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| Saturday, July 12, 2008 08:17 AM |
| (Last updated on Wednesday, July 16, 2008 01:33 PM) | | The Take |
 by Fëanor |
Fëanor's weekly comic book review post.
This post covers new releases from the week of July 2nd.
Batman #678
The only really proper response to this comic is... WTF?! Grant Morrison is seriously losing it. That being said, there are fragments of interesting ideas in here, and I'm still holding out hope that it will all come together and make sense in the end. As for what actually happens in it... well, to some extent that's a matter of opinion. It opens with Robin eating and looking through what is apparently one of Batman's Black Casebooks, reading Bruce's personal notes about his struggle to keep reality and fantasy separate. Then Robin gets jumped by some of the ridiculously dressed Black Glove bad guys. He gets away, keeps eating (don't know what's up with all the eating), and tries to arrange a meet with Nightwing to figure out what's happened to Batman and what's with all the costumed creeps, but the creeps get to Nightwing first and do something pretty horrible to him. Meanwhile, what's happened to Batman is that he's been pumped full of drugs by the Black Glove and doesn't remember who he is, so a homeless guy who may or may not actually exist gets him up and moving and appropriates him as a bodyguard. He also gives Bruce some kind of weird thing that maybe once belonged to him already, and shoots electronic molecules? I don't know. The Black Glove seems pretty triumphant, hanging out in the Bat Cave with a beaten up Alfred, but Bruce is now becoming an insane new version of Batman, so who knows what will happen. It's strange, almost nonsensical stuff - and why the heck didn't the Black Glove just kill Batman when they had the chance? - but hopefully it's headed somewhere interesting.
Thumbs Sideways
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season Eight #16
Finally, the start of the much-ballyhooed crossover with a character I'd never heard of called Fray. Apparently she's a Slayer from the future that Whedon has written about before. She only shows up briefly in this comic at the very beginning and the very end. In between, we get another Dawn transformation that sheds a little more light on her curse in general; a trip to New York to follow up a lead from Willow's mysterious source; a meeting in NYC with Willow's hot, possessive girlfriend; a quick check-in with our big bads for this season; a really horrifying-looking catastrophe at the castle HQ; a temporal anomaly, just like in Star Trek; and all the usual amusing comedy and difficult relationship stuff we expect from Whedon. In short, it's another kick-ass issue of Buffy. Hooray!
Thumbs Up
Hellboy: The Crooked Man #1
New Mignola Hellboy series! New Mignola Hellboy series! Woo hoo! Obviously, it's good. It's set in 1958 and sees Hellboy heading to the Appalachian Mountains in Virginia to investigate some witch-related activity. He quickly meets a fellow from around those parts named Tom Ferrell. Tom has come back after many years away to make right some things he left hanging. Namely, a little poorly thought-out deal with the devil to become a witch himself. He and Hellboy track down the likely source of the witchery and make ready to head in, with Tom determined to face any consequences necessary to make things right. Interestingly enough, it's not really a story about Hellboy at all; it's a story about the character of Tom Ferrell, and Hellboy is just along for the ride. And I'm actually okay with that, because Tom is interesting, and there's magic and monsters and some pretty decent art from Richard Corben. Bring it on!
Thumbs Up
House of Mystery #3
In this latest issue of Vertigo's relaunched anthology series, the newest resident of the creepy mystery house, Fig, makes some serious efforts to escape the place - failing every time, of course. Accompanying her attempts to break out of this strange prison is some not-so-subtle, not-so-imaginative narration comparing this prison to the prison of one's own self. Blargh. In the middle of it all comes this issue's extra story, which this time takes the form of a bad-ass mobster action thriller written by Matthew Sturges with impressive art by Zachary Baldus. Pretty good stuff. Things finish up with an extremely puzzling and odd ending wherein a mysterious man takes a mysterious (and very upset) woman on a mysterious wagon ride through mysterious countryside. No idea what that's about, except that the woman might be somebody who's actually escaped the house, apparently only to land herself in this weird wagon predicament.
This series is beginning to lose its luster for me. I'm not sure how much longer I'll be reading it. The main frame story isn't really holding my attention, the narration is pretty corny, and the characters aren't all that interesting. The short stories that appear in each issue are sometimes fun, but rarely all that exciting. It just doesn't seem worth it.
Thumbs Sideways
Star Trek: Mirror Images #1
I've generally avoided IDW's Star Trek titles, but this new miniseries is set in the Mirror Universe first introduced in the episode of the classic TV series called "Mirror, Mirror," which has always been one of my favorite episodes of the old show, so I just couldn't resist it. It's actually a prequel to that episode, going back in time to show us just how Jim Kirk wrested command of the Enterprise away from Christopher Pike. I don't know if we'll even see the "real" Star Trek universe in this series at all; this first issue, at least, takes place entirely in the Mirror Universe. It opens with Pike and crew attacking a dilithium mining colony and killing or enslaving its alien populace. Sabotage of Pike's shuttle craft alerts him that a rival is making a move against him. He suspects the young Kirk, and asks Doctor McCoy and science officer Spock to help him discover the truth and defeat his enemy. But Kirk has already turned some members of the crew to his own side, and has set a deadly plan in motion to take over for good. And who is McCoy really working for?
As in "Mirror, Mirror," much of the fascination here is in watching characters you know and love act in ways they never would in the real world, engaging in twisted and horrible acts their counterparts would never even imagine. But there's also a whole different, fascinating culture on this Enterprise, and in this universe - a culture of fear, violence, coercion, conspiracy, and back-stabbing. In short, it's pure fun! My only complaint is with the art - provided by David Messina and colorist Ilaria Traversi. In general the representations of the characters are quite faithful to reality, but everything is much darker than it needs to be. I get that these people are evil and they all have shadowy plans to take each other down; that doesn't mean every event in the comic has to take place in literal, inky-black shadows. But overall, it's a really entertaining book, and now I have a new series to start collecting!
Thumbs Up
Star Trek: Year Four #3
I'm slightly less excited about the other Star Trek title I picked up this week. The basic concept - picking up right where the original series left off and telling the story of the fourth year of Enterprise's five year mission - is great; the art (by penciller Gordon Purcell, inker Terry Pallot, and colorists John Hunt, Jason Jenson, and Mario Boon) is quite good and really captures the look and feel of the original show; and the story (written by D.C. Fontana and Derek Chester) and action are reasonably exciting and entertaining. But it's a little talky and touchy-feely, with a bit too much thoughtful narration from Kirk. Still, it is interesting to see how Kirk was affected by his brother's death, his separation from Carol, and the revelation that he has a son. Storywise, there's a conflict with a vengeful Klingon, and the seeming failure of the uneasy peace between Klingons and Federation that had been held in place by the Organians, who mysteriously and without warning cease their interference between the two parties. There's also the discovery of an ancient artifact that could be important to both sides. Like I said, pretty interesting stuff, and despite some of my misgivings about dialogue and narration, I'll probably pick up at least one more issue.
Thumbs Sideways
Stephen King: The Stand - Sketchbook
Hancock
These are just a couple of promotional freebies I picked up. Well, I picked up the Hancock book, at least; the comic book store guy dropped the Stephen King thing in my bag while I wasn't looking. Said Stephen King thing is from Marvel, and is essentially an advertisement for their upcoming comic book adaptation of what is one of King's more famous and critically acclaimed novels. I read The Stand a long time ago, and I seem to remember it being rather good, if also a bit disgusting and lacking in subtlety in that special Stephen King kind of way. The sketchbook opens with an introduction from the editor mulling over why the novel is so great and popular, then continues with a look at some promotional and concept artwork from the comic, featuring depictions of the major characters, like Flagg, Frannie, Larry Underwood, and the Trashcan Man, with most pieces accompanied by notes from the artists and/or author (of the comic book, that is; there's nothing in here from King himself). I don't remember the novel well enough to tell you whether these depictions are faithful and correct, but they seem well done. I know I don't really like the way they've done Flagg - there's something a little ridiculous and not-quite-right about him. But I can't really tell you how I think he should look, so maybe it's just that it's really hard to draw a Flagg that lives up to the one that's been conjured in my head by King's writing. I don't know if the sketchbook has convinced me to pick up the comic when it gets released in September, but it has made me curious.
As for the Hancock thing, there's not really much to it. It's just a series of covers of fake Hancock comics drawn by some rather famous comic book artists, including my man Frank Quitely. It's a fun idea and led to some pretty entertaining artwork.
Thumbs Up
Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam! #1
DC's new ongoing series about Captain Marvel, written and illustrated by Mike Kunkel (in fact, he's credited with providing the "pictures, words, & heart"), is actually part of their kids' line of comics, which is called Johnny DC. Rather surprisingly (to me, anyway) it actually picks up where the wonderful recent miniseries Shazam: The Monster Society of Evil left off, with Marvel having defeated Mr. Mind and his monsters and in the process picked up a sidekick in the form of his kid sister. But now it turns out when Marvel punched those monsters into another universe, a doorway was opened through which the evil Theo Adam was able to come back into the world from where he'd been banished by the wizard. Now Adam (who of course will become the Black Adam we all know and love) seeks to recapture the power of the magic word from Captain Marvel so he can do dastardly deeds of various sorts. And throughout all this, the Marvels are trying to do good and save people while also being regular little kids and going to school.
The story sounds interesting, but the comic really is for kids, so it's told in a very simplistic fashion that I found it hard to put up with. The art is very cartoonish (in fact, the book feels very much as if it's a piece of animation that's been transferred directly into the comic book format), which can be fun, but in this case just added to my feeling that this was a children's book that I really had no business reading. Kunkel also makes the odd artistic choice to constantly draw the same character multiple times in the same panel, not to suggest that the character is moving very fast (which is usually what comic book artists use this technique to convey), but seemingly just as an odd quirk. It's an interesting idea, and brought to mind old medieval paintings that use the same technique. There I rather like it, but here I mostly found it strange and distracting. The book has some cute moments, and the story is vaguely intriguing, but the dialogue and narration are simplistic and childish. That's fine for its intended audience, but not so entertaining for me. So I think I'll leave this one to the kids from now on.
Thumbs Sideways
Astonishing X-Men #25
Ever since I heard that Warren Ellis would be taking over writing duties on Astonishing X-Men, I've been looking forward to his first issue with wild anticipation. And now that it's finally here... well, it's not as great as I was hoping it would be. But hey, it's still good, and maybe my expectations were a little too high. It opens up by trying to marry the end of Joss Whedon's most recent story arc on this title with the end of Ed Brubaker's latest story arc on Uncanny, picking up with the X-Men in their new headquarters in San Francisco, with Wolverine, Beast, Emma, and Cyclops on the team, plus new member Hisako (from Whedon's run), who can't quite decide whether she should keep her original code name of Armor or not. Then Storm shows up and joins them, mostly because she's bored sitting around being a Queen in Wakanda. They quickly find themselves investigating the weird case of the murder of what appears to be an example of a new type of synthetic mutant. The killer's trail leads them to a dangerous spaceship graveyard which we'll apparently get to see next issue.
The story is reasonably interesting, with an intriguing mystery at its center, and Ellis has the characters nailed down pretty well. The dialogue is sometimes a bit goofy, but that's Ellis for you. I do rather like the amusing little exchange between Ororo and Emma, wherein Ororo reveals her desperate need for people to argue with her and denounce her, and Emma obliges. One of the major things I dislike about the comic is the art. Simone Bianchi and colorist Simone Peruzzi (what's with all the Simones?) give everything a much-too-dark, ornate, and overdone look that's distracting, confusing, odd, and out of place. Sometimes it turns out pretty, but generally I just don't like it.
All that being said... it's an X-Men comic written by Warren Ellis. I'm not going to drop it any time soon.
Thumbs Up |
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