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| Sunday, July 26, 2009 07:29 PM |
| The Take |
 by Fëanor |
Fëanor's (semi-)weekly comic book review post.
This post covers new releases from 7/15. These days I'm trying hard to omit the plot synopses, but I still might slip in a spoiler now and then, so be warned.
All Select Comics 70th Anniversary Special #1
There are two new stories this time: a pretty poor Blonde Phantom murder mystery by Marc Guggenheim, with art by Javier Pulido, and a very strange and even rather disturbing parody story by Michael Kupperman called "Marvex the Super Robot." The reprints are two (I think the first two, and possibly the only two) Marvex the Super Robot stories from issues #3 and 4 of Daring Mystery Comics from April-May of 1940.
The Blonde Phantom story is called "Murder on Another Planet," but sadly the title is just a metaphor and no alien worlds are involved. Instead, we just see the Phantom getting back into her snazzy superhero outfit after many years out of it in order to solve the murder of her friend Michael Brayden. The tale is told mostly through noir-style narration; really it's more an illustrated short story than a comic book. The art is quite excellent, but sadly, the writing is cheesy, melodramatic, and overdone, particularly during the final sequence. Not so good.
Kupperman's Marvex story is absurd to the point of being almost frighteningly deranged, but it's only slightly more insane than the original Marvex stories of which it's a parody. I probably should have read the original stories first, then come back to Kupperman's story; perhaps it would have been slightly less disturbing that way. As it is, I have to say I found it more weird than funny, although I enjoy the art and the premise. Marvex's actual origin story comes next. It's a classic Golden Age story - a super-powered good guy versus gangsters who are trying to steal military secrets - but in this case the good guy is a robot, modeled after Earthlings by aliens from another dimension and created to be a slave to them. Only they seem to have mistakenly given him self-awareness, as immediately after being created he decides he doesn't like them and their plan of enslavement and promptly KILLS ALL OF THEM. Then we are presented with this brilliant piece of narration: "By some strange turn of events Marvex is blown out of the fifth dimension onto Earth." There's no time for pesky explanations! Let's just move things along. Later Marvex saves a woman from a fire and she sends him after the spies who stole her father's secret military plans. Marvex doesn't mince words with them, or pull any punches. He yanks one out of a speeding car by his hair, telling him, "You are no good! You die!" When the crook asks to be let go, Marvex hurls him into a nearby boulder, saying, "There! I let you go!" When he corners the mastermind behind the heist, Marvex throws him through the wall of an office, presumably to his death, as the office is clearly not on the first floor. When Marvex returns the plans to the woman, she says, "Oh, thank you! You are the only friend I have!" He responds, "But remember - we can never be more than friends." (Uh, I don't think she asked to be!) She asks, "Why not?" and in response he removes his shirt and says, "Because I am not human - I am Marvex the Super-Robot." A narration box at the bottom of the panel helpfully explains, "The Super-Robot quickly disrobes showing his metal body."
Wow. I mean... wow.
In the next story, despite the fact that it's the very next episode in the Marvex saga and came out only a month after the previous one, Marvex already has a different character design. His face is now less human and more obviously robotic, and he has odd white circles around his eyes. He also now speaks in huge bold letters at all times, as if he's constantly shouting at the top of his super-robotic lungs. He takes out some more gangsters for his blonde girlfriend, but when she tells him at the end of the story, "Marvex - you're the most wonderful man I know!" he insists, "I AM NOT A MAN - ONLY A MACHINE!" What is your deal, dude? Almost every robotic man throughout the history of science fiction has wanted desperately to be human, and has tried at all times to act like a human and be seen as a human. But Marvex insists at all times that he is a robot, so you'd better not try to have relations of any kind with him! His desire to not be touched by your fleshy appendages reminds me of Machine Man.
The last thing in the book is a short preview of issue #570 of Fantastic Four. Looks like this is the issue in which a new creative team takes over (Jonathan Hickman and Dale Eaglesham). The art is nice, the flashback is rather effective, and the fight with the weird human-powered machines is intriguing. Still, not sure I'm up for giving that series yet another try.
Thumbs Sideways
Beta Ray Bill: Godhunter #2
Man, those poor little furry aliens sure have terrible luck! I enjoy the dark humor surrounding their adventures, and their fascinating backstory. I also love the epic knock-down, drag-out between Silver Surfer and Beta Ray Bill. Then Bill makes a terrible choice, and the consequences are dramatized in subtle and powerful fashion. This is such a great series! I'm also pleased that, as I'd hoped, they're continuing to run the reprints of Bill's origin story as a backup throughout. Interestingly enough, when Thor and Bill stop fighting long enough to realize they're on the same side, we don't move directly to them joining forces - instead they end up having another, even more brutal fight... to the death! It's thrilling stuff, and there's even an amusing interlude with Volstagg.
Thumbs Up
Blackest Night #1
Here it is at last, after all the hype and all the preludes: Blackest Night. And I have to say, I'm not really a fan. My main complaint is one I'm not used to making: I feel like it crosses lines that didn't need to be crossed. I didn't need to see the Black Hand sloppily licking Bruce Wayne's skull, accompanied by the sound effect "SLLK." I didn't need to revisit the infamous "girl in the fridge" scene. I didn't need to see Scar the evil Guardian bite another Guardian in the throat, tear his heart out of his chest, and eat it, and then follow that up by barfing out some disgusting black substance and encasing the rest of the Guardians in it. I didn't need to see Ralph and Sue Dibny come back to life so they could savagely beat Hawkman and Hawkgirl to death before ripping their hearts out.
Admittedly, maybe I would have accepted all this more readily if the comic were well written. But it most definitely is not. It's loaded with clumsy, melodramatic dialog and far too much painfully corny narration. It is the complete opposite of subtle.
I won't say the entire thing is garbage. There are some good ideas in here, and some powerful emotional moments, and Ivan Reis' art is quite excellent. I remain intrigued by the story, and yes, I will probably buy the next issue to find out what happens. But I sure hope it gets better!
Thumbs Down
Blackest Night: Tales of the Corps #1
Despite the title, this book isn't really so much about Blackest Night. It's more a series of character portraits of people involved (in some cases rather tangentially) in the War of Light. There's the origin story of Saint Walker, which takes the form of a religious parable; a darkly funny story about Mongul; and a rather enigmatic tale about the mysterious Indigo Tribe. The first story is by Geoff Johns, with art by Jerry Ordway, and although it's a bit melodramatic and reminiscent of many a story before it (especially the Book of Job), it's surprisingly effective. I don't always like the work of Peter J. Tomasi, but his Mongul story is moving and clever; it's a look at the DCU inverted, from the villain's perspective. The final story, again by Geoff Johns, this time with art by Rags Morales, doesn't explain much about the Indigo Tribe, and it features a lot of them talking in rather irritating nonsense language, but it does reveal that they seem to be able to take in the powers of the other Lanterns and turn them back on their wielders. Where they stand in the conflict is also unclear; they end up killing a Green Lantern (perhaps it's more correct to say they put him out of his misery), but also attacking and scaring off a Yellow Lantern.
I didn't love this book - it's okay, not great - but it wasn't anywhere near as bad as I was expecting it to be.
Thumbs Sideways
Captain America #601
This comic turned me off right away by actually printing "A VERY SPECIAL ISSUE OF CAPTAIN AMERICA" on the cover. Seriously, who does that? That's a bad cliche they used to use to decribe the episode of a TV show that's about sex or drug abuse, or an incurable disease. That's not something you say with complete sincerity about your own comic book in 2009.
The reason why the issue is so special is because the art was provided by comic legend Gene Colan. And indeed the art is reasonably impressive with interesting page/panel design and a real painterly look to it. But some of the character faces - especially, unfortunately, Captain America's - are oddly misshapen. And Brubaker really dropped the ball as far as the writing goes. The story is clumsily constructed, opening up in a frame that's already a flashback, set during the Civil War, which then flashes back again to 1945, and then a couple pages later flashes back yet again to Cap's many-times-retold origin story. A flashback within a flashback within a flashback? Come on! The story ends up being a silly, melodramatic thing about vampires during WWII. Which is kind of a cool idea, but it's been done. And the payoff as to who the vampires are, and what Cap has to do to finally stop them, is quite lame and cliche. The dialog throughout is pretty ridiculous and clunky, and the last panel, which features Bucky winking - winking! - as he talks about the horrors he and Cap have been through seems really inappropriate. It's a really disappointing comic and, as I said on Twitter after I finished reading it, the only thing "special" about it is that it's especially bad.
Thumbs Down
Dark Avengers #7
I was pretty surprised when, after I finished reading this comic, I turned it over and saw Matt Fraction's name on the cover. But... it's funny and clever! And I thought Brian Michael Bendis wrote this title! These comic book authors are always throwing me off. Anyway, one of the things I really enjoy about this comic are the clever descriptions Fraction slips into the narrative boxes introducing each character. Norman Osborn, for instance, is described as "Director of H.A.M.M.E.R. Slowly boiling cauldron of insanity." Mimic's box says, "Powers of the original five X-Men. Mimics other powers in proximity. Really happy to be here." Emma Frost's box reveals she's going by "Black Queen" now, which is rather silly, but okay. Cyclops, meanwhile, flies in on a jetpack to meet with Norman Osborn on Alcatraz, so his box says, "Leader of the X-Men. Owner of a jetpack." Heh. More fun character descriptions: Bullseye - "Psychotic killing machine. Bored." Ms. Marvel - "Team leader. Hooks up with everything that moves."
I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the confrontation between Scott and Norman. Norman starts in on this big speech, and Scott just suddenly interrupts him with one word: "Surrender." It's the last thing anybody expects him to say. Osborn blows up on him: "Or... or what? Are you... are you insane? Hm?" It's pretty great. Plus it makes me think Scott's being cleverer here than I thought he was.
I also enjoy Bullseye ranting in the next scene. He complains about Wolverine ("Give me a break. How many teams can that guy be on?!?") and says he wants to get out there and fight. "And what about you, big guy?" he asks Ares. "You with me?" Ares responds with the only word he says in the entire scene: "Aye." (His box describes him as "Greek God of war. Orator." Pfft.) When Bullseye finally taunts Wolverine in person, he responds, "I would love - quite literally, love - to see you try, you ridiculous carny." Then, big fight!! Awesome. Meanwhile, Emma demands to know what's really happening to all the captured mutants. It's pretty funny seeing Norman and Dark Beast try to keep straight faces while lying to her about what they're doing. Finally, one of the more interesting character intro boxes describes Simon Trask as "Human Sentinel Zero." Oh really? This might explain this whole thing he's doing where he seems to be controlling people's minds and commanding them to destroy. That should be interesting!
I was totally down on this whole Utopia thing before, but I have to admit Fraction has turned me nearly completely around with this issue. I even like Luke Ross' art. I'll be damned.
Thumbs Up
Doctor Who #1
I've been a fan of Doctor Who since I was a kid, but for whatever reason I've mostly avoided the comic books. When I saw there was a new ongoing series starting, though, I knew I had to check it out. The first issue is written by Tony Lee with art by Al Davison and it stars the current Doctor from the BBC TV series in the title role. This time he's in Hollywood in 1926, hobnobbing with famous and soon-to-be-famous actors. Amusingly, whenever they ask his name, he gives the name of a different famous 20th century Hollywood actor. Inevitably he discovers there's an evil alien plot afoot that he has to stop, with the help of some contemporary folks, including the actor "Archie Maplin," who's clearly meant to be a stand-in for Charlie Chaplin (although why they didn't just use the real name instead of making up a fake one is a little confusing to me). The end features the Doctor in a classic silent movie predicament and is really quite clever and fun; I like how the panels on the penultimate page are drawn like train tracks, or like a strip of film. And the final page is wonderfully dramatic.
It's not a fantastic comic - it's actually rather silly and formulaic - but it's still pretty fun and I'm curious to see where it goes, so I'll most likely pick up the next issue.
Thumbs Sideways
Final Crisis: Aftermath - Escape #3
The surreal Prisoner-like adventures continue! Our "heroes" get together and try to figure things out, but it's like they're each having a different conversation all at the same time. Then the "bad guys" put some folks on a wheel and spin it to decide the fates of others, like in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. It's kind of cool. The story remains confusing in the extreme, however. I'll stick around to see if it actually resolves into something understandable.
Thumbs Sideways
Incognito #5
In this issue, lots of cool little secrets start to leak out about: the creepy, twisted relationship between Xander, his brother, and Ava Destruction (when they're about to hook up, Zack asks, "You don't think it'll be too weird?" and Ava says, "It fucking better be..."); the connection between the twins; the explanation for Ava's looks and the price she paid for them; a look at the mole the villains have placed amongst their enemies; where the twins came from, and that there's something about them that frightens the other villains; the origin of superpowers in this universe; just what "The Sleeper" is, and just what the villains plan to do with him. And hey, Lazarus looks a lot like The Hood! Although I guess he's supposed to be a Shadow analog.
Anyway, the point is, awesome issue!! This series is really picking up speed and adding all kinds of interesting new story elements. Fun, creative, exciting. And there's even an interesting essay in the back about Fu Manchu by Jess Nevins!
Thumbs Up
New Mutants #3
This issue starts off on the right foot with a kick-ass cover, featuring Dani Moonstar walking towards us and pointing a pistol directly at us, while completely festooned in a whole arsenal of other weaponry. I'm actually not sure if this is the standard cover or the alternate cover; I'm thinking standard, in which case it's by Adam Kubert & Justin Ponsor. Anyway, inside the book there's a great scene where Legion gets a brutal kick to the head, and then Sam makes the decision to leave Dani locked up to keep her safe, a decision which ends up putting her in more danger, which she does not appreciate, and which interestingly underlines the rift that's opened between the powered and depowered mutants. I like the scene where Legion suddenly becomes impossibly muscular, almost like in a Dragonball-style anime. At the same time he screams, "NOBODY LOVES ME!!!" Bobby responds, "I... I have no idea what to say to that." There's a creepy scene where one of the seemingly "good" personalities in Legion attacks the defenseless Dani, but is stopped in time. Then Illyana decides to enter Legion herself to try to save the missing girl. Sam points out she could lose herself forever in there, but she responds, "What makes you so sure, Sam, that I have a self to lose?" Okay, so she's still crazy, then. It looks like it might be time to call in the X-Men, but Dani says no, let's go after Legion ourselves - with guns! Meanwhile, inside Legion, Illyana throws caution to the wind and starts laying about with her soul sword with extreme prejudice. Very nice!
Definitely still loving Diogenes Neves' art and Zeb Wells' writing here. It's an exciting and intriguing story with a good mix of action, drama, and humor.
Thumbs Up
Scalped #30
This is the first part of a new story arc, and boy is it a doozie. It opens with the wise old lady telling Falls Down an old Cheyenne story about how the great white grandfather beaver of the North is always gnawing at the pole that holds up the Earth. Then she says, "Sometimes when I first wake up I feel like I can hear it." "Hear what?" he asks. "The gnawing," she answers, and that's also the title of the arc: "The Gnawing." Excellent.
Bad Horse ends up with Catcher in the back of his squad car, and they have an eerie coversation wherein Catcher drops some heavy info on Bad Horse, revealing that he knows all kinds of things he shouldn't. Then he says, "Wanbli." "What the fuck does that mean?" Bad Horse asks. "Eagle," Catcher says, pointing, and there ahead of them is an eagle, which crashes into the windshield, sending the car out of control. Bad Horse stumbles out and Catcher disappears. Another great scene!
But the next scene ramps things up even further, as Red Crow reveals to Bad Horse that not only does he know Nitz has a mole in his organization, he wants Bad Horse to find that mole! Delicious irony. Everything and everyone is pressing down on Bad Horse now. For both Nitz and Red Crow, this is his final test. Meanwhile, Red Crow reveals to the Hmongs what he's done to Brass. When their leader demands he put Brass on the phone, Red Crow does so - but then shoots Brass in the head. It's the greatest, most bad-ass scene of all time. I cackled with glee as I read it. But now a huge, bloody war seems inevitable.
Such a fantastic issue! Explosive and insane and transformative. Everything is coming to a head now. But then, it feels like that's happening in practically every issue of Scalped - like everything's always teetering on the edge of complete collapse. Which is why it's so good.
Thumbs Up
Sherlock Holmes #3
I love the way Holmes, dressed as an old guy, totally dismantles a rich guy's bodyguard. That's bad-ass. I don't quite get what's supposed to be happening in the scene where Holmes sneaks back into his house and knocks over a pie. Is he causing a distraction to keep the reporter from getting something important out of Mrs. Hudson? I'm not clear on that. Maybe it will make more sense in a future issue. Anyway, there's also an exciting assassination attempt that's thwarted by a quick-thinking Lestrade, whose name is apparently familiar to the Baron, which is a bit odd. Maybe that will also be explained later on. Meanwhile Watson tries to get some help from Mycroft, but is unsuccessful. Then Holmes himself goes to see Mycroft, looking for answers. It should be interesting to see how that turns out!
This is getting more and more intriguing. I'm looking forward to seeing how it all turns out.
Thumbs Up
Star Trek: Crew #5
A science officer named Ensign Spock is introduced in this issue. Exciting! We also learn that our nameless main character has been constantly refusing promotions, and we learn at the end of the issue why: she wants to remain in the middle of the action, and not be held back by rules and regulations. In fact, she wants to be first officer! But before we get there, the Enterprise has an adventure chasing vanishing star systems, and is eventually sucked after one of them and into a vast emptiness. The story is actually pretty odd, over-the-top, and even depressing. Thanks to Spock's telepathic mind, they're able to learn that super-advanced, but oddly childish, entities in the future have been stealing star systems from the past in an attempt to stave off entropy and keep the universe from ending. But it's not doing any good, and the crew of the Enterprise is slowly dying from the effects of entropy themselves. Finally the future entities are talked into returning the ship and its crew to their own time, and giving up their vain attempts to stop the universe's ultimate destruction.
I can't say I really enjoyed this issue very much. It's more unbelievable even than your average Star Trek comic, and like I said, it's a bit more depressing than I really like. Still, it has some cool moments, and I believe we're now all set up for the concluding issue of this rather strong miniseries.
Thumbs Sideways
Wednesday Comics #2
I was a bit harsh on the first issue of Wednesday Comics in my last edition of The Take. The truth is, I love the format and the concept so much that I really enjoy reading even the weakest stories in it. We open up here once again with Azzarello's Batman, and it's a really well done little story. We meet the widow of the rich man killed in the last episode, and Bruce Wayne cleverly saves her life from an assassin's bullet in a really beautifully and cleverly drawn series of panels (compliments go to artist Risso). Meanwhile, Ryan Sook contributes more beautiful, classical art to Dave Gibbons' Kamandi, which continues with our title character meeting up with Prince Tuftan and fighting off some giant rats. Arcudi's Superman also has some fantastic art, this time from Lee Bermejo, but I'm not as happy with some of the writing here. Superman talks to his friend Batman about his unease over his confrontation with the mysterious alien last issue, but Batman is less than helpful, and Superman storms off all bitter and petulant. It's kind of lame, and I'm not sure I see the two of them having that kind of interaction. I don't think Bruce is that simplistic and brutal, and I don't think Clark is that sensitive. But maybe I'm being picky. We'll see where this one goes. I'm also still not a huge fan of Deadman. The story does get a little more intriguing when the goddess intervenes to warn Deadman off from his latest investigation. He defies her and leaps inside the body of the murderer anyway, only to find himself sucked into some kind of mysterious darkness. Hmm... Meanwhile, I continue to enjoy Busiek's Green Lantern! In this episode, we get to see the emerald guardian in action, fighting some dudes with jetpacks and laser guns, and then we cut over to an astronaut being transformed by some kind of space fungus on live TV. Nice! And the art is, as usual, classical and fun. Gaiman and Allred's Metamorpho uses an interesting stylistic conceit in this episode: all the action occurs simultaneously in one gigantic panel, just like in old paintings. Metamorpho asks if there will be dinosaurs in the hidden land they're visiting. His mad scientist boss says, "Possibly a couple," and he responds, "Neat." Fun! Also, across the bottom of the page is a fake message from the "Metamorpho Fans of America," all done up in old school Ben-day dot printing style, explaining that there have been other "element men" (and women!) throughout the history of comics. Good to know! Thanks, little guys!
I still don't like Sean Galloway's art on Teen Titans, but this episode is thankfully not as blandly abstract or melodramatic as the first one. Once again it's all narration, but this time it's from the perspective of Robin, whose voice is bitter, sarcastic, and slightly more interesting than Trident's. Still not great writing, though, and the story remains rather lame.
The second part of Paul Pope's Strange Adventures is just as beautiful, fun, and stylish as the first. He's hit just the right note with the language - it has that wonderful, bombastic, over-the-top, Silver Age kind of flavor to it, without being corny or lame. Adam nearly quotes Planet of the Apes in the fourth panel: "Get your paws off her, you-!" Later, he agrees to the big villain's demands in the hopes that he can turn things to his advantage later. Should be fun!
Part two of Supergirl is more of the same: she's still chasing the superpets, and the superpets are still making a mess of everything. It's cutesy and rather dull. Metal Men is also still kind of fun, but mostly just bland and silly. Wonder Woman is still squished and hurried. I don't understand why Ben Caldwell, when he was given the chance to use this extra-large, epic-sized format, broke his story into episodes that are so long and detailed, he had to squeeze them into a bunch of tiny little panels with so many words in them you can barely read them, and such small pictures you can barely see them. The story's not even that complex; I don't think it required so much detail to tell it. Weak.
Sgt. Rock continues with a bit of exposition and then a flashback that starts to explain how Rock got into this position. Not as exciting as the opening chapter, but now we're getting more into the story, and there's the promise of some serious Nazi beatings in the future.
This time around Iris West and Flash have switched places on the page, but it's still just one story that continues through each of them in turn. We start off by learning that Barry's vanishing act at the end of the last issue was him accidentally going back through time. It leads to him having a fight with himself over Iris' note, which is pretty interesting. Still definitely having fun with these two linked comics.
The Demon and Catwoman starts to get a little more interesting, as Selina gets sucked through a magic doorway, and the Demon mentions a witch whom he thinks is behind all of this. Hmm. The final story, Hawkman, is thankfully not narrated by birds this time, but there is still a lot of narration and it is still very clumsy and cheesy. It's loaded with exposition, and tells a story that's barely even believable. This is still the worst strip in the book.
But despite the many misses nestled among the hits, I still really enjoy Wednesday Comics.
Thumbs Up |
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| Tagged (?): Avengers (Not), Batman (Not), Blackest Night (Not), Captain America (Not), Comic books (Not), Doctor Who (Not), Ed Brubaker (Not), Final Crisis (Not), Flash (Not), Geoff Johns (Not), Green Lantern (Not), Jason Aaron (Not), John Arcudi (Not), John Byrne (Not), Neil Gaiman (Not), Paul Pope (Not), Scalped (Not), Sherlock Holmes (Not), Star Trek (Not), Superman (Not), The Take (Not), Wednesday Comics (Not) | |
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