(Click title to go directly to the review)
SPIDEY #1
DOC SAVAGE: THE SPIDER’S WEB #1
DAREDEVIL #1
JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #5
Indie Jones presents KILLDARLINGS #1
JAMES BOND 007 #2
SPIDEY #1
Writer: Robbie ThompsonArtist: Nick Bradshaw
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Reviewer: Johnny Destructo
When I heard that there was going to be another Spider-Man book on the shelves, I wasn’t sure it was necessary. We have AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, a very fine current Peter Parker book, and on the way is the Spider-Man book starring the teenage Miles Morales (previously THE ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN, before all the SECRET WARS hoopla)--not to mention the myriad of other Spider-titles out there (SPIDER-MAN 2099, SPIDER-WOMAN, SPIDER-GWEN, WEB WARR-jeez, I’m getting tired just typing all of these titles out, let alone READING them all!).
So, yeah, I was wary of this book is what I’m saying.
But holy cats was this book pretty great. First of all, take a look at this amazing (no put intended--ok, maybe a little intended) inkwork by Nick Bradshaw. Not only is it gorgeous, but it does exactly what it needs to do: leave the origin story on exactly ONE PAGE. Most folks know the What, the Why and the How of Pete’s origin, so simplifying it works to the book’s advantage; also, the way Bradshaw draws fabric folds is really cool looking. At this point, I don’t even care that Bradshaw got most of his style from Art Adams. If you’re going to model your style after someone, you could do a lot worse!Since we can get all of the origin out of the way, we can get on with what’s different about this book. It’s a bit of a revamp to the Parker story in several ways, which may or may not cause frustration, depending upon how rigidly you hold fast to the original Peter saga. For instance, in this series, even though PP is a high schooler, his supporting cast is plucked from different points in time (sort of an AVENGERS FOREVER for Pete’s buds). We have Harry Osborn and Gwen Stacy hanging about, even though they weren’t introduced until Pete’s college years, and Sajani, who wasn’t introduced until the most recent Dan Slott run. Also, there’s mention that Pete and Flash Thompson used to be friends until ol’ Flash got big and popular. That’s new too, as far as I know.
But the loose, seat-of-your-pants continuity makes for a really fun-tastic read.It doesn’t feel bogged down by the past, and instead forges ahead into a still-full-of-surprises future. Also, let’s look just one more time at this ART!
The suit is also a little different, if you look closely. The design of the eyes (lenses?) are very reminiscent of the creepy, squinty eyes drawn by co-creator Steve Ditko, as are the tight-knit webs. But where there used to be a bridge, there is now a distinct disconnect between the shoulder-webs and the now stand-alone gloves. But even weirder is the fact the Spidey’s face webs don’t engulf the mask! They just…end. Weird.
No matter the changes (or because of the changes, more like) I’m pretty stoked about this fresh take on the teenage Peter Parker! I’m frustrated that it negates the reason for a Miles Morales book, or at least my argument as to why we NEED a Miles Morales book to all the nay-sayers out there (“But he’s the TEEN Spidey, for peeps who need a teen Spidey!”) But I have to divvy props where due. There may be too many Spider-books out there, but this one’s a keeper!
JD can be found running his own comic shop in Manayunk, PA called Johnny Destructo's HERO COMPLEX, hosting the PopTards Podcast, discussing movies, comics and other flimflam over here, graphically designing/illustrating/inking, and Booking his Face off herehere. Follow his twitter @poptardsgo. His talkback name is JohnnyDestructo
DOC SAVAGE: THE SPIDER'S WEB #1
Writer: Chris RobersonArtist: Cezar Razek
Publisher: Dynamite Entertainment
Reviewer: Masked Man
Chris Roberson, the guy who launched the pulp hero team MASKS and Doc Savage for Dynamite, is back with another Doc Savage mini continuing the concept that Doc's efforts for humanity have grown bigger and more successful since the start in the 1930s. But it's not all just a modern tale of the hardly aged Doc, as Roberson has flashbacks to a 1930s adventure, with Doc's original crew.
As I always feel the need to mention, Dynamite's laundry list of licensed heroes are often hit or miss. Luckily, their DOC SAVAGE so far has been hit. The first series by Roberson, THE MAN OF BRONZE: DOC SAVAGE, was a good read, so I'm willing to jump aboard for the latest outing. This time Roberson is joined by artist Cezar Razek, who illustrated several issues of Dynamite's WARLORD OF MARS series.
Razek is a fine artist, and a good find for Dynamite. If I have one complaint (and hey, I always have a complaint) to go along with his fine storytelling, super details, and nice layouts, it’s that his figures are often clunky looking. They often don't look natural, with stubby limbs and awkward poses, but overall he makes a good-looking book.
To bring you up to speed, Doc Savage, the perfect man (genius, fitness god, altruistic saint) has been running around since the 1930s (see what clean living will do for ya?). Earning money from his inventions, he has built a global world assistance organization (in your face, Red Cross). But when things get out of the ordinary, Doc himself jumps into action with his inner team of associates.
Getting into the plot, a series of earthquakes appear to be man-made, as Doc Savage discovers an oscillating device at one of the scenes--a device he had seen before in the 1930s: cue flashback. Back then, a rich industrialist was trying to sell it to the US Army and Nazi Germany by using it against them and saying the other did it, so they should buy it too. Roberson reveals the man's son watched him die by his own hand, as he was confronted by Doc Savage. You can easily guess the son is the new villain, but here's hoping Roberson does something more clever than that.
It's a reasonable start to another Doc Savage adventure. The only problem I've ever had so far with these tales is the amount of side people in Doc's crew. I suppose I'm just slow, but it's hard keeping track of five plainly clothed characters who are not the main character. At least in 2015, they are not just five white guys, and for those who care, Doc's cousin Pat is on the scene, though she is not quite as youthful as Doc, looking in her 50s, when she's probably 100 (I'm telling ya, clean living).
DAREDEVIL #1
Writer: Charles SouleArtist: Ron Garney
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Reviewer: Humphrey Lee
In one of those fits of repetition I guess I have after writing here for ten motherfucking years (!!!), here’s where I reiterate my feelings of DAREDEVIL being Marvel’s best character running. Not my favorite character of the company’s, not their best property they’ve ever created, but for the majority of my three plus decades on this planet, The Man Without Fear has been the standard bearer for letting the industry’s top talent get loose with their abilities and tell some relatively unfettered and instantly classic material. That’s why I find changings of the guard on the character to be a pretty big deal, at least as much as a piece of entertainment can be, because there is just such a high level of expectation going in with a character that seemingly plays by different house rules than the rest of his peers and continually resets the standards for Big Two properties. And here we are, the first new volume of DAREDEVIL in…okay, just over a year, but the first new writer for old horn-head in about half a decade. Prepare for possible Excite!
Actually, there is a lot of excitement here, which in a way I was not quite expecting. You see, our new creative team is one Charles Soule – law practitioner by day, comic book writer by night with the help of amphetamines to avoid sleeping, I’d imagine – and Ron Garney, who has long been one of the grittier, action-focused pencilers in the business. So, I’m both not shocked that Mr. Garney was given the reins in this opener to flex his creative muscles and kind of taken aback that Mr. Soule did not flex his lawyering muscles a bit more. Not to typecast the guy and his writing skill set – hell, I didn’t even know the man had a practice until a couple years after he really starting making headway into the business with his Image book 27 – but when you have a lawyer man writing about a character who is also a lawyer man, you don’t really expect the brunt of your debut to be about establishing a new gang called the Church of Tenfingers and thrusting a new (I believe, anyway) character called Blindspot into the daily trials and tribulations of Matthew Murdock.
That is where we are as we begin this brand new number one of Daredevil’s adventures, though: the protector of Hell’s Kitchen diving off the Manhattan Bridge to fish a cinder block-adorned man out of the East River before he drowns. This man, Billy, is the beginning of a case DD hopes to bring up against this new gang in his daytime crime-fighting as MM, which is where the lawyering comes through. Billy looks to be the first brick DD will be tearing out of the wall this new organization has built, and the mortar of this new crime syndicate seems to be made of fanaticism. These Tenfingers fighters are heavily trained, willing to physically deface themselves in the name of their leader, and now they have Matt Murdock on their radar as he prepares to put Billy on the witness stand.
Like I said, though, the brunt of this issue really is mostly based in physicality and, quite frankly, kind of running us into a wall of “here’s the new status quo” like a car that loses use of its brakes. The opening action bits are a good way of also punching us into that tone, especially with a sequence where DD quips “But then they’d never learn” to a nearly drowned Billy pondering why they don’t just wait under the bridge for the Tenfingers to disperse since they’re unaware of his survival. And it’s a jumpstart to a DAREDEVIL with Ron Garney at the art helm, with lots of monochrome and shadowing for effect and really rugged line work that makes every punch feel impactful. It’s a great start aesthetically for sure--just unexpected, given that I’ve always known Soule to be a writer who goes for the cerebral before the fisticuffs, though it’s not like he’s out of his depth here. What is more awkward than anything is just how roughshod or gratuitously some major plot developments are introduced throughout this creative debut.
That is my real trepidation with the opener of this new DD run: there are two big “huh?” moments, as far as plot points inserted. There’s the introduction of the Blindspot character, who suddenly shows up as DD is elbow-deep in arm blade-brandishing thugs and Hornhead has a bit of a cozy “that’s my boy” moment as he is apparently a new protégé, and then there’s a dour sequence right afterwards of Matt and Foggy that lets us know that, apparently, the whole “world knows who Daredevil really is” genie is back in the bottle and Foggy is pretty pissed about the circumstances behind this development. And it’s not that these concepts I’m inherently shocked by or whatever; DD has had sidekick help before, and eventually you just knew his identity would be bottled up again at some point (hell, I’m shocked it lasted this long), but both of these are dropped in these pages so, so awkwardly. Blindspot warranted enough of an introduction to be on the cover, and yet he (or she, there’s some sort of mystery going on in that body as well given the four panels the character is in leave much to be desired answers-wise) is barely in the issue. Likewise, the regenerated secret identity is way too big a bomb to just drop in the middle of an issue exposition-wise and leave it in the air to, obviously/hopefully, be addressed in the future.
So I become trepidatious about the handling these types of bombs going off simply because DAREDEVIL is a book that has those high standards I’ve spent most of this review discussing. Because it has a higher level of mythos to the character because it has been that standard bearer of corporate character and what you can do with them, I feel it lends itself to wanting to try too hard to come up with a shocking turn of events or two or three. I feel Soule and Garney are a hell of a creative crew, and already the former of the two surprised me with how well and unexpectedly he handed over the scripting to a good bit of action, and the latter showed some really good emotional impact during the Matt/Foggy confrontation, but there are now some self-imposed high bars placed here to vault over on a book that naturally has that horizontal beam at an Olympic level. Why does Blindspot warrant the attention and mystery surrounding the character as he/she/it helps DD in his never-ending war, exactly how drastic were the circumstances of Daredevil’s secret identity snapping back into place, and do these Tenfingers have the juice to become the next worthy adversary for a character that has had many of them, or are they just a new, poor man’s version of “The Hand?” I openly admit I’m going to give this team a long leash on answering all those questions for me because I love their talents, and it’s not like this book was lacking in energy and intrigue, but I also had that level of enthusiasm going when we got the run that ended in “Shadowland.” Big character, big stakes, and the desire to live up to both of those can be that proverbial slippery slope if you are not careful.
Humphrey Lee has been an avid comic book reader going on fifteen years now and a contributor to Ain't It Cool comics for quite a few as well. In fact, reading comics is about all he does in his free time and where all the money from his day job wages goes to - funding his comic book habit so he can talk about them to you, our loyal readers (lucky you). He's a bit of a social networking whore, so you can find him all over the Interwebs on sites like Twitter, The MySpaces, Facebookand a blog where he also mostly talks about comics with his free time because he hasn't the slightest semblance of a life. Sad but true, and he gladly encourages you to add, read, and comment as you will.
JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #5
Writers: Matt Kindt & Rob WilliamsArtist: Philip Tan
Publisher: DC Comics
Reviewer: Masked Man
So a funny thing happened to me at the comic book store. The owner, Warren, hands me my bag of comics from my pull list, and I see JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA is in there--good enough; I've been reading it. I get it home and then it hits me: this isn't 'the' JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA- the series being written and drawn by fan fav Bryan Hitch. It's a fill-in issue in the middle of a frick'n story arc!
Now just go with me a minute. I'm faithfully buying JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA, as DC has marketed the hell out of it as a Bryan Hitch book. And before Bryan can finish, a filler issue shows up, with no warning-as in, not mentioned in issue #4 and not mentioned in issue #5. Seriously, DC doesn't even say Matt Kindt & Rob Williams are guest writers of this issue!
Well at least it was a Justice League of America story, right? Wrong. They are shoehorned in on three pages (which have doing to do with the story), but (to be fair, as shown on the cover) it's a Martian Manhunter story. Who's not even a member of the JLA. On top of that, the whole story acts as an ad for the MARTIAN MANHUNTER comic!
So, my lapse in concentration made me spend $4 on a MARTIAN MANHUNTER ad. Let the buyer beware indeed.
Release date: 27th January 2016. Available for pre-order now from Diamond NOV151312.KILLDARLINGS OGN
Writer: Daniel SchafferArt: Daniel Schaffer
Publisher: First Comics
Reviewer: Charlie Oughton, DrKCOughton
KILLDARLINGS, the new graphic novel from Daniel Schaffer (DOGWITCH), starts as it means to go on. Tits and blooded lips talk of cannibalism and ultraviolence as we're introduced to a tale about the plastic Hollywood dream. The story follows two ultramodels who despise yet live the lifestyle of product packaging and who, as time goes on, try to find their sanity while everyone around them loses the plot. It’s very vicious and truly bloody humorous.
Thematically, the most intriguing aspect of KILLDARLINGS is that it is a beautiful bitch in babe’s clothing. As stated in the ironic disclaimer at the beginning, if you want you can just enjoy it for the comicy ultraviolence (eye chomping and blowing brains out a-gogo) or you can find the sections with nubile starlets naked and bathed in blood. Look really carefully and you might even see the odd nipple. However, to look for the boobs and blood alone is to miss the point of the story, and it’d be rather Freud to do so.
KILLDARLINGS is a great example of when meta just gets better because rather just being about the darlings, the subplots take a caustic swipe at consumer culture both in the mainstream and--Shock! Horror!--in cult entertainment. No one is safe and indeed, some fans may find the work uncomfortably acerbic for this reason. Everyone from vacuous glamour models (and the lads and ladies who lust after them) to film geeks and seedy celebrity media moguls are gleefully garrotted as the darlings work out what is fake and colorless in the reproduced world around them.
They frequently lose patience and have trippy (and wonderfully visual) potty periods alongside some very clever word play. Someone may well write a PhD on KILLDARLINGS one day owing to the layers of meaning involved. If you’re hard enough, the extent of the piece’s politics can be peeked at, though it is as much of a challenge as mentally removing the girls’ panties in the pictures as suffer fools, they do not and Schaffer controls the imagination to that effect.
Technically, the work is also far more than meets the eye. It’s a trick. A proto-porn illusion. Just as a key theme is how cult media is about creating replicas to Sell! Sell! Sell! to an audience of (often pretentious) Pavlov’s dogs, KILLDARLINGS is a surprisingly clever work. You’ll see EC-style violence, but relatively restrained gore beyond that, and what is there is often rendered humorously. It pretends to give readers the expected money shot to get them to look at something far more interesting.
The graphic sleight of hand continues into the themes. After an initial wide-angle shot suggesting sexual slavery, you’ll see one of the ladies rule the roost. There’s also plenty of boobs and bare bums, but very much on the girls’ own terms. In the sections where they discuss their objectification (depicted as faux adverts), seams show where bloody second skins seem to cover the girls’ bodies, and their pubic areas are hidden away from view by discretely placed bottles, hair, hands and other paraphernalia. Schaffer’s drawings seduce, master and then mock the purely voyeuristic reader from the page.
A similar trick is worked with the characters’ flipped gender and sexuality presentations: a manufactured boy band member is instead noticeably feminine, and in several images appears to have subtle breasts and wears a belly top suggestive of homosexuality. At the same time, the two girls alternate between being fierce bare-naked and occasionally adopting a male suit and associated posturing and looking sexy as hell in the process. Understanding the images makes them more effective, as the irony makes their compounded implications more insistent.
The character drawing is also marvelous. The dimensions of the sexual sleazes change depending on context, with the folks’ physical shapes echoing another but then altering as the girls enact revenge on those around them. One character’s deadly orgasm shifts into another’s deathly orgasm, with the consequent leftover lumped mass occupying the same position on the page. They die as a result of being replicas. The girls’ appearances veer from bearing the marks of war in their skin creases to sections of realism where the lines are removed, giving them a childlike innocence that jars and jives with their naked flesh. All of this is compounded by Catholic symbolism that will have the reader joining the girls in begging for mercy in one or two in gorgeous scenarios.
The book will particularly appeal to readers of a certain age, as it is absolutely full of meta references. These are not only funny but relate directly to actual branding theory, from the science bit of old hair commercials to pop groups that were used to sell underwear. At each point, our entire culture is shown as willingly and unwillingly complicit as we try to search for meaning amidst the joys of the bloodbath. The narrative also swings into video game styles and neo-noir realism to show how we try to develop our identities by living media-created fantasies, unsure if this is what they actually are.
If you want, KILLDARLINGS can be about two kill-crazy life-phobes who attack corporate bullshit and look damn fine doing it. If you look a little deeper it's actually about how reality and fans’ reaction to it can be creative, but instead is often mutually cannibalistic as the celebrities need to be both pretty pictures and provide paparazzi fodder by being really bloody mental. The layout, story and social spearing in KILLDARLINGS are superb. The question is, can you take it?
JAMES BOND 007 #2
Writer: Warren EllisArtist: Jason Masters
Publisher: Dynamite Entertainment
Reviewer: Masked Man
Dynamite, the house of licensed characters, has opened up their check book again and has brought James Bond into their fold--I wonder if he'll show up in the next MASKS mini? And if that doesn't excite you, the writer they nabbed may: Warren (you all frick'n love me) Ellis. All joking aside, this seems like a slam dunk.
Unfortunately, the best thing I can say two issues in is that it's all right. Much like a lot of old characters living beyond their creation period, new writers often present them as anachronistic. The world has changed but they haven't, and the world usually gets judged harsher than the character. Case in point here: Ellis has 007 dealing with a kinder gentler secret service, and it almost gets him killed. There's a real attitude here of, he's the only one who knows what the hell he is doing here.
Action-wise it's been typical, low key Bond fare as he deals with different types of people, including hot women and people with gimmicks trying to kill him. Now to throw myself to the wolves, I've always been a Roger Moore man. People seem to forget that while he was saving the world in style, he was still a ruthless killer (like how he kills Locque in FOR YOUR EYES ONLY), and when you are dealing with the villains Moore was dealing with, guys looking to rip the world a new one, it helps if you are an unflappable god. Go big or go home is how I feel, but that doesn't mean I don't enjoy the lower key, often mundane adventures of the novels that Ellis is clearly pulling from.
To get into the plot of “Vargr”, Bond has been sent to Berlin to find the source of a new type of cocaine--one that kills the user a bit more quickly than the usual. The plot thickens, as Bond is aided by a company which makes robotic limbs. Bond is also nearly killed by an assassin with a robotic limb, who Ellis reveals is hanging out at the company. All fairly typical Bond stuff and nothing to really write home about.
Getting to the artist, Jason Masters, this is where I have a bit of trouble, because he uses an art technique I hate: that is, everything looks traced--either from photographs or computer models. Everything just looks sterile and passionless, and it often makes for poor layout, as there are a ton of panels loaded with dead space (why do we need to see so much of a blank wall or ceiling?). Looking up his work online, you can see his personal work is ten times better than his work here. Now trying to remove my personal opinion about his style, the artwork is fine. It's all clean and somewhat meticulous. On some level it reminds me for the old British newspaper strip of James Bond.
So far I don't see Ellis turning as many heads as he did with MOON KNIGHT here, but as with Dynamite's THE SHADOW by Garth Ennis, JAMES BOND seems to be a good romp.
Proofs, co-edits & common sense provided by Sleazy G
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