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| Sunday, August 19, 2007 01:38 PM |
| The Take |
 by Fëanor |
Argh! I couldn't find Planetary Volume 2! I am sad. I was able to find the Planetary crossover collection, but I'm actually a bit afraid to read it, as I don't know where in the Planetary storyline it takes place; will it spoil story arcs for me that I haven't read yet? Also, one of the stories is a crossover with The Authority, which I know very little about (I forgot to look for the first collection of that series). I think I'll just hold onto it for now, as frustrating as that is.
Oddly enough, I was also unable to find any issue of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, let alone the specific new one I wanted, although the store did have issues of other Star Wars comics. I am confused by this.
But anyway, let's get on to talking about all the books I did manage to find.
Hellboy Volume 2: Wake the Devil
This was the Hellboy story I was waiting for. Drawn and written by Mike Mignola, and featuring an epic arc that involves evil gods trying to destroy the Earth, Nazi heads in jars, homonculi, witches, vampires, Baba Yaga, Hecate, and all manner of other horrors and beasties, not to mention Hellboy himself crashing headlong into his destiny. And this is the Hellboy I know and love, screaming "JEEZ!" while he pounds the living daylights out of titanic creatures of doom with his bare fists. Absolutely brilliant, hilarious, and terrifying all at once, with stunning art and a lovely little epilogue that was apparently added just for this collection, and that actually succeeds in making you feel just a little bit bad for Rasputin the immortal evil wizard who wants to destroy the Earth. And if Mignola can make you feel bad for that guy, what can't he do?
Hellboy Volume 3: The Chained Coffin and Others
This collection is not a new story arc taking place after Volume 2, but rather a collection of short Hellboy stories from various points in the timeline, originally done as fill-ins in various other venues. One of the stories is, in fact, alluded to in Volume 2, so I was glad to finally be able to read that. There's also one or two little things added just for this collection. Mignola may very well be at his best with Hellboy when he's inserting him into an updated version of an old fairy tale or folk story, and that's pretty much all that's going on in this book, so it is, unsurprisingly, completely and totally awesome from beginning to end. Mignola brings to the table his usual brilliant artwork and totally entertaining writing, with stories that are action-packed, blackly humorous, fantastical, moving, and even awe-inspiring. A particular favorite of mine is "The Corpse," which is apparently widely considered the best Hellboy story, and consists of a wonderful riff on an old Irish folk tale featuring some really neat bits about fairies. But really every story is excellent.
Hellboy Volume 4: The Right Hand of Doom
Every time I think Hellboy can't get any better, somehow it does! The first story in this collection (which is again basically just a loose group of shorts with no connecting story arc to them) is "Pancakes," a two-page gag short telling a story from Hellboy's childhood, and it is very possibly my favorite Hellboy story ever. It is totally hilarious and cute and awesome, and yet even though it's just a cute gag story, it still actually fits into what you know about Hellboy and his overarching life story. Brilliant!
And even though "Pancakes" may be the best thing about this collection, there are still plenty of other great stories and features in here. "Heads" is a wonderful little Japanese story that was adapted for the first animated Hellboy movie. "Goodbye Mr. Tod" has a dark and totally hilarious ending that includes Hellboy saying the classic line: "Jeez. You never see something like that coming." "The Varcolac" is a really excellent vampire story with some art that's truly stunning and fantastic, even for Mignola. Then the two stories that end the collection, "The Right Hand of Doom" and "Box Full of Evil," delve back into the main storyline of the series - the origin of Hellboy, his true destiny, and the meaning and purpose of his strange stone arm. "TRHoD" is basically just a sum-up of everything you know so far, with a couple of hints and details added on, and the inclusion of one really stunning panel, which is Hellboy imagining what horrors could be done with his arm. "BFoE" is just a brilliant, fantastic story that really defines Hellboy's character in a lot of ways, besides featuring tons of awesome moments of humor, action, and magic, and this wonderful little sequence of panels:
In short, this is another great, great collection of Hellboy stories that further solidifies my deep and abiding love of the character, and of Mignola and his skills, not to mention my deep and abiding desire to own the entire collected Hellboy. Oh, and did I mention there's also an awesome little sketchbook in the back, that's basically just a monster menagerie, full of portraits by Mignola of all kinds of random creatures and beasties? So awesome.
Death Note Volume 5: Whiteout
(Beware spoilers!) The story has taken yet another unexpected turn, with Light no longer even aware himself that he ever was Kira, and now honestly helping L to find and capture the new Kira, who is one of the members of a secret board of directors inside a large corporation. Every time I think Tsugumi Ohba has run out of ideas of what to do with this concept, he turns the whole thing down a completely new avenue, merrily burning the bridges behind him. Impressive!
Runaways Volume 3: The Good Die Young
This volume completes the first story arc of the series, reveals the mole (it was who I thought!), and kills off one or two characters. My verdict is definitely a thumbs up. The last couple volumes failed to really blow me away. They definitely kept me entertained and interested in reading further, but they lacked that final bit of something to put them over the top and make them truly great. This volume was shaping up to be similar, but then the end really knocked me for a loop. It's actually really effective and moving, and would work even as an ending to the entire series. Runaways is definitely a lot of fun, and I will almost certainly pick up Volume 4 if/when I see it.
Superman and Batman vs. Aliens and Predator
Hee hee hee. I ordered this online some months ago, and I was excited to finally find it on my doorstep the other day. (On a side note, I'm not sure why that's "Predator" and not "Predators" in the title, because there's definitely a lot more than just one of them featured here, but maybe it's a trademarking issue.) I expected this to be a pretty crummy, gimmicky cross-over book, but it's actually pretty good, although it certainly doesn't live up to the theoretical potential of having all of these incredible characters together in one book. The writing is perfectly serviceable (although Superman does seem to use the Kryptonian oath "Rao!" pretty much every other page, which gets tiresome), and the art is fantastic, being the lovely, warm, painterly work of Ariel Olivetti, whose style I became a fan of on Punisher War Journal. It does seem like kind of an odd style to apply to the cold, spiky, terrifying monsters in this book, but whatever.
And actually, speaking of terrifying monsters, that's the book's major flaw: they're not really terrifying at all here. In their respective franchises, the Aliens and the Predators are hideous beasties that could jump out at any moment from anywhere and tear your face off. But in this book, there's only a couple of isolated moments where you almost get the chance to be afraid for Batman and Lois, but all the rest of the time there's never really any sense that anyone you care about is in any real peril. Obviously Superman can tackle all the Predators and Aliens you want to throw at him single-handedly, and generally Batman is too clever to let them get anywhere near him (he even learns how to communicate with the Predators in a rather unbelievably short amount of time). Plus, the book never bothers to try to create the atmosphere of suspense and terror that Alien and Predator stories normally have. The first time you see the Predators, they're running away from Batman. The Aliens seem thrown into the story almost as an afterthought, and are just a minor annoyance to our main characters.
Still, like I said, it's a pretty decent book otherwise, with an engaging enough story; some lovely art; a pretty unique, all-star character line-up (although I was a bit disappointed to discover that both Batman and Superman had come across both Aliens and Predators before, and so pretty much knew what to expect); and some amusing dialogue (I mean, it's hard to dislike a comic that includes Superman saying, "What with the Predators and Aliens, I'd forgotten I'm in an unstable volcano!"). So yeah, a thumbs up. You could boil down my reaction to essentially, "It could have been worse!"
Terror Inc. #1
Thought I'd give this one a shot, since it's issue one in a limited 5-issue series bringing back an old, odd character - a mostly immortal, but endlessly rotting, super spy who has to constantly replace his decaying parts with fresh flesh from unwilling donors. I'm actually kind of pleased to discover that it's not a very interesting book, though, because that means I won't have to collect any more. The writing and art are both okay - except for the fact that the dialogue is a little corny, the plot is pretty by-the-numbers, and our main character goes through a series of security precautions before meeting his new client only to then do no checking at all on the assassination mission he's given by said client, which leads to him being set up as the fall guy and captured. All of which is just to say, I won't be buying any more of these.
Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #23
From the final page thank you at the end of this one, I take it this is the last issue of FNS-M, and I'm actually rather pleased about that, as I would have been tempted to drop the book anyway after this issue. The really ugly art of Todd Nauck is seriously getting on my nerves, and Peter David's writing in this issue is also pretty corny and unbelievable. With this book down, I'll no longer be collecting any Spider-Man titles, which makes me sad and happy at the same time. Hopefully they'll bring on a good writer after JMS leaves who can take Amazing Spider-Man, and the Spider-Man franchise as a whole, in a new, better direction.
Captain America #29
My favorite part of this book was the cameo on page one by Chris's Invincible Super-Blog, the homepage of which you can see displayed on one of the monitors in Tony Stark's office. (And yes, Chris Sims is well aware of this.) The issue itself didn't really do much for me, although it was good to see some of our heroes finally getting closer to who's really behind Cap's death.
newuniversal Volume One: Everything Went White
This is a new collection out from Warren Ellis of #1-6 of a series that's kind of a reboot of something Marvel did back in the '80s called New Universe, which was apparently an attempt to put the superhuman in a real world context. I don't know anything about that, but when I first started reading this book, it wasn't really grabbing me. The story - about a mysterious inter-universe event causing a bunch of people on Earth (not our Earth, but a parallel one, where John Lennon is alive and Paul McCartney got shot, and other weird little changes of that sort) to suddenly gain super powers, and the inevitable violence, death, and over-reactions by secret government agencies that this causes - felt a bit like old hat to me. But as I kept reading, Ellis began to work that old magic on me, and soon had me hooked. I think what helps is the fact that the superhumans are not all that pure and good, and the people in the government agencies who want to destroy them are not all that evil. The introduction of a character kind of caught between the two factions also makes things a lot more interesting. The art, by Salvador Larroca, is quite fantastic. The superpowers and how they're envisioned graphically are very impressive. Also the concept it has of parallel universes as a gigantic machine and a sort of dreamscape interlocking them all is totally fascinating. And then he throws in the idea of a super-ancient city of superhumans, and a high-tech mech battle suit, and all the geek alarms start going off. In short, it's good stuff, and I'm hoping I can jump on the series in issue format from #7 onward. |
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