Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...

Week in, week out, these guys rock the house. I just picked up the trade paperback of DC’s RED SON, and there’s the site, quoted on the back cover. I’m always pleased to see the inroads these guys have made over the last year or so. Great stuff, and this week’s no exception. Check this out...

Hey everybody, Village Idiot here.

Some of you may have noticed we weren't around last week. We actually took a little vacation. And we needed it. I'm telling you, this comic reviewing stuff can get grueling. We're not machines, you know!

Well, we're back -- tanned, rested, and ready to kick some comic @$$! And we not only have titles from this week, we even cooked up some from last week too!

So why are we wasting time talking? Let's get to it!

SPIDER-MAN/DOCTOR OCTOPUS: NEGATIVE EXPOSURE #1-5
Writer: Brian K. Vaughan
Artist: Staz Johnson
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Reviewed by Cormorant

I’m on a Brian K. Vaughan high. His Vertigo offering, Y: THE LAST MAN, just found renewed momentum with the recent, disturbing S&M issues. His Cloak & Dagger two-parter in RUNAWAYS just reminded everyone that you can still do fun crossovers in a continuity-lite Marvel Universe. Hell, I even re-read the trade of his Marvel MAX miniseries, THE HOOD, a gleefully amoral tale that all but demands a sequel.

I know what you’re about to ask: if I love Brian Vaughan so much, why don’t I marry him? Well according to Governor Arnie, our union wouldn’t be legal, but if it were I’d be all over Vaughan, ‘cause Spider-Man’s my all-time fave superhero and Vaughan has just written, without fanfare, one of the best Spider-Man stories of the last ten years.

His story begins with a Daily Bugle photographer named Jeffery Haight (Dickensian? Sure. It’s a superhero comic.). He’s a pro who never makes page one, even as amateur freelancer Peter Parker perpetually gets the spotlight. I’ve seen Parker in rivalries with fellow photogs before (anyone remember Lance Bannon?), but Haight, a frustrated artiste, has more personality. He’s a bit of an asshole, but a sympathetic one. He’s just can’t seem to wrap his mind around Parker’s seemingly natural talent:

Haight: Where does it come from? Who are your influences?

Peter (off-handedly): You mean, photographer-wise? Well, when I was a kid, my Uncle Ben gave me this book about Margaret Bourke-White. She seems pretty great.

Haight: Margaret Bourke-White? That’s such a hacky answer, Parker! What about Bischof or Capa or...or Eisenstadt?!

Later, Haight anguishes to himself: Why, God, why? Why did you give your eyes to this dork? His turmoil will eventually see him becoming the pawn of wily prisoner Doctor Octopus, whose portrayal is the best I’ve seen since Bill Mantlo made the character truly dangerous back in the ‘80s (look what Ock did to Black Cat!). Vaughan’s makes it explicit that Octopus is a killer, but the killings themselves aren’t explicit - just the right balance for a Spider-Man book. And Vaughan gives him one inspired scene after another. He reveals Ock’s cultured side in his attempt to steal this famed da Vinci drawing, supposedly an inspiration as he designed his mechanical arms. Then there’s Doctor Octopus as Hannibal Lector-esque manipulator, luring Haight into his web, preying on his insecurities as a means of getting at Spider-Man. Lastly...Octopus the full-blown madman. When he fights Spider-Man, this bastard is absolutely a serious threat. Gone is the Elton John bowl-cut (can we all agree this is one positive influence of the pending sequel to the Spider-Man movie?), but the classic, violently exasperated personality is fully intact, and the battle scenes are an old-school thrill.

And Spidey himself? Vaughan’s got him nailed too. Like Brian Bendis, Vaughan is one of the few modern writers to actually crack me up with Spider-Man’s quips. He’s got Spidey singing the pop-a-matic bubble song from the old Trouble boardgame ads while he beats on Mysterio’s fishbowl head. He’s got Spidey enraging the Vulture by wondering aloud, “Should I go with my bald jokes...or my jokes about hunchbacks? I can never decide with you.” It’s a blast, and yes, you get several guest-throwdowns with the aforementioned villains as Octopus works his schemes behind the scenes. Woohoo! Action!

Now I suppose NEGATIVE EXPOSURE isn’t the most innovative story I’ve seen, but holy hell is it well-crafted. Everything works. The humor, the action, Doc Ock’s return to A-list villainy, and the side-story of Haight’s downward spiral. When kids see this summer’s Spider-Man movie sequel and burst into their local comic shop looking for more, THIS is the series to give them (either in back issues or the inevitable trade). In many ways, I think it’s as close to a perfect Spider-Man story as I’ve seen since Roger Stern’s run in the ‘80s, approachable by younger readers but wholly entertaining for adults as well.

I’m afraid I don’t have much to say about the art by Staz Johnson other than, “Damn fine job.” He’s a Brit artist, his work is very detailed and energetic, and the confident style has me thinking of him as a more-polished Mark Bagley. Lookee! If you’re tired of all the quasi-manga artists making your favorite superhero look like Astro Boy, you’ll like what Staz has to offer.

I hope Brian Vaughan had fun writing this book. It feels like he did, like he was just having a ball playing with such classic characters. And that last page of the series...whew, it won’t have much effect if you just view it out of context, but as the culmination of the photographic themes running through the series and of Doc Ock’s pseudo-refined villainy...what a capper. Gave this Spider-Man fan a big ol’ grin.

BATMAN: GOTHAM KNIGHTS #50
Writer: A.J. Lieberman
Pencils: Al Barrionuevo
Inks: Francis Portela
Publisher: DC Comics
Reviewer: Ambush Bug

Y’know, I have a special place in my heart for Batman’s GOTHAM KNIGHTS title. BATMAN is the high profile book. DETECTIVE COMICS obviously leans more towards detective stories. In the past, LEGENDS OF THE DARK KNIGHT has supplied us with some pretty nice storyarcs featuring Bats’ early years. Then there’s GOTHAM KNIGHTS. This book is basically a relaunch of the old BATMAN FAMILY series from the 70’s. And I loved that series. The credo “No man is an island” applies to this book. Bats may appear to be a loner, but he’s developed quite a supporting cast over the years and this book embraces that fact. Writer Scott Beatty did a decent job of moving around Batman’s large cast and weaving in Bat-history here and there. Beatty’s run on the series wasn’t high profile. It definitely wasn’t for those who were new to Batman. But to those like me, who has read Batman for most of my life, this book supplied little nuances; little details; tiny nuggets of joy, if you will, that appease the Batfan in me to no end. I can’t say Beatty did a spectacular job, but I was entertained and appreciative that there was a Bat-book out there that acknowledged the fact that some comics don’t have to be stand alone, out of continuity, and longtime fan-unfriendly. Beatty’s run came to an end last issue, making way for a brand new team and a brand new direction.

And all I can say is “Wow! This book surprised me.” GOTHAM KNIGHTS #50 is the beginning of the sequel to “Hush,” that over-hyped mess of a story by Jeph Loeb and Jim Lee. There are many reasons why “Hush” failed to please, but for me it was that even though the story was set up as a mystery, Loeb didn’t write it as one. From the beginning Loeb told us over and over that we were reading a mystery. He devoted entire issues to explain what had just happened, threw in red herrings with reckless abandon, and padded it all up with guest stars a plenty. What Loeb didn’t do was supply enough information to make us give a fig (or more accurately understand a fig) as the story went on. If Loeb had done his job, the readers would not have needed an entire final issue to explain the hows and the whys behind it all. Mysteries should make us go “ah-ha,” not “ah…huh?”

So from the get-go, A.J. Lieberman had a major challenge when he nabbed the writing reigns of GOTHAM KNIGHTS. But he did what Loeb failed to do in his very first issue; he presented a clear set-up and an intriguing mystery. In the first few pages of this issue, we see the Riddler crash through a glass roof in the middle of a swanky party. So whodunnit? Who took revenge on the Riddler and how did it happen? Is he dead? And how does Batman fit into all of this? From the very beginning, we are asking these questions. Sure we may assume that Hush, the villain from the “Hush” story is behind it all, but nothing concrete is revealed yet. Lieberman then flashes back one week. He’s given us a taste of what is to come, and then jumps back to let the events unfold. We see an anonymous brute of a man walk through the swamps outside of Gotham stating that the world thinks him dead. We see the Riddler biding his time in jail, gloating at his role as gamesmaster during the events that unfolded in “Hush” and reaping the benefits he gets by living with felons in awe of him for doing so. This set-up and time shift provides a structure that actually gives promise to something intriguing; something that this stories’ “showcase-villain-of-the-week” predecessor failed to do.

Some may say, Loeb threw out questions too in “Hush.” And yes, he did, but Lieberman does something that Loeb doesn’t in this issue. He provides clues. Now, this is the first issue, mind you. They don’t all fit together yet. But three swamp hunters stumble into the anonymous man’s hideout and we get to see a bevy of clues, teasing us with what is to come in the next few issues. This issue’s focus is not “how can I make the Croc look cool” or “how many guest stars can I squeeze in here so that my Wizard artist of the month can do a redux on them.” The mystery is central in this story, not the glitz or fluff or filler. The mystery is what’s important. That fact alone puts this sequel on a much more interesting level than its predecessor.

On top of all of this, Lieberman shows that he knows his Bat-history. Not only do we see (or do we actually see it?) the re-appearance of Vesper Fairchild, who supposedly died in the “Bruce Wayne: Murderer” storyline, but Lieberman includes an homage to THE KILLING JOKE that gives the Joker more depth than he’s had in years. That type of attention to history is not often seen in comics today. JSA is the only other title I’ve seen do it with this type of respect and creativity. Instead of rewriting history, Lieberman takes what has been done before and builds off of it. He seems to realize something that many people in the industry don’t: he didn’t create these characters. Before he got this job, many writers have written these characters. Why not add to the tapestry instead of erasing it and starting over? Lieberman incorporates these bits of history seamlessly. The story is built around it. And longtime fans like me appreciate that.

For me, Batman books have never really been about the art. The strong stories always attracted me to the character. But if I were to buy a book on art alone, this would be that book. Barrionuevo and Portela may not be popular names right now, but these guys are phenomenal finds for DC. Batman has never looked more menacing, more powerful, more cool. The panels are cut together like frames in a film, each building off of the other to build tension, pop action, and move the story along. There is an action scene in this book where Batman swoops down and saves a woman who is about to be hit by a car. This scene has been done to death, but the way the action is framed is mesmerizing; as if I’ve seen this for the first time. Pieces of Batman are slowly revealed: his belt, the back of his cowl, his cape, the grappling hook. All of these pieces are staccato-ed in with scenes of the woman in peril. The final panel is a spectacular splash page that isn’t gratuitous, but a payoff to a well-paced build in intensity. This is the way dynamic storytelling is done right.

So I liked this book. Why? Because it did what it set out to do. It started with an intriguing mystery. It added depth by embracing the universe with which the story was told. Beautifully drawn. Powerfully developed. And oozing with promise. If “Hush” left an unsatisfying taste in your mouth like it did me, you may be avoiding this book, but you’re doing yourself a disservice for not giving it a chance. So far, this new arc in GOTHAM KNIGHTS is the mystery that “Hush” wanted to be.

SILENT HILL #1 (of 5)
Writer: Scott Ciencin
Artist: Ben Templesmith
Publisher: IDW Publishing
Reviewed by Cormorant

You ever play these SILENT HILL video games? Twisted. Some seriously twisted shit, man.

I played the first one, and even though the format and corny puzzles were straight out of RESIDENT EVIL, the “Tool video meets Jacob’s Ladder meets Hellraiser” atmosphere had me riveted. I loved that the character you controlled was this plain Jane novelist searching for his daughter in the fog-shrouded town of Silent Hill. He could barely use the lead pipes and other weapons he scavenged and he’d start gasping for air if you made him run too much. And then there were the demonic little zombie children and the ghost fetus and the nurses with those twitching humps on their backs as if some creature were alive and squirming in them.

Jesus!

Great game, and scarier on a moment-to-moment basis than any horror flick I’ve seen. I even bought the soundtrack (worth it). Never got around to the sequels because I don’t play video games all that often, but the trailer for the fourth installment has me seriously eyeing PS2 prices.

So naturally, I couldn’t resist a SILENT HILL comic when it came out.

The writer is franchise novelist Scott Ciencin, one of those guys who specializes in books based on licenses like ANGEL, STAR TREK, DUNGEONS & DRAGONS, etc, but I also noticed he contributed to DARK SEDUCTIONS: TALES OF EROTIC HORROR, so don’t pigeonhole him, smart ass. I only know him from the two DEMONWARS series he wrote for CrossGen, which were above average swords ‘n’ sorcery pieces, and his work on SILENT HILL is pretty solid too.

Ciencin tells the story of burnout psychiatrist, Troy Abernathy. He’s rich, successful, and morally bankrupt enough to sleep with an emotionally manipulable woman who shows up at a signing for his self-help book. This is all apparently in response to his wife’s recent suicide, a suicide that took place after some cryptically referenced “bad thing” he did. But he’s apparently got real talent and, pressured by a friend, he gets his shot at redemption by taking on the case of a college girl whose mind is stuck in a world that’s something like MONSTERS INC. by way of Clive Barker. The mysterious source of her trauma? Why the abandoned town of Silent Hill, naturally! And after standard treatment and drugs fail to bring her back, Troy decides to try some radical therapy – a return trip to Silent Hill to convince her that no real monsters lurk there.

But, of course, they do.

Unfortunately, the monsters themselves – mostly just half-glimpsed in this first chapter – aren’t particularly scary in and of themselves. Visually, they’re ill-defined blobs of airbrushed sepia and gray, held together by only the barest of lines. That’s pretty much what Ben “30 Days of Night” Templesmith does. And some people love his murky, airbrushed horror comics, which crudely hint at better painters like Bill Sienkiewicz and Sam Kieth, but I file him under “all-style-no-substance”. His most unpardonable artistic offense is the almost total lack of backgrounds in his art. Here he is, drawing a comic that actually derives its name from a setting - a setting that’s rendered with potent detail in the video games - and all he latches onto is the superficial atmosphere of fog and shadows. Granted, huge portions of these games take place under lighting conditions comparable to the movie SE7EN, but even so there’s always a wealth of rusty, desiccated, gore-smeared detail to make the cityscape all but tangible.

Click on the following:

Sample screenshot from the video game.

Sample page from the comic.

See the disparity? Now Templesmith has his moments. His work is crude but has a touch of real visceral energy at times, as when we glimpse the startling image of an undead nurse rising from a gurney with a scalpel jammed in her neck. And I actually do like his fog effects. His characters’ faces – seemingly the only subject to receive any sort of detailed modeling – are eye catching. Still, I can’t help but imagine how much creepier this all could’ve been in the hands of a textured artist like the reigning king of manga horror, Junji Ito, or even MIA great, Steve Bissette. Pants-crappingly creepy, that’s what it could have been.

But I enjoyed myself with SILENT HILL. The comic did manage to capture something of the game’s inescapable, Lovecraftian sense of doom, and yes, I’m curious to know the secret that caused Troy’s wife to kill herself, and why she’s appearing to him now as an undead nurse with a scalpel in her throat. I like Troy too. I don’t know if his story’s adapted from one of the games or if he’s a newcomer to Silent Hill, but his flawed character is a welcome change of pace from the more sympathetic types we’re used to in horror stories.

So, a qualified recommendation. Fans of the game, of disturbing Tool videos, and those strange folk who call themselves fans of Ben Templesmith should give this a look-see. There are other, better horror comics out there (GYO, UZUMAKI, FREAKS OF THE HEARTLAND, THE WALKING DEAD), but they don’t have the SILENT HILL license working for them, do they?

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #504
J. Michael Straczynski & Fiona Avery: Writers
John Romita Jr.: Artist
Marvel Comics: Publisher
Vroom Socko: @$$hole sense tingling

This arc is a quintessential example of the whole not being the sum of its parts. We have an honest-to-god two-issue arc, with a story by Straczynski and art by JRJR. We have one of my favorite types of stories, when a traditional villain doesn’t necessarily take the part of a hero, but does commit a noble act to further his own ends. And yet, the whole thing fails to come together.

Sure, this issue does look terrific, especially the Morwen/Loki/Spidey brawl, but I’m getting a little sick of all the mystical crap that’s been seen in Amazing lately. Hell, even Spider-Man’s bitching about it on page one. There’s also the matter of the final page of last issue. Morwen was shown granting a bunch of thugs with awe-inspiring weaponry in an effort to further her love of chaos. There’s no sign of them here though; this particular story thread just vanishes into the ether.

Then there’s Loki. I love the idea of him being more of the traditional trickster than the malevolent god of evil. Of course, this doesn’t mesh with his use in the current Thor story, or even his past appearances. I’m slowly coming to accept this, that continuity really is a dirty word. That Marvel no longer has a shared universe, that when, say, Mr. Fantastic shows up in this book (like he did in issue 500,) it’s a completely different character than the one from Fantastic Four. That the Spider-Man that appears in this book is most likely not going to be the same character Millar will soon be writing about. I’m still not happy about it, but I’m starting to accept it.

But this still doesn’t shed much light on why this issue doesn’t work. It’d be easy to blame Fiona Avery. Sure, her script has Loki sounding an awful lot like Spidey, but that sort of thing’s been a flaw of this book for a while now. Sure, her previous work on the much maligned Bright miniseries was sub par at best, but she’s also responsible for No Honor, a series that I had a blast with. Her prose on this issue falls somewhere in between those two, but it’s by no means a stinker.

So why? Why does this story fail to come together? All the pieces are fine on their own, yet result in a mediocre mess when brought together. John Romita jr. is kicking ass on the art, as always, the plot has legs, yet I can’t in good conscious recommend this issue. I wish I could, I really do, if for no other reason than I’d love to see more two issue arcs from Marvel. But this issue is just not a convincing whole.

Oh well, there’s always next issue.

DAREDEVIL #57
Writer: Brian Michael Bendis
Artist: Alex Maleev
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Reviewed by Cormorant

Ah, Brian Michael Bendis, how you vex me! In some ways you’re probably the most frustrating comic creator I’ve ever encountered. On one hand - the groundbreaking primacy of your dialogue, the relentlessly original staging, the masterful comedic timing, the riveting cliffhangers, and the impressive depth of characterization. On the other hand, the over-writing, the continuity gaffs, and the stilted action sequences.

When I read the previous issue of DAREDEVIL – Bendis’s return to the book after a brief hiatus – I found myself torn once again. It picked up a year after his last story (a year for the characters, that is), and had reporter Ben Urich laying down some serious exposition. Seated across from a shadowed figure he clearly trusted, he spent the entire issue piecing together Daredevil’s life over the course of the apparently eventful last year. The Kingpin – utterly defeated! Daredevil – unquestioned overseer of Hell’s Kitchen! Alter ego Matt Murdock – potential Democratic nominee for mayor of New York! All this and an abortive intervention from a group of Daredevil’s fellow long underwear types who felt his “whatever it takes” tactics had crossed a line. Urich’s narration was a little dense, but the smartly-written snippets of the events he’d heard about second or third-hand won me over. The energy lost when Urich simply told us how Daredevil had brutally cleaned up Hell’s Kitchen was made up for with the thrill of a whirlwind catch-up and the various mysteries dangled:

Who was Urich talking to? Did Murdock run for mayor? What were the other startling events of the last year that Urich alluded to? And who the hell were the hundred Asian gangster-types who surrounded Murdock and his girlfriend on that last page?!

Gripes aside (err, now why didn’t Matt’s super-senses pick up the hundred Asian gangster types setting a trap for him?), I was back onboard.

Our latest issue opens with two more pages of dense “talking heads” narration from Urich – man does he give his shadowed listener an earful! And it’s cool, because everyone knows Daredevil’s about to throw down against a hundred Asian gangster-types, so a little exposition is just the calm before the storm. Sure enough, page three gives us a terrific visual: Matt Murdock crouched for battle in the pouring rain, his cane held behind his head like a samurai sword, and a mass of silhouetted scumbags surrounding him. Smaller panels below – guns drawn, bad guys gulping down drugs to supercharge ‘em, close-ups on eyes measuring their opponents. It’s a great scene from the Sergio Leone playbook, the gunslingers’ face-off that opens with a wide establishing shot, gains momentum with a series of tight close-ups, and finally explodes into action.

And the next page is a beaut – a perfect use of a full-page splash as Matt Murdock fucking leaps at these hundred Asian gangsters, suddenly a mythic warrior who looks so badass in his three-piece suit, sword-like cane ready to strike, that he might actually have a chance! And the next page works too, returning to the quick cuts of moment-to-moment action as Murdock’s initial wave of momentum has him smacking down Yakuza jagoffs right and left.

Maybe it was too good to last.

The next page is a massive two-page splash – Murdock swinging his cane in the foreground with an abstract fighting montage behind him and a string of goddamn Ben Urich narration running down the side - utterly killing the momentum. From this point onward, Urich narrates everything, and I couldn’t have been more disappointed. Bendis used him to set the stage, gave the action a brief chance to speak for itself...and then suddenly pulled back. Pulled back to tell the reader how rough a situation Murdock was in, to talk about witnesses to the fight, and even to go off on a historical tangent about the formation of the Yakuza.

ARGHHH!!! Bendis, you were kicking so much ass! You picked the perfect moment to give the visuals primacy and then...and then I can only assume you suddenly had a crisis of confidence. Will my fans forgive me if I ease up on the talkity-talk for the majority of an issue, or will they go apeshit like they did with POWERS #31? And you fell back on what comes too naturally, on that motormouth narration that’s so great everywhere BUT action scenes – and it just siphoned off all that fight energy you’d so skillfully set up. And a little narration would’ve been okay, would’ve kept readers from just whizzing through the issue, but...a capsule history of the Yakuza?

I’m not even mad (paternal voice here) – just disappointed that such an adrenaline-pumping, serious, you-are-there moment got kneecapped by the safe play.

And when all is said and done, the big reveal as to who Urich is talking to makes it that much more ridiculous, because this is absolutely NOT a person who would sit through all of Urich’s speechifyin’. This person even says, “I don’t care about any of this,” as if to shine a blinding spotlight on the artifice of Urich’s two-issue exposition.

Dang.

Damn.

FUCK.

Just once I wish I could like everything about a Bendis comic, but I think it’s a lost cause. His failings aren’t cosmetic for me, and they’re destined to stand out in sharp contrast to the relative glow of the innovation that’s just as defining for him. The question, then, is whether I can live with this manic depressive mix. For most of his books, I’m afraid the answer is no - I’m not a masochist. But for DAREDEVIL...shit, I’m still stuck on maybe.

Leaning towards yes.

SUPERMAN/BATMAN #6
Written by Jeph Loeb
Pencilled by Ed McGuiness
Inked by Dexter Vines
Published by DC Comics
Reviewed by Village Idiot

Ladies and Gentlemen, it was a deathmatch like no other, one to rock the halls of Raganrok! I'm still shaking.

No, I'm not talking about any of the fights in SUPERMAN/BATMAN #6, I'm talking about the internal struggle I had between what I liked and what I didn't like about the issue. Brr. (Okay, cheap intro, so sue me.)

On one hand, in SUPERMAN/BATMAN #6, we not only had a whiz-bang, slam-packed outing that pitted two giants of the DCU against each other in an awesome battle (Superman and Lex Luthor this time, not my internal struggle), we also had the culmination and climax of Jeph Loeb's efforts on Superman since he started writing the characters back in 1999. We had Luthor cutting loose in the big, green, George Perez battlesuit. We had guest stars like Captain Atom and Toyman. We even had Composite Superman make an appearance, (well, almost). We had elements that I love when it comes to comics: big, fantastic, superhero stuff. I'm even willing to give Ed McGuiness's art a nod for bringing a real sense of energy and excitement to the table, in certain points it was like a big shiny neon fireworks explosion.

And yet, the captions killed me. The captions killed me, again. Again!

The plot of SUPERMAN/BATMAN involves a huge, cataclysmic Kryptonite asteroid hurling towards Earth, and the President of the U.S./Supervillain Lex Luthor trying to find a way to pin the blame on Superman. By issue #6, Superman and Batman have managed to evade Luthor's efforts to arrest Superman, plus find a strategy to deal with the asteroid. Eventually, Superman, weakened by the nearing Kryptonite asteroid, and Luthor, powered up both with the battlesuit and various performance enhancing chemicals, have a spectacular fight in the skies of Metropolis...

...while Superman muses about the American electoral process.

Arggh!

I mean, call me crazy, but for Superman to contemplate how Luthor got elected in the midst of a what is supposed to be a climactic fight, not to mention the first physical confrontation between the characters in 20 years, seemed inappropriate. Shouldn't Superman's head be a little more in the game? And more to the point, shouldn't ours?

And this has been the problem throughout the series: Loeb has tried to layer the narrative, but it comes at the expense of the central action, and at a price too dear. Take the above scenario, and add the fact that we also had to deal with Captain Atom's mission, and his reflections on life, the universe, and everything. With all these elements now woven through the climactic battle, you wind up with 4 narrative threads: 1. Superman versus Luthor, 2. Superman versus the American electoral process, 3. Captain Atom flying the Composite Superman Rocket into the asteroid, and 4. Captain Atom giving background exposition for his role in the past 6 issues. Attention was diffused. Interest was diffused. Instead of a riveting read with a interesting plot and fun concepts, we have a distracting disappointment.

Reflective captions are Loeb's signature style. It's certainly the style he used on the projects that brought him his greatest acclaim. And in some instances, they work. For whatever problems I may have had with "Hush," Batman's inner-dialog wasn't one of them. And SUPERMAN FOR ALL SEASONS is actually quite good. In both of these stories, especially SFAS, I felt the captions actually integrated with what's going on in the panel effectively without splitting attention too divergently.

But the trick wasn't pulled off in SUPERMAN/BATMAN, which was a damn shame. At the end of the day, I really liked the story; I just had a hard time with the storytelling.

PUNISHER #1-3
Writer: Garth Ennis
Artist: Lewis Larosa
Publisher: Marvel MAX
Reviewed by Cormorant

I thought I was over the Punisher.

SO over him.

As a kid and early teen, of course, I thought he was a total badass. Great costume, for starters, and as every heavy metal band in the world will tell you, teens love skull symbols. Teens also love guns – in lieu of sex, they’re quite sexy themselves. And the guy was appearing in cool, urban superhero books like DAREDEVIL and AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, teaming up with these great heroes and even one-upping them in the “blowing away dirtbag coke dealers” category. Whattaguy!

As he branched off into his own series, my enthusiasm almost immediately dwindled, however. Seems I liked him best as a supporting player, as a reluctant partner for Spider-Man or as an honorable opponent. He had a touch of three-dimensionality, but ultimately I decided that outside the context of a superhero environment, he was just a vigilante with a heavy metal t-shirt.

And maybe he IS. Maybe he is and I’m just a stupid kid at heart, ‘cause lately I’ve been having a ball with his R-rated adventures under Garth Ennis’s gleefully exploitational pen. I blame the upcoming movie, damn thing. Moriarty says it’s pretty good, and maybe it does work on its own merits, but how can I NOT gravitate back to the comic when the movie’s turning Frank Castle into an undercover cop (wuss) even as Ennis reminds us with exit wounds galore just how important it is that Frank’s ex-military?! Sure, Ennis showed a degree of subtlety in his first issue with the retelling of the deaths of Frank’s wife and kids, but let’s be honest – the heart of that issue was the total bloodbath military assault on a packed mob party. “It’s Omaha Beach,” Frank narrated as he opened up on the wall of partygoers with an M-60. “Wounded Knee. Rorke’s Drift, the Killing Fields, the first day on the Somme.” And when some mob boys tried to flank ‘im, they ran smack dab into the fucking claymore mine he’d planted in the bushes earlier.

See? Military man.

And I like that Ennis has kept the Vietnam vet angle. There’s some controversy over Ennis’s BORN miniseries that suggested Frank was loopy and talking with death in Vietnam even before his family got mowed, but whatever one’s take on that, he really was of that era. Tempered in Vietnam, shaped by the pop cultural embrace of fantasy vigilantism in the early ‘70s...it just seems wrong to excise his connection to that period as the Punisher movie surely will. So he’d be in his fifties if he’d fought in ‘Nam? Alright then, he’s in his fifties - so? The series’ terrific artist, Lewis Larosa, sure as hell makes him craggy enough that I believe it, but still draws him thick as an M-1 Abrams, so it’s not like the words “over the hill” will enter your mind reading the book.

Aside from Ennis’s usual ultraviolence button-pushing, the meat of this first arc is that Punisher’s old gadget man – his one true confidante, a pudgy, aging tech expert codenamed Micro – is for some reason assisting a covert group of G-Men in bringing the Punisher down. They’re a colorful lot, including one female agent who’s so horny for the Punisher that she has to stick her face in a refrigerator when she first hears his gravelly voice, but the face-off between Punisher and his former friend is handled without a trace of humor.

Thank god. I dug the first five or ten issues of Ennis’s blackly humorous relaunch of PUNISHER a few years ago, but it got old fast. The emotional high point of the latest issue is Micro forcing Punisher to look at photos of his former family in happier times, and the anguish on Punisher’s face in response is horrific. His craggy face is so steeped in shadows that you can’t tell whether it reveals pure hatred for Micro or whether he might actually be crying, but it’s a damn powerful image. Kudos to the artist, and kudos to Ennis for allowing the moment to happen without exposition or narration.

Is the plotting a little simple? Yes. Punisher wars on the mob, covert group nabs him for their own, as yet unspoken purposes, and the mob tries to get at Punisher while he’s in custody. Nothing sophisticated, but as an opening arc, it’s doing a nice job of getting to the heart of the character. And along the way, Ennis does his usual violent song-and-dance, giving us some legitimately scary (and occasionally goofy) mobsters, a memorable scene of the aging, overweight Micro literally grabbing a CIA agent by the balls when he gets called out, and a big cup of Ennis’s house specialty: male bonding under duress. He handles it well. Punisher says almost nothing during Micro’s interrogation of and appeal to him, but the connection between them is as close as the Punisher gets to familial. It’s tough love. Tough as nails love. And what the hell is Micro’s offer to the Punisher on that last page? It’s gotta be a doozy.

I don’t mean to oversell this book. It might end up getting too goofy again. It may never aspire to any real sophistication beyond Ennis’s common theme of brotherhood in a world gone to shit. But one of the most clearcut signs that a comic has its game on is that readers are hot ‘n’ heavy anticipating the next issue. For the first time since I was a kid, that’s me – hot ‘n’ heavy for the Punisher.

BATMAN #624
Written by Brian Azzarello
Art by Eduardo Risso
Published by DC Comics
A JonQuixote Review

K.I.S.S.

Good noir moves with the rhythm of smooth jazz. Bad noir lurches all over the place like a junior high marching band coughing up a deformed version of “Hang on Sloopy.” Good noir is dark, because it shows us the seedy underside of humanity. Bad noir is dark for darkness’s sake. Good noir is razor sharp in its dialogue. Bad noir bluntly clubs you over the head with its purple prose. Good noir lingers on your palate like good port and dark chocolate. Bad noir often requires a chaser of something sweet to keep you from throwing up.

Good noir surprises you with its turns and intricacies. Bad noir merely frustrates you.

Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso’s BATMAN does both, and is therefore neither.

There’s a great story here. Batman is investigating the brutal murder of a pregnant woman, trying to find the prime suspect – her brother – a small-time crook with ties to some big-time bad guys. It’s stark, it’s compelling, and at its core, its twists and turnarounds are elegant in their simplicity.

It’s good noir.

Unfortunately, it’s swaddled in layers and layers of the shitty stuff.

It might be a better read when the entire run is collected, but the seemingly superfluous complexities make it very difficult to get at the meat. Sort of like a Big Mac. It’s a burger – it’s built around the beef (or whatever passes for it there), but if you had better like stale bread and mayonnaise to go with your patties. In order to get to the beef of “Broken City”, you’ve got to go on a tour of Gotham – there’s a couple new bad guys who apparently aren’t strong enough to support an arc on their own, so we’ve got to pay visits to Croc, The Penguin, and the Ventriloquist, each stop doing little more than raising the profile of the antagonists while advancing the plot merely a smidge and, often, in ways completely indecipherable to the reader.

When you think back three months and ask, “wait…why did Batman have to go see the Ventriloquist again?”you’re not reading a very effective monthly comic. When the tone of the book is all over the place and the most powerful theme – Batman hunting a criminal who commits a crime very similar to the one that took Thomas and Martha Wayne – is lost amid all the detours and pit stops and off ramps... it’s not a very effective comic book.

The best noir is, despite its twists and turns, shockingly simple. THE GLASS KEY. RED HARVEST. DOUBLE INDEMNITY. BLOOD SIMPLE. All smooth, like jazz or port.

The worst stuff so needlessly complex that all you can concentrate on is the aftertaste. And in fattening up “Broken City” with a cavalcade of rogues and runarounds, “Broken City” has become needlessly complex. Plot points and important moments from the earlier chapters have become lost to time and tangents. It’s never been quite so bad that I was willing to bail completely - I’m compelled by the engine, the heart of the story - but it ain’t a good sign when I close the book on chapter five and sigh at the prospect of yet another installment.

There is a lot of good comic book noir on the stands today. 100 BULLETS and SLEEPER come to mind, and then there are those which flirt with the genre like GOTHAM CENTRAL. Not to mention their readily available antecedents in works like THE LONG HALLOWEEN.

I’ve seen far better stuff than this. So, most likely, have you.

And so have Azzarello and Risso. Which is why they should know better.

If you’ve ever been a fan of Conan, you need to track a copy of this book down. If there’s any writer out there today capable of spinning tales of this character in classic style, it’s Busiek, and the art is some of the best and most unique on the shelves right now. It’s not going to be easy, since the book sold out in a matter of days, but if you dig around and find one you’ll be glad you did. If you can’t track an issue down, I wouldn’t worry too much—with the response this book is getting, I fully expect a reprinting of the issue or a collection to come along very shortly, and with good reason.

I had intended for this section of my little remembrance to appear in our previous column, but this portion of Cerebus (contained in volumes 7 through 10,) has been rather difficult to write about. The shadow of issue #186 is something that hangs over the whole of Cerebus, but until now I’ve avoided mentioning it. I’m tempted even now to just ignore it, talking instead about the rest of Mothers & Daughters. And there is some great stuff here.

Flight, for example, ties together much of the materiel from the first volume, with characters who showed up only once a hundred and forty issues back shown in a new light. Old favorites are also reintroduced, and reevaluated. The war between Cerebus and Cirin explodes into massive street violence, with Cerebus receiving the unlikely aid of the Punisheroach. (Yes, it’s just as fucked up as it sounds.) And Cerebus finally comes face to face with Suenteus Po.

Then in Women, we get the foundations of the conflict between Cirin and Astoria, as their present relationship changes and evolves. Cerebus has an interesting conversation with a character I will not name. Then there’s the Roach, who, in his final appearance, gives us what even Neil Gaiman considers the funniest damn Sandman parody of all time.

Reads (the comics portion, at any rate,) gives us the answers to a multitude of questions, a helluva sendoff to the character of Astoria, and one massive, bloody, brutal fight between Cerebus and Cirin that climaxes in a second ascension. Then in Minds, more questions are answered. Cerebus has a long conversation with the creator of the universe (i.e. Dave Sim.) Then after seeing what his future would have been like if he’d chosen Jaka over his own power and glory, he returns home a little wiser than he left. Well, he thinks he’s wiser, at any rate.

There’s a lot of fun stuff in these fifty issues, and a lot of heavy stuff as well. Of the four volumes, Women is probably the best, not only for the Sandman riff, but the development of Astoria. There’s also Sim’s continued use of text pieces, first seen in the flashback/reads sections of Jaka’s Story. Here, they’re mainly used as a sort of transcript alongside splash pages. In fact, other creators have since used this device, most notably on the Doug Moench/Kelley Jones run of Batman, as well as issue #52 of Ultimate Spider-Man. This sort of comics storytelling, used properly, can be very effective in bringing out a lot of information in little space. But then there’s the text in Reads.

The first half of the Reads text is the story of Victor Reid, which is basically a “what if?” story; what if Dave Sim had sold out as an artist? This section has text on one page, with the opposite containing a single illustration. Then in the second half, Viktor Davis (essentially Dave Sim himself,) holds court over a multitude of concepts in a section that is text only. These two stories have a great deal to say about the creative process, audiences, and philosophy. Some of it is interesting, even compelling. Some of it isn’t. And then there’s the finale. Issues 185 and 186.

Sim has issues with women. When he (sorry, Viktor, ) starts talking about his views on gender relations, this becomes immediately apparent. His claim is that there are two forces in this world: the thinking, reasoning light, and the emotional void. The light is inherently male, and the void is female. The light is the source of creativity and achievement, the void is a massive leech that sucks males dry. The light relies on logic, while the void just spins in circles until everyone feels “happy.” The light is male. The void is female. And Sim is fucking nuts.

Here, just go to this link and read it for yourself. There’s also a link in there to his other essay on gender, called Tangents. (And you couldn’t get me to reread that turkey for all the tea in China.) Sim’s arguments here, while claiming to be on the side of the Male Light, fit more in line with his descriptions of the Female Void. He offers little in the way of illumination, instead proffering his opinions as universal truth. After all, why else would he think this way if it weren’t true? There’s also his statement that these emotional voids are no better than animals, but then betrays his own animalistic interests by saying that women are only useful for sex.

So yes, Dave Sim is a misogynistic bastard. He’s also a damn talented artist. The two are, after all, about as mutually exclusive as, oh, reason and emotion. In any case, even assholes can achieve, and Sim has definitely achieved something amazing on this book. We’re two hundred issues in. Next time, it’s the start of the home stretch; the final hundred issues. Until then…

Question For Discussion

What do you think of what Sim has to say about women?