Comic Reviews

Adventures of Superman #3: Got this as more of a protest buy, to support a more classic take of Superman. The art looked passable, if over the top and definitely over-computer colored. 30, 20 years ago, this story might have been considered pretty good. It's exploring some of the same ground that Alan Moore used to do and Busiek does regularly, but unfortunately it fails miserably at it. The conceit is that it is a look in the day of life of Superman, talking about how other people dream of flying, which of course he doesn't.

One of the problems is that it is setting up a false premise in order to turn it on its ear. In this case, to explore how Superman is not like us, only to make him all that human at the end. Except, the whole set up does too good a job at alienating us from Superman. He's too super, too beyond human concerns for the twist at the end to pay off.

The other is conflicting themes. Again and again, it talks about flying. But, the story is really about how FAST Superman is. He flies to an inhabited world under his own power, he does all these various big epic adventures in under an hour, he can hear super-fast, move so fast to be invisible, etc. If taken place on Earth, it would be a Flash story.

Last, there's just a lot of stupid writing going on. It would be invisible to a kid reading it, but keep in mind this is a "serious" story, it's meant for us to THINK about Superman and what it would be like to be Superman. He can hear things we can, and thus pick and choose what he responds to. He hears a call from an alien Green Lantern and flies across millions of miles in minutes. Then, he doesn't wait for an explanation but just does his own thing. Why she calls him and not a score of Green Lanterns that might be closer? Who knows.

He then stops a war on an alien planet. Here the writer shows Superman acting with complete naivete in his approach to stopping the war. Not to mention that it raises the ugly head if he can do that on an alien planet, why can he not put an end to wars here? Because, the reality is war cannot be stopped or resolved in that simple of a manner. Plus, Superman is lucky in that he can recognize what alien libraries look like, can decipher their language and styles instantly and that this advanced race still uses books with pages!

Then he's basically kidnapped to Apokolips. This section isn't really written badly but it does show shortcomings of the artist. He gets the characters to look more or less on model, but nothing about Apokolips looks Kirby-esque. You'd think most artists would leap at the chance to design a couple of alien worlds and races on their own AND be able to riff on Kirby, but nothing there. Then he gets back to Earth to save some un-named man from being shot and Lois from being blown up (another badly drawn scene as the action of that panel moves from right to left while we read left to right so it takes a second look to actually read the scene correctly).

What's really funny is how this comic could be lampooned. Superman constantly acts, but is too busy to stop and analyze, too busy to talk to anyone. His walking Lois Lane to work takes precedence over actually talking or taking time to think. It results in almost disaster at several points and makes Superman seem more of a Super-prick know-it-all busybody butt-insky. By the time, I was done I had in my head comments being made by all the other characters, of how he actually screwed everything up and made things worse, not better.

A good idea and germ of a story... sloppy execution on every front though.

Astro City So good to have this back as part of my regular reading material. Busiek does a good  job at updating, acknowledging that time has passed for characters, especially after the really long arcs. The first issue is an interesting look at Gaiman/Morrison-esque weirdness and meta-fiction and followed by a two parter looking at the support staff for Honor Guard, who fields the phone calls asking for help. Solid storytelling by Busiek and Brent Anderson, again the weakest part being the coloring, often too dark or working too hard to make faces and things look 3-D or realistic which only competes with line-work.

Buck Rogers Ok, this comic is pretty much complete crap. See, on Free Comic Book Day, they released a free comic featuring a classic Buck Rogers story. While a little primitive in style, that story was amazing complex, creative and dense. I can only assume that it was released to show that it's 180 from the direction they were going. Knowing Chaykin was involved, knew it was going to largely depend on which Chaykin showed up. The Chaykin that likes pulp related stuff or the one that cannot resist in twisting it, making it adult and somewhat sleazy.

While Chaykin at least gives Buck a perm so that he looks differently from American Flagg/Dominic Fortune/Blackhawk/Nick Fury, his Buck is the same prickish thug that he normally writes. Actually, that's not fair. Buck is a fanatical Communist prickish thug who even actually calls someone "comrade". Not making this up.

On the very first page we have swearing. Nothing extreme, very moderate, but to not even get past a first page... Then on the second, we have a nice blood splatter from a breaking nose. A little more swearing and a couple bloody exploding heads later, the writing is pretty much on the wall. I'm not a prude, swearing and blood & gore is fine if you're doing a comic like The Walking Dead. When it's applied to Buck Rogers, it comes across as superficial, trying to be edgy without providing content of substance to justify it. What's funny is that some words are more acceptable than others as when this version of Black Barney swears while using a current day exclamation it gets symbolized: What kind of chicken#%*s outfit is this? Seriously, that's where you draw the line?

The plot is a bit back to basics, but it is not only simplistic, instead of making Buck different from Flash Gordon, it makes him MORE like him by taking his storyline: that the various gangs of people left over from America are too busy fighting each other that they will not unite against their common foe and it's going to take Buck to do so. Now, the original stories you did have the Han taking over America and the people existing in small groups called orgs or gangs. But, the problem was of disparity of technology, strategy and tactics. It was Buck's knowledge and experience as a veteran that made him into a leader able to organize the groups into effective fighting units not the groups fighting amongst themselves.

The comic has the honor of being one of those that I really wish I could return and ask for my money back.

Captain Midnight Another return of a really old character. Fairly solid story dealing with the man suddenly yanked from his past and discovers a complex world. Because of a secret mission he was on and the time travel involved, he's sorta wanted by the Government because of stuff he knows. Of course, he apparently doesn't trust people because of what he knows as well. It's a bit Captain America crossed with Nick Fury and James Bond and an enjoyable comic. The only really stupid part is when some of the agents go rogue, they gain glowing green skulls and no one reacts to this. They are shocked that the men are traitors, but not by the glowing green skull heads?

Five Ghosts The book often feels as if being written backwards, constantly giving information or story developments that should have probably occurred earlier in the book. In this case, we get a major revelation in the last issue just how unsympathetic and criminal of a character that Fabian was before his curse as he's shown to willing betray a partner and shoot him in the back over a treasure. The art and its storytelling continues to be top notch, but as a mini-series it reads like a rough draft. Trying to be clever with its structure and doling out secrets but not really organic or doing so in the best possible way. The announcement at the end promises it to continue from this mini as an ongoing and I really want to like it as it is full of potential. But, the writer needs to actually write, get at the meat of the story and not rely so much on the art.

Half Past Danger Another mini-series with a great high concept: WWII, island of dinosaurs and an Irishman, a super strong Yank, a British woman and a Japanese Ninja go to it and fight the dinosaurs and figure out what the Nazis want with them. Sadly, the writing isn't quite up to par. The first issue alone, we have the Irishman leading a platoon on the island. His squad gets eaten and he comes back but it seems as if he's not believed and so he's drinking himself to death until he meets up with the Yank and Britisher and a bar room brawl begins. It gives us the set-up and the major points of the plot, but what it doesn't tell is the STORY. We don't get to know the individual soldiers, they aren't drawn or written in any distinctive way to tell them apart or to care for them or their relationship with the leader. The author needs to go back and read some of those old war comics by Robert Kanigher and see what he actually did in so few pages. Just because it's a multiple part story doesn't mean that the individual issue shouldn't have its own story to tell, that you should care for the characters beyond laughing at the kewl bits of attitude. And, someone should kick the colorist in the butt and tell him to stop doing color knockouts on a blond person's head but nowhere else. It makes his hair look like it belongs to a different sort of reality than the rest of his head and body and the hair of everybody else.

Overall, it is a fun comic mini in that it's a bit like a roller-coaster ride. But, it reads like it's being written or developed for hopes for a film offer such as a SyFy Channel movie.

Dynamite Comics After watching Masks slowly circle the drain and go down the tubes, really wanted to bail on them, but they followed up with some intriguing comics, doing a bit more right than wrong for a change.

Lords of Mars Tarzan goes to Mars. Ugly cover as it looks like Ross has been taking lessons from Jusko and delivers such muscular men that one can only wonder how they move. Whereas, the insides has a pretty competent and clear artist drawing characters with lean muscular bodies. For comics these days, the heroes almost look emaciated, especially compared to the cover! There's great character moments introducing the main characters and there is some story contained here. It's decompressed, Tarzan doesn't end on Mars by the last panel. However, there is good groundwork and mystery that's established, to let you know that more is going on than readily meets the eye. The decompression is not to stretch out a thin story, but to tell it and fill it. Now, if it can keep that clarity in art and storytelling and not peter out by the end like the Gulliver of Mars and John Carter team-up in Warriors of Mars.

The Owl Yet another old hero that finds himself coping with the present day. Here, they show that they've learned from the Black Terror series in that we see Nick Terry aka The Owl dealing with personal issues. He's trying to get a job and figure out his place in the modern world. He is dealing with real ramifications of having everyone and everything he knows being gone, having moved on without him. There are some hiccups in the writing. Apparently, the writer has never applied for a real job beyond retail as he seems to think that someone would turn in a resume and get an interview if the company wasn't looking to fill a position. Not to mention that getting a job as a policeman is not the same as getting a normal job. As the Owl he seems to have purpose, but when he finds a modern Owl-Girl who is far more violent and keeps the money she takes from the crooks, he has to wonder how much the world has changed and not for the better. It's a bit of a false premise. The 1940s comics and heroes were NOT the sanitized ones from the mid 1950s and 60s. This isn't necessarily something that would be so abhorrent to him, even if he disagreed with it.  And, the redesigned costume and powers/tricks aren't really an improvement.  But, these days I'll settle for a simply average superhero comic where the hero is about being better than the bad guys and wanting to do the right thing.

Shadow - Green Hornet: Dark Knights Ignoring that they met in Masks, this series presents them as meeting again for first time. Written by Michael Uslan, it starts off strong as far as the writing is concerned. He knows the history of the characters and the time period and works a lot of it in without resorting to simply name dropping (and notes in the back explaining some of those bits). You have to deal with the fact that apparently the Shadow's ring is some super-power source/weapon maguffin for the plot. He does an admirable job at presenting the Green Hornet/Britt Reid as being a peer of the Shadow/Lamont Cranston and juggling the similarities and differences of the characters. There's the Shadow suspicious of Kato's loyalties while Shiwan Khan thinks a crook like Green Hornet with an Asian side-kick would make him prone to team up with him (in the 1940s, there were a few issues where the Green Hornet does pretend to team-up with a Japanese spy leading the Black Dragon Society).

The artwork is detailed but often dark, confusing and inconsistent on people and is the weakest part of the book.

Then, there's the implied lesbian relationship between Margo Lane and Lenore Case. Apparently, knowing each other years before when their men leave them to make excuses to each other to cover their secret identities, they decide to talk about the "bad old days" over wine. When we next see Margo, it's when Harry is calling on her at her hotel room and there's some naked buttocks going by in the room behind her. Nice cuckolding the men heroes there that is completely purposeless. And, that sexual fantasy attitude that women are just a bottle of wine from enjoying a lesbian encounter.

Masks and other comics

Masks #1: A solid if unexceptional first issue focusing mostly on the Shadow and the Green Hornet and Kato and laying down the foundation of the threat, of the "Party of Justice" taking over control of the city of New York, its police and courts. Likewise, the painted artwork by Alex Ross is pretty to look at. I personally chose the Francavilla cover. He is one of the stronger artists with a more unique style and approach to layouts and colors and perfectly suited to the pulp and noir storytelling feeling of such a book.

I don't know much about the particular Spider novels that serve as the inspiration and source for the plotline. Kudos to Dynamite to running an ad for places to get more about it. However, I've read several that have a similar set-up and feel.

There are questionable things concerning it, still. The story is to feature the Black Bat and we see him as Tony Quinn his alter-ego here. However, it's from the time before he was blinded and became the Black Bat. He's one of the few pulp heroes whose origin is pretty much given and does not leave much wiggle room to fit in another epic. In his pulp origin, he's a lawyer as seen here, only is blinded by a criminal who smuggled in some acid (the chemical not the drug). An act that will seem familiar to most comic fans as that's the origin for both Two-Face and Dr. Mid-nite. He retires from Law and becomes a recluse. He's visited by the daughter of a slain sheriff and agrees to an eye-transplant with the lawman's eyes. The operation is a success and leaves him with the extra ability to see in the dark, though he still has the acid scars around the eyes. With the sheriff's daughter and two other aides, he decides to let the world to continue think he's blind while he remains retired, acting as a sometimes consultant and the masked and costumed vigilante the Black Bat.

Nor does this crossover actually line up with the portrayals of the Spider in his own comic. Visually, he looks the same, but this is set in the late 1930s and his pulp novel while the main series is full of retcons and set in the present day. Time will tell if his supporting cast will be at least truer to the pulps or to the retcons. The story continues the Bruce Lee influence of Kato, which makes it hard for Green Hornet to seem really a peer of the likes of the Shadow and Spider.

Conversely, the upcoming covers featuring the Black Terror have him in his classic costume and not Alex Ross' redesign. But, Miss Fury is being shown in a re-designed costume.

Storywise, the main thing that doesn't really add up is the discussion between Britt Reid and Lamont Cranston concerning Law and Justice. Thematically, it fits as the Party of Justice is about a group taking over and subverting the law with criminals being enforcers and agents of the new corrupt laws, leading to men of justice becoming outlaws. However, the discussion doesn't really fit. Reid as the Green Hornet is a man who fosters the idea of him as a criminal, to act outside of the Law. If he truly believed in the Law over Justice, he wouldn't be a masked vigilante but fight solely from within the system as a crusading newspaper publisher. It's a scene for the sake of the story and not growing out of the characters.

Otherwise, the writing is solid. It introduces the heroes, a brief hero vs hero fight (though it should be the Shadow vs Green Hornet, Shadow vs Kato is akin to Batman fighting Bucky or Captain America fighting Robin... even the tv show got that right and had Kato fighting Robin), A discussion of the heroes in civilian identities over the problem. We get the introduction or teases of a couple of other characters but otherwise see the criminal group in action, enforcing the new laws. Ends with the heroes fighting overwhelming odds and the addition of another hero to the ranks. The writing is tight. It doesn't try to introduce every character at once. Where it does offer glimpses of future heroes, it's in scenes that also serve in showcasing the corruption of the Party of Justice and building storytelling tension. There's talking, but also plenty of superhero action.

While Ross did the artwork on the first issue, he's not the artist on the subsequent issues and as far as I know the future artist hasn't been announced. The cynic in me is so that retailers and readers will have to commit at least to the first couple of issues. Ross is a good painter. However, he's not a great storyteller. Panel flow is often clunky and he overuses his trick of casting the viewpoint beneath the characters to make them seem larger than life. Combined with tilting the angles of the panels making it seem some heroes are flying and shifting the viewpoints from low to high can cause a bit motion sickness. It feels as he's almost approaching each panel individually without much regard to the storyflow from panel to panel. His Lamont Cranston looks like an old man, and I've never found his women to be all that attractive. So, the scene of the Cranston and Margo in the Cobalt Club doesn't really give a feeling of jazz, glamour, or sophistication.

There are many that don't see a problem with the portrayal of women in comics. One can look no further than this comic to see the gap and issue. This comic will feature heroes from pulps, radio and comics the Shadow, Spider, Green Hornet and Kato, Zorro, Green Lama, Black Bat, the Black Terror and Miss Fury. Among all those men, one woman out of all of comics and pulps from the era though there are several that would fit. Instead of the oddballs such as Zorro and the over-powered Black Terror, women heroes like pulp's Domino Lady and comics Woman in Red, Invisible Scarlet O'Neil or Phantom Lady would  better fit. To add insult to injury, one of the alternate covers of the first issue featuring Miss Fury is her half out of costume as is one of the future alternate titles. There is no similar depiction of any of the male heroes.

There are a few other male pulp heroes I wouldn't mind seeing over the Black Terror and Zorro either: Jim Anthony, Phantom Detective, the Black Hood, Angel Detective, the Park Avenue Hunt Club, Operator 5, the Avenger, Secret Agent "X", the Crimson Clown, the Ghost, the Purple Scar, Skull-killer and the Octopus/Scorpion. Maybe the latter can be the next story. A sequel to the the Octopus and Scorpion pulps, clearing up some of those loose ends and having the two villains teaming up with Wu Fang bringing various pulp heroes together again.

Another big flaw is that at the price of comics today... the first page is wasted to a black title page with credits and acknowledgements. The second page is all black with the publisher information at the bottom... the story doesn't start til page 3!!? Why aren't those two pages just one page? Or better  yet, at the bottom of one of the story pages as most comics do? Sure, that would mean reducing a page of Ross' artwork or putting non-story text on it, but it would free up two more pages for art. At the very least, print some of the alternate covers, original pulp covers or sketches on the pages. Seriously, an all black page at the front of the book? Before I even began the story I had a bad taste in my mouth.

Talon #2: Ok, second issue (or 3rd if you count the zero issue) and there's a guest-artist? Right on the heels of Snyder online praising the work of the artist. I'm out.

Aquaman #14: Like Masks, a set-up issue, following up the the events of the last issue and setting up the next arc. It tells us what happened with Black Manta, though not a single mention of The Others.

This issue has been billed as a good jumping on point, but it's not really. Because, for the most part it is incredibly dull with a lot of talking and Aquaman not doing much. We get some heavy handed dialogue as to why Aquaman is cool and tough, while Black Manta turns down an offer to join the Suicide Squad. Only, there's nothing to tell new readers who or what the Suicide Squad is. There's a tease in dialogue concerning Garth. However, as this is a new reality, how much this Garth will be like the old Garth remains to be seen. A long dialogue between Ocean Master and Aquaman concerning past events. A scene with Vulko as an Atlantean body washes onshore conveniently near where he's been in exile. A bunch of disparate scenes, with little to tie any of them together, especially if you've not been following the title and very little action, but a whole lot of talking. The only scene with oomph is Black Manta asserting his Bad @$$-ery while in prison while talking about Aquaman and turning down the Suicide Squad.

Pete Woods is the guest artist for the title and he does a good job, didin't really miss Ivan Reis. Being aware that it was a guest artist, I looked to see if the odd widescreen panels would occur. The answer to that is "yes" and there was a page with just 4 extreme vertical panels. Woods does a better job at disguising it though, there's not a lot of empty space or odd croppings of figures other than a couple. This leads me to conclude that while Reis is the flashier artist especially when it comes to the figures and faces and with more finer line detail, Woods is actually the better storyteller and better at executing the script. And, that much of the fault of the odd panels and its effects on the storytelling as well as padding out the comic is coming from the writer and not the artists. Will be interesting to see what new artist Paul Pelleitier will be able to do.

Hornets, Spiders, and Vampires, oh my.

Green Hornet Remastered: There are really only two things to recommend for these books. One, the wonderful covers by Joe Rubinstein that capture the Green Hornet in the middle of a dangerous situation. However, the Hornet is rendered with a simple domino mask and not the gangster style mask that covered the lower half of his face that he wears inside the comic. It also shows off just how minor of a character Kato was at the time, barely appearing in the majority of the stories. There's no doubt that the hero and star of the book is the Green Hornet. Otherwise, these stories are painfully dull and the artwork is either heavily damaged during the remastering stage or/and is really on the low end, even for GA standards. And, this is coming from someone that is generally a fan of the comics from this time. Stick to the radio shows and serials to get exciting adventures of the Green Hornet of this time.

Green Hornet: Year One #7: Not sure how long this comic is going to last and continue being called "Year One." The last issue brought together all of the various threads and backstory of how Kato and Britt Reid would find themselves coming together to fight crime as masked men and how it would result in them being thought of as rival mobsters. This issue picks up on that status quo and continues the story, but it no longer has that feeling of an extended origin tale of neophyte characters. The only change in creative staff seems to be the colorist, the new one going for more traditional color palettes. It's still a good comic, full of atmosphere and mood and feels like an honest attempt at being faithful and true to the source material while being readable by modern audiences. It feels authentic and should have DC kicking themselves for not doing something similar with the Crimson Avenger.

Hellboy: The Sleeping and the Dead #1 of 2: Written by Mike Mignola and painted by Scott Hampton, this is a beautiful little comic. Like most of Mignola's writing, it is basic and bare in the plotting and storytelling, going for creepiness, mood and the visceral experience. Hampton's artwork with Dave Stewart's colors elevate it into something that's darkly beautiful and romantic, like an old Southern mansion falling into disrepair.

Justice Society #45 and 46: If there was a book that screamed it was the right time to stop getting regular monthlies, this title is it. When the day comes that the Justice Society is so bad that I want to stop getting it as a mercy killing, then the comic companies really have passed me by. This comic isn't merely bad but just plain stupid.

It was bad enough suffering looking at pictures of the Captain America movie and reading posts by fans about how faithful and accurate it is, but then I open up #45 and see The Flash and Green Lantern on some secret mission, dressed in military versions of their costumes, complete with grenades and various packets and straps. Words fail me in just how wrong minded this is. Then, the whole mission is a black-ops one, sent to destroy a secret weapon which turns out to be a baby. Why would you send two (and only two) JSA members on a mission like this? 

Then, we have the writer telling us that Drachen (the name of the Nazi project) means "Scythe", the name of the super powered terrorist. Of course, Drachen doesn't mean that at all. It means Dragon, kite and even a vixen or harpy.

We're also asked to believe that a politician from the 1950s still holds office some sixty years later. Impossible? No. But, highly improbable and like everything else in the book, it shows the hand of the writer demanding things to be so for the sake of the story he's writing with little logical extrapolation.

We also have over the course of two issues, three instances by different characters using the term "gallows humor". When a unique phrase gets used that often in so little space and by different characters, it sticks out. Again, it shows the writer behind the scenes as it becomes obvious that the dialogue by different characters are coming from one mind.

We get an appearance by Superman and Blue Devil which is fine. But, there are a whole lot of JSA'ers and hanger-ons that would be better served. Then again, interviews have indicated that Blue Devil is going to be a member for some bizarre reason. Because, there aren't enough JSA and Golden-age related characters that could be used or team members we haven't seen.

Obsidian gets all violent and dark. Again.


Dr. Mid-nite finally gets called in for a consultation on Alan Scott's condition. He claims it's taking too much energy to just keep the Starheart in check for him to heal despite his being an energy being he only sustains physical injury because he thinks of himself as human. Thus, if he's conscious and able to think at all, then his body should become normal without actually having to "heal". And, if it takes that level of concentration, then what the heck is he doing fighting crime when a slip in concentration could cost lives or letting loose the Starheart? What happens when he falls asleep? And, where does he get the power then to build himself a godawful new costume AND GROW HAIR as we've seen in previews?

In both issues and one coming up, Dr. Mid-nite is said to have "ultra-SONIC lenses". What the heck are those and what do they do? Make his eyes able to hear? Allows him to SEE sounds that people cannot hear? Apparently this comes from the Matt Wagner mini that introduced the character, as I've never read it.  Just seeing in the dark and outside of the normal vision range just not good enough I guess. It's something best left forgotten unless we are actually going to see him use said "ultrasonic lenses". Otherwise, it just comes off as sounding stupid when thrown out with nothing to back it up or explain it as in these issues.

I'm not a fan of Kolins artwork, generally the opposite. To give credit where it's due, other than the military styled Flash and Green Lantern (and GL's upcoming new "costume"), the artwork has been good and easily the best thing regarding the book. But, I miss the days of the real JSA when it wasn't a team of legacies, but the original heroes.

Project Superpowers: X-mas Carol: This book is merely "meh". It gives us an origin and background of the villain known as the Clown and updates him for the modern age with powers of his own by him taking over the body of a clone of his foe, the hero Magno. It started off strong with a flashback sequence of the Clown before he became the masked villain with his girlfriend, giving him some sympathetic background juxtaposed against scenes with a mother and son Christmas shopping in the modern day as well as the American Spirit propheting that someone was about to make the ultimate sacrifice for their country. But these scenes ultimately go nowhere, serving as little teases to completely different type of tale, one of impending tragedy and sadness. Part of this is because the book is constrained by the fact that it is to follow the construction of Dicken's A Christmas Carol so we have the Clown visited by the ghost of a past associate and then heroic ghosts of the Superpowers line: The Fighting Yank, the Ghost and American Spirit. Each tries to capture the Ghost and relating events from the past, present and a possible future. But, it only has a few pages to devote to each hero. It then ends on ambiguous ground as we are not sure if the Clown has undergone any kind of spiritual transformation in relation to his physical one or not. We aren't sure if we are to take anything from this tale, if there's anything to take. It might be a foreshadowing of upcoming plots, that the Clown may betray the Supremacy and thus avert the disaster that the American Spirit shows him. Or the Clown may bring about that very future.  There's nothing in the ending to really grab hold of, to see a reason as to why to read this story. We understand a little more about the background of the Clown but it's all upset by the non-descript ending, it cannot be applied to the future. It becomes a tale that's unfinished all the way around, imparting little knowledge, truth or emotion.

Spider-Girl #2: Tying the JSA of a book being not merely bad but incredibly dumb. Part of it is the simple fact that it's merely the second issue and yet managed to go so wrong so quickly in so many different directions. Part of last issue's biggest disconnect was the idea that a father would let his teen-age daughter with no powers go out and fight crime. This was a big source of conflict between Mayday and her parents in the DeFalco series, resulting in her just doing it anyway, and she had powers. Arana doesn't have anything other than good training. This is compounded by that Sue Richards, adult and mother, also supports and aids her in these actions. Well, we don't have to worry about that because the writer decided to go for that standard cliche and kill off the girl's father. And, then spend the whole issue of the character dealing with it. I could see this being done somewhere down the road, it's a big cliche but it does up-end the status quo and gives a change-of-pace story. BUT IN THE SECOND ISSUE? And, it's not a villain she can take on, but the Red Hulk. So we have a story where the character is not only sad and depressed for the whole issue but completely ineffectual. Again, this might be fine later, but it hardly makes me want to read more about this character. She comes across useless, her book is depressing, and now two issues in, there's no status quo or regular supporting cast and relationships to draw me back to.

This issue at least shows that the line she swings by is some grappling line although where she keeps it and the mechanisms that control it is a complete mystery. I guess it's in the same place where she manages to find coins to buy newspapers to fling in the Red Hulk's face.

More bad writing: there's zero introduction of just who or what the Red Hulk is. My brother's first question was, "why is the Hulk red?" I could answer a little of it as I keep up with some of the general goings on in the Marvel U, but there is zero in the story to tell us anything about the character, that it's not even the real Hulk just in different Christmas colors. Remember, every issue is someone's first exposure to the characters. Why should I, reading a Spider-man family book, be expected to know what's going on in the Hulk books?

The book tops the JSA with writing characters with the same voice with this bit of dialogue.
Johnny Storm: Did he seem...crazy to you? He's never talked like that before. Let's find him and find out.
Reed Richards: It was...strange. Let's find him and find out."
In the same panel, we have the world's smartest man and leader of the FF simply repeating verbatim what a high school graduate just said, proposing the same action as if it was his idea. My guess for the future death in the FF, Johnny kills Reed for constantly undercutting him like this. Or Reed is already dead and they are hiding it from the world by using a robot.

We are lead to believe her father was this respected journalist and the go-to press-guy for the celebrity heroes the Fantastic Four, yet his funeral is practically empty, the FF don't even show up. His daughter wears plain clothes but not black and her friends wear nice colorful clothes. Instead of a powerful scene, all I can think is "this is supposed to be a funeral?" Bad, bad storytelling.

Thunderstrike #2: At least this title has a teenager acting like a teenager, albeit a surly petulant one, and parents acting and reacting in ways that seem like real human beings and parents would. And, with DeFalco and Frenz at the helm, there's lots of superhero action. If we cannot have the real Spider-Girl or even the real Thunderstrike, this fills the gap nicely.

Victorian Undead: Sherlock Holmes vs. Dracula #3 of 5: The story shifts a bit from how I remember the Dracula story going as Mina has died and one of Lucy's suitors has become a betrayer, thus we are no longer following Stoker's script even discounting Holmes' involvement. It sets things up as the conclusion no longer being pre-ordained. Despite that, it's a fun book, pitting the world's greatest sleuth against one of its biggest villains.

Warlord of Mars #3: A switch-up in artists. The new guy draws Carter as being a little too muscle bound for my taste and doesn't have quite the same texture to his pencils but he does a great job at drawing an alien city. In this day and age, I don't think it's too much to ask that an artist be able to draw faces differently, so that the only way to tell the green-skinned martians apart is whether they have both tusks or not. The series seems intent on having them all drawn as four-armed Hulks as opposed to the more lanky, almost skeletal proportions they are generally shown as. These are small complaints though as overall the book has looked very good and it's going to be hard for anyone to really top what Gil Kane and John Buscema could do with sci-fi/fantasy sword fighters.

Some reviews and the Green Hornet director mouths off

Recently got married, moved to Greensboro and got a laptop computer. Means I have some hard choices ahead of me. Or maybe not so hard after all. My wife's place is smaller than mine (I moved because she has a good, steady job, I'm still looking). There's just no room for 23 or more boxes of comics and looking at things with my mom and my grandmother, I wonder at the need for that many comics, comics I'll never read again. I had posted them for sale at Craigslist at one time but only got a few nibbles and I'll probably post it again. But, as I started going through the comics, I realized that out of all those boxes and thousands of comics, I could probably whittle it down to two boxes. Almost all of the works by George Perez, Walt Simonson, Mignola, and John Byrne have been collected so I don't need all the individual issues of Avengers, Thor, Fantasatic Four, Hellboy, Next Men, etc. All of the JSA and appearances by individual heroes of Earth-2 have been collected, so no real need for all of those All-Stars, JLA-JSA crossovers, etc. I don't even need Ditko's Charlton work as those have likewise been collected. Trades and hardbacks are so much more easily manageable and readable. And, there's a lot of critically acclaimed comics that I just don't re-read though I'm glad I got them at the time: Morrison's Animal Man, Gaiman's Sandman, Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Top Ten. The stuff I'd keep is probably the stuff that is almost worthless to most people but the most fun to me: the various Doc Savage comics (before the current stuff), Gerard Jones' El Diablo and Shadow Strikes. Roy Thomas' All-Star Squadron (not collected). Aparo's Phantom Stranger. My Phantom comics, especially those by Newton and Aparo. At least until a publisher gets around to reprinting them. Giant-Size Superheroes pitting Spider-man against Morbius and the Man-wolf. Tom DeFalco's run on FF, Thor, Thunderstrike, and Spider-Girl. Various comics by Butch Guice, specifically Micronauts and Resurrection Man. My Rom comics. Uncollected works of Gil Kane. But, it's getting so that I don't even expect to see those uncollected forever. After all, we're seeing other publishers publishing reprints of Marvel's past licensed titles.

I don't buy that many more new comics, and I get fewer all the time. I mostly get minis, but those have been souring on me as well as more than half seem to drop the ball in the last issue (see Shadowland: Blood on the Streets for the most recent example or Union Jack, Agents of Atlas, and Sable and Fortune for past ones). Waiting for the trade seems to be the best course on those unless by proven creators and talent. Case in point, I'd really like to get the Dead Avengers mini that is spinning out of Chaos War storyline. It features art by one of the best and under-utilized superhero artists out there, Tom Grummet. But, I've seen how this usually pans out, and with the price, I decided I'd just wait until it gets the inevitable trade. Meanwhile, I am getting DeFalco and Frenz's Thunderstrike.

The prices, decompressed storylines and increasingly unrecognizable characterizations further distance me from the various ongoings. One of the few that I never thought I'd seriously consider dropping was the main JSA book. Putting Scott Kolins on as artist almost did the job, but the recent revelations that Blue Devil and Manhunter were being added to the team hammered that final nail. Manhunter is one of the few characters I cannot divorce from the ego of the creator, whose approach to writing is so diametrically opposite my own philosophies, I am not able to buy a book with her in it (Bucky-Cap is another). I find, if I can drop the JSA book, it's easy to say adios to the rest. I'll stick with odd minis here and there, but the desire to actually "collecting" monthly comics is gone.

Another factor, although small one is the move divorces me from the shop I've long done business with. There's a good store in town, maybe even better in terms of layout and availability of material. And they seem excited about comics, enjoy them to no end. Which is good, but it's an excitement on the stuff and creators I find dreary while likewise they will disparage creators I like, often with ill-founded rumors. Not to me, mind you. They don't know me well enough to make that realization. Just stuff I overhear while they are talking with other customers. They carry tons of classic stuff that you don't normally see, but an actual love over the vast history of comics doesn't come through. I will probably go there for my off and on fixes of the most recent issue of this or that comic, but I'll just make monthly trips to Raleigh for my pulp stuff.

Green Hornet Movie: Read this at the comicbookresources site and just couldn't let it pass without commenting. Apparently, Green Hornet director Michel Gondry complained about comic fans walking out on a viewing at Comi-con, saying, "These ones just reinforce the social rules. Their values are fascistic. All those people marching around in capes and masks and boots. The superhero imagery is totally fascist! When you step into this genre, they feel it belongs to them. They want you to conform, or they won't like you. They want the conventional." He also says the film plays fine for "normal people." Ok. So, comic and super-hero fans equal "Fascist" and low-brow humor, bad-acting and Seth Rogen fans equal "Normal". There are just so many things wrong with his statements. Like many of the modern comic writers, he is basically screaming his disdain for the very characters and concepts he has chosen to work with and the fans of those characters. And, he expects people to like it. Oh, wait, he expects they won't because they aren't "normal". So, anyone that doesn't like it is apparently not normal either. I guess that's one way to shield yourself from any honest criticism or self-evaluation.

Notice all of the inherent contradictions in his statements. On one hand he calls them "fascist", then they dress up in costumes, capes and boots, but somehow reinforce social rules and want conventional, none of which go hand in hand with wearing costumes. Yet because of wanting "social rules" and "conventional" they are not normal (which would be about two of the most basic qualities I'd expect from someone that was "normal").

Yet, it also betrays a very fundamental misunderstanding of superheroes in general, their tradition and history and that of the Green Hornet specifically. It shows us a man that chose to make a film without the least bit understanding the source material beyond looking at the 1960s television show and probably reading Watchmen. How else do you make a blanket statement that all superheroes are fascist? Are cops and soldiers by their nature, also fascist? Private detective fiction? Modern comics have gotten away from their roots a bit, to be sure, but superheroes were originally voices against corruption, complacity, the feeling of powerlessness against the larger injustices of the world. Especially those that came along in the 1930s and 40s, growing out of the pulp movement. They were to serve as voices for justice when the law wasn't enough or when the law was part of the problem due to unfair laws, discrimination, laziness, graft and bribes. They were avatars for the normal people, acting in ways we couldn't.

By his nature, the Green Hornet has in his concept to be every inch a success the way that Nolan's Batman movies are. But, it takes a director that understands a bit more of the concepts of the character, that doesn't attack the characters and fans basic integrities by making fun of them and calling them names.

Reviews: Ironically, the week I decide to cut back on comics turned out to be a "heavy" comic week for me. Although, at one time the money I spent and the amount of comics I got would be a normal or light week.

Archie and Friends #150: Not a title I normally get. But, how could I resist a title that features various and extremely minor MLJ characters such as Kardak the Mystic, Fu Chang, Sam Hill, Inspector Bently, the Midshipman Lee Sampson, and Sgt. Boyle as well as appearances by L'il Jinx, Danny in Wonderland, Suzie, Catfish Joe and probably others I don't recognize? Answer, I couldn't. Not normally my cup of tea, but it's great to see them. Maybe with the failure of the Red Circle line at DC, maybe Archie is looking at the reception of the characters presented in a non-reimagined albeit more cartoony form?

Avengers Academy #7: I got this solely for Hank Pym going back to being Giant-Man. He's had a history of costume and name changes and some of those costumes were badly designed, but his turn of being the Wasp was one of the more ludicrous in a history of bad decisions and bad designs. McKone's redesign manages to echo the classic and iconic with a few modern touches (don't really care for the pin-stripe lines as they don't really seem to add anything to the design other than a desperate attempt to make it not look dated). And, the concept and idea behind AA struck me as the most interesting of the various Avenger relaunches, but I just couldn't accept the Hank-as-Wasp idea.

I wish the writing lived up to the fun aspect of the cover or even the idea of Giant Man throwing down with the Absorbing Man. Like all stories featuring Hank Pym, it just cannot let go of the past and all the bad decisions regarding the character. I haven't read an Iron Man comic in years, but surely not every single writer fashions every important story around him focusing on his arm-dealer days, alcoholism, betrayal of friends in Armor Wars and the Crossing. But, that's what we get here. Instead of actually seeing how powerful a character he is, the writer first has to bog him down by rehashing his "relationships" with Tigra and Jocasta, his history of mental issues, his tumultuous relationship with Janet Van Dyne, psycho-babble of rationales for taking on various identities, etc. Given a few extra pages, I'm sure we'd have seen scenes showing the infamous slap, betrayal of the Avengers, and creating Ultron. By the time we get to the actual fight scene, the writer has done a thorough job of making me not liking the character, I don't really care that he wins the day. He's still a putz.

And, his manner of winning... I am all for characters using their powers in new and interesting ways. But, here we have Pym using his powers in ways that defy logic and any sense of his use of them in the past. One of the traditional differences between Marvel and DC was the scope of the powers. The Flash can run faster than the speed of light, vibrate through solid matter, and use his speed to travel other dimensions including time. Quicksilver doesn't even routinely break the sound barrier. Superman has a host of powers, Thor is strong and has a hammer. Almost every scientist in the DCU is as smart as Reed Richards. Plastic Man can make himself into any shape, Reed Richards merely stretches. Thus, you have the Atom who regularly visits sub-atomic worlds whereas Pym rarely gets smaller than, well, an ant. Likewise, his giant-size growing has always been shown to be as routinely "realistic" in scale.  Lately, he's been depicted as tall as buildings, and as such I have a hard time accepting seeing him going through the city without doing extensive property damage or stepping on someone in a densely populated city like New York. We see that several times in this fight. It's not two men twenty feet tall duking it out, which would be impressive enough with the right artist, but hundreds feet tall or more while leaning on suspension bridges for support. It's stupid. If the battle was at that scale, I'd expect to see dialogue and scenes of the hero trying to control the battle. Then to add insult to injury, Pym gives a speech about their being a limit to the physical growth of a human body, which is in reality much less than what's shown here. Don't bring in an actual physics statement while violating it. But, the statement is to show something never shown before as being part of his power and ability, that at some point, you leave physical reality to one of abstract and conceptual. He can grow so large, that he is able to be in the realm of Order and Chaos, Eternity, the Living Tribunal. How large is that, though? He doesn't just magically immediately go from 6 ft to 12 ft or 100 ft. He grows and  shrinks.  This means to get to 12 feet, he must go through 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11 feet tall. How tall would he have to grow to actually change his reality? Two-hundred feet? Five hundred? A mile? Imagine what kind of damage that two such growing bodies would do before they make the transition. It's one of those kewl ideas, but is not thought out and is too extreme of a device to be used so casually and easily.

I went into this comic, preparing to like it. Wanting to like it, especially with how many comics I'm not getting these days, I wouldn't mind having one ongoing title to get from Marvel. But, they blew it.

Captain America: Patriot: There's not much to add to this that I've not said about the previous issues. It ends on a happier note than I would have expected and with un-resolved subplot elements such as what happened with Mary Morgan and was she a spy. Done several years ago, I think this book would have been an excellent read and as such, it might stand the test of time. However, in the context of today's comics that are so bent on giving heroes feet of clay, "realistic" costumes and so on, this book doesn't really stand out. Jeff Mace is portrayed as being dull and luke-warm, second rate in his own title. He's likable but in a girl/boy-next-door way when you really want the bad boy or head cheerleader. The scenes where he exerts his personality and shows backbone are too few and far between.

John Byrne's Next Men #3/1: After a long hiatus, an oft requested title is back after ending its last chapter on a cliffhanger. It doesn't matter if the reader has read the original books or not as Byrne incorporates a summation of the previous plotlines in such a way that it's part of the story. All that has gone before is called in to question as Jasmine/Bounce seems to "bounce" between realities and timelines. How much is her dream and how much is time and reality being flux is left open to question by the issue's end. At its heart, the story has always been a time-travel story, something Byrne has professed to loving to do and many of his best works have been time-travel stories: Days of Future Past, OMAC. The fast-paced transitions serve to leave the reader and Jasmine unsettled as to what is really happening and what really happened and that's a good thing. By the end, both new readers and returning ones are pretty much on the same page as to having insight into the real reality. Of course in the last series, often what I thought was going on was not really what was happening. Making this a good series for those people who actually enjoy television shows like Heroes, Lost, No Ordinary Family. Here is the same thing without actually dragging stuff out.

This is the best artwork that Byrne has ever produced, with the possible exception being the aforementioned OMAC mini-series. It incorporates the best elements from the different periods of his career and make them all work seamlessly together. The only disconnect for me is that somewhere along the way, he picked up a cartooning style of portraying mouth expressions at times. It shows up here where Danny is complaining about his back, while it would work in something like a humor strip, it seems out of place in the relative realism that this strives for. But old Jack's beard on the final pages more than makes up for that, it has feathering and texture and no hard boundaries or outlines. Wonderful stuff.

The colors by Ronda Pattison are wonderfully subdued, often providing just the right amount of shading without looking like it's trying to do the penciler's job for him in providing detail.

Sea Ghost: I recently had the fortune of winning this comic from comicbookcatacombs. I like aquatic heroes in general, and this one has a wonderful old school design behind him. The cover is a neat nod to Bronze-Age Marvel books and the art on both it and the alternate back cover is nicely done. The interior story, style and characterizations have a retro Filmation style to them, deliberately so. Unfortunately, I'm not really drawn to comics drawn in animation style. Partly because it's really a faux or pastiche style. Animation has specific concerns and limitations it has to deal with that have nothing to do with comic books. Adapting that style for a print medium is a deliberate limiting style and usually used to communicate things that weren't really part of the intended message of the animation itself. Such as, when animation style is used in comics, it communicates that it will probably be toned and dumbed down in order to be suitable for kids. The Incredibles movie was suitable for all ages, many adults enjoyed it as much or more than kids. You do a comic drawn that way and it's suddenly aimed solely at 8 year olds.

Yet that style is compromised by the heavy use of computer to color and illustrate it, making it look more like a daily web-comic. So, the end result is feeling like reading a collection of strips of a web-comic that was heavily influenced by Alex Toth's work in animation. Not necessarily a bad thing, but not really what I was expecting when looking at the covers and it struggles in some places trying to mix it all into one style. And, the covers and some background scenes show that the artist really does have a wonderful line along the lines of Guy Davis as well as a strong design and layout skills so some panels are really beautiful where it all works. Give me Sea Ghost in a book with a more conventional style (though can still be influenced by the designs of Toth, just try not to actually ape it) and I think you'd have a winner.

Shadowland: Blood on the Streets: If I had known the mini was going to end the way it did,  I wouldn't have bothered. I wasn't getting the main mini-series, because by all accounts reading it was not required to enjoy the related minis and in this it was true. I was drawn by the inclusion of the Shroud, a long time favorite and the Paladdin who I do find interesting on occasion. Misty Knight and Silver Sable, don't really care one way or the other.

Sadly, most of it really seemed to be from Misty's point of view as the various heroes get drawn into investigating murders by the Hand, controlled by Daredevil. I liked the idea. I liked the idea of a good pulp story mixed in with heroes actually trying to solve a crime and the prospect of heroes fighting ninjas.

As it progressed, it seemed someone was setting the Hand up, using them as a scapegoat. Fine. Maybe not the Hand but some other hidden mastermind using ninjas, or at least well-trained killers, as henchmen. Only that's not where it went. Instead, it went for the cliche, a group of disgruntled cops turning vigilante to kill perps who got off using Daredevil and the Hand as cover. Completely anti-climactic considering the likes of the Shroud, Palladin, Misty Knight AND Silver Sable working on the case. Very little for them to really do and certainly no real physical action or viable threat level from the bad guys to the point that it takes the Hand trying to exact their revenge on the rogue cops that give them a reason for really being there.

It furthers the crime by making the head bad cop be Lt. Scarfe, longtime good cop and supporting cast member of Iron Fist. Another story that chooses to make the bad guy be a formerly good guy just out of the blue with no real supporting rationale. It works for the story being told barely, if he was a character never seen before. That would make the story merely mediocre with nothing to recommend it as it covers ground that other works have done better. But, to take a long-standing if minor character and turn him into the villain screams desperation of trying to make an otherwise dull story be shocking and have real ramifications. The character and the readers deserve better than that. There should be a real story behind it beyond just tired of seeing bad guys getting away.

Spider-Girl: I wouldn't have normally picked this up. It happened to be in my bag since I was signed up for the old series with a different character by the same name. And, I shouldn't like it for many reasons. I was a fan of the other series and hate to see it cancelled just so another character can use the name; while the art was clear, the coloring tried to give everything a sorta faux 3-D pixar feel to it, a popular coloring style these days but not my cup of tea as it just looks false and cold to me; several scenes and just the basic concept that just threw me out of the story; and her and her father's motivation is never explained. Yet, I found myself enjoying it despite that. It had a charm to it that is often lacking in Marvel's comics today outside of something with Squirrel Girl.

I doubt it's enough to make me pick it up on a regular basis. There were too many things just glossed over or ignored. It was one thing with May fighting crime, she had superpowers. But, here we have a teen-aged girl fighting crime but with no motivation beyond being a bit of a superhero groupie. She is supposed to have been trained by the best, but that's not really shown or explained. After all, she also once had powers. How much training since then has she had that really prepares her to take down grown men or mediocre supervillains that cops couldn't handle? It's a fine line between suspension of disbelief of having a teen-aged girl manage to outfight and outwit some minor supervillain and the cops commenting on how they had been unable to do so, you either build her up to be exceptional or make the cops seem completely inept. Sadly, the lame villain made the scene veer to the latter. How does she swing through the city, starting from a sidewalk? Did she somehow snag a nearby helicopter? And, is that Spider-man's webbing she's using, otherwise, where is all that line coming from and how is she shooting it? And, even if she's a capable fighter, what kind of father actually would allow his teen-age daughter fight criminals? It's a tired cliche  of irresponsibility when there's an adult hero at least supervising it, how irresponsible is it to just allow her to do it unsupervised?

While not enough for me to warrant to continually get it, I do hope it's successful. I think a book of it's type is needed in the marketplace and fills an underserved niche. However, it's the same niche that the other Spider-Girl filled and she struggled to find a readership and marketplace. Maybe they are hoping with this one tied to the mainstream continuity, it can get needed boosts by crossovers with the Spider-man books and other titles which the other book could not do. Although in my case it was part of what made it attractive, I didn't have to worry about the book getting highjacked by outside storylines.

Thunderstrike #1: Meanwhile DeFalco and Frenz return with another hero. I enjoyed Eric Masterton's turn as Thor and later Thunderstrike. There was a bit of the well-meaning nice every-man about him, struggling to balance job, family and a sideline business as a superhero. In many ways, he was of the same stripe as Peter Parker. He was a nice guy with a big sense of responsibility, struggling to find his way in an increasingly bizarre world without an operator's manual. And, ultimately it killed him. Ads from Marvel suggested that Eric was coming back, but the art and previews pretty much hinted that it's someone else that has inherited his powers and looks. It's no big surprise as it turns out to be his son Kevin who has struggles of his own. He's a teenager and he's never really come to terms with his dad's death. He resents his dad and almost all adults and their involvement in trying to tell him what the right things to do are, he's seen what doing the right thing gets you. He's a supervillain in the making. But, he's a teenager. That means he's full of contradictions and how he deliberately acts and how he instinctively acts are not always the same thing. It's a great beginning, to see how he grows and which paths he ultimately chooses to follow. And, being a DeFalco book, it means there's plenty of action, before the first issue is done, we see the new hero-to-be and a slam-bang fight with the Rhino. More first issues should be like this: introduction of principal characters, external and internal conflicts, angst, and plenty of action of superheroes fighting supervillains.

Time Masters #5: This mini is nearing its end and about the only thing that would make me get the final issue is I got the other four. It might just be easier to list where the comic goes wrong.

1. The cover shows us the climactic reveal from the END of the book. The final scene is played out as the heroes are being attacked by someone moving too fast to be seen. But, thanks to the cover, we already know who it is. Otherwise, has nothing else to do with the rest of the story.
2. After several issues with Claw and non-Titan Starfire, they are returned home without doing much of anything storywise other than to gripe and complain.
3. Likewise, their villains are taken care of in such a casual manner it makes you wonder what the whole point of it was other than to give the heroes something to do other than looking for Bruce Wayne while giving time to relate the story of the Black Beetle's plot to catch up.
4. What happened to Per Degaton, Despero and the Ultra-Humanite? After being in the book from the beginning, they went from interesting classic time-traveling masterminds to mere henchmen and are now gone, disappearing in between issues.
5. Lastly, the art continues to look as if it's drawn with eyes for the sale on the original art market as Green Lantern continues to face the reader while reacting to things and making constructs behind him or the whole group holds a conversation facing the reader instead of each other. Bad storytelling.

Victorian Undead: Sherlock Holmes vs Dracula: I bypassed the Sherlock Holmes vs Zombies book, but Holmes is a character I love and with the increasing dearth of comics, a mini I thought I could live with. And, I've read several Sherlock Holmes and Dracula books in the past, so a comic is also going to appeal.

What's great about this mini is it doesn't try to be a pastiche. The art doesn't try to be Victorian illustration and the storytelling doesn't try to do it through Watson's eyes. It is using Holmes, Watson and Dracula as characters and being true to their characters without actually pretending to be done by Doyle or Stoker. Watson is drawn as the cliche'd older man while Holmes looks decades younger and a bit more good looking than he should but otherwise it all looks good. The covers to the first two issues have a great sense of design and color that really stand out, almost like vintage movie posters.

Likewise, the writing provides plenty of space for art and action to move the story, recognizing that it's a modern day comicbook with all the strengths and weaknesses of that vs prose (especially Victorian prose). It tells the story in according to the strengths of its media without seeming anachronistic or out of place. It's been years since I read Dracula, but so far the story seems to follow along the lines of Loren Estleman's Holmes-Dracula book, keeping to the story that Stoker told but telling the previously unrevealed roles that Holmes and Watson played from their point of view, changing very little of the original narrative.

The last mini had zombies and revenants, this has Dracula and vampires, will the next be mummies?

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.

JSA: Unstick in time?

I'm a stickler for context. When dealing with established characters and stories, I'm all about context. It's the context that makes them matter. It's why I don't like it when DC or Marvel touts the latest character revival or ongoing and then pull a bait and switch, either by creating a totally new character making use of the name or powers and treating them as if they are the same or just radically altering the originals past the point of recognizability. It's a big reason why I don't like DC's take on the pulp heroes or the Red Circle heroes after all their talk about bringing them into continuity. So, it may come as a bit of surprise and seem hypocritical that I propose the following: take the JSA out of WWII. Or, rather, take WWII out of the JSA.

This would solve so many problems that are inherent with the JSA and modern continuity. Plus, it's not as hypocritical as it seems. In the 1940s, the owners of National and All-American didn't think the readers wanted to read about the War, so for the most part the stories didn't center or involve the War. Incidentally, this tactic is about the exact opposite taken at every other comic company at the time. What this means is that unlike Captain America and the Shield, the War plays little part in the original history of the JSA. In fact, it doesn't really play a major part in their history until Roy Thomas' excellent All-Star Squadron.

Where the context of the JSA matters is that they are the older heroes compared to the JLA. They don't need WWII for that. If the current heroic age is about ten years long, then the JSA should be permanently be around 15 - 20 years before that, about the same relationship they shared when the JLA and JSA first met. Just as the main DCU is in an eternal now, the JSA's prime should then be in an eternal now minus a decade or two. Since the original JSA stories didn't center around WWII, this means that very little apart from Roy Thomas' All-Star Squadron books need to be thrown out. They still fought their big villains Brainwave, Icicle, Vandal Savage, Per Degaton, Solomon Grundy, Psycho Pirate, etc. It solves a host of other problems.

• Wildcat's secret identity is that of a celebrity and most of his solo stories center around that but don't address why no one is surprised that he looks half his age. Now, as Ted Grant, he'd be expecting to look middle-aged.
• Likewise, the JSA's spouses now don't need to look several decades older than their husbands.
  
• Infiniti Inc. As the eternal now progresses, the Infinitors stay the relatively same age as the original Teen Titans meaning that the JSA had to have children later and later in life. This allows them to have had their children in their mid- to late-thirties as opposed to well into their senior citizen years.
  
• Wonder Woman can be made into a member of the JSA again. She served with them, possibly Steve Trevor died. Regardless, she retires to Paradise Island and raises/trains Donna Troy and Fury. Returns to help the JLA no older than before.
• A little time manipulation/time travel and we only have to have ONE Black Canary again.
  
• Don't need as many "legacy" heroes as the originals are hardly senior citizens. Johnny Thunder, Dr. Mid-nite, Dr. Fate, Sandman, Starman and the Atom can return to active duty without a problem (after un-killing them)
  
• Green Arrow & Speedy served with the Seven Soldiers... wait, what does that have to do with the JSA? Well, along with the JSA, I'd unhook the Seven Soldiers of Victory (and almost every character that made up the GA DC) as well. They'd still get thrown through time and rescued by the JLA & JSA. But, by making Green Arrow being only from a few years and not several decades earlier, it doesn't make him quite the man out of time with a complicated back-story while the rescue sets him up as still being the same age as the JLA and leaves the JSA as the team with the most experience.
  

So, what about WWII? What about heroes that were definitely tied to that era such as the Blackhawks, Steel, Spy Smasher and Minute Man? Remember Earth X and the Freedom Fighters? Originally, it was a place for the Quality heroes but with the added quirk that Hitler more or less won, WWII was never really over until after the help of the JLA and JSA. Instead of another Earth, they become THE heroes of WWII alongside the non-Marvel family Fawcett characters and WWII retcon heroes like Steel and Judomaster. If a story involves traveling to the time period or referencing it, they are the heroes of the time. The idea would also involve for the most part leaving them there. No referencing their final battles, seeing them as 90 year olds in the present or a host of legacy characters. Modern age appearances would be due to the nature of the characters themselves lend them to such for example Uncle Sam.

In the end, I think this one retcon would allow the undoing and uncomplicating a host of other retcons from over the years. It would allow the original JSA be the JSA again as you don't need countless explanations and legacy heroes to make up the team (though it does mean undoing some senseless deaths along the way). And, they'd still serve as the previous generation's team of heroes and inspiration to the modern heroes which is the important context they provide.

Green Hornet Year One #2: This continues the separate paths that opened the eyes of Kato and Britt Reid to the injustices of the world while also depicting the events that lead them to have the persona of Green Hornet be of a rival gangster. There's a lot of wonderful layering of the story as we see the idealism of justice of young Britt being challenged by the face of real violence and brutality just as Kato sees the difference between the honor of the ideals of martial skills and the way of the samurai against the backdrop of the horrors and modern warfare. There's real meat to this story, providing in depth characterization and motivations of all of the characters.

Doc Savage #1: The Doc story wasn't all bad. Most of the bad notes were dictated by the First Wave "bible" ie Renny being the ugly one, the total mix-match of science and technology (Monk is talking about quantum physics, but Doc flies a blimp from Africa?). None of the aides look quite right, Ham looks too vintage in manner of dress as opposed to best dressed, Long Tom has brown hair and looks fairly normal, and the torn shirt seems to be treated as Doc's uniform as he never bothers to change to a fresh shirt. The plot and storytelling seem fairly solid though, a very pulpish threat and beginning and introduces the individual characters quite well. If DC had lead with this instead of a mini-series whose second issue hasn't come out yet. How is a mini-series late by issue 2? Throw out everything dictated by the First Wave bible, and you'd have a solid Doc Savage adventure story that doesn't really contradict much of the Doc canon.

The Avenger was worse than I even thought it would be based on reading prior reviews. Other than the character names, the story and art completely miss the boat on the character. It has less in common with the source material than the FF and X-Men movies did with the comics. Honestly, it takes deliberate work to depart that far from the source material without just creating a whole new character by the same name. It left such a sour taste in my mouth, that when The Spirit relaunch from the First Wave imprint showed up in my bag, I returned it and told the store owner no more First Wave books. Instead of being a built in buyer, they made me decide to actively avoid the whole line.

Leonard McCoy: Frontier Doctor #1: John Byrne's work on the Star Trek and Angel related projects play to his strengths as a storyteller. His best stories tended to be the more science fiction and horror ones, even when doing superheroes such as the Fantastic Four and Alpha Flight. His art has changed, grown far more organic in its depictions. He has a wider range of body types and faces, but his figure work has also become a bit looser and less iconic looking. With his books for Angel, he explores the genre of horror that did so well with the overlooked Blood of the Demon. With the first issue of "Frontier Doctor" we get those exploration sci-fi stories that he did with the FF so well. The first issue is a stand-alone that takes place some time in between the original series and the first motion picture. It's a slightly older McCoy (and Kirk) doing medical work in the vast reaches of space. The story has a feel of one that could easily take place in the original series, provided they had the budget and ability to do the fx. The only discordant note of the whole thing is when the nature of using computer technologies to produce the inks and colors shows its hand ie, you see the computer enhanced backdrops in some scenes that throws you out of the narrative due to their obviousness.

Other natter:
Probably the funniest thing coming out of the new Rawhide Kid mini is that in an interview, Zimmerman references Blaze of Glory and then talks about how the new mini is an homage to The Magnificent Seven indicating he doesn't realize that whole point of Blaze of Glory was to rip off that classic Western. Can count on Zimmerman trying to write Rawhide Kid as being more stereotypical gay than Jack of Will & Grace not being nearly as humorous.