The Savage Critic: January
7th 2004
By Brian Hibbs
Welcome
back, my friends, to the show that never ends.
Well,
so, the first batch of mail is in, and pretty much everyone dislikes
the new reductionist style. I mean, sure, we’re only talking about 7
letters, and everyone is being nice enough to say “some Critic
is better than none”, but it’s clear from this tiny sample that people
want more savaging.
Last
week was a rare week that everything was pretty much positive, yes –
but that, I think, was more a function of what came that week than my
intentions. So, let’s try this for a second week, and see if it warms
your cockles any better.
I’ve
also received the suggestion to go back to the single-word reviews failing
anything else, and while there is merit in that, it think it looks weird
to have big long paragraphs offset by one-word things.
Also,
and this might be a failing of old age, and wanting to be at least somewhat
“fair”, but I can’t see a tremendous amount of value in saying, say,
“Awful”, and then not saying WHY. Certainly, the creator doesn’t get
much out of that, and I’m not sure it serves any good purpose to the
reader, either.
Just
remember, unless you live in San Francisco and are volunteering to come
to the store each week and transcribe my comments face-to-face, time
is the single biggest obstacle I’m facing, not will. I’m only even getting
this done today because Tzipi took Benjamin out for a walk…..
Dunno.
I’m going to continue to rethink this, and your feedback is certainly
welcome, so, please, continue to send me mail.
AUTHORITY
VOL 2 #9: They need to fucking give it up. I feel really bad for the
creators because they’re pretty strongly in a creative no-win situation
continuing this post-Millar (Can’t change the book severely because
the previous popularity and status quo is what management wants, but
continuing down that same path is never going to get you anywhere interesting),
although it’s still, according to the charts, still Wildstorm’s best-selling
book. I tend to think that is because of the Midnighter/Apollo relationship,
more than anything else – it’s the only gay male loving relationship
between title-leads in a superhero comic being published today, which
helps you see the buying power of the homosexual audience fairly well.
The problem is, as a comic, it really stinks. Y’know, I remember thinking
way waaay back when Warren Ellis first introduced a version of these
characters in Stormwatch, that he basically set each of them
up as gods – how could anyone defeat the Engineer, alone? Or, Mr. I’ve-played-thjis-fight-out-from-100-different-angles-blah-blah?
It’s the Superman-power-escalation-problem writ 1000 times larger, and
I fully expect to see planets being thrown like marbles within another
year. Maybe “Coup D’etat” will help fix this, but I think these are
characters who can’t go anywhere else. Awful
AVENGERS
#77: Fiddy cents. In a normal world I’d throw out the “HA! That wasn’t
even worth that much” or “Oh, god, Chuck Austen? Why God, why?”, but
this didn’t suck much. I could have done without the sex-talk between
Clint and Steve, but it least here it was basically on point. I’m still
not giving the book much more than an Eh, but I went into it
expecting much much worse, so woohoo.
BLOODSTREAM
#1: A fairly typical kidnap-and-experiment-on-a-stripper-who-then-gets-powers
kinda book (I can’t name one, but it sure FEELS like I’ve read that
before), but it has nice painted art (Sorta like a very proto Dan Brereton).
What I don’t understand is why the Image “I” isn’t on the front cover?
Isn’t, really, the only thing Image is bringing to the table is the
muscle of the trade dress? Has that been devalued so much in the eyes
of the consumer that it is now a liability? That’s a heavy thought,
if true. OK
COMMON
GROUNDS #1: I was thinking Top Cow books would be getting more of the
“Wizard sensibility” when McLaughlin became editor, but this is the
first overt example. Sex jokes, excretion jokes, “Huh huh” frat boy
humor and whatever. Not that there’s not a place for that kind of thing
(I like Super Hero Happy Hour
for a B&W version of heroes-hanging-out-and-talking-unguardedly),
but I’d prefer to see it done when contrivance isn’t the principal motivating
storytelling force. I bet both of these stories sounded great at pitch,
and when batting them around in a bar, but execution here was pretty
predictable. I was generally 2 panels ahead of the dialogue. Eh
DETECTIVE
COMICS #790: Y’know, a lot of really crass and fucked up things were
said when Newsarama announced that Anderson Gabrych would be the new
author on ‘tec. And it turns out that he’s a competent writer.
So fuck all those people who judged in advance of the work itself. That’s
all I wanted to say, really. OK
MY
FAITH IN FRANKIE #1: I wasn’t sure if Mike Carey could pull off humor,
and while Lucifer is a great book, doing something with a lighter
touch is much more tricky. And, actually, I don’t even know if this
was humor, exactly. Black humor, maybe. Anyway, it’s off genre, and
Vertigo minis often have a hard time finding their audience, so a off-genre
one is even less likely to succeed. And that means if you’re one of
those “wait for the trade” people, you’re going to miss this. Which’d
be a shame, because this is good stuff – funny where it should be, and
very human. I liked it a whole lot: Excellent.
NEW
X-MEN #151: Nice art, and some good mad Morrison ideas, but it felt
a bit… oh, I dunno, manufactured, maybe? There’s no doubt that “Days
of Future Past” helped steer X-Men continuity for some years, and I
got the sense that Morrison was trying to seize that impact for his
own ends, more than tell a story in itself. Still, it’s only part 1,
and I might be too cynical, but I thought this really was only OK
PLASTIC
MAN #2: I’ve given Kyle Baker some shit over his last few projects,
but I can take it all back for this: It’s funny, it’s inventive, and
I reached the last page and said “Aw, it’s over already?” Because it
looks so wildly different than anything else being published, it takes
a few pages to “warm up” to it, but once you acclimate, you’re going
to really enjoy the inventiveness of this. Very Good.
X-TREME
X-MEN #39: I want to go get a brillo pad and scrub out my very brain
after reading this paean to S&M. I don’t know what creeped me out
more: Storm with the bit in her mouth, loving the lash, or the tears
in Callisto’s eye as she’s being groped as “property”, or maybe the
lesbian tentacle hot-tub sex at the end. All I know is that I tend to
think that Claremont, or for that matter, anyone (*cough* Chuck Austen
*cough*), if they want to do comics involving their sexual fantasies
should go ahead and just be honest and do an Eros book. It shouldn’t
be in the X-Men, folks. Plus, this is like the fifth time he’s
done the whole oh-I-love-the-power-of-abandoning-inhibitions riff to
Storm alone. It’s a broken record, and it seems less than intellectually
honest to stage this version in a combat arena, then chicken out at
the end with the “X-Men don’t kill” speech. I call bullshit. Crap.
Below
is a list of everything else Comix Experience received this week, but
that I’m not reviewing. Just for completeness sake, and all that:
APE
ONE SHOT
ARCHIE AND FRIENDS #79
BATMAN CITY OF LIGHT #4
BETTY #134
BETTY & VERONICA DOUBLE DIGEST #121
BOMBABY SCREEN GODDESS #1
BRATH #11
BRIT COLD DEATH ONE SHOT
CEREBUS #298
CSI BAD RAP #5
CURSED #4
DICKS XMAS SPECIAL #1
ELEKTRA #31
EVIL EYE #11
EXILES #40
HAPPY HOUR IN AMERICA #1
HOT MOMS #2
JSA #56
JUSTICE LEAGUE ADVENTURES #27
KNIGHTS OF THE DINNER TABLE #87
LOONEY TUNES #110
LOVE ME TENDERLOIN A CAL MCDONALD MYSTERY
MYSTIQUE #9
NEGATION #26
ROBOTECH INVASION #1
SENTINEL #11
SHONEN JUMP VOL 2 #2 FEB 2004
SMALLVILLE #6
SOUL OF A SAMURAI #3
SPIDER-GIRL #68
STAR WARS TALES #18
SUPERMAN BIRTHRIGHT #6
SUPREME POWER #6
THANOS #4
ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #52
UNCANNY X-MEN #437
VOLTRON VOL 2 #1
WEAPON X #16
WITCH #4
WOLVERINE THE END #2
Y THE LAST MAN #18
And,
for even MORE completeness sake, here’s a list of books, TPBs, GNs,
magazines, and other things that CE got this week. I generally haven’t
read any of this by the time I post these reviews. Though I generally
attempt to give at least one recommendation amongst the TPBs each week,
since I HAVE read the material at SOME point.
BABY
BOOMER COMICS TP
BATTLE ROYALE VOL 5 GN
COMICS JOURNAL #257
CONCEPTIONS #2 HC BY LUIS ROYO
ELEKTRA VOL 3 RELENTLESS TP
ELFQUEST THE GRAND QUEST VOL 1 TP
ERICA SAKURAZAWAS THE RULES OF LOVE GN
GRAPHIC CLASSICS VOL 8 MARK TWAIN
GRIN AND BARE IT #11 MAGAZINE
LUCIFER VOL 5 INFERNO TP
NEAL ADAMS MONSTERS GN HC
SUPERMAN RED SON TP
THREE DAYS IN EUROPE TP
TRIGUN VOL 2 TP
VOICE OF THE FIRE HC
This
Week’s TP recommendation is:
Tiny list, but you’ve got a new Journal, an Alan Moore novel
(Voice of the Fire), the latest Battle Royale, and Lucifer.
And, still, I’m giving it to Superman: Red Son. It reads
even better in one book, I think, despite the last 3 pages feeling somehow
tacked on. Great stuff, get yourself a copy.
|
