The Savage Critic: May
14th 2003
By Brian Hibbs
Welcome
back, my friends, to the show that never ends...
No
intro, on deadline, and I have some rare multi-para super-rants below.
(Oh,
PayPal us money at brian@comixexperience.com if you like
the rants!)
411
#2: Much less impressed with this one than #1 (which, if you recall,
I wasn’t all that impressed with, really), but I really really wonder
about the second story. Now, if I recall correctly, the premise of this
comic is to show “Non violent ways of dealing with issues of violence”
(or words to that effect) – the second story, Bruce Jones’, isn’t it?
The issue is back at the store, used violence to ironically bring peace.
Which kinda, y’know, undercuts the message fairly dramatically. Eh
ADVENTURES
OF SUPERMAN #616: Meanwhile Superman tries desperately to not participate
in any violence which I somehow appreciate much more in a capes-n’-tights
comic. Can’t really say that I’m all that thrilled with the story (which
I could have predicted the ending for 4 issues ago... orrrrrrr BEFORE
it began, literally – Duh, “he unwrites them” is basically the only
solution you can have in a non-violence-driven comic with this setup)
which I think managed to spin exactly in place without doing or changing
anything, yet added another few hundred (thousand?) new characters to
an already overpopulated DCU. I think Casey’s approach really is a noble
experiment, in this case, but it’s not exactly yielding compelling comics.
(And see about 3 listings below...) OK
AMERICAN
CENTURY #24: Oooh, John Severin. Hurrah! Not “in continuity”, and despite
the swearing and such was a pretty damn straight forward western with
almost as clichéd of an ending as one could find. But, despite all that,
I’m giving it a Good, because it is John Severin, damn it. Question,
though, is it John’s personally choice to draw NOTHING BUT westerns
nowadays? I’d really like to see him draw some OTHER period for a comic
or two. Maybe someone can suggest that he draws some WWII war comic
or something? Ivan, will you walk down the hall and suggest to whichever
editor it is that they see if John is interested in one of Garth Ennis’
next War Story’s. or something? Thanks, bud.
AQUAMAN
#6: I tend to think that this is going in the wrong direction right
now – mostly because I don’t really grasp what the “threat” is. Perfectly
fine when “The Thirst” makes regular human beings into zombies or whatever
– I grok that – but what is “scary” or “thrilling” or “compelling” about
“The spirits of the river” (or whatever they’re called) being eaten?
Especially because, generally, in DC Cosmology, “elemental forces” tend
to recreate themselves. Heck, witness Veitch’s own run on Swamp Thing.
(Which I hope they reprint, damn it!!) Basically, I think that maybe
when removing one crutch (Atlantis) to hook Aquaman stories, they’ve
simply replaced it with another (This “magic lake” stuff), which will
inevitably doom the character to a different kind of dead end. Further,
really the only trait that Arthur really HAS is the whole anger thing,
which, by slowly removing (clearly this is a major goal for this arc),
removes every “character” Aquaman might have.
Frankly
(Whoa, second paragraph!), if I were in charge of Aquaman, I’d
let “The Thirst” WIN to the extent of removing the external magical
personifications, but let Arthur keep the relative powerset he has now.
Further, he must utterly FAIL to “save” Atlantis, so Anger and Rage
is really all he has, DESPITE his Knowing that that’s the wrong path
to walk... yet his “main” power is still the “healing” one. Now there’s
a dichotomy which might prove to be an interesting driving force for
character work. Call the tagline “Aquaman: Less Fairy, More Scary”.
My
guess is, especially without Veitch, this book is unlikely to survive
its second year. Review for this issue: Eh.
AUTOMATIC
KAFKA #9: Despite my three paragraphs on Frickin’ Aquaman, this is actually
the book that might merit the most discussion this week. Jeff and I
certainly batted it around during Comix Experience’s Friday Floor Show™
more than any other comic.
To
quickly recap: Jeff hated and loathed it, while I thought it was reasonably
interesting, and certainly the best issue of Automatic Kafka
I’ve read yet (which, I know, isn’t saying all that much). However,
after debate, I might have come closer to Jeff’s point of view....
Wait
– let me get the actual grade thing out of the way first: in terms of
“what I got for my 10 minutes/$2.95”, I’ll give this a weak Good:
I was amused, I could follow it, I liked the art, I liked the writing,
etc. There – if you don’t care for mouthy rambling, or, probably, if
you are in fact Joe Casey, skip down a bit until you come to “BATGIRL
YEAR ONE #6”
I’ll
wait....
Right,
so, AK #9 is a “creators talk to their creation” comic, basically
a 22 page explanation why this is the last issue of AK. This
is both horrifically pretentious, and also oddly fascinating at the
same time. Certainly, I think most of us have pretty positive feelings
about Animal Man #26, or the bits of Cerebus where he
met Dave, or any of the probably dozens of other examples that have
come before. Casey even admits “This has been done before – and probably
better”
I’ll
also note that I think this is the first time where the Artist
was invited to play too – generally speaking (specifically with the
Animal Man example, or even the 1970’s Earth-Prime JLAs)
only the Writer is involved with these bits. It was nice to see another
voice in that. Even though I’ll mostly be addressing the Casey bits
from here out....
The
Problem, I think, stems from this being largely 22 pages of Looking
For Someone To Blame. It is a complaint about being cancelled, not any
part of a story. And it goes on and on and on about how Things Stink,
without ever once, not for a second, accepting any chance that The Work
might be flawed itself.
See,
when I look at what Casey is writing now, I see a lot of “experiments”
(e.g., Adventure of Superman’s non-violence, Wildcats
theory on media and capitalism, etc.), but what I don’t see is engaging
stories to root them.
The
most important thing to the consumer is compelling characters, engaging
situations/plot, and at least The Illusion of Change. I don’t, generally,
feel that Casey focuses in on that type of fundamental.
In
a way, his work strikes me as the guy from Clowes’ Art School Confidential
– “Look at how outrageous I am! I painted this with a brush made from
my public hair!”
This
issue, although not explicitly named, is set in Meltdown, one of the
best stores in the country. Attractive, well merchandised, and, above
all else, focused squarely on presenting the best comics, in the best
light. So, it’s pretty ironic seeing Casey and Wood and Kafka walking
through a shot titling every comic on the shelf with “Crap”. Talking
about how comics suck, are formulaic, etc.
I
mean, fair enough if you think that, but it’s the COMPLETELY wrong venue
for it. Just like The Beguiling or Comic Relief or, yeah, even my own
widdle Comix Experience is the wrong place for such a rant. I’d stack
the ratio of “goodness” to “crap” of a quality comic store up against
the best video or record or book store in the world – comics are probably
twice as likely to have something “good” if you swing a dead cat....
I
think I can probably extrapolate my own experiences (pardon the pun)
to be similar to Meltdown – we sell a tremendous amount of “good” comics;
FBI stuff, Vertigo Stuff, ABC stuff, TPs and GNs aimed at adults, to
adults, etc., etc., etc. Define “good” any way
you like, and we probably sell a disproportionate amount of it. I imagine
(not being privy to their books) that they do too.
Basically,
IF a book like Kafka CAN find an audience, odds are pretty fabulous
it’s going to find it here.
And
it didn’t.
Fab
sales on #1; slightly less on #2; huge plummets issue to issue from
#3-on.
This
tells me that the audience didn’t want it – NOT the “mass audience”,
but the audience FOR THIS KIND OF WORK. Which tells me, probably, it
is the work, and not the audience (or the industry or the environment
or whatever)
If
you want to make a charge that there are structural or vision or distribution
or passion problems that hold comics back from reaching their full potential,
then that’s great with me – CERTAINLY there are any NUMBER of problems
that have to be overcome; but to not acknowledge that at least some
of the reason for cancellation COULD POSSIBLY be due to the Work itself
seems to be to me, and you’ll forgive me I hope, less than intellectually
honest.
I
mean, my basic reaction to THAT is similar to Chester Brown’s reaction
on this print:
BATGIRL
YEAR ONE #6: We’ll go back to short, one para reviews from here down,
I think. Fishnets and redheads – I’m having fun, even if I could quibble
about some of the storytelling choices. Nice art too. Good.
BATMAN
LEGENDS OF THE DARK KNIGHT #167: Tons and tons of goofy storytelling
choices (i.e., “I injected you with a transmitter”... wha--?!?;
or Batman’s doing pivot kicks with a bear trap around his other ankle)
– really, there wasn’t more than 3 (and possibly only 2) issues of content
in this arc. Padded and Eh
BLACK
PANTHER #59: Much more of a straight ahead narrative, and I enjoyed
this immensely. Good.
BLOOD
AND WATER #3: Talk about padded. Jeez, less than nothing happened here
– things that coulda been handled in 3 panels got 3 pages instead. Only
2 issues to go, and the actual story part of the plot is just being
introduced in the last 4 pages. Foo. Awful.
CALL
#2: I suspect when we do “The Decade in Review” circa 2010, this and
it’s originating mini-series will be seen as one of the single worst
ideas to come from Marvel Comics. The execution could have been worse,
but the premise, itself, is just so absurd and hamfisted it makes me
want to jump from a building. Awful.
CAPTAIN
AMERICA #13: There are 3 “Marvel Icons” this week (i.e., “published
since the 60s”), and, oddly, each and every one of them is, in my opinion,
an utter violation of the very premise of the character. In this one,
we get crybaby Cap spending most of the issue trashing his apartment
and whining how no one loves him. “I am not a soldier! I am a failed
prototype!” Two words: Nigger, please! I spent most of this issue thinking
the Atlantean chick was Sharon Carter – same somatype, same blond hair,
and Sharon Carter would be the one who would carry a lock pick and a
HANDGUN (Note: guns and bullets don’t WORK underwater) and who’d also
say “Darling’. What the hell? If it wasn’t for the scrummy Jae Lee art,
this would get a Crap rating, but it LOOKS so nice I can’t go worse
than Awful.
CRIMINAL
MACABRE A CALL MCDONALD MYSTERY #1: Monsters and detectives are a fun
enough mix, but I thought the storytelling was a bit shaky in places.
A high OK
DOMINION
#2: Much much more readable in B&W than it was in color – I could
follow who was what and what they were doing this time out – problem
is, I still really don’t care. Eh.
DOMINO
#1: I suppose someone, somewhere must care about this Liefeld-era character-that-looks-like-a-Panda,
but I’m not sure who they are. Nice art by Brian Stelfreeze, but who
thought that putting him on a third-tier (at best) character was a good
idea? It’s hard to be excited about Domino’s quest for her mother when
we’ve never been given a reason to care about HER character. OK.
FABLES
#13: Aw, Bluebeard cried, so he has to prove himself a hard bastard.
Effective wrap-up to this storyline. Good.
GOTHAM
CENTRAL #7: An excellent issue of an excellent series. On a certain
level it is pretty sad that things like Rawhide Kid get buckets
of media press when a work like this, dealing with homosexual relationships
in a honest mature fashion doesn’t. Top notch and Excellent.
GREEN
LANTERN #164: Thank god it’s over. Mm, have I mentioned lately what
a mistake it was making Kyle’s ring utterly omnipotent? Eh.
HERO
#4: Great ending to the first arc. Very Good.
HUMAN
TORCH #2: Not as painful as the first issue, and I’m glad that Snow
hasn’t (yet, at least) become a maniacal super-villain. I was really
fearing that cliché. Still, nothing distinguishes this much from just
being sub-FF, and word on the grapevine is that this was cancelled
before the first issue came out. OK.
HUMAN
DEFENSE CORPS #1: Too often DC publishes mini-series that have the smell
of dog upon them before the first bit even ships (Recent example: Forever
Maelstrom). I had thought I caught a whiff of puppy here, but am
pleased to say I was mistaken. Despite a little heavy-handed captioning
and some plot hammering, I actually quite liked this more than I would
have thought. A high OK.
HUNTER
#23: Nice one-off story. Good.
INCREDIBLE
HULK #54: Marvel Icon #2. Now look, I’m not a big fan of this arc, sure
– we’ve covered that before. But, honestly, doesn’t “superstrong Bruce
going toe to toe with the Abomination” effectively destroy the underlying
premise of the Hulk? No Jekyll and Hyde here – this is all Heckle. For
Marvel’s sake, I really really really hope this takes a super abrupt
U-turn next issue because I absolutely wouldn’t want to hand this to
newbie coming in after the Hulk movie. Awful.
IRON
MAN #68: And Icon #3. Predicating a plot on something that just wouldn’t
happen (Pepper Potts flipping sides) is bad enough. Having Tony going
on the run and dying his hair blonde and shaving his moustache is even
worse. I mean, please, AS IF Tony couldn’t just change the failsafe.
Awful
JSA
#48: Solid issue, but I’m not sporting wood – nice to see Courtney growing
as a character though. A biased but low Good.
MANY
WORLDS OF TESLA STRONG: Probably too much filer in visiting the “many
worlds” (since each one basically proceeded the exact same way), so
while I liked it, the $5.95 price tag knocks it down to a low Good.
MARVEL
UNIVERSE THE END #5: Fairly typical Thanos stuff here – how they expect
him to sustain a monthly, I admit, puzzles me to no end. OK
NIGHTWING
#81: Ooh, have we reached the end of the crappy cop stuff? Pleasepleaseplease!!
I liked the split story-telling in the middle. A mild Good.
POWER
COMPANY #16: Sooo... we bring Firestorm in, and he doesn’t actually
DO anything; we have Bork quit for what appears to be no reason whatsoever
(did they forget to go back to that or what?); we have everyone else
walk into a trap that couldn’t have been any more obvious; and we get
far too many pages on the Haunted Tank. The thing that drives me nuts
is how close they had to getting it right... and, yet, how just those
few degrees doomed this to be bad. A weak Eh.
POWERS
#31: Have I said how right Heidi MacDonald was when she opined comics
would be much better if we cut off “comps” to other pros? Maybe, if
people had to pay their own money for comics, they’d get a little less
lazy about providing value for money? (Though, heh, ironically, Ace
got more than her share of free comics in her life...) Which makes me
wonder if Bendis would personally pay $2.95 for this? 22 pages of pre-human
grunting and Quest For Fire. For what? To establish “Powers have
always been around...and been bastards”? Fair enough, I guess... but
it could have been done as effectively in four pages, max. If I was
spending cash money for this, this’d be my last issue, for sure. A complete
rip-off, and on that basis, is Crap.
PUNISHER
#26: Phoned in and as 2-D as the paper it is printed on. Bored now.
Awful.
SAVAGE
DRAGON #107: Might have worked better if it had come out BEFORE the
characters it was spotlighting (kinda like last issue’s “Christmas”
story); and “double sized” in this case felt to me as “twice as padded”.
Still, I think Larsen has finally found the almost perfect balance between
his various “styles”, switching nearly seamlessly from “Image style”
to “cartoony” and back again. Still, Eh.
SCOOTER
GIRL #1: Misnamed, isn’t it? Not really about the girl at all. Took
me pages to warm up to it (especially with the opening info-dump), and
while I think TOO MUCH bad stuff happened all at once to be credible,
I still found this oddly charming. A strong OK.
SILKEN
GHOST #1: It’s weird how I thought Dixon was a b-level writer at Marvel
or DC, while his voice on the CGE books (not exactly renowned for individual
voices) is A-list. I liked this a ton, expanding on Way of the Rat’s
“movie on paper” feel – but, given it is a mini-series, I think I’d
recommend waiting for the full TP instead of buying the individual comics.
Very Good, either way.
STORMWATCH
TEAM ACHILLES #11: I was really, really digging this for most of the
issue, until it all crashed and burned in the last 4 or so pages. Storytelling
couldn’t have been less clear (Example: WHAT knocked out wedding guy’s
teeth? Certainly nothing that was shown in the issue), and then it suddenly
stopped, making me feel like a page had been dropped. Absolute great
ink job by Bill Sienkiewicz (Well, probably too heavy really, looking
PURELY like BS), but the last few pages knocks it down from what might
have otherwise been a Very Good to an OK.
SUPERMAN
AND BATMAN GENERATIONS III #5: Kinda cheating by mostly being a flashback,
and it was a lot of blah blah blah. Very Eh.
TITANS
YOUNG JUSTICE GRADUATION DAY #1: It didn’t hit me until just this week,
but Judd’s superhero writing has somehow becomes mini-Chris Claremont.
Lots of tell tell tell in captions, almost no show. I hated, and I mean
LOATHED those first few pages, and while it improved dramatically from
there, the taint was with me. I really wish Judd’d do Barry Ween again,
damn it. Awful.
TOM
STRONG’S TERRIFIC TALES #7: Nice change-up by Shawn McManus on the first
story (I wouldn’t have known it was him without the credit), though
I didn’t care much for it or the last story. Really, the reason to buy
this comic is the 8 pages of Art Adams. Now, why do I castigate Jim
Balent for doing as-near-to-porn-as-he-can-get-away-with, but Art Adams
gets a free pass? Probably because Art’s stuff doesn’t look traced from
Playboy.... Anyway, this is a schizo book. Story 1 and 3 I’d put in
any kid’s hands, but the Adams stuff would make most parents squirm...
Anyway, a strong OK for the overall package.
X-MEN
UNLIMITED #46: Two utterly forgettable Wolverine stories. Big 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. There’s also the occasional “whoops we forgot
it!” in here as well...
BATTLE
OF THE PLANETS MARK ONE SHOT
BETTY & VERONICA #188
BRIAN PULIDO LADY DEATH #4 MEDIEVAL TALE
CAVEWOMAN PANGAEAN SEA #6
CHIAROSCURO #7
GEN 13 #9
GRENDEL GOD & THE DEVIL #4
JANES WORLD #5
KISS #10
LOUIS RIEL #10
MIDNIGHT MOVER #2
NEGATION #18
POISON ELVES #73
ROTOGIN JUNKBOTZ #1
SCOOBY DOO #72
SEXUAL POSITIONS OF THE KAMA
SUTRA #2
SIGIL #36
SOJOURN #23
SONIC THE HEDGEHOG #123
SPAWN #125
STAR WARS JEDI SHAAK TI
SUPER MANGA BLAST #31
TOMB RAIDER #30
TRANSFORMERS ARMADA #11
WILDE KNIGHT #1
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.
2000
AD #1335
2000 AD #1336
ALTER EGO #24
ANIMATION MAGAZINE JUN 2003
BRATPACK NEW PTG TP
CINEFANTASTIQUE VOL 35 #3 JUNJUL 2003
COMICS SPOTLIGHT JIM LEE COVER MAGAZINE #5
CONFESSIONS OF A CEREAL EATERVOL 2 GN
CRUX VOL 3 TP STRANGERS IN ATLANTIS
FORTEAN TIMES #170
FROLLO HC
GRANDMOTHERS HIVE SC
HELLBLAZER FREEZES OVER TP
HEROBEAR AND THE KID VOL 1 INHERITANCE TP
IN A METAL WEB GN
JLA THE OBSIDIAN AGE BOOK ONETP
JUDGE DREDD MEGAZINE #205
KISS COMIX #135
LEES TOY REVIEW MAY 2003
MAD MAGAZINE #430
MAD XL #21
MONKEY VS ROBOT AND CRYSTAL OF POWER GN
MUTANT EARTH VOL 1 TRAKK TP
NEW X-MEN VOL 4 RIOT AT XAVIERS TP
NIGHT IN A MOORISH HAREM VOL 3
PORTAJOHNNY SC
SPEED ABATER GN
STRUM & DRANG GREAT MOMENTS IN ROCK & ROLL TP
SUPER FRIENDS AQUAMAN AND BLACK MANTA DLX FIGURE SET
TOYFARE MATRIX CVR #71
VISITATIONS GN
WRITE NOW #4
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