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| Sunday, June 22, 2008 11:22 AM |
| The Take |
 by Fëanor |
Fëanor's weekly comic book review post.
This covers comics from the week of 6/11/08, plus a trade paperback from the library, and an older miniseries I just got around to reading.
Back issues and old data
Wisdom #2 - #6
I read some scans of this relatively recent six-issue Marvel Max miniseries online a long time ago, decided I needed to own it, and set out to collect it. Finding #2 through #6 was relatively easy, but #1 proved elusive. Still, I resolved not to read the other issues until I could find #1. Then along came a new series called Captain Britain and MI-13 (you can read my review of the latest issue below), which prominently features characters from the Wisdom miniseries, and makes reference back to events which occurred within it. I decided it was time to forget about finding Wisdom #1, and just read the rest of it. Which I did.
And I am very pleased. This is an insane and vaguely confusing miniseries, and not just because I'd missed the first issue and had almost no familiarity with any of the characters; it also has a rather odd structure. Sometimes it feels like there are some pages missing, it jumps forward so fast and so furiously. And then there's all the crazy British slang. But thankfully I was able to mostly keep up, and I had a lot of fun hanging on for the ride. As things open up, super-powered mutant Pete Wisdom of MI-13 (the division of British Intelligence assigned to deal with the really weird, paranormal stuff) has just had to marry the daughter of the king of fairies in order to stop a war and cement a peace between humans and fairies. Wisdom's team includes his new wife, Tink; Maureen Raven, who can take over people's brains; John the Skrull, who's a Skrull who looks like John Lennon, and is only one part of an entire Skrull Beatles; and Captain Midlands, a super-human war hero. They're quite a group. Wisdom and his team are in the village of Pantagruel where everybody's having really weird, disturbing dreams. Things get even worse when the force causing the dreams somehow taps into Maureen and starts broadcasting the dreams all the time. Turns out it's the giant Pantagruel, one of the sleeping giants whose dreams influence the character of British life. In their attempts to quieten the giant, they mistakenly awaken her, and she gets into a fight with some giant robot guardians while wearing the village on her head. It's a fantastic and amazing sequence. And each issue of the series is like that - taking some mystical thing about Britain and its history and legends and twisting and turning it into a crazy modern story, with plenty of drama and humor and sex and violence (what else do you expect from a Marvel Max title?). The next issue involves kung fu, dragons, and making fun of Wales. Things are complicated, and the threat of war between humans and fairies rears its ugly head again, when Wisdom starts to fall for Maureen and begins cheating on Tink. Then there's the story about the dude who's making Jack the Rippers from many different universes materialize in our own. He turns out to be at the center of the major story arc that fills out the rest of the miniseries, wherein some ancient monsters from beyond space and time sneak their way into our world to conquer. It all leads into a huge and incredibly epic battle, which concludes with a very small, personal, and tragic bit of necessary violence. It's a very powerful story, incredibly fast-paced, and incredibly British. And the Skrull Beatles are awesome.
Thumbs Up
JLA: The Greatest Stories Ever Told
Picked this one up at the library. It's an anthology of what are meant to be the best Justice League stories, presented mostly chronologically, from 1963 through 2002. I say mostly chronologically because it actually starts out with a short origin story for the JLA from 1982, then there's an introduction, and then it goes back to 1963 for the first full-length story, and continues chronologically from there.
The origin is just a summary really, I believe of a story that was told in a much older JLA book. It's only three pages long, and tells of the arrival of a group of aliens who intend to take over the world, and how the heroes of the JLA joined together to defeat them, and decided that they should remain a team should anything this big ever threaten the Earth again.
The first real story is "The Super-Exiles of Earth" by Gardner Fox with pencils by Mike Sekowsky. It features all the members of the League being defeated by their more powerful doubles, who then begin committing a series of crimes. Naturally the real Justice League is blamed, and seeing as how they have no proof that they didn't do it, they agree to be exiled from Earth. But it turns out the creep behind it all is Doctor Destiny, who somehow, even from his jail cell, was able to infect the JLA with a drug that made them dream of their super-doubles, and then, using some kind of insane contraption which he apparently also built in jail, caused those dream doubles to materialize. And because he did it, they were evil dream doubles.
The real Justice League figure out part of this while floating around in space, and determine that they can go back to Earth as long as they go back as their secret identities - after all, although Superman has been exiled from Earth, Clark Kent hasn't. Unfortunately, this means they'll have to reveal their secret identities to the people of the Earth, but they decide it's worth it. Unfortunately, nothing has changed, and they still can't defeat their more super duplicates. But the League does convince their duplicates not to actually kill them, and while the League is imprisoned, they come up with a crazy plan to defeat their duplicates: shoot the Atom into the brains of their enemies where he'll mess around in there until they can't control their own bodies! And what do you know, it works! And then, since it's really inconvenient that everybody knows their identities, the League uses Amnesium (AKA DeusEsMachinium) to make everybody forget.
This is the problem with pretty much all of the older stories in this book - the premise is really interesting, but the story ultimately makes no sense at all. I mean, just read that summary. The plot is insane and completely unbelievable. It feels like they just made it up as they went along. The characters, meanwhile, have no depth whatsoever. They're totally bland and, if it weren't for the fact that they have slightly different super powers, they'd be completely interchangeable.
The next story comes from six years later, and it's entitled "Snapper Carr - Super Traitor." This is another story with a really fascinating premise that could have been really good in the hands of a better writer. Not that Denny O'Neil is a bad writer, per se. But I've never thought he was as good as people say. In this tale (apparently a rather infamous one in the history of the DCU), long-time honorary member of the League, Snapper Carr, who's just a nice guy with no powers, is accosted by one John Dough, supposedly the most normal man in America. Dough leads a growing cult of normalcy, celebrating all things ordinary and attacking all things extraordinary, including the Justice League. He turns Carr to his cause, and uses him to help him overcome and capture Batman, and then to help him try to discredit the rest of the Justice League. Ultimately, after an unlikely series of events, he's foiled and unmasked as the Joker.
Again, we've got a really interesting premise: the idea of normal people rising up against the League out of fear and distrust. The idea of an old friend of the League turning on them out of his own fear, and also out of jealousy. But just as things are getting interesting, it all comes to a halt, and O'Neil backs away from what could have been some really powerful ideas. The plot is silly, the characters skeletal, and the dialogue ridiculous.
The next story, "The Great Identity Crisis" from 1975 (not to be confused with the DCU's Identity Crisis storyline from more modern times), written by Martin Pasko, is even sillier. Here one of the lamer DC supervillains, Dr. Light, makes unlikely use once again of the ridiculous element Amnesium to swap the League members' secret identities, so now Green Arrow believes he's Ray Palmer, and Batman believes he's Barry Allen, and so forth. And somehow this helps him defeat them, although why is anybody's guess. Of course his triumph is only temporary, but after the ordeal the League all agree that they should now all share their secret identities with each other, in order to keep this from happening again. Although again, how that would have helped in this situation is again anybody's guess; it's not like any of them said, "Well, I'd better go back to my job as Barry Allen!" before splitting up.
Another story with a great premise that doesn't end up going anywhere interesting is "The League that Defeated Itself" from 1979 with writing by Gerry Conway. In this story, for various nonsensical reasons and through various nonsensical means, a group of supervillains manages to switch bodies with the Justice League (after subduing all of them, which should have been a lot harder than it was). This sets up an interesting sequence of events wherein the bad guys, in the bodies of the good guys, trick other good guys into helping them subdue the good guys in the bodies of the bad guys. Also, the good guys and bad guys both get to play around with some powers they're not used to having. Like I said, cool idea. But again it's spoiled by poor writing. The plot is idiotic, the dialogue stupid. The characters are slightly more differentiated from each other, but still pretty wooden and bland.
The next story is when things finally start to get really interesting. "Born Again" is from 1987, with writing duties shared by Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis. The story originally appeared in a relaunch of the Justice League title, and it features a mixed up team composed of both new and classic characters, including Guy Gardner, Oberon, Mr. Miracle, Captain Marvel, Martian Manhunter, Blue Beetle, Black Canary, Dr. Fate, and Batman. A meeting of this new League turns almost instantly into a squabble and then a brawl. As Dr. Fate and Batman walk in on the fight, Fate offers to take care of the situation, but Batman declines his help and just silently walks in the room. All the super-powered heroes stop what they're doing, and Batman cools off Gardner just by telling him to sit down. It's a brilliant moment that captures Batman's bad-ass character perfectly. It's also fascinating to see a squabbling Justice League for a change, instead of the happy, bland group we're used to. And it's fascinating to see among them an anti-hero character like Gardner, who's essentially a good guy, but also a pig and a bastard. After their disagreement, the League gets to defuse a hostage situation and terrorist take-over of the UN, but don't realize that there's a bigger villain pulling the strings in the background. This story is kind of the opposite of all the stories that have come before it in this book. It has a rather boring premise, but manages to be good anyway because of the strong writing and fascinating characters.
Next up is another winner by an even stronger duo of writers: Grant Morrison and Mark Millar. It's called "Star-Seed" and it tells the secret origin of the new JLA. This new team comes together to save the Flash and the city of Blue Valley when he and all the other people there are taken over by an invading alien entity. (Stan Lee appears in a cameo as a security guard. That guy gets around!) This time the line-up is all the classic heavy-hitters: Superman (the bad hair Superman, unfortunately), Green Lantern (Kyle Rayner this time), Wonder Woman, Aquaman (one-armed), Martian Manhunter, and Batman. As they plot their attack on the alien lifeforce, the Spectre shows up to tell them to stand down, because if they act, their super-powered bodies will be taken over, too, leading to a catastrophic chain of events that will bring death and destruction not only to Earth, but to the entire universe, and other universes as well. Determined to help anyway, they ask the Spectre to take away their powers; that way if they fail they won't be a threat to the world. The Spectre can do that?! Apparently, because he does so! And it turns out most of the Justice League is pretty useless without powers, but they do keep the alien busy long enough for Batman to save the day - with a little help from the Flash.
There are some bad things about this story (the Spectre, as usual, is bombastic and pretentious - man that guy bugs me - and Howard Porter's art is often quite bad), but overall it's a very interesting and exciting story that again shows us just why Batman is such a serious bad-ass and why he deserves to sit at the same table with a bunch of super-humans. It also captures a lot of what the Justice League is all about: a group of real heroes who will band together and fight evil, no matter the odds. But it's funny how nobody in any of these stories can find a good use for Aquaman. He's such a pointless character.
The final story in the book, from 2002 with writing by Joe Kelly and art by Doug Mahnke, is called "Two-Minute Warning." It's an interesting tale that jumps back and forth through time, showing you a member of the League joining in to help in the latest crisis, then flashing back two minutes to show you where that member was then, and what he/she was doing in his/her "normal" life. The guy who ultimately saves the day is, oddly enough, Plastic Man. His normal life is exceedingly strange, and he gets to drop in some fun post-modern commentary. But it's the sequence with the Flash that's probably my favorite part. "You're touching me. Batman is touching me. I'm going to die, aren't I?" Then they put him on a missile. It's awesome. Also, what he was doing two minutes ago is pretty much everything: having breakfast, saving various people, saying hello to friends, reading the entire novel The Stand, kissing a girl, doing his laundry... Brilliant.
This is one of my favorite stories. Again it does a great job of capturing the essence of the Justice League - a bunch of heroes trying to live their normal lives while also constantly being called to save the universe. It also has lots of funny dialogue, great little character portraits, and tons of fun action. Oh, and Batman is a bad-ass genius. Can't forget that!
All in all, it's an entertaining book. Although I enjoyed the modern stories much, much more than the older ones, I still have to admit those old stories are full of wild, wacky, and fun ideas, and they're entertaining in their own way.
Thumbs Sideways
New releases
B.P.R.D.: War on Frogs #1
This is a one-shot that goes back in time to before (or perhaps during?) the events of The Black Flame and tells an interesting story about everybody's favorite homunculus, Roger. When the frogs start overrunning the land, B.P.R.D. decides to send Roger and a small team back to Cavendish Hall to see if they can capture the two original frogs who disappeared there all those years ago (during the first Hellboy story arc). The hope is that examining those monsters can give them a better clue of how to stop the new ones they're facing. But all Roger finds is a few weird creatures protecting what's left of their family, and who should never have been disturbed. It's a surprisingly sad and touching little tale, and a strong character portrait. The writing is by John Arcudi, the pencils by Herb Trimpe, the inks by Guy Davis, and the colors by Dave Stewart. It's a familiar crew for a B.P.R.D. book, and they do their usual excellent job.
Thumbs Up
Action Comics #866
I was starting to worry that Geoff Johns had really lost his way and I wasn't going to read another good issue of this book by him again, but to my great joy, he's finally put out another winner here. I don't think it's a coincidence that the best issue of this title since the amazing Legion of Super Heroes arc happens to be the same one that features the return of Gary Frank on art. I wouldn't have thought that the artist could have such a huge affect on storytelling, but his fantastic work elevates this issue just as it did those Legion issues.
The story opens up with an intense flashback to the bottling of the city of Kandor on Krypton many ages ago. Then we jump forward to the present, where a staff meeting of the Daily Planet is commencing. There's a lot of fun and funny dialogue and character stuff here as the whole staff is reintroduced. Then Frank hits us with a fantastic full-page piece of art of Kent ripping off his shirt and glasses (and looking remarkably like Christopher Reeves) to go answer the call of his "other job." He meets and fights a Brainiac-like robot, but it shuts down as soon as it identifies him, after transmitting its discovery to a long dormant Brainiac ship that's full of bottled cities, and which subsequently activates and starts heading Superman's way. It's a really creepy, foreboding conclusion that's a chilling pleasure to read. And the whole rest of the book is just loaded with wonderful art and storytelling, and great humor and lovely character portraits. Action Comics is back! Woo hoo!
Thumbs Up
Skaar: Son of Hulk #1
This new ongoing series from Greg Pak opens up by jumping back in time to give a brief history of Hulk's life on the planet Sakaar, narrated by Caiera, who, it turns out, is thinking the story desperately to her child as she dies, trying to pass on the last of her strength and knowledge to him. She thinks she has failed and that he has died, but with both the Old Power and Hulk's blood in him, he's a pretty tough little creature, and he survives, even coming up with a name for himself out of a mispronunciation of the name of the planet: Skaar. We get a very abbreviated, sped up history of his early life, where he starts out a monster among monsters, killing to survive, and then becomes the protector of a motley group of survivors. He also is the last hope of many on the planet, and is considered a prophesied chosen one who will save them all. So a tyrant named Axeman Bone has been going around killing children in an effort to stamp out this last source of hope, and he seems to finally succeed in killing Skaar. But really he only made the guy angry, and we all know Bone's not going to like Skaar when he's angry.
This is an interesting concept for a series. I like the idea of the character, I like Pak as a writer, and I like Sakaar as a setting. Still, I found this book a little disappointing. The pacing is odd and jerky, and the story a bit of a retread of Pak's own Planet Hulk arc. But it's reasonably entertaining, and I plan to stick with it for now in the hopes that Pak can make something really interesting out of it. Skaar, after all, has the potential to be an even more powerful character than the Hulk!
Thumbs Sideways
Eternals #1
A new ongoing series about the Eternals, picking up right about where Gaiman's miniseries left off, with one group of "good" Eternals trying to reactivate the memories of their comrades, while another Eternal who's not so good tries to brainwash them to serve him. But, as this issue makes clear in a couple of really creepy scenes, the Eternals have more to worry about than each other: there's also the deadly Horde, who are on their way to destroy the Earth.
I was looking forward to this series, and hoping it would be really exciting (Marvel's certainly been advertising it enough), but it's actually a little dull. I mean, there are some cool ideas in here, and Daniel Acuna's art is pretty amazing. But the characters aren't really that interesting and the dialogue isn't that great. I'll probably stick it out at least one more issue to see if it gets better, but I'm already thinking pretty hard about dropping this one.
Thumbs Sideways
The Goon #25
When I'd gotten about halfway through this issue, all my former misgivings about Powell's new serious turn on this title came back to me. He's just a little corny when he gets all solemn and dramatic. But I stopped worrying again when I got to the immensely entertaining, action-packed, ass-kicking conclusion of the book. The war starts now! Woo hoo!
Thumbs Up
Green Lantern Corps #25
I think this is pretty easily the worst issue of this title I've read yet. It sees the Lanterns still fighting desperately against the giant plant called Mother Mercy, until an uneasy truce is struck and Mother Mercy drops her entire incredibly contrived and hard to believe backstory on them, and they come to an understanding of sorts. Right before they get blind-sided by Mongol. Meanwhile, back on Oa, the Guardians are seeing "violet surges" and worrying more about the Blackest Night prophecy. That one scene back on Oa is one of the few decent moments in the book, as the central story about the talking plant with the melodramatic past and ridiculous set of powers and abilities is just boring and awful. Here's hoping we can clear this crap up and get back to the over-arching storyline soon. Oh, and something else: although Patrick Gleason's art in this book is quite good when it comes to individual characters, it's quite bad when it comes to the big, complex battle scenes. There's a two-page splash in this comic that I stared at for minutes, trying to figure out what was going on, and finally gave up. It's just a mass of confusing colors, lines, and objects. And that wasn't the only piece of art I had that problem with; it came up pretty often, in fact. Maybe that has more to do with the new inker (Drew Geraci) or the colorist (Guy Major), but whose ever fault it is needs to shape up! It's hard to read a comic when you can't even tell what's going on in a lot of the panels.
Thumbs Down
newuniversal: shockfront #2
One guy who pretty much never disappoints me, and who I can always count on for great comics, is Mr. Warren Ellis, and his release this past week was no exception. This time we check in once again with Dr. Jennifer Swann, who's been busy at home creating some interesting gadgets that can apparently track the superhuman activity in the country - turns out there's a lot more than she thought there would be. Meanwhile, Kenneth and Izanami both become aware of the football player who just went super, but unfortunately so does Director Phil Voight - and he gets to the guy before they do. In yet another storyline, we meet a new character who has charted out what appears to be the entire insane alternate history of this world on her wall. She has become convinced that she is not living in the real world, and that this world experienced a divergence from reality at some point - but what point? I'm thinking that point is the event that created the earlier set of superhumans, back in the late '50s: the comet.
Anyway, interesting stuff, great ideas, exciting story. Plus, a preview image on the last page promises a new newuniversal miniseries set in 1959. Ellis isn't writing it, but the guy who is was apparently hand-picked by him, which sounds promising. It'll be interesting to see if Marvel actually succeeds in expanding their newuniversal titles into a whole separate universe of stories, as I believe that was their original intention many years ago when they first launched the thing.
Thumbs Up
Trinity #2
You know what sucks? Trinity. Seriously. I gave this thing two issues and now I'm done. This latest entry sees each of our heroes overcoming the obstacles that were thrown at them at the end of last issue, then Green Lantern has to face off against a big purple tank of an alien who doesn't talk, and his tiny yellow wisecracking alien friend who sits on his shoulder and never shuts up. I'll admit I liked the part where Batman escapes from a weird alternate dimension by sheer force of will, because that supports my beloved "Batman is a bad-ass" theory, but the rest of the issue is filled with weak dialogue and lame characters. Seriously, I hate all of the villains they've introduced so far. How many times have we seen the combination of a big grunting strong guy and a tiny cowardly wise-ass? So boring! And there's really nothing interesting in the book to make up for it. I think this is less the fault of the book's creators than it is the fault of the format; I'm just not sure you can put together a decent comic if you have to churn it out weekly.
Thumbs Down
Captain Britain and MI-13 #2
I loved loved loved issue #1 of this series, but this issue was a bit of a let-down. I don't know if the writing is weaker in this issue, or if it was weak all along but I didn't notice in the first issue because so much cool stuff was happening. Regardless, it's definitely not very good here, especially in the sequence with Faiza and the Black Knight. She acquires super powers in a really unlikely way, and then there's lots of lame dialogue. Some pretty cool and interesting stuff does happen, though: Wisdom and friends find Excalibur, but none of them can pull it out of the stone. Who is the chosen one? Whose voice is Wisdom hearing? Meanwhile, the Skrulls succeed tragically well in their conquest of the fairy world, merging various magical relics into one and creating their own terrifying sorceror supreme. I'm definitely sticking with the series, because I want to know how this all turns out. But I sure hope the writing gets better.
Thumbs Sideways
Red Mass for Mars #1
I generally stay away from Image comics, but the description of this one sounded really interesting: "In a world that has survived every catastrophe imaginable, a new threat from beyond the stars looks to be the end of all humanity. [It's] a story about the death of utopia, the last days of Earth and the one man who could save us all - but won't." Who is he? Why won't he? I'm intrigued. And when I picked the book up in the store and flipped through it, the art (by Ryan Bodenheim) looked really interesting, too. So I figured, why not?
And there are some neat things in it, but overall I was disappointed. Most of it is set in the near future, post-apocalypse, told from the perspective of a rich dude who can see the future. He knows a huge catastrophe is on the way in the form of an invasion by a bunch of nasty aliens. He has to try to put together a big band of super-humans to fight back. But apparently the most important guy, who's living on Mars, is going to be a hard-ass about it. There's also a rather inexplicable flashback to a medieval-type scene some 1300 years in the past. It's all a little confusing. We're being introduced to all these characters like we should already know them, but I'm pretty certain this is an all new story in an all new world. Probably it will all be explained in future issues, but I just don't care about it enough to stick around and find out. The writing (by Jonathan Hickman) isn't very good, and the characters are mostly dull or unlikable. I think I'll sit out the rest of the series.
Thumbs Down |
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