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11/09/2003: comics comments
I seem to be perpetually behind with my comic reviews, brief and incomplete as they are in the first place. Anyway, here are comments on comics from the last three weeks.
Amazing Spider-Man #500 (written by J. Michael Straczynski, pencils by John Romita Jr. and John Romita Sr., inks by Scott Hanna)
This issue was a bit like a clip show, because it revisited all those moments in Peter's life, and it was quite sentimental, especially of course Dr. Strange enabling Peter to talk to his uncle again for a little while, but it worked, even more so if you've read the classic issues. Also the splash page showing Spider-Man fighting so many of his past enemies was fun in the "Where's Waldo" way.
Avengers/JLA #2 (written by Kurt Busiek, art by George Pérez)
I'm still lost a lot, with all those characters I barely know, as I said before I'm not quite the intended audience for this. So I'm less about the fangirl squeeing at seeing characters I know and love facing off at each other, or working together, but the story still works fine on the action adventure level, and I like the parts with the characters I do know. I really liked the scenes with Batman and Captain America, and luckily I just knew enough about the latter to get the significance of him staring at Batman's Robin shrine.
Arrowsmith #4 (written by Kurt Busiek, pencils by Carlos Pacheco, inks by Jesús Merino)
I like this series more and more as it unfolds. We see more of the horrors World War I holds in this universe with its mixture of technology and magic. Fletcher thinks he's been thoroughly cured of his notions of war as an adventure, but judging from the cliffhanger, his last major illusion (and that of this CO as well), that their side would never use such horrible weapons (like that magical poison gas that makes the soldiers kill each other) and that therefore they're the "good guys" still fighting a kind of "honorable" war, is about to be shattered. And I've mentioned this before, but I really like the art. It's one of my favorite styles in comics, detailed, yet with a clear line, and I really like that there are few solid black areas instead of half the page being black, as seems popular with many artists, and overall very readable page layouts, that still change just enough to convey timing and fit the action.
Batgirl #45 (written by Dylan Horrocks, pencils by Rick Leonardi, inks by Jesse Delperdang)
I've been looking forward to the artist team change. Not so much because of Leonardi and Delperdang as a team (though I think they usually do okay), but because I really disliked Sibar's cartoony style, so anything was an improvement. And I liked the story too. I enjoy how Horrocks writes Batgirl and Oracle far more than the scenes between Batgirl and Batman in the recent issues. And I like how Cassie explores Barbara's style as Batgirl, and "borrows" her old costume to experience that different style of vigilantism, and find out more about herself.
Batman #620 (written by Brian Azzarello, art by Eduardo Risso)
I've never read 100 Bullets, so I didn't know the team from there or expected anything in particular. Overall I liked Risso's art, I mean, not like the art by my favorite artists, but it works for Batman. I'm not quite sure yet about the story, but it seems like it'll turn out a solid pulp crime story at least, and maybe even develop into more.
Batman/Joker: Switch (written by Devin Grayson, art by John Bolton)
This one is a total waste of your money. I'm rarely this harsh on a comic in a review, I mean usually there is some stuff I enjoy in comics that sparked my interest with their blurb in the order catalog, but just sometimes I really regret my preorder decisions, especially if it involves handing over $6.95 for something like this. First there's too little actual story for the length of the book, so that the pacing felt totally off. The idea, i.e. Joker trying to act out his idea of "Batman" to do detective work, might have made a decent story in the style of the old EC horror comics, you know, ten or twelve pages with a surprise twist at the end (like the last page here, where it turns out Joker had agreed to Dalingworth's game), but dragging this out through 64 pages didn't work at all. Second, the art was definitely not strong enough to pick up the slack, so that the lack of content would be made up for just by enjoying the pictures. Third, what little there was of the story made no sense either, certainly not as a regular plot, but it wasn't bizarre enough to work on a symbolic or surreal level either, and ended up just being boring.
Birds of Prey #60 (written by Gail Simone, pencils by Ed Benes, inks by Rob Lea and Alex Lei)
I like the extortion storyline and Savant continues to be a creepy villain, but I'm not sure whether I get what is going on with Oracle. I mean, I so far I'm not really convinced Oracle would quit working with Black Canary over this. I can't quite see her doing this because she's afraid of her friends getting hurt. I hope this turns out to be some plot twist and not the final interpretation of the conversation between Dinah and Barbara, that there's more going on. But it works as a cliffhanger at least. As a minor quibble, you'd think Huntress and Black Canary would look different in more ways than hair and eyebrow color.
Detective Comics #788 (written by Paul Bolles, pencils by Mike Lilly, inks by Sean Parsons and Dan Davis)
I haven't made up my mind about the new team yet. The art is okay, but the story so far doesn't impress me. For one thing I find it kind of tedious when during prolonged fight scenes (or really any scene, but especially fights) the text boxes say the same that the pictures show. I mean, text slows down the pacing of the fight, and then when the text doesn't really tell anything I don't already see, it's pointless and makes things boring and redundant. It's not a book with illustrations. As an editor I'd have thrown out at least half of the text boxes in this comic if not more. Also I'm not sure I like the whole "possession through an artifact" thing. BTW, are we supposed to know this John Cole, who Batman is going to seek out, or is he a new character? I had never heard the name before, but it felt to me as if it was supposed to have some significance. Anyway, overall I'm not impressed so far, and Bolles needs to get a clue about comics, and get less attached to see his words as words on the page in addition to the pictures, or write something that's really more than the picture can show.
Hulk Gray #2 (written by Jeph Loeb, art by Tim Sale)
I mainly buy this for Sale's art, and because it's part of their color series, not because I'm interested in Hulk itself. However so far it's a decent retelling of the origin story, though we still haven't found out what's the deal with the Hulk being gray at the beginning (like I said in my comments on the first issue from what I've found about the gray Hulk that was a later development in the different Hulk manifestations in the current canon). Also I'm unsure why in the final scene, after Ricky locked him up, Banner transformed into the Hulk. Not that I'm really familiar with the story, but I always thought rage was necessary, and I don't really see why he'd get angry after he asked for being locked up. And it didn't make much sense either that a storage place for nuclear waste isn't guarded at all and opens by just one unsecured button being pushed. I mean, suspension of disbelief for radiation producing a Hulk mutation is one thing, and I'm really not picky about accuracy in comics, like about how nuclear waste storage facilities might actually look like, which is normally not something with uneven winding stairs hewn from the stone, still I wouldn't have minded that, but some basic logic should remain intact.
Outsiders #5 (written by Judd Winick, pencils by Chriscross, inks by Sean Parsons)
Sigh. I really wish they'd do something different for a cliffhanger once in a while than having one or more of the team seemingly "killed." Last month half the team got blown up and of course they didn't really get blown up after all, this time Arsenal gets shot, and I bet he's not dead. (And if they ever decide to kill Roy they better do it in a much, much better story than this one, and even then I'd be pissed off.) The Brother Blood here is much less scary and disturbing than the one in the early New Teen Titans issues too. And the art is mostly uninspired, I think what's starting to get to me is that the page layout and the panel composition aren't really good, to put it kindly.
Superman Birthright #5 (written by Mark Waid, pencils by Leinil Francis Yu, inks by Gerry Alanguilan)
We meet this universe's Lex Luthor, who has, as has been hinted at in previous issues, a backstory (of still undisclosed details) with Clark Kent. And he's obsessed with aliens, has a fragment of Clark's ship, and judging from the cliffhanger he's quite close to making the connection between the newly appeared Superman and Clark, or at least a connection between the meteor shower and Smallville. BTW, is Clark the first alien "going public" in the "real" DC continuity too? At least I suspect he's going to be revealed as an alien soon in the Birthright version, and with the scientists Lex Luthor sponsors to listen to space signals it doesn't look like they've met aliens officially yet. Anyway, I continue to like this version quite a lot.
Supreme Power #4 (written by J. Michael Straczynski, pencils by Gary Frank, inks by Jon Sibal)
It's still not fast paced, but this month there's stuff happening. I like how the series shows the unease of the regular humans with the alien and his powers, how it's shown that the government uses and manipulates Hyperion, how he now, after he was "revealed," has to deal wih adoring people who want autographs and the like, but sometimes it feels like the story is wandering around. I liked the plot with Hyperion's "parents" being extracted as they requested, though I remain a bit uncertain about whether Hyperion knows he's being set up about the "deaths" of his parents or not. At first I thought he overheard after all, but then I became a bit unsure. I also liked that he finally meets one of the other people who got powers.
Teen Titans/Outsiders Secret Files & Origins
This one is better than the Outsiders issue, but that doesn't say much. It gives some more backstory on the aftermath of the whole Graduation Day mess, and there are some scenes I really liked, especially with Nightwing and/or Arsenal in them.
Wolverine #7 (written by Greg Rucka, art by Leandro Fernandez)
I'm enjoying this series. Basically it's like Wolverine is on a road trip, kind of to discover himself and helps the helpless along the way, well actually it's more like he avenges the helpless afterwards. It reminds me a bit of the classic GL/GA issues I've read a while ago, also in that he doesn't deal with the typical superhero in tights problems, but with more realistic "issues," like the illegal immigrants dying at the hands of their smugglers, who didn't arrange survivable transport etc. It's not as blatantly about The Issues as the former example, and this is Wolverine after all so there is a lot less proselytizing and a lot more slicing going on, but I still see some similarity. And I actually like it when superheroes have to deal with regular, complicated problems, instead of fighting the evil supervillain once again. And I think Fernandez did a nice job with the art. He draws a slightly more (traditionally) attractive Wolverine than Robertson, though, not that I'm complaining. One quibble I have, was that I'm not too fond of longer conversations in other languages which are not translated. I mean, I know it's realistic and all, and I know enough basic Spanish to follow the conversation (not enough to notice mistakes and be annoyed should there have been some though), and it's true that you didn't need what was said to follow the story, but it's still bugging me when I don't understand all dialog easily, and after all it was three pages of with dialog partly or only in Spanish. I rather have some brackets or something indicating foreign language dialog.
Wonder Woman #197 (written by Greg Rucka, pencils by Drew Johnson, inks by Ray Snyder)
We continue to follow Wonder Woman's book promotion tour (which seems to favor LGBT bookstores, one called "Out With It" that also has a rainbow logo can't really be interpreted any other way), the protests against it, and the story unfolds kind of slowly. Mostly that suited me fine, as this is only the second Wonder Woman comic I've read, and am still unfamiliar with the regulars, as well as the antagonists, so I don't mind getting to know them. Doctor Psycho seems creepy though, even from the little I've seen so far.
