The Savage Critic: March 5th 2003
By Jeff
Lester
Welcome back, my friends, to the show
that never ends (although it gets started a little later than we might
like). Jeff here again: Tuesday night I picked up this week’s
books from Bri and gave him a ride home from the store. “What’d
you think of last week’s column?” I asked him cuz, y’know,
I’m whiny and insecure like that. And Hibbs looks at me with super-bloodshot
eyes and said, “I don’t know. I haven’t read it yet. I haven’t
finished last week’s comics yet.”
And although he could be pulling the
wool over my eyes, I don’t think it’s
cuz he’s been all happily curled up with Masters of Orion 3.
Oh, no. Turns out the talented and lovely Sue Riddle who works
at CE has pneumonia. That’s right. Pneumonia.
The week after Zar leaves, the second week of Bennett’s vacation, Sue
gets…pneumonia. So Hibbs is working six days a week, and the only
people he’s got spotting him at this point are his wife Tzipi and me,
the original lazy bastard.
In fact, I had emailed Hibbs the column
last night so he could contribute something, anything, to the column
this week because I think some of my reactions need a little checks-n-balances.
But I never heard from him, and he didn’t answer his phone a few minutes
ago. (Hopefully, he and the lovely wife just went out for dinner
or something, rather than my worst case scenario of Hibbs lying dead
in the store’s backroom with a copy of Canadian Ninja in hand).
So I’m afraid it’s just me this week, and doing a super-small workload
to boot. I’m even too brain-dead to kibitz about other media (although
the link on Ellis’s Die
Puny Humans to the announcement of the Reservoir
Dogs video game has the seedlings of an excellent rant about everything
that’s already wrong with the young video game industry—maybe I’ll do
it in a week or two), so lemme just get to the funny books.
100 BULLETS #42: Good twist on
pg. 13, bad twist on pg. 16, no twist on pg. 19.
Only the art keeps this from sinking lower than Eh.
ACTION COMICS #801: I really like that
David Bullock cover, and the Tom Raney art was mostly strong.
But nine pages of that four panel layout? This was almost
criminally padded. Eh.
ALIAS #20: Bendis was doing such a
good job of not overdoing the Marvel Universe stuff up until this storyline.
We’ve got Spider-Woman, Jessica Drew, J. Jonah Jameson, and now
Speedball? Some nice touches but frankly I was pretty disappointed
with this issue, and this story has just been dragged out interminably.
Eh.
AMERICAN CENTURY #22: Damn, the
art’s beautiful this ish. And it’s great to see actual captions
too, but the change in tenses between pages three and four was jarring.
And despite a great angle (who wouldn’t love a murder mystery set in
a hobo camp?), the book’s writing feels sloppy to me (Harry’s narration
tells all sorts of stuff he couldn’t know at the time of the scene,
and it’s a pretty safe bet we’re not going to see him learn it).
Lovely art, though so I’ll give it a very low OK.
BATMAN ALIENS II #3: On the one hand,
I felt like Edginton did everything in his power to make this a mind-bending
read: at one point you’ve got Batman being stalked by highly-armed
enemy soldiers created by the DNA of the Aliens and his arch enemies—it
doesn’t get much more over-the-top than that. And I could tell
he was shooting for a series of larger and larger enemies and bigger,
more fiery climaxes at the end. But on the other hand,
I felt like he did half the work. Having Batman caught between
two of above-mentioned enemy solidiers and just being able to duck so
that the bullets of one takes out the other in a spray of acid that
finishes the first is, frankly, lame. I admit the Superhero/Alien
thing isn’t my bag, but the reason why I was bored by this and thrilled
by, say, Batman taking on a building full of SWAT guys in Batman:
Year One is because, frustratingly, the high concept is the easy
work, the execution is where you’ve really got to sweat it. Eh.
CAPTAIN AMERICA WHAT PRICE GLORY #1:
Steve Rude does stuff I’m in awe of, like twenty-two pages of amazing
art for a story apparently written by a sixteen-year old. There
was some clumsy bits in Rude’s “Kirby nouveau art” (like the guy whose
hand is as large as Cap’s entire calf) but, wow, that perfect panel
of Cap dropping on the two hoods on pg. 19, or the more-Steranko-than-Steranko
bit on page 15! My god, that was great! And yet, it
all serves a story so hare-brained and so lame (I was afraid Jones was
actually going to pursue that initial Breaking
The Waves-ish premise) and so absurdly out of character (“Thugs
shook you down, Jimmy? Boy, I want justice almost as much as I want
to deliver this cake!”). I have no idea how to rate this.
I guess it’s Awful, unless you’re a Rude/Kirby junkie and then
I guess it’s, well, still Awful, but worth buying.
CAPTAIN MARVEL #6: Each issue
of this I liked exponentially less, and I may well have bottomed out.
I don’t know if David decided he would break out the most cynical attention-getting
tricks he could think of to win the “U-Decide” contest, or if he’d just
had enough and was going to knock down his own sand castle before anyone
else could, but not only was this unpleasant, it also seemed clichéd
and contrived. A genuine disappointment.
Awful.
COURTNEY CRUMRIN & THE COVEN OF
MYSTICS #3: Read it, liked it, but oddly don’t have much to say
about it—I guess because I missed issue #1 and so I’m feeling like I’m
missing something and assuming that’s not the story’s fault. Good.
DETECTIVE COMICS #780: Thank
God Spore’s over, huh? I’m also kinda wishing the main story would
pick up some steam, too. It feels like it’s been half a year worth
of Batman questioning a villain, some villain almost dying, and the
World’s Greatest Detective creeping oh-so-slowly up on the truth.
The car does have another gear, right? Eh.
EXILES #23: I generally feel
that Judd’s work for Exiles frequently tells rather than it shows, but
I really didn’t mind it this issue—I guess there was something about
it that successfully pushed my fanboy buttons, whether it was Tony Stark
looking like Stalin, or the very brief telling observation about Sue’s
relationships. Maybe it was because Kev
Walker’s art really gave it a foreboding look: things just looked
grimy and crappy and trashed. Whatever it was, this was a high
Good.
FANTASTIC FOUR UNSTABLE MOLECULES #3:
First issue of this I liked and, perhaps not surprisingly, the first
issue that really departs from telling the story through the eyes of
one of the Four: Richard Mannelman’s point of view best captures the
frisson I feel the mini has been shooting for, catching the distance
between the dreams we have and the lives we lead while living them.
It also helps that the beatnik poetry sounded authentic and in some
cases quite good: this issue gets a Very Good from me.
FIGHT FOR TOMORROW #5: Must be
my week for digging art, because I thought some of the work here from
Cowan and Williams was so strong (that three panel punch at the bottom
of page 4 in particular) I would almost rank this as good despite the
fact the story is so mediocre, sludgy and dull. Eh.
HAWKMAN #13: Wow. Ethan
Van Scriver and Mick Gray really knocked it out of the park, art-wise.
But the story is just unbalanced as all hell: this book has all
the elements but they’re just not coming together. OK because
of that sweet art.
PHANTOM VOL 4 GN THE HUNT: I
read this in the store on Thursday when Hibbs was having his nervous
breakdown and I thought I would throw in my two cents. The Phantom
is one of those heroes that, unless you’re Australian, it’s pretty hard
to like. He has all the silliness of a superhero (oy, that costume)
and yet none of the wish-fulfilling powers. (Who apart from an
Australian ever fantasizes about socking someone and scarring them for
life? Or wearing purple, for that matter?) And yet, you
know, he’s obviously got potential (in fact, it was Ben Raab’s interview
in the Pulse recently that made me start thinking so). So I picked
this up and found that Raab had come up with one of the better Reese’s
Peanut Butter Cup of a story I’d seen in a while (Hey, you got my Phantom
in your Most Dangerous Game!)…and then somehow I still didn’t
like it. All that set-up and then, what, four
pages of hunt? A little less with the
clever dialogue next time, Ben. Eh.
POWERS #29: Wow, two for two
with Bendis here. I didn’t like this either. After
years of careful delineation of tone, Bendis chucks it aside for a big
over-the-top storyline and I don’t know why. I know television is a
big influence on Bendis’ work, but he does know we don’t have sweeps
weeks, right? Also, I read the whole issue expecting the nukes
to hit any second because I just can’t believe the Gaza Strip would
get wiped out and red buttons wouldn’t end up being pushed. A
completely shocked Eh.
PROMETHEA #25: So much great
little stuff jammed into the corners of this book, and so many great
throwaways—I thought the lyrics from Limp’s lead singer was hilarious—I
can’t help but love this book. Very good.
PVP #1: I got turned on to Scott
Kurtz’s PvP after that whole “indy comix sucks”
rant of his: his strips related to that rant weren’t particularly funny,
but a lot of other strips in his archive were. This first issue
of his new Image book shows Kurtz’s characters at their most frenetic,
a pleasant surprise since the main weakness in Kurtz’s work is staticness
(his characters each seem to only have three poses, four expressions
and no lower body whatsoever). But the humor is strong, and by
setting his strip at the offices of a gaming magazine, he has a perfect
launchpoint for knowing riffs on video games, comix, and geek culture
(which sadly, only gets lightly touched on here). I look forward
to more. Good.
RAWHIDE KID #2: Some of the jokes
about the Sheriff’s cowardice are genuinely funny (“I ain’t no durn coward.” “I know, Matt. It’s just hard for
people to see because you act so much like one.”) but
interestingly, the Rawhide Kid parts more or less aren’t. The
joke that nobody can figure out that the Rawhide Kid is gay despite
his being so flamboyant gets a bit funnier as it goes on, but the Kid’s
flamboyancy seems off—it’s anachronistic without feeling modern, because
it doesn’t seem informed by anything authentic (unlike, say, the character
of Jack on Will & Grace where the writers know precisely
how the stereotype informs the culture, and vice versa)—and so, consequently,
the joke never quite works. But John Severin’s art is great on
this and adds immeasurably to the experience. Oh, and I don’t
remember if Brian mentioned this in his review of the first issue, but
I can’t see how this is going to be six issues without padding, vamping,
and dragging it all out interminably. But this issue was OK.
SANDMAN PRESENTS BAST #3: Oh,
sure, I enjoy a topless cat-headed woman as much as the next guy, but
I don’t think I’m the perfect audience for this. It reminded me
of Gaiman’s Sandman work, particularly the part that used to
drive me nuts: the Grandus Anti-Climacticus. And yet, like
Gaiman’s work, there was a lyrical melancholy toward the end of it that
actually moved me. If it hadn’t been for some pacing choices I
didn’t agree with in the mini overall, and maybe the unimpressiveness
of a world being conquered by cats (I can’t help but suspect the number
of automatic weapons outweighs the number of mountain lions to a very
high degree), I think this could have been much more than OK.
SPIDER-MAN BLUE #6: Really a great
re-creation of the Lee/Romita era, where the romance really worked and
the superhero parts really didn’t (but they looked so cool, it didn’t
matter). More nostalgic Marvelheads than myself
will find this better than a high Good but hey, that’s them.
ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #37: I don’t
know what the hell is wrong with me. I didn’t like this as much
as previous issues. Part of it may be gambits I almost never like
(like stream of consciousness captions. Stuff like “So hungry.
Cold. Spiders.” has just never fried
my burger) and part of it may just be, again, feeling like Bendis is
breaking some of the rules he’s set up for himself (remember that one
issue where Peter keeps trying to leave school to change into Spider-Man
and he can’t? How the hell can he just walk out on a teacher’s
lecture without the teacher getting steamed?) I don’t know:
this is why Hibbs should be co-writing this because you should really
get a second opinion on this (and the other Bendis books). Eh.
YOUNG JUSTICE #55: “Although
truth to tell, you’re of interest to Doug Side?” Wha? Is that Darkseid’s secret identity or something?
I liked the standard “Dark Etc.” maneuver of having Tim talk calmly
and openly to Secret, but I can’t really say this had much of an impact
one way or the other. Eh.
For Sake of Completeness, here’s a list of all of
the OTHER comics that CE got in this week, that
I did NOT read (and, therefore, am unlikely to review!). Note, that
in most cases this is limited to 1) Manga, which I try to read as it
is collected; 2) “Kids” comics like most of the Archies; 3) titles that
were subs-only, either by design or accident [this can include being
shorted by Diamond as well]; 4) Porno [oh, like you need me to REVIEW
it!], 5) Things that looked SO bad on the racks that I didn’t bother,
and 6) stuff that I’ve assessed before, and I care so little about that
I don’t want to waste my time reading anymore. You decide which is which!
21 DOWN #7
ALAN MOORES THE COURTYARD #2
ARCHIE AND FRIENDS #68
ARCHIE DOUBLE DIGEST #141
ARIA THE USES OF ENCHANTMENT
#1
ARKANIUM #4
BART SIMPSON COMICS #11
BATMAN CHILD OF DREAMS HC
BETTY #123
BIG DADDY DANGER #8
BIRDS OF PREY CATWOMAN ORACLE#2
BIZARRO COMICS SC
CODENAME KNOCKOUT #22
DEVILS FOOTPRINTS #1
DOOM PATROL #18
EDENS TRAIL #5
ELIZABETH BATHORY #3
FATE OF THE BLADE #5
FIREBREATHER #3
FIRST #29
GREEN LANTERN #160
HAMMER OF THE GODS HAMMER HITS
CHINA #1
INQUISITOR #1 HORROR MAG PARODY
VARIANT CVR
JUSTICE LEAGUE ADVENTURES #17
KNIGHTS OF THE DINNER TABLE #76
LITTLE SCROWLIE #1
LOONEY TUNES #100
MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE GRANTCVR
#4
MENAGE A TROIS #2
MYSTIC #34
R A SALVATORE DEMON WARS TRIAL
BY FIRE #4
RANMA 1/2 PART 12 #1
SAVAGE DRAGON #105
SHADOWS #1
SHONEN JUMP VOL 1 #4 APRIL 2003
SPAWN #123
SPECTRE #27
SPIDER-GIRL #58
SPIDER-MAN LEGEND OF THE SPIDER
CLAN #5
STAR WARS EMPIRE #6
SUPER MANGA BLAST #29
TECH JACKET #4
THOR #61
VAMPIRELLA #17
WARLANDS VOL 3 #3
WAY OF THE RAT #11
X-MEN RONIN #1
X-TREME X-MEN #22
ZERO GIRL FULL CIRCLE #5
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.
100 BULLETS VOL 5
THE COUNTERFIFTH DETECTIVE TP
ADA LEE VOL 2
ALICE SINN & WAKING DREAM
GN
AVENGERS VOL 1 WORLD TRUST TP
BASTARD SAMURAI VOL I SAMURAINOIR
TP
BATTLE ROYALE NOVEL
BIRDS OF PREY DLX ACTION FIGURE
SET
BOUNCER VOL 2 HC EXECUTIONERSMERCY
CHEAT GN
CLUMSY GN
COURIERS GN
DARKMINDS MACROPOLIS VOL 1 TP
DRAW #5
G FAN #61
HEROBEAR AND THE KID VOL 1 HC
JAMES KOCHALKAS MAGIC BOY &
ROBOT ELF GN
MAD MAGAZINE #428
NEW TEEN TITANS JUDAS CONTRACT
TP NEW ED
SCION VOL 4 TP SANCTUARY
SERAPHIC FEATHER TARGET ZONE
TP
SIZZLE #17
STAR WARS INSIDER #66
STARLOG #309
SURVIVAL MACHINE TP
This Week’s TP recommendation is:
Okay, so, Friday I worked at the store, and had already read a good
chunk of books (everything I was interested in reading, plus five or
six extra). And Brian was in the back for most of the day—at first,
just basically just hiding from the public and then, when the ever-great
Rory Root (from the ever-great Comic Relief in Berkeley) dropped by,
hanging out and chainsmoking back there—so I didn’t have much more to
do than help customers and read. So I hit this week’s graphic
novels and am much closer to making an informed decision than most week’s.
And I thought I should take a moment
to salute Jeff Brown for Clumsy, a very ambitious graphic novel
that seems to draw in equal parts from the emotional honesty of Chris
Ware’s Acme Novelty Library and from the “anti-craft” ethos (and
child-like romance) of James Kolchaka and his sketchbook diaries.
Clumsy chronicles a relationship in non-linear fashion, from
introduction to break-up, and has a lot of affecting moments, particularly
when Brown’s very crude style perfectly mimics the rawness and awkwardness
of young love (a bit of crossed-out dialogue really struck me as a perfect
representation of a lover’s stammer, and I found it more satisfying,
emotionally, than I find similar-looking work from Gary Panter).
Ultimately, I don’t think Clumsy holds
together—it seems to willfully ignore any deep psychological
probing, or even rudimentary foreshadowing, so the relationship finally
ends with bits and pieces of fact not mentioned before, and without
enough of a payoff for me to have plowed through a lot of too-similar
pages. But the “Team Comics” side of me really wanted to encourage
Brown to keep going because I think his ambition and eye for detail
will add up to an impressive talent if he keeps at it, and thank Top
Shelf for distributing Clumsy. It was an inspiring read.
But honestly the GN I enjoyed the most
this week was The Couriers, which was just a dumb punk
piece of fun that I liked a lot more than anything else Brian Wood’s
done. Rob G’s art was strong, keeping things at a brisk pace,
and apart from a few pieces of dead air in the story, everything just
flowed with an eye toward keeping the reader entertained. It’s
about as deep as a can of soda, twice as effervescent, and I just liked
it.
|
