Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Weekly Haul: January 10th


52 #36 (DC Comics) Penciller Jamal Igle and inker Keith Champagne make this a nice-looking issue, and good thing too, since it’s a big one. One of the principal characters in the series, the space hero with the most potential for good stories in the future and, incidentally, one of my favorite DC superheroes, apparently dies this issue, going up to that big Justice League International Embassy in the sky (Conspiracy theorists take note: Animal Man did indeed serve in Giffen and DeMatteis’ JLI; he was on the initial Justice League Europe line-up for a few months). He has died and has come back to life before, of course, and any death is these pages should be taken with a grain of salt until time is fixed. Meanwhile, Lady Styx tells Lobo off in a nice scene that pushes the Main Man past his limit, Sobek tries to comfort the angst-ridden Osiris, we learn where Rip Hunter has been hiding and that he’s actually in cahoots with Supernova and there’s a terribly poorly-written four-page sequence involving Montoya (I know this is, like, my thirty-sixth review mentioning this, but why is Montoya the only character who narrates her own scenes in this whole series? And why is the narration so damn bad? “He’s going to die because that’s what people do. It’s humanity’s shared super-power. We die.” Ugh.) The back-up feature is the origin of Power Girl by Adam Hughes, whom DC does no favors by inserting an advertisement in between the two pages of the story, the first time they’ve fucked up ad-placement on the series. Hughes’ art shows him at his exploitive best, as he gives us an up-skirt shot of the apparently panty-less teenage Supergirl and is sure to highlight Power Girl’s face and clevage in the, um, bust of her at the bottom of the page.

Agents of Atlas #6 (Marvel Comics) When we last left Jimmy Woo and Marvel’s pre-Marvel super-characters, they were about to storm the lair of the Yellow Claw and the Atlas Foundation. This is the final issue of the excellent miniseries so...big fight scene? What, you expected writer Jeff Parker to give us the obvious ending to this weird-ass series? Not on your life. Things end very, very differently than one might expect, but also oh so satisfyingly, giving a perfect ending to the characters and their story, while simultaneously relating all of their beginnings and setting the A.O.A. up for a bold new future in the Marvel Universe. And, of course, if they don’t get that future, there’s a built-in reason for why we don’t see them front and center in future Marvel goings-on either. More please, Marvel. Don’t make me beg.

Are We Feeling Safer Yet?: A (Th)ink Anthology (Keith Knight Press) This 121-page collection offers up 121 of Keith Knight’s mostly one-panel (Th)ink cartoons, most of which lean toward the political, attacking the Bush administration and addressing issues of race in American culture. I love Knight’s simultaneously relaxed and kinetic art style, which is nothing short of cartoon perfection. Even his hand-writing has a loose, fun energy about it. I’ve always personally preferred his multi-panel K Chronicles strip to his (Th)ink, but having just set this book down, now I’m not so sure why. He gets an awful lot of mileage out of an allusion to a news story, a half-bad pun and some dramatic curves with a bulbous nose and beady eyes. Confidential to Joe Quesada: Check out page 95, and then get in touch with Knight at keef@kchronicles.com. Like, pronto. I can’t speak for all of comicdom or anything but, man, I’d buy the hell out of that comic.

Blade #5 (Marvel) Cover artist Marko Djurdjevic contributes one bad-ass cover to this month’s issue of Blade (a text-less version of which is above). And in case you don’t see the special guest-star's face reflected in the title character’s shades or recognize the claws impaling our hero’s skull, there’s plenty of cover text letting you know that this issue is indeed “A Civil War Tie-In Featuring Wolverine.” Okay, so it’s crass and a bit of a hard sell—so what? It’s still an awesome issue of an awesome comic book. Writer Marc Guggeneim once again splits the narrative, so half focuses on Blade’s early years and half focus on the present, and Wolvie guests in both. In the present narrative, we see Wolvie piss off SHIELD Director Maria Hill and jump out a helicarrier window for, what, the nineteenth time this year? Hill enlists Blade to bring Wolverine in, and they fight. Guggenheim gives all three some nice, sharp dialogue, and artist Howard Chaykin knocks this issue out of the park. I know Chaykin’s art tends to be of the love it or hate it variety, particularly on his more recent mainstream work like this and Hawkgirl, but credit where credit’s due—he’s one of the few (two?) artists who can draw Wolverine in his stupid spandex suit and still have him come across as moderately cool (at least in close-up or profile; there’s still a panel or two where Wolverine looks like a complete jackass). I especially dug Chaykin’s version of the un-masked Wolverine, in which he resembles a wild-haired Ogami Ito. This was probably the most enjoyable issue of an already enjoyable series.

Justice Society of America #2 (DC) Jesus, this issue is every bit as good as the last one was. I don’t know what’s gotten Geoff Johns so goddamned pumped up all of a sudden (JSoA is easily head and shoulders above his Green Lantern and Teen Titans; especially his Teen Titans), nor what led to Dale Eaglesham’s quantam leap in quality of late, but here’s hoping both of them hang on to it. The first two pages, set in “Franklin County, Ohio” (Hey, that’s my county…awesome!) took as long to read as an average issue of New Avengers and, unlike the wordy JLoA, made for interesting reading. There’s also a very nicely handled scene between Wildcat and his son Tom ‘cat (groan), the big reveal of Starman’s identity (it’s exactly whom the clues pointed to, apparently) and the introduction of some more characters from the Kingdom Come-iverse. (Given the recent appearances of Batman and Talia’s son, Offspring, Zatara II and the new Starman, the Kingdom Come timeline has apparently merged with the DCU when “New Earth” was formed during Infinite Crisis).

Runaways #23 (Marvel) It’s Brian K. Vaughan’s penultimate issue before he hands the reigns of the title he created over to some guy named Joss Whedon. While you’d think the middle chapter of the last arc of a run would make for a lame duck story, big things seem to be in the works, and one Runaway looks like they may not be long for this world. I’ll be sorry to see this creative team go, but it’s good to know that the title and the characters aren’t going anywhere. Except for that one character. Who might die. Next issue. (Confidential to Karolina: You fool! You have a shape-changing significant other! Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, no matter how wrong and creepy that gift horse might be!)

Thunderbolts #110 (Marvel) I had absolutely no intention of buying this book today, given that it’s written by Warren Ellis, and I typically regret any Ellis purchase I make that isn’t a trade paperback. But it was a slow week for new releases, and a flip-through assured me that there actually did seem to be a lot going on in this issue, and that Ellis wasn’t simply writing this bad boy for the trades. Three different ‘bolts get significant focus this issue, as we see the team leader Norman Osborne interviewing Bullseye and Moonstone, and all three seem like pretty scary pscycopaths. The superheroics—the time devoted to Thunderbolts mountain, the suiting up, et cetera—show that not only has Ellis thought this thing through pretty well, but also that he’s managed to recapture some of that old, pre-Authority Stormwatch magic here. The team’s first target seems to be Jack Flag, who’s currently living with his girlfriend in Cleveland, Ohio. For reals? Man, it’s a big week for Ohio in mainstream comics, isn’t it? What this means, for those of us keeping abreast of Civil War tie-ins, is that if the Howard the Duck story in Civil War: Choosing Sides went down differently and Howard would have been labled an enemy combatant, we might have seen Howard the Duck vs. the New Thunderbolts next issue. The one aspect of the book that I couldn’t quite suspend my disbelief about was the very public nature of the new team of Thunderbolts, what with the news broadcasts of their plane lifting off and the ads for Thunderbolt toys of Venom. If SHIELD and the U.S. Government were going to pardon mass-murderers and turn them into Captain America-hunting, publicly sanctioned superheroes, why didn’t they at least invent new identities and design new costumes for them? Wouldn’t that have been a hell of a lot easier than trying to convince the world that Venom’s suddenly a good guy? I know thinking too seriously about superhero comics is the first step on a road to mental ruin, but the “Civil War” story this title is spinning out of is built around parallels to the real world, and Marvel can’t have it’s cake and eat it too, can they? Although they’ve already got my $2.99 for this issue, so maybe they can. (Confidential to Tommy Lee Jones: I’m no lawyer and you probably don’t need the money, but you should be able to build a fairly strong case, should you choose to sue Marvel Comics over using your likeness repeatedly in this comic book).

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Caleb. Great coverage as usual, I always look forward to some comic talk on Thursday morning.

Re: Animal Man and 52.

I'm not buying Buddy's death either, and it's not because of the pedestal I have those Grant Morrison Animal Man stories on. It's not a terribly bold or prominent death scene for such a character; I had to re-read the panels just to tell if he even got shot. If the writers were really going to kill him off, it would be something a little bolder and more final, like have Animal Man be the one to plunge with Lady Styx into the Sun Eater ("Not like this! Like this!"). That being said, the scene with Ellen was sweet.

Plus, eyeing the way Supernova was cradling that football, I'm thinking it's almost definitely Booster Gold (former player). Or The Atom, given the access Ray Palmer would seem to have to Kandor and the Fortress. But either of those two, that's it.

Re: JSA

Man, after the disappointment of the JLoA and Flash relaunches, I am very happy with the new JSoA. Geoff Johns and Dale Eaglesham are running a clinic on how to launch a team book. In one issue we have the start of a new legacy in Steel, the re-introduction of Hawkman, and the reveal of Starman's identity. Starman's identity is a bit refreshing, as it seems like they actually followed through on the story laid out in Kingdom Come and James Robinson's Starman series.

Anonymous said...

I've been checking in with this blog for a while, but I hadn't ever posted.
Now I see that you have almost no posts.

I just wanted to voice my opinion about Geoff Johns. I actuallly quite like his current run on Teen Titans. It's not what it used to be, but I do find it enjoyable. It's actually his Green Lantern that I dropped a few issue ago. It was getting far too predictable and cliche.

Anonymous said...

While we seem to agree that Green Lantern is the weakest of the John's titles (which is still better than some people's best though), I wonder, who has ever written Hal Jordan really well. It's been so long since he's been in circulation, I can't recall any particular writers. Thoughts?

Caleb said...

Hey guys. Thanks for reading and for posting (yeah Anonymous, there aren't usually man or any posts here, so nice to hear you'r reading).

I'm planning on writing a eulogy of some sort on Animal Man later in the week, where I'll probably get into it a lot more, but even if he really is dead, his death isn't one that particularly saddens me much, as he's so easy to bring back to life (ditto Booster Gold), and a major portion of 52 seems devoted to a storyline about bringing a woman back from the dead.

It's the regular joes who get beaten to death with crowbars or shot through the skull that make me sad, but hell, they brought Jason Todd back, and this week's MANHUNTER had an interesting cliffhanger.

On the Supernova tip, I think the "It's Ray Palmer!" camp of Supernova theorists gets a big boost this week (the Atom should be able to leave and enter Kandor of his own power, I think), but I'm sticking with Booster Gold--I'd feel cheated if it was a character not even IN the series so far.

The hideout explains some of Ralph's comments, regarding Superman having to be out of the way, and maybe even the two keys (one being the key to the Fortress, maybe?). I never even considered the fact that Supernova could be a Kandorian using Kryptonian tech, but again, I think that's be a cheat.

Regarding Geoff Johns, I do really dig Teen Titans (the scripts, the art's been pretty bad), and actually like the OYL team better than the original, which seemed kind of forced (hey, let's put the popular Young Justice kids with the adult versions of the kids from the cartoon together!), but JSoA is sooo much better, it makes me wonder if Johns should cut down on his workload a tad.

I think Johns really writes Hal Jordan well. I hate Hal Jordan the character (like, his personality), but he HAS a personality, and very few writers have ever gotten around to giving him one at all, I think. Darwyn Cooke did a sweet Hal in NEW FRONTEIR, and I think Mark Waid and Tom Peyer did a nice Jordan in JLA:YEAR ONE and BRAVE AND THE BOLD. Oh, and the JUSTICE Hal's pretty well done too, come to think of it.

Anonymous said...

It's the regular joes who get beaten to death with crowbars or shot through the skull that make me sad

It's the poor bastards that are shot through the chest by a clone of a Norse God, who's only function in the story was to blow someone away and then shut down. Cause you know, getting aced by Clor. That's just cold.

Thanks for the feedback. I had forgotten how well Hal Jordan was in New Frontier and JLA Year One. Maybe Hal is a character that is only great when he's done with a touch of nostalgia.

That being said, I'll pretty much read anything Geoff Johns writes. His run on The Flash was so iconic, it made the relaunch that much more disappointing.

Anonymous said...

Greetings, Anonymous here again.
My name is Michael by the way, but I fear signing up for Google at the moment.

2Scoops is that NYC Subway?

Geoff Johns on Flash was never particularly amazing, but it was consistently pretty good. That's an amazing feat. He never had a bad issue. They were always readable and fun. And his one-shots about certain villains were probably the most intresting.
The re-launch of Flash was so unreadable i can't even put words to it. It was totally lifeless and difficult to follow. I miss Wally.
Is there no Supernova is Wally camp?

I was actually very upset by Buddy's death. The man's name is Buddy. He's harmless and likeable. He became untouchable and forever loved due to Morrison's run on Animal Man.

When Sue died, i thought that was too bad, but before Meltzer's interpretation of her i didn't really know her, so i got over it. But I know Animal Man.
It is partiucalry cruel to kill him after Grant went out of his way in his run to prove that he could bring character back to life at the drop of the hat with no referance to contunity or logic.

As for GL-
I think part of the problem with him is that it's hard to put any GL in believable frightening situations. The power ring in theory makes them near omnipotent. Combine that with a guy who has no fear and you dont' really have anywhere to go with your story. The first re-birth of Hal was kick-ass with Johns at the helm.
After that things have been going down hill.

This new concept of his going to rescue this one dimeionsal boring blond bimbo (who clearly shouldnt be a pilot as this is the 3rd freaking time in a 15 issue run that she's crashed her bloody plane)is just not intresting. GL's police the universe and we have Hal being upset about some chick crashing her plane in the Ukraine or something or other? It lacks grandeur and usefulness.

Johns still kicks ass, I actually think it's Hal's fault. Hal just isnt' that intresting.

And I should also state that Johns take on the DOom Patrol in Teen Titans was spooky and brilliant.

-Michael

Anonymous said...

Michael: That's the Toronto subway I'm riding in the pic.

I forgot how cool Geoff's relaunch of the Doom Patrol was: he took all those various interpretations and continuity and wrapped it up in one creepy package. He seems to have a knack for taking concepts with screwed up continuity and making them something new, with a nod to the character's mythology, and just plain fun, which is an old and out-dated concept in these days of Crisis and Civil War.

Doom Patrol would be a great series, but not necessarily by Geoff, if only to keep him from spreading himself too thin. Maybe just a mini to start.

Re: Flash. I'll take consistently good over periodically crappy anyday of the week. I'll try the title again when the new team comes on board with Issue #6 and see how it goes. After Mark Waid and Geoff Johns, the bar is set pretty high. Wally used to be an unlikable whining D-Bag in the early days of the title, so just the right writer can turn any character around.