Reviews of 9/7 Books and Absotively, Posolutely The Last Entry From Jeff For A While..

A tri-purpose post. One, to announce this will definitely be my last post until I get back from the honeymoon, and two, to test the theory that people getting married in a week should not review comic books on the Internet. Although I feel perfectly relaxed, comfortable and cheery, I’m having trouble remembering my own name, much less what happened to Scorpion in Amazing Fantasy #12. Either it’s early Alzheimer’s or I am freaking the fuck out on a level at which I’m only vaguely aware. It’s cool. Oh, and three is, I got to hang out at the shop on Friday with Fanboy Rampage’s Graeme McMillan who is cool and funny and gives very good wedding advice. (So does Geoff Johns, as long as I’m namedropping.) I’m tempted to say I want to be Graeme when I grow up but since I’m already older than he is, I should admit I've missed my chance. “Grim” was a very welcome addition to the regular crew of crazy bastards, and I’m really glad he stopped by to chat. Thanks, dude!

AMAZING FANTASY #12: Uh…so, like…stuff happened? I’d missed the last couple of issues of this but still kinda enjoyed it. And the back-up story had nice art and a guest appearance from Werewolf By Night, which is enough to make an old-school Marvel geek like me happy. Let’s say OK, despite my shocked realization that Leonard Kirk is apparently drawing one out of every four comic books on the stands.

AUTHORITY THE MAGNIFICIENT KEVIN #1: I’d skipped the last couple of these (in fact, not sure I ever got past the first issue of the first mini) but thought this particular issue was funny, in a very, very cheap way. Also, since I’m an old school Marvel geek, I thought Ennis’ (more than likely unintentional) updating of Gerber’s “dwarf…with a gun!” shtick to a demonic whirlwind that shouts “I…Am…A…Vagina!” while hurtling coma-inducing cream pies was pretty darn keen. Almost makes up for having to read about The Authority. OK.

BAKERS #1: The price point stings, but it’s self-published, whattya going to do? The character design and body language are top-notch, the gags can be a little threadbare, and it’ll be a delight to read in a format where the price point doesn’t make me quiver. If $3.00 for you is the equivalent of a dime, you’ll find this Good. The rest of us reading three wordless black and white panels per page will probably be more Eh-ish about the whole thing.

BLOOD OF THE DEMON #7: I thought it was pretty cool that Etrigan was in a prison formed by cross sections of Jason Blood’s face. And then when he busted out? Dude. Apart from that and some vivid drawn and quartering, nothing made any lasting impression on me whatsoever. Eh.

CABLE DEADPOOL #19: I guess it’s an attempt to show why these two characters should still be sharing a book by casting some light on their respective pasts. And it works, I think, along with a nice little narrative mix-‘em-up at the end. My problem is that the art is just—I dunno—too cute? Too flat? I mean, Christ knows, Cable and Deadpool don’t deserve the Alex Ross treatment but this seemed so coloring booky. OK.

EXILES #69: I’m kinda sick of House of M tie-ins, frankly. For a company-wide crossover, I’d say the quality has been pretty good (as in this issue here) but I just…don’t…care. Eh.

FELL #1: I thought this was really Very Good. The reduced page count means neither Ellis nor Templesmith can fart around, and they don’t: the storytelling is brisk, fresh and open. The story reminds me of a bit of the Frank Ironwine one-shot Ellis did for his Apparat, but I liked the approach there and I like it here. And it’s under two bucks! Worth getting your grubbies on.

GHOST RIDER #1: I don’t know if the artist can do motion yet, but man, has he got an eye for light! Some of those panels were just gorgeously lit. But his people can look a bit stiff, and Ennis spends enough time making fun of the original premise that the whole enterprise seems on shaky ground. Still has a chance to transcend its limitations so I’m going with OK, but I admit to being a little worried.

HOUSE OF M #6: Yakkita-yakkita-yakkita…Just shut up and hit something already! Also, I hate books where someone comes up with a half-assed plan (“Let’s find Xavier!”) and it just happens to be the correct plan on which everything hinges. Why not find the Cosmic Cube, for example, or the Infinity Gauntlet? Eh.

MARVEL TEAM-UP #12: I thought this was big lousy pile of padding, but maybe that’s because I missed the last few issues. Or maybe because Scott Kolins didn’t draw the issue. Or maybe because it was a big lousy pile of padding where one of the more pointless villain origins in recent history was dragged out to an entire issue. Ow. Awful.

OUTSIDERS #28: Normally, I’m a sucker for these issues where characters get all introspective and deal with their grief, etc., but hasn’t this book already had five or six issues like that already? And it’s only on issue #28! Eh.

SEVEN SOLDIERS GUARDIAN #4: Unsurprisingly, I loved this. Oh man, that Newsboy Army crew was just great (I haven’t gone on to double-check, but I assume those kids are all littered through the other minis. Like, does Kid Scarface grow up to become the gangster in Shining Knight?) and even though it ends on an even more dramatic cliffhanger than Shining Knight, I feel like I got more than my money’s worth out of this mini. Very Good stuff.

SHAZAM SUPERMAN FIRST THUNDER #1: Looks mighty pretty, but why am I paying so much for it? Just for the pretty? Cuz I don’t think it’s $3.50 worth of pretty. OK.

SUPERMAN #221: I more-or-less liked the interpretation of Bizarro here, and the character stuff worked okay. But I was still wondering what the hell was going on with that cover until I got to the last page. Is this another storyline running through all the Super-titles? I hope not. OK.

SUPREME POWER NIGHTHAWK #1: I’m not sure I want to see spin-offs from Supreme Power—it just seems like a great way to dilute the power of the product—but Steve Dillon art, so… I also liked how Way’s script toys with our expectations by introducing a hardened police commissioner talking to Nighthawk in one scene and then introduces a creepy-seeming clown in the next. Considering I was kinda opposed to the project overall, I’m surprised I found this OK.

SWAMP THING #19: The art was alternately creepy and charming, and the reference to the original Swamp Thing story worked nicely, particularly since the digest came out on the same day. I don’t see why I should care—I don’t think they should have relaunched this book without a stronger follow-up to Diggle’s first arc—but it might make peek in next issue to see if things are getting better. Eh.

ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #82: Back when the whole Ultimate Universe was announced way back when, this is just what I was afraid it would become: stories where the only resonance revolves around the introduction or reappearance of this or that Ultimate character. I give Bendis credit for restraining himself for so long (God bless selective memory. It’s like every trace of Ultimate Marvel Team-Up has been completely wiped from my mind…) but after Ultimate Black Cat tried to hump Ultimate Spider-Man, and before Ultimate Kingpin hired Ultimate Elektra to wipe everyone one out-—in short, right around the time I had to read more than one page about Ultimate Moon Knight—it became clear to me that’s what this has become. Pity. Eh.

PICK OF THE WEEK: Shit, either Guardian #4 or Fell #1. Morrison’s canny updating of Kirbyesque energy is nearer and dearer to my heart, honestly, but Fell #1 is impressively strong work from Ellis and Templesmith, plus it’s a rather daring format that deserves to succeed. Get ‘em both.

PICK OF THE WEAK: It was busy enough at the store and my brain hurt enough that I decided I wasn’t going to read any books I didn’t think I’d like. But Marvel Team-Up #12’s was a really shocking waste of time. Glad I hadn’t pre-ordered it, otherwise I would have been pissed.

TRADE OF THE WEEK: Oooo, a lot of good stuff. I’m a sucker for Englehart’s Avengers run so I got that Serpent Crown trade. I actually was surprised what a good deal the Swamp Thing Digest was (232 pages of color comics for $9.99? That’s really quite good.) I’m shocked Vol. 13 of Iron Wok Jan is here so soon. But what really caught me off-guard was Following Cerebus #5: Dave Sim picks up the phone and calls a bunch of cartoonist pals about the role of an editor so you’ve got short interviews with Paul Pope, Chester Brown, Neil Gaiman and Craig Thompson (all in one issue!) which, while far from groundbreaking, are still funny, chatty and revealing. If it had only managed to hype Fell #1, this would have accomplished everything Ellis launched The Engine for. Pick it up if you get a chance.

NEXT WEEK: Who knows? But I won’t be around for it, is the point. Thanks again to everyone who took the time to wish me well or throw a compliment my way. I’ll see you again in October!

Short Reviews from a Long Weekend: Jeff's Reviews of 8/31 Books

Aghhhhh…so…much…to…do… AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #523: Reminded me of those ol’ Tales of Suspense stories that Stan and crew used to crank out, twelve pagers (ten pagers?) that managed to barely get the hero from one cliffhanger to the next—Marie Severin should’ve drawn this, really. But what’s (kinda) charming in ten pages for twelve cents becomes (more than a little) annoying at twenty-two pages for $2.50, a feeling only amplified by that cover of Toy Biz’s next big action figure, Second Trimester Spider-Man. Eh.

ASTONISHING X-MEN #12: Okay, okay! So it wasn’t as good as the previous arc; so it barely made a lick of sense with established continuity; so the idea that Xavier would enslave a newly sentient life form because he couldn’t come up with another way to throw enormous beer kegs and flaming spitwads at his team is more than a little absurd. As long as Cassaday is drawing Professor X with those feathered-out eyebrows, I don’t care. Eh compared to the rest of the run, but Good compared to any other x-book on the market, I think. Let’s hope the quality ramps back up a bit during the hiatus.

ASTRO CITY THE DARK AGE #3: I guess an important part of criticism is understanding what the work is trying to do, and criticizing it on its own terms. And in that regard, this is a Very Good Astro City story—it works as both a melodrama of two conflicted brothers set against the backdrop of a superhero-riddled ‘70s, and a vivid simulacrum of superhero books in the ‘70s. But it’s good enough to make me wish it did more, particularly after recently finishing Jonathan Lethem’s Fortress of Solitude. Lethem’s book is also about brothers (of a sort) against the vivid backdrop of ‘70s New York and uses superhero flavored magical realism for some of its resonance, and I felt something approximating that here, where the recounted stories of the superheroes (a ghostly hero afflicted by a vengeance spirit, the First Family conquering a magical demon but torn apart by governmental restrictions) reflect on the conflict between the brothers. But whereas Lethem painstakingly crafts complex main characters, the two brothers here are cut straight from melodrama’s cloth, a bit more nuanced than Ditko’s Hawk & Dove, maybe, but not by much. And that’s all well and good if that’s what you want—as a piece of nostalgia capable of recreating, and maybe even trumping, your original experience of reading a superhero comic, it’s, as I said, Very Good. But it’s good enough to make me want more, and frustrated that I’m unlikely to get it.

BATMAN GOTHAM KNIGHTS #68: Huh? I haven’t been following this title very closely so I couldn’t really make heads or tails out of what happened this issue. If I’m right, at least part of it shows Hush discovering a shape-changing MacGuffin that may have been used to undo the whole “Hush is Bruce Wayne’s boyhood friend” revelation or maybe the “Hush is not Bruce Wayne’s boyhood friend” revelation, or maybe the recent “Alfred iced that guy” storyline, or even maybe the whole “Batman is a big ol’ asshat” storyline that’s been going on for several years now. And maybe the MacGuffin also is the bad guy from Brubaker’s first Catwoman arc as well… But really, the only thing I took from this book is a very strong desire for McDonald’s to make and market a product called the McGuffin—something with cheese on it, definitely, and maybe sausage. Why hasn’t this happened already? The book, to the extent that I could follow it? Eh. The idea of an egg and cheese McGuffin? Good or Very Good, depending.

CAPTAIN AMERICA #9: God bless Paul O’Brien, by the way. I thought changing things up over at The X-Axis was a very smart way to address reviewing superhero books in our for-the-trade era. Because more and more, books like this make your average "this is what you paid for, this is what you get" review very difficult. As part of a larger storyline, Brubaker and team are painstakingly moving all the pieces into place, maximizing the tension and laying the groundwork for future dramatic reversals and advancement. As an issue on its own that I paid almost $3.00 for, it feels a trifle draggy—the carefully woven time structure almost conceals a copious amount of chatting, and a superficially similar set-up in structure to previous issues. It's Good work, for sure, but it's also the closest I've come to deciding to wait for a trade on a book that I like. Tough call.

EX MACHINA #14: I very much like the "A Story/B Story" approach being taken here, but Vaughan's still got kinks to work out—the A story with Mitchell and the hostage situation had a lot of drama but felt contrived, the resonance of the B story with the old friends and the comic book guy felt forced because it didn't have enough room to develop. Like Cap, a Good issue but there's still the feeling something's missing.

FLASH #225: Geoff Johns' final issue of The Flash shows all the strengths of his run on the title—an affection for the characters, an eye for structure, a willingness to up the ante, emotionally and visually—and two of its most frequent weaknesses: overambition, and artist Howard Porter. This regular-sized issue has a battle between two Flashes, two Reverse-Flashes, the Rogues and the resolution of two subplots. Maybe a savvier artist might be up for the job, but Porter's art looks like he couldn't be bothered: the Flashes don't really run as much as bound, and everyone seems hunched into skimpy underdeveloped panels. The storytelling is okay as far as how the eye follows the page and like I said, maybe nobody could pull off as much frenzied free-for-all as the script calls for. But check out that splash page where the Barry Allen Flash looks like a cookie jar with delusions of grandeur. Bleah. A high OK because it really does tear along and Johns' strengths are formidable, but I almost wish they'd double-sized it and done the "gallery of Flash's greatest artists" trick.

FRESHMEN #2: If you want to read D.P. 7 by somebody who hasn't mastered the verbal-visual blend of comics, this is for you. For what's essentially a comedy superhero book, there's a boggling amount of exposition (yes, I know that's part of the talking beaver's shtick) and I'm just not engaged with the characters particularly. So, pretty much an Eh through and through.

GREEN LANTERN #4: Oh, Comics Code Authority, whatever has become of you? You're right there on the cover, and yet we've got an impressively gruesome (and gratuitous) final page. Van Sciver's art kicks the book out of its doldrums all right, but the book went from boring to icky without addressing any of the title's larger troubles. For all the "look at how awesome Hal is!" scenes, he's kind of like the superhero equivalent of Fonzie—he just stands around looking cool until somebody comes to him with a problem. (Hey, maybe he can jump over Tiger Shark next issue!) OK because it wasn't dull, but it's still not frying my burger.

JLA CLASSIFIED #11: Liked it more than last issue, although it's very oddly paced—a part of Paradise Island blows up on page 1, and by page 22, Wonder Woman's hasn't done anything other than fly around, while the people shown tumbling about in the conflagration have conveniently disappeared. The Batman panel was nice, and the Superman scenes were very well-done, but I can't tell whether this is dragging because Ellis is inexperienced with superheroes, or because he wants to savvily fill out the story arc—it's either OK or Eh depending on how cynically you want to approach it.

NEW AVENGERS #9: I liked this because I'm a real sucker for playful metacommentary and Bendis pushed it more than I expected. (Emma Frost asking why the Kirby origin panels looked the way they did, did a number on me in a good way.) And McNiven's art was very cool in some spots—I loved how different the scene with Mastermind seemed. I still don't really care about The Sentry, but I thought this was the first Good issue of the title. Go figure.

POWERS #12: Read a little fast and loose, mainly because they took the time to set up the story-within-story format to justify two different styles and then Bendis had to bail on his end of the art. But they keep tightening the screws on the characters, bit by bit, and it's a lot of fun. For all the extra content at only a dollar extra, I'd consider this is a Very Good value (even though the celebrity guest star letters column felt cruel and plodding rather than actually funny).

SEVEN SOLDIERS SHINING KNIGHT #4: Gorgeous looking, but I thought it was, at best, a big ol' freakin' mess, like Morrison took his outline for a six issue mini and haphazardly jammed it into four. It also was more than sufficiently creepy, but it had nothing uplifting as counterpoint—like watching the ugly stretches of the movie Excalibur over and over. I shouldn't give it Awful because the art was really, really nice, but I didn't like the mini much at all and I'm trying to be consistent.

SUPREME POWER #18: I would have liked a little more surprise to this—for one thing, it's kind of a standard comic book trope that once people find out a superhero is an "other," they shy in fear, but would you really? I mean, if I was in New Orleans, say, and stuck and dehydrated and starving and surrounded by dead bodies and human waste, would I really flip out if I was rescued by a guy who was an alien from outer space? Or would I suddenly become much more forgiving of cattle mutilating maybe even pro-abduction and anal probing? That, and JMS' stately pace made me feel like I'd read the entire comic before I was even two pages in, and I guess that bumps it down to a high OK.

WHA HUH: There's some really funny stuff here, and if it had come out in that same fifth week, it would have felt hilariously slapdash. But, legal issues aside, after a seven month delay it read as if nobody but Jim Mahfood gave a crap about crafting it. And as much as I like Mahfood and feel he should be given lots of money, variety on the part of the artists would have mitigated that feeling. Eh at best.

YOUNG AVENGERS #6: Time travel stuff made no sense, but I really enjoyed the characters and their interplay. I didn't think this would turn out to be one my favorite Marvel books but at this point, it is. Hope the second arc is as strong as the first. Very Good.

PICK OF THE WEEK: In fact, let's make Young Avengers #6 my pick of the week although keep in mind there's a shitload of books I didn't read. Good ol' Usagi Yojimbo might have blown it out of the water and I wouldn't know.

PICK OF THE WEAK: Seven Soldiers Shining Knight #4 because I expect more from Morrison and it's a darn shame to have so much good art used for such a clusterfuck of a story.

TRADE PICK OF THE WEEK: Maybe it's because of the impending nuptials, or because I'm a big ol' girl generally, but I loved Minoru Toyoda's Love Roma Vol. 1. Although Del Rey's opening notes on honorifics was pretty basic, it helped position Toyoda's story exactly right—this is a romantic comedy that gets its laughs from the guy’s obliviousness to social conventions. It’s got a more open, looser feel than some of the other manga I’ve read, but mainly I just like how goddam sweet it is. Charming as hell. If you’re looking for the other end of the spectrum, check out the new printing of Clowes’ Like A Velvet Glove Cast In Iron TPB which was supposed to be out this week (I didn’t see a copy at the shop but it may well have sold out by Friday). Although Clowes has gone on to really develop his chops since, Velvet Glove should still have enough nightmarish kick to knock you through a couple of doors. Good stuff.

Hibbs' 8/17 & 8/24 reviews

So, I'm borrowing a laptop to write this -- not sure if I have all the setting right, so if this is late, well that's why. As Jeff mentioned, he's getting married next month; and I? Well, I'm crazy swamped between the last of the Settlement stuff, working with ComicsPRO (www.comicspro.org), and a couple of things I'm not going to tell you about right now (I'll tell you when I'm done)

What does this mean? That September is going to be a very thin month for posting on this here blog. Like, I-might-not-even-getting-the-shipping-lists-up-for-the-next-few-weeks thin.

On the other hand, when Jeff and I come back to it, we'll be tanned, rested and ready, and our (my!) post counts should be going up.

Ben continues to be the light of my life, and the bane of my "free time", but mostly in a good way. I took him to the Renaissance Faire in Golden Gate park this weekend (sffaire.com), and we had an amazing blast. We saw a Punch & Judy show, and scenes from Midsummer's Night Dream, and a joust, and acrobats, and a blacksmith, and a Drum Circle and wandering minstrels, and all kinds of wonderful stuff, and Ben seemed pretty captivated by it all. He also participated in as much of it as he could -- wandering into the Drum circle and forcing his way into playing, that kind of thing, as 2 year olds are wont to do. The really nice part was we went on a slow Sunday morning, so there were like 200 "actors", and maybe 50 normal people -- which meant people could be patient with Ben, since there wasn't much else to do.

Normally a music class or a swimming class or whatever costs like $10-15 for an hour (or less) -- $15 here got me nearly 4 hours of worked-for-Ben entertainment, so, bonus! I hope they continue the Faire in GG park -- it's a nice spot for it (much better than driving 90 minutes to the dust-chocked field in Novato where the "real" RenFaire gets held)

Funny thing though, and maybe it was just because it was the end of the day and he was getting tired and cranky, but Ben kinda freaked twice. Once was during the Midsummer's Night Dream scene, because I think he got scared by how much the Puck was overacting; the other time was during one of the juggling shows, and the performers were being so frantic and shouty, that I think Ben thought they were trying to hurt each other. He was getting so cryish about it that one of the performers actually came down from the stage to reassure Ben that they were just fooling around. I hate being one of "those parents" with a squally brat, but sometimes you got to let them cry and work things out on their own I believe.

Anyway, for some reviews, just skimming off the top of the last two weeks, let's start with 8/17 books:

BIRDS OF PREY #85: I can't say that I am the biggest fan of THE KILLING JOKE. To a certain extent, it is the darker half of WATCHMEN -- all of the grim, and not enough of the hope. If it hadn't been for the crippling of Babs Gordon, I don't know that any of us would really remember it today. Certainly that last "joke" isn't especially funny. But, it happened. I don't much like reversing out major events like that. So, I have some trepidation from this issue of BoP where there's every indication that Gail Simone is trying to reverse that action -- all the while using some crazy pseudo-science thing, when all of the other "more natural to the DCU" crazy pseudo-science was being happily ignored. Maybe there's someplace deeper this is going, I suppose we can trust Gail, but keeping Babs'status quo was good for 2 reasons: 1) it showed that there WERE ramifications to stories, and, probably more importantly, 2) that it gave the DCU a handicapped character who was shown to be both competent and heroic. Losing that, I feel, leaves the DCU a weaker place, far more than bringing back everyone's favorite redhead crime-fighter (dude, I had SUCH a thing for Yvonne Craig when I was 8). Like I said, maybe Gail is going somewhere different than that, but I don't want my Babs being able to walk around and unravelling all of that. As a single comics this was on the high side of OK.

QUEEN BEE SC: Chynna Clugston's new series (?) for Scolastic's Graphix imprint begins here... and, huh, it pretty much sucked. Every trite high-school device is on display here, and as Lester noted, the first 20 pages (or whatever) are all Tell, Tell, Tell, with no show. I literally groaned out loud when it got to the "locket of my long lost sister" because that couldn't have been more blatent and obvious within the story. I suppose if you're 12 years old and you've never read any of these trite clichés before, you might like this -- Chynna's art is certainly energetic and pretty, "American manga" without being too off putting to a western reader -- but if you've ever read any fiction ever, anywhere, of any kind, you can recite EVERYthing that will happen, and all of the "very special lessons" that characters learn, just like rote. AWFUL.

ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN ANNUAL #1: Yeah, the pairing of (young) Peter and Kitty makes a lot of sense -- that was pretty sweet and touching and clumsy and nice, and I thought it was a really enjoyable read.... even without Bagely. I don't know that I'd like that to be a permanent thing, but, for the moment I liked it a lot. VERY GOOD, and was my PICK OF THE WEEK for 8/17 comics.

My BOOK/TP of the week for the 8/17 books was RABBI'S CAT. What a nice little book. Too bad that neither Last Gasp nor Cold Cut seems to be carrying it, whcih means I am stuck with Diamond.... who is out of stock. Gotta love books that can't be stocked, but rock that much. QUEEN BEE will be my PICK OF THE WEAK.

For 8/24 books, here is what I have to say:

ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN #643: On the one hand, if you're reading OMAC, etc., at least half of this issue was a massive fucking waste, narratively speaking -- just recapping everything already said before. But, actually, it turned out to be... well, not clever per se, but an interesting issue balanced against 8/31s WONDER WOMAN #220, which does the other side flip. Plus, I'm going to go an assume that someone figured it out, and that this would end up as the first issue in the 4th trade of Rucka's run, and so, it works fairly well if that's going to be the case. I don't buy the angst and the reactions, though, but then I'm just a big fucking sourpuss, I guess. OK.

BATMAN #644: This is my new working theory: everyone working on Batman right now secretly hate the character, and are doing everything they possibly can to get the book(s) cancelled. How else can you possibly explain this kind of out-of-left-field, out-of-character inanity? I mean, there's no terms that this can possibly work -- the plan is to kill off a child to get Batman to stop being Batman? Huh, that sure worked when it was Jason Todd, right? Like, Jeff Lester, I am waiting for the big reveal when they show it was Jim Gordon who was Hush all along, right? That's the next inevitable step, right? Then Tim Drake will get sent back in time to become Joe Chill, sure. I mean, what the fuck? The only thing we can possibly hope is that we'll get a HOUSE OF M crossover, and a white-burst can wipe this all away from continuity, forever. Pure CRAP. ["Retail Intelligence" note: sales of BATMAN have dropped down (about 1/3) to DETECTIVE sales for this storyline, rather than DETECTIVE rising up to match BATMAN.]

DAY OF VENGEANCE #5: I was going along with it thinking that maybe this was a "new" Nightshade or something... and then it referenced the Suicide Squad stuff, and I was all, BLAM, "Uh, no that's not the same character". Same thing with the portrayal of the Spectre -- that's NOT how moonface works, based on any of his own comics. The characters were so far off characterization, that I really disliked this issue intently. AWFUL.

INVINCIBLE #25: Normally the anniversary issue should be the "something big happens" issue.... but that doesn't mean just in the cliffhanger. Something big should happen in the course of the story. And, while I'm sure that seeing his childhood hero is all kinds of intense for Mark, it's pretty jaw droppingly dull for the audience -- we have no emotional connection to the occasionally-mentioned fiction inside the fiction. So, for the price and all, and I was pretty non-plussed by this issue. EH.

JACK CROSS #1: "Now Terror Has Something to Fear"? How does terror fear? Wouldn't that be like "Now Pain Has Stubbed Its Toe"? Unobjectionable start to this new series, but it's also pretty uninspired, and I never have liked Erskine's art very much. I was also shocked by just for violent it was, being a "DC logo" book. I felt the same thing about the end of this week's GREEN LANTERN #4. I'd rather than level of gore was kept to other imprints, honestly. This issue was OK.

OMAC PROJECT #5: The 1.3 million OMACs roughly matches the number of metahumans Max mentioned to Beetle in Countdown, by the way. Unstoppable menace, Deux Ex Sasha, that about covers it, right? She sure smells like Harbinger II, don't she, though? Still, if you take it for what it is, rather than what it is not, I thought this was adequately done and is somewhere on the low side of GOOD.

TEEN TITANS #27: I just give you some Retail Intelligence, and leave it at that: Our first-weekend sell through is probably just over half of what it normally is. If DC had a Marvel-style FOC system, I'd be cutting next issue waaaaaaaaay back.

I don't really have a PICK OF THE WEEK for this week -- other than our best-reviewed OMAC PROJECT #5, I also thought the not reviewed WALKING DEAD #21, but neither of those are exatly ringing endorsements, are they?

PICK OF THE WEAK for 8/24 is easy: BATMAN #644

BOOK / TP for 8/24... huh, well best I can do ya is probably one of 2 reprint books: HANK KETCHAMS COMPLETE DENNISTHE MENACE 1951-1952 HC or LITTLE LULU VOL 5 LULU IN THEDOGHOUSE TP. Nothing less than 40 years old though, I am afraid.

So, I know, I don't post in near a month and that's the best I can give you, huh?

I'm going to *try* to squeeze 8/31 in as soon as I get enough comics read.

What did you think?

-B

The Timer is Running: Jeff's Reviews of 8/24 Books.

Dude. I’m getting married in three weeks! What does this mean for you, the SavCrit blog reader? Mainly, it means you should go see One Night in Mongkok at the Presidio Theatre because I can’t. Yes, my busy schedule means you must overcompensate for me, because that’s the kind of dysfunctional shell game I’m running here. Also, it means that you’ll be getting reviews from me of the 8/31 books and maybe the 9/8 books and then I’ll be offline until mid-October. Since I can’t speak for Hibbs even a little, it may mean the site will lay fallow for a little while or, alternatively, maybe it won’t. But at least your eyes will get a break from all these red letters for a bit.

Which is why you should go see One Night in Mongkok—to celebrate!

As for the comix, I’m still a few books short (picked up that gorgeous looking Rocketo from last week but haven’t read it or Conan yet) but here’s what I thought about:

ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN #643: I know Rucka was trying for something different, but Superman sorta came across as “Wait a minute, you can’t kill someone in cold blood! Hot blood? Sure! But cold-blooded murder? That’s inhuman!” I feel the weight of the plot hammer about to drop again… OK.

ANT #1: I’m a fool. As if the cover wasn’t bad enough, the “Dedicated to Todd McFarlane,” really should have given things away. This has McF’s “tell, tell, tell, until you get to the fight scene and then show, show, show” storytelling all over it, overwrought and intellectually desolate. It’s like early era Image all over again. Even supervillain mimes couldn’t save this one. Awful, more or less.

BANANA SUNDAY #2: I thought this was great. It’s like Coover and “Nibot” have reinvented Harvey Comics all over again—perfectly cartooned characters given perfect comic obsessions—except there’s extra wit in the dialogue, to boot. I hope they can sustain this long enough to get collections into the kids’ market. For an enjoyable all-ages (mostly--there's a bit of sexy talk) read, this is in the upper echelons of Very Good.

BATMAN #644: I’m a little late to the Internet garment-rending party, but I wholeheartedly agree with it. This was an intensely stupid story, all the moreso because it pointlessly wrecks a perfectly good character for no reason other than to sell a few more books. Hibbs went on about this at great lengths on Friday, so I bet you’ll see a review on Tuesday, and I’ll save all the good points for him. What I will say, since the Bat-team is so set on trying to create a working Millerish version of Batman but have only managed to catch the unlikeable asshat part: it’s not the media riffs; it’s not the sadistic villains; and it’s not the snark. Miller’s Batman only works if traditional positions of authority are irredeemably corrupt, either in the government (Dark Knight Returns) or the police force (Batman: Year One). Otherwise he just seems like a churlish dickhead. I’m going right to the Crap end of the scale here, because of the sheer waste involved. Very sad.

BLACK PANTHER #7: Yummy art plus a guest-star ass-kicker on the last few pages made this a highly OK read. Won’t make you swoon, but good art does go a long way, doesn’t it?

DAREDEVIL #76: Like Black Panther #7 only better: Alex Maleev’s art has improved so much during his run on this title, it’s daunting. It was able to sell me on the story even though I found myself a bit emotionally detached. It may be because I know this is the last (or, uh, next to last?) Bendis/Maleev storyline and I don’t feel like any of the Murdock-as-Kingpin material got explored at all (another reason the ninja demon baby storyline left me a little nonplussed). But I’d call it Good.

DAREDEVIL VS PUNISHER #3: Nice action setpieces, but the Stray Bullet type sequences and the superhero punch-‘em-ups are awkwardly jammed together. Hopefully, they cohere down the road in some other way than the villain-grabs-the-family-Frank-Castle-seems-emotionally-invested-in route one would expect. OK.

DAY OF VENGEANCE #5: Again, hopefully a book Hibbs will cover because he had some pretty sound points about its weaknesses. Me, I didn’t like any of it, really, but didn’t hate any of it either. Eh.

FANTASTIC FOUR #530: About as thin as the skin on a grape, but as a by-the-numbers FF story that lazily attempts to throw a bit more into the mix, OK.

HULK DESTRUCTION #2: Much better than last issue, in part because another artist does a lot of the flashback sequences. And David’s script is clever although, of course, occasionally too clever. A drastic improvement over the last issue (even with a page of dropped dialogue), but still only Eh, sadly.

JACK CROSS #1: Good setup and really keen art—in fact, the body language in the interrogation sequence was great. The main character is maybe a little underdeveloped for a first issue and I didn’t put this down feeling anything was particularly at stake, either for him or generally, but the talent involved guaranteed I’ll be back next issue to see if/how that changes. Good.

JSA CLASSIFIED #2: Without Amanda Conner’s art (and Johns loosening up his scripting style for the art) this really could have been a bore. But thanks to some terrific cartooning from Conner and the promise of a larger “I’s will be dotted!! T’s will be crossed!” payoff, I found this pretty Good.

LEGION OF SUPER HEROES #9: The art wasn’t terrible or anything, but without Kitson’s very clean pencils, I find myself overwhelmed by all the narrative detail. In short, I gave up about five pages in and didn’t finish it, so No Rating.

MARVEL KNIGHTS SPIDER-MAN #17: I think I’d rather read an FF book by Hudlin than a Spider-Man book—those scenes struck me as not bad at all. Eh.

MEGA MORPHS #2: If you want to break your brain, try to imagine a giant robot Spider-Man swinging on a web. From trees. My hats off to the creative team if they actually completed this job while sober. So hilariously Awful, I kinda enjoyed it.

OMAC PROJECT #5: So Batman’s ex-girlfriend is the new DC Deathlok? The idea of it makes me feel like Marcello at the end of La Dolce Vita: jaded, tired, cruel. A very low Eh, unless Sasha turns out to conveniently be the resolution to this issue’s cliffhanger, in which case I’ll retroactively drop it down to Awful.

SIMPSONS COMICS #109: Would ya believe it’s been almost two years since I’ve seen an episode of The Simpsons? So I may not be the best judge of these things any more, but I thought this was pretty damn funny. Why hasn’t anyone hired Ian Boothby to, I don’t know, ruin the Batbooks or something? Shouldn't work this good generate more work? Very Good.

TEEN TITANS #27: “And this is just my day job.” Oh, how that sloppy, awkward first page made me laugh and laugh and laugh. Hiring Rob Liefeld to draw comics is like hiring Mike Milken to manage your retirement funds, and yet it still happens. God bless you, comics! Awful.

WALKING DEAD #21: The ending more or less fizzled, but I actually preferred that to another “Dear God! Yet another surprise murder!” This book still has me hooked. Very Good.

WOLVERINE #31: As the Bard said, there’s a thin line between clever and stupid, and the end to the big fight struck precisely the right balance with me. The final pages seemed like a padded afterthought, but this was a satisfying wrap-up to a big, enjoyably dumb epic overall. Good.

PICK OF THE WEEK: Banana Sunday #2, because it was just a fun little read, and I’m a sucker for monkeys.

PICK OF THE WEAK: Not even close: Batman #644 stank up the joint, screwed the pooch, and broke a useful and important part of the Batman mythos. Yay, team!

TRADE PICK: Iron Wok Jan, Vol. 12. It’s been such a long time since the last volume, it took me a while to get into this. But around the time the demented Richie Rich character drove up two massive kitchen RVs so he and Jan could have a cooking streetfight, I was in love all over again.

Something Hasty Is The Soul of Something Funny? Reviews of 8/17/05

Blah, blah, blah, busy…yadda, yadda, newsletter…yak, yak, yak, not nearly as many comics, etc.: Oh, and new Tilting from Hibbs.

BALLAST ONE SHOT: On the plus side, this was a strong enough issue that I want to read issue #2. On the minus side, this is solicited as a one-shot, so who knows when we’ll see issue #2? As a hook to a series (a brutal hitman finds himself forced to do the Lord’s work), it’s very enjoyable. As a one-shot, it’s the first chapter of a book sold as a self-contained story. Which it’s not. So, as the latter, Eh.

BATGIRL #67: Except for the apparently-standard “let me greet you by trying to kick your head off” scene, I liked this. The Bat-family has become a confoundingly large constellation of individuals, but there are times when that pays off, like in the scenes between Barbara and Cassandra here. Exasperations with previous parts of the storyline keep me from rating this Good, so let’s go with a very high OK.

BATMAN JOURNEY INTO KNIGHT #1: Tan Eng Huat’s work is a little more subdued than I remember it, but it suits the story well, and by setting the story early in Batman’s career, Helfer’s witty dialogue doesn’t cut against the grain of the milieu as much as it might. Not a showstopper, but a relatively enjoyable read. Also a high OK.

BIRDS OF PREY #85: The team on this clicks more and more each issue, and I thought this ish was a particularly good read…while I was reading it. But afterward, I felt like it didn’t hold together very well. What’s the point in having a fight with honor if you’re going to cheat? For that matter, if you’re going to cheat, why don’t you just have your buddy Green Lantern come by and sweep all your vicious killer opponents to jail? (A point reinforced by all the superheroes on every other page of the book.) Rather than go for the conflicted Good, lemme once again chicken out with a high OK.

DEFENDERS #2: Although it’s got pages and pages of witty banter, there’s still the sense that something is at stake here and I appreciate that. And if you had to pick a team to turn into a bunch of self-absorbed bickerers, the original Defenders is a pretty good choice. I wouldn’t want every book on the stands to read like it, but I’d call this Good if you have a fondness for the characters.

DETECTIVE COMICS #810: If you were the new crime lord of Gotham, would you dress up as Batman to try and discredit him? I failed my saving throw against suspension of disbelief. Toss in a back-up story gruesome enough to make me search the book for a comics code seal (did DC abandon that, too?) and I guess I’d call this Awful.

GI JOE SNAKE-EYES DECLASSIFIED #1: I read this because, although I have a slight fondness for Snake-Eyes, I don’t really have any sort of emotional investment: hell, make him a former loud-mouthed draft dodger turned silent ninja type if you want, I don’t care. But although the script here avoids any such dynamic reversals, it seems pretty lacking in any dynamism whatsoever. As was the case with Boba Fett, some silent types are better off without any origin whatsoever. Eh.

GIRLS #4: I guess I’m just going to have to accept I’m not getting what I want from this mini and move on. I admire the Luna Brothers for trying something so different from their last project but, four issues in, it reads like a topless version of Gremlins. If something particularly interesting comes from this, I might write about it again, otherwise this disconsolate Eh will probably be my last word on the subject.

GODLAND #2: Making the bad guy a cosmic druggie was funny and, as with last issue, that Kirbyish art really scratched an itch. My hope is the creators can walk that fine line between having fun with the material and making fun of the material. Good.

GREEN LANTERN #3: It’s got explosions and robots and fighter jets and deadlines and superheroes robbed of their powers…so why so dull? Maybe it’s not, maybe it’s just me. But the issue felt less than organic, as if Johns had carefully constructed it to correct for years and years of “wuss Hal.” And there’s nothing wrong with careful construction, Lord knows, but it felt so calculated as to be pat, and pretty unengaging. For me, anyway, this was in the lowish OK range.

LEX LUTHOR MAN OF STEEL #5: Some of the art on this miniseries was terrific and I appreciated that Azzarello’s wordplay strove to do more than call attention to its own cleverness…but I was also pretty lost a good chunk of the time: do the events in the miniseries allude to other Superman stories? Because they seem so heavily truncated as to not stand on their own here, which gave this issue, in particular, a very “glass half-empty” feel. Despite all the talent, I’ll go with Eh.

LIVEWIRES #6: I guess I should feel pleased with myself for figuring out where Warren was going with this ahead of time, but instead it just kinda points out how lackluster the whole miniseries has been. Clever and had lots of the ol’ splodey, but the emotional side of it didn’t work and the end just kinda lies there like a sick dog. Maybe it’ll read great as a trade, but it was a very disappointing Eh to me.

SEVEN SOLDIERS KLARION THE WITCH BOY #3: Ahhhh. That’s the stuff. This issue read like, I dunno, a Goth version of Disney’s Pinocchio or something, and I thought it was great. Nothing more to say here but Very Good.

TOP TEN BEYOND THE FARTHEST PRECINCT #1: Unfortunately, my artsy-fartsy lit snob thing will doubtlessly cloud my critical judgment here: any writer who’s gonna use the first sentence of Gravity’s Rainbow as an issue title is going to get something like a free pass from me. True, it’s not as deep as the first mini, but Ordway does a great job planting all those lovely visual puns in every panel, De Filippo has smarts and wit to spare, and I was happy to see these characters again—I’m fond of them. There’s some real problems with storytelling—confusion as to who’s speaking and the transitions between scenes in particular—but nothing critical. I liked this a lot more than I thought I would, errors and all. Good.

ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN ANNUAL #1: Dang, I totally forgot to read this at the store. Was it any good?

PICK OF THE WEEK: No reason you should take my word for it since I read so little, but Seven Soldiers Klarion The Witch Boy #3 was the best of the batch as far as I’m concerned.

PICK OF THE WEAK: Unsurprisingly, Detective Comics #810. “Gee, Al, that Elliott Ness is really hot on your trail!” “You’re right, Johnny! I better dress up like him and discredit him! Much easier than getting you to do it!”

TRADE OF THE WEEK: Would that it would have been Chynna Clugston’s Queen Bee, but I thought the first 30 pages or so were so amateurish (wayyyyyyyy too much telling, not nearly enough showing) I was really disappointed—I’m assuming there were deadline problems or something because this wasn’t up to Clugston’s usual standard of work at all.

It didn’t come out this week, but I took home the ineffably strange Pure Trance by Junko Mizuno. It is blowing my tiny mind.

Greetings From Lake McLatey: Some Reviews of 08/10 Books....

I am running behind. As I think I mentioned in a previous post or two, I did not read a lot of comix Friday. In fact, when planning out this entry yesterday at lunch, I realized that there were books I still hadn't read, despite the fact I had, you know, bought 'em and stuff. So up I was at the crack of dawn...to read comix. The following reviews are probably tilted toward the "Ooo, look pretty" side of the spectrum as a result. Unless I read them on Friday, in which case there will be a distinct "Uhhh...what happened again?" bias. This is comic book reviewing as it is meant to be practiced, my friends: hastily and inadequately. Let's hop to.

ACTION COMICS #830: I liked that classic cover, and having Dr. Psycho run around calling himself Nietzsche was very fun (having Byrne draw him as a pint-sized version was even more fun). Fun banter, fun ideas, fun, fun, fun. Of course, you have to be reading at least four other comics to be enjoying any of the fun, but that's pretty much the way with DC these days, isn't it? If you're plugged in to all the DC x-overs, you'll also find it Good.

BATMAN #643: For a few minutes, this book had me deeply embarrassed: had all my bitching about Batman being out of character in last week's Detective been in vain? Had that really been the actions of the duplicate Batman found on the first few pages of this book and I'd fallen for a switcheroo? After re-reading Detective, I decided I had not been fooled and the whole second Batman stuff was just Bill Willingham deciding that the storyline wasn't chaotic enough in the first place. Anyway, after that, I don't remember much of anything (it's a Friday book, can you tell?) except the Alfred-Batman batcave dialogue felt especially strained (it must be tough writing variations on the same scene over and over and over), something like, "You know, Master Bruce, maybe if you weren't being such a passive-aggressive dickhead..." "Alfred, when I want your opinion, I'll give it to you. Old Friend." Infinite Crisis better change something up, or these scenes are going to read like Glengarry Glen Batcave in about six months. Eh.

GRAVITY #3: Ah yes, the issue where our young hero grows disillusioned and turns his back on superheroing except, oddly, I found myself hoping that he continues to stay gone and this turns into a very lovely little Felicity-style romance comic. I'm much more interested in the characters than the bang-and-smash. OK.

GREEN ARROW #53: Yay, it's Bill Messner-Loebs writing! Unfortunately, it was really boring. But! That should not stop the DC editors from giving the man more work. If nothing else, I enjoyed this more than Batman #643. Put the guy back on Flash or something. Eh.

HAWKMAN #43: I think I know where this story is going, but that's not a bad thing: if it was running directly in the direction it seemed to be, I'd be pretty cranky and annoyed. Still, since this title tends to suffer from "Why am I reading this, again?" syndrome (and has since before the current creative team started in), I'm not sure if people are going to hang out and wait to see how it all pans out. OK.

HOUSE OF M #5: Hibbs quite liked this, and I really didn't. Admittedly, part of me not liking it was predicated on forgetting this was an eight issue mini, and getting annoyed that five issues had been spent gathering the heroes and next issue was the big wrap up (and then being very embarrassed once Hibbs corrected me). It's OK, I guess, but I almost found myself wishing the heroes were actually split on their course of action--someone like Spider-Man choosing to fight to protect Magneto would actually be kind of justified here--even though the part I liked most about this issue was the lack of hesitation in the heroes deciding to do what was right.

INCREDIBLE HULK #85: The art on this looked almost coloring-book crude at some points. It's still a fun little read, if I remember correctly. A high OK.

IRON MAN #4: If this had come out all at once as an OGN, I might be shitting myself over its coolness. But there's just not enough of it to be sure, and it doesn't feel like a substantial enough read on its own. Low side of Eh.

JLA #117: Anyone else feel like there's some sort of bait-and-switch going on here? On the cover: "This issue, Superman finds out!" Inside: "No, I knew that already. Batman told me." Just think if they had approached the Silver Age books that way: "This issue, A Story You Never Thought You'd Read: Lex Luthor Joins The Justice League!" And inside: "Hmmm. Lex Luthor's mail keeps getting delivered to Justice League headquarters. We'll have to speak to the postman about that. Now, back to that freaky Star Sapphire chick..." Eh.

MEGA MORPHS #1: You know, if one does pick up the first issue of a "Marvel Super Heroes in Giant Robots fighting Marvel Super Villains in Giant Robots" comic, the main thing you want to know is: how and why did they get in those damn giant robots? And when the answer is an editor's note saying, "See the six issues packed in the Mega Morph toys on sale now!" The whole endeavor brutally crashes and burns below even the already lowered expectations one had set. Sean McKeever does his best though (in fact, tries a little too hard in places) and, merch screwing aside, I guess you could say this was OK for what it was. But factor in the "to get the complete story, spend an extra thirty bucks on the toys" and I'll drop it down to Awful.

NIGHTWING #111: The Shrew did a spot-on review of Nightwing #109 a while back and it really nails why this arc isn't working. It's not just the whole Dick-Grayson-going-undercover-as-Dick-Grayson thing (although that really, really makes this all pretty nonsensical), it's that, as The Shrew wittily put it, everyone wants Dick. It's taken as a priori by the writer, to the point where a sixteen year old Mafia princess is writing love letters to Nightwing, and breaking pictures of his girlfriend and, and...huh? I don't mind romantic melodrama--I very much liked the little triangle between Nightwing and Batgirl and Dick's police partner--but there was no development here, just us being told over and over that Sophia (or, uh, Sonia?) loves him, and being shown over and over that she loves him, but never being shown, you know, why. And we'll never get shown, of course, because of that whole a priori thing. In a perfect world, Devin Grayson would be writing volumes of Nightwing manga for CMX and get the time and the space to develop the romantic melodrama as fully as she wants (and, with manga, the tools to convey sudden infatuation), but Nightwing #111 shows that we are a long, long way from a perfect world. A low Eh.

SEVEN SOLDIERS ZATANNA #3: G-Mo throws in a few oblique references to the whole Identity Crisis fiasco, but even more impressively, weaves the story here even more closely to the stories in his other Seven Soldiers tales (and maybe his JLA: Classified story? I can't quite tell.) without making it imperative to know those stories for it to have an effect. Admittedly, part of the way he succeeds in doing that is by making each of the Seven Soldiers minis very episodic, strewn with casual wonders, so no piece seems more important than any other, but I still like it much more than, say, The OMAC Project approach. This mini has been very slow to click with me (and next issue is the last?) but I really enjoyed this issue a lot. A very high OK.

SHANNA THE SHE DEVIL #7: Oh, that ending was a big pile of lame chickenshit. "And after that, they all lived happily ever after, in their diseased, dinosaur-trodden Nazi-infested hidden land. The End." LAME. And Awful.

SUPERGIRL #1: What impresses me about Jeph Loeb is that once he sets out to do something, he doesn't let a little thing like doing it well get in his way. An introductory issue that's almost twenty-two pages of non-stop fighting, with guest stars, and also a summation of Supergirl's origin and major conflicts, along with a developing subplot? No problem! Just throw in malfunctioning powers, the entire JSA trying to stop Solomon Grundy from beating up a forest, don't explain a thing, and voila! Instant collectors' item! I thought it lacked that mysterious fun factor Superman/Batman usually has, but that could be because the formula seemed pretty blatant and because this worked harder to be "serious." Eh.

TRUE STORY SWEAR TO GOD #14: Hmm. I enjoyed this quite a lot, and thought it was a perfect capper to the plot of Tom being unhappy in P.R. And yet, I have to admit, I totally skimmed Lili's final speech, presented as it was in thick blocks of text. The fact the issue worked for me even though I didn't bother with the emotional climax of the story is potentially troubling, I think, but I can't get my tired little brain to parse out why. Good.

ULTIMATES ANNUAL #1: Quite smartly, Millar treats this as just an extra issue of Ultimates with the smallest number of pages utilized to make it seem like a stand-alone story as possible. Steve Dillon isn't nearly as good as Hitch with the widescreen action, but he fakes it okay. Good.

ULTIMATE FANTASTIC FOUR #22: Oh, Mark. The fake-out was pretty good, but the whole "superheroes-turned-into-vampire-zombies-from-outer-space"? Did Mansquito not lend itself to easy comic book cut and pasting? Very disappointing. Eh.

VILLAINS UNITED #4: Again, Simone's Dr. Psycho for the win. I can't say I was too overwhelmed by anything else here, other than the realization that the Clown is a guy. I don't know why I thought the Clown was a chick but that shows you how keen my reading skills are. OK.

PICK OF THE WEEK: Geez, I dunno. Ultimates Annual #1?

PICK OF THE WEAK: Shanna #7. If I never read the oath "Holy Buckets!" again, it will be one day too soon.

TRADE OF THE WEEK: Remember that promised essay about Alex Robinson's Tricked? This will not be it. Damn shame too, since Tricked, perhaps even more than Box Office Poison, really challenges my perception of what I want from a graphic novel. Until I do write that essay (and it's gonna be a while since I've got the newsletter hanging over my head this week), why don't I just go with Finder, Vol. 7: The Rescuers? I just cracked it open this morning, but I'm already swoony with affection for it.

Reviews of 8/3 stuff

It has been a crazy week – lots of it revolving around Ben (We need some more recent pics up, don’t we? One more thing to add to the “To Do” list!) His language skills seem to have doubled this week – not only is he starting to assay 3 syllable words, he’s also starting stringing words together to form simple sentences – “Bye bye, momma!” or “Airplane fly!”. He even busted out with a string of “Ub bub wa so-hi!”, which of course, is “Up above the world so high” from Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. So, something is clearly cooking in his head, which is probably why he’s suddenly decided he doesn’t need naps any longer. 2 days this week (and one last) he flatly refused to go nap. This is bad because 1) little guys need their sleep, and he gets progressive more insane and wonky as the day slips by, and 2) because, up until now we’re scheduled our day AROUND his naps – working when he’s asleep, planning when and where to go based on his sleep, and all of that is out of the window now.

I feel like we’re back to where he was when he was 3 months old, y’know? Trying desperately to eke out 5 minutes of work between his needs.

I honestly don’t understand how people with more than one kid handle it.

But, he’s a rocker, yes he is.

Anyway, back to Alpha-Smart on the counter, seeing what I can bang out before the truck shows up…

DETECTIVE COMICS #809: Part 1 of “War Crimes”, and, ouch, based on first week sales, it’s a bomb – less than a 50% sell through, owies. What’s worse is how totally, frustratingly they’ve screwed Batman into the ground. Now they’ve got him altering crime scenes to save his weaselly ass. I mean, what? I’m not a cop or a crime scene investigator or anything, and even I know that the wound patterns from a “batarang” are going to be different than that from a kitchen knife! So, here we have a Batman not only covering up something he didn’t do, but making it HARDER for the legitimate police to do a thing. Gah! This is just plain CRAP

GOTHAM CENTRAL #34: and so I really want to see these cops solve some crimes DESPITE Bat’s interference. I want to see them kick his damn ass for being a colossal fuck up. I really liked this issue, and the use of the primary colored characters in the muted-grey world of Gotham. As terrific as DETECTIVE is tragic. VERY GOOD.

AQUAMAN #33: I get hives anytime it swings back to Atlantis, so this wasn’t my favorite issue – although seeing Mera again is always nice. OK

BLOOD OF THE DEMON #6: I wonder if the series will last long enough to answer some of the questions it has been posing – we’re six issues into the “healing flames” thing, but it’s been noting but subplots so far. There’s a lotta jibber-jabber in here, and a sense that it isn’t actually happening in the same world as the rest of the “Infinite Crisis” stuff, but there are ideas and beats that I like quite a bit (like the bullet “eater”) Question, though: what happened to Jason’s hand magically regrowing with no comment? Did Byrne just forget? A strong OK

FIRESTORM #16: Seems like a nice way to get “the Professor” back into the mix while leaving things nicely open. As far as second-tier supers go, this is one of the better books on the stands these days. A low GOOD.

JSA #76: I’m getting super-sick of the “OMACs” showing up, not achieving anything, then bailing – such a lazy crutch yielding plenty of “Red Sky” action. Between the incessant crossing over and the unneeded spin off book, I’m giving serious consideration to personally dropping JSA. And I’ve been a JSA fan longer than some of you have been alive, living through the “No one wants to read about them” regimes at DC. Pretty meh stuff here – EH.

JUSTICE #1: Looks damn pretty (and sold like a MONSTER), but I was pretty bored by the half-an-issue of dream sequences. Knock-out looking, mediocre reading. A strong OK.

SERENITY #2: Yeah, big time fun here, even for people like me who have bare passing familiarity with the original. Selling stupidly well, too. Man, can you believe that Warp 1/Nathan Fillion flap? While I’m wholly against marking up “hot” comics for the short buck, I gotta tell you, anyone who tried the “Don’t you know who I am?!?” trick on me would be bounced out of my store right fucking quick. Also “I’ll never shop here again” is pretty meaningless if you’ve never shopped there BEFORE, just so you “Brownshirts” know. Just because someone is being an asshat, don’t give you the right to be an asshat on your own, dig me?

Shit, truck’s here…. No time to question the Soul-Vision ™ in Superman, or tell you just how fucking good TOP TEN; THE FORTY-NINERS is. That’s our PICK OF THE WEEK and GN/TP OF THE WEEK all rolled into one, and I don’t care if you think that is cheating!

Anyway, what did you think?

-B

Short, Cranky and Mildly Panderous: Jeff's Reviews of 08/03/05 Books.

First, let’s be clear on one thing: I freakin’ hate cling wrap and I hope the sonuvabitch who invented it is burning in a sizeable fiery pit right now. The only thing cling wrap is good for is sticking to cling wrap, and it’s only good for that when you don’t want it to do so (when you first tear it off the roll, for example). Otherwise, you can crease it against another piece of wrap all you want and have nothing to show for it except heightened blood pressure and a newly found compulsion to throw oneself out a window. I’m having a garage sale on Saturday the 13th, and I’m trying to make sets for it—like the sets Hibbs packages and sells at the store—and I thought I could save some time by just wrapping the books in cling wrap and tape. Sure, they’d look a little cheaper but it’d be much faster, right? In fact, they look horrible and I think it might actually take an undexterous idiot like me even longer because, damn it, I’m using cling wrap.

And, yes, this is my awkward way of advertising my garage sale, and I’ll continue to do so throughout the week, complete with address and everything: since nuptials are impending, I thought it’d be a good idea to try and clear out the stuff sitting around in storage, comix, graphic novels, sets (including a complete run of Grant Morrison’s Doom Patrol), PS2 games, DVDs (I know, those don’t take up much storage but a man’s got to have his loss leaders), and some lovely mint-on-card action figures from the days when I was also a psychotic toy hoarder. If you’re in the San Francisco area this Saturday the 13th and you wanted to buy some good stuff at very cheap prices, I hope you’d consider dropping by. A portion of the proceeds go to the Bernal Heights Neighborhood Center Senior Services Program, to boot.

Second, I didn’t read shit this weekend so reviews will be slight. It was just too busy on Friday, and I was a big ol’ boozed up shmoozer as a ton of people dropped by to hang out, and, as has been the case the last couple of weeks, the superhero mainstream just hasn’t interested me very much. Honestly, the first thing I sat down and read, in the morning while it was still quiet? Aaron McGruder’s new Boondocks collection, Public Enemy #2 (which, unsurprisingly, was awesome). And I kept telling myself that it was the clever cutting humor of Aaron McGruder that was keeping me from tackling all the week’s releases and I’d dig in a little later in the afternoon, but…the anecdotal evidence suggests I am on the opposite end of the spectrum with regard to DC and Marvel’s current output. Lots of people are happy with the product, and a lot of it seems to be flying off the shelves and yeah, okay, that’s a good thing. But will I bother to keep reading books (even for free on Fridays) if I don’t really care? Should I even post reviews here if that continues to be the case? Believe it or not, I don’t write these reviews merely to keep my snark finely honed.

So, in brief:

DETECTIVE COMICS #809: Oh, for fuck’s sake. One of the problems, I think, between die-hard fans and creators who work on mainstream superheroes is the dreaded “out of character” problem. If the fans see one of the main characters do something that doesn’t strike them as consistent, they’ll say “so-and-so is acting out of character.” The creators, should they choose to respond, might say something like, “Oh, no, no, no. This is entirely consistent with how I’ve portrayed the character for blank number of issues and is the center of the arc I’ve constructed for the character overall, and I even checked with the book’s editor who assured me it was fine, and, really, it’s the company’s character so if they approve it, it automatically is in character, right?” And then there’s either a flamewar or the die-hard fans go off to was their hands three hundred times and comb their hair for forty minutes, and the creators go off to eat their dinner of Cup of Noodles and hope the landlord doesn’t come ‘round trying to collect the rent again.

But I think we can all agree that Batman altering a crime scene to shift the blame from himself is out of character. And why? Because, if for no other reason, it wouldn’t work. Taking batarangs out of wounds and inserting knives instead? Changing the blood or paint smears so it doesn’t read ‘snitch’? Changing the chord the person was killed or hanged with? A crime scene technician is going to be able to tell the difference in a second. I can’t even believe anyone, in this day and age of CSI: Bandcamp, would think a general public could suspend disbelief for that.

Don’t get me wrong—I don’t think Batman would do it anyway, nor would he suddenly start blasting at bad guys with a shotgun—but at the very, most basic level, it’s just wrong and dumb, and that itself is out of character. I mean, really. Awful.

GOTHAM CENTRAL #34: This, by contrast, ended up reading like the freakin’ Aeneid. I love Kano’s take on Batman, the writing is smart and clever, and I didn’t have to clutch my head in pain at all. A high Good.

HIP FLASK MYSTERY CITY: God damn, I love Ladronn’s art: if there’s anyone who can get you to take a hippopotamus private eye seriously, it’s him. So this issue looks gorgeous, but does it go anywhere? In fact, it tries to go everywhere at once, which gives it the feeling of going nowhere. If it was being published with anything like regularity, and if I thought I’d be reading the next issue, say, a month from now instead of somewhere in 2006, that “everywhere at once” quality might work in its favor (something about its incoherence reminded me a little bit of Chandler). But as it stands now, it’s like a pricey stapled art portfolio with diaphanous word balloons. OK because, man, Ladronn’s art, man.

JSA #76: You know, for a page or two there, I thought we were gonna get something different than “OMAC flies off and disappears.” Nope. These OMACs have gotta be the greatest invention for superhero comic writers since the heydays of the bank robbers/muggers on page two. Actually, OMACs are even better since you don’t have to give them any personality whatsoever. To be fair, this was the most interesting OMAC fight I’ve seen yet, but that isn’t the glowing commendation I wish it was. OK.

JUSTICE #1: May be worth it just for the panel of Green Arrow standing defeated as the building he’s shot his cable arrow into collapses. “Hell.” “I love you, Green Arrow.” That was both hilarious and poignant in a way the rest of this wasn’t. It looks great, sure, but when half the issue is a dream sequence and half the issue is frickin’ Aquaman, it better, you know? It’s a great way to eyeball some Alex Ross art on the cheap, but I was kind of hoping he and Kreuger would also work some of the same magic they brought to Earth X. Oh, well. OK.

NEW AVENGERS #8: For some reason, this kind of reminded me of an M. Night Shyamalan movie: lovely looking, languorously paced. I’ve got some axes to grind but, compared to previous issues, they’re very, very small axes. I’ll say OK.

PVP #0: One the one hand, you can’t really complain about a fifty cent comic. But I do think Scott didn’t do himself any favors here—the strip selection seemed particularly haphazard, bits and pieces from continued storylines where the punchlines worked much better in context. There’s also a new piece, Skull’s origin story, that works much better but, again, only if you know the characters. A nice perk for established fans, I guess, but as an intro to new readers? Eh, at best.

SUPERMAN #220: So Superman can see people’s souls, eh? He has super-soulvision, does he? That is so stupid and wrong-headed I don’t know where to begin. I mean, how does he know that they are souls? What if what he’s seeing is the terrifying absence of a soul, a miasmatic aura that shows how human beings are separated from the unified soulfulness of an animistic universe? It’s one thing for a mystical hero like Raven to see Superboy’s soul. It’s another for Superman to have super-soulvision—it’s just unnecessary and dumb, like “check-balancing breath” and all those other useless powers strewn around in the Golden and Silver Ages. The rest of the issue was nothing to write home about, but super-soulvision? Oy. Awful.

ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #81: Not quite as strong as last issue, but a decent read nonetheless. I have to admit my memories of the issue are pretty dim, though: why were Ultimate Shang-Chi and Ultimate Iron Fist in the issue again? Good.

UNCANNY X-MEN #463: Unfortunately, no matter how drastically reality changes, characters written by Chris Claremont still read like characters written by Chris Claremont. Ugh. But Alan Davis art’s involved, so OK.

WILDSIDERZ #1 (OF 5): It’s great that J. Scott Campbell draws his influences from more than just superhero comics—unfortunately, those influences are toy commercials and Saved By The Bell episodes. Kinda sad because I can see how he might have ended up the next great Mad Magazine artist, but I’m sure the toy commercial/Saved by the Bell IP thing has a better chance of paying off big for him. Eh.

TRADE PICK: Lot of very nice stuff this week—I’m having a blast with DC’s Greatest Imaginary Stories, and I also plunked down the coin for the John Romita Sr. Visionaries HC which, for me, is worth it just for that beautifully recolored “Spider-Man No More!” page. And I already mentioned how much I liked Aaron McGruder’s new Boondocks collection, right?

But really, it’s all about Top Ten: The Forty-Niners OGN, which is a great read and well worth the pricey coin: it looks beautiful, it reads great, it has all sorts of bits and pieces that resonate with the first Top Ten miniseries, but it also stands on its own as a tour through a world of wonder and a journey of awakening. There’s a super-cynical part of me that wonders if DC/Wildstorm made this an OGN because the subject material made them uncomfortable and the higher price point would act as its own censor (this was clearly written as a four issue miniseries), but even if so, that’s the only real fault I can find with it. A really wonderful read, and resting at the top of the Very Good rating.

PICK OF THE WEEK: If you haven’t the money to spare, Gotham Central #34 or Ultimate Spider-Man #81. Otherwise, head straight to Top Ten: The Forty Niners OGN: how perfectly goddamn delightful it all is, to be sure. (Yes, I’m sure I’m going to hell for not using that phrase sarcastically…)

PICK OF THE WEAK: Hmm, super-soulvision or crime tampering? Crime tampering or super-soulvision? Tough call, tough call indeed. I’ll go with both Detective Comics #809 and Superman #220 because, dammit, these heroes are supposed to be the icons, you know?

Monday Morning Blues: Jeff's Reviews of 7/27 Books

Whew! Hibbs already reviewed Wonder Woman #219 and OMAC Project #4 (in the entry just below this). It makes my life a little easier because I couldn't start my reviews without a brief discussion of them, anyway. I started my day at CE reading both of them, then made my way through the rest of the titles in a more-or-less depressed funk. As Hibbs points out, there was a lot of stuff to like about WW but I dunno: I don’t mind superheroes brutally smashing each other to bits but if you’ve got to plot hammer so relentlessly to get to it, then I’m even more aware it’s just violent spectacle for violent spectacle’s sake. Which begs the question: Aren’t superhero books just violent spectacle for spectacle’s sake? I think I spent most of the day reading the books with that unhappy possibility in the back of my head. So if my reviews of the following books seems generally crabby and mirthless, that may be why.

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #522: That scene between Jarvis and Aunt May skeeved me out, and not just because I don’t really want to think about Jarvis having sex or Aunt May having sex (although, does anyone?) But would any butler worth his salt ever mack on a lady of the house, ever? My recent reading of Remains of the Day leads me to suspect not. Throw in the fact that Aunt May is a bossy top (“Did I tell you could remove your hand?”) and it’s exactly like Wonder Woman #219 except with Aunt May and Jarvis instead of Diana, and Clark, and with sex instead of violence. Comic book armageddon, you can’t get here quickly enough. Awful.

ASTRO CITY THE DARK AGE #2: And yet I think something like The Blue Knight, the spectre of death in the form of a cop, is great: it perfectly captures the mood in funny books back in the ‘70s with characters like Ghost Rider, The Son of Satan, and the like. Also, such a figure and its idea of justice is the lynchpin of this issue in a very elegant way—-two brothers end up on opposite sides of the law and, rather than use that for stark melodrama, Busiek uses their positions to examine law and justice (and costumed heroes) as abstracts conflicting against a more complex backdrop of human interaction. Pretty damn Good and worth picking up, even if you haven’t read issue #1 (which I still haven’t).

BATMAN DARK DETECTIVE #6: I thought those wonderful “tck!” sound balloons that gradually grew larger and larger would have more of a payoff, but it didn’t really matter: I still enjoyed the baroque pulpishness of this whole thing, sawed-off limbs and all. The mini should have been three issues instead of six since it ends in an absurdly abrupt fashion anyway. I wouldn't mind seeing Englehart and Rogers get another go-round at this: maybe old dogs can’t learn new tricks, but I thought these old tricks worked pretty well overall. Good.

BELLE STARR QUEEN OF BANDITS #1: I felt my interest waxing and waning throughout this book: most of the individual scenes were just fine, but it didn’t really mesh, in part because it felt just too rushed. As the story initially plays on the difference between how the writer and the Wild West magazines see Belle Starr, and the truth (and later, as we see, between the truth and what Belle presents as the truth) it’s pretty important to give the reader a base impression to work off of, so there’s a sense of development and surprise. Instead, I got the sense the writer’s either got too much material to jam into too short a format, or not a strong enough sense of how to pace such a story. I may pick up issue #2 to see if it gets better because there is potential here. OK.

BLACK PANTHER #6: And so ends Marvel’s most left-handed compliment to Christopher Priest ever: “Priest, we like your stories just fine, we’d just be happier if Reginald Hudlin was writing them, is all.” The Romita, Jr. art was damn tasty, but is it worth the whole pointless retcon? Since we didn’t even get a trade reprint of “Panther’s Rage” out of the deal, I’d say no. Eh.

CATWOMAN #45: Ooo la, la: that art! That final panel of the East End was yummy, wasn’t it? But the not-Clayface from the first story arc plus Hush equals Double-Plus Don’t Care. OK, because of the purty pitchers and maybe now the team can do something interesting.

DAREDEVIL VS PUNISHER #2: Uhh, dude… Isn’t the Jackal dead? I don’t know for sure because I never got to read the conclusion of Bill Mantlo’s Carrion arc way back when, but uhhh…isn’t the Jackal dead? Amazing Spider-Man #150? God, I’m going to dread writing reviews when I’m in my seventies (and comprising approximately 2% of the superhero reading comics market on my own): my memory of everything I read after the age of twelve will be even worse. Plot-element-that-flies-in-the-face-of-continuity-as-I-remember-it aside, I thought this was mighty dull. It’s ballsy of Lapham to create a story that clearly is meant to evoke Miller & Janson’s Daredevil work while sticking to Lapham’s tighter eight panel grid, but it doesn’t work. In Stray Bullets, that grid underscores the inexorable certainty of fate and the smallness of the characters—in DvP it saps the larger moments of much of their impact and the title characters of their iconic heft. Eh.

DOOM PATROL #14: That actually would have been a lovely way to end the series, I thought—a very touching and even subtle (for Byrne) riposte to everyone who bitched about this book’s retconning. But, of course, we’ve got another four issues or so to go, dammit. OK.

FANTASTIC FOUR #529: I would very much like to buy something from J. Michael Straczynski off Ebay because I assume he ships the way he writes; by taking something important and burying it under mounds and mounds of padding. As I see it, when you write a page or two of Mr. Fantastic being chased in a jeep before he turns into a bouncing ball and escapes, Marvel should either (a) force you to pay back the money they paid you for those two pages, and/or (b) reduce the cost of the comic book by two pages so as to prevent the customer from feeling robbed even further. Interesting idea at the end there, though. Eh.

FLASH #224: I feel very proud of myself for figuring out the last page in advance (as opposed to last issue, when I didn’t understand the last two pages even as I was reading them) and the idea for this issue is pretty damn cool, but the execution left something to be desired. Putting aside that I have no idea how two people can stand still on a treadmill while one person runs on it (even if it’s a, you know, cosmic treadmill), I think making Wally relive one painful moment over and over as opposed to, I dunno, forcing him to watch while Professor Zoom methodically stops by with a drum baton to systematically murder everyone he’s ever loved at what should be the happiest moment in their lives, seemed a bit lame. Relievedly lame, admittedly, because I was still annoyed and appalled by the grimtastic Wonder Woman #219, but lame nonetheless. A very decent set-up to #225, though, which I’m actually looking forward to, so OK.

GODLAND #1: As a faux Kirby comic, this was pretty damn Good. Maybe a little too pleased with itself in some places, but the psychedelic astronaut sequences in particular were great. I am not without some reservations, but I liked it overall and am looking forward to next issue. Worth your time.

HEE: Ivan Brunetti’s companion piece to Haw falls short for two reasons, one more interesting than the other: First and foremost, it’s $2.50 for something roughly the size of two postage stamps placed side-by-side. Secondly, Brunetti significantly ups the abstractionism of his cartooning, rendering it much less shocking than Haw. By being more traditionally cartooned and therefore more accessible, Haw manages to be so horrifying you can actually feel your soul slipping closer to Hell every time you laugh at something. Hee just makes you wonder who’s going to pay $2.50 for something roughly the size of two postage stamps placed side-by-side. The abstraction/traditional cartooning schism is a direct contradiction to Scott McCloud’s theory in Understanding Comics about such things, which makes me wonder if there’s some inverse equivalent to The Uncanny Valley where too much abstraction similarly alienates an audience. It also makes me wonder who’s going to pay $2.50 for something roughly the size of two postage stamps placed side-by-side. Awful, on a purely wretched capitalist standard.

HELLBOY THE ISLAND #2: I can’t say I understood it, except in the vaguest sense possible, but I can definitely say I loved it. Mignola’s art pretty much pardons all sins, but I also get a feeling there’s something going on here even if I can’t understand it. It’s not just prettiness for prettiness’s sake. Very Good.

HULK DESTRUCTION #1: Could be used as a primer for bad posture—everyone is hunched over in this book, and when they confront each other, they hunch over even more so that they can glare face to face like genetically modified Yosemite Sams. The script probably deserves better—I appreciated an attempt to finally put The Abomination in some kind of definitive context—but it didn’t really knock me out either. Barely tips the scales at Eh.

JLA CLASSIFIED #10: I wanted to like this, really, I did. But I thought the pacing was draggy and the characters, although witty, seemed very recognizable as Ellis characters and not so recognizable as themselves. (Lois’s banter sounded fine, but all of Clark’s counter-banter sounded like Elijah Snow). And Butch Guice’s work here is a conundrum to me: how can it be both bland and overwrought at the same time? And yet it is. Not so promising, as starts go. Eh.

LEGION OF SUPER HEROES #8: Ultimate LSH proceeds along nicely—-there are enough clever twists to make it enjoyable even if you’re not a vested Legion fan, I think. Suffers a bit from Kitson not doing the art, but not horribly. Good.

NIGHTCRAWLER #8: Again with the fanboy criticisms: I’m pretty sure Kurt couldn’t teleport anyone else until after he’d joined Xavier’s and learned how to train his powers. But, again, with the Alzheimer’s: I couldn’t tell you how much of this cheaply melodramatic “gypsy mutant loves gypsy stepsister despite the burning jealousy of gypsy stepbrother” was already in place and how much of it is Aguirre-Sacasa’s invention. What I can tell you, however, is that it’s pretty stinky. Apart from some nice illo work from Darick Robertson (I’m embarrassed to say I found that chick in the Nightcrawler outfit to be pretty hot, god help me), this just didn’t work for me at all and I’m just tired of the idea at the core of all these separate X-Men series: didn’t any of these motherfuckers have something like a normal life before joining The X-Men? Why should people freak out that you’re a mutant when you’re already part of a magical traveling gypsy circus group of incipient ghost sorcerers? Jeezis! Eh.

OMAC PROJECT #4: Okay, so: Spoilers, but why is it that Diana, who sees with the wisdom of Athena, couldn’t see that Max Lord might have had a back-up plan in place when I, with the wisdom of, uhhhh, Max Smart, did? I mean, it’s not like she pays a surcharge the longer she keeps someone tied up with her golden lasso, right? It’s not like she’s new to the superhero game or anything. The sound of the plot hammers are so loud, I can’t pay attention to anything else! Eh.

PULSE #10: I was interested in the Kat Farrell storyline, far less so when the Hawkeye blabbity-blab kicked in. At this point, I’m kinda hoping Bendis will get so annoyed with the Net readership’s reaction to Hawkeye’s return that he offs him again at the end of House of M. In fact, I’m sure if Bendis works at it, he can get in another three or four Hawkeye deaths by the end of the calendar year. That’d be perverse enough to be interesting, at least. Eh.

SILENT DRAGON #1: I liked the opening of this quite a bit, with a very high-powered “begin-at-the-end” approach, but I thought the rest of the first issue kinda spoiled that a bit by giving the reader too many pieces of the puzzle. But lovely to look at, and worth checking out next issue. OK.

SUPERMAN BATMAN #21: Of course, having Jeph Loeb satirize the worst instincts in superhero comics is doomed to backfire because Loeb’s writing embodies the worst instincts in superhero comics. And yet, you’ve got Batzarro and Bizarro appearing in an arc critiquing imperfect superhero analogs, so I have some sort of—-I wouldn’t call it hope, maybe it’s more like quasi-voluntary optimism—-that there may be some sort of bite thrown in with all the barking. Or at least some entertainingly apeshit comics, at least. OK.

WONDER WOMAN #219: No real need to review this, since most of my heavy duty whining is in the OMAC review above. I just can’t clear the plot-hammer hurtle, mainly, and so the whole thing feels like a very creepy superhero version of “Plato’s Stepchildren.” Eh.

X-MEN #173: I have the horrible feeling someone in editorial is a big fan of Jerry Springer—it’s the only way I can imagine this story, and most of the subplots, being concocted. Please make this stop. Awful.

PICK OF THE WEEK: Hellboy The Island #2, partially by default and partially because it’s great.

PICK OF THE WEAK: So many of the usual suspects, but X-Men #173 because when I read stuff like this and think back to some of the other work Peter Milligan’s produced, it’s way more depressing than a flotilla of Wonder Woman #219 issues.

TRADE PICK OF THE WEEK: I was sure it would be the long-awaited Cute Manifesto TPB by James Kochalka, and as far as price and heft and all that, it’s pretty keen. But, being a collection of J.K.’s poetic essays, it got surprisingly tiresome after a while—-Sunburn managed to stand out by virtue of its elliptical nature, but the rest of it felt strident (very gently strident, but strident nonetheless). Weirdly, Cute Manifesto could’ve used more cute. So it’s a split “haven’t really sat down with ‘em” vote between Promethea Book 5 HC, which appeared to do a great job (at a glance) reproducing that final issue (with miniature versions of the posters at the end), and Kinetic TPB which was one of my favorite overlooked titles of last year and which I imagine will read very well in trade format. It’s really great stuff worth your time.

Quick SPOLIER FILLED review of WW #219 & OMAC #4

So, I have a busy weekend up -- have to finish the order form for September's comics, have to setup the subs for August's comics, and have to get my first draft of TILTING at done because I need that one vetted before the deadline. This means I don't think I'm going to have the review time this week. (I'm going to try, though, because there are a few more things I'd like to say)

But not wanting to totally leave you hanging, here's what I thought of WONDER WOMAN #219 and OMAC PROJECT #4.

Let me fully and absolutely warn you that there ARE SPOILERS here, so, if you haven't read the comics, turn back now

No, really, SPOILERS AHEAD.

WONDER WOMAN #219 & OMAC PROJECT #4: Going to review this as a pair, because WW is clearly OMAC #3.5. I think that was kinda scuzzy, really -- especially with the way the vague way in which they were solicited; and I think it shows a real failure in spiraling editorial lack of control and direction (especially since the lead-in Superbooks were, for the most part, wasted filler), but I appreciate the way Rucka stood up and offered to take that bullet. So I'll just say "Yeah, boy, you durn fucked up", and leave it there.

So, let's get one bit out of the way first: While I'm of the "heroes shouldn't kill" camp, the actual event flowed pretty well out Diana's character, and she's the one dichotomous hero in the DCU that I think this wears OK on. Being the "warrior for peace" is always been the strange role, but it's hard to not justify this killing in the context in which it was given. She tried defusing the situation in every way possible first, and only killed as a defensible situation.

I really liked WW #219, in and of itself -- I thought it was well paced, well choreographed, and well written. To see a real "no quarter" fight happening was very dynamic and exciting. It's been a while since we've seen something that elemental, and so I really liked.

My problems really come from the larger picture of the OMAC PROJECT and the tangled sequences of plot-hammering and coincidences and absurdities that we have to accept to get there.

For example, I suppose that I could (just barely) swallow that Batman built an all-seeing, all-powerful satellite and that somehow, without him knowing about it, that satellite gets taken from him. That's a whole damn lot to swallow, yes, but I guess I can accept it.

Likewise, I might be able to (just barely) swallow that Max Lord (of all people!! What about frickin' BRAINIAC?) was able to slowly and subtly reprogram Superman's mind so that he sees friends as foes, and takes an action (attempted murder) that is fundamentally repugnant to his very nature and character.

But both of the things? At once? From the same source?

Not a chance, mister.

And so my problems loom large in OMAC #4. See, I think if Batman created a shadowy satellite system, the VERY FIRST THING he'd do would be to make the base programming some variation of Asimov's Laws of Robotics. That is to say "No one dies. Ever." would be, you would think, hardcoded into every program and subroutine, right? That's what Batman is ALL ABOUT. So I had a pretty damn hard time accepting that Brother I's free-sentience immediately starts murdering everyone and everything. Not if it was created by Batman.

I also find it to be pretty lousy storytelling to have built up Max Lord as this huge mastermind, killing Blue Beetle, controlling Superman, playing Batman, masterminding all of this stuff, then killing him off in what amounts to his 4th appearance in the role -- I think that reducing the threat in such a way renders everything that he did to be plot hammering of the highest degree. Sure and we're going to find out that someone else was behind it all along, right? And someone behind him, and so on.

I did get a good laugh out of the Variable-Wound Batman Action Figure though -- first they show him in full ICU-mode, then as each week's comics go along he's better and better off, until now when he's barely wounded (at least for Batman!) after going 3 rounds with Superman. What the hell?

I suspect that this has a good chance of "ruining" Wonder Woman in any practical realworld way. Once it gets out she executed Max (and hey, look at next issue's cover, I think we can assume it does), seems to me her "Mission of Peace to Man's World" is effectively over. Who would trust her as an ambassador any longer?

So, as discrete units of entertainment delivery systems, I'll give WONDER WOMAN #219 a VERY GOOD, and I can go with an OK for craft on OMAC PROJECT #4, but in the greater "Where are you going and why are you doing it this way?" sense, this is really AWFUL.

What did you think?

-B

Today's Special: Jeff's Reviews of Last Week's Books!

Man. I originally wrote half these reviews back on Saturday, and the other half yesterday (should be pretty able to tell which is which, as my memory of Friday's books diminished tremendously by Tuesday--I may actually refer to Batman as "you know, what's his dude with the ears" at a few points) when I thought that Hibbs would either post by Tuesday night or not at all. Of course, as these things work, I have no doubt he'll post all of his reviews fifteen minutes after I do. He should; we disagreed a lot this week. Anyway, we appreciate your patience and hopefully we'll refine this thing a little better as time goes on, but for now:

ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN #642: I was so relieved this issue didn’t follow the format of the previous issues (Superman flashing back to an unlikely fight with some heavy duty villain, events spiraling out of control, revelation that Superman has done something bad) it took me at least, I dunno, five minutes before the nagging questions set in: What does that cover have to do with anything? Why have those first two parts in there at all, being as they show an utterly different form of mind control from what we see here? Is this anything other than a cynical attempt to sell more books and, in particular, for Greg Rucka to boost sales of Wonder Woman? Considering such questions, I’ll drop this into the Awful ranks.

ASTONISHING X-MEN #11: Hibbs had some very valid complaints, but I liked it a lot. Interestingly, the thing that shouldn’t have worked (mortally wounded X-Men are all peachy keen by page 8 or so) did work for me because of the four-month delay in issues: after Hibbs pointed it out, I was like, “Oh, right. Mortally wounded. Yeah, that’s kinda pat, ennit?” Mainly, I just liked Professor X going all action movie on our asses in a way I found pretty believable. But maybe I’m just fatally infected with “Oooo, pretty pictures!” syndrome in this case. A solid Good.

AUTHORITY REVOLUTION #10 (OF 12): Don’t see the point in bitching about this yet again, but I wanted to point out the odd synchronicity between this and Rucka’s “Sacrifice” arc. There, Max Lord has Superman under his control and uses him to beat the shit out of Batman. Here, Henry Bendix has control over Midnighter and is going to use him to beat the shit out of Apollo. After the Red Hood/Winter Soldier thing, it makes me wonder if Brubaker is either incredibly prescient, or the kind to go jot notes after a big editorial meeting. Either way, I still thought this was relatively Awful.

BATGIRL #66: This is where I differ from the creative team: I would prefer sixteen pages of Cassandra meeting a boy and taking a chance on romance, and two pages of senseless fight scenes with a pig-faced biker guy and gratuitous OMAC, rather than vice-versa. Eh.

CONAN #18: Wow, really terrific. John Severin was the perfect choice for a grimly humorous one-shot by Busiek called “The Helm.” I can see why matching it with the darkly funny “Conan’s Favorite Joke” by Bruce Timm seemed like a good idea at the time, but I think they’d be much stronger presented separately. The pieces diminish each other. But still, a high Very Good for this issue.

DAREDEVIL #75: Bendis’ characterization of Matt Murdock has always been one of the strengths of this run, and his scenes talking to the members of the group were great, and that Alex Maleev art makes the whole thing go down pretty smooth. But am I the only one who thinks the Ninja demon baby was utterly unnecessary, a glib way to counterbalance the episodic structuring of the format? And what the hell do Ninja demon babies have to do with The Ten Commandments anyway? I’m a little unclear on all ten of the commandments (Bendis may be as well, since I think we only got six or seven) but I don’t think “Thou Shalt Not Conjure Ninja Demon Babies” ended up replacing “Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbor’s Ass” recently. Good, sure, but kind of a shame it wasn’t great.

DAY OF VENGEANCE #4: Haven’t read an issue since #1, and I get the impression that, since it’s opening with the origin of Detective Chimp, there may have been a certain loss of narrative steam along the way. Willingham seems pretty okay jamming in the editorially mandated Spectre and Eclipso stuff but really cares more about his magical misfits team, and I guess that’s fine. (It’s no migraine-in-the-making like Rann Thanagar War, that’s for sure) But this feels, as corporately mandated product often does, like a collection of bits and pieces incapable of working smoothly together. Although, since I didn’t bother with #2 or #3, I could be completely off-base in that feeling. OK.

DEFENDERS #1: Kinda knocked me on my ass to realize that Keith Giffen, J.M. DeMatteis and Kevin Maguire are doing their Justice League thing with The Defenders, and both Giffen and DeMatteis have both been involved in memorable work on The Defenders previously (for those of us who remember The Defenders anyway: Giffen’s work on the Scorpio/Zodiac storyline is still probably my favorite Defenders stuff, ever). They’ve done a pretty good job re-inventing themselves over the years, those guys. The work itself was a very high OK, not great: as usual, the trump card is Maguire and his winning way with body language (maybe a little too pat here, actually) and illustration. Still, I liked it.

DETECTIVE COMICS #808: I’m hopelessly lost as far as this storyline and am now officially waiting for the trade. Sad to admit, but there it is.

EX MACHINA #13: Liked all of it but for the crazy vet in the jury room scene which I did not like at all: Ex Machina is a book that frequently reminds me of good episodic television, particularly because blunders like these read like bad episodes of good episodic television. (“Then, on an all-new E.R.: Jury duty goes horribly wrong for John Carter as a Gulf War veteran makes an impossible request! Then, stay up for Carrottop on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno!”) So, OK.

EXILES #67: Is doing a good job keeping my interest from issue to issue (particularly as the sort of old school Marvel guy happy to see Red Ronin again), but I’m hoping a long-range hook (to replace the one they solved) gets put in place soon. A high OK.

GIRLS #3: Very much a drag that scenes of attacking naked chicks hatched from eggs seem more believable than a lot of the behavior on the part of the main characters. The ultra-small town setting also rings false to me, too. Seems like sophomore slump to me. Eh.

GOON #13: Another great issue. Everybody’s buying this, right? Please go buy this. Very Good.

HOUSE OF M #4: Another issue of House of Meh: again, if it’d been issue #2, would have been more or less keen. None of it really makes sense if you think about it for more than a second, though, and the Layla character seems lamely convenient unless Bendis has got a further twist with her, which I believe he does. Eh.

INCREDIBLE HULK #84: My preferred House of M crossover book, although, again, there’s a certain “don’t care” factor to it since so little seems to be at stake. But I like it so much better than David’s initial return arc, I can’t even begin to tell you. A very high OK.

JSA CLASSIFIED #1: Amanda Conner’s work knocks me out. I would be a less-than-diligent fanboy if I didn’t point out that her expressive, vulnerable interpretation of Power Girl (and Johns’ obvious awareness of who he’s scripting for) doesn’t quite gibe with her previous characterization in JSA (where her stoicism keeps her from being quite so open) but I don’t really care. If you do, you won’t agree when I say this was pretty Good.

LOVE & ROCKETS VOL 2 #14: Lately, Gilbert Hernandez continually crafts scenes in which I can never fully believe, and yet they’re of such a consistent worldview I wonder if maybe he just lives in a very different plane of reality than anything I’ve seen—or maybe his overarching goal is to bullshit reality itself into behaving the way he portrays it. Either way, it’s never less than fascinating to me. But this issue, it’s Jaime’s Hopey work that knocked me on my ass: even though my points of shared experience with Maggie and Hopey are few, the feeling of life as it’s lived—particularly mid-life, with its excitements and disappointments made appealingly small by accrued wisdom, and the twinned dread and pleasure at being able to watch life go by (it might be leaving you behind, but you’re certainly getting a much better view as it does)—seemed utterly genuine and moving to me. I thought it was Excellent.

MARVEL KNIGHTS SPIDER-MAN #16: Again, those retro pages were pretty awesome, and the rest of this didn’t rankle as much as the first three issues, but it’s still just a big ol’ waste of time. An indifferent Eh.

PLASTIC MAN #17: The endless teenage carnage was pretty hilarious—every time I was sure it would be over Baker would throw in another three pages. Then the actual story started and I kinda lost interest. Really, really slight for the money but if they were Archie Digest sized, and Archie Digest priced, I’d much prefer kids were reading this. OK.

RED SONJA #1: I don’t know, man. Now that the horse is dead, I don’t really have as much interest as I did by, say, midway through the issue. Really. OK, I guess.

SIMPSONS COMICS #108: Dixon’s script is pretty ballsy, with the characters much edgier than I’ve seen them in some time (although keep in mind I haven’t watched the show in two seasons) but maybe it was still a little too edgy. It was funny, but it wasn’t particularly witty, I think. Or maybe I just got my liberal pink panties in a bunch, I can’t tell. OK.

TEEN TITANS #26: Kinda like reading either of the first two issues of “Sacrifice,” but better because there was a point. Highly OK.

ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #80: Excelsior, True Believer! Brian Bendis Back on Ball! Or at least this had that blend of a classic scenario going in unexpected directions that originally made this book so interesting. I’m hoping this will continue to hold up. Very highly OK.

ULTIMATES 2 #7: See, Bendis? That’s how you kill Hawkeye. I didn’t even like this version of the character and I thought that was pretty cool. Good.

WOLVERINE #30: Pretty well out of gas, I’m sorry to say. How many times in this run has Millar pulled the “Don’t you see? Now x is on his way to kill y! And it’s too late to do anything!” card? Three times? Maybe four? And way too much time with The X-Men talking about how scary it is to have Logan around—isn’t this the penultimate issue of the arc? Ancient devil lady died an even lamer death than Hawkeye (Avengers Hawkeye not Ultimates Hawkeye) so we could get whining X-Men? Where’s the stuff that made this book great, like the shark fucking? Last issue better have Wolverine fucking some more sharks or I’ll be deeply disappointed. Eh.

There. Just in time to hit the new comics! See you, hopefully, much earlier next week.

Reviews of 7/13 books

Like last week, pounding this out at the counter on my AlphaSmart before the truck with the comics arrive. In no particular order: ALL STAR BATMAN & ROBIN THE BOY WONDER #1: Let’s get the bitching out of the way – that is the worst logo I think I’ve ever seen in my life. Tilted the wrong way, too heavy on the “robin” part, the “All Star” par virtually invisible, that hideous top bar. Ugh. I also think that, to a degree, this represents a huge loss of a chance. “All Star” was, I thought, concieved of as an answer to the “Ultimate” line from Marvel – good solid “entry point” material, suitible for “all ages”. This here I wouldn’t give to anyone who isn’t already a bat-reader, and, especially, anyone who isn’t already a Frank Miller bat-fan. That’s a lot of people, but it’s hardly a “universal” audience.

I thought the first half of the comic sorta… well, stank. Vicki Vale (and her ass) just didn’t grab me, but I thought it found its legs just fine in the back half. There’s bits that I really don’t think worked (I kind of prefer the whole “Red Claw Assassains sawed through my parents origin”, er, wait, that’s Cerebus), but, by the end of the issue I had pretty much thought I had gotten my $3 worth. It just didn’t thrill or shock me. Call it a low low “Good” or, more likely, a high OK.

NAT TURNER #1: Kyle Baker turns in a powerful and affecting story of the birth of Nat Turner. The choice to go nearly-wordless was probably the right one, and curiously, didn’t speed the issue up much at all – this was stil l a dense, solid read, and was absolutely EXCELLENT.

SERENITY #1: I’ve only see a small handfull of episodes of FIREFLY, so I wasn’t sure how much this would grab me. But I really liked the situation and the character and would like to see more. Little bitch sold amazingly well, too – we were sold out in under 3 hours on like 5x any “Buffy” numbers we’ve ever ordered. Dark Horse is sold out, too – hope they’ll do a second printing. GOOD.

BANANA SUNDAYS #1: I really like Coleen Coover’s art, and it really is perfectly served for a charming all ages book like this. Only thing, because I’ve been trained by SMALL FAVORS, I kept expecting wild, frenzied lesbian sex almost every page. Oh well. A low GOOD, despite that.

MUTOPIA X #1: *shrug* I didn’t care much about these characters in DISRICT X… I care a great deal less now that they’re all happy. So, EH.

WEAPON X DAYS OF FUTURE NOW #1: Is that bait and switch? What does “DoFP Wolverine” have to do with the rest of the story? Does anyone care about these “Weapon X” characters? I sure don’t… And what the hell is up with Bart Sears illustrating an Eddie Campbell Batman comic next year? The fuck--? This was pretty AWFUL.

BATMAN #642: A fill in, and basically adequate. OK

NIGHTWING #110: OK, I guess the VILLIANS UNITED crossover is coming along here at the end, but I can’t say I care much for the whole “No, really, he’s a baddie now!” plot line. A solid EH.

JLA #116: What I’m liking about this is that it isn’t letting the crossover itself overwhelm this story too badly (unlike some of the other crossovers) – on the other hand, I still have no idea how they can possibly come out the other side of this with the “big gun” JLA intact. Still, I liked this issue enough to give it a GOOD.

SEVEN SOLDIERS GURADIAN #3: “Imagine science on heat, baying like a hound beneath a red-hot moon!” Oh, god, with expository captions like that, how could you help but love this comic? LOVE LOVE LOVE. Man, that awesome fucking shot of the Guardian ‘chuting down on to the little world islands! If half of the comics on the stands had 1/10th of the mad ideas of this, comics would be the largest entertainment force on the planet. This is seriously wicked fun, and I say EXCELLENT.

WONDER WOMAN #218: What did that cover have to do with anything? Decent enough, but it felt mostly like marking time until the crossover. So much for the blinding being of any weight or significance. OK

FRESHMEN #1: OK, I guess, but all 22 pages were devoted to origin stuff, and there’s not quite enough here to get me rushing back for #2.

ZOMBIE KING #0: Well, if you want zombie cow fucking, here’s the comic for you. A bit less shallow than Shanna, I’m starting to wonder if Cho has any tricks besides “a nice line”. This was OK.

NEW AVENGERS #7: Huh, liked this issue, maybe Bendis has found his groove here. A low GOOD.

ULTIMATE FANTASTIC FOUR #21: Really terrific start to this storyline, helped dramatically by the lovely art. I especially liked that curly-haired Johnny Storm look. No “616” crossover (thank god), and here’s a real case where I think they hurt themselves by being so coy in the solicits. Anyway, nice issue – best thing I’ve read from Millar in quite some time. A solid GOOD.

DESOLATION JONES #2: Didn’t like it as much as #1, but still a solid GOOD.

OK, the truck is here, quickly then, PICK OF THE WEEK: NAT TURNER #1

BOOK / TP OF THE WEEK: Y THE LAST MAN v5

What did YOU think?

-B

Some reviews and rants of 7/7 books

So, you all know about the Class Action suit against Marvel, right? And how we have a settlement that both parties agreed to? Well, or we did until the dumb-ass Judge in the case decided that, despite have both sides agreeing, despite having notified the Class, and having a opt-out rate of something like 0.5%, despite, might I add, adjusting the plan to deal with the Judge’s specific demands, Judge Ramos decided that he wanted the whole process started over again from scratch, turning the “opt out” (which automagically includes everyone) to “opt in” (which would likely mean some people would misunderstand and not be included). Clearly, the man went insane. So, as I’m sure you also know, we appealed the Judge, and the Appellate Court overturned his crazy ass, and ordered him to sign the settlement within 30 days. Hurray, Justice!

But guess what happened? I got the call today that Judge Ramos has recused himself from the case, and so won’t be signing. Um, doubleyou-tea-eff?!?!?

Crazy, unethical, asshat of a Judge.

Apparently this will only mean a “short” delay as we get a new Judge assigned, and, supposedly, it is all formalities from here on out – 2-3 days to a new Judge, a week or so for him to read everything and sign it, then 30 days until we all receive our rightful settlement monies, but, man, can you fucking believe that shit?

* * *

Lessee, it’s 12:30, and the books should be here within 90 minutes, so let’s see what reviews we can do by then, while I’m helping customers in the middle.

NOT going to San Diego, btw – I hadn’t had a lick of FUN at the con the last2-3 I attended, and I’d rather not be away from Ben in order to do Comics Death March on the 4 football fields worth of “pop culture”

Fuck that Hollywood shit, y’know?

Anyway, comics. I’m going to skip Alphabetical, and just type things out as I feel like:

HOUSE OF M #3: I almost feel sorry for Bendis and the Marvel Marketing department, because, really, how could ANYthing stand up to “crack the internet in half”. But only a little sorry.

Here’s the thing: regardless of what the story turns out how, what’s been PUBLISHED so far is “just” a WHAT IF…? story. There’s nothing between the covers that suggests any permanence or meaning. Look, this is a storyline that shows Uncle Ben (poster child for “dead is dead”) *and* Gwen Stacey happily alive and kicking, so what’s the big deal with Hawkeye, at all? Not much, really.

In fact, I’ll go so far to say even LESS is compelling about this because it makes Clint’s death, the capping denouement to the “Disassembled” storyline, a death that was cheap and stupid and awkward to begin with, have even less meaning. Clearly, Bendis (& co.) *must* have known this was coming, in that timeframe, which reduces it to even more of a sensationalistic stunt without any base value.

“Don’t cheat the audience” is the Prime Rule in storytelling, and Hawkeye is a big-ass cheat from top to bottom.

As Lester observed in the store (and most likely in his reviews a few inches down), this issue could have been a sensational first issue – there’s a mystery, there’s action, there’s natural conflict. But because it was preceded by 2 issues of soft plushy padded padding, and because of the apparent WHAT IF…? nature of this story, the audience is mellllllting away.

We ordered 150 of issue #1. Sold 100. 66% sell through means I lost money.

We ordered 125 copies of #2. Sold 84 copies so far. Slightly better at 67%, but still a solid money loser.

We ordered 100 copies of #3, and our first week sales are only 63 copies. With any luck I’ll get to 85 sold by week #4, though I’m not much holding my breath, but at least that would edge that issue up closer to profitability.

Since #3 didn’t have any cracking in it, I suspect #4 will drop to 75 copies or lower, a massive failure for THE big “Summer tentpole event”. I’m going to be chasing those numbers down down dowwwwwn, and hopefully when the dust settles, I won’t have lost my shirt too badly.

In last week’s BOOK OF THE WEEK, Don Rosa’s LIFE AND TIMES OF SCROOGE McDUCK, there are several text pieces when Rosa describes his editor THROWING OUT at least 2 fully laid out and written segments of the book, because they weren’t strong enough.

Would that Marvel editors had the personal will and responsibility to the characters they caretake, and the customers who trust them, to do the same.

Seriously, what do American comics editors DO? Traffic Manage? Is that it?

Mm, and “first appearance of Layla Miller” or whatever? Who? What? Maybe that chick who was getting mugged in the alley? Maybe? Hardly an auspicious debut to a “major new character”, really.

Bottom line: The art was spiff, the writing was strong enough, and, on it’s own merits, this was prolly a low “Good” or a high “OK”, but as 3/7ths of a major event, with promised major ramifications, this was AWFUL.

IRON MAN: HOUSE OF M #1: was pretty EH, but does anyone actually like Pat Lee’s art, or is he coasting on once being “hot” because the TRANSFORMER license was hot once? I don’t know, but I can’t stand his art.

FANTASTIC FOUR HOUSE OF M #1: Doesn’t actually have the FF in it, so there’s a big strike against it. Meh, I can’t see anything coming out of this branch of the story at all, so AWFUL.

HULK #83: I swear this is why PAD stopped working at Marvel in the first place? That’s how I recall it, anyway. And, is it just me, or did this blow the plot of the Scorpion in AMAZING FANTASY? And was that “Machine Teen” in there as well? Meh to dictated crossovers. I liked the thoughts behind the aboriginal plot bits though, so I can go with OK.

UNCANNY X-MEN #462: Made less sense than something senseless indeed, but damn if this wasn’t pretty as all fuck, and, possibly, my favorite art job of Alan Davis of any of his UNCANNY run. So for that, and only that, since this was incomprehensible nonsense, I’ll go with OK.

SUPERMAN #219: Speaking of incomprehensible nonsense… If that had anything to do with OMAC, it was pretty impossible to tell from these 22 pages (Besides, wasn’t he at his desk? Or supposed to be in space looking for the satellites? What happened to that?), 22 pages of “let’s act out of character, and pretend that no one notices”. I’m also getting super-fucking-sick of this “Superman as badass” shit – Superman DOESN’T KILL, period, so any story predicated on “He does, this time” is pure CRAP.

DC SPECIAL RETURN OF DONNA TROY #2: Uh, what? I have no idea what’s going on, or how she “returned” or why I should give a rat’s ass.

Huh, and here come the comics, that’s all I have time for this week. See you in 7 or under with more…

What did YOU think?

Adventures in Underachievement: Jeff's Reviews of 07/06/05 Books...

Seemed like kind of an underwhelming week for comix, but maybe I’m the underwhelming one because I didn’t read very many of them at all: some of them sold out before I hit the store on Friday (Hello, Iron Man: House of M!), some of them I didn’t have much interest in reading (Hello, Iron Man: House of M! But also The Return of Donna Troy), and some of them are books I normally love that are in mid-arc and I’m waiting for the trade (Howdy, Finder #37!) because I’m too damn lazy to dig through all the longboxes and put together all the issues. Hmmm, yes, on second thought, I appear to be the underachieving one in this equation. Nonetheless, here’s what I think about:

AQUAMAN #32: The art on this stays remarkably crisp, issue in and issue out, but the stories, well…only the really demented stuff stuck this time: a subplot about Black Manta recruited as a leader of dispossessed aquatic African-Americans? Assuming it’ll join with Aquaman’s son’s “I love you because you’re colored like me, Aquagirl!” subplot, we’ve got the makings for Do The Right Thing, except underwater and with Aquaman and Black Manta. (Best pun I could come up with was Mo’ Wetter Blues but it didn’t quite work.) Yeah, can’t wait. Eh.

BATMAN DARK DETECTIVE #5 (OF 6): Much more time spent with The Joker this issue, and all the Scarecrow stuff now feels even more like filler. While the scenes with The Joker are far from perfect—his thoughts on his relationship with Batman don’t strike me as crazy so much as sloppy—it’s much closer to the kind of Joker story I want to read, and the art had some beautiful bits (that eyelid lowering in glee, then snapping open with rage). If you’re a Batman/Joker nut, it’ll probably be in the high OK range for you, too.

BATMAN LEGENDS OF THE DARK KNIGHT #193: The art moves comfortably between the ridiculous (I loved that panel where Batman is literally shown lurking in a bush, business card extended) and the sublime (the striking amounts of detail spent on the backgrounds, particularly that cut-away splash page) which threatens to undercut a reasonably straightforward story about Batman’s early attempt to recruit a band of operatives, Shadow style. However, with all the time spent on the origin of Mr. Freeze and the hows of the agents’ arrangement, none of the operatives have any real personality yet: without that art, things might seem a lot more uninteresting than they are. If the writers can give us a real sense of the operatives (since chances are good things will go poorly for them), it’ll go a long way to keeping me engaged with this. Good.

BLOOD OF THE DEMON #5: I’m hardly surprised when Byrne churns out formulaic superhero stuff, but I am surprised when it’s this inept: Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman battle Etrigan and Morgana LeFay (don’t have the book with me, so I apologize if that’s not the right spelling there) and yet Morgana conveniently disappears for seven or eight pages while everyone tussles with The Demon. I liked the panel where Batman, looking up at a ton of falling debris about to crush him, says only “Hmm...” (apparently this is my week for liking panels with Batman in them) but the rest of this seemed pretty dashed-off and Awful.

DAREDEVIL VS PUNISHER #1: I liked how apeshit and deranged Lapham’s Punisher is, and the art was really quite nice—like a lost issue from the Miller/Janson run on Daredevil—but the “exact double of long-dead lost love” thing made me cringe. I know asking for nuance in a Punisher story is like asking for a cold glass of milk at a vegan street fair, but still…Good, more or less.

EXILES #66: Nothing particularly substantial here but it’s all the little touches (Curt Connors and team wearing those science patrol outfits from Ultraman and fighting kaiju) I like. And the possibility that the team, in trying to save fallen comrades, will end up setting off a chain of multiverse SNAFUs they’ll then have to fix, works as a good “same-but-different” idea for me. Could end up not working as the arc progresses, but the issues itself is between OK and Good, depending on how you feel about the book generally.

GOTHAM CENTRAL #33: A very solid issue with some disturbingly interesting thinking about Robin (“What if he’s got whole camps of Robins?”), some great tough guy dialogue (loved that crack about concrete poisoning) and the art was extra keen, with Batman looking right out of Year One. My favorite issue in a while. Very Good.

HOUSE OF M #3: Would have made a terrific first issue—Wolverine wakes up leading a completely different life from the one he barely remembers, he doesn’t know how or why everything’s changed, he can’t find Professor X. It’d be really riveting stuff if we, the readers, didn’t feel like we already knew the score, but with two issues of set-up under our belt, how can we not? Media fuckin’ res, Marvel. There’s a reason it’s been around for thousands of years as a storytelling device, dammit! OK, I guess, but it could have very easily been much better.

INCREDIBLE HULK #83: I shouldn’t have been affected by the relationship between Banner and the tribe leader since there wasn’t much presented—but I was affected, and felt much more involved in the story as a result. In fact, I may have liked this the most of any of the “House of M” stuff so far (including the mini itself), if only because David’s references to both the Holocaust and the Australian government’s aboriginal relocation program makes the story feel like it’s about something. My biggest bitch about the House of M so far is that it has yet to say anything interesting about cultures in conflict—the whole thematic underpinning of Marvel’s mutant stories—and only functions as one big What If? where people get to play “Where are they now?” with their favorite characters. So to see a bit more thought put into the idea here was refreshing. On the down side, I found the “Hulk smash” stuff dull, but I still would call this a Good read.

JANES WORLD #20: Pleasantly and engagingly cartooned, yet still overpriced and this is the second issue where Braddock opens with an explanation of stuff that happened the previous issue because readers weren’t clear on something. There’s a world and a worldview I want to read about here, but Braddock either has a long way to come or she has already fallen into a lot of leisurely habits that may keep her work from ever feeling truly satisfying. Frustratingly Eh.

JSA #75: The character stuff was strong, but the fight scenes were all incredibly baffling to me: at the core of it, I guess I still don’t understand why The Spectre and Eclipso had to attack Black Adam’s country in the first place. Because Black Adam is magical? Because the people in his country practice magic? And why would The Spectre then give that crusade up if Al let himself be judged? For that matter, The Spectre has always meted out punishment with a sense of poetic justice: where’s the poetic justice in a country being physically trampled by a giant albino in a big green diaper? OK for the character stuff and a few other touches, but still troubling.

MATADOR #3: Stuff happening? Good. Stuff not making any sense? Bad. Lovely looking Eh.

OCEAN #6: Impossible to review fairly: imagine getting out of your seat four-fifths of the way through, I dunno, Peter Hyam’s Outland, and returning to the last fifteen minutes six months later—any payoff, emotional or otherwise, is undercut by your mind laboring to recall what everyone was doing when you stopped watching last. To Ellis’s great credit, I remembered all of the characters, and their relationships to each other, quite clearly, but those little jujubee bullet thingies? The gravity control stuff? The establishment of the guns as recoil-free to allow Kane to do kick-ass gun stuff in zero g? Even if I assume all of that was well-established (and there was some reason why the crew couldn’t just toggle the gravity back and forth repeatedly until the attackers were battered unconscious) previously, I think I still would have felt a little underwhelmed. Sure, gun fights and super-splodey—fine. But to spend so many issues with an alien race of living guns being built up in your mind and then just seeing a flash of them as shit explodes—well, that really never did the trick for me in the movies, either. Like Orbiter, I kinda felt like this ended just when I wanted it to really start, and I can’t really work up more than an OK as a result. Perhaps the trade will show I’m once again muttering through my butt cleft…

SHANNA THE SHE DEVIL #6 (OF 7): Boy, I hope Hibbs reviews this. Super-low Eh.

SON OF VULCAN #2 (OF 6): I don’t know if it’s the coloring or the layouts or what, but I tried two or three times to get past the first four pages. When I finally did so, as with the first issue, I liked what I read—I very much like the milieu, as Vulcan’s superhero trappings feel both specific and iconic. But I hope I’m the only person having trouble with those first four pages, because I don’t think customers at a comics rack will give a new title that many passes. Good.

SUPERMAN #219: I hate issue-long dream/delusion sequences where the main character acts wildly out of character and you can’t really say shit about it because anyone who did like it would go, “But it’s a dream!” Suffice it to say a Superman that breaks open Brainiac’s ship without making sure there’s anyone else on board (you know, with all those super-senses Lois goes on and on about in the first few pages of the issue) is a Superasshat. Also, I don’t know who they had Superman injure/kill but, based on the previous issue of The Omac Project, if it’s not Batman I kinda don’t see the point. Check, please! Awful.

ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #79: I’m enough of a Marvel nerd that I can appreciate a Marvel Team-Up trope when I’m given one, and I liked the replay of last issue’s scene from Peter’s point of view. Pretty far up the OK scale.

UNCANNY X-MEN #462: God, that Alan Davis can draw! I really loved the mix and match designs that spun out of chaosverse (particularly after Hibbs pointed out that brilliant Deathlok/Captain America character) but even just scenes of Rachel and Psylocke against the blankness of the White Hot Room were lovely. Too bad it was all heart-stoppingly dumb, though. A very high OK for the art alone.

VILLAINS UNITED #3: I liked most of it but Catman’s getaway was less than inspired—I just didn’t buy it, frankly. And you get a character like the Crime Doctor and all he does is shock people with a car battery? They could’ve just gotten the Crime Tow Truck Driver to do that! Let’s see some sewn together eyelids and disturbing organ removals, people! A waning Eh.

Y THE LAST MAN #35: Hmmm. I remember liking it fine, but I can barely recall a thing about it a day later. Chalk it up to my underachieving soul and call it OK at least.

PICK OF THE WEEK: Guess it’s Gotham Central #33, although the competition was pretty damn anemic.

PICK OF THE WEAK: Was going to be Blood of the Demon #5 but now, even though I flipped through it twice at the store, I’m worried I missed some crucial sequence that explains away all my problems. So let’s go with Superman #219.

TRADE PICK: Dead Boy Detectives Digest came home with me but I haven’t cracked it open yet. I’ll let you know. Also, I was a big fan of Boneyard in black and white so I can’t imagine it’s any worse in color, and the new printing of Grant Morrison and Jae Lee’s Fantastic Four 1234 is totally worth reading/owning if you don’t have it already.

I was also able to read the review copy Fanta sent to Hibbs of The Night Fisher (and Volume 4 of The Complete Peanuts, of which I only read Jonathan Franzen’s opening essay) and am thinking I may try for a mid-week essay covering The Night Fisher, The Push Man, maybe Vol. 4 of Complete Peanuts, and Walt & Skeezix. We’ll see if that comes together, or just opt for the underachieving thing again.

Ahead of the Invisible Curve: Reviews of 6/29 Books...

Ahh, holiday weekends. They are truly lovely things, even if you're a guy stuck in an office on a Saturday. Now that I've finished the few crackpot jobs lying around, I've got time to grouse about this week's books for those of you who'll next check out this site on Tuesday...or Wednesday...or sometime, maybe. Despite all the fake-outs Hibbs and I have been pulling lately with the "I'm not doing reviews/ no wait, I am after all," he assured me that he's not doing reviews this week. He's off doing a family thing and is staying in some hotel down in, uhh, Santa Barbara, I guess? As always, Hibbs talked about it with all the gusto of a convicted prisoner describing his upcoming trip to the gallows, but the important thing is I can pass along his observations about the books (when I remember 'em) and not feel like I'm stepping on his toes. And it's not a review, so much as an observation, but didn't Land of the Dead kinda seem like what you'd get if George Romero and Gene Roddenberry had collaborated on a TV show pilot? Very odd...

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #521: Nothing worse than an issue where the main characters have to act like genuine idiots in order to get any story going at all. (I'm too lazy to look up the exact entry, but google Kung-Fu Monkey for the term "carrying the idiot ball.") I'm kinda aghast at how far downhill JMS has gone on this title. Awful.

AUTHORITY LOBO SPRING BREAK MASSACRE: Although Giffen writes them in a straightforward fashion, I was delighted by how Bisley makes The Authority look like a pack of deranged supercreeps. I don't like Lobo and the story did more or less nothing for me, but the art alone (not even close to Bisley's best, mind you, although his rabbit dictator was amazing) makes this a pretty high OK.

BATGIRL #65: Hibbs liked the dark humor of the ending but thought this was nothing special otherwise; I thought it was both unrealistic and unnuanced. Although I haven't bothered to keep up with the Batgirl title for a long time, I kinda felt like the story was unfair to the character: apart from Batman, there was no conversation that didn't begin with a fight, end with a fight, or take place during a fight--and those were with her friends and family. Maybe that last match would've meant a little more if it'd been different from the rest of the issue. Eh.

BATMAN #641: Okay, finally with the reveal promised a bunch of issues ago. And I thought this worked well--the art is pretty and Judd's given the Hood an enjoyable mix of wit and bitterness that gave the issue much more emotional resonance than I thought it might. But it also had a very abrupt ending, and the ground covered in the discussion between Bats and RH sounded more like the talking points of one of Judd's interviews than I would have liked. There's a lot of potential in the storyline, but I worry that bad habits on the part of either the writer or editorial could wreck this pretty easily. Good.

BATMAN ALLIES SECRET FILES 2005: Hibbs was pretty funny about this: "Allies? Batman doesn't have any allies anymore! Shouldn't they call this the Batman Non-Enemies Secret Files?" I really liked the half-page Joker anecdote in Will Pfeifer and Ron Randall's story but thought the rest of it lived up to the sloppiness of the title. Super-low Eh.

FANTASTIC FOUR #528: You just gotta wonder about Reed Richards. He's the smartest guy on Earth, has supposedly been working on Ben Grimm's cure forever and still seems utterly out of it when it comes to the accident that created the FF--this is no particular slam against JMS, it's pretty much always been the case, but boy does it seem creakier every time it's trotted out. And Reed's analysis of why each of the four got the powers that they did made me nostalgic for a topless Adrienne Barbeau, since the idea seems cribbed from Wes Craven's Swamp Thing movie more or less outright. But the "Ben Grimm, Millionaire" plot has some potential, I guess. Let's go with Eh.

FLASH #222 and #223: I liked it, particularly since Johns loads two sub-plots into the Boomerang subplot. [Note: I'd missed the previous issue of Flash and so read both at the store. As Peter Adriaenssens pointed out in the comments, almost all of this review is about Flash #222. Oy!] I almost wish he'd tried for more: "Don't tell him who his mother is! And keep him away from his broth--Aghhhh! Oh, and I'm not his real father! It's actually Barry Alll--urghhh! But for God's sake, tell him to be careful with the anti-life equation tattooed on his testi--clahhhhh!" Good, because I did like it but seriously, between this and Teen Titans (and Wonder Woman...), I'm wondering if DC is preparing us for Infinite Paternity Crisis... [And since that was all about Flash #222, I wonder how good Flash #223 actually was. I remember it ended with The Reverse-Flash and the cosmic treadmill; I also remember Reverse-Flash kept insisting he wasn't a villain, which must make things a little complex when he's, you know, meeting with his Secret Society of Super-Villains and everything... Anyway, let's call both issues Good and go back to pretending I know what I'm talking about, okay? Thanks!]

GREEN LANTERN #2: Kinda dull, and can DC ever bring back one version of Manhunter, without bringing back every version of Manhunter at the same time? It seems to do no one any favors. Eh.

GRIMOIRE #4: Missed last issue (again), but I'll definitely be picking up the trade on this one when they get it out. A very enjoyable read. Good.

OMAC PROJECT #3: I am deeply confused by those last two pages. Isn't Clark out in space looking for that satellite? Is Max Lord doing his brain-worky thingy? Or did he travel back in time and space to impregnate Lara on the Planet Krypton? (Crafty Max Lord! Crafty Infinite Paternity Crisis!) Hibbs actually had a better take on the whole deal, since he noticed that Jack Kirby is getting a creator credit for OMAC on the title page. On the one hand, he pointed out, this is the sort of stuff that Kirby would *not* have wanted his name associated with it since Kirby was all about the sweep and the uplift of the new, and this is very much the grim and gritty retconning and regurging of the old. But, on the other hand, Kirby would have wanted his name on it if it meant Roz was getting some money, and got money every time OMAC appeared. If anyone knows what the arrangement is, we'd be mighty interested.... Eh.

OUTSIDERS #25: And so Judd Winick kills the only relationship in the book that I cared about. Also, DC talks a pretty good talk about "quality control" and "tightly managed crossovers," but this leads directly into the first issue of a mini that came out a month ago, dramatically stunting its impact. I can sorta let Judd off the hook since I really get the feeling the guy really wants to be Chris Claremont circa 1982, and it's the sort of thing that might've maybe worked if the rest of the team weren't snarly asshats, but DC, on the other hand, has no excuse. Between the scheduling snafus and the lack of crossover notices on the cover, the DCU comes across less like a meticulously coordinated universe and more like a clumsy daisy chain of "goddamned plotless free-for-alls" (to paraphrase Kurt Busiek's timeless quote on the CE bathroom wall). Somewhere between Awful and Eh.

PENNY & AGGIE #1: Not exactly brilliant stuff, but it's an attempt to bring a different kind of a book to the market (it's sorta/kinda like Betty & Veronica in a daily webcomic version of Clueless) and, although it straddles the line between incompetent and inept somewhat precariously, it never entirely flies off into the void of crapitude. Very much Eh, but with the hopes the creators get some chops, develop a more comfortable format to develop their storylines in, and find the skills to suit their ambition. It'd be worth it.

PLANETARY #23: A damned keen issue although the "Worst. Rescue. Ever." line harshed my buzz a little bit. A very admirable job of both filling in us in on the Drummer (finally!) and underscoring how much of the drama of the finale may well rest on Snow's internal struggles. Very Good.

SEVEN SOLDIERS SHINING KNIGHT #3: Sadly reminded me of my experience with Sartrean existentialism: Either there's no real there there and the same stuff just keeps gettting said over and over and over, or I am totally missing fine gradations of nuance and it just seems like the same stuff keeps geting said over and over and over. Considering how badly Morrison telegraphed the identity of the white-haired chick, I'm thinking it's more the latter. Barring an unforeseen fourth issue Hail Mary, this is a very disappointing Awful.

SHAUN OF THE DEAD #1: This is why Hibbs and I should do reviews at the same time more often: He, having never seen the movie, thought this was funny and a good adaptation; I, who have seen the movie, thought it was a well-intentioned disaster as punchline after punchline gets stamped on or blown. Adapting a movie to a comic is a torturous affair, to be sure, and the one element that suffers the most--timing--is the thing that makes or breaks a comedy. It's trying hard to do the impossible, but I thought this was Awful (particularly since, at $3.99 a pop, you can buy the entire movie on DVD cheaper than you can read the adaptation). Hibbs, on the other hand, thought it was Good and is now interested in seeing the movie, so go figure.

SOLO #5: Oh my god, this was good. Shockingly good. I'm a fan of Darwyn Cooke's since before New Frontier and I was still shocked at how good this was. Every one of the stories work, the interludes work, the fun page works, the pin-up page, right out of the heyday of men's magazines, works, and it all works well by being clever and intelligent and gorgeous to look at. I've been really freakin' stingy with the Excellent ratings since SavCrit got restarted as a blog, so pretend it came from Brian: this is Excellent work and absolutely the best bang-for-your-buck of the week. Go get it.

SPAWN #147: I check this title out every once in a while to make sure I'm not missing anything. I'm not. Awful.

SPIDER MAN HUMAN TORCH #5: If nothing else, a pretty great argument for why Spider-Man would make more sense on the Fantastic Four than on the Avengers. Darn heavy on the sentimentality, but arguably well-earned by all the preceding issues of the miniseries (and, by extension, all the Spidey/Torch stories of yesteryear). A good Spider-Man story is my weak spot, so I can't blame you if you disbelieve the Very Good rating (in fact, I can imagine Hibbs saying, "Yeahhhh, it was all right, I guess. It wasn't that good, though.") but I quite liked it. (Take that, Imaginary Hibbs!)

SURROGATES #1: Competent and assured science fiction (although Hibbs thought it started to fall apart if you read the text pieces, which I didn't); kinda reminded me of prime Bradbury (without the treacle) (and that example probably doesn't really tell you more than how generally apathetic I am about science fiction literature). I quite liked it, faux Ashley Wood/Ben Templesmith style art and all. A high Good.

WONDER WOMAN #217: I'm no continuity nerd, but...it looks like the events at the end of this get Wonder Woman caught up for DC Countdown, right? So why does Wonder Girl still think her dad might be Ares in issues of Teen Titans that take place after Countdown when she finds out for sure here? Whatever. Eh.

X-MEN #172: Come back, Chuck Austen, all is forgiven! My new theory is that the editor on X-Men refuses to accept any script outlines that do not read like bad fanfic, and this issue is Exhibit A. Awful, but more like Ewwwwful.

X-MEN KITTY PRYDE SHADOW & FLAME #1: Paul Smith did the art for this and it breaks my heart: a great talent working on a less-than-great script. Beautiful but less than Eh. So sad.

YOUNG AVENGERS #5: The romantic stuff with Iron Lad and Giant Chick seemed to come out of left field, and some of the action scenes caused some head-scratching but I am really enjoying this comic anyway. There've been missteps with every issue and yet each issue has enough Good stuff to it, I don't care.

PICK OF THE WEEK: Solo #5 by the remarkable Darwyn Cooke. No question.

PICK OF THE WEAK: Shining Knight #3 because of the whole dashed expectations thing, or maybe Spawn #147 because it just keeps sucking and sucking and sucking...

TRADE PICK OF THE WEEK: Haven't really started anything, but I was pretty damn excited to have taken home The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck by Don Rosa, and am looking forward to reading it over the holiday weekend.

I still haven't written anything on The Push Man and would still like to, and may let you know when I post the latest Fanboy because I was pretty amused when I wrote it, but that'll probably be around the middle of the week. Happy Fourth to those of you celebrating it!

Reviews of 6/22 books

OK, Jeff sent me an email that he doesn't have time for reviews this week... and oddly, I don't either (Both ONOMATOPOEIA and having to finish this month's Diamond order put a serious crimp on my weekend -- it REALLY sucks when the next PREVIEWS ships the same week the order is due!) Having said that, there's not much point in this site if at least ONE of us isn't doing our thing, so let me do what I can, and see if I can do some short reviews... maybe "old school" Savage Critic short, even.

ASTRO CITY THE DARK AGE #1: A VERY GOOD issue, not that we'd expect less from KB and co. I don't like the trade dress though -- "Astro City" receded into the cover design, and sales were MUCH slower than I was expecting because of that. (I think, that's it, at least)

BATMAN JEKYLL AND HYDE #3: Average stuff. OK. The Batman movie hasn't moved the needle a jot on regular Batman comics, BTW -- though there's a lot of demand for the "classic" TPs (DARK KNIGHT, etc.) Too fucking bad that YEAR ONE and ARKHAM are OOP as SCs. Coulda sold a lot of those. Ah well.

BLACK PANTHER #5: We kept cutting away from the Panther to show his family members -- none of which has become a resonant character yet. Given the bad things that a reboot of BP does to the Marvel timeline, I find this an unfortunate turn of events. OK.

BOOKS OF MAGICK LIFE DURING WARTIME #12: Oh, super fucking yawn. "I betrayed you! Ha! I didn't! Psyche!" Man, I've seen that way too many times. Not any better here, and a weak-ass resolution to this really unpalatable storyline. Doesn't this also kind of fuck the "life during wartime" subtitle? AWFUL.

CAPTAIN AMERICA #7: Except for the fact that this character development stuff is rendered pretty moot by the ending, I liked this just fine. GOOD.

CATWOMAN #44: I thought the end was pretty cheesy (Selina's smarter than all that), and "East End is mine" is growing really really thin, but other than that, an adequate start to the new creative team. I DO seriously think its time to start pruning all of these ancillary bat-books, especially when I can't get much more excited than EH.

DOC FRANKENSTEIN #3: Liked it quite a bit -- there's some fun world building going on here, too. GOOD.

DOOM PATROL #13: Man, when even the characters in the book are commenting about what a ripoff of a TV show your story is, don't that suggest that you're wandering down the wrong path? On the other hand, the last page proves that something clever could possibly come out of it. I'll go with an EH because of that last page.

DREAM POLICE #1: The problem is that this isn't exactly an idea for a STORY: The cops from DRAGNET, except instead of LA, it's "dreams". Here's the problem: the cops from DRAGNET can't, won't and don't WANT to change. A story has to affect SOME change upon a character to work. Interestingly, Jeff and I both flashed to Alan Moore's infinitely better, done-in-8-pages "Chrono Cops" from 2000 AD. I thought this was extraordinarily EH.

GIRLS #2: Better than issue #1, in fact, I think I would have liked #1 if that last page here was the last page there. I still think some of the characters and dialogue is too close to cliché, but it's warming on me. OK.

HELLBOY THE ISLAND #1: It's Hellboy, it's EXCELLENT, that's easy.

HOUSE OF M #2: Fuck me, the series is a quarter of the way done and NOT A THING HAS HAPPENED. I was really really REALLY hoping for more than a big ol WHAT IF...? story, because WHAT IF...? stories CAN'T matter. Even if this series DOES allow certain aspects of the Marvel universe to be "rebooted" "naturally" BECAUSE OF the WHAT IF...?, the main content itself is just a inconsequential thing. I wanted more. I'd also have liked better sales -- we're hovering around the 65% mark, which is fucking awful for a big summer event, so clearly my customers were smarter than I. Worst thing is, it's well drawn, it's well written, but nothing happens. How do you rate that? I'll go middle-of-the-road and EH.

LEGION OF SUPER HEROES #7: Back on the building curve now -- I'm really liking this quite a bit. VERY GOOD.

NEIL GAIMANS NEVERWHERE #1: Comic adaptations are, by themselves, kinda Meh for me. Especially when I keep thinking "No, that's not what they look like". Still, I guess Neil would know better than me, and I'm sure he told Fabry. Trying to approach this as if I'd never read the novel, or watch the BBC adaptation, and I guess I'd give this a high OK.

NEW AVENGERS #6: As Big Bam Boom goes, I guess that was an OK wrap-up to the arc, sorta kinda. I was really struck by Cap's "No Killing" fever, then not, y'know, stretching out his shield arm to protect the Widow. OK, I guess.

QUEEN & COUNTRY DECLASSIFIED VOL 3 #1: Terrific stuff, inside The Troubles in Ireland. Comparisons to any number of Garth Ennis comics is inevitable, but I thought it really rose to the challenge, and gave me an EXCELLENT read.

ROBIN #139: Brucie's little speech there at the front.... well, wow. "Now you're thinking like an insane person who has chased all of his friends away!" Let's give this one to 12 year olds! EH.

SEA OF RED #3: I'm real curious as to where this can go, giving that every issue has been a 90 degree turn from the one ahead of it. Like it though: a very strong OK.

SHAOLIN COWBOY #3: Not as full-on crazy as last issue (though, how could it be?), and, hence, not as much fun. Still, a few good wacky ideas and images. A mild GOOD.

SPIDER-MAN HOUSE OF M #1: Even more so what I said about HoM up above -- at least there's a chance that "something" will happen before issue #8 (Probably: someone kills Wanda, and reality restarts itself in a big ball of white 'splody), but, here, what CAN happen? Oh, sure, I guess Peter can "remember his one moment where everything was perfect and wonderful, and be tortured by it forever", but "defining moments" like that kinda don't work if, in order to explain them, you have to explain the plot of half a dozen other comics as well... Worst part is, this was very well written and drawn -- an easy GOOD, except I Just Simply Don't Care At All. So: OK.

SUPREME POWER #17: "We see no reason to keep SP a MAX book" goes the interview... published right before the issue set in a strip club. Am I the only one who expected a little "Man Of Steel, Woman of Kleenex" moment there at the end? Or even a comment of any kind whatsoever? *shrug* Despite that, I'm still liking this tons: VERY GOOD.

TEEN TITANS #25: If you're going to have a cross-book crossover SAY SOMETHING ABOUT IT ON THE FUCKING COVER YOU FEEBS. Damn, I still have half my OUTSIDERS order left over because the editors can't figure that out. No, sure, they'll tell us something else is a crossover when it's not... but when it is? *sigh* Storywise, I'm ready for this to be resolved quickly... not really enjoying this at all. EH.

ULTIMATE FANTASTIC FOUR #20: Heh, the Mad Thinker, that's cool that I didn't figure it out. Nice Jae Lee art, even with the deadline-past-due silhouettes everywhere. GOOD.

YEAR ONE BATMAN SCARECROW #2: Ultimately I think this might have ran a bit long, and was definitely overpriced... but it was nice to see Batman do some Detecting for once. a very low GOOD.

PICK OF THE WEEK: Lots of fine fine comics to choose from, I think I'll go with QUEEN AND COUNTRY DECLASSIFIED v3 #1 though, despite all of the potent competition.

PICK OF THE WEAK: BOOKS OF MAGICK #12 was probably the worst read of the week, but HOUSE OF M #2 let me down too much to be anything but the Weak pick.

As far as BOOK / TP OF THE WEEK goes, I think I will go with WHATS MICHAEL VOL 10 SLEEPLESS NIGHTS TP. Fun, charming stuff, immaculately drawn, and very funny.

That's it, that's what I thought, how's about you?

-B

A Glimpse of the 6/22 Books

Between last week's reviews and the CE newsletter, I wrote close to 9,000 words--I'm pretty burnt out, to be honest. So there aren't going to be a lot of reviews from me this week, they're not going to going into a lot of depth, and they're going to be crankier than the books probably deserve. I felt it only fair to warn you. CAPTAIN AMERICA #7: A reasonably enjoyable game of cat and mouse being played with the reader's expectations here, but that runs the risk of losing readers altogether if that gets played out too long (I believe they call this "Howard Mackie Syndrome"). Good, I thought.

DOC FRANKENSTEIN #3: The part of my brain that read past page 7 or so got erased, I guess. Either I didn't finish it or it became so dull and pedantic I forgot about it already. It's issue #3; why isn't he kickboxing Jesus yet? Eh.

DREAM POLICE #1: Exactly like those really clever and amusing eight page stories Alan Moore used to do for 2000 A.D., except it's not clever, it's not amusing, it's not eight pages and JMS, whatever else he may be, is no Alan Moore. But other than that, it's identical. Awful.

HELLBOY THE ISLAND #1: What's not to love? I can't even begin to figure out how something so creepy can be so much fun to read. It's a rare achievement. Very Good.

HOUSE OF M #2: So it's a quarter over already and nothing's happened? Hey, great! The more protagonists Bendis has, the slower things seem to move. A little bit of in media res would have gone a long way here. A very low Eh.

IRON GHOST #2: Enjoyable enough, I guess, although I'm a long way from being personally involved in the storyline. I also keep second guessing Dixon's choices for the story, probably because the hook is so good. Eh.

NEW AVENGERS #6: I love how Cap goes to such great lengths to save Yelena from Wolverine and then, after she runs off--you know, on fire--he's all "Meh. Guess we should get home so I don't miss Fear Factor." This is--how you Americans say?--Awful.

NIGHTCRAWLER #7: That Darick Robertson draws like a sumbitch, and the story looks like it's going to get moving, but if there's one thing NuMarvel has driven out of me, it's appreciation for the full-issue fever/dream/fantasy sequence. Scraping the bottom of the Eh barrel.

SHAOLIN COWBOY #3: Not as insane as the previous two issues, but still enjoyably apeshit and that double-paged spread of brutally murdered bodies knocked me out--I just can't help but imagining Darrow whistling a jaunty tune while he draws stuff like that. Very Good.

SPIDER-MAN HOUSE OF M #1: More enjoyable than the first two issues of House of M, but there's still sort of an innate "who cares?" to the whole thing--not only is it unlikely that any of this will matter in the larger scope of things when it's all over (I'm assuming all of the "House of M" stuff is going to end with the shiny red rest button being hit) but I also feel like I've read this before. Well done but still Eh.

SUPREME POWER #17: Anything I would say about this would be just cribbing even more egregiously from Hibbs than I normally do. Hopefully, he'll chime in this week. Good.

ULTIMATE FANTASTIC FOUR #20: The all-silhouette art in the second half was a really impressive cheat--to get the issue out on time, I'm assuming--but I thought the story was ace. It worked perfectly well on its own, but once Rhona starts crabbing about the x factor, and the android shows up, and I realized this was the Mad Thinker--well, that was some extra-tasty frosting on top of an already Very Good cake. A really keen stellar pair of issues.

PICK OF THE WEEK: In fact, let's give it to Ultimate Fantastic Four #20. That just worked.

PICK OF THE WEAK: There was a lot of stuff that was pretty stinky that I didn't even bother to review, but the pricey half-assedness that was Dream Police #1 is a pretty easy lock for the title.

TRADE OF THE WEEK: Barely cracked 'em, but I've really enjoyed what I've read of the MARVEL MASTERWORKS GOLDEN AGESUB-MARINER VOL. 1 (although I didn't realize I'd be getting so much of The Angel for my money). I also picked up WALT & SKEEZIX VOL 1 HC, LITTLE LULU VOL 4, BATTLE ROYALE VOL 13 (or should have; I must not have marked it on the sub form), and am curious to check out MBQ GN at more length. I also read a review copy of THE PUSH MAN and will try to post some thoughts on that in the next couple of weeks.

More Excuses than Reviews: Jeff and the 6/15 Books

Right. Well, not only was it Father's Day yesterday, but Hibbs had the start of an impressive cold on Friday. I'm assuming he'll be down for the count this week, but I'm hoping I'll be as off with this prediction as I was with the last one. As for me, the CE newsletter is on my plate and I spent most of the weekend working on that, but since this week has a little bit of everything (at least in the trades), I thought I would dash off some very quick comments while I can.

Oh, and Batman Begins: pretty good, huh? I thought Hibbs' review was spot on, so I won't add anything.

Also, last week saw the release of Danger: Diabolik on DVD, kind of an amusing compare and contrast to Batman Begins. It's a pretty great package, cheaply priced but lovingly layered with extras (informative fun to be had watching Steve Bissette dissect Mario Bava's visuals). Like the only other Bava film I've seen (Planet of the Vampires), Danger: Diabolik alternated between delightful and deadly dull but I'm really glad I saw it--if you're the type to watch your films while, uh, medicated, I'm sure you'd find it delightful through and through.

And let's see what I can misremember about this week's comix:

ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN #641: Superman encounters OMAC yet again and continues to remain impressively clueless about the whole thing, while the sassy police captain kicks the shit out of Pete Ross--ooo, she beat up not just a helpless ex-president, but also my suspension of disbelief! Hopefully, we'll get to see her push Jimmy Carter down some stairs next ish! As long as OMAC can just show up, kick ass and disappear untraceably, these type of crossovers are gonna be Eh at best, and get tired mighty fast.

AUTHORITY REVOLUTION #9: Remember how Ellis did three four issue arcs with Authority, each one going more over the top until the team essentially beat the shit out of God by the end? I think a similar mix of bombast and concision would have really helped this. Eh.

BATMAN DARK DETECTIVE #4: Pretty much a big ol' time-waster, which this mini (or any mini, frankly) can't afford. And at this rate, by 2030, we'll have Bruce Wayne's entire pre-Batman life mapped out, right down to his dramatic struggle with fear while exiting a bat-shaped birth canal. Eh, because I'm generous that way.

BIRDS OF PREY #83: I think this is supposed to read like a fast-paced, breakneck adventure where the stakes get upped every few pages, but it actually reads to me like an ambitious writer keeps putting more and more on the plate even though there's too much there already. The announcement the other week of Geoff Johns' overseeing the DCU's path into and out of Infinite Crisis couldn't be more timely, because a lot of the DCU writers are starting to Geoff Johnsify their work already. OK.

EX MACHINA #12: Seems on much surer footing than last issue did, which is a relief. Good.

GIANT SIZE X-MEN #3: I doubt there's any way an eight page story is going to be worth this kind of money, no matter how much they were gonna pull out the stops, but I thought felt kinda slapdash with both Whedon and Adams showing their weaknesses (shticky and fussy, respectively) rather than their strengths. Though if Marvel'd just tossed this in an issue of X-Men Unlimited or something, I'm sure it would have felt like a charming little treat. Awful.

HAWKMAN #41: So we finally get one issue where the whole "Hawkman is Conan but he can fly" idea gets the full treatment and people, unsurprisingly, seem kinda skeeved out by it. I thought it was pretty good fun and would gladly read more in the same vein but all the head-loppery and flesh-stabbery underscores how bad a fit that approach is with a character smack in the middle of the DCU. Might be a bit of a moot point what with those last few pages and all but worth pointing out, anyway. OK.

POWERS #11: As someone who's read this book since its very beginnings, this issue kicked my ass up one side of the comic store and down the other. If you're a fan of Powers, I can't imagine this not doing the same. If you're not a fan, I almost want to advise to start reading the book just so you can have the grim pleasure of this issue. Very Good work, to be sure.

SEVEN SOLDIERS KLARION THE WITCH BOY #2: This paid off for me tremendously well, mainly because of all the interlocking bits with SS: Guardian #2, but also because Morrison kept changing up the plot every few pages or so. Lovely, lovely art, too. Very Good.

SIMPSONS COMICS #107: A strong return to form for Boothby, I thought, with finally a bit of a change-up on the splash page joke, and just a lot of amusingly silly situations. If there's something that didn't work for me this issue, I don't remember it--also Very Good.

VIMANARAMA #3: Late but worth it: this easily cleared beat the dashed expectations left after issue #2 and I enjoyed it quite a bit. Maybe because Philip Bond got to focus on the small human interactions where he really excels, or maybe because G-Mo's character developments, which previously felt a bit slapdash, here add up to a sum a bit larger than their parts, or maybe because it reminded me of some of Salman Rushdie's fizzier writing. But whatever the case, felt like a Good read to me.

WOLVERINE #29: That cover made me very uncomfortable, as probably any cover where Wolverine is hurtling his groin at my face might. Fears of forced oral copulation aside, I thought this was better than the last two or three issues as the art and story seem to have a bit more spark to them. Good.

And so we move to this week's trade section, which really made the week for me:

AEIOU GN: On the one hand, this felt like a rehash of too-similar material Brown's already explored, which may well be the point--how many times do we go through the same experience of love, but with different partners, until it finally changes? On the other hand, Brown's keenly observant about the small moments that make and break a relationship, and it's precisely those moments I love reading about. But I got more and more restless as I made my way through the book, suspcious that Brown may feel he has to do one of these for each of his failed relationships to prove that the most recent was as important to him as the first. Some of the dramatic shifts in time and place in the middle of the titled sections were a welcome jolt, and points to an awareness on Brown's part that this material needs to be shaken up a little bit. Maybe it's time for pure fiction, where the observations can inform and be informed by the pleasures of plot? OK.

CAPTAIN AMERICA BY JACK KIRBYBICENTENNIAL BATTLES TPB: Proves the sad truism that anything I buy on Ebay will be collected less than two years later. I love Kirby's material and it's a delight to have this in easy access--plus the issues of CA where Kirby riffs on an idea (a planet of lunatics) straight out of Phil Dick. Bonus points for the occult shiver received by seeing Archie Goodwin listed as consulting editor(!) If you're a Kirby fan, OK to Good.

DER STRUWWELMAAKIES HC: Tony Millionaire's latest Maakies collection, designed again by the mighty Chip Kidd. Surprisingly, it's taking me a bit longer to get into the material than previously, but the gay dentures joke at the start gave me a pretty good laugh and I don't doubt there's more to come. Preliminary prognosis is between OK and Very Good.

ESSENTIAL FANTASTIC FOUR VOL 4 TPB: You know how they say chocolates cause the production of some of the same endorphins as when you're in love? For me, this holds true with Kirby inked by Sinnott. This stuff resonates so deeply in me, it must be lodged near my medulla oblongata--I may well have trembled as I read it. Gorgeous stuff and at the top of my Very Good rating.

SCOTT PILGRIM VOL 2 VS THE WORLD GN: I was almost relieved when I didn't initially take to the opening flashback section--although worried that Bryan Lee O'Malley had hit something like sophomore slump and had already promised more volumes of this narrative than his interest or skills could sustain, I was secretly glad that I wouldn't have to play the role of frothy-mouthed proselytizer, jumping all about like some sex-crazed chimpanzee, telling you about how O'Malley had met or exceeded the potential of Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life and that you should dash out and buy his book and give him all your money for doing something impressive and delightful and great.

And then I got to the end of the flashback section, and the book proceeded to work a horrifying magic on me, and make me an even more fevrent frothy-mouthed proselytizer than I could have imagined. Scott Pilgrim Versus The World is brilliant, and a real delight and you should dash out RIGHT NOW and buy a copy of this book and give O'Malley ALL YOUR MONEY. The references to video games, RPGs, autobbio comix, manga and anime are still there and arguably better than ever (my heart swelled with love over the Mithril Skateboard gag) but, in making Scott a tool who barely pays attention to the hearts he breaks, O'Malley begins to add shadings to the narrative that speak to human nature (who hasn't oblivously broken someone else's heart? Who hasn't had their heart broken by someone oblivious?) and grounds it all in a more emotionally real context than you'd expect. Throw in some real Toronto locations (and the knowledge that O'Malley and his wife Hope Larson have relocated from Toronto to Halifax) and the second volume suggests that the Scott Pilgrim series may end up a far more clear-eyed farewell to youth than all the giddiness and hilarity and finishing moves might indicate.

In short, I absolutely loved this god-damned book. Please check out the first two volumes when you get the chance, please. Excellent.

PICK OF THE WEEK: Scott Pilgrim! Scott Pilgrim! Scott Pilgrim! But if I had to pick a floppy, I'd go with Powers #11, Klarion #2, or Simpsons #107, depending on what you follow. They were all yummy.

PICK OF THE WEAK: I didn't bother much with the stinky stuff this week. From what I follow, I was very disappointed in Batman: Dark Detective #4.

TRADE PICK: Scott Pilgrim! Scott Pilgrim! Scott Pilgrim!

Reviews for some 6/8 Books.

No clever opening for me, I'm afraid. I didn't see the preview of Batman Begins, probably because my luck with movies have been so bad lately: this week I finally got around to seeing Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith (dull, cliched, frustratingly inept), Butterfly Effect (hey, I liked Final Destination 2 so I thought it was worth a shot. Boy was I wrong) and Electra Glide in Blue (starts off as an exemplar of everything great about '70s Hollywood before becoming everything terrible about '70s Hollywood). Thank God, I guess, for HBO on video: just finished watching Season Two of The Wire and loved it: different from Season One, but still great. Oh, and thank god for comix, too. Because this was a pretty decent week:

ACTION COMICS #828: Okay, that Villains United tie-in is pretty gratuitous if not nearly nonsensical. (Rather than wait for Dr. Polaris to get carted off to jail, you're going to grab him right from Superman's hands and tip him off to the formation of your super-gang? That seems…dumb, to say the least.) But this really hit all the right beats for a Superman comic, with a convincingly romantic ending. I hope Gail avoids the urge to grit this up, and Byrne's content to turn out this art, because this is the most I've enjoyed a Super title in too long. Good.

ACTION PHILOSOPHERS ALL SEX SPECIAL: Previously, Action Philosophers was more of a book I felt I should like than a book I actually liked, but this issue was flat-out great: Dunlavey and Van Lente's work reminds me of Larry Gonick here, able to tackle complex issues with a light touch that doesn't undermine the subjects. Covering St. Augustine, Jefferson and Ayn Rand in one issue also was a great touch, as one can track how the philosophical breakthroughs of one allowed for the very different philosophical developments of the other. It's far from perfect (Van Lente's work is expressive and cleaner than I remember it, but it's a shame that he couldn't nail that Kirby Manichaeism sequence as much as evoke it) but it's a full 32 pgs. of fun and fascinating reading for $2.95; how can I not give it a Very Good?

BATMAN DARK DETECTIVE #3: For better or for worse, times have changed. Back in the '70s, one probably could get some genuine pathos out of the idea of Two-Face gaining and losing a second chance at life via a Harvey Dent clone, but now it just seems embarrassingly quaint. Throw in a heavy dose of emotional speechifying and I'd be hard-pressed to give this an OK for more than sentimental reasons, if it wasn't for some beautifully evocative Marshall Rogers art—I'd probably give this a high OK for that alone.

BATMAN LEGENDS OF THE DARK KNIGHT #192: The Chase team of Williams and Johnson turn in a rock-solid script, but it's Seth Fisher's art that really gives this some oomph: it's filled with little details to an almost Geoff Darrowish degree. We'll see where this story ends up going, but for now, a really Good issue.

BETE NOIRE #1: The $9.95 price tag puts this very much in a half-empty/half-full conundrum: compared to Kramer's Ergot, this is a chance to sample similarly outré cartoonists for a much cheaper price. However, compared to Hoax #2, this is an anthology that's three times the price and of varying or equivalent value (I ended up much preferring Hoax, frankly). Apart from a few of the Japanese cartoonists (lumped together toward the front, oddly), I wasn't much struck by much of the material here and at least pricey anthologies like Kramer's or Non (or, of course, the progenitor, Raw) have appeal in and of themselves as attractive objects—this, by contrast, feels distressingly like an overpriced comic book. Please keep in mind all my many biases (I almost always preferred the narrative to non-narrative pieces in Raw, for example) when I tell you this ranked squarely on the Eh side of things for me.

GOTHAM CENTRAL #32: On the one hand, a very nice done-in-one about crooked cops in the GCPD. On the other hand, I'd gladly read about these guys in every issue and the ending makes that seem a bit unlikely. Still, Very Good.

GRAVITY #1: Cute, and my blessed ignorance of mid-'90s Marvel characters (Hibbs reassured me Rage really is a character and really was both an Avenger and a New Warrior) actually made this even more amusing and McKeever's script hit all the right beats. In fact, although it's probably soon to say this, there weren't any real surprises—the first issue read just like I imagined it might. And although the art is clean, I wish it could have captured more of a sense of New York--the simultaneity of its grit and its splendor, to say nothing of the sheer crush of its population (that double-page splash is the only time we see more than eight people in the background). But I'm willing to go up to a low Good for this first issue because it's a promising start and I'm still relieved to pick up a book from either Marvel or DC that isn't trying to eyerape me with its gritty ultra-importance.

HOAX #2: As I said above, I preferred this to Bete Noire, although that's due largely to both price and a preference for narrative--Nate Neal's contributions are solidly told and entertaining, if a little heavy on the authorial sneer, and I thought Lydia Gregg's "Law of Bone Healing," which mixes Gonick style educational comix with a piece of war abuse propaganda, was an effective and promising piece of work. Only "Reflex" struck me as not worth the pagecount, but overall this issue conjured some of the enjoyment I had reading issues of Weirdo the first time around (minus the patented Crumb genius, of course): the sense that cartoonists are struggling to develop a style and engage with the world, and that the struggle is not just worth having, but worth reading. Good.

HOLMES PERIPHERY FLIP BOOK: A very clever idea (Holmes being a dope-addled fiend; Watson his Dr. Feelgood) that never gets off the ground--and by "ground," I mean "inside cover" where the idea is pitched outright. While that certainly makes the book very inviting to new readers, I found it troubling it more or less had to spelled out at the beginning. There's just not enough to the story, which starts as a Holmes pastiche and quickly ends up an outtake from a Victorian Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas. For me, the enjoyment would come from seeing the story work as both simultaneously, but instead all of the elements are just haphazardly thrown into the pot in the hopes it'll end up as a really good soup. That it didn't is quite a bummer. Going with the Eh here.

ICE HAVEN GN: The great thing about working in a comic store like CE on a slowish Friday morning is being able to sit down with a book like this and compare it page to page with the original issue of Eightball. The slicing of each page into two pages worked much better than I thought it would, and the new material (what would have accounted for, at most , three pages in the original Eightball) did a brilliant job of bringing the reader's focus more explicitly on the book's themes and a plot point or two (the ending in particular underscores an important part of the plot that had previously zipped right over my head). Very Good work (in fact, if this had been the original issue of Eightball with the additional material I think it'd be Excellent), but it's three times the price for very much the same material and I kinda can't get away from that fact. I'm sure of far greater interest (and relevance to the book's success) will be reviews from people coming to the material completely fresh, but if, like me, you've already got the original issue, I say inveigle your local library into getting a copy and check it out then.

JLA #115: Liked this because the focus was more on the Injustice Gang and the JLA deciding to tell Batman, than any sort of Bat-histrionics as promised on the cover (although I'm sure that'll come later). Also, a lot more character scenes and a lot less of the relentless crash and bash than Johns' scripts have had lately. So I'll go with a high Good and hope it goes to some interesting places from here.

LITTLE STAR #3: Latest issue didn't knock me on my ass quite as much as last issue because the dramatic change-up felt both a little too subtle and too sudden-- a few too many pages about the partnership between parents that felt a bit redundant in the face of previous issues, maybe--but still near the top of my Very Good rating. I'm really enjoying this book.

MARVEL KNIGHTS SPIDER-MAN #15: Why I read this, I can't really say although, thanks to the Mark Buckingham flashback pages, I liked it a lot more than the previous two issues. But particularly on the face of the recent JMS story, having another of Peter Parker's unpopular ex-classmates seemed very, very groanworthy. Throw in a very gratuitous Punisher sequence and I'm still gonna go with Awful.

NEW WARRIORS #1: Skottie Young's art is dynamic, fluid and colorful, but bleeds so fully into the cute edge of the spectrum (it seems almost more Disney-influenced than manga or anime), I can't imagine your typical Marvel fan--or whatever remaining New Warrior fans might still survive--enjoying this. Nonetheless, I liked this fine, and hope Frank Tieri, doing a very similar concept in Hercules, looks to this as primer on how to get a miniseries up and running quickly and smoothly. Will win no awards but a very high OK, nonetheless.

NIGHTWING #109: No need for that Villains United crossover blurb on the cover, if you ask me. And I'm still incredulous from previous revelations (mainly that all the mooks know that Dick Grayson is Dick Grayson) so this really can't get better than OK although I liked it fine.

PULSE #9: Would make me want to read Secret War, if the issues I'd already read of that hadn't felt like a waste of time and money. Also, having your bimonthly book tie in so closely to your quarterly (at best) miniseries is not the savviest use of marketing synergy. Will I remember any resultant desire by the time Secret War hits the stands? Maybe in Bendis's dayplanner, but not here in the real world, I'm afraid. A high OK.

PUNISHER #22: The art seemed a little flat this issue, or maybe the coloring washed it out (although I got the impression the colorist was actually trying to do the opposite) but this still continues to be the best arc since the reboot. I wasn't sold that Frank is so out of control he can't help but knowingly put his ass into that trap but maybe I might've if this had been paced a bit differently. OK.

RANN THANAGAR WAR #2: I made it to page three before a crippling case of the don't-cares set in. The art did make me want to dig up my old copy of Superman Versus Muhammad Ali, I'll give it that. A very low Eh.

STARDUST KID #1: Mike Ploog's still got fearsome chops, but I've never been a mighty big fan of DeMatteis in winsome mode—he practically makes Ray Bradbury read like Ernest Hemingway by comparison—so I can't really say this deep fried my twinkie. But it sure did look mighty great, and maybe it'll work better for its intended audience than it did for me. OK, at the very least.

STRANGE GIRL #1: Some luminous coloring initially obscured some real shortcomings in the storytelling and art, I think, and I was also more engaged with the first half when the Rapture comes than the second half where the demons have sway over all and our heroine is all grown up—I would have much rather continued reading about that young girl and how she manages to survive than jumping forward in the narrative so the artist can now feel comfortable centering the panels around her ass. I'll give it an OK because I really was drawn into the first part, but if it goes downhill from here I won't be a bit surprised.

STRAY BULLETS #38: That psycho Huss is a perfect foil for Virginia (who's not particularly well-adjusted either) and Lapham still excels at putting his characters in uncomfortable situations and making the reader feel they're right there with them. On the upper edge of Good, but my dissatisfaction Lapham's use of flat and rounded characters (too much of the former, not enough of the latter) keeps me from going higher.

ULTIMATE FANTASTIC FOUR #19: Back before Galactus, Stan and Jack's FF stories seemed centered around the team running down trap-laden hallways, so this was a really great update by Mike Carey and Jae Lee of a very old trope. If you're a seriously old school FF fan, you might also find this Very Good.

ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #78: Hey, an issue of USM where Brian Bendis actually seems to know what he's doing! Remember when we used to get that every issue? Although I can't tell if there was more than one case of misdirected captions, and can't tell if everything's gonna go right back to frustrating, Good is Good.

X-MEN #171: Unsubtle soap opera with blatantly sexual themes that seem to assume the worst about human nature—are we sure Chuck Austen's not back on the book? I think this was big pile of Awful.

PICK OF THE WEEK: As I said, a lot of good stuff this week, I thought, but ACTION PHILOSOPHERS ALL SEX SPECIAL was an enjoyable, educational and thought-provoking read. UFF #19 was also a nice cheap shot of good fun.

PICK OF THE WEAK: MARVEL KNIGHTS SPIDER-MAN #15 didn't work for me, to put it lightly.

TRADE PICK: Get Ice Haven into your public library, and get Age of Bronze Vol. 2 TPB into your own. Eric Shanower's retelling of the Trojan War is top-notch comix.

Hibbs' earlyreview of BATMAN BEGINS

Just got back from a preview screening of BATMAN BEGINS. (and how cool is this? I went with my Dad.) Let's get some initial thoughts down while everything is fairly fresh in me head. I'm going to try to be as spoiler-free as I can, because, y'know, the thing don't come out for 10 days or whatever, but this is a review, and I might let something slip. You have been warned. It's a very good movie, but it's not like the second coming of superhero films, or anything like that. Several reviewers are way overselling it, man.

It's got a brilliant first act, it has a very solid second act -- the third act though, eh, didn't work too well for me.

Part of the problem is how the action is staged -- virtually every fight is cut so fast from angles where you really can't tell what the fuck is going on. Since the third act depends so much in the Set Piece Big Fight, that isn't how I would have staged it.

A good example might be the first fight Batman gets in -- Batman is treated nearly like the alien in, well, ALIEN -- you hardly catch a glimpse of him, people start dropping, someone hits... don't know, Batman? their partner? I can't tell, there's shooting, but it is at shadow, and it's all too damn fast. It's like watching it from the POV of the thugs being taken down. That's how THEY see Batman. Which is great, but I want to see what he's doing... that's the fun of Batman, isn't it?

But, of course, you can't really show Batman doing all that stuff, because it'd look like shit. You'd never be able to believe that costume, in motion, could possibly move that much, that fast. Thankfully you almost never see the full Batman costume, because it looks pretty silly. In the few shots where it was just shoulders up, talking, it looked like Bale would topple over from the top-heaviness of the suit.

They generally do an excellent job of covering their limitations in most places -- Batman haul-ass runs more than once, but the angle and cape effects cover for it great; and there's plenty of excellent "Batman as gargoyle shots"

Another part of the problem is that the movie is BIG, I don't mean in a "Hollywood Blockbuster" kind of way (though it is that, too), but in that a whole whole WHOLE lot of subplots happens, and there's tons upon tons of characters, so everyone has to be able to get to DO something in the third act, which leads to more than a few awkward moments I thought (I'd single out one of the Batmobile's drivers, he said, trying desperately to remain spoiler free).

The performances are pretty uniformly excellent. They'd almost have to be with the cast assembled here -- I thought Katie Holmes was probably the weakest, but then her character wasn't much of a character (though a thousand times more of a character than any *other* Obligatory Female in a Batman film) -- she exists as childhood friend, crusading DA, and moral center, but those are plot roles rather than personal character. Not Katie Holmes' fault though.

I generally liked the changes to the Batman mythos itself. While I always resent "Nemesis comes from origin" as a storytelling crutch (cf: Joker in the first Burton film), the bits of that they do here usually fundamentally work, because they're actually *about* something. They have psychological weight, if nothing else.

On the other hand, I thinking changing Ra's motivation in the way that they did probably weakens the character. I mean with comic book Ra's I might even be with him pretty much everywhere up to "so, then we kill 90% of the population!" This one I was definitely less down with.

There's something else I'm not mentioning because it would totally be a spoiler, but I thought it was very very cool. You'll know it when you see it.

Gary Oldman did a whole damn lot with very very little. Morgan Freeman was Morgan Freeman, which rocks. And Michael Caine... well I liked him, but a "lower class" Alfred is so strange. It's like "Whot's tha', guv'ner? Batman? Roight! I'm game!"

Bale, himself, I thought was the best screen portayal of Batman so far.

So, yes, I enjoyed it -- it had depth, it was thoughtful, it built its themes, and it all comes down to explosions and punches, as such things do. Without the need to give pretty much every character some sort of role in the climax, I think it might have been more satisfying.

I can't explain what I thought much better without spoiling the hell out of it.

You do want to see this in the theatre, and you actually DO want to see this in a theatre with a bunch of people and not wait for a DVD or something, it will be more fun with the oohs and the ahs and the laughs. So, yeah: VERY GOOD.

Oh, and the new DC logo at the top of the film? It doesn't move or spin, as I thought it would. And the comics flashes (What DID flash up there? anyone know?) weren't connected at all TO the logo. Foo!

-B