2009: A Musical / Dancing Review

2009 is four days gone now. Good riddance, I say. I don’t think I’ve ever been so glad to see the back of a year as I am for 2009. And I’m not sure why, exactly. Maybe it’s the long-term gloom and doom of financial crises and greed, swine flu, and terrorism. Maybe it’s because I tried to work a home-improvement project into my schedule during December as I was also preparing for Christmas and guests. Maybe I’m just bitter. Maybe it was endless crossovers and events from Marvel and DC …

Yes, that last one sounds appropriate.

But before we give 2009 a final swock to the nuggets, I decided to look through my year’s worth of reading and point out the best of my year. (Yes, I know some — many — of these didn’t come out in 2009. I don’t care. If you want timeliness, go somewhere else.) So here are the top 5s, in Marvel (which is most of what I read) and non-Marvel lists:

Marvel:

5. Guardians of the Galaxy: Legacy (4): Emerging from a crossover I didn’t care about, a bunch of characters I was only vaguely aware of were stuck in a team book that seemed to be heading for permanent crossover events. But somehow the first volume worked, and worked well.

4. Mini Marvels: Secret Invasion (4): The 2009 collection of Chris Giarrusso’s Mini Marvels wasn’t as good as the 2008 version (Rock, Paper, Scissors), but it’s still hilarious. You should all go out and buy the recently released Mini Marvels Ultimate Collection.

3. Hood: Blood from Stones (4): This book, which features the Hood’s origin, showed why Brian Bendis was so eager to use the petty crook turned superpowered antihero. It also showed Bendis didn’t care about what made Blood from Stones so good.

2. Incredible Hulk: Planet Hulk (4.5): A sprawling, over-the-top action movie of a comic, Planet Hulk made the Hulk interesting for the first time since Peter David left. And then Hulk was promptly handed to Jeph Loeb, who gave us Red Hulk. Way to capitalize, Marvel.

1. Age of the Sentry (4.5): Marvel’s answer to DC’s Silver Age Superman nonsense, recounted with a knowing wink and smile — but never to the detriment of the character.

Non-Marvel:

5. RASL: The Drift (4): Jeff Smith’s story about a scientist / thief who penetrates alternate realities has me eager for more. Compare this to Casanova, which also has thievery and alternate realities; Casanova threw so much high concept at the reader I was screaming for it to stop, but RASL’s slow pace has me intrigued. On the other hand, RASL’s publication schedule will mean I’ll probably remain intrigued for quite a while.

4. Promethea: Collected Edition, Book 1 (4.5): Although I wasn’t as excited by the next two volumes of Alan Moore and J.H. Williams III’s coming-of-age / metafiction comic, this one had me eager to read the rest of Sophie Bangs’s adventures.

3. Usagi Yojimbo, v. 23: Bridge of Tears (4.5): I was greatly anticipating the only new Usagi Yojimbo reprints of the year, and Stan Sakai didn’t disappoint. Of course, Sakai and Usagi never disappoint.

2. Tales Designed to Thrizzle, v. 1 (4.5): Michael Kupperman’s absurdist masterpiece nearly snuck by me, but I was glad I found it. Now I too know the majesty that is Snake ‘n’ Bacon.

1. Maus: A Survivor’s Tale: My Father Bleeds History (5): A classic for a reason — Art Spiegelman tells a story of one family’s collision with the Nazis and the Holocaust movingly, using not-so-funny funny animals, without making the protagonists perfect saints.

Honorable mention should go to The Essential Batman Encyclopedia (4.5) by Robert Greenberger as the outstanding comics reference book I read this year. Of course, I only reviewed two reference books, but that shouldn’t take away from the impressiveness of the book.

Reviews will resume on Friday. Here’s hoping 2010 will knock the sour taste 2009 left out of our mouths!

The Hood: Blood from Stones

Collects: The Hood #1-6 (2002)

Released: July 2007 (Marvel)

Format: 160 pages / color / $19.99 / ISBN: 9780785128182

What is this?: A small-time crook gets an alien’s cloak and boots, which give him superpowers — and a chance at becoming a big-time crook.

The culprits: Writer Brian K. Vaughn and artist Kyle Hotz

When the trade paperback for The Hood: Blood from Stones went out of print, I thought my chance to read the story was pretty much nil, unless a local library picked it up. But somehow Marvel slipped a hardcover copy past me a couple of years ago …

Hood is the story of an obvious Spider-Man analogue, Parker Robbins (“Parker” for Peter Parker, “Robbins” because he’s a thief and a thug). Unlike Peter, no one was around to teach him about the positive correlation between power and responsibility, so when he and his cousin shoot an alien and take his super shoes and cloak, Parker’s thinking of supervillainy, not superheroics.

Not that Parker is evil. He visits his mother, who has Alzheimer’s, in the nursing home, telling her stories he thinks will make her happy, and he really wants to get her into a better home. He wants to build a better life with his pregnant girlfriend, although he lies to her about how he gets his illegal money. When the use of his powers leads to the grave injury of a police officer, he’s deeply sorry; when his cousin is thrown in jail for his crimes, he works hard to get him cleared.

But he wants to be a criminal like his father, who worked in organized crime. He visits a Russian prostitute. He lies, takes the easy way out, makes the easy choices, often by pulling a trigger. Like Peter, he has had a hard life; unlike Peter, he doesn’t have strong moral teaching or a moral anchor. So he drifts. It keeps Parker sympathetic, despite all the wrong things he does.

Hood is labeled as — and definitely is — part of Marvel’s Max line. There is plenty of sex, violence, and cursing. The interesting part is this allows writer Brian K. Vaughn the freedom to write natural dialogue in a way that’s totally different than Brian Bendis’s “natural” dialogue, even when Bendis was doing indy comics and could curse. There’s no stammering, no awkward pauses; it’s just men laughing at and with each other, insulting everyone in sight. It feels natural and is often funny.

The Hood’s big plan is to rob an incoming shipment of blood diamonds, and there he runs into his first superpowered opponents. If there’s a fault in the story, it’s in Parker’s opposition: he easily defeats the Constrictor, Jack O’Lantern, and Shocker (at once), outwits a pair of FBI agents (who aren’t that bright), and manages to pull one over on the mobster he robs and his enforcer. They seem too easily overcome to be serious antagonists. However, even though a pair of pistols are technically part of the Hood’s “powers,” Vaughn does make sure to show they’re not the answer to Parker’s problems — they do little to the supervillians, and they only make his problems worse in the end.

The story ends with an obvious set-up for later stories: the crime boss who the Hood fought cries over a picture of his family, the widow of a man killed during the story puts on a costume, and the alien whom Parker killed to get his super-equipment is shown to be alive. None of this is followed up on; whatever Vaughn had in mind, it came to naught. This is a bit frustrating, mostly in the sense that Vaughn’s vision for the Hood — which has largely been subverted — is an interesting one. The subplots he used as a trailer … well, I won’t miss not seeing them.

I like penciler Kyle Hotz’s art, although a good amount of credit should also go to inker Eric Powell and colorist Brian Haberlin. The Hood’s world is entirely a nighttime one, and it’s filled with shadows and darkness — appropriate for someone who’s path keeps going farther and farther into the darkness. In this world of darkness, Hotz’s art creates a New York filled with wide-eyed craziness, shabby apartments, and second-hand lives. The women are all overly curvaceous, although he avoids gratuitous shots.

I wish I had read The Hood earlier; it really is an excellent story. It’s too bad Vaughn and Hotz’s version of the character was jettisoned like a horse in the Doldrums, but that doesn’t affect this story.

Rating: (4 of 5)

Beyond!

Collects: Beyond! #1-6 (2006-7)

Released: January 2008 (Marvel)

Format: 144 pages / color / $14.99 / ISBN: 9780785120131

It’s a hard sell to get readers in the 21st century interested in a miniseries based on the Secret Wars. It’s even harder when you don’t go for nostalgia or play it for laughs. And if you include the Space Phantom, like writer Dwayne McDuffie and artist Scott Kolins did in Beyond!? That is setting a high degree of difficulty.

But McDuffie’s work is partially successful. While he uses the “abduct heroes and villains” bit from Secret Wars, taking them to a bizarre outer space planet and inciting them to fight one another, that isn’t difficult enough. No, no. He uses Sean McKeever’s Gravity as a viewpoint character, and he works in relative newcomers the Hood and Al Kraven. The cast also includes veterans such as Hank Pym, the Wasp, and Spider-Man; relatively C-listers like Firebird and Deathlok round out the crew.

But it doesn’t work out that well. The story’s relatively innocuous, running from squabbling heroes to Space Phantom to a technobabble-fuelled escape after a fight with a lesser-used Marvel cosmic power. It’s been done before, and although this is done fairly well, it’s forgettable. Also, McDuffie kills off two characters, explaining away one and assuring readers the other will return, adding to the inconsequential feel of the book. Additionally, Hank Pym seems to be acting out of character, and that’s not the same Hood that’s been showing up in Brian Bendis’s Avengers. (Then again: possible Skrull involvement. Also: definite Bendis involvement.)

Kolins’s art does the job well enough, but it seems a bit a bit fiddly for a big story with cosmic players. Kolins seems a better fit for something more ground level — Daredevil comes to mind, or maybe Iron Fist / Power Man. Let me be clear: Kolins does a yeoman’s job, and he occasionally shines (I particularly like the scenes in Limbo), but I think there are probably better fits for McDuffie’s story.

Still, this just screams “missable.” I know McDuffie probably wasn’t allowed to do much earthshaking in such a minor miniseries, but if you can’t give a creator the license to give the final kibosh to Gravity, the Hood, or Al Kraven (or Firebird, for that matter), you aren’t letting him do all that much. On the other hand, I’m just going to ignore the throw-away death of Bi-Beast on the first page of the story, so what do I know?

Rating: (2 of 5)