|
|
| Monday, June 18, 2007 02:54 PM |
| Now, back to the comic books |
 by Fëanor |
I'm going to catch up on reviewing some books I've read, some recently, some not so recently.
Death Note
This is a cool manga series I don't seem to have mentioned here before about a genius school kid named Light who finds the magic notebook of a death demon lying on the ground. There are various magical rules governing the functioning of the notebook, but essentially it allows you to kill whoever you want by simply writing down his/her name in the book and focusing your thoughts on the person's face. You can even select the method, time, and circumstances of the person's death, as long as it's all within reason. The demon left the notebook lying about on purpose because he was bored.
Light decides to use the book to remake the world into the kind of place he thinks it should be, and starts killing off known criminals all around the world. His actions quickly come to the attention of a mysterious genius detective known only as L, and the story turns into a long-distance battle of wits between two incredibly intelligent people.
I've read only the first two volumes (borrowed from the generous Peccable), but so far this thing is absolutely brilliant. It brings up all kinds of interesting moral and ethical questions, as well as being just an incredibly thrilling and engrossing story, full of all kinds of clever strategical and tactical movements by the two main players.
Fables: Wolves
I'd heard some good things about the Fables series, so I picked up this trade paperback collection of a recent complete storyline. I have to say, I was underwhelmed. The concept - that storybook characters actually exist in a world that intersects our own - isn't a particularly fresh one (even if it is cool) and it isn't handled here in a particularly fresh or intriguing manner. I didn't hate the book, but it just didn't grab me. I don't intend to read any more of the series, unless somebody I know is really good starts writing it.
The Irredeemable Ant-Man #3
A very different kind of "superhero" comic in which the main character uses his powers not to do great good, and not to do monstrous evil, but rather to perform acts of petty, slimy scumbaggery, and to pick up (or mostly, spy on) chicks. Basically, a young jerk-off gets his hands on a spare Ant-Man suit and just starts doing all manner of rather pathetic jack-assery with it. It's a concept that's very imaginative, interesting, and funny, but this issue didn't really suck me in, so I decided not to begin collecting. I might in the future, however, if I hear about a particularly good storyline, or an author I dearly love starts writing it.
Akira
This was a truly astonishing, ground-breaking, breath-taking series that I consumed in its entirety at a breakneck pace a while back. I reviewed the first three volumes on the site, but never got around to talking about the rest of it. Which is mainly because, when I got to the conclusion, I found myself rather puzzled and disappointed, and decided I probably should go back and read the whole thing again in the hopes that the ending would be more satisfying and make more sense the second time around. I haven't gotten around to doing that yet. I loved the whole thing, fiercely, right up until the final scene, so I guess I have to say I recommend it highly.
Global Frequency
I read the first two collected volumes of this series by Warren Ellis, courtesy EverMike, and they are pretty damn fantastic. I read the first story of the first book in a breathless rush. It grabs hold of you and does not let go, hurtling you forward at a ridiculous pace. The concept is that in the near future there's an organization called the Global Frequency composed of 1000 (well, 1001 by the end of that first story) people from around the world. Many of them are just ordinary people with one or two extraordinary skills, or special areas of knowledge. At any time they could be contacted by the Frequency's operator, Aleph, and asked to leap into action to save the world. And indeed, that is pretty much what the Frequency does in every single issue of this series - save the world, or some large portion of it, usually from some kind of terrorist attack, or some kind of government experiment or weapon gone horribly awry. Often agents sacrifice themselves in the line of duty. Most of the stories are ridiculously epic, intelligently written, and totally action-packed. Really my only complaint with the series is that after a while it gets repetitive; it starts to seem like in every story some tremendously horrible thing is threatening the world, the Frequency jumps into action, a Frequency agent sacrifices him or herself to stop it, and then all is well again. Still, as long as you don't read as much of it in one sitting as I did, you probably won't even notice. All in all, just a completely brilliant series with an interesting mix of optimistic and pessimistic things to say about humanity, the military, and technology.
Marvel Civil War #1-7
I read this a while back and have mentioned it a lot since then, but have never actually sat down to write a proper review. Suffice it to say, I found the issues it dealt with to be very interesting, and the execution to be generally rather excellent, and only occasionally nonsensical and melodramatic. The basic story is as follows: there's a television reality show sort of like that Stan Lee reality show, except in this case they're putting together a whole team of superheroes, and all of the people on the team actually have superpowers. The team decides to take down a group of real live supervillains, but they don't really know what they're up against, and during the struggle many civilians are killed. This event is the straw that breaks the camel's back, helping to turn the American public firmly against the idea of masked vigilantes running around the streets without any oversight. Thus a group of heroes, led by Iron Man and Richard Reed, propose a Registration Act which would require all superheroes to register themselves and their real identities with the government, or face capture and prosecution. Captain America is asked to help in the capture of his fellow heroes, but refuses and instead starts an underground, anti-registration resistance movement.
Pretty interesting, huh? Of course, eventually this disagreement breaks out into a gigantic war amongst tons of superheroes and villains which spills out into the middle of an American city. When Cap almost kills Iron Man, then looks around and sees what the battle has done to the regular Americans and their city, he decides to quit, and the war ends. (Later Cap would try to continue the fight against registration through legal channels, and then be assassinated on the steps of a courthouse, as part of a sinister plot by his old enemy, the Red Skull.)
Anyway, like I said, good story. I enjoyed reading it, and I'm glad I own it. (Btw, I bought it off of this guy.)
Spent
This is a graphic novel that got sent to Star for review on Phillyist, and which her parents passed on to me. It's our general policy to only review things on Phillyist if they have some kind of local connection, and in this case, there is one - author Joe Matt is coming to Philly on a book tour on Tuesday. Problem is, we also only preview events we actually think people should go to, and after taking a look at this book, I can't honestly tell anyone I think they should go see this guy, or read any of his work. In fact, Spent is everything I hate about contemporary, "serious," non-superhero comics, as I suspected it would be after I saw that it was dedicated to R. Crumb. I despise R. Crumb, and I despise this whole genre of comics that focuses on the most agonizingly shameful events in the everyday lives of pathetic and unlikable people - a genre of which Spent is a perfect example. What is the point of books like this? They're not entertaining. They just make you feel filthy and unhappy and full of hate for humanity. In conclusion, I hate this book and all it stands for, and I strongly recommend you stay as far away from it as possible.
DC: The New Frontier, Volume 2
On the opposite side of the spectrum from Spent is The New Frontier. I mentioned earlier how much I loved Volume 1 of this series, but I loved Volume 2 even more. In fact, now that I've read the entire collection, I have to say that this is easily one of my favorite pieces of work ever in the genre of illustrated fiction. I'd say it's in my top five of all time. It is absolute, unmitigated brilliance. It alternately made me cry, laugh, and literally pump my fist in exaltation. This book is everything that is great about comics and literature and art and superheroes. It is very wise, deeply moving, and incredibly exciting and entertaining. Author and illustrator Darwyn Cooke knew exactly what was truly great about the "modern" DC heroes, and ties in their birth with the birth of a new age of hope and greatness in America. His characterizations are spot on. There's a short scene in which Batman and Robin meet Superman to discuss a threat to the planet Earth, and in this scene Cooke captures the early Batman and Robin perfectly - an older man and a young, fun-loving child, both lost souls who have found each other. This characterization put into stark contrast in my mind Frank Miller's characterization of these same characters in All-Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder, and I have to say that I far, far, far prefer Cooke's beautiful, poignant vision to Miller's ridiculously dark, insane one.
Beautiful and poignant are actually good words to describe this book as a whole. I won't go into much detail in terms of story. Suffice it to say, the story is awesome, and you need to go out, buy both volumes of this, and read them immediately. As I said before, it will help, and it will give the story a lot more resonance, if you have some knowledge of the DC Universe and its characters, but it's not entirely necessary; some of these characters I didn't know well, but the story still crawled right into my heart and set up shop there, anyway. UPDATE: Holy crap, there's going to be an animated movie!! Darwyn Cooke is working on it himself! I'm so excited! |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Jim Genzano's books on Goodreads
