The Iceberg Lounge - TPB & Graphic Novel Reviews

... so finish your whiskey or beer...

2011-12-30T08:00:00.000-05:00

Semisonic is still popular, right? I'd hate to think I'm out of touch with popular culture.

So here we are. I'm struggling with an appropriate preamble, so I'll just throw it out there: this will be the Berg's last post for the near future, and almost certainly the end of regular updates. I'm not closing down the blog entirely, but I have decided to get out of the business of three-times-a-week reviewing.

I actually made this decision last July, but decided to keep things going until the end of the year. There are a variety of reasons for it, many of which are the usual reasons given for something like this (general busy-ness). Perhaps more to the point is that the blog's purpose - reviews of TPBs and graphic novels - has been a misnomer for awhile, as I'm not reading all that many TPBs and graphic novels. The rise of digital comics has put me back on the monthly grind and shifted me towards the periodicals in a big way. Probably half of the reviews I've posted over the last year have been of digital editions, and it'd be an even more pronounced trend going forward. I'm down to ordering 3-4 TPBs a month, and most of them are of "classic" material.

The other thing is that, whether due to burnout, lack of creativity, or whatever - I really haven't had a lot to SAY about a lot of the stuff I've read lately. I either like it or I don't, but I dunno - if there are 5-6 new Spider-Man arcs a year, there's just not an awful lot to say about each of them individually. I find myself going back to the "it's good disposable entertainment" well repeatedly, and that just doesn't seem particularly insightful or useful. In some respects, the great myth of the TPB Age is that it gave us the illusion that the material is more important than it actually is. When something is collected in a premium hardcover, it indulges the fiction that this is timeless material that's meant to be preserved. And I'm sorry - 99% of what's being published really isn't going to stand the test of time. The truly great runs - yeah, those'll be worth pulling off the shelf and re-reading in 10-15 years' time - but Flashpoint tie-ins? Seriously? Even something that's pretty good - say, Irredeemable - I dig it but I don't need to read it again in 10 years, any more than I need to go back and re-watch old episodes of Bored to Death.

Comics occasionally produce transcendent material, but more often the thing they do really well is produce good, relatively cheap, disposable entertainment. And that's perfectly fine - it's not at all a criticism - I *like* disposable entertainment. I've just reached a place where I want my disposable entertainment to be more easily disposable (or at least not take up any space).

When I started the blog on Christmas Eve 2007, I told myself I'd try to keep it going for 5 years. I made it 4, so let's just say that 4 is the new 5. My intent was to create a resource for folks looking for graphic novel reviews, and I think the Berg's archive is large enough to be a decent resource in that regard. I may/ will still do occasional updates - I mentioned the Mark Waid and Sweet Tooth posts in the top 10 post. But future posts will be things more along the lines of the Bendis/ Maleev Daredevil retrospective from last summer, and if/ when they show up, it'll just be because there's something I want to say, and this is the best way to say it.

Thanks to everyone who has read and/or commented over the years - I've enjoyed writing and I hope you've enjoyed reading. Signing off for now.

p.s. Hank Pym still sucks.

top 10 books of 2011

2011-12-28T08:00:00.000-05:00

Another year in the books, another top 10 list. These are my favorite books of the year. As always, the rules for inclusion are ever-changing and probably make sense to no one but me. After changing the rules last year to include "classic" material that was collected during the year, I've reversed course and excluded those materials this year. (If I hadn't, the Waid/ Wieringo Fantastic Four collections would've been #1.) I've excluded books that have incomplete arcs at this point - this took all of the New 52, Severed, & Pigs off the table. (Pigs would've charted for sure, and Severed would have at least been an honorable mention.) Where an ongoing series published more than one arc, I've treated them as one entry. (You'll see.)

All in all, it's an arbitrary set of rules, but hey, I'm an arbitrary fellow sometimes. So without further ado:

Honorable mention goes to: Punishermax (Kingpin arc), Scalped (Vols. 7-8), American Vampire (Vol. 1), Black Panther: The Man Without Fear, and Ruse (2011 series). I didn't do detailed reviews of Ruse or Scalped. Scalped is so consistent I find i don't have much to say about it on a volume by volume basis. It's always terrific, though. Ruse will get folded into a Mark Waid retrospective that I've been mulling for awhile. Short version: it good.

#10 - Green Wake Vol. 1 (Image/ Kurtis J. Wiebe & Riley Rossmo) - It speaks to the strength of this year's field that this one's so far down the list, because I really liked it a lot.

#9 - Batman: The Black Mirror (DC/ Scott Snyder, Jock & Francesco Francavilla) - Best non-Morrison Bat-story of the last five years.

#8 - The Tooth (Oni/ Cullen Bunn & Matt Kindt) - The only OGN to chart this year - I loved this eerie take on nostalgia.

#7 - Blue Estate Vol. 1 (Image/ Viktor Kalvachev, Toby Cypress & more) - My favorite new crime series of the year. This one's an Elmore Leonard-style mashup that gets better and better.

#6 - Daytripper (Vertigo/ Fabio Moon & Gabriel Ba) - Really amazed this is only #6. Again, this year's field is very deep.

#5 - Criminal: Last of the Innocent (Icon/ Ed Brubaker & Sean Phillips) - My favorite not-new crime series of the year. Noir meets Archie - another fantastic installment of this always excellent series of miniseries.

#4 - Batman & Robin Must Die/ Batman, Inc. (DC/ Grant Morrison, Frazier Irving & more) - I just finished Inc. and so have not given it a proper review, but both of these arcs are tremendous. Inc. is like if Morrison wrote Brave & The Bold and it was completely awesome all the time. My biggest regret of the DC relaunch is that it kind of short-circuited Inc.

#3 - Sweet Tooth (Vertigo/ Jeff Lemire) - This is another one I haven't written up yet. I'm waiting until the whole series is complete. The first arc, "Out of the Woods", is good, but the second, "In Captivity" is amazing. Lemire has a unique voice and art style, and sometimes they get lost on his more mainstream books. Sweet Tooth is unfiltered Lemire, and it's wonderful.

#2 - Bulletproof Coffin (Image/ David Hine & Shaky Kane) - I've raved about this one many times before, so I'll just pimp the sequel that is coming in January.

and,

#1 - Chew: Just Desserts & Flambe (Image/ John Layman & Rob Guillory) - Every issue of this book is like a big party. It's gross, uber-violent, twisted, hilarious and endearing all at once. Moreover, it's just rough enough around the edges to have personality. Hopefully the TV show can capture some of this magic.

So that's the top 10 for this year. Obviously Image had a very strong showing, with 4 entries. In my opinion Image is utterly killing it right now - as noted, Pigs and Severed would have been strong candidates as well. My big thing right now is that I want books that have their own unique voices - a lot of the Marvel and DC superhero books seem to bleed together. In many cases they are well-done and well-crafted, but there's a sameness to a lot of them that I find unappealing. The massive emphasis on shared universe continuity is off-putting as well. I have enjoyed a fair bit of the new 52 and I still like a lot of Marvel books, but series like the ones above are the ones really knocking my socks off these days.

Coming up Friday is.. well, a left-field swerve of a year-end post. See you then.

legends of the dark knight: marshall rogers

2011-12-26T08:00:00.000-05:00

by Marshall Rogers with Steve Englehart, James Robinson & more

includes: Detective Comics # 468, 471-479, 481, Legends of the Dark Knight # 132-136, Batman: Dark Detective # 1-6 & more

the premise: Batman squares off with Hugo Strange, The Joker, Clayface III, Two-Face and more, and starts a relationship with Silver St. Cloud in this volume reprinting the Bat-art of Marshall Rogers.

the lowdown: Like the Gene Colan book published last summer, this volume is an art-centric tome collecting almost all of the late Marshall Rogers' Batman work. It's about the size and length of the Starman Omnibuses, and while it's not entirely comprehensive, it includes 90% or more of Rogers' Bat-stuff.

That makes for something of an odd dynamic, because unlike Colan (whose work is confined mostly to about a 6 year period in the mid-80's), Rogers' work spans several decades. He is best known for his Detective Comics run from the late 70's, but the 00's featured two separate returns to Batman, first with Archie Goodwin & James Robinson on the LotDK arc "Siege", then with Englehart on "Dark Detective." Both stories are erstwhile attempts at sequels to the now-classic Englehart/ Rogers 70's run. Neither is its equal, with "Dark Detective" missing by miles.

The 70's run with Englehart is considered by most Batmanologists to be one of the definitive runs, but most of the attention is usually focused either on the Joker's "laughing fish" plot or the introduction of Silver St. Cloud (which actually occurred in a story drawn by Walter Simonson and is not included here). Rogers' art is a big part of the draw, though. His style falls squarely into the "traditional superhero" mold, but he's still able to lend the appropriate amount of shadow to Batman. He's also very inventive in terms of panel structure and camera angles - not all of the experiments with panel comp work but the angles never get dull. Even the marginal Clayface III story (written by Len Wein), and the one-shot Denny O'Neil story from Detective # 481 look great.

The later stuff is interesting. The LotDK arc "Siege" was begun by Archie Goodwin and then finished by James Robinson following Goodwin's death. Published in 2000, Rogers' art looks outstanding here even though he doesn't have the benefit of Terry Austin inking him. The story features Silver's return to Gotham and tells the history of Wayne Manor (not the now-canonical version - this is its own thing). "Dark Detective", published in 2005, ignores the presence of "Siege" and does it's own sequel, and by that point, even though Austin is back on inks, Rogers' art declined pretty seriously. Coupled with a horrible script from Englehart, which painfully attempts to tie into then-current continuity (Akins as Commissioner, Batman as outlaw) AND makes several awkward attempts at political commentary, "Dark Detective" is a big mis-fire. (Of note, Englehart has apparently suggested that the plot of "The Dark Knight" was either lifted or inspired by "Dark Detective" - because the latter is just like the former if you stripped the former of pretty much all of its thematic resonance and gave it an ending that might as well have had the characters announcing that they were out of pages and needed to wrap it up.)

the verdict: It'd be a shame to let one misfire taint an otherwise remarkable career, though. Rogers was one of the best Batman artists of all time, and it's a treat to see his work presented in a premium format like this. For my money, Rogers belongs right alongside Neal Adams and Jim Aparo in the pantheon of 70's Bat-artists, and this volume is a wonderful compilation of his work.

classic g.i. joe vol. 13

2011-12-23T08:00:00.000-05:00

by Larry Hama & Andrew Wildman

includes: G.I. Joe # 124-134

the premise: Firefly returns except now he's a ninja. Cobra invades the Pit again. Plus: the Joes form environmental protection and drug prevention teams.

the lowdown: Though the property seems to have stood the test of time, I'll always think of G.I. Joe as an 80's thing. To me that was the period in which it was most popular, and so I always associate it with that era, even when reading the modern IDW books. So it's an interesting mash-up to see the property evolve into the 1990's, and this volume is where it happens.

Marvel Comics in general took an evolutionary step in the 90's, and it's very evident in these issues. The panels get much larger, the art turns more toward lots of grimacing and bold panels, with lots of extraneous lines, and there's far less emphasis on character development than was evident in the earlier parts of the series.

Oh and by the way, this is where Hama completely loses his mind and the story falls totally apart.

Look, this series always had a "batshit insane" side to it, but usually the crazy was the soap opera. Hama held together the military part of the book pretty well, coming up with interesting setpieces and generally crafting pretty good action bits. That is a memory with this volume, which is highly enjoyable but only as a parody of a decent comic. To wit:

- The Joes have formed both environmental protection and drug interdiction teams for some reason. Presumably this was an attempt to be topical. It is hilariously awful. There's a new Cobra named Cesspool who's all about polluting the environment as much as possible. The Joes stop him by siccing a lawyer on him. I'm not making this up.

- The Joes also have a Ninja Force, y'know, like most military outfits do. These guys all get brainwashed by Firefly (who is now also a ninja) into attacking Cobra Island. (Oh, and Firefly has a brainwave scanner too.) The brainwashing is so sophisticated that it can only be undone by the victim seeing someone make a triangle with their fingers. Surprisingly, Firefly's brilliant plan falls apart.

- BUT, not before he learns the location of the Pit and gives it to Cobra Commander. CC leads a full-scale invasion of the Pit, then abandons the plan halfway through. Seems his REAL plan was to demonstrate how effective his stealth technology was, and having accomplished that by sneaking up on the Pit, he films the whole thing and withdraws to sell it for big bucks. Again, I'm not making this up. Oh, and the Pit is in the same location it was the last time Cobra invaded it.

- The White Clown and Magda the Bareback Rider return at last. You may recall that Magda had become the ruler of war-torn Borovia when we saw her last. Apparently the Bareback Rider Regime was short-lived, though, as she's about to be executed as a war criminal when we re-meet her. The White Clown is still, of course, dressed like a clown.

the verdict: Hilarity aside, these issues are really pretty awful. The characters' motivations make little sense, and there are all kinds of 180 degree shifts in personalities, plans, and whatnot. There is also lots of grimacing. Thirteen volumes in, I think I'm hanging in there until the bitter end, but holy crap these are not good comics.

ultimate comics doomsday

2011-12-21T08:00:00.000-05:00

by Brian Michael Bendis & Rafa Sandoval

includes: Ultimate Enemy # 1-4. Ultimate Mystery # 1-4, & Ultimate Doom # 1-4

the premise: A mysterious villain launches a series of devastating attacks against Spider-Man, Roxxon Corporation, and the remnants of the now-disbanded Fantastic Four. As the heroes marshal their forces in an attempt to stem the tide of destruction, one former member of the FF learns that someone close to her may have become the world's greatest villain.

the lowdown: It's amazing now to remember that, once upon a time, Ultimate Fantastic Four was the top-selling book in the industry, but it's true. This was back before the line lost its luster, back when Bendis and Mark Millar were "co-writing" the title and a movie was on the way and Marvel was years away from letting Jeph Loeb basically destroy the imprint with "Ultimatum." Though it began high on the charts, Ultimate FF was never really able to sustain much success. After a series of short runs by a-list creators, the title eventually languished. It plugged along for a few more years but hardly anyone was paying attention. With the FF movie franchise on the skids, Marvel elected that one of the consequences of Ultimatum was the breakup of the team, and the mothballing of the title.

This mega-story, then, (and it is one story despite being three separate miniseries) is the next step for the Ultimate FF. The Human Torch has been appearing in Ultimate Spider-Man's title since Ultimatum, but this series catches us up with Sue Storm and Ben Grimm as well. They're the core members of an ensemble cast of heroes who react to a brutal series of attacks on NYC, including the destruction of what remains of the Baxter Building. It quickly becomes apparent that they have been targeted by a new villain who chooses to remain anonymous but who clearly has murderous intent and tremendous power.

Admit it - you've already figured out who the bad guy is. Heck, look at the cover. There's the Torch, and the Thing, and Sue Storm, and... wait, who's missing? Oh yeah. That guy.

So you can probably tell where this is going. The ex-members of the FF realize that their split is deeper than even they knew, but are left wondering if what appears to be happening is really happening, or whether there's some other, more innocent explanation.

I enjoyed the heck out of this book. It's a big sweeping adventure wherein Bendis (successfully IMO) juggles a huge cast of characters and manages to make most of them integral to the story. At its heart it's a story about the Ultimate FF and what their next step is. The selling point of the Ultimate line in the past few years has been that the creators can make sweeping changes to the characters and let them stick - and Bendis takes full advantage of that by making significant changes to three of the four members of the FF.

Along the way Sue Storm takes center stage and emerges as the star of the story. The Ultimate version of the character was, from the beginning, played as being a scientist in her own right, and we see her here as a compelling mix of guts, savvy, intelligence, but also a host of insecurities. She's very believable as a college-age girl who has some self-esteem issues despite her accomplishments, and the altered team dynamic really allows her to shine.

Her hair does all kinds of strange things, though, as depicted by Sandoval. Not sure why gravity doesn't work on her, and also felt some cognitive disconnect brought about by the antagonist's resemblance to Bruce Banner. (Come on - if you haven't figured out who the bad guy is yet - geez...) With those two quibbles, though, I thought Sandoval did a really good job. He especially does well with the loud scenes, the big splashes showing lots of destruction. His splash of Sue that ends the "Mystery" arc is chilling, and the scenes between Sue and Ben contain some excellent "acting".

the verdict: Given that there's now been yet another Ultimate relaunch, I'm not sure whether this is the end of the road for the FF. If it is, I think it was a strong conclusion to their story, but I think they're left in a place where they could remain viable down the road. This is one of those stories that benefits greatly from being not the "real" version, as it allows for some very satisfying character development. Bendis doesn't quite tie *everything* together seamlessly, but he crafts a very nice extended story here. I'd rate this as the best Ultimate book I've read since the relaunch (the first one).

avengers vol. 2 and new avengers vol. 2 by brian michael bendis

2011-12-19T08:00:00.000-05:00

Avengers v. 2 - includes Avengers (2010) # 7-12 & 12.1 by Bendis, John Romita Jr. & Bryan Hitch

New Avengers v. 2 - includes New Avengers (2010) # 7-13 by Bendis, Mike Deodato, Howard Chaykin & more

the premise(s): The Avengers try to prevent The Hood from assembling a complete collection of Infinity Gems and becoming all-powerful. The New Avengers try to take down Superia (who once turned Captain America into a woman) from absconding with something nasty and resurrecting HAMMER. Plus: the 1959 Avengers (yes, that's right) assemble to take on The Red Skull and... Captain America (who is not usually a woman).

the lowdown: Though they contain some different characters and supposedly independent plotlines, it seemed appropriate to review the second volumes of each of Bendis' 2010 Avengers series together, because whether it's intentional or not, they contain very similar themes. Each deals with the folly of attempting to obtain and control great power, but neither deals with the concept in a particularly satisfying way.

Avengers sees the team racing around trying to keep The Hood from getting his mitts on the Infinity Gems. Back in the Illuminati miniseries, Bendis established that the Illuminati members took the gems out of circulation, under the premise that they were too powerful to be loosed upon the world. It seems they did a lousy job of safeguarding the gems, because by hook or crook they're all back in play here. The Illuminati's role in hiding them away (and also: in existing) gets revealed, and Iron Man & Captain America have it out (again).

Meanwhile, New Avengers features a story split between 1959 and now, with the connection between the two stories only becoming clear at the end. [SPOILERS!] In 1959, Nick Fury puts together an unorthodox team of mercenaries including Kraven, Sabretooth and a few others to attack a group of Nazis led by the Red Skull. It turns out that the Skull has almost perfectly replicated the Super-Soldier serum and has created his own Captain America. So there's a big fight that ends on a somewhat ambiguous note. In the present, the New Avengers are fighting Superia (who once turned Captain America into a woman), and lo and behold they stumble upon the Skull's serum, which has been thieved from Fury, who has had it on ice for fifty years because... wait for it... he thought it was too powerful to be left in play. During the fight, though, Mockingbird is mortally wounded and will die unless she's administered the formula. So the Avengers have to decide between letting their friend die or using this dangerous serum on her.

Both stories are outwardly cautionary tales on the folly of craving power. Captain America is outraged that the Illuminati existed, immediately kicking Iron Man off the team. And it's hard to argue with his perspective - whatever good intentions the Illuminati may have possessed, they were hilariously incompetent at doing much of anything, including locking up the gems. Even if one assumes that the actions they were taking were actions that needed to be taken, by story's end there's virtually no credible justification for these jokers being the ones to do it. Likewise, we're told over and over (in as exposition-heavy a story as you'll ever see from Bendis - he completely abandons his usual narrative style in favor of Watcher Narration) that The Hood's quest is folly - not because it can't work, but because the power he seeks is too much for him to handle.

So this is an interesting idea - not especially novel but I don't recall seeing Bendis toy with it too often in the past. The problem is that, in both cases, his examination of the issue is undercut by the story's conclusion. [SPOILERS - SERIOUSLY, I ALREADY WARNED YOU ONCE!] Iron Man pretends to destroy the gems, but secretly re-assembles the Illuminati, this time with Steve Rogers in tow. The New Avengers give Mockingbird the Super-Soldier serum. So after issue upon issue cautioning against the irresponsible use of power - both arcs end with the protagonists using power irresponsibly.

This is, of course, a valid approach, but it's problematic given that we're supposed to... y'know... *like* the Avengers. But seriously - how anyone, anywhere actually likes Bendis' Iron Man is, at this point, lost on me. Not only is the guy an arrogant prick, not only is he secretive toward and manipulative of his so-called friends - the dude never learns anything. He never, ever learns anything from his mistakes. And these other guys just keep following his lead like he has any idea what he's doing, which makes them look like idiots because clearly he does not. Meanwhile, the New Avengers mostly stumble through their arc, do a bad job of torturing the bad guys to get information, and then break down and use the serum without any real understanding of what it is or what it does. What the hell, right? Worked for Barry Bonds. Their motivation may be understandable - attempting to save their colleague's life - but geez what if she turns into The Blonde Hulk or something and kills a bunch of people?

the verdict: So although both of these stories have some interesting ideas, and one of them is really well-drawn (I'll let you guess which one - but the answer might surprise you), both take the characters to an unsympathetic place, and that's a problem in an ongoing serial. Both arcs play off the notion of power corrupting, but neither resolves its basic conflict in a satisfying way, either from a philosophical or an emotional POV. Neither series really feels like it's on particularly steady footing right now.

black panther: the man without fear - urban jungle

2011-12-16T08:08:00.000-05:00

by David Liss & Francesco Francavilla

includes: Black Panther - Man Without Fear # 513-518

the premise: Having renounced his throne in Wakanda, the Black Panther assumes the role of Hell's Kitchen's protector in light of Daredevil's departure.

the lowdown: So this series has already been cancelled by Marvel, because this world has no justice. It's taken me awhile to getting around to reviewing this one, but that's not at all an indication of disinterest. In fact, I think this had assumed the role of "Matches' Favorite Marvel Book" prior to its cancellation.

Spinning out of the events of the Shadowland event, Black Panther took over the Daredevil title in one of those stealth Hercules-style launches, where Marvel tries to graft the existing audience for a character onto another character by playing around with numbering. This time around it's Black Panther, whose own series have now been cancelled about 873 times in the last decade. In this series, he's slightly reinvented as an urban vigilante, taking over Daredevil's beat. I say "slightly" only because, while this is something of a departure for the character, the change is acknowledged and explored in-story. T'Challa is cut off from his friends, his wife, and his technology, operating alone in more of a crime/ noir setting than the character usually inhabits.

Liss is a novelist new to comics - he is best-known for historical fiction and is really quite good at it. At times his exposition is a little overdone, perhaps a bit stilted, but he does a very nice job of introducing T'Challa, the villain of the piece, and a moderately sized supporting cast. He also works Spider-Man and Luke Cage into the story, grounding it firmly in the Marvel Universe without getting swept into some kind of nerd labyrinth.

Francavilla has quickly become one of my favorite artists - his work here is very similar to his run on Detective with Scott Snyder. It's got that "Batman: Year One" feel to it, and is just a treat on every page. Jefte Palo handles the lone fill-in and does a wonderful job as well. This is a really good-looking, moody book. It doesn't look or read like anything else Marvel is publishing right now - at least nothing else I'm reading. My only real complaint is that Simone Bianchi's covers look too "posed", a little out of sync with the interiors. I like Bianchi's work in general but he's not a great fit on this book.

the verdict: If you like crime comics at all, especially mixed with superheroes, this is one to check out. Again, probably my favorite Marvel series prior to its cancellation. It's gotten me into Liss' novels (Whiskey Rebels is an excellent read), and definitely has me interested in his upcoming comics work. Strongly recommended.

op/ed: on digital pricing and the tide of inevitability

2011-12-14T08:00:00.000-05:00

For years it seemed like "floppies versus trades" was the snake eating its tail of the comic industry - a circular debate, often based on false premises and assumptions, that nevertheless never seemed to run out of steam. It's amazing to me how proprietary comic fans can be about format - to me the ready availability of collected editions presented an additional choice for consumers, and as a consumer I think more choice is a good thing. That comes with the assumption, of course, that one format doesn't cannibalize another and render them both extinct. And of course, every time a series got canceled for the past ten years, we could expect a cry of how it was killed by "waiting for the trade." This was, in virtually every case, bullhockey - pretty much every canceled DC/ Marvel series that sold poorly in periodical format ALSO sold poorly collected, putting the lie to the notion that there was some huge market of tradewaiters who could have kept the series alive by purchasing the monthlies. Silly argument - but there were plenty of folks on either "side" of the debate who weren't satisfied to just pick up the format they liked and ignore the other - they also felt the need to rail against any other format and/or wish it out of existence.

The floppies/ trades debate has, for the moment at least, taken a backseat as digital comics have become the new hot-button topic. Digital comics have been around for awhile now, but only in the last two years have they emerged as anything other than a curiosity. The release of the iPad in 2010 was a game-changer, because it was the first device that allowed digital comics to be read in a way approximating the way a physical book is read. It's just the right size to view a full page - putting it in sharp contrast with the IMO woefully frustrating task of trying to read on a phone, a laptop, or a desktop computer. Throw in the release of handy apps that make it easy to get the books and get them on the device, and all of a sudden this is a legit idea.

It's been a wild two years since then. Marvel was the first major publisher to jump in feet first, rolling out its branded app at the time of the iPad's release. Most of the other major publishers quickly followed suit, and even smaller publishers who lacked branded apps quickly began releasing digital comics through the comixology app. DC was a little late to the game, relatively speaking, but when they arrived they brought along a bombshell - they began releasing Justice League: Generation Lost digitally on the same day it arrived in stores. Marvel had tried this in a half-assed way with an Iron Man Annual, but broke it into three parts and generally screwed the whole thing up. DC, and quickly thereafter Archie, were at the forefront of same-day-as-print releases. (Note: I refuse to call them "day and date" because that is "stupid and dumb".) Spurred further by DC's September 2011 relaunch, the trend toward same-day digital/ print releases has picked up even more steam, and once Marvel completes its transition sometime around Spring 2012, it's likely that 75-80% of the comics released each week will also be available digitally.

This is an exciting yet scary time, particularly for brick and mortar retailers. Many of them are afraid that their customers will migrate to digital consumption, or at least that enough customers will migrate to evaporate their often-thin profit margins. This is not an unreasonable fear, as any record store exec will be happy to tell you. But at the same time, much of the retailer response seems to be thrashing about - perhaps a reflection of the varied voices doing the talking - but it seems to vacillate between swearing up and down that hardly anyone WANTS digital comics and predicting a migration large enough to destroy their businesses.

The price point is where the battle lines increasingly are being drawn. Most of the same-day releases, with the exception of Archie comics, are priced at the same point as the print versions. Most publishers have adopted a strategy of maintaining price parity between digital and print for about four weeks, then dropping the digital price. This standard appears to have evolved based on nothing other than the fact that it's how DC does it - presumably the idea is to hold price parity through most of the LCS' sell-through period. Marvel has been the notable exception, refusing to drop prices on same-day books no matter how long they've been in print. Thus Ultimate Comics Spider-Man #153 - which came out a year ago - is still priced at $3.99. Their reasoning, apparently, is that brick and mortar stores don't discount books after a month, so neither should they.

A couple of things - one, Marvel's reasoning is asinine and stupid. Retailers often DO discount unsold inventory - ever hear of a quarter or dollar bin? And when they don't, it's because they PAID for the physical copy - each and every one, individually. Digital comics aren't scarce in that way - once it's available, there's no marginal cost involved in each copy sold.

Price parity is the proverbial bone thrown to the LCS, and really it's no surprise that Marvel, which is the company best-served by the existing infrastructure, is the most reluctant to embrace any other model. But the reality is, the industry can't exploit and grow the digital market to its fullest potential by charging $2.99 and $3.99 for digital comics. It can't do it for the same reason the industry doesn't grow selling $2.99 and $3.99 print comics - that's just too expensive to be of value to anyone other than a die-hard fan. $3.99 for a 20-age comic is *insane*. $3.99 for a digital comic is even *more* insane. The fact that the content of the digital and print editions may be the same does not mean they are the same product. Demonstrably they are not - one is a physical object that I can re-sell, lend out, spill coffee on - and the other is a file. They are not the same thing, and the notion that they have to be priced identically is absurd.

The reality is that same-day digital, at a FREE price point, is already here. Every comic published is available on the day it is purchased, for free, with no repercussions other than possibly a guilty conscience. These free comics are easily transferable to an iPad or other tablet, and they are easier than the comixology releases to transfer or loan. If download statistics at some of the more popular sites are to be believed, the "free" option is being selected en masse, sometimes by MORE people than actually pay for the book. I've spent very little space here discussing illegal downloading - I don't condone it, I don't buy lots of the rationalizations for it, I have experimented with it myself, I think it's wrong but I think some of the over-the-top, fire-and-brimstone "you're a war criminal if you torrent!" proclamations take it too far. But right or wrong, good or bad, this exists. It is a real thing, and it's not going away. And it should be obvious that having an issue downloaded tens of thousands of times is a drag on the sales of the legit edition, whatever rationalizations are offered to the contrary.

Some of the folks who download books illegally will never choose any option other than "free." We know this. But some will - the existence of iTunes, Amazon mp3s, the Kindle bookstore and the lot are testament to this. The major publishers have an opportunity to co-opt/ win back some of that black market - but not at $3.99. Not at $2.99. That's a non-starter. Failing to have a legal digital release that's simultaneous with print AND that's priced in a non-insane way = giving the market over to illegal downloads. It is not a coincidence that the direct market saw a big drop in 2010 and the first half of 2011 - the iPad was a game-changer for legal AND illegal digital comics. The options available to the major publishers are not "no digital comics" and "$3.99 digital comics." The options are "free digital comics" and "digital comics on which we make money."

Realistic pricing on digital comics - and simultaneous print/ digital releases - is not a choice for publishers to make. These things are necessities if the publishers are to avoid watching their profits slowly (or not-so-slowly) evaporate into a sea of illegal downloads. No responsible publisher can ignore the impact that torrenting is having on their business - and the only two ways to combat it are (1) try to shut it down, or (2) co-opt it to the extent possible. re: (1) - good luck.

So where does that leave the retailer, who sees the product s/he sells being offered in a convenient format, for a lower price, at or around the same time he gets it? Well, y'know, I get why they're concerned. Like I said, it's not an unreasonable fear. I've personally migrated largely from print to digital, so I don't buy the current mantra that it's two separate audiences. It may be to an extent, but there's absolutely overlap. What you hope - what I hope - is that the availability of digital comics drive people into comic stores - that the widespread availability offered by digital makes new comic fans, some of whom value the experience of shopping in a specialty shop with a large selection. That's the hope - but I'd have to concede, having pointed out above that digital comics are already available on a widespread basis - that so far this hasn't happened. I don't know the answer, and I don't think anyone does.

What I do know is this - the world has changed. Not "is changing." HAS changed. Digital media is here and it's viable. A new generation is growing up having never experienced a world without digital media. CD's still outsell iTunes downloads - but neither of my kids has ever bought a CD. They've both made purchases on iTunes. A few years ago my oldest asked me how old I was when I got my first iPod. She was amazed that my answer was "32". Protecting copyright has become exponentially more difficult than it used to be - frankly it's become, for all intents and purposes, impossible. Failing to co-opt the illegal digital market to the extent it can be done, solely for the purpose of maintaining price parity with a similar but not identical (print) product is bad business.

As an attorney I sometimes get hit with the Unreasonable Client. This is the guy who comes to you with a problem, which may or may not be solvable, and then if you cannot solve it, he blames you not only for failing to solve the problem, but for the fact that the problem exists in the first place. This is of course a logical fallacy, as the problem existed before he even knew you - but this matters little to the unreasonable client. In some ways the digital/ print situation is analogous. The major publishers did not create digital comics or the digital market. The loss of customers from print to digital would happen regardless of anything DC, Marvel et al do. If DC and Marvel try to "fix" that problem by offering a legal alternative, complete with pointers to your nearest LCS - well, maybe that'll work and maybe it won't. But if it doesn't, the retailer is in no less a position than he was before there was a legal alternative. Maybe DC and Marvel were ineffective at fixing the problem, but that doesn't mean they *created* the problem.

I don't know if digital comics really are the panacea some seem to want to believe. I heard the same thing about trade collections for years, and while I think the advent of trades has been great for the industry, it hasn't ushered in a new golden age or anything. Digital may be similar. I DO know that digital comics, like trades, represent a new alternative for the consumer. I'm a consumer. I like choice. If people don't like digital comics, then they're perfectly free to, y'know, NOT buy them. But some of the current pricing and release models (looking at YOU, Marvel) look like attempts to kill rather than grow the market, and that's silly.

Get real, guys. And do it quickly.

batman: the demon laughs

2011-12-12T08:00:00.000-05:00

by Chuck Dixon & Jim Aparo

includes: Legends of the Dark Knight # 142-145

the premise: Ra's Al Ghul abducts The Joker and enlists his aid in his latest scheme to kill off most of the world's population. Batman objects. Also: Henri Ducard grows a mullet for some reason.

the lowdown: The Berg's second DC 100-page spectacular entry looks at an arc that had a somewhat tortured publication history. Though set in the post-Contagion, pre-Cataclysm Bat-continuity (so somewhere between 1996 and 1998), it did not see print until 2001, having apparently been designated an inventory story and kept in a desk for several years. I'm not quite sure why it was shelved - maybe they thought Ra's or Joker or both were overexposed around that time.

In any event, this was one of the last Batman projects undertaken by the late Jim Aparo prior to his passing. It is, to be kind, not vintage Aparo - in part because age had, by that time, diminished his skills and in part because he's not paired with a particularly appropriate inker. (Said inker also drew the cover which, as you can see, manages to make Talia look hairy. Really hairy.) Aparo is one of my all-time favorite Batman artists, and also one of my all-time favorite Joker artists, so even seeing him at 70% or 50% is a treat.

Dixon always wrote a good Joker, and he was always good at coming up with new high concepts for Joker stories. The Joker has appeared SO often over the years, and to a large extent he writes himself, and many times it seems the high concept gets lost - Joker just shows up and Batman has to stop him. Pairing him with Ra's Al Ghul, though, is a novel choice that removes this one from the same old.

As is usually the case with Ra's stories, this features the globetrotting Batman, and the story takes him to several exotic locales. Much of Ra's plan is recycled from the Contagion and Legacy storylines, as he once again plans to unleash a virus on the world (and maybe that's why it was shelved - too similar?), but the Joker's inclusion allows a different tone than most Ra's stories have.

Dixon works in several pretty clever moments - Batman recognizing Talia based on her walk (to Oracle's amusement) is classic. [spoiler alert] Joker being dipped in the Lazarus Pit and regaining his sanity is pretty inspired as well. At times this one threatens to drop a little too far into generic action story territory, but little moments like those distinguish it.

I wasn't kidding about Ducard's mullet. Ducard if you don't know is a mercenary who trained Bruce Wayne, and also: an unprincipled killer. Dixon would use him every so often when he wanted a recognizable mercenary and Eddie Fyers was unavailable. Here he shows up for some reasons that are a little specious, and he's got a full-on Superman Back From the Dead Mullet. Why? Oh why? Ducard's supposed to be French - do French people even have mullets?

the verdict: I wouldn't rate this as the best of Dixon's Joker stories - Robin II: Joker's Wild, Devil's Advocate, and Detective #726 are all better - but it's one of only a few collaborations he had with Aparo, and one of the only meetings between Joker and Ra's. Good high concept, solid execution. At four issues it's just right for this format, too.

spider-man: matters of life & death

2011-12-09T08:00:00.000-05:00

by Dan Slott, Stefano Casselli, Marcos Martin & more

includes: Amazing Spider-Man # 652-657 & 654.1

the premise: When the return of Alistair Smythe claims the life of someone close to him, Spider-Man resolves that "no one dies" from here on out. Later, after the Human Torch ignores Spidey's proclamation and dies anyway, Spidey visits the Fantastic Four and recalls his friendship with the Torch. Plus: the new Venom.

the lowdown: The three part story that leads off this arc really isn't anything special. It's a perfectly acceptable disposable story about Spider-Man fighting one of his more disposable villains, but really not anything more than that. It's drawn by Casselli, who gives the story a little more traditional look than Humberto Ramos did on the prior arc, and co-written by Fred Van Lente. The death at the end feels pretty tacked on, and come on - no one's really getting excited about Spider-Man fighting Smythe again. He's just not all that interesting.

Neither is the awkwardly placed 654.1 all that wonderful. It has nothing to do with anything else here - it's a pilot episode for the new Venom series, except it's not by the Venom creative team. It introduces Flash Thompson as the new Venom and sets up his series - certainly nothing that couldn't have been done in Venom #1, but I guess it gets more eyes on it if it's in "Spider-Man." I've always hated this stunt.

The last three issues here, though, are quite good. #655-656 are drawn by Marcos Martin and as such look amazing. Those issues deal with the fallout of the aforementioned tacked-on death, and while they lack much emotional gravitas, they feature Spidey doing a relatively thoughtful re-assessment of his methods and priorities. This is coupled with Spidey having lost his trademark Spider-sense, and Slott does a really good job of depicting all the ways Spidey relied on it. #655 has an extended silent sequence, and though it doesn't quite work - it really just serves as a reminder that we've seen the whole song and dance before - it's terrific to look at.

#657 is where the money's at, though. This issue follows closely from the death of the Human Torch over in Hickman's Fantastic Four. It's meant to be read after the epilogue issue of the "Three" arc, and features Spidey buddying around with the FF telling Torch stories. Each short flashback story is illustrated by a different artist, with Martin drawing the framing sequence. These little short stories are gold, esp. the Ty Templeton-drawn campout story. Superhero comics rarely do sentimentality well, but this one captures the moment almost perfectly. It goes from wistful to funny and back with consummate skill - I can even forgive it for using the hackneyed "message from beyond the grave" device to conclude. Definitely the best single issue since "Big Time" began.

the verdict: Though these issues are bundled together for collection purposes, they're only loosely connected - they do, as the title implies, involve life and death I guess. The stories run the gamut from so-so to the Human Torch issue. I liked the run as a whole well enough, but you'd be fine to just pick up #657 on comixology for $1.99.

batman: the black mirror

2011-12-07T08:00:00.000-05:00

by Scott Snyder, Jock & Francesco Francavilla

includes: Detective Comics # 871-881

the premise: While Batman contends with several new villains, Jim Gordon deals with the return of his psychopathic son James Jr., who claims to be reformed. Can he be trusted, and what is his link to an unsolved murder that haunts Gordon?

the lowdown: Let's get this out of the way up front - this is the best Batman story of at least the last 5-6 years that doesn't have the word "Morrison" anywhere in the credits. Granted, much of the competition has been... uh.. uneven? That means "horrible", right? But even considering the caliber of the competition, this is a really excellent bit of noir. Snyder is of course a rising star with a bent toward horror, and here he's joined by a pair of artists who do "dark" and "scary" really well. There aren't many artistic pairings that could include Jock and have him NOT be the stronger of the two - but with Francavilla on board, that's exactly what we have here.

The story consists of several smaller arcs but has an overarching through-line centering on the return of James Jr., played now as a young adult and contemporary of Dick Grayson. Dick is Batman in this one, and it's a story that really only works with Dick behind the cowl. Snyder fudges the continuity a little in order to work in some backstory between James Jr., Dick, and Barbara Gordon, and I'm sure someone who's big into timelines and ages just had their head explode, but it's in service of a good story and works just fine.

Jim Gordon was returned to the Batman books in 2006 after about a five-year absence, but very little has actually been done with him since his return. Snyder remedies that here, with Gordon taking on at least as big a role as Batman has, and at times eclipsing him completely. Snyder's depiction of James Jr. is brilliant (aided greatly by the terrific art). The reader is kept guessing until the end as to whether James' reformation is real, and Snyder never lets you inside his head at all. His expression (most of his scenes are drawn by Francavilla) is always blank, not really affable but not overtly threatening. He says all the right things, but yet there's something behind those eyes that just doesn't look right. He's scary even if he's truly reformed, because you can never be sure about him. In that way, he becomes a brilliantly horrifying protagonist, and the fact that he's Gordon's son, and Babs' brother, just adds to it.

I will say that Snyder lapses a little too heavily into weighty exposition at times, particularly in the story's final chapter. It's clear that he wants to establish Gotham City as a character - the same idea is present in his DCnU Batman run - but at times he goes over the top with it or lets it become repetitive. The notion of Gotham as an inherently evil construct is one I find problematic, because it seems to reduce Batman's "mission" to a fool's errand, as if he's struggling against the current. I think Snyder could rein in this theme a bit and still get the point across.

There are also a few too many liberties taken with Batman's ID here for my taste, though to be fair that's a trend in pretty much all the Batman, Inc.-era stories. With this being, in essence, the last story before the DCnUboot, perhaps Snyder felt he had a little more leeway than usual. There are two moments in the final issue, though, that I thought were a little much.

the verdict: My criticisms are mostly nitpickery - I thought this was a really outstanding story all in all, as noted one of the best Bat-sagas in years. It felt like a spiritual bookend to Batman: Year One, perhaps appropos given the relaunch. Definitely worth checking out if you're a Bat-fan at all.

red hulk: planet red hulk

2011-12-05T08:00:00.000-05:00

by Jeff Parker, Gabriel Hardman & more

includes: Hulk # 30.1, 31-36

the premise: Rulk finds himself hunted by a new foe who wants to avenge the murder of Thunderbolt Ross - unaware that Rulk is in fact Ross. Plus, Rulk in space, and Rulk vs. Zzaxx.

the lowdown: The latest Rulk collection opens with a "point one" issue introducing Rulk's new enemy - General Fortean, a one-time ally of T-Bolt Ross who believes (as does the world) that Rulk killed Ross. This is a wonderful setup for several reasons, the most hilarious of which is that Fortean, unlike Ross, is actually a competent military strategist, and is able to outmaneuver ol' T-Bolt at pretty much every turn. Rulk is forced to go on the run, where he continues to do missions for Suddenly Omnipresent Steve Rogers but also ends up in a few pickles of his own.

(As an aside, is the whole "point one" thing one of the most bizarre gimmicks ever? I've now read three of them - this was the only one that is even remotely a "jumping-on point". Those sales charts they publish show sales actually dropping on most of them, but Marvel swears up and down that they're successful, and keeps on doing more of them. What am I missing?)

Anyway, the collection is, as noted above, titled "Planet Red Hulk", but that storyline only comprises two of the seven issues included here. The Foretean thing is kind of an over-arching plotline, while Rulk gets involved in shorter, one and two part adventures. And those adventures are really all over the place - which I found really appropriate for a Hulk title. Back in the day it seemed like the Hulk never stayed in one place for very long, and Rulk's got something of the nomad in him too.

This setup not only allows Marvel to bring in guest artists as it chooses (Carlos Pagulayan & Patrick Zircher each take turns), but it allows Parker to write one madcap story after another with only the barest of nods to any sort of overarching plot. This probably hurts the coherence of the collection but it makes the series feel far more like the periodical it really was intended to be. Parker does his usual terrific job of referencing obscure Marvel continuity without being a slave to it or letting it control the narrative - such as alluding to the prior relationship between Ross and Zzaxx (a plotline from Al Milgrom's Hulk run in the mid-80's).

Hardman has become one of Marvel's best artists, and he continues his exemplary work here. He gets to design and introduce several new villains as Parker populates Rulk's Rogues Gallery. These issues represent even more of a departure from Ed McGuinness' more cartoony style than did the previous volume, but Hardman managed to make the transition feel gradual rather than jarring.

the verdict: This is one of those reviews that could have said "these are seven more issues of the Rulk comic", without sacrificing accuracy. They do not represent an appreciable rise or dip in the quality of the series. These are good meat-and-potatoes action comics, not the sort of thing that ends up on many Eisner lists, but a book that delivers a reliably enjoyable read virtually every issue.

izombie vol. 1: dead to the world

2011-12-02T08:00:00.000-05:00

by Chris Roberson & Mike Allred

includes: iZombie # 1-5

the premise: Gravedigger Gwen Dylan is actually a zombie - and in order to retain her wits, she has to eat at least one brain per month. And she's not the only weird thing lurking in Eugene, Oregon.

the lowdown: I recently started reading Fables again after a three-year hiatus. I had stopped after the big war against The Adversary, and picked the series back up again after the digital releases on comixology caught up to where I'd been. Longtime readers know that I was a HUGE Fables fan awhile back - for a good while it was my favorite series being published. Returning to it after all this time - it's still pretty good but it no longer "wows" me like it did around the third and fourth trades. There's something about its voice that's a little grating now, I think - still a good book but no longer a great one.

And why do I mention that in a review of another Vertigo series, you ask? It's because this series reminds me a whole lot of Fables, in the good and the bad ways. It's a horror comic that's not actually a horror comic, a series that blends the monster sub-genres much the same way Fables blends fantasy sub-genres. The star of the story is the aforementioned Gwen Dylan, who is a zombie but only a few people know that, because she's careful to eat one brain a month in order to maintain compos mentis. Whenever she eats a brain, though, she's flooded with the person's memories - and in this first arc she becomes aware that her "victim" was murdered - coincidentally by someone who has some important information for Gwen.

And also: Gwen's best friend is a ghost, and her other friend is a werewolf - sorry, "were-terrier." And there are vampires running around too. And also also: monster hunters. And all of this stuff is connected by an overarching mythology.

Exactly. It's not exactly a simple premise. There's a LOT that has to be explained, and Roberson chooses to do so in a huge exposition dump during the fourth chapter of the story. Very little actually resolves at the end of the arc; for the most part it's just an introduction to the somewhat large and varied cast and concepts. This one took me two reads to really appreciate - the first time through I kind of drowned in the exposition, I think. The second time through it worked a lot better, to the point where I think it "hooked" me the way it is supposed to. I enjoy Roberson's voice, though occasionally he falls into the same trap as Fables' Willingham - he gets a little too clever for his own good, and his wit actually pulls the reader out of the story.

So why give it a second look at all? Lots of other books to read, after all. Frankly, Allred's art is worth giving the series another look. It's tremendous, even in the heavily-expository scenes. He turns those into big two-page spreads that look excellent. As always, Allred's able to do violence, quiet scenes, sexy scenes, whatever the script calls for, and make it look great. Here he gets to draw lots of monsters, as well as human-looking characters, and it's really a tour-de-force. Perhaps Gwen owes a little something to Dead Girl, but hey.. Dead Girl was cool, right?

the verdict: The second read definitely was the charm for me on this one. This reminds me, as I say, a lot of Fables, and it's possible it will eventually grow stale. But so far I think it's channeling early Fables - I'm curious to see where it goes now that the infodump is out of the way.

the trial of captain america

2011-11-30T08:00:00.000-05:00

by Ed Brubaker, Daniel Acuna & various artists

includes: Captain America # 611-615 & 615.1

the premise: Bucky has been arrested for his crimes as the Winter Soldier. Steve Rogers tries to bolster his friend's defense, even as Sin/ the new Red Skull puts a deadly plan in motion.

the lowdown: One of the hallmarks of Ed Brubaker's run on Captain America, now amazingly entering its eighth year, has been the title's visual consistency. The art chores have shifted from Steve Epting to Mike Perkins to Luke Ross and beyond, but even with some of the stylistic changes of Butch Guice's issues, the series has maintained a certain visual consistency. The coloring is a big part of that - it's been criticized, not unjustly, for being overly dark or murky at times, but it's the same, issue after issue, and it's helped the series establish and maintain a visual identity.

.. that is, until this arc, which is all over the place art-wise. Daniel Acuna steps in to draw several of these issues, but he's replaced periodically by Guice and Mitch Britweiser. Acuna is IMO a wonderful artist, but he doesn't fit this book's established style at all, and his insertion onto the series gets even more jarring when Guice returns. I have all ideas that encroaching deadlines played a big role in the art mash-up, and that's of course an understandable concern, but it feels like something that anchored the book has been lost.

The story itself is a mix of legal drama with the book's more traditional action/ adventure bent. I love the fact that Brubaker didn't forget all of Bucky's Winter Soldier doings - for quite awhile it felt like that had just been swept under the rug. It's back with a vengeance here, though, as Bucky stands trial for being an assassin. Brubaker nods to old Cap continuity by bringing Bernie Rosenthal back into the cast as Buck's lawyer, and we play out the somewhat unorthodox twist of the defense offering Doctor Faustus as an expert witness in the field of mind control. This is pretty clever and plays out in a way that, while not entirely authentic, is closer than a lot of superhero trials. Most of them end of being Trial of the Incredible Hulk or that time they tried to put the Ghostbusters on trial - and I love those things but clearly that's not the tone Bru shoots for with this series.

Mixed into all of this is the return of Sin, who now looks like an even grosser version of the Red Skull. She's up to shenigans, and Rogers is vacillating between helping with Buck's defense and trying to stop her. Not much is really resolved on this front, as it appears Sin is being positioned here for a role in the Fear Itself event, but there are some pretty well-done action sequences.

We close with the point one issue, which is ably illustrated by Britweiser but doesn't do much to either introduce the characters or advance the plot. That it's placed at the end, rather than the beginning, of an arc tells you about all you need to know as to whether it is an effective jumping-on point.

the verdict: A solid installment in this series, but it's hurt somewhat by the patched-together art. Not a good place to jump on board, but if you're already invested in this series, you'll want to catch the next chapter.

batman & robin: dark knight, white knight

2011-11-28T08:00:00.000-05:00

by Paul Cornell & Scott McDaniel, Peter Tomasi & Patrick Gleason, and Judd Winick & Greg Tocchini

includes: Batman & Robin (2009) # 17-25

the premise: Dick Grayson Batman and Damian Wayne Robin square off against a new villain connected to Bruce Wayne, a killer stalking the relatives of Arkham patients, and The Red Hood.

the lowdown: So they kept publishing this title even after Grant Morrison left, it seems. This title was arguably the flagship Batman book when Morrison was involved, but once he moved on (and with the DC relaunch lurking around the corner), DC elected to slot in arcs by rotating creators. At one point Tomasi & Gleason were to take over as the new regular creative team, but that ended up getting postponed until DCnU began. Instead, this upcoming collection features three three-part arcs, each by a different creative team. All three feature the Dick/ Damian team, although Bruce Wayne makes an appearance in each story as well. There's no common thread or storyline connecting any of them, they're just the continuing adventures of the new Batman & Robin.

Absence, by Paul Cornell & Scott McDaniel, was a last minute fill-in when Tomasi & Gleason got delayed due to working on Brightest Day. It is actually my favorite of the three tales, at least in part due to McDaniel doing the best work I've seen from him in quite awhile. Surprising, really, given that he probably drew the whole story over dinner one evening, but it really looks good. The premise of this one is that an ex-girlfriend of Bruce Wayne's who was apparently murdered has returned - literally with a hole in her head - and is up to all kinds of chicanery in an attempt to get Wayne to notice her. I believe this was the first story where the consequences of Bruce revealing that he funds Batman are explored (though several more such stories are in situ right now). This kind of felt to me like the sort of story Alan Grant would've done back in the day - very "British" somehow. Good stuff.

Dark Knight, White Knight by Peter Tomasi & Patrick Gleason is next up, and it's another pretty enjoyable standalone. Tomasi's writing is, as is often the case, overly sentimental. His Bruce Wayne is a little too on-the-nose about his affection for his family, his Damian Wayne is a little too stereotypically an obnoxious tween. It lacks the subtlety of Morrison's aristocratic twit version. Still, he and Gleason craft a solid story featuring a new villain, albeit one with ties to some old faces. This is the weakest of these three stories, but it's not bad at all.

The Streets Run Red by Judd Winick & Greg Tocchini features Winick's latest tale of RH, and the first set after Morrison's arc from the early days of this series. Guillem March drew the first issue before being replaced so he could go draw the terrible Catwoman relaunch, but Tocchini steps in nicely. Basically the Red Hood gets sprung from prison by some bad dudes who have abducted Scarlet, and he goes to deal with them, with Batman & Robin somewhat reluctantly in tow. This arc is heavy on action and firepower, but Winick once again demonstrates that he "gets" Jason Todd better than any other writer does. He also does a pretty nice job of not just ignoring Morrison's story - often it seems like writers are so flummoxed by Morrison's stuff that they just pretend it doesn't exist. Winick avoids that trap here.

the verdict: To some extent these were destined to be inconsequential fill-ins, sandwiched between Morrison's issues and the relaunch, but all three story arcs turned out pretty well. None are must-reads, but all three are solid tales. With the exception of the Red Hood story, none require much in the way of prior knowledge - just accept that Dick and Damian are Batman & Robin and away you go.

fantastic four visionaries: walt simonson vol. 1

2011-11-25T08:00:00.000-05:00

by Walter Simonson, Rich Buckler & more

includes: Fantastic Four #334-341

the premise: The FF - plus She-Thing? - are called before Congress just as a battalion of c-list superheroes attack them. Then: along with Iron Man & Thor, the FF gets trapped in a time bubble and confronts Galactus.

the lowdown: Mark Millar is a dirty idea thief. And I can prove it. (Well, except for the dirty part. I have no knowledge of his personal hygiene.)

I picked this up because, thanks to Mark Waid & Mike Wieringo, I have a budding love for the FF and wanted to read another classic run. Byrne's run is tempting but is just too long. Simonson's run spans three volumes, which is just about the right temperature of porridge for me. So I picked it up, and by the by it's really good. The back half of this volume has this big story with time travel and Thor and Galactus and it all just feels very Kirby. I dig it and will read more.

But that's not the thing that really got me here.

The first three issues of this collection comprise a tie-in with the old school Marvel event "Acts of Vengeance" (which is available in a $100+ Omnibus if you've already bought a gold-plated commode and want something even more useless in your home). The premise of Acts of Vengeance was that the Marvel villains all attacked heroes other than their usual sparring partners - the old "switch heroes, and win!" gambit first adopted by Dr. Double-X and the Rainbow Raider in the not-quite-classic Brave & The Bold #194. The FF's take on this idea is that they're getting attacked by seemingly random numbskulls like Ramrod, and it's more a nuisance to them than anything else.

In this story, though, the FF has been called to testify before Congress. It seems... bear with me... that Congress is considering requiring superhumans to register with the federal government. The proposed Act is called... wait for it... The Superhuman Registration Act. No shit. Did I mention this was published in 1989? So the FF goes to Washington so Reed Richards can speak out in opposition to the Act, because of course he'd never support anything like that. Does ANY of this sound familiar to anyone?

Anyway, they have this Congressional hearing that keeps getting interrupted because Ramrod and a bunch of other similarly-lame villains keep attacking the FF. And then it's interrupted when all of Congress gets mind-controlled and attacks the FF as well. This is of course completely awesome and should have been the plot of Civil War.

So geez, did everyone just forget about this story when Civil War was published? Don't get me wrong - I'm not taking anyone, even Dirty Idea Thief Mark Millar, to task for re-using an idea - superhero comics are practically founded on re-using ideas. But how was this not popping up on blogs and message boards and whatnot with "meh, it's been done" captions? Did I just miss it? Internet, you fail.

Also worth noting that, in these stories, Ben Grimm has reverted to human form, but still fights crime in a trenchcoat and hat. Except when he wears a giant Thing robot/ armor - which for some reason he doesn't bring along on the trip to the future. Grimm's place in the FF is taken by Sharon Ventura, who calls herself "Ms. Marvel" except she looks like a female version of The Thing. Which is to say she looks like The Thing with a shirt on. Grimm and Ventura are apparently in a relationship, despite the fact that he's spent years complaining about how hideous he is. Maybe I'm just warped and/or too old to be reading superhero comics, but I was driven to distraction trying to imagine how weird it would be for Ben to.. y'know... with a girl who looked just like him. And also: how such a thing could be possible with a girl made out of rocks.

These issues also feature the Human Torch married to Alicia Masters, which is all kinds of wrong. Rich Buckler drew a few of these issues and apparently forgot that Alicia is blind, as he shows her looking up information on a computer. I think she was eventually revealed to be a Skrull.

the verdict: I kid, really. I loved this book despite all the weird dated stuff. She-Thing sucks, but there's something charming about even the silly parts of this book. Plus Simonson's art looks, y'know, like you'd expect Simonson's art to look.

best of the new 52/ DCnU

2011-11-23T08:00:00.000-05:00

I've resisted the urge to go through and do book-by-book reviews of the New 52, because pretty much everyone's already done that. Also, I did not read all of them because I'm not a masochist. There's three months of material out now - I've been waiting for the digital price drop and got a little behind on my reading during vacation, so I'm not quite two months into it. I ended up reading 29 of the new #1s, and so far I'm sticking with 25 of the books. There will almost certainly be further drops, as several books are on probation, but so far I'd say the retention rate has been good. I've also tried out three of the October-launching miniseries, and will be sticking with 2 of those. I'm still not really inclined to comment on all of them, but I did want to highlight the best of the bunch thus far.

BATMAN - My favorite of the lot so far, not surprising in that it combines my favorite character with one of my favorite writers (Scott Snyder). It feels like Snyder's could be the next great Batman run (following Morrison), and with the exception of one unfortunately-proportioned panel, Greg Capullo is an excellent fit on the art. Really loving this one.

SWAMP THING and ANIMAL MAN - Grouped together here because they feel like variations on the same theme. Both got exposition-heavy in their second issues, and Foreman's art on Animal Man got a little scratchy for my taste. Both feel very much like old-school Vertigo titles, and I definitely mean that in a good way.

MY GREATEST ADVENTURE - I swear I'm the only person alive who's reading this. But that just means that everyone else on Earth is missing out. It's a continuation of the Garbage Man and Tanga stories from Weird Worlds, with a new Robotman feature by Matt Kindt and Scott Kolins. Fun, strange, imaginative, well-drawn - good comics.

THE SHADE - Good Robinson returns. And brings Cully Hamner with him. Boss.

BATWOMAN - No surprise here. My only complaint about this one is that J.H. Williams' frequent use of double-page spreads makes the digital version rather short. (Not that those spreads aren't absolutely *packed* with material, though.) I was a little surprised that this picks up on continuity bits from the Rucka/ Jock "Cutter" story (which is uncollected). This is very much a continuation of the pre-Flashpoint stories, and remains of very high quality.

AQUAMAN - Geoff Johns' best work in awhile, and Reis' art looks fantastic. Again feels like a continuation of the old continuity, building off Brightest Day without specifically referencing it.

THE FLASH - A very art-driven book, and man the art by Manapul is outstanding. Very inventive, very kinetic, basically everything that the 2010 Flash series wasn't. Manapul and Buccatello have finally made Barry Allen interesting by rebooting him and stripping away a lot of the baggage that had accumulated around him.

JUSTICE LEAGUE DARK - I've only read #1 so far but really enjoyed it. I thought this was the best of the three JL books, and I did read all three of them. This is another one that feels like a Vertigo series, perhaps owing to Milligan's involvement.

Those are my favorites so far. Yes, I realize Action Comics is missing from that list, and I am enjoying Action. The art is hurting it IMO, though. Love the idea of Superman being more of a social activist, but wish it was better-illustrated. Supergirl, Wonder Woman, and Justice League all narrowly miss the "best of" list as well, though all are good reading.

All in all I'd give the experiment good early reviews. When all is said and done I expect to end up with about 18-20 books, whereas pre-boot I was down to 7. I'll be adding Green Arrow once Nocenti takes over, and Batman Inc. whenever that gets going again. Basically DCnU is like anything else - there's some cream at the top, some crap at the bottom, and a bunch of stuff in the middle. It seems to me that there's more cream than before, and the stuff in the middle is a bit better than it was before. The crap is still crap, and it's easy enough to just not read that stuff. Whether DC's infamous editorial department can keep the line afloat, well, we'll see, but so far I think they've done a pretty good job.

I'm struck by how many books aren't reboots at all, given how much hand-wringing fans have done over continuity. Of the books I've highlighted above, only Flash feels like a total reboot. Robotman might be - it's hard to tell from only the first issue. Some details have been tweaked here and there, but that's always been going on. Firestorm and Catwoman both got IMO misguided reboots - both seem lesser for it. Firestorm should have kept going from the Brightest Day setup. Overall though this thing is off to a good start - definitely the most engaged I've been with DC's line (Morrison's Batman notwithstanding) since the Infinite Crisis era.

ultimate comics death of spider-man

2011-11-21T08:00:00.000-05:00

by Brian Michael Bendis & Mark Bagley

includes: Ultimate Comics Spider-Man # 156-160

the premise: Norman Osborn is back from the dead, and he's commandeered the Sinister Six to take down Peter Parker - and his family - once and for all.

the lowdown: So here it is - the story where [spoiler alert] Peter Parker bites the big one. This arc made national headlines during the summer of 2011, sneaking up on people a little despite the giant spoiler in the title of the book. We're all such a suspicious lot these days, I don't think most people thought Marvel would actually kill off Peter Parker. And now that he's dead, I'm still skeptical that he'll stay that way. (Come on - his death is engineered by a dude who was ALSO dead until this story. And Peter is powered in part by the same formula as Osborn in the Ultimate books. So - come on.)

I skipped reviewing the arc now dubbed the "prelude" to this one, but I did read it. In retrospect you can spot the point, about halfway through that arc, where it's decided that Peter will be killed off, and even with that much notice, there's a lot left hanging by this one. I suppose that mirrors real life, where death is often untidy and occurs at inconvenient times, but despite the return of original series artist Mark Bagley to this arc, it feels less like the culmination of ten plus years of Ultimate Spidey, and more like an "event". Bendis tries to tie it all together with the idea that Pete's character arc is all about saving Aunt May, even if he must sacrifice himself in the process, as a way of atoning for not saving Uncle Ben. It's a game effort but doesn't quite work.

What Bendis does do really well here is put together this big whopping Spider-Man vs. Osborn battle, where it's obvious Spidey is badly outclassed (and suffering from a bullet wound received during a pointless crossover with Mark Millar's Ultimate Avengers). Backed completely against the wall, with no help on the way, Spidey fights on, and it's a pretty effective/ brutal/ desperate fight. There are a few places where the art is unclear, most unfortunately on the final, fatal sequence, as well as a few spots where things fall into place too conveniently simply because Bendis needs certain elements out of the way - but despite those flaws it's a good superhero throwdown.

Spidey of course does not survive the fight. Osborn's fate is less clear because the art isn't clear in the last few panels, but Spidey says goodbye with a typical deathbed speech. None of the fallout of the event is explored - presumably that will happen in the series called "Ultimate Fallout". The climax felt very much a callback to The Death of Superman.

Spider-Man has always been an identity very personal to Peter Parker, never moreso than in the Ultimate interpretation of the character, so it remains to be seen if Marvel can effectively transform him into a "legacy" character. It's been attempted before, sort of, with things like the 2099 version, but somehow this feels different. I will admit to mixed feelings over the truncation of Bendis' Peter Parker, as it appeared Bendis had more stories to tell, and that his plans got scrapped in favor of what amounts to a publicity stunt. It strikes me that the Ultimate line has now moved 180 degrees away from its original purpose (to provide clear, recognizable versions of well-known characters unencumbered by labyrinthine backstory), and now has the mandate of being as different from the accepted norm as possible, in order to justify its own continued existence. I think I'm on board with having a new Spider-Man, particularly with Bendis remaining involved, but I will admit to some skepticism over whether this can be made to work.

the verdict: As far as such things go, this felt like an appropriate sendoff for Ultimate Peter Parker. I think it works less as a culmination of the series to date than as the next twist in an ongoing serial, and I think Pete could be brought back in about two panels if TPTB decide it's warranted. Still - a pretty good read with a climax better than typical for Bendis. Worth a look.

punisher: in the blood

2011-11-18T08:00:00.000-05:00

by Rick Remender & Roland Boschi

includes: Punisher: In The Blood # 1-5

the premise: Recently returned to life after being a Frankenstein monster for awhile, Frank Castle returns to New York, where he's targeted for death by Jigsaw and possibly as many as three of his former sidekicks/ accomplices. Shooting ensues.

the lowdown: The final arc of Rick Remender's Punisher reads as a capper to essentially all the "Marvel Universe" Punisher stuff since Matt Fraction's War Journal series. (Actually, I would buy a book called "Matt Fraction's War Journal".) I have followed those stories only sporadically, having skipped the first year of Remender's run, and I'd say I was able to pick up about 80-85% of what was going on/ at stake here. Not sure whether that's an acceptable percentage. I didn't feel lost but I will say that if, like me, you were brought back to the character by the excellent Frankencastle run, this may not be the best place to jump back on.

The arc itself features Castle squaring off with Jigsaw, who has an accomplice who I'm pretty sure was involved with Fraction's run. Microchip is also in the book, and I guess there was some stuff with him in the parts of the run I didn't read. Jigsaw has somehow apparently reanimated Castle's dead wife, who is now a killer and willing to have sex with Jigsaw on camera to taunt Frank. I mean, really - this happens in the book! Remender is a twisted dude, that's all I'm sayin'. So there's a lot of shooting and explosions and people getting burned up and killed in horrible ways - pretty much all the things you've come to expect from a Punisher story. Obviously this isn't quite at the insanity level of Punisher being chopped to pieces and then re-assembled as a monster, but the tone really isn't all that different, and it's finally a tone that I think mostly works in a Marvel Universe Punisher.

Boschi was the artist on some of the Frankencastle stuff as well, so there's a good degree of visual continuity, even if the locale and characters are totally different. There's nothing particularly pretty about the art, but it's not meant to be - it's an illustration of a really ugly world. Everyone's a bad guy to some degree or another, and the mass-murdering Punisher may actually be the most restrained character in the story, both in actions as well as appearance.

Despite the lunacy, Remender manages to make this a relatively character-driven story. He makes a point about Castle by having his family reanimated, by having his wife's memory defamed. It's actually fairly similar to Jason Aaron's take in the MAX book, that Castle has been at the "punishing" game for so long that he really doesn't have any motivation other than inertia. Though the murder of his family triggered his "mission", he's no longer motivated by their deaths, and really doesn't even remember them all that well. In Aaron's story, he forgets his son's birthday. In Remender's, he can't remember his wife's voice. Both of these takes present Castle as a fundamentally broken person, which inevitably he must be. You can surround him with all kinds of crazy and spectacle, but at its heart it all stems from his insane approach to life. Though he is, as remarked in the book, an excellent judge of right and wrong, his approach to "punishing" the latter is the approach of a madman.

So it all pulls together really nicely, with an epilogue that casts some (emphasis *some*) of Castle's actions in a different light. Remender puts most of the toys neatly back into the toybox, lest you be worried that Maria Castle will be the Punisher-verse's version of Jason Todd.

the verdict: You've got to be into the Punisher to be into this - it's violent, and mean, and grimy, and over-the-top, and unapologetic about all those things. It is not an uplifting story. It is, however, a well-crafted one, and if you do like the Punisher, you will want to give this one a look.

moriarty: the dark chamber

2011-11-16T08:00:00.000-05:00

by Daniel Corey & Anthony Diecidue

includes: Moriarty # 1-4

the premise: Twenty years after the death of Sherlock Holmes, and just as the world plunges into war, a pair of disappearances prompt the mostly-retired Professor Moriarty back into action, this time on the side of the angels.

the lowdown: Newcomer Anthony Diecidue (at least I think he's a newcomer) delivers a mix of Ted McKeever and Klaus Janson in this new Image series, which has become an ongoing. Reviewed here is the first full arc of the series, comprising the first four issues, wherein Professor Moriarty returns from semi-retirement to thwart a threat to all of London, and perhaps the world. Diecidue is, to my mind, the star of the show - he employs a rough, grainy, yet somehow cartoony style perfect for a story set in the early twentieth century. Even though he's often drawing the cast in shadow, and even though many of them aren't inherently distinct, he manages to make them so, with wide range of faces, body types, and other tics.

The idea here is that Moriarty killed Holmes in the early 1890s and subsequently retired, his reason for being having passed. His criminal organization disbanded, Moriarty subsists on a series of odd jobs, under an alias known only to a few. That is, he does so until the disappearances of two men, one of them Sherlock Holmes' brother, tempts him back to work, this time as a (sort of) agent of good. The first two chapters of this story are filled with exposition as the cast and circumstances are introduced, in often pain-staking detail. Quite frankly, they're a bit of a slog to get through. The second half of the story speeds up appreciably, though, and becomes much more action-oriented. Candidly, it's probably not the most efficient story structure, but know that the slog through the first half is rewarding by a quickening pace near the end.

This series utilizes a limited color pallette in most places but applies splashes of color where warranted. Moriarty, reimagined as a protagonist in Holmes' absence, is drawn into a plot involving elements of the supernatural or the lovecraftian, depending on one's take. I've written here before why such stories are a tough sell for Holmes, but they work better for someone like Moriarty who, despite his standing as a detective, seems more at home with the dark arts. Corey makes liberal use of dreams, visions, and other ethereal imagery, casting Moriarty as a dark hero in an incresingly dark world. He makes the somewhat strange choice to give the professor a Frank Miller-esque ninja sidekick, which is odd and somewhat out of place but helps move the plot along. One has the sense that Moriarty is a man driven far more by instinct than his old nemesis ever was, and that helps distinguish the two of them while justifying the use of the professor in this way (as opposed to just using Holmes).

I rarely comment on lettering, but I must in this case, as the stylized lettering is extremely distracting and hard to read. Many of the captions are "typed" - in mixed case lettering, on captions colored to look like old yellowed paper, in courier font. I suppose it was an attempt to give the lettering a feel consistent with the era in which the book is set, but in practice it's just hard to read, and you never, ever want to make something so hard to read that it pulls you out of the story. That happened to me a few times, even viewing these pages on the screen of my iPad.

the verdict: Despite some shortcomings in places, this is an intriguing new series. I certainly will be continuing with it - though the "dark chamber" plot is resolved conclusively, the story ends with a hook that presumably provides the impetus for further adventures of Moriarty. This book is a visual treat and, though the script is uneven in places, it shows a lot of promise. If you like Holmes, give his other half a shot.

batman: the dark knight - golden dawn

2011-11-14T08:00:00.000-05:00

by David Finch & Jay Fabok

includes: Batman: The Dark Knight (2010) # 1-5

the premise: When one of Bruce Wayne's childhood friends is abducted, Batman finds himself drawn into an encounter with Gotham's supernatural element - including Etrigan the Demon.

the lowdown: Originally conceived as a David Finch vehicle, this series ran horribly off schedule almost from the get-go, and when DC announced its NuDC relaunch, only two issues had been published. They raced to get the five-issue arc completed pre-boot, which meant that Jay Fabok had to come on and draw kind of like Finch for the last few issues. So scheduling-wise, the whole thing ended up being a cluster. You can, unfortunately, see the deadline crunches reflected in the material, which starts off pretty well but comes off the rails a bit at the end.

I did not enjoy Finch's art on Batman: The Return, but his work here is much better. I'm not sure if it was an inking issue or what, but his work is much better defined, and less murky, on this book. As a scripter this was my first experience with Finch, and it wasn't an altogether unpleasant one. I'd put him ahead of, say, Tony Daniel in terms of writing halfway believeable dialogue, probably a bit behind Daniel in terms of putting together an engaging plot. Daniel is probably a little better at juggling a large cast, but Finch is better at making them sound distinct from one another.

A lot of critics rolled their eyes at this one, I think, in part because Finch's take seems to be more Miller than Morrison. Coming right on the heels of Morrison's reinvention of the character as the ultimate alpha male, Finch's take is more back to the "war on crime", intense, brooding, nihilistic version. His Batman doubts himself almost to the point of parody - though it's not entirely undeserved since Batman actually accomplishes very little in this story. Maybe he IS an incompetent. He's all about grimacing and posing and threatening body language, and I can see why that doesn't work for some folks, particularly right alongside the Morrison version. I have never been a fan of the X-treme Batman myself, but I do have some affinity for this particular interpretation. On some level it was enjoyable to see Batman - the "real" one - investigating street-level crimes and fighting Killer Croc.

The hook here is that several supernatural characters, including Etrigan (who sucks) and Ragman enter the fray, and it's no coincidence that Penguin and Croc are the two featured Bat-villains. Finch excels at drawing the grotesque, and his interpretation of the Penguin is one of the grossest I can recall. Everyone in this story except Dawn (who of course is built like a supermodel) is grotesque, even Batman himself, but for this kind of story, that feels right. The story is driven very much by the art - it's slow-paced in order to allow for lots of posing and first-person narration, and it's chocked full of the kind of things Finch wanted to draw. At this point, plot devices like yet another of Bruce Wayne's childhood friends being in danger have become cliches, to be sure, but it feels like we've had a little break from that stuff over the last few years, and I was ready to buy into it here. The story, as noted above, starts strong but fizzles near the end, and there's a last-page reveal that who knows if it will ever be followed up in light of the relaunch, but the first half or so of the story is pretty cool. Or kewl, maybe. I don't know. Sometimes kewl things are okay.

Finch does step aside on the art duties for the last two issues, replaced by Fabok, who mimics his style really well. I doubt it's a coincidence that the story drops off around that time, though - clearly deadlines became an issue.

the verdict: DC is releasing this one as a Deluxe HC. Unless you're just THAT into Finch's art, and you don't care that he only drew 60% of the book, skip the HC. It might be worth a look once it hits paperback, though, or like me you can try it on digital. It's very much what you'd expect if Batman was published by Top Cow, and while it certainly lacks the nuance or cohesiveness of Morrison's work, it's well-drawn and generally not a bad read.

american vampire vol. 1

2011-11-11T08:00:00.000-05:00

by Scott Snyder, Rafael Albequerque & Stephen King

includes: American Vampire # 1-5

the premise: When struggling 1920's actress Pearl Jones is invited to a party packed with Hollywood types, she has no idea what they have in mind for her. Attacked and irrevocably changed, Pearl seeks revenge on her tormentors. Plus: the origin of the first American Vampire, Skinner Sweet.

the lowdown: I am becoming a huge Scott Snyder mark. He is rapidly approaching "buy everything he does sight unseen" status. This is, of course, Snyder's Vertigo series, and really the book that got him noticed. (He'd done Iron Man Noir over at Marvel, and I reviewed that in this space previously, but let's be frank - I was the only person on Earth who read the Noir books.) A lot of the attention this book got was, somewhat ironically, the result of Snyder NOT writing the whole thing. Each issue is split into two stories, both drawn by Albequerque, the first by Snyder and the last by some obscure fiction writer named Stephen King. Have you heard of him?

Anyway, the two stories have one character in common - Skinner Sweet, the world's first redneck vampire. (Does Cassidy from Preacher count as a redneck? I guess kind've - the Irish thing seemed to remove him from that category, though.) Though it's interesting to see a prose writer as accomplished as King stick his toe into the world of comics writing, Snyder's story is by far the superior one. Snyder manages, in half of five issues, to introduce a large, varied cast of characters, develop the important ones sufficiently, and lay out the "rules" regarding his take on the various vampires, without making the story feel at all crowded.

I'm one of those people who has never seen True Blood or Twilight, and who was only interested in vampires that time Selma Hayek was one and had on that leather bikini. The primary bit of vampire pathos - the need to kill in order to survive - just doesn't resonate with me at all, so I tend not to be drawn in by the genre. With this series, though, Snyder manages to provide an adult take on many of the familiar tropes, tweaking or updating them where necessary, and by setting it in the past he manages to de-glamorize it. Snyder's vampires are rough, often ugly, but never dull. It occurs to me that Snyder is the best horror writer in comics right now. There really aren't a ton of folks out there who truly "get" horror - Bruce Jones used to be pretty good, and Steve Niles isn't bad either, but neither of those guys can pace and dialogue a story quite like Snyder can.

The back-up story is, as mentioned, not as good. It's an interesting look at the origins of Skinner Sweet, and it's pretty ambitious in scope, but it fails to really make any of the non-Sweet characters particularly engaging. Having Albequerque draw both stories provides some needed visual consistency, and the book really looks terrific all the way through, but King appears to struggle at times with the transition from prose to sequential art.

It's not entirely clear to me whether this series will continue to follow Pearl in subsequent volumes, or whether we'll see more of Sweet. Both are interesting characters, though I think I actually prefer Pearl. This series has some potential to develop a nicely rounded ensemble cast as the vampire contagion is passed on to new folks.

the verdict: Like I say, between this series, Severed, and Detective Comics (the latter of two of which I'm not done with yet), Snyder is quickly becoming one of my favorite writers. Paired here with an excellent artist in Albequerque, they've created a horror story that has its roots in the kind of dark fantasy Vertigo traditionally has done well, but which presents those tropes in a very non-traditional (for Vertigo) way. Recommended even if you're a vampire agnostic.

sensational she-hulk by john byrne vol. 1

2011-11-09T08:00:00.000-05:00

by Old Crankypants

includes: Sensational She-Hulk # 1-7 & a preview story

the premise: This late 1980's series features the no-longer savage She-Hulk in her own solo adventures, with a variety of familiar guest-stars and new and old adversaries.

the lowdown: This review took me quite awhile to conceive and write, because I have a lot of mixed feelings about the book. I did not read Byrne's She-Hulk near the time of its publication - this was my first reading of most of this material, and sometimes I think that can be dangerous when approaching material that's this old, particularly material with a comedic tone. In re-reading the Justice League International trades, for example, I think a lot of my enjoyment of the humor is nostalgic. I have found that comedy, even good comedy, doesn't age all that well - there are a few transcendent classics that are funny across eras, but most of it doesn't hold up.

This was, of course, a lighthearted/ comedic take on She-Hulk. It's not full-on parody by any means, but the device that Byrne introduced to the character was that she broke the fourth wall on a not-infrequent basis. The adventures are played relatively straight otherwise, but they're mostly over-the-top affairs that aren't taking themselves all that seriously. She-Hulk gets into scrapes that are bizarre even by Marvel Universe standards, and it's clear that this was intended to be a "fun" book.

Comedy is not a natural fit for Byrne. As an artist he's perfectly capable of pulling off just about anything, but his dialogue lacks the timing necessary to be laugh-out-loud funny. Byrne has almost always written dialogue as if he was paid by the word, and it's really hard to write "funny" dialogue in that style. There's not a single moment here that will split your sides. But with that said, there are a lot of moments that are "cute" funny, and you can appreciate what he's going for. I have no doubt that, in the late 80's when everyone was tripping over themselves to do grim n' gritty and out-dark each other, this was a welcome change in direction. It feels like a traditional Marvel book but is mostly devoid of the trademark Stan Lee angst. Byrne's She-Hulk has almost no pathos, and certainly none of the character-defining conflicts from her "Savage" run. She simply does what she does, usually with a smile or at least a smirk, and even if her adventures aren't all that funny, they're clever and for the most part enjoyable.

The art of course is excellent, despite a few unfortunate coloring errors. The stories are wacky enough that there's a wide variety of stuff for Byrne to illustrate. I commented during my review of the Byrne Hulk Visionaries book that he excels with carnage, detail, that sort of thing - mostly he just seemed at that time to make everything BIG. That tendency is present with this series as well, though it seems a little muted. By this point in Byrne's career, you pretty much knew what you were getting. The art is good enough to elevate even some of the more mundane or silly plots to an enjoyable reading experience.

the verdict: I mentioned mixed thoughts - I think I went into this hoping for something a little funnier than what I got. I actually think Slott's run, at least the early part of it, is funnier and maybe even has more heart than this material. At the same time, though, I liked this book, especially the art, and I'm curious to read more of the run. I don't think it's as good as Byrne's Hulk but it's a fun series that holds up pretty well even if the comedy doesn't.

Side note: I think this may be the only hot pink trade paperback I own. It's that garish hot pink that was popular in the 80's. I think I kind of love that Marvel published a hot pink comic book/ trade paperback, particularly on a title that's not specifically aimed at girls?

batman: gates of gotham

2011-11-07T08:00:00.000-05:00

by Scott Snyder, Kyle Higgins, Trevor McCarthy, Dustin Nguyen & more

includes: Batman: Gates of Gotham # 1-5

the premise: A mysterious urban terrorist sets his sights on several historic Gotham buildings in a plot tied to the city’s architectural origins. It’s up to the Batman Family to put a stop to The Architect.

the lowdown: So this is kind of a strange side Bat-project that got popped out there. My totally uninformed opinion is that this was intended to be an arc in Scott Snyder’s Detective Comics, but got bumped to its own series when DC decided to go ahead with the relaunch (and return Dick Grayson to his Nightwing identity). It’s a story featuring the Dick Grayson Batman, along with much of the extended Bat-family.

It’s a callback to two separate pieces of Bat-history. The first is the “Batman Family” series from the 1970’s. Nowadays we’d never have a series with a name like that, right? It sounds all silly and shit - now it’d be “Batman: Wings of the Demon” or something like that. The extended Batman family is really interesting, though, for the odd reason that it’s rare any of them ever really go away. They’re all the time creating new Bat-characters, but except for Azrael and a few others they just kind of pile up on each other. And it’s weird to see them all together because for the most part they’re redundant. They’re all non-powered characters with essentially the same skill set. Oh sure, Tim Drake’s brainy-er, Dick Grayson’s a more natural athlete, Cassandra Cain (reintroduced here as “Black Bat”) is a badass - but there’s still a ton of overlap. Damian Wayne, the 4th member of the Bat-quartet here, is really the only one that’s distinct, because he’s a little turd. I like all these characters individually but in a group this large they run together somewhat.

The other callback is to the “Destroyer” storyline from the 90’s. On the one hand, I really liked seeing the Anton Furst Gotham City designs in this story, particularly the distinctive Wayne Tower. On the other, this story is a LOT like “Destroyer”, with a slightly more complex backstory. For those who don’t know, “Destroyer” was a crossover between Batman, Detective, and LotDK that saw print in early 1992, and was responsible for introducing the Furst designs to the series in the first place. Now, it’s been nineteen years since “Destroyer” saw print, so it’s not unfair for DC to re-trod some of that ground - but the story does have an air of the familiar about it for long-time readers.

The art ends up being something of a mash-up. McCarthy draws most of the series, employing an angular, but not abstract, style. Dustin Nguyen steps in on #4, and Graham Nolan ends up assisting with layouts at the end, too. This is, to me, further evidence that production was sped up noticeably in order to get this series out prior to September. Snyder gets a co-writer as well in Kyle Higgins, and it appears Higgins (who gets his own co-writer on later issues) ended up running with his and Snyder’s plot.

the verdict: There’s a fair bit to like here, though the story drags a little near the end. Higgins seems to have a pretty good handle on most of the characters’ voices, and the interactions between them are pretty interesting. A lot of the backstory regarding the “Gates of Gotham” ends up falling flat - there’s just not much in the way of personality in the characters from the flashbacks, so you don’t end up caring much about them - but it’s the sort of thing that’s a perfectly acceptable action story. I’d give it at least a mild recommendation.

avengers prime

2011-11-04T08:00:00.000-04:00

by Brian Michael Bendis & Alan Davis

includes: Avengers Prime # 1-5

the premise: Following the fall of Asgard, a still-divided Captain America, Iron Man and Thor are transplanted off-Earth, where they have to work together to survive and return home.

the lowdown: So do we really know Tony Stark and Steve Rogers well enough for this story to work? That's today's brain buster.

This was a miniseries intended to fill-in the blanks of how the "big 3" of the Avengers mended their differences and learned to work together again after the events of Siege. The idea is that they get magically transported to the.. Nine Realms?... I don't know my Thor-ology - anyway, it's not on Earth and has lots of mystical creatures. And the area has been overrun by Hela, who I guess is one of Thor's enemies, and basically she's laid waste to the whole place. The Enchantress is there too, and she's claiming that the sorry state of the place is Thor's fault - something having to do with Asgard being on Earth and that upsetting things and whatever.So Cap, Stark and Thor are separated at first, but eventually join forces to deal with these shenigans, help Thor recover his hammer (which is taken from him early in the story), defeat Hela and return to Earth. And along the way they have some quality time to work through some of their issues.

In real life, people work through conflicts all the time in ways that are basically unsatisfactory. Several months ago my wife got in an argument with her sister, and they didn't speak to each other for about a week. They sat down and hashed over it but they never really settled anything - they just each said their piece and moved on. Now they're friends again, and maybe one day those old issues will pop up again, and maybe they won't, but the two of them just sort of got past it. Bendis tries something similar here with Cap and Iron Man - rather than having one or the other of them admit he was wrong about that whole "Civil War" thing, Bendis tries to sell the idea that they make up in spite of their differences, rather than by overcoming them. A male bonding moment or two helps. (Apparently Thor hooked up with Hellcat. Cue outrage in 3..2..).

This attempt is not entirely successful, because neither Steve Rogers nor Tony Stark is fleshed out enough for the reader to allow them the subtleties of human relationships. Despite 50+ years of publication history and all the ink that's been spent on them, both characters are essentially avatars rather than fully-formed people. That's not Bendis' fault, exactly, but it's the landscape he inherits. We don't know what kind of beer Steve Rogers likes, or who Tony Stark's favorite NFL team is. In general, those things are not relevant to the stories in which they appear, so there's no need to define them. But in order to really understand the friendship between these three guys, you've got to know how they really relate to one another, and it can't just be superheroics. There's a difference between professional and personal friendships, and what we're being fed is that the relationship between these three is personal - yet we've really only been shown the professional side of it. I can buy the idea, at least in a superhero comic, that Steve Rogers can eventually get past Tony Stark hunting him down and throwing him in jail, but only if I'm sold on the idea that these guys are friends instead of allies. And sorry, but a random joke about who hooked up with Hellcat isn't enough - I'm not sure a five issue miniseries devoted entirely to Cap & Tony palling around would be enough.

So to the extent this is a Purpose Story, it's unnecessary and somewhat unconvincing. I could have just accepted these guys working together again without this story. That's not all that's here, though - it's also an action/ fantasy story, really a Thor story guest-starring Cap & Iron Man. Unfortunately I have very little affinity for Thor or his mythos, though, so it's hard for me to judge whether this is a good example of that type of story. It also felt very much outside of Bendis' usual comfort zone, though the fantasy locales and characters play really well to Davis' strengths. I never found myself particularly invested in the fate of the Nine Realms, though. I did quite enjoy Davis' art, as always, and didn't find it as incongruous with Bendis' writing as I expected. Davis delivers his now-trademark smooth lines, making even the ugly characters pretty in their ugliness. The storytelling is of course flawless.

I was a little annoyed at the subplot wherein Cap gets involved with an.. elfin.. girl? Not sure if that's the right word. Anyway, he has a girlfriend, as Stark and Thor point out. Not cool.

the verdict: I'd say this is skippable but for Davis' art. It's a good looking book but doesn't quite manage to sell me on its through-line. Bendis somewhat admirably went for a more "real-world" manner of dealing with the Cap/ Stark split, but didn't quite manage to pull it off. Cf the resolution of the Superman/ Batman/ Wonder Woman squabble in Infinite Crisis, which abandoned any pretense of nuance in favor of one character just basically being "wrong" (WW), but worked better than this.

quick hits: birds of prey, taskmaster & more

2011-11-02T08:00:00.000-04:00

A little different format this time around. None of these books really motivated me to put together a more lengthy review, but I did read them and have some brief observations:

Birds of Prey: Endrun (Gail Simone/ Ed Benes et al - includes Birds of Prey (2010) # 1-6): Oracle is forced to get the band back together when they're beset by a collection of adversaries who seem to know everything about them. I don't think this one is quite up to the level of quality of Simone's first run. Benes' art has deteriorated even further into bad cheesecake, and Simone's usual plotting difficulties rear their head here. It's a charming enough book, though, held together by a few scenes (Penguin hallucinating the beginnings of a gang-bang with the Birds, for example) that are pretty clever. I wouldn't go so far as to recommend this one, but if you liked the prior run you may enjoy this too.

Avengers by Brian Michael Bendis Vol. 1 (Bendis/ John Romita Jr. - includes Avengers (2010) # 1-6): Bendis & JrJr are kind of an awkward match. Bendis and time travel are also kind of an awkward match. There's some neat stuff here, though, and I didn't detect any obvious problems with the plot. Tony Stark is such a dick, though - Bendis just can't help writing the guy as a dick. This one reminded me of the first Bendis arc of Mighty Avengers where they fought Ultron - you can clearly see Bendis shooting for "widescreen" and acquitting himself pretty well. Nice start for this title, to the extent this counts as a "start."

Captain America: No Escape (Ed Brubaker, Butch Guice/ Mitch Britweiser - includes Captain America # 606-610): Baron Zemo figures out that Bucky is the new Cap and tries to ruin him for reasons that are kind of stupid. Bru makes it work, as usual. The interesting thing about this one was the art, which was a jumble in places but was *really* good in others. Britweiser is a find - he takes the art in an even more Gene Colan direction than Guice was. I love how this book looks completely different than it did when Steve Epting was drawing it, yet maintains the same tone. Another very solid installment in this great run.

Taskmaster: Unthinkable (Fred Van Lente/ Jefte Palo - includes Taskmaster # 1-4): Another great-looking book - Palo is a terrific artist. Van Lente's script is no slouch here, either, even if (like me) you could give two shits about Taskmaster. The story vacillates between over-the-top absurdity and more nuanced characterization, and pulls off the blend pretty well. Basically Taskmaster is an operative who has no long-term memory, and thus cannot remember who he is an operative FOR. Pretty neat, and the Secret Avengers showing up at the end is well-done too.

Finally, if you haven't been reading Green Hornet since Kevin Smith "left", you might want to give that one a look. Ande Parks has now taken over the writing, and he's really good. It's a superhero/ crime book still, but both Parks' and Phil Hester's issues are pretty smart and have some interesting twists and turns. Parks is also doing really good work on Lone Ranger: The Death of Zorro. The premise there is that Zorro gets killed and LR investigates/ seeks revenge. It's a very good Western - I'm only halfway through it as the Dynamite digital releases have been sporadic, but it's a good one so far. I dug Parks' Oni work a few years ago and IMO the dude is a major talent.

green goblin: a lighter shade of green

2011-10-31T08:00:00.000-04:00

by Tom DeFalco, Scott McDaniel & more

includes: Green Goblin (1995) # 1-13 & various clone-related issues of the Spider-Man titles

the premise: When Daily Bugle intern Phil Urich stumbles across the late Harry Osborn's secret warehouse, he becomes the all-new, somewhat heroic, Green Goblin.

the lowdown: I always have an involuntary tic when someone talks about being "pleasantly surprised" by a comic, because that seems to assume that the person expected not to like the book - which of course begs the question of why they read it. It's not as if it's a social activity - I can be pleasantly surprised by a movie I watched because my wife wanted to see it, but that's a whole different thing. With that said, I was pleasantly surprised by this book. Not that I expected to dislike it, but my interest in it was more curiousity than a burning desire to experience the material. That material, though, is pretty good.

This was a short-lived 90's series. It's reprinted here in its entirety, along with the heroic GG's other scattered appearances in the spider-Man titles. Phil Urich has been appearing recently in Amazing Spider-Man, now the new villainous Hobgoblin, so I guess Marvel decided the time was ripe to reprint the series where he was a (reluctant) hero. I picked the book up largely because I wanted to see some 90's Scott McDaniel artwork. He draws eight of the thirteen GG issues, and his work here is fantastic. Over time I have become much less enamored of McDaniel's work, as IMO it has become sloppier and less well-defined. His Marvel stuff in the 90's, together with his run on Nightwing for DC, remains really impressive, however. Clearly there's a heavy Frank Miller/ Sin City influence, but McDaniels' work is even more exaggerated than Miller's (if that's possible), and lacks some of Miller's ugly faces. It's very bold, very dynamic, and really pops for the action scenes in particular. I think I want to read some 90's Daredevil just to see more of it.

Green Goblin = Spider-Man? Keep in mind this series was published while the Clone Saga was stinking up the Spider-Man books, and there was a lot of talk about Spidey being removed from a lot of the things that made him great. (In fact, I don't know if this series got axed for low sales, or whether it was because Marvel decided to end the Clone Saga by bringing back Norman Osborn.) In that light, consider the Phil Urich Green Goblin. He's an apprentice at the Daily Bugle, working mostly for his "Uncle Ben", in this case Urich, who happens to be Phil's moral compass (when he has one). He stumbles across then-deceased Harry Osborn's secret stash of Goblin paraphenalia while in the process of being a screwup. He decides to use the equipment (in secret, of course), but isn't necessarily motivated to use it for noble reasons. He's not an out-and-out villain, but he's not comfortable in a hero role, either.

In some ways, he's more Spidey than Spidey. Marvel is infamous for allegedly having heroes with "feet of clay" - but what that usually means is that their heroes are flawed in some way. Usually morality isn't the way they're flawed. And Spider-Man in particular doesn't have "feet of clay" anytime past his first appearance. Phil Urich does, though - he's genuinely afraid for his life a lot of the time, and his first instinct is to not get involved whenever there's trouble. He's also not especially bright, witty or resourceful, and obviously lacks Peter Parker's scientific know-how. In a lot of ways he's much more the everyman than Parker is. DeFalco does a really good job of selling this concept - his prose is purple in places, and most of the villains are terrible, but Phil's story is genuinely engaging.

Green Goblin = The Creeper? Yeah, pretty much. More the original Ditko version of the character, at least. The visual is strikingly similar, right down to the ever-present "ha ha ha"'s that follow the character around. What this series comes down to is an attempt to re-create that Spidey/ Creeper angsty young hero magic, and leaving aside the attempts at "modern" slang, it's a really good attempt. The scripts move along at a brisk pace, playing to McDaniel's strengths. There are a fair number of guest stars but not so many that they overwhelm the book. And perhaps best of all - the series gets a very definitive ending and reads pretty well as a long novel, albeit one with a few dips into Crazy Clone Land.

the verdict: A mostly forgotten spinoff series that actually turns out to have been quite good. This is a strong recreation of the original Spider-Man formula, with a more modern and less likeable protagonist. Not all the issues are winners but the signal-to-noise ratio is really high. Oh, but the issue where GG fights a villain who is railing against work-for-hire is almost directly lifted from Batman: The Animated Series. Still - worth a look if you've got some time to kill. This is a good one.

oops! review: catwoman - her sister's keeper

2011-10-28T08:00:00.000-04:00

by Mindy Newell & J.J. Birch

includes: Catwoman (1989) # 1-4

the premise: Hooker Selina Kyle fights back against her abusive pimp as Catwoman, while encountering Wildcat and, of course, Batman.

the lowdown: This one's been out of print for a really long time, but it actually has several ties to the modern version of the character, including heavy use of Holly Robinson and Selina's sister Maggie. It's a clear spinoff from Batman: Year One and, in my opinion, one of the seminal post-Crisis Catwoman stories. It's also the character's first solo title, so it has some historical significance.

Think of this as Catwoman: Year One. Of course DC did a Catwoman: Year One Annual in 1995 that had a whole different take on the character, but it's interesting to me to look back and see how much Frank Miller's treatment of Catwoman in Batman: Year One influenced the portrayal of Selina Kyle. Miller of course re-cast Selina as a prostitute because she is, after all, a woman and it was a Frank Miller story. This was all before we all noticed that he can't tell a story without prostitutes. Anyway, Miller's take on Selina Kyle was far different from the then-current version, who was a reformed villain turned superheroine who wore a sultry purple dress and palled around with Batman a lot. After BM: Y1, though, it seemed like no one had much idea what to do with Catwoman, which version was "modern", or how she should be played. This miniseries was intended to flesh the post-Crisis version out a little and establish more about who she was and how she related to, well, Batman.

Birch's Gotham is a grainier version of David Mazzuchelli's. Birch, of course, was a psuedonym for Joe Brozowski, who was the regular artist of Firestorm around this time. He used the "Birch" name to experiment with a different style, one clearly influenced by Mazzuchelli, right down to apeing specific panels. Likewise, the story is colored with a lot of the neons used in the "East End" scenes of BM:Y1 - except, since most of the story takes place in the East End, the neons become the dominant color of the whole story, rather than just a few scenes. Birch's Gotham is ugly, lit by cheap lights, and probably even more squalid than Mazzuchelli's version. I enjoyed the art, though Birch is not Mazzuchelli's equal by any means.

Newell's Catwoman is Miller's with more personality. Her starting point for Selina Kyle, the first scene, is that she's a beaten-down hooker dumped in an alleyway after being beaten within an inch of her life. She's not the in-control dominatrix of BM:Y1, at least not yet. Rather, Newell shows Selina shocked from her naivete and youth by her beating, and motivated to make sure it never happens again. She trains with Ted Grant and quietly makes herself into a bad-ass (but NOT the martial artist of later years - Ted is the closest thing she has to a "sensei"). Though inspired by Batman as shown in Y1, Newell depicts Selina as almost entirely self-interested (her attachment to Holly being the exception) - she's Batman viewed through a darker lens. She appreciates the rebellion inherent in Batman but has no interest in his ideas of right and wrong, because they don't apply in her neighborhood, where the cops are corrupt and it's survival of the fittest.

I think they were going for noir here, but didn't quite get there. The moment when Abusive Pimp Stan starts taking hostages, this is no longer anything other than an action/ adventure/ crime story that happens not to feature anyone with super powers. Stan devolves into full-on villainy, and the denouement of his and Selina's stories is relatively by-the-books. Still, it's well-written and well-drawn and allows Selina to be the protagonist of her own story even though she's not a traditional "hero". Purple Dress Catwoman and Pretty Woman Catwoman come from the same place - a desire to recast a bad guy as a protagonist. Catwoman has been a protagonist in 98% of the stories she's appeared in since about 1978 - the differences in portrayals come about because DC can't decide whether they want her to be a genuinely good person or a "naughty" person who runs up against people who are worse. This is the latter take, and pretty much the definitive example of how to do it without oversexing the character.

the verdict: Because DC ultimately didn't want to have a protagonist who was a current or former hooker, this take was eventually dumped in favor of the idea that Selina was only *pretending* to be a hooker to get access to rich dudes. And no, that doesn't make any sense, but I can kind of appreciate DC's squeamishness at the time. Still, this is a pretty good story that got snowed under by marketing and licensing concerns. It's a pretty good sequel of sorts to Batman: Year One and worth a read if you can get your hands on a copy.

There is also a follow-up story published in Action Comics Weekly, written by Newell, where Holly is a grownup who gets married and is killed, and then Catwoman kills her husband. It is not very good and I don't recommend seeking it out.

g.i. joe special missions vol. 4

2011-10-26T08:00:00.000-04:00

by Larry Hama, Herb Trimpe & more

includes: G.I. Joe Special Missions # 22-28

the premise: The final volume of this series collects the last seven issues, all standalones featuring the Joes in missions too hardcore for the main title.

the lowdown: I stopped reviewing this series after volume 2, not because I stopped reading or enjoying it, but because I ran out of things to really say about it. Volume 3 was more of the same from Volume 2. If you liked 2, you'll like 3. If not, well, read something else. I hadn't really intended to review Volume 4 either, but there's one story here that's so amazing, the world (and by "the world", I mean "this blog's readership") needs to be told about it.

The issue in question is written by Michael Fleisher, one of only two issues in this series written by someone other than Hama. (The other is also included in this collection - it's written by Trimpe and features the four female Joes dressed up as showgirls.) The usual M.O. for Hama's stories in this title was that they were military setpieces - lots of attention was paid to getting the weaponry (within reason), the strategy, the procedure correct.

This is not Fleisher's M.O.

As the story goes, three Joes (Stalker, Outback, and Quick Kick) are deployed to Mexico to deliver some documents to a muckitymuck down there, and are then ordered for some reason to lay around a resort for a week. Amazed by their good fortune, our three intrepid heroes decide to live the good life for a week. Outback and Quick Kick decide they want to go sightseeing and get on a bus to somewhere or another. Stalker declines because he wants to get laid, and there are lots of women in bikinis at the resort. (It's actually LESS subtle than this in the story.) I guess Fleisher was unaware that Stalker is married with children, and thus comes off looking like a horrible person here.

It seems one of the ladeez has an eye for Stalker too, though, so she decides she needs to meet him. Thus, she prances onto a diving board, dives into a pool, and then doesn't surface. This ensures that Stalker will have to jump in the pool to save her from drowning. She then asks him to give her mouth-to-mouth - THIS was her plan to meet him. The mind boggles.

So Stalker's getting ready to commit adultery when he's struck by a sense of unease, a feeling that trouble has befallen Outback and Quick Kick, even though he has no logical reason to think that's the case. Stalker then disses Ms. CPR and steals a helicopter to go look for his friends, booting the pilot out while the copter is in the air. Along the way he stops to hope that they are actually in trouble so he won't look stupid for stealing a helicopter.

And of course, they ARE in trouble, as their tourist bus has been attacked by terrorists who mistook a water pistol for actual armament. Outback and Quick Kick (who is wearing shoes in an out-of-character moment) enlist a star javelin player who happens to be on the bus in some half-assed scheme that ends with the javelin player being killed, and then Stalker shows up in his stolen helicopter just in the nick of time to save the day. Then they all make jokes about what a terrible vacation it turned out to be.

There's a chance this is the goofiest G.I. Joe story ever, and there was a G.I. Joe story where the Federal Government tried to have all the Joes declared insane and committed to mental institutions, only to have Destro save them. What's truly incredible is that the story manages to be this goofy without featuring Cobra at all - imagine if they'd worked Road Pig or Dr. Mindbender in there somewhere. (Other stories in this collection do feature Raptor, Darklon, and Crystal Ball, who apparently can immediately hypnotize anyone he comes into contact with. You'd think that would make him pretty much unbeatable, but I guess not.)

the verdict: The story where the female Joes have to dress up like glorified cheerleaders is pretty out there, too. But at least none of them attempt to commit adultery or send innocent javelin throwers to their deaths. Or kick innocent people out of airborne helicopters.

flashpoint

2011-10-24T08:00:00.000-04:00

by Geoff Johns & Andy Kubert

includes: Flashpoint # 1-5

the premise: The world has changed in a.. wait for it... flash! Barry Allen awakens on a world where the world's greatest heroes never came to be, and must choose between saving this new, violent world, or restoring the one he knew.

the lowdown: Maybe in a year or two Geoff Johns will do an interview somewhere and reveal what this series originally was supposed to be. I can't help thinking that the finished product bears only a marginal resemblence to the original intent. This was the big Flash story that Johns and DC were teasing as far back as Flash: Rebirth, but it ends up being parlayed not only into a big summer event, but the bridge to DC's relaunched 52 titles in September 2011.

This is a surprisingly clunky read. I say surprisingly because, while I don't think Johns has the world's greatest ear for dialogue, he's usually able to camoflague his limitations a little better than this. This series has a whole pile of scenes of people standing around talking to one another, telling each other things they should already know. It's very Claremontian - Johns has a tendency to go all Roy Thomas and give each character in a scene one line of dialogue that's supposed to encapsulate his/ her character, but it's usually much more organic than this. There's a scene in #1 where the heroes all meet on a rooftop to discuss what they're going to do, and it's incredibly awkward to read.

There are, however, some good ideas in here. This is a pretty by-the-numbers alternate universe story, but there are a few interesting twists on established characters, Batman chief among them. A few of the new characters are genuinely pretty interesting, too. I also very much like the idea that [SPOILER ALERT] Barry Allen's plan for getting his Flash powers back is to pour chemicals on himself and try to get struck by lightning. And that when that fails, his backup plan is to try it again! This is a gloriously stupid plan but it's one of the most engaging moments of the series.

Philosophically, though, this story's got problems. Some of it's probably not Johns' fault. Here's the thing about these alternate universe stories: one of their central conceits is that one version of reality can be "right" and another can be "wrong." The characters in the story often even recognize this - the hero's quest is to restore reality to what it was before the story began. Oftentimes, they'll throw in a twist or two so it'll seem like the story "mattered" but essentially the goal is to undo the alternate universe. This is a dubious proposition - how does one justify the elimination of an entire world of people? - but if you want to enjoy a story like this one, that's the ticket you've got to buy. And in this case it's highlighted again by the twist that [SPOILER ALERT] it turns out that Barry Allen is the one who screwed up and changed reality in the first place. So his goal is to "fix" this nihilistic world he's created - even though in the story he claims he wants to save it - yet he can't succeed in doing that because the story is being used to reboot the entire DC line. This prevents the story from giving the reader any true sense of closure. The Flashpoint world is rendered more or less meaningless, simply something to fill the background while Barry learns of his mistake and tries to undo it - and then he fails to set things right. Johns seems to be aware of this disconnect, as the concluding scene with Flash and Batman is written as if Flash has succeeded, and reality has been set "right." But we the readers know it's been significantly changed, so you have the characters sitting around thinking they've "won" when in fact they haven't. Emotionally it's very unsatisfying.

Bottom line is that Geoff Johns doesn't write Barry Allen very well. Barry Allen = worst superhero ever. He screwed up reality. He stumbles around in this story accomplishing nothing (literally - nothing) for five issues, then tries and fails to restore the previous status quo. He doesn't even defeat Reverse-Flash. Basically Barry fails at every single thing he attempts in this story other than getting his powers back and delivering a letter to Batman. And if you look back at the 2010 Flash series, it's more of the same. Johns' version of Barry Allen is a mopey incompetent, and while that's a valid characterization, I very much doubt it's the one he was shooting for.

the verdict: This isn't a total misfire but it is a deeply flawed work. The story essentially abandons any pretense of internal logic in favor of a series of "this is how it works because Reverse Flash said so" moments, and though the Flashpoint world has some interesting (and well-designed) elements, they're meaningless to the overall plot. It seems like they were shooting for something really ambitious here, but it collapsed under its own weight and the additional burden of leading into the restart.

tie-in alert: I ended up getting five of these. No sense in giving them individual reviews, and no I didn't buy the ones that were obviously filler material from assistant editors.

Batman: Knight of Vengeance (Brian Azzarello/ Eduardo Risso) - Easily the best of the bunch. Has nothing to do with the main story but has a terrific grim story about the Waynes.

Secret Seven (Peter Milligan/ Fernando Blanco) - Nice start though it falls apart in the third act as the need to set up one particular character's role in the main story takes over. Worth a read, though.

The Outsider (James Robinson/ Javi Fernandez) - Also quite enjoyable. I wish Robinson & Fernandez had a little more space with this one. I wonder if he might show up again in DCnU.

Kid Flash Lost (Sterling Gates/ Oliver Nome) - Cute Flash family story that becomes a screaming mess by the end. Not recommended.

Frankenstein & The Creatures of the Unknown (Jeff Lemire/ various) - Mostly an extended teaser for the upcoming Frankenstein series, but well-done so far as it goes.

like a sniper lining up his shot

2011-10-21T08:00:00.000-04:00

by Jacques Tardi (based on a novel by Jean-Patrick Manchette)

original graphic novel

the premise: A hitman who wants to retire is denied the privilege by his former employers, and finds himself forced to perform one last job for the life of the woman he loves.

the lowdown: This is, like West Coast Blues, an adaptation of a crime novel by Manchette - apparently the last one he wrote during his lifetime. Originally it was published in France, but the kind folks at Fantagraphics have brought us this English-language release. This one doesn't quite live up to West Coast Blues, but it's still very very good.

In a lot of ways the old "hitman who wants to retire" chestnut has become a cliche. I'll buy the idea that organized crime is a tough business to just quit, but here we're faced with a hitman who is so valuable to his employers that they cannot let him retire, so they embark on a complicated scheme of intimidation, murder and kidnapping to secure his services. Of course, if they have the resources to pull that off, it's questionable why they need Martin (our star here) in the first place. The story does offer an explanation for that, but only after 80+ pages where the bad guys do everything short of dropping an atom bomb on the guy.

Tardi's work, though, is as always brilliant. It's presented here in black and white, and usually B&W art turns on how well the artist uses grays. Here Tardi uses no grays at all - everything is stark black and white, and no attempt is made for the art to look anything but two-dimensional. If that sounds like a criticism, don't be fooled - it's not. The finished product is wonderful, right down to the last chilling and yet absurd panel. Although Tardi re-uses some faces from West Coast Blues and his other work, his storytelling is flawless. Everything has soft, rounded edges, even the violent scenes, which are underplayed to great effect. Even the spectacular bits of violence are framed in an almost casual way, without losing any impact at all. At the same time, there's nothing romantic about any of it. The story has sex, violence, nudity, murder - and all of it is ugly and awkward, yet pleasing to the eye.

The dialogue is heavy on third-person narration in the first third or so of the story, establishing a very methodical pace before picking up somewhat near the end. This technique helps give the reader the feeling that Martin is totally in control, even as events unfold around him. Only near the end does he become less methodical, as he loses control of his world. This is an impressive technique given that Tardi was adapting the story from a novel - it's pretty uncanny to be able to create a new tempo for an adaptation. The novel *couldn't* have been paced the same way, because that totally wouldn't work in prose. In this way Tardi makes the story his own and lends his own artistic personality to it.

The story itself is an engaging bit of noir, once one overlooks the retirement cliche. It's full of twists and turns and features exactly zero characters who are particularly likeable. Martin wants out of the game but isn't prepared for what that will cost him. If the ending is a little contrived and/or absurd, it feels like the story has earned the indulgence. The weirdly ironic ending seems appropriate even if it's not quite grounded in the "reality" of the rest of the story.

the verdict: Very enjoyable. If you like noir, this is a good one with terrific art.

shadowland

2011-10-19T08:00:00.001-04:00

by Andy Diggle & Billy Tan

includes: Shadowland # 1-5

the premise: Having apparently lost his nut, Daredevil now rules Hell's Kitchen with an army of ninjas. The street-level heroes of the Marvel Universe decide that now's the time to put a stop to this nonsense - and, if necessary, Daredevil.

the lowdown: This was one of Marvel's "mini-events" that actually wasn't all that "mini" if you count the half-dozen or so tie-in series that they did. Increasingly, as these types of stories have continued to proliferate, I've adopted a policy of picking up the main series (assuming I'm interested) and then avoiding most of the tie-ins. In general, that seems to serve me pretty well, but I mention it here because I do think it colored my take on this series.

This is the culmination of what Diggle (and Antony Johnston) did with their run on Daredevil. Brubaker established at the end of his run that DD had taken over leadership of The Hand, and most of Diggle's run dealt with that as well. In keeping with my above-stated policy, I did not get the DD tie-in issues to this story. The trade includes an interview with Diggle where he says he tried to put the superhero-y stuff in the Shadowland series proper, and use the DD title to tell the crime/ noir side of the tale. Only, y'know, I didn't read those issues, so for me there was a clear shift in tone from the usual DD stuff to a much more traditional superhero story.

Nevertheless, it works okay as a self-contained read, and I think there are some advantages to skipping some of the background material. I say "okay" but this isn't completely self-contained. Moon Knight vanishes mid-story, for example, and I assume his character arc played out in Shadowland: Moon Knight. Ghost Rider's appearance is somewhat confusing, perhaps owing to the fact that I didn't read his stories. On the other hand, some of the gaps are actually pretty effective. Murdock's descent into full-on supervillainy, for example, seems to happen in increments, without much of a look inside his head - and that's actually kind of cool, because it leaves the reader to experience it much as Spider-Man, Luke Cage and the others are. They only see DD every so often, and whenever they do, he's different, in appearance, demeanor and powers. I found that pretty effective, even if it was only a side effect of me skipping parts of the story.

The morality of the whole thing is kind of wonky. The event that convinces everyone DD has lost it is when [SPOILER ALERT!] Murdock kills Bullseye. You know the drill by now - "he's crossed the line", "he's not above the law", "it's not his decision to make", the usual rigamaroll. So the heroes get together and decide they have to deal with this by killing Daredevil, and no one sees the clear hypocrisy. Now granted, by story's end, DD is full-on loony after it's revealed that he's been possessed by... oh, let's just dispense with formality and call it Parrallax... so a pretty good argument can be made that killing him is the only way to stop him... but of course one could make that argument just as easily about Bullseye - plus Bullseye's a douchebag who everyone hates.

Tan's art was a pleasant surprise. Truthfully, I have not been a fan of his work in the past. This is pretty good stuff, though - some of the exaggerated musculature is, if not absent, toned down. I really liked Tan's depiction of Daredevil as well - as Parrallax gets more control over him, he gets to looking more and more devil-like, with expanding horns and, eventually, claws. I thought this was a pretty good visual effect, and really helped the story along to its climax. DD getting all abstract is a nice visual cue to the reader that the moment of truth is approaching.

Tie-ins? As noted, I skipped them. I read the Thunderbolts tie-in collection, It includes four issues, only two of which are Shadowland tie-ins, and basically it's just about the T'Bolts taking on a side mission to help get some of the cops out of Murdock's ninja death camp. It's not essential to the story, but I like Jeff Parker's Thunderbolts.

the verdict: This one seems to have fallen flat for many but I enjoyed it. Clearly it has some logic flaws, and though it's a Daredevil-centric event, it's pretty different in tone from most DD tales. Diggle's voices for a few of the cast (Captain America) are off as well. Not something I think people will remember as a classic in a few years, by any means, but perfectly good spectacle.

tales of the batman: gene colan vol. 1

2011-10-17T08:00:00.000-04:00

by Gene Colan, Gerry Conway, Doug Moench & more

includes: Batman # 340, 343-345, 348-351 & Detective Comics # 510, 512, 517, 523, 528-529

the premise: The late Gene Colan's 1980's Batman work is collected, most of it for the first time. Batman and Robin square off against the Mad Hatter, Poison Ivy, the Vampiri and more.

the lowdown: Much of the pre-release discussion I saw of this book focused more on what would be included, and how it would be packaged, than on the work itself. In early 1982 Batman and Detective Comics became a serial - that is, stories continued as a matter of course from one title to the other. In essence they were "triangle" books before anyone starting using that term. So the fear people had was that this collection would only include half of each story. The other fear, always a concern where DC is involved, is that the collection would be on really crappy paper and/or otherwise be haphazardly put together.

I'm happy to report that, for the most part, this is a well put-together book. It's on glossy paper and includes full-page cover reproductions, even of the covers that Colan didn't draw. (Jim Aparo did a lot of the Batman covers back then.) There are two production snafus - one, they misspell Colan's name on the dust jacket (in the bio), which is kind of unofrgiveable for a tribute book. Also, the dust jacket incorrectly lists the issues that are included, probably only furthering confusion and/or worry that this would collect only partial stories.

However, for the most part stories here are included in their entirety. Despite the introduction of the cross-title continuity, the Bat-books at that time tended to keep the same artist on all parts of one story arc. So, for example, Colan drew both the March '82 issues of Batman & Detective (a two-part tale featuring Dr. Death), with Don Newton coming aboard for the April '82 issues (which featured Two-Face). If there's a second volume they're going to run into a problem, because the story begun in this collection's final issue was continued by Newton, and then finished by Colan. But for these issues, it's not so much a concern. There is some absent material, though, in that Gerry Conway (who was writing both Batman and Detective at the time), had a lot of subplots running between titles, and having issues omitted means you miss some of that material. So, for example, we see Dick Grayson and Dala on a date in an early issue, and we see the later arc where she's revealed to be a vampire, but we never see the issue where they met, or where she dumped him and got him stalking her.

I did not like Colan's art as a kid. I always found his style muddy, too loosely defined for my liking. As I've grown older I've come to appreciate his moody, atmospheric work. He was really the first artist to lend an element of mood to the Batman titles since Neal Adams, and you can tell the writers were trying to play to his strengths, pitting Batman against inhuman menaces like the Mole or the Vampiri, or creepy villains like Dr. Death. The best-known of the stories included here is the Vampiri storyline, wherein Batman and Robin are turned into vampires by Dala and the Monk. I'm reminded upon re-reading it how thin the story really was - Dala and the Monk are never really given any motivation at all for their plot to abduct Dick Grayson, nor does the story have anything approaching satisfying closure. It's really all about showcasing Colan by having him draw vampires, or bat-vampires.

With that said, for the most part these stories are very enjoyable reads. This is one of my favorite Batman eras, and it's one that's been relatively lightly reprinted. The only stories from this era anyone ever really acclaims are "To Kill A Legend" and "The Player on the Other Side", both of which fall into the good-but-not-great category as far as I'm concerned. For me, the year or so where Boss Thorne, Poison Ivy, the Vampiri and the Human Target were running around the title were tops. The thing that strikes me is how much effort each issue takes to sell its own importance. For example, there's an issue early on where Batman fights the Mad Hatter. There's like fifty subplots going on in the background, and clearly the Hatter is only there so Batman will have something to do. Nowadays it would be a filler or a breather issue. But it takes every step it can to sell itself as high drama - reference is made to a moment Lucius Fox "will never forget". I wonder if the increasingly mundane way such conflicts are treated - nowadays Batman would just punch out the Hatter off-panel and it'd be a big joke - reflects ceators' boredom with the same-old? Maybe - if so that's a shame - the soap opera can be fun but at its heart this is a genre about guys in costumes hitting each other.

the verdict: I'm not sure if a volume two is planned for this series, or if so how they'll handle the cross-continuity problem as they move into the Moench run - but I'd love to see this continue in some format. These stories were a heckuva lot of fun to re-read, and Colan's art - particularly the issues inked by Klaus Janson - look great in a more modern package.

But DC... seriously... C. O. L. A. N. Colan. Not Colon.

superman: grounded

2011-10-14T08:00:00.000-04:00

by J. Michael Straczynski, Chris Roberson, Eddy Barrows & more

includes: Superman # 701, 707-711, 713-714 & part of # 700

the premise: Concerned that he's lost touch with the common man, Superman walks across America and re-evaluates his role on Earth.

the lowdown: SPECIAL NOTE: The issues listed above do not comprise the entirety of the "Grounded" storyline. Issues 702, 703 & 705 were also part of this storyline. I did not include them above because I skipped those issues - but if you're looking for the entire "Grounded" experience, they're part of it as well.

There's a reason I skipped them. Superman # 701 is, quite frankly, one of the most egregiously stupid things I've ever read. I'm not even limiting that to comics - it's one of the dumbest things I've ever read. I have, in the past, defended some of JMS' DC work against what appears to be overwhelmingly negative sentiment, at least on the internet. I cannot defend "Grounded", however - this is a story that absolutely, completely misses the point of not only Superman, but superheroes in general.

The "premise" is that Superman goes all Forrest Gump and walks across America. Except it's more like if Forrest Gump was a huge dick with a dubious moral compass. First of all, taking an action hero and having him do the opposite of action for an extended period of time is asinine. I don't mind a talky issue or two, but to have a year of dumbassed philosophizing about what Superman means is unbelieveably awful. Even if we accept the (hideous) premise that Superman feels guilty because someone died of cancer while he was trying to save the world, the notion that he'd remedy that by walking across America is... gah, SO SO stupid. JMS compounds this problem by having him act like an ass the whole time he's doing it, dropping sarcastic quips to just about everyone he meets and coming up with hopelessly simplistic solutions to "real-world" problems.

No way I could sit through 4-5 issues of that crap. But, as we all know, JMS was taken off the series after # 705, and Chris Roberson was brought in to, allegedly, finish the story based on JMS' plot/ outline. JMS continues to get a writing credit all the way to the end, but there's a VERY obvious shift in tone once Roberson comes aboard. JMS has hinted, if not said outright, that there was always intended to be more going on with his issues than was apparent - in other words, that he knew Superman wasn't acting right and that this was a story point. Personally I find that extremely dubious but whatever - no one outside of the creators really knows the whole story. In any event, once Roberson comes aboard he immediately turns the premise on its head and takes the book in a very Silver Age direction. From there forward, we get a series of one-issue tales that are, at best, loosely connected. Many of the issues don't really have much to do with "Grounded" at all - there's an issue set in Las Vegas with Jimmy Olsen and Livewire, for example, that would read almost exactly the same set in Metropolis, and could be any random issue of the Superman title.

Roberson's voice is pretty entertaining. It's surprisingly old school - makes heavy use of thought balloons and exposition, but somehow that works better with Superman than it would with a lot of other characters. Roberson liberally nods to DC continuity and history, even referencing the old DC Dictionary - but never in a way that disrupts the story or mires it in backstory. At times his prose is clunky - Batman guest-stars in an issue where he and Superman tell each other about a previously-unreported meeting from their past, even though both of them would already know all the details, for example. Still, Roberson shows a lot of promise, and one can't help but wonder what he could've done with a year-long run unencumbered by the baggage of "Grounded."

"Grounded" doesn't really hold together as an arc. Maybe it would've been a tighter (if dumber) package had JMS stayed aboard. Roberson's triage is reasonably effective, but after breaking the series down to a set of one-shots, he struggles mightily to pull it back together at the end, spending a totally ineffective issue with Superman renouncing his superheroic identity. By essentially inverting JMS' story in an attempt to salvage it, Roberson robs the story of its through-line. So if you want to enjoy Roberson's issues read in a single sitting, you more or less have to just forget about "Grounded" and take them as a series of one-offs. So unconnected to one another are the stories that DC infamously pulled one issue from publication (replacing it with a previously-shelved Kurt Busiek story about Krypto), and you can't even tell there's an issue missing.

The art by Barrows shows improvement from his prior work. To be honest, I'm not a huge fan of his exaggerated style, and it's a poor fit for a talky story like this one. But with that said, I thought he did pretty good work. Numerous fill-ins dot the end of the run, as DC pulled most of its key creators off of books in anticipation of their big relaunch.

the verdict: This was a game attempt by Roberson to salvage an incomprehensible mess started by JMS. Whether that was the plan all along, or whether (as it appears) Roberson was performing triage, we'll never know. The resulting reading experience is uneven at best, though several of Roberson's issues are pretty good standing on their own.

note: DC collected this tale over two collected editions.

on nostalgia, criminal & dc retroactive

2011-10-12T08:00:00.000-04:00

reading list:

DC Retroactive - Batman 70's, 80's & 90's

DC Retroactive - JLA 80's, 90's

DC Retroactive - Wonder Woman 80's

Criminal: Last of the Innocent # 1-4

It's amazing to note sometimes how much of comics - and really most of popular culture - is driven by nostalgia. It's.. like.. a TON of it, right? Among most of the so-called "mainstream" comics community, nostalgia is huge, because for many of us, we've been reading since we were kids and the four-color adventures of our favorite superheroes are a link to our childhoods. Today's piece looks at nostalgia, the way it's marketed, and the way it works creatively through two very different lenses - the recent DC Retroactive books and the latest Criminal miniseries.

As you can see, I didn't read all the DC Retro books. I cherry-picked the ones that were callbacks to previous eras or runs that I really liked. Each issue came with a new story by, in many cases, a classic creative team, with a reprint of one of the older issues included. For example, the 90's Batman book was by the classic Alan Grant/ Norm Breyfogle team, with a reprint of Detective #613 (also by G&B) included as well. DC further supported the projects by releasing digital versions of additional books from these creators for $.99 each on Comixology.

These books varied from very good to awful. The Wonder Woman 80's book was abjectly terrible, the Batman 80's book only marginally less so. The strongest two entries were the Batman & JLA 90's books, most likely because those books had the creators least removed from their glory days. With that said, the 70's Batman book was pretty good, too, though it was drawn by Tom Mandrake, who is not a 70's artist (but whose work I love). None of the books were really classics, or even stories that I think I'll go back to a year or two from now. The best ones were worth the $ I paid for them, but none of them had me wishing for more.

And honestly, I think these projects miss that nostalgia sweet spot by a pretty wide margin. At least this is how it works for me. Back when I had a sizeable comic collection, I could tell you not only what each issue was - I knew when and where I got it, and what was going on in my life at the time. "I got this one right after I broke up with whatzername." "I remember reading this one during my first week of college." My back issues were not just libraries of of collectibles - they were a gateway back to particular times or moments in my life. They had meaning for me, in some cases, beyond their four corners.

But here's the thing - I had nostalgic feelings for those particular comics. I liked the Roy Thomas/ Gene Colan Wonder Woman - I remember reading issue #288 outside a newsstand at Cross Creek Mall. The WW 80's book - written by Thomas - is written as if it's a lost issue of that run that just wasn't published until now. The text specifically says it's taking place in 1983. But I cannot be nostalgic for something that wasn't actually part of my past - and this comic wasn't. The 70's Batman book has some specific callbacks to subplots from Len Wein's 70's Batman run - but I felt much more nostalgic upon reading the "backup" tale, reprinted from Batman #307.

So I think that's why books like these unfortunately fall flat. I don't think nostalgia for old bits of media extends to the style in which said media was created - in most cases. Thus the material is left to stand or fall on its own merits - and honestly, without the nostalgia factor in play most of these comics just aren't very good. The 90's JLA book by Giffen, DeMatteis & Maguire is very well-done, but you already knew those guys still had their chops. Norm Breyfogle's art still looks great on the 90's Batman book, though Alan Grant's script reads like a lot of his later Shadow of the Bat stories - heavily reliant on really improable conicidences. The stuff from before that? Yeah, I'm sorry, but there's a reason these folks aren't getting work from DC or Marvel anymore. They were all great in their time, but this is not their time.

So y'know, DC, if you want to put Norm Breyfogle on a Batman book again - yes please. Sign me up. But present it as the next thing rather than a callback to an old thing.

While these books were coming out, I was also reading Criminal: Last of the Innocent, which is the latest offering in that series-of-series by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips. I've made clear before that I think Criminal is wonderful, but this series is noteworthy in that it attempts to be about something other than genre crime tropes. Previous volumes were all-on full-out noir, and this one is too, but it's also an examination of.. you guessed it.. nostalgia. The premise basically is that Archie grew up and married Veronica, because she put out more readily than Betty - and now the sex has grown stale, she's cheating on him, and he wishes he could rewind and return to the simpler days of high school. Brubaker & Phillips deliver their usual amazing level of craft, this time including a variety of "flashback" scenes drawn in the style of an Archie Comic.

The flashbacks, though, aren't all root beer floats and homecoming parades - they contain all the sex, alcohol, awkwardness and coarseness that real high school life has - but they're drawn in the Archie style because our hapless lead character idealizes that time in his life. He's looking back at the past as a simpler time, when actually it wasn't. That's Criminal's message - nostalgia is largely bullshit, and even when it's not, your mind is picking and choosing which parts to be nostalgic FOR. You see this all the time when people talk about this era or that era of comics/ music/ tv/ whatever to be the best one. We'll go on about how great early 80's DC was, with New Teen Titans and Legion and Outsiders - but neglect to mention that Superman, Wonder Woman, Flash and Green Lantern were all mostly terrible in that era. Every era has its gems and its clunkers, and some eras have better signal-to-noise than others, but you can't just re-create a bygone era without bringing back the good AND the bad.

The Archie stand-in in Criminal decides, ultimately, that he needs to return to his simpler days - by murdering his wife. This is the (obviously flawed) path down which blind nostalgia leads us. In a sense it doesn't matter whether Archie can successfully kill his wife and not get caught - even if he gets away with it, he can't recapture his innocence by violently murdering his spouse, but he totally cannot see that - he thinks he can just press a rewind button and "restore" his life.

Criminal is perhaps a little harsh on the concept of nostalgia, though as always it's a wonderful book and I heartily recommend that you go buy it post haste. I think nostalgia is fine as an indulgence - but I also believe strongly that the past is the past and that, for the most part, it's best left there except as a curiousity, at least where art is concerned. There's a difference between looking back at old things to see why they worked, and trying to recreate them. Something like DC Retroactive comes off as well-meaning attempt to do the latter, and I think ultimately that's why it doesn't quite work. On the other hand, as much as I hated the WW 80's book, I had a blast re-reading WW # 288-293 on Comixology - great fun revisiting stories I hadn't re-read in 15-20 years. You'll just have to pardon me if I don't include this really terrible story where Silver Swan assumes Wonder Woman's form except the artists can't keep the two WW's costumes straight as part of the run, or part of my nostalgia.

Also: buy Criminal. That is all.

iron man: stark resilient

2011-10-10T08:00:00.000-04:00

by Matt Fraction & Salvador Larocca

includes: Invincible Iron Man (2008) # 25-33

the premise: With his company destroyed and his mind newly-rebooted, Tony Stark sets about rebuilding his fortune by making his repulsor technology widely available. Meanwhile, the US Government is getting into bed with Justine and Sacha Hammer, and their new armor - Detroit Steel.

the lowdown: This review actually encompasses two collections - volumes 5 and 6 of the Invincible Iron Man series. They are labeled "Stark Resilient Book One" and "Book Two", respectively. Marvel may insist on splitting storylines like this into multiple collections but increasingly I find it makes no sense to review them separately. These nine issues comprise a single storyline, or at least a sizeable part of one.

Not sure if I've been rebooted at some point, but I have a growing cognitive disconnect with this series. Because this title was launched alongside the first Iron Man movie, and clearly was intended to appeal to people who liked the movie, I keep going into it expecting to see the Stark from the movie. And though Larocca certainly makes every effort to ape the Robert Downey Jr. look, we're not quite getting Movie Tony. This guy's a little smarter than Movie Tony, but he's also more f***ed up, or at least f***ed up in less traditional ways. Movie Tony drinks too much and is a womanizer, but Comic Tony is just a weird, weird guy. The best thing about these issues is the idea that Tony's reboot (from the previous volume) didn't work quite the way he claims it did - that maybe he remembers some things he's pretending not to, but is brain-damaged in other ways. This is teased out in a way that's just subtle enough not to make your head hurt, but in a way it gives us a Stark who's more disturbing than his previous incarnations.

The series is evolving, as Iron Man must. Back in my review of Iron Man Noir I spoke of the need to keep Iron Man cutting edge, and as Stark remarks here, the way to do that is to essentially take him from science to science fiction. It's no longer enough for Tony to have armor with cool weapons on it - now we've got to have baloney science like the armor being "stored in his bones", and the tone of the book has to change into something far more sci-fi than a traditional Iron Man story would be - and really much more sci-fi than even the movies. At some point that becomes an awkward fit for a title telling stories about corporate or military warfare. Fraction's new take on the character is skirting a line bordering on the completely ridiculous.

With that said, the use of the extended cast remains really good. War Machine, Pepper Potts, and (to a lesser extent) Maria Hill are all used to good effect here, as Stark renounces military applications of his inventions for about the billionth time, and each of his colleagues is left to deal with the fallout of that decision. Potts' evolution into a superpowered ally is particularly well-done, as she tries to forge a role as the totally defensive-minded Rescue. This is one of the stronger ideas to emerge from the Fraction/ Larocca run, even if it has the unfortunate side effect of removing one of the few remaining normal people from this series. (Although - Ms. Arbogast is back, so I guess she's the new designated norm.)

The pacing here is a little off. It doesn't have the rhythm of the excellent "World's Most Wanted" storyline, or even the initial Ezekiel Stane arc. Detroit Steel works fine as an antagonist, and the IM/ Steel conflict has all the requisite armor-fu you'd expect and want, but it doesn't flow as well as some of the earlier arcs. The art seems to lose fluidity by the issue - it's still pretty to look at but it doesn't assist with moving the story along - it feels more like viewing a series of static images, at times, than sequential art.

the verdict: This series has dropped off a good bit. After the first few arcs I would've rated it as the best, or at least one of the 2-3 best, series Marvel was publishing. Now it's more middle of the pack, at least among the titles I'm currently reading. There are some interesting ideas here and Fraction pulls them together reasonably well in the end, but this one didn't dazzle like the first 18-19 issues.

firestorm: the nuclear man

2011-10-07T08:00:00.000-04:00

by Gerry Conway, Al Milgrom & George Perez

includes: Firestorm (1978) # 1-5, the unpublished #6, and backup stories from Flash # 289-293

the premise: A freak accident fuses the minds of teenager Ronnie Raymond and physicist Martin Stein into one super-powered being - Firestorm: The Nuclear Man.

the lowdown: I have an irrational affection for Firestorm, and I'm not entirely sure why. I enjoyed his 1980's series in fits and starts - like most long-running series, it had peaks and valleys. I generally enjoyed the character in JLA. I think it may be as simple as I think it's cool that he has flaming hair. What can I say - a good visual goes a long way in a comic book.

Until now, though, I'd never read the 1970's series that introduced the character. I came in later, at the beginning of the Fury of.. series, and just never got around to tracking down the original series. It ran for five issues, plus an unpublished sixth issue that was a victim of the DC Implosion. The sixth issue is included in the collection in B&W, and is included with the digital version of #5. The collection also includes Firestorm's brief back-up series in The Flash, drawn by George Perez.

Firestorm was one of the first Marvel-style DC heroes. Ronnie Raymond was an inverted version of Peter Parker. He was basically Flash Thompson, except he was picked on by the nerds. (The role of "nerd" is played here by Cliff Carmichael.) This is both really clever and totally unbelieveable - Carmichael's sideburns alone would ensure that he would be the mock-ee rather than the mock-er. It was pretty radical for DC around that time, though - and Conway really does write the book like more of a Marvel-style serial, with all kinds of subplots and one issue leading into the next. It's far different from most of the more episodic DC titles of that time.

It's also notable that there's a large supporting cast and lots of new villains. Unless you count Firestorm's brief battle with the Atomic Skull in one of the backups, he fights no established villains in these issues. It's all new villains, many of them tied to him or the people around him in some way. At the same time, Conway establishes a pretty healthy supporting cast, including people in Ronnie's school, his personal life, and Martin Stein's circle of acquaintances. And this is all established and up and running within a few issues.

The Stein stuff is inspired. For anyone who doesn't know the character, Martin Stein was the dormant, "professor" half of the Firestorm persona. And when the character was originally conceived, the twist was that Stein had no memory of what happened when he was Firestorm, or even that Firestorm existed at all. He'd just wake up across town with no memory of how he got there. Stein attributes the episodes to blackouts, loses his job and his reputation, and becomes an alcoholic - and only then does Ronnie decide to tell him the truth! Ronnie = dick. Meanwhile, Stein hires a PI to follow him around so he can figure out what he's doing during his blackouts. This whole thing is both absurd and wonderful.

Milgrom was the co-creator and original artist. Not sure why he didn't continue on to the backups and/or Fury of.. series. I'd describe the art as more "functional" than anything else. Milgrom more or less misses the opportunity to do lots of cool visuals with fire, as the character practically begs. Presumably Milgrom was responsible for the design work on not only Stormy, but the villains as well, and he does quite a nice job with it. Killer Frost's original design, for example, is IMO very distinct and a classic.

the verdict: I found these issues very similar to most of the early Fury of... stories, in that they have (now) an old-school vibe to them but they're a clever reimagining of Spider-Man, mixed with some scientific gobbeldygook and the neat idea of having two brains in the same head. I can almost forgive the newly-formed Firestorm saying, out loud "speaking of seeing clearly, where are my pants?" Almost.

spider-man: hobgoblin lives

2011-10-05T08:00:00.000-04:00

by Roger Stern, Glenn Greenberg, Ron Frenz & Luke Ross

includes: Spider-Man: Hobgoblin Lives # 1-3 & Spectacular Spider-Man # 259-261

the premise: Years after the apparent death and unmasking of the mysterious Hobgoblin, Spider-Man learns that the unmasking may have been a ruse, and the real Hobby may still be at large. Plus: the original Hobgoblin meets Tragically Underutilized Supporting Character Norman Osborn.

the lowdown: Ya'll all know about my allergy to 90's Marvel - my last attempt to read any 90's Spidey material was the Clone Saga and geez that was a mistake. This collection includes two stories, though, that despite being published during the 90's, are a little out of sync tonally with most of the.. uh... material (and by "material" I mean "crap" that Marvel was publishing at the time).

Marvel Retroactive - the 80's? Not exactly, but this collection opens with a three-issue miniseries by the 80's ASM team of Stern & Frenz, delving (back) into the mystery of the Hobgoblin. The Hobgoblin saga is one of the more interesting behind-the-scenes Marvel stories of the 80's. Hobby's identity was kept very closely guarded and was teased for a long time, maybe a bit too long, frankly. Then Stern left the series before he could reveal who Hobby really was. The new writer and editor decided that Hobby was Ned Leeds, and killed him off in a really anti-climactic way, ending the whole saga with a whimper. Stern and Frenz were then brought back in the 90's to undo that story and re-reveal Hobby's original identity.

So we get a story that's just buried in old continuity. It's very much a continuation of the old Stern ASM, but is set in then-current continuity, sometime around the end of the Clone Saga. Stern is one of those meat-and-potatoes guys whose work rarely dazzles but is always technically sound and, more often than not, pretty enjoyable. Here he does a good job of actually telling a contemporary story, despite so many of the events depicted relying on decade-old ASM issues. I have not read all of the ASM issues referenced, but despite that almost everything that happens here is crystal-clear. I'm not sure if Stern took any liberties with the original continuity but I doubt it - he seems to have put a lot of thought into making not only his original stories, but the previous "reveal" and "death" of Hobby work. Frenz turns in his usual solid work, better frankly than his 80's Spidey, and more in line with his (then)-contemporary work on the Superman title.

To fill out the collection, they also included Hobby vs. Normie. Stern co-wrote the final three issues of the long-running Spectacular Spider-Man series (with Glenn Greenberg), and this time around the newly-identified true Hobgoblin meets up with Osborn, who at the time was believed to be a legitimate businessman and so totally NOT the Green Goblin. Norman was of course dead during most of Hobby's previous appearances, though he turned out to actually not be dead after all. Anyway, Luke Ross illustrates this tete-a-tete between the two Goblins, and this more than Frenz's story has a very 90's look to it. Ross has a pretty adaptable style, and here it looks as if he was trying to fit in with the Spidey "house-style" of the time - kind of a mix of JrJr, Mark Bagley and Tom Lyle. Like a lot of 90's books, the coloring is pretty garish. The story holds up okay, though - it will never be confused with fine art but it's a perfectly acceptable mash-up between two bad guys, with Spidey caught in the middle.

the verdict: I suspect this one would have more meaning for someone already familiar with the original Hobgoblin saga. My own prior experience was limited - plus I never really liked Ned Leeds - so while I thought it was a well-crafted tale, it didn't give me any emotional release or sense of closure. I liked it fine as a relatively generic Spidey story, and it's much better than most of the 90's Spidey I've encountered.

batman: gotham shall be judged

2011-10-03T08:00:00.000-04:00

by David Hine, Fabian Nicieza, Peter Calloway, Guillem March & more

includes: Batman # 708-709, Red Robin # 22 & Gotham City Sirens # 22

note: This is a digital review. The TPB solicitation also includes Azrael # 14-18.

the premise: Azrael and someone called The Crusader have come to Gotham to destroy it, unless either Batman, Red Robin, or Catwoman can pass a test of worthiness.

the lowdown: Yeesh....

OK, so this was a four-part crossover between several of the Batman-related titles. The Red Robin and GCS issues are written by those books' regular teams, while David Hine stepped in to do the Batman issues (with Guillem March on art). The result? Well... March's issues are pretty?

When did Azrael go completely batshit insane? I'm assuming that happened in his own title - but I haven't read that title after issue 6, because DC canceled the solicit for the second trade and (as of this writing) hasn't made the issues available digitally. I did locate and read Azrael #14, which has some events that lead in to this story (specifically, Azrael stabbing Batman through the heart with his sword - this is referenced in the story but there's no pointer to tell you where it happened), and honestly I thought maybe I missed some pages or something? Because it really made no sense to me at all - I think that might've been intentional, perhaps a chaotic narrative designed to highlight the main character's growing insanity - but it really doesn't work. So picking up these issues, Azrael's just nuts with no explanation, and he's partnered with this other fellow called The Crusader and together they're going to destroy Gotham unless one of our three heroes proves their worthiness.

The plot is held together with duct tape. And though duct tape is wondrous, it is not sufficient to impart brains to any of the characters. Azrael and Crusader just sort of set up this game where everyone has to pass tests, and everyone just kind of goes along with it. Why is that exactly? Everyone just takes for granted that these two buffoons can destroy the city at a whim, and no one thinks of the obvious solution - i.e. punching them both in the face. Look, just because someone announces something doesn't make it so. I've been declaring my eligibility for the NBA Draft every year for the past 25 years, but that doesn't mean anyone's obligated to take me seriously. Azrael's a whackjob, the Crusader even moreso. At one point Red Robin even asks "seriously, Dick - why exactly are we doing this?" And there's never a satisfactory answer - they just run off and participate in these tests because the bad guys tell them to.

The tests themselves are, of course, completely arbitrary. The standards of worthiness change by the minute, and again everyone just kind of accepts that. Red Robin runs through his whole issue proving what a stand-up dude he is, and then at the end they judge him unworthy because he says he doesn't believe in God. Perhaps that would have been an appropriate question to ask BEFORE the game began? Apparently not, because then what would Red Robin's crossover issue have been about?. Batman's test is tied up in a previously-unrevealed incident from when Dick was in the circus, that he's never mentioned but apparently Azrael and Crusader know all about? The tests are completely stupid, and are there only to create a hook for each character to have a solo adventure tied to the overarching plot. When it gets right down to it, they've got to stop Azrael and Crusader, and so once again - they should've just done that to begin with.

This doesn't really even serve the purpose of a crossover. I don't know if this came out before or after the Azrael series wrapped. Let's be diplomatic, though - the readership of the Azrael title wasn't huge. I actually liked the collection of the first six issues, but clearly I was in a minority. So right off, you're structuring a crossover as a continuation of a series no one read. You're referencing events from a title people didn't read (Azrael) in a title that people actually DO read (Batman), without explaining them in any detail. Then you pull Red Robin and Catwoman into the story in a really arbitrary way, and have Catwoman's GCS issue tie in closely to stuff that's been happening in that title (which, again, a good chunk of your readership has not been reading). The whole idea is to entice/ coerce people who read Batman to pick up an issue of GCS - and the LAST thing you want is for them to be completely confused by it. Poison Ivy & Harley are absent from the GCS issue, so it's not even a representative sample of what the book is usually like. Also: Selina's sister is a supervillain now? Someone thought that was a good idea?

the verdict: Gotham's not the only thing being judged. I judge this story arc, and it fails hard. This, along with the Tony Daniel-penned "Eye of the Beholder" story that preceded it, are two of the weakest Batman stories I've read in a really long time. (I won't be reviewing Eye of the Beholder here, BTW, because it really was even worse than Gotham Shall Be Judged, and I just don't want to devote space to it. Appearances aside, there's really no joy in negativity.) You can safely avoid this one - not recommended. Get Bulletproof Coffin instead.

weird worlds

2011-09-30T08:00:00.000-04:00

by Kevin Van Hook & Jerry Ordway (Lobo), Aaron Lopresti (Garbage Man), and Kevin Maguire (Tanga)

includes: Weird Worlds # 1-6

the premise: This was an anthology series featuring three serials from the strange side of DC Comics, including two brand new characters. Plus: Lobo.

the lowdown: This series definitely lives up to its billing. These are some odd stories. And I mean that (mostly) in a good way. In an age where everything seems to be run through fifteen layers of corporate scrutiny before seeing print, and books get published, without a trace of irony, with titles like Brightest Day Aftermath: The Search for Swamp Thing, with the cover art constantly getting changed around because no one can quite make up their mind whether it's supposed to Hawkman or Zatanna on the cover because that is of world-shattering importance, it's refreshing to see a series that's just completely out there, obviously not guided by any particular commercial instinct.

Well, with the caveat that it has a Lobo story in it. Lobo, of course, sucks. And this particular Lobo story isn't very good. It doesn't have any of the sardonic bite of the original Giffen material, but it doesn't treat the character with the kind of ironic glee of, say, his appearance in 52. It's pretty much just a straight-up Lobo story, drawn by a guy (Ordway) who is listed in the dictionary next to "traditional super hero artwork". (Or at least he would be, if the foregoing was a word.) It starts off okay but doesn't end well. Presumably it's in the book because DC wanted at least one recognizable character around, but geez it's been twenty years since Lobo's mug sold any comics. Having him headline the book is a pretty good sign that what comes next is going to have pretty limited commercial appeal.

The remaining two stories feature artists-turned-writers on original creations. And these are the two strips here that are worth reading. Neither is wonderful, both are flawed in some respects, but both of them are pretty interesting. Garbage Man is the tale of an attorney turned into a sludge monster (shut up) by an evil corporation that's doing all manner of wacky genetic experimentation. He kind of shambles around for six issues trying to figure out how he got all monster-fied, feeling sorry for himself, feeling angry, and generally failing at whatever he attempts. He's a metaphor for his own (commercial hail-mary) story. He also stumbles across Batman through a series of contrivances.

Lopresti's writing is awkward is spots. The dialogue is somewhat overcooked. The pacing is a little wonky. But I've gotta say, I enjoyed this one a good bit. It's brimming with, for lack of a better term, energy. The rough edges actually add to the charm. The story does not have an ending, by the way - it's picking back up in the new My Greatest Adventure anthology.

Maguire on Tanga is a little more polished, but also a bit more rambling. Tanga is an alien gal of some sort who goes from planet to planet getting into trouble. She's powerful and headstrong, and kind of annoying because she's a chatterbox. An out-loud chatterbox, even when she's alone. Maguire doesn't quite have Lopresti's ear for dialogue, and Lopresti doesn't have a wonderful ear for dialogue to begin with, so the Tanga story gets a little cumbersome at times. It looks great, though, because Maguire is a wonderful artist, and it has moments where it's pretty engaging. All in all, it feels like something that's not fully formed, maybe like the first draft of an eventual story. But again, the roughness is an asset - a polished, by-the-numbers story about Tanga would be just this side of dull. But where it's experimenting on every page? And some of those experiments aren't quite working? It's not bad at all.

the verdict: I'd give this one a mild recommendation for folks looking for something a little on the bizarre side. It is not great work, and the Lobo stuff is pretty awful, but there is potential in both the Garbage Man and Tanga stories. This one seems to have, predictably, been totally overlooked by the marketplace, but I love when DC and Marvel do books like this one, even when they fail. I'd rather read an interesting failure than a boring not-quite-success. This one was an interesting change of pace.