Day 36: Four-Color Funnybooks for 03/12/08
Decent haul this week, one or two things that blew me away, but a lot of solid comics, are starting to really build some steam. I got two trades as well, both were unbelievably excellent.
Reviews and recommendations after the jump.
Booster Gold #7 - Not only do Geoff Johns and Jeff Katz continue to make Booster Gold one of DC’s premiere titles, but they managed to make OMAC, one of the weak links leading into the Infinite Crisis crossover, interesting and exciting. Pieces are falling into place, not only with the plot but also with Booster and Blue Beetle as a team. I’m still dreading the creative team killing off Beetle. Please don’t let it end that way.
This is a great book, but unless you have a major background in Universe history, you’ll be in over your head.
Fantastic Four #555 - I don’t want to pigeon-hole a writer, especially a guy like Mark Millar whose work I have truly enjoyed, and for who I have, at times, acted as an apologist for him. However, given the slam bang opening installments for both volumes of the Ultimates and prior to that, the Authority, where his name really got big these first two issues of his run are kind of boring.
He keeps trying to make his mark by exploring the characters, which everyone who writes anything should try to do, but Mark Waid’s place in history as the greatest Fantastic Four of the modern era is still safe. Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch is the biggest ‘name’ team since Mark Waid and Mike Weiringo, and it’s going to be rough for them to live up to that. The premise is interesting; the Earth is dying, and it can’t be saved. Within ten years it will be uninhabitable. So the world’s richest and brightest are actually building a replacement Earth complete with sustainable and renewing energy sources, super-powered law enforcement, and hospitals staffed with beings capable of curing any and all illnesses and injuries.
There’s a lot of character development, but none of it seems necessary in the wake of Waid’s run, since the current one is insisting the Reed and Sue have moved on after the division of Civil War.
This run has one more issue to get my attention before getting dropped.
Book of the Week
The Goon #22 - Man, that last issue was hilarious, which is important, because, with the exception of three pages, this one is all about kicking the shit out of the Goon, his friends, and the reader. Eric Powell continues to be an amazing writer, easily switching between the truly funny and the truly tragic. He’s still one of the best artists in the business. Dave Stewart’s colors give it that painted feel that all the covers Powell painted had. I want to say it’s water colors, but I know nothing about painting, but trust me, it looks like nothing else on the market.
I’m amazed at the plot moving forward. Not because I thought Powell was incapable of writing it, or that the Goon and his cast wouldn’t work in a forward moving book, but that I was perfectly happy with the status quo, and if the Goon and the Nameless Priest wanted to spend the whole time in a “Tom and Jerry” like war, I’d be happy. However the forward moving plot is incredible, with the stakes being upped significantly, and more mysteries coming forward. Thank God this book is coming out monthly, now.
Green Lantern Corps #22 - This was an issue lending us an insight in the Alpha Lanterns. They’re not emotionless automatons, nor are they so loyal to the Guardians that they don’t question their motives. I wasn’t bowled over by these last two stories. I don’t really care for Boodika, and of all the ‘Lost Lanterns’ she’s the one I cared the least for, but she’s the best known of the new Alpha Lanterns, so I suppose it makes sense. If nothing else, the story lays the pieces for larger themes to come up later, so that’s nice.
Nova #11 - Continues to be awesome. Nova has been taken out of the Annihilation crossover, but it still affects him in a big way. I’m worried that the writers are going to use the Phalanx virus to keep his power-level controllable, but I like that Richard Rider, a kid from New York that no one ever took seriously, is one of the heavy hitters in a community where the heavy hitters operate on a scale that can only be described as cosmic.
Nova finally finishes his quest to reach the Technarchy home world, and finds even more problems. He’s been followed, and that brings an even bigger problem. The writers are kind of using this book as a tour of the revamped Marvel cosmic universe. It’s showing us that everything is being made cool and new again. Even Warlock, a former member of the New Mutants who hasn’t been seen in years, is fresh and vital.
This is up there with the Brubaker, Fraction, and Whedon, titles as the very best at Marvel right now.
Serenity: Better Days #1 - This comic takes place before the movie, so Wash is still alive, and River’s a mental patient, not a killing machine.
The book’s plot is about a heist that goes horribly right, and suddenly the crew of the Serenity is extremely wealthy.
The dialogue reads spot-on, and I could really hear the actors’ voices when I read it. Everyone looks like the person portraying them in real life, with Wash being the lone exception. It’s not bad, but there’re a few places where the artist veers wildly from Alan Tudyk’s face.
Along with seeing one of my favorite casts again, there was a nice little nod to one of my favorite episodes from the series, so I was essentially in sad nerd heaven.
I also got Tiny Titans #2 which is really akin to a series of Sunday Funnies, and I’m going to die alone because I think it’s funny.
Trade Paperbacks
DMZ vol.4: Friendly Fire - The best get better. Friendly Fire takes a look at the most tragic day in a place that truly knows tragedy, and takes an unflinching look at the politics, personalities, lies, and truth of a massacre. On the 204th day of the fighting in the DMZ* 198 protestors were gunned down by an army unit.
*it might have been the 204th day of the official war, I’m not sure.
Protagonist Matty Roth tries to get to the bottom of the massacre by talking with everyone: the grunts on the ground, the top brass, protestors who survived, and the people who knew the victims. Just like in real life, there are no easy answers, and the truth can be buried in spin, loyalties to something other than the truth, and conflicting accounts.
In the end, there are only the victims. Writer Brian Wood doesn’t try to put a happy ending on it, and while reading the book, I kept trying to figure out all the different ways it could end, but in retrospect, it ended the only way it could.
The story is tragic, and reveals one of the big reasons why Matty is still considered a tourist by people living in the DMZ, and puts a name to the sadness most of the people we meet in the story carry with them.
I read this Thursday. I even woke up extra early to read this, as I had a lot to do, but most of it went out the window, because after reading this, I had to sit alone in the dark for awhile and mull over what I just experienced.
Friendly Fire is a great but incredibly heart-breaking addition to DMZ.
Highly recommended.
Manhunter vol. 1: I can see why the book kept getting almost cancelled, and I can see why a fervent fan base kept it alive.
The book follows federal prosecutor, Kate Spencer, who is a spectacularly maladjusted human being. She’s great at her job, but bad at her personal life, and she’s believes in a higher call of justice, which is really clichéd, except Kate has no problem killing the villains she hunts as the vigilante Manhunter. She’s what Daredevil would be if he didn’t have the Catholic burned into him at a young age.
Writer Marc Andreyko does a great job making Kate a fully-realized character by not following the easy-route of making her a ball-buster (though she can do that), nor is she (thus far) trying to work away at some old tragedy, or avenge something that happened to her in the past. She simply sees all these super criminals doing whatever they want to humanity and getting off on technicalities or breaking out of underfunded/underprepared prisons, and thinks the most logical thing to do is to just kill them. How many lives would be saved if Batman would have killed the Joker? Commissioner Gordon would still be married, and his daughter, Barbara would still be able to walk. Jason Todd would still be among the living. However Batman is defined by a murder, and has sworn to never cross that line.
Kate doesn’t have that problem. She’s going through a custody battle, is a chain smoker, and is working with a former armorer to the diabolical and villainous, but pulling the trigger on a serial killer with a gimmick is not a problem.
The book doesn’t create villains for her to kill off, rather she gets to kill a couple of fairly well-known bad guys, who have put up a fight against A and B-list talent. What gives this new hero an edge, is that willingness to kill. She’s more brutal and vicious than your average cape and tights wearing avenger, and as Deathstroke put it, “that’s the difference, Batman. You were trained to fight. I was trained to kill.” Most bad guys go into a fight knowing full well that they’ll live from any confrontation, and there is a chance you’ll run into Batman and he’ll break some bones, but you won’t be dead, and that’s why Kate has a chance.
The dialogue is bit clunky in the first one or two issue, but that happens in the first issue of anything. We need to set a status quo, and all our characters have to talk in broad strokes to demonstrate personality the first time we meet them. This way the audience can get comfortable, and then we move right in to the actual business of experiencing the story. The dialogue has a snap to it, and Jesus Saiz pencils are darker than usual on a superhero book, but he does a great job with the action, and the quiet moments between characters.
It’s refreshing to read a story about a female character that has problems and hang-ups and isn’t just there to be a love interest to a male hero. It’s also refreshing to read about a female hero going into battle, and wearing actual armor without pieces missing over her breasts, stomach, or ass. I’ll definitely be getting volume 2.
So, what did you read this week?
Matt