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| Friday, December 28, 2007 11:51 AM |
| The Take |
 by Fëanor |
My trip to the comic book store was a little too successful this past week. It's true that I wasn't able to find one item I was looking for (the Marvel Holiday Special 2007, which I'm guessing was very popular and sold out, but I didn't ask; it's probably just as well I wasn't able to find it, because it probably sucks). But I did find a couple of things I wasn't looking for (Angel and The Goon, as you'll see below). I'd be embarrassed to tell you how much money I spent. Those TPBs add up quick, let me tell you!
Thunderbolts Volume 1: Faith in Monsters
The "Volume 1" in the title is slightly misleading here, as Thunderbolts is a book that's been around for a long time, and this volume collects recent issues of the series #110-#115, plus a couple of one-shot extras. It's really only "Volume 1" insofar as it's the start of Warren Ellis' run on the title - which is why I bought it at all. The thing is only available in hardcover, so even though I've been seeing it on the shelf in the comic book store every week for the past month or so, I've been deliberately passing it by, waiting until I could pick it up for cheap on Amazon, or until it came out in TPB. But a couple of weeks ago, I finally could withstand the temptation no longer, and I took it down and purchased it.
And I have to say I'm pleased with the decision, because it's a fantastic book. The Thunderbolts have always been a team of former villains trying to redeem themselves by taking on the roles of heroes, but in the post-Civil War Marvel universe, with registration forces finding it necessary to rely on villains more and more to help them round up anti-registration rebels, that concept has become more widespread and more interesting. Ellis therefore uses the book to look at what the consequences would be if you really put criminals, psychopaths, and other headcases in charge of rounding up rebels. Which means a whole lot of twisted, clever, hilarious dialogue; awesome action; and brilliant satire (gotta love the commercial for the Thunderbolts action figures, the parody of Stan Lee's superhero reality show - which in the comic also stars Stan Lee - and the great clips of talking heads on "Fix News" and so forth). The great thing about the Thunderbolts is that everybody in the team and in charge of the team is a broken, insane, amoral fuck-up. Almost every mission they go on in this book is a disaster of one kind or another. Osborn is mixing medications and obsessing about Spider-Man. Bullseye is frothing at the mouth and killing whoever he can get his hands on, just for kicks. Penance's suit is essentially an iron maiden, and when he screws up, he punishes himself by banging his head into a wall over and over. The guys they're going after have their own problems, but still manage to put up some great fights against the Thunderbolts.
To sum up, Ellis' Thunderbolts is not only a great analysis of politics and the media, and a brilliant parody and satire of our own culture and the Marvel U, it's also an exciting action comic. Oh, and Mike Deodato Jr.'s art is slick and beautiful.
The interesting thing is, the two one-shots in the back of the book were written by two different people, and drawn by two different artists, and in the hands of someone who is not Ellis, the characters are a lot less interesting, and the story in general is a lot less complex, clever, and engaging. The first of the one-shots tells the story of a mission that took place between a couple of Ellis' previous issues, wherein Osborn was testing Penance to see how much he could do, and the second is a prequel to Ellis' run, showing how Venom joined the team. They're still pretty good stories, and I think if I'd read them outside the context of Ellis' work I might have enjoyed them more. But reading them at the end of this book just really underlined for me how different the same characters and story can be in the hands of another author.
The Goon Volume 0: Rough Stuff
Well, crap. Now I've gotta collect all of these.
I'd heard a lot of good things about The Goon, and even read bits of a hilarious Hellboy crossover online, so when I saw it on the shelf, I figured it was time to give it a try, and as usual I started at the lowest numbered volume available, which in this case was Volume 0, a book that collects the earliest Goon stories, originally done in black and white, but colored here for the first time, and accompanied by a special comic introduction from the Goon himself, as well as some interesting sketches in the back showing how the Goon evolved.
According to the author's text introduction in the front, this is the "crappy" Goon book, and everything after this is better - which is slightly hard to believe, as this book is page after page of pure, unadulterated comic book joy.
The Goon's world is a Depression-era American city that's been mostly taken over by the zombie priest, who's been building a huge crime family from the dead. But a small area of the city remains safe thanks to mob boss Labrazio's number one enforcer, a hard-hitting, nigh invulnerable bad-ass known only as the Goon. His sidekick Franky helps, too. The two of them get into various adventures which usually involve them doing horrible things to a variety of monsters, and occasionally having horrible things done to them. And as the story goes on, you learn a little bit more about the mysterious past of the Goon and his boss, Labrazio.
Eric Powell wrote, drew, and inked this book, with master artist Dave Stewart providing the colors. Stewart's work is as good as always, and Powell's is pure brilliance. The dialogue is absolutely hilarious, the stories are engaging, silly, imaginative, and action-packed, and the art is wonderful. The Goon is a big ugly lovable brick of a man, and the monsters he fights are wonderfully grotesque. The comic actually reminds me a little of Milk and Cheese, especially the one-off strips in the back of the book. M&C, if you don't know, is an indie comic wherein the titular characters spend each issue becoming full of hate on some particular topic, and then going about beating people and breaking things. Thankfully, The Goon has a lot more story and complexity to it, and I enjoy it quite a bit more, but the Goon and Franky are amoral anti-heroes who enjoy violence nearly as much as Milk and Cheese.
Another comic that The Goon reminds me of is Hellboy. Like Hellboy, The Goon is about a big lug of a main character who fights monsters. But it's a lot less serious, and a lot more surreal. I absolutely love it, and I can't wait to read the other volumes.
B.P.R.D. Volume 4: The Dead
Speaking of Hellboy, I'm still working my way through the collections of B.P.R.D., the best Hellboy comic around that doesn't have Hellboy in it, and here's the latest installment. In short, it's fantastic, as good or better than Plague of Frogs. It picks up where that book left off, with Abe on the trail of his mysterious past, and the rest of the team still trying to track down and destroy all the frog monsters. This is also the collection in which Daimio joins the team, and they relocate to the giant base in the side of the mountain. While Abe is off nearly getting trapped in the embrace of his dead wife, the team finds itself fighting off the ghosts of an old Nazi space project, and the phantom of Rasputin touches them once again, albeit in a very indirect way. Both parts of the story (by Mike Mignola and John Arcudi) are absolutely riveting (with the ending of Abe's part being particularly moving), and beautifully drawn and colored (by Guy Davis and Dave Stewart). The dialogue is funny and clever, the plot full of unexpected shocks, twists, and turns, the monsters horrifying. It's brilliant stuff. These are a bunch of serious creative talents at the top of their game, and it's a joy to watch.
Astonishing X-Men Volume 1
I am currently reading this title in issues, but I only started picking it up around #20, so I thought it was time I went back and took in the beginning of it all in this first collection of Joss Whedon's run on the book, which pulls together Astonishing X-Men #1-5. Sadly, it's a bit uneven. Whedon can tend towards the melodramatic and corny at times, and he does that here. Also, the story is so obviously a Whedon construct, with the mysterious Big Bad hiding behind the scenes to be revealed later, and the angsty, soap opera-esque relationship troubles of the heroes splashing all over the place, that it's a little tiring. Still, it's not all bad; there are some great action scenes, some funny dialogue, and I always enjoy John Cassaday's art (although Emma comes off looking like an ugly, faded porn star). Plus, the story - despite its familiar structure - is interesting. It's the beginning of the Breakworld arc that Whedon is still writing about in the series now. Interwoven with this is a mutant cure storyline that's vaguely similar to the storyline of X-Men: The Last Stand - and indeed that movie came out after the original issues, so it's quite possible that bit was lifted from them. It's interesting how careful Whedon is to fit his story into the X-Men's continuity. He's constantly referring to earlier storylines, even as far back as the original Dark Phoenix saga, but he never does so in a really showy or awkward way - he just has the characters mention past events in a way that makes sense and that gives everything a feeling of history and continuation. Anyway, it's not as mind-blowing as Grant Morrison's run on New X-Men, but it's a fun bunch of issues, and I'll probably pick up the next volume if I come across it.
Angel: After the Fall #2
I hadn't meant to purchase this, but I saw it and decided I might as well pick it up and give this series one more chance. In this issue, the fallout from Angel's decision to kill the son of a demon lord begins. All kinds of other demons begin fighting over his territory, and Angel heads to help his son Connor, whom he knows will now be a target of the dead demon's father. Then he finds the remains of what Gunn and his crew did to the demon lord, and evidence left there leads him to go interrogate Spike and... the demon woman who appears to be keeping him as a pet. Not sure who the demon woman is, but I think it's supposed to be the possessed version of Fred. Anyway, more of the details of what happened immediately after the end of the final episode of Angel leak out here. It's all kind of interesting in its own way, but as I said before, the spark is missing that would make it great. The messy, ugly art doesn't help. And it bugs me that Gunn appears to be a vampire with a bit of a conscience, or at least a vampire bothered by the fact that he's a vampire. And up until this point it's seemed clear that in the Buffyverse, all vampires are completely evil and guiltless unless they have souls. So that's a little confusing. The point is, it's just not exciting enough for me to keep collecting. And hopefully I'll be able to remember that when #3 comes out.
Umbrella Academy: Apocalypse Suite #4
In this fourth issue of Gerard Way's crazy cool mini-series, we get more dysfunctional family quarrels, some weird guys show up to mess with time-travelling boy and the monkey, and Vanya finally comes into her own (sort of). It's good stuff, and I'm ready for the next issue.
What If? Civil War #1
This, my friends, is truly, truly terrible. I've really got to stop buying the What If? titles, I think. The fact that Brubaker had written part of this one, and the fact that it was dealing with a storyline I enjoyed, enticed me into picking it up, despite the fact that another part of it had been written by my nemesis, Christos Gage. Ironically, Brubaker's part is small and not very good, Gage's part is large and not all that bad, and the worst part is by some dude I've never heard of named Kevin Grevioux.
The issue consists of two What If? scenarios enclosed by a frame story set in the "real" Marvel universe. In the frame story, by Brubaker, a stranger appears after Captain America's funeral to show Tony Stark two other ways that the whole Civil War saga could have unfolded. In the first story, by Grevioux, Iron Man dies from the Extremis injection (which I assume I'll learn more about when I finally get my hands on Warren Ellis' Iron Man Extremis collection) well before the Civil War storyline even begins, and Captain America ends up being the one to speak out against registration to the government. He still leads the anti-registration forces, but because Iron Man isn't there, it's heartless government agents who head up the pro-registration forces, leading to an even bloodier, more horrifying conflict that ends with many of the heroes dead and the evil government agents in charge of the country.
This story is awful in every way. It's clumsily told and poorly paced, it's melodramatic, the dialogue is stupid and ridiculous, the plot is unbelievable and cliched. If the art were any good, there would at least be something positive for me to say about it, but sadly the pencils, by someone calling himself simply Gustavo, are also dreadful. The people are all ugly and misshapen, and are constantly getting into ridiculously melodramatic poses or making completely hideous faces at each other for no reason. There are people in here who look like they're standing in a wind chamber, their cheeks being blown back by a giant fan, or who look like they're having a seizure, or falling asleep. But they're all just supposed to be having conversations with each other. It's horrendous. I just scanned the last few pages, because by that point I couldn't stand to look at the pictures or read the words anymore.
The second story (by Gage) is marginally better, although still not good. In this version, after one of their big conflicts, Captain America, instead of ambushing Tony, has a change of heart and agrees to talk things over with him. But a S.H.I.E.L.D. tech overreacts and unleashes the Thor clone anyway, and pro- and anti-registration forces come together to fight and defeat the creature. Another talk between Iron Man and Captain America after the battle solidifies the peace, with Cap agreeing to take on administration of the registration and training process. In this story, everything ends so happily, and Iron Man and Cap are such good buddies, that you almost want to puke. It's not terrible, but like a lot of What If? stories, it crunches huge events and spans of time into only a few panels, and feels mostly like a pointless exercise. Plus, it's Gage, so it's not all that well written, although it's so much better than the crap that precedes it, that it's really quite a relief.
Anyway, things wrap up with a final visit to the frame story, in which the stranger breaks things down for Tony, and Tony just breaks down. So yeah, not a good book. Unless somebody I really respect and admire is working on the next What If? issue, I definitely will not be picking it up.
Detective Comics #829
This, the final installment in the 7-part Resurrection of Ra's al Ghul storyline, is... actually pretty good! Sure, the climactic fight is interrupted by a literal deus ex machina, but I was expecting something like that to happen, so when it did, it didn't bother me that much. Obviously Batman and Ra's al Ghul couldn't really fight to the death, and things had to return to some kind of status quo. And anyway, there were a lot of great action sequences leading up to it, as well as some funny dialogue, and some great character development between Batman and Damian. And then there was the admittedly slightly sappy, but also rather effective, holiday-themed conclusion. I liked it!
Black Summer #2-4
Well, now that I'm caught up with Warren Ellis' Black Summer (although I'd still like to read #0 if I can find it somewhere), I can say that it has remained awesome throughout its run so far. I love Juan Jose Ryp's artwork and Mark Sweeney's color; together they render scenes of quiet human emotion just as well and as impressively as scenes of superhuman power and extreme violence. Their work is especially important here as there are many panels in these books that are wordless, and that must tell the story through visuals alone. Said story is complex and excellent and examines the kind of chaos that would result if a metahuman chose to take the law in his own hands and kill the president for crimes against humanity. Like most Ellis books, this thing is full of interesting characters, political and cultural satire, crazy mad future science, breath-taking scenes of epic violence, and dark comedy. It's brilliant and fantastic.
As an aside, something that fascinated and confused me about this book is that the background art includes real brand names and logos. In Marvel and DC books, the logos and brand names you see in the background are fake parodies of the real things; for instance, in Ellis' own Thunderbolts, Fox News appears as Fix News (as I mentioned above). But in this book, Fox News, CNN Headline News, and Pepsi all appear as themselves. I wonder if this is because Avatar (the book's publisher) got permission to use those logos, or because Avatar just doesn't care and is going to do what they like, in the hopes that no one will notice or make a fuss, since they're not one of the Big Two. I'm guessing the latter.
World War Hulk: Warbound #1
Well, I'll be damned. This is actually really good. Pak has written an engaging, action-packed story, and managed to keep these characters interesting even with the Hulk now gone from among them. He also adds in the interesting and sympathetic character of S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Waynesboro. The crazy crap that goes on at the end, including the reveal of the familiar old villain behind it all, is also awesome. Even the back-up story, wherein Miek reveals a shameful incident from Elloe Kaifi's past, is quite good. I'll definitely be following this title.
Incredible Hulk/Herc #112
Pak's other Aftersmash title this past week was the 112th issue of this volume of Incredible Hulk, whose star character is now going to be Hercules, with Amadeus Cho co-starring, and the rest of the Renegades occasionally making guest appearances. Cho and Hercules are the perfect team - brains and brawn - and they work together excellently in this issue. It's another triumph for Pak, and another book I'll have to keep collecting. The dialogue is great, and Pak does a great job developing Hercules' character, digging into his past to parallel his story with the Hulk's, and to set up the background for this upcoming arc, which will set Cho and Herc against S.H.I.E.L.D., Ares, and the Avengers. Can't wait to see where it goes.
Star Wars: Dark Times #7
There weren't any moments in this issue with the power and pathos of the Order 66 sequence in #6, but it was still a pretty entertaining and engaging story, further developing the characters of the smugglers, connecting their story with that of the Jedi and the younglings, and tantalizing us with the mystery of the strange and valuable piece of cargo. This isn't a great issue, but it certainly isn't bad, and I'm definitely sticking with the book for now.
Immortal Iron Fist #11
Xao's plan for the train to K'un-Lun finally comes into focus, Danny teams up with his buddies in the old school Heroes for Hire for an old school Hydra ass-kicking, we learn a bit more about what turned Davos to the dark side, we get to see another brutal round in the tournament, and Danny finally comes back to the tournament ready to do some more ass-kicking next issue. Good times!
The Order #6
Holy crap! Could anything else go wrong for The Order at this point? It looks like Mulholland is practically fired, the giant animal monsters and Man from S.H.A.D.O.W. plotlines both come to a head, there's a problem with the new HQ, and out of a wall of water around San Fran a new player steps onto the stage to mess things up even more. Crazy and awesome. |
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