Weekly Haul: April 11th

52 #49 (DC Comics) You know what I love about this series? (Well, one of the things I love about it?) It seems like every couple weeks I’ll see a J.G. Jones cover that seems so incredibly perfect, so iconic, so well-arranged, that not only do I forget the bad ones, but I think to myself, “Okay, this is the best 52 cover ever; Jones can’t possibly top that.” And then I see something like this week’s, in which Doc Magnus is firing little Metal Men bullets out of a gun, and see that JGJ has indeed topped himself again. I’m not even going to bother saying this one is the best, although the look on the Mercury and Tin bullets’ faces present a rather compelling argument that it may be, because right there in the Next Issue Box is a tiny little image of Adam facing off against the Marvels, the JSA, Steel, Plastic Man and—Good God, next Wednesday can’t get here soon enough!

On the inside, we’re only three issues out of the end of this thing, and this week brings another climax, when the JSA and Great Ten convene on Oolong Island, and Doc Magnus and his darling little inventions show Egg Fu what happens when you take a mad scientist’s meds away. Eddy Barrows handles the pencil duties, and he’s perfectly adequate at the task; I always feel like a jerk criticizing art that is done in such a rush, but, well, that’s clearly not a pistol Morrow’s packing, you know? The scene in which Magnus explains the Metal Men is amazing though, and well worth my $2.50. Don’t suppose there’s much chance of getting a quality Doc Magnus and the Metal Men and an Egg Fu’s Science Squad series out of this, is there?

The back-up origin story is that of the JSA—er, the Justice Society of America, as drawn by one-time JSA artist Don Kramer. Mark Waid once again plays a bit coy with what’s official continuity and what’s not regarding the two Earths; while the “Trinity” is absent from the first image of the JSA, Kramer does draw the séance scene, devoid of the more confusing characters (Black Canary, for example) and with equivocal wording saying only that the JSA was “summoned out of retirement by their successors.” So, it doesn’t seem like they’re from Earth-Two in this origin story, or that anything’s changed since Infinite Crisis (save Wonder Woman being on the JLoA back then).

This is perhaps the most unique of the back-up origins, in that it includes information not only from “One Year Later,” but also farther ahead in that year than the relevant book. For example, the final panel listing all of the Society members is the first appearance of the new Steel’s new codename, “Citizen Steel.” The origin also seems to cover next week’s World War III, with a panel of the team’s three old men triple-teaming Black Adam. The “Essential Storylines” is depressingly sparse, but don’t look for an “Actually Essential Storylines" feature this week, as JSA history is so damn tangly I’m afraid to approach it. I’d definitely suggest the entire last volume of JSA though, save maybe the final story arc, and the Starman, the Ostrander/Mandrake Spectre Hourman and Sandman Mystery Theatre ongoings, which occasionally touched on JSA history, and were all consistently great comics.



All-Star Superman #7 (DC) I’ve been looking forward to this particular story since Grant Morrison first mentioned a new take on Bizarro, as a sort of zombie plague that infects whatever it touches and creates Bizarro versions of it, in a Newsarama.com interview years ago (back when All-Star Superman was first announced). As far as elements of the Superman mythos goes, Bizarro is right up there with Mr. Mxyzptlk in my book. Here “Bizarro” is a gigantic organism that crudely imitates planets and then subverts them by adapting itself to resemble the inhabitants (hence, a square earth hovering on the horizon). No surprise that Morrison and Quitely find a way to tweak the backwards Superman idea, playing B. as simultaneously funny and scary. This is the first two-parter in the A-SS run, which I’m not exactly happy about given the delay between issues (the string of done-in-ones has made the schedule easy to take thus far), but if it means more Bizarro, it’s well worth it.




Big Bang Comics Presents #5: Teen Rex (Big Bang Comics) I’m never quite sure how to feel about BBC’s elaborate homage comics, which create analogues to beloved comics characters and then tell stories featuring those characters in the styles of their actual creators. This issue focus on Teen Rex, a rather inspired Jack Kirby pastiche that takes a little Kamandi, a little Devil Dinosaur and a little Eternals/Inhumans to give us a teenage boy with long blonde hair who can transform into a Tyrannosaurus Rex who lives in the ruins of an abandoned, ancient, advanced civilization. It’s a nice character design and a kinda cool back-story, but it reads like exactly what it is—a Kirby homage, and I vacillated between “Neat!” and “Eh, so what?” from panel to panel.




JLA: Classified #37 (DC) And speaking of looking forward to something, this sounded intriguing years ago when it was supposed to be a graphic novel by Peter Milligan and Rob Haynes. Then it got shifted into JLA:C (along with miniseries I Can’t Believe It’s Not the Justice League! and a few story arcs from the monthly), and was supposed to start last summer. But then it got bumped—repeatedly— and here we are. So, what’s the deal with the story? What was so controversial? No idea; there’s no real clue inside, although the artist is now Carlos D’Anda, so maybe it was simply a matter of changing artists midstream? The story is set somewhere between “Obsidian Age” and Infinite Crisis, with Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, original flavor Martian Manhunter and Green Lantern John Stewart hot on the heels of a wounded Amazo android, who’s attempting to visit his son, “Kid Amazo,” a troubled philosophy student at Berkley. The Milligan who writes this seems closer to the Vertigo and X-Statix Milligan than the X-Men Milligan, and the existential turmoil of our protagonist is interesting. The art is fine, but I can’t help but be a little disappointed in it, perhaps because Haynes’ looked so good, and I’ve been anticipating it for so long. A very solid cover by former JLA artist Howard Porter, rendering his old subjects in his new style though.




The Jungle Book (Marvel) I actually tried very hard to resist this book and leave it on the shelf. I’m not a huge fan of comic book adaptations in general, particularly if it’s of something—a book, a film—I’ve already experienced in its original medium. I probably shouldn’t have even touched the damn thing though. The P. Craig Russell certainly has a strong pull, right down to the logo, which features a darling little monkey silhouette, but it was the flip-through that proved just too much for my weak will. I mean, it’s Kipling’s Jungle Book, as adapted and penciled by Gil Kane, with Russell inking. How do you not buy something like that, particularly after you’ve caught a glimpse of all those Kane/Russell wolves, or scenes like Mowgli’s predator posse batting around an army of monkeys? And did I mention it was over 60-pages, for just $2.99? I didn’t know much else about the book before purchase (Marvel.com doesn’t even have it listed), but there’s a nice intro by Roy Thomas regarding the project’s history, and according to the fine print, the short stories within are from Marvel Fanfare in the early ‘80s. It’s a great value, and was easily one of the week’s better reads.





Legion of Monsters: Man-Thing #1 (Marvel) This particular Marvel book also involved a little bit of pondering as I stood before its shelf today. On the one hand, it features stories of Man-Thing and the original Marvel Zombie, Simon Garth, as drawn by Klaus Janson and Ted McKeever, respectively. On the other, it has Greg Land’s name on the cover, and I’ve since resolved to never buy another Greg Land book again, as they only hurt my soul (this kept me from the Legion of Monsters: Werewolf By Night). But since Land only did the cover, and it was of a muck monster and not a porn-faced, heavily photo-referenced woman, I went for it. Charlie Huston writes the Janson/Man-Thing story, and it’s a fine, creepy, little horror story, although it seems an awful lot like something I’ve seen in an issue of Swamp Thing (#159; the cover image at least is repeated using the head and shoulders of Man-Thing in the Marvel book. I can’t remember if anyone actually east Swampy in that issue though…I seem to recall a Swamp Dog, instead, but I don’t want to bust out my Vertigo long box to check). The climax, in which Huston works in the Man-Thing catchphrase, is pretty well handled. The back half of the book is devoted to Garth, and it’s a neat little zombie love story, with nice, quirky McKeever art.




The New Avengers #29 (Marvel)

The good stuff:

—Leinil Yu’s art in almost every panel. He makes the two-teams-facing-each-other cover looks fresher than it has any right to (although Marvel then proceeds to cover the top half of it up with logos). The first page ninjas-filling-up-the-room sequence is as dramatic as it could possibly be considering the fact that this is the fourteenth issue of New Avengers dealing with ninjas. That spread on pages four and vie is totally awesome (I particularly dig Spider-Woman’s putting her dukes up). He also manages to make Iron Man’s blank mask quite expressive throughout, as if the eyeholes could shift slightly like real eyes. And, for the most part, I love his page layouts.

—Spider-Man calling Iron Man’s trap “dirty pool.”

—The fact that Danny Rand is presented as a sort of anti-Stark in the rich guy who funds the Avengers role.

—Doctor Strange kicking the Mighty Avengers’ asses all by himself.

—Iron Man’s “Oh shit” face, in the bottom panel of this page:




The bad stuff:

—While I love Bendis’ Spider-Man, it seems weird to read him between issues of Amazing Spider-Man, where Peter’s so pissed off he put on the black costume to go totally murder someone (Psst, Pete—whoever ordered the hit, remember it’s Tony who pushed you out yourself, and he’s right freaking there.

—Yu’s Spider-Woman on page two. Come on, seriously.

—The fact that Strange has a goatee instead of just a sweet moustache, and that he’s wearing a billowing blouse (Yeah, I know he usually wears it, but come on Yu, he looked so cool in The Oath, can’t we draw him more like that?

—Why is Brother Voodoo helping out Stark? Last I saw him, he was in Wakanda, and most of Black Panther’s friends and associates kinda sorta totally hate Stark at the moment, don’t they?

—Cage trying to cut a deal with Elektra. Dude, you just kicked her in the vagina. Now you’re gonna try and deal with the lady?




Teen Titans #45 (DC) I realize that Geoff Johns has a lot on his plate here, but man, this is not the way to leave a title. Talk about going out on a low note. He gets credit for co-plotting, so the bad dialogue is all on the head of incoming writer Adam Beechen, but still, this book is at least partially the work of Johns, so this is unfortunately how readers might remember his Teen Titans work. Okay, so this is chapter three of the four-part “Titans East” storyline, in which Slade Wilson, aka “Deathstroke, The Terminator” (Heh) has assembled his own version of the Titans and created his own version of the Titans tower, complete with stupid little statues of various Titans getting beat up, just to…I don’t know…win his kids back? Or something? Anyway, part one of the story was the “All Ambush and Capture” issue. Part two was the “All Torture and Villain Gloating” issue. Part three? The “All Escaping the Traps and Fighting Villains” issue. In other words, its boring and predictable, right up to the last panel, which is Geoff Johns’ most tired and oft-repeated cliffhanger device, in which an unexpected guest-star or group of guest-stars show up and say, “Hey, you, get your damn hands off her!” or whatever. The cover is by semi-regular interior artist Tony S. Daniel, and features the Wilsons all rolling around each other in their matching blue and orange chainmail outfits. The interior art is by Al Barrionuevo and Bit, and its chockfull of unnecessary, wasted splash pages, stiff poses and some overdone coloring. To go all fanboy on you, why the hell is Risk a bad guy now? I thought he was on the science juice like Batgirl, but no dice…he’s just a dickhead all of a sudden. Second, how did he land a flying kick on super-ninja Batgirl? And, third and finally, no way on earth does Nightwing refer to Deathstroke as “Terminator” like that. “Slade” or “Wilson,” yeah, but “Terminator?” Nightwing wouldn’t really honor the selection of such a lame-ass codename, would he? I’ll buy one more issue to finish the storyline (yeah, I’m that guy) and that’s it, I’m out.




She-Hulk #17 (Marvel) File this one under “Perfect.” One page making fun of Marvel Comics and the people who make fun of Marvel Comics, a “debriefed” joke, the two most promiscuous Marvels getting promiscuous with one another, Zzzax, The U-Foes, fifty Nick Fury androids on a rampage, Batroc getting punched in the face, Two-Gun Kid trimming Electro’s costume, inter-book continuity, and the inevitable bombshell getting dropped. Artists Rick Burchett and Cliff Rathburn straight-up rule, and even the Greg Horn cover is pretty well-composed and funny this month.