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03/20/2004: Gotham Central #17, JLA #94
I've decided to get over myself and just ignore that huge pile of comics, which I all wanted to talk about at some point, but which is just getting more intimidating, while my recollections of what I wanted to say fade.
Instead I'll just talk about two comics from last week. I wanted to comment on two more (Legends of the Dark Knight #177 and Nightwing #91), but it's getting close to four a.m. here and my head hurts (not from the comics, probably from staring on my monitor too long though).
Gotham Central #17 (written by Greg Rucka, art by Greg Scott)
I have to admit that even after 17 issues I'd still love to have an overview, from something like an SF&O issue, just listing all the cops, their first names, last names, nick names, ranks, and with whom they are partnered. I know I've said this before, and I admit it is getting better, and I like that each arc seems to highlight some character(s) so that gradually we get to know them better -- but honestly, on the top of my head I couldn't list even half of them with full names and ranks. I don't know whether it's my scattered brain, or something intrinsic to the stories, but it is starting to seriously bug me.
This issue also showed the quiet, tedious part of police work rather well, and because of the personal plots interwoven with it, it wasn't actually boring to read, but personally I like some more action. I guess I'm juvenile that way. Though I liked the cliffhanger with Huntress showing up at Vincent's place. See, already I can't remember his last name *looks it up* del Arrazio, Vincent del Arrazio, it's like learning frelling vocabulary in school, I always hated that too. The people writing the "Next month in..." bits also seem to have problems, because there it says 'The action focuses on Detective Azeveda who gets a surprise visit from an "old pal" who just happens to go by the name "Huntress."' when the last panel this issue shows Vincent and Huntress meeting, and I doubt she also knows Josh Azeveda. (And yes, I had to look up Azeveda's first name, because I didn't remember that either.) Finally I think this habit of putting the title and credits at the end should be stopped, I want to see the title of a story in the first couple of pages.
JLA #94 (written by John Byrne and Chris Claremont, art by John Byrne and Jerry Ordway)
After reading a few older JLA issues, and some feeble, in the end futile internal resistance, I've finally resigned myself to being interested in the comic Justice League, and I figured I might as well start getting the new ones. I'm neither a particular Byrne nor a particular Claremont fan (I don't dislike them either, I just haven't read much by either), but a new story is usually a good time to start getting issues, and since DC would want it to be attractive to people into Byrne and/or Claremont who haven't read the previous JLA issues it probably would be enough of a standalone for me to get the story without major confusion, and ease into the on-going JLA. And I was mostly right about that. I mean, of course I experienced the by now all too familiar confusion, like I have no idea who this Manitou Raven guy who (seemingly?) died on page two is, but overall I had no problems.
So a great evil threatens (whatever, I wasn't that impressed with the foreboding, but then generally magic stories are my least favorite, so I'm biased), children with low-level meta potential are disappearing, Batman notices a pattern, the JLA investigates, and Clark gets mind-controlled by some cult (apparently those who abducted the children), and then bitten by its vampire leader. So far I'm not really exited about the story. For example somehow mind-controlled and even vampiric Superman here is much less creepy/scary than I think he could be.
Still it's early in the story, and I liked the art, which in a way was charmingly retro. I think a lot of the "retro feel" is due to the use of thought balloons and additional omniscient narrator boxes, which has become unusual. I mean, if you get internal thoughts, the most common way these days seems to be to have the thoughts of the POV character in the narrative boxes and no thought balloons. Still, I liked the retro. And on the completely shallow side, with my new found Flash appreciation I noticed that Byrne draws a rather cute Wally West (or you can see both the retro thought balloons/narrative boxes and Wally here).
