Archive for June, 2010

Bats and Buzzards

Batman #700

It’s a big anniversary issue of Batman, and Grant Morrison takes over to spin an epic mystery that takes three different Batmen to tell. We start out with Bruce Wayne as Batman and Dick Grayson as a teenaged Robin. They’ve been captured by the Joker, the Riddler, the Scarecrow, Catwoman (wearing her old Silver Age costume), and the Mad Hatter (looking more like the guy played by David Wayne in the old ’60s Batman TV show). The villains have forced a mad-but-not-evil scientist named Professor Carter Nichols to use his time travel technology to send Batman and Robin back and forth through time psychically. And while Joker rants about his special Joker’s Jokebook, plans to send Batman back to the time his parents died, and slash Robin’s face open, Bats finally escapes his bonds and lays the smackdown on everyone.

After that, we jump to today, with Dick Grayson as Batman and Damian Wayne as Robin. They’re investigating the death of Professor Carter Nichols, much older than he should be, and killed with a technologically-advanced laser blast. After laying the traditional black wreath in Crime Alley, knocking some gang members around, making a deal with some of the shady elements of Crime Alley, and eating some pizza, Batman and Robin pay a visit to an underworld auction for one special item.

And then we jump into the future, where Damian Wayne is the Batman. He’s got 20 minutes to keep a toxic rain of Joker Venom from driving everyone in Gotham City insane, rescue a kidnapped child, stop 2-Face-2, and find the Joker’s Jokebook before it falls into the wrong hands.

Verdict: Thumbs way, way, way up. Great writing by Morrison, great art by Tony Daniel, Frank Quitely, Scott Kolins, Andy Kubert, and David Finch, and a ton of really outstanding stuff. Lots of cool moments, too — the Joker smoking the Scarecrow’s fear gas like marijuana, Dick Grayson smiling as he deals with the Crime Alley residents, the creepy future Two-Face, the secret identity of the kidnapped child, and much, much more. If you enjoy Batman stories at all, you’re gonna love this one.

Buzzard #1

The Buzzard is a friend of the Goon — and where the zombies in Lonely Street like to eat people, Buzzard is an immortal who has to eat dead people to survive. After the Zombie Priest was unable to lift the curse on him, Buzzard goes to wandering, crossing somehow from one world to another. He gets himself a zombie horse and saves a town from monsters. And there’s a backup story, too, titled “Billy the Kid’s Old Timey Oddities and the Pit of Horrors.” Billy the Kid is one of the main characters, along with a motley band of cowpokes, witches, and monsters. They come across a gypsy camp where all but one man have been slaughtered. They can’t understand anything he says, so he’s unable to tell them about the monster in the forest stalking them all.

Verdict: Thumbs up. The Buzzard story is pitch dark, but still good fun. The Billy the Kid story is pretty wild — part Western, part horror story, part just plain weird. Why is Billy the Kid hanging out with a giant monster? Let’s hope we find out…

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Brain Candy

iZombie #2

Gwen Dylan is a brain-eating zombie — but that’s just because she has to eat a fresh brain once a month or she’ll turn into a mindless shambler. She’s gotten her monthly cerebellum snack, but now her head is filled with the deceased’s memories, and she’s trying to figure out who killed him. While she’s painting pictures of the dead guy’s memories, she and Ellie, the ghost from the ’60s, realize that there may be some connection to the spooky house and bandage-wrapped mummy they met aaaaall the way back in last October’s House of Mystery Halloween Annual.

Meanwhile, Spot’s geeky friends think he has a gay lover he meets once a month — coinciding with the full moon when he has to hide to maintain his secret life as a wereterrier. The monster hunters are, well, hunting monsters. And the vampire hotties who run the paintball course are faced with declining business and the possibility that there’s another vampire in town killing people and making the cops nervous.

Verdict: Thumbs up. I am really enjoying the little details of the weirdly mundane (or mundanely weird) existences of Gwen and her friends. The dialogue is fine — characterization is good, too. Michael Allred’s art is so much fun on this one. And ya gotta give props to Laura Allred’s colors on this one — Ellie seems to glow ethereally, and Gwen’s skin coloration is just barely off — enough to make her look like she might be a dead body. It really does a lot to help sell the series.

Chimichanga #2

Well, if we can’t have Eric Powell doing “The Goon,” we can at least have him doing this. Lula the little bearded girl has her work cut out for her trying to keep the gigantic monstrous Chimichanga from eating everyone at the circus. But things seem to be paying off once she’s got him under control, ’cause the crowds pour in to see Chimichanga and his stunts. Unfortunately, the other circus performers are all jealous of all the attention he’s getting. And even worse, Dagmar the Witch has sold her anti-flatulence formula — made partly with Lula’s chin-whiskers — to a giant pharmaceutical company. And it turns out that her serum is only a temporary cure — the gas comes back worse than ever! Seeing a potential gold mine — a non-cure that will make everyone buy it and use it over and over and over — the company puts it into production. But to meet their sales figures, they’re going to need more of Lula’s beard…

Verdict: Thumbs up. Nothing much I can say about this other than — it’s very, very weird and very, very funny.

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Parker Can’t Lose

Richard Stark’s Parker: The Hunter

I’m really, really late to the party at this point. This came out last year, and I delayed getting it because of the $25 price tag. I finally found it somewhere for an extra $10 off and snapped it up. My only regret is that I waited so long to get it — it’s absolutely worth 25 smackers.

If you’ve been living in a hole, this is a comic adaptation of the first of the “Parker” novels by Richard Stark (whose real name was Donald Westlake). All the art is by Darwyn Cooke, who’s best known to comics fans as the guy behind “DC: The New Frontier,” the “Spirit” revival, and lots of other cool, retro projects.

Parker is a criminal. He specializes in heists — he gets a team together, goes in to some place with a lot of money, steals it, then lives in swanky hotels on his ill-gotten cash for a few years ’til it’s time to restock the bank account. But he got double-crossed on the last job, most of his team got killed, his wife got threatened into betraying and shooting him, and he got jailed for vagrancy for several months. Once he makes his escape, he returns to New York as one big, ice-cold bucket of rage, ready to track down his wife and the crook who betrayed him. And he wants his money back, even if he has to take on the Mob to get it.

Parker is an incredibly unsympathetic character — he starts the book jumping subway turnstiles and stiffing waitresses and quickly moves up to forging a drivers license, committing check fraud, assault, encouraging someone to commit suicide, and desecrating a corpse. And he escalates things from there. He’s a rotten piece of work in every way, and I have no idea why he makes such a compelling character, unless we’re just hardwired to sympathize with hardboiled, rage-fueled crooks. Or it could be just that Westlake and Cooke are great storytellers. I’m leaning toward the latter, but we are a pretty psychotic species sometimes.

Let’s talk about art. I’m a fan of Darwyn Cooke — a big, big fan. His part-retro/part-animated-action style is colossally appealing, and he really knows how to tell a story right, how to frame a pose, how to amp up the drama and suspense. He’s got a great eye for period detail.

And here’s the thing I still can’t get over — I read the book, and I remembered it being in color. But it’s not — someone reminded me that it’s all done with black ink, blue ink, and off-white paper. But I still remembered it being in full color. How could I mistake blue ink and black ink for color? That’s how good Darwyn Cooke’s art is.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Late to the party, sure, but I gotta say it. If you ain’t got it, go get it. And there’s more on the way — Cooke’s putting out the second book in the series this summer. Smart money says it’ll be worth the 25 bucks, too.

Today’s Cool Links:

  • Space Weather could wreak havoc on Earth technology. SPAAAAAACE WEATHERRRRRR!
  • Ragnell writes a long post about her pick for the only cool prince in Disney’s classic movies.

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Adventures in Babysitting

Thor and the Warriors Four #3

Power Pack has journeyed to Asgard in an attempt to cure their dying grandmother, but have accidentally been used as pawns by Loki and the Enchantress. As a result, all of the Asgardians have been turned into babies. It’s insanely chaotic (but also insanely funny), and things aren’t made any better, when Loki returns in his old-man disguise and tricks the kids into going on a quest for the Golden Apples of Idunn. Alex doesn’t trust the situation and stays behind, but the other three kids (along with Baby Thor and Baby Beta Ray Bill) set off to try to defeat the challenges on the way to the apples — the Door of the Aesir, the Path of the Vanir, and the terrible Ratatosk, Squirrel of Mischief! Can the kids get past all three challenges? And if they succeed, what does Loki have in mind for them?

And in the backup story by Colleen Coover, Hercules and Power Pack clean up the kids’ home while Herc tells them stories about his Twelve Labors — and perhaps most awesomely, joins Katie for a tea party. What, you don’t think the Lion of Olympus sometimes craves a little pretend tea?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Absolutely fantastically cute. Probably worth buying solely for the brief cameo of Baby Hogun the Grim, Baby Thor saying “I can get dressed! I’m a big boy!” and Hercules’ tea party.

Hercules: Twilight of a God #1

Wait, isn’t Hercules dead? Well, this story is set in the distant future, after he’s presumably been resurrected. Heck, it doesn’t even take place on Earth — everything happens on the planet Wilamean in the Andromeda Galaxy. Due to an accident in which Herc was trying to save a city from a missile, got his tunic caught on the missile, and ended up getting bashed into a few buildings at several hundred miles an hour, he now has to take medication to keep from being addled, and he can’t drink without cancelling out the medication — and he runs the risk of being killed by any serious head injury. Herc’s best friends are a robot and an elderly but mischievous Skrull, and his children and grandchildren rule the city of Port Anteris, but Prime Minister Spincor hates them all and plots to get rid of them by publicly embarrassing them all during a festival honoring Hercules. Is there any way to save Hercules’ reputation?

Verdict: Thumbs up, I think. A story about Greek demigods set in the far future in another galaxy is a bit unexpected, but the story seems fine. My biggest complaint is that Herc is generally depicted as not much more than a buffoon — though he’s a buffoon with a long and respected history, even here, as a leader and hero.

Secret Avengers #1

Steve Rogers, the original Captain America, has decided to put together a covert team of Avengers to take care of shadow-ops missions that are out of the public eye. He recruits Valkyrie, Black Widow, Beast, Moon Knight, War Machine, Nova, and Ant-Man, and they embark on an extended mission to track down the Serpent Crown. But it’s not the usual Serpent Crown, and that leads to the suggestion that there may be more than one of them out there. They come into conflict with the always-villainous Roxxon Oil Company and another organization dedicated to finding the Crown for themselves.

Verdict: Thumbs up. A lot of our time is taken up with introducing our lead characters and recounting how Steve recruited them, but we get a good amount of plot and action besides, and I’m gonna declare that a very good thing.

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Friday Night Fights: All Quacked Up!

Listen here, people, we had to take a week off from our usual Friday Festival of Fisticuffs, but we’re getting right back into it now. Ready or not, it’s time for… FRIDAY NIGHT FIGHTS!

We’re pulling tonight’s battle from May 1976’s Howard the Duck #3 by Steve Gerber, John Buscema, and Steve Leialoha, as our much-maligned mallard — fresh from being declared a Master of Quack Fu — mops the floor with a bunch of belligerent mooks:

Everyone have a great weekend — we’ll see you back here on Monday…

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Impolite Society

Justice Society of America #39

In this time-travel mini-epic, the Nazis of the Fourth Reich were a lot better organized than I would’ve expected — they’re able to trick the Green Lantern Corps and a whole bunch of Earth’s outer-space allies into attacking, just so they can hit them with the power-removing Darkness Engine. That left the rest of the planet unable to stop the Nazis from taking over, and now, after a few decades of living under Nazi rule, the imprisoned and depowered superheroes are finally going to strike back. Most of ’em get slaughtered — nearly all of their missions are suicide missions designed to keep some of the Nazi war machines occupied until someone can make it into the tower where the Darkness Engine is located. Does that mean they can travel back in time and prevent this? Not a chance.

Verdict: Thumbs up. While I do think this storyarc has gone on too long, I’m fairly happy with how this chapter of the story goes down. Yes, it’s completely hopeless and tons of superheroes buy the farm, but that’s also to be expected in this kind of time travel story — by the time the final chapter arrives, the big red Reset button will be pressed, and everything will be right as rain.

JSA All-Stars #7

Here’s a thoroughly odd issue. Thanks to the wonders of overlapping comic book storylines, the last few issues of this comic featured Damage, a character who was killed months ago during “Blackest Night.” Though I suspected he’d be one of the people resurrected, he stayed dead, so this issue is Damage’s long-delayed funeral issue. Most of it is told from Judomaster‘s point-of-view, which I’m happy with, ’cause it’s way, way past time she had some kind of spotlight other than “that martial arts (but not judo) girl who used to be able to speak English but can’t anymore.” After Damage’s death, she learned that Sand had foreseen his death and warned him about it, but he chose to go out and fight the Black Lantern zombies anyway. Before he died, he left a video message for her, but it just upsets her even more, and she goes out to kill the assassin who murdered her father years ago. However, King Chimera shows her the rest of the message that she missed, and after delivering Damage’s eulogy, she does a few unusual good deeds he wanted to do in life.

Verdict: Thumbs up. This was a bit hokey in places, but it had some genuine emotion, good action, and a better eulogy than I was expecting. And Judomaster is a much more bearable character, now that she’s not the dead-silent ninja stereotype anymore.

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Behind the Magic Eight Ball

Madame Xanadu #23

Morgaine le Fey has Nimue and John Jones on the ropes — as a (shhh, don’t tell) Martian, he’s got a weakness against fire, and that’s what Morgaine is attacking them with. While Nimue manages to teleport them to safety, Morgaine is now clued in that Nimue has hidden the helmet artifact she was seeking somewhere in her mostly-wrecked brownstone home. Nimue beats Jones back to her home, but must now fight her sister alone — and Morgaine is a much stronger spellcaster. Does Nimue have any way to win out against her sister?

Verdict: Thumbs up. I would’ve liked to see more stuff here with the disguised Martian Manhunter… but then again, it’s not his comic book, is it? A lot of what we get here is two women throwing spells at each other, but it’s nice to see Nimue use her own cleverness against Morgaine’s greater magical powers.

Mystery Society #1

This new series introduces us to Nick Hammond and his wife Anastasia Collins, co-leaders of an organization called the Mystery Society. Mystery hunters at heart, they both specialize in more supernatural mysteries. Most of the story is told in flashback, as Nick is about to start a prison sentence for a number of possibly trumped-up crimes. We learn about Nick infiltrating the very heavily guarded Area 51 to locate two little girls being held in some sort of stasis. Anastasia, meanwhile, is seemingly safe at home until she finds a skull-faced intruder in the house. How are Nick and Anastasia going to deal with this crazy stuff?

Verdict: Thumbs up. The story is great fun, and Nick and Anastasia are a combination we really don’t get to see very often in comics — equal partners, wisecrackers, very much in the “Nick and Nora Charles” vein. They’re great fun to hang out with, frankly, and that’s even before there are any fisticuffs with oversized robots or skull-masked burglars. And the art is by Fiona Staples, who I hope many of y’all will remember from the wonderful “North 40” series from a while back. So yes, I’d say this one looks like a keeper.

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Bruce Pilgrim vs. the World

Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne #2

Bruce Wayne is lost in time — after spending some time in prehistory, he awakens in colonial-era Gotham, fights a time-monster, and is rescued by a witch named Annie. Elsewhen, Superman, Green Lantern, Booster Gold, and Rip Hunter visit the Vanishing Point, the final 10 minutes before the end of the universe, where the high-tech temporal archivist explains a few details of time travel. Back in colonial days, Bruce has gotten acclimated and taken up a new identity as Brother Mordecai, a witchfinder with a serious bent toward detective work and uncovering non-witch scam artists. He’s opposed, however, by Brother Malleus, who takes his witchfinding very, very seriously. Will Bruce be able to keep Annie safe? Will he be able to foil Malleus’ plots? Will he be able to defeat the time-monster? And why is the time archivist stranding the superheroes at the end of the universe?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Artist Frazer Irving worked on the similarly-themed “Klarion” miniseries during Grant Morrison’s “Seven Soldiers” event, and his art is wonderful — though I do wish he’d made Bruce Wayne look a bit different from Brother Malleus. Aside from that, it’s another excellent issue. Gee, ain’t it a wonder that a fanatic like Bruce Wayne makes such a great pilgrim?

Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam! #16

Black Adam is back, and he’s empowered Freddy Freeman as Black Adam Junior. While Captain Marvel and Black Adam are mystically unable to harm each other, Black Adam Junior is able to hurt Cap, so while Junior pounds on the hero, Black Adam uses the distraction to look for the ancient scarab medallion he believes will make him even more powerful. When he can’t find it, he accuses Cap of hiding it, and he starts flinging cars at innocent bystanders to get him to tell him where it is. This doesn’t sit well with Junior, but all Adam cares about is getting the scarab back. And when Mary accidentally blabs that the Wizard Shazam has it, they’re all off for the Rock of Eternity for a final battle.

Verdict: Thumbs down. Just didn’t enjoy the story. And it turned out a lot darker, more violent, and more depressing than I’d rather see in an all-ages comic.

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Code Red

Green Lantern #54

While Red Lantern Corps members Atrocitus and the impossibly adorable blue alien space kitty Dex-Starr burn up a bunch of muggers on a subway train, Hal Jordan, Carol Ferris, and Sinestro try to move the White Lantern battery that’s appeared in a crater in Silver City, New Mexico. They can’t budge it, but are treated to a vision demanding that they locate the alien entities that serve as the incarnations of the power of each of the seven Lantern Corps. Unfortunately, a mysterious figure has already captured and bound Parallax, and he does the same to Ion after drawing it out of Sodam Yat. Why is Atrocitus seeking the same entities? And why has this issue’s guest star showed up with a mad-on to pound the stuffing out of Hal Jordan?

Verdict: Thumbs up. The story is fine, the art by Doug Mahnke is as phenomenal as ever, and Dex-Starr is the cutest and most loveable blood-barfing kitty-smoochins ever. Hey, let’s make some Dex-Starr lolcats, a’ight?

And here’s another.

Man, that is an awesome cat. Probably sits in cardboard boxes all day. Might be a bit more trouble to clean up his hairballs, though…

Detective Comics #865

Jeremiah Arkham — former director of Arkham Asylum, former gangland supervillain as Black Mask, and current asylum inmate — thinks he’s slaughtered his three “special patients,” but in truth, it was all a hallucination brought on a combination of Jeremiah’s madness and a toxin left by the Joker. Once the toxin wears off, will Arkham be back to his old self? Will his protege Alyce Sinner end up on the side of the angels or the devils? And what’s going to happen to Jeremiah once the psychotic Mr. Zsasz gets his hands on him?

In our backup story, the immortal Vandal Savage wants either the Question or the Huntress to willingly accept the Mark of Cain — he’s gotten tired of wearing it, and he’s willing to track down and kill both of them if one doesn’t accept the mark and its curses. Who will accept Savage’s challenge, and what price will they pay?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Actually, I enjoyed the main story mostly for the creepy Alyce Sinner than for Jeremiah Arkham, who seems to get tiring fast. Batman himself doesn’t figure very much into the story. I really, really enjoyed the second feature starring the Question. I love both Greg Rucka’s writing and Cully Hamner‘s artwork on this one.

Today’s Cool Links:

  • I really wish that someone would tell Rick Perry he’s never going to be president, so he should quit with the grandstanding tomfoolery. The teabaggers want Palin, the non-teabaggers want Romney, and Perry’s undisguisable arrogance and borderline-sociopathy won’t play well on the national stage.
  • If you haven’t read “Awesome Hospital” yet, you really, really need to.
  • Here are Salon’s picks for the most important zombie movies.

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