Black Summer #0

Adan: The setting of this book is a strange mix of the real world and every conspiracy theorists’ wet dream. September 11th happened and there is a war in Iraq, and both are the fault of a corrupt and evil American government. John Horus, the premiere super-hero of this world, knows this and other awful things that this government has perpetrated, and has assassinated the President, as well as the Vice-President and top aides, on the basis of that knowledge. This looks like it’s going to out-Civil War Civil War, and by that I mean be totally better because Ellis and Avatar will do it right.

Oh my sweet fuckin’ Jaysis! Did I just say Avatar was going to do something right!? This is all Civil War’s fault!

On another note, Warren Ellis writes a text piece after the comic portion of the book in which he explains the genesis of the idea for this book, as well as explaining some of the world that these heroes inhabit, thereby lending itself to the ongoing debate of text pieces that we’re having here on BAAPPAS. I felt like a pretty good grasp on the world before reading Ellis’ text piece at the end, but after reading it, I have an even better grasp. I have some history on John Horus, as well as the Seven Guns group that he and Tom Noir belonged to. Ellis also gives me an insight on Horus’ character that I didn’t know from reading this issue: that Horus was always “the Good Man, the one who could be trusted, the one who believed most passionately in justice for all.” To me, this falls under background of the world. Since Ellis doesn’t have a continuity to play around with, he has to create his own, but he doesn’t have the time or space to give it to us in comic book format, so he just tells us. He tells us enough so that a) we’re not lost, and b) we know where these characters are coming from. I continue to applaud the use of text pieces.

Brendan: Must…buy…each and every variant.

The afterward by Ellis is good bonus material as this isn’t even the first issue, and does explain some of the setup of the story. However, I am sure it will all be clearly told via the sequental art at some point during the series. This is an aside to the reader, but more about the real world than the fictional one.

While this book is no doubt informed by Marvel’s last event, it was the similarities to Dynamite’s The Boys that I was most intrigued by. Like The Boys, the level of violence seems to classify it as an “adult,” title, only here there are obvious mature themes seem to match the mature content.

I thought it was a stroke of genius to have the first “Zero” issue deal almost solely with the inciting incident of the series. Up to this point, maybe the world was sort of like ours, if only with a super-guard militia. Now, though, shit has hit the fan.
Ellis is sure to hit another grand slam with this series. As much as Ellis publically derides superheroes and the genres’ stranglehold on the medium, it is impossible to deny the care he brings to stories dealing with them. Admit it, Ellis, spandex always leaves you coming back for more.

Catwoman: When in Rome TPB

Adan: I read this mini as it was coming out because I used to love all of Jeph Loeb’s Batman work, but decided this story was really quite superfluous once it finished. This is still the case. I will never balk at looking at Tim Sale’s artwork, because it has always been awesome, but the story itself was useless. Don Verinni dies, and we’re never told why (though I guess we’re supposed to assume it’s so his son can take over), nor who does it (the suspect list is populated by the Riddler, the Don’s son, and even Louisa Falcone). The Riddler’s grand plan is to find out the Batman’s secret identity by screwing with Selina Kyle, and somehow this requires involving the Don’s albino son, the Scarecrow, and the Cheetah, as well a Freeze Gun and Joker Juice (maybe)? It just doesn’t make any sense. If in fact the Riddler killed Don Verinni (as we’re supposed to believe as it was done with Joker Juice than only Nigma could get), what was the reasoning behind it? Just so Catwoman couldn’t ask him about her parentage? The plot holes are so big, you could drive Unicron through it. Don’t bother with this; it’s even worse than Dark Victory.

Brendan: Way to spoil the ending, dude. There are a few things in Loeb’s Batman I always dig. First, the collaborations with Sale are stunning. I thought in this piece Sale did more in the way of “cartooning,” and using greater exaggeration of poses to sell his story, (Eisner would call this “bigfoot” comics versus “little foot” ones). I think the creative team respects the mythos, and works hard to create world where the gangsters and the costumed villains can coexist. Finally, I really like the way that Loeb and Sale, and even Loeb and Lee, keep the story insular in such a way that even though many story years have passed they are always following up the same storylines, be it the fate of Harvey Dent, the relationship betwixt Catwoman and Batman, or the Riddler finding his identity as a villain.

That stuff I like. So I put myself in these situations. This was eminently “okay.” The murder mystery was not as phoned in as some, and I was invested enough in Selina’s own mystery, (case of the missing parents) to remain interested. Of course, Sale is top notch, and even when it feels rushed, it almost feels purposefully rushed and only serves to stylize the work more.

One thing I couldn’t decide on was what I thought of Loeb’s take on the character. She walked a fine line between empowered woman and damsel-in-distress cliché. She is either over or undersexed as a character, I can’t decide. On the one hand, can’t you do a story about a female lead without making it a love story? On the other hand, is it possible to NOT do a love story in Rome? But you do get the Jeph Loeb trademark “Bat-villains on parade” type of story, an intriguing twist on Selina’s heritage, and solid work by Sale making it at the very least worthy of a glance.

Adan: Way to spoil it? This thing came out like five years ago! There’s such a thing as a statute of limitations on this sort of thing. But since we’re on the subject, Darth Vader is Luke’s father.

Invincible #42

Brendan: The crazy thing is that the tagline “Probably the best superhero comic book in the universe!” is the fact that it is an understatement. It is definietly the best superhero comic in the universe. Truth be told, it was the last “cheep” issue 0, at just a quarter, that drew me into the series in the first place. It was two years in, but hey, better late than never. I went back and read the first hardcover and fell in love. It is the pure central concept that elevates this book beyond standard superhero fare, in “best in universe” status. It feels like the idea that Stan Lee forgot- Superman has a son, but Superman is evil. Even that doesn’t encapsulate the richness of the universe Robert Kirkman and Ryan Ottley explore. This is a world that can grow and evolve, and that is not taken for granted. Mark Grayson is a different man than he was in issue two, or issue eighteen, or issue twenty-four.

I especially love the way that Mark’s family dynamic is forever in flux in a way that makes it feel real. As people it is our family that define us, and that is illustrated no where as well as in this book. The last page of this issue makes it perfectly clear that Invicible will now have resposibilities he never dreamed. That and another million things make this issue great and if you haven’t read Invincible yet drop the buck ninety-nine here and get it.

Adan: Seconded. The whole review. Just pretend I’m repeating everything the Coach just said. The only thing I’d add here is the “review” portion of the comic. A text piece written by David Campbell and spanning six pages, it gives the complete rundown of everything that has happened in the Invincible Universe (except for the Lizard League killing a bunch of heroes on Earth while Mark and his strike team were beating the Sequids). This doesn’t really count as an explanatory text piece as all this was written and drawn out in the previous forty-one issues, but it’s nonetheless good and in text. So there.

Lightning Lady GN

Adan: At first glance, this is just a collection of comic strips I don’t read. I opened it without knowing what it was about and then kind of just fell in love with the premise. A world in which fiction and reality intermingle is usually pretty cool (see Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, but not Cool World) and the eponymous Lightning Lady is a comic book character who exists in the real world as well. And she has a boyfriend, but it’s kind of hard to give up the evil when you’ve done it for so long. But she’s trying, and that’s what’s really important. But don’t worry about any that if you don’t want to, as the strips within the book are pretty funny.

The only problem I have is Brad Guiger’s layout. Guiger, the writer and artist of the strip, redesigned his traditional four-panel strips “into a cohesive page structure like you’re likely to see in a graphic novel.” This meant making panels bigger or smaller; fitting five, or three, or one panel per row; or just cropping some art to make it look less like a bunch of four-panel gags put together and more like a flowing narrative. Some of the four-panel strips were even broken up into two pages so that you had to turn the page to get the punch line. Unfortunately, this layout scheme didn’t work at all. It just made things confusing and some of the art bad (especially the blown up panels). Luckily, Guiger is a good enough writer that his jokes weren’t lost in all the jumble.

Lone Ranger #6

Adan: Oh, so sad! This arc was five issues of awesome only to end in a mediocre fashion. The big showdown between the Lone Ranger and Julius Bartholomew ends with kind of a bang, but gets quickly sanitized. Look, fucking spoilers here, but why don’t the Ranger and Tonto kill him? He’s a really bad guy who totally killed your family! How do you walk away from him and just hope the authorities find him before he escapes out of the wreckage? You’re a Texas Ranger with a mandate to kill all criminals. The poster says “Dead or Alive” for a reason. And that reason is that “Dead or Alive” is the ethos of the Wild West. You can’t just sanitize that away. I don’t know, I’m pretty pissed. I’m going to keep reading, of course, if only to see of the Lone Ranger mans up when he comes face to face with the guy that ordered the death of his family.

One good thing of this issue is the conversation between Bartholomew and Tonto after Bartholomew ties him down. That man is seriously screwed up to be able to think in such a fashion.

Brendan: Ahh quit your whining. He’s supposed to be a hero, and heroes don’t kill. Or rangers don’t kill. Or something. Ultimately Black Bart is supposed to be a sympathetic character, and killing him would cost the series a good foil down the line. There are already hardcore old west books, this is a superhero in the old west book, so morality and such must operate on a different level. I thought this issue was a quality ending to this story. It had a big payoff action sequence, resolution to the Ultimate Lone Ranger origin, and even one of the tongue in cheek catch phrase homages this series has done so well. I remain impressed that Dynamite has put out such a well crafted book that is so accessible to the average DC or Marvel fans. Now that the opening arc is done I hope a lot of people buy the collection and hop on board. It is good times.

Adan: Then they should have made this a super-hero western from the outset instead of dicking me around, because this is Texas we’re talking about, and Rangers certainly do kill. And how is Bartholomew even remotely sympathetic? The guy kills people in very imaginative ways. That’s not sympathetic, that’s sociopathic. I do agree that Black Bart needed to continue living in order to provide a good foil down the line, I just wish they’d thought of a better way to keep him alive than “I’m gonna be a super-hero now.”

Loners #3

Adan: Ooooh! A mutant from the past has come back from Limbo in a book I did not expect to see her in. I like the Generation X kids a lot (especially Jubilee, the SoCal mallrat), so whenever one of them pops up, I get all fanboyishly happy. Yes, Penance has returned to the Marvel Universe (though her name seems to have changed, I guess so that Speedball can take over it).

The Loners is a strange book. On the one hand, it’s about this sort of AA-like group of super-heroes who are trying to not be super-heroes anymore. On the other hand, this MGH operation is still around in LA and the Pride is no longer around to protect anybody. So it becomes this psychological write-up on these heroes and their motivations moreso than most (the last page is especially telling in that regard), but they still punch things…. or do they? In a situation that I was sure would end in a brawl rather quickly, Mickey Musashi, ex-hero Turbo, talks everybody down and the bad guys walk away without their prize and the heroes don’t get slapped down by S.H.I.E.L.D. for being unregistered heroes. I’m digging this book a lot, and if you’re looking for some therapy mixed with your action, then give this book a shot.

Brendan: If you ever loved Runaways, you owe it to yourself to read this book. The best part of that book was the specialized area of the Marvel universe that it served. Where Runaways was the disinterested teen market, The Loners is the disenfranchised twenty-something. It feels as though this book should have always existed. Artist Karl Moline really hits his stride in this issue, nailing the style needed to sell the faces that once hid beneath the masks. The characters all feel like friends you knew in elementary school, but haven’t seen in ten years and are shocked to see where they have ended up.

I hate to say it, but I wish there was an “INITIATIVE” header on this book. It mentioned registration, so it should qualify, and I bet it could use the sales bump.

New Warriors #1

Adan: And speaking of Limbo-locked mutants returning to the world, I give you Sofia Mantega aka Wind Dancer, as well as…. well, that would be telling, but trust me, it’s awesome. There are heroes in this world who don’t truck with Iron Man’s view of a registered corps of super-heroes, and they’ve decided to resurrect the name of the heroes supposedly responsible for inciting all this. The New Warriors are back, and they’re fighting crime the old-fashioned way: striking from the dark and leaving the bad guys trussed up for the police to deal with. I was pleasantly surprised by this book, and not just because of the returning mutants. The New Warriors team (of which only three are actually shown, with a clue pointing to a fourth) is actually working like a secret super-hero team should. They strike from the shadows, and are never seen except by the villains they’re running down. The cops are baffled (but they’re excellent supporting characters) and aren’t sure what to do about these new New Warriors. Kevin Grevioux seems to know what he’s doing and I hope he continues in this vein. Paco Medina’s awesome art also helps. He’s familiar with mutant kids from his work on New X-men, so he should have no trouble here.

Brendan: I have said it before, but I am more than a little tired of the Big 2 letting people learn to write comics on the fly. This book had a lot of strong points, the secret mutant character being a high water mark, but I thought the pace was too slow. Understand, I don’t mean that it was bad by any stretch, and I think the first issue of Young Avengers was a little slow too, but I do feel that it takes the readerships’ interest in the next issue for granted. I think the YA comparison is an accurate one, because I think Marvel is hoping that this project will follow in that one’s success, taking a successful Hollywood writer, an up and coming slick artist, and some lesser known teen aged characters and striking gold. This is a noble goal, as no one misses Heinberg and Chueng’s book more than me, but in order to get there each issue must be better than the last.

I think that my main issue is expectations; I want a first issue to stun me. I want to finish it and think, “Wow, this book is unlike any other that I have read before and not only can I not wait until next issue but I can’t wait for this series to go on and on.” I think I just miss the days where the first issue had a greater obligation than just being the first chapter in the first trade. The dialogue was spot on, though, and Paco Medina seems intent on taking this opportunity to establish a premier reputation for himself.

In any case, I liked it. I’m waiting to love it, but I liked it.

Superior Showcase #2

Adan: This book is awesome! It has three shorts, one about superhero antibodies living inside a young girl, the second about Hollis, the awesomest super guy, and the third about the Unremarkable Tree Frog. Personally, I enjoyed the Joey Weiser’s Tree Frog short the best (his awkwardness around Thievery Girl is super cute and anti-hero Jack Hammer’s origin story is hilarious), but they’re all super good. Hollis is what Batman would look like if he read comics instead of starred in them, but Farel Dalrymple plays it straight, so Hollis is perceived by most as an urban myth who nonetheless strikes fear into the hearts of criminals. “A Long Strange Trip” by Maris Wicks features Antibody, Neutrophil, and Mr. T-Cell, the super-heroes that live in your body. Seriously, if you only buy one book this week, it should be this one.

Brendan: The James Jean cover really separates this book from the anthology competition. Well, that and the idea that there are super-heroic Pac-men that defend my body from evil bacteria. That is a good selling point as well. Hollis (Mason?) is sort of like Forbush Man, and I mean that in the best possible sense. Tree Frog was okay. I really enjoyed the setup but the end did nothing for me. You would like it though, Adan. Go cry about McKeever leaving SMLMJ or something.

If you are looking for some quality, original comics, get this. It has stuff you won’t find anywhere else.

Adan: That was… that was just mean. Why do you have to keep reopening old wounds like that?

Witchblade/Punisher

Adan: Well, that’s ten minutes I’ll never get back. I don’t plan on wasting any more time on telling you exactly why this sucked; just trust me on this one.

Brendan: Okay well I will say something, I guess. This book did exactly what it was supposed to. Punisher, meet Witchblade. Witchblade, meet Punisher. Behold the hijinx. No explaination is given to the universe sharing, but then it wasn’t in Marvel and DC’s first Superman meets Spider-man crossover. I wouldn’t say there was much wrong with this issue, the art was clear and pretty enough, and the story did put the characters in the same room to compare pathos. I even thought it channeled Garth Ennis Frank Castle at moments, which is no small feat. That was all it did, though, and nothing really happened. I would say that this is probably a fine comic to read if you are deeply involved in either headlining character, but otherwise it isn’t worth the time.

Can something be very average?

QUICKIES!

Brendan: Dini’s Detective continues to be solid, although that character seems to be sort of everywhere these days. Continuity be damned!

Adan: Dini is an excellent writer and the twists in his Detective are awesome, especially the one in this issue.

Brendan: Alien Pig Farm 3000’s second issue has all the same great stuff as the first. If you want a moody comic about tripping balls through dreamland, check Image’sStrange Embrace. Scary, moody and original, this will be a series to watch.