January 31st's Meanwhile in Las Vegas...

This week's Las Vegas Weekly comics review is of the IDW release of Jim Munroe and Salgood Sam's Therefore Repent!. If you happen to have read Therefore Repent!, let me know what you thought in the comments. It's a pretty different sort of book, so I'm really interested in other people's take on it.




If that whole being an editor thing doesn't work out for DC's Jann Jones, maybe she can get a job hand-crafting products for DC Direct. Did you see that image of her crocheted Ambush Bug in this week's DC Nation column. I'd totally buy one of those.

The Ambush Bug doll that is, not the new Ambush Bug: Year None miniseries. Well, actually, I will buy that, too, but that's not what I was referring to two sentence ago. I'm both a little surprised and a little impressed that DC's even attempting an Ambush Bug mini.

Considering how terrible a lot of these returns to "old favorites" sell, be they miniseries or maxiseries, new retooled versions by newcomers or straight-up original flavor and creators, they've got to know this thing isn't going to do very well. And yet they keep rolling 'em out—Checkmate, Omega Men, Suicide Squad, Infinity Inc., Captain Carrot, et cetera. I guess you've gotta kind of admire that. Or at least be happy you're getting a new Ambush bug series. (Me, I woulda first tested the Bug waters by commissioning Keith Giffen and Phil Jimenez to do a JLA: Classified story set during 52 #24 over a year ago, but what do I know).




How weird was it to see not one comic-centric cast on The Colbert Report of late, but two—both Marjane Satrapi and Joe Quesada sat down with Colbert this week (although I suppose the former was there more as a movie maker than a comics creator, but the line is awfully blurry, given that she made a movie based on the comics that she made).

That was the first time I've seen Satrapi in live-action...I'm much more used to her comics avatar and, when I think of "the real" Satrapi, I think of that black and white photo on the inside back covers of her books. I was kinda surprised how different Satarapi the comics creator looks from Satarapi the comics character, although I suppose there's no reason I should have. Most of the time when I see the "real" cartoonist after spending hundreds of pages with their self-drawn avatars, I'm surprised by the gulf between the two. When I bought some comics from Jeffrey Brown at SPACE one year, for example, I couldn't believe he was actually him. Joe Sacco's glasses aren't really opaque, James Kochalka's not really an elf, Art Spigelman's not really a mouse nor does he wear a mouse mask, etc.

In fact, the only autobio comics creator who looks exactly the same in both their comics and in real life that I can think of off the top of my head is probably Harvey Pekar, and Pekar doesn't draw himself, but is drawn by others. Someone smarter and better connected than I could probably write a pretty intersting article about why autobio comics creators draw themselves the way they do, and why they tend to look less like their avatars than autobio comics creators who are drawn into their comics by other people (ala Pekar).

Or maybe not.

Regarding Quesada's appearance, I thought he handled himself much, much, much better than he did upon his first appearance on the Report during which I cringed and winced quite a bit. Of course, he and Colbert seemed to have rehearsed much of the interview, which might have helped account for that, but I didn't cringe or wince once.

Thinking about Quesada as media personality—how come Dan DiDido's never on the Report or Howard Stern?—it occurred to me that as much as he tries to channel Stan Lee's old huckster persona, it never quite feels right. That is, seeing him in public as the face of Marvel Comics still seems off, as opposed to seeing Stan as the public face of Marvel.

Stan seemed like an eccentric uncle, whereas Quesada often seems like a smarmy older brother, and I'm not certain of why that is (Maybe just that Lee's old enough to be my grandfather, whereas Quesada and I are much closer in age?).

I think part of it might just be that Lee is a more strking visual persona. He has a "look" and a sound all his own. The two-tone hair, the shaded-glasses, the moustache—Lee is designed into a character. Quesada's just a guy with a haircut that makes me think he's a jerk. Maybe he should cultivate some unique physical attributes, in the hopes of acheiving a sort of iconic visual look some day.

I'm thinking a huge, bushy beard.

The New Johnny DC—There's No Stopping Us Now!

I was surprised to see that DC's biggest news coming out of the this week's Wizard World Chicago convention had to do with their revamping of the Johnny DC line, as I think it's safe to say that cons in general, and a Wizard con in particular, tends to cater to direct market consumers. And Johnny DC, like Marvel Adventures, sell extremely poorly in the direct market. I imagine most of WWC's attendees could give a crap about the Johnny DC line as it now stands—a handful of titles based on cartoons, some of which are themselves cartoons based on DC comics—and are going to be even less interested in the direction it's apparently going. From Jann Jones' interview with Newsarama.com, it sounds like they're moving the focus of the line even further away from the direct market demographic to pursue not just kids, but little kids:


When I moved into the role of Coordinating Editor and started doing the sign off on the kids' books of the Johnny DC line, I saw that they were really good, solid books, but I didn't feel like I could give them to a four-year-old or a five-year-old, or just any kid in general. Despite their connection to the animated projects, they were still dealing with the more serious issues—cases where if the heroes don't save the day, it's implied, or shown that people will die. I think that's kind of heavy to put on a younger audience.

Some of them were very serious in tone as well. They were good reads, don't get me wrong, and we had great creators working on them, but they weren't making me laugh. Likewise, I have a very religious sister, and when she would go through my bundle of comics, there was very little that I would feel comfortable with handing her to give to my nephews to read. I wanted to make sure that there was a place for that in the DC Universe.


Couple of surprises here too. I admit I don't read Johnny DC books much, or terribly regularly. I read the first 13 issues of Teen Titans Go!, which was as much as I could take—each issue just seemed like a really bad version of the TV show, which I loved (I would check it out occasionally afterwards, though, when it would feature either a character from the show I really liked, like Aqualad, or a contribution from a creator I really liked, like Chynna Clugston). JLU similarly read like a not-as-good version of the show, but I bought it sporadically, depending on the characters. In both cases, they were visually hard to get behind. Like so many of DC's based-on-the-animation books, they featured poor attempts to draw like Bruce Timm (Even when I knew the creators were actually quite good and had produced great work elsewhere when not trying to act as Timm clones)..

From what I've seen of those two titles though, I never got the impression that people would die or that there was a great sense of danger involved. Certainly much, much less than on the shows they were based on, as well. I assume she's talking only about the Johnny DC books based on DC superhero concepts—surely if Scooby and Shaggy failed to expose a monster or Wile E. Coyote ever catches the Roadrunner, no one would die-die. (And come on, even at three-years-old I knew the coyote was never going to catch the roadrunner, and more likely he was going to die...for a few seconds.)

The other weird bits of the quote are the mention of a religious sister. If said sister finds anything in those books objectionable—Raven using magic? Etrigan the Demon appearing in an issue or two? Superman, J'onn J'onnz and Marvin the Martian's existence seemingly challenging her beliefs in the Book of Genesis as literal, absolute truth and the last word on astrochemistry?—then she's probably not the best example of a typical mother with typical mother concerns you should cater your books to.

Then there's the mention of four- and five-year-olds at all. That's pretty young to be reading comics at all, isn't it? Or, you know, reading. The average kid doesn't start reading-reading until 4-6. I don't think I'd read any comics at all at that age, not even Archie digests from the grocery store,nor would I ever read a comic book until at least grade school. I do remember reading the funnies when I was first starting to read, although in most cases I would skip ahead to the last panel, since that was the important one with the joke. (Alternately, I was watching SuperFriends, Spider-Man, the Adam West Batman, Scooby-Doo and Looney Tunes as young as three, and don't remember ever freaking out about the mortal danger involved).

Finally, the bit about "the DC Universe." I'm assuming she just misspoke, since the Johnny DC books all appear in their own little "continuitiverses" separate and distinct from the DCU as a fictional setting.

Anyway, the gist of the Johnny DC line refresh seems to be the cancellation of JLU (Jones originally mentioned canceling TTG! too, but DC has since said that won't be case). Both shows have ended production so, in a sense, that seems pretty logical, but seeing as the properties will continue to be popular for, like, ever (Mattel's still making new JLU toys, for example), there's really no need to cancel either of them ever (Disney continues to sell things with the faces of characters who's TV shows or film appearances are decades old).

JLU specifically seems like one to keep around, as it's a good "gateway" comic to the DCU in general. Pretty much every character in DC's library has appeared at some point (I think. Have we seen Plastic Man, the Metal Men or any Blackhawks there yet? I mean, Doll Man, Zauriel, Natasha Irons-as-Steel and the Millennium freaking Giants have appeared in the title already). That makes it an ideal primer for when kids graduate to reading the actual DCU comics, some of which will be available in trade in perpetuity, in addition to whatever's on the shelf the month they make their transition. Also, while I am a Direct Market customer and a heavy-user of DC's DCU line, I still find JLU appealing on occasion, as it is the one book where virtually everyone can appear, whether they've been killed and replaced in the DCU or not. The last issue of JLU for example, was a Question solo story that just so happened to be the best Question story in, I don't know, years at least. There was even a Vibe spotlight issue for, you know, the one Vibe fan in the world.

Perhaps DC will ultimately rethink axing JLU, or, better yet, simply changing it up a bit, so as to make it less reliant on the designs of the show (i.e. not requiring everyone to draw as much like Timm as they can manage). From Jones' interview, it seems like these books are entirely different animals aimed at entirely different audiences than the current Johnny DC superhero books, and none of them will replace JLU's kid audience, which won't be welcome in the DCU line (and/or their parents might not want them reading about all the cannibalism, dismemberment, rape and torture there) or in the toddler-friendly world of these new books.

As for the new books, they are three in number, and I have mixed feelings about all three of them.




First and most exciting is Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam, a new ongoing by Mike Kunkel of Herobear and the Kid fame, featuring probably the best title construction of any Captain Marvel book in the past 30 years or so.

I'm actually pretty excited about this, as I really like Captain Marvel. I think DC fundamentally misunderstood the character in the '70s when they brought him back into usage and they thought of him as a kiddy version of Superman. Superman's stories from the forties weren't more mature than Captain Marvel's, but because Superman continued publication, evolving with the medium and audience, while Captain Marvel went into decades of hibernation, then when they busted him out of amber (well, suspendium, actually) he seemed dated, old-fashioned and geared towards a younger audience. But comparing 1970s Superman to 1940s Captain Marvel is an apples and oranges kind of thing (or at least apples and pears).

I have a feeling that most people who are Captain Marvel fans tend to be at least 30, since they will have most likely encountered him in the (pretty terrible) '70s live action TV show or in Golden Age comics, and I doubt a lot of kids today are coming across DC's $50 Archives or the long out-of-print Shazam!: From the Forties to the Seventies. Sure, he appeared in an episode of JLU, but just the one, meaning there are probably more Captain Atom, Dr. Fate, Question, Huntress and bearded Aquaman fans among kids with TV sets than Captain Marvel fans.

But if the choice is between high-quality, kid-friendly fare like Jeff Smith's Shazam!: The Monster Society of Evil and the current DCU versions of the Marvel Family—their unrecognizable recreation in Trials of..., the new smexy, ebil Mary in Countdown, Black Adam ripping off faces and eating people in World War III and Black Adam—then fine, a kids character he is.

I'm not so sure about Kunkel as a creator though. I know he's a great artist, with a solid fanbase and a great reputation. His designs are really, really idiosyncratic, particularly for a book focused at kids, who don't generally have the sort of sophisticated aesthetic sense as adults (although I should note younger kids have been primed to appreciate a wider variety of styles than I was when I was a kid thanks to the increase in anime and the flowering of different styles of American animation). Still, I wonder if they will take to Kunkel's weird energy and abstracted anatomy as quickly as adults will. I like it quite a bit but, hell, I'm 30. As a writer, I'm less sure of Kunkel's skills. I read a children's book about socks he did within the last few years, and while I've forgotten the details, I remember really disliking it at the time, and being surprised at how bad it was, given all the good things I've always heard about Kunkel.

If DC's smart, they'll see that this is a continuation of some sort of Smith's series, allowing them to sell Kunkel's series to fans of Smith's, and they'll go ahead and say both books were/are set on the new Earth-5. Not within the context of the book itself, of course—Kunkel's book need not start with a dateline reading "Earth-5" each issues—but they can establish it elsewhere as an Earth-5 book (With Smith's being the "Year One" story of Earth-5's Cap). I think that will convince a lot of older fans that these stories count for something, which is a stumbling block a lot of us just can't get over when it comes to buying DC comics not set in the DCU proper (Including DC execs like Dan Didio, who did away with Elseworlds and is now giving some of the old Elseworlds like Red Rain and Kingdom Come their own dimensions/Earths in the new multiverse). As for worrying about older fans at all, I think it's important to note that the very best (and most successful) all-ages comics are the ones that are truly all-ages, selling to kids and adults.

And maybe that's the plan after all, as Jones again uses the term "DC Universe" in discussing the book: "With Jeff's miniseries, we really established that we can have different versions of Shazam and the other Marvel Family characters co-existing within the DC Universe at the same time. So Mike is really picking up where Jeff left off and it's amazing."




Next up is Tiny Titans, which boasts a terrible, terrible, terrible name.

I'd be more likely to be interested in a book with the word "Tiny" in the title now than I would have been as a kid. I might have watched and loved Muppet Babies, but I wouldn't have fucking bought a comic book with that title on it. I mean, the word "babies" is right there. A two-year-old toddler turns its nose up at the word "baby," and I would think "Tiny" would have a similar effect on kids. I also watched Tiny Toons religiously, but I wouldn't want to have been caught dead spending money on something with that tile, or carrying around a book with that title where someone might have seen me.

The two images from this book up at Newsarama.com look cute as hell, and I just love them. The artist, Art Baltazar, is responsible for small press book Patrick the Wolf Boy and Disney Adventures feature Gorilla Gorilla. I have a lot of confidence in Baltazar as a designer and storyteller.

Here's what Jones says about the new TT:


Art's stories with Tiny Titans are so funny and cute, and they use all of the things that little versions of the Titans would do. In issue #2, the girls use Cyborg as an Easy Bake Oven. Beast Boy gets a puppy. Everyone learns not to play tag with Kid Flash. It's little storylines like that that bring in the magic of childhood, that excitement and innocence to the stories.


It sounds darling. As someone so far outside of the target audience, I know I would like to read it—or at least an issue of it. I can't imagine it would be terribly compelling enough to keep me interested issue to issue and month to month (Maybe as an occoasional digest/trade collection, though). Nor do I see it doing even as well as the last Johnny DC Titans title in the direct market. But then, that's not the market for this anyway; bookstores for the eventual trade collections would be the true market.




Finally, we have Super Friends. This is the one book I can't imagine myself ever buying or reading. The designs look like those horrible Star Wars Jedi Force abominations, the rather inappropriate Marvel Super Squad (A Punisher toy? Really?) and those fun-free Rescue Heroes toys, all of which are just repellent to me. Their big, abstracted faces and heads on muscular bodies with giant feet? Man, I hate them. I've always hated these toy designs, and the prospect of seeing them lose a dimension to appear in print only makes them more repellent. At least with previous Johnny DC lines being forced to adhere to a design, it was a good design originally (The Timm desigsns, the looks of the latest Batman cartoon or Teen Titans).

The design is, of course, based on Mattel's upcoming Super Friends line, which makes repulsive toys out of DC superheroes.

This one seems to be geared for the youngest of kids. Jones says it will consist of "a collection of vignettes, along with puzzles along the way and things to keep kids occupied and hopefully catch and keep their attention." It sounds more like an activity book with a comics component then, based on a toy line. Which makes it seem like an odd thing for DC Comics to be publishing instead of Mattel or an imprint of DC's parent conglomeration.

Oddly enough, a previous DC tie-in to a toyline based on DC heroes was Total Justice, which I turned my nose up and skipped until I found the series for cheap in a back-issue bin. And man, that series was so deep into DCU continuity I couldn't believe it. I don't think the series actually counts as continuity—at least, I've never seen any DC comic since refer back to it—but it featured the Justice League Task Force, the Extreme Justice team and the-then Justice League, serving as a sort of grand send-off to the four-book era of Justice titles that immediately preceded Grant Morrison and Howard Porter's relaunch of JLA. The focus of the book is Batman, Robin, Green Lantern, Flash and Aquaman vs. Darkseid using goofy-looking accessories developed by Blue Beetle, but it's chockfull of guest appearances from Leaguers of the time, most of whom weren't actually in the toy line.

Go back a little father, and you'll see that Jack freaking Kirby did some DC Comics based on a toy line. I haven't read any of these Super Powers comics, but would love to. In fact, I'd kill to. I'd kill you to!

Given that Super Friends doesn't seem to have any connection to DC's other lines (Tiny Titans, Jones said, will be a show the "real" Teen Titans watch on TV) and looks to have zero appeal to kids older than...I don't know, six, maybe?...it seems like an odd use of DC's resources. Surely Jones could be doing something more productive for the health of DC Comics in general, like trying to talk Dan Didio out of killing more characters, or reading my proposal for an Alpaca Man story.



In other, far less interesting WWC news, this looks totally awesome, this sounds like the worst idea ever (Imagine that villain that doesn't make any sense pitting characters from the new and different multiverse you know nothing about which is maybe actually just a bunch of old Elseworlds stories duking it out to form an army to fight in that series everyone hates! And we’ll choose the winners in the same manner as that DC/Marvel series that nobody remembers as being any good at all! From the writer of the universally loathed World War III!) and I can't actually believe Marvel is giving their historical flagship monthly to the one team in comics guaranteed to not be able to keep a monthly schedule (I mean, there’s optimism, and then there's insanity).

Dear DC,

Regarding this week's DC Nation column by Jann Jones, I just wanted to let you know that if you use the image on the left as a variant cover for the upcoming Black Canary Wedding Planner, I would totally buy it.



Your friend,

Caleb

No Sale: DCU Infinite Holiday Special

After long moments of reflection, and a very, very thorough flip-through (which included reading the last story in its entirety), I ended up leaving the DCU Infinite Holiday Specia on the shelf this week.

Why, you ask?

I’m glad you asked, let me tell you. At great length.

In general, I love big, fat, giant-sized books like this—annuals, DC’s 80-Page Giants from a few years back, Marvel’s “Giant-Size” specials—and I love Christmas comics. That paired with my enthusiasm for the DCU should have made this purchase a no-brainer for me, but of the seven stories in this anthology, there was a problem with almost every single one of them. I either didn’t care for the character, or I didn’t care for the creators, or I didn’t care for the current take on the character, or, in a couple cases, all three.

Let’s break it down:

Green Lantern by Keith Champagne and John Byrne: Jordan is not my favorite of Earth’s Green Lanterns. In fact, he’s my fifth favorite. Champagne is a fine inker, and, as he proved during his fill-in stories on JSA, a decent writer, too, but I’m already getting stories featuring this Lantern twice a month in Green Lantern and JLoA, so a third dose didn’t exactly excite me. As for the penciller, well, the less said of Byrne’s latest round of DCU work the better, although I will note that the artwork on the story didn’t look like that of John Byrne to me during the flip-through.

Supergirl by Joe Kelly and Alé Garza: No complaints about the creative team here. Kelly is a hell of a writer, and his recent Superman/Batman Annual was cover-to-cover fun. And I do like Garza’s art; he did a fantastic job on Batgirl near the end of the series, although few people seem to have read it (particularly those writing and editing Bat-family books at the moment). But Supergirl? Bleah. I gave the most recent Maid of Might a fair shake, I think. I read the entire six-part “The Girl From Krypton” arc in Superman/Batman, and kept waiting for Jeph Loeb to pull the rug out from under me, as I knew full well her origin couldn’t be as cut-and-dry as he presented it. But he never did. I even read the first five issues of her solo title, which was nothing but a series of fights with other DC heroes, but Loeb still hadn’t pulled the rug out from under me. Then I just gave up, dropping the title and seeking to avoid this vacuous, scantily clad cypher of a character.

Shadowpact by Bill Willingham and Cory Walker: This was one of the more tempting short stories in the book. I never really got Shadowpact, which seemed to be a less clumsy, less necessarry name for the Sentinels of Magic team, and didn’t bother with their monthly series, based on how terrible Day of Vengeance and its Infinite Crisis tie-in special was. I liked the image of Phantom Stranger wearing a Santa hat, and the idea of Santa interacting with Blue Devil, but my aversion to Willingham’s DCU writing outweighed my interest in these images.

Shazam by Tony Bedard and Marcos Martin: Well, I suppose it could be less attractive; it could be a Marvel Family story written by Judd Winick, but, in this case, it’s the direction of the character more than anything else that repels me. I find it ironic that DC has launched this radical new half-assed direction for the Marvel Family, changing Captain Marvel’s name, look, purpose and place in the DCU at the same time that 52 and Justice are making such good use out of the Marvel characters in the classic mold (and Jeff freaking Smith has a high-profile Captain Marvel project waiting in the wings). Cooler heads will eventually prevail I’m sure, and this weird-ass take on the character will soon be undone and forgotten, but, in the meantime, it means ignoring Captain Marvel—er, “Shazam,” until someone smarter than Winick gets a chance to chart his future.

Flash by Ian Boothby and Giuseppe Camuncoli: See above. I was still getting used to the idea of Bart Allen trading his codename and personality in to become the new Kid Flash when DC shunted Wally West off to limbo and rapidly aged Bart into the Flash for absolutely no reason. Unlike the ill-considered new directions thrust upon Captain Marvel and Martian Manhunter, I haven’t even given the Bart Flash a chance, as I expect this direction to be changed even more quickly.

Batwoman by Greg Rucka and Christain Almay: I loved Rucka’s Oni work and much of his Bat-stories, particularly his post-“No Man’s Land” run on Detective Comics, but in the ramp-up to Infinite Crisis, his stories were one let-down after another. Between Superman, Wonder Woman and The OMAC Project, it was increasingly clear that Rucka had very little familiarity with any of the characters he was writing, and next to none with their convoluted histories (what we comic geeks like to call “continuity”). And that would be somewhat excusable if the stories themselves weren’t built on continuity. The surprises, the twists and turns, if you will, of them all was seeing turning points in relationships, betrayals by close friends, and were all precipitated on an understanding of who the characters were and how they related to one another (Max Lord and Blue Beetle’s long relationship in the pages of Justice League comics, Batman and Sasha Bordeaux’s past romance in Batman comics, etc.), which made it all the more infuriating when about 50-percent of that was wrong. For a perfect example, see the last issue of the last volume of Wonder Woman, the whole point of which is an examination of the historic relationship between Wonder Woman and Superman, and which has at least one mistake per page on it. All of these stories were set prior to the Great Continuity Re-Jiggering that reformed Post-Crisis Earth into “New Earth,” and the only explanation for them is that Superboy-Prime’s escape from “The Heaven Dimension” (No, really, that’s what they call it; and sorry, but I can’t type that name without quotes around it) altered the timestream (i.e. continuity), as was half-assedly explained in Infinite Crisis Secret Origins and Files #1. Anyway, long story long, I had resolved to avoid Rucka DCU stories. And that’s what this is.

Superman and Batman by Kelly Puckett and Pete Woods: The “Elseworlds” slug in the hilarious last panel makes over obvious that this Ironic Age take on the Silver Age Superman/Batman team shouldn’t be considered “continuity,” but it’s funny nonetheless. Six more stories like this, and the book would have been a must-buy.

That leaves us with just two more aspects to take into consideration: The cover and the official holiday greeting.

Let’s take that latter one first. The last page featured a splash drawn by...Phil Jimenez?...which shows DC editorial, with Dan Didio front and center with a holiday greeting. Funny stuff, and a very busy image, one that sure beats the hell out of Ralph Machio’s letter in last week’s Marvel Holiday Special (In a DC vs. Marvel sense, this book does seem to be a better value, in terms of story pages to dollar amount ration). Note the female editor embracing the alpaca in the background; I take it that’s Jann Jones, who’s fondness for alpacas is a running joke in Didio’s “DC Nation” columns. (Don’t forget Ms. Jones; I’ve got a sweet proposal for an Alpaca Man comic book!)

Now about that cover. Howard Porter’s new “Shazam style” is an interesting evolution in the artist’s work; it was about the only thing I enjoyed in the Brave New World preview and first issue of Trials of Shazam. This image is in that style, but its composition seems a little off, with the characters sort of randomly situated on it. What really scares the hell out of me is that crazy look on Superman’s face, those rosy cheeks, that glazed look in his eyes. Coupled with the giant sack of presents held above his head. I get the feeling he’s about to hurl the gifts at me, crushing me to death.

Finally, what’s up with the title change? When the project was announced, and discussed with Newsarama, it was called Infinite Christmas Special, which was a play on the name of Infinite Crisis, the logo of which this books logo references. In fact, if you look it up at dccomics.com, you'll find it's still called DCU Infinite Christmas Special. But when it hit the stands this week, it had become the Infinite Holiday Special, which essentially neuters the joke. Not that it was a terribly clever joke, but it was funny in a bad joke sort of way. The new title is simply nonsensical. Bill O'Reilly, John Gibson and maybe even Hawkman would not be amused.

Weekly Haul: November 15th

52 #28 (DC Comics) Nitpicks first. Again with the interior dialogue from Renee Montoya? Sheesh. Re-reading the opening section twice, there’s absolutely nothing that narration adds to the scene that isn’t there already, and it hurts the overall POV of the series. Also, something to keep in mind for the trade collection: The datelines identifying where certain scenes are taking place seem to come and go. No big deal, but a grating little inconsistency. As for the plot, it’s apparently fight week, as Montoya and the Question team up with Batwoman to take on Intergang, the “New Look” Red Tornado, called “Tornado Man,” fights against uranium development in Australia, and, finally, our space-faring heroes go up against Ekron and his/its passenger. The space story gets more and more complicated each chapter, and they’re starting to lose me completely on it. The most frustrating part of the book this week, however, is this week’s DC Nation column by Jann Jones. The photo of Ms. Jones looks like a live action JLI cover, and I read the whole damn thing looking for some explanation as to who that is dressed in the sweet Blue Beetle pajamas next to her, but no dice. One more mystery for the most mysterious title on the shelves, I guess. Confidential to Jann Jones: Speaking of alpacas, I’ve got a sweet pitch for an Alpaca Man miniseries, if you’re interested.

Aquaman: Sword of Atlantis #45 (DC) Chronic lateness scores another casualty, as I’d forgotten a good half of what was going on the last time an issue of ASOA actually came out. This coupled with the announcement that the current creative team is on the way out assigns an unfortunate lame duck status to the title. Still a good read, but the current readers are asked to swim against just seems to get stronger and stronger.

Astonishing X-Men #18 (Marvel Comics) And speaking of lateness, it’s all but destroyed the best X-Men book on the stands, which I now sincerely wish I was patient enough to have simply waited to enjoy in trade. Joss Whedon’s dialogue is fantastic—I particularly enjoyed the exchanges between Wolverine and Beast, and between Danger and Ord—and his complicated plot seems to be building not only on his previous arcs, but some status quo from the good old Grant Morrison days. But it’s a lot to keep track of in the long months between issues. Confidential to Dr. Hank McCoy: Was an invasion of the mansion the best time to take a break and change into the old three-piece suit and bowtie?

Birds of Prey #100 (DC) One of DC’s most consistent title’s reaches a rather remarkable milestone, made even more remarkable when one considers that almost half of those 100 issues were written by the same creator, Gail Simone. There’s no time like a milestone for a dramatic change to the status quo, and Simone takes the opportunity to dramatically change the successful formula of the book from a Black Canary/Oracle team-up book—a formula that’s seen some tinkering over the years–into a sort of Ostrander-era Suicide Squad or early era Justice League Task Force style book, with Oracle recruiting whatever heroine is needed for a particular job (To borrow a TV metaphor, she’s Charlie, and all the women of the DCU are potential Angles). This time out, it’s Manhunter, the new Judomaster (Um, shouldn’t it be Judomistress?) and Big Barda, in addition to regulars Huntress and Lady Blackhawk. As fun as it was to see so many characters cameo-ing—new penciller Nicola Scott sure gets a workout in her first issue—the story seemed as stupid as it was fun, with a lot of goofy moments that felt far too forced (The thought of seven-foot-tall Apokalyptian alien/Justice Leaguer Big Barda doing undercover work, Huntress and “Judomaster” stuffing their silly masks under baseball caps as disguises, “Judomaster” existing at all). Then there’s the small matter of the new villain, another needless legacy character whose punchline introduction seems funny in a way that’s not organic to BOP’s usual character-driven humor. Better by far is the back half of the book (co-written by Tony Bedard), in which Black Canary essentially tells her life story to young Sin. Paulo Sequiera’s pencil art is a little stiff and overly pose-driven, but it’s a nice Canary story that certainly belongs on this list.

Civil War #5 (Marvel) The last issue of Mark Millar’s Civil War was an especially dramatic one, ending on a cliffhanger that was the controversial series’ biggest, dumbest Big Dumb Moment. It’s quickly eclipsed by the Big Dumb Moments of #5, which, unfortunately, turns out to consist of nothing but Big Dumb Moments. There’s been a lot of online handwringing about how out of character certain characters have been in this series, but throughout the first half, Iron Man, Captain America, Reed Richards, Spider-Man and the others at least seemed to be acting in character within this series itself (if not with storylines from five to forty years ago). But here, even interior logic of the miniseries is rapidly falling apart, and the previously infallible art team stumbles on a few panels.

The Escapists #5 (Dark Horse) Wow, there’s so much great art in this issue that writer Brian K. Vaughan is vastly out-numbered. You have a Paul Pope cover (you can never go wrong with Pope drawing a cute girl), with Jason Shawn Alexander’s highly expressionistic interior art on the Escapist scenes and Steve Rolston’s cartoony art on the creators’ scenes. Now that the plot seems more focused on the conflict over character rights than the character conflicts (and local color, my favorite part of the series), some of the drama seems to have drained out of the series, but the first four issues were so strong, a slightly disappointing #5 is nothing to get too worried about, especially since there’s only one more issue to go.

New Avengers #25 (Marvel) Another issue of New Avengers, another issue that has fuckall to do with the Avengers, New, old, mighty, assembled, disassembled, re-disassembled or otherwise. This issue’s only Avenger is Iron Man, who spends a majority of the issue flat on his back, silent and waiting to die. The real hero of the piece is either his “disgruntled employee” that’s trying to kill him, or SHIELD Director Maria Hill; who you root for will likely depend on how big a douchebag you think Stark’s been since the start of the “Civil War” story. It would have made a decent issue of Iron Man or a theoretical Maria Hill, Agent of SHIELD monthly, but it makes for a bad issue of an Avengers comic, even one like New Avengers, which is fairly often all but Avengers-less.

Omega Men #2 (DC) I’m afraid this will probably be my last issue of the series, as I find myself lost and bewildered, and in a more frustrating than fun way. This issue sees Vril Dox and his recruited muscle—Superman, Green Lantern John Stewart, Cyborg and Wonder Girl—taking on the Omega Men in a slam bang fight, broken up by an interesting creation myth. Even when I thought I knew what was going on, writer Andersen Gabrych would throw in some tidbit that confused the hell out of me—hybrid Guardians? Ganthet’s a dad? What’s this panel with Kyle Rayner/Ion in it doing there?—and pulled me out of the story. Henry Flint’s art is totally top-notch though, and I really dug seeing not only his Omega Men, but also his renditions of more familiar DC heroes, particularly Superman and Wonder Girl. I do hope DC finds more work for him to do when this miniseries wraps up.

Scooby-Doo! #114 (DC) Sometimes, all it takes is a totally awesome cover to get you to plop down $2.50. I didn’t care for the last two-thirds of the book, as the other two artists aren’t as strong at stylized Hanna-Barbera impression as Robert Pope (who drew the eight-page lead story, “Turkey Terror at 2,000 Feet,” and contributed the cover).

Union Jack #3 (Marvel) U.J. is forced to beat the hell out of his mind-controlled comrades, Arabian Knight proves how hardcore dedicated he is to doing his job and Captain America literally phones in a guest appearance. Writer Christos Gage continues the action movie style plotting, and Mike Perkins continues to draw the hell out of everything. It’s a pretty fun miniseries, but I don’t think we’ll see it followed by a sequel or an ongoing anytime soon—four issues seem more than enough spotlight for Union Jack at this point.