The Savage Critic: August 1, 2001 By Brian Hibbs

Welcome back, my friends, to the show that never ends.

Sorry about Missing last week, folks -- I was still reeling from San Diego/needing to publish Onomatopoeia/arguing with Joe Quesada on the 'net and via email/finishing the order form. I would have gotten away with it too, if it hadn't been for those darn kids...

Er, I mean Garth Ennis. He came up to the City on vacation (after NOT going to San Diego, smart man), which means we drink far too much and get nothing done.

Yah, "wahhh," I know.

If it makes you feel any better, I haven't written a word more of the novel either though -- nothing in the last 11 days. (that changes tomorrow though!!)

I'm trying to get a jump on TSC (I'm writing this on Wednesday afternoon, having gotten about half the reading done so far) -- this one SHOULD be up early, even. (and, now that I’m done... whoa, all finished on Wednesday night!)

Anyway, on with the show...

100 BULLETS #27: Wow, great stand-alone issue. Damn THIS should have been the overship issue. Definitely the issue to try if you’re interested into looking into this series. Excellent.

AGE OF BRONZE #11: Eric Shanower can do no wrong. Fabulous artist, deft storyteller – this was the best issue yet of an excellent and compelling series. Excellent

ANGRY YOUTH COMIX #2: There are times when mean-spirited humor works very very well (Dork, Schizo, etc.), and there are times where it just makes you want to squirm away, possibly taking steel wool to your eyes. This is the latter. I didn't crack a smile once until the back cover gag -- confusing art spiegelman with the creator of WWF Raw is kinda funny -- which isn't enough for $2.95. Awful. (Upgraded from "crap" for the Raw joke alone, though)

ATLAS #1: Dylan Horrocks’ new book. I absolutely adored Hicksville, and I love this too. Excellent.

BATGIRL #19: A 36 page story in only 22 pages of comics. WHY does "no one die(s) tonight"? Without compelling story reasons within the comic, the "twist" kinda loses any real dramatic punch. Awful.

BATMAN GOTHAM ADVENTURES #41: Compared to the above, this is an elegant character study – probably because there are never any captions in Batgirl. Though, having said that, its not like I found the scenerio particularly plausible or anything. It is a shame that most comics need a chain-of-coincidences to make them work as stories at all. Eh.

BATMAN LEGENDS OF THE DARK KNIGHT #146: A blockbuster story, except its not blockbuster, and it has their weird thing with Bats going to a psychiatrist for help. And it’s three (!!) parts. Mm. Eh.

CRUSADES #6: I honestly don’t think there is a comic book being published in 2001 that frustrates me half as much as Crusades does. I really really like those "fact checker" sidenotes (and there were a bunch of them this issue), but why then can’t Steven Seagle even give us a slightly plausible (fact checked) San Francisco? Gr. Anyway, a whole bunch of unsympathetic characters running around a story that is STILL, seven issues in, NOTHING more than "guy with sword kills people". I’ll be flabbergasted if this book makes it to #16. Crap.

DAREDEVIL YELLOW #3: I was iffy on the first two, but I quite liked this issue: Matt the Lawyer, rather than Matt the son or Matt the student. And this shows me Jeph Loeb can really be an excellent writer (I’d despaired of that given Superman of late). And Tim Sale is wonderful in any event. Very Good.

DEADMAN DEAD AGAIN #1: Uh, bleh. Lots of running and shouting, and not much of a plot. Inauspicious beginning, but I guess we get to find out next week if it meant anything at all. Eh.

DESPERADOES QUIET OF THE GRAVE #4: Wow, another slow-start-but-finishing-well mini-series – action, intrigue, danger, and romance. I just hope they can wrap this one up all right in one more issue. Very Good.

EXILES #3: lalala. Lots of introspection and dialogue. Which is a weird-ass choice given the premise of alternative realities and whatnot. Might have been better as an one-parter. Eh.

FANTASTIC FOUR #46: What, is Jeph Loeb trying to win the "most characters killed in one summer" award, or something? This kind of cheap, off-hand death is lazy storytelling – "See?!? The Villain is a REAL bad-ass because they casually killed Silver Surfer (/Doomsday/Aquaman/whatever)!" As if. Give it a year or so, and this, too, shall be retconned away. Just like "grim and gritty", "widescreen" has gone way way too far – if EVERY fight and menace is "the biggest one yet!"... well, you just can’t keep escalating. It becomes meaningless after awhile. Awful.

GREEN LANTERN #141: I like Kyle and Jen’s relationship – it feels very real and human. Judd’s strength as a writer is absolutely character stuff, not the capes and powers stuff. I really didn’t like the sexual stuff at the beginning with Fatality and John (in PRISON, nonetheless), and I thought the cliffhanger ending was both stupid and forced. So balance that all out and we get an OK.

JLA #56: Markedly better than last issue, but it still leaves me pretty cold. The "widescreen effect", again, I guess. Anyway, the Martians are acting like idiots, and they’re not even that interesting of an enemy. Eh.

JOSS WHEDONS FRAY #3: Damn it, somehow I left this at the store, and I can’t review it tonight. Rassanfrassin’. Well, I liked the first two a lot, if that’s any help at all...

KNIGHTS OF THE DINNER TABLE #57: Still one of my favoritist reads each month, but I don’t like these issues where the gaming material outnumbers the comics, even though there’s a normal amount of comics, and the cover price stayed the same for the extra pages. Good.

LADY DEATH MEDIEVAL WITCHBLADE #1: Apparently this comic wasn’t created by anyone. No credits on the cover, no credits on the inside. Every officer of each company is listed... but not the people who DID the comic. This may or may not be a bad thing as its super-formulaic cross-over action. Hey, and you get a 20+ page catalog of Chaos products for sale. Just over half of the content is catalog. Woot! Awful.

LUCIFER #17: Very Good. Lucifer has been on a real roll lately, and this issue upped the ante for me: courtly doings in hell, and not a hint of the title character or the mostly bad idea of morningstar-on-earth.

MARTIAN MANHUNTER #35: I dunno. Eduardo Barreto was just the wrong choice for this story... and all this continuity implant stuff is just flat out dull. I was so bored with the story that I actually stopped to read the "Fall Fashion Preview" (uh, what?) with the neat Eduardo Risso art. That thing is fucking odd. It’s almost distasteful, even, with the "Conform and be hip" message implicit, but then I look at it again and think, "Wait, this sounds like 60s DC comics where 40 year old writers thought ‘cool it, Wonder Chick, I’m a gone daddio’ was up-to-the-moment." Who wrote this thing? It’s evidently a DC production (no other company is credited)... so I guess its just some sort of advertising buy-in deal... but, man, what dumb account reps think "Kids today go to DC comics to find out what is hip and trendy in fashion!!"? Think about that one for a second.

Uh, what? Martian who? Oh right. Next issue is the last one anyway, so what I think of this one scarcely matters, anyway. But, since you asked: Eh.

OBERGEIST #4: Nice solid issue. Crummy little cliffhanger, but I guess you can’t have it all. OK

PLANETARY #15: I don’t want to encourage late/slowly schedualed comics by saying "worth the wait", but, darn it, this was a fine fine issue. I don’t know, though, only 9 issues to go... And Snow is becoming a badass, and, honestly, I don’t fear the Four one tiny bit.... especially after the crushing defeat here. The end might be coming too fast, dramatically speaking. Anyway, Excellent.

SPECTRE #8: Interesting issue. Lots to do with the power of hope, and I didn’t feel the icy touch of DeMatteis the preacher very much at all. I liked it enough to give it a Good.

SUPERMAN #173: Jesus! That’s the THIRD time now in this one crossover that Loeb has cribbed a speech and printed it verbatim. This time it is JFK’s inauguration address. Jeez, that’s shameless. Otherwise, the issue was mediocre at best, which is a shame because last week’s Action and Wonder Woman OWAW entries (which were actually pretty good) had me hoping that the story was taking a turn for the better. Awful.

THOR #40: And Marvel does two in a week by killing Odin. Bleh. Otherwise, slightly more readable than the last few issues, and I still adore the art. Eh.

ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #12: Hurray for Peter! Heh, I know that’s pretty fannish, but I felt an honest thrill from Spidey’s triumph this issue. I will not apologize for these feelings! Good, fun, human super-hero comics. Can’t ask for much more from WFH, after all. Very good.

UNIVERSE X #12: 12 of 12... and its STILL not over. A huge and shambling mess, and such a huge shame because Earth X was so damn good. Hey, did your store get the Graphitti edition of Earth X? Damn, what a nice looking package -- $95 even seems cheap to me on that one. We sold out by the time I left the store this morning, but I’ve got a confirmed reorder coming... Oh, anyway, for THIS comic: Awful.

WARREN ELLIS BAD WORLD #2: Heh. Much more fun than #1 – more about piss-drinkers and chicken-fuckers than the conspiracy stuff. The pages that are the best are where Warren editorializes, of course. Still, funny to read those last few words, then look over all the ads for Avatar’s Line o’ Crap. Good.

WILDCATS VOL 2 #26: Well, I saw that resolution coming, and Noir’s plan was REALLY stupid (you want to get RICH by turning an inexhaustible energy supply into household batteries? Um, if they never run out of power, don’t half of your sales go away right there?), but the choreography of Grifter’s fight was pretty damn fine. Call it an Eh

WITCHBLADE #50: "I killed my father!" (bah-bah-BUM!) Well, no you didn’t, and the "revelations" didn’t seem too revelatory to me. But at least the cheescake factor was toned way way down. Hurray for that, at least. Eh.

YOUNG JUSTICE #36: Mostly harmless. OK.

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; 4) Porno [oh, like you need me to REVIEW it!], and 5) Things that looked SO bad on the racks that I didn’t bother.

DAHLIA VAMPIRE #3
DARK ANGEL #26
DAWN PIN UP GODDESS
DEMENTIAS BIZARRE BONDAGE #5
EAGLE VOL 18 FRAME UP
FIRST #10
FUTABAKUN CHANGE VOL 6 #6
KREEKY PLAYGROUND #3
LOONEY TUNES #81
NIMROD #6
NIPPLEZ N TUM TUM
PLANET OF THE APES HUMAN WAR #3
POISON ELVES #66
SEVENTH SEA #3
SIN METAL SIRENS
SPACE STATION 6969
SUPER MANGA BLAST #14
VAMPIRE PRINCESS YUI VOL 2 #6
WARRIOR NUN AREALA GHOSTS OF THE PAST #4
WILD STARS VOL 3 #1

And, for even MORE completeness sake, here’s a list of books, TPBs, GNs, and magazines 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 #1248
2000 AD #1249
BTVS FOOD CHAIN TP
CLASSIC WONDER WOMAN 2002 WALL CALENDAR
COMICS JOURNAL #235
DORK VOL 1 WHOS LAUGHING NOW TP
EARTH X HARDCOVER BOOK PACKAGE
FAR SIDE LAST IMPRESSIONS 2002 BOX CALENDAR
FLESH-COLORED HORROR #1
GROO LIBRARY TP
LONE WOLF & CUB VOL 11 TALISMAN OF HADES
MARTIAN MANHUNTER BY ALEX ROSS POSTER
POISON ELVES VOL 7 TP
POWERPUFF GIRLS 2002 16 MONTHWALL CALENDAR
REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST SC
SARAI VOL 1 #2
SCREEN POWER THE OFFICIAL JACKIE CHAN MAG VOL 3 #6
SFX #80
SFX COLL SPECIAL STAR TREK VOYAGER GUIDE #79
SHIP OF STONE HC
SINESTRO ACTION FIGURE
STAR SAPPHIRE ACTION FIGURE
STAR WARS TALES OF THE JEDI REDEMPTION TP
STRAY BULLETS VOL 3 HC OTHER PEOPLE
STRAY TOASTERS LTD HARDCOVER BOOK
SUPERMAN ACTION COMICS ARCHIVES VOL 3 HC
TOM STRONG BOOK ONE TP
TOMARTS ACTION FIGURE DIGEST #89
TOMB RAIDER NEWSSTAND ED #4
WONDER WOMAN BY ALEX ROSS POSTER
WONDER WOMAN TIARA BRACELETS AND EARRINGS PROP SET
X-MEN THE ORIGIN OF GENERATION X TP

This Week’s TPB recommendation is: Earth X is the coolest LOOKING book on the shelf this week, and Stray Toasters is excellent to have back in print, even if it IS for the high-end market, and won’t stay in print very long at all, and I wanted to make point of saying something about the Stray Bullets HC, but for sheer comic density, without one doubt the book of the week is Dork V1: Who’s Laughing Now? Hours of reading enjoyment, even in such a slim volume. One quibble though: it was, I think, a mistake to print like-to-like (all of the Murder Family stuff is printed together, all of the Fun! is reprinted together, etc.) For your maximum reading pleasure, the Savage Critic suggests flipping around the book as you read, taking a little from column a and a little from b each time.

Average Rating for the Week: 4.03 (of 7.00) Wow, we have a new record!

Pick of the Week: Crusades #6. Ha! No, just kidding! Actually, it’s Planetary #15. A hard book to beat when it finally comes out. I considered Daredevil: Yellow, just for the juxtaposition it would make with...

Pick of the Weak: Fantastic Four #46. Damn lazy-ass storytelling. Be ashamed, be very ashamed.