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| Monday, November 5, 2007 10:24 PM |
| The Take |
 by Fëanor |
As it turns out, Hellboy: Darkness Calls #6 did not come out this week, sadly, but I did still get a dose of Mignola - sort of - in the form of B.P.R.D. Volume One. Another thing I didn't get was The Ultimates: Volume Two, but not because I couldn't find it. I actually picked it up and flipped through it, and then decided that I really didn't want it. This was partially because by that point I was already carrying around a big stack of books, but also partially because I really didn't like Volume One that much, and Volume Two was clearly going to be more of the same. So why waste my money?
Ultimate Spider-Man Volume One: Power and Responsibility
The book that's actually on my list is Ultimate Spider-Man Volume Two, but as I've said before, reading things out of order is anathema to me, so I found myself purchasing Volume One instead.
Like The Ultimates, Ultimate Spider-Man takes the famous original comic book stories, updates them to contemporary times, and makes them more realistic and believable. But whereas Ultimates also makes everything darker, seedier, edgier, and more grotesque, Ultimate Spider-Man sticks with the pure and earnest feel of the original. This first book tells Spider-Man's origin story - from life as a nerd; to getting bitten by the spider (which in this version has been injected with an experimental drug, rather than simply "irradiated"); to transforming into a much stronger, weirder nerd; to earning extra cash as a wrestler; to losing Uncle Ben, and thus finally learning the important and famous lesson about power and responsibility. Also included alongside Spider-Man's origin is the origin of the Green Goblin - in fact, their origins are closely linked in this version, as the spider that bites Parker has been injected by a drug that Osborn is developing, and it's Osborn's decision to inject himself with the same drug, after seeing what it's done for Parker, that turns him into the Green Goblin.
It's a decent, well-written story, conceived by Bill Jemas and Brian Michael Bendis, and scripted by Bendis (and, of course, based on the original story by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko). But it does seem to proceed in a rather choppy fashion at times, which, if it were a film, I would blame on poor editing. I also found it odd that when Parker flashes back to Uncle Ben's power and responsibility speech, it's the first time we're reading it. It's a flashback, in other words, to something we've never seen before, which seems like a bit of a mistake to me. It's overall a good story that keeps you reading, but I was kind of hoping it would blow me away, and it definitely did not.
It certainly doesn't help that the art is pretty much awful. Pencils are by Mark Bagley with inks by Art Thibert and Dan Panosian, and colors by... a whole bunch of guys. Their work swings from the merely boring to the just plain ugly. It's a shame, because I think the book as a whole would come off much better if the art weren't so mediocre.
Regardless, there's nothing in here so bad that it will stop me from picking up Volume Two, which is the one I really wanted in the first place anyway.
B.P.R.D. Volume One: Hollow Earth and Other Stories
I finally found volume one of B.P.R.D.! Good stuff. This volume includes the first major story arc for the B.P.R.D. title (that being "Hollow Earth," of course), the first appearance of Lobster Johnson (woo hoo!), and the first Hellboy comic without Hellboy in it. Mignola wrote, or co-wrote, most of the stories in here, but drew none of them. "Hollow Earth" is a rather lengthy story - by Mignola, Christopher Golden, and Tom Sniegoski - that takes place shortly after Hellboy quits the B.P.R.D., with Abe and Roger considering quitting, too, and Liz taking a break and learning to understand her power at a monastery in the Ural Mountains. The character of Johann - the disembodied psychic who has to live in a containment suit - gets introduced here, and then something goes horribly awry at Liz's monastery and the whole team goes up to save her. It's a kick-ass story with interesting and moving character development, a lot of humor, tons of great action, and plenty of cool monsters. The art (pencils by Ryan Sook, inks by Sook and Curtis Arnold, and colors by Dave Stewart) is definitely deeply in the Mignola mode, but it has its own flare and style, and is really quite excellent. In other words, this story is a worthy extension of the Hellboy universe, and I am mighty pleased.
The rest of the stories in the book are much shorter. There's a little teaser for "Hollow Earth," the introductory story for Lobster Johnson (which features a murder mystery, a mad scientist, and a fight with an evil brain, and is thus truly fantastic), and a great little story explaining Roger's rebirth/reactivation and further developing Abe's character ("Abe Sapien Versus Science"). All of these were done with pretty much the same creative team (although the latter two were written solely by Mignola), but the final story, "Drums of the Dead," is by a completely different team - Brian McDonald on writing, Derek Thompson on art, and James Sinclair on colors. The art is... pretty good. It's a little extreme and misshapen at times, but generally I like it. The story gets a little melodramatic, but is also quite good. The final prize that the book has for us is a lovely little sketchbook in the back with work by Mignola and Ryan Sook. Yay! Can't wait for Volume Two!
Ultimate Power #8
It's pretty much wall-to-wall fighting this issue, as Doom, the Fantastic Four, the Ultimates, the X-Men, and two different versions of the Squadron Supreme all face-off against each other in a wild, insane, and even vaguely comical melee. And next issue things are going to get even more complicated as Spider-Man and the Hulk enter the fray. Sadly, as awesome as all that sounds, this issue was actually not all that exciting. It seems like every issue of this series has been written by a different guy (this one was by Jeph Loeb), but despite that the style has remained pretty consistent. Which would be great if the style was particularly strong and entertaining. But it's just average. The art has also been in the same style throughout, but I think that's because it's all been by the same guy (pencils by Greg Land). He gives all the characters a statuesque quality, and the book in general a kind of artsy realism. It's pretty good. So yeah, this book isn't great, but it's pretty cool, with some legendary battles, and anyway there's only one issue left!
Batman #670
The first part of the Resurrection of Ra's al Ghul storyline. And it's pretty good! Morrison - besides, of course, bringing back Ra's al Ghul - also briefly brings back, from out of the deep vaults of the DC archives, some extremely obscure characters (which is pretty much his thing, I guess) before Batman wipes the floor with them. As it turns out, nobody, not even Ra's al Ghul's family, really want him back, which leads to Batman's son going on the move again - cool! Also, one guy doesn't want the Demon back so much that he gets together "seven men of death" who are all masters in history's greatest school of marital arts - seriously awesome! I'm actually feeling pretty good about this storyline now! Huzzah!
Superman Confidential #8
This is the first issue in a three-part story arc for this title, a title which I'm just following intermittently now while waiting for Darwyn Cooke's story arc to return. The opening of this issue has some neat bits, when it focuses on the idea of people being afraid of Superman because of his great abilities, and because of the fact that he seems to draw trouble to him. It's interesting to see Superman react to this, both as Clark and as his alter-ego. But then the book actually starts into the story proper, and it gets rather boring. The Forever People are an interesting concept, but it seems to be rather hard to write decent stories about them, especially when one of them's a cowboy and another one goes by the name "Beautiful Dreamer." And really it's not that this story is bad, it's just not that interesting, and the art is merely adequate. I think I'll be skipping the next couple issues of this title, at least.
Action Comics #858
Luckily, I did pick up a good Superman title this week, and it was this surprisingly excellent issue of Action Comics. I had really kind of expected this to suck, because it's a major DC title and I dislike most major DC titles, but it's really good, with excellent art by Gary Frank and an intriguing story written by Geoff Johns. Part of what makes the comic work so well, I think, is all the nostalgia buttons it pushes. Seeing the Legion of Super-Heroes come out of the past again, both the same and quite different than they were before, is really affecting for some reason. As is the twisted, anti-Superman origin at the beginning of the story, and the wonderful by-play amongst Superman, Jimmy, Perry White, and the other Daily Planet staffers. But the story doesn't coast its way forward entirely on the strength of nostalgia; it's also exciting in its own right, with some surprising twists and turns. And did I mention how awesome the art is? I can hardly believe it, but I'm going to have to start collecting this title.
Crime Bible: The Five Lessons of Blood #1
Now this is more what I expect from DC - disappointing! The story is some kind of weird thing about a cult of sin who worship Cain (you know, that guy from the Bible). And they're trying to scare people into joining their religion by killing a whole family. It's kind of cool - especially the Biblical-type prologue - but it doesn't really make a lot of sense. And the Question is here investigating things, but it's the new, lamer Question. And I really just don't care. Definitely won't be following this one any further.
Midnighter: Armageddon
This book, sadly, was also very disappointing - possibly even more disappointing, as I'd been expecting more out of a one-shot about the end of the world starring the Midnighter, and co-starring the rest of the Authority. Turns out the book is actually a prologue of sorts to some kind of giant event in the Wildstorm universe called Armageddon. Void of the Wildcats shows up and takes Midnighter into the future so he can see the terrible apocalyptic aftermath of some mysterious event, in the hopes that he will discover what happened and learn how to stop it. The problem is, not only do all the readers know this premise is old hat, even the characters know it's old hat. When Void shows up and takes Midnighter into the future, he almost immediately says something along the lines of, "Okay, what parallel universe is this?" She tells him it's his own future and he says, "Oh, I get it, some awful thing happened and I need to figure out what it is so I can stop it." He practically yawns. Later on, when he meets the Authority, they figure out what's going on and where he's come from almost right away - because they've already done this before, and they know how the story works. And when even your characters find the story predictable and boring, how the hell are we supposed to react as readers? The writing here is by Christos Gage, and I think he's the problem. His work is not really particularly bad, it's just never really very interesting. Ellis' Authority was an insane bunch of bastards who were always in the middle of something absolutely jaw-droppingly gigantic and crazy that you had never ever seen before, and they were always quipping and fucking their way through the whole thing. Gage's is just... not like that. Simon Coleby's art is pretty good, but... man. I'm really starting to be annoyed with this Gage guy.
X-Men: Messiah Complex #1
Blech. Another giant, world-changing X-Men story arc. I don't know why I even picked this thing up. Brubaker's on writing duties, but it's definitely not his best work. It's true this is really just a prologue to the real meat of the story, but a prologue should get you excited about reading more, and this utterly fails to do that. There's nothing exciting or new going on here in terms of plot, character, or dialogue. Professor X gets a sudden, powerful reading from Cerebra. The X-Men head out to track it down, and hopefully recruit a new mutant. Instead they find a horrible catastrophe and realize that the mutant is in the hands of said enemies. I could have just described pretty much any X-Men story ever. I definitely won't be collecting any more of these.
Transmetropolitan Volume Zero: Tales of Human Waste
Transmetropolitan Volume One: Back on the Street
I actually read some Transmetropolitan a long while back - I think I borrowed it from Peccable who'd borrowed it from somebody else, or something like that. I remembered it being pretty good, and when I saw it on the shelf with the name "Ellis" on it, I figured, what the heck? And of course, me being the sequence-obsessed person I am, I had to get volumes zero and one first. As it turns out, however, Zero is actually a coda to the series consisting of excerpts from columns (by reporter and series main character Spider Jerusalem) slapped on top of big illustrations (of Jerusalem and his strange world) done by a series of famous artists. I haven't actually finished the whole thing yet, but I think I can safely say at this point that it's not really very good. It's not a story, just a bunch of short observations that tend toward the corny and pointless.
I can't say I'm too impressed with Volume One, either. In Garth Ennis' introduction he claims that when a great artist is given free reign to do whatever he wants, obviously the result will be great work. He says Ellis' work on superhero comics is good, but inevitably inferior because of the ridiculous superhero premise, and that his work on Transmetropolitan is him at his best and his purest.
First of all, I quarrel with the idea that superhero comics are lame. Many people claim this, and it seems to me to be patently false. How could superhero comics have become so incredibly popular and lasted so long if they were just crappy from the ground up? Obviously there's something very attractive about the premise that can ignite people's imaginations, and I personally think that all of Ellis' best work is in that genre.
Second of all, although I once would have agreed that an artist should be given free reign so he can create great work, now I'm not so sure. Sometimes that's true, but more often an artist needs adversity to fight against and limits to work inside of in order to be energized and forced into doing really creative work.
I'll agree that Transmetropolitan is probably Ellis at his purest, but not that it's Ellis at his finest. In fact, when Ellis gets to do exactly what he wants to do, I find that the result is some of his least interesting work. Doktor Sleepless, for instance, is a recent work by Ellis that, as I understand it, was him at his purest, and I dropped that after one issue. Now, I plan to pick up at least one more volume of Transmetropolitan, but Volume One is still some of the least impressive Ellis stuff I've ever read.
It's about a hateful, bitter reporter with the unlikely name of Spider Jerusalem, once famous and well-respected, who literally went up into the mountains to escape from humanity and civilization, and who has now found that he must come back down into the city to meet a contractual obligation (he has to write two books), and to get more money to live on. Naturally he gets a job as a reporter, and almost immediately finds himself in the middle of a huge story.
Jerusalem's world is an insane future full of aliens and drugs and consumerism and garbage and body modification and filthy sex and porn and mutants and weapons and violence and hate. It's vaguely similar to the future seen in Doktor Sleepless. Every image in the book is just loaded with information, with logos and strange creatures shouldering their way into every little crevice. Jerusalem himself is a paranoid, drug-addicted, hateful, violent man with no friends who, despite all of this, does actually seem to be a champion for the oppressed with a tiny little nugget of gold buried deep in his black, disease-ridden heart. His cat has two faces and smokes. In the beginning of the book he looks quite a bit like Alan Moore, and I can't believe that's entirely a coincidence.
Transmetropolitan is a book about politics and society. It's complex and intelligent, radical and corny, ridiculous and fascinating. So yeah, it's not a bad book. But it's not a great book, either, and great is what I expect from Mr. Ellis. Still, I will give it at least one more chance, and pick up Volume Two when I get the chance. |
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