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Welcome back, my friends, to the show
that never ends.
Sorry for being late this week. I...er,
well I forgot about it. Jeff sent me his side of the reviews on Thursday
morning (And here I was thinking he was the LAZY bastard. No, he’s just
a regular one!), and since I was walking out the door to go open the
shop right as they came in, I put it aside and went “when I get home”…
And then forgot.
So, here it is Monday morning, and
I’m trying to get this out as fast as I can so that Jeff can get the
column up BEFORE the next week’s comics arrive. Ah, what a life.
Yeah, I’ll say. I’m here on a Monday
night getting ready to put this puppy up and I feel like Belloq at the
end of Raiders. I honestly think despite Bri’s best (but lazy) intentions
you guys would be getting this before Tuesday if it wasn’t for the free
screening of Bulletproof Monk filling up. Believe it or fucking not,
the girlfriend and I showed up an hour and a half early for the free
screening—and didn’t get in. We even got cutsies from a store regular!
In all the last year or so of going to junk movies on free passes from
the store, this is the first time this has ever happened to me. So
either Bulletproof Monk is going to be a huge hit for the next two weeks
before X2, or God himself really wants you bastids to read this column
as soon as possible.
So enjoy, dammit!! (Bri’s reviews,
as usual, are in this
color and this is mine).
411 #1: I
think this is a totally cool idea for a book, and really dug Jemas’
intro but the stories, interestingly, all shared enough of the same
hook (how’s the protagonist going to avoid committing violence?) I was
a little less than riveted. I think my favorite was the last one by
David Rees and Tony Salmon, although I think it would have been more
emotionally effective if it had ended four pages sooner—instead, it’s
merely interestingly strident. Finally, we get to see how Israeli,
Irish and Afghani people got their peace on—why no Americans? It kind
of leaves the impression that everyone can wage peace but America, and isn’t that the exact opposite of the
impression this book wants to create? I think the idea of this book
is excellent, but, frankly, the execution is OK.
I agree, though
the piece I liked the best was the Millar/Quitely one – I’m presuming
that this anecdote was actually real, or, if it was not, it felt truly
authentic. The Jemas piece was clever enough on the surface, but if
any Israeli pilot tried that, he’d be shot out of the sky 2 seconds
later by his own government. I’ll go with OK, too. Still, it’s nice
to even see this type of book on the market in the first place.
ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN #615: Ah,
now I see why they introduced that hidden town full of superheroes a
few issues back... so they could kill them all to make “the hollow men”
a threat without actually taking out any actual DC characters. Fair
enough. (Well, OK, maybe they’re not dead... but you have to admit this
is what it looks like) Superman has really gotten much better in the
last few months, I have to admit. I think he suffers from too many characters
and too much power, but at least reading these aren’t like pulling teeth.
OK. Yeah,
okay, a little heavy-handed I guess, and I think this really would have
worked much better with an artist with a facility for silver-age iconography,
and I had to pretend I'd never read Morrison & Case's Doom Patrol, but
at least it seems like it's trying. More or less OK.
AQUAMAN #5: Veitch
isn’t as light a touch as Alan Moore, so a lot of the stuff about archetypes
and the nature of the Secret
Sea isn’t quite as fresh as it is in Supreme or Promethea. On the other
hand, it’s nice to see it in a “regular” superhero comic and, like Brian,
I much prefer it to the whole “watch Aquaman save Atlantis, and retake
his throne” plot. So a very high OK. Yah,
I like the concept of “The Thirst”, but it’s a little muddled between
the physical and archetypal realms. As I muse on this 5 days after I
read it, I also think how much better it would have been if Rick hisself
had drawn it. Also a high OK. Yeah, okay, a little heavy-handed I guess,
and I think this really would have worked much better with an artist
with a facility for silver-age iconography, and I had to pretend I’d
never read Morrison & Case’s Doom Patrol, but at least it seems
like it’s trying. More or less OK.
ARTBABE PRESENTS LA PERDIDA #3: Top-notch
stuff—with each issue, Abel is able to create a feeling of dread in
the reader even though the narrator seems completely oblivious to what’s
happening around her (no small feat). And Abel easily changes pitch
and tempo whenever it suits her mood. This is Excellent work, and I
can’t wait to read it all in one place. Couldn’t
possibly agree more. This is superb and mature work from a cartoonist
well on her game – it is human and moving and has a narrative risk that
is generally unseen in FBI books. By this, I mean not only am I connecting
with the characters and situation, I am genuinely concerned about how
this could end. I, too, thought this was Excellent.
ASTRO CITY LOCAL HEROES #2: I
seem to be the only person in the world who gets perpetually tangled
in the paradox of Astro City. On the one hand, this was a superb Lois Lane story, one that really understands how absurd
and somehow poignant the old Superman/Lois Lane paradigm was as a form of romantic courtship. On the other hand, does
this story really work if you don’t know that paradigm? (Not just the
Superman/Lois Lane relationship, but the Superman/Lois Lane relationship
that’s been out of date for, what, twenty years now?) I can’t help
but think it wouldn’t, just because Busiek and Anderson are sketching
forty-plus years of history into one issue (that emotional showdown
between Irene and Atomicus seemed pretty shrill, and the twist at the
end seems kinda beside the point) and so has barely any resonance on
its own. I guess if you’re an old school comics fan (and is there anyone
left in the field, who isn’t?) you’ll find this Very Good, but my conflicted
feelings have to toe the line at Good. As we discussed
for nearly an hour in the store on Friday (I still think we should set
up a Real Audio feed behind the counter and do the show “live”), I think
the Superman/Lois thing is still deeply embedded in the collective American
psyche despite it being decades since that’s been a major thrust of
that series. What you call “shrill” I thought was pretty appropriate
for the circumstance, and I appreciate the fact that the “twist” at
the end (was that meant to be a “twist”, really?) wasn’t the one I was
desperately afraid it was going to be (i.e., the conclusion to Moore’s Whatever Happened to the
Man of Tomorrow?) I give it a Very Good, without reservations.
BATGIRL YEAR ONE #5: I’ve
been loving this series, but this issue seemed like a massive fucking
waste – the one character who I really DON’T want to get the in-depth
character revelations about is the fucking-Killer Moth. Just because
it was the first baddie Babs fought doesn’t mean he’s at all interesting
or her “arch nemesis” or whatever. A massively indifferent Eh, from
me. Nah,
I didn’t care since this is such an odd miniseries—it just reads like
a regular series to me (albeit one with a very leisurely story arc).
This miniseries is taking its own sweet time and I don’t care. It’s
just that Good.
BATMAN LEGENDS OF THE DARK KNIGHT #166:
I’m coming
in on the tail end of this so I don’t really have much to say, other
than it worked for me. I’m not sure I’d want every Batman story to
have a blind psychic guy, but it was a decent enough twist. Good.
Really? I
think I would like every Batman comic to have a blind psychic guy! I
want to see him try and swing from a building on a bat-rope! Anyway,
I’ve read the other bits of the arc, and my problem is that there are
2 stories here (the Batman one and the Government one) and they seem
too squashed together and probably would have worked better as two 2-issue
stories than one 4-parter. OK
BLACK PANTHER #57: Back
to “old school” Panther, and while it was fairly ho-hum, I enjoyed it
a lot better than the corrupt cop storyline. Eh.
I liked the Hamlet parallels, but this still seemed pretty flyweight—the
“Déjà vu” scene and a few others were straight-out padding. Eh.
BLOOD AND WATER #2:
Hmm. My big problem is with the scenario that Judd’s constructed, I
don’t see any reason at all for the first eleven pages. It’s already
established Adam’s dying and is in massive amounts of pain, so what’s
with the “Well, wait, you sure? Cuz we’re gonna throw you around and
take you out to eat when you’re terminally ill and talk about Fatty
Arbuckle until you’re really, really, really sure.” Don’t know if it’s
too much love for the backstory, the need to pad, or when doing a vampire
story you’ve got to spell out what you’re doing differently, but I just
didn’t see the need for it—really bogged down the momentum, I thought,
bringing this down to Ehville for me. Which
is basically what I thought about the first issue as well – this is
paced allllll wrong. It took 2 issues to get to what should have been
page 8 of the actual story. I can’t imagine any of the blahbity-blah
in here having any significant pay-off later on. I’m going to go down
to Awful, myself.
CAPTAIN AMERICA
#12: If you’re
going to retcon Cap’s origin, at least make it interesting. Awful.
Somehow that
lovely Jae Lee art made this all the sillier (that scene where Cap punches
out, I dunno, two telephone poles or something because he’s so angst-ridden
was just plain goofy. “You gotta respect the flag, Martin, but feel
free to wreck the rest of the neighborhood if you’re really upset!”).
Putting aside all my fanboy concerns (like, how do you justify all this
whacky retconning without any sort of Crisis event?), this whole reboot
seems completely caught between unnecessary Cap-pouting and silly supervillains
(who seems less impressive, a Native American storm god or a seventy
year old Nazi with a robot hand? It’s still a toss-up…) and while neither
approach really works on its own, they really work at cross-purposes
next to each other. I’m glad Marvel just didn’t go with blind jingoism
with this title (the way I guess Michael Medved would like) but at this
point, I almost wish they did. Awful.
COURTNEY CRUMRIN & THE COVEN OF
MYSTICS #4:
Naifeh’s building up a good head of steam on this—his further delineations
between the Night Things and the Mystics cleared up some of the questions
I’ve had. And having the whole story move Courtney forward in her “real”
life was a nice touch. Very Good. Sure
“good head of steam”... but this is “4 of 4”... and as a complete thought
I thought the last page was absurdly ambiguous and largely unsatisfying.
While I’m still going to give it a Good, it’s only because I’m pretending
in my mind that this is issue #8 and that #9 is coming along any moment
now.
EXILES #25: Decent
enough wrap up to this arc, but I still don’t see how “Weapon X” is
at all different from the “Exiles” – certainly the “real” team has ended
up having to do morally ambiguous things to move on as well. OK.
I’m not sure,
really, if Kirby and Lee meant for the Inhumans to be a superhero version
of the wandering tribe of Israel but it really works for me, and I never really thought of it until this
storyline. Judd makes Black Bolt Mistake No. 11 (saying that he
can explode through the Earth’s crust with a spoken word on page 2 then
having him holler on page 18 or so which only vaporizes everything around
him rather than destroy the planet) but that’s a quibble. A high Good.
FABLES #12:
I’m not a fan of the “mistaken for vampires” thing (it’s a comic staple
I’ve just never enjoyed, I guess) and there’s not a lot of dramatic
thrust to a situation that everyone admits will just lead to more inconvenience,
but it was still pretty enjoyable. Good.
“Mistaken for vampires” is “a comic staple”? Wha...? I liked the clever
use of the Sleeping Beauty curse myself, as well as the “hey, this modern
world is pretty complex” thing. It seems to me that fiction in general
still hasn’t quite caught up to the 21st century and things
like ftp sites and cell phones. Good
GOTHAM CENTRAL #6: Despite
the twist at the end which didn’t exactly seem right to me (not every
sassy independent woman has to be a lesbian, though, of course, there
aren’t enough positive lesbian characters in comics either), I like
this books lots and lots. This really deserves to sell better than,
say, Detective, where Bats seldom acts like one. If you like cop stories,
you’ll love this one. Very Good. Yeah,
this may well be my current favorite mainstream DC book. Great dialogue,
great art, great characterization. If you’re not buying this, you should
be. Very good.
GREEN ARROW #23:
Wait, why’d Kyle start acting like a dick on page 19? Why’d Ollie hit
Kyle on page 20? Didn’t this just invalidate everything that was said
two or three issues ago in “Archer’s Quest?” Hello? Editor? Helllooooo?
Eh. My
problems began at page one with the horrific dialogue from the “gangsta”-type
criminals. I swear the ghost of Bob Haney has possessed Ben Raab. Then
the happy coincidence that GL and Jade “just happen” to be hanging out
in the same club the gangsters cause trouble in. Way to completely blow
your secret identity there, Kyle! Sorry, this gets an Awful from me.
HUMAN TORCH #1: Ugh.
I had low expectations for this, and still it managed to limbo right
under. Johnny Storm was a jerk, my sympathies were basically with the
wrestler kid, and any teenager who has a break-up right before summer
and is still hurting over it in fall is, well, not a teenager (maybe
she’s a Skrull). Kesel normally does pretty good work so I don’t want
to write this off entirely but this was one darn unpleasant first issue.
Awful. Double-plus
ditto. I’d be hard-pressed to figure out a way to make Johnny a less-likable
protagonist. Awful
HUNTER AGE OF MAGIC #22: Nice
cover. Decent enough insides. But there’s so few issues left, I think
I might bump this to the “unread” pile for the end of the series. OK.
Great little
cover, but this issue seemed a little…rushed or something (not surprising
with the cancellation coming up, I guess). Serviceable enough, though.
Oh, and I’m sure it makes the DC ad salesmen happy, but is everybody
else as completely fuckin’ tired of that three page Getaway ad as I
am? OK.
INCREDIBLE HULK #52: Who
to the what now? I think this is the first issue I’ve read since #48,
and somehow it all seems exactly the same: secondary characters jostle
over ambiguous goals while Banner keeps getting trapped in vaguely erotic
noir-lite situations. It all sounds good from a distance, and maybe
if it was constructed with some actual cunning, it’d be great. But
it’s just so god-damned lunkheaded. That scene with the guy fighting
off a murderer while still talking on his cellphone is just as dumb
as The Rhino ever was (and the fact that he’s negotiating a higher salary
while doing so seems just sooo Bruce Jones somehow). Maybe this isn’t
just my cuppa, but considering the most exciting scene was the Hulk
trying to blow his nose on his girlfriend, I thought this was Eh.
Whereas I’ll
give it an Awful for the same reasons. Again, is THIS what you want
to give people who go see the movie? Really?
IRON MAN #67: All
I really want to say is that I can’t really imagine anyone paying $2.99
for this. It’s not lousy or anything, but it’s generic and unmemorable.
Eh.
I know, it’s a shame about the price increase particularly since, call
me crazy, but there was a lot of stuff in this I liked. The whole North
Korean angle is uncomfortably current, but that works in the story’s
favor, and I liked both Stark’s and Fury’s characterization. It was
one big pile of false jeopardy (I can’t believe they escorted Stark
with only one car and it wasn’t your standard SHIELD flying car (for
probably the first time in Marvel history!), nor do I buy Pepper rolling
over for the Feds, for even a second) but whatever. I’ve read worse
Iron Man issues, and pretty recently, too. OK.
JACK STAFF #2: This
was great fun, exuberant and barely rational. I’m not sure why Grist
decided to throw all the pages up in the air and publish them in the
order they landed, but it didn’t bother me much. Very Good.
Hahahahahaha.
Yah, man, that seems right. It’s crazily random and looney, and yet
it works so, so very well. Very Good
MARVEL UNIVERSE THE END #3: Isn’t
this the third issue now that ended with “...but I had no idea how much
worse was to come”? We get it already. Competently done, but all too
by-the-numbers. Eh. God,
you are so right about the ending. It really does look truly lovely,
and I do enjoy the fact Starlin is still pretty insistent the Marvel
Universe totals only about twenty people max, but when the hell did
Dr. Doom ever need a pistol to take out anyone, much less a refugee
from Stargate? And then what happens to him? Eh.
PUNISHER #24: A
creepy little read, no doubt, and Mandrake’s work was effective, although
I kept having unfortunate flashbacks to The Call. Not really gonna
set anyone’s house on fire, though. OK. Yah,
this was a pretty bland issue – while Castle’s “any problem can be solved
with a gun” attitude was amusing enough in comparison to the bleeding-heart
liberal woman, there wasn’t enough There there to make this any fun.
OK
STORMWATCH TEAM ACHILLES #10: Torture,
death and murderous cyborgs... it worked well enough as a comedy, I
suppose. Eh.
It was sort of funny to watch Ron Jeremy huff and puff his way through
a group of superheroes. But, man, Whilce Portacio can really make some
poor storytelling decisions—the last panel on the first page is totally
unclear. Except for a few other goofs like that, I feel like the series
has been improving over the last couple issues. I hope it continues.
OK.
STRAY BULLETS #31:
I wasn’t a big fan of Murder Me Dead, but Lapham has been at the top
of his form with Stray Bullets ever since. This pretty much nailed
high school as I remember it—baseball bats, teacher indifference, and
all. Very Good. I
wasn’t as impressed as I was by the previous few issues, but it’s only
the first issue of the arc. Very Good from me, too.
SUPERMAN AND BATMAN GENERATIONS III
#4: Starts
almost like coming in on the middle of a movie, but once I got my “sea
legs” back, I followed it fine – there’s too much going on here though,
though I like that the plot is both backwards and forward. However,
I think I might have held off that revelation for another 2 issues,
for symmetries sake.
Hmmm. For me, this is kind of like the anti-matter Global Frequency—both
books try to jam too much stuff into one issue for exactly opposite
reasons: GF to be self-contained each time, this to cover a different
century each issue. I like all the Kirby stuff (OMAC is my Achilles
Heel) but, again, I can’t see how this can read like anything but total
jibber-jabber unless you’ve been reading comix not just for the first
four issues, but for thirty-someodd years. OK.
THOR #62: God
help me, this was so goofy I enjoyed it. The idea is intriguing and
I’m impressed the creative team is actually going for it, but the execution,
with New Yorkers acting more like citizens of Springfield
having a monorail dangled in front of them, is underwhelming. At the
core of it seems to be a fundamental assumption (religious=zealot) I
find kind of depressing. After all, it’s not like Thor asked for a
Sabbath, right? An incredibly goofy OK. “Well
sir there’s nothing on the earth like a Genuine, Bona-Fide, Electrified,
Six-Car Monorail! What’d I say?” “MONORAIL!” That’s such a great episode
– Leonard Nimoy, the Flintstone’s theme song parody (“Simpson, Homer
Simpson, he’s about to hit a chestnut tree!”). Man. Now that you’ve
brought it up, all I can think is “Thor sucks in comparison”, which
is a looney comparison, but all I can say when you otherwise perfectly
nailed what was wrong with the issue. Eh, from me.
ULTIMATE ADVENTURES #3: “What
if Robin hated Batman?” continues, but it’s been so long between issues,
I can’t figure out why anyone would care? Oddly enough, I sorta liked
this – Zimmerman’s last 3-4 scripts have been pretty good, and I think
it’s time to take him off the “punchline to a joke” list. Maybe Raab
can take that position? Anyway, OK.
Well, it’s three issues in and finally, on the last three or so pages,
Hank has stopped acting like an asshole. Kinda late though, don’t ya
think? But you’re right: the scripts are getting a bit better. Eh.
UNCANNY X-MEN #421: I
kinda like how this Juggernaut thing is working out, and parts of the
Havok storyline were reasonably funny, but, again, I can’t imagine anyone
giving a crap unless they’ve got a decent grasp on stuff that goes back
as much as thirty years. I don’t know, maybe everybody still reading
this stuff does, but it’s my hobby horse for the column this week, and
I’m gonna keep riding it into the ground. OK. I
thought it was OK, too (especially now that Ron Garney is back, and
this is one less manga-in-the-wrong-place book), though the sheer melodrama
of “who will Alex choose” was pretty over the top.
WARREN ELLIS SCARS #4: Oh.
So the next two issues will just be “revenge” then? OK. Maybe
part of the reason everything is so mired in fanboy continuity, is
if you’re telling a story so close to reality, it’s really easy to hit
a wrong note. I can’t see John’s partner disagreeing when the teacher
is suggested. I think the veracity of the story might be better served
if we cut to two years down the road, where the best possible case has
been made and the teacher gets off the hook for lost evidence or something,
because in order to get the story (and the protagonist) where he wants
it to go at this rate, Ellis is going to have to strain believability
even harder. This is still Good work, but could have been more.
WOLVERINE XISLE #2: I’d
like to think I’m not the type of fanboy who pisses and moans and says
“So-and-so would never do blank,” and “So-and-so has never been strong
enough to lift blank,” but come on. Wolverine, he of the super-senses,
being snuck up on? The guy who can sneak up on deer and touch them
not being able to hit a gull with a rock? Not being able to track a
kid? And not being terribly surprised about it? This feels like an
old screenplay Bruce Jones had sitting around he decided to turn into
quick Wolverine cash. The art’s nice (man, that gull was creepy!) but
this so smacks of “And so Madame Bronchitis hypnotized you, Logan, to
teach you never to be mean to carnies again,” I pity whoever has to
read the rest of this. Awful. Double
ditto, though I’ll let the obvious brain-farts of the story take it
down to Crap.
X-MEN UNLIMITED #43: I’ll
give it a Good just for the nostalgic rush of seeing Bill Seinkiewicz
do the New Mutants again. Hey, plus it’s got Paul Smith, too. Man, I
feel like I’m 18 again! Good,
if only for the mighty whiff of nostalgia, but I expected a little bit
more from all the parties involved (except Mr. C)--somehow Jerome
Bixby's "It's A Good Life" doesn't strike me as the best inspiration
for light comical romp with Lockheed.
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. There’s also the occasional “whoops we forgot
it!” in here as well!
ARCHIE MYSTERIES #27
AUTOMATIC KAFKA #8
BLADE OF THE IMMORTAL #78
COUNTER OPS #1
DEVILS FOOTPRINTS #2
EVIL EYE #10
GEN 13 #8
GHOST IN THE SHELL 2 MAN MACHINE INTERFACE #3
GRENDEL GOD & THE DEVIL #3
HARLEY QUINN #31
HEAVY METAL MAY 2003
HEIRS OF ETERNITY #1
JANES WORLD #4
JUGHEAD #150
LAUGH DIGEST #183
LOVEBUNNY AND MR HELL SAVAGE LOVE
MYSTIC #35
NEOTOPIA #3
R A SALVATORE DEMON WARS TRIAL BY FIRE #5
SCOOBY DOO #71
STAR WARS EMPIRE #7
STAR WARS REPUBLIC #52
THE LAB #2
TRANSFORMERS ARMADA #10
TURTLE SOUP #1
VENTURE #3
WAY OF THE RAT #12
X-MEN RONIN #3
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.
ANARCHY
FOR THE MASSES GUIDE TO THE INVISIBLES
ANIMERICA
EXTRA MAY 2003 VOL 6 #5
BAREFOOT GEN VOL 1 TP NEW PTG
BEACH SAFARI GN
CATWOMAN LIFE AND TIMES OF A FELINE FATALE TP
COMICS JOURNAL #251
COWBOY BEBOP SHOOTING STARS VOL 1 GN
DAYS LIKE THIS GN
FEMME FATALES VOL 12 #2 MAY JUN 2003
HAIR HIGH GN
INU YASHA VOL 13 TP
IRON WOK JAN GN #4
KISS COMIX #134
KISSERS GN NEW PTG
LEES TOY REVIEW APR 2003
LEGION OF SUPER HEROES ARCHIVES VOL 12 HC
LUCIFER VOL 4 THE DIVINE COMEDY TP
MAD MAGAZINE #429
MADBURGER
MANGA UNIVERSITY IC BACKGROUND COLL VOL 1
METROPOLIS TP
MONKEYSUIT VOL 4 IN SEARCH OFMONKEYSUIT
MUTANT TEXAS TALES OF SHERIFFIDA RED TP
PIANO TUNER GN
SHADOW STAR NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH TP
STAR WARS A LONG TIME AGO VOL5 FOOLS BOUNTY TP
STARLOG #310
STORY OF TAO GN #4
TERRY MOORES PARADISE TOO VOL2 TP CHECKING FOR WEIRDOS
TOY WISHES SPRING 2003 TOY BUYERS GUIDE
WIZARD X-MEN SPECIAL WOLVERINE EMMA FROST CVR
ZENDRA VOL 2 TP HEART OF FIRE
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