THE JUNGLE BOOK: FALL OF THE WILD #4

Writer: Mark L. Miller
Artist: Michele Bandini
Publisher: Zenescope Entertainment
Reviewer: Masked Man

The latest chapter of our esteemed editor's JUNGLE BOOK saga is out, and as you'd expect with a closing volume, all hell is breaking loose. Along with all the animals warring with each other, a group of pirates have come to 'rescue' all the man-cubs from the island, whether they want it or not.

Picking up where the last issue left off, Mowglii (re-imagined as a jungle girl, because it's Zenescope, after all), has been captured by an old coot who hopes to collect the reward of returning the girl to her long lost family. But over these past three miniseries, Mowglii has become rather popular with the rest of the animals, so a rescue party is pulled together to bring her back. Meanwhile, everyone not interested in Mowglii's well-being is busy trying to kill each other as the island's volcano gets ready to rip the place a new one. Lastly, when yer talkin’ lost islands and rewards, well, yer bound to run into some pirates, and so they have.

The best thing about this issue, and the series itself, is that Miller keeps the action going. Like any good adventure story, characters are always in conflict and moving to their next goal, and any info dump we need is given to us as the action rolls along. It doesn't grind to a halt. He also has a good grasp of pacing, keeping you with a scene and not letting it feel too long or vapid. Miller's also smart enough to keep introducing new angles to the story (aka pirates), but nothing too complex to muddle the story.

Bandini’s artwork has really improved here compared to issue number one. I could nit-pick here and there, where I feel he had gotten lazy, but overall he illustrates the story quite well. I was a little bit confused by page 16--did they really row to both sides of the ship to get on board? Why? Well, everything else reads fine, and he's been getting much better at growing his cartoonish style to actually flesh out this world.

On some level, though, I feel this story would be served better with more elaborate artwork. Shooting for the moon, I'd say someone like Bernie Wrightson (from your mouth to God's ear, I hear Miller say). It's just that Miller seems to be trying to build a lot of pathos in this tale, like the scene with Baloo, not to mention (which I am) the surprising amount of carnage in each issue, though I don't believe he's dead for a minute. But with Bandini's light and fun pencils, the final product is robbed of any pathos Miller may be trying to build.

All in all, this continues to be a solid book. It's probably not going to get Zenescope an Eisner or anything, but it's far better than I imagine most people think it is. Definitely worth checking out if you're tired of all the convergence wars.

JEM & THE HOLOGRAMS #1

Writer: Kelly Thompson
Art: Sophie Campbell
Publisher: IDW Publishing
Reviewer: Frida Gurewitz

Outrageous. The word is defined by Merriam-Webster as “exceeding the limits of what is usual” and “not conventional or matter-of-fact: fantastic”. It has, though, in pop culture been associated with the 1980s cult cartoon JEM AND THE HOLOGRAMS. The show was “truly truly truly outrageous”. In 2014 director John M Chu, director of GI JOE: RETALIATION, and producers Jason Blum and Scooter Braun, announced they were adapting the show for a big screen live action piece. IDW Publishing has also jumped on the Jem train right now by adapting the show into comic form. Let me preface this review: I personally love the show and have been looking forward to the comic since hearing about its conception. Jem is one of the reasons I currently have pink hair.

The writing of JEM AND THE HOLOGRAMS #1 is done by Kelly Thompson, who collaborated with the comics artist Sophie Campbell. The story, thankfully, doesn’t stray very much from the original premise of the show; it just brings the story into a more modern setting. It updates it and modernizes it. Where Thompson does veer from the original show is well done. In the original show Jerrica Benton’s invention of Jem is due to her finding her father’s technology and trying to save her family’s foster home, The Starlight Home for Girls. Thompson has changed this. Jerrica invents Jem due to her crippling stage fright. It feels like more of a real personal conflict rather than an almost after school special-y reason. The characters feel multi-dimensional. In the original show, the characters were all about friendship, following your dreams, and “glamour and glitter”. In this modern version Thompson has fleshed out the characters, making them seem more realistic then the flat sparkly girls of the original Holograms. This is not just due to the fun and informative character profiles in the back of the issue; The Holograms have positive traits as well as insecurities. They feel like real people as well as positive role models. Jem has always been aimed at young girls, and making the main characters positive, kind people as well as complex sends a good message. Thompson does a good job writing for young girls without dumbing it down or writing down to them.

Sophie Campbell does the art. Coloring, which is immensely important to this comic, is done by M. Victoria Robado. Campbell does a good job of mirroring the original feel of Christy Marx’s cartoon. Fashion and aesthetics are incredibly important to Jem. In the theme song, Jem sings “glamour and glitter, fashion and fame” as a lyric. The colors are bright pinks, blues, yellows, purples and not much of anything else. The combination of Campbell and Robado harkens back to the 1980s roots of Jem. Campbell has taken the characters and developed them into their own unique look and style. Perhaps my favorite part of Campbell’s development of the characters is that they don’t look like carbon copies of one another with different colored hair. Each character has a distinctive style and different body type. This variation in body type representation is uncommon in comics and incredibly refreshing.

The targeted general audience of this comic seems to be young girls. Taking this into account, Campbell and Thompson do an awesome job. They play to appealing to a younger audience without trying to dumb it down. It takes the original series and builds upon it wonderfully. I personally love this comic and am looking forward to reading more of it, but that’s most likely due to the fact that I have been a fan for a while. As far as “grown ups” go, if you’re not a fan of the cartoon, or are an adult not interested in things that involve sparkles, rock n’ roll adventures or the color pink and take yourself super seriously, I wouldn’t recommend it.

DAREDEVIL #14

Writer: Mark Waid
Artist: Chris Samnee
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Reviewer: Masked Man

In a month that has left me pretty blah about the comic book industry, DAREDEVIL comes along and brightens my day. It's amazing that Mark Waid and Chris Samnee can continue to make DAREDEVIL such an entertaining book. And it's not like I even love everything Waid has ever written, but since day one, DAREDEVIL has been lightning in a bottle for Waid, and he did it without getting overly gritty or twisted as many other DAREDEVIL writers have.

On the flip side, one might also say this lone issue is where Waid's DAREDEVIL has jumped the shark, because this issue has Daredevil sporting a new costume and attitude about his crimefighting life. It's odd that Marvel didn't send out a press release about this, but I guess since Daredevil is still a white guy, who cares (FYI, not claiming reverse racism or anything stupid like that, just pointing what hype-heads like to talk about these days). Anyway, Matt Murdock has decided to embrace the fact that he's Daredevil, and his new look, which you will have to go see yourself, embraces this fact. Being very un-classic superhero, you'd think I'd be against it, but it makes a lot of sense and has a good sense of fun about it—dapper, one might say. It's a good deal better looking than the lame 'rent-a-ninja' costume he wore in THE TRIAL OF THE INCREDIBLE HULK (I don't care if Netflix is using it, I don't care if the great and power Frank Miller made it canon--he looks like one of Kingpin's loser thugs and is letting everyone know he doesn't see with his eyes).

Let's talk more about the story, though. One cool thing about this issue is, Waid packs tons of scenes and info into it. Too often comics today cover just one or two scenes, as stories are way longer than they need to be. Not here, as we see Matt Murdock strike a prefect balance of lawyer, crimefighter, boyfriend and celebrity. His law partner/girlfriend Kirsten McDuffie (like some comics fans, I imagine) isn't so sure about this new approach to life; we all know it probably won't last too long. But it's definitely a fresh new look at Daredevil, so let's see where Waid takes it. As for the main plot (aka spoilers), Daredevil discovers another one of his supervillains has a child (the Purple Man being the first); she doesn't have a code name yet, so I'll just call her Owl-Girl. She comes off like DC's Spoiler, as we are unsure if she is a good guy or and bad guy. At the moment her father has gone missing, and ol’ DD decides to help her find him. Once they find him, it becomes another good wtf moment that Waid loves to throw at us in this DAREDEVIL run. The ever-unpredictable Shroud shows up again, too. Last time it was a crazy ride, and it looks to be about the same this time too.

Just another great issue, filled with action, humor, and emotion. Mark Waid knows how to write superhero genre comics like nobody else. For him it's not about reinventing the wheel, or flashing updates. It's good characters, good plots, good use of continuity and clever twists to keep everything fresh.

For his part, Chris Samnee continues to lay down some of the best storytelling in comics right now. His panels are clean, push the story and are interesting to look at. Everything blends well together and no scene is boring. Like Waid, he combines classic superheroing with new twists to keep everything fresh and lively. If you like superheroes, yet haven't give this series a shot, seriously--what are you waiting for?

In stores today!

CONVERGENCE #0

Writers: Dan Jurgens & Jeff King
Art: Ethan Van Sciver
Publisher: DC Comics
Reviewer: Optimous Douche

Thank you, DC. I show my appreciation to creative teams constantly for melting the cockles of my heart, but I can’t think of any time I was truly moved by the simple inception of a series from a publisher. For the impatient, the plot is thankfully simple: Superman of Earth Prime is in the hands of Brainiac. Brainiac is an urban kleptomaniac. He’s also more addicted to puzzles than mental wards, and what a grand puzzle Superman’s infinite deaths and infinite triumphs across time and quantum strings would be to unlock for a creature always seeing the most logical patterns as its purpose.

Like the New Gods and Apokolips are constructs capable of navigating the cytoplasmic bleed between universes (see GODHEAD in GREEN LANTERN), Brainiac plays the same tricks, but ups the ante against their Godly travel beams and hover chairs to add time into his malicious city abduction: “What’s the plan, Brain?” “Not to just capture cities in a bottle, but to capture the zenith of all cities in all universes in…all…time…periods to examine what makes the idea of Superman so unyieldingly pervasive he is always spared the final fate before being born anew.”

“Sounds meta, Optimous--didn’t you bitch-slap ULTRA comics and every other issue of MULTIVERSITY for such 4th wall faux pas?” Indeed, and CONVERGENCE made me realize that my disdain for the Morrison meta versus Jurgens’ doesn’t stem from too far of an aesthetic distance, but frankly one that is too close. I love story. I know real life never seems to allow the story world in. From mermaids to UFOs, most of the mystical in this world stems from myopia and booze. The meta here is not breaking my 4th wall that I know can’t be, it’s breaking the 4th wall for my favorite characters, which makes sense since Superman, not Rob Patey, can and has done everything. It’s a story about deconstruction, not a fucking pamphlet chiding me for seeing through the complete fucking deconstruction of heroics and then getting pissed at me for complaining the rebuild looks like the same shit from before. CONVERGENCE is apologizing in a sense for the New 52 forgetting to change for the sake of comics, instead of in fear response to Marvel Studios.

MULTIVERSITY is ambitious, especially for one man. The scope of CONVERGENCE with 3D universe movement and 4D time travel would be career suicide for any writer. And I’m not talking the whole series; I mean Jurgens was wise to get King at his side for the extra pages sans any ads in just this issue.

So that’s it, in glorious and intimately character rich but also epic in scope storytelling. A compendium in the back shows where Brainiac the mainframe has been telling his green screen dummy terminal clients of cunning to swipe cities from, but most of us have seen the checklists already to suss out the timeframes of occupying the new universe of Pax Brainiac.

Now let’s get meta ourselves for a second to see what could be next.

It says the worlds are in a contest to see which survive; I buy it for the 3 as yet unannounced titles adding to the already announced Fanciful 49. I’ll take it, and honestly no longer complain about a chunk of the shelf being prostituted to new media and parent company interest. The fight is futile, and as much as I want a DC Universe brimming with a ton of Elseworlds, I will satisfy myself with restitution over a satisfying end to my comic youth. It’s infinitely healthier than petulantly pining because my desire cannot bend the will of billion dollar companies. It’s in part also really really delusional.

Part of my peace is from seeing Jurgens, THE writer of my youth, a man who could so subtly weave together wisps of continuity from tale to tale to reward the OCD, but never deliver references so obtuse that new readers would get a real nosebleed from the metaphorical cross-sell. This unique talent of Dan’s has been wasted in the New 52 until now. You don’t give a man who used to checkmate great stories on a three-tiered Star Trek chess board one flat fucking checkerboard from CVS. And if you do erroneously put Dan on just one book, you make sure it is an exploration of every quintessential moment in DC history like CONVERGENCE.

CONVERGENCE is also the first book in ages truly for comic fans with cosmic consequence. We need stories ripping apart and past the linear. Comic reader imagination is more acute than the average bear who only sees comic movies. This curse to bend the boundaries of danger, has put us to a point where the stories of city, state and even nation are simply too myopic in scope to really affect us. We have seen our own cities under fire at this point, which means comics, to meet their thrill shill of brand, frankly need to raze fucking everything from the God particle flashing until the final Kelvin of entropy hits zero across all stars.

Before I bid adieu, I must take a moment of art awe. Beauty bleeds off every page, from the grandiose all-knowing Brainiac mainframe belittling a much oddly older-looking Superman Prime (how do I know Earth designate for taunt Superman? High collar and doll part articulation points is how I know), to the moments of sincere reaching out Superman delivers to an ever changing by comic epoch Vril Dox. Another part of the Van Sciver allure for me is that I believe he’s the hardest working man drawing comics right now. Anyone who professes a desire to paint comic pictures for a living needs to hit a con and witness the exhaustive pace VS performs at to be granted A-list titles. It takes more than talent, folks, to turn a job into a career; dependability and desire can sometimes help balance a less deft hand’s chances. I have stood afar more than once over the years on show floors watching Ethan multitask like a 12 year old who lost their Adderall, graciously greet any fan who walks up to the table and never relent from producing new pages or commissions. I stand at a distance because I swear a lot, and his kids are usually with him. I’m not a stalker--just a guy who marvels at that which he can’t do and will never ever taint kids if I can help it. The magic of youth, like the magic of comics, seems to fade with each passing year as commercialization makes cynicism a core attribute.

I care about Jurgens (though he is ironically one of the last comic writers I have yet to personally kibitz with), I care about VS, I care about DC, and I goddamn right care about comics breaking the boundaries of convention as much as opening day blockbuster projections. CONVERGENCE is the first series in so long who also seems to give a shit about me. Thank you again, Dan, truly.

When Optimous isn't reviewing comics he is making the IT words chortle and groan with marketing for MaaS360, Enterprise Mobility Management. He also has a comic coming out sometime soon, for updates head to robpatey.com.

LADY MECHANIKA #5

Writer/Artist: Joe Benitez
Pencil Assists: Martin Montiel
Publisher: Self Published
Reviewer: Masked Man

Well, it was years in the making, but the first LADY MECHANIKA story finally comes to a close. As is often the case in comic book solo projects, keeping deadlines is really hard. This apparently caused some grief for LADY MECHANIKA's former publisher Aspen, which is why Benitez decided it was best for both of them to carry on alone, and it seems to be working out just fine.

As it is, this comic is a really good example of an artist turning writer and succeeding. Oftentimes artists overthink their grandiose ideas and have none of the real writing skills to pull them off. Benitez, on the other hand, just keeps it simple. So while LADY MECHANIKA might not be all that earth-shattering or Eisner bound, it's solid entertainment, which is what all those wannabe artist/writers should just shoot for.

Getting into the story, our Lady Mechanika lives in a steam punkworld, yet has no knowledge how she became a steam-borg girl. Much to her surprise, she has discovered another steam-borg girl in corpse form. She starts to investigate this girl in the hope that her origin might explain her own. This leads us on a tour of Lady Mechanika's world and her relationship to the major players in it. This final issue gives us the big climatic showdown between Mechanika, Lord Blackpool (the powerful industrialist who wants steam-borg tech for himself), Commander Katherine (Mechanika's one-eyed female nemesis working with Blackpool), and mysterious techno genius Cain (who seemingly invented steam-borg tech, and doesn't give a damn about anyone else). After much cannon fodder gets blasted away, Mechanika (as you might guess) is no closer to her answers, and nobody really gets what they wanted. Still, it's a satisfying conclusion with the promise of more to come.

Now the highlight of the Mechanika series is, as you might expect, Joe Benitez's artwork. The guy is clearly a steampunk fan, and jams in tons of detail in costumes, mecha, and background--so much so that when he gets rushed, as he clearly did in this issue, it really shows. That's the double-edged blade of elaborate work: you'll make your rep on it, but then you have to constantly deliver. Still, a sloppy Benitez page often has more going for it than a fully rendered page by an average artist. I also like that while Lady Mechanika herself is a good piece of eye candy, Benitez doesn't treat her as one. He lets the fact that she is hot speak for itself instead of posing her to look hot.

At worst, Benitez's writing has too many cliches in it, but as always, execution is more important than originality. Benitez's story hits all the basics just right: fun characters, good action, sex appeal, and just enough mystery to keep things interesting. The whole 'angel blood' thing seemed a bit b.s.-y to me (as in why she didn't more if she was already full of it), but the overall solid fun package allowed me to roll with it.

There is no reason any steam punk fan wouldn't enjoy this. I'm barely one myself, and I'm looking forward to the next adventure, where Lady Mechanika will slug it out with an Abominable Snowman.

In stores today!

WALLACE AND GROMIT: THE COMPLETE NEWSPAPER STRIPS, VOL. 3

Writer: Richy K. Chandler, Mike Garley, Luke Paton, Gordon Volke and David Leach
Artist: Mychailo Kazybird, Sylvia Bull and Jay Clarke
Publisher: Titan Comics
Reviewer: Lyzard

I’ve been a fan of WALLACE & GROMIT since I was a kid. I mean, who isn’t? I’ve never heard anyone say that the cheese-lovin’ doofus and his braniac dog weren’t for them. What’s not to love?

Well, with the third volume of WALLACE AND GROMIT: THE COMPLETE NEWSPAPER STRIPS, there isn’t a lot to love. We’ve all seen how some comics do or do not translate well to film. In this case, the British cartoon characters just fall flat when put on the printed page.

The collection compiles strips as they appeared in The Sun back in 2012 to 2013. I guess the funny pages have yet to reach the same archaic fate on the other side of the pond as they have on our shores. Fully colored, the book features dozens of stories, usually told over a couple dozen strips. The comics have quite a number of parallels with the animated shorts and films. The artwork is spot-on, the “voices” are true to the characters, even the tone of the jokes all seem to align themselves with the Wallace and Gromit we all know so well.

If Wallace and Gromit were to be released in a comic format, perhaps it was best done in strip form. At least with the writing as it is now, a full 20-30 page comic would be overload. Attempting to read the collection straight through is a fool’s errand. In ninety-five pages, the strips feature at least double the number of puns of the ninety-five minute long CURSE OF THE WERE-RABBIT. Even a few of the individual stories are too punny on their own. While the animated versions depended so heavily on visual gags, it is the all-too-often groan-worthy wordplay that is most likely to be found in these strips. The same sort of jokes are featured in the shorts and films, but spaced out to a greater degree and supported by stronger visual humor.

To make matters worse, the collection ends with a page entitled “tomb of the unknown artist”, which features a pseudo-apology/explanation for the plethora of puns featured in the volume. Is this some sort of joke? A bit of British snark that just flew over my head? If it is, then it ain’t funny or a proper excuse for what just accounts for poor execution. If it isn’t, but instead is a true condemnation by the writers on how the editor screwed them over, then why was it included?!

Perhaps if you or a friend is some sort of collector, Anglophile, or huge fan of the pair then yes, the collection is worth picking up. Otherwise, get your fix on YouTube.

Lyzard is Lyz Reblin, a graduate student at the University of Texas pursuing a master's degree in Media Studies... which is just a fancy way of saying she plays a lot video games, watches far too many horror films, and then tries to pass it all off as "research."

Editing, compiling, imaging, coding, logos & cat-wrangling by Ambush Bug
Proofs, co-edits & common sense provided by Sleazy G
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AICN COMICS Reviews: CONVERGENCE! LADY MECHANIKA! DAREDEVIL! JEM & THE HOLOGRAMS! JUNGLE BOOK! WALLACE & GROMIT!