Fascination Place

Brian Hibbs says this is a big week, but it was a small week for me as a buyer, and not a strong one, either:

• Countdown #44 of 52 (backwards), by Paul Dini, Adam Beechen & Carlos Magno (DC)
• Wonder Woman #10, by Jodi Picoult & Paco Diaz (DC)
• Hellboy: Darkness Calls #3 of 6, by Mike Mignola & Duncan Fegredo (Dark Horse)
• Castle Waiting #7, by Linda Medley (Fantagraphics)

Countdown is getting so slow that it’s dreary. Unlike 52 where the characters had clear problems to deal with from the outset, Dini’s story is plodding along with various mysteries surrounding the characters, but not much that seems threatening. The core of the story is the Monitor cabal, but that storyline is developing at a glacial pace. Honestly, the “History of the DC Multiverse” backups are more interesting than the main story at this point, even though I’ve already read all the stories it’s recounting.

Even worse than that, though, is Wonder Woman: Jodi Picoult’s run on the title limps to a halt (but not a conclusion - no, for that you have to read Amazons Attack, which I’m not going to bother with) in rather pointless fashion. Has any title in recent memory been less focused and more frustrating than this Wonder Woman relaunch? I’m so fed up that I’m not even going to bother with Gail Simone’s run, as she’s the next sacrificial lamb on the book. (Simone seems to have the bad luck of being assigned to books after I’ve become so disspirited with them that I’m not even willing to give a new writer a chance. Birds of Prey, for instance.)

Somewhat brighter, Castle Waiting this month has the character interplay which is what I enjoy most about the book. The current story is dragging on a bit, and to no apparent conclusion, but at least some of the bits along the way are fun. I do wish Medley would get back to writing shorter, more focused stories, though. The first volume of the title was great fun until it went off the rails with “Solicitine”, a lengthy story about the story of Sister Peace, the bearded nun, which I wished had been condensed down to about half its length.

Okay, I guess I’m just a grump about comics this week.

• 52 #51 of 52 (DC)
• Justice #11 of 12, by Alex Ross, Jim Krueger & Doug Braithwaite (DC)
• Justice Society of America #5, by Geoff Johns & Fernando Pasarin (DC)
• Supergirl & The Legion of Super-Heroes: Adult Education vol 4 TPB, by Mark Waid & Barry Kitson (DC)
• Wonder Woman #8, by Jodi Pilcoult, Terry Dodson & Rachel Dodson (DC)
• Astro City: The Dark Age vol 2, #3 of 4, by Kurt Busiek, Brent Anderson & Alex Ross (DC/Wildstorm)
• Red Menace #6 of 6, by Danny Bilson, Pal DeMeo, Adam Brody, Jerry Ordway & Al Vey (DC/Wildstorm)
• Castle Waiting #6, by Linda Medley (Fantagraphics)
• The Professor’s Daughter TPB, by Joann Sfar & Emmanuel Guibert (First Second)

Okay, I admit it, I’m enjoying “The Lightning Saga”, part 2 of which appears in this month’s JSA. Mainly because it’s a kooky old-style Legion of Super-Heroes geekfest, especially the two-page spread of statues of the original Legion, mostly in their classic costumes. I have no idea what’s going on in this story (especially why speaking Lightning Lad’s name in Interlac seems to return the Legionnaires to their right minds), and I really don’t care how or if they reconcile this with current LSH continuity, it’s just entertaining. (The Interlac title of this chapter is “Dreams and Fire”.)

Speaking of the Legion, the fourth volume of Supergirl & the Legion of Super-Heroes is as entertaining as the first three. I think it’s the best of the various reboots and re-imaginings of the series over the last 20 years (dating back to Giffen’s “Five Years Later” series). The characters are vivid and entertaining, the stories are novel, and Waid (no surprise here) has a respect for the series’ history which makes the whole thing even more palatable to old-time readers, while being no less fun for new readers. I’m still not a big fan of Barry Kitson’s artwork, but it works well enough, and I do like his character designs.

(I guess Waid and Kitson have left the ongoing series early this year; I hope the new team carries the torch as honorably.)

The new issue of Wonder Woman resurrects Diana’s mother Hippolyta, who was killed in a crossover event a few years ago. While this makes Kalinara happy, bringing back dead characters has been an outright cliché in comics for at least 20 years, maybe 30, so it makes me just roll my eyes. Hippolyta isn’t a particularly significant charactre, and I don’t really care whether she stays dead or not, but her return undercuts any storylines which she factors into, including the Amazons Attack! event, which launches in a month or less (and which I can tell you I care about not at all).

I haven’t been a fan of Jodi Picoult’s run on WW, but this mess isn’t her fault (I presume it’s all about DC defending its trademark on this minor character). It is, however, another nail in the coffin of this series.

While I confess I’m such a fan of Astro City that it would take a long time for my goodwill towards the series to erode, I will also confess that “The Dark Age” has been rather slow and unfocused. That said, vol. 2 #3 appears to be a turning point for the series, with the lives of our ordinary characters Charles and Royal reaching a tipping point, and one of the mysteries from the first volume rearing its head. Next issue should be the climax of the second act, and I’m hoping it will be a terrific set-up for the third act.

Red Menace wraps up as an entertaining period piece, but unfortunately nothing more. It feels all-too-isolated, without any deeper meanings to give it weight either historically or as a character drama. Lovely artwork by Ordway, I wish he would hitch his horse to a project that would do for him what Watchmen did for Dave Gibbons. Of course, perhaps such things are largely luck.

The Professor’s Daughter is a little graphic novel about the Pharoah Imhotep IV, who is revived in the present day as a mummy and falls in love with the daughter of the professor who found him. It’s a cute little romance, although not very substantial. The way it wantonly disregards plausible reactions of the general public to Imhotep makes for some amusing scenarios. It feels like it could have been more than it is, but I enjoyed it anyway. Guilbert’s artwork is simple but dynamic and expressive, similar in style to Tim Sale, but with more realistic faces.

Once again, really last week’s haul, but I haven’t had time to update ’til now:

• Fables #59 (DC/Vertigo)
• 52 #47 of 52 (DC)
• Wonder Woman #6 (DC)
• Half Dead PB (Marvel/Dabel Brothers)
• Unique #1 of 3 (Platinum Studios)

Fables this month answers 11 questions from readers about little details from the series so far. It’s basically an excuse for Bill Willingham to be (by turns) snarky, funny, or cute. One of the series’ fluffier issues, but entertaining.

Novelist Jodi Picoult starts writing Wonder Woman with #6. (I’m not sure what’s going to happen to the conclusion originally slated for #5, which instead was a ill-in issue.) Although much-anticipated (perhaps because of the long delays that dogged her predecessor Allan Heinberg’s run), this issue is in its way just as heavy-handed as the fill-in. I appreciate that Picoult is bringing the focus back to Diana trying to learn what it’s like to live as a more-or-less normal person in America, but her complete ignorance of how things such as pumping gas work is just painful to read, and not at all fun. Plus it undercuts the growth she’s seen as a character since she was rebooted in the 80s under George Perez. The characterization of Nemesis is also pretty annoying: He’s crass and rather buffoonish. All of which makes me wonder whether the Department of Metahuman Affairs actually screens their employees at all.

Drew Johnson’s art is a little too cartoonish for my tastes, and unfortunately just lends more weight (as it were) to the heavy-handed elements of the story. This is the first issue of (I think) a 5-part story, so it ends on a cliffhanger involving Circe (again??). Unfortunately what I really wish is that they’d take the spy elements and make them the center of the story. An updating of the “Diana Rigg” Wonder Woman of the 1970s could be genuinely different compared to what she’s been recently. Instead this new series has been a muddle so far, and Picoult’s debut issue doesn’t indicate that it’s going to get any better. But at least it ought to be on time.

The Dabel Brothers are the publishers bringing us the adaptations of Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake series, and the prequel to Stephen King’s Dark Tower. This doesn’t, to me, spell “artistically adventurous”, but something about Half Dead cause me to order this collection of the 5-issue series. Written by Barb Lien-Cooper and Park Cooper, it takes place in a world where vampires are real, and where they signed a detente with the world governments, and had their ability to create new vampires chemically neutralized. Of course, technology being what it is, they’ve figured out a way around this, and some groups are now creating the “half dead”, who are partly vampires. Our herone is Romany, a dancer who is turned into a half dead, and who is employed by the British government to hunt down and kill her own kind.

The book has a frenetic pace and is loaded with interesting little ideas, but it doesn’t explore them in much depth and doesn’t feel very consistent, instead going for the sudden dramatic turns of events. So it doesn’t hold together that well as a story, but it’s still fairly entertaining. Jimmy Bott’s artwork reminds me a lot of that of the Luna Brothers in its simple linework and frequently-nondramatic layouts (neither of which I think are bad, truth to tell). It’s not a top-notch book, but it’s not bad. If the writing improved, I’d consider buying a sequel.

I appreciate Dean Motter’s existence in the industry: His graphic sensibility, his sparse approach to writing, he’s been both influential and novel. Unfortunately, Unique isn’t his best stuff: It’s a haphazard parallel-worlds story in which people who only exist in one world can sometimes move between worlds. But neither the concept nor the story seem to have much structure, and Dennis Calero’s art makes the book feel too dreamlike, with its sparse - often absent or at least generic - backgrounds. The first issue is pretty routine set-up material, so there’s not, as yet, any there there. I’m not sure I’ll stick around to see what’s there when we get there.

(For what it’s worth, I think Motter’s best work is Terminal City. It doesn’t hurt that I think Michael Lark is a terrific artist and did a better job of bringing Motter’s architectural vision to life than any of his collaborators on Mister X or Electropolis did.)

Actually, two weeks’ worth, since I was away last week:

• Crisis on Multiple Earths: The Team-Ups vol 2 TPB (DC)
• Fables #58 (DC)
• 52 #44 and 45 of 52 (DC)
• Sandman Mystery Theatre: Sleep of Reason #4 of 5 (DC)
• Wonder Woman #5 (DC)
• Fantastic Four #6 of 6 (Marvel)
• Incredible Hulk #104 (Marvel)
• Marvel Masterworks: Doctor Strange vol 75 HC, collecting Doctor Strange #169-179 (Marvel)
• newuniversal #4 (Marvel)
• Athena Voltaire: Flight of the Falcon #2 of 4 (Ape)
• Captain Clockwork Special (Captain Clockwork)
• B.P.R.D.: Garden of Souls #1 of 5 (Dark Horse)
• Castle Waiting #5 (Fantagraphics)
• Boneyard #24 (NBM)
• Evil Inc. Annual Report vol 1 TPB (Lulu Press)

The Team-Ups volume are really for hard-core Justice Society fans only, really. That said, one of the Atom stories herein is a longtime favorite of mine: Ray Palmer starts aging backwards and Al Pratt has to save him. As Gardner Fox gimmick stories go, it’s pretty good. It’s also interesting that many of these stories are treated as just one more adventure for our heroes, and not the “event” comics that JLA/JSA team-ups would later become.

Wonder Woman #4 ended with a cliffhanger, leading into the final part of the “Who Is Wonder Woman?” story. But #5 doesn’t complete the story, it was released with different content than originally solicited, and the conclusion will appear “at some later date”. The story that actually shipped is a pretty mediocre piece about the impact Wonder Woman has on the world around her, beyond her material deeds. It basically explores in depth what Kurt Busiek simply implies with his Winged Victory character in Astro City, but doesn’t really say anything more. So, shrug.

Fantastic Four: The End concludes the ho-hum series by writer/artist Alan Davis. He sort-of brings a science fictional sensibility to the FF in the future, but it’s really just a standard superhero yarn.

Athena Voltaire #2 actually shipped some time ago, but my shop didn’t get a copy for some reason. So they ordered me one and it arrived this week. Now I can catch up…

Captain Clockwork is a little black-and-white book by Glenn Whitmore about four generations of heroes named Captain Clockwork, who work to save chronology from the 1930 to the 2010s. Whitmore’s plotting and dialog is a little shaky, but his art - though not very detailed - is clean and polished. There’s some promise here, but I don’t think I’m up for “yet another superhero book”. Future installments will need to indicate that they’re going somewhere for me to keep buying. (The web site has a preview from this issue.)

In many ways I enjoy B.P.R.D., but the story has been going on for an awful long time, and with no end in sight. I’d like them to wrap up Abe Sapien’s background and deal with… heck, I can’t even remember exactly what the ongoing threat they’re dealing with is. Or else I’m getting close to losing interest.

Boneyard wraps up their current story with an adorable ending. What a great comic book series.

Evil Inc. is a graphic novel assembled from the first year of the popular webcomic about a corporation run by supervillains. It’s entertaining, maybe even better read in collected form than serially, although I kind of wish it were a more straightforward collection. Apparently there’s already a second volume, but I don’t think it’s yet been solicited through Diamond Comics’ Previews catalog.

• 52 #29 of 52 (DC)
• Jack of Fables #5 (DC/Vertigo)
• Superman/Batman: Absolute Power TPB
• Wonder Woman #3
• Red Menace #1 of 6(Wildstorm)
• Fantastic Four: The End #2 of 6

This week’s 52 has the cover tag: “Last Days of the JSA”. To which I thought, “What, again?” Of course, a new JSA series is due to be launched in a few months, so the story within is about as exciting that that implies.

I’ve been reading the paperback collections of the Superman/Batman series even though they often don’t make a lot of sense. Jeph Loeb’s ideas are often pretty nifty, but he’s not very good at executing them. In Absolute Power, three super-villains from the future come back in time and adopt Superman and Batman as children, and together the five of them eliminate most other heroes and set up Supes and Bats as world dictators. Things then go horribly wrong, leading to a little romp through alternate timelines.

There are plenty of questions left unanswered: The villains have a blind spot where Wonder Woman is concerned, which is odd since she’s both famous and extremely powerful, and this helps lead to their undoing. Also, why would they bother to adopt Batman, who is not powerful and is unlikely to be a significant asset in world domination? And although Loeb tries, playing around with history and with the characters’ memories to the extent he does here is very hard to pull off, and the story doesn’t quite hang together. The art by Carlos Pacheco is very pretty, though, and is almost worth the price all by itself.

The book does end on a high note, though, with Loeb performing a neat connection between Mark Waid and Alex Ross’ Kingdom Come and Alan Moore and Curt Swan’s Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?. So overall this volume gets a thumbs up (which is more than the last volume, Supergirl, got from me).

The re-relaunch of Wonder Woman is running terribly late. The art by Terry and Rachel Dodson is very pretty, but the story is a huge shrug, as Allan Heinberg doesn’t really have a new spin to put on DC’s prime superheroine.

Red Menace has Jerry Ordway’s always-wonderful artwork to recommend it. The story is by a trio - Danny Bilson, Paul DeMeo and Adam Brody (none of whom I’ve heard of before) - and it’s okay. It concerns a hero being accused by Joe McCarthy’s HUAC in the 1950s, and it’s a promising start, although so far it feels rather by-the-numbers. If the writers manage to pull it off, then this might slide in nicely alongside Astro City. We’ll see.