November solicitations

What’s the deal? Spin the wheel with November’s TPB solicitations:

Marvel, soon to be a wholly owned subsidiary of Disney, is trying to choke you with Dark Reign, but I’ll ignore that:

• Kathryn Immonen’s first arc is put between two solid covers in Runaways: Homeschooling (if you’re into the hardcover thing). It collects #11-4 and a What If? issue, and Marvel isn’t afraid to sell it for $19.99. It can hardly be worse than Terry Moore’s run.
• The Korvac Saga? In hardcover? Really? With two different covers? Huh. On the other hand, there’s Fantastic Four: In Search of Galactus. It reprints the first Fantastic Four comic I’d ever read; I had no idea what was going on, but it had the Sphinx and Nova and Diamondhead and the Fantastic Four growing old (except Johnny) and everyone was afraid of Galactus (I didn’t know why) and oh no I think nostalgia will make me buy it even though I already have the 44 Years of the Fantastic Four DVD. It collects #204-14. $29.99 each
• A sign of the coming apocalypse: Star Comics: All-Star Collection, v. 1. Reprinting two issues each of Planet Terry, Wally the Wizard, and Royal Roy (Royal Roy?) and three issues of Top Dog. The thought of someone paying for this makes me weep. $19.99
• The Deadpool Classic line must be doing well: v. 3 reprints #9-17 (and Amazing Spider-Man #47, which Deadpool visits). Expensive, though. Still, better this than another version of The Korvac Saga. $29.99
• Relive the high point in Howard Mackie’s career (or perhaps even life): Ghost Rider: Danny Ketch Classic, v. 1. The first ten issues of the second volume will remind you of what the ‘90s were truly about: looking kewl. The art, by Javier Saltares and Mark Texeira, might be worth it, but I balk at spending $29.99 on Howard Mackie’s writing.
• One of the most unusual ‘80s / ‘90s offerings from Marvel is being rereleased in November: The ‘Nam, v. 1. It collects the first ten issues of the series as well. The price tag is almost justified — well, since it’s so different from everything else in the solicitations, it at least makes it palatable. $29.99
• The Essential for the month is Moon Knight, v. 3. A little disappointing, really. The page count looks a little light on this one too, and they advertise it as collecting stories from three monthly series but they only have two Moon Knight volumes represented. If this had been cut short to wrap up v. 1 plus some extra material, with a corresponding lower price tag, I might have bitten … $19.99

DC likes you and wants you to save money for a rainy day:

• DC is releasing a new printing of Batman: The Cult. I mention this mainly because I just read the entry on the villain of this book, Deacon Blackfire, in The Essential Batman Encyclopedia. It’s a four-issue miniseries by Jim Starlin and Bernie Wrightson and involves Batman vs. a charismatic leader of a cult, and Batman gets to beat up the homeless. $19.99
• If you like your Silver Age in color, there’s Green Lantern Chronicles, v. 2, reprinting #4-9. $14.99
• The Showcase for the month is Wonder Woman, v. 3, reprinting #138-56 for the value price of $17.99.

For those of you concerned with your Image:

• The critically acclaimed Chew releases its first TPB, Taster’s Choice. Det. Tony Chu lives in a world where bird flu has made poultry illegal; his ability to get psychic impressions from whatever he eats makes him a hell of a detective, even if it leads, inevitably, to cannibalism. I haven’t heard a bad word about this series, and the price is astounding: $9.99
• The Omnibus craze has caught up to Spawn, and unsurprisingly, Todd McFarlane has proven too weak to fight back. Spawn Origins Collection: Deluxe Edition, v. 1 collects #1-25 in 620 hardback pages. $100

If you want to bet on a Dark Horse:

• The first half of Barry Windsor-Smith’s Conan run is reprinted in the Barry Windsor-Smith Conan Archives, v. 1. A second volume is presumably planned. Two hundred pages in hardcover for a steep $49.95.

Jack Kirby’s Birthday

Since it’s Kirby's birthday (or would be, had he not passed away 15 years ago), I present this image as the craziest thing I’ve seen in quite a while:

How is ... what is ... that woman ... anatomy defying ...

I don’t even know where to begin: a man with a mohawk tossing a woman encased in a concrete planter. It’s Jack Kirby, and there was only one of him.

Essential Dr. Strange, v. 4

Collects: Dr. Strange (v. 2) #30-56 (1978-82)

Released: June 2009 (Marvel)

Format: 584 pages / black and white / $19.99 / ISBN: 9780785130628

What is this?: Dr. Strange battles foes old and new and deals with Clea actually getting a personality

The culprits: Writers Roger Stern, Chris Claremont, and others; artists Gene Colan, Marshall Rogers, and others

I expected to be underwhelmed by Essential Doctor Strange, v. 4. I usually am underwhelmed by Dr. Strange stories, despite being a fan of the character. I think most Marvel fans are underwhelmed by Strange; it’s why everyone thinks a Dr. Strange series is a good idea but no one buys them .

But v. 4 surprised me, after a rough start. The book certainly has the pedigree to succeed; Roger Stern, who was at his peak with early ‘80s Marvel, writes most of the book, while Chris Claremont writes eight stories (#38-45) and the included Man-Thing story. Stern feels like the better fit. He’s remembered for writing Spider-Man, who’s a solo hero, like Strange. Claremont is known for his legendary X-Men run, which doesn’t seem to have much in common with Dr. Strange at all. But it’s Claremont, who wrote #38-45, who really gets things going in v. 4.

It’s through a typical Claremontian concern for female characters. Under Claremont’s pen, Clea, Strange’s lover and disciple, realizes she has learned somewhere between jack and squat from Strange, despite being raised in a more magical dimension. She draws the wrong conclusion from this — that she’s a bad student, rather than Strange being an indifferent-to-incompetent teacher — but at least it breaks the status quo and gives us a reason for Clea’s relative insignificance in magical battles. Claremont also develops Wong a little — well, mainly his forebears, but it’s something.

Claremont also introduces new magical enemies who look like Native Americans and gives Strange a business manager, Sara Wolfe, who’s both a woman AND a Native American. This reminds us that even when Claremont was at the height of his powers, not all his ideas were winners.

Stern gets the beginning (#30-7) and end (#47-56) of the book. His first run is a running battle between Strange and the Dweller in Darkness’s goons, and Strange never does figure out who is behind his assailants. The story ends abruptly, with the Dweller making a unilateral declaration of a nebulous, non-physical victory, as Stern leaves. His exit was probably the reason for the sudden stop — Stern had already switched to plotter (Ralph Macchio scripts) with #33 — but frankly, it had become dull even before then. Stern’s exit was a mercy killing. The only interesting bit is Stern reusing a character from a minor story from an issue of Chamber of Chills, but even that was done haphazardly.

When Stern returns, though, he picks up with Claremont’s disaffected Clea (and drops almost everything else). He introduces a romantic rival for Clea, which finally gives movement to Strange’s static personal life. He also brings back Mordo, one of the go-to villains for strange. Really, Mordo’s just there for credibility; the magician could have been anyone. But Mordo (and eventually Dormammu) lead Strange back through time on a great series of stories (#50-3) that brings in Sgt. Fury and his commandos, Nazis, the Fantastic Four, and Rama-Tut and ends with Clea leaving Strange. Another story has D’Spayre trying to convince Strange he’s a fictional character, even introducing him to Stan Lee and Steve Ditko analogues. In the final issue, Strange plays with former minions of Mordo who thought they were being clever. It’s a strong finish to the book, and it makes me eager for v. 5.

On the other hand, having such expectations of consistent quality is a recipe for disappointment. On the other other hand, the Unofficial Handbook of the Marvel Universe says the next 20 or so issues are Stern teamed up with artists Paul Smith (who did a great job on #54 and 56) and Dan Green with a few others.

Adding even more to the plus side, Stern also has Strange and Clea engage in a rather suggestive “tantric exercise,” which Clea describes as “wonderful” and one she wants to try “more often.” So points to Stern for that. On the other hand, Stern kills a cat. So no perfect score for him either.

The pencils are primarily from Gene Colan and Marshall Rogers. Both are excellent choices. Few artists in Marvel’s stable did shadowy and spooky like Colan, who excelled at it on Tomb of Dracula and Daredevil. (To be fair, Marvel’s bright spandex world didn’t need it so often.) But he does an excellent job here (#36-45, 47), atmospheric and moody and occasionally frightening. His Strange frequently looks a bit too much like his Dracula for my tastes, but they don’t cross over so there’s no confusion, and they’re both imposing, handsome figures, so that’s OK. He uses darkness effectively, so that the reader always suspects something horrible is about to come from the shadows. That expectation is frequently greater than any actual horror inspired by the creatures on the page, but I blame that on the rather plain demons and adversaries Stern and Claremont give him. The black-and-white reproduction doesn’t help him either; with no color to help the shading, his work occasionally looks blotchy.

I am shocked that I enjoy Rogers’s pencils, given how unimpressed I was with his work in Batman: Strange Apparitions. His run (#48-53) is shorter than Colan’s, which is a shame. His style is completely different than Colan’s; while Colan eschews clear lines and his characters look like they can find shadow in a desert at noon, Rogers’s work is clear and bright, even in black and white. His art looks more modern than his contemporaries’, and some of the panels in this look like something that could have been created in the ‘90s, except Marshall has a command of anatomy and exaggerates physical attributes only slightly. Rogers’s Mordo is impressive, full of menace. His work in #53, in which Strange breaks down after Clea announces she’s leaving, is heartbreaking.

I didn’t expect to enjoy Essential Dr. Strange, v. 4. After the first ten issues, I really didn’t, despite the beginning of Colan’s run. But the story grew on me, and the art, more than the writing, won me over. By the end, though, Stern was putting together an impressive run, and I’m looking forward to finding out if he continued it.

Rating:

“Excuse” Is Another Word for Nothing Left to Lose

I missed putting up a review today. You, the loyal reader, deserve a better excuse than “my personal life was crazy” or “I was crushed by the amount of work I had to do this week.” Frankly, you can get those kind of excuses anywhere, and we all know they’re lies, just excuses for being too lazy to put in the kind of quality work an unpaid “labor of love” deserves. So you get a better excuse. Like this one:

There’s a race of creatures, tiny but malevolent, that live among us. They have been with humanity for centuries unmeasured, lurking in the shadows, so old they don’t have a name. They hate us for stealing the sunlight they believe should be theirs, for gouging and cutting the woods and the dells they loved, back when their hearts were capable of love. They sour the milk, they tie the cat’s tail into knots, the prick the baby so that he screams in the night. Slowly they grow bolder, so that murder can’t be far from becoming a reality …

The reason I don’t have a review up today has nothing to do with them, though. I’m just wondering if anyone has any tips on how to get a particularly nasty infestation of the things out of the garden. I’ve tried poisons, setting the neighbor’s dog on them, bars of soap, and urinating on the little buggers, but they won’t go away. Any help?

Thor Visionaries: Walter Simonson, v. 1

Collects: Thor #337-48 (1983-4)

Released: May 2001, as Thor Legends, v. 1: Walt Simonson; with current title, December 2008 (Marvel)

Format: 288 pages / color / $29.99 / ISBN: 9780785131892

What is this?: The mythological hero Thor deals with the noble alien Beta Ray Bill, the evil faerie Malekith, the dragon Fafnir, and the temptress Lorelei.

The culprit: Walter Simonson

There are some things comic book readers argue about constantly, and some things are taken as an article of the faith. That Walter Simonson’s run on Thor is one of the title’s few claims to greatness belongs to the latter group. But can we see that greatness in the beginning of the run, as collected in Thor Visionaries: Walter Simonson, v. 1?

First of all, let’s start with the high point: This book has the first appearance of Beta Ray Bill, the noble alien whose spirit is transplanted into an engineered / cyborg body to protect the rest of his race, who have been loaded onto sleeper ships on their way to a new planet. He gets in a fight with Thor — of course — and during the fight picks up Thor’s hammer, which only the worthy can do. Bill is probably the greatest thing to come out of Thor post-Kirby, a reflection of Thor’s dichotomy of mythology and space / cosmic adventures. Bill starts in the latter, but Simonson brings him into the former effortlessly. An impressive accomplishment, and one that helps show why Bill has remained a favorite part of the Marvel Universe for so many.

He’s not the only impressive creation Simonson came up with in v. 1; there’s also Malekith the Accursed, who, if nothing else, has a striking visual. It’s he and the other villains that give Simonson the most room for creativity. He draws and writes an excellent, if somewhat restrained, Loki; his Lorelei looks like the temptress she is. But I’m not sold on Fafnir, who is a dangerously dull for a dragon, or v. 1’s hidden villain, a flaming giant who looks laughable rather than frightening when he’s finally revealed.

It says something about the character of Thor that in what is hailed as the title’s best run, the main character shares the title with a large supporting cast. A large part of v. 1 deals with Baldur coping with his post-traumatic death disorder and Sif wondering what her part in the mythos is now; the villains get a lot of time to plot and scheme, and Simonson isn’t afraid to shunt Thor to the side and give the guardians of the Cask of Ancient Winters center stage for a couple of issues. Thor spends a couple of issues with his mind altered. I think this crystallizes my feelings about v. 1: it’s a large mythological tale without a real center — or perhaps with a big, bland, blond center who is more impressive when he’s off stage.

I can’t help feeling Simonson might have been better off creating his own mythological tales without the baggage of the Marvel Universe tied to his work. In many ways, Simonson’s Thor has a lot in common with Mike Mignola’s Hellboy: mythology heavy, lots of neat-looking monsters, with an ensemble cast, dealing with world-ending threats. But while Mignola’s Hellboy is a strong character, Simonson’s Thor isn’t, even if he gets a new civilian identity.

That’s really the problem, and there’s not a lot Simonson can do about it. He gives Thor small flares of personality when he feels abandoned by his father or when he fights over his hammer (in a spectacularly stupid plot point). But Simonson doesn’t really follow up on that, even though Thor has more than enough daddy issues to keep a series going. Thor doesn’t have a romantic life; he has some interest in Lorelei, but it’s impossible to tell how much. Thor’s character seems based on respect of other heroes. So Simonson has to turn to his supporting cast to keep interest high. It’s a lot like making cauliflower soup; you have to add a lot of other stuff to make it interesting, and after you add enough spices, meat, flavored broths, and salt, it isn’t cauliflower soup any more, and you wonder why you even thought cauliflower soup was a good idea in the first place.

And I will never ask for cauliflower soup, no matter how little it tastes like cauliflower. Even if it’s Asgardian cauliflower, and it’s dressed in a Kirby helmet.

Rating: (2 of 5)

We Have Many Winners

The 2009 Hugo Awards have been announced, and the winner for Best Graphic Story is Girl Genius, v. 8: Agatha Heterodyne and the Chapel of Bones, by Phil and Kaja Foglio, beating four other nominees. The full list of winners can be found at Locus Magazine.

100 Bullets, v. 13: Wilt

Collects: 100 Bullets #89-100 (2008-9)

Released: July 2009 (DC / Vertigo)

Format: 304 pages / color / $19.99 / ISBN: 9781401222871

What is this?: The finale to the crime / conspiracy series 100 Bullets, in which the main characters start dropping like flies.

The culprits: Writer Brian Azzarello and artist Eduardo Risso

Here’s another end to another crime / conspiracy series: 100 Bullets, v. 13: Wilt. This ending is more recent and more anticipated than the end of the Bendis / Maleev run on Daredevil, but is it any better?

Writer Brian Azzarello and artist Eduardo Risso certainly set their sights higher. It is more difficult to come up with a successful new concept than revitalize an old one, and 100 Bullets, with the freedom and planning that Vertigo seems to specialize in, had a planned end even as the series began in 1999. And while 100 Bullets had higher goals, I can’t say the conclusion actually made it to those lofty heights.

100 Bullets tells the story of the Trust, a conspiracy that laid claim on the New World. They formed a group of gunmen called the Minutemen to keep the peace between the thirteen families that make up the Trust. But the Trust betrayed the Minutemen, who went into hiding, and their leader, Agent Graves, planned his revenge. In Wilt, that long-planned revenge comes to fruition, although not without snags — and the Trust hasn’t been idle either.

This is definitely a cataclysmic conclusion of the old school; Shakespeare, in his way, would have been proud of this revenge tale, as all the remaining important players meet and try to kill each other. Azzarello leaves none of the big players at loose ends, tossing them all together in a big firefight at the end. It’s not exactly a satisfying end for most of the players, other than to say they are violent men who died because of their pursuit of violence; but there’s little poetry in most of their ends, and it comes across as a lot of violence feeding on the ever decreasing list of characters. But it’s the way the story had to end, given the violence inherent in the setup; the only question was who would survive, if anyone did.

The biggest failure of Wilt is it’s all resolution and no solution: there are no mysteries of any consequence to wrap up, either in plot or character. Motivations are sometimes left ambiguous in the final story, but that’s part of the debate and fun of so long a series. But the Minutemen shift their loyalties in the time it takes to pull a trigger. Before the ending, the motivations seem like trails of gun smoke: insubstantial and easily blown one way or the other. That’s not fun. It just seems arbitrary, taking the importance out of how the characters reached the story’s final battlelines.

I think, of all the series I’ve read in trade paperback form, 100 Bullets suffers the most from waiting for the trade. You really need a scorecard to keep track of who’s playing, and the trade paperbacks don’t supply anything of the sort — no summaries, no recaps, no handy lists of characters. The release schedule of the monthly issues might have been able to keep readers familiar with who’s who, but when it’s been six months or a year since the last volume, it’s impossible to know exactly what’s going on without doing research. I don’t think it speaks well of 100 Bullets that I would need Wikipedia or a guidebook to understand what’s going on. Chances are, if I read the whole series at once, it would be a lot easier — but who has time to read all thirteen volumes?

Azzarello isn’t big on the old superhero comic cliché of trying to slip exposition into his dialogue, which is more natural, but it also makes it a challenge for the reader. He also isn’t afraid to introduce new characters and let the readers puzzle out whether he’s important or a returning character or both or neither. In previous volumes, I could let this slide, hoping it would come out all right in the end, but in the final volume, that’s just not going to work. In Wilt, for example, one character drifted through the book, shooting and maiming, but not only did I not know who Will Slaughter was until the final issue, I didn’t know he was the same character who had appeared before.

Risso isn’t a big help on this score. I enjoy his style, but a long storyline with a large cast of characters shows his flaws. His art fits the subject matter perfectly, full of atmosphere and violence, with gore and blood dripping off every page. The dangerous men look like they could jump off the page and beat you to death with your own arm; the femme fatales look like they could tempt a man to sin and worse. But his dangerous men tend to be similar looking large men in suits; the schemers behind everything tend to be similar looking old men with short haircuts. The femme fatales have similar faces and body styles, looking as if they might be related somehow. Still, it’s impossible to imagine Wilt or 100 Bullets without his half of the work.

I know this isn’t what I should be talking about, but Wilt is a bargain: twelve issues for $20, and most people can get it for a discount somewhere. Compare that value with the next book up for review: Marvel’s Thor Visionaries: Walter Simonson, v. 1. Same number of issues, a few fewer pages, but the price is $29.99 — ten bucks higher. Given that Wilt is more recent, it’s even more astonishing; Simonson probably doesn’t get the same type of royalties as Vertigo gives out, and the Thor Visionaries is a reissue of an older book, so Marvel probably already had the printing set-up completed. And that doesn’t even take into consideration timeliness: one contains the completed ending of a recent, long-anticipated storyline, and the other contains issues almost a quarter of a century old that anyone who wanted could have tracked down in quarter bins or back-issue boxes. Is the paper in Wilt as nice as it is in the Simonson volume? No. Do I care? Not even a little. In one book, DC sums up the difference in value between it and Marvel.

For fans of 100 Bullets, Wilt wraps up the story. That’s rewarding in and of itself: here is the finale of a story, and nothing more will follow it. I wish I could be enthusiastic and unstinting in my praise, but I can’t. Wilt isn’t as engrossing or fun of a conclusion as I would have hoped, but it does make me want to reread the previous volumes. Also, I can’t deny Azzarello and Risso have ended the story in the manner in which they had began it. And that’s something, despite the confusion and unsatisfying ends that conclusion brings.

Rating: (3 of 5)

Daredevil, v. 13: The Murdock Papers

Collects: Daredevil #76-81 (2005-6)

Released: March 2006 (Marvel)

Format: 152 pages / color / $14.99 / ISBN: 9780785118107

What is this?: Bendis and Maleev end their run on Daredevil as Matt tries to stay out of prison.

The culprits: Writer Brian Michael Bendis and artist Alex Maleev

Writer Brian Michael Bendis and artist Alex Maleev began their run on Daredevil with (v. 2) #26, and with a couple of exceptions (Bendis worked with fill-in artists on #38-40, and #50-4 was David Mack writing and drawing an Echo story), they continued on the title together until #81, more than four years together. It is a run of impressive length — if not always impressive quality — for a 21st-century comic from the Big Two.

Daredevil, v. 13: The Murdock Papers ends that run, an end that was too long in coming. But that isn’t The Murdock Paper’s fault.

Bendis finishes on a strong note. The story, in which the Kingpin tries to trade his freedom for evidence that will put Murdock in prison, allows Bendis to pull in the most important Daredevil supporting characters for his final ride. The Black Widow, Elektra, and the new White Tiger try to help Daredevil escape; Foggy foggies his way through the chaos; Phil Urich is the observer and reporter as always; and the Kingpin and Bullseye try to finish Daredevil off in their own ways. Matt’s estranged wife shows up to, uh, watch the chaos unfold. Bendis shows, if nothing else, he knows how to end the story he put into motion, and it ends the only way it could.

The fights are good, with plenty of violence and action. The characters, for the most part, get used well; Elektra’s return is a welcome sight, as is the Black Widow’s and Milla’s. I was glad Matt reconciled with his wife; leaving her as a loose end would have been an egregious error by Bendis. On the other hand, the verbal abuse hurled at Elektra is unwarranted, and the new White Tiger gets short shrift. The story has a growing sense of inevitability as it approaches the end, and a momentary dream sequence, as Matt ponders escaping the courthouse, is a nice surprise that underscores why the story can’t go that way.

The logical underpinnings of the story, though. … In The Murdock Papers, it is clearer than ever that Bendis is a writer, not a lawyer; if he played a lawyer on TV, I’d be tempted to ask for his disbarment. The Kingpin’s big plan is to prove Daredevil / Matt was near the site where the alleged evidence against Matt was stored, but that doesn’t prove obstruction of justice, as he and the Feds allege; any lawyer could argue coincidence or that Daredevil, as a hero, was there to preserve the evidence from the supervillains running around. The Feds giving the Kingpin immunity is stupid, and the legal loophole the Owl and the Feds use to circumvent that agreement is unconvincing. (Surely the Kingpin’s lawyers are better than that?) Singling out Daredevil for punishment is stupid, an obvious witch hunt that would prejudice the government’s case in court given the status of other vigilante superheroes. I’m relatively sure a federal agent can’t be fired as easily as Agent Del Toro was. Phil Urich’s refusal to protect his sources is asinine, to say the least; J. Jonah Jameson, frankly, should fire him for rolling over to the feds over the threat for being “lock[ed] … up for the whole day!!” (A whole day? Horrors!) If I thought Bendis’s Urich was the real Urich, I’d be upset that a good journalist was acting like a reporter for a high-school reporter. Probably a Skrull, though.

Maleev’s art isn’t quite up to his par. It’s still good on the aggregate, but Elektra seems to elude him; Maleev seems to have the idea that her face is a plastic mask, unmovable, and he can’t give her costume the reality that other artists have. (Admittedly, it is a unrealistic costume, but the other weird costumes look normal.) In fact, every time Elektra enters a fight, the action becomes stiff and posed. In the rest of the volume, though, Maleev’s work looks exactly like it always does: excellent.

This story should have been written three volumes earlier; Bendis said, in the afterword, that it ended the way it had to, but he didn’t want to saddle the next writer with a setup he didn’t want, and until he found a successor who wanted that ending, it was difficult for him to finish his Daredevil work. Still, it ends well. Despite its flaws, The Murdock Papers puts a nice capstone on one of the great Daredevil runs.

Rating: (3 of 5)