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JUSTICE LEAGUE #5
SEVEN TO ETERNITY #1
POWER MAN & IRON FIST #8
DOOM PATROL #1
FAITH #3
JUSTICE LEAGUE #5
Writer: Bryan HitchArtist: Tony Daniel
Publisher: DC Comics
Reviewer: Masked Man
The opening arc of the latest relaunch of the JUSTICE LEAGUE comes to a close. Yes, superstar artist turned writer Bryan Hitch and DC finally managed to finish a JLA story together. Unfortunately, just when the story was starting to show signs of life, Hitch brings it to a screeching halt.
Ok, let's breakdown the plot (with spoilers) to see what happened here. One, space 'bats' called the Purge, are attacking the planet. Two, Earth destroying, Earth Quake Bombs have been discovered under the Earth's crust. Three, giant beings (made of innocent people (though I ask you, who's really innocent)) calling themselves the Kindred are going to do something. And last, Aquaman has discovered some singing zodiac crystal statues, no idea what they do. Now, as the Green Lantern twins (we're not twins) stop the flow of space bats, Superman stops the Earth Quake Bombs, and Wonder Woman talks to the giants, while Aquaman plants the crystals all over the world (what a swimmer). Now it appears all these events are related, the question is which are bad and which a good. At first blush it seems the giants are good. Since the space bats appear to be made from the matter of a dying planet (like they killed this planet, and are now headed to Earth), and the bombs seemed to be a fail safe against the 'bats'. Like, if the giants fail to stop the space bats, they blow up the planet, leaving no matter for the space bats to reproduce. Well this issue reveals the truth, the Kindred are the badguys and the space bats are here to stop them, as are the bombs. So, the League attacks the giants with one of the bombs, the 'people' from the dead planet (who are somehow linked to Cyborg), and the crystals (Aquaman punches one of them with one of the 12). This works and the Kindred fall apart- into piles of confused people (luckily they survive the fall). Now here's the best part, none of this is explained. Who are the Kindred- no idea. What were they going to do- no idea. What was up with the dead planet and the space 'bats' and the people that look like Cyborg- no idea. Where did the Earth Quake Bombs come from- no idea. Where did the singing crystals come from- no idea. What was the point of the whole story- no idea.
It's like Hitch read Geoff Johns' “Darkseid War” and said, “ That made no sense … I can beat that!” Now since this was just the start of Hitch's run, one can assume answers will be forth coming in future issues. Which is nice, but does nothing to make me feel better about the $15 dollars I just spent. It's also a little odd that this was the first pairing of Pre-New 52 Superman with Post-New 52 Justice League, and they spend no time together. So much for the team building exercise.
Luckily Daniel's art, as with the past artists on the JUSTICE LEAGUE, is the one bright spot of the issue. I don't think it's as strong as his earlier issues, but it's still a good looking book. Just like Hitch, he handles each hero really well.
Overall there's nothing to really like about this first arc (unless you have a mad on for Pre-New 52 Superman, Lois and son). Conversely, there's nothing to really hate about it either. Hitch basically ticked off a check list of things in a typical JUSTICE LEAGUE story. The good part, character portrayals and the art. The bad part, the what and the why of the story is never explained. So on the Masked Man's scale of Crap, Poor, Decent, Good, and Great; “The Extinction Machine” just manages a DECENT.
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SEVEN TO ETERNITY #1
Writer: Rick RemenderArtist: Jerome Opena
Publisher: Image Comics
Reviewer: Humphrey Lee
So many years now I have been reading comic books, and while my interests in the medium are varied I think it’s safe to say that at the end of the day I come to this form of storytelling for the long running epics. I took a hiatus from comic books way back when because the month-in-month out grind of gimmicky superhero books were just wearing me down. What brought be back were books I had no idea existed, that played by their own rules and imagination and told these big, sweeping tales; like your SANDMAN’s, PREACHER’s, etc. I want to be in a place made by highly creative people crafting highly creative things. And sometimes those places are inhabited by superheroes that have been around for decades, but for the most part I want to enjoy something being designed from the ground up and revealed over years. Now, Rick Remender has been a writing talent I’ve enjoyed more than not over the years, crafting books with longer arcs to them like FEAR AGENT (with Jerome Opena, his artist cohort on this book) and DEADLY CLASS and so on. But already this project, SEVEN TO ETERNITY, feels like it’s working on a much larger architectural scale than what we have seen him and company do before.
I say what I did above because while previous Remender works have had their own handily developed worlds that play their own roles in the story to varying degrees, SEVEN TO ETERNITY seems like it takes a step up for him in many regards. The world this book takes place on, Zhal, already feels much more like a character alongside the Osidis family (the protagonists we’re given thus far) than a place tertiary to the stars. Remender has been stepping up his world-building focus the past couple years with books like LOW and TOKYO GHOST, but this effort takes enveloping the world lore into the lore the characters themselves are writing to a new level. And I’m not saying this just because I’m overly impressed with a page long effort inside the opening cover that gives us a bunch of exposition in the form of journal entry about a history of unrest building to revolution against a being known as “the Mud King” and references to lush backdrops. In fact all of that text came to feel like pretty inorganic info dumping that set a boring tone to the book from the get go. But every page after that plays a much larger game of show than it does tell, and that’s where a lot of my enthusiasm I was feeling for this book derived from by the time I closed it up.
There were two main things that stood out about SEVEN TO ETERNITY upon crossing that finish line: The goddamn art (which I’ll get to in a second) and how well that art and the scripting integrated us into this realm already to tell a very “grassroots” revolutionary tale in a world anything but common. The Osidises are folk who are working and holding their little bit of land for everything it is worth (and more what it is worth to them) but they are staring down the inevitably at the hands of the insidious “Mud King.” That inevitable fate comes knocking pretty quickly into the book and does everything the setting and characters need it to do by showing just how much this book is about that common man, “frontier resolve” and impressing with the fantastical aspects of the book. This isn’t a musket in the tall grass campaign; this is swords of light, weird snarling beasts with glowing eyes and tentacles, and malevolent sprites coming to burn your world down. It’s the Revolutionary War via Final Fantasy viewed through a more nihilistic yet still grasping on to some hope lens, as Remender is wont to use as a viewing glass.
Admittedly, once some serious shit goes down through the first half of the book, Remender lets his artist better half get a bit indulgent and walk it to a wrap. There’s some wandering world-building gone via Adam Osidis internal monologuing more of the power grabbing story that has led Zhal to where it is and some of the local flavor vaguely calling him and his family out for their role in it all, but for the most part the back end is an artistic exhibition that I don’t blame Remender at all for handing the reins over toward. You know that debate that comes up every couple of months about how little credit artists get in the grand scheme of things? This performance by Jerome Opena is every instance of why that is an argument worth having so often. All the adjectives in my handy thesaurus known as the Internet don’t do it all justice, so basically I will just say this: In SEVEN TO ETERNITY Rick Remender writes us some very identifiable, very anxious yet stalwart people with an intriguing and multi-faceted world against them, but Jerome Opena kicks open the doors to that world for you and makes you never want to leave.
It may be the visuals that show the most of the richness of this realm so far but there’s so much groundwork going on overall here that my anticipation levels are high for more of this book. This could read with all the depth of one half of the Presidential debate I just endured and I would still plunk down money for it because the art is great, so great, the best art, but I feel there is some really rich lore to be laid down still in these pages. The Osidises may be the focal point of the calamity and war Zhal is facing now, but the way things plot themselves out gives a sense of a cyclical nature of conflict and revolt tied into the heart of Zhal. This time around it is the Osidis family embroiled in the turmoil and they are a sturdy filter to distill this world through under the keyboard and pencils of Remender and Opena. Obviously, I have no clue just how deep their blood or anything will run in this story, but this already has all the feel and especially the look of a “legends will be made” epic saga of those who fought against all the odds and will be one of those bastions of creativity I crave in my comics for years to come.
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.
POWER MAN & IRON FIST #8
Writer: David WalkerArtists: Sanford Greene and Flaviano
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Reviewer: Masked Man
As Luke and Danny try their best to stay out of the latest Marvel Civil War, circumstances drag them into it. Although, even though I liked this issue, it felt a bit like a bait and switching from last issue.
Ok, before I tell you how awesome this issue is, I'll tell you what disappointed me about it. You see at the end of the last issue, Captain Marvel and company declared they are going after Power Man! None of that happens in this issue, until the end where again Captain Marvel and company declared they are going after Power Man. So what the hell Walker!? There better be a kick @$$ fight next issue.
Ok aside from that, PM&IF continues to be my favorite (not just Marvel) comicbook these days. Plotwise (prepare for spoilers) Danny is locked up in jail, and Luke is dealing with the agnitus, that the low-rent vigilantes dropped. You see, someone very powerful is targeting former super villains with low-rent vigilantes. The villains' family members (and a few villains) have asked the boys for help. This led to a scuffle with the police, which put Iron Fist in jail. This issue though starts off with a little background on Luke, giving him a bit of a phobia of prisons. Then a little background on Danny, making him overly mule headed. So now Danny isn't looking for an easy way out of prison. He wants to ride it out and see where it all leads. Luke, meanwhile is crawling the walls over his best buddy being in jail, for no good reason. So Luke calls up Songbird and Centurius and asks them to convince him, not to go break Danny out of jail (a pretty cool character moment). Before they can figure out what to do, Captain Marvel and the thought police show up and smack down in 30 days!
With all that, the best thing about this issue, and Walker's run, is the character interactions. The highlight of the issue being Gadget and Senor Magico (who is awesome) trying to crack the agnitus, and ending up arguing whether or not magic exists. Mind you, not a smart thing to argue in a comicbook! Meanwhile Dontrell “Cockroach” Hamilton is trying to let everyone know he's not working with Power Man, rather he's playing Power Man (good luck with that Cockroach!). He also sets Cletus “Disco Devil” Evans up to get his @$$ kicked. So this issue and this run is just chocked full of great and often very funny character moments. Every character becomes a gem under Walker's pen or word-processor.
The art chores this month were split between series regular artist Greene and series regular back-up artist Flaviano. Each one of them has an 'outsider art' look to them, and therefore blend together fairly well. I find Flaviano's work a little more interesting, as Greene' figure can get mighty ugly (have you seen the issue #9 cover- yikes!). Still the inventiveness of both their storytelling styles (which should be pushed even more, IMHO) makes their work look more interesting than a typical comicbook artist. The showdown pages at the end are quite nice.
It's funny, there really is something to the concept of lightning in a bottle. Waid and Samnee's DAREDEVIL was my last fav, and I totally expected to love their new BLACK WIDOW. But it completely bores me and now POWER MAN & IRON FIST is my new fav- good stuff. So, as I said last time, I can't wait to see the smack down in the next issue.
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DOOM PATROL #1
Writer: Gerard WayArtist: Nick Derington
Publisher: DC’s Young Animal
Reviewer: Humphrey Lee
“What the fuck did I just read?!?” is a phrase that has a 50/50 ratio of being either an affectionate phrase of quality or an exclamation of disbelief when I wield it while consuming a piece of media. The former version of that goes without saying, of course, sometimes material hits me with a sense of joy and/or surprise and/or awe at its level of quality I have to swear at the air about it. The latter is reserved for those (I’d like to think I’m a smart enough guy to say “rare”) occasions where I legitimately just have no fucking idea. Those are the “Grant Morrison on the good drugs” stories, or the occasional “Alan Moore when he’s in a snake god ritual trace” tale. And then there’s work like DOOM PATROL here that blur that 50/50 line of “what the fuckitude” where I can’t help applaud it while acknowledging not having a clue what the shit is going…
Where that sense of wonder comes from in this new DP volume by Gerard Way and Nick Derington is pure style and energy. This should not come as a surprise for anyone who is familiar with Way’s previous works in both comic books like THE UMBRELLA ACADEMY and on the music scene as front man for My Chemical Romance. Personal opinion on the latter of those entertainment outlets aside, one cannot deny that MCR had a sense of off-kilter flair and grandeur with the show they were putting on for their fans. There is very much an end-of-their-run, Danger Days level of upbeat and surreal energy driving this first issue of DOOM PATROL as it follows EMT driver Casey Brinke. She’s a daredevil behind the wheel that refuses to fail her patients we find as the book revolves around her day; a day which involves a gyro that may have been another realm before it explodes in a trash can, Casey witnessing the robot body of Cliff “Robotman” Steele being destroyed by a garbage truck, and then her roommate being exploded at the snap of fingers by a sexy singing telegram lady. This is a Doom Patrol book all right.
And here’s the thing: The book has even weirder moments than those listed above within its pages. Every other page is just a five-fingered death punch to the face of oddball happenstance and seemingly weird for the sake of weirdness non-sequiturs, like an interlude with Doom Patrol founder Niles Caulder tuning a keyboard or some alien beings meeting in a 2-star hotel to have a discussion about meat. And it’s all wonderful and gorgeous looking. As a linear piece of storytelling, I haven’t the fucking foggiest how the “central” story and this tertiary set of pop-ins line up with each other, or if they’re going to, or if I’m a fool for thinking they in any way should. In the tradition of the Doom Patrol set back in the Morrisonian age, this book is a ride to be enjoyed for what it is and what it is quirky, humorous, and strange in a way that is both confusing and highly entertaining.
The real winner in this hodgepodge of “what the shit?” is really artist Nick Derington who puts on an absolute exhibition in grounding the high octane crazy. Every page of this book is a vibrant channeling of the word “hip.” Everything just pops, even on the rare page where gyros and roommates aren’t exploding and it’s just character interaction and dialogue, the details and expressiveness of Derington’s line work still carry a charge of excitement. You may leave this premiere issue with a face wrinkled up by confusion in that “What the fuck?!?” vein as I did, but you will also close that back cover with your brain satiated by the visual feast that is the artwork.
Now here’s the thing about a book like this, that’s appeal up front is in its unbridled creativity and moment-to-moment unhinged hijinks: At some point something has to be molded into the shape of a storyline. After just this first issue, DOOM PATROL can be summed up as “Casey Brinke’s fucked up day with some sides of other weird shit,” and it is a highly entertaining start start, but you can only go so far if something doesn’t coalesce around a main story. Not every side excursion here has to amount to some “aha!” moment as it pertains to whatever the core of this book ends up being – in fact I hope this is never the case in order to keep myself and the rest of the audience on their toes as to what really “matters” – but too often I’ve seen works like this that think eccentricity begetting more eccentricity as means to its own machinations is all that matters. Really what it tends to gets is wearisome; not that I want this book to ever ever EVER tease with traditionalism, but I’ve also never really seen a book that sustains itself for anything more than a few issues on weird alone.
I also think that what I just did for the past couple sentences is a lot of fretting for nothing. The fact that there is a lot of hubbabaloo around a central character like Casey means there’s something afoot with her. It would be pointless to speculate on anything beyond that and how it ties into the mythos and precedents set by Doom Patrol books over the past couple decades – if any – but something is obviously there, even if it’s a cloud of WTF at best right now. Regardless, there is a loose core here and it’s as fun as it is nonconformist, and the digressions are just as enjoyable as well, even if they are head scratchers in their ambiguity and unpredictabity. Just like this issue’s exploding gyro, I appreciate layers upon layers of different ingredients coming together to create a universe of taste, but I come for the savory meat base with the sides designed to emphasize that sexy, greasy protein, not haphazardly thrown into the wrap for shits and giggles. I don’t want my DOOM PATROL gyro to be nothing but mystery ingredients every month, but a random smattering of accoutrements added to the delicious meat foundation is more than welcome and imagination filling.
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FAITH #3
Writer: Jody HouserArtist: Pere Perez
Publisher: Valiant Entertainment
Reviewer: Masked Man
Valiant's newest star is a superhero few people even know the name. Yup, Jim Shooter's Zephyr is all the rage these days. I'm assuming most of you just went, huh? You see back in 1992, Valaint's heyday, Shooter created a new superhero team, Harbinger. One of the new heroes on the team was named Zephyr. Through psionic powers she could fly. Developing them more, she can now do telekinesis tricks. Recently, Valaint has brought Harbinger back and Zephyr became a plus sized hero and the break out star of the pack. Though instead of brander her comics Zephyr, Valaint uses her secret identity, “Faith” Herbert on the covers. It's kinda the reverse of Captain Marvel, DC has to brand all his comics as “Shazam”, least Marvel gets their panties in a bind (or jock straps if you prefer). I say the reverse because DC has a hero named Faith, so you'd think Valiant would stay away from that name and use Zephyr. Anyway, we got a superhero comicbook entitled FAITH, about a superhero named Zephyr.
A bit like Mark Miller's HUCK, FAITH is meant to be a kinder more gentler comicbook hero. Especially, compared to the rest of Valiant's blood and guts line. This new series has Faith with another secret identity, Summer Smith- because people know Faith Herber is Zephyr, you see. And did you old timers catch the new name: S.S.? It's not just a nod to Stan Lee and his memory trick of first and last names starting with the same letter, FAITH is very much a SPIDER-MAN like comicbook. Just an average Mary (or Joe if you prefer) with superpowers trying to do the right thing. While still trying to maintain a normal life. No grim and grit like a typical modern superhero book.
Case in point, this issue (beware the spoilers) is a fun time out issue. Or at least is was until the finally few pages when Houser throws a curve ball at us. It all starts with Zephyr, or Summer, or- well just Faith going on a date with Archer (from ARCHER AND ARMSTRONG). The two get into cosplay and hit a comicbook convention. With tons of self reflection from Faith (see, she's Peter Parker), going through a bunch geek in-jokes and even giving out con advise (Faith er Summer does work for a pop culture website). But there is tomfoolery a foot (did I just type that?), as someone is pilfering from the dealers! Afraid the con might be shut down (like that would happen!), Faith and Archer look into it. With a decent explanation by Houser, they track down the thief. Curve ball time, but by invoking a magic totem the thief creates a mirror image of himself to escape! He also, inadvertently, creates a mirror image of Faith, er Zephyr, no wait, Faith. As Faith and Faith square off, it's cliff hanger time.
So it's all light and breezy, and Faith is a likeable enough character. You can see why she is becoming a fan fav. While the humor in the issue didn't make me laugh, it wasn't painful either. I've read far too many painfully unfunny comicbooks (mainly because they were suppose to be funny). So kudos to Houser for not doing that. The cliffhanger ending is definitely cute and makes you wonder just how deep this rabbit hole will go.
Pere Perez, who even draws himself in the book, does a nice job drawing the comic. He has nice figures, posing and action. It all blends well with Houser's unassuming script. Though I'm not a fan of the line coloring. It works good on cartoons, but on more realistic comicbooks, it just makes faces look washed out, especially with Faith and Archer's blond hair. But still this is a good looking and fun book. FAITH totally deserves it's fan fav status.
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