Welcome Earthlings.

In Case You Missed It

With all the “news” cycling through this site, sometimes it’s easy to miss our column. So, I’ll be posting a link here to the previous few week’s columns just to make sure the reviews don’t get overlooked.

You can read our column from last week HERE where we review Point Blank TPB, Jonah Hex #43 and The Black Diamond Detective Agency.

You can read our column from two weeks ago HERE where we review Battlefields: The Tankies #1, Resurrection Volume 1, Viking #1 and Frank Frazetta’s Freedom.

Raided: Captain Blood #1 (SLG Publishing)($3.50)
By Graig Kent

I’m not the biggest fan of pirates, or old timey adventures really, and I was hesitant about reading the preview copy of Captain Blood from SLG that landed in my mailbox. The vibrant color reproduction of the cover was enticing, and beneath it 23 pages reproducing the incredible pencil art of Michael Shoyket (whose finished work on SLG’s Tron series was definitely notable, but here shows leaps in refinement and detail). Captain Blood, I was to discover in my ignorance of the genre, a rather legendary novel by Rafael Sabatini later adapted into an equally infamous Errol Flynn swashbuckler. Unfamiliar with both, I hesitantly dipped my toes into the first few pages, and was sucked right in. Peter Blood is a doctor who finds himself a slave to the British Empire, now in Jamaica tending to the wounded and ill of the war going on around him, plotting with his fellow slaves his escape. The first issue wastes no time in freeing Blood, setting the stage for his pirate escapades, but it’s brilliantly ground in its setting and characters, writer Matt Shepherd developing both with perfect balance. Shepherd promises a faithful, but modern, adaptation of Sabatini’s novel, which may sound contradictory, but it absolutely works. Noting that he and the artist avoided the film, here he’s presenting a century-old novel as a character piece with political and social contexts playing a role while promising action and adventure as well. It’ll be a fine balancing act, but given the introductory issue, it would seem it’s well within his grasp.  Recommended.

Preview


FOUR AND A HALF OUT OF FIVE VIKINGS


Trade Winds: Stitch (TPB) (SLG Publishing)($10.95)
By Graig Kent

A couple months ago I reviewed Tommy Kovac’s Skelebunnies perhaps somewhat unfavorably, citing that it just wasn’t all that amusing but noting “…his cartooning is wonderfully rendered in a variety of styles, showing incredible flexibility…” and that there are “two other Kovac series, Autumn and Wonderland, I’d recommend you start there instead.” What I wasn’t aware of was Kovac’s first series, Stitch, a curious, creepy, delightful little gem that showcases Kovac’s incredible visual talent via an imaginative and engrossing story.

Stitch begins with its title character, a rag doll named Stitch, awakening in the attic of an old Victorian home, unaware of his own self, having no memories and not understanding of where or who he is. He meets four other rag dolls who seem familiar to him - one professes to be his sister – who invite him to play, but their warring attitudes frighten him a little. Two fairies, the Benders, emerge, nightmarishly teasing Stitch about being a “fancy boy”, while a giant, stinky pull-string bear looms large and frightfully over him, speaking nonsensically. Stitch makes a fast friend with the kind and gentle sock monkey, Granpa, but is seemingly the lone friendly face in the crowd as Voodoo Dolly and Tinybones, a pair of sinister marionettes, attempt to provoke Stitch into sinister deeds while tantalizing him with the secrets of his true being.

The story is told in four chapters, with short text pieces between each chapter that fill out the details of Stitch’s background even more. There’s also a longer text piece new to this volume that acts as the epilogue to the story, since the actual finale is really quite abrupt.

Being Kovac’s first work, his storytelling isn’t quite as tight as it is in his later works, as scenes turn on a time while character moments come and go with mysterious purpose. Though mildly distracting, it does work for the story in a sense, as it does enhance Stitch’s sense of confusion. The mystery of Stitch and the other sentient toys does unfold brilliantly, making it a gothic fairy tale that darker than Gaiman’s Coraline. 

As I noted, Kovac’s illustrations are wildly impressive. His anthropomorphic toys are illustrated to have a realistic sensibility instead of being overly cartoonish, giving the book (and the look) a lot more weight, a sense of reality complimenting the story much more than if he strived for cartoonish, Toy Story-esque visuals. Elaborate borders and innovative panel structure are two extra little things Kovac does with his visual storytelling to make this book stand out, and it does.


FOUR OUT OF FIVE VIKINGS


The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century (1910)(Top Shelf)($7.95)
By Adam Prosser
 
Rebelling against the mainstream is a noble cause if you’re an artist, or at least I think so. But it brings with it its own challenges. One of the reasons certain ideas, story beats, and formulas become “mainstream” in the first place is that they work so well and audiences respond to them. To break these rules can be exhilarating, but it can also limit a story or turn it into something baffling or pointless. If the hero and the villain decided to stop fighting and go out for a beer for the rest of the story, that would certainly be surprising, but it would be a lot harder to make it entertaining. At least, entertaining in the same context as the story started.
 
When Alan Moore created The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen back in 1999, it was a genuine, giddy thrill. Other writers had dabbled in teaming up public domain characters before, especially the late Victorian pulp SF and fantasy characters, but Moore brought a sure-handedness and relentless pacing, which, combined with Kevin O’Neill’s quirky but dazzling art, made for one of the most purely fun reads of his career. Reading it, it was hard not to get excited about the possibility of a movie adaptation…
 
…And that didn’t end well.
 
Putting aside the awfulness of the film, Moore ’s own experience behind the scenes seems to have been pretty miserable, causing him to swear off Hollywood altogether. But the impact seems to have been felt in the comic series itself, too. Starting with Volume 2, the series started to eschew the conventional thrills of an adventure story and make itself as dark and difficult as possible. Moore seems to have abandoned the storylines he had planned, condensing them into synopses in the back of Volume 2 and scattered throughout The Black Dossier - the latter of which laid out a new and bolder vision for the series, one which would take it up to the present. With “Century”, the first LoEG book to be published independently, Moore starts the story afresh.
 
Set in 1910, the story concerns a number of interwoven plot threads concerning the impending coronation, a secret cult of mystics, and the reappearance in London of a musically-inclined murderer named John MacHeath, aka Mack the Knife, who may also be Jack the Ripper, returning to his old haunts. The most crucial story, however, concerns the daughter of Captain Nemo, who’s rejected her heritage and come to town to make a living as a bar-wench under the name Jenny Diver. But the Nautilus is still looking for her, and it can’t be without a captain for too long.
 
These thread all seem to center around a looming “apocalypse”, dreamt by the psychic detective Thomas Carnacki. Carnacki’s one of the new members of the League, along with a rejuvenated Alan and Mina, the gender-bending immortal Orlando (introduced in Black Dossier, but really getting his/her proper introduction here) and the “gentleman thief” A. J. Raffles. The League investigates these threads and uncovers much that will clearly become important in later volumes, but doesn’t really make a lot of headway, until events catch up to them.
 
Anyone who’s read the various LoEG books so far will notice a distinct pattern: Moore ’s sympathy clearly shifted sharply away from the League during his experiences with the film, and from Volume Two onwards the League have been gradually losing their “heroic” status. In Vol.I they were monstrous protectors; in Vol.II they were necessary monsters; by 1910, they’ve lost their most evil members and become a load of bumblers. Mina and co. tie the plot together and uncover a lot of clues, but they don’t really prevent or accomplish anything here, and it’s clear that Moore is making a deliberate reversal to subvert the very concept of adventure teams. The League, inescapably, is a tool of the establishment, and (as someone who’s recently freed himself from DC) Moore can’t find sympathy for them until they’ve been effectively reinvented.
 
It’s clear from The Black Dossier that Alan and Mina are going to eventually become free agents, and the League itself will transform into the bad guys. What we’re seeing in “1910” is the awkward growing pains of a series being transformed by its creators’ ideological concerns. In other words, it’s far more interesting as an artistic manifesto—or, really, the beginning of a manifesto--than as a classic adventure story (though it’s much more straightforward than Black Dossier). This is the kind of thing that may very well turn off many readers, so you should buy with caution. For myself, though, I’m getting an almost-equal thrill from watching this series evolve in surprising and unexpected ways.


THREE AND A HALF OUT OF FIVE VIKINGS


 
Final Crisis Aftermath: Escape #1 (of 6) (DC) ($2.99)
By Graig Kent

There are four Final Crisis Aftermath books, Run dealing with the Human Flame fleeing from heroes and villains alike, Ink telling the Tattooed Man’s turmoil in reforming himself, Dance continuing the adventures of Japan’s Super Young Team, and this, Escape dealing with… well, I’m not quite certain yet.  After the divisive but utterly intriguing work Grant Morrison did in the main event, I find each of these six-issue series appealing, and yet finances being what they are, I can only choose one to follow.  I chose Escape based solely on its writer, Ivan Brandon, who impressed me greatly with his Faces of Evil: Kobra one-shot a few months ago (Sean reviewed his new Image series, Viking, in this column last week). 

Escape finds Tom Tresser, aka Nemesis, awakening, mildly sedated, in a strange bed, being serviced by three plastic triplets.  Even in his hazed state, Nemesis knows things aren’t right, and he flees the room, entering an almost virtual reality corridor where he thinks he sees his former boss Amanda Waller, only to collapse at the feet of a faceless being wearing a leather coat adorned with a GPA (Global Peace Agency) button.  Is this Father Time?  The Question?  Mr. Terrific?  Someone else. Nemesis realizes he’s not in his right mind and runs until everything goes white. He’s nowhere, yet somewhere, and his mind starts spinning as he sees things in kaleidoscopic vision. Count Vertigo, Cameron Chase, some guy… equally unknowledgeable of this crazy place.  They encounter an Omac (“the” Omac?)  and they’re given the opportunity to leave, but an open door leads to somewhere they can’t go.  They’re prisoners despite their captors stating otherwise.

The book, from page one, hearkens back to the near-perfect 1960’s Patrick Magoohan series The Prisoner, where a secret agent, having quit his position, is drugged and scuttled off to a strange village on an island of no escape where he participates in dueling mind games with his captors. They want his intelligence, they want to break him. He wants his freedom but not their way. It’s a true man against the world scenario, and Brandon evokes (but doesn’t replicate) the show marvelously, telling a trippy, illogical story that Grant Morrison fans will certainly appreciate. Artists Marco Rudy and Mick Gray handle the visuals as if they were veterans of the The Invisibles, creating an exotic locale, twisted mindscapes, and nailing perfectly the tangible difference between human and plastic beings.

My initial impression of Brandon’s work is that he’s a star waiting in the wings for his big break.  I’m not certain Escape (or Viking) will be it, but it’s certainly going to be a pleasure following his work, watching him develop, and waiting for his breakthrough.


FOUR OUT OF FIVE VIKINGS


Raided: Booster Gold #20 (DC Comics)($2.99)
By Graig Kent

Together again: Keith Giffen and Booster Gold. Although a fun series, I abandoned the time travelling exploits in Booster Gold after the first year due to a constricting budget, but a year later, a near dearth of other monthly titles to read and one of my favorite writers working on a sentimentally favorite characters has drawn me back, with mixed results. Giffen brings Booster to the 1950s for an encounter with the Suicide Squad of the era and Sgt. Rock. The story finds Booster recruited to assist in impeding the development of a rocket ship, and exposing its designer, a Russian double agent. This is all well and good, but it’s over almost before it begins leading to a three page epilogue about how Booster just aided in the creation of the Rocket Reds, which even the firmest of DCU buffs will find kind of boring. It’s noted that this is Chapter One, which means there’s hopefully more to it than Booster doing his Fonzie impersonation, but next issue promises adventures in the Batcave so perhaps not. Middling.


TWO AND A HALF OUT OF FIVE VIKINGS



Raided: Azrael: Death’s Dark Knight #3(of 3)(DC Comics)($2.99)
By Graig Kent

Time was comic book companies would introduce a new character, run them around in a back-up feature or put in appearances in a few different series, gauging their popularity before they went ahead and put them in a series of their own. Hell, it was about 40 years before Green Arrow got his first series. Well, there’s a new Azrael in Gotham, as introduced in the three issues of this series, and according to the final page of the third issue, he’ll be appearing in his own series this fall.  I’m not necessarily upset at the idea of  churning out a new series nobody is asking for, but rather that this mini-series is written less as a complete story and instead as a set-up to it. The new Azrael is not even developed to a point that we care about him very much at all, nevermind anticipating his further adventures, and the third issue doesn’t even attempt to conclude the story developed in the first two issues.  Were this issue 3 of an ongoing series I wouldn’t mind so much but it’s presenting itself as the conclusion of a mini-series and it’s less than satisfactory. Of course, to be perfectly honest, I’m not invested in Azrael at all (or the “Battle for the Cowl” to which this is tied), and really only came aboard for Frazer Irving’s always incredible art… well, almost always. Here even he seems bored by the story and there are more than a few panels which seem less than enthusiastic (a particularly awful shot of the “dramatic reveal” – he’s on the cover, no drama there – of Ra’s Al Ghul the low point).


TWO OUT OF FIVE VIKINGS


Lockjaw and the Pet Avengers #1 (of 4)(Marvel)($2.99)
By Graig Kent

There has not been a single comic this year I’ve been looking forward to more than Lockjaw and the Pet Avengers, and there’s no logical explanation for it. One look at the cover three-ish months ago of Lockjaw, Lockheed, Frog Thor and company aloft in mid-air (why? They all can’t fly. Makes no sense) and I was giddy. There’s no logical explanation for it. I don’t have a particular devotion to any of the characters, and yet, this is what I think comics should be.  Nothing screams “fun” more than an assembly of superhero pets. Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo-Crew or Legion of Super-Pets anyone? Who’s with me?

(crickets)

Anyway, this is written by Chris Eliopoulis, the writer of the series of Franklin Richards kid-friendly comics. My seven-year-old loves those books, and while I could easily pass this along to him, I think he’s going to have to get his own copy, because I’m keeping this one for me.

Reed Richards arrives on the Inhumans city on the moon, explaining that he needs their help to keep the infinity gems separate, should their corrupting power bring forth another universe-ending Infinity Guntlet-like scenario. Lockjaw teleporting away from the scene finds himself before both the Mind Gem, and a Frog Thor (named “Throg”), who, after touching the gem, is able to telepathically communicate with the “dog” (point of geek note, Lockjaw is not a dog, but a full bore Inhuman, he can even speak as witnessed in the early 1980’s Thing series, and I tried not to let Eliopoulis’ writing him as a dog spoil my fun), and he thus explains his origins. Together they understand the power of the gems and that they must protect them from corrupting humanity. To do this successfully they need help, from other super-animals.

To their roster they add: the sullen alien dragon Lockheed, continuing to lament his losses; the snooty and arrogant Redbird, avian assistant to the Falcon; Speedballs equally afflicted pet cat, Furball; and Ms. Lion, Aunt May’s gender-bending lhasa apso (best known for his starring role on the Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends cartoon).

The team is set and the adventure begins… next issue, but despite the slightly overwrought Throg origin, and the slips with Lockjaw’s personality, I loved this book just as much as I thought I would. I had no idea that Speedball had a cat, and if Furball is one of Eliopoulis’ inventions, I’m nominating the man for a Pulitzer. It’s genius.  (Geek note number 2, where’s Runaway’s Old Lace?)

The art by Ig Guara (with Throg origin by Colleen Coover and vivid colors by Chris Sotomayer) is some of the best animal illustrating I’ve seen, keeping a natural appearance for the creatures rather than going for upright cartoonish representations. It’s nicely details and beautifully stylized, and Guara handles the pets in action brilliantly (Furball is astounding) putting it right up there with Frank Quitely’s work on We3 and Niko Henrichon on Pride of Bhagdad (only, you know, for an all-ages audience).

There’s little not to like here. It’s silly, it’s fun, it’s accessible and it is indeed just what comics should be.


FOUR AND A HALF OUT OF FIVE VIKINGS



QUESTIONS? COMMENTS? SUGGESTIONS?

We’re always looking to find ways to improve in our mission to provide the best comic book reviews on the web. To that end, let us know what we can be doing better. Is there a genre we’re not covering enough of? Is there a book in particular you would like to see reviewed?

Please send any and all questions and suggestions to me at: scfahey@yahoo.com