Tag: Invincible

This Week’s Haul

In addition to the usual roundup, note that the second of Fantagraphics’ hardcover collections of Prince Valiant came out this week. These are really lovely collections, a big upgrade on their softcover collections of the 90s, and well worth it for anyone who’s a fan of Hal Foster’s lovely artwork.

  • Action Comics #890, by Paul Cornell & Pete Woods (DC)
  • Batman Beyond #1 of 6, by Adam Beechen, Ryan Benjamin & John Stanisci (DC)
  • The Flash #3, by Geoff Johns & Francis Manapul (DC)
  • Green Lantern #55, by Geoff Johns, Doug Mahnke & Christian Alamy (DC)
  • Justice League of America #46, by James Robinson, Mark Bagley, Rob Hunter & Norm Rapmund (DC)
  • Justice Society of America #40, by Bill Willingham, Jesus Merino & Jesse Delperdang (DC)
  • Madame Xanadu #24, by Matt Wagner & Marley Zarcone (DC/Vertigo)
  • Wonder Woman #600, by Gail Simone, George Pérez & Scott Koblish, Amanda Conner, Louise Simonson, Eduardo Pansica & Bob Wiacek, Geoff Johns & Scott Kolins, and J. Michael Straczynski, Don Kramer & Michael Babinski (DC)
  • Astonishing X-Men #34, by Warren Ellis, Phil Jimenez & Andy Lanning (Marvel)
  • Captain America #607, by Ed Brubaker, Mitch Breitweiser & Jackson Guice (Marvel)
  • Prince Valiant vol 2 1939-1940 HC, by Hal Foster (Fantagraphics)
  • Invincible #73, by Robert Kirkman, Ryan Ottley & Cliff Rathburn (Image)
  • Ghost Projekt #3 of 5, by Joe Harris & Steve Rolston (Oni)
  • Atomic Robo and the Curse of the Vampire Dimension #4 of 4, by Brian Clevinger & Scott Wegener (Red 5)
Paul Cornell’s had an interesting career: Doctor Who episodes, science fiction novels, and now comic books, following up on his Captain Britain and MI-13 series for Marvel (which I haven’t read) with the beginning of a run on Action Comics. With J. Michael Straczynski monopolizing Superman in his own title, though, Cornell is focusing on Lex Luthor here in Action.

Writing a story starring a bad guy can be hard, and Lex is about as bad as they come: He’s evolved from a brilliant, hateful, and emotional villain to a brilliant, hateful, code-and-calculating villain, who keeps his emotions bottled up, making his crimes (and moral lapses) all the more creepy. Cornell pulls off all this creepiness quite well, and even has a tricky little subplot involving Lois Lane witnessing Lex’s crimes. Lex’s motivation here is that he tasted the power of a power ring (the orange ring in Blackest Night) and he’s trying to figure out a way to get it back by researching the power of the vanished black rings. Lex always has ambitions a little higher and darker than anyone else in the DC universe.

If there’s a downside to this issue it’s the reveal on the last page, which feels like an awkward shift into a different storyline than where the issue started. But Cornell might just be taking the story in a different direction than it first appeared. But overall his first issue is pretty nifty, so I’m looking forward to see where Cornell’s going with it.

Oh, and Pete Woods’ art is terrific. Similar to that of Gary Frank back before Frank went ulta-realistic (and mostly stopped drawing backgrounds) with a hint of Tony Harris, he has a strong design and composition sense and clean linework. I’m not sure if I’ve seen his stuff before, but I like it a lot.

For some reason DC has decided to revive the Batman Beyond franchise, which was primarily an animated series, and one which ended nearly ten years ago. Is the trademark about to expire or something? Well, after a Superman/Batman annual featuring the character a few weeks ago (written by Paul Levitz, it was pretty routine stuff), now there’s a 6-issue mini-series written by Adam Beechen (whose work I really only know from his – pretty good – Countdown to Adventure series a few years ago) and drawn by Ryan Benjamin and John Stanisci (neither of whom I’m familiar with).

The story is a straight follow-up to the cartoon series, with characters such as Amanda Waller filling roles different from those in comic books. The story involves someone escaping from a high-tech laboratory and apparently killing the original Batman’s enemies. His successor, Terry McGinnis, tries to head him off, when he and Bruce Wayne find out what’s happening, and the issue ends with the revelation of the villain’s identity, indicating that a comic book villain is moving into the animated world. It works pretty well as a first issue, and is certainly enough that I’ll pick up the rest of the series.

Seeing the animated characters drawn in a more realistic, comic book-like style is kind of weird; sometimes Benjamin manages to pull off the expressions that really make the characters who they are on the small screen, but other times they seem like someone else, actors playing the characters. It’s not entirely successful; look at the cover, for example, where McGinnis’ Batman has more muscle and definition than he ever had in the cartoon. I’m not sure what aesthetic they’re really going for here. It’s a good-looking book, but there’s a certain cognitive dissonance to it that makes it difficult for me to fully buy into it being a sequel to the cartoon.

Wonder Woman #600 is another anthology issue with pin-ups, like Superman #700 was last week, which makes it feel rather less special as an anniversary issue. Unsurprisingly the best story in it is the one written by Gail Simone and drawn by the always-amazing George Pérez, even though the premise is yet another “let’s come up with a silly excuse for having every female superhero embark on an adventure together, without any of the men”. What really sells it, though, is that afterwards Diana heads out for the graduation of one of the supporting characters of her series when she was re-imagined by Pérez 20 years ago. Given that this issue is also re-imagining the character in a later story, this is a fine and touching coda to Wonder Woman’s current incarnation. (Pérez also draws a fantastic two-page poster with characters from throughout this run, almost worth the price of admission all by itself.)

Amanda Conner writers and draws a short piece with Wonder Woman and Power Girl, which feels a little under-rendered for her usual work, and which is a cute little personal piece about PG’s home life. Louise Simonson writes a third story guest-starring Superman which is a straight adventure story (the art is by Eduardo Pansica whom I’m not familiar with, but it looks pretty nice; inker Bob Wiacek looks like he had a strong influence on it, though). Then Geoff Johns and Scott Kolins write the lead-in to J. Michael Straczynski’s re-imagining, in which the character is apparently broken down and reappears in her new guise, with a new backstory.

The story is a fairly light lead-in to Straczynski’s run on the character, but is much better than his rather awful debut on Superman last week: Wonder Woman is now apparently a refugee from Paradise Island, along with the surviving Amazons, and it’s not clear who killed most of the Amazons or why, but apparently he’s still hunting her.

The problem with the story is not that it’s bad, but that it doesn’t feel like Wonder Woman. It made sense when Tangent Comics turned characters completely on their head, but this Wonder Woman has so little connection to her past incarnations that I wonder why they even bothered. I like the theory at The Beat that “a lot of this seems to be a reboot aimed at getting a Wonder Woman movie closer to being made – actresses didn’t seem so thrilled about running around in a glorified swimsuit”. Which brings us to the new costume, which has engendered plenty of controversy. I don’t think it’s awful, although going from one largely-nonfunctional costume to another one seems rather silly (those tiny little jackets look pretty silly whenever I see anyone wearing one, and I’ve got to think that that V-shaped belt is going to hurt whenever she bends over).

The costume is really just a visual indication of what I said about Straczynski’s comics writing last week: He goes so far out trying to do something new with the character that he loses (or shows that he never understood) what defined that character in the first place. To be sure, where Wonder Woman is concerned the definition has always been a little sketchy (considering her the third leg of DC’s top “trinity” of characters has always seemed rather silly, since she’s nowhere near as iconic as Superman or Batman; her powers are essentially that of a female Superman, and her character has been pulled in so many directions that it’s difficult to define who she is or what she stands for), but whatever she is, I don’t think this is it.

Still, the story seems decent enough, which could make it a good read where Straczynski’s Superman looks like a disaster out of the gate. And while Don Kramer is no George Pérez in the art department, well, who is? So color my guardedly optimistic.

This month’s Invincible is an interesting one for readers like me who appreciate unorthodox story structures: The main characters are entirely off-stage while the primary storyline (the war against the Viltrumites, the conquering race of supermen that Invincible’s father hails from) goes on. But the story itself – told in a series of vignettes – focuses mainly on Invincible’s father Omni-Man and his brother Oliver, who get to know each other while Invincible recovers from near-fatal injuries. Meanwhile, their allies think they’ve been killed, and the war begins without them. We see glimpses of how the war is going (sometimes well, sometimes poorly), but the focus is on the two men. It’s effective without being cloying, has Robert Kirkman’s trademark (and slightly twisted and grotesque) sense of humor, and feels like a calm before the storm without feeling like a wasted issue.

All-in-all it shows what a versatile writer Kirkman is. It seems like every issue of Invincible is a little journey off the beaten path of standard superhero comics. That’s probably what makes it such a good series.

(By the way, here’s something neat: Ryan Ottley’s cover for the issue in pencils, pencils and inks, and in final colored form.)

This Week’s Haul

Quite a week:

  • Ex Machina #41, by Brian K. Vaughan, Tony Harris & Jim Clark (DC/Wildstorm)
  • Jack of Fables #33, by Bill Willingham, Matt Sturges, Russ Braun & José Marzan Jr. (DC/Vertigo)
  • Astonishing X-Men #29, by Warren Ellis & Simone Bianchi (Marvel)
  • Guardians of the Galaxy #13, by Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning, Brad Walker & Victor Olazaba (Marvel)
  • The Incredible Hercules #128, by Greg Pak, Fred Van Lente, Dietrich Smith & Terry Pallot (Marvel)
  • The Immortal Iron Fist #25, by Duane Swierczynski, Travel Foreman, Tom Palmer & Juan Doe (Marvel)
  • Marvels: Eye of the Camera #5 of 6, by Kurt Busiek & Jay Anacleto (Marvel)
  • Ignition City #2 of 5, by Warren Ellis & Gianluca Pagliarani (Avatar)
  • Freakangels TPBs vol 1 and vol 2, by Warren Ellis & Paul Duffield (Avatar)
  • Mister X: Condemned #4 of 4, by Dean Motter (Dark Horse)
  • Invincible #61, by Robert Kirkman & Ryan Ottley (Image)
FreakAngels vol 1

FreakAngels vol 2 		Ignition City may not have been very good (and this week’s issue is only a little better than the first one), but to my surprise Ellis already has a publication from Avatar which is pretty good: The collections of the FreakAngels web comic. The second collection came out this week, and I picked up both and gave them a read.

The premise is that 12 powerful telepaths/telekinetics were born at the same time, and as teenagers they managed to bring about the end of the world – or at least of civilization. Six years later, 11 of these “Freakangels” live in the Whitechapel district of London – which itself is flooded by 15 feet of water – and safeguard a few hundred survivors with their powers from outsiders who try to steal what they have. The 12th angel, Mark, had been exiled some years earlier, and at the beginning of the first book he programs a young woman, Alice, to come to Whitechapel and start killing. She’s stopped, her brain is purged of Mark’s programming and she’s recruited to help the angels with their lookouts, as she knows who they are now, and most of the people they’re guarding don’t. The first volume concerns Alice’s arrival and an open assault on Whitechapel by an enemy group, while the second involves a more covert attack.

The first two volumes of FreakAngels cover their ground slowly (each volume covers about a day’s worth of story time), I think because Ellis wants to introduce the cast and setting gradually. Despite the paranormal abilities, the series reads more like a character drama than an action/adventure series. But Ellis is mostly working in archetypes when it comes to the FreakAngels themselves: The caring doctor, the badass cop, the clever engineers, the dedicated guard, the free spirit, the bad seed, etc. So the series focuses more on how things work in WhiteChapel, and setting up the tensions among the characters, but there’s certainly the potential for a lot of drama.

Paul Duffield is certainly the best artist I’ve yet seen work with Ellis on an Avatar-published project. Although his figures seem a little stiff at times, he does have a casual, easy way with faces. His biggest strength is in drawing the backgrounds of the city of London (see, for instance, this page), and the broken or rebuilt buildings and constructs that pepper the setting. Overall he’s quite good, and the schedule he must be putting in to draw 6 pages weekly makes me all the more impressed.

FreakAngels also has Ellis’ best qualities on display: Sure he’s got a mean streak and can be quite the smartass, but ultimately his best work is about balancing freedoms and responsibilities, and setting up situations where these two aspects of life come into conflict. The FreakAngels have a sense of these qualities to varying degrees, especially given their role in shaping their world, and this is what sets the story in motion, and sets them with or against each other. While the revealing of their world is interesting in and of itself, it’s the extent to which the characters grow and come to understand these qualities which will determine high high FreakAngels sits in Ellis’ oeuvre.

Mister X: Condemned #4 The Mister X: Condemned mini-series wraps up this week. Dean Motter’s work is always stylish, interesting to look at, and evocative, but in both the original series and this one I don’t think there’s more to it than that. The plot and character are both pretty thin, and no one’s particularly sympathetic for the reader to follow.

For my money, Motter at his best can be found in Terminal City, with great artwork by Michael Lark.

Invincible #61 “The Invincible War” aftermath occurs in Invincible #61, in which last month’s devastation leaves the survivors picking up the pieces, and Invincible trying not to feel like the whole mess is his fault (though when a couple dozen parallel-world duplicates of yourself try to destroy the Earth, what how would you feel?). And then the story launches right into “Conquest”, which looks like the next go-round between Invincible and his conquering Viltrumite relatives.

This comic never seems to rest, and that’s a good thing. And Ottley’s art seems to get better every month.

This Week’s Haul

Some really good stuff this week:

Powers vol 12: The 25 Coolest Dead Superheroes of All Time The latest volume of Powers has one downside: The title. “The 25 Coolest Dead Superheroes of All Time” may be a cute little joke – which is how it’s used in the story – but it’s a terrible title for this volume.

The reason it’s a terrible title is that this is one of the best volumes in the Powers series, which is the culmination of 30 issues of storytelling.

There’s a virus on the streets giving people powers, but leaving many of them ending up dead, too. Detective Deena Pilgrim was infected a while ago – a bad thing since having powers is illegal unless you register them – and ha run away from the force to try to stop the people responsible for and profiting off the virus. Her former partner, Christian Walker, used to be a superhero before he lost his powers, but he recently gained now powers, but only for fighting cosmic threats to Earth. And having powers is illegal, right? He’s also trying to find who’s responsible for the disease.

Pilgrim is in her own private purgatory and has been pushed about as far down as she can go, while Walker’s new partner is charged by internal affairs with finding out things about the both of them. It’s an ugly situation, and it all comes down to a big roll-of-the-dice which puts everyone at risk. And as a story it works out wonderfully. How it works out for the characters… you’ll want to read for yourself.

This volume is some of Bendis’ best writing ever, with some particularly poignant statements to make about what it means to have powers. Other than the title, if the book has a downside, it’s the sad fact that the series comes out so rarely while Bendis is writing mainstream books for Marvel. Not that I begrudge him the success he’s had in that vein (even if those titles aren’t my cup of tea), but Powers will be the book people remember 30 years from now, and much like Kurt Busiek’s series Astro City, it’s too bad we don’t get more of it.

Still, we should be grateful for what we do get.

Star Trek: Crew #1 John Byrne’s last Star Trek-related series, Assignment: Earth, was rather a bust, as it was five standalone stories which didn’t really give us any insight into the characters or ultimately go anywhere. Nonetheless I decided to give his new series, Crew a try, and from the first issue it’s 100% better.

Apparently it’s going to focus on Number One, the first office of Captain Christopher Pike in the original Trek pilot, “The Cage”, and who was portrayed by Majel Barrett. This first issue takes place on the shakedown cruise of the USS Enterprise before it was commissioned; Number One – who was never named in the pilot and isn’t named here – is a cadet assigned to help with the cruise, and who engineers the saving of the ship from an enemy plot. The plot isn’t especially sophisticated, but Byrne nails the look of Starfleet and makes the characters and situation compelling enough to make it one of the better one-issue stories I’ve read recently.

If the rest of the series is this good, it ought to be a lot of fun indeed.

Invincible #60 A whirlwind year of Invincible wraps up with “The Invincible War”, a double-sized issue in which reality-hopping villain Angstrom Levy sends 20 evil counterparts of Invincible from parallel Earths to our hero’s own world to conquer it and humiliate him. It doesn’t work, of course, but 20 Invincibles manage to beat down the whole roster of heroes from the Image universe before they’re stopped.

This issue is like the series in microcosm: Inventive writing and artwork, hard-hitting situations and visuals (yes, there’s blood and gore), and life-altering events happening to series regulars – not to mention the rest of the world. – and despite being a single-issue story, it both picks up threads from earlier issues and sets up elements for future issues. Invincible is like a television drama which alters the status quo regularly. While its sensibilities are too modern to truly compare it to monthly comics of decades past, that’s what I often think of when I read it: Kirkman and Ottley are having fun pulling out all the stops and moving pieces around every month, and while it’s not ‘good clean fun’, it is a great ride. I’m not sure why it took me so long to discover this comic, but I sure am glad I have.

This issue has a double-foldout-wraparound cover – when was the last time you saw one of those? – by series artist Ryan Ottley, and you can see it in its entirety here.

This Week’s Haul

A little late this week:

  • Action Comics #866, by Geoff Johns, Gary Frank & Jon Sibal (DC)
  • Booster Gold #10, by Geoff Johns, Jeff Katz, Dan Jurgens & Norm Rapmund (DC)
  • Salvation Run #7 of 7, by Matt Stuirges, Sean Chen, Walden Wong & Wayne Faucher (DC)
  • ClanDestine #5 of 5, by Alan Davis & Mark Farmer (Marvel)
  • newuniversal: shockfront #2 of 6, by Warren Ellis, Steve Kuth & Andrew Hennessey (Marvel)
  • The Twelve #6 of 12, by J. Michael Straczynski, Chris Weston & Garry Leach (Marvel)
  • B.P.R.D.: War on Frogs #1, by John Arcudi, Herb Trimpe & Guy Davis (Dark Horse)
  • Locke & Key #5 of 6, by Joe Hill & Gabriel Rodriguez (IDW)
  • Invincible #50, by Robert Kirkman & Ryan Ottley (Image)
Action Comics #866 Geoff Johns’ next major story in Action Comics is “Brainiac” – but which one? Honestly I gave up reading Superman in the early 90s before they had really figured out who the post-Crisis Brainiac was. But it seems like Johns’ goal with his run on this book is to redefine some elements of the Superman mythos. So it looks like Brainiac is back to being an alien who captured the Kryptonian city of Kandor years ago. He appears to be a green alien who operates out of a skull-shaped metal ship. But he also appears to have tangled with Superman before, and operates through robot proxies.

My bet? That the alien in the ship isn’t really Brainiac – he’s probably been captured by the ship itself. Who has Superman fought before? Beats me. Maybe offshoots or other instances of the ship – if it’s a machine who says there has to be only one?

The issue has a fun interlude in which the Daily Planet staff has a meeting. Some of it feels a little forced (okay, mostly I haven’t really liked any portrayals of Steve Lombard since Julie Schwartz retired), but has some funny moments, especially the interplay between Lois and Clark afterwards. (I’m also really glad Lois is back to having black hair; I thought it was ridiculous when John Byrne turned her hair brown.) Superhero comics spend so much time on the action and so little on the characters these days, especially the ones who have secret identities.

As usual, Gary Frank’s art is nifty, although also as usual the backgrounds feel rather sparse. I enjoyed his renditions of the Brainiac robots the most, he’s taken the old Gil Kane designs to a new level.

Salvation Run #7 Salvation Run ends – not really a surprise – with a whimper and not a bang. Several fourth-string super-villains bite the dust, Luthor gets his mad on, and the status quo is restored, except for one character who’s left hanging at the end. It doesn’t mesh very well with Final Crisis, but it also slipped until it shipped after the first issue of that series. Grant Morrison pretty much says that he didn’t factor Countdown or its spin-offs into Final Crisis, which mostly makes DC editorial look like a bunch of chumps, although it’s difficult to shed any tears over Countdown, which as I’ve said was pretty much a complete disaster of a series. It makes the end of Salvation Run seem even more superfluous.

I’ve been an admirer of Sean Chen’s artwork in the past, but his work on this series was pretty mediocre: Not much detail, and I don’t think his renditions of Luthor and the Joker are very true. I don’t know if he was rushed, of if his inkers were just not good matches for him, but it was pretty disappointing. Especially since he left Nova to do this series. Sadly, with the art factored in, this series ended up being pretty much a waste of time.

ClanDestine vol 2 #5 This ClanDestine mini-series felt like a straightforward continuation of the old series, which is awkward since it’s been over a decade since the first series came out, and it didn’t last very long, so I imagine there weren’t many people scrambling on board to read it. And I guess it didn’t do very well in the sales department. Moreover, it brought back the old Alan Davis X-Men team Excalibur and otherwise rehashed a villain from the first series, and also the background of Adam Destine, complete with the requisite deus-ex-machina (since Adam is pretty much a walking deus-ex-machina).

All of which made this series something of a “shrug”, albeit an extremely well-drawn “shrug”. It ends with a teaser for a third series which I’d be much more interested in reading, but I bet the sales won’t cause Marvel to rush out to publish it. Alas, I think the time for ClanDestine passed some time ago.

The Twelve #6 The Twelve is shaping up to be one of J. Michael Straczynski’s best comics works, behind Midnight Nation. This is not strong praise on its own, since you may have noticed that I’ve been lukewarm-at-best towards all the other Straczynski comics I’ve read, but in this case I’m actually enjoying the book quite a bit. It helps that the art team of Weston and Leach have given the book a visual look unlike most other mainstream comics, with details and character designs few other artists at the big two can match.

The first six issues of the series have mostly been character spotlights, showing what makes each member of the Twelve tick, and how they react to being thrown from the end days of World War II to the 21st century. Not all of the characters are interesting – Mister E, for instance, is pretty much a nonentity – but some of them are quite good, and Straczynski has thrown in a few enjoyable twists, especially regarding Dynamic Man and – in this issue – Rockman. I was also satisfied with the explanation for my concern about Electro, which I expressed in my review of issue #1.

I think these first six issues have set the tone for the series and put all the pieces in place, and now I expect the second six will bring things together into a unified story, presumably as one or more of the characters either end up being a threat, or being not what they seem to be. Or maybe in some other way. Regardless, pulling everyone into a single story and not leaving them with twelve separate threads will be the difference between the success or the failure of this series, I think. Although admittedly Straczynski could surprise us all and do something unexpected yet still fascinating. His track record in comics writing doesn’t suggest that that’s likely, however.

Really, The Twelve is the latest series to follow the Watchmen approach to super-team storytelling: Take us through the backgrounds and circumstances of a group of individual characters, and then bring them together at the end. James Robinson’s The Golden Age worked in a similar manner. Even after 20 years, it’s still not a very common approach to superhero comics, so it still feels relatively fresh whenever it pops up. That’s probably a big part of why I’m enjoying The Twelve.

Invincible #50 Invincible really might be the best superhero comic being published – as it pretty much claims on the cover – even on the erratic schedule it’s been on recently. It reaches #50 this month, marking another turning point in a series which has had plenty of them, as Invincible cuts ties with his government boss in a rather bloody manner.

Invincible is great for so many reason: The main character is a through-and-through hero, which is refreshing these days, even if he does have his flaws and foibles. He means well, and he usually does well, and people respect him for that. The supporting cast vary widely, and few of them are out-and-out villains, usually with personal motivations which make them sometimes do good, and sometimes behave suspiciously. Alliances shift, and characters change and develop. And that’s the best thing: Even though it’s an ongoing, open-ended story, there’s a definite sense of change and progress unlike almost any other superhero book out there. You never know what’s going to happen next, but when it does it’s usually both exciting and it makes sense.

Artist Ryan Ottley keeps up with Kirkman’s script wonderfully, with dramatic action sequences, different-looking characters, and a colorful world. In some ways his art reminds me of Michael Avon Oeming (of Powers), but I think Ottley balances the realistic and the cartoony much better.

50 issues under their belt, and Kirkman still has plenty of irons in the fire for this character. Here’s hoping the next 50 are just as much fun.

This Week’s Haul

Comic books I bought the week of 15 August 2007.

  • Aquaman: Sword of Atlantis #55, by Tad Williams & Shawn McManus (DC)
  • Booster Gold #1, by Geoff Johns, Jeff Katz, Dan Jurgens & Norm Rapmund (DC)
  • The Brave and The Bold #6, by Mark Waid, George Pérez & Scott Koblish (DC)
  • Countdown #37 of 52 (backwards), by Paul Dini, Adam Beechen, Keith Giffen, David Lopez, Mike Norton, Don Hillsman II, & Rod Ramos (DC)
  • Armageddon Conquest: Quasar #2 of 4, by Christos N. Gage, Mike Lilly, Bob Almond & Scott Hanna (Marvel)
  • Invincible: My Favorite Martian TPB vol 8, by Robert Kirkman & Ryan Ottley (Image)
  • Invincible #42-44, by Robert Kirkman & Ryan Ottley (Image)

Booster Gold #1If you were on board for Keith Giffen’s Justice League series or last year’s 52 series, then you know that Booster Gold is a glory-hound hero who does the right thing while trying to promote his image and get rich. He’s a bit of a comical character, whose history has gotten rather tortured as his powers have changed, his best friend has been killed, and he’s helped save the timestream.

If you’re a True Believer, though, you know that Booster Gold was the first superhero created after the Crisis, way back in 1986. Created by Dan Jurgens, a writer/artist with a clean line who’s probably best-known for killing off Superman, Booster was a frustrated ex-football player from the 25th century who came back to our time to become the hero he always imagined himself. He set himself up in Metropolis and went toe-to-toe with Superman for popularity. It was a nifty premise, and the first Booster series – which ran 25 issues – did a good job of exploring Booster’s past and present (and future). Jurgens’ writing and art always seem just a little stiff to me, but you can’t fault his enthusiasm or cleverness.

It seems that Booster’s popularity has finally reached the point where it’s time for him to get his own series, but how do you relaunch a character who’s, well, done it all? Apparently by having him do it all again: Booster is recruited by Rip Hunter, Time Master to help repair damage in the fabric of time, which someone may be exploiting to destroy the Justice League. He’s finally convinced to side with Hunter rather than joining the JLA himself, but at a price. It’s an interesting premise – one which might wear thin quickly, but which suggests that perhaps there’s a goal at the end of the road, rather than a series of one-off adventures. Which would be nice.

Jurgens returns on art, credited with the “layouts”, which usually means the final art more reflects the style of the guy doing the finishes – by Norm Rapmund in this case – but it looks like Jurgens’ art through-and-through. Geoff Johns co-writes with Jeff Katz, which I suspect means that Katz is doing the bulk of the writing while Johns is present to lend some name recognition to the book. Hard to tell. All things considered, it’s not a bad start.

The Brave and the Bold #6B&B wraps up its first storyline, “The Lords of Luck”, with one final set of guest stars as our heroes take on some bad guys who know every move they have planned – almost. It’s almost anticlimactic after the big Legion issue last month, but this has been a great series. I guess Waid and Pérez have one more storyline planned before Waid heads off to become editor-in-chief of Boom! Studios.

But I think it’s going to be a while before either creator manages to top this one. This has been a great series so far.

Invincible #44Okay, I broke down and decided to add Invincible to my monthly reads. I picked up the latest TPB and the latest three issues, which gets me all up-to-date on the story.

I’m pretty impressed with how Robert Kirkman juggles the large cast, characters who come and go, relationships that shift over the course of a year or two, villains who sometimes get their final rewards and others who keep coming back, he does a good job of keeping you guessing. I think sometimes he’s a little too brutal in handling the characters, and that certain characters get the short end of the stick in their exposure, but nobody’s perfect.

It takes a lot for a serial story which isn’t headed to some sort of definitive conclusion to keep my hooked. I’ve read through four years’ worth of Invincible this year, and it looks like it might be that book.

Oh, and Ryan Ottley‘s art just keeps getting better and better.

This Week’s Haul

Comic books I bought the week of 8 August 2007.

  • Countdown #38 of 52 (backwards), by Paul Dini, Jimmy Palmiotti, Justin Gray & Jesus Saiz (DC)
  • Fables #64, by Bill Willingham & Aaron Alexovich (DC/Vertigo)
  • Annihilation Conquest: Wraith #2 of 4, by Javier Grillo-Marxuach & Kyle Holz (Marvel)
  • The Incredible Hulk #109, by Greg Pak, Carlo Pagulayan & Jeffrey Huet (Marvel)
  • Nova #5, by Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning, Sean Chen, Scott Hanna & Brian Denham (Marvel)
  • The Clockwork Girl #0, by Sean O’Reilly, Kevin Hanna & Grant Bond (Arcana)
  • B.P.R.D.: Killing Ground #1 of 5, by Mike Mignola, John Arcudi & Guy Davis (Dark Horse)
  • Invincible: Ultimate Collection HC vol 3, by Robert Kirkman, Ryan Ottley & Cliff Rathburn (Image)

Fables_64.jpgAaron Alexovich’s art on the latest Fables is interesting: it’s reminiscent of Sam Keith‘s: Very expressive, somewhat cartoony. I like it in many ways, but I don’t think it works very well for Fables, which even when it’s being lighthearted is pretty weighty. Otherwise this is a pretty fun issue, focusing on Snow and Bigby and the cubs’ fifth birthday. (Wow, 5 years old already?) Alexovich’s strength is drawing the rather dynamic children, which surely is why he was picked for this issue.

Both Annihiliation Conquest issues this week (Wraith and Nova) ratchet up the tension pretty nicely. This is a fun crossover series. Would that all corners of the Marvel universe tried to be fun.

Clockwork_Girl_0.jpgThe Clockwork Girl looks promising: #0 is a preview issue costing 25¢. It looks like this will be a series about two inventors, one who creates biological wonders, and one who creates mechanical ones. There isn’t enough story in this preview to judge how it’s going to work, but it’s a good start. Grant Bond’s artwork is quite strong: Very expressive faces, solid layouts, inventive designs. The production values are quite high for a small press, too. I’m looking forward to the regular series.

But don’t take my word for it: you can read this issue on-line (PDF).

Invincible_Ultimate_Collection_3.jpgI’m debating whether I want to start buying Invincible monthly. It’s handy to be able to read 12 issues at a pop whenever the hardcover collections come out (and on a cost basis they’re about as expensive as the paperbacks, only more durable and with larger pages). I’m very impressed with how Ryan Ottley is developing as an artist: He’s incorporating some Frank Cho-like form and detail, but he’s much better at action sequences and emotions than Cho (not to mention that his women don’t all look alike). His web page is cool, too.

It might not be “the best superhero comic book in the universe”, but it is fun stuff.

This Week’s Haul

Comic books I bought the week of 18 April 2007.

Once again, I present last week’s haul this week:

  • Aquaman: Sword of Atlantis #51, by Tad Williams, Shawn McManus & Waldon Wong (DC)
  • The Brave and the Bold #3, by Mark Waid, George Pérez & Bob Wiacek (DC)
  • Ex Machina #27, by Brian K. Vaughan, Tony Harris & Jim Clark (DC/Wildstorm)
  • World War III one-shots #1-4 (DC)
  • 52 #50 of 52 (DC)
  • Justice League of America #8, by Brad Meltzer, Shane Davis & Matt Banning (DC)
  • Invincible Ultimate Collection vol 2 HC, by Robert Kirkman & Ryan Ottley (Image)
  • Evil Inc. Annual Report vol 2 TPB, by Brad J. Guigar (Lulu Press)
  • Hero by Night #2, by D.J. Coffman & Jason Embury (Platinum Studios)

Aquaman is a little better this month than last. I still don’t think McManus’ efforts here are as strong as in days past, but they’re better; maybe he was stretched doing a double-sized issue. Maybe inker Wong is having a strong influence. I dunno.

The Brave and the Bold: Best superhero comic on the market? Maaaaybe.

Ex Machina is definitely picking up. I’m genuinely looking forward to what comes out of the current story.

52 this week is “World War III”, where Black Adam goes to war against the world and its heroes (and villains), and does a terrific amount of damage in the process. It’s not bad. That said, the four spin-off specials are not essential. DC claims they published them because the story of World War III was too big to fit into one issue of 52, and they could cover more characters and provide more context with the extra space. It’s all horse-hockey of course, but I got suckered in anyway. If you do decide to pick up the set, I suggest reading the specials before the actual issue of 52.

Has there been, in recent memory, a more cynically packaged (even “marketed” seems too kind a term) comic than the current Justice League of America series? Meltzer is another in DC’s stable of “hot” writers (who all seem interchangeable to me), the covers are provided by “hot” artist Michael Turner (the anatomical deficiencies in whose art could fill a while entry), and the series took half a dozen issues just to introduce the new team. The artwork of Shane Davis (whom I’ve never heard of before) is out of the Jim Lee/Image Comics school of pencilling, with muscular figures, generic backgrounds, and lots and lots of crosshatching. Overall, a decidedly mediocre combination.

That said, this issue is the first part of a crossover story with Justice Society of America (also not a very good comic, but at least an earnest one), which will also feature the Legion of Super-Heroes. Since the character of Starman is one of the best features of JSA, and I’m perhaps overly optimistic that a Legion/time travel story could be a lot of fun, I’m going to give it a read. The first installment suggests that Starman and Karate Kid are time-lost heroes who are part of a contingent sent back to the 20th century on some mysterious mission, and who have lost their memories. Since the story is called “The Lightning Saga”, my guess is that Lightning Lad/Lightning Lass/Lightning Lord (and maybe the Legion of Super-Villains) will figure in it, as well. Especially since this first chapter seems to be titled “Lightning Lad” (in Interlac).

(Incidentally, the idea that Batman could take down Karate Kid is fairly laughable, but that’s the conceit that DC’s built up around Bats these days.)

The second volume of Invincible seems like the almost-obligatory resting-up-from-the-first-volume/laying-the-seeds-for-the-third-volume collection. It’s still fun, but nothing like the first volume. Kirkman’s attention to the supporting cast and the increasing number of details of their lives is enjoyable, but I hope there’s a big bang in the third volume to deliver the payoff.

This Week’s Haul

Comic books I bought the week of 4 April 2007.

This week’s 52 may be the most muddled issue of the series. I couldn’t figure out what was going on, or why I should care. Didn’t they finish up the Intergang stuff months ago? Bleah.

My Dad I think summed up my feelings about Jack of Fables best in an e-mail: “When it was dealing with the group that captured him, it was pretty good, but when it’s just about his jerky self, not too hot.” Jack really is a jerk, and actually no one in the series is really someone you can root for. And the art is pretty so-so. I don’t think I’ll be buying it much longer.

“Planet Hulk” ends this month, and it’s just interesting enough that maybe I will pick up World War Hulk this summer.

I’ve been curious about Invincible for a long time now. The premise is that the hero is the son of a Superman-type figure who got married and had a kid, and Invincible inherits Omni-Man’s powers. (I’ve been spoiled and know that there’s more to it than that, but that’s the crux of the premise.) I did the math and it turns out that buying the Ultimate Collection hardcovers is about the same price as buying the trade paperbacks, and the hardcovers are, well, hardcover, not to mention using larger pages. Hence I went for the hardcover.

I’m about 4 issues into the volume so far, and it’s quite good. Robert Kirkman’s wry sense of humor brings a welcome levity (and reality) to what in many ways is a silver age comic series updated for the modern day. On the downside, the characters are pretty thin: The heroes are defined almost entirely by their powers, and the supporting cast have basically no personality. There’s no depth. Maybe that will change over time (I think the series has run more than 30 issues so far). Considering the series so far feels like a father/son series mixed with a coming-of-age story (and fortunately without the wacky hijinks that often accompany the “teenager discovers he has super powers” yarns these days, such as those which plagued Spyboy), it could benefit greatly from deeper characterization (but then, what story couldn’t?). Artist Cory Walker has a great sense of form and dynamism, but he could use an inker who could lend some complexity and (there’s that word again) depth to his layouts, as the art is often too spare for my tastes.

But overall, this one looks like a winner. The second collection is already out, and the third is due out this summer, so they ought to keep me busy for a while. Hopefully it gets better as it goes along.