The Marvel Heroclix Thing has blue eyes. The rest of the figures have dotted pupils.
I was very happy to see that.
Power Pack: … well. I like Power Pack. I always have. This is pretty good. Given a choice between this Julie Power and the one in Runaways? Gimmie this one.
Lex Luthor. Good stuff.
I dunno. When does this take place? My question probably won’t help answer yours, but I’m just curious.
I haven’t seen this latest issue, but a few months back… the Joker got pretty beaten up by—I think it was Hush and a new Red Hood—trying to get back into Gotham, before he limped off into safety at an abandoned amusment park.
If that’s of any help. (Which it probably isn’t. :smack: 
)
You know, on a side note, you’d think that in a comic book universe with a history as long and colorful as DC’s, some hero or another would get the idea to start burning down all the abandoned amusment parks and other prefab lairs beforehand. Y’know, like you’d put latches on your garbage cans if you had a racoon problem.
Well, it’s been one issue with the new status quo, give the man some time. Sheesh. :rolleyes:
Ah. That makes sense, since it’s the new Red Hood who finds him at an abandoned amusement park and beats him (I’d say to death, if this wasn’t the Joker).
The current Red Hood being, apparently Jason Todd, all growed up, back from the dead and pissy as ever .
And I agree. i’ve always wondered why the Gotham city council didn’t immediately close, rename, and/or demolish any streets, buildings, or locations with references to twos, clowns, comedy, or birds.
I forgot: Justice League Unlimited. A nice little story starring the Question. I’m not into the series enough to become a regular buyer, but I pick up the ones featuring characters I enjoy.
Wolfian, I hardly ever go to the comic book store, since it is out in Towson. However, I must go, now that I have seen your post.
Things I read this week (I tend to do 2-4 weeks at once):
Ultimate Secret: The introduction of Captain Marvel, one of my all time favorites.
LSH #4: Just love this title. I can deal with a black Nick Fury, but that’s not Star Boy to me. Poor Karate Kid, but it’s Ultra Boy/Phantom Girl and Karate Kid/Princess Projectra. Don’t mess too much with my beloved Legion.
Countdown to Infinite Crisis #0: I am not happy. Not a bad story, but I don’t like the direction they thrust either of the main characters. I do like how they played up the fact that Booster Gold is from the future, and knows much that will happen (like Doomsday and the events of this book). As noted in a thread 2 or 3 weeks ago, it will make it hard to finish the current JLA: Classified arc. But I will, as Giffen/MacGuire make me laugh.
Deadshot #5: As stated earlier, a pleasant diversion.
Superman/Batman #18: Batman is reconnected with his raison d’etre (and I’m not going to go find the accented letters to get that right).
Question:
Anyone reading Action Comics? Supposedly the Captain Marvel arc is beginning. I’m a CM fan, and wonder if the story is any good.
I have been picking it up… did I miss a new one this week?
The new issue of Action that begins the Captain Marvel story comes out this week.
GLA: Misassembled #1 – I was informed this would be a comedy. Joke’s on me. Still a good issue. I was surprised by the twist at the end, even though it should have been obvious. This Dan Slott guy’s got the goods.
Y - The Last Man #32 – Great opening to the arc. I was surprised by the main even there, but I shouldn’t have been – three years without getting laid is a long enough time to broaden your horizons (assuming they even need broadening). And the scene right before it happened was note-perfect. The character of the new captain seems interesting (as always, every arc introduces a new ally that I’d like to see stay with the group, but they never do). As to the fact that it’s all the same story, well, what would you expect from a book about the most important treasure on the planet? Of course all these groups have an agenda. (And anyway, the description doesn’t fit for every arc.)
Seven Soldiers: Zatanna #1 – Mostly set-up. Not as good as the Guardian issue.
Also bought but haven’t read the first Slaine volume from DC and Death Jr. which is drawn by the wonderful Ted Naifeh.
–Cliffy
Hee hee. Wait till you see what Dan does next. RECRUITMENT DRIVE!
He’s got the goods. He did the She-Hulk comic, and the next one coming up… but more importantly, he’s doing Spider-Man vs Human Torch miniseries, and it’s so accurate to time and period I could probably date each issue he’s written to within about ten issues. (The first happened just a bit after ‘Guy Named Joe’. for example)
The third, though, is the best, in my opinion. That’s my Spidey, the one I grew up with.
Hi,
I’m new here. Was invited by a friend who asked me to pass on the comic book reviews I post elsewhere, so please excuse me if I mess up on something below, like,…
Spoiler Warning[s],…
Bad Guys & Hard Cases
Picked up copies of Shaolin Cowboy #2 and Doc Frankenstein #1 this week. I think these are second or third printings, though the fine print in the indicia says these are first printings (Anyone know for sure?). Comparing the two makes for an interesting exercise. Both books are rendered in hyperdetailed style, by Geoff Darrow and Steve Skroce (no complaints there - the work is wonderful - and as ever much is owed to the colorists - When does Dave Steward sleep?). However their layouts are very different. Darrow’s advance by milliseconds, the better for us to see the blow-by-blow of stylized kung fu style fighting, as well as accenting the utter absurdity of the situation: the ranting Crab, the awful paradox of the Shaolin Monks rhetoric compared to the skills that they teach, the Crab’s disgusting hencemen, the comic conceits of the Donkey. But this also has the effect of stretching time out to extremes, and the whole book paradoxically feels under-developed, the handful of gags stretched over too many pages. Of course it’s hard to complain: after all, I sincerely doubt that the people at Burleyman have any pretense here of serious fare. In many ways this issue of Shaolin Cowboy reminds me of Frank Miller’s Tales to Offend.
In stark contrast, the panel layouts and the shifts between locales and whole eras in Doc Frankenstein #1 make for almost startling leaps in time and space. Nothing moves slowly here. The only thing holding the individual scenes together, is the Monster’s narration, which touches quite effectively on themes of alienation, disillusionment, and the despised minorities pride in having achieved something. The verbiage is essential here; otherwise the book wouldn’t hold together, and reading this story would have the disjointed feel of David Lynch’s version of Frank Herbert’s Dune (which read like a 'greatest hits" montage of moments from the source novel).
As a result of Skroce and Darrow’s varied extremes of pacing, both books suffer from a curious lack of suspense. This is compounded by the fact that, from the moment the monk and the monster are introduced, it’s made pretty damn clear that they are nigh invincible in their worlds. You never get the sense, conscious or otherwise that they could lose, making the noble drama of the monsters narration, and the sick humor implicit in the Monk’s situation very, very necessary. Almost too necessary.
But then, there’s that great art!
Christos Gages’ Deadshot #5 miniseries, “Urban Renewal” came to a close this week. As before, I couldn’t help noticing places where a more imaginative approach to the page layouts would have made for a much more exciting read (though this issue was definately better in that regard than the previous two issues). It underscores a maxim of the superhero (or in this case, supervillain) genre: the more straightforward and “plain” the tale, the greater the burden is on the penciller to juice it up with exciting panel compositions.
There’s a lot of dark humor in this story, and I especially appreciated the jokes (I so wished were better emphasized) during the final great gun battle, and the lengths to which Floyd Lawton goes to insure his legacy lasts. Humor’s a necessity when a story is this grim (I can’t even begin to make a body count for this miniseries). Still I liked the story enough to be willing to check out a sequel, perhaps something set ten years down the line, when Zoe, Deadshot’s daughter is of college age, his ‘fiance’ has married the sympathetic cop, and the mobsters fragile truce begins to breakdown.
Go Frank, (eh, … I mean), Floyd Go!
Azzarello’s Ayn-Rand-ish, Lex Luthor Man Of Steel #2, is blessed with fine art: the best I’ve seen yet from Berjemo, beautifully colored by Steward (again!). Whatever baggage one brings to this story, whatever memories one might have of Lex Luthor, evil businessman, US President, mad scientist and irrational bald loon; you cannot help but forget all of it. Even when Azzarello’s Luthor sends third parties (Minutemen?) to do evil behind the scenes, you cannot help but admire him a little as he shepards his long range plans and projects to fruition (Is that the Supergirl who sported short black hair and died in Loeb’s first Superman/Batman storyarc in that tank? Could it be T.O. Morrow’s Tommorrow Woman from JLA?). This Luthor is a “real man” in the Post WWII American sense of the word. (If Joe Casey’s Jack Marlowe had been half as compelling, would WildCATs v.3.0 still be on the stands?) I can’t wait to see him play hardball with Bruce Wayne across a negotiating table next issue.
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
After the last two issues, marred by some confusing sequences that went by a tad too quickly, and required three readings to fully understand, I’m happy to say Justice League Elite #10 has to be one of the best Joe Kelly stories I’ve ever read. I don’t think I’ve ever read anything by him that was this dense, firmly grounded in character, and intriguing. My hats off to the man. Now in it’s third to last issue, the whole series finally shakes out into an interesting exploration of the balance between a manichean division between good and evil in the varied protagonists; from the disasterous breakdown of Vera Black’s ability to deny the evil in her own soul, to Coldcast’s gritty acceptance of killing as a way to the “greater good” (you almost want to see Black Adam offer Coldcast sanctuary in Khandaq), and the (expected) penance Manitou Raven’s wife has to pay for betrayal. (As others guessed, she will have to step up and become the next super-shaman - and likely be the key to saving the world from Eve.) All this is neatly contrasted against the ineffectual quibbling among the staunchly upright members of the Justice League. Good character driven ensemble drama here. The only thing I missed, and would have like to have seen, is Kelly do something with Cassandra Cain, who served with the Elite until last issue in the guise of an assassin, Kasumi, and who very well may have been sent back to Bludhaven by Batman for the duration.
In this era of (at times) forced “decompression”, “highly compressed” books like Palmiotti, Gray and Santacruz’ **Twilight Experiment #3 ** are a welcome change of pace, but unlike, say, Gail Simone’s Birds of Prey or Joe Kelly’s JLA Elite, books that are loaded with incident and fast character bits, Twilight Experiment #3 features a series of sudden revelations forced in rapid succession on a vacationing paramedic named Rene, who spent her whole life in a bad mix of self hatred for, and denial of superpowers she never sought, and have long tried to hide. Sudeenly she has to cope with the fact that the father who abandoned her both did so for virtuous reasons, and that in order to save her life, he gave her superpowers, which are somehow connected to the life changing accident that took her sisters life. This “pile on” of unwelcome information has the structural effect of making the reader share her anger and confusion (which is a good thing here). And with the possible end of the world hanging (literally) overhead, she isn’t going to have a lot of time to adjust.
Rene’s situation is very much like that Vera Black faces in the JLA Elite, discussed above. Both Vera and Rene will have to overcome years of denial to reconcile herself to the power and potential for evil inside her, if she is going to be able to do any good (much less save) the world around her. This level of psychological depth adds a welcome complexity to both titles (though there are points when one might be forgiven for dismissing Rene as a bit of a self pitying whiner. Vera, on the other hand, might not survive her adventure with her sanity intact.
There is however, one thing I do not understand: why is Michael so well adjusted? He’s clearly “the other side of the equation” to the problem of the Black Adam like superbeing floating above. But as regards Rene’s personal problems, is he there simply as an exemplar of self acceptance, or does he have his own discoveries to make, his own obstacles to overcome?
Loveable Losers, Beautiful Women & Sometimes Both.
After all the serious and dense stuff discussed above, it was nice to take a break with lighter fare. (Thank God for a balanced market). Dan Slott’s Great Lakes Avengers #1 was a thoroughly enjoyable respite (as ever his jokes are great!). This issue focused on the travails of their leader, Mr. Immortal, as his customary enthusiasm and boosterism fades, as he reviews his sad, ridiculous life, in and out of spandex. And while Pelliterier’s art doesn’t quite have the cartoon-y quality a Frank Cho might bring to the project, the very generic-superhero quality of his style helps ground the story firmly in the Marvel Universe, a real plus when it comes to this story of superhero envy and failure. Fun stuff.
Seven Soldiers: Zatanna #1 has to be my favorite, so far, of Grant Morrison’s Seven Soldiers miniseries, and the first that I’ll likely continue buying straight through to the end. Ryan Sooks art is beautiful here, reminding me very much of Adam Hughes work on Ghost and Gen13, in his modeling of faces and figures, panel compositions, the way he “spots blacks”, and the way he underscores the humorous elements of Morrison’s script. Lovely stuff: Sook’s Zatanna (another lovable loser) is second only to Frank Cho’s Shanna, the She Devil, as the most expressive characterization I’ve seen in some time.
You really see the “cartoonist” in Frank Cho’s page layouts in Shanna the She-Devil #3. He fills each step-by-step sequence with such marvelous, expressive faces and gestures, that you hardly notice how decompressed the story is. It’s a fine example of cartooning and panel sequencing as entertainment, the kind of which you often only see when one person (like Miller, Hernandez, Eisner or Larsen) writes and illustrates a title. And he does action scenes so well here, that by issues end I was dying to see what Cho would do with Red Sonja, Grace Choi (of the Outsiders), Big Barda (Mr. Miracle), Thundra (of the Avengers), Starfire (of the Titans) or Fairchild (of Gen13) back in the day.
A Book
I’ve only had time to give Wizard: How to Draw (for Comics), a cursory glance. It’s a compilation of the monthly “drawing for comics” feature that appears in the magazine. The sections on superhero anatomy, while good, due to space limitations of the monthly feature, you find might yourself wishing there were more examples, or a greater number of views. The same might apply to specific topics, like actual step by step working methods for applying three-point perspective to detailed backgrounds. Also, conspicuous by it’s absence, is a discussion of costume, cloth and clothing. On the other hand the book has a lot of information specific to comic book illustration that might be hard to find elsewhere. The sections on posing and gesture for action scenes, the expert discussions of how to make comic book women look sexier, and the good discussions of page layout for effect, textures and special effects conveyed via lettering. While the book is not the exhaustive reference one might hope for, it’s chock full of such tips, and as such would make a useful reference for the aspiring illustrator.
One thing bothered me a little. With the single exception of Tom Grummett, the guest artists writing and illustrating the column seem to use Marvel characters exclusively in thier exercises and examples. Is there are reason for this? Just wondering.
Any late breaking thoughts folks?
WonK! It’s good to see you here, man. Everyone else, this dude KNOWS comics (and movies, and tons of other stuff). He’ll fit in perfectly as a Doper.
I am afraid that DC has their heads firmly planted in there asses, via marketing. As I recall, there was one or two DC comic characters in past editions of the articles, as well as in Toyfair’s Megoville comics, but the lawyers told them to take them out in reprints. Why, because they are stupid and paranoid, plane and simple. (Either, there is a good reason, they just haven’t told the public, or this is a case of DC wanting things it’s way only, such as with Captain Marvel.)Here is an illustrative anctedote taken from
http://www.millarworld.net/lofiversion/index.php/t47081.html
All in all, nice, compelling reviews, you Wonk. BTW, have you seen A Juggernaut Journal of Justice-Jammed Jargon (for superhero fans and aspirants) I would love to see an entry from you.
More likely because DC is owned by Warner Brothers, who probably keeps the company around mainly so they can use the characters themselves. This is why DC’s film track record has sucked in comparison to Marvel’s. DC is at the mercy of a paticular studio, Marvel can shop around and have some say on the production.
Thank God WB seems mostly hands-off when off when it comes to the comics themselves, or else DC’s output would be much, much worse.
Only in recent years, though.
Hey, WonK, welcome aboard. I’m Sabbath. My speciality is… oddness, truthfully. Last issues, other random stuff. I tend to stick to superhero comics, but my favorite current title is PS238. I worked for five years in a comic store, ending in '00, and I’m the second or third biggest Legion of Superheroes fan on this board.
The biggest is Chaim M. Keller. I can stand to be second to him. My secondary speciality is a deep love for pre-1984 DC, before it was ‘cool’ to do so. (As in, I was reading '60s JLAs back in the 80s.)
I also know way too much about Transformers and webcomics. (Second biggest Transfan on the board. The biggest is rjung of the annual Trannies fan awards. Again, I can stand to be second.)
Everyone else, Mouseketeer Roll Call!
Again, welcome. I’m Scott Plaid. My specialty is doing some pretty good research , and arguing that my side is right, whenever I see an argument that is highly subjective. I make some pretty unique arguments that leave far right wingers on this collection of boards not giving any better answers then, “You are wrong.” without them feeling the need to actually say why.
I tend to stick to manga, with some superhero comics. However, I like under-appreciated characters, and can never see why certain facts aren’t canon, since I am just a casual reader. I visit comic book stores infrequently, though not for the fan-bashing reasons that I see coming from some people, though I see none of them on this thread.
P.S. Today is Guest Star Day!
Welcome aboard.
As you can see, Scott’s one of our resident comedians.