Jim's Comic Reviews - Week of 9 January

Fantastic Four #3

So, now that we've settled in, what can we glean about the direction Fraction and co. have undertaken with this title? I have to say, it's exactly as expected:  The first family of comics is in another realm entirely, disconnected from the events of Earth-616, partaking in adventure of a very Trek or Lost in Space vibe.   Bagley's art is competent, Mount's colors are all very whiz-bang, as you'd expect on such a title, and the characters are true to their nature...but I'm a little bored with it, to be honest.  The one thing the issue lacks is a complex, motivated nemesis, and the being they encounter instead is very Trek-like and just...well, generic sci-fi. It's all very predictable, and this is one title that's gotta be anything but.  The vibe they're going for is "boundless adventure" and what you get is something that, although executed with competence, you've seen before.  If 50's and 60's sci-fi nostalgia is what trips your trigger, I'd say give it a look-see, but even then, if you're more Whovian than Trekkie in your taste for weird sci-fi plots you'll want to give it a pass.  For myself, I've seen this episode dozens of times, it's just that Shatner was playing his own version of Mr. Fantastic.

Thunderbolts #3

I gotta say, this was a fun read.  Way's giving us a motley of characters that are all very broken, and delights in those moments of interplay within the team that make the book what it is. He's one of those few that can get legitimate, consistent hilarity out of the over-used Deadpool, who's played as the perfect foil to everyone else's weighty concerns. Dillon's art is what it is, though...you never want for clues as to the characters' emotional states, and the storytelling, character blocking and composition is all there...but there's an element of same-face to characters and, well, to put it bluntly there's just something wrong with everyone's mouths and eyes.  The line weights are just too uniform around facial features and they lack any sense of texture. That, and character movements and poses are all very uninspired.  With a character like Red Hulk, for example, I want more "tank-like" and less "slightly taller than Frank Castle, if you check his driver's license" That being said, this title is going on my pull list tomorrow, great art or no.

Jim Butcher's The Dresden Files:  Ghoul Goblin #1

Apparently, there's a set of novels and a tv show about this Dresden guy, and I've never seen any of it...go figure.  I'm judging the work as an introduction to a reader who's starting out cold, so fans should bear that in mind.  Love the art work in this issue: the Cooper/Mohan team gives us images well suited for the story, which concerns the adventures of Harry Dresden, Wizard-For-Hire.  Now, that's a job title that just screams for a unique character and a bizarre plot to go with it.  While the plot here seems original in it's underpinnings, the execution is rather flat. I haven't followed the character in works past, so maybe there's back-story and motivation I'm unaware of that fans will just "get", but I didn't think the book did a convincing job of laying out the basics.  I'm thinking they were going for "hard-boiled" and "noir-ish", but they end up with a sort of faceless guy who deals in the fantastic in a way that's very parochial.  I don't recommend it as an introduction for non-fans of the character, but I'd guess that long-time fans might like it.

Batman Detective Comics #16

While the issue is without the mask cover of the other, sometimes more relevant, pieces of the Death Of The Family crossover event, it does have the crossover billing over the marqis.  I suppose the guts of the story  kinda depend on DotF going on, but it's definitely a side-line arc that could have, with a few tiny tweaks, ended up well outside the bounds of the crossover.  Nevertheless, Layman once again lays out a tight, engaging script that's perfectly suited for the title, and could definitely stand as it's own story. An up-and-coming villain is bent on taking control of the Gotham crime syndicate currently headed by the Penguin, and he's definitely proving himself willing to embrace Gotham's own brand of intricate, violent weirdness to do it. Layman is setting us up for many issues to come, and it's a fun ride.  The art is pretty stellar, too.

Thor God Of Thunder #4

Just go buy it already.  I can't believe Marvel is putting out such consistent quality with this title at such a fast pace.  Probably the best run of Thor since JMS was on the character a few years back, and I daresay it's even better.  The art, imho, is a runaway best of the new Marvel NOW! line, and I'd put it up against any current monthly title by any publisher.

Action Comics #16

Somewhere in here is a good Superman story, I'm convinced of it...but it seems, once again, Mr. Morrison has confounded it with a jumbled aesthetic and an incomprehensible narrative, and it'll probably take another six issues to glean enough pieces to even begin the work of puzzling it all together.  Maybe it is hard to come up with an unfamiliar-sounding Superman story after 75 years, but is the character so far gone that finding such a story involves LSD?

Earth 2 #8

Earth 2 has been on-again, off-again with the quality, but I thought this issue was rather solid.  It gives us a view from the other side of the conflict, and really serves to cement the idea that in this dimension, things can be allowed to spiral out of control, upsetting the status quo on a world scale and examining the consequences in a way that, let's face it, you just can't in the regular DCU, no matter how many times you push the reboot/reset button.  The Steppenwolf of Earth 2, having been trapped on the wrong side of a boom tube, is embracing the new world he's found himself in, and like Caesar in Gaul, he's got his sights set on conquering the scattered barbarians he finds there and bringing them to heel.  Convenient, then, that he's found the perfect fictional nation to home base in.  This title is, the way I see it, so very necessary to DC as a sort of end-game fulfillment of the what they billed the New 52 reboot as being:  Truly new, truly different...and assertively NOT dependent on 75 year-old characters in familiar settings with familiar motivations, to make it tick.  All in all, a very good read, if a tad on the dry side.

Superior Spider-Man #1

I've made no bones on the podcast nor in previous blog entries about the fact I think some of the decades-old characters of comics could use an ending to their stories...in truth, I've found the idea of a new psyche inhabiting the body of Spider-Man immensely intriguing, perhaps even worthy of an indefinite status with one of Marvel's linchpin properties.  But do I end up liking this character?  I don't know yet.  Octavius of the comics has always been written as kinda petty, and while it is an interesting premise to have such a self-centered mind saddled with Parker's everlasting guilt trip, yet stuck in a body capable of the sort of wish fulfillment every villain dreams of, you still get the sense things are in a state of flux, and it's tough, at least in this first issue, to get behind it.  You want the diverse motivational elements to get to detente, so you can take a look at the singular result with new eyes, but you still get the sense this is two characters jumbled into one, ala someone like Firestorm.  Perhaps it's just the stutter of changing gears, and things will all shake out after we've had some time with the character.  Nevertheless, it is FUN, and treated somewhat lightly, and I'm genuinely interested in a Spider-Man title for the first time in years.  Stegman's art is perfect for the cartoony, frenetic tone of OctoParker's endeavors, and it's scripted about as well as can be expected.  Good for Mr. Slott for venturing down this path...we could use a few more such risks with established characters....and a risk, it definitely is.

Anyway, it's been a great week for comics.  Thanks for reading!  

Jim's Comic Reviews:  Justice League #13

Okay, so it's been a while since I picked up a new Justice League comic besides thumbing through one at Captain Blue Hen.  I came off the reboot last year confused and disillusioned with the series, unable to put together a simple sequence that explained the book's overall timeline. This was exacerbated somewhat by Jim Lee's work on the title, where I would look at a given two-page spread and think, "looks great!", but a page or two later, and I'd be wondering what was going on.  It was as if the characters were well-crafted but inarticulate action figures traipsing through backgrounds that were just too full of imposing heroes to convince me the world was greater than the space between the gutters. Superman doesn't fly, he poses in the narrow sky.  Batman doesn't tumble, he's too busy holding up the margins of the page with his shoulders.  Aquaman doesn't swim, he's holding back the tide by standing in front of it, heroically brandishing a trident or something.  Too many flashbacks being the main course, there was not enough meat on offer, story-wise or art-wise, to justify my cash.

This brings us to issue #13, where a pleasant surprise awaited me, in the form of some very solid pencils by Mr. Tony Daniel, and some tight storytelling by Geoff Johns.  This issue explores the recent lips-smacked-round-the-world between Superman and Wonder Woman, re-introduces Cheetah not only as a capable nemesis for Wonder Woman, but a challenge for the entire league assembled, and features a back-up story centered around lovesick Steve Trevor that hints at things to come.  Overall, a competent effort by Johns that, while it's not going to win any awards, was a right-sized chunk of episodic fun and brought enough entertainment for me.

What got me about the issue's art is the cinematic nature of it.  Tony's never been a go-to artist for me, but reading this issue, I'm wondering why.  He seems to have all the good bits of Jim Lee down:  The characters are as heroic and imposing as Lee's own rendering, but he maintains a tight control over the space they take up in the panel, and the timing imparted by the panel size and action therein.  Action-wise, Wonder Woman and Cheetah, the two major combatants, slug it out with the battle moving from panel to gracefully rendered panel fluidly, and there seems to be no snapshot in time Daniel can't convincingly render them frozen in motion. There's an eye for environments at work, and attention to the movement of the chess pieces, and the world seems larger for it.  When things slow down, the facial expressions contain nuances of performance to do any actor proud, particularly the glances shared between Wonder Woman and Superman, and the combination of grudging respect and rivalry between Batman and Aquaman.

The issue comes off as having just the right amount of character development, exposition, and action for this title and flagship-worthy art, and I came away well satisfied with the read.

This is the Justice League I was looking for.  4/5 stars.      

Jim's Comic Reviews, Batgirl #13

Batgirl #13 picks up where #12 left off.  The issue opens to find Barbara nearly incapacitated from a knife-wound inflicted by Knightfall in the previous issue, desperately clinging to consciousness as her attacker continues to press the fight.

This issue serves as a wrap-up to the Knightfall storyline and lead-in to the Death of the Family crossover event, and is a collaborative writing effort from Batgirl's regular writer Gail Simone, and Scott Snyder who helms the crossover.  As a tie-in to DotF, however, you only get a single page...and that's fine.  Ms. Simone has hit her running stride with this character in this story, and there's no sense in derailing it for the sake of the tie-in, regardless of my faith in Snyder's storytelling.  It seems Mr. Snyder and co. are accounting for the needs of the story as it exists over the desire for crossover sales or creative hubris, which is refreshing.  

The art in this issue is very good.  Benes is proving a welcome addition as penciller and inker to the title, having recently put forward a rather elegant effort with the #0 issue of same.  Although there is that tendency to place the camera rather strategically to showcase Barbara's lady parts, it's only a few panels, and it's a far cry from the blatant cheesecake of Benes' early days on Birds of Prey in the old DCU. Further, we're getting a lot more emotional depth and eye for tone and pacing than we did back then.  What comes through here is the strong, determined, and committed character Simone is writing, not the fact she has a cool outfit that's a color change away from nudity.  For example, Benes spends a protracted sequence of several panels to depict Barbara fighting her way to her feet after nearly succumbing to unconsciousness, and the fatigue, pain and determination to succeed at all costs to herself are all brutally evident in her expression, the slowed pacing really bringing it into focus.  This is the kind of close-quarters combat where Benes' work shines.  In the past, I've had problems with his seeming inability to do the sort of wide-angle establishing shots frequently needed for an ensemble title without making characters look out of place or not in touch with their environments...I think he does much better on a solo book like Batgirl, and look forward to more of same. His work as an inker is also looking rather layered and gives the book a textured look that lends to its gritty, hard-hitting gravitas.  As colorist, Arreola gives us a competent delivery that never strays far from realism, but lends to the sort of episodic crime-drama feel Simone's writing goes for.  Like the pencils, it's going for story, not gimmicks or pretense.

So yes, I recommend the book, especially to fans of the character that perhaps didn't make the leap across the reboot based on earlier issues in the title.  4 out of 5 stars.