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tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27602425554163457022016-06-24T21:26:54.088-07:00Second Printing!!Fine Blogging Since April 21st, 2008Devon Sandershttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2760242555416345702.post-81852919402157930192016-06-16T19:00:00.000-07:002016-06-16T19:00:14.951-07:00The Lives and Deaths and Rebirths of SupermanSuperman # 51/52
Batman/Superman #31/32
Action Comics #51/52, #957
Superman/Wonder Woman #28/29
Superman: Lois and Clark #1-7
Superman: Rebirth #1

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"The Super League Is Forged"...
uhh, what does that even mean?

After Grant Morrison's Action Comics run ended with issue 18, I didn't pick up another Superman solo title until Convergence: Superman last year. It's kind of telling that it took the return of the pre-New 52 Superman to draw me back to the character. If you had asked me then specifically what was it about the New 52 Superman that I wasn't interested in, and I know I wouldn't have been able to tell you. Today, though, I'm very close to being all-in on Superman because of Rebirth, and I think I have an idea of what kept me away from the character's published exploits for almost 4 years.

But I'll get to that.

Let's start here.

Past Lives

I know Superman. I grew up with him. I had some random pre-Crisis issues of World's Finest, Superman, and Action Comics comics, but DC Comics Presents were my favourite. In DCCP Superman would team up with heroes (and sometimes Villains) across the DC Universe. What spoke to me about these books as a youngling was how effortlessly Superman interacted with every corner of the DC Universe. He was the heart of the place. It felt like he belonged there, everywhere, always had and always would. Hell, one of my favourite Superman stories is still Superman vs. Muhammad Ali (my beaten and battered oversized treasury edition one of my most favored childhood keepsakes and it's really just the best DC Comics Presents story they ever made), where two very different worlds collided and yet these two great heroes, one fiction and one real, managed to both feel at home together.

Lex's computer tells him Clark Kent is
Superman and Lex literally cannot
believe it...in issue #2!

I was a fairly steadfast reader of Superman Post-Crisis. Before I discovered comic book stores, I would truck on down to my local dirt mall and jump between the smoke shop and the book store looking on the magazine and spinner racks for the latest issues of Superman, Action Comics, Adventures of Superman, and Justice League (and the occasional dip into something else, but those ...those were my must buys). They had literally just relaunched Superman into three new titles, and depowered him, started from scratch. And yet, the costume was Superman, the character was Superman from the get go. This was not a reluctant hero. This was a man of confidence and ability.. He just felt right. He fit the DC Universe perfectly and he felt refreshed.

Those first 6 years were glorious for the character. Not perfect by any means, but they felt like the character at his best. By 1991 Superman was basically weekly, with a fourth Superman title added (Man of Steel) and a tighter continuity between books. This saw the introduction of the infamous weekly triangle, which would show the story order number for each year (a feature which persisted until 2002). The stories through this time saw Superman kill some evil Kryptonians and have a serious emotional crisis as a result, disappearing into space. He also lost his powers to Red Kryptonite for a short stint, and bounced around time for a while. There's are some tremendously fun (if very 90's) stories that efficiently established this character as the preeminent hero of the DCU (and it's worth noting the character continued to grow in popularity even during the marketing chaos of Tim Burton's Batman).

By the time Superman faced Doomsday and was killed late in '92, it felt like this character had earned the hype that the event was receiving. It was a very big deal, because this was a character who was the epitome of "hero" in the DC Universe. His loss was Earth-shaking. Less than a decade into the post-Crisis DCU and it had already been established that the GALAXY knew and respected Superman. John Byrne, Marv Wolfman, Dan Jurgens, Jerry Ordway, Louise Simonson and numerous others, through fleet, exciting storytelling, built a Superman that was legendary without relying upon scraps from the past, but also not completely discounting his heritage either.

He returned to life, revealed himself to his true love, got married, and after about 10 years, entered a weird holding pattern. The storytellers had put him (and the audience) through the wringer with the character, so it was only natural that he hit a lull. But for me, like for a great many, I'm sure, that lull persisted for some time. I wasn't much of a regular Superman reader again after that. I would check in for certain story arcs or just hop back on an issue for fun, but the thing was it was always a Superman I could recognize, and it would take no time at all to feel at ease with the character.

A New Life

The New 52 completely rebooted the character, turned him into something unrecognizable. Here wasn't the Superman we recognized as the guardian of Metropolis, protector of Earth, hero to the galaxy. It was almost as if DC was resistant to building him up as a hero, like they didn't want to shine the spotlight on him and make him stand out in any way. He wasn't even a familiar Clark Kent. And we had three very different writers in Grant Morrison, George Perez and Geoff Johns approaching the character from completely different angles.

Morrison's Action Comics was building the character in the past, exploring his origins, what brought him into the public eye. But at the same time, Morrison was exploring concepts of heroism and toying with elements of the archetype's past, which made for fascinating reading but didn't quite build an inspirational hero fans could glom onto. It was a little to heady, a little to scattershot, and a lot too condensed to be meaningful.

Perez was playing in the "5 years later" present-day of the New 52 (the dual timeline did the New 52 no favors at all) and seemed more interested in building around Superman than building Superman himself, putting focus on rebuilding supporting players. Perhaps it's so he wasn't conflicting with Superman's depiction in Johns' Justice League where he was a lot more aggressive and angry than Supermen past, a signature flaw of the New 52's many missteps.

I quit Perez's Superman after only a couple of issues (Perez quit soon after himself) and I rode Morrison's whackadoo story through to it's conclusion, after which I put Superman on a shelf. I wasn't sure I'd ever return.

He just didn't feel like my guy. He wasn't completely mishandled like Zack Snyder's Superman, but he didn't feel at all familiar. Brooding and kind of angry, aimless...he wasn't the epitome of heroism, and I didn't admire him as a character. There wasn't really a bright beacon to the New 52 and this Superman was most assuredly not trying to be it.

A Return of Sorts

In Convergence: Superman I was reintroduced to Clark and Lois of pre-Flashpoint. I hadn't seen them in years... even before New 52, it'd been a while. As crappy as the overall Convergence event was, though (I reviewed Convergence, painfully, week-by-week for Bleeding Cool last year, links to week 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8), what it had going for it was that it allowed the writers to advance the pre-Flashpoint characters. I mean, Lois and Clark got married in 1996 and for 15 years their story barely advanced. Richard Donner and Geoff Johns wrote a wonderful arc around 2008 which gave Lois and Clark an adopted Kryptonian son (the product of Zod and Ursa in the Negative Zone) but it was short lived. Apparently DC editorial didn't want Lois and Clark to have a kid.

With Convergence: Superman, Lois and Clark were trapped, away from home, and Clark was depowered. They were adjusting to their new life in a bottled up Gotham (yes Gotham), although Superman had never given up hope, nor stopped exploring the possibilities of returning home. Lois was pregnant. The New 52 said that happiness was a suckhole of good storytelling, so they didn't allow happy couples, and definitely no weddings, and no kids. But with just those two Convergence issues of seeing Lois and Clark together, a content, unified couple, it was a tidal wave of exactly what was missing from the New 52, and the New 52 Superman specifically.

The Post-Crisis Clark's interest in Lois comes from her as an inspirational figure, of the strength of humanity to fight injustice even without superpowers. Superman is a god amongst men, but Clark doesn't see himself like that. He's a human being first, Kryptonian/Superhero second and third. Lois is his match. Oh, post-Crisis Superman had a moment with Wonder Woman (see Action Comics #600) but they understood a relationship based on the fact that they were the strongest man and woman on the planet wasn't a solid foundation for a relationship.

Like Man of Steel and Batman v Superman, the New 52 didn't start Superman out properly. They didn't establish him as a human first... and Superman shouldn't be just any human, but the best of them. Altruistic and good, selfless and caring. This New 52 Superman distanced himself, was a bit of a loner, and felt different in such a way as to keep him at arm's length from people. I don't know/remember how the New 52 really detailed his relationship with Jonathan and Martha Kent, but pre-Flashpoint, they were his home. They were always there for him, and they were even there for his extended family...Kara, Connor... Clark Kent is the reflection of his parents. Take them out of the picture or mishandle their parentage and you get a Superman who's not quite right.

Spinning out of Convergence came Superman: Lois and Clark, an 8-part mini-series which jumps ahead a few years from the end of Convergence where pre-Flashpoint Lois, Clark and baby Jonathan have escaped obsolescence. In Lois and Clark the family has been living on the New 52 Earth in secret, taking the last name "White". Lois had been writing copy for local Northern California press, while Clark was taking on odd jobs and doing a little clandestine superheroing on the side. They weren't home, but they weren't commiserating about the loss of their entire reality, they were making due and they were happy.

As with Convergence: Superman, here Dan Jurgens gets to the beating heart of this couple. They're two incredibly strong people who are even stronger together. The loss of one's entire reality may drive some to madness or depression, not these two. They soldier on and continue to fight the good fight. Clark can't help himself, he has to do good. It's what he was born to do. He's realized that coming out in public wouldn't be good for him or his family, so he's taken a page from his old friend Batman and operated in the shadows. Lois, meanwhile, is taking on the Intergang of this Earth, both acknowledging for all this reality's differences from their own, there's a lot the same too.

I haven't finished reading Superman: Lois and Clark, because I came late to it and I'm trying to catch up. I really should have added it to my pull when it came out, considering how much I liked the return of these characters in Convergence: Superman, plus how amazing Lee Weeks' art was. I just didn't want to keep being reminded of the old DCU and how little it really mattered in the world of the New 52. My Superman wasn't the Superman anymore, so it didn't seem worthwhile to pick up this mini-series.

Then came the news, the news of Rebirth and solicitations which seemed to indicate that old-DCU Superman was once again going to be the Superman, and "The Final Days of Superman" was going to be the death of the New 52 Clark Kent. I had to get on this. I had to see this transition for myself, else I wouldn't believe it.

Death

I returned to New 52 Superman for his final days... and it was ...I dunno... I can't say disappoitnting, because I had no real investment in this Superman. It was eye opening though. Peter J. Tomasi spends 8 issues with Superman saying goodbye (the return of the weekly triangle, at least for this short stint was a welcome sight), and despite the best of intentions, it still felt like there was no heart there. In the first page of the first book, Superman #51, Clark says "I'm dying".

It's a perfect storm, he realizes, having fought in the fire pits of Apokolips, been subjected to A.R.G.U.S.' kryptonite room and battled Rao (I didn't read this, but was this supposed to be a personification of the Kryptonian god?). By page 6 Superman has given up. He's stopped fighting. He's accepted his fate, and from there he's out to say his farewells.

First stop was Lana, to tell her his final wishes, then to Lois, to give her the life story of Clark Kent: Superman. He's then off to see Batman, to tell his friend of his situation, but it's a dual-purpose visit, since he needs Batman's help to find Supergirl. Their dynamic still feels young, and there's still more than a bit of playful antagonizing going on. Batman wants to fight for a cure but Superman waves it off. They find Supergirl in National City where she's enlisted the DEO to help get kickstart her powers (to tie the comics closer to the Supergirl TV show). Apparently Kryptonian powers on this Earth are pretty sketchy in their consistency.

Wonder Woman shows up at the Fortress of Solitude, kind of pissed. "Am I the last to know?"
"Batman told you," Superman accurately guesses.
Their conversation from there doesn't feel like that of a couple who really knows each other. There's no sense of comfort between these two. These scenes feel like characters who are attracted to each other and have an emotional investment, but they don't feel like a part of each others' lives. They fight together, they kiss...but they both have whole other lives, other lives that really matter to them, other lives where they don't fit together.

As I was saying earlier, Superman and Wonder Woman don't work because for Superman, she would be alien to him. He's a Kansas farm boy, she's an Amazon Warrior. She is the god he shouldn't see himself as. That doesn't fit.

There's so much awesome 1970's
Super-Team Family/DC Comics Presents
flavour to this Yannick Paquette cover.
Love it.

I missed Batman/Superman #32. By this point people had caught on to the fact that they really were killing off New 52 Superman, and, like me, their curiosity started driving up demand. I did the rounds at a half dozen local comic shops just prior to the end of this 8-part arc, and all of them were void of most back issues of this storyline. Batman/Superman #32 the scarcest of all since it introduced the New Superman of China, and some of those types (meaning comics speculators) snatched it up, hoping it'll jump in value very quickly.

[A, ahem, second printing just came out of B/S #32, and it is by far my favourite issue of "The Final Days of Superman" arc. Any appearance by the Morrison-created Chinese super-team, the Great Ten is welcome. If they're a supporting player to The New Super-Man series I may just have to check it out. Tomasi seems to have a great feel for the characters, and Doug Mahnke is just a monster this issue. It looks sooooo gooood.]

Throughout this story, Tomasi had a thread of an escaped convict who wound up with Superman's solar flare power, as well as gaining some of Superman's memories in the process. He was confused into thinking he was Clark Kent as well as the one true Superman, but through his confusion his true nature meant his ego couldn't handle there being other Clark Kents or Supermen, so he sought to eliminate them. He kidnapped New 52 Lois and took her to the White's house, where he threatened old-DCU Superman's family. It's worth noting here that above all, Old Clark's priority is his family's safety. So even though he could help Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman take on this Solar Flare guy, his initial impulse was to secure his family in a makeshift Fortress of Solitude he built in the Colarado rockies. Afterall, surely this Earth's trinity can handle a rogue Superman on their own at least for a little while?

He does return to help, but New 52 Superman needs to do it alone and fights him off. Defeating the Solar Flare dude, he's exhausted himself. Old Superman helps bring him to Earth gently, but he's in his dying moments. The kryptonite poisoning consumes him from within, and he turns to...dust? Stone? Can't really tell. In the process of dying, a surge erupts from Superman's body, knocking over Lois and Lana (given that there's a "Superwoman" comic comic starring Lois lane, there was a power transfer happening here...because transferring Superman's power to other people is a thing in the New 52).

Superman's death in the New 52 is literally a whimper. A cough, and the spark goes out. Some people are there to say goodbye, and it's sad, but it's not the tragedy it should be. Old Clark is there, watching his doppleganger succumb, Batman too. Superman dies before them and then Batman turns to old Clark and says "There's lots of questions...."
Old Clark replies "Which I'll answer at another time," and flies off. It's such a draw away from the moment. It's like Tomasi and DC in general were saying "your focus is on old Superman" here.

New 52 Superman's death is kind of nothing at this point. Certainly nothing like the epic 22 splash pages of Superman #75 and the palpable sacrifice Superman made in a kill-or-be-killed tussle with an unstoppable creature. This was a cumulation of sacrifices made to be a hero, but there was no drama to this death, and equally no fanfare. I'm not hearing much in the way of lamentation over New 52 Superman being killed off.

Rebirth

There's a 2-page spread in Rebirth, heroes and media have gathered at the site of Superman's death. Cyborg seems to be looking for something while Shazam strokes his chin in puzzlement. Wally West's narration states "Someone's died... Superman, or... I can't see him clearly for some reason." It's as if there's some confusion over the validity of this Superman. There's a Mr. Oz character, who apparently trained the New 52 Superman, states "You and your family are not what you believe you are. And neither was the fallen Superman."

Mr. Oz is neither friend nor enemy, terms that are "too simple...when you consider the long game. Some might call this that." If Mr. Oz is Ozymandias, Adrian Veidt, it's possible that he and Dr. Manhattan are playing a game in universe creation for their own science or amusement, like some ersatz Rick Sanchez (from Rick and Morty).

Superman Rebirth was scripted by Tomasi, and paves the way for Old Clark's reintroduction as the Superman. In this story he looks to take Superman's remains to the Fortress of Solitude, where he can be put into the regeneration matrix. He's surprised to find Lana Lang already at the memorial monument stealing the remains, fulfilling her promise (form Superman #51) to take him home and bury him next to his parents.

Tomasi's script here is at times completely on-point, and at others a complete mess. In the early pages old Clark is so cagey about some things to Lana. "It's a long story that I'm not able to talk about for a variety of...personal reasons." One panel later he reiterates "Like I said, there are personal reasons at play here that prevent me from revealing too much about...". But then he goes on to spill his guts about alternate realities and his own, somewhat different past, Tomasi inserting a wholly unnecessary 7-page recap of the death of Superman.

Old Clark gets into it with Lana about his decision to stay out of the affairs of this world, to keep himself secret, to stay out of New 52 Clark's life. But he knows a world like this needs a Superman, a hero to inspire the best in others, to right wrongs, and to help those needing help, doing the best one man can do. "I came back from certain death -- which means so can he."
"You seem so sure of yourself that I want to believe you," Lana replies.
"Why don't you?"
"Because Clark was my closest friend. I can feel in my heart that he's gone."
Once again, the old DCU Superman talks of hope. The New 52 character accepts the tragedy.

The best moment here is old Clark realizing that his doppleganger had made some improvements to the Fortress. "Never occured to me to do it in my fortress...but how obvious... he honored both."
Right next to the crystal statue of Jor-El and Lara holding Krypton aloft is a giant statue of Jonathan and Martha Kent holding up the Earth. The reason it didn't occur to you, old Clark is because your Ma and Pa Kent were still there for you (Jonathan Kent died not much before Flashpoint). Even still, even if they were alive still, a tribute to both sets of parents is a great idea.

But old Clark has to succumb to the brutal realities of the New 52 Earth, and accept that he can't bring this world's Clark back. There is no regeneration matrix in this reality. In a way, old Clark has to accept his own mortality along with the other Clark's as well.

For the past year, combining Convergence Superman and Superman: Lois and Clark, Jurgens has been the shepherd of old Clark into the new DCU, just as he was the shepherd of Superman into both his death and rebirth 20 years ago (I just felt a shiver up my back at the realization of how long ago that was). Jurgens has been tied to the character ever since, despite having gone on to do countless other projects (including a triumphant return to Booster Gold in the late aughts, a character he created). He's not necessarily a beloved figure in that association. All the scrutinizing of "The Death of Superman" over the years has called into question how good a story it actually was (and to be fair, it's not the best ever, but you cannot deny it's place in comic book history) or how good a villain Doomsday is (he's fairly one note, but he served a purpose and has been way overused since), but it sits uncomfortably on Jurgens, like it's his only contribution to the character, when his contributions are voluminous.

Action Comics #957 serves a dual purpose: to bring old Clark back into the fold as the Superman (based on Tomasi' groundwork in "The Final Days of Superman" and Superman: Rebirth ) and to put Lex Luthor in some power armor and adopt the role of Superman of Metropolis.

On of the immediate problems (and not just here but in Rebirth as well) is the continuity flow. Has Superman been reported dead? Or missing? There seems to be confusion between the Rebirth books exactly what the public knows. Hell, Jimmy Olson seems surprised by the news for some reason. I mean, they built a monument with a statue having been commissioned. It's just weird that there's this much confusion around what Superman's status is. Not that it's important, long term, but it makes for a messy transition.

There are, however, two bigger problems with Action Comics' Rebirth. The first finds Clark shaving the beard (or, rather, singeing it off with his heat vision...that bathroom's gotta stink) and putting on the old red and blue tights (only they're not the old ones, there's no red underroos and no red booties. But the Nehru collar is gone as is all the ornate piping, so it's not quite classic, but also not trying so hard to be "new"). He flies off to Metropolis to publicly show that there is still a Superman and to call out Luthor as a villain, despite the fact that in all their investigation of this Earth's Luthor he and Lois have not found any dirt on him. Superman -- MY Superman, remember -- then slanders Luthor publicly and assaults him, pawing at the "S" on his chest like a madman.

I don't know what kind of relationship Lex and New-52 Superman had...I think Lex was even in the Justice League for some reason...but for MY Superman to do this is way out of character. He's the bad guy in this scene, and in front of the cameras, he's the one in the wrong. MY Superman is smarter than that. He would stare Luthor down, take the measure of this man, and play the long game. He would shake Luthor's hand, announce their cooperative spirit to the public and keep an even closer eye on him as a colleague. Keep you friends close, and your enemies closer, no?

Man, add this one to the "Superman's A Dick" blog.

"Making it appear like I attacked you? Tricky as ever Luthor."
No, I don't like this, don't like this one bit. I know this is Action Comics, but out-of-character action is not what we need. Luthor's responses are all on point here, this "imposter" is indeed an imposter, and the instigator. Superman's ego is not so big as to let another world's Lex try and fight in Superman's image. Surely he remembers Alexander Luthor form Earth-3?

The next big issue is where this ends, and where the solicits for upcoming issues have already noted where it's going. Doomsday. Again. Bloody again. And again and again and again. Each appearance of this mindless, characterless beast dilutes his initial appearance, taints the threat he represents. Because he killed Superman once should make him such an immense threat always, but that's the very reason why he's not so scary. He's already killed Superman, and the writers aren't going to let it happen again. So he's not a stakes raiser. He's just a tiring obstacle.

It's the best and worst of Jurgens here. I mean, he made it through 10 issues of Convergence and Lois and Clark presenting some pretty challenging obstacles in old Clark's way, but the character triumphed a Superman's triumph, with smarts, and patience. Throwing him back in the red and blue seems to have given Jurgens a seizure and he doesn't know what else to do but have him fight both Luthor and Doomsday for no good reason.

I like the family scenes, and the mystery of another Clark Kent showing up at the Daily Planet and meeting Jimmy in the crowd of the Superman/Lex tussle... that's a nice lil' mystery to set up. Enough with this Doomsday malarky. And we've had our aggressive Superman. He died. Let the real hero please stand up, now, thanks.

And the End

Those differences, between pre-Flashpoint Superman and New 52 Superman. They were actually fairly tangible. A lot of it had to do with the relationships the man had, and even more had to do with the actions of the character. And hope (really leaning on the meaning of the "S" shield from Man of Steel, perhaps the best new idea in the film). As I said, I didn't stick with New 52 Superman very long, so I may have missed some incredible character growth there. During "The Final Days..." I was surprised that Lois was Superman's best friend... but all the other connections, Batman, Wonder Woman, Steel, Supergirl, they all felt like relationships with impediments. I want old Clark's return as Superman to be as open and outgoing. I want characters to notice how much more hopeful he is, how much more resolved he is. MY Superman has been a mentor to everyone from day one, and it's going to be amazing watching him inspire his own son as a hero. I wasn't even considering it, but now a Super Sons book, with a 13-year-old Damien babysitting a 5-year-old Jonathan... that seems exciting. The trinity book, where Wonder Woman and Batman have to learn to work with a Superman different from whom they knew and loved...that's all the more fascinating. There's a whole new world for Superman to inspire, perhaps even Lex Luthor. Let's remember part of Rebirth is to change the way we look at the modern DCU (and perhaps our own world), and a Superman from a brighter past seems like a logical guide to take us forward.

Graig Kenthttps://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2760242555416345702.post-80137064776016827952016-06-16T18:35:00.001-07:002016-06-16T18:35:45.702-07:00Catching up on Comics with CGraig: Fight Club 2 #8-10
2015-16, Dark Horse Comics

I read Fight Club 2 in four separate chunks. First, 1 and 2 together, then 3-6 (thinking it was only a 6-issue series only to be perfectly confused by such a non ending that I had to take to the unternet to find out what was up). I then read issue 7 but decided to wait for the series to complete before I finished reading (now a common habit of mine). Unfortunately, that trip to the internet only further confused me, since I thought for some reason it was a 12 issue series.

When I was checking upcoming releases last week, I noticed the Fight Club 2 hardcover was on its way this week, and I was a bit confused, a bit angry...how could the collected edition be published before the final issues? I only had issue 10 to that point. That didn't seem right at all. But I decided to check the last page of the most recent issue, and yeah, that seemed pretty conclusively to be an ending. So I dove in.

I saw Fight Club in Toronto at the Varsity. This was back in '99, before I lived here. I was living in Barrie at the time, and I had made the sojourn into the big smoke for the first time on a bus. My hermano Gary was playing host and tour guide. The walk from his apartment (just off Carlton) up to the Varsity was like a maze of bright lights and back roads. The Varsity was a movie theatre in a skyscraper. The seats inside were red velvet and the whole experience was just out of this world to me. Not to mention it was David Fincher's mind fuck of a film, promoting counter-culture action, and glorifying violence as a creative outlet for stress relief. Watching the towers fall at the end of the film while sitting in a theatre inside of a tower blew my feeble small-town mind. The cinema was an integral part of the experience, as was the company. We went up to the restaurant on the 51st floor afterwards for cocktails I definitely couldn't afford on my maxed out credit card, the whole evening was surreal.

So Fight Club holds a very special place in my memories, but also it's just a film I loved thoroughly. The Dust Brothers' soundtrack is a unique work that stands tall on its own merits, not just as cinematic accompaniment. For as much as I love the film (and I still do, even though I haven't seen it in quite some time, and much of it has been strip-mined down to cliche at this point) I never bothered with the book. As the guy who writes on a comic blog, you may have guessed I'm not much of a reader.

Fight Club 2 is a rather remarkable piece though, in that Chuck Palahniuk caters both to the fans of the film and of the book. It acknowledges the film is responsible for much of people's awareness of the title, but also notes that this comic is a direct sequel to the novel. It's a goofy, warped adventure, one that posits Tyler Durden as a kind of genetic virus, more than a mental disorder. The worry of Sebastian (Jack in the film) is that his son (with Marla) will be Tyler's new vessel.

By issue 8, things have gotten way off the rails, with Marla having militarized her support group (a support group for children with progeria, who all look like they're in their 80's) and Sebastian impersonating Tyler to gain control of his extremist group and get his son back. Meanwhile, Robert Paulson is actually still alive, though missing half his brain and is a brute force vegetable.

Yeah, like I said, it gets weird. But I'm okay with weird. It's actually quite like Grant Morrison weird, which is apt given that Palahniuk here collaborates with Cameron Stewart, one of Morrison's go-to artists.

Issue 8, however begins a thread (or maybe continues a thread, my staggered reading has left me unable to fully recall) of metacommentary where Palahniuk addresses his writers circle about the trouble he's having resolving the central conflicts and dovetailing the separate threads. It's a hoary cliche and smacks of the easy way out, especially when everything that happens from there on out is almost entirely deus ex machina at its most blatant. Yet, it's still kind of fun. I tried to go with it, but it still bothered me.

I've skipped the letter column every issue, which features a lot of lunatic ramblings from people who seem to take too much joy (or not have enough separation from) the world of Fight Club. Photos of people placing "Tyler Lives" in public areas seems almost sad in a way.
Graig Kenthttps://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2760242555416345702.post-6748921529873308442016-06-09T18:48:00.001-07:002016-06-09T18:48:34.914-07:00Toy Talk -- Wonky Legs and Inconsistent Sizing: Hasbro's Troublesome MiniverseTwo years ago Marvel decided to test the weight of their box office behemoth of a name and deep dive into a quintet of characters that even hardened Marvel readers would be somewhat unfamiliar with. The gamble on a talking raccoon and a sentient tree paid off, Guardians of the Galaxy has become perhaps the most universally accepted and beloved of Marvel's cinematic output.

Soon enough the film's unusual characters started popping up in toy aisles everywhere, as Lego sets, as wearable costumes and play accessories, and, of course, as action figures. Only, just like the film was a gamble, Hasbro gambled on trying something different. Instead of 3 3/4 in figures -- the standard set by Kenner's Star Wars in 1978, and upheld by G.I. Joe for the decades to follow -- Hasbro introduced a 2 1/2" line. Oil prices were high, but smaller figures meant smaller vehicles and accessories which meant they could price things cheaper.

I still see piles of Thor: The Dark World and Captain America: Winter Soldier action figures all over the place. Obviously they weren't gargantuan sellers, so the shift seemed at least worth a shot. Honestly, I can't tell you whether the 2 1/2" Guardians sold well or not. They appeared to languish a bit on the shelves, but not at all like Thor:TDW or CA:WS... I'm not still coming across them everywhere, so they obviously cleared through all right. I know personally, as an action figure fan, they didn't appeal to me. The five points of articulation, the poor detailing, the awkward-looking limbs, the rudimentary painting... they weren't very attractive. The ships, however, were gorgeous, and I contemplated a long time on buying a Milano. I never did. (Note that the CA:WS and Thor:TDW figures weren't all that appealing either...bad sculpts were the primary culprit).

Mega Rigs dudes

Marvel's next film after Guardians was Avengers: Age of Ultron and I was sad to see in the advance promotion of the toys for the film that they were sticking with the 2" figure. One thing caught my interest though... a three-tiered playset. In actuality, three different playsets, sold separately (but with figures) that formed one large Avengers tower playset. That...that was cool. I was intrigued. When they finally hit the shelves, though... I couldn't must the enthusiasm anymore. These wee 2-inch figures just weren't doing it to me. They looked like the action figures that come with Matchbox Mega Rigs... and I didn't consider them action figures at all. Plus my kid wasn't playing with Mega Rigs anymore so the crossover appeal wasn't even there. I gave them another hard pass. These guys didn't seem to linger on the shelves as long as the Guardians did, though you can find the odd two-pack of hero+"Sub-Ultron" occasionally. The playsets especially seemed to disappear quickly

Fast forward another year. Captain America: Civil War was basically another Avengers film, and so I awaited the toy onslaught, only to find that stores, at least local Toronto stores, seemed a bit more wary of carrying Marvel stuff. Stock for Civil War at Toys R Us and Wal-Mart (pretty much the only first run toy retailers we have outside of specialty shops) were pitiful. Not like "we've sold out already" pitiful, but "we didn't bring that much in" pitiful.

The wife is a huge Winter Soldier nerd and likes to pick up most things Bucky (and anything Cap that looks good too), so when I came across the "Miniverse" (which Hasbro officially started calling this line with this release) Civil War Winter Soldier/Ant Man 2-pack, I just had to get it for her.

As soon as I got my hands on them, I knew they were trouble. These bitty little action figures are both adorable and cool. Ant-Man in particular -- who has become a favourite of mine through his movie, Civil War and Nick Spencer's great current run in the comics -- I just love. And he comes with this little armor boost stuff...hearkening back to M.A.S.K. I was never a M.A.S.K. kid but now I feel like I missed out on something great. This tiny size is kind of awesome.

 A Falcon/War Machine 2-pack followed quickly by a Black Widow/Iron Man 2-pack, followed by a Captain America/Crossbones 2-pack. Suddenly the Black Panther/Hawkeye 2-pack has become our holy grail. Easily the most difficult to find. I kind of love that Black Panther is hot right now. He's finally getting the recognition he's long deserved. And in this mini form, he's just the bestest.

Actually, the Giant-Man/Ant-Man 2-pack is my holy grail right now:

I was wrong about these mini guys. They turned out to be pretty awesome. And, as my collection-obsessed brain does, it started to go into overdrive, thinking back upon Age of Ultron and Guardians of the Galaxy.

So I hit up eBay ...and it's always a dangerous thing when I decide to start "collecting" via eBay. eBay must be fantastic for my American friends. Things are dirt cheap, and in-country, shipping is pretty tight. But in Canada, most things are sold in US dollars, even if they're a seller from Canada, which means biting the exchange rate bullet (+25%, thanks! ugh). Shipping within Canada is okay, but shipping from the states is a nightmare. A $6 toy will cost almost $30 to ship. It's totally cost prohibitive. Anyway, I found a quartet of Age of Ultron figures totalling $12 (+$8 shipping) and a lot of all the Guardians figure releases plus two ships (no Milano sadly) for $40 US (even though the seller was Canadian). Shipping was priced at $18 US. So it wasn't a bad deal, in US money, but converted to Canadian and it was probably a little more pricey than I'd have liked.

I later found an Age of Ultron Quinjet on the Toys R Us website for $17.95 (on sale from $40) but thought I'd spent enough. The next day I found myself in Toys R Us (as I said, I get a little obsessive) and found the Quinjet in store, same price, no shipping fees. Bonus.

(SIDE NOTE : The longer I writer about this topic, the less proud of myself I feel)

So immediately I unpack the Quinjet, I put the decal stickers on and I figure out how it plays, and then I go and grab some of the Civil War figures and...well...the Quinjet is supposed to seat four, and it's tight with just Iron Man and War Machine in the cockpit. This doesn't make much sense.

I take hunched-over Cap off his motorcycle (technically it's Black Widow's cycle...ahem) and compare the size of Iron Man to him. It's just not looking right. Iron Man is noticeably bigger. I started to wonder... did they change the sizes on the figures between Age of Ultron and Civil War? That wouldn't make much sense, given how unusual the size is and how there wouldn't be much backwards playability as a result.

Yesterday the Age of Ultron eBay order arrived, and my suspicions were confirmed. The Age of Ultron figures are noticeably smaller than the Civil War figures. The AOU figures are a true 2 1/2", while the Civil War figures are 2 3/4" - 3". I was beyond disappointed. My aspirations of collecting all the Age of Ultron figures (and more on point, getting those awesome Avengers Tower playsets) were dashed on the spot. What would be the point? It's obvious Hasbro wasn't sticking with the dimensions, the figures and vehicles and sets would we obsoleted by any new releases.

Today the Guardians of the Galaxy figures came, and it only got worse. These figures aren't even true 2 1/2". They're actually smaller than the Age of Ultron figures (except Groot, who is a 3" figure, but scrawnier than the Civil War guys), averaging around 2 3/8". So over three releases of Hasbro's mini-figure toys and playsets they've adjusted the size by 5/8ths of an inch. That's a noticeable difference especially when it comes to placing figures in vehicles... which is most of the fun of having vehicles.

Above is the Nova Corps dude from GotG, Nick Fury from AoU and War Machine from Civil War. You can see Nick has slight height above the Corpsman, while War Machine towers over them both by a full head. Now, these mini figures are scaled pretty well within their lines. Some figures are taller or shorter than others (like Groot is much taller than all the other GotG figures and Rocket is much smaller) but each of the above represents the average heights of figures in their lines. So AoU guys are all a little taller than GotG guys, and Civil War guys are huge compared to both.

Look at Civil War Iron Man next to the Corpsman, or even AoU War Machine beside Civil War War Machine. That's some insane sizing differences for what should be compatible lines. Groot looks so scrawny.

Having just got the GotG and AoU guys over the past two days, I'm reminded why I didn't buy them in the first place. They don't look good. They look flimsy and junky. The Civil War guys in comparison are stury and feel good in the hands. As annoyed as I am about the inter-compatibility of the figures, the Civil War line is literally and figuratively heads above the previous lines.

It just makes me wonder what's going to happen when Guardians 2 comes out next year? Are they going to keep going with the Civil War line, and make a new Milano that fits the larger figures, or are they going to shrink the line again so that at least there's consistency within the Guardians line. I actually hope it's the former, because they're nicer figures all around. And I like the weirdo fractal armor (to borrow a term from total justice)

One of the problems that plagues all three lines is wonky molding, particularly the legs. There's a lot of inconsistency. Civil War War Machine's left leg is 1/8 of an inch longer than the right. The base of his left is sturdy enough that you can bend back the right and make him stand, but you shouldn't have to fiddle so much to get an action figure to balance. Nick Fury, likewise, has a shorter left leg than right. You can see in the pictures above him leaning to the right (his left). And the Corpsman also has a right leg longer than the left. It's more like a club foot, and it's almost impossible to get him to stand because of how the plastic has bent outwards. I'm curious to know if these are consistent flaws for these figures or a product of the way the plastic is cooled or something technical like that.

In any case... Civil War Miniverse is where it's at...except their playsets (still unseen around these parts) are so uninspired compared to the Age of Ultron tower sets:

And whither Spider-Man?
Comic Book Movie shared this article earlier this year, and yet, I've no idea where this set with Spidey is.

 The Target exclusive multipack doesn't contain him. But then they seem to be two different packs. The one above has no Winter Soldier, Vision or Hawkeye either.

I wonder if last minute, they realized they don't have the rights to distribute Spider-Man within the Civil War brand, only under their Spider Man brand (which they also have the rights to).

Okay, I've embarassed myself enough for today.
Nerd -30-Graig Kenthttps://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2760242555416345702.post-28269954593672865512016-06-05T19:32:00.000-07:002016-06-05T19:32:34.112-07:00Don't Call It A Comeback... (because they're calling it "Rebirth", dummy)I have not been this into a DC comic in a long, long time.

I've read through rebirth three times completely, and flipped through it at least a dozen times since, just marveling at it (no pun intended).

This is a brilliant, brilliant work. It has behind it the weight of years of fan disappointment, years of lagging sales, years of questionable creative decisions, years of wrong directions and years of character (and universe) mismanagement that it aims to address and course correct, all in one shot. And that's just the metatext.

Beyond that, writer (and Chief Creative Officer at DC) Geoff Johns had to craft a story that will not only resonate as something meaningful to the characters, but also excite the lapsed and new fan base alike.

He nailed it.

Gary Frank cover

As frustrated as one can get with him, one can also forget Johns is a good writer, in fact a great writer of characters in a superhero universe. It's easy to get frustrated with him, for his most notorious achievements were also spitting in the faces of fans who grew up in a post-Crisis DCU. The charges laid against him are that he only wants to play with what he knew as a kid, and that he always wants to reset things back to the Silver Age in the DCU, hence Green Lantern Rebirth and Flash Rebirth. This makes sense. Though Johns' is only 3 years older than I am, Wally West and Kyle Rayner and Barry Allen's death and Hal Jordan's insanity...these are things that he should have equally grown up with in the DCU. As he became a teenager, these character's (as well as the universe's) evolution should have happened alongside his own.

But then we tend to look upon the things we liked as teenagers with a jaded eye. There's a pureness to what we like as a child, but when we're teenagers our emotions run rampant and it's hard to see the forest for the boobs or the sky for the violence. Especially as boys we tend to like more extremes in sex and violence as we process the world with our expanding brain, a better sense of the way things work but also a reluctance to discarding childhood naivety or a rejection of adult responsibilities. We do a lot of stupid things as teens and the things we like at the time can, later on, sometimes be seen as an extension of those stupid things. Johns may have thought Wally and Kyle, and Zero Hour and the like to be some of those stupid things, and Hal and Barry were the purity from his childhood that needed to be restored.

For a great many of us, though, Wally became our guide for growing up. He was just a kid superhero, though after 20-ish years as a Teen Titan, he was starting to outgrow the "Kid" part of his Kid Flash moniker. Taking over as Flash meant he had to grow up... he had a legacy to fulfill. But in fulfilling his legacy, he also forged his own path. Suddenly super-villains became friends. He accepted a role in the Justice League Europe where he was class clown, but eventually he had to grow into a truly reliable teammate. He discovered things about his powers even Barry never new, thus exceeding him in the role, running out of his shadow. Wally quit chasing girls and found true love. He became a mentor and then a father. For over 20 years Wally was the Flash, almost as long as Barry was, or as Jay was before him. He went from being a kid to defining the role. (Barry was a very milquetoast character, quite dull in fact. Wally-as-Flash is the benchmark for the character. Even today, much of Grant Gustin's character of Barry Allen owes more to Wally than traditional Barry)

Ugh, Barry and his dull-ass crew cut

Bringing back Barry was a slap in the face to all of those who grew up alongside Wally (of course we can't forget that the Flash had been kind of broken as a title for a couple years, with writers not knowing how to deal with Wally's family life, or making Bart the Flash). Like when you finally feel like you've grown up, only for something to happen at work that makes you feel small or shamed. An authority figure can put you in a place sometimes, a place which you thought you outgrew. And Barry's return meant Wally was being put in his place. Or, rather, he didn't really have a place anymore. All seemingly because Geoff Johns wanted his childhood back.

But the charge laid against Johns, about wanting the DCU to be exactly like it was when he was a kid rings false. Even bringing Barry and Hal back were just the first steps in massive thrusts forward, such as the amazing Lantern Spectrum cycle, starting with the "Sinestro Corps War" and ending with "Blackest Night". Even working with his old boss Richard Donner on Action Comics, Johns introduced a young Kryptonian refugee, born in the Phantom Zone to Zod and Ursa, whom Lois and Clark were set to adopt since the logistics of them having a child of their own were ...complex (see Mallrats). But it seemed DC didn't want Lois and Clark to have a child and that story was dropped.

Yes, marginalizing Wally (and turning Impulse into Kid Flash) had vilified Johns in many people's eyes. In some ways, DC Universe Rebirth can be seen as an apology. From the opening panel we're provided a narrator, the text box yellow with red border. If it's not immediately clear page 6 spells it out, a full page showing our narrator is Wally West, emerging from the Speed Force where he's been trapped for 10 years, the memories of his existence erased from everyone's memories but our own. (He emerges in the Batcave...not unlike a similar scene from Dawn of Justice, which itself is a nod to Crisis on Infinite Earths)

I love that man right there.

This whole issue is Wally's cry to be remembered, but it's not just about remembering him, but remembering what it was he brought to the DCU over his 20 years as Flash: legacy, love, and life. Mike Wieringo was the first to prominently bring the lightning to Flash comics (in conjunction with the arrival of the Speed Force) a visual symbol of the crackling vitality Wally brought to comics.

Johns breaks the book up into four thematic chapters, the first "Lost", then "Legacy", "Love" and "Life" follow. He's identifying first that DC had lost its way with "The New 52" and that the key components that were missing were the latter 3-Ls.

In the first chapter, Wally is a reminder of what was lost but also reminds us what the DCU lost when they rebooted after Flashpoint. Through Wally, Johns delivers a fairly concise recap of 80 years in the DCU prior to the reboot, all through the eyes of what was most important to Wally. Rebirth really is a character-driven epic.

In the second chapter, legacies are reintroduced. Wally is pulled towards Johnny Thunder (because of his pet lightningbolt...? Clever choice on Johns' part if so), while the Legion (looks like Saturn Girl..but should have been Lightning Lass or Lightning Lad if the theme were being stuck to), a few years dormant in the DCU, are paying the past a visit once more. The Atoms Ray Palmer and Ryan Choi are both back as professor and student, Ted Kord plays mentor to Jaime Reyes, Damian Wayne turns 13, there's a new Green Lantern on Earth (finally, a woman) and Aqualad (sadly not Kaldur from Young Justice) are shown.

The chapter ends with Pandora, one of Johns' "Trinity of Sin" characters, whom he wanted to make a major cosmic player in the New 52, like the Phantom Stranger and Spectre have been in decades past. Pandora represents the idea of setting the evil free, and one of the major events of the modern DCU was "Forever Evil" where the bad guys take over. That's just case-in-point of how far off the path DC has strayed. Pandora speaks, but there's no one around her. We're to think that she's talking to the mysterious orchestrator of the DCU's darkening in the New 52, whom we're led to believe by the touches of blue and the cosmic reach and Watchmen imagery, is Dr. Manhattan...and yet, I think Johns is having Pandora speaking directly to him.

Though I'm not sure if Johns truly represents the statement, "Skepticism, doubt, corrpution. All things your cold heart believes in", he at the very least feels responsible for how dark things got. Just look at the wholesale slaughter in Infinite Crisis and the imagery of a crazed Superboy ripping people apart. If there's a mea culpa in this book, this would be it. Johns blows up his agent of darkness, his desire to explore evil above hope and good manifest in a single character. He obliterates the cause of evils, disintegrated into pink smoke. It's an extreme gesture, signifying that she's no longer needed, perhaps even a bad idea to begin with.

The "love" chapter starts by dropping a bomb in two panels, more explicitly a word balloon and a text box. Diana has a twin brother. One panel later, we see a baby with glowing red eyes (and Kirby crackle), Darkseid is reborn (by his own daughter it would seem...ick).

Turn the page, a two page spread, Superman is dead, and yet no one really seems to be mourning. Wonder Woman and Supergirl look sad, but Mari McCabe seems to be flirting with Steve Trevor, and Oliver Queen locks eyes with Dinah Drake for the first time in this DCU. Lois and Clark from the pre-Flashpoint DCU have been living in hiding on a world not their own, but also not completely unfamiliar. Lois asks Clark "is he going to return from the grave like you did?" Clark kisses Lois sweetly on the forehead, "Let's hope so."

Hope.

It takes the pre-Flashpoint Superman to return hope.

Arthur Curry is the reluctant king, and not "the terror of the oceans" which legend have made of the lord of Atlantis. He hopes to take a warrior for his queen. It's all about setting up love, even amidst loss. So it's all the more heartbreaking when the love of Wally West's life, the woman who has saved him, the hero, multiple times, no longer recognizes him, and cannot save him this time. The DC directive for the New 52 was no weddings (causing Greg Rucka to leave writing Batwoman as he was planning Kate Kane and Maggie Sawyer's nuptials) and no kids. Happy families make for boring stories, apparently, and yet, family was what the DCU was about for such a long time, most prominently with Barry and Wally

Life. Life is finite. Wally's life is fading. He's desperate, reluctant, a fighter. He sees old enemies, colleagues, friends... all have forgotten him. He sees his replacement, another Wally West with superspeed destined to become Flash's sidekick and a Teen Titan. But he's also family, and a hero. The world could use two Wally Wests, but it doesn't have to have them.

And then there's his uncle. Barry Allen. His mentor. A better father figure than his own. Here Wally sees a man who reflects his ideal, he reflects who Wally ultimately became, a hero with a smile on his face, a compassionate man with a sense of justice and honesty.

Here we see a Wally who's seen the world change before his eyes, the light is returning to the DC Universe. He's ready to give in, but with every last ounce of effort he needs to see his own hero again, to let him know what it all meant to live the life he did. Even if it didn't matter anymore, even if no one remembered, Wally was still grateful.

Can I give you a hug, Wallace? You look like you need a hug.

Those pages (and this whole chapter) so masterfully illustrated by Phil Jimenez, inked by Matt Santorelli and vibrantly colored by Gabe Eltaeb as the lightning erupts around Wally, electrifying Barry, shocking him with the memories of a forgotten lifetime... they're beautiful. Barry pulls Wally from the Speed Force at the last second ("every second is a gift"), and Jimenez conveys perfectly, with one panel of Wally's reaction just how grateful, and yet shocked, he is. The expression of incredulity is so palpable on his face. And Barry's reaction, as a flood of memories return, the guilt he feels for not just forgetting Wally but ultimately letting him down for so long...in a flash, it's forgiven. Wally is a hero, he knows this world of heroes and what happens. There's no grudges, just a lot of losses to accept and lost time to make up for.

I shed genuine tears...of both happiness and pain. With each reread, or even just staring in to Wally and Barry's faces on those pages, I well up. Comic books excite me and make me laugh, even horrify and disgust me. They're potent, more than capable of eliciting a reaction. But, I don't remember the last time one made me cry.

Nope.

The book starts and ends with Watchmen iconography. A happy face pin with blood spatter. A watch's inner workings messed up by a missing tooth on a rusting cog. The watch taken apart and repaired. Mars. Dialogue between, supposedly, Adrian Veidt and Dr. Manhattan. I don't have a problem with this.

I like the meta commentary here, that the Watchmen and its contemporaries unintentionally ushered in a dark wave into comics. I don't get the sense that Manhattan is a villain here, but at best an experimenter. The fact that Adrian Viedt (and a "Mr. Oz"..short for Ozymandias?) is at play, a man who considers himself the world's smartest without any humility, could he be the manipulator, and Manhattan the one trying to set things right? Adrian seems to be taking ownership, "I did the right thing, didn't I?" There's plenty of possibilities. The Watchmen are welcome in the DCU, so long as their exposure within it is kept to a minimum.

Also, that missing tooth in the cog on Page 1, it's repaired on the third last page. The tooth is Wally, and the watch is restored...but... the problem with the watch on page one seems to be time is going backwards, and yet it's still moving backwards even after the tooth is repaired. It's moving backwards from 5:00 (or "V"). Is this to indicate moving back in time, away from "V" (for Vendetta) and other misinterpreted lessons from Alan Moore? Did Alan Moore unintentionally break the DCU, not personally but through the influence of his works?

But when the watch flips to a Watchmen-style clock face, time is at midnight, with the blood spatter on the inverse side from where it is on the button Batman finds. Why?

Every panel in this book has intent, meaning and/or purpose. Even if it doesn't make complete sense to everyone, the tone, in its entirety, feels meaningful. Even if you don't know DC's rich past, or even if you're not going to follow along in the future, you can feel it all change here. You can feel the rich past colliding with a brighter future. You can feel a heavy world get lighter, the darkness turned vibrant.

Somehow the fact that Gary Frank can't not make smiles
look goofy only makes it work better for Ted Kord

Smiles, how many smiles. Once we get past lost (where the only smiles are of Evil and in the past, w get a Legionnaire's smile, Ted Kord's smile, Damien Wayne's smile all up close and personal, followed by Green Arrow and Black Canary, wry and hesitant, Aquaman and Mera, Wally and Barry...the pleasure of another's company.

DC's execs -- Didio, Lee, and Johns -- said this wasn't another reboot, this was a shift in philosophy. A return to form. An acknowledgement of what was done wrong, and a path forward for a better, more engaging, more meaningful stories.

What makes a shared universe great is not that every event affects everyone, but that every event could affect everyone... and not just today. A shared universe allows for a building of history, a sharing of history, and the changing of history. It provides a framework that's rigid enough to withstand pieces being removed or moved around without it all falling apart. Flashpoint and The New 52 took the whole thing down and started again, and attempted to rebuild it without a plan. And as such their design started to take shape like the structure before it, but warped and twisted, sometimes in interesting ways, but mostly in not good, fragile ways. With 80 very carefully crafted pages, Rebirth moves the new structure onto the old foundation, instead of the soft ground beside it. Rebirth has found some of the pieces of the old left in tact and is using those to brace a creaky design. There's still a lot of work to be done but this is an excellent start.

This is, to me, Johns' best work to date. It's honest and personal , yet grand and sweeping, full of easter eggs and devilish clues around his intentions. It's past, present and future colliding, allowing for new possibilities for all. It's not trying to be provocative, or change things just for change's sake as he's so often done in the past.

As a standalone work it's wondrous. As a turning point, it's like hitting five bullseyes with one shot: not just skill but a miracle. Johns has reinvigorated the DCU, restoring it to a point where it can legitimately challenge Marvel once again as a place you want to spend your time (and money). With 80 pages it's gone from being a barely familiar place I once cared about to an exciting and revitalized venue to which I wish to return.

Thrilled about Wally, not so thrilled
about Brett Booth

When I first read about Rebirth, I was jaded. I couldn't believe Didio, Lee and Johns would steer the ship right after colliding with icebergs so long. For the first time I want to know where things are going, I want to follow Superman as a father and as a stranger on another planet (yet again). I want to see my Superman integrate into the heroes of this DC Universe. I want to go wherever Wally West is willing to take me. He looks younger but has the weight of a lost life riding on his shoulders. Even with his spark of light returning, there's still some heavy clouds that follow. (And I want to see Wally and Superman meet again, the last remaining survivors who remember a whole other universe).

I want to know what happened to Ray Palmer, and I want to accompany Ryan Choi on his journey as he finds out. I want to see my two favourite Blue Beetles occupy the same air. I want more Supergirl, more Legion, more Vixen and Batwoman and Stephanie Brown. I want the history, the legacy, the Justice Society to return. I want my comics to be better than the TV shows they spawned.

The electricity is back. It's not the same world I grew up with, but it doesn't have to be. It just needs to be true to where it came from in order to mean something going forward.

---
STRAY THOUGHTS

- I'm not so sure about this Spectrum version of the Shazam Family

- What's up with the letter from Thomas Wayne, is that a Flashpoint remnant? I didn't read Flashpoint. Did Flashpoint Batman send Barry back with a letter for Bruce?

- That the Comedian's button wound up in the Batcave makes ZERO sense, though, right?

- I love the story as it played out, but if Wally went to Clark and Lois White, problem solved, right? I look forward to their reuinion.

- What was the "help against the capes" that Swamp Thing speaks of to Constantine. Is that past tense? I'm intrigued.

- Poor Linda. Hopefully Wally doesn't go all Carter Hall-like stalker on her, talking about destinies and junk.

- Mr. Oz apparently trained New 52 Superman (showing up in a Johns-written issue of Superman). He kind of sucks, visually. A cloak and a scythe?

- Ivan Reis' lazy scale on Aquaman's tunic really annoys me.

- I love Ray Palmer's very Lost-like video, particularly how it cuts off at the most important point. So cliche, yet so effective.

- Johnny Thunder's pained "I didn't mean to throw you away!" That's a gut punch of a scene. He'll always seem like the kid who screws everything up, even as an old man.

- I'm not sure how I feel about three Jokers. Is the Comedian supposed to be one of them? That would be bad.

- Wait. Thomas Wayne in Batman v. Superman was played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan, who played the Comedian in The Watchmen. Is that supposed to be part of the connection here between Thomas Wayne's letter and the Comedian's blood-stained pin? If it's just an easter-egg, then it's fun, but if it's supposed to be something more meaningful than that, it's kinda dumb... like the Comedian is Thomas Wayne on Earth 41 or something.

Graig Kenthttps://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2760242555416345702.post-8611685962446328522016-06-05T12:24:00.000-07:002016-06-05T12:24:08.507-07:00Catching up on Comics with CGraig: Midnighter #11-12
The Wildstorm Universe never felt like a home. It felt like one of DC or Marvel's alternate earths, one where you could pop in for a curious visit, but not somewhere you'd care to stay too long. It came to be in the 90's during a time when artists and their "hotness" were the driving force of comics, and a time when tits and violence were getting so much more of the focus than the actual stories being told.

Wildstorm was a reflection of all of that. It was not a place I went very often. It wasn't for me. The characters didn't make much sense, they didn't really look that great either, and it wasn't until the whole "hot artist" thing died that it got creative over there... with Alan Moore, Joe Casey, Warren Ellis and Ed Brubaker pushing the limits of a shared continuity. Once the writers took over, it was more their show. It was a place where writers could do things to characters that the Big Two wouldn't allow. Similar to when the artists dominated, the characters didn't quite matter, there was no preciousness to the continuity that the company was trying to protect. Wildstorm was always a bit of a wild west show that way. Their characters weren't iconic and had no real defining aspect to them, so once the writers took over anything could happen. But it was still hard to really care. It's fairly telling that the two characters that tend to persist since Wilstorm folded into DC were the Superman and Batman analogs, Apollo and Midnighter.

I never liked their pairing as the "gay Batman and Superman". I have no problem with them being gay, nor Batman or Superman analogs, but their pairing always seemed like a dumb 1-note joke of the Mark Millar variety, one which seems smug and self congratulatory in its supposed cleverness.

So even though their rekindled relationship in these two issues is written very,very well (as an extension of M's growth as a character and not for whatever negligible shock value remains in Batman and Superman kissing) it's still not something I like for the character, or, for that matter, a series which managed to fully invest me in a Wildstorm character for the first time in it's 20-something year existence. (I know, Wildstorm is no more and is now an amalgamated part of the DCU, perhaps a contributing factor to the darkening of DC over the past few years...instead of brightening the Wildstorm characters to fit, perhaps they darkened the DCU instead?)

M's story over these 12 issues has been about dealing with his past, which is a nice thing to force on a character who is always looking forward, calculating all the possible outcomes. It's also been about fighting and flirting and dating and most importantly, character growth. Mighnighter isn't a psychopath... but he does really enjoy hurting people who deserve it. Writer Steve Orlando has defined this character over 12 issues, made him so much more than a more than a brutal, sci-fi Batman. He's got no dual life, he is who he is in and out of costume and Orlando's run had him coming to terms with that. (The only difference is that when he's out of costume he's very dapper and more charming, rather than threatening).

Orlando has told the best story of a gay male in mainstream superhero comics to date. There's nothing in twelve issues that feels sensationalistic. It's natural and honest depiction of a gay vigilante's life, abandoning all stereotypes, and never deigning to say that this gay life represents all gay life as so many mainstream stories written by straight men (or women) feel the need to do.

It was a great run, cut far too short, and one that I'll need to do a second read through on just to a better sense of the larger picture that Orlando had in mind.
Graig Kenthttps://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2760242555416345702.post-82479342328914995752016-05-23T10:59:00.000-07:002016-05-23T10:59:45.389-07:00Catching up on Comics with CGraig: Astonishing Ant-Man #7-82016, Marvel

A tremendously weak Canadian dollar meant the prices of comics were starting to skyrocket. A $3.99 book was now over $5 which meant my monthly pull suddenly was costing 25% or more. Changes had to be made. Some books had to be dropped. A cold hard assessment of what I actually wanted to read, and what I enjoyed had to be performed, and in the process the Astonishing Ant-Man fell victim to the chopping block, being put on the "going digital" list. The problem with the "going digital" reality is that I don't have a good platform for reading digital comics, and, as I showed with the Nameless a few posts back, there's an actual tangible difference between physical and digital such that I prefer the former pretty much always.

I've never cared all that much for Ant-Man. Being a DC kid, he just was a pale imitation of the Atom, like Namor was a nudist iteration of Aquaman and Hawkeye was just lame Green Arrow. But with Marvel Studios bringing little dreams to big life on the silver screen, one can't help but be charmed by these cinematic iterations, and perhaps look at them in a different light. The fact that they've gotten to the big screen, and successfully, well before their DC counterparts has given them a tremendous edge in cool factor, intrigue and bragging rights (especially given DC's otherwise general mismanagement of their characters in the comics over the past half decade).

I was particularly charmed by Paul Rudd as Scott Lang, as Paul Rudd tends to charm in any role he's in. And with the Ant-Man film we also ventured into my favourite superhero terrritory: legacy. Having Michael Douglas as Hank Pym trying to find a successor for the Ant-Man role, all the while his daughter Hope was vying for the part and his once-protege Darren Cross was attempting to figure out the whole shrinking thing on his own...it's all kinds of legacy swirling about. It's not a perfect film (there's a lot of "why would they do that?", or "what's the logic here?") but I loved it tremendously.

 Shortly after Ant-Man came out in the cinema Marvel launched The Astonishing Ant-Man comic, and of course I ignored it. I don't read Ant-Man comics. I read a trade of the Irredeemable Ant-Man by Robert Kirkman and Phil Hester quite some time ago, and I loathed it. I pretty much swore off Kirkman after that (Phil Hester, meanwhile, is a tremendously underrated writer, and I tend to perk up when he's writing something...but he only drew that Ant-Man series).

Three months later though, I happened to notice while reading Marvel solicits that Nick Spencer was writing The Astonishing Ant-Man and that in the series Scott Lang was employing reformed (or supposedly reformed) supervillains in his new Miami-based security agency. I knew immediately this was a book I had to read.

Anyone who read the Superior Foes of Spider-Man (and there were far too few of us for a book of such tremendous quality) knew that Spencer + D-level super-villains equals superhero comedy gold. And I have an incredible soft spot for D-level super-villains. It stems back to the Dark Side Bar from I think issues 43 and 44 of the Giffen-DeMatteis Justice League America with Wally Tortellini winning a bunch of gear off of super-villains in a poker game and downright shaming he JL. Actually, it predates that even, with the introduction of the Injustice League, a group of lackluster villains (Major Disaster, Big Sir, The Cluemaster, Clock King, Multi-Man and the Mighty Bruce!) much earlier in the series. Or maybe even before that with Suicide Squad. Regardless, these were comics where the writers and artists were plumbing the depths of the DC pantheon and pulling out the dullest, most tarnished, impurest of nuggets and polishing them into gold. Spencer did the same in Superior Foes, and continues to do so with the Astonishing Ant-Man.

Not only that but Spencer is dealing with Ant-Man legacy in a much different way than the Ant-Man film. It's not so much about Hank Pym and Scott Lang, but rather about Scott Lang and his daughter Cassie, who was in the Young Avengers as the giant-lass Stature. Darren Cross stole her heart, literally, and now she has no powers and has lost a tremendous sense of her identity, while Scott has the poorest of coping skills for all these events, and mishandles pretty much everything. But then he always has... and he always faces the consequences... such as his short-lived relationship with Darla Deering, aka Miss Thing, in the pages of Matt Fraction and Mike Allred's run on FF (I thought I was missing something, as I read all of Jonathan Hickman's FF run, but did not carry forward with Fraction/Allred's) that has reared its head again in Spencer's book.

Meanwhile there are two competing smartphone apps for hiring supervillains at the touch of a button, not only that, but the creators of one of the apps is able to bestow superpowers upon willing new recruits. Cassie herself enlists with one, gaining new Wasp-like powers, and the moniker "Stinger". Her task is to infiltrate Darren Cross' organization and corrupt his competing super-villain app. Scott's all too aware of the danger his daugher is in, and needs to enlist a group of super-villains himself to infiltrate Cross' org and get his daughter back. (Spencer has carried the latest incarnation of the Spider-Man villain Beetle over to Ant-Man as a quasi-love interest for Scott).

I'm not sure why I dropped this from my pull, but I was so very wrong to do so. Watching Civil War, my favourite part of the film was Scott Lang's transition into Giant-Man. It's one of the most giddily delightful things I've ever seen. It reminded me how much I liked the comic and I felt that I had made a huge mistake in dropping the title. Thankfully, it was easy to catch up on and it's great.

io9 pointed out today one of the greatest highlights of the series so far: the group of Scott's super-villains showing the new guy the ropes, dropping knowledge on all the pain points of the Marvel U.

Graig Kenthttps://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2760242555416345702.post-2255095847758300942016-05-09T12:41:00.002-07:002016-05-09T12:41:42.679-07:00Catching up on Comics with CGraig: The Manhattan Projects
The Manhattan Projects: The Sun Beyond The Stars #2-4 (2015-2016)

I've noticed more than a few creator-owned books have gone from being regular series to mini-series format. Think Tank, Life After, and The Manhattan Projects are all books I've read their full run but have been negligent in picking up their follow-up books. I don't think this would have happened if they were still ongoing. I would have made sure that I had the next issue of an ongoing I was reading. It's long been stated in comics retail that mini-series don't sell as well as ongoing series which is why DC and Marvel tend to offer up left-of-center things like Prez and Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur as ongoing rather than as minis. But I wonder if there's a different attitude these days at the indie or smaller presses, where they can sell (and make money selling) 4000-8000 copies of a title regardless of whether it's an ongoing or regular series. Is it the case when your likely selling as many copies of a series run in trade paperback that it's indistinguishable on the trade shelf wheter a book was the next volume of an ongoing or a subsequent mini?

If I look at the "unread" stack beside the bed (which isn't so much a pile anymore, but an easily flip-through-able row of books on a bookshelf beside the bed) I notice most of the titles remaining unread are either mini-series I'm waiting to finish or ongoing series I prefer to read in arcs rather than issue by issue. I really should be trade waiting on most of these books but then I'm thoroughly entrenched in the Wednesday habit so it's kind of easier (if a tad more expensive) to do it this way. Plus I still get a charge out of buying floppies that I just don't get from trades. I'm rarely as excited to dive into a trade as I am into a new floppy. And reading a run of floppies is so much better than reading a trade. The ritual of getting to the end of one floppy, rebagging it, and unbagging the next one is kind of like a mini-Christmas. It's certainly a more interesting process than just turning a page to continue a story. It's just too bad floppies don't look as good on a shelf and aren't as easy to lend out. Plus I'm much more protective of my floppies than my trades, the old collector mentality.

The Manhattan Projects: The Sun Beyond The Stars is a characteristically weird entry in the MP series. It looks like Hickman and Pitarra are using the mini-series format to tell a concentrated story centered on a subset of the cast rather than continue the ongoing story of the entire cast. I'm not dissatisfied but I quite miss the more sprawling scope and erratic nature of the ongoing, not to mention the character glossary that each issue contained was a great part of its charm. I'm in for pretty much anything Hickman does so lets just say I liked the mini-series format plenty, just not quite as much as when it was ongoing.
Graig Kenthttps://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2760242555416345702.post-48693586591690026052016-05-04T13:00:00.004-07:002016-05-04T13:00:34.330-07:00Catching up on Comics with CGraig: Nameless #1-6
(2015, Image)

After my disappointment with Annihilator, I was a bit worried that maybe Grant Morrison was becoming too "Grant Morrison", too into metafiction, too into self-reference or deep fictional reverence. For a creator who so rarely disappointed me in the past, and was so frequently unique, Annihilator was like brushing every raw nerve the critics have exposed with a wire toothbrush.

I had amassed all of Nameless before I got to reading Annihilator, but had I actually read it beforehand I likely would have passed on this Image series.

I'm both glad I didn't, but also wishing I did.

Nameless starts off in a very cinematic fashion, opening with our titular hero -- a very British, Constantine-esque mage -- en media res, finishing up a case where he's making an escape through Inception-like layers of surreality. It's weird, but also speaking some familiar enough language to not make it too off-putting.

By the end of the first issue Nameless has taken on his new assignment and is off to the moon. In the second issue he meets the boss (virtually) and the team he's to join. Their objective is to destroy or divert a giant asteroid with a trajectory towards Earth. Nameless' role is to ward off the negative mojo the rock is emanating, a particular sigil emblazoned on its face a signal that it's not just an errant piece of rock.

As the crew takes off, its revealed that the face of the boss in the virtual console is a facade, masking a room of horrors about him. Prometheus --or Alien before it-- as Nameless deduces the origin of the structure as an ancient prison for a mad god, and he's worried they've just freed it. What happens next is a literal horror show as the crew is attacked by an ancient evil and rapidly succumbing to it in horrific ways.

The crew has a daring mission of exploration and destruction before them, and issue 3 is a wonder, an absolute awe-inspiring visual feast from Chris Burnham (see the preceding post). There some of the better elements of Ridley Scott's

The third issue ends with the reality of the entire series called into question, doubly, with a two page spread taking place with Nameless on Earth, and the final page showing Nameless horrifically mutilated yet kept alive in a nightmare world. The fourth issue expands upon all these, weaving between the three realities of space, Earth, and nightmare, and Nameless (and the audience with him) completely unsure of what is real.

The fifth issue features, presumably, a flashback showing Nameless has not been as in control of any situation as he thinks he has (as most of the situations he's been involved with haven't been working out very well), while the story starts looping back to the beginning, bringing back the veiled lady and the angler fish men from whom he tried to steal a key in the opening pages.

What went from being straightforward through to most of issue three (well, as straightforward as far as Morrison goes) descends into one of Morrison's lesser used traits of total insane mindfuckery. This is comparable, if not even more confounding than The Invisibles, but, coupled with Burnham's terrifying imagination, far more unsettling. (About halfway through issue 3 I was convinced that Nameless would make a great movie, and then it takes its turn and I uttered aloud "Nonono, I don't want to see that.")

There was a point where I thought I understood what was going on in the book, a point when I thought I got the story, but this is one of those Morrison-mind-trips where really only he gets all the connections. They're so mired in his research and knowledge of arcane topics and horror fables well beyond Lovecraft, that deciphering these six issues would be a full time job for at least a year. This isn't to say that the book isn't worth reading (I hesitate to recommend it because it is so damn weird and gross, but at the same time it's very fascinating and engaging) but it's not wholly satisfying either. Then again, its structure is one that demands you loop back and give it another pass, or two, or three...if you can stomach it.

Some of Morrison's works are like Mensa puzzles, only for the truly gifted to solve, but that doesn't mean the non-gifted can't give it a go themselves, nor appreciate its complexity.
Graig Kenthttps://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2760242555416345702.post-7389263178267996382016-04-10T10:56:00.003-07:002016-04-10T10:56:44.594-07:00What the...?
LOOK!

Yeah, that's right... Marvel has introduced the $4.99 price point.

You might think "oh, it's just the special first issue of Poe Dameron and Black Panther", but then how do you explain the random $5 price of Uncanny X-Men #6? Nope, this is just the start of the $4.99 book at Marvel.

I know Marvel's justification is the books are now 30 pages, but are they really? Uncanny X-Men does actually clock in at 30, but Black Panther, stripping out the title pages and backmatter is only 22 pages of story. Poe Dameron likewise is only 22 pages of main story with a, how shall I say, aggressively needless BB-8 backup cartoon from Chris Eliopoulis. The man is a fine cartoonist but I really don't want to pay an extra dollar for a cutesy short story.

The average price of Marvel comic til now was $3.99 for 20 pages (occasionally a page or two more...averaging at 20 cents per page or less).
DC's books were $2.99 for 20 pages or $3.99 for 22 pages (15 cents a page for the former, 18 cents per page for the latter).

$4.99 for 30 pages is just under 17 cents per page and is a better deal than $3.99 for 20 (and up to 23) pages but the math only works if you're actually getting more of the story that you want (not some bullshit about BB-8 playing matchmaker).

I'm guessing Marvel is trying to suction the money in the comics marketplace in advance of DC's Rebirth at $2.99. Even though most of DC's books are going twice monthly it's still 15 cents per page (assuming they're not dropping the page per issue rate to 18 or something dumb like that).

The problem here is Marvel is clearly making a more desirable product in most cases and they know that people buy primarily on character and story. DC still is having a hard time establishing its New 52 Universe and characters. Their events just aren't catching on, and the hype has yet to sustain itself into any long term allegiances. Plus they don't have Star Wars. All of DC's books could be $1 and I still don't think they could get people to drop a $4 Star Wars book for four DC books. That's how poor the reputation of their product is.

If people truly bought on price point and value per page, this week's clear winner would be Nick Spencer and Steve Lieber's The Fix from. It clocks in at 34 story pages for $3.99. That's under 12 cents a page from the same team that brought you the awesome Superior Foes of Spider-Man booke you foolishly didn't buy. So buy this one and make up for your mistake.

Anyway, the point here is I had a pretty big problem with thw $3.99 price point when it came in a couple years ago as Marvel's standard, and while I resister for a while, the lure of the product was too strong. But as the Canadian dollar weakens and a $4 book becomes a $5 book, and a $5 is thus $6.25, I have a hard time justifying my hobby. As much as I enjoyed both Poe Dameron and Black Panther, I can't support them monthly... I have to wait for trade and probably buy them for a discount through other non-brick-and-mortar comic store channels. That's right Marvel you're sacrificing both the viability of your titles and the longevity of the retailers whom you sell through for your greed.

Black Panther debuts with it a lot of positive media exposure, and I know a few people who wouldn't otherwise read the character (or comics in general) who are going to check it out... but how many people at $5 per issue are going to leave it on the stands? Or buy only issue 1 and not return? Or not contemplate picking up other comics because of the price? Shoot one's self in the foot much?

As a guy who loves to read and share and talk about comics this bums me the hell out.

Graig Kenthttps://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2760242555416345702.post-72017158251226115972016-04-06T09:05:00.002-07:002016-04-06T09:05:51.926-07:00Perfect Pages: Nameless #3, Page 12015, Image
art - Chris Burnham
colour - Nathan Fairbairn

Just look at the depth on this page. One of the hardest things to do as an artist is creating a real sense of depth and Burnham here has done it on so many levels. I imagine some tweaking from Fairbairn puts the spaceship into crisp focus and giving the landscape the slightist bit of blur so that it's obvious that it's much higher up from the ground. The obvious thing is the manipulation of the landscape, doubled with the position of the the ship, forming the image of the skull, which is utterly, utterly cool, but still not what attracts me to this page. There's just a great texture here, the lack of solid blacks give the chasm even more detail and definition. Just an impeccable piece of art. I stared at this for 5 minutes before moving on with the story.

Another thing to note, though, is how the physical comic page compares to the digital. I pulled the above image from a preview of Nameless #3 on line, while below is a quick picture I took...

Notice the difference in colour on the printed page (and washed out a little more by some artificial lighting and the extra layer of a camera), but it adds a bit more warmth to the image, a further roughness to the terrain. The grain of the paper gives it added texture, and in my opinion it looks far, far better, even as a crappy photograph with light flare in the top corner.

There's a reason why I haven't gone digital. It just doesn't resonate the same. It like watching TV that auto converts programs to high def. It still works, but it doesn't look as good somehow. There is such a thing as too clean, too clear, too crisp an image. Texture gives images and story more life.Graig Kenthttps://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2760242555416345702.post-18213459666111566482016-03-27T11:20:00.002-07:002016-03-27T11:20:16.010-07:00Rebirth of... cool?Much of the lineup for the latest of the seemingly annual soft relaunches of the DCU was announced at Wondercon today. Unfortunately, for some of the things DC got right there's a whole lot they got wrong.

Let's start with the good:

Talent: Joe Orlando (Supergirl) , Tom King (Batman and Batman Rebirth), Scott Snyder (All-Star Batman), Gene Yang (New Superman), Tim Seeley (Nightwing), Peter J Tomasi and Patrick Gleason (Superman) are all sticking around.
New Talent: Hope Larson (Batgirl), Julie and Shawna Benson with Clare Roe (Batgirl and the Birds of Prey)
Returning Talent: Greg Rucka and Nicola Scott (Wonder Woman), Marcus To (Nightwing), Rafael Albuquerque (Batgirl), Phil Jimenez and artist Emanuela Lupacchino (Superwoman) and Christopher FUCKING PRIEST!!! (Deathstroke)

These are all exciting names of important and talented creators (though can you guess which one I`m most excited about).</i><br /><br /><b>Returning Characters with Returning Creators</b>: <i>Blue Beetle</i> (Ted and Jaime as written by Keith Giffen, ok, I`m in)
Wonder Women by Greg Rucka and Nicola Scott. As it should be. From the early 90's through to the start of the New 52 there was exactly one essential run of Wonder Woman stories, and they were written by Rucka. The Azzarello/Chiang run that launched the New 52 would be the next. With Rucka back and Scott on board, I guess this means that Black Magic is on hiatus then?

Returning Numbering: Action Comics and Detective Comics will go back to its original numbering. I like this. But at the same time I know it's because both are barrelling towards huge monumental numbers and they will get some big press when they do . I think Action, returning at #957 and especially at a twice monthly rate will hit 1000 next year and Detective, returning at #934 the year after.

$2.99 price point: $3.99 has been a bitter pill and with the Canadian dollar sucking the average comic is now $5. $2.99 makes their books genuinely more attractive.

And now the bad:

Twice Monthly comics: either they weren't paying attention to Eric Stephenson's ComicsPRO speech, or they're actively giving him the finger. With at least 16 titles reportedly going twice monthly, DC's looking to cannibalize the audience. It's probably their means to justify the $2.99 price point... instead of making $4 once a month they're making $6 off the same person by going twice a month. To quote Stephenson about why this is bad:

And if you are a publisher trying to shore up your numbers by releasing more than one issue of a single title a month: Stop.

It makes it next to impossible for retailers to accurately track sales, it puts undue pressure on even your most loyal fans, and it deprives writers and artists of the ability to do their best work. In fact, it all but robs artists of the ability to establish the kind of multi-issue runs that define long and illustrious careers.
I want to see a Wonder Woman run by Rucka and Scott...not by Rucka, Scott and Liam Sharp. Sharp is a fine illustrator, but there's no cohesiveness to having alternating artists on the same story. It's a concession I'll hesitantly make for a weekly book, but just think about how messed up those trades are going to be.

The old DCU is still alive: Don't get me wrong, I think that the New 52 was a bomb... a huge misstep by the company. It yielded huge short-term gains, and equally huge long-term losses. But you know what, stick to your guns DC. Fix what's wrong and move forward. Don't flounder and start looking back again. Convergence was a ruddy mess. In theory it could have provided closure or a portal back to a beloved time/run, but it mucked that up. And by bringing Superman and the Titans of old forward into the new DC Universe, you're undoing the entire conceit of making the New 52 a simpler place for new readers. You already have a Superman. If you want him to work like he used to, then guide the story that way. Having multiple Supermen or Titans in the same world is problematic at best.

Narrow Focus: So how much of Rebirth is focusing on new characters? Super Sons, Superwoman, New Superman?
A few.
How many new characters are not Superman or Batman or Wonder Woman related?
None. Even the new "Outlaws" in Red Hood and the Outlaws are Bizarro and Artemis.
"New Superman"?
Yep, another Superman. So there's old DCU Superman, New DCU Superman, and now what looks like a Superman from China. Not that there can't be a Chinese Superman, but having multiple Supermen, multiple, Super women, multiple Superboys on the same planet is massively diluting the brand. Of course, Superwoman and New Superman could be set on an alternate Earth. I could see Superwoman being a stab at Spider-Gwen-type knockoff (but with Jimenez and Luppacino on board it could be worthwhile).
I imagine a lot of this increased Super-focus is based off of wishful thinking and hopeful goodwill around Batman V Superman: DoJ but they obviously weren't paying attention to Warner Brothers completely throwing the Superman brand under the bus.

Dumb stories: Okay, I trust Steve Orlando is a good storyteller, but Cyborg Superman is Supergirl's father. Oy. Pass.

So much for not letting the movies dictate the comics: A while back Dan DiDio was making it a thing about how DC was going to lead the storytelling and not react to the movies and multimedia, and shape their publishing output as a result...like Marvel does. Well, "Rebirth" takes a crap all over that idea. Just look at Suicide Squad, with Jim Lee on rotating art duties, and a lineup that mirrors...oh, the cinematic version. Yeah.

Tunnel Vision: There's nothing different here. There are some intriguing titles and creators, but overall it's Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Justice League and associates and little outside that. Reading down the list of announced titles a couple dozen times and it feels so homogeneous. Where is the daring... where are the Squirrel Girls or Karnaks... the outthere takes on old things. Where are the risks. This is like when Marvel did everything Avengers back in 2011. It was all Avengers all the time, and it was dull. This is dull.

---

Bottom Line:

Some of these things do interest me. The old fanboy is really, really keen to see Blue Beetle. That Keith Giffen is writing a BB title that features (somehow) both Jaime Reyes (who I love) AND Ted Kord (who I also love) hits all the right notes.

I'm just giddy with the fact that Christopher Priest is back writing comics. He is an incredible talent who has had a famously shit time getting his dues in the industry. Deathstroke isn't my preferred character to see him write (nor a character I've given two poops about since the mid-90's) but knowing Priest he's going to deliver something different and meaningful for Slade, provide DC editorial get out of his way.

Do you get the sense that I'm excited for Rucka and Scott on Wonder Woman? I really, really am.

These are probably the only three books I'm going to read from Rebirth. I may poke around Superwoman and Birds of Prey. I think Batman is in good hands but I'm giving him a rest. The wife will be picking up Nightwing and is happy Tim Seeley is carrying over from Grayson (plus Marcus To on rotating art duty is a good match for the character). Graig Kenthttps://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2760242555416345702.post-66426427556588456432016-03-22T10:47:00.003-07:002016-03-22T10:47:56.778-07:00Catching up on comics with CGraig: Kanan #10-12(Marvel, 2016)

I said much of what I want to say about Kanan in my "forgotten but not gone" Star Wars review posted on this site back in January, but at the same time, now that the series has come to a close, I have a few more thoughts.

Foremost, the Rebels framing sequence for the final storyline didn't work for me at all. It felt altogether unnecessary and the forced connection between the now and the flashback didn't really have meaningful connection.

"after Sohn"..do we know the source image
Mark Brooks references here? A striking piece

Though I imagine this was intended as a finite run (if not from the onset, then at least by the end of the first arc I'm sure the powers that be at Lucasfilm and Marvel thought their Star Wars comics effort was probably better spent elsewhere) it still felt like Weisman still had a more complex backstory for Kanan/Caleb that he had to concentrate and close out early.

I like that this series acts as a bridge between the Clone Wars cartoon and Rebels, and does so quite effectively. It feels more like Clone Wars than Rebels for sure. My initial reservation that it wasn't enough like Rebels can actually be put aside, as I like the Clone Wars feel more, and would've appreciated further bridging between the two series. Again, the idea of a Rebels anthology still strikes me as the more appropriate idea, showing the Clone Wars back story of each of the latter series' protagonists.

I can't say that I'll miss Kanan as a series, as I felt it did the job it needed to do, but I do hope there's more Rebels comics coming...so long as they have purpose as well.

Graig Kenthttps://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2760242555416345702.post-20059832549445341562016-03-20T19:48:00.000-07:002016-03-20T19:48:34.391-07:00Secret Wars Hardcover(Marvel, 2016)

I don't think I could have done it. I don't think I could have read Secret Wars as it came out over the past year, with all the delays and whatnot. I absolutely absorbed this hardcover in two days (with a huge break to plow through Daredevil Season 2), so I don't think I really could have waited so patiently month (or months) between issues. I admit though, I think having the month-by-month allowed the reader more time to invest in the Secret Wars Battleworld, and delve into all the various tie-in series that presented new and unique perspectives on familiar Marvel Universe characters and scenarios (I read and enjoyed Civil War, Thors, and Weirdworld quite immensely, thank you) and the same can't really be said about plowing through the consolidated hardcover. When I had the break (in between issues 4 and 5, watching Daredevil Season 2 in one butt-numbing sitting) I did consider seeking out more of the Battleworld books, just to dive into things a bit more. Particularly I was wondering if there was a Spider-Man one, since Miles Morales seemed to have some importance to the story, but in the end it was rather limited to making a place for him in the redefined Marvel U.

Ah, this Battleworld Checklist has the answers... or not...it's incomplete and definitely not updated. I need to read Ultimate End, methinks. This is dangerous though, as now that I start poking, I start thinking about all the different tie-ins and whether I shouldn't just go read them all. They trigger in me the whole "dead universe" fascination and make me want to go explore the Battleworld, a dead universe that lasted about 10 months but still managed to produce well over 100 issues of content. Crazy bones.

Anyway.

I did indeed love Secret Wars, but then I've loved every ounce of Hickman's Marvel run. From his Ultimates/Ultimate Hawkeye, to S.H.I.E.L.D. to Fantastic Four and FF to his dense Avengers/New Avengers run (plus Infinity), it's all freaking amazing. And that it all loops back in on itself, without cannibalizing itself, is astounding. Every piece fits, even if they aren't always essential. I love this, it's what makes these long-term superhero universes so special, these type of unique storytelling opportunities.

Simone Bianchi's pencils for the image that was parsed across the variant covers for issues 1-8

The fact is, Secret Wars is the summation of both Hickman's Avengers run, which is where the universes colliding was happening, and his Fantastic Four run which built up the FF into a very large family indeed (not just a group of four). What starts off as almost the Marvel version of Crisis on Infinite Earths ends in a mano-y-mano showdown between Reed Richards and Dr. Doom, and being a swansong for the Fantastic Four (for now at least, as the company needs to ride out its annoyance with Fox owning the film rights to the characters). It seems so right that it goes from this massive scale to something so small as Doom's petty rivalry, and Hickman's resolution is both sweet and ingenious. It's not the end of anything, really (except maybe the Ultimate Universe), and it's chalk full of new beginnings.

I've read almost all of Hickman's work for Marvel in trade (save for his Ultimates and S.H.I.E.L.D, the latter of which I'm still waiting for its completion), so it only made sense to wait for the Secret Wars trade. As happened I could never wait for the actual paperback of any of the FF or Avengers stuff, so ditto for Secret Wars... all hardcover all the time. I enjoyed this so much, I'm keen to dive back into the Hickman Ultimates and Fantastic Four again, and just plow right through all of it once more, but that would imply I didn't have other things stacked up to catch up on...Graig Kenthttps://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2760242555416345702.post-20604985784680727992016-03-20T18:58:00.001-07:002016-03-20T18:58:54.499-07:00Catching up on comics with CGraig: Transformers Versus G.I. Joe #9-11(IDW, 2015-2016)

More licensed comic book goodness to dive into. Since I mentioned it in the Samurai Jack post, I thought I should catch up on it.

I've been wondering how long this series would (or could) last from day one. I had suspected that with last year's full-length Free Comic Book Day zero-issue this would be a brief mini-series, of your typical four-issue variety. Yet, issue four came and yet the story continued rolling on, each issue progressively tearing down sacred cows and pushing the story beyond safety and conventions. With each issue writer/illustrator Tom Scioli and co-writer John Barber put together one of the wildest rides on the comic book stands, delivering a title that bathes in nostalgia but refuses to live there. I mean, the depths of the history of these two toyline-derived universes that Scioli and Barber plumb is astounding, not just looking at toy shelves, but taking in decades of comic book and animation history to reference and coming out the other end with something that feels completely different, and yet true to what's come before... it's a remarkable feat.

Scioli channels the masters of the 60's - Kirby, Steranko, Ditko, Kane and more - though doesn't rest there. He frequently pulls from cinema but even more relies upon his imagination to construct just epic pages and panels. All the while the storytelling is the most eclectically paced I've seen. It's rather staccato in nature, little snippets of scenes, characters flow in and out, sometimes disappearing for multiple issues before returning, plus Scioli and Barber are not afraid to kill anyone off...anyone at all. When the first batch of Joes are gunned down early on, one wasn't quite ready for that...it had to be a dream, just as the Autobots, the good guys of the Transformers world, were still the bad guys to the Joes for quite some time. It all felt wrong, and yet Barber and Scioli persisted. Eventually the Autobots and Joes had their unifying moment, but not in time to stop the nefarious Cobra/Decepticon plan which resulted in the annihilation of Earth! (No shit!) It's not played for a dream or anything other than the final fate of mankind, and it'd be deliciously bleak if it weren't so excessively over-the-top.

Issue #9 is the best issue of the series, if only because it's the most cohesive and coherent. It takes place in humanity's deep past where the Gaels were at odds with the Vikings, looking for any edge. A Transformers ship had crash landed on Earth centuries prior, and in this historic land, their remains are worshipped as gods by a snake clan. The Gaels steal from these gods to help them in their war against the Vikings, their anachronistic technology giving them and edge up on their enemies, but also cursing them. This story is largely that of Destro's ancestry but touches upon many things Joe, Cobra, and Transformer in brilliant ways. It's also a solo effort from Scioli, though Barber still joins him for the post-issue commentary. It's a side-step from the regular story, adding little to the actual onging story, but it pads out Joe history with epic storytelling in such a manner it never actually gets.

Issues 10 and 11 return to the ongoing form, but as it gets deeper into the series, Scioli seems to be more focused on pushing his limits, creating some utterly daft sequences that just look remarkable, and sometimes utterly ridiculous, though never anything less than entertaining.

There's only two issues left in run it's been announced this week, just as I was beginning to think this could go on without any apparent end. As Scioli and Barber thin out the herd of characters on all sides, they delve deeper into character-focused storytelling (like issue 11's focus on Falcon), and there's still so much more to tell. I'm curious as to how all this will pan out...annihilation I imagine, but I guess we'll see.

Graig Kenthttps://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2760242555416345702.post-42296275836162935192016-03-20T09:21:00.001-07:002016-03-20T09:21:15.779-07:00Parenting 101: Spider-Woman #5Adding a baby/child to a superhero comic book series is always problematic. Superhero stories are meant to be timeless, in a sense, as the heroes don't age, or they age very slowly. But throw a child into the mix and suddenly you have a benchmark against which events happen. Invariably a child ages (because babies tend to offer limited storytelling possibilities) thus so too does the hero. The drama in child rearing is largely one of the progression of parenting. As a baby develops into a proper little person, they develop personality, quirks and ticks, mannerisms sometimes adopted from the parent and sometimes manifesting on their own. As entertainment, watching a child grow, and how a parent responds to its growth is a natural source of drama and comedy, sometimes even terror and suspense, stories that TV and movies, novels and plays have been utilizing for years. Comic books, particularly mainstream superhero ones, largely avoid it for the reasons above, but Spider-Woman is braving these waters, and issue 5 is perhaps the most on-the-nose tribute to being a new parent. The first three pages find Jessica Drew spouting off about the challenges, emotional fatigue and trauma that come with being a new parent. Dennis Hopeless nails it so completely and concisely... and brilliantly I might add. Javier Rodriguez nails the details, the way Jess holds the baby, the mess, the spit-up on her shirt, the unkempt, bleary-eyed appearance...picking things up with your toes.... Yup. Parenthood. It kind of sucks. But it gets better.

But I absolutely connected with what Jess says in the first panel of the third page:

My wife can surely tell you about how often I would wake her up in the middle of the night in a cold panic rifling through the sheets looking for our daughter. We never once even co-slept with her and yet this was a recurring panic dream of mine. The fact that Hopeless (via Jess) is mentioning it makes me wonder if this is a common phenomenon. I look forward to the letter column in a couple issues to see if there are others who had similar experiences.

Just brilliant stuff.

Graig Kenthttps://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2760242555416345702.post-53792955839106806402016-03-14T14:05:00.000-07:002016-03-14T14:05:17.897-07:00Catching up on Comics with CGraig: Samurai Jack #20
(2015, IDW)

Some licensed comics are born from nostalgia, or from commerce, from brand recognition, or from trademark perpetuation. Most licensed comics are, in fact. But every so often there comes a licensed comic that is a real passion project for its creator(s) and thus transcends just being a mere extension of a TV, movie, or toy property, instead becoming a fair extension of it. Sometimes it even goes so far as being essential, and on rare occasions even transcends the source.

There are many examples: Steve Rude's Space Ghost one-shot in the late 1980's; Evan Dorkin's Bill and Ted's run for Marvel in the early 1990's; Ryan North's Adventure Time comics; the still-going Scioli/Barber Transformers vs. G.I. Joe; and this all too briefly-lived Samurai Jack series written by Jim Zub and (mostly) illustrated by Andy Suriano.

Both my kids (7 years apart) became entranced by our DVD copies of Samurai Jack at a very young age. The simplicity of story structure, often minimal dialogue to parse, along with clean, striking visuals and a hefty dose of emotional outbursts make it very attractive and interesting to kids at that age (and the appreciation just gets deeper as you get older with it). It's a rare show that preaches persistence in the face of loss or disappointment (the kids might not take the message to heart though). Samurai Jack's four seasons never felt complete. It's not that it needed to continue on forever (and I don't know if I could handle Jack's continual heartbreak for too much longer) but it was (and remains) utterly unique, and completely transfixing that it certainly hadn't reached the point where it was getting old.

DC, around the end of the 90's, toyed with Samurai Jack comics, mostly within the pages of their Cartoon Network anthology series and never with much more than a work-for-hire feel. There was no passion. Zub and Suriano bring both passion and appreciation of the TV series to their pages.

It can't transcend the show, for Jack's, sound design, use of motion, and vocal performances are so integral to its being. But on the page Suriano replicate the way the show would break apart its screen into dynamic, distinctive comic-like panels. But in every way Suriano didn't just emulate the show, he brought himself into it. Character designs were just slightly off model with a bit of the artist's flair, and he managed to create and design entirely new environments that felt like they belonged to Aku's mad future.

This last issue is a love letter to the show, with the title, "Mako the Scribe" a tribute to the late voice actor of Aku. Phil Lamarr (voice of Jack) gets a character too (as does Suriano). The issue acts as coda to both the comic and TV series without bringing a direct ending, instead flashing to Jack's future where he's a much different man fighting foe a much different purpose. None of this run had Genndy Tartakovski's input but I hope when the series returns next year and Tartakovski eventually gives it it's deserved finale that it runs pretty much exactly like this.

Graig Kenthttps://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2760242555416345702.post-23799093757429053432016-03-04T15:35:00.001-08:002016-03-04T15:38:58.413-08:00In "Yes, just...effing...YES!" news...I picked up a copy of All-New Classic Captain Canuck #0 today (or rather I had someone pick it up for me) not realizing that it was just a collection reprinting the Ed Brisson-written back-up features from the first six modern Captain Canuck issues released by Chapter House. I have to say I was a might disappointed until I turned to the inside back page to discover...this:

They're publishing Danny Zabbal's Sorcery (now retitled Life, Death and Sorcery because it's unlikely someone hasn't already done a comic or have "Sorcery" trademarked) as a quarterly series. This is absolutely THE best news. After picking up a copy of the first volume that Zabbal self-published I couldn't help but rave about it (that is actually my quote in the ad there). I wanted more instantly, or at the very least some guarantee that Zabbal would continue this brilliantly written and illustrated time-travel fantasy-drama. Now we know Zabbal can continue, and even if I have to wait until the end of the year for new material I'll still buy the republished material because I earnestly loved it so much.

This is the best news. It truly is. I'm so happy for Danny, but even happier for me who gets to read this stuff.

Graig Kenthttps://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2760242555416345702.post-32865219698941565522016-03-03T14:46:00.001-08:002016-03-03T14:46:16.236-08:00Catching up on Comics with CGraig: Letter 44 #20-21 & 23
(2015-2016, Oni Press)

Until yesterday, the last issue I read of Letter 44 was #17. Somehow along the way in my habitual Wednesday pick-up I wound up missing a couple issues (full disclosure: for much of the past 5 months my wife has been doing the weekly pull based on my pull list...upon which I most likely overlooked the book shipping that week). As the pile of comics beside the bed -- read and unread -- grew, I lost track of exactly which issues I was missing, and even which issues I had actually read. What hits home about this though, is that I didn't seem to care enough to check.

I generally like Letter 44, it's got some fun ideas, and Charles Soule hasn't yet disappointed me with his writing (though I should state that most of the books I've read which he wrote were either mini-series or prematurely cancelled)...but for all the intrigue in the story I realized in reading these last three issues that I really don't care at all about the characters...any of them. Perhaps it's just my staccato reading habits with the book and that I've not had a chance to really invest in them, but the longer the series runs the less appealing the characters seem, and the less interested I am in them.

I've been wrestling with Alberto Jiménez Alburquerque's art from the beginning. A website with a free preview of issue one some time ago had many comments from people were complaining about Alburquerque's art, calling it terrible. I just assumed they were reacting to his character designs, which is clearly his style. I don't like harshly criticizing someone's art when it's clearly their style, that doesn't appeal to me not their storytelling aptitude, but I've been finding his figures and their emoting to be overblown and hyper exaggerated to the detriment of the book. His characters aren't badly designed, but they are bad actors, melodramatic to a fault.

Ryan Kelly subs in on art for issue 21, which is a flashback issue delving into the pasts of some of those characters I really don't care about. Kelly adapts his style in small ways to try and match Alburquerque's, and it's almost a seamless transition (Dan Jackson's glossy colours provide even more consistency) save for the fact that Kelly's characters move and react much more naturalistically.

I still have that urge, the "what happens next" urge. Soule does a great job at propulsive storytelling. Issue 23 leaves President Blades with the task of selecting 666 survivors of the destruction of Earth, and clearly former President Bush...err Carroll will make sure he is in that group (or manipulates control of it). Perhaps I'll go digital on this...I don't think I need to keep it around.

she's the real Sarah Wayne Callies of the piece

Graig Kenthttps://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2760242555416345702.post-25399469444128466822016-02-21T19:48:00.001-08:002016-03-20T18:10:48.872-07:00Catching up on Comics with CGraig: The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #2-4
(2015/2016, Marvel)

This is perhaps my favourite ongoing title at present, and already an all-time favourite. It's comic book perfection. Reading Squirrel Girl gives me the same giddy sensation as when I read the Giffen/DeMatteis Justice League back in the day: just flat out love for the world and its energy, and utter appreciation of the craft of fine comic-booking by Ryan North and Erica Henderson. USG is clearly the result of people who love what they are doing, and it shows especially in the liveliest letters pages this side of Saga. Truth was when this book started this wasn't the Squirrel Girl I was hoping to see, but it took North and Henderson all of a few pages of its first issue (not even the whole thing) to sell me on what they were doing. And when Marvel started canceling books in the wake of Secret Wars I was so worried that USG was finished. But if three pages of letter columns in this second volume tell me anything it's that there are more people out there like me who love this book (and more who love it even more than I do). Also, it legit makes me laugh out loud, a lot. These opening "recap" pages (typically in the form of a Twitter-style scrawl, usually featuring Squirrel Girl prodding Tony Stark on one thing or another) get things started off right, every time.

click to enbiggen

They changed things up for this latest arc as Doreen is trapped in the 1960 with Dr. Doom (the very same Dr., Doom who is still reeling from his first encounter with --and loss to-- SG) playing Marvel U's Aku (Doom is LAW) and attempting to take over the world...

...and by all appearances succeeding.

But, you know SG's got a plan...of some kind...right?

Don't worry, her actual plan (come issue 5) is even more awesome than riding dinosaurs. How great is Erica Henderson? That Rosie the Riviter panel is just the bomb, and the four panels that follow, comedic genius.

BONUS! Variant covers I don't own but wish I did!

A bit of fun with The Wicked and the Divine

OK, not so sure I want the cover so much as I want this action figure...now! Make it real!!!

Graig Kenthttps://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2760242555416345702.post-84718634790469518442016-02-21T19:46:00.001-08:002016-03-03T08:12:28.588-08:00Catching up on Comics with CGraig: The Life After #6-10
(2015, Oni Press)

It feels like some books just shouldn't be ongoing series, just like some movies shouldn't be TV shows. That's not to say a title can't have a long life, but sometimes the stories, or characters, or ideas are diluted by the necessities of an ongoing series.

I was into the weird Matrix-esque digital Heaven/Hell/Purgatory that Fialkov and Gabo presented in the first 5 issues of The Life After. It was overseen by a weird bureaucratic environment (reminiscent of the control room in Cabin in the Woods) that was teased out nicely. As well how it related to the central character's journey wasn't well defined. The main character was a Neo-like chosen one who began to discover he could manipulate the system in weird ways, but didn't know what it meant nor how to use it effectively. He also had Ernest Hemingway as a companion in his journey through the afterlife. It was weird, but not in a cutesy or quirky way. It's a pretty serious book with some heavy themes, but not without its comic relief (mostly in the form of Hemingway).

Issues 6-10 act essentially as a volume 2, but expand the focus beyond the main cast, to see more of the inner workings of the afterlife office, and toy with roughly defining the rules of the afterlife so that characters can break them.

Were the first five issues a miniseries and the second a follow-up miniseries, I'm almost certain the book would have a tighter focus on the main characters, and their navigation of the realm. But as a continuing story it loses that focus and feels a liitle too meandering and explanatory. I still liked it, don't get me wrong, but this second act didn't quite deliver as effecting a story as the first.

The ending parallels sharply with the beginning, only with ten issues of context behind it. It's a tactful stroke on Fialkov's part and illustrated deftly by Gabo. Another act came in November (Exodus)... which is good because it leaves a few things hanging... more than a few actually. I hope it doesn't get too explanation heavy of the after-world. I like the vagaries. I'll have to track it/them down. I kinda overlooked them.

Things get almost unbearably weird when the trippy bunny god shows up

Graig Kenthttps://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2760242555416345702.post-66169690281319874302016-02-21T19:10:00.001-08:002016-02-22T20:29:15.347-08:00Second Printing's Artists' Fellowship: Javier Rodriguez
From Spider-Woman #4
Inks by Alvaro Lopez, Colour: Rachelle Rosenberg

In the Secret Wars-induced hiatus of Spider-Woman -- in which the series, only 10 issues long, was cancelled and relaunched a few months later with a new number one -- series artist Javier Rodriguez seemed to find a new sense of artistic self. It's not like it's a drastic shift in style, his figure work doesn't look radically different, nor is there a drastic change in his background work, and his layouts for the most part, are conventional...but every few pages Rodriguez lets the beast out and his pages are delirious things of mad ingenuity, pushing perspectives like Steranko or constructing panels with a J.H. Williams III-like virve. He's a man in transition, and once he figures out how to feed his creative drive while also servicing 20 pages (or more) of story, we'll see something strikingly unique and very impressive.

(I'll figure out decent picture taking in some other lifetime)

Graig Kenthttps://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2760242555416345702.post-70206265575854952012016-02-11T12:09:00.000-08:002016-02-21T18:44:09.395-08:00Catching up on Comics with CGraig: Spider-Woman #2-3
(Marvel, 2016)

I find it interesting that Spider-Woman is now more affiliated with Captain Marvel than Spider-Man these days (note the good Captain's positioning on the covers of 2 & 3... particularly in the logo of #3), but then again Jessica has been fairly independent from Peter's affairs almost from day one. In fact, it usually seems weird when the Spiders Man and Woman collide. Unlike Supergirl or She-Hulk who are gender analogues to a certain extent of their male counterparts, Spider-Woman has a very broad breadth of distance to be her own thing. It was more in the Ultimates universe where the quasi- transgendered Spider-Woman worked as an Agent of Shield and mentor to Miles Morales (didn't read any of the Ultimate Peter Parker run, so I'm not sure how much she factored into his life... though I suppose she'd be fairly closely tied being a genetically manipulated clone of Parker).

I get the feeling that with the post-Secret Wars relaunch of the title Marvel is taking the opportunity to kind of make Jessica Drew more like Jessica Jones, given the popularity of the Netflix series and the otherwise nominal cache Jones has in the comic book world). Though strangely, they're making Jessica Drew more like the comics JJ than the TV one. Then again, Jessica Jones was originally intended to be Jessica Drew before Marvel brass had second thoughts about putting a Spider-character in as the lead of an adult-themed book.

Just like JJ, Drew is a private investigator, she's best friends with Carol Danvers, and now she's pregnant, which is a notable comparison because not many people get pregnant in comics (can we get a run-down of all the knocked-up superheroes in comics history please?).

We've skipped past conception and the first nine months to find a bursting-at-the-seams Jessica in an intergalactic birthing hospital (at Carol's insistence)... which just so happened to fall under siege of some Skrulls just after she arrived. Jessica has history with the Skrulls so no matter how pregnant she is, she's not just going to sit by and let the dimple-chinned freaks get away with...whatever they're doing (she doesn't really care all that much).

She has to make her way through the hospital at one point, which finds her intruding on some other patients unintentionally...and Javier Rodriguez really gets to let loose creatively here, with a trio of pages that would make Kirby and Ditko pause fro a moment. I could go for a whole issue of pin-up pages of Rodriguez's vision of this alien hospital.

Graig Kenthttps://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2760242555416345702.post-45373045706938109042016-02-11T11:54:00.002-08:002016-02-11T11:54:31.365-08:00Catching up on Comics with CGraig: Annihilator #1-6
(2015, Legendary)

My esteemed colleague Adam X over at Thor's Comic Column on Bleeding Cool has a bit of a distaste for one Mr. Morrison. We've had many a heated behind-the-column discussions about said Mister, discussions which see the whole crew chiming in on the pro-GrantMo side of things, with poor Adam sitting squarely (and vehemently so) on his side of the camp.

A cover like this inspires fantasies... but it doesn't pay off

Not to put words in his mouth (which is something someone says when they're gonna do just that) but the gist of Adam's POV was a general dislike of Morrison's recurring tendencies, such as recycling the deeper wells of comic lore and passing it off as something groundshakingly new or Morrison's penchant/overuse of metatext.

I shudder to think of Adam's reaction to reading Annihilator, then, as I'm quite sure it would be some fairly horrifying crime against the physical book itself. Annihilator feeds Morrison's meta demons a gluttonous buffet, all with a tart foundation of that hoariest of meta-cliches where an author meets the character he's writing in the flesh. It gets worse... it's not just an author, but a celebrated Hollywood bad-boy screenwriter. If this were a movie, it would be insufferable by minute five. As it stands as a comic it's barely palatable the whole way through.

I have to say that I was looking forward to Morrison's editor stint over on Heavy Metal this year, but if this is what he's looking at for sci-fi (b-grade 90's Tarantino knock-off edginess blended with Barbarella-level space opera) I'm gonna take a hard pass. I haven't been this disappointed with Morrison since The Filth...in fact if I'm more disappointed it's because it feels like a waste of effort for one of my all time favourite artists, Frazer Irving. Oh, don't get me wrong, Irving's work is dazzling as always, but it's a rare instance where Morrison doesn't play enough into his artist's strengths.

Irving has to do stuff like this to keep it interesting

Think of the world building Irving did in (the lamentably still incomplete) Gutsville that is utterly missing here. He gets to create a whole other dimension but spends precious little time in it. The majority of these six extra sized issues are talking heads. Irving does a good jib with all of the drama, melodrama and comedy but it doesn't let him shine.

This is what most of the book feels like

Tonally Annihilator is a bit of a shit show, not balancing it's weirdness with anything resembling likeable characters. The weirdness of the alternate dimension never fully solidifies into anything tangibly exciting while the earth-based situation is such a microcosm that it's like the four or five characters live in a solitary LA almost solely inhabited by, and centered around them.

I was going to say that Mr. Robot's Rami Malek would be perfect for the role of Ray Spass but then I have no desire to see this translated onto the screen of any size. It's not a terrible book, but by Morrison's standards it's about as low as they come. I'm certain I'm missing a lot of dept and subtext and innuendo and literary/pop-cult references and all sorts of other jazz that Mr. M likes to seed into his work, but with Annihilator it's just not worth the effort of digging in that deeply.
Graig Kenthttps://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2760242555416345702.post-9337576777044890322016-01-26T21:18:00.001-08:002016-01-26T21:45:00.981-08:00Catching up on Comics with CGraig: We Are Robin #4
(2015, DC)

Woah man, this ish was a trip.  Bermejo's cover implies some sort of Batgirl of Burnside team-up, which totally happens but not like you'd expect (more in the inspirational way that Superman showed up in that issue of Hitman all those years ago if you follow me).  In the wake of the events of the past 3 issues, we get a spotlight on Riko to see more intimately how someone is coping with the Robin team's recent loss.  Riko really gets to stand out here, which gives her some needed distinguishing points.

Artist James Harvey steps in for a one-off and has delivered one of the craziest indie-looking issues of a mainstream comic in a good long while.  At times it seems Harvey is channeling Archie Comics, or Paul Pope, or Daniel Clowes, or Jim Rugg (this ish feels like the most Street Angel thing since Street Angel)... with zipotone grittying up the page and stark, flat, old-school four-colour style from Harvey and Alex Jaffe, it's just delicious.  The street art feel to Harvey's layouts (in some respects like Spider-Gwen's Robbi Rodriguez's layout) is very contemporary for the form but the visual style within the panels feels more retro.  Elements of collage and Ditko-esque pop-art dizziness all work together to create a blazingly unique visual story that accompanies an almost stereotypical tale.

 Bermejo's brilliant incorporation of perennial high school English fodder Lord of the Flies into Riko's waking fever dream of a life is equally brilliantly hanled by Harvey. Kids run amok.

And if I couldn't love this ish more, Harvey (I wonder if at Bermejo's direction) illustrates a graphitti scrawl of "They Reminiscence Over You" in honor of their fallen member Troy (with a circle around the 'R' - for 'Robin' dig?). A Peye Rock and C.L. Smooth reference... ya got my love gentlemen.

Graig Kenthttps://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-2760242555416345702.post-90475195183902614902016-01-19T07:58:00.000-08:002016-01-19T07:58:07.356-08:00Forgotten but Not Gone - Lost Reviews from Thor's Comic Book Review Column, Star Wars EditionOriginally written on November 20, 2015. A November 23rd column didn't happen, and this was forgotten for the December 1st

---
Star Wars #12 (Marvel, $3.99)
Kanan #8 (Marvel, $3.99)
Star Wars: Vader Down #1 (Marvel, $4.99)
by Graig Kent

I was wondering when, in this ramp-up cycle to The Force Awakens, my threshold for all things Star Wars would start showing it's shiny metal head. What burned me out of my long, seemingly undying love of Star Wars originally was not the mediocrity of the prequels, but rather the mass-market product push that followed The Phantom Menace, one that literally broke my bank and contributed to a half-decade-long personal recession. I saw the remaining movies in the theatre and was among the vocal few who weren't so offended by them, but the love had certainly lapsed.

Strange magic is happening with The Force Awakens... to pull me back in; to get me to watch The Clone Wars and Rebels and the films avidly with my six-year-old; to get me interested in the comics for the first time since X-Wing: Rogue Squadron ended; to even get me buying toys again (but not for myself...mostly); and to get me to actively celebrate and anticipate and participate. But I could sense early on that in the year-long whirlwind fervor leading into Episode VII there would be too much Star Wars, and I was right.

I didn't even try to keep up with everything. Stepping into a bookstore (what's that?) recently and seeing their Star Wars table display filled with new-ish titles I was completely unfamiliar with totally exemplified this point. Proper novels, young-adult novels, teen novels, tween novellas, Wimpy Kid-style storybooks, younger reader books, Star Wars-as-Shakespeare, weird knitted Star Wars picture books, and on and on, a dizzying array of new-movie-capitalization that I was more repulsed by than attracted to. Beyond repeated viewings of the trailers, the hunt for the ever-elusive 3 ¼-inch Captain Phasma action figure, and the Marvel comics, I've been dutifully avoiding the mass-market product push that so brutally crushed me back in '99.

But even with such minimal investment, I'm feeling my born-again Star Wars fandom wane (though anticipation for Episode VII is still nauseatingly high) in the face of too much Star Wars. And yes, I'm just talking about the comics. [Star Wars #12 Cover] We've got three ongoing series of somewhat erratic schedules (Star Wars, Darth Vader, and Kanan), while there have been four mini-series of varying quality (Princess Leia, Lando, Shattered Empire, Chewbacca), and now a crossover mini-event, Vader Down, all in the span of 11 months. That's over 50 comics at least $3.99 a pop. It's a pretty harsh cut into anyone's comics budget. And the fact is I've only enjoyed about fifty percent of the output so far.

For my $13 this week I got the latest issues of Star Wars, Kanan, and the aforementioned kickoff issue to the Vader Down crossover.

Twelve issues into Marvel's flagship Star Wars series and I'm still largely underwhelmed by it. Jason Aaron has earned the right to be called a superstar writer in comics, and likewise his artistic companions -- first John Cassaday and now Stuart Immonen -- can lay claim to such a descriptor, and yet the end result for this most prominent series have felt less like Rebels or Clone Wars (two cartoon series which greatly expand the Star Wars universe through character and mythology) and more like Shadows of the Empire (a good intentioned late-'90's multi-media effort to shoehorn in a not-so-epic adventure between Empire and Jedi). Rather than fitting comfortably between Episodes IV and V, Aaron's scripts have the sensibility of a kid playing with his toys in a sandbox. There's unfettered imagination at play, and a lot of fantasy role-playing, and while love and storytelling craft definitely play a part, there's a questionable sense of authenticity. In a way, they feel not too distant from Marvel's original Star Wars series, in that they don't seem like a genuine bridge between films (as it's so widely touted to be), but fun, out-of-continuity diversions.

This issue opens with bounty hunter Dengar sitting on top of a defeated Chewbacca, staring at Han Solo and Leia thinking he has the upper hand. The mere appearance of Dengar, in advance of Empire Strikes Back, can't avoid seeming anachronistic. Meanwhile Luke is in Grakkus the Hutt's gladiatorial arena facing down a giant cybernetic beastie, a plot point which play double duty in foreshadowing Luke's encounter with Jabba and his equally flukey survival against the rancor. Again this seems anachronistic at best, redundant at worst.

Part of what makes Aaron's scripts dissatisfying is the way he makes the Star Wars universe feel so small. We keep seeing things, places and people that are if not outright familiar then reminiscent of something else. Another part is that Aaron's stories advance the characters in ways that seem out of step with the films (at this point Han should be saying to Luke, "That's four you owe me kid"). It's not that I'm unable to enjoy seeing Chewie fling a dude off a building, or to be impressed by any sign of fighting prowess from a Hutt, but when Artoo starts dispensing lightsabers to Luke, Han, Leia, and Chewie like fruit pies in those old Hostess comic book ads, and said lightsabers are used somewhat adeptly by said characters against a troop of TIE Fighter pilots, I have to call bullshit. It seems like outside of that one time on Hoth, Han shouldn't have held a lightsabre before, amiright?.

It's got to be a tough job, expanding upon the experiences of the core crew from the original trilogy, since their on-screen presence and growth are so defined in the hardcore audience's mind while their off screen growth largely seems inconsequential. Three story arcs in on this series, I'm not sold that Aaron is the right writer to lead these characters through their journeys, with story elements and action sequences feeling stunty (like the whole "Mrs. Solo" thing which was proven this issue to be a stunt). Stuart Immonen, meanwhile, has bettered Cassaday's photo-reference-quality detailed panels, by adding a bit more pizzaz. Not only that, since coming on board with this arc, Immonen has bested every Star Wars comic artist before him, save maybe Al Williamson (but probably even then). He gets the characters, their physicality, yes even their likenesses seemingly innately (but I'm sure there's a lot of reference craft happening). He builds alien environments and spaceships that are fresh but feel completely at home in the universe. A single panel crowd scene reveals a horde of recognizable alien life forms from across the universe in the best way, and man is he ever getting those lens flares in before The Force Awakens drops (I suppose we have colorist Justin Ponsor gorgeous coloring to thank).
It's rough, because I'm not enjoying this Star Wars series for its story or characters, but the art is fantastic, and the spectacle is kind of great. I don't feel like I can drop it outright, but I probably should.

Kanan is the only series in Marvel's Star Wars offerings so far to work far outside of the original trilogy, here obviously piggybacking on the surprise success of Disney XD's Star Wars Rebels. While it centers around one of the main characters of that show, it stays out of the in-show continuity and opts for telling the backstory of Kanan Jarrus, nee Padawan Caleb Dume, in nonlinear fashion.

The first story arc for this series took us back to the end of Caleb Dume's Jedi training, when the call for Order 66 came in and Caleb went on the run. This second arc steps back even further to when Caleb first became a padawan, also nicely diving into the background of his troubled master, Deepa Billaba. There's some nice character building going on here, but I think the time hopping structure it's presented in poses problems with getting the audience truly invested

The art from Pepe Larraz is quite nice. Having the luxury of less photo referencing to do than most of the other artists on Star Wars gives him a bit more freedom and expressiveness for his characters, both facially and phsyically. With the series' roots being in animation, Larraz's work bridges the "real-world" Star Wars comics and the animated universe nicely.

Greg Wiseman (Gargoyles, Young Justice), who served as executive producer and writer on Rebels before departing for season two, was certainly the right man for this writing job. With a background in comics, as well as having an insider's view into how Kanan as a character was built, he has effortlessly bridged the character to his and the Jedi past in these stories, while also bridging some of the gaps between Revenge of the Sith and Rebels. This story arc does feel more an extension of The Clone Wars than Rebels in all honesty, which isn't innately a bad thing, but at the same time it never quite feels like Caleb/Kanan is interesting enough of a character to center an entire ongoing series around. Rebels is such an ensemble piece that it instead should be an anthology series cycling through the crew of the Ghost, rather than singling one particular member out.

Where Aaron and Immonen's Star Wars seems like pieces to a whole different puzzle from the Star Wars we already know, Kanan at times feels like leftover pieces from a completed puzzle: you're still trying to figure out how they fit, even though they're seemingly superfluous.

Continuing that analogy, there's Marvel's Darth Vader series which feels like pieces of a familiar puzzle falling into place. It's some of the absolute best Star Wars comic bookery in the history of Star Wars comic bookery. That series, written by Kieron Gillen, with art from Salvador Larocca, has been note-perfect from issue one, capturing all the menace and stature of Vader from the original trilogy, while bettering the prequels for capturing Anakin Skywalker underneath all that. Particularly, Gillen has managed to elucidate Vader and Palpatine's relationship in a manner even the original trilogy never quite grappled, and continues to do so with incredible subtlety. Add on top of that the evil counterparts to Artoo and 3PO in Beetee and Triple-Zero and their creator, the fantastic Dr. Aphra, plus Gillen's ability to get to the quick of Vader's obsession with Luke, it's all not just tonally perfect but brilliant fun.

So imagine my surprise to find that it's not Gillen writing part 1 to Vader Down but Jason Aaron. Double my surprise to find all my complaints about Aaron's Star Wars scripting dissipating when he puts Vader front-and-center and manages to deliver a read that doesn't miss a step with the ongoing Darth Vader comic. Just as Darth Vader's story of his fall and redemption is the centerpiece to the cinematic Star Wars saga to date, it's his story that is also the lifeblood of Marvel's ongoing Star Wars comic books.

In Vader Down, old Darth has finally secured a lead on the young, force-enabled pilot who blew up the Death Star, whom he's already well aware is his son. Rather than follow the Imperial company line, Vader is desperate to connect with Luke on his own, off the books (though his plans for Luke are made obvious at the end of Empire Strikes Back, here he seem to just have an urge to meet this boy, his last connection to Padme), to the point that he's heading relatively solo (only Dr. Aphra and the droids as backup) to a Rebel training planet. The book opens with Vader running headlong into dozens of X-Wings on a training mission that just got serious.

If you watched the extra-length second season premiere of Star Wars Rebels this summer, you saw just exactly what kind of ridiculously amazing flying Darth Vader was capable of, and Mike Deodato here captures that exact same (if not even more) intensity and dazzling spectacle. It's somehow not even a fair fight despite the odds. Deodato also jumps in and out of cockpits during this sequence which, for the first time I can recall, captures fully the spirit of the Death Star trench run in comic book form. Deodato also give us a lingering double-page spread of the starscape post-battle, and it's horrific… really hits home the "war" of Star Wars.

Of course it's Luke who is the one to take Vader down, and does so with a bit of Aaron's bombast that could seem out of sorts for Star Wars if it didn't play so well as a set up for the next leg of the story. This finds Vader on the ground, alone, against the bulk of the Rebellion breathing down his neck. Despite the battalions surround him, you still can't help but feel sorry for the good guys in this situation, as they're all facing a tempest in a shiny black teapot..

When the Marvel Star Wars line was announced, I was dreading a Darth Vader-centric comic the most, fearing that further exploration of the character would demystify him even more, damaging his cool, like a Hayden Christensen force ghost haunting the whole proceedings. I never expected a Darth Vader-centric comic to be good, never mind one of the best reads on a comic stand each month. To see that it's not just Gillen able to make magic for the character, but to see other writers also nailing it means the character and story have heretofore unthought of legs.

I couldn't bring myself to even pick up the recent Chewbacca mini-series (and Chewie is my all-time favourite Star Wars character), such is my disappointment with so much of Marvel's Star Wars books so far (and fatigue thereof), but as long as they're offering up Darth Vader comics of this caliber, it's all quite worth it.

Graig Kent is quite literally counting down the days to December 18. He's thinking movie theatres should offer a weekly pass for $60-$75 good for unlimited screenings of The Force Awakens, Friday to Thursday. He's taking the week off anyway, just in case. Graig Kenthttps://firstname.lastname@example.com