The Savage Critic: September
25th, 2002
By Brian
Hibbs and Jeff Lester
Welcome back, my friends, to the show
that never ends.
Woo hoo, it’s me and Jeff together
again. It’s weird, the first week we did this, we got tons of mail saying
“Wow, do that again.” And, of course, now that we DID do that again,
no one is writing. The Critic gets over 2000 hits a week, why you no
never show us love?!?!?
Foo.
Anyway, like usual, Jeff is in red
and I am in blue
so let’s get on with the show!
ACTION COMICS #795:
I was talking to my DC rep last week and he seemed all excited (and
thought, therefore, I should also be excited) that “The Elite” (the
oh-so-thinly-disguised version of the Authority) returned here, and
that “Manchester Black” (ha. ha.) was actually the big villain behind
this all. But I wasn’t. Just doesn’t seem like much of a threat to me,
I guess. I mean, I can’t see Luthor not being able to figure out 14
ways to rid the world of those characters between bites of his sandwich.
In fact, that makes me flash to Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing issue where
they pay Luthor a million dollars for 10 minutes of his time in order
to figure out how to kill Swampy, and he’s done in less than that in
order to “give them time to write the check.” Now that was good comics.
Now, I did like the Clark and Lex conversation scenes OK, but I really
feel like they’ve painted themselves into a corner here, and they’re
going to have to do something really ”comic-booky” to reset the relationship
back to Go – Lex knowing Clark is Superman won’t be able to sustain
itself for very long at all. So, well, I’m feeling charitable on this
first review, let’s give it an OK. As
usual, so much more well-thought out than my review Bri. Me, I can’t
believe they used that “Nuff Dead” line on the cover—they ruined my
Stan Lee obituary! Also, if you’re going to have Superman win a fight
just because he’s Superman, at least come up with some entertainingly
Weisengerian gibberish like, “My only chance is to use my x-ray vision
to look backwards in time and melt the Cyborg’s interface chip before
it’s attached!” Because even that would be better than this fight.
Eh.
AGENT X #3: This
was supposed to be my chance to explain why I’ve been enjoying Gail
Simone & Udon’s work on Agent X… and then I read the issue and didn’t
like it that much. The end of their run on Deadpool and the first issue
of this mixed some decent characterization with absurd humor in a way
that didn’t feel forced. This issue, though, couldn’t have felt more
forced to me, filled with scenes that didn’t need to be there, jokes
that fizzled, and an unfortunate reluctance on Udon’s part to draw an
umbrella on a hot dog cart, so that the final action scene was unnecessarily
confusing. I’m tempted to bump this up to Eh because I’ve enjoyed the
previous issues, but the fact is I found this Awful. Usually
I’m the cynical one, but scanning through Jeff’s first draft here I
see he’s beating me at my own game this week. I don’t think all that
much of this book myself, but I can’t really see giving it less than
an Eh
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #45: Now
that’s a wordy comic. Which isn’t necessarily bad, but did make this
an eye-straining read, to be certain. The opening scenes were... well
let’s be nice and call it Homage to Amazing Spider-Man #33 (first series)
– but I don’t think you can really improve on Ditko; or Peter trying
to get medicine to Aunt May – and that marred my enjoyment of the rest
of the issue. Also, I know she’s senile and everything, but how did
May not know Otto was Doc Ock? His picture has run in the paper enough
times, you’d think. Still the “Brad! Janet!” caption gave me a good
laugh. I don’t know, this was well done, but it felt like I was reading
something I’d read too many times before. Eh.
Yeah, I thought this would be obvious, but nobody’s ever, ever, ever
going to top the original Lee-Ditko “Spidey pinned under rubble” scene,
so why the hell would you try? And, yeah, you’re right. if JMS keeps
putting so many words on the page, Marvel’s going to need to include
a magnifying glass with each copy they sell: the font size made it
look like everyone was muttering. I still like most of the stuff that
JMS is doing outside the costumes, so OK.
AVENGERS #58: This
story probably sounded good at the pitch stage, but aside from the last
page kicker, I found a lot of it incredibly dull. As refreshing as
the idea might be of The Avengers having to save the world by keeping
peace on the economic and international fronts, the execution had a
paint-drying quality to it. I feel like Johns’ work doesn’t quite fit
with Marvel as well as it does with DC but I’d have to write a really
long-ass essay to articulate why. Eh. I’d
like to see that essay. I pretty much agree with your assessment of
the book, Jeff, though I’ll bump the rating a smidge to OK
BART SIMPSONS TREEHOUSE OF HORROR #8:
Ty Templeton’s
opening story was perfect Simpsons’ Halloween stuff – dense jokes, clever
use of characters and continuity, and, all by itself was worth the price
of admission. The other stories were perfectly serviceable, but they
really paled in comparison to Ty’s. I think if that story had run as
the LAST one, I might have enjoyed the issue better – instead it started
with a bang and rolled downhill from there. Still, I liked Ty’s story
enough to give a Good to the entire package.
Hmmm. Although there were jokes and ideas I found funny in the Ty story,
I was surprisingly non-plussed by almost all of this. The art by Jill
Thompson and Hillary Barta was great to look at, but, overall, this
just felt too fannish for me. Barely an OK from Mr. Crankypants.
BATMAN #607: I
grew up on comic book physics, and I still can’t understand how
pages three and four of this book many any sense whatsoever. The storytelling
throughout was genuinely sloppy, as if McDaniel was a hundred times
more interested in figuring out how to put a circular panel on the page
than how to give the action scenes (in basically an all-action issue)
any flow. And Brubaker’s story has a lot more empathy for his death-wish
driven killers than for Batman, making things even more unbalanced.
Again, despite wanting to upsell this because I like Ed and I like Batman,
this was too darn close to an awful for me to say otherwise.
Whereas I think that Ed “gets” Deadshot better than anyone since Ostrander.
Heck, this made me drag my old Suicide Squads out of storage and start
re-reading them. Our most fundamental disagreement this week – I give
it a Good.
BATMAN GOTHAM ADVENTURES #54: It’s
a story that couldn’t possibly have worked in any format but a comic,
and that gives me joy and love. And, hell, any comic that can effectively
introduce The Bookworm (sans Roddy McDowall though) to Batman continuity,
AND DO IT WELL, gets a big thumbs up from me. Very good.
Well, I liked
it, but it seemed a little rushed in places. I’m apparently the bad
cop this week, so I can’t muster up more than Good.
CALL OF DUTY THE BROTHERHOOD #4: Skip.
I thought I picked up one of the few copies we had on the rack but I
didn’t. Dammit. Don’t
worry, you didn’t miss a thing. – more of the same supernatural claptrap
that’s been infecting these series from the word go. Awful.
CATWOMAN #11:
I hate to say things as plain as “another solid issue”, but Another
Solid Issue. Good. I
have to confess, I’m a sucker for the ol’ “deathtrap mansion” trope.
The issue was a bit silly, but Rader’s got some great visuals here,
Grant’s got a very good grasp on the Catwoman character and the femme
fatale angle so, for a one-shot fill-in, this qualifies on the high
side of good.
CEREBUS #282: This
is what it sounds like when doves cry. Awful, because it gave
me eyestrain and a headache and I never got past page eight.
Meanwhile I had forgotten that I hadn’t even tried to read this issue
yet. So I’ll pass on the review.
CODENAME KNOCKOUT #17: I
think I need use only two words: Evil. Clones. Yuck! Crap.
I’ll use three
words: Vegetarian. Lunch. Meat. No, that’s not in the story itself,
but there’s something about this book that reminds me of food substitutes
for people who cannot, or will not, eat the far tastier originals.
Why would you read this when you could be reading The Filth, something
that’s also in the same mature po-mo spy comedy gig but actually works?
Awful.
ELEKTRA GLIMPSE AND ECHO #3: It’s
heartening to see Morse trying to recapture the goofy/disturbing cartoon
surrealism of Miller & Sienkiewicz’s Elektra: Assassin, but somehow
M&S there were able to have their cake and eat it too. Here, I’m
finding the narrative has no dramatic tension because the line between
“reality” and “illusion” only pops up when Morse wants it to. It’s
just page after page of no-impact prettiness. Eh. Why
am I co-writing this with you again? Stop capturing the essence of a
book perfectly, Mr. I-was-an-English-Major! Eh.
FANTASTIC FOUR #61: I
really liked this issue – good comic timing all the way through (I snorted
beer out of my nose when I read the last caption box), and adds a nice
continuity twist that fits perfectly with and adds completely to everything
that went before. Very good. Ho,
ho, why are we so in disagreement this week? I thought that first page
was absolutely hilarious and guffawed out loud at it. Unfortunately,
the rest of the issue reads like Mark Waid did, too. Wayyyy too precious
and wacky; evaporated a lot of the hope I had after I finished the nine
center. It was a disappointing Eh to me.
FIGHT FOR TOMORROW #1: A
reasonably direct narrative that shows rather than tells, but still
leaves the reader with more questions than I think the creators would
want (Cedric wins his first fight, but doesn’t get any money from it?
Or is it just not enough money?) Didn’t really ring my chimes because
I made it through the first issue without a particularly good sense
of the world of the story, and where the character fits in that world.
Eh.
Meanwhile, I’ll read any fighting comic that Denys Cowan draws, at any
time. I wish he’d draw more comics, damn it. Good
FLASH #190: The
Piper is both the least interesting and most intriguing member of the
Rogues. How is it that Flash got the best and richest line-up of adversaries,
when they’re all so gimmick-oriented? Good. A
really good point. And I was going to gripe about this not having the
usual terrific work by Scott Kolins, but Justiano and Wong did a great
job on this. Johns has an affinity for the strange dynamic between
Flash and the various Rogues that he carries off much better than what
he’s doing on Avengers. Good.
HELLBLAZER #176:
Worked the anglicisms a bit too hard, and the “mystery” was obvious
as hell, but I still liked it: Carey’s take on Constantine
seems solid enough, and I could look at Steve Dillon art all day. Good. Ditto,
again. Good.
JLA #72:
I really don’t understand why this is selling so well. No one cared
about Aquaman when he was alive. I find the antagonists to be flat and
uninteresting, and the “peril” isn’t very perilous at all (No, really,
they’re not going to kill the JLA!) Bleh. Awful. I
put down the issue and my first thought really was: do you think anyone’s
peed in Aquaman yet? That can’t be a good sign, as far as reader involvement
goes. Awful.
KNIGHTS OF THE DINNER TABLE #71: At
$2.99, KODT used to be the best deal in comix for ex-gamer geeks like
me. It’s now a dollar more, is jammed with articles pimping Kenzer’s
gaming system, has two separate letters columns and non-KODT cartoons
drawn poorly enough to make Jolly Blackburn seem like George Perez by
comparison…so it’s now only one of the best deals in comix. Very
good. I’m
certainly at the stage where I now just want to “wait for the trade”
– the comics are great and funny, but I so so so don’t care about the
Hackmaster pen and paper game. Still, the comics ARE great and funny,
so Very Good from me, too.
LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN VOL
II #3: There
isn’t a line or a squiggle I’d change in any way shape or form. I’m
utterly engaged by this, and the month’s aren’t passing fast enough
to get to the next chapter. Excellent in every way.
You know,
I’m not quite as charmed as I was the first time around. Part of that
may be the “War of the Worlds” scenario has a built-in ending (that
Moore’s shown no interest in defusing) that renders
everything everyone does essentially moot. I’m just not engaging with
the storyline. Still, very good.
METAL HURLANT #2: Decent
enough, although once again, the real winner is Day Off by Pierre Wazem,
a strip the ol’ American version of Heavy Metal would’ve imploded before
publishing. I want a collection of his stuff now. Good.
I was very
bored by everything except the Wazem strip, so while I agree that I
want to see more from him, I can’t bear to give the overall package
better than an Eh
RESISTANCE #1: This
worked for me for all the reasons Fight For Tomorrow didn’t. The worldview
was presented quickly and strongly, I bought into it, and Sturm’s character,
because he treated his grandfather with feeling and respect, made me
care what happened to him. On the one hand, this isn’t much more than
the post-apocalyptic scenes from the Matrix reconfigured. On the other
hand, I liked it more, as a first issue, than any continuing series
Wildstorm (or Vertigo) has debuted recently. Call me insane, but I
thought this was very good. Huh,
you’re insane. Well, alright, maybe not – it WAS a good launch – but
it was also too derivative from any number of things I’ve already read
for me to go all the way to “very”. I’ll just give it a Good
and let it lay from there.
SPIDER-MAN TANGLED WEB #18: Anything
Ted McKeever does is alright by me. Even when it’s using incredibly
stupid and uninteresting villains. I can’t imagine a Spider-Man fan
doing anything but hating this, but I must give it an OK.
“We ask too
much of the hyphen.” Funny, but a big cheat, Ted. If the assignment
is to do your version of Spider-Man, you can’t just take the piss for
19 pages and bust out Spidey for the last three. Can you? Also, let’s
be honest: the Penny-Ante gang, Printface and Spellcheck all seem more
like spoofs of the types of villains you’d see in Batman (I always felt,
maybe because of Bill Finger’s scripts, that Batman was the New Yorker
of superhero titles—little facts sprinkled everywhere, overly erudite
villains obsessed with riddles, art, and minutiae), not Spider-Man.
OK.
STAR WARS TALES #13: I
like SWT best when they give work to alternative or indy cartoonists
who’ve got a weird twist on the milieu. None of that here: this all-Mace
Windu issue was all ho-hum. Eh. I
couldn’t even get past the first story. Sam Jackson is cool, but I don’t
care at all about Windu. Awful
TAROT WITCH OF THE BLACK ROSE#16: This
really has the potential to twist the psycho-sexual matrix of a whole
generation of boys much like the original Vampirella did. I felt like
I needed a shower after reading this. I can’t even figure out where
to put this in the Critic scale. Awful is the closest I can come, but
really want I want to say is “Ew!” There
may be no goofier, sadder or more hypocritical double-page spread in
comic book history than here, where two naked women, covered in frosting
and cherries and possessing impossibly large breasts, are tied to an
enormous cookie pan by a gingerbread woman in lingerie, also with impossibly
large breasts, and one of the naked women on the pan is saying: “Love
celebrates the whole person, mind, body and spirit. It doesn’t just
focus on the physical.” Greeting cards + porn= Jim Balent’s Tarot.
Awful.
TITANS #45: Tom
Peyer’s not going to be setting the world on fire with scripts like
that, that’s for sure. Some of the touches of personal interaction made
me think he’s got an okay way with character, but the handling of the
Native American characters was flat-out embarrassing. The art was crisp-looking,
in a generic way. Eh. It
also had the most unclimatic cliffhanger I think I’ve ever read. If
it wasn’t for the decent characterization I’d be swinging all the way
down to Crap, but there was just enough stuff that worked ok that I’ll
go up to Awful
TRANSMETROPOLITAN #60: And
so ends an era. It ended perfectly. Exactly like I had thought it would,
but not so much so that I was predicting the beats before they came.
Hooray! Excellent. Meanwhile,
on the other side of the planet…too self-congratulatory for my tastes.
It didn’t feel earned to me, but, to be fair, I kind of meandered off
during the Smiler storyline and never really made my way back. Eh.
VIOLENT MESSIAHS LAMENTING PAIN #1:
I didn’t read
the previous miniseries, but I didn’t feel like I needed to because
of a decent summary on the inside front cover. That said, living in
San
Francisco, I think the whole “big city=fetish scene=serial killer” reads,
at best, as naïve and conservative, and, at worst, as cynical pandering
to the naïve and conservative. It’s also, by this point, older than
Uncle Ben’s wheatcakes. Give it a rest, already. Awful.
Mmm, wheatcakes. Awful
WILDCATS VERSION 3.0 #2: I
don’t know if I can put my finger on exactly what I like about this
book, but it’s working for me. Maybe it’s just that they make Grifter
work for me when he’s flat and uninteresting in every other title? OK.
For me, it’s
the corporation angle that Casey’s got his hands on: it’s one of the
few things I’ve seen from him recently that seems to really work and
also seems to interest him. And the art on this is keen. The title’s
worth keeping an eye on. Surprisingly Good.
WOLVERINE #181: Decent
pencils and inks from Sean Chen and Tom Palmer can’t hide the fact that
this story is phonier than a three dollar bill. Plus, at least there’s
some novelty value to a three dollar bill because you don’t see one
all the time. Can’t say the same for this. The art keeps me from giving
it lower than an awful, although I probably should. Basically
you have 4 pages of story padded out to 22 with an “I want to write
for The Sopronos” anecdote. You can feel Alex Alonso’s editorial hand
here, though – this read loads better than any other Tieri comic I’ve
read before. I’m going to surprise you, and actually give it an OK
for surpassing my expectations.
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!], 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.
ADULT STAR STORIES FELECIA #1
ALONE IN THE DARK ONE SHOT SPECIAL
ARCHIES WEIRD MYSTERIES #24
ARSENIC LULLABIES JUNE 2002 #1
BTVS #49
CARTOON CARTOONS #13
CRUX #18
DUNGEON #2
FUTABAKUN CHANGE VOL 8 #6
GI JOE BATTLE FILES #3
HEAD #2
JASON & THE ARGOBOTS #2
JUGHEAD WITH ARCHIE DIGEST #178
MENS ALTERED WARS CHRONICLES ANNUAL #2
PALS N GALS DOUBLE DIGEST #70
ROUTE 666 #4
SCION #28
SHADES OF BLUE #9
SHIDIMA #6
SNAPDRAGONS #1
VAMPIRE YUI VOL 4 #6
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.
ARCHIE AMERICANA SER BEST OF 40S VOL
2
ASTRO BOY VOL 7 TP
BATMAN DARK VICTORY TP
BATMAN IN WORLD FINEST ARCHIVES VOL 1 HC
BILL SIENKIEWICZ PRECURSOR TP
CINESCAPE PRESENTS THE FALL TV PREVIEW
DAREDEVIL LOVES LABOR LOST TP
DARK KNIGHT STRIKES AGAIN PVCSET
DV8 NEIGHBORHOOD THREAT TP
E C COMICS LOGO T/S LG
E C COMICS LOGO T/S MED
E C COMICS LOGO T/S XL
ELEKTRA LIVES AGAIN HC NEW PRTG
FANGORIA #217
FANTASTIC FOUR 1234 TP
FELIX THE CATS GREATEST HITS TP
GANZFELD VOL 1 TP
GRENDEL LUNCH BOX
GRIN AND BARE IT #6 MAGAZINE
HAMILTON SKETCHBOOK
HEAVY METAL NOVEMBER 2002
IN THE SHADOW OF EDGAR ALLAN POE HC
INU YASHA VOL 12 TP
JUSTICE LEAGUE 2003 WALL CALENDAR
JUSTICE LEAGUE ANIMATED HAWKGIRL MAQUETTE
KISSING CHAOS TP
LONE WOLF & CUB VOL 25 PERHAPS IN DEATH TP
MANGA TECHNIQUES VOL 2 ENG ED
MANGEROTICA GN 3 SEXHIBITION NEW PRTG
METAL HURLANT #2
OZZY OSBOURNE 2003 WALL CALENDAR
PREVIEWS VOL XII #10
PROTOCULTURE ADDICTS #72
PULPATOON PILGRIMAGE GN
QUEEN & COUNTRY VOL 2 MORNINGSTAR TP
STAR TREK MAGAZINE #42
STAR WARS INSIDER #62
WIZARD COMICS MAGAZINE #134
This Week’s TP recommendation is:
I think I
was most excited by the properly formatted reprint of Miller’s Elektra
Lives Again hardcover. Some of the best work of his career.
That’s
what’s rough about recommending TPBs: If Elektra hadn’t come out, I
would’ve given this to Fantastic Four 1234 TPB, or the second
Q&C trade, but books rarely come any better or more beautiful
than Elektra Lives Again.
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