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| Monday, September 24, 2007 10:42 AM |
| The Take |
 by Fëanor |
Well, I didn't get a copy of Avengers Classic #4 because the manager of Atomic City only ordered the regular number of that book this week, and I'm guessing a lot of other people who don't normally collect the book had the same idea I did ("It's got Captain America's reappearance! I'd better get it!"), so it was sold out by the time I got there. Luckily, the dude was real nice to me and let me add my name to the want list for the book without putting down a deposit, and said I'd probably be able to pick it up next week (meaning, this week).
I also continued to strike out on most of my back-issues and old collections. They did indeed have a lot of the TPBs of Ultimate Spider-Man, including volume 2, but I decided to pass them up for now, as I was already holding over $40 worth of comics by that time, and I can always grab them later online if I want.
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic #20
As with #19 of this series, I didn't find this the week it supposedly came out, but this week it was right there amongst the old issues, as if I'd just completely overlooked it somehow. Does this book have a cloaking device on whenever it gets released, which it then deactivates on succeeding weeks? I don't know. Anyways, I still can't quite decide what to do about this series. This issue was interesting enough to keep me reading, and was a pleasant enough way to kill some time. But it didn't really particularly excite me, and I feel like I should cut down my comic book intake to include only books that really make my jaw drop every month. Still, I think I will give this series at least one more issue before I drop it. It looks like the serious Jedi action is just beginning...
Umbrella Academy: Apocalypse Suite #1
Wow, this was a pleasant surprise! What a wonderful little book. This is the one by the My Chemical Romance guy (Gerard Way), remember. Turns out he knows how to spin a yarn. The story - about a team of super-powered children, all part of a mysterious crop of such children born at the same time, and gathered together by a mysterious man who is apparently a space alien - is fast-paced, complex, and makes big jumps through time, so you have to read it carefully in order to be able to follow it, but it's very clever, intriguing, and amusing. Also, ZOMBIE-ROBOT GUSTAVE EIFFEL! Talking monkeys! Robots! A girl in her underwear! Tentacles! Really, it's got everything a comic book should have, plus excellent, appropriately cartoony art from Gabriel Ba. I am totally sold on the series, and will definitely be collecting the rest. There was also apparently a Free Comic Book Day release that tied into the series which I would like to try to track down, although I have no idea where to start looking for such a thing.
World War Hulk #4
Awww, yeah. Man, I love this series. They brought in John Romita, Jr. for the art on this issue, and I always enjoy his work (though you do have to get used to it at first - it's very unique; kind of blocky and spiky). As for the story, by my man Greg Pak - it is brutal and exciting. Hulk drops some more great big heavy chunks of guilt on his four main enemies, and then the super-gladiator fights begin in earnest. The final two-page spread of this issue, which consists of two horizontal panels breaking across both pages, is just great - an exciting double reveal that promises more punishing action and violence next issue.
But not just action and violence! This whole series is taking a hard look at the consequences of the actions of super-powered entities, and how thin the line can be between hero and monster - between doing the right thing and doing the wrong thing. It's really quite brilliant.
World War Hulk: Gamma Corps #3
This issue starts out with the Hulk jumping onto a missile and tearing it apart with his bare hands, so... AWESOME. As it turns out, the missile is just step one of a well thought-out attack plan against the Hulk, designed and implemented by General Ryker and his Gamma Corps. The rest of the issue consists of this attack plan playing out to its conclusion, interspersed with flashbacks that help explain Ryker's desire for vengeance against the Hulk. Which is all well and good, and in fact, except for the occasional dip into corny melodrama, and a small amount of painfully awful dialogue (most of it spoken by Griffin), this is quite a good issue of this series - probably the best so far. The problem is, the shocking ending wherein (spoiler warning, I suppose) the Hulk seems to get his neck snapped and die, fails to be particularly effective, due to the very nature of this series. It's true that the deaths of superheroes in general are very rarely final or lasting, but I can usually go along and at least pretend like I believe the character whose name is in the title of the book I'm reading is really dead. However, suspending my disbelief enough to swallow the idea that the Hulk might have been killed in issue 3 of a 4-part mini-series that's only a small - and rather insignificant - part of a giant crossover event, and which, more importantly, seems to be set before the events of other books I've already read which featured a Hulk who certainly appeared to be alive and well, is just impossible. I think the neck-snapping conclusion was well done, and might have worked in a different context. But it doesn't work particularly well here, alas.
World War Hulk: Front Line #4
It's the usual three stories again this week: the one following the newspaper reporters, the one following the cop and the alien investigating the robot murder, and a third, extremely short, comedy/parody story. I don't believe I've ever made this connection before for some reason (although I'm sure others have already done so), but by the end of the first story in this book I couldn't help but see the parallels between the invasion and occupation of NYC by Hulk and his Warbound, in retaliation for a terrible strike against their civilization that caused the deaths of millions of people, and the invasion and occupation of Iraq by America, an action also supposedly taken at least partially in retaliation for a terrible strike against our country that caused the deaths of millions of people. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's a perfect metaphor by any stretch of the imagination. But there are some interesting connections and some similar images - the ravaged, wartorn streets of NYC, surrounded by refugee camps. And there's something about the reporter's conclusion at the end of this story about the depths that humanity can sink to that really struck a chord. So yeah, the first story isn't exactly subtle or absolutely fantastic, but it's moving and effective.
The artist on the second story is new to this book (I think) - Shawn Martinbrough - and I really love his work, with its emphasis on clean lines and large empty spaces. This story is entertaining, even if the whole alien as fish-out-of-water partner to wisecracking Earth detective is a very familiar plot device, and even though the story as a whole is starting to feel more and more like one of Isaac Asimov's robot murder mysteries. The instructions that Korg gave to Arch-E are similar to Asimov's laws of robotics, and I'm pretty sure the solution to the mystery is going to hinge on the robot's interpretation of those orders in the context of a specific experience - and that's pretty much how every one of the Asimov robot stories worked. I suspect I'd even be able to put the pieces together and solve the mystery now, if I tried hard enough, but I'd rather be surprised and see it come together on the pages of the next issue.
The final story is a quick, silly two-pager that purports to show us other, lesser fights the Hulk got into during WWH, as witnessed by the Watcher. I think it would be funnier if I knew who more of his opponents were; most of them appear to be third-, fourth-, and fifth-string heroes of the Marvel universe. Although the image of The Watcher holding a cup of soda with a straw in it while making his introductory proclamation is definitely comedy gold.
Captain America #30
Wow. This is intense, fast-paced, and brutal. I don't always like Brubaker's work, but I definitely like it on this title. I sense a new Captain America is on the way soon now. The only question is who it will be. Well, and another question is, how many other people will Brubaker kill before then?!
The Authority Volume 2: Under New Management
So, I imagine Warren Ellis was sitting around saying to himself: "Hmm. How can I go out with a bang for my last story arc on The Authority? I know! I'll kill off one of my main characters! While the team is saving the Earth and all of humanity! By killing God!"
Holy crap, Ellis! Well, that's one way to leave your series. And this team and this story are so good, I guess I can forgive you for (spoiler warning) killing Jenny Sparks. Maybe. But she's so awesome!
Anyway, I thought I'd be able to stop collecting The Authority after Ellis dropped off it, but they cleverly included a story arc by the next writer (Mark Millar) in this collection and... well, crap. It's totally fantastic.
Millar teams up with artist Frank Quitely, whose work I like, even though his people all end up looking bulgy and wrinkly (seriously; Apollo is positively chubby). I never thought I'd describe Ellis' work as subtle, but Millar does seem to take things that were just suggested before and go ahead and state them out loud. One simple example is the way he takes the relationship between Apollo and Midnighter, which was already pretty obvious, and makes it even more obvious - to the extent of showing them making out, and having them declared a couple on the cover of a magazine. He also takes the team out of their position of relative secrecy and into the limelight (thus the magazine cover), and has them change from reacting defensively to exterior threats to acting proactively against the evils they see in the world - like a brutal genocidal dictatorship, which they go in and destroy. But the real main story arc is about Jacob Krigstein and his endless hordes of super-powered humans. Krigstein is meant to be Jack Kirby, if Jack Kirby were a twisted, evil dwarf of a man with an unlimited budget to bring his crazed ideas to life, and the desire to own and control the world. When he sees the Authority horning in on his territory, he decides he has to grab the spirit of the 21st century to get the one-up on them. Which leads to the Authority fighting and killing innumerable super-teams, all of which are obvious analogs of Marvel super-teams. We get to see them fighting the Avengers, the X-Men, the Fantastic Four, etc. If I was afraid that the Authority would go down the tubes after Ellis left, this book completely reassured me. It's still as ridiculously imaginative, totally hilarious, brutally violent, incredibly epic, thought-provoking, and disturbing as it always has been. Plus, that scene where Apollo leaves the Captain America analog for Midnighter to take care of, and Midnighter shows up with some kind of giant, rusty-looking power tool - priceless! And then there's the part where Midnighter says, "Besides, the day I can't mutilate thirty radioactive teenagers is the day I hang up my coat for good." Bah ha ha ha!
Oh, dear lord, how I love the Authority. It's so subversive and brutal and crazy. They just kill everybody they don't like! It's kind of refreshing after reading all those Marvel and DC comics where all the heroes spend so much time trying not to kill, and no one ever really dies. World War Hulk is practically centered around the question of whether Hulk is really prepared to kill or not. If he was a member of the Authority, WWH would have been a few pages long, and Black Bolt, Dr. Strange, Iron Man, and Reed Richards would all have been killed in really horrible ways already.
Oh, and I should add, I really love the idea of the spirit of each century being born into a super-powered human whose purpose is to act as a sort of defense mechanism for the human race and the planet Earth, and who is able to then shape the events and the flavor of that century.
Runaways Volume 6: Parental Guidance
Argh! Right after I endure Ellis killing off one of my favorite characters, I have to read this book, where Vaughan kills off another of my favorite characters! Damn you, comic book authors!
Still, Vaughan does add some more folks to the team, tells a super-cute - and actually rather moving - solo Molly story, and resolves the second Pride arc quite satisfactorily. It's an exciting story with lots of great character development, and plenty of the up-to-the-minute, postmodern, self-referential pop culture humor we've come to expect from this series. And those references are getting more contemporary all the time, so I suspect I'm nearly caught up on my Runaways.
One thing that did kind of bug me was the time travel bit where they pull somebody out of the past whose removal from the timeline, it seems to me, would create a horrible paradox and destroy all reality. Or something like that. But later they put him back again with no memory of what happened, so... I guess it makes sense. Still kind of bugs me, though. Maybe Neil's hatred of time travel stories is rubbing off on me a little...
Death Note Volume 7: Zero
And here's another story where a main character gets killed! A whole bunch of main characters, actually. Everything changes yet again, and now Light - who has been revealed to be even more forward-thinking, frightening and cold-hearted than we even imagined in the past - has two dangerous new enemies. They are, in fact (spoiler warning), the two successors of L, and each takes a completely different tack towards defeating Kira. One (Near) joins in with the attempt by the American government to recover the notebook for themselves, and the other (Mello) joins a gang of criminals with the same purpose. Both successors are strangely like L in their own ways; both are brilliant, and Near shares L's emotionlessness and his tendency to be constantly fidgeting and scratching himself. Mello, meanwhile, has inherited L's passion for sweets, and is constantly chomping on a chocolate bar or something similar. Both are creepy, and once again it has become impossible to know who to root for. Everyone is a crazy amoral freak with plans for world domination. Despite that, or perhaps because of it, it's a great story, and I'm definitely looking forward to volume 8. |
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