Heroes for Hire, v. 1: Civil War

Collects: Heroes for Hire #1-5 (2006-7)

Released: April 2007 (Marvel)

Format: 120 pages / color / $13.99 / ISBN: 9780785123620

What is this?: Misty Knight resurrects the Heroes for Hire concept (with a new team) to track down non-registered superhumans for the government.

The culprits: Writers Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti and artists Francis Portela and William Tucci

I hate books like Heroes for Hire, v. 1: Civil War. Hate, hate, hate.

It’s an extreme reaction, I know — too extreme. There’s no reason for a book like Heroes for Hire to draw such ire from anyone — or to draw much attention, positive or negative, really. It’s a mediocre story, filled with characters best described as uninteresting. It’s not saying anything interesting about the Civil War crossover, but neither is it dropping a murderous, malfunctioning Thor clone into an already stupid storyline. This book is just … there. If you wanted to read more about the world created by Civil War or were already a fan of Misty Knight or Colleen Wing, then you might read this book. I just can’t see it getting much attention, even from its base.

But for me, this exemplifies just about the worst mainstream comic books can offer without devolving into outright incompetence from its creators. First, just look at that cover: look at it. (Click to ... uh, enlarge.) Three of those women have breasts that are so powerful they overwhelm 21st century zipper technology. (And remember, these women probably have access to super-zippers, the kind designed by Reed Richards and Tony Stark.) Truly, this is the Mighty Marvel Age of Mammaries!

There is T-and-A throughout Heroes for Hire, but my animosity springs from more than that. Lots of comic books draw pictures of pretty women in scanty clothes, pictures that have no purpose but to titillate. It’s common; I accept it, even if I don’t care for it. But there’s usually something else to recommend the book. Compare Heroes to Birds of Prey; despite some gratuitous shots of women’s erogenous zones, the art did not get in the way of the story, and I found I actually cared about the characters in the story. I didn’t care about anyone in Heroes, even though I was more familiar with its characters than I was with Oracle, Black Canary, or Huntress before I started reading Birds.

Perhaps that’s part of the problem. I have a conception of who Misty Knight and Colleen Wing should be. They were supporting characters through the initial run of Power Man & Iron Fist; Misty was Iron Fist’s girlfriend and Colleen’s business partner in Nightwing Restorations, a private detective agency. Misty and Colleen were competent characters, intellectually the equals of the heroes although slightly less impressive in combat. But in Heroes, writers Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti write Misty as a combat-oriented sexpot whose planning skills begin and end with choosing team members. She does employ her milkshake to bring all the boys to the prison yard. Colleen barely has a speaking part, her partner role usurped by the large ensemble cast. There is no investigation, no thinking — only reaction: Misty’s reactions to criminals, and the male reaction to the female drawings. Chris Claremont, who wrote several issues featuring the pair, is spinning in his grave — and to give you an idea of how bad that is, Claremont is still alive, and would have to buy a gravesite, dig the grave, and jump into it before he could start his spinning.

The only character with even a whiff of a personality is Humbug, a former criminal who can communicate with insects. He’s earnest and trying to reform, a little confused by the moral boundaries Civil War has set in the formerly black-and-white Marvel Universe. The docile aquatic strongman Orca is also intriguing — he seems to be working with Heroes for Hire willingly, but why? — but he gets little screen time. The rest of the large supporting cast is bland. Shang Chi, master of kung fu, is prone to gnomic utterances and has a strong moral core, but no passion. Black Cat is sneaky. Tarantula is mysterious in a way that was played out in comics by the end of the last century. She has two settings — angry and spouting scientific knowledge — and I don’t care for either of them. Tying her family to the Stamford incident that started Civil War (and killing her father in this book) are cheap ploys for interest that don’t pan out.

So the art and characters actively repel me. The plot … the plot is nothing special. The first two issues revolve around the title’s ostensible hook — bringing in superhumans who won’t register with the government — but after that, Gray and Palmiotti decide to have the team investigate a Skrull organ-transplanting plot orchestrated by one of Misty’s old enemies. Even if I buy that a Skrull kidney gives someone powers, I’m unconvinced by Ricadonna as a villain of significance, when she’s so clearly eye candy. There’s just so little seeming significance to a villain who was supposed to have a history with Misty. (Was their battle, in which Ricadonna cut off part of Misty’s bionic arm, made up for these issues? Or was it published previously? There’s no footnote to help.) There’s no resonance, no symbolic importance to Ricadonna, and since she’s there to display cleavage, the character falls (ironically) flat.

The book fails on the Civil War front as well. There is a lot a title like Heroes could do with the Civil War crossover. Support it if you must or say something about how stupid it is, but say something. But Misty and Colleen (and therefore the title) vacillate on their position; they’ll take the government’s money to haul in the people they think should be captured, but they won’t support registration enough to bring in Captain America. There is a lot that Misty and Colleen, as non-powered people who have worked with superhumans, could say about it. Gray and Palmiotti tease readers by suggesting someone will say something interesting when the team chats and argues with Reed Richards and Tony Stark, whose support of the registration laws is based on accountability and training. Reed and Tony say the law will stop tragedies like the explosion in Stamford that started Civil War, but in Heroes, Reed and Tony admit to colossal mistakes — Tony created a clone of Thor that killed another hero, and Reed convinced Skrulls to transform into cows, which killed dozens, if not hundreds — without apologizing or accepting that all their training hasn’t stopped them from making stupid, tragic mistakes. I was screaming at the page for someone to make a point about pots and kettles and their relative hues, but surprisingly, no matter how I shouted, none of the characters seemed to hear me.

As for the art, you can probably guess how I feel about it. As for how others might feel — well, do you like looking at ladies in contorted poses? Standing on their tiptoes for no reason? Always walking with a sway, with one foot placed in front of the other, even when running? Then Billy Tucci and Francis Portela have a book for you. I will admit they can put a lot of action on the page, but they seem preoccupied with drawing the pretty ladies. I was amused and appalled at how Misty switched between costumes within issues and frequently between panels. One artist had her in a red, low-zipped jumpsuit, as on the cover. The other had her in a gray midriff-baring top with red piping on the front ending in arrow points on her nipples. Why arrows? I don’t know. Showing readers where to look for points of interest?

Look: I’m not saying you shouldn’t buy and read comics whose purpose is to have attractive women for men (and some women) to look at. That’s your choice to make, and may Jeebus bless you, if you do make it. Tarot: Witch of the Black Rose has to have some sort of purpose, what with its barely clothed babes and haunted women’s reproductive systems. There are many other titles that fulfill this need, too: Empowered is generally accepted as a good one. Just don’t drag previously created characters from an established comics universe into it. But if you must do that, at least attach a good story to it.

Otherwise, it’s just a waste of everyone’s time.

Rating: (0.5 of 5)

All-Star Superman, v. 1

Collects: All-Star Superman #1-6 (2006-7)

Released: April 2007 (DC)

Format: 160 pages / color / $19.99 / ISBN: 9781401209148

What is this?: Morrison and Quitely respin Silver Age Superman madness into a modern tale of morality and mortality.

The culprits: Writer Grant Morrison and artist Frank Quitely

I almost decided not to review All Star Superman, v. 1 because I didn’t feel I could be properly reverential to a story that has gained nearly universal acclaim since it came out. After thinking about it, though, I decided to give it a shot.

I don’t think I’m spoiling anything when I say writer Grant Morrison and artist Frank Quitely’s All-Star Superman is the most acclaimed work on Superman in at least a decade and probably a lot longer than that. I never really understood why before I read v. 1. Really, I still don’t.

Don’t get me wrong. I can see that Morrison is telling a story that, if not unique in the Superman mythos, is darn close to it. He uses Silver Age trappings to tell an out-of-continuity story — one which could not be contained by continuity, one might say — in which Superman confronts mortality and performs a mythological set of tasks, on par with Heracles’s Twelve Labors. Morrison and Quitely know the mythos and know the characters; everything feels natural yet modern. The stories feel like Superman stories, with larger than life antagonists and consequences.

There are some parts I enjoyed — the issue with Clark Kent and Lex Luthor escaping from a prison riot started by the Parasite, Superman’s scenes with his father, the integration of modern Superman elements like Doomsday into the narrative. The funeral and Clark’s eulogy near the end of the volume are moving. I cannot deny Morrison’s craft is excellent, and that he has put together a narrative of high technical quality.

And yet — and yet, and yet, and yet … I didn’t enjoy this book. Perhaps because I don’t enjoy Superman all that much. I don’t have anything against the Big Blue Boy Scout, but neither he nor his supporting cast have ever interested me. Many reasons have been bruited about on the Internet for why readers might be disinterested in Superman; I suppose I don’t buy that Superman can ever be put in peril, and I don’t care about Clark Kent.

Morrison tries to get across the idea that Superman can be harmed, but I don’t buy it. I don’t buy the idea that the scientists will allow Superman to die. It is an out-of-continuity story — whatever that means for DC — so there is the possibility that Superman will be seriously hurt or end the story dead. However, when you’re dealing with a story that has such a strong whiff of the Silver Age, it’s hard to believe anything negative is going to happen.

I really dislike DC’s Silver Age stories. They are goofy, but generally speaking, not a in a good way; they are goofy in a halfwitted manner that makes me chuckle once or twice, then stop because I should not be laughing at such awful things. People worked hard at those stories, and by and large, they’re not worth re-reading. Morrison tries to capitalize upon the energy and lack of rules those stories enjoyed, but it mainly reminds me that the original stories were stupid, and no amount technobabble can disguise that — especially when the word “hyperpoon” is used. I mean, honestly.

Most of the characters in this book aren’t all that interesting; perhaps it’s because of the Silver Age-ishness. Other than this is his story, I don’t see a reason to get worked up about Superman: he’s not witty or fun or interesting. He’s stolid and heroic, which is not nothing, but it’s hardly unique. Superman might have gotten there first with those characteristics and with the most, but Nathaniel Bedford Forrest’s maxim aside, that’s not enough. He’s also a superscientist, but the story shows for the most part he’s cast that identity aside to be Clark Kent and Superman. Clark is an idealist, which, when he’s out of costume, is more annoying than not; his bleating that Superman and Luthor could have been friends if Luthor had just given up that gosh-darn evil is a low point for the book. Lois is … Lois is a “great” reporter who can’t believe the evidence of her eyes; Jimmy Olsen is wacky and obviously prone to abusing any power he gets.

The only character I felt empathy for was Luthor, which isn’t surprising. If Superman and his supporting cast are based off a Silver-Age template, then Luthor is himself based on an even older pattern: a Miltonian Satan. Better to rule in Hell, as Luthor does in prison, than to serve in Superman’s heaven. He’s interesting, and he’s fun in a supervillain sort of way. He’s the one person who can say the negative things the readers might be thinking, although he will always go too far. He’s obviously the antagonist, though, so while we can enjoy Luthor’s rants, we’re not supposed to root for him.

The art in v. 1, like Morrison’s writing, is something I don’t appreciate despite its widespread claim; I suppose I’ll just have to live with having an unpopular opinion. Quitely’s art did not bother me as much as usual with this issue. Since I’m not as familiar with the faces of Superman characters, his interpretations of their faces didn’t strike me as being wrong, as it might with Marvel characters. Quitely does a good job making Clark Kent and Superman look different; I wouldn’t believe they were the same character if I didn’t know better. (Which could be a problem, if other Superman books hadn’t given us super-disguise skills.)

The craftsmanship of this story is undeniable; I can see why other readers might enjoy it. But I can’t get into the story. It seems to accept as given some things that I can’t believe — that Superman is intrinsically interesting, that his stories have dramatic tension, that DC’s Silver Age plots and ideas are worthy of resuscitation. It’s not unlike reading a great author’s Dan Brown pastiche: well done, but what’s the point?

As for the rating, I went back and forth on this. Like I said, I recognize the quality of this book — it’s at least a 4 of 5. But my enjoyment, at most, is at a 2. So I averaged them together to get …

Rating: (3 of 5)

Batman and the Mad Monk

Collects: Batman and the Mad Monk #1-6 (2006-7)

Released: April 2007 (DC)

Format: 144 pages / color / $14.99 / ISBN: 9781401212810

What is this?: A Golden Age story of Batman vs. a vampire, retold by Matt Wagner

The culprit: Matt Wagner

Let’s not get into DC continuity. Trying to unravel it gives some people Spontaneous Bolt Syndrome (SBS, where a long piece of metal appears out of nowhere and spears the victim’s skull), and saying, “It just doesn’t matter” gives others “Irritable Mouth Syndrome” (IMS, where all manner of foul diarrhea streams from the sufferer’s mouth — or, in later mutations of the disease, keyboard).

So I’m declaring all the tellings of the story of the Monk in DC history are irrelevant to a review of Batman and the Mad Monk, written and drawn by Matt Wagner. It doesn’t matter what happened in the ‘30s, when the Monk first appeared in Detective Comics #31, and it certainly doesn’t matter that Batman took the rational decision to shoot the vampire with silver bullets while he slept in his coffin. And Gerry Conway’s pre-Crisis story in the early ‘80s certainly doesn’t matter, because Batman being turned into a vampire before being given a “special serum”³⁷ is kinda silly. So let’s just concentrate on this one.

So: in what is essentially Batman: Year One territory, there are three main stories being told together: Batman is learning to be Batman and being Bruce when he needs / has to; Norman Madison, industrialist and father of Bruce Wayne’s girlfriend, Julie, is slowly transforming from paranoid to insane; and Jim Gordon has to deal with crime and corruption on his own force. Only the middle thread is new, but it’s the least convincing.

Admittedly, Mad Monk shows only the bottom of Norman Madison’s character arc; I haven’t read the first of Wagner’s Batman miniseries, Batman and the Monster Men, which dealt with the paranoid Madison getting into debt with the mob and Batman getting him out of it. Batman calls him by name, which causes Norman to become obsessed with the thought that Batman is trying to terrorize him in Mad Monk. He keeps trying to repay his forgiven mob debt; he loses touch with reality, and he doesn’t recognize his daughter’s peril. With Madison starting off the book as unbalanced, we never see him as anything but an insane man who does illogical things; when he decides to kill his loan shark (who has said there’s no debt, I don’t want to see you again, stay away), it makes no sense, but it’s no worse than anything else in the story. Since Madison’s actions barely make an impression on the main plot, it seems a waste of space.

The overriding story is of Niccolai Tepes — The Monk — and his followers. Niccolai is a vampire; his followers want to be. Together, they bring women who won’t be missed to Niccolai, and after he feeds, they share in the leftover blood. Niccolai’s vampirism is supposed to be the first time Batman has met a supernatural opponent, but he’s as steady and rational as a Golden Age character about it — which is impressive, as the Batman should be, and entirely appropriate. Julie gets sucked into the plot as another victim, bringing home the danger to Batman.

Although vampires and Batman are not exactly a new combination, the story is well enough done. Unfortunately, because the story has to share space with Jim Gordon vs. bad cops and Norman Madison’s descent into more madness, two stories that feel tangential, the entire book feels padded. That’s deeply impressive for a 144-page book. If this had been a four-issue mini, Batman vs. Niccolai the Mad Monk, that might have been exciting. Maybe it would have allowed him to write a better ending, one in which the heroes intentionally defeat the villains. But instead Wagner has made Mad Monk into the second half of a two mini arc concentrating on Batman’s early career …

Maybe that’s what I’m missing here. Maybe I need to read Batman and the Monster Men to get the overall effect. Maybe … I don’t know. But if you’re going to be telling a larger story, why retell this story? I promised I wouldn’t get into continuity, but was the original story or Conway’s retelling such an undiscovered classic? Why choose the Mad Monk? I don’t know.

Mad Monk does hit the “Year One” beats we expect, with Jim Gordon battling corruption on the Gotham PD, Batman still trying to get a handle on what it means to have a Rogue’s Gallery, and Harvey Dent as a DA. The coming of Robin is teased at the end. If you have a jones for early Batman and can’t take Golden Age writing / art, this will help ease that craving.

Wagner’s art is a draw here. He draws a beautiful Batman, managing to reflect the Golden Age while simultaneously making Batman look modern. Based on his work here, I have to say Wagner draws one of the great Batmen, and he even makes Batman look good when he takes punishment. And he takes a lot of it in Mad Monk, a convincing amount for a novice superhero taking on dangerous men and women. On the other hand, I’m not sure about other parts of Wagner’s art. For some reason, Wagner seems to believe all women should have a bare midriff — either that, or he has a navel fixation. Every female character wears shirts that show off her stomach at one point or another. And female faces, especially Niccolai’s assistant Dara, occasionally feel wrong, with overlarge eyes for no apparent reason. (I’ll write off the accordion-like walls of a pit trap as a tribute to the movies rather than a mistake.)

Mad Monk takes an old story and makes it new. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a great story to begin with, and the newer trappings don’t help it any. There are some saving graces, but mostly, this is a forgettable Batman adventure.

Rating: (2 of 5)