it's sensible even as under heavy scrutiny it reflects poorly on Bruce Wayne himself.

Second, Morrison suggests -- as he did perhaps overmuch in his run on JLA -- that Batman always, invariably, one step ahead of his enemies, and therefore even his proposed insanity has a way of being sane. Morrison's characterization of Batman has always been as the uber-human, ever prepared; we learn in RIP that even Batman's craziest delusions, the impish Bat-Mite, have in their aspect a basis of reason. In one sequence, the Joker notes that whenever he escapes his prison box, Batman always manages to build another box around the first; in the fact that in RIP Batman even has a fail-safe personality for his enemies driving him insane, Morrison posits that what might seem like Batman's insanity to the reader is instead a super-sanity that neither we, Batman's allies, nor the Joker might ever truly comprehend.

This has the effect of making every Batman story that Morrison writes like an episode of Columbo, where the detective knows who committed the crime from the outset and it's incumbent upon the reader to catch up. As in Morrison's JLA: New World Order, Batman is never in as much real danger as the audience just thinks he is. The suspense of RIP comes in the reader's concern over Batman's state of mind, the hurt he might feel at the death of his loved ones or over a shocking betrayal, only for Morrison to reveal that Batman's been hip to the Glove's plan all along and that these things were never truly at stake.

It's these twists in the story's mystery that distinguishes it. At the outset the reader believes they're teamed with Batman (that is, we share the knowledge Batman has) against an unknown foe; when Morrison reveals that foe, it's a revelation that alters the reader's perception of the entirety of Morrison's Batman run, which is no small feat.

In the end, however, the reader learns that Batman's actually known the Glove's identity almost from the beginning. Whereas the reader thought we shared Batman's perspective solving the Glove's mystery, we actually only knew as much as the Glove solving Batman's mystery, and it's this turn that makes RIP a keeper. These aspects, which play with the reader's head as much as Batman or the Glove's, raise RIP above a story that, with Batman targeted by a mystery villain and condemned to Arkham Asylum, might otherwise feel "done before" to longtime Batman readers.

What also distinguishes Batman RIP is Grant Morrison's use of a number of Silver Age Batman stories (to be collected in a Batman: The Black Casebook trade paperback). "Robin Dies at Dawn" from Batman #156, "Batman -- The Superman of Planet X" from Batman #113, "The First Batman" from Detective Comics #235 and others are all out of continuity (or at least un-referenced) as of Crisis on Infinite Earths; Morrison's story brings them back, if even only as hallucinations in Batman's mind. I've greatly appreciated this post-Infinite Crisis trend in DC Comics to rejuvenate rather than sweep under the rug old stories of their characters (Brad Meltzer did this well in Justice League of America: The Tornado's Path as well), and these details are ultimately what make RIP a classic.

I don't believe Grant Morrison means for us to believe Batman is crazy, though ultimately I believe his arguments for insanity are stronger than his arguments against. The subconscious trigger with which Batman struggles in Batman RIP is "Zur En Arrh" or possibly, Morrison alludes in the end, "Zorro in Arkham." To be a hero in Gotham, Morrison suggests, perhaps you can't help but be a little nuts.

[Contains full covers, pages from DC Universe #0, sketchbook section.]

Next week kicks of Collected Editions' guest review month, featuring reviews of trade paperbacks and graphic novels from a variety of major and independent comics publishers, written by a great group of guest bloggers. Don't miss it!

Odds and Ends for 5-27-09

noreply@blogger.com (collectededitions) — Wed, 27 May 2009 13:02:00 +0000

Hello and welcome, Collected Editions readers! Thank you all for your continued feedback, comments, and support of the blog. We hit the four-year mark a couple months back, and we're still having a great time; none of it would be possible without our valued readers. I've especially enjoyed getting to talk with a number of readers and fellow comics bloggers lately via Twitter.

Couple things coming up on Collected Editions. First, tomorrow brings our review of Batman RIP. This is a book we've been eager to read for a while, and it's a review we're very proud of. Hope you enjoy and leave your own thoughts.

We're ending May big because starting next week is a new Collected Editions Guest Review month! All through the month of June we'll be featuring guest reviews from a bunch of great contributors, covering trade paperbacks and publishers you might not see as much on Collected Editions. All these reviewers worked very hard, so please reward them with your comments and links, and visit their own websites and blogs.

(If you'd like to write a guest review but missed the call for submissions, send an email to the address on the sidebar. We're always looking for posts!)

The main Collected Editions reviews will be back in July as we continue headlong toward our review of the Final Crisis hardcover. As always, thanks for reading!

Review: Checkmate: Chimera trade paperback (DC Comics)

noreply@blogger.com (collectededitions) — Mon, 25 May 2009 13:02:00 +0000

Admittedly, I was predisposed to judge harshly Bruce Jones's Checkmate: Chimera, given the difficulties with his brief-but-disastrous stint on Nightwing. Indeed, in the end I think Checkmate fans might be better off thinking Checkmate ended with the previous volume, Fall of the Wall; there's nothing here quite so outlandish as Jones's tentacled mutant Jason Todd in Nightwing, but neither does the story rise to the bar set by writers Greg Rucka and Eric Trautman before.

Whereas much of Rucka and Trautman's Checkmate run focused on the Sasha Bordeaux, Mr. Terrific, and Amanda Waller (the Black Queen and the White King and Queen of Checkmate respectively), Jones centers his story on the Black King, and more specifically the Checkmate Pawns that function in the field. An explosive nearly kills military soldier Adam Sharp, and Checkmate recruits his body for their ultimate weapon program. Sharp, now called Chimera, is predictably unreliable and violent, and he fights armageddon brought inexplicably by the devil himself while Sharp's finance works to free him.

Given the previous focus on Checkmate royalty, I don't at all mind Jones turning instead to the Checkmate ground forces; my chief complaint is that there's little specificity here. The devil possesses one of the few named Pawns in the story early on, and the rest function like unnamed "red shirts" on Star Trek, there for collateral damage. This is a story told from the perspective of the Pawns, but it doesn't do much do show what the Pawns' lives are like.

Second, Chimera simply lacks the detailed politics of Rucka and Trautman's run. Jones introduces armageddon legends from a number of different cultures, but these seem incidental to the story; which monster attacks when doesn't turn the story as much as dealings between China and North Korea turned other Checkmate tales. Jones attempts some backroom dealings in the interaction between the Black King Taleb Beni Khalid and his Bishop the August General in Iron; while I enjoyed the spotlight on the August General, this basic interaction (they disagree; the General disobeys) missed the subtleties of what we saw before.

One bright spot in this story, I'd note, was the inclusion of the new Global Guardians. I've enjoyed how characters like the Guardians and the Great Ten have travelled from <52> to Green Lantern to Checkmate, and I'm glad Jones included them here. Of course, I could quibble that the Guardians are hardly fleshed out and sometimes their individual powers are confusing; also, while one strong part of Chimera are the devil's monsters as rendered by Manuel Garcia, often it was tough to tell one Global Guardian from another.

Checkmate had been one of my favorite new titles coming out of Infinite Crisis, and I'm sad that I can't recommend this last volume. It seems to be the case with Checkmate, Shadowpact, All-New Atom, Blue Beetle and more that a book will start strong, then DC Comics will replace the original creative team, then the book will shortly be cancelled. Don't get me wrong, sometimes the replacement teams do a good job, but I wish sometimes DC would pull the plug when the original team leaves (as with Gotham Central and Starman, for instance), rather than draw things out with mixed results.

[Contains full covers]

Coming soon ... a special announcement, and the Collected Editions review of Batman RIP!

Review: Birds of Prey: Club Kids trade paperback (DC Comics)

noreply@blogger.com (collectededitions) — Thu, 21 May 2009 13:02:00 +0000

As Birds of Prey comes to an end, writer Tony Bedard offers a string of done-in-one stories in Club Kids. None of these are earth-shattering, but neither do they discrace the work of Gail Simone that came before (versus, say, after Simone left All-New Atom). Many of these stories are in service of Final Crisis, but in a way the tie between the action/adventure Birds of Prey and the cosmic Final Crisis is so interesting that the unlikeliness can almost be excused.

The book's title story, "Club Kids," doesn't come until the last chapter, and it occupies strange ground between Countdown to Final Crisis and Final Crisis itself. Fans of Grant Morrison's Seven Soldiers of Victory will enjoy cameos by the faux-urbanized New Gods found in that story; how the explosive death of Granny Goodness in Club Kids meshes with her differing fate in Death of the New Gods is something I haven't quite worked out yet.

However, what we do have here is a story of Birds of Prey Misfit and Black Alice, which starts in medias res like some of the best Chuck Dixon Birds of Prey stories. Misfit and Alice, the Dysfunctional Duo, have quickly outshined the more stodgey Oracle and Huntress as the most interesting Birds of Prey characters, and their bickering, bloody team up is an angsty joy to read. I have a hard time believing Bedard's final revelation about the connection between the two characters, but I trust Bedard at this point to do something good with it.

Much of this book, as a matter of fact, deals with the fallout of Death of the New Gods, and it's a strange mix for a book that began as a Batman-family espionauge title. What makes it work is that Simone included late in Birds of Prey fan-favorites like Knockout and Big Barda, and Bedard's stories deal with the fallout of what happens to these characters in that other series. Bedard's Lady Blackhawk/Big Barda story is perhaps a bit too much like Sean McKeever's Lady Blackhawk story in Birds of Prey: Metropolis or Dust, and his Knockout story is as much about the New Gods as Black Canary and Green Arrow's upcoming nuptuals, but I appreciated the general continuity between different areas of the DC Universe.

The remaining two stories spotlight Huntres and Oracle respectively; essentially, every main Birds of Prey character gets their own issue in this book. The Huntress story is a fun "what if" tale that considers how other heroes might handle Huntress's case; nothing really happens, but there's great cameos throughout. The Oracle story pits Barbara Gordon against her arch-enemy the Calculator; the idea of Oracle's online worm chomping on Calculator's virus is vaguely ridiculous, but the story has a nice surprise ending. This is indicative of most of the stories in this volume; Bedard doesn't write the most exciting or moving Birds of Prey you've ever read, but these are fine stories if you consider this volume more of a "Tales of the Birds of Prey."

Tony Bedard's been making the rounds at DC Comics lately (now regular writer on R.E.B.E.L.S., and I've been impressed with his work on Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes and the Black Canary miniseries. Birds of Prey is coming to an end, that's a fact, and maybe you might've preferred to stop reading with Gail Simone's last volume; but if you're following continuity from Final Crisis or Death of the New Gods, Birds of Prey: Club Kids is an entertaining side-trip along the way.

[Contains full covers, character biographies]

More reviews coming soon -- stay tuned!

Review: Supergirl: Way of the World trade paperback (DC Comics)

noreply@blogger.com (collectededitions) — Mon, 18 May 2009 13:02:00 +0000

A couple years ago, someone at DC Comics had the good idea to bring back the one, true Supergirl, but since that time the company's struggled to decide what to do with her. Supergirl: Way of the World, by writer Kelley Puckett, has some entertaining moments, but continues to wallow in a meta-textual search for a real basis from which to write the character. Most readers might very well skip this trade and begin with writer Sterling Gates' run as part of Superman: New Krypton.

Puckett pairs Supergirl here with Mitchell Shelley, DC's latest incarnation of Resurrection Man, and it's a team-up that works exceptionally well. Shelley's hard-traveling sarcasm offers funny moments paralleled with Supergirl's headstrong determination to do the impossible and cure a boy's cancer; I believe fans of the Resurrection Man series will enjoy the continuity notes here, too. I was only surprised the story didn't acknowledge that Resurrection Man had a similar crossover with Peter David's previous incarnation of Supergirl, though DC may be trying at this point to sweep appearances of any Supergirl prior to this one under the rug.

I've also appreciated Puckett's flair for the sudden and absurd in his two Supergirl volumes. In Way of the World, as in the prior volume Beyond Good and Evil, Puckett interrupts the story (sometimes in mid-conversation) to take the reader to a sci-fi future where events influence the current action. These cut-aways are purposefully jarring and serve to break up the mundanity of what's at times an all mope, no action story. Ultimately these parts add up to no more than Elseworlds Supergirl stories, but they're some of the best part of the storyline and demonstrate a depth to Puckett's writing that he's not able to show through most of the book.

Readers that might've been freaked out by writer Joe Kelly's "good-girl-gone-bad" take on Supergirl will be comfortable here with Puckett's more traditional take; but unfortunately, this Supergirl is at times impossibly dull. Her quest to cure the boy's cancer seems naive both to her fellow heroes and the reader, and as such it's hard to be sympathetic with just how melodramatically sad Supergirl is afterward, letting alone that much of the aftermath is handled by fill-in writers and not by Puckett himself.

Given the end of Puckett's tenure on Supergirl, as well as Supergirl's failure to save the boy she befriends, it's unlikely we'll see the involved characters again; it makes these two volumes of Supergirl tragically unimportant. Much of these first thirty issues of Supergirl have been spent on the character's angst and guilt -- first, over apparently being sent to Earth to kill Superman (later explained away) and here over the general death and destruction of Krypton, ad nauseam. This is a merry-go-round that the Supergirl title has been on for some time; with the end of Puckett's run and the beginning of Gates', hopefully the book will find a direction it can stick with.

[Contains full covers.]

On Thursday, learn the unlikely connections between Birds of Prey and Death of the New Gods with our review of Birds of Prey: Club Kids. And coming soon, Batman: RIP and guest review month!

Review: Batman and the Outsiders: The Snare trade paperback (DC Comics)

noreply@blogger.com (collectededitions) — Thu, 14 May 2009 13:02:00 +0000

The latest incarnation of Batman and the Outsiders isn't a bad superhero team-up book, per se. Certainly there's enjoyment in seeing this mix of characters together. But in comparison to a bevy of other espionage team books that DC Comics published post-Infinite Crisis, this second volume The Snare just doesn't hold up, and indeed the plot meanders so much that the reader can't help but wonder at the intended point, if there is one at all.

Following the events of The Chrysalis, the Outsiders believe Metamorpho to be dead, but instead he's stowed away on a renegade Chinese shuttle headed to space. When Metamorpho contacts the team, Batman sends the Outsiders to hijack yet another Chinese shuttle; the Outsiders are captured and must be rescued by Nightwing and a re-purposed OMAC called "Remac." Metamorpho frees himself and the team begins to investigate a mysterious space weapon, but are distracted by rumors of an alien parasite in Gotham.

We're now ten issues in to Outsiders, the team has been on the same mission for nearly all of them, and we have no clear idea who the main villain is nor what their goals are. We know generally that it involves space, and OMACs, but otherwise the danger is so unclear that I have trouble feeling interested and involved in the story. It definitely doesn't help that the story takes a right turn in the final chapters and the Outsiders embark on a new mission completely unrelated to the first, without any sort of conclusion to the leading story.

In addition, the Outsiders are for the most part passive participants in the story. For most of the team, the main thrust of The Snare is that they try to rescue Metamorpho but instead are captured by the Chinese government (seemingly unrelated to story's villain) and have to be rescued. Metamorpho gets a fair amount of screen time, but even his accomplishments in the story are largely accidental. I felt toward the end of writer Chuck Dixon's run on Birds of Prey that his focus became more the superhero fights than the plot, and the same is true here; I'm not sure why we want to read about the Outsiders being captured and escaping from antagonists unrelated to the story if it doesn't have any bearing on the story's arc overall.

What I like about Batman and the Outsiders is the characters themselves. It's an eclectic group, including Francine "wife of Man-Bat" Langstrom, Batgirl and Green Arrow, former "new" Outsiders Grace and Thunder, and former "old" Outsiders Katana, Geo-Force, and Metamorpho. I like this "legacy" combination of old and new Outsiders, and Dixon does well highlighting the differences in the two team's experiences; it's interesting how the older characters defer to Batman while the new characters cling to Nightwing when he arrives. Dixon also returns former Outsider Looker, and there's some nice nostalgia to the final chapters.

I'm less enamored of Remac. The character's name is silly to start with, and the idea that he's remote controlled/possessed by a goofy scientist seems an altogether worn-out concept. Perhaps if we knew more about where Remac came from or what it's purpose is, the reader might care more; most of the "captured Outsiders" storyline seems made to spotlight Remac, but we learn more about the character's powers than the character itself. As is, Judd Winick already had a funny robot character in Outsiders with Indigo, and Remac sadly is no Indigo.

Batman and the Outsiders: The Snare is a competently-written, action-packed story, with nice art by Julian Lopez, Carlos Rodriquez and Bit; unfortunately, it just doesn't go anywhere. We can speculate that a good amount of this comes from editorial interference; Chuck Dixon had a public enough fall out with DC Comics, and the weird alien parasite story and Batman's quick exit suggest an editorial mandate to clear the decks for Batman: RIP.

Still, it remains that Batman and the Outsiders failed to move me, and I'd be dropping the title altogether if it weren't for the ties the next volume should have with that selfsame Batman: RIP. With a new team on board, hopefully that'll mean new life for the stories as well.

[Contains full covers]

More reviews coming next week ... and soon, the Collected Editions review of Batman: RIP, and our exciting guest review month!

Flash: Rebirth hardcover collection solicited

noreply@blogger.com (collectededitions) — Wed, 13 May 2009 21:39:00 +0000

DC Comics's big news of yesterday is that Flash: Rebirth will now be six issues instead of five, causing much debate on the blog and Twitosphere.

At the same time, DC has now quietly solicited the Flash: Rebirth hardcover collection for January 2010. Of course we all knew a Flash: Rebirth collection was inevitable, but I'm mildly surprised to see it when we're only in the second issue of the series. Those not pleased with purchasing a sixth issue might very well decide at this point to wait for the trade.