Dun-dun-da-da-da-da-dump. Dat-dun-dun-da-da-da-da-dump. Welcome, Ambush Bug of AICN COMICS here. We're interrupting our regularly scheduled intro for a special report. Let's go live over to our very own On-the-Spot reporter, Chit Bigley, with some major developments. Chit, what's the scoop?
Thanks, Bug. Reports are just coming in and right now details are hazy, but it looks like Vroom Socko is going to be reviewing the latest issues of JLA and AMAZING SPIDER-MAN in this week's column.
On top of that, reports indicate that Cormorant will be taking a look at the first two SANDMAN MYSTERY THEATRE trades.
Our sources say that Lizzybeth has the independent front covered with BRIGHT ELEGY.
And it's too close to call right now, but it looks like reviews of GREEN LANTERN: REBIRTH, PLANETARY, and BIRDS OF PREY are pouring in from Sleazy G.
Wait a minute. This just in. We've got...what appear to be...Cheap Shots. Yes. It has been confirmed. There will be Cheap Shots at the end of this column.
We'll pay close attention to this story and let you know of any further developments. For AICN Comics, this is Chit Bigley with Chit On the Spot.
Startling news, Chit. And now back to our regularly scheduled Table of Contents already in progress.
(Click title to go directly to the review)
JLA #107
PLANETARY #21
BRIGHT ELEGY
ADAM STRANGE #2
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #513
GREEN LANTERN:REBIRTH #1
SANDMAN MYSTERY THEATRE VOL #1-2
WE3 #2
BIRDS OF PREY #75
CHEAP SHOTS!
JLA #107
Kurt Busiek: Writer
Ron Garney: Artist
DC Comics: Publisher
Vroom Socko: League Lover
How many of you out there have stopped reading comics? I don’t mean you’ve cut back on how many titles you buy or that you stopped reading monthlies in favor of Trades. I mean, how many of you decided to take a good, hard look at the medium and decided that it was no longer for you? I’m talking cold turkey, just walked away and never looked back. How many of you?
You see, earlier this week I was seriously considering doing just that. Now, I’ve been reading comics since 1982, and I’ve never quit. No, not even during the Dread 90’s. In fact, I’ve never understood the loathing of the 90’s. That decade gave us Alan Moore’s run on WILDC.A.T.S. It gave us MAGE: THE HERO DEFINED, SIN CITY, and BONE. It gave us Mark Waid on FLASH, and Fabian Nicieza on NEW WARRIORS. And, most importantly, it gave us Grant Morrison on JLA and Kurt Busiek on THUNDERBOLTS and AVENGERS. I had more fun reading those books then I can tell you. I’ve also had a blast with the books that have followed since, like ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN, POWERS, JSA, and RUNAWAYS. But lately, I’ve been feeling less than thrilled by the various titles currently being published. Maybe, just maybe, I’m getting to old for this shit. Thirty is less than a year away for me now, and perhaps it’s time I grow up.
But then, I picked up the first issue of JLA written by Kurt Busiek. And after reading it, I can’t imagine leaving comics behind. I realized that the reason I’ve been less than satisfied with the bulk of my current superhero reading was that they were all trying to be different from their origins, yet end up all being the same. Everyone’s busy redefining superheroes, or deconstructing them, or disassembling them, or rebirthing them, or out and out ridiculing them, and that’s just in the top ten titles. It’s become more than a little ridiculous, and quite frankly it’s become boring. How come nobody’s stepping up to the plate and saying, “Let superheroes be superheroes!”
Starting here and now Busiek’s saying it, and thank Christ for that.
This first installment is mainly setup for the next seven issues involving the Crime Syndicate of Amerika, but it’s how the setup is executed that piqued my interest. The plot is pretty basic, with Martian Manhunter and Flash going through routine Watchtower maintenance, and having a run-in with the Construct. Simple, right? The thing is, though, the real focus is on how these people maintain their standing as the greatest superhero team in comics. The story shows just how hard it is to be a superhero, and also just how prepared and organized superheroes are. They’re not weak, or ineffective. They’re not unprepared for catastrophe. They’re SUPER HEROES, fer crying out loud!
The next few issues look to be filled with strong, steady heroics, tough challenges, and seven different kinds of exiting. Thanks to Kurt Busiek, JLA has become the top title on my anticipation list. Forget those other “revolutionary” books. Here’s a longtime title that’s actually doing something daring in this day and age; it’s being fun!
PLANETARY #21
Writer: Warren Ellis
Art: John Cassaday
Publisher: Wildstorm
Reviewer: Sleazy G
Ellis and Cassaday have once again turned out one of the best comics on the shelf today. There are a lot of people who like to give Ellis crap for writing “decompressed” comics; long on visuals and short on content. People who dismiss these books for that reason aren’t just wrong; they’re also depriving themselves of a helluva read. Far from decompressed, this issue is probably one of the densest in PLANETARY’s run, and one of the densest released this month. Ellis’ ongoing interest in exploring new ideas about the structure of the universe, of humanity, and of where science and the otherworldly intersect are all addressed in this issue. Ellis does an obscene amount of research for all of the books he writes. He pores over the latest scientific and philosophical writings, pursues information on strange cultures, and digs up news of the weird and disturbing all over the world. His love of bizarre new subcultures and loosely tribal groups of self-identified freaks doesn’t hurt any, either. When he distills all this stuff down and injects it into his scripts, it always leads to fresh new takes on the standard comic book tropes we’re all so familiar with. It’s worked on everything from THOR to HELLBLAZER to ULTIMATE FANTASTIC FOUR, but the one place where it works to greatest affect is, without question, PLANETARY.
So what sets this issue apart from the rest of the series? Well, through a scientist who comes off as more of a magician/spirit guide (and who is clearly intended to be a more technologically adept, female analogue of Dr. Strange), Snow gets a bit of a surprise. He has his mind totally blown out by a combination of psychedelics, microscale physics, and chunks of various philosophies and belief systems. By the time his little journey is done, he’s left questioning who he is, why he is, and what his true reason for existing might be. It’s a big turning point for this character and for the book as it enters its final half-dozen or so issues. Snow now has to ask himself whether he has a far greater task ahead of him than just dismantling The Four for what they’ve done to humanity, as well as what role his existence on this plane of reality truly is. Is he a natural occurrence, or was he engineered and created to serve a far greater but more specific purpose?
I would be doing the book a great disservice if I didn’t also comment on Cassaday’s incredible art here. The guy is always good, make no mistake. I’m sure Ellis broke everything down panel by panel in the script because there was a very specific intent here, but that in no way undermines how impressive an achievement the art really is. Cassaday’s stuff has been described as “cinematic” before. That’s certainly true here, but not in the traditional sense of looking and feeling like an action movie, for example. The art takes us on a journey from the floor of somebody’s apartment to a trip through the subatomic structure of the microverse by way of a cup of tea. We’re then taken through Snow’s mind’s eye to contact the spirit world and access humanity’s race memory. While there Snow is given information that suggests he’s nowhere close to who or what he thought, and by the end you feel just as blown away as he does. That’s in large part due to the brilliant visual layout. Just look at the final panel on page 19, and you can feel exactly what Snow is going through by the end of his little trip. Cassaday’s ability to tackle Ellis’ big ideas and still get the look in somebody’s eyes right as they deal with everything they’ve just had thrown at them shows the kind of scope and range he has, from the big explosive moments to the quiet, personal ones. This is without question a standout issue from one of the top artists working in mainstream books today.
If you’re just looking for the stereotypical superheroics we’ve seen our entire lives, you’re looking in the wrong place. The book doesn’t have time to play it that traditionally. Oh sure, there have been issues full of Hong Kong action and tributes to the pulp heroes of yesterday. There’s definitely more than enough of that to keep the readers’ interest. The series is about much more than that, though: it’s about making all of those disparate stories flow into the overarching story Ellis is trying to tell, fleshing out an entire coherent comics universe in under 30 issues. If you’re looking for a comic that’s designed to open your eyes and your mind and cram as much new information into your head as possible in the form of an action story, while also serving as a tribute to and commentary on comics, you’ve got to buy this. It’s a don’t-miss issue in a don’t-miss series.
BRIGHT ELEGY
by Leland Myrick
Publisher: Adept Books
Reviewed by: Lizzybeth
His first kiss came when he was a boy, visiting the island that summer for the last time. The girl was the daughter of the innkeeper, whose name he didn’t even know. “I have an idea,” she said. They kissed, and he never saw her again. For James, this was one of those perfect memories, something he comes back to in times of trouble. Now is one of those times. On a dark and stormy night he returns to the island, running from the past, and wrecks his sailboat into that same beach. He comes to the same inn. And there, he finds the same girl, all grown up, with the same treasured memory. Too good to be true? Yes. Because his past is not so easily left behind, and it won’t be long before a strange policeman comes to the island to arrest him. For murder.
BRIGHT ELEGY is a book of subtle pleasures; delicate and sad, it lingers in your mind. It’s about nostalgia in one way, as these two adults connect almost instantaneously based on a shared, brief memory. There are all sorts of connections in this book, and many people who are not what they seem. Perhaps the one person who is, is almost inscrutable in her feelings for James, someone she just met. And yet, since feelings are almost never explicable, this makes as much sense as anything. Less easy to understand is the fragile Rose, James’ former lover who has a tragic impact on his life. There’s also something odd about the sisters who run the inn. It’s not a They-Chopped-Up-The-Former-Innkeeper plot-driven oddness, but simply the way they are allowed to be. The sisters have feelings about things, and they have a bad feeling about this policeman, who may not be a policeman at all, but a man with his own grudge against James.
Leland Myrick has a strong command of the language of comics; there are no “extra” panels, no one image that does not lead conceptually to the next with striking purpose. His characters’ tired faces are almost gothic, somewhat Gorey-like in their bloodlessness. They live in a world of curlicue skies, dark nights, and strong lines, a world of charming, shadowy grace. Compulsively readable, BRIGHT ELEGY is a strong work from a unique voice in comics.
ADAM STRANGE #2 (of 6)
Writer: Andy Diggle
Artist: Pascal Ferry
Publisher: DC Comics
Reviewer: Ambush Bug
I’m not a Sci-Fi Guy. Sure, I enjoy STAR WARS and one can argue that most super hero comics have their roots in Science Fiction, so I guess I have to admit some warm feelings for the genre. But you won’t see me in line to see the next STAR TREK and shows like FARSCAPE have always fallen flat for me. There’s too much interest in the technical in those tales. Too much focus in the hows and whys behind this fantastic stuff and not enough attention spent on elements of story. Whenever some sci-fi tech guy comes on and talks it up about nanotechnology and wormholes, the momentum skids to a stop for me, the inside of my eyelids become much more fascinating, and I begin to produce snores from my nostrils. So you’d think I’d be the last guy to give DC’s new limited series ADAM STRANGE a favorable review, right?
WRONG!
For two issues now, Andy Diggle and Pascal Ferry have piqued my interest in DC’s Flash Gordon wannabe. I’ve always admired the look of the character. The classic fin-headed helmet, the World’s Fair-style futuristic jetpack, the ray guns. But the stories themselves have never interested me. To me, Adam Strange was an occasional guest star in the JLA when they went out into space and shit. This isn’t the case with Diggle’s ADAM STRANGE. And for a while, I wasn’t sure why it was that I became so fascinated and invested in this story when other series featuring this and other sci-fi characters left me snoozy.
But then I realized it. The reason why I liked this miniseries is that it isn’t so much focused on the technical aspects of these futuristic devices Adam is using. Writer Diggle fills each issue, cover to cover, with action, action, action. There isn’t a moment in issue #2 that Ad-man is sitting on his butt. This isn’t a sittin’ and thinkin’ book. Adam Strange is down and out, but he’s got no time to mope about and act grim and gritty. Diggle never gives Strange a moment to breathe. He’s either battling aliens or running from Gotham’s police and sometimes he’s doing both at the same time.
There’s a scene in this issue where Adam’s jetpack overheats and he needs 15 seconds for it to cool down. Instead of going into great details about gyros and turbines, we’re simply told when the machine will work again. The part that makes this a masterpiece of an action sequence comes from the fact that Adam only has twelve of those fifteen minutes to spare. There’s a tension you feel while watching these panels unfold that I don’t get from most comics. Diggle’s attention to action over exposition is something I would love to see become the new trend in these talky times.
Complimenting Diggle’s high octane writing is Pascal Ferry (or spelled Pasqual Ferry depending on whether you are going by the cover of the book or the credit on the inside. Ut-ut, Editorial. Caught ya’ snoozin’!). Ferry’s Strange zips from one end of the panel to the next conveying motion masterfully and forcing our eyes to race along the page with our jet-packed character. His aliens are ugly sum-bitches; all teeth and scales and spires. His robots are clunky and toy-like. And Strange’s costume itself has never looked cooler. There’s a scene when Strange suits up for the first time that is utterly majestic and powerful. Ferry makes sure we know that Strange is the hero of this book by making each and every panel featuring him dynamic.
This is one of those creative teams that I would follow into hell itself. It’s a perfect match of tone and tempo. Towards the end of this issue, Diggle gets a bit techy, but that passes soon enough as he leaves our hero in one hell of a cliffhanging pickle. This comic is to sci-fi comics as James Cameron’s ALIENS was to sci-fi films. It zooms in on tip-top notch action to guide the character instead of focusing on the small stuff. Our story and its hero are streaking skyward, towards the stars. Here’s hoping that Diggle and Ferry will continue this ascent with the rest of this series.
So far, this is by far the best miniseries I have read this year. You better watch out Marvel, with a series this good, people are going to stop thinking about the guy with the funky cape and rock-n’-effin’-roll hand gestures when they hear the name Strange and start thinking about the dude with the jetpack and blasters. I recommend ADAM STRANGE to anyone who likes sci-fi and even to those like me who don’t care for it all that much. It’s one of those genre crossing gems that don’t come around often.
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #513
J. Michael Straczynski: Writer
Mike Deodato Jr: Artist
Marvel Comics: Publisher
Vroom Socko: Free Fallin’
Am I the only one in this neck of the woods that’s absolutely enthralled by this storyline? We’ve got some seriously cold and calculated villainy on the part of the Green Goblin, Spider-Man doing some serious soul searching, and plenty of fast paced action. Yet it seems that the only comment I’ve heard in the Talkbacks about this is the protestation that “My god, JMS turned Gwen Stacey into a whore!” Well, I don’t see it like that.
Really, what’s happened is that Gwen is now a victim twice over. Here’s a relatively innocent young girl who found herself alone with a strong, charismatic man who was and is deeply twisted. I’ve seen this sort of thing happen before. Go look online, there’s plenty of footage to be found of older men finding a young woman, talking her into going for a drive, and next thing you know he’s got her bent double over the back of his couch.
Okay, so maybe I’ve been watching too much porn. But still, these Jake La Motta-style Madonna/Whore issues people are having baffles me. She’s a victim, not a slut. And really, that’s what makes this story so enthralling. I mean, if all the readers out there are pissed at JMS over this, it’s nothing compared to what the characters are feeling. When was the last time you read a comic and were as in tune to the emotions of the title hero as in this instance? You think YOU’RE pissed? Look at Spidey; he’s a fountain of righteous indignation! If you’re enraged, it means JMS has you emotionally invested in this story, and that means we’ve got good writing on our hands.
In any case, this issue is where everything comes to a head, with Spider-Man and the twins meeting at a very familiar bridge. Now, you don’t have to be Gary Spivey to figure out where this is going to lead, but JMS and Deodato manage to make every panel count. The final six pages of this comic, especially the two splash pages, are absolutely stunning. And I loathe the overuse of splash pages!
Some of you may be loving the kitchen sink approach Millar is using on MK SPIDER-MAN, others may prefer whatever the hell Jenkins is doing on SPECTACULAR. But for me, this is THE Spidey book to be reading. It’s the smartest, the most thrilling, and it’s the story that impacts Spider-Man the most as a character. At the very least, it’s definitely living up to the title of AMAZING.
GREEN LANTERN: REBIRTH #1
Writer: Geoff Johns
Artist: Ethan Van Sciver
Publisher: DC Comics
Reviewer: Sleazy G
When I was in high school, I didn’t have a lot of money to spend on comics and I had a ton of free time. That meant that I’d reread a week’s worth of books at least once, maybe twice, because I still had five days to go til I got any new material. These days, I have a lot more disposable income and a lot less time, so I often end up a couple weeks’ worth of books that I need to cruise through to get caught up. That means I don’t always get to reread an issue and really soak it in. Fortunately I took the time to take another run at GREEN LANTERN: REBIRTH, and it helped me catch some really important details I somehow overlooked the first time. Man, it’s nice to have a book that rewards you for giving it a second look.
By now, a lot of you have already read this book, so you know what happened. You know that we get to see all of the most important iterations of the character in this issue, and they’re all treated with a lot of respect. I have a lot of love for Alan Scott and Kyle Rayner in particular, so it’s good to see them here. They both have small roles so far, but there’s obviously a lot of groundwork being laid. Alan seems to suddenly be developing some sort of health issue (tired and unusually thirsty—perhaps the tragedy of adult-onset diabetes will be tackled?), and Kyle has crashed to earth with a coffin and some apocryphal warnings of an impending threat. Meanwhile, Guy Gardner’s Vuldarian biology’s going haywire and John Stewart’s getting a bit salty with Batman (in part due to Guy egging him on).
That’s the just the update on the Green Lanterns I actually care about, though. That’s not the really big news, is it? Nah. So let’s talk about Hal. Hal’s been The Spectre for a while now, and over in a recent arc of the JSA, we saw that he’s starting to have some serious problems. Those who have been Green Lanterns are known for their strength of will, so when somebody like Hal starts to go head-to-head with the actual embodiment of God’s Wrath, well…there’s bound to be some headaches. It’s obviously affecting Hal more and more at this point, and he’s becoming far more brutal. I say that’s a good thing, because I’m sick of namby-pamby touchy-feely Spectre stories. The character’s never been about redemption, he’s been about retribution. There’s no question, though: that particular aspect of The Spectre is in conflict with the old Hal people loved so much.
This brings us to one of those scenes I was talking about that required careful reading on my part to truly appreciate. On pages 14 through 16 we see Hal show up at Ollie’s place, where his old opponent the Black Hand has just turned up to try and steal a spare power ring Hal had left with Ollie. Ollie and Mia seem to have things under control when Hal crashes the party. When he first appears on 14, it’s as Hal Jordan. He then transforms into The Spectre on page 15, demanding vengeance for Black Hand’s crimes. On page 16, though, when The Spectre reaches out to punish Hand…it’s not The Spectre. It’s PARALLAX. Huh?!? Yep. You got it. His face isn’t pale white; it’s temporarily more flesh-toned in that first panel. Not only that, but the costumed arm reaching out to Hand is in Parallax’s costume—a change from just three panels previous, where it was The Spectre’s. We then get a shot of The Spectre’s face shadowed by his cowl, with nothing but one sparkling eye and one mouth full of leering white teeth. A couple of panels later, and we’re back to seeing an apologetic Hal saying he’s losing control.
The first time I read the issue through, I missed out on the subtle change to Parallax and back again because it only occurs in a single panel. That’s not a little detail, either. That’s a big one. It means that we’ve got Hal, his GL persona, Parallax and The Spectre all duking it out for domination of one man’s soul. No wonder the guy’s a mess. The inclusion of Parallax into the mix as a possible reason that Hal has been losing the battle to control The Spectre is the kind of thing that should have seemed obvious to the fans, but for some reason never occurred to me. It adds an extra dimension to the story that makes me that much more interested to see what’s going on. Johns is doing a hell of a job of making sure we’re getting everything a fan could possibly want in this series, but doing it in a smart and intriguing way that makes it feel like it’s not just a kitchen-sink approach. I have every reason to expect it’ll all be tied together beautifully and lay the groundwork for at least a few years’ worth of solid stories.
I can’t wrap things up without commenting on the art here. There’s no question that DC wants this series to be a huge hit, and they put together a team guaranteed to knock it out of the park. Van Sciver’s work is amazing in this issue from the front cover image to the final page. The amount of attention paid to every little detail, even in the background, is phenomenal. His Mia is gorgeous, his Hal is rugged, and his John Stewart has a gravity and determination I’m not used to seeing with the character. Van Sciver’s command of facial expressions also makes a huge impact on the readers. Far too often in comics the faces seem like they’re almost an afterthought, but in this book they’re given enough attention to make everybody in the book feel like an actor, not a drawing. I’m sure I’ve seen colorist Moose Baumann’s work somewhere before, but I’m not sure where. I do know this, though—we’re definitely going to be seeing a lot more of him. This is a book where a bad colorist would have crippled the artist and ruined the visuals, but Moose really nails it here. I particularly liked the way the green detailing on Kyle’s ship was still visible when backlit by an orange explosion on pages 2 and 3 and he also does a great job on the detailed crowd scene on page 11, among others. The work these two are doing together meshes beautifully and gives us a book that looks fantastic.
Sometimes we get “event” books from the Big Two that just don’t do the term justice. Sure, they’ve got popular characters, or there’s supposed to be some big new change that nobody wanted or whatever. Every now and again, though, there’s an event book that really deserves to be treated as such. This miniseries has a killer creative team who has stepped up and brought their A-game like nobody’s business. With writing this tight and art this gorgeous, there’s no reason not to buy the book. I, for one, have gone from having severe reservations on this to being a full-blown cheerleader (the green and black polyester uniform is in the mail). If you ever dug the Green Lantern mythos, this is definitely the place to jump back onboard.
SANDMAN MYSTERY THEATRE Vol.1: “THE TARANTULA”
&
SANDMAN MYSTERY THEATRE Vol.2: “THE FACE” & “THE BRUTE”
Writer: Matt Wagner
Artists: Guy Davis, John Watkiss & R.G. Taylor
Publisher: Vertigo / DC Comics
Reviewed by Dave Farabee
Man, was that Sandman comic great back in the ‘90s or what?
No, no, no, I’m not talkin’ the series with the Goth dream king, the lit roots, and the astonishing power to initiate a viable trade paperback industry! That stuff was pretty alright too, but I’m talking about a book that was actually a bit more approachable, though ironically lost in the shuffle during its initial run:
SANDMAN MYSTERY THEATRE.
Consider it the best ‘90s book you never read (and consider Vertigo’s two new reprint trades one helluva second chance offer). SANDMAN MYSTERY THEATRE was an R-rated, modernist reinvention of the pulp genre, set during the pulp heyday of the ‘30s and featuring the character who we now name, for clarity, the “Golden Age Sandman”. You’ve probably seen ‘im – dapper guy in a suit and fedora, a gas mask covering his face and a gas-gun as his sidearm. Even as he was created in 1939, you can see that he looked more menacing, more like The Shadow, than the rest of the primary color heroes who’d eventually form the Justice Society of America. Under the Vertigo aegis, though, he became downright eerie. Guy Davis, who kicked all kinds of ass on the recent Hellboy mini, B.P.R.D. – A PLAGUE OF FROGS, is the series’ key artist, rendering late ‘30s New York with a textured realism that makes even the fantastic seem credible. Factor in some stunning photo covers by Gavin Wilson and Richard Bruning and you’ve got a book that looked like nothing else, but sure as hell looked dynamite.
And the stories? Timelessly great tales of the blackest of crimes, rooted in genre conventions but so innovatively realized that reading them is like discovering pulp fiction for the first time. Writer/artist Matt Wagner (GRENDEL, MAGE) is the man behind the particular blend of smarts and characterization in this violent brew. He creates a new image of the Batman/Shadow archetype of the millionaire-turned-vigilante with Wesley Dodds, the series’ mild-mannered lead who manages his deceased father’s millions by day, battles crime by night. Dodds is driven neither by Batman’s vengeance or The Shadow’s generic calling, but by a hypersensitivity to the worst ills of the world - violence, rape, incest, torture, and racism to name a few. For Dodds, the “mild-mannered” image is no veneer; he’s cerebral, he takes in the literary scene at the Algonquin hotel, and even finds himself crying as he contemplates the grim fate of a murdered woman.
And yet, he’s never once portrayed as being truly weak. In his sensitivity and intellectual aspirations, he’s definitely more a product of ‘90s ideology than ‘30s pulp tradition, but his characterization remains potent and enthralling. How refreshing is it to have a hero who drops all pretense of macho posturing? Hell, Davis even draws him with a bit of paunch under his trench coat! But at night he dreams horrible dreams, and in a state of hyper-empathy, he sets out to right the wrongs of the world, or at least New York, guised as one scary son of a bitch. And there are wrongs aplenty. In fact, if there an over-arcing theme to be found in SANDMAN MYSTERY THEATRE, it’s that man’s basest acts are omnipresent in every era, in every strata of society.
Which isn’t to say the series is morose. The sometimes lurid violence is meant to jar and provoke, but the call to oppose it is poignantly realized, not just in the Sandman’s actions, but in those of supporting player Dian Belmont, daughter of the district attorney. As the series begins, she’s a listless college graduate, more interested in sneaking into jazz clubs and partying than doing anything with her life. Even in that, she’s fascinatingly independent, but her experiences with Dodds and The Sandman begin to reshape her attitudes. The changes she undergoes lend the series an air of optimism that stands out in stark and welcome relief to its bleaker trappings. As an aside, I think it’s interesting that Brad Meltzer’s currently being lauded for creating such a strong characterization of doomed supporting player Sue Dibny in the hit mini, IDENTITY CRISIS – only to kill her off in the same motion – while Wagner took the same supporting-layer promise and actually ran with it in SANDMAN MYSTERY THEATRE. Imagine that: creation over destruction; real character development over evoking one-time empathy in service to a plot twist. Can you guess which choice I find ballsier?
In the series’ first arc (the run was told entirely in four-part stories), the specific threat comes from a violent kidnapper who identifies himself as “The Tarantula”. Against a backdrop of familial strife that includes alcoholism and sexual abuse (shades of CHINATOWN), we see the rise of the Sandman. He’s definitely an investigator-type, looking badass as hell as he skulks along rooftops and in shadows to track his prey, but Wagner doesn’t disappoint with the genre hooks. The Sandman’s gas-gun, totally credible as drawn by Guy Davis, is an instant classic with canisters to either K.O. victims or lull them into a trance ripe for questioning. Plus there’s the rear bumper on his roadster, tumbling off to form a spike-strip and send pursuers careening, and those metal sheets sewn into the lining of his trench coat for protection. Looking at Wagner and Davis’s Sandman, I see a grim, modern icon of cool that’s among the best creations (or re-creations, to be accurate) of the last decade – quite the bargain when you consider that the first trade carries the incentive price of a mere ten bucks.
And if you like it, in the second trade you get two full stories - one following a gang war in Chinatown (subtext: racial strife, interracial romantic tensions), the other an investigation into illegal boxing matches (subtext: children as victims of cyclical violence, power as a corrupter). I love the guest-art from these two volumes, from John Watkiss and R.G. Taylor respectively (this was just before Guy Davis became the series’ regular artist). Each of them invokes crisp, illustrative line-work of EC Comics genius, Bernard Krigstein, a talent as worthy as Kirby of inspiring new artistic movements. I remember some controversy when the Chinatown story first ran, some readers believing Watkiss’s strong renderings of Chinese ethnic features had racist overtones. I can understand the concern, but frankly I’m sick of the quasi-homogenized look of various ethnicities in comics, everyone taking on vaguely Caucasian features as some sort of screwed-up baseline. I welcome Watkiss’s boldness as a response to homogenization. I wish more artists employed the tools of exaggeration to such effect.
Folks, I’ve talked up dozens of great books this year, from GOTHAM CENTRAL to ASTONISHING X-MEN to THE HEDGE KNIGHT to the new printings of NAUSICAA, but these two trades are special. These trades, above every other book I’ve reviewed this year, will, I believe, hold a special appeal to you, the Ain’t-It-Cool-News reader. No bullshit. They’re steeped in a comfortable genre, but simultaneously shatter conventions. The violence is lurid and vintage pulp, but the characterizations and the seeds of romance temper the exploitational tone. And these two trades are also exotic period pieces. Want a glimpse at the underbelly of an era that gets romanticized as much as…well…as much as any era that predates our own experience? Bingo, here ya go.
So while I’ll always recommend good stuff even though I know a lot of it is esoteric, SANDMAN MYSTERY THEATRE is one of those books I think of as both great and populist, the comic book equivalent of AICN fan-fave movies like FIGHT CLUB, LORD OF THE RINGS, and THE IRON GIANT. This is the book I recommend without reservation to every damn one of you comic-readin’ mugs out there.
WE3 #2
Writer: Grant Morrison
Art: Frank Quitely
Publisher: DC Vertigo
Peed on the carpet: Ambush Bug
I was thinking about something the other day. It really isn’t opposable thumbs that separate man from other animals. Monkeys have thumbs, sort of. My pet raccoon from my childhood days had thumb-like digits. Octopi and snakes can grip things. Differentiating us from our furry, fishy, or scaly friends has a lot less to do with physical attributes and more to do with how we think and, more importantly, what we choose to think about. The other day, I was watching my cat, Mr. Fuzzy-Britches, chase a spider across my living room floor. Fearing it was an arachnid of the radioactive kind, I went over, picked the spider up with a tissue, killed it (I know, bad karma, man, but I hate spiders), and tossed it into the garbage. Did my cat put two and two together and search for the spider in the trash? No. It simply moved on, ran into my bathroom to sit in the sink, and instead fell face first into my toilet. As I tried to get the blue Tidy-Bowl dye out of my cat’s fur, I realized that the real difference between man and animal is that man is the only creature that has the ability to ask why and the urge to find out the answer. Animals don’t sweat that stuff so much. They just sort of react.
Grant Morrison knows this and he exemplifies this knowledge through a sophisticated approach in his excellent allegorical miniseries, WE3. In his story of three animal/machine hybrids (a dog named 1, a cat named 2, and a rabbit named 3) who escape from a top secret military facility, Morrison doesn’t anthromorphize his main characters. He doesn’t give them quirky human traits that make them cute or lovable or even dislikable for that matter. Don’t get me wrong, each member of WE3 is memorable and distinct, but not because Morrison went the Disney route. Each member of WE3 characterizes typical traits of their respective species. The dog is loyal and eager to please. The cat is independent and disinterested in following orders. And the rabbit; innocent, hungry, and clueless. In this miniseries, Morrison simply gives a monosyllabic voice to what we’ve come to associate with each species. These characters don’t act differently from one another because they are playing different roles. They act differently because they represent different species of animals.
What I love about this series is the way Morrison highlights the differences between the three animals. In issue #2, when 1 (the dog) fails to save a life; it sulks by itself and repeats “Bad dog…bad dog.” over and over. 3 (the rabbit) sees humans, and not being able to differentiate one from another, instantly thinks that they will help it fix its broken tail. There’s a palpable purity and innocence that Morrison has a firm hold of and it permeates throughout the entire story. Morrison’s point seems to be that, despite man’s intervention, animals will act the way they always have. Nature cannot be tamed, harnessed, or mechanized.
I never cared for Frank Quitely’s art on NEW X-MEN. I felt that his work on that series failed to convey a single emotion and therefore, left me emotionless towards the story. In this series, though, it is quite the opposite. In the faces of the human and animals, Quitely is able to capture a range of emotion that I rarely see in comics. His gift for dynamic camera angles only adds to the tension and urgency that has been building from page one of this miniseries. Quitely uses a multi-camera-angled-at-once style I can only call confetti-ing the image. Small panels show snippets of time that illustrate movement like I have never seen in comics before. Tiny details like a razor spike through a finger nail, a tumbling rabbit’s foot, a soldier with his hands over his eyes in terror, are framed in mini-pixels scattered around an image that highlights the broad scope of the action. This is a truly revolutionary looking comic and Quitely should be commended for leading the charge.
So far, I have absolutely nothing bad to say about this series. It comes off as a modern fable, but like most of Grimm’s original tales, I fear it will end badly for our wayward 3. I’ve said a lot of bad things about Morrison’s run on NEW X-MEN and JLA. Because those characters had histories that Morrison often chose to ignore or fuck with, I disliked pretty much everything he did with them. But left unchecked by continuity and able to create an entire world unbound by the limitations of someone else’s creations, Morrison is a force in comics today like no other. After a truly mind-blasting series like SEAGUY, Morrison is two for two with WE3. This series is a sophisticated tale of morality and innocence that you surely will not forget. I can’t recommend this series enough.
BIRDS OF PREY #75
Writer: Gail Simone
Artist: Ed Benes
Publisher: DC Comics
Reviewer: Sleazy G
Comics are notoriously overloaded with male characters. For every ten good male leads, there’s one good female headlining, and once you sink down to the level of the second-stringers, the women quickly become far more disposable and laughable than their male counterparts. A few years back, Chuck Dixon decided that just wasn’t right, and set out to show that it wasn’t a problem with the characters—just the writers. He created the first few BIRDS OF PREY miniseries to prove that you could take a bunch of familiar but secondary female characters and tell a damned good set of stories with them. He was so successful at it that BOP was launched as an ongoing, and a very successful one at that. I was behind this series from the get-go, because it was so obvious that there was a lot of great potential to be mined here. I was a little nervous when Dixon left the series, as some of the fill-in writers seemed to be unsure of how to handle the book. I was worried one of my favorite titles would fade away. Then Gail Simone stepped up and took the title over and all my worries vanished. Since Gail took over, she’s managed to make this book her own. Dixon told some great stories, but the characterization always played a somewhat secondary role to slam-bang action. Simone has kept that energy going, but she’s ratcheted up the stakes considerably. The characters’ struggles against their enemies and conflicts with each other have been brought into sharp detail, and the results have been fantastic.
Obviously, the heart of BOP is Oracle. Without Barbara Gordon at the center of this book, it just wouldn’t be the same. Any of the other characters could be cycled out temporarily and the book could still continue, although in a weakened state. Without Babs, though, the book would be over. Issue number 75, an oversized anniversary issue, addresses how central she really is to the team and how much the team must change when Oracle’s circumstances change. As a result of the events in the “War Games” storyline over in the Batbooks, Barbara Gordon’s refuge has been exposed and destroyed by the Black Mask, the new top dog in Gotham. It’s devastating personally because she’s lost everything—her home, her photo albums, even her old Batgirl costume. It’s even worse professionally, because Barbara had made huge investments in equipment and time that are now destroyed. She was able to get some of her data transferred to servers in other locations, but most of it is lost permanently. This is a crushing defeat, not just to the BOP but to the other heroes of the DCU as well. Barbara has been the single most important source of information for everybody for at least a decade now. Even the JLA rely on her for assistance, and all of that hard work has been destroyed. It’s going to take a long time for those files to be recreated. Worse yet, Barbara’s going to have to do it on the run, because her base of operations was totaled. Like anybody who’s ever bombed out on a big midterm or final in college, though, Babs knows that sitting around moping isn’t the answer—a road trip is. She knows that dealing with the personal and professional aftereffects of having Gotham go to complete shit around her will take a very, very long time, but in the meantime there’s work to be done. She wants to go after three different costumed vigilantes who have reportedly crossed the line and killed somebody, which will allow the ladies to continue their mission while figuring out where to set up their next base of operations.
The single best thing about this issue, though, is the addition of a new team member. I have to say I never would have seen it coming, but it made me smile with joy when I saw the new development: Lady Blackhawk is back. I first discovered the Blackhawks 15 or 20 years ago, and they clicked with me right away. There was something about this international group of fighter pilots battling the Nazis that interested me far more than even the likes of Sgt. Rock. Maybe it’s that swashbuckling, dogfighting aspect that seems so much more exciting than the ground war idea. I also loved that this bunch didn’t serve any government. They were a rogue group of heroes who had their own base—Blackhawk Island—and did things their way because they felt they were doing what was right. That brings in that heroic element of doing it because you want or need to, rather than the fatalistic feeling that you’re dying in the mud thousands of miles from home because you were drafted. Having Lady Blackhawk around is gonna make a really interesting addition to the team. Through some crazy ZERO HOUR-related mix-up, she’s still alive fifty years past her time and all of her own teammates are gone (the one downside to this whole thing in my eyes, but I can’t hold that against Simone). She’s still a hell of a pilot, and she still rocks that kicky little uniform like nobody’s business, but she doesn’t really have any friends or family—no ties to any one place. This makes her the perfect addition to the BOP’s little sisterhood of outsiders, and from a purely practical perspective she enables the gals to get their job done from a mobile base of operations for the time being.
Besides being ecstatic about the return of Lady Blackhawk, I was also really happy to see the backup story in this issue that focused on her. I don’t mean to take anything away from Ed Benes’ art in the series, as I think does a great job month in and month out. The Lady Blackhawk story, though, features the work of Eduardo Barreto. I first noticed his work on a series of THE SHADOW STRIKES! books he did for DC, and the guy is great. The backup story here depicts LB (Zinda Blake) as a tough-as-nails chick when she’s dealing with the people in her way, but as somebody having a hard time coping with the feeling she’s completely adrift in a world that isn’t her own. Barreto does a nice job of showing Zinda’s memories of battles, funerals, and photo shoots in sepia tones and the more modern events in full color. It’s a nice, poignant little story. It’s also no surprise that LB’s pinup poster caused the number of men to apply to be fighter pilots during the war to double—whatta looker! Finding herself in a world where women have a lot more opportunities than they used to will be a nice surprise for LB, too.
This book has been a favorite for a long, long time now. Under Simone’s care it’s kicking more ass than ever, and I can’t wait to see what else she has coming. A lot of times, we see an “anniversary issue” that tells a longer story than usual, but doesn’t really do anything significant to mark the event. Not this time, though. Gail Simone has clearly established a new direction for the title and introduced a new cast member in classic style. It’s gonna be a lot of fun to see where the book goes next, and if you’re somebody who hasn’t been picking up the book already, it’s a great jumping-on point. It clearly defines the characters and their interactions, sets up a new mission, and sends them on their way. I could probably be happier with this book right now, but I can’t imagine how, short of another big surprise like we got this month.
Cheap Shots!
DOCTOR SPECTRUM #3 - Does Samm Barnes rock or what? Not only is she making Joe Ledger into the most interesting and complex character in the SUPREME POWER line-up, not only is she writing a book that actually deserves to be referred to as "mature" (unlike the immature stuff usually slapped with that label,) not only is this one of the better miniseries coming from Marvel right now, but man, did you see those last three pages? How fucking cool was that! -- Vroom Socko
FLASH #215 - Is the Top behind it all? Is he the one who has caused so much trouble in the DCU and in IDENTITY CRISIS? Since Brad Meltzer promises that IC is a classic mystery with all of the elements present in issue one, it would suggest that Flash writer, Geoff Johns is setting him up to be a red herring. But in and of itself, this issue was pretty good. It offers some clues as to who the real father of Boomerang Jr. is. It makes squeaky-clean Barry Allen seem a bit more human. And it takes a hokey power like body-hopping and gives it a frightening twist. Plus you get an appearance from Blue Beetle and Booster Gold for your hard earned moo-lah. Not a bad read. – Ambush Bug
STOKER’S DRACULA #1 - I was around three when this stuff was first released, so I’d never really gotten the chance to read it because I was busy learning how to tie my own shoes. Sure, it was the kind of thing the older kids like Buzz used to talk about, but I never saw the issues anywhere—it’s not like reprints and trade paperbacks were commonplace in the 80’s. I figured it might be a little cheesy, but why not give it a shot? I’m really glad I did, too. Roy Thomas is obviously drawing very closely from Stoker’s source material. As somebody who’s never read Stoker’s novel (I know, I know) I was surprised at how different the story and the stylistic decisions are from what we’ve seen in movies and TV shows over the years. There’s a disturbing, eerie tone to a lot of what our narrator, Jonathan Harker, discloses in his journal. It’s far darker than I was expecting. Even more impressive than Thomas’ scripting, though, is the art. I haven’t seen a lot of the Marvel black-and-white magazine art before, but this is fantastic. Dick Giordano’s work is breathtaking. There’s such detail and definition in the linework that I found myself going back and looking at each page a second time before moving on, ignoring the dialogue bubbles and just soaking up the images. The shadowing is perfect for the mood of the book. There are several places where it looks like the backgrounds are painted in watercolors and then the penciling is added in the foreground. I had no idea what to expect going into this book, and found a great read with beautiful art. No wonder these guys are considered among the best the 70’s had to offer. The book is being published in four issues spaced out every six weeks, and it’s the first time this story has ever been told to completion by the creators, since it was cut short in the 70’s. This one is well worth the cover price. – Sleazy G
PLANETARY #21 – On the good side, this is a fascinating issue, introducing a terrific new character and taking a new, microscopic approach to Warren Ellis’s secret history of the world. Cassaday’s artwork continues to astonish – with this kind of quality, I could care less how long it takes to come out. Never mind the “factory floor of universal existence”, just the expressions on Elijah Snow’s face are worth the wait. Now the bad side. Fucking hell. Someone needs to come up with a term for the breaking limit of how many mysteries can be tolerated simultaneously without providing answers for any of them, and we can figure out how close this book is to becoming intolerable. ANSWER ONE THING. Anything. Come on. - Lizzybeth
DAREDEVIL #66 - This is a first for me. While I probably remain the only constant voice of praise hereabouts for the work Bendis has done on this title, I loved this issue more for Maleev than anything else. This story of Alex Bont, the kingpin before the Kingpin, looks to be a complex and compelling one, but man! I know I've been appreciative yet critical of Maleev in the past, but he does some stunning work here. The design work shown here is jaw-dropping, especially the black & white section. Were Maleev to be never colored again, I'd be beyond happy. The stiffness I've disliked in his work seems to disappear along with the color, and the details in the background are clearer and more distinct. This is simply the most amazing looking comic I've read in a good long time. -- Vroom Socko
BATMAN #633 - Well, they promised lasting ramifications and they delivered. I admired this crossover for its tight storyline and major shake-ups. Gotham and its protectors have not come out of this one unscathed. The Bat-Family lost one of its own. Oracle’s lair is destroyed. Batman was outed as a human being, shattering the urban legend facade that he worked so hard to build throughout the years. And most importantly, Commissioner Atkins has had enough and the GCPD no longer supports vigilantism in Gotham. This final issue was a bit lopsided but it delivered with some major emotional scenes including Oracle’s sacrifice to save Batman from self-destruction. The death scene of a major player in the Bat-Family would’ve been more moving had it come before the final battle with Gotham’s uber-crime boss, Black Mask (it would’ve given Batman more of a reason to be so reckless and willing to die). But in the end, this was one of the more entertaining crossovers to go through the Bat-books in years. – Ambush Bug
BLUE MONDAY: Painted Moon #3 - Hey, it's got horny clowns, lesbian innuendo, and bowling alley hi-jinks. What more do you need to know? Alright, you want more? Monkeyboy becomes the luckiest man on Earth. Yeah, Monkeyboy. I couldn't believe it either. - Vroom Socko
