Wet Moon

Hello and welcome to a special holiday edition of What Are You Reading? Actually it’s just a normal edition of What Are You Reading?, because changing the font color to red and green, and adding twinkling lights around the border just made it harder to read.

Our special guest this week is Andy Khouri, associate editor over at ComicsAlliance, where he drops comic news and commentary on a daily basis.

To see what Andy and the Robot 6 crew have been reading, click below.

Tim O’Shea

Batgirl #4

Batgirl #4: While I’ve been generally pleased with the new Batgirl by writer Gail Simone, it has not impressed me to the degree of say Mark Waid’s Daredevil…until this issue. And oddly it was a simple line of dialogue that caused me to pause and stop to stare at the page. Batgirl had just saved a couple and when he checked on the victims, the man said: “Because of you, we get to see our kids again. Thank you.” Rarely in a comic these days do the folks that the heroes rescue get any lines. The fact that Simone devotes story space to a small moment like that speaks volumes to how great a writer she is. And then the end of this issue has a reveal that’s a doozy.

Avengers Academy #23: For the past half year or so, series writer Christos Gage has shown that no such thing as the status quo in terms of the Avengers Academy cast or infrastructure. This latest arc involves time travel and it is interesting to see snippets of Gage’s larger view of the Academy-verse. Added bonus? Gage taps into the old Rom series to use a character in the present Marvel universe.

The Shade #3: This is the last issue with Cully Hamner on art. I am so bummed, but wait-who is on the deck for next issue? Darwyn Cooke and J. Bone, wow. Nice consolation prize, I’ll admit. Robinson’s penchant for shifting from historical period bits to present day is in full effect (and to my enjoyment). The art of conversation is something that made the original Starman series so delightful, and that art is alive in The Shade. Another bonus that might entice longtime Starman fans that have not picked up this series yet? This month’s cover is by Tony Harris. Still not moved? Next month’s issue involves two words: Times Past.

The Ray #1

The Ray #1: This comic held me in its sway until the last panel, which had a blip of violence I just do not need to see in a non-mature readers comic. I say this as a warning, it’s likely that folks who play a lot of video games or have a penchant for horror films will not be shocked. But when the villain from this issue puts his fist through a human head and you get to see it from a side angle, it’s just too sickening for my tastes. It’s visceral and likely the exact impact the creative team wanted. Do not get me wrong, it’s one misstep in an overall strong first issue, I just do not wish anyone to be surprised. I am a huge fan of artist Jamal Igle (and an equally supporter for writing team of Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray). I am 99 percent positive on this book, however, particularly the impressive manner that Palmiotti and Gray establish a unique supporting cast with a few scenes.

Marvel Adventures #21: I really do not know the rhyme or reason of this current all ages book, a few recent issues were reprints, but best I can tell this installment has two new stories, one written by J.M. DeMatteis and the other by Jen Van Meter. Van Meter’s Hulk story very much had the Bill Bixby TV show vibe to it (which works in the limited space she had and for the all ages audience). As much as I enjoyed it, I found myself shocked at how great the Dr. Strange/Captain America team-up was. I never thought that patriotism and mysticism could be mixed in a story, but DeMatteis proved me very wrong. I really hope the Strange/Cap artist Wellington Alves has more assignments down the road for Marvel, particularly given his strong eye for layout.

Batman: The Brave & the Bold #14

Batman: The Brave & the Bold #14: I really appreciate when DC or Marvel does a story like this in the holidays. Rather than going with the Christian-themed tale (which as a Catholic, of course I dig), this Sholly Fisch/Rick Burchett tale partially focuses on the story of Chanukah and has the fate of a neighborhood shul (synagogue) as the center of the story. For parents, aunts and uncles looking for a small holiday gift that might interest a kid in comics—please snag this.

Resurrection Man #4: For Christmas, Santa, I would like this Dan Abnett/Andy Lanning-written comic series to have a nice long run. The fight scenes in this comic are intense, but not in a disturbing sense—and I just love how Fernando Dagnino utilizes distinct panel choices—as well as his approach to the book’s lead character, Mitch Shelley.

Black Panther #526: This book may be cancelled, but it is still entertaining the hell out of me. Last issue I complained about the murky qualities of the coloring obscuring Shawn Martinbrough’s art. I am happy to say this issue’s coloring of Martinbrough by Felix Serrano is much more complimentary. And writer David Liss is really hitting his stride pitting Panther against the Kingpin, which makes for great storytelling.

Brigid Alverson

Level Up

This is a rarity for a First Second book, but Level Up has a terrible cover. I know it relates to the subject matter, gaming, but it’s drab and plain, while the story itself is quite imaginative. Written by Gene Luen Yang and illustrated by Thien Pham, it’s a twist on the Asian-American stereotype of the pushy parents who only want their kid to go to medical school. The hero, Dennis Ouyang, just wants to play video games, but his parents don’t get it at all, and he never has a quarter to play Pac-Man, let alone the bucks to buy a Nintendo system. On the day of his father’s funeral, as Dennis is about to graduate high school, he buys a game system and becomes completely absorbed in gaming. What happens next made me think he was having a psychotic break, but it’s really a fantasy tale–a group of angelic creatures emerges from a card his father had sent him years ago and nudges him toward medical school. Yang and Pham do a nice job of teasing out the nuances of Dennis’s dilemmas, his changing friendships, and his slow realization of the right path–and how his past has unexpectedly prepared him for it. It’s a quick read and a good one.

It would be easy to miss the fact that Jim Henson’s The Storyteller, a new anthology from Archaia, is based on the television show of the same name. If, like me, you weren’t watching a lot of TV in the 1980s and never saw the show, you could read the whole book and not realize it. It’s true, one of the stories is based on an unproduced Storyteller script, but aside from that, there doesn’t seem to be any mention of the show, which is odd–I would at least expect to see an introduction explaining the genesis of the book. Never mind, though, because this is a great little anthology of folk tales adapted and illustrated by some of the most talented comics creators around: Roger Langridge, Colleen Coover, Jeff Parker, Marjorie Liu, among others. This being an Archaia book, the design and production values are superb, and while it’s an all-ages book, there’s a lot here for older readers to appreciate.

Andy Khouri

Wet Moon by Ross Campbell

Wet Moon

I’m a little ashamed to admit that I didn’t even know this existed before all five volumes showed up in the mail recently, but Ross Campbell’s Wet Moon became over the course of one rainy night one of my favorite comics series. There is no high concept hook to this story of variously gothic and geeky and gay girls (and some boys) attending art college in the American south, it’s just completely based on the fairly large cast and their complex relationships with each other. Light on melodrama but heavy on emotion, humor and character development, I’d say Wet Moon is a soap opera but in the best possible sense of that term. Campbell makes each individual truly that – an individual, and I found that as soon as I’d completed one volume (digest-sized paperbacks from Oni Press) I had to immediately start on the next one to see what happens next–not in the sense of a plot or cliffhanger, but just because I came to really enjoy hanging out with his characters. I read five books in just a couple of nights.

But what impressed me most about Wet Moon–and the sort of thing that I find myself caring more about with comics and film–is how Campbell created such an immersive world. From page one, you’re taken in. The uniqueness of the character designs, the details in the locations, the style of dialogue–everything about Wet Moon pulls you in, as opposed to being the sort of narrative you sort of observe and contemplate on some intellectual level. As much as I wanted to keep reading the narrative, I think I liked just sort of living in the world of Wet Moon even more. I can’t wait for the next book.

FreakAngels by Warren Ellis and Paul Duffield

FreakAngels

You’ve got 12 kids all born on the same day and all possessing increasingly amazing powers like telepathy and telekinesis and teleportation and so on, and they operate as a gang in a post-apocalyptic London. Each character as a specific talent–agriculture, mechanics, security, etc.–and they work together to protect the citizens of their neighborhood from marauders and other threats from around the city while insulting each other in the best Ellisian tradition.

FreakAngels is remarkable in part for Duffield’s great artwork, particularly his often gorgeous background renderings and ability to make you understand how something like a bicycle-pedal-based flying machine might work. Indeed, FreakAngels spends quite a lot of time exploring the notion of getting on with life in a post-apocalyptic society, where cleverness and innovation would be crucial to survival when there’s no electricity or other resources upon which the world has become dependent. Duffield is amazing at depicting these kinds of lever-and-pulley kinds of things in a way that’s easy to understand and actually quite nice to look at.

Like Campbell with Wet Moon, Duffield makes FreakAngels into a time and place that is utterly specific to itself, and I found myself getting a visceral thrill from visiting that world (the book’s leisurely, perhaps manga-like pace helps immerse you in it in a very cool way). But what keeps you there are the FreakAngels themselves, who’re among the most vivid characters Ellis has ever created, and of course the mystery at the heart of the series: who are the FreakAngels and what did they do?

FreakAngels has been completed and is available in six trade paperbacks or hardcovers.

Aquaman #1 -- overcompensating, perhaps?

So here we are, the last week of the New 52 rollout, and I must say it’s been a fascinating — sometimes exhausting — ride. It’ll be good to get back to more normal posting next week, but I have enjoyed these marathon stream-of-consciousness reviews. Although DC has said over and over that these books are all part of the same revised universe, there are so many different styles and approaches on display (The early ‘90s! The mid- to late ‘90s!) that the line seems a lot more heterogeneous than it did five weeks ago.

Moreover, the realization that these books are the new status quo is only now starting to sink in. Overall it’s a good feeling, but bittersweet too. After all, I had 25 years to get used to the last line-wide revampings.

SPOILERS FOLLOW, as always.

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To start off, let’s go back just five years. As part of 2006′s “One Year Later” relaunch, the Powers That Be at DC decided that the problem with Hawkman was, well, Hawkman — so they renamed the book Hawkgirl, Walt Simonson wrote it, and Howard Chaykin drew it. Now, on paper that looks like a pretty formidable team. It was enough to get me to try Hawkgirl, and I hadn’t had much interest in any Hawkman title regardless of who’d worked on it. Accordingly, Tony Daniel (writer) and Philip Tan (artist) can take some comfort in knowing that, while The Savage Hawkman #1 really didn’t work for me, the difficulty level has been set pretty high. TSH starts off with Carter Hall shooting (?) and then burning his Hawkman gear — we know not why — but it turns all Venom on him, merging with him somehow so it can pop out again when an extraterrestrial bad guy named Morphicius threatens Carter’s scientist colleagues. In a way, I guess it’s good that this issue ignores just about all of Hawkman’s convoluted continuity, but that deprives Carter of any meaningful motivation which might endear him to a new reader. (Beyond “I don’t like Hawkman either,” that is.) Tan’s work is fine, sporting more of a watercolor style than he’s had previously. His Hawkman redesign is decent, if a bit on the pointy side. In addition to the thin plot, Daniel’s dialogue tends toward being labored. Carter tries to work “death and taxes” into a world-weary quip, and later on a character who should be excited says, flatly, “I am giddy.” That makes one of us.

Blackhawks #1 (written by Mike Costa, layouts by Graham Nolan, finishes by Ken Lashley) begins with a jumbled hostage-rescue sequence, made more confusing by some odd layouts and the use of counterintuitive nicknames. For example, one of the team is listed as “Lady Blackhawk,” but the woman we follow for most of the issue is “Kunoichi.” Things settle down a little after the mission, when a garden-variety bureaucrat from the United Nations arrives at headquarters to a) help explain the book’s premise and b) deliver some bad news. (By the way, between the Blackhawks and Justice League International, the New-52 UN seems to be covering its bets on unconventional teams.) There’s also some bad news for one Blackhawk in particular, and that provides the issue’s cliffhanger. Overall I thought this was a fairly superficial first issue. It tries hard to introduce a handful of major characters and a couple of relationships, it gives some backstory on the first arc’s villain, and it leaves a couple of plot threads dangling. Although it’s put together well for the most part, there’s not much in the way of depth or nuance to any of these characters, and there’s certainly nothing like the ad hoc, multinational-mercenary angle which helped make the original Blackhawks unique. That said, I thought it was good enough to warrant a second issue, in hopes that the players are fleshed out more.

Similarly, Justice League Dark #1 (written by Peter Milligan, drawn by Mikel Janin) is all setup, building a mystery* around a small army of identical blonde women. Many of them appear suddenly in the middle of a busy street, and the resulting two-page spread of carnage made me wonder if this is just another DC comic insensitive to violence against women. Seriously, I found it pretty disturbing, which I suppose is part of the point (but still…). In fact, the issue does a good job setting an ominous mood and showing that the regular Justice League is helpless against an implacable magic force. As for the JLD’s ostensible members, Milligan — who uses an omniscient narrator, to good effect — does best with the vignette introducing Shade, the Changing Man. John Constantine and Deadman pretty much have cameos, and while Zatanna and Madame Xanadu carry more of the plot (and a lot of the exposition), Milligan apparently thinks his readers are already familiar enough with them — and, for that matter, with the Enchantress. I’m not familiar with Mikel Janin’s work, but stylistically it reminded me of a cross between Nicola Scott and cover artist Ryan Sook: clean and detail-oriented, even if some of his characters share the same face. I liked it well enough, and I’ll be back next month.

It was hard not to let Twilight-related prejudices slip into my reading of I, Vampire #1 (written by Joshua Hale Fialkov, drawn by Andrea Sorrentino), but for the first few pages I couldn’t tell whether our hero Andrew was wearing a shirt, and I am tempted to say that pretty well sums it up. Actually, though, IV reads more like the first bookend in one of the old-style summer-Annual crossovers DC and Marvel did in the ‘90s, only this one would follow Andrew and his evil ex-(?) girlfriend Mary around the superhero line as Mary’s vampiric war on humanity escalated. If that’s IV’s premise … well, it’s not Twilight, but it’s not quite the tragic tale of doomed love that Fialkov and Sorrentino also try to establish here. I’m on the fence about this one. The art is fine, appropriately muddy (thanks to colorist Marcelo Maiolo) and heavy with blacks, and like JL Dark, the mood is somber with a slow burn to apocalyptic. I wouldn’t mind seeing a superheroes-vs.-vampires epic, either (even if it didn’t remind me of 1993′s Bloodlines event). I’m just not that invested in Andrew and Mary at this point.

Considering that much of Voodoo #1 (written by Ron Marz, drawn by Sami Basri) takes place in a strip club, with most of its female characters appearing in various states of undress and/or in overtly sexual poses, I wonder if DC scheduled it to come out the week after Catwoman and Red Hood so it would look thoughtful and tame by comparison. What there is of a plot feels like an excuse to linger over the Voodoo club’s array of exotic dancers, and the characters generally are drawn from Central Casting. Naturally, the issue ends on a cliffhanger (a familiar horror-movie one, in fact), but since we don’t know a whole lot about the main characters, it’s hardly clear what the ending means. I did like Basri’s art — I’ve been reading Power Girl paperbacks, and this makes me more eager to pick up his issues — but he doesn’t get to do much beyond (purposefully detached, I suppose) T & A. Honestly, DC, at this point I am flat-out bored with these attempts at exploitation, and I won’t be back for #2.

All Star Western #1 (drawn by Moritat) is written by longtime Jonah Hex chroniclers Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti, so Hex is front and center in this issue; but primarily as partner to Dr. Amadeus Arkham, himself cast as a Holmesian consulting detective. Indeed, because their case begins with a murder and a foreign word scrawled in blood, it initially recalls “A Study In Scarlet.” The comparison probably ends there, although I did like how Arkham has Watson’s role of narrator, introducing the reader to Hex’s borderline-amoral perspective. I thought this was a strong first issue, even if its Gotham City setting seemed a bit gratuitous at times. Moritat’s work is intricate and expressive, and colorist Gabriel Bautista gives it depth and texture. The book looks great, on par at least with Cliff Chiang’s Wonder Woman art. From what I understand of Gray and Palmiotti’s Jonah Hex series, they tended to go to the dead-prostitute well fairly often, and sadly this is no exception. Still, they keep things moving, using the murders to explore the relationship between the march of progress and the desire to hold onto power. Definitely on board for this one.

Even with George Pérez writing and providing layouts, Superman #1 (finished by Jesús Merino) was going to have a hard time competing with the new Action #1. If Action evokes the late ‘30s, Superman goes straight for the Bronze Age, framing a fairly standalone story with a change in ownership at the Daily Planet. Pérez’s primer on who’s currently who in Metropolis establishes Lois Lane as one of the last honest journalists, producing TV coverage for Galaxy Broadcasting while still reporting for the Planet. Clark Kent is still a crusading reporter, but now he’s working for the Planet and having frank philosophical discussions with Lois. Superman has a shaky relationship with the Metropolis police (and a hazy one with the public) and Jimmy Olsen keeps getting into trouble. This time, Supes has to save Jimmy from an alien fire-creature bent on turning Metropolis into a city-sized torch. It’s a decent start, and it’s enough to keep me coming back, but it does have some rough edges. Pérez’s dialogue can be clunky, and I presume the fire-creature is connected to the hornblower from Stormwatch #1, but that’s not made explicit here. Merino’s work sometimes doesn’t blend that well with Pérez’s layouts, and his characters’ faces tend to look scruffed-up. However, I’m content to see this as a spiritual sibling to Marv Wolfman and Jerry Ordway’s Adventures Of Superman from the ‘86 relaunch — a straightforward superhero soap which is more familiar than it is groundbreaking.

I didn’t like David Finch’s first first issue of Batman: The Dark Knight, and while the second Dark Knight #1 in a year (co-plotted and scripted by Paul Jenkins, co-plotted and pencilled by Finch, inked by Richard Friend) is an improvement, it seems to exist primarily to give DC a Batman title for each of the four regular ship weeks. I mean, there’s another Arkham breakout, there’s Bruce Wayne talking about Gotham’s future, there’s a mention of Batman, Inc., there’s a new girlfriend-in-waiting — all things which remind me of Bat-books I have enjoyed more. It doesn’t help that the yes-we-can! speech Bruce Wayne gives to a presumably-forgiving audience starts out as overwrought Bat-narration about fear, parents, and cannibals (with one of the big applause lines apparently “I’m not cut out to be the parent of a cannibal”…?). Later, we’re told that the Arkham breakout involves 300 inmates and may already have cost 65 policemen’s lives, but for some reason Batman is keyed specifically on Two-Face. While it doesn’t go over as poorly as the new Detective Comics, it’s not as appealing as either Batman and Robin or last week’s Batman, and I can live without it.

The bulk of Aquaman #1 (written by Geoff Johns, pencilled by Ivan Reis, inked by Joe Prado) is aimed squarely at a strawman which holds that Aquaman is the lamest of DC’s main characters. Accordingly, the issue opens and closes with a menace-from-the-depths which presumably only Aquaman can defeat, while in between are scenes of our hero foiling a landlocked getaway, trying to order fish at a favorite childhood restaurant, and reaffirming his mission to the surface world alongside a devoted Mera. Along the way the public marvels at how wrong it’s been. Johns may have figured he didn’t have much choice but to hang a lantern on Aquaman’s perceived inferiority, but the end result is awfully transparent, almost desperate. Although there is “showing,” the “telling” which goes with it actually undercuts it. Too bad, because otherwise it’s a fine first issue, explaining the Sea King’s powers, origin, and heritage fairly economically, and setting up the aforementioned deep-sea threat. Reis and Prado are reliably good, as usual. I’ll be back for issue #2, but I’ll be hoping the self-consciousness is out of Johns’ system.

The plot of The Fury Of Firestorm, The Nuclear Men #1 (written by Ethan van Sciver and Gail Simone, drwan by Yildray Cinar) rests on a giant leap of logic; and no, it’s not the “God particle” underlying Firestorm’s powers. Instead, it involves a decision made prior to the issue’s start by a character who currently isn’t around to explain himself. I’m sure we’ll get more insight as the series unfolds, but for now it seems like a threshold question: if you’re willing to accept that plot point, the rest of the issue should be no problem. See, there are these mercenaries (one of whom, amusingly enough, shares a name with a longtime Firestorm antagonist) brutalizing their way through the lives of innocent people, looking for magnetic bottles which turn out to be Very Important. On a collision course with this group are star quarterback Ronnie Raymond and ace high-school-newspaper reporter Jason Rusch, each struggling with their prejudices about the other. It sounds like I am being overly sarcastic about the issue, but in fact I liked it a lot. Broad as their characterizations may be, Ronnie and Jason have the makings of a good dynamic — in fact, arguably a better one than the pre-relaunch Brightest Day had to work with** — but they need to get past the rough edges and develop some nuance. As for the art, Cinar’s work is quite good, at times reminiscent of George Pérez and (her again!) Nicola Scott. Having been a Firestorm fan since the Flash backups, it sounds a little hollow to say I’m sticking with it, but I’m glad to say I am.

It’s not that it’s hard to reconcile the frenetic Teen Titans #1 (written by Scott Lobdell, pencilled by Brett Booth, inked by Norm Rapmund) with Lobdell’s more meditative Superboy #1. It’s just that Teen Titans moves so quickly, and tries so very hard to be cool, that having the two books dovetail makes this one harder to ignore. The Titans introduced here include Kid Flash (probably Bart Allen, although Wally West wouldn’t be out of the question), with a handmade costume and more brains than smarts; Red Robin (Tim Drake), recast as something of a cyber-activist; and the Dianna Agron lookalike Wonder Girl (Cassie Sandsmark), subject to what is either jarring mood swings or capricious dialogue. It may well be that I am too old for this book’s retro-‘90s style, and in a funny way I’d be okay with that. For now, though, there’s nothing beyond the Superboy connection to entice me back.

I’m not clear on why Green Lantern: New Guardians #1 (written by Tony Bedard, pencilled by Tyler Kirkham, inked by Batt) felt the need to spend its first seven pages — about a third of the issue, mind you — on Kyle Rayner’s origin, because it doesn’t appear to have a lot to do with the balance of the plot. In fact, said plot involves various other Lantern Corpsmen (including one from the Sinestros, one from the Star Sapphires, and a Red Lantern) losing their rings to Kyle. Maybe Kyle’s experience, despite its unique circumstances, is meant to be illustrative? For someone who was already reading the GL books, and (perhaps more importantly) was emotionally invested in either Kyle or the other Lantern Corps, this plot might be intriguing. As a first issue designed to attract new readers, though, it’s just sketchy, and probably confusing. I liked this creative team well enough when they were on the pre-relaunch GL Corps, but they haven’t sold me on this series.

Finally — finally! — there’s The Flash #1 (written by Francis Manapul and Brian Buccellato, drawn by Manapul), a nifty reintroduction to the guy who made all of this possible. Some of the dialogue is a little awkward, including in the opening sequence, but the real attraction is Manapul and Buccellato’s art. Manapul’s style is very light, almost as if it were reproduced directly from his pencils, so Buccellato’s colors help shape and define it, separating Barry/Flash from his backgrounds and helping him race across the pages. Manapul’s layouts are equally expressive, incorporating panel-sized sound effects (as well as the Flash masthead itself), using inset panels to break down the super-speed action or to illustrate a character’s jumbled thoughts, and keeping the plot moving ever forward. This issue never really stops, even when a character is simply standing and thinking. Now that Flashpoint is over, it’s not weighed down by artificially-imposed angst or Speed Force mumbo-jumbo. It’s a simple, straightforward, and effective superhero comic about the Fastest Man Alive, and I look forward to issue #2.

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Recommended: All Star Western, Aquaman, The Flash, The Fury Of Firestorm, Justice League Dark

Could get better: Blackhawks, I, Vampire

Could go either way: Green Lantern: New Guardians, Teen Titans

Sticking with regardless: Superman

No thanks: Batman: The Dark Knight, The Savage Hawkman, Voodoo

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Next week: December solicitations, and probably a bit of September wrap-up.

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* [That one’s for the Sarah McLachlan fans....]

** [I do miss the dueling-experience aspect of Ronnie and Jason’s pre-relaunch relationship, and especially their mutual affection for Professor Martin Stein, who of course was a big part of the original Firestorm. I was looking forward to each being a backseat-driver for the other, since Jason had the more recent experience -- not to mention helping to “rebuild” Firestorm with Stein’s help -- but Ronnie would naturally assume a senior-leadership role. Moot now, I guess.]

Catwoman #1

Comics | Dismayed by the portrayal of Catwoman in DC Comics’ relaunched series, Alyssa Rosenberg of ThinkProgress asks whether feminists are wasting their time in hoping and lobbying for better portrayals of women in mainstream superhero comics. While she understands the desire to walk away, the decides in the end “it’s worth it to keep nudging”: “… Even if the industry doesn’t change, there should be voices in the background when folks read these books pointing out their problems. The key is getting folks who really just want to see, say, Catwoman bang Batman and nothing else to hear those critiques and to find a way to engage with them constructively, which is really, profoundly difficult. But I’d rather live in a world where people who don’t want to hear the works they like criticized have to work to shut them out, rather than leaving them to relax into the blissful sounds of silence.”

At The Atlantic, Noah Berlatsky points out that not all comics are like Catwoman or Red Hood and the Outlaws, and recommends some alternatives. Meanwhile, Tom Foss jokingly suggests that the “new” Starfire is merely replacing longtime New Teen Titans creeper Terry Long. [ThinkProgress, The Atlantic]

Batgirl #2

Publishing | DC Comics continues its mainstream push for the New 52 with a preview of Batgirl #2 on the Entertainment Weekly website. [EW.com]

Creators | Alex Ross is profiled ahead of the Saturday opening of “Heroes & Villains: The Comic Book Art of Alex Ross” at the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh. [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette]

Creators | Justice League Dark artist Mikel Janin has signed an exclusive agreement with DC Comics. [The Source]

Creators | Gavin Lees pays a visit to the husband-and-wife comics team Metaphrog in their Glagow home to discuss how they come up with their lovely, otherworldly graphic novels. (We posted a trailer from their Night Salad a while back.) [The Comics Journal]

Creators | Letterer and writer Joe Caramagna is profiled by his local newspaper. [NorthJersey.com]

Girls with Slingshots, Vol. 5

Comics | The University of Calgary student newspaper looks at the decline of print and the growth of webcomics, talking with comics scholar Bart Beaty, creators Danielle Corsetto and Ryan Sohmer, and publishers Daniel Lenfest-Jameson and Calan Lovstrom. [The Gauntlet]

Retailing | Barbarian Comics in Wheaton, Maryland, is still in business after 40 years, now owned by brothers Thomas and James Wu. Founder Carl Bridgers, 75, periodically checks in to see how things are going. [Gazette]

Blogosphere | The Cool Kids Table, the group blog of Ben Morse, Kiel Phegley, Rickey Purdin and Kevin Mahadeo, marks its third anniversary. [The Cool Kids Table]

Review| Robot 6 contributor Sean T. Collins reviews Johnny Ryan’s Prison Pit: Book Three. [The Comics Journal]

Review | David Welsh reviews Osamu Tezuka’s The Book of Human Insects: “This is right in my Tezuka center of gravity. It’s a compelling story with a moral, though satirical core, taking the flaws of a generation to almost ridiculous extremes and crafting a thriller from that starting point. It’s great looking, possessed of a sexy energy that Tezuka’s adult works don’t always achieve with this level of confidence. And it’s got an indelible central figure, surrounded by an interesting cadre of marks and foes.” [The Manga Curmudgeon]

The new Blue Beetle #1

Whether by accident or design, this week was dominated by female leads (four, not including Starfire in Red Hood) and Bat-titles (four including RH; five if you count Birds Of Prey). It is tempting to say the woman-led titles ran the gamut of experiences from A to D, but thankfully it is a little more complicated than that.  As you might expect, the week produced issues of varying quality, although I found something to like about each one. Sometimes it was harder to find that one thing, though….

Naturally, SPOILERS FOLLOW.

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In theory, the DC Universe Presents anthology has a longer lease on life because its sales can’t be judged fairly on the basis of only one arc. I suppose that, given Deadman’s relationship with one of Hawk & Dove’s headliners, that book’s readers might be interested in this one. By and large, though, the audience for this title is made up either of DC stalwarts waiting for a good Obscure Character X story, or (less likely, I’d say) impulse buyers. Such an approach might have been a great way to introduce a totally new character within the context of the New 52, and piggyback that feature on the rest of the relaunch’s popularity — but I’m not surprised DC chose Deadman, fresh off Brightest Day.

It was a good choice. Paul Jenkins’ and Bernard Chang’s first issue is a sweeping, emotional journey across several of the lives Boston “Deadman” Brand has inhabited in his post-corporeal state. There’s a succinct summary of Deadman’s origin and a good sample of his adventures. (It does make me wonder where his White Lantern career fits in, but that’s probably beyond the scope of this arc.) Boston’s also got the end of his spiritual mission on his mind, a subplot which culminates in the issue’s cliffhanger. Regardless, getting to that point is quite engaging, especially a sequence where Deadman jumps into a dozen or so people in the course of “chasing” an old acquaintance. Chang’s work is clean and effective, portraying an appropriately wide range of everyday people. This is a story where the fantastic elements facilitate the character’s journey, and aren’t an end unto themselves. I really liked this issue, and I’ll be back next month.

Both Nightwing #1 and writer Kyle Higgins’ other New-52 title, Deathstroke, open with similarly-paced action sequences (including a double-page spread on pages 2 and 3) punctuated by expository internal monologues. I did not take this as a good sign, and ultimately I found Nightwing to be fairly unremarkable, even for a Nightwing comic. New readers may disagree, but I have seen too many “Dick re-establishes himself outside of Bruce’s shadow” stories, complete with a new apartment and a return to his acrobat roots, to be wowed automatically by yet another one. Moreover, while penciller Eddy Barrows choreographs Dick/Nightwing fairly well, his designs for the character are just a little too beefy and gruff. I was afraid that returning to the Nightwing role would bring back all the frustrations readers (and probably writers too) have felt with the character, and so far I was right.

Somewhat more remarkable, although in a much weirder way, is Catwoman #1 (written by Judd Winick, drawn by Guillem March). We’re introduced to Catwoman in a few quick panels, as she grabs a few personal items (along with a few pets) on her way out of her apartment, a few steps ahead of some masked goons. It provides a good segue into the issue’s plot, which requires Catwoman to go undercover at a nightclub in order to steal from Russian mobsters (speaking of last week’s Deathstroke…). The recon goes south when Selina recognizes someone from her past who she needs to pummel, and Catwoman ends up escaping to her “borrowed” penthose — where Batman is waiting, and where, somewhat improbably, they get it on. This being a main-line superhero book, and not something claiming “maturity,” there’s no nudity, although the characters’ actions and eventual positions leave little doubt as to the creative team’s intent. I have mixed feelings about the sequence, not so much for its own sake as for its place in the context of the issue, and especially in the context of the first issue. It tries to establish Catwoman’s independence within the Bat-clan, by showing definitely that she has a certain power over him — but by the same token it feels too easy to trot out the old sex-is-a-weapon trait, especially since Selina had already pulled a Jennifer Garner-style fake-out to beat up a bad guy just a few pages earlier. So yes, we get it, Catwoman is her own person and she is not afraid to be sexxay. That said, I did like this issue for its relatively-fast pace, its efficient storytelling, and March’s fine work.

An almost-too-cute flashback structure didn’t bother me that much, but generally Birds Of Prey #1 (written by Duane Swiercynski, drawn by Jesus Saiz) is kind of a mess, marred by stilted dialogue and unengaging characters. Chief among the latter is Starling, Black Canary’s new partner, who is supposed to be plucky and sassy but who ends up grating. In fact, the whole issue is like that, since it centers around the Birds basically destroying an old cathedral in the course of protecting a too-nosy reporter from shadowy ninja types. There are a couple of nods to the pre-relaunch BOP — Barbara Gordon appears briefly and Canary’s problems with the law (from the first arc of the last volume) inform the current setup — but those only remind the reader of the style this issue lacks. On a positive note, Saiz’ work was nice and uncomplicated. However, as with Nightwing, there’s just not enough to get me to come back.

Few will consider Wonder Woman #1 uncomplicated, but writer Brian Azzarello and artist Cliff Chiang establish a distinctive tone immediately, and deliver a bloody, propulsive first issue. This is certainly not a Wonder Woman (or a Wonder Woman-style story) familiar to the casual reader. Instead, it’s an apocalyptic mystery involving strikingly-rendered versions of characters from Greek mythology, most of whom are out to kill a scantily-clad young woman named Zola. For now, that focus distances Wonder Woman from the reader somewhat, which is a little odd for an introduction. Still, it works, even for an issue where characterization takes a back seat to violence. Much of this is due to Chiang’s expressive designs (Zola especially carries herself well for someone in underwear and flip-flops), which really sell the collision of dark mythological forces and the everyday world. Azzarello’s script includes some clever touches, particularly a brief-but-good scene for the god Hermes, and while we don’t get much insight into Diana or her adversaries this issue, I expect it won’t be long. In its way, this book is as much a reinvention of Wonder Woman as Action Comics is of Superman, and it looks very promising.

By contrast, Supergirl #1 (written by Michael Green and Mike Johnson, pencilled by Mahmoud Asrar, inked by Dan Green) is almost all setup, as the Girl of Steel arrives on Earth to a predictably violent reception. Accordingly, it’s an issue full of Supergirl-vs.-battlesuits, taking them out one by one while discovering her powers along the way. There’s not much characterization, and really no plot beyond a rote misunderstanding, but the art is pretty (especially Dave McCaig’s colors) and the issue is paced well. About the nicest thing I can say is that at least the preliminaries are over, I like the creative team well enough, and next issue should be better.

The nicest thing I can say about Red Hood and the Outlaws #1 (written by Scott Lobdell) is that Kenneth Rocafort draws Jason “Red Hood” Todd who actually looks like he could be a slightly-older ex-Robin. After Superboy exceeded my minimal expectations last week, I was a little more open to RH&TO. Unfortunately, it is front-loaded with attitude, and that has proven too much for me. Specifically, the opening sequence is a barrage of captions, cluttered panels, and confused storytelling. The issue does get better once things settle down and the characters have a chance to relax, but neither Roy Harper nor Koriand’r demonstrate much nuance — he’s a mimbo and she’s a thinly-disguised adolescent fantasy. Exposition from a fourth character, Essence, then teases a larger plot which brings the issue to a cliffhanger. As with Supergirl, there is the hint of a decent series in all of this. These characters are damaged outcasts who either deny, or have forgotten, their old lives. However, Lobdell assumes that the reader is familiar with those old lives, and cares enough to stay with these three beyond their sketchy (re)introduction. Ironically, if this were a pre-relaunch title, that might be enough to keep me around. As it is, though, there’s just too much to infer, and too little reason to care.

Like its Sinestro-starring sibling, Green Lantern Corps #1 (written by Peter J. Tomasi, pencilled by Fernando Pasarin, inked by Scott Hanna) feels like the next issue in the pre-relaunch series. The difference is that GLC hasn’t had as drastic a change to its status quo. Tomasi educates new readers on the book’s headliners by showing Guy Gardner and John Stewart trying to fit into a regular workplace, with Guy even giving a little primer on the Corps for anyone who might have needed it. The larger plot isn’t anything special at this point — a mysterious brute shows the Corps it can commit genocide — and once again Tomasi seems uncomfortable with too few words. Overall, though, it’s a fine start to a new arc. I’m just not sure who, beyond existing GLC readers, will find this essential.

After last week’s helter-skelter Legion Lost #1, I was hoping Legion of Super-Heroes #1 (written by Paul Levitz, drawn by Francis Portela) would be more accessible. Certainly it’s more subdued, dividing its attention between an undercover mission, various character subplots back at headquarters, and Colossal Boy off the team. Portela does a good job keeping everything straight, and Levitz’s script is a welcome throwback to the days when exposition was expected. In other words, everyone still wants to talk about what just happened, to just enough of a degree to make new readers curious. Perhaps as a nod to those new readers, the issue focuses on two rookie Legionnaries, each a bit too confident in his or her abilities. It’s not a bad way to ease into what must be a fast-moving stream of continuity. Even so, there’s just too much going on, at least on first reading. Maybe a later look will give me more insight into the characters, and thus more of an incentive to find out what happens next; but for now, it’s a bit overwhelming.

Captain Atom #1 (written by J.T. Krul, drawn by Freddie Williams II) was a frustrating read. It’s not a particularly bad book, but it doesn’t feel that original either. Essentially, Cap has a pretty broad power set — flight, energy blasts, energy absorption, Firestorm-style transmutation — but when he uses them, he risks tearing apart his own atomic structure. At the beginning of the issue he fights a guy in a giant battlesuit, and at the end he must stop a volcano from destroying a New York nuclear plant. This is all fine, except that no one in the book feels like a real person. Thus, what’s frustrating is the fact that pre-relaunch, DC’s Cap (himself relaunched pretty much from scratch almost 25 years ago) was built around a terrifically twisted man-out-of-time concept. He had all kinds of power, but all he wanted was his old life back. By contrast, the current Cap is a generic superhero with a wispy design and an illusory death sentence. Freddie Williams’ new style is nice, in a Chris Samnee/Michael Lark sort of way; but again, it’s not quite enough.

As for another ex-Charlton title, Blue Beetle #1 (written by Tony Bedard, pencilled by Ig Guara, inked by Ruy José) was a lot of fun. It’s probably not fair to lump this Beetle with Captain Atom’s old colleague Ted Kord, because Jaime Reyes only goes back about five years, all of them with DC. This first issue basically compresses various elements of Jaime’s pre-relaunch series into a tighter plot, centered around pal Brenda’s mysterious aunt Doña Cardenas. Of course, she’s really a high-powered criminal, using a group of supervillains to steal a certain powerful blue scarab; and of course Jaime gets said scarab fused to his back at a key point in the issue. Leading up to that is a great set of scenes spanning the galaxy, from a distant planet attacked by another scarab-owner to Jaime’s own high-school hijinks. It’s all rendered with style and quirk by Guara and José, and scripted deftly by Bedard. Here’s hoping this one’s around for a while.

Finally, Batman #1 (written by Scott Snyder, pencilled by Greg Capullo, inked by Jonathan Glapion) was really something. Snyder’s script is a close examination of a more well-adjusted Bruce Wayne/Batman, seeking literally to build a better Gotham while mysteries swirl within mysteries all around him. Even the obligatory Bat-moments — fights at Arkham Asylum, a double-page Batcave spread, multiple Robins — are woven seamlessly into the story. Capullo and Glapion make an excellent team, quirky and sharp, instantly giving the book a signature style which complements Snyder’s portrayal. Everything about this issue says “new beginning,” and it’s about as accessible as one could want. I can’t ask for much more out of a superhero comic.

Recommended: Batman, Blue Beetle, DC Universe Presents, Wonder Woman

Could get better: Catwoman, Supergirl

Could go either way: Captain Atom, Legion of Super-Heroes

Sticking regardless: Green Lantern Corps

No thanks: Birds Of Prey, Nightwing, Red Hood and the Outlaws

* * *

Next week: the thrilling conclusion, with All-Star Western, Aquaman, Batman: The Dark Knight, Blackhawks, The Flash, The Fury Of Firestorm, Green Lantern: New Guardians, I, Vampire, Justice League Dark, The Savage Hawkman, Superman, Teen Titans, and Voodoo!

Static Shock #1

It was the strangest thing — when I woke up this morning I was younger, single, and most of my clothes had high collars and funky seams….

Okay, let’s cut that out right now. Don’t worry, I’m still middle-aged and married, with the same beat-up wardrobe. However, I have read all but one of this week’s New-52 books, and now I get to share them with you. (The local comics shop got shorted on Batwing #1, which is too bad, because as one of the few sort-of new concepts being offered, I was especially looking forward to it. Next week for sure!) Generally I thought most had at least some potential, and I was mostly impressed with the efforts the various creative teams made. Of course, that doesn’t mean I liked everything, but I did like more than I thought I would.

Onward–!

* * *

For starters, I sure didn’t expect a nod to “Smallville” (“Somebody! Save me!”) in the opening pages of Action Comics vol. 2 #1 (written by Grant Morrison, pencilled by Rags Morales, inked by Rick Bryant). That’s one of many nice touches in this zippy, peppy installment. It’s a great introduction to both Superman and Clark Kent, saving the world regardless of who’s in their way; and a good look at Luthor too. Lois and Jimmy are essentially cameos, although probably just for this issue. It reads like a comics adaptation of Tom DeHaven’s It’s Superman! novel — very retro-minded, although definitely not a retro story. Superman basically terrorizes Metropolis’ white-collar criminals, eyes red with barely-contained heat vision, all the while staying just ahead of his military pursuers and shrugging off tank shells with a grunt and a determined grin. Morales and Bryant’s expressive, beefy work is reminiscent of classic Superman artists including Joe Shuster, Wayne Boring, and John Byrne. DC would have done well to lead with this last week as well.

Speaking of which, Justice League International #1 (written by Dan Jurgens, pencilled by Aaron Lopresti, inked by Matt Ryan) was a decent first issue, although it feels a little rushed and might have benefited from more editing. (One character says “by extension” twice in two pages, and a spread of the team shows Ice and Vixen with the same pose and expression.) For those put off by Justice League #1, this time the whole team is present, along with two new characters and a giant killer robot; but the focus is on Booster Gold, Batman and Green Lantern Guy Gardner (hmm, that combo again), and UN functionary Andre Briggs. For now, the others are either clunky one-note jokes (Rocket Red talks funny, Godiva vamps) or still too undefined. Lopresti and Ryan make the book look good, and it’s trying to develop its own identity, but this issue only shows the barest hints of one.

More successful in that regard are Animal Man #1 (written by Jeff Lemire, pencilled by Travel Foreman, inked by Dan Green) and Swamp Thing #1 (written by Scott Snyder, drawn by Yanick Paquette), since both cover very similar thematic ground. Each involves a semi-retired super-type with a deep, profound connection to a mysterious force of nature, and each pits its leads against a corrupt version of his particular force. Beyond that, though, each takes a fairly different approach to the material. As it happens, Animal Man has a bit more horror, making Buddy Baker’s ambivalence about superheroics into an actual threat to his family; while Swamp Thing initially looks like a dozen or so pages of a human Alec Holland talking to Superman and others about the hidden cruelties of the plant world. Not that that’s not enough on its own, because Snyder and Paquette sell this sort of Holland-as-Bruce-Banner bit pretty well — but Swamp Thing then reveals its antagonist, a malevolent monster/swarm/nasty something which kills and terrorizes in sickeningly inventive ways.

Both Paquette and Foreman are well-suited for their respective series. Paquette’s thick lines and heavy blacks make everything look earthy, solid, and murky where appropriate. At first Foreman’s layout choices emphasize the Baker household’s (relatively) light-hearted atmosphere, becoming more traditional as the superhero and horror portions kick in. Foreman and Green’s thin, careful work is also expressive enough to bring out the Bakers’ personalities fairly well. In short, I liked both Animal Man and Swamp Thing well enough to come back for their second issues.

At this point, to say that Gail Simone has a good handle on Barbara Gordon would be an understatement, but Batgirl #1 (written by Simone, pencilled by Ardian Syaf, inked by Vicente Cifuentes) really shows what she can do with Barbara in a solo title. Apart from her Birds Of Prey colleagues, and out of her wheelchair (after what we’re only told was a “miracle”), Babs has an updated Bat-suit and Batcycle, and finds herself battling criminals eerily reminiscent of her own experiences. As with the enigmatic Junior in the first arc of Simone’s Secret Six ongoing, new villain the Mirror is only a half-glimpsed presence at first, and seen fully when it’s too late. However, the centerpiece of this issue is Batgirl versus thrillkilling home invaders, in another callback to the incident which left Barbara paralyzed. Simone and Syaf pack a lot into this issue, with Syaf and Cifuentes’ work looking cleaner and more crisp than it has been. My complaints deal basically with Babs’ backstory: I get the impression that the former Oracle would have more civilian-life options than we’re shown here; and we haven’t yet been told how she came to walk again. Regardless, these will surely be answered in future issues; and otherwise Batgirl #1 is a very strong start.

Much of Detective Comics vol. 2 #1 (written and pencilled by Tony S. Daniel; inked by Ryan Wynn) is a Batman-vs.-Joker story so hidebound and familiar it borders on parody. Clearly Daniel feels the weight of relaunching DC’s namesake book and wants to give all those hypothetical new readers what they expect out of a Batman comic. Unfortunately, this turns out to be a lot of posing and posturing — including gratuitous pinup-style splash pages and dialogue like “That was her uncle the Joker killed…. though it’ll take a bit to identify his remains.” As well, Daniel draws Batman beefier than he did back in 2009, further reinforcing the book’s emphasis on physicality. I do give Daniel credit for an unsettling epilogue, which ties a new villain to the Joker’s latest spree. However, if I weren’t already collecting Detective, it wouldn’t bring me back for the next issue.

I was not expecting much out of Green Arrow #1 (written by J.T. Krul, pencilled by Dan Jurgens, inked by George Pérez), so I was pleasantly surprised. As you might expect from Jurgens and Pérez, it’s a very nice-looking book, told cleanly, simply, and efficiently. It also bears little resemblance to the Ollie Queen Green Arrow portrayed in the last four decades’ worth of comic books. Instead, this iteration of the character still has his fortune and has added a couple of tech-savvy assistants. Basically it reads like a spinoff of the “Smallville” Ollie (that show again!), which is probably good for new readers, but which doesn’t give our hero much personality. Apart from the trick arrows, this issue’s fight with super-punks who broadcast their exploits online could have starred any number of characters, most of them Bat-affiliated. It’s not a bad book, and certainly better than Krul’s Rise Of Arsenal-flavored reputation might suggest, but like its lead it threatens to be handsomely bland.

Similarly, there’s not much remarkable about Hawk and Dove #1 (written by Sterling Gates, drawn by Rob Liefeld). Even Liefeld’s art is relatively tame, except for the odd panel like page 1′s panic at the wi-fi bar. The “science terrorist” Alexander Quirk is menacing Washington, D.C., but Hawk spends almost as much time comparing Dove to her predecessor (his late brother) as he does fighting zombies. Gates apparently expects readers to come to this book straight from Brightest Day, because Dove’s relationship with Deadman carries over from there. However, Gates throws in what look like a couple of references to the H&D series from twenty-odd years ago, as if those fans were just waiting patiently for the inevitable revival. The whole thing is fairly flat, despite Liefeld’s attempts at action.

Because DC needs to cultivate non-superhero genres, I like the idea of Men Of War; but because the two stories in issue #1 cover some predictable ground, the idea is more appealing than the execution. The lead, written by Ivan Brandon and drawn by Tom Derenick, concerns Corporal Joseph Rock, he who is destined to become the next Sgt. Rock, just like his legendary grandfather. It’s not a bad story, and it’s fairly good work (stylistically improved) from the inconsistent Derenick. However, it takes forever to get to the point — namely, Rock and his squad versus superhumans — and it’s not that concerned with keeping the reader straight on who everyone is. A similar problem applies to the backup, written by Jonathan Vankin and drawn by Phil Winslade, in which a different squad tries to smoke out a sniper, with a cliffhanging result. Where the first story focused on Rock and his sergeant, and then hastily added the squad, the second tries to squeeze character moments into the action. While the book may improve with subsequent issues, and/or less harried reading, for now it seems rather uneven.

Keith Giffen’s storytelling and pencils propel OMAC #1 (co-written by Dan DiDio and inked by Scott Koblish), an unabashed Jack Kirby homage which mashes the One Man Army Corps with a heaping helping of Jimmy Olsen’s Cadmus Project. Giffen really goes for the full Kirby effect, and without his efforts this would be a fairly slight issue. Here, OMAC is Kevin Koh, cubicle drone turned mohawked juggernaut, whose body is co-opted in order to break into Cadmus’ top-secret mainframe. Kevin’s co-workers include a worried girlfriend and a lout, neither of whom are developed much further; and OMAC fights a succession of familiar Kirby creations, most notably the world’s deadliest Build-A-Friend. It’s sufficiently over the top to be entertaining, but it’s hard to tell whether future issues will have either this level of energy, or a suitable substitute.

Static Shock #1 (written by John Rozum and Scott McDaniel, pencilled by McDaniel, inked by Jonathan Glapion and leBeau Underwood) was a terrific reintroduction to the witty adventures of Virgil Ovid Hawkins, a/k/a Static. Now a high-school student interning at STAR Labs in New York City, we catch up with Static trying to stop a runaway experiment and preserve the lives of innocent bystanders, only to learn that those bystanders are more concerned with the effects Static’s powers have on their personal electronic devices. Yes, it’s like Spider-Man’s inability to get everything exactly right; and no, this isn’t the first time Static has been compared to his friendly neighborhood predecessor. The difference is that Rozum and McDaniel effectively develop Virgil’s friends, family, and immediate enemies about as well as their wisecracking hero. See, Static isn’t just an ex-Milestone character incorporated into the New 52 DCU, he’s a gateway to other Milestone characters like Hardware, an armored avenger who appears here as Static’s mentor. Extending Static’s reach like that means that Rozum and McDaniel can carve out a particular Milestone-centric niche and thereby give Static Shock a unique place among the New 52. Accordingly, it’s a title worth reading regardless of what the other 51 books are trying to do.

Finally, there’s a lot going on in Stormwatch #1 (written by Paul Cornell, drawn by Miguel Sepulveda), most of it presented in rapid-fire infodumps. Stormwatch is trying to recruit Apollo, which they’ll probably do because he’s on the cover. Also, someone’s blown a mysterious horn, which summoned a giant alien who’s taken control of the Moon. There are many characters popping in and out — the Engineer, Jack Hawksmoor, the Martian Manhunter, Jenny Quantum, Harry Tanner, Adam something-or-other, Projectionist — and Cornell can’t seem to decide whether we know them all, or not at all. Although this isn’t a bad comic, juggling its various characters and plot points with moderate success, it’s far from accessible, and reads like part of a shared superhero universe which is more than a dozen issues old. If Static Shock seeks to carve out its own little niche, Stormwatch is content to wallow in New-52 lore. No doubt that’s meant to pay off handsomely down the road, but for now, it’s kind of disconcerting.

Recommended: Action Comics, Animal Man, Batgirl, Static Shock, Swamp Thing

Could get better: Justice League International, Men Of War, Stormwatch

Could go either way: Green Arrow, OMAC

Sticking with ‘em regardless: Detective Comics

No thanks: Hawk And Dove

* * *

Next week: picking up the spare with Batwing, plus Batman And Robin, Batwoman, Deathstroke, Demon Knights, Frankenstein, Green Lantern, Grifter, Legion Lost, Mister Terrific, Red Lanterns, Resurrection Man, Suicide Squad, and Superboy!

Legal

Legal | A Michigan judge on Monday denied a defense motion to dismiss the murder case against former retailer and convention organizer Michael George, who will now stand trial a second time in the 1990 shooting death of his first wife Barbara. His trial is set to begin Sept. 7. George, 51, was convicted in 2008 of killing his wife in their Clinton Township comic book store. However, later that year Macomb County Circuit Judge James M. Biernat set aside the conviction based on claims of prosecutorial misconduct and the emergence of new evidence that might have resulted in a different verdict. [The Detroit News]

Comic strips | On Sept. 11, the Sunday comics pages will mark the 10th anniversary of 9/11 as 93 strips from six syndicates participate in “Cartoonists Remember 9/11.” After publication, the strips will be collected at CartoonistsRemember911.com. [USA Today]

Education | Updating Monday’s report about rising waters in White River Junction, Vermont, imperiling The Center for Cartoon Studies’ Schulz Library, Director James Sturm says that while the building was seriously damaged, thanks to the efforts of students, staff and alumni, not a single book was lost. Cartoonist Jen Vaughn, meanwhile, details the rescue, with accompanying photos. [The Comics Reporter, The Beat]

Ultimate Comics Fallout #4

Retailing | Don MacPherson dissects Marvel’s offer of a free ad to retailers who order 5,000 copies of Ultimate Comics Fallout #4. [Eye on Comics]

Comics | Johanna Draper Carlson and K.C. Carlson assemble “12 Horrible Superhero Stories for Women,” from the debut of Supergirl in Action Comics #252 to the rape of Sue Dibney in Identity Crisis. [Comics Worth Reading]

Digital | Graphicly has added 15 graphic novels, including The Dapper Men, Atomic Robo and Irredeemable, to the selection of comics it makes available via the Nook. [Graphicly blog]

Creators | Abhay Khosla talks at length with writer Mark Sable. [Savage Critics]

Creators | Writer Kieron Gillen catches everyone up on the state of Marvel’s X-books. [Hero Complex]

Creators | Writer Kurtis Wiebe discusses his Image Comics horror series Green Wake. [The Weekly Crisis]

Review | Cyriaque Lamar praises Kagan McLeod’s Infinite Kung Fu: “It’s all bonkers, but within its tapestry of fists and forbidden arts is an immensely readable fantasy tale.” [io9]

Gags | This anecdote about Calvin and Hobbes creator Bill Watterson isn’t true, which is just as well. If it was, I would be weeping, wailing, and gnashing my teeth. [The Onion]

Bake Sale

Bake Sale
by Sara Varon
First Second, 160 pages, $16.99

Anya’s Ghost
by Vera Brosgol
First Second, 224 pages, $15.99

As insufferably precious as Sara Varon’s comics can seem at first glance, they’re frequently suffused with a melancholy that belies their outward cutie-pie nature. Most of her books deal with the tricky nature of friendship, both our essential human need for connection and companionship and also how we often define our own identity through our contact with others. She rarely sugarcoats these relationships, either — Robot Dreams had a rather nasty betrayal at its focal point after all. That all can seem like heady stuff for an all-ages book, but Varon smartly refuses to delve too deep into psychology blather, preferring to keep the actions and visuals as simple and self-explanatory as possible.

Bake Sale is set in a food-anthropomorphic world (albeit one with dogs, cats and people) and focuses on a cupcake that runs a bakery. Yes, I know, but bear with me here. The cupcake, called, appropriately enough, Cupcake, dreams of traveling to Turkey with his friend Eggplant to meet the world-famous pastry chef Turkish Delight, and starts scrimping, saving and working overtime in order to afford a plane ticket. But then circumstances forces him to give up his ticket in order to help his friend.

And it’s here that Varon shows how she’s a much smarter and tougher author than first appearances would suggest. In a simpler book, Cupcake’s generosity would be the main point of the tale and the book would end with a happy moral about being selfless spelled out in big glowing letters, smiles all around. That’s not the case here. Cupcake actually suffers a bit for his generosity. His confidence and self-esteem falters and his bakery skill suffers, as though bereft of such a consuming dream and missing his friend, he doesn’t know what to do with himself. It’s this sort of emotional honesty and willingness to let if not dark, at least sad moments happen that makes Varon’s work worth reading. Plus, she draws a really cute cupcake.

Anya's Ghost

Friendship, self-esteem and maturity are also the themes of Anya’s Ghost, though unlike Bake Sale, it’s aimed at a slightly older audience (there’s smoking and intimations of budding sexuality).

The book’s title character is a sullen, self0involved teen (and Russian emigre) who accidentally and quite literally stumbles upon the ghost of a girl about the same age, though many centuries dead. Although understandably creeped out at first, Anya discovers the ghost girl makes for a useful, if somewhat needy, friend, capable of getting test answers and helping her hook up with the school dreamboat. Soon, however, the ghost’s friendliness takes a rather sinister turn and Anya starts to wonder whether the supernatural friendship comes at an unsustainable price.

This is Brosgol’s first major comics work, apart from some entries in the various Flight anthologies, which makes the book’s confidence, stellar pacing and insight all the more remarkable. You don’t expect someone to produce a graphic novel this good right out of the gate. Brosgol doesn’t hit a single wrong note here — she understands her characters and their motivations intuitively and conveys them to the reader not through reams of expository dialogue but via subtle body gestures and facial expressions.

What’s more, Brosgol has an appealing, big-eyed, round-headed, thick-lined style that I adore, especially in some of the smaller scenes  — the way Brosgol makes Anya just a bit hippy so you can tell she has body image issues; the ghost’s gradual transformation from mousy and meek to controlling and aggressive; the scene where Anya realizes her teen crush is a bit of a dirtbag. Despite it’s fantasy trappings, Anya’s Ghost, like Bake Sale, isn’t content to merely offer up conventional plot points and safe, easy-to-swallow platitudes, but attempts to say something authentic about identity and self-esteem but without coming off as didactic or simpering. It’s one of the best books I’ve read this year.

Justice League

Publishers | DC Comics have released details on the midnight release of Flashpoint #5 and Justice League #1 on Aug. 31. The publisher is offering a free over-ship of Flashpoint #5 for retailers who order 125 percent of their order for Flashpoint #1, and the publisher has noted that that these are the only two DC titles shipping that week that can be sold at midnight. The promotion is only available to U.S. and Canadian accounts; due to the Aug. 29 bank holiday, the midnight sale option will not be available to UK retailers. [ICv2]

Legal | Michael Dean looks at the recent ruling by New York federal judge Colleen McMahon that the family of Jack Kirby has no claim to the copyrights of the characters he co-created for Marvel. Dean notes, “Some legal observers were expecting Marvel to be the second major comics-publisher domino to fall when Toberoff filed on behalf of the Kirbys, but there is a key difference between Kirby’s comics work and Siegel’s: It was well established that Superman already existed as a full-blown character concept before Siegel and Joe Shuster pitched him to DC, whereas Kirby, who died in 1994, did most if not all of his Marvel work on assignment from the publisher. In the case of work for hire, the Copyright Act defines the instigating employer/publisher as the Author of the work.” [The Comics Journal]

Howard the Duck

Creators | Former Marvel Editor-in-Chief Jim Shooter recounts his first meeting with writer Steve Gerber, which involved a “low key” argument about mature content in mainstream comics. In a second post, he talks about working with Gerber later as his editor. [Jim Shooter, Part 1, Part 2]

Creators | In a video interview with Wired, Grant Morrison says publishers need to “let the artists go crazy, let the writers go crazy” and get back to big ideas in order to address declining print sales. [Underwire]

Webcomics | The entrepreneurial side of webcomics is the focus of this Boston Globe story featuring five Massachusetts artists who are making it on their own, without newspaper syndication. [The Boston Globe]

Creators | Khursten Santos takes a long, fond look at manga creator Iou Kuroda. Only one of Kuroda’s works, Sexy Voice and Robo, has been translated into English and that’s out of print. As you will see from this article, that’s a shame. [Otaku Champloo]

Conventions | Michael Bonesteel previews the upcoming Wizard World Chicago show that runs Aug. 11-14, stating that comics are “still holding their own amid the hoopla and Hollywoodization of the event.” He talks to two comic artists who will attend, Don Kramer and Ivan Brunetti. [Chicago Sun-Times]

Conventions | Erin Finnegan posts the audio of her Unusual Manga Genres podcast from Otakon; she has a slide show to go with it, too. [Ninja Consultant Podcast]

Conventions | Physics Today reporter Charles Day shares what he found when he attended the San Diego Comic-Con with the intent to “hunt for physics in and around the conference hall.” [Physics Today]

Appreciation | Ben Morse sings the praises of 1602: Fantastick Four, a comic he dubs “underrated.” [The Cool Kids' Table]

Reviews | Robert Colvile looks at Grant Morrison’s new book Supergods. [Telegraph]

Reviews | Aaron Zenz and his 11-year-old daughter Gracie review Fantagraphics’ The Complete Peanuts collections. “My goal is to read all of the Peanuts comics ever made. That’s my dream,” Gracie said. [Bookie Woogie, via 4thletter!]

Craft | Fluffy creator Simone Lia explains how to draw bunnies. [The Guardian]

Charlaine Harris

Publishing | Charlaine Harris, author of the “Sookie Stackhouse” novels on which HBO’s True Blood is based, says that after she finishes the last two “Sookie” books, she plans to work on a graphic novel with Christopher Golden. “I’m very excited about that. It’s called Cemetery Girl with Christopher Golden, and it’s a very exciting opportunity.” Harris had mentioned wanting to do a novel called Cemetery Girl back in 2009, about “a girl raised by ghosts in a cemetery,” but put it on hold when she found out the plot was similar to Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book.

Based on the description in the news report, it sounds like the story has been tweaked, as it says the graphic novel “centers on a woman who finds herself living in a cemetery with no memory of her past but a clear sense of a mysterious threat hanging over her.” This isn’t the first time Harris’ characters have found their way into comics, as IDW publishes comics based on HBO’s True Blood, and an adaptation of her Grave Sight novels has been published by Dynamite. [NBC San Diego]

Publishing | Former Marvel Comics editor and Transformers writer John Barber has joined IDW Publishing as a senior editor. IDW also announced the promotion of Tom Waltz to the company’s first senior staff writer position, in addition to his duties as editor, and the expansion of the company’s book department with longtime IDW employee Alonzo Simon becoming an assistant editor. [press release]

Publishing | Jim Shooter shares how Marvel’s Epic imprint, which published mostly creator-owned books like Groo and Dreadstar, came into existence. [Jim Shooter]

Creators | Back in the 1970s, long before there was Womanthology, Sharon Rudahl was editing the underground Wimmen’s Comix anthology. Robin McConnell talks to her about those pioneer days, and her more recent graphic novel Dangerous Woman: The Graphic Biography of Emma Goldman, in an hour-long podcast. [Inkstuds]

Creators | Matt Wayne posts the Dwayne McDuffie tribute that Comic-Con wouldn’t print: “I’m worried that Dwayne is going to be the industry’s ‘proof’ that we’re all post-racial and chummy, now that they can’t be embarrassed into hiring him anymore, and I don’t want to contribute to that absurd but inevitable narrative.” [Dwayne McDuffie Forums]

Batman: The Dark Knight #2

Creators | Rich Johnston talks to writer Paul Jenkins about joining David Finch as co-writer of Batman: The Dark Knight #2. [Bleeding Cool]

Reviews | Matthew J. Brady takes a look at Yuichi Yokoyama’s Garden: “… the imagery that Yokoyama has managed to pull from the ether and finely explicate on the page is, for the most part, gorgeously bizarre. There’s the occasional object or action that doesn’t quite read like it is supposed to, but most everything makes sense, from the houses on wheels to the giant wave of photographs, and they provide plenty of opportunities for meticulously detailed scenes, even within the uniform line weights and expansive white space that Yokoyama favors.” [Warren Peace Sings the Blues]

Reviews | Robot 6 contributor Matt Seneca examines Seth’s Wimbledon Green: The Greatest Comic Book Collector in the World. [Death to the Universe]

Reviews | John Parker looks at the comics of Joe Casey, “the most dangerous man in comics.” [ComicsAlliance]

The Walking Dead, Vol. 14

Retailing | Although the 14th volume of The Walking Dead wasn’t released until June 21, it still managed to secure the No. 2 spot on BookScan’s list of graphic novels sold in bookstores that month, behind the 51st volume of Naruto. It’s the ninth consecutive month that at least one volume of the horror series has appeared in the BookScan Top 20, a run that began as marketing geared up for the AMC television adaptation. [ICv2.com]

Publishing | Darwyn Cooke has announced that the release of Parker: The Martini Edition will be postponed for a few months, and takes full responsibility for the delay. The book is now scheduled to debut at the Long Beach Comic Con in October [Almost Darwyn Cooke's Blog]

Publishing | John Jackson Miller looks at the history of comics numbering, which he traces back to dime novels of the 19th and early 20th centuries: “Comics are anomalous in American magazine publishing because most comics don’t use volume numbers and issue numbers that roll over ever year; rather, the numbers keep on going. In that, our numbering is much like that used for the cheap, disposable fiction of the earlier days.” [The Comichron]

Creators | The Hollywood Reporter interviews The Walking Dead creator and Image partner Robert Kirkman about Comic-Con International, his favorite San Diego restaurant, what panel he’d stand in line for and his first CCI: “My first Comic-Con experience, in 2001, was absolutely horrible. I was a self-publisher doing a book called Battle Pope and I got far too big a booth for the popularity of my book and ended up losing quite a bit of money on that endeavor. In general, it was an amazing experience despite the relatively nerve-wracking loss of money at the time when I had relatively no income. I met a lot of people that were doing self-publishing at the time. I also got to meet some of the creators of Image Comics and talked to Erik Larsen to for a while, which ended up leading to me becoming a partner at that company.” [The Hollywood Reporter]

Guinea Pig: Pet Shop Private Eye

Creators | Eva Volin interviews Colleen AF Venable, who is both the designer for First Second Books and the writer of Guinea Pig: Pet Shop Private Eye, a series of graphic novels that has a Pixar-like ability to appeal to both adults and kids. [Good Comics for Kids]

Creators | Jim Woodring introduces his Congress of the Animals and shows some of his preliminary sketches in a talk he gave at the Elliott Bay Book Co., captured on video by Ian Burns of Fantagraphics. [Flog! Blog]

Comic strips | Puzzled by Beetle Bailey? Check out these videos of Mort Walker explaining classic strips from the 1950 and 1960s. [The Daily Cartoonist]

Comics | Larry Cruz discusses, with pictures, the life and career of Krazy Kat, including its appeal to the intelligentsia. It’s a good companion piece to last week’s Comics College by Chris Mautner. [The Webcomic Overlook]

Manga | It didn’t start with Sailor Moon: Molly McIsaac presents a short history of magical girl manga. [iFanboy]

Creators | Two manga artists, the winners of a competition sponsored by local businesses, are moving in to an apartment across the street from a legendary building where Osamu Tezuka and a host of other manga creators once lived. The idea seems to be support a tradition of comics creators in the neighborhood. [The Mainichi Daily News]

Reviews | Nina Stone reviews the fourth issue of Joe Casey and Mike Huddleston’s Butcher Baker, The Righteous Maker: “If this issue of Butcher Baker were a ride at a fair, it would be the Gravitron/Starship 4000.” [Factual Opinion]

How-to | The Papier Boy has step-by-step instructions on turning garden gnomes into superhero garden gnomes. [Instructables]

Ryan Reynolds as Green Lantern

The big-budget adaptation of Green Lantern is a fairly entertaining popcorn movie with a stentorian beginning, a strong finish, and a middle section which feels about a half-hour longer than it actually is. That’s not entirely unwelcome, because GL’s leads are charming when they need to be and engaging otherwise. Ryan Reynolds makes a good Hal Jordan, Blake Lively comes across pretty well as Carol Ferris, Mark Strong stands out as Sinestro, and Peter Skaarsgard plays Hector Hammond effectively as a misfit-turned-skeevy-sociopath.

Unfortunately, this is not director Martin Campbell’s best genre film, falling short of both the brisk, precise Bond reinvention Casino Royale (2005) and the clever, nimble Mask Of Zorro (1998).  Even so, Green Lantern is an ambitious attempt to bring the comics’ fusion of space opera and Earthbound superheroics to a general audience, and for the most part it succeeds.

SPOILERS FOLLOW…

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Starting with the Silver Age revamp, Green Lantern was already something of a generic superhero: ultra-brave person receives nigh-unto-magical power ring, and goes to work for immortals who have the universe’s best interests at heart. There’s not a lot of built-in character development, because at any given time there are over 3,000 sentient beings using the rings, each with a certain baseline level of fearlessness. In the old days this was not that big a deal, because the ring’s limitations allowed for puzzle-type stories. More often than not, Hal had to figure out a way around either the weakness to yellow (absent in this movie) or the 24-hour charge.

Eventually, however, Hal found himself at odds with the Guardians, either on philosophical grounds or because they thought he was spending too much time on Earth. These conflicts informed the ‘70s “Hard-Traveling Heroes” stories, the ‘80s arcs where Hal was first exiled into space and then quit the Corps entirely, and 1994′s infamous “Emerald Twilight” arc.

To get to that point, however, you need either a certain familiarity with the Green Lantern Corps or an easy way to bring a new audience up to speed. I’d have loved to see a Green Lantern movie take the Hard-Traveling route (possibly with John Stewart in the Green Arrow role, for simplicity’s sake), but after talking to friends and family unfamiliar with the core GL concept, I think the movie chose wisely to tell Hal’s origin.

In fact, the very first scene of the movie got a nice chuckle out of me, but probably not the way the filmmakers intended. The movie opens with a gorgeous deep-space vista, highlighted by a multicolored nebula, and the first words we hear come from the classy throat of Geoffrey Rush, as he describes the history of the Green Lantern Corps. However, I was reminded instantly of the original “Battlestar Galactica’s” opening narration, performed by the just-as-classy Patrick MacNee. In a way, that sets the tone, because the movie has some pretty cheesy moments, but not enough to overwhelm the viewer.

One moment which does threaten to overwhelm happens to be the flashback to Martin Jordan’s death, remembered in ponderous detail by Hal as he struggles with his jet. Campbell and veteran editor Stuart Baird hammer home every emotional beat laboriously, such that when Martin’s plane bursts into flames, it’s almost anticlimactic. What’s more, the script (by Greg Berlanti, Michael Green, Marc Guggenheim, and Michael Goldenberg) wants to make this an understandably important turning point in Hal’s life, but at times it takes a back seat to Hal’s ambivalence about his new responsibilities.

Faring better are the outer-space scenes. While I might have preferred a more traditional-looking Oa, with gleaming architecture and a bright blue sky, the film’s craggy-coral-reef approach makes the Guardians’ home appropriately unfamiliar. The Guardians themselves are distant but fair, brought to life by CGI which isn’t always convincing, but which does the job.

Thankfully, more attention was paid to Tomar-Re and Kilowog, both of whom are interpreted very faithfully in CGI and by their respective voice actors. Rush lends Tomar a particularly genial air, and he makes a good tour guide for Hal and for the audience. Michael Clarke Duncan doesn’t have much opportunity to bring any nuance to Kilowog, but he can do “big and tough,” which is what the script mainly calls for.

Somewhat tougher to judge is Mark Strong’s Sinestro. Here he’s the heroic paragon of the Corps, cast as an effective leader and dedicated warrior — but if I were a moviegoer new to GL lore, I’d be wondering if a guy named “Sinestro” might have something more going on. Indeed, the seeds of Sinestro’s future career come to fruition in this movie, as part of a subplot which raises questions (explored in the comics, naturally) about the Guardians’ stewardship of the Corps. Not surprisingly, this subplot doesn’t occupy too much of the movie’s time, but by extension it helps establish Hal’s value as a GL. (Basically, towards the end of the movie he argues that if he can’t save Earth from Parallax by himself — without using the yellow ring, as Sinestro would — at least he can buy the defenders of Oa some time.)

I was pleasantly surprised by Blake Lively’s Carol Ferris. The Carol of the comics inspires some strong feelings among longtime fans, whether she’s on the wrong end of a secret-identity love triangle (which appears in this movie, and lasts about 3 seconds) or demanding that Hal choose between her and the Corps. Here, she’s set up as the adult in the room, trying to keep Hal out of trouble so that he won’t ruin Ferris Air. Her exact role in the movie is nebulous — she’s one of Ferris’ pilots, but she’s also a rising executive (because her dad owns the company, naturally) and at one point she defies her father very publicly. It’s not the best role, but she does a lot with it. Although Tom Kalmaku (the endearing Taika Waititi) is mostly comic relief, he is convincing as Hal’s confidant. Still, when Carol shows up to support Hal late in the film, it feels like she’s earned the right to be there. In another nod to comics history, Carol’s callsign is “Sapphire,” and I’m curious to see how Lively might handle her own CGI duds.

Peter Skaarsgard’s Hector Hammond starts off as a nebbish, and he actually has one of the movie’s more interesting character arcs, but it gets lost in one-dimensional villainy once he’s zapped by a remnant of Parallax. Essentially, he wants to make his own way in the world, unhampered by his own father (who’s a Senator, incidentally overseeing shadowy government agencies like the Department of Extranormal Operations); but when Dr. Amanda Waller (played with Hillary Clinton hair by Angela Bassett) gives him Abin Sur’s corpse to dissect, he realizes he only got the job through his dad’s influence. (Tim Robbins plays Senator Hammond, although I had to keep reminding myself he wasn’t Jeff Bridges’ Obadiah Stane.) Nobly lamenting the fact that other scientists spend their whole lives for this kind of opportunity, this resentment gets fanned into an eeevil flame presumably by Parallax, who also causes Hector to toss and turn fitfully in his bed, and bellow uncontrollably at various points. I never felt like I got enough of a handle on Hector to judge him either as a villain or as a tragic figure. This was frustrating, because the movie is about (somewhat) ordinary humans swept up in a very old war between powerful cosmic forces, but it doesn’t seem particularly concerned with that perspective.

Still, Ryan Reynolds gives the movie a solid central figure. It’s a credit to Reynolds that he can play Hal as a jerk in the opening scenes (he pretty much sacrifices his wingman to prove a point), and later show Hal’s change of heart. Speaking of which, thanks to one detail of Hal’s arrival on Oa, I did wonder whether the ring itself forced a change in Hal’s personality, not unlike Parallax’s malignant influence on Hector. I kind of doubt it; but again, you can tell from his performance that becoming a Green Lantern compels Hal to reexamine his life. It’s not gradual — it’s more like Hal just flips a switch, and decides to be a better person — but there’s enough goodwill in Reynolds’ performance that it’s believable.

Perhaps most importantly, Reynolds really sells the idea that he’s zipping around in a suit of green-and-black energy, talking to extraterrestrials, and thinking up green-energy jalopies to run on life-sized Hot Wheels tracks. Green Lantern’s effects are quite good, and the green-energy constructs translate to the big screen very well. Sometimes they’re not enough to carry a scene on their own, but they’re a nice change of pace from generic energy-blasts. The final battle takes place right next to the Sun, as Hal applies one of Kilowog’s lessons in order to defeat Parallax, and all the elements come together effectively. Immediately afterwards, when Hal is reunited with Tomar, Kilowog, and Sinestro, I realized what a good time I’d had, and that I wanted to see more.

Basically, Green Lantern is a Geoff Johns comic blown up for the movies, with all the good and bad that implies. At times it strains under the weight of exposition and fidelity to the source material, at times it creaks with awkward dialogue. (Carol’s “you have the ability to overcome great fear” line doesn’t sound that much better in context.) There are echoes of similar films, from Star Wars and Top Gun to Superman and Iron Man. Still, it is a fine primer on Green Lantern lore, and a decent movie in its own right.

Green Lantern: Emerald Knights

Green Lantern: Emerald Knights, the latest foray in Warner Brothers’ collection of straight-to-DVD animated movies, is a tired collection of military cliches interspersed with some impressive fight scenes. Words like honor, sacrifice and bravery get batted around like a well-used hacky sack at a Grateful Dead concert, but to little effect, other than to remind you that there’s a big screen, live-action movie starring Ryan Reynolds that will be coming out in theaters any day now.

Hal Jordan

The film opens with a rather jarring sequence that I actually feel compelled to call attention to since it veers so far away from the tone and treatment of the rest of the film. In it, a generic Green Lantern is heading out on patrol when she is attacked and killed by a group of flying shadow monsters. That’s fine in and of itself, except that the movie takes loving care to show her being dismembered by the monsters, with her feet, then hands, midsection and then head rather gruesomely ripped from her body. The fact that there’s no blood or entrails doesn’t make this sequence any less disturbing. In fact, I’d argue it makes it even more disturbing. And I should note at this point that the film is rated PG. Way to do your job, MPAA.

But I digress. It seems the shadow monsters are working for the Lantern’s ancient enemy Krona, who apparently is planning to attack the guardians’ home planet of Oa any day now, once he can get out of his anti-matter universe or wherever it is he’s trapped. A call to arms is raised, and as the Green Lanterns gather and prepare for battle, our hero Hal Jordan starts telling the youngest and newest recruit, Arisia, some of his favorite stories about the Corps and its various members.

Green Lantern attacks

So what we have then is an anthology film, collecting various stories from the comics — some well known, some not so well known — all designed with one purpose: to hammer home again and again how utterly awesome the Green Lanterns are. At times this movie feels more like a recruitment film than a superhero cartoon.

We learn about the very first Green Lantern, Avra, and his selfless courage despite humble beginnings; about Killowog’s tough-as-nails instruction; and about Laira, who receives a decidedly unwelcome homecoming when she returns to her warrior-proud planet on a peacekeeping mission.

Avra

We are also treated to adaptations of two Alan Moore stories, both originally written way back when DC and Moore were bestest buddies. The first and best known, Mogo Doesn’t Socialize, is a rather faithful adaptation, though it adds more backstory than necessary and spoils the big revelation way too soon. I did, however, smile to realize that “Rowdy” Roddy Piper was providing the voice of Mogo’s “nemesis,” Bolphunga the Unrelenting.

The other adaptation is Moore’s “Tygers,” which is turned from a tight, nasty allegory about the dangers of second-guessing yourself into a rather muddled mess, with lots of dialogue between Abin Sur and Sinestro (who plays a supporting role here by the way; this film seeming to take place before his eventual betrayal) about destiny versus free will. I suspect that this is largely due not so much to Kevin O’Neill’s admittedly grotesque illustrations as it is to the fact that it puts Abin Sur in a rather weak light, and makes him seem susceptible to deception, which would be untoward in a film that’s devoted to selling you on the Green Lantern franchise as strongly as possible.

The Guardians are blinded by the light

Like a number of recent DCU films, the animation here varies between stylish and proficient to sloppy and cheap. The fight sequences are, as I said before, extremely well choreographed and rendered, and are easily the highlight of the film. Elsewhere, though, it’s obvious the staff relied on CGI and a few other computer tricks to keep costs down and animate the less kicky-punchy sequences, but only serve to create a “something’s not right here” tone within the mind of the viewer. I will note that, while the look of the film is consistent overall, certain segments, like the Mogo chapter, seem to harken to back to ’70s animation, particularly the Heavy Metal film or a few Ralph Bakashi projects. If intended, it’s an homage that I greatly appreciated.

Green Lanterns attack

But the film’s real flaw is not the animation or its episodic structure. It’s the utter reliance on war movie tropes that were tired back when John Wayne was doing them. Every cliche in the military handbook is trotted out here: the nervous recruit eager to prove herself; the soldier who must choose between family and doing the right thing; the tough, sadistic drill sergeant who actually has a heart of gold; the neophyte who refuses to back down against overwhelming odds; and on and on and on.

The film constantly reminds us how being a Green Lantern is all about sacrifice and bravery, to the point where I expected to see Killowog turn around at some point, remind us that they’re looking for a few good men and suggest we contact our local recruiter. The most egregious effort in this direction is easily a supplemental documentary where Dan DiDio, Geoff Johns and some people with PhDs talk about how Green Lantern shows us what it means to be truly brave and how without him (and, by implication, the rest of the DC universe) we’d all be selfish, petty bastards with no understanding of nobility or the higher good. This isn’t implicit stuff; they actually come out and say this several times, interspersed with images of George Washington, King Arthur and, yes, John F. Kennedy, just in case we didn’t get the point already.

Well, so what? What’s wrong with tales about sacrifice and bravery? Aren’t these important ideals we should strive toward and admire, even when they’re presented in a cartoon? What’s my problem, anyway?

Well first off, all of the Hal’s talk of bravery and what it means to be a Lantern strikes me as a very lazy way to inject a bit of heightened melodrama and unearned grandeur. But then there’s also the issue of spelling everything out. A few weeks ago in one of our What Are You Reading? columns, I criticized Action Comics #900 for its insistence on making sure every story mattered, either by infusing it with unneeded political and social allusions (“torn from today’s headlines” as it were) or by overstating as loudly and explicitly as possible the mythological allusions and general awesomeness of their characters. It’s the old “if we tell you this enough times maybe you’ll believe it” school of storytelling, and Green Lantern: Emerald Knights buys into it 100 percent, to its detriment.

Overstuffed with melodrama and false piety, Green Lantern: Emerald Knights is short on character development, plot and any sort of emotional investment. Some Green Lantern fans, even those who serious groove on the mythology and details of the character and universe, may be disappointed to find Hal basically taking the role of a narrator here, though perhaps they’ll enjoy seeing various supporting characters thrown in the spotlight. Others will enjoy the film as a basic action, superhero film — the fight sequences are, as I said, the best thing about the film. Whether those fans pay any heed to the militaristic platitudes presented throughout the movie doesn’t make them any less prominent, however, or any less of a problem.

Emerald Knights aplenty

The Tooth
Written by Cullen Bunn and Shawn Lee; Illustrated by Matt Kindt
Oni; $24.99

Equal parts Hellboy and Hulk, The Tooth is the story of a young man named Graham Stone who inherits a spooky old estate from his grandfather, Ezekiel. While looking over the place, Graham discovers a room full of “occult esoterica,” a collection of dangerous artifacts that Grandpa Zeke spent a lifetime accumulating. Unfortunately, Graham doesn’t understand how unsafe the stuff really is and grabs an amulet designed to control a mystical, yellow tooth.

Who does understand the significance of the collection is Caleb King, evil mage and one-time arch-nemesis to the late Ezekiel Stone. But when King gets rough with Graham, the supernatural tooth forms a humanoid body and grows to fightin’ size in order to protect his new… well, “master” doesn’t seem like the right word, but the relationship between Graham and the Tooth is hard to define.

Graham doesn’t command the Tooth, but it is attached to him, sometimes quite literally. In between battles with King’s monsters, the Tooth shrinks down and implants itself in Graham’s gums. Graham acts as a reluctant host for the creature who in turn defends the young man. The relationship between the mild-mannered protagonist and the uncontrollable monster brings classic Hulk comics to mind, while the Tooth’s occult origins and the evil wizard who seeks to exploit them are reminiscent of Hellboy.

There’s also a great supporting cast worthy of the comics that influenced The Tooth. Graham is engaged to a woman named Beatrice who’s trying to figure out what’s happened to her fiancé. She partners with Sheriff Turnbull, the only law in the small town where the story takes place, and as her relationship with Graham becomes unfamiliar and strained, her relationship with Turnbull begins to feel easy and comfortable.

Beatrice is no damsel-in-distress though. She’s not someone to be used as a pawn in the conflict between Graham and the man who’s hunting him. She’s her own woman and capable of defending herself to a certain point. The Tooth owes some of its tone to the Hulk, but it’s not simply an analog for those comics. Turnbull is neither General Ross nor Jack McGee. He’s only interested in solving crimes, not hunting monsters. It’s Beatrice who worriedly drives the investigation into Graham’s affairs. In many ways, she’s as much the hero as Graham.

That’s all for the good. The Tooth wouldn’t work if it simply mimicked the material it’s paying homage to. That would shatter the illusion that it’s a reboot of a real comic series, an illusion that everyone’s worked very hard at creating, from drawing fake covers and ads to writing fake letters pages and Bullpen Bulletins-style articles. It’s a successful trick that brought back the joy I felt as a kid when I’d discover a new comic.

The story in The Tooth is almost entirely self-contained. It certainly leaves room for more stories to be told about these characters, but no one’s going to come away from it feeling like they have to buy anything else to be satisfied. And yet, the letters and editorials create a history that begs to be explored. The introduction speaks of “die-hard Tooth historians” not needing to worry about the series’ new direction because it includes “connections aplenty to the past – including occult icons such as Ezekiel Stone.” Letters pages refer to past stories and characters in ways that make me want to dig through some back issue bins. I know next to nothing about them – they don’t appear in this story – but I’m hoping future volumes include the return of the Voodoo Queen or a fiendish plot of Dr. Torment. If they don’t though – if this volume is all there is – that’ll be okay too. It’s almost as fun to make up your own Voodoo Queen and imagine the kind of trouble she might have caused the Enameled Enigma.

Still, I really want to see Bunn, Lee, and Kindt take another turn at it.

Garden
by Yuichi Yokoyama
Picturebox, 320 pages, $24.95.

It might seem odd at first glance to describe Yuichi Yokoyama’s work as dynamic, given his minimalist, antiseptic style that edges ever so closely to outright abstraction without ever crossing the line. Yet a close inspection of his work, particularly his latest book, Garden, shows what an utterly apt adjective it is. Nothing of significance ever happens in Yokoyama’s world, at least not in the sense we think of it when talking about narrative. There’s precious little plot per se, no threats or crisis, and no character development to speak of. Yet everything is in constant motion, in constant flux, if not already transforming then ready to be transformed into something else or at least be moved about. No one stands still in Garden, and their actions are depicting in tight close ups, off-kilter worm’s-eye-views or panoramic vistas. He’s Jack Kirby without the bombast or violence.

Garden starts out simply enough: a large group of people (or what passes for people in Yokoyama’s world) find a break in a wall in what is described as a “very good” garden and walk in and start to explore it.

And that’s about it. The build-up comes from the increasingly surreal and complex creations the group stumbles upon. Rivers made of rubber balls and tree planters made out of cars give way to rooms filled with soap bubbles, libraires that contain books that are ten feet tall or a mile wide, and a town set entirely on casters. Who made these objects and what, if any, functional purpose they serve is unimportant. Destinations and revelations are unimportant in Yokoyama’s work and honestly would only spoil the mystery. The discoveries made along the journey is all that matters.

As with Yokoyama’s previous works, New Engineering and Travel, Garden explores Yokoyama’s fascination with not only motion but architecture and landscape, and, more significantly, how mankind and technology can often blend the two in strange and unexpected ways.

Yokoyama also has an obsession with depicting things at odd angles or through strange viewpoints. In Travel it was exemplified by a lengthy sequence that showed the way rain water moved down a window and was reflected on a passenger’s face. In Garden, there are breathtaking sequences involving photos of the cast being projected on giant walls and water surfaces, a seemingly endless hall of mirrors and watching shapes twist and distort as their images are filtered through the afore-mentioned soap bubbles.

Another idiosyncratic aspect of Yokoyama’s comics is that he seems unable or at the very least unwilling to let his characters resemble normal humans. They normally feature instead some sort of bizarre or elaborate headgear. One character has a baseball for a head. Another’s head consists of the nose of an airplane. Still anothers’ seems to be a honeycomb and so on. Throughout the book, there’s a character who constantly takes pictures of the surroundings (an act which does aid have some muted significance at the end), but at about the halfway point I began to wonder if maybe he wasn’t really taking picctures, but that his head design was simply that of a guy taking pictures if you see what I mean. Such are the directions your thought processes take when reading a book of this nature.

This is the longest of Yokoyama’s works that’s been translated in English so far and also the one with the most amount of dialogue (only a few stories from New Engineering had any dialogue). It’s purely functional, however, as the characters merely comment to each other about the objects they encounter, uttering statements like “What is this place?” and “Let’s go in here.” But remember: the characters are not there to show personality or depth or growth. They are there to explore, observe and report.

It’s become a cliche to describe a cartoonist as original, but Yokoyama truly stands apart from his peers, both here and in his native country of Japan. At first glance Garden may seem foreboding, stand-offish or perhaps even downright dull. It’s anything but however. In fact, I wish mainstream comics had a tenth of the imagination and energy Yokoyama exhibits here. Despite it’s placid appearance, Garden is a one heck of a thrilling book.

Disclaimer: Picturebox publisher Dan Nadel also happens to be one of the editors at the new Comics Journal website, where I am an occasional contributor.

Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths

Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths
by Shigeru Mizuki
Drawn and Quarterly, 368 pages, $24.95.

Disclaimer: At the request of the publisher, I wrote a letter of recommendation when they were applying for a grant from a nonprofit organization to aid in the publication and promotion of this book.

Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths is nothing less than a spit in the face of militarism, war and feudal attitudes. It is an angry book, but it doesn’t shriek its indignation, though the temptation certainly seems to be there. There are few histrionics on display or scenes of outright, explicit condemnation. Rather, the book is content to let the general inhumanity on display speak for itself.

Shigeru Mizuki is not a name well known to Western readers. In fact, this is apparently the first book by him to ever reach these shores, at least in English. In his native country, however, he is beloved enough that his characters and images (and even a bronze statue of the cartoonist) dot the streets of his hometown. Indeed judging by what people both in this book and across the Interwebs have to say about him it seems perhaps only giants like Osamu Tezuka are more well known and honored.

Onward doesn’t resemble the characters Mizuki is best known for — the yokai (i.e. folklore monsters) and other creatures that make up his most famous work, Ge Ge Ge no Kitaro. Instead the book offers a somewhat fictionalized account of the author’s time spent in what would eventually become Papua New Guinea during the height of World War II (an experience that cost Mizuki one of his arms). Here, a handful of soldiers are given the task of holding the island back from American troops, a no-win situation that might seem more acceptable if it weren’t for the fact thousands of Japanese troops are being held in reserve only miles away.

At first the soldiers only seem at prey to the elements, wild animals and their own stupidity (one soldier attempts to grab a fish with his mouth and ends up choking on it). As the situation worsens, however, and the enemy draws near they are forced to make a suicide charge by their commanding officer. Mizuki makes clear this is an unwise military strategy; the captain stresses that gurilla tactics would be better, but the commanding officer is green, arrogant and vainglorious, his head full of fairy tales about samurai bravely sacrificing themselves for the greater good.

Indeed, sacrifice is frequently requested and expected by the officers, but with little rhyme, reason or reward. Mizuki portrays Japanese army life as one of not just hardship but outright abuse. The lower ranks and rookies are routinely beaten and kicked because their low status ranks them as little more than cattle. The suicide charge just underscores how dispensable they truly are. And when it all goes wrong and some soldiers make the mistake of surviving, measures are taken to ensure that dignity and decorum is preserved, even if it means a further cost of human life (or, perhaps by extension, winning the war).

Though the backgrounds are heavily detailed almost to the point of pure photorealism (a sequence of American bombs falling and wrecking havoc is one of the most stunning visual sequences in the book) the characters themselves are barely sketched out — little more than basic cartoon shapes actually. Ostensibly, this shouldn’t be too much of a problem, and indeed the juxtaposition between the cartoonish cast and the realistic setting leads to some disturbing moments, particularly in the more violent episodes, and it allows for Mizuki to indulge in the occasional bit of slapstick humor to keep things from getting too dour.

But Onward has a large cast, and despite the character guide offered in the beginning, it’s very hard to tell the soldiers apart, with only shape of their head, body size and a few other distinguishing characteristics, like glasses, to help the reader out. With one or two exceptions, no one in the cast really distinguishes themselves either. We don’t really get to know these men, their past lives and their hopes and fears the way we do in a more traditional war story. While this does help underscore the expendable nature of the grunt soliders, it also has the unfortunate effect of distancing the reader somewhat from the proceedings.

If Onward resembles any Western comic, it is almost certainly It Was the War of the Trenches, Jacques Tardi’s searing indictment of World War I. Like that book, it takes the grunt soldier’s point of view to condemn those in the higher ranks for their general savagery and forcing the men they claim to be responsible to sacrifice the lives of themselves and those around them for selfish, petty reasons. Of the two, I think Trenches is the better book, if only because you become more involved in the rank and file’s inner thoughts, but that’s not to suggest Onward suffers grievously in comparison.

I’ve criticized Drawn and Quarterly in the past for skimping on background and biographical information on their gekiga line. I’m happy to say that’s not the case here. A including a nice introduction by Fredrick Schodt, some helpful footnotes, an afterword by Mizuki and an interview with the author. All of these things add to a deeper appreciation of both the book and Mizuki’s talents and I hope D&Q continues to contribute more text pieces like these in their future manga releases.

For those fascinated by military history and WWII in particular, Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths provides a penetrating look at the suffering and absurd injustice inflicted on Japanese soldiers by their very own army. Some, I suspect, might balk at the author’s portrayal of average grunts, given the atrocity of Japanese war crimes like the Bataan Death March. While he doesn’t directly address these injustices, there can be little doubt after reading the book as to where Mizuki’s sympathies lie. You know who’s side he’s on.

BOOM!’s new series doesn’t do that exactly, but it gets awfully close and ends up presenting something that I didn’t realize I wanted, but really do. Set long after Battle for the Planet of the Apes, BOOM!’s comic shows readers a time in which apes and humans are technically equal, but bigotry towards humans and an imbalance of power in favor of the apes have created a tense situation. That doesn’t sound all that different from the last couple of movies in the series, but it is in at least one important way. Where Conquest and Battle were set more or less on then-contemporary Earth (or that’s the impression I gathered from reading Revolution), enough time has passed between then and the new series that the world’s starting to look something like the original movie.

One of the coolest things about the first film was that its version of Earth was a post-apocalyptic fantasy world. So much of what made it awesome was the look of it: the apes’ costumes, the buildings; the primitive humans. It was a world ripe for exploration, which is why it’s so disappointing that the films immediately went away from that in favor of traveling to the relative mundaneness of the past; our present. BOOM!’s series is back in the fantasy world, though it looks better than any that’s been presented on screen.

That’s all thanks to artist Carlos Magno who’s created a jungle world of spired cities, airships, and medieval fashions. Though both humans and apes are dressed interestingly, the class difference between the two is immediately apparent. Humans are dressed like commoners, though cool, swashbuckling ones with tied-up sleeves and buckles and sashes. Apes on the other hand wear intricately ornate designs, some of which would make the Virgin Queen envious. And of course there are lots of horses and gorillas to ride them. It’s a wonderful world, not just worthy of the Planet of the Apes name, but better than it.

The story is worthy too. Though there’s still some social commentary inherited from the PotA movies, that’s background for the real plot: a murder mystery. It involves an assassination that threatens the fragile peace between apes and humans. So while the stakes are deeply connected to the discussion of equality, the comic avoids preaching about that issue. Instead, writer Daryl Gregory introduces two women – one human; one ape – and gives readers a reason to care about each.

Alaya is the granddaughter of the assassinated Lawgiver of the apes. She’s mourning her loss and trying to find some answers that will let her make sense of it. She knows that the assassin was human, but doesn’t know why they targeted her grandfather, a man who faithfully endorsed peace between the two species. The human is Sullivan, a down-to-earth, free-spirited, and very pregnant woman who was raised by the Lawgiver alongside Alaya and is now the unofficial leader of the humans. She’s also trying to find out who killed the Lawgiver, partly out of respect for him; partly because she needs to prevent the apes from retaliating against all humanity. And then there’s the strained relationship between these two women who grew up as playmates and sisters. It’s potent stuff, made awesome by being set in Magno’s world.

The Arctic Marauder

The Arctic Marauder
by Jacques Tardi
Fantagraphics Books, 64 pages, $16.99

Based on what’s been translated in English so far, it seems as though are two kinds of Jacques Tardi books. The first is the dark, grim and gritty type, best represented by books like the wonderful but harrowing It Was the War of the Trenches and the steely-eyed noir West Coast Blues. The second is what I’d dub (rather awkwardly, because I can’t for the moment find better terminology) his goofier, more tongue in cheek style, best seen in the Adventures of Adele Blanc Sec series (and, to a certain extent, the satirical You Are There).

The Arctic Marauder, Fantagraphics’ latest entry in their Tardi line, easily fits in the second category. It’s a wickedly sly take on classic turn-of-the-century pulp adventures that nevertheless manages to both tweak and evoke those stories. It is, in short, a blast to read.

In many ways Marauder, which was originally published in French in 1974, points forward to the Blanc Sec series, which he would start in ’76. Like Blanc Sec, it is very clearly designed to remind readers of the type of fantastic fiction of the late 19th and early 20th century, particularly the work of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells, though Marauder in particular probably owes quite a bit as well the Fantomas, Dr. Mabuse type of pulp villains that ran rampant through European novels around that time.

The story involves young, fresh-faced Jerome Plumier, who, while navigating the Arctic Ocean, comes across a icy, abandoned ship perched on top of an iceberg, just before his own vessel mysteriously explodes. One hospital recovery later, he’s searching for his missing scientist uncle, who may or may not have something to do with all of these ships blowing up in the Arctic, not to mention the mysterious old lady who keeps following him around and shooting strangers in train compartments. Could there be some sort of vast conspiracy at work? (Answer: Yes.)

Tardi writes all of this as if he was getting paid by the exclamation point. The book’s nameless narrator throws as many 50-cent adjectives out there as possible, while asking rhetorical questions like “Why are we always so disappointed in the ones we love?” If the prose were any more purple, it would bruise.

But as much fun as the overwrought text is, the art is the book’s main draw. Each page is laid out in an ornate art nouveau fashion, with circular panels, rounded corners and  symmetrical patterns giving off the languid, fluid style of the fin de siecle era. Long, narrow panels dominate the page, to add a sense of scale, particularly when icebergs, ships or ornate, villainous hideouts are involved. In order to best evoke the woodcut engravings of the era, Tardi used scratchboard style, drawing in the main characters and then using a variety of knife and comb-like tools to carve out the backgrounds. Apparently it was such an arduous chore that he swore never to do it again, but the effect here is magnificent. Marauder looks quite unlike any comic you’ve read before.

Whatever problems the current comics marketplace has (and there are plenty to be sure), I continue to be amazed and grateful that it can (after all these years) accept an artist like Tardi and a quirky book like Arctic Marauder into its fold. I hope you’ll join me in welcoming its arrival.

All-Star Superman

Warner Bros’ animated adaptation of Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely’s All-Star Superman is so reverent and faithful toward the source material that the film, to a certain extent, feels like a pale copy of its inspiration.

That’s not necessarily a damning criticism. Bruce Timm and company took the right approach in attempting to get as close a conversion from page to screen as possible (to do otherwise would have pleased no one). But the comic itself is so rich in detail and episodic in nature that even a trim, streamlined version like this that still manages to hit a number of the right high points feels a bit flabby in comparison. Saying “the book is better” is a rather easy cheat for a critic — the book is almost always better, but I suspect that fans of the comic won’t be able to watch this without running a compare/contrast checklist in their head and find the film coming up a wee bit short. The good news is that those coming fresh to the material probably won’t notice anything wrong at all.

I wasn’t kidding when I said the film is as faithful to the comic as possible. Screenwriter Dwayne McDuffie lifts the dialogue verbatim from the comic whenever he has the opportunity, and he has plenty of them. What’s more, while the animation is a bit sleeker and cleaner than Quitely’s rough, minimalist pen lines, the animators do their best to mimic the artist’s unique character expressions, posture and body types throughout the film and copy his panel composition whenever the opportunity arises. Many fans will no doubt thrill at seeing sequences like Superman kissing a super-powered Lois on the moon not only animated but done as a near-xerox copy of the original, iconic panel.

Lois and Kal-El take flight

More importantly, director Sam Liu manages to maintain the overall contemplative tone and atmosphere of Morrison and Quitely’s masterpiece. It’s certainly one of the most subdued, nakedly sincere and emotional films they’ve ever done, at least compared to past WB/DC films like Under the Red Hood and Superman/Batman: Apocalypse. Matching and maintaining this sort of wistful, inspirational attitude from the comic without coming off as corny or false must have been exceedingly tricky, so kudos to Liu and company for getting that rather essential part right.

Indeed, certain sequences, like Clark Kent’s interview with Luthor in prison manage to capture the comic’s balletic farce rather well while still adding some of new bits to it. Occasionally they even manage to top the comic — there’s a gag involving Superman’s star-dense Fortress of Solitude key that actually works better animated than it did in print.

But with only a 76-minute running time, it’s not terribly surprising that a number of sequences would get edited out. As one might expect, the film hones its focus on the Superman/Lex Luthor/Lois Lane triangle, with (in case you’re not familiar with the over-arcing story) Superman finally falling terminally ill to one of Luthor’s traps and attempting to put his affairs in order, especially with Lois, before his time is up.

Lex Luthor

The comic, of course, was as much an ode to the classic Superman stories of the past as it was an exploration of the character itself and what makes him so mythic. Thus, the filmmakers attempt to nod toward this by inserting some of the less plot-essential sequences like the battle of wits between Sampson, Atlas and Superman. The one sequence that unfortunately sticks out like a sore thumb is the one involving the Kryptonian astronauts Bar-El and Lilo. It’s not one of my favorite bits from the comic, and my own preference would have been to ditch that for perhaps the Jimmy Olsen sequence in issue #3 instead, or something from issue #10, where he cures children’s cancer, creates a new pocket universe and saves a girl from committing suicide. The choice to include Bar-El and Lilo makes thematic sense — their arrogant behavior provides a nice contrast to Superman’s own humility — but it does underscore the original material’s episodic nature and make the film feel like it’s trying to take a deep breath before moving on to its finale.

I usually don’t have much to say about the voice work in these films unless I hate it, but everyone does a rather good job this time around. James Denton and Christina Hendricks give a nice gravitas to their characters and the interplay between them works rather well. Special note, however, should be given to Anthony LaPaglia, who nails Luthor’s quiet arrogance and jealousy rather well.

What big hands you have Kal-El

Usually the special features sections of these DVDs are an embarrassment, with lots of unwarranted self-congratulation and allegedly in-depth looks at the histories of various characters and comics that are as shallow as dishwater. For once, however, the supplemental materials are worthwhile.

The main feature is a documentary titled “Superman Now” that features Morrison talking about the origins of the original 12-issue comic and how it came together, as well as a video segment where he shows off his original sketches for the series and talks about how they evolved over time. Even if you’ve heard Morrison talk about these things in past interviews, it’s still entertaining to see him mull over them once again.

There’s also a commentary track featuring Morrison and Timm that vacillates between insightful and glad-handed compliments, where each tells the other how much they love their work. Despite the schmoozing and occasional quiet lapses, there are notable moments, as when Morrison talks about the larger themes he was trying to address in the comic or Timm talks about how tricky it was to capture Quietly’s style in animation. It’s especially interesting to note Timm’s hesitancy about whether this more subdued, thoughtful type of material will play well before the traditional superhero fanboy audience. Would the same crowd, he asks, that cheered at the violence on display in Red Hood appreciate a more restrained film like this? I’d like to think so, but it seemed telling to me that Timm took the time to pose the question at all.

There’s also a preview of the next DCU film, a hodge-podge of Green Lantern stories titled Emerald Knights, no doubt designed as a tie-in to the upcoming live-action film. The most notable (and, honestly, unsurprising) revelation was that they plan on adapting Alan Moore’s “Mogo” story. They’d kind of be silly not to.

Despite my reservations, All-Star Superman is an entertaining movie and should please fans whether they’ve read the original mini-series or not. But there’s also no doubt that the film’s struggles to capture the particular mood of the comic and determine what to prune and what to keep make the film’s pacing a bit bumpy, to put it charitably. It would have been nice to expect a film equal in stature to the comic — nice, but unfair and more than the WB animators could no doubt execute given their financial limitations. At best the film is an enjoyable supplement, one that will allow fans to contemplate just what was so special about the original work that drew them toward it in the first place.

Suat was kind enough back in January of ’09 to invite me to be one of the judges for this year’s round-up. the other judges consisting of Tim Hodler, Johanna Draper Carlson, Melinda Beasi, Derik Badman, Shannon Garrity and Bill Randall. I’ll go through this year’s winners, with my personal commentary in a minute, but if you’re the impatient type, you can see the final results here and here.

First, some brief observances …

When I was first invited to attend this shindig I was rather excited — one might even say giddy — at the prospect. First of all there’s the honor of being asked to contribute, but I also hoped there would be a good deal of animated conversations — that I and my fellow judges would heatedly defend or deride the choices being offered and a healthy, robust debate would ensue. I even made the suggestion to Suat that he set up a Google group to facilitate said discussion.

Needless to say it never occurred. We merely sent our choices to Suat every so often, made our final votes, consolidated them slightly when necessary and that was that. I can’t honestly say I’m terribly surprised. Enthusiasm wanes even in the best of times and it was hard enough to remember to make a decent enough list of links to send to Suat and company every couple of months, let alone write a treatise on why so-and-so’s essay was the bee’s knees. This honestly isn’t meant as a complaint so much as it is an observation — it’s not like I did anything to encourage discussion.

While I did try to branch out to sites and critics I wasn’t as familiar with, for the most part I stayed within my circle of familiarity, as I suspect a number of the judges did. My criteria for what got my attention and what didn’t wasn’t very stringent. I was simply looking for work that was very well written and had something insightful to say about the work (or works) it was discussing.

So without further ado, here are my thoughts on this year’s winners and who I voted for:

1. “The Other Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name”, by Jason Thompson (6 votes) – I voted for this one, although I also considered voting for Thompson’s essay on morality in action manga instead. In the end though, I think I was simply impressed with how Thompson was able to address an uncomfortable and taboo subject (the popularity of incest manga) and provide more than just a Readers Digest-style overview of the genre, adding insight and some sharp analysis.

2 (tie). “Ayako”, by Katherine Dacey (5 votes). My original vote was for Dacey’s piece on Sexy Voice and Robot with Harriet the Spy, which I think is a brilliant comparison and the sort of left-field thinking that makes me appreciate her writing as much as I do. Her review of Ayako was the clear front-runner among the judges though, and in the end I was willing to alter my vote because, while I prefer the other essay, the latter remains a strong review that

2 (tie). “The Problem with American Vampires Is That They Just Don’t Think”, by Joe McCulloch (5 votes). I voted for this one. Obviously I’m horribly biased as I consider Joe a friend, but I do honestly think it’s a fine piece of criticism that goes beyond the usual liked it/didn’t like it reviews that typically appear online.

4. “Born Again Again”, by Craig Fischer (4 votes). Voted for this one too. Good criticism should see connections and provide new ways of thinking about an artist’s oeuvre. Fischer’s piece on David Mazzuchelli did that for me in spades. He’s one of the few critics that really understands how to write about the visual aspects of comics, which for some reason always seems to be a tricky proposition.

5 (tie). “Tintinopolis”, by David Bordwell (3 votes). Didn’t vote for this one, though it’s an excellent essay and certainly deserves to be on the final list.

5 (tie). “The Mirror of Male-Love Love”, by Dirk Deppey (3 votes). Didn’t vote for this one either, though it was on my short list. I’m not sure why it didn’t make the final cut.

5 (tie). “Casper, Formalism, and the ‘Great’ Search Party”, by Ken Parille (3 votes). Voted for this. I’m a formalist at heart and I love essays that break down and closely examine the distinct parts of a particular comic, as Parille’s essay does rather well.

And, not that you asked for it, but here are the other pieces I voted for:

Brian Chippendale on the Avengers. I love reviews that can bring the snark without sacrificing any insight for the sake of a cheap shot. I’m also always interested in reading what creators have to say about other comics. Particularly when they’re as funny and sharp as Chippendale is.

Jog and Matt Seneca talk Kirby and Steranko. OK, this was total cheating on my part, as I had already voted for Jog once before, but I really enjoyed the hell out of this dialogue. Seneca came out of nowhere to become one of the most noteworthy critics around, and reading him and Joe go back and forth about two important artists was (Aside note: what’s amazing to me is the number of Seneca’s posts that were nominated during the year and yet he still didn’t manage to make the final round.)

The Twitter review round-up of the Ax anthology. On retrospect, I probably should have switched my vote here for Andrei Molotiu’s excellent piece on Steve Ditko, which I had completely forgotten about for reasons I can’t possibly fathom. At the time though, I was quite enamoured with this unique manner of roundtable discussion and that, despite the 140 character limit, managed to provide a good overview of the anthology and its strengths and weaknesses. Moreover, 2010 seemed to me to be a year where the critical discourse was as much reflected by online discussions and conversations as much as it was by the one-person, one-perspective essay, and I wanted to reflect that in my final vote somehow.

Abhay Khosla rambling about webcomics. Abhay will get my vote just about any year. I am always impressed at how he can seemingly let segue follow seque and yet still tie it up into a cohesive, discerning read, in this case on the plethora of webcomics out there and how that sheer amount of material can leave you, well, overstimulated and anxious. Plus, the dude’s really funny.

Michel Fiffe and Tucker Stone on Love and Rockets #3. See my comments on the Twitter/Ax thing. Plus, it’s one of the best pieces of writing on one of the best comics of the year.

In the end, there were a lot of good essays to pick from this year, so that narrowing it down to a specially chosen few was difficult. Hopefully, that suggests that good comics criticism is alive and well on the Internet. Or maybe I just have trouble making tough decisions. Or both.

Return of the Dapper Men

Return of the Dapper Men
Written by Jim McCann; Illustrated by Janet Lee
Archaia; $24.95

There’s a line in Finding Neverland that’s stuck with me. “Young boys should never be sent to bed. They always wake up a day older.” What I love about that movie (and stories like Peter Pan and Alice in Wonderland) is their celebration of childhood. They reflect a delightfully tenacious refusal to let something as mundane as growing up steal the joy of an imaginative life.

Of course, there’s a flipside to that perspective. A couple of them, really. The dreary one that’s most often cited by boring people is that you can’t stay a child forever. As a Grown Up, one has Responsibilities to face. As if meeting responsibilities and living a blissful, inspired, creative life are mutually exclusive activities.

There’s another response to the Peter Pan Syndrome though; one that’s just as special as the desire to hold on to childhood. It doesn’t belittle childhood as something to be put behind as quickly (and grumpily) as possible. It takes the best part of childhood and invites us to carry it with us into a more mature way of looking at the world. That’s the perspective that Jim McCann and Janet Lee introduce in Return of the Dapper Men.

It’s the story of a place called Anorev in which Time has ceased to exist. The clocks have stopped ticking (or, to be precise, tocking) and the result is that there is no bedtime. That’s what brought the Finding Neverland quote to mind. No one wakes up any older, because it never gets dark and no one ever has to go to bed. Peter Pan would love it, but in Anorev it means that nothing has meaning anymore. The world has stagnated to the point that even the concept of Play has become rote and tired. The Dapper Men return – as you might expect – to set things right. They get the clocks tocking again. And teach some lessons along the way.

The biggest message that I took away was a wonderful companion to JM Barrie’s. As 41, the only one of the Dapper Men to talk explains to Ayden, the book’s young hero, bedtime is more than necessary. It’s vital and exciting. It’s “blankets and pillows and books by the bed to make the stuff of dreams. And then tomorrows.”

“Tomorrows?” asks Ayden, who doesn’t remember what that means.

“The wonderful thing that follows dreaming. Where everything is possible…”

Imagination and Play are wonderful, but Adventure, says 41, requires Change and Doing. I love that. It values the creative wonder of childhood, but discourages staying there. To live fully, we have to carry that wonder with us as we go about doing things. Growing up doesn’t mean giving up the things that made you smile as a kid. It just means embracing your freedom to interact with and change the world around you. And that’s more wonderful than any childhood dream, because it’s the ability to make those dreams reality.

Speaking of dreams and imagination, Janet Lee’s art sure puts the reader in the proper mindset to contemplate those concepts. Using a combination of markers and decoupage, she creates a magical, child-like world full of mechanical wonder. Return of the Dapper Men has been described as a steampunk fairy tale and Lee makes it look like one.

From a writing standpoint, the steampunk angle is easy to see – the world is full of gears and robots and clockworks – but the fairy tale label takes more effort to unpack. This is mostly because fairy tales themselves are so difficult to define. Do they have to have fairies in them? Do they even have to have magic? Do they require a conflict between good and evil? Experts disagree.

I’m certainly no scholar, but what I think of when I hear the term is a story for children that teaches some kind of life lesson in a subtle way (as opposed to the overt morals in fables, for instance). By that definition, Return of the Dapper Men certainly qualifies. Though I’ve tried to make one of the book’s messages overt in this post, I don’t know that everyone’s going to have the same reaction or place as much weight on that particular piece of the story. It was the message that was most powerful to me, but there are more that I don’t doubt will resonate more strongly with other readers.

The book is packed with symbolism and meaning, much of which I’m sure I missed in my initial reading. The role of the robots, for instance. Other than the Dapper Men, there are no adults in Anorev, so where did all the children come from?

There are hints that they may have come from the robots. While chastising the humans and machines for not getting along, 41 says, “You, that’s no way to speak to what you’ve created. And you, you should be thankful you’re even alive because of them.” Only he’s not looking at anyone in particular and you can’t tell which group he’s addressing when.

One of the kids calls him on it. “I can’t tell who you’re talking to!”

“I honestly have no idea,” he says.

Neither do I, but I’m going to enjoy re-reading (and continuing the story in the next two Dapper Men volumes) and trying to figure it out.

Discussion Questions: If you’ve read Return of the Dapper Men, what do you think is the relationship between the humans and robots?

If you haven’t, recommend another great steampunk comic. I’ve got the itch to read more now.