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| Tuesday, July 24, 2007 12:04 PM |
| The Take, Continued |
 by Fëanor |
Runaways, Vol. 1: Pride and Joy
Seeing as how I'm enjoying Joss Whedon's current run on this book so much, I thought I should go back and check out what the beginning was like, especially since it was written by another comic author I rather like, Brian K. Vaughn. Turns out, it's great! The concept - a bunch of kids find out their parents are supervillains - is brilliant, and it's executed quite well, with plenty of humor and pop culture references, and lots of action and fun. I will probably be looking for volume 2 of this next time I'm at a store.
The Losers, Vol. 1: Ante Up
This was just okay, I thought. I came in with a rather low opinion of the Andy Diggle/Jock duo, as I'd just read Green Arrow: Year One #1 by them and been underwhelmed by it. Diggle, as a writer, relies pretty heavily on corny cliches, and Jock's art, while servicable, can also tend toward the crude and uninteresting. Plus, he calls himself Jock. Just Jock. That's lame. Anyway, this book definitely has fun bits - lots of violence and action and intrigue and revenge and so forth - but overall, it just didn't excite me that much. I don't see myself following the series any further.
Nextwave: Agents of H.A.T.E., Vol. 1 - This Is What They Want
Oh, man. This book is so good, it's almost too good. It's an action-packed story following a rogue team of superheroes trying to take down a terrorist organization. Ostensibly it takes place inside the regular Marvel Universe, as the team is full of second- and third-string Marvel superheroes, and there are cameos from the occasional first-string hero (I particularly love the rip-snortingly funny flashback cameos by Captain America and the Celestials). But really it's mostly a brutal parody and satire of the Marvel U, even featuring a pseudo-S.H.I.E.L.D. called H.A.T.E., and a pseudo-Nick Fury named Dirk Anger - who happens to be an insane psychopath hepped up on age-defying drugs which may or may not be made up of pureed baby chicks. The book is loaded with insanely ridiculous and ridiculously insane action and plot, combined with hilarious dialogue and narration. It's drawn (by Stuart Immonen) and written (by my man Warren Ellis) like a cartoon on steroids (complete with weird Family Guy-style flashback panels that will make you shoot soda out your nose - even if you haven't been drinking soda!).
Just as an example of the book's style, here's a portion of Dirk Anger's self-introductory speech to some new H.A.T.E. recruits: "Every day I smoke two hundred cigarettes and one hundred cigars and drink a bottle of whisky and three bottles of wine with dinner. And dinner is meat. Raw meat. The cook serves me an entire animal and I fight it bare-handed and tear off what I want and eat it and have the rest buried. In New Jersey. For H.A.T.E.!" Also, one of the "good guys" is a robot who is constantly saying, "My robot brain needs beer," and who is prejudiced against biological organisms, whom he calls "fleshy ones." Another of the good guys gets the immortal line of dialogue: "Awwww. Cuuuute. Die anyway." Then there's the evil organically grown robots from the Human Resources department who say things like "I FIRE YOU WITH BULLETS NOW." And the evil, flesh-eating koalas. And the samurai robots. And on and on!
I also particularly like the issue that begins by introducing you to an old policeman just a week from retirement, and then proceeds to take that cliche in a whole new direction that you'll never expect.
Seriously, this book is so freaking funny it hurts. I love it with a deep and abiding love and will certainly be looking to pick up any other collections or issues that are out or forthcoming. |
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