Hey all, Brendan here. We’ve hit a rough patch of lateness here at BAAPPAS Central, but we’re working hard to right the wrongs. I was out of town this week, so chalk the tardy post and the shortened list up to that. Fear not, children, next week we’ll be back to timely, lengthy normalcy.

Booster Gold #1

Adan: This was quite an enjoyable experience. Geoff Johns and Jeff Katz seem truly excited about writing this book.

It’s getting considerably harder to stay mad at Geoff Johns for the train wreck that was Green Lantern #4 (but I can hold on to my white hot rage as long as I need to). First he gave me the Sinestro Corps War, and now he’s giving me Booster as the greatest hero the multiverse has never known. Skeets, Rip Hunter, and Supernova are along for the ride, so we get a nice team dynamic going. I will say that this issue was pretty wordy, like Scrabble tournament wordy. For a guy who’s supposedly an egocentric moron, Booster sure does have a lot of thought captions. And I mean a lot.

I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed Dan Jurgens pencils. They just feel like classic superhero pencils (please keep in mind that I’m an old man born in 1983). And since he created Booster way back when, he’s probably the only guy qualified to draw his return (Kevin Maguire would also have been acceptable).

The use of the captions with the weeks and days (Week 60, Day 1) as well as the three characters we saw save the multiverse at the end make this feel like the true successor to 52, and I can only hope that fans see this and give this book the sales it deserves.

And can DC please put those four vertical bars previewing upcoming plot points at the end of all their books? It was awesome at the end of Justice Society of America #1 and it was awesome here.

Brendan: Booster Gold, you rock my world.

The greatest hero the world can never know about gets his much deserved new series here. Creators Dan Jurgens, Geoff Johns and Jeff Katz do the improbable, and find a purpose for Booster, both as a character and for a series. Booster has to fix the time stream, and no one can have any idea. Finally, we have a reason for this character to exist both as a sort of asshole, and as an honorable hero. He is a joke, and he isn’t. What’s more, there is no limit to the amount of stories that can be told in between continuity’s cracks. It could be a strong counter-point to Marvel’s Exiles, only character-driven. As long as the jokes stay funny, and the creators stay true to the series’ mission statement, this could be one of the most successful relaunches of a character ever. Jurgens’ work looks better than it has in years, which is a testament both to him and his inker, Norm Rapmund. When his work is off, it looks over-posed and dated. Here we can appreciate his strengths, with dynamic superhero work, expressive faces and an ability to draw damn near everything under the sun.

So here’s to you, you Buzz Cola-shilling, self-aggrandizing, super-suit stealing, time-jumping bastard. You may turn out to be the multiverse’s greatest hero yet. It’s a damn shame it’ll have to be such a secret; I mean, think of how many endorsements 52 universes have to offer!

And dude, that Green Lantern issue was like two years ago. Time to move on, buddy.

Adan: You just don’t know how much that book affected me. I nearly died (literally) because of that book.

Good as Lily GN

Adan: Could this be better than Mike Carey and Marc Hempel’s Re-Gifters? I think it just might be!

Grace Kwon has just turned eighteen years old, high school is about to end, and three versions of herself from different time periods come to visit her. Weird? Yes, but it nonetheless works here, and it works really well. Where Re-Gifters drew its drama from the real-life tribulations of a regular Korean girl in LA, Good as Lily draws its drama from the same kind of real-life tribulations, only there is some magic realism thrown in, which is something I usually abhor (magic realism is the easy way out, I’ve always said). But it felt natural (or as natural as magic gets, anyway) and unforced, unlike the fantasy element in Clubbing, which felt tacked on at the last second. Derek Kirk Kim knocked one out of the park with his first published work Same Difference and Other Stories. With Good as Lily, he showed us that he wasn’t just a one hit wonder.

I think I like Jesse Hamm’s art mostly because he reminded me of Kim’s art in Same Difference. However, he’s also a good cartoonist in his own right. His facial expressions are quite good (especially the super-cartoony ones when something goes horribly wrong) and his figures are just realistic enough to ground the story in the real world, but cartoony enough to allow the magic realism to happen without missing a beat.

If I had to say anything bad about this book, it’s that the end is too pat. Everything works out just fine with all the characters involved. Maybe this is a byproduct of magic realism. Regardless, this is fantastic and may beat out its sister Re-Gifters for comic of the year.

I wonder if it says something about something that the best comics so far both feature Korean protagonists in a comic specifically aimed at girls.

Brendan:It says something about you, at least.

And what do you want? A miserable ending chalk full of tragedy? Again, remember the target audience. This book was genuinely poignant, and very funny. The art wasn’t my favorite stylistically, but it suited and served the story. I don’t think all magic needs explanation, and if anything a forced explanation would have distracted from the story. Each iteration of Grace had a clear purpose in being there, and each one gave insight to Grace at eighteen.

If I had a complaint, it would be the title. “Good As Lily,” doesn’t really synch up with what this story seems to be about. Lily is Grace’s lost sister, and only seems to matter to the child version. Losing a sibling at a young age is a traumatic experience, and from a writing standpoint, should fundamentally change and shape the character. Including the plot point in the title implies importance also, but it doesn’t seem to come through in the story. The title is more than a little misleading, and if this book weren’t so damn enjoyable, I would be upset. I’m not.

Justice League of America #12

Adan: Well, it’s not the worst JLA book Brad Meltzer’s written, not by a damn sight, but it’s still not very good.

There are some nice character moments (the best one I thought was between Hawkgirl and Black Canary), and some nice set-up for Dwayne McDuffie’s upcoming “Injustice League Unlimited” arc, but overall it was still blah (which especially sucks since the last issue was so damn good). What was the point of Wally and Hal hanging out (especially since Hal was supposed to be on monitor duty)? Why were the secret watchers watching (this isn’t a plot point, really, I guess I just don’t want to ruin things if I don’t have too)? And you’ve had the Flash for a good two issues now, and have used him not at all.

What can I say about Ed Benes that hasn’t been said already? The guy draws some purty pictures, but his layouts are kind of bland. Compared to Gene Ha from last month, Benes is just composing the same old superhero layouts with very little deviation. Eric Wight comes along to at least give us something slightly different to look at, but given the choice between Benes’ stale layouts or Wight’s, I’m gonna go with Benes. He draws prettier.

I can’t say that I’m sorry to see Meltzer go, because I’m not. At all.

Dwayne McDuffie, come save us!

Brendan: This was supposed to be so much better. Brad Meltzer was supposed to give us a Justice League of America epic. It was supposed to challenge Identity Crisis as a JLA story for the ages. Meltzer, it was said, was waiting his entire life for this job. Maybe he was, but somehow I doubt that the eleven year old Meltzer was dreaming that someday he would write the most superfluous, deliberate, and verbose adventure the DCU had ever seen. This run was little more than a series of conversations about how great the Justice League is or was. First, the Big Three talked about who could be a Leaguer or not, then some villains talked about how doomed the League was, last issue Vixen and Red Arrow talked about how near they were to death, (despite relatively low stakes). Here, two mysterious figures talk about how much the team has gelled with their one and a half adventures over the last year. While the revelation of who is talking is almost a surprise, and the implications add a previously unseen layer to the team dynamic, the lump sum of this “era” is wholly underwhelming. This entire run has been obsessed with minutia and faux-character development. Hawkgirl is somehow new because she gets together with the biggest DC slut this side of Nightwing. Superman, Wonder Woman, and Batman have learned to let go of the League, evidenced by the fact that we rarely see them. Vixen is now more than just a filled out Animal-Man rip-off. The Red Tornado is somehow more clueless in regards to the human condition than when he was a robot. Though Meltzer clearly had specific goals as to how to develop each member of his team, the fact that each development had to be driven home so clumsily by unseen narrators seems to imply that either the change is not self-evident, or the audience lacks the sophistication to understand the vision. Meltzer quite obviously has a great affinity for these characters, and the world they inhabit. Even more, he seems to have extracted, from their history, the psychological angles that motivate each character. This series has been a study in those angles. And here I thought it was supposed to be a comicbook about the greatest superheroes of all time.

Eric Wight does provide deceptively sophisticated artwork that evokes the work of the past without blatantly copying any one style. Benes, though, again fails to live up to his potential. If there was one word for his artwork this entire run, it would be inconsistency. The line work jumps from page to page, and has since issue zero. There are times when two consecutive pages seem to have been produced by wholly different artists. This erraticism is forgivable for an issue, or maybe two, as deadlines can come fast in this business. But for the entire run to be plagued by that variation is jarring and unpleasant. The simplistic, straight line work is not the most visually pleasing, but acceptable. The hyper-detailed, ultra-rendered look works, too. But make up your goddamn mind.

The greatest disappointment of this series is the promise it held. I liked Identity Crisis, and loved The Archer’s Quest before that. I thought that Benes had made great strides in his work on Superman. Perhaps my expectations were too high, but this series felt like a step back for both creators, with the team they brought to life suffering because of it. Bring on Dwayne McDuffie and the Injustice League Unlimited.

Ripclaw: Pilot Season #1

Adan: There may be some life left in this shameless Wolverine clone.

This Pilot Season thing is an interesting concept. Top Cow is going to publish six one-shots, and then fans will vote on which two will continue as ongoing series. The inside front cover has the six books listed, and by creative team alone, I’d vote for Ripclaw by Jason Aaron and Jorge Lucas and Velocity by Joe Casey and Kevin Maguire. Luckily, we don’t have to go by only creative teams.

Ripclaw is a character from Marc Silvestri’s original Image offering Cyberforce. There is no question that Ripclaw is a thinly-veiled Wolverine clone: a loner who nonetheless joins a team for the betterment of mankind, he also has claws on his hands (in Ripclaw’s case they’re real claws, cybernetically implanted) and kills a lot of people. He even goes to Japan in this issue and fights yakuza and ninjas. But he’s also a Native American of undetermined specificity, and this is where I had hoped Jason Aaron would shine. His Scalped book, about a present day reservation, is a fantastic read, full of very interesting characters, most of them Native American. I had hoped some of that would bleed over and infuse Ripclaw, but unfortunately, it did not go beyond mentioning a sweat lodge. It’s in this sweat lodge that Ripclaw is contacted by many restless spirits to do their bidding so they can go the world beyond. It’s one of these spirits that tells him to go see Boss Yamamoto in Tokyo.

Every fight scene, every single act of violence without fail, happens off-panel. This is a very interesting thing to relegate to the background, as the issue is about Ripclaw trying to get to the head of the Yamamoto-gumi through many levels of security full of gun-toting Yak, sneaky ninjas, and a martial arts master. Relegating this to the background, though, does allow some pretty cool scenes to be spotlighted instead, including the fantastic conversation between Ripclaw and the aforementioned martial arts master, Number Nine.

Jorge Lucas, forced to draw talking heads for a good portion of the issue, nonetheless does a decent job. Ripclaw gets more and more fucked up after each (unseen) battle, so that at the end he’s wearing pants and a shredded shirt, having lost his hat, a coat, and a jacket. Ripclaw himself, though, still looks too much like Wolverine. I understand that the design of the character is set mostly in stone and can’t be changed too much, but maybe his civilian clothing could be altered so that he doesn’t look like a carbon copy of Logan in his civvies. Lose the cowboy hat, show off the ponytail, maybe put on a black jacket instead of a brown one. At least Ripclaw doesn’t smoke cigars. I will say that the aftermath of the battles we’re not privy to are so full of carnage, that my mind just starts racing with the possibilities of what occurred.

Overall, a good book and one that has a good shot at winning this contest. To be perfectly honest, though, I’d probably vote for this on the promise of things to come rather than the actual strengths of this issue. But who knows, maybe the other books will just blow it totally.

Brendan: If you’re going to rip someone off, make sure he’s the best there is at what he does.

I thought this was a very strong “pilot” issue. It was well paced, laid out a conflict and journey that can be extended indefinitely, and made me interested in a character I had no interest in prior. The Tokyo criminal underground can make for pretty cookie-cutter antagonists, but the clever dialogue and characterization manages to avoid tediousness. I did notice that the action went mostly unseen, but there was enough on panel drama to hold my interest.

This series, should it continue, will likely continue to give Ripclaw little face time. I would anticipate each issue, like this one, would delve mostly into the lives of his latest victims, illustrating their sin before penance is paid. Ripclaw himself will only develop as a character in terms of how he responds to the underbelly he avenges. Even if it is formulaic, it should be very interesting.

And with all this voting, I have a funny feeling Jason Todd is going to end up dead. Power to the people.

Terror Inc. #1

Adan: From the early 90s (and from Robert Kirkman’s underappreciated third arc of Marvel Team-Up), comes the basically forgotten character of Mr. Terror, an ageless zombie who just cannot die.

I wasn’t too keen on the series only because I remember Terror as a not so interesting character, but David Lapham has convinced me otherwise. The first half of this book is Terror’s origin story, dating all the way back to 455 AD and the sack of Rome and continuing for hundreds of years. The origin is pretty cool, full of swords and sorcery and a love that could not survive. Flash forward to Los Angeles, 2007, and Terror runs a problem-solving operation. He’s approached by a man from Homeland Security for some cloak-and-dagger stuff, strictly off the books.

I think the part I like best (and don’t judge me here) is that Terror has to take body parts from other dead people to keep himself together. He can also take heads and find out what the guy was thinking before his head got “re-appropriated.” That in itself presents some pretty cool ideas, never mind the fact that Lapham is a fantastic crime fiction writer. I stress caution, though; Mrs. Primo may steal the spotlight if you’re not too careful.

Patrick Zircher, who has experience drawing hamburger meat for heads in Cable/Deadpool, is an inspired choice for artist. He draws the barbarian/knight-filled origin portion like he was drawing an issue of Conan or Red Sonja (only with less lusty wenches) and the present day stuff like he was drawing an issue of Queen & Country. It’s not that his style changes or anything like that, but the atmospheres of each section are very pronounced in the artwork. Where olden times are kinetic and there’s movement in almost every panel, the present day has quieter moments where a panel could stretch for minutes in the same basic pose. The pace slows down as centuries are no longer flying by (not to say that the present day is completely devoid of action or anything like that). I would have liked to see some more backgrounds during the origin portion, though.

My only real problem is that nobody seems to notice that Terror is a zombie (or whatever). Either there are tons of zombies running around (there aren’t), Terror is really well known (then how can he do all that sensitive black bag stuff if he is?), or Lapham just didn’t want to deal with that (the most likely answer and the laziest).

Brendan: I think the fact that people aren’t constantly running from Terror is likely due to the hazy continuity in which the MAX titles take place. MAX titles, while outside of the Marvel Universe proper, are Marvel books, and so there is a precedent for the supernatural. Plus, it is all in Los Angeles, so people probably just think Terror is in between nose jobs.

This was much better than I’d expected. The exposition laden origin is handled beautifully by Lapham, with a narrative tone that both develops the character and illustrates the black sense of humor needed to survive the horrific tragedy that defines this man’s existence. Zircher, who has also done extensive work on Iron Man, delivers the work of his career. Moody, and just grotesque enough, every frame is fully realized and executed. I thought the second half of this issue dragged a little, but that be because I was more interested in how Terror operated in the chaotic lawlessness of the ancient world than in tame L.A. Then again, he did snap a dude’s neck just so he could replace his own degenerated skull, so maybe the world of today can be a little badass, also.

Only complaint: where are the obtuse tri-bars that extend from Terror’s face? They made absolutely no sense, and I demand to see them!