From A Library: Eternals

Eternals #1 – 7 by Neil Gaiman and John Romita Jr

Well, I say that the book is by the two artists, but the hardcover title seems to suggest it was only Neil Gaiman responsible for it. Ah well, marketing types know what they are doing, right?

JRJr is a very important contributor to the book – just look at pages 2 and 3 of the first issue, a double-page spread of the Celestials: a fantastic sense of the cosmic, the size, the dimension. It must be hard to follow Kirby on a Kirby creation, with all the devotion people have to him, but JRJr brings his own sense of the idea of Kirby’s grandiose, larger than life art – it is still Romita’s work but it is bigger in scale and idea, which is the whole point. Be inspired but don’t imitate.

Romita is a strange mix – he is undoubtedly a talented comic book artist: his sense of page composition, panel choice, movement, anatomy and storytelling are all top notch. However, to me, there is a ‘compository’ quality to his figures – you can almost see the circles/cylinders/guidelines that people starting out use to guide their drawings. His faces have a similar shape to them; kid’s eyes and heads are huge; the men have the same tubular shape to their limbs. However, here this fades into the background and the storytelling takes over, which is perfect for this story, alternating between big and small, cosmic and human scale.

Mark Curry is an ER doctor in training; Ike Harris tells him he is an Immortal being put there to safeguard the Earth; Sersi is a flaky party planner; Thena works on weapons for Tony Stark. What is it that connects these characters? Ike gets beaten and blown up, and ends up in the hospital where Mark works. He tells Mark a story – about the Celestials, giant cosmic beings who may have seeded the Earth with life, and took proto-humans and used them to create the 100 Eternals and the countless Deviants (who bred into the millions and took over the world). The Eternals had to stop the Deviants – luckily, the Eternals can’t be killed and have superpowers, which is handy. There were too many, however, so they called the Celestials back (the Second Horde), who killed the Deviants except for a few survivors. Eternals then helped humanity to grow but, about 30 years ago, the Third Horde returned to judge humanity – and that’s when things start to get cloudy for Ike …

Mark allows people who he thinks are doctors to take Ike away – they turn out to be Deviants who try lots of different methods of killing Ike. Mark meets Sersi and feels a connection, and starts to feel some sort of connection to Ike, who he hears asking him for help. Sersi invites him to a party for Druig, the Deputy Prime Minister of Vorozheika (fictional former Russian state) where he has secretly organised a hostage situation only for it to go wrong – this causes Mark to move at hyperspeed to save the hostages, triggering a reappraisal of Ike’s story. He goes to see Sprite, a child television and film star who Ike said was also an Eternal. (There is also a nice nod towards the Civil War situation, as Iron Man, who helped deal with the hostage situation, recognises Sersi, a former Avenger, and confronts her on registration, something she knows nothing about.) Meanwhile, Druig discovers he is aware of the vulnerable spot of everyone around him, something he uses to find out why his junior betrayed him and to find the kidnapped scientists from the party.

Sprite has tricked Mark into running into the Dreaming Celestial (there is some nice Kirby crackle on the two-page spread of the Dreaming Celestial) – Sprite is revealed as the villain of the piece: being: being eleven years old for a million years has messed him up (even inspiring JM Barrie to write Peter Pan wasn’t a positive) and he wants to finally be an adult. His power of illusion, amplified by the unconscious Celestial, caused the Eternals to believe that they were human.

Another Eternal, Ajak finds Zuras, the leader of the Eternals, but now a tramp, and explains the situation – under orders of Zuras, he had hired Deviants to kill Ikaris to help him, and to wake the Dreaming Celestial, which will bring the Horde to cleanse life from the galaxy. So Ikaris, Thena and Sersi go to the Dreaming Celestial – who turns golden: Uatu can’t watch and even Galactus feels afraid. They can’t stop it, and the Dreaming Celestial awakes, in yet another phenomenal double-page spread from Romita. Ikaris, Zuras, Ajak and Druig form the Uni-Mind, but the Celestial turns it off; instead, he talks to Makkari (the Celestial states that he created Makkari specifically), telling him to let the humans, Eternals and Deviants know that the Celestial will wait, listen, absorb and judge before the Horde returns, which will be some time yet.

The final issue, which happens after all this, feels tacked on – the Deviants come to Olympia in Antarctica (home of the Eternals) but they don’t fight because they believe that Makkari is a prophet of the Celestials, who they treat as gods; Zuras kills Sprite for his own benefit; the scene is set for a future ongoing series by having Ikkaris and Makkari searching for the remaining 90 Eternals who are still in human form before the Celestial Horde returns. The only problem is that isn’t going to happen – the series only existed, and did well, because Neil Gaiman wrote it. And he certainly isn’t going to do an ongoing series of any sort anymore. So, the reader is left with part of a story and the promise of more, but no author is going to touch it after Gaiman has been there. (Well, except for the news ongoing series they've decided upon.)

This is an enjoyable story, especially for an almost superhero story from Gaiman. Admittedly, there is a very mythological feel to the whole concept, which is perfect for Gaiman. He does a great job of integrating the story with the Marvel Universe, both previous and current, and, except for the extra endings, it is a satisfactory narrative. It was so good, it made me forget about Kirby (philistine that I am, I am not a fan) and think that the Eternals are not just an embarrassing Kirby remnant.

Comic Book Awesomeness: I Trust Captain Britain

I tend to use this site as a catalogue of the things I have read/seen, in the form of me reviewing them. However, there are other types of post that interrupt the discussion of my entertainment consumption.

This is one of those posts.

Because, when I saw the preview pages of Captain Britain and MI:13 #1 over at CBR, I had to post this particular page on my blog due to its utter awesomeness:


That, my friends, is pure poetry in motion: Captain Britain punching a Skrull's head off.

To repeat:
Captain Britain. Punching. A Skrull's Head. Clean Off.

God bless you, Paul Cornell, for writing such a scene, and God bless you, Leonard Kirk, for drawing it so beautifully.

I confess to still being worried for this title, even before it comes out in May, but an image like that should make people sit up and notice. No excessive talking for Captain Britain and team – this is how we deal with alien invasions in the UK. I've already pre-ordered my issue; have you?

Film Review: The Invincible Iron Man DVD

Just to show how up to date and topical I am not, here are my thoughts on the made-for-DVD cartoon film of Iron Man in the week in which the much-hyped Iron Man film reaches our screens. I would say this is irony, but that would be an awful pun …

Tony Stark is trying to raise an ancient Chinese city from beneath the ground; when he goes to investigate the kidnapping of his friend, Jim ‘Rhodey’ Rhodes, by the terrorist group the Jade Dragons, he is injured and is saved by a local doctor and Rhodey’s army medic training, leaving him with a piece of shrapnel in his heart. He is forced to create a weapon to destroy the city, but he makes a suit of technological armour and they flee the encampment. Meanwhile, the reason behind the city is revealed to be the return of the Mandarin, a long-dead rule of the city, and four elementals are woke to recover his rings to return him to power.

Having been framed by his father, head of Stark Enterprises, to make it look like he and Rhodey were selling weapons to the Jade Dragons, he goes to his secret office to reveal that he has been making lots of different Iron Man armours before the one in China. He takes one to fight the Elementals, which he is able to defeat, before returning to the city to stop the Mandarin, who will rise in spirit via the vessel of Li Mei, one of the Jade Dragons who befriended Tony during his capture. Tony fights off an army of terracotta warriors (which are no doubt legally different to the Xi’an Terracotta Army of Qin Shi Huang-di) and then a huge dragon, before confronting Li Mei, now possessed by the spirit of Mandarin and devoid of any clothes, necessitating a lot of swirling smoke and shadows to hide any hint of nudity. Rather than actually fighting or making a conscious choice in the final process, Tony doesn’t do anything apart from ask Li Mei not to be bad – a spectacularly uninteresting climax to a story. Back in the US, he buys up all available shares in Stark Enterprises so that he can have complete control and make up with his father after their friction earlier, because father–son relationships are so important.

If my slightly sarcastic tone hasn’t come through, I should state that I didn’t particularly enjoy this. I’m not slavish to the origins, but why change so much of Iron Man’s for this? Not only forcing it to tie into the story of the Mandarin plot just to be part of the narrative, but also having Tony already making lots of armour rather than having to come up with it to save his life – surely that was one of the great parts of the origin? The need for the father–son friction just seemed so cheap and melodramatic (in the comics, Tony’s parents have been dead for some time in his life, and this need for boardroom family tussles came off as really bland), and the denouement in which he plays no real part (much like Indiana Jones doesn’t do anything at the end of Raiders) seemed weak. Even the action aspect didn’t really liven things up – animation should be the perfect medium for Iron Man but the fight scenes were rather dull. It just seems that the makers of the film didn’t really get the point of the character – surely somebody could have pointed that out at some stage? I really hope the live-action Iron Man film does it better …

Rating: DA

Comics: Do Your Bit For The CBLDF

The solicitations are up for Image comics in July, but there is only one book to point out, as reinforced by Scott Dunbier's post about it:

LIBERTY COMICS: A CBLDF BENEFIT BOOK (ONE-SHOT)

Quoteth the blurb:

DEFEND YOUR LIBERTY!
The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund and Image Comics defend your freedom of speech with LIBERTY COMICS, an all-new 32-page, full color comic book crammed cover-to-cover with work by many of today’s top creative talents. This mature readers anthology is printed in a high quality format and features all-new stories of THE BOYS and CRIMINAL as well as all-new creations from some of your favorite artists. All proceeds benefit the CBLDF and their efforts to protect your creative rights!

Or, to put it in the more immediate terms of Scott's post:

Stories by:
Ed Brubaker & Sean Phillips provide a CRIMINAL tale
Garth Ennis & Darick Robertson bring us THE BOYS
Mark Millar & John Paul Leon give us their take on DRACULA
Darwyn Cooke delivers something entirely new
Mark Evanier & Sergio Aragones take us on a tour of the CBLDF

Additional material by:
Arthur Adams, J. Bone, and Rick Vietch (The return of BRAT PACK!)

A great line-up and all for a good cause, to raise money for the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. There is really no excuse not to buy it, so make sure your local comic book shop orders you a copy and comes out on 23 July 2008 for $3.99 of the weak Yankee dollar. Be entertained and feel a contented glow from being charitable; you know it makes sense.

(Just in case you are confused – it is only one book but it has two covers, as shown here. Don't want you to get the wrong idea.)

Comic Review: Secret Invasion #1

By Brian Michael Bendis and Leinil Yu

I know I'm rather late to proceedings, but that has never stopped me before. This week, I have been posting my thoughts on recent books from the library written by Bendis, in roughly chronological order (apart from my review of the first New Avengers trade here, showing that I’ve been interested since the beginning), which supposedly lay down the groundwork for Secret Invasion, according to the Cup O’ Joe at the back of this first issue. I know I didn't pick up on any clues in those books, but I can see that Bendis has been plotting this for a long time, so this isn’t just a quick idea for a crossover miniseries – it's the end result of meticulous clue-dropping and the climax of the reason behind a lot of the books that he has been writing.

What he has also been doing is learning – he learnt his lesson from House of M (which was a slow approach to storytelling where nothing happens in the first issue) and applies it here. Stuff happens in this issue. The plot advances. The invasion begins. And shocks occur. This is the way to start a mini-series and an event story.

The story starts with some beautiful alien world artwork from Yu – he is a very snazzy artist, and I’m glad he’s getting the chance to shine on a big book – before returning to the present day, and Tony Stark telling Reed Richards and Hank Pym the biggest secret in the world: the Skrulls are living among us now, undetectable (in the presence of the naked Elektra Skrull – and we all know what sort of invasion they’re thinking about …). Then, Tony gets word that a Skrull ship has crash-landed in the Savage Land. He calls the Avengers; Jessica Drew is the only one there. She is told to gather the troops and head out. She calls Luke Cage and the other Avengers and lets them know what’s going on. So, they do the natural thing and steal a Quinjet. They fly down to the Savage Land and arrive at the ship at the same time as the ‘real’ Avengers. And that’s when things kick off, but not in the hero vs hero manner: A Skrull Dum-Dum Dugan blows up the orbiting headquarters of SWORD; a Skrull Jarvis downloads a virus into Tony Stark (he should really get a better firewall …), which is also going throughout all related Stark Enterprises, including SHIELD, and the Raft maximum security prison for supervillains; and a Skrull Sue Storm breaches the Negative Zone in the Baxter Building. With all the Skrulls intoning, ‘He loves you.’ as they act.

Didn’t I tell you stuff happens? This is a packed issue. Yu is up to the task of handling the visuals, sleek and muscular and rugged, and Bendis slots everything into place so you don’t know who to trust or what will happen next. And the double-page reveal of the contents of the Skrull ship is great – and the final page is a cracker. This is entertaining comics. The only caveat is that highlighted by Kevin Church’s amusing review of this issue: this is not an issue you can come to without knowledge of what has gone before. It’s great if you’ve been reading New Avengers and Mighty Avengers and The Illuminati but it would be almost impossible to derive as much entertainment if you haven’t. Nonetheless, I’m happy – enjoyable stories based on years of build up.

From A Library: House of M

House of M #1–8 by Brian Michael Bendis & Oliver Coipel

A series where I knew the result (‘No more mutants’) without reading the actual comic books themselves, I wanted to read this because I enjoy Bendis’ work and I quite like alternate timeline stories. Now that I’ve read it, I realised I didn’t need to read it; the end result is the same.

The book collects eight issues, but you get the feeling that it didn’t need them. Accusations of ongoing series padding out the story for the trade don’t seem appropriate for a mini-series, but this collection d-r-a-g-s: the first issue takes the entire length to get round to the point (namely, Wanda changing the universe with her reality-altering powers after the events of the Avengers: Disassembled storyline).

The second issue is setting up the alternate world, which is the fun part: Steve Rogers is an old man, a war veteran; Scott Summer and Emma Frost are happily married; Alison Blaire is a TV chat show host; Simon Williams is a film star; Carol Danvers is the most popular superhero; Kitty Pryde is a teacher; Sam Wilson is a cop; Luke cage is an underworld boss; Stephen Strange is a psychologist; Piotr Rasputin is a Russian farmer; Hank McCoy and Hank Pym are scientists for Tony Stark, who is the only non-mutant industrialist; Janet van Dyne is a fashion designer; Logan, who has stupid hair, is a top agent of SHIELD, who has Rogue, Kurt Wagner and Jessica Drew as part of his team (for more characters see this page, which provides more background information not in the book). It is Logan who kickstarts actual plot: he remembers not only everything but also the fact that this mutant-utopia is not the real universe – he jumps off the SHIELD aircarrier (in a rather cool shot) to land in Manhattan below.

In the third issue, Logan tries to find Xavier but can’t find him, so goes to see Stark, only to be jumped by his own SHIELD team. He is rescued by Cloak under instruction from Luke Cage, and we see an alive Clint Barton. The fourth issue sees Logan explain everything and we learn about Layla, who not only remembers as well but also has the ability to restore people’s memories. The fifth issue is Layla restoring the memories of Scott, Peter Parker (who is angry to discover the fallacy of his existence, especially the happiness of it), Strange, Kitty, Danvers, Stark, Matt Murdoch, Jennifer Walters, Rogue, Kurt and Jessica Drew.

The sixth book sees them go to Genosha, home of Magneto’s House of M, getting into a fight as a distraction for Layla to restore Charles Xavier’s memory, except he is dead. There is more fighting in the seventh issue, and it is revealed that it was Pietro, not Magnus, who persuaded Wanda to change the world to what they always wanted. Magnus kills Pietro when he finds out, which causes Wanda to snap – she revives Pietro and says the words, ‘No more mutants’. The final issue sees the result of this: the world is back to normal and there are only 10% of the previous number of mutants – the rest are sapien, including Bobby Drake and Magneto. Only the people in the psychic shield of Dr Strange remember the events of the House of M (and there is a two-page set-up for really quite dire The Collective storyline in The New Avengers, which was really a misfire from Bendis).

The trouble with the story, apart from the slow pace, is that it feels like it was a story needed to accomplish a dictate, namely the reduction of mutant numbers (it has to be said that mutants were becoming increasingly common, rather than the actual minority they were supposed to be). Interviews with Bendis about House of M suggested that it was an outgrowth of the Wanda story in the Avengers that was going to occur in The New Avengers, but it doesn’t feel organic. This leaves a sour taste in the mouth – you feel as if you’ve read eight issues of troubleshooting/tidying up of the Marvel Mutant Universe.

This is not to say it is all bad – Bendis as ever has a nice touch with dialogue, with a natural feel that stays true to the character, and he has put a lot of thought into the alternate universe: there has been a lot of research and there are plenty of Easters eggs (a cameo for Gambit and lots of mutant names are overheard in the radio chatter on the SHIELD air carrier, such as Garrison Kane). The story is well constructed, although it helps to read in one sitting – it would have driven me crazy to wait eight months for events to unfold – but it all connects and reflects character choices within the narrative.

Coipel’s art is good superhero work, even if some of the inkers don’t quite fit his style – the middle chapters of the story are slightly off). He has a strange width to his male characters – he has increased the classical anatomical proportions so that the chest/shoulder/legs are stretched width-wise, which makes them more heroic. He has a funky angular quality to his figures, and he moves the action around interestingly, keeping the camera set ups visually engaging. As I’ve said about other superhero artists in other reviews recently, he suffers from the malaise of over-sexualisation of female characters – in his case, it is an obsession with breasts: he has Emma Frost’s breasts falling out of the shirts she wears, and there is a double-page spread of the attack on Genosha where She-Hulk’s breast has escaped from a badly zipped top. It’s a shame because his work is enjoyable otherwise (and his art is superior to the rather dull and flat covers that accompanied the book).

I don’t want to seem like a grouchy old comic book fan, but the Marvel obsession with huge crossovers (there were over a dozen mini-series and tie-in books to the main event) is very tiring. What happened with just telling a good story? I’m glad to have read the book, but I’m also glad that I didn’t let my fondness for Bendis’ work compel me to buy this as it came out at the time. Not a satisfactory reading experience. And surely there is no connection to Secret Invasion here?

From A Library – Avengers: Disassembled

Avengers #500–503 and Avengers: Finale by Brian Michael Bendis and David Finch

This collection of comic books would probably mean more (or anger me) if I was an Avengers fan of old; I’m not and therefore have no link to these characters as a team. The history is nothing me. So, I hope I come to it with a fresh eye.

This story is firmly in the territory of ‘blockbuster’ comics – a page or two of Bendis dialogue, then straight into the action: Jack of Hearts (who?) walks into the Avengers mansion and blows himself up, killing Scott Lang (Ant-Man). Meanwhile, Tony Stark acts like a twat at the United Nations, threatening the Latverian representative. Back at the mansion, the Vision crashes the Quinjet into the mansion, before vomiting out five Ultrons. She-Hulk goes beserk and rips apart the Vision (fortunately, Iron Man knocks her down – well, I say ‘her’, she looks more like a man by the end of the hulking out).

An aside: a direct quote from Clint to Tony provides the basis for the first story of the Mighty Avengers, ‘[Ultron] could be alive in you armor for all you know.’

The second issue is the pause in the blockbuster – the dialogue scenes that Bendis does well – time for the emotion: the double-page spread of the former Avengers in front of the mansion. Then the action returns in the third issue with an alien invasion (Kree soldiers attack the Avengers) where Clint dies heroically. The invading army disappears before Dr Strange arrives in time for the fourth issue – the explanation: Wanda Maximoff, the Scarlet Witch.

Going back to the John Byrne run on the West Coast Avengers, when it was revealed that the two children of Wanda and the Vision were not real, they were created by Wanda’s Hex power to will them into existence. As Dr Strange says, ‘There’s no such thing as Chaos magic.’ (Sorry, Kurt Busiek.) This is the important part of the story – the reason behind all this has be sound and logical (well, within the realms of comic books) and I do believe in the justification. I also like the double-page spread of the old pictures of Wanda, indicating a nice sense of history. It has been thought through and presented with a feeling for the stories that led up to it.

The Avengers go to Wanda, who tries to stop them, but Strange takes them down. Then Magneto comes to take her away (and set up for House of M). As a breakdown story, this is robustly constructed narrative. Bendis slots the plot mechanics together solidly and is ably supported by Finch, bringing his Michael Bay style of modern superheroics and the action and spectacle (except for his drawing Ms Marvel’s bottom whenever he can – some sort of fetish he has, constantly showing her with the costume up her crack).

The finale is the multi-artist jam clip show, which can be basically summed up as ‘Weren’t the Avengers great?!’ This seems a little sad, not in a good way, even if the artists bring some great work to the ‘story’. It feels a little false and a bit forced, but perhaps it means more to an Avengers’ fan. I have enjoyed the New Avengers mostly (with the exception of The Collective story, obviously) so this story had to happen but this isn’t a great story. It sets up things by closing things down in an adequate fashion but nothing special. But is there a connection to Secret Invasion?

From A Library: Secret War

Secret War issues 1–5 by Brian Michael Bendis and Gabriele Dell-otto

In an attempt at journalistic integrity, I should mention that the trade also collects the Secret Files, not written by Bendis, but based on the Bendis-written info-pieces at the end of each individual issue. It doesn’t really count as part of the story, and is really only for the super hardcore fan who loves Marvel handbooks and other such paraphernalia. The Fury analyses of various characters and interview transcripts were a nice touch in the individual books, but it’s a total waste for an entire issue and a bit of a rip-off.

There is also a silly ‘anonymous’ preface to the book, a real spy talking about how he told Bendis about his work and then Bendis used it as the basis for the story, but this is just laughable and takes away from the book – it doesn’t set you up for a ‘serious’ story.

Luke Cage is attacked in his home and is now in a coma. Fury goes to see him because of the events of one year previously … SHIELD agents are interrogating Killer Shrike about where he gets the money for his ridiculously expensive hi-tech supervillain gadgetry, which is the starting point for the story. They get him to try and set up the Tinkerer, the man who provides the gear but isn’t the money man behind it, but the Tinkerer kills him and escapes to Latveria, specifically to the location of the new Latverian prime minister, Lucia von Bardas. Now, von Bardas has been given millions in aid by the US government, so Fury wants to do something about this; however, he is told not to do anything by the President himself. So Fury decides to do something on his own. He gets together Captain America, Daredevil, Luke Cage, Spider-man and Wolverine (plus a young girl who looks exactly like Angelina Jolie, only with black hair), and sends them to Latveria. There, they meet the Black Widow, who takes them to Fury to explain why they are there.

Back in the present, Daredevil and Spidey are attacked by two tech-based criminals; they repel them, then head to the hospital where Cage is. They meet up with Captain America, who has given Fury a slapping because of his anger with what Fury did to them, and they are all attacked by a huge group of tech-based criminals. There is a big fight scene at the hospital – the Fantastic Four are called in – and the villain is revealed: a zombie-like von Bardas, powered by hi-tech, who is making a bomb from the tech of the other criminals, without their consent, and had been using them to wreak terror on American soil.

Flash forward to Daisy Johnson (the Angelina Jolie-alike) being interviewed by the new head of SHIELD, Maria Hill, just so we can see how bad ass she is – returning to the hospital fight scene, she used her earthquake powers to stop Bardas. The X-Men arrive, and Fury explains that he used the group from last year in a secret war against Bardas (resulting in Daisy bringing down the Latverian castle capital ‘as a message’) and then had them mind-wiped. They argue and then Logan guts Fury, who turns out to be a Life Model Decoy – he has disappeared because he knew he couldn’t come back after what he did.

The build up of the story is good but the finale fizzles out. As ever, Bendis’ dialogue is first rate, natural yet stylised, and he has constructed a story based on a good idea about tech-based super criminals. But it doesn’t come across as a completely enjoyable or satisfactory narrative; perhaps the choice of cutting back and forth in time didn’t help. Not from a confusion perspective, just in a storytelling way.

Dell’otto is good with the painted art – a lot of painters can be very static, but the art is quite dynamic (with the exception of big team poses, which look very staged). The faces are expressive and the bodies have an appealing lithe quality, and he does a good blend of the spandex/muscles underneath (always tricky in painted artwork). A downside is the ‘darkness disease’ that painted artwork suffers from occasionally; the moody night shots and scenes get lost in too much dark paint on the printed page, even if they looked okay when first created. The use of Jolie as a model for Daisy is a little distracting, especially when the main heroes aren’t referenced, as her luscious lips are very noticeable; it is even more distracting when he reuses a couple of face panels in the interviews in different issues.

The story uses a familiar name in Marvel history to tell a very different tale from usual (but a genre that Bendis is a fan of) and explains why Fury is no longer head of SHIELD, and where Maria Hill came from (I always wondered that when reading New Avengers and the like). But the story doesn’t feel big enough for the removal of Fury from the Marvel universe – I hope there is a good reason for keeping him off the playing field for the present. And has Daisy Johnson been used again the Marvel universe? But it is apparent that Bendis was using this as part of his grander plan at Marvel, setting up pieces and players for future stories, something which he does well, even if the results aren’t always as good. An enjoyable enough story, but not one for the collection. But what is the connection to Secret Invasion?

From A Library: Batman and Son

Batman #655–658, #663–666 by Grant Morrison and Andy Kubert

I’ve been reading quite a few Batman books recently (as subsequent posts will attest), including getting round to reading Batman: The Long Halloween (which was a mistake, but that’s not important). So, when the hardback of a new Batman story written Grant Morrison, I grabbed it off the shelves faster than Batman disappears when Jim Gordon turns his back.

Morrison has finally got his hands on the ‘Neal Adams hairy-chested love god’ version of Batman – and that’s as fun as that sounds. Grant writes characters as if he has always written them (the interplay between Bruce and Alfred is great – he always seems to have not only thought a lot about the characters and the dynamics but also understands them and presents them afresh, as he discusses in this interview at Newsarama) but the first issue doesn’t really fizz with the usual Morrison Magic. Things sparkle in the second issue, when Batman fights a group of ninja Man-Bats in an art gallery fundraiser – the paintings in the background correspond to the action in the foreground, with artworks such as ‘Ouch!’ and ‘Blam!’ placed strategically.

The story turns towards the title when Talia Al Ghul, daughter of his enemy and head of the League of Assassins Ra’s Al Ghul, brings to Batman their son (apparently from their liaison in Mike W. Barr & Jerry Bingham’s Son of the Demon graphic novel) – Damian, who has been trained by the League of Assassins but is seemingly in need of a father figure. Damian is a vicious, spoil brat – when Bruce brings him back to the manor to look after him and teach him some discipline, Damian locks up Alfred, goes out into Gotham to dispense justice, and beats up Robin because he believes he not Robin should be Batman’s adopted son.

And, now, an embarrassing admission – I didn’t read ‘The Clown At Midnight’. I started and just got bored. Not because it was prose – I read prose all the time, thank you very much – but just because it was too dull dreary. I just couldn’t manage it. Please don’t hate me.

Back in the world of traditional ‘words and pictures telling a story’ comic books in the next issue, things are still a little odd, such as Bruce wiping himself with the shirt he was wearing in a boardroom meeting so that he is covered with Alpha Male Plus scent, and you begin to wonder what Grant is up to with this book.

It’s only in the final issue of this collection that things take flight into full Grant fancy – set in the future, Damian Wayne is the new Batman (and Commissioner Gordon is Jim’s daughter) in an even worse Gotham, taking down the criminals in a much more serious fashion than the original.

These stories are an odd mix. Kubert’s slick, muscular, dynamic style works well with the Dark Knight, especially in what is traditionally seen as the superhero book (Detective Comics naturally follows Batman’s crime-solving skills), and is more enjoyable to look at than Grant’s previous mainstream DC gig partner, Howard Porter. The connection back to the JLA days is a natural one, seeing as it was Grant’s last long-term run using Batman and it was a particularly enjoyable one – Batman was the ultimate man in all aspects, seeing as he was standing toe-to-toe with gods (literally, in the case of Orion and Barda) and looking good in the process. The contrast with Grant’s latest take on the character, albeit an evolution in his character after the events of 52, doesn’t seem to gel quite as well. As with all Grant books, it is never dull and always interesting, but it doesn’t achieve greatness, at least not yet.

Film Review: Doctor Strange DVD

Doctor Strange: The Sorcerer Supreme

The Master of the Mystic Arts seems like an idea that is great for animation – the cartoonists will be able to bring to life the ethereal quality of magic as envisaged by Steve Ditko and make it even more tangible, the stuff of dreams made real. However, the filmmakers seemed to have completely missed this quite important point at the heart of Doctor Strange and jazzed things up by having all the mystical folk fight with swords.

In one of the extras on the DVD, about the origins of Doctor Strange (with some nice stuff from Stan Lee and Steve Engelhart), the screenwriter for the film (Greg Johnson) talks about the process and the characters. In doing so, he reveals the extent to which he does not understand the idea behind the Sorcerer Supreme – he talks about making the other mystics having their own identifiable form of using magic, which them makes them just like the X-Men. He actually uses that analogy. And this is the guy who wrote the film, someone who admits that he read ‘most’ of the books – he obviously is not a fan of Stephen Strange and he is obviously not a fan of magic, because magic is continually downplayed throughout the film. I can only imagine what Neilalien thought about it …

The film is basically a reworking of the origin story, with the tweak of giving Stephen Strange a younger sister who he couldn’t help when she started having aneurysms as some unnecessary backstory. But the film gets it mostly right, with Strange an arrogant surgeon who loses the gift of his hands in a car crash, loses his money in an effort to heal them, and ending up in the monastery of the Ancient One in Tibet, where he eventually learns magic. All the while, Dormammu is trying to break into this dimension …

The animation style has a nice fluidity and anatomy, and magic is creatively illustrated when it is used. Strange looks good, except his hair and clothing goes a little too far into the zone of ‘New Romantic’ when he accepts his magical abilities. It would have been nice to have had the cloak, even in an updated format, but they decided against that, as well as many other classics of the Strange mythology, such as chanting (I would have liked to hear ‘By the crimson bands of Cytorrak’) and the use of magical incantations that you would expect of the Sorcerer Supreme. Having him fight Mordo with swords seems very silly when they can do bloody magic …

The film is quite enjoyable, despite the deviation from the comic book (why do the creators say how much they like the original stuff, then change it?) – I’m not saying that the film should be the books but at least be on the same page about what the concept is – and tells the story in an entertaining fashion. Just don’t expect anything too dazzling.

Rating: VID

TV: Pushing Daisies

Pushing Daisies is the latest import from the US that has a British woman in one of the lead roles (see Bionic Woman and The Sarah Conner Chronicles) and which is being shown on ITV (see Bionic Woman and Entourage). However, they are showing it on the main channel, ITV1, at prime time on a Saturday evening. Now that is unusual.

What’s more unusual is the show itself and the fact that it is appearing on the home of comfy, cosy, unchallenging dramas. Pushing Daisies has a delightfully bizarre premise: Ned (Lee Pace) has the ability to bring dead creatures back to life (which he discovers when his dog is run over); however, if he touches them again, they return to their dead state. He brought his mother back to life, only for the father of his neighbour (and his crush, Chuck) to die – it seems that a localised death incidence occurs to balance the reanimation – and then his mother dies when she kisses him good night. This leads him to be distant from the rest of humanity, leading him to become a pie maker with his own shop (he can use his ability to revive ingredients for his pies).

A private investigator (an hilarious turn from Chi McBride) witnesses his ability, and together they use it get the reward money from recently killed people – it’s easier to identify a murderer when you can ask the corpse. Things get complicated for Ned when he revives his former crush, Chuck (Anna Friel), and lets her stay alive. They both still have feelings for each other but can’t touch each other, which obviously gets in the way of a normal relationship.

The charm of this show, and it is utterly charming, is in the specific manner in which it has been made. There is a surreal quality attached to a certain American quaintness, which vibrant primary colours dazzling every scene. This twee feeling is amplified by the narration of the story: Jim Dale, famous here for Carry On films, but famous in the US for reading their version of the Harry Potter audiobooks, tells the tale as an omniscent narrator with a distinct rhythm and word choice that gives it a singular feel. It’s quite delightful.

This is matched by the leads and the playfulness of the characters and the story. Pace is a charming presence as the lead, but it is the chemistry with Anna Friel as Chuck that is the perfect confection. Friel is not a great actress (a quick glance through the resume shows very little of worth) but she always had a sweetly pretty quality that always shone through and makes her perfect for this role. And, with a light-heartedness to the script (such as having a travel agent called Boutique Travel Travel Boutique), it really is an absolute delight. So it’s such a shame that we won’t get the second episode here until they repeat the series – the retarded controllers at ITV have cut it because they don’t want to get in the way of Euro 2008. Unbelievable.

Rejoice: The Return of Ambush Bug

The solicitations for DC Comics for July 2008 are up at CBR. However, there is no need for you to read them, because the only one worth reading about is here:

AMBUSH BUG: YEAR NONE #1
Written by Keith Giffen & Robert Loren Fleming
Art by Giffen & Al Milgrom
Cover by J.H. Williams III
Variant cover by Giffen

The wait is over -- everyone's favorite Bug is back, courtesy of the original AMBUSH BUG team of Keith Giffen and Robert Loren Fleming! Cities will be destroyed! Cats and dogs will live in sin! Every unanswered question of the DC Universe will be answered! Live heroes will die and dead heroes will live! Okay, none of that actually happens, but join us anyway for this totally irreverent romp through the DC Universe as only Ambush Bug could give you!

Keith Giffen back on Ambush Bug, doing both plot and pictures. This is a good day.

From A Library: Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together

Scott Pilgrim volume 4 by Bryan Lee O’Malley

Once again, I’m another late arrival to a comic book that is a darling of the comic book bloggers, which could have been part of the reason why I hesitated. However, the main reason I had not tried this series was that the concept did not speak to me, and was not aimed at me, a 30-something Londoner who likes comics and films and funk music; rather, it’s aimed at and about a Canadian 20-something vaguely in a band, hanging out and talking. (It’s quite similar to how Greg felt about Scott Pilgrim – see here.)

The most notable aspect of the book is the ‘simplistic-looking’ manga-style art – it is deceptive, looking childish but it is more expressive, with some nice stylistic touches (such as the panels of ellipsis in horizontal panels to indicate a pregnant pause before Scott asks his girlfriend, Ramona, how old she is – she doesn’t tell – or an arrow pointing at Scott saying, ‘shrieking with delight’ when Ramona says she has kissed a girl). O’Malley also does nice action: a double-page spread of a man cutting an entire bus in half with a samurai sword.

The story is slight – it is about Scott developing his relationship with Ramona while an old crush returns to confuse him, and to continue in his quest to defeat Ramona’s exes in order to truly be worthy of her, or something. Scott gets attacked by a half-ninja girl, Roxanne, who turns out to be one of Ramona’s exes; Ramona and Roxanne fight on roller skates with a sword and baseball bat respectively, in subspace – you don’t see that every day.

Importantly, this is funny. When Scott admits to Ramona that he loves her, he gets +9999 EXP and a level up: ‘Scott earned the power of love’ and he pulls a flaming sword from his chest. And it plays with the form; Scott says, ‘So you dated twins? Am I gonna have to fight two at once in volume 5?’ These nice touches causes more connections than the material itself – I don’t feel any empathy with the characters, the hanging out and eating burritos, playing guitar. I would read the rest of the books if the library got them in, but I wouldn’t chase them. Does this mean I’m not allowed to write a comic blog anymore?