Category: Comics

DC’s collection of 1980s Alan Moore miscellany:

DC Universe: The Stories of Alan Moore should put to rest the notion that Moore harbors any particular animosity towards the spandex set. While he may have since outgrown the genre, Moore wrote many stories in the mid-eighties featuring some of the biggest icons DC had to offer — as well as some lesser lights — and what shines through is a genuine affection for many characters in their original, outlandish forms. If there’s any scorn and derision to be found, it’s directed towards those who failed to take advantage of the limitless possibilities of the superhero genre.

The Full Review.

Review #2 over at Popmatters.

Brian Wood and Becky Cloonan’s Demo continues the trend of speaking to the losers and outcasts of the world. But instead of Stan Lee’s nerds and wallflowers, Wood and Cloonan tell the stories of punk and emo kids, people living on the fringes of society who aren’t terribly worried about being let in. It’s a darker, more realistic world than the one of superheroes, one in which misunderstood youngsters with unusual abilities are offered neither the kind hand of Professor X nor the seductive temptations of Magneto.

And yes, I know: People who start blogs and then abandon them suck. More to come this week.

Bryan O’Malley has posted the final cover art for Scott Pilgrim and the Infinite Sadness. It is nice:

He also predicts a March release. This pleases me.

In an interview with Publishers Weekly, DC editor Mark Chiarello talks about the wonderful artistic anthology Solo and some of the upcoming authors:

Coming up are Berni Wrightson, Brian Stelfreeze, Jill Thompson, Scott Hampton, Sergio Aragones, Brendan McCarthy Kevin Nowlan, Jose Luis Garcia Lopez and George Pratt.

That’s generally a pretty impressive lineup – all along, it’s been nice to see that DC has recruited more experienced storytellers instead of Michael Turner Explains Anatomy – but the highlight has got to be Brendan McCarthy. I’m still in the process of tracking down more of his work (just found a copy of Rogan Gosh on eBay, but the man is insanely talented. He’s apparently quite a good storyteller on his own – he’s done designs and storyboards for films – but we have to assume the’ll be at least one or two appearances by Peter Milligan. These two have been apart for far too long.

Better than the Mike Allred issue? Probably not. But it certainly promises some crazy excellence.

Were it not for the fact that it already has its own theme song, Nextwave would be an excellent inheritor of Team America’s rousing chorus of “America, Fuck Yeah!” Nextwave is the superhero equivalent of Parker & Stone’s puppet-action-musical, a mishmash of comic book cliches that takes various superhero concepts to their far-out conclusions.

It’s Ellis’ superhero interpretation of the “game logic” or “fight comics” found in Bryan O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim or Corey Lewis’ Sharknife: There’s little time spent mucking about with motivations or establishing in-depth character action. It’s all about punching first, exploding second, and askinq questions at some vaguely-defined point in the future. Some of the characters get a panel or two of exposition; the entire comic is summed up nicely as “a super hero comic about five people who have just minutes to prevent a town from being eaten by a giant lizard monster in purple underpants.”

The giant lizard is veteran Marvel monster Fin Fang Foom, uncovered by the corrupt and powerful Beyond Corportation. The Beyond Corporation secretly funds H.A.T.E., a S.H.I.E.L.D. knockoff run by Nick Fury knockoff Dirk Anger. Dirk Anger hired the heroes of Nextwave to fight terrorists, but Nextwave found out they were working for terrorists and quit. Now Nextwave are dedicated to fighting their former employers, which in this case involves stopping the giant lizard.

That sounds complicated, but Ellis covers it all in a page and a half. And the details are fairly insignificant, given the clarity with which good guys (wearing cool trenchcoats) and bad guys (eye patch, giant lizard) are depicted. There’s fairly little originality or complexity in play here; Nextwave is all about execution.

Ellis is clearly amused by the fringe characters he’s strung together. Elsa Bloodstone seems to be a monster-fighting version of Patsy from Absolutely Fabulous, while Machine Man has gone from “robot who wants to be a man” to “robot who just wants a beer.” The Captain, a nameless and generic hero of Ellis’ creation, confesses he really only wanted to be a superhero “so I could hit people in the face really hard and run away and no one would know it was me.” Meanwhile, Monica “Least Interesting Person to use the name Captain Marvel” Rambeau gets to be both straight man and dry wit, first admonishing Elsa for killing Beyond’s vegetable-robot-soldiers, then later confessing she wouldn’t be terribly bothered if Elsa were to be stepped on by the giant lizard. (She also picks up a bit too much of Ellis’ Britishisms, using the phrase “trodden on”.)

Nextwave doesn’t take itself seriously in the least: Fin Fang Foom wears purple underwear, Dirk Anger’s top-secret communications device is a giant telephone, and fleeing robot soldiers compose their own theme songs. It’s the Saturday morning cartoon extension of Ells’ Authority, delivered with visual panache by Stuart Immomen. Immomen’s angular, cartoony style captures the action with Kirby-esque aplomb. He also pulls of the character interaction quite nicely, and displays an obvious affection for his stylish revamp of Elsa.

Nextwave shows off the sense of humour Ellis often hints at, but never fully explores, in his darker and more sophisticated books. It provides plenty of ammunition for those who believe he hates superheroes, but also plenty of fun for those who don’t insist on taking these men and women in spandex so seriously.

Also, it has a giant lizard wearing purple shorts.

Fuck yeah.

Michael Turner’s Civil War cover: When “cool” poses go too far:

I mean, really. What the hell is he doing? He looks like he really needs to use a bathroom; the shield doesn’t quite cover the fact that Cap’s legs, groin and torso seem to meet at a very odd place.

At least it’s not another Wolverine “Look at me crouching, flexing and showing off my claws in such a way that would be utterly useless in a fight” cover.

My first review is up over at popmatters.com. Not the best thing I’ve ever written, but hardly the best book, either. A few good bits here and there:

Manhunter ultimately doesn’t do much more than skim the ideas of justice and morality, leaving us with yet another tough, take-no-prisoners vigilante. She’d blend right in with all the other macho crimefighters if not for the fact she’s a she; the most interesting thing about the book may be that it’s about a female superhero who doesn’t include large breasts and a thong among her weapons of choice.

Read the full review.

I will freely admit to my ignorance of Brian Wood‘s work. I realize he’s a sort of indie icon, and I’m the sort of guy who tries to keep up with indie icons. I may have missed the boat with Demo, but I’m at least getting on at the ground floor with the two series he launched recently: The story of a New York engulfed in war and violence in DMZ, and the much simpler story of a girl, a boy, and a prescription in Local

DMZ is by far the bigger of the two, and that’s not even considering the DC/Vertigo backing. In the not-too-distant future, the United States has undergone a painful separation, with the Free States breaking off. New Jersey sides with the separatists, Brooklyn and Queens remain part of the United States, and Manhattan is stuck in the middle, a devastated no-man’s land – or, to be precise, the titular Demilitarized Zone.

After years of war, a temporary ceasefire allows an award-winning journalist the opportunity to report on the situation in Manhattan. His crew includes photo intern Matthew Roth, whose father got him the prestigious gig without, it seems, actually explaining what it was. Matthew is swept up in the bustle of the assignment, and is quickly packed into a helicopter flying into the bombed-out, sniper-filled island of Manhattan.

None of this really matters. The politics aren’t given much time beyond explaining the basic premise, and the journalistic mission quickly falls by the wayside as Matthew finds himself stranded in Manhattan. As luck, or plot, may have it, he finds himself taking shelter with one of the few helpful people on the island – a former med student who’s only interested in Matthew’s first aid supplies in return for helping him out.

If it’s all a bit convenient and expository, it’s because one suspects little of this will actually matter over the course of the series. Wood explains that it’s the people, not the war, that he’s really interested in, and we see very little of the people beyond Matthew and his rescuer. Matthew gets a brief scolding about his perceptions of Manhattan – “We’re not your enemy, we just live here” – but any actual character development or exploration is left for future issues.

All this makes the first issue almost entirely setup, though it contains far more bombings, gunfire, and helicopter crashes than one generally expects of setup. There’s unquestionably some great storytelling potential in the scenario, but very little of it is on display here.

By contrast, almost nothing at all happens in Local, Wood’s simultaneous effort published by Oni Press. In Portland, Oregon, Megan McKeenan and her boyfriend argue in a parked car outside a pharmacy. The boyfriend, jittery, irritable, and going through withdrawal, sends Megan into the pharmacy with a fake prescription. It’s probably not giving away much of the plot to suggest that a pharmacist is not at all likely to fall for a prescription forged by a freaked-out drug addict.

And, of course, Megan is busted. But that’s not entirely the point, as the story quickly starts over again, and once more Megan is sent into the pharmacy with the forged prescription. And again, and again. Each time the result is different, but it’s seldom satisfactory. There are two possibilities at work here: The first is the Megan is some sort of super-being, re-shuffling time to ensure a positive outcome. The second, far more plausible given the story title (“Ten Thousand Thoughts per second”), is that she’s simply considering each option, playing it out in her head – sometimes to overly melodramatic effect.

The overall effect is something like Run Lola Run with less action and more emphasis on character. For such a simple story, it’s incredibly compelling: Through one simple task, with several variations, Wood establishes Megan’s character perfectly. She obviously doesn’t want to get busted for fraud and narcotics trafficking, but what does she want?

I’m only familiar with Ryan Kelly’s name as Peter Gross’ collaborator on Lucifer, where I couldn’t tell who did what, but he makes a name for himself with some stellar work. There’s a definite Paul Pope influence, but it’s smoothed out at several points. It’s a true collaborative effort between Kelly & Wood – you’ve got to be good to tell the same basic story four times in one issue and keep the reader interested. How good is Local? I read it on my way home on the streetcar. I read it once, and wasn’t quite sure what I’d read, so I read it again. It was on my third time through that I realized I’d missed my stop by about ten blocks.

Brian Wood’s strength lies in his character work, and Local shines a spotlight on a compelling character you’ll want to follow across 12 issues and most of the continent. DMZ is almost the opposite – all plot and little character – and suffers, though it’s not without potential. Wood’s on a hot streak, at any rate, with one sure thing and another series that bears watching.

Very interesting interview with Darren Aronofsky over at Newsarama about the two different streams he found for The Fountain: The film, which was bludgeoned by Hollywood executives, and the graphic novel:

Filmmaking, you have to collaborate with the studio and with the money people to get the final vision on the screen, but in the case of the graphic novel, the pressures are less from the studio. The other thing with the graphic novel, he could put the camera anywhere, and do any type of shot – budget and money didn’t matter at all with him, so that was kind of another limit that we could take off of the story in telling it as a graphic novel.

This is the sort of thing I’ve been saying forever: In a comic book, you can do absolutely anything, and it’s nice to see a “famous” person recognize it. Why don’t more comics people – both fans and creators – recognize it, too?

I have never been a huge Superman fan.

I’ve dabbled from time to time – I find it hard to believe that anyone who seriously reads comics never has – but it’s just never really set in. I read the Death of Superman, Funeral of Superman, and Resurrection of Superman stories, I tried reading some of Greg Rucka’s work on the character, and have picked up the odd issue here and there, but…

It’s not that these books were bad. They may not have been highlights of the medium, but they were generally decent exercises in storytelling. The problem, ultimately, is that they just weren’t good enough to be Superman stories.

Superman is simply so iconic, so incredibly important to both the medium of comics and the genre of superheroes – and we are told this so often – that one can’t fail to be disappointed that the actual books seldom live up to the legacy. If you were to read nearly any Superman book from the past two decades, it would be understandable if you asked “What’s the big deal?”

One of the complaints levelled against Superman is that he’s just too super. He has super-strength, super-speed, and super-vision, and on top of that he’s just a super guy: He saves girls, dogs, cats and planets with equal enthusiasm, and always says please and thank you. He’s such an ideal character that he’s almost no character at all.

Grant Morrison doesn’t think so. Instead of making Superman weaker – either physically or morally – he makes him stronger. Instead of making Superman more real, he makes the threats more incredible. Want to show off how amazing Superman is? Send him on a rescue mission to the sun. Where he not only saves a spaceship from crashing into a sunspot the size of South America, but saves the crew from a genetically modified human bomb being remote-controlled by Lex Luthor.

And then Morrison makes Superman more powerful.

Lois Lane is so supremely confident in Superman that she writes her headlines before he’s finished saving the day. Jimmy Olsen is a nerd who flies a jet pack to work and wears a Super Watch. Lex Luthor is a bad, bad man. Superman is a hero who saves a boy and his dog without a second thought. This is what people really mean when they talk about iconic storytelling: Everything about Superman and his world is defined right here.

This isn’t the best comic of the year. It’s not even the best Grant Morrison comic of the year. But it’s the best Superman comic I’ve ever read, and that’s a pretty amazing thing.