The Incredible Hulk #94 Review

Greg Pak sure has himself a story, here, doesn’t he?

Using the Warren Ellis-patented (unless you count Morrison’s Justice League) “every story arc should be like a blockbuster movie” technique, Pak has made the first story arc of Planet Hulk the equivalent of “Planet Hulk I – Exile,” and it really works. The story is crisp, the action is enjoyable and the characterizations are solid. I was very impressed by Pak’s Warlock mini-series (nee series), but was greatly disappointed by his X-Men follow-up. Luckily, he is back to form with Planet Hulk. This is an awfully fun comic book.

The basic plot of the comic consists of the Hulk and his team of fellow gladiators basically just trying to stay alive while the emperor of the world Hulk landed on tries desperately to kill them without losing any face to the public. Each battle SHOULD be the end, but Hulk won’t allow it to be the end, a point punctuated in this issue in quite an explosive manner.

Meanwhile, an impressive job of Pak has been both to A. PICK the team members of Hulk’s gladiator crew (one of them taken from an old Thor story and another one taken from the X-Men enemy, the Brood) and B. Actually give the characters real, defined personalities. This is not just the Hulk show. He is the clear star, but his supporting characters get real personalities and stories (as seen by a noble sacrifice in this issue). In fact, an especially neat (and perhaps a time-saver for artist Carlo Pagulayan) aspect of this issue comes towards the end, where an all-star cast of artists draw an “origin” of sorts for each of the members of the crew. Alex Nino, Mike Avon Oeming, Marshall Rogers and Mike Allred – not a slotch among them, and the scenes are handled quite well, in particular Oeming’s revisiting of one of the team member’s debut in an OLD OLD Thor story and the Allred Hulk origin, where Pak manages to do a one-page Hulk origin that All-Star Superman could be proud of.

Speaking of Pagulayan, I have never been a big fan of his work, but at the same time, I can certainly appreciate his appeal as an artist, so I was always surprised that he was never given a “big” comic to draw (I mean, before this storyline, he was drawing Marvel Adventures: Fantastic Four, for crying out loud!). This comic is the one that I think has ended that streak – I doubt we’ll see him on a minor book again.

Ladronn’s cover? Woah. He’s amazing, isn’t he?

In any event, if you are looking for a fun, action-packed adventure story that manages to create interesting characterizations as well, then you will enjoy Incredible Hulk. I happen to think that most people would enjoy a comic like that, so I feel no problem in recommending this comic without reservation.

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Godland #10 Review

There are few things you can depend upon in comics these days, one of them is Joe Casey and Tom Scioli not holding anything back in an issue of Godland, and it is greatly appreciated. #10 is right in keeping with this standard, set all the way back with the first issue of Godland. There are no less than three fully developed plotlines going on in this issue, and each one of them is both intriguing and action-packed. This is not a book where characters sit around and discuss whether they are going to do something. This is a book where Adam Archer (our hero)’s sisters talk for a bit, before one sister decides to fly out to take care of business by herself, even if her brother has cosmic powers, while all she has is a small plane (leading to her sister to tell her to get her “punk ass” back home).

The “the story so far” page of Godland is even action-packed, as it gets the reader caught up quickly and basically just serves as a quick roster of all the characters involved in the comic, whether it be Neela Archer, one of Adam’s three sisters, who is blasting off on a secret mission that has resulted in a loss of power to the rest of the United States, or Freidrich Nickelhead, the pop culture-obsessed bad guy who is currently in possession of Adam Archer, who had the misfortune of crash landing right in front of Nickelhead’s house in Akron, Ohio (trippy, no?). Nickelhead’s dialogue is always a highlight of the book, and, of course, to this Dylan fan right here, I can say that I highly appreciate the Dylan nods, like in the promo for next issue, which mentions Nickelhead “bringing it all back home.” Nicely done.

Meanwhile, while the rest of America deals with the power less, some mysterious creatures are preparing to attack the army base where Neela’s mission took off from. Nickelhead has an interesting approach to torturing Adam, as it involves both psychological torture and a less refined beat down. Although, while the beatdown was handled quite well, I think the psychological torture was a tad MORE over the top of the top that Godland usually goes over, leaving it to come off as more than a tad bit hokey, especially Scioli’s take on Adam’s tears – Kirby-esque is one thing, but that was just weird looking.

That little bit notwithstanding, the art is handled quite well by Scioli, who, while never departing from his Jack Kirby style of art, manages to keep the book moving forward always, and causing each scene to pack the maximum punch. I especially enjoy the way he depicts the spaceship that appears on the cover of this issue (speaking of the cover, Godland continues to excel with the covers, which made July’s fairly bland cover especially disappointing). Joe Casey deserves equal amount of praise for how the spaceship is handled as well – as he has the spaceship be led into New York City first by clouds dispersed by the giant ship. It makes for a very creepy scenario, which is just what they are going for – and when it actually ARRIVES? Scioli makes sure it has the requisite impact to any New Yorker. Classic stuff.

The combination of nice character touches mixed with an abundance of cool action scenes all combines to produce a comic that I can recommend without reservation.

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Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane #5 Review

I didn’t realize that this was an ongoing series. That’s good to hear, as this series has been quite fun. This issue is no different, as Sean McKeever manages to take a real risk, and I think that it pays off big time. The risk? To show a date between Mary Jane and Spider-Man and have it turn out BADLY. The risk is that you do not want to alienate your audience (the title of the book IS Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane, after all), but McKeever manages to pull it off, I believe, as he stresses the relationship between Mary Jane and Peter Parker. Of course, at the same time, he also introduces, at the end, a twist ending that belongs in a sitcom writer’s bag of tricks, but I will forgive McKeever, as the book is just too much fun not to.

The artwork from Takeshi Miyazawa and Christina Strain (with Miyazawa producing the pencils and Strain the colors) is strong, as they get across the points that McKeever wants to get across each time he needs them to. In addition, they even manage to make the action sequences (in which this book is not big on) look good.

The star of the book, though, is McKeever. The book lives and dies on his story and dialogue, and lucky for us, the book lives well. He infuses the book with so much HONESTY that it is almost like he’s stalking teenagers to see how they interact with each other. Tell me that’s not the case, Sean!!

The two key sequences in the comic are the date with Spider-Man and Mary Jane and the post-date dish between Mary Jane and her best friend, Liz Allen. The former is handled well, to a tee. Mary Jane gets to see how the City looks a lot different when you are whizzing by it at high speeds, or if you’re perched on a web looking at the sky. At the same time, Mary Jane is a normal girl (perhaps a special girl, but normal, nonetheless), so she really can’t RELATE to these experiences, and at the same time, Spider-Man cannot really relate to the experiences a typical date entails. And it’s not just the fact that he has to break-up robberies while they are on the date, it’s just that Spider-Man just can’t go for, like, a carriage ride. It just doesn’t work – he essentially exists on a different level than typical teens, and that’s not something that Mary Jane can get used to. A good example of this is her sheer mystification at how unselfish he is. It’s handled extremely well by McKeever.

The post-date dish between Mary Jane and Liz is probably handled even better, as Liz manages to tell Mary Jane things that we, the reader, know (i.e. Peter is the right guy for you), but the way McKeever has her deliver the lines, he never has her lose her own voice, which is a notable achievement for a writer, as I am sure we are all familiar with the concept of writer’s having characters speak in THEIR voice.

The ending of the comic sets up the rest of the series well, and I must admit, while it’s quite a twist – it’s one we should have been expecting, but I dunno…it seems kinda silly to me. But I trust McKeever enough that I will see where he’s going with it. I would recommend this comic without reservation.

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X-Factor #6 Review

It’s interesting to see a comic whose look is so wrapped up in the work of an artist that is no longer on the book. This is not exactly uncommon, as even today, Frank Miller’s visual mark on Daredevil is still being felt, and heck, over thirty years since he last drew the book regularly, Jack Kirby’s presence is still felt on the way artists draw the Fantastic Four. I guess it just surprises me a bit more on this book, because Ryan Sook only did, what, two and a half issues of X-Factor? Yet his view of the characters it the dominant one in the artwork of Dennis Calero, and I really wonder if that will be the case for future issues of X-Factor.

Speaking of the art, Ryan Sook is a really remarkable artist. What Sook managed to do was to create these shadowy figures that still maintained a deep resonance in humanity, but never allowed the realistic artwork to interfere with his storytelling. Calero manages to duplicate the first aspect of Sook’s work, but it really is Sook’s ability to do BOTH that causes him to become such a great artist, and that’s where Calero has a problem. He is quite good at drawing his characters, making them appear comic book-y AND human, but he is not very good at then making these characters DO things. It comes off sorta like stiff – herky jerky movements, not natural ones (this is especially evident with the Madrox scene in the park – Calero clearly spent a lot of time on all of Madrox’s faces, but doesn’t appear to make the faces all work with the body movements). However, I still enjoyed his artwork. It’s no Ryan Sook, but that is not an insult by any stretch of the imagination. I really don’t like how huge Wolfsbane’s head is, but that’s not Calero’s call, I believe Sook drew it like that, too. It’s really creepy. This skinny body and this HUGE wolf head. I don’t get it.

Peter David is an old hand at writing ongoing titles, at the trick of making an issue continue a story while still standing on its own merits. In fact, he is so good at it, it really makes the “recap” page superfluous, especially as David does not appear to write the book any differently than a book without a recap page, which was, if I recall, one of the reasons for HAVING a recap page (According to Mark Waid, he would often use up about a page’s worth of panels just catching the reader up). Not a big deal, though, as the exposition does not get in the way of the issue’s story, which is a good one.

The X-Factor team is worried about their team member, Layla Miller, especially her weird “chaos theory” power (something David has used already with a super villain in the past – one cool point for the character David did the “chaos theory” power with before). Meanwhile, we learn some more about Layla, and her messed up problems, but, like a good writer, David makes sure that even as one aspect of her story is resolved, a separate aspect of her character is left UNresolved.

The key to this book is the interactions between the characters, and the dialogue is strong and believable. Whether it is an orphanage director cutting through red tape, or if it’s the team threatening a rival – it all works well. All combined, this is enough that I would recommend this issue without reservation (unless “Wolfsbane’s head is too big” counts as a reservation).

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Skye Runner #1 Review

I will admit, I was not expecting much from Skye Runner, a new fantasy book released through Wildstorm, by the same creative team who did Ninja Boy, Allen Warner and Ale Garza. In fact, I believe my expectations were the same as they were for Ninja Boy, “Ah, a project designed to spotlight Ale Garza’s nice art.” The first issue of Skye Runner did a good job of exceeding my expectations. I am interested in seeing what happens next after the first issue, which had a lot of good parts (Garza’s art, in particular), but in the end, suffered a bit too much from story problems.

First off, isn’t it bizarre how the artists that draw women with really big breasts also tend to draw the cutest kids? J. Scott Campbell, Erik Larsen, Joe Madureira, Todd McFarlane and Greg Capullo all draw the cutest kids, and also the “sexiest” ladies. What a weird combination. My pal Brad Curran explains it as these artists being big on exaggeration, which ends up looking kinda creepy with women, but cute when it is use to draw little kids. I think he is absolutely correct, and Ale Garza fits right into this mold, as the comic opens with some cute kids playing a game (and we later get to meet Skye, who is a quite busty young lady).

The story is a mixture of good ideas and bad ideas, like the good idea of a kingdom on the run, forced to move the “kingdom” to a small village, guarded only by a few old men who used to be knights and a few inexperienced young men. Thrown into the mix is Lady Skye, daughter of their late King, and blessed with great powers. Her super strength is introduced quite nicely, in a good scene towards the beginning of the book. However, there are also some drawbacks to the set-up. First off, the outfit – she wears what is essentially a bodice. A bodice! What gives? It would be perfectly fine if the book just expected us to buy it, you know, as if this was just how people dress. But they make a point of pointing out that it ISN’T normal, as the other young ladies in the town mock her for walking around in essentially negligee. But they’re RIGHT! It IS absurd to be walking around in a bodice (although the mocking scene is played poorly as well – it’s one thing to say “Good afterboobs,” but then the girl sneaks “boobs” into two more sentences! It didn’t make any sense)!!

Skye is held back by her gender and age, so she can’t even BE a knight, instead degraded to basically a gofer status – a “runner” (hence the title), who relays messages and gets food for the knights. Skye also has a love interest in the son of one of the older knights.

The book kicks it into high gear when her nephew and niece bring home a little creature, and it gives Skye a warning. This is by far the best scene in the book, and one of the most effective uses of drama I’ve seen in an action comic in quite some time, as the two little kids are feeding this cute little animal they found in the beginning of the book, and the creature suddenly turns to Skye and tells her “Go get your gun,” and when Skye says “What?” (no one else can hear the creature), it says “It’s almost here.” VERY cool scene, and Skye is quite decisive as she takes charge of the situation.

However, most of the rest of the book is almost indecipherable, as a bunch of creatures (who knows what, exactly, as you can’t really tell right away that there is one BIG creature and a bunch of small ones) attacks the kingdom, and we learn the larger plot, and how it is tied to the gods wanting to destroy humanity and blah blah, and there is this ginormous fight scene that doesn’t exactly make sense, and I think Skye’s love interest is decapitated right in front of her (THAT, I kinda admire, I will admit), and I THINK that the guy’s father is killed, too (not too clear). Anyhow, some magician shows up, who apparently sent the unicorn knowing it would eventually lead him to Skye. The magician defeats the big creature, but the small creatures escape with Skye’s family in tow.

The book apparently will continue with the magician using Skye to bring down the gods. I wouldn’t recommend Skye Runner #1, but fans of fantasy might very well enjoy this comic, which had a lot of nice character moments and some nice Garza art. I'd be interested in seeing where the story goes.

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Black Panther #15 Review

The task given to Reginald Hudlin with these issues of Black Panther is a very difficult one – he has to convince people that a marriage between Storm and T’Challa makes sense, and at the same time, make sure not to denigrate either character in service of the plot. I think he got off to a good start last issue with the first part of “Bride of the Panther,” and I think he did an even better job with this one (although I suspect my pal Loren would disagree).

What’s even funnier than Hudlin’s abuse of continuity is this issue, where he attempts to address some of his “mistakes.” It’s really a bad idea, as he’s not going to win over any of the fans who hate his work because of the lack of continuity, and for the fans who don’t care, it just leads to dorky comments like when he explains how the Black Knight in the first story arc is a totally different Black Knight than the one we are familiar with. Of course, at the same time, Hudlin manages to make the continuity confusing AGAIN, as I’m still not sure exactly when the first storyline was set – Black Panther Year One or present-day. It makes a LOT more sense “Year One” (like, so much more sense that it is astonishing how much more sense it makes), but from this issue, it does not appear as though that’s how he’s handling it. Basically, I don’t think Hudlin himself really knows the deal – which is pretty weird.

In any event, this issue introduces the new Arabian Knight (which, for a second, I thought was an acknowledgment that the old Arabian Knight died in Thunderbolts – which would have blown my mind if this book was actually acknowledging THUNDERBOLTS continuity!!), which I think was a good idea, in that it allowed for some super-villain action to break up the main plot, which is just T’Challa and Ororo discussing their relationship. I thought Hudlin handled it well, especially as T’Challa and Ororo continue their discussion even while beating Arabian Knight pretty handedly. Funny stuff.

This is an issue built on character interaction, so expressions are very important. Luckily, Scot Eaton came ready to play, as he does a very impressive job on the expressions of each character, even minor background characters. Eaton is definitely putting a lot of effort into this book, and it is nice to see (Klaus Janson as an inker sure doesn’t hurt either). In addition, while he has the expressive style that Alan Davis has in spades (man, Alan Davis rules), I was glad to see Eaton move a little bit away from the Davis-style that, in the past, it almost appeared like Eaton’s work was “Davis-lite.” I suppose Janson might have some impact upon that, but I'd prefer to give the credit to Eaton.

The cover by Yu is excellent, by the way.

In any event – does Hudlin sell the relationship? I say yes. He sells T’Challa as a man who has always loved Storm for years, and Storm as a woman who probably loves T’Challa as well, but more importantly, as a woman who understands her role as T’Challa’s wife, and how that role is important enough for her to accept the proposal, even if she DIDN’T truly love him. However, I believe she does love T’Challa. There is also an interesting (off-panel) sex scene that was pretty amusing. Good work by Hudlin there. Finally, there is a neat bit with T’Challa’s mother discussing the relationship between Storm and T’Challa – this bit, more so than any other, really did the best job of solidifying the relationship. To hear from T’Challa that he has always cared for her is ONE thing, but to hear from T’Challa’s MOTHER the same? That’s big. Nicely turned by Hudlin.

So I would recommend this comic, with the reservation that, if you don’t care about this Storm/Black Panther thing at all, it probably would fall a bit flat to you.

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Annihilation: Ronan #1 Review

Annihilation: Ronan #1 has a lot of things going against it in my book. The two biggest are as follows – I have little to no interest in the basic concept behind Annihilation and I really never liked the character Ronan. I mean, don’t get me wrong, he’s a mainstay in the Marvel Universe, so I suppose I’ve always accepted him as just a given, but I have never taken much of a liking to him, and the idea of Ronan being a villain in an issue has never had any great appeal to me. Therefore, the fact that Simon Furman has somehow made this book pretty fun is quite an achievement on Furman’s part!

Furman has decided to take the “high concept” approach to Ronan, and that is to go back and examine just what it is that an “Accuser” DOES. Furman’s answer? He is judge, jury and executioner. One that is so confident in the infallibility of his logic that he never, for a second, questions whether he is right in his actions. So, for instance, if he were to walk in during an argument, he would quickly figure out who was to blame, and then mete “justice” at the end of his cosmic-powered hammer. Think of the fun you could have with a character like that! Someone who just wanders from situation to situation, meting out “justice” wherever he goes!

In any event, that’s the basic plot scenario, as Ronan is in a bad place, after he has been branded a traitor by the current Kree government. He is now on a quest to find out who has testified against him, causing him to be labeled a traitor. If he happens to come across some injustices along the way, so be it! Furman also takes the time at one point to, for some reason, address plot points from Operation: Galactic Storm of all places, as Ronan comes across former Kree allies who were forced to work for the Sh’iar after the Kree lost the Kree/Sh’iar War, but were given their “freedom” when the Kree Empire rose from the ashes, at which point the Kree did not want back the “traitors.” It’s an interesting enough idea – but Galactic Storm? Really? You want the reader to get into THAT?

Jorge Lucas’ art gets the job done, but does not go any further than that. His character designs are not exactly inspired, but everything is told in a clear manner, and he does not hurt the story, which I think is probably the most important rule of drawing a comic – don’t hurt the story. Once you’ve achieved that, then it would be nice to HELP the story, but that’s less important, I think, than simply just not HURTing the story.

It is interesting how Furman has Ronan go about clearing his name in such a seemingly dispassionate manner. It’s a nice character tic, and gives the book a lot of interesting scenes (like as Ronan just casually takes apart some people there to kill him, as his mind is preoccupied by his plight). The cliffhanger ending was a bit annoying to me, on a purely continuity level, in that the character who apparently is being sent after Ronan is a classic character who I’ve enjoyed, and I do not know if I like this new (at least I’m pretty sure it is new – 1 cool point to anyone who can tell me what the current status is for the character at the end of this issue) status quo for this character, as I enjoyed this character as a good guy.
In any event, while there was a lot to like about this comic, I think it strikes me a bit too “one-note” to recommend. But it was a pretty good comic, which I did not expect from a Ronan comic book.

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Wolverine #41 Review

I will totally cop to it – when Marvel signed C.P. Smith away from Wildstorm to do their New Invaders book, I totally didn’t understand the decision. I didn’t, like, hate his Stormwatch work or anything, I just didn’t see anything in there that would make an editor want to snatch him away from another company and give him a brand new comic launch. He seemed like an okay artist, but that was about it. Well, I was totally wrong – as C.P. Smith has now become an amazing artist, and seeing his art for thirty-five pages in this week’s Wolverine #41 was an amazing treat.

The closest artistic comparison I can think to Smith’s work would be John Paul Leon, who is, as you all know, an amazing artist in his own right. The comparison is in the way both artists use shadows. A good deal of their work is expressed in shadow, and using the darkness to distinguish characters – a lot of silhouettes and characters masked in black shadows. However, I think Smith is even more pronounced in his use of the technique than Leon. In fact, while all his characters evoke a John Paul Leon feel to them, his use of shadows probably more accurately resembles the work of the Eduardo Risso class of artists. A light-blue pack of cigarettes jumps out at the reader when placed in the hands and mouth of a silhouetted human being.

Back when he was doing New Invaders, this new style of Smith was slowly appearing, but I did not like it as much then, because I think he had a bit of a problem with using his style cohesively with the story – things would not make as much sense as the writer intended. In this issue, there is no such problem, as the work, while amazing to look at, also quite clearly expresses writer Stuart Moore’s story. There were two extremely breathtaking scenes that I wish to highlight. The first occurred when Wolverine is forced to the high grasses, as Smith’s lush grass work, broken up by the disharmony of tanks and jeeps, with a lone man sneaking through – it just works so effectively. The second is so clearly awesome, it even made its way to the cover of the issue – as, during one scene, the attackers (I don’t know why, exactly, rather than use guns) bombard Wolverine with arrows from a long distance. What an amazing shot of the arrows flying through the sky and barraging Wolverine. Such a brutally evocative image.

The story by Moore is interesting enough. Wolverine comes to a small African country called Zwartheid that was ruled by the United Nations as last in quality of life in the world. Black Panther wanted to intervene, but knew that he could not, due to an oath every Wakandan king has taken NOT to intervene in its neighbor’s affairs (convenient, eh?), so he went to the Avengers, and found Wolverine to volunteer. The king of Zwartheid has been driven out, and the only hope lies in his daughter, who may return to the country some day to bring peace back to Zwartheid. Wolverine’s mission is to spirit her out of the country – it’s a difficult one.

Some of the most interesting visuals in the comic come from seeing Wolverine wearing a bundled up child strapped to his chest. What I especially enjoyed was seeing how Moore was able to, while making Wolverine seem quite capable, never made him TOO capable. That’s always something that annoys me in Wolverine stories, when the writers make him TOO capable. Wolverine’s journey brings him face to face with many dangers, be it natural or man-made.

I would recommend this story, even if Moore’s story was not that good, just to see the tour de force performance by C. P. Smith. Luckily, Moore’s story IS good, so I can recommend this comic without reservation.

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Legends of the Dark Knight #204 Review

One of the recent popular “go to” clichés in Batman comics is the “Bruce discovering secret info about his parent’s past.” It often strains credulity a bit, sort of like how on The Practice, almost every big case started to involve someone’s best friend who we’ve never heard of before. You know, Batman will be investigating, say, Bane, and will learn that maybe Thomas Wayne was Bane’s father!! Or Bruce will meet a woman, and learn that maybe she was having an affair with Thomas Wayne! Stuff like that – it’s definitely an easy well to go to. However, Justin Gray, in Legends of the Dark Knight #204 goes one step further than just going to the “secret in his parent’s past” well, and it really does not work at all. You see, in the current storyline, Batman is facing a group of bad guys called the “Madmen of Gotham.” They can do all sorts of strange things, like turn people insane, or distort people’s bodies. Well, during the story, painters working in the Wayne Mansion discover a secret room that had been covered up. Bruce investigates the room and discovers that, in the past, his father was a part of a group called (wait for it) the Madmen of Gotham.

Credulity is like Stretch Armstrong. You can stretch it, but when you stretch it to the breaking point, you end up with toxic blue goo oozing everywhere. That is the problem with this scenario. It would be a cliché if Batman happened to discover the room, investigate the Madmen and discovered them, but at least it would make sense. Discovering the room AFTER the investigation began stretches credulity too far.

However, while it was annoying, it would be unfair to judge a story based solely on a plot point like that, so as for the rest of the issue….Steve Cummings (artist on the neat Deadshot mini-series) does a good job on the art chores, drawing in a style that resembles Tan Eng Huat a good deal. I enjoyed the artwork.

The Madmen themselves are fairly interesting. There is one character with powers at the end of the comic whose powers are just like an old Justice League Europe character that I wonder if Justin Gray was aware of when he created his character (two cool points to the person who names the JLE villain in question). I enjoyed the confrontations between Batman and the Madmen (I especially liked the nod to Batman telling Arkham “It’s a new one”). The cliffhanger, by the by, showing the bad guy’s power? Quite effective. An old-time cliffhanger, and one that works really well (it also worked really well when it was used in Justice League Europe…hehe).

In addition, the Madmen of the past are also fairly interesting, with a decent enough motivation for how the current Madmen probably came about (something about ending crime by messing with people’s minds – surprisingly, Thomas Wayne OBJECTED! You mean Batman’s dad is a really good guy? Shocking!). So, if it were not for the contrivance of the painters finding the secret room at this point, it would just be a standard enough cliché, and one that would work fairly well, I think.

Gray’s best moment of writing, in my opinion, came when Bruce and Alfred are talking about which woman Bruce should take out that night. It was very nice to see two old friends talk in a manner that showed how Alfred is still a sort of father figure to Bruce, even as Bruce has become a man.

Anyhow, the story as a whole is slight, but innocuous. I will not recommend it, but I do not think it is a bad comic by any stretch, but that “secret from Thomas Wayne’s past” thing was pretty darn silly.

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SOLO #10: Damion Scott Review

Come on, admit it, when you heard Damion Scott was doing a SOLO, you were a bit worried too, weren’t you? On the one hand, especially with the announcement of SOLO’s cancellation (I guess it was just too awesome of a concept for DC to continue with, and they’d prefer to publicize stuff like Dan Didio’s notes to Geoff on Infinite Crisis “Pages 16-17 – More casualties? Works for me” than to publicize one of the best books the company has, but que sera, sera), it was a shame to miss out on the total legendary artists who were scheduled to appear in the book in favor of a newer artist like Scott, and on the other hand, Scott’s last few issues of Robin weren’t just “not that good,” they were downright awful, appearing less like “trying something new artistically” and more like “barely trying” to the point where the news of Scott McDaniel taking over Robin’s art chores was the equivalent of hearing that Dave Gibbons was now going to be drawing Lady Death. Then there was the above cover, which didn't seem like this was going to be much of an improvement. So I can tell you, with a great deal of relief, that Mark Chiarello obviously is much smarter than I am, as his choice of Scott looks like a brilliant move, as the artwork by Scott in the issue is exemplary.

Sadly, the stories are mostly terrible.

However, a book like SOLO is there for the art, really, especially for a young artist like Scott (only 30 years old) who has never written a comic for DC before, so his stories (co-written with someone named Randee Carcano, except for the first tale, written by someone named Rob Markham) should not exactly have people’s expectations that high.

As for the art, in an intro piece, Scott explains, “Graffiti art is a major influence in my work. It speaks for my culture and is the style that most naturally flows through me. Throughout this book I’ve designed compositions that are my attempt to bring the “wylde style” to comic art.” Well, I believe Scott succeeds beatifullay at doing just that, filling the comic book to the brim with comic art in the style of graffiti. It is interesting and it is innovative, and this is just the sort of project that SOLO works so well with – letting innovative artists cut loose and do whatever they want.

The first story is a Flash one, evoking a bit of the Black Flash storyline by Mark Millar and Pop Mhan (as Mhan is probably the closest artist I can think of to Scott’s graffiti style), especially since, well, the Black Flash is in it. Each page of the story, while telling the story, is laid out like a mural, with no space on the page not being used fully for the art. The story, though, is extremely pedestrian. It is like a filler issue of Flash.

The highlight of the issue to me is the “Superman Is…” section. Scott draws eight pin-ups, each exemplifying a word Scott (and his “co-writer” Carcano…which is actually kinda creepy – he needed another person to help him come up with words that began with S, U, P, E, R, M, A and N?) thinks describes Superman. I wasn’t exactly impressed with the eight words they came up with, but the drawings – WOW. Earlier in the issue, Scott wrote about “Wildstyle” letters, which is writing in a very ornate way, to the point where it is difficult to read the words. Scott feels that it is worth it, as it forces the reader to take a close look at the art. The words for the “Superman Is” piece are all in “Wildstyle,” and it is extremely effective, especially Metropolis.

The third story is a piece where Scott goes back to the more generic style of art he used when he was drawing Batgirl. I was a big fan of that art style, and I was disappointed when he got further and further away from that style, but I see now that it was definitely holding him back. Still, it’s nice to see him draw in that style again (he used the same style when he took over Robin, until he dropped the style, and got really ugly looking), if even for a short story. Scott’s care for the character of Batgirl (as well as the female Robin, Stephanie Brown, who co-stars in the tale) is strong. The story, though, is not. Still, not a bad story. Just another pedestrian effort.

The final tale is a future story of Tim Drake as Batman and Cassandra Cain as a grown-up Batgirl, who work together to fill in the gap left by the original Batman. They are also romantically linked. Scott goes back to his graffiti style, and it works quite well. The story, other than the nice idea of needing TWO people to fill Batman’s shoes completely, is decent, but not great.

All in all, just on the great strength of his innovative work, which I think is a hallmark of the SOLO project, I will recommend this issue with reservation. The reservation is, of course, that the stories inside aren’t all that good. Still, some impressive artwork, which I was not expecting.

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Fantastic Four #537/Amazing Spider-Man #531

I think it’s fair to review these two comics together because they share two very important things. One, they are both written by J. Michael Straczynski, and two, they are both total “bureaucracy” issues. By bureaucracy, I mean that they are just dedicated to fixing up certain plot points to make future stories possible, they really do not exist for their own plots. Other “bureaucracy” comics include Green Lantern: Rebirth, that issue of Thor where Gruenwald and Macchio explained how Thor’s hammer could no longer travel through time, stuff like that.

Fantastic Four exists to A. Explain how Doctor Doom is back and B. Set-up Thor’s return later (likely during Civil War).

Amazing Spider-Man exists to set-up Civil War.

In both comics, there is a hint of an actual plot, with the Fantastic Four trying to keep Doctor Doom from getting a hold of Thor’s hammer, and in Amazing, Spider-Man fights the Titanium Man. But the hints are there only to distract you from the mountains and mountains of bureaucratic paperwork, like seeing exactly how Doom went from being stuck in hell, and why he no longer is wearing his costume made out of the flesh of his true love, and then the little end bit where a guy wearing a backpack with a “DB” is headed out to Oklahoma, where there is chaos ensuing around Thor’s hammer, which fell to Earth a few months ago, after the Ragnarok storyline in Thor, which ended with all the Asgardian gods dying.

What is striking to me about Fantastic Four is how JMS and artist Mike McKone (who I think does a better job on the flesh armor than Wieringo, who sorta made it look like Doom was wearing an old-timey football uniform than the flesh of a person) manage to sorta blow two scenes that would look really, really cool normally. The first is seeing Doom being unable to lift the hammer (a huge energy dispersal blocks this out) and the second is Thing being unable to lift the hammer. McKone DOES draw the latter in the comic, but it really does not come out that well.

That being said, I will give JMS credit for his portrayal of Doom. He has a nice bead on Doom, especially how quickly Doom is moving on to a new idea after he realizes he cannot possess Thor’s hammer. In addition, his explanation for Doom’s escape was good, as was the way he managed to tie it in with Thor’s hammer. But that’s not enough of a story to carry an issue, so I would give Fantastic Four a resounding “not recommended.”

Over in Amazing Spider-Man, JMS has a much better bead on the characters of Spider-Man and Iron Man, so the story reads smoother. Tyler Kirkham is not great, but he does not hurt the story, which is a good job. I was afraid he would get too stylized, and hurt the book, but he does not. He does a pretty good job (A quick word about the book’s cover – I don’t expect the covers to match the book, really, but it IS kinda funny how the covers to these two issues REALLY don’t match the books, as Doom doesn’t lift Thor’s hammer in the comic, and Captain America doesn’t even APPEAR in the issue at ALL. Not a big deal, but still pretty funny).

The annoying thing about the issue to me is that it only exists as “Civil War #-1.” It does not exist as anything BUT Civil War #-1, and even at that, it isn’t exactly compelling. The majority of the issue involves basically just repeating things we’ve already been told in interviews about Civil War, and most of it will very likely be REPEATED in Civil War – so why, exactly, was this TWO-ISSUE story necessary? Not recommended.

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NYC Mech: Beta Love #6 Review

The world of using non-humans to tell stories of humanity is quite vast. From Carl Barks’ Uncle Scrooge tales to Art Spiegelman’s Maus, writers working in this genre are in good company. This is the world that NYC Mech inhabits, and writers Miles Gunter and Ivan Brandon, along with the amazing Andy Macdonald on art, acquit themselves extremely well in it. NYC Mech: Beta Love has been a six-issue mini-series, released by Image Comics, of one-off stories, featuring the same two characters, Quentin and Nika, who meet each other in various situations. Quentin is a by-the-books type of guy, while Nika is a dashing criminal. The interaction of the two characters is impressive, and the depth of their relationship reminds me very much of the work of Brian Wood. Like Brian Wood, there is so much humanity and characterization infused in this short tale of two robots meeting again that one issue is all you NEED to know the characters, but one issue is never enough for what you WANT to know about these characters.

The cover by Eric Canete is strong (Canete sure does well at drawing mechanical humans, doesn’t he?), but the work inside by Andy Macdonald is breathtaking. In particular, there is a scene in the issue where Nika tempts Quentin by speaking of all the places they could go, and Macdonald has to illustrate them all, and it works so darn well. It’s one thing to be able to illustrate the places she’s talking about, it’s a whole other thing to work the illustrations INTO the story, which is what Macdonald does with, dare I say, grace and aplomb. In fact, that’s a sign of Macdonald’s great skill, the way he not only takes the direction from Gunter and Brandon, but he manages to synthesize their ideas into the story effortlessly. Whether it be a segue from a movie Quentin is watching to real life, or his depictions of the various gears and such that make up the character’s movements, while still never wavering from their various human expressions of pain, love and sorrow.

It does not hurt that Gunton and Brandon offer up a devil of an interesting plot for him to draw, of course. The set-up is simple, Quentin and Nika find themselves in a position where both of the two people (can’t bring myself to calling them robots) are completely set in their stance, and for either one to give on their stance would require betraying the very core of their being. So what do you do there? How do you resolve that? Their feelings are not being questioned – they are quite firm in their feelings for each other, the only question is the foundations of their beliefs. Is honor worth that much to Quentin? Is her lifestyle worth that much to Nika? These are the questions they not only have to answer, but they have to answer in a hurry, in a setting that does not lend itself to reasoned thought.

Like all great relationship-driven stories, there is more than a little bit of tragedy mixed into the tale. That is expected. Such is life. But HOW the tragedy works into the story is how the journey becomes enjoyable. I would recommend NYC Mech: Beta Love #6 without reservations, and I think that you do not need to read the previous five issues to follow this issue, which is fun. For more information about NYC Mech, check out their website here. It is a very well-put together website, I must say.

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Catwoman #54 Review

It’s kinda funny, but I have become so used to the characters in this title that it was not until reading this issue that it occurred to me – “Hey, wait a sec, Catwoman is a lesbian now! How has that not been made into a bigger deal?” IS that still a big deal? I honestly do not know. Do you think there are parents who will flip out if their kid is reading a comic about a lesbian? Oh well, no one’s really brought it up yet, so I guess it isn’t a big deal. That’s nice to hear.

As for the comic itself, Will Pfeifer does a good job on this issue, with basically just one drawback (although I think it’s a fairly decent-sized one) – this reads pretty much exactly like a standard “Friend of a hero becomes the hero when the hero can’t be the hero” storyline. I mean, you could take an issue of Denny O’Neil’s later run on Iron Man (once Tony was no longer a drunk) and easily turn it into an issue of this Catwoman, that’s how “by the books” a lot of the comic book was. However, that’s just plot. Plot-wise, that might be true, but unlike Denny O’Neil’s Iron Man (which I was not a fan of), there is a lot of good character moments that make this issue stand out from the pack.

David Lopez is a pretty good artist (is his inker, Alvaro Lopez, a relative?), and I especially loved (I mean, absolutely LOVED) the little tummy he gave Selina when she is seeing to her baby. Very nice touch. While Lopez is definitely no Pete Woods (who is?), he does a nice job of depicting the emotions on the characters. Occasionally, it seems like he goes a bit TOO far with the emotion, as some characters seem to go a bit into caricature than actual emotion (like when Slam Bradley is surprised, he looks like a cartoon character), but for the most part, it goes over quite well. I especially like how creepy he makes the new villain, the Film Freak. The Film Freak has a pretty good shtick, too. Very Silver Age-esque, but with a modern sensibility (although, when the Film Freak first showed up, I thought I was reading a Brian K. Vaughan comic for a sec, what with the long historical talk about Ed Gein).

The constant “nice touches” throughout the book demonstrate a real understanding of the form by Pfeifer, and it is impressive to see. The irony of the Angle Man deciding to do something “non typical super villain-y,” while, at the same time, being undone by doing something TOTALLY typical super villain-y” was an especially nice touch. The reactions of Holly, the reactions of Karon, the reactions of Slam – all note perfect. Also, any comic where you get to see Wildcat beating up people while his cell phone is ringing deserves some bonus points!

Selina’s situation, too, is handled quite well – as Selina is one of the few people out there who wake up at 3:30 am by their baby’s screaming to think “Hey, this is about the time that I would be going out.”

Also, what a cool Adam Hughes cover!

So I would recommend this comic, with the reservation that the general plot is quite familiar to quite a few readers out there. Oh, and it’s now TWO issues without the baby being kidnapped! Applause!!

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Storm #3 Review

A writing trick that has always annoyed me is the classic “have your less-famous character beat up a famous character, so it makes your less-famous character look better.” It’s a silly plot device, because “being able to beat up someone” is not some big deal. As Wizard used to say in the early days, Iron Man alone could probably take out most of the X-Men, doesn’t make him better than the X-Men. Reginald Hudlin used this trick in his Black Panther, but what’s even more annoying is that he took a plot that Christopher Priest had already done and redid it to have it come out the “have your less-famous character beat up a famous character, so it makes your less-famous character look better” way. Priest came up with the clever plot of having Captain America visit Wakanda during World War II and interact with T’Challa’s father, the Black Panther of the time. Hudlin decided to rewrite this encounter as the Black Panther beating the crap out of Captain America, and, in Storm #3, writer Eric Jerome Dickey has T’Challa add a little insult to injury when someone brings up the incident, as T’Challa says that no, his father did not defeat Captain America in hand-to-hand combat, as Captain America had his mighty shield and enhanced strength, so it was even MORE embarrassing for Captain America to lose. That really doesn’t have much to do with Storm #3, but it irritates me, and I figured you’d all like to know that…hehe.

David Yardin and Lan Medina do a nice job on the art for this series, but there really isn’t a lot for them to draw, as the whole issue is basically just dialogue, which is fine, as Dickey does a nice job with the dialogue, a great improvement over the first two issues relative dearth of dialogue (and, along with dearth of dialogue, dearth of depth). Dickey spends a LOT of time on a debate between T’Challa and the man who teaches Storm to steal stuff. It is very interesting. Later on, Dickey also does a good job on the interaction between Ororo and T’Challa. I specifically enjoyed the underlying current of sex – Ororo is inexperienced in that department, and she is given advice that she needs to be MORE experienced if she is expected to become a woman. How Ororo deals with this information, and her questioning of whether T’Challa wants sex from her, makes for an interesting characterization conflict.

Sadly, that’s the only interesting conflict IN Storm, as the actual conflict is pretty much moronic. Some dudes want Storm because she’s a “wind-rider.” That’s basically it. They have no real motivation, and they don’t really have a personality, either. Imagine if the adults in the Peanuts comic strips were villains – that’s the level of depth these bad guys are given. In this issue, we meet the super-powered Bull, who will undoubtedly make some trouble for Storm and T’Challa next issue, as we see him punch a charging bull so hard the bull’s neck breaks – so he’s pretty badass. He only appears in a couple of pages, though, so I don’t know why they gave him the cover of the comic. And, as you can see from the cover, he looks pretty dorky.

In closing, I would not recommend Storm #3, although there was a good deal of interesting discussions in the comic. For a moment, I was able to really get into the characters not just as “Oh, hey, this is a young Storm! And a young Black Panther,” but as actual, in-depth characters. I could almost imagine this working as an actual story. However, the other characters were seriously lacking, and the overall plot is pretty boring, actually, so I was, all in all, quite unimpressed.

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Runaways #15 Review

Perhaps one of the hardest tasks given to a comic book writer is to write a good “All-Ages” comic book. Often, the comic is either seen as too childish for older readers or too mature for younger readers. Brian K. Vaughan, I believe, has toed the line extremely well with his work on Runaways for Marvel, and that continues to be the case with this week’s issue. The big change in the comic in recent issues has been the emergence of Adrian Alphona (always a good artist) as an exceptional artist, especially for the type of stories Vaughan wants to tell, stories that rely heavily on the reader knowing exactly what it is each character is feeling just by looking at them. Credit is due, as well, of course, to Alphona’s inker, Craig Yeung and his colorist, Christina Strain. Toss in an excellent cover from Marcos Martin (my fav’rit), this is just a completely well put together comic book.

As great as the art has become as of late, this book continues to exist mainly as a centerpiece for Vaughan’s writing, and he does a very nice job in this issue. Perhaps because of the relative sales expectations for a Marvel superhero book as opposed to a Vertigo or “Wildstorm” book (I use the quotes because Ex Machina might as well be a Vertigo book), Vaughan seems to write this comic a bit differently from his other projects, with more of a reliance upon things happening, and less of a level of predictability.

The clever ending from last issue, with the return of not Alex Wilder, but his father from 1985, continues into this issue, as Geoffrey Wilder leads Alex’s gaming friends against the Runaways in an impressive display of strategy. One of the coolest bits in the comic was the way one of the new Pride (are they calling themselves the Pride? I forget) hacks into the newest member of the Runaways, Victor, “son” of Ultron. Their attempts at controlling him tie directly into his OWN worries of his control over himself (the Runaways were warned that he will grow up to become the greatest villain in the world), and make up the basis for Martin’s awesome cover.

Humor has always been an important aspect of Runaways, and it continues to be so, with quite a number of funny lines being exchanged in this comic, but the real star of the book is the interactions between the characters. Geoffrey Wilder is quite adept at using their own secrets against each other, but it is fun to see him use the friendship his son had with these gaming people to control THEM. It is so great to see how brainwashed the gaming people are by first, Alex’s diary, and now, by his father. This is where Alphona’s art shines – you can tell how uncomfortable these basically decent people are doing what they are doing, but they are just so convinced that the Runaways screwed over their friend that they are willing to do anything to avenge him.

So yeah, we have a lot of good character bits, some cool strategic ideas, a pretty cool dream sequence, a pretty cool action sequence, and a really nice cliffhanger (and one that plays fairly, in case anyone was curious). Just another impressive issue of an impressive book. And one that manages to be interesting for older AND younger readers. No wonder Marvel is doing a X-Men/Runaways issue for Free Comic Book Day. This is the type of book they should be crowing about. Recommended without reservation.

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