We Love the City

Category: Comics

  • Lightning Round!

    All right, I’ve been neglectful lately. So let’s quickly talk about some comics I bought last week (which are from about the last month).

    Final Crisis #1

    I’m used to being somewhat confused or off-balance when reading Grant Morrison comics, but this is confusing in all the wrong ways. A New God meeting a caveman? Sure, that’s cool. A missing-children investigation uncovering a dead New God? Sounds all right to me. And then a bunch of villains running around, fighting someone, doing… something?

    Then some different villains arguing at a table, and then… hey, where did Martian Manhunter come from? Ooh, that was shocking. Then back to the missing children case, which leads a detective to the Dark Side Club – I definitely approve, since it’s about the only reference to Seven Soldiers in the last two years.

    And here are some Monitors. I don’t know what they’re talking about. I don’t care. Then the caveman from the beginning meets Kamandi at the end of the world. Again, cool. And the last page is… some guy? Upset about something?

    There’s “this is confusing because Grant has a plan”, and there’s “this is confusing because I haven’t read every comic published by DC in the last five years. I don’t know what happened in 52 or Countdown or whatever, and I don’t think I care much about this.

    All-Star Superman #11

    This, on the other hand, appears where the real Grant Morrison has gone. Lex Luthor escapes from prison by giving himself superpowers and allies himself with a sentient, killer sun? And he gives his niece the keys to the positronic cannon tank?

    My god, yes.

    Blue Beetle #27

    I miss John Rogers. Will Pfeifer isn’t bad, but the story just doesn’t have the snap and crack Rogers’ work did. It’s the same problem I had with some earlier fill-in issues: Blue Beetle is, conceptually, such a generic book – teenager finds magic/science toy, becomes superhero, learns about powers, responsibility, and so on – that you need someone really good to make it work. Pfeifer gives us a nice story about Blue Beetle and Traci 13 investigating some mysterious demons, but it simply doesn’t rise above “nice story.” Traci isn’t nearly as awesome as she should be. Artist David Baldeon does some nice work, too, though he lacks Rafael Albuquerque’s edge. (Albuquerque’s cover: Pure Awesome.)

    Madman #8

    It hurts to say this, but I’m starting to lose my patience with this book. I love Mike Allred, and his art has never been better, but his writing isn’t strong enough to live up to his ambitions. Also, negative points for redundancy: The first half of the story is essentially a recap of Madman’s origin and history, which Allred just did in in #1. (Seriously: He’s developed maybe the best “previously!” page in the business. Where did his awesome sense of brevity go?) The second half is a story credited to “J.L. Allred”, a name I don’t recognize, with art by Nick Dragotta and Mike Allred. It’s… okay. It’s kind of silly, like the sort of story Madman used to be known for, but not as good. I presume there’s a new story arc starting up next issue, so maybe that will be a new leaf.

    Northlanders #6

    It’s hard to talk about this book, since it’s not fully digestible in single-issue format. Nevertheless, it gets better with every issue, and it’s shaping up to be a huge accomplishment for Brian Wood. I’ll try and say more about it when the first story arc is over.

    Young Liars #3

    The first two issue were good… and now I love it. David Lapham has gone kind of crazy, and it’s awesome. Let Sadie explain why:

    “The Pinkertons aren’t private detectives. They’re Nazis injected with special powers by the Spiders from Mars… My Dad’s the richest man in the world, and he wants to impregnate me with Spider-Babies.”

    I don’t know if it would be better if she’s telling the truth or she’s making it up.

    Either way, this is some inspired lunacy. Also: Incredibly disturbing and creepy ending. Everyone read this book so it doesn’t get cancelled. (If you haven’t been reading it, this is a decent place to start.)

  • This is what you’re selling me?

    So DC is doing this big crossover thing? And a crazy Scottish guy is writing it? Maybe you heard?

    Despite my general apathy towards event comics, Final Crisis actually looks pretty cool. Bridging the gap from the weekly Countdown to Final Crisis (exactly why it is DC needs more of a bridge from a 52-issue storyline is the subject of an entirely different post, I suspect), is DC Universe #0, which is released today. And apparently there’s a super-big, ultra-important revelation on the final page. If you don’t want to know what that is, don’t click that link, and you should probably stop reading now.

    I think most people would consider me a pretty serious and knowledgeable and serious comic book fan. I spent most of my teenage years seriously addicted, and have been a serious reader for most of the last 7 or 8 years. And while it’s true my younger self was more interested in Marvel, and my current self doesn’t have a whole lot of interest in superhero continuity, I’ve still read a lot of books, and keep abreast of many happenings.

    But here’s the thing: I’ve never read Crisis on Infinite Earths. Yes, yes, it’s the godfather of the modern event comic, and yes, it has George Perez drawing every DC character ever. But it just doesn’t appeal to me: I was 8 when it was published, and only reading a few Marvel comics at that time, so it has no sentimental appeal to me. I know it has something to do with setting DC continuity straight and sorting out all the multiple timelines and realities and characters contained within, which doesn’t really seem all that interesting to me. I’ve never been much of a George Perez fan, either.

    But that’s okay. Everyone isn’t going to like everything. It’s just one book, and it was published over 20 years ago, so it’s not that big a deal, right?

    Except not. Because yet again, DC seems to be going back to the Crisis well. I know there are already Monitors running around doing continuity things. And now DC seems intent on revisiting one of the major events from that series. And apparently, they expect me to care about it.

    But I really don’t. It’s been twenty years since Crisis was published. It’s been twenty years since Barry Allen did anything of interest to anyone. I’m 31 years old, and I don’t give a damn if he comes back or not; are younger readers or those who aren’t already familiar with the intricacies of DC history, really supposed to find it exciting?

    I’m not a fan of Marvel’s crossovers, either, but at least Joe Quesada and co. have come up with obvious, simple hooks for their events: Spider-Man Unmasks! Captain America Dead! Hulk Smash! It’s accessible and easy to explain to anyone with a very basic knowledge of comics.

    But DC, on the other hand, seems to base all their events around “Hey, remember Crisis on Infinite Earths? That was pretty great, wasn’t it?” And if I didn’t care about Crisis the first time around, why would I care about the third or fourth reinterpretation? DC’s been having a tough time beating Marvel on the sales charts, and this has to be a reason why: Marvel wouldn’t be nearly so successful if all their crossovers were about the Beyonder coming back.

    I’ll probably pick up the first issue of Final Crisis, but that’s largely due to my faith in Grant Morrison. While Morrison can make old characters and concepts seem exciting, other writers’ attempts at that sort of thing more often than not come off as nostalgic navel-gazing and fanboy dreaming. Which is fine here and there, but it’s not exactly the sort of thing you want to structure your entire company around.

  • Milligan Mania: Shade the Changing Man

    If you’re going to talk about Peter Milligan, it’s best to start with Shade The Changing Man. It’s not his first work, but it’s probably his best known, and certainly the book that put him on the map with North American readers.

    Milligan’s series shares the name and basic concept of a short-lived Steve Ditko series from the late seventies. I’ve never read the original book, and am only familiar with the character through a few appearances in Suicide Squad (Has he appeared anywhere else?) It’s about, basically, a guy from another dimension who comes to earth to fight a madness monster.

    But that’s not really the point. The point is that he needs to occupy a body in Earth’s dimension. The body he ends up in is that of a serial killer who’s just been executed. And the first person he meets upon escaping is the woman whose parents were murdered by that serial killer (which also resulted in the death of her boyfriend). And then they go on a road trip.

    (more…)

  • Milligan Mania: Bad Company

    It’s probably safe to say that when all is said and done, Bad Company will not be looked upon as Peter Milligan’s greatest achievement.

    Milligan’s tale of inter-species war, originally serialized in 2000 AD from 1986 to 1990, is a fairly light and silly read. It doesn’t contain much in the way of social commentary or characterization, nor is it entirely original. But for all that, it’s still a heck of a lot of fun.

    Danny Franks has found himself in the middle of a war on a foreign planet. Ararat is a subject of no small contention between humanity and the Krool, a vicious alien race. Ararat will serve as the bridgehead for a full-scale invasion of Earth, something the humans would like to prevent. But the war isn’t going at all well: The Krool are technologically advanced and utterly merciless. They slaughter indiscriminately, torture prisoners, and even reanimate the human dead as their own zombie soldiers.

    In short time, Danny’s unit is nearly wiped out and surrounded by the Krool. They’re sure to be slaughtered, until… Bad Company arrives! This motley crew, led by the Frankenstein-like Kano, has gained the edge in the war by being as ruthless and vicious as the Krool themselves. Just like the Krool, they are utterly merciless, torture their prisoners, and will even use their fellow soldiers as bait – something Danny and his comrades find out, as they’re conscripted into service in Bad Company.

    For all the aliens, monsters and robots, Bad Company is essentially an old-fashioned war comic. Take Sgt. Rock, throw him in a setting that looks a lot like Viet Nam, then add the aforementioned aliens, monsters and robots. Bad Company is a fairly traditional collection of misfits and archetypes: Kano, the rough but intelligent leader; Thrax, a vicious killer who’d shoot the soldiers beside him if he thought it would gain the advantage; Wallflower, Kano’s robot assistant; and Mad Tommy, who thinks he’s fighting against the Germans in the 1930s.

    The central theme, too, is a familiar one: As Danny spends time with Bad Company, he comes to learn that they have a method to their madness, and while their behaviour may seem uncivilized, it may be the only way to defeat the Krool. But at the same time, can Danny learn to fight the Krool and still retain his humanity?

    If this all sounds terribly unoriginal, that’s only because it is. Bad Company takes bits and pieces from war stories spread across the past century and assembles them patchwork like one of the Krools’ vicious War Zombies. But one wants to call it a “loving homage” or simply a “derivative ripoff” doesn’t really matter, because it’s so much fun. Milligan gives the impression of a man who grew up with Sgt. Rock and other like comics, and seems to have a blast playing with all the conventions. Much like Garth Ennis, Milligan combines the over-the-top with the tried-and-true to come up with a story that’s enjoyable enough to make you forget it’s so silly.

    None of that would be possible without the artistic contributions of Brett Ewins and Jim McCarthy. The visuals in Bad Company are befitting the story: Dark, shadowy, and grim. Ewins keeps the members of Bad Company distinctive and in focus, while keeping the numerous monsters and fiends shadowy and ill-defined. He carries the carnage effectively without ever going overboard – and there’s lots to go overboard with – and comes up with countless character and monster designs that carry the required balance of absurdity and horror. The Losers’ Jock, who provided the new cover for the collection, has obviously been influenced by Ewins’ work: Anyone who’s read Jock & Andy Diggle’s own series about military misfits will find Ewins’ angular, shadowy work very familiar.

    Bad Company certainly doesn’t rival Shade or X-Force among Peter Milligan’s work, but it’s not really meant to. This is much closer in spirit to his mainstream superhero work, though it escapes that soulless feeling that Marvel’s editorial department often seems to bring out in him. This is a much younger Milligan having some fun. Amusingly, it reads quite a lot like Garth Ennis having some fun, too.

  • Milligan Mania

    I may have mentioned, once or twice, that Peter Milligan is one of my favourite writers. I remember discovering his work when I was a teenager in books like Extremist and Shade the Changing Man, though I don’t think I appreciated it much at the time. There was neat stuff going on, but I didn’t quite have the resources to understand it.

    After a few years away from comics – generally the time I went to university and discovered girls – I came back to the book I never thought I’d see: X-Force, drawn by Mike Allred and written by that Milligan guy. After that, with a few more years of experience and intellectual growth under my hat, I made a point of tracking down more of Milligan’s work, and found my initial impressions were correct: There is a lot of neat stuff going on in his books. And all you need to appreciate it is a bit of patience, an appreciation of the bizarre, and a sense of humour.

    Peter Milligan will always be linked to Grant Morrison, viewed by many as Morrison’s less flashy, less successful contemporary. Both were veterans of 2000AD. Both were imported by DC and became founding fathers of Vertigo. Both were hired to revitalize Marvel’s mutant books in the post-bankruptcy era. Both wrote weird, hallucinogenic, possibly nonsensical books. Morrison wrote an introduction for Milligan’s Enigma, Milligan wrote an introduction for Morrison’s Invisibles.

    The big difference, obviously, is that while Morrison is a star, Milligan is more of a cult figure, loved by many of those who know him but ignored by many others. The main reason for that, most likely, is that Milligan isn’t much of a superhero writer. While Morrison can switch gears and crank out big-screen action in JLA or All-Star Superman, Milligan has always been a bit too odd for most superhero books.

    X-Force/X-Statix is his only real successful venture into that area; his subsequent run on X-Men received mixed critical reviews and indifferent sales. (Pairing him with Salvador Larocca, a fairly conventional artist, probably didn’t help.)

    Milligan can be both more absurd and more subtle than Morrison. For pure Total Weirdness Value, Milligan can stand toe-to-toe with Morrison, as evidenced in his run on Animal Man or the utterly insane Rogan Gosh, not to mention the bulk of Shade, the story of a man from the Madness Dimension. Though for all the insanity he can throw into a story, he gives the characters at the centre a very human grounding; Shade worked because of the characters surrounded by the insanity, and X-Force, amid all the satire and absurdity, was ultimately a love story.

    Then there are the stories that are relatively grounded in reality: Skreemer reads more like a Garth Ennis story than something Morrison would write. Human Target was a surprisingly mainstream (for comics, anyway) series that wouldn’t require too many tweaks to become a network TV show.

    Ultimately, it’s difficult to describe exactly what a Peter Milligan comic is like. It’s probably (at least) a little bit weird. Maybe it has some political themes? It might take itself seriously, or it might be winking at the audience for the entire time. The lines between satire and drama are probably dotted at best. But beneath it all, there’s probably a human element that keeps things together. It’ll probably take more than one read to really process everything.

    For the next little while, I’m going to take a look at some of Milligan’s works. The greatest hits, such as they are, and the oddities many people aren’t as familiar with. Maybe even some of the stuff that didn’t really work. Ladies and gentlemen, loyal viewing audience and random by standers, I give you… Milligan Mania.

    (Yeah, I came up with that title a while ago.)

    The Story So Far:

  • Young Liars #1-2

    Vertigo’s had a rough time lately. It’s barely been able to keep monthly titles afloat, with most new series debuting to general sales apathy and then quickly slipping into unprofitability and then cancellation. One of the few hits it’s produced over the last few years ended several months ago. It seems the best one can hope for many of Vertigo’s new series is that it staggers along well enough in monthly format to let collection sales pick up over time.

    So along comes Young Liars, the latest debut. It’s got a few things going for it that many of Vertigo’s recent launches haven’t.

    For one thing, it’s got David Lapham, who’s more of a name than most of Vertigo’s recent creators. Granted, he’s not exactly a sure-thing best-seller, but he’s certainly got his own fanbase, and adds a level of respectability to the casual fan.

    That name recognition is built on a pretty solid career, though, which is the more important thing Lapham brings with him: Skill. Young Liars is almost certainly the most polished and assured Vertigo debut in some time.

    Not that that’s saying a lot. It seems like accepted wisdom these days, even going back to the line’s beginnings: “It gets better after the first story arc.” Vertigo series, with their long-term storytelling aims, tend to take a while to get going. They spend time introducing characters, setting up the concept, and generally getting steady.

    David Lapham is having none of that. Young Liars cuts right to the chase: A girl named Sadie beats the crap out of a couple bouncers outside a New York club. She has a bullet stuck in her brain (reasons unexplained) and a crazy billionaire father who mixes shrooms, Viagra, and a motorcycle helmet. A boy named Danny is in love with her and tries to keep her from getting into too much trouble. They have wacky friends, like a transvestite, an anorexic ex-model, a rock star’s ex-wife, and a guy who claims to know where to find some forgotten art treasures.

    It’s chaotic, and there’s not a lot of depth. But that’s not really the point. The first issue makes a pretty clear mission statement: Young Liars is all about Sadie and Danny, and their wacky friends, and the things that happen to them. Lapham, though Danny, tells it to us straight: “This is the story of the life and death of Sadie Hawkins. … The girl I love. About her and how she changed all of our lives.”

    The second issue fills things in a bit: Danny as an unpopular loser in Austin. Sadie as the rich, still-kind-of-crazy-but-not-quite-insane girl he’s in love with. It’s a reversal from the first issue: Danny’s not exactly in charge, but he’s the one exposing Sadie to the “real world”. And, well, maybe Lapham wasn’t being entirely straight with us in the first issue when he told us this was Sadie’s story, because this story – this part of it, anyway – is definitely Danny’s. He’s a likeable, sad sort of character; a bit too sycophantic towards Sadie, but it’s manageable because we already know his life is about to get much, much cooler.

    The second issue still moves at a brisk pace, telling the story without stopping to explain what it all means. Which is to say that not everything is crystal-clear, but it still works quite well. It’s certainly the opposite of most Vertigo books in recent years: Grab the audience’s attention right off the bat, then worry about filling them in later on. One could argue Young Liars takes it a bit too far, but it’s hard not to admire the boldness of the book.

    Even my favourite Vertigo books of recent years, Crossing Midnight and Scalped, took 3-4 issues to really find their feet. And while I’m glad I stuck with them both, not everyone is so patient; while Scalped appears to be stable, Crossing Midnight has been cancelled.

    Is it a coincidence that Vertigo’s last hit, Y The Last Man, started off with a bang and a great first issue? Probably, since their other hit, Fables, had a pretty dull opening arc. But it’s like the early baseball season: Two weeks of baseball don’t mean a whole lot in the grand scheme of things, but it’s better to be flukishly good than flukishly bad. Young Liars may not be the next Y The Last Man, but hopefully it can at least avoid being the next American Virgin.

  • Because, apparently, someone demanded it

    Among DC’s newest solicits:

    MILLENNIUM TP
    Written by Steve Englehart
    Art by Joe Staton, Ian Gibson and others
    Cover by Joe Staton & Mark Farmer

    The 1988 8-issue miniseries MILLENNIUM is collected for the first time! The Guardians of the Universe have left our dimension behind — and in their absence, the deadly robotic army of Manhunters threatens the survival of the DC Universe!

    INVASION TP
    Written by Keith Giffen & Bill Mantlo
    Art by Todd McFarlane, Bart Sears, P. Craig Russell, Joe Rubinstein and others
    Cover by McFarlane & Rubinstein

    The massive 3-issue miniseries from 1988 is collected for the first time! In this universe-spanning saga, the deadly but emotionless Dominators have come to Earth to wipe out the threat posed by metahumans. But what is the real reason for their attack?

    Really? Someone actually wants these?

    I don’t think this is just me being a snob, or an angry, jilted fan who’s still bummed he’s never going to see all of Shade or Human Target collected. Are there people who really think “Man, I wish I had a nice copy of Millennium sitting on my bookshelf?” Can’t these people make do with 25-cent bins or crazy 100-comics-for-$1 sales on eBay?

    I haven’t read the main event series, but have gone through some of the crossovers, thanks to picking up stuff like Suicide Squad, JLI, and Firestorm, and man, it’s pretty forgettable – and those were good series. Grant Morrison had a few good ideas for his Invasion stories in Animal Man, but that’s Grant Freaking Morrison.

    I suppose Invasion has Todd McFarlane going for it, but Millennium? Sometimes, I despair for the comics industry.

    What’s next – Absolute Janus Directive?

  • So Much Awesomeness at Once

    New Comic Day! And oh, what bounty.

    Naturally, I opened Blue Beetle #24 first, given the totally kickass cliffhanger of the last issue. Expecting more general awesomeness, I was not disappointed; but beyond even the usual Blue Beetle greatness, we get this:


    Can John Rogers write me a Traci 13 book now? That’s about the only justification I can see for moving him off Blue Beetle now.

    But as if that weren’t enough, we also have the latest issue of Wormwood: Gentleman Corpse, from the beautifully twisted mind of Ben Templesmith. In addition to drawing the usual amount of weird shit that popped into his head, he also graces us with This:

    I have no comment. Beyond “Totally Awesome”, that is.

    And I still haven’t read all the stuff I got today. It’s really good to be alive some days.

  • The New Frontier DVD

    I don’t think I’d be out of line for suggesting that Darwyn Cooke’s New Frontier is one of, if not the, greatest superhero story of the last decade.

    Cooke took everything that people love about superheroes – the powers, the bravery, the action, adventure, and soap-opera romance, and big, crazy ideas – unspooled it from DC’s continuity, and mixed in some brilliant art to tell an epic story full of great icons and little heroes. One of the things I love about it is how Cooke mixed in nearly everyone, from the Challengers of the Unknown and Adam Strange to Superman and Wonder Woman, and gave everyone a strong identity and motivation. Hal Jordan’s story may have been more personal, but Cooke also hit all the right notes in making the Big Guns like Superman the icons they deserve to be.

    The news that there was to be an animated, direct-to-DVD adaptation of New Frontier filled me with some trepidation; it’s a big, sprawling story that does some of its best work with the lesser lights of the DCU, and “direct-to-DVD” isn’t exactly a phrase that inspires confidence. But then some of the details started popping up: Bruce Timm was going to be producing it. It attracted some fairly big-name voice talent. And, perhaps most impressively, Darwyn Cooke himself was going to be involved. (He’s listed as a Creative Consultant, fairly prominently in the opening credits)

    So maybe it didn’t have to suck. It might not be great, but getting Cooke’s stamp of approval surely meant some sort of guarantee of quality. And the good news is that no, it definitely doesn’t suck. But it doesn’t exactly inspire, either.

    First, let’s get the obvious out of the way: It’s a 75 minute movie, so there are substantial cuts. The Losers, Suicide Squad, and Challengers of the Unknown are toast, relegated to the corners of group shots. John Henry’s storyline is excised. But you knew that already, unless you live in an even richer fantasy world than me. (and I’m still holding out for Absolute Shade the Changing Man and All-Star Challengers of the Unknown by Cooke and Grant Morrison)

    Other character arcs remain more or less intact: Hal Jordan is probably the closest thing to a main character, and Martian Manhunter’s story is almost verbatim, including tidbits of his friendship with King Faraday. Batman’s role is beefed up a little, joining Superman and Wonder Woman as nominal stars of the film without dominating it. And the basic story remains the same: Something mysterious and sinister is happening, and the superheroes have to put aside their differences to stop it. Aside from the obvious cuts in the name of brevity, New Frontier is still distinctly Cooke’s work.

    But while it has Cooke’s ideas, characters, and stories, it lacks his execution. I’m not entirely sure who this film was made for: It’s been edited down to a family-friendly length, and the plot and cast streamlined. But it’s not particularly family friendly, opening as it does with Doctor Seuss committing suicide and then cutting to Hal Jordan blowing a Korean soldier’s brains out. The film maintains most of the dark elements of the book, but manages to feel more adult and less mature at the same time. It seems to crave an adult sensibility, but doesn’t give the audience a whole lot of credit.

    It doesn’t help that there’s not exactly a lot of subtlety in the script: it seemed important to screenwriter Stan Berkowitz that someone remind the audience that “The Centre” is the mysterious bad thing every five minutes or so. And the length restriction means the plot can’t flow quite as organically as it should – characters show up out of nowhere, do their thing, and wander off abruptly; Aquaman’s appearance in particular seems rather spontaneous.

    It seems as though the producers wanted to go in too many directions: They try to be faithful to Cooke’s story, but can’t quite get past the fact the fact that the original thrived on its depth and breadth – it unfolded slowly as threads were gathered from different stories. Cooke’s New Frontier was about an entire cultural movement, of society changing the way it looked at heroes, and heroes changing the way they acted; it didn’t seem at all out of place that Green Arrow would just show up, or Ray Palmer showed up in the nick of time with his amazing shrinking ray, because Cooke showed that these things were just happening all over the place.

    The film needed to be either a half-hour longer, or the script needed to be restructured in a way that let it develop more organically. I’m sure there’s some sort of marketing formula that dictates the length, but there really shouldn’t be a problem adding another 30 minutes if Pixar can win the Best Animated Feature Oscar – to say nothing of make piles of cash – with a 106-minute film. New Frontier is an ambitious project, and it’s disappointing to see it fall short of its aims due to a (relatively) artificial limitation.

    The big-name voice talent is something of a mixed bag. While most of the actors generally fit well with their characters, one must unfortunately accept that there was a reason why most of these people were available for a direct-to-DVD animated film: They’re not great.

    Don’t get me wrong: I love David Boreanz. Angel? Yes. He’s awesome. But while he can pull off swashbuckling, flirty, and cocky – all important attributes for Hal Jordan – he has the emotional range of a small square of plywood. The same can be said of most of the cast – Lucy Lawless as Wonder Woman and Kyle McLachlan as Superman are entertaining enough when they’re being heroic or advancing the plot, but tend to fall into a confused hole when called upon for inspiration or emotion; Superman’s motivational speech to the gathered heroes is downright painful.

    Neil Patrick Harris turns in a decent Flash, largely because the character doesn’t really call for a lot of range. Jeremy Sisto’s Batman is appropriately gravelly and grim. (Amusingly, Sisto has now played Batman, Jesus, and Caesar. That’s kind of awesome.)

    The animation has its highs and lows. Cooke’s visual style is obvious from the opening credits, and the film captures a lot of the hell yeah! moments Cooke did so well. (Including a surprising reinterpretation of a scene you probably didn’t expect to see.) Everything and everyone certainly looks the way you’d want them to. But the action scenes are kind of hit-and-miss – is it odd that Cooke did a better job showing off the Flash in a series of static images than the film could? The rocket sequence seems poorly constructed, although perhaps they were saving their budget for the climactic battle against hordes of monsters, which works quite well.

    New Frontier certainly isn’t the disaster it could have been, but while it won’t have fans shaking their heads in disappointment, it probably won’t light up too many smiles the way the book did, either. It looks like New Frontier, and acts like New Frontier, but it doesn’t have the same magic. Ultimately, it feels like a very skilled recreation that got all the pieces together in the right places, but didn’t quite understand why the original worked so well. Which is a hell of a step forward for superhero adaptations, but not quite good enough for New Frontier.

  • Maybe it’s not such a big deal

    So Stephanie Brown finally got her memorial case in Batman #673 . And while there are those who consider it an important development, I can’t help but suspect they’ll be disappointed.

    I generally agree with Dirk’s sentiments, though he’s extreme enough to be featured as a guest-star in an issue of Youngblood. But in his examination of the bigger picture, he misses why the Stephanie Brown memorial case really doesn’t have much impact at all: It’s written by Grant Morrison.

    Grant Morrison is a very good writer. Even at his worst – and I wouldn’t argue with someone who suggested his run on Batman is among his worst work in recent years – he’s smart, creative, and usually at least attempts to write a diverse and eclectic cast of characters. Whether your complaint is poor characterization, illogical plots, or plain old chauvinism, you’ll probably find less of it in his work. He’s not without his faults, but he has fewer of them than 95% of his peers.

    The problem, though, is that Grant Morrison didn’t kill off Spoiler/Robin, nor did he write any Batman stories immediately thereafter. That was handled by other people who, unsurprisingly, are not as good as Grant Morrison. Morrison being awesome, or even just pretty good, is unlikely to make Judd Winnick or Bill Willingham a good writer. If it were possible to spread the Morrison Mojo around, DC would be publishing the greatest comics on Earth right now.

    Beyond that, though, is the fact that publishers don’t seem to follow up on Morrison’s ideas terribly well. Marvel couldn’t wait to retcon his run on New X-Men, which was even a worse move when it turned out they didn’t understand what he was writing about in the first place. He revamped a bunch of interesting and diverse characters in Seven Soldiers, most of whom have barely been seen since. Books based on his revamps – Metal Men and The Atom – have struggled to find commercial success. Aside from whatever it was he did in 52, Morrison’s work tends to stand on its own, and few other writers know what to do with it.

    If Grant Morrison really dictated the editorial direction of DC, I’d be pretty excited, and Stephanie Brown would be pretty low on the list of reasons why. There’s fairly little reason to believe he does, though; more often than not, he does his own thing, and every now and then someone decides to follow up on it. Those hoping for The DC Universe as Interpreted by Grant Morrison will be waiting for some time.