Comic Reviews
Who Is Jake Ellis? #1 - #3 - Who is Jake Ellis is indeed the question that needs answering. The book starts following Jon Moore, who is kinda like a spy, but working freelance instead of for any government. You quickly learn that Jake Ellis is a shadow that only Jon can see or hear who helps Jon out of scrapes by telling him what to do (reminds me of that scene in The Matrix where Neo is led out of the office building by Morpheus). It sounds like a figment of Jon's imagination, but Jake knows things that Jon doesn't. The questions keep coming from there: is Jon real or imaginary? does he work autonomously from Jon? how did he become joined with Jon and why? and, most importantly, does he really have Jon's best interests in mind? Compelling stuff. The art is great, having a mix of Darwyn Cooke and Jeff Smith with some really neat coloring. Lots of mystery and action in covert intrigue. I'm excited for the last two issues.
Batman Incorporated #5 - This issue had some cool action (Batman, Batwoman, El Gaucho, and someone else all show up on a secrect island at the same time and fight their way in), but I'm confused as hell with the story. It's tying in with themes from older Grant Morrison Batman stories and into the original Batwoman stories, but I have zero knowledge of any of these. To me, Batman is just punching random people with vague motivations. There was a little bit of that in the first two issues of this title, but you didn't really need to know much to follow along.
Power Man and Iron Fist #4 - Again, I don't recall a lot of what's going on with this series. I just remember Iron Fist and Power Man talking two Luke Cage and Power Fist getting mad because Iron Fist is too rich and white to really understand, man. Meh.
RASL #10 - This was a "moving around the pieces" issue. RASL meets who he needs to meet to be put in place for the next part of the series to continue. Nothing wrong with that, but it's a whole lotta wait for not a lot of story.
Dead Winter TPB vol. 01 - A collection of the first four chapters of the webcomic about a group of people surviving the zombie apocalypse. It's always nice to sit down and read these at once instead a page every few days. I'm finally really grasping the relationship between the characters and Monday's current assignment. The art is really experimental and cartoony, allowing for rediculous facial expressions. Shabet has a bunch of neat storytelling tricks up his sleeve. It's a little rough at the beginning, but quickly matures. It's a shame that they couldn't print the animated pages (for obvious reasons).
DMZ TPB vol. 01 - TPB vol. 06 - DMZ is about the borough of Manhattan as a DMZ between the US government and the rebelious "Free States", existing as a place of danger and anarchy. It's a nice way of personallizing actual events that happen around the world every day. I like when Brian Wood tackles things like voting and interogation and private contractors, never taking an easy answer (especially trying to figure out how a horrible friendly fire incident can occur by examining all the players up the chain of command). The art is also good a lot of the time. The biggest problem with the series is the main character. He's a reporter in the DMZ, but he's very much a blank slate beyond that. You don't really get a sense of why's he's doing what he's doing. He goes from super paranoid to super trusting based on what the story dicates. He's steadfast and sells out, again based on what the sotry dicates. He's supposed to be reporting what happens in the DMZ (though he frequently gets involved), but there's no real sense that anyone is reading his writings or what they think of them unless the story dicates that we need to know. All the side characters are caricatures, but they at least stay consistent.
Kabuki: Circle of Blood TPB vol. 01 - The first Kabuki book and the first work by David Mack. The story is about a shadow organization/company (Noh) that keeps the balance between government and the gangs. Kabuki is one of the assassins for this group, unknowingly tied in with various other characters (the leader of Noh was in love with her mother, his son is her father who raped her mother). You can see David Mack experimenting with the book, but falling back on regular conventions at times (lots of pinups in the "Image" style pepper the work). It's not as polished as Alchemy was, but it's great for a first effort and you can see Mack's future styles coming through.
Action Comics 775 - "What's so Funny About Truth, Justice, and the American Way?" In this story, Superman basically takes on The Elite (a stand in for The Authority), a group who has no problem with killing or massive desctruction as long as the ends justify their actions. Obviously, Superman can't stand this, so he challanges them to a fight on a moon of Jupiter (of course!) to show them (and the world) that violence is bad while explaining why he stands for hope and justice. Decent concept, but I have a problem with Superman beating them by stopping just short of killing (but making the leader think his teammates were dead) and then talking about the Justice League imprisoning The Elite after his speach against taking the law into one's own hands. He pretty much ends up using their own methods to stop them, showing that despite it's horribleness (is that a word?), violent action is sometimes necessary.
Fantastic Four 588 - The silent issue following Johnny's death. It conveys all the emotions of anger and loss and sadness really well (Valerie promising the death of Annihilus is a scary idea), though I was a bit confused with what The Thing was up to near the end. After the issue, there's a backup of Spider-Man talking to Franklin about his own loss of Uncle Ben. This obviously makes sense in the greater scheme of things, but feels really talky and out of place compared to the rest of the issue.