The Savage Critic: September
10th, 2003
By Brian Hibbs
Welcome
back, my friends, to the show that never ends...
I’m
behind schedule (you’ve heard that one before, right?), so no preamble,
just get straight into one of the best week’s for comics we’ve had in
a long time....
ADVENTURES
OF SUPERMAN #620: Sure, the story was the typical dull, out-of-touch-with-anything-modern-humans-want-to-read
that we expect from the Super-books these days, but the real question
this month is “Why the hell was the art all shrunk down like that?”
Awful.
AQUAMAN
#10: I’m so incredibly bored by this plot-line. Can someone wake me
when it is done? Eh.
BATMAN
DEATH AND THE MAIDENS #2: Enjoying this fine, but here’s your prime
and perfect example of “Wait for the trade” – at $3 a throw, you’re
talking $27 to read this. There’s no chance the TPB will be more than
$20, y’know? It’s real good, but is it $27 good? Nah, not really. Despite
that, I’ll go with the possibly contradictory: Very Good
CAPTAIN
AMERICA #17: Dave Gibbons steps in to write what appears to be a “What
If?” – What if Cap was unfrozen into a world where the Germans won WWII?
– and, though this first issue is pretty much all set-up, it is infinitely
better that Austen’s run. Good.
CEREBUS
#293: Dave really is his generation’s greatest cartoonist. I just wish
I cared about the content. OK
CRIMINAL
MACABRE #5: solid ending to the mini. Good.
DARK
DAYS #3: Isn’t it weird to see this the same week as the previous book?
This one, however, feels a bit padded to me. OK
DEMON
DRIVEN OUT #1: It takes a special kind of lousiness to make me say,
out loud, “That didn’t happen,” when I finish reading a book. I disbelieve!
This is just about the stupidest revamp I think I’ve ever had the misfortune
to read, and not just because of brain-farts like the yakuza chick doing
illegal street-racing with STOLEN CARS (Yup, there goes her fingers).
This, to me, is shitting on The King, and so I call it Crap.
DOCTOR
FATE #2: This isn’t so much as bad as dull. Eh.
EL
CAZADOR #1: Hurrah for CrossGen comics not set in the “sigil-verse”
– this is pirate comics off to a very strong start... but it’s not as
pretty as, say, Sojourn. Still: Very Good.
EMMA
FROST #3: And the covers get even more shudder-enhancing. It’s too bad,
because the inside story is actually more decent than I would have thought
– but I wonder how many people who are buying these for the covers (ew!)
are even bothering with the insides? OK
FABLES
#17: Nice “end” to the arc – though considerably more violent than one
might expect. This issue brings up a few uncomfortable points though
– CAN you even kill a Fable? I would think it would be much like Gaiman’s
Endless in that the universe (and/or our Collective Unconscious) would
fairly rapidly want to fill the void. Either way: Very Good.
FALLEN
ANGEL #3: This one probably should have been the first issue. Probably
too late now, based on CE sales of #1 & 2 (the 60% drop was really
scary, and much much higher than normal), but there were some actual
human moments in this one. I especially liked the locker room talk scene.
OK
GOTHAM
CENTRAL #11: Damn nice cover on that, with solid guts behind it. Ended
a bit abruptly, though – like the Brube suddenly realized he was out
of pages... Good.
GREEN
ARROW #30: Kinda a harsh ending (particularly in light of being introduced
to be murdered), and I’m a little hazy on how Ollie can shoot his bow
after having spikes driven through his hands... but otherwise, this
was fine. OK
HERO
#8: Great ending to the arc, though it’s a little hard to believe that
the JLA or someone wouldn’t be ALL OVER tracking these guys down.. The
next dial hand-off was a little... well, convenient, I guess. Still,
this is rapidly becoming one of my fave hero titles. Good.
INCREDIBLE
HULK #60: Nice art. I’ve already completely forgotten the story, though.
So... OK?
IRON
MAN #72: Blah blah blah. At $3 a throw, ya’ gotta do more than that.
Awful.
JLA
#86: Every panel without the big seven in it makes me wonder who the
hell is driving this bus. I just don’t care enough about the “expanded”
team, and I think Carlin’s announced plan to turn this into “Legends
of the JLA” (as it were – top teams coming in and out to tell the ONE
JLA story they have) is a sound one. Until then, this is a big whatever
to me. Eh.
JSA
#52: As seen directly above, team books are a tricky business. But Geoff
Johns clearly has the chops for them (See below on Titans) –
this was possibly the best single issue of JSA I’ve read yet,
with that incredibly difficult trick of balancing a huge cast’s soap
operatics done pretty much perfectly. Now, why didn’t Johns succeed
as well on Avengers is the question? Excellent.
JSA
ALL STARS #5: I really liked BOTH stories this time through (the back
up is Chaykin), but the best part was probably the placement of that
“Verb” ad for Daylight Savings Time – “What will YOU do with your EXTRA
HOUR?” placed exactly at the mid-point of two Hourman stories. Very
Good.
JUSTICE
LEAGUE ADVENTURES #23: Do you believe that in a world with just Batman
that Kobra would get as far as he did? Let alone the rest of the JLA?
Nah, me neither, but this was still a sufficient story. OK
LEAGUE
OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN VOL II #6: When they do volume 3, they REALLY
need to have the whole thing done in-house before soliciting. This was
a superb, and really touching in some ways, ending to this great story...
but the wait between issues really robbed it of some of it’s power.
Excellent, but NOT taking the Pick of the Week because of that.
MARVEL
1602 #2: Gaiman’s a really great writer, and he’s doing a lot to make
this story work better than it sounds on paper, but I’ve still yet to
find the facet of the story that I actually care about. I think
it’s the obviously-costumed X-Men that turned me off the most. Good.
NEW
X-MEN #146: Big Reveal. And while there’s a spoiler-warning on the front
page of this site, I don’t think I’ll say it out loud here. There’s
certainly a sense of “putting the toys back in the box the way you found
them” before Morrison leaves the book. I really really liked the Reveal
as I read it, but, having now gone back and read through earlier issues
to check, I don’t think it actually makes much sense at all. Someone
is lying about the timing of events me thinketh.... and, chief sin above
all others, it might be the narrator. Still... Very Good as an
experience of its own.
NIGHTWING
#85: The slow wrap-up of the dangling threads continues. I’m quite happy
now that it seems he’ll never be a cop again. But we seem to be on the
cusp between things, so it’s hard to say if I like the “new direction”
or not. So far... OK
PUNISHER
#31: I couldn’t flip pages fast enough to get through the end of this
arc. Cam Kennedy, though a great artist, was really wrong for this story,
which didn’t even seem remotely Punisher-eqsue to me. Awful.
STORMWATCH
TEAM ACHILLES #15: I’ve gotten into the groove of this, I think. I
still think it largely betrays its own high concept (look how much super-power
there is here), but as a unit of entertainment, it’s reasonably satisfying.
OK
SUPERMAN
& BATMAN GENERATIONSIII #9: Whereas this is just jibberdy-jabbery
nonsense. I couldn’t possibly care less. Awful.
SUPERMAN
BLOOD OF MY ANCESTORS: It’s really not nice to say mean things about
posthumous work, so, while the plot and settings had me turning pages
so fast I was getting paper-cuts, Gil Kane’s art was as nice as usual,
as was John Buscema’s contribution. I just don’t like Krypton-based
stories. There’s a reason, I figure, that it blew up. Eh.
SUPREME
POWER #2: Another home run. So much so that it really makes you wonder
about the last two pages of issue #1 – really kinda undercuts this issue’s
careful structure. Comparisons with Rising Stars are, I think,
now especially unavoidable, what with Aquama... er, I mean Amphibian’s
sequence, but you get the sense that JMS has learned a huge amount since
then and now. The smaller cast probably helps a bit, too. Either way,
this really does feel “real world”, and while the JLA archetypes are
still obvious, they are no longer straight lifts. In all ways, this
book is Excellent.
TEEN
TITANS #3: Almost a perfect example of super-team Action pacing (as
opposed to s-t Soap Opera pacing like in JSA). It has my favorite line
of the week – Tim’s, which shows exactly why he is Robin in four
words – and a Big Reveal that unlike X-Men’s, I bet actually is justifiable.
The fact that the “next issue” box, added an exclamation point to the
reveal is just cake. The only thing I need to complain about is the
genericism of this San Francisco – SF’s architecture is very distinct
– and the, ugh, use of a Cable Car where there wouldn’t be one. There
really aren’t that many Cable Car tracks in SF, and, while I know it
screams “SF!” to show them, it’s like having an LA story occur at the
Hollywood Sign. There’s so so so much more to the City.... Also, and
here’s a note for everyone, they’re called “Cable” Cars because they
actually clamp down on a big hunk of taut cable running under the street,
and drag themselves along. That means that an explosion that would LIFT
UP a Cable Car would absolutely sever the cable, probably sending chunks
of it flying and cutting down people in it’s wake. This also means that
every other cable car on that line would also get hit by the loss of
cable as well, as well as the cable house itself probably getting destroyed.
This would be a major, major deal. Try this website (http://www.cablecarmuseum.com/) for
more, if you’re curious as to how they operate. So, if the Big Reveal
is who he says he is, and his motivations are what he claims, he’d NEVER
do anything like that. Anyway, despite that, this was a really great
example of super-team action, and I say Excellent.
ULTIMATE
SPIDER-MAN #46: Lead in to the Ultimate Six mini starting next week.
This was $2.99 though it didn’t “feel” longer, either by reading or
by hand. It was real good, however. Very Good.
ULTIMATE
X-MEN #37: The three leads meet and may jokes are cracked. I still think
of this as an issue of USM guest-starring the X-Men, rather than
an issue of UX. Good.
VENOM
#4: I liked John Carpenter’s version better. Eh.
WILDGUARD
CASTING CALL #1: The idea behind a “reality comic” is smart enough,
but the execution is really mediocre – there’s no way to really get
an affinity for any of these characters in the space allotted, so they’re
all just high-concept name-and-powers. Like “Blaction Figure” the black
hero who can shrink. Sadly, that’s about the height of creativity here.
The world doesn’t need any more “And here is my Champions campaign...”
comic books. Awful.
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
#540
BARBARIENNE #6
BLADE OF THE IMMORTAL #82
DAWN THREE TIERS #2
FRECKLEBEAN COMICS & STORIES
GEN 13 #13
GI JOE TRANSFORMERS #3
HELL #2
HUMAN DEFENSE CORPS #5
JANES WORLD #7
KINGPIN #4
MBLEH #2
MYTHSTALKERS #4
REX MUNDI #5
SCOOBY DOO #76
SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN #4
STAR WARS EMPIRE #11
TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES ANIMATED #4
TRANSFORMERS ARMADA #15
TRUE STORY SWEAR TO GOD #6
ULTRAMAN TIGA #1
VERONICA #144
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 #1353
2000 AD #1354
BABY BIRTH VOL 1 GN
BAREFOOT SERPENT GN
BATMAN BRUCE WAYNE FUGITIVE VOL 3 TP
CINEFANTASTIQUE VOL 35 #5 OCTNOV 2003
ELFQUEST WOLFRIDER VOL 1 TP
EPICURUS THE SAGE TP
HAWAIIAN DICK VOL 1 BYRD OF PARADISE TP
HEAVY METAL OCTOBER 2003
JSA STEALING THUNDER TP
LEES TOY REVIEW SEP 2003
MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE ICONSOF EVIL TRI KLOPS #1
NEW AND USED BLAB TP
ONE BAD DAY GN
POWERPUFF GIRLS VOL 1 TITANS OF TOWNSVILLE TP
POWERPUFF GIRLS VOL 2 GO GIRLS GO TP
SFX #108
SHAOLIN SOCCER GN #1
SILVER AGE TEEN TITANS ARCHIVES VOL 1 HC
TESTAMENT GN
TINY GIANTS GN
TOYFARE #75
ZERO GIRL FULL CIRCLE TP
This
Week’s TP recommendation is:
I’m certainly leaning towards Epicurus the Sage, as it brings
a long out-of-print classic back (And, we have to assume, helps out
William Messner-Loebs with his cash flow crunch that he and his wife
Nadine have been suffering – read http://www.tcj.com/journalista/zarch200309B.html#loebs
for more information on that), but I hate to say that I thought the
new story was pretty Meh. Also worth looking at is Testament,
the bible-related comic with art by such cats as Bill Sienkiewicz, George
Pratt, Teddy, Kristiansen, Kent Williams, etc. etc. But, I think I’m going to be a geeky-ass fanboy and
give my ultimate vote to JSA: Stealing Thunder. Yes, I’m
a big geek.
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