Fluit Notes

Trade Paperback Observations: Shaman Warrior

Shaman Warrior

by Park Joong-Ki

 

I have a mild interest in manga.  I’ll read it from time and time, and not just “Lone Wolf and Cub” though that’s the only series that I’ve followed extensively.  But I’m not devoted to it.  I don’t find it to be some panacea for the deficits of North American comics.  Sure, there’s a wide range of genres.  But that’s true as well of North American comics for those who are willing to look.  There’s also a range of quality: there’s good manga and great manga; there’s bad manga and awful manga. 

 

Shaman Warrior doesn’t fit any of those categories.  First of all, it’s technically not even manga.  Its official term is ‘manwha’ because it comes from Korea instead of Japan (though the difference in sensibilities is about as minimal as the difference between American and Canadian comics).  Secondly, it’s neither awful nor great.  It’s mediocre.  It’s got the potential to be really good.  But it doesn’t quite get there. 

 

Honestly, I’d love to have been the editor on this book.  I realize that sounds a little egotistical, claiming that I know what’s better for Shaman Warrior than its creator and its original editor.  Yet I couldn’t help thinking, “I wish this book had done this differently or this instead; it would have been so much more interesting.” 

 

The first problem is the pace.  Shaman Warrior is supposed to be an action book (as if you couldn’t tell by the title) yet it moves at a glacial speed, especially in the action scenes.  Comic book fans complained about the decompressed story-telling of U.S. comics but Shaman Warrior puts most of those to shame.  It took ten pages just to set up the opening scene: shaman and bodyguard walk into dusty outpost, give money to beggar, sit down in bar, overhear local ruffians picking on somebody weaker than them, verbal confrontation between bodyguard and local ruffian, local ruffian taunts shaman, then bodyguard starts the initial action sequence.  That’s right, it took ten pages to set up a bar fight. 

 

Unfortunately, the fight scene itself moves even slower.  The whole fight lasts 80 pages.  Literally.  It doesn’t all take place in the bar.  The shaman’s bodyguard beats up the local ruffian.  Then they’re ambushed outside by a whole bunch of local ruffians.  Then, the leader of the local ruffians jumps in.  In a way, it’s more like two fight scenes back to back, one with the gang of ruffians and a second with the leader.  Yet it’s still 80 pages from the first punch to the quiet aftermath.

 

The second problem is that we have no vested interest in the characters who are a part of the fight.  Sure, there are great panels of muscles flexing and swords flashing.  But why should we care about who wins and who loses when the only thing the hero has done is give a couple of coins to a local beggar and the only thing the villain has done is be aggressively rude to his waiter?  There’s a conflict there, but not one to sustain our interest for 80 pages.  A fight needs to be about something.  That’s why Kazuo Koike and Gojima save their big 100 page fight scenes in Lone Wolf and Cub until we’re 20 volunes in and already emotionally vested in the characters.  That’s why Peter Jackson shows the women and children cowering behind the battle lines in The Lord of the Rings and has characters make comments like “I’m fighting for the Shire.”  There’s a reason for the character to fight and there’s a reason for us to care who wins. 

 

Park Joong-Ki doesn’t give us a reason to care until after the fight is over.  That’s when he gives us a flashback showing us the relationship between the shaman and the warrior.  That’s when we see the shaman receive orders from the general.  That’s when the shaman makes the bodyguard promise to watch over his child if he should die while on the mission.  Unfortunately, Joong-Ki doesn’t give us those character motivations until we’re already over 100 pages into the book.

 

Shaman Warrior would have been a lot stronger if the fight scenes were shortened (I’d cut them in half, 20 pages for each phase of the fight and 40 pages overall is enough) and if the character motivation scenes were intercut with the fight scenes.  Naturally, you don’t want to open with 20 pages of exposition anymore than with 80 pages of a single fight scene.  Yet by cutting back and forth between the present-day fight and the earlier character scenes, the author could have given us the action we crave at the same time as he gave us a reason to care. Knowing that the shaman is on a mission for the general would add tension to the fight with the local ruffians: they’re getting in the way of something with military and possibly national significance.  That way we would know that the shaman and his bodyguard have to win. 

 

I had another problem with Shaman Warrior though this particular observation may be more about me than it is about the book.  It might even have something to do with my own cultural inheritance.  A Korean might not have had the same confusion.  The issue is that the gender of the shaman isn’t clear at first.  The shaman is hooded, shadows cover the face.  When the hood is removed, the shaman has long hair and fine features.  The main villain- who turns out to be a rival shaman- also has long hair, fine features and large round earrings.  As a North American, those characteristics strike me as feminine.   I thought the shaman and the rival were both women, though I was never entirely sure. 

 

I actually liked that possibility.  I mentally toyed with the idea that this was a world in which only women could have the powers of a shaman- kind of like Red Star where the men are soldiers and the women are sorcerers.  It would have been an interesting premise for a sword and sorcery comic.  And it would have given an added dimension to the relationship between the shaman and the bodyguard.  There could have been an unrequited love simmering beneath a soldier’s devotion. 

 

Unfortunately, Park Joong-Ki didn’t take that path.  The scene with the shaman’s child struck me as especially feminine with long hair pulled back into a pony tail and shirt half open.  But in the next scene, the rival shaman specifically refers to the hero of the story as “he.”  That removed any doubt and confusion, not but my interest.  As I mentioned earlier, I couldn’t help but think the story would have been more interesting the other way. 

 

However, the problem is more significant.  After being let down in my momentary hope and expectation, I realized that Shaman Warrior doesn’t include any women at all.  It’s not just that the shaman and his rival are both men.  There are no women.  The baby’s mother is never shown or even mentioned.  This is kind of odd, considering that the baby is a newborn who doesn’t even have a name yet.  The shaman discusses naming the baby and his plans for how to raise the baby, but doesn’t bother to mention why the mother is out of the picture.  That kind of information could add to the character’s depth and motivation. 

 

Perhaps I’m not being fair, judging Shaman Warrior based on what it could have been instead of what it was.  It’s not a habit I want to encourage.  But that’s Shaman Warrior.  It scratches the surface of something interesting but is so caught up in 40 page fight scenes (there are more of them later in the book) that it never does anything with them.  I haven’t even covered every incident of missed potential.  Why does the beggar later try to kill the shaman?  Was he some kind of spy?  What’s the significance of the shaman having the eyes of a tiger or a wolf?  How does that relate to his powers?  I started skimming through the fight scenes, wishing for them to be over in the hopes of finding characterization, motivation and answers. 

 

Shaman Warrior isn’t an awful book.  It’s beautiful and it has great potential.  But it left me wanting more than it delivered, instead of wanting to read the next volume.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

New Year Wishes

1. A year-long Wonder Woman epic by Jim Lee  

 

It worked for Batman and Superman.  Lee contributed to a Batman modern classic with “Hush.”  His Superman story (“For Tomorrow”) was also something worthwhile, even if it didn’t quite measure up to “Hush.”  It’s time to give Wonder Woman the same star treatment.  His work on other titles (including the Just Imagine Stan Lee creating Wonder Woman one-shot) shows that he would be a great fit.  Apologies to Gail Simone who has turned in occasionally interesting work on Wonder Woman for the past couple years.

 

2. A DC team title worth reading

 

I have several longboxes full of DC superhero teams.  Justice League of America.  The New Teen Titans.  Legion of Super-Heroes.  JSA.  Right now, they’re relics of the past.  Crossover complications, bad story-telling choices and just plain old mediocrity have knocked the DC team titles off of my pull list.  But these are characters that I care about.  And I’d like to care about them again.  So here’s hoping for a resurgence, a renaissance on the DC team titles.

 

3. More Jay Faerber

 

For the past couple of years, Jay Faerber has been one of my favorite comic book writers.  But, right now, I’m not getting a regular Faerber fix.  Noble Causes has concluded.  Dynamo 5 is on hiatus while they switch to a new regular penciler.  And the Pilot Season title Urban Myths has yet to appear again, despite assurances from Top Cow that they had plans for the concept.  I mostly want Dynamo 5 back and at its best or Urban Myths, but I’ll take a new addition to the Faerber-verse as well.

 

4. Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Nine

 

Buffy’s Season Eight is winding up with issue 40.  Joss Whedon’s experiment- continuing a television series as a comic book- has been so excellent that I want more.  A lot more.  I realize this wish is pretty close to happening but I’m spending an official wish on it anyway.  I also realize it’s probably more of a wish for 2011, as season eight will last into the fall.  While I’m at it, I wish for great things from Bill Willingham’s tenure on the Angel comic, more Spike mini-series, a Faith spin-off, a Dr. Horrible sequel (which I understand to be in the planning stages) and Fox to change their minds and renew Dollhouse anyway. 

 

5. A new New X-Men/Young X-Men comic

 

It may be too soon.  The poorly received Marc Guggenheim comic was canceled just this past year.  But, as great as it’s been to see these characters in supporting roles in the main X-book, I’d love to see them in their own title again.  Pixie.  Anole.  Armor.  Blindfold.  Rockslide.  Gentle.  These are cool characters and great additions to the X-mythos and they deserve their own spotlight, not the side of the stage in someone else’s show.

 

6. The end of Norman Osborn as the central figure in the Marvel Universe

 

I am so sick of this story.  I’ve done my best to avoid it, but it keeps bleeding over into other titles that I follow and otherwise enjoy, like Uncanny X-Men, Amazing Spider-Man and Mighty Avengers.  I just want it to go away.  Preferably, with precious few Siege crossovers in the titles on my pull list.

 

7. A new kids book for A, my 8-year old daughter

 

She was a huge fan of Marvel’s Power Pack series of mini-series.  Honestly, so was I.  But Marvel decided that they had run out of stories for the family, after teaming them up with the X-Men, the Fantastic Four (twice), the Avengers, the Hulk and Iron Man, plus a showdown with the Skrulls and a Year One origin story.  Now, with Power Pack gone, we’re struggling to find a new title for her.  The new X-Babies mini-series shows promise, but it’s not as good as Power Pack had been.  Come on, Marvel (or DC), give me something I can enjoy handing to my daughter.

 

8. Comebacks from the titles I listed in my “comics that should make a comeback” series of articles

 

That would be Generation X, Martian Manhunter and Star Wars: Empire/Rebellion for those who missed the articles in question. 

 

 

Recent Reviews: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Justice Society of America and more…

It’s been a while since I reviewed a batch of new comics (since February, to be precise). So it’s about time I do it again.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer #15
by Drew Goddard and Georges Jeanty:

Wow. Issue fifteen is the excellent conclusion to the “Wolves at the Gate” story by Drew Goddard. It has pretty much everything you would want. It opens with a death scene shown from the perspective of the person who’s dying and the unspoken declaration of love for Xander by Renee. As a Buffy fan, you feel great remorse for Xander. This isn’t the first time that he’s lost someone he loves to this crusade. There’s also a big fight scene between a cadre of slayers and an army of vampires. Goddard and Jeanty do a great job of balancing the big fight with individual battles within the larger melee, especially focusing on more familiar characters like Willow. So, yeah, there’s a witch fight between Willow and Kumiko which is probably the best magic-on-magic fight I’ve seen since the wizard’s duel in “The Fellowship of the Ring.” There’s another great fight between giant Dawn and Mecha-Dawn. Hey, if you’re going to Tokyo, you might as well have a scene that pays homage to Godzilla. That particular scene is made even better by the supportive commentary from Andrew, whose entire life has been leading up to this moment. Besides the great fights, there’s also plenty of humor and subtle character moments. My one complaint is that it was occasionally difficult to distinguish between Dracula and Twilight. Considering that one is the chief villain and the other a temporary but untrustworthy ally that was a significant detail. Even so, with all of the other good stuff going on in this issue, the best was probably the relationship between Dracula and Xander. We see that Dracula really does care for Xander. And we see Xander grow in his relationship with Dracula, finally standing up to him. Buffy is a great series and this was a great issue.

Justice Society of America #16
by Geoff Johns and Dale Eaglesham

I had been looking forward to the Kingdom Come story-line but lately, JSA has seemed a little slow. I suppose you could accuse this issue of being slow as well as the story isn’t progressed that far in the issue. But in this case, that’s not a problem as the issue itself is so well done. The basic plot is pretty simple. Magog has just been killed and in his place stands Gog. The Justice Society doesn’t know quite what to do. The real story is in their reaction. Some call Gog “a god.” Others are in disbelief. They follow Gog around as he gives gifts of life to the African natives. The heroes aren’t sure if they should stop him or help him. There are some great scenes including a stand-off between Mr. Terrific and Amazing Man as they debate the value of the scientific approach and the approach of faith. Yet the surprising heart of this story has to do with Damage. Johns opens the issue with a quick run-down of Damage’s life from his own point of view. We discover that Damage’s name is more than just a description of his powers. It’s also an apt description of Grant himself. He’s been damaged by a life history filled with abandonment and abuse. So it’s not surprising that Damage is one of the heroes most skeptical of Gog. It is surprising how Gog reacts to Damage: smiling and then healing him outside and in. There’s no big fight in this issue of JSA. But it’s a very good issue anyway, raising questions and issues in a way that is neither one-sided nor trite. And it’s definitely an issue that makes you want to come back for the next one, just to see how it will all work out in the end.

Noble Causes #34
by Jay Faerber and Yildiray Cinar

Noble Causes continues its excellent return from a planned hiatus with this issue. There’s a big battle with a giant Pharaoh. But the real battle is the inter-family squabble as the team is torn apart by the accusation that Frost tried to rape Surge’s girlfriend Amy. The argument shows the rifts that already exist in the family- that Surge has never really felt that he fits in, and that many of the others don’t really trust Celeste who’s proven to be unfaithful in her relationships in the past. Of course, that’s just the argument on the table. Jay Faerber lets the audience in on even more secrets. So while we’re captivated by the current arguments, we’re also salivating at the thought of future arguments that will occur when other secrets get out- especially the arrangement between Doc’s current wife Olympia and his former wife Gaia. There are a couple of other nice features worth mentioning. For one, Yildiray Cinar continues to show his flexibility as an artist, drawing intimate family fights with close-ups and impersonal fights verse villains from afar, and even mixing in a flashback scene with a real Bronze Age feel to it. The other nice feature was the way in which Jay Faerber is building his own little world. He’s previously brought Venture and the Firebirds into Noble Causes. Now, he builds connections to his other title Dynamo 5 by including Captain Dynamo in the flashback and featuring Dynamo 5 villain Bonechill.

Wolverine: Dangerous Games
By Simon Spurrier and Ben Oliver, and Rick Remender and Jerome Opena

I’ve been getting into Wolverine quite a bit recently so I’ve started ordering a lot of these extra one-shots without reading the solicitation information. I found out from X-Axis that this particular issue was going to involve fox-hunting. While Paul O’Brien of that site was pretty cynical about the likelihood that this would be more treatise than story, I was still willing to give the issue a chance. Unfortunately, O’Brien was right. There are plenty of tidbits explaining to us why fox-hunting is unfair, wrong and evil. The hunters are shown to be either stupid or evil. Even the dogs are drawn in a way that makes them look like demons. Spurrier does try to give us a couple of twists to make the story worthwhile. The main hunter had actually planned to get Wolverine involved because he thought that Logan would be a more compelling prey than the foxes. And the hippy who first gets Wolverine involved in the protest turns out to be a traitor working for the hunter. But while that does give the story something more to go on, it doesn’t elevate it above its trite roots as a treatise against fox-hunting. The quote by Oscar Wilde at the end of the story only confirms that this is little more than a morality play. The one good thing is the Ben Oliver art, which has a crisp Carlos Pacheco-like look to it. The back-up is a little bit better. Wolverine is in Thailand, protecting a monastery from a crime syndicate. There’s a glimpse of romance and a brutal battle. It’s nothing we haven’t seen before, but that set-up usually works for Wolverine and it does here as well. My complaint this time is that Wolverine is again shown to be a remorseless killer. I think that particular characterization is off. He does have honor and remorse, even if he has to occasionally set them aside in order to get the job done. He’ll kill when he must, but he doesn’t take glee in it (as he did in the fox-hunt story). As he was once known to say, what he does isn’t very pretty and he’s at least aware of it.

Rann/Thanagar Holy War #1
By Keith Giffen and Ron Lim

I enjoyed the first Rann/Thanagar War, which was depicted in one of the mini-series leading up to Infinite Crisis. Despite my growing disinterest in DC comics right now (or should that be decreasing interest?), I went ahead and picked this up hoping to be able to recapture some of the enjoyment I felt a couple of years ago. The issue certainly started out okay. Katar Hol, aka Hawkman, is infiltrating his own people of Thanagar. He opposed the earlier war and is afraid the religious undercurrents of his society might lead to a second war. Adam Strange, the human who has relocated to Rann, is Hawkman’s ally in this. However, Adam Strange has discovered something sinister on Rann. Whereas Rann had always been a society centered on science, after the last war the Rannians have begun to embrace religion. Hawkman and Strange worry that the two fundamentalist viewpoints will lead to another war. This is the point at which I started to have my first problem with this comic. The Rann/Thanagar conflict had previously been used as a metaphor for the wars between science and religion. While I don’t think that particular conflict needs to exist in the way that it does, I at least have to admit that it does exist. However, now the Rann/Thanagar war is being shown as a battle between two religions. Again, there is both historical and current precedent for that situation. But I don’t really appreciate that religion is being shown as an entirely insidious force while all of the science-minded people are shown to be both rational and ethical. It’s a little too narrow a viewpoint, even for comics. I much prefer the openness I saw in JSA. I wouldn’t write this series off just for that. After all, it’s early and the conflict may yet twist into something else. But I am admittedly leery at this point. That concern was joined by another as the story seemed to stall as it continued. Keith Giffen is working with a large cast. After introducing Hawkman, Adam Strange and the current conflict, he then proceeds to introduce the new Captain Comet (just “Comet,” sorry), Tigorr of the Omega Men, Prince Gavyn of Throneworld (Starman III) and others. Not all of these characters tie into the story immediately, though I suspect they will at some point. However, that made the issue a series of introductions rather than a story. Giffen would have been better off holding back on some of those introductions until the second issue so that more of the story could have been played out in this one. I did enjoy aspects of this comic. I liked the Ron Lim art and it certainly started out well. But I’m not sure I enjoyed enough of this issue to pick up the second one.

Star Wars: Rebellion 14
By Jeremy Barlow and Colin Wilson

At one point, Rebellion was the weakest of the Star Wars titles. That’s no longer the case. The current arc, “Small Victories,” has been the best of this title so far and one of the better Star Wars stories of the year. This conclusion continues the quality. The issue opens with an opportunity for Colin Wilson to show off. Being a Star Wars artist requires the ability to draw technology. Wilson does a great job here depicting multiple Star Destroyers in the midst of evasive maneuvers, a collision and a crash. Later on, Wilson will get another shot with a beautiful B-wing splash page followed by a second space battle. The story is just as strong. Luke, Leia and the other members of the Rebellion strike team are desperate to get off of the planet now that their main objective has been achieved. And there’s a tense moment as they debate whether or not to look for Deena Shan before they depart. As one pilot notes, they don’t even know if she’s alive or dead. Deena has become a real star in this story and Barlow and Wilson do an incredible job of portraying her. Wilson draws her with blood and tears while Barlow gives her dialogue with a powerful mix of tenacity and resignation. We know that the budding romance between Deena and Luke won’t work out, but it’s fun to see it start to blossom anyway.

Captain Britain and MI:13 #2
By Paul Cornell and Leonard Kirk

After an excellent first issue, the second issue of Captain Britain and MI:13 is a bit of a step backwards. That’s not to say that it isn’t a good issue. It just isn’t as great as the first. The Leonard Kirk art is occasionally breath-taking. I loved the splash page of the Skrull armada and the picture of the Black Knight’s body being split apart. Plus, there are some great story moments. Faiza Hussain is turning into an interesting character. With Faiza in this book and Dust in Young X-Men, Marvel is creating a couple of very strong Muslim characters. And I appreciated that none of the current heroes were able to pull the sword from the stone. It was a good twist on the usual tale, and it fits what we know of Pete Wisdom and “John Lennon.” Unfortunately, the story does get a little complicated at points. Tink comes out of nowhere in this story and I’m not entirely sure how Oberon is supposed to fit in with Otherworld (the home of the Captain Britain corps currently being invaded by Skrulls). It’s possible these things make sense to people who have read Cornell’s “Wisdom” mini-series but they’re a little confusing here. However, the first issue was strong enough and there are enough good moments here that I’ll definitely be back for another issue. Plus, how could I pass up getting a chance to read about a super Skrull magical monster with all of earth’s mystical items at his disposal?

Trade Paperback Reviews: Conan, Wildcats and Wolverine

Thursday, 09 August 2007

It’s a testosterone trifecta.  This week, I’m reviewing three trade paperbacks.  Two of them feature strong, muscular men who like to get into scraps: Conan the Barbarian and Wolverine the occasional berserker.  The third features a team known for getting into a few scrapes of their own, Wildcats, and a woman who’s willing to give these boys a run for their money.  So get some popcorn ‘cause the fists, claws and swords will be flying, slicing and dicing.    The Chronicles of Conan, Volume 12: The Beast King of Abombi: by Roy Thomas, John Buscema and Ernie Chan I’m a big fan of these chronicles, collecting the original Marvel series from the ‘70s.  I was downright distraught a year or so ago when it looked like Dark Horse might end the project with volume 10 instead of continuing to the end of Roy Thomas’ run.  Fortunately for me, Dark Horse has come back with volumes 11 and 12, while a 13th is on the schedule for November. I knew going in that I was probably going to enjoy this book, yet I wasn’t sure how much.  In the last volume, I had started to tire of the relationship between Conan and the She-Pirate Belit.  Although I wouldn’t go so far as to call him “domesticated,” Conan was at least starting to feel a little tied down.  To my surprise, “The Beast King of Abombi” became one of my favorite volumes in the entire series. It actually didn’t start out that well.  For a long time, Belit had talked about her desire to return to Asgalun, to claim the throne that was rightfully hers and to seek vengeance on the man that killed her father.  Finally, the time had come.  Belit was ready to go home and Conan was ready to go with her.  This promised to be a big story but it started out badly.  Roy Thomas spent so much time explaining the various factions that the story became bogged down in the minutiae of intrigue.  In his after-word (almost worth the price of admission on its own), Thomas admits as much.  He was trying to reconcile his own earlier depictions of Asgalun with a version written by L. Sprague de Camp.  The result was a story heavy-handed on exposition and full of confusion with little action or pace.  The flaws were corrected in the second part of the story.  Thomas made up for the lack of action in the first part with plenty in the second: swordfights, shifting allegiances and betrayals.  This is the kind of stuff I want to see in a Conan comic.  Even better, Thomas gave us a surprising conclusion.  Having achieved her vengeance and won her crown, Belit realized that she really only wanted the former.  She handed the crown off to a cousin and returned to her life at sea.  It was a surprising moment and easily one of Belit’s best scenes.  I had thought I was getting tired of the character but Thomas showed me there was something yet to see. From there, Roy Thomas moved on to a four-part tale- a fairly lengthy epic for comics of the day.  The story set Conan and Belit up against the aforementioned Beast King of Abombi.  This was one of the best Conan stories I’d ever read.  We see villages devastated and deserted.  We learn the origin of Ajaga, a man who had conquered Abombi due to his ability to talk to all manner of beasts and get them to do his bidding.  We follow Conan into battle.  We see Belit become captured.  We read as Conan finds a former ally in the black lion he had met in an earlier tale.  We watch Belit plan her own escape while Conan recklessly fights his way to her.  The heroes are constantly put into peril and there’s a real sense that one or the other might actually get hurt in one of these imbroglios.  Yet as much as Roy Thomas deserves credit for this particular tale, the real star is artist John Buscema.  He manages to capture the likeness of a wide variety of beasts- not only baboons, lions and snakes but also a velociraptor years before Jurassic Park made that particular species famous. There’s even one great scene in The Long Night of Fang and Talon Part One (the third part of the story) in which Conan fights a leopard.  Buscema strips away the backgrounds, and even the panel borders, so that we can see the full fury of the fight.  After that, we’re given a bit of a break with a one-part tale: Sea-Woman.  The Sea-Woman in the title is pretty much a siren straight out of Homer, though in this case the siren comes onto the ship instead of trying to woo the sailors from afar.  And again, the real star of the series is John Buscema.  In the afterword, Thomas mentions that Buscema always preferred drawing sensual women to warrior women like Red Sonja or Belit.  In this story, he gets to draw both: the alluring sea-woman and the forceful Belit.  Though the two women share many features in common, Buscema shows that he can draw women who are either soft or strong. Next up is a pretty bad story: Devil-Crabs of the Dark Cliffs.  Thomas even admits that it’s not very good so we’ll just move along to the story from the 100th issue super-sized spectacular: Death on the Black Coast.  Roy Thomas had already written several winners for this volume- the second part of the Asgalun tale, the Beast King epic and the Sea Woman solo story- but this might just be the best of the bunch.  It’s like Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness” but with sorcery and swords. Belit decides to sail up a dangerous river because she believes there’s a city hidden inland.  Conan, as always, agrees to go.  The crew, despite their fears, stay by Belit’s side.  They survive giant snakes and the general dangers of the jungle.  Yet as they approach the hidden city, Belit becomes almost fanatical- willing to sacrifice the lives of her sailors for the promise of treasure within.  As the pirates begin to carry the jewels through the jungle back to the boat, Conan succumbs to the sleep of the lotus flower (for a pair of Homer references in the space of three issues).  He has a horrible dream about a race of winged men who devolve into demons.  When he awakes, he realizes that the dream was real.  The entire crew is slain.  Belit herself has been hung by a jeweled necklace that she had found in the treasure.  Conan, morose and sullen, seeks vengeance for his beloved.  He confronts a pack of hyenas, an earthquake and finally, the last of the demons.  He is victorious, but he has still lost more than he cares to lose.  He has lost the love of his life.  Conan places Belit on her boat and turns it into a funeral bier for her.  He watches it burn, then sink. And Conan, the manliest of men, sheds a tear.  It’s a powerful story.  My summary doesn’t come close to doing it justice.  It gives Conan depth that is rarely attempted, and rarely achieved.  Yet it manages to do this without skimping on the sorcery or the swordsmanship.  With a finale like that, it’s easy to see why the Beast King of Abombi is one of my favorite volumes in this series.   Wildcats: Nemesis By Robbie Morrison, Horacio Domingues Talent Caldwell and Matt “Batt” Banning   I tend to be picky when it comes to the Wildcats.  I like them as an action team, as first depicted by Jim Lee and then Alan Moore.  I’m not as thrilled with the noir version as depicted by Joe Casey.  That’s why I was reluctant to pick up this series when it first came out in single issues.  I wasn’t quite sure which version of the team I’d be getting.  I wasn’t quite sure if it would be any good.  So I resisted buying this trade for a long time.  Eventually I saw a copy in a 50% off box.  I couldn’t pass it up at that price.  And I’m glad I didn’t.  But I don’t mean to get ahead of myself.  This story is about a woman named Nemesis and her conflicts with the Wildcats over the years and in the present.  The story is told through two alternating lenses.  One is set in the present as Nemesis seems to be intent on kidnapping a young girl.  The other is set in the past, showing us important moments in Nemesis’ life from the past millennia. But again, I don’t mean to get ahead of myself. Nemesis’ name is Charis.  As revealed through the back-story segments, Charis was a member of the lower caste of Khera (the world from which the Wildcats hail).  Due to a heroic rescue on her part and some liberal ideas of Majestic’s about breaking down caste borders, she was the first lower caste member to ever be given a place in the Coda Sisterhood.  Majestic may have been able to place her in the Coda but he couldn’t make the Sisters like her.  She was ostracized.  In spite of that, she proved to be an exceptional warrior.  Charis was included in the task force sent to fight a Daemonite cell on Earth.  However, a member of the Brotherhood of the Sword betrayed the other Kherans (including the Wildcats) to the Daemonties.  Even worse, he framed Charis for her crimes.  Believed to be a traitor by her own people, Charis was forced to go underground.  Yet her new position gave her knowledge of Daemonite plots and schemes, allowing her to become a one-woman avenger: hence the name Nemesis.  Of course, the Wildcats don’t know her side of the story.  They consider her a traitor and a mass murderer.  And they want her stopped, especially when she apparently tries to kidnap and kill a little girl.  After thousands of years, a simple explanation isn’t going to stop anything.  And so we follow Nemesis as she fights both the Wildcats and the Daemonites, while trying to protect the little girl that everyone thinks she’s trying to kill.  Wildcats: Nemesis is a great fast-paced story.  It’s also one full of intrigue.  We don’t know Charis’ full history when this story begins.  There are plenty of times during the tale when we think that Zealot and Majestic may just be right and Nemesis is a mass murderer.  Williams does a great job of pacing the back-story segments so that Nemesis’ true nature and real mission are slowly revealed.  Instead of being interruptions, they prove to be essential to the present day situation, giving background to the battle and depth to all of the characters involved including many of the Wildcats. The use of two artists, one for the present day (Caldwell) and another for the past (Domingues) was also a smart move.  Both sections end up being beautiful in their own way.  Caldwell does a great job with the big action scenes.  Domingues does a great job with some of the softer scenes from the back story.  Yet each is able to handle the other side just as well.  Domingues gets fewer big battle scenes but still makes them work.  And Caldwell draws a touching scene between Nemesis and the young girl in her custody.  Of course, this is a Wildstorm title so there’s a little bit of cheesecake, but I prefer that to the ugliness that passes for art in a lot of other titles.   And that’s Nemesis- a mini-series I nearly overlooked but one that turned out to be one of the best Wildcats stories I’ve ever read.   Wolverine: Blood Hungry By Peter David and Sam Kieth   I’ve been enjoying collecting the trades of the Wolverine stories from Marvel Comics Presents.  These are stories I missed the first time around so they’re new to me, yet they’re also from the time that I started reading comics so they have a welcome, familiar feel.  This isn’t actually a Marvel Comics Presents volume, but it does feature a Wolverine story from later in the series.  It had been reprinted on the strength of two names: Peter David and Sam Kieth. Sam Kieth was probably the bigger star at the time.  In this story, he’s allowed to cut loose.  The people have exaggerated proportions, the panels are drawn from obscure angles and the art feels like it wants to burst right off of the page.  This is the Sam Kieth that I know from “The Maxx.”  For the most part that’s a good thing, but Kieth’s eccentricities sometimes turn into amusing quirks.  This is the infamous story in which Wolverine’s costume becomes so torn and frayed that it looks like he has telephone cords dangling from his arms.   Peter David seems to just be along for the ride.  There’s not much of a story here.  Wolverine is in Madripoor.  Cyber comes to Madripoor.  They fight.  Cyber poisons Wolverine.  Wolverine has a weird dream sequence.  Wolverine recovers.  They fight again.  Wolverine wins.  I’d guess that Kieth had a big hand in the plotting of this story which means that David’s main contribution is the dialogue.  That’s sometimes a good thing.  And it’s sometimes a bad thing.  In this case, it’s more of the latter as Peter is at his pun-iest for this tale.  There are some real doozies in here that seem to be taken straight from an Airplane movie or an episode of Cheers. Blood Hungry is a fun time capsule with art that’s bursting from the scenes.  I had a good time, laughing with the jokes, groaning at a few others.  But it’s more psychedelic than action-packed.  That’s okay if you like that sort of thing, but it’s certainly not an essential Wolverine story and it’s not as good as the other books reviewed in this column.

Last Updated ( Thursday, 09 August 2007 )

Trade Paperback Reviews- Empire

Written by Chris Fluit

Friday, 03 August 2007

Licensed properties can be a really bad thing.  The writer that translates the concept to another media might fail to get the characters right.  Those characters may act wildly out of character from how they were portrayed in the original movie or television show.  Even if most of the characters are portrayed correctly, there’s usually at least one that isn’t quite right.  The writer might fail to capture the tone of the original.  Some shows feature odd alien patter or sharp witty dialogue and not every one writing an adaptation is able to mimic the phrasing of the original.  As for the art, the characters may not look like themselves.  Or the artist could follow photos so closely that the characters on the page feel stiff and lifeless.  There are a lot of ways for licensed properties to go wrong. However, licensed properties can also be a really good thing.  When done right, they can add depth to the characters and the world they inhabit.  They can expand the boundaries, explore beyond the edges and extrapolate into the future.  They can tell the stories that come before, that come after and even sometimes the stories that come in between.  And for fans of certain concepts, licensed properties are sometimes the only way to get new stories about the characters they love.   This article is focused on a series that got it right… most of the time: Dark Horse’s Star Wars: Empire.   Volume Two: Darklighter   One of the things that a licensed property can do well is to take a deeper look at minor characters from the parent property.  This is one area in which Star Wars has excelled.  There have been cartoons for Ewoks and Droids.  There’s an entire series of novels following the exploits of the Rogue Squadron of X-Wing pilots.  And this is one of the things that Empire does well.    This particular volume tells the story of Biggs Darklighter.  Biggs was a minor character from the first Star Wars film.  He was an X-Wing fighter pilot.  He apparently knew Luke Skywalker and was surprised to see him as part of the rebellion.  So there was a hint that he and Luke had grown up together on Tatooine.  Biggs then entered the fight against the first Death Star.  And while the major heroes- Luke, Han and Chewbacca- survived, Biggs was one of the many minor characters who died in that battle.   This volume takes a relatively minor character, one who had only a couple of lines in the film, and turns him into the hero of his own story.  We begin with Biggs back on Tatooine.  We get to see him hanging out with Luke, working on speeders together and talking about their mutual dreams.  Those early scenes build the friendship between Biggs and Luke.  They make the scene in Star Wars more important.  It’s not just some random character who happens to know Luke.  It’s a real friend.  Those early scenes also help us to understand Luke Skywalker better as we begin to understand the hopes and dreams that he shared with his friend.   Biggs eventually signs up for the Imperial Academy, one of the few ways to escape the edge of the Empire middle-of-nowhere backwater planet of Tatooine.   However, the Imperial Armed Forces aren’t the escape that Biggs thought they would be.  He quickly learns that the Empire isn’t an inefficient yet harmless bureaucracy.  It really does contain true evil in its core.  Biggs gravitates towards like-minded cadets, while avoiding those he fears truly love the evil Empire.  Eventually, Biggs mutinies, along with his friends.  They fly away, hoping to join the rebellion.  And much to their surprise, the brown-noser that they thought they needed to avoid, led a mutiny of his own and became their introduction to the Rebel Alliance.  For fans of the larger Star Wars Universe, that was a nice little tip of the cap.  Biggs’ rival was Hobbie Klivan, someone we have come to know through the X-Wing: Rogue Squadron series.   The third and final stage of Biggs’ journey takes place as part of the rebellion.  We see him participate in a couple of missions, “liberating” experimental Imperial aircraft and weapons for their own use.  Finally, we catch up to the original movie.  We see the battle planning session from Biggs’ perspective.  We see the scene in which he welcomes Luke to the rebellion.  And we live through the battle of Yavin again, this time through Biggs’ eyes instead of Luke’s.   Paul Chadwick, the author of this tale, does a great job of fleshing out Biggs as a character.  He gives him a thorough background that doesn’t contradict anything that we know from the movie.  He shows us the movie from another angle. All of this goes to making the characters deeper and the universe richer.  It’s great stuff.  Biggs’ death, always a noble sacrifice in the film, finally has the kind of impact on us as an audience as it had on Luke.  And that’s what a great licensed property can accomplish.   Volume Three: The Imperial Perspective   The next volume does more of the same.  However, this time Empire fleshes out the other side of the conflict.  The stories collected in this volume all focus on members of the Empire.  Two of the stories focus on minor characters; the other two on one of the biggest characters of all.   The two minor characters can’t even be said to have appeared in the original Star Wars.  In that movie, few of the villains were given names.  They were faceless stormtroopers and nameless soldiers.  These stories give a face and a name to a few of the enemy.  The first story, by Jeremy Barlow and Patrick Blaine, introduces us to one of the stormtroopers. He goes by the designation TK-622 and he serves directly under Commander Akobi.  Through this story, we learn of the utter devotion and loyalty that stromtroopers are capable of showing to each other and their commanders.  The head of the Empire may be evil, but many of the people who make up the armed forces are filled with qualities that we consider virtuous.  Not that I’m saying TK-622 is a good guy.  He’s so fiercely loyal that he fails to notice the corruption around him.  Or at least, that’s the case for most of the story.  By the end of his arc, he comes to doubt the justice of an Empire that is capable of building a weapon that can destroy an entire planet and willing to use it.   One of the other stories, the longest in this volume, introduces us to Lt. Janek Sunber.  He’s in the army, commanding stormtroopers and cadets during the occupation of Carida.  Sunber is a very likable protagonist (which is probably why he’s brought back for the first arc of Star Wars: Rebellion).  Although he clashes with some of his immediate supervisors, those clashes are due to Sunber’s compassion for the men under his command and his creativity when faced with new challenges.  And those qualities of compassion and creativity are what make Sunber so likable to us as readers.  Plus, Welles Hartley, the writer of this story, has the general overseeing the entire operation notice the same qualities.  There’s actually reason to hope.  Sunber is recognized as a good leader by those in authority over him and by his enemies.  Yet since this is a tale of the Empire, there can’t be a happy ending.  Most of Sunber’s men are killed despite his heroic efforts to save them.  The general who looked upon Sunber favorably dies in the battle, but not the colonel who was jealous of Sunber’s ability.  And Sunber goes on as a efficient, capable and compassionate officer in the employ of an inefficient, uncompassionate and evil Empire.   Just as Darklighter added perspective to a minor character on the side of the rebellion, The Imperial Perspective adds depth to those on the side of the Empire.  They aren’t all evil.  Some are part of the Empire because of their loyalty.  Some are quite capable and compassionate.  Suddenly, the story of Star Wars becomes more than the simplistic clash between good and evil.  It’s still an epic clash, but it’s a deeper, richer one.  However, that’s only half of The Imperial Perspective.  The other two stories focus on the baddest of the bad guys: Darth Vader.  One, by Paul Alden, shows how Darth Vader escaped from the battle of Yavin and what he needed to do in order to get home.  The other, by Ron Marz, is set a little bit later as Vader confronts an informant only to fall prey to an assassination attempt.  The escape story is okay.  The second story is much better.  The first one gives us a little bit of insight into Vader, showing his ruthlessness with those under his authority as he allows the men who operate one station to be devoured by wild dogs.  However, it also tries to draw Vader out in a way that seems inconsistent with his standard portrayal.  He comes to see himself in the wild dogs and agrees to be the leader of their pack.  And while Vader may share their viciousness, he’s generally shown to be inhuman in his evil rather than animalistic.  The Ron Marz story is much better.  We get to see the Vader we’re used to seeing.  He’s ruthless with his informant, relying on threats and violence to get what he wants.  Marz also tries to give us a new angle on Vader, but he does it in a way that is consistent with other portrayals.  He coldly foils the assassination attempt.  When one of the assassins accuses him of war crimes, he doesn’t even bother to deny it.  She insists that he remember his past.  She tells him, “You can’t run from your past.”  Vader replies that he has no other choice. And when he kills her, his final words to her are “I don’t like to be reminded of the past.”  That’s the inhuman Vader we’ve come to fear.  He’s completely displaced himself from his emotion, from his past, from anything that ties him to other people.  And that’s a great story which again shows the potential of licensed properties.  Minor characters become the stars of their own stories.  Villains are given new spotlights that confirm their villainy, while also casting them in an almost sympathetic light.  And again, the fictional world becomes richer and deeper.   Volume Four: The Heart of the Rebellion  Which brings us to volume four.  Volume Two focused on the minor character of Biggs Darklighter.  Volume Three split time between minor characters in the Empire and the major villain Darth Vader.  Volume Four focuses squarely on one of the major characters: Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan.   The first story takes place before the events of Star Wars IV: A New Hope.  Princess Leia is involved in covert missions on behalf of the Rebel Alliance, delivering information as well as much-needed medical supplies.  At this point, she’s certainly sympathetic to the rebel cause.  She’s certainly going out of her way to help the Alliance.  But it’s hard to call her a rebel.  This is the story that changes that.  She’s confronted with the ruthlessness of the Empire.   And she’s thrust into a situation in which she’s forced to lead a battle.  She discovers skills she wasn’t sure she had.  She’s able to make quick decisions under pressure.  She’s able to make the hard choices- the kind that get people killed.  And she picks up a blaster rifle for the first time.  It’s a strong story showing an important moment in the development of Princess Leia.  She’s no longer a debutante.  She’s truly a rebel, even if her status as a princess allows her to hide under a cloak of deception.   The second story takes place some time later.  Leia has been through a lot in the interim.  She’s been captured and imprisoned by the Empire.  She’s been forced to watch the destruction of her homeworld, Alderaan.  Without a home or any illusions, she has become a vocal and visible leader of the rebellion.  In this story, Leia is looking for a home for a new rebel base.  She reaches out to an old friend from Alderaan.  Well, that’s understating the situation a little.  She reaches out to an old love interest from Alderaan.  Just as the earlier story depicted a dramatic change for Leia, this story illustrates her new priorities.  The expatriates from Alderaan invite her to go into hiding with them, but they refuse to host a base for the rebellion.  They refuse to stand up to the evil of the empire.  They prefer to stay out of it.  For Leia, that’s not even a choice.  The Empire has become so corrupt, the Emperor so evil, that it must be resisted.  This story does much to show her strength.  The Alderaanians think that they’re offering her her heart’s desire- a place to live in Alderaanian customs with a man she can love- but they’re not.  As the title of this volume suggests, Leia’s heart is with the rebellion even as she’s become the heart of the rebellion.  Finally, there’s one more story.  This time, Leia and the Rebel Alliance have found a new home for their base: the frost planet of Hoth.  This third story takes place during the building of the base and the unloading of supplies.  However, the real story isn’t about the military details; it’s about a relationship.  Han Solo is part of the rebellion now and Leia joins him on a trip down to the planet.  Yet the trip doesn’t go as planned.  They fly into a snowstorm and crash land.  Throughout the flight, they bicker and fight. After the crash, they help each other and work well together.  They even snuggle together for warmth.  It’s the same relationship that we’ll see in The Empire Strikes Back.  Whenever they’re in the same room, they can’t help but insult and belittle each other.  Yet as much as Han and Leia can’t stand to be near each other, they can’t stand to be apart even more.  They know they have feelings for each other.  That’s part of why they push each other way.  Han Solo can’t believe he’s falling for a princess.  Princess Leia can’t believe she’s falling for a smuggler and a rogue.  The third story of this volume doesn’t tell us anything new about that relationship.  It’s simply a nice foreshadowing of things we already know.  And for fans of Star Wars, especially those who like to see Han and Leia together, sometimes that’s enough.   That’s what a license property can do.  It can remind us of what we liked in the first place.  It can show us stories around the edges and in-between what we already know.  It can expand the boundaries of the fictional universe, making it richer and deeper, making it more real.  And it can feed our imagination as it gives us what we want and a little bit of what we didn’t know we wanted until we got it.  A licensed property can be great.  And it this case, it was.

Last Updated ( Friday, 03 August 2007 )

The Best of July (2007)

Written by Chris Fluit 
Wednesday, 25 July 2007
                                  Captain America 28

from Marvel, by Ed Brubaker, Steve Epting and Mike Perkins

I saw a recent headline that declared “Captain America Still Dead.”  Yup, Captain America died a couple of issues ago and his title has continued on without him.  And it’s still one of the best superhero comics on the stands today.

This issue intercuts between several storylines, giving us glimpses of each and moving them all along.  Two of those stories follow the three characters that are now at the heart of this book: Bucky Barnes aka the Winter Soldier, Sharon Carter and Sam Wilson aka the Falcon.  These three characters are the people who knew Captain America the best and the story is about how they’re dealing with the after-effects of this tragedy.  The Winter Soldier is in his own story, trying to track down those responsible for Cap’s death and kill them.  Currently, he’s blaming Tony Stark aka Iron Man and that’s who he’s tracking down in this issue.  Sharon and Sam are the other central characters.  They’re still working for SHIELD and the Initiative, but they’re reluctant about it.  They want to find whoever’s responsible for Cap’s death but they’re not quite willing to go rogue in order to do it.  So instead of going after SHIELD, which is what the Winter Soldier appears to be doing, they decide to go after the Red Skull who was mixed up in all of this as well.

Besides the three central characters, we end up following a couple of other characters in sub-plots.  The first is Tony Stark, the former Iron Man and the current Director of SHIELD.  It makes sense that we spend time with Tony in two ways.  One, he was Captain America’s opposite during the Civil War and two, the Winter Soldier is currently trying to kill him.  We get some interesting scenes featuring Tony, especially one in which he gets into a bit of an argument with Professor Charles Xavier.  The other sub-plot features the villainous Sin. She’s the daughter of the Red Skull and had appeared earlier in this series with her boyfriend Crossbones.  Now, Sin is ready for a larger role and she starts to gather a new Serpent Society around her.

 Issue 28 is very much a transition issue yet it’s done so well that we don’t mind.  We want to know what’s going to happen next.  We want to know if Winter Soldier will be able to get close enough to Tony Stark.  We want to know what Sin is going to do next.  And we want to know how Sharon and Sam are going to take down the Red Skull.  It’s amazing that a book which has lost its lead character can be this good.  Amazing, yet true. 

 

Dynamo 5 #5

from Image, by Jay Faerber and Mahmud A. Asrar
 
This book is often compared to Noble Causes- which is understandable, given that they’re both written by Jay Faerber.  But I think the better comparison is another Image book: Invincible.  Really, it’s that good.  And I say this as someone who enjoys Noble Causes quite a lot and has even championed it over the years.  Dynamo 5 is better. 

Invincible is a book about a teenaged superhero and, as such, has been compared to the teenaged superhero by which all others are mentioned: the original Spider-Man.  Dynamo 5 is about a family bound by circumstances as much as by blood.  They’re a family, but not in the traditional sense.  And just as Invincible is the modern heir to Spider-Man, Dynamo 5 has the potential to be the modern heir to the Fantastic Four.  Honestly, it’s that good.  
 
The team features five half-siblings.  They share a common father, the great superhero Captain Dynamo, but they all have different mothers.  For some of the characters, the revelation isn’t that big a deal.  In fact, it’s kind of cool if you’re living in a foster home to find out that your dad is Captain Dynamo.  For others, the revelation is shocking, even devastating.  They had dads that they thought were their real fathers.  And now they know that their mothers weren’t faithful to their husbands. 

Issue 4 took a break from the action to give us a glimpse into those relationships and situations.  Issue 5 brings us back to the action, but not in the same way we had seen in the first three issues.  In those issues, the team had been gathered and mentored by Maddie Warner, Captain Dynamo’s widow.  She had proven to be a tough leader, setting aside her own grief at her husband’s death and her own shame at his infidelity.  But in this issue, she’s confronted with the possible return of Captain Dynamo.  And that means that she isn’t there for the team of teenagers as she was in their initial adventures. 

Suddenly, the kids are on their own.  It’s a necessary step.  We see which kids have already established a loyalty to Maddie.  We see which kids are ready to step up as leaders.  And, naturally, we see that not everything is at it seems. Captain Dynamo hasn’t returned.  Rather, he has at least one other child that Maddie didn’t know about and her mother just happens to be a super-villain.  Yup, things are getting pretty complicated. 

Dynamo 5 has it all: archetypical powers assigned to atypical characters, family connections and complications, plot twists, dynamic superhero action and astoundingly beautiful art.  This is the next Invincible and it’s new enough that it’s not too late to get on board at the beginning.  

 

GI Joe: America’s Elite 25

from Devil’s Due, by Mark Powers and Mike Bear

I’ll admit it: I was looking forward to this issue more than anything else in July.  That could’ve been a bad thing.  My expectations could’ve been so high that any book would’ve actually been a disappointment.  And while this issue wasn’t exactly what I expected, it also wasn’t a disappointment. 

This is the first part of a year-long epic called World War III.  At the end of the previous issue, Cobra Commander was in possession of all of the secrets of GI Joe and all of the military power of Destro.  And he was ready to wage war.  So I expected this issue to be the opening salvo of a war.  I expected attacks and explosions and things blowing up.  But that’s not what we got.  We did get the opening salvo of a war, just a different kind of war.

The issue opens with a couple of Joes taking out some Cobra snipers in Dagestan.  It then shifts back to headquarters for a great scene between General Joe Colton (the Joe in GI Joe) and one of his information guys running down the threat board.  It reminds me of the issue of Avengers in which Alan Davis joined Kurt Busiek on the title.  It’s a fanboy’s dream, seeing all of the villains up on a computer screen. 

From there, we jump to Darfur where a former Army Ranger is meeting with Cobra Commander.  We don’t know what’s going on quite yet, though the Commander talks about bringing justice into a region that the world has ignored.  And then, we’re on the move again, checking in on the sniper situation in Dagestan before moving to Scotland and the hand over of MARS (Destro’s military headquarters) to Cobra.  These opening pages are dizzying, but in a good way.  It feels like so much is going on and we’re flitting from one place to another.  And every scene brings something exciting and new, or potentially terrifying.  

The issue just keeps getting better from there.  Eventually, we learn what Cobra Commander is up to.  He isn’t planning to hit the Joes directly.  At least, not yet.  Instead, he’s arming factions in every conflict around the globe: in Dagestan, in Darfur, in Chechnya, in any place where people are ready to take up weapons.  But Cobra isn’t interested in outcomes.  He’s interested in chaos.  He’s arming both sides of the conflicts.  He’s inflaming the trouble spots around the world.  And he’s forcing GI Joe to spread itself too thinly around the globe even as they’re trying to expand and strengthen their presence at home.  Sound familiar, at all?  Yup, there are some interesting real-world parallels to this story, though Powers does a great job of not letting his fictional conflict become a direct analogy for the real world. 

While it wasn’t the explosive beginning that I had expected, it was still a great issue, building tension to a slow boil rather than starting out with a bang.  Plus, there are some great fan extras.  The cover features every single Joe to ever appear in comics, on TV or as a toy.  There’s a second copy inside, complete with an index.  And there’s an “identified threat matrix” in the back: five pages of entries regarding every Joe enemy ever used in the comics, complete with status updates such as deceased, in custody and at large.  The fan in me was drooling at the extras even as I was enjoying the story as a reader. 

Green Lantern 21

from DC, by Geoff Johns, Ivan  Reis and Oclair Albert

 I wasn’t always a Green Lantern fan.  From his appearances on SuperFriends, in Justice League of America and Justice League Europe, I always found Hal Jordan kind of boring.  I liked Kyle Rayner a lot better and would pick up the occasional issue of Green Lantern while he was the lead but I still didn’t collect the title on a regular basis.
 
Geoff Johns and Green Lantern: Rebirth changed my mind.  That was one of the best superhero stories I’d ever read.  And now, the Rebirth team is back together bringing us the next big epic in the Green Lantern saga.  So far, it’s shaping up to be every bit as good as that earlier story.

The basic premise is simple: Sinestro, the Green Lantern’s greatest foe, is putting together a corps of his own made up of those who cause great fear.  We’ve seen the gathering of the Sinestro Corps in back-up features for several months.  We’ve seen their spies at work in Green Lantern Corps.  And they finally initiated the war in the Sinestro Corps special, which would have been included in a Best of June column had I written one. 

Now, we get to see how the Green Lanterns react.  It’s not going to be easy.  They’re bandaging the wounded.  They’re replacing the fallen.  And they’re bickering with one another.  Some Lanterns still don’t trust Hal Jordan.  Some Lanterns are blaming each other for what’s happened.  Even the Guardians are divided with two of them breaking off from the rest.  The Green Lanterns would have their hands full with the Sinestro Corps even if they were at peak efficiency.  In their current state, they barely have a chance. 

Which is great story-telling.  We love to root for the underdog.  The Green Lantern Corps is so powerful that it’s hard to cheer for them in that way.  They have 7200 members, each of whom has an all-powerful weapon.  They should never lose.  But Geoff Johns has taken the Corps’ strength and turned into a weakness and in so doing he’s taken the concept’s weakness and turned it into a strength. They’re actually facing a foe stronger than they are.  They’re being forced to fact their greatest fears.  For the Green Lanterns to win, they’re going to have to overcome the very things they’re afraid of and come together as a team.

I can’t wait to see what happens next.  It was amazing just catching the opening of the story.  Now, we’ve gotten flashbacks as to Hal Jordan’s greatest fear and a cliffhanger ending in which we discover that Kyle Rayner has been co-opted onto Sinestro’s side.  It doesn’t get much better than this.

 

Spike: Shadow Puppets 2

from IDW, by Brian Lynch and Franco Urru

 The new Buffy: The Vampire Slayer series from Dark Horse is one of the year’s biggest hits, averaging more than 100,000 copies sold per issue.  That’s a good thing.  Of course, that has a lot to do with the fact that Joss Whedon- the creator of Buffy: The Vampire Slayer- is actually writing the comic book.  However, there’s another book out there that’s every bit as good as Buffy.  It’s not actually written by Joss, but it does feature his characters. And it’s so well Lorne that you can visualize it as an episode of an actual Joss-produced TV show.  It’s Spike: Shadow Puppets.

 I’ll admit that this is my first go at a Spike comic book so I don’t know if all of the earlier attempts are this good.  But I do know that this is one great comic.  Brian Lynch has the Joss patter down.  He’s got the quirky dialogue that we know and love from the tv show.  And all of the characters have their own distinct way of talking.  Spike “sounds” like Spike.  Lorne talks like Lorne. Lynch even goes so far as to have other characters make fun of Spike’s British lingo.  It’s great fun and it gives exactly the right feel to the book.
 
Furthermore, this mini-series is a sequel of sorts to one of the best episodes of the Angel TV show.  Smile Time was an episode in which some demons possessed the puppets of a children’s TV show and used their ratings to suck the life energy out of the kids’ who were watching.  Angel eventually shut down the operation, but not before being turned temporarily into a puppet himself.  It was a great episode, rich with humor and a little bit of pathos.

This mini-series is that good.  Smile Time is back.  They’re now big in Japan.  Lorne has gotten wind of it through his entertainment contacts and he’s asked Spike to go and check it out.  Which they do.  The first issue was a great buddy-movie as Lorne and Spike traveled to Japan.  It made me long for Spike to have a TV show of his own and I speculated about who would be in his supporting cast.  With this issue, Lynch begins to build a supporting cast around Spike.  He adds Beck, a pyrokinetic that Spike had previously saved from a monster asylum, George, a protoplasmic fish and the kind of character that’s a lot easier to do in comics than in TV and Tok Shinobu, a ninja. 

Of course, by the end of this issue, Lynch turns both Spike and Lorne into puppets.  We knew it was going to come, but Lynch manages to make it fun and unexpected anyway.  He hits all of the right beats.  He keeps the action going.  He lets the one-liners fly while he’s doing so.  And he adds quirky supporting characters and villains at every turn. 

Plus, Francisco Urru does a great job as the artist.  He manages to convey the likeness of the characters without being slavish to photo-realism, kind of like Georges Jeanty on the current Buffy comic.  And he does a great job with some of the action scenes, especially the opening one in which hundreds of felt ninjas doggy-pile on Spike.  This issue was great fun.  I only wish more people were checking it out.

 

Star Wars: Legacy 14

from Dark Horse, by John Ostrander, Jan Duursema and Dan Parsons

I’ve written about this series often, and it’s sometimes hard to think of new things to say.  But I still had to include it in this column because if I’m writing about “the best,” than Legacy qualifies.  This is a great title.  It’s set about 100 years after everything else in the Star Wars world, which puts it about 125 years after Return of the Jedi.  The world of Star Wars is already a rich one, yet Legacy takes it even further.  This is no simple line between the good guys and the bad guys.  Instead, Ostrander and Duursema have introduced multiple factions.  The Sith rule the galaxy openly.  Yet a faction of the Imperial nobility and military have rejected Sith rule.  That’s right, it’s the Empire vs. the Empire.  Meanwhile, the Jedi have been broken and are either in hiding or on the run.  One Jedi-in-training, has even become a smuggler.  Cade Skywalker, the heir to the great Skywalker legacy works on the wrong side of the law.

This issue furthers Cade Skywalker’s story.  He feels bad that he had betrayed a Jedi healer at one point.  And so he decides to break into the Sith prison on the capital planet of Coruscant and free the healer that’s been imprisoned in his place.  It’s not that Cade has embraced his lineage.  Rather, he simply doesn’t like having anyone own him, or having to owe anyone.  The issue gives us glimpses of the ruling Sith, the soldiers that fight for them and the seedy under-belly of Coruscant.  It’s almost like a Blade Runner take on Star Wars.

The Sith remain distant yet fascinating creatures.  Duursema has given them some great looks, from the leaders’ skull helmet to Darth Talon’s red skin and tattoos to Darth Nihl’s pale face and penetrating eyes.  These are some villains you can be afraid of.  Even the minor villains look good.  It’s amazing what blood red skin can do for a bad guy.

It’s also interesting to visit Coruscant’s criminal quarter, to see villainous versions of familiar races like Wookiees and to have the protagonist of our story deal with a Hutt on friendly terms. 

Plus, the art is beautiful.  I just can’t say enough about how rich and textured this book looks.  Duursema draws handsome men, beautiful women and incredible aliens.  She knows how to handle the quiet negotiations as well as the vivid light-saber duels.  I admire the art so much that I tend to read this book more slowly than others. 

Finally, there’s a great ending to this issue.  In some of the previous issues, there have been some hints that Cade might be ready to reclaim his Jedi heritage and forsake his criminal behavior.  But any hint that this book was about to transition to a traditional hero book was an intentional misdirection.  Cade’s rescue fails.  He manages to free the healer from his prison cell, but he’s caught trying to leave the compound.  And Cade may be a Skywalker but he hasn’t worked with a light-saber in years.  He’s defeated and we’re left with the sense that he’s about to become a pawn of the Sith.  This is another book that has it all: beautiful art, a rich universe, intriguing characters and a true sense that you have no idea what’s going to happen next.

 

Y: The Last Man 57

from Vertigo, by Brian K. Vaughan, Pia Guerra and Jose Marzan Jr.

There may be some people who think that Y: The Last Man is a book about a specific science-fiction situation: the last man on earth.  It’s about a mystery: what killed all of the other men?  It’s about politics: what happens when all of the men are dead.  And, yes, Y: The Last Man deals with all of those things.  But like all great works of literature, it’s not really about those things.  It’s about the characters.  It’s about the characters living in that situation.  It’s about how they deal with it, how they respond, how they cope.

Over the past year, that has become clearer and clearer in terms of Y: The Last Man.  The previous arc answered all of the big mysteries and conspiracies.  We know why all of the other men died.  We know why Yorick survived.  We’ve got the answers.  But that’s not the end of the series because this series isn’t about the mystery.  It’s about the characters.  And while the questions may have been answered, the characters aren’t done dealing with it.  The mystery is solved, but their stories aren’t done. 

This is a great character issue.  It opens with Agent 355 and a scene which clearly indicates that she’s finished her mission and is ready to move on with the next stage of her life.  She buys a dress.  No more work clothes for her.  And since she doesn’t have any currency, she gives away her gun in exchange.  Yet even though the main mystery has been resolved, Vaughan knows that he has to give us a bit of tension to see us through to the end of the series.  In this case, that means we also catch a glimpse of an Israeli agent who is tailing 355.

Next up, is the title character and his long, lost love.  Yorick and Beth were reunited last issue in a scene that fans have been waiting to see for more than four years.  At first, things seem to be going well.  They’re having great sex.  But there are other, deeper issues that they haven’t addressed.  Yorick had proposed to Beth before the cataclysm and had never gotten an answer.  Beth finally answers.  She tells him, “Yes.”  However, while doing so, she also mentions that she had been planning to break up with him before the cataclysm.  Suddenly, Yorick is confronted with a truth that other people have been telling him for years: that the real Beth may not match the idealized version of Beth he’s been carrying around in her head. 

Beth was breaking up with Yorick because he was content with his life and unadventurous.  Now, with all that he’s been through in the past four years, Yorick has grown a lot.  He’s become the man that Beth always wanted him to be.  But that’s not what Yorick hears.  He hears that he wasn’t good enough when there were billions of guys to choose from, but that he’s good enough now that he’s the last man on earth.  Yorick gets dressed and storms off in anger.  It’s an incredible scene, full of emotional twists and turns.  It also demonstrates how nudity can be used to indicate emotional vulnerability instead of titillation. 

Finally, Beth has one more scene with Yorick’s sister Hero and the other Beth. She’s just revealed her secrets to Yorick and now discovers that Yorick hasn’t revealed all of his secrets to her. It’s a great conclusion, fracturing Beth’s illusions about Yorick just as she had previously shattered Yorick’s illusions about her.  Even though we know that there are Israeli agents about, the real tension that has to be resolved in the final three issues is this relationship.  Will Beth and Yorick be able to reconcile, now that their secrets are out in the open?  Or will they go their separate ways after years of searching for each other?  Sure, there are some plot points yet to go, but it’s the character questions that are really carrying us forward to the finish line. 

Discuss this article at the Captain Comics Message Board: Fluit Notes Last Updated ( Friday, 27 July 2007 )

All of April (plus a little bit more from May and March

Here it is: a huge column reviewing seven weeks worth of comics including the entire month of April Due to work and travel, I hadn’t been to the comic store in that amount of time. And since I haven’t reviewed new comics since February, it seemed like the big pile of comics would be great fodder for a big column about comics. So hold on to your capes, it’s a quadruple-sized installment of Fluit Notes.

52 #47, 48, 49, 50, 51 and 52: And it’s done! I honestly enjoyed 52 and I’m glad I stuck it out all the way to the end. There were a few bumpy spots along the way. The art was inconsistent. For example, I didn’t really care for Giuseppe Camuncoli’s work on issue 47 or Darick Robertson’s work on issue 48, but I really liked the work of Joe Bennett, Justiniano and Eddy Barrows on the final issues. Barrows is much better here than he is on the Atom. Also, the story got spread a little thin in the middle, but they more than made up for it with some great story conclusions starting with the “Rain of the Supermen” at the beginning of this year. This set of issues had one ending that didn’t work so well for me. I just didn’t care for the Bruno/Batwoman stuff at all, especially as Bruno re-entered the story so near to the end. near to the end. But I did like the end of the Will Magnus story. I liked how he turned on Sivana, how he saved T.O. Morrow and how he used his own insanity in his favor. I just wish that he had shot all of the Metal Men out of a gun, as he does on the cover, instead of only Lead. The Black Adam conclusion was also momentous, even if it was padded by the unnecessary World War III mini-series. And I enjoyed the big Booster Gold conclusion. I wasn’t clamoring for the return of the multiverse but I still liked how the story was told.

 

Action Comics 847 and 848: Some fill-in stories are truly filler. Others, however, become classics. I’d put issue 847 in the latter. Dwayne McDuffie uses Jonathan Kent as a vehicle to tell a story out of Superman’s past. It’s a wonderful use of Clark's parents and an engaging tale in its own right.  Plus, Renato Guedes’ art is reminiscent of Tony Harris’ work on Ex Machina. Unfortunately, issue 848 is of the former category. Fabian Nicieza tries to tell a tale that raises questions of religious fervor and faith but it’s not as mysterious or as engaging as it’s supposed to be.

 

Amazing Spider-Man Free Comic Book Day Special: Spider-Man was one of the titles that I used to read in the ‘80s. When I get nostalgic for the comics I read when I was kid, I go back and read them. But I guess I just don’t need today’s Spidey to be the Spidey of yesterday. This issue simply didn’t scratch a nostalgia itch. I don’t think I even had a nostalgia itch for it to scratch. And without that, this is a pretty boring book.

 

Atom 10 and 11: This was a decent story. Eddy Barrows is getting a better handle on the art though I’m still looking forward to Mike Norton’s return. And I like how Gail Simone played with clichés. Ryan Choi finds his childhood love, only to discover that she’s not quite a lovable as he thought when he was a teenager. Plus, there’s a nice development in the relationship between Ryan and his father.

 

Astounding Wolf-Man 1: Free Comic Book Day Special:  I’m a huge fan of Invincible. I enjoyed The Walking Dead for a couple of years before getting bored. And I’ve even liked some of Kirkman’s lesser known works such as Tales of the Realm and Techjacket. So I was hoping for something really good. But this wasn’t it. It just wasn’t original at all. We’ve got the yuppie, workaholic dad who gets mauled by some kind of animal. We’ve got a few mysterious disappearances before the character figures out he’s a werewolf. And we’ve got a mysterious mentor who offers to help, and who happens to be a vampire. The text page hints that there’s a great mystery to this vampire and interesting questions to be asked about the characters but we don’t get that sense from the story. There’s just no hook here to make me want to read more.

 

Astro City: The Dark Age Book Two #3: After all of the recent complaints about books like All-Star Batman and  Ultimates that are interminably late, here’s an irregularly scheduled book that does it right. Kurt Busiek knows that Astro City doesn’t come out that often. He knows his readers may not remember every detail from the previous issue. But he doesn’t expect them to.  Throughout this issue, there are little lines of expository dialogue to remind you of the pertinent events. Royal is working for the Platypus. Charles is trying not to take graft while also trying not to tell Internal Investigations that his partner is corrupt. Charles’ wife left him. The Street Angel has gotten darker. And so on. Exposition can be overdone- it can weigh down a story- but that’s not the case here. Instead, it keeps the reader from constantly wondering what’s going on so that we get down to simply enjoying the story. And it is mostly enjoyable, though not entirely. As I feared, the Dark Age is a little too dark for what I want from Astro City. But there’s still the sense of wonder that I want to see combined with the average person on the street’s view of great events. It’s that combination that has made Astro City  and earlier works like Marvels so special.  As long as that’s here,  a book well worth reading. 

 

Avengers: Initiative 1: For a while, I was giddy happy while reading this book. I felt the same kind of joy reading that Cloud 9 felt when she was flying. I liked the new characters. I liked the older characters, like Justice and Yellowjacker. And I was having a great time with some apparently old-fashioned superhero action. And then MVP got his head blown off. I’ll admit that it was a shock, but that’s more because it was so out of tone with the rest of the story. It was also a blatant rip-off of Starship Troopers. I might be back for the second issue but I’m much more interested in the “new heroes trying to make it” than I am in “government cover-up” angle.

 

Batman 664: There’s some good stuff in here: the portrayal of Bruce Wayne as an international playboy who pretends to be James Bond, the Andy Kubert art, Batman’s compassionate offer of a Waynetech job to a prostitute, and the clarification that the Batman who dumped the Joker into a dumpster was an impersonator. I guess some people do miss the Bat-psycho and they’re living in Gotham. But there’s some stuff that doesn’t work as well such as Batman’s inner monologue in the closing sequence and the fact that it’s taken us this long to know for sure that Batman is being impersonated.

 

Birds of Prey 105: The awful Colossus mini-series from a couple of years ago turned me off of any Rasputin stories so this issue got off on the wrong foot with me. At least, Birds of Prey is starting to concentrate on a slightly smaller team. Plus, it was nice to see both the Secret Six as antagonists and Tora Olafsdottir as a central plot device. This wasn’t the best issue of Birds of Prey, but it was still okay.

 

Brave and Bold 3: This is what Mark Waid was afraid of: Brave and Bold is fun, but it’s also inconsequential. Any character development is done in the character’s own titles. Any tension is reserved for the big event books. So what’s left is a mostly gentle romp through the DC Universe featuring favorite characters in exotic locales. It’s fun. And George Perez is still a master artist. But it’s not exactly a riveting read. Plus, some of the connections feel a little forced (Supergirl’s intergalactic guide is Lobo?) and the title is starting to feel a little crowded. It’s not a bad book, but neither is it a “must-read.” 

 

Buffy the Vampire Slayer 2 and 3: A lot of titles are in contention as the best book of the month. This is one of them. Georges Jeanty has really grown as an artist from his days on Bishop and Gambit. He does a great job of capturing the character’s likenesses without being photo-realistic. And he does a great job of capturing facial expressions, which is crucial to this kind of book. But of course, the real star is writer Joss Whedon. Buffy is his creation after all. And Joss is having a fun time with the comic, giving us the kind of situations and scenes that a special-effects budget would not have permitted on TV. We get an overgrown Dawn, zombies storming a castle in issue 2, and an all-out witch battle in issue 3. Plus, we get the return of a few familiar characters such as Ethan Rayne, Amy and another that I don’t want to give away.

 

Countdown 51: Good first issue. Paul Dini manages to get me interested in the plights of Mary Marvel, Duela Dent and the Trickster. However, I wasn’t impressed with the comment by Jason Todd that Duela doesn’t even belong on this world. The whole who-belongs-to-which-world was a confusing barrier to a young Chris and while I may be able to make sense of the situation as an adult that doesn’t mean I want to.

 

Crossing Midnight 4, 5 and 6: Reading this series is like being grabbed by the collar, shaken up and not let go. When I’m reading it, I’m completely involved in it. I feel as if I’m as in-over-my-head as the twin leads of Kaikou and Toshi. These three issues give us a little bit of back-story for their mother, a spotlight on their father and a new mystical protector/master for Kaikou. Finally, in issue 6, we see what’s happening to Toshi as she learns that the imagination and the ability to lie may be the most dangerous weapons of all. 

 

Danger Girl: Body Shots 1 and 2: This is pretty typical Danger Girl: action, intrigue, and more than a little hanky-panky. I don’t mind the hanky-panky, but I ‘m glad that Danger Girl tends to be tongue in cheek about it. 

 

Dark Horse Free Comic Book Day Special, featuring The Umbrella Academy, Pantheon and Zero Killer:

The Umbrella Academy was an okay short story but it wasn’t good enough to make me all that interested in either the characters or the concept. Pantheon City was more intriguing, but it was really just a teaser. We don’t know much more than that it takes place in the future. It looks good but it’s hard to know for sure. Zero Killer is not for me at all. It’s violent and ugly. Some other people like reading that kind of thing, but I don’t.

Dreadnoks Declassified 3: Snake Eyes Declassified was excellent. Scarlett Declassified was even better. This was a muddled mess. In this finale, I finally figured out why: Amaury ends up killing Zartan and becoming the new Zartan. So we haven’t been bouncing around time. We’ve been alternating between Zartan and the man who will become Zartan. Maybe I should have known that before I started reading the story. But I think that maybe the story-teller could have communicated that to me more clearly. After all, that wasn’t the only thing that was confusing me. Half the time, I wasn’t sure if the story was taking place in the Australian Outback (the original home of the Dreadnoks) or the Florida Everglades (the new home of the Dreadnoks). It’s not a good sign when you can’t tell the difference between the desert and the swamp. 

 

Dynamo 5 #2: This was good. Really good. Better than Noble Causes good. Gotta-get-more good. The team is made up of the descendants of Captain Dynamo, but there are a couple of twists: each of the five characters inherited a different power, and each of the five characters is Captain Dynamo’s child by a different woman. Plus, the team is being run by the Captain’s widow, who isn’t mother to any of them. Suddenly, you’ve got a team that has a reason to work together, and even more reasons to not get along. Jay Faerber manages to come up with a few twists on convention as well such as giving the football player mental rather than physical powers. These characters have flaws, but they’re still mostly likable. And I have to mention Mahmud Asrar’s art. It’s absolutely gorgeous. He draws pretty women who look different from one another, muscular men and scary monsters. He draws fluid flight scenes and powerful fight scenes. And he’s a strong enough story-teller that he can handle quiet scenes like conversations over coffee and visits to a nursing home. Do yourself a favor and buy this book.

 

Ex Machina 27: Mayor Mitchell Hundred loses his powers just as a super-powered threat arrives in New York. Meanwhile, New York is suffering a severe power outage and the mayor’s office is scrambling to address the problem. Once again, Brian Vaughan manages to make the political side of things interesting. The super-villain problems complicate the real world problems rather than overshadowing them. Plus, somehow, Mitchell manages to remain charismatic even in the midst of the chaos. I love his line about blaming Canada for the power outage, and I’m a Canadian. 

 

Fables 59 and 60:  Fables #59 made me laugh out loud… multiple times. It’s a special one-shot in which Bill Willingham and two handfuls of artists answer readers’ questions with short stories. We find out the last thing that Jack did before leaving Fabletown, who’s been asking questions of the Magic Mirror and how Bufkin keeps getting into the liquor. It’s funny stuff, yet Willingham still manages to creatively tie several of the short stories together and occasionally reveal important character information. The next issue, #60, starts us off on a Flycatcher story. It’s not as great as 59, but it’s just an opening act so it’s got plenty of time to get better. 

 

Fantastic Four 544 and 545: I’m not a big fan of the Fantastic Four. I enjoy the title when it has a good creative team but I’m not so enamored with the characters that I have to get this title when it doesn’t. However, the early returns on the McDuffie/Pelletier era are positive. It’s not “the best FF ever,” but its well worth reading. I especially enjoyed the witty dialogue, particularly in the playful banter between Ben and Johnny. Other creators have written their relationship as if they’re enemies who would rip each other apart if Sue wasn’t there to intervene. McDuffie writes them more like they’re brothers. They enjoy teasing each other and trying to show the other one up, but they honestly like each other and would defend the other one from anyone else. Oh, and the Black Panther and Storm fit in well with the Black Panther providing tech support and tactics while Storm provides phenomenal power and a moral center—kind of like Reed and Sue.  And oh again, I liked the inclusion of new characters like Stardust (who I hadn’t met before now) and Gravity (who I liked a lot thanks to his first mini-series). All in all, good stuff so far from the new creative team on Fantastic Four. 

 

Firestorm 34 and 35: This was kind of a weird ending for Firestorm. Even though it was the final arc, the story spent a lot more time setting up a conflict with the New Gods that will presumably play out in other titles like Countdown. It’s almost as if Firestorm became a supporting character in his own book at the end. 

 

GI Joe 22 and 23: This was a great title about a year ago. Now, it seems to be marking time, focusing on secondary characters like General Rey and the Baroness rather than on the Joes themselves. That’s supposed to change with a gigantic issue 25 but for now we’re looking at decent but not great issues of GI Joe. 

 

Green Lantern 18 and 19: Daniel Acuna is miscast as a penciller. He’s a great cover artist, but it just doesn’t translate to interior pages. It looks too unreal, like a painting, and keeps you distant from the characters. That’s especially a problem in a story like this one, in which love and lust play such a central role. As for the story, I’m intrigued at the idea of a Star Sapphire Corps but I’m still not sure what they’re supposed to be about. 

 

Green Lantern Corps 11 and 12: Currently, I prefer the Spin-off Corps to the core title. Guy Gardner may be too crass to work as a solo hero but he’s a great fit for an ensemble cast. Sora Natu, with her surgeon’s perspective and reservations about the Corps, is a great new character. I was a little nervous about seeing so many Lanterns act out of character, but Gibbons didn’t leave us wondering for too long before revealing a very surprising cause.

 

Invincible 40 and 41: Yes! A double dose of Invincible. This is “probably the best superhero comic book in the universe.” I love how Kirkman juggles the supporting cast. The main action is on Invincible and a team of heroes fighting off an invasion from outer space, but we still cut back to earth to the heroes and the girlfriend left behind. The previously annoying Rexsplode is suddenly a sympathetic character, while you feel bad for Amber even at the same time that you want Mark to break up with her so that he can get together with Eve. Invincible does a great job of balancing action and relationships, of including a huge supporting cast while not losing sight of the lead, and of playing around with the fact that the title is part of a larger superhero universe (as with the Brit cameo in issue 40). It just doesn’t get any better than this. 

 

JLA Classified 37 and 38: I don’t Frank Halloran, the self-important nihilistic philosophy major who is the lead in these issues. But I do like his story. I’m intrigued by his struggle. He rejects the destiny of violence and villainy that Professor Ivo and Amazo have planned for him. But he doesn’t exactly embrace the concepts of virtue and justice. It’s an interesting Catch-22. If Frank was even slightly sympathetic, this story would be great. As it is, it works on an intellectual level but doesn’t quite engage me as a fan.

 

JSA Classified 24 and 25: The first issue is the conclusion of a Dr. Mid-Nite vs. a vampire story. It’s not great but it was okay. My big problem with the story is Pieter Cross’ insistence that there’s no such thing as vampires. That’s a reasonable assertion in our world. But in the DC Universe, a place populated by alien races and immortal Neanderthals, Pieter’s skepticism seems a bit extreme. Oh well, it was at least better than issue 25. I generally like Tony Bedard’s work but not this time. It was like somebody replaced my issue of JSA Classified with an issue of Checkmate. It looks like Alan Scott, but he’s morally compromised, breaking his word and spouting about the gray areas between right and wrong. And it’s not even that good a story. Blech! 

 

Justice 11: I really need to re-read this story all at once. The bi-monthly schedule has allowed Alex Ross to pencil every issue but it’s also made it hard to remember what happens from one issue to the next. At least after a couple of pages to get my bearings, I usually enjoy whatever issue I’m reading. The penultimate installment was no exception. There were some great moments, such as Rita Farr knocking out Giganta and Superman’s line “It’s my job.” However, this issue did get a little busy and confusing. This is one case in which less might have been more. 

 

Justice Leagues and Societys (JLA 7 and 8, and JSA 5): I have one complaint about JLA 7: the pages were printed out of order. I have another complaint: Brad Meltzer’s jump-cut style of story-telling made it difficult to figure out what the right order should be.  But that’s about it. Everything else was great. I love the line-up, incorporating members from all of the different eras and even a few new ones. I love the character moments, like how much Roy Harper respects Black Canary, and Superman telling Batman that it’s okay to have Hal and the others pick the new team. I like the Hall of Justice. I like it all. JLA has got to be one of my favorite books right now. And then there’s “The Lightning Saga,” the crossover with JSA. It’s hard to judge a crossover based on only the first two chapters but I do like what I’ve seen so far. Both Meltzer and Johns know how to mix character moments with action and suspense. On the one side, there’s more Roy Harper (yay!) and Brion’s half-apologetic half-boastful observation about how he has the combined powers of the rest of the team. On the other, there are some quick fights like Batman vs. Karate Kid and the training sequence of Hawkgirl vs. Red Arrow.

 

Loners 1 and 2: I like obscure heroes so I was intrigued by The Loners but not enough to come back for issue 3. Karl Moline inks his own pencils a little too darkly. And C.B. Cebulski hasn’t really given us a reason to like the main characters though the second issue was better than the first. But in the end, Loners just isn’t as good as I would want it to be. 

 

Madman Atomic Comics 1: I was disappointed. I wanted to like Madman. I wanted to like him like I like Hellboy and Nexus. I wanted to like him like I liked the Atomics. But this was not a good first issue. Basically, it’s a re-cap of all of the various Madman series and specials over the years. That’s okay, but it probably should have been a 0 issue or a prequel instead of the new number 1. Then, when the recaps were done, Madman got into a philosophical dream about whether we are who we are or who we think we are. I wanted “madcap” but I got “pretentious.” Blech. 

 

Mighty Avengers 2: I liked the flashback sequences in which Miss Marvel and Iron Man gather the rest of the team together. However, the main action sequence lacked any forward movement; the Mighty Avengers were in basically the same situation at the end of the issue that they were at the beginning. Also, others might find Bendis’ dialogue tics endearing but I find them annoying. This isn’t a bad title, it’s just not the right title for me.

 

Nightwing 131, 132 and Annual 2: Bride and Groom are really lame villains. Even the attempt to tie the Bride into the Salem Witch Trials fails to make her interesting. On the bright side, at least we’re getting to see the real Dick Grayson rather than the imposter we’ve been seeing in Outsiders and during the Devin Grayson run. Plus, I like how Marv Wolfman is building a neighborhood and a supporting cast around Dick. I’m just not sure it’s enough to get the side stuff right while the main action is so lame.  The Annual seems to have the opposite problem. It should be a good story. After all, it has a strong hook. It’s the story of Dick and Barbara - aka Robin and Batgirl, aka Nightwing and Oracle- and their on and off and on again relationship. We get to see what it was like when they first started to be attracted to each other. We get to see them first fall in love. We get to see them leave each other, hurt each other, but always care for each other. But this issue just doesn’t have the heart or the emotional oomph that it needs to convey the relationship. It answers questions. It just didn’t make me feel. At least, not as much as it should have. 

 

Noble Causes 29: I’ve been waiting for this for a long time. It’s the big showdown between the Noble family and the Blackthornes. And it’s great. The two families have become so intertwined that a quarter of them don’t even know which side to fight for. There are some great throw-downs and a surprising offer that puts at end to the shenanigans. Stories like this are the reason I started to love this title in the first place. My only complaint is Yildiray Cinar’s art felt a little rushed. It’s still better than the previous artist, and his talent stood out in certain panels and pages. It just wasn’t as consistently excellent as it had been in the previous issues. 

 

Runaways 25 and 26: It’s a new creative team, but it’s still the same old Runaways. Joss Whedon brings a little of his Whedonspeak to the dialogue but these are still the same characters that we’ve been following for forty plus issues over two volumes. And Michael Ryan is a good choice for the art- as with his run on Academy X, the kids look like kids without looking cartoony. This isn’t a drastic change for the title. It’s simply more of the good stuff we enjoyed under the previous team. 

 

Samurai: Heaven and Earth Vol. 2 #4: There’s not a lot I can say about this issue of Samurai that I haven’t said about others. It’s got beautiful art by Luke Ross reminiscent of Greg Land on Sojourn or Steve Epting on El Cazador. It’s got exotic locations, sudden betrayals and passionate love. It’s just plain ol’ great.

 

SHAZAM: Monster Society of Evil 3: I have to admit I’m kind of bored with this title. Just when I think it’s about to get good- as with the introduction of Mary Batson/Mary Marvel in the latter half of issue 2- it seems to take another step backward. In this issue, Mary is pushed to the sidelines while we spend the bulk of the book following Sivana, Attorney General of the United States.It’s bad enough that we follow the villain rather than the more interesting sidekick. It’s worse that Jeff Smith created such a distraction for himself: the political commentary didn’t really fit the rest of the book and would go right over the heads of the kids this book is supposed to be aimed at. I anticipated that this would be one of the best mini-series of 2007 but so far, it’s been a dud.

 

Star Wars, Star Wars, Star Wars: Three of the four Star Wars titles shipped during this month and a half; Rebellion was on hiatus and shipped one week too late to make it into the review.  

First up, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 15 and 16. John Jackson Miller recently quit his day job so that he could concentrate on writing full time and I have to say that it’s a good decision. Knights is one of the most consistently excellent books that I read month after month and the first issue, 15, is one of the best so far. Protagonist and failed Jedi Padawan Zayne Carrick has had a prophetic dream in which he foresees the Mandalorian army bombing the civilian population of Serroco. In this issue, he tries to share his knowledge with those who are in charge of the Republic forces. Unfortunately, his own reputation works against him. Zayne’s protestations are taken as proof that he’s insane. He’s arrested, and the civilian population of Serroco is devastated by the bombing. It’s one of the most tragic issues I’ve ever read. Even so, Miller manages to keep things from being too depressing by including some comic relief through Zayne’s companion Gryph. Yet, even while we’re laughing at Gryph’s antics, we’re still anxious for him to leave the planet and survive. Miller manages to drag the suspense out even further by dedicating the next issue to Zayne’s former companions Jarael and Camper, as well as one of the Jedi that killed Zayne’s classmates, 

 

Next, there’s Star Wars: Legacy 10 and 11. Knights is set far in the past. Legacy is set far in the future. It’s the story of Cade Skywalker, the latest in the great Skywalker lineage. Yet Cade has rejected his heritage and is leaving as a smuggler rather than a hero. Issue 10 follows a couple of bounty hunters who are trying to bring Cade to Imperial justice. It’s not a great issue- I don’t care for Colin Watson’s art- but there is a great revelation at the end. Issue 12 is much better. It marks the return of regular artist Jan Duursema who’s been doing great work on the Star Wars titles. It also focuses once again on Cade, who’s having visions of his forebears- such as Darth Vader and Mara Jade. Plus, it introduces K’Kruhk- last seen in Star Wars: Republic comic books and the Clone Wars cartoons- and the Yuuzhan Vong- alien adversaries from the New Jedi Order series of novels. 

 

Finally, there’s Star Wars: Dark Times 3. Dark Times isn’t quite as incredible as either Knights or Legacy but it’s still a good book in its own right. It follows the (so-far) surviving Jedi in the early days of the Emperor. One former Master, Dass Jennir, is being forced to learn how to be a smuggler instead of a noble knight. He still tries to work against the empire and injustices like slavery, but he’s sadly learning that there’s not a lot that he can do. 

 

She-Hulk 17: I liked the old status quo. It was great to see Jennifer Walters as lawyer to the capes. But I like the new status quo, too. She-Hulk (the character, not the title) felt shackled as a lawyer. Now, she’s free as an agent of SHIELD to punch things whenever she wants to. Yet Dan Slott continues to engage both worlds. We still get the quirky characters from the law offices while being introduced to a second quirky cast aboard the Helicarrier. A few highlights: the opening argument about wasting space on a splash page, Sidney complaining about the number of Helicarriers that have been destroyed over the years, and She-Hulk vs. a room full of Nick Fury LMDs.

 

Supergirl and the Legion of Superheroes 28 and 29: I’ll admit it; I’m lost. With two dozen Legionnaires and now a dozen Wanderers, it’s hard to keep track of all of the characters. I’ve lost track of this title so much that I didn’t even remember we were in the middle of a Dominator war. And I had all of these complaints even before the new creative team in issue 29 which was an unfortunate step down. This version of the Legion has had its moments, especially in the first year and shortly after the addition of Supergirl, but lately it’s not been as good as I’d want it to be. 

 

Superman 661 and 662: I was about ready for the fill-ins to be done. I enjoyed the previous fill-in that focused on the Prankster, but this one guest-starring Wonder Woman wasn’t all that great. The good news is that issue 662 marked the return of the main story and series penciller Carlos Pacheco. I wasn’t a huge fan of the dystopic future that Arion showed Superman but I do like how it’s playing out after the fact. It’s not very interesting to set Superman up against threats he can beat by hitting them. Conversely, it’s very interesting to have a story in which Superman is forced to question the effectiveness of hitting things. I liked how Jimmy Olsen automatically rushed to defend Superman, while Superman investigated the problem by talking to Zatanna and then finding Sirocco. The latter course of action showed us that Superman is a lot smarter than we usually give him credit for. Plus, I kind of like Sirocco. It’s always nice to meet an interesting, new hero.

 

Teen Titans 45 and 46: This is what some observers derisively refer to as a “fight comic.” The Teen Titans fight the Titans East. Then they fight them some more. Then they fight them even more. It’s like the theme song to “The Itchy and Scratchy Show.” Characters who have been knocked out of the fight early in one issue come back later on, with the result that the whole thing just feels its moving in circles instead of forward. The Titans fight against Dr. Light was a classic. This was not. 

 

Wonder Woman 6, 7 and 8 and Amazons Attack 1: Back in the day, I used to be a theatre major in college and I remember some acting classes that talked about how heading towards something is a stronger motivation than heading away from something. I’ve seen that point illustrated in a number of works, including here. The new Wonder Woman title keeps looking back to the Maxwell Lord incident instead of ahead to whatever Wonder Woman wants to accomplish next. There’s some good stuff here. I think this arc is stronger than the first one. Donna has been moved out of the title so there’s less confusion. Wonder Woman is learning how to create and maintain a secret identity. She has an interesting partnership with the former Nemesis. And Circe makes for an interesting ally with the Amazons. But the good pieces just don’t come together as a great whole. Maybe it’s because I expect too much after Greg Rucka’s excellent run. Or maybe it’s because the title feels like it keeps on looking over its shoulder.   

 

World War III 1-4: Wow, World War III was really bad. So bad, I started skimming instead of reading bad. So bad, I told my wife not to bother reading it bad. World War III came about because a change of plans for 52. 52 was supposed to fill in the lost year, using several characters as observers. However, as the writers worked on 52, they discovered that the point-of-view characters had interesting stories in their own right so the title became more about them than the events they were supposed to witness. I fully endorse that decision. I enjoyed reading about the point-of-view characters and in my opinion, 52 struggled a little when it broadened the story beyond those six heroes. But the result of that decision is that a lot of the changes that were supposed to be chronicled in 52 weren’t going to be addressed in that title. Apparently, the solution was to include one event that would explain all of the changes and add this four-part mini-series to cover them. 

 

Unfortunately, it didn’t work. For one thing, the explanation becomes a punch-line. Why did Donna put on the Wonder Woman costume? World War Three. Why did Beast Boy quit the Titans? World War Three. Why did Amanda Waller start a new Checkmate? World War Three. Why did Jason Todd become Nightwing? World War Three. Instead of developing as a natural outgrowth of a story, the changes all seemed to be cobbled onto the big event. They become arbitrary instead of essential.  Another major problem is that the mini-series itself didn’t have a plot. It simply intercut scenes of various characters making important decisions with scenes of various heroes fighting Black Adam. The one never seemed to have anything to do with the other. There was no story there. Worst of all, John Ostrander chose to make the Martian Manhunter the narrator. However, the Manhunter’s inner monologue became very tiresome, even before the end of the second issue. And the whole point of the narration was to explain why the Manhunter turned dark for his most recent mini-series, a change that wasn’t particularly interesting in the first place. Ugh! World War Three is a clinic on how not to write a comic. 

 

X-23: Target X #5: I’ve reviewed this title before so I don’t have a lot of new things to say. The Michael Choi art is beautiful. X-23, despite her origins as a clone, is an interesting character as she struggles to be who she wants to be instead of who she was made to be. And there are some strong story moments such as X-23’s confrontation with Kimura and her surprising decision at the end of the story to go after Wolverine. 

 

X-Factor 18: This is the only X-Men spin-off that I’m still reading. So why has X-Factor persevered while New X-Men, New Excalibur and Exiles have fallen by the wayside? Peter David’s witty dialogue. The complicated ways that the stories fit together. It’s smart so that my brain keeps spinning with questions, while also funny and occasionally exciting. This particular issue is a good example of the convoluted stories that somehow pull together. The team feels like they have to do something even though Layla Miller tells them that the current conflict will resolve on its own. When they persist, she sends them on various errands that at first seem meaningless but tie together to bring them face to face with the X-Cell. 

 

X-Men, X-Men and more X-Men: Astonishing X-Men remains one of my favorite titles and issue 21 is no exception. When I handed the first stack of comics to my wife, she asked me if there was anything that she should read right away and I answered, “Astonishing X-Men.” The John Cassaday art is consistently beautiful. And Joss Whedon knows how to include all of the little things that make a comic fun. There are great moments of wit such as the Beast’s put-downs of Agent Brand, great moments of romance such as the scene between Kitty and Colossus, and it’s all set as the counterpoint to great moments of action, intrigue and surprise. 

Uncanny X-Men may not be quite as good as Astonishing, but it’s close. Issue 485 is the penultimate chapter of “The Rise and Fall of the Shi’ar Empire.” I had been fairly impressed with the earlier issue in which Vulcan fell in love with Deathbird. I found it wholly believable that somebody as young and impressionable as Vulcan could be so turned around by a lover that he ends up fighting to defend the very thing he set out to destroy. Yet in this issue, Ed Brubaker pulls the rug out from underneath us again. Vulcan was only playing along and after he weds Deathbird, he goes ahead and kills D’Ken anyway. As if that apparent betrayal wasn’t enough, Vulcan then declares himself emperor by right of marriage. That is not a scene I’m likely to forget for a long time. Well done, Uncanny.

 

Unfortunately, it seems like there always has to be one weak X-Men title. Nowadays, it’s adjective-less X-Men by Mike Carey and Chris Bachalo.  It’s not that their run on X-Men is horrible. It’s certainly better than the two previous runs by Chuck Austen and Peter Milligan. But it certainly doesn’t measure up to the two other X-titles. Carey seems to have trouble clearly communicating who the villain is or what they want so the main conflict is usually confused. This is as true for issue 198, the second part of Red Data, as it was for the previous story. There are some nice moments like the budding flirtation between Iceman and Mystique, and I like the inclusion of newer heroes like Lady Mastermind and Omega Sentinel, but overall this is a pretty mediocre book at the moment. 

 

Y: The Last Man 56: Nothing much happens in this issue. For a lot of other comics, that would be a complaint. But not for a Brian K. Vaughan comic. Instead, Yorick and Agent 355 have some parting conversations that are really touching, and that shine a light on their personalities and their relationship. We also catch of a glimpse of several supporting characters who are close to tracking Yorick down. That’s a good thing when it’s his sister Hero and the second Beth. That’s not a good thing when it’s the Israeli agent Alter. Oh, and we’ve been waiting for those final three pages for four years. They literally made my wife cry.

Originally Published at CaptainComics.us, May 25, 2007
 

Back Issue Bargain Bin Reflections

Not that long ago, I bought a bunch of back issues out of a bargain bin: 100 comics for 20 cents each. I’m not quite going to review them all, but I would like to share some thoughts on a few series.

 

Infinity Inc.

 

This isn’t the first time that I’ve read Infinity Inc. I have quite a few of the earlier issues, from the single digits into the teens. So I had some idea of what I was getting: serviceable action stories. They’re not the best thing I’ve ever read and Roy Thomas is a little past his prime, but they’re fun and they feature a number of characters that I’ve grown to like. This time around, I bought a bunch of issues in the 20s and a few in the 30s. 

 

Unfortunately, I think Roy Thomas was starting to slip even more. There were some decent stories. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the introduction of Beth Chapel, who would become the new Dr. Midnight, and the re-introduction of Rick Tyler, who would become the new Hourman. They’ve always been noteworthy to me for having two of the worst costumes in a title renowned for bad costumes.  I expected to dislike the characters as much as their clothes. Yet I didn’t. I was actually sympathetic to both of them. I also thought that Roy Thomas did an admirable job of incorporating the fall-out from Crisis on Infinite Earths by writing a story in which Fury remembered a world that no longer existed. 

 

But for every decent story there was a bad one and, not just a bad one, a really bad one. One particular bad one was Infinity Inc. 22. An issue earlier, Roy Thomas had allowed the team to be spirited away so that they could participate in Crisis on Infinite Earths. This allowed Thomas to concentrate on the new heroes, Hourman and Dr. Midnight. With issue 22, Thomas picks up the story of the departed Infinitors. They’re on the Monitor’s monitoring station. And it’s an awful mess of a story. There are way too many scenes of the Infinitors standing around pointing out other heroes. Fury somehow mistakes the Earth-1 Wonder Woman for her own mother to, um, spell out the differences between Earth-1 and Earth-2. Hector Hall wonders why his parents, the Hawkman and Hawkwoman of Earth-2 are wearing older costumes. Older fans wonder why “continuity” is sometimes a dirty word and complain that DC’s multiple earth continuity wasn’t at all confusing. Well, Infinity Inc. is exhibit A. Roy Thomas seems to need to explain every costume change and every difference in continuity. It stops any story in its tracks, is really boring, and doesn’t even clear up that much. But that’s only part of the problem. Infinity Inc.’s rivals in Helix have also been spirited to the Monitor’s station. So they have an argument. A really long and pointless argument that fills up a lot of space but that doesn’t move the story along or tell us anything interesting about the characters. Plus, Helix is only a half-decent set of rivals. There’s one good character in there, Dr. Bones, though his rhyming scheme is incredibly annoying. There’re also a couple of awful characters, Baby Boom and Kritter. Finally, Thomas gets us back to Dr. Midnight and Hourman. Unfortunately, their story takes an uninteresting turn into a Crisis-inspired Civil War battle. Thomas may have written a great response to Crisis, with the Fury story, but he bungled his way through participating in it.

 

The other thing to note about these issues is that they happen to be Todd McFarlane’s entrance into the comic book biz. I’m not a big fan of what Todd McFarlane becomes but his style is very different on these early issues of Infinity, Inc. He’s not over-rendering musculature or warping facial expressions. His figures are actually fairly straightforward, following in the footsteps of Jerry Ordway who helped launch this title. However, McFarlane’s work on Infinity Inc. becomes noted for what he does with a page. McFarlane doesn’t simply illustrate the story. He works outside of the panels drawing symbols and icons and extra details. I’ve heard a lot of complaints about this. “It seems like Todd was bored with the story.” That might be true, though you’d have to ask Todd McFarlane for the truth. “These extra details distract from the real story.” That’s occasionally true. A few of the machines and extra links draw our attention away from what’s going on and create clutter. Yet I like the inventiveness of it. 

 

I’m reminded of later work by other artists. I liked how Chris Bachalo worked visual themes into his runs on Generation X and Uncanny X-Men, using apples and bubbles and crows to create a visual whole. One of my favorite issues of Generation X was one in which Jubilee was supposedly doodling in the margins and we got to see whimsical portraits of the other characters. Bachalo’s former inker Mark Buckingham does similar things on Fables, including icons at the top of each page and backgrounds behind the panels to help set the scene and remind us of the characters. Todd McFarlane was doing that as well. One of the best examples is the Fury story that I previously complimented. In the story, Fury remembers an adventure from her youth. The members of the Justice Society were going away to a state dinner and their children, who were all about ten years old, are left on their own. It’s a pretty good story as the young children wander around a big mansion, exploring and getting into a little bit of trouble. Yet it’s not a visually interesting story. McFarlane works outside of the panels, reminding you of the heroes that these children grow up to be and tying the past to the present. It works, augmenting the story rather than distracting from it. It doesn’t work every time, I’ll admit that. As I noted earlier, it can be clutter. But the bad issues are more the fault of the writer, Roy Thomas, than of the artist and his unique approach.

 

Wildstorm: The Kindred, Warblade, Wildstorm Rising and WildCore

 

I love ‘90s comics. If you’ve read my recent “Ranking the ‘90s Universes” column, you’d already know that. But at much as I love ‘90s comics, I acknowledge that there’s an absence of good villains. Whether it’s Ultraverse, Valiant or Wildstorm, all of the heroes seem to fight the same one or two villains. Those villains may be pretty good, but as a reader you get a little tired of seeing the same villains pop up in every story. 

 

For Wildstorm, the big villains are the Daemonites, an alien race that has been at war for millennia with the Kherubim and have a not-so-subtle resemblance to demons. The biggest Daemonite is Helspont. He’s actually a pretty good villain. He’s unrepentantly evil. He has a great look; his forehead forks in two and blue flame erupts from the centre. And his motivations are clear enough that he’s even sided with the heroes when it helps his cause, as happened in the third series of Majestic. But as much as I liked Helspont, I thought he was a little lonely on the villain side.

 

I bought these three series because of the heroes like Grifter and Warblade and Backlash. And in that regard, I got what I was looking for. The Kindred paired off Backlash and Grifter. They may have worked together previously on Team 7 but they don’t have fond memories of each other. They forge an uneasy alliance and it’s as much to see them rile each other as it is to fight the bad guys. Warblade features not only the title character, but also Ripclaw from Marc Silvestri’s Cyberforce. The two characters were established as friends in the crossover Killer Instinct and it’s nice to see them together again in a sequel of sorts. Wildcore came out several years later but it featured Backlash again, this time working with Zealot in putting together a team of mostly new heroes. I like seeing Backlash in this mentor role, and though I don’t know the new characters that well I was quickly growing fond of Brawl. So I was pretty happy reading adventures featuring some favorite characters and a few ones.

 

However, as much as I enjoyed reading about the heroes, these series surprised me in another way. They actually did a good job with the villains, showing that the Wildstorm world was more than just the good guys vs. Helspont. I thought that The Kindred would feature Backlash and Grifter vs. werewolves which while not the most original set of villains would be pretty fun. But the werewolves had a leader: Bloodmoon.  This was a new villain to me and I was impressed. He had a great look: a red and gold color scheme with a skull mask and several other skulls on his shoulders and belt-buckle. Plus he had a personal connection to the heroes as a former ally who had felt betrayed by Team 7. Warblade introduced another villain, Pillar, who admittedly had a Daemonite connection. Yet Pillar wasn’t content to follow Helspont’s lead. Instead, he was creating a rival, almost terrorist group. And he was trying to up his powers. The result was an interesting transformation into a glowing, green creature, sort of like a cross between Dr. Manhattan and the ghosts in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. Finally, Wildstorm Rising was a big crossover. As such, it did feature Wildstorm’s big villain Helspont. But it also featured Helspont’s main rival, Defile. I’d read a few Defile stories before, but none that featured him so prominently. And I liked the way that he was contrasted with Helspont, his big Viking horns standing out against Helspont’s fiery head. The crossover gave me a new appreciation for Wildstorm’s second-best villain. Indeed, these stories as a whole gave me a new appreciation for the Wildstorm universe. They had more interesting and visually arresting villains than I had previously given them credit for.

 

X-O Manowar

 

I read a lot of other Valiant titles before I tried X-O Manowar. I’m just not that big a fan of the man in the metal suit. Whether it’s Iron Man, or one of the many variations such as Hardware or Prototype, I’m just not that interested. But I knew, from reading several of their other titles, that Valiant was a quality company. And I knew that a lot of good artists worked on X-O, such as Mike Leeke, Joe Quesada and Bart Sears. So when I saw a run of nearly thirty consecutive issues in a bargain bin, I just couldn’t resist.

 

I’m glad I bought them. And I’m glad I read them, though it’s hard to explain why. When I describe the premise of X-O Manowar, it doesn’t’ sound good even to me. Here’s the situation. A Visigoth barbarian in the year 400 is abducted by aliens. Aric serves as a slave on one of their ships for years. He eventually steals a suit of armor that they’ve designed for their warriors. The suit, the X-O armor, bonds to him and he manages to escape. Due to the vagaries of traveling space at faster than light speeds, he returns to earth in the year 1990 rather than 400. He uses the suit’s abilities to wrest ownership of a multi-national corporation. He thinks that will allow him to live a life of luxury but it results in as many headaches as it cures. And he occasionally fights things wearing his suit of alien armor. Yeah, that’s right. An ancient barbarian wears an alien suit of armor and runs a multi-national corporation. I told you that it wouldn’t sound good.

 

And yet it is good. It’s really good. The title doesn’t shy away at all from its lead character. He’s a barbarian and he deals viciously with aliens, villains and corporate slimeballs. He’s decisive. He’s forceful. He’s unlike any other hero. He’s not an anti-hero like The Punisher who knows that he’s stepping beyond the bounds of the law. He’s a barbarian trying to force his values on a very different modern world. I don’t know that I like Aric. But I am fascinated by him, and by what he’s going to do next. It’s hard to describe. Yet I know two things: it’s not like any other title I’ve ever read and it’s good. And when you’re buying comics for twenty cents a piece, that’s more than good enough.

( Originally Published at CaptainComis.us on April 6, 2007, Back Issue Bargain Bin Reflections)

 

Ranking the ‘90s Universes

I love the ‘90s. I’m not afraid to admit it. I loved the explosion of new companies and new characters. One of the things that I enjoy about comics is the ability to immerse myself in new worlds, to explore and to wonder. I remember a Silver Age fan describing his reaction to the first meeting between the Justice League of America and the Justice Society: “You mean there’s another team of superheroes that we don’t know about? A whole other earth? That’s amazing!” The discovery of the Justice Society was exciting to that Silver Age fan. In a similar way, the opening up of all of these new universes in the ‘90s was exciting to me. There’s yet another world to explore? There’s yet another set of characters to meet? That’s incredible!

 

Even so, I didn’t like every one of the new universes. There were bad ones. And some of the good ones were better than others. So here is my ranking of the ‘90s universes.

 

1. Valiant

 

The best comic book company of the early ’90s was Valiant. You could even argue that Valiant had more consistent quality than either DC or Marvel, but since I’m only ranking the new companies I don’t have to bother with that. Valiant seemed to have everything. Valiant had a strong core of writers. Jim Shooter surrounded himself with industry pros like Bob Layton and David Michelinie. Valiant had great art. Barry Windsor-Smith was the star artist for the company but Valiant would also see contributions from such artists as Joe Quesada, Bart Sears, Dave Cockrum and Rags Morales. Valiant had great characters. One of the smartest moves that Jim Shooter made as editor was acquiring the rights to Gold Key’s Silver Age properties Dr. Solar, Magnus Robot Fighter and Turok. Some comics’ fans have long memories. This was a great way of appealing to them and getting a core of readers on-board. Yet Valiant didn’t simply rely on their licensed heroes. They also invented interesting new characters like Eternal Warrior, Shadowman and X-O Manowar.

 

However, Valiant was more than just the right mix of ingredients. There was something else that made Valiant stand out from the rest. I think that Valiant had a natural-ness to it that is hard to describe. It actually reminds me of what Jim Shooter was trying to accomplish with the New Universe in 1986. Comic books had become so chock-full of colorful characters and super-villains and alternate dimensions, that they sometimes seemed detached from reality. We were reading about wonderful worlds, but not our world. Shooter had been trying to recapture an “our world” feeling with the New Universe but failed, in part because he took too much of the fantastic out. With Valiant, Jim Shooter and his compatriots seemed to strike the right balance. They still had alien races and dark dimensions. But Valiant also had a real feel to it. The colorful heroes were surrounded by ordinary people- secretaries and hotel clerks and scientists who weren’t the victims of their own experiments. The colorful heroes interacted with real events like car crashes and when people died, they stayed dead. Plus, not all of the heroes were colorful. Some of them opted for trench coats or leather jackets, even if they were 6000-year old immortals. But that only seemed to make them more interesting. When you read Valiant, you felt that you were reading “our world” with a little bit of the fantastic spread on top. And it was fascinating. My only complaint is that Valiant seemed light on villains. It seemed like every hero had the same two nemeses: Master Darque and Dr. Eclipse. It would have been nice to have a bit more variety in terms of adversaries.

 

2. Milestone

 

Milestone comics may have had a DC distributor logo in the corner but they were still their own company and their own universe. And in my opinion, Milestone was second only to Valiant as the best of the ‘90s universes. Like Valiant, Milestone seemed to have the mix of everything. Valiant coalesced around Jim Shooter and the talented professionals who were still willing to work with him. Milestone was more of a group project as black creators considered ways to make their mark on the industry. This group included both writers like Dwayne McDuffie and artists like Denys Cowan. That meant that Milestone was the only other company that could claim consistent quality in terms of story and of art. They also had strong characters. Some of their core characters were reminiscent of iconic characters from the big two- Icon was like Superman, Hardware like Iron Man, and Static was sometimes compared to a Silver Age Spider-Man. Yet they had their own distinct personalities and identities. Milestone had great characters.

 

The one thing that Valiant had that Milestone didn’t was scope. The Milestone group chose to fill a specific niche. They created minority characters. At first their main characters were all black but they expanded to include other minorities, such as the Korean Xombi, before they were done. And they focused on one setting- the urban Midwestern city of Dakota. Valiant, on the other hand, seemed to fill every niche: future, past and present, out in space and all over the world.  Milestone comics were great to read, but they didn’t always have the sense of wow that you would find in Valiant. However, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Milestone identified a niche, chose to fill it and did it well. Their sights were set a little lower but they succeeded. That’s probably better than setting their sights too high, trying to be everything, and failing.

 

3. Image

 

It’s pretty hard to classify Image. Valiant comics had a unity to them. Milestone comics had a common vision. The only thing that Image had in common was that a bunch of artists and writer/artists wanted to be left alone to do their own thing. They were wildly successful at first. However, that success had an unforeseen consequence. Individual universes began to coalesce around the six original artists. It wasn’t that long before Image felt like six companies instead of one. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it does make it hard to rank Image. Some of those studios put out consistently excellent work and could have ranked above Milestone or even challenged Valiant for the top. Other studios had significant problems and could have been ranked near the bottom of this list. Splitting the difference, Image falls right in the middle.

 

The one thing that is unique to Image is that Image was, at least at first, an artist’s haven. It was founded by six artists: Erik Larsen, Jim Lee, Rob Liefeld, Todd McFarlane, Marc Silvestri and Jim Valentino. Some of them may have had experience as writers, but they were primarily known as artists. Image comics looked good. I know that some older fans would disagree with that statement but I’d remind them that the even older fans didn’t like the new wave of Neal Adams, Jim Steranko and Barry Windsor-Smith when they first appeared on the scene. Image comics did look good. They were bright and flashy and pleasing to look at. But they didn’t have writers, and they didn’t want writers. Some of the artists proved that they could do well enough on their own. Others realized that they needed stories as well as art. Jim Lee, for example, brought in established writers like Chris Claremont and Alan Moore as well as up-and-comers like Kurt Busiek and Warren Ellis, making his Wildstorm the best by far of the Image studios. Yet some of the studios didn’t learn right away. Rob Liefeld’s Awesome/Extreme studios published Youngblood spin-off titles that seemed even more derivative than the parent title. That isn’t a complete condemnation of Awesome/Extreme by the way. There were some exciting, action-filled issues in there and I enjoyed many of them. I don’t hate Awesome comics; I simply recognize that they’re not as good as others. Plus, while Liefeld may have been slower to react, he eventually had writers such as Jeph Loeb and Alan Moore work for his imprint.

 

4. Ultraverse

 

Ultraverse comics seem to be the mirror image of, uh, Image. While Image was the artist’s haven, Ultraverse was the writer’s hang-out. The universe was crafted by nine founding fathers, all of whom were writers. The group included industry vets like Steve Engelhardt, Steve Gerber and Mike Barr. It also included newer guys like James Robinson and Gerard Jones. While Image comics were sometimes sub-par because of their lack of writers, Ultraverse comics varied widely in terms of quality of art. They were able to find some established artists to contribute such as Barry Windsor-Smith, who worked his way over from Valiant to help create Rune, and George Perez, who contributed pencils to the big crossover Break-Thru and the team title Ultraforce. And they did a good job at unearthing future talents such as Terry Dodson, who started out on Mantra and now works on DC’s Wonder Woman, and Aaron Lopresti, whose first regular title was Sludge and now works on Ms. Marvel. Despite those successes, the art in the Ultraverse was sometimes sub-standard. The new guys went through their growing pains, and the universe had more titles than quality artists.

 

However, the art isn’t the only reason why Ultraverse ranks lower than Image. Normally, I would think that I would take writers-without-artists over artists-without-writers. Yet despite being the writer’s hang-out, the Ultraverse didn’t have the kind of originality that you might expect. A lot of their characters seemed like obvious derivatives, even more so than characters at Milestone or Image. Prototype was too much like Iron Man, Sludge too much like Swamp Thing, Prime too much like SHAZAM. And when they were all put together on a team, the Ultraforce trio of Hardcase, Prototype and Prime seemed a lot like The Avengers’ Captain America

, Iron Man and Thor. Plus, some of the original ideas didn’t work as well as you might have liked. The 1,000 year old man reincarnated in a woman’s body for the first time seemed like a good idea but the execution in Mantra didn’t pan out. And, like Valiant, the Ultraverse seemed to be short of great villains. There was Rune and Lord Pumpkin, but not much more than that.  Despite those complaints, I’m still a fan of the Ultraverse. It was new and exciting. Prime did offer an interesting twist on the SHAZAM icon. Topaz may have been a lot like DC’s Maxima, but Topaz was easily the better character. I may prefer Valiant or Jim Lee’s Wildstorm, but I still enjoy reading Ultraverse comics.

 

5. Dark Horse: Comics’ Greatest World

 

Finally, we come to the bottom of the barrel. While I may acknowledge certain flaws in Image or Ultraverse titles, I still enjoy and defend those comics. I can’t say the same thing for Dark Horse’s Comics’ Greatest World. Dark Horse was accused of being late onto the bandwagon and launching a superhero line in response to the success of the other companies. Dark Horse’s Mike Richardson defended the company saying that these titles and this world had been in development since 1990, years before some of these other companies were founded. Well, if that’s true, these titles should have stayed in development even longer. Part of the problem is that Dark Horse tried to launch 16 titles all at once. While some of the other companies quickly grew to that, they all started out at least a little smaller. Image had six titles at first, the Ultraverse eight. And those companies had trouble maintaining quality as they grew. By starting out with 16 titles, Dark Horse had quality problems from the start. There may have been a few gems in there, but they were buried under a glut of garbage.

 

Dark Horse did have a few hits. Barb Wire got a little bit of fire with the “bad girl” crowd and even had a movie starring Pamela Lee Anderson. Ghost got a little bit of smoke with the “good girl” crowd and is still known for some beautiful Adam Hughes art. And X seemed to do okay as a vigilante, lasting about 45 issues. But the bulk of the line was a dismal failure. Some of the titles had bad writing, others bad art. And some were simply bad ideas. Despite their grandiose title, Comics’ Greatest World was actually the worst.

 

And those were the new universes of the ‘90s. Two I would recommend to pretty much anyone. Two I would recommend to some. One I would recommend to none.

 

The comics of the ‘90s take a lot of flak from older fans who didn’t like the new developments (sound familiar?) but for a new fan, it was a great time. There were so many new characters to meet and new worlds to explore. And it seemed like the possibilities were endless.

(Originally Published at CaptainComics.us on March 30, 20007, Ranking the '90s Universes )

New Reviews: Birds of Prey, Exiles and more

It seems like a lot of the comics I read recently had something new going on: new creative teams, new story directions, that sort of thing. So here are some reviews of the first and second issues of something new. 

New Creative Teams:

 
Exiles #90 is the kind of comic that you know whether or not you’re going to like it before you even open the cover. It’s written by Chris Claremont and if his mannerisms annoy you then they’ll annoy you in this issue, too. There’s his sometimes heavy-handed exposition. Then there are his favorite supporting characters that he loves to use in every title, like Roma and Psylocke. But if you like those things (and personally, I’m fond of Psylocke), or if they don’t annoy you all that much, then you might have a good time. The story moves along at a brisk pace. There’s a bit of humor and a bit of action. And there’s a pretty good cliffhanger ending between Psylocke and Sabretooth who have a history going all the way back to the Morlock Mutant Massacre. Even so, this issue comes up short in several ways. Several characters oddly refer to the insect-like Timbreakers as “lizards.” We get a full sparring match to break up the conversation with some action, but a real fight takes place off panel. The best thing about this issue is easily the Paul Pelletier art. And while this issue of Exiles might not a be bad story, the dialogue and plotting issues keep it from being a good one.

 

Wolverine 50: This issue introduces the new creative team of Jeph Loeb and Simone Bianchi. Over the past two years, Wolverine has seen some great heights and some awful lows. Mark Millar and John Romita Jr.’s “Enemy of the State” story was one of the best Wolverine stories ever written.
Daniel Way’s “Origins and Endings” was one of the worst. Loeb and Bianchi fall somewhere in the middle. Bianchi is a better fit on Wolverine than he was on Green Lantern. His moody art fits the characters better and he gets in some real menacing panels of Sabretooth.  But I still don’t think that Bianchi is a great artist. Sabretooth looks chunky rather than muscular in the two-page spread which should have been the artist’s chance to show off. Loeb’s story is straightforward action as Wolverine discovers that Sabretooth is living in the Xavier Mansion as part of Rogue’s team of X-Men and goes in to smack him around. It’s a good all-out fight, though we’ve seen it before. In Loeb’s defense, this is the first real Wolverine/Sabretooth fight of the current series so it has been awhile. It’s an okay start, but not more than that.

 

New Story Directions:

 

Birds of Prey 102: I like this new direction. I like having Oracle draw on a number of different superheroines as she needs them. And I like that she has a new opponent in Spy Smasher who is trying to take her down by exposing her rather than by trying to beat her up. I think that the Calculator was a slightly better foe, but I’m okay with Oracle having more than one nemesis. I do hope that the title doesn’t stay with a rotating cast but that Oracle eventually forms a rapport with a new core team. And much to my surprise, I’m hoping that the current Manhunter becomes a part of that new team. I think that there’s a good relationship in there as Huntress would suddenly find herself in the role of the responsible one to the Manhunter’s loose cannon. I don’t need all of the characters to keep coming back. Judomaster is a place-filler and Big Barda is a great guest character but she’s too powerful to be a permanent part of the cast. Whatever direction this title is heading in, I can at least say that I’m enjoying the trip.

 

She-Hulk 15: First things first: I love Greg Horn’s homage to Jim Steranko’s work on Nick Fury: Agent of SHIELD. I also love the way that this title approaches all of the new situations that are thrust upon it by the titles around it. Dan Slott does a great job of playing with a scene from Civil War while also keeping character issues from his own title in the spotlight such as Doc Samson’s insistence that She-Hulk also spend some time as Jennifer Walters. And while others may disagree, I love the way that this title jumps with both feet into the new direction of having She-Hulk as an Agent of SHIELD. It’s as if Dan Slott has said, “If this is the direction we’re going in then we might as well have a blast doing it.” And it is a blast- She-Hulk in a SHIELD uniform, She-Hulk para-gliding off the SHIELD heli-carrier, Agent Cheesecake, and the Abomination hanging out in a Horndogs restaurant. There’s a lot of wit in this issue, as there is every time that She-Hulk is at her best.

 

Mostly New Mini-Series:

 

Star Wars: Dark Times 2: The lead character is former Jedi Dass Jennir and his story is an interesting one. He’s a former Jedi, not because he chose to leave the order but because the order no longer exists. And now Dass has to try and make his own way in the world, falling in with smugglers and falling in love. Dass’s new life is a curious balance of trying to stay true to his old ideals while admitting that the old ideals no longer fit the new life. Welles Hartley and Mick Harrison are also doing a good job of building a supporting cast around Dass, surrounding him with interesting aliens. My only complaint has to do with the depiction of Darth Vader. I just don’t like the way that Vader is portrayed in most of the post-Revenge of the Sith stories, whether it’s in the novels or the comics. When we first meet Darth Vader in the movies, he’s a dark, dangerous foe. In Dark Times, and other stories of the same time period, Vader is often portrayed as ineffectual. Here, he’s brooding and indecisive rather than forceful and menacing. I understand that he’s still growing into his role as galactic bogeyman but I admit to preferring him as a full-fledged foe.

 

Samurai: Heaven and Earth Vol. 2 #2: What a great series! The art by Luke Ross is amazing. He draws beautiful landscapes and beautiful people. He captures multiple cultures and multiple emotions. And he makes you wish you were actually there. Ron Marz’ story has a lot going for it as well. The first volume established the depths of the bonds of love between Asukai Shiro and the Lady Yoshida. It’s a great romantic tale as Shiro crosses heaven and earth to get back his lady love. That tale continues in this volume. However, while the first volume featured a lot of driving action, this volume is mixing things up with a bit of twisting action. Promotional art for the second series showed the Sahara desert but Marz ended the first issue with a cliffhanger in which Shiro finds out that Lady Yoshida has boarded a boat bound for the Americas. But just when we think that we’ve abandoned one continent for another, Marz turns us right around bringing us unexpectedly to the third. At first, I was disappointed that we wouldn’t be going to Africa. Now, I’m disappointed that we won’t be going to the Americas. And yet, I can’t help but admire how Marz has twisted the story and the reader around.

(Originally Published,Feb, 02, 2007 at CaptainComics.us)

Star Wars Year-in-Review

As a way of celebrating their 20th Anniversary last year, Dark Horse relaunched their entire Star Wars line.  They allowed several successful and long-running titles come to an end while launching four new ones.  With that particular year at an end (and the 30th Anniversary of Star Wars at a beginning), I figured I'd review the four new titles.


Star Wars: Legacy
by John Ostrander and Jan Duursema

This is the best of the four new Star Wars titles. That itself isn't a surprise.Ostrander and Duursema had been the best creative team on the outgoing title, Republic, so the expectations were pretty high for their new title. Legacy has met and even exceeded those lofty expectations.

Legacy is set in the future of Star Wars, more than 100 years after Return of the Jedi, the last movie in the chronology, and several generations after the New Jedi Order, the successful series of novels. The nominal lead of the series is Cade Skywalker, the latest in the illustrious family of Jedi heroes. In the very first issue, a Sith attack forces a young Cade to abandon his Jedi ways. The series then skips forward in the second issue to an adult Cade who has chosen the way of a smuggler's blaster over the way of a Jedi's lightsaber. He's a great lead, combining some of the best traits of the roguish Han Solo and the dreamy Luke Skywalker.

However, this series is about more than one man. It's about an entire universe. And that's what makes it so great. At the beginning of the series, the Sith reassert control over the Empire. The Sith are great villains. Just as Darth Bane had abandoned an earlier path that wasn't working, these Sith have abandoned Darth Bane's dictum of "there shall be no more than two; one master, one apprentice" as that method had failed with the death of Darth Sidious in Return of the Jedi. These Sith are numerous, ruthless and out in the open for all to see. Ostrander has come up with some great names while Duursema has topped him by coming up with some great looks. Darth Talon is a red-skinned Twi'lek (think of Jabba's dancer in Return of the Jedi, or Aayla Secura from the comics). Darth Nihl is a white and black skinned terror. There's a great red-skinned Quarren. And the Sith leader has a rough mask with horns that is menacing in exactly the opposite way from Darth Vader's smooth helmet. Plus, by coming up with a good story reason for abandoning Darth Bane's rule, Legacy can revel in multiple powerful villains.

  Standing opposite to the Sith are the Jedi, as has been the case for more than a thousand generations. However, at the beginning of the series, the Sith thoroughly crush the Jedi. This is not the strong and plentiful order of the prequel era. Nor is this an era of no Jedi as was the case when Luke Skywalker left his family farm. This is something in between. It is an era of Jedi who are sparse and scattered but who remain devoted to their cause. If the Jedi Knights of the prequel movies are like King Arthur's Knights of the Round Table, the Jedi of Legacy are like Robin Hood's Merry Men. They strike out in the name of justice and the oppressed, but they do so from the shadows.

One of the other things that makes Legacy so great is that unlike the original movies, this version of Star Wars is not strictly a story of good versus evil. In the Star Wars novels, Timothy Zahn introduced a remnant of the Empire that was noble. Ostrander uses that in this series. When the Sith take over, there is a segment of the Empire that resents the rule of the Sith. They may believe in military rule but they aren't tyrants. They're nobility. And so, the Empire rebels against the Sith, led by the Fel family. The result is some great conflict. There are battles of stormtroopers versus stormtroopers as the Imperial nobility and hereditary military fight the Sith. There are alliances of convenience between Imperials and Jedi. And there's a great new development as Ostrander introduces a new order- the Imperial Knights. Legacy has it all: complex characters, a multi-sided conflict, great battle scenes and beautiful art. It combines the epic and the personal in a way that is true of all great Star Wars tales. I've loved every issue so far and I can't wait to see what else will happen.

 

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
by John Jackson Miller and Brian Ching

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic is the second significant ongoing series coming out of Dark Horse right now. But there are some key differences between Legacy and Knights. While Legacy is set in the future of Star Wars, Knights is set in the past. Way in the past. 3,998 years before the original Star Wars to be precise. And while Legacy is sailing into uncharted waters, detailing a previously untold era, Knights is wading into an era that is already well established. It's the same era that was explored in several excellent Tales of the Jedi stories such as Dark Lords of the Sith and Sith War. It's a similar era to that explored in the Knights of the Old Republic video game. Those aren't complaints, however. Only differences.

Knights of the Old Republic is almost as excellent as Legacy but for different reasons. In Knights, the lead character is Zayne Carrick. Zayne was a young Jedi Padawan who wanted to be a great Jedi knight but who wasn't a very good student. He was often tardy and unfocused. He was more like the class clown than the teacher's pet. But on one fateful day, Zayne Carrick's tardiness became his salvation. He was late for a significant Jedi ceremony but when he arrived, he discovered that the Jedi masters had killed their Padawans and his friends. Zayne fled for his life and the Jedi masters framed him for the crime.

That's not exactly the kind of opening you would expect in a Star Wars tale, but that's exactly what you get in Knights of the Old Republic. The hero is a failed Padawan. His initial allies are smugglers, junk dealers and dilapidated droids. He eventually befriends a Mandalorian, a race currently at war with the very Republic that the Jedi are sworn to protect. His enemies are the Jedi themselves, or at least a small group of them. Zayne can't trust the good guys and isn't sure he can trust his allies. For that matter, he isn't even sure he can trust himself.

Eventually, we learn why this group of Jedi Knights turned on their Padawans. Apparently, they had a prophecy that one of their students would destroy the Jedi Order. They killed their own students to prevent this from happening. They truly thought they were acting in the best interests of the Order and the Republic it protects. Yet by resorting to murder, they betrayed the ideals they stand for. Plus, they may have just turned Zayne into the one person who could make the prophecy come true and bring the Order to an end.

Like Legacy, Knights of the Old Republic is a complex tale. The line between good and evil isn't as clear as it is in other Star Wars stories. The good guys are hiring assassins while the outlaws are saving lives. In some ways, this is a familiar story. Zayne Carrick is coming-of-age just as Luke and Anakin Skywalker have done in other tales. But Zayne is coming-of-age on the wrong side of the law and his experiences there are fairly interesting.

It's also interesting that Knights, despite spending so much time on the wrong side of the law following outlaws, smugglers and runaways, is actually a fun and often cheery read. There is a kindness to many of the characters. There is humor to some of the scams that the smugglers try to pull and to some of their antagonists. Knights isn't just good, it's also good fun.

Star Wars: Rebellion
by Rob Williams and Brandon Badeaux

Rebellion is the heir to Empire. Star Wars: Empire was one of Dark Horse's successful ongoing series that was cleared out of the way to make room for the new anniversary titles. Empire took place during the latter days of Imperial rule- the same time frame as the original trilogy. Most of the stories in Empire took place between the events of A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back. Rebellion picks up where Empire left off. It brings us back to the same time. Emperor Palpatine still sits on his throne. Darth Vader is still the fearsome enemy. Luke Skywalker is a young farmboy, fairly new to the ranks of the Rebellion, though quickly growing in stature, strength and respect.

Because it's such an obvious continuation of the earlier series, it's hard not to compare Rebellion to Empire. At times, Empire had been a great title. It had taken the time to show the war from the Imperial side and we got to see some Imperial officers and stormtroopers who were basically decent guys fighting for peace and order. There was a pretty good unofficial crossover with Republic in which both Anakin and Luke were fighting on the same planet in different wars. Anakin was there fighting against the separatists in the Clone Wars while Luke was there fighting with the separatists against the Empire.

But Empire could also be an uneven title. The stories for the main characters were set. Anything significant that happened to them was shown in the movies. So Empire was often forced to focus on new or minor characters. Significant things kept happening to the people around them but the nominal stars of Empire weren't always the stars of their own title. Such an approach can work. Indeed, a similar approach worked very well in Republic. But the approach was hit or miss in Empire. There were some successes, as noted above, and some obvious misses.

The new title, Rebellion, is neither Empire at its best nor at its worst. Brandon Badeaux's art isn't as amazing as Jan Duursema on Legacy or Brian Ching on Knights but he more than holds his own on Rebellion. He goes for a straight action style that serves the story well. And he's probably the best of the three artists at drawing machinery, a skill that serves him well when he's called upon to render X-Wings and Tie Fighters.

The story is okay but not great. It does have a bit of an emotional impact as it focuses on one of Luke's childhood friends, Janek Sunber, who happens to be an Imperial officer. Both sides hope to turn him against the other and his struggle to be or not to be a double agent is a worthwhile one. But Rob Williams doesn't want this to be a story about Janek Sunber. He knows that his star is Luke Skywalker and Williams tries to keep him at the center of the story even though he really isn't. The result is a tale that is sometimes muddled and unfocused. We get action scenes for Luke that don't have anything to do with the story. They don't advance the plot at all. Instead, they seem to be there just to give Luke some face time. Later issues apparently focus on Luke's attempt to redeem his friend and bring him over to the Rebellion but early issues show lots of scenes of Luke Skywalker not doing anything.

It doesn't help that Sunber is a new friend for Luke, introduced just for this story and not mentioned in the movies. The suddenly discovered best friend from childhood is a comic book cliche that should really be retired for a while. Luke's emotional turmoil at his friend's status doesn't ring that true for the reader because we've never heard Luke mention him before. It could be made to work, but doesn't come off all that well here.

Unfortunately for Rebellion, we can only judge it as a title by this one arc. Despite being listed as an ongoing, Rebellion hasn't solicited an issue since the first arc ended with issue #5. Rebellion is an okay title. It's better than some of the tales that were found in the parent title, Empire. But when compared to Empire at its best, or to the other new titles of 2006, Rebellion comes up short.

Star Wars: Dark Times
by Welles Hartley, Mick Harrison and Douglas Wheatley

Obi-Wan Kenobi first mentioned "the Clone Wars" and "the dark times" to Luke Skywalker in the original Star Wars movie. Movies, cartoons, comics and novels have shown us the Clone Wars in recent years. The Dark Times, however, have remained relatively untouched. Until now, that is.

Just as Rebellion is the heir to Empire, Dark Times is the heir to Republic. Star Wars: Republic was the Dark Horse series that focused on the events of the latter days of the Galactic Republic. It followed movie characters such as Obi-Wan Kenobi, Anakin Skywalker and Mace Windu as well as new characters such as Quinlan Vos, Aayla Secura and A'Shered Hutt (a half-Tuskan Jedi). That series took readers right into the heart of the Clone Wars. However, following Revenge of the Sith, the Republic had been replaced by an Empire and the Clone Wars had come to an end. So it was an ideal time for Dark Horse to bring Republic to an end and replace it with a new title, Dark Times.

Dark Times takes place shortly after the establishing of the Galactic Empire and the end of the Clone Wars. It's a time I'm particularly excited to explore. I want to know what happened to Bail Organa and Mon Mothma. I want to know how they worked to create a rebellion. I want to know if Ben Kenobi and Yoda were simply hermits in huts or if they surreptitiously worked against Darth Sidious and his Empire. This particular story doesn't answer any of those questions. The major players are being held in reserve, with the possibilities of television series or novels being prepared to tell those tales.

Instead, Dark Times focuses on a few lost Jedi. They survived the Emperor's Order 66 and the massacre of Jedi. They've survived Darth Vader's quest to purge the remaining Jedi from the galaxy... so far. Similar to Knights of the Old Republic, this is a story of Jedi on the run, going underground, finding themselves in difficult situations and dark times. Unlike Knights, however, these are not young Padawans coming of age. These are older Jedi, trained and battle-tested, having given their entire lives to an order that no longer exists.

The story itself is almost a direct sequel to one of the final stories in Star Wars: Republic. In that earlier tale, we saw these Jedi fight in the Wars and avoid the fate of their fellow Jedi. In this tale, we see the Jedi embark on new lives, some in hiding, some as thorns in the side of tyranny. And in this case, the sequel is better than the original.

Well, at least so far it is. It's disappointing enough that Dark Times is only scheduled as a five-issue mini-series. There are enough stories to be told between the end of Revenge of the Sith and the beginning of A New Hope that I'd love for Dark Times to become an ongoing title. But even worse, Dark Times has experienced several delays and has only shipped one issue so far. As much as I enjoyed that issue, it's hard to judge any series on only one issue. And it's hard to remain excited about a story that is so slow in being told. I'd love to judge Dark Times and give it a positive grade. But, really, all I can do is call it incomplete and hope that it's good when it finally comes out.

(Originally Published on 18 January 2007, at the CaptainComics.us)