Buy This Right Now #2: Lady Mechanika #1 and Black Panther: Man Without Fear #513

So I have posted my latest columns on the joys of recent comicdom over on the Examiner, but forgot to link one of them to this blog last week! So everyone gets two for the price of one this week as I bring you two links to two great comics!

Yes, she is a steampunk bad girl!

First is Joe Benitez’s excellent first issue to Lady Mechanika! Gorgeous art and a great story make this a great debut from the folks at Aspen. Check out the full review (with art) here.

Black Panther never looks happy.

Next-up is Black Panther: Man Without Fear by David Liss and Francesco Francavilla. I am a long time fan of Francavilla’s art (though not of his name that’s almost as hard to spell as mine!), and Liss comes off well on his second comic scripting assignment. While I am not a huge fan of the regular Simone Bianchi cover (the one above is Francavilla’s variant), the insides of this issue are everything a superhero fan can want from a comic. Check out the full review (with a four page preview) here.

Super-Powered Comics: Batwoman Elegy

I wanted to like Batwoman: Elegy. I really did. I loved 52 and thought, conceptually, that the new Kate Kane Batwoman could be a star in her own title. Years later, it finally happened, and I am left feeling less than impressed.

Don’t get me wrong. J.H. Williams III’s art is every bit as spectacular as the hype its given. He received Eisners for both interior and cover work for this book and it’s plain to see why. He pours his heart and soul in to every page, jumping from style to style, page design to page design, all with a fluid ease that never leaves the reader feeling lost. Dave Stewart’s colors ooze off the page and help to bring it all together in a near perfect package.

It’s the story and the characterization of Kate Kane and the people around her that really irk me. Her relationship with her father is fine, her initial arc with the villain Alice successfully sets up the character as her own woman apart from the rest of Bat-continuity. But when we go in to the flashback issues, I feel all believability and credibility of the story is lost.

First, her father is an army colonel, but one whose daughter was kidnapped and never found years before. Yet we are still supposed to believe that the United States Army would trust a military base responsible for holding destructive chemicals to a man whose security clearance could be so easily compromised. The Army is many things, but it isn’t blatantly stupid.

But the insanity of the book’s storytelling gets worse as we move forward to Kate’s time at West Point. He’s name checked both in the issue and the introduction by Rachel Maddow, so the story of Lt. Daniel Choi clearly has a play in this story. His coming out was a calculated move to challenge the wisdom of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy. Kate’s coming out is either an act of sheer idiocy or self-destructiveness.

Here’s the setup: while studying at West Point, Kate has a liaison with another female student. A report is filed to the school’s commander and she admits to him she’s gay (and apparently gets immediately discharged). It might come off as a powerful piece of story-telling to some, but in reality it makes very little sense. She repeats in the issue more than once that her only dream is to graduate from West Point and serve the country like her father does. It’s her only desire in life (to the point that she becomes reckless and verifiably self-destructive in the aftermath). Now anyone familiar with the military and the terms of joining the service will be very aware of how Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell works. It’s been in place for well over a decade and is explained to any potential recruit multiple times. It’s made quite clear that the military has no problem with you being gay as long as you keep it away from the base and don’t talk about it. How are we supposed to believe that a lesbian woman, daughter of an army colonel, could enlist in the military without knowing straight up that she would have to lie should she ever be brought up on disciplinary action for such behavior? She clearly made that compromise with herself just to be at West Point, so why when confronted with the situation would she do anything but continue the fiction? The only viable explanation in my mind (and a rather preposterous one) is that she didn’t realize she was gay until West Point, despite her homosexuality being hinted at in just the previous chapter.

I know the immediate argument could be, “but how could she live with the lie?” And in response, I will again reiterate that if her repeated professions that being a soldier were her life’s only ambitions, she would have already placed that need to lie in her mind. And a few years later, she certainly doesn’t seem to have a problem lying to friends and family. Or does she just tell anyone that she meets that she’s Batwoman?

I am by no means a perfect writer. I wouldn’t even count myself as anyone near the league of Greg Rucka’s eraser shavings. But how can any writer let such an obvious gap in story logic make it on to the page? How can any editor just ignore the fatal flaw? How can so many readers just ignore it?

As it stands, I think this initial run has inadvertently set up one defining characteristic of the new Batwoman: her own need for self-destruction. Any writer really honest about this character (I’m looking at you, Haden Blackman and J.H.) will embrace that feature in upcoming story arcs. If not, you have successfully created a rather broken character, DC.

Still, for J.H. Williams’ art at its absolute finest, I will give the book a Mildly Recommended. I suggest everyone check it out and share their feelings with me in the comments section.

Super-Powered Comics: More on DC's THUNDER Agents

I mentioned my excitement about DC’s upcoming THUNDER Agents a few weeks back. I think the creative team of Nick Spencer and CAFU are potentially a very, very good combination. I do fear for an early death for the untested product, but I am hoping that continued coverage can maybe help the title grow a decent fanbase before it hits its debut in November. I am a huge fan of the Agents as a concept and a comic. I believe they have sat for far too long. I can think of few characters from the sixties that could play as well as they could in modern comics.

Despite only being a few weeks away, DC has remained surprisingly quiet about the project, but this week they gave us a first look at CAFU’s full design for the new THUNDER Agents. I personally think they come off great. Take a look (click on them to see larger versions):

The scruffy Dynamo is a little removed from the original clean cut Len Brown version, but with the one last chance premise that accompanies the new version of the characters I think he could work out very well. I think the more modern pants design with the classic top and slightly modified belt really do a great job of updating the classic Wally Wood design.

Lightning and Menthor both get more serious updates in the new version.

Menthor drops a rather generic red and blue costume. Instead he now sports a very simple man in a suit look, but with the addition of a helmet. Though metal instead of cloth, it looks very similar to the original Menthor mask, though it now covers the user’s full head. It actually reminds me more of the Justice Machine member Talisman who ironically met the THUNDER Agents in their first annual. Still I think it is a solid remake of the classic character costume that really seems to fit a telepath character.


Lightning is easily the most radical redesign as he went from a very simple yellow and orange design (heavily influenced if not out-and-out created by the character’s regular artist Steve Ditko) to a more modern running suit look. The orange is gone completely, replaced by black molded elements. I refuse to comment on the fact that the team’s African American member comes from a heavy sports background. I will just say of all the new characters he seems to be the weakest overall and the poorest of the four redesigns. I will withhold judgment for now as we see how Guy Gilbert’s replacement grows over the first several issues. Lightning was the most tragic character of the original team without a shadow of a doubt. The new book seems to expand the whole “my powers are killing me” back story of Lightning, so we will see how much the new Lightning plays to that bit with this new incarnation.

Finally we come to NoMan. DC played his redesign off best of all, by simply not redesigning him. Well, his cloak is a little heavier now as is the soiled clothing. Otherwise his costume and look are almost perfect clones of the original designs. The human scientist living in an android body will apparently continue to struggle with his lost humanity, a fate made worse by the decades past since his original transformation. The original NoMan seemed to be a clear inspiration for Marvel’s Vision, a character I always very much liked. When I learned of the existence of NoMan a few years later, I realized how much cooler Vision could really be. If Spencer and CAFU can play NoMan right, he will come off as the enigmatic, almost ninja-like figure Wally Wood and company originally created.

So there you have it, DC’s new THUNDER Agents. For more on these designs, check out the original DC Source blog post. And I hope you will join me in ordering the first issue of THUNDER Agents coming this November!

Stan Lee Goes BOOM!

Not literally, but BOOM! Studios have announced the names, creative teams, and concepts of the three upcoming Stan Lee-created series they will be publishing in the near future.

BOOM! CCO Mark Waid teams with former Warlord artist on Traveler. Traveler is a mysterious vigilante that seems to appear out of nowhere.

Recent DC exclusive (so how he’s writing this I’m not sure) Paul Cornell teams up with former Manhunter artist Javier Pina to create Soldier Zero. Zero is a wheelchair-bound teacher’s aide who is bonded with an alien creature to become a super-powered warrior. This issue offers some interesting dichotomies, as it revives the old Daredevil formula without making out the disability to be something horrible no one can stand to live with. I consider it by far the most interesting of the three concepts.

iZombie writer Chris Roberson creates the third and final title with New Mutants and Adventures of Spawn artist Khary Randolph. Starborn tells the story of a man who thought he was a human from Earth but actually is a major player in an interstellar attack. He gains powers in the process and learns he’s not from Earth at all (’cuz he’s starborn, get it?)

Image from Robot 6/Comic Book Resources

Three pretty decent looking characters overall, though I think Soldier Zero seems far stronger than the others. Over at Comic Book Resources you can find interviews with Mark Waid, Paul Cornell, and Chris Roberson about their respective books. It sounds like these are still a few months away, but it will be interesting to see if Stan and BOOM!’s line of superheroes can survive in the current marketplace.

San Diego is Here... and it begins a little early with the THUNDER Agents!

While I will remain right here in Iowa, I am making no secret that I love the big news stories that often come out of the event. And that’s why I’m going to add my own commentary on some of the most important (or at least most interesting to me) news at the event.

The first truly exciting (to me) is the announcement of the November debut of DC’s new THUNDER Agents book (first announced at last year’s Comic-Con.

Behind the Frank Quitely cover, DC has put together an amazing team for their new series. Nick Spencer has written two absolutely great series for Image/Shadowline, Forgetless and Shuddertown as well as two Existence limited series that I have yet to read. (The trade is on my buy list for August.) The two aforementioned series are two well written minis with a strong modern crime bent. He has a creator owned book called Morning Glories coming later this summer as well as starting a Jimmy Olsen back-up on Action Comics. But not since Robert Kirkman have I found a writer I enjoy as much as Mr. Spencer.

The artist on the lead feature is CAFU, late of the Captain Atom back-ups in Action. He has a good solid style that is quite exciting and (mostly) anatomically correct. His work reminds me of Guiseppe Camuncoli with a hint of Daniel Acuna’s computer-paint style. I am unaware if he has been on a monthly book before this, but if he can keep up the pace, he should be a great artist for the new Agents.

If the team looks a little different to long time THUNDER Agents fans, its because we have a new team here. Spencer isn’t trampling the original book’s history. Instead he’s treating the original team as the THUNDER of the late sixties and early seventies. The costumes have been past down with only NoMan remaining as a constant on the team.

I love the way Spencer and DC have decided to create something new without trampling on the great classic comics. If this book can garner the support it rightly deserves, it could be a real winner.

So what I’m basically saying is you better freakin’ buy it! And not in trade either. Go out to your local comic shop and ask the owner directly to order a copy for you! I don’t want to see this book be another 12 issue casualty of the fickle comic fan.

That’s it for now. Stay tuned for more San Diego stories in the hours and days to come.

Thor's Day 1: Mighty Thor 337

All right, so here’s the deal. I am going to start back on classic runs of books that I have and haven’t read, and share my thoughts on them issue by issue.

My first choice for this project is none other than Walter Simonson’s Mighty Thor. So every Thursday you will be able to look forward to a new installment of “Thor’s Day”. We start with his first issue, Mighty Thor 337.

Like so many of Simonson’s works, his run on Thor starts with an epic scope with massive panels showing something being forged. What it is is still unclear, though the final anvil strike does come with the sound effect “DOOM!”.

Is that the Dreaded Deadline version or just the regular?

From there we go to Dr. Donald Blake (secret identity of Thor if you didn’t already know) as he walks through Grant Park. Apparently, Don was based in Chicago at the time. His time in peace is quickly interrupted by the arrival of Colonel Nick Fury, head of SHIELD. It seems that a threat from outer space is on the way and it’s up to the Mighty Thor to stop it.

Before we can reach space though we get a brief digression. In Asgard, Sif laments her loss of Thor, but moreso her loss of action.

...as long as Walt is drawing me.

Back to Thor on his way in to space. I love Simonson’s skewed angles when we go in to flight mode, especially in to space. Anyway, Thor goes to confront the offending space-craft. After an attack from the automated defenses, he smashes his way inside, only to be grabbed by a massive hand.

Back in Asgard, we focus on Loki this time. He meets a young woman named Lorelei, clearly a sign of things to come.

Back in space, Thor’s attack reveals himself, and he is a figure clearly recognizable to long time Marvel fans.

This costume is strangely similar to his later Star Masters look.

Beta Ray Bill and Thor do battle. Thor looses his hammer after a particularly mighty blow. After a minute, he reverts to his Donald Blake form and is knocked out by Bill.

Bill goes in search of Thor’s hammer, but it has reverted back in to Blake’s walking stick. Angered, Bill slames it in to a wall. In the process, he is tranformed in to the more common image we know of Beta Ray Thor. He moves to defend his ship, but his battle takes him against Fury and agents of SHIELD.

But the battle is interrupted by a message from Odin. The king of Asgard summons Thor back to his home... only he summons the wrong Thor! And Donald Blake is left powerless among the mortals as the issue comes to an end.

Super-Powered Comics: Diamond Destinations July 2010 (for September)

p. 48 Billy The Kid’s Old Timey Oddities and the Ghastly Fiend of London #1 (of 4): The title may be a bit ridiculous length-wise, but Eric Powell and Kyle Hotz have already created one great series starring Billy and his freakshow gang, and this story which takes Billy in to conflict with Jack the Ripper looks equally impressive.

p. 78 New Teen Titans: Games: The fact that this hardcover is even being published is all around amazing. Unfortunately, DC likes to solicit its graphic novel programs months in advance, so this one won’t be out until November. Once it is... well, 144 more pages of the eighties Titans, even Danny “I’m too lame to live” Chase! All by Wolfman and Perez!

p. 17 Deadpool Pulp #1-2: I would show far more interest in Marvel’s new pulp-inspired story if it wasn’t with the already overexposed Deadpool. However, this follows in the tradition of the Marvel Noir books and takes an Elseworlds kick. Too bad the solicits also make it feel more like James Bond than old school pulp.

p. 78 X-23 #1: I am a fan of Marjorie Liu’s writing both in and out of comics. Sadly, her Black Widow run ends this month, but she starts up a new series starring Wolverine’s lady-clone instead. I’m not sure how I feel about the character getting her own ongoing, but Liu does make it more appealing.

p. 85 Incognito Bad Influences #1: I wonder if Marvel will try to advertise Deadpool Pulp somewhere near Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips’ pulp hero book. The first Incognito limited was nothing short of amazing, so we will see if this one lives up to the first. Oh, and the pulp essays by Jess Nevins in the back matter totally make the single issues well worth buying.

p. 263 Vampirella Archives Volume 1 Hardcover: Call me less than enthused about Dynamite’s lackluster debut for Vampirella with two reprint volumes. The character deserves better, but at least it gives me an excuse to run this classic Frazetta cover.

p. 286 Valhalla Cindermane #1: I know next to nothing about this throwback to the bad girl era. It sounds fun IMHO. Oh, and the character apparently already has her own Myspace and Twitter.

p. 300 Return of the Originals: Battle For L.A.: Moonstone begins its new pulp initiative with this graphic novel by CJ Henderson and Mark Sparacio. The goal seems to be to quickly bring all the public domain pulp characters back in both prose and comic form and this is where it starts. This is by far the book I am most interested in checking out this month.

p. 305 Guerillas Volume 1: I was quite intrigued by Brahm Revel’s tale of an all primate squad active in a very real Viet Nam when Image published the first half of it a few years back. Now those stories are being collected by Oni Press, hopefully with the second half of the story to follow.

p. 378 Scott Pilgrim t-shirts: Bryan Lee O’Malley’s soon to be movie star finally goes hog wild on a whole series of shirts.

p. 382 Iron Man 2: Arc Reactor Glow Accessory: Am I the only one that thinks thorwing htis in the middle of a shirt would be simple and freaking awesome Halloween costume?

The New Game Plan

Yeah, so I’m still not updating this blog nearly as much as I like, but I think I have worked out a remedy for that. You see, my erratic Clone Saga posts have made me think that it would be fun to go pick up old runs and start reading them, one issue at a time. I will blog about each series one day a week until I have came to the point where they aren’t so enjoyable anymore. And unlike reading old Clone Saga issues, hopefully I won’t get the urge to cut myself while reading them. So expect the first of those updates a week from tomorrow as we go back and look at the work of Walter Simonson as we start the first installment of what I like to call “Thor’s Day”.

Stay tuned.

(Oh, and I should have my next installment of Diamond Destinations up sometime between now and then.)

Super-Powered Comics: Diamond Destinations June 2010 (for August)

Not the cover to Guardians of the Globe

p. 68: Superman Earth One HC: First announced around New Years, DC finally brings one of its two Earth One books to fruition. This hardcover by the team of J. Michael Straczynski (also the regular Superman writer) and Shane Davis promises to recreate the origins of the Man of Steel for the twenty-first century. I don’t know quite what to expect here. We have had at least three different origins of Superman in the last twenty-five years, and that’s not counting Smallville. But we will see how this “Ultimate” Superman takes off in the long run.

p. 87: Superman: The Last Family of Krypton #1 (of 3): Outside of surprise to see Elseworlds back at DC, I am excited to see more Cary Bates comic writing. The classic Superman scribe and more recent writer of Marvel’s excellent True Believers has shown that he has really stepped up his A-game in recent years. it will be interesting to see how this one plays out.

p. 145: Dungeons & Dragons #0: IDW has picked up the D&D license now and I have no idea how good or bad it will be. But I do know one of the two universes they are debuting is a new Dark Sun book (to tie in to the re-release of the setting this year). Dark Sun is easily the most original (and over-powered) D&D setting ever and I am excited to see it in comic form for the very first time.

p. 168: Guardians of the Globe #1 (of 6): Robert Kirkman finally gives Invincible’s super-team a brand spanking new book of their own. With co-writer Benito Cereno and artist Ransom Getty, I trust these characters are in good hands. Now if we can just get an ongoing....

p. 172: Morning Glories #1: Nick Spencer really impressed me with his recent series Forgetless and this series about a private academy with hidden secrets and the six troubled kids that must unlock them looks to be one of the most promising new comics of the year.

p. M34: Avengers & The Infinity Gauntlet #1 (of 4): Normally a retelling of the Infinity Gauntlet as an all ages title would probably not appeal to me. But when written by Brian Cevinger (Atomic Robo) and drawn by The Anchor’s Brian Churilla, my interest rises. And unlike most Marvel limiteds, this one still runs only $3, so I’ll be sure to pick it up.

p. M44: Shadowland: Power Man #1 (of 4): I know nothing about this new Power Man, though his costume reminds me a little too much of Rocket Racer for my taste. Still the creative team of Fred Van Lente and Dynamo 5’s Mahmud Asrar has potential. Unfortunately for my budget, the book runs $4.

p. M71: Namor: The First Mutant #1: I have been a big Namor fan ever since I discovered John Byrne’s book in 1990, followed shortly by back issues of Invaders. Normally, I would be all fired up for a new book starring the character. But his new X-universe book written by Stuart Moore, a solid but as yet unimpressive writer to this reader, and drawn by Ariel Olivetti, an artist whose current style I am less than fond, dampens my mood a little bit. The $4 price tag doesn’t help much either.

p. 252: Dracula: The Company of Monsters #1: Boom continues its attempts to expand its marketshare with this series developed and plotted by Kurt Busiek. The high concept is that it’s Dracula vs an evil corporation. If actually scripted by Busiek, I would almost certainly give this one a try despite the somewhat tired concept. Instead I’ll probably be giving this 4 buck book a once over at the store first.

p. 264: The Last Phantom #1: Dynamite’s take on Lee Falk’s Phantom debuts this month. And outside a lackluster cover by Alex Ross(!), I see very little to sell me on this book. I’m honestly a little disappointed to see the company let this book’s debut go so unheralded.

My costume is blood! I'm so 90's!

p. 298: Airfighters #2: Just when I was afraid we had seen the last of this great anthology book, Moonstone gives me issue two. Let’s hope it is 72 pages of awesome just like issue one.

p. 360: “Multiple Mang” t-shirt: Is this the first time Madrox has had a t-shirt, at least in this design, the same as the characters regular t-shirt. If so, isn’t that really strange?

p. 436: DC Adventures RPG: Hero’s Handbook: DC returns to table-top RPGs and it does so with the Mutants & Masterminds game system. I still am known to play the occassional game of the classic DC Heroes game from Mayfair, so I am more than interested in this combination of my two favorite super-hero RPGs.

p. 437: Smallville RPG Core Rulebook: And the same month the DCU gets a new RPG, the CW series based on the Superman mythos gets its own game as well... from a completely different publisher. Margaret Weis Productions brings this game to the market. They are known for high production values, and it should be interesting to see how they play out the show’s combination of superheroes and normal mortals.

Super-Powered Comics: Diamond Destinations May 2010 (for July)

We are running behind with Diamond Destinations this month as I seek to play catch up on all my writing post-Script Frenzy. So let’s waste no time and go straight in to the Previews.

p. 24: Doctor Solar, Man of the Atom #1: The classic Gold Key hero returns more than a decade after his Valiant incarnation came to an end. Doctor Solar is a character with great potential, a human with godlike powers and a fragile sense of his own humanity. Watchmen’s Doctor Manhattan owes a lot to him, and much like in his Valiant incarnation, writer Jim Shooter knows it. This time his history seems less convoluted than at Valiant. With Dennis Calero’s masterful art, this one came off as a winner in its Free Comic Book Day preview. Let’s hope it stands just as tall when this series debuts.

p. 69: Brightest Day: The Atom Special #1: Ray Palmer gets a new lease on life at DC in this one shot. An interesting creative team is really the selling point here, as celebrated indy writer/artist Jeff Lemire (Sweet Tooth, Essex County) teams with former Dynamo 5 penciler Mahmud Asrar to bring the Atom’s further adventures, first here and then in the back-ups in Adventure Comics, also starting this month.

p. 78: Batman: Odyssey #1: I am probably an odd choice to push the merits of Neal Adams’ art. I came to know of the legendary caretor through his old Continuity Comics (pre-Deathwatch 2000, thank you very much). But I would be lying if I said I wasn’t excited to see him return to Batman with this six-issue limited series. And bravo to DC for continuing to know that if they want to charge me $4 for a book they better give me 40 pages.

p. 90: Mighty Crusaders #1: DC dropped the ball with their initial two Red Circle offerings. No one was going to jump on two books made up of completely unknown heroes for $4 each. But this second wave might have a better chance as the combined heroes of the Red Circle are now members of a government super team called the Mighty Crusaders. This is only a six issue limited, so I encourage everyone to give this book a try. I think DC has been hit or miss with the Red Circle characters, but this may very well be their last chance to shine.

p. 110: Welcome to Tranquility: One Foot in the Grave #1: I was a huge fan of this book’s initial 12 issue run. Let’s hope they can do as well the second time around.

p. 142: True Blood #1: I enjoy True Blood as a television series but I must express doubt as to its quality as a comic. That being said, David Tischman and David Messina are both solid talents, so you never know with this one.

p. 163: X-9: Secret Agent Corrigan #1: Chris Sims chose in his look at Previews to focus on the other book on this page, Pureheart the Powerful, another fine choice. But I am thoroughly excited to see X-9 by the great team of Goodwin and Williamson collected. I am more than a little disappointed at the continued price of $50 for many of these collections however. I really hope that IDW will realize some of us are on a budget and give us paperback follow ups to these hardcover editions.

p. 170-171: Invincible #75 and Walking Dead #75: I have made it clear I think that I am an unrepentant Robert Kirkman mark, so these two giant size issues have me excited beyond belief. And not just for the third Science Dog adventure. Kirkman likes to throw in big plot changers in his anniversary issues. Expect these two to be no different.

p. 178: Officer Downe: I know absolutely nothing about artist Chris Burnham, but I know Joe Casey can write some really crazy comics. And Burnham has provided this book with art I can only describe as Bruce Timm meets Geof Darrow. It looks freakin’ amazing.

p. 200: Artifacts #1 (of 13): Top Cow under Ron Marz has been building to this book literally for years. I don’t know how meritous it will prove to be, but I for one am just interested in seeing all of the 13 artifacts we were promised.

p. 220: Boneyard: Resurrected #1: I have read this series before, in black and white from NBM. From the sounds of it, I may have been the only one. Now Richard Moore has brought the book back, in color, through his new publishers Antarctic Press. If you haven’t read it before, I highly recommend you check the book out. Moore is an amazing artist, and his story of Michael Paris and the monsters of Raven’s Hollow is one well worth picking up.

p. 265: CBGB #1: I have no idea what the merits of a CBGB comic are, but this does feature a story by Phonogram’s Kieron Gillen and a cover by the always amazing Jaime Hernandez that was worth sharing IMHO.

p. 276: Pat Lee’s Widow Warriors #1: It is rare that I will single out a comic for this reason, but I highly recommend everyone avoid this comic. Pat Less has prven himself one of the douchiest talents in comics, repeatedly taking the money and running. I am honestly disappointed to see Dynamite pick up this book.

p. 280: Green Hornet: Parallel Lives #1: Since I took time to tell you not to buy one of their books, I thought I would take a second to focus on one of their other new titles. I have enjoyed the relaunch of Green Hornet at Dynamite with Kevin Smith’s story starting rocky and really coming together, while Matt Wagner’s Year One was great from the get go. This one is a prequel to the upcoming movie, so make of that what you will. I will say it is written by a great young talent in Jai Nitz though.

p. 292: Avatar of the Futurians #1: I am not going to lie and say that its title is not based on marketing off a certain record-setting motion picture, but I will say that this book does bring back Dave Cockrum’s classic superteam. I own every other issue of the Futurians (all eight) and always thought they were loaded with potential. I hope the new creative team of DAvid Miller and Greg LaRocque can bring out all the potential these characters were loaded with from the beginning.

p.312: I am Legion: John Cassaday draws some really pretty things, and this is a collection of 144 pages of those pretty things. Don’t ask me what its about. Something with World War II and the supernatural. All I know is it was released in France years ago, and has been partially released in America at two different times. This will be the very first time anyone can get the entire series in one package.

p. 314 & 315: Captain Action Season Two #1 and Honey West #1: Two new series from Moonstone continue their tradition of pulp excellence. The classic sixties toy line and the classic spy series are both getting new leases on life there, and I am thoroughly excited about both. But Honey West in the hands of Trina Robbins and Cynthia Martin really stands out as being potentially amazing.

p. 321: Sixth Gun #2: I loved the Free Comic Book Day first issue of this western book, and highly recommend it for fans of supernatural genre benders like Hellboy and The Goon. If you missed the first issue at your comic shop, they are also re-releasing it on the facing page.

p. 322: Scott Pilgrim’s Finest Hour: It goes without saying, but I will say it anyway. Buy this book.

p. 328-29: Hotwire: Deep Cut #1: In the last couple years, Steve Pugh has developed one of the most gorgeous art styles of anyone anywhere. It is on full display here, as he writes and draws the sequel to the series he co-created with Warren Ellis.

p. 362: Back Issue #42: Regular readers have seen me down this route before, but I cannot recommend this magazine enough. This month’s theme is the Wild West, complete with a Jonah Hex cover.

p. 380: Peeping Spidey: I cannot say for sure what it is, but I really love this Marvel t-shirt. Good stuff.

p. 429: Star Wars Chopsticks: After months of delay, these things are finally coming out. And I declare them awesome.

Pulp-Powered Comics: Airfighters #1

After a so-so revival of Airboy early last year, Moonstone finally presented the follow-up, their anthology Airfighters. The book clocks in at sixty-two pages of black and white classic flying action with revivals of eight different flying heroes of the thirties and forties. Well worth the $5.99 cover price in this author’s opinion.

Chuck Dixon continues his return to Airboy in “Iron Rain”.The twelve page story proves to be a rather disappointed done-in-one adventure of the hero fighting Nazis. But the greatest oversight is the lack of Valkyrie in the story despite her appearance on the great cover by Tom Grindberg.

Tom DeFalco’s Flying Fool takes a novel look at the genre, but tales of the Flying Dutchman and Iron Ace prove a little more lackluster.

The Bald Eagle tale’s conclusion clearly takes the character in a direction never used before, but only subsequent stories really will tell us how good the new Bald Eagle might be.

Ver Curtiss provides some stunning art to Martin Powell’s Black Angel, which gives us a slightly more heart warming story of beating back the Nazis.

Sky Wolf takes the biggest departure from the original character, or at least the version of that character I know from Eclipse’s Airboy series. The art by Oscar Celestini is unique, but quite solid. Unfortunately the character and his story seem rather flat in comparison to the exploits of the aforementioned Airboy-backup star.

The book concludes with what is clearly the best tale: Captain Midnight by Christopher Mills (Femme Noir) and Rick Burchett (Batman Adventures). While by no means an Eisner contender, the short takes the classic radio hero and shows just how exciting his swashbuckling adventures can be, even in eight pages. He drops in to the Aztec jungle, stops the Nazi plot, and swings out in the company of a beautiful damsel in distress. The series works on an adventure serial level to absolute perfection while avoiding the typical European setting of far too many Nazi stories.

All in all, I rate Airfighters #1 as a great package. Hopefully we will see another one from Moonstone Books soon. Recommended.

Pulp-Powered Comics: Femme Noir

Much like Athena Voltaire (a review you will see later this month), Femme Noir started its life as a web comic before transitioning its way to the printed page through the fine folks at Ape Entertainment.

Written by Christopher Mills (Primortals and drawn by the legendary Joe Staton (E-Man and just about every DC hero), “The Dark City Diaries” take us to Port Nocturne, a city dripping with the kind of noir storytelling only found in black and white cinema. But the full color comic somehow catapults that city in to a costumed vigilante’s world with the appearance of the comic’s mysterious namesake and Brother Grim.

One of the key factors in the series is the mystery of Femme Noir herself. No one knows her secret identity, not even the reader. We are given three choices to the character’s real world life, but all or none may be true. It’s certainly not a new concept: it’s been used everywhere from the animated movie Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman to Max Allen Collins’ Wild Dog to the Tangent version of The Joker. But Mills never lets us in on the secret, at least not yet.

Each issue gives a done-in-one that builds on top the mystery of the character even as she fights villains that take the noir elements and push them straight in to pulp, whether it be a jungle woman or an evil robot. All of it seems to fit in place in the slightly strange city of Port Nocturne. It all works incredibly well together, but I don’t want to give away too much of the fun of this book.

Several gorgeous pin-ups ordain the backs of the original issues, though I am unaware if they are included in the collection. As a web comics author, Christopher Mills is easily reachable through his Facebook page or through one of his numerous websites. He even has pages of the web comic version of Femme Noir up at Ape Entertainment’s comic site.

But I digress, this is about an amazing graphic novel, well worth the price of admission. Check it out. Highly Recommended.

Pulp-Powered Comics: Howard Chaykin's The Shadow: Blood & Judgment

The character of the Shadow was one of my first links to the world of pulp fiction. I became a huge fan of the character when central Iowa radio station WHO started playing the old radio serials irregularly between 9 and 10 p.m. Already a superhero fan, I quickly took to the Shadow even though, thanks to Ron Fortier’s comic at Now, I was more familiar with the characters in the Green Hornet episodes they also played. The movie would soon come out and continue my fandom. But the Shadow’s days in comic were pretty much past already (not counting one or two Dark Horse issues).

It wasn’t until the last couple months that I finally stumbled across a copy of Howard Chaykin’s 1986 Shadow miniseries. Published at the height of DC’s move to edgier material (the same year as Batman: The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen), it strived to do something few would ever dare to do. It brought the Shadow in to the eighties.

In the process, Chaykin finally gave the Shadow a detailed origin. Though it feels more than a little clipped from the Green Lama’s background, the origin works perfectly to explain both where Kent Allard received his powers and why he assumed the name of Lamont Cranston.

We meet the older versions of his classic forties sidekicks, some of which quickly die. Harry Vincent and Margo Lane would still play prominent roles as would Harry’s daughter, a thoroughly modern woman proved a little more old-fashioned than she thinks by the Shadow.

The “Suggested for Mature Readers” title charged the Shadow with more sex and violence than even his old pulps allowed while still crafting an entertaining tale of the classic character reborn.

Sadly, the follow up series would quickly derail the character’s modern day take. The character fell in to the trap of being violent for violence’s sake while not giving enough Shadow to really please the classic fans. Not even art from the likes of Bill Sienkiewicz and Kyle Baker could save it. The Shadow would disappear for a while from DC comics before being relaunched in a new forties-era series called The Shadow Strikes.

Nonetheless, Chaykin’s “Blood & Judgment” is worth a read. Give it a looksy if you can find it in a used book store or comic shop. Recommended.

Pulp Month Presents Tarzan Tuesday: Super-Crossovers!

When Dark Horse picked up the Tarzan license in the mid-nineties, they immediately set out to make him a franchise player with the company. They met with limited success. But one thing they did manage to do was create some great crossovers.

Tarzan’s first Dark Horse comic apparance actually came in a crossover: Tarzan versus Predator At the Earth’s Core. Written by Walter Simonson and drawn by Lee Weeks, the story serves as a sequel to the thirteenth novel, Tarzan at the Earth’s Core. This means the plot can be somewhat dense with characters not know to the casual observer, but I still found it a great deal of fun when I read it as a teenager (having never read a Tarzan novel). It holds up quite well even today, though I would say it’s one weakness actually falls in to the crossover territory. The Predators play a minimal role in the overall story, although this probably works for the best to let the true villains of the tale shine. Mildly Recommended.

Batman / Tarzan: Claws of the Catwoman is one of my personal favorite comics. Ron Marz and Igor Kordey teamed up to produce a great book with some amazing twists. Basically we get an Elseworlds version of Batman sometime in the early twentieth century as he meets the traditional Tarzan. They come together after an expedition sponsored by Bruce Wayne is exposed as a looting. The person who exposes it is a cat-garbed thief, but this Catwoman is nothing like Selina Kyle. The adventure quickly leads Batman, Tarzan, and Catwoman in to the jungles where they face the looter Finnegan Dent as he tries to return for the rest of his fortune. The Elseworlds twists play out perfectly over the course of the series, and Kordey may be the ideal Tarzan artist. All in all Batman / Tarzan: Claws of the Catwoman is great comics. Strongly Recommended.

The last of these stories releaed in real time is Superman/Tarzan: Sons of the Jungle by Chuck Dixon and the late Carlos Meglia. Unlike Batman/Tarzan, they produce an Elseworlds for both characters. John Greystoke never gets lost in the jungle. Instead a baby Kal-El is raised by apes. The tale focuses far more on Kal-El as he goes through the experiences shown in early Tarzan stories while John finds himself out of place in polite society. By the time the three issues end, both men are in Africa and fighting to save Jane Porter and Lois Lane from a certain evil empress. It’s failure is in not being as good as previous Superman as Tarzan tales. Sadly, Not Recommended.

The final collection we will cover today was actually nominated for a Harvey Award the year it arrived in stores. Originally printed as six issues of the ongoing Tarzan series from Dark Horse, Tarzan: Le Monstre would use Tarzan in a way quite similar to the later League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Through three two-part stories, Tarzan faces off with the Phantom of the Opera, Frankenstein’s Monster, and Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde. Writer Lovern Kindzierski clearly knows how to tie these stories together and makes this level of meta-fiction look easy. The art team of Stan Manoukian and Vince Roucher bring the intricate style they used previously on Dark Horse’s Shadow comics to the architecture of Paris. This comic is a joy to behold and an even better read. Strongly Recommended.

Sadly, while Dark Horse still holds the Tarzan license, they have done little with the character in the past few years outside classic comics reprints. Hopefully, this will change in the near future, as comic fans may be more responsive to the classic character than in past years. We will just have to wait and see.

Pulp-Powered Comics: Spider-Man Noir

While X-Men Noir told a crime tale featuring various unpowered X-characters filling in the roles, Spider-Man Noir clearly shows that Marvel doesn’t know what the word Noir means. Despite the cool black and white cover, this isn’t Noir. It is pure unadulterated pulp.

Peter Parker is a kid with a union rabble rousing aunt and a dead uncle. He lives in a crime ridden New York, where everything and everyone is controlled by the crime boss Norman Osborn, a.k.a. The Goblin. When Pete meets Ben Urich, the reporter takes him under his wing, and the tale really gets going.

Because when Peter learns that the corruption the city faces pervades the police, the newspapers, and even city hall, he begins to understand that only a rogue can stop the Goblin and his freak show minions. Granted a new agility and the ability to cast webs by some kind of spider deity, Peter becomes the black-clad vigilante known as the Spider-Man.

While bad things often happen to good people over the course of our tale, Spider-Man remains a beacon of hope for the city, even as he questions whether to become a killer or not. He quickly puts a damper on the Goblin’s criminal enterprises... which quickly leads to a battle between Spider-Man, the Goblin, and the Goblin’s henchmen like Kraven and the Vulture.

The book is a lot of fun while remaining a great tale. I am unfamiliar with co-writer Fabrice Sapolsky, but David Hine has made a name for himself as a quality down-to-earth style writer. He really shines here, especially with the art of the terrific but hard to spell Carmine Di Giandomenico who previous did some great work on both X-Men: Magneto Testament and the Amazing Fantasy story arc “Vegas”.

The book concludes with some really amazing concept art. I honestly only have one complaint about this collection. Marvel decided to collect this in a smaller cut format, slightly larger than the low price Marvel Adventures cut. But this book is still priced a little high at $14.99. It is still cheaper than the original $4 price for each of the original four issues, especially when discounted by your favorite online bookseller. Still I loved this book and would give it a Highly Recommended.

Oh, and talk about timely, it was just announced that the Noir version will appear in the new Spider-Man game.

Super-Powered Comics: X-Men Misfits

A couple years ago, Marvel teamed up with Del Rey Manga to bring its X-Men franchise to manga. The results were the abysmal Wolverine: Prodigal Son, a dismal attempt to tell a Wolverine story without all the concepts and ideas that make him Wolverine. I don’t care how much you like Wolverine, do not read it. It is an act of utter terribleness.

On the other hand, X-Men: Misfits is a much cleaner, more focused product. The concept is simple, young student Kitty Pryde learns she is a mutant. It causes her life to become miserable in her ordinary school, until the staff of Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters invites her to come to their special academy. The kicker, though, is she doesn’t realize until she arrives that she is the school’s only female student.

She quickly ends up as an object of desire for both the super cool Hellfire Club and the more stable forces of the X-Men, but she faces the terrors of pre-pressure in the process.

What makes Raina Telgemeier and Dave Roman’s story work so much better than Wolverine: Prodigal Son is that they understand that they need to alter the X-men story without losing the themes of the book. Much like the animated series X-Men: Evolution, their focus on a high school setting helps fit the idea perfectly, even as we redesign the characters in a shojo-style.






That’s the Beast. And yes, I am pretty sure he is supposed to bear an uncanny resemblance to Totoro. But he is still Hank McCoy with all the personality traits of the character we know. It makes it easy for us to continue in to the story while chuckling at the redesign of the character.

It’s fun and it carries some of the silliness of true manga, but it never loses sight of its story and the X-Men. It does pull a regular manga move and ends on a cliffhanger, but the plot is just thick enough to carry the reader through. It is by no means perfect. Artist Raizu sometimes makes the art just too damn busy. But it still features just enough fun to keep things interesting.

Need more?






Storm has a mohawk again.

I rest my case. Recommended.

Super-Powered Comics: Avengers the Initiative: Secret Invasion

I have meant for a couple of years to share my opinions about the Marvel crossover Secret Invasion. It is the only one of the big two comic publishers’ crossovers I have bought in the last decade. I never got around to it for a variety of reasons, though it is still floating around my stacks of comics I want to review.

But my local library did have the trade of the Avengers: The Initiative issues that tied in to Secret Invasion. So after reading it, I decided it was worth a review. Maybe it will get me off my butt to review the actual core limited. That being said, I think this work may actually be much better done.

One of Marvel crossovers events’ weaknesses are their need to try to cover the over-arcing storyline only. Character pieces are left by the wayside as they become plot driven pieces of boredom. Avengers: The Initiative: Secret Invasion provves to be the exact opposite. It tells the complete tale of the invasion, while putting its focus on three leads, all regulars in the series.

The 3-D Man (the former Triathlon) is the true star of these six issues as he gets the goggles of the original 3-D man. With them, he learns about the skrull forces just before the invasion begins. The skruls have infiltrated the teams of the Fifty States Initiative, a project designed by Iron Man and Yellowjacket (secretly a Skrull himself) to put super-teams in every state. 3-D Man sets out to stop them all.

Meanwhile at the Initiative’s home, Camp Hammond, two Robert Kirkman creations, the Crusader and the “Irredeemable” Ant-Man, both become embroiled in the invasion as well. Crusader is a Skrull himself, but with no link to the invasion and a love of Earth. When he realizes that Yellowjacket is a Skrull, he is left to question what action to take. He loses his choice when the invasion begins. He travels to New York with the base’s other heroes to join in the massive battle between Earth’s heroes and the Skrulls.

Ant-Man cowardly avoids going in to battle, only to be at Camp Hammond when the Skrull armada arrives to take control of the base. He helps his allies in the Shadow Initiative fight the base’s invaders. They fail, but Ant-Man escapes to give 3-D Man’s forces information on a Skrull secret weapon based in the Fifty States Initiative’s bases. My only real gripe comes with the writer’s scripting of Ant-Man’s personality. While his actions mirror his behavior in his own series, his dialogue often proves way more crass. But Robert Kirkman and Phil Hester created a unique character with their Ant-Man. His voice is almost certainly hard to nail.

The story spans dozens of characters (even reintroducing the Skrull Kill Krew), but never loses focuses of a narrative driven by its main three heroes. It works wonderfully at continuing the story’s forward momentum.

What doesn’t work as well is the art. Marvel has become much like the later years of the otherwise solid Ultraverse of late, with each issue seemingly by a different art team. “Regular series artist” Stefano Caselli provides art only for the first and third issue in the trade. Harvey Tolibao (whose art does resemble Secret Invasion artist Leinil Yu’s work) does the second and fourth. The fifth is by Steve Kurth and the sixth is by both Tolibao and Bong Dazo. So no two issues look the same. It is truly a credit to writers Dan Slott and Christos Gage that the art doesn’t completely derail the rest of the project.

Despite its flaws, Avengers: The Initiative: Secret Invasion shines past what a usual crossover tie-in would give us. It is truly a story in its own right while still dovetailing perfectly with the book it spins off from. Even without reading Secret Invasion, I think readers could find a lot to love with this book. Recommended.

Super-Powered Comics: World Without a Superman

Say what you will about the Death of Superman storyline, but never say DC was afraid to take chances with it. For two straight months after the Man of Steel’s death, his titles continued with Superman as little more than a corpse. The trade calls this World Without Superman but I prefer the title on the black cover copy included with the issues: “Funeral For a Friend”.

While his actual death limited the number of other DC characters that came in to play, now we get to see the rest of the universe share their feelings about Superman. At the time, Superman was still a bit of a loner in the post-Crisis DC universe. It was only a little less than a year since he even joined the JLA. But “Funeral For a Friend” made it quite clear that Superman still held a vitally important place in the DCU.

At the same time, the book also covers how the normal people of Metropolis and beyond respond to Superman’s death. We have Cadmus and its battle to take Superman’s body. We have the beginnings of a strong relationship between Clark’s parents and his fiancee Lois Lane. Jimmy Olsen consoles a young boy named Rich who Superman saved from the rampaging monster. Lex Luthor (still under the disguise of the friendly, caring Lex Luthor II) grow in rage at his inability to kill Superman. We have the return of Jose Delgado to his costumed identity as Gangbuster.

Over nine issues, we cover every aspect of how Superman’s death would effect the world. While the saga does slow down in places, it does an excellent job of establishing how important Superman was and how dangerous the DCU could become without its greatest hero.

Of course, Superman would soon return. Four times over.

Super-Powered Comics: Death of Superman

A note before we get started: Take the Helm’s sister sites are now back online. Sorry for the inconvenience, folks!

The death of Superman goes down in history as one of the greatest marketing events in comic history. At the time, the media didn’t know how to respond to such a story. Despite what just about ever comic fan knew, tens (maybe hundreds) of thousands of people thought Superman would soon be gone for good. This drove sales of the Doomsday issues to epic levels. It would be about six months before the one true Superman returned, but in the process the four creative teams of the Superman titles made a unique sprawling epic out of the story.

Sure, the marketing of the comic left a lot of bad taste in a lot of people’s mouth. And subsequent attempts to replicate the concept (Green Lantern Kyle Rayner, Spider-Man and the Clone Saga, and even Knightfall/Knightquest) proved to not be as good. But those series failed where Superman’s saga succeeded. Why? You could give any number of reasons, but I will say good planning. Superman’s death and return had a clear beginning, middle, and end. The follow-ups failed (or at least ridiculously delayed) to give the readers the closure they wanted for the concept.

The saga is collected in three trades and I will cover each in turn. It begins with the aptly title The Death of Superman. No title could get more to the point. DC created a character that became synonymous with nineties storytelling in the form of Doomsday. The near-mindless killing machine possessed no origin, no reason for its actions, and no reason to exist beyond being the vehicle of Superman’s demise. Or so it seemed to much later, when his creator Dan Jurgens finally revealed his origins.

But that’s another story. This is about Superman’s death. Over six issues of the Superman titles and one of Justice League America, Superman and his allies in the League battle the oncoming monster. This League, the post-Giffen team, consisted of Guy Gardner, Fire, Ice, Blue Beetle, Booster Gold, former Superman villain Maxima, and the exercise in nineties character naming, Bloodwynd (secretly a messed up in the head Martian Manhunter). Despite a decent level of power, the team didn’t work so well together. In the face of Doomsday’s power, they fell with relative ease.

Barring occasional aid by Guardian and Dubbilex of the Cadmus Project, Superman faces the monster alone. And Doomsday seems obsessed with making his way to Metropolis.

This leads to the final few chapters of the story as Superman and Doomsday spar again and again in a cross country battle. The fight ends in a ravaged Metropolis. In the end, Superman barely pulls out a victory over the beast, but at the cost of his own life.

The story is simple and pretty straight forward. At the time, fans hated how Doomsday just appeared to facilitate Superman’s death. I suspect they wanted background on the character and a reason for Superman to die at Doomsday’s hand. But those really aren’t important yet. There would be plenty of time later for long time fans to learn the origins of Doomsday.

The goal was Superman’s death. And in the true tradition of comics, that was just the beginning.

Super-Powered Comics: Dark Avengers Assemble

Thanks once again to the fine folks at my local library, I have had the chance to check out the beginning of Marvel’s “Dark Reign” from its focal point, Dark Avengers. Specifically the trade of the first six issues, titled “Assembled”.

The first issue is spent just assembling the new team. In case you haven’t heard, the Dark Avengers are sort of a reverse Thunderbolts, a bunch of criminals dressed up as heroes but still distinctly evil. Two members of Iron Man’s Mighty Avengers hold over, the war god Ares and the Sentry, a character too messed up in the head to go anywhere else. In addition, we have Spider-Man (really the Venom symbiote wearing Mac Gargan), Hawkeye (the assassin Bullseye), Ms. Marvel (former Thunderbolt Moonstone), Captain Marvel (Noh-Varr, the former Marvel Boy), and Wolverine (Logan’s son Daken). Led by new head of HAMMER Norman Osborn in his guise as the Iron Patriot, they are the new generation of Avengers.

Never do we really get an explanation of why Norman decided to go this route. He may have had to work for it, but other Marvel books clearly show that he could have formed a team of less famous but more stable (and manageable) actual heroes. He could probably still keep Moonstone and Daken around with little or no trouble and avoid the high probability of Venom or Bullseye going crazy. But clearly the concept is more important than the reasoning, as we quickly move on to the team’s first (secret) mission: to save Doctor Doom from a crazed Morgan Le Fey.

Now as far as I know the last time we saw Morgan was in the first few issues of Kurt Busiek’s Avengers relaunch in the late nineties. That story gave us a near pitch perfect story starring every Avenger on the roster facing an epic time-warping threat. Here we get some demons and an unkillable woman hellbent on Doom’s destruction. She does a lot of damage, the Avengers kill her repeatedly, and a few issues are wasted on what is basically an extended fight with the team’s own idiocy. I suppose this is supposed to show the team’s inability to work together, but all it shows me is that anyone who bought this wasted $12 for these three issues.

Issue five is straight forward Bendis at work. Norman goes on television for an interview about his history as the Green Goblin and the identity of his Avengers. The other team members interact, mostly like twelve year old schoolboys, with the exception of Noh-Varr and Moonstone, who retreat to her bedroom. Noh-Varr learns that the other “heroes” are really villains and leaves.

Issue six closes the trade with the Sentry murdering an entire legion of Atlantean dissidents. We get another brief meeting of Osborn’s Cabal and hints that Osborn’s Green Goblin persona is pushing for control once again.

Writer Brian Michale Bendis likes his decompression, but I have to say that I would feel gypped if I spent $4 an issue for this at their LCS. Even with my library grab, I feel like I am not getting as much story as this trade should have. The story here seems pointless and far from the flagship of an entire line of titles. If this was my only view of Dark Reign, I would say “:No thanks”. Even though Mike Deodato produces art far and away better than anything he has done before, this book still falls flat on its face. Not Recommended.