Trouble with Comics

Blackest Night #1-8

Writer - Geoff Johns

Penciler - Ivan Reis

Inkers - Oclair Albert & Joe Prado

Publisher - DC Comics

A few months back, I posted something about my preview of the review of this series being that, “it’s awful.” That was written when I had only read the first three issues. Honestly, I was put off somewhat by the killing of some DCU characters, but moreso by how other innocent, dead DCU stalwarts were turned into essentially dirty jokes, a zombiefied Elongated Man with a morbid parody of his mystery-sniffing ability being one example. It seemed to me that Johns was following in Identity Crisis writer Brad Meltzer’s footsteps and presenting another creepy, sordid take on old DCU characters that, however dated and dull, had remained essentially harmless throughout my lifetime. 

It took a while to kind of get past this, but by the end of the series I found I enjoyed it, mildly, and as long as I didn’t have to think much about it. On a superficial level, it’s nice that second string characters like Flash and Green Lantern (as well as Atom and the decidedly third string Mera) held much of the spotlight while Superman and Wonder Woman were cameos at best and Batman utterly absent. And there were flickers within me of the 10 year old Chris Allen who dug seeing the multicolored Lanterns, and though overly busy and over-rendered, Reis has some basic, Alan Davis-inspired skills that hold up well enough over the course of the series, especially when he has to draw crowded scenes of all the DCU heroes and heroines involved, diluted and basically inert as they may be.

It occurs to me that that was a pretty backhanded compliment to Reis, but really, we’re talking about Johns here. I can’t fault his work ethic—he tries really hard to turn what seems obviously to be an idea born on the commercial side (multicolored Lanterns, different rings and insignia, plus superheroes mashed up with the currently popular subgenre of zombie horror comics) into something that seems momentous and meaningful and with moments for his favorite characters. He fails in a number of ways.

First, good intentions aside, and granting that I haven’t read any of the spinoff miniseries or tie-in books, Johns is not very good at characterization. He gives these Silver Age heroes much creeper-than-usual villains to face, so their straitlaced speeches are more comforting than ever, but one never gets into any of their heads. There’s no difference between Flash and Atom, for example, and Hal Jordan is only slightly different than those two because of a slightly more casual form of speech. Johns threw me off a few times with pop culture references that were no doubt appropriate to a lot of the people reading the series, and yet they felt odd coming from the mouths of some of the characters. I guess we were all young once, yet after years of adventures against real (in the DCU) menaces, I found it strange that Guy Gardner would make a Skeletor reference to Nekron. There’s false bravado and laughing in the face of death, and then there’s making a reference to a bad ’80s cartoon while you face an enemy with billions of undead souls in his thrall. Seemed pretty lazy.

Aside from the attention paid to Aquaman’s widow, Mera, who is just really pissed off, Johns has nothing in mind for any of the female characters. He’s content to instruct Reis to place a couple dozen of them in the various double page spreads throughout the book, but there are no subplots for them aside from a tiny, easily resolved one about whether Wonder Woman goes to the side of the dark or the light. 

If I’m being honest, the idea of different colored Lanterns with each representing a different emotion is a pretty good one. That said, Johns doesn’t do much with it. The Red (rage) Lanterns are assholes, the Orange (Avarice) ones are greedy, etc. Maybe it’s unfair, but I kept thinking, “Man, Alan Moore could really do something mind-blowing with this idea.” Johns is content to use it for some jokes when it comes to the negative emotions, and corniness when it comes to the loftier ones like love and hope.

It has to be said that despite eight issues with basically a pretty simple plotline and a handful of major characters, a lot of necessary information is conveyed in the tie-in and spinoff books. The forming of the different Lantern factions, and some important background information such as Hal Jordan’s antipathy towards Sinestro or that his ex-girlfriend is now in the Pink Lanterns (I think), isn’t explained, and newcomers have to glean what they can. 

Some choices probably seemed a lot better on paper. The Flash becoming a Blue Lantern because he inspires hope makes sense, but once he’s blue he doesn’t look like the Flash much anymore, and becomes unimportant. Lex Luthor as an Orange Lantern in glowing orange armor looks silly—I can’t recall any imposing villain in orange, ever. Wonder Woman in pink because she loves Earth so much just doesn’t look much like Wonder Woman. And really, what’s with this goofy idea that as soon as these heroes choose sides, their costumes automatically change color, or the dead ones’ costumes change with this Black Hand/Nekron Black Lantern rebranding? It’s stupid. 

It’s worse that instead of embracing the action-figure-driven stupidity, Johns tries to float a theory or two to show he’s serious about the endeavor. Nekron isn’t just a dead(ish?) creep, he’s actually sentient dark matter. Or something. Black Hand isn’t just a second rate villain in a Bullseye suit turned into Nekron’s toady, he’s a long-simmering avatar of evil according to the Johns-scripted backup journal entries each issue. 

Aside from several heroes getting punctured through the chest, or pulling long, greasy tongues out of evil mouths, there isn’t very much action in this series. Lots of characters get lines, and then then all pose together, but there’s not much fighting. It’s so overly populated it’s like Lollapalooza or something—lots of good acts but none of them have the time to really work up any momentum. 

I found a couple examples where it really felt there was no editor on hand to question Johns on what he was doing. Repeatedly throughout the series, there are captions referring to power levels at a certain percentage, or stiff, computer-like declarations about an emotional tether being established or severed, and while this all relates to Nekron and his plan to take over the universe and snuff out all life, it’s never explained why it all has to be so robotic. Nekron isn’t a robot, and we never see any technology employed on his behalf; it’s magic if anything. 

The other example, and I’ll allow that this could have been editorially-approved and perhaps even driven, is that at the end of the series, several dead heroes and a few villains are resurrected. Now, we’ve already had Hal Jordan and Barry Allen brought back from the dead in the past few years. One can make a case for Hal, and not as much for Barry, but fine. They’re here. But why we need the original Hawk back, or Professor Zoom, or the original Captain Boomerang, especially as his son has taken his place, is beyond me. Worst of all is bringing back Boston Brand from the dead. Brand is only interesting as Deadman, a kind of ghost who can possess other people as he rights wrongs and pursues justice. As a regular, living guy, what’s the point?

All in all, I get it. Johns came up with a way to make the Green Lantern Corps seem important and not just a dilution of one decent character, ironically by diluting them much further. He tied a boring enemy into them and made him important by his ability to resurrect dead heroes for his bidding. He brought back Barry Allen from the dead, because there wasn’t a perfectly good Flash he had spent many years establishing. And it was all good, as long as you were thinking towards the ultimate goals of lots of action figures and maybe an animated movie or videogame. As a story, it makes your headache and it’s hard to find much creative justification for it.

—Christopher Allen

Jamie S. Rich is one of the first people I got to know in the comics industry. He was Editor-in-Chief of Oni Press, and to my mind, the heart of it. He was generous and kind to a newcomer then, not just with books but time (heck, he made me some CDs, too). As he moved into his current career as full-time freelance writer, I haven’t kept in touch the way I should, but when I have, he’s remained as generous as ever. Funny, talented and possessing impeccable taste, Jamie has enriched every project with which he’s been involved, and helped many searching creators find their voices. I’m fascinated with this review, both as someone finding his appreciation of Howard Chaykin gaining more and more lately, and because Jamie touches on one of the (few?) great things about getting older: if you’re lucky (or maybe just been through a lot of crap), you find you can now see some works of art you didn’t get before, or on a deeper level.—Chris Allen.

Time²: The Epiphany; Time²: The Satisfaction of Black Mariah

Writer/Artist: Howard Chaykin
Additional Art: Ken Bruzenak, Steve Oliff, John Moore, Richard Ory
Publisher: First Comics - $7.95 each (though totally out of print)

Time² is a comic I’ve waited more than twenty years to read a second time. I’m not kidding. Me and this book have a history, but it’s one with a huge gap in it. I bought these Howard Chaykin comics when they came out back in 1986. I had read his Shadow miniseries from DC, and was just discovering American Flagg!. My first issue of that was the Special, the one that introduced Time², a crossover between Chaykin’s most popular series and his new creative adventure. I remember reading it on a Sunday morning at my mother’s. I was 14 and about to go to my first Creation Convention in Los Angeles. Guests were Jo Duffy, John Romita Jr., and Howard Chaykin. I arrived with my copy of the Shadow TPB and the American Flagg! Special in tow. I talked to Howard about his new book, and he pulled out the entire first graphic novel, a huge stack of art boards. He told me to take a look, said he hadn’t showed it to anybody outside the studio before. I hadn’t yet learned the word “plotz,” but plotz I did.*

There were two Time² graphic novels, stand-alone stories that also worked together to build a larger narrative. They were published by First Comics in 1986 and 1987, and they are in a format we don’t see that much anymore. 48 pages, squarebound, full color, measuring 8 1/2” by 11”. Costing $7.95 a pop, they’d have eaten up most of my weekly allowance on new comics day. Both my copies are signed, including an inscription from Richard Ory on the second one. “See you in Hell! (But in a nice way of course.)” Today they feel like rare artifacts. When was the last time I even saw these books anywhere? 1987 would have been the year of my first San Diego Comic Con, and if Howard Chaykin wasn’t a special guest that year, he was the next year, because it would have been right around then that I went to a special hour panel spotlighting him. I remember he refused to sit in chairs on the stage, instead sat on the lip of it so he was closer to the audience. He talked about a lot of things, including where Time² fit in his canon.

He looked out at the crowd — and in my teenaged brain, right at me — and basically said, “I don’t think anyone here is old enough to even understand that book. Time² is a middle-aged man’s book. You’ve got to have gone through some stuff to really get what it’s about.” And this is why I spent two decades not re-reading Time². I thought about it from time to time. These books survived many moves, traveled from California to Oregon, often winked at me from my shelves. The cover of the first volume, The Epiphany, is still one of my favorites. But I was waiting. I had to go through some stuff first.

Well, stuff’s been gone through, I’m heading toward the age equator, and now that I’ve spent a couple of hours getting reacquainted with Time², all I can say is, “Holy geez god what the — WOW!” I know I strain the boundaries of hyperbole here, but these two books are like some kind of lost masterpiece. How is it that these aren’t constantly being talked about? How is fandom not collectively rattling some cages to get these comics reprinted? More people should know about this! Time² is truly one of the weirdest, craziest, most gonzo pieces of sci-fi pulp fiction you’re ever going to come across. Howard Chaykin has created a unique and fully realized world. It’s the type of thing that the Europeans get a lot of praise for doing in their books, but only a guy born in Newark, NJ, raised in the latter half of the 20th century on comics and jazz and nutso 1960s dreams of a whacked-out future could have come up with Time².

It’s an American creation the way hardboiled detective novels and film noir are American (despite the latter’s fancy French moniker), the way bebop is American, the way comics have always been American. Not in any flag-waving sense, but in its dirty rebel spirit. Time²is the tale of a future overcrowded with neon lights and advertising. It’s a mash-up of art deco design, the seediness of old-school New York, and a cynicism about the idea of a better tomorrow. It is simultaneously nostalgic for a past Chaykin knows never was and a future that can never be. As with any period of human history, man and woman alike are concerned with eternal youth and living forever. They currently have two options: Deja-Voodoo, which will make you an undead zombie, or Reincarnimation, which transfers everything you are into a robot that looks just like you. Neither is perfect, and both have caused civil rights problems and stirred up the populace that still lives normally. In fact, The Epiphany opens with robot-related deaths. First, there is a killer on the streets, a kind of Jack the Ripper calling himself Mr. Fix-It that is dismantling prostitute robots (the nomenclature for the ’bots is “devoidoid,” and the hookers are called “taxi dancers,” because you pay to take a ride). More important, though, is a has-been saxophone player and nightclub owner named Cosmo Jacobi, who entered into a suspicious suicide pact with his mechanical lover. It’s this death that causes the hero of Time² to return to town after six years away. Maxim Glory was an artist who mastered in the Kinetic Arts, a metal-and-gears style of sculpture. He was famous for a series called “Prime Narrative” (I love these names). Maxim got himself in trouble with the local Jewish gangsters and had to go on the lam, leaving his girlfriend, a reporter named Pansy Matthias, to nights of loneliness and his main man Cosmo to take the rap. Now that Cosmo is dead, Maxim has returned. He doesn’t believe his buddy would kill himself. It’s a pretty straight-up potboilin’ film noir plot, but Chaykin goes all out with it.

Time²: The Epiphany is loaded with characters and concepts and storytelling devices strung together in a delicate narrative that Chaykin pulls as tight as he can, stopping just before the threads snap. In addition to the characters that step in and out of their own story, he drives the exposition with a talk show host named Diogenes Pilgrim, a riff on Walter Winchell who would actually be right at home on the radio and cable news today. (A prescient Chaykin has him on Kineo, a device that appears to be a melding of radio and early TV.) Pilgrim provides a holier-than-thou voiceover to the proceedings, while three strutting hepcats share the gossipy word on the street. The two choruses trade off throughout The Epiphany, and it’s a little disappointing that Chaykin didn’t make these elements as central in the second book, The Satisfaction of Black Mariah. Chaykin had explored a lot of similar storytelling techniques in Flagg!, though most people either really experienced it the first time or felt it was perfected by Frank Miller in The Dark Knight Returns (also published in 1986). Well, they’d be a bit off the mark; Miller used the media commentary and other devices well, but Chaykin had set the precedent. The style was perfected right here in Time². These books are like ground zero for so much innovation we take for granted today. Open it to any page and just look at how Chaykin lays out his panels, how he constructs each unit. He does so much within the space, hooking the reader’s eye from the first panel and using the art and the balloons to lead him or her down in all manner of patterns, always ending up at the bottom right and kicked up to the next page.

For my money, Ken Bruzenak is the all-time champion of comic book lettering. There are words everywhere in Time², including panels filled with background effects. I can only assume that this was all done by hand. There’s a reason Brian Michael Bendis was excited to get Bruzenak on Powers, and if you look at the way Ken and Howard arrange their balloons, it’s obvious there would be no Brian Bendis without this book. If you look at the complicated page layouts, you see there would be no J.H. Williams III. The odder Vertigo books, the ones with conspiracy theories and alternate realities and future societies (namely, stuff without superheroes or fairies) now seem like homage. Whether a direct influence or not, he great things those guys are doing — what we’re all doing — started right here. Hell, Maxim’s sculptures even look a hell of a lot like Paul Pope’s Martian Meks in THB! The Satisfaction of Black Mariah takes us deeper into the politics of Time². Maxim has returned for good, robot rights are at a boil, and some sexed-up androids are violating unsuspecting humans — much to their satisfaction, mind you, but it leaves them dead. The main offender is a police car, the titular Black Mariah, whose front grill is designed for oral pleasure. Mariah is the car of the top cop in the ², a scary-looking Celtic bog monster named Bon Ton MacHoot. (Didn’t I tell you this book was crazy?) All the while, Cosmo’s “widow” is getting more action than she wants, and Pansy can’t get any, because Maxim keeps getting distracted. Both volumes of Time² are hormonally charged and ribald.

Though American Flagg! was certainly not for the innocents, Chaykin was clearly using the more expensive format to take this book to areas that the more traditional periodical would not allow. The double entendres and even the more up-front sexual dynamic most definitely went over my head back then. Given that the most steamy relationships I had likely seen in funnybooks prior were in X-Men comics, I wasn’t really ready for a demon masquerading as a robot going down on a gunsel. (And I certainly wasn’t ready for Chaykin’s full-on smut comic, Black Kiss, due for a reprint from Dynamite in May.) In fact, Howard was right. I wasn’t ready for Time² back then. I needed to take some time away from the ² the way Maxim did, get myself sorted out before I could come back and set up shop. Perhaps that’s why the series doesn’t get the same action as his other books from the period. American Flagg! was cutting-edge satire and science fiction, Black Kiss was designed to shock and titillate, but Time² was demanding. The surface style was appealing, but also convoluted and clearly a mask for much deeper themes. There is some heavy-duty stuff going on here. Chaykin is talking about the artistic process and living with one’s mistakes, about the clash of old-world superstition and new-world technology, about learning not to care about the stupid crap and also how to deal with relationships as an adult who actually knows a thing or two—again, heavy-duty stuff you’ve had to live through to appreciate. Is it possible that it went over everyone’s heads? And did Howard take these books away from us as a result? It makes me think of when the Who released “I Can See For Miles” and got so angry at the record-buying public for not getting how good it was, Pete Townshend declared them unworthy**. If this is the case, I hope somewhere down the line Howard Chaykin will give us all a second chance.

* (Digression 1: Years later, when Richard Ory, who worked on the books, and I ran into each other, he made fun of me for still telling the above story. “You’re going to be an old man, drunk in the gutter, clutching your bottle. ‘I was the first person to see Time²!’” Well, guess he was right.)

** (Digression 2: This was repeated years later when Blur got so pissy about “Popscene” not charting, they left it off the UK edition of their best album, Modern Life is Rubbish, which itself could be a subtitle for Time².)

Jamie S. Rich is the author of many novels and comics. His best known are perhaps his collaborations with artist Joëlle Jones: the romance 12 Reasons Why I Love Her and the pulpy detective story You Have Killed Me. The pair are due to release their third Oni Press team-up, the rude teen-witch comedy Spell Checkers, created with artist Nicolas Hitori De. You don’t have to have been through stuff to understand it, except maybe having gone to high school. Follow Jamie at his blog, Confessions of a Pop Fan

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* I don’t know how I missed it, but now that it’s concluded, you can see a link to every post for Stormatic’s Barry Windsor-Smith Week by clicking here. The series is art-intensive, as one would hope.

* At Comics Worth Reading, Johanna has news that Archie is revising its plans for upcoming comics devoted to the “Archie Gets Married” universes.

* A poster on The Comics Journal Message Board has praise for the newest volume of The Complete Peanuts. When this series was first announced, I had a hard time believing I’d even still be around when it wrapped up. I’m totally psyched that it’s halfway to completion and I feel fine.

* Speaking of Fantagraphics, at the Flog blog, Eric Reynolds interviews Wally Gropius genius cartoonist Tim Hensley.

* Uncomics: In the absence of a good uncomics entry today, here’s the Memory Alpha wiki page for one of my favourite Star Trek episodes, Where No Man Has Gone Before. Just watched this one with my son a couple of days ago and was pleased to see how much he enjoyed it. I still get creeped out by Gary Mitchell’s spooky eyes even after seeing this episodes probably two dozen times over the last four decades.

I’m delighted to kick off Guest Reviewer Month here at Trouble with Comics with a post by Roger Green, keeper of the FantaCo flame and all-around excellent human being. I’ve written before of buying comics from Roger and his fellow FantaCo folk back in the 1980s and what an honour it is to have gotten to know him during this, The Age of Blogging, so I won’t tell that same old story again. I will just say that Roger is one of the smartest, most thoughtful people I know, and I’m thrilled to have him here on Trouble with Comics, sharing his thoughts on a little corner of his own comics history. Look for more guest reviews as April unfolds.

— Alan David Doane

I didn’t start collecting comics until I went to college. Oh, I’d buy a random Richie Rich or Archie, and I’d manage to get my hands on an odd Superman issue or two; he usually seemed to be dealing with a half dozen different forms of kryptonite.  But it didn’t take.

Jump to 1971. My friend from virtually the first day I met him on September 12 was Mark.  And Mark, as peculiar as I found it, collected comic books, specifically Marvel Comics. Even weirder, I soon started collecting comic books, starting with Luke Cage, Hero for Hire #1, Red Wolf #1, and Sub-Mariner #50. I really lucked out on the latter, for most of the next dozen issues were drawn by the great Bill Everett.  Unfortunately, Subby ended with issue #72, but even before that, I had discovered a nascent back issue market where one could buy old comics via mail order.

Eventually, I bought issues back to #1, encouraged by love-of-my-life-at-the-time, who was a huge Namor fan; it was either his buff bod, his pre-Spock ears, or his mixed race heritage. (I have a picture of her in a Sub-Mariner T-shirt, somewhere.) But then I discovered that even his recent past had started, not with Sub-Mariner #1, but with something called Tales to Astonish. So eventually, I picked up THOSE issues, #70 to #101, which Namor shared with the Hulk.

And I thought I was done. But no. There was this one-off book called Iron Man and Sub-Mariner. Tales to Astonish #101 was followed by Hulk #102, just as Tales of Suspense #99 was followed by Captain America #100, and I loved the arcane numbering system; it made me feel like an insider. But apparently Marvel wanted to stagger their rollout of four new titles, so one last shared issue before SM #1 and Iron Man #1 was put out.

I sold the bulk of my comics in 1994, in no small part because I’d just finished graduate school and I didn’t have a job yet. Unfortunately, those issues of Sub-Mariner were among them.

So when I somehow got on Mile High Comics’ mailing list and saw a bunch of Marvel Masterworks on sale last year, I ended up buying a couple. The Sub-Mariner: Volume 1 contains a story from Marvel Comics #1 from 1939 (!) by Bill Everett; Daredevil #7, which came out a few months before Namor’s run in TTA in 1965; and TTA #70-#87, most of which were written by Stan Lee, penciled by Gene Colan, and inked by either Everett or Vince Colletta. Volume 2 covered TTA 88-101, during which Stan Lee passed the writing torch to Roy Thomas, and Bill Everett penciled about half the stories, with inks largely by Everett and Dan Adkins; Iron Man & Sub-Mariner #1; and Sub-Mariner #1.

I must say that it took me back to a point where I really loved comic books, was excited about outcome of the storylines, and long before most people even thought of comic books as an “investment.”   This was years before I ever worked at a comic book store, so I didn’t care how the book sold except that it move enough copies to keep coming out. My GOODNESS, it felt good to see these old friends again; really good.

Roger Green blogs daily at Ramblin’ with Roger.

* At Comics Comics, Jog takes a look at your best comics bets for titles arriving in comics shops today. Tom Spurgeon also weighs in with his list.

* At his own blog, Troublemaker Johnny Bacardi remembers Dick Giordano. Tom Spurgeon does the same at The Comics Reporter.

* Tom also has news that tickets are all sold out to this year’s San Diego Hoo-Hah.

* Uncomics: Bet you never asked yourself this question.

The Rocketeer: The Complete Adventures

Writer/Artist - Dave Stevens

Publisher - IDW Publishing

Do you remember the La’s? “There She Goes.” I thought about them as I read this collection. You can substitute your own favorites, maybe Jim Morrison or Nick Drake or Jim Morrison but the idea is an artist or band creating this small but great body of work and then basically shutting it down or being shut down, leaving a wake of pre-Internet fans scrabbling for any tidbit, any small bit of output or unseen/unheard art.

Like the songwriter for the La’s, Dave Stevens was clearly a perfectionist, but that’s probably where the comparison ends. Stevens’ limited output after the five-part first adventure and three issue follow-up was due in large part to the leukemia that eventually beat him. The important thing is just to enjoy the work that is there, not bemoan the fact that there isn’t more.

The Rocketeer is modest in its ambitions as story. We’ve got a callow, impetuous youth in Cliff Secord (a name not that unlike Dave Stevens) who lives for thrills but finds something more important in a girl, Betty. And then a gift falls into his lap, a gift that could make him a hero. The problem is that he’s too rash and immature. That works okay in one way—the rocket pack he finds requires its wearer to be either incredibly brave or foolhardy—but it doesn’t help him hang onto his girl or understand what she really wants from him. The great shame here is that the work completed presents a perfectly reasonable amount of time for Cliff to be a jerk, but Stevens was never able to complete the stories that would show his maturation and develop his relationship with Betty. Still, it’s tightly plotted and there’s a thrill on every page.

Stevens brings an obvious love for the textures, machinery, fashion and vernacular of the ’30s. It’s a pulp sensibility, with crack pilots and pin-up girls, enemy agents and diners, bomber jackets and jodhpurs, and American ingenuity capped with a sock on the jaw. It’s hard not to get fully absorbed in this world, even as one can feel the pages flying by signaling that time is running out. There are only so many shots of the Rocketeer, only so many of Betty’s poses. Like a great little pop album, it gives up its pleasures easily and without great study, but continues to entertain every time you give it another spin. Stevens is a great draftsman, and the coloring by Laura Martin is amazingly warm and sensitive. Right down to the Art Deco page dividers, the IDW edition is done exceedingly well, the only drawback being not much on Stevens himself, or his creative process. 

Back when I first read some of this material, in The Rocketeer graphic novel collecting the first serial, I didn’t know who Alex Raymond or Hal Foster were. But I knew that somehow Stevens’ work was connecting back to something, not just a certain style of art but certain storytelling values. It was pure and even though my eyes ate it up and pushed me from panel to panel, at the same time I was always aware just how much effort went into it, how much care. And joy. And I knew that this was work I would hold dear and that would stand the test of time. And while there have been some wonderful artists since then, it really does hold up quite well. It’s a shame Stevens’ career was cut so short, but enjoy what’s here.

—Christopher Allen

Uncanny X-Men #521-522

Writer - Matt Fraction

Pencilers - Greg Land, Whilce Portacio, Phil Jimenez

Inkers - Jay Leisten, Ed Tadeo, Andy Lanning

Publisher - Marvel Comics

I’ve been reading a fair amount of superhero comics lately, in their serialized monthly form. I’d gotten out of the habit, buying mostly hardcovers and trades of creators I knew and liked, plus the occasional book I’d heard good things about. I haven’t convinced myself that isn’t the most sensible approach, but what my goal has been more sense than sensibility these days; i.e., I want to make sense of what’s going on in the Marvel and DC universes, storywise and talentwise. 

I’ve read a bit of Matt Fraction, and liked some and didn’t like some. I’ve yet to read his acclaimed run of Invincible Iron Man but was curious about Uncanny X-Men, both because I used to read a lot of X-books and because for whatever reason I hadn’t heard much praise for his Uncanny. I won’t pretend that this two issue sampling is a comprehensive or even entirely fair appraisal. It’s just what I had available. It does make me stop and think: I cared most about this book over 300 issues ago.

Let’s talk about art first. While there are a couple confusing storytelling moments, Greg Land’s art was my favorite of the three pencilers here. He really favors large breasts on the females, but other than that the characters are well-proportioned, and the layouts are clean and clear if maybe a bit too television influenced. I like his Magneto, don’t like his Cyclops, who looks too cocky, especially in the second issue where Fraction has Emma Frost telling Magneto that Cyclops has to work so hard for the authority that comes naturally to Magneto. Colorist Justin Ponsor favors lots of pinks and purples in the lighting, which works great with any scenes featuring Magneto or Psylocke. I was a little confused by the use of the little dots of light forming circles, whether they were visible or part of Magneto’s shielding or what. 

Whilce Portacio is a sturdy enough artist. Never a favorite but nothing wrong with what he does here. He just seems to favor certain textures and that can get a big distracting. Do Cyclops’ gauntlets have to be that shiny? Is Angel rocking feathers again, or are they pieces of metal? It’s hard to tell. 

As far as covers go, I liked both the regular “lotus position Magneto” cover for #521, and the variant with Deadpool added is amusing, but the main cover for #522 with a grinning Kitty Pryde riding a much smaller version of the giant “bullet” from one of the storylines, a la Dr. Strangelove, is tonally wrong, inaccurate, and one of the most overused sources of parody there is. 

Phil Jimenez does a fine job on a bonus story in #522, a vignette set in a world on the verge of doom from the aforementioned hurtling bullet, actually housing Kitty Pryde, who through sheer force of will she keeps in an unyielding phase condition so as to cause no harm, at least not to anyone else.

It’s nice that Fraction’s given the opportunity to flesh out this plotline with a bit more emotion, but it also points out the difficulties in writing a monthly superhero book, namely the turnover in artists. A quick bit of research tells me Land switches off story arc duties with Terry Dodson, and yet #522 concludes this story and no Land. Things happen, but it’s always a shame to have to conclude a story with a different artist. Even if that artist is better, there’s a loss in consistency.

The other stories here involve Magneto, up on Mt. Tamalpais in a kind of exertion of mutant energy that comes off more like a spirit quest. Fraction gets in a little bit of characterization about Magneto memorizing the metallic taste of the being inside the bullet, but…doesn’t he know what Kitty tastes like by now (I’m not trying to make a joke—am I missing something?)? Cyclops and Emma mainly wait around for Magneto to do something, Cyclops really intent on saving this mass murderer for reasons unclear to me as a lapsed reader. Meanwhile, Grant Morrison creation Fantomex leads Psylocke, Colossus and Wolverine against the Predators, a rather dull group who have managed to recreate some of the X-Men’s best powers but having no actual personalities of their own. In a Mark David Chapman conundrum, they first seem to be admirers, but then just want to replace the X-Men. Why their leader calls the X-Men mutant monsters is unclear—isn’t it more monstrous to change yourself into a monster than just to be born one? 

The action stuff with the Predators wasn’t too fun, partly because one seemed to be invisible and only a second reading told me those weren’t dismembered limbs flying through the air. And the resolution to the Magneto/Kitty Bullet story was also sort of confusing—I guess he plucked her out and delivered her safely to the ground, but I’m not sure where the ship went, nor why if she’s stuck in phase mode she has to be locked in some sort of containment chamber. Who could she hurt? What chamber would work to keep her from falling through it in her sleep? There was also a thin plot snippet about Namor’s underwater kingdom getting visitors, and I gather that “Marvel’s first mutant” is at least a part-time citizen of this Nation X island in the Pacific, but that’s all I got. I don’t want to be a stick in the mud about how every comic is someone’s first, but there were enough pages devoted to this storyline that it shouldn’t have been that hard to figure out. Heck, there’s a summary on the first page of every issue and it doesn’t even mention it. 

I was fine with Fraction’s plotting for the most part—the phase bullet thing was kind of a neat idea, and I’m all for more time with Fantomex. Where I was disappointed was in the dialogue. Sure, there’s some funny stuff here—the little exchange of “Animal, Vegetable or Mineral” with Wolverine considering beer a vegetable is a treat. But often it seemed that flippancy was the default mode when Fraction didn’t know what to do. Cyclops calling Magneto “the old man” felt wrong, and undermined the world-on-his-shoulders take on Cyclops Fraction invests in at the conclusion of the story. It’s one thing to want to take a character in a different direction, but it’s another to want to take them there some of the time but then take them back to familiar territory when it’s more suitable. Likewise, Fraction plays a bit with whether Fantomex is really French or a fraud, but Fantomex’s “Yeah, about that…” bit of non-Francophone sarcasm feels less like a giveaway and more just Fraction writing with himself playing the part. 

—Christopher Allen

* At Comics Worth Reading, Johanna weighs in on two new Archie series taking place in alternate worlds where Archie marries, in one, Betty, and in the other — you guessed it — Veronica. Intriguing (well, mostly for my wife — she’s the big Archie fan at our house).

* Here’s the trailer to the Scott Pilgrim movie. Yes, please.

* At Nerdage, word from this week’s ComicsPRO meeting that DC is eager to become to world’s tallest midget. Poke around for lots of other posts, too; looks like Nerdage is the go-to place for coverage of this week’s gathering of one small corner of the comics-selling world.

* Uncomics: Roger Ebert reveals his spectacularly ambitious plans for a new weekly movie review show.

* Also Uncomics, but somehow relevant to all our interests: National Geographic explains the new scientific evidence that our universe is part of a greater multiverse.

* At Grovel, Andy Shaw reviews The Umbrella Academy: Apocalypse Suite. I don’t talk much about The Umbrella Academy, maybe because it’s not out that often, but it’s about as much honestly-earned superhero comics fun as can be had in funnybooks today, and everybody should give it a look.

* At Comic Book Resources, Greg McElhatton looks at Mark Millar’s Nemesis and says it’s “predictable and surprisingly boring.” Apparently Greg didn’t get the memo that that’s precisely what today’s average superhero reader is looking for.

* At Comic Book Resources, Sean T. Collins looks at Pood, a new comics anthology to be published on newsprint, much to Sean’s mild dismay.

* Uncomics: Roger Green reviews Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. My son loved this movie.

— Alan David Doane

* At The Comics Reporter, Tom Spurgeon has news that Salon.com is dropping Tom The Dancing Bug. After Tom Tomorrow’s This Modern World, TTDB is the strip I most associate with Salon. Perhaps not coincidentally, This Modern World is now Salon’s sole remaining comic strip.

* Comic Book Resources talks to Chip Kidd about his design work, especially for a new Alex Ross art book titled Rough Justice.

* Tom also runs down this week’s interesting new releases; at Comics Comics, Jog delivers his usual discerning list as well. I had no idea there was new Tatsumi due this week, but I join Tom and Jog in being excited about it, even if I can’t join them in only having three letters in my first name. New Complete Peanuts is also always great news.

* At Comics Worth Reading, Johanna Draper Carlson looks at how user reviews on sites like Amazon.com may be evolving in unanticipated ways.

* At his blog, cartoonist Sean Phillips posts the cover art to Criminal Vol. 5, which is being solicited in the next Previews to arrive in comic shops in June. If you’re reading Criminal in collected form only, this will be your last fix for about a year, as Brubaker and Phillips are working on more Incognito and other material before resuming regular programming.

Uncomics: The Shame of the Chicken Caesar Salad.

— Alan David Doane

* At Comic Book Resources, retailer and Direct Market Advocate Brian Hibbs wonders about the future of periodical comics. At the Comics Reporter, Tom Spurgeon responds. Tom and I seem to be in the same boat, periodical comics-wise: “Today, there’s almost no periodical work I’m interested in buying that actually appears in comic shops, even when I have months of pent-up demand working in my favor.”

* At The Comics Journal, Kim Thompson posts his decades-old but still-relevant review of Detectives, Inc.

* Also at TCJ, Noah Berlatsky defines comics.

* At The Comics Reporter, Tom Spurgeon rounds up reader-recommended webcomics.

* BoingBoing gives Hicksville some love.

* Sean T. Collins looks at Black Hole by Charles Burns. I hadn’t realized so much was cut from the individual issues for the collected edition. Damn it, now I’m sorry I sold those off. Shouldn’t the hardcover be the definitive version of any collected comics?

* Uncomics: The Romulan cloaking device from Star Trek is now much closer to reality.

— Alan David Doane

Taking advantage of my library system, I’ve been catching up on some of the great books that I didn’t get around to reading in time to do my best of 2009 list.  Here’s a few random thoughts about a few random books:

Strange and Stranger: The World of Steve Ditko by Blake Bell – I think technically this may have been a 2008 release, but regardless of when it came out, it’s fantastic!  I have to admit I checked this out intending only to browse the art and ended up reading the whole book in less than a week. It’s part biography, part art book - an amazing recap of Steve Ditko’s entire career in comics, from the early days with Charlton to the present. I was aware of some things, like Ditko’s rift with Stan Lee, and his Ayn Rand-inspired Objectivist beliefs, yet I had no idea the extent to which the guy is a self-destructive recluse. Or at least, he comes off that way in Bell’s book. And that’s putting it mildly, because I think Bell tried to be fair and even-handed, not to paint a negative portrait or cast aspersions, and it’s clear Bell is a huge fan of the artist’s work, so I doubt his intent was to trash him. Still, it’s amazing how much more fame, money and friends Ditko could have achieved had he only been a little less rigid in his ideology. It also makes me wonder if, like J.D. Salinger, the artist has horded some of his most personal work from the public.  Time will tell, I guess.  It’s also one of the best designed books I’ve read recently, including lots of rare pencil pages, out-of-print rarities, and full color scans on virtually every page. There’s a lot more to Steve Ditko than just Doctor Strange and Spider-Man.

Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth by Apostolos Doxiadis, Christos H. Papadimitriou, Alecos Papadatos and Annie Di Donna – I thought R.C. Harvey’s review for the the Comics Journal was pretty spot on. This was an excellent book, filled with charming, Seth/Herge-inspired artwork and a passionate narrative that really surprised me. I mean, a book about the history of mathematical truths sounds, on the surface, like a snoozer, but it’s a real testament to all four creators that this was such a thrill to read. I will confess that, despite the extraordinary lengths the writers go to make sure the readers understand the complex theories being discussed, I still felt a little lost in a few spots, but that didn’t detract from my enjoyment of the book.  The story is more about the life of Bertrand Russell than about mathematical theory, and that humanizing focus is what made this book so compelling.

Parker: The Hunter by Darwyn Cooke – I was so swayed by Dan Nadel’s scathing review that I skipped this book entirely when it first came out, but then when I saw how high it placed on the 2009 meta-list (#2, trailing only Asterios Polyp), and considering how much I’d enjoyed Cooke’s other books (especially his issue of Solo), I decided to check it out. It’s really pretty good, and while I can’t bring the level of knowledge that Nadel brought, having never read the original Westlake novels, I didn’t see any glaring problems. I will admit that the artwork was so highly stylized that it was occasionally disorienting and even off-putting in a few places (though just as frequently beautiful), and that Parker’s character was a little too one-dimensional and predictable (though this mono-emotionalism applies to virtually all lead characters in the noir genre).  Still, overall, I thought this was a decent noir comic, though #2 on the meta-list seems way too high to me.

—Marc Sobel

* At The Comics Reporter, Tom Spurgeon comments on yesterday’s news on IDW moving to the front of the Previews catalog.

* CBR has the June Previews solicits for Image Comics. Mark me down for Godland #34.

* At YouTube, check out the music video for James Kochalka’s song Bacharach Galactica.

* R. Crumb is designing wallets. Hopefully his will get fatter as a result.

* The LA Times reports that Joe Sacco’s Footnotes in Gaza is the first graphic novel to ever win the Ridenhour Book Prize Prize. Gaze in wonder at the idiot that criticizes Sacco for “favoring the victim,” in his reportage.

* Uncomics: How Google search works, if you’ve ever wondered.

— Alan David Doane

IDW has announced that it has become the first comic book publisher to gain “Premier” (front of the catalog) status in Previews in nearly a decade-and-a-half.

In a press release from IDW, Diamond Distribution CEO Steve Geppi is quoted as saying “This change recognizes the growth and importance of IDW Publishing, and we look forward to working with them for many years to come.”

Diamond will continue to handle IDW’s distribution in the mainstream bookstore market. The change to Premier Publisher will be made with the release of the April Previews catalog.

— Alan David Doane

* At Comics Comics, Jeet Heer visits The Beguiling, North America’s best-stocked comic shop. [Edited to remove inaccurate characterization of Heer’s post.]

* At The Comics Reporter, Tom Spurgeon profiles this week’s most promising new releases.

* Tom also points to cartoonist Steve Bissette’s lengthy and essential look back at how corporate comics companies and the creators that produce the comics they sell clashed over censorship a couple of decades or so back. Here are parts one, two, three, four, five, six and seven.

* At Spatula Forum, Nik Dirga loves Man-Thing.

* Michael Crawford reviews what looks to be one fantastic, Mego-style Superman action figure.

* Uncomics: Roger Green on the ridiculous proposal to ban salt in New York restaurants, and Christopher Allen looks at Peter Gabriel’s new album of cover songs.



— Alan David Doane

* Arrr, Happy St. Patrick’s Day. That is the day when we all talk like pirates, right? I never keep track of that stuff, avast!

* At Comics Comics, Jog runs down this week’s most impressive new releases. New issue of Garth Ennis’s Battlefields, which I am reading in the collected editions, but if I was still buying floppies much, that would be at the top of my reading stack this week, arrrr.

* You probably already read this at CBR, but Jack Kirby’s heirs are suing Marvel and Disney. Good. I wish them every bit of good luck possible.

* Also at CBR, Dark Horse’s June, 2010 Previews solicits. That Dexter bust would make one weird birthday gift for my wife, who loves the show. Also tempting for me, Patton Oswalt is writing a Serenity one-shot.

* And something else worth a gander at CBR, Tim Callahan looks at some upcoming collections of interest. Dash Shaw’s BodyWorld is my most-wanted item on Tim’s list.

* David “As Seen on Trouble with Comics” Wynne launches a new site for his new webcomic, Particle Fiction.

* Staying with the webcomics theme, L. Nichols expresses her feelings about digital communication overload.

* At Comics Worth Reading, Johanna discusses the cost of self-publishing.

* At The Comics Reporter, Tom Spurgeon gives some love to John Porcellino’s latest King-Cat collection.

* Also via Tom, more on the Amazon bargain-Omnibus disaster, and Evan Dorkin suggests some essential collections that remain uncollected.

* Women’s Day looks at eight comic strips they like.

* Ahoy, Uncomics: Wil Wheaton on playing Evil Wil Wheaton on The Big Bang Theory. (There may be no finer pleasure at the moment for Star Trek fans than Wheaton’s BBT appearances).

— Alan David Doane

* At The Comics Journal, Kent Worcester presents a transcript of a 2009 interview with cartoonist Tom Kaczynski.

* At The Comics Reporter, Tom Spurgeon ponders what recent changes in newspaper publishing mean for newspaper comic strips. Me, I skip over the comics, and these days I read the newspaper most every day of the week. They’re printed too small, and my local paper carries no strips at all of interest to me. The comics used to be the first thing I would read when I picked up a newspaper, but then Gary Larson and Bill Watterson retired, and Charles Schulz died.

* Staying at TCR, Tom also rounds up the latest links in the tragic Amazon graphic novel catastrophe.

* Comics reading update: The final issue (for the next year or so) of Criminal shipped last week, and I regret to agree with those who were more or less underwhelmed with the most recent storyline. Criminal is the only comic book that ever inspired me to create a blog just for it, so it’s a little discouraging to be so ambivalent about it now. I recently re-read Incognito in its collected form and felt it held together far better that way than reading it in floppy form issue-by-issue, but it’s still weak tea compared to the visceral thrills of Criminal’s first couple of storylines, and I hate the thought of the better book going on hiatus for nearly a year so that the lesser book can get its day in the sun. Brubaker and Phillips are obviously free to follow their muse wherever it leads, as a reader I just wish it was leading to more Criminal.

* Uncomics: Notes on Leonard Nimoy’s appearance at the Emerald City Comic Con.

— Alan David Doane

* At CBR, JK Parkin talks to publishers about Amazon’s freeze on selling graphic novels from some publishers.

* At The Comics Reporter, Tom Spurgeon evaluates Batwoman’s GLAAD award.

* Paul Gravett runs down the most intriguing graphic novels being solicited in Previews for release in May, 2010.

* Uncomics: Roger Ebert dismantles Glenn Beck.

— Alan David Doane

* CBR has the scoop on a new Serenity comic focusing on the character of Shepard Book. The comic sounds intriguing, but as a Firefly fan, man, I wish this was being unpacked in a movie or TV episode.

* Nerds outraged that the Hulk got the drop on Thor. Read the comments, then gouge your eyes out with a mellon-baller.

* While we’re there, here are the May Previews solicits for Marvel and DC. Don’t say I never did nuthin’ for ya. My pre-order list from both publishers for the month of May: Zip, zero, nada, zilch.

* Uncomics: No Plan B at the pharmacy drive-through. About as uncomics as you can get; I just love Jim Plagakis.

— Alan David Doane

* At About.com, Gary Groth discusses the new Manga line at Fantagraphics Books.

* At The Savage Critics, Sean T. Collins writes a really good review of Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely’s All-Star Superman.

* Congratulations to Jason and Kristine Marcy on the birth of their second son (and a big WHAT UP? to firstborn Xander!)

* Uncomics: The Life-Cycle of Internet Mailing Lists. Eerie and accurate.

* Continuing a previous mention of a bunch of floppies I got in the mail earlier this week, I have to say Jonah Hex is one of the most entertaining comics being published by DC, which seems to have institutionally forgotten how to entertain. The overall quality of any given issue depends a lot on who is drawing it, and the Jordi Bernet-drawn issues are especially worth giving your attention to. Gorgeous and fun, and pretty much any issue is a good jumping-on point, since the vast majority of the stories are done-in-one.

— Alan David Doane