Posted by Jeb on October 23, 2008
(Marvel)
The end… of the beginning… of the end.
Someone once remarked that the British empire had been created in “a fit of absence of mind.” Bit of a stretch to extend the analogy to Marvel’s Ultimate Universe, but in a way it fits: Marvel didn’t set out to create what they ultimately (so to speak) wound up with.
When Bill Jemas and Joe Quesada conceived it, the Ultimate Universe was going to be the non-comic-store universe. Leave decades of continuity and crossover to the D-and-D-playing nerds at the local comic shop: the Ultimate Universe would start over with Marvel’s most popular characters, brought up to the present day, with a limited number of titles, and minimal overlap between them. They’d be rack-jobbed, just like the good old days, and would pop up in bookstores, drugstores, supermarkets, toy stores-all the place kids used to buy comics.
Which is probably why, instead of turning to established veterans of superhero storytelling, Marvel handed over this new project to a rising creator of indie crime comics, and a Scotsman best known for getting The Authority into censorship problems that not even Warren Ellis had managed. So Brian Michael Bendis took Spider-Man back to his roots, this time as a late-90’s teenager, and Mark Millar infused the freshness of discovery into the X franchise.
It’s hard to say whether it’s down to the talents of Bendis and Millar, the purity of the concepts, or some combination of the two, but while Marvel had mixed success getting their books into places like Toys R Us and Target, there was one place that the books were a resounding success: with the D-and-D-playing nerds at the local comic shop. The one thing most people at Marvel had pretty much taken for granted was that, in what was a declining comics market, the last thing you were going to get established readers to do was buy into a new set of books featuring versions of the same characters they were already reading in monthly comics form. It was a groundswell at first, with Ultimate Spider-Man winning praise from comic critics and shifting huge numbers of trade paperback collections; the dam broke with Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch’s reimagining of The Avengers as The Ultimates: a tighter, funnier, even more outrageous, and more satisfying version of The Authority. Despite the absurd delays that plagued the book during Millar/Hitch’s tenure, and beyond, it became a massive seller, riding the upper region of the Direct Market sales charts, establishing beyond doubt that the Ultimate Universe was a commercial force to be reckoned with.
But reckoned how? How to market what was supposed to be a set of stand-alone books without seeming to dilute either them, or the core universe of Marvel books? The answer seemed to be to shrug, add another category to Previews, and let things just sail along.s
But nothing in superhero comics is more certain than attrition, both in sales and reader and critical interest. At a time of rising comic sales, the Ultimate Universe has remained flat-apart from the sporadic issues of The Ultimates, sales of the line haven’t moved much over the last few years, and sales figures that once had Ultimate books in the top ten now have them nestling somewhere near the bottom of the top 50. And though Marvel made some belated moves to capitalize on the virtues of a shared universe (Kitty Pryde as Spider-Man’s girlfriend was an inspired stroke), they’ve seemed unwilling to make a long-term commitment to the idea (Kitty was quickly relegated to just another ex going to school with Peter and MJ).
As a consequence, heading toward the end of the 21st century’s first decade, the Ultimate Universe had become a bit stale, and almost irrelevant by comparison with the main Marvel line. To the extent that anyone still cares about monthly superhero comics, the main Marvel U has always moved forward with a sense of urgency, that you DARE NOT MISS this month’s Spider-Man/Hulk/DD/X title. Having achieved its first success just as the trade paperback was emerging as a major revenue stream, the Ultimate Universe has always seemed geared to those who want to absorb six months’ worth of story at a sitting, and who might go another six months without reading the next installment.
So if the Ultimate Universe was to remain a going concern in the monthly comics biz, a change of direction was indicated-but in which direction? Rumors have flown for months, with the complete demise of the Ultimate line being predicted (this despite the fact that Marvel’s most successful writer has continued to insist that he’s writing the Ultimate version of Spider-Man for the foreseeable future). Doubt turned to despair for many readers of Jeph Loeb’s critically-savaged version of The Ultimates when it was announced that Loeb would be overseeing whatever the Ultimate Universe morphed into.
And in that atmosphere of uncertainty, in Ultimate Origins, Bendis and penciller Butch Guice promised to pull back the curtain, show us where the Ultimate Universe came from, and point to where it’s going. And it would be fair to say that’s what they did… for better or worse.
Here we have it, then– the beginning of the end of the Ultimate Universe as we’ve known it. And Marvel has an interesting opportunity here: while “earth-shaking” changes are the stock in trade of superhero comic “events” (Cap is dead! Batman RIP!), the necessity of keeping the licensed commercial properties in play means that the reset button must always be kept close at hand.
Not here. Marvel can unmask Spider-Man, blow up The Hulk, or REALLY get rid of all the mutants without slowing the flow of lunchboxes or Underoos, since the original versions of all those characters still exist,
And there’s some indication in this climactic chapter that they’re pretty serious about it. Speaking through Sue Storm, an Ultimate Watcher lays things out for the besieged of earth: in typical Rod Serling fashion, these interstellar wiseguys have watched humanity bumble along for eons, developing powers (super and otherwise) that we’re not capable of managing responsibly, and that our inevitable doom approaches, On top of that, we get ultimate (both lower-and-upper-case) badassness from Nick Fury (flashing back to the eponymous Origins) and Magneto, taking his argument to Charles Xavier with a final persuasiveness that typically eludes his regular Marvel U counterpart.
In short, this series completes the transformation (begun, many would argue, with volume 1 of The Ultimates) of the Ultimate Universe from a place of new-reader-friendly superhero spectacle, into the sort of dark and doomed place that appeals so much to today’s superhero comics reader… who, we should note, is basically the same comic-shop specialist that Marvel thought the Ultimate line was going to leave behind, if not outright transcend.
And the ending… well, I suppose you could argue that there might be five issues’ worth of interest or value in this “prelude” series, but to me, it just looks like little more than the introductory chapter to “Ultimatum” (I suppose they had to get around to using that title someday). There’s a new uber-cosmic herald introduced, with lashings of nostalgia for old-school Kree-Skrull fans. But we have to wait for the next series to see him actually do anything.
Even for a Bendis comic, this issue is fairly static; while Fury and his boys make some tough decisions with the open end of their guns, most of the rest of the book consists of Sue channeling Ultimate Uatu while Magneto and Xavier do the psychic phone-call thing. It certainly doesn’t play to Guice’s old-school strengths. He does get a nice splash page of Ultimate Universe headshots, with the old-school flavor of a Buscema or Romita Sr.: like them, Guice centers a male character’s power in his expressions and actions, not his pectorals, and a woman’s beauty in her face and hair, not boobs and butt. But there’s just not enough in this comic that will remind anyone of just how good the guy can be.
There’s a good chance that you already know more about the new Ultimate Universe than I do, since I’m something of a spoiler-phobe, and don’t even read Previews much. It’s possible that Marvel’s deck-clearing will pave the way for something genuinely new and different. But I doubt it. Fond though I am of Ultimate Spider-Man and The Ultimates, the continued presence of Bendis, and the return of Millar, sounds more like a grab at past glories than a new direction. Adding Loeb into the mix doesn’t do much for me, either, particularly since it’s hard to figure just where he fits: Bendis and Millar may use him for a sounding board, but I don’t get the feeling that either of those guys is likely to tailor his work to someone else’s vision.
As I say, Marvel’s got a unique chance here to really shake up the sandbox, and find new ways to play with these decades-old toys. They’re a pretty canny bunch, though: if they miss the opportunity, it will likely be because not enough of us voted with our wallets for them to do so.
Two and a half out of five Vikings.
Posted by Jeb on October 14, 2008
(Wildstorm/America’s Best Comics)
Top Ten was a perfect little gem of a miniseries, possibly the best thing to come out of Alan Moore’s ABC imprint, and given that that group includes The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Promethea, that’s really saying something. But Top Ten was one of the most tightly plotted and elegant 12-issue arcs I’ve ever seen, packed to the brim with innovative characters and concepts, along with enough plot material to support dozens more issues. However, the story was more or less wrapped up, with the exception of a couple of dangling plot threads that were continued in the Smax spinoff series, and a since Moore bailed on ABC shortly after that was finished, that would have seemed to be that. As much as I would have liked to have seen more, I wasn’t hugely upset—let the original series stand alone, I say. (OK, there was the aforementioned Smax, and The 49ers “prequel” series, both penned by Moore, but as far as I’m concerned those are both sufficiently different that it didn’t really feel like they interfered with the self-contained nature of the original.)
So it’s a little puzzling that we’ve now had two attempts at continuing the franchise without Moore. The first, “Beyond the Furthest Precinct”, came out a few years ago, and while it wasn’t awful, it felt a bit off—Moore’s twisted humour was a big part of the original series, but it also had heart, something that BtFP seemed to lack. I actually bailed on it after a couple of issues, not feeling like I was missing anything.
Now, even more strangely, we’ve got an official “Season Two” that seems to be completely ignoring BtFP ever existed. The pedigree is pretty good this time around: Moore may not be involved, but original series artists and co-creators Zander Cannon (with his brother Kevin) and Gene Ha are the writers and artist, respectively, so you’ve got to figure that’s the closest we’re going to get to recapturing the magic of the original, right?
The plot appears to be set during the same timeframe as “Smax”, with only a short period of time separating it from the events of the final issue of Season One. The betrayal and death of police commissioner Ultima is still in the very recent past, and a new commissioner has been brought in, a by-the-book sort who promises to make life miserable for the Tenth Precinct. Tough broad Irma Geddon is still mourning her old partner, Girl One, and of course, Smax and Toybox are taking a vacation in Smax’s home dimension. A new character is also introduced: Slipstream Phoenix, a boy scout with the look of King Tut’s sarcophagus, who causes immediate resentment among the Top Tenners. And, naturally, there’s a shocking crime that kicks the overarcing plot (the sudden discovery of a load of bodies in the fountain in front of the precinct), plus lots of smaller stuff, both significant and mundane.
There’s no denying that the Cannons get the feel of the characters better than Paul Di Fillipo and Jerry Ordway, the team that did BtFP, and the continuity is a lot less jarring, since we’re following directly from the first series. But, surprisingly, Cannon & Cannon miss the mark on a crucial aspect of the storytelling: Moore modeled the original Top Ten on Hill St. Blues, with the same fractured, complex plot arcs, and the same resolute refusal to tie everything up neatly. The comic did a terrific job of capturing the feel of a complicated, chaotic world where there were always dozens of things happening at any given moment, and the story didn’t always have time to slow down to give them all equal weight. Important plot points and emotional arcs would often be resolved in passing, shoved to the background, or even moved completely off-page, which is what made the series so dense and rewarding. In contrast, this new series feels far more narratively conventional, attempting to weigh in on a handful of plotlines and, as a result, pushing a lot of the more memorable characters of the first run into the background–Hyperdog and King Peacock only have cameos, and I didn’t see Joe Pi at all.
To be fair, the Cannons don’t completely miss the boat on this—there’s still a feeling of bustle and lives intersecting—but it’s hard to picture the original series giving space to Slipstream’s moaning about his daddy issues. The whole point of the original series is that cops don’t usually get a lot of time for emotional resolution—they’re too busy doing their jobs.
Still, this is undeniably a good fit for anyone who was desperate for more Top Ten. But when the bar has been set so high, sometimes continuing to climb isn’t a great idea.
3.5 out of 5 Vikings
Posted by Jeb on September 25, 2008
(Marvel)
It’s Magneto Month at Marvel! (I suppose I should really follow that with “True Believers!”).
As I’ve mentioned before, there are big gaps in my X-Men reading (pretty much all of the 90’s, for starters), so my knowledge of Magneto’s background was limited to the fact that he’d been retconned many years back into being a Holocaust survivor with a megalomaniacal vision of mutantkind’s future. I found it interesting, then, to read Greg Pak’s note at the back of the first issue of Magneto: Testament, and discover that, evidently, no one at Marvel knew that much more about the guy, either–at least not for certain. Various ideas and interpretations have popped up over the years, but nothing solid. That’s about to change, as Pak and artist Carmine Di Giandomenico set down what I presume will become the definitive Magneto origin.
I’m normally not big on origin stories (particularly those retrofitted years after a character’s initial appearance); among other things, a bit of ambiguity and mystery is often what makes a character attractive and interesting in the first place. But there’s more going on here than just letting us know how and why Mags became Mags. In fact, what Pak has done here is to use Magneto’s relation to the Holocaust to craft a sobering look at growing up in Hitler’s Germany.
We meet young Max Eisenhardt in 1935, sticking out like a woefully sore thumb with his dark complexion and sharp features among his Aryan-perfect classmates. His attempts to keep up with them seem particularly hopeless in the area of athletics, until he finds one sport where he can excel… with perhaps a foreshadowing of his mutant abilities? No matter, as it’s made painfully clear to him that no “Jewish scum” will be allowed to enjoy his triumphs in the new world of the Third Reich. His family has it no better, as we see his father beaten and shamed for daring to marry a “pure” German woman. The Germany that once welcomed men of any ethnicity willing to fight in the Great War, is being transformed into a place where, as Max’s grandfather demands, “Is there no more room for us in the land of Goethe and Schilling and Beethoven and Mendelssohn?” Young Max’s path to his future as Magneto is clearly not going to be a pleasant one.
Pak’s scripting is sensitive and well-researched, and seems to foreshadow an interesting comparison between the Nazi notions of racial purity, and the mutant-power agenda that we will see from the adult Magneto in the future (and, no, I have no idea how they explain the fact that he should be eighty-something today; don’t much care either). This is powerful subject matter, and if none of it is exactly “news”, it’s also a tale that, sadly, never gets really old.
The art by Di Giandomenico and colorist Matt Hollingsworth is quite striking, resembling a beautiful water-color children’s book more than typical superhero storytelling; character faces, in particular, owe as much to Maurice Sendak as any other artist I can think of.
In a way, this is somewhat reminiscent of the recent Hyperion-Nighthawk miniseries, where Marc Guggenheim used a superhero showdown to highlight the desperate situation in Darfur. Pak’s history lesson here, though, is less didactic than cautionary: he’s not urging government action on the ground; rather, he’s reminding us that the comic-book “evil” that Magneto will grow to embody is as nothing compared to the true horrors that man inflicts on his fellow man every day.
So… remember House of M? Alternate reality where mutants were in charge, and Magneto was King of Spain? Uh huh. Ever wonder just how he GOT to be on top? No, me neither. Sorry to say, but this is one of those “what if?” questions that I tend to answer “who cares?”
Writer Christos Gage moves us briskly through the young-Magneto part of the story, with strong echoes of the opening of the first X-Men film, taking us more or less straight into the prime of his leadership of the mutant community. In the course of events, Magneto essays a partnership with Apocalpyse that inevitably turns sour, and Gage attempts to use the contrast between the two to give us the Magneto-Apocalypse axis as the House of M equivalent of Xavier-Magneto in the regular Marvel U. From there, we get the roll call of Sentinels, superpowers, a few familiar mutant name-checks, and an interesting new slant on Magneto’s powers that would make him virtually invincible if followed to its logical extreme.
Honestly, if you’re an X junkie, you may enjoy this stroll down an altered version of memory lane. Certainly Andrea DiVito brings his A game to the art. But I find it hard to get motivated about backstory to an alternative reality that took place about three major “events” ago. Plus I’m docking it a half-Viking for its cheesy use of “Civil War” in the title.
Magneto: Testament: 
House of M: Civil War
Posted by Jeb on September 17, 2008
(Boom! Studios)
Stephen King may have had H.P. Lovecraft in mind when he observed that visual representations of horror will always fall short of the picture an author can create in our mind: that when something monstrous lurks behind a door, seeing it on film or in an illustration will always bring that sense of “Oh… well, I can handle that– it’s not as bad as I thought it would be,” whereas when you picture it in your mind, it’s EXACTLY as bad as you thought it would be. And while that’s worth bearing in mind for horror fiction in general, it’s particularly applicable to Lovecraft, whose stories are not about the horror of the unknown, so much as the horror of the unknowable: any sense that man has control of his universe is purely illusory, and any attempt to define its true workings leads only to madness. And despite the best efforts of his well-intentioned fans down the decades since his death, he didn’t set out to create an otherwordly menagerie of reptilian beings, but a representation of forces too alien for comprehension.
Which, by definition, is not something one can draw a picture of.
But faced with the availability of a marketable name like Lovecraft, veteran writer William Messner-Loebs turns to the task at hand and crafts a fairly engaging starting point: in the 1920’s, young Arab Henry Said is sent by his father to the United States to acquire an education that will allow him to return home and help his poverty-stricken people. Naturally, he finds himself at Lovecraft’s Miskatonic University (such familiar names as Arkham and Innsmouth are also name-checked), where he falls in with a group of mystics seeking good ol’ Abdul Alhazard’s titular book. But what begins as a period mystery gets rushed into becoming a monster movie, as those familiar tentacle faces put in their appearance. There’s nothing particularly wrong with them as bad guys (Disney lifted the look whole for Davy Jones), but there’s hardly that sense of the ineffable that is what makes Lovecraft worth reading.
If the art for the book matched the story, I’d probably give this one a mild recommendation. But to my eyes, artist Andrew Ritchie (whose previous work I don’t know at all) doesn’t even reach that level of passable genre entertainment that Messner-Loebs brings to the script. The art here has a two-dimensional flatness presented with the stiffness of a woodcut, and the anatomical relationships sometimes make Rob Liefeld look like DaVinci. There are places here and there where that effect can give a kind of nightmare quality (that is, ironically, what’s principally missing from the script), but there’s never a base or reference point for contrast: too often, a weirdly-drawn head is just a weirdly-drawn head. It’s kind of fascinating at the beginning, but tiring by the end.
The idea of Henry Said becoming a fish-out-of-water Indiana Jones is engaging enough, but tying him to the well-trod paths of the Cthulu mythos just feels limiting for him, and reductive for Lovecraft. In future, I’d enjoy seeing Messner-Loebs take the character in a direction of his own (preferably with a different artist).
Posted by Jeb on September 16, 2008
(Marvel)
I know there are comics fans who regard Brian Reed as a video-game guy that sucked up to Brian Bendis and rode his coattails to a gig with Marvel; the fact that many of his high-profile comics have been co-written with Bendis doesn’t help that impression.
For his first solo outing, with character renewal the order of the day at Marvel, Reed was given a new Ms. Marvel monthly book (a good year or so before Bendis incorporated her into the Mighty Avengers), and handed the tricky task of trying to find some reason for her to exist. That’s only slightly a joke-while Marvel’s managed to create some high-profile female characters in teams like the Fantastic Four, Avengers, and X-Men, they’ve never really made a go of having a superheroine succeed in her own title over the long term (not that things are all that much different at DC: Catwoman’s been cancelled again, Supergirl gets rebooted/restarted every few years, no one’s reading Manhunter, and there was a time when only fear of losing the copyright kept DC publishing an ongoing Wonder Woman title). His job was complicated by the work of his mentor: the version of Carol Danvers that appeared in Bendis’ Alias was so strong (and so impossible to reproduce in the all-ages Marvel Universe) that Reed would always be operating in that shadow: trying to reconcile the capable and independent survivor that Bendis had written with the silky-maned blonde in the hooker outfit that was bursting out of Frank Cho’s covers.
Colorful superhero fun, thoughtful explorations of modern female celebrity, and half-naked babes aren’t the easiest combination to pull off, and Reed’s Ms. Marvel series has sometimes felt as though he’s trying to cram a decade’s worth of character development into a few story arcs, resulting in some jarring changes of tone (I’d mention the negative impact of several artist changes, but it’s more and more clear that’s something we’re just going to have to live with from the Big 2). Still, he’s been willing to take chances, and try and make Carol flawed enough to be realistic; in fact, he’s sometimes pushed her all the way to unlikable, a chancy move that seems to have paid off (well, artistically-the book’s hardly a top seller).
Of course, it’s possible that we’re detecting Bendis’ hand there, too, since he’s shaped Carol’s characterization in Mighty Avengers in the same direction, but either way, I think it works: female superheroines are too often located on the extreme of either bitch or madonna. Ms. Marvel, on the other hand, comes off as a working professional, projecting the doubts and difficulties that come with leadership-and, in particular, leadership at the service of an unpopular regime (true, many in the Marvel U supported the Superhero Registration Act, but opposition to it is clearly at the heart of a lot of current Marvel storytelling).I’m not saying that Carol’s literally a stand-in for American soldiers fighting an unpopular war, but in the tenor of the times, that reading’s not as far off as it might seem.
Given that, I was surprised that this Annual, rather than continuing to explore those aspects of Ms. Marvel, is basically an old-fashioned issue of Marvel Team-Up. Doubtless the inclusion of Spider-Man is designed to bring more attention to Ms. Marvel’s series, but the fact is, Peter’s clearly the protagonist in the story, with Carol playing straight woman to Spider-Man in what is nominally her book, snapping and snarling at his jokes like a blond, airborne J. Jonah Jameson.
The story takes place in between Civil War and Secret Invasion. Pete’s swinging around, worrying about running errands for Aunt May and laundering his costume, when he’s smacked out of the air by Ms. Marvel (or, as he calls her, “the leader of the dorky Avengers”), ready to run him in as an unregistered superhero. Well, of course, conflict ensues, heroes fight, a greater menace emerges, they put aside their differences…
Yeah, there’s a by-the-numbers quality to it, but Reed’s Spider-Man is completely engaging and funny, in a way that has only recently returned to being the standard at the House of Ideas (Ms. Marvel: “Don’t you ever shut up?” Spidey: “You know, it is really weird how often I get asked that question.”). And given that she’s almost a guest star in her own Annual, Reed lets Carol hold her own: her conviction that she’s on the right side of Registration never falters, even when she and Peter team up. The book is dialogue-heavy, in the mode of classic Marvel, but it’s mostly character stuff (and good jokes!), not sloggy exposition, so it never feels intrusive.
I also like the fact that Carol’s exasperation and short temper aren’t simply shorthand for “irrational female,” but grounded in Reed’s development of her character as a woman working through the difficulties of breaking the superhero version of the glass ceiling. And the baddies are a fairly clever construction.
This is also a story that points up just what Marvel was hoping to achieve with the reset button of One More Day: Spidey’s halfway-ironic flirting with Carol is highly entertaining (and fuels a great joke that ends the book), but would have felt out of place if he were still married (not an endorsement of reboots, by the way: just an observation of how Marvel’s putting this one to work).
Artist Mark A. Robinson’s style is a little more angular-cartoony than I generally enjoy, with every facial expression an extreme, and it’s sometimes hard to tell just how old he thinks Carol is. But he does Spidey in motion with much of the flair of Romita or Bagley, and there’s super-powered mayhem aplenty that he manages to keep fresh and fun. And one big damn robot.
Those who believe that a return to kid-friendly done-in-one stories is the solution to increasing comics readership need to take a close look at a book like this one. On the one hand, it serves as a pleasant, entertaining change of pace. On the other, apart from Peter’s bon mots, and the splashy action scenes, it’s certainly not going to stick with a reader in the way that the ongoing plotting and intrigue of, say, Daredevil or Captain America can. Personally, I think the industry needs to maintain balance between the two, but I’ll agree that stories like this one to tend to be in the minority.
This book would be very easy to over-praise, particularly with everyone today complaining about “event fatigue” (while they drive Secret Invasion to the top of the charts); it hasn’t much in the way of what one would call gravitas. But it is a whole lot of fun, and while I tend to be suspicious of those fans who seem to think that “fun” has to be synonymous with “inconsequential,” this really is a book that any fan of superhero comics is likely to enjoy to one degree or another.
Posted by Jeb on September 9, 2008
(Marvel)
When Marvel changed the Marvel Knights imprint to feature “out-of-continuity” stories, I didn’t pay that much attention, assuming that it would just mean that Spider-Man could meet the Green Goblin now and then without having to explain why Norman Osborne’s neglecting his duties with The Thunderbolts. And to be honest, I have no idea how much (if any) of the Marvel stuff I’ve read over the past couple of years fell under this banner. I have to say, though, I certainly didn’t expect to see anything quite like this miniseries. The biggest problem with reviewing this comic is that a tremendous amount of the fun is in the sense of discovery one gets reading it, and even detailing the basic plot will spoil some of its charm. I can say that writer Peter Milligan and artist Esad Ribic have drawn inspiration not so much from Lee and Kirby as from Jack London, Conan Doyle, Stephen King, and even a dash of Joss Whedon, crafting a story of the terrors that await man in the darkest depths of the ocean. In particular, Ribic’s paints, ranging from a bright world of exploration to claustrophobic horror aboard a submarine, just continue Marvel’s amazing recent run of eye-popping art. I’m not particularly a big fan of Subby, and I really only took a look at this for the creative team, but I’m hooked. I think you will be, too.
Posted by Jeb on September 8, 2008
(Marvel Icon)
Given the glacial pace at which most film adaptations move, where we can wait years, or even decades, for a popular comic book to reach the big screen, I’m fascinated by the lightning speed with which the film version of Mark Millar and John Romita Jr.’s Kick-Ass is moving forward. As issue #3 was hitting the stands, Matthew Vaughn was announced as director, and by the time #4 came out, Nic Cage was onboard and filming had begun. So, I figured it was time to take another look at the comic itself.
Issue #4 picks up right at the end of #3, where Dave Lizewski’s misguided experiment at becoming a superhero has him at the mercy of a brutal drug gang, only to find himself rescued by a young girl dressed in her own makeshift caped costume, and wielding an enormous sword. This issue opens with her dispatching the rest of the drug gang, spilling buckets of gore and spreading body bits everywhere, and I’d guess that Millar was already envisioning the film when he wrote this: no one’s paying much attention to a comic that sells, what, 60 or 70,000 copies to direct-market comics buyers; but next year, when a 10-year-old actress is laying out this kind of bloody, foul-mouthed mayhem all over America’s cineplexes… well, it doesn’t take much imagination to picture the outraged editorials, think pieces, and boycotts (along with the massive attendant publicity, though I suspect the outrage alone would be enough for Millar). This issue also introduces us to Cage’s character, and continues to explore Dave’s uncomfortable gay imposture in an effort to remain close to the girl of his dreams. And there’s more blood, with much more in the offing (I get the feeling Romita’s having a blast with this). Also, for those keeping score at home, it offers one of the first overt references to the connection that’s evidently going to join this book to Millar’s (far superior) 1985, Wolverine and Fantastic Four runs.
I‘m always amused by Mark Millar’s unabashed Stan Lee-like hucksterism, and have enjoyed many (though hardly all) of his comics, so I’m not quite sure just why Kick-Ass is leaving me cold: after all, in some ways, it’s the apotheosis of his obsession with modern celebrity, and self-made celebrity, culture. I think what I’m missing here is any sense of perspective. The Ultimates showed me familiar characters through a lens I hadn’t seen used before, and there seemed a point to doing so. Here, I just don’t feel any connection with Dave or his world. Ultimate Captain America had a purpose; Dave Lizewski is an uninteresting dork. It’s not a generational thing: there’s nothing exactly revolutionary about the occasional Youtube or Facebook reference in today’s comics, and if I can relate to something like Adam Warren’s Livewires, I don’t think my problem here is creeping fogeyism. It’s that this world that Millar and Romita have created doesn’t seem any more “real” to me than the Marvel or DC universes typically do: Ed Brubaker’s Captain America series takes place in an environment that feels at least as connected to modern life as Kick-Ass does, and it’s peopled with more interesting characters.
One of Millar’s more famous recent broadsides was his contention that the movies are about to strip-mine comics so completely that the only guys left doing comics would be the ones who weren’t good enough to entice Hollywood, so we’d all quit reading comics, and that would be that for the Big 2. And that’s probably why Kick-Ass moved so seamlessly to its green light: it reads like a blueprint for that manifesto, a story that might make for an effective, bloody, quick-hitting 100-minute movie for the audiences that ate up Wanted. But as a comic, for me, it pales next to the best work these guys have done in the past (or are doing now–see current issues of Fantastic Four or Amazing Spider-Man).
The question now: is this how Millar’s doomsday prophecy becomes self-fulfilling?
Posted by Jeb on September 3, 2008
(Marvel)
I suppose it had to happen. In the wake of the conclusion of Strangers in Paradise, Terry Moore has come on strong with both his new creator-owned series Echo, and the first issue of his run on Marvel’s Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane, resolving any doubts about his ability to move on from the relationship comic that made his name. But I fear that the third time’s not exactly a charm: his initial issue kicks off the new series of Runaways in a highly disappointing style.
I’ll admit that a large part of my score for this issue has to do with my expectations, and the book’s potential, but there was ample reason for both to be high indeed. Not only is Moore a tremendously talented writer, but Runaways was almost unique: a completely new set of characters set in one of the Big Two universes with a compelling storyline that stood on its own. Yeah, there was the occasional nod to the rest of the Marvel U or big-name guest star, but at a time when comic writers and artists are saving their most original ideas for the creator-owned market, it was as though writer Brian K. Vaughan and artist Adrian Alphona had given Marvel fans a very special gift.
Not ALL Marvel fans, though. The series never sold well in individual issues (though the “digest-size” repackagings seemed to rack up numbers that Marvel was happy with). That was all going to change last year, though, when Joss Whedon signed on for a six-issue stint, his name alone promising the kind of sales excitement that had sent his Buffy and Astonishing X-Men high up the charts.
And, to be sure, the numbers for Whedon’s first issue of Runaways were miles ahead of where the book had been before. Unfortunately, like other writers with fingers in too many media pies (paging Frank Miller! Damon Lindlehof!), Whedon simply couldn’t turn in the scripts in a timely fashion, causing the six issues to drag on for what felt like six years. And that’s particularly disappointing, since those six issues, with stunning art by Michael Ryan, may actually have brought the series to its imaginative peak (for heaven’s sake, pick up the trade if you haven’t already).
Not sure the folks at Marvel saw it that way, though. Or maybe they’re just hedging their bets against a major dropoff in interest with Whedon’s departure. But by slapping a new #1 on this issue, it seems that Marvel’s not only trying to grab those folks who’ll buy the first issue of anything, but to “reassure” new readers that they can jump on here and skip what came before: including some of the most entertaining stories, and effective character development, that either of the Big Two have seen from a superhero book in years.
Yeah, I get the idea that every single comic issue is potentially someone’s first. But I don’t think that means you have to ignore everything that went before, for fear that new readers will be confused. Frankly, I think they’d be more confused by the fact that there’s nothing distinctive or interesting about this particular group of teens. I wouldn’t have wanted entire pages recapping the various adventures that shaped the dynamics of the team, but I’d like Moore to have made me feel that the investment I’ve put into getting to know the Runaways hasn’t been wasted.
Moore also plays it pretty safe with the storyline, as the old chestnut of one of the kids being hunted by aliens (in the presumably mistaken belief that she destroyed their planet) gets hauled out, along with some silliness involving their having to break in to a safe house, and mysterious happenings around an L.A. “shock-jock.” Not saying Moore won’t eventually make any of this compelling, but I’d like to have felt more of a need to keep reading right out of the box.
Some (most?) of the blame for this may rest with artist Humberto Ramos, who really makes you feel like we’re starting all over again. I’m not his biggest fan in the first place, but he’s made the Runaways virtually unrecognizable here… or, maybe, too recognizable: they look like the kind of cartoon caricatures that street artists charge five bucks for down on Fisherman’s Wharf. It’s all exaggeration, bulging eyes, gaping mouths, and interchangeable body types: Japanese stylings borrowed for their surface, not any real sense of structure. I guess it’s OK for the action sequences, but otherwise, I find it pretty offputting. And it’s not like cartoon versions of these characters can’t work: for comparison, take a look at the wit and restraint that Skottie Young employed with a similar approach in the X-Men/Runaways FCBD book a couple years back.
I doubt, though, that Ramos is wholly to blame: my guess is that this manga-lite compromise is what Marvel thinks will draw in the hip kids who like to read their comics right to left, and Ramos delivers.
It’s funny– for the first couple of years of Runaways, I pretty much bought the book for the scripts: I frankly found Alphona’s art work a bit stiff (and I liked it better when I’d occasionally see it in black and white, as the coloring seemed to darken and muddy it even further). When Whedon came aboard, I enjoyed his scripting (naturally), but was completely knocked out by the brightness and energy of Michael Ryan’s art. And, as I say, Skottie Young’s distinctive approach was entertaining (for one story, anyway). But what Ramos brings to the table has none of Alphona’s subtlety, Ryan’s detail, or Young’s imagination. And while I’d love to give Moore a chance to demonstrate that he has a better grip on this series than this first issue would suggest, I just don’t know that I can get past the art enough to keep trying.
Posted by Jeb on August 27, 2008
(Marvel)
As torch-passings go, this one’s been pretty quiet. I think many of us imagined Garth Ennis wrapping up his run on The Punisher with an apocalyptic finale, to be followed by an issue or two from one of Marvel’s big-gun crime writers (Bendis and Brubaker, for example, are among the best in the biz) to provide some buzz and sales boost, and offset the disappointment of Ennis’ departure. Instead, before we here at Rack Raids even got our heads around #60, the sendoff to both Ennis and artist Goran Parlov, here comes #61, featuring the first of their successor teams, veteran crime novelist Gregg Hurwitz and artist Laurence Campbell.
Of course, it’s been obvious for the past few months that Ennis had something different in mind for the end of his run than the explosive bloodbath many of us were expecting. The key to this last storyline, “Valley Forge, Valley Forge,” was the conspirators’ belief that the one enemy Frank Castle could never bring himself to kill was soldiers of the United States Army, and while the past few issues haven’t lacked for action, it’s mostly been a matter of Frank cleverly managing to incapacitate the GI’s sent after him, short of killing. And, sure enough, in #59, we saw how that cost him his freedom, leaving him helpless in the power of his enemies… or almost. Because the corrupt generals who determined to save their skins by bringing Frank down entrusted the job to a man of conscience, and with Colonel Howe now in control of Frank’s fate, Ennis’ Punisher story comes full circle, linking this storyline with the Born miniseries, as well as stirring echoes from many of the past 59 issues.
If this final story arc has a weakness, it’s the lack of integration of the text piece that flows through it: as a précis of the mistakes of Vietnam, it’s rather bland compared with the deeply personal vision of The Punisher himself. With Ennis having shown us Frank’s birth in Vietnam, he couldn’t bring the story to a close with anything short of the bitterness and helpless fury that the war still clearly evokes in Ennis himself. As a conclusion, it leaves us in no doubt that the cathartic violence of a Frank Castle is a puny weapon compared with the evil within the human soul, or the sense of honor and duty that can, all too rarely, transcend it.
The first thing to note about issue #61 is that Hurwitz and Campbell are really in a no-win situation: hewing closely to Ennis’ approach, or diverging from it, are equally likely to bring criticism from this book’s faithful (based on the sales figures, almost maniacally so) readership. I think that Ennis pretty much decided that for them, though: “Valley Forge, Valley Forge” was so thoroughly tied in to Ennis’ vision of Vietnam, and the questions of moral responsibility that remain unanswered in its wake, that any other writer was going to have to regard that as a closed chapter and move on.
So, in issue #61, we’re almost meeting The Punisher for the first time all over again. I have no idea if Hurwitz or his successors have any plans to use any of the characters from Ennis’ run, but I would think it unlikely. What this issue gives us is not a continuation of the broad sweep and social indictment that fueled Ennis, but the beginning of a down-and-dirty crime tale that bleeds elements of the classic Western.
Part of that is due to the setting: a Mexican border town, ravaged by the kidnapping of its young women, none of whom ever return… alive. But in larger part it’s the role that’s been given Frank here: the man of his hands who can’t get involved with the problems of those weaker than he– see Destry Rides Again, Shane, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (or Mark Millar and Steve McNiven’s “Old Man Logan,” running currently in Wolverine). When the townspeople make contact with Frank, he turns them down because he’s not a hitman or bodyguard. And, at that point, we can plot the rest of the issue ourselves: the disappointed townsfolk cower in fear, one old man is bold enough to stand up to the predators, he is cut down mercilessly… and just as all hope is lost, there looms The Punisher, ready to take on evil in the name of the powerless.
That the book resists easy dismissal based on its time-worn plot is due largely to Campbell’s art (he did last year’s Punisher MAX Annual). He gives Frank’s interior dialogue shadings dark enough to mask some of the purple in Hurwitz’ prose, and his depiction of the old man who goes to his death to fight for what’s right is as shattering as it is predictable.
And we can’t pass over what might be the most jarring transition from the old team: Tim Bradstreet is no longer doing the iconic covers. Any replacement was going to be a difficult transition, but I have to say that Dave Johnson’s cover art here seems more suited to the Punisher War Journal book than Punisher MAX.
You’d be hard pressed to ask for a more complete break with Ennis’ version of The Punisher than the one Hurwitz gives us here: hard-boiled genre variations don’t seem to be the sort of thing that holds Ennis’ attention.. On the other hand, Hurwitz is very proficient with the conventions of the genre, and knows Frank well enough that The Punisher doesn’t seem out of place here. Last year, Hurwitz turned out a tough, tense, blood-soaked MAX revival of Marvel’s Foolkiller, and readers of his novels know he’s got the chops. I’m guessing that future issues of this run won’t be as easy to predict as this first one was.
Punisher #60:
Punisher #61:
Posted by Jeb on August 25, 2008
(Marvel)
No offense to the folks that enjoy them, but I really don’t need any more of these Marvel Origin/Mythos type stories– I was reading the damn X-Men when the “origin” actually took place, thank you very much, and I just don’t get much out of these revamped retellings. But after seeing an online preview of the first few pages of this comic, I had to check this one out… and holy hell, is Mike Mayhew’s art impressive. His work here is right up there with Bryan Hitch’s Fantastic Four and Chris Weston’s The Twelve as the best superhero art I’ve seen so far this year. I’ve always enjoyed Mayhew’s covers (Magneto as the King of Spain was a pretty good joke, and I loved all his She-Hulk stuff), but wasn’t at all prepared for the quality of his sequential work. The paneling and layout are both imaginative and logical, and his command of facial expression is nearly the equal of Terry Moore’s. The book doesn’t lack for impressive action scenes, either, and for an artist to actually get me to enjoy a Danger Room scene is no small feat. In a way, X-Men Origins: Jean Grey suggests to me the sort of effect Greg Land is striving for, but without the pornface and runway posing and spot-the-celebrity references. And within the limitations of this kind of book, Sean McKeever does a good job with the script, presenting a version of Jean Grey’s youth and eventual arrival at Xavier’s school that mixes established canon, bits from the movies, and a new storyline that gives her a tragic underpinning that seems completely unnecessary, though well laid out. Even if you share my lack of interest in yet another version of how Charles Xavier recruited the X-Men, you really should take a look at this comic.
4 out of 5 Vikings
Posted by Jeb on August 23, 2008
(IDW)
David Mamet has called Galaxy Quest “a perfect film,” and while he was principally referring to its structure, there’s no question that it’s an amazing once-in-a-lifetime movie that’s equal parts loving tribute to, and wicked satire of, the original Star Trek TV series. It’s a touchstone favorite film for several families that I know, and has proved endlessly rewatchable both for folks (like my wife and myself) who were young and impressionable tykes at the time of the series’ original airing, as well as those (like our daughter) who’d never seen (or expressed any interest in) Star Trek. If any film comedy of the last few years deserves to be considered a classic, it’s Galaxy Quest.
I’ve rarely been so surprised, then, as to have seen a review or two of this comic which revealed that the critics hadn’t actually seen the movie of Galaxy Quest: I’d have thought it was every bit as much essential viewing for the comic/genre fan as the Terminator or Star Wars films.
On the odd chance that any similar benighted fans are reading this, Galaxy Quest (the movie) is the story of the washed-up cast of a long-dead sci-fi TV series, whose lives are changed (and, incidentally, careers revived!) by their accidental involvement in a galactic war (a synopsis that doesn’t even begin to describe the wit and charm of the film).
The comic picks up some time after the movie ends, and fudges things a bit. While the end of the film [spoiler ahead!] seems to show us a revived “Galaxy Quest” series hitting TV, the comic opens with a classic “Star Trek” crisis moment, including the various analogues of Kirk, Spock, etc. Turns out, though, that what we’re seeing is not a “real” adventure, but a new pilot that the cast hopes will actually revive the still-dormant series, leaving the original film’s promise of a “happy ending” still very much up in the air.
Most of the rest of the issue introduces new readers to the “Galaxy Quest” cast, with little character moments to sketch out the key relationships and conflicts among these actors. Writer Scott Lobdell does a good job of covering key points for new readers (and he nicely captures the overblown Roddenberry-style melodrama and portentous dialogue in the introductory TV pilot segment), but fans of the movie more or less have to be content with this issue as a reunion with old friends, since the actual storyline (involving separate crises for their careers, and their planet) doesn’t really get moving till the last couple of pages. These days, though, I suppose that’s to be expected: in the extended trade-paperback story structure, first issues really do serve as little more than introductions.
The script’s not as successful emulating the film’s ability to mine humor out of the improbable situation (and the prickly relationships among the cast members), with a few one-liners here and there, but the only really big laughs coming in the over-the-top excerpt of the TV pilot. Part of that, I think, is inherent in the nature of the translation: jokes that can be effectively conveyed with a raised eyebrow or smart line delivery in a film can appear flat and formulaic when simply laid out in a word balloon.
The art by Ilias Kyriazis is brisk and cartoony (not unlike Tony Moore’s work on Fear Agent), though I presume (hope?) that IDW didn’t pony up for the rights to use the actual faces of Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver, and the rest, since the characters in this book look nothing like them. It’s serviceable, but unremarkable.
I’d have to say that, whether you’re a fan of the film, or a newcomer to the property, this might be one to trade-wait. If Lobdell and Kyriazis have a trick or two up their sleeves to kick the storytelling up a notch, there’s potential in Galaxy Quest. But if the level of mild amusement on display in this first issue is to be the tone from here on out, I’d probably give it a miss.
Two and a Half out of Five Vikings
Posted by Jeb on August 20, 2008
(Marvel)
Given that comic book sales figures are based on advance orders, and thus reflective of reader anticipation rather than actual reader response, it would seem likely that much of the success of Marvel’s Secret Invasion event has been the elegant simplicity of its premise: “Anyone might be the enemy. Who can you trust?” And as the core story of the Skrull invasion plays out in the main title, it’s left to the inevitable ancillary books to offer alternative views of, or shed light on, the central storyline while still functioning as standalone tales. In the past, these spinoff minis have often served as proving grounds for new talent; for Secret Invasion, though, Marvel’s brought out a number of pretty big guns, and given them enough storytelling leeway that the resulting books are more than just grace notes, or dangling appendages, to the main series, but worthwhile on their own merits.
One of Marvel’s best recent moves was taking Thor off the board for a couple of years, then bringing him back in an engaging and imaginative new series from J. Michael Straczynski and Oliver Coipel. Given their unique take on the character (as well as Asgard’s potential to unbalance the forces arrayed against the Skrulls and bring the war to a sudden, screeching halt), I had wondered if this mini would serve as anything more than a holding action to explain just why Thor and company aren’t jumping into the fray. Writer Matt Fraction ignores that, sending the Skrulls hurtling headlong into collision with godly forces, but with a story surprisingly filled with more heart and intrigue than you’d expect in 22 pages of spinoff. He takes immediately to Don Blake, defining this human aspect of the Thunder God quickly and deftly. He also picks up the threads of Straczynski’s ongoing series smoothly, and brings back one of the most beloved characters in the series’ history. Doug Braithewaite gives us an Asgard of somewhat rougher texture than we’re used to (perhaps fitting since the place currently resides above Oklahoma), with a gritty power that’s more Buscema than Kirby. And don’t be surprised if the events of this story wind up having implications on the Marvel U past the three issues of this miniseries.
The Inhumans spinoff works almost in reverse from that of Thor: instead of events that will shape the Marvel Universe in the future, we step back for a glimpse at a hidden link from the Illuminati to World War Hulk to the Secret Invasion itself. Heroes writer Joe Pokaski doesn’t get as far under the skin of the Inhumans as Fraction does the Asgardians, and so far his story’s a pretty straightforward “Who do you trust?” outing, with the usual banter and bickering among Gorgon and the gang, and lashings of mad ambition from good old Maximus. But I can never get enough of the Inhumans, and the last panel raises enough questions that readers who want to know more about the Skrull invasion will be intrigued to pick up the next issue… if Tom Raney’s gorgeous art hasn’t already sold them. He has the Inhumans down pat (you’ll swear the guy has been waiting his whole career to draw Medusa’s hair), and also uses a neat trick of showing the religious/spiritual foundations of the conflict between Skrull and Kree (progenitors of the Inhumans) as a series of stained glass windows.
And who else might we expect to explore the religious side of the conflict than Lucifer creator Mike Carey? The Skrull fleet that hits San Francisco in issue #1 of the X-Men spinoff is blessed by a “soul shepherd” and assured by its leader that by participating in the war, the soldiers are already “saints.” Still, Carey doesn’t wade too deeply in these waters. He brings on the X-Men (newly relocated to the Bay Area), and steps aside to let Cary Nord and Dave McCaig deliver the most deliriously giddy action scenes that any of the Secret Invasion books have seen so far. This issue is an absolute riot of color and spectacle, with the feel of the best of the Claremont-Byrne epics, but leading into issue #2 on notes of darkness, and despair, that are earned, not forced.
As you might expect, you can follow Secret Invasion just fine without having read any of these books. What you might not have expected is that all three series promise to be satisfying reads on their own, even if you never pick up the main title.
Secret Invasion: Thor. Three and a half Vikings
Secret Invasion: Inhumans. Three and a half Vikings
Secret Invasion: X-Men. Four Vikings
Posted by Jeb on August 14, 2008
(Marvel)
I have to admit that I never read an issue of the first volume of this series. Much as I respect Sean McKeever’s work, the idea of a modern-day “Archie” with superhero trappings and lashings of anime stylings left me pretty cold: after all, I figured that Joss Whedon has pretty much “done” the modern high school experience for me already. But new writer Terry Moore is among the top writers of relationship comics working today, and coming on the heels of the brilliant Strangers in Paradise (as well as his more recent, and quite entertaining, Echo), I figured I had to give it a shot; and if it’s not the revelation I’d somehow hoped it might be, it’s certainly not bad.
Again, not having read the first series, I don’t know where that left off, but Moore seems to be doing a kind of “soft reboot” here: the characters are already established, and know each other, but this first issue re-introduces the familiar supporting cast from Spidey’s high school days, with a few “up-to-date” twists. And “date” raises kind of an interesting question: given that this is, so far as I know, more or less “in-continuity,” then it should take place a decade or so ago (Mephisto may have made everyone forget the Parker-Watson marriage, but he didn’t erase the elapsed time… oh god–nerd alert for even knowing that!), which may explain the “Rico Suave” reference. On the other hand, it feels very contemporary (text-messaging is far more a given here than it would have been ten years ago), and is clearly geared toward bringing in younger readers. My guess is that it’s another example of Marvel allowing continuity to exist as something flexible, designed to serve the needs of the story at hand, and not vice-versa.
At any rate, the story kicks off with a highly entertaining dream sequence (says the reader who generally hates such things), and moves us into a “typical” day at school for MJ, Peter, and the rest. As I indicated, a lot of time is spent re-setting the scene and cast for us newcomers, but Moore deftly moves from there into the darker side of MJ’s personal life (a carryover from the movies, I presume, though I haven’t really kept up on Spider-Man continuity for a couple of decades). And while I don’t know how much of this was established before Moore came onboard, it’s certainly nice to see a superhero-girlfriend-secret identity triangle that doesn’t play out with the familiar beats of the Superman-Lois-Clark relationship.
I remain disappointed that Moore’s not doing the art (I know he’s focusing on Echo, but I can dream, can’t I?), but Craig Rousseau makes the familiar teen-with-manga-flavoring style feel fresh, and if he’s not Moore’s equal with the subtleties of facial expression (and few are), he still manages to keep the storytelling expressive.
About the “storytelling,” though… so far, there’s not a lot. I can’t really complain–character details that Stan Lee would have tossed off in a panel are here given room to breathe and grow–but it does mean that, as with so many series today, judgement may be best reserved for the collected edition. On its own, the first issue’s more promising than satisfying, but Moore fans know just how well he can deliver on a promise.
3 and a half out of 5 Vikings
Posted by Jeb on July 1, 2008
(Dark Horse)
“Know, O Prince, that the Chronicles of the warrior named Conan continue to fatten the coffers of Dark Horse Comics. But in latter days, the darkness of complacency fell upon its disciples, and in order to revive their allegiance, Conan the Barbarian was foully slain. Behold, then, the emergence of its successor: Conan the Cimmerian.” Not that I blame Dark Horse, mind you: if the comic-buying audience is more inclined to cough up their hard-earned cash for a book with a #0 or #1 on it than a #51, then why not give it to them? So, there’s now a new Conan title, introduced here with an adaptation of Robert E Howard’s poem (!), “Cimmeria,” interspersed with a typically bloody encounter between Conan and a band of Vanir marauders. Basically, though, this is just a continuation of Dark Horse’s careful managing of the Conan license: writer Tim Truman remains Kurt Busiek’s successor while artist Tomas Giorello continues the Frazetta stylings that have been the book’s trademark. I’m of two minds about the series: on the one hand, as I say, no one can fault Dark Horse’s stewardship of the property, or the care they’ve lavished on it. On the other hand, an ongoing series framed and signposted by stories as familiar as Howard’s Conan tales tends to feel as though it’s marking time as it moves in and out of adaptations of stories that have already been told and re-told (and are still available to be read in their original format): it becomes a kind of closed system, with less room for innovation (not as though that’s a hallmark of most comics anyway). But if you’ve a love for Conan of old, or if Dark Horse is providing your introduction to the character, you’ll be pleased to know that it’s business as usual here; but that’s business of a high order, indeed.
Posted by Jeb on
(Avatar)
What if Timothy Leary had formed the Justice League? Leave it to Warren Ellis to pose the question, in his latest collaboration (described as a “serial graphic novel”– wonder if that’s anything like a comic book?) with artist Juan Jose Ryp. This eight-page story (fleshed out with a half-dozen pages of text pieces and art) does a capable job of setting up another of Ellis’ alternative timelines, one in which a world that diverged from our own some decades ago comes under the “protection” of a group of chemically-manipulated superheroes. The brisk storytelling moves from the group’s inception, during the “Summer of Love” in San Francisco (well, technically, a year before it-1966) to a “present-day” 2011, when the costs of the program are beginning to be clear. “How much do you want to be a Super Human?” asks Ellis on the book’s cover and in the text pieces, and it’s clear that, in this world, you’d have to want it damned badly. Ellis and Ryp introduce us to Josh Carver, a tyro member of The Front Line (as the current incarnation of the heroes is called), inheritor of the mantle of Doctor Shift (an original member, now dead), who’s called upon to investigate what appears to be the grisly murder of one of the team. It’s not that simple (Ellis doesn’t do simple), and as Josh makes a terrible discovery, issue #0 comes to an explosive conclusion that’s certainly going to bring the reader back for issue #1. Ryp’s art, unsurprisingly, is reminiscent of his other collaboration with Ellis, Black Summer, and the two series make a ghastly, bloodstained matched pair. That’s pretty much what you need to know: if you’ve enjoyed Black Summer, you’ll want to give this a look. If you find Ellis’ darker places less appealing, there’s not a lot here that will change your mind.
Posted by Jeb on June 18, 2008
(Marvel)
It’s a sign of the respect that Marvel has for what Garth Ennis has accomplished with the Punisher MAX series that they’ve gone to the trouble of replacing him with an alternating team of three new writers, and have given us a bit of a preview with these one-shots: sort of an “audition” before they take over the regular book. Thus far we’ve seen Duane Swierczynski’s Force of Nature, and now crime novelist Victor Gischler turns in his first comic script in Little Black Book.
And Punisher one-shots are not something to be taken lightly: Ennis has set the bar awfully high. Not only are his regular series arcs like “Mother Russia” and “Barracuda” memorable, his stand-alone books like The Cell and The Tyger rank right up there with the best work he’s ever done. So the bar’s set pretty high for the new guys, and so far, I have to say that they’re two-for-two.
Unlike the seafaring Force of Nature, Little Black Book is set in more familiar Punisher territory: Frank Castle has forced a high-class call girl to serve as his reluctant entrée into the world of a high-flying record mogul/sports team owner/murderous drug dealer. The woman, Vette, narrates the story, viewed through the lens of her upbringing: daughter of a dog-training father who once made the fatal mistake of not giving sufficient respect to a wolf. To Vette, all men are dogs, who respond just as slavishly to her sex appeal as a dog to a bone. And with Frank pressuring her into danger as he penetrates the drug lord’s inner sanctum, she has to overcome her fear that he will be her own wolf. In the end, we get the expected blood and savagery… while Vette sees courage and strength that she didn’t expect.
Artist Jefte Palo is a good fit for the dark tale, with lots of noirish angles, and stark choices of light and shadow. In particular, he makes Vette physically believable: she’s not a generic pneumatic-breasted comic babe, but in her figure, her carriage, and her face, you have no trouble believing her power over men, or her vulnerability in this environment of the most alpha of dogs.
In the end, this is a very good Punisher tale. It’s a bit more conventional than Force of Nature (or Mike Benson’s very good 2007 Punisher MAX Annual), but as a warmup for Gischler taking his place in the line of succession to Ennis, it’s very promising.
Posted by Jeb on June 11, 2008
(Marvel)
Not long ago, I had some less than enthusiastic words for a new Mark Millar title, starring a misfit young boy whose world is shaped by the comic books he reads (and for what it’s worth, I don’t really like Kick-Ass much better three issues in). But just to show how these things go sometimes, here’s a new Millar title, featuring a young misfit boy whose world is shaped by comic books, and it’s an absolute delight.
Toby’s a young boy from a broken home, whose truest friends are the Marvel comics he reads. He’s 13, depressed, unpopular at school, and trying to walk a difficult line between Hart, his straight-arrow stepfather, and Jerry, the free-spirited dad he sees on weekends. The two men seem to have an uneasy understanding regarding their respective roles in Toby’s life, but draw the line at the worlds of wonder that Toby retreats into. For Hart, comic books are a waste. For Jerry, while he shares Toby’s love for those 4-color fantasies, they also represent for him the terrible choice between the imaginative world they depict, and the real one that Toby needs to learn to live in. As much as he wishes to bond with his son over the books, Jerry accepts the harsh reality of Hart’s position: “He’s probably right. There ain’t a job in the world where you need to know Giant-Man’s secret identity. And you don’t want to end up broke and stupid like your old man.”
It’s the difficulty of reconciling these positions that leads Toby to initially fail, as he puts it, “to spot all the weirdness going on in the early days of 1985.” And that weirdness involves a comic-store proprietor with an unusual toy for sale; an abandoned house with an uncertain future; a mysterious developer with unexpected treasure to bestow; and the quietly unnerving appearance of some darkly familiar characters that just do not belong in Toby’s world.
I won’t spoil more of the story, which is actually pretty dense for a new #1 issue these days. Not with fistfights or spaceflights, but with strong characterization, forbidden knowledge, vintage boys’ adventuring, and the mood of uneasy remembrance of youth that Stephen King hits at his best, with a mystery that unfolds in classic King style, as well. Toby’s narration is sparse, just enough to set the scene, with the real work of getting to know him handled ably in the dialogue. And as convincing as Toby is, his father Jerry is as fully-realized a character as Millar’s ever created: a one-time would-be rockstar whose relationship with his son is an exercise in regret, and missed chances; Millar shows us Jerry’s fundamental honor and decency, and the disdain that the “real” world holds for such characteristics. And while Jerry knows exactly how he appears to the “straight” world, he can’t help himself: he’s torn up by the hardest thing a father can tell a son: “Don’t be like me.”
This project was originally conceived, several years ago, as a “fumetti”: that is a comic illustrated with photographs, not drawings. Evidently, someone at Marvel went sane all of a sudden, and realized that there was no possible way that they could make a dime after paying for the necessary actors, sets, costumes, etc. Enter belatedly, then, artist Tommy Lee Edwards, whose work was the high point of J. Michael Straczynski’s retro-themed Bullet Points series. Frankly, it would be hard to imagine a staged series of photographs even approaching the subtleties of expression and emotion that Edwards brings to the characters here. His style is “realistic” rather than “photo-realistic,” and he introduces the unexpected, and what should be the impossible, into Toby’s world fluidly, like a film director subtly moving a dangerous character from background to foreground before we even register their presence. And I mean no disrespect to Millar when I say that you could read the story without word balloons and get most of its emotional resonance just from Edwards’ brilliant choice of facial expressions.
The final panel of this issue is Edwards’ version of one of the few samples that was released from the photo-based version of the story, and no offense to anyone involved in that production, but his version is so raw and powerful that it seems far more “alive” than the photographed actors did.
So, there you go. Millar, bless him, is of course hyping this project to the heavens, beating the same drum that he uses for Kick-Ass, Fantastic Four, Wanted (“Opens June 23rd at a theater near you! And did I tell you that I hung with Angelina Jolie on the set?”), and everything else. Maybe it’s just the different time, and circumstances, under which 1985 was originally written, but this book rises above all that silliness. It’s suffused with a love of comics, and their readers, and of people who just want the best for the ones they love. If the rest of the series is this good, it’ll be one of the best things Millar’s written yet.
Posted by Jeb on June 3, 2008
(Marvel)
With this issue, writer Ed Brubaker is joined by his former Gotham Central partner, Greg Rucka, kicking off a new 4-issue story arc, Cruel and Unusual. While Matt Murdock continues to punish himself for failing yet another of the women in his life, his wife Milla, Matt’s law firm, and investigator Dakota North, take on a Death Row case at the behest of New Avenger Luke Cage. The convicted murderer of three children has confessed to his grisly deed, but Cage can’t shake the conviction that the man’s innocent, and wants Daredevil and company to get the truth… and with only six days before the execution. Naturally, once Dakota starts digging, the case turns out to have dangerous aspects that no one could foresee, and will require both Daredevil AND Matt Murdock at their best to solve. It’s a great setup for the kind of procedural story that Gotham Central was so famous for. Michael Lark does his customary superb job on the art, assisted by Stefano Gaudiano and colorist Matt Hollingsworth, and Marko Djurdjevic’s art continues to place this title’s covers among the most consistently fine in comics today. A great reunion of writing partners, and a gripping crime story: what’s not to love?
Posted by Jeb on May 27, 2008
(Dark Horse)
I would disagree with those that call the latest Indiana Jones film unwatchable. It’s true that it’s visually uninspired, and that the script is an appallingly lazy piece of hackwork, but for most of the film, Harrison Ford does his best to rekindle our affection for Indy, and with the aid of Shia LaBeouf and Karen Allen, bring some life to the otherwise dire proceedings.
Sadly, of course, the qualities of personality and life that those actors bring to the film aren’t available to the comics writer. All he has to work with is David Koepp’s script, and I hope it’s true that Koepp cobbled the thing together from other writer’s drafts in a desperate race to beat the writers’ strike deadline, because at least that would offer some excuse for its being so terrible. None of that, though, helps comic writer John Jackson Miller, since he’s stuck with that script as his starting point. And, unlike some previous film adaptations, where the use of an early draft resulted in a different and interesting take on the material, this is a painful scene-by-scene slog through the finished version of the film.
And where the first part of the movie (which is basically what this first issue covers) is occasionally livened up by some decent-to-adequate action scenes, the pacing of the comic relegates them to a panel or two here and there. Which, really, is crazy: the only virtue in adapting this thing (well, the only artistic one, anyway) would be to try and bring some level of kinetic detail and excitement to those scenes. Instead, they’re given equal weight with pointless standoffs and dreary exposition, and fall completely flat. And speaking of flat, the omniscient narration draws bullet points and exclamation marks around the few bits of story that, in the film, are allowed to unfold gradually for the audience, thus making each turn of the page more deadeningly dull than the last.
Given that he’s not called on to do much action, artist Luke Ross is left trying to approximate the bland look of the film, and of the actors… and therein lies another problem. The 64-year-old Harrison Ford can still move like a man twenty years younger, and his facial expressions, carriage, and line readings all combine to make his older Indy nearly as vital as the younger one. On the page, though, the facial lines and white hair, with no animation at all, just lie there looking ancient and ghastly (I positively dread Marion’s appearance next issue). I won’t say that Ross had much of a script to work with, but apart from one or two splash panels, there’s nothing in the visuals here that would make you want to know what the characters were saying if the word balloons weren’t there.
I’m probably being too hard on Miller and Ross. I’m sure it’s a good paycheck, and who wouldn’t want to help contribute, in some way, to the legend of Indiana Jones. It’s not their fault that they were given the worst of the films to adapt, but its eventual inclusion in the Dark Horse version of the Indiana Jones saga will be something less than a high point.
Posted by Jeb on May 21, 2008
(Marvel Comics)
Marvel’s recent attempts to revive its adults-only MAX line have sputtered a bit here and there, seeming to lack much in the way of focus or direction. But the setting of these books adrift from the core of the Marvel Universe has also resulted in some strong independent storytelling, in titles like Garth Ennis’ Punisher, and in last year’s surprising Wisdom miniseries, written by Paul Cornell. Cornell (best known as a writer for the current Dr Who TV series) took Peter Wisdom (created by Warren Ellis as a sort of poor man’s John Constantine back in the 90’s), placed him at the head of a supernatural counter-intelligence unit called MI-13, and ran off a string of terrific stories of magic and mayhem that seemed like the collision of Harry Dresden and Artemis Fowl. Though there was enough backstory to keep the series moving forward, Cornell crafted each issue as a completely satisfying 22-page adventure, with an edgy humor that took full advantage of the freedom offered by the adults-only tag. Now, Cornell and artist Leonard Kirk launch this new series focusing on the British wing of the Marvel Universe, featuring Wisdom and his friends along with the panoply of super-powered Brits.
The Skrull Invasion has hit England, and Captain Britain, with help from Wisdom, is tasked with rallying Britain’s superheroes to the fight. The explanation of just why the Skrulls are in England is ingenious, and the paranoia taking place in the States is intensified in the smaller cauldron of the British Isles. Those who enjoyed the motley supporting cast that Cornell assembled for Wisdom will be happy to see some familiar faces here, along with a virtual army of spandexed Skrull-bashers. And while the overall Secret Invasion storyline is certainly not neglected, Cornell and Kirk keep the action satisfyingly big and splashy.
Maybe the biggest surprise of this book is the way that Cornell has shifted from the stand-alone stories of Wisdom to plunging into the core of the current Skrull Invasion taking place throughout the Marvel Universe. The story so far is epic, even poetic in spots, but never puts a foot wrong in terms of keeping the Secret Invasion storyline moving along. Writers from outside of comics are often more comfortable telling their own stories, freed from the responsibility of continuity; it’s nice to see that Cornell doesn’t shy from that responsibility; in fact, he seems to embrace it.
Artist Leonard Kirk also turned in splendid work on a recent Marvel miniseries (the terrific Agents of Atlas), but teamed with inker Jesse Delperdang, he tops himself in a story full of night and mystery, light and action.
Mystery, heroism, magic, sacrifice, humor, and all-out superpowered throwdown… as Stan himself might have said: face it, true believer, this one’s got it all.
Posted by Jeb on
(Dark Horse)
The Facts in The Case of the Departure of Miss Finch is the latest repurposing of an old Neil Gaiman story into a new graphic novel, in this case the original is a short story from his Smoke and Mirrors collection. The new script is an adaptation by letterer Todd Klein (that’s one way for letterers to get more of the credit they deserve!), with painted art by Michael Zulli (once one of Gaiman’s Sandman collaborators).
The story’s classic Gaiman: young moderns in London and their encounter with the spiritual realm that underlies the world they think they know.
Like much of Sandman, the story is not so much about questions and answers, as it is impressions, feelings, color. In its original story form, it has the matter-of-fact disquiet of one of Poe’s less sanguinary efforts (William Wilson, say); brought to life in Zulli’s lush paints, it loses some of its sense of mystery, but it makes up for that by presenting its ambiguous ending entirely straight-faced: Zulli’s work is most impressive in giving flesh and life to a concept that, once visualized, could easily have been bland or just too on-the-nose.
I won’t go into too much story detail, so as not to spoil the fairly slight plot: our unnamed narrator is a blocked American writer, in London to get away and restore his muse. He’s contacted by a pair of old friends who desperately need him to complete a reluctant foursome: he’s to be a sort of blind date to one of their acquaintances, the evidently unwelcome “Miss Finch.” Naturally he agrees, and when we finally do meet Miss Finch, she’s certainly difficult and abrasive. But as the evening progresses from cab ride to sushi restaurant to a visit to a most unusual and mysterious “circus,” Miss Finch begins to interest, then perhaps nearly charm, our narrator. And that’s when…
Well, as I say, I’ll let you read it for yourself. Even if you already know the original story, Zulli’s painting, which veers from the mundane to the macabre to the sublime and back again, will delight you. And while I’d always relish new original comics work from Gaiman, it’s hard to complain about an adaptation as well-crafted as this one.
Posted by Jeb on April 30, 2008
(Radical Comics)
One of the great strengths of HBO’s series Rome was its ability to give that ancient city’s people attitudes and motivations that would feel wholly recognizable and convincing to modern audiences, without seeming anachronistic. In this limited series (the first of several projected), veteran British comics writer Steve Moore helps to launch the new Radical Comics line with a similar spin on the adventures of the legendary Hercules: here less a man-god than a man, trading on a reputation based on legends that are swiftly losing hold on his contemporaries. Here (as on Rome), the gods and monsters of ancient myth are less articles of faith than metaphors for man’s dismal fate in a capricious world. Indeed, if there are any supernatural beings to whom everyone in the series owes allegiance, it’s the cold and pitiless Fates.
In this series, Hercules is a soldier of fortune, whose relationship with his legendary status is uncomfortable, at best. He leads a band of mercenaries that resembles nothing so much as James Cameron’s Marine troop in Aliens (there is even a female character– the fleet-footed Atalanta– out to prove herself as capable as any man). Summoned to the decrepit, debauched land of Thrace to aid its king, Hercules and company quickly find themselves insulted by the court’s denizens, and provoked into bloody action, the consequences of which are, by turns, predicable… and then unexpected. The dialog skirts a fine line: eschewing the pseudo-Shakespeare that Stan Lee made the lingua franca of legendary heroes, it goes for a naturalism that generally works, though some of Hercules’ weary snarking, and the occasional bit of phrasing like “cross-dressing sex monsters,” can pull the reader out of the period just a bit.
The painted art by Admira Wijaya is most impressive. It’s lithe and fluid, but carries enough real weight that the extended battle sequence never feels overlong. With the aid of Moore’s research, Wijaya imagines a bleak and brutal ancient world that contrasts sharply with the golden legends that form the basis for Hercules’ reputation. It’s also worth noting that the character design (and logo) are by the legendary Jim Steranko, who also offers one of the two covers for this issue. It’s nice, if a bit static, but any new Steranko is cause for celebration.
The only slight reservation I have about recommending this comic has to do with the pacing: while the book is a great buy at 22 pages for $1.00 (and future issues will carry a $2.99 price tag), at the end, we’re not terribly far along into the story (we’re not even certain just why Hercules and his team were summoned, or what their task will be). Still, at full price the book would be worth your money; for a buck, it’d be crazy not to try it. The most impressive series debut so far this year.
Posted by Jeb on April 23, 2008
(Marvel)
The phrase “old school” superhero comics means, for most of us, the comics we grew up with… though with today’s readership, that can cover anywhere from the Silver Age to the crash-n-burn speculation of the 90’s. It’s interesting how we all share an understanding of a phrase that would seem to span such a wide range of styles. Of course, that’s mostly true of the artwork: for some readers, the simple panel layout of a 1960 issue of Action Comics represents the “old school,” while younger readers might apply the term to the page-busting designs that came into vogue with the rise of the Image creators and their disciples. But no matter what era you’re talking about, when you say that a comic script is from the old school, you’re pretty generally talking about the same thing: storylines whose structure is principally focused on getting spandexed good guy and bad guy face-to-face, and watching the sparks (or mystic rays, or thunderbolts, or whatever) fly, with no lasting consequence, beyond the vow that they’d meet again. Any impact on ongoing continuity was limited to chalking up another encounter in the rogues’ gallery, for the antagonists to refer back to at their next meeting.
That’s not to say that extended psychological examinations of the spandex crowd only came into being with the emergence of writers like Brian Bendis and Ed Brubaker: but there’s no question that storylines like, say, “Born Again,” “Dark Phoenix”-and more to the point, “Demon in a Bottle,” from this mini’s creators, writer David Michelinie and artist Bob Layton– were the exceptions, high points that stood out above what was often a run of a pretty ordinary mill.
Back in Iron Man #150, under the tutelage of Michelinie and Layton, Iron Man and Dr. Doom found themselves transported back to the Court of King Arthur, bitter enemies forced into an uneasy alliance in order to return to their own time. And, really, that’s about as “old” as school gets: in the fifties, Superman and Batman were always subject to such flights of fancy. Nothing wrong with it as a setup… except that’s really all it is: a nice, colorful setting to play some “fish out of water” games, and have some superpowered throwdowns. Not much subtext or characterization: they went back in time, and fought because one guy was good and the other was bad. This was followed up a hundred issues later with more Arthurian hijinks involving these two metal-cased megalomaniacs, this time in the future. Both stories were entertaining and inconsequential.
Now, presumably spurred by Marvel’s desire to have as much Iron Man product as possible on the shelves when the movie hits, Layton and Michelinie (with penciller Ron Lim and Layton on inks) have provided a sequel. Just take a look at that vintage Marvel face-off pose on the cover, essentially reproducing the cover to Iron Man #150. Makes you wonder just how this kind of adventure fits into the more complex Marvel Universe of today. The answer: not terribly well.
The first issue of this mini is a pretty straightforward affair: we get a framing sequence showing that the creative team is at least aware of the current state of the Marvel U, and Tony Stark’s place in it. But that’s quickly disposed of, and we’re basically revisiting those earlier stories with slight variations- the worst part being that Tony’s telling us the story after the fact, thus robbing it of much immediacy or impact.
This time, Doom’s taking Iron Man to Hell, rather than Camelot, and it’s frankly pretty hard to wrap one’s head around the notion of the Tony Stark we know today being this casual about making such a supernatural expedition; nor would the regions of the damned be a natural vacation spot to today’s Victor Von Doom. “Hell” as just another denizen of gloopy monsters is a tougher sell today: maybe a Grant Morrison could make something of it, but he’d have to put more thought into the fantastic underpinnings of the story than we get here; this Hell seems marginally less dangerous (or interesting) than Hell’s Kitchen. But, then, why should it be? It’s just Camelot all over again: a colorful place for Doom and Shellhead to face off. It’s hard to say which seems less convincing: Doom’s explanation of why he wants Iron Man to accompany him there, or Stark’s acceptance of it.
The story’s also not particularly helped by Michelinie and Layton adopting today’s internal-monolog mode of storytelling. Not only does it not seem to flow naturally for them, but it makes Tony seem even denser than necessary. The dialog between him and Doom feels flat, forced, and warmed-over.
Representing the “younger old school,” Ron Lim doesn’t have a lot to work with in terms of storytelling here (how do you get an interesting perspective when nothing particularly interesting is happening?), but he gives the action scenes some flair, and I shouldn’t be surprised if he gets to cut loose a bit more in future issues. In fact, I can just about guarantee it, since there’s not much indication that the writers have anything planned except Tony escaping the mess Doom left him in (oh, come on-you saw that coming), and having it out with the Latverian monarch.
And what might be the final nail in the coffin for me is the gloomy dourness of it: read an issue of Jeff Parker’s Marvel Adventures Avengers book to see how the application of some imagination can spiff up and brighten a continuity-free story that needs to reboot itself every month.
Am I being too hard on this book? Maybe. But there’s been a lot of good Iron Man stuff lately (from his ongoing series to the Enter the Mandarin mini, as well as Adam Warren’s wonderful Hypervelocity), so the bar’s been set higher than it might have been a couple years ago. Layton and Michelinie are guys who did a lot to help shape the character of Iron Man back in the 80’s, and they deserve all credit for that. But you know what? Magic Johnson was pretty hot stuff in the 80’s, too, but there’s kids on your local playground that would dunk over him today.
Posted by Jeb on March 11, 2008
(Marvel)
Yeah, I know… who needs another Wolverine mini-series? (Or ongoing, for that matter). I’ll acknowledge that Jason Aaron’s first issue of the monthly book was pretty good (I’d have said “surprisingly good,”, but I’ve read Scalped), but that doesn’t change the fact that Wolverine writers have been telling the same loner-seeking-his-true-identity story for one hell of a long time. However, since this book appears to be Brian K. Vaughn’s farewell to superhero comics, it warrants at least some consideration.
Though not a lot. It’s WW2, and Logan’s tossed into a Japanese prison camp. He effects his escape, dragging along a racist American POW whose characterization is about as subtle as Buford T. Pusser’s. On the outside, Logan meets a beautiful Japanese woman with a secret. They become intimate, and then…
Hey, wake up! I went to the trouble of reading this book-you can stay awake through the review!
But I can’t say that I blame you: I don’t know how long ago this particular Wolverine plotline wore out its welcome, but it was certainly in the preceding century. Vaughn’s characterization is surprisingly flat here, and though his dialog has some sparkle to it, I’m just really over Wolverine and his doomed Nipponese romances, and I’d have hoped Vaughn would be, too. After all, he was the guy who rethought Mystique from the ground up and made her short-lived series thoroughly engaging. The book’s not unreadable- just disappointing.
Is there a twist at the end? Sure, it’s a Brian K Vaughn book. And the only reason you won’t guess it halfway through is that you’ll refuse to believe he’s going to do it. And then he does. It’s not even a “what will happen next?” cliffhanger… it’s more a “they’re not REALLY going there, are they?” sort of thing. And that, I think, is the story’s biggest problem: the racist American, and the shadow that is about to fall over the two lovers, are clearly what drove Vaughn to write the book, and Wolverine’s umpteenth Japanese sojourn just becomes an excuse to get there.
Eduardo Risso’s continuing focus on 100 Bullets is probably the only thing that keeps him from being routinely mentioned in the same breath with the top artists at the Big 2 today. Every panel in this book breathes with life, close-ups have grit and weight, long shots and shadows are moody and exotic, and the snowy Japanese landscape can give you the chills. Even if the word balloons don’t carry the punch I’d hoped for, Risso makes turning every page a pleasure, and he turns a marginal recommendation into a more or less solid one for me.
So, if you’ve got any interest in Wolverine at all, you really don’t want to miss Risso’s take on him: the guy is just brilliant. If you can sort of take or leave him, then you might want to see what Risso can do without a briefcase and untraceable bullets. Otherwise, just re-read the last year’s worth of Y: The Last Man (or watch Lost)-that’s clearly where Vaughn was expending his energy.
