Salutations, comic readers! It hardly feels like any time has gone by, yet here we are with another week’s harvest of comics! Let’s dive right in.
Superman Unchained 1 (Snyder/ Lee): The other day I talked about the cover to Action Comics and how iconic it was to depict Superman breaking through chains the way us humans would burst through wet toilet paper, which is proportionally accurate. Here again is Superman, tearing through obstacles that would to us seem impossible barriers, but for him are not troublesome enough to be inconvenient.
Superman and Clark Kent have something in common: they can both multitask. Superman is able to handle as many as seven crises at once, and Clark Kent can start and maintain his own fledgling news business. Both are working on the same mystery as well – someone’s hacking into defense satellites and setting them off. Whoever’s doing it may not be as big a threat as who else is interested in those satellites.
Superman and Clark Kent have something in common: they can both multitask. Superman is able to handle as many as seven crises at once, and Clark Kent can start and maintain his own fledgling news business. Both are working on the same mystery as well – someone’s hacking into defense satellites and setting them off. Whoever’s doing it may not be as big a threat as who else is interested in those satellites.
This issue has something that looks like a pull-out poster, but it’s actually a page of the comic, a page that makes splash pages look like itty bitty panels. It reminds me of early issues of Pathfinder, which would include maps and game sheets that, among other things, added bulk to the book. It’s appropriate, considering the main protagonist’s dump stat is 23, and Lex Luthor demonstrates that he’s THAT player in the group. You know the kind I’m talking about, the one that found a loophole that gives his character five new Skill points every level and refuses to play any new editions of the game because that loophole was written out. He rule-lawyers, ruins everyone else’s time, and he’s smug about it. Everyone else in the game hates him, but he insists that he’s just a misunderstood chaotic good character, and if the other players would just let him play through one instance they could see that- (CC Note: Stop it stop it STOP IT! This is too much gamer speak, even for us!!)
I don’t read a whole lot of Superman stories, but this one isn’t bad. Scott Snyder brings dialog that amuses and informs, and Jim Lee brings his usual level of quality. If you’re looking for something to read while in line for a new movie, this would be a good choice.
Batman 21 (Snyder/ Capullo): Snyder again. It makes me nervous when one man has control over more than one franchise. Knowing that JJ Abrams is in charge of both Star Trek and Star Wars, even though I think he’s great, gives me the chills. I just don’t trust monopolies, even though I find top hats fetching. Whereas he’s taking Superman into a near future with holo displays, Batman is going back to his first days in Gotham, when Bruce Wayne had been declared dead.
When Bruce Wayne was old enough, he ran away from home determined to learn what he needed to track and bring down the criminal element wherever it might hide. He didn’t tell anyone about this, and those he left behind declared him dead, even while they continued to search for any sign of him. He expected to find a Gotham City much like the one he left, but instead Bruce comes home to something even worse, a city so wracked with crime and abuse that he decides things would be better if Bruce Wayne was still believed dead. This way, he can focus on fixing Gotham and building a suitable persona to do it with.
When Bruce Wayne was old enough, he ran away from home determined to learn what he needed to track and bring down the criminal element wherever it might hide. He didn’t tell anyone about this, and those he left behind declared him dead, even while they continued to search for any sign of him. He expected to find a Gotham City much like the one he left, but instead Bruce comes home to something even worse, a city so wracked with crime and abuse that he decides things would be better if Bruce Wayne was still believed dead. This way, he can focus on fixing Gotham and building a suitable persona to do it with.
This reads more like Will Eisner’s The Spirit than a Batman story in some ways. Our hero believes he can do more in street clothes than a uniform, trusts maybe two people, and has all but divorced himself from the person he was. Unlike the Spirit, this hero has more trouble with people trying to bring him back to his old identity than with the criminals he faces, and the criminals he faces are no laughing matter (yet???). When you consider how much family and identity mean to Bruce Wayne in the “present”, this version reads like a different person altogether, certainly not the Bruce Wayne Snyder’s been showing us until now. If he can bring the character around in a way that makes sense and engages the reader, and I have every reason to suspect he can, then this should prove to be a good run.
This is a perfect jumping on point for readers that haven’t been keeping up with Batman, and a new serving of backstory to those that have. Give it a look.
Savage Wolverine 6 (Wells/ Madureira): When I first opened this book and saw the intro page, I was pleased. It explained where this story takes place in continuity, and it did so with just a bit of mirth. It said, to paraphrase, “We’re making this the way we want it, complain to someone else.” Such a statement better be backed up with a decent story, and despite the ho-hum first run of the series, I think this one might deliver.
The best find ways to come back, even if they’re the worst. Take Bullseye, formerly the most accurate assassin in the Marvel Universe. Oh wait, someone else took him. The ones that did also took Elektra and Wolverine at one point, and they’d just as soon they not give Bullseye back in any manageable number of pieces. There are strange allegiances everywhere in this issue, and a creepy doll thing that’s become almost standard in resurrection stories.
The best find ways to come back, even if they’re the worst. Take Bullseye, formerly the most accurate assassin in the Marvel Universe. Oh wait, someone else took him. The ones that did also took Elektra and Wolverine at one point, and they’d just as soon they not give Bullseye back in any manageable number of pieces. There are strange allegiances everywhere in this issue, and a creepy doll thing that’s become almost standard in resurrection stories.
There’s not much special in this. The villains challenging other villains has a theme that might turn out to be interesting, but likely end up a one-off joke. That said, this at least has what the previous run didn’t have: the essentials. Logan is where Logan thinks he should be because he wants to be there. Logan wants to apply Occam’s Razor to problem people, as in his six unbreakable razors, but this doesn’t work with most of his teammates. It’s Wolverine being what he hasn’t been in a long time: savage.
This is an average book that does what it sets out to do. More Hollywood blockbuster than anything, and far from the worst book on the shelves this week.
The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys 1 (Way & Simon/ Cloonan): There’s some benefit to the dead not staying dead in comics. As escapism goes, you can’t get much further removed from reality than watched beloved characters that were killed come back as if they never died. Sometimes escapism is all we want. It’s certainly what the characters in this book want, but they don’t have the same avenues we do.
The Killjoys were a team of vigilantes that may or may not have had superpowers. They were super popular, with merchandising deals and everything. To up their marketability, in the tradition of the Superfriends, they even had a young girl tag along with them. They went up against the local military industrial complex, the BLI. They died. The girl didn’t. Nameless herself, she survives with a pet cat walking the wastes left behind during the Killjoys’ last stand. Some people are taking up their cause, perhaps without their motives, continuing the fight against BLI, and they pull her back into the fray.
The Killjoys were a team of vigilantes that may or may not have had superpowers. They were super popular, with merchandising deals and everything. To up their marketability, in the tradition of the Superfriends, they even had a young girl tag along with them. They went up against the local military industrial complex, the BLI. They died. The girl didn’t. Nameless herself, she survives with a pet cat walking the wastes left behind during the Killjoys’ last stand. Some people are taking up their cause, perhaps without their motives, continuing the fight against BLI, and they pull her back into the fray.
Despite not knowing her name, the reader actually learns a lot about this girl. For one thing, she’s smart, not too proud to be picky about where or how she sleeps, and absolutely out of place with her peers. There are a few other women in key positions, now that I think about it: two desperate androids identify as female and have a sizable amount of page space devoted to them, and the apparent CEO of BLI is a woman with more than enough sociopathy to make her a believable businessperson. There’s also a lot we don’t know as readers, like what our nameless protagonist is surviving for, or what’s left for BLI to conquer. Gerard Way began his previous series, The Umbrella Academy, in the same way, and most readers agree that patience paid off there; having Shaun Simon, another musician, assist with the script should provide a different enough voice to keep readers guessing. Becky Cloonan’s art provides enough information and emotion to engage the staunchest reader. It caught me, anyway.
The Fabulous Killjoys will not be everyone’s cup of tea. It is something genuinely new, though, and something you should at the very least take a look at.
And speaking of things to look at, I think I saw something shiny just now. I better investigate, but before I go, I’ll remind you that this Sunday is Father’s Day, and if you haven’t gotten a gift yet, our gift certificates make great presents for the man who has everything you can think of, or have already borrowed. See you next week!
No comments:
Post a Comment