Collected Editions

Review: Joker: The Greatest Stories Ever Told trade paperback (DC Comics)

noreply@blogger.com (collectededitions) — Thu, 23 May 2013 13:02:00 +0000

[Guest reviewer Zach King blogs about movies as The Cinema King]

Up to this point, the "Greatest Stories" series has profiled the best and brightest of the DC Universe. But when the series takes a turn toward the villainous, it's in many ways appropriate that DC's most iconic villain gets the "Greatest Stories" treatment in The Joker: The Greatest Stories Ever Told.

Perhaps even more so than with Batman, it's a bit difficult to assess what makes a Joker story "great" since I'm a staunch proponent of Grant Morrison's theory that The Joker is "super sane," reinventing his personality almost every day; as such, it's not hard to reconcile a Joker who builds sandcastles with a Joker who guns down Barbara Gordon.

But perhaps it's just that the relationship between The Joker and Batman is (literally) so black-and-white that it's difficult not to create an interesting match-up between the two. As for the contents of this volume, it's safe to say that each story in here is significant in one way or another; there are no real duds, and readers new and familiar will get a strong sense of who this character is -- just in time for Scott Snyder's big Joker story "Death of the Family" over in the New 52's Batman title.

The sum of the parts being more than the whole in this series, let's take a look at what's inside this volume.

"Batman Versus the Joker" (Batman #1, Spring 1940): It's no surprise that we begin with The Joker's first appearance, but what is surprising is just how fully formed the character is While The Joker's creation has been a point of contention for Batfans, writer Bill Finger and artist Bob Kane both craft a dynamite introduction to the character who has, aside from a goofy period in the Silver Age, remained mostly unchanged. The story's formula is familiar -- Joker vows to kill prominent Gothamites -- but its familiarity points to its influence on numerous adaptations (including The Dark Knight and an Steve Englehart remake reprinted later in this anthology). Kane's Joker is more morose and of somber countenance than readers might be prepared for, but he's never unrecognizable as Batman's greatest foe.

"The Joker's Comedy of Errors" (Batman #66, August/September 1951): Here might be the weakest story reprinted in this collection, because it doesn't seem to have been chosen for its importance to The Joker's character -- there's no "first" in this story, nor is his plot against Batman and Robin particularly compelling. No, it seems the editors chose this story because of its popularity on the Internet for its repeated use of the word "boner." Of course, the word meant something entirely different in 1951, but that doesn't stop the occasional snicker -- even from this reader, who usually considers himself above toilet humor. Finger's plot is overly involved, and Lew Schwartz's art stockier and cheekier (literally, The Joker's cheeks are huge here) than most, but the tale is ultimately not a terrible one. It's just that the editorial insight here seems sophomoric at best.

"Joker's Utility Belt" (Batman #73, October/November 1952): The story begins with a full-page teaser splash by Dick Sprang, in which Batman and Robin are menaced by perversely large Joker heads springing from an oversized utility belt. It's one of the most iconic Joker shots ever drawn by one of the definitive Joker artists, and the story by David V. Reed introduces a gimmick that, while abandoned in later stories, amps up the dark mirror in which The Joker reflects Batman. The story is cleverer than I was expecting, finding unique ways to utilize the bizarre gags that pack The Joker's utility belt. And while I've lamented the fact that this series doesn't reprint full covers, the inclusion of the hydra-like Joker's belt is "great" enough.

"Crime of the Month Club" (Batman #110, September 1957): Dave Wood and Dick Sprang take The Joker into new territory with this story, which casts the Clown Prince of Crime as a criminal consultant, auctioning off his master plans to the highest bidder. The premise is intriguing and given sufficient attention despite the brevity of the story, and it plays up one of my favorite Joker traits -- he always has a back-up plan. This is no "dog chasing cars," but rather the master strategist he always lies about being. Sprang's art again is classic and cements the angular grin which is The Joker's trademark.

"Joker's Last Laugh" (Detective Comics #332, October 1964): It's hard to believe that The Joker's signature laughing gas wasn't introduced until 1964, but here it sees first light -- this time as a powder which is (spoiler warning) easily defeated by a strong antihistamine prescription. While Sheldon Moldoff's pencils here are less compelling than Sprang's (indeed, Sprang is a tough act to follow), he's quite good with facial expressions, a key skill to have in a story where characters frequently erupt into spontaneous laughter. And the story also includes the rotating jail cell gag, which sums up The Joker's whole relationship with law enforcement but also raises serious questions about the security of Gotham's police station.

"The Laughing Fish" / "Sign of The Joker" (Detective Comics #475-476, February -- March 1978): If we're excluding The Killing Joke (if only for reasons of length) and Mad Love (on the grounds that it's more a Harley Quinn story), this might be my favorite Joker story of all time, so I'm elated to see it included here. It's easily the "Hey Jude" of Batman/Joker stories, because it's included on every top list and performed at every available opportunity. I gushed at length about this Steve Englehart and Marshall Rogers story in my review of Batman: Strange Apparitions, but it bears repeating that these are near-perfect stories, even thirty-some years later. Here is The Joker's dead-serious attempt to copyright fish, his trademark entrance in a stretched panel surrounded by laughter, and his spooky and dogged pursuit of the copyright officials. But it's also a great Batman story, giving us a snapshot of the Dark Knight's life at this time, as well as providing a look at the state of Gotham City as a whole. The story echoes The Joker's debut with a series of announced homicides, and its adaptation into an episode of Batman: The Animated Series only reverberates its iconic and greatest nature. It's a story that every Batfan needs to read.

"Have a Dreadful Birthday, Mr. Joker" (Batman #321, March 1980): After "The Laughing Fish," any story might feel like a comedown, and unfortunately for Len Wein and Walter Simonson such is this case with "Dreadful Birthday." It's not that it's a bad story; there's no shift in tone with the oversized (notice a trend?) birthday cake to which The Joker's hostages are tethered like candles, and the exploding boat finale is probably the most familiar version of the classic "We haven't seen the last of him" trope. It feels familiar, but it might just be a chicken-and-egg case of a spot-on distillation of this kind of story. What's more, Simonson's Joker is a wonderful interpretation, even more elongated than Rogers's, if it can be believed. While I may be sad that we didn't get anything from The Joker's solo series, the inclusion of Simonson in this story might atone for that.

"Laughter After Midnight" (Batman Adventures Annual #1, 1994): Throughout this series of reviews I've been clamoring for more representation from the DC Animated Universe, so it's wonderful to see that interpretation of The Joker represented here. I've long contended that the Dini/Timm approach to The Joker is the best and most accurate in any media adaptation -- even including Heath Ledger's wildly original Joker -- and it's telling that I still hear Mark Hamill's voice in my head when reading this and every other story in the collection. This story finds The Joker making his way home after yet another ignominious defeat at the hands of the Caped Crusader. John Byrne apes the style of the DCAU so cleanly that I had to double-check the artist wasn't Bruce Timm. It's a great story, one that I missed in my days reading the original series, but it's also a perfect peek into the odd blend of dark humor and deadly evil that made this interpretation of The Joker so beloved -- and so great.

"New Year's Eve" (Batman: The Long Halloween #4, March 1997): One of the earliest Joker stories in the post-Crisis canon (being that The Long Halloween is essentially "Year Two," only The Man Who Laughs is earlier for my money), this story combines many of my favorite characteristics of a Batman story: a dead serious Dark Knight, an eccentric Joker with a lethally insane plan, Jeph Loeb's writing, Tim Sale's art, and snow. While the whole issue isn't reprinted, the parts relevant to the collection unite seamlessly, such that you'll be hard-pressed to find the edits without a copy of the original on hand. Sale takes The Joker's facial elongation to its absurd nadir, such that The Joker's chin dangles near his navel by the end of Dark Victory, but it fits within the cartoonized world of the story; Batman is similarly exaggerated, muscular beyond plausibility but unmistakeably our hero. Considered by many a definitive Batman story, The Long Halloween does justice to The Joker and ought to encourage readers who had never read it before.

"Case Study" (Batman: Black and White, Volume 2, 2002): Ah, Alex Ross -- it's been a while since we saw you around these parts. Here Ross teams up with Paul Dini for a classic Joker origin story -- classic in that it's entirely plausible but probably not true. Riffing on Batman '89, Dini and Ross cast pre-chemicals Joker as a cunning and ambitious mobster whose last days as The Red Hood only made him more audacious. It's a nice nod to The Killing Joke, too long to be reprinted here but undeniably worthy of the "Greatest" appellation, but Dini puts a new "multiple choice" spin on Joker's possible origin, which is too clever to spoil. Ross's artwork is, as ever, stellar, even in black-and-white; his Joker reminds me of Jack Nicholson, which couldn't be less of a bad thing.

"The Joke" (Batman #614, June 2003): It's been said that Batman: Hush, of which this is the seventh chapter, is a retelling of all the iconic Batman moments in one epic story. If that's the case, "The Joke" represents the moral issue at the heart of the Batman/Joker conflict: Should Batman kill The Joker? Writer Jeph Loeb uses his internal narration style to its maximum potential here, stepping inside Batman's head as he beats The Joker near death; using Batman's memory to cycle back to some of The Joker's most notorious moments. It's a tidy package that interrogates what separates Batman from The Joker, but as an entry in this collection it also encompasses stories (i.e., The Killing Joke and A Death in the Family) that were too long to be included but still immensely significant. And the superstar artwork by Jim Lee doesn't hurt, either; Lee plays with shading and line thickness to emphasize the emotional shifts between memory and reality. As a part of one of my all-time favorite Batman stories, "The Joke" is also a wonderful summation of this complicated relationship.

"Slayride" (Detective Comics #826, February 2007): After fully exploring the Batman/Joker dynamic in "The Joke," Paul Dini returns to the writer's chair with "Slayride," another Christmas story in which The Joker abducts Robin Tim Drake and holds him captive during a series of brutal holiday crimes. Don Kramer's artwork in particular stands out for how well he makes The Joker look insane and evil without compromising his more clownish features. Dini is the master of the one-and-done Batman story, having honed his craft on The Animated Series, and this story is both thrilling and unforgettable; it's not difficult to picture this as an episode of the cartoon, although it's more violent than fans of the show will expect. It is, however, a great note on which the book can close, showing us what The Joker is like in the modern era -- still spooky and still uncomfortably funny.

Up to this point, Shazam! The Greatest Stories Ever Told was probably my favorite "Greatest Stories" collection, with Superman/Batman: The Greatest Stories Ever Told as a successful close second, with neither book wasting a story and instead presenting a highly canonical approach to the character's (or team's) history. But now I'm almost certain that The Joker: The Greatest Stories Ever Told is my new favorite, in part because the character is so strong but also because the editors have really done a bang-up job acknowledging every major interpretation of the character while providing each of his most significant moments without reprinting some of his longer appearances.

Indeed, I can't think of a story that's missing, no glaring omissions that got short shrift here; the only major story absent is the O'Neill/Adams tale "The Joker's Five-Way Revenge," but that's reprinted over in Batman: The Greatest Stories Ever Told, Volume One. I can't kvetch about the DCAU not being represented, since the editors rightfully recognize that The Joker, more than anyone, became a star at the hands of Dini and Timm; on that note, though, I might have liked a bit more Harley Quinn in this trade, since she only appears only peripherally in three small appearances here. And the Grant Morrison fan in me can't help but wonder why "The Clown at Midnight" didn't make the cut, although it's either too weird or too recent to merit inclusion.

All told, The Joker: The Greatest Stories Ever Told is as near to perfection as this series ever came, hitting all the important beats without wasting pages on unrewarding stories. It's a first-rate primer on the character -- exactly what I wanted from this series -- and it's excellent for all readers who want to know what The Joker is really all about. Just don't gaze too hard into the abyss, lest ... well, you know.

We've reached the last of the official "Greatest Stories" collections, but there's one more entry in this review series. No, it's not a post full of my complaints about missing stories. For the final entry in this series, I'll be reviewing The World's Greatest Superheroes, a collection of the oversized Paul Dini/Alex Ross OGNs which seems to fit nicely as a coda to the "Greatest Stories" line. Stay tuned!

More Greatest Stories reviews: Superman Vol. 1 and Vol. 2, Batman Vol. 1 and Vol. 2, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Flash, Justice League, Shazam, Batgirl, and Superman/Batman.

Review: The Judas Coin graphic novel (DC Comics)

noreply@blogger.com (collectededitions) — Wed, 22 May 2013 13:02:00 +0000

[Review by Doug Glassman, who Tumblrs at Hell Yeah '80s Marvel!]

A few years ago, DC published a book called Solo, allowing artists a chance to create stories in their style as they saw fit. Despite decent sales, great critical reception, and three Eisners for three individual issues [plus a forthcoming collection -- ed.], the title folded in 2006. Various artists had already begun working on ideas for issues; one of them was Walt Simonson. Last year, Simonson reworked some of his Solo ideas into a graphic novel, The Judas Coin, which was one of Collected Editions’ recommendations for holiday shopping. Even though The Judas Coin is broken up into six individual stories and a brief prologue, it doesn’t feel like a watered-down miniseries in the way JLA/JSA: Virtue and Vice does.

As the prologue reveals, the titular coin is one of the pieces of silver paid to Judas in exchange for betraying Jesus to the Romans. However, the book doesn’t dwell on theology; Jesus is simply called a betrayed friend, and the curse seems to derive more from the betrayal than any Christian doctrine. The coin’s cursed nature is immediately apparent: after Judas flings his blood money in the faces of his benefactors, a beggar finds the coins, only to be immediately trampled by a Roman soldier. Throughout The Judas Coin, simply being in the coin’s proximity is enough for bad luck to happen, although it gets progressively worse if you invoke the coin as a lucky totem.

Each section is prefaced with a brief text piece about the actual history of the time period to set up the situation with a minimum of exposition. The one exception is Part 5, starring Batman and Two-Face, where the text blurb is just reads “Gotham is an awful, awful place.” Instead, hints of backstory are given through newspaper articles printed behind the panels. The entire story is printed so that you have to tilt the comic on its side, turning it into a newspaper broadsheet complete with a “Gotham Gazette” header on the first page. Normally I complain about this technique; a particularly annoying example was in Iron Man/War Machine: Hands of the Mandarin, in which one single random Force Works splash page was printed vertically. But in The Judas Coin, the entire story is done this way, and it actually enhances the story. Two-Face is actually the only person to really figure out the curse, a refreshing take on the character.

Batman and Two-Face are the most famous characters to feature in the graphic novel; the rest are obscure stars of features in books like The Brave and The Bold, the home of Golden Gladiator and Viking Prince. The Golden Gladiator story finds the character near the end of his life in the service of Vespasian, who rose to power during the bloody “Year of the Four Emperors.” In fact, Vespasian co-stars in the story, a detail I thought was odd until I found out that he was a soldier as well. By setting the story in Germania, Simonson allows the coin to migrate from Judea to Europe in a realistic manner. This sets the stage for the Viking Prince chapter, which, as you might expect, has a few The Mighty Thor nods, including a picture of Hela with a half-rotted face and elaborate Kirby-esque Viking helmets.

The next three chapters were two of the furthest along in the creation of Simonson’s Solo issue, and are thus the most solid. The Captain Fear tale takes advantage of the traditional greed of pirates and uses it to accentuate the treachery of Fear’s crew in a mutiny. His resulting plan ends up destroying his ship, and the mutineer leader experiences the book’s most karmic death. Next, the tone shifts to comedy with a poker game between Bat Lash and some hooligans where everyone is on an even keel due to cheating. Like Captain Fear, Bat Lash has an intricate way to get out of his bad situation, even if it involves beating the crap out of himself. It’s a necessary tonal shift after three fairly dark stories in a row. The aforementioned Batman and Two-Face story was, according to Simonson, a Solo concept which would have taken up the entire issue, so it’s satisfying that it found a home here.

Simonson’s last story takes us into space with Manhunter 2070, a character I didn’t even know existed until I read The Judas Coin. I thought Starker was just an extrapolation of Archie Goodwin and Simonson’s famous Manhunter stories, but no, he was created back in the 1970s. The coin appears to be destroyed in this final chapter, although the final captions indicate that the curse can even withstand the force of a star. There could easily be a sequel if Simonson ever wants to do it; personally, I’d love to see Booster Gold in a story about greed and cursed coins.

Along with letterer John Workman and his brilliant sound effects, Simonson’s other collaborator is Lovern Kindzierski, a prolific colorist and the creator of Lobo parody Lunatik. Occasionally, the coloring seems a little rough, but that might be the interaction between Kindzierski’s colors and Simonson’s often heavy inks. One excellent technique is that each chapter is colored in a different manner. While the Golden Gladiator chapter is “normal,” the Viking Prince chapter has a more pastel palette in the manner of The Mighty Thor. The Captain Fear chapter has heavier white panel borders and distinctly thicker lines. The Bat Lash chapter has almost a sepia tone to it. Most dramatically, the Batman story is in black and white, while the Manhunter 2070 chapter has bright colors and swifter lines to evoke a manga style.

If you went into The Judas Coin not knowing that it was all by one writer and penciller, you might think it was an anthology from various creators. Not only does the art go through various styles, but the stories vary in tone as well. It’s a well-balanced graphic novel worthwhile for both the story and the artwork.

[Includes Walt Simonson sketchbook]

Two new Collected Editions ebooks

noreply@blogger.com (collectededitions) — Tue, 21 May 2013 13:02:00 +0000

Today Collected Editions announces the release of two new ebooks!

The Collected Editions Guide to the DC Comics New 52 Vol. 1

In 2011, DC Comics relaunched their entire line of titles, replacing over twenty-years of post-Crisis on Infinite Earths continuity (and some pre-Crisis continuity!) with the New 52. The Collected Editions website chronicled the newly unfolding DC Universe with reviews of each of the inaugural New 52 collections, and now those reviews are collected in a new ebook as an in-depth study of the New 52. The book includes two new, never-before-published Collected Editions reviews, as well as a new introduction by the author.

The Unofficial DC Comics Trade Paperback Timeline Vol. 2

The second volume in the Unofficial DC Comics Trade Paperback Timeline series is updated and expanded to include over 900 titles, including all the New 52 Volume 1 titles, making this the perfect guide for both new and established readers. The Timeline shows how to read DC's library of collected editions in order, offering a quick glance at the most significant DC events as well as collections that readers might have missed. Copious notes help explain how the collections fit together. Whether a fan of DC's old continuity or new, the Trade Paperback Timeline is your map to navigating the DC universe. This volume also contains a new introduction by the author.

How to order

The ebooks are just $0.99 each, available direct from Smashwords and compatible with all ebook apps and devices (Kindle see below). You can also order the books from Barnes and Noble (link to come), the Apple iBookstore, Kobo, and the Sony ReaderStore (link to come).

Kindle users: Collected Editions ebooks are sold DRM-free from all vendors. For Kindle compatibility, download the free Calibre ebook management system and easily convert the Smashwords EPUB file to MOBI format.

For press/blogger inquiries and review copies, contact collectededitions at the Yahoo account or DM @collecteditions on Twitter.

Reviews appreciated. Enjoy your new ebooks!

Review: Worlds' Finest Vol. 1: The Lost Daughters of Earth 2 trade paperback (DC Comics)

noreply@blogger.com (collectededitions) — Mon, 20 May 2013 13:02:00 +0000

An interesting premise and some wisely re-imagined characters carries Paul Levitz's Worlds' Finest: The Lost Daughters of Earth 2 a very far distance. Unfortunately, the number of issues collected here outpaces the utility of the plot, to the point where the book begins to feel decompressed; the juxtaposition of the past and present with artists Kevin Macguire and George Perez respectively is entertaining and certainly pretty to look at, but this too gets gimicky after a while as it fails to come to any cohesive point.

[Review contains spoilers]

The best part of Paul Levitz's Worlds' Finest is his new Earth 2-born Power Girl and Huntress. Though the two initially seem much like their pre-Flashpoint counterparts (as did Huntress in Levitz's Crossbow at the Crossroads miniseries), later in the book Levitz begins to differentiate and re-imagine their voices. Huntress is, in comparison to the former Helena Bertinelli, somewhat bookish and reserved, preferring to remain in the shadows; Power Girl is bold but also surprisingly flirty, more tawdry than one would expect considering that she was once Earth 2's Supergirl.

The two are friends but not close, only having recently reunited; Power Girl Karen Starr nee Kara Zor-El has spent the past five years in the spotlight, building a tech company in an attempt to find a way back to Earth 2, while Huntress has fought crime but largely remained hidden.

Power Girl is brash enough that at times it's hard to fully sympathize with her character; also, that Levitz chooses to have Karen buy her way into corporate dominance rather than on her own smarts, as in the previous continuity, seems a step backward. Huntress, however, is a more interesting study -- a new Robin, the daughter of Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle, raised from birth for the role and having experienced all the pressure and adventures that go along with that. Levitz only scratches the surface of the stories he could tell, well aside from the present Worlds' Finest action.

But most of what this book establishes, it establishes in the first issue. In the past, Power Girl and Huntress are mistakenly shunted to "our" Earth, as also seen in James Robinson's Earth 2: The Gathering, they filch a little of Bruce Wayne's money, and they set up lives for themselves; in the present, they fight a radioactive hulk named Hakkou that's bent on destroying the device that will send them home. Little about that, if at all, changes over the next successive three issues; Levitz shows them continuing to set up their lives, but there are no surprises there that change our understanding of the characters in the present, nor does their continuing fight with the one-note Hakkou reveal anything about how they became stranded across dimensions.

Levitz would seem to take the Lost approach (or do we call it "the Arrow approach" now?), paralleling the present with the characters formative moments in the past. Worlds' Finest has a classic art team, and Maguire especially sells Power Girl and Huntress's clowning around and the differences in their personalities. But again, well-drawn flashbacks aren't enough -- Levitz doesn't actually tie the past action to the present nor offer any new information, so four issues in, the book feels repetitious.

The fifth issue sets Huntress and Power Girl in separate adventures, but again what follows is mostly predictable -- Power Girl fights a rampaging machine in the sunlight, Huntress takes out a sniper in the night. The final issue is the book's Zero Month issue, and this is a good look at the characters' more interesting Supergirl and Robin personas, though I wonder whether Levitz has revealed here too early the circumstances of Selina Kyle's death.

At the same time, Levitz offers up plenty of other mysteries -- maybe too many. Power Girl's powers don't work right on "our" Earth for some reason (though Levitz is never specific how they're different), Huntress has apparently gained a modicum of invulnerability somehow, there's a mysterious belt that made the trip across dimensions with them, Hakkou has some sort of dimension-hopping in his background, and apparently even the circumstances of Power Girl's original arrival on Earth 2 are suspect (it would be an interesting turn if it ended up that Power Girl was sent from "our" Earth to Earth 2 originally and not vice versa as in pre-Flashpoint continuity). Levitz sums up these questions at the end of the fourth chapter, perhaps too helpfully; mystery is fine, but the list of questions only serves as a reminder of all that hasn't been explored already six issues into this series.

I really enjoyed James Robinson's first Earth 2 collection, but unfortunately this second book in the franchise doesn't live up to the first. From writer -- Paul Levitz created Huntress, once upon a time -- to artists to characters and concept, Worlds' Finest: The Lost Daughters of Earth 2 should be a book that can't miss, but unfortunately some good character work only takes it so far. Possibly Levitz had to bide his time here to line up with other events in the DC Universe; hopefully that's the case and this series's second outing will be better than its first.

[Includes original covers, costume designs and sketches by various artists]

New reviews on the way!

DC Trade Solicitations for August 2013 - Joker: Death of the Family, DC One Million Omnibus, Necessary Evil, Legion cancelled

noreply@blogger.com (collectededitions) — Fri, 17 May 2013 13:02:00 +0000

Earlier this week DC Comics released their August 2013 solicitations, including trade paperbacks, collections, and graphic novels. As you know, DC also cancelled four titles -- Legion of Super-Heroes, Threshhold, Demon Knights, and Dial H. Even as we're talking about August, I think most of us have our eyes tipped toward September, such to see what new books might replace the fallen. (What Wave will this be now? I can never keep track.)

Losing Legion certainly stings, as for me this has been one of the most enjoyable and accessible Legion runs in a while -- up there with the early issues of the recent Mark Waid/Barry Kitson run, but maybe a little better because I adored this return to the "new classic" Legion. But while Paul Levitz's Legion was superlative just before Flashpoint, in the New 52 the wind seemed to go out of its sails a little bit, and I can't necessarily say the cancellation was a surprise.

Nor can I gather up the ire that Waid has about this -- surely there's been an instance before where Legion has been cancelled one month and restarted the next (for instance, when Waid himself relaunched Legion after Zero Hour). And even if Legion does go on hiatus, I find it hard to believe Waid would expect DC to keep publishing Legion if it wasn't making money -- just because a title's been around for forty years (in three or four different iterations, which I'm not sure counts as "continuous") doesn't make it too big to fail if it's, well, failing.

Some collections:

• Joker: Death of The Family HC

We already knew about this, but now we have a semi-confirmed release date of October 16, the week after the Batman: Death of the Family collection comes out (so they're the opposite of Night of the Owls, where the tie-in book came out first; this time the tie-in book comes out second).

Contents are reported as Batman #17, Catwoman #13-14, Batgirl #14-16, Batman and Robin #15-17, Nightwing #15-16, Detective Comics #16-17, Red Hood and the Outlaws #15-16 and Teen Titans #15, plus pages from Batman #13, Batgirl #13, Nightwing #14, Red Hood and the Outlaws #13-14, Suicide Squad #14-15 and Teen Titans #14 and 16. This will mark the first time in the New 52 that a DC collection has included "pages from" instead of a full issue, and I'll be curious to see how seamlessly (or not) the pages fit in. I recently re-read Batman: Murderer/Fugitive, whose collections also tried to patch together just the relevant parts of the tie-ins, and it's a valiant effort but my thinking is overall these collections read better with the full issue.

• Batgirl Vol. 3: Death of The Family HC

This collects Batgirl #14-19, Batman #17, Batgirl Annual #1, and the Batgirl story from Young Romance #1, which is a nicely large enough selection of issues that it doesn't feel like Joker: Death of the Family duplicates it too much. I'm especially glad to see these Young Romance stories collected with their respective titles, too; here and also in the Stormwatch book, to name two off the top of my head (or does Stormwatch? See below).

• DC One Million Omnibus HC

If it's go big or go home, DC went big with this one. You've got to admire a book that not only collects the original crossover and tie-ins (in and of itself a feat, and it makes me still hopeful for that Crisis on Infinite Earths Omnibus with all the tie-in issues, one day), but also ancillary stories that came out years (and in one respect, even a decade) later like the 80-Page Giant, Superman/Batman, and Booster Gold. Plus this is about the only place you can find collected issues of Chronos and Creeper, among others.

• Necessary Evil: The Villains of the DC Universe TP

Collects parts of Action Comics Annual #10, Batman #244 and 614, Batman Villains Secret Files #1, Black Adam #6, Green Lantern Corps #14, Solo #1, Superman: Lex 2000, Wonder Woman #214, Countdown to Infinite Crisis #1, and profile pages from Countdown #2, 6-11, 14-16, 19, 27, 29, 33-34 and 36-37. I don't think I spot anything in there that hasn't been collected already except maybe the Batman Villains story, whatever it turns out to be, and the Countdown profiles.

• Ame-Comi Girls Vol. 1 TP
• Arrow Vol. 1 TP
• Batman: Legends of The Dark Knight Vol. 1 TP

Chris Arrant at Robot 6 asked the other day whether DC's digital comics were their best-kept secret. It certainly seems like they're rolling out collections of the same pretty regularly. That a collection is coming out doesn't necessarily speak to the quality of the product, but from what I hear Smallville and Injustice and the rest are all doing well; how long until an in-continuity title goes digital first, do you think? (And how long until DC goes ahead and adopts the Thrillbent/Marvel Infinite Comics method of digital comics "animation"?)

• Animal Man Vol. 3: Rotworld—The Red Kingdom TP
• Earth 2 Vol. 2: The Tower of Fate HC

At some point I was thinking the next Earth 2 collection wouldn't be out until 2014. Quite thankfully it's October, and it's got almost seven-to-eight issues of content in it.

• Green Lantern Vol. 3: The End HC

Does ... does this mean I just have one more Geoff Johns Green Lantern collection to read, and that's it? Oh. Oh my.

• Green Arrow Vol. 3: Harrow TP

I mentioned elsewhere I'm kind of disappointed not to see any of Jeff Lemire's new run on the series collected here, just because it means we have to wait that much longer before Lemire's first Green Arrow collection. At the same time, while I expect from reading authors Ann Nocenti and Rob Liefeld's other works that I may find this collection a little rough, between the Savage Hawkman and Justice League issue this collection is obviously meant to milk the Justice League of America connection for all its worth, and that's an enjoyable prospect.

• Stormwatch Vol. 3: Betrayal TP

Some of the online retailers list a Young Romance story as being included here, but DC themselves don't, so your guess is as good as mine.

What are you buying for August? And more importantly, is it time for September solicits yet?

Review: Criminal Vol. 2: Lawless trade paperback (Marvel Comics)

noreply@blogger.com (collectededitions) — Thu, 16 May 2013 13:02:00 +0000

[Guest reviewer Zach King blogs about movies as The Cinema King]

I came out of Coward, the first Criminal volume from Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips, with a compulsion to seek out more crime comics, especially the ones by this creative team. The second volume, Lawless, continues developing the shared universe in which these stories occur with considerable inventiveness, but it is for a number of reasons an overall less entertaining read than its strong predecessor.

After a military scandal which led to his untimely departure from the service, Tracy Lawless returns to Center City to avenge the murder of his brother Ricky. All he knows is that his brother Rick was betrayed by a member of his own crew, so Tracy infiltrates the gang to learn the truth about his brother's death. But as Tracy takes Rick's place in the gang, he learns that his brother's past was more complicated -- and more twisted -- than he expected, even as his investigation leads him to the most corrupt of the city's real power brokers.

As a follow-up to Coward, Lawless has a very high bar to match; I was extremely impressed with Coward and quickly understood why the series was gaining high marks for originality. How, then, do you do an original sequel? Brubaker negotiates that territory by opening up a new corner of Center City rather than following up with Leo and the rest of the gang from the first trade.

If Coward was Brubaker's reexamination of the heist story a la The Italian Job, Lawless is his revenge film in the vein of Get Carter. But in Lawless, Brubaker doesn't do as much as I was expecting to subvert the genre. While he does play with expectations by making the case about who Rick actually was rather than who killed him, the central mystery of the triggerman is quite transparent; anyone with a passing familiarity with noir revenge films will probably spot the culprit right off.

But even a predictable Brubaker story is still a first-rate read. Tracy's voice is clearly different from Leo's, and the narrator is hard-boiled without clutching cliches in his teeth. More interesting, though, is the way that Brubaker plays with time in Lawless. Coward was more linear, its protagonists haunted by a past we dispensed with in the prologue, but in Lawless the book itself is haunted by an intrusive past that appears without warning, disorienting the reader and forcing us to restabilize the narrative.

Take the book's first page, which opens with Tracy standing over a dead body. A few panels later, we see the murder itself; by the end of the first chapter, we see the moments before the murder. This wibbly-wobbly approach to chronology is initially jarring, but it smartly helps us to understand Tracy's relationship to his past so that his surprising decision at the end of the book at least seems justified. It's clear that there is more to Tracy's story yet to be told, so I'm eager to see this character recur in the shared universe of Criminal.

Brubaker is again teamed with Phillips, and it's a peanut-butter-and-jelly partnership that makes absolute sense, like Morrison/Quitely, Lee/Kirby, and Moore/Gibbons. Phillips's use of shadows fits perfectly with the neo-noir vibe, cultivating a sense of danger melded with intrigue. His facial expressions are subtle and sketchy, expressive without too much distracting detail. Better still, each character has a unique look, with signature expressions that help the reader keep everyone straight while getting a sense of who's telling the truth and who's lying. At home both in the bedroom and in a shootout with the cops, Phillips's art solidifies itself as an essential component of the Criminal ambiance.

Though it doesn't break new ground in the same way that the first volume did, Lawless retains a readability that raises the profile of crime comics; I haven't read something as deceptively straightforward since Frank Miller's Sin City, with both doing exciting things in the realm of capeless comics. If the recent move toward creator-owned comics produces more books like Criminal, I'm all for it.

Review: Stormwatch (1997) Vol. 5: Final Orbit trade paperback (Wildstorm/DC Comics)

noreply@blogger.com (collectededitions) — Wed, 15 May 2013 13:02:00 +0000

[Review by Doug Glassman, who Tumblrs at Hell Yeah '80s Marvel!]

One of the biggest appeals of the Aliens vs. Predator franchise is that to use the Xenomorphs, you don’t have to explain what they’ve been up to since their last appearance. There are millions (if not billions) of them spread out throughout the universe, and their motive is simple: they want to breed. They just happen to require the bodies of living creatures to do so. As a result, you can take the Xenomorphs and cross them over with other characters without requiring a lot of backstory. They’ve met Batman, Superman, Green Lantern Kyle Rayner, Judge Dredd, Witchblade, and even the Terminator (although, surprisingly, not Robocop, despite that franchise crossing over with The Terminator).

Because of the inter-company crossover nature of those stories, they aren’t canon. Few stories of that stripe can be, apart from JLA/Avengers. The Stormwatch: Final Orbit trade contains another exception: the infamous WildC.A.T.S./Aliens, which will unfortunately not be reprinted in the upcoming Stormwatch: Vol. 2. But publishing rights aren’t the only reason why it won’t be in that volume. As it turns out, the Stormwatch team doesn’t really appear in WildC.A.T.S./Aliens at all. Only a few living members factor into it; the majority of the Stormwatch cast are slaughtered before the WildC.A.T.S. even arrive on Stormwatch’s orbital headquarters.

Warren Ellis famously used WildC.A.T.S./Aliens to change the entire Wildstorm status quo so that he could introduce The Authority. Under the aegis of Jackson King, the Weatherman, Stormwatch protected the Earth and beyond in a fairly standard superheroic manner. This kind of guardianship wouldn’t be conducive to the Authority’s antics, so they had to go; why not do it in the most gruesome and publicity-grabbing way possible? It helps that they got Chris Sprouse and Kevin Nowlan to draw the crossover. As much as I like Jim Lee, his slick style of art wouldn’t have worked for a mass-slaughtering horror story.

As for the WildC.A.T.S. themselves, I know about them mostly from their appearances in the New 52 titles and -- just to show my age -- their short-lived animated series. Mind you, I can’t really name any of them off-hand apart from Grifter and Maul. The WildC.A.T.S. may be the only team with two warriors wearing their hair in high-off-the-head ponytails. Zealot and Warblade are sometimes indistinguishable due to the dark coloring; I’m happy that they identified Zealot in this book very quickly, because otherwise I would have pegged her as Glory. The team was going through rough times during this story’s publication, so there’s a lot of arguing, with ex-lovers Grifter and Zealot doing the bulk of the sniping. They also have a manager patterned after Justice League International’s Oberon, which I didn’t remember the team having on the cartoon.

So if Stormwatch isn’t the focus of WildC.A.T.S./Aliens, then why is this a Stormwatch trade? Well, the trade includes issues #10 and 11 of Ellis’ tenure on the title, which take place before and after the crossover one-shot. Wisely, the trade was designed to sandwich the one-shot between these two issues, so that you can read them in the proper order. I decided to do a little test: could I understand what happened to Stormwatch by reading just those issues without WildC.A.T.S./Aliens? You can certainly do that, but the end result is anti-climactic. The Xenomorphs aren’t shown in the Stormwatch issues; when their asteroid ship appears in issue #10, it’s at the end, so there’s a cliffhanger about what will happen with the heroes. In issue #11, the Stormwatch members are already dead and buried, and we’re not told the details of how; the WildC.A.T.S. aren’t even shown!

Going into this, I knew a little more about Stormwatch than I did about WildC.A.T.S., mostly because of The Authority and DC’s current Stormwatch ongoing. None of the killed-off members have made appearances in the New 52 as far as I can tell, since DC’s Stormwatch is essentially The Authority plus Jackson King and the Martian Manhunter. Honestly, reading these issues after reading The Authority really does feel like I’m taking a step backwards. The Stormwatch heroes are visually rather bland, and King’s struggles with funding just aren’t that interesting of a story. When the UN decommissions Stormwatch, it feels like what would have happened even if the Xenomorphs didn’t attack.

At the very end of Stormwatch: Final Orbit, Jenny Sparks, Swift, and Jack Hawksmoor come out of hiding and brutally attack recurring villain Henry Bendix. This is the true start of The Authority, especially because the art is by Bryan Hitch and Paul Neary. Parts of both issues were drawn by Michael Ryan, and his art is a little less detailed but still high-quality, but the final pages were by Hitch and Neary specifically to flow right from Stormwatch into The Authority.

There are many ways to clear out a comic’s status quo, from dismissing members in conversation (like in Avengers: Avengers World) to just rebooting the universe entirely (like in Justice League: Origin). Warren Ellis would have likely killed off most of Stormwatch anyway, so the fact that he was able to use the Xenomorphs to do so is just a bonus. The presence of the WildC.A.T.S. is intrusive, and if it had been Stormwatch fighting for their lives against such a powerful threat versus just dying off-panel, then I think this would have been a much better story.

If you’re just a fan of Aliens, there’s not much here for you. That said, Ellis puts some good work into this crossover, aided by Sprouse and Hitch’s artwork. Since it might not be reprinted any time soon, if you’re a fan of The Authority, you can just pick up the one-shot if you can get it at your LCS. Alternately, since comiXology hosts most issues of WildC.A.T.S., there’s a possibility that WildC.A.T.S./Aliens might one day be put up there. Otherwise, Stormwatch: Final Orbit is a decent buy, cataloging the fall of early 1990s extreme comics and the rise of the more mature era of the late '90s.

Review: DC Entertainment Essential Graphic Novels and Chronology 2013 trade paperback (DC Comics)

noreply@blogger.com (collectededitions) — Mon, 13 May 2013 13:02:00 +0000

The DC Entertainment Essential Graphic Novels and Chronology 2013 should be in your local local comics shop now (and hopefully on comiXology soon).

Let me say first of all that I'm really excited that DC has published this; Marvel has had books of this type -- scores of them -- for a while now, and an organized DC trade backlist, especially one that's going to be updated every year, is a good thing for trade fans and for retailers. I don't want us to lose sight of that.

Given a good thousand collections that DC has produced, it's pretty easy for a dedicated fan to come along and say, sure, you've got Batman: Year One on here, but where's Batman: Evolution by Greg Rucka with art by Shawn Martinbrough? We fans want deference for the books that mean the most to us, and that's understandable, but DC's goal as a company must be first and foremost to sell books -- I love Superman: Krisis of the Krimson Kryptonite, but that book is long out of print and I can't blame DC for using the space in this catalog for something else if a reader couldn't go buy Krimson Kryptonite anyway.

This is not to excuse the lack of a Wonder Woman section in this book, which ought be rectified for the next edition, but rather to say that with this "review" of sorts, I don't necessarily want to engage in the kind of "what, Flash: Rebirth gets a spot but not Legion: The Great Darkness Saga?" conversation (though indeed Flash: Rebirth gets a spot and Legion: The Great Darkness Saga does not), which seems too easy to me (even as I'm going to do a lot of that anyway).

Rather what I want to do is simply look through this book with you and make some observations. Many of those observations are going to be nitpicks, but again, this book is good for the trade-waiting cause and I'm glad it's out there.

(I'll jump ahead for a moment so as not to keep you in suspense: the Chronology aspect of this, while a good effort, is wrong or incomplete in numerous places. These are for the most part fine "suggested reading lists" if a customer asks to see a list of new-ish, notable-ish titles, no, but the DC Trade Paperback Timeline it is not.)

DCE 25 Essential Graphic Novels

You may remember six years ago DC published a list of their 30 Essential Graphic Novels on their website; that post is no longer there, but we still have the list on Collected Editions at the link.

Of that list, 14 of those titles have made it to DC's new 25 Essentials list, 14 have come off, and 11 new titles have come on (the math gets a little funny because some two-volume sets have been combined now into one volume). Below, I've marked with an asterisk the books that are new to the list; the titles without asterisks were on DC's list six years ago.

• Watchmen
• Batman: The Dark Knight Returns
• Sandman Vol. 1: Preludes and Nocturnes
• Batman: Year One
• V for Vendetta
• Saga of the Swamp Thing Vol. 1 *
• Fables Vol. 1: Legends in Exile
• Batman: The Killing Joke *
• Y, The Last Man Vol. 1: Unmanned
• All-Star Superman *
• Kingdom Come
• Batman: The Long Halloween
• League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Vol. 1 (previously Vols. 1 and 2)
• Batman: Earth One *
• Green Lantern: Rebirth
• American Vampire Vol. 1 *
• Blackest Night *
• Final Crisis *
• JLA Vol. 1 (previously New World Order)
• Identity Crisis
• Batman: Hush (previously Vols. 1 and 2)
• Joker *
• Flash: Rebirth *
• Superman: Earth One *
• Planetary *

For the record, those books that have now been retired from DC's Essentials list are:

• Sandman: Endless Nights
• Superman For All Seasons
• Superman: Birthright
• Superman/Batman: Public Enemies
• Batman: Arkham Asylum
• Batman: Dark Victory
• Batman: The Dark Knight Strikes Again
• Crisis on Infinite Earths
• Transmetropolitan, Vol. 1: Back on the Street
• Quitter
• Hellblazer: Original Sins
• Kamikaze Kaito Jeanne
• Sword Of The Dark Ones
• Ex Machina Vol. 1: The First Hundred Days

I don't disagree with the 25 Essentials list too ardently, and the ones that came off the list are probably the ones I would have chosen. There's a "flavor of the month" aesthetic to the list I might disagree with -- I'm not sure Blackest Night and especially Flash: Rebirth need to be on there, and I wouldn't necessarily trade Joker for Arkham Asylum.

Ex Machina, I'm glad to see, does appear elsewhere in the book (though under the Vertigo section, which is logically right but factually wrong.)

There's no book on this list, I don't think, with a female protagonist; I might've dumped Flash: Rebirth, for instance, for Greg Rucka and JH Williams's Batwoman: Elegy.

It's too easy to pick on the various descriptions of these titles, but I notice the catalog says Watchmen "examines the lives of the eponymous superhero team ... [who] reunite to investigate who's behind a teammate's murder." Not so -- the "team" is never in fact called "the Watchmen."

Picky continuity note and spoiler alert: In the 25 Essentials list, Blackest Night's page is on the left and Final Crisis's page follows on the right, even though Final Crisis was published before Blackest Night. Also, the pages shown from Final Crisis are the ones where Barry Allen comes back, which I think would qualify as a spoiler for a new fan looking to pick up that book.

The New 52

Justice League Vol. 1: Origin, Batman Vol. 1: Court of Owls, Green Lantern Vol. 1: Sinestro, and Action Comics Vol. 1: Superman and the Men of Steel all get full pages here; all the others are listed a few books to a page with covers and descriptions.

I promise I'll stop picking on the descriptions, but here's some more that struck me as a little off:

Detective Comics Vol. 1: Faces of Death: "Writer/artist Tony S. Daniel's take on Batman's infamous rogues' gallery." Seems kind of bland; how 'bout "Batman races to save Commissioner Gordon and the Joker from the Dollmaker, in this prelude to the Death of the Family crossover"?

Demon Knights Vol. 1: Seven Against the Dark: "The medieval Justice League." Actually not. The medieval Stormwatch, maybe?

Grifter Vol. 1: Most Wanted: "Grifter's first starring role in his own series!" ... If you don't count the starring roles he had in two of his own series from Wildstorm/Image.

Justice League International Vol. 1: The Signal Masters: "The UN's answer to the Justice League battle against the Signal Masters." Booster Gold gets tired of explaining this. "No, see, it was this alien called Peraxxus, and he sent signals to these robots, so he was the Signal Mast -- OK, fine, yes, you're right, we fought a bunch of Signal Masters, can we drop it now?"

Batman, Superman, Green Lantern, Flash, and Green Arrow each get special essential books sections, followed later by a "Backlist and Suggested Reading Order" section. For purposes of organization I'm going to combine my thoughts on each character's section below.

Batman

The initial two-page Batman introductory spread credits Bob Kane; the Superman spread credits Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.

In addition to a number of other books, including some mentioned in the 25 Essentials list, the Batman section includes Arkham Asylum, Dark Victory, Knightfall, Under the Hood, Batman and Son, RIP, the Batman and Robin books, Black Mirror, Batman, Inc., all the Batman New 52 Vol. 1 books, and Dark Knight Strikes Again.

Chronology: Here's where we get into my bread-and-butter: reading orders. As I said above, I think this is a valiant effort, but the DC Trade Paperback Timeline, it isn't.

The Batman list starts out with the Batman: Greatest Stories Ever Told volumes, then the Tales of the Batman/Legends of the Dark Knight writer/artist spotlight books, then a Batman Chronicles volume. Your introduction to classic Batman -- no qualms so far.

Then the list has Batman: Year One, Batman: The Man Who Laughs, Long Halloween, Dark Victory, Haunted Knight, the Matt Wagner Batman/Superman/Wonder Woman: Trinity series collection (which I'm pretty sure is out of print), and Batman: Prey. Still OK -- the reading order might be a little suspect here (not all of these books play 100% well with one another), but essentially they're all Year One-era stories.

Next is Batman: Death in the Family, then Grant Morrison's Batman: Gothic and Arkham Asylum, then Killing Joke. Now we have issues. First, I know specifically that Killing Joke takes place before Death in the Family -- it's not like anyone doesn't know what happens in either of these books or that one is a major spoiler for the other, but irrespective, the reading order is off. And what Gothic (a Legends of the Dark Knight story) and Arkham Asylum are both doing there, I don't know. Maybe it's because Death in the Family is a Joker story, Arkham is a Joker story, and Gothic is also a Morrison story like Arkham? Got me.

Then the list has Batman: Venom, Batman vs. Bane, and Knightfall. So this is Knightfall-era -- Venom ties to Knightfall, Batman vs. Bane includes the Vengance of Bane one-shot that precedes Knightfall -- but then again, Batman vs. Bane also includes stories that take place after Knightfall; maybe this won't cause big confusion for a new reader, but it might cause some.

From Knightfall, the list jumps straight to No Man's Land and then to Hush. So much for Contagion, Legacy, and Cataclysm, right?

The list enters the new Morrison era from there, from Batman and Son through Batman RIP and Final Crisis. The reading order gets shaky again toward the end -- Batman and Robin Vol. 4, Dark Knight, White Knight is listed before Return of Bruce Wayne, when indeed the fourth volume of Batman and Robin takes place after Bruce returned; Batman: Life and Death is listed after Bruce Wayne: The Road Home when Life and Death actually takes place while Bruce is still considered dead.

Then come the Flashpoint and New 52 books, and then a variety of non-continuity stories -- Joker, Year 100, Dark Knight Returns, Arkham City, etc. Strangely, Batman: Birth of the Demon finishes up the list, and that one's actually more in continuity than, say, Batman: Noel.

A bad list? No. A list with some omissions in it? Sure, but every list is going to have that. A credible reading order? Maybe, but with a couple of major caveats.

Superman

Among the books listed here are Superman Chronicles Vol. 1 (the eleventh volume of which I could have sworn was just cancelled), Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow, John Byrne's Superman: The Man of Steel Vol. 1, Superman for All Seasons, Death of Superman, Superman/Batman: Public Enemies, Brian Azzarello's Luthor, Superman For Tomorrow, Secret Origin, Last Son of Krypton (including Superman: Brainiac), Escape from Bizarro World, Superman and the Legion of Super-Heroes (so all the Johns books, though New Krypton gets no mention in this book), The Black Ring, the New 52 books, Earth One Vols. 1 and 2, Birthright, All Star Superman, and Red Son.

Chronology: The Superman list starts like the Batman list with Superman: The Greatest Stories Ever Told, Superman Chronicles, Superman vs. Flash, Superman vs. Brainiac, Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow -- again, classic material.

Next is six of John Byrne's Superman: Man of Steel collections, followed by Superman For All Seasons, and then Death of Superman, World Without a Superman, and Return of Superman. My dreams of seeing Superman: Panic in the Sky in this list lie in tatters.

Then, Azzarello's Luthor and Superman For Tomorrow again, Kurt Busiek's Camelot Falls, James Robinson's Coming of Atlas, and then the Geoff Johns books -- Secret Origin, Last Son of Krypton (again, including Superman: Brainiac), Escape from Bizarro World, Superman and the Legion of Super-Heroes. Last in that section is Geoff Johns's Superman: Up, Up, and Away, probably included there because it's by Johns, but wildly out of place reading-wise; Up, Up, and Away followed Infinite Crisis and 52 (the weekly series), and takes place before Camelot Falls. (And any number of books are skipped here including the President Lex and Our Worlds at War stories.)

Next are the Grounded, Black Ring, and Reign of Doomsday books, published just before Flashpoint, and then the New 52 books.

Following that is Wagner's Batman/Superman/Wonder Woman: Trinity book again, then all the Superman/Batman collections, then Kurt Busiek's weekly Trinity series collections (not sure why that's on the Superman list necessarily), Earth One, Birthright, All Star Superman, Superman vs. Muhammad Ali, and Red Son -- so, the out-of-continuity one-shot books.

Green Lantern

The Green Lantern books listed here are the Geoff Johns Green Lantern books listed in order, starting with Rebirth, through to the New 52, and then Green Lantern Corps: Recharge and Green Lantern Corps: To Be a Lantern.

Chronology: Similar to the others, this section starts with Green Lantern: The Greatest Stories Ever Told, then the anthology collection In Brightest Day, Green Lantern Chronicles, Green Lantern/Green Arrow, and Section 2814 Vol. 1 (the new early 1980s Green Lantern collections) -- so again, the classics.

Then, interestingly, the list includes Zero Hour: Crisis in Time, so a bit about Hal Jordan's fall. Note that neither the collections for Legends, Millennium, Invasion!, Underworld Unleashed, Final Night, DC One Million, Day of Judgment, nor Joker's Last Laugh are included in this book, making it surprisingly crossover-light; you may also find interesting that the word "Countdown" is never used in the Essentials book. (Also no Absolute editions are listed in this book.)

After Zero Hour comes Rebirth and all of the Geoff Johns Green Lantern books, including Blackest Night, Brightest Day, and into the New 52. Following that are the Tales of the Green Lantern Corps books and the new Green Lantern Corps volumes -- this is an equally funny "reading order" in regards to how the Green Lantern and Corps series sometimes interrelate.

Flash

In a move that will make no one happy, the Flash books listed here are Rebirth, Dastardly Death of the Rogues, Road to Flashpoint (so the two post-Final Crisis Johns books), Flashpoint, and the New 52 book Flash: Move Forward. Write your letters now -- the Mark Waid Flash books aren't mentioned in this book at all.

Chronology: The first book listed is Flash vs. the Rogues, followed by the three Geoff Johns Flash Omnibuses (read another way, Wally West is here but Mark Waid's Flash work isn't). Johns's pre-Flashpoint books follow, then Flashpoint, then the New 52 volume. A valid reading order but certainly not to many readers' tastes.

Green Arrow

Year One, Green Lantern/Green Arrow, Longbow Hunters, Archer's Quest -- interestingly, neither Kevin Smith nor Judd Winick's Green Arrow books get a mention in the whole book -- and the New 52 volume.

Chronology: The Green Arrow list starts off with the Jack Kirby Omnibus Vol. 1, which you and I know contains Green Arrow stories but this might be confusing to the audience for whom this book is intended.

After that is Andy Diggle's Green Arrow: Year One, Green Lantern/Green Arrow again, Longbow Hunters, and then Meltzer's Archer's Quest. As above, the omission of the Kevin Smith book is surprising; that Green Arrow/Black Canary collection might've been right here, too. The list ends with JT Krul's two Brightest Day tie-in volumes and the first New 52 book, Midas Touch.

Justice League

Among others, this includes JLA Vol. 1, the Earth 2 graphic novel, Identity Crisis, Brad Meltzer's two Justice League volumes Tornado's Path and Lightning Saga (Justice League books by Dwayne McDuffie and James Robinson get a nod later), the New 52 Justice League Vol. 1: Origin, New Frontier, The Nail (I have never read this book nor necessarily understood the appeal of it), Alex Ross's Justice, and Kingdom Come.

Chronology: Greatest Stories, and then the JLA deluxe volumes 1-4 (which collect all of Grant Morrison's work but end just before Mark Waid's Tower of Babel), then Morrison's Earth 2 (which is also collected in the deluxe JLA Vol. 4), then Identity Crisis, omitting both Waid's work and my personal fave, Joe Kelly's JLA run.

The saving grace of this section is that after Identity Crisis and Meltzer's books, the list includes Dwayne McDuffie's four Justice League books (McDuffie's only appearance in the book) and also James Robinson's, before the first New 52 volume.

Following that, again in a skewed fashion if looked as as a "chronology," are five of Keith Giffen's Justice League International books (even though six of these were published), Judd Winick's two Justice League: Generation Lost books, and the New 52 Justice League International book. Similar characters, but a reading order it is not.

This list is rounded out with Justice League Dark, and then similar to the spotlight page, New Frontier, The Nail, and Ross's Justice, Kingdom Come, and then its spin-off Kingdom. (Build-a-comment: "They put Kingdom on here and left off ________?!")

Women of the DC Universe

Indeed, as you've no doubt heard, this Essentials guide includes a "Women of the DC Universe" section and not a Wonder Woman section (or, and not also a Wonder Woman section). Good thoughts on this can be found at DC Women Kicking Ass, Every Day is Like Wednesday, and the Grumpy Old Fan column.

Books included here include Wonder Woman: Odyssey Vols. 1 and 2 (a story I liked, but not what I'd call "essential"); the first New 52 volumes of Wonder Woman, Batgirl, Batwoman, and Catwoman; Batwoman: Elegy; Catwoman: When in Rome; and Huntress: Crossbow at the Crossroads.

The following doesn't mitigate this ill-conceived section or the book choices ("not to be outdone by their male counterparts, the Women of the DC Universe are just as powerful," the introductory text reads), but from a business standpoint, I kind-of get why DC might want to spotlight ongoing and Earth One writer J. Michael Straczynski's Wonder Woman books over recently-left-the-company Greg Rucka's (aside from the long backlist, Batwoman: Elegy is the only place Rucka gets a "spotlight" credit), and equally why they'd want to mention Catwoman: When in Rome ("this sequel to the events of Batman: The Long Halloween and Batman: Dark Victory) over collections of Ed Brubaker's cancelled Catwoman series (Brubaker's book gets a mention in the backlist). Doesn't mean I agree, but I think we have to differentiate between "actually essential" and the DC Entertainment Essentials marketing tool.

Vertigo

Notable to me on this list (among many other titles) is that Wildstorm's Ex Machina
shows up here, as does Warren Ellis's Transmetropolitan and Denise Mina's Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Vol. 1. The John Constantine, Hellblazer entry on the list is the first one, Original Sins.

Sandman

All ten volumes, plus this list includes Endless Nights, two versions of The Dream Hunters, and both Death: The High Cost of Living and Death: The Deluxe Edition, which includes the contents of the former.

Fables

Seventeen Fables volumes(!), plus the Peter and Max novel, 1001 Nights of Snowfall, Fairest, Jack of Fables, and Cinderella.

Y, The Last Man

Ten volumes. I guess it behooves DC to suggest the individual collections here and not the deluxe editions, maybe because the cost of entry would be less off-putting to the audience this book is aiming at?

Alan Moore/Grant Morrison/MAD

These are three separate sections, but I'm moving this along a bit. That DC has an entire section devoted to Moore, a writer with nothing but bad things to say about them, is an interesting bit of cognitive dissonance. Books are Saga of the Swamp Thing Book One, V for Vendetta, Promethea Book 1, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Vols. 1 and 2, and Black Dossier.

I think Morrison's page is a nice cross-section of his non-mainstream-superhero DC work: Animal Man, Doom Patrol, Flex Mentallo, Joe the Barbarian, Invisibles, and We3.

It surprises me that MAD remains profitable in the digital age. Anyone else?

DC: All Ages

This is seven volumes of Tiny Titans, two of the Young Justice cartoon tie-in comic, and one of Batman: Brave and the Bold. No disrespect to Tiny Titans, which I adore, but surely something's not right here. I wonder if DC could see to list some of their non-graphic novel young readers books in this section next time.

DC Comics Reading Order

These are books that did not receive an Essential spotlight page, but do have a "Backlist and Suggested Reading Order" section.

Wonder Woman

The six-title Wonder Woman backlist won't make unhappy fans any happier: the Greatest Stories volume, Twelve Labors, Odyssey, the Wonder Woman Flashpoint volume(!), and the first New 52 volume. Rather surprised, at least, not to see the Diana Price books on here, or at least Gail Simone's books (see articles above and also my own list of the top Wonder Woman collections).

Justice Society of America

Say what you will about this catalog, but it does include Justice Society, Legion, and Teen Titans sections; these are three one-hot DC properties that are each somewhat cooled at the moment, and despite that this book often seems to try to chase what's hip (perhaps understandably so), I think these three sections are a nod to the larger DC fandom.

At the same time, the Justice Society listings are start with Geoff Johns's Justice Society of America: The Next Age (so, they omit the JSA series from this book entirely), through to the Bill Willingham and Marc Guggenheim volumes, and ending with the first New 52 Mr. Terrific collection -- so, no classic (Golden Age) Justice Society material at all.

Legion of Super-Heroes

This is a list of the kind I might have preferred to see for Justice Society. Starts with the brand-new Legion: Secret Origin, which is a little weird but what can you do, and then goes to the deluxe Legion: The Curse and Legion: The More Things Change. Good, that this is semi-classic material, but -- wait, are you saying The Great Darkness Saga isn't anywhere in this book, even though it, too, just got a deluxe edition? Why yes, yes I am.

Following that, the Legion "suggested reading order" is really a muddle.

Legion Lost, then Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds. OK, those didn't quite follow one another but at least they share characters. Then Superboy and the Legion: Early Years -- OK, that book actually does take place after Legion of 3 Worlds. Then ... Enemy Rising and Enemy Manifest, which are an entirely different Legion continuity that predates Legion of 3 Worlds. Then Paul Levitz's pre-Flashpoint Legion books, which do actually go with Superboy and the Legion: Early Years -- the reading order is tied in knots now. It ends with the New 52 Vol. 1 books.

New Teen Titans

The first two Omnibus collections, Games, and then the New 52 Vol. 1. Somewhere my copy of Geoff Johns's Teen Titans Vol. 1: A Kid's Game is weeping.

Selected Backlist

After this is the DC and Vertigo selected backlist. Eagle-eyed readers will no doubt catch some things I missed, but here's some quick hits: the Crisis on Multiple Earths volumes are on there, plus Crisis on Infinite Earths, Infinite Crisis (both regular and Omnibus), and Final Crisis, but again not DC's various other crossovers. Strangely only the last of four Gotham City Sirens collections made it on there. Jack Kirby's Fourth World is there; Gotham Central is there. Planetary is there and so is the first "classic" Stormwatch collection, but no Authority. Starman is there, but readers will be interested to hear the paperback is listed for Omnibus Vols. 1 and 2, and then the hardcovers for the rest.

One pick at the Vertigo list -- there's no Sandman Mystery Theatre.

And that is your look through the DC Entertainment Essential Graphic Novels and Chronology 2013 catalog. Again, let's acknowledge that no book from any publisher in which they say "these books and not those" will be to everyone's tastes and your favorite title was bound to be omitted. I would rather that DC have this catalog than not have it, and I look forward to seeing how it improves in 2014 and on.

Have you picked up the Essential book at your local comics shop yet? Eager to hear your thoughts on it.

Review: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Vol. 2 graphic novel (Vertigo/DC Comics)

noreply@blogger.com (collectededitions) — Thu, 09 May 2013 13:02:00 +0000

The second volume of Denise Mina's adaptation of Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is better than the first, both in plot and characterization. The second volume benefits from the principle characters actually meeting and working together, plus considerably more of the mystery unfolds. As well, Mina, with artists Leonardo Manco and Andrea Mutti, captures more of the characters' subtleties this time, especially in their dialogue, making for a volume that needed less careful parsing and offered more enjoyment.

[Review contains spoilers]

Though the first volume of this two-book series offered an interesting character study -- more so of Lisbeth Salander than Mikael Blomkvist -- it didn't ultimately feel like a satisfying read. Salander has an arc, in that she's raped by and then later takes revenge on her state guardian Nils Bjurman, but Blomkvist makes little headway in solving the disappearance of Harriet Vanger, and Salander and Blomkvist don't meet before the end of the book. The book felt less like Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and more like Before Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

The second volume makes up for this, however, and indeed to read the two books together is to get a much better reading experience (I wish Vertigo had released these as one truly novel-sized book, or that they eventually will). Within the first fifty pages, Blomkvist's daughter helps him find his first real lead in the case, and soon after Blomkvist hires Salander to assist him; they're getting shot at (and in bed together) before page 100.

I haven't read Larsson's books in print nor seen any of the movies, so I can't say whether the same is true to the originals, but in the second part of this tale considerably much more happens, and faster, than in the previous volume. That Blomkvist and Salander solve their case helps in no small part for the second book to feel more complete than the first; it probably doesn't hurt that the second volume has twenty more pages to tell its story than the first, too.

That Blomkvist makes no progress in the case in the first volume makes his storyline feel less necessary, contributing to the first volume's unevenness; the mystery, as it were, does not drive the story in the first volume. Perhaps it's Salander's personal storyline that gets short shrift in the second volume, but she's involved so much one would hardly notice, and indeed the psychological effects of Bjurman's attack permeate this book even if he physically appears in only one scene.

Indeed, in the second book Mina puts the comic book form to greater use to drive the book and show the states of the characters than in the first book; this second book feels positively more like a translation than an adaptation. This is most prominent in the phantom voices that taunt Salander about her assault -- Mina and artist Leonardo Manco depict these in floating instant message windows, on the backs of cell phones and the sides of purses, really giving the reader a sense of how inescapable Salander's trauma is. I also noted and appreciated that the only two-page spread in the book is where Blomkvist and his daughter talk and Blomkvist makes his first progress in the case. Blomkvist's break is highlighted by the spread, and the specialness of the paneling underlines the importance of the scene.

Mina has an unenviable task in trying to bring forth two characters voices on the page, both of whom are somewhat unemotional or disengaged from their surroundings. In the first book, some awkward paneling made it difficult to discern Salandar's social difficulties, requiring the audience to read a page over and over to "get it"; the extent to which Blomkvist is meant to be taken un-seriously, as something of a cad, was completely lost. In the second volume, sequences like Salander talking to her boss or Blomkvist bedding the emotionally-unstable Cecila are more direct, without being unsubtle; in comparison to Cecila's lovesick weeping, Blomkvist's disinterest becomes all the more clear.

Here again, the words and images are working together better than before; there's fewer panels that don't move the story forward, and a greater amount of the characters acting on the page in addition to the dialogue.

Again, the twenty extra pages here benefit the story immensely. Blomkvist and Salander have dispatched the bad guy, if not solved the mystery, a little after page 100, and that gives Mina fifty or sixty pages to really let the denouement unfold. This includes a couple of travels overseas that tease out the mystery's solution to the end, but I found even more interesting Salander's paranoia over her role in dispatching the villain. What is a victory for Blomkvist at the end of the book is not a victory for Salander, as Mina shows in the last pages as Blomkvist celebrates while Salander disappears to the streets.

When I'd only read the first book I wondered about the wisdom of Vertigo adapting Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, as the first volume didn't seem to do enough to entice the non-comics reader to follow this series over two or three years. I still believe that; however, it equally seems to me that if a reader did return for the second book, they'll probably be enticed to get the third. Hopefully Vertigo plans a long game for these collections, released as individual volumes and then as larger collections or omnibuses (a collection of volumes one and two would be wise just before the third single volume comes out) -- the better reading experience is certainly in reading the two books together, getting the build-up and the resolution all together.

UPDATE: DC/Vertigo has changed their plans and the next book, Girl Who Played with Fire, will be released in May 2014 as one volume, not two. I think that makes a collected version of Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Vol. 1 and 2 even more likely.

Review: Iron Man/War Machine: Hands of the Mandarin trade paperback (Marvel Comics)

noreply@blogger.com (collectededitions) — Wed, 08 May 2013 13:17:00 +0000

[Review by Doug Glassman, who Tumblrs at Hell Yeah '80s Marvel!]

The early 1990s era of Iron Man is something I enjoy despite its flaws, mostly because it was such a big part of my comic book collecting origins. The Modular Armor was brought to television as the base design of Iron Man: The Animated Series, which was one of the most influential shows in my childhood. When I was twelve, the very first back issue I ever bought was a copy of Iron Man #300 -- the Modular Armor’s debut. The issues from Iron Man, War Machine, and Force Works that form the newly collected Iron Man/War Machine: Hands of the Mandarin crossover show the Iron Man franchise right before its utter collapse.

At its core, Hands of the Mandarin consists of two stories: the Mandarin taking over China with the aid of an extraterrestrial weapon, and Iron Man and War Machine reconciling after a long period of mistrust and anger. The rift between Tony Stark and Jim Rhodes has a deep history, demonstrated by flashbacks to everything from Rhodey’s first appearance and his first tenure as Iron Man to the Armor Wars and the events of the War Machine trade. At the end of that book, Rhodey cut ties with Tony for not being in the loop about his faking his death. Now roaming the world as the violent vigilante War Machine, Rhodey needs Tony’s help to fix his armor -- by force, if necessary.

Meanwhile, the Mandarin lost badly to Iron Man in John Byrne’s classic Dragon Seed Saga (featuring Fin Fang Foom as one of the titular dragons). He’s now found a device called the Heart of Darkness, which rebuilt the hands he lost in the previous story with dragon-like claws and has increased his power immensely. Additionally, he’s gained a new philosophy on life, choosing magic over technology; his plan is to rid the world of technology entirely and rule over a new Dark Ages. It’s a bit of a departure from his old methods, but the Mandarin has always been a character in need to a purpose since the fall of Communism.

If the story had just been about Iron Man, War Machine and the Mandarin, then Hands of the Mandarin would have been a great success. Unfortunately, there was a third title in the Iron Man franchise which caused problems. Under the leadership of Iron Man and the Scarlet Witch, the West Coast Avengers decided to become a “proactive team” called Force Works. If the name and concept bring the infamous Extreme Justice to mind, it’s worth noting that the two titles were contemporaries. The Force Works parts of the crossover suffer from traditional '90s team book problems, such as uninspiring roster choices, combative members, and a lack of strong leadership.

The Scarlet Witch leads the team ... unless Iron Man is present, or unless U.S. Agent decides to go off and do his own thing. Supposedly, Wanda is more powerful than before, but her characterization is next to nonexistent. Julia Carpenter, the second Spider-Woman, also brings little to Force Works; it was disheartening to learn this since Julia was one of my favorite characters on the Iron Man cartoon. Even more depressing is U.S. Agent’s decline from a misguided anti-hero into a juiced-up goon.

Rounding out the team is Century, a spindly alien who has an odd verbal quirk of speaking in synonyms when trying to sound out concepts in English. Century has an interesting subplot in Hands of the Mandarin involving the theft of his staff, which makes him relive the memories of other people. This plot point is unfortunately not answered within the pages of this trade. Incidentally, his staff is called Parallax, proving that that word was the bane of comics in the '90s.

Most of the Force Works material consists of the team engaging in what '90s grim and gritty teams did best -- attacking a fortified base, in this case the Mandarin’s castle. It gets extremely spread out because extra pieces of the crossover were published in the Marvel Comics Presents anthology series. These short stories are told from the point of view of Force Works’s members but do little except pad out the story. Worse still, they take room away from what could have been important linking sequences, such as the rather abrupt ending. In a silly move, Marvel had an editorial policy banning curse words to make them feel more “mature” than upstart companies like Image and Dark Horse. As a result, people are told to “go to Hades” numerous times.

The biggest problem in Hands of the Mandarin is the art. The War Machine issues won the artist lottery with Gabriel Gecko (an alias of Hulk artist Gabriel Hardman) and Geoff Senior (known for his work on Transformers). Their art is a little above the '90s standard with far more consistent proportions and clearer action. Tom Morgan’s Iron Man work is full-on early Image, but still somewhat readable through the heavy lines.

Once again, Force Works is where it really falls apart, with numerous errors in proportions and even botched coloring, such as Scarlet Witch’s hair being colored purple many times. However, the absolute worst comes in the Marvel Comics Presents short stories. There’s a thin line between “art you dislike” and “bad art” The artwork in these short stories is so incredibly sloppy and poorly done that I think they should not have been published without heavy editing. There are points where Century’s face tattoos jut off from his face like horns, and others where U.S. Agent has a full-blown case of Liefeld’s Disease.

It may sound like I hated Iron Man/War Machine: Hands of the Mandarin but I’m really accepting of its flaws. There’s a great story buried under a veneer of bad artwork, and the Mandarin, Tony, Rhodey and even Century get some good character development. If you’re willing to accept exposure to early '90s artwork ranging from acceptable to utterly horrifying, you’ll find something to like here.

Review: Batwing Vol. 2: In the Shadow of Ancients trade paperback (DC Comics)

noreply@blogger.com (collectededitions) — Mon, 06 May 2013 13:02:00 +0000

Fans of Azrael Jean Paul Valley or Batgirl Cassandra Cain who haven't taken a look at Judd Winick's Batwing, should. In the second collection, Batwing: In the Shadow of Ancients, Winick continues to present a Batwing David Zavimbe who fights for justice not as Batman does, out of a sense of personal injury, but rather out of a sense of atonement. Zavimbe has blood on his hands, as Azrael and Batgirl did before him, and his struggle against evil is also a struggle for his own redemption.

Winick's stories here range from an issue that was so good it made me want to stand up and cheer, to some that are less notable, but the book is carried throughout by Winick's strong depiction of Zavimbe himself. More's the pity Winick only wrote two Batwing issues after this one; I'd have been curious to see what Winick would do fifty issues into Batwing and beyond.

[Review contains spoilers]

Ancients begins with a two-part story, illustrated by Streets of Gotham's Dustin Nguyen, which concludes the "Massacre" storyline from the first Batwing book, The Lost Kingdom. I read that volume over six months ago and all that time I thought, as the Batwing character did, that I knew the villain Massacre's identity -- boy, was I wrong. I'm happy to say Winick fooled me both with Massacre's identity and with the identity of the mastermind behind him; what had seemed like a too-obvious solution previously was actually a red herring. Real surprises in comics are rare these days, especially for trade-waiters, and Winick lands a good one.

What is especially fantastic about the revelation scene in the second chapter (Batwing #8) is that Winick bucks any number of super-villain cliches for some crushing emotional honesty. For as bloodthirsty as Massacre was in Kingdom, once Batwing reveals Massacre's identity and moreover when he speaks Massacre's real name, the villain becomes completely distraught. Winick could have chosen defiance, but instead he gives Massacre a childlike panic that fully embodied the trauma that Massacre has gone through. These are gripping pages, begging for a later followup that unfortunately, without Winick, probably won't ever come.

The seven-issue collection also includes two single-issue stories. The first is Batwing's Night of the Owls tie-in issue, which at the beginning builds up a disgraced Talon assassin for Batwing to fight, but ultimately the Talon's history doesn't affect the story. As with most Night of the Owls tie-ins, the story is basically an elongated fight scene, and of them all it's Batwing's least remarkable issue.

The other single-issue story, however, is the book's Zero Month issue. So far in other titles these issues have worked best when they offer some "secret origin" aspect -- not just the character's origin but some detail that reshapes the character's present. Winick's story doesn't necessarily do that, but it does reveal how Zavimbe's assistant Matu Ba lost his eye, something I'd thought had happened well before Zavimbe met Ba and I was surprised to learn it was more recent. I think Winick also works to smooth a bit of pre-/post-New 52 continuity vis a vis Batwing and Grant Morrison's first Batman Incorporated book, too. Winick calls out to Frank Miller's Batman: Year One in showing Zavimbe's early crimefighting, as is only appropriate, and this is entertaining especially since the issue comes as a coda at the end of the book.

The larger three-part story that finishes out this book is interesting but rough, suggesting perhaps that Winick's strongest Batwing idea might have been in the initial Massacre pitch. Batwing and Nightwing solve a mystery involving a kidnapped nuclear scientist, at the same time that Matu Ba's estranged family is killed in Africa. These are each cogent threads separately, but then sends Ba to his family's funeral in a mystical, isolated African nation ruled by a warlord called Lord Battle, and as Batwing continues to solve his mystery, it turns out not coincidentally that Lord Battle is involved in the nuclear warhead story.

I say "not coincidentally" because the difficulty here is that in the three issues, all the pieces ultimately fit, and too neatly. Ba's family had barely been mentioned before now and indeed he's estranged from them all, so the slaughter of an entire family comes mainly for plot purposes; it does not seem to resonate in a larger, more "real" way for Ba or Zavimbe. Also, Lord Battle, with his on-the-nose name and giant hammer, comes off as a silly villain (especially after the legitimately-frightening skull-faced Massacre), not to mention his immediately-forgettable henchmen, the "Blood Storm," who are there mainly for the Justice League International to fight. The story starts off compelling, but the end is basically just an exercise in superheroes versus super-villains.

No doubt writing about the Batman of Africa, and making Batwing's stories seem realistic and germane to an African setting may be one of the toughest tasks of the DC New 52. Winick makes the book both moving and believable when he's dealing with child soldiers and even the African Kingdom superhero team that stands between the government, the warlords, and the people's revolution. The Batwing title seems to depict Africa more stereotypically, however, with Lord Battle in his fur cloak, and here the African setting seems more of a detriment. I tend to like my Batman (or at least Bat-family) stories more realistic than fantastical, and the end of Ancients veers too close to the fantastical for my tastes.

The Bat-family's presence is strong throughout this book. Batman, Robin, Batgirl, and Nightwing all appear in the first story (it's a joy to see Nguyen draw Damian Wayne again), and Nightwing remains for the second story as well as Batwing's Justice League International colleagues showing up. All of this perhaps makes Batwing feel a little less like Zavimbe's book, but it's nice to see how quickly Zavimbe has been accepted into the superhero community, and the JLI's presence in the last chapter ups the fun even if it lessens the seriousness (doesn't hurt to see Winick write some of the Generation Lost characters again, too).

With the Massacre story completed, Batwing seems to be evolving into a more superhero-y book; not necessarily where I'd like to see it go, but not a terrible direction, either -- and I imagine things will change after Judd Winick departs anyway. Again, Batwing: In the Shadow of the Ancients has some remarkably good moments and some that aren't so good, but Winick's David Zavimbe remains a riveting character throughout, and whatever legacy Zavimbe may have will be largely due to Winick's efforts.

[Includes original covers]

Later this week, the Collected Editions review of the second volume of Denise Mina's adaptation of Stieg Larsson's Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

Review: Earth 2 Vol. 1: The Gathering hardcover/paperback (DC Comics)

noreply@blogger.com (collectededitions) — Thu, 02 May 2013 13:15:00 +0000

Just as there's few writers I'd trust more to return Barbara Gordon to the role of Batgirl than Gail Simone, there's few writers I'd trust to re-imagine the Justice Society of America than James Robinson.

I can't help but see the Earth 2 series (the first issues of which are collected in Earth 2: The Gathering) as fitting right in Robinson's writerly sweet spot. It's specifically DC's older heroes, which gives Robinson license to delve into all the DC historical minutia he uses so well, and it's largely an Elseworlds series (though with "real universe" ties), such to let Robinson do his own thing unfettered by larger continuity, in the spirit of his Golden Age.

I have enjoyed and found interesting Robinson's somewhat controversial works since he returned to DC, namely Cry for Justice and Justice League, but now I can finally say this: Earth 2 is James Robinson's best work since Starman, one that I think will fully put him on the map again.

[Review contains spoilers]

What complaints one might have about the new Earth 2 depend largely, I believe, on the expectations the reader brings into it. For instance, I'm thrilled with Robinson's recreation of Green Lantern Alan Scott and don't mind at all that Alan's green powers now come from the Earth; his ecological bent combines Alan's mythos with aspects that hearken to his one-time love Rose "Thorn" Canton, who had plant-based powers and passed them for a time to her daughter Jade -- generally, this all seems germane to Alan Scott, and Alan's demeanor is in line with his pre-Flashpoint "elder statesman" portrayal. (Robinson also offers perhaps the most cogent ever explanation for why this hero should be called Green Lantern, and why his powers should be then summoned through a ring.)

On the other hand, Robinson's new Flash Jay Garrick evokes former (Kid) Flashes Wally West and Bart Allen considerably more than he does the Justice Society's -- and his powers, far from being science based (as science-based as super-speed from inhaling water vapors can be) are now mystically granted by the god Mercury. Granted, old-Jay and new have Mercury's helmet in common, but this is far afield from the Jay of the past, and the greater issue is Jay's personality -- it's considerably jarring to see him go from elder statesman to young turk, impetuous and somewhat naive, especially when Alan Scott beside him keeps his leadership status.

But, indeed, Earth 2 is not the same old thing, though it's clearly a tribute to it. Robinson also introduces here a new Hawkgirl (though still Kendra Saunders, whom Robinson helped create), and a new Atom, Solomon Grundy, Mr. Terrific, and the Sandmen. Each different than before, but each with echoes of the past. And in this way, Earth 2 emerges as something DC Comics has needed for a while -- an ongoing Elseworlds series, a kind of Tangent universe, though where the characters' adventures still "matter," in which the best aspects of an Elseworlds book come through on every page: getting to see old, familiar characters reimagined in new and different ways.

And if the new Jay Garrick reminds us a little bit of Wally and Bart, well, that's not such a bad thing to have around, either.

Earth 2 is a rolicking adventure story that indeed reminded me of Robinson's very first (and only) JSA arc back with David Goyer -- the gathering of the heroes, the mysterious threat in the background, and this time, and all-out battle with Grundy rather than Mordru, which seems more appropriate. Robinson builds a fascinating world here quite outside the new heroes, especially the World Army that polices Earth 2. More than just a Justice League title using different heroes, Earth 2 depicts an entirely different reality even with its own language tics, and learning more about it will keep me coming back just as much as the heroes.

Robinson has always tended toward more emotional explorations of his characters, and in his most recent Justice League run, this almost became too prominent, as well as a certain choppy Superman/Batman-esque tendency to overlap the characters' narration boxes. Both of these aspects are present, worryingly, in the book's first issue (even as Huntress Helena Wayne is about to lose her father, I couldn't quite rectify her sorrow here with the tough Helena Bertinelli that I hear in my head), but fortunately these quirks dissipate once the book gets going.

Sometimes the characters' conversations, in Robinson's Sorkin-esque realistic style, feel disjointed (see Flash repeating Hawkgirl's "Trust me" four pages after the says it), but these are the exception and not the rule. For a reader who might have had difficulty with Robinson's style in the past, they can rest assured that in Earth 2, the coast is clear.

Artist Nicola Scott does her best work for DC so far in Gathering. I have enjoyed her work on Teen Titans, among other places, though I felt at times the characters' faces had a sameness to them. I have no such concerns in Earth 2, and I thought Scott depicted the youthful Jay Garrick especially well, and the inside of the World Army headquarters. It's tough to tell when fill-in artist Eduardo Pansica takes over, too, which is nice, making the look of the book cohesive overall.

From a bunch of great origins to equally-great character interaction and action, Earth 2: The Gathering never stumbles; the quality remains high from start to finish. This is an exciting book, and I couldn't be more thrilled that James Robinson is at its helm. The next volume, Earth 2: Tower of Fate, can't come soon enough; heck, why isn't DC producing digital specials about Earth 2's secondary characters?

[Includes original and variant covers, character designs, pencilled pages by Nicola Scott]

New reviews next week. Have a great weekend!

Review: Avengers Vol. 1: Avengers World hardcover (Marvel Comics)

noreply@blogger.com (collectededitions) — Wed, 01 May 2013 13:02:00 +0000

[Review by Doug Glassman, who Tumblrs at Hell Yeah '80s Marvel!]

Free Comic Book Day 2013 is coming up this Saturday, and Marvel’s offering this year is a doozy. Jonathan Hickman’s Infinity #1 is the start of a major event, with ties to current Marvel comics and, quite likely, the upcoming film appearance of Thanos in the next Avengers film. Hickman has taken command of the core Avengers titles, after over a decade of Brian Michael Bendis’s decompressed and rather talky tenure, with New Avengers and Avengers, the first six issues of which are collected in Avengers Vol. 1: Avengers World.

Taking his cues from the film, along with Bendis’s own Avengers Assemble book, the team begins in its six-person cinematic line-up. It’s a credit to both the film and Marvel’s own editorial choices that such a team makes sense in the modern Marvel universe. The only out-of-place element is the Hulk’s presence, especially since his founder status was revoked back in Kurt Busiek’s run. Thankfully, Mark Waid’s Indestructible Hulk and Kelly Sue DeConnick’s Avengers Assemble have helped improve the Hulk’s status quo. The series begins with Steve Rogers and Tony Stark stripping the team down to rebuild it later on, though they dismiss Luke Cage and Dr. Strange a little too casually for my tastes.

As it turns out, they’re immediately outclassed by a trio of aliens. Two of them, the dark Abyss and the golden, horned Ex Nihilo, enjoy fiddling with the building blocks of life and creating “better” organisms. Their guardian, the robotic Aleph, is a rampaging terror whose destructive impulses provide both a bit of comic relief and a genuine threat. The initial fight between the Avengers and Ex Nihilo’s forces is extremely well-done, proving the aliens’ bona fides while demonstrating that the Avengers aren’t fooling around either. Jerome Opeña’s artwork uses shading to a perfect degree, without going overboard like Mike Deodato and other artists tend to do. Opeña also draws an awesome, ape-like Hulk which looks closer to the Kirby original than nearly any other incarnation I’ve seen.

From here, Hickman rebuilds the team in a very deliberate way. Hickman’s previous career as a graphic designer often translates into his comic book work in page layouts and, especially, in his love of charts. Each issue of Avengers begins with a complex infographic featuring each member’s personal insignia. They’re connected to each other and to a central hub in a way that hasn’t quite been explained yet, but which ties into how the universe itself is laid out. Despite dismissing some of the New Avengers, Spider-Man, Spider-Woman, Wolverine, and Captain Marvel are quickly brought back in. At the same time, Hickman deliberately under-uses Spider-Man and Wolverine to give space to characters without their own titles. Other veteran Avengers include the Falcon and Shang-Chi, previously seen in Secret Avengers: Run The Mission.

Some of the newest team members include Sunspot and Cannonball, longtime veterans of the New Mutants who attempted to retire after that series concluded. They swiftly become some of the team’s best comic relief while also demonstrating Captain America’s desire to train the next generation of heroes. They’re joined by Manifold, a mysterious teleporter previously found in Hickman’s Secret Warriors series. The final trio is comprised of new heroes with old names: Hyperion, Smasher, and Captain Universe. After the three-part initial arc is over, the next three issues delve into these heroes as Hickman brings older Marvel elements into the forefront. These issues are drawn by Adam Kubert, whose style is similar enough to Opeña’s that the transition isn’t jarring.

Hyperion’s origin is told as the team clears up some of the aftermath of Ex Nihilo’s plan to terra form Earth. Marvel has tried to emulate Superman numerous times, most famously with Thor and the Sentry, but Hyperion is the closest imitation as a member of the Squadron Supreme, a Justice League pastiche. This is actually a different Hyperion than the one from Mark Gruenwald’s groundbreaking Squadron Supreme maxi-series and the one from Supreme Power. He has the right mix of internal turmoil, arrogance, and skill to come off as a good Superman imitator without getting annoying. Tying his origin into AIM gives that organization new life, especially now it’s become a key enemy in other titles like Hawkeye and Secret Avengers.

Smasher’s story in issue #5 begins with a flashback to New X-Men issue #122, published over a decade ago. I checked my New X-Men hardcover, and apart from some different angles and abridged dialogue, Hickman and Kubert did a beat-for-beat recreation of the previous Smasher’s demise as he and the other Imperial Guards (Marvel’s Legion of Superheroes pastiche) fled from Cassandra Nova. The story picks up a dangling plot thread from that issue: the idea that a human could have found the power-giving exospex wielded by that Smasher. Izzy Dare becomes the first human Smasher, and the parallels to Hal Jordan’s origins are obvious but underplayed. The revelation of her grandfather’s identity is a brilliant inside joke which brings a popular British sci-fi pulp hero into the Marvel Universe.

Finally, Captain Universe’s tale involves the revelation of her origin to Shang-Chi. For a while, many people online (myself included) thought that the new Captain Universe was Monica Rambeau, formerly of Nextwave. Tamara Devoux is a new character with a tragic backstory and ties to both the 1980s incarnation of Captain Universe and the failed New Universe publishing project, which will become the core story of the next volume. This issue also solves a problem many people had with the publishing timeline: how does Avengers interact with the new Superior Spider-Man? We find out here as Octavius-in-Parker’s body instigates a feud with Cannonball, and Sunspot and just generally makes an ass of himself.

Avengers: Avengers World is a story of building, both in the tale itself and in the paratext around it. The strong subtext of “creating the new from the old” plays out in Hickman’s use of classic Marvel concepts and characters. With clever dialogue and great art, it’s easy to see why Avengers has swiftly become one of Marvel’s core books.

Review: Justice League of America: Rise of Eclipso trade paperback (DC Comics)

noreply@blogger.com (collectededitions) — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 13:02:00 +0000

Once upon a time, DC Comics superheroes wore their collars low and their underwear on the outside, and the Justice League consisted of second-generation heroes including Batman Dick Grayson, Donna Troy, Supergirl, and others. With focus shifted to the New 52, DC cancelled the hardcover of James Robinson’s final collection of his League run, Justice League of America: The Rise of Eclipso, but the book emerged later in paperback amidst the first wave of New 52 collections, a veritable message in a bottle from another era, bobbing in a sea of change.

Robinson’s story is enjoyable if madcap, as Robinson’s Justice League stories have tended to be — the action shifts back and forth in time, characters leave and return at random, the Leaguers call each other “babe” and “doll” and seem extraordinarily concerned with each others' emotional well-beings. That won’t be for everyone, but it’s clear Robinson likes and respects this team, and that the characters like one another — this League may be the closest to friends that I can recall — and that makes for a pleasant read especially when the team’s fate is decided in the last chapter.

[Review contains spoilers]

Justice League, like Bryan Miller’s Batgirl and indeed in many ways very similar to it, was a title that addressed the New 52 relaunch head-on in its closing pages. The team decides to disband, notably not because of any internal strife but simply because the team members have grown up and some have even been emotionally healed by their time with the League, and they’re ready for the next step in their lives. Dick and Donna speculate whether the world will remember their League; perhaps not, they think, but they agree at least that it’s been “a blast” serving together in the League.

Though the creation of this League was separate and unrelated to DC’s later decision to reboot their story universe, it does seem an appropriate League to end the post-Crisis on Infinite Earths Justice League on — indeed it’s hard to imagine the “old” Big Seven coming back after this League had filled their shoes. Former Robin Dick Grayson and Donna Troy, especially, are the original sidekicks, and to see them lead the Justice League and then, moreover, to leave it, seems inescapably the conclusion of the post-Crisis League’s story arc; this is even further compounded by having children of the Justice Society, Jade and Jessie Quick, present as well.

What may be most controversial in the conclusion is Donna's statement, via Robinson, that she herself hopes to be forgotten by the world (and by implication, the reader), though her wish makes perfect sense in terms of how Robinson has, smartly, portrayed Donna -- what may be the most honest portrayal of Donna Troy so far. Donna is a character considerably buffeted by the whims of creators — married, divorced, mystically pregnant, killed and resurrected, with multiple origins, and not only did her son die, but she later had to kill her son’s zombie corpse. The capriciousness with which creators have treated this character (specifically, this female character, while her male counterparts escape similar fates) ought offend the reader, and in his four Justice League volumes Robinson has channeled that offense into Donna’s new, considerable anger — she herself is angry at how the “universe” has treated her, and she struggles to control or surmount that anger.

It is a little easy, but then again necessary given Robinson’s foreshortened run, that it turns out that all the pain Donna has undergone has purified her soul such to allow her to defeat the villain du jour, Eclipso. With that success, Donna feels her anger has left her, and she decides to retire to a normal life, hoping, again, that her superhero days will be forgotten. Given the greater lows than highs of Donna’s adventures, I see Robinson’s point and I’m inclined to agree with him — perhaps the best thing for Donna would be to see her left alone, rather than brought back in the New 52 and subjected, invariably, to more shenanigans. More likely, however, Robinson probably gets it right when he has Dick Grayson, foreshadowing the Wally West/Stephanie Brown wars to come, grin at the camera and says, “I can guarantee not everyone is going to forget you.”

The other seven issues of Justice League collected here (plus, for good measure, one issue Robinson wrote of Justice Society) are, again, enjoyable, though the Eclipso story itself differs not that much from Eclipso stories past, despite Eclipso’s constant espousing that he’s committing his mayhem differently this time — though still on the moon, and still with a bevy of eclipsed heroes (where is my Eclipso: The Darkness Within omnibus, anyway?).

What does differentiate the story, however, are some of the philosophical knots that Robinson, through Eclipso and his alter-ego Bruce Gordon, ties himself in — how Eclipso believes his previous plots against Earth my have been inspired in him by God such to guarantee Eclipso’s defeat, and now by working against his own impulses he may be able to supersede that “determinism” and kill God himself; or how Eclipso identifies Earth as God’s device to channel faith out into the universe, and by disrupting the moon and therefore the water in people’s bodies, Eclipso can “break faith,” essentially, and kill God. It’s weird, heady stuff, but the fact that it’s heady is more than made up for by the fact that it’s also not superhero comics as usual, and that’s a good thing.

In all I found the preceding volume, Justice League: Omega, more focused and less predictable than Justice League: Rise of Eclipso, but Robinson’s erstwhile Justice League is still a joy to read. To be sure, Robinson has defined Congorilla’s voice for a generation, and it’s nice to have him write Starman Mikaal Tomas — any chance DC might take Robinson’s Starman and sew it more or less whole cloth to the fabric of his New 52 Earth 2 series? It’s unlikely, but we can hope.

[Includes original and variant covers]

Someone say Earth 2? We continue our James Robinson spotlight week with a review of Earth 2: The Gathering, coming up.

Review: I, Vampire Vol. 2: Rise of the Vampires trade paperback (DC Comics)

noreply@blogger.com (collectededitions) — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 13:02:00 +0000

DC Comics’s loss of writer Joshua Hale Fialkov, before his tenure with the company ever truly started, becomes even more unfortunate. In I, Vampire Vol. 2: Rise of the Vampires, Fialkov writes not only vampire Andrew Bennett but also two of DC’s more troubled properties, Justice League Dark and Stormwatch, and handles them all with alacrity, proving the versatility the writer would have brought to the Green Lantern titles.

Fialkov, with artist Andrea Sorrentino, continue to offer an I, Vampire series that’s frightening and compelling — but also in this second volume, more so than in the first, wryly funny. I, Vampire is a can’t miss book; though cancelled, readers should still do themselves a favor and pick this one up.

[Review contains spoilers]

Rise of the Vampires starts roughly, with issues #7-8 interspersed with the same from Justice League Dark in a four-part crossover. Only the broad strokes of these issues are really important; scenes of the Justice League Dark and Bat-family fighting vampires are mostly just filler, and there’s a subplot where John Constantine and Deadman try to resurrect the deceased Bennett that ultimately comes to nothing. For four issues, what’s mainly important is just the end, where Bennett is reborn with souped-up magical powers, leading in to the rest of the book.

The crossover’s difficulties are hardly on I, Vampire’s end. Sorrentino’s work is always lovely to see, and here his gritty depictions of the Bat-family are just as good as the engraved look he gives to the flashback to the origin of the vampires. Fialkov offers nicely subtle moments in the grudging transition of Mary, Queen of Blood, from foe to friend. But Justice League Dark artists Admira Wijaya and Daniel Sampere have too clear a style in contrast to Sorrentino’s shadows, plus painterly coloring that clashes with the I, Vampire issues. Dark writer Peter Milligan still depicts his team as relatively impotent, their powers either depleted or misfunctioning, such that they mostly falter around until Bennett returns and the crossover ends.

I, Vampire grows scores better once Fialkov enters the second four-part arc, in which Bennett establishes a colony of vampires under his rule out in the Utah desert. I rather wish we’d been able to see more of the day to day life in Bennett’s enclave; Fialkov picks up with Bennett just before Mary, true to form, challenges him again for control of the other vampires, and then the two have to join forces again to fight the vampire hunter Van Helsings and their zombie vampire hunters.

This four-part story is many things — the fruition and collapse of Bennett’s idyllic vision for the vampires, an insight into the vampire’s struggle with the Van Helsings over time, a Stormwatch guest-shot — but it’ll probably be remembered best as “the zombie story.” There’s significant horror here, but Fialkov has some fun with how taken aback the vampires are, ironically, to have to fight equally undead enemies. Things get truly, monstrously wild when the vampires become zombies themselves (as Bennett calls them “zombie vampire vampire-hunters”), and that’s just before Apollo, Midnighter, and Jack Hawksmoor teleport on the scene.

At this point Bennett’s plan to broker peace (or unending, self-contained war) between the vampires and the Van Helsings has gone horribly wrong. Best here is Bennett’s voice, via Fialkov; for a title in which early critics feared emotional, sparkling vampires, Bennett’s narration is amusingly dry and sarcastic. “This is not going well for me,” he deadpans. “Let’s get all the vampires in the world — or, y'know, most of them, in one place and let me be their messiah. What could go wrong?” Mary, Bennett’s cohorts Prof. Troughton and Tig, and the Stormwatch crew are equally nonplussed; despite that things get downright bloody (especially when Bennett begins ripping the Van Helsings’s leader limb from limb), there’s a humor underlying this book that’s entertaining and balances the more absurd moments (see again “zombie vampire vampire-hunters”).

The emotional complexity of I, Vampire is also on display in Rise. Troughton and the Van Helsings' leader’s discussion of empirical moral relativism at the beginning of I, Vampire #10 is interesting enough (in what other comic do you find discussions of objective and subjective morality?), but more so when it gets to I, Vampire’s key pervading question — how can Bennett and Mary love each other, as they obviously do, and yet still so often be plotting to kill one another? It’s for this reason that Mary’s turns in the book — with Cain, then with Bennett and the League, then against Bennett, then with him against the Van Helsings — are so interesting, and why I wish we’d seen more of Bennett and Mary in relative peace in Utah before the crisis unfolded. The reader — and perhaps the characters — can’t quite understand how the two can live as a couple one moment and try to kill each other the next, and it makes for more compelling reading than the usual superhero versus villain.

Purposefully or not, Fialkov seems to be taking Bennett through an evolution of self on a trade-by-trade basis. Last time, Bennett died at the end of the book, returning here as a kind of super-vampire, changing from scourge of the vampires to their “messiah.” Rise of the Vampires ends much the same way, with Bennett having magically cured all the vampires, but at the same time taking their evil into himself and becoming the worst of the worst. If there were to be more volumes of I, Vampire, and the next few also ended with Bennett transforming, it might suggest it becoming predictable, but we should have such problems; unfortunately the next collection marks I, Vampire’s last.

Despite an errant crossover, I, Vampire: Rise of the Vampires is just as good as the previous volume, Tainted Love, and I look forward with both anticipation and dismay to the final book. More’s the pity, again, that Joshua Hale Fialkov has left DC, though I’m counting the days to Jeff Lemire and Andrea Sorrentino’s Green Arrow. Hopefully Sorrentino will have some way to draw marauding hordes in Green Arrow just the same as in I, Vampire; the third panel in issue #12, where Troughton and Tig are overrun by a score of zombie-vampires with scythes and pitchforks, is especially striking.

[Includes original covers, sketches and covers by Andrea Sorrentino and a sketch by Ryan Sook]

Next week is a James Robinson week here on Collected Editions, with reviews of Justice League: Rise of Eclipso and Earth 2: The Gathering. See you then!

Review: Axe Cop Vol. 1 trade paperback (Dark Horse Comics)

noreply@blogger.com (collectededitions) — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 13:02:00 +0000

[Review by Doug Glassman, who Tumblrs at Hell Yeah '80s Marvel!]

After spending a few reviews discussing comiXology and how the Internet has affected comics, I feel like I’ve left webcomics in the lurch. The webcomic spectrum is as vast as the print comic spectrum, from one-panel gag cartoons to multi-chapter epics. I don’t read as many of the more complex webcomics as I’d like to for the sole reason that I keep forgetting to check up on them when the pace slows.

So naturally, after all of this ruminating, I decided to go out and buy the first volume of webcomic Axe Cop in print. To paraphrase Homer Simpson in The Simpsons Movie, “I can’t believe you’re paying to get something you see on the Internet for free!” However, there’s one excellent reason to buy the printed version of Axe Cop: it contains numerous annotations from artist Ethan Nicolle explaining the thought process behind the comic. Considering the process by which the book is made, this can be very enlightening.

Axe Cop is the creation of brothers Ethan Nicolle and his much, much younger brother Malachai, who was five years old when he began “writing” the comic. It’s a journal, essentially, of Malachai’s playtime ideas and fantasies. In the introduction to the “Moon Warriors” arc, Ethan explains that the two create stories while playing together, whether in person or over the phone; as a result, many of the characters come in pairs or are brothers themselves. As Malachai grows up, you can see how different hobbies and life events change his view of the world, often to hilarious effect. For instance, God and Satan start appearing just as he would have started Sunday School, while later episodes take a distinct scatological bent as he discovers poop humor.

Many of the characters are influenced by the creators’ own likes and dislikes. The range of references is incredibly broad due to the generation gap between the brothers (Ethan is old enough to be Malachai’s father). The “Ten-Ben Matanga,” for instance, comes from Malachai’s love of Ben 10. At the same time, the Moon Warriors resemble the main characters of Double Dragon, one of Ethan’s favorite games. There’s some interesting subtext when it comes to how the comic treats women: namely, there are barely any. The women who do appear are mostly mothers or babies, with the main exception being The Best Fairy Ever. As the book goes on, you can also detect an interesting baby subtext; while Ethan doesn’t mention it, I wonder if Malachai gained a baby sister during Axe Cop’s inception.

The book alternates between longer chapters and shorter “Ask Axe Cop” half-page or one-page gags. According to Ethan, the continuity between the two types of strip isn’t entirely solid, but characters do migrate from one to the other. The “Ask Axe Cop” strips are amongst the funniest parts, with my personal favorite being Axe Cop’s “Prayer for the Sharks.” You can watch Axe Cop’s descent into madness throughout these strips. While the main stories feature him as a fairly straightforward protagonist, the “Ask Axe Cop” stories paint him as utterly psychotic, albeit with a softer side when it comes to killing mermaids.

For me, however, what really sells it is the art. Nicolle’s black and white artwork is really beautifully done; Dark Horse’s printing process granted the pages a wonderful crispness. Ethan also uses the art to playfully make fun of the stories he’s been forced to draw, with characters pointing out inconsistencies or plot holes away from the narrator’s interference. The apex of the artwork comes during the “Ultimate Battle” arc, in which the main story alternates with the near-wordless tale of Baby Man tracking down dinner ingredients. It plays out like a Die Hard film (according to Ethan, this was intentional), with elements like a man in a baby suit and eggs with legs portrayed with grim seriousness. If you’re curious, the brothers did in fact put up one strip written by Ethan and drawn by Malachai, with somewhat messy results.

When I first heard about Axe Cop, I thought it might be a gimmick, and that Ethan Nicolle was just making up the part about Malachai writing it to get better press. But there’s a certain bizarre logic that separates Axe Cop from surreal and absurd humor created by adults. For instance, I personally dislike Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job because it feels like it’s lazily written by stoners and for stoners. In contrast, plot elements in Axe Cop -- like that getting splashed with swordfish blood gives you a swordfish head -- make a certain kind of sense, if you consider that a kindergartener came up with it.

Since the comic’s introduction a few years ago, Axe Cop has gone from an online quirk into a fully-merchandized brand. With full-color original mini-series from Dark Horse, two animated adaptations, and even a Munchkin expansion (which I’ve played -- it’s hysterical), Ethan mentions numerous times in the trade his concern that Malachai’s creativity might get exhausted too quickly, but I hope the series goes on as long as it possibly can. After a long, painful week, I need some good absurdism.

Review: Happy! by Grant Morrison trade paperback (Image Comics)

noreply@blogger.com (collectededitions) — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 13:02:00 +0000

The broad strokes of Grant Morrison and Darick Robertson's four-issue miniseries Happy!, newly collected -- a Christmas story in which a hitman reluctantly teams with a cartoon blue horse to save a kidnapped girl -- tells the reader most of what they can expect from the book. Happy!'s arc is fairly predictable in the way of the other Christmas tales it honors and lampoons, but the enjoyment comes in watching how Morrison dizzily mashes up crime drama and Christmas story cliches into a story demented and warm at the same time.

[Review contains spoilers]

Happy! teams former police-detective-turned-hitman Nick Sax with Happy, the equine imaginary friend of a girl named Haley, who only Nick can see. Nick's on the run from Mr. Blue because of a botched hit job and seconds away from torture at the hands of Mr. Smoothie (all of this purposefully like something out of a Quentin Tarantino film) when Happy helps him escape in exchange for helping Happy rescue the kidnapped Haley.

The story's real attraction, again, comes from the juxtaposition of an extremely graphic crime story with a flying blue cartoon character; Robertson is an inspired art choice, blending pages reminiscent of his work on The Boys with animated ridiculousness. The creators, appropriately, ratchet the filth of the book to absurdity, all the better to make Happy's presence equally absurd. When, on the first page, Robertson draws a man vomiting in an alley while at the same time a dog pees on the man, the reader gets a sense what they're in for, especially set against two rival hitmen discussing, also Tarantino-like, which part of the male or female anatomy their rival Sax best epitomizes.

I only regretted that Morrison puts a foul mouth on Happy (mild, as compared to the other characters). Though Happy is at times predictably irreverent as one might expect an imaginary horse to be -- spouting fluff a la Roger Rabbit -- at other times he uses words like "screw" and "ass," where I thought it might be stronger if Happy were separate, mind as well as body, from Sax's world.

Though Sax is initially resistant to Happy and his mission, the reader knows Sax will eventually come around, so the arc of the story isn't all that surprising. Happy! actually works better when Morrison lets the story unfold unrelated to the larger plot, as when Sax uses Happy to cheat at a poker game, or when Happy peers through walls to scope out Sax's later targets. If Tarantino is strong here, so is Harvey, though Jimmy Stewart never used Harvey quite like this.

If Morrison is riffing on crime movies and buddy comedies here, he's riffing even more on classic Christmas tales. Happy is certainly a Clarence to Sax's -- again -- Jimmy Stewart, though perhaps the best moment of all of Happy! is when Happy tries to prove to Sax that the Christmas spirit exists and that people are inherently good, and instead encounters a train of the surliest, most misbegotten people who ever graced the page. It is a familiar Christmas story moment -- with shades of the Whos down in Whoville enjoying Christmas despite the Grinch's antics -- but gone horribly, horribly wrong, and Morrison honors his source material even as he twists it delightfully.

In the end, after Sax has both killed Santa Claus and shot a priest for good measure, he does indeed, if predictably, become the St. Nick that the story needs. Happy!'s ending is equal parts It's a Wonderful Life and crime noir again, as Morrison reveals the McGuffin "password" that underlies the book, which unlocks a fortune that will support Haley and her mother.

If Happy! should become a movie, as rumored, hopefully those involved don't separate it from its Christmas roots -- it would be possible to do, but the story would be lesser for it. Happy! is a delightfully wrong Christmas story, the kind of thing you might read while the family watches Rudolph for the eighteenth time, irreverent but also faithful to its predecessors. This is neither Grant Morrison's most creative nor surprising work, but it's certainly worth a few hours of holiday entertainment.

Review: Dial H Vol. 1: Into You trade paperback (DC Comics)

noreply@blogger.com (collectededitions) — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 13:02:00 +0000

How difficult it is to decide exactly where China Miéville’s Dial H Vol. 1: Into You fits in the literary continuum is just the first indication of what a pleasantly oddball book this is. It starts out as a crime drama and never quite loses that crime noir aesthetic; toward the middle, Dial H would seem to offer some generally familiar superheroics, but this, too, is supplanted by some unexpectedly vigorous sci-fi — aliens and creatures from other dimensions and time travel.

Dial H is interesting and well thought-out, and Miéville would seem to have a thorough mythology for the “H Dial” planned out that could last this title many moons. Whether that will happen or not, however, remains to be seen — the second volume of Dial H, already solicited, collects issues #7-16, more than a normal trade and also cutting off at the September issue where many expect DC may release a new “wave” of titles. Dial H is the kind of oddball that the DC Universe needs, a diverse voice instead of another franchise title; we’ll learn shortly whether there’s public support for that kind of thing, or if Dial H is soon to dial its last.

[Review contains spoilers]

Dial H requires a lot from the reader at the start, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing — Miéville doesn’t pause much for explanations, so the reader must stay sharp for follow who’s X.N., Manteau, and others. Miéville and artist Mateus Santolouco depict Nelson Jent’s first transformation with the H Dial, to Boy Chimney, using fractured panels and disjointed narration; the difficulty increases when Squid comes on the scene in the second chapter, a seeming prisoner who’s suddenly the captor instead of the captive. All of this distinguishes Dial H as a book unafraid to tell a complicated story and trust the reader to keep up.

The other weird, wild thing about Dial H is that, by the climax of the first main storyline, the book’s supporting cast consists of portly, unemployed Nelson; Manteau Roxie Hodder, who turned out to be an elderly woman; and Squid, a trans-dimensional alien who previously murdered Nelson’s best friend. They are a motley crew, to be sure, but moreover they’re specifically different than the svelte superhumans of the Justice League or Teen Titans. Dial H’s unspoken message is that anyone can be a hero, no matter how unlikely; but also it’s simply nice to see a comic where every character isn’t built like a god.

H Dials abound toward the middle of the story — there’s not just one, Miéville establishes, but scores hidden in unexpected places — but one interesting complication is when those dials are stolen or broken until Nelson and Roxie have to share. Nelson is the story’s first “bad actor,” swiping the dial out of Roxie’s hands; later he and Roxie make a grudging deal to take turns dialing up super-powers. I began to wonder if more than just the thrill of superheroics was at play here, but rather whether Neslon and Roxie may be becoming addicted to the dial; there’s plenty story potential should Nelson and Roxie’s partnership become not-so-friendly for want of the dial.

Perhaps most startling is the last chapter collected here, Dial H’s Zero Month issue #0. It begins in Babylonian times with the pseudo-origin of the H Dial, in which Syrian leader Laodice fights off the marauding Parthan army with the help of a sun-dial that grants her powers. Strangely, however, Laodice becomes Bumper Carla, a carnival-themed superhero long before automobiles have been invented. The story gets more bizarre when Carla returns years later to murder Laodice in revenge; apparently when Laodice summoned Carla, the process stole the powers from an actual superhero named Bumper Carla, causing the people Carla had been saving to die.

With this, Miéville has rightfully made Dial H his own, different now from any iteration of Dial H for HERO that DC has published before. The H Dial’s user doesn’t simply gain powers and a heroic identity, but rather those powers and identity are stolen from a hero in another dimension, and that hero still exists for the time the dial is in use, just without their powers. In a way this enriches all the “random” Dial H characters — each one actually comes from somewhere, with their own culture and origin — though it creates an extra burden on Miéville to imagine not just new power sets, but entire lives for each of the beings Nelson and Roxie turn in to.

It’s probably to Dial H’s benefit that, while some of DC headline superheroes get a mention here, this book is largely removed from the rest of the DC Universe. At the same time, when Carla’s teammate Slim explains that “there’s more than one world,” I couldn’t help but hope the H Dial is tapping into not just different dimensions, but the multiverse, and that maybe a crossover with James Robinson’s Earth 2 or such might be in the offing, if Dial H lasts that long.

I don’t want to jinx Dial H’s chances by adding to the chorus suggesting this book might be on its way out — if anything, if this review has piqued your interest, probably the best thing you can do to save this title is to pick up a copy of Dial H Vol. 1: Into You and pre-order the second volume as well. In some of the esoteria of the characters here fighting an abyss monster made of nothing, Dial H is not as compelling as, say, Animal Man Buddy Baker trying to save his family, but neither is it yet another Batman title; the best way you can support a diverse catalog of DC Universe titles is by giving the oddballs notice when they come about.

[Includes original and variant covers, sketches and designs by Santolouco, profile page]

Now for something completely different — on Monday, a review of Grant Morrison’s Happy. Don’t miss it!

Review: Nextwave: Agents of HATE Ultimate Collection trade paperback (Marvel Comics)

noreply@blogger.com (collectededitions) — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 13:19:00 +0000

[Review by Doug Glassman, who Tumblrs at Hell Yeah '80s Marvel!]

Have you ever avoided reading a book because of its fans?

Warren Ellis’ Nextwave: Agents of H.A.T.E. was one of the first comics to really understand and manipulate social media. The publication of every issue was met with the creation of GIFs, memes and a rabid need to "spread the word." There was even a theme song written for the book. Back then, I thought it just seemed stupid and pointless, and the overselling of the book kept me away. As it turns out ... they were right. Nextwave is pretty amazing, although a lot of what makes it work depends on context.

The key to Nextwave’s success is that over anything else, Ellis is parodying himself. Like Stormwatch, Planetary, The Authority, and Global Frequency, it’s about a team of unusual individuals fighting bizarre threats, but all subtlety is thrown out the window. Ellis isn’t shy about this lack of subtlety, either -- the book frequently makes asides celebrating the explosions and violence on the page. Important pieces of backstory are done as one-panel gags, text boxes, or are just simply ignored. When we first encounter the main characters, they’ve been working as a team for quite some time, but how they met is never properly explained.

The main characters are parodies of themselves to a degree. One of them, the Captain, is Ellis’ own creation, although supposedly he’s a stand-in for various minor “Captain” characters throughout comics. Monica Rambeau (formerly Captain Marvel), despite being the team’s most powerful member, ends up having her career turned against her in some of the book’s sillier moments. Tabitha Smith, a.k.a. Boom-Boom of X-Force, is now brain-dead trailer-trash -- the comics’ words, not mine. Not all of the changes are bad, though. Aaron Stack, a.k.a. Machine Man, has gone completely over the deep end, turning into Marvel’s version of Futurama’s Bender. Elsa Bloodstone is less of a parody and more of a simplification, turning her into a single-minded badass.

Over a series of two-issue arcs, the Nextwave team fights a variety of threats, many of which are based on classic Marvel characters. One of Ellis’ strengths is that, no matter how much he mocks the characters, he’s a Marvel fan at heart. The infamous and instantly memetic Fin Fang Foom fight is just the appetizer. In issues #7 and #8, for instance, they fight the Mindless Ones: rocky, visor-eyed creatures from another dimension. The Mindless Ones have posed a serious threat to the Fantastic Four and Avengers (and they served a key role in Marvel Boy). Here ... they’re seen indulging in teenage pranks, beginning in issue #8 with an homage to West Side Story.

Ellis goes the other way, ramping up the threat when the team encounters more serious versions of the parody superheroes from Marvel’s Not Brand Ecch. One highlight in this final arc comes when most of the team is sent into their greatest fears. Stuart Immonen gets to vary his art styles, such as when he turns Monica Rambeau into a pastiche of Marvel Boy, or when he draws Elsa Bloodstone in the style of Mike Mignola’s Hellboy. The final villain is another old Marvel character, and the circumstances of who he is and how he is revealed will remain unspoiled here, mostly because you’ll think I’m insane if I try to type it out.

Along with his ability to change his style, Immonen brings a cartoony yet detailed aesthetic to Nextwave. Ellis specifically gave him a sequence of double-page spreads in the final issue so that he could let loose, and Immonen pays back the favor by filling all of those pages with expressive detail. It’s tricky to do a collaborative funny comic, since all parties involved have to synch up their senses of humor. But Ellis, Immonen, inker Wade Von Grawbadger, colorists Dave McCaig and Paul Mounts, and letterers Chris Eliopoulos and Joe Caramagna were able to come together to pull it off. This is the third time I’ve mentioned Eliopoulos specifically, and he keeps popping up as the letterer of some of my favorite comics. He’s perhaps the most inventive letterer in the business right now.

Besides using the internet, Nextwave reaches past its own story pages for humor. The “primer” recap for each comic is reprinted; these take the form of question and answer sessions that get more and more melodramatic as the series goes on. This style has been replicated with the current A+X series with some success. The letter pages tell the story of the Lettermatic 7053, who goes from answering fan letters from Julius Caesar and readers from the 23rd century to breaking down from an existential crisis. There’s even a black and white “Crayon Butchery” version of issue #5’s cover; you could color this yourself back when it was initially printed, although the trade’s glossy print doesn’t allow for this. These little extras add a lot of value, especially when trade paperbacks like Nextwave: Agents of H.A.T.E. Ultimate Collection costs thirty-five dollars.

In a way, Nextwave: Agents of H.A.T.E. is the antithesis of Thor and the Warriors Four. Both use knowledge of the Marvel canon to add weight to a story that, at the end of the day, is pretty silly. Of course, the big difference is that Nextwave is far more violent, but I won’t hold that against it. Learning that Nextwave actually is as good as its promoters claim was a pleasant surprise. Note: while the entire series is collected in two volumes, I’m not sure if the split version has all of the extras as the Ultimate Collection. In any case, the series only gets better as it goes along, so I recommend the full version.

Cancelled Trade Cavalcade: Starman Omnibus Vol. 3, Legion Worlds, Justice League Chronicles

noreply@blogger.com (collectededitions) — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 17:59:00 +0000

[In times of tragedy, you can always help by donating blood with your local Red Cross. If they have sufficient donations, please make an appointment to donate another time.]

In all the hubbub these past few weeks about the Death of the Family, Throne of Atlantis, Grell Green Arrow and other collections, and then the new DC Villains Month and omnibus, there hasn't been time to recognize some significant cancellations in our midsts.

Not only did DC cancel the Legion Worlds and Starman Omnibus Vol. 3 trade paperbacks, this week they've also cancelled the first Justice League of America Chronicles collection.

Standard disclaimers apply that DC is a company and companies have to make money, and I don't necessarily expect DC to publish books that aren't going to net them a profit. Each of these cancellations is a shame, however; let's take a moment to see what we've lost.

Whither Starman?

Perhaps the most startling here is the cancellation of the paperback Starman Omnibus Vol. 3. In canceling this, DC must definitely be suggesting they no longer intend to continue paperback reprints of the original Starman Omnibus hardcovers, many of which are out of print.

Once upon a time I might have expected Starman, like Sandman or Watchmen, to remain perpetually in print at DC, essentially printing money. But any number of factors -- from writer James Robinson having left comics for a while, to (wisely) the number of Starman spin-offs being few, to the entire saga's ejection from continuity with the New 52 -- seems to have dimmed the larger public's knowledge of Starman (even as the stories themselves remain a treat).

I'm reminded of a particularly daft blog post on the DC Comics site that not mis-characterized the plot of Starman, but treated it like a bygone, forgotten relic. Though the post seems silly, I fear it's probably not far from an accurate portrayal of where Starman stands now.

The problem is that readers who already bought the paperback Starman Omnibus Vols. 1 and 2 are now stuck with two paperbacks that will likely never see their companion volumes. Some part of me expects DC might still release Starman in true omnibus format (the whole series in just one or two hardcover volumes), but that still doesn't help anyone stuck with those two paperbacks.

The Pre-Order Dilemma

On one hand, I might suggest to anyone thinking of starting to collect a series, especially a paperback series with hardcover equivalents, to wait and see if all the books come out before you do so. Readers of the classic Justice League International collections faced a similar problem when DC released four hardcover volumes, then two paperback volumes, and then the series abruptly ended. At the same time, a catch-22 -- by not buying a collection series when it comes out, readers also risk that those same low sales will cause the very cancellation they're hoping to avoid.

So, I must say again, pre-order, pre-order, pre-order. More than likely what killed the Legion Worlds collection was lack of pre-orders; this collection of Dan Abnett/Andy Lanning Legion specials followed sequentially from the Legion Lost miniseries, which itself saw a hardcover release in 2011 but the paperback, too, was cancelled by DC.

Legion Worlds was one of those esoteric collections that probably wasn't going to appeal to a large audience, but that I and others had hoped to see. And I'm telling you, I think books like Green Arrow: Hunters Moon (Mike Grell) and Deadshot: Beginnings, and even Superman: Man of Steel Vol. 8, Superman: Dark Knight Over Metropolis, and Nightwing: Old Friends, are on equally shaky ground. All of these are collections of "old" (1980s) comics and none of these are very much in continuity any more. Superman, Nightwing, and Green Arrow all have name recognition, but I'm shocked frankly that DC is even releasing the Deadshot collection after having cancelled the second collected volume of John Ostrander's Suicide Squad. If you want to see these books released, they need your support.

Omnibus Rising?

Justice League of America Chronicles was meant to be the start of a chronological reprint of the classic Justice League stories, in step with the Batman and Superman Chronicles books. I wonder if we can find a hint to Justice League's fate in the fact that DC has solicited a Superman: The Golden Age Omnibus Vol. 1 which itself collects the first four(!) Superman Chronicles volumes; perhaps Justice League Chronicles will be replaced with a Justice League of America: The Silver Age omnibus.

So, disappointed Starman fans out there? Someone other than me really looking forward to that Legion Worlds collection? Let me hear from you.

Review: Criminal Vol. 1: Coward trade paperback (Marvel Comics)

noreply@blogger.com (collectededitions) — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 13:02:00 +0000

[Guest reviewer Zach King blogs about movies as The Cinema King]

When I first began to read comics as a very young child, the lure was simple -- Batman. Get anything with Batman on the cover. I expanded my net as my knowledge of the characters increased. As I got older and my budget got tighter, I matured into seeking out specific creators -- first writers, then artists as my aesthetic palate became more sophisticated.

Now I'm at what might be a third age in my maturation as a comics reader; I'm deliberately and specifically seeking out creator-owned work. It's not a political move, strictly speaking, since the bulk of my pull list is still company-owned. But I'm now conscious of the freedoms afforded to creators who own their own work, and with many of my favorite creators moving there exclusively, I can feel my palate refining once more.

As a fan of Ed Brubaker's work, particularly on Gotham Central, and having "met" Sean Phillips in the Marvel Zombies series, I was excited to dive into Criminal, their ongoing crime noir. Gotham Central it ain't, but by the end of the first volume, Criminal Vol. 1: Coward, the series more than lives up to the hype.

Coward starts out as your typical heist story. After a bank job goes wrong, Leo is contacted years later by a few dirty cops who offer him the opportunity of a lifetime -- the time and location of black diamonds being transported out of evidence. With a bad feeling in his gut but owing a favor to Greta (the widow of a crew member on the bank job), Leo takes the job -- and regrets it as soon as the deal, inevitably, goes sour. On the lam with a wounded partner, a junkie Alzheimer's patient, and a suitcase full of the wrong loot, Leo reevaluates his position but vows to continue to live by the rules that have kept him alive so far.

Coward is one of those books that you need to finish in order to "get" it. I'll be perfectly honest: halfway through the book I almost put it down. "I can't do six volumes of this," I told myself. The book was full of cliches and heist narrative stereotypes (most of which I recognized, oddly enough, from Inception of all places), and I didn't see them being used particularly well. Strictly speaking, I'd never read a crime comic before, and Coward wasn't impressing me.

But when everything goes to hell right around the end of Chapter Two, Coward becomes impossible to put down. Brubaker reveals that none of the apparent cliches were performing as expected, and when he reduces the cast down to Leo and Greta for a few scenes we find that this is a noir with a heart as much as a gut feeling. All of a sudden I find myself just one more voice among many echoing how clever and ingenious Criminal is, but I can't help it; the book is infectious, provided you stick with it.

On art duties, Sean Phillips is doing solid, gritty work that recalls the best of Gotham Central. Phillips pulls no punches; this book is not for younger readers, and Phillips knows it. Blood sprays, scarred torsos, and drained corpses proliferate in this book, and Phillips captures all of them in stark visceral detail that'll make you cringe at least twice. It's apparently a great creative partnership; Brubaker thanks Phillips at the end "for drawing it the way I see it in my head," and if that's completely true it bodes well for the future of the series.

Though Criminal consists of mostly standalone stories in a shared universe, it's evident that Brubaker and Phillips are building a world and an accompanying ambiance. Though I don't fully understand the meta-levels of "Frank Kafka, Private Eye" -- a comic-within-a-comic a la Watchmen -- I do see that I'm reading a longer story than just the fate of Leo. More interesting are Leo's "rules," since any noir fan worth his or her snuff knows that an alternate code of conduct is what brings us back to noir. Leo's rules are self-centered, smartly so, the consequence of generations of thieves and pickpockets raising each other. And when the rules are broken, the story gets more twisty and more interesting.

It's gritty noir, yes, but it's emotionally compelling as well. Though Leo starts off as just another hard-boiled narrator, his attachment to the mentally-impaired Ivan humanizes him, as does his obliging devotion to Greta and her young daughter. Greta is perhaps more intriguing; Brubaker wisely avoids the femme fatale trope for this outing, instead opting for a much more compelling and more human character whose materialism is matched only by her maternalism.

And it's the mark of a great story that, when characters die, I'm sad to see them go. Dickens likened the relationship between book and reader to a friendship, and while the characters in Criminal: Coward aren't exactly buddy figures you become attached to them in very subtle ways. It's impossible to say when I made the shift from rolling my eyes at Leo to rooting for him; it's probably when he too realizes that he's in a different kind of plot altogether, but it's to Brubaker's credit that he doesn't write moments designed as "insert empathy here" scenes. Instead, the power of the story and Phillips's sympathetic pencils do the work for you.

All you have to do is keep reading. After a few pages, you'll find it impossible to stop.

[Printed on glossy paper, but without full covers. In a way, the lack of covers is a credit to the trade, since it encourages you to treat it as a graphic novel and not a "mere" collected edition. In short, this is a book that fosters the one-sitting read.]

Later in the week, the Collected Editions review of China Miéville's Dial H Vol. 1: Into You. Thanks!

Review: Red Lanterns Vol. 2: Death of the Red Lanterns trade paperback (DC Comics)

noreply@blogger.com (collectededitions) — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 13:03:00 +0000

Writer Peter Milligan has an interesting character in Rankorr, nee Jack Moore, the newest human inductee into the Red Lanterns. From Rankorr’s unique powers to the manner in which he recognizes throughout Red Lanterns: Death of the Red Lanterns, on behalf of the reader, some of the more nonsensical aspects of the Red Lanterns' behavior, he manages to steal most of the scenes in which he appears.

The bizarre behavior that Rankorr witnesses is true to the Red Lanterns' characters, but it creates some distance for the reader. When the Lanterns, blinded as they are by rage, battle each other for no reason or take off randomly on one adventure or another, it’s hard for the reader to truly go with them, rather than be frustrated by plot points that are obvious red herrings. Death has more of a story than the previous volume, but it still contains six issues in which only two really move the Red Lantern story forward.

[Review contains spoilers]

Red Lantern Atrocitus’s monstrous creation Abysmus has poisoned the Red Lantern battery, and now the Red Lanterns are dying — one by one, and horribly. Milligan creates a good sense of genocide on the page; the reader really feels how few Red Lanterns there are and how dependent on their rings they are for survival. The carnage of a space field full of dead Red Lanterns, as depicted by Miguel Sepulveda, is truly shocking (Sepulveda’s work towards the end of this book is one of its high points). Abysmus beats Atrocitus and escapes; Atrocitus pursues Abysmus to a couple planets, finds and defeats him, and retrieves the power to cure the battery from Abymus’s body.

This much of Death of the Red Lanterns is good, and if told in a couple of issues, Death might have worked out. Instead, it’s one issue for Atrocitus to fight Abysmus; a second issue for Atrocitus, Bleez, and the Red Lanterns to bicker before they go off on separate missions; a two-part Red Lanterns/Stormwatch crossover that, while entertaining, moves the plot not at all; and then two issues for Bleez to (mistakenly) fight the Star Sapphires while Atrocitus has his rematch with Abysmus. All of this, ultimately, to return the Red Lanterns just about to status quo.

The Stormwatch crossover, collected also in Stormwatch: Enemies of Earth, favors that team and fits better as a one-off adventure in their book. In the first part, Apollo and Midnighter defeat the Red Lantern Skallox handily; in the second part, Atrocitus attacks Stormwatch’s Eye of the Storm base due to a misunderstanding, is also defeated, and leaves swearing vengeance (though what his actual argument with Stormwatch is, like many things in the book, is never quite clear).

The encounter comes to nothing for Atrocitus, and even Skallox’s mission to Earth, a plot point simply meant to intersect him with Stormwatch, is completely forgotten. Many of the New 52 titles crossed over at this time, so Milligan can’t be blamed for the needless crossover, but indeed the two issues feel like marking time.

The Bleez/Star Sapphires tangent fares only a little better. When in the second issue Bleez suddenly declares that the Star Sapphires are backing Abysmus and goes off after them, the reader is mystified — the Sapphires have never appeared in the book and Bleez has no reason to suspect them, so the fact that Atrocitus and a dozen Red Lanterns think this makes perfect sense must lessen all of them in the reader’s eyes — between the attack on Stormwatch and then the Sapphires, the Red Lanterns come off as violent, bumbling fools.

The confrontation between Bleez and Star Sapphire Fatality does offer nice insights into Bleez’s character — nothing new, but touching nonetheless. But even as Milligan reveals Bleez’s unconscious reasons for seeking the Sapphires, in the end Bleez is unchanged by the encounter. The sequence is interesting, but it comes to nothing, and in that way feels like filler beside Atrocitus’s fight with Abysmus.

Red Lanterns lacks a real reason for being or some sense of what the Lanterns stand for. Geoff Johns spotlighted Atrocitus a couple of times in Green Lantern and explored the conflicts inherit in violent situations and how vengeance can and cannot be justice. Red Lanterns: Blood and Rage touched on this a bit, but never in terms of the whole Red Lantern Corps’s activities day-to-day. In Death, there are a number of instances of the Red Lanterns interceding in conflicts on other worlds, but it’s always shown as the Lanterns simply wreaking mayhem on their victims, rarely with any nuance.

At the end of the book, Atrocitus rallies the Red Lanterns that “the guilty await us, though they do not know it … Powered by the truth of rage, let the Red Lanterns begin.” Who “the guilty” are and how Atrocitus defines “the truth of rage” is no more clear than it has been; not is it even clear what the basis of the conflict between Atrocitus and Bleez is. Bleez separated from Atrocitus between the pages of the last book and now talks of wanting to take control of the Lanterns from Atrocitus — but for what purpose? What would Bleez do differently than Atrocitus?

Much of what happens here seems to be because the story requires it and not through any strong sense of the character, and that makes it tough for the reader to be invested overall. Further, Atrocitus’s statement that “all that has happened until now … has been but preparation for the work to come” seems a disheartening acknowledgment on Milligan’s part that, twelve issues later, what we’ve seen in this title so far has mainly been prologue.

From here, Red Lanterns enters non-stop crossover mode with both “Rise of the Third Army” and “Wrath of the First Lantern,” before writer Charles Soule takes over with issue #21. Though there’s two more trades of Milligan’s work coming, his independent run on this title is now essentially over. Red Lanterns: Death of the Red Lanterns and its earlier collection have been a satisfactory introduction to the Red Lanterns, but I wish more had been done with them than just introducing them and moving them around. “Let the Red Lanterns begin,” finally, indeed.

[Includes original covers]

Next week, the Collected Editions review of China Miéville's Dial H Vol. 1: Into You. Don't miss it!

DC Villains month for September 2013 and a new DC New 52 Villains Omnibus

noreply@blogger.com (collectededitions) — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 15:52:00 +0000

Tip of the hat to a retailer friend for this one. The newest DC Comics trade catalog lists the following:

DC New 52 Villains Omnibus
In September 2013, evil took over, as every title in the DC Universe published special new #1s featuring the villains of the DC Universe, collected here in a massive hardcover edition.

A giant-size, hardcover omnibus collection of the special "villains issues" published line-wide in September 2013, spotlighting the greatest villains of the DCU.

Following on the heels of last September's line-wide zero issues and its resultant DC Comics: The New 52 Zero Omnibus (and before that, the original DC Comics: The New 52 Omnibus), indeed the rumors are true -- this coming September will have new issue #1 villain titles, with an omnibus to follow in December.

Fifty-six of 'em in all, apparently. Let's see ... Lex Luthor, Joker, Sinestro ...

At some point this omnibus will be available for pre-order at the link, but it's still too early at the moment.

Review: Vixen: Return of the Lion trade paperback (DC Comics)

noreply@blogger.com (collectededitions) — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 13:02:00 +0000

[Guest review by Wayne Brooks; Wayne's local comics shop is AfterTime Comics in Alexandria, Virginia. The review contains spoilers.]

I love a great super-hero trade, and that’s exactly what Vixen: Return of the Lion is.

The five-issue 2008 miniseries collected here came about after the character had prominent new appearances in Brad Meltzer’s, and later Dwayne McDuffie’s, Justice League of America. She debuted in Action Comics #521 in 1981, created by comics greats Gerry Conway and Bob Oskner.

Vixen was one of DC Comics’s first female African American super-hero. Vixen is model Mari McCabe, who, thanks to her Tantum Totum amulet, can mimics the abilities of any animal. After teaming with Superman twice, Vixen was seen sporadically throughout the DC Universe, becoming a member of Justice League Detroit and the Suicide Squad (with an unfortunate Wolverine hair-cut). Vixen also appeared prominently in McDuffie’s Justice League Unlimited cartoon, and when McDuffie took over Justice League of America, he crafted a long storyline (from The Injustice League to Second Coming) that had Vixen learning the true source of her powers and made her an even more powerful asset to the team.

Eisner Award nominee G. Willow Wilson writes Return of the Lion with art by CAFU and Josh Middleton on covers. The story begins with the JLA busting an Intergang cell; the team learns that Intergang plans to set up a foothold in Zambesi, Vixen’s birthplace. But, they also learn that Vixen’s mother was murdered by a Zambesian warlord with ties to Intergang, and thus our heroine is off to get the killer (followed by the JLA). Unfortunately for Vixen, as Black Canary says, she “may have bitten of more than she can chew.” And she’s right. The Intergang forces are led by Batman foe Whisper A’Dare [the Greg Rucka villain appears here? Who knew? — ed.], and the warlord himself possesses quite formidable super-abilities.

Return plays more like a JLA story with Vixen as the focus, and it works in that way. In Second Coming we learned the origin of Vixen’s powers, and in Return we have Vixen forced to confront her past and finding her place in the present. We also are privy to how Vixen sees herself among the world’s greatest super-heroes. This is where writer Wilson shows her skill at story and characterization; you really get inside Mari’s head as she learns to accept herself and her role as a member of the JLA. Wilson gives Mari doubt but not defeat, and independence, not isolation.

As for the Justice League, from Black Canary proving she’s a damn good leader to Black Lightning Jefferson Pierce working undercover, Wilson plays to each hero’s strengths. They function like a tightly-knit team that totally trusts one another (this is the Meltzer/McDuffie League from just before Final Crisis). Jeff’s faith in Mari was great to see, and even Batman functions as a team player. There are some great light moments, too, from Red Arrow and an exchange between Black Canary and Superman.

But it was the moments of honest friendship between Superman and Vixen — or rather Mari and Clark — that was an unexpected but pleasant surprise. Even though they worked together historically only twice, Wilson plays on the rapport they established. Superman is very protective of Mari but wise enough to respect her space. And I love how Mari sees Clark as “my friend, my brother in exile, carrying within himself, as I do, a longing for a home to which he can’t return.” A funny moment was Mari’s sisterly warning to not interfere in her final fight with her mother’s killer; Clark’s response to her (and his reaction during the fight) was pure Superman.  

CAFU does well here; with assist from inker Bit in the finale, the art has a lush feel. The action is fluid and on point (the JLA fights scenes are especially good). But it’s the scenes in the Zambesi outback where CAFU struts his stuff. Everything is rich and alive. No detail is overlooked and he draws the animals beautifully.

Vixen: Return of the Lion is not more complicated than “hero goes home to seek revenge only to find true self,” but it’s also a fun blend of friendship, self-discovery, and super-heroics.

DC Trade Solicitations for July 2013 - Batman: Death of the Family, Justice League: Throne of Atlantis, Nightwing, Jim Aparo

noreply@blogger.com (collectededitions) — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 15:57:00 +0000

It's April, barely spring, and DC Comics already has books in their solicitations for July 2013 that won't actually come out until October. Comics, everyone!

• Batman Vol. 3: Death of the Family

From the "striking while the iron is hot" department, the biggest headline on DC Comics's July 2013 trade paperback and collections solicitations is the Batman: Death of the Family collection. Collected Editions originally broke the news about many of these collections a few weeks ago, but now here they are officially on DC's solicitations list. It's nice to see the Batman collection released first and the Joker collection of tie-ins released second, which I think is more proper, versus the tie-in Night of the Owls collection that was released before the main Batman collection.

Oh, an apparently an acetate jacket with "the horror that is The Joker’s skinless skull" underneath? Charming.

• Justice League Vol. 3: Throne of Atlantis

The second biggie, the collection of the Justice League/Aquaman crossover, is now solicited for September. Adding to the ongoing confusion about what the individual Justice League and Aquaman books will collect, here's another new set of contents for the Justice League volume: JL #13-17 and Aquaman #15-16. This omits Aquaman #14, which had previously been listed as included in that volume. The good news is, that's another issue the Aquaman trade can recover separate from the Justice League volume; the bad news is, the JL trade now seems to be down an issue, but holding at the same price as before.

• Batman: The Court of Owls Book and Mask Set

I'm curious if anyone's buying this. I liked this story and all, and the photos of the people on owl masks at the cons have been cool, but I'm not sure I necessarily need an owl mask hanging around. At first listing it seems the price of this is not more than if you had bought the Batman: Court of Owls hardcover on its own, so maybe if you missed it the first time, might as well get a mask out of it.

• Nightwing: Old Friends, New Enemies TP

Among other things, this collection of Nightwing/Speedy Roy Harper team-ups is the first time, I'm pretty sure, DC has collected any parts of when Action Comics became Action Comics Weekly. I'll be exicted to add this one to the DC Trade Paperback Timeline, if indeed it makes it to print (you never can tell with these trades of older material, though a Nightwing book has a better-than-average chance).

• Green Lantern: Sector 2814 Vol. 2 TP

Elsewhere on the site we had been discussing how these Sector 2814 collections are getting nearer and nearer to intersecting with Crisis on Infinite Earths, and then to the post-Crisis Green Lantern Corps collections, in which some of the characters still remembered pre-Crisis continuity (those stories are also in Tales of the Green Lantern Corps Vol. 3). Anyway, hopefully the continuance of these John Stewart-focused Green Lantern trades suggest DC intends to keep the character around for a while, despite what rumors may suggest.

• Legends of The Dark Knight: Jim Aparo Vol. 2 HC

Based on your feedback, these artist focused editions have been very popular; this volume collects self-contained stories from Brave and the Bold, which should cut down on some of the strangeness where these books collect stories with no beginning or ending because the spotlighted artist only handled one part.

And your New 52 collections for July:

• DC Universe Presents: Vandal Savage TP

Rather excited for this one, both for the short stories in the DC Universe Presents zero issue, and also because James Robinson's take on a serial killer Savage and his criminal profilier daughter sounds like an epic combination.

• Sword of Sorcery Vol. 1: Amethyst TP

Equally glad to see this done-in-one -- I really only wanted to sample the adventures of Amethyst, not delve into them long-term, so I'm glad it worked out (good for me, bad for the title, I guess).

• Batwoman Vol. 3: World’s Finest HC
• Captain Atom Vol. 2: Genesis TP
• Green Lantern: Rise of the Third Army
• Legion Lost Vol. 2: The Culling TP
• Shazam! Vol. 1
• Talon Vol. 1: Scourge of The Owls TP
• Wonder Woman Vol. 3: Iron

Six months and counting till October ... What's on your must-read list for July?