Secret Avengers and Why I Hate Plastic Man

A running promotional gimmick at Marvel was the slow unveiling of the members of the new Avengers teams, one person a day with a little "personal" quote by them. Apparently popular enough that Robert Kirkman parodied it in an unveiling of his own super-team. It's an effective advertising ploy for both the company and creators as well as the working to the various online websites as it brings traffic and discussion to the sites.

With the Secret Avengers, the figures were done in silhouette, causing much discussion over various guesses based solely on the character profiles. Now, after several weeks Marvel has begun bringing those characters into view. It turns out that Marvel rigged the game in their favor though. Not content in just concealing through silhouette, major details are left out of the original figures. Leaving out key details strikes me as cheating and being dishonest in their promotional gimmick though. What's sad is that the comic NEWS sites don't ever call the companies out on things like this, they don't bring to attention the misleading and outright dishonest statements made in interviews and promotional stories. They serve as nothing more than free advertising for the companies whose wares they hawk.


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Why I don't like Plastic Man

My first exposure to Plastic Man was probably Saturday morning cartoons. I remember seeing him in an episode of the Superfriends and later in his own cartoons. A buddy also had a record album of some adventures of DC heroes, focusing on the shape changing ones (I remember Plastic Man and Metamorpho each having an adventure). I eventually saw him in one of his 60s comic adventures as well and then some adventures in World's Finest, drawn by Joe Staton. I guess he seemed a natural fit as he drew the equally light-hearted adventures of the size changing E-Man.

While growing up, I liked Plastic Man (AND E-Man, Metamorpho, Elongated Man, etc). The adventures were light-hearted but the character's powers and adventures had a surreal wackiness to them.

Roy Thomas used a "serious" Plastic Man in All-Star Squadron. There were a few light-hearted touches, but his use of Plastic Man was similar to his use of Johnny Thunder. He didn't compromise the characters' integrities in order to fit them into serious books. A comedy character in a serious book needs to be treated seriously not as a buffoon or mental patient. He got it. Grant Morrison and James Robinson didn't.

When Morrison brought Plastic Man into the JLA, he treated Plastic Man as a clown and not a serious superhero. He let his meta-fictional concerns over-ride internal story logic. He was setting up his team to be of iconic characters and ones along mythic themes. Thus Plastic Man as the "trickster god" was in and Elongated Man was out. However, there was never in-story reason why the team chose to have the mentally questionable Plastic Man over the intelligent and proven Elongated Man. Plastic Man's loony personality became the dafault and he remained with the team for a long time and figured more prominently in the JLA-Avengers than Elongated Man would. The popularity of Plastic Man probably was a factor in the deaths of the Dibnys. An interesting side-bar, Elongated Man was created as a foil for the Flash because the creator at the time did not know that DC owned Plastic Man and thus set out to create a new character. However, Elongated Man soon grew into a full-blown character in his own right.


The problem with all of this is that if you actually go back and read the original adventures by Cole, you realize that the Plastic Man in All-Star Squadron is by far more accurate to his original appearances than the Grant Morrison trickster character. See, Plastic Man was the straight man. His world was a bit surreal and his sidekick Woozy Winks was a buffoon, but Plastic Man was not. He was extremely capable and straight-forward, along the same lines as Will Eisner's Spirit. There was humor in the stories and situations but the main characters were not caricatures. Read the original stories and revisit the modern ones and you realize that the modern fans and creators have once again confused character and personality with the story and genre or at the least, unable to separate the two. As portrayed in the League and elsewhere, the body is Plastic Man but the personality is Woozy's!

Was reminded of this when Rucka mentions that Ted Kord died a hero's death. Kord died in a story that set out first to completely tear the character down. Because he was in a comedy book, he and Booster were treated as being unreliable and considered incompetent by their peers. And, then he's shot in the head by a former friend. It only works if you ignore every story written by every writer but Giffen and DeMatteis, many of which that came out concurrent and after their landmark run on the League books. And, then ignoring everything the pair actually did with Maxwell Lord and the thematic elements of his story. Even the Brave & Bold cartoon did a better job of treating the Ted Kord Blue Beetle respectfully and giving him a true touching and heroic death.

Meanwhile DC has brought back a truckload of characters that have been killed off, although they only go half as far as they should have. No Elongated Man and Sue. No Question. No Blue Beetle. No Neptune Perkins, Judomaster, Tempest (I or II), GA Atom, Tasmanian Devil, Dr. Mid-Nite, Starman, Damage, Human Bomb, Black Condor II, Firebrand I, II, III, Crimson Avenger, Blue Jay, Silver Sorceress, Sandman I, II, Star-Spangled Kid, Minute Man, Commander Steel, Steel, Vibe, etc. Of all the villains, they leave the original Kobra as being dead? Oh, and they make the announcement that now Dead is Dead. I seem to recall when another company made that decision and a year later decided on not only bringing back a couple of major characters but also one whose very name had been the definition of being "dead" ie, there was "dead" and there was "Bucky and Uncle Ben dead". So, it'll last as long as until Geoff Johns decides that he wants to bring back Prince Ra Man.

Yet, one of the characters brought back is Hawk aka Hank Hall and he's going to be in the Birds of Prey. The character was terribly mis-used in Armageddon 2001 and ever since. I'd like to see him come back as a hero. Have to wonder just how is he going to be treated as a hero? He died as a villain in full Extant mode, but he comes back as Hawk? Plus, let's face it, no one other than the Kesels have been able to write the character as being conservative, a lunkhead, AND sympathetic ala a faithful brother and friend.

Smallville, JSA, and Comic News

Smallville: JSA: During the winter weather here in NC, I was in Greensboro. I spent the week shoveling snow, chauffeuring my mother to and from work as well as following up a lead on an imaging job. My girlfriend's basic cable doesn't get a lot of channels outside the main networks (no USA, TNT, TBS) and frequently wasn't home until 9 so missed quite a few shows. So, I really made a point of wanting to be in the house by 8 on Friday to catch Smallville to see the JSA two-parter.

If anyone else tried to watch it in the Triad area on Friday, they know what happened. For some reason, right at 8, the CW went off the air. There was no message transmitting an error or "technical difficulties", it was just a blank screen. Right at 9, it came on again, as far as I know with just as much an explanation. Luckily, my brother was taping the show, so I held off on watching it until I returned to Raleigh the following Tuesday.

Not a bad episode, they managed to get far more of the JSA in there than I expected. And the characters at least looked the part for the most part. There were nice touches in that the heroes Green Arrow dealt with most in the episode were Hawkman (the SA/post-post Crisis versions he had a long-standing rivalry with) and Star-Girl/Star Spangled Kid II (the GA versions of both characters having served on the same team in the 40s). It was nice to see the return of the Martian Manhunter character, giving the show a bit of a JLA-JSA team-up feel. Also had the various characters pairing off to follow-up leads, another nice little homage to the GA JSA books.

The bad? Well, the whole plotting was basically WATCHMEN-lite, with the original heroes being compromised and forced into retirement (although Hawkman's rendition as to the whyfores, evoked a SA tale that explained why the JSA went into retirement over turning over their secret identities) and are currently grizzled shells of themselves. As it's written by Geoff Johns, it's his Conan-the-barbarian Hawkman that is on the screen here and it is obvious that the character doesn't make a good leader and so there's emphasis on that as a plot point. Likewise, you get Johns' pet character Stargirl over all other candidates for legacy heroes: Sandy, Kiku, any Infinitor, or even the original Star-Spangled Kid himself. You also have deaths of classic characters where actual killing off the characters aren't really needed. It's a shame that Wesley Dodds was killed as the character of Sandman would be a natural for a tv series. According to the painting, the JSA had a Black Canary as a member while Green Arrow's little group also has a Black Canary but no mention is made of that.

Sadly, as much of the story revolves around Hawkman, his character was also the weakest. The actor did a fine job but much of the failure revolved around the writing, costuming and effects. Typical of modern writing, Hawkman throws Green Arrow through a stained glass window, just glossing over what that would actually do to a person. No wonder Arrow doesn't like him for the rest of the show, he basically just used potentially lethal force (at the best, leaving physical scars for life) on someone for no reason. Hawkman flies way too fast and is depicted as a blur, probably to gloss over the lack of budget to actually portray him using his wings flying in a more organic, natural manner. The breast plate wasn't a bad idea, but it appears sculpted for another actor as instead of making the character look powerful, it makes him look fat. As far as costumes go, they did a better job on the Roast of the Superfriends in the 70s.

The story had holes in it as well such as why would Checkmate actually ok an operation to assassinate the very heroes they think they will need in the near future? The whole thing to force them out of retirement just doesn't ring true as just bringing their history to light might have done the same thing without actually killing several of the members and possibly compromising Checkmate in the process. And the villain used to kill off more experienced heroes was just lame. At least make it a group or someone that seems to have cred. Instead, it just makes you wonder how they lived as long as they did.

And, making Tess Mercer a former agent? Ugh. The character already is serving as too many plot points with connections to everyone around. What is needed is a bit more fleshing out of her character, more insight to her motivations and actions without yet another little hidden tidbit of her history. Just when was she supposed to be an agent in her already over-filled past?

Also tiresome, the incessant references to Clark's "destiny". It's just bad cliched writing much as the characters in the DCU actually treating Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman as some sort of holy trinity. It's one thing when Jor-El was harping on it, because his idea of Clark's destiny was at odds with Clark's journey of discovering where his humanity was with all of his powers. It had conflict. But, when other characters keep talking about him as being a savior and better than the rest, it's just tired. What's interesting is when we SEE it, when he refuses to give up on someone's possible redemption, when he tries to find a way that doesn't involve taking a life, and when he bounces back after failing or experiencing the cost that comes from living up to standards and ideals. We don't need characters telling us he's great and destined for bigger things, we already know he's supposed to become Superman. It also robs us of Clark as a character as it reinforces the idea of Superman as the iconic hero and not a flesh and blood character. Whereas the show best succeeds when it is about the characters and their relationships and foibles.

Comic News
There's actually some good news out there. DC and Geoff Johns plans on bringing Aquaman back. Although I hope that the David Finch artwork is just for the cover and not the interior. Hopefully it will be the Geoff Johns that brought Green Lantern back and not the Geoff Johns that wrote Hawkman, Flash: Rebirth, etc. He talks about using continuity like he did with Hawkman, but his use of continuity for the most part is to warp and darken it and treating characters more as plot points than as people. His Hawkman owed more to Robinson's non-continuity tale The Golden-Age than it did with any version of Hawkman from before. As James Robinson has had little to nothing to do with Aquaman, we can have hope that we'll be spared some of those tendencies to mimic Robinson's little ticks.

Meanwhile, Stan Lee and Tom DeFalco are teaming up with Archie Comics to bring some new superheroes. As DeFalco is one of the few writers that actually writes unapologetic superhero comics with superheroes and supervillains and well-rounded casts of characters, there's a lot of potential that this could be a fun series that's all-ages without actually being written for eight year olds ala Marvel Adventures.

Marvel seems to have be taking a few steps at addressing some of the problems themselves with their most recent announcement of an Astonishing line. So much of the bulk of their line is so continuity heavy and so dependent on being up on everything going on in several other titles, that it alienates readers that don't want to follow every cross-over title or four Spider-man books a month. At the same time, readers don't want to be ghetto'ed either, forced to read books that don't have anything to do with the main continuity. If I want to read Spider-man, I want to read about THE Spider-man, not some other version with a different history or that's been dumbed down. It's sad that it has taken this long and that it still misses the boat somewhat in that it's taking what used to be true for the bulk of the line and sidelined it into a handful of titles. It sidesteps the bamboozle of when the Ultimate line was introduced. It too was supposed to be more reader friendly but on the basis that by starting from scratch readers wouldn't have to worry about past continuity. Except that once you have a second issue, you have continuity and so many of the other books at least required knowledge of continuity to get the full impart of the stories as they set out to introduce as many characters and elements of the original continuity as possible only with more post-modern sensibilities.

Have to give Marvel credit. They have managed to predominate the comic news lately. What's really noteworthy is that they did so for two weeks with basically one story just doled out a little bit at a time.

1) Bendis announced that all of the Avengers titles would be ending. Of course what was kept hidden was the obvious news: that there would be several Avengers titles relaunching with new issue #1's.

2) Marvel announces that the Dark Reign would be ending and that the heroes would be returning to their roles. There would be a new Avengers #1, this time with Iron Man, Thor, Captain America and Hawkeye as members once again. This is a bit disingenuous as I'll show in a bit. However, is this really news? Dark Reign ending? All stories and story arcs have endings. And if it is ending, then it makes sense that all the Dark Reign titles would be gone and that the heroes would be taking the spotlight again. This is like a forecast that says it will be snowing tomorrow and then adds it will also be cold and wet. What Quesada and company don't say is that there will actually be a shift or change in tone to the stories but many ravenous fans moan about the Disney-fying of Marvel. There won't be. It's still the Bendis and Brubaker show. Later announcements prove to bear this out.

2a) Other misleading comments as Quesada talks about how it's not a response to the Disney buyout, that this was long before in the works. I don't claim to have any special knowledge and it may be true that it's not a response to Disney, however it's a straw argument that Quesada puts forth. The business deal had been talked about as a possibility well over a year ago, it's hardly been a secret. Turnaround in publishing and on producing comics and major story arcs are potentially far quicker than that. Or does Quesada really want us to believe that they can plan something and have it in the works for going on two years AND STILL SCREW UP THE SCHEDULING OF THE ISSUES AND COME OUT LATE?

3) Now, day by day we get teaser images of who will be in this new Avengers. Of the teaser images, Spiderwoman is the only one whom we weren't already told would be an Avenger. See? It's non-news. What is news but no-one treats as such is the misinformation being fed to us. We were told it would be Cap, Iron Man, and Thor on the same team once again. Only it's not. Because, it's not Steve Rogers Captain America but the Bucky-turned commando/assassin Captain America. So, all that talk about the return of the heroes... nah, not really true. It's the same old shell game. If it was USAgent as Cap, Rhodes as Iron Man, and Eric Masterson as Thor, would you still say it it's the return of the big three to the team? No. Because as good as they are, they haven't served together before as the team nor had time to fully establish themselves as THE characters.

4) Oh look, we're releasing another Avengers title, the Secret Avengers written by Brubaker. So, that big announcement by Bendis about all the Avengers titles going away... yeah, we'll just glut the market with a bunch more.

5) As part of the "Heroic Age", Agents of Atlas will be returning. You know, that team of heroes that betrayed their country, took over a terrorist organization and allied themselves with its members who have attacked and killed American citizens and feed badguys to the dragon they ally themselves with. You know, all written by the guy that managed to sap much of the larger than life and sense of fun out of characters like Marvel Boy called the Uranian and is appropriately colored in gray as that's how interesting he's become. And, they'll be teaming up with the now dull 3-D Man who at least when he was Triathlon he managed to homage the classic character without actually usurping the original id. That took talent and creativity. Making Triathlon into 3-D Man is just an old cliche and managing to rob us of having two separate viable characters.

Welcome to the new boss. Same as the old boss...

But, after two weeks of news blitzes, what we got was bascially: Dark Reign is coming to an end as all stories must and with it, all the titles that had been focusing on the villains passing themselves off in the identities of heroes. As the heroes take the lead again, Avengers will be restarted with a new #1. Again. Bendis will continue writing and Brubaker will also be writing an Avenger title so if you like what's been done so far you will continue to do so as nothing else is really changing.

Kevin Smith made the news. When I first saw the headline that he'd been made to leave the plane, I figured it almost had to be his language. Instead it's because of his size. I can sympathize with him to a degree. America has this interesting double standard. It's the most obese country in the world while at the same time, obese people are one of the last few groups that is fair game to obviously ridicule and marginalize. To the point, that comedians like the late Chris Farley build their whole comedic persona on self image immolation. Drug addicts and smokers tend to get more sympathetic treatment.

Meanwhile, Dynamite has revealed that in an issue of their new Green Hornet comic that a character will die. Forever. It's interesting news on several fronts. One, the first issue hasn't even come out yet and they are trying to build interest on an issue after that. Two, it speaks of four characters: the original Green Hornet, his son the current Hornet and the two Katos. Now, if it is really the original Green Hornet and Kato, they'd be in their 90s by now. I assume the company is taking the stance that the one from the 1960s was the "original". But, that's hardly the same as being the "original". And, it's hard for any to be the original or real deal when you're talking about a licensed characters. They are all Dynamite's versions of the characters. But, if they aren't using the actual history, then they're not really the characters that appeared in radio, movies, comic books and television. Case in point, the "original" Green Hornet has already been killed off once before, in the 1990's series by Now Comics (that also gave us a female Kato, so far Smith's story is sounding quite familiar). So, Dynamite cannot really kill off the character "forever" anymore than they could the characters in Project Superpowers. The next company that comes along will probably just ignore Dynamite's storylines and do their own take. They may decide that the Green Hornet and Kato somehow time-skip to the present day ala the Seven Soldiers of Victory, Captain America, etc

Belated Reviews

For a few weeks, I'd been on vacation with my gal and her family. During that time we went to Washington DC where I was able to devote a couple of days to doing research on copyrights of the various comic book companies in the 1930s, 40s, and 50s. My main goal was to look into the issues surrounding Quality Comics as well as Fawcett. The first draft of an article about my findings are up at my site if you aren't a regular reader there. I plan on revising it some in the near future to expand on the Fawcett and Charlton information as well as including Magazine Enterprises. Though I can tell you now, in a nutshell, none of their comics were renewed.

Like so many people, I went and saw the Transformers movie. Luckily it was a matinee. On one hand it looked pretty good. John Turturro is always fun to watch on the screen. The humor in places just went on too long (the mom eating a hash brownie was a needless scene as it serves no purpose) but for the most part didn't offend me as much as other viewers. Part of me is willing to accept this is a movie based on toys and about giant fighting robots and so is solidly aimed kids and teenagers. There's going to be a lotta sophomoric material. I can accept that. However, that's no excuse to deliver a movie whose whole plot hinges on a plot hole so that it doesn't make a lick of sense. Your average Scooby Doo cartoon has tighter plotting and structure. Factor in things like going out the back door of the Aerospace museum in DC shows an airplane graveyard with MOUNTAINS in the background. Then there are just scenes that threw me completely out of the movie moments apart: giant robot holds car in air with hero hanging on outside for dear life, girlfriend and roommate inside said car. Car is dropped from somewhere between 20 to 50 feet to the ground yet it hits the ground with all the force of dropping 5 feet. Hero is somehow now inside the car, front airbags go off and everyone gets out of the car with no trouble (even the roommate in the backseat). Then the hero is picked up, flung through the air twenty feet across the room and lands on his back onto a solid concrete floor with a huge metal bolt sticking up. It hurts him for about 2 minutes, but these two incidents back to back should pretty much completely incapacitate him for the rest of the movie if not for life. Which wouldn't have bothered me too much. Each of the Transporter movies have at least one scene that completely violates any semblance of realism it has going for it. But, when you factor in that the whole movie is this level of stupidity and attention to detail... I've seen a lot of bad movies in my life, but none that are so blatant in just plain laziness at actually trying to tell a story.

Comics

Quite a few mini-series have wrapped up featuring various GA characters which makes for an optimum time to look back on them.

Angel - Blood & Trenches: Overall a great and fun little mini-series. Byrne's artwork and writing perfectly suited for horror and a period piece like this. The production of the book seems a bit sub-par this time around though. Shooting from pencils is a ticklish beast. On the one hand, it can give the work a more energetic feel with more gradations and depth that disappears when translated to inked lines. However, it can also look incomplete or not show up properly when printed (there is a reason the pencils are inked after all). This is what plagues this issue. The resolution and contrast in the printing loses the subtle pencils exacerbated by putting much of the pencils on gray backgrounds. A shame really, as the earlier issues were so powerful. Still, a fun read.

Avengers/Invaders: You know, part of me wonders if Marvel just doesn't want the Invaders to succeed as a concept. The last revival was hobbled from the start by debuting in a title that was on the way down by a creative team whose stars were waning. It's already a niche book, but to make things even more difficult that right after the launch a completely different creative team handles the ongoing. The writer was unproven with few comicbook credits to his name while the artist had a completely non-traditional style. Little surprise that it didn't find an audience.

This time out, the powers that be chose to shoot the pages from the pencils, apparently without telling the penciler that. Halfway through, a second penciller is brought in to handle some of the book but no rhyme or reason to the pages he does to the pages that Sadowski does and the styles are hardly similar as the other penciler's work is completely inked. For the first several issues, the coloring or the separations were sub-par leading to purplish blues and magenta reds. Even Ross' covers often seemed to be printed a bit dark and murky.

I give Krueger credit in the writing that he was trying something novel in that it would seem about 2/3 of the way through that the story had been resolved to lead in to a completely different threat. However, it seems that to pad the book out so that it had more than one ongoing story and to give enough space to deal with Stark's unspoken guilt over the fate of Captain America, Toro discovering his fate and to play up Bucky. Krueger thus gives us the side story of the LMD uprising and their mystery leader to stretch things out. But, like Michael Bay's movie, the plot makes little sense and Krueger never really explains things. Maybe, he realized that the story was out of his control which was why we get the GA Vision halfway through to serve as Sir Exposition concerning the Cosmic Cube. Sure, it really has nothing to do with how the Vision has ever been presented before and he does next to nothing because his job here is to be narrator and he's the only cosmic hero of the time available.

The big surprise/twist at the end of the series even has quite a bit of the power robbed from it as it was more or less revealed in the promo blurbs for the upcoming Human Torch mini-series.

Will give them props for having started AFTER JMS The Twelve yet manages to finish BEFORE that one with both minis having the same amount of issues and Krueger and Ross also working on Project: Superpowers for Dynamite.

Black Terror: Not a bad mini-series as far as the Project: Superpowers titles go. Written by Ross & Krueger, it suffers from the same faults of the other titles, tons of characters introduced and used without really bothering to explain them or their powers. Such as the various patriots helping President West and why they are such a threat (any one of them alone is as powerful as the Black Terror if not moreso, which makes one wonder how a tree is able to hold them immobile for longer than a second or two). While it is about the Black Terror's search for his kid partner it really is more of setting up the next Superpowers storyline. Thus, there is no real resolution to the story as far as President West and the Black Terror's attack are concerned for that's to play out in other comics. Meanwhile, we get a bunch of the kid sidekicks and kid heroes back (Yank & Doodle, Captain Battle Jr, Kitten, Boy King & Giant, Tim, Sparky, Davey). Interestingly, that of all the kids, only Tim's adult partner has been revealed as having returned. We've seen no signs of Black Owl, Captain Battle, Cat-Man, Blue Beetle and Magno other in the notes pages.

Death Defying Devil: Like his Last Defenders work, Joe Casey writes a mini-series that is about setting things up as opposed to resolving anything thus it ends in the last issue where it should have been in issue 2 or 3. As a story, it only raises questions as opposed to answering them (as opposed to the Black Terror mini that does resolve the central plot as set out in the first issue, what happened to the Terror's kid partner). Along the way, we are introduced to other GA heroes which is good because the Devil is not allowed to talk, write notes or think thoughts or anything else that might actually communicate a character to the reader instead of a cypher. Of course, this has to be, because otherwise we'd be able to get an answer to the big mystery: that the man that was DDD in the 1940s did not go into the urn and he is now dead. Thus, who is this version of DDD? Now this may be a nod to the fact that in the 1940s, Daredevil had two different origins. In his first issue, he was mute (and in a different colored costume), but was changed in subsequent comics. There was also a third character by the company with the same name as Daredevil's alter ego, Bart Hill. Maybe this is Dynamite's way of reconciling the different origins as there being more than one man wearing the costume.

The superhero plot is fairly undeveloped as the heroes (DDD, Ghost, and Silver Streak) rush to stop some plan by the Claw and his organization while DDD is stalked by a member of the former kid gang Wise Guys and who knows DDD's a fake. Swept under the rug is how the Wise Guy was able to conveniently find some organization willing and able to make him young and strong and supply a costume all at a moment's notice and then just let him go to hunt the hero down to settle his vendetta.


The artwork steadily improves over the issues but never really knocks it out of the park. Part of it could be that it too is being shot from pencils, but he's not really there yet as a penciler.

For a different look at the hero, over in the pages of Savage Dragon, Daredevil and the Wise Guys seem to have become semi-regular guest-stars/supporting cast. The treatment of the character is more light-hearted but doesn't ring any more true as it imparts a certain naivete and gosh-wowness to the hero, swinging a little too far in the opposite direction. Issue #148 even has a nice historical look at the character.

Masquerade: The best of the Superpowers minis as this one is truly character driven, filling in the gaps and background of the Miss Masque character leading up to how she got into the urn and a summation of the events immediately following her release (skirting the issues of US Jones' infatuation with her). There are a few cutesy scenes along the way but the storytelling otherwise serves the job well. If there is a weakness, it's that after all the issues setting her up as a capable heroine defined by her detective skills The painted coloring style does kill the wonderful job of the penciling underneath that was shown in the previews, making the artwork murkier as opposed to more attractive.

Project Superpowers: Chapter Two: Starts off with seeing how Captain Future was taken. It's a prime example of where no effort is made to utilize a character in keeping with who and how he was in the 1940s. While many of Standard/Nedor's characters were a bit generic, each did have unique elements that defined them. One of Captain Future's unique bits was that his erstwhile beautiful girlfriend ran a detective agency with her spinster looking aunt. With Captain Future only appearing in one page, how hard is it to make the character actually conform to simple basic elements of his GA stories? Instead of seeing him walking down the street with two un-named beautiful women on his arm, why not make them recognizeably the supporting characters from his stories? As is, the scene could actually be ANY character, it has absolutely nothing to do with the Captain Future character. A small detail to be sure, but a detail that shows that the creators actually approach the stories and scenes with an attempt at understanding the characters they write instead of the most generic presentation that requires no information other than the hero's basic look. At the end of the issue, the President stands revealed as the superhero Power Nelson.

Marvel Mystery Comics #01: The various 70th anniversary comics looking at Marvel's GA are a bit hit and miss. The Sub-Mariner one was excellent. The Human Torch does not work at all given what we know about the Torch's origins. Marvel Mystery has a wonderful painted cover of the Torch and Namor that is in keeping with painted covers by Schomburg of the time. The story is a sprawling epic of the 1940s that bring in the GA Angel, Electro, as well as the detective the Ferret to team up with Namor and the Human Torch against the Green Flame, old adversaries of the Human Torch. Then with some amazing thought by the editor involved, the stories reprinted are with the Human Torch against the Green Flame as well as the original Ferret story. Of course, look at Brubaker already planning on retconning various bits of these in his upcoming comic as he thinks the Angel's costume is really "lame" and is going to portray Electro as a "giant robot monster".

Sherlock Holmes: Two issues out of this mini by Dynamite. It sets out to tell a Holmes style mystery. The second issue starts with Holmes framed for murder and in prison while Watson and Lestrade try to do their best to carry on despite orders to stay away from the case as they are too close to Holmes.

Doing a mystery in a comic is always difficult because of the completely different pacing demands and presenting the detecting and the clues to solving the mystery in interesting graphic ways. One of the questions it has to answer is why tell this story in this medium? Holmes is a literary character and the bookshelves are full of pastiches and such. So, what is gained by telling this story in comicbook form? The writer and artist need to be able to address that question.

It's too early to judge the writing but the artwork is a bit stiff. His storytelling is solid, but uninspired. The artwork and depictions seem to indicate heavy use of models and photo references and using computer filters or lightboxing to draw over the figures. There is little sense of texture and just odd lines and ink blotches over faces and such that don't really impart meaningful detail but tend to make the panels seem more photographic in nature. The portrayal of Watson is in keeping with many of the films and giving us a Watson that looks quite a bit older than Holmes as opposed to two men roughly the same age.

Also disconcerting is reading a Sherlock Holmes story then going through the pages in the back and seeing the ad for Garth Ennis' The Boys with a hero soiling himself in fright. Everything else from stories to the other ads are all-ages appropriate except for this one graphic image. I was going to say that I found it hard to believe that no one saw that and thought it didn't really fit with the material of the book it was appearing in or at all appropriate. Then I realized I don't really find it that hard to believe at all. Just sad.

Justice Society America 27 & 28: After the sprawled out stories by Geoff Johns, we get a two parter written and drawn by Jerry Ordway, revisiting a villain from the All-Star Squadron days, the Japanese assassin Kung. In just the two issues, he manages to include a large chunk of the team's cast yet without feeling overly crowded and plenty of little character bits as well as telling a complete story that fits in seamlessly with what went before.

Captain Britain and MI13: Marvel is bringing this title to a close. While the writing has often been a bit problematic in its structure and inconsistencies in its exposition and dialogue (such as the purpose and definition of the team depends on the issue, or the fact that Dracula has a base on the moon is shown in one issue, but isn't explained how this is remotely possible until the following issue). Some secrets and mystery is good, but only if it is actually supposed to be and presented as such. Otherwise, it's actually sloppy writing that needs a little tightening up. However, despite its shortcomings, it has still been an entertaining title. Even when it started off in the midst of the crossover with Secret War, it remained secure in its own corner, not requiring reading half of Marvel's output to understand the book. Likewise the art has been solid and clear despite the best efforts of the colorist to muddy things up. The current storyline with Dracula has been great, making Dracula into a wonderful and natural master supervillain for the Marvel Universe. Under other writers, the team would still be fighting Skrulls these 14 issues later, the Dracula story would be a mega-crossover, hijacking a half dozen titles for half a year. Thus, despite its problems, this book is already more tightly written, full of drama and excitement than any two other books.

Pulps:
While DC is pursuing and planning on comicbook adventures of Doc Savage, the Shadow, and the Avenger, Sanctum Books is reprinting the pulp versions. Recently, they've added the Avenger and the Whisperer to their line-up. If you balk at collecting the Docs and Shadows due to their longevity, both of these notable characters had far shorter careers. The Whisperer is an interesting study as he has possible connections to different DC characters that Bill Finger worked on: The Whisperer is in reality police commissioner James "Wildcat" Gordon! The first volume of the Whisperer book contains two Whisperer novels, a Whisperer short story, an interesting essay on the genesis of the Whisperer character, an essay on Maxwell Grant and magic and another early pulp titled Crimebusters as well as a short-story featuring the magician sleuth Norgil whom Grant created for that title.

Good Old-Fashioned Comics

Avengers-Invaders #8: Well, cannot complain about this issue's cover being too dark. The art by the two teams are stronger this go around as well, although the switch between the two is haphazard. I really do enjoy Sadowski's rendering of Namor.

The two plotlines are apparently resolved but seem to raise more questions than answers. Ultron is behind the LMD uprising, that somehow his possession of them and their drinking of what passes for Hammond's blood will give him life. What also doesn't make sense is how he took control of the LMD's, how he knew Hammond had returned from the past and ultimately he already knows Hammond's body inside and out, he used it to create the Vision.

Likewise, the revelation that D'Spayre was only using the cube (as I had surmised) and wasn't responsible for it bringing the Invaders to the present, it means that the cube had pretty much just zeroed in on one random person's desires to make a reality. Huh? Imagine a world where a random nutso anywhere could cause an atomic bomb go off just by wishing it and increase the danger exponentially. If the cubes were that easily taken control of, Marvel U. would have reality constantly shaping and reshaping itself. The inclusion of the GA Vision is a nice nod, but it doesn't really make much sense or add anything to the story.

Amazing Spider-Girl #29: The penultimate issue before the series cancellation and it will continue for awhile in Spider-man Family. For how long though? DeFalco has recently mentioned on one of the news sites that he thinks his time at Marvel may be nearing an end as calls go unanswered and there's no new work coming in. Not a surprise though. His style isn't really in keeping with the books Marvel writes these days. They are too straight-forward without having a self-deprecating self-mocking tone such as Slott writes, and not cynical enough of heroes and superheroes as the rest of the Marvel faire. It has been a great ride though.

BPRD: Not normally a fan of Kevin Nowlan's artwork, but this is a wonderful eerie and fantastical cover. I often complain about the modern colorists and coloring in books. Yet, take a look at BPRD or Hellboy or the work by Tom Smith. The coloring works with the art, it doesn't overpower it. Your attention isn't grabbed by photoshop effects. Here the artwork supports the story, the scenes in the snow are colored subtly with cool colors as opposed to the moody and dark colors of the interior temple. It all works together and upholds Guy Davis' pencils.

Captain Britain and MI13: Then here we get where stuff is over-colored, colors are too intense. In some places it works, such a the scenes on the moon. But the pub scenes, everything is too saturated, all of the faces look as if they are glowing as the artist tries to give everyone a 3-D painted look in the coloring. It doesn't work, it's too much. I like the idea of Dracula having an army and him becoming a major bad guy/super-villain. It works in the context of the Marvel U. He'd make a good player among the arch-villains. The book continues to suffer from uneven writing, stuff included because it comes across as being cool but that ultimately doesn't work, text claiming one thing but actions and subtexts something else. Such as what is this book really about. The title says Captain Britain, but he's hardly in the book at all, a figurehead at best, constantly upstaged by whatever other character he's playing off of.

However, I read the discussion with Doom several times and frankly, the conversation doesn't flow well or make much sense such as Doom accusing Dracula of racism. What did he say that was actually racist? His parting comment to Doom was more of a challenge, that would make more sense if he was playing on Doom's undying need to prove his superiority than if he was trying to broker a treaty with him. And, then I got to thinking about the whole conversation and Dracula on the moon. I can understand Doom walking around on the moon and I like the scenes of him exploring the lunar module. But, how are they talking? Specifically, Dracula. Sure, he's magical and already dead and doesn't need air to breathe, but talking does require certain physical laws to be operating. And, then I started thinking about the moon in general and how it doesn't work that Dracula would have a base there. See, on the side of the moon they are on, it's daytime 24-7. It is getting unfiltered sunlight, it just doesn't have that glow because there's no atmosphere. Dracula being on the moon is the exact opposite than what one would first think if you give it five minutes of thought. We end up with a kewl scene that is not well played and completely ludicrous as you linger over it.

The pub scenes. Funny, but despite the central character being called Captain Britain, he's hardly the coolest or central character to the book. Constantly being upstaged by Peter Wisdom, a character I still don't have a handle on. Just as this version of Spitfire remains a mystery to me she really doesn't seem like any version from before just as no version before ever had her being part vampiric. There doesn't really seem to be any reason for this character to BE the Spitfire of old in terms of characterization. It's almost the Geoff Johns style of characterization, write the character as you need it to be to serve the plotlines and not letting the character itself suggest storlines.

I had given up reading Black Panther some time ago, but this issue does reconcile the fact that Hudlin had a completely different Black Knight with an ebony blade running around. And, simply done as well. I like that. However, the conversationg between Dane and Faiza in the plane, again there seems to be a subtext to it that isn't coming across. What was Faiza hoping for as being a steward from Dane, a romance? She starts off complaining that being a steward seems to cast her in being a subserviant role and ends up by suggesting that there's more to their relationship.

Ok, we see what happens to Dane's plane, but what causes Captain Britain's car explode?

Doc Savage: The Lost Radio Scripts of Lester Dent. A nice hefty book. Cover by Bob Larkin who did some of the later covers as well as some painted covers for Marvel in the 80s. There are some wonderful interior illustrations by a pulp fan and artist ironically named Tom Roberts. I wonder if these were originally in color or in color in the hardback edition.

I'm a bit of a nut over copyrights and copyright law. Old Time Radio was/is an interesting loophole. Back in the day of the original broadcasts, your general public had no way of copying shows and no one really thought there'd be interest in them after initial broadcasts, so radio broadcasts were not covered (a state of affairs that remained true until about the time that tape recorders became commercial commodities). The only way to copyright a radio show was to actually copyright the script, not something always done. The Shadow often had further copyright protection in that some of the radio broadcasts were worked into the novels or vice-versa. It's part of the reason why the Shadow pulp was created, his radio show was so popular that people were asking for it on the stands and anyone could have come out with a Shadow magazine if Street & Smith didn't do so first.

So, getting the book, one of the first things I checked was the copyright information. So, it's curious that they are actually copyrighted in 2009 by the Estate of Norma Dent. I'm not sure how that works legally. These things were written over 70 years ago, it doesn't seem right that they can copyright them NOW. And, then there's the whole matter that they were written as "work for hire" and thus would first be the property of Conde Nast. Even if uncopyrighted, the fact that they were actually used in the broadcasts would mean that the scripts were already paid for.

Green Arrow & Black Canary #17: A well done story following on the heels of last month's, so we see more of Merlin, the new crazy villain on the block (although she seems a little too much in the vein of Joker crazy or the demented villains that Gail Simone writes so well). The backup gives some ominous foreshadowing for the happy couple and hinges a little too much on implying that Black Canary is not really in control of her powers as there's a new villain in the works an innocent by-stander of her using more power than the situation demanded. Bad superhero writing there, one of the conceits that make superheroes work is that there are no innocent bystander victims due to the direct action or mis-use of power by the superheroes. Gwen Stacey dies because she's thrown from the roof by the villain, not because Spider-man accidentally knocks her off while fighting the villain. The writer has set up a huge task for himself, this is the leader of the Justice League directly responsible for a crippling injury, there has to be more ramifications than just giving motivation for a new supervillain. This is more than Lex Luthor losing his hair while Superboy saves his life.

Hellboy: The Wild Hunt #3: See above about the use of color and storytelling. Duncan Fegredo is a natural substitution for Mignola on the art chores of Hellboy, a lot of the same feel but not as abstract. And, we have the wonderful Guy Davis on the back-up story. I would love to see these guys tackle some of Robert E. Howard's stuff. Or characters like Carnacki and Jules de Grandin. I have been tempted to just get these in trades, to have the whole stories in single volumes. Might still do that to weed out the comic boxes.

Masquerade #1. Best of Dynamite's Superpowers books, looking at the character formerly known as Miss Masque as well appearances by Black Terror, Fighting Yank, Green Lama, and Pyroman. This mini chronicles the events and her career leading up to her imprisonment in the urn, BEFORE she got the lame disguise powers and was still known as Miss Masque. Nice character bits that define her as a woman that would become a mystery woman. A few mis-steps along the way, a twelve year old girl is able to completely bite off a man's thumb in one bite? The Black Terror is portrayed in a less than sympathetic light as he is completely dismissive of Miss Masque without her guns and Tim suggests they are all glory-hounds, and the little cutesy ending.

I opted for the Cho cover on this one. One thing about Alex Ross, his women tend to look very man-ish, like Kathleen Turner on testosterone or steroids. The interiors - well this is a good example of much of Dynamite's line it seems, the painted colors overwhelm what is otherwise solid artwork. On-line glimpses showed this to be the strongest of the Superpower books art-wise, but this style of coloring just muddies everything up from the pencils to the layouts so that you have to study each panel just to understand what's going on.

Men of Mystery Ahh, the first casualty of Diamond's new policies and there's a notice inside the book explaining it all. A few titles being canceled. Bigger page count, but a hefty price increase too. This issue features reprints of several Fawcett characters: Spy Smasher, Minute Man, Bulletman as well as non-Fawcett heroes Man O'Metal and Music Master (if there ever was a truly bizarro lame GA hero, this one takes the cake).

The Phantom #0. A thin retelling of the Phantom's origin, serving as a relaunch of the series. Why? No idea.

The Spirit #26. Found this to be a marked improvement writing wise over recent issues. Artwork while a bit cartoony in places at least doesn't feel bound parody Eisner's caricaturistic style. A good, done in one story. And a wonderful Brian Bolland cover.

Vixen #5. This has been a great read, refocusing the character and her heritage. You get a story that works for the character and refines her. It seemed a bit strange to have this mini doing pretty much the same thing that McDuffie was doing in the Justice League, recentering the character. But, where his story was making her into something cosmic, a pawn of some god while fixing her powers, this story was more personal focusing more on her as a character. This melds the plot and story more fully. The only sad part of this mini is if you didn't read McDuffie's tale, the last page probably makes no sense as it doesn't really tie into anything revealed in these pages. It should have been left out, let Vixen have an uncompromised victory.

The painted style here works, giving the book a lush and open feel while letting the power of the artwork stand through.

Some Comic Reviews

Comics

Been a busy couple of weeks including a trip to Gatlinburg, Tennessee. Been some interesting comics, gave a few new ones a try.

Avengers/Invaders #5: A step in the right direction for the art. The cover is gorgeous and dynamic. Finally, the coloring on the interiors has stepped up to the plate, full of subtlety. While there are panels where Bucky and Captain America's blues are still purplish, at least this time out it's clear that those instances are in low lighting. Ross & Krueger's story is a lot more tighter than over in Superpowers, some great moments while Bucky/Cap doesn't pause to muck around with the ramifications of changing time by advising his younger self to not play hero and listen to Captain America in 1945. We also see the missing soldier pulling a scene from Saving Private Ryan and visits the graves of his fallen comrades and wonders about his surviving. We also learn that Dr. Strange has been holding back the ramifications of the Invaders traveling out of the time stream.

Sadly, there's a lot of other problems with the story that don't track. One, if the two teams of the Avengers are after the same thing (getting the Invaders back to the past), why are they fighting? Sure, there's bad blood and all, but it doesn't make any sense. Why launch an attack instead of just calling Stark up, especially since Strange already has a way to send them back. Also, if Strange is holding back the changes of the time if the Invaders don't go back, then how was the soldier able to look his older self up? He didn't die with his comrades because he time travelled.

The story really started going south when it focused on the Human Torch. Read the recap, it says they left the past in 1943. Yet, the Human Torch has memories from 1945! Worse, these memories are to serve as the whole motivation for everything he does and what leads into the next chapter, his comparing how SHIELD uses the LMD's and the Hitlers and the Jews.

Which of course makes no sense. Their very name implies that LMD's are nothing more than fancy CPR dummies crossed with Disney animatronics. AI is not the same as self-awareness. Indeed, if SHIELD could and did create androids with original thought and will, would they be using them as "Decoys" ie targets to fake deaths more often than not? And, the Human Torch of all beings would recognize this difference, that because it appears human does not mean that it is. What Krueger and Ross see and play up that his nature would cause him to see kinship in the LMD's is also what would cause him to see a big difference between himself and what amounts to automated puppets. Of course they confuse the issue further when the LMD's seem to come to life and see him as a leader or sign of the start of their liberation at the end. I don't read a lot of Marvel comics and I maybe missed a bunch over the years that suggested the LMD's had this kind of range of independent thought. Even so, it doesn't track. Until his most recent "death", the Human Torch had been in the present day for quite some time. So, why now for this trigger?

I also don't buy that the LMD's don't have a "specific scent" per Wolverine. Everything has a scent and each would develop its own scent depending on where it has been, who it has had contact with. Just as your car starts off with that general "new car" smell that it eventually loses and is replaced with other smells depending on the individuals that use it, the upkeep and environments it resides in.

B.P.R.D.: The Warning #4: A gorgeous looking book from the moody Mignola cover (isn't that the symbol of Lobster Johnson by the title, what does that signify I wonder) and the Guy Davis art inside. A feeling of the FF's Mole Man crossed with War of the Worlds, I've generally given up on being able to follow the storyline, the logic or reasoning with any of it. As it has tried to go epic in the storyline, it has lost the really creepy and more horrific feel this line used to have.

span style="font-weight: bold;">Flash Gordon #1: I broke down and bought this comic. 'Course I broke down and watched the sci-fi series as well. Sigh. Both fall down in so many ways. Chief among them is this wretched need to re-invent the wheel. The trick is to do the same thing that people writing Sherlock Holmes pastiches have long done, keep what Doyle has written as Canon. Everything else doesn't really matter. You're not going to top what Raymond did. Heck, most cannot even top what the movie serials or even the 80's movie with Queen soundtrack. DC did a mini that managed a decent updating, but it still lacked any kind of staying power because at the end of the day, it's a new character calling himself Flash Gordon, it's not really about the character as invented.

They compound their problems with just bad writing. It starts off well-enough, by cleverly starting with a literal cliff-hanger. But, in addition to being a bit of a dare-devil rock climber we find out he's a carefree history professor at Yale!? Oh, get this, he was also a reckless agent/trainee with the CIA that Dale Arden used to works for. The writer is trying too hard to make Flash a compelling character by turning him into basically 3 different characters! Instead of humanizing him, it just serves to make him unbelievable. It also fails in that since they ARE reinventing the wheel, telling us a story we already basically know, we KNOW that Ming the Merciless is supposed to show up yet the comic never gets that far into the storyline. It's like the rage these days to spend 4 issues to tell an origin story and not have the character appear in costume anywhere in the first issue. Reassess the type of story you're telling here and what you are trying to achieve.

The artwork at first isn't as big a turnoff as you'd expect. It's heavily stylized but it could work to make the characters seem fresh and exciting. However, it sacrifices any kind of honesty in storytelling for all that glitz. Starting off with that cliffhanger scene, the splash page is done well, ably backed up by the colorist. However, on page 3, we discover Flash has somewhere hidden on his skin-tight t-shirt a parachute? Man, even the old movie serials didn't cheat at their cliffhangers that badly. Again, it just gets worse from there. Most artists excel at action or splash pages and suck at quiet moments. Here, we have an artist that is all about character posing and design, thus he fails when he's required to actually illustrate a story, the action scenes are often silhouettes or close ups on the leering faces. Maybe if he had a better story.

Green Arrow and Black Canary #13: As a new writer comes on board with #15, I guess I cannot really blame Winick for spending at least one issue trying to set up the two pet characters, the charming thief Dodger and Mia as Speedy, with a status quo as a happy dating young couple, thus letting the new writer the way he sees the characters. However, it just continues to show just how much Winick has really missed the boat in the last year with this title as the lead characters are barely guest stars in their own title. And, of course, the next issue is about Connor. One gets the feel that Winick wasn't really on board for the marriage of Ollie and Dinah considering how much he has gone out of his way to NOT show them together. Here's hoping that the next writer sends Connor off to a monastery and DC lets Chuck Dixon write a series of minis with his character and Mia and Dodger retire and run off to get married (because a HIV positive superhero is the height of irresponsibility).

Hellboy: The Crooked Man #3: This small mini is what B.P.R.D. has not been, a wonderfully creepy little tale, an old school horror story when horror meant more than strange and graphic ways of dying. I'm not normally a fan of Richard Corben's artwork, but with Hellboy, it works with great effect. While he's the hero of the story, the story is really about the other characters and their plight that brings them to his attention. I love how it touches on the battle over one man's soul who repents from selling it vs those whose sins and crimes were well enough hidden or glossed over to deserve burial in the church graveyard. This is a perfect story to read again over Halloween night.

Justice League of America #25: McDuffie continues to work hard at wrapping up the plotlines left over from his predecessor. He ties up the various threads of the Red Tornado's story and sends him off stage in a way that promises future stories while at the same time absolving McDuffie from having to address the character again. I am tired of Professor Ivo though. Other than his androids killing Vibe and Steel II, he just isn't that definitive of a character, he's a cardboard villain that seems to get more screen time than he ever deserved. Even then, he was played as being somewhat pathetic. Either do a story that really concentrates on his character or kill him off. When it comes to mad scientists, there are so many that are far more interesting, than this one trick pony (and maybe permanently disable Amazo while we're at it).

The Vixen segment is more interesting as her and Animal Man's origins are being re-written and examined. This seems to be a two-fer, both characters have had some strange turns with their powers and this storyline serves to return them both to a more serviceable and logical status quos. We also get some interesting alternate JLA's, which we'll see more of in the next issue.

If anything marred this issue, it's that somehow this comic took a team of artists to finish with changes every so many pages. And this is after Benes makes a conversation between Black Lightning and Hawkgirl take 4 pages with extreme closeups on characters mouths and body parts.


Secret Six #2: Catman and Batman have a heart-to-heart talk while duking it out on the roof-tops of Gotham. Isn't it funny how characters who would normally hardly be in a hero's league seem to get very better at the hand-to-hand stuff when they become a more central character (normal cops and mercs becoming heroes and going after super-villains, villains turning "good" etc)? Then again, Batman was probably hardly really trying to take Catman down this time out, and Catman is only trying to delay Batman while the rest of his team complete their mission at springing the Tarantula from prison. A little more of the mystery of Junior is revealed, the set-up seems to suggest he's an alien and he drafts an army of villains. This seems to be a recurring theme of the Secret Six as well, to find themselves at odds with the whole supervillain community. Yet with all these psychopaths and Deadshot on the Six team, there are always a surprising lack of deaths that you would expect. Wonder how Catman is going to fare against the Cheetah? Like last time, the art is completely perfect and no too darkly colored pages this time out even though certain pages take place under the cover of darkness. The only discordant note this time out is that special effect plaid pattern still evident on the clothes of Junior's henchmen.

Solomon Kane #1: As in the previews, the coloring really falls down on the job on the characters in this, painting everyone in shades of gray and brown, making the characters seem to have skin tones and warmth of dead fish. Otherwise, it's a great start to a story, setting the character and his ability up as well as laying a groundwork of feeling of impending dread and menace. This is no doubt because while the credits list Scott Allie as the writer and Robert E. Howard as the creator of Solomon Kane, this story is actually by Howard and Allie is adapting it. Don't want to dismiss Allie's talent, he may be a fine writer. I've not read anything by him nor the original Howard story for comparison, but fair and accurate credits would be a plus. And what a cool name is "John Silent" though he looks a bit ordinary here.

Superpowers #6: We find out why Bruce Carter's ancestor is a "cursed" ghost. Sort of. Like everything else by Krueger, it's so underwhelming to be pointless and feels forced. If anything it makes Carter seem petty. He was given powers at a time when the country needed them with nary a cost beyond his own choices. Yet somehow, for all the ghost has done, he's resented and painted blackly. We've yet to actually see anything that the ghost did was for malicious or self-serving reasons, that at worst, he's been as much a dupe of whatever the urn was as the Fighting Yank. And, he keeps trying to do the right thing while the American Spirit seems to be the true manipulator, knowing many of the answers but keeps everyone in the dark. I'd say it was a sign of Krueger's great writing skill, but instead it all just seems inconsistant as if each character is in a different story and refusing to adapt to the one they are in.

This colorist seems to have found the purples and magentas that had been switched for blues and reds that were being used for Avengers/Invaders.

We find out that Miss Masque/Masquerade has disguise powers and that they were somehow supposed to be evident earlier.

Think Kruger knows that F-Troop is liable to make people chuckle because of associations to a slapstick comedy series? Kinda takes away any sense of threat and power from the army of Frankenstein monsters.

The plot at least seems to finally being moved forward. We get an origin of the Scarab and plays it off the origins of many superheroes only taking a page from JMS and turns it around to give one that is far more mundane. Dynamic Man reports to a council, possibly the one that was responsible for training Amazing Man and that the Great Question was part of. One of the hooded men may be A-Man himself.

The character sketches in the back, pretty much all characters that have not been in this story at all. Most telling is probably Doc Strange considering the prominence of the other Nedor characters in the story: Fighting Yank, Black Terror, and Pyroman.

Top Ten: Season Two #1: A gorgeous book. Gene Ha has changed art-styles, this one being a more full-colored painted look (for awhile, he was doing some realistic washed out painted work in addition to his more standard comic book work). However, don't know if it takes much longer or if Alan Moore was the one suggesting all of the various easter egg jokes because the suddenly their world looks a whole lot less populated. Even without Moore at the helm of this one though, we still get a book that's a quality piece of work that keeps much of the sensibilities of the what he had set forth. Zander Cannon seems to be able to get at the meat of what makes Moore's stories interesting and why they work and not just the superficialities and excesses that bog so many of the wannabes.

The Twelve #8: As I remarked last time, we get a gorgeous painted cover that is very pulpish or at least evokes 1950's lurid paperback covers. Poor JMS just cannot restrain himself from changing the backstories of the characters, we get a different look at the Black Widow though the most important details are kept. Meanwhile, the Fiery Mask's origin seems to be cast in doubt as well. Whereas he had a pretty interesting origin story and a great unexplored master villain, it looks as if he too is going to have the wonder stripped from his story and we get one more geared to make him tragic and pathetic. The Fiery Mask also gets a power change. While he on occassion exhibited the ability to radiate heat, he had the superstrength and invulnerability needed to commit these crimes which is ignored here. Meanwhile, the Blue Blade does something that isn't geared to make him look merely pathetic though maybe overly enthusiastic, Mastermind Excello posts bail for the Laughing Mask and there seems to be ominous foreboding on the ultimate fate of Rockman. The story finally seems to be progressing towards something. What we don't get to see is how Captain Wonder reacts to the suicide of his sidekick in the last issue or anything with Mr. E. The final page suggests there may even be a turn in the events as to who the suspect behind everything really is as the Blue Blade knows some secrets and takes them to Dynamic Man, something he'd hardly do if what he found out was that Electro was being controlled by him. But, if he found out that Electro was used to set Dynamic Man up for the murders...

Vixen #1: A new mini-series focusing on JLA member and longtime background character of the DCU despite some rather formidible abilities. The cover is gorgeous, full of color and warmth and. And, the interior artwork is lush as well, the coloring carrying a bulk of the weight of providing details and atmosphere while the linework provides mostly just the bare minimum of outlines. Often this doesn't work, but it does here, a perfect blending of talent and skill. The only places it really doesn't work is with Superman. His body and face lack definition as if he's more of an inflated balloon than a person. He doesn't look as if his clothes were painted on as is the case with most superhero art nobut neither does the costume have any realistic touches, wrinkles around the joints and belt and such. There's no substance to him at all. DC's sense of timing strikes again, as this is a Vixen in full control of her powers, kinda robbing the JLA storyline of its power as it broadcasts what happens at least in regards to her and her standing with the League.

Reviews and Happenstance

ABE SAPIEN: THE DROWNING #5 (of 5): This murky tale comes to its conclusion. I still don't know what to think of it, maybe I should read all 5 at one time to immerse myself in the total experience. The art is gorgeous, with Mignola's layouts and pacing, but a very different rendering sensibility. And the color is spot on. Somewhere, it just doesn't quite come together. I can't help but think that it's because Mignola is a better artist than writer. Without him on the art chores and with Abe Sapian as a lead character, what one really gets is, this is no Hellboy. The story and art are too serious for how shallow of a tale it really is. Shallow tales work great with Hellboy because in many ways, he's a shallow character who survives through toughness and sheer audacity. Abe is more sedate, as is the artwork. The story reflects that as well, it doesn't have quite the off-the-wall creativity and imagery of the menaces and ideas that get thrown out there normally. Unfortunately, Mignola doesn't replace what is missing with anything to give the story more depth.

THE ALL NEW ATOM #24: Part of me says the reason why this title suffers and is about to be done away with is its title. Seriously, "All New" should have been dropped after issue 6. After 2 years, it seems like it's still trying to be taken seriously by distancing itself from all other Atom series. Still, it had a good run, beating out all the other launches.

As usual, the cover by Ladronn is gorgeous. Both iconic and indicative of the interiors of story in the book. I've always liked Chronos and his rather goofy costume. For some reason, on a woman, that costume actually looks a bit creepy and dangerous. I liked him better as a thief with a penchant for clocks and time than an actual time-traveler though.

We get a bit more direction as the story rockets to its conclusion. As time travel is involved, there's still some confusion as timelines overlap. Remender tries to keep the craziness up that Gail Simone brought into the series, where almost anything can happen yet keeping it well-grounded in characterizations and nice-guy hero Ryan Choi. The only thing missing is the personal feel that was brought to the story by all the quotes from scientists, famous within and without the DCU.

Pat Oliffe tries his best to ape Gil Kane in places, the microscopic serpents are out of Kane's Sword & Sorcery comic work and I see a sense of his anatomy and musculature in some of the superheroic renderings. And he shows off just how creative he can be when Ryan is brought to Lady Chronos' lair. Almost completely lost are in the background we see the Chronos costume from the wonderful 1998 Chronos series by John Francis Moore and a little robot whose job is to sweep up the broken glass from Ryan's arrival.

Can hardly wait to see how it all ties up next issue.

AVENGERS/INVADERS #2 (of 12): We get more Avengers this time out. We see Stark trying to control a situation that he cannot really. If for no other reason that not just the Invaders came through but also one of the soldiers. There's plenty of action.

Yes, you have to be aware of a lot of what's going on in the Marvel Universe outside of this title to understand quite a bit of the character conflicts and the other characters involved. The Bucky here is in full Brubaker mode as his first response when the Avengers attack is opening fire with a machine gun on them, luckily choosing a target that is bullet-proof. And when he's able to escape, it's because of just how much of an edgy trained commando he is. Hate to tell you Bucky but three out of four Robins would have been able to escape without scarring their arms up.

The coloring or the printing is off this issue, the magenta plate is way too strong. Thus the reds are dark and the blues are more lavender.

FX #4: Another great issue knocked out of the park. It follows the structural format of the previous ones in that the first act is a continuation of the second act from the previous issue. That story wrapped up, it introduces a new menace (as well as Wayne Osborne's homage to the FF). We also get a few other little mysteries hinted at, hopefully leading to more revelations about the origins of FX's powers and such. The comic manages to present what feels like a fully realized superhero universe without bogging us down with all the details. And more importantly, so far without tying all the characters and powers to a single origin source, thus sapping out the sense of wonder important to superhero comics. I only hope this will somehow continue as an ongoing, or at least as a series of mini-series.

JUSTICE LEAGUE of AMERICA #21: OK, this has been out for a little while, but just now getting around to getting it off my chest. Even Dwayne McDuffie, the writer of this series, knows it's been plagued by being nothing more than a tie-in book since he's come on board. Each issue has been to set up themes continued somewhere else. Next issue he promised in a press release is supposed to be tie-in free. Now, how bad does this mean this has actually become for what should be one of DC's flagship titles?

Overall, this isn't a bad issue. We see a super powered crook actually acting somewhat intelligently by using his powers to pull off bank jobs and NOT embroiling himself in some free-for-all with the heroes. Of course this means that he gets targeted by Libra to be part of a new Secret Society of Supervillains. The villain is such a two bit schmuck, it's hard to believe that he's being trotted out as the reason that the skrull formerly known as the Martian Manhunter is being offed, in another book. Pacheco does a wonderful job on the artwork. Probably too much to hope he stays.

What really bugs me though is the opening sequence where Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman have a private secret meeting. You'd think that for such a meeting, just a side-room in the new over-the-top sci-fi Hall of Justice would suffice. Or in the Batcave. Or the Fortress of Solitude. Or in the Invisible Jet while it's on cruise-control. No, this meeting is in some trans-dimensional secret room that John Henry Irons and John Stewart were able to come up with in their down time that would make Reed Richards envious. Then there's this whole "Trinity" matter of this over-long scene. Even Batman seems to recognize that the meeting and scene is all about setting themselves up as being special and elitist. It's not them being special by virtue of who they are and how genuinely good they are, but it's them deciding that they are indeed better than all of the other heroes. Cannot help but think of how the Question viewed a similar situation on the JLU, and there it was just another regular room and it was for the Seven original JLA'ers, not just three. It's dangerous uncomfortable ground, where one has to question the motives of the "heroes"... is it ensure that justice and fairness are done or is it about keeping control now that they are the ones in power? Where's the safeguards to make sure the world doesn't need protection then from what's decided by them in their little safe-room? Who told them they could have that kind of power? These are issues I'd almost expect to be raised in a pseudo-Justice League book, that it's part of the whole point of something like The Authority. But, when you're actually dealing with Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman, this type of self-importance leaves a bad taste.

JUSTICE SOCIETY of AMERICA #16: The story takes a bit of a left turn as the big bad seems to be a genuinely good "Old God" of peace and who couldn't take sides in the war between good and evil. What we're missing from this issue is the actual conflict. There has to be something more here beyond a god who only wants people to be happy and will cure all our ills. Let's face it, if he can come and cure the sick and the broken, why wouldn't we let him? It's not like we're doing such a great job on our own. All we're getting in this issue is the pitch, we've not seen the cost or fine print yet.

Sadly, the story starts off re-iterating James Robinson's take on the golden-age Atom and Ditko's Stalker. It's not depicting the Atom as someone that struggled against adversity and could serve as an inspiration to people, but the Atom as a mindless thug (and the Stalker as a villain). Robinson set the Atom up that way in THE GOLDEN AGE so that he could then rescue the character at the end. But it's also a characterization that he pretty much kept in place in the All-Star mini. Here, the depiction is blunted a little bit by it being mentioned third-hand by Damage who seems a bit resentful to the guy, not really doing either character justice.

I will state it's that tendency of James Robinson that's keeping me from getting his upcoming Justice League series as well as his run on Superman. Apart from the JL series concept being totally re-tread of the Outsiders and Justice League Elite, it's him showing how cool classic characters are by changing them. His take on Kirby's Atlas is much like the Stalker as it is turning the character into a villain. He's great with his own creations, with other characters not so much because his idea of well-rounded characterizations are saddling heroes with great character flaws not small human traits, emotions and individual voice.

JSA CLASSIFIED #38: One Wildcat storyline finished up, another one begins. Like the last one, it's a good story overall, showing the strength of the character. Part of that is it's by veteran Batman writer Mike Barr. The artist this time around is Shawn Martinbrough, an artist I've not seen much of. I remember him also from Batman titles a while back, doing an excellent job. This time around, Wildcat has dropped the wrappings on his arms and looks the better for it.

A few questions pop out. One is plot related. Somehow, Wildcat picks up the hand print needed to get by a secure door. But, we don't see just how managed to lift a whole hand print. Just kinda glosses over that story point.

The other problems are outside the actual story. Does EVERY story about Wildcat have to center around fighting and sports? Sure, he's a boxer and a good fighter. But that'd be like having every Iron Man or Batman story centering around white-collar crime and high finance, all of Dare-Devil's be courtroom dramas, Superman would only fight space aliens, and Wonder Woman would be about Greco-Roman Mythology. It's part of who the character is but it shouldn't be used to limit the stories.

Another question is the nature of his identity, Ted Grant. Does the world know he's Wildcat? Because, Ted Grant, unlike the rest of the JSA-ers, is a celebrity outside of the costume. Possibly even more famous in certain circles if sports fans in the DCU are like the ones in the real world. Yet, no one reacts when they see Grant looking 40 years younger than he should. Another reason not to have stories playing up the fact that he's a known sports figure.

STAR TREK - ASSIGNMENT: EARTH 1&2: If you're paying attention, John Byrne has three comics coming out. This and a mini about Romulans are two of him playing in the world of Star Trek, the original series. This is an interesting series in that it's a spin-off from a specific episode that was supposed to be a pilot for a tv show that never happened. Sadly, I don't even remember much about the episode other than it had Terri Garr in it. So, there's a lot about Gary Seven I really don't know much about and this comic doesn't really help matters much. The comic has the feel of how Doctor Who might have been developed in America and they hired Steve McQueen to play the lead. The time frame is unabashedly the 60's, Byrne goes through quite a bit of effort in keeping the feel of the original series to the designs and such. I wish a little more effort was spent in developing the lead character some instead of keeping him a generic cypher.

The second issue is further maddening as it has a nice little conceit in that it's taking place during a specific episode, the second time the Enterprise came into the past and tells the story from a slightly different point of view (think DS9 doing "The Trouble with Tribbles" episode). However, great pains are taken not to use the likenesses of any of the original cast members, so bad photography tricks are used to cut off heads, catching them from their backs, etc. I assume this is so not to have to pay royalties, but it's so obvious as to what it's avoiding, it keeps the story from actually being a fun romp.

TWILIGHT GUARDIAN #1: An interesting experiment for a superhero comic. It has been unfavorably compared and contrasted to KICK ASS but to do so is to do both series a disservice.
Sure, both are looking at what would it be like if a comic fan really chose to dress up and go out as superheroes. However, this character is about someone who decides to patrol her neighborhood in suburbia, not actually seeking out people to fight. It's an introspective story of someone who has become a bit disassociated with real life and seeking to make her real life more like the fantasy one she reads about. It's Don Quixote without the parody, satire and wit. She patrols her neighborhood, commenting on life in suburbia from the point of view of someone who chooses to be an outside observer of life instead of living it.

The chief reason I picked this title up though was something about it struck me as being familiar. I've read a story extremely similar to this but I'll be danged if I know where. The concept strikes me as being worthy of a mini or even a novel, but I cannot imagine it as an ongoing comic.

THE WAR THAT TIME FORGOT #2 (of 12): Wonderful cover by Bolland. With the last issue cover by Neal Adams, this looks to be at least a beautiful series on the the front end. The Golden Gladiator, Viking Prince and G.I. Robot get added to the cast of time lost soldiers, which should be wonderful stuff. The Gladiator, Prince, an ancient Greek by the name of Cassus and a few others seem to be the other side of this conflict as they follow the orders from a malfunctioning G.I. Robot, mistaking him for some kind of god. Where it slips is the writer plays up his Mary Sue characters, making them look good. Instead of opting to find what made the likes of the Golden Gladiator and Viking Prince heroes, they serve to be more "realistic" by being brutes and ruffians, close minded due to their barbaric time periods and natures. After all it wouldn't have been too hard to have some other Romans and such also involved and contrast the nature of Gladiator and Viking Prince with them. Bruce Jones could stand to revisit the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs and even Robert E. Howard and see how to write characters that can be savage and brutal but still retain that heroic and noble nature. Hopefully, we'll see the classic DC characters take on bigger roles instead of just background guest-stars.

TELLOS COLOSSAL: I missed this mini-series out when it first came out years ago and was very happy to see that Image was collecting it in a single volume. It's a good mini-series and the late Mike Wieringo's artwork is such an obvious joy to behold. Apparently, Mike was still with us when this was going to press. I'm reminded a bit of LEAVE IT TO CHANCE though the two series don't have much in common other than an infectious sense of fun and whimsy while not shying away from touching on real life. What Jeff Smith's MONSTER SOCIETY OF EVIL almost achieved. I hope that writer Todd Dezago is still able to bring more of his and Wieringo's vision to us.

REAL LIFE

I apologize for the random nature of my postings. About 6 months ago, the newspaper I worked for announced layoffs, that it was getting rid of the majority of the people that produce the ads and graphics for the advertising sections in favor of outsourcing said jobs. But, I had the job until the beginning of June and I couldn't really argue with the severance package as I'd been there for over 18 years, the majority of it scanning, toning, and sometimes creating graphics for publication. I trained on Photoshop 2.0 or 2.5.

I think a lot of the thinking going into the layoffs is backwards, that they are looking things primarily from an accountant's point of view. Shortly after I started working at the paper, back when it was family owned, the industry was going through some changes. Many cities also used to have both morning and afternoon papers, at one point these were competing papers, but some of them had merged such as Greensboro News and Greensboro Record, became a single morning paper The Greensboro News & Record. The News & Observer had an afternoon paper by the name of the Raleigh Times, and it was one of the last that I'm aware of before it bit the dust. Now there's a bar and restaurant downtown by that name.

But, a big wave of exciting changes was pretty much begun by the publication of a national newspaper by the name of USA TODAY. Computers were increasingly more powerful and essential to the work. USA TODAY embraced computer technology, state of the art printing, and a pop-culture approach to news with colorful graphics, not just photographs, but graphs, maps, side-bars, etc. Being national, they pushed carrying last of the minute sports scores, photos, stocks, etc. Being national, this affected papers across the country in a way that if it was just The Washington Post wouldn't have. USA TODAY was a direct competitor in ways that television and radio weren't. They were in almost every newspaper market putting together a slicker package than any of the local boys were capable of doing.

Did newspapers retreat into their shells, start laying off people in efforts to cut costs due to lost revenues? No. Because if they had, they'd have lost the long game. That didn't address the core problem. To be competitive in this new market, papers were going to have to spend money.

I was one of the last people trained on the system of producing two daily papers. Half of my training was followed by "this won't matter in 3 months." I was also the last person trained on setting ads on the old machines before the Macs were brought in. Being one of the few people that had worked with Macs, I was also about the quickest to be trained in the new system. I taught myself rudiments of Photoshop and Illustrator (ironically for doing comic-fan stuff) before it became part of my job. Scanners were bought, more and more graphics would be digital as opposed to being "pasted up". We worked at streamlining color processes and receiving satellite photos digitally. The big push was also in deciding about upgrading the press and whether it would involve getting a new building. Millions were spent in new equipment, training, and even bringing in new people. Risks were being taken. Our paper was one of the first to have an online presence and because it was all so new, we had to also be an IP provider to the community. For quite a while, my pastor had a newspaper email address. The son of the publisher was quoted in THE INDEPENDENT when talking about the risks in the new designs and such to the effect, "It's not brain surgery. If something doesn't work, we can change it. No one dies."

A shift slowly happened. Typesetting and pasting up ads and newspages were considered trade jobs. By coincidence, I was the first of many to come later that had a college degree in Journalism, with a background in art, photography and some computer experience. As what was considered pre-press morphed into something different, the new ad-designers would have more formal training in graphic arts and design. More and more of them, this was part of their career choice, not part time jobs or something you could just train on the job.

I talk about that to show the difference in thinking between the newspaper when it was privately owned and now that it's corporately owned. It's not just us, but newspapers across the board. The last time the industry underwent fundamental changes, it was seen as opportunity. To stay competitive, money had to be invested into the people, their tools and their training. Those blue-collar people weren't laid off. Some did leave. Most of them stayed. They learned the new skills and were in place when new people were brought in to plug gaps. One of the reasons of the outsourcing? They figure they can save money in the long run by not having to update computers and software (and people I assume) even though they are spending thousands right now. It was that kind of thinking that lead the newspapers to either go under or spend millions in upgrades and updates when USA TODAY came out. Because most of the equipment hadn't changed at that point in decades, the press alone was close to 40 years old, even though the technology had made huge gains. Comic books were printing using newer technologies than the newspapers were.

Instead, having trained and talented people is considered not an asset but a liability in the new newspaper environment. Don't look to ways to make use of them to make money, but as ballast to toss off. Instead of looking to improve quality and customer service, decisions are made that EVERYONE including the people responsible for making the decisions know are going to result in worse quality, more mistakes, and less customer service to the advertisers. The one person to benefit from this? The guy that is responsible for making many of these decisions just got promoted, he's going to be making more money.

It's hard for me to be too upset. As I said, I'm getting a nice little severance package that allows me some time to decide where to go from here. And there was a 50/50 chance that I'd leave anyway in a year or so as I'm dating someone from another city, a 2 hour drive. So, I've got options. I've been developing some freelance work, ironically supplying realtors with graphics for their big real-estate book that is printed and published by the paper that laid me off.

And, I'll be taking a trip to India starting on Friday, so I'll have minimal computer and comic exposure the next couple of weeks. After that, who knows? I plan on taking some classes to buff up my web-design skills and continuing with my freelance work while I decide what shape the next stage of my life will be.