Catwoman, v. 1: The Dark End of the Street

Collects: Catwoman (v. 3) #1-4, backups from Detective Comics #759-62 (2001-2)

Released: August 2002 (DC)

Format: 136 pages / color / $14.99 / ISBN: 9781563899089

What is this?: Catwoman returns from the dead to rediscover a purpose to her costumed antics — in this case, that’s investigating the murder of prostitutes.

The culprits: Writer Ed Brubaker and artist Darwyn Cooke

Today, writer Ed Brubaker and artist Darwyn Cooke would be seen as a crime comic dream team. Almost a decade ago, that pairing wouldn’t quite seem so auspicious, but readers got a peak at what the pair could do in one of DC’s most crime-centered books, Catwoman.

Catwoman, v. 1: The Dark End of the Street reprints Brubaker and Cooke’s first arc in the revived Catwoman title along with a series of backups the pair had done in Detective Comics. In Dark End, Selina Kyle / Catwoman has returned from hiding after the world thinks her dead. She has a new, sleeker, better costume, she’s in therapy, and she’s ready to figure out who she is.

I frequently assign the artist’s work secondary importance to the writer’s, but that’s not the case here: Darwyn Cooke is the book’s main attraction. His art is sleek, beautiful, and never confusing. Dark End has a slightly retro look, one that fits the image the Gotham City has had ever since Batman: The Animated Series — appropriate, since Cooke as an artist for the show. Selina looks like a woman from another time while still maintaining a modern appearance; her new costume — a nearly unbelievable improvement on the purple Jim Balent model — is a retro futuristic design, with stylish modern goggles, a catsuit that is classic while also managing to seem contemporary, and charmingly clunky buckles and zipper pull. He even manages to pull off dark, noir scenes and bright settings with equal ease.

It almost makes me want to go out and buy a copy of his adaptation of Richard Stark’s Parker: The Hunter. Almost.

The plot is thin, as most of the book focuses on Selina’s character. For the most part, Brubaker writes Selina as a standard soul-searching hero spurred into action, although he does give her a few moments of verve and wit that elevate some of the character moments. But there’s not much room for lightheartedness in Dark End; there’s a murder plot, and of course, since it involves Catwoman and was written after Batman: Year One, the victims are prostitutes. I can understand why Brubaker would choose a serial killer targeting prostitutes as part of his plot — it makes sense for the character, the tone, and a Gotham City protected by Batman and corrupt police — but it feels a bit too predictable. Brubaker and Cooke give the murdered girls a bit of personality before they’re shuffled off the stage, so at least they aren’t faceless victims.

As a casual DC reader, I have to wonder, does it matter the villain is just a throwaway despite using a more established villain’s shtick? The murderer looks like a Clayface and acts like a Clayface, but no one — not even Selina or Batman — mentions the name “Clayface.” Is that an attempt to make the storymore reader friendly for those who aren’t immersed in the DC Universe, or does it kinda look shoddy? I can’t decide; I see both points. The more pressing concern is that the villain isn’t all that impressive or interesting.

But the villain and the investigation isn’t what’s important in the story. The whole point of Dark End is to set up Catwoman’s new status quo: dealing with her past, helping those without hope, etc. I’ve had my problems with Captain Retcon in the past, but Brubaker does do a good job of working through the mess that previous creators left them. He touches lightly on what comes before, mainly to let the reader know the setup he’s presenting is new — and from the hints he lays down, what came before was pretty dire.

Brubaker also works hard to show how Catwoman fits into Gotham and the Bat-Family. She’s confiding in Dr. Leslie Thompkins — who now evidently fits psychoanalysis into her little medical clinic — and trying to fit into the rules the Dark Knight has set for her and Gotham. Not having access to Bat Computers or Oracle, Catwoman has to go through intermediaries to get her information. And since Gotham cops are as honest as Batman is lazy, there’s always room for another crimefighter to help the underclass — if Catwoman wants to fight crime and not commit them.

The backup strips at the beginning of the book are a setup for the new Catwoman; Brubaker and Cooke revive Golden Age character Slam Bradley, who is hired to look for the supposedly dead Catwoman. I remember reading strips in the original issues of Detective Comics and being entertained, but in collected form, they don’t work as well. The art and story are compressed to fit into a smaller page count, with each suffering as a result. Slam Bradley’s investigation involves getting beat up and beating up a lot of people in pointless fights until he’s given a resolution he hasn’t discovered; Cooke’s art is frequently compressed into a 3x3 grid, which gives the art a claustrophobic feel. The murky coloring doesn’t help matters either.

I went back and forth on a final evaluation of Dark End. Although I wasn’t impressed by the plot and I didn’t particularly care about what the character of Catwoman had to be rehabilitated from, I couldn’t give a book with such excellent art and a competent plot a dead middle-of-the-road score. So I have to recommend Dark End, but keep in mind the recommendation is mostly for Darwyn Cooke’s art.

Rating: (3.5 of 5)

Uncanny X-Men: Divided We Stand

Collects: Uncanny X-Men #495-9 (2008)

Released: September 2008 (Marvel)

Format: 120 pages / color / $12.99 / ISBN: 9780785119838

What is this?: The X-Men find their new home city of San Francisco is a bit trippier than they expected.

The culprits: Writer Ed Brubaker and penciler Michael Choi

You might expect the first X-Men volume after Messiah CompleX, which essentially stated things would be different for the X-Men, would seize the new direction and run with it. You would be wrong.

So instead, we get a five-issue stall in Uncanny X-Men: Divided We Stand, in which the X-Men wait for issue #500 in Germany, Russia, San Francisco, and the Savage Land. Oh, Scott Summers tells us things are different, but the San Francisco storyline flashes back to the psychedelic ‘60s and the X-Men fight old villains throughout. And you don’t get much more classic X-Men than the Savage Land, although I’ve never understood the link between mutants, Tarzan knockoffs, and Lost Worlds.²⁹

After their vacation in the Savage Land, Scott and Emma head to San Francisco, where they find the city (and many of their teammates) are in the midst of a ‘60s flashback. Wolverine, Nightcrawler, and Colossus head to Nightcrawler’s and Colossus’s old European stomping grounds (technically, I believe Colossus is supposed to be from Siberia — Asian Russia — but I don’t think that’s spelled out). There, they run afoul of the Russian government and Omega Red … who I think is the only evil Russian mutant I can remember. It says something — and it isn’t good — that several years after M-Day, writers can still do stories about the obvious consequences of that story that no one else has done; in this case the Russians rightly wonder why the X-Men were relatively unaffected by M-Day but Mother Russia lost all their operatives.

None of it is terribly high-tension or earth-shattering, but not every storyline has to be about the end of the world. Besides, just because Divided We Stand is marking time doesn’t mean it isn’t entertaining. I’ve never seen what others have seen in writer Ed Brubaker — perhaps because I haven’t read his strongest work — but I get a glimpse here. Emma and Scott’s vacation is entertaining, and we finally get a glimpse of why Emma stays with Scott after she’s already cracked his nut. (Metaphorically.) Brubaker also has a good sense of the humorous interplay between Wolverine, Colossus, and Nightcrawler. The dialogue is in character, and although it’s not quite as sharp as, say, Joss Whedon’s best, it’s still very good.

Penciler Mike Choi gets to have the great fun of putting the X-Men into ‘60s fashions — well, it looks like it’s fun. I’m not sure if I like his work; it’s clear and straightforward but a little soft and unassertive in its line. Choi also makes his males a little less rugged than you would expect from a superhero comic, especially Wolverine. (I’m beginning to think any sort of manga-influenced art is a bad idea for Logan, as it makes him look less animalistic and powerful, two of the keystones of his character, and more like a teenage manga character — the weird hair is mandatory for both, though.) Still, as I said, the ‘60s costumes are fun, and there’s nothing wrong with his work: I just find it a little … off.³⁰

Brubaker, through Cyclops, keeps promising things are going to change. I haven’t seen it yet. After the cause of the ‘60s flashback is revealed to be an amnesiac mutant, he even has Emma give a speech calling the middle-aged hippies “pathetic” for using the mutant to “relive [their] glory days.” I think the implications are clear: not only is Brubaker going to change things, but dwelling on those glory days is pathetic. I don’t disagree. The only way to go is forward. I resent having to wait for the next book, but the change is long overdue.

Rating: (3.5 of 5)

X-Men: Messiah CompleX

Collects: X-Men: Messiah CompleX, Uncanny X-Men #492-4, X-Men # 205-7, New X-Men v. 2 #44-6, and X-Factor #25-7 (2007-8)

Released: October 2008 (Marvel)

Format: 352 pages / color / $29.99 / ISBN: 9780785123200

What is this?: A massive X-Men crossover in which the X-Men, Marauders, Cable, Bishop, and the Purifiers all fight over the first mutant baby born since M-Day.

The culprits: An accomplished crossover crew, including writers Ed Brubaker, Mike Carey, Peter David, Chris Yost, and Craig Kyle and pencilers Billy Tan, Chris Bachalo, Humberto Ramos, and Scot Eaton

I haven’t read much of the X-Men titles since the “House of M” event — haven’t read anything other than X-Factor and Astonishing X-Men, really, since Grant Morrison left New X-Men. (Also: X-Men: Deadly Genesis, which left me less than eager to read anything else with Ed Brubaker’s fingerprints on it.) But my local library’s getting in all sorts of titles, and this gives me a chance to read X-Men: Messiah CompleX and feel like a Usenet dino.

X-Men was better in the old days! Well, I’ve got that out of my system now.

For those of us who have been away, Messiah CompleX (man, do I hate that terminal capital “X”) is not a jumping on point. It sets up plots for the foreseeable future, yes, but it’s an exercise in clearing out the old. If you’re coming in with no knowledge of the X-Men — or if your knowledge is out of date — you’re going to be a little confused. Who are these New X-Men, and what can they do? Why are they so angry? Why do they die so easily? And why was Cable thought dead? Why does Bishop have a superplane? What happened to Cyclops’s father? There really aren’t any footnotes, although some of the information is given in context (eventually) and some of it doesn’t matter. Still, the New X-Men seem bolted onto the crossover awkwardly, and they aren’t very well explained, despite playing an important part in the crossover.

If you’re looking for action, Messiah CompleX has it. A new mutant baby is born —the first since the Scarlet Witch decreed “No more mutants” — and all the groups concerned with mutants want the baby: the X-Men to protect it, Mr. Sinister’s Marauders to control it, the Purifiers to kill it, the intensely stupid “Predator X” to eat it, and Cable to take it to the future. This gives rise to an intense level of action: the fighting is nearly non-stop, with numerous casualties. By the end, there’s a very real possibility the reader will be numb to the carnage; the number of mutants who are dead, dying, or deactivated is astonishing, given the restricted number of mutants at today’s Marvel.

The coordination of the crossover is a cut above what I’m used to; perhaps Marvel learned something about how to make the edges more seamless during the past decade. Writers Ed Brubaker, Peter David, and Mike Carey and New X-Men co-writers Craig Kyle and Chris Yost do an admirable job writing a story in which the chapters and characterizations don’t contradict each other. This is partly because the big revelations from the ancillary titles, X-Factor and New X-Men, largely happen in those titles. Still, everyone seems to do at least a passable job with the other writers’ characters, and that’s a real accomplishment.

I never thought I’d see the day when Chris Bachalo and Humberto Ramos would be penciling half a major X-Men crossover. Both are good artists but decidedly non-standard; I don’t think either is particularly “hot,” the kind of sought-after artist who makes the lists on Wizard. I’m not sure whether this represents a changing aesthetic on the X-titles or if it’s attributable to the X-titles’ loss of prestige over the years.²⁷ As I said, both are decent artists, with Bachalo keeping his more eccentric tics under control this time around. I can’t tell whether Xavier disappearing at the end is an art mistake by Bachalo or a plot point, though. Ramos … Ramos is an artist who divides fans, and with good reason. I think his exaggerated figures are better suited for a more lighthearted title — I think he was a good fit for Paul Jenkins’s Spider-Man work a few years ago — but Messiah CompleX is not lighthearted at all. I believe Ramos can do serious stuff, but there are times his characters look more comically panicked than stressed, and his tough guys (and gals) will never look as tough as a more realistic artist’s.

The other half of the art is from Scot Eaton, who draws Forge as Robert Downey, Jr., and Billy Tan. The contrast between the two halves is extreme. Tan and Eaton draw a shiny, glossy world where everyone is pretty and even the dirt is attractive, and Bachalo and Ramos create a misshapen setting where even the bondage models are strangely offputting. All of them do a good job — well, except perhaps Marc Silvestri, who’s even more pretty and streamlined than Tan or Eaton in the Messiah CompleX one shot and manages to draw Wolverine with a hint of androgyny — but the differences are startling. Personally, for this crossover, I think I prefer Bachalo and Ramos’s side of the divide, since this is a gritty, not pretty, story. This flies in the face of my usual preference for attractive, clean art, but I realize that’s not appropriate for every comic book.

The blurb on the back cover quotes IGN as saying Messiah CompleX is “easily the best X-Men crossover in a decade.” Assuming the quote is in context — and Marvel has a bit of history of using out-of-context quotes — they’re not exactly setting the bar very high, are they? They’re competing against “Endangered Species,” which ran as backups in the books in 2007; “Eve of Destruction,” which led to the Morrison / Casey reign on the X-Titles; “Dream’s End,” the swan song to Chris Claremont redux; the Apocalypse crossovers of 1999; and various late ‘90s forgettables such as “Hunt for Xavier” and “Magneto War” and various two-parters. “Operation: Zero Tolerance” sneaks in as well; “O:ZT” is one of the few major crossovers during that span, and it’s one of the prime reasons the X-titles shied away from the megacrossovers. None of them will ever be held up against “Mutant Massacre” or “Fall of the Mutants” as a high point of the X-Men. Hell, I wouldn’t say any of them were any better than “X-Cutioner’s Song” of ’92-3, although I admit I haven’t read “Endangered Species.”

As a volume, Messiah CompleX is mediocre — it misses the sweet spot between ultraviolence and story development by a decent margin. It does, however, deliver violent action until you can’t stand it no more. As a statement, a manifesto, it’s much better. It puts a violent, definite end to the past and says the future will be different, something at odds with the directionless wandering of the last few years or the warmed-over Claremont that marked the ‘90s. Whether that future will be better (or even readable) remains to be seen.

Rating: (3 of 5)

X-Men: Deadly Genesis

Collects: X-Men: Deadly Genesis #1-6 (2006)

Released: December 2006 (Marvel)

Format: 200 pages / color / $19.99 / ISBN: 0785118306

What is this?: In this miniseries, the X-Men are under physical and mental assault by a powerful mutant with a mysterious grudge.

The culprits: Written by Ed Brubaker with pencils by Trevor Hairsine

I expected to dislike X-Men: Deadly Genesis intensely, and unsurprisingly, I did. I don’t blame Ed Brubaker’s scripting or Trevor Hairsine’s pencils; Hairsine does an excellent job in this waste of a cause. No, I blame whoever came up with this misconceived project, whether it’s Brubaker or editor Mark Paniccia or someone else farther up the chain of command at Marvel.

The plot reveals that years ago X-Men mentor Professor Xavier sent a heretofore unknown group to the island of Krakoa to rescue the missing X-Men. That group died, and Xavier wiped the memory of that group from everyone’s minds before sending another group — including Storm, Wolverine, Nightcrawler, and Colossus — to rescue the original X-Men. Now a member of that missing team — Vulcan, who is by just by coincidence the brother of first X-Man Cyclops and Havok — has been revived, and he’s tormenting the X-Men to get Xavier to confront him.

This is the worst kind of retcon, one that hits the big three no-nos:

1) Tells you everything you know is wrong, while it
2) Reveals a powerful character (or conspiracy) hidden for years and
3) Radically changes how readers must view a long-term character.

This is pointless. And it doesn’t matter how well the story is told, because the central idea of the story is crap. Thirty years after Giant Size X-Men #1 is a little late to be revising the story, don’t you think? Brubaker’s story takes the fun, light story of the All-New, All-Different X-Men and makes it deadly serious and deadly dull. Xavier’s behavior in Deadly Genesis is near unforgiveable, and it makes a mockery of the idea of the unreliable narrator. Surely something so monstrous would have leaked into one of Xavier’s thought bubbles over the years.

There are essentially no heroes here. By not only sending a group of young mutants to their deaths but also wiping their lives from the record, Brubaker’s Xavier is a poor excuse for a human being, good intentions be damned. Vulcan is a monumental dillweed as well, even needlessly torturing the current X-Men for reasons I can’t fathom. Brubaker wants to make Vulcan look good, so he makes him nigh all-powerful, meaning the X-Men can’t stop him. The X-Men do nothing: not only does Vulcan master them easily, but they can’t find Xavier either. Deadly Genesis is a six-issue exercise in wallowing in misery, because nothing happens except making everyone involved look bad.

It’s even more aggravating when Brubaker pulls down the original plot in order to make the new one look better. Vulcan mocks Cyclops for thinking Krakoa released him in order to gather more mutants, but Krakoa killing Vulcan’s team after losing Cyclops is even less credible. Why not capture them as well? This sniping comes across as petty, and if you can’t play nicely with someone else’s toys, then maybe you shouldn’t be playing with them at all. Maybe Brubaker has a fetish for gratuitous retcons; he did, after all, bring Captain America’s sidekick Bucky back from the dead as the Winter Soldier.

There’s nothing wrong with Vulcan being a Summers brother, although the missing third Summers brother is not a dangling plot that had been crying for resolution. Moira studying and training a group of mutants is interesting as well, although a little difficult to shoehorn into continuity without the mindwipes and whatnot. And the backup with Xavier and Moira offering a young Emma Frost entry into the X-Men is interesting, although Xavier too quickly comes to the conclusion Emma won’t join the X-Men regardless of how he coaxes her.

The plot is my main problem, although not my only one. Marc Silvestri’s covers, especially the ones used for Deadly Genesis’s front and back covers, are irritating. I have no idea why all the characters on the homage to cover of Giant Size X-Men #1 are skeletal; none of them die. The back cover is no better; I had a hell of a time figuring out who Marvel Girl was supposed to be (Marrow and Rogue were my first thoughts), Cyclops is vastly overmuscled, and Wolverine’s face looks decidedly feminine, beard notwithstanding. The backup stories about the forgotten X-Men sent to Krakoa are essentially useless — I don’t care about them, and I have no reason to care about them as they’re not only disposable but already disposed of.

I admit I put a great deal of emphasis on continuity — perhaps too much. But because of the way this book chews up previous stories and characterizations and vomits them into the stewpot that is the Marvel Universe, this book is useless to me. I could sell it, but I got this book cheaply in part because the cover is creased. I don’t want to give it away because I don’t want to inflict it on anyone else.

One last note: the rating for Deadly Genesis is based entirely how much Hairsine’s art lifts this wreck above no value whatsoever.

Rating: (1 of 5)

Gotham Central, v. 3: Unresolved Targets

Collects: #12-5, 19-22 (2003-4)

Released: April 2006 (DC)

Format: 192 pages / color / $14.99 / ISBN: 1563899957

With two excellent volumes of Gotham Central on my shelf, I was pleasantly surprised to see DC continue its sporadic release of the title with Gotham Central, v. 3: Unresolved Targets.

Unresolved Targets is made up of two stories: “Soft Targets,” in which the Joker shoots his way through Gotham’s government, and “Unresolved,” in which the Gotham City Police Department gets a break in one of former Det. Sgt. Harvey Bullock’s old cases. (You see how the title of the collection combines the title of the two stories? That’s clever, or something.)

“Soft Targets,” written by series co-writers Greg Rucka and Ed Brubaker, touches on one of the series’s central themes: how does the GCPD function competently against Batman’s villains when citizens expect their protection to come from Batman alone? Even some of the GCPD expect Batman to save them. How can they keep from being hopelessly overmatched by the Joker at the top of his game if the Bat doesn’t save them?

The answer is they can’t.

A problem with this book … well, not a problem, really. The villains go through the little people like a sword through rice paper. It’s not a problem in that villains would kill police and bystanders indiscriminately and with ease. That’s why they’re feared, after all, not because of their goofy costumes and crippling mental disabilities. On the other hand, the deaths become monotonous rather than shocking, and that’s not right. It also draws attention to the narrative standards that separate the type of characters featured in Gotham Central and the villains: a bullet from the Joker is fatal if you’re a public servant, but a guy in a funny costume can take a hail of bullets and survive. It’s a genre convention, but it’s better if it isn’t so obvious.

“Soft Targets” suffers for allowing the reader to see this a little too plainly. There are a few other niggling problems as well. Characters call the Joker’s spree a “red ball” but don’t explain what that means; I assume it means a serial killing, but in the context of the story it could mean politically motivated killings or high-profile murders. The characters never make it clear. Also, the timeframe of “Soft Targets” shifts radically, starting out three weeks before Christmas and then a few days later being a couple of days from the big day. A couple of officers later in the story claim they can’t remember how many shopping days are left until Christmas, with their guesses being off a couple of days; I can’t figure out whether the writers are poking fun at their small slip or were still confused. Since I can’t tell if it’s a joke, neither option is a good sign.

Brubaker wrote “Unleashed” by himself, catching up with Harvey Bullock after he was kicked off the force in the Officer Down crossover. Brubaker does a good job giving the other cops the gamut on positions on what Bullock was supposed to have done to Commissioner Gordon’s attacker in that crossover. Brubaker also deals with the loose ends from Officer Down, showing Bullock’s goals (or lack thereof) while living off his pension and having him interact with Det. Renee Montoya, his old partner.

Bullock’s character almost overshadows the story, in which Dets. Marcus Driver and Josie MacDonald investigate an unsolved bombing that killed most of a high school baseball team. It’s a solid procedural, and it benefits from not having the constant threat of death hanging over the precinct.

It does raise the question, however, of whether Josie Mac fit this title. She has the ability to “find” things, so she has a leg up on the rest of the precinct. She also could serve as a crutch as a writer — it’s not even a coincidence when she finds evidence lost for almost a decade! Given the “normal” mandate of the title, I tend to believe she shouldn’t be in this title, not unless there’s a chance she’ll be outed as a freak somewhere along the line. But I don’t feel especially strongly about it.

With the huge number of characters in Gotham Central, you need a scorecard to tell them apart. Fortunately, there is one — of a sort — at the beginning of the TPB. But because of the length of time between trades, the relationships between characters are difficult to remember, and the list of detectives doesn’t mention these. Also, the list could be better organized, grouping partners together. And there’s a mistake, anyway: Driver and Josie Mac are obviously partners throughout the book, but they are listed as being as on different shifts.

The art by Michael Lark and Stefano Gaudiano doesn’t help matters. It’s moody, yes; I get it, Gotham’s moody and stark. Lee Loughridge, the colorist, often uses monochromatic backgrounds to set the (usually dreary) mood. Bu the art isn’t detailed enough to survive this sort of coloring — especially not with the large cast. The combination of pencils and colors works well enough on “Unresolved,” which has only a few characters, but that story doesn’t need that sort of forced coloring. The mood of “Soft Targets” benefits from the coloring, but pencils and inks are left muddled. There’s a scene with three panels in the first issue of “Soft Targets” where a detective looks around moodily. But I can’t tell whether he’s Driver or Lt. Probson or someone else; the changing hair color doesn’t help, going from blond to red at one point. (I can’t find any male blonds in the scorecard, so I have no idea who it is or what the scene’s significance is.)

The sharp-eyed among you will notice Gotham Central #16-18 are not collected in this volume. This is intentional, and there are no future plans to collect them. Brubaker has stated (as reported in Lying in the Gutters, under “Central Enquiry”) that they want to reproduce only the best stories, the ones most central to the title, given that Gotham Central took a while to be reprinted at all. I don’t care. I want to read all the stories, not selected highlights.

Unresolved Targets is more frustrating than anything for me, which is a shame, because I think there’s a story I could enjoy there if I could get past the distractions. That said, Unresolved Targets is a bargain — eight issues for only $15, and that doesn’t even factor in the discounts you can get online or at your local comics shop.

Rating: (2 of 5)