INFINITE CRISIS #7, a review

INFINITE CRISIS #7: Otherwise known as: The Issue That Outstayed It's Welcome. I read IC #7, and thought, "Holy cow, that was bad!" That didn't seem like it could be right, so an hour later, I read it again. Same thing. Then I decided to read #1-6 again, to see where it went off the rails -- and, no, I liked those issues to greater or lesser extents. And it made me understand I didn't like #7 because the main story should have STOPPED at the end of #6, leaving this just for wrapup and explanation.

In some ways this issue is perfectly encapsulated by the double page spread on pages 2 & 3 -- everyone is sort of just standing around and posing, heroes and villains all mixed together with no difference between which one is who and why or what they're doing. That sketchy background, looking half-finished, and hastily colored, as if someone in production said, "FedEx is about to leave the lobby, I don't care if it's finished, we have to ship it NOW!" That rushed, confusing, muddled feeling is how I felt about this comic.

I understand that some of the thrill of the super-hero comic is in the big, epic battle -- witness the scene in IDENTITY CRISIS where Deathstroke takes on the entire JLA -- but the corollary to that is that you need to be able to tell what's going on! Between pages where hard-to-identify characters maim other hard-to-identify characters and the hugely missed opportunities (I winced when Batman confronts Deathstroke, the scene cuts away, then cuts back to Batman's "Hah, I won!" without showing a fight we might have all actually wanted to see; or how about the cover's promise of Robin vs Bizarro?) this was absolutely unsatisfying on the action score.

Reading #7 after immediately reading #1-6, the whole Every Villain Hits Metropolis thing is completely out of left field -- it makes no sense in the context of the story presented to you unless you also read the VILLIANS UNITED special. I really resent that as both a reader and a retailer: it isn't playing fair with the audience.

It is also used to very poor effect, and lots of illogic -- like on the 2-3 spread where you see Sivana as one of the combatants. A 70-year old man whose greatest power is to say "heh, heh, heh"? Yeah, he'll last 6 seconds against Aquaman. Or how about the big money shot with Doomsday and the Supermen? Where'd Doomsday COME from? Sure, they busted him out of his cell at Riker's, right?

But if there's a core single problem with this issue, it's Superboy Prime. Simply put, he's not an interesting enough antagonist to have him come back, Jason Vorhees-style, again and again. His arc through the first six went well enough, but he too should have perished when the tower was destroyed last issue (or, rather, he probably should never have come out of the Speed Force in the first place)

Speaking of that, WTF on the whole Speed Force thing? Up until now, it hasn't been portrayed as a "place" that someone could be "imprisoned", nor as one where time "passes" -- but Bart Allen ages to the point where people mistake him for Wally, and Superboy Prime isn't now "Superman Prime"?

I also really could have done without the gory beating to death of the GA Superman. It's not so much about the action (though, given that "Earth Prime" was originally meant to be OUR earth, which makes Superboy Prime US, beating to death the Golden Age is probably an interesting [if unintended] metaphor for comics today), as the DEPICTION of that action. Why do there have to be red red blood splatters everywhere? Why do, for that matter, do we have to see the effect of the acid on Alexander Luthor's face? It's unnecessary, and I think it's a real mistake that you really shouldn't hand this series to, say, an eight year old. Superhero comics are supposed to be for kids, too!

A significant part of the ultimate failure or success of this book is wrapped around the "Big 3" and how their arcs parse. We've a mixed report in that case. The good news is that Batman's arc works really well, and taken as a whole through the 7 issues was the one shining spot of this series, breaking him down as the High Asshat of the DCU to someone who is going to wrestle his demons with his friend's help.

For Superman, I'm a little iffy. The charge leveled at him was "inaction", of not being inspiring, and so on. Except, that charge doesn't really stick in the first place so any purported change in the character is muted at best.

Finally, Wonder Woman's arc is a complete mess. In issue #1 she's apparently going to kill Mongul... well, just cuz, I guess. But that's a completely different circumstance than the killing of Max Lord - that was staged in such a way as to have been the right thing to do -- she didn't have any choice, and she didn't seem to relish it, or be in any way anything other than pragmatic about it. No, what's at issue here is her public perception of her actions. I mean, forgive me if I'm wrong, but isn't she a fugitive from international justice? As well as no longer an Ambassador, since her nation is no more? We were shown that the public seems to fear and hate her, yet at the end of #7 no one is talking about any of this, and lalalalala, she's just blithely hanging around the docks with Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne, in front of the entire crew of Bruce's steamer. Mm.

Her "It's not worth it" rings utterly false as the epiphany for her -- of course one doesn't slaughter a helpless and defeated opponent; but that was never her issue in the first place. Regardless of anything else that happens, and whether the friendship can "heal", I made my disbelief saving throw that Clark and Bruce wouldn't insist Diana immediately deal with the charges, and not go off and "find herself".

I also kinda have a problem with the "new earth" concept -- first off the original CRISIS showed how well it works to retroactively change backstories in an interconnected universe, and we've had 20 years building a new continuity, and now it's in question again? Ugh. I also find this problematic because it is accompanied with the One Year Jump, leaving me felling hit at both sides. I sure hope 52 is really good.

For the most part, INFINITE CRISIS held up to what it was meant to be -- a big, 'splody universe-spanning thingy. Read as a chunk, I thought #1-6 were a decent example of that kind of a story. Overall, I'd probably give the first six a very high OK, maybe reaching a low GOOD at points. But, ugh, #7 was AWFUL, sorry.

Maybe more later....

-B

Never underestimate the lure of bitching pointlessly: Graeme's review of two books from 5/3.

I really should be outside and enjoying the sunshine, but there’s so much bile in my heart and two big books to write about, this week… CIVIL WAR #1: I admit it, I think I may be genetically disposed to disliking this book – The pre-release hype advertising it as something “important” beyond a superhero crossover, the subtitle “A Marvel Comics Event In Seven Parts”, my general dislike for Mark Millar’s writing… the idea of me enjoying this was somewhat of a distant hope. And yet, somehow, it still feels like a letdown.

The basic idea behind the series – Regular Americans turn on superheroes after a disaster, and force government to draft legislation requiring heroes to become government agents or else – is sound enough, but the execution doesn’t work for me in this issue. Part of it may have to do with the fact that there are no surprises here; not only has the pre-release publicity told us everything that happens here (including who’s leading the two opposing “sides”, making the last page reveal especially flat), but the first few pages of the book (one of the two action sequences, and arguably the most important pages in the first issue) have seen print in Wizard, Marvel Previews and New Avengers : Illuminati already. How could anything have any real impact with that amount of information available before it appeared? But even if I’d known nothing about the series, there would still be all of my usual problems with Millar’s writing…

For one thing, Millar has this tendency to write stories that only really work if you accept that everyone involved is a bit of a dick. That’s the case here – no-one seems incredibly sympathetic, especially Captain America and Iron Man in the aftermath of the destruction of Stamford. Instead of being horrified by the disaster itself, they’re horrified by what they see as a failure in the New Warriors’ judgement: “The FEMA chief said there could be eight or nine hundred casulaties all dead for a stupid TV reality show.” “They should have called us, Cap. Speedball knew the New Warriors were out of their league.” (Later on, Tony Stark repeats this view of the accident being less an accident than a failure of judgement, telling the greiving mother of one of the dead, “The New Warriors’ recklessness had nothing to do with me.” Mind you, he was just at a funeral where the priest shared his viewpoint: “…And so we ask you, Lord, for Your mercy. Not only for the souls of the children who perished, but for the super-people whose carelessness caused this tragedy.” Apparently, the idea that this was all a terrible accident and that the (dead) New Warriors aren’t to blame for someone else blowing up hundreds of kids is an entirely alien one to everyone in this series. At no point does anyone really attempt to blame the bad guy who actually did the blowing up, interestingly enough.) There are other bits of characterisation that just seem incredibly odd and callous, as well – Why does the Invisible Woman say “The secret identity thing isn’t such a big deal. The Fantastic Four have been public since the very beginning, and it’s never been a serious concern” when, a page earlier, we’re told that her brother is in the hospital as a result of being attacked because his identity was publicly known? Doesn’t she consider that a serious concern? – and the feeling throughout the whole thing is very much that the characters are only acting that way at any given moment to serve the purpose of the plot.

Of course, if Millar’s dialogue was any better, then perhaps the characters wouldn’t seem to be so obviously plot pawns. More than any other big name writer around these days with the potential exception of Bendis, Millar’s dialogue relies on a number of tricks and tics, and those come into play a lot in this first issue (He uses a lot of Scottishisms, which I always find amusing; there’s always at least one character who’ll call another character “big man” in a Millar book at one point). The worst examples are the conversation between Captain America and SHIELD director Maria Hill, with both characters lapsing into generic-Millar-tough-speak and each calling a team of soldiers “boys” within four panels, and the fact that two different characters refer to the destruction of Stamford as “the straw that broke the camels back” because, apparently, there are no other metaphors available to show how important it is in the Marvel Universe.

Not all of the blame can be laid at Mark Millar’s feet, of course; for a script that apparently went through eight drafts, you’d have hoped that editor Tom Brevoort would’ve caught some of the problematic dialogue, or even that there are more than 23 heroes at the Baxter Building despite the dialogue that states that number. The bad feeling that I got from the weak story wasn’t helped by Joe Quesada’s two page hypetastic editorial at the back of the book (“Here at MARVEL, we work very hard to make sure that ALL of our blockbuster events are NEW-reader-accessible, and CIVIL WAR is no exception.” That’s why I’m listing the trade paperbacks you should buy to get introduced to the main characters!), or the four page “There are our crossovers” advert afterwards.

It’s not all bad, of course; Steve McNiven and Dexter Vines art is pretty interesting, especially at points where facial expressions get distorted as if everything is grand opera or silent cinema, and Morry Hollowell’s coloring is pretty great. It’s just mostly bad. Crap.

INFINITE CRISIS #7: Meanwhile, the DC Comics Event in Seven Parts reaches its conclusion, and… it’s not so good. For one thing, I’m glad that it made its (second) shipping date and all, but with eleven artists credited, it’s the weakest issue of the series in terms of visuals, especially Joe Bennett’s pages – that final double page spread of the One Year Later DC Universe has some very, very poor anatomy going on – which make me very nervous about what 52 is going to look like. But, as with the rest of the series, this is Geoff Johns’ baby, and his writing is what dooms this final issue. There’s simply too much going on here, and not enough space for everything to be explained or make sense. When did Alex Luthor come up with this plan B? And, for that matter, how did he and Superboy get to Metropolis from whatever Pole they were at before without anyone noticing? What happened to Doomsday? Continuity gets revised and it only gets a couple of lines? And Alex Luthor’s fate… What was that all about? I mean, okay, I get that it fits in with Superboy’s line from the start of the book about still being unable to tell the heroes and villains apart, and then Batman and Wonder Woman’s “Killing? Hey, heroes don’t dig that!” thing, but still… Why did it have to be the Joker? Wouldn’t it have made more sense, plotwise, for it just to be Lex Luthor? Putting the Joker in, especially with that crappy “You didn’t let the Joker play” line, feels like someone said “Hey, Geoff, can you make sure the Joker’s somewhere in the last issue? The kids love that Joker.”

All of that said, I liked something about this final issue. I liked the resolution of Batman’s midlife crisis (and that it was, essentially, “Okay, I’ll use a gun, y’bastard! Oh, no… wait… Aw, shit.”), and the Supermen/Superboy showdown was fun, as was the fact that Superboy Prime has become the new insane scheming badguy of the DCU, plotting his comeback (It never ends… It is an Infinite Crisis!). Splitting everything that happened here into two issues – or adding some more pages to this one – would’ve helped out here a lot, but there’s about as much good as there is bad about this issue, and overall, it’s been a fun series. But then, I’m a DC Fanboy, so my opinion may be more than a little bit skewed. Eh bordering on Okay, depending on how much I think about the rest of the series…

What with only reviewing two books this week, PICK OF THE WEEK and PICK OF THE WEAK should be kind of obvious… TRADE OF THE WEEK, however, would be Essential Classic X-Men volume 2, which was due out this week (I don’t think I saw it in the store, but I wasn’t really looking). Some of the first comics I ever read, back when Marvel UK had a two color (Black and blue) reprint book called “The Original X-Men,” you know…

Free Comic Books! I have read! For your education! Before you pick them up! Tomorrow! On Free Comic Book Day!

So, yeah, X-MEN / RUNAWAYS? It’s kind of Eh, which is both surprising and depressing. I’m a big fan of Brian K. Vaughan normally, but due to stagefright, deadline or editorial edict, he somehow managed to write a lead story for this book that’s devoid of any of his usual wit or even anything resembling an interesting plot: The Runaways meet the X-Men, they fight, and then they don’t. The end. It’s a waste of a lot of good characters and a potentially interesting situation, not to mention Skottie Young’s cartoony art. The other features in the book – a new Franklin Richards strip, a preview of the new Marvel Adventures: The Avengers book, and a recap of Ultimate Spider-Man to date – feel pretty much like the filler that they are. DC, meanwhile, fields two free books, both reprints: SUPERMAN / BATMAN #1 is, well, it’s Superman/Batman, which means that Jeph Loeb does the writing equivalent of speaking very loudly as if you are stupid while Ed McGuinness provides bouncy bright pop superhero art. It’s fun, and has origin-recap and easy-to-understand-plot action, but hardly essential (S/B didn’t hit its “What the fuck” stride until the second issue, when time-travelling Supermen tried to kill Batman with the Batmobile from the ‘60s TV show). JUSTICE LEAGUE UNLIMITED #1 reads like a weak episode of the TV show, or alternately, a fill-in from a ‘70s issue of JLA; the plot is servicable, but lacks the humor or random guest-stars of the cartoon. S/B: Good, JLU: Okay, but one year I would love to DC put out something great as their free book. Imagine if they’d put together a bumper edition of Grant Morrison’s JLA Classified arc, for example… You’d still get the McGuinness art from S/B, but it’d be accompanied by crazy dumb action, all of the main DCU characters, and a lead into Seven Soldiers.

AMELIA RULES!: FUNNY STORY: I’ve never read any of this series before, but it’s well-done for what it is. Aimed at what used to be called tweenagers back when I was young, it manages to walk the fine line between avoiding patronizing its readers and avoiding depressing them. There are some fun running jokes and visual gags, but it’s not an overly comedic book – Imagine Gilmore Girls for kids, and you’re kind of there. Good.

ARCHIE’S 65TH ANNIVERSARY BASH: The Archie books are kind of reviewproof, and this one more than most, because there’s no real story. Archie gets upset about the prospect of moving, wanders around meeting the star of almost every other Archie title, cheers up upon discovering that he’s not moving after all, and then celebrates the 65th anniversary of his comic book. That last part is kind of weird; Archie starts staring at the reader and saying “What?! Our comics have been around for 65 years?!” in some uncomfortable fourth wall breaking move that almost freaked me out as much as some of the reader art at the back of the book. Eh, because, you know, what else can I say? It’s an Archie book.

BLUFF & TALES FROM A FORGOTTEN PLANET: Narwain preview two of their upcoming books in this glossy special that makes you… not exactly want to pick up those upcoming books. Bluff is the more successful of the two, a story of a stray dog and his flea friend trying to come to terms with a stereotypical American family as seen by Japanese creators Giovanni Masi and Yoshiko Watanabe. There isn’t an original joke in it, nor really any funny ones, but at least it’s not as bad as The Stellar Losers, the preview strip from Tales From A Forgotten Planet, which is just not good at all. You know that Sci-Fi show Tripping The Rift? The really appallingly unfunny one? Stellar Losers is much, much worse. Crap.

BONGO COMICS FREE-FOR-ALL!: Yes, it’s all reprint, but it’s worth picking up for the first panel alone. Possibly the only comic that recognizes that Free Comic Book Day is all about people who are already reading comics – because, really, who else would want to go into a comic book store on a Saturday when the sun is shining? – this collection of comic-centric Simpsons strips ploughs a narrow field very deeply. Or something. I’m kind of tempted to pick up a Simpsons book that costs money now, which may mean that they’ve succeeded with their nefarious ploy. Bastards! Evil evil bastards who do Good comics!

DARK HORSE’S STAR WARS AND CONAN FREEBIE BOOK: And, no, that’s not the real title, but I didn’t want to write STAR WARS/CONAN for some reason. Anyway, the Star Wars strip, taking place during the last movie, handily ends with a post-modern moment where the main character reviews his own story: “Routine - - About what we expected.” Except, in this non-Clone War world, “routine” is replaced by “bland”. Being medically immune to the charms of Conan, I feel entirely unequipped to pass judgement on what seems like a run-of-the-mill barbarianarama, although the Paul Lee/Dave Stewart art combo is very pretty indeed. The very definition of Eh, for me, but I’m really not the target audience for this kind of thing.

FUNNY BOOK #2: I like to pretend that the real title of this book is the full version of what it says at the top of the front cover: “The Fantagraphics Funny Book For Mature Readers,” because, really, that’s much better. Not that there’s much else about this book that could be much better, because any collection of humor stuff by people like Jason, Michael Kupperman and Mark Martin for no money whatsoever may be close to perfect in the world of comics for no money whatsoever. Very Good, and the stand-out for me is R. Kikuo Johnson’s one pager, which makes me want to rush out and buy everything else he’s ever done. Guess I should’ve paid attention to all that Night Fisher hype, then.

FREE SCOTT PILGRIM: You know those things that you love with far too much love for your own mental health? This is one of those things for me – It has almost everything that I love about Scott Pilgrim, and he fights multiple Lindsay Lohans. Well, kind of. Anyway, what else could you want? Excellent, and thankfully the back-up strip premiering Mignola-meets-Yo-Momma book, Fearless Griggs, doesn’t let the side down. Kate thought it was all kind of stupid, but that can only be a good sign.

FUTURE SHOCK: Image takes the easy way out, showing four page previews of upcoming issues of ongoing Image books. Considering two of those books are Spawn and Shadowhawk, it should probably be avoided unless you want to feel the desire to swear off comics for the rest of your life. Crap, because, dude. Four page previews? Not even complete stories? Lazy.

GI JOE: SIGMA 6 #1: I remember when GI Joe was about people in the army, but it seems that “Sigma 6” means “Really really like the Centurions cartoon when I was a kid”. In terms of writing and art, it’s very Saturday morning cartoon, even down to the unfunny joke endings with the bad guys humiliated. Eh, but somewhere there’re probably a million GI Joe fans waiting to tell me why I’m wrong.

MR. JEAN: Drawn and Quarterly’s offering is a strange mix of French sophistication and Moomins. The excerpts of Mr. Jean are reminiscent of what would happen if you mixed early-Alec Eddie Campbell and Rian Hughes (which is to say: gentle stories bemused by the way people act in relationships with stylish, slightly-retro art), but the real gem of the book is Jean creators’ Dupuy and Berberian’s autobio work about creating Mr. Jean, excerpted from the upcoming Maybe Later graphic novel… Excellent stuff, and well worth a look. The Moomin strip, on the other hand, is very strange and nostalgic for me; I grew up with the Moomins on TV, and even then they were somewhat unsettling.

OWLY: I’ve already moaned to Brian, Jeff and Nora about how much I dislike Owly, so I won’t repeat myself here. It’s nothing to do with Owly itself; it’s well-done and those who get it really like it, but… It’s so twee it makes my toes curl. I kind of liked the first book, but by midway through the second, I was wanting Owly to finally crack and stop helping every single other animal that comes his way. It’s a cruel world out there, Owly! Wake up and smell the coffee, ya dumb owl! Stop smiling all the time and eat that damn worm like you know you want to! DOOOOOOOO IIIIIIIIIIIIIITTTT! Ahem. Okay, probably. I don’t know.

THE PREPOSTEROUS VOYAGES OF IRONHIDE TOM: The bastard son of a drunken sailor and a hurricane, Ironhide Tom is a stickman pirate with a penchant for exclamations like “Cowpies!” and “Nightsoil!” when he gets in misadventures. Which, apparently, happens a lot. It’s very stupid and very, very funny – Probably my favorite of all of the FCBD books this year. Excellent, and the source of a whole host of new cursewords.

TOKYOPOP SNEAKS: A nice little freebie trade, this one has the first chapter of three new OEL books that they’re putting out… which is kind of its downfall. The first two previews have exactly the same set-up (Kid in new school, doesn’t fit in) and stop before getting to what would presumably differentiate them from each other, giving the book a feeling of “Oh, Tokyopop has a generic house plot for new series” (The third preview, however, is for Sea Princess Azuri which unsurprisingly is about a Sea Princess and doesn’t have any new school horror whatsoever). Being a dirty Westerner, Alex DeCampi’s Kat and Mouse is the story that worked best for me, but even that felt uncertain and a bit forced – Definitely different from her Smoke series from IDW, so she should be applauded for her versatility, but not as good as Smoke, either. In terms of value for (no) money, however, it’s the best package. Good for the format, Okay for the content.

TRANSFORMERS: MORE PREVIEWS THAN MEET THE EYE: Somehow, something has gone so wrong with the world that there are four different Transformer series being previewed here, and yet each one reads like it’s been written by Chris Claremont’s robotic twin. I used to love the Transformers when I was a kid, and yet reading these previews is like trying to learn a foreign language by flipping through a French version of Ulysses. Eh, and I mean that in the sense of “Eh?”

VIPER COMICS PRESENTS #1: Josh Howard’s Dead@17 gets a movie-trailer-style preview (lots of disconnected images with a character’s vague narration) that fails to tell me anything about what it’s all actually about… Something of a running theme with a lot of the FCBD preview books this year, but personified by all four strips in here. Of the shorter previews, Museum of Terror and Emily Edison offer something resembling bemusement, and something called A Bit Haywire felt more than a little forced. I’m sure that if I was about ten years younger and had never seen Buffy (or almost any mainstream pop culture for that matter), I’d like it more, but for now? Eh.

There’s also a Wizard freebie, which is best avoided unless you have a ghoulish curiosity about why they’d reprint last year’s freebie which was itself a non-updated reprint of their favorite trade paperbacks from a few years prior… There are actually a lot of other books available, if your retailer – who doesn’t get them for free, and therefore may have to make some terrible Sophie’s Choice type decisions about what makes the cut and what doesn’t – has somehow managed to pull in everything put out for this year’s event. A full list is here, but that list I’ve just run down is already a pile of comics heavy enough to knock out any burglars who creep into your house in the middle of the night, and isn’t that why we all want free comics? Exactly.

Guest Review: UNAUTHORIZED AND PROUD OF IT

Not that I'm going to do this very often, (but I thought once was ok) here's a guest P/review of a new film, reviewed by Peter Wong, author of the "Lost in Pictopia" column that runs in ONOMATOPOEIA. A longer version will appear in the next issue of CEO. -B

UNAUTHORIZED AND PROUD OF IT: TODD LOREN'S ROCK 'N' ROLL COMICS--(D: Ilko Davidov)--Boy wunderkind Todd Loren created Revolutionary Comics as a medium for melding his love of both rock and roll and comic books. Yet what would have been in theory a dream marriage of disreputable cultures turned into a nightmare...and Loren and the Revolutionary Comics staff thrived on it. Davidov's documentary does a solid job of portraying how this nightmare was self-inflicted on the rock and roll side. With the exception of Mojo Nixon's and Alice Cooper's bits, passable talking head footage discusses how much research and respect the Revolutionary Comics crew brought to creating their unauthorized rock biographies. Well, maybe the New Kids On The Block can be excepted from that categorization.

Yet it mattered little when the music business suits perceived that Loren's comics denied them their rightful tithing. By contrast, the weaker comics industry portions of "Unauthorized" never fully convey why Loren became a comics industry pariah. Loren's financial and emotional manipulation of his talent probably formed part of his bad reputation. But what were the other causes: egotism, homophobia, or something else? The film's Revolutionary Comics samples will not enhance Loren's work. Despite the frequent video animation and manipulation, one can't help noticing how visually unimpressive the samples are. Comics journalist Joe Sacco will not need to worry about competition.

On the other hand, Revolutionary Comics did launch the comics careers of such folks as Terry Dodson and Stuart Immonen. The comics line was also supported by Alice Cooper, Mojo Nixon, and Ice T. By the film's end, a viewer may feel Loren was a man who expanded the First Amendment importance of comic books...or an irritating swine...or a dear friend whose still unsolved murder possibly hints at police homophobia...or a successful schlockmeister. What one will not feel is indifferent. (Film screens 5/13 at 7 PM at The Women's Building in San Francisco as part of the S.F. Documentary Film Festival)

Pantalons sans Robotieres: Jeff's Reviews of 4/26 Books...

Here's a question for the Savage Commenteers: can a man who's sucked at every other rhythm game to date find happiness with Guitar Hero? Or will it just be a waste of cash and flashy peripheral controller space? Discuss. And in non-maybe-it's-finally-time-to-hang-up-my-PS2 news:

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #531: Like many of JMS's machinations, I find the idea kinda interesting, and the execution lousy. If you buy into the conceit behind the Spider-Man movie, Peter is particularly vulnerable to the influence of a father figure, and Tony Stark could be filling that bill so much that Spidey can't see he's being led around by the webs. But that's not what I'm getting from what I read; that's what I get when I set my Benefit-of-the-Doubtometer to overdrive. What I'm getting when I read is a headache from all the plot-hammering. Eh.

ANNIHILATION RONAN #1: Is this whole Annihilation event with its bookend issues and four issue miniseries Marvel's answer to Seven Soldiers? If so, it's kind of a shame Marvel doesn't really understand that maybe a unifying vision (or better, Grant Morrison's unifying vision) is what's needed to pull that kind of thing off. Because although I thought the art on this was pretty nifty, and the story interesting in a "Hey, look what I found in this old issue of 2000 A.D.!" kind of way, it has so little to do with the other books in the event, it's probably gonna feel jarring when it does. OK, although like Graeme, I too have a hard time remembering what happened: the art more than made up for that.

ASTONISHING X-MEN #14: As you might expect from Mr. Whedon, Emma's mindfucking of Scott (and not in a good way) was satisfying and interesting, although I find the take on Cyclops to be very, very iffy: so the guy who's been a big, old control freak his entire life deliberately chose not to take control of his powers because he was too afraid of the responsibility of hurting people? It almost kind of works, but there's just too many hurtles to be overcome. If nothing else, it wouldn't make Scott a reluctant leader, it would make the idea of being a leader anathema to him. And then there's the whole "and he hid it from all the world's greatest telepaths all this time" angle. Sorry, made my disbelief saving throw by thisss much.... OK.

BATMAN #652: The new Batman on E is still pretty cool, but it can't obscure what feels like some heavy-duty vamping on the writer's part, particularly where Harvey "how can you even suspect me when I admit everything points to me as the prime supsect?" Dent is concerned. OK.

BLACK PANTHER #15: Beware: reading this issue and the most recent Joe Fridays column within 24 hours of each other will make your brain explode. (Big points for Joe Q. for saying, "Yes, there are single characters that you can marry, but they have to be characters that don’t necessarily have their bachelorhood as a prime story point. T’Challa is a perfect example." Because, of course, marriage is only about the man, Joe. And that's the more charitable interpretation of that comment...) As a bonus, Hudlin perfectly captures Ororo's speech patterns--when she's being played by Halle Berry. Crap.

BLUE BEETLE #2: I feel a little crawly about the first group of villains faced by our young Latino hero being "The Posse," but maybe my tighty-liberal-whities have shrunk in the wash a bit. Still a Good read, though.

CHECKMATE #1: Greg Rucka's new humor book gets off to a rollicking new start, with the golden age Green Lantern wearing an eyepatch and a kooky leather jacket to appear before the U.N. (get it? It's like having Jimmy Stewart dress up like Nick Fury!) with Amanda Waller (who, to avoid showing us a fat woman in a kooky leather jacket, is either drawn in tight close up or distant two-shot--the discretion being a clever tweak of reader's expectations for a comedy book). Like the film Top Secret, Rucka and Saiz take established spy movie cliches and deflate them through deadpan delivery, revealing such cliches as the "flirtatious nice guy who's too good to live," the "inscrutable Asian mastermind," and even the "tough guy tag line delivered with the killing stroke" as ripe targets for parody. I think the funniest part is when Checkmate realizes that the mastermind behind the plan to dissolve their funding isn't being headed up by the French, but the Chinese. Like the French could head up anything! Like the Chinese would be down with an international police division based on Chess, and not Go! Not nearly as funny as Team America, but it's only the first issue and it's obvious Rucka and Saiz are just warming up. Allow me to offer up a cover blurb for a future ish: "Look out for the Ruy Lopez of laughs: Checkmate!!" Awful.

FANTASTIC FOUR #537: Here's how well JMS understands Dr. Doom: Reed Richards asks Doom how he got out of Hell and Doom goes, "Eh, it's not important." Yeah, like Doom would pass up the chance to gloat to Richards about anything, particularly his escape from the infernal pit of torture where Reed consigned him. Of course, since there are pages to kill, we get to see how it happens anyway and, yeah, sure enough, it's presented in the dullest way possible. Throw in a scene of Doom trying to pick up the hammer, and then giving up and leaving when he fails, and you've got a real turd of a FF story. Stick around for next issue, when Galactus shows up and turns down a sandwich. Awful.

HAWKGIRL #51: I can tell if it's laziness or contempt (or, God help us, old age) afflicting Simonson and Chaykin, but something is stinking this up pretty bad. Remember last issue's cliffhanger? You know, where Hawkgirl was trapped in the dark? This issue opens with her clever escape by waking up from a bad dream. If that's not enough, there's a scene where Hawkgirl and her buddy, after drinking in a bar, hear cries for help and the buddy who knows Hawkgirl is Hawkgirl, tells her to call the police while he goes to check out the problem. And Hawkgirl, who also knows she's Hawkgirl, complies. Although not explicitly stated, the subtext is clearly:

GUY: Uh-oh, trouble! You stay here and call the police, because you're the lamest superhero ever.

HAWKGIRL: You're right. I will.

While I guess this issue admirably clears the way for Norman Mailer's upcoming run on Wonder Woman, I found it Crap on just about every other level.

ION #1: I have to admit I read this really quickly, but based on this set-up, I'd guess Ion is a hero who gets his powers from killing girlfriends? (Hmmm, maybe this is clearing the way for Mailer's Wonder Woman) Because that'd kind of explain Kyle's creepy "All my girlfriends are dead! All my girlfriends are dead! Hey, who's that hot number next door? Oh well, it's just as well she can't talk and isn't interested in me because she'd only end up dead!" In short, the book read more like a romantic comedy scripted by Jason Voorhees than a superhero book I'd be interested in reading. Crap and crap, again.

NEW AVENGERS ANNUAL #1: I can really imagine Bendis wrapping up the script for this, and going, "Finally! A complete done-in-one issue with a good fight scene, solid characterization and good laughs. Who says I can't compress my storytelling?" before realizing (a) it took him forty some-odd pages to do what he should be doing in twenty; and (b) he forgot to include the wedding that was ostensibly the point of the whole issue and having to rewrite his last five pages to include it. Good, but also frustrating.

SENTRY #8: As I said previously, this whole mini ended up living or dying on the big revelation of this issue, which I guess means this sucker's dead. The idea that Robert Reynolds is nobody special and the Sentry could have been anybody, anyone, isn't much of a brain-blower, even considering that Reynolds is an insecure paranoid schizophrenic. (Also the whole "it's Captain America's superserum from the program that created Wolverine! Times 1,000!" is so bad I can't tell if it's supposed to point to its own badness.) I think there might have been a way for Jenkins to take his whole meta-conceit--maybe the relationship Reynolds has with The Sentry and The Void is less that of a secret identity and more the relationship between a comic book reader and the characters--but, whatever. Frustrating hokum, but well-drawn. Eh.

SEVEN SOLDIERS FRANKENSTEIN #4: Frankenstein fights sentient universe, blows its brains out. Nuff said. Excellent. (Although if you need more, Jog's review is a lively, informative read.)

VILLAINS UNITED INFINITE CRISIS SPECIAL: Ah, fooled me twice. I remember reading the Villains United mini and being initially annoyed the focus was on the new Secret Six, rather than the Secret Society of Super-Villains. And now, when I pick up this special curious to read about the Secret Six, it's actually all about the Secret Society. Well played, Simone. Well played.

Unfortunately, unlike Graeme, I thought this was pretty goofy. All the metahuman convicts from all over the world are freed and told to go to Metropolis. How are they going to get there at all, much less at the same time? I think it'd be hilarious if all the Chinese prisoners show up six months late because they had to come by barge... OK compared to the other one shots but I don't think that's saying too much.

PICK OF THE WEEK: SEVEN SOLDIERS FRANKENSTEIN #4, and I wouldn't be surprised if every issue of this made my pick of the week. I loved it.

PICK OF THE WEAK: HAWKGIRL #51 because even Hawkgirl has contempt for Hawkgirl.

TRADE PICK: No pick. The only one I was tempted by was COLLECTED JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR VOL 5 TPB and I think I already have all the issues.

MANGA FIX: So I read all fifteen volumes of BATTLE ROYALE last week. By the time I finished them (at the rate of three volumes a day), my brain was prety broken--I couldn't see anything remotely sentimental or sweet without expecting someone's head to explode. Admittedly, I read them far more quickly than I should have, but after the shocks of the explicit gore (and sex--mustn't forget the sex) finally(!) faded, I didn't feel like there was as much insight into human nature as there could have been. For a book that's about people being put in the most evil situation possible, the authors seem to have no real belief in evil. Makes me wish Carter Scholz was still writing essays for The Comics Journal. He could have untangled the conundrum, I bet.

Robot Pants: Graeme's reviews of the 4/26 books.

With absolutely no proof whatsoever, I would like to blame Brian Hibbs for the fact that I spent the last week sick on the couch and feeling sorry for myself. There is almost no way that Bri could’ve made me sick – What with him being sick for the last week or so, I hadn’t even seen him for a couple of weeks – but lack of reason has never stopped me before... AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #531: The Road to Civil War is, apparently, not lined with good intentions, but mediocre comic books. The first of J. Michael Straczynski’s two lead-ins to Marvel’s big crossover event this week, this is another example of the creators being much more excited about their big ideas than anyone else – the story ends with Tony Stark talking about his respect for Abraham Lincoln: “When the South began going its own way, he knew that taking a position against them would lead to civil war. But he did it anyway. Because he understood something… understood it more perhaps than anyone else in that time. He knew that a house divided against itself cannot stand… A nation cannot be divided and survive. Under his administration, brother hunted down brother, friend turned against friend. It was terrible. It was bloody. It was necessary.” Yes, Marvel, we get it already. Civil War will have the Marvel Universe turning against itself, yadda yadda (Incidentally, one of the big changes that Civil War is going to bring will hopefully be some kind of explanation about why Tony Stark has suddenly become the Exposition-a-matic Iron Man, considering this monologue and his “I’ll tell you the plot of the first half of Civil War #1” thing at the end of the Illuminati special a few weeks back). Sadly, this upcoming excitement isn’t conveyed by this book, which spends too long on dull speeches illustrated by an artist who isn’t too great drawing faces… so, yeah. Crap, sadly.

ASTONISHING X-MEN #14: John Cassaday’s a great artist, but obviously one in a rush these days: Not only are some panels incredibly weak for him, but there’s a lot of Photoshop-repeated panels in here (The sixth page in particular)… Maybe there were Planetary-related deadline things happening? It’s a shame, though, because the story this issue is kind of interesting – Joss Whedon goes into the psychology of Cyclops, picking up on some things that Grant Morrison left lying around after his run. I’m not convinced about the overall plot that’s happening here, but this episode alone is worth paying attention to, even including the lazy art. Good.

BLUE BEETLE #2: Of course, if we’re talking art, I should admit upfront that Cully Hamner’s work on this book is probably making me enjoy it more than I would if anyone else was drawing it – There’s something about Hamner’s stuff here (cartoony but not overly, like Walt Simonson in his prime meets Disney) that helps the well-done but kind of generic teenage hero in mystic secret origin plot go down easier. Good.

CHECKMATE #1: “From the pages of Infinite Crisis,” according to the cover, but unless something happens in the last issue of that book, that’s not really true… But then, “From the pages of The OMAC Project, you know, that Infinite Crisis tie-in book” probably has too many words for a cover blurb. Greg Rucka has the whole spy thing down pat after doing Queen and Country for so long, but I’m not convinced that it works here – The idea that Kobra, a religious cult of nihilists who dress up like snakes, are meant to be taken seriously as an international terrorist threat is as tough to swallow as Rucka’s fairly-sudden revamp of Fire (from the Giffen/DeMatteis JLI) as a heart-hearted Sydney Bristow type. As is traditional with Rucka’s DC work, he doesn’t introduce his characters as much as assume that you already know them from his other DC books, so the death of (Wonder Woman supporting character) Jonah McCarthy falls completely flat considering the reader isn’t given any reason to care about him. It’s all done well enough – Jesus Saiz provides nice art, and Lee Barmejo’s cover is good – but… Eh.

FANTASTIC FOUR #537: The Road to Civil War! Again! This is just horrible, ruining the surprise of Thor’s return at some point during Civil War (because there’s no other reason for this to be a Civil War tie-in) and making what should have been an exciting story – Doctor Doom is back! – into a subplot that’s done with absolutely no enthusiasm in the first half of the book purely to get it out the way before returning to a main story that makes no effort to hide the mechanics of We-have-to-get-to-plot-point-B-now. Really, really Awful.

FRANKENSTEIN #4: Okay, it’s a month late, but everything comes together in this penultimate part of the whole Seven Soldiers story, as Grant Morrison brings the plots of his JLA Classified, Zatanna, Klarion and Shining Knight series into this issue in such a way that it still doesn’t slow down the story. Doug Mahnke’s art is as gorgeous as ever – he does a great evil Fairy Queen – and Goddammit if it actually wasn’t worth the wait. Excellent, even if I’m bored of the “One soldier must die… Will it be X?” teasers at the end of each series by now. It’s going to be Frankenstein. It’s obviously going to be Frankenstein. Ignoring that we’ve seen Mister Miracle, Guardian, Klarion, Zatanna and Bulleteer in Infinite Crisis by now, Frankenstein’s the only one whose death would be a happy ending, and Grant’s superhero work is all about the happy ending… (Now that I’ve said that, of course, the Shining Knight will die. It’ll be Armageddon 2001 all over again.)

THE NEW AVENGERS ANNUAL #1: Do I have to hand in my Bendis-Hata badge if I admit that I liked this? I mean, yes, Bendis still can’t really write superhero stories without some kind of out-of-nowhere non-conclusion – This time, the bad guy gets killed by other bad guys because she’s too much of a threat to them – and his fight dialogue is appalling (“You arrogant - - You just killed yourself! You just killed yourself!”), but there’s something about the lightness of tone of the story mixed with the wonderful Olivier Copiel art that just sold me… Personally, I would’ve liked it more if the story really had been about the wedding of Luke Cage and Jessica Jones instead of the new Super-Adaptoid, but still, it’s Good, surprisingly.

ION #1: The good: Greg Tocchini’s Gene Colan-esque artwork. The bad: Ron Marz’s writing, which pairs an unoriginal concept (A hero has more power than he knows what to do with! That’s never been done before!) with shitty dialogue (“I don’t know why you came here… But you’re not going to take me!”). You can imagine why this got downgraded from an ongoing book to a 12-issue mini-series: Someone at DC saw this issue and came to their senses. Crap.

RONAN #1: I just don’t get this whole Annihilation thing. Everything I’ve read from it just makes me even more convinced that Marvel are pushing out series based on minor characters that can’t really support their own books just to flood the market, and this isn’t any different. The very definition of Eh, because I had to re-read it just to remember what it was about.

SOLO #10: Hibbs handed this to me the other day with the announcement that it may be the worst thing that DC has ever published, which I tell you just so that all of you can want to read him review it as much as I do. Me, I don’t think that it’s that bad, but it definitely makes me wonder if Solo editor Mark Chiarello lost a bet or something: Never mind the quality of the artwork (Which varies from terrible – that Flash story hurts the eyes – to kind-of-interesting in a Gahan Wilson meets the Yellow Submarine cartoon way in the Superman gallery pages) or the writing (which is almost uniformly bad, in a fan-fictiony way), what gets me is that there’s not a full issue’s worth of work here – Each story is seperated with pages of cover sketches and roughs and hand-written commentary, which kind of screams “Filler” to me in a very loud, panicked by the prospect of a deadline, voice. Although I think that Brian hated it more than me, I’d be lying if I said it was any better than Awful.

SUPERGIRL AND THE LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES #17: Good as ever, with Waid providing a much more interesting take on Supergirl than she’s gotten anywhere else, but what I really wanted to point out was the comment from the bad guy towards the end of the book: “Remember the fiffffdeetu.” Looks like the Legion is really going to be tying into DC continuity from now on, then.

USAGI YOJIMBO #93: Hey! Everyone who’s ever complained about Bendis writing decompressed stories? Try reading this issue, in which you get a Japanese Tea Ceremony explained to you and… well, that’s about it. But when it takes seven pages for Usagi just to cross the garden and enter the room where the ceremony is taking place, you can understand why there isn’t space for much else. Despite my sarcasm, I really enjoyed this – the pacing is deliberate, and done with such skill that you’d have to be even more of an asshole than me to seriously complain. A beautifully peaceful book, and a Very Good one, at that.

VILLAINS UNITED: INFINITE CRISIS SPECIAL #1: This really shouldn’t feel like anything more than a lead-in to Infinite Crisis #7 (and one that will, hopefully for those only reading IC, be recapped at least in that book), but this had exactly the right tone of dread and anticipation running all the way through it for me, as Alex Luthor’s Plan B comes into focus just as everyone who could help stop it realizes what’s going on a little bit too late. There are some nice character moments in the middle of all the Infinite Crisising, and Gail Simone provides yet another bit of proof that she’s good at channelling Grant Morrison’s JLA with a shout-out to the end of his World War III arc. The only downside for me was the expected lack of ending, but with Infinite Crisis due out next week, I can wait to see just how everything ends up alright. Good

ZOOMSUIT #1: Zoomsuit stinks. And I mean that literally; the book has some weird metallic smell that hits you as soon as you open it, probably from the metallic ink used to provide a barely-there silver sheen to certain scenes for no immediately apparent reason. Luckily enough, the book stinks in a figurative sense as well, just to help keep things straight. If I tell you that the book opens with the following exchange between two old folk out searching for a fallen meteor, you may get an idea of just how bad it is:

“Dang it Ma, you nearly scared the bejesus outta me. Don’t do that to me in my Sunday trousers.”

“I get gassy when I’m scared… And I’m really scared.”

“Well put a cork in it. We don’t want these aliens to ‘smell’ fear.”

“Better hold on… I feel another one coming.”

The aliens then appear, and say something in their alien language. Which translates as “Who farted.” I wish I was joking.

Sadly, things only get worse from there. The plot is stolen from a million different sources, the dialogue at the level of the above exchange (or worse – There are a few shots that the writer takes at Billy Dallas Patton’s art in captions and characters’ thoughts. Not that the art is good or anything, but still, I’m sure you shouldn’t be going after the people who drew your book for you) and the overall execution completely amateurish. Ass, but with a worse odor.

PICK OF THE WEEK is Frankenstein, which makes me wish that Seven Soldiers #1 wasn’t so late that it’s not even on the schedule anymore. PICK OF THE WEAK is Zoomsuit, although I really want to give it to Fantastic Four, because that at least has the potential to be better… Even if I’d picked up one of the few trades that came out this week, I doubt that I would’ve been able to give out a TRADE OF THE WEEK; I spent most of my trade-reading time going through Essential Iron Mans, coming to the twin conclusions of (a) Iron Man has really always kind of sucked as a strip, and (b) Don Heck was an incredible artist, back in the day.

Next week’s a bit of a double whammy: Wednesday has the final issue of Infinite Crisis and the first issue of Civil War, and then Saturday is Free Comic Book Day, where there are roughly several million different comic books for you to pick up, including the surprisingly disappointing X-Men/Runaways by Brian K. Vaughan and Skottie Young. Bear that in mind when you go into your comic stores of choice this week, because your retailers? They may be a wee bit stressed.

And Men Shall Call Him...Copy Boy!! Jeff's Reviews of 4/19 Books

So if you ever get the chance to make a photocopy on the Comix Experience copier? Don't do it. Seriously. I've had a pretty rough week overall with work being crazy and Hibbs ill as hell and trying to hit my deadline for the newsletter while also spending time in Half-Moon Bay with the missus (okay that was great, I admit it, but still a little stressful with the deadline), but none of that compares to our scary-ass copier which is 375 years old on which Hibbs manages to make print the newsletter on 11x17 flats every month. Since he was home hallucinating from pain and a lack of sleep yesterday, I got to run the store and run some copies. It sucked sweaty balls. And not in a good way. So not only did I not get a chance to read my beloved Golgo 13, vol. 2, but the books I did read were read while swearing and trying to get the machine to clear a non-existent paper jam. So there won't be many of 'em, and they won't be particularly perky.

Anyway... Enough with the whinging! On with the kvetching!

ANNIHILATION NOVA #1: About a month ago, Erik Larsen had an overview of Nova and mentioned how almost every time Nova gets brought back, Marvel feels compelled to change a perfectly good costume. Sure enough, the big finish to this first issue is Nova getting a new costume that's a hundred times shittier than the original. Really a shame because the rest of the issue was more or less OK: It has a few too many half-hearted combat scenes but that's true of this Annhiliation event overall. It's like everyone but the person who pitched the project went, "Cosmic bugs? Okay, whatever..." Since I'm a Nova purist, the costume change drops this to a bitter Eh, but those who don't care might go up to OK. Provided they're a big fan of cosmic bugs.

BIG MAX #1: The antidote to nearly all the crappy books I read this week, this charmer by Dan Slott and James Fry (with a cover by Ty Templeton, I think?) is a big ol' sloppy kiss to Silver Age stories where a powerful hero has to use his noggin to beat a villain, and backstory gets used not to deepen the characters but to spike the plot. If there's a problem, it's that it's too competent to just be a spoof, and yet too silly to be taken seriously: I really, really wish the guys reading New Avengers #18 would pick this up so they could remember what a competent comic read like, but it's just not going to happen. Very Good stuff in a light and breezy kind of way.

BITE CLUB VAMPIRE CRIME UNIT #1: Maybe if they got Quitely to do the interiors as well as the covers, Bite Club might actually have some genuine nasty thrills to it. But David Hahn's work makes it read more like Black Kiss: The Animated Adventures. (Actually, the non-copy-machine highlight of my working day yesterday was having a parent try to buy the first issue of this for his twelve-year old kid "to get him interested in collecting comics." Guy hadn't even cracked the cover before bringing it to the counter. Wow, huh?) Good for a snicker or two, but it's sad that Howard Chaykin is doing comics I can only recommend to people who find Tarot too intellectually taxing. Crap.

DAREDEVIL #84: Not sure if this was Brubaker's intention but I laughed out loud when Turk showed up (I kinda think it was.) There's something so fucking hilarious and apt about putting nearly ever character from Miller's run (Bullseye, Kingpin and Turk) behind bars with Murdock and I can't put my finger on why that is: the metatext-lovin' TCJ-readin' side of me would put forth that it's merely a witty way to emphasize how trapped (or imprisoned, if you will) creators are by Miller's definitive run, while the regular Joe side of me just thinks that, yeah, you know, wouldn't all these guys end up behind bars at some point or other? In fact, as long as you don't have Frank Tieri write it, the idea of a book that's like Oz in the Marvel Universe isn't a bad one since most of these villains spend more time behind bars than out in the world. Unlike Captain America, where I feel Brubaker is doling out the cool shit with a precise measuring spoon, here he's piling on as much craziness as fast as he can. And I'm loving it. Very Good.

EX MACHINA SPECIAL #1: I guess this is a "Special" because it's set back in Hundred's Great Machine days, but it also earns the rank by being a real treat to read, much more so than the last four or five (or more?) issues of Ex Machina. So much so, in fact, it makes me wonder if Vaughan pitched his series (superhero turned NY mayor) more for the attention it could gain and its crossover potential to other media than whether it was something he actually wanted to write: with the Mayor stuff out of the way, this reads like a satisfyingly clever piece of superhero fun. A high Good, and maybe the toner fumes from the copy machine have made me overly cynical about the other stuff.

MAN-BAT #1: Clarified why I hated last week's issue of Nightwing so much: not so much for the "sloppy seconds" angle, nor the general misogyny, but for the sloppy and horrid dialogue--Jason Todd calling Dick "dickie-bird" wasn't just out of character for Jason Todd, it was out of character for anyone not in a Stephen King book. Here, similarly, Jones takes tired situations and is unable to bring the slightest bit of verisimilitude to them (which is really all that one asks of a hack, if you think about it): the speech patterns of the horny kid in the cave inauthentically run the gamut from hip-hop slang to '50s beat speak, a sign of someone who gleans how the youth speak from listening to McDonald's commercials. (I don't remember the specific example, but I could swear it was something like, "Where you gone, baby girl? I've got a whole lotta love I wanna share, twenty-three skiddoo!") Throw in copious padding, a lousy plot and a marked lack of characterization, and this was Ass in just about every way, but for its cover which I thought was pretty good.

NEW AVENGERS #18: This really made me feel like a kid reading comics again: that is, I was vaguely aware there was something better I could be doing with my time if only I had any friends. Four pages of the storyline devoted to establishing that the monster on the loose used to work at a post office? Wow. And still not over? Double-wow. Crap.

NEXTWAVE AGENTS OF HATE #4: I dunno. If you're gonna have a character beat a giant robot just by waving her hands around, you might as well have her doing it by playing a guitar (ninja-style!) or dropping her top or jumping in the air and yelling "finishing move!!1eleven" or something. Because being anti-climactic in a book that's supposed to be all climax is the closest thing you can get to committing a cardinal sin. Eh, but with a bit more amusement than that rating normally entails.

SQUADRON SUPREME #2: "Ladies and gentlemen, your target is nicknamed The Voice, which suggests he may have some sort of mind-influence powers at work. It is imperative that you fly close enough to him that you can hear what he's saying and then hang out to see what he says." Eh.

TESTAMENT #5: I'm kinda bummed I've only read parts of the boring Old Testament, which traces the lineage of the people of Israel and their laws, and not the wicked-ass Old Testament referred to here (and on telephone pole fliers written by crazy people) where Abraham and his robo-ninjas save Lot so he can get two hot chicks to go cyber-skinny-dipping. Or something. I'm also bummed Liam Sharp's exquisite art is being wasted on Douglas Rushkoff's Tobaggan Ride to Cancellationville. Replaces The Minx as Exhibit A for the case that Vertigo Editors have no fucking idea what they're doing half the time. Awful, alas.

WOLVERINE ORIGINS #1: Oh, god. Having Steve Dillon do the art for this is like tying an expensive Easter bonnet on a toothless crack whore--more than anything, it just underscores the ghoulish desperation. Daniel Way is out of his depth here (on a Wolverine comic, it should be pointed out), vamping badly, and unconvincingly trying to bluff us into believing he's got a master plan for the book beyond "submit script; get paid." He makes Howard Mackie look like Alan Moore, in short. The Dillon art keeps this from getting the Ass rating it deserves (even though, to be honest, his Wolverine looks more than a little goofy) but not by much. Do avoid.

X-STATIX PRESENTS DEAD GIRL #4: This book is odd and wrong and thoroughly enjoyable. Milligan can off any number of sacred cows but as long as Allred is on the art in some capacity, and the concern is less on whether or not the universe is destroyed and more on whether anyone can ever really be happy or believe themselves capable of loving and being loved, I apparently don't care. Good.

PICK OF THE WEEK: DAREDEVIL #84 or maybe even BIG MAX #1. Two approaches to superhero comics that couldn't be more different, but that both work on their own merits and in comparison to the majority of material on the marketplace.

PICK OF THE WEAK: Oy, where to start? Despite several contenders and a lot of vitriol, I'm gonna go with WOLVERINE: ORIGINS #1 over MAN-BAT #1, because when you factor in all the money comic shop retailers diverted to ordering copies of the former, it becomes a much more criminal wast than the latter. Some really stinky comics this week, though.

TRADE PICK: GOLGO 13 VOL 2 GN!! Actually that should go in my Manga Fix section, so let's say LITTLE LULU VOL 9. (How I was able to mention those two books consecutively without exploding, I still don't know.)

MANGA FIX: GOLGO 13 VOL 2 GN!! Although I haven't read it or, to be honest, bought it. (I had to rush out the door last night so I didn't pick up anything in my sub box.) And yet I'm sure Golgo 13 once again uses his peerless sniping skills and superior penis (as lovingly detailed in the book's back pages) to triumph against impossible odds.

Also, providing me with my fix these days--DEATH NOTE VOL. 4 which grows more absurd and more satisfying with every issue. (As my friend Joel pointed out yesterday, the fact that there are demons and notebooks that kill people when you write names in them are probably two of the more believable aspects to the series. And yet that's part of what makes it great.) And I'm just ready to start Vol. 6 of BATTLE ROYALE which is some seriously twisted shit. I mean, I've seen the movie, but Takami and Taguchi really pull out the stops, giving you almost radioactive doses of sentimentality so that just when you give in (again!) to the belief that children are good and young and vulnerable and life is precious, someone gets their head immolated on a flaming stick and fed to hungry snakes. Short of someone with the word WAR tattooed on his dick forcibly raping my entire family, BATTLE ROYALE may be the most potent form of agitprop I'll ever encounter. Good stuff.

And this one has video: Graeme's review of the 4/5 and 4/12 books.

Well, that was a surprisingly dull week. Well, in terms of single issues, at least – There were some good trades and graphic novels released, and if this was the world where I had more money than Donald Trump, I’d have been able to buy the lot of them. As it was, this is the world where taxes were due, so what can you do? Besides share the following, which has nothing to do with comics but may be the best thing SNL has done in years…

CRISIS AFTERMATH: THE BATTLE FOR BLUDHAVEN #1: There are parts of this that are so bad, you immediately start hoping that maybe the entire series is the result of some weird dare from Dan Didio to create make the second Infinite Crisis spin-off the shittiest book imaginable. There’s not even one thing that you can point to that makes it so horrible, because it’s all just so generic, from the way that Dan Jurgens gives everyone the same build and faces – with Speedy of the Teen Titans looking somewhat male in one panel – to the appalling dialogue that characters spout. “For the first time I feel like we’re actually making a difference in people’s lives instead of dealing with our problems.” “Come on, Titans. Let’s save some lives!” The fact that the majority of the characters in the book are brand new and have no introduction at all beyond large panels where they face the reader dramatically doesn’t help, either, especially when they define themselves in terms that make no sense to anyone. “The old Force of July is dead. We’re freedom’s ring.” Do those words even make a sentence that makes sense? The whole thing is made much more interesting – although not any more logical – by the exceptionally unsubtle political commentary running through the book: The government doesn’t care about the common man! Fighting terrorists is more important than freedom! The best way to explain this book is to ask someone to imagine those mid-70s Marvel comics where Captain America found out that Richard Nixon was the head of the Secret Empire, except without any redeeming features. Ass.

DETECTIVE COMICS #818: Meanwhile, over in Gotham City, things are continuing to lighten up. The main story is more or less filler in James Robinson’s reintroductory storyarc with only a couple of plotpoints, but it’s the back-up story that brings old-school Detective character Jason Bard into the thick of things that makes the whole thing worthwhile. Given the way that this issue ends, it looks like Jason’s going to be a mainstay of the Batverse for awhile – Hopefully Paul Dini’s got plans for him in his upcoming “detective stories for Detective Comics” run. Good.

EX MACHINA #19: Between this and last week’s Y: The Last Man, I can’t shake the feeling that Brian K. Vaughan needs to take a vacation. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with either series right now, more that there’s nothing special about them, either. Vaughan’s a very talented writer, but I feel that he’s gotten himself into such a rut with these two books that I could write an issue of either one right now: Opening scene should be something tangentally connected to the main storyline allowing for some exposition, before cutting to the main characters talking about someone or something from history. Put in some kind of dream sequence where the hero of the piece reveals some hidden piece of history in surreal form. Have another conversation between main characters where they argue because they’re both stressed and don’t really mean it. End with a cliffhanger full page splash. Repeat next month. And the month after that. And the month after that… Ah, well. Tony Harris’s art is nice, at least. Eh.

INFINITE CRISIS #6: Wait, so that’s it? Both of the bad guys were taken out by Superboy crashing into the tower and it explodes? I know that there’s another issue to go, but you can tell that issue #7 is going to be full of hugging and crying and everyone coming to terms with what’s just happened (Well, that and writing Earth-2 Superman out of continuity again). Given the year-plus of build-up that led to this issue, a feeling of anti-climax was all but guaranteed, but the action scenes in here were badly-paced and unclear, making it feel even more disappointing than it should have been. The more I think about this series as a whole, though, the more I like it, in particular the way that Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman have been dealing with their particular issues – Batman’s breakdown in issue 3 leading him to try and be a team player this issue, for example, or Wonder Woman’s confrontation with Earth-2 Wonder Woman last issue. The death of Superboy is a cheap ploy, and an unnecessary one – all of the heroes get to have more guilt, even though it’ll remind them what it means to be a hero, yadda yadda – because the quieter scenes have been the more effective ones here all along. The problem with this series, I think, has been that it’s been trying to do too much (the Spectre scene in this issue doesn’t advance the larger plot, because it has nothing to do with either the emotional or dramatic core of the series; it’s just there to justify the Day of Judgement miniseries) and not sticking with what Geoff Johns really seems to want to write. Or maybe I’m just reading into things based upon what I like. Okay, anyway.

NIGHTWING #119: Jeff and Brian handed me this book on Friday with a warning that the last panel was so incredibly disturbing that it single-handedly took what was already a slightly disturbingly bad book to a whole new level of ick. I believe the phrase “sloppy seconds” may have been uttered by Lester, in fact. Surprisingly, though, it wasn’t the tired “Jason Todd is trying to be Dick Grayson so much that he’s coming onto Dick’s one night stand-turned-boss!” non-cliffhanger that left the taste of vomit in my mouth as much as it was Bruce Jones’s general misogyny; all the women in this book either fall of Dick Grayson’s feet or else try to fuck him in a basement after giving him a job, while spouting dialogue so realistic that NBC’s popular sitcom “Joey” looks like a hard-hitting documentary about the sordid life of today’s actor elite in Los Angeles. I’m beginning to suspect that Bruce Jones may have some blackmail material on editor Nachie Castro that makes sure that some of this stuff sees print. Ass, and offensively so.

THE OMAC PROJECT: INFINITE CRISIS SPECIAL: In which Greg Rucka doesn’t just get to write one version of his traditional hard-assed hyper-capable woman who is in some way emotionally wounded, but two – Sasha Bordeaux, I expected considering her role from the OMAC Project mini-series, but the retcon that Fire from the comedy JLI was actually just pretending to be a bimbo for no immediately apparent reason back then and is, in fact, a highly-trained killer makes me think that Rucka has forgotten how to write any other type of female character (I’m not sure if Amanda Waller, who’s here to set up the new Checkmate series, counts, as she’s more or less reduced to a Barking Orders Generic Authority Figure for this issue). Money-making properties aside, I’m not sure why this book exists; the plot is as simple as “We have to switch off Brother Eye before he sets off an international incident!” “Okay!” “Phew, that was close!” with a side of “Hey, do you know we’re doing a new Checkmate series?” and the undoing of Sasha’s cyborg status, which was the one thing from the OMAC Project that seemed to be long-lasting… So… Okay? I guess someone probably liked it, somewhere. Eh for me, though.

SUPERMAN #651: Still One Year Later, and Kurt Busiek and Geoff Johns continue to impress with their take on where everyone in the world of Superman is at these days – The cliffhanger from last month’s Action leads to a couple of character beats that seem to throw a couple of potential future wrenches into where we all know the story is going, future bad guys are introduced, and the larger plot zigs instead of zags (Or maybe I’m the only one who expected Metallo to join in Lex’s army of supervillains). And that’s not even going near the return of the Prankster, who didn’t even annoy me as much as he normally does, so someone’s obviously doing something right (and not just Pete Woods, who is still putting out some great stuff). Good, and if anything, I’m even more curious now as to how and why Clark is going to get his powers back.

SUPER-SKRULL #1: Again, plot-mechanics take priority here as certain people act wildly out of character – Reed Richards would learn about a threat to the Earth and be content to let the Super-Skrull go into the Negative Zone on his own? Really? – just to get everyone where they need to be for the purposes of the story. Art that’s too cartoony for the story and cliched narration (“Because of the way I use my power, some consider me a villain. Others call me a hero.”) don’t help things any, and the net result for your worries turns out to be something entirely Crap.

YOUNG AVENGERS #11: I know that Jeff liked the way that this issue ties in with the rest of the Marvel Universe, but this issue felt like uncomfortable exposition central to me. This book has gone from being tied to Marvel history to being tied down by it, with all the potential of the first six issues being lost in a mess of continuity retcons and House of M tie-ins, and the shift to bimonthly status has shed whatever remained of the initial momentum. Just as the first arc of this book was the most promising launch of a Marvel book since Astonishing X-Men, so has the second arc been the biggest letdown. God, that’s depressing. Crap, sadly.

PICK OF THE WEEK is Superman, because Kurt Busiek wins, of course. PICK OF THE WEAK is Nightwing, because it’s one of those comics that you read and immediately wish that you could scrub your brain clean afterwards. The Showcase Presents Teen Titans collection was supposed to have come out this week, even if I couldn’t find it, and there’s no way that Bob Haney could’ve let me down with his 500-odd pages of desperately-trying-to-be-hep 60s lingo. That said, Brian Wood’s The Tourist graphic novel came out from Image this week, and between Toby Cypress’s incredible art and a story that takes place close to where I went to college, I find myself drawn to giving that my vote for Trade of The Week.

Next week: All-Star Batman #4 is due out, only four months since the last issue, and NBC finds themselves in a lawsuit from Disney based on the video linked above. I, for one, can’t wait.

I Knew This Would Happen...Jeff's Review of 04/05/06 Books.

I knew that sooner or later my weekend job would get extra-busy and piledrive me into the ground, and, of course, it happened on the same weekend as APE. And since Graeme didn't make it into the store Friday, I thought it unlikely he'd be posting his reviews over the weekend. (I don't know for sure, but I sort of imagine Graeme making his way around APE and the various parties over the weekend, mingling with the comix hoi-polloi. If so, maybe he'll get a chance to grace us with a report? Hey, I can dream, right?) And, of course, Brian's busy and preoccupied and, unless I'm remembering his schedule incorrectly, probably has a Tilting that he's working on this week.

But can I let this site lie fallow? No! Can I remember a damned thing about the comics I read on Friday? No! I mean, uh, mmmmaybe.... Let's see.

ANNIHILATION SILVER SURFER #1: Are all the chapters of this Annihilation epic going to look so scratchy? What happened to the Joe Sinnott-style Silver Surfer, who looked liked he'd been sculpted from buttery-smooth marble? It would suit some of the old-school style Surfer anguish being bandied about here, as he and other former Galactus herald Gabriel find themselves trying to distinguish the mass destruction seen here as different from what they used to enable during their glory days. I'm inclined toward Eh but that might change depending on how things develop.

DETECTIVE COMICS #818: The Ventriloquist is one of the few Batman villains created in the last twenty years that really seemed to stick. So if he's really been offed, as apparently happens here, just to make Two-Face seem like more of a badass, well, I think that's a really stupid move. Parts of this, combined with those One Year Later ads that show the bloodiest parts of the Infinite Crisis storyline, make me worry that the post-IC universe is going to be very, very Geoff Johns-ish, where the heroes are good and noble, and everyone else is going to be tortured within an inch of their lives. Yes, yes: all of you wishing to send me "Well, duh" emails, please form a line to the left. OK.

INFINITE CRISIS #6: There were some really cool bits here and there--all those earths and Luthor's glance at Earth-Prime which the artists nailed perfectly came to mind--but the whole thing is logging down with Superboy-itis. Why did weird stuff happen in the DCU? Superboy punched stuff. Why did a bunch of second string Teen Titans die and the Speedforce disappear? Superboy punched them. How does Luthor's impenetrable tower topple? Two Superboys punch into it. Is this a way to give the Siegel family a bunch of money since the entire miniseries spins around the actions of Superboy(s)? That'd be swell of DC, but it doesn't seem likely, does it? Eh, and, hey, what was up with that Black Adam-Psycho-Pirate scene? I mean, the fuck.

JONAH HEX #6: Supposed to be a wild, plot-spinning ride but it felt a little too hyper to me, like two isues jammed into one. I would've been more touched by Jonah's reunion with his long-lost love if I hadn't still been trying to figure out the whole plague-Apache-nuns-outlaw angle. The nuns are outlaws who fake a plague to keep the Apaches at bay, maybe? But...uh, why? Eh.

MARVEL TEAM-UP #19: I'm just enough of a Marvel fanboy to appreciate the idea of the Mandarin making a new ring out of a cosmic cube shard. I'm trying to think if there's been a single arc on this title I haven't ended up underwhelmed by, though. OK, but I'm pessimistic.

MARVEL ZOMBIES #5: Had almost none of the darkly amusing horror that made the previous issues so striking, and the undead superhero/supervillain fight felt like something Kirkman pulled out of his ass to either (a) pad out pages; or (b) delay his original ending to milk another miniseries out of this. And wouldn't that ending have had some punch if we hadn't seen the Marvel heroes chowing down on Galactus a few pages earlier? Just when Kirkman's almost proved me wrong to view all of his Marvel work as cynical hackwork, he busts out the ultra-cynical hacky ending. Awful issue, and dragged the whole endeavor down to Eh for me.

MOON KNIGHT #1: I really liked that reversal--didn't see it coming at all. The narration reads less like an authentic monologue and more like a chance for the writer to show us, honest, he's a fan of the character and he's done his homework--like a slightly klutzier Brad Meltzer--but the hook caught me. Let's see where it goes from here. Good.

OMAC PROJECT INFINITE CRISIS SPECIAL: Hibbs really disagreed with me, but this struck me as pooped out--although whether I mean that in the sense of "completely exhausted" or "fell out of somebody's butt" even I can't rightly say. Sasha is capable of being taken over by the OMAC satellite so she doesn't feel like it's a problem that she's the only one investigating the very same satellite? Hello, my name is Jeff Lester and I'm today's loser on 'Suspend Your Disbelief!' And unless Sasha's whining about how all the other heroes are dissing her is Rucka's clumsy attempt to bring DC Countdown full circle, I'd say that tune's a little played. Awful.

PUNISHER #32: The rich Masters of the Universe and the poor killers of color--if only this was being written by Tom Wolfe! Like last issue, I'm digging the art but kinda can't help but see one little flaw after another--the end of this issue would be evocative if not for the opening of the previous issue, it seems like. Eh, but you may feel differently, one way or the other.

REVOLUTION ON THE PLANET OF THE APES #3: An Ape-head like me really appreciates the love and respect this series is giving the original set of films, but each issue feels slight to me--as if they didn't have enough money to pay the artists for a full issue and kept wedging in text pieces to get by. I want this to succeed so badly, I can't tell if my OK is actually too optimistic or too pessimistic. I'm enjoying it but not loving it, is what I'm saying. But then, I didn't lay down a hundred-twenty-plus bones for the DVD complete edition, so obviously I'm a poseur...

TEEN TITANS #34: I thought Marvin and Wendy were funny, dammit. (And I assume that's one of the Wonder Twins robbing a bank.) But how many issues until Black Adam gouges their eyes out? Four? Five? Even worse, the strongest and most consistent hook this book had was Superboy and Wonder Girl's relationship--since that's now gone, I'm gonna need another emotional hook and pronto. Trying to second-guess who's in The Doom Patrol doesn't really cut it. OK.

THUNDERBOLT JAXON #3: Huh. I thought things would be a little further along by now. Bummer. Eh.

YOUNG AVENGERS #11: That Heinberg can mesh his story with so tightly with Marvel continuity without making it feel constricted by that continuity is a remarkable achievement. That Patriot is so dumb he takes a shot for the one Avenger who has a shield is also remarkable. Still, a high Good and my PICK OF THE WEEK.

PICK OF THE WEAK: I think maybe Mr. Rucka has burnt himself out on the DCU or something. OMAC PROJECT INFINITE CRISIS SPECIAL was so bad, I couldn't believe he wrote it.

TRADE PICK: Bupkis. I didn't delve into the week's selections very deeply, however. Someone'll come along with a good recommendation, I'm sure.

MANGA FIX: DEATH NOTE, volumes 2 and 3. Ohba and Obata have done a great job of crafting an absurdly effective cat-and-mouse tale with some genuinely creepy scenes. It's a little silly in its not-so-subtle-teen-pandering (The world's greatest detective! The world's deadliest killer! And they're both starting college!) but the way the creators take their premise and play it out is really, really enjoyable. Great stuff.

There. That'll give you something to chew on (at least until Graeme posts twenty minutes from now...). Now I can go read Jog and The X-Axis...

One Year (and a month) Later

So, listen, I’m not sure if I’m the perfect audience (long-time DC fan) or the deadly worst audience (long-time DC fan) for this kind of stunt – every “jumping on” point is equally a “jumping off” point, after all. Some mechanical stuff, first, I think… that “One Year Later” logo looks disturbingly like the “DC Bullet” doesn’t it? Plus, I’m of the mind that it was misplaced, in most cases. “Most” stores either rack with an overlapping top-to-bottom, or with overlapping left-to-right (We’re in the latter group) – this means that the single most valuable piece of “real estate” on the cover is the top left hand corner. Sadly, most of the OYL books have the logo in the middle-right… basically a terrible spot for the logo to “pop” off the cover. A banner would almost certainly have been more effective.

Now, sure, that’s almost moot, because pretty much all of the books sold out on the national level, but still, it’s basic Event Design.

Some (HI, D.G.!) have suggested that, perhaps, DC knowingly “under-printed” the OYL books, in order to get week after week of press releases out of it. While I find the rapid sell-outs at DC to be pretty fucking sad lately, I can’t go all the way to “on purpose”. Why? Because that would be FUCKING STUPID. If you don’t have stock on hand WHEN people come looking for it, then you’ve blown your best chance for a new reader. I also don’t believe that press releases on Newsarama (or whatever) really do jack shit for selling comic books (sorry, Matt!) – the people who regularly visit sites like that are either in the business (I personally check the major sites 3-5 times a day), or are the “Heavy Users” – those people who are already buying huge scary stacks of funny books, and who aren’t moving the needle very much on big events. They are ALREADY ON BOARD.

On-the-ground demand has been pretty heavy for the OYL stuff. I pegged most books at +20%, but, on most titles, I should have gone +30-50%.

What will be interesting is how much of this “growth” sticks at all – what is unclear is if these are OYL buyers, or if they’re genuine “samplers”, and, thus, how many of them will come back. When you add the crazy “Who The Fuck Knows” nature of the upcoming weekly “52”, it could well be an insane roller-coaster of trying to order DC comics in the next few months…

Speaking as a long-time DC fan (over 31 years of loving those characters), I’ve felt pretty cold to a lot of the OYL changes. Why? Well, part of it, I think, is that the “DC Universe” isn’t just about plot points, but about the accretion of familiarity and affection over a long period of time. Monthly hero comics are more like Soap Operas, than not, and there’s a certain amount of staidness I want as a reader. Superhero universes are sort of the equivalent of “comfort food” – Chicken Soup with Stars, or something.

OYL, of course, is trying very hard to not be Chicken Soup with Stars – several of the books seem like they’re trying to be Beef, Mango, and Rice soup, if you understand my metaphor – but even switching to Chicken with NOODLES would have been a big change, you know what I mean? The upheaval of the status quo means that the DCU isn’t (to change metaphors, suddenly) a comfortable old pair of shoes any longer – I don’t like the fit and feel of some of these new designs.

Ultimately, OYL makes us ALL strangers to the DCU – my 31 years of patronage really don’t seem to mean much any more than your “I just started reading with INFINITE CRISIS” tenure. Now, I’m sure Dan Didio will really embrace that – clean starting place for everyone, and all – but I tend to suspect that in the medium-run, it is going to be the long-term DC readers that will continue to be the largest portion of DC’s revenues, and that a significant percentage of the Grazers will wander back to their traditional pastures.

Part of the reason for that is that there’s really only 2 ways to do a OYL comic – either you a) completely shake up the status quo, so the book might as well be an all-new #1 anyway, or b) make it a mystery (“How did things get to be like THIS?!?!”) that makes filling in the backstory the driving narrative thrust. Problem is that mysteries get tired after a point (I suppose it is just possible for it to last, say, a year – but I think 6-9 months is about all of the patience that the audience is going to have.) (especially given how many books this is touching)

What I find… interesting? Ironic? Is that, so far, I’d call the largest successes of OYL to be the core Batman and Superman books, AS THEY (seemingly) TAKE THOSE CHARACTERS BACK TO THEIR PRE-EVENT STATUSES. The “un-Asshatting” of Batman, in particular, is both long-over due (I think he’s probably been going the wrong direction since, jeez “Knightfall” maybe? Though it really reached peak in “War Games” and “Omac”). Given that the universe probably rises or falls on the Big Icons, this is a positive and hopeful sign.

But, perhaps

Let’s get into individual titles, shall we?

Start with the Batman books. As alluded above, I thought DETECTIVE #817 was VERY GOOD, with BATMAN #651 probably in the GOOD range (there was some padding, I thought, on the latter)

CATWOMAN #53: used it’s OYL jump well, I thought – it really does feel like a year has past, but even older events are still relevant. I do think that it should be obvious to anyone (even, yes, the sad Angle Man) that Holly and Selina have different builds, but I guess that is comic books. Still, a promising new start: GOOD

NIGHTWING #118: Pure shit, as Dick seems as out of character as can be, and as editorial idiocy reveals the JT thing in the next issue box, but never mentions it in the comic book itself. Sad that he’s here, too – the story as left at the end of “Under the Hood” wouldn’t haven’t suggested this path to me. I’m also kinda annoyed that #117 ended with “Babs, will you marry me?” and #118 begins with Dick banging some anonymous redhead. Feh. CRAP.

ROBIN #148: Aside from the very very very clumsily staged opening (and thus the short-term plot of the book), I liked this more than I’ve liked the book in some time. Still, just OK

The Superman books were great, giving both SUPERMAN #650 and ACTION #837 VERY GOODs (though the latter sorta spoils IC #6, doesn’t it?)

SUPERGIRL #7: Oh, wait, this hasn’t come out yet. Ooops. I thought that was the whole point of shortening the Loeb run? For that matter, is #25 of SUPERMAN/BATMAN (though not OYL) going to come out in anything like a rational schedule, as it relates to INFINITE CRISIS?

Then into the general DCU…

AQUAMAN: SWORD OF ATLANTIS #40: Suffered a bit from ugly-in-places art, and there’s the somewhat…well, I don’t know, “derivative”? No, that’s not it… “Know ye, O Prince” narration, but this was probably the most like what I expected from OYL books – a radical rethinking of the base concept, and a strong new direction. I’ll go with a solid GOOD. Oh, and now that I’ve gotten home from unpacking the new comics, and have read #41 as well, yeah, AQUAMAN is what all of the OYL should have been, in theory.

BIRDS OF PREY #92: A bit clumsy, I thought – the Black Canary pages seemed like they belonged in another book, and I didn’t understand the “Jade Canary” thing, since Shiva wasn’t wearing that color. But, at least, Babs wasn’t running around in costume with her legs perfectly back (my biggest fear). A solid, if somewhat confusing OK.

BLOOD OF THE DEMON #13: Almost certainly the weakest of the OYL books – it felt like I missed 1, maybe 2 issues, not a whole year. No way this will make it past #24. Either a low EH or a high AWFUL.

BLUE BEETLE #1: OK, so not technically OYL (in fact, half of it was “pre-Crisis” – I guess Superboy punched something to explain the differences between the origin here and in IC), but, still it seems to fit. While I pretty much hate that new costume, and I’m very very confused as to powers (holding off a GL? Really?), I thought the human set up and reactions were pretty right on, and that this was a real enjoyable read. A very solid VERY GOOD, and a possible contender for PICK OF THE WEEK status.

FIRESTORM THE NUCLEAR MAN #23: I was a little dismayed that 1 issue after bringing back Prof Stein, he’s already gone, but the Firehawk thing was kinda cute, so there you go. Oddly, the was the sole OYL book for us that sold LESS copies than the previous issue. Couldn’t tell you why, however. Maybe too many changes too fast? I liked it OK.

GREEN ARROW #60: The first of the “did you see your own cover, man?” issues, wasting 22 pages to tell us what we already knew before we even opened the comic. Maybe it is me, but this also seems like the most unlikely/compelling OYL change. I mean, EX MACHINA works because it very much isn’t about super-heroes – I can’t possibly seeing GA either being believable or sustainable with the concept. Like when Luthor was President – that shit just didn’t WORK. I’ll go with a very weakly stated EH, close to AWFUL

GREEN LANTERN #10: Worked fine to give the sense that a geopolitical year has passed. Am very very worried about the “Sinestro Corps” idea. Wasn’t fond of the “Hal was a POW thing”, really, because wouldn’t one of a dozen other characters have come and rescued him? I’ll give it to Geoff, though, because this does allow him to neatly sidestep the tendency to make OYL stories a mystery ABOUT the lost year. I’m split between a very high OK and a very low GOOD though.

HAWKGIRL #50: Woof. That was…. Not very good. Between the art that was far too often phoned in stock poses and layout, and a script that seemed to be written to 8 year olds (“and then…” “…the lights went out!” ), this was almost an epic misfire. Or maybe I was anticipating it too much? Truly AWFUL.

JSA #83: Wait, a year passed? Honestly, it feels like Just Another Issue of JSA. I’m like a mad crazy JSA fan – on display in the store is a custom set of Matt Wagner JSA sketches (I’m, what, 6 short of the full set?), I was the biggest retailer booster of the characters at RRPs over the years, etc. – but, man, I just don’t care about the book any longer. And there’s a spin-off title too, yeesh. I’m Jumping Off here because it was just EH, just like JSA has been for nigh on a year (or more) now. (#84, which I just read tonight, cements that – double EH)

JSA CLASSIFIED #10: Much the same rant, with the addition that I like Paul Gulacy’s art on many things, but not on Superhero comics. On the very low end of EH.

MANHUNTER #20: Surprised me how much it felt connected to the (DC) Universe it actually felt. Problem is I still don’t find the base character to be all that compelling. OK

OUTSIDERS #34: Blech. Pretty much the only time “covert action” and “super heroes” has ever worked was in John Ostrander’s SUICIDE SQUAD. This is no SUICIDE SQUAD. AWFUL.

SUPERGIRL & THE LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES #16: Like GREEN ARROW, working to it’s last page, despite the cover. On the other hand, because the legion has changed a lot, and this might be the introduction of the “new characters” for a large # of people following Supergirl, that’s not necessarily a bad thing in this case. Still, “I’m dreaming you” better have something to back it up, Toot Sweet, cuz the next year being “is it? Isn’t it?” might just be too much to bear. Still, generally GOOD.

TEEN TITANS #34: I’m squeaking this in because I unloaded the comics today, and had time to read it. It didn’t ship in OYL month 1. (which, might I add, had 5 weeks in it!) Lots of big changes, but it looks like it is going route “b) make it a mystery (“How did things get to be like THIS?!?!”) that makes filling in the backstory the driving narrative thrust” with Vic as our POV character. What I will say is that I by and large think that TITANS is not X-MEN, and having former enemies join the teams as members just doesn’t work for this book. (despite not having read the next 4-6 issues!). Having said that, I liked quite a lot of this – especially the time-compressed first 3 pages from Vic’s POV, and I’ll be charitable and go with a low GOOD.

MM, that’s it then.

Hrm, for this week’s books (3/29) I liked ALL-STAR SUPERMAN #3 or BLUE BEETLE #1 or X-STATIX PRESENTS DEAD GIRL #3 or FALLEN ANGEL #4 as my PICK OF THE WEEK. Listed in order of If-You-Held-A-Gun-To-My-Head, but take your pick, they were all terrif.

For the PICK OF THE WEAK I’m going to go with IRON MAN #6, not because it was that bad, really, but, because after the year and a half, or whatever it was, it left me saying “And that’s it?”

My TP/GN OF THE WEEK is the softcover of TRAILERS from NBM. Terrific little book with art by the love child of David Lapham and Terry Moore. Big-time recommended!

What did you think?

-B

I have now read the worst comic ever: Graeme's review of the 3/29 books.

It’s the little things, isn’t it? For example, listening to Brian Michael Bendis’s recent three-hour Q and A podcast the other day while on my way to work, I heard him announce that he is a massive fan of “Gilmore Girls”. All of a sudden, all of my previous dislike of Bendis’s work? Gone. Entirely. Because I, too, am an enormous fan of the show, despite Rory’s face, which looks like some weird Manga drawing come to life. But, hey! Arguably the most popular writer in comics likes the same shitty TV shows as me! I feel vindicated. While I’m talking about podcasts and everything, did anyone else listen to Lene Taylor’s interview with Rory Root? I think I have a new comics crush now.

ACTION COMICS #837: Hey, where’s the “One Year Later” comment at the start of the book…? Kurt Busiek and Geoff Johns continue their rehabilitation of the Superman characters, and in the process, make this book feel like the team-up Superman book again with the big name guest-stars. There’s something about this current take on Superman that feels fresh despite the fact that it’s just reusing lots of old Cary Bates (or earlier) ideas - Superman powerless? We’ve never seen that before! Lex Luthor claiming to be over Superman? I give it five minutes! – which is both unusual and pleasant to see. Even the cliffhanger at the end of the book has been done before, I think. It feels as if the books are moving forward again, in some way, and even if the final destination of some of these particular plots are obvious, it’s the execution that’s making me come back. If that makes sense. Good.

ADULT FRANKENSTEIN: You know, I knew that this was going to be bad. But nothing prepared me for just how bad this actually is. I mean, Jesus, this is really, appallingly, your-brain-may-leak-out-of-your-ears bad. Never mind any “Hey, how kitsch can something called Adult Frankenstein be?” type of thinking because, Holy Mother of God, this is so bad it goes beyond kitsch and out into some kind of quality wasteland where kitsch is the fairy tale that bad stories tell to their children to make them stop crying. When the porn content – you know, the actual fucking - is potentially the one redeeming quality of a book, then hopefully you get the idea of just how bad it is, especially considering that the porn itself is really shittily done porn. The stories are just the worst horror fan fiction ideas ever; you can imagine the writer’s thought process being “What if Frankenstein’s monster met [Insert other famous horror character of choice]? Well, they’d fight. And then some woman would appear and fuck one of them! Done!” Almost every single story in this book is exactly like that, and the ones that aren’t only have variations like “And then some woman would appear and fuck both of them!” or “What if we really shake things up and have the woman fuck someone and then they fight? GENIUS!” Ignore Jeff’s cruel attempt to convince some of you that this has its charms because of the John Buscema rip-off art; he’s just trying to trick you into wasting your money. What’s the worst rating that we can do here? Ass? This is Ass to the power of infinity. And then some.

Yeesh.

ALL STAR SUPERMAN #3: Everything is in place here: Grant Morrison is bringing his “Silly ideas that I play straight and magically become great stories” game, Frank Quitely’s art is as good as ever – and I loved Jimmy’s Signal Watch and want one for myself – and it’s another well-done one-issue-story that also moves the larger plot forward. But it really didn’t do it for me like the first couple of issues did. There were bits I really loved, sure, but I felt as if this was Morrison on auto-pilot at times in the dialogue, and there were was something about his portrayal of Lois that bugged me (I think it’s that she still thinks that Superman was only pretending to be Clark – It makes her seem willfully dumb, you know?)… It’s Very Good, sure, but a disappointment after the earlier issues of the book. Next issue has Jimmy Olsen as Britney Spears, though, so I have high hopes.

BLUE BEETLE #1: Excuse me while I go off here, but for the love of Pete: HOW HARD IS IT FOR PEOPLE AT COMIC COMPANIES TO REMEMBER WHAT THEY DID IN THEIR OWN BOOKS THREE MONTHS AGO? In the middle of this issue, we get a flashback to Jaime, the new Blue Beetle, finding the scarab for the first time. Sadly, we’d already seen Jaime find the scarab for the first time in Infinite Crisis #3, and it’s not the same scene. Yeah, yeah, I know, Superboy punched something. But still, it was only three months ago, people. Don’t be so sloppy. Apart from that, this worked for me despite itself – the opener with Guy Gardner attacking Jaime seems forced, as if there had to be an action sequence somewhere in the first issue so it might as well be with another hero to create “excitement” and “mystery”. The rest of the book, which is much slower in pace and mostly domestic world-building, is much more enjoyable and oddly reminiscent of the first few issues of Milestone’s Static, if anyone else besides me remembers that one… Right now, it feels like an Okay “teenager as rookie superhero book” that’ll be worth checking out every now and then, albeit one with amazing art from Cully Hamner, who hopefully won’t be signed to a Marvel exclusive and leave the book now that I’ve said that.

CAPTAIN AMERICA 65th ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL: I ended up reading this one twice, because the first time, I’d just read Adult Frankenstein and it made me not only hate this book, but all comics ever, and possibly myself as well. A day later and with things in better perspective, I took another pass at it, and what do you know? It’s not that bad after all. Not that it’s that wonderful, either, mind you. Despite the title, there’s no real attempt at celebrating any kind of anniversary in here; it’s just Ed Brubaker writing a Cap and Bucky versus the Nazis story, with Nick Fury and the Howling Commandos as guest-stars, but played straighter (and, to be honest, kind of duller) than you’d expect from Brubaker. You’d want a story where the Red Skull has a giant 500-year-old robot that fights Cap to really focus on that, instead of the lead up to said fight and Bucky fancying a German resistance girl, wouldn’t you? But you’d be disappointed here, considering the robot only gets a few pages and turns out to be worse in a fight than me. You’d also end up being disappointed by Javier Pulido’s art, which continues his slump into a simpler style that’s not as effective as his old stuff (Marcos Martin, who co-illustrates the book, does some great stuff, though). Okay, but it could have been so much better.

CONTINUITY GN PDF: Did anyone else end up downloading the complete PDF for AiT’s next graphic novel this week? It’s an odd promotional tool, I think. Sure, potential customers get to try the whole thing before they pay for it, but that also means that people who were on the fence have the opportunity to read the whole thing for free and spend their money on something else… Being a behind the scenes geek, I really want to know what the orders are going to be like as a result of this, and see if any other publisher follows Larry’s lead if it’s shown to “work”. As for the graphic novel itself, it’s as interesting as the promo; if most AiT books are movies like Armageddon or something, this is Minority Report - There’s definitely a Philip K. Dick quality to it in terms of plot, but with a more mainstream execution than Dick’s own writing (the ending, which admittedly confused me because I am a dull and simple lad, is more upbeat than something Dick would’ve written, for example). It’s something that sticks in your head (which may explain why Larry released the full PDF preview, because it’s not as simple a sell as the high concept books like Astronauts in Trouble or even Demo); when I read it first, I didn’t like it, but the more I think about it, the more it grows on me. Good although I may end up at Very Good if I keep thinking.

FANTASTIC FOUR #536: Finally, an FF book for people who want to read a badly-paced, mean-spirited story featuring the characters. For anyone who picked this up, did you notice the really strange stretch of three pages in the first half of the book where every page ends with a stilted line of dialogue that’s clearly meant to imply that bad things are about to happen (“That’s where you’re wrong, Ben - - Dead wrong.” “S.H.I.E.L.D. can’t get here in time… Same for conventional ground forces… But I’m not sure it would matter, not against them - - Not against Doombots.” “We can deal with that later, Sue. Right now - - I’d say we have bigger fish to fry.”)? You can tell what JMS is trying to do, but it doesn’t work; instead of building tension, you end up being bored and just wanting the big reveal already. Except that the big reveal is already on the cover, so there’s no tension whatsoever. When the last page of the book comes, the full-page panel of Thor’s hammer is entirely anti-climactic, just like the return of Doctor Doom – Wasn’t he dead? No-one seems that surprised to see him running around again, and the terrible dialogue (“Doom! But, it’s - - It’s not possible!”) is entirely undermined by the lack of expression in the corresponding art, which just has Mister Fantastic looking slightly bored, so maybe everyone knew he wasn’t dead. That’s what I get for not reading all of Mark Waid’s run. In fact, this may be one of the most boring “event” books I’ve ever read. It’s not all JMS’s fault, though; Mike McKone may be many things, but something he’s not (at least, not here) is dynamic. His action sequences seem very static, and his characters hardly emotive. I seem to remember his Teen Titans work being better than this, so maybe he’s just been anaesthetized by the script. Awful, and not a good sign for Civil War, if this is part of “The Road” to it.

(Oh, and the Thor revamp? Set up on the second page, fairly obviously.)

GREEN LANTERN #10: My pet theory that Geoff Johns has been playing for time and waiting for the One Year Later jump since around issue 3 of this series seems to be paying off, as the series stops with all the generic plots that could’ve been done elsewhere and starts doing Green Lantern-centric stories again. There’s perhaps too much going on in here, and the storytelling is slightly muddy, but Johns gets his subplot on here, laying groundwork not only for future GL, but also 52 (An international Superhero “Freedom of Power” treaty? The Global Guardians, apparently with Jet, the dead New Guardian from the ‘80s on the team? Sure looks like her. The Sinestro Corps?) while also establishing a new status quo for Hal Jordan as former prisoner of war and current military hero, bizarrely enough. Surprisingly Good, but that may be colored by my relief that things are finally happening again.

(Also interesting – Hal Jordan, like Dick Grayson, is introduced in his OYL book the morning after a one night stand with someone who he doesn’t know the name of. It felt odd when Nightwing did it, but now that it’s happened here as well, I wonder if this is some strange DC-wide “Let’s make our heroes seem more masculine – Women throw themselves at them” meme. I find it somewhat misogynistic and it makes me think that the characters involved all seem kind of dickish, but I’m a fan of Gilmore Girls, so what do I know?)

NEW AVENGERS: ILLUMINATI: There’s really too much text on this cover, you know. It makes it look like the book’s title is THE ROAD TO CIVIL WAR: THE NEW AVENGERS: ILLUMINATI. There’s probably a “Well, it is a Bendis book, and he’s really wordy” joke to be done now, but I’ll let you have that fun yourselves. As someone who has a problem with Bendis’s dialogue – it reads as overly writerly and unnatural to me; people don’t talk with the rhythm that he uses, and his hand is obvious too often, as characters become mouthpieces for whatever plot point he’s trying to reach – this book was never going to be my favorite thing, but I really didn’t expect the awkwardness of the last six pages of the story here. As Jeff says, it comes across as a tacky way to show how this book is supposed to lead into Civil War by having Iron Man predict the opening of Civil War in amazing detail (Something that Marvel hammers home by then running a preview of those Civil War pages immediately after the end of the story. And how many times can I write Civil War in one sentence?); it’s entirely unnecessary and overplays what otherwise might have been a more subtle lead in. And what’s with the characters referring to comics by their titles? When Iron Man starts reeling off recent Marvel comics (“House of M, Nick Fury’s Secret War, the 198…”), you almost expect him to turn to the reader and say “And the trades of each of those stories are available where you bought this very comic, true believer!” It’s Crap. Alex Maleev’s art is nice, though.

Two bad lead-ins to Civil War in one week. That’s not a good sign.

OR ELSE #4: In which Kevin Huizenga goes insane in a good way. I have a sick wrong love for the Monkees movie Head, and this issue of Or Else, I’ve convinced myself, is the comic version of Head. It has the disjointed and disorientating quality of the movie, as well as the satirization of media and corporate cultures that, in the 1960s saw Jack Nicholson writing a movie where Frank Zappa and a talking cow tell the Monkees that they’re part of the machine, man and now has Huizenga remixing drug ads with comic culture (“Ask your doctor for more information. See our ad in The Comics Journal. Side effects may vary: difficulty breathing, heart attack, nausea, angst, schaudenfreude, rabies, reactionary politics, or shyness.”). It’s a break from the feel of his previous work, but not the technique, and it makes me worry for how Huizenga’s doing at the same time as marveling at what he’s doing. Excellent.

SUPERMAN/BATMAN #24: Just like Or Else #4, a stunning attack on corporate… Oh, okay, not really. There was an interview with Jeph Loeb somewhere where he admitted that the death of his son Sam hit his work hard, and that really shows in the current run on this book. It’s entirely lacking in the joy of the earlier issues, and instead just goes through the motions of “Well, they’d never expect this!” without any heart to back it up. There was, despite what many people will tell you, a plot and internal logic to the book up until the return of Ed McGuinness, but since then, it’s been people hitting each other and shouting and things happening for no reason, with unexplained plots apparently headed towards “Well, the Joker had godlike powers, so that’s why nothing makes sense” resolution. Sadly, Awful.

X-STATIX PRESENTS DEAD GIRL #3: I think I’m immune to Peter Milligan. Everyone I know seems to love this book, and I really get nothing from it. I don’t even dislike it, it just leaves me entirely cold. The most interesting thing for me about it is wondering why all the art seems so blurry. Go with Jeff’s review; he doesn’t have the same malady of Milliganitis that I do. For me, though, the very definition of Eh.

PICK OF THE WEEK is Or Else #4, because Kevin Huizenga’s pain at the way the world is is my entertainment. Cheap holidays in other people’s misereeeeeeee! And, yes, I know it’s under Books/Mags/Stuff on Bri’s list, but I’m still picking it, Goddammit. PICK OF THE WEAK is Adult Frankenstein, because, well. Just because. Trade of The Week that isn’t Or Else is probably the Trailers book from NBM that I haven’t finished reading yet but am enjoying greatly (Ignore the terrible cover and take a peak inside; it’s much better than the cover implies). Continuity doesn’t count because it’s not officially released yet, and the other trades I’ve been reading this week – Supreme Power volume 1 (which, despite Bri’s attempts, I still really dislike. I just don’t get the point of it. Why bother with “What if the JLA happened in the real world?”? What’s the point?) and the first hardcover Nexus Archives, which I’m loving much more than I’d expected – aren’t new releases… I’m apparently in a collections frame of mind these days and freely admit it; I’m pissed off that someone got those cheap secondhand NewXMen hardcovers from Green Apple before I had the chance to get back to the store with enough money to pick them up myself. If you’re reading this, whoever did it, then you should take them back to the store right now and tell them that they should only resell them to me. You know it makes sense.

Jeff's Reviews of the 3/29 Books....Or Are They??

I realized when I sat down to write this that it's April 1st and at first I thought "hey, wouldn't it be hilarious to write these reviews and completely make shit up!?" But you know, the occasional Google Romance aside, I'm not the biggest fan of April Fool's Day stuff, on or off the 'Net. Part of that is my general inclination toward the "bah, humbug" state of mind, and some of it is I just recently had to wipe the egg off my face after gleefully telling my wife about that whole "exploding space tits" story. I think the Internet and British tabloids should be exempt from April Fool's Day shenanigans because for them, every day is April Fool's Day.

So I scrapped the whole phony review idea (or....did I????) and what follows are my genuine reactions to this week's books (or....are they????)

[Note: they are.]

ACTION COMICS #837: Didn't enjoy this as much as the previous issue but it's still fun. I was mildly annoyed with the special guest-stars and the ending this ish because, I dunno, the idea that Superman loses his powers means 90,000 guest stars have to come in and save his powerless hash is kinda played out. Aren't the DC books strong enough that we can have a gripping story without having a superpowered cameo of some kind to fulfill the requisite formula? Apprarently not. Good, but as you can tell, that kind of thing bugs me.

ADULT FRANKENSTEIN: I know Graeme's gonna review this (and I can't wait!) but I had to chip in my two cents since I read it at the store. The author deserves some credit for knowing what he likes (short "stories" in which Frankenstein fights monsters and usually gets a blow job for his troubles) as well as his versatility--we start off with the Monster encountering Dorian Gray and end with him transcending Hell to become one of Lovecraft's Undying Ones--but it's one of the other artists in the book that really made this for me. There was some article in the Kirby Collector about the big influence Buscema's Silver Surfer had on European artists, and by God, one of these guys is here, swiping from The Silver Surfer and occasionally Conan and then throwing in awkwardly drawn choads and sketchily exposed bosoms all over the place. If you ever wanted to see Buscema draw pr0n, or just wanted to someone so obsessed with Buscema's style they even draw pr0n in that style, this is pretty god-dmaned unmissable. Good, in a very wrong and ghastly kind of way.

ALL STAR SUPERMAN #3: I got my email last night from the Internet Critics' Cabal with a guideline of recommended superlatives for this issue, but I forgot to forward it to my work address. I thought this issue was a lot of fun, and funny, and forgive issue #2 for its unwillingness to try and give Lois's paranoia any credence. I see now the art, like the original Silver Age stuff, needs to be constantly well-lit, straight-forward and upbeat because otherwise an issue where Samson and Atlas show up to compete for Super-Lois's affections just wouldn't work. And also as with the Silver Age stuff, I think the art heightens the poignance and/or tragedy lurking as subtext--there's some sort of "sad clown" effect the team is trying for in this work that's really kinda enjoyably odd. For whatever reason, a lot of the books I read this week had sections where the pages stuck together and I'd misread a sequence, and that happened to best effect here where a page ends with Superman telling Lois there's something he's wanted to do since he first met her, and then I ended up on the final page of the story, which made me go, "Well, that's weird but very, very clever." (The way it's actually supposed to read is pretty good, too.) Yup, it's another Very Good issue of this book. Well worth your time & dime.

BLUE BEETLE #1: It's weird the shit that'll hook you on a book--after that scene with the three kids cracking on each other with some actual wit, I was all-in. Giffen and Rogers have crafted a teen protagonist who seems genuinely smart and decent and a teen without going overboard--there is no Poochie effect here--and the art is strong and clean. Where it'll end up is anybody's guess, but this was a Very Good first issue and I hope it holds up. It could end up being the perfect complement to Ultimate Spider-Man and that'd be a great thing to have on the market. Fingers are officially crossed.

CAPTAIN AMERICA 65TH ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL: I would have preferred this without that little epilogue. Because this special works really well as its own little thing, a neat bit of retro thrills with Javier Pulido and Marcos Martin doing a very Darwyn Cooke-ish take on the art, while the story works in bits and pieces that'll pay off in the current arc of the regular title. But that two page epilogue kind of oversells the tie-in angle, and kind of undervalues the retro thrills end of the deal. Don't get me wrong, I'd still give it a Good but I'd think anyone who picks this up would already be on the CA-Brubaker love train and wouldn't need that extra bit of hard sell at the end.

EAST COAST RISING VOL 1 GN: Becky Cloonan kicks out all the jams and damned if it isn't lovely as all hell: the first six pages are a damned delight as she takes the Paul Pope influence and kicks it up to eleven. And elsewhere her storytelling choices are just superb, slicing up panels like a Comics Iron Chef to nail the impact she wants without being overly showy about it. Artistically, this is incredibly capable work and it gave me the same brassy excitement I got from Sharknife.

Story-wise? Meh. It starts late, dawdles in the middle, seems content to coast on one good joke at the expense of New Jersey until it's not funny, has a great mythos but flat characters unable to inspire interest past their basic visual designs. It's meant, like Sharknife, to be a fun story, and I derived a good deal of enjoyment from listening to the duelling pirates squabble like children on a playground before fighting off a sea-monster that looks like it came straight from a biker's bicep. It was, in its own indie-manga way, intensely Bruckheimerian and depending on how much you like spending your money on empty bombast, you might like or even love this. I thought it was OK, at least, but I was hoping I'd see Cloonan's formidable chops on a story I could care about--or that I at least thought was headed for another big action setpiece perpetrated on something other than ciphers. That would be something really worth getting excited about.

FANTASTIC FOUR #536: God, Mike McKone has this awesomely clean line and a really traditional way of drawing Marvel characters--reminds of John Romita, Sr., in some ways--so why have all the action scenes on his run been so underwhelming? Are the scripts too jammed? Because you'd think a fight scene with the FF, the Army and the Legion of Doombots would have a little, I dunno, zing to it. Instead, there's a cramped half-page panel that looks like something out of Scooby-Doo where everyone's piled on top of each other. Also, isn't Dr. Doom in, y'know, Hell? In magical human-skin armor? As indicated by the run of creators just previous to this? If that's dealt with next issue, fine, but don't just plunk him down in the middle of a bunch of Doombots and not expect some confusion is what I'm saying. Sub-Eh, at best.

IRON MAN #6: Man, if those six issues had come out within six months of each other, what a knock out that would have been. But spread out as they've been over a year and a half, there's something underwhelming about it--odd since the delays between stuff like the Kevin Smith/Quesada issues of Daredevil, and the first arc of The Ultimates, arguably helped those books seem better to me (something to do with outlasting both the swell and backlash of public opinion so that each issue wasn't either overhyped or overdrubbed). This is a really amazing revitalization on Ellis's part of Iron Man--recreating the character so that he's the same but different, and with a very clear set of motivations, interests and passions--and I'm sure that trade'll be great, but I really can't see why these six issues took a year and a half. The art looks rushed, the story itself isn't particularly tricky and, in the end result, it's just an Iron Man story. A good one, but never has a better subliminal argument to wait for the trade been put into the marketplace and that's a shame.

MARVEL ROMANCE REDUX GUYS & DOLL: Jeff Parker has an unfair advantage here since he's dialoguing an early '70s romance story laid out by Jim Starlin which I'm guessing would be hilarious reading in its own right. But nonetheless it's either Parker's or Jon Lustig's story for the win as they both had more going for them than making fun of awkward panel transitions. This issue confirms what I've suspected for some time now: Frank Tieri is the Fozzie Bear of Marvel Comics. Desperately unfunny, particularly because he's utterly sure he's hilarious, Tieri's redialoguing of a gorgeous John Romita story is embarrassing in its lack of humor. Since the highs aren't quite as high as last issue, and the lows are much lower, I'll call this OK.

NEW AVENGERS ILLUMINATI SPECIAL: Unsurprisingly, Hibbs, not much of a Marvel fanboy, didn't mind this and I, an old-school Marvel fanboy, did. Because, wow, the idea of this secret community of Iron Man, Reed Richards, Black Bolt, Sub-Mariner, Professor X and Doctor Strange shreds so much post-Kree/Skrull War continuity--essentially any story where any two of the characters listed above appear after that now makes officially no sense--but also because the idea is just so ineptly handled. Do we see this secret society controlling either Jack or Shit during their time together? No, in fact, the three meetings depicted herein may have well been the only time these characters have met, such is the level with which Jack and Shit trammel the Marvel Universe. Throw in a really tacky scene where Iron Man, "Futurist" predicts six pages of the first issue of The Civil War ("...and because I'm a futurist, I can predict with confidence that young hero will have a 'Speed' in his name. Yes. Perhaps 'Speed Racer?' Or maybe Keanu Reeves, the star of 'Speed?' The spirits--er, I mean, the future--is unclear...") and I think we're in for another plot-hammered Marvel event. I can't totally hate any comic in which nay-saying Namor turns out to be the sharpest thinker, and the art does a great job making a series of conversations feel dynamic, but I can come pretty close. Awful stuff.

SENTRY #7: In a way, it's too bad Steven Seagle already wrote It's A Bird, because Paul Jenkins is a million times better writing stories about what superheroes mean to ordinary people than he is writing stories about superheroes. If this story had played with the metafictional conceit more bravely, he could've had it both ways and delivered something very complex. But now it all falls on whatever the special message is The Sentry "must not hear"--the entire eight issues depends on how well Jenkins can pull off that last issue gambit. Based on the first seven, I'm not very hopeful. Eh.

STAR WARS RETURN OF TAG & BINK SPECIAL ED #1: It's a single joke--whenever there are two characters in the original trilogy whose faces are concealed, it's Tag and Bink--but it's one that still amuses me, God help me. (Finally, Boba Fett's lousiness in Return of the Jedi explained!) And yet, the art tries too hard to be wacky, the story is slight, and it's a little over-priced. OK but maybe how big a Star Wars nerd you are may raise or drop that grade a smidge.

SUPERMAN BATMAN #24: When I asked Hibbs about a continuity error in this, he just shrugged and said, "Superboy punched something." Which then became the running joke of the day, explaining continuity problems in other books, shit we couldn't find around the store, and so on. I almost prefer this to the "Joker is god" excuse DC authors pull out when, as here, they realize their story makes no sense whatsoever. It took twenty-four issues and I don't know how many years for this book to go from "enjoyably demented" to "forgettably cheap." I couldn't give a good god-damn how this story ends up and that's a drag. Truly Eh.

THING #5: What, I forgot to read this? Dammit!

ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #92: Probably the most effective comic with more than two superheroes in it Bendis has ever written. Good.

X-MEN DEADLY GENESIS #5: A miniseries so well integrated into the events of current X-Men continuity, than feels more like reading an issue of Uncanny X-Men than Uncanny does. And I like it, despite never really giving a shit about the third Summers brother, which is maybe like what I like about it. I'm curious to see where it ends up, and hope there are some decent twists in the final issue. ON the high side of Good.

X-STATIX PRESENTS DEAD GIRL #3: Not everybody loves a G.W. Bush slam (although I do) but c'mon, that's just so damn silly, it's hilarious. And then there's more hilarity on top of that with scenes between Tike and Miss America, or Night Rider and Piano Man, or, or, or... Milligan goes way over the top here and it's eleven kinds of snarky (what does it say about Milligan's opinion of superhero comics when fights between costumed heroes is the only enjoyable activity in Hell?) but Christ, I liked this. Very Good.

WALKING DEAD #27: I forgot to read this too? Double-damn!

PICK OF THE WEEK: It should be All-Star Superman #3, really, but I'm gonna give it to Blue Beetle #1 in the hopes that it goes on to fulfill all of its amazing potential and that people actually read and buy and support it as it does. I may be an April Fool, but I'm a foolishly hopeful Fool as well.

PICK OF THE WEAK: Again, should be New Avengers Illuminati but it's one of the few times in recent history Namor was an interesting character. I'm gonna give it to Superman/Batman #24 because it's not like I expect much from the book and it can't even give me that way. I shudder in despair to think of what's going to happen to The Ultimates...

TRADE PICK: What didn't I pick up this week? The BANANA SUNDAY TPB is great; I picked up the last volume of BATTLE ROYALE (now I'm gonna read the whole thing, all in one go); EAST COAST RISING (see above); ESSENTIAL NOVA VOL 1 TPB; the two volumes of IRON WOK JAN, that second Marvel Masterworks volume of Golden Age Comics; OR ELSE #4; and the TRAILERS HC. I spent so much money this week, it was kinda appalling.

MANGA FIX: Since I've become such a manga junkie over the last year, I decided I'd split this into a separate section although my recommendations should be taken with a grain of salt (I was really relieved to find out Brad Curran ended up enjoying Monster after all). Nonetheless, Hibbs turned me on to Tsugumi Ohba & Takeshi Obata's DEATH NOTE from Viz, about a teenager with a demonic notebook that allows him to specify who dies and how. Before picking it up, I was sure this book would go kid-kills-the-high-school-bullies route but instead it takes a weirdly satisfying turn as he decides to kill off all the world's criminals, and from there gets even weirder and more satisfying as it turns into a deadly battle of cat-and-mouse between the teen and the police forces of the world (led by the world's greatest detective). There's eleven million ways this could go wrong and so far (I'm only two volumes in), Ohba & Obata have neatly avoided every one of them. If you're looking for another strange and compelling read, check out the first volume of DEATH NOTE. I'm grooving on it.

And there you have it. Oh, and happy 17th anniversary, CE! Long may you wave and all that...

What Hibbs thought of 3/22 books

Lost more time than I thought I would this week – got the order form done pretty early, but Rob got sick on Monday, killing my afternoon that I planned on writing. So, AlphaSmart at the store’s counter, while the rain pitter-pats down outside. Been open 45 minutes, and we’ve yet to have a customer yet. Good for writing, poor for the pocketbook. I studiously avoided going to the site in the last few days, but I’m going to go ahead and assume that both Graeme and Jeff have posted reviews this week, making this the rare hat trick. Unless they didn’t, in which case… never mind.

(If I read their reviews, it usually kills my interest in writing any of my own)

Next week, I think, I’ll do a big One Year Later review – although we’ll still be at least one book short (TITANS isn’t shipping this week). This is why you’ll see no DC reviews this week,

So, what shall we talk about? Well, in no particular order:

CYBERFORCE #1: Actually, I didn’t read this, but, as a retailer, I really wonder sometimes what Top Cow is thinking with their trade dress. Their TPs have “Top Cow” taking up nearly a third of the spine, in bright yellow, sticking out more than the name of the actual work. And now their periodicals have a massive TC logo nearly as visually dominating as the title of the book. Do they think that general readers give a fuck? I mean, I sell more dollars from say Lightspeed or Airship in an average month (both of which have switched to TP-only, no more serialization) than I do of the entire TC line combined. Go figure. I think this branding chases more people away than it attracts, especially because “Top Cow” isn’t descriptive of, well, anything much at all…

GUN FU SHOWGIRLS ARE FOREVER: Cute little hip hop Bond pastiche thingy, but I was a little surprised to see the credits claim that Dave Sim was a co-scripter. Maybe some of the accents or something? Didn’t read much different than the first GUN FU comics. Either way, fairly clever stuff, but I think I’d lose interest fast if this was a monthly. As a “once in a while” release, this was a solid OK.

FUTURAMA #24: I laughed, I cried, I kissed $3 goodbye. Well, I laughed, at least, which is what you want in a humor comic. A low GOOD.

RED SONJA #8: I also didn’t actually read this issue, but that’s more because they’ve just been jamming them out so fast lately, trying to “catch up” to schedule, rather than just redoing the schedule itself. Sales are also dropping really fast for us, so it seems I’m not the only one. I’ve also had a lot of complaints from customers getting confused by the multiple covers, and buying some issues twice. *sigh*

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #530: Beyond the fact, I really don’t buy the set-up – I mean, what with Peter and MJ living in Avengers Tower, and Peter having the “Iron Spider” suit, you don’t think that some investigative reporter isn’t going to figure the connection out, toot suite? – but, putting that aside, the political stuff worked pretty decently. So much so, that if it weren’t for that extremely brain-damaged dueling editorial caption thing, I probably would have said “GOOD”. But that caption thing was really heinous, knocking the whole issue down to a mild OK.

BLACK PANTHER #14: Did I say this already? That putting the two best-known Marvel black leads together just feels like pandering to me? Coming soon: the wedding of Coleen Wing and Sunfire! Wait, no, make that Dr. Strange’s manservant, Wong – Wing and Wong, quick, someone pitch that! Still, enjoyed this more than the 13 issues preceding it, so that must count for something. OK

DAREDEVIL #83: I really really really don’t buy the set up, and I don’t see how this can even a vaguely successful conclusion, but, oddly, I liked the issue just fine. A solid enough OK

NEW AVENGERS #17: I really liked the thinking behind the first couple of pages, but, man, that was much more suited for a MARVEL HOLIDAY SPECIAL or something, than THE AVENGERS. I mean “…and we’re just going to stand there”? That’s not exactly exciting action in the mighty Marvel manner, is it? I’m sure kids all over America want to read about the Avengers just standing around. I know I do. BUT WAIT, cosmic House of M action intrudes with the really preposterous power of “millions” of mutants in one man. I liked the 2 pages of Iron Man trying to negotiate (“…Korvac?”), but then we’re back to punching as a seemingly out of character Ms. Marvel throws herself in the middle (what happened to trying to be a better hero? No, she just dives in and punches. Swell), and then that dopey last page, which seems pretty damn badly timed just when MM gets her own monthly book, yes? Man, this book is just a crazy-ass train wreck, ain’t it? I can’t call it anything except AWFUL.

NEXTWAVE #3: What’s with the new “: Agents of HATE” subtitle? Someone from Eclipse threaten to sue? (I’m not the only one who remembers that book, am I?) Anyway, “second verse, same as the first”, and, already this seems like it has no legs, nor any forward momentum. Twasn’t even funny. EH.

SHE-HULK #6: A humor book (or even a “humor” book, since this seems to be trying to straddle a few lines) has some particular art needs – not “house style” like this issue. If Bobilla was still drawing this, I’d probably be enthused, but he’s not. We’ve also lost nearly half the readers from the relaunch, which isn’t a good sign for long-term health. OK

SQUADRON SUPREME #1: lots and lots of recap, which I suppose is necessary for any new readers possibly coming in, but kinda killed my interest until next issue. We’re probably the rare and odd store where it being a “Max” book was a prime selling point, and not something to be afraid of – the book was already selling Top 20 for us, so we really don’t HAVE any new readers coming in. I expect its rating to climb once we’re past the “here’s what you missed”, but this time round, I can’t muster more than an OK.

ULTIMATE FANTASTIC FOUR #28: That was a bit of a cheat, wasn’t it? I liked Land’s art in a fantasy context, but in the “real world” setting, it looks too “real” or something to me. Big EH.

TRUE STORY SWEAR TO GOD #16: Don’t remember if I said anything about this when it FIRST came out, 6-8 weeks ago (it was on a “Previews Update”, and, huh, looks like I double ordered it for this week), but this was a terrific issue, moving away from the romantic love to the love of comics. Really sweet stuff, and this week’s sole VERY GOOD.(even if that’s slightly cheating)

OK, just talked to Rob, he’s feeling better, but not 100% so I told him to stay home today so he’s 100% tomorrow. Which means I’ve got a lot more work to do this afternoon than originally planned. Dats dat for reviews, then, sorry.

PICK OF THE WEEK: TRUE STORY SWEAR TO GOD #16, yes.

PICK OF THE WEAK: Please, NEW AVENGERS #17, though it has its mental charms.

TP/BOOK OF THE WEEK: I kind of liked that the new printing of SILVR SURFER REBIRTH OF THANOS now has THE THANOS QUEST in it – but there’ still like six orphaned issues between TQ and INFINITY GAUNTLET that haven’t been reprinted and for $25, I feel they could have thrown those in.

But that’s pretty irrelevant because this week was the SC of TOP 10 THE FORTY NINERS which easily and immediately becomes the PICK, probably of the month. Fucking A+ level work, and, if you waited from the HC, getthisgetthisgetthisNOWNOWNOW!

Next week (probably): the big One Year Later wrap up….

-B

What I do while Kate watches Lawrence of Arabia: Graeme's review of 3/22 books.

Jeff and I both review on the same day? This kind of thing can only happen… in DC Nation. I admit it; I’m kind of amused by the revamp of DC’s back page version of “Bullpen Bulletins,” especially as it reminds me of the version they had the last time they had a Crisis of Infinite proportions, when Dick Giordano had the Dan Didio role and promised all manner of good things and revolutions and the like. Still, at least DC have finally hired a good designer to do the page this time, even if a third of the page is filled with a stylish black and white portrait of Didio. Shall we begin the reviewing, nonetheless? BATMAN #651: First off, you don’t fool me with that cover, Simone Bianchi – You can’t really connect it to the cover of this month’s Detective Comics. It’s a different drawing, you sneaky wee so-and-so (I am anal enough to notice that the brushstrokes on the gloves on each cover are different. Pity me). This is a first for the One Year Later books – a Part Two. As such, it’s weird to see the “One Year Later” caption at the start of the issue. Sure, it’s One Year Later than the last issue of Batman, but this issue actually starts before the end of the first part of the story, in Detective #817, so I’m guessing that someone in DC’s collections department will have some editing to do before the inevitable trade.

What’s that? You want me to say something about the comic itself? It’s Okay, I guess; the art (by former JSA artist, Don Kramer) is kind of generic and the larger plot doesn’t really get advanced that much, but there are things to like about it, especially the way it reinforces the new “Batman isn’t a dick and can do teamwork” zeitgeist for the OYL set-up, considering that he more or less sets himself up as a diversion while Robin does the primary work beating this issue’s bad guy (Oh, okay: bad girl). But it feels like filler, already, which doesn’t bode well for the rest of this eight-issue storyline. Is it too early to want Paul Dini and Grant Morrison to take over the books?

CATWOMAN #53: The strange thing about this book is how underwhelmed I am by it, even though there are so many details about it that I really liked. Will Pfeifer has the characterization down – Being a big fan of the Brubaker run on this book, but not having picked it up since he left, I really enjoyed the Selina/Holly/Slam scene, with Slam speaking for the reader when he talks about Holly’s role as the new Catwoman – but the plot and pacing feels disjointed, and just like other OYL books, it’s playing entirely to the existing audience (No characters really get an introduction for those unfamiliar with them – Holly’s name doesn’t appear in the entire book, despite her apparently being the title character - and the scene with the cops completely lost me), without acknowledging that the Holly-as-Catwoman thing was done before, at the end of Brube’s run. David Lopez’s art is static and problematic in some scenes, but he does a nice Holly-Catwoman to balance out his weird Selina. Overall, there’s enough here to make me curious enough to maybe pick up another issue, but I wish that Pfeifer would let his characterization run riot more. Okay.

DAREDEVIL #83: I really wish that someone with a sense of humor would change the subtitle in the logo to “The Man Without Freedom” at least once before Matt gets out of prison, but that may just show why I’ll never get a job in Marvel’s production department. Meanwhile, Ed Brubaker and Michael Lark are doing a pretty good job with this book. Ed’s hitting a tone somewhere between his Sleeper and Captain America, and Lark’s stuff is just amazing in certain scenes. I’m convinced that the Daredevil running around New York is Spider-Man, for some reason, but am happy enough to hang around to see just how wrong I am over the next few issues. Good.

HAWKGIRL #50: Howard Chaykin, he likes those nipples, I’m telling you. There’s something so ideosyncratic about both Chaykin’s art and Walt Simonson’s writing that you could tell even without looking at the credits who’s behind this book, and all they’re really doing here is staying within their own comfort zones, with varying degrees of success. Simonson’s writing, with old-school thought balloon-expositions and self-depreciating humor intact, sets up the story fast and heads away from superheroics for the mythological and historical so much that the five pages Kendra appears in superhero costume at the start of the book feel like the result of editorial begging, while Chaykin provides the impressive layouts and unusual fashion choices that you expect from him. Sadly, his actual draughtsmanship is looking kind of weak – the third panel on the page where Kendra meets Grubs features the second worst facial drawing of the week – and his fondness of close cropping in every second panel begins to get a bit repetitive by the end of the book. Nevertheless, this book kind of feels a bit reviewproof: If you like Simonson or Chaykin, you’ll probably come away enjoying it – I did – and if you’ve never liked them, this definitely won’t change your mind. It’s Good, but it’s not only nothing new, it’s almost intentionally old.

JSA CLASSIFIED #10: And this book features the first worst facial drawing of the week. Paul Gulacy, the man who used to be great and then became the man who really ruined the end of Ed Brubaker’s run on Catwoman, continues his artistic decline with the final panel of this issue, where we discover that Vandal Savage is not only a (formerly) immortal caveman, but also someone whose entire head is unusually slanted to the right. And it’s a shame, because Stuart Moore’s story about Savage discovering that he’s not only no longer immortal but now only has eleven days to live, deserves better than Gulacy’s increasingly lifeless linework. Okay, but with better art, it would’ve been a Good.

MANHUNTER #20: Hello, last page reveal that means nothing to anyone other than long term readers, again! Jeff was telling me about this book the other day, and the best he could put it was that it was “ept,” whereas once it was “inept”. Me, I’m not even convinced of that; as a new reader, there was nothing here that made me want to come back, or even think of the book as anything other than fairly bland. Everything from the “superheroing is just a job” attitude to the domestic drama felt as if it’d been done before, and with more style and passion. Eh, and that’s only because it wasn’t even bad enough to get more involved with giving it a rating.

ROBIN #148: Bri and Jeff seemed somewhat surprised when I paid for this, this week, but I’ll admit it: I had a sneaking hope that this would be one of the One Year Later books that worked. I’m not sure what I could put that down to – I don’t think I’ve ever read any of Adam Beechen’s writing before, and even though I’m a fan of Karl Kerschl, I knew he was only on the book for one issue before disappearing to do movie tie-ins. But for some reason, I really wanted to enjoy this. Thankfully, I did (Not that it would’ve been that bad if I hadn’t, of course. At worst, it still would’ve been better than Manhunter). The tone of the book feels light and “young adventure”-ish, despite the murder mystery plot, and, as with Catwoman, I enjoyed the characterisation (This is definitely the week of Batman not being a dick, as his appearance here shows most effectively of all, even down to the offhand mention of he, Robin and Nightwing all going off on holiday together to “build trust” post-Infinite Crisis) – Beechen has a nice line on Robin as intelligent detective without him coming across as arrogant or annoying (Something else that works in the writing is that it’s almost entirely absent of any awkward “It’s been one year since anything special happened,” unlike almost every other OYL book so far. I keep expecting someone in one of the books commenting on how weird it is that all of these heroes who’ve been disappeared for some time all reappearing at exactly the same time). Kerschl’s art is, if anything, better than his under-rated Adventures of Superman run; there’s just something about his kind-of angular style that really appeals to me. If he wasn’t off doing covers and special projects now, I’d say something about him being DC’s best artist on a regular book right now. With the benefit of hindsight, he might’ve been a better choice for the Seven Soldiers Mister Miracle book than any of the artists that ended up working on that series… Hmm. Anyway, this was Very Good, if you ask me.

SQUADRON SUPREME #1: In an effort to guilt Brian into abandoning his already way-too-packed schedule and writing reviews, I really wanted to say that his take on why this issue doesn’t work is spot-on, and leave it at that. Except that I can’t. I feel compelled to ask whether I am the only person who is bored to death, then ressurrected as a zombie, and then bored to death again, by “superheroes - - in the real world!” comics like this. And, as if that wasn’t dull enough, to create a set-up where superheroes are really just a secret military project and, by the way, the military are evil and underhanded and aren’t telling the American people everything, feels even lazier. Luckily, it’s all in the execution, right? And considering that execution reads like sub-Claremont (complete with lines like “Do one last thing for me. Run fast, Stanley… Run so fast… that I never see you leave”), then… Ehhh. Kind of Ass, and when the most entertaining thing in a book is seeing the artist do a bad characture of George Bush, then surely someone somewhere at Marvel must be hoping that the upcoming “Ultimate Power” crossover with the Ultimate Universe is going to keep interest alive where quality can’t.

SUPERGIRL AND THE LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES #16: Well, that’s an interesting cliffhanger. Supergirl comes to the book, as “hinted” at by the cover portrait of the Maid of Might and that whole “changing the name of the book to include Supergirl’s name” thing, but only revealed in the book itself towards the end. Hibbs and Lester both pointed out that this seemed like somewhat strange plotting, considering that it was fairly obvious that the “mysterious impending disaster” with the S-shield was really Supergirl, and yet somehow Kate, my wife and person-who-avoids-all-the-hype-about-these-books, was still hooked on what was happening, and wondering if Superman was about to appear. Which just goes to show what they know.

(Kate’s just asked if I’m trying to show everyone that she’s dumb. I’m really not. I’m trying to show that people who don’t read blogs like this don’t read stories waiting for the obvious – to us - reveal. She had much more fun reading New Frontier than I did for the same reason.)

Anyway. Like Birds of Prey last week, this is pretty much the same book as it was prior to (One Thousand and) One Year(s) Later, and as a result, it’s the non-Supergirl aspects of the book that are more interesting – the political status of the Legion, the somewhat bratty attitude of the main characters, and just how much society doesn’t like them. I’m hoping that Supergirl doesn’t overwhelm what made those aspects, and what made the first year of this book work so well for me (Waid’s humor, and the done-in-one pacing that also moved larger plots forward simulataneously), but given that the title of the book has been changed, I’m not sure if I’m that hopeful. This issue was Good, but the series has been much stronger than this.

SUPERMARKET #2: I missed reviewing the first issue of this because I missed it in the store (Chris Hunter sent me a copy, because he is wonderful and kind), but enjoyed it very much, mostly because of the stunning art by Kristian (Donaldson). This second issue opens up the story slightly, and for some reason makes me wonder if Brian Wood has been channelling Grant Morrison. Not only does the set-up of warring porn and Yakuza armies have a Morrison-esque quality to it, but some of the dialogue is reminiscent of my bald countryman as well… Or perhaps I’m reading into it. Nonetheless, this is another side to Wood, closer to his Couriers than his current DMZ or Local books, and with Kristian continuing to provide wonderfully stylized (and wonderfully colored) work, he’s matched with his best collaborator since Demo’s Becky Cloonan; taking all of those books, along with next month’s “The Tourist” OGN from Image, I think there’s a case to be made for Wood to be one of the most versatile writers in the mainstream these days, something made all the more interesting for his refusal to engage in that mainstream in any way other than his own. For that alone, he’s someone to pay attention to. This book alone? Very Good.

PICK OF THE WEEK, my friends, is going to be Robin, just to blow your minds. Well, that and it actually being one of the books I enjoyed most this week. PICK OF THE WEAK is Squadron Supreme, one of those things that make me wonder just how I ended up so out of step from mainstream opinion. I mean, lots of people liked Supreme Power. Lots of people I like like Supreme Power. So is it just me, or is this really as horrible as it seemed? We may never know. But I’m probably right, and you’ll all come round to my way of thinking sooner or later. Trade of the Week, though, is something that escapes me, because I’ve not read any of them. If the Jack Kirby: Visionaries Volume 2 hardcover hadn’t been so expensive, it would probably have been that one, though… Instead, I spent my trade-reading powers this week cracking open Crossover Classics, Volume 1, which collects the first four Marvel/DC crossovers from the ‘70s and early ‘80s. There’s really something to be said for those first couple of Superman/Spider-Man books, you know…

Oh, Sweet Sloth: Jeff's Reviews of 03/24/06 Books.

[Insert clever intro that, as per Hibbs and G-Mc, almost-but-not-really-spoils the end of Battlestar Galactica this season.] [Add ancillary para talking about nerdly pleasure received playing Metal Gear Solid: Subsistence, nerdly frustration in being forced into either piracy or poverty to watch that one god-damned season of the animated Planet of the Apes.]

[Provide clumsy transition from previous paras to reviews of this week's comics. Realize meta-introduction crutch has been utilized twice before. Grimace. Shrug. Begin.]

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #530: In an attempt to break irony-measuring gauges worldwide, JMS, who works with no editorial interference, illustrates exactly why everyone needs an editor, via a terrifyingly unfunny page of asides set as, of course, duelling Editor's Notes. A working man might go on to hypothesize how such a blatant and distracting bit of editorial intrusion is also a perfect working metaphor for Marvel's upcoming Civil War storyline, where characters and continuity will be relentlessly plot-hammered into a hot button issue, but I am not that man. Besides, that ghastly page aside, the rest of this was pretty competent no matter how much I disagree with it. Eh.

ARES #3: I liked the first issue, missed the second, and return to the third to find a story sabotaged by an artist completely out of his depth. If I remember correctly, the first eight pages have two splash pages and two double splash pages, and the rest of the book goes on to tell as much of its story with as many quasi-splash pages as possible unless there's, you know, action and stuff, in which case it gets taken care of in lots of sketchy tight panels. It's funny that Bri just mentioned this book as an example of a book that sells because of the Marvel brand assuring "a level of quality and professionalism of at least such-and-such," because this is a disheartening fall from the quality of the first issue. Way to drop the level of such-and-such, guys! Awful.

BATMAN #651: I also thought the artist on this was overwhelmed, although I'm aware a guy fighting plants isn't easy to make look dramatic. Here, there's some sort of sloppy, quasi-Colanish approach to show Batman, I dunno, cartwheeling through ferns that looked hilariously dumb. But, overall, some nice touches (It's Batman trapped and Robin who saves his hash) and as long as the Batman-after-charm-school approach continues to feel novel, the creative team probably don't have to do too much to keep me interested. I just hope they don't realize that. OK.

CAPTAIN AMERICA #16: It's a shame people can't just spout tons of dialogue while punching people out, Stan Lee style, because it means stories have to slow their pacing so people can talk, exchange exposition, build up motivation, etc. Here, you'd think Cap, trying to discover if Bucky is still alive and/or suicidal and/or completely fucked up thanks to Cap's winning way with a cosmic cube, would be a sweaty, palpating driven man. But instead we've got a Captain America surprisingly happy to work government hours: "You say this entire town is covering something up, and Bucky's involved?! Wow! Hey, howzabout a burger and a quickie?" I can't see a way around it, and Lord knows this book is popular enough so I guess nobody minds, but it just feels...odd. Good.

CATWOMAN #53: One of the better One Year Later books in that the creative team starts with the big twist and then moves on from there almost immediately, seeding the story with little twists related to remaining plotlines. I find this approach works much better than the "spend the last page getting to the big reveal they gave away on the cover" approach of Green Arrow or Supergirl & the Legion. A high OK, because I wasn't grooving too much on the story pre-OYL, but I appreciated the competence.

DAREDEVIL #83: Kinda like Brubaker's run on Captain America, I strongly disagree with some of the stuff going on here. And yet, I'm completely captivated by it and feel it's being done really, really well. So Very Good, although I'm very conflicted about it.

DAUGHTERS OF THE DRAGON #3: Works a little too hard to make with the funny, but the mad rush of absurd C-list characters and the unique and ambitious art of Khari Evans (notice how the Trapster's nose slowly slides out of his mask during his fight with Whirlwind? What kind of goofy attention to detail is that?) still made it an enjoyable read. Highly OK, but didn't wow me as much as previous issues.

EVERY GIRL IS THE END OF THE WORLD FOR ME GN: Oh, man, I was so totally looking forward to this, and I was so totally wrong to do so. What I thought would be Jeffrey Brown's swan song/afterword to his unhappy love trilogy is just a whimpery shout-out to all the other women he's ever flirted with, presumably so they'll stop pestering him about popping up in one of his books. Kinda makes me spit blood to think about it. Awful.

EXILES #78: Ach, it's terrible. I've read nearly every issue of this title but once I heard Chris Claremont was taking over, I can't even bring myself to crack the cover. (And he's not even on the title yet!) I can only appreciate current-day Claremont in that campy way one can appreciate, say, Showgirls. The idea of him being associated with anything I actually currently like is just too painful. No rating.

FUTURAMA COMICS #24: Not without its charms (Giant Robot Santa versus Giant Robot Easter Bunny) but it felt more slapdash and shrill than genuinely funny. Also, nice/odd to see Mike Kazaleh doing work on the title: I haven't seen that guy's work in a dog's age (a pantsless, sexually neurotic dog's age, I guess). He's not a perfect fit for the characters, but man, if they ever do a crossover with Hanna-Barbera characters, I can't imagine anyone better. Eh.

GUN FU SHOWGIRLS ARE FOREVER #1: Kind of rough to see those Dave Sim emphases without Dave Sim lettering--the work suffered a bit for that, particularly with those charmingly musical spitting noises offered up by the French showgirls. Overall, it was charming, albeit anachronistic, and gave me some hope that we can get some future work from "entertaining Dave" without "wildman prophet Dave" popping out unexpectedly. Definitely OK.

HAWKGIRL #50: Well, fuck. Who would have guessed that Howard Chaykin was going to outsource the artwork to Mike (Shatter) Saenz? Who knew Walt Simonson was going to retool his script for a Nancy Drew comic book ("Oh no! Falling cornice!" "Oh no! No brakes!" And the delightful last page cliffhanger, "Oh no! I'm trapped in the dark!") into a Hawkgirl script? Nobody came out looking particularly good here, including chumps like me who signed up for this one in advance. Crap, and humiliating in that "two of my acting idols are reduced to performing The Odd Couple at the Burt Reynolds Dinner Theater and they're really, really bad" kind of way. Jeezis.

INCREDIBLE HULK #93: Like Snakes on a Plane, "Hulk as Intergalactic Spartacus" should be too stupidly effective to screw up, and if we had Ladronn doing more than just the covers, you probably wouldn't hear a peep out of me. But the art is slapdash enough that the story's creakiness really stands out. I mean, that whole "I don't trust anyone; that's why I'm going to elliptically mention my alter-ego and that he's tooo weak to survive this planet" comment from Hulk? Ummm...yeah. Eh, alas.

JEREMIAH HARM #2: Kinda bummed I didn't review last week's Annhilation Prologue because I wanted to point out how Giffen's love of sweeping galactic storylines and down-on-their-luck gritty antiheroes inevitably produces an opening scene in an intergalactic prison. Here, in issue #2, we get the other reliable staple of the Giffen sweeping galactic storyline--the mouthy, innocent bystander who gets drawn into the action (just like Drax, which also had the intergalactic prison motif). And that's all fine, albeit a little numbing, as long as you get an artist capable of delivering the cosmic "Wow" side of things to make up for it. I was pretty sure Rael Lyra was going to be that artist until the big fight scene where any sense of basic anatomy suddenly disappeared. Now, I'm a lot more dubious.

Oh, and p.s. to Alan Grant: Thanks to the Internet, phrases like "I tasted his taint" should probably be retired, yes?

To sum up: Eh.

JSA CLASSIFIED #10: At about three a.m. last night, I realized Paul Gulacy draws exactly the way Robert Evans speaks--with the same sort of highly stylized, oily machismo I find simultaneously hilarious and hypnotic. I also realized I think of Stuart Moore's scripts exactly the same way I think of red flannel shirts--serviceable, and obviously appreciated by somebody because you keep seeing them all over the place. I also realized I perhaps need to adjust my Ambien dosage. In any event, add all that together (but take away the Ambien) and you've got this story telling you Vandal Savage has been up to...One Year Later. If you enjoy the charms of Gulacy and Moore, you'll find it OK. If you only kind of do, then Eh, at best. I'm somewhere in the middle.

MANHUNTER #20: This book, One Year Later, but since I haven't read an issue since #2, I guess for me it's Two and a Half Years Later. And it's been a pretty okay two and a half years, it looks like. There's a decent-sized supporting cast and superheroes are cracking wise while socking jaws. It actually does a good job of sprinkling in some OYL references that suggest the book has its place in the larger DCU. So, even though I wasn't particularly interested, I'd still give it a high OK. Maybe I'll even check out next issue, which I think is supposed to be the point of all this, yes? We'll see.

NEW AVENGERS #17: Dumb, to varying degrees--the whole "Avengers on street corners" would've been fine if it hadn't derailed the supposed nail-biting momentum of the previous issue. (One page of that, maybe. Six pages? No.) Teamed with the Ms. Marvel dumbness in the second half, it makes for just a Crap book. It's embarrassing how inept Bendis is at this big-action team book stuff.

NEXTWAVE AGENTS OF HATE #3: Yup. Diminishing returns, I'm afraid. The soda gets flatter every time you come back to it. A few good pages here and there, but those opening six pages of unfunny bad cop hijinks killed the new fun deader than any Dirk Anger joke could resuscitate it. Please prove me wrong, next nine issues. Please?? Eh.

SHE-HULK 2 #6: Never enjoy this book as much when Bobillo's off it, but this was still an OK issue. (As amusing as parts of it were, nothing was quite as funny as Eros looking like a long-lost Baldwin brother on Greg Horn's cover.) Also lacking a certain sense of drama but we'll see where it ends up.

TESTAMENT #4: At first, this seemed really, really cool, in part because I'd missed issue #3. Then I realized it's just a big ol' mess. It comes across like The Matrix as rewritten by Jack T. Chick and Ed Wood but not in a good way, no. Less thanEh, but the art is too lovely to go to Awful.

TRUE STORY SWEAR TO GOD #16: In the same way the first issue of this grabbed me by the heartstrings and got me fired up by the possibility of true love, this issue really moved me in its conveyence of the daring and the dedication needed to pursue the creative life. I think it might lose some impact to those who don't know anything about the comic celeb cameos at the end, but I couldn't say for sure. Very Good, and very moving.

ULTIMATE FANTASTIC FOUR #28: Sure, that "twist" at the end would've wrecked it anyway, but Greg Horn's art [oops, I mean Greg Land. Thanks for the correction, Peter] really hampered this: Millar's shooting for a Silver Age feeling where everyone's a superhero and all the world's problems are abolished, and the best Horn can give him are three smiling children in jumpsuits--less a "Superman Red/Superman Blue" feeling than a "Minute Maid Orange Juice Now With Extra Vitamin C" feeling. But then that really dumb ending would've tanked it all regardless, so Eh.

ZOMBIE TALES: THE DEAD: I never know what to do with review copies that come early. Hold off 'til release week? Blab about 'em early? Mean to wait, and then forget? In any event, the stories here run the gamut from Good (Rogers and Tadem's "4 out of 5," Giffen and Lim's "Deadest Meat") to OK (Stokes and Martin's "Zoombies") to incomprehensible (Pascoe, Simpson, Moreno's "A Game Called Zombie") with no award given to "I, Zombie" and the special Savage Critic Quibblage award to Nelson & Moder's "The Miracle of Bethany" (if you're gonna have zombies in the Vatican, but you don't have Christ's last supper at the corner of your zombie mythos, you get no love from me). Boom! Studios gets huge props for milking the zombie fad and still keeping things creatively vibrant, but I'm relieved they seem to be moving on to different challenges.

PICK OF THE WEEK: True Story Swear To God #16, because it was heartfelt and moving. Also Daredevil #83, even though I should probably know better.

PICK OF THE WEAK: In March 2007, it'll be One Year Later...and I'll still feel like a tool for buying Hawkgirl #50!

TRADE OF THE WEEK: I walked out with Vol. 5 of Runaways but haven't read it yet (nor have I read vol. 4 for some reason). And I probably don't need to tell you that if you didn't get the hardcover, the softcover of Top 10: The Forty Niners is really, really worth your time and money.

But what I've really been reading and enjoying this last two weeks is Planetes by Makoto Yukimura, which is a surprisingly humanistic hard sci-fi story about garbage men in space. Yukimura has a really great way of creating quirky characters and pushing their concerns to the fore in a way that reminds me of Carla Speed McNeil or Terry Moore (with Warren Ellis serving as technical advisor). It's not flawless--there's been at least one storytelling leap in each volume that's left me in varying degrees of befuddlement--but eminently recommendable. If you like any of the above creators (McNeil, Moore, Ellis), you should check it out. Really good stuff.

A week late and no-one even remembers Ron Moore: Graeme's review of the 3/15 books

After the dreaded lurgy last week – nowhere near as bad as Hibbs’s lurgy, because I was only off my feet for a couple of days – I’m back, fighting fit (albeit with a runny nose), and mad that me missing the reviews last week meant that Brian got to the “Battlestar Galactica did that One Year Later thing better than DC” bit before me. Damn you, sickness! A LATE FREEZE: This is a mini that a mutual friend of the artist and m’good self sent me earlier on in the week, and it’s probably the best thing I read all week. Danica Novgorodoff is the artist in question behind this almost-silent story of a bear that falls in love with a robot, and everything that happens in the winter that follows, and it’s something that’s unexpectedly beautiful, despite the comedic broadness that you think of from the “it’s a bear in love with a robot” premise. With an art-style somewhere between Chris Ware and Lauren McCubbin – and something that has an amusing eye for detail, as the floating Hanes briefs underwater show – and writing that reminds me of Hope Larson and the Perry Bible Fellowship, this is something that’s well worth looking out for. Excellent.

AMERICAN VIRGIN #1: Am I the only one who thought that this was Y: The Last Man for Christians? I’m not even sure why I got that feeling all through the issue – Steven Seagle isn’t Brian K. Vaughan when it comes to the fast-moving pop-culture-filled writing, but there seemed something Yorick-esque about the main character’s well-meaning-but-confused-slave-to-plot role, as well as his devotion to his girlfriend being the prime mover in getting the larger plot running. I’m sure that the book will get more of its own identity as it goes on, but right now, there’s something very generic Vertigo about the proceedings. Becky Cloonan’s art is the best thing about this OK book.

ANNIHILATION PROLOGUE: It does what it says on the tin: it’s a prologue, pure and simple. Forget any beginning, middle and end stuff here, it’s all… well, it’s actually all kind of middle, really. Boom! Disaster! Things blowing up! People dying! And that’s about all I really got from this book, because it’s full of places and things that don’t really get introduced that well. Space prisons and space police get exploded, and the stars of all the spin-off miniseries get to comment on it in one- or two- page cameos (well, except for Nova, who gets the majority of the book to go through his own version of Emerald Twilight). There are fact files at the back of the book to underscore how little introduction most of the characters and concepts got in the actual story, but not even the greatest Mark Gruenwald fact file could fix how flat and generic this whole thing seems. Eh.

BIRDS OF PREY #92: It’s One Year Later, and you could hardly tell. Which is, actually, a good thing, because I know that my life hasn’t changed that much in the last twelve months, and all of the changes that Aquaman, Batman and the Outsiders have gone through were making me feel pretty inadequate. Sure, there are some things that are different – Gypsy! - but this is more or less the same book as before, with Gail Simone and Paulo Siqueira providing both fine superheroic action and a bit of a sequel to Villains United from last year. It’s Good, and an odd relief from all of the other OYL books.

GREEN ARROW #60: It’s the West Wing but with superheroes. As in, it’s literally the structure of the first episode of the West Wing, but with superheroes – Lots of people talk about things, introducing the status quo and supporting characters – before the main character appears at the very end of the story. Sadly, it just doesn’t work here, because we already know the main character, so keeping him out of the picture just feels forced, especially when the big reveal has not only been revealed by all of the pre-release hype but also the cover to this very book. Instead of paying attention to what everyone is talking about, you spend the issue thinking, “Show us Green Arrow, already.” Not that what everyone is talking about is that interesting, as the whole Star City has been abandoned by the government set-up (a) is an obvious New Orleans analog (Has Star City always been New Orleans, or are the “We used to have Jazz festivals” comments new?), and (b) has been done already with Gotham City a few years ago. It’s not bad, exactly (It’s Okay), but I can’t see many new readers reading this and suddenly thinking, “I must rush out and order the next issue!”

INFINITE CRISIS SECRET FILES AND ORIGINS 2006: Now, there’s a title that makes you worry that there’s going to be an Infinite Crisis Secret Files and Origins 2007. Is the Crisis that Infinite? Surprisingly, though, this isn’t the entirely pointless cash-in that I’d been expecting, with Marv Wolfman explaining what happened to the survivors of the original Crisis and just why they all ended up kind of crazy (You know, the part that Geoff Johns accidentally left out of Infinite Crisis proper). For the continuity anal, it also explains Superman-2’s cameo in The Kingdom, years ago, so finally we can sleep well at night again. Sure, the plot logic will make your head spin, what with Superboy magically changing continuity by punching things and all, but if you’ve bought into it so far you’re kind of stuck… It’s Okay, which is probably about as good as you can get with this type of thing.

NIGHTWING #118: It’s not often that I’m thankful for the next issue solicits at the end of books, but this time, it’s very helpful. “While Dick Grayson and Jason Todd battle over the identity of Nightwing,” starts the solicit, which is handy, considering that Jason Todd’s name doesn’t appear anywhere else in the book. Sure, there are two Nightwings – you can tell, because their narration boxes are different colors, and they have different lengths of hair – but at no point does the one that isn’t Dick Grayson get identified in the story itself. Mind you, Dick Grayson isn’t really seeming like himself, either, so maybe it’s some kind of double-bluff. Or maybe just crappy writing, as the rest of the dialogue would tend to suggest (The bedroom scene is bad enough to make me wonder if Bruce Jones has never met any real human being, and instead gets his dialogue ideas from daytime soap operas). It’s a really weak issue, with an unclear plot, unlikable characters, generic villains and an overall Ass quality. Sorry, former Boy Wonders.

SUPERMAN #650: I don’t know what it says about DC’s overall strategy that the most successful One Year Later books so far have been the Batman and Superman books. Just like the Batbooks, the Superman line gets back to basics in most ways: Everyone is back at the Daily Planet fulfilling their classic roles, Lex Luthor is once again an evil genius who’s hated by the general public, and there’s a hint of Titano to come (They’re experimenting with kryptonite and monkeys – That can only mean one thing, surely). That said, it was the other things that really worked for me: The sense of place that the creators have managed to give Metropolis (that place being New York, for me, finally), the way that it was revealed that Clark no longer had his powers (and the signal watch), and Pete Woods’ art, which is scratchy enough to seem unusual on a Superman book, but strong enough to carry the traditional superhero story. Very Good.

TEEN TITANS ANNUAL #1: Finally, those of you who’ve wanted to see Superboy and Wonder Girl have sex have your dreams come true! Well, almost; there are levels of decency to be met, after all. Sadly, the same doesn’t appear to be true for levels of quality, as this is 48 pages of Crap, as only two writers, four pencillers, five inkers and not enough editing can bring you. There’s nothing here beyond Infinite Crisis-related filler, and Superboy and Wonder Girl talking about their relationship in exceptionally bland terms, which means that no-one except for Teen Titans-obsessives will get that much out of it.

PICK OF THE WEEK is a bit of a cheat, as it wasn’t on Diamond’s list, but A Late Freeze really was great. PICK OF THE WEAK was Nightwing, because apparently two ex-Robins really aren’t better than one, and Trade of The Week goes to Essential Godzilla, purely on principle: What could be more worth your less than twenty dollars than C-level Marvel characters going up against a giant mutant lizard?

The Change-Up: Jeff's 3/9 Reviews of 3/8 Books....

Yeah, I had to go pick up a package I had shipped to CE yesterday, and all those bright shiny new comic books were just staring at me, so I figgered, you know, what the hell? AMERICAN VIRGIN #1: Oh, Becky Cloonan, what have you gotten me into? That's not entirely fair; I try to pick up any first issue of a ongoing Vertigo to help give it a little nudge out of the gate, but the draw for me here was Cloonan. I'm impressed the previews led me to believe the storyline was going to go a certain way--it helped keep the turn of events surprising--but overall, I didn't dig this too much. Cloonan's scenes only intermittently show the charm we saw regularly in Demo, probably because the script ricochets through the introduction of eight main characters, two seduction scenes, two rallies, and seven changes of location, with tons of dialogue in every scene. (Little wonder the scene with the bum in the gas station was poorly staged--it's evidence of Cloonan's talent and skill they didn't all turn out like that.) Seagle introduces us to a ton of characters but--again, unsurprisingly, because of the script's speed--none of them seem either likeable or complex: a teen sex comedy on the same subject would hit most of these same notes with only the slightest difference in tone. Only the ending, which is more The Constant Gardener than 40 Days and 40 Nights, gives me any reason to come back for issue #2: one of the things that was effectively conveyed in this issue was Adam's conflation of God and his girlfriend, and it'd be nice if a genuine examination of faith came out of all this--or more chances for Cloonan to cut loose. Technically, this is probably sub-Eh, but first issues of ongoings are almost always choppy, so I'll toe the line at Eh, and see what the next issue brings.

BOMB QUEEN #2: Lord knows, as a big ol' pinko liberal of the San Francisco ilk, I'm down for a book that examines why people tolerate so much blatant corruption in their government. But Jimmie Robinson's mini, about a town under the thumb of a violent supervillain for so long the citizens actually prefer her to the prospect of any real change, can barely pose that quandry, much less ponder a solution with any clarity. And that wouldn't be a problem if all the madcap bombings and killings and superhero fights that fill up the issue were done with any inventiveness but a single page aside, this was just loud, dumb and dull. Reading Bomb Queen is like listening to your neighbor's kid practice heavy metal guitar every day. It may pay off for them somewhere down the line and you've got to admire their moxie, but it's a chore to put up with nonetheless. Awful.

DOWN #4: Not that I'm keeping track, but a little bit of a lag between the first three issues and the last, yeah? It sure seemed like it, and yet the art also seemed very rushed, with the colorist working overtime to keep the art from feeling flat. Lord knows, I'm all for women with pigtails shooting men in the head, but this seemed too compressed to have any real weight: I neither felt like Deanna became truly corrupted, and the only revelation about her character--that's she's willing to further to make sure that the people who deserve to die get killed than anyone might have imagined--lacks any oomph to it. It's merely a case of the baddest of the badasses winning. Maybe I'm missing nuances to be seen in the trade, but I also found this sub-Eh.

EXTERMINATORS #3: Feels like the third strike to me. A seduction scene where two characters who don't know each other talk about cockroach mating habits and end up having sex is straight out of a Revenge of the Nerds movie, but I'd be hard-pressed to say it was any worse or less realistic than any other scene in this issue. I firmly believe there is a Great American Graphic Novel to be written about pest controllers in modern day Los Angeles, and I am now firmly convinced this will never be it. Bummer. Awful.

FANTASTIC FOUR FIRST FAMILY #1: Great art is a wonderful thing. Without Chris Weston and Gary Erskine's gorgeous art, I would have found this story perfectly serviceable, albeit a little padded. The idea of setting it between the events we know about in FF #1 seems sensible, and there's no real bones of contention to pick about the characterization. I also liked the decision to break it into chapters like the early FF issues did, and working the name of a Master P song into one of those is, uh, commendable, or something. But at this point, it's all about the art. Weston and Erskine excel in technical detail and identifiably real people--they're a dream match for the Fantastic Four, and this issue gets a high Good from me just from the look of it. Fans of the FF and/or Ministry of Space should check this out. It's lovely.

FELL #4: Reveals the only real flaw with the format Ellis and Templesmith have cooked up--if there's no story for them to turn their super-compressed chops on, it's kind of underwhelming. The issue does other pieces of work, mind you: it establishes Fell as a guy who's willing to cheat the rules to put away a bad guy, and it continues to embellish Snowtown's many urban failures. But you know when you watch an episode of a TV show you really like, and it's not nearly as good as the previous episodes, but you like it anyway because you've developed a fondness for the show itself? This is that episode. Good, but not great.

FIRESTORM #23: I thought I'd try this issue as a jumping-on point since I haven't really read anything since issue #2 or #7, or something. And it was perfectly serviceable, even if the final twist seemed lifted from the old Rutger Hauer/Mimi Rogers flick Wedlock. I worry a bit about having every piece of drama in the issue (crazy missles! strange attackers! arbitrary distances!) come from everything but the main characters, but hopefully that'll be unique to this issue. A high OK.

HARD TIME SEASON TWO #4: The most ambitious of the four issues, and, unfortunately, suffers for it: we've got Cindy's "origin," increasing prison tensions, the Cutter subplot and its still unexplained effects on Ethan, all jammed into 22 pages. It kept me turning the pages, certainly, but I never felt like I could synch up with the material. As for the majority of it, Cindy's story, it was sympathetic but unoriginal, the kind of thing that gets points for trying but not much else. I've been enjoying this since the reboot, so I'm hoping this is just a momentary Eh in the overall picture.

HYSTERIA ONE MAN GANG #1: This is a very much a glass half-empty/half-full comic (as is usually the case when the storytelling is first-rate but the story isn't). The idea of a guy who is so tough he's a one-man gang is funny and you gotta like a gang who wears eggs on their shirts (it's like The Warriors carried to even more absurd extremes), but there's no characterization, there's no story, and just because the obnoxious child ward is beind done so deliberately (at an almost Kricfalusian level), it doesn't make her any less obnoxious. Still, those action sequences are pleasingly kinetic. If you've got money in your budget earmarked for supporting new talent, you could much worse than picking up this very OK book, but it's kinda slight.

POWERS #17: Probably not really jumping the shark as much as much as working its way up to a misguided third act but I find that cold comfort. I care about the characters enough to hang around for the ride, but giving both cops Powers is one of those hooks that manages to be both utterly unique and utterly generic at the same time. (How many movies have we seen where the third act utterly subverts the first?) Despite the bitching, this gets a Good because of high quality execution and that Oeming interview of Ellis on the letters page that I didn't bother to read on the Web. It's very good reading, and I felt like I learned more about Ellis than in his last ten interviews put together.

PULSE #14: Made me all nostalgic for those issues of Alias, but the emphasis is different since Jessica is no longer as much of a fuck-up: not even in the recounted flashback to when she was fucked up, is she a fuck-up. That's not really a big problem or anything. I mean, it's not like even the worst fuck-up is a mess 24/7, but I liked Jessica much more when she was a mess and you didn't quite know why. So this is a pretty good place to wrap things up, more than likely, and certainly an OK issue, but it would've been nice to be all verklempt about it, and I wasn't.

RETRO ROCKET #1: I liked Tony Bedard's writing on Exiles enough to check this out, despite not being a Mecha fan, and I thought it was decent: Bedard lays out his setting with a lot of skill, and the character and situation of Retro is nicely set-up without being too over-explained. And Jason Orfalas' art is elegant and clean, with a lovely color palette backing things up. If there are problems, it's that the conflict isn't particularly clear--Retro's biggest problem seems to be that the people around him are dicks and talk openly about mothballing him--making this read feel a bit too lightweight. But it's a Good first issue, and if people like me, who lack the giant-robot-appreciation gene, enjoyed it, hopefully the people this is aimed at will really like it.

SENSATIONAL SPIDER-MAN #24: "His webline-advantageous!" "His webline-advantageous!" Come on, Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, you know you want to write it, so go ahead. Every other element of this feels like an issue from Mr. McF's million selling Spider-Man title so why not? (Christ, I feel like Jimmy Stewart in Vertigo badgering Kim Novak to put on Madeline's dress...) I can undersand the appeals of going retro (hey, if they put anyone on this team that draws like Ross Andru and Mike Esposito, I'll be the last one you'll hear complaining) but the stinkiness of McFarlane's run hasn't really had time to fade. Give it another three or four hundred years, maybe. Awful.

SEVEN SOLDIERS FRANKENSTEIN #3: Wow. In this issue, Grant Morrison wields the exclamation point like it was a barbarian sword, lopping off the top of my head and exposing my brain to a frightening new world. I think I liked this issue even better than the first, since the enemy is sentient water(!) and you've got the Bride of Frankenstein finally showing up. Plus, just the other day I was thinking about that golden age Human Torch story where all the pets of the world turn on their owners, and how much that story realy disturbed me as a kid even though the threat seemed, compared to Galactus, relatively lame. And here's a lovely updating complete with carnivorous hamsters, angry bunnies, and--well, I dont want to give page 14 away but I both laughed and shivered a little bit (and then laughed a lot more). This is my dream superhero comic for 2006 and between it, Nextwave, Shaolin Cowboy, and other titles like Daughters of the Dragon, I feel like this might be a new trend. (Maybe, I dunno, the "New Fun" or something...) Anyway, whatever you call it, I thought this was absurd and entertaining and Excellent, and I heartily exhort you to go get it. More like this, please.

SEVEN SOLDIERS MISTER MIRACLE #4: Morrison goes for a series of super-tight switcheroos--maybe Grant's the one escaping? First, from Kirby's New Gods mythos? Then from his own Seven Soldiers storyline?--that aims at catapaulting this right into Flex Mentallo territory, where the hero's resurrection transforms the first three issues into a metaphor for the resurrected character's psychological imprisonment (or, depending on how you look at it, it was always that way)/ I don't think it works nearly as well good ol' Flex, but it's kind of touching to see Chaos Magician Morrison craft one of the most Christian comics I've ever read. And there's tons of wonderful ideas and lines in here: when Dark Side says, "If the god-machine has merged her consciousness with his, then she too is doomed. There can be no escape from Omega. Omeaga is the life trap!" it's about as as close to my long dreamed-of Phil Dick/Jack Kirby collaboration as I'm going to get. Very Good, although I think it won't rate nearly as high with Seven Soldiers apostles and agnostic New Gods fans.

TEEN TITANS #33: Essentially a lead-in to IC #6 although the resonances with the Titans Future storyline makes it a good fit as an issue of Teen Titans. And if you're not as violently tired of the twin caption narration of Loeb's Superman/Batman, you'll have more patience at seeing it used, to even far less effect, here with Nightwing and Superboy. Marv Wolfman co-wrote the script which explains why everybody seems even more whiney and nearly every character has a a scene where they put a hand to their head in pain or angst, but the mix of plot references, character appreciation, and mutual admiration shows the hand of co-scripter Johns. Despite my bitchiness, it's probably OK if you're still emotionally invested in IC but, hot on the heels of Infinite Crisis, this suggests to me that I'm not.

Tomorrow Stories Special #2: Alan Moore and Rick Veitch do a that nouveau-retro thing with an "America's Best" story that reads like a Gardner Fox Justice League story, Steve Moore and Eric Shanower do another lovely Margie/Promethea story, Steve Moore, Arthur Adams and Joyce Chin do another Jonni Future tale, and Alan Moore and Jim Baikie grace us with another First American story. And if you've followed these creators, you're getting exactly what you expect: The America's Best story is charming but seems missing the modern context Moore would wrap around such pastiches; the Promethea story looks stunning and reads dully; the Jonni Future story is gorgeous and mildly titillating but also dull; and, despite a story idea perfectly and brilliantly suited for the characters and tone of The First American, the First American story has moments of pure brilliance but overstays its welcome by about eight pages. If it were $4.95, the quality would trump the banality, but at $6.99? Sure, it's 64 pages, but I still can't give it more than OK.

ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #91: I like the Peter/Kitty romance, and Bendis has managed to make them neurotic teens in a way familiar to any fan of Stan Lee while still feeling fresh. That's really an impressive accomplishment. Even with that bad patch, this may still end up being the Bendis book I most enjoy reading. A high Good.

UNTOLD TALES OF THE NEW UNIVERSE NIGHTMASK: What a shame that the storyline that's gone unfinished for so long gets drawn by Arnold Pander while he's waiting in the drive-thru at In-N-Out. I didn't really care, mind you, but if it'd be drawn by Chris Weston I bet I would have. Eh.

PICK OF THE WEEK: "And murder comes to the farmyard!" Absolutely, positively SEVEN SOLDIERS FRANKENSTEIN #3. Brilliant.

PICK OF THE WEAK: I was pretty rough on the group this time out--I wonder if that's what happens when you review the books at home with them right in front of you instead of at work when you're dredging 'em up from memory? (Which might explain why Graeme's been such a holy terror since he started...) I say EXTERMINATORS #3 since it pisses away a lot of potential, money and good will.

TRADE PICK: I'd like to say LA PERDIDA GN but I haven't picked it up to see if my major concerns with the last issue got resolved. I'll let you know. Until then, I'm most interested in giving an extended sit-down to ROCKETO VOL 1 JOURNEY TO THE HIDDEN SEA TPB and see if it measures up.

Oh, and it didn't come out this week but Naoki Urasawa's first volume of Monster was tremendously engaging melodrama. I loved it.

There. Now to figure out what I'll be reading about at the store Friday and doing if work is quiet on Saturday....

And I even liked Ms. Marvel. What's that all about?: Graeme's reviews of the 3/1 books.

So, it’s an odd week. DC’s first One Year Later books appear while other DC books ship late and confuse people who aren’t paying attention. Meanwhile, Marvel launch Ms. Marvel really quietly, and wonder whether they’ll have to change the name of their Civil War series if the situation in Iraq gets much worse. Ttt. Comics, huh? Who’d bother with them? ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN #649: Or, as the cover calls it, “The Last Adventures of Superman”. Of course, that’s not true in any sense; it isn’t even the last part of this particular (and peculiar) three-part Superbook crossover that appears to take place between pages of Infinite Crisis #5. Even the art on the cover has nothing to do with the story inside whatsoever: It’s got Superman and Lois from Earth-2, plus some blonde Superboy from Earth-Pantene and Evil Alex Luthor from Earth-3, all looking very dramatic and everything. Thing is, Evil Alex and blonde Superboy don’t appear anywhere in this book. I’m guessing that this is one of those cases where the cover was drawn waaaay before the book was written, and the editor probably just made some guess as to what’d happen inside. “It’s an Infinite Crisis crossover, right? Aw, put Alex Luthor on there. And Superboy, too. But, hey! Make him blonde. Kids like those blonde superheroes.” The story itself really doesn’t work for me as it seems to rely on the assumption that both Supermen are arrogant, self-centered and unsympathetic… That’s not really the Superman that I want to read about, you know? I don’t care if he’s married to Lois or not married to Lois, or whether he’s the Last Son of Krypton or the third-cousin-twice-removed of multiple sons of Krypton who are all around, but, come on. Superman is meant to be a good guy, sometimes too nice, sometimes a bit naïve, but definitely not someone who has internal dialogue like “I almost pity him… almost. Too blind to see that his world was a shell. Empty as his black and white ‘morality’. The falseness of it all is part of his very being.” Here’s hoping that the whole One Year Later relaunch is better than this Crap.

AQUAMAN: SWORD OF ATLANTIS #40: One Year Later, Aquaman is suddenly and suspiciously much closer to what the upcoming TV version of him is going to be like: Teenage, confused about his origins, and two-handed. Feel that corporate synergy at work, aquafans. Kurt Busiek’s revamp of Vincent Chase’s favorite hero starts out fairly slowly, not helped by heavy-handed narration of the “Great things are expected of this young man, lo, it has been written” variety. Butch Guice’s scratchy art stays as ideosyncratic as ever – he still draws limbs too long whenever he gets the chance – and given coloring that makes everything muddy where it should be clear. Kind of a disappointment, to be honest, but that might be because I’m not a fan of the fantasy genre that’s being introduced here. Okay, if you like that kind of thing, I guess.

BLOOD OF THE DEMON #13: John Byrne books have become kind of review-proof these days, haven’t they? Here’s my cheap-shot one, anyway: One Year Later, I’ll be surprised if this book is still being published. Eh.

DETECTIVE COMICS #617: I’m completely torn on this one. It’s Very Good, I should get this out the way straight off, and probably the best a regular Batman book has been since Ed Brubaker’s Detective run was cut short way back when. Like Jeff said, James Robinson comes up with the best use of the One Year Later gimmick so far to reintroduce old characters and set up the idea that significant things have happened that we don’t know about, while also putting a current day plot in motion that offers up a few things of interest. But at the same time, I’m kind of annoyed that all of the changes to the status quo are steps back – James Gordon is the Commisioner again, Harvey Bullock is back on the police force and Harvey Dent clearly soon to be Two-Face again. Yes, it’s the classic Batman set-up, I can see that, but… it’s all been done before…

I (HEART) MARVEL: MASKED INTENTIONS: Given the rumors that are floating all around the comics internet about the fate of the New Warriors, this seems like a strange parting gift that Marvel’s giving fans of those characters – A one-shot with two short stories, both written by original NW writer Fabian Niceza, centering around the love lives of various NW characters. The first story, starring Joe Quesada’s favorite Speedball, is the most successful by far; Paco Medina’s art giving the story some bounce – sorry – and Niceza’s writing keeping pace with some fun classic romance story plotting and dialogue (“I felt a fire in my belly, and then my heart melted.”) that doesn’t take itself too seriously. The second story, about the break-up of minor characters Justice and Firestar, drags on and feels painful for all the wrong reasons in comparison. It’s not just that the reason for the split isn’t given any context in the story, but there’s nothing there to give you any reason to care about it one way or another. Apparently, Firestar doesn’t want to get married but does want to have parties in college. Um. Okay. The first story’s Good, but the second story drags the book overall down to just Eh. New Warriors fans, savor it, though; they’re all getting blown up in Civil War. Allegedly.

INFINITE CRISIS #5: If that last page reveal is meant to be taken seriously, then I’m very worried that the final two issues of this series are going to lose the goodwill that it’s generated so far. He’s meant to be the big bad guy of the series? What about Evil Alex Luthor? Why isn’t he getting a page to himself wearing Anti-Monitor cast-offs and trying to catch flies in his mouth? As we get further and further into the “Oh My God, Nothing’s Going To Be The Same Ever” series, Geoff Johns seems to be losing control of the pacing, even if certain scenes still work (The Superman versus Superman battle is much better here than in the Superman books, perhaps because neither Superman seems like a pompous dick). In one way, Johns is to be commended for keeping so much of the book centered around Wonder Woman, Superman and Batman, considering their rift was meant to be the central conflict to the series originally, but the Batman plot feels shoe-horned in here, and somewhat unbelievable (“I want to fight an invisible satellite in space with its own army of invincible cyborg defenders, so I want the best team! Black Canary! Green Arrow! Blue Beetle who doesn’t even know his powers yet! You’re with me!” And he’s supposed to be the smart one?); Wonder Woman’s role in the Superman fight was nice, as well, but how she got there was gratutious Crisis fanboy wankery of the highest order. I’m guessing that it’s unlikely that everything can be resolved in the next couple of issues, so I’m preparing myself for either a deeper downturn following this issue, or some crazy expositioning over the next couple of months. Okay, with a nervous forecast for the remainder of the series…

JSA #83: The fourth of the One Year Later books this year, this is the one that really pushes the whole “What’s the point” thing home. Really, it’s just a JSA story. There’s no obvious benefit or result of the one year jump, and it seems to ruin a couple of Infinite Crisis dangling plots (Flash has his powers back, so presumably the Speed Force comes back, and everyone seems to all be on the same earth, so I’m guessing that the multiple earths aren’t sticking, either), so… well, maybe this was one of the few DCU books that no-one thought could be improved on? Or maybe Paul Levitz didn’t want to rock the boat too much during his fill-in run. About Mr. Levitz, however… You can tell that he’s got his roots in 1970s and 80s team comics, as Mr. Terrific brings back two hallmarks of X-Men, Teen Titans and Legion comics of my youth: Characters saying “ohmigod” and very bad accents (“I’ve told ya, lad, ya canna fight like this”). It’s almost enough to make this more than just Okay. But only almost.

MS. MARVEL #1: Remember back when Bill Jemas was at Marvel, there were rumors about people trying to come up with a Sex And The City-style book starring superheroines? The first half of the book seems to be the result, mixing Spider-Woman and Ms. Marvel talking about their days over lunch, with flashbacks to the appropriate plot points (The second half settles into a more traditional first-person narration of an uncertain hero thrown into an unfamiliar situation scenario, and it’s much less interesting as a result). Surprisingly playing down the cheesecake factor suggested by Frank Cho’s bland-but-busty cover and the character’s recent (Frank Cho-illustrated) New Avengers appearance, this reminds me of nothing as much as the first four issues of Grant Morrison’s Animal Man, before he got all metatextual… There’re some funny sequences – Captain America’s cameo, in particular – and the tone for most of the book feels appropriately light and devoid of the recent “event” thinking of Marvel’s core books. If you liked the mix of respect for the original material and irreverance for fanboy convention of Allen Heinberg’s Young Avengers, you might be as pleasantly surprised by this as I was. Very Good. No, really.

NEW ORLEANS AND JAZZ: Yeah, this is going to be a tough one to review. Because it’s a charity book, raising money for the American Red Cross’s Hurricane Katrina relief effort, and that means that I feel guilty saying that it’s a really bad book, because, you know, it’s for a good cause. But still. It’s a really bad book. Everyone involved has clearly the best intentions but worthiness isn’t enough to protect the contents from being occasionally tasteless, especially in the one story that seems to say that Hurricane Katrina happened because the devil couldn’t steal someone’s hat. Billy Tucci’s “pouting Mardi Gras dancer with one lone tear” cover kind of sets the tone, really. Crap, but, hey. Help out the Red Cross and donate the money directly, instead.

NEXTWAVE #2: Not as good as the first issue, true, but still worth your time and money. Warren Ellis is still playing the stupid comedy card, and even though the pace is less frenetic this time around, he finally manages to work “Kick! ‘Splode! This is what they want!” into a comic. Stuart Immonen is still an art god, with his lovely cartoony cleanness looking unlike else Marvel is currently publishing, and this is what I wish New Avengers was like. Very Good.

OUTSIDERS #34: Everyone who bought this book, turn to the last page right now. Right there, while Nightwing is finishing his sentence? That is the kind of thing that I thought we’d managed to get rid of in comics, Goddammit. You can’t even pretend that the rest of the team is just standing around listening to him; they’re quite clearly posing for the camera. Look at Metamorpho! He’s doing that whole flex thing! Even if the rest of the issue had been the greatest comic ever created, that last page would have left a sour taste in my mouth through its sheer unnecessariness. Thankfully, this was far from the greatest comic ever created, as it’s lacking in anything other than a painfully drawn-out set-up for yet another super-team that gets involved in real world politics that will lack complexities and be solvable through blowing things up. Crap, and the type of crap that makes you wonder yet again if the 1990s are back in full force. Dan Quayle will be revealed to be an alien invader in this book within a year, I’m telling you.

UNTOLD TALES OF THE NEW UNIVERSE: STAR BRAND: I really liked Star Brand when I was a kid. Not the whole thing, mind you, but the Jim Shooter run with John Romita Jr. art. If there was an Essential Star Brand collection, I’d get that in a second. Is that wrong of me? So, I guess that I’m the target market for this one-shot “celebrating” the 20th anniversary of the failed New Universe by Jeff Parker and Javier Pulido. It’s a fun book, with Parker pretty faithfully riffing off Shooter for the majority of the book before a new character offers a pretty accurate list of complaints about what was wrong with the original series, and Pulido’s art managing to look like Romita’s without slavishly copying it. There’s a pretty strong “But what’s the point” feeling to the whole affair, but overall this offers something surprisingly enjoyable in terms of nostalgia without the rose-tinted glasses. Good, and really, who expected that?

STAR WARS: REBELLION / STAR WARS: KNIGHTS OF THE OLD REPUBLIC #0: Okay, so Rebellion, I can understand. It’s set between Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back, so, cool. That’s Star Wars. But Knights of The Old Republic? Set four thousand years before Episode One? Why bother? It’s not got anything Star Warsish going for it apart from people with lightsabers that you’re not familiar with, calling themselves Jedi. Not being an obsessive fan of all things Lucas, both of these previews for the relaunch of Dark Horse’s Star Wars franchise leave me pretty cold, but they’re both fine for what they are. Eh, but perhaps only because I don’t know how many parsecs it took Han Solo to do the Kessel Run.

(Although if I remembered the name of the run that Han Solo boasted about correctly, I may be showing off my geek points nonetheless.)

PICK OF THE WEEK, despite my conflictedness, is probably Detective #617, because it was a strange relief to see a well done Batman story after so long. PICK OF THE WEAK is Adventures of Superman #649, and I’m hoping that it’ll act as some kind of exorcism of shitty Superman stories for the foreseeable future. Trade of the Week for me, I’m entirely ashamed to admit, is Essential Official Handbook Of The Marvel Universe Deluxe Edition Volume 1, purely because I got it the first time around when I was ten years old and I still love the dry straight-faced way in which all of the ridiculous stories are recounted. But I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone with taste, that’s for sure.

One Year Later Two Weeks Later: Jeff's Reviews of 03/01 Books

Man, where to start? Hibbs is really, impressively ill--it's the closest I've seen anyone in real life looking like a zombie from a Romero movie--so I worked nearly all of yesterday at the store by myself. This means I didn't plow as deeply into the week's comics as I would have liked, nor did I get as far into my backlog of stuff as I would have liked. But here's my two cents about:

AQUAMAN SWORD OF ATLANTIS #40: My first "One Year Later" book reviewed (although not the first one read) and I think "Aquaman meets Conan" is a very smart approach to the title, since the undersea oceans are as distant and strange as any fantasy realm. I wasn't exactly down with the presentation, however, because it took a while to get to the barbarian hijinks and when they did show up, Guice's art made it look a little murky and unclear. I also think the whole "Is this really Aquaman card?" got played a little too soon. The new Aquaman is a bit of a cipher and, frankly, the old Aquaman was a bit of a cipher. I'd have rather been eased into who this new guy is (by how he acts) and hear from other characters who Aquaman is supposed to be rather than getting thrown into full-page montages in the middle of the first issue. But that's all quibblage, by and large. A very high OK, and worth checking out.

BATMAN ANNUAL #25: So Jason Todd came back to life because Superboy punched stuff? If Judd wanted an explanation that nobody could have guessed, well, mission accomplished, I guess. But by any other measuring stick, it's weird, crappy and dumb, and the issue never really recovers. The whole damn thing just ends up being dull and a waste of cash and really frustrating--pretty much everything you'd want in a Crap comic. Fuck.

DAUGHTERS OF THE DRAGON #2: Read this right after Nextwave #2, and it made me think the creative team here is going for a similarly "plastic fun" approach where the absurdity of the genre is used as a joke without being the butt of that joke. It's far from profound, and I'll be god-damned if I can remember anything after the first seven pages, but I thought it was OK.

DETECTIVE COMICS #817: This was the first "One Year Later" book I read, and it still seems like the best of the bunch: Robinson is able to seed the work with both hints and pay-offs, and the art is really lovely. But, of course, you know, it's Batman. Batman has sixty years of accreted history to pull from so it's pretty easy to change things around (hey, it's Bullock! And Gordon!) in a way that has immediate resonance whether or not there's an immediate payoff. Is, I dunno, Manhunter going to have the opportunity to do anything remotely similar with the One Year Later hook?

I think I see part of the thinking behind OYL (apart from the money grab)--after all, very few of us start reading comic series at the beginning, and half the hook, part of the reasons why the characters loom so large in our memory, is that when you start reading comics there are all these references to stories that have happened that you haven't read, and that's part of what really lights the fires of your imagination. So OYL seems conceived, in part, to make these characters mysterous and evocative again, even if only for a year, and to fire our imaginations about who they are and what they've gone through.

But can you fire an audience's imagination simply through corporate mandate? I'd be a little surprised, frankly: even this issue, as good as it was, will feel like cheap padding if this mix of shilling and obfuscation contnues, say, three or four issues down the road.

All that said? This was pretty Good, and was much more of a success than I thought it would be.

EX MACHINA #18: This book needs less scenes of Mayor Hundred and his inner circle tossing around theories, and more scenes of political enemies of the Mayor blaming the Mayor for stuff: there would be more urgency to prove or disprove the idea an old supervillain was responsible for the ricin gassing, and it'd just give things a little more dramatic snap. But what do I know? I can't even remember how the issue ended, try as I might. OK... I think.

FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD SPIDER-MAN #5: Not as, uh, "friendly" as I thought it would be, now that "The Other" is finally out of the way, but it's a done-in-one and Weiringo is one hell of a Spider-Man artist so I'm not too worked up. If this is the tone David's going to set for the rest of his run, though, maybe SLIGHTLY BITTER NEIGHBORHOOD SPIDER-MAN would be a more suitable title. OK.

GODLAND #8: Finally gave me that sense of cosmic tingles the book's been promising, due in no small part to Sciolli really stepping up to the plate for those ultra-large "unknown universe" sequences (and if he did the coloring as well, all the more so--the coloring really gave it that extra bump up). I think the narrative is extraordinarly unfocussed in a way neither Kirby nor any of the '70s cosmic greats (except maybe Gerber) would have gotten away with, but I was entertained the entire time I was reading it, and that counts for Good in my book.

HELLBOY MAKOMA #2: These days, Mignola's approach to Hellboy reminds me--and not necessarily in a bad way--of Chris Carter's latter days with The X-Files (or, hell, even later seasons of David Chase's Sopranos). These creators were very aware of what their audience wanted, but were ambivalent about providing it, and so put forward very offbeat, unexpected material with promises to tie it into the larger storyline. It's a way for the artist to remain true to their instincts without taking the financial gamble of striking out in a new direction, but it risks alienating the audience in the long run. I expect I'm not the only person, for example, who finished this issue thinking, essentially, "Yeah, so?" and wondering why Mignola couldn't have teamed up with Corben to do this amazing interpretation of African myth as its own thing, and not as part of the Hellboy mythos. And while that "Yeah, so?" is almost entirely drowned out by the quality of the material, of Corben's amazing art, and Mignola's dry humor and deft storytlelling, it's still there. A very high Good, to be sure, but that little nagging question keeps me from pushing that rating higher, because I can't help but wonder, at least a little, where or when we'll get the full payoff, if ever.

INFINITE CRISIS #5: Fumbled the ball, I thought, and kind of spectacularly--unlike previous issues, I felt like some very crucial pieces of information weren't being communicated. Like, why does Earth 2 only have eight people on it? And why would the Superman of Earth 2 think that Lois would be restored to health just by being put back on Earth 2? Wouldn't it ever occur to him that she is, like, old and stuff? And about a dozen other bits where it just seems like the plot has been lost and things are powering forward strictly on the writer's say-so. And yet, this issue's failure really underscored for me how successful the previous issues of this have been. It's taken some serious skill and craft to keep the whole thing from reading this badly. So, I'm going with Eh, even though a very good case can be made for it being less than that. Hopefully, it'll pick up next issue.

JSA #83: Yeah, I tried to crack this fucker three times, and never got farther than page eight. Johns' JSA did a great job of passing the subplot baton from issue to issue, so I kept reading it well after I would have otherwise stopped. But now that it's "One Year Later," I just couldn't get interested. I'll try again next issue, maybe. No rating.

MARVEL TEAM-UP #18: Kirkman has an interesting way of giving his stories in this title a twist, in that he consistently chooses the least interesting way to wrap things up. Here, our time-jumping heroes handily defeat the bad guy and realize they've only saved another timeline, not their own, and so have little choice but to stay where they are in their comfortable little niche future. Sure, it avoids the cliche "Days of Future Past" style ending I was expecting, but it also underlines the story's dramatically inert structure--it doesn't really matter what happens as long as Kirkman gets another story written and another paycheck cashed. But maybe I would've felt differently if this had been, say, a jam-packed annual rather than three ultra-leisurely go-nowhere issues. Awful.

MARVEL ZOMBIES #4: Conversely, Kirkman's leisurely pace works much better here, as it really allows the story's dark humor to blossom fully: since it's particularly hard to care about any of the characters here (except maybe the Black Panther), the plot isn't isn't half as interesting as the scenes where the Marvel Zombies realize they can keep pulling the food out of their stomachs and re-eating it to stave off hunger pains. There are probably too much threads to wrap up satisfyingly by next issue, but I've found this work surprisingly Good so far. Go figure.

NEXT WAVE #2: Not quite as funny as the first issue, but still funny enough. (The short scene with X-51's predecessor is what made this issue for me.) The next issue, I think, will be crucial--if we're in for diminishing returns on the laffs, we'll probably know by then. I've got my fingers crossed. Good.

OUTSIDERS #34: Hmmm, yeah. Didn't care. Part of that may have been the writing, which laid out the plot in a style that tried for terse and settled for leaden, and part of it may be that The Outsiders is a team that's rebooted itself every eight issues anyway, so who cares really? Even if my suspicions about One Year Later Nightwing pan out, I think my original investment in this title, limited though it was, has been spent. Eh.

PUNISHER #31: Goran Parlov's art on this was great, I thought--it reminded me of early Gibbons or something. Very clean, very strong but with a surprisingly convincing grit to it. The story wasn't bad, either, but wow, that art. If I was a Vertigo editor, I'd poach this guy pronto. Good stuff for that alone.

THUNDERBOLT JAXON #2: Reminds me of the stuff you'd read in Warrior Magazine way back when--grim, but very efficient, offbeat adventure. The brutal, undying vikings turned East End gangsters may be almost too brutal--I don't see how the kids stand a chance against them, even with possible magical superpowers--but it's got me eager to see next issue. Good stuff.

ULTIMATES 2 #10: Little more than three scenes where the heroes turn things around--of the three, I thought the Tony Stark one was well-done, the Hawkeye scene was silly but almost effective, and the Wasp/Cap one was cliched and nonsensical. Sadly, I think those percentages will be applicable to the Millar/Hitch run overall. A really awesome two issues of asskicking could change my mind, but for now, OK.

UNTOLD TALES OF THE NEW UNIVERSE STAR BRAND: I've really got to give it up for Jeff Parker--despite what my recent reviews of Exiles might make you think, I don't really have that much affection for Marvel's New Universe. So the fact that I really enjoyed this is quite the accomplishment. It helps that Javier Pulido's art manages to evoke the early John Romita Jr. work without recreating that art's tediousness, but it's really Parker's clever script that really does the job: it introduces all the tropes of the Star Brand title, analyzes them, turns them inside out and then tosses around a dozen different possible ideas and directions before changing things up for the finale. Even better, I found myself genuinely feeling for dumb ol' Ken as he gets just a taste of identity and direction before the status quo comes along to turn him back into the same old tool. If you get a chance, pick this sucker up. It's, I shit you not, Very Good. For the first time ever, I find myself hoping Marvel editors read this blog, just so they might get Parker to pitch to them for some heftier titles. The guy's got loads of potential.

Y THE LAST MAN #43: A very witty (and very true) conversation about how mutual objects of disdain make for a better relationship bond than mutual objects of appreciation doesn't really cover up the fact that Yorick and 355 have almost no "chemistry" together. I don't know if it's the way their body language is depicted, or what we know about the characters, but I just don't believe these two characters might genuinely be attracted to each other and that may or may not be a huge stumbling block to where Vaughan wants to take these characters in the future. But witty dialogue goes a long way in my book, so double-plus OK.

PICK OF THE WEEK: UNTOLD TALES OF THE NEW UNIVERSE STAR BRAND. Strange, but true. If you're looking for more conventional kicks, Brubaker and Lark's first issue of Daredevil (which came out, uh, last week?) was shit-hot.

PICK OF THE WEAK: BATMAN ANNUAL #25, because it sucked. A lot.

TRADE PICK: Two of 'em, at least. I wasn't here when GOLGO 13: SUPERGUN (finally!) made it to our store, but that shouldn't stop me from haranguing you to go out and buy it. Golgo 13 is kind of the alpha-omega of tight-lipped antiheroes, and his over-the-top awesomeness (not only is Golgo 13 going to lay the female agent assigned to brief him, he's going to do in under four pages and he's not even going to bother removing his disguise to do it) that I find simultaneously hilarious and satisfying. The two stories here also have a terseness in tone meshed with an attention to detail and research that's satisfying on its own. (This week's issue of Outsiders? This is the tone it was trying for.) It's not for everyone, I admit, but those of us who dig snipers capable of outgunning quarter-mile supercannons will find this stuff to be like catnip.

Second, the third volume of BECK just broke my heart, mainly because I have to wait until June for the fourth volume--I want to read the whole damn thing now, dammit. (I was also horrified to read in Chris Butcher's blog that BECK is selling "okay but not great." (It's in the February 27 entry--unfortunately the direct link to the archived entry isn't working at the moment.)) While this volume gets a bit predictable once it starts off on its "Karate Kid"-ish turn of events, the best part (apart from the expressive, almost sensual, art) is that poor Yukio, after an entire volume of practicing his little heart out, has only come far enough to realize how much farther he has to go and has to practice, practice, practice even more. Despite all its goofy charm, BECK is quite serious about the amount of work required for any artist to even think about success--which makes the promise of coming achievements seem all the sweeter. C'mon, Tokyopop--I'm sure these will start selling like hotcakes once you get to the volumes with the payoff. Can't ya speed it up just a little? Like the next fifteen volumes out by this time next year?

I also have Iron Wok Jan, Vol. 16 right in front of me. Life is good.

So, to sum up: I have become a big ol' manga whore. Also, if you've ever liked any of Ellis's tough guy stuff, get GOLGO 13: SUPERGUN. If you've ever liked Scott Pilgrim, Akira, or pretty women, get BECK VOL. 3. Your aesthetic sense will thank you.

Only in New York!

Airplane writing on the Alpha-Smart, here (with later editing/linking now that I’m home) I just got back from the NY con (well, the trade show, more accurately – I left back for home on Saturday morning), about which more later.

First though, let me tell you my “Only In New York” story….

I got into town on Wednesday, and went to the current restaging of Sweeney Todd that night. To be honest, I generally hate musicals, but I really really like Sweeney. Perhaps it is the dark story, which ends in horror and insanity, without a single bit of redemption – that’s not what musicals are, right?

I’ve actually seen Sweeney before on Broadway – when I was…. Hm, 10, 11 maybe, I was taken to the original production with Angela Lansbury and Len Cariou

That original production was mesmerizing to me, especially because of how the sets worked. Effectively, the set was a giant cube on wheels, with one face of the cube being Mrs. Lovett’s Pie Shop, one being a street scene, and so forth, and as the action in the play moved from place to place, the extras, or sometimes the principles, would turn the cube on its wheels, creating an illusion of distance or speed or volume that a single set couldn’t possibly achieve.

Thanks to Jeff Lester doing a recent search, after I leant him my very very worn out video tape of the Great Performances telecast, I now know that the Lansbury/Hearn version is back in print on DVD. I strongly urge you to seek out that performance, just to see the masterful way they approached the technical challenges.

Anyway, back in 2006. THIS version of Sweeney has a whole ‘nother set of technical challenges to face. See, the play, as originally mounted has ten “speaking” (and/or singing) roles, easily an equal number of extras providing chorus, and of course, a full orchestra doing the score. The current version only has the 10 principals – so that the principals have to not only being their own stage hands and chorus, which would be kind of insane enough, but they top that by being their own orchestra as well.

I mean that literally – they’re carrying their instruments around the stage, each taking turns playing parts! Some fun can be had in playing “Watch how they hand off piano duties as the various actors are needed upstage”

Understand how complex this is – not only does the crew have to act and sing, but they also have to tackle a pretty damn complicated score, while also being their own stage hands. That is, frankly, insane! There’s almost always someone or something moving on stage. And while it is a very minimalist stage and dressing (Pretty much two chairs represent 50% of the physical objects in the production – set that way to be a boat, this way to be a couch, and so on), there’s a kineticism on display that I’ve never seen before.

These are pretty astonishing performances, as well – Patti LuPone, for example, brings a wickedness and sensuality to her interpretation of Mrs. Lovett… and she does it while carrying a tuba around the set! Just…. Wow! Is all you can think.

On The Savage Critic scale, I’d give the strongest possible VERY GOOD, just a gnat’s breadth from “Excellent”, which is quintessentially unfair to this cast and production, because my qualms pretty much all come down to “Huh, why’d they make THAT choice?” or “Well, that’ not what I’d do” kind of things. For example, there’s lots and lots of instances where the cast is looking at the audience, and not each other. This can be jarring when Anthony sings “Oh, look at me, look at me miss, please look at me!” to Joanna, while HE is turned away from her. The problem was, I couldn’t see a consistent pattern of when they did or did not engage each other – sometimes characters WOULD make eye contact, sometimes they wouldn’t, and I couldn’t see the rhyme or reason.

Much of the staging truly worked – even when you thought it couldn’t. How on earth could “God, That’s Good!” or “City on Fire!” work without extras?! Yet, work it did, exceptionally well. On the other hand, I KNOW the play, and I know exactly what everyone is supposed to be doing and motivations, etc. So the minimalism worked just fine for me. I do wonder if a viewer just seeing Sweeney for the very first time would think the same thing?

I was also happy that the somewhat simpler score allowed some bits -- “Quartet” might be the best example -- to fully appreciate all four vocal lines of the song. In the fully orchestrated version, the orchestra tends to utterly overwhelm the performers, but with never more than 6 instruments at any one moment, everything was much clearer.

I thought the performances were very strong, especially Lauren Molina who portrayed Joanna, and Manoel Felciano who was Tobias. Both do a lot of “background” bits and action, that really add to the mounting insanity of the story. One of the conceits of the show is that the set and setup is reminiscent of an insane asylum, where the inmates are putting on this play – rather than it being that *we’re* watching the story of Sweeney, himself, it is more that we’re watching lunatics act out the story of Sweeney, which at once makes the play more immediate and horrifying (if that were possible), and yet also slightly distancing. So, Molina and Felciano really did a lot of “selling” this conceit -- Tobias creeping around the stage, or perching up on chairs observing the action, looking bug-fuck nuts, Joanna quivering her lip in mad, nervous panic when scary actions she isn’t involved in happen cross stage. Also of note is Donna Lynne Champlin who plays Pirelli (and interestingly, the didn’t change any gender references whatsoever, so she says “…when I was just a lad”, and things like that.) starts off the play as one of the keepers of the asylum, so there are several occasions where as the violence of the play escalates, Champlin steps closer in as if to be saying “Huh, if they take it too far, I need to be able to step in and stop it.” It’s a very effective device, really.

I was less impressed with Benjamin Magnuson who played Anthony, and Alexander Gemignani who plays the Beadle. In the former case, it may simply be that my brain is far too locked in on the DVD ’82 performance of Cris Groenendaal in the role. THAT Anthony is essentially Dudley Do-Right – a big, strapping, utterly earnest, and thoroughly clueless person who has his entire life turn to shit thanks to Todd. So, my brain has a hard time accepting a much weedier guy, who looks more like an NY intellectual than a young and vital sailor, in the role. His actual performance was good, but not, I thought, fully up to the level of his cast mates. Still, this is the difference between “really good” and “really really good”, so perhaps I’m being unfair.

As for Gemignani as the Beadle, the choice was made to deliver most of his dialogue in a monotone. You can practically hear the periods between. Each. And. Every. Word. I don’t know if it was the actor’s choice, or the director’s, but I thought it was a really poor choice. Other than that he was fine – the Beadle has some really difficult lines to sing, and he acquitted them very well.

Patti Lapone was really terrific as Mrs. Lovett, bringing, as I said, a real raw sexuality to the character that once certainly never get from the Lansbury version. I was pretty iffy on some of her readings and interpretations in the SF Symphony production of the play that she participated in 2001 (also on DVD), but in the intervening years, she’s really claimed the part.

Michael Cerveris as Sweeney was a revelation. While he’s not really old enough in appearance to be convincing physically, he absolutely psychically takes upon the mantle of Todd, and sells it 100%. It’s a very challenging role, and Cerveris sticks the landing (to mix a metaphor badly)

Bottom line: this is an astounding and audacious production of a play that was always a masterpiece of its own. If you’re in the New York area, I whole-heartedly recommend you see this production if/while you can.

Anyway, back to the “Only in New York” portion of the story… So, I really like Sweeney as a play, and I know the libretto backwards and forwards. It’s pretty disturbing on my part, actually.

So, I’m… well, I’m not actually SINGING along, because, y’know, you can’t actually DO that at a play, but I’m “mouthing” along with the music, if you see what I mean. My hands are also moving in my lap with the different musical lines. In short, I’m Really Fucking Into It, and It Shows, right?

2 seats over from me (which reminds me, I owe Mark Evanier a big wet kiss for advising me that I was better to sit in the 7th row than the first or second – I had my pick of the theatre when I booked the tix, and I ended up with superb seats thanks to ME’s advice), was sitting Michael Imperioli, who was Chris on the Sopranos, right? He was with a fairly large party of people, and they, in turn, had a friendship with an artist (whose name I didn’t catch) who was doing a “live sketch” of the performance, during it. “Capturing the energy” or something.

Anyway, during the intermission, some of the women in this party start up a conversation with me, “Who are you? How do you know all the words? Where are you from?” that kind of thing. We chat all pleasantly, and the second act begins and that’s that, right?

Well, we’re getting up to leave, and I say my goodbyes, and one of the women (Eva, I think?) says, “Look, we’re going backstage, how’d you like to come along?”

Obviously, I told them to fuck off. Er…. No wait, the other way, “What? Are you nuts, of COURSE I’d like to go.” So I got to go backstage, meet most of the cast, ask several questions on the staging, and wander around the set, and examine the props and dressing close up! Totally awesome!

As they say, it was a truly magical night. There was even an after party that I could have gone to, but I thought it better to not be “a leech” and know when to leave on my own. That makes it at least a little more likely that they’ll continue to be kind and inviting to absolute stranger in the future, y’know?

(Having a reasonable amount of contact with the comics talent, and watching as people sometimes have inappropriate fangasms sometimes, I’ve largely learned to restrain myself in my own encounters with celebrities)

Anyway, how cool is that? A great night at the theater, topped off with a backstage visit just from being excited about the work. Only in New York City though, right?

Garth Ennis and Ruth Cole were gracious enough to offer to let me stay at their place during the con, not only saving me a big wad of money from the hotel, but allowing me to spend some real quality time with one of my dearest mates, and turning my experience from just “going to a con”. I don’t think I would have heard about the Paul Pope/John Cassaday party at the Slipper Room, for example, without Garth – which ended up not only being a tremendous amount of fun, but being very productive in setting up a few things in the future.

I went out to NY for 2 specific reasons: 1) Marvel, in the original plan, was gong to have a “retailer day” of some kind, which got turned into “just” a cocktail party (We were there 4-5 hours, actually) after I booked the trip. But I thought it was REALLY important to go out and support Marvel working with retailers (especially as the guy who sued them, y’know?), because Marvel is getting better and better in working with us each month, and it is good to have a closer relationship. I met Dan Buckley, and Joe Quesada and I have buried the hatchet (If there was a hatchet to begin with, really) – we did it in email a few months back, but I wanted to do it face-to-face as well. Plus ay opportunity to tell more people what a godsend David Gabriel has become to Marvel and the retail community is always welcome.

I also went out to NY because 2) the first day of the con was a trade show. We need more trade shows in this business, especially ones that aren’t directly controlled by Diamond comics. I was, I think, the only retailer from west of the Rockies to show, but I thought it was very important to support the thing.

Of course, the trade-only *day* turned into “4 hours” (noon to 4) until they started letting the fans in, so it “wasn’t much” of a trade show this year, but still, a man has to do what a man has to do, right?

The con itself was pretty impressive for a first show – attendance seemed pretty huge to me. Even during the trade show portion, there were times it wasn’t possible to move in the aisles. Once they started letting in the fans it became a real madhouse. When I finally left the Javits ~6 pm, there were STILL a couple hundred people standing in line to get badges.

I suspect Saturday is going to get ugly, and I’d lay coin that the fire marshall shuts it down at least once during the day. The aisles aren’t nearly wide enough to accommodate the NY comics community – they need to be twice what they are, really. Really really glad I’m going home and not staying for the con, proper, because it will be a madhouse.

Also on the trip, I visited Rocketship in Brooklyn, which is a fab looking store for only being open 6 months. They looked like they were doing well, and I’m really proud that I’ve been able to help them succeed.

I also spent some time up with DC at their offices on Thursday– had Lunch with Dan Didio, and an afternoon meeting with the Vertigo editors, offering up a retailer’s brain to pick. All part of the service, ma’am.

Anyway, so that’s my little travelogue. I’ve really not read much this week – ASTONISHING X-MEN #13, which I’d rate an EXCELLENT, GREEN LANTERN #9 (I think? Comics are packed away right now), which I thought was a solid GOOD, and CATWOMAN #?? Which I’d say the same. That’s all I’ve read so far, despite 11 hours of flight time in the last 96 hours! (slept a lot of those plane hours, really) So, uh, PICK OF THE WEEK is ASTONISHING X-MEN #13, PICK OF THE WEAK is “I have no idea, hurray!”, and TRADE OF THE WEEK is…”your guess is as good as mine, I have no internet 30k miles in the air here I am, and I don’t recall what shipped this week.”

I am gong to be SOOOOOO happy to see Ben when I get home, though. I REALLY missed the little guy. Tzipora, too, but it is different with the 2 year old – four days away is…what? One half of one percent of his entire life?

Suck ass part is I have to do the weekly reorders, this months ORDER FORM (haven’t even cracked it yet), and the March subscriber setups all before Tuesday. That’s gonnnnnnna suck! So If you hear noting from me next week, that’s the reason why.

-B