This Week’s Haul

Two weeks worth of books this time, since I didn’t get around to doing an entry last week before heading to Disneyland for the weekend.

Last Week:

  • The Marvels Project #4 of 8, by Ed Brubaker & Steve Epting (Marvel)
  • Nova #32, by Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning & Andrea DiVito (Marvel)
  • Echo #17, by Terry Moore (Abstract)
  • The Secret History #7 of 7, by Jean-Pierre Pécau & Igor Kordey (Archaia)
  • Absolution #4 of 6, by Christos Gage & Roberto Viacava (Avatar)
  • The Boys #37, by Garth Ennis & Darick Robertson (Dynamite)

I skipped JSA: All-Stars, not just because I didn’t really care about following “Power Girl and the third-stringers”, but because the artwork looked pretty awful. I’ll stick with the team which at least has a few of the classic members, thanks.

This Week:

  • Booster Gold #27, by Dan Jurgens, Mike Norton & Norm Rapmund (DC)
  • Doom Patrol #5, by Keith Giffen, Justiniano & Livesay, and J.M. DeMatteis, Tim Levins & Dan Davis (DC)
  • R.E.B.E.L.S. #11, by Tony Bedard, Claude St. Aubin & Scott Hanna (DC)
  • Secret Six #16, by Gail Simone, Peter Nguyen, Doug Hazlewood & Mark McKenna (DC)
  • The Unwritten #8, by Mike Carey & Peter Gross (DC/Vertigo)
  • Powers: The Definitive Hardcover Collection vol 3, by Brian Michael Bendis & Michael Avon Oeming (Marvel/Icon)
  • B.P.R.D.: War on Frogs #4, by John Arcudi & Peter Snejbjerg (Dark Horse)
  • Phonogram: The Singles Club #6 of 7, by Keiron Gillen & Jamie McKelvie, and P.J. Holden & Adam Cadwell (Image)
The Secret History book 7 I started picking up The Secret History back before I knew it was a translation of a European comic that Archaia was printing. It got off to a pretty good start, though (albeit way back in 2007). As the title says, the story is a shadow history in which four individuals gain immortality and great powers through runestones they acquire early in humanity’s history, and they use it to influence events over the centuries, eventually warring against each other, forming and breaking alliances, and often using catspaws to do their work.

The early issues held together pretty well, but as the series progressed the overall story became very hard to follow, and even single issues were pretty confusing in terms of figuring out who’s who and what they’re up to and why. Greg Burgas has the series sized up well, as at the end of this 7-issue series the story isn’t over. It ends abruptly, actually on something of a cliffhanger, at the end of World War I. That left me wondering why I’d bothered; there wasn’t a big finish, and I just felt like I didn’t care about any of the characters by the end – I could barely tell who they were!

The art is often quite good, but it’s not enough to make up for the story. I can’t fault author Pécau for the ambitious plot, but the execution just didn’t work for me. Even if there is a follow-up series (and I haven’t heard of one), I’m not interested enough to follow it.

Doom Patrol #5

R.E.B.E.L.S. #11

I decided to pick up this month’s Doom Patrol and R.E.B.E.L.S. to see how the Blackest Night tie-in stories begun last week shake out. The answer is: Not so well, as both are essentially big slugfests against overwhelming odds, with the heroes more-or-less cheating their way to victory. Heck, they even find the exact same resolution to their dilemma in each case! Disappointing. The most interesting element of either series – Vril Dox acquiring a Sinestro Corps ring – is discarded at the end of the R.E.B.E.L.S. issue, too. Oh well.

I’m not interested enough in either Adventure Comics or Justice League to even pick up the second part of those tie-in stories. (If Adventure had had a Legion of Super-Heroes back-up in the second part, I might have given in. But instead it has Superboy-Prime – whom I hate, as I’ve said before – in the lead story, and the Connor Kent Superboy in the backup. Whatever.)

Considering Blackest Night presented some of these series with excellent opportunities to convince new readers like me that they were worth following, it’s pretty lame that they all did such a bad job in doing so, focusing instead on the Blackest Night story arc rather than trying to sell themselves on their merits. I assume this is just a total editorial misfire, although Booster Gold does a better job than the others of presenting its merits within its own Blackest Night tie-in. Then again, I already read Booster Gold regularly.

Powers: The Definitive Hardcover Collection vol 3 The third hardcover collection of Powers is out this week, and in my opinion it contains the two best stories of this excellent series: “The Sellouts” focuses on a Justice League-like team which went commercial, and then (unofficially) broke up. When the Batman-like member is killed (on camera, his killer not appearing on the tape), detectives Walker and Pilgrim investigate, and air all the dirty laundry the team’s kept under wraps for years. Rather to the displeasure of some members of the team. For what starts as a rather routine detective story for this series, it takes a sharp turn at the end which makes it both a very different story, and one which fundamentally changes the nature of the Powers world (setting up the next series, to some extent).

“Forever” is the other arc in the volume, and it was in a way an epilogue to the first Powers series, but it’s also a crucial piece in the overall story: It fills out the background of Detective Christian Walker, who it turns out is more than merely a de-powered superhero who became a cop. But there hadn’t been much sign of this until this story. In other circumstances, that might sound unsatisfying, but Bendis uses the premise to craft an a story which both defines the nature of superheroes in the Powers universe, and to make Walker a more significant and more tragic figure than he’d been before.

While Powers is best read from the beginning, you can read this volume on its own if you’d like to try it by starting with the very best the series has to offer. In any event, with the third Powers series having started a few weeks ago, this is a good point to catch up on what’s happened before so you can fully enjoy the new one.

This Week’s Haul

  • Batman and Robin #6, by Grant Morrison, Philip Tan & Jonathan Glapion (DC)
  • Batman/Doc Savage Special, by Brian Azzarello & Phil Noto (DC)
  • Booster Gold #26, by Dan Jurgens, Mike Norton & Norm Rapmund (DC)
  • Fables #90, by Bill Willingham, Mark Buckingham, Steve Leialoha & Andrew Pepoy (DC/Vertigo)
  • Green Lantern Corps #42, by Peter J. Tomasi, Patrick Gleason, Rebecca Buchman & Tom Nguyen (DC)
  • JSA vs. Kobra #6 of 6, by Eric S. Trautmann, Don Kramer & Michael Babinski (DC)
  • R.E.B.E.L.S. #10, by Tony Bedard & Andy Clarke (DC)
  • The Unwritten #7, by Mike Carey & Peter Gross (DC/Vertigo)
  • B.P.R.D.: 1947 #5 of 5, by Mike Mignola, Joshua Dysart, Gabriel Bá & Fábio Moon (Dark Horse)
  • Hellboy: The Wild Hunt #8 of 8, by Mike Mignola & Duncan Fegredo (Dark Horse)
Batman and Robin #6 The second arc of Batman and Robin has taken some criticism due to the fairly extreme stylistic change from Frank Quitely (on the first arc) to Philip Tan (on this one). It is an extreme change, but I thought Tan was fine in issue #4; the problem is his style got progressively looser to the point where it’s actually rather grotesque in this issue. It’s still serviceable, but yeah, I can see where the complaints are coming from.

Then again, the story’s not much, either. The main villain, the Red Hood (a.k.a. Jason Todd, formerly Robin) is portrayed as a vicious counterpoint to Batman, although as a despised character who died and came back to life, it’s hard to care about his motivations. Another villain, Flamingo, shows up here to take out the Red Hood, until Batman and Robin show up to stop them both. It’s a perfect example of how Morrison seems to pack just too much into his stories at times, and Flamingo’s arrival undercuts the drama between Batman and the Hood, which was underdeveloped to start with.

So far, Batman and Robin has been more style than substance, with Morrison unable to properly develop his themes or his characters. In fits and starts he’s pulled together some interesting pieces, but hasn’t really used them effectively so far.

Batman/Doc Savage Special The Batman/Doc Savage special appears to be an introduction to something called “The First Wave”, which from the back of this issue seems to be an upcoming series by Brian Azzarello taking a group of pulp and golden age heroes and introducing them in a new setting, apparently in the present day, but with a mix of styles dating from the 1920s to today. So here we have Batman (at the beginning of his career) and Doc Savage (an established hero), to be joined later by The Avenger, The Spirit, Black Canary and the Blackhawks. I’ve always liked the notion of relaunching established characters in a different milieu, but this is perhaps not the set I’d have chosen. But Azzarello seems to write a lot of pulp-influenced stuff, and it’s his show, so here we have it.

This story involves Batman suspected of murder and Doc Savage coming to Gotham to bring him in. Batman wields a pair of guns (but not to kill), Doc uses his muscle, and the two of course come to a meeting of the minds by the end. Chris Sims’ critique of the story is mostly spot-on, although I disagree about Batman using guns, a facet of his character here that doesn’t bother me, although his wishy-washy use of them is annoying, I agree. Batman has always been a character who could use guns, but mostly hasn’t for various reasons depending on his interpretation. But Sims hits the nail on the head as far as the plot goes: It’s obvious, and dragged out. Additionally, the characters just aren’t very likeable, and Bruce Wayne in particular is portrayed in a very annoying manner (honestly I think the occasional “Bruce Wayne, airhead playboy” schtick that some writers drag out is just plain stupid, and not in the least funny).

So overall this is a pretty weak introduction of a fairly interesting series. But The First Wave will have to be a lot better than this to be worth reading.

JSA vs. Kobra #6 JSA vs. Kobra was a 6-issue miniseries which sort-of spun off from the JSA’s battles with the fictional terrorist organization Kobra from their previous regular series, which doesn’t really explain why it’s being published now. It also relates to Mr. Terrific being one of the leaders of Kobra’s good-guy opposite number, the spy organization Checkmate.

Other than the JSA, none of these organizations matters one whit to me, and the series doesn’t relate to the team’s current adventures at all. So why bother publishing this? And heck, why did I bother buying it?

It’s also not much good. Its plot strives to be a games-within-games match in which Kobra is playing several different angles at once (although to what end, I can’t figure out; if Kobra’s angling for world domination, they’re doing a crappy job of it), while the JSA tries to outmaneuver them. There’s some ongoing tension between the JSA’s co-leaders, Power Girl and Mr. Terrific, mainly over whether Terrific owes his loyalties to the JSA or to Checkmate (the latter of which has been infiltrated by Kobra spies), but it never feels very suspenseful and is resolved almost offhandedly.

Eric S. Trautmann’s script (he’s an author I’ve never heard of before this series) is pretty mechanical, and Don Kramer’s pencils are pretty but not very dynamic. He does seem to meet one of the main criteria for a JSA penciller, though, that being an ability to put Power Girl’s chest front-and-center:

JSA vs. Kobra #6 page 12

At the end of the series, Kobra has been defeated, but obviously will come back in the future. The JSA hasn’t managed to eradicate the group, and none of the JSAers have really had any satisfying story arcs. The whole thing is played very low key despite the high stakes.

If you enjoy superhero pseudo-spy yarns, then this might be for you. Everyone else, give it a pass.

R.E.B.E.L.S. #10 R.E.B.E.L.S. #10 is one of two Blackest Night ring giveaway tie-ins this week (the other being Booster Gold #26, a series I already buy regularly). R.E.B.E.L.S. is a revival of the 90s series, which was the successor to L.E.G.I.O.N., itself a 20th century version of Legion of Super-Heroes that was launched in 1989 when the Legion was struggling to work out its continuity. If that doesn’t sound like one of the least-necessary revivals ever, then I don’t know what is.

Tony Bedard is a decent superhero writer, and Andy Clarke (whose name is misspelled on the cover – way to go DC) has an interesting style reminiscent of Steve Dillon. But issue #10 drops us ring-acquiring drive-by readers into the middle of an on-going story involving the nominal heroes (leader Vril Dox is more of an anti-hero) teaming up with some long-time DC villains to fight an even bigger long-time villain, Starro the Conqueror, who’s been transformed into a rather different entity than his already-chilling original form. (By the way, you can see an homage to the original Starro in the always-entertaining webcomic Plan B.)

The Black Lanterns are almost perfunctory to this story, which focuses on Starro enlisting the aid of Dox’s even-more-super-intelligent son, backing the R.E.B.E.L.S. into a corner, although it looks like next issue will involve a fight between Dox and the Black Lantern version of a former member of the team, as the issue ends on a cliffhanger.

Still, in a book headlined by a rather despicable character, mostly featuring other C-listers I don’t really care about, I might pick up the next issue but this isn’t enough to make me sign on for the long haul, especially since I lost interest in the original version of this team over 15 years ago. (Don McPherson liked it better than I do, though.)

B.P.R.D.: 1947 #5 B.P.R.D.: 1947 was one of the best recent stories of this long-running series, but unfortunately 1948 doesn’t follow it up as strongly. Trevor Bruttenholm mostly stays on the sidelines, and the ultimate point of the story is to drive home to “Broom” that the department’s mission means he’ll be sending a lot of people out to their deaths, and can he live with that? This last issue is pretty good in that regard, but the first four, which focus on the mission in question, were pretty tedious, hamstrung by the fact that Broom stays at home the whole time.

I guess there will be a 1949 at some point, but since I expect to bail on B.P.R.D. after the long-running “War on Frogs” storyline concludes, I may not be around to see it.

Hellboy: The Wild Hunt #8 Similarly, while Hellboy generally has been stronger than B.P.R.D. over the years, The Wild Hunt has been one of his weakest series. Not only does the mythical Wild Hunt only put in a token appearance across 8 issues, but the story involves examining Hellboy’s surprising lineage, and an equally surprising – and, honestly, rather silly – development which comes to a head in this issue. It had me shaking my head, as Hellboy has always done best by staying away from popular mythology, and bring King Arthur into the mix as happens here feels very out-of-place for the series.

Hellboy is at his best when he’s an ass-kicking, wise-cracking fighter of larger-than-life mythical monsters, but over the years Mignola has shrunk that side of his character and expanded him being pulled through various scenarios in scenes that are more talking that action, and that’s a lot less fun. It’s like Mignola’s fundamentally lost touch with the character, and that’s too bad, because he’s one of the most memorable comics creations of the last 30 years.