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| Monday, July 28, 2008 07:24 PM |
| The Take |
 by Fëanor |
Fëanor's weekly comic book review post.
New releases
Uncanny X-Men #500
This is the much ballyhooed 500th issue of Uncanny X-Men, written by Ed Brubaker and Matt Fraction, with pencils by Terry Dodson and the porn-tastic Greg Land, inks by Jay Leisten and Rachel Dodson, and colors by Justin Ponsor. There are at least four different covers you can get for the issue, and of course one of them is by Alex Ross. So it's kind of a big deal issue, and I was expecting it to be impressive. Sadly, it is not. In fact, it's annoying and stupid and pointless. The first annoying thing is the section headings. There are multiple prologues, multiple chapters, and even multiple epilogues, each with its own title. Maybe this was supposed to be clever and funny, but it's just cheesy and lame.
First we meet two artists, both essentially pawns in a game being played by other characters. One is a filmmaker who wants to use the dreaming Celestial as a backdrop in his latest film. The other is a pretentious fine artist who wants to use actual Sentinels in his latest work. Next the Mayor of San Francisco gets a tour of the X-Men's new facility, and Greg Land draws everybody smiling way too much, especially Cyclops. She tells them about the piece of art with the Sentinels in it, and Greg Land draws them all screaming in ridiculously overdone, melodramatic fashion. The reception for the Sentinel art exhibit is pretty cute, as it features everybody running around in X-Men costumes from throughout the history of the team. Then to complete the feelings of nostalgia, there's a big knock-down drag-out with the Sentinels (which of course get switched on, as we all knew they would) and Magneto, miraculously alive and re-powered. Then there's a cameo from the High Evolutionary, and the suggestion that a far larger evil plan is still in the works. There's also a couple more mutant and villain cameos, and then the introduction of something called the Hellfire Cult - because it wouldn't be the X-Men without a Hellfire something!
As you can tell, I'm really not a fan of Greg Land's art. Although it's often impressively realistic, it's just as often melodramatic and overdone, and all of his women look like porn stars. The dialogue in this book is pretty much universally bad, especially the cheesy stuff being bandied back and forth during the Magneto fight. Magneto in general is irritating in the book. Besides the fact that there's one part where they mistakenly give him the same line of cheesy dialogue twice on the same page (how did that get past the editors?), he's just not an interesting character here. And you have to work to make Magneto an uninteresting character. The story is also dull. Rather than capturing any feeling of nostalgia, it just feels like a boring retread of very old, well-trodden territory. And seriously, what is with having Cyclops smile so much? That's just not right.
I've gone from really liking Matt Fraction to really disliking him, especially in combination with Ed Brubaker. Maybe when Brubaker's alone on the title again next month, it'll go back to being decent. We'll see.
Thumbs Down
War Heroes #1
This is a new miniseries from Image Comics by Mark Millar, with art by Tony Harris, inks by Cliff Rathburn, and colors by J.D. Meitler. The buzz around it is that it's the next step in what Millar is doing with the concept of the superhero, and the basic idea would have been the basis for Ultimates 3, if Millar had ended up on working on that title. It imagines a future version of our world in which more terrorist attacks have pulled America deeper into world conflicts, leading to even more violence and the return of the draft, which in turn has made the war on terror extremely unpopular. To encourage more people to enlist, America has developed something called Project Olympus, which is a simple enough idea: pills issued to every soldier, each of which gives you a different superpower for 24 hours. In this first issue, we meet a war hero who's back home from the conflict for a short time, and whose young brother is now planning to enlist - but it turns out his motives are less than pure. He's part of a small team of people who plan to acquire some superpower pills in order to pull off some kind of huge scam, the exact nature of which is not yet clear.
My problem with this book is some of the assumptions it makes about people, war, and politics. Maybe it's my own politics getting in the way, but I find some of the opening narration setting up the book's premise a little questionable, especially the idea that superpower pills would be the "incentive that would have every young American lining up to make a difference." The idea seems to be that offering people a bigger, more impressive weapon would convince them to join the army and go fight a deadly, terrible, and unpopular war in a foreign nation, and I really don't think that's true. It certainly wouldn't convince me.
Believability aside, it is an interesting premise, and I'm intrigued as to what the big scam is going to turn out to be. But the art is kind of ugly in a cold, uncanny valley kind of way. I may or may not pick up another issue.
Thumbs Sideways
Dan Dare #7
The final, double-sized issue of Garth Ennis' brilliant relaunch of the classic British space opera features all of the drama, action, and pathos of the previous issues. The story is basically split between three settings - Lt. Christian fighting the space battle; Dare invading the Mekon's flagship; and the Home Secretary back on Earth, anxiously waiting for word from the fleet, and meanwhile talking out with Bobby, her friend and confidant, what's gone wrong in Britain and what needs to happen to make it right. While fighting the terrible odds, Christian also finds herself having to fight the old white admiral who's pissed she got his job, and doesn't think she knows what she's doing. Dare and his men, meanwhile, brutally massacre their way to the Mekon, and finally the Mekon and the cowering prime minister get their just desserts. It's satisfying, triumphant, and very sad and moving at the same time. This is a great, great miniseries, and it totally transformed my opinion of Garth Ennis. Bravo!
Thumbs Up
Angel: Revelations #3
Warren's story continues, as he reveals his wings to his nice gay friend and gets started on his career of saving people. Then we get to see the creepy religious guy from the first issue again and learn the terrible things he's been doing and that he's hot on Angel's trail. It's not a great issue, but it's pretty decent.
Thumbs Up
The New Avengers #43
In the latest Secret Invasion tie-in, the Captain America from the mysterious Skrull ship has a showdown with Spider-Man and some Savage Land folks, an action sequence that's intercut with a flashback telling this Cap's backstory. The story in the present isn't all that interesting, but the flashback is, and it sheds more light on where the Skrull ship came from and how all those people ended up on it. Again, not great, but pretty good.
Thumbs Sideways
Black Summer #7
Warren Ellis' fascinating miniseries about the team of super humans named the Guns comes to a brutal and bloody conclusion in this issue. John has a throwdown with the rest of Frank's secret, new Guns; the girls decide on a new course of action for themselves for the foreseeable future; and (spoiler!) Tom comes back, like I figured he would, to wrap everything up. Although the issue is full of the usual insane violence, it also has a lot of discussion of what superheroes are and should be, and how you can really achieve justice. John's decision on how to be a hero, and how to achieve justice, was simply to assassinate the president. But Tom points out the mistake in that thinking: "This incredible fucking thing we did to ourselves, these abilities beyond evolutionary capacity - and you used them on a hit? You couldn't think of another way to do it?" And later: "You could not think of a smarter way to change the way this country does business than just killing the villain?" It's of course Ellis' disagreement with the way superheroes usually work. What do you really achieve by just eliminating the villain in front of you? Nothing. The real problems remain.
It's another awesome Ellis series, with tons of incredible action, mind-blowing super human powers, and really fascinating postmodern philosophical discussions of power and law and justice. Hooray!
Thumbs Up
The Immortal Iron Fist #17
I gave up on this book a while back because I got tired of Matt Fraction and Ed Brubaker's writing, but now Duane Swierczynski has taken over, so I thought I'd give it another shot (despite the fact that I haven't been particularly impressed by Swierczynski's comics, either). This one opens up with a flashforward to 10 years in the future, where a boy, who is apparently the son of Danny Rand and Misty, demands to know how his father really died. Then we jump back to the present where Danny is trying to figure out his relationship with Misty, and trying to deal with the idea that apparently no Iron Fist has ever lived past his 33rd birthday (which I don't particularly understand, because I thought they were, like, immortal, or at least lived a really long time, but I guess not). There's a flashback to the death of another Iron Fist, and then Danny faces off against the guy who apparently kills all the Iron Fists - someone who appears to be a servant of another dragon, like the one that powers the Iron Fist.
There are some interesting ideas in here (the Iron Fists all dying at 33; the dragon guy who kills them all), but the writing isn't that great, and I just can't get too excited about the story. I might give it another shot, but I doubt it.
Thumbs Sideways
Gravel #3
Yay, another Warren Ellis book! Just as with every other issue in this series so far, Bill Gravel faces off against another member of the Minor Seven, but this time, believe it or not, he doesn't kill the guy! Although I'm pretty sure he still dies. Also, we learn more about the Sigsand Manuscript, where it came from, and what it does. Interesting and eerie stuff, and the suggestion that Gravel could do some pretty impressive stuff with what he's got of the manuscript, and maybe even change himself and his life in very big ways. I'm fascinated to see what will happen here. Art-wise, it looks like they have a new guy on the book (Oscar Jimenez), and I'm not sure I like the way he draws Gravel, but he's pretty good otherwise.
Thumbs Up
Secret History of the Authority: Jack Hawksmoor #5
In the penultimate issue of this series, pretty much all the secrets are finally revealed, and, as expected, it all turns out to be pretty lame. Jack's power was much more interesting when it was entirely mysterious; when it turns out to be part of a giant battle through time between huge cities that cover the Earth in the future, it gets a little boring. Plus, how am I even supposed to feel about a bunch of guys who just want their city to be the best? How stupid is that? It's hard to think of them as evil. It's hard to even care about them at all. Then there's the goofy deus ex machina thing where the woman gives Jack a magic ring that gives him all the power he needs to perform his final amazing feat. And he blabs constantly throughout the entire ending action sequence, laying a whole ton of lame narration on us. It's pretty bad stuff. All that being said, I'll probably get the last issue, because I might as well see how it ends at this point.
Thumbs Down |
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Jim Genzano's books on Goodreads
