Category: Comics

I’ve never been a fan of Greg Land’s artwork. It’s pretty, yes, but it’s also incredibly stiff and posed; that becomes even more obvious when you find some of the magazine shoots he’s used as reference/tracing material. Quite often, women’s heads don’t quite match up to their bodies, as though he’s taken the face of Faith Hill and put it on the body a random swimsuit model but couldn’t quite line it up naturally. Either the neck area is completely shadowed out, or the woman just looks like she’s just emerged from an appointment with a radical chiropractor.

But this (and the piece it links to) is just totally awesome. Land is far worse than I’d imagined.

This isn’t representative of all comic book readers, or even superhero fans. But Jesus Christ, this is one seriously disturbing thread:

If you could kill of one Female Marvel character who would it be and why?

The fact it’s about female characters isn’t, itself, that bad – you could easily substitute “male hero,” “X-Man,” “Avenger,” “villain,” “mutant,” or whatever you like; for whatever reason, superhero fans like to talk about killing characters, even though they seem to become completely aghast when a publisher actually does it.

So even though the idea of the thread isn’t all that bad, it gets ugly fast. As in, the first post:

I would have Luke accidentily roll on top of Jessica Jones crushing her lungs so she cant be retrofitted into anymore continuity.

We soon move into important questions such as “How Slutty is The Wasp.”

Sometimes, superhero fandom is fun. Sometimes it puzzles me. Other times, it annoys me. And sometimes, it seems like it’s composed entirely of misogynistic, close-minded fuckwits.

This is one of those times.

… but first, check out my great ass! And tits! And these high heels, which are just perfect for fighting crime and performing martial arts and acrobatics!

Okay, so she’s a lesbian socialite; we all get that. But is she also supposed to be a prostitute?

And when, oh when, will we see all those great Batman shots where he’s kicking a bad guy and thrusting out his ass and chest?

(From the preview at Newsarama.)

Pure Trance is full of brutal violence, depravity, corruption and all-around weirdness, and it’s really, really, really cute.

An amalgam of several sci-fi cliches, Pure Trance is set in a post-apocalyptic future. The third World War left most of the planet inhospitable, so the residents of Japan moved underground. This subterranean world isn’t very good for growing crops or raising animals, so everyone receives their nourishment from Pure Trance pills. (No, they’re not made out of people) The pills, though, have resulted in many women developing serious overeating disorders.

Pure Trance, then, is set in one of the many hospitals dedicated to treating these eating disorders. While the nurses of Centre 102 are caring and dedicated, the same cannot be said of the director, who spends most of her time high on medication, performing surgery with a chainsaw, and demanding her lackeys bring her more contraband beef. When she finally goes too far and kills a few patients, brave and kind Nurse Kaori finally stands up to her. This leads to an escape to the forbidden surface, pursuit by a pop idol-worshipping security guard and two artificial people, sex with brains and eyeballs, supernatural twins, a meek zookeeper, and bizarre pregnancies.

No, Grant Morrison did not ghostwrite the book.

It’s essentially a fusion of a bunch of sci-fi cliches: Bits of Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep, Soylent Green, and other post-apocalyptic works figure prominently. There are plenty of mutants, androids, psychic powers, and rules about exploring the forbidden surface world. While this has the potential to make Pure Trance a derivative and dull cliche, it has two main things going for it: First, it is so gloriously over the top that you can’t help but appreciate the madness. And second, it is flat-out the cutest vision of a post-apocalyptic future you will ever see.

Mizuno draws in a hyper-cute, super-perky style that makes for a stark contrast with the often grotesque story. The nurses look like sexed-up Power Puff Girls, the children have a pixie-like quality, and the few male characters look like toadstools. Even the surface mutants are cute, with many of them looking like bunnies, teddies, or other fluffy critters. The extreme ultra-cuteness of it all may cause your brain to blow a fuse when you see the Director with syringes stuck into every inch of her body, someone’s skin dissolving until only the brain is exposed, or a large animal ripping in two as it leans into a hole.

For all the absurdity of the story, Mizuno’s established the world in great detail. There are annotations with details on background items – such as the weird surface vegetation or the Director’s supply of sex toys – that add odd details to the world. You can find out that the artificial police go on dates just like regular girls on their days off, and that the Mayor was frightened by the surface elevator and cried a little. Despite the fact that everything is totally absurd, it still makes a fair amount of sense: The loss of the surface world, and its corresponding relationship with the food supply, mean that the world of Pure Trance isn’t totally unrealistic. And while one has to accept a bit of weird-for-no-apparent-reason – such as psychic twins, a mayor with a stuffed animal fetish, or the Director leaving her pornography inside patients – it’s not like Mizuno expects you to believe that being bitten by a radioactive bug could give you superpowers or anything.

While Mizuno’s art is fantastic, it’s somewhat lacking when it comes to distinguishing different characters. There are a few too many blonde nurses …

Huh. Did I really just say that? How odd.

Anyway. With Mizuno using the same basic design so often, characters can often only be told apart by their hairstyle, and even that can change from time to time. This is compounded by there being just a few too many characters to begin with; aside the director, with her tattoos and ever-present syringes, and Kimiko the scarred security guard, many of the females blend together. There’s also not a whole lot of character development to be found, as the story is driven more by the plot than anything else. A few characters stand out well, like the gloriously insane director and brave nurse Kaori. The mayor’s a favourite, too, if only because he has a stuffed animal fetish and is scared of really fast elevators.

Pure Trance is probably one of the more unique books you’re going to find on the shelves this year. It doesn’t always make a whole lot of sense, and at times it’s carried solely by the demented imagination of its creator. But that imagination goes a long way, as Mizuno fills the book with an entertaining mixture of comedy and sci-fi. And it’s all cuter than the cutest bunny rabbit eaten by the most sadistic hospital administrator you’ve ever seen.

In previous reviews of The Losers, I’ve pointed out that the series is tailor-made for a
film adaptation.  It’s a big-budget
action movie on paper, with smart storytelling and strong characterizations by
Andy Diggle and killer action cinematography by artist Jock.  It’s an unholy mixture of The A-Team, Oceans
Eleven, James Cameron, Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino that barely needs
to be changed to be successful on screen. 
And apparently Hollywood has realized this, as Diggle & Jock’s
magnum opus was recently optioned by Warner Brothers.  Just like Sin City, The Losers is a good candidate to become a far bigger film than it
ever was a comic, something that’s both a tremendous accomplishment and a huge
disappointment.

 Diggle has made The
Losers about more that just government conspiracies and terrorist
plots.  He’s brought paranoid
conspiracies into the 21st century by focusing on the one thing both terrorists
and corrupt government officials need: Money. 
Close Quarters opens with The
Losers travelling to London with a goal more suited to a team of
accountants than special forces operatives: They’re following the money they
know belongs to the government operative known only as Max.  They stake out Cayman Credit Internationale,
the bank owned by Max, in hopes of learning something about their target.  Instead, they find CIA operative Marvin
Stegler, who is also hunting Max despite the recent death of his supervisor in
an unlikely boating accident.

 When a familiar face shows up to collect some of Max’s
money, The Losers set off to the
Azores, where Diggle further complicates the plot with a rusty oil tanker, a
Russian submarine, and two very delicate US Navy shipments. It’s here that the
book really blows wide open as Diggle and Jock unleash their particular brand
of stylish violence upon the audience. 
It’s nasty and brutal, but even the most pacifistic reader can’t help
but marvel at the style with which it’s conveyed.

 Ben Oliver, who illustrates the first half of Close Quarters,
is a good stylistic fit for The Losers.
His dark, sketchy figures suit the mood of the book, and the particularly
story, almost perfectly, and on a quick flip through the book one might not
even notice that it’s not the work of regular series artist Jock.  Unfortunately, Oliver lacks Jock’s
superlative storytelling skills.  At
times, Oliver’s work is too dark, and his characters become indistinct.  Stegler seems particularly ill-defined, and
Jensen isn’t recognizable enough even though he’s supposed to be under cover.  The normally excellent colouring doesn’t help
– Pooch’s skin tone varies at one point, leaving one to question whether it’s
him or the white man he’s pursuing we’re meant to be following.

 Oliver’s action sequences are pretty good, but they suffer
from one major factor: He has to share the book with Jock.  When Jock returns for the second half of the
book, he bring with him the dynamic and explosive style Losers readers are
accustomed to.  Action sequences jump off
the page – Jock breaks out more “wow!” moments than just about any
artist in comics – and his characters always remain distinct and identifiable,
even when they’re skydiving and mostly visible in silhouette. As much credit as
Diggle deserves for his smart scripts and twisting plots, Jock is just as, if
not more, responsible for the book’s success. 
As good as the fill-in artists have been, it’s not hard to feel that if
it’s not Jock, it just isn’t The Losers.

 The disappointing part about The Losers‘ potential transition to the screen is how criminally
ignored the book is in its own medium. 
While I can accept that my other favourite books, like Street Angel, Desolation
Jones or Scott Pilgrim, may have their particular niches, The Losers is a book with mass appeal if ever there was one.  While it’s a smart book, it’s by no means
academic or highbrow: For all its strengths and plot twists, The Losers is ultimately a book about a
special forces team blowing stuff up getting into shootouts while hunting down
a rogue CIA operative.  There’s no such
thing as a book that truly everyone will enjoy, but how often does one really
hear comic book fans saying “No, I don’t really like action sequences; I
prefer more introspective and contemplative books”?

 As much as I love The
Losers – it’s unquestionably one of the top books on the market right now –
one wonders if it’s not the metaphorical canary in the coal mine: If the
majority of comic fans ignore a book like this and leave its discovery to
Hollywood executives, what does that say about the medium? For as much as The Losers thrills me by showing off
exactly what a comic is capable of, it depresses me that the majority of
readers will never even consider reading it. 
Thankfully, the upcoming film adaptation, combined with what seems to be
an accelerated trade program for the book, give hope that some day, The Losers will find the audience it
deserves.

Nice article about Alan Moore’s upcoming Lost Girls over at Publishers Weekly. It includes the usual “Aaah! Pornography!” exclamations from retailers:

Cliff Biggers of Dr. No’s Comics and Games in Marietta, Ga. … says that his store “will be cautious and prudent about how we display and market the book. Every store owner has to be careful to make sure that they’re making it available to the intended audience, and not to people thinking that it’s a perfect follow-up to Watchmen or The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.”

Because, of course, both the books he mentions are prime family material:
Watchmen features, among other things:

• Brutal beatings, frequently at the hands of one of the “heroes” of the piece;
• Rorschach’s origin as the the neglected son of a prostitute;
• Dogs killed with a meat cleaver and a man burned alive;
• The revelation the sex is better with masks;
• Attempted rape;
• The slaughter of a couple million New Yorkers;
• A giant naked blue man.

And as for League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, that collection of fine Victorian entertainment?

• Sex between Alan and Mina;
• Rape and brutalization by Mr. Hyde;
• Numerous innocents fried by ray beams
• The molestation of young schoolgirls;
• Beloved children’s icons portrayed as deformed freaks.

Okay, so they’re not all explicit, at least not nearly as explicit as Lost Girls is supposed to be. I could understand if a retailer was worried about someone following Top Ten or Tom Strong to Lost Girls… but most of Moore’s work has been adult-oriented to begin with. Why draw the line just beause this one’s all about sex?
(That’s a rhetorical question, of course.)

Most of the One Year Later relaunches have followed a similar pattern: The first issue has been devoted to establishing the new status quo, with plenty of hints and questions as to what happened during the missing year. Consequently, not a whole lot really happened, other than some very exposition-heavy conversations and narratives. Some of the books were promising, but offered little more than hints as to where stories would be going.

Walt Simonson and Howard Chaykin’s Hawkgirl showed flashes of promise, but was bogged down by loads of exposition as everyone – Kendra in particular – spent the issue talking about everything they were feeling in reaction to the missing year. Simonson starts the plot moving this issue, beginning with an interesting resolution to last issue’s cliffhanger. (though it’s not one we need to see again any time soon) The storytelling is much smoother, and they mysterious goings-on in St. Roche don’t feel quite as forced. There’s a lot more action and a lot less talking, though Simonson maintains his old school style dialogue and narration. Chaykin’s got a better handle on the characters this time, turning down some of his T&A tendencies while keeping his lead character attractive.

Simonson and Chaykin haven’t quite delivered on the book’s potential, but they’re much further along the road than they were last issue.

Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes doesn’t actually advance things very far. Last issue introduced the new status quo for the Legion – cleverly billed as 10001 Years Later to reflect the Legion’s futuristic time frame – and ended with a new addition to the status quo: The fairly spontaneous appearance of the 21st century Supergirl, who believes the Legion’s future to be entirely in her imagination.

This issue resolves the question of what to do with Supergirl. Of course, having already changed the title, DC isn’t holding a whole lot in suspense: She joins the Legion. Perhaps the need to build up advance publicity for the book precluded this, but wouldn’t it have been great to keep Supergirl’s appearance in the 31st century a secret? It would have made these two issues far more surprising, and they could always change the title with #18.

At any rate, Supergirl spends some time showing off how awesome she is, while the Legion debates whether or not to let her join. There’s the requisite awe and wonder at a real, live 21st century superhero showing up, and the question of whether or not she’s insane. They also talk about not having a Legion Flight Ring to give her, though one wonders why it’s entirely necessary: Supergirl can already fly and hang out in space, so why does she actually need a ring? Couldn’t they just give her a radio that patched into the communications system? But perhaps that’s just Mark Waid’s attempt at building some dramatic tension.

Waid’s also stumbled into another potential problem with suspense and drama: In spending two issue showing off how incredibly powerful Supergirl is, he’s raised the bar for any new threats he wants to introduce. The Legion was pretty tough to begin with, and now they’ve got a member who trumps just about all of them… so who’s going to stand up to them? Hopefully Waid’s been taking notes from All-Star Superman.

It’s all fairly predictable, but Waid’s got a nice knack for this kind of light-hearted superhero fare. It needs a stronger direction post haste – and hopefully one that doesn’t focus entirely on the new lead – but Legion is still a fun, if safe, superhero romp. And as a nice bonus, Barry Kitson’s Supergirl is one of the least skanky variations I’ve seen since her return.

I meant to write a review of the first issue of the new Blue Beetle series, but never got around to it. But the second issue is much the same, so I can cover it here: It’s very good.

Granted, it’s not the original concept: A teenager finds a mysterious object that gives him great powers. He kind of looks like he should be teaming up with the Power Rangers. But as much as the book relies a tried-and-true formula, it executes that formula surprisingly well. Blue Beetle isn’t a groundbreaking, original, or even particularly great comic, but it is a textbook example of how to effectively introduce a new character.

In recent years, it’s become conventional wisdom for writers to explore the origins of a new character slowly and gradually: Introduce the character in their everyday life. Show the event/accident/discovery that leads to gaining superpowers. Show them adapting to those powers. Have them learn a valuable lesson and become a superhero with a costume. It’s an approach that works well in the right hands – such as Miller’s Year One, or Bendis’ Ultimate Spider-Man – but more often than not it results in at least an issue or two’s worth of boredom before the reader gains any idea of what the book’s really going to be about.

Co-writers Keith Giffen and John Rogers bypass this entirely by splitting the book in a present/flashback structure. In present-day, the Blue Beetle crashes to Earth, fights Guy Gardner, and finds himself stranded in the desert. In the flashbacks, we meet young Jaime and his friends and family, and see him discover a blue scarab figurine that changes his life and attracts all sorts of attention from unwelcome elements.

It’s an effective plot structure that mixes immediate action with gradual character building. We get to see Jaime as a regular teenager with regular friends and family, and we find out how he becomes the new Blue Beetle. Jaime’s a likeable, average kind of guy who doesn’t fit any of the stereotypical nerd/jock/outcast roles. His two best friends bicker for our entertainment, but are still credible characters. His family falls into a lightly more routine role – hardworking father who pushes him to work harder at school, hardworking mother who keeps the family together, cute and slightly-annoying (though not overly so) little sister.

But we’re also rewarded with immediate action and a sense of what the new Beetle can do. Giffen and Rogers also manage to make the source of Jaime’s new powers mysterious without being confusing: While the reader doesn’t really know what’s going on, neither does Jaime, and there are enough hints and clues to keep the story moving. It’s the sort of thing that needs to be explained sooner rather than later, but for now it’s a compelling mystery.

I normally have my reservations about books that are solid yet don’t try to do anything new – what’s the point? – but Blue Beetle is proving an exception to the rule. While it’s not revolutionary by any stretch of the imagination, it’s well-rounded and expertly constructed to provide the maximum amount of superhero standards required by law: Action, character, mystery, and comedy are all found in abundance. Strong stuff, and one of the best launches for a new superhero to come along in quite a while.

I’ve been holding out hope for some time that Greg Rucka will be able to do at DC or Marvel what he’s done with Queen & Country at Oni: Write a smart, intriguing, and exciting book with unpredictable plots and well developed characters.

He’s tried, I know. Wolverine was interesting, but never quite got off the ground. Adventures of Superman was pretty dull. Wonder Woman was promising, but never really delivered. The OMAC Project was promising, but turned into a convoluted and pointless mess disturbingly quickly. Gotham Central has been his best DC work to date, perhaps because it’s not a superhero book.

Checkmate springs out of OMAC, which is bad, but it’s more focuses on Rucka’s home turf of espionage and regular (more or less) people, which is good. It’s got a distinctly familiar feel to it>: A high-tech team of spies and operatives fight evil terrorists and political opponents. Conceptually speaking, it’s Queen & Country with super powers, which is a good sign indeed when it’s coming from Rucka.

Unfortunately, Rucka hasn’t quite brought his A-game to Checkmate – at least, he hasn’t shown it yet. The book is off to a somewhat generic start: The bulk of the issue consists of showing off how much ass the field team can kick as they systematically wipe out a terrorist Kobra base. Meanwhile, organizational leaders Alan Scott and Amanda Waller attend the UN’s hearings on whether to extend Checkmate’s charter.

As an introduction to a new series, Checkmate is a mixed bag. Rucka gives a good sense of what the organization is about, both operationally and politically. (Short version: They beat up bad guys. Covertly.) But he doesn’t do nearly as good a job introducing the cast. They’re a collection of DC characters of fair-to-middling stature; some of them I knew (such as Green Lantern Alan Scott, JLI survivor Fire, and former Suicide Squad boss Amanda Waller), others were only vaguely familiar. None of them are exactly household names, which means they require more of an introduction than just their name and rank within Checkmate – particularly if you expect any sort of audience reaction when you kill one of them off at the end of the book.

Very few get any significant screen time, and those who do don’t seem particularly well developed. Even Waller, a force of nature in John Ostrander’s Suicide Squad, seems bland and uninteresting; her and Scott seem to exist solely for expository purposes. Sasha Bordeaux, a Rucka creation and ostensible star of The OMAC Project, gets most of the screen time. Rucka likes his strong female leads, but Sasha’s not quite up there with Tara Chace or Renee Montoya – she’s perhaps too strong and tough, and still doesn’t get much in the way of character development.

Rucka’s success with Queen & Country was a reason for optimism with Checkmate, but perhaps it’s also the reason for disappointment: One can’t help but feel that Checkmate is a dumbed-down version of Rucka’s other espionage book, and that he’s making a play for being meaningful and significant in the fictional DCU instead of building characters and plots on his own. Q&C continues to give me hope for Rucka’s mainstream work – yes, it’s just that good – but he’ll need to do better here than cardboard characters beating up on generic and disposable bad guys.

Excellent column by Brian Hibbs at Newsarama about DC’s multiple sell-outs and second printings of One Year Later titles.

The main point echoes something I’ve always thought: The super comic industry takes some perverse pleasure in sellouts and limited quantities. Their press releases practically crow “This book was awesome! Lots of people loved it! Hot creative team! You can’t buy it any more, or at least not for another month when we do a second printing.”

In some cases, I suppose it’s understandable – printing books isn’t free. But OYL, as Hibbs points out, was specifically geared towards attracting new readers to DC. Doesn’t it make sense to have a large overprint in the event these books are as successful as they hope? If everyone hears how great the new Aquaman book is, isn’t it common sense that Aquaman be easily available? I liked the first issue of Busiek and Guice’s relaunch, but missed the second because I’m not so fanatical that I always visit the comic shop on Wednesday. Now, I have to wait until they do a second printing – several weeks, maybe a month from now, by which point I may well have lost interest in the title. Any momentum and press for the book will have long since died off.

IT’s really a matter of DC insisting retailers take all the risk: If you don’t order the books now, you don’t get any more. Nyah. The store loses out on some short term money, but both DC and the store are losing out long-term, as customers aren’t able to begin reading the hot books everyone is talking about.

Yes, it’s really a very stupid industry sometimes.