Batgirl, v. 1: Silent Knight

Collects: Batgirl #1-12, Annual #1 (2000-1)

Released: January 2016 (DC)

Format: 328 pages / color / $19.99 / ISBN: 9780785199571

What is this?: Coming out of No Man’s Land, a new Batgirl, able to predict the movement of others, joins Batman’s fight against crime.

The culprits: Writers Kelley Puckett and Scott Peterson and artist Damion Scott (and others)

My interest in the Batman titles waxes and wanes, but I rarely read the second-tier Bat books. For some reason, I made an exception with Batgirl, v. 1: Silent Night, and I’m glad I did.

The Batgirl in this book is Cassandra Cain, a character who debuted in 1999’s No Man’s Land event. Cassandra is the daughter of assassin David Cain, who trained her to fight from nearly birth but neglected language of any kind; as a consequence, the language centers of Cassandra’s brain were entirely dedicated to interpreting body language, which allows her to foresee her opponents’ moves but leaves her with little language ability.

In Silent Knight, Batgirl doesn’t have a ready-made archenemy, nor does she acquire one. She beats up on Gotham’s mooks and killers, usually experiencing little trouble. She’s not perfect, however; sometimes, she is injured while fighting crime, and sometimes people she wants to save die.

The lack of an overarching story is for the best, really, as it allows the story to concentrate on Cassandra herself, who is more interesting than a recurring supervillains. The book’s plot is driven by Cassandra’s personal evolution, with Cassandra having to fit into the Bat-family while she changes as a person. Her identity is wrapped up in her fighting ability, and anything that threatens her greatness at that has to be overcome at any cost. She has lived a life insulated from so many things that normal people take for granted; her only real human contact has been the father who expressed his feelings for her through violence. Because of this, she responds to male authority figures, obeying Batman’s commands and even showing concern for him.

The Batman / Batgirl relationship is touching in its way, but it’s also disturbing, given Cassandra’s relationship with her father. Cassandra rejected Cain long before the series, just after he sent her on her first assassination, but she still has feelings for the man who forced her to become a fighting machine. Batman is absurdly concerned that Cassandra might have killed a man when she was a little girl — she wasn’t legally or morally culpable, and she’s certainly repented — and as her surrogate father, he beats the tar out of her biological father because Cain “made her like us.”

(I have to admit: I like Cain, even though he’s despicable. He taunts Batman over his inability to accept Cassandra’s origins, and even hobbled by injuries, he’s resourceful and hard to defeat. His lingering affection over Cassandra — or what he created — is a nice Achilles heel for him as well.)

Cassandra lives with Oracle (Barbara Gordon), the first Batgirl, but despite sharing living space and a codename, Cassandra doesn’t show Barbara the sort of tenderness she does Batman. I’m not sure why this is. The generation gap isn't to blame, since Cassandra doesn’t interact with anyone her age. Is Cassandra rejecting the emotions Barbara exudes when she offers Cassandra help? Or does Barbara’s paralysis distance and reliance on communication her from someone who defines herself by motion? I think it has more to do with the latter than the former, but it’s hard to say.

Silent Knight is a great value: thirteen issues, one of them an annual, for $20. DC has always been better at getting older series like Batgirl reprinted for a reasonable price, but that has sometimes come at the cost of the quality of the physical book. Silent Knight has a higher quality paper and better binding than previous DC offerings, like the reprint of Chase from four years ago. A Marvel trade of this size … well, because I like picking on it, Cage: Second Chances, v. 1 is eight pages shorter and costs $15 more. Also: It’s filled with reprints of issues of Cage, so Silent Knight could have been 300 blank pages and still come out ahead.

On the other hand, the book does have some dead space. The issue that’s part of the Officer Down crossover (#11) feels like it’s acknowledging the event while giving Cassandra something to do with no real consequences; because it doesn’t engage with Barbara’s connection to Commissioner Gordon other than to mention it, the issue seems like a waste. The annual at the end of Silent Knight is filler — Batman and Batgirl in India — although it does show Cassandra watching a movie for the first time.

I’m not overly thrilled about the appearance of Lady Shiva either, but that’s mostly because she and Cassandra are hinted to have a connection because their skin colors are near each other on the color wheel and they have a similar ability. I’m not sure what my feelings will be as their connection is explored, though.

Damion Scott’s art is very, very ‘90s, even though these issues were coming out at the beginning of the 2000s. Scott’s work is sometimes described as being influenced by hip-hop and graffiti, which is fair, but comics readers who remember the ‘90s will see similarities to Joe Madureira’s work, full of thick lines and jutting angles. Scott is from the school of thought that a character’s mask should represent their emotions, so Batgirl’s (and Batman’s) mask have widened eyes, and the sewed-shut mouth of Batgirl’s costume widens and twists as necessary. (That sewed-shut mouth is delightfully creepy, I have to say.) I can’t say I am fond of Scott’s style, but it took no time before I became accustomed to it as the style of Batgirl, just as a quirky authorial voice often becomes part of the background — or even beloved — after you’ve been exposed to it long enough.

What never becomes part of the background is the way Batgirl is sexualized. When drawn in street clothes, Cassandra is a teenage girl of normal proportions, or as close as a comic-book female generally gets. As Batgirl … Batgirl is absurdly busty, and I can’t think of a reason why. Nothing about Cassandra in either persona justifies such objectification, and Scott’s depiction of Cassandra shows he understands normal female proportions. Is it a problem with the prominence of the costume’s logo? I dunno. Whatever the reason, it’s distracting.

Silent Knight is a solid superhero book that doesn’t rely on stunts or cheap traumas to shock readers. It develops a character with an interesting hook by putting her into situations readers are familiar with and seeing what happens. I liked this book so much, in fact, that I’m disappointed now that I didn’t preorder the second volume, To the Death. Guess I’ll have to pick it up after it comes out.

Rating: (4 of 5)

Showcase Presents Batman, v. 6

Collects: Detective Comics #408-26 and Batman #229-44 (1971-2)

Released: January 2016 (DC)

Format: 584 pages / black and white / $19.99 / ISBN: 9781401251536

What is this?: A chunk of early ‘70s Batman stories, mixing the first appearance of Ra’s al-Ghul and the League of Assassins with forgettable stories.

The culprits: Writers Dennis O’Neil, Frank Robbins, and others and pencilers Neal Adams, Bob Brown, Irv Novick, and others

When I reviewed Showcase Presents Batman, v. 5, I said the Bat-titles of the era were on the brink of something exciting. Batman and Detective Comics had shaken off the lingering funk of the Silver Age and were heading toward something much greater. So I was eager to read DC Showcase Presents Batman, v. 6 — well, as eager as a person can get for a book after four years when you thought the book line was cancelled.

And — good news! — v. 6 is better than v. 5. But it’s only an incremental improvement, and the Bat-titles reprinted in this volume still feel like they are poised to become something different, something greater. They just aren’t quite there yet.

Yes, the Ra's al Ghul / Legion of Assassins story is sprinkled throughout the volume, but few other members of Batman’s rogue’s gallery appear in the thirty-plus issues. Man-Bat and Two-Face each appear in one issue — with Two-Face beautifully drawn by Neal Adams — but each gets only as many issues as the embarrassing Ten-Eyed Man. Most of the stories are single-issue mysteries, often with a supernatural tinge, that go nowhere.

Those mysteries, whether they have a supernatural element or not, are v. 6’s biggest problem. Some of them (mostly those with occult touches) are set in exotic locations, like Waynemoor Castle in northern England; some of them are set in the gritty streets of Gotham. Unfortunately, whether Batman is taking on circus freaks, hicks, or Shakespearean actors in Gotham or elsewhere, these stories become monotonous. Despite being solidly constructed mysteries, their flaws become more readily apparent than their virtues after the third or fourth in a row. All the ghosts and haunted castles Batman investigates have as much real supernatural content as the average Scooby-Doo episode, which takes some of the suspense out of the story. Issues that try to be socially relevant, dealing with youth gangs and urban crime, devolve into over-the-top action sequences, like when a group of teenagers threaten to blow up an apartment tower to get their demands listened to.

As a side note, O’Neil’s frequent asides asking readers whether they picked up on whatever clues Batman used to solve the crime annoyed me — not because of the device itself but because the clues are so rarely available to the reader. If your mysteries aren’t fair play, you don’t get to taunt readers that they aren’t as smart as the detective.

That being said, the Ra's al Ghul stories are classics for a reason. Beautifully drawn by Adams and full of menace, Ra's is the one villain who seems to worry Batman, the only adversary who requires the World’s Greatest Detective to have long-term plans. Adding a new dimension to the stories is Talia al-Ghul, Ra's’s daughter, a love interest who presents a puzzle Batman can’t solve; despite his undeniable attraction to her, she is the daughter of the Demon as well as being ruthless and a remorseless killer herself. Additionally, these stories knock the Batman canon of this era out of its unmoving, unchanging placidity. Although the League of Assassins stories don’t affect the continuity of the rest of the book, the storyline’s progression gives the book a sense of passing time the stories don’t have otherwise.

Of course, it would be helpful if the cliffhangers in the League of Assassins storyline were followed immediately by their conclusions, but those issues are usually followed by unrelated issues from the other Batman title. I understand chronological order is important, but in a book like this, story coherence is more vital.

The art in v. 6 is outstanding. Adams provides covers for almost all the issues, and he draws about a quarter of the stories. This is Adams’s work at its finest: perhaps not as explosive as his work on X-Men a few years earlier, but each panel is beautiful, fully adapted to Batman’s world of shadows. The concessions he makes to Batman’s more grounded world makes his artwork tighter, more focused. Most of the remaining issues are drawn by Bob Brown and Irv Novick, both of whom worked with Adams on the previous volume. Neither is Adams’s equal, but both are solid artists with outstanding storytelling and an ability to fit the story into a many panel layout.

Scattered among the work by Adams, Brown, and Novick, the three issues drawn by writer Frank Robbins stand out, and not in a good way. Robbins is a good artist for a writer, but that’s as far as I’m willing to go. (Robbins was primarily an artist in his career, but he splits the writing chores in v. 6 with O’Neil.) His style has a thick line and lacks the fluidity of the rest of the artists; even if he were a better artist, his work wouldn’t fit in v. 6.

One warning about this book: although it says it contains sixteen issues of Batman, that’s misleading. Two of the issues, #233 and #238, have only the cover reprinted because their contents are reprints. The covers of other issues of Batman and Detective promise back-up stories featuring Batgirl, Robin, or some other hero, but those aren’t included even though at least some of them are original stories.

On average, v. 6’s quality is only incrementally greater than v. 5. However, it contains so many iconic and important moments that it feels a great deal better at times. Nothing in v. 5 compares to shirtless Batman dueling Ra's al-Ghul, the first appearances of Ra's and his daughter, the first time Ra's is resurrected by the Lazarus Pit. I’ve read these issues before, in color, in Batman: Tales of the Demon, which was superior to v. 6 — and not just because Tales of the Demon was in color. Learning the context in which those Ra's stories initially appeared makes them more impressive, since the League of Assassins stories are nothing like the rest of the era. But actually reading those non-Assassin stories makes reading v. 6 feel like a chore at times, a bit of self-education that is unnecessary.

Still: shirtless Batman vs. Ra's al-Ghul. That fight was pretty awesome.

Rating: (4 of 5)

Bandette, v. 1: Presto!

Collects: Bandette #1-5 ()

Released: November 2013 (Dark Horse/ original comics from Monkeybrain)

Format: 144 pages / color / $14.99 / ISBN: 9781616552794

What is this?: With the help of her gang of urchins, Bandette, a young woman in sorta-France, is the world’s greatest thief — or just about.

The culprits: Written by Paul Tobin and drawn by Colleen Coover

The word to remember for Bandette, v. 1: Presto!, is “charming.”

The protagonist, a young woman whose nom du crime is Bandette, is charming. The stilted dialogue, which suggests a not-quite-fluid translation from French, is charming. The plots, which don’t take themselves seriously, are charming. Her moral standing — a master thief who sometimes aids the side of good but is not above helping herself to other people’s loot — is charming. Bandette’s personal credo — “Presto!” — is charming in its simplicity. Colleen Coover’s art, which tells the story admirably without worrying overly much about realism, is charming.

At this stage in the review, you’ll know if this book is for you. Many people will have already written off Bandette as sickly sweet. That is not the case, though. Coover and writer Paul Tobin skirt that pitfall as deftly as is possible, keeping Bandette carefree and lighthearted without being cloying; the protagonist is confident and sure of her abilities in a way that allows her to remain unconcerned yet exhilarated in the face of assassins and bank robbers.

Bandette lives in a world that resembles but is not quite our own. It is a European world, full of dashing, daring thieves and international crime gangs and signs in French. Bandette makes allusions to European comics: the Chocobolik candy bar is a reference to Diabolik, the anti-hero thief from Italian comics; Inspector Belgique looks like he could have stepped out of Tintin; and at one point Bandette is pursued by the villainous motorcycle riders from the “Take on Me” video (by the Norwegian band A-ha). It’s likely I’m missing other references. Still, there are jarring notes; French urchins would hardly be likely to play baseball on the streets of any French city, for example.

Coover’s art is excellent, conveying the book’s light-hearted tone as well as the dialogue and plot does. Coover’s Bandette is acrobatic and graceful, almost always in motion, and unmistakably youthful. Although the style looks cartoony, Coover manages subtlety throughout the book — in the backgrounds, in the details, and even right in front of the readers’ eyes. (In two different scenes, Bandette and her chief rival, Monsieur, pick the other’s pocket; the thefts are obvious because that is what we expect stylish thieves do to one another, but Coover actually draws both thefts — details I missed on my first reading.)

The only criticism I have of Presto! is that the volume feels slight. When I stop to consider whether it is, I realize Presto! is a good value: a $15 hardback, 144 pages in color, collecting five (online) issues. No, the amount of content is fine; the amount of story is the problem. In Presto!, Bandette rights a wrong by stealing stolen artwork, stops a bank robbery, is targeted by an international crime syndicate, and agrees to “the great thieving race” with her greatest larcenous rival. That summary contains a great deal of action, but Presto! doesn’t leave the reader with that impression. The international crime syndicate makes one attempt on Bandette’s life, although future attempts are promised. The robbery and the larcenous justice are brief episodes meant to show Bandette’s character, supporting cast, and world. The volume ends as soon as the great thieving race is agreed to.

Perhaps, though, the story is cut at that point to leave the reader wanting more. I know it worked with me. I hope the second volume, Stealers Keepers!, will provide more of a complete story, although for another $15 for the other part of a single story, Bandette looks like less of a bargain.

The final 40-plus pages in Presto! fall into the category of “extras.” Tobin’s eight “Urchin Stories,” showing Bandette’s allies, are illustrated by as many different artists; Steve Lieber’s art for the Inspector Belgique story stands out by being reminiscent of Coover’s work without being a slavish imitation. After the eight short illustrated stories is Tobin’s prose piece featuring Daniel, one of Bandette’s urchins. This is the best of the extras; the story tells how Daniel met Bandette, fell in love with her (although he’d never admit it), and aided her on another adventure. The extras are rounded out by pages detailing the process of creating Bandette; Coover’s explanation of how she creates the art is much longer than Tobin’s script pages.

Presto!, then, is a charming, airy pastry rather than a substantial meal. But that is nothing to be ashamed of; we all need filling meals, but we still crave those pastries. In fact, we can never get enough.

Rating: (4 of 5)

FF, v. 1: Fantastic Faux

Collects: FF v. 2 #4-8 (2013)

Released: July 2013 (Marvel)

Format: 112 pages / color / $15.99 / ISBN: 9780785166634

What is this?: Four heroes with ties to the Fantastic Four fill in as guardians for the Future Foundation kids while the famous quartet is away.

The culprits: Writer Matt Fraction and artist Mike Allred (with help from Joe Quinones)

A book written by Matt Fraction and drawn by Mike Allred should be fun. I mean, I’m not the only one making that assumption, right? Fraction’s ideas and Allred’s expressive and cartoony art should combine into something that should put a smile on my face. And for the most part, that’s true of FF, v. 1: Fantastic Faux, but there’s darkness lurking in the background that I wasn’t prepared for.

On the surface, FF is a comedy book. The Fantastic Four has left Earth to go exploring, and they have left a team of second-string heroes (She-Hulk, Medusa, Ant Man II, and Ms. Thing) to look over the wacky cast of kids that the Fantastic Four’s Future Foundation is educating. I mean, the student body includes Moloids, fish people, and Artie and Leech. How could that not lead to craziness?

Fraction uses his cast to great effect, and #4 — the first issue in this collection — is an almost perfect issue. She-Hulk has dinner with her ex-boyfriend, Wyatt Wingfoot, while the Moloids who have a crush on her enlist the help of fellow student Bentley-23 to ruin their date. Bentley’s plots, however, have the opposite effect, and the night out turns into an enchanted evening for the couple. The issue is funny, heartfelt, and touching, accented by Allred’s simple yet effective art. I don’t usually associate “heartfelt” or “touching” with Fraction, but he pulls it off here.

Fraction maintains the humor throughout, letting all the characters get into the absurdity of multi-purposed HERBIES, an erudite Dragon Man teaching, Darla using “Thing rings” to turn into Ms. Thing, and postman Willie Lumpkin teaching the kids about the birds and bees. As “absurdity” is a specialty of Allred’s, his art is outstanding, of course. Whatever Fraction gives him to draw, Allred doesn’t flinch at, whether it’s Ms. Thing in weird headgear or the FF kids attacking Bentley and Medusa’s son with Home Alone traps. Allred also gets to draw fish creatures, Inhumans, and monsters from the deep, and he excels at all of them. He doesn’t draw the entire volume, but Joe Quinones does a great job filling in on #6, drawing in a very Allred style.

Fraction is obviously having fun with the title, even beyond the whimsical elements of the story and cast. The issue titles are ludicrous — “That Was the Worst Field Trip Ever!” and “Spooky Kids or, Merrily into the Eight Arms of Durga the Invincible We All Go” — or inexplicable (there is no Durga in #5, and I can’t figure out why #6 is titled “Save the Tiger,” as it has no relationship to either real tigers or the ‘70s Jack Lemmon movie). Fraction shows a predilection for continuity that I also didn’t know he had; he resurrects the Thing suit that Ben Grimm used when he lost his powers in the ‘70s, the Thing rings from the 1979 Thing animated series, and a variety of headgear from the series.

But throughout Fantastic Faux, Fraction is weaving some dark threads among the Moloids discovering gender and HERBIEs dressed up as Dr. Doom. Mind control is a standard superhero plot device, but there’s something more sinister about an old abuser returning to a former victim, as happens in this volume. Scott still has trouble dealing with the death of his daughter, Cassie, and being in charge of a whole school of children only exacerbates a dangerous situation for him. Dr. Doom is more vicious, eschewing grand plans and going for the gut to get what he wants. John Storm, returned from the future, is suffering from PTSD and has lost an eye. The grimmer elements sit uneasily next to the comedic bits … or maybe Fraction’s more serious plot developments should make me feel uneasy; violence, death, and sinister plots shouldn’t be comfortable, perhaps, despite what a half-century of Marvel Comics have taught us. I can’t be sure.

Allred is one of my favorite artists, and I hate to complain. But … at some points in the story, neither the art nor words explain what is going on. Fraction has never been a writer who overexplained matters, and that’s certainly true in Fantastic Faux. Some of the information either isn’t important or can be gleaned from the text, like why the Fantastic Four started teaching these kids in the first place or what exactly Bentley-23 does to make Blastaar disappear. Some information, like who Darla Deering is, could have been communicated to the reader with a better introductory page, and that’s not Fraction’s fault. And being behind in Marvel continuity, I was just mystified by things like Black Bolt’s return from the dead and the Inhumans’ return from space.⁹⁴ That being said, the first volume of a series should explain things more fully, not leave readers wondering if they missed a previous volume.⁹⁵ A footnote or two would go a long way, for Odin’s sake.

And it’s not like a general audience is going to recognize this cast. She-Hulk, probably; Medusa, likely. But Scott Lang, the second Ant-Man, maaayyyyybe, although I’m not sure the words “Ant-Man” was ever used in the book, and he never gets near an ant. But no one knows who Darla Deering is, and the Thing costume she wears is an obscure bit of continuity. Among the students, some people will remember Leech and Artie, but that’s it. Aiming a book at established Marvel audiences limits your readership.

Some would say Fraction respects his audience’s intelligence, but there’s a limit to how much I need to be respected. Fraction’s unanswered questions make it hard to gauge what he intends in other parts of the book. The villainy of Fraction’s Doom does not seem to match previous depictions of the despot; in this book, his villainy is ignoble, resorting to stratagems a man of honor (as Doom frequently claims to be) would never use. But I don’t know whether Fraction intends this to be a different aspect of Doom’s character, an evolution for the Fantastic Four’s old foe, or whether this is a clue that Doom isn’t Doom.

Despite feeling like I entered the story in the middle, I enjoyed Fantastic Faux. Sometimes I had to fight to enjoy it, but the fight was worth it. Given how many loose ends the story had, though, I’m concerned about continuing with FF, since Fraction has announced he’s leaving with #11. Will the stories pay off? Will FF retain its sense of lunacy? Neither question affects Fantastic Faux’s grade, but it does affect whether I would recommend anyone start reading the series.

Rating: (4 of 5)

Prophet, v. 1: Remission

Collects: Prophet #21-6 (2012)

Released: August 2012 (Image)

Format: 136 pages / color / $9.99 / ISBN: 9781607066118

What is this?: In the far future, a warrior reawakes on a mission to reignite the old Earth Empire.

The culprits: Written by Brandon Graham and drawn by Simon Roy, Farel Dalrymple, Graham, and Giannis Milonogiannis

I picked up both Hawkeye and Prophet, v. 1: Remission on the recommendation of House to Astonish. I was prepared for Hawkeye, but Prophet … I’m not sure what to make of Prophet.

Prophet gives the reader a feeling of being dropped into a world that has already been partially developed. Part of that is because Remission reprints #21-6; obviously, twenty issues came before Remission. What relationship they have to Remission is unknown, though, and when those original issues were published is unstated. (Mostly 1993-6, with one issue in 2000.) I presumed those 20th-century issues related to the stories in Remission, but a glance around Wikipedia shows the link is tenuous.

Remission is set in the far future. Earth is vastly different, the landscapes altered and overrun by alien animals and sentients. John Prophet is belched forth onto this Earth by an armored digging machine that has been buried for an untold number of years. The newly awakened Prophet is sent on a mission — to go to a satellite and send out a beacon to the remnants of the old Earth Empire — that has been prepared so long ago a city has been born and thrived at one of the rendezvous points along his route.

Prophet’s quest is excellent sci-fi. The aliens are varied in custom and appearance, and Prophet drifts through their settlements. The technology is a combination of advanced and dilapidated, with animals frequently used for power. The fractured Earth society is stagnant, not creating or innovating. Humans are not seen anywhere — unless, as one alien intimates, the ape-like creatures that are farmed for meat are human.

Writer Brandon Graham doesn’t give Prophet much character — for good reason, as it turns out, since Graham moves on to other stories after #3’s big twist ending. Prophet is an enigma, a grunting action hero one can easily see being portrayed on screen by a mop-topped, early ‘80s Arnold Schwarzenegger. There is no explanation of his past, no examination of his motives: he is born into this strange world, and his only reason for birth is his mission. He is as reflective as a brick wall, and he does not question the elaborate preparations that bespeak a long-term plan; he only acknowledges their usefulness.

Artist Simon Roy is perfect for this arc. Roy, who is also co-credited for the story, draws a world that has only tinges of the familiar. His aliens are weird, the landscapes forbiddingly strange. His Prophet is brutish and stoic. Roy’s style also has a tinge of the doodles in a high schooler’s notebook — appropriate for such an imaginative and epic work.

For the rest of Remission, Graham tells one-issue stories from elsewhere in the universe. The stories presumably arise from the events at the end of #23, but only #25 explicitly says so. Each individual story is good, but their episodic nature saps the momentum of that great first arc. The lack of continuation and continuity throws the readers’ assumptions about the series’ nature into question. What is this series about? Who specifically is it about? Will any of these stories mesh, or are they vignettes to give the flavor of Prophet’s universe? I believe they are related, and people or places in #24-6 will be important. But that’s a belief, with no real evidence to support it.

Still, they are enjoyable stories, if lacking in back story. Issue #24 features a shorter quest, in many ways echoing Prophet’s in #21-3. The best of the latter three stories is #25, which follows a robot wakened by Prophet's signal; Jaxson is a automaton veteran of the Earth Empire’s wars who now is stoically getting ready for another. The final issue is less effective, without much struggle and without any pathos. But it does introduce the Old Man, who was mentioned in #25. The art for the three issues — by Farel Dalrymple, Graham, and Giannis Milonogiannis, respectively⁹⁰ — is very good, but they lack some spark that Roy’s art possesses. Emma Rios contributes a five-page story that is opaque, both in art and story, to the point of nonsensicalness.

I enjoyed Remission, but I wonder, what is it about? Is there a larger story here? I feel there has to be, given the hints laid down during #21-3, but I cannot guess its shape or color. I am tempted to pick up Prophet, v. 2: Brothers, but as good as Remission is, I don’t know if I’m going to enjoy it as a long-form story.

Rating: (4 of 5)

Incredible Hulk: Pardoned

Collects: Incredible Hulk #269-85 (1982-3)

Released: April 2012 (Marvel)

Format: 400 pages / color / $39.99 / ISBN: 9780785162087

What is this?: The mind of scientist Bruce Banner gains control of the Hulk’s monstrous body.

The culprits: Writer Bill Mantlo and artist Sal Buscema

Even though I had all the issues collected, I was looking forward to Incredible Hulk: Pardoned. The book collects one of the best writer / artist teams in Hulk’s history: writer Bill Mantlo and artist Sal Buscema.

Mantlo isn’t the greatest Hulk writer; that honor belongs to Peter David, whose almost universally praised run on Incredible Hulk lasted for more than a decade. But some of Mantlo’s nearly seventy-issue run presaged and inspired David’s, and David never worked with an artist like Buscema. To me, Buscema will always be the Hulk artist, with his knack for imbuing brutes with human expression and humans with almost monstrous expressions.

In Pardoned, Bruce Banner finally gets control of his Hulk persona after massive doses of gamma rays. (One might think Banner had futzed around with gamma rays so often that they wouldn’t have much effect, but that’s what Mantlo has chosen, so roll with it.) After that, Banner / the Hulk seeks a pardon and acceptance; with the help of the Avengers, he fights his old enemy, the Leader. The Hulk having the mind of Banner is interesting — and it’s hard to believe it two decades for Marvel to publish such a storyline — but it’s the implications, studded among the slugathons, that are the reward in this story.

You might think, as Banner does, that the fusion of brawn and brilliance will make life easy, especially after the pardon and support of the superhero community. But the change presents a new set of challenges. When longtime girlfriend Betty learns Banner wants to remain the Hulk, whom she hates, she rejects Banner. Former sidekick Rick Jones, who helped the scientist and his alter ego interface with humanity, feels useless now that the Hulk can function within society. Banner realizes the Hulk’s savage mind had an advantage to his more reasoning one: the Hulk was too stupid to fear danger, which made him furious and stronger. Banner also fares poorly under the media’s fawning attention. Fortunately, there is some compensation: the Avengers accept the new Hulk without reservation, and She-Hulk is happy her cousin is now, like her, in control of his gamma form.

So overall, it’s an action story with some exploration of how personal growth changes life. But this is also an early ‘80s comic story, and that means certain tropes that seem outdated appear. A couple of unnecessary fights break out because of miscommunication. Three alien Hulk foes appear, calling themselves “Hulk Hunters,” and wonder why the Hulk won’t go with them; alien insects devour a Canadian town’s wheat crop without a word of explanation, then blame the Hulk when he strikes back at them and ruins the boon they were going to give humanity. Of course, some hoary old story holes are eternal: the Leader refuses to kill the Hulk after defeating him, and the herald for the cosmic threat the Hulk Hunters want to Hulk to deal with is, of course, Hulk’s old foe, the Abomination.

(That last story ends with the Hulk punching a giant space mouth, though, so that makes it OK.)

Although Pardoned is a recognizable character arc, it obviously wasn’t written for the trade paperback form. Bereet, an alien filmmaker, plays an important role early on, but after a liaison⁷⁰ with the Hulk about two-thirds the way through, she almost entirely disappears. ⁷¹ The pun-filled issue with funny animal Rocket Raccoon sticks out like a stalk of broccoli in a jelly bean jar. Rick Jones’s radiation poisoning is mostly pointless, and the fight vs. Galaxy Master and Abomination serves only to deliver an extra dose of gamma radiation to the Hulk — not much of a payoff for two issues. The Hulk fights a great deal of villains without much purpose, but as the stories in Pardoned were written around the Hulk’s 20th anniversary, that’s no bad thing. Besides, most of the villains are a threat — the Leader is the most important, but Pardoned also has Abomination, Wendigo, Zzzax, the U-Foes, and a cameo from the U.S. Army.

As I mentioned, I think Buscema is the greatest Hulk artist, based both on the quality of his work and his longevity (he came onto the title well before Mantlo and left a few issues before, with #309). Pardoned gives him a chance to do something few artists get to do: humanize Hulk. Buscema succeeds admirably, and he also keeps the savage Hulk in his back pocket for when he needs him. Writer and editor Mark Gruenwald is credited with the art on #279, and he does a fine job on an issue without action and full of crowd shots — an excellent job, really, for someone with no reputation as an artist.

Pardoned, at times, reads like Mantlo was plotting by the seat of his pants; the first three issues have little to do with the rest of the story, and they feel as if Mantlo was trying to figure out how to start the story. But Mantlo and Buscema combine for a story that is surprisingly nuanced and innovative. My enthusiasm for Pardoned was not misplaced … although it was dampened by those first three issues.

Rating: (4 of 5)

Birds of Prey, v. 8: Club Kids

Collects: Birds of Prey #109-12, 118 (2007-8)

Released: January 2009 (DC)

Format: 128 pages / color / $17.99 / ISBN: 9781401221751

What is this?: The Birds of Prey adapt to a new writer and developments in the DC universe.

The culprits: Writer Tony Bedard and artists Nicola Scott, Jason Orfalas, and David Cole

I had avoided Birds of Prey, v. 8: Club Kids for quite a while, afraid new writer Tony Bedard would turn the title and its characters into a flavorless waste of time. Happily, I found that was not the case.

Club Kids has little overall plot, as Bedard eschews an overarching story for the beginning of his run. Instead, he favors character pieces that deal with developments outside the title. Bedard deals with Black Canary choosing to marry Green Arrow and an assassin attacking the New Gods in #109 and #112. He also uses past continuity to his advantage in two other stories: the aftermath of Oracle destroying her clocktower base in 2004-5’s War Games crossover facilitates a face-to-face confrontation between Calculator and Oracle in #111, and Misfit’s origins are looked at in #118.

None of these stories are award winners. On the other hand, most of them are solid comics in the old-school mold. Huntress foils mad bombers, who turn out to be less “mad” and more naïve. Black Alice and Misfit are put into a superhero gladiatorial ring, a plot straight out of New Mutants. Lady Blackhawk honors a fallen comrade. Oracle and Calculator scrap over data. Simple stories, and all the characters are true to the personalities previous writer Gail Simone gave them. I would not say Bedard is as good with the characters as Simone was — although they easily coexist with Simone’s conceptions, they lack a certain je ne sais quoi. But Simone had several years to mold the characters; Club Kids contains Bedard’s first five issues on the title.

However, letting other titles dictate stories occasionally robs Birds of Prey‘s stories of their impact. All of #109 is dedicated to either reacting to a development outside the title or adding heat to a subplot running through the DCU. Although Oracle arguing with Black Canary over her boyfriend’s fidelity issues is long overdue, the discussion was engendered by Green Arrow’s marriage proposal in another title (Green Arrow). Developing another title’s dangling plots does no favors to Birds of Prey‘s narrative flow, especially since Black Canary wasn’t a character at this point — she left the title in #100. The issue still might have worked, however, if the assassination of the New Gods story hadn’t been shoehorned into the same issue. Bedard tries to give Knockout a fitting last moment, but her part of the story feels rushed. And the death Lady Blackhawk memorializes in #112, that of a prominent supporting character, seemingly comes from nowhere (the Death of the New Gods miniseries); #112 starts with a half page of her memorial service before getting on with the action. Brevity is laudable, but it feels as if the dead character is being cheated of the respect she is due.

(Although not as cheated as Manhunter is; I know she barely appears in Club Kids, but her head shot in the intro / recap section of the book is actually a picture of Scandal Savage, a villain, from #109.)

Why couldn’t Simone have worked with artists like Bedard gets? Nicola Scott draws #109, 110, and 118 and does an excellent job — action-packed, expressive, exceedingly pretty, with a tight line I admire. She even puts Huntress in a more modest costume than the Jim Lee monstrosity (thank God), although Big Barda’s red bikini costume is awful. (I don’t think Scott designed it, but it’s still awful.) Jason Orfalas does a good job on the quieter #111, and David Cole‘s slightly cartoony, looser style is perfect for the free-spirited Lady Blackhawk’s story.

Club Kids is the perfect book for a title that is coming off a big storyline and a change of writers; Bedard uses the characters respectfully, putting them in appropriate situations, and reacts to what DC editorial sends him. But that’s Club Kids’s shortcoming, as well: it’s reactive, and Birds of Prey loses all its momentum from Simone’s run without establishing any clear new direction. Over the long run, that’s death for a title, but for one collection, it can be enjoyable — and in this case, it is.

Rating: (4 of 5)

The Three Stages of Man: Stage Three: Wolverine First Class, v. 4: Gods, Ninjas, and Divas

Collects: X-Men and Power Pack #1 and Wolverine First Class #13-6 (2005, 2009)

Released: August 2009 (Marvel)

Format: 120 pages / color / $12.99 / ISBN: 9780785135357

What is this?: In this non-continuity book, Wolverine serves as mentor to young Kitty Pryde.

The culprits: Writer Peter David and artists Ronan Cliquet, Scott Koblish, and GuriHiru

Continuing from Stage One and Stage Two, I present:

Stage Three: The Old Man, represented by Wolverine First Class: Ninjas, Gods, and Divas.

There comes a point in every man’s life — a sad, soul-battering, inevitable moment — that proves that he is no longer the best at what he does and will most likely never be again. The man must learn to accept his lesser status or else find some other activity in which to find meaning. Youngsters will rise to the top, pushing out the old guard. Age will rob us all of our mental and physical abilities. The symphonies will begin sounding the same as your previous efforts or sound like everyone else’s. Machines will begin adding more and more of that damn technology you don’t understand or don’t want to take the time to futz with. Or changing cultural mores and the whims of corporate masters will change your entire raison d’ etre. As I said, it happens to all of us, if we live long enough.

For Wolverine, he gets to be a mentor to Kitty Pryde. This is a thankless task, as many fans (mostly from the ‘80s) would want a relationship with comic-dom’s mutant sweetheart that is more amorous and less skeevy. Still, someone has to do it, and when you’re no longer the best, you get stuck with such jobs.

Peter David writes these stories as he writes pretty much all his comics, with a humorous bent. This being an ostensibly all-ages title, he doesn’t layer on the angst or darkness, which is a welcome break. And he’s consistently funny, weaving running gags throughout the stories. His humor is gentle and not in the least cutting, with Wolverine giving Kitty the sort of ribbing a father or fond older brother would. It’s pleasant, it’s inoffensive, and it’s funny. What actually happens in this non-continuity book is irrelevant.

The artists are a mixed bag. All of them have trouble making Wolverine look old — and by old, I don’t mean ancient, I mean like he’s in his 30s. All three — Ronan Cliquet (#13-4), Scott Koblish (#15), and GuriHiru (#16 and the Power Pack issue) — make him look like he just dropped out of college. GuriHiru is the worst in this regard, as pretty much every adult looks college age. On the other hand, his Kitty and Siryn are excellent, so it balances out. (Someone should give GuriHiru Studios a title with an all-child or adolescent cast.) Koblish is my favorite of the three, as his work has a definite Art Adams influence that fits the Thor / Ulik fight perfectly. Cliquet gets a lot of action sequences and pulls them off well, but the lone Asian face in the story looks about as Japanese as Angelina Jolie.

Rating: (4 of 5)

Is there another stage of life that is yet to be revealed through our emissary, Wolverine? That remains to be seen. Wolverine: Enemy of the State would argue the next stage is self-parody, which I believe will have to be integrated into the clinical discussion at some future point in time. It remains to be seen, however.

The Three Stages of Man: Stage Two: Wolverine: Not Dead Yet

Collects: Wolverine #119-22 (1997-8)

Released: April 2009 (Marvel)

Format: 120 pages / color / $19.99 / ISBN: 9780785137665

What is this?: Wolverine must confront an old friend / threat from his past. Shocking, right?

The culprits: Writer Warren Ellis and artist Leinil Francis Yu

Continuing from the last post, we move on to the next stage in the three stages of man, as exemplified by Wolverine:

Stage Two: The Badass, as represented by Wolverine: Not Dead Yet.

After discovering who he is, it is time for man to be the best he that he can be at what he does, even if it isn’t pretty. If that means composing symphonies and choral works, so be it. If your burden is that you have an outstanding mechanical aptitude, it’s up to you to embrace, not shirk, that destiny. If, like Wolverine, killing a lot of people is what you do, then you need to do it, and do it as often as possible.

Striving to reach the pinnacle of your profession is not without its dangers. If you are one of the greatest composers of your time, a rival might try to drive you insane and then kill you with rheumatic fever. If you are a great mechanic, a rival might decide to crush or lop off your hands. And if you are one of the great killers of the world, well, another great killer might decide to end your life, especially if you left the man alive after trying to kill him.

I mean, it just stands to reason.

Yet another old acquaintance coming back into Logan’s life to kill him / get killed is a hoary trope that was getting old even when writer Warren Ellis and artist Leinil Francis Yu collaborated on this four-issue storyline in 1997. Somehow, though, Ellis makes this idea work. Wolverine is the X-Man best suited to Ellis’s approach, a low-power hero with a boost from weird science and haunted by a conspiracy. Ellis doesn’t touch upon either of those elements, but they are still in the background, in their way.

Not Dead Yet comes at an odd time in Wolverine’s history. After finishing the main story of the Operation: Zero Tolerance crossover in Wolverine, Larry Hama ended his 80+-issue run on the title. His last storyline was cut off in the middle — not that it looked very promising, to be honest — and suddenly the man who had defined what kind of stories the book would tell was gone. The luster gone from Hama, whose stories had been going downhill for a year or more, Marvel went for their newest badass, Ellis.

It wouldn’t be an Ellis story without a character from the British Isles; in this case, it’s McLeish, a Scottish killer from Logan’s past. In four issues, Ellis has to establish McLeish as a threat and disguise that most of the story is just faceless mooks trying to kill Wolverine. (Not faceless as in “wearing ninja masks,” but faceless as in “not very important” — an important distinction in a Wolverine story) Ellis does this masterfully, alternating between flashbacks to the charismatic but evil McLeish in Hong Kong and rapid action in the present. The middle issues are either fight scenes, with adamantium bullets and auto accidents, or McLeish ranting about killing. OK, there’s also a love interest who buys it, but that’s fine: Logan is also probably the best there is at getting former lovers killed,⁶¹ which we must agree isn’t very pretty.

Still, if Yu wasn’t an excellent with action scenes, then there’s no way this storyline works. Fortunately, Yu is up to the task, with action shots that seem to pop off the page. (A little bloodless, though.) Yu’s first American professional comic work was Wolverine #113, and I remember Usenet going crazy for him at the time. (I remember Usenet. I’m old.) His McLeish is threatening, despite not doing anything violent on the page, and slightly deranged without being cartoony.

My main complaint with this story is the price. Twenty dollars for four issues? Even if it is a hardback, that’s much too much. This Marvel Premiere Edition adds almost an issue’s worth of Yu’s other Wolverine covers, which does help — but it doesn’t help that much.

Rating: (4 of 5)

Next: Stage Three: Wolverine First Class: Ninjas, Gods, and Divas (forthcoming)

The Three Stages of Man: Stage One: Weapon X

Collects: Weapon X stories from Marvel Comics Presents #72-84 (1991)

Released: 1994 (Marvel)

Format: 226 pages / color / $16.99 / ISBN: 9780785137269

What is this?: Logan gets adamantium bonded to his skeleton by the Weapon X project, the first step down the road that leads to Wolverine.

The culprits: Barry Windsor-Smith

Willy Shakespeare might have been a great writer and all that, but his “seven ages of man” stuff doesn’t really hold water. I mean, I’ve never been a soldier, justice, or pantaloon, and I don’t know too many people who fit those roles. (A few soldiers, a few lawyers, but I’ve never met a person who was also a pair of pants.) No, the Great Shakes had an ear for what sounded good, but he wasn’t about to let the truth get in the way of a good story.

Therefore, I would like to suggest my own examination of the path of human life, using the greatest fictional character ever, Wolverine. Therefore, I give you, The Three Stages of Wolverine:

Stage One: The Enigma, represented by Wolverine: Weapon X.

In this stage, man must begin to grapple with important questions of our times: who am I? Am I a moral being? Am I a being of instinct? Are my sensory observations real, or are they merely being fed to me through clunky ‘80s computer technology powered by batteries large enough to give Arnold Schwarzenegger a hernia? Can I take control of my life, or am I doomed to constantly be manipulated by vast international conspiracies of megalomaniacs and supervillains? Although everyone must examine these questions for themselves, Logan answers them, according to his own peculiar circumstances, in Weapon X.

The late ‘80s / early ‘90s was the era in which a straightforward story such as, “Who decided it would be such a great idea to turn a mutant into ‘the ultimate killing machine’ and then never do anything with him?” was so important it couldn’t be answered — well, it couldn’t be answered in Marvel Comics Presents, in which this material originally appeared. So, the Enigma. Writer / artist Barry Windsor-Smith shows how Logan became Wolverine, transforming from a burned-out and falling apart government agent into the feral, adamantium-laced killing machine that is Wolverine. Ultimately, Logan doesn’t learn much about himself in this one, other than he’s a man, not an animal (important), which is good, because Logan is hell on wild animals (not important). But I suppose it would have started him on the path of self-revelation if it hadn’t been for those pesky memory implants.

Weapon X is surprisingly seminal despite its lack of revelations and slight plot, the former dictated editorially and the latter by the eight-page format of stories in MCP. We have the Professor employing disgraced doctor Abraham Cornelius; while starting up their experimentation facility, they hire Carol Hines to run operations. After they abduct Logan, they implant the adamantium onto the bones, and they begin to brainwash him into being a killing machine. And then he kills stuff, in both reality (mostly animals) and in virtual / hallucinatory realm (everyone). The Professor inadvertently reveals he’s answering to someone, someone powerful, but that’s about all we learn.

Despite the eight-page per story format, we do get a good bit of development on Hines and Cornelius. They aren’t shadowy villains; they are scientists down on their luck. Cornelius has legal problems in the U.S. Hines worked for NASA at one point. How do they rationalize the horrible thing they are doing to another human being? It’s an interesting question, and Windsor-Smith does explore the idea, but the lack of a true payoff to the story keeps that angle from being fully fleshed out.

Unsurprisingly, Windsor-Smith’s art is what sticks with the reader. Several panels are iconic, known to just about every comic reader of the last twenty years: the full-page shot of Weapon X atop a pile of soldiers, slicing up more; Weapon X in the snow clad only in batteries and the control helmet / VR gear; shots of Logan in the adamantium tank. The art nouveau elements from his Conan work are gone or muted; the work is bloody, brutal, and dynamic, but it still looks unlike other artists before or after. (Although his characters have a tendency to have eyes like Little Orphan Annie.)

Rating: (4 of 5)

Next: Stage Two: Wolverine: Not Dead Yet

Stage Three: Wolverine First Class: Ninjas, Gods, and Divas (forthcoming)