The Week In Ink: July 25, 2007

So the ISB got mentioned on television for the second time last night, courtesey of G4’s Attack of the Show. For those of you who haven’t seen the program, allow me to sum it up: Essentially, it’s an hour-long show where beautiful women read you the Internet, which is an idea so undeniably brilliant that I can’t believe society didn’t come up with it sooner. Kevin Pereira also stars.

Anyway, the point of all this is that, with a handy link on the AOTS website, there might be a few of you out there who are visiting for the first time, so I feel like it might be a good idea to explain myself.

I’m Chris Sims, and, well, I pretty much do this:

 

 

That, my friends, is the Pirate Queen of Pinghai Bay kicking no less than four fallen women in the face at the same time and really, there is nothing that says “it’s time to review some comics” quite like that.

Before we get on with it, though, I’d like to welcome the ISB’s first returning sponsor, my pal Jim Shelley and Flashback Universe Comics. There’s a new story up this week featuring the Fantom Force, which may be of interest to ISB readers for reasons that should be apparent to anybody who saw me hanging out with Jim at HeroesCon, and, y’know, it’s free. And while you’re at it, swing by previous sponsors Atomic Comics and The Rack, and tell ’em Chris Sims sentcha.

Okay! Now that the part that nobody reads is out of the way, let’s get to the part that, well, if we’re honest with ourselves, nobody really reads either. That’s right, kiddo: It’s Thursday night, and that means it’s time once again for the Internet’s Most Bare-Knuckled Comics Reviews! Here’s what punched me in the wallet this week…

 

 

And now… it’s my turn!

 


 

Comics

 

All-Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder #6: Ladies and gentlemen, the debate about whether or not All-Star Batman is actually good is officially over, as it has now transcended your petty human concept of “quality” and become something so mind-shatteringly awesome that you’re lucky you can look at it without your head exploding. I mean really: At this point, the only way it could be better is if this book was actually called The Goddamn Batman.

It’s pure and beautiful on a level that even Dark Xena has yet to reach, with scenes featuring Jim Gordon leering at his own daughter, Frank Miller taking cranky old man pot-shots at text messages, the most ludicrous faux-accented dialogue outside of Chris Claremont, and Jimmy Olsen getting an eyeful of “probably the most gorgeous babe in journalism on the whole planet.” Which pretty much just means that she’s hotter than Nina Totenberg, but still, it’s hilarious.

And that isn’t even the best part, which is, of course, the last page. The beautiful thing about ASBAR is that you can read the pages in a completely random order and not diminish your enjoyment one bit, so I read that one first. And I swear to you, without exaggeration, that it made me laugh so hard that my vision blurred and I had trouble standing up. And it even came out only two months after the previous issue, further lending credence to my theory that the long delays were caused not by laziness on the part of the creators, but by Miller going back and rewriting the stories so that they would revolve exclusively around profanity. Oh Goddamn Batman, you are a delight!

 

ISB BEST OF THE WEEK

 

 

Annihilation: Conquest – Starlord #1: I realize that after the last review, my credibility is probably dubious at best, but really: If you can come up with a better concept than Rocket Raccoon making a machine gun nest in Groot, the Monarch of Planet X, so that they can go on a suicide mission with Mantis and one of the Micronauts, then I’d certainly like to hear it.

I’ve been enjoying Annihilation an awful lot ever since I jumped on with the hardcovers, but unless Wraith actually does reveal himself to be the greatest of the Spaceknights, Starlord is shaping up to be the best of them by far. And really, that surprised me, since until now I’ve never really enjoyed Keith Giffen’s take on Marvel’s cosmic stuff: I skipped his Drax mini-series entirely, and his run on Thanos after Jim Starlin’s abrupt departure–where he followed up a story about the Mad Titan taking on both Galactus and a monstrous, universe-devouring frowny face from another dimension with one where Thanos walked around in a bathrobe with Death, who was a little girl at the time–just didn’t strike the right chord with me.

With this one, though, Giffen is on point, and Marvel’s making no secret about where this book’s influences lie: It’s The Dirty Dozen in space with third-string space-characters, and that’s exactly the sort of thing that gets me excited. Even without Lee Marvin, there’s enough here to love right off the bat: The characters are, after all, almost completely expendable. As much as I like Bill Mantlo, I doubt anybody’s going to write an angry letter if Rocket Raccoon gets killed saving the universe, and there probably isn’t a Celestial Madonna movie in the works that requires Marvel to keep Mantis hanging around. It’s all on the table, and that’s the sort of thing that creates a real sense of danger: You really don’t know if anyone in this story’s going to make it out alive. It’s a simple concept, sure, but as John Ostrander proved with Suicide Squad, it’s one that never fails to be thrilling when it’s done right.

The end result is a script as sharp as anything Giffen’s done anywhere, with a first issue devoted to introducing the cast, and what could have easily turned into a step-by-step listing of the characters and their powers is done excellently, with Giffen’s gift for personality shining in every scene. And the art’s great, too. Timothy Green II does a great job with it, and–just in case I need to repeat the key selling point here–it doesn’t exactly hurt that he’s drawing a talking space raccoon with a machinegun hanging out with a giant Jack Kirby tree monster. It’s fantastic, fun stuff, and even if you’re not reading Annihilation, it’s well worth picking up on its own.

 

Batman #666: You know, I’ve always thought it was a little weird that we managed to get through both Detective Comics and Action Comics #666 without so much as Jimmy Olsen dressed in a devil costume going around causing all manner of hijinx, but it looks like we can all rest easy: We’ve finally gotten that story where the Batman of the future fights Satan for control of Gotham City that we’ve all been waiting for.

Well, that I’ve been waiting for, anyway, and when it comes right down to it, Grant Morrison’s the perfect guy to pull it off. And he does, although I’ll admit it’s not without its problems. Ever since the end of “Batman and Son,” Morrison’s stories feel like they’re moving a shade too fast for their own good, and while I love the concepts–really, the Ghosts of Batmans Past, Present, and Yet To Come? That’s fantastic!–it certainly feels like there could’ve been one more issue thrown in to sort things out a little more. Morrison’s work often asks a lot of the reader and allows you to make your own connections, but with this, it just feels like he had to cut enough stuff to make sure he could make the deadline for the Issue of the Beast. On the whole, though, it works, even if it is the second time that someone’s drawn a pentagram on Gotham City using murders to mark the points.

It’s nothing short of fun comics, with some great bits of dialogue and–just to push it over the top–a gorilla with a submachine gun. Throw in some art by Andy Kubert, and you’ve got something where the only big problem is that there’s just not enough of it, and as far as flaws go, that’s not a bad one to have.

 

Doktor Sleepless #1: I was not aware that this comic was going to have the words “Future Science Jesus” written on the cover. If I had been, I probably would’ve ordered two. Yes, this week saw the realease of three new projects from Warren Ellis for Avatar, and while I’ve already covered my thoughts on Black Summer when #0 came out (which hold up through this issue, with me a little surprised at how much I’m enjoying it), the Doktor here is a new on the scene.

Or at least, that’s the idea. In practice, the first issue of Doktor Sleepless reads a lot more like the Warren Ellis Greatest Hits album: He goes into his usual bag of tricks, and if you’re a fan of the guy’s work–and why wouldn’t you be?–there’s really nothing here that you haven’t seen before. Probably the biggest “complaint” about Ellis is that his lead characters all tend to speak in the same voice, from John Constantine to Desolation Jones to Aaron Stack to Jenny Sparks and back again, but with this one, the Angry Tough-Guy lead isn’t the only familiar sight: It’s got the body-modification technology gone wild from Mek, and the Dok rolls around with a reasonably angry (if not technically filthy) assistant in a world where people shout about how mad they are at the future for not being the utopia it set out to be. Even the idea of an aborted fetus being worn as jewelry was one that first cropped up in his run on Hellblazer, which I remember because it shocked the bejeezus out of me in the first Warren Ellis story I ever read.

Still, Warren Ellis doing his usual tricks is still better than a lot of the stuff you’re likely to run across on the shelf, and with art by Ivan Rodriguez that’s a lot less cluttered than what Avatar usually puts out, it’s certainly not something to write off after one issue. It’s got a lot of potential to spring out into new directions from here. I’m just worried that it’s potential I’ve seen twenty times in other comics.

 

Hellblazer #234: One of the nice things about actually working in a comic book store–aside from the endless hours of fun and enjoyment you can get from people calling up to tell you that they have a copy of Infinity Crusade from 1963–is that I get to take the comics out of the boxes, lay them out on the tables, and then grab my own stuff before it hits the floor. And yet, through powers of concentration cultivated by years of video games and action movies, I still managed to completely miss the last issue of Hellblazer. It all worked out, though: I grabbed it today along with the new one, and while I expected nothing less, I was glad to find out that Andy Diggle continues to turn in some great stories with this. The man’s an incredible talent, whether it’s working on Green Arrow: Year One with Jock or writing comics’ meanest magician here. Great stuff, as usual.

 

Heroes for Hire #12: So you guys remember when Tales of the Unexpected was coming out, and I was getting it every month just so I could read Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chiang’s brilliant Dr. Thirteen story, eventually getting to the point where I just skipped the lead outright? Yeah, that’s the bind I seem to be finding myself in again with this. To be fair, the lead story isn’t nearly as bad as The Adventures of the All-Powerful Spectre Who Stands Around Whining And Not Doing Anything Whatsoever parts 1 through 8, but the fact of the matter is that I don’t really care about the new Tarantula and Shang Chi fighting the Hulk’s alien running crew.

Hard to believe, I know, but after two issues, it’s not doing anything for me, which leaves me with the problem of justifying the expense here. Admittedly, $2.99 is a little steep for a six-page backup, but a Fred Van Lente doing a story where the new Scorpion and Paladin just throw down on each other with anything handy would almost be worth it by itself. Of course, once you throw in the fact that they’re fighting in a storehouse for impounded super-villain paraphernalia and that “anything handy” means “six-barreled shotguns and alchemy rays,” it gets a little easier to swallow.

 

Immortal Iron Fist #7: Allow me, if I may, to quote from the solicitation for this issue, as seen in April’s Previews:

“At long last, America, someone has combined pirates, kicking, girls, and Iron fist into a single comic book. You’re welcome.”

I’ve mentioned before that there are times when I don’t even know why I bother to review things and this is one of them, because everything you need to know about this book is right there above this sentence in italics. Fraction and Brubaker have done something wonderful here with their reworking of the Iron Fist character, adding a legacy to it that allows for stories where Pirate Queens fight for love by kicking people right in the teeth, and it is exactly as fun as it sounds. They’re behind what’s easily becoming the most enjoyable comic on the stands, and this issue stands out even among those. It’s fantastic stuff, and along with the new hardcover, it’s a great place to jump on the ongoing if you haven’t already–and seriously, if you haven’t, it would be well within my right to both shun and pity you as a pariah from the world of awesome.

 

Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes #32: I’ve been a little less than impressed with his work on the Legion over the past couple of issues, but to be honest, Tony Bedard’s got a tough row to hoe. Despite the fact that I liked it an awful lot, there are apparently a lot of folks out there who didn’t care for Mark Waid and Barry Kitson’s latest iteration of the Legion, but even beyond just the problems with replacing those guys, there’s the inherent problem of the book itself: How exactly do you manage to make people care about a team that’s been largely defined by the fact that it gets reset every time a The Next Big Crisis rolls around? It’s something that’s becoming equally frustrating with the DCU as a whole, but with the Legion, which sometimes reboots itself if you look at it funny, it’s a whole new challenge to deal with.

But Bedard is not a man to be underestimated. He knows, as do we all, that the solution to the problem is Validus. The solution to every problem, in fact, is Validus.

 

Tarot: Witch of the Black Rose #45: There’s a scene in Live Free or Die Hard where the guy who plays Mac in the “Mac and PC” ads asks John McClane why he does what he does, why he risks his own life to fight the overwhelmingly deadly forces of internet-based terrorists and vaguely European robbers, and McClane says that he does it because nobody else can. If there was someone else who could do it, he says, he’d gladly let them take over, but there isn’t anyone else. So he has to do it.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is exactly how I feel about Tarot. I read it so that you don’t have to… because I’m the only one who will.

And it’s not always as easy as it looks, either, like in this issue, where Jim Balent actually manages to hit a new low, which, honestly, I didn’t even think was possible anymore. And yet, he manages it, as the latest issue of his artistically bankrupt horrorporn finds Tarot hogtied and molested by the servants of some dude with bleeding eyes who believes that he can unlock the secrets of witchcraft by ingesting, and I’m quoting the story here, Tarot’s “milk and honey.” “Honey” in this context is a metaphor, milk is not, and I’m honestly not sure which part of that is worse. Needless to say, Tarot is unable to prevent herself from becoming aroused over the course of being violated, and it’s about at that point that I wanted to shove an icepick into my brain to take the edge off.

And all that from a character continually referred to by her creator and fans as a strong, empowered female lead. Yippie-ki-yay, motherfucker.

 

Usagi Yojimbo #104: The last time an issue of Usagi came out, someone asked me why I didn’t bother to review it, and the simple answer is this: It’s really, really hard to think of enough nice things to say about Stan Sakai’s truly amazing samurai epic. It’s a masterpiece in every sense of the word, and Sakai proves it every time an issue comes out with his beautiful artwork and compelling stories, even in an issue like this one, where the title character doesn’t even make an appearance.

That’s always been a pet peeve of mine with comics ever since I was a kid, but with Usagi, you’d hardly even notice for the depth and skill of the storytelling, this time focused on the origins of Jei, one of Usagi’s greatest foes. It’s an amazing piece, reading (at least to me) like it draws as much from Otto Binder and C.C. Beck as it does from feudal Japan, with some truly creepy scenes so intense that they spill onto the inside back cover before they finish.

And the great thing of it is, I could say that about every issue. Admittedly, I don’t have a full run (as the trades seem to drop out of print with alarming regularity), but I can honestly say that I’ve never read a lackluster issue of Usagi; they all have that same level of dedication, craftsmanship and qualitiy that mark it as one of the greatest comics ever, and, well, if you’re not already bored of hearing me sing its praises, I can’t imagine that you’d want to read it every time it comes out. Suffice to say, it’s a wonderful comic, and if I don’t mention it, it’s because I assume you already know.

I mean, how could you not?

 


 

Trades

 

Crécy: If you’ve ever been reading the Wikipedia entry on the Battle of Crecy and found yourself wishing that it had more pictures and swearing, then brother, have I got a deal for you.

No, really: That’s exactly what this is. Ellis takes all the facts about an incredibly fascinating historical battle that marked the end of chivalry, mixes in a narrator with a contemporary viewpoint and a mouth like a sailor, and while that’s a recipie that could easily go wrong, it all comes off as breezy, informative, and, well, fun. That’s an odd adjective to apply here, seeing as it’s about brutal, filth-encrusted medieval warfare, but it reads like Ellis stripping things down and rebuilding them as the textbook he always wanted as a kid: One that didn’t shy away from the bad words and worse deeds, with a sharp focus on gallows humor and spite. Throw in the fact that it’s only $6.99, and you’ve got a nice way to knock out a lunch hour, assuming, of course, that you don’t mind reading about people getting stabbed in the face while you eat.

 

Order of the Stick v.-1: Start of Darkness: It’s been pretty obvious that I’m a fan of Rich Burlew’s Order of the Stick since, oh, about the end of Infinite Crisis, I’d say, and with good reason: It’s amazingly well-done on just about every level. The stick figure art alone is deceptively complex, with designs that allow for a incredibly emotive characters and great fight sequences, and the writing is always sharp, and Burlew never sacrifices a punchilne, even when things get more on the serious side.

But you can find all that out for yourself on the web. With this, though, the second original graphic novel he’s done as a prequel for the online comic, the same rules apply, but (as with the first prequel, On the Origin of the PCs), it’s done on a bigger scale. They’re divided into chapters instead of pages, but he keeps things moving at the same pace with an origin story for the villains that’s funny, tragic, and downright heartbreaking, often all at the same time. If you like what you read on the website, then trust me: The books are well worth picking up, if only to see an appearance by the ISB’s favorite game designer, Keith Baker.

 


 

Annnnnnnnnd that’s the week. As always, if you have any questions about anything I read, skipped over, left at the store, or you just want to disagree with my opinion despite the fact that I’m pretty much always right, feel free to leave a comment or shoot me an email.

As for me, I’ll be over here trying to figure out why I never knew I wanted to see four issues’ worth of Green Arrow’s origin until Andy Diggle and Jock were doing it. I’m thinkin’ it’s the cargo shorts.

The Week In Ink: July 18, 2007

I think it’s been pretty well established over the past couple of years that I read a lot of comics, but man, some weeks I even suprise myself with how many I’m getting.

I mean really: When five Archie titles ship in a single week it’s never a good sign for my entertainment budget, and when you throw in a mini-bust and a ridiculously expensive hardcover… well, allow me to explain with the following visual metaphor, wherein my desire to own everything I want is represented by the excitable little girl, and my impulse control is represented by the policeman:

 

 

Oh, kicks to the face. Is there nothing you cannot teach us?

Yes, despite the fact that I had to hire a team of oxen and a Sherpa to get them back into my house, it’s Thursday night, and that means that it’s my sworn duty to provide you with the Internet’s Most Fiscally Irresponsible Comics Reviews! So let’s quit wasting time and get to it! Here’s the senses-shattering list of what I bought this week…

 

 

…and these are my spine-tingling snap judgements!

 


 

Comics

 

All Flash #1: When Dan DiDio announced at the DC Nation panel at HeroesCon that Flash: The Fastest Man Alive was being cancelled and replaced with the return of Mark Waid to the title, it was met with a pretty enthusiastic round of applause from most of the folks in the audience. I, however, was a little apprehensive. It’s not that I don’t like Mark Waid on The Flash, though; I think that his run is easily one of the best super-hero comics of the ’90s, with an eight-year run that rarely dropped off in quality.

But that’s the problem: I’ve already seen Mark Waid on the Flash, and while I know we were all excited when Animal Man showed up in Grant Morrison’s JLA, I’m still a little leery of creators returning to characters they were done with, especially since I distinctly remember reading an interview back in 2000 where Waid talked about how he was having trouble relating to the character.

Still, it is Mark Waid on The Flash and while that’s enough to get me to check it out, I still don’t know whether to look forward to next month’s restart or not. Waid’s up to his old tricks in the dialogue right from page one, and while those are enjoyable enough, the story’s de rigeur Ironic Punishment for Bart’s murderer makes Wally come off as more vindictive than heroic. It’s par for the course in a DC Universe where people get their arms ripped off every week, I guess, but I was hoping for more from the character that Waid consistently wrote as, well, the most likeable member of the Justice League.

The art, though, is a different story: Karl Kerschl–who’ll be doing the regular series, if memory serves–is absolutely on top of his game, with a style that’s simultaneously surprising and darn near perfect for the story. I haven’t seen him do work like this before, but it’s bright, colorful, and just beautiful in the way that it captures both emotion and movement. His backgrounds are completely static, but Wally’s always dynamic, moving through them so fast that everything else stands still. Even Ian Churchill’s pages were pretty surprisingly well-done, given my feelings about his work on Supergirl.

Those last two pages, however, were eye-searingly horrible, and I say that as someone who doesn’t really mind Daniel Acuna in general. This, though, is literally some of the worst comic book art I have ever seen in my life. It’s jumbled, flimsy, and I’m pretty sure he used the same face for Wally and his daughter, which adds a whole new level of laziness to it. It’s two pages, Acuna. Try to give a crap next time.

 

Avengers: The Initiative #4: I’ve often lent my voice to the chorus of readers clamoring for tie-in heavy “events” to just stop for a while–which probably seems hypocritical of me, given that virtually every Marvel comic I read has a banner across the top identifying it as a tie-in to Annihilation, World War Hulk, the Initiative, or Endangered Species–but the truth of the matter is, the big crossovers aren’t necessarily the problem in and of themselves. Instead, the actual annoyance lies with the way that they steamroll over everything like the literary equivalent of Katamari Damacy, crushing perfectly good storylines under their weight and replacing them with nonsense that serves the copyright.

But then there’s books like this one, which manages to pull double duty as both a World War Hulk AND Initiative tie-in and actually pulls it off beautifully. Dan Slott does an incredible job here, telling a story that has a huge impact on WWH and still manages to advance his own ongoing story in a seamless example of crossovers done right. It’s huge, fun stuff, and while I still wish the coloring was a little better, it’s well worth the read.

 

Birds of Prey #108: You know, just when I was starting to think that Gail Simone had lost her touch–given how boring I’ve found Gen13 and Welcome to Tranquility lately–she goes and writes a story like this one, which consists almost entirely of a brutal, beautiful throwdown between Oracle and the new Spy-Smasher, and I find my faith restored anew. It’s a well-done punch-out through and through, and Nicola Scott’s art for the actual fight boasts some of the hardest hits I’ve seen since Holly fought it out with Blitzkrieg over in the pages of Catwoman, and with as much as I liked that issue, this one’s close behind it in terms of pure entertainment value. It’s the perfect resolution to the storyline, with Oracle finally breaking out with the anger that’s been building ever since Katarina Armstrong made her bid to take over, balancing the combat with a great scene explaining why one should probably think things through very carefully before taking on someone who used to be the information center for the Justice League. It’s a great bit of fight comics, and makes a great high note for the end of Gail Simone’s run.

 

Black Canary #2: My opinion on this book hasn’t changed that much since I wrote about the first issue, except that I’m feeling even more positive towards it now that the “Lone Canary and Cub” aspect of the story seems to have kicked into high gear, but there is something I’d like to say. I’m enjoying it an awful lot, but if you’re actually coming here for information that helps to inform your own purchases, you may want to consider the source here. After all, as you can probably tell from the image that led this post, this book contains a lot of kicking, and, well, that’s not exactly something on which I can give an unbiased opinion.

 

 

Brave and the Bold #5: Lately, I’ve been finding myself gripped with the increasingly popular opinion that a DC Universe built around Countdown and a series of purely nonsensical “teaser images” is quickly going to devolve into an unreadable mess marked with endless tie-ins that do their level best to crowd out the bright spots in the line, but every now and then, a book comes along and reminds me that as bad as things might be getting, the DCU still has the potential for boundless action and fun.

Brave and the Bold is that book.

If All Flash was Mark Waid going through his standard bag of tricks, this is him putting the same tricks together better than he ever has before. Even the instances where Waid allows himself to indulge in scenes that rely on forty year-old references to make the joke work–in this case, Batman tying up Triplicate Girl in the Siamese Human Knot–it’s done in a way that comes off as fresh and unexpected rather than the pointless wallowing that drags so much of the line down these days. And that’s not even the high point; it’s honestly like he sat down and made a list of every awesome thing he wanted to see from the characters and then somehow managed to write a story that pulled it all off in the most entertaining way possible. It’s all here, too, as a half-robot Batman travels to the 31st Century, gets turned back into Normal Batman, steals the Flight Ring right off Brainiac’s hand, takes out Legionnaires with the most low-tech weapons possible, and then fights Karate Kid in midair in a scene that is easily fifteen times more awesome than the Batman/Karate Kid fight in Justice League.

And I can prove that. With math.

George Perez’s art requires no further boosterism from me than the fact that it’s drawn by George Perez.

It’s the epitome of fun comics, but in an effort to temper my shameless love for this book, I will point out that Batman shouldn’t have been able to use Brainiac’s flight ring, since those things are keyed to the wearer’s DNA. I wouldn’t even bother to mention it, but since Waid’s the guy who actually created that feature in his run on Legion of Super-Heroes, it struck me as an odd contradiction. Even so, it hardly broke the book and did very little to distract from the fun of the comic, and besides, there’s always that possibility that either a) Batman’s a perfect genetic match for Brainiac 5, or b) the need to see Batman engaging in anti-gravity karate battles supercedes every other rule of comics.

I think you guys can figure out which side of the debate I’m on here.

 

Catwoman #69: I know I say this virtually every month, but if you’re not reading Catwoman–and statistically, you’re not–you’re really missing out. Will Pfeifer routinely turns in some of the sharpest scripts in comics (which explailns why I’m still reading Amazons Attack, even though I’m only getting half of the story), but the real star of this issue is the art team of David and Alvaro Lopez. Their work’s always gorgeous, but this one’s got a scene Selina walks into a room to find Batman holding her baby, and there’s a little smile on his face that’s… well, it’s just perfect. It’s a great piece of a great issue of a great run, and if you’re one of the poor suckers who’s missing out, jump on. Assuming that you like things that are totally awesome, I doubt you’ll regret it.

 

Cover Girl #3: Given that Cover Girl co-writer Kevin Church is the current sponsor of the ISB, I am contractually obligated to say something nice about this comic book, so here goes: Despite allegations from certain parties, Cover Girl is a fast-paced action adventure with a great Hollywood twist that will not–repeat: NOT–give you “cancer of the soul.”

But I kid. In all honesty, Kevin, Andrew Cosby and artist Mateus Santolouco have been doing a bang-up job with this one, making it a series that hit the ground running and just gets better with every issue. It’s highly enjoyable, and if you buy it, Kevin will get more money that he can then give to me, and really: That’s a Win-Win-Win situation.

 

Dark Xena #3: Oh, John Layman. You are the wind beneath my wings.

 

Giant-Size Marvel Adventures: The Avengers #1: I feel silly for even bringing it up again like it actually matters, but weeks like this make it crazy difficult to actually pick out a Best of the Week. Sometimes its’ really clear-cut, and sometimes I feel like a moron for doing it in the first place and limiting myself to one comic that stands out above all the rest, when there’s so much great stuff out there.

Needless to say, Marvel Adventures: The Avengers is consistently one of those books, and with this issue’s team-up with the Agents of Atlas–characters that Parker seems bound and determined to work into every single book he touches in the most noble goal in comics since Wally Wood drew Power Girl–he turns in what may be the most solid story he’s done for the title. It doesn’t have the flash and mind-blowing joy of the All-MODOC issue, but it does feature Leonard Kirk’s always-fantastic pencils, and as we learned this week from the saga of the Marvel MegaMorphs, everything is better when it’s Giant-Sized. I have, after all, been singing Jeff Parker’s praises for months now, and believe me, he’s one of those rare writers that earns it every time he puts pen to paper with stories that embody the pure fun of comics. I mean, how else could you describe a comic where a talking gorilla saves the future by putting Wolverine in a headlock and making fun of Spider-Man? Plus, as the record will show, Kang is totally awesome.

One thing I’m confused about, though: When Venus uses her powers to calm everyone down, how come she doesn’t appear to the other super-heroes as a giant floating naked woman? I mean really, Parker: if there’s one thing kids love, it’s nudity. And you can take that to the bank, Frank.

 

The Goon #19: SAINTS BE PWAISED! Eric Powell has returned!

Of course, it’s not like he was ever actually gone. Even in the months since the last issue of the Goon, he’s done work in Dwight T. Albatross Presents the Goon Noir, not to mention the perfect, unrepentant beauty that was Satan’s Sodomy Baby, and with an upcoming arc on Action Comics and the first original Goon hardcover in the works, there’s a lot more to look forward to. Still, even with SSB, it just wasn’t the same, so it’s nice to see things back as they should be: With Eric Powell taking on Oprah and The Goon (with a hatchet) taking on a hobo (with an aligator) in scenes that are even more awesome than you expect. Man, I love this book.

 

The Order #1: After Punisher War Journal, Immortal Iron Fist and Mantooth!, it’s become pretty clear at this point that Matt Fraction is a writer whose style appeals to me on such a fundamental level that he could write a four-issue mini-series called Gambit and Wonder Man Read Dianetics and I’d buy it, read it, and scan panels for Friday Night Fights.

Fortunately for me, Gambit, Wonder Man and comics in general, that won’t be necessary, as Fraction has instead turned his efforts to The Order. It’s a book whose premise reads like a cross between X-Statix and Strikeforce Morituri: A team of TV-friendly celebrity super-heroes tasked to Los Angeles who get powers for one year and one year only before they burn out and head back to civilian life. Throw in Pepper Potts recast as the team’s coordinator in a role reminiscent of StormWatch‘s Weatherman, and you’ve got something that at first strikes as, well, pretty derrivative.

And yet it all seems fresh: This is, after all, the first work that Fraction’s done for Marvel that focuses on new characters, which means that instead of just going all-out from page one with an RPG upside Stilt-Man’s head or a giant metal spider from HYDRA, he’s focusing on establishing the characters, and it makes for some fantastic pieces. The scene where the potential recruits to the Order are discussing what they most want out of their super-powers alone features some great characterization, with one exchange telling you everything you need to know to get started with the group, and the book’s almost worth it for Henry Hellrung’s stories of boozing it up on the town with Tony Stark. And speaking of Tony, there’s actually a concerted effort made to him come off as someone who actually believes in responsibility, and for the first time in a while, it actually works.

Plus, I’m pretty sure the next issue’s going to have someone fighting a bear. So, y’know. There’s that.

 

Shazam! The Monster Society of Evil #4: So Captain Marvel grows to a hundred feet tall and then punches something so hard that it creates a black hole.

I, uh, don’t really have a review here or anything. I’ve just wanted to type that sentence all day long.

 

Super-Villain Team-Up: MODOK’s 11 #1: You know, I like to think that I’m doing something useful with these little chats we have every week, but occasionally I just have to drop the pretense of “reviewing” and admit that I’m only mentioning something on the off chance that you forgot it was coming out and didn’t pick it up yourself. And that’s what we’re working with here.

This, my friends, is a book where every single thing about it just screams “READ ME.” Let’s take it by the numbers, shall we?

1. Fred Van Lente (of Action Philosophers, The Weapon and the surprisingly dark Fantastic Four/Power Pack) writing a story where
2. MODOK
3. recruits a gang of d-list “super”-villains
4. Including Rocket Racer
5. For a heist
6. To avenge his broken, grotesquely oversized heart.
7. Also appearing: Monica Rappacini, the new Scorpion’s mom, and
8. Super-Human Lucha Libre.

Congratulations, ISB reader: You now have an itemized list of reasons to buy this. You’re welcome.

 


 

And with that bit of friendly public service, I’m done. After all, all I can say about World War Hulk is that there’s a bunch of fighting and it’s pretty awesome, and that WWH: X-Men pulls off a joke about the Juggernaut that just cracked me right up when I read it. If you still want more, though–assuming that there’s someone out there with the burning urge to talk about how nice it was to see Nite Lite show up in Checkmate or how mind-blowingly awesome Darwyn Cooke’s The Spirit is every month–feel free to leave a comment.

As for me, I’m going to go try and figure out why the Wonder Woman encyclopedia has no entry under “bondage.” Come on, Fleisher: Who do y’think you’re foolin’?

The Week In Ink: July 11, 2007

And we’re back!

The more astute among you may have noticed that there was no update to the ISB last night, in flagrant violation of the immutable daily schedule I run around here. Sadly, it was out of my hands: A pretty hellacious storm rolled through town last night, taking out my power until about three in the morning and leaving me to enjoy the magic of South Carolina in July with no air conditioning.

This is, for the record, not as fun as it sounds. And incidentally? Hits were up today, even with no update. Why you gots to send me those mixed signals, baby?

Oh well, it doesn’t matter! After all, it’s Thursday night, and that can mean only one thing:

 

 

Yes, nothing quite says “well thought-out critical acumen” like a boot to the chops, so buckle up for another round of the Internet’s Most Violently Credible Comics Reviews!

Here’s what crashed headlong into my collection this week…

 

 

…and these are the snappiest judgements you’re likely to find!

 


 

Comics

 

Annihilation: Conquest – Wraith #1: So in case you haven’t heard it, there’s a rumor going around that the Big Secret of Wraith’s origin–set to be revealed in the next issue–is that he is actually ROM, and if that is true, it will come perilously close to displacing Nextwave #12 as the single best thing that Marvel has done this year. There are a few signs, of course: The Spaceknights show up in the Annihilation: Conquest Prologue as the first victims of the Phalanx, which would make for a nice motivation to have Galador’s favorite son join the big conflict. Also, if you squint and really, really hope that it’s true, the markings on Wraith’s poncho kinda look like they could be sort of be… You know… ROMish.

I’m trying not to get my hopes up in the very likely case that it’s not true, but even if this doesn’t turn out to be the long-awaited return of the greatest of the Spaceknights, it’s not like this book is exactly devoid of potential. I mean, really: When your worst-case scenario is an all-out action space adventure from the guy that wrote The Middleman, thats a pretty good place to be.

 

BPRD: Garden of Souls #5: I’ve mentioned my love of Hellboy before on numerous occasions, and almost every time, I talk about how the roots of my affection lie in the simple premise of a character who confronts the unknowable horrors of the supernatural and then clubs them into submission with a pistol or punches them out with his giant rock hand. It’s a beautiful concept, and Mike Mignola pulls it off in such a way that doesn’t reduce the threats of the monsters or make Hellboy seem like a clod. It’s just perfect.

And that, dear friends, is one of the many reasons that this issue, which includes a scene where Abe Sapien rips the arm off of an eldritch robotic horror and then uses it to beat the ever-living crap out of another eldritch robotic horror, struck me as flat-out awesome. Along with Mignola, John Arcudi and Guy Davis have been producing top-notch comics with every single issue of the various BPRD mini-series, and Garden of Souls was certainly no exception: It’s the revelation of the final pieces of Abe’s origin set against a mad arcane plot with a suitably creepy new cast member thrown in to boot. It’s great stuff, and it’s exactly what I’ve come to expect from the team.

 

Deadpool/GLI Summer Fun Spectacular: Like most Marvel comics readers who like a few laughs with my face-kicking, there was a time when I enjoyed the bejeezus out of some Deadpool. Two times, actually, if you’re counting the Joe Kelly and Gail Simone runs as two individual entities separated by a dismal chasm from which no chuckles could escape, but that’s beside the point. Sadly, I’m starting to feel like those times might be over: Despite a few genuninely funny bits that I’ve seen (mostly in the Civil War crossover, oddly enough), Fabian Nicieza’s Deadpool has never really struck me very well. I know how this is going to sound, given that his defining characteristics in the Joe Kelly years were holding a blind woman hostage under threats of death, heaping abuse on an alcoholic sidekick and uppercutting Kitty Pryde, but he just seems a lot less funny and a lot more meanspirited here.

But in case you’re thinking that means I didn’t like this one, DON’T! Putting the Deadpool stories completely aside, Nicieza and Dan Slott strike absolute gold with the plot of ISB Favorite Squirrel Girl going on a mission to find out what happened with Speedball after their first kiss, thus proving that someone besides me actually remembers I Heart Marvel: Masked Intentions. It’s fantastically entertaining stuff, and by the time it’s over, Slott and Nicieza take the utter nonsense that is Penance and knock out one of the best fixes since Agents of Atlas, bar none.

 

Fables #63: I generally don’t bother to review Fables every month, seeing as how there are only so many ways to talk about how good it is (which is similar to the problem I have with Brian Wood and Riccardo Burchielli’s DMZ), but I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that the current story-arc may actually be the best one of the series thus far. That’s not an easy bar to reach, either: For my money, the current title belongs to “Homelands,” which features Boy Blue fighting his way to the Big Reveal, but “The Good Prince” is almost nothing but big reveals and shocking returns, with a liberal dose of well-done foreshadowing thrown in for good measure. It’s truly excellent storytelling as usual from Bill Willingham, with the equally fantastic art (also as usual) from Mark Buckingham, and really: You don’t need me to tell you that. I just really like it.

 

Green Arrow: Year One #1: Before my interest in the title was brutally beaten and left for dead by a run where Judd Winick thought it would be a good idea to have him take on a bunch of monsters and then karate-fight Deathstroke with his samurai sword, I liked Green Arrow an awful lot. It’s one of those concepts that’s so simple that it takes an amazing amount of effort to get it wrong: He’s a modern-day Robin Hood, a spoiled rich kid with a social conscience that drives him to help out the less fortunate by shooting bad guys with pointy sticks. See? It’s genius, and while most of DC’s planned “Year One” titles didn’t really catch my fancy, the promise of something that would boil Oliver Queen back down to that simple concept was incredibly appealing.

Of course, it helps when the team behind it happens to be the same pair of guys that brought you Vertigo’s late, lamented Losers, which stood alongside books like Queen & Country as one of the most thrilling action comics to hit the stands in recent memory. It’s a tough legacy to live up to, but Andy Diggle and Jock make a pretty good go at it, sticking to a familiar story and casting Ollie as a complete–if mildly repentant–jackass, setting the stage for his big Road to Damascus moment later in the story. Even the seemingly small details, like his casual brush-off of drug rehabilitation, make for nice touches and go a long way towards fleshing out something that you usually see encapsulated in a sentence and a half. It’s good stuff, and if it keeps up, it’s going to make for a pretty enjoyable series when it’s all said and done. Which is to say, as long as Green Arrow gets to shoot people with pointy sticks. And maybe one with a boxing glove on the end.

 

Madman Atomic Comics #3: Under a lesser creator, a book where two characters essentially stand around discussing the plot with each other to catch up everyone who didn’t know what was going on already–presumably because they were still waiting for Madman Gargantua–would be one of the most unforgivably boring expository tricks a guy could pull. With this one, however, Mike Allred’s found a way to make it work: Doing every single panel in the style of a different artist as Frank Einstein wanders through his subconscious. And the list of artists he pays homage to is like a history of sequential art, from Winsor McKay and Jack Cole to Kirby and Ditko to Eric Powell and Darwyn Cooke to Art Adams and Dr. Seuss to the Kuberts and the Romitas and just about everyone you can think of in between. It’s absolutely flat-out amazing, and it speaks to Allred’s talent that he’s able to pull them all off so beautifully. It’s incredible, and even if you haven’t been picking up the series, you’re going to want to at least take a look at this one. And once you look at it, you’re going to want to look at it again and again, matching up panels to the phenomenally long list of names on the first page and marveling at how Allred pulled it off. Great, great stuff.

 

Nexus #99: And speaking of comics that I’m waiting for a little bit of backstory on, we have Nexus. It’s weird: I like Steve “The Dude” Rude’s art a heck of a lot, and given that he was the writer on Punisher for over five years, I’ve developed a pretty strong affinity for Mike Baron’s work as well. He did, after all, bring us both the saga of the best ninja training camp in Kansas story where the Punisher hangs out with Luke Cage after a pigment-altering surgery performed by a heroin-addict prostitute turns him black for a few months, so needless to say, I’m a fan. And yet, before about a month ago, I’d never actually read Nexus. At this point, though, I’ve only made it through the first of the Dark Horse archives, which means that I’m still separated from the current issue by a pretty huge margin, and I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to catch up. But what’s more, I’m not sure that it’ll even be worth it to try: What I’ve read just doesn’t seem to grab me, and for next month’s big hundredth issue, there’s going to be a recap anyway, which is really what I’m holding out for. I’m hoping that something in there hits me just right, but if it doesn’t, there’s no big loss. After all, I’ll always have that Mister Miracle Special and a story where Frank Castle fights a dog that is also a ninja, so rest easy, Baron and Rude: You guys have given me enough.

 

Punisher War Journal #9: There are a few things in this life that I will never, ever get tired of, and Frank Castle brutally murdering Nazis is one of them. Needless to say, Matt Fraction and Ariel Olivetti continue to give me pretty much exactly what I want from the Punisher, but rather than falling into the predictable (and enjoyable) cycle that marks Garth Ennis’s run of late, they continue to surprise me as well. For instance, the last thing I was expecting out of a Punisher story was for Frank to be hit by H-Rays, and the subsequent question of what happens when you take a guy that is completely consumed by a slow, single-minded hatred… and make him hate more. The answer, as you probably know by know, is something very bad, and it’s something that I certainly didn’t see coming from this one, leading to a fight that just keeps getting more and more personal. As always, it’s a great read, and in case you haven’t been paying attention for the past year, it’s one of the best books Marvel’s putting out, hands down.

 

Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane #20: With this issue, the ISB bids a fond farewell to writer Sean McKeever, whose departure from this book (and Marvel Comics) made for much wailing and gnashing of teeth amongst a group of fans significantly older and more male than the actual target audience for the comic. Make no mistake: I love this comic, and McKeever’s scripts–along with the beautiful art of Takeshi Miyazawa, who provides the best cover of the series for this issue, David Hahn, and colorist Christina Strain–have made it easily the best ongoing Spider-Man title on the stands, and seeing him go is just breaking my heart. But it’s in a good way: For his swan song here, McKeever manages to deal with Peter Parker’s embarrassment of riches when it comes to the ladies–what with the fact that he’s torn between Gwen Stacy, Firestar, and our title heroine–in a way that actually makes him sympathetic. It’s beautiful character work, and given how McKeever’s worked with the past 28 issues of the Mary Jane titles, it’s a perfect end to his run.

As for the book’s future, well, I’ll say this: Terry Moore was really very nice when I met him at a con a few years ago, and he even did a sketch of Black Canary that I like an awful lot, but I’ve never really enjoyed his comics, and I’m pretty sure that’s going to remain the status quo for the forseeable future.

 

Stephen Colbert’s Tek Jansen #1: You know, I was actually struggling with how I was going to treat this book when it came time to review it, wondering whether I should do it “in character” so to speak, treating it as a serious work from a conservative pundit, or just review it as a humor title, or even if I should compare it to my own foray into the world of fiction, The Chronicles of Solomon Stone.

But then I saw this panel…

 

 

…and realized that was probably all anyone needed to see.

 


 

Trades

 

Clubbing: Well, it had to happen sooner or later, but with Clubbing, the Minx line has made its first major misstep. And it’s a sharp drop, too, given that their last offering, Mike Carey and Sonny Liew’s Re-Gifters set the bar so high by being one of the most entertaining graphic novels of the year, and while I didn’t really expect Clubbing to live up, I didn’t expect it to fall quite so flat, either.

The plot is thus: The girl on the cover there is Charlotte Brook. See, she’s from West London, born and raised, and at the goth clubs is where she spends most of her days. Coolin’ out, maxin’ relaxin’ all cool, or stealing some Photoshop from the school, but there’s this one time that she’s up to no good. She starts making trouble in the neighborhood. She gets caught by some cops and her mom gets scared, and says you’re moving with your auntie and uncle in Bel Air.

No, wait. She moves in with her Grandparents in Meadowdale. Sorry, got confused for a second.

Anyway, the problems here are many and varied, starting with the fact that, well, that’s a pretty terrible cover. I’m not sure what the folks at DC thought they were going to accomplish by mixing photography and comic art here, but it doesn’t work, and the perspective is just wrong enough that Charlotte looks to be twelve feet tall and about as natural in her setting as Roger Rabbit. And once you get inside the comic, they just keep stacking up from there.

For one thing, I’m really not sure if Josh Howard’s the right guy to be drawing it. Don’t get me wrong, I actually do like the man’s art, but that’s just the thing: I like it, and I like it because I enjoy pinup-style drawings of angular women in what essentially amounts to fetish gear. Thus, Charlotte changes into a new and revealing outfit in almost every scene, with mini-skirts getting shorter, heels getting higher, and garter belts more visible along the way, which, for a book aimed at young girls, seems awfully exploitative. And then there’s the problem of Charlotte herself: She doesn’t come off as particularly brave, smart, or concerned with anything but herself, leaving me with the problem of a pretty unrelatable protagonist. Admittedly, it’s not designed to relate to me, but I didn’t have much trouble finding something to like about Main Jane and Dixie, either.

And hey, did you know this thing was a murder mystery with a supernatural element to it? No? Yeah, me either, and I’m relatively certain that I pay closer attention to the solicitations than your average joe. There’s one mention of the murder on the back cover copy, and none whatsoever of the supernatural element, which is, y’know, kind of a huge selling point that they might want to draw attention to. Or maybe they skipped it because it’s not introduced until page 108, when the book takes a sharp left turn into the realm of the paranormal for 38 pages. It just would’ve been nice to know, but even with fair warning, it’s still pretty poorly constructed, with a telegraphed ending and no discernable character growth for our alleged heroine.

Oh, and they also misspell Bertie Wooster’s name in the glossary, identifying him as Bernie Wooster. I mean really!

 

ISB BEST OF THE WEEK

 

 

Devil Dinosaur Omnibus: IN AN AGE WHEN GIANTS WALKED THE WORLD, HE WAS THE MIGHTIEST OF ALL!

Dinosaurs! Fire! Spacemen! Kirby! A note in the letter column that assures you that the subject matter is being presented with only the strictest attempts at historical accuracy! DON’T ASK! JUST BUY IT!

 


 

And that’s the week! As always, if you have any questions about something I read, comments on something I ought to read, or just want to join me in celebration of the fact that we got two new oversized Jack Kirby hardcovers and two oversized hardcovers featuring Devil Dinosaur this week–a feat that I can almost assure you will never be repeated ever–feel free to leave a comment.

As for me, I’ll be over here trying to figure out how to repackage a giant red Tyrannosaurus and his filthy naked ape-man companion into a form more suited for younger female readers.

Maybe if I gave them flowers?

The Week In Ink: July 5, 2007

Ah, motherhood!

 

 

You know, there’s an Chris Hansen joke one could easily make about that panel, but we here at the ISB are slightly better than that. Besides, I’m saving all that for the Gunsmith Cats review at the end of the post.

But no matter! It’s Friday night, and with the comics shipping a day late this week, that means it’s time for another no-holds-barred round of the Internet’s Most Explosive Comics Reviews! Here’s what put the match to the powderkeg this week…

 

 

…Now brace yourselves, ’cause this thing’s about to blow!

 


 

Comics

 

The All-New Atom #13: As much as this book’s been hovering right on the line between fun and boring over the past few months, I’ve got to say that it’s about time somebody remembered that Ray Palmer spent a couple years as an ass-kicking barbarian king. I mean really, it’s not all little chairs and hanging out on Hawkman’s shoulder with that guy; he swings a mean broadsword for a theoretical physicist. It makes for some pretty decent comics, too, and the revelation of the tiny village’s Ray Palmer Impersonator (complete with a highly dubious vocabulary) makes for a couple of great punchlines along the way, but I can’t help thinking that the best stuff in the issue by far was the scene with Chronos at the beginning. It was interesting, well-written, and even referenced 1995’s all-but-forgotten Underworld Unleashed, but it’s over in four pages to make room for a story that ends up with Jason Todd and Donna Troy showing up to rope yet another unsuspecting victim into the neverending quagmire that is Countdown.

Needless to say, that’s a little disappointing.

 

All-Star Superman #8: You have no idea how much it pains me to say this, given the astounding amount of affection I’ve got for #4’s battle between Doomsday Jimmy Olsen and the Reverse Superman, but I’ve got to be honest with you guys: For the first time, an issue of All-Star Superman has just fallen flat for me.

“But Chris!” you may well be saying, as soon as you recover your monocle from its unexpected flight from your surprise-widened eyes, “This issue’s got the Bizarro Justice League helping Superman to build a rocket out of garbage so that he can escape Bizarro World, and what may well be our first look at the long-awaited return of Solaris the Tyrant Sun! You love Solaris the Tyrant Sun!” And I do, and I’m even excited about the fact that this one only took three months to come out, but it just didn’t do it for me.

It may be that I’m not sure why Bizarro, out of all the things that’ve been explored in the series so far, is what Grant Morrison felt he should spend two issues on, especially given the fact that reading Bizarro dialogue is always a pain in the neck, even with the added comedy of watching Superman try to muddle through it himself. It could just be that Zibarro’s plight as the only Bizarro sensitive enough to write emo poetry about sunsets didn’t strike the right chords. Either way, it just didn’t click. It’s not that it’s bad–and there are some wonderful touches, like the way Bizarro World’s oceans and continents are laid out in a mirror image of Earth’s, or the advent of the highly confusing Bizarro Sarcasm–but it’s certainly not up to the high bar set by previous issues. It’s just… Well, average.

But hang on a second. Maybe it’s not that good because it’s the Bizarro World issue, and on Bizarro World, the comics that aren’t great are the greatest comics of all! Why… That’s metatextual genius!

 

The Astounding Wolf-Man #2: And the parade of negativity continues. That’s right, folks: It’s gonna be one of those weeks.

Other than the fact that I thought it was pretty cool of him to launch it with the actual full-length first issue on Free Comic Book Day–which probably got it into the hands of a lot more folks than would’ve snagged it otherwise–I’ve been pretty ambivalent towards Robert Kirkman’s latest project ever since it was announced. That said, I like the guy’s other work (most notably Invincible and about half of Marvel Team-Up) enough that I went into this one expecting his usual style of relatively lighthearted adventure. And that’s exactly what it is, right up until a last-page shot that was jarring enough to put the kibosh on any enjoyment I’d had getting to it.

I probably shouldn’t have been surprised, though: This is a comic with a blood-soaked cover of a werewolf tearing into something, after all, so it’s probably on me that I didn’t see it coming. But even so, the violence in the FCBD special was far more subtle, and even the scene of Gary right after the initial werewolf attack–which was itself meant to look pretty horrific–doesn’t match an evisceration complete with trailing intestines and kidneys flying out. And it’s even worse when it comes from Jason Howard’s cartoony (for lack of a better word) style, as that just makes it seem even more remarkably out of place. It’s pretty annoying; the last thing I want to see as a comics reader after the past year is someone else getting brutally disemboweled in full color, and given that Kirkman himself has done similar scenes recently in his other titles, it’s got the added frustration of coming off like just another lazy trick that could’ve been done much better and to a far greater effect in a different way.

See what happens when you hire Dave Campbell, Kirkman? The whole thing just goes right down the tubes

 

Black Canary #1: I’ve been on the fence about getting this one for a while. On the one hand, as a long-time Birds of Prey reader, I actually do like Black Canary an awful lot. Not enough to think she should actually be the leader of the Justice League (because really, she wasn’t even the leader of the Brids of Prey, and there were only two of them), but still, I’ve got a lot of affection for the character and I’m curious about what she’s doing with her newly adopted “sister,” Sin. On the other hand, I have virtually no interest in finding out whether or not she’s going to accept Green Arrow’s proposal, especially given that DC’s pretty much tossed any suspsense on that front right out the window with this month’s solicitations.

What it really came down to was the team: Tony Bedard’s a hit-or-miss writer for me, but he’s actually doing a lot of stuff that I’m pretty interested in lately, and I thought Paulo Siqueira did a fine job handling pencils on BoP, so I figured I’d give it a shot, and the end result isn’t half bad. Sure, there are parts that don’t even bother to make a bit of sense–like where exactly Merlyn got a framed photograph of Green Arrow and Green Lantern walking in on Speedy while he was shooting up or the fact that Green Arrow is actually stupid enough to confuse a 19 year-old Dinah Lance with her mother, who he saw fighting crime back in the 40s-but if nothing else, it’s nice to see Bedard bringing up Dinah’s ex-husband, who was mentioned a grand total of one (1) time by Chuck Dixon in the pages of Birds of Prey like ten years ago. This is going to sound pretty obvious, but it’s very much like one of those four issue solo mini-series that DC used to hand out to their characters like Halloween candy back in the late ’80s, and while it could go either way at this point, I liked this issue enough to hope it’ll end up being good.

 

Detective Comics #834: Hey, you know what would be awesome? If the Joker from Detective Comics and the Joker from Batman didn’t appear to exist in complete isolation from one another.

 

Dynamo 5 #5: It’s been a while since I’ve talked about Jay Faerber’s work her on the ISB, since Noble Causes seems to have plateaued again after the frustrating series of issues that led up to #25, but everything I’ve said about Dynamo 5 in the past is still true: Faerber unquestionably does his best work on the titles he creates himself, and with this one, it’s like he’s hit the perfect balance of super-hero action and the character-driven family struggle element that made the earlier issues of Noble Causes so good. It’s become something of a trademark for him, and with good reason: When he’s firing on all cylinders, it makes for some highly enjoyable comics.

And that’s what’s happening here. Faerber never stops tweaking the book, adding new and interesting plot threads with every issue to create something incredibly entertaining, and Mahmud Asrar’s art compliments it perfectly. It’s excellent stuff, and if you haven’t already, give it a shot.

 

Jonah Hex #21: So here’s the thing: This book is probably the best thing that Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray have done, and the idea of putting out a Western book with a character that I really like starring in self-contained single issue stories is one that I’d be more than happy tor ead every month if they didn’t keep basing the entire series on stories about rape. It is ridiculous, and nowhere more than in this issue, where the rape and subsequent murders have absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the story, and seems to have been tacked on at the beginning and end for no other reason than to meet some sort of quota.

That’s the only thing that could possibly explain it, and so I’m done with the book. It’s already an overused plot device in comics, and any enjoyment that comes from the book is completely outmatched every three months when Palmiotti and Gray trot out the same reasonably offensive plot over and over again. It’s stupid, it’s lazy, it’s frustrating, and it’s dropped.

 

New Warriors #2: I’m going to owe my friend Brandon ten bucks after this review thanks to a bet we had going back in 2004 about sentences I didn’t think I’d ever say, but even I have to admit that I was pretty excited to see Jubilee show up in this one. Yes, New Warriors continues apace, and Underworld‘s Kevin Grevioux continues to surprise me at every turn with how well he’s managing to pull things off here. I’ve mentioned before how much I enjoyed the Nunzio Defillipis/Christina Weir run on New Mutants and New X-Men, and to see Grevioux and Paco Medina using a powerless Sofia Mantenga as his point of view character, complete with her dreams about the “good times” back before everyone she went to Xavier’s with was blown up or shot in the head makes for one of the most unexpected surprises of the summer. What’s more, the New Warriors themselves are actually a well-done mystery, with Beak showing up in the first issue and Jubliee making her appearance in this one–which itself leads to a genuinely worthwhile cameo by Wolverine–just begging the question as to who else made it to the lineup. It’s fast-paced fun, and it’s exactly the sort of thing I’d want from a Marvel team book right now.

And yet, it’s still New Warriors. Truly, these are wonderful times in which we live.

 

ISB BEST OF THE WEEK

 

 

Runaways #27: Any lingering doubts I might’ve had about whether Joss Whedon and Michael Ryan’s run on this title was going to be as fun and enjoyable as Vaughan and Alphona’s have been, in the span of this one issue, all but completely eradicated.

And I’m as surprised as anybody by it: Time Travel stories are notoriously difficult to pull off, but Whedon makes the absolute most of it in this issue, throwing in what appears to be a 1900s version of the Punisher, a foundation for the Age of Wonders to go right along with the Age of Marvels, and what is probably the most shocking return for a character I’ve ever seen. I honestly didn’t think anything could top Bill Willingham and Matt Sturges bring Sambo back from literary obscurity in the pages of Jack of Fables, but bringing back the Yellow Kid–the Yellow Freakin’ Kid, complete with words on his shirt!–as part of a turn of the century teenage super-team is pretty mind-blowing.

Well, mind-blowing for anybody who ever wrote a paper on the history of comics in high school, I mean. Hully Gee!

And the art matches right up: Ryan’s pencils are better than I’ve ever seen them, thanks in no small part to Christina Strain’s usual (read: amazing) job on colors. It’s a great-looking book, and it lives up to Jo Chen’s fantastic cover. It’s great, great stuff, and it’s finally got me excited about getting to the next issue, instead of looking back on the run that led up to it.

 

Y – The Last Man #57: And speaking of things I love about Brian K. Vaughan, we have Y, which continues its final story arc this month, three issues from the big finish. It’s always been one of my favorite titles, and ever since I found out it was ending, I’ve been talking about how upset I was going to be if it managed to finish without giving us a scene where Beth and Yorick reunited with a kiss.

We all feel a little bit of fan-entitlement sometimes, folks.

Anyway, that particular scene happened last issue, and since I was completely elated at the prospect of the big payoff for all the tribulations that Yorick’s been through over the past five years, I neglected to consider what was going to have to happen next, which is where this issue picks up, and it’s excellent. Beth’s revelation to Yorick and his reactions are almost perfect, full of the almost-too-clever-for-its-own-good dialogue tricks that are Vaughan’s trademark, from “I was just a straitjacket you were trying to get out of” to his wonderful response when she tells him he can’t be alone out there. The kicker, though, is the bit that leads to the last page. It’s excellent, and now that my own little requirement’s been met, I’m really, really excited about seeing where it’s going to go.

 


 

Trades

 

Anita Blake: Vamprie Hunter: Guilty Pleasures: Volume One: That’s right, folks: I am now the proud owner of the Anita Blake hardcover, despite the fact that I not only own every issue, but every second printing Marvel and DBPro have put out, based solely on the fact that the covers just kept getting more and more hilarious every time. After all, the hardcover contains Vampre Victim, an all-new nine-pager by Laurell K. Hamilton and whichever one of her assistants drew the short straw that day, and someone‘s going to have to go in there and wrench the answers between the panels out of it in the form of my incredibly dubious annotations.

But there is, however, another reason why you may want to pick this thing up:

 

 

Your eyes do not deceive you: I am quoted on the dust jacket of the Anita Blake Hardcover. No, really. And believe me, I’m as surprised as you are.

So, on the off chance that anyone out there is joining us after googling “Chris Sims” and “Annotated Anita Blake,” well… Surprise!

 

Gunsmith Cats Burst v.2: There’s been a minor buzz going around the ol’ Internet lately about Kenichi Sonada’s proclivity for putting out comics with highly sexualized and young-looking women, which just tends to get creepier and creepier the more you think about Minnie May Hopkins (18?) and her boyfriend Ken (30), who have been dating ever since she was a prostitute five years prior. I assure you, it creeps me out as much as the next guy, but the fact of the matter is that Gunsmith Cats is still one of the best comics to roar out of Japan in a bullet-riddled muscle car, and even with the fact that I feel nervous flipping through it in public, it’s awesome enough that I find myself not caring. That said:

 

 

That has got to be the funniest Parental Advisory Sticker placement ever.

 


 

And that’s the week. As always, any questions you may have about something I read or skipped over this week can be directed to the comments section below. As for me, I’ll be over here marveling at the folks over at Dabel Brothers (who are, in all honesty, being amazingly good sports about everything) and plotting my next move.

Look out, Dark Xena: You’re next.

The Week In Ink: June 27, 2007

When I posted a list of fifty things that I love about comics last night, a few readers were surprised that I didn’t actually list “kicks to the face” in there with the rest of it. The reason for this, of course, is that kicks to the face aren’t something that I love about comics.

They’re something that I love about life.

 

 

Incidentally, that thing where something happens and it’s so awesome that the sound effect is the panel? I love that.

But enough with the positivity! Tonight belongs to the Internet’s most bone-shattering comics reviews, and after last night’s lovefest, can there be anything left but the all-consuming bitterness and spite that comes from working in comics retail?! Read on, gentle reader! Read on!

 

 


 

Comics

 

Blue Beetle #16: Let’s talk for a minute about what makes a great comic. For the past few months–ever since it broke through the mild shakiness of the first story arcBlue Beetle has been one of the most consistently enjoyable comics that DC puts out. Rogers and Albuquerque have been doing a phenomenal job on it lately, fine-tuning the great cast of characters and putting together stories that are almost up to the standard set by the early issues of Impulse for sheer enjoyability, and this issue’s a perfect example why. It’s completely solid, from the arrival of Traci 13 to a sequence where Jaime Reyes comes off as one of the most likable characters in years. But really, is that what makes this thing great? No.

For that, just take a look at page two, where the title of the story is revealed to be “Total Eclipso: The Heart.” Oh, John Rogers! You complete me.

 

Criminal #7: What is it about the Dodge Charger that makes it the car of choice for jumping over things and outrunning cops?

Seriously, though: The last thing anyone should need at this point is for me to tell them that Criminal is awesome. Its two Eisner nominations aside, it’s a book by Ed Brubaker and Sean Philips, and as anyone who read Sleeper knows, those guys just don’t make bad comics. What is surprising though is how well-done their heist sequences are: The one in this issue involves a sniper rifle, a cocktail of crystal meth and valium, and a stolen ambulance that gets set on fire, and that’s just to get what they need to pull of the actual heist later in the story! It’s ridiculously exciting stuff that’s beautifully done in every way, from the covers all the way to the essays on film noir that close out every issue.

 

ISB BEST OF THE WEEK

Immortal Iron Fist #6: This, for the record, is a comic book where one character says to another: “Less talking. More kicking.” How, I ask you, could it not be the best of the week?

This issue wraps up the first story arc of the new series, and for those of you who have been waiting for the trade to jump on, allow me to assure you: This is everything you have ever wanted from Iron Fist. Hell, it’s everything you never even knew that you wanted: A legacy that stretches back to the Pirate Queen of Pinghai Bay, a guy shooting chi-powered bullets from a pair of US Army .45s, and the Heroes for Hire reuniting to fight the armies of HYDRA!

To be fair, you probably did know you wanted that last one, but make no mistake: This book delivers, with each issue crammed as full as it can get with some of the most enjoyable action you’re going to get in comics, bar none. I’ve already gone on tonight about Ed Brubaker’s talents, and Matt Fraction’s body of work–which includes both a kung fu gorilla and a story where the Punisher fights Nazis–is spoken for pretty much every time I open my mouth, and they’re both knocking it out of the park on this one, with art to match. David Aja’s fight scenes are kinetic and frenzied, and Russ Heath’s flashback sequences are, well, drawn by Russ Heath. No further commentary should be necessary.

It is–and I’m saying this with no undue hyperbole–one of those comics that’s as close to being perfect as I can possibly imagine, and it’s something that you need to be reading. Heck, I even like Iron Fist’s new costume, and considering the amount of affection I’ve got for a good old-fashioned high collar, that’s saying something.

Incidentally, if you demand more Matt Fraction in your life–and really, who doesn’t?–ISB reader Jeff Brister has a brief interview with him up at his blog where he talks about, among other things, the next arc on Casanova. Brister refrains from just flipping right out about Iron Fist–a show of discipline which obviously continues to elude me–but it’s worth checking out anyway.

 

Legion of Monsters: Satana: Yeah, I know, I’m as surprised to see it here as you are, but let’s be honest: A man’s desire to see what Pamela Anderson would look like with red hair cannot be underestimated, and thus I have turned once again to the public service provided by Greg Land.

I’m kidding, of course. Aside from my brief interest in Brian Pulido’s mildly wretched Supernaturals last Halloween, Satana’s never really done much for me, and with a story so boring that I got two pages from the end and just decided to skip the rest, this issue didn’t really change that.

No, the real reason I picked this one up was to see the second feature: a story about N’Kantu the Living Mummy done by Jonathan Hickman, whose last issue of The Nightly News also dropped this week. I’ve really been enjoying Nightly News–especially given the fact that it’s Hickman’s first comics work–and I was really interested to see how he’d manage to work his distinct style in a story that, thematically speaking, was about as far from an indictment of biased journalism as you could possibly get. What surprised me when I actually read it today, though, was that if you take away the fact that he’s drawing mummies and skeletons, this story looks exactly like The Nightly News.

It’s got the same starkly contrasted, almost abstract pages, the same sans-serif lettering, heck, there’s even informative boxes that pop up to explain the Dynasties of Egypt like there are in his other book, and the end result is, well, interesting. I’m not reaching for something nice to say with that, either: It’s not at all the story that I expected, but in a lot of ways, Hickman makes it work. Either way, it’s definitely worth checking out, if only to see how different it is from the story that precedes it.

 

She-Hulk #19: It’s been a while since I’ve checked out any comic book message boards, so I’m not sure if the heated debate about Rick Burchett’s work on She-Hulk is still going on. If it is, though, this issue ought to set everything right once and for all, because under Cliff Rathburn’s inks and Andy Troy’s beautiful coloring, Burchett’s work has never looked better. I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve had my doubts about him in places–especially given how much I liked Juan Bobillo’s distinctive look for the series–but this issue is nothing short of fantastic, with his smooth, never a hair out of place Mallory Book facing off against an increasingly frazzled Jennifer Walters over the course of the issue. Just watch the way that he draws Mallory’s facial expressions and mannerisms, putting so much character into the way she stands in each panel, and you’ll understand why I like that guy so darn much. It’s gorgeous.

As for the writing, Dan Slott’s not exactly a slouch: The page where Ditto’s being hit in the face with long boxes for eight panels has one of the best sight gags I’ve seen in comics in a long while, and that last page is a hoot. Or quite possibly a squawk. You know what I mean.

 

World War Hulk: X-Men #1: You know what’s nice? Reading a comic where the kids from New X-Men show up and manage to all make it through 22 pages without getting killed. It’s a simple pleasure that’s become increasingly rare in the months since Nunzio DeFilippis and Christina Weir got the boot in favor of turning the book into X-23 and her Bullet Magnet Sidekicks, The New X-Men.

…uh, sorry. That really has nothing to do with this particular series, and that’s why you’re reading these reviews for free on the Internet. But back to the point at hand: Christos Gage is on a roll, and has been for the past couple of years, with books that often slip under the radar despite being amazingly entertaining, like Union Jack and Stormwatch PHD. He has a gift for getting to the heart of a character and bringing it to the surface with just a few lines of dialogue, and he’s in rare form here, which is what pushes this thing from a book that doesn’t really have to be anything but a big, stupid super-hero punchout to a comic with a little more depth and enjoyment to it.

Well, that and the Hulk saying: “Xavier. You’re walking again. I can fix that.” That was freakin’ awesome.

 

X-Men: First Class #1: I really enjoyed the First Class mini-series, so when Marvel announced that they were following it up with an ongoing (hey, imagine that! An X-Men title selling well!), I was elated, and with good reason: With stuff like his dynamite run on Marvel Adventures: The Avengers and absolute masterpieces like Agents of Atlas, it’s rapidly becoming clear that Jeff Parker makes fun comics, and this one might just be the most fun of ’em all.

Just look at the art. Roger Cruz is absolutely perfect for the book: Stylized and incredibly expressive in a way that captures the colorful excitement that got so many of us hooked on comics in the first place. And the stories themselves are fantastic, too. Even though I’ve never been that big a fan of the original lineup, Parker makes the most of them with stories like this one, which sees Jean Grey shadowing the Invisible Woman on a typical day at work–which for her, means fighting (come on, let’s all say it together)…

THE MAD THINKER AND HIS AWESOME ANDROID!

Man. I will never get tired of that phrase. Anyway, it’s great, and I think it’s the best X-Men title on the stands.

 


 

Trades

 

Showcase Presents: Batman v.2: I probably won’t be getting around to reading this one for a while, since I’ve got an entire bookshelf full of Showcases and Essentials that I’ve yet to read, but flipping through it today, I did see that this volume contains Batman #186. And that, for those of you who might have forgotten, is the first and only appearance of Gagsworth A. Gagsworthy, The Joker’s Midget Sidekick.

Even stacked up alongside the Trial of the Bat-Witch and the Planetary Chance Machine, Gaggy’s right there in the running for the craziest damn thing I’ve ever seen, and probably has a lock on being the creepiest, so if that story’s a good representation of what goes on in this one, I’m willing to declare it the greatest trade paperback in the history of man.

 


 

And with that, you can file this week under Done, son. As always, if you’ve got any questions about anything I didn’t mention, or if you just want to talk about how much better Amazons Attack would be if Will Pfeifer and Pete Woods were doing the whole darn thing, feel free to leave a comment. As for me, I’ll be over here livin’ in a powder keg.

And givin’ off sparks.

The Week In Ink: June 21, 2007

I know, I know: With all the fuss leading up to my three-day rock-off at HeroesCon ’07, I never actually got around to reviewing last week’s comics. But really, aside from the fact that Punisher War Journal was awesome and Re-Gifters–by the same team that brought you My Faith In Frankie and the artist of this week’s Wonderland–was everything I wanted from the Minx line all done at once, what more do you need to know?

Besides, the ISB is all about the now. Especially when this is happening:

 

 

Now, to move on, before anyone realizes the staggering hypocricy of someone who routinely trots out forty year-old DC comics to mock them for their lack of contemporary storytelling claiming to be all about the now! After all, it’s Thursday night, and there’s a ridiculous stack of comics on my desk to review! How ridiculous?

I’m glad you asked!

 

 

And shockingly, last week had even more. Now then, time’s a-wastin’, so buckle up for the Internet’s Most Mind-Blowing Comics Reviews!

 


 

Comics

 

Annihilation: Conquest Prologue: A while back, after a discussion about offering ISB t-shirts in womens’ sizes, I got an email saying that I was, from all evidence, “on the Good Guy end of the sexist spectrum,” and while that’s always nice to hear, it’s a rumor I’d like to completely dispel with this next sentence:

If there’s one thing I love more than lesbians, it’s space lesbians!

Yes, in addition to star-spanning slam-bang action, this one focuses heavily on Phyla and Moondragon, who take time out from beating people up in space to hug each other a little, and if that’s not a selling point, I don’t know what is! All kidding aside, though, the first few issues of Nova have gotten me really excited about Annihilation–even though I skipped it the first time around, and this one keeps that going pretty well. Of course, considering that it comes from Abnett & Lanning (the same guys who write Nova) and Mike Perkins (who pencilled the incredibly fun and underrated Union Jack mini with Christos Gage), that’s to be expected.

 

Brave and the Bold #4: Normally, this is where you’d find my usual complaint about a two-month gap between issues, but when it’s George Perez taking some extra time, things are a lot easier to forgive. Simialrly, under any other circumstances, a team-up between the new Supergirl and Lobo would sound about as appealing as a sandwich made of punches, but Mark Waid manages to pull it off. Supergirl’s petulant and self-righteous–which I think we can all agree is pretty well in line with how she is over in her own title of late–but Waid takes the time to show that there’s an underlying concern for Green Lantern in there that softens the edge to it and makes her come off as a frustrated character, rather than a frustrating one.

Also, it opens with Half-Robot Batman, and if that’s not the most awesome thing you see today, then thanks for reading the ISB, Professional Shark Wrangler.

 

Conan #41: And now, tonight’s second incredibly misogynistic statement:

Tim Truman and Cary Nord’s adaptation of Robert E. Howard’s classic “Rogues in the House”–one of my favorites, for reasons that’ll be obvious if you’ve read it before–continues to be thoroughly awesome, and while I just read through the Roy Thomas/Barry Windsor-Smith adaptation a few weeks ago, I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of seeing Conan chuck a his naked, traitorous ex-girlfriend off the roof into a cesspit. Cracks me up every time.

 

Heroes for Hire #11: Before you guys get the idea that I didn’t learn my lesson from a misspent youth that involved buying every Joker: Last Laugh tie-in and every Bruce wayne: Murderer tie-in (Azrael?! What was I thinking?!), allow me to assure you: I’m not getting every “World War Hulk” crossover. It might look like that, given the next few items on the list here, but, well, when you put Christos Gage on a book, I’m probably going to buy it.

Heroes for Hire, meanwhile, is a whole different story: I had other reasons for picking up this issue. I’ve got to say, though: It may just be that I’m coming in with no knowledge of what’s supposed to be going on with these characters–I guess Humbug is a parody of Penance, maybe?–but I don’t think I’m missing a whole lot here. What I don’t want to miss, howver, is a story by Fred Van Lente that features everyone’s favorite green-haired teenage SHIELD agent, the new Scorpion! There was a great one in last week’s Spider-Man Family too, where she took on the New Venom (who is also the Old Scorpion), but it’s always nice to see a minor-league character that I really like just keep popping up like that.

 

Incredible Hulk #107: If there’s one thing I’ve learned from the past year or so of Marvel Comics, it’s that I could probably get through the next couple of years just fine if I didn’t see any super-heroes fighting each other. That said, the only two characters that I actually like to see fighting other super-heroes are the guys slugging it out on the cover, so this one gets a free pass.

Greg Pak seems to be pulling out all the stops for “World War Hulk” here, too: If “Planet Hulk” had any major problem, it was probably the mildly repetitive nature of the plot’s advancement. Hulk would punch someone out, frown a lot and then tell someone he didn’t care about anything, and then they’d wonder if he was the Savior or the Destroyer, and it’d repeat itself for a hellaciously enjoyable year. With this one, though, that’s all gone out the window. We already know why we’re here, and now it’s time for someone to get punched so hard that the sound effect contains sixteen Os. And that, my friends, is just what I wanted to see.

 

Iron Man: Hypervelocity #6: And speaking of someone pulling out all the stops, this issue features Adam Warren at what may well be his Adam Warrenest: The whole issue takes exactly 3 minutes and 29 seconds, is set to Iggy Pop’s “Search and Destroy” and features a running battle of operating systems expressed as a suit of sentient Iron Man armor punching and getting punched through the walls of a death-trap helicarrier named after the CO of the Howling Commandos. It is, essentially, the biggest, craziest, fastest, nerdiest robot fight ever put on paper, and if that’s your thing (which it certainly is for me), it’s a hoot.

 

Madame Mirage #1: Those of us who actually read the text pieces in last month’s Madame Mirage preview–which, let’s be honest here, was probably just me–will probably recall that Mirage was originally conceived by Paul Dini as an online cartoon, and, well, that makes a lot of sense. It has all the trappings of the genre: A busty heroine fighting vague evil alongside a funny-ish sidekick in an ultraviolent dystopian future full of transforming jetpacks.

Yeah, I know, that last one sounds oddly specific, but trust me: It was a genre. Of course, now that I’ve gotten all that written down, I’m not even sure why it’s there. After all, the whole point of a review is to tell you something you might not know about the title, but with Madame Mirage, it’s pretty much exactly what you’d expect: Much like the character herself, everything’s pretty much out in the open here. Then again, it’s all going to change by #3, so…

 

The Spirit #7: In these little chats we have every week, I’ve often voiced my distaste for the almost constant stream of fill-in issues we’ve been getting lately, and I’d do the same thing here for an issue of the Spirit with no Darwyn Cooke behind it, but, well, when your fill-in guys are Walt Simonson, Chris Sprouse, and Kyle Baker, things are a little easier to take.

 

Wasteland #10: For those of you who were waiting for revelations to start hitting for the secrets that have surrounded Michael and Abi since the first issue, then wait no longer: The intruiging vagueness starts here!

Really, though, I hardly feel like I’ve got to review this one, and a look at the back cover ought to tell you why:

 

 

That makes the second time that I’ve sung this book’s praises so loud that the good folks over at Oni felt like they should put it on the back of the book, and I meant every word of it: Wasteland has some great stuff going on, and if you’ve been holding out, jump on. I mean, I heard from some guy on the internet that it’s meticulous, and that’s gotta count for something!

 

The Weapon #1: I came very close to not picking this one up, owing to Platinum Studios’ history of thoroughly unsavory business practices, not the least of which includes an unholy alliance with the plague that is KISS comics. Still, owing to the fact that it’s written by Fred Van Lente (who, as we’ve already seen, has such a svengaliesque hold on me that I’ll even buy Heroes For Hire), I gave it a shot, and, well, it’s really good. The idea behind the lead character is so simple and beautiful that I’ve been kicking myself all day for not thinking of it first: He’s Iron Fist meets Green Lantern, a kung fu physics genius who invented a set of gauntlets that create hard-light weapons with a thought, with an explanation at the beginning done up as a sales pitch that does a pretty good job of selling it to the reader as well. It’s the kind of idea that has the potential for great visuals in the action scenes, and artist Scott Koblish makes the most of them, with stuff like a quick-paced fight scene on top of a bus between the main character and two sword-wielding bikini girls. It’s got the fun of a Jackie Chan movie mixed with Van Lente’s usual engaging hooks, and to be honest, it’s not one to miss. Give it a shot.

 

Weird World of Jack Staff #1: When you get right down to it, I’m just putting this out here for anyone who didn’t already know it was coming out this week; my usual comments about Paul Grist’s genius and Jack Staff being the greatest underappreciated masterpiece of modern comics still apply, and as per usual, everything from the Starfall Squad to Sommerset Stone: Gentleman Adventurer is pure, wonderful fun.

 


Trades

 

Mantlo: A Life In Comics: I mentioned this one on one of my increasingly sporadic ISB Podcasts, but David Yurkovich’s tribute book for Bill Mantlo has finally hit the shelves, and with an incredibly affordable price tag of $7.50, I felt like I ought to encourage everyone to buy it, if you haven’t already. If there’s one thing I’ve proven over and over again here on the ISB, it’s that I freakin’ love Bill Mantlo, and this looks to be a very well-done and fascinating portrait of the man’s life and work with the proceeds going to his care, so if it lets me find out more about a man who brought so much fun into my life while paying him back for the same, I’m all for it.

ISB BEST OF THE WEEK

 

 

Yotsuba&! v.4: It’s not often that I go with trades as the Best of the Week–let alone manga, which I seem to be getting more of every month–but I’d be lying if I said that I read anything this week that wasn’t as purely entertaining as Yotsuba&!

I’ve mentioned my love for the series before, but it always bears repeating: It’s awesome, and every bit as hilarious as the early volumes of Cromartie High School were, but without the gorillas and shirtless Freddie Mercuries. Normally, missing out on those things would be a detriment, but Kiyohiko Azuma more than makes up for it here, with Yotsuba following up her battles against Global Warming and the complexities of the doorbell with stories where she finds out that adults will inevitably cheat in games against their children and, in the best bit of this volume, her attempts to help a neighbor deal with a broken heart. If you’ve never read it, you need to. It’s great, and while I don’t often pull this one out, it’s applicable here:

If you don’t like Yotsuba&!, then you just don’t like anything.

 


 

Quite the salesman, I know. Anyway, that’s the week! If you have any nagging questions or concerns, or if you’d just like to shoot the breeze about how awesome Will Pfeifer and David Lopez are on Catwoman, discuss how this week’s Robin is a near-perfect done-in-one story, or just flip out about Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four, feel free to drop a line or leave a comment.

The Week In Ink: June 7, 2007

Right as I was sitting down to get on with this week’s reviews, I got a phone call from my friend Brandon, who was driving home from work and wanted to shoot the breeze about comics. Brandon, as you might recall, is probably the world’s only noted Scott Lobdell fan, and right about the time he finished a rapid fire sequence of questions regarding my thoughts on Thunderbolts, Annihilation, and the latest arc on She-Hulk, I mentioned that it might be easier if I had some sort of website that he could go to where I recorded my thoughts on those very comics!

Sometimes it’s amazing that I have any friends at all.

 

 

Oh well. You still love me, right, Internet?

Of course you do! And why? Because the ISB still stands as the home of the web’s Least Friendly comics review, done on time and with added violence for your reading pleasure. Here’s the tale of the tape this week…

 

 

…now touch gloves and come out swingin’!

 


 

Comics

 

Avengers: The Initiative #3: If there’s one thing we can learn from this issue that should come as absolutely no surprise whatsoever, it’s that Dan Slott can write a heck of an enjoyable Spider-Man, and considering the persistent rumors that he’s going to be the one to take over Amazing when Straczynski finally leaves (which seem to be supported pretty well by the fact that he went ahead and introduced new characters and plotlines in the FCBD special and is leaving his beloved She-Hulk for an opportunity too great to pass up), that’s pretty good news. Like I said, though, it’s not really that shocking, especially in light of how well this book’s coming together with a solid, character-driven issue that also features Dani Moonstar headlocking a bear.

And not just a bear… a Demon Bear.

It’s a great read from Slott, and Stefano Casselli’s pencils are sharp and full of energy, even though they are–as always–almost ruined in a lot of places by Daniele Rudoni’s coloring. I mean, really, there are some pages that are just fine–like the big reveal of the Scarlet Spiders–but I’m pretty sure that Komodo’s not supposed to have the same pale green skin tone she sports as a lizard when she’s in her human form. Just sayin’.

 

Black Summer #0: I wasn’t originally planning on picking this one up, but after I leafed through it in the store, I decided to go ahead and give Warren Ellis’s latest series a fair shot. Needless to say, it was good, but of course it’s going to be good. Ellis isn’t exactly a slouch when it comes to writing comics, and even the stuff that I don’t particularly care for–like Wolfskin or his current run on Thunderbolts–usually has enough great little moments to make it worth giving a read, so that was never really in doubt.

The question was whether or not it was going to be new. He mentions himself in an essay after the main story–an eight-pager accompanied by design sketches, hence the $0.99 cover price–that he’s dipped into politically edged super-hero work before, most notably in the pages of his ridiculously awesome run on Stormwatch and The Authority, the latter of which even has a story later on where its cast of tough-guy super-heroes depose the government and take over the country. The danger of falling into a repetitive story where another well-written hard-man who is completely different from, say, the Midnighter in that he wears a white Sgt. Pepper outfit instead of a black one is there, and with only eight pages of story to go on, it’s too early to tell if it’s going to go that route or dish up something we haven’t seen.

But like I said: It’s Warren Ellis, it’s good, it’s cheap, and this one at least didn’t ship with any variants, despite having been published by Avatar. There’s not much of a reason not to get it if you like Ellis, and as the record will show from the time I named Nextwave the best comic of the Willennium, I do.

 

ISB BEST OF THE WEEK

 

 

Buffy the Vampire Slayer #4: With the exception of Fray and certain aspects of his portrayal of the Punisher, I’ve been enjoying pretty much everything Joss Whedon’s written for comics over the past few years, and yet it still feels weird to be this excited about any comic book version of a licensed television property.

But really, can you blame me? Even if I wasn’t already enjoying what was going on in this book–which, considering that it’s basically been one long sequence of pretty girls punching out demons for the past three months, is probably to be expected–this one includes a scene where Buffy uses her magical Iron Fist powers, and, well, that’s all I need to know to flip right out about something.

Really, though, it’s a fantastic read. This issue closes out the first story arc–or, if you want to stretch the television metaphor dangerously thin, the four-issue “season premiere”–and it is all-out action, but more importantly, it’s very well-done. Whedon’s dialogue, admittedly a love-it-or-hate-it aspect of his writing, is as sharp here as it ever was on the show, and when you throw in the highly underrated talents of Georges Jeanty and the ability to go as crazy as you darn well please with the special effects in comics, it makes for some highly entertaining stuff.

 

Countdown #47: And with this issue, it’s officially not worth it anymore. I know I was feeling optimistic about the book last month, given my curiosity over the Jimmy Olsen plot, but there’s only so much I can take, and even with Sean McKeever scripting it, this issue’s just terrible, and it largely boils down to Black Adam.

I was under the impression that we were going to be done with that guy for a while, what with the fact that there was an entire, thoroughly unreadable “event” book that apparently had the effect of robbing him of his powers for about three weeks. And to make matters worse, the entire climax of that piece of crap was that Captain Marvel changes his magic word from “Shazam” to something else. And yet, here he is, using the one word that we actually know it isn’t to give Mary Marvel a new mini-skirt. It’s a classic case of dropping the ball, and it’s one too many stupid mistakes that’ll have to be fixed somewhere else for my tastes.

And if that wasn’t enough to get me to drop this thing, then the misplaced apostrophe in the backup story sure as heck is. “Earth’s” is a possessive, folks, not a plural.

Thus, Countdown has been downgraded from “annoying and uninteresting” to “utterly worthless,” and you know what that means. Help me out here, Snoop Dogg:

 

 

Detective Comics #833: And on the flipside of the Paul Dini coin, we’ve got this one. A lot of folks–heck, me included–have made jokes about how this issue’s Zatanna story essentially amounts to Dini writing fan-fiction about his wife, the decidedly Zatanna-esque Misty Lee, but heck: If I was married to someone who could be credibly described as a real-life version of everyone’s favorite fishnetted sorceress, I’d probably be reminding you guys at every opportunity too.

I kid, of course: Dini’s take on Zatanna goes back to his excellent work on Batman: The Animated Series, which he stops just short of referencing in this issue, and I’ve been looking forwad to this one for a while. Unfortunately, I’m not sure if it was quite worth the wait. It’s not a bad issue, per se, even if Dini decided to go ahead and go the Jeph Loeb route of retconning a childhood meeting between Zatanna and Bruce Wayne in a flashback, which is never a good sign. It doesn’t work too badly here, though, but while I could just be worn down by my annoyance over the fill-in issues or the fact that someone standing right next to Batman pulls out a gun and shoots someone while Batman elects to stand there pulling the craziest face I’ve ever seen instead of, y’know, being Batman and stopping him, it left me pretty underwhelmed. Maybe it’s just me, and I’ll wonder what the heck I was thinking once I read the next issue, but there it is.

 

Invincible #42: Yes, it’s a dollar less than usual, and yes, it’s a perfect jumping-on point for new readers, but all that really matters is that this issue features a byline reading “Written by David Campbell.”

Damn you, Campbell. One day, revenge will be mine.

 

New Warriors #1: This is another one of those books that I wasn’t really expecting to pick up this week, mostly owing to the fact that Marvel’s been marketing it as a New Warriors title from the guy who wrote Underworld, and to put it charitably, Underworld is not very good.

Fortunately, New Warriors contains exactly zero instances of the word “lycan,” thus marking a drastic improvement in Kevin Grevioux’s writing right off the bat. Even better, the first issue’s actually pretty compelling, and with Paco Medina handling art chores, it’s not half bad to look at, either. I don’t have any sort of attachment to the New Warriors as a team–I don’t think I’d ever actually read an issue of the comic before last week–but Grevioux starts things off by using a couple of people that I do care about–Including Wind Dancer from DeFilippis and Weir’s late, lamented run on New X-Men, who I thought had been cast into limbo along with anybody else who made it out of that run without getting shot in the head–as the POV characters for a new team of anti-registration heroes. It’s a great start for a new series, and even though I went into it looking for a fight, I was left pretty impressed. Here’s hoping it holds up.

 

Omega Flight #3: You know, I honestly have no idea what happened here. Mike Oeming and Scott Kolins are the team behind Thor: Blood Oath, which was easily one of the most fun mini-series of the past few years, and yet this thing just sucks. I swear, it’s like it gets worse with every page, although that could just be me getting more and more annoyed at the fact that I’m reading a comic book with a crying super-hero on the cover, which, honestly, is something we never need to see again. Or maybe it’s the fact that we’re three issues into one fight with the Wrecking Crew, a gang of thugs that it took the Runaways all of four pages to deal with, with no end in sight. Or maybe that Canada’s premier super-team boasts exactly one (1) Canadian, unless you count the one who’s been tied up in a basement for the past two issues, or that Kollins’ pencils would look fantastic if it looked like they were inked, or if I had any idea what the point of this whole miserable exercise was. Needless to say, it’s dropped, but you know what?

This thing doesn’t even deserve a funny picture to go along with it.

 

Spider-Man Family #3: I’ve mentioned before that as someone who works in comics retail, I love the idea of Spider-Man Family, especially with it hitting the shelves right around the release of Spider-Man 3. It’s an easy solution for parents: Five bucks gets you a giant magazine that’s a lot more substantial than a three-dollar single issue, with a couple of all-new stories, a reprint or two, a Chris Giarrusso Mini-Marvels strip, and even some of that mildly ridiculous manga that the kids seem to like so much these days. What amazes me every month, though, is how much I end up liking it in practice, and this issue’s a perfect example of why.

Those of you who enjoy things that are totally awesome may remember Paul Tobin as the writer–along with ISB favorite Colleen Coover–of Banana Sunday, and he leads this month’s stuff with a kid friendly story where Sue Storm nearly bludgeons someone with a brick. No, really, it’s great, kids’ll love it. But the big news–for me, anyway–comes from Fred Van Lente and Leonard Kirk bringing us the return of the New Scorpion in a story where she battles the New Venom, who used to be the Old Scorpion, and while I may be the only one who thinks that’s totally rad, I love New Scorpion enough for everybody. Snag a copy at your local store and give it a shot. If you don’t like it, you can always give it to a kid… and heck, if you do like it, you can give it to a kid. The magic of reading is a gift beyond measure, chuckles.

 

Witchblade/Punisher #1: You know, folks, devotion is a funny thing. I, for instance, have devoted a significant portion of my time over the past couple of years to acquiring and reading as many Punisher comics as I possibly can, and even though I knew from the start that it wasn’t going to end well, my devotion to this task has led me to break a life-long streak of studiously avoiding anything involving Witchblade. Truly, it is the end of an era.

I hardly even need to mention it, but this thing? Yeah, not very good, even by Punisher standards. Heck, it’s not very good even by Punisher crossover standards, and that’s saying something. Witchblade’s transporting some Russian guy who’s going to turn state’s evidence, and rather than waiting for him to give his deposition and then killing him, Frank decides to hop a bus over to Top Cowville (or wherever Witchblade lives) and cap him on the way over. Witchblade, of course, has a problem with this, which…

Zzz…

Zzz…

Zzhuh?! Whuh? Oh, sorry, nodded off there for a second. You guys know where this is going anyway. Avoid, and be glad that you haven’t chosen the grim, perilous path of the Punisher fan. The challenges are great, friends, although to be fair, as we’ll find out next week, the rewards are magnificent.

 


 

And that’s the week! But before I take off, a quick announcment.

Some of you may remember that a few weeks ago, I directed your attention to my pal Chad Bowers, who’s currently competing in the Dimestore Publications “Small Press Idol” competition with his latest creation, Danger Ace, and the voting’s on to get through to the next round.

I’m mentioning it here because I think it’s awesome, and since you’re (theoretically) here to find out what I think about these comics I read every week, odds are you’ll think it’s awesome too. Their site can be a pain to navigate, and it might well be locked down by the time you read this to do the daily vote count, voting requires a relatively painless registration, but trust me, it’s worth the trouble. And why?

Because of this:

 

 

That, my friends, is Zombie King Kong, and on the next page, Danger Ace jumps out of an airplane and kicks him in the face. So head on over to Dimestore and check it out. If you voted last time, you already know the drill, but if you haven’t, there’s a 3-page preview PDF to download, and if you like what you see, register and vote “YES” for Danger Ace. And if you don’t, well, it’s zombie King Kong being kicked in the face. If you don’t like that, what the heck are you doing here?

And with that, I’m done here. As always, any questions, concerns or comments about anything I read this week can be dropped into the comments section below. As for me, I’m gonna go read a few pages of Witchblade/Punisher and sleep ’til noon.