Avatar Press…Is Awesome?

Avatar Press, a little known comics studio that’s been around for quite some time, has recently been gaining something of a fanbase. This is largely thanks to Warren Ellis, who launched two books there at the same time - Black Summer and Doktor Sleepless - and also an OGN or two, like Crecy.  He continued to launch series after series, each of which gained a small, but loyal fanbase that often outsold most of the Vertigo titles.  Black Summer has wound down to a fair amount of critical acclaim, and with that, Ellis began No Hero. Meanwhile, Doktor Sleepless completed its first 8-issue ‘book’ (the conclusion of which both Billy and I enjoyed), and began its second.

No Hero #1

Warren Ellis’ newest series, titled No Hero, is about vigilantism in America, or so it seems - its history and power in our culture, its relation with heroism, etc… - as a longstanding group of extreme superheroes find themselves recruiting when a few members are murdered. Straight-edge young Josh Carver wants to join the group, because Josh has some violent tendencies and a desire to make the world a better place.

The first issue is entirely set-up for what’s to come as we meet The Front Line, a group of super-powered vigilantes, Josh Carver, and the man who set it all up, an eccentric inventor capable of giving superpowers to whomsoever he decides is worthy.  It’s interesting set-up - as all of Ellis’ best series’ are, it’s built around various social issues rather than costumed brawls and continuity wanks - but it’s hurt by messy art from Juan Jose Ryp, and while it has a strong voice, not much happens. Enjoyable, and I look forward to seeing more from the series, but not without flaws.

Grade: B

Doktor Sleepless #9

Doktor Sleepless #9 marks the beginning of Book 2, and it’s interesting to note that the good Doktor doesn’t appear at all in this issue, nor does scary Nurse Igor. Instead, we’re introduced to a brand new character, a stranger to Heavenside, named Sarah Berlin. Sarah has come to Heavenside two months after the events of Book 1, and man, how things have changed. Seers in masks, riots, bombings - Heavenside has become a far more dangerous place to live while under the influence of Doktor Sleepless, and I have a feeling that much of Book 2 will be an examination of the changes he’s wrought.

Doktor Sleepless has always been a powerful series - if you have the money, I strongly urge you to check it out, especially now that you can read that entire first chapter in a single sitting. As a new beginning, Doktor Sleepless #9 doesn’t work at all without #1-8, and I’d recommend re-reading the series before sitting down with this one, but as the beginning of a second act, it’s a pretty excellent read.  We learn more about the world outside of Heavenside, and about Heavenside itself. The issue is well-written, and artist Ivan Rodriguez continues to improve. Highly recommended.

Grade: A-

SeventhSoldier Reviews…COMICS!

All-Star Superman

Yesterday, All-Star Superman – otherwise known as Grant Morrison’s ASS – came to an end, finally.  With the stated objective of telling the definitive Superman story, Morrison and artist Frank Quitely set a rather high bar for themselves, setting up against such classics as Alan Moore’s Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? and Alan Moore’s For the Man Who Has Everything and…uhhh…just, really, Alan Moore.  With the last issue on the stands, we can finally look back at the series and ask: Did All-Star Superman make a mistake by setting the bar so high?

Nope.

It cleared it.

Morrison and Quitely made sure to touch on as many aspects of the Superman mythos as humanly possible in a twelve issue series, with an issue featuring Lex Luthor, an issue about Jimmy Olson, a trip to the Bizarro Cubed Earth, and more.  Many comic fans who aren’t reading the series have derided All-Star Superman as a Silver Age throwback, completely missing the point – to provide a continuity-free retrospective on the history of Superman, be it Golden, Silver, or Modern.

The book isn’t flawless, of course.  The Bizarro two-parter can drag on, which is a shame given that it’s the only two-parter in the series, the rest of the book composed of a series of one-shots tied together by the central conceit of ‘How would Superman react if he knew he was going to die soon?’  But, beyond that, the book hits a variety of emotional highs and lows, has insane, epic action, and just in general manages to succeed.

It isn’t flawless, but looking back on the series as a whole, this is the only mainstream comic work that I imagine stands a chance of being mentioned in the same breath, 10 years from now, as Watchmen or The Sandman.

Grade: A+

Final Crisis: Revelations #2

Final Crisis: Revelations is a great many things.  It’s spiritual sequel to both Infinite Crisis and 52.  A direct sequel to The Five Books of Blood.  A tie-in to Final Crisis.  Under a lesser writer than Rucka, this might be too much material to work into a 5-issue series, but it does well. 

This issue is the first that feels like a ‘traditional’ tie-in, in the sense that it takes a standard character - The Question - and uses the current event to shake up that character’s status quo, introduce a new enemy based on the major event, etc….  The issue feels very traditional in many ways, but it’s still good.  The long-needed introduction of an element of balance to the Spectre occurs, a major reveal regarding one of DC’s older villains, and a reunion of sorts between Cris and Renee in their new roles all keep the action rolling, but it’s the emotional core of the issue that makes it great.  This is Rucka revisiting his old toybox, and it seems like he’s having a good time doing so.

The revelations of this issue all felt natural and needed, the action was engaging, and emotions ran high.  All around solid, but nothing spectacular.  A competent tie-in, and a strong issue on its own.

Grade: B+

Secret Six #1

Everyone’s already said most of what needs to be said, but Simone really nailed it, here.  The twisted humor and uncomfortable camaraderie of the Six are perfect, and the new villain is intriguing.  All-in-all, a solid start to this new series.  Hopefully, it’ll be around for a good little while.

Grade: A-

Captain Britain and MI:13 #5

For anyone wondering if the quality of Captain Britain would keep up once the Secret Invasion tie-in ended, the short answer is: “Hell Yes.”  Cornell and crew are now using the book to look at a variety of British heroes, so this issue sees cameos from more than one, of all calibers - from nobodies like Captain Midlands to bigger characters some people might not know were British, like Blade.  The issue is fun and engaging, but it’s still set-up, and it leaves off with a frankly ridiculous cliffhanger.

Oh, Blade.  You aren’t a team player.

Grade: B+

Seventh Soldier Reviews…

Wonder Woman #24

Gail’s Wonder Woman run has been solid all-around - but after the excellent opening arc, the Circle, it lost a lot of momentum, as it was followed by two decent arcs that lacked the emotion or even excitement of the first.  This is the fourth arc of Simone’s run, a small two-issue arc titled ‘Celebrity’.  After Wonder Woman’s very public battle with The Devil, she’s experienced a surge of popularity, and so Hollywood comes calling.

The issue has its strengths - Gail has clearly found the voice of her cast.  The opening scene, between Nemesis and Hippolyta, is absolutely great, and it’s followed by more excellent character work with Diana, the Hollywood execs, and two super-intelligent gorillas.

Of course, the appearance of a villain with a grudge - in this case, the Simone-created Queen of Fables - throws a wrench into the works.  A solid issue, and I have high hopes for the remainder of the arc.

Grade: B+

Green Lantern Corps #28

Green Lantern Corps is a book I’ve only recently begun to pick up in single issues, and I consider it to be a pretty solid book.  Not spectacular, but not pretty good.  That said, I feel that this arc could have benefitted from an extra issue - and an improved threat.  I just don’t feel that five Sinestro Corps members is huge threat for the entire Corps, and I was kind of curious about the fact that it’s mentioned that there is no recording anywhere of that particular race of beings existing.

There are some cool aspects, and the last page of this issue definitely kicks GLC into pre-Blackest Night mode.  It’s a fun issue, but it’s nothing special - the arc as a whole is rather skippable.

Grade: B-

Patsy Walker: Hellcat #3

Patsy Walker: Hellcat opened strong with one of the funnest first issues in recent memory, but the second issue bordered on incomprehensible.  This issue is more in the vein of the first - fun, slightly spastic, cute, and hilarious.  This is the first comic I can remember laughing out loud during in quite some time, and I was laughing out loud more than once.  Part of that is thanks to artist David Lafuente and colorist John Rauch, who do an excellent job throughout at numerous visual gags, and with Patsy’s facial expressions.  Meanwhile, writer Kathryn Immonen goes nuts in this issue, and it leads to good times.

We move on in the story, as we have every issue of the mini thus far.  I’m still not sure WHY the story is happening, but it’s definitely a breath of fresh air, and one that gives Patsy a pretty unique voice in comics.

Grade: A-

Doktor Sleepless #8

Doktor Sleepless opened really strong, but quickly slowed to a snail’s pace.  While there were still interesting ideas in each issue, thanks largely to the back matter, not much was happening.  That said, read on - Doktor Sleepless has come back with a vengeance.  It’s funny, it’s a little scary, it’s insane.  It’s everything that we love Warren Ellis for.  I have a strong feeling that the series will read notably better in trade, but regardless, this was definitely a strong issue, and an excellent way for Ellis to end his first arc.

Grade: B+

SeventhSoldier’s EPIC Mini-Reviews

DC Universe: Last Will and Testament was advertised as a Final Crisis ‘tie-in’.  It wasn’t given the official Final Crisis label because it contributes nothing to the story as a whole, but was instead meant as a character study - how are various heroes of the DC Universe reacting as the world goes to hell and the Anti-Life Equation is released.  Unfortunately, it’s as though no one clued Meltzer in to what was actually happening in Final Crisis, giving us some odd beats, like Wonder Woman, Batman, Superman, Wally West, and Hal Jordan out and about, spending time with their family.  Superman is the only one of these characters who this could legitimately be happening with for the continuity nerds, but even so, his beats ring false.

If you’re a Meltzer fan, then I’m sure you’ll enjoy it, as it fits in well with the general tone of his work.  It’s very much in the vein of most of his work, up to and including completely jobbing to Deathstroke.  If, however, you’re like me and have disliked most, if not all, of Meltzer’s comics work, then avoid this - like Requiem, it contributes nothing worthwhile to the Final Crisis narrative, and like Requiem, it wouldn’t be that good, even if it did.

Grade: C

Final Crisis: Legion of Three Worlds is, reportedly, one of two minis Morrison reportedly requested to have written.  After the first issue, though, you wouldn’t know it - it seems more a sequel to everything Johns has been writing in the last couple years.  Pet villain?  Check.  Pet version of the Legion?  Check.  It’s a sequel to his Superman and the Legion run on Action, or so it seems, building on that particular Legion setting.

For all that the above paragraph may not make it sound appealing, especially if you find Prime overrated (which I do), or am getting sick of Johns’ disregard of anything written in the last decade (which I do), Legion of Three Worlds is a generally enjoyable experience.  He makes sure that there’s a LOT of exposition for those who are less than familiar with the Legion, and it’s done in a humorous enough way that you don’t really mind - you’ll laugh at how history now views Prime, I guarantee it - and he quickly sets the book up.  After only a single issue, you know who the villains are, and the other two Legions are already being brought in, meaning that the action can really begin next issue.

The issue has almost no action, but the set-up is entertaining.  I’m waiting to see how this ties into Final Crisis - I have my ideas, but a review is no place for those.  It’s a fun issue that might bring some fans to the Legion…but which Legion?

Grade: B+

Rogues’ Revenge is rather completely different than Legion of Three Worlds - its clearly ties into Final Crisis, and like most great tie-ins, tells its own story using elements of the overarching events.  This book is also different in that it’s pretty action-packed - and as you can imagine from a group of supervillains on a vengeance crusade, it’s pretty damn violent, too.

Still, the Rogues might be Johns’ greatest characters, and his characterization comes out well here.  The Rogues work well together, and Rogues’ Revenge demonstrates pretty well the strengths of the team.  They have rules.  They trust each other.  And they aren’t afraid to fight to protect each other - and to protect their reputations.

FC: RR #2 is a violent exploration of the Rogues bond, but it also gives a little more insight about the situation with Inertia and Zoom, and its that plot that ties it into Final Crisis the most, and in the most interesting way.  Libra knows that the Flash can cause problems, especially in a time of Crisis, and Libra, Zoom, and the Rogues are all part of his plan to take the Flash down.  Rogues’ Revenge #2 is a quick, exciting read that leaves me eager for more. 

Grade: A-

Final Crisis: Superman Beyond is one of the main minis of the series.  Written by Morrison himself, it doesn’t take too much time - the entire mini takes place between the last two heartbeats of Lois Lane - but believe me when I say that, content-wise, this single issue is almost as dense as the first three issues of Final Crisis, containing references to Morrison’s legendary Animal Man run, the origins of the Monitors, and the first reveal of the Big Baddie of Final Crisis, a darkness beyond even Darkseid.  

Content-wise, Superman Beyond is an interesting, dense title.  But one of the things it’s gotten notice for is the fact that it’s in 3D, and comes with a pair of 3D glasses.  How did that work out?  Shockingly well, actually.  The first time I read through the issue, I honestly didn’t like it - I had the glasses on the whole time.  This is the wrong way to do it.  You should only put the glasses on for the 3D pages, or you risk ruining Mahnke’s excellent art.

The first two 3D pages really don’t work out for me - I found them cluttered, and it’s a full half-book before we get to the next ones, but when we do, they are SPECTACULAR.  They 3D pages for the remainder of the book are well-chosen and well-executed, and they really do add a little something special to the book.  Art and story-wise, Final Crisis: Superman Beyond #1 is an interesting, memorable ride - I can’t wait for the next issue.

Grade: A

It’s no secret by now that I’m a little bit of a NewUniversal fanboy.  The original mini was great, and 1959 was even better, but I was a little bit wary of this one, because as cool as super-vikings are conceptually, one of my favorite part of NewUniversal was how contained it was, how every issue genuinely contributed something interesting to the setting as a whole.  If you’re a NewUniversal fan, though, don’t worry - NewUniversal: Conqueror contributes a good bit to the setting, and it does so in an interesting way.

We first learned about the reign of Starr the Slayer, one of the oldest Starbrand’s around, early in NewUniversal, about the invincible empire of high-tech he forged way back when.  Here, we see Starr’s empire collapsing thanks to a traitor within.  The story is entertaining, though predictable, and Spurrier’s insane fantasy warrior speak is frequently hilarious.  Conqueror is fun and interesting, and like 1959, it’s an excellent companion piece to the main NewUniversal titles.

Also, as a note, what other comic around offers the origins of the, and I quote, ’self-trysting engine’. That is awesome.

Grade: A-

SeventhSoldier’s Top 10

So, you all have been doing your top 10 monthly books, and I feel bad, because I don’t read 10 monthly books!  Sadly, I can’t afford it.  I read Final Crisis, most of the Final Crisis tie-ins, and 4-5 monthlies, and when FC ends, I’ll jump on another few books, preferably minis, but until then…I really can’t join the fun, there.

Instead, I decided to think about ten books that deserve some love.  Most of them are done already, and while they’re pretty good, you may not have had a chance to check ‘em out, yet.  No Sandman, Preacher, Watchmen, etc…here, but instead a selection of enjoyable books that I find most comic fans have never read.

10. The Book of Lost Souls

JMS can be a fairly controversial writer, and often an unpopular one.  I know that I’m not really a very big fan of his mainstream work, or what little of it I’ve read thus far.  And The Book of Lost Souls is a fairly large vanity project - a weighty series with excessive high school level symbolism with an effeminate hero and a bizarre mythology

Despite all that, though, this seems to be where JMS most shines.  There’s no editorial mandate, no continuity - just a palate for ideas, where nothing is really off the table.  Not everything sticks, especially the completely forgettable last issue, but the book remains a sweet, emotional book with more of a focus on healing than on hurting, which is a rare sight in comics.

9. Global Frequency

The premise behind Warren Ellis’s Global Frequency is irredeemably sci-fi, and falls apart at the barest prods, but it’s less a plot and more a structure through which Ellis is free to examine sci-fi tropes in comics.  Each issue is a stand-alone sci-fi story about one or more member of the Global Frequency, a world-wide organization of specialists who trouble-shoot the bizarre problems that are popping up as we gain more and more access to technology.  

The stories in the two trades range from an issue-long battle between two cannibal martial artists (in an issue helpfully titled ‘Ultraviolence’) to a memetic alien invasion, to bio-terrorist threats.  Some issues are action packed, while others are more thoughtful.  But all throughout, Ellis’s ability to keep the story contained lends it a clarity that many books lack.  Far and above one of the best purely sci-fi books you can find, especially if you generally appreciate Ellis’s work - this is one of his best works.

8. Promethea

Alan Moore made his name in comics a LONG time ago, writing some of the most enduring stories the medium has ever known, with a wide-stream appeal the medium may never know again.  Also, he’s crazy.  And while sometimes that madness manifests in angry rants and snake worshipping cult magic, sometimes it manifests in a book like Promethea, a modern magical manifesto, an exploration of all things mystic.

Yeah, Moore has done plenty since leaving Marvel and DC - on top of Promethea, he has the excellent Tom Strong and Top 10, and Top 10 especially is worth checking out - but Promethea stands out to me as the most uniquely Alan Moore project we’ve seen in years.  It’s a fascinating blend of adventure, mysticism, and coming of age, and through the book Moore almost off-handedly creates a vivacious super-heroic setting.

It’s understandable why Promethea doesn’t have a huge audience - with some issues done entirely in rhyme, and some taking place literally entirely in metaphor, the series requires you to put some effort in to it.  But if you do, and if you enjoy a healthy dose of bizarre mysticism, you should definitely read Promethea.

7. Crossing Midnight

Crossing Midnight was all set up to be Mike Carey’s next big Vertigo smash.  It had Japanese mythology, insane battles, monsters, everything - but it opened slow, and Vertigo books can’t do that, nowadays.  Readership dropped, and things fell apart.  Don’t let its quick cancellation fool you, though - Crossing Midnight was one of Vertigo’s best titles, and despite the fact that it didn’t live long, it definitely deserves a read-through if you have any interest in Japanese mythology, or in stories of mortal pawns in a war of the gods.

Crossing Midnight tells the story of a pair of twins.  One was born just before midnight, the other, just after.  This separation defines their relationship, as one grows up a perfectly normal young boy, and the other grows into a wildchild, especially once she learns that she cannot be cut or stabbed, for reasons unknown to her - the blade will slide away, or bend, but will never hurt.

The machinations of the gods are, of course, involved, and Carey does an excellent job of slowly introducing more and more mythological elements into the world these two seemingly ordinary Tokyo children live in, until they’re almost irrevocably swamped in it it.  Definitely a must read for fans of mythology, or of good urban fantasy story-telling in general.

6. Criminal

Brubaker gets a lot of nods here in this list, because a lot of his projects are quality books that get cut because they don’t meet the standard superhero mold, and Criminal is no exception.  While it has managed to scratch out a second season, things don’t look hopeful unless readership picks up - and the book definitely deserves to get picked up.

Featuring a rotating cast in VERY loosely tied-together arcs, the stories in Criminal are all about…well, criminals.  From thugs to master planners, each arc is an excellent, small noir piece.  There are no super-humans, there are no costumes.  There are just bad men, and men put in bad places.  But the characters Brubaker creates are realistic, the situations they get into are plausible, and it’s frankly a joy to read such carefully crafted stories of greed and vengeance in a medium that often treats such topics in a laughably juvenile manner.

5. Gotham Central

Gotham Central has a premise that should be fairly irresistible: what’s life like for the cops of Gotham City?  What is it like to deal with people like Two-Face, the Joker, and Mr. Freeze on a daily basis?  After all, you don’t have the billions of dollars worth of gadgets, or the decades of training, that Batman does, so just how can you show up to work, knowing what you could face down?

With excellent art my Michael Lark, Brubaker and Rucka team up to answer those questions, and to introduce you to some of the DCU’s bravest characters.  The story fleshes out a great (never used) supporting cast for Batman, but it also does a lot for the bad guys of Gotham - the Two-Face arc is great, especially the (admittedly not originating in Gotham Central) first meeting between Renee Montoya and Two-Face during No Man’s Land.

Gotham Central wasn’t a book for everyone, and ultimately it had a good run, but it’s still a book that you should definitely check out if you have any interest in Gotham City OR in crime dramas.

4. Sleeper

Ed Brubaker has long since made his reputation as a master of comic noir on books like Daredevil, the aformentioned Gotham Central, or the also mentioned Criminal, but this is among his strongest books.  Sleeper is the sequel to a Wildstorm mini called “Point Blank”, a tragedy about a few Wildstorm regulars.  Point Blank introduced us to Holden, a super-villain working in a massive, evil group…who happens to be a good guy at heart, working undercover for the government.  But when things go wrong and the only person who can verify his story slips into a coma, Holden is trapped as a super-villain, forced to live a life he never wanted working for an organization he despises, hunted by his former allies.

Sleeper is Holden’s story, start to finish.  Like all good noir, it’s a little bit comic, it’s a lot bit tragic, and the bad guys are the best part of the whole damn thing.  Characters like Miss Misery and Genocide Jones, horrific people who would in most settings be reviled, become sympathetic, even likable figures, as Brubaker does things to humanize villainy that few comic writers care to try.

3.Doom Patrol

Grant Morrison’s Doom Patrol honestly might be the best team-superhero book ever printed, to my mind.  They were originally conceived of as a team of outcast heroes, who were set apart from humanity in some fundamental way - much like the X-Men.  And while the X-Men took the idea one way (towards making them all celebrity supermodels with awesome powers), Doom Patrol quickly went the complete other way.  The heroes were truly damaged, unable to function in normal society in some way thanks to the abilities they had.

Doom Patrol had some of the best character creation I’ve ever seen - from Crazy Jane, a woman with over 60 distinct personalities, each of which had its own superpower, to the Quiz, a Japanese woman with every superpower you haven’t thought of.  The enemies were every bit the outcasts the heroes were, and they generally weren’t even really bad people - they just didn’t understand the world.

Doom Patrol is a book for anyone who loves the outcast, or for anyone with a yen for something insane.

2. Death

Okay, I cheated a little bit.  I said no Sandman - well, this isn’t Sandman!  It’s Death, his older sister!  And, to be fair, while I find that many comic fans have read Sandman at some point in their lives, I also find that many have missed out on reading the best spin-off there is - Death: The Time of Your Life and Death: The High Cost of Living.

These two thin volumes represent some of Gaiman’s better works, especially The Time of Your Life, a continuation of the story of Sandman’s Foxglove and Hazel.  Like many of the books on here, it’s a little sad at times, but the book digs deep to show us just how much friendship can mean, and what we sometimes have to give up to be responsible for our loved ones.  It’s not as epic as Sandman, but it doesn’t try to be - his Death has always leant herself towards a more personal touch, and she’s made excellent use of in these two stories.

1. Astro City 

Kurt Busiek’s Astro City is, in many ways, his love song to comic books.  If you’ve ever wondered why Busiek, whose runs on Superman, Avengers, and other big titles were generally met with relative indifference, still gets referred to in awe, wonder no longer - Astro City is it.  Often billed as ‘the most realistic look at superheroes’, that isn’t quite right.  It’s a world of superhumanity from the point of view of the average guy, or the world of superhumanity when it isn’t strapped down with all the rules and regulations Marvel and DC place on it to keep their cash cows fat.

He’s done it all.  Astro City contains commentary on Crisis on Infinite Earths, on a Skrull Invasion, on the celebrity life-style of the Fantastic Four, and on just how harsh Superman’s day could be.  He’s answered the question, “Why on earth would ANYONE live in a city with superhumans?!”, and he’s tackled both street-level and cosmic scuffles.

Astro City is one of the best comic books ever printed.  Each issue is so packed full of love for the medium of superhero comics that you can’t help but smile the entire time you’re reading them.  While most of the series is solid gold, two particular issues stand out.  If you have a love of super-villains and the insane stunts they pull, the single issue story “I’ll Show Them All!” featuring the Junkman is one of the best, and if you want to see how something like Crisis on Infinite Earths might effect a normal person, look no further than “The Nearness of You”, a half-issue story that just might be the most heart-breaking comic you’ll read.

Review: X-Factor Layla Miller #1

PAD’s X-Factor run has run the gamut from being the best book Marvel publishes to being purely average, and while he may be going through some ups and downs in regards to the main cast, the man can write Layla Miller like nobody else.  It can’t be easy writing a character who seems to know everything, but PAD does so with ease here.

Layla Miller is trapped in a possible future, a dystopian world in which mutants are kept in camps out of fear and loathing.  She’d been caught and taken into one of these camps during the Messiah Complex event, and the book opens with her escape.  As always, there’s a slightly twisted sense of humor about Layla Miller, and her escape had me smiling.  PAD uses this book to explore this particular future, and to begin a mutant-rights rebellion led by Layla Miller, a century-old cyborg Cyclops, and the daughter of Cyclops with Emma Frost, Ruby Summers (as a note, I’m really hoping for Ruby to show up on a Vs card some day!), which seems more like it deserves a mini-series, rather than a one-shot.

Ultimately, there’s a lot that you could say this book doesn’t accomplish.  Layla isn’t back in the Marvel Universe (which is probably a good thing, considering how laughable she’d find the ’secret’ invasion going on right now).  We don’t know the outcome of the rebellion, and while PAD introduces some new characters, he doesn’t have time to go into any depth with them in this one-shot.  Despite all that, however, the book is quite a fun read.  Hopefully there’s more coming soon!

Grade: A-

Review: Final Crisis: Revelations #1

Written by Greg Rucka, you knew that Final Crisis: Revelations stood a good chance of being great - and for the most part, it lives up to its potential.  Throughout FInal Crisis, you may have noticed one or two things.  Renee Montoya, for one, seemed to know a lot about what was going on - more than anyone else, for one thing.  And just how was Libra holding onto such a volatile group of people without an ounce of fear.  Taunting Vandal Savage, Lex Luthor, and more, without fear of reprisal?

Revelations gets into all that.  Crispus Allen, who became the Spectre in Infinite Crisis and then promptly disappeared (The Spectre being one of the characters DC seems to love in concept, but just can’t seem to figure out how to use) returns here.  When Libra and his Society killed the Martian Manhunter, that was genocide, as he was the last of his race.  God’s pretty unhappy about that, and when you do something that pisses God off, you get The Spectre.  The book opens with the Spectre going through the list of people who were involved in the event - Dr. Light, just to name one, gets some long-overdue comeuppance.

But the first big twist of Revelations is that not all is as it seems with one person the Spectre goes for - it seems that Evil has it’s own spirit and the Spectre is seemingly powerless in front of him.  Meanwhile, Rucka also returns to another favorite is his, Renee Montoya, now the Question.  When last we saw Renee (in the excellent The Question: The Five Books of Blood), she had become the leader of the Religion of Crime, but now she’s betrayed them, and she’s using the Crime Bible to try and follow and predict the movements of the Dark Faith.

Artist Philip Tan is responsible for both the cover art and the interior, and he surpasses JG Jones on art duties (though Jones’ layouts are still superior).  The art is dark and moody, but Tan shows that he is more than capable of doing some nice action scenes.  

Overall, it’s a good opening chapter.  It’s action and mystery.  Rucka does a great job of characterizing Montoya, and he finally gives Crispus some screen-time as the Spectre, and finally gives the Spectre something to do.  An enjoyable, albeit dark, read.

Grade: A-

Review: Captain Britain and MI13 #1-4

Veteran Doctor Who writer Paul Cornell is dealing with the ramifications of the Secret Invasion in his homeland, Britain.  This is the final issue of the tie-in with Marvel’s current mega-event, and the book continues to astonish as how vastly superior it is to the event proper.  In four issues, Cornell dealt with the invasion of Britain AND Avalon, the release of Satannish, a magical devil, and Merlin, the death and rebirth of Britain’s greatest hero, and the forging of a brand new one.  By the end of this issue, heroes will have died, while new ones were born, and Great Britain has expelled the Skrulls in a brilliant little moment mocking? Marvel’s House of M from a few years back.

#4 isn’t the strongest issue in the series.  The dialogue is okay, the action is okay, the art is okay, but nothing about the issue truly stands-out.  In a hurry to complete the arc, the final issue definitely feels rushed, but while nothing stands out as great, there’s not a bad part to the book.  Cornell does a good job with his characters, he wraps this arc up, sets up future arcs, and establishes the super-heroic branch of MI13, which is a lot to ask of a single, normal sized issue.

Overall, the book accomplishes in 4 issues what Secret Invasion is using eight-plus-tie-ins to do, and does it better.  While the fairy-tale solution that concludes this book would never work in a mega-event crossover (oh, wait…), it’s more acceptable in this book given the context of the series.  It’s a fun action comic with potential for a lot of good arcs in the future.

Grade for #4: B

Grade for arc: B+

Trade Review: Green Lantern Corps: Recharge TPB

So, as you know, I recently bought Green Lantern: Rebirth.  While I was there, I also picked up Green Lantern Corps: Recharge.  I had heard literally nothing about this book, while I had heard heaps of praise for GL: Rebirth, so after my experience with Rebirth, I was deeply regretting the purchase of both of them.  Maybe the Lanterns just aren’t for me?  Is it really nothing more than a circle-jerk to Hal Jordan?

Thankfully, Recharge sets a completely different tone as it focusses on a number of new and veteran Lanterns.  There are a number of interesting ideas in the book - as someone who was unfamiliar with the Green Lantern mythos previously, I still vastly enjoyed reading about Vega, the Spider-Guild, and the attitude towards Lanterns on Korugar.  The threat - black holes popping up suddenly in a variety of sectors of space, was actually a pretty fun as a sci-fi space opera gimmick, and the ultimate explanation made for a decent climax.

Not all is great, though.  The ‘final battle’ of the book was every bit as half-assed as that of Rebirth, with a fight that has more to do with can-do spirit than any sort of sense.  Perhaps it’s just me, but I always find that, if the answer in a final battle is to just keep pouring energy into something, it rarely comes across as exciting to the reader, and this is no exception.

While Recharge lacked the ‘world-building’ exercises of Rebirth, it does an excellent job of introducing a number of new Lanterns - most notably, Soranik Natu, a Lantern from Sinestro’s home planet of Korugar; and the partnership of Isamot Kol and Vath Sarn, two rookie Lanterns from opposite sides of the Rann/Thanagar conflicts.  The book is a far better book for character-building, and the fact that Gibbons and Johns don’t seem to be sucking up to anybody makes it by far the superior read over it’s companion piece.

SeventhSoldier Reviews

I…I think I liked this issue.  I can’t tell.  I’m…I mean, as a reviewer and a human being, I’m flummoxed.  I don’t…

What on Earth is going on in this series?

Grade: ?

House of Mystery #4

House of Mystery is a Vertigo project loosely connected to the Sandman mythology.  In it, we meet a two different groups of people.  One group has been ‘kidnapped’ by the House, unable to leave, while the other group seems free to come and go as they please.

Each issue has an overarching story focussing on new arrival Fig, who believes that this is her dream house, and while the story is progressing slowly, it IS progressing as we begin to meet some of the forces moving outside of the House to their own mysterious ends.  The story could be interesting, but it’s slowed down by the inclusion of the second, more schizophrenic part of the book…

…the mini-narrative.  In the House, money doesn’t matter - the only currency is stories, and we get a new story from one of the patrons every issue.  The first issue’s mini-story is one of the honest-to-God creepiest things I’ve ever read, and none of the rest have really lived up.  This issue’s story doesn’t live up, but it’s the first that’s come close as we see a young woman in San Francisco searching for True Love, and the impediments she meets along the way.

Ultimately, House of Mystery is a decent series that needs to step it up a notch.  This issue is a step in the right direction, though, and if you’re a fan of bizarre little stories that range from horror to humor, with a slow-moving but interesting meta-plot, you should do yourself a favor and pick the book up.

Grade: B+

Trade Review/Rant: Green Lantern: Rebirth TPB

After all this time, after the Sinestro Corps War, the prelude to Blackest Night, the fanfare around the return of Hal Jordan (including Ross’s childish ‘we won!’ that’s been echoed about randomly by one of the most obnoxious fandoms in existence), and the fact that I just got a late 100$ for graduating from college, I figured I would pick up a few trades that I was curious about.

Green Lantern: Rebirth was one of those trades, being a book that has received such massive heapings of praise that I couldn’t help but be curious about what I’d miss when I decided against buying it after reading the first issue.  While I liked Hal a lot from JLA: Year One, parts of Hal’s fandom has long since been insulting and/or irritating enough, both in real life and in forums, to turn me off from the character in general.  Still, I’ve generally enjoyed what Jordan tales I’ve read - Year One, Hard Traveling Heroes - that I felt I should give it a shot.

The story starts off poorly.  As I read through the prologue, I thought there was some decent suspense building with the aliens prophesying the return of Parallax, but when we moved onto the segment with Hal, I could see that I might have problems - Geoff Johns, it appeared, was part of Hal’s fandom that grated on me so much.  Hal is portrayed as the perfect hero - a ladies man, a man’s man, a man about town, confidant that what he believes is more right than what God believes, and the book most certainly sympathizes with him.  His hair didn’t gray because he was aging, but because that’s what fear does to you.  He didn’t become a more thoughtful hero, a more introspective person, because he reached a certain point of his life and realized that, for all his fighting, he wasn’t really ever winning.  He did it because Fear instilled doubts in him.

And this is the core of my problem with the book.  Geoff Johns has a great grip on Kyle, John, and Guy.  I think he even has a decent handle on Alan Scott.  In one of the most polarizing scenes in the book, Johns and Van Sciver show ‘n tell how each Lanterns’ constructs vary based on their beliefs and values, a genius scene - only to follow it immediately with all of them collectively being taken out in a single instant except for perfect, precise, potent Hal.

The book is worth reading, I think, for it’s introduction to and propagation of the Green Lantern mythology, and it made me excited to read other stories dealing with it, such as the Sinestro Corps War, and Blackest Night.  And, obviously, if you’re a hard-core fan of Hal Jordan, you’d have read this a long time ago.  Even if you don’t like Jordan, though, there are great character moments in here for Kyle, John, and Guy, as well as excellent mythos-building scenes for the Corps as a whole, so it’s worth checking out.

This is the book where Johns really begins to play around with the Green Lantern mythology, and he does so with such a confident, graceful touch that I find it hard to believe that this wasn’t all part of it from the beginning.  It almost makes me sad that he likes Hal so much, because those are the biggest slips in the book, as Johns is so dedicated to making Hal look good that he forgets to make him human.

Review: Final Crisis #3

Final Crisis #3: Know Evil

I want to start off by saying that this is just a review, not an analysis like last time.  That’ll get done, but only after some time to absorb everything has passed.  For now, I’m sticking with a simple review.

The book opens with Frankenstein and SHADE (the Super-Human Advanced Defense Executive - and yes, in DC, the UN meta-human spy organization does not actually work for and exclusively in America - barging into the Dark Side Club, only to find the now extremely dead former body of Dark Side…and a still-living Renee Montoya, who knows more than she lets on.  The book moves swiftly from there on through the variety of plots we had going already, adding one or two to the mix.

As the series continues, the flaws of the first issue come more and more to be strengths of the series as a whole.  Specifically, the enormous number of subplots, enough that we only get a few pages of each in every issue.  With only a single issue to go on, that meant that almost nothing happened - but with three issues combine, we have instead a variety of plots slowly tying together, each one with depth.

Ignoring the meta-commentary going on within the issue, this seems to be the most action-packed issue of the series so far, from Shilo and Sonny Sumo battling the Justifiers to the brawl between Wonder Woman and a Mary Marvel that’s been mutated by Dark Side’s Evil Factory.  However, it hasn’t let go of the emotion - the speedsters were touching, Superman was a wreck, and Libra finally snapped on the Human Flame, showing his true colors.  While content of the issue varies greatly, the tone remains consistent.

The art was good, but it seemed, at times, to be a step down from Jones’s usual work, possibly because of the colorist.  However, the art didn’t detract from the issue, and there was a lot of nuance to it, and a great lot of attention to detail that made certain possible slip-ups in the coloring again seem odd and occasionally unsettling.

The issue is sure to have some fanboys foaming at the mouth with evil-Mary (completely ignoring the fact that she’s under the influence of anti-life), or the usual complaints about the Super Young Team being racist (again ignoring the fact that they actually do step up here and get things right), but overall, it’s a fun, interesting issue suffering a few art flaws, and it truly does live up to its name as “The Day Evil Won” - re: that awesome last page.

Grade: A-

Triple Review: True Believers, NU: 1959 and Reign In Hell

True Believers #1

I wasn’t familiar with the writer/artist team-up – Cary Bates and Paul Gulacy – but the book was conceptually interesting, so I picked it up. 

“In a time of universal deceit – telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”  That’s the tagline of the book.  Now, whether or not it truly is a time of universal deceit in the Marvel Universe is a matter of debate, but between the genetics-based Civil War and the secretive Skrull Invasion, there’s no question that there’s a whole lot of lying going on in the Marvel Universe right now.  The True Believers know that, and they want to get the truth out there, whatever the cost.

The first issue deals with an underground chick-fighting/rape/drug ring.  A young metahuman code-named Payback has gone undercover to find out who’s in charge and break the story, regardless of the cost.  With her is her ‘news team’, a group of potent metahumans with technology so far from the future it can baffle even SHIELD’s investigative prowess, she finds out who’s behind the ring, breaks it up, and then reports on it.

That part in the middle there was my main gripe with the book.  There had better be a damn good explanation forthcoming for how a group of underground journalists have the tech – and the powers – the escape SHIELD, but haven’t been noticed by anything yet, never stepped up during a war based on genetic persecution, never targeted Stark’s war-profiteering, the Illuminati, anything. 

Still, ignoring that (and a fairly ridiculous last page), the book was quite good.  The characters’ goals and operations are interesting, and underground journalism - digging into the seediest side of the Marvel Universe - makes for an interesting change of pace from the standard superhero fare.

Grade: B+

NewUniversal: 1959

I’ve never heard of Kieron Gillen, the writer.  Literally, never heard of him.  And yet, somehow, his single issue of NewUniversal, the Warren Ellis-masterminded relaunch of the failed 80’s New Universe project for Marvel Comics, has blown any single issue Ellis gave the series thus far completely out of the water.

This issue deals with America’s first recorded meeting with super-humanity.  It evokes all the paranoia towards mutants that mainstream Marvel wants to evoke – the difference, of course, is that in NewUniversal: Everything Went White and NewUniversal: 1959, it works. 

In 1959, the sky world-around was lit by something eventually titled ‘The Fireworks’.  The next day, things changed.  Drifter Lester Robbins gained the ability to instantly teleport.  Veronica Kelly, Kansas City widow, seemed to be able to read minds, and could create and control deadly blue blades.  Alcoholic slacker Tony Stark could create and understand technology decades ahead of what he should have been able to.  None of them had had these abilities before The Fireworks.

The book does not follow those metahumans, however, but instead follows rookie government agent Philip Voight, familiar to those who have read Everything Went White, but this is as good an introduction to the character as anything.  The decision to stay with him, rather than the heroes, definitely adds to the sense that super-humanity truly is a different species than traditional humanity – especially as the agents observe the relationship between Lester and Veronica, a bizarre cat-and-mouse game that appears wholly alien to the human agents.

I cannot recommend the NewUniversal line highly enough, and 1959 is an excellent place to start if you just want to try out a single issue.

Grade: A

Reign in Hell #1

 

Giffen has been billing this as a supernatural Annihilation.  Both series’ were written by him, after all.  And both deal with a previously largely-ignored but enormously important segment of each Universe’s mythology.  Rather than a series of warm-up minis leading up to a main mini, here Giffen went for a single miniseries with a selection of back-ups to set the stage.  Otherwise, it’s largely similar.

And like Annihilation, it doesn’t read well in single-issue form.  The story begins with an all-out battle in hell for a structure called The Odium, and it fills you in as you go.  Lord Satanus and Lady Blaze, currently in charge of Purgatory, are tired of a system of eternal damnation, a system with no mediums and no forgiveness – or that’s what they’re telling people – and so they’ve led all the souls of Purgatory into Hell in an attempt to retake and reshape Hell.  Opposing them is Neron, current leader of Hell.

But that is, of course, not the whole of the conflict.  What happens here will reshape how magic works all over the DC Universe, and so many of the mystic and divine heroes and villains of the DC Universe have a stake in this as well.  In this issue, we see the Shadowpact, the return of Linda Danvers (albeit a fairly out-of-character Linda Danvers), Jason Blood, The Creeper, Zauriel, and Zatanna’s dead father, Giovanni Zatara.

The back-up – easily the most entertaining part of the book – features Ralph and Sue Dibny, Ghost Detectives, in a meeting to convince Dr. Occult just how important this is.  The back-up is slow, but well-written, and is great set-up for what is to come, as well as back-story on the little-used Dr. Occult.

The issue is largely set-up, and reads like the more boring parts of Annihilation, but like Annihilation, the struggle promises to be epic.  Let’s hope Giffen can deliver, but a slow opening issue, combined with fairly average art from Tom Derenick and Bill Sienkiewicz, don’t make the best start you could hope for.

Grade: B-

Novel Review: Mike Carey’s Vicious Circle

 

I’m sure many of you are familiar with Mike Carey at this point.  He’s been experiencing phenomenal success in the comics’ industry of late, beginning with his exceptional Sandman spin-off Lucifer and then moving on to the best run of Hellblazer the book ever saw, and while he has recently become the go-to man for many huge, mainstream titles (including Marvel’s mega-franchise X-Men), those early books demonstrate a fondness for the dark occult mysteries.

While many of you may have read some of Carey’s comics work, though, it’s entirely possible that you’ve missed his novels.  I had.  Recently, however, after my review of Faker, one of Carey’s recent Vertigo projects, Miriam Parker of the Hachette Book Group USA contacted me and asked if I would like to try out Carey’s newest novel, titled Vicious Circle.  I accepted with gratitude, and a week or so later, the book arrived in the mail.  With apologies for her for taking over a week to finish the book, it is now done, and so I begin my review.

Vicious Circle is the second book in a series of supernatural noir novels that hearken back to Carey’s earlier big comics, and it stars Felix Castor, a London-based exorcist in a world in which exorcists are in high-demand.  I had never read Carey’s first novel (The Devil You Know), but Carey did a fine job of filling me in on all the relevant backstory I needed to know about Castor as the story progresses, ranging from his past encounters with fellow exorcist/succubus-in-hiding Juliet to the not-quite-as-pleasurable demonic problems of his old friend Rafi.  There was never an instance in the novel in which I was left confused because I hadn’t read the first story.

If you are familiar with the genre, you know what happens next.  There is a primary case – in this instance, the abduction of the ghost of a little girl named Abigail Torrington by a rival exorcist – and a few other bizarre goings-on – a massive spree of mayhem sweeping through London and a possessed church, to name a few – and they will invariably become tangled up together in the same web as the story progresses, the connections slowly untangled both by you and by the protagonist. 

But while the conventions of the genre have become predictable (and believe me, this novel is rarely an exception to that – if you want a mystery, you’d best look elsewhere), what’s important is the skill with which the author pulls it off, and Carey proves to have considerable skill.  Like Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files, Carey can make throw-away phrases come back hauntingly late in the book, and he isn’t afraid to damage his hero – or his supporting cast.

The other strength of the book is world-building, though there are some bizarre choices Carey makes to keep the universe unified.  As I mentioned, exorcists are much in demand.  Well, that’s because the dead have begun to rise in mass, and people are understandably freaked out about it – ghosts and zombies both exist, and it seems as though demons followed them out of Hell, because every so often, you’ll find one of those kicking about as well.  Were-creatures exist as well, in one of the more forced-feeling aspects of the setting, as human ghosts possessing and partially reshaping animal bodies.  The government is trying to pass a bill that offers some semblance of rights to the recently risen, and exorcists have their own bar in London.  What it boils down to is a familiar supernatural setting with just a slight twist to mark it as Carey’s own.

Ultimately, if you enjoyed Lucifer or Hellblazer, you really should be reading Carey’s novels.  Similarly, if you’re a fan of books like The Dresden Files, or the supernatural noir genre in general, Carey offers an entertaining entry with Vicious Circle.  It’s interesting and well-paced, and hero Felix Castor fits well into the wise-cracking noir hero mold.

Reviews: Wait, I’m Still Here?

Hello again.  Long-time no review.  I’ve been reading a lot of comics, though.  That, I have been doing.  Here are some of them.

Final Crisis: Rogues’ Revenge #1

FC: RR was up there with Legion of Three Worlds and Requiem as the minis I wasn’t particularly excited for.  I’m not a big fan of Geoff Johns at all.  Still, I enjoyed Rogue War alright from his Flash run, and the I have generally enjoyed his take on the Rogues in general.  Given all that they’ve been through lately, I thought it would be interesting to see how this has changed them all.

Rogues’ Revenge turned out to be pretty well-handled all around.  The art is average, but Johns’ characterization of the Rogues is rock-solid as always as we see them ready to retire, turning down the offer of Libra’s Secret Society in favor of retirement and a life outside the public eye.  An inciting event keeps them in costume, of course, and sets them on a collision course with Professor Zoom and Inertia and, I suspect, Wally and Barry.  The issue doesn’t have a lot of twists and turns, but it’s solid set-up for a mini-series, and I hope that the next issues live up to this one.  

Grade: B+

Madame Xanadu #1-2

Madame Xanadu is one of Vertigo’s newest books, the first using mainstream DC characters in quite some time, as it tells the origin of characters like Madame Xanadu, The Demon Etrigan, and (okay, not the origin, but early uses of) the Phantom Stranger.  The book, beginning at the twilight of Camelot, is okay - but nothing special.  And that’s the key phrase when describing the book so far.  Nothing special.  The art is solid, the writing is solid, the story is solid, but nothing stands out as particularly worth it, especially when we’ve already gotten a much more impressive ‘fall of Camelot’ in Seven Soldiers: Shining Knight.

Ultimately, the story tries to have a few twists.  Nimue - who we are led to believe will become Madame Xanadu - did not betray Merlin, but instead was a pawn in the evil, maniacal manipulations of a mad mage as he tried to gain immortality.  But the changes ring hollow, made, seemingly, to make us more sympathetic to Nimue.  And if you have to change the myth so completely to make us sympathetic to a character, why use that myth in the first place?  Beginning Madame Xanadu at the fall of Camelot was an interesting choice, but so far, not one that has had any sort of pay-off within the story.  I’m hoping it does in future issues, though, because Madame Xanadu only has one issue left to impress me.

Grade: B-

Captain Britain and MI:13 #1-3

Now THIS is what a tie-in should be like.  This has nothing to do with the main story - but it could.  If the heroes here fail, then it will completely change the main battlefield over in the American-based books.  This isn’t just an extension of that story - you don’t have to be reading this, there aren’t any HUGE REVEALS, and this isn’t where the back-story is.  It is, however, an entertaining and well-illustrated book dealing with interesting characters stuck in a terrible situation.

When it comes to Secret Invasion, for me, this is the place to be.  

Grade: B+

Ambush Bug: Year None #1

Ambush Bug is another Keith Giffen project created long ago to satirize the industry and long-since forgotten.  This book is Giffen’s way of mocking the recent grimness of the DC Universe, the pomp of their SUPER HUGE EVENTS, and certain trends in modern comics.  While parts of it are genuinely hilarious and clever satire of the industry - the main story of the issue is the murder of Jonni DC (DC’s oft-ignored kids line is called Johnny DC, and comics are becoming more and more violent), there are a number of small, clever touches, such as a few fourth wall breaking moments, Ambush Bug’s part in Identity Crisis, and just try and count how many dead women litter the pages of the comic.  But, in the end, it’s just trying too hard to be funny, going for the easy laugh as often as not.  It’s like modern Saturday Night Live - it strikes solid gold every so often, but you have to slog through the mediocrity to get there.

Grade: C+

Wonder Woman #22

The penultimate chapter in the current Wonder Woman arc, this one definitely picks up the pace as we finally meet Wonder Woman’s nemesis here, a extra-universal devil who has been demolishing planets and universes.  Stranded from her allies, betrayed, the arc features a few twists, but more than that, it features a few great moments between Stalker and Wonder Woman.  The issue is funny, exciting, and just a little dark.  All-around solid.

Grade: B+

The Immortal Iron Fist: The Seven Capital Cities of Heaven

All I can say is, David Aja might be one of the best artists in the industry today when it comes to action scenes, but he’s also a solid all-around talent, one well worth watching.  And teaming him up with Matt Fraction?  That’s a match made in heaven, as the first arc, The Last Iron Fist Story, proved.  This, the second arc on the series, isn’t quite as good as the first one, largely due to a sad lack of focus - and an even sadder lack of awesome ass-kickery.  I had hoped to see a little more of the tournament than we did, but what we got was solid gold, and the main story-line of a revolution in heaven was equally well-handled.

Easily, the weakest part of the trade was the Immortal Iron Fist Annual #1 put right in the middle.  While the story it contains is certainly important, the art was an extreme departure from Aja’s quality work that came off stiff and wooden - which certainly hurts action books.  The story was long, and while it’s always great to see Orson again, this was the weak link.

Still, when the cards are down, Immortal Iron Fist offers unparalleled action, great banter, amazing panel layout (you know it’s either really good or really bad when you have to stop and notice it), and an excellent supporting cast.  If any of you aren’t reading this, you should be.

Grade: A-

Review: Final Crisis: Requiem

Did you feel like Martian Manhunter’s death in Final Crisis #1 didn’t get the attention it deserved?  Are you even remotely a Martian Manhunter fan?  Do you like to see a great hero fight against overwhelming odds?  Do you like really pretty art?  Final Crisis: Requiem is a book for people who answered yes to any of these.

FC:R begins, essentially, with Martian Manhunter’s capture, as he’s jammed with a few hundred pyro-tranquilizers designed special for this by Dr. Sivana.  That right there sets up just how scared of the Manhunter the villains are – they treat him with the utmost respect, keeping him paralyzed for fear of his retaliation.  If you wanted a lengthened scene of the fall of Martian Manhunter, you’d love this book.

Unfortunately, there are a few disconnects between this and the main narrative.  First off, for al that people did complain about the suddenness of Martian Manhunter’s death, it was a rather pivotal theme-setting moment in the book.  It set the idea that nothing was sacred. The Martian’s death wasn’t heroic – it was a brutal execution, and Morrison portrayed it like that for a  reason.  People whined about how disrespectful it was to the Martian Manhunter, completely missing or unwilling to accept the point: the villains WERE disrespecting the Manhunter, and they had the power to do it. 

Another disconnect is more minor, and more subtle.  In the first two books of Final Crisis, I don’t recall anyone saying the Batman was still Bruce.  I don’t recall ever seeing Batman without his mask.  Final Crisis takes place after RIP, and Morrison seemed to be playing a little cagey on just who Batman was.  There’s nothing to suggest it ISN’T Bruce, but he keeps up that little bit of mystery intact for RIP fans – mystery that is ripped away by Requiem, which repeatedly says that Bruce is still Bruce, Alfred is still Alfred, Dick is still Dick, etc….  So, either there are some pretty big spoilers here, or DC’s editorial managed yet another massive cock-up – not that just such a mistake would be uncommon, given their recent track record on Countdown and DotNG.

The sense that the villains are powerful and, for the first time, have the ability to really hurt the heroes has been destroyed in this book, which seems designed to cash in on both the Manhunter fans and the Final Crisis fans.  In the end, however, this book is mainly for the J’onn fans, and it’s a pretty good one for them, providing great art from Doug Mahnke, an interesting history of Mars and J’onn’s life there, and a plenty of references to J’onn’s past books.  To fans of Final Crisis, it proves a startling disconnect from the ideas and themes of the main book, while adding nothing particularly consequential to them, at least at first glance, making it the worst kind of tie-in: it contributes nothing whatsoever to the main story.  It’s still a pretty good story, but don’t read it just because you’re interested in Final Crisis.  The meat of the story is in the main book - this is ultimately just fluff for the fans.

Rating: B

Review: Patsy Walker: Hellcat #1

I went into Patsy Walker: Hellcat with absolutely no idea what to expect.  I loved the cover art, and I’m a big fan of minis starring little-known characters that seem to have no effect or tie-in to the greater universe.  I’m not sure, exactly, why that is, but sometimes I just need a break from all the pomp and pretension of the greater universe to just get an interesting story, continuity be damned.  Patsy Walker: Hellcat fits that description pretty much perfectly.

At the beginning of the book, Iron Man asks Patsy Walker, newly resurrected and registered, to help him out, drafting her into the 50 States Initiative.  She hoped to land a team of old friends, beautiful people, maybe somewhere nice, like Florida.  Instead, Iron Man stations her in Alaska, and then admits that she won’t actually have a ‘team’ – they can’t spare the manpower, so they’re sending her by herself.  She flies to Alaska, where she meets some locals and confronts superpowered antler bears. 

If any of that sounds odd, there’s a reason for that: the book is very, very odd.  It’s energetic and peppy – Patsy is reminiscent of a super-powered Holly Golightly, perpetually energetic and seeing the best in her situation, prone to flights of admittedly hilarious fancy.  The art, by David Lafuente, reinforces that image, and is absolutely gorgeous to boot, notably in the aforementioned flights of fantasy.

Patsy Walker: Hellcat #1 is quick and fun, but it’s mad energy sometimes makes it border on insensible.  If you’re looking for something fun and a little bit off-beat, Patsy Walker: Hellcat delivers.  It may not CHANGE THE FACE OF THE MARVEL UNIVERSE FOREVER, but it’ll probably keep you entertained for a little while.

Grade: B

Trade Review: Faker

Mike Carey, author of the excellent Lucifer, as well as one of the best runs Hellblazer  has ever seen, and the shockingly good My Faith In Frankie, returned to Vertigo after a short absence with Faker, a six-issue miniseries about a group of college freshman who, after a wild party, find that no one but their small group of friends can remember Nick Philo, one of their most reliable friends.  They know that something’s going on, but as they try and prove that Nick exists, they begin to attract some unwanted attention.

The premise is interesting, and remains interesting throughout the book, but the characters kill it.  Carey is an expert at making self-destructive, horrific people into relatable characters.  He turned the Devil himself into one of the most fascinating characters in comics, almost daring us to root for him, popping in occasionally to remind us that he’s the Devil for a reason.  Here, Carey doesn’t want us to root for these people.  Yeah, bad things have happened to them in their lives, in the past, but that doesn’t even remotely excuse these kids.  It’s an interesting exercise, but it doesn’t quite pay off, because no matter how intriguing things get, you never forget that in this story, you really don’t care who comes out on top. 

Still, it’s not all bad.  The art from Jock is moody and expressive, and Carey maintains his talent for bizarre occult mystery.  While you pick up what’s going on with Nick pretty quickly, the story isn’t done - I promise, there are one or two twists still to come.  The climax is clever and depressing, a perfect match to the lives they were living before, and Carey refuses to pull any punches with the consequences of the actions of these characters, but I dare you to care.

Grade: D+

Group Analysis: Final Crisis #2

So, we talked about doing a group analysis on Final Crisis #2.  We kind of started on Brucecastle’s review, but I thought I’d bump the idea up here for any interested party who missed our slow discussion over there.  Also, my first entry is going to be big.  Very, very big.  Don’t worry about reading the whole thing in one sitting - or at all - but I have a lot of free time, a love of comics, and a 1 month old Bachelor’s Degree of Arts in English Creative Writing, so I may as well use ‘em.  

Here’s the schtick - Final Crisis is a dense book.  It’s a fun one, but a dense one, and it’s always great to see how people interpret a particularly dense book.  Anyone is welcome to contribute - in fact, the more people who do, the better!  Contribute random facts or interpretation, or just drop in to say what you think of the issue!  And don’t feel bad if all you want to do is link to useful sources.  I’ll be doing it myself, and some of my talking points will be borrowed from these sources.  As a warning, though, anything is fair game, and There Will Be Spoilers (starring Daniel Day Lewis).

Final Crisis: A Ticket to Bludhaven.

PAGE 1: Nothing major, obviously.  Some nice touches, and it’s definitely scene-setting.  It’s also a favorite of Morrison’s - superheroes as pop culture.  In Seven Soldiers: Bulleteer, we saw Morrison setting up the Convention Scene of the DCU - where hopefuls and has-beens congregate to try and get their name out, for that miniscule chance that maybe, just maybe, the JLA will take them into their pantheon (this will be important) - and that there is an entire underground metahuman scene, and like any scene, it has it’s wannabes.

This was done in one fairly obvious way, and one slightly less obvious way.  The first was with Eternal Superteens, the fetish porn site for the guys who want something…special.  At Eternal Superteen, you can see girls pouring acid on each other, you can see bullets bounce off their flawless skin, and you can see eternal beauty - all for just a small monthly fee.  For legit superhumans who are maybe a little down on their luck, Eternal Superteen represents one of the sadder realities of life - sometimes, you just can’t dig yourself out of a hole.

The second way superhuman sub-culture is represented in Bulleteer is at the hospital, in the discussion the doctor’s have with Alix about how hospitals dislike superhumans because idiots who want to emulate them will expose themselves to dangerous chemicals, deadly animals, the harshest corners of the world, all in an attempt to get powers and join the gods in the clouds.

Here in Final Crisis, we see another instance of all this - superheroes as fashion, as we get people wearing a Killing Joke jacket, cos-play, and teenie-bop super-herodom at its finest in the streets of Tokyo.

Finally, as a minor note, and given the return of Barry Allen on the last page, it’s interesting to note that this is an homage to an old Flash cover that I’m sure Morrison loves, as it has strong thematic ties to his 7S: Zatanna mini-series: http://www.comics.org/coverview.lasso?id=20236&zoom=4

P2-3

The history of Japanese heroes.  This establishes Big Science Action as THE Japanese superteam, while setting up the Super Young Team as posers and wannabes.  Like the wannabes in Bulleteer, these kids are obsessed with being special. They’re fanboys with powers, and since being a superhero is cool, they jump on the bandwagon.  They don’t ‘deserve’ anything, but they certainly think they do.

The transformation of man into merchandising!  Spirit into toy!

That’s all Morrison talking.  But what are we to make of the SYT?  Love ‘em?  Hate ‘em?  Normally, Morrison is pretty clear on how he wants us to feel.  Love ‘em in Invisibles, hate ‘em in Seaguy, pity ‘em in 7S.  Here, we just don’t know.  They’re just kids.  But they want to prove themselves…maybe.  More can definitely be said on the Super Young Team, but I’m unsure what exactly that is.

P4

Our first glance of Sonny Sumo since, I think, the 60s.  Important note about Sonny Sumo: he has a piece of the Anti-Life Equation in him, which gives him powers and resistance to the Equation.  He had the ability to temporarily heal himself, but it was extremely temporary - the wounds would return minutes later, unless he was healed by a Motherbox.  In the 60s, he was healed by one, and that scene will be mirrored moments later.

Another important note?  In Final Crisis #1, Empress led the attack on Dr. Light and Mirror Master, only to be shot down. Empress is a master of voodoo and can control people’s actions by speaking due to a shard of Anti-Life in her.  The way the gods are acting in this series so far is very much like the Loa of voodoo in some ways, so wouldn’t a person who is resistant to Anti-Life, familiar with possession, the workings of gods, and spirit travel, be a nifty person to have around?  Is she gone for good, or will she return with a vengeance?

P5-6

Sonny Sumo is a bad-ass.  He didn’t used to be, I think - I only  know from second-hand info and rare scans, but I think he used to be Mr. Honorable.  Now, he’s killing people.  Not only that, but he’s doing so almost ironically.  What’s up?

Well, Morrison hates the grim ‘n’ gritty stories.  A lot of his recent work has been a denunciation of this idea, and his grimmest, grittiest story, Arkham Asylum, is something he’s almost ashamed to have written.  It’s undeniable, though, that in the past few years, comics have gotten darker, especially at the traditionally light-hearted DC.  He’s frequently said “It’s always darkest before dawn”, and he said he’s trying to lighten the DCU up.  Also, the Dark Gods have been working in our time for God knows how long, and we’ve seen the corruptive influence they can have.

What if one major upcoming theme will be the spreading corruption, the spiritual corrosion, of Dark Side. Evil in the DCU, which we’ll see in just a few more pages, is taking the easy way out.  It’s ugly, but it’s easy and it’s immediately effective.  Here, we see the once-honorable warrior tear out someone’s heart in a bar-room brawl.  Will he be ‘redeemed’ in his struggle against Dark Side?  Will the whole DCU?  Is this Morrison’s way of making these characters likable again?

P7-8

I was kinda hoping you might be able to help me put some kind of team together…

Shilo arrives.  Shilo probably would’ve fit right in here before 7 Soldiers happened.  A poser.  He had powers, but he used them for entertainment, to make money, rather than to save lives.  He could have been so much more than he was, but instead he’s the madcap celebrity superhuman, who keeps talking about a war in heaven, about angels and demons walking secretly among us, hidden from even the greatest protectors on Earth.  Still, Shilo obviously knows what’s going down, and he came to Sonny Sumo, a former companion of the New Gods, now acting a little bit like Orion (the rage, the scarring), who has a piece of Anti-Life in him, to form a team.  This will obviously be important, but while it opens up some great discussion topics - what is the plan, how important is having Anti-Life, who has it, how did they get it, how connected is Shilo with the Life Equation (the opposite number of Anti-Life) and what does that mean? - that’s all I’ll say on that for now.

P9

…who built the machine made of parallel universes.

Nix Uoton, trying to find the magic word, Welcome to Tranquility/Black Adam style.  The Orrery of Worlds here is referred to as a machine MADE OF parallel universes.  This could be imprecise grammar, but if it isn’t, that implies that the machine isn’t FOR parallel universes, it isn’t a way of VIEWING or THINKING ABOUT parallel universes, but it’s a machine MADE OF them.  That means, it may have some other purpose.  What do you all think?

P10-11

Who knew the sound of breath whistling through smashed cartilage could be such a turn-on?

This is, I will say it right now, the most important two-pages in the issue, in my opinion. Then again, I suspect that everyone will have a ‘most important page’ or ‘most important scene’, the thing that they got the most out of that or read the most into or just thought was absolutely too important to skip over.  This is mine.

Why?  Because I believe that Final Crisis is a story about gods in every sense of the word, and this is the first time we truly see just how gods operate.  This is some stuff by a user on www.gaiaonline.com named pinderpanda, a Brit who seems to have an encyclopedic knowledge all things Kirby, and since his explanation of this scene is so good, I think I’ll just copy it verbatim.  Apologies for the language in this segment.

——-

Because obviously a scene of a once-decent cop brutally beating a pedophile while threatening to smash his brains open with a toilet seat doesn’t belong in a superhero summer event. The superheroes haven’t realised it yet - they’re on Mars, almost anticiapating J’onn’s ressurection because they know how the DCU’s rules work - but they don’t live in the DCU anymore. Evil has won the day. They’re living in Sin City. 

In the first issue Turpin was capable of horrible things, like mocking Vic’s death, but of then immediately recognising that he’d done wrong. This Turpin keeps on with the horrible, because he belives his actions are justified, which is a huge bit of the Kirby Mythology. Look at the posters around Granny’s school in the flashbacks to Scott’s youth or to Godfrey’s first sermon in Forever People. Darkseid doesn’t work so much by inculcating evil in others, so much as by allowing them to justify thier evil to themselves and take it further. 

“You’re not a beast — if you kill for Darkseid”
“You’re not a liar — if you lie for Darkseid”

You’re not a thug, if you beat someone to death trying to find missing children.

But of course, there are no missing children. And if this were a film then Godfrey’s simple and creepy, “But you already met the children, back in New York” would be the equivalent to “You’re eating worms” in The Lost Boys. It’s possible there’s a metafictional joke going on here, in that Turpin’s first scene strongly appears to break the continuity of the previous issue, until we get that little bit more information.

Too much going on to dwell on that though, as watching Turpin’s progress lets us know how the Fallen Gods work. They’re in everyone (evil was in Turpin when he made his cruel joke) but sometimes they’re really in someone (Turpin’s now being so fully riden by the God of Evil that Godfrey can talk to him as if he was that God). 

I love the lack of any glamour attached to evil in this series. It’s just brutal and ugly and nasty. The various series that’ve lifted Darkseid out of the Fourth World context and used him as an all-purpose Generic Evil Space Tyrant have generally tried to make him cool and majestic and awesome and stuff. But that’s not really very much what evil’s like. Darth Vader’s cloak swishing about and the Imperial March booming away are one thing, but evil looks a lot more like the decaying body of the three year old on the news yesterday who was locked in a room full of flies and dog shit and starved to death while her mother went to the pub. 

The best line in Millar’s Wanted, which seems more relevant to Final Crisis by the page, is “People love facists, man. You ever met a woman who fantasised about being tied up and raped by a liberal?”

Kirby’s mythos has always offered us facism without the erotic fantasy. There’s a pretty obvious biographical reason for that. 

His Fourth World asks a very strange question. One that could only have arisen via the culture-fuck of one of the War generation trying to tell his most personal story while simultaneously trying to get down with the kids of the Woodstock generation; what if fascism wasn’t a political ideology but was a cosmological principle? All those hideous ideas, which compelled artists to become soldiers in order to slap them down, what if they weren’t just Something That Happened In Our History but were hardwired into the very mathematics of the universe? 

If the logic of facism, of anti-life, were something as fundamental as that, could we still fight it? Should we still fight it?

(One of the reasons The Fourth World never feels concluded is because nobody’s ever understood that and finished the saga with the “HELL YES!” it demands)

So here’s how evil is in Final Crisis then. All shit and tears and smashed cartilage. It’s getting Turpin hard, but hopefully we’re all feeling a little ill. People might fantasise about being raped by some idealised facist, but nobody fantasises about being raped by Josef Fritzl. The Dark Side is less sexy than the one they’ve been selling. 

-

So there we have it.  Anti-Life is fascism meeting universal mathematics.  A hard-wired law of physics in the DCU that could steal free will.  It’s owned by the God of Evil.  And he’s here.  This is why this scene is so important.  Because we see what the rules are, how they work.  Darkseid isn’t forcing ANYONE to do anything evil - he just helps them justify it.  Remember when I said that evil here was ugly and easy?  This is the scene that demonstrates that beautifully.

P12

And pray for a resurrection.

The funeral on Mars.  The prayer for resurrection could be very important here, as there have been rumors that Earth is the cradle of the Fifth Age, and the JLA have always been god analogues.

That was how Morrison treated them in his famous JLA run - as a pantheon.  Specifically, there, as the Greek pantheon, but nonetheless, the JLA were treated as gods in JLA, and here, we see them acting like gods. They know how things work - if they want someone to come back, they will.  Almost everyone there has died at least once, I bet, and every single one of them has friends who’ve died and returned.  At the birth of the Fifth World, we see the people of Earth beginning to act like gods.

P13-14

Hurt Superman, perhaps I’ll take you more seriously.

Libra is back, as a prophet of…something. �