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| Saturday, November 29, 2008 01:29 PM |
| The Take |
 by Fëanor |
Fëanor's weekly comic book review post.
This covers new releases from the week of 11/19, and an issue of a miniseries that I missed the week before.
Back issues and old data
Fantastic Four: True Story #4
This book was sold out by the time I got to the shop the week of 11/12, but luckily Fat Jack's had gotten more in by 11/19, so I was able to pick it up then. It's the last issue of a miniseries I've been reading about the Fantastic Four entering into the realm of fiction in order to do battle against an evil presence that's been taking root there. I thought the first issue, when they were just establishing the premise, was very clever, but as it's gone on it's kind of lost its luster, and I really only bought this final issue so I could see how the story turned out. Essentially it involves each member of the FF using his/her specific talent to win the day. Reed's genius forms the plan, Ben hits things, and Johnny's vapid imagination creates the insane army of famous fictional characters and totally cliche happy ending necessary to take back the realm of fiction for Good. "Is that Lindsay Lohan?" Sue asks. "Thank goodness she's on our side," Reed answers. Hah! Actually, come to think of it, Sue had almost nothing to do with their victory, and took almost no active part in this final issue. Huh. But anyway, it's actually a pretty decent issue, with some cute, funny ideas and a nice happy ending. It's a little corny, and I've decided I really don't like the art (provided by Horacio Domingues and Rick Burchett), but overall this was on okay series.
Thumbs Sideways
New releases
The Age of the Sentry #3
Every issue I read of this title, I love it more and more, and this issue was no exception. I knew it was going to be particularly hilarious and awesome as soon as I saw the cover, which I will try to reproduce here so you can enjoy it for yourself:
(Sadly, of the five pictures I took, this one was the best; one of these days I'll have to get a scanner.) Inside, it only gets better. The first story, illustrated with the usual fantastic retro art, opens with an alien meteorite landing in a lake in the Ozarks. A big redneck named Junior drinks the water, thereby gaining super strength. Later, ace encyclopedia entryman Rob Reynolds is dispatched to get more information on recent strange events in the Ozarks (all the result of Junior going on rampages), and quickly discovers what's happened. Unfortunately, after he defeats Junior (as the Sentry, of course), he learns that according to the code of the hills he must now marry Junior's betrothed, Ellie Easter. This is another occurrence of the initials EE, which have apparently been haunting the Sentry. Hmm... Anyways, looking deeper into the code of the hills, as outlined in his encyclopedia, the Sentry is able to discover a way out: his betrothed's Paw is required to provide the Sentry with a dowry three times as large as normal because he's from outside the valley. This is obviously beyond Paw's means, and thus the wedding is off. But the Sentry sees that he's humiliated the family, and must do something to make up for it, so he makes a giant sieve and pans for gold in the nearby stream, acquiring a huge pile of riches for the family. Then he flies in Harrison Oogar, the Caveman of Wall Street, to help the hillbillies manage their newfound wealth. One can only assume they will move to Beverly Hills soon. It's brilliant and hilarious, and the whole story is loaded with silly hillbilly jokes (for instance, in the background of one panel, Ellie is kissing someone who is almost certainly her cousin). And I was really glad to see Harrison Oogar return; he's a great character. After this story is a one-page interlude which returns us to the frame story introduced in an earlier issue, wherein these stories about the Sentry are being told to a child by his father before bedtime. The art here is much more realistic, and there's something vaguely unsettling about it (purposefully, I'm sure), mostly thanks to the fact that the character's faces are all perpetually in shadow, so you never get a really good look at any of them.
The next story is a Millie the Model/Sentry crossover with wonderful art by the same person who did the fun backup stories in X-Men: First Class. The great thing about both stories in this book, and about this comic in general, is that they have all the fun and ridiculousness of Silver Age comics, but they're also clever and self-aware, so they never get cheesy or lame. And there's all kinds of wonderful little incidental humor, like the Sentry's array of danger phones, which he can access by tilting forward a statue on his mantel. On the other end of one of the danger phones this time is Manoo, who's an interstellar policeman in the style of Green Lantern. But the problem he's experiencing is not one involving dangerous alien monsters; he's fallen for an alien woman named Gtt-Chow, and he wants the Sentry's advice on what to do. But the Sentry's clueless as far as that stuff's concerned, so he takes Manoo to see his friend Millicent Collins instead. The introduction of Millie is very funny, as it mimics old comics of this sort by including little narrative boxes giving the names and home towns of the readers who designed the various pieces of clothing and hairstyles worn by Millie and her friends. Millie gives Manoo various amusing romance tips, and Sentry stays with them, hoping to pick up some tips for himself and his relationship with Lindy Lee. As they're traveling around town, they come upon Gtt-Chow having a picnic in the park with a nasty bully named Warloo. Manoo gets in a fight with him, but then Gtt-Chow storms off with Warloo and Manoo thinks he's made a terrible mistake. Millie tells him otherwise. Sentry and Manoo suddenly realize Warloo is more dangerous than he seemed, and Manoo flies to Gtt-Chow's rescue. Millie is careful to not let the Sentry interfere, so Manoo saves Gtt-Chow single-handedly, and afterwards the two of them look ready to live happily every after together. Unfortunately for the Sentry, Lindy Lee sees Millie give him a good-bye kiss, and he ends up in the dog house, still clueless about women! It's a silly, cute story, and the comic overall is just a ton of fun. Here's hoping The Age of the Sentry lasts forever!
Thumbs Up
Ghost Rider #29
This issue brings us the fight we've been waiting for: Danny Ketch vs. Johnny Blaze; Ghost Rider vs. Ghost Rider. They punch each other around a bit, then Danny gets a dose of the Penance Stare. After experiencing all the deaths he's caused, Danny is defensive, but still insists he did the right thing, and freed the other Ghost Riders from their misery. Then he turns the Penance Stare right back on Johnny, and Johnny doesn't weather it nearly as well. In fact, afterwards, he's ready for Danny to take him like he took all the other Riders. Luckily, the new Caretaker intervenes and gets Johnny out of there. Later, they're holed up in a hotel room, and Johnny won't do anything but lie around and sulk. Then a couple of interesting folks who appear to be local Ghost Riders crash in and ask them to come with them. Hmm... this should be interesting.
Anyway, good issue, good art, but the fight was slightly anti-climactic. It was actually a little disappointing how completely Johnny was broken down by that Penance Stare. Still, it was also certainly interesting in terms of character development, and I'm still fascinated to see where Aaron goes next with the story.
Thumbs Up
The Goon #30
The Goon's old flame showed up at the end of last issue, and he's not happy about it. But they seem to be on the verge of making up when the bad guys make their move and kill one of the more central characters. Meanwhile, the Buzzard has the Zombie Priest leading him to the Mother Corpse, but guarding her is a thing called a Woky, and the Buzzard must make a deal with this creature to get the corpse. Unfortunately, the Zombie Priest's cat has gone ahead and given the Woky a question to ask that the Buzzard cannot answer (which makes for a great, fairy tale-style sequence). So things do not look good at all for our heroes at the end of this issue. Exciting, dramatic stuff, with the usual good art and good writing. There still manages to be a little bit of humor in this issue, too, although it's mostly on the serious side.
Thumbs Up
The Helm #4
This great comedy/fantasy adventure miniseries comes to an end in this issue. It opens with Matthew sulking after his girlfriend has walked out on him again, and the Helm yelling at him, warning him of approaching evil. Finally Matthew decides the Helm and all of his magical adventures must all be a figment of his imagination and runs out to make up with Jill. Of course, just as he leaves his house, the big bad shows up with his cronies, grabs the Helm, and kidnaps Matt's mother. Meanwhile, Matt wins Jill back by promising to get help, and even asks her to marry him, which she says she will do if he destroys the Helm. So back they go to take care of this last detail, only to run smack dab into evil monsters! There's a big climactic battle where Matthew proves himself and Jill helps him to get the Helm back and defeat the evil. In fact, the Helm is now more powerful than ever, and is even able to wipe the memories of Matt's mother and girlfriend such that they are unaware of any magic or monsters or marriage proposals. They're also quite a bit nicer to Matthew than they had been before, which is a handy side effect. In other words, it's a super happy ending for Matthew, although he remains slightly suspicious that the Helm and its magic might still turn out to be only a figment of his imagination.
I can't say this was my favorite issue of Helm. I found the final battle to be a bit anti-climactic for whatever reason. And I also found it hard to believe that Jill would be willing to marry Matthew shortly after learning that he is probably insane, and probably killed his ex-boss. Still, overall I really did enjoy the miniseries. It's funny, entertaining, with some great magical fantasy action, and I hope Dark Horse sees fit to turn it into an ongoing series. The best of luck to author and creator Jim Hardison!
Thumbs Up
Scalped #23
This issue focuses almost entirely on Dino, the young single father who's one of the most sympathetic characters in the series, and who is now trapped in a life of crime, working for the dirty cops on the Rez. We get a look into his past, and into his mind. Things already seem bad for him, but somehow they just keep getting worse. He gets thrown out by his Granny (which it clearly breaks her heart to do, but you can totally understand why she does it), and then on the final page he comes face to face with the horrific Mr. Brass. Poor Dino! I hope he makes it out all right somehow.
Do I need to say that this is excellent? That practically goes without saying with Scalped. It's another powerful issue featuring a shattering and deeply personal look at a complex and fascinating character, not to mention the continuation of the book's interesting overarching storyline. I'll be back next month!
Thumbs Up
Star Trek: The Last Generation #1
I'm really not sure how to feel about this book. It's the first issue in a five-issue miniseries that's described as a "Myriad Universes" story, which appears to be Star Trek's version of "What If?" In this case the implied "What If?" question is "What if Kirk had not gotten there in time at the end of Star Trek VI and that ambassador had been killed by the sniper at the Khitomer Conference?" Taking that as its jumping off point, the story then leaps forward 70 years to the Next Generation time period, and slowly reveals where all of the characters we know and love ended up in this universe. Nearly the entire whole crew of the Enterprise are members of the underground resistance fighting back against the mostly triumphant Klingon Empire, led by Worf. An elderly Sulu even pops up, as does Tuvok. Guinan knows there's something wrong with the timeline, and when Riker and Geordi find an android named Data, they think he'll be able to tell them exactly what it is. From the ending flashback, it looks as if some guy deliberately hindered Kirk from stopping the assassination at Khitomer, apparently in order to bring about this twisted version of events. Huh.
Anyway, the overall story here is interesting, and I generally enjoy "What If?" type plots like this one. But the dialogue is corny, ridiculous, and melodramatic, and the way some of the characters have been paired up in relationships is creepy and disturbing. It feels almost like I'm reading somebody's Next Generation slash fiction, but with the hardcore sex scenes edited out. There's definitely a strong suggestion that Yar and Ro are together, which is actually kind of an interesting idea, but the passionate kiss between Guinan and Picard is just gross.
Like I said, I like some of the ideas in here, especially the Silver Ghost (the only remaining Federation ship, which appears and disappears like a ghost, picking off Klingon ships wherever it can). But I'm not sure I'm willing to put up with all the crap for the sake of those few good ideas.
Thumbs Sideways
The X-Files #1
I wasn't sure I wanted to try the comic book tie-in to a TV series that I once loved, but that went out with a whimper rather than a bang some years ago. But this series is written by Frank Spotnitz, one of the show's original creators, and the Lone Gunmen (probably my favorite characters from the show) were on the cover, so I decided to go for it. I like the opening page, as it's kind of a recreation of the opening credits sequence of the show. Then we jump into the story, which involves a dude who freaks out, gets crazy paranoid, and then kills himself. His girlfriend suspects his death is somehow connected to some kind of secret project he was working on for the government. Mulder and Scully are getting stonewalled at his lab, but Mulder manages to sneak out with a flash keychain drive, which he brings to the Lone Gunmen, who can't find anything interesting on it, but are pretty sure it's from Rauch Industries, a black corporation doing top secret work for the defense department. So the conspiracy deepens. And then Mulder starts showing the same symptoms as the dude who died. Dun dun dun!
The comic does a pretty good job of approximating an episode of the show, but the pacing feels off to me; everything seems to happen too quickly. By the end of this issue, we already have most of the outlines of the conspiracy, and it looks like we're already close to the dramatic conclusion. The art, by Brian Denham, is pretty good, insofar as the characters look a lot like the actors who portrayed them in the series. But for whatever reason I don't love it. Maybe the colors are too dark, or the backgrounds are too abstract. Anyway, I'm not sure I'll buy another issue. It's just not all that exciting.
Thumbs Sideways |
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Jim Genzano's books on Goodreads
