Back To The Golden Age

A few thoughts on recent comics.
Captain Midnight: By Dark Horse, Captain Midnight has been mostly a way to do a revival right. While clearly based on the history of the old radio and comic character (not "pulp"), the comic is also modern storytelling. The Captain is brought forward through time and finds that his villains have not been idle over the years. Also, his own tech seems to have been corrupted by others over the years. The writers manage to tell their Captain America/SHIELD over arcing long story without sacrificing telling smaller stories and keeping the hero heroic and active force. There were a couple of mis-steps in the Skyman issues as with the character of Skyman, they did everything they didn't do with the character of Captain Midnight. They went out of the way to make the character derivative of CM by completely ignoring Skyman's own rich history and motivations (the truth is that the Skyman owed more to Spy Smasher than Captain Midnight, especially as this version of Midnight is based on Fawcett's version, who they re-worked as being more like their character Spy Smasher). The character of Skyman is not the original but some patriotic zealot thug and made to look ridiculous by seeing his hair sticking out from under his cowl. Then to add insult to injury, in the upcoming Skyman comic, he's replaced by a minority character AND given a new, kewl costume while making making fun of the original costume!

Doc Savage: Two issues in, Dynamite's Doc Savage is a bit of a surprise. One, it is keeping so far halfway close to the actual pulp character. Two, the artwork in the second issue is the same as in the first issue, and mostly solid if not exceptional. Three, it is a tighter, stronger and in character driven story than the writer's attempt in "Masks". The second issue thankfully does not live up to the advertised hyperbole, that Doc would have to choose between his mission or his cousin's life. No such decision is made here. There's even hope that the writer is coming up a way to bring Doc and crew both to the present day without actually sidelining them by death or infirmity of age. The story of the second issue only has one real flaw. It states that when Doc is at his fortress, that his men call in help and that help is Pat Savage. This is necessary for the sake of the story, but it doesn't fit with what we know of Doc's men or of their relationship with Pat. Pat is a capable character, but she's not super-capable, no more capable than they are. Plus, the text states that she formed her own crew of adventurers, which would make some sense as Doc and crew tended to try to keep her out of trouble, but after stating that, instead of seeing some of them, we get Monk and Ham! Kinda disappointing.  If Doc's men were calling in help, might have been interesting to see another Lester Dent or Street & Smith character ala Click Rush, Blond Adder or Nick Carter, Cash Gorman, the Avenger...

I give Roberson credit by dealing with the Crime College and NOT writing it up as if Doc was lobotomizing the bad guys and removing all sense of free will.

The biggest drawback so far really is the art. It's clear and straightforward, detailed where it needs to be, not overly colored. What it cannot do is really distinguish Doc and his men. Long Tom, Renny, and Johnny all have the same build and face, nothing distinguishing about them. Doc is not drawn taller than those around him. Monk doesn't look shorter than the others and doesn't look homely as much as just perpetually angry. Characters are identified not by who they look like, but because they look less like anyone else.

The Invaders: A strong first issue by Marvel and James Robinson that comes as a bit of a surprise. There are two cannon fodder deaths, one belonging to a Shi'ar Imperial Guardsman and the other a golden-age hero. Although, given the nature of the particular hero's power and who killed him, it is not something that is necessarily permanent. Although, it does raise the question as to why he was on the mission and not Captain America and hopefully, there will be an in-story explanation.

The plot concerns the Kree after a device that the Invaders discovered in the 40s being used by Strucker. It could control gods and the original Human Torch, Namor, and Bucky divided it up and hid it. Namor's piece was found and they are after the Torch's piece. The Torch has been living the quiet life in a small town as a mechanic when they come calling. A pitched battle, things go badly for him, and then at the end Superpro and Nomad show up.

There's a few places that make little sense beyond the story needing it to be that way. Such as if the Human Torch is retired and keeping a low profile, why is he wearing his costume under his clothes? Even more to the point, why is he wearing a new, cool version of his costume? As he's a synthetic human, if he's trying to pass as normal, why wouldn't he eat a whole pie or drink a whole cup of coffee? Presumably, he could actually process the food as energy just as a normal person. It's there to drive home that he's not human, but it doesn't really make sense from a character point of view. Since, the Invaders divided the pieces to hide, why would Namor and NOT the Human Torch hide his piece in the middle of the desert? One might guess that Namor would hide a piece in the desert if he is the one that had to hide all three, who would look for a piece there. But, since they divided it up, the desert is no longer a reach for a hiding place as the other two could conceivably hide it there. So, it simply makes no sense other than being a cool moment.

The artwork is top notch. Clean and clear storytelling, actually looks better on print than online. The only drawback is in a few flame effects and the explosion behind Superpro-Cap and Nomad-Bucky are obviously digitally created.

The biggest problems for me in continuing with the book are things mostly coming from outside this specific issue. For example, I don't like the idea of Winter Soldier. We see Bucky in the past and he's mowing people down with his gun, his new default personality. I also lost faith with James Robinson as a writer some time ago. We get an indication of that with the cannon fodder deaths that he's using to kick off his series. He plans on making changes to Toro's powers (because somehow another fire-based character is redundant, even when he's one of the first ones). Then there's Cap's movie inspired costume that is one of the ugliest ideas to come down the pike. Where's the idea that he is an acrobatic and martial artist styled fighter under all of that padded gear? The idea that it's supposed to be a superhero costume? 

Scooby Doo Team-up: A comic that actually captures the fun. The first issue was the gang teaming up with Batman and Robin to take down Man-Bat. The second has Batman and Robin but also Slam Bradly, Mystico, Jason Bard, Roy Raymond, Dr. Thirteen, Angel O'Day and Ace, the Bat-hound. And, manages to keep in character with the various characters... well, as long as you consider in-character does not have to do with the nu52.

Mighty Fine Comics

Ratfist
If you take Bill Watterson (Calvin & Hobbes), Grant Morrison (Animal Man), Erik Larsen (Savage Dragon) and Michael Jantze (The Norm) and locked them up until they completed a superhero comic, the final outcome would be something like Ratfist. Or a bloody mess as they kill each other but for the sake of the review, we'll go with the former.

Ratfist is a webcomic (http://ratfist.com) by Doug Tennapel (Earthworm Jim) and colored by Katherine Garner who did a fantabulous job. It starts off pretty much as the exact opposite of what I want from superhero comics. First is the artwork which is obviously very cartoony and exaggerated to the point of being completely over the top. Ratfist's ears aren't even attached to his head for goodness' sake! Then there's the story as it starts in the middle of things setting the character up as being not only eccentric (he has a pet rat that he talks to and takes on his adventures fighting crime) but as the typical loser/loner that retreats from reality by putting on a lame costume, taking a lamer name and fighting crime while the creators can sit back and mock the genre and show off how much more intelligent and sophisticated they are, modern day Cervantes with all of their fifth-rate attempts at recreating Don Quixote with less than an ounce of talent.

However, the comic quickly shows that it's not that at all. Sure, he's a bit of a loser, a man-child that has some growing up to do, but his taking on a superhero identity isn't that much of retreat from reality. His reality is one with comic-book science, where people do get bit by strange things and gain powers and put on costumes, or are victims of bad magic mojo or science experiments.  Deciding to be a supehero is that context is less insane than appearing on "Jerry Springer" because you are told someone has a secret to share with you. Or appearing on "Big Brother". It may be stupid, ill-advised, and a tactic to avoiding some problems, but it's not insane in and of itself.

And, Tennapel is actually truly funny, writing and drawing hilarious scenes. He moves from one improbable, absurd scene to another. He's not making fun of superheroes, he's reveling in them and the concepts and scenarios they allow. Notice the creators I listed above? It has Morrison and Larsen's sheer creativity on their good days unbound by cynicism and self-importance, it has Watterson's exuberance and sense of whimy and humor coupled with Jantze's gentle, wry humanity and outlook on the life of the modern adult male.

What makes this truly stand out, though, is the transformation that takes place. As the character goes from one absurd situation to another, there's a point where your point of view changes. You'll recognize it when you get to it. You get to the point that you realize that Tennapel has a real story that he's telling, this is not just random events to merely see what happens next and what corners he can write himself into and out of. Underneath the humor, the absurdity, the jokes, there's an actual story being told here that has real emotion to it. And, you realize Ratfist may just have it in him to be one of the greatest, noblest heroes of all.

Do yourself a favor and don't read the characters tab first. It'll give away some of the surprises in store for you. And if you don't know who Michael Jantze is or "The Norm" comic strip, head over to thenorm.com as well.

Until last night, I would easily have said this was the best comic I have read in a year if not more. But, that's because last night, I read the following book.

Beasts of Burden: Animal Rites
This is a hardcover collection of the Beasts of Burden stories by Evan Dorkin and Jill Thompson with the exception of the Hellboy crossover. Which works out fine for me because that is the one issue I have. When I read that, I promised myself to keep an eye out for the trade when it came out. I was a little put off by it appearing in hardback but the price for it is equal if not better than many trades.

The stories concern a group of dogs and one cat in suburbia who protect their neighborhoods from various strange ie supernatural and increasingly deadly occurrences. Dorkin's writing keeps the animals looking and acting just appropriately animal enough but with distinctive personalities and their own sense of magic, faith and mysticism. Likewise Jill Thompson's watercolors are lush and balance being realistic when need be without sacrificing sense of expression and well placed sense of whimsy.

The look of the book at first glance would lead one to think it's one for kids, but it treats the supernatural and mundane in honest ways. There's deaths by monsters but also by cars on the highways and it treats both with equal somberness and detail. You never forget that as much as the animals act human and they face supernatural threats, some of the biggest dangers are the everyday ones that pets and strays face. The familiar grounds the fantastic and you feel for them.

If the book does stray it's that there's an occasional crude or crass word that seems completely at odd with both the artwork and the characters. It's far less colorful language than in most of today's comics, and only happens three or four times but each time the word choice stuck out like a sore thumb. Probably because otherwise the language was clean and the storytelling was so intelligent, it didn't really need such language to seem adult. Instead, it came off as suddenly trying to sound adult, "look, no one will take this book seriously if we don't add at least one cuss word in here."

The Defenders: From the Vault
Since I ragged on the storytelling of The Canterbury Cricket as to how not tell a one-shot comic, I feel I should lift this comic up as how to properly do it. The CC comic had the hurdle of having to fit into a larger story, a company-wide event. This book had the problem of having to fit into another creative team’s run on a title without seeming like too big of a hiccup. Then there were further problems. Fabian Nicieza plotted the book and Bagley drew the book, but neither could recall what the actual script was to be and copies were lost. Nicieza was also now on exclusive with another company so Kurt Busiek, the writer of the run the comic was to fit in, was hired to basically come up with a story and script that matched the artwork already done.

He does so to the degree that it’s hard to envision the story being substantially different any other way. While it is to fit into the run he and Larsen had on the book, other than a single panel and a few artistic stylings, the story is such that it could have been in any Defenders era. The one panel inclusion actually does a good job at just summing up the purpose of the four heroes as the Defenders for any that are totally lost.

What makes this story really stand out is that despite the characters visibly being the Hulk, Namor, Dr. Strange and the Silver Surfer, for the most part it’s a group of roleplaying gamers whose minds are in those bodies and they carry the show. In typical Busiek fashion, he makes the story be one about human emotions and interactions, what ties us together. It’s both a superhero story and a human interest one. Even though we never actually see the four gamers that we know of, we are left kind of wishing to see a short-story that followed up on the events and character revelations revealed here. But, you aren’t short-changed. The plot is addressed and resolved, new characters and concepts were introduced and developed. It runs the gamut of humor and pathos, superheroes and villains and every-day people, science-fiction and magic, love lost and love from afar. An old joke was told along the way (though left out the follow-up joke). When done, you’re left wanting more but not needing more like a delicious meal that satisfies.

Captain America Corps
The premise of this mini-series written by classic Captain America writer Roger Stern is that someone is removing the Avengers finding Captain America across the various timestreams. An Elder of the Universe called the Contemplator seems to be the only one seeing the timelines being manipulated so he calls forth various heroes that have been the mantle bearers of Captain America to make things right. The heroes called are Captain America from 1941-42 (he still has the triangular shield), Bucky when he was Captain America, USAgent from shortly after his stint as Cap, American Dream who is the daughter of Sharon Carter in the MC2-verse, and Commando A who stands about seven feet tall and is from centuries in the future.

The timeline they travel to is one where the heroes are strangely absent and the Americommand, a group of dark reflections of Captain Americas, hold the country in the control such as Americop and his legion of Americops, Major America, the Ameridroid and two women called Broad Stripe and Bright Star who from the get go seem to know more than they let on.

Each issue starts off focusing on one of the Captain America mantle-bearers, what he was doing when called by the Contemplator. Under Stern’s hand, each issue is a dense read, full of story, characterization and action with twists and cameos along the way. Effort is made that each member has their own style and voice. As one of the Americommand is revealed to be a somewhat minor grandiose villain that fought Captain America a couple of times and seems to be behind it all, the question rises are any of the others somewhat familiar faces? Could Major America be this timeline’s John Walker (USAgent) or Jack Monroe (Nomad/Bucky) or even a former Captain America such as Jeff Mace or the 1950s Cap?

A minor quibble or two with the characters Bright Star and Broad Stripe. The former is depicted a little too similar to DC’s Stargirl. Some similarity is almost unavoidable as their costume and name are pretty much from the same source. However, to give her the same hair style, color and mask was something that could have been easily modified. With Broad Stripe, I don’t know if it was meant to be a pun or not, but as “broad” is a somewhat crass slang word for “woman”, the name is not really flattering. And, considering who she is supposed to be, a little uncharacteristic. It’s not a name that a woman would choose for herself.

This is an old-school mini-series. It’s not tied to any mega-event. It uses continuity and plays with it, but everything you really need to know is covered in-story. And, despite playing with an alternate time-line, it’s not really about rewriting present continuity and history to suit the writer’s preferences. The characters are all on model.  It’s accessible to new readers while showing off the rich tapestry of the Marvel U. and the role Captain America plays in it. Most of all, the title is fun, enough so to make me actually enjoy Bucky-Cap for once.

John Byrne’s Next Men
The last two issues didn’t really work for me. The penultimate issue explores the life of Gillian, the Next Man who only exists as a separate consciousness in other people’s bodies. The issue speeds forwards through generations as it shows the different lives (s)he led, usually staying with a body for years until eminent death or circumstances require that Gillian move on. As such, the reader is really only shown two points in each life, the point that (s)he moves in and the point (s)he moves out.
This issue would be the best place to really explore why Gil is obsessed with changing the past, mostly to wipe out Sathanas’ existence. But, it doesn’t do that. In fact, other than a single war, humanity’s future and Gil’s present does not seem that bleak and Sathanas’ impact seems minimal. After doing a great job in past issues of showing bleak and barbaric moments of humanity, the issue is one of relative peace of people living their ordinary lives. Sathanas is not mentioned at all.

The final issue actually mentions Sathanas and touches on that history. There’s a brief aside as Jazz flees to the past to meet with an older Jack and we see Tony one more time. Other than that and Jazz’ ultimate decision to not travel with Nathan and Beth to the past to undo Sathanas’ time loop, there is no actual hiccup to the plan. Everything goes exactly according to plan without a hitch. This makes for a final issue that’s full of great character moments and characters not necessarily making the decisions you’d expect but is otherwise very lackluster and boring in the plotting. There’s no real story twist or even feeling of personal danger or jeopardy to the plan succeeding. Even Jazz’ decision is admitted to not really changing or jeopardizing things as she didn’t really have a role to play. It would be more dangerous if she went and decided at the last moment to not risk non-existence and started fighting Nathan and Beth, trying to prevent changing the past. Instead, she just simply takes herself out of the equation.

Then you have the whole thing ending there, at the moment that time has been changed. Of course this leads into the next series titled “Aftermath” but I still feel a bit cheated as to not knowing even in general terms what any repercussions are for their actions. Does Aldus become Sathanas another way (maybe the whole time loop just made the transition easier and cleaner than his original history)? We know through Nathan’s experiences in WWII Germany the doctor that created the Next Men was already doing research in that area before the involvement of Sathanas and his examination of Nathan may have set off other changes. There’s Mark IV and Cornelius Van Damme to consider. And, poor Jack was just simply wiped from existence. I am content to know that a lot of that may be answered in the next series, but just felt that if the story is going to end with them changing time, we should see some little hint of what that actually resulted in, at least on the personal level.

Everything we’ve seen was to build towards this moment. But, while the first Next Men arc was largely about Sathanas, this one hasn’t been and it’s been too long between arcs. It fails to build the case in the readers’ minds why it’s necessary to stop Sathanas as opposed to Christopher Columbus’ trip to the New World or Hitler or Genghis Khan or World War I. It then fails to show or even suggest any of the fallout of the characters’ actions. And, it fails to provide any twists or real jeopardy to the plan, which might allow for the other shortcomings. If carrying off the plan has significant problems and jeopardy, the success of the mission is a reasonable resolution because the story is “a caper”. But, even though there’s this massive explosion in the end, it ends with a whimper, not a bang.

There’s also problems with Gil’s plan. While Nathan and Beth are given a cover story, it isn’t one that actually will bear up under any kind of scrutiny. This is Antarctica. You don’t have unknown helicopters with unknown persons on board crashing. Every person on the ice or flying over it is known by someone or some agency. Especially two people carrying quite a bit of cash on them. The holes in their story and that much cash would be uncovered before they ever have a chance to leave the continent.

Kirby’s Genesis
This is a schizophrenic book and my feelings are likewise divided. Busiek excels at and delivers the common man feel and characterization of the main viewpoint characters. The Kirby characters are kept mostly intact and delivered in proper grandiose style (although I don’t like the Secret City heroes neon lit black costumes, the premise is this is the characters as Kirby designed them, go ahead and give them to us).

Part of the problem is the plotting. There’s a lot of effort of presenting an everyday world and then all this madness hits at one time. Silver Star is rumored to have existed before but is just now being confirmed. Confirmed sightings of Thunderfoot aka bigfoot. The discovery of the Secret City and its heroes. Space heroes and villains suddenly popping up all over the globe. Etc. I am sure it’s supposed to be part of the plot but it serves as a dividing wall between the reality of the everyday world and the Kirby world. No time is really spent on developing any of the ideas other than to seemingly throw them at the reader as fast as possible.

The viewpoint characters are distractions and annoying (doesn’t help that the central character is visibly based on an actor whose whiny nasally voice and emoting makes him almost as annoying as Woody Allen) especially when they break the fourth wall, thus breaking even the relative realism they already exist in. Characterization and relationships between the characters are great, but it should come through the scenes and the action and the plotting, not through expositional scenes of the characters addressing the reader. Leave those out and get to the actual characters and plots that we are chunking our money down to see.

The artwork carries the schizophrenia through. It’s hard to tell just how much is Alex Ross’ underlying pencil or Jackson Herbert’s re-penciling and slightly too heavy inks. The realistic sections are done well. The grandiose, fantastic parts are done well. But, the two don’t really jibe together well here. It may be because the story itself is already setting up that wall between the real world and the unreality of the superhero world and it just carries through with the artwork.

Kirby drew the epic as if it was everyday stuff. But, he also drew the everyday as if it was epic. Under Kirby’s hand, ramshackle buildings, ill-fitting clothes and garbage was larger than life. There was a consistency of style and approach. Thus, when police officer Dan Turpin battles Kalibak in an effort to arrest him, you believe it and you feel it. I think that’s why this misses when it does. Kirby gave everything the same level of realism and convinced you of the central integrity of his vision and world. The gods talked in grandiose ways but they struggled with love and fitting in. They felt as real as the everyday people. Kirby dealt with the clash of the fantastic with the everyday, but there wasn’t a lot of naval gazing about it, as usually there was some war or cosmic event occurring. So far, this is about the unreality of it all as if there needs to be an explanation for the presence of all these disparate characters, acknowledging the unreality of magic, super-science, etc in a real world situation. That’s not really what I buy superhero comics for.

I’m willing to cut a little slack, because I get so few comics and this is still better than most out there. It’s still with good guys who are good, and bad guys who are bad while being true to the vision of Kirby without simply being a pastiche of his surface style. The characterization is strong, and it’s setting up a world of wonder and possibility without resorting to graphic violence or language. Sophisticated without being crass. And, the book has the hurdle that it is introducing a ton of characters in a very short span of time.  It's better than the dark superhero comics offered by the other companies, and better by far than the decompressed storytelling that plagues most of Dynamite's Comics. If the plot is slow in developing it's in part because there's so many characters and concepts to set up. The chance to see so many of Kirby’s characters and creativity, even if distilled through other hands is too good a chance to simply pass up.

Mystery Men
Another mini-series by Marvel, this one explores several masked men coming together in the 1930s America. As the name implies, this group draws largely from the heroes and adventurers of the pulps. David Liss does a good job at credibly reproducing the time and attitudes and a story that straddles the world of the pulp heroes with that of the Marvel U. and a modern look at the attitudes.

The central character in many ways is the man known as The Operative. Born of wealth and privilege, he carries a certain amount of guilt in the time of the Great Depression. Part of it is knowing what kind of man his father is and him setting out to be the opposite.  So, he steals from the wealthy in order to give money to the needy. But, when he’s framed for the murder of his fiancé, to prove his innocence he ends up teaming up with a group of odd would-be heroes and adventurers: The Aviatrix, inventor and sister of his fiancé; The Revenant, African-American stage-magician turned masked man; the Surgeon, a doctor horribly scarred and driven insane by the actions of the cabal they are up against and who has a case of hero worship of the masked men; and Achilles, an archaeologist hired to find an artifact and discovers himself thrust into the role of hero with fantastic powers but at great cost.
Liss is primarily a novelist and maybe it’s because of that background and writing in comics for almost the first time that the mini-series does have the few faults it does.

The problem is that everything is actually too tight and neat, many things presented in the most obvious and simplistic terms that betrays an artificiality to the world he is setting up as if he is giving us a shorthand version of world creation because there’s not enough space to develop further. First the names. Other than Achilles, all of the names betray the hand of a single creator not giving too much thought to it or used to developing colorful code-names. The pulps gave us the Shadow, the Spider, Doc Savage, Thunder Jim Wade, G-8, The Phantom, The Green Ghost, Domino Lady, Black Bat, Park Avenue Hunt Club, Secret Six, the Green Lama, the Picaroon, the Crimson Clown, etc. What we have here are not names, but generic titles, one word descriptions and not identities. They come across more like names given to serial killers on “Criminal Minds”. Even the title “Mystery Men” becomes the default name of this specific group as opposed to a general term applied to a larger sampling. Keep in mind, this is the Marvel Universe. They have seen masked heroes before, in the Old West and in WWI.

In the case of the Operative, the name doesn’t even make sense. According to the notes, the name is meant to reflect the Continental Op, and in the backdrop of the pulps, the name conjures up the likes of Agent “X”, Operator 5, Secret Agent X-9, G-8 and so on. Only, he’s not a masked spy, freelance or otherwise. He is actually drawn from the likes of characters written by Frank Packard, Frederick Davis and Johnston McCully: a crook who breaks the law in order to serve a greater justice.

According to this story, all cops are corrupt or at best, lazy. Again, this makes the world seem smaller and obviously being viewed by someone writing today. It’s an easy shorthand and able to paint the heroes as being obviously right and not worry about the dangers of fighting cops.

The General, the bad guy is then linked to the Operative. Makes it easy to connect the dots and solve the mystery when the heroes already know the identity of the man behind it all.

The latest issue then has the one white woman hooking up with the single African-American guy who she’s known for just days at best. Again, it’s too easy and obvious to go for that particular race card. And, it just happens without any build-up of any romance between the two, that all happens off panel.

The Revenant himself is a bit of conflicting. It’s interesting to do a reverse-Shadow, an African-American dressed all in white. However the writer of the Shadow and several other pulp writers were magicians and understood magic. They could convince us of reality of what the heroes did, when they used magic tricks to pull off their stunts. Again, here Liss seems to use the stage magic background as a shorthand to explain things without actually selling it to the reader. How does a man dress in white sneak up on people at night and attack from clouds? How does he present multiple images of himself in the Operative’s apartment? The idea of the character and his background is interesting. He falls down as being presented as being credible.

But these are minor quibbles against the backdrop of the story and comic itself.  The story is intriguing. Since Liss is a novelist and not someone whose credentials are primarily writing comics, he delivers an actual story. Despite being set in the past and in the Marvel Universe, it’s not actually about continuity and comicbook history. The heroes are active and pro-active though most are driven by circumstances to become heroes. The villain is frightening. The third issue cranks up the danger as the supernatural elements come into play and the heroes are suddenly out of their depth. Against normal crooks and men, they excel but actual horrors are another thing entirely. It is taking what was part pulp and weird menace and reminding the reader this is the Marvel Universe. Things like this can and do happen. But, it doesn’t break the mood and atmosphere of the story that is being crafted by Liss and ably executed by Patrick Zircher. The world has corruption and is dark and dangerous, but it’s not a cynical or dark comic. The heroes are less than perfect without actually having the concept of heroes being mocked or treated cynically. It understands that not all pulp or crime stories need to be urbane or noir just as all horror stories need not be gore fests (a distinction that many “pulp comic” fans don’t seem able to make).

Something that struck me interesting was that in many ways, this story could easily be set in the modern day. The issues and themes that root this story in its time, racial and class inequality, the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer, economic downturns and future instability at home and wars and unrest abroad, they are all elements that would make the same story and the pulp heroes relevant today. Maybe that’s part of the reason why we’re seeing a resurgence in popularity and interest in them.

One of the things that has bothered me about the recent depictions of Captain America was not the sudden shift in how Captain America's costume was drawn (with the mail armor being on the outside and covering just his chest and shoulders, and pouches on his belt), but the depictions became retroactive. And the costume underwent other changes. The boots, the pouches on the belt, the mask, and the "A" on the mask differed depending on which "realistic" artist was drawing. Since no one seems willing to call the artists to task on keeping the character actually on model, there's no consensus on just what constitutes Cap costume. For decades, artists had no problem with each drawing Captain America in keeping to his actual costume and still being true to their artistic vision. Now as shown in issue #616, the artist on the cover and the artists doing the interiors cannot even agree what Captain America's costume looks like.

Issue 616 is meant to be an artistic tour-de-force, yet the artists all are drawing different costumes. It's not merely artistic license, some of the artists are being more detailed than others, some depict his mask as a cowl another as a helmet, some are drawing plain leather belts vs the belt with pouches. One artist gets a pass in that at least the costume he's drawing is a variation of his first appearance with the triangular shield, but the others should all be the "same" costume and they clearly are not. I'm not saying we should go back to the days of having Neal Adams redrawing Kirby's faces of Superman, an artist should be able to express his style providing it's in keeping with the appropriate tone of the book, but the character should at least look "correct". Can you imagine a similar book starring Superman and each artist drew him with different belts and boots and chest emblems, but with all the stories taking place around the same time in his history (and none of them close to being accurate to how he was depicted during that time period).


Dwayne McDuffie Still a bit stunned by the death of Dwayne McDuffie. As a fan of golden-age comics, I'm not shocked when hearing of creators from the forties passing away. Heck, even many of the greats that came to prominence in the Silver-Age are at least in their late 50s now.

That his death came just as a big project of his was garnering press and about to come out makes it doubly tragic.

I won't say I was a huge fan. He was a name I recognized. And, I looked forward to his taking over the JLA book as his work on the JLU cartoon as writer and story editor showed a man that knew how to tell complete stories while layering in themes and subplots, so each story was enjoyable on its own but regular watchers/readers would be rewarded with more subtext and richness overall. But, otherwise, I cannot say I followed his writing with any great faithfulness.

Sadly, it didn't translate well to his work with the JLA book. A big part of that was that he was hampered first with subplots that the previous writer introduced but had no intention of staying on the book long enough to follow through on. And, when that was not dictating the shape of his stories, editorial fiat of who and who could not be on the team, of doing stories that would be continued in other books, and other crossover tie-ins (something he obviously disagreed with as he wrote a manifesto arguing against that very thing among others). He was sadly dumped from the book unceremoniously after he spoke out against editorial practices. This didn't seem to hurt his relationship with DC too much as he still worked on their animation projects such as the upcoming All-Star Superman animation video.

Reading his views on continuity and how it should probably be used is wonderfully insightful and funny. I have thought a similar thing myself in the last couple of years, but he was apparently arguing about it some time before even I came to that conclusion (though my buying was already reflecting it, as I was bailing on "family" books since it was impossible to get just one without a storyline suddenly arising that required buying the whole family of books).

One of the things I respect him for was his work on bringing more minority characters to comics, especially when he and a couple of other creators created the critically acclaimed Milestone Universe of characters published by DC Comics, being a showcase for various all-new non-cliche minority heroes as well as a place for minority creators to have a voice with characters that weren't mainly white heterosexual males. He and Milestone didn't merely champion minorities of their own cultural background, either, but worked for a better presence of minorities in general. He co-created Shadow Cabinet, a superhero group made up of multiple ethnicities and sexual persuasions. Milestone also published Xombi, created by John Rozum, featured an Asian American, one of the very few in comics, much less one in his own book. McDuffie would later use him in his Justice League book where in an alternate reality the character became Green Lantern, and a cool one at that. It's another one of the sad ironies, when he was doing the Justice League book, DC was talking about bringing the Milestone characters into the DCU continuity and back to prominence. But, other than a crossover with the League title and a mini, it's only now that several of the books are being solicited. Looking forward to Xombi myself. 

An outspoken passion for the medium, always striving to move it forward and expanding the readership. Helping to open the way for creators and minority characters (mostly by creating NEW characters and riding the coat-tails of talent NOT the corpses of previous characters). And reaching out to kids and potential new readers though helping create hours of entertainment with superhero cartoons with solid quality writing. He died young, but what a legacy and challenge he leaves for the rest of us.

Hellboy, Green Hornet, JSA, Hawkman's war crimes

Hellboy/Beasts of Burden: Sacrifice: One has to give Mike Mignola credit. In creating Hellboy, he has arguably created one of the more significant and successful comicbook heroes created in the modern age. And, he did so by following what interested him. He liked drawing monsters. Big monsters and big fights. So, he created a character that was himself somewhat monstrous and a world that had even bigger and badder monsters. His art-style which was already developing into something unique was well-suited for it. Now, quite a few years later, his creation has developed into an empire and universe by itself. It's spawned two successful big budget movies, a short-lived cartoon series, several novels, a regular spin-off comic in B.P.R.D. and regular mini-series with the main character himself. Mignola doesn't do as much of the art these days, but he keeps a hand in and regardless of the writer or artist so that each book still manages to keep to his vision. In the days of constant retcons, complex continuity and overly ornate and rendered artwork, Mignola has managed to still follow the K.I.S.S. method, Keep It Simple, Stupid. Part of the appeal to Hellboy is his relative simplicity and iconic background and design. While the character has had his status quo change and various things concerning his destiny revealed, and a large supporting cast and world developed, the character himself is still basically the same guy from all those years ago. It is also interesting to note that this was all done by not having a regular ongoing series with interminable storylines, flooding the market with different continuity versions, but through minis, specials and one-shots. Along the way, he developed a storytelling style that incorporates the best of gothic horror, German Expressionistic silent films, Lovecraftian menace and even the Hammer films. His art grows more abstract, but still recognizable. He uses non-storytelling panels interspersed through pages to set mood and reinforce the story's symbols and themes. You have to wonder if the people at Marvel ever look at Hellboy and think about what they could have done if they just let Mignola run amok with Thor, the Thing and their horror books. Would Mignola have been just as happy doing the same thing only using characters like the Living Mummy; Deathlok; Blade, the Scarecrow; the Golem; Frankenstein's monster; It, the Living Colossus; Ulik the troll; Adam Warlock; and Morbius the living vampire?

The simplicity of the character has lead him to be able to fit alongside many other characters. At this time, he's appeared with Batman and Starman, the Savage Dragon, Dark Horse's Ghost, Painkiller Jane, John Byrne's Torch of Liberty, and now a bunch of talking dogs and cats protecting a town from supernatural threats in Beasts of Burden. Which is what this review is really about.

I missed out on the first arc of Beasts of Burden, it was halfway through when I first heard about the series and it looked interesting. Yet this one-shot is not marred by that at all. Ivan Dorkin and Jill Thompson manage to create a group of animals with mostly distinct and yet familiar personality types that even being thrown into the world, it feels like suddenly finding old friends. When revealing the villain and that he is a foe the beasts have met before, enough information is given that as a new reader, I don't feel left out of the story, I'm given all the info I need to continue on without a hiccup. The art manages to make the animals expressionistic without devolving into being cartoony, almost Disney-esque in manner. Their variety in looks and personalities is almost bound to remind a reader of a favorite pet, endearing them instantly. The book is lushly colored in a water-color style that's evocative of many children's books, yet not becoming at odds with the supernatural story or the odd guest-star. Instead, it gives the book a certain level of realism, that allows you to buy into the world of talking dogs and cats fighting undead monsters and such. The animals retain a certain cuddliness and cuteness while the danger and threats seem real and mystical.

Overall, one of the best single issue comics I've read in a long, long time. It makes me want to go out and buy the trade of the first Beasts of Burden mini and continue on reading about them.


Baltimore: The Plague Ships #3 of 5: With this issue, I realize there has been a bit of decompression in the story-telling. We're at the middle issue of the mini, but in reality the plot behind the title is just now getting introduced. The first issue introduced us to Baltimore as a character, the current status quo and his traveling companion. The second issue spent quite a bit of space going over the back-story of the events of the novel, explaining just who Baltimore is and what happened to him. This issue we get even some more back-story of what his mission is, why he does what he does and why the vampires and the plague exist. After a storm with giant sky floating jellyfish, Baltimore and Vanessa find themselves washed up on the shore of a graveyard for German submarines as well as other ships full of plague victims and a strange mold. And, the blurb for next issue reveals that even more of Baltimore's back-story will be revealed.

The trade-off though is that this pacing does help maintain the mood, the sense of ever impending doom, that we're looking at the last days of man even though it's set in the final days of WWI. With the aid of the dependable Dave Stewart on the colors, this is a world of bleakness and depression. The sun never shines and mankind has found itself to be small ineffectual beings in the world, subject to arbitrary rules and events. The average man has gone from fighting on the battlefields at the behest of their nation's leaders for unclear political reasons in a war that encompasses the world, to finding out that even this man-made construct of war must give way to unknown disease and plague, and other dark things that man's science is unequipped to explain. Telling a horror story in comic form that can truly scare and linger with you, needs that feeling of mood and impending doom. It has to take time to develop characters that you care about but also can believe that something truly horrible can happen to. So, despite the decompression, I think overall it works for this type of story and I'm interested to see what new horrors can be visited upon the long suffering soldier Lord Baltimore.


Captain America: Patriot #3: The cover is very strong and could almost serve as a lead-in page for the comic, as this was the climactic moment of the previous issue. Yet,  I cannot help but feel it would have been better as the cover to the second issue, setting up an inexorable fate for the end of that issue. It's not like that  Bucky II's fate is uncharted territory and would thus be revealing some new twist. The cover's power is completely undermined by having the day-glo green Hulk in the box in the corner serving as an advertisement for a cartoon. I grew up when the boxes used to have little thumbnails of the characters' heads or full body shot, so I think it would have been kind of neat to see one of the Patriot there. The Hulk is just a little jarring though.

The book maintains its strange dichotomy of being both well-written and well-drawn in some regards and disappointingly cliched in others. Heck, even on the first page you have it. Mace is a reporter, so it's kinda neat to have the first page be a pseudo mock-up of The Daily Bugle relating the story so far in a couple of articles. Yet, the effect is ruined in the main article as the writing style is clearly just a recap and not a faux news article though the secondary article on the page manages to maintain the illusion of a news article. Kesel delivers on making Mace a likable and stand-up guy with a sense of tragedy about him. Yet, Mace is consistently played as being a second banana to almost every one else, even the second Bucky. He has a few nice moments but at no point does he really come off as a really cool character in his own right. Instead, he seems to be defined by his mediocrity, deserving his obscurity beyond a single defining moment. Kesel gets points though for remembering the second Cap's bullet-proof cloak when he was the Spirit of '76 and was a kewl moment to have Golden Girl to be wearing it. An odd bit of synchronicity trivia: she dyes it green. The Spirit of '76's cloak was blue but he was visibly based on the Fighting Yank who had a mystical cloak that gave him powers including being bulletproof. The Yank's cloak was already green. Kesel also manages to tell a story, a complete in each issue while delivering a longer story, something that is a lost art amongst many more critically acclaimed comic book writers. The heavy handed foreshadowing of the previous issue was indeed meant as a red herring as surmised being possible and that there might be more to Mary, something more mundane and less obvious than just going bad.

The art continues the dichotomy in that the cover is very powerful and there's quite a bit of subtlety in the Breitweisers' colors and pencils. The fighting mad Captain America is very well done. But, the toned down colors keep characters like Golden Girl to really stand out and seem, well, golden. For the sake of realism and a nostalgic mood, we have none of the sense of wonder inherent in the superheroes. Yet, we have the Torches standing around in full flame for no reason, in a hospital no less.

Green Hornet Year One #6 of 6: The mini chronicling the origins of the golden-age Green Hornet draws to a close. Storytelling and artwork holds to much of the standards set by the other issues and there's a neat little nod to the movie serials as the last page of a newspaper headline reveals "Green Hornet Strikes". Yet, I found this all anti-climactic in the end, despite a nice long fight scene. It's an origin storyline and so there's only so much that can be done. The status quo is introduced but the hero cannot be so successful that it renders it senseless for him to continue to fight crime. Hence the problem of tying the hero too strongly to a specific menace or mission, in this case organized crime. Instead of opening the way up for many types of stories, it's limiting and confining. What you are almost forced to end with is the hero successful in establishing a status quo but no strong victory otherwise in order to stay within the character and story's themes and limitations. The main reason this feels flat at the end though was despite all the small menaces and dangers met and overcome over the course of the story, there was no real sense of danger or threat to the main story or menace. There was no Third Act twist that upends the hero's plans, that sets things to a feeling of the real danger of unraveling. No sudden new or unrevealed menace or twist to the villains' plans. We know the Hornet and Kato won't die, but there's not enough of other characters established whose lives we should care and fear for that can suddenly be threatened to up the ante.

JSA #44: It's probably saying something that of all the comics I'm reviewing and reading, this is the only ongoing. And, if it was of anyone else other than the JSA, probably wouldn't be getting it.

Marc Guggenheim is a good writer. As a writer for Law & Order, he knows his way around characters, plotting intricacies and dialogue. I enjoyed his brief stint on Aquaman. I wish we saw some of that writer show up here. Much of what I didn't like isn't what I've seen panned on other reviews. I'm not especially bothered by Mr. Terrific discovering himself losing his intelligence. It seems to be a separate sub-plot and that is the whole purpose of plots and stories, to set up obstacles, trials and tribulations for characters to go through and hopefully emerge from the other side. I thought that was well handled showing a Mr. Terrific losing his intelligence is still smarter than most every one else in the room. Nor was I bothered by a previously unknown villain showing up and handing the JSA's butt to them. We need new villains other than seeing Mordru, Karkull or Solomon Grundy trotted out again. Sadly, the way that was done, not handled nearly as well though. Just as, I don't have a problem with Alan Scott being able to be physically taken out, but it's still done badly for several reasons.

First off, we have the fact that this overall plot is similar to the one-off by Robinson revealing Alan Scott heading up a mystical city on the moon. So, already we are covering the same ground in revealing Jay Garrick is slated to be mayor. The Fourth Reich storyline was kicked off with Alan Scott being killed and the JSA/JLA story of him being taken over by the Starheart. So, again we have him taken out first and with incredible ease and somehow being the blamed for what went wrong. And, while it has been established that he is really mostly an energy being, he has a physical body because mentally he still thinks of himself as being human. So, it's no surprise that a sudden attack could kill him or even break his neck or back. But, by the same token, short of immediately killing him or putting him in a coma, it's hard to injure him in such a way that he cannot come back once he's conscious. So, why is he being treated in a hospital as if he's like every body else and obviously with not Dr. Mid-nite overseeing as a ridiculous diagnosis as being paralyzed for the rest of his life would be ludicrous? Then there's the whole bit about them being somewhat surprised by the idea of super-powered terrorists despite a twelve issue series pitting them against Kobra. At some point, the editor should have stepped in.

The comic starts off with a modern day sequence of Jay being chosen as mayor and then jumps back in time to tell how they got to that point. Yet, the comic doesn't end at closing the loop, it doesn't answer the central and simple question posed by the first page. See where I praised for Kesel managing to tell a complete story that was part of the larger whole, this is where this is falling down. We have a deliberate and awkward storytelling device and it's used badly in terms of the issue. One, such scenes are usually ones of cliffhanger manner, rife with angst, questions and durm and strang. However, this is a very mundane scene played almost comically melodramatic. Second, despite the rather simplistic and mundane nature, it fails to deliver the payoff.

Then, we have the villain. As I said, I don't mind he's a new threat. But, he's a complete cypher. We don't know what his powers are, how he's able to handle the JSA with such ease, what his motivations are. He's being held by the CIA, and yet the JSA is sent to handle him with zero intelligence on the guy. Then, we are asked to believe that he can easily reach through the energy constraining bubble generated by Green Lantern, shrug off the magic by Dr. Fate not to mention the attacks by the others yet Lightning has enough juice to take him out?

It's hard to objectively judge the artwork because traditionally, Kolins' artwork can lead me to drop a book. The heavily painted style manages to sublimate the normally negative physical reaction I have to the point that I look at it and can say "it's readable" and be happy with that. There were scenes that confused me such as when the villain uses a sword to take out the t-spheres. The spheres are so obscured by the lightning effect in the earlier panel that I actually didn't realize it was them hitting the villain with the electric bolts since we have a character with that exact power. So, I was confused to see him swing his sword with what looked like blood streaming off of it and wondering how Mr. Terrific was continuing his cold logic internal monologue while being eviscerated. The villain's taking Green Lantern out was likewise poorly done as it doesn't really portray anything. I'm not asking for a graphic scene of the character getting his back/neck broken, but all we see is the villain reaching out and grabbing Green Lantern by the neck and just tossing him aside. Nothing suggesting the possibility of severe physical trauma. My only gripe concerning Wildcat who's left with not much to do is that the art for some reason makes him look to me like he's wearing Get Fuzzy's Bucky cat as a mask.

Here's hoping that the second issue will prove to be stronger than this initial foray.


Nature of Comics today: Here's a panel of one of the current comics put out by DC, the so-called Brightest Day. In it, we have the superhero Hawkman not merely torturing a villain but actually maiming him and tearing off of limbs. This is what passes for superheroes and the return of heroes? Who actually okays this stuff? Seriously, I see a scene like this and there's no way I could support a new ongoing Hawkman series unless there was some fundamental changes being made to the character and his nature. And, why I feel justified in staying away from the larger DCU in general and these massive continuity driven stories and events. And, I wonder why I don't see people on the comic boards reviewing the comics and interviewing the creators asking these questions. How the mighty and noble JSA have fallen.

Todays Comics Looking to the Past

Since I probably won't be getting any new comics this week and I've not talked about comics in a little while, here's my chance to plug away.

Captain America: The Patriot: Two issues have come out and I'm conflicted on the book. General consensus on the web seems to be as well. Most seem to praise the artwork over the writing (I guess because Kesel is not Brubaker) whereas I'm a bit the other way around. Kesel does seem to be writing Brubaker-lite, but I think he does an admirable job at writing the history of a man whose history is generally known. He succeeds in doing so without actually changing known facts and keeping the focus and point of view on Jeff Mace and his view of things. The art is passable in most places and is in keeping in toning down the gosh-wow factor of superheroes and their costumes that passes for good superhero art these days as half the artists seem embarrassed at drawing superheroes.

The second issue is where it really begins to falter. The problem is that while it is telling a good character-centric story and makes Jeff Mace seem like a decent and likable lunkhead, it and the art never get across why the characters are cool characters. The highlight of the whole issue is when he gets fed up with Namor's snarkiness and attitude and punches him. There you see his passion. Otherwise, as soon as Mace puts on the Captain America costume he becomes a second-rate hero in his own book. Every story of the fill-in Captain Americas center around why they were bad Captain Americas. As this is his chance to shine, it would be nice that the focus went the other way, why he was such a good choice for Captain America. Maybe the best choice for the time period. There are little bits where he shines such as the afore-mentioned conflict with Namor, but otherwise it is more about his shortcomings.

Other little things that bug me, Kesel seems to forget that the Bucky he's writing is not the original Bucky, at least in the way he writes him. Bucky comes off as a better fighter and hero and constantly berating Patriot-Cap, even though Patriot would have been a superhero for much longer. And, this Bucky has only been Bucky for just a couple of months longer than Jeff has been Cap, so it seems especially strange for Bucky to constantly be talking and acting as if he has so much more experience.

Kesel also uses the term "blue ticketed" to explain the discharge of a friend of the Patriot's and his subsequent suicide and why Jeff cannot appear as Captain America at the guy's funeral. It is also used to explain why Jeff would never become the Patriot again as his appearance and impassioned speech at his friend's funeral in the guise of the Patriot would make that identity a pariah. However, what Kesel doesn't do is explain what "blue ticketed" actually meant. He gives us the effect, but the closest he gets to the cause is the Whizzer asking if his buddy had a girlfriend. A Blue Ticket discharge was a way to get undesirables ie blacks and homosexuals out of the service without it actually being a formal dishonorable discharge and such a discharge haunted the men back in civilian life. Sure, we don't want clunky exposition, but it could have been handled a little better.

One of the pleasures was seeing the focus on Miss Patriot in this series. Appearing only once in the Golden-Age, here and her identity as a fellow co-reporter of Jeff Mace's she plays a central role. From the start of the second issue, we get the hints of bad things to come, that is if you know the history of Captain America and Bucky. After WWII, there was an explosion of good-girl art and characters. Most of them were jungle queens, but Timely/Atlas/Marvel explored shapely female heroines along the lines of Sun Girl and Golden Girl. Thinking that Captain America might do better with an adult female sidekick, Bucky is shot by a lady criminal called Lady Lavender and Cap recruits the help of Golden Girl who is Betty Ross, a long recurring character and possible romantic interest in the Golden-age Captain America tales.

That's a lot of threads being tied together in this one comic. We see Mary/Miss Patriot several times with a mention of her Lavender perfume each time. One discussion even centers around Jeff accusing her of hoping that Bucky is shot so that she could become his partner. Then you factor in that Jeff is generally oblivious of her romantic feelings for him and that he pretty much ruins her career as Miss Patriot when he destroys the Patriot's reputation. Mary's path is obviously becoming a sad tragic one. And, when Bucky is shot at the end of the issue with the smell of lavender in the air, Cap will get a future female partner but it will not be Mary. What we don't really get is the feeling that Mary has gone over the edge. We see her as being sad, but we don't actually see the bitterness. You feel sorry for her but don't see that final step or sign that she has gone over the edge, it's a huge gap in the portrayal of her characterization. It might be Kesel just trying to be coy for just a little too long, or a sign that she's not really the villainess (after all other women probably wear the same perfume). Either way, it's obviously going to be a story that doesn't end well for Jeff or Mary.

DC Universe Legacies #5: I had sworn off this book, didn't get issue four because the writing had so many holes and internal discrepancies in it that it was a chore to read to try to figure out exactly what the point of it was. However, issue five shows this book's perspective of Crisis on Infinite Earth's and with it, the wonderful George Perez doing what he does best: drawing scores of superheroes on model in big battle scenes. Not only that, we get an appearance by one of my favorite wonky silver-age characters Ultra, the Multi-Alien, who was left out of the original mega-mini. Couple that with a great little back-up with art by Walt Simonson teaming up Space Ranger, Adam Strange, Captain Comet and Tommy Tomorrow. Other than Adam Strange, the others don't have much to do, but it's great seeing them again looking the way they should.

And, as I usually come down hard on colorists, this is a book where the colorist gets it. His skin tones are natural and subtle, no obvious banding to the point that under most lighting conditions, people's skin appears only to have two tones, you generally don't have bright highlights on skin. No blurring of speed lines and edges of super-speed characters, no obvious texture fills, etc. In general, no special effect that actually draws attention to itself, the coloring instead serves to help the art to tell the story, something important in artwork that's dense like Perez.

While the writing still makes as little sense as ever (we have references to Judomaster as a modern day hero and Captain Atom in a costume he didn't actually wear in the DCU other than as part of government cover-up suggesting a career that was longer than it was), it's at least a book that looks good.
JSA #43: It read like a setup issue by a writer who is not the regular writer of either principle character of the story or title with a plot that has similarities to the upcoming story arc by the new regular writer, the JSA take over the running of a town. Just as Robinson's JLA/JSA arc featured heavily Obsidian going bad/being taken control of immediately after a series culminating with Obsidian stating that would never happen again. Serious, what is the editor doing on this book?

I think part of this was to actually give some kind of reason that Robinson's storyline mattered. Because, otherwise, it's no big deal that Obsidian and Jade cannot be in proximity because other than their days as part of Infiniti Inc, they rarely are featured together, each following different paths and teams. And, she's been dead. So, he needed this bit of durm und strang to make it seem like what just happened was this really big deal. However, just how much time has passed between issues? For everything that Alan Scott has done on the moon it would have to be close to a year at least, that he's been able to master talking to different races in their speech patterns, broker truce treaties with various worlds and realms AND research with Fate Obsidian and Jade's condition and the various futures.

Project Superpowers: Chapter Two #12: The final issue of the second series, the big Claw battle seems almost like an afterthought. In many ways it's a retread of the previous battle with Zeus, the heroes fighting a giant god-like being that they don't have the power to kill. The Claw battle has a bit more of a philosophical/moral dilemma in that his body is made up of innocents and thus to defeat him means killing or condemning thousands of people who don't deserve to die, drawing parallels to dropping the Atomic bomb to end the war with Japan. It's an anti-climactic ending though. Part of that was rendering the heroes ostensibly immortal and another that the Claw is such an ill-defined threat. And, you have the heroes apparently readily accepting Dynamic Man and Power Nelson into the folds despite their traitorous crimes.

In Chapter One and the Death Defying Devil minis, the Claw was a terrorist organization and an almost demonic entity that possessed others. It was a storytelling device that could have been used to fuel quite a few different type of stories or a long series in and of itself ala the mostly excellent JSA vs Kobra mini. But, much of that is dropped in making him a more physical threat. He goes from some kind of long plan insidious goals to one of more direct physical confrontation and easily handled. The actual terror of what he is and what he does doesn't really come across as it has been too far into the background of the storyline that focused more on Zeus and the identity of DDD. What could have been a heart and gut wrenching tale is ho-hum. After all, the Claw only absorbed one person we could even possibly care about.

The drawing AND the coloring improve. In a book like this, cannot really separate the two, but for the most part, the two do merge to make single whole. Although, the style has its shortcomings such as a page that has a 15 panel grid of single heroes in battle. The panels are too small, the detail needed too tight for such over done coloring.

Time Masters: Vanishing Point: The mini suffers from not having any clear direction or plot. We know the over-arcing plot, that the small group of heroes are traveling through time to rescue Batman. But, as his return is the focus of another book, that's obviously not the point of this one. So, instead, we have a battle alongside heroes of other times against other ill-defined threats. Meanwhile some classic mastermind villains are exploring the remains of Booster's headquarters, Vanishing Point, for some clues and power to reshape time. Despite these villains each being scientific masterminds, they are give little to do. The Ultra-Humanite is used mainly to being a short-tempered foil and for his brute strength. Jurgens does little to really explain or characterize many of the characters, some of whom who haven't appeared in comics for decades.

With the second issue, I noticed the art looked off. It looked a bit like Jurgens but it seemed to be more of all of his shortcomings and not his strengths, that bodies looked stiff and disproportionate, reminding me of bad Jim Starlin in places. I looked at the credits and saw that Jurgens was only the layout artist and with two different finishers, explaining the inconsistencies. With issue three, we still just have Jurgens on layouts but at least only one guy doing the finished art. However, it still looks like "bad Jurgens" art. One of the big problems is that with both issues, the art is trying hard to have all the principle characters with their bodies facing the reader. Heroes are constantly fighting threats behind them and looking over their shoulders, having conversations while not facing each other, and so on. One panel has Booster and Starfire talking about being surrounded. Not only are they hardly surrounded, but half of their foes are not even looking at them. It looks more like a group of people just milling around than any kind of threat. The one good news is that either the coloring is not as bad with the computerized effects or it just distracts you from it.

And, why is the Black Beetle almost completely red?

The only reason to get this book is the chance to see Bronze-age characters like Claw and the original Starfire, Despero and Per Degaton in their original looks. For that, I'm a sucker.

Peter Cannon, Whereforth Art Thou?
The story goes that shortly after DC canceled his series and he made a couple of appearances in Justice League Task Force, the rights to Peter Cannon, Thunderbolt returned to his creator Peter Morisi, shortly before he died. As such, he was the only character that was part of a Justice League book to not appear in the JLA/Avengers mini. Of course, there was some justification that that the heroes that appeared in Task Force were never actual JL members and so didn't require an appearance, but he is still the sole notable exception. Even Hourman from the same story was in there.

However, we have Thunderbolt appearing in TWO different DC books this past month. One, alongside the other Charlton heroes in DCUniverse: Legacies #5 which admittedly has other problems in the same panel: the WWII Judomaster and Captain Atom appearing in his red, blue and silver outfit when he wasn't really on the scene at this time, in this costume, both being government fabrications. Meanwhile in Justice League: Generation Lost, we have a retelling of the scene in Kingdom Come where the Charlton heroes alongside Magog track down the Parasite who uses his powers to split open Captain Atom and setting off an atomic explosion and is pretty much the kick-off event of that mini. In the comic, Thunderbolt is identified by name and is show in the more GA Daredevil influenced costume.

Makes you wonder what is going on. Do we have two blatant examples of editors just not doing their jobs and allowing the exact same copyright infringement? Is the original story about the character's rights reverting to Morisi just a comicbook legend? Did DC buy the character back? Of the three, I'd say the latter is the most unlikely. Why buy the rights back and debut him back into the DCU in what are largely throwaway scenes where the character does absolutely nothing? Either of the other two are the most likely though it's strange to see him appear in two completely different books out of the blue. But, no love for the Son of Vulcan (I like the name, design and concept of the character, his actual comic though was beyond bad).
Black Terror Canceled. Been seeing references that the Black Terror book has been canceled. A shame but not surprising. The book never gelled, the plotlines and the stories never actually developed the character other than to add kewl pirate motif elements. What could have been a decent book about a super-powered Batman type character fighting super-criminals and bizarre mysteries never became anything more than a book about a perpetually angry and gruff hero. No supporting cast or characterization was developed over just following up plot threads left over from the Superpowers book itself. A shame as I believe Dynamite was right in focusing on him as a character to launch a single character title. He has one of the more iconic costumes, names and storytelling potential. If only they had approached it as they were telling a single character comic and not a "comic universe" comic and actually looked at the source material that made him such an enduring character and concept to begin with and not just the revisionist ill-tempered Black Terror of Superpowers.

The Return of the Originals: On the subject of pulps, I have started my own blog reviewing various pulp novels and characters. So far, two entries. One, a Secret Agent "X" novel and two, the Doc Savage rift Thunder Jim Wade and his final novel. This blog started off as a pulp and comic review site, but it's difficult to do both subjects justice in one place. Plus, the overlap may not be all that great as many fans and readers of pulps don't translate to being fans of modern comics, as we will see below.

Moonstone is getting ready to launch what they call the "Return of the Originals", ie seeing many of the original pulp heroes into their line of comicbooks. They've already been using Domino Lady although the first issue failed to me in any way other than just being badly done and the Spider has been appearing in some illustrated prose "comics". They have also published a couple of really good books, one being radio scripts of Doc Savage written by Lester Dent and an Avenger anthology of short-stories by modern writers, most of whom get the character far better than anyone at DC does (it could have used an editor overseeing the original stories as many centered around introducing various characters from Richard Benson's past).

This website has a host of interviews with people involved in reprinting and writing modern pulp stories and comics as well as many of the people behind Moonstone's upcoming foray (you'll have to scroll down to get to them).

One of the standard questions they ask is how the interviewee feels about DC's take on Doc and the Avenger and modern revisions/reimaginings of the characters. It's almost funny at the spin that each writer gives as they are all doing pretty much the same thing to different degrees. I give Hopkins a break with the Golden Amazon because she did have a couple of different irreconcilable back-stories. Sort of like the Alec Baldwin Shadow movie which tries to combine both the radio Shadow and the pulp Shadow into one character. The creators behind the Green Ghost and the Phantom Detective both talk about using as much of the original published history as possible. But, both decide to give them powers. While the writer of the Moon Man changes the gender of his chief assistant for no good reason (there's already a capable love interest in the original stories).

The Ghost gets his new powers through a new mask and the Phantom Detective gains abilities through using performance enhancing (and mind altering drugs). What's really funny about this is the Phantom Detective writer brings out all sorts of psycho-babble to justify it, that he feels he's being made obsolete due to the explosion of costumed heroes with real powers. This is sorta true meta-fictionally. The pulp heroes did give way to the costumed comicbook heroes. In fact, the Phantom Detective was also in the comics as his publisher was one of the big companies at the time. HOWEVER, Moonstone does not have that superhero-universe. There are no true super-powered heroes bursting on the scene unless this writer creates them. Plus, it's a flawed argument in that the presence of superheroes does not make police, soldiers, firemen and detectives superfluous. It's a writer that truly does not get the character or subject matter.

Likewise, the interview concerning the Black Bat goes along the same lines. The character debuted the same time as Batman with a similar look. More importantly though, his origin was pretty much lifted for both Dr. Mid-nite and Two-Face, at a trial he has a vial of acid thrown at his face which scars him (and leaves him blind). After a secret experimental surgery, he discovers he can see in the day and night and with a small gang of aides, he fights crime. He's not above killing criminals especially the ringleaders beyond the touch of the Law, but he doesn't set out to kill them. Of course in the one online preview, we see him killing drug dealers execution style and driven by voices in his head. Yet, this complete revision of the character isn't seen as being the same as Azzarello's handling of Doc Savage? Maybe it's because they talk about how much they love the characters vs his professed disdain of the source material.

What's sad is that this was not their approach to the Phantom. They wrote the character as he was classically but with modern threats and credibility. The character stayed in keeping with the way he was portrayed in the strips. You could go from their comic to the newspaper to old reprints and still see character as being completely recognizable, that you're obviously reading about the same character. But, their interviews are along Ross' and Dynamite's promos and talking about their Phantom comic. "Here's how much I love the character, so I'm going to change all this stuff about him."

Secret Agent "X" is about the only one we know that's going to be appearing that they haven't talked about. "X" has a lot of potential, especially as his past is a complete mystery so there's plenty that could be developed. However, based on what we've seen so far, I expect a lot to be changed concerning what the character already is.

A little interesting tidbit, the principle characters we know are being used, this is not their first time in the comics. As noted, the Phantom Detective appeared in the Golden-age comics, mostly intact. Secret Agent "X", Black Bat, and Captain Future all had their first stories pretty much straight-forwardly adapted though they all became Phantom Fed "X", the Mask, and Major Mars (the Captain Future id was used by a "standard" superhero). The Moon Man also made it into comics but with a name and costume change to that of the Raven. The Ghost got re-imagined in comics as superhero magician with true magic powers, dumping much of his pulp influences.

The comic store I frequent actually has several pulp fans, about five I think. Plus, he just got one more whose tastes seem to mirror mine own in modern comics only he gets even fewer than I do. However, he's only getting one issue each of these books and it's not going on the shelf. As the longest customer apart from the owner, more than likely I'll get first refusal. But, it doesn't speak well when the books don't even seem designed to appeal to those who should be their most core basic audience. Especially considering that pulp reprints are fairly popular these days and very pricey. If we're willing to spend $12-$16 for a forty year old reprint, we might be very willing to buy a comic for a fraction of that price if it at least played fair with us instead of pulling a bait and switch.

The Twelve: Spearhead

The Twelve: Spearhead is in many ways a successful one-shot. Minus the writer of the maxi-series, Chris Weston steps in the writer's shoes and produces a title that fits fairly seamlessly with the maxi, aided by the fact that he's also doing the artwork. He manages to keep the same sensibilities, the characters on model as far as the other series is concerned. He ably apes the language and individual voices and styles of the various characters, to the point that they are almost parodies, especially Dynamic Man.

And, it's part of the failure of the book as well. He manages to tell a story showing a bit of what the heroes did during the War, but without revealing much that is new regarding the characters' motivations and story. At best, he provides some context for the characters, where they fit in with the heroes we do know about. We find that the Phantom Reporter has had a thing for the Black Widow before now, how Electro got "Berlin or Bust" on his chest, and Rockman's real history has gotten a little murkier as JMS has set him up as someone who is a bit delusional, that his background as being from an underground race being a fiction of an addled mind. But, if that's the case, where did he get the burrowing machine? Other than that, the characters don't really do anything that they haven't been shown to do so far. Thus, the Fiery Mask who should be one of the most powerful characters does nothing as his "real" origin and back-story haven't been revealed yet. Mr. E is just a hanger-on, to show reaction to the extermination of the Jews, the Blue Blade does entertainment and the Laughing Mask kills captured soldiers.

Weston's not a writer. On one hand, it works as we get more action in this one book than we've gotten in 8 issues of the maxi-series. But, he wants to tie it in to as much continuity minutiae as possible. We have references to the death of Citizen V, the "death" of Captain America & Bucky, the Human Torch's assignment to kill Hitler, the Whizzer & Miss America being a couple, Rockman being called the Underground Secret Agent, Nick Fury's loss of eye and his postwar career, etc. The Phantom Reporter comments about feeling like a tourist while Dynamic Man keeps spouting homosexual slurs and references in every word balloon. None of the heroes yet to appear in a modern Marvel comic appear though there is a reference to Captain Daring. This attention to detail is jarringly derailed when we have a scene showing the exceptional but normal Patriot and the Black Marvel lifting an anti-aircraft gun over their heads. Weston also confuses "underworld" with "underground" at one point in referencing the Phantom Reporter.

And, it's saddled with the weaknesses of the main maxi as well. The original characters and their stories are full of wonder and backstory which the maxi-series alternately ignores or chooses to contradict. Likewise, this one-shot doesn't really capture why these characters can be so cool or dynamic. Part of that is because this title and the maxi are about getting across a hyper-realism. It's about being serious and adult and thus we have the homosexual innuendos spouted by Dynamic Man, a scene clearly implying the sexual relationship between the Whizzer and Miss America but not the romance. Heroes use guns to shoot unarmed men, Electro is shown graphically ripping a man in two when he could just as easily knocked him for a loop (and more quickly if you want to be "realistic" whereas the time spent on this brutality would allow the other soldiers time to keep firing at you and those you're trying to protect) . Even the talk about the extermination of the Jews doesn't really display the horror of that act as much as it's played for the reaction of Mr. E who denies his heritage. What we have is NOT something about the horrors of the War, that gets across the brutality of the War and the heroism of the super-heroes and the soldiers despite some lip service, but is really about showcasing the feet of clay of the heroes and their flaws. Instead of being a superhero story set in the milieu of WWII, it's more of a story about superheroes, looking at them through post-modernist eyes with a backdrop of the War.

And, just to add insult to injury, Captain America is shown wearing one of his retconned uniforms with a stencil style A on his mask, a military belt, stitching down the sides of his boots. More "realism" at the expense of sense of wonder that comes with superheroes and their costumes.

Hellboy II & Comics

Hellboy II
Guillermo del Toro delivers in this sequel. Where the character and the comic stories tend to be plot heavy, del Toro continues along the vein from the first movie in giving the characters heart that can be identified despite their bizarre appearances. The story builds on the romance between Liz Sherman and Hellboy as well as getting more into Abe Sapien's skin. The end result is a story that is at times a little more introspective and fairy tale than just a plain action/adventure.

There's plenty of action, though. Because, Hellboy is hardly the intellectual type, his solution to a problem, punch it or shoot it. And, what is a Hellboy story if there aren't plenty of bizarre creatures and giant monsters to fight? Del Toro manages to balance physical conflict with a more personal and cerebral. Hellboy cannot confront his personal problems with Liz by punching them. And, he chafes at being kept on a short lease as the government wants to deny his existence to the world and he desires to be part of it, to be recognized for the job that does. And, the government brings in a new handler to control him, one who is both tough and cerebral, the ghost in a containment suit similar to an old diving suit, Johann Krauss.

It's not just Hellboy as the secondary characters Abe Sapien and Liz also have their stories to work through, as Abe discovers his own human side and Liz must decide her own future and whether Hellboy should continue to be in it. Ironically, the most human of the three, she seems to be more honest with who she is. Abe and Hellboy both deal with their freakish appearances in different ways. Abe denies his human side and Hellboy wishes to deny that which sets him apart. Liz may look human but she has come to terms with the freak within her, and understands better than the rest risk humanity poses.

Del Toro and Mike Mignola prove to be a great blending of the visual talents of the two. Even when the story is more, well, story than action, it is a sumptuous visual feast from creature designs to massive sets such as the walk through the BPRD, the Troll market or even the library and Hellboy's quarters. If anyone should direct a John Carter of Mars or a movie based on R. A. Salvatore's dark elf fantasy novels, it should be someone with del Tormo's sense of vision, who can make a fantasy look both strange and familiar and blend seamlessly with the everyday.

He also balances a sense of humor with the horror, the fantastic and sentimental. A scene near the middle between Abe and Hellboy manages to be both funny and moving. It's an achievement on the parts of the director as well as actors. It helps that Ron Perlman and Doug Jones are both used to making sure their acting is carried through layers of make-up and special effects. Perlman from seasons as the Beast, the romantic hero of the tv series BEAUTY AND THE BEAST and Doug Jones who has been the body actor of several creatures in PAN'S LABYRINTH, Silver Surfer in last year's FANTASTIC FOUR, and the body but not the voice of Abe Sapien in the first Hellboy movie. Unless a viewer is closely paying attention, the replacement of David Hyde Piece with Jones as the voice this time out is not noticed. Both make the characters seem totally human and sympathetic despite their appearances and in Abe Sapien's case, very limited facial emoting range.

The story also sets up the elf prince Prince Nuada as a sympathetic character, more antagonist than villain. His actions are one that honestly sees the events he sets in motion as the sole way to save the race and the world itself before humanity destroys it. While he is willing to do bad things to achieve his ends, he doesn't really come across as necessarily being wrong. If the story falls anywhere, it skirts over this a bit in the middle. It's too quick in setting up humans fearing and turning on Hellboy and the rest and doing the turn towards "fighting for a humanity that fears and hates them" and dealing with the allure of Prince Nuada's cause and the Fairy people where they can fit in. The issue is gone almost as soon as it is raised. Likewise, we don't really see how the rest of Fairy feel about being drawn into a new war with humankind.

Jeffrey Tambor's character also gets short shrift, played up a little too much as being the straight man for Hellboy and the rest as well as being the one person that's wrong so everyone else is right. The humor is used to diffuse the fact that the character really does have a thankless job made impossible by Hellboy's antics and he devolves further into just a brainless bureaucrat and suck-up.

Another issue that this and the last movie basically ignores but cannot help wondering about, why normal people only armed with guns serve the bureau? They serve as nothing more than cannon fodder and considering what they have to face, it would seem a job that's only suitable for the suicidal, that no one normal is going to make it to retirement age. If a situation calls for someone like Hellboy, normal agents without special weaponry, abilities or at the least, body armor are all but DOA. Why would they be sent in and why would they go along with it?

But, minor quibbles to a gorgeously told comic book movie with more story and layers than your average action flick much less one based on a fairly shallow comic book character.

Avengers/Invaders #3: Missed this one when I went to the store last week. It's easy to miss a title when you're gone for 3 weeks. I also came close to missing a few other comics this week as some titles I just picked up and read last week so I wasn't really looking for a new issue this soon of the Captain Britain and Guardians of the Galaxy titles.

The coloring of this issue has the same problem as issue #2. The reds are too magenta, the blues of Bucky and Captain America close to being purple. The cover is beautiful, being more Romantic than the photo-realism of Ross' painted style had previously allowed. Maybe he learned a little painting over another artist's pencils (Doug Braithwaite in JUSTICE). One can feel the warmth of the sunny blue skies reflecting off the Sub-mariners over the ocean. Likewise, Steve Sadowski's pencils are very strong.

The story likewise delivers on setting up the conflict between the Namor of the 1940s and of the present day. It's faithful to the more headstrong persona the character was not only originally but when he was dusted back off in the 60s, the character who always seemed to be spoiling for a fight and leading with his fists while the present-day Namor is one who has learned hard life lessons and the power of diplomacy. If only Krueger showed such faithfulness to characterization and history when writing SUPERPOWERS.

Captain America and Bucky... it's still playing up Bucky as the bad-ass commando, even though this is still the youthful Bucky. To the point, that Captain America seems almost a fraud, willing to let Bucky take charge and take point.

The Black Coat: Been too long since an issue of this has come out. To make up for it, there's 2 stories in this special, one b/w and the other with a limited color scheme. Black Coat is taking the patriot superhero and setting him in the days of the American Revolution. As such, he not only fights the British but also more fantastic menaces such as a couple of monsters in these two adventures. Top shelf stuff.

Captain America: White #0: Shows how to re-tell an origin, remaining faithful to the source material while adding to it. The artwork by Tim Sale is a beauty to behold as well. These minis by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale are so true to a graphic novel concept and so beautiful and comepelling in their own right, they are the few works that I feel are really worth waiting for and getting in a collected format. They belong on a bookshelf as their own self-contained entities.

Captain Britain and MI13: There are several references to Alan Moore's Captain Britain series and Merlin's schizo history in the Marvel U, but none that are really germaine to the ongoing storyline, just a few bits of dialogue might leave you scratching your heads. The resurrection of Captain Britain is not a big spoiler, the book is named after him after all, but it does make one wonder why have him die to begin with. Other than it gave a neat cliffhanger and allowed the story to be dragged out for another 2 issues, it does seem like a lot of hoopla over nothing. Barring that, this is still a decent read with upstanding clear superhero artwork. It will be interesting to see where this goes when the storyline is not dictated by the Event.

The Last Defenders: Disappointing all the way around. One, apparently the artist or the writer doesn't know, Kyle Richmond wears a jetpack to fly, it's not a natural ability. But, like every issue so far, all he does is whine and fly around trying to avoid getting hit. If anything, the book makes it hard to care for the character at all, it plays him as such a putz. Two, the last issue blurb for this one mentioned the Son of Satan was in a "defenestrating" mood. It's an odd word choice and has nothing to do with this issue. Three, so much of this issue is not only so much gibberish, it's Casey basically crapping on the history of the Defenders by saying all the other writers got it wrong, that the Defenders should never have been about the Hulk, Namor and Dr. Strange. Even if you think that it is a bad line-up, Casey solidifies his position AND his choice of Defenders by having the story itself say that it was wrong. It's him using his power as writer to have the story STATE that his position is correct instead of using his ability as a writer to SHOW us why his team is so great. And, consider this is the whole point of his mini-series, to completely deconstruct the Defenders concept to put his own team in place as replacement, but we're not really getting a storyline that really showcases those members. Throw in Initiative machinations and a couple of villainous plots that really made no sense and got zero development, and this is a mini slated for the quarter boxes of the future.

Guardians of the Galaxy #3: Hopefully the narration device of the characters giving mission briefs from the futre while the mission is still unfolding for the reader won't be kept up. For one, it takes away any sense of jeopardy when you can see that the character survived the storyline as he's talking at some point in the future while in the present he's getting a grievous knife wound. Likewise, Mantis' ability as fortune teller doesn't do much to endear her. Right off the bat, a cosmic being that she cannot read is introduced. It's having Superman or the Flash on a team, stories have to be constructed so that her ability is not a factor.

Adam Warlock has real magic powers? Just one more instance of these characters having the same name as heroes in the Marvel U., but they don't really look or act much like it. Oh, we can apply that criticism to Starhawk as well as he also gets a kewl makeover so that he only generally looks like the old Guardian of the Galaxy. Let's see, even though they were saving the universe in the first issue, they still came into the space church with guns blasting and killed scores of the church members. While this church is pretty much scum and little regard for life, it still doesn't say much for our heroes either. That they cannot even see why the church would have a legitimate beef with them after they killed a whole bunch of their members... I had hopes for this. The Annihilation minis that lead into it seemed to receive generally good marks from comic fans so I thought I'd give it a shot.

Justice Society of America #17: Likewise, this is more of the same as members try to come to terms with Gog, both in costume and out. It's a bunch of nice character bits in a team that has too many characters, a situation that Hawkman at least seems to recognize. I didn't get the Hawkgirl series so I don't know how they resolved things between Hawkman and Hawkgirl, but we know in the pages of the JLA, she and Red Arrow are getting it on. Part of me just feels that isn't right, this Hawkgirl is in part the reincarnation of Hawkman's wife, it's her spirit. Then again, the mechanics of religion and souls and such have been a subtext to this book since the beginning with the ideas of people being good and moral beings but born without souls, people losing souls but still able to go on as good as ever (not being close-minded here, in the DCU, souls are proven to exist), and in the case of Kendra, she has the biological brain of one person but the soul of another, who is she really? Issues raised but never really resolved or made sense of. In the midst of it all, you then have Mr. Terrific who's an atheist. So, it's best to pretend that these questions don't exist and move on. Johns does manage to further the plot in the midst of all the character moments which is great. No one really seems to question Gog's basic healing and solving all of mankind's problems, think someone might raise the question if we have a god that meets all our needs, what is left for us to aspire to? And, then there are the reasons we haven't solved those issues that also isn't raised here (or in books like JUSTICE), the solutions to those problems have human obstacles. There are people that are in power that keep their people hungry, starving, etc. Where are the people that see the arrival of Gog and his goodworks being a threat to their powerbases and the status quos that keep them in power? And, even if you can cure the land of pollution, people of malnutrition, what do you do tomorrow when they still aren't getting food, when more pollution gets dumped into the air and streams. Likewise, Gog setting out to abolish war... how does he do that without taking away free will? It's one thing to feed the hungry and heal the sick, but how do you stop the very concept of war? The idea of Gog and the story being told raises a lot of issues and questions. It's good Johns spent an issue dealing with some of them and even better that he made sure to go ahead and advance the plot before much more time has to be spent examining those issues for which there may not be near enough space to come up with answers for, or at least honest examination.