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beccatoriaOMGS IT'S OVER.
Okay. Week 4. Alphabetical. Spoilers. Slightly less about boobs.
All-Star Western #1
Okay, I'll get my grip out of the way first. This is one of the few $3.99 rather than $2.99 books that's oversized to make up for the extra dollar price. Justice League and Action are just longer stories, and Men of War is called Men of War instead of Sgt Rock because the main feature is Sgt Rock and the backup is, um, some other thing. For some reason I was under the impression that All-Star Western was called All-Star Western instead of Jonah Hex because it was gonna have another Western comic as a backup feature. I thought that'd be cool. But instead it's just a larger comic. Which, don't get me wrong, I don't think that's a rip-off, I just think it's a shame. I know that Action is bringing back the backup feature at some point, so maybe this will too. Otherwise I guess it'll be like Action and Detective in that it'll mostly be about Jonah Hex (rather than Superman or Batman respectively) but occasionally other characters?
Whatever, it's a tiny complaint, I just like the idea of backup features and I'm sad that only a single comic currently has one!
Talking about the ACTUAL comic, though, it's really well done. It has a great sense of style and I think that the way it ties into modern day Gotham stuff is great for people who will get the references to things like Mayor Cobblepot but it doesn't matter a bit if it goes over your head. The story is compelling enough, I guess. It's standard fare about a Jack-the-Ripper style killer (or possibly a pair of killers) offing whores in a Victorian city. I could criticise that as derivative but I think I'd rather, currently, go for the term classic, unless the resolution is a let down.
The really fun part of the story, aside from the evocative way the setting is conveyed, is the interaction between Jonah Hex and Dr Arkham. It's a classic buddy-cops-divergent-personalities team-up that transcends the stereotype due to the various twists - the setting, the characters involved and our preconceptions of their histories and associations, etc. - and it just feels marvelously madcap and surreal.
In addition, Dr Arkham's profession means I really enjoyed the way he spent the entire comic psychoanalysing Jonah Hex and thus introducing both himself through his narrative style, and Jonah Hex, to the reader, in addition to it being one more way to create a textured and believable Victorian-era world. These comics are full of tricks to pull off this sort of thing, but I honestly think this is probably the best execution of it I've yet seen.
Unfortunately I have less good things to say about the art. It's perfectly passable and I concede there is a strong argument that the sketchy tone and washed out colouring is one more way of adding to the overall atmosphere of the book, but personally I found it - in particular the near monochromatic colouring - to be, honestly, a little boring. I would like to see what the book looked like with a more varied palette.
It's a good, solid story about a cowboy and a Victorian psychologist hunting a serial killer in a town that only thinks it's no longer ruled by the same laws as the frontier.
That said, I'm not a huge Western fan, and while I can appreciate the obvious quality, neither Jonah Hex nor Dr Arkham inspired me to continue reading this, but I feel that's more an issue of personal taste, and perhaps if there weren't 52 new titles to choose from this month, I could be persuaded differently.
4 out of 5 Mutilated Bounty Hunters
Pull List Status: No, and as I said, it's not really my thing, but that's not a knock on it. It's purely an issue of personal taste. I might read it if someone put it in front of me, though.
Aquaman #1
I...surprised myself by quite liking this! It's not actually that I dislike Aquaman. I don't know that much about him, and on the minus side he has serious manpain with the whole dead child, lost hand, angry and dead wife thing - that whole gratuitous, sensationalised tragedy that comics occasionally succumbs to. Women, children and hands in refrigerators, oy.
On the plus side, he's the freaking KING OF ATLANTIS. He's majestic. He has gravitas. Sure there's the practical issue of his water-based abilities meaning that it's harder to intuitively imagine him as parts of land-based adventures, and since we're land-based creatures, that's sort of a failing, but there's something rich and regal about vast, undersea kingdoms - mystical and alien.
So you know, jokes about Aquaman are funny, yes, but also he's, you know, fine. There's a set of images of him I enjoy but beyond that I just don't particularly feel the need to have him in my life.
And this comic did a reasonable job of convincing me otherwise. Aquaman's an interesting enough character - it does a good job of introducing him and making him sympathetic and a credible hero. The recap of his past is well-done for new readers (sort of like me - I had only a very cursory knowledge of Aquaman - that he was King of Atlantis, which sometimes led to awesome art, and that everyone kept dying on him, which put me off of reading it much), but it wasn't long enough - I don't think - to annoy longstanding fans. I also like that he's one of the few heroes allowed to keep his marriage and, consequently, promising to perhaps have an important supporting female character. Which has been quite rare among the male superhero titles - most of the women, even the nifty ones I want to read more about (like Lois or Iris), are still necessarily kept out of the world of the main narrative, which I anticipate won't be the case with Mera. Sure she's still the love interest of our male hero, but whatever, I have bigger, um, fish to fry, on that topic later - it didn't really bother me here. That's more a thing about the general state of the mass media than Aquaman #1 specifically!
I also enjoyed the new bad guys more than I thought I would. From solicits I knew there'd be some new creepy species called The Trench or something and honestly, it didn't grab me. Cthulu creatures from the deep are always awesome but are also easy to become recycled ideas. I have no idea which this will turn out to be yet, but two things elevated them to the point where I wanted to give them a chance to win me over. Firstly, the simple way that their dialogue is depicted in splots of ink - creepy and squiddishly appropriate, even though they aren't squid (but seriously, squid are creepy). Secondly, the opening scene, while a very basic idea - creepy undersea creatures rising from the deep - something about their dialogue - in particular the opening line, "It is true. There is an above." was superbly creepy in its simple specificity.
The art was also very solid throughout, but it rose to flatout great in the ocean scenes, particularly the opening with the dark sea inks. Also a later panel with a stream of bubbles heading up to the surface - just beautiful.
Now, the parts I didn't enjoy so much. One is fairly trivial - which is that I find myself slightly unsure what Aquaman's powers are. I appreciated the rundown on the fish-based telepathy, but he obviously also has super strength and invulnerability and um, super jumping. This is fine and all, but given that it's not the sort of thing I'm accustomed to expecting from, err, a fish, it'd be nice to find out at some point what, specifically he can do, and why. Is it because he's Atlantean? Does he have the strength of um, a strong type of marine life? I'm honestly not being facetious here - I'd genuinely like to know because the comic goes out of its way to show us that he's not about talking to fish and is instead about picking up trucks with his trident (is it magical?) but then spends more time telling us what he doesn't do than what he does.
However, I'm also not trying to be a pedant on that point - there's plenty of time to get to that later based on either showing or telling us in later issues. But it was something that crossed my mind.
The bigger issue, I feel, is the way the writer head-on addresses the way Aquaman is a bit of a joke. Honestly, it's an approach I can really get behind but the execution is clunky. I think it really works in getting us on Aquaman's side as well as providing a welcome relief to the unspoken fears/beliefs of many readers and an excuse to talk about those issues. But there's just something about the way EVERYONE is SO horrible about it I find myself wondering if they know anything about Aquaman at all? I mean, he says he heard the sirens from the harbour - is this not normally a part of his patrol? I guess it comes down to, I bought the blogger - obnoxious as he was - and thought that worked well. But the reaction of the criminals and the police I think was overdone. I can buy the criminals being relieved it's "just" Aquaman because he's the "fish guy" and they can just run him over, right? Or shoot him? And then being shocked when that's not the case. But flatout laughing at him? I mean, the dude's still part of the Justice League, so if he has any kind of public profile at all, it must be known that he's like, you know, an actual superhero who can punch the shit out of people. Otherwise no one would know who he was at all? It just felt a little overplayed.
On the other hand, the fish and chips line was hilarous. Though since he's in America, I then imagined someone bringing him out fish and potato chips and I got sad. Then I imagined fish and french fries and I was still sad. COME TO BRITAIN, AQUAMAN. WONDER WOMAN CAN TAKE YOU TO A PROPER FISH AND CHIP SHOP IN LONDON WHERE SHE LIVES NOW!
Right, the final thing that concerned me a little was Aquaman saying that he wanted to leave Atlantis and live on the surface. Partly this is because I like his Atlantean schtick. I WANT him to be the regal King of Atlantis, it's an interesting aspect to his superhero persona and without it, he's just a water-powered superhero. I'm also a little confused as to why he wants this. He says that the Atlanteans don't really feel like his people, etc., and I guess I can buy that, but as a new reader, if that's referencing older continuity, obviously that doesn't have so much emotional resonance with me, whereas what does have emotional resonance with me is how little everyone on the land seems to respect him. And it's not that I want to see him throw a tantrum and naff off back to the sea just because he got a little bit of teasing, it's just...it doesn't feel like the cleanest emotional beat. I want to live on the dryland where I am a walking joke! Possibly he wants to challenge that stereotype and build his own identity, but what if he finds the same thing he did under the water? Also I'm sad! Atlantis! Come back!
On the other other hand, it's a good thing I'm asking these questions. As I said, I did find this a surprisingly enjoyable comic book.
3.5 out of 5 Possibly Magical Tridents.
Pull List Status: No and it's not going on it, but I'm tentatively considering buying #2 just to see what happens, and continuing on a week-by-week basis after that. I feel like I could easily drop it, but this is the first book where I'm...sort of considering casually buying it (as opposed to Demon Knights which I am flat out going to get as an addition; I have X slots on my pull list and X cash for impulse monthly purchases, basically, though, ahahaha, I actually lost my job on Friday so, um, we'll have to see 'bout that if I don't find something else soonish. I have first world problems, yo).
Batman: the Dark Knight #1
I do not understand why this comic exists. Seriously there are FOUR titles starring Batman (Detective Comics, Batman, Batman & Robin and this one, not including team books like Justice League and possibly Justice League International), so I'm assuming it's just here to...publish a book about Batman every week? Superman's the only other guy headlining more than one title, and one of those is Action Comics which is technically a showcase title that doesn't have to star him (and sometimes doesn't). So like, fine, keep Detective. I guess you can even keep Batman & Robin if you really have to, though I'd prefer it just be called Robin and Batman will obviously be a major supporting character. But this one? There's just no compelling reason for it to exist on an ideological level beyond market saturation and the book itself doesn't do much to justify its existence either. And I do feel that it's worth taking this comic in the context of its production, not purely the material within it.
However, the material within it is pretty dire. I guess if I hadn't read the other Batman comics this month I might not notice but it copies a bunch of their major themes. I don't think it's copying from them, I think it's running with classic Batman stuff but that's the sort of problem you end up with when you have FOUR BATMAN TITLES.
Batman swings through Gotham self-narrating what turns out to not be his inner monologue but a speech he's giving as Bruce Wayne while talking about rejuvenating the city. This exact same thing happens in Batman #1. And Batman #1 does it better. Then he goes to handle a breakout in Arkham. Again, Batman #1 does this. The "shock" ending with Two-Face also - in the context of FOUR BATBOOKS - comes across as similar to the "shock" ending in Detective with the Joker. And again, much as I didn't like Detective much, it did it better than this one.
I also found it plain hard to really get into the comic. I was willing to wait for the reveal, but it didn't happen within the book, and I wonder if it'll be too late by next book - when Batman shows up, how does he know to immediately go after Two-Face? Is he the only high profile target in the asylum right now? Did he notice some awesome detective thing? I want to know!
The dialogue, in places, is painful. Batman gritting out, with regards to the 68 officers stuck behind the breakout lines, "sixty-eight FAMILIES" is just....uuuuuuugh. Yes, I get it. He's gritty. He cares deep down in his craggy heart. He's morally superior. And I'm rolling my eyes.
Also, I get that it's not slang that is common in the USA, so I'm sure the writer had no idea what he was doing and the questions of international editorial proofing against this type of thing and how far it should go is fair, but, end of the day, Two-Face calling Batman, "Batty-Boy"? ...Yeah. *facepalm*
Finally, it's our first installment of "The New 52: BOOBS edition" of the week, because I actually felt really uncomfortable at the women in this comic. With Jaina, it was mostly an issue of how she was drawn. Women are always gonna flirt with Bruce Wayne and he was flirting back, no harm no foul, it was actually not quite as badly written as some of the other stuff (though the international divide shows again as Wayne uses a football term I had to wiki, and I'm generally pretty up on US terminology on account of spending time with family there). But I dunno, there's some indefinable discomfort about the way women are drawn here. It just feels to Michael Turner for my tastes (who is a fantastically talented artist but honestly, makes every woman look like she belongs on the cover of Playboy which is always distracting and a little awkward). I concede that to be an issue of personal taste.
What I think isn't an issue of personal taste is the pure stupidity of having an actual Playboy Bunny as a character. Based on future covers she will be sticking around, and while I'm assuming villain, none of my points really change if she's there to assist Batman instead. Seriously. A Playboy Bunny?! What...even is that if not the epitomy of fan service? (First person to claim it makes thematic sense because Bruce is a playboy billionaire gets a free punch for missing the point). And she gets introduced in a horribly uncomfortable panel designed specifically to show off her thong-clad ass? Seriously, that panel offended me on a bunch of levels and as I think I proved with Catwoman last week (whether I'm right or wrong), I don't have any objection to some quasi naked chicks running around, but context is important and the context here is...lolz Batman's got his own Playboy Bunny? In an insane asylum? Is there context? WHAT'S GOING ON IT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE.
So yes. Epic fail on the bunny girl. The rest was merely boring and poorly written. Without the bunny thing, it's a 2/5 comic. But with it, I give it:
1.5 out of 5 One-Faced Two-Faces.
Pull List Status: Lolz, no.
Blackhawks #1
I liked this a lot more than I expected. Not enough to decide I want to buy it, but considering I (a) hate military stories and (b) was dreading reading this, I think it says a lot that I actually enjoyed it!
It feels very GI Joe. It's fun, it's loud, it has action that is probably totally ridiculous but it doesn't have the "angsty brother soldiers" aspect of most military teams in the media these days which was a real relief to me. It has wacky science and a Lady Blackhawk (who is not the awesome blonde 1950s Lady Blackhawk and also was not in the comic very much but I has a nostalgia. Plus this way I guess original flavour Lady Blackhawk can still arrive in some kind of time-travel disaster and then they can start a comic called Blackhawk & Blackhawk where the Ladies Blackhawk fight crime and/or monsters. Crime monsters! It would get canceled after eight issues, which may still be two more than this one).
It's the kind of comic that makes you think that fighting a giant crime monster with your doppelganger wouldn't be out of place, is what I'm saying. It's wacky. Which is an achievement for a book that is at least trying (and not that unsuccessfully) to be about a military unit rather than, um, Demon Knights or Secret Six.
I think if I liked military teams I'd think this was tremendous fun, although not as original as either of the comics I name-checked above. The cliffhanger is a reasonable one, that's well set up in the issue, but hardly a mindblowing gamechanger. Similarly, I like all the characters well enough, but no one is screaming at me that I'm going to love them. Basically it's a competent book that earns a bit of extra love for going the unexpected route of fun instead of angsty.
Although I refuse to take seriously the fact that the the publication of their logo is suddenly a problem. If you're part of a secret unit that is so secret even a picture of its secret logo could DOOM YOU, maybe you shouldn't actually have a logo.
I kind of want to give this a higher score than I'm going to because it exceeded my expectations, and obviously personal opinion is always a factor in reviewing. But objectively I think it's good but not fantastic. The fact it's so fun elevates it above average but most of the rest of the comic is pretty average. That said, I expect that if you're someone who likes stuff like GI Joe, you'll think I'm being stingy, and I also rate this expecting future issues to improve rather than stay steady or decrease.
3 out of 5 Top Secret Logos.
Pull List Status: No, but that's because it's not my genre not because it's bad. I WILL, however, be getting issue #3 because the solicitation promises, and I quote, "Lady Blackhawk battles the internet". THERE IS NO WAY THAT WILL NOT BE AWESOME.
The Flash #1
The art in this is beautiful. It's a real example of merging artistic style and story that I think only really occurs in Batwoman elsewhere in the relaunch. The pastel colours are beautiful as are the open pencils of the characters and landscapes, that nonetheless convey a sense of freewheeling speed. It's a really beautiful book to look at and gives the whole thing an optimistic, free feeling that's rare in the increasingly dark and angsty world of superheroes. This feels like being The Flash is a great thing, and as a result the darker moments when Barry must consider the possibility he has killed a friend by accident, feels far less turgid than it would in another book.
I'm not very familiar with Barry Allen or Iris West. From this book, I really like Iris a lot, honestly I get much more sense of her personality than Barry's, which is a potential flaw. There was a delightfully sharp, yet optimistic, sense of the fifties in the way she introduced herself as "Iris West, Central City Citizen" and her tenacity in chasing down the lead from Barry really won me over. I imagine that if I were a fan of the couple, I would be as upset by the dissolution of this marriage as I am of Lois and Clark's. And I feel the same way that I'm not really sure, ultimately, what the point was. Retelling that story is fine, even fun, but if the status of an attached superhero is uninviting, then surely stories have to be invented to prevent the inevitable and I guess I've just never been a fan of the conventional television wisdom that a will-they-won't-they relationship is interesting rather than mindnumbingly boring. We'll see.
The cliffhanger was fine, and I think the idea of a "villain" with multiple bodies is interesting for a hero like The Flash, but ultimately, the strength of this comic isn't in its (perfectly serviceable but not amazing) plot but its art and its visuals, and in that, it excels.
4 out of 5 Clones of your College Buddies.
Pull List Status: Were I infinitely rich, I would actually add this for the art, but not so much for the story. Unfortunately I'm not infinitely rich, so it's staying in the shop.
The Fury of Firestorm: The Nuclear Men #1
I'm genuinely not sure what angle I want to take to review this. It's actually pretty good. The dialogue is pretty sharp, and Jason and Ronnie are well-characterised. I'm genuinely impressed by the way that both characters are sympathetic and obnoxious at the same time. I also thought the point about measuring a close friendship in isolation of social contact outside of school was pretty well-made, mainly because it was such an eloquent and lowkey way of making it. I also really liked the freaky nuclear science aspect of Firestorm. I love the idea of bringing cutting edge physics as well as the sheer terror of nuclear power, which is pretty much the last scientific fear we have that is visceral and immediate and terrifying. I want to know what's going on with this, what Firestorm is, etc.
On the more negative side, I thought the opening was needlessly shockingly violent. Like, I'm generally fine with violence in comics and I'm not thinking there needs to be an epic rant about this? But I do feel that the whole mercenary/black ops brutality/framing for terrorism, oh my god it's so shocking that they're so casually brutal thing is a cliche by now and if this scene had to be this way, it would have been better further on after I'd been impressed by the rest of the comic. I understand the need to set a frightening tone, and to underscore how important retrieval of the Firestorm cannisters is, but that could have been done without so much of a cliche opening? It really did set me off on the wrong foot for the whole comic, which is a shame because it has interesting ideas and the nuclear terror thing is, well, honestly, it was much better done than it was in Captain Atom.
The art was fine, until we get to the depictions of various Firestorms, when it really excels into this messy, beautiful, colourful painting kind of thing. While it skirted the edge of melodrama, I do understand that being turned into a walking nuclear meltdown with no explanation might make Ronnie freak the hell out, even if it was fabulously unhelpful. However, the merging of the two into Fury at the end...I really don't know what to make of that. It was kind of...I don't know. Cheesy I suppose. And what's with the new personality? Who is it? The personality issue I'm willing to wait on, but my initial instinct is that I'm just not sure about it or the tone it struck. It was a bit melodramatic and the cheap cliffhanger thrill of making it seem teh evolz.
But as I said, despite questionable moments, it's got strong characterisation and an interesting concept.
3.5 out of 5 Meltdowns with Legs.
Pull List Status: The cool science stuff really does make me want to see where this is going but I just don't like it enough to buy it. I think I'll wait and see what people think of it, and maybe get the trades. Unless I hear superawesome stuff about it, or K decides to keep getting it. He did say he wanted to read it because he thought it might be cool. So, if it's in my house anyway, I'll read it, but I'm gonna adopt a wait and see attitude otherwise.
Green Lantern: New Guardians #1
I think this book has a brilliant premise, but weird, structural issues. I love the different Corps, and that they all have a function in the universe. The idea of one of each on a team is great - the idea that all the rings have chosen Kyle Rayner is intriguing mainly because it's Kyle - as an artist, and one of the few Green Lanterns to embody imagination more than will, I find the idea that he has within him the capacity to master each of the rings very interesting. The idea that it will play on Kyle's emotionality as a strength and weakness at the same time.
Having said that, this comic spends the entire first third recounting Kyle's origin story in a way that may become relevant to the plot later, but right now is just very, very confusing and seemingly unrelated to the rest of the story. I say this for a few reasons. Firstly because it takes up so much of the comic that it's distracting, but also it's short enough for his entire origin that I imagine it's pretty confusing for new readers and just plain weird for me. A Guardian shows up and is like, "here, have a ring. A few panels ago I was swearing to the dead bodies of my comrades that I'd find a good home for this thing like it was important or some shit, but whatever, you'll get the hang of it. Just like, think of stuff." And Kyle is like, "Wow, I can make giant green cartoons!" If you know nothing about the Green Lantern, this will...I don't know it could help but it just seems like it would leave me asking more questions, and if you do already know, then the entire sequence is redundant.
I also don't understand why they draw attention to Kyle's origin when he was the only Green Lantern for a while because (a) they don't clarify that the origin happened "a while ago" so I thought I was seeing Kyle's origins being rebooted and frankly was REALLY confused because wait, all the Guardians are dead? Weren't they alive in that other comic I just read? Huh? (Which okay, wouldn't be an issue if this was the only comic I was reading, but still stands as an example of poor clarity), and then it said "present" and the writer has to drop in an explanation from Kyle about the fact there are "lots" of Green Lanterns now. And I just...don't understand why they went out of their way to give us an origin story that was so short it didn't give us any useful information EXCEPT forcing the writer to explain how things were NOW different.
If the idea was to spend seven pages introducing the concept of Green Lanterns and Kyle's character, there are better ways of doing this, and I hate to say it of a comic that has such a great premise, but this was badly done.
I think it would have been better to spend that time establishing all the different Corps since we don't get a lot of time with them. And if Kyle's origin specifically becomes important in the future, it could have been done at that point, in flashback, when the flow of the story wouldn't be interrupted.
The cliffhanger, as I said, is really compelling, but I can't help but feel that they should have lost the origin story part, put that cliffhanger in the middle, and then showed us another seven pages of story to really establish what this "team" is going to be like and what their "mission" will be (finding out who caused the rings to abandon their wielders? Returning the rings? Do they agree to work together or are some of them working against others?) These are all questions I'm sure WILL be answered next issue, but I really feel are so fundamental to the premise of the book they should have been answered this issue, given we basically got seven pages of what looks like filler.
In sum, it's a 4 out of 5 concept but the execution is a hot mess and gets 2 out of 5 for the poor structural choices. So I'll even that out and give it:
3 out of 5 Rainbow Lantern Corps.
Pull List Status: No. I was actually plugging for this to be the GL book we pulled, but Kev wanted Green Lantern Corps. I will keep an eye on reaction to this though, and may pick it up in trades if it picks up good press as it goes. As I said, I am very interested in the ideas behind it.
I, Vampire #1
Again, it's a book I enjoyed far more than I was expecting. I mean, it basically sounds like a Twilight ripoff. It's actually...an okay book.
Look, the bad thing is that it's pretty murky and confusing. The voiceovers, the split timeline. The second time I read it, it was fine, and the first time I pretty much got it on an emotional level at least (see below), but I was a little concerned I had the two periods the wrong way around and that there was some clever twist I'd missed or something. I don't specifically mind comics that reward close reading, but I think that this comic maybe steps a little too far on that front.
However, as I said, I didn't really find the confusion was overly upsetting to my emotional connection with the book. It's dreamy and lost. I feel like knowing that Andrew and Mary are lovers, passionately on opposite sides of a coming war, that there was a breakup and then a slaughter, a goodbye and then a betrayal both knew would happen, to be enough. Oddly, the narrative managed to convince me that cause and effect were fairly unimportant to the emotional beats.
Basically, this is epic, doomed, vampire romance and horror done much better than I expected. I have no idea if it's intentional, but Mary's perspective reminds me of the Sabbat faction in that 90s RPG game - Vampire: the Masquerade. One of the reasons that I think I responded as favourably to the comic as I did is that Mary, the one Andrew is deeply in love with, yet considers completely evil, is given a much more sympathetic portrayal than I anticipated. Sure there are elements of that old trope - the crazy, dangerous woman - Clem's Eustacia Vye, if she were a homicidal Vampire Queen. And I don't think that she really justifies her position of slaughtering humans, exactly, but what she does do is convince me that Andrew is a controlling jerk and I'm like 95% certain that it meant to.
The part where Mary is riling Andrew, pretending to be the human she once was, pushing him until Andrew displays his proprietary attitude, demanding she stop daring to wear "her" face - the explosion from Mary, that it's not his face, it belongs to her - it's her own damn face - is actually superb. It's like a moment of greatness in the middle of the comic. Until then, she's a crazy, scary Vampire lady who wants to commit genocide. But in that moment, she's totally justified in being bugfuck crazy at Andrew. As I said, more interesting than I was anticipating.
The art is exciting for its difference and I like it stylistically? But I do worry that the almost...photoshopped photoreference block-print quality it has could prove difficult to sustain because it's kind of hard to tell who's people are at times. It mostly works here because it's really an extended conversation with background events to illustrate it, but for a story with more characters? It's going to be heavily dependent on framing choices and dialogue making things clear, I think.
That's not exactly a vote against the art because the style really is eyecatching and moody and I like that there are some books that try something a little different with their art. But as I said, it's not without its issues.
On the other hand, unlike All-Star Western, I liked the colouring choices here. Here it felt much more appropriate to have an almost monochromatic tone and the blue vs reddish brown/sepia worked well to underscore the two time periods in the story.
3.5 out of 5 Immortal Lovers.
Pull List Status: No, because ultimately even with it's great execution, I'm still not ready to jump into a melodramatic epic tragedy about vampires, but I will keep an eye on it and if it stays good, it seems like the sort of comic that might be rewarding in a trade paperback format, especially since it's largely standalone from the rest of the universe (right now).
Justice League Dark #1
I was really looking forward to this and by and large it didn't disappoint. I've seen a few people comment that they felt that their expectations were so high that the fact it didn't crap rainbows and peanut butter cups was kind of a downer and I get that and can kind of sympathise, but I really think it's the disappointment of it merely being Excellent as opposed to Fucking Incredible.
Firstly, I want to talk about the art. There's a tiny bit of awkwardness to some of the poses, but it's so beautiful I kind of don't care. The penciller has a solid, unsensationalist, soft style and the colourist brings gorgeous painterly tones, particularly to the backgrounds and the skies. The splash of Enchantress' spirit over her hut, with Superman, Wonder Woman and Cyborg staring at it was stunning.
There's a lot of setup in this comic, but generally the good kind. I like that while Xanadu clearly has an idea that the "team" must assemble to save the future, it's very different from the typical method in which a comic might go about assembling them - by getting Xanadu to go around asking. Instead she only asks Shade, really, and given her character, it makes sense she would have noticed what was happening with the Enchantress. Zatanna, meanwhile - I like that she's still associated with the Justice League as she was before the relaunch, and it's not that they're suddenly recasting her entire involvement with the DCU to be more of a, well, John Constantine-like character. So again it makes sense that she'd know about the Enchantress give the rest of the JL know, and that she'd recognise she's best-placed to fight it. I'm not entirely sure what to make of her apparently reckless behaviour and decision to ditch Batman, but it does make sense in this particular situation she'd rather have John Constantine by her side, and again, it's a nice nod to past continuity (without anyone having to know it) that she already knows him. Meanwhile, in what seems to be another part of the real plot (or at least a subplot caused by Enchantress' insanity), we have June Moone (I think she's a new character?) compelled to find Deadman. It's the most contrived of the meetings, but I don't mind because it's in the context of a plot hook.
Another thing I think the book nailed was the tone. I really enjoyed the series of truly creepy, bizarre and imaginatively surreal spells that Enchantress set off in those early sequences of panels. The idea of a power station becoming sentient and then threatening to explode because it's bored is awesome and frightening. Likewise the multiple (and apparently confused and/or suicidal?) copies of June Moone are creepy as all get out and I do want to know what's going on and if the one the comic is focusing on is real or another simulacrum.
Speaking of, I'm looking forward to seeing more of Shade the Changing Man. I always preferred the term Madness Vest, but Meta Vest is probably more appropriate, either way it's bizarre science fictional magic surreality and I always wanted to know more about him but could never really be bothered to read his books. The whole constructed girlfriend thing is truly weird and disturbing so I want to know more about that. I think it has the potential to skeez me out but it could also be interesting in terms of the question of how real his reality warping is and the philosophical conundrums that raises.
I will say that - and I grant this is a nitpick - I wasn't sure why they decided to include Wonder Woman in the trio at the start? I mean, I was super glad to see her (and yay, her real boots!) but it makes sense that the Enchantress would initially defeat Cyborg with his association with science and technology and Superman with his established relative weakness to magic, but Wonder Woman is sort of made out of magic. I mean, I know that she doesn't personally utilise it and we can split hairs that she's divine magic rather than arcane magic, but it just seems that given one of her iconic villains - Circe - is basically a sorceress of dubious sanity, I would have expected her to do a bit better. But as I said, acknowledged nitpick from a Wonder Woman fan.
So...yeah, I think this was a really great setup, but I need to know more about the story before I decide if it's gonna be amazing.
4 out of 5 Bored Power Stations.
Pull List Status: No, but I have a friend who is getting it so I'll probably read his copies and if I enjoy it I may get the trades.
The Savage Hawkman #1
The art is the most interesting thing in this comic. I'm not sure I like it, exactly, but I do like that it's different. It's kind of like oil painting and I imagine it'll work really well for some. Given the messy, confused, bloody setup for the comic, I think it's also a good match for the character.
The story itself? Well, it's fairly basic. I don't much mind the idea of starting with a character trying to put away his superhero past - that's fairly interesting. I suppose I'd like to know why he found that life difficult, but there's time for that later. In some ways, knowing that Hawkman before the relaunch had a complex and inconsistent backstory with multiple versions, I do wonder if that's going to come back and complicate this comic, but judging it alone, and with very little personal knowledge of Hawkman, he appears to have a conflicting relationship with an ancient artifact that has now burrowed under his skin making it impossible for him to escape it. That's kind of an interesting set up. The rest of the comic is...less interesting. I like his Indiana Jones style profession, I suppose that can give his adventures their own kind of flavour, but this particular villain feels fairly cheesy and by the numbers. Ancient cultures mixed with alien visitors? I've seen it before enough that I want something slightly extra - a boost to the writing or the characters - to make it more than by-the-numbers.
I think this has the potential to get better, depending on where they take the character, whether he is still trying to get rid of the armour, why he's trying to do that, whether the alien is a two-dimensional creepy invader or something more complicated.
As an issue on its own? It's okay but not incredible. The art is pretty interesting, though, and it might be worth at least a flip through for that.
Though I'd note Hawkgirl/Hawkwoman is nowhere to be seen. I can understand that if the intention is to slowly reintroduce the mythology but I hope she's not gone for good. That would suck on principle!
2.5 out of 5 People Can't Pronounce Nth.
Pull List Status: Actually, yes. But not for me. K added it as a wild card because we had space for an extra comic, to see what it was about since neither of us knew much about him. So I'll read it cus it's around, but honestly, it'll have to pull its socks up to stay on the list.
Superman #1
I really wanted to love this. Of all the changes to the status quo, the Superman stuff has upset me most, but I liked Action Comics against expectations and I wanted to like this. I didn't hate it, and it had some solid stuff in it, but I can't say I exactly enjoyed it either.
Basically, it splits into good and bad pretty cleanly.
The stuff with Clark Kent, Lois Lane and the Daily Planet is great. While I miss the notion of Kent and Lane as updated 50s-style reporters, this is an interesting and acceptable update that feels thought out rather than a bandaid that suddenly mentions "oh, and there's also a TV channel now". One of the reasons I was concerned at the loss of the supermarriage (quite aside from the fact I just plain like it and felt it did something strong for Superman's characterisation) was fear that Lois' role would be diminished. In some ways I'm sure it will be, but this comic made time for her and made her into, really, quite an interesting character - definitely the smart, driven, principled woman I expect her to be. I think that there could be real mileage in watching her negotiate the waters of running a principled new channel while working for a pretty ruthless and potentially corrupt organisation. A shame that I anticipate this will be written out eventually as more "boring" than fighting. But perhaps I'm just jaded.
I thought the meditations on the death of the print medium, as well as Perry's defense of the depth of analysis it could offer, were a blatantly obvious commentary on the state of comics, implying in turn, commentary about the relaunch itself, but that it was done nicely; obvious isn't always bad and it felt like a slightly sorrowful but respectful salute rather than an anvil. Clark's hatred of the entire situation also rang true, and I enjoyed that he was both short with Lois when she was trying to make the situation sound better, and then later caught himself and went to apologise. Both moments felt authentic. I felt this fit with Clark as a character, and also with his more proactive stance on social justice and political issues in his Clark Kent persona in Action Comics.
Unfortunately, I can't say the same for him as Superman. To start with I felt that Superman's actions fit fairly well with both his Action and pre-relaunch personas, but the dialogue was not really that great. There's just something unSupermanlike about saying, "Balls". I can't get past it. But setting aside a few clunky lines, I think I see what they were trying to do by having Clark's article narrate Superman's fight? I think they were trying to show the depth of analysis that only print can offer? But WOW did that fail and fail hard.
To start with the narration is like no newspaper article I've ever read. It feels like (bad) prose. It speaks way too much about Superman's decisions and opinions and if Superman was giving a first-person account, then the article would have been full of quotes from him, not the interviewer's third-person omniscient novelisation.
In addition, it's not even good writing. It's way too much telling instead of showing ("Superman did this, then he did that, then he decided, then he realised..."), and the few times when it tries to break into the figurative we get lines like, "a Tower of Babel of indecipherability". No really. That's an actual line from the comic. It's just so inelegantly constructed on multiple levels I can't even begin to analyse all the things that are wrong with it because I just want to point at it and make sure other people can see whether it's in the comic too or whether I hallucinated it.
In addition, all the text does is narrate - very blandly - what's going on in the panel. True on a few occasions we get a slight insight into Superman's thought process, but not anything that we really needed to know, or that couldn't be conveyed with thought box-outs (which we ALSO GET at one point, rendering the entire layout horribly complex) or a much briefer (and better written!) article for narration.
Okay, I might be a little oversensitive to this because, you know, it's what I studied for years of my life, but man, I hated it. The fire monster itself felt very...minor villain to begin with (even if it does return at throughout the arc), and this just slows the fight down to the point of boredom.
The real story here is what's happening to the Planet, but because it's a Superman comic we get a mediocre supervillain story thrown in.
The art is fine, although the pages are very crowded. I don't necessarily find this to be a bad thing because it makes me feel that I'm getting more story for my money (and I think this issue is oversized too, without any rise in cost?) I also think it feels much more 90s in terms of style, and I think that's partly where the multiple text-boxes, etc. come from. I know that George Perez has been in the industry forever. So I think that for people who were readers at that point, this is a well-executed return to that style. For me, I didn't dislike it but also it's not my favourite style either. I did feel stuff was a little busy at points.
Like I said, I wanted to like this, and it wasn't bad but there's just not enough in here to really make me feel sure in recommending it.
2.5 out of 5 Nobel Prizes for Literature Clark Kent will Never Win because he Sucks at Words.
Pull List Status: No. Honestly even if I loved it it probably wouldn't be. Superman is right up there as one of my favourite superheroes, but my love of him has always been more tied to his iconography and persona than individual issues. I want the Big, Epic stories for Superman, and you just can't do that on a weekly basis without everything becoming noise.
Teen Titans #1
Man Scott Lobdell is a real mixed bag. Superboy, while not great literature, was genuinely much better than I was expecting. Red Hood and the Outlaws was appalling. Teen Titans is...in the middle. It's not bad in any way, it's just not remarkable either.
The plot is fine, if basic. Red Robin is trying to save metahuman teens from a secret organisation that wants them for some reason, and as the flip side of the Superboy comic, it works better than I'd expect, showing us what we need to know about the plot from Superboy as part of the plot in this book, rather than telling us, or giving us an annoying, inexplicable, "see this issue!" asterisk.
So really is rises and falls on the characters and that's where it's...unremarkable?
I'm not sure it was the best decision for Kid Flash to introduce him during such a catastrophic error, especially since it seems he did know what a backdraft was? (I'm not sure if that encyclopaedic knowledge was a power in itself? Does he have an eidetic memory? At least I'm interested to know that, though). I don't think it's an awful idea, since presumably the idea is that we watch him develop and grow and become a more thoughtful character who doesn't, um, recklessly endanger human life due to his own arrogance, however well-meaning. But it doesn't make me immediately root for him as a hero (even if I don't want him caught by N.O.W.H.E.R.E. either) since my primary concern at the moment is that he'll be unwittingly dangerous. So it kind of pans out at neutral.
Similarly I have mixed feelings about Wonder Girl. Objectively, she's handled fairly well and there's something somewhat interesting about reinventing her as an actual archeological thief rather than a kid who only stole the artifacts to help Wonder Woman. It also makes sense people would call her Wonder Girl simply because she defends against projectiles in a similar way to Wonder Woman, has a lasso like Wonder Woman and seems to have something to do with Greek Mythology, and that Cassie would dislike this.
Having said that, her character didn't make me feel wildly excited, certainly not excited enough to overcome the more metatextual concerns I had. It's hypocritical in a way because I like the stripped down Wonder Woman who is currently appearing in her own book, and I don't particularly want Wonder Girl to show up there. That said, Wonder Woman is pretty much the only female character ever to spawn her own sidekick, especially one named after her. So I'm a little reticent about removing that tie. In terms of Cassie herself, I liked that she eventually turned out to be a demigod and that she had powers in her own right. I do believe that there's precedent in the character to go back to her earlier source of powers and as I said, I'm not against the teenage Indiana Jones schtick, but I'm still uneasy that Cassie herself is now less innately powerful than she was. Her power is borrowed and her current personality is not the sort that suggests she's heroic or doing it for altruistic reasons. Again, I believe that she will develop in potentially interesting ways, but at the moment, it also ends up neutral.
Red Robin is less controversial in that he mostly seems fairly Tim Drake-ish (though is he not still Tim Wayne? I liked that). I actually liked his wings.
Yes, as I said, the characters are neither exciting nor dull and the plot is functional. It might go interesting places, it might not.
2.5 out of 5 Superteens.
Pull List Status: No, it's just not grabbing me. Don't feel the need to read it again, unless I hear truly spectacular things about it.
Voodoo #1
Right. Boobies: the reprise. It's the comic that's set in a strip club. Let's take that head on.
Last week, I eviscerated Red Hood and the Outlaws while defending Catwoman, largely on the basis of my perception of Catwoman's ability to characterise Selina and convince me she was in control and in charge and making choices that made sense to her, while Red Hood utterly failed to give Kory any agency or personality or reason to be doing what she was doing beyond fanservice.
Voodoo kind of falls into the middle. It's not as egregiously awful as Red Hood, there's some attempt to characterise the protagonist and to acknowledge the fact that stripping is not really a very glamorous profession, as well as characterisation of the other women who work at the club in their backroom chatter. Priscilla is also given a reasonable amount of agency due to her actions at the end, killing the sleazebag and then assuming his place.
On the other hand, perhaps intentionally, but somewhat uneasily against the backdrop of a setting that really needs to be counterbalanced by strong and fair characterisation, Priscilla remains very much a cipher. We don't know if she's the vanguard of an alien invasion or a scared refugee trying to learn to fit in. She's a reflection. Which could have been developed as a more complicated theme - she's all about revealing a body that's not her true body, observing those observing her. The comment that it's a good place to learn about people could have come across as a "when you gaze into the abyss, it gazes also into you," moment, but instead it just seems...shallow. The best place to learn about men is a strip club? How...bland. How faux edgy. And why does she "especially" want to learn about men?
Ultimately, the book doesn't justify spending most of its time in a strip club with actual stripping and lap dances on page. There's no need for it beyond an attempt to be the HBO of comics, and while some premium cable shows may succeed in their mandate to further a sense of quality and complexity by showing glossy, but carefully unsanitised visions of the world around us, this book fails. It feels as though it believes the setting justifies itself. She was a stripper in her original continuity's backstory, so fine, okay, I can see incorporating that into this one, but the sheer volume on page does nothing but draw attention to itself in a way that feels very self-justifying. I feel the book expects me to assume grander motivations, to assign artistic value to it as a high concept idea, but I fail to find a compelling narrative or thematic (at least a well-executed thematic) reason for it.
The man in the aviator glasses is a total sleazebag and yes, it's satisfying when Voodoo takes him out, but I still don't see the need to make him as violently uncomfortable as he is made out to be in terms of the treatment of his partner and then Voodoo herself with his smug bastard commentary to her about the "rules" of the dance. If it was simply so we would be sure to be glad when he died, why undercut the characterisation of the otherwise far more interesting female agent by implying, during her final phone call, that she's sleeping with him. Which makes his behaviour far worse, and her tentative forgiveness of him and decision to sleep with him very uncomfortable.
A final note, I think there was some poor visual storytelling on the final page. It's a shame because the blocking of scenes up until that point had been quite good, and the art is definitely clean and competent. But not knowing the character, and not knowing the extent of her shapechanging abilities - because yes we just saw her morph into an alien, but it didn't immediately click to me that she could take on any form, rather than simply having two of her own. Perhaps a failure on my part, but one I feel is not the most ridiculous misunderstanding I've ever had (though granted, that may be a low bar...) As a result, when, on the next page, we see her walk behind a pillar and emerge in the form of the agent, I misunderstood and thought that the reveal was that the agent was still following her, having somehow survived her attack/not really been there, etc., and that he was watching Voodoo leave, still on her tail. Which is, obviously, a very different and far less interesting and, bluntly, kind of insulting ending that undoes a lot of the power Voodoo is otherwise left with.
ETA: It seems this guy suffered the same issue as me and is under the impression that the agent survived rather than that Voodoo shifted into his form. I'm fairly confident that she shapeshifted, but I now find myself questioning it again, and submit this as evidence that it wasn't just me... /ETA.
So obviously, I was glad that I was wrong on that, but I still feel I have to note that I was initially a little thrown by the storytelling here and a shot of her actually shifting into the guy would not have gone amiss. Perhaps it was just me, but given she's not a well-known hero, I think ti would have been good to be extra clear on that since a misunderstanding here is not just a narrative but also a potentially awful thematic failure.
Ultimately, there's an interesting story hidden in here somewhere. And the ending sets up the protagonist leaving the strip club behind her and potentially entering into a far more interesting antagonistic relationship with the female agent who may or may not realise her partner has been killed. There's some really interesting potential going forward. Unfortunately, it's hidden in a comic that's obsessed with boobies and hopes, in a manner akin to killing characters to add faux depth, that they will justify their own existence; a justification I imagine many fans will be all too eager to offer.
It's a low score for this book, although I do believe that it's got a fair chance of improving, if it focuses on what's good about this story instead of, you know, boobies. Or at least develops a sense of subtlety capable of sustaining a story about perception and body horror and women, because this one isn't there yet.
2 out of 5 Mutating Strippers.
Pull List Status: No, and unlikely to be, however I am prepared to hear that from here on out it becomes a really interesting story about Priscilla undercover with that other chick and power dynamics and stuff. I just don't trust the book enough to find that out on my own by sticking with it. I just don't think the odds are good enough. So I'll wait and see, but there's a small chance I'll check this out in trade if I hear really good stuff.
DC RELAUNCH REVIEWS COMPLETE.
Okay. Week 4. Alphabetical. Spoilers. Slightly less about boobs.
All-Star Western #1
Okay, I'll get my grip out of the way first. This is one of the few $3.99 rather than $2.99 books that's oversized to make up for the extra dollar price. Justice League and Action are just longer stories, and Men of War is called Men of War instead of Sgt Rock because the main feature is Sgt Rock and the backup is, um, some other thing. For some reason I was under the impression that All-Star Western was called All-Star Western instead of Jonah Hex because it was gonna have another Western comic as a backup feature. I thought that'd be cool. But instead it's just a larger comic. Which, don't get me wrong, I don't think that's a rip-off, I just think it's a shame. I know that Action is bringing back the backup feature at some point, so maybe this will too. Otherwise I guess it'll be like Action and Detective in that it'll mostly be about Jonah Hex (rather than Superman or Batman respectively) but occasionally other characters?
Whatever, it's a tiny complaint, I just like the idea of backup features and I'm sad that only a single comic currently has one!
Talking about the ACTUAL comic, though, it's really well done. It has a great sense of style and I think that the way it ties into modern day Gotham stuff is great for people who will get the references to things like Mayor Cobblepot but it doesn't matter a bit if it goes over your head. The story is compelling enough, I guess. It's standard fare about a Jack-the-Ripper style killer (or possibly a pair of killers) offing whores in a Victorian city. I could criticise that as derivative but I think I'd rather, currently, go for the term classic, unless the resolution is a let down.
The really fun part of the story, aside from the evocative way the setting is conveyed, is the interaction between Jonah Hex and Dr Arkham. It's a classic buddy-cops-divergent-personalities team-up that transcends the stereotype due to the various twists - the setting, the characters involved and our preconceptions of their histories and associations, etc. - and it just feels marvelously madcap and surreal.
In addition, Dr Arkham's profession means I really enjoyed the way he spent the entire comic psychoanalysing Jonah Hex and thus introducing both himself through his narrative style, and Jonah Hex, to the reader, in addition to it being one more way to create a textured and believable Victorian-era world. These comics are full of tricks to pull off this sort of thing, but I honestly think this is probably the best execution of it I've yet seen.
Unfortunately I have less good things to say about the art. It's perfectly passable and I concede there is a strong argument that the sketchy tone and washed out colouring is one more way of adding to the overall atmosphere of the book, but personally I found it - in particular the near monochromatic colouring - to be, honestly, a little boring. I would like to see what the book looked like with a more varied palette.
It's a good, solid story about a cowboy and a Victorian psychologist hunting a serial killer in a town that only thinks it's no longer ruled by the same laws as the frontier.
That said, I'm not a huge Western fan, and while I can appreciate the obvious quality, neither Jonah Hex nor Dr Arkham inspired me to continue reading this, but I feel that's more an issue of personal taste, and perhaps if there weren't 52 new titles to choose from this month, I could be persuaded differently.
4 out of 5 Mutilated Bounty Hunters
Pull List Status: No, and as I said, it's not really my thing, but that's not a knock on it. It's purely an issue of personal taste. I might read it if someone put it in front of me, though.
Aquaman #1
I...surprised myself by quite liking this! It's not actually that I dislike Aquaman. I don't know that much about him, and on the minus side he has serious manpain with the whole dead child, lost hand, angry and dead wife thing - that whole gratuitous, sensationalised tragedy that comics occasionally succumbs to. Women, children and hands in refrigerators, oy.
On the plus side, he's the freaking KING OF ATLANTIS. He's majestic. He has gravitas. Sure there's the practical issue of his water-based abilities meaning that it's harder to intuitively imagine him as parts of land-based adventures, and since we're land-based creatures, that's sort of a failing, but there's something rich and regal about vast, undersea kingdoms - mystical and alien.
So you know, jokes about Aquaman are funny, yes, but also he's, you know, fine. There's a set of images of him I enjoy but beyond that I just don't particularly feel the need to have him in my life.
And this comic did a reasonable job of convincing me otherwise. Aquaman's an interesting enough character - it does a good job of introducing him and making him sympathetic and a credible hero. The recap of his past is well-done for new readers (sort of like me - I had only a very cursory knowledge of Aquaman - that he was King of Atlantis, which sometimes led to awesome art, and that everyone kept dying on him, which put me off of reading it much), but it wasn't long enough - I don't think - to annoy longstanding fans. I also like that he's one of the few heroes allowed to keep his marriage and, consequently, promising to perhaps have an important supporting female character. Which has been quite rare among the male superhero titles - most of the women, even the nifty ones I want to read more about (like Lois or Iris), are still necessarily kept out of the world of the main narrative, which I anticipate won't be the case with Mera. Sure she's still the love interest of our male hero, but whatever, I have bigger, um, fish to fry, on that topic later - it didn't really bother me here. That's more a thing about the general state of the mass media than Aquaman #1 specifically!
I also enjoyed the new bad guys more than I thought I would. From solicits I knew there'd be some new creepy species called The Trench or something and honestly, it didn't grab me. Cthulu creatures from the deep are always awesome but are also easy to become recycled ideas. I have no idea which this will turn out to be yet, but two things elevated them to the point where I wanted to give them a chance to win me over. Firstly, the simple way that their dialogue is depicted in splots of ink - creepy and squiddishly appropriate, even though they aren't squid (but seriously, squid are creepy). Secondly, the opening scene, while a very basic idea - creepy undersea creatures rising from the deep - something about their dialogue - in particular the opening line, "It is true. There is an above." was superbly creepy in its simple specificity.
The art was also very solid throughout, but it rose to flatout great in the ocean scenes, particularly the opening with the dark sea inks. Also a later panel with a stream of bubbles heading up to the surface - just beautiful.
Now, the parts I didn't enjoy so much. One is fairly trivial - which is that I find myself slightly unsure what Aquaman's powers are. I appreciated the rundown on the fish-based telepathy, but he obviously also has super strength and invulnerability and um, super jumping. This is fine and all, but given that it's not the sort of thing I'm accustomed to expecting from, err, a fish, it'd be nice to find out at some point what, specifically he can do, and why. Is it because he's Atlantean? Does he have the strength of um, a strong type of marine life? I'm honestly not being facetious here - I'd genuinely like to know because the comic goes out of its way to show us that he's not about talking to fish and is instead about picking up trucks with his trident (is it magical?) but then spends more time telling us what he doesn't do than what he does.
However, I'm also not trying to be a pedant on that point - there's plenty of time to get to that later based on either showing or telling us in later issues. But it was something that crossed my mind.
The bigger issue, I feel, is the way the writer head-on addresses the way Aquaman is a bit of a joke. Honestly, it's an approach I can really get behind but the execution is clunky. I think it really works in getting us on Aquaman's side as well as providing a welcome relief to the unspoken fears/beliefs of many readers and an excuse to talk about those issues. But there's just something about the way EVERYONE is SO horrible about it I find myself wondering if they know anything about Aquaman at all? I mean, he says he heard the sirens from the harbour - is this not normally a part of his patrol? I guess it comes down to, I bought the blogger - obnoxious as he was - and thought that worked well. But the reaction of the criminals and the police I think was overdone. I can buy the criminals being relieved it's "just" Aquaman because he's the "fish guy" and they can just run him over, right? Or shoot him? And then being shocked when that's not the case. But flatout laughing at him? I mean, the dude's still part of the Justice League, so if he has any kind of public profile at all, it must be known that he's like, you know, an actual superhero who can punch the shit out of people. Otherwise no one would know who he was at all? It just felt a little overplayed.
On the other hand, the fish and chips line was hilarous. Though since he's in America, I then imagined someone bringing him out fish and potato chips and I got sad. Then I imagined fish and french fries and I was still sad. COME TO BRITAIN, AQUAMAN. WONDER WOMAN CAN TAKE YOU TO A PROPER FISH AND CHIP SHOP IN LONDON WHERE SHE LIVES NOW!
Right, the final thing that concerned me a little was Aquaman saying that he wanted to leave Atlantis and live on the surface. Partly this is because I like his Atlantean schtick. I WANT him to be the regal King of Atlantis, it's an interesting aspect to his superhero persona and without it, he's just a water-powered superhero. I'm also a little confused as to why he wants this. He says that the Atlanteans don't really feel like his people, etc., and I guess I can buy that, but as a new reader, if that's referencing older continuity, obviously that doesn't have so much emotional resonance with me, whereas what does have emotional resonance with me is how little everyone on the land seems to respect him. And it's not that I want to see him throw a tantrum and naff off back to the sea just because he got a little bit of teasing, it's just...it doesn't feel like the cleanest emotional beat. I want to live on the dryland where I am a walking joke! Possibly he wants to challenge that stereotype and build his own identity, but what if he finds the same thing he did under the water? Also I'm sad! Atlantis! Come back!
On the other other hand, it's a good thing I'm asking these questions. As I said, I did find this a surprisingly enjoyable comic book.
3.5 out of 5 Possibly Magical Tridents.
Pull List Status: No and it's not going on it, but I'm tentatively considering buying #2 just to see what happens, and continuing on a week-by-week basis after that. I feel like I could easily drop it, but this is the first book where I'm...sort of considering casually buying it (as opposed to Demon Knights which I am flat out going to get as an addition; I have X slots on my pull list and X cash for impulse monthly purchases, basically, though, ahahaha, I actually lost my job on Friday so, um, we'll have to see 'bout that if I don't find something else soonish. I have first world problems, yo).
Batman: the Dark Knight #1
I do not understand why this comic exists. Seriously there are FOUR titles starring Batman (Detective Comics, Batman, Batman & Robin and this one, not including team books like Justice League and possibly Justice League International), so I'm assuming it's just here to...publish a book about Batman every week? Superman's the only other guy headlining more than one title, and one of those is Action Comics which is technically a showcase title that doesn't have to star him (and sometimes doesn't). So like, fine, keep Detective. I guess you can even keep Batman & Robin if you really have to, though I'd prefer it just be called Robin and Batman will obviously be a major supporting character. But this one? There's just no compelling reason for it to exist on an ideological level beyond market saturation and the book itself doesn't do much to justify its existence either. And I do feel that it's worth taking this comic in the context of its production, not purely the material within it.
However, the material within it is pretty dire. I guess if I hadn't read the other Batman comics this month I might not notice but it copies a bunch of their major themes. I don't think it's copying from them, I think it's running with classic Batman stuff but that's the sort of problem you end up with when you have FOUR BATMAN TITLES.
Batman swings through Gotham self-narrating what turns out to not be his inner monologue but a speech he's giving as Bruce Wayne while talking about rejuvenating the city. This exact same thing happens in Batman #1. And Batman #1 does it better. Then he goes to handle a breakout in Arkham. Again, Batman #1 does this. The "shock" ending with Two-Face also - in the context of FOUR BATBOOKS - comes across as similar to the "shock" ending in Detective with the Joker. And again, much as I didn't like Detective much, it did it better than this one.
I also found it plain hard to really get into the comic. I was willing to wait for the reveal, but it didn't happen within the book, and I wonder if it'll be too late by next book - when Batman shows up, how does he know to immediately go after Two-Face? Is he the only high profile target in the asylum right now? Did he notice some awesome detective thing? I want to know!
The dialogue, in places, is painful. Batman gritting out, with regards to the 68 officers stuck behind the breakout lines, "sixty-eight FAMILIES" is just....uuuuuuugh. Yes, I get it. He's gritty. He cares deep down in his craggy heart. He's morally superior. And I'm rolling my eyes.
Also, I get that it's not slang that is common in the USA, so I'm sure the writer had no idea what he was doing and the questions of international editorial proofing against this type of thing and how far it should go is fair, but, end of the day, Two-Face calling Batman, "Batty-Boy"? ...Yeah. *facepalm*
Finally, it's our first installment of "The New 52: BOOBS edition" of the week, because I actually felt really uncomfortable at the women in this comic. With Jaina, it was mostly an issue of how she was drawn. Women are always gonna flirt with Bruce Wayne and he was flirting back, no harm no foul, it was actually not quite as badly written as some of the other stuff (though the international divide shows again as Wayne uses a football term I had to wiki, and I'm generally pretty up on US terminology on account of spending time with family there). But I dunno, there's some indefinable discomfort about the way women are drawn here. It just feels to Michael Turner for my tastes (who is a fantastically talented artist but honestly, makes every woman look like she belongs on the cover of Playboy which is always distracting and a little awkward). I concede that to be an issue of personal taste.
What I think isn't an issue of personal taste is the pure stupidity of having an actual Playboy Bunny as a character. Based on future covers she will be sticking around, and while I'm assuming villain, none of my points really change if she's there to assist Batman instead. Seriously. A Playboy Bunny?! What...even is that if not the epitomy of fan service? (First person to claim it makes thematic sense because Bruce is a playboy billionaire gets a free punch for missing the point). And she gets introduced in a horribly uncomfortable panel designed specifically to show off her thong-clad ass? Seriously, that panel offended me on a bunch of levels and as I think I proved with Catwoman last week (whether I'm right or wrong), I don't have any objection to some quasi naked chicks running around, but context is important and the context here is...lolz Batman's got his own Playboy Bunny? In an insane asylum? Is there context? WHAT'S GOING ON IT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE.
So yes. Epic fail on the bunny girl. The rest was merely boring and poorly written. Without the bunny thing, it's a 2/5 comic. But with it, I give it:
1.5 out of 5 One-Faced Two-Faces.
Pull List Status: Lolz, no.
Blackhawks #1
I liked this a lot more than I expected. Not enough to decide I want to buy it, but considering I (a) hate military stories and (b) was dreading reading this, I think it says a lot that I actually enjoyed it!
It feels very GI Joe. It's fun, it's loud, it has action that is probably totally ridiculous but it doesn't have the "angsty brother soldiers" aspect of most military teams in the media these days which was a real relief to me. It has wacky science and a Lady Blackhawk (who is not the awesome blonde 1950s Lady Blackhawk and also was not in the comic very much but I has a nostalgia. Plus this way I guess original flavour Lady Blackhawk can still arrive in some kind of time-travel disaster and then they can start a comic called Blackhawk & Blackhawk where the Ladies Blackhawk fight crime and/or monsters. Crime monsters! It would get canceled after eight issues, which may still be two more than this one).
It's the kind of comic that makes you think that fighting a giant crime monster with your doppelganger wouldn't be out of place, is what I'm saying. It's wacky. Which is an achievement for a book that is at least trying (and not that unsuccessfully) to be about a military unit rather than, um, Demon Knights or Secret Six.
I think if I liked military teams I'd think this was tremendous fun, although not as original as either of the comics I name-checked above. The cliffhanger is a reasonable one, that's well set up in the issue, but hardly a mindblowing gamechanger. Similarly, I like all the characters well enough, but no one is screaming at me that I'm going to love them. Basically it's a competent book that earns a bit of extra love for going the unexpected route of fun instead of angsty.
Although I refuse to take seriously the fact that the the publication of their logo is suddenly a problem. If you're part of a secret unit that is so secret even a picture of its secret logo could DOOM YOU, maybe you shouldn't actually have a logo.
I kind of want to give this a higher score than I'm going to because it exceeded my expectations, and obviously personal opinion is always a factor in reviewing. But objectively I think it's good but not fantastic. The fact it's so fun elevates it above average but most of the rest of the comic is pretty average. That said, I expect that if you're someone who likes stuff like GI Joe, you'll think I'm being stingy, and I also rate this expecting future issues to improve rather than stay steady or decrease.
3 out of 5 Top Secret Logos.
Pull List Status: No, but that's because it's not my genre not because it's bad. I WILL, however, be getting issue #3 because the solicitation promises, and I quote, "Lady Blackhawk battles the internet". THERE IS NO WAY THAT WILL NOT BE AWESOME.
The Flash #1
The art in this is beautiful. It's a real example of merging artistic style and story that I think only really occurs in Batwoman elsewhere in the relaunch. The pastel colours are beautiful as are the open pencils of the characters and landscapes, that nonetheless convey a sense of freewheeling speed. It's a really beautiful book to look at and gives the whole thing an optimistic, free feeling that's rare in the increasingly dark and angsty world of superheroes. This feels like being The Flash is a great thing, and as a result the darker moments when Barry must consider the possibility he has killed a friend by accident, feels far less turgid than it would in another book.
I'm not very familiar with Barry Allen or Iris West. From this book, I really like Iris a lot, honestly I get much more sense of her personality than Barry's, which is a potential flaw. There was a delightfully sharp, yet optimistic, sense of the fifties in the way she introduced herself as "Iris West, Central City Citizen" and her tenacity in chasing down the lead from Barry really won me over. I imagine that if I were a fan of the couple, I would be as upset by the dissolution of this marriage as I am of Lois and Clark's. And I feel the same way that I'm not really sure, ultimately, what the point was. Retelling that story is fine, even fun, but if the status of an attached superhero is uninviting, then surely stories have to be invented to prevent the inevitable and I guess I've just never been a fan of the conventional television wisdom that a will-they-won't-they relationship is interesting rather than mindnumbingly boring. We'll see.
The cliffhanger was fine, and I think the idea of a "villain" with multiple bodies is interesting for a hero like The Flash, but ultimately, the strength of this comic isn't in its (perfectly serviceable but not amazing) plot but its art and its visuals, and in that, it excels.
4 out of 5 Clones of your College Buddies.
Pull List Status: Were I infinitely rich, I would actually add this for the art, but not so much for the story. Unfortunately I'm not infinitely rich, so it's staying in the shop.
The Fury of Firestorm: The Nuclear Men #1
I'm genuinely not sure what angle I want to take to review this. It's actually pretty good. The dialogue is pretty sharp, and Jason and Ronnie are well-characterised. I'm genuinely impressed by the way that both characters are sympathetic and obnoxious at the same time. I also thought the point about measuring a close friendship in isolation of social contact outside of school was pretty well-made, mainly because it was such an eloquent and lowkey way of making it. I also really liked the freaky nuclear science aspect of Firestorm. I love the idea of bringing cutting edge physics as well as the sheer terror of nuclear power, which is pretty much the last scientific fear we have that is visceral and immediate and terrifying. I want to know what's going on with this, what Firestorm is, etc.
On the more negative side, I thought the opening was needlessly shockingly violent. Like, I'm generally fine with violence in comics and I'm not thinking there needs to be an epic rant about this? But I do feel that the whole mercenary/black ops brutality/framing for terrorism, oh my god it's so shocking that they're so casually brutal thing is a cliche by now and if this scene had to be this way, it would have been better further on after I'd been impressed by the rest of the comic. I understand the need to set a frightening tone, and to underscore how important retrieval of the Firestorm cannisters is, but that could have been done without so much of a cliche opening? It really did set me off on the wrong foot for the whole comic, which is a shame because it has interesting ideas and the nuclear terror thing is, well, honestly, it was much better done than it was in Captain Atom.
The art was fine, until we get to the depictions of various Firestorms, when it really excels into this messy, beautiful, colourful painting kind of thing. While it skirted the edge of melodrama, I do understand that being turned into a walking nuclear meltdown with no explanation might make Ronnie freak the hell out, even if it was fabulously unhelpful. However, the merging of the two into Fury at the end...I really don't know what to make of that. It was kind of...I don't know. Cheesy I suppose. And what's with the new personality? Who is it? The personality issue I'm willing to wait on, but my initial instinct is that I'm just not sure about it or the tone it struck. It was a bit melodramatic and the cheap cliffhanger thrill of making it seem teh evolz.
But as I said, despite questionable moments, it's got strong characterisation and an interesting concept.
3.5 out of 5 Meltdowns with Legs.
Pull List Status: The cool science stuff really does make me want to see where this is going but I just don't like it enough to buy it. I think I'll wait and see what people think of it, and maybe get the trades. Unless I hear superawesome stuff about it, or K decides to keep getting it. He did say he wanted to read it because he thought it might be cool. So, if it's in my house anyway, I'll read it, but I'm gonna adopt a wait and see attitude otherwise.
Green Lantern: New Guardians #1
I think this book has a brilliant premise, but weird, structural issues. I love the different Corps, and that they all have a function in the universe. The idea of one of each on a team is great - the idea that all the rings have chosen Kyle Rayner is intriguing mainly because it's Kyle - as an artist, and one of the few Green Lanterns to embody imagination more than will, I find the idea that he has within him the capacity to master each of the rings very interesting. The idea that it will play on Kyle's emotionality as a strength and weakness at the same time.
Having said that, this comic spends the entire first third recounting Kyle's origin story in a way that may become relevant to the plot later, but right now is just very, very confusing and seemingly unrelated to the rest of the story. I say this for a few reasons. Firstly because it takes up so much of the comic that it's distracting, but also it's short enough for his entire origin that I imagine it's pretty confusing for new readers and just plain weird for me. A Guardian shows up and is like, "here, have a ring. A few panels ago I was swearing to the dead bodies of my comrades that I'd find a good home for this thing like it was important or some shit, but whatever, you'll get the hang of it. Just like, think of stuff." And Kyle is like, "Wow, I can make giant green cartoons!" If you know nothing about the Green Lantern, this will...I don't know it could help but it just seems like it would leave me asking more questions, and if you do already know, then the entire sequence is redundant.
I also don't understand why they draw attention to Kyle's origin when he was the only Green Lantern for a while because (a) they don't clarify that the origin happened "a while ago" so I thought I was seeing Kyle's origins being rebooted and frankly was REALLY confused because wait, all the Guardians are dead? Weren't they alive in that other comic I just read? Huh? (Which okay, wouldn't be an issue if this was the only comic I was reading, but still stands as an example of poor clarity), and then it said "present" and the writer has to drop in an explanation from Kyle about the fact there are "lots" of Green Lanterns now. And I just...don't understand why they went out of their way to give us an origin story that was so short it didn't give us any useful information EXCEPT forcing the writer to explain how things were NOW different.
If the idea was to spend seven pages introducing the concept of Green Lanterns and Kyle's character, there are better ways of doing this, and I hate to say it of a comic that has such a great premise, but this was badly done.
I think it would have been better to spend that time establishing all the different Corps since we don't get a lot of time with them. And if Kyle's origin specifically becomes important in the future, it could have been done at that point, in flashback, when the flow of the story wouldn't be interrupted.
The cliffhanger, as I said, is really compelling, but I can't help but feel that they should have lost the origin story part, put that cliffhanger in the middle, and then showed us another seven pages of story to really establish what this "team" is going to be like and what their "mission" will be (finding out who caused the rings to abandon their wielders? Returning the rings? Do they agree to work together or are some of them working against others?) These are all questions I'm sure WILL be answered next issue, but I really feel are so fundamental to the premise of the book they should have been answered this issue, given we basically got seven pages of what looks like filler.
In sum, it's a 4 out of 5 concept but the execution is a hot mess and gets 2 out of 5 for the poor structural choices. So I'll even that out and give it:
3 out of 5 Rainbow Lantern Corps.
Pull List Status: No. I was actually plugging for this to be the GL book we pulled, but Kev wanted Green Lantern Corps. I will keep an eye on reaction to this though, and may pick it up in trades if it picks up good press as it goes. As I said, I am very interested in the ideas behind it.
I, Vampire #1
Again, it's a book I enjoyed far more than I was expecting. I mean, it basically sounds like a Twilight ripoff. It's actually...an okay book.
Look, the bad thing is that it's pretty murky and confusing. The voiceovers, the split timeline. The second time I read it, it was fine, and the first time I pretty much got it on an emotional level at least (see below), but I was a little concerned I had the two periods the wrong way around and that there was some clever twist I'd missed or something. I don't specifically mind comics that reward close reading, but I think that this comic maybe steps a little too far on that front.
However, as I said, I didn't really find the confusion was overly upsetting to my emotional connection with the book. It's dreamy and lost. I feel like knowing that Andrew and Mary are lovers, passionately on opposite sides of a coming war, that there was a breakup and then a slaughter, a goodbye and then a betrayal both knew would happen, to be enough. Oddly, the narrative managed to convince me that cause and effect were fairly unimportant to the emotional beats.
Basically, this is epic, doomed, vampire romance and horror done much better than I expected. I have no idea if it's intentional, but Mary's perspective reminds me of the Sabbat faction in that 90s RPG game - Vampire: the Masquerade. One of the reasons that I think I responded as favourably to the comic as I did is that Mary, the one Andrew is deeply in love with, yet considers completely evil, is given a much more sympathetic portrayal than I anticipated. Sure there are elements of that old trope - the crazy, dangerous woman - Clem's Eustacia Vye, if she were a homicidal Vampire Queen. And I don't think that she really justifies her position of slaughtering humans, exactly, but what she does do is convince me that Andrew is a controlling jerk and I'm like 95% certain that it meant to.
The part where Mary is riling Andrew, pretending to be the human she once was, pushing him until Andrew displays his proprietary attitude, demanding she stop daring to wear "her" face - the explosion from Mary, that it's not his face, it belongs to her - it's her own damn face - is actually superb. It's like a moment of greatness in the middle of the comic. Until then, she's a crazy, scary Vampire lady who wants to commit genocide. But in that moment, she's totally justified in being bugfuck crazy at Andrew. As I said, more interesting than I was anticipating.
The art is exciting for its difference and I like it stylistically? But I do worry that the almost...photoshopped photoreference block-print quality it has could prove difficult to sustain because it's kind of hard to tell who's people are at times. It mostly works here because it's really an extended conversation with background events to illustrate it, but for a story with more characters? It's going to be heavily dependent on framing choices and dialogue making things clear, I think.
That's not exactly a vote against the art because the style really is eyecatching and moody and I like that there are some books that try something a little different with their art. But as I said, it's not without its issues.
On the other hand, unlike All-Star Western, I liked the colouring choices here. Here it felt much more appropriate to have an almost monochromatic tone and the blue vs reddish brown/sepia worked well to underscore the two time periods in the story.
3.5 out of 5 Immortal Lovers.
Pull List Status: No, because ultimately even with it's great execution, I'm still not ready to jump into a melodramatic epic tragedy about vampires, but I will keep an eye on it and if it stays good, it seems like the sort of comic that might be rewarding in a trade paperback format, especially since it's largely standalone from the rest of the universe (right now).
Justice League Dark #1
I was really looking forward to this and by and large it didn't disappoint. I've seen a few people comment that they felt that their expectations were so high that the fact it didn't crap rainbows and peanut butter cups was kind of a downer and I get that and can kind of sympathise, but I really think it's the disappointment of it merely being Excellent as opposed to Fucking Incredible.
Firstly, I want to talk about the art. There's a tiny bit of awkwardness to some of the poses, but it's so beautiful I kind of don't care. The penciller has a solid, unsensationalist, soft style and the colourist brings gorgeous painterly tones, particularly to the backgrounds and the skies. The splash of Enchantress' spirit over her hut, with Superman, Wonder Woman and Cyborg staring at it was stunning.
There's a lot of setup in this comic, but generally the good kind. I like that while Xanadu clearly has an idea that the "team" must assemble to save the future, it's very different from the typical method in which a comic might go about assembling them - by getting Xanadu to go around asking. Instead she only asks Shade, really, and given her character, it makes sense she would have noticed what was happening with the Enchantress. Zatanna, meanwhile - I like that she's still associated with the Justice League as she was before the relaunch, and it's not that they're suddenly recasting her entire involvement with the DCU to be more of a, well, John Constantine-like character. So again it makes sense that she'd know about the Enchantress give the rest of the JL know, and that she'd recognise she's best-placed to fight it. I'm not entirely sure what to make of her apparently reckless behaviour and decision to ditch Batman, but it does make sense in this particular situation she'd rather have John Constantine by her side, and again, it's a nice nod to past continuity (without anyone having to know it) that she already knows him. Meanwhile, in what seems to be another part of the real plot (or at least a subplot caused by Enchantress' insanity), we have June Moone (I think she's a new character?) compelled to find Deadman. It's the most contrived of the meetings, but I don't mind because it's in the context of a plot hook.
Another thing I think the book nailed was the tone. I really enjoyed the series of truly creepy, bizarre and imaginatively surreal spells that Enchantress set off in those early sequences of panels. The idea of a power station becoming sentient and then threatening to explode because it's bored is awesome and frightening. Likewise the multiple (and apparently confused and/or suicidal?) copies of June Moone are creepy as all get out and I do want to know what's going on and if the one the comic is focusing on is real or another simulacrum.
Speaking of, I'm looking forward to seeing more of Shade the Changing Man. I always preferred the term Madness Vest, but Meta Vest is probably more appropriate, either way it's bizarre science fictional magic surreality and I always wanted to know more about him but could never really be bothered to read his books. The whole constructed girlfriend thing is truly weird and disturbing so I want to know more about that. I think it has the potential to skeez me out but it could also be interesting in terms of the question of how real his reality warping is and the philosophical conundrums that raises.
I will say that - and I grant this is a nitpick - I wasn't sure why they decided to include Wonder Woman in the trio at the start? I mean, I was super glad to see her (and yay, her real boots!) but it makes sense that the Enchantress would initially defeat Cyborg with his association with science and technology and Superman with his established relative weakness to magic, but Wonder Woman is sort of made out of magic. I mean, I know that she doesn't personally utilise it and we can split hairs that she's divine magic rather than arcane magic, but it just seems that given one of her iconic villains - Circe - is basically a sorceress of dubious sanity, I would have expected her to do a bit better. But as I said, acknowledged nitpick from a Wonder Woman fan.
So...yeah, I think this was a really great setup, but I need to know more about the story before I decide if it's gonna be amazing.
4 out of 5 Bored Power Stations.
Pull List Status: No, but I have a friend who is getting it so I'll probably read his copies and if I enjoy it I may get the trades.
The Savage Hawkman #1
The art is the most interesting thing in this comic. I'm not sure I like it, exactly, but I do like that it's different. It's kind of like oil painting and I imagine it'll work really well for some. Given the messy, confused, bloody setup for the comic, I think it's also a good match for the character.
The story itself? Well, it's fairly basic. I don't much mind the idea of starting with a character trying to put away his superhero past - that's fairly interesting. I suppose I'd like to know why he found that life difficult, but there's time for that later. In some ways, knowing that Hawkman before the relaunch had a complex and inconsistent backstory with multiple versions, I do wonder if that's going to come back and complicate this comic, but judging it alone, and with very little personal knowledge of Hawkman, he appears to have a conflicting relationship with an ancient artifact that has now burrowed under his skin making it impossible for him to escape it. That's kind of an interesting set up. The rest of the comic is...less interesting. I like his Indiana Jones style profession, I suppose that can give his adventures their own kind of flavour, but this particular villain feels fairly cheesy and by the numbers. Ancient cultures mixed with alien visitors? I've seen it before enough that I want something slightly extra - a boost to the writing or the characters - to make it more than by-the-numbers.
I think this has the potential to get better, depending on where they take the character, whether he is still trying to get rid of the armour, why he's trying to do that, whether the alien is a two-dimensional creepy invader or something more complicated.
As an issue on its own? It's okay but not incredible. The art is pretty interesting, though, and it might be worth at least a flip through for that.
Though I'd note Hawkgirl/Hawkwoman is nowhere to be seen. I can understand that if the intention is to slowly reintroduce the mythology but I hope she's not gone for good. That would suck on principle!
2.5 out of 5 People Can't Pronounce Nth.
Pull List Status: Actually, yes. But not for me. K added it as a wild card because we had space for an extra comic, to see what it was about since neither of us knew much about him. So I'll read it cus it's around, but honestly, it'll have to pull its socks up to stay on the list.
Superman #1
I really wanted to love this. Of all the changes to the status quo, the Superman stuff has upset me most, but I liked Action Comics against expectations and I wanted to like this. I didn't hate it, and it had some solid stuff in it, but I can't say I exactly enjoyed it either.
Basically, it splits into good and bad pretty cleanly.
The stuff with Clark Kent, Lois Lane and the Daily Planet is great. While I miss the notion of Kent and Lane as updated 50s-style reporters, this is an interesting and acceptable update that feels thought out rather than a bandaid that suddenly mentions "oh, and there's also a TV channel now". One of the reasons I was concerned at the loss of the supermarriage (quite aside from the fact I just plain like it and felt it did something strong for Superman's characterisation) was fear that Lois' role would be diminished. In some ways I'm sure it will be, but this comic made time for her and made her into, really, quite an interesting character - definitely the smart, driven, principled woman I expect her to be. I think that there could be real mileage in watching her negotiate the waters of running a principled new channel while working for a pretty ruthless and potentially corrupt organisation. A shame that I anticipate this will be written out eventually as more "boring" than fighting. But perhaps I'm just jaded.
I thought the meditations on the death of the print medium, as well as Perry's defense of the depth of analysis it could offer, were a blatantly obvious commentary on the state of comics, implying in turn, commentary about the relaunch itself, but that it was done nicely; obvious isn't always bad and it felt like a slightly sorrowful but respectful salute rather than an anvil. Clark's hatred of the entire situation also rang true, and I enjoyed that he was both short with Lois when she was trying to make the situation sound better, and then later caught himself and went to apologise. Both moments felt authentic. I felt this fit with Clark as a character, and also with his more proactive stance on social justice and political issues in his Clark Kent persona in Action Comics.
Unfortunately, I can't say the same for him as Superman. To start with I felt that Superman's actions fit fairly well with both his Action and pre-relaunch personas, but the dialogue was not really that great. There's just something unSupermanlike about saying, "Balls". I can't get past it. But setting aside a few clunky lines, I think I see what they were trying to do by having Clark's article narrate Superman's fight? I think they were trying to show the depth of analysis that only print can offer? But WOW did that fail and fail hard.
To start with the narration is like no newspaper article I've ever read. It feels like (bad) prose. It speaks way too much about Superman's decisions and opinions and if Superman was giving a first-person account, then the article would have been full of quotes from him, not the interviewer's third-person omniscient novelisation.
In addition, it's not even good writing. It's way too much telling instead of showing ("Superman did this, then he did that, then he decided, then he realised..."), and the few times when it tries to break into the figurative we get lines like, "a Tower of Babel of indecipherability". No really. That's an actual line from the comic. It's just so inelegantly constructed on multiple levels I can't even begin to analyse all the things that are wrong with it because I just want to point at it and make sure other people can see whether it's in the comic too or whether I hallucinated it.
In addition, all the text does is narrate - very blandly - what's going on in the panel. True on a few occasions we get a slight insight into Superman's thought process, but not anything that we really needed to know, or that couldn't be conveyed with thought box-outs (which we ALSO GET at one point, rendering the entire layout horribly complex) or a much briefer (and better written!) article for narration.
Okay, I might be a little oversensitive to this because, you know, it's what I studied for years of my life, but man, I hated it. The fire monster itself felt very...minor villain to begin with (even if it does return at throughout the arc), and this just slows the fight down to the point of boredom.
The real story here is what's happening to the Planet, but because it's a Superman comic we get a mediocre supervillain story thrown in.
The art is fine, although the pages are very crowded. I don't necessarily find this to be a bad thing because it makes me feel that I'm getting more story for my money (and I think this issue is oversized too, without any rise in cost?) I also think it feels much more 90s in terms of style, and I think that's partly where the multiple text-boxes, etc. come from. I know that George Perez has been in the industry forever. So I think that for people who were readers at that point, this is a well-executed return to that style. For me, I didn't dislike it but also it's not my favourite style either. I did feel stuff was a little busy at points.
Like I said, I wanted to like this, and it wasn't bad but there's just not enough in here to really make me feel sure in recommending it.
2.5 out of 5 Nobel Prizes for Literature Clark Kent will Never Win because he Sucks at Words.
Pull List Status: No. Honestly even if I loved it it probably wouldn't be. Superman is right up there as one of my favourite superheroes, but my love of him has always been more tied to his iconography and persona than individual issues. I want the Big, Epic stories for Superman, and you just can't do that on a weekly basis without everything becoming noise.
Teen Titans #1
Man Scott Lobdell is a real mixed bag. Superboy, while not great literature, was genuinely much better than I was expecting. Red Hood and the Outlaws was appalling. Teen Titans is...in the middle. It's not bad in any way, it's just not remarkable either.
The plot is fine, if basic. Red Robin is trying to save metahuman teens from a secret organisation that wants them for some reason, and as the flip side of the Superboy comic, it works better than I'd expect, showing us what we need to know about the plot from Superboy as part of the plot in this book, rather than telling us, or giving us an annoying, inexplicable, "see this issue!" asterisk.
So really is rises and falls on the characters and that's where it's...unremarkable?
I'm not sure it was the best decision for Kid Flash to introduce him during such a catastrophic error, especially since it seems he did know what a backdraft was? (I'm not sure if that encyclopaedic knowledge was a power in itself? Does he have an eidetic memory? At least I'm interested to know that, though). I don't think it's an awful idea, since presumably the idea is that we watch him develop and grow and become a more thoughtful character who doesn't, um, recklessly endanger human life due to his own arrogance, however well-meaning. But it doesn't make me immediately root for him as a hero (even if I don't want him caught by N.O.W.H.E.R.E. either) since my primary concern at the moment is that he'll be unwittingly dangerous. So it kind of pans out at neutral.
Similarly I have mixed feelings about Wonder Girl. Objectively, she's handled fairly well and there's something somewhat interesting about reinventing her as an actual archeological thief rather than a kid who only stole the artifacts to help Wonder Woman. It also makes sense people would call her Wonder Girl simply because she defends against projectiles in a similar way to Wonder Woman, has a lasso like Wonder Woman and seems to have something to do with Greek Mythology, and that Cassie would dislike this.
Having said that, her character didn't make me feel wildly excited, certainly not excited enough to overcome the more metatextual concerns I had. It's hypocritical in a way because I like the stripped down Wonder Woman who is currently appearing in her own book, and I don't particularly want Wonder Girl to show up there. That said, Wonder Woman is pretty much the only female character ever to spawn her own sidekick, especially one named after her. So I'm a little reticent about removing that tie. In terms of Cassie herself, I liked that she eventually turned out to be a demigod and that she had powers in her own right. I do believe that there's precedent in the character to go back to her earlier source of powers and as I said, I'm not against the teenage Indiana Jones schtick, but I'm still uneasy that Cassie herself is now less innately powerful than she was. Her power is borrowed and her current personality is not the sort that suggests she's heroic or doing it for altruistic reasons. Again, I believe that she will develop in potentially interesting ways, but at the moment, it also ends up neutral.
Red Robin is less controversial in that he mostly seems fairly Tim Drake-ish (though is he not still Tim Wayne? I liked that). I actually liked his wings.
Yes, as I said, the characters are neither exciting nor dull and the plot is functional. It might go interesting places, it might not.
2.5 out of 5 Superteens.
Pull List Status: No, it's just not grabbing me. Don't feel the need to read it again, unless I hear truly spectacular things about it.
Voodoo #1
Right. Boobies: the reprise. It's the comic that's set in a strip club. Let's take that head on.
Last week, I eviscerated Red Hood and the Outlaws while defending Catwoman, largely on the basis of my perception of Catwoman's ability to characterise Selina and convince me she was in control and in charge and making choices that made sense to her, while Red Hood utterly failed to give Kory any agency or personality or reason to be doing what she was doing beyond fanservice.
Voodoo kind of falls into the middle. It's not as egregiously awful as Red Hood, there's some attempt to characterise the protagonist and to acknowledge the fact that stripping is not really a very glamorous profession, as well as characterisation of the other women who work at the club in their backroom chatter. Priscilla is also given a reasonable amount of agency due to her actions at the end, killing the sleazebag and then assuming his place.
On the other hand, perhaps intentionally, but somewhat uneasily against the backdrop of a setting that really needs to be counterbalanced by strong and fair characterisation, Priscilla remains very much a cipher. We don't know if she's the vanguard of an alien invasion or a scared refugee trying to learn to fit in. She's a reflection. Which could have been developed as a more complicated theme - she's all about revealing a body that's not her true body, observing those observing her. The comment that it's a good place to learn about people could have come across as a "when you gaze into the abyss, it gazes also into you," moment, but instead it just seems...shallow. The best place to learn about men is a strip club? How...bland. How faux edgy. And why does she "especially" want to learn about men?
Ultimately, the book doesn't justify spending most of its time in a strip club with actual stripping and lap dances on page. There's no need for it beyond an attempt to be the HBO of comics, and while some premium cable shows may succeed in their mandate to further a sense of quality and complexity by showing glossy, but carefully unsanitised visions of the world around us, this book fails. It feels as though it believes the setting justifies itself. She was a stripper in her original continuity's backstory, so fine, okay, I can see incorporating that into this one, but the sheer volume on page does nothing but draw attention to itself in a way that feels very self-justifying. I feel the book expects me to assume grander motivations, to assign artistic value to it as a high concept idea, but I fail to find a compelling narrative or thematic (at least a well-executed thematic) reason for it.
The man in the aviator glasses is a total sleazebag and yes, it's satisfying when Voodoo takes him out, but I still don't see the need to make him as violently uncomfortable as he is made out to be in terms of the treatment of his partner and then Voodoo herself with his smug bastard commentary to her about the "rules" of the dance. If it was simply so we would be sure to be glad when he died, why undercut the characterisation of the otherwise far more interesting female agent by implying, during her final phone call, that she's sleeping with him. Which makes his behaviour far worse, and her tentative forgiveness of him and decision to sleep with him very uncomfortable.
A final note, I think there was some poor visual storytelling on the final page. It's a shame because the blocking of scenes up until that point had been quite good, and the art is definitely clean and competent. But not knowing the character, and not knowing the extent of her shapechanging abilities - because yes we just saw her morph into an alien, but it didn't immediately click to me that she could take on any form, rather than simply having two of her own. Perhaps a failure on my part, but one I feel is not the most ridiculous misunderstanding I've ever had (though granted, that may be a low bar...) As a result, when, on the next page, we see her walk behind a pillar and emerge in the form of the agent, I misunderstood and thought that the reveal was that the agent was still following her, having somehow survived her attack/not really been there, etc., and that he was watching Voodoo leave, still on her tail. Which is, obviously, a very different and far less interesting and, bluntly, kind of insulting ending that undoes a lot of the power Voodoo is otherwise left with.
ETA: It seems this guy suffered the same issue as me and is under the impression that the agent survived rather than that Voodoo shifted into his form. I'm fairly confident that she shapeshifted, but I now find myself questioning it again, and submit this as evidence that it wasn't just me... /ETA.
So obviously, I was glad that I was wrong on that, but I still feel I have to note that I was initially a little thrown by the storytelling here and a shot of her actually shifting into the guy would not have gone amiss. Perhaps it was just me, but given she's not a well-known hero, I think ti would have been good to be extra clear on that since a misunderstanding here is not just a narrative but also a potentially awful thematic failure.
Ultimately, there's an interesting story hidden in here somewhere. And the ending sets up the protagonist leaving the strip club behind her and potentially entering into a far more interesting antagonistic relationship with the female agent who may or may not realise her partner has been killed. There's some really interesting potential going forward. Unfortunately, it's hidden in a comic that's obsessed with boobies and hopes, in a manner akin to killing characters to add faux depth, that they will justify their own existence; a justification I imagine many fans will be all too eager to offer.
It's a low score for this book, although I do believe that it's got a fair chance of improving, if it focuses on what's good about this story instead of, you know, boobies. Or at least develops a sense of subtlety capable of sustaining a story about perception and body horror and women, because this one isn't there yet.
2 out of 5 Mutating Strippers.
Pull List Status: No, and unlikely to be, however I am prepared to hear that from here on out it becomes a really interesting story about Priscilla undercover with that other chick and power dynamics and stuff. I just don't trust the book enough to find that out on my own by sticking with it. I just don't think the odds are good enough. So I'll wait and see, but there's a small chance I'll check this out in trade if I hear really good stuff.
DC RELAUNCH REVIEWS COMPLETE.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2011-10-04 03:50 am (UTC)(WONDER WOMAN. GUH. HOW SO AMAZING!!)
no subject
Date: 2011-10-05 03:44 pm (UTC)And thanks - I'm really glad you enjoyed reading them! I hope the ones you picked up didn't disappoint! And if they did they at least amused! (I spent a fabulous half hour drawing mustachios on everyone in the Green Arrow book, myself...)
(WONDER WOMAN. IDEK. I'M SO THRILLED IT DIDN'T DISAPPOINT I LACK WORDS. SO PRETTY. SO MUCH HEADBUTTING. TOTALLY SOLD. WHY ISN'T #2 OUT YET. ♥)
Aquaman
Date: 2011-10-11 08:01 pm (UTC)For the record, I think DC pretty much hates Aquaman. In DCU Online, he's part of the hero storyline, but you actually have to kick his ass. Everyone else gets glory or helps you out, or you have to rescue them, but Aquaman you have to beat up because he's been ensorcled by Circe and keeps summoning giant lobsters to eat you.
Re: Aquaman
Date: 2011-10-12 07:14 pm (UTC)Seriously? Omgs, that is priceless.
I did see that at the back of Justice League though! And the stupid thing is that so MANY of the redesigns are pretty complicated. Like look at Batgirl's new design, for crying out loud, it's got seams and spikes and fiddly bits galore! Bah. I liked that Aquaman design better too.
On the other hand, I think that the current Aquaman at least doesn't like, die if he doesn't get wet or something. I dunno, it was actually cooler than I thought it would be, but I did at least have the fact that I didn't have Namor in my head as the Cooler King of the Ocean the whole time. :p
Re: Aquaman
Date: 2011-10-12 07:38 pm (UTC)Aquaman
Date: 2011-10-14 11:48 pm (UTC)I guess, with the threat from the ocean, he's going to save everyone, but what's the point? Man, as far as fanservice goes, this honestly offends me waaaaaay more than Cat/Bat sex possibly could. This was just mean.
Voodoo
Date: 2011-10-11 08:06 pm (UTC)I've known Voodoo since WildCATS so seeing her in the strip club is not really a surprise. Her mini series did the same thing, but it was ALL about her being a stripper.
The book has left me curious about what they have made her motivations. Her mini series had her checking out the whole voodoo business and tapping into the gods. This ... she's very aloof. Do the WildCATS have any play at all in this? Or are she and Grifter just to be taken on their own, completely out of that old context. I'm hard pressed to understand, since the reboot ideally should allow for the latter, but half of the rebooted titles still recognize the past.
And yes, unless they've suddenly decided to change her powers, she cannot assume the form of someone else. She's a kherubim/daemonite half breed, so the plot kicker there was actually that the sleezy asshole was goading her into doing exactly what she did and we have to ask ourselves why she was so calm about it after the fact.
Re: Voodoo
Date: 2011-10-11 08:10 pm (UTC)Re: Voodoo
Date: 2011-10-12 07:56 pm (UTC)But yeah, I'm now totally confused about the ending because people seem to think different things. I think that they may have changed her powers? Unless she always had the ability to have both her alien and human forms? SO CONFUSED which isn't a brilliantly clear sign, though I guess next week should clear it up.
It's interesting you say she was aloof - I couldn't tell if it was that or if she was simply uncertain and detached - we spend so little time in her head? And I think in another context I'd find that more intriguing but the contextless boobies sort of make me a little less charitable about that.
I also think that she has a fair amount of naivety and innocence though? I got that impression from the scene in the dressing room, where she seems to almost be aloof not through distance but through lack of knowledge about people?
I'm sorry to say I have no idea about the WildCATS in this. From what's happened so far in Grifter and this, I would guess that they're not going to be in it right now but might show up later?
You're right that histories of the comics seem to be getting the "pick and choose" treatment based on what the individual writer wants to do and/or thinks will be good for the title. Stormwatch is pretty much getting totally rebooted so I guess that might go for all the Wildstorm titles. Which sucks for their fans, though I suppose unlike some other characters they have less of a fanbase in-built and they might want to make it more accessible for newbies? WHO KNOWS is basically what I'm saying. They have said that there will be more Wildstorm characters popping up about the place as the relaunch continues though. I know that Caitlin Fairchild (who I think is from Gen13?) is in Superboy now.
I think I'm gonna take the comics as just what they present to me until they introduce me to the WildCATS. In Grifter's case particularly this seems to be his "origin story".
Here's hoping that the sleazy asshole didn't win that encounter?
Re: Voodoo
Date: 2011-10-12 08:09 pm (UTC)http://media.comicvine.com/uploads/5/55807/1630163-wildcats_covert_action_teams__1992__23_super.jpeg
I'm guessing Zealot is going to show up in some capacity in Grifter eventually. She was an integral part of his story, eventually and the fans (okay, me) loved them together.
You're right about her being naive about some things. And yet. It felt like she just didn't give a shit about daily life stuff. I was supposed to feel that she was uncomfortable around kids, but I just got the feeling she was stripping, doing a job like a drone, in order to make money to do something else. What's the something else? Learning about men? Meh. You don't need to work there that long to figure them out.
Also, the cop? I suppose she's the more interesting one out of the three major players.
http://media.comicvine.com/uploads/5/55807/1618169-wildcats__1999_1st_series_wildstorm__02_super.jpeg
JL Dark
Date: 2011-10-11 08:08 pm (UTC)And it's nice to see Batman in here. AGAIN.
Re: JL Dark
Date: 2011-10-12 09:35 pm (UTC)Seriously, I think there is a rule that Batman must be in EVERY. SINGLE. COMIC. Soon he's going to join the X-Men... :p
Re: JL Dark
Date: 2011-10-12 10:35 pm (UTC)Okay, Godiva is annoying. The others, I'm being patient with.
Zatanna disabling Batman was delicious, but then, I've gotten a few peaks at what she's capable of. Plus I am terribly biased by this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57zFkL9GSZA