From A Library: Punisher War Journal (Civil War)

Punisher War Journal #1–4 by Matt Fraction, Ariel Olivetti and Mike Deodata

First off – this trade is a complete swizz: four issues and then a repeat of the first issue but in black and white. That’s not on, Marvel; if it wasn’t so enjoyable, it would be a complete rip-off.

The first three issues (‘How I Won The War’) are the story of the Punisher during the early issues of Civil War. We meet him when he is killing Stilt Man and a kiddie porn mob guy, avoiding SHIELD, finding the Tinkerer and hooking up with Stuart Clarke (aka Rampage) who has a small coterie of Iron Men robots that are the cutest thing in the world – Clarke gives Frank him a machine that detects supervillain tech. This leads him into issue three of Civil War, where he kills the guys beating on Spider-Man and joins up with Captain America’s side.

The scene where he saves Spidey has a great exchange:
Spider-Man: I can’t pay your fare.
Frank: You don’t have to pay me, jackass.
Spider-Man: Oh, awesome. Action is my reward, too.

This is just an example of Fraction’s great flair with dialogue – ‘My favourite sound in the world is the silence after a gunshot.’ He has a great handle on Frank Castle, getting the balance between the psychosis and the black humour that is required for the Punisher to work. He is matched with the heightened reality created by the exaggerated cartoony art of Ariel Olivetti. He gives Frank excessive muscle that mixes realism with the cartoon strip, as well as an extreme widow’s peak. It’s interesting, with hints of Bill Sienkiewicz in mainstream mode and the British artist Colin MacNeil. He also includes nice touches, such as the SHIELD logo on bullet casings when they eject from the gun. A very nice mix.

The second issue sees Frank providing an alternative point of view in the anti-registration team, a great exchange with Captain America (until Cap punches him through a wall). Then they go to work, Cap and Frank working on missions together: ‘Good work, soldier’, as he salutes Frank after a successful mission. The next crossover with issue four of Civil War sees Frank killing the supervillains who want to hook up with Cap’s team. Issue three is the punishment of Frank from Cap – but Frank won’t hit back (providing us with a flashback to Frank as a marine before Punisher, where he wouldn’t hit Cap when he was being trained). So Frank has to leave, causing him to go back to Clarke for tech – this sees Castle staring down the Rhino and shooting him in the face, and then punching him with Satan’s Claw: ‘Tell them all I’m back.’

Issue four (Small Wake For A Tall Man) sees Fraction have fun with Marvel villains as they gather to mourn the loss of Stilt Man, who is laid out across pool tables in a bar. Someone has even organised a Doombot (‘Kneel before Doom!’) to make him look big among the fraternity. They drink, tell war stories, get drunk, fight (‘Oh, it is on.’). Then Spider-Man shows up to pay his respects, and has to take them down a peg for fighting at the wake. For his trouble, Stilt Man’s wife pukes up in front of him – didn’t his Spidey sense tingle? Then the punchline – Frank was the bartender and he’s poisoned them all. Coldblooded. This story has a nice mix of Garth Ennis and someone who actually likes superheroes – Fraction has the Punisher down to perfection and he has a lot of fun with the supervillains of the Marvel universe. Deodata joins him on art duties for this issue, doing his usual thing with a bit more shadow and darkness.

Four issues of Fraction’s Punisher returning to the Marvel universe isn’t enough, hence my annoyance with the trade – a larger collection is definitely warranted. This is enjoyable stuff and shows that Frank Castle can be used in the modern Marvel universe, after the definitive feel that Ennis has stamped on the character. This is helped by the funky art style of Olivetti, which gives the book a unique feel.

From A Library – Batman: The Dark Knight Strikes Again

Batman: The Dark Knight Strikes Again issues #1–3 by Frank Miller

Frank Miller is undoubtedly one of the few big creators in the world of comic books. Whether or not he has created anything of note that hasn’t descended into unironic self-parody is another question. Although The Dark Knight Returns is a seminal piece of work in the transition of the superhero into the modern world in the mid-1980s, the same level of history will not be applied to its sequel. The only question to ask now is whether it’s entertaining.

The comic starts with one of Miller’s loves: television screens. He plasters the page with them, full of chat shows, news programmes, vox box, adverts, the easiest way to discover that the world of this comic book has gone to hell – no superheroes, the world controlled by the government but with the illusion of choice, and Superman is still working for the man. So Batman has to return. He rescues the Atom, we see the Question, Batman rescues the Barry Allen Flash (who is being used to power the east coast of America). There is some nice prose, as Catgirl talks about the Atom: ‘There’s laughter in his voice. not a trace of fear.’ Combined with some nicely constructed action scenes, and this is shaping up to being quite interesting. Admittedly, Miller’s art is gone beyond even the extremes of his Sin City style and the characters can look quite ugly, but the page composition compensates for this.

Back in the world, we discover that Hal Jordan left Earth, and that Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel are still around but working for the man – who turns out to be Lex Luthor and Brainiac, who have taken over the USA and keep Superman hostage with the threat of what they will do to the millions of inhabitants of the Bottle City of Kandor (they do similar with Mary Batson and Captain Marvel, and Themyscira and Diana). They order Superman to stop Batman – which goes spectacularly badly for Superman (seemingly because Miller really, really doesn’t like him) as Bruce gives him a beating in the Bat Cave (with a little help from the Atom and the Flash).

Book two starts with more television screens, followed by three completely unnecessary double-page spreads to show Bruce attacking Luthor and the men of his administration, having the time of his life: ‘Life doesn’t get any better than this. God, I love my job.’ While smacking him about, Bruce tells him that he has destroyed all the databases that let him blackmail and terrorise the people who would oppose his hostile takeover of planet Earth. This is then followed by five splash pages of Clark and Diana shagging in the sky – you stay classy, Frank Miller: ‘The Earth moved. I’m pregnant again.’

With the aid of Elongated Man, Batman rescues Plastic Man from Arkham Asylum (Miller describes him: ‘He could kill us all, for him, it’d be easy.’ – this is very weird for Miller, talking about Plastic Man in this way; is he taking the piss out of superheroes?). I’m not sure why he did this, other than to allow Miller to draw Plastic Man in assorted shapes. Meanwhile, someone who looks like the Joker kills Guardian and the Creeper, the Question finds Martian Manhunter, and we discover that Diana and Clark have a daughter, Kara, who they have kept secret from Luthor, who now returns to help Clark in his time of need. At the same time, after a message from Bruce, Hal Jordan returns (on hearing the message, he says: ‘And he looks happy. That can’t mean anything good.’).

Book three is a huge mess of stuff – Kara and the Atom rescue the inhabitants of Kandor, who kill Brainiac. The Joker is revealed as Robin, who has been genetically altered so he can’t die after Batman gave him the boot. Catgirl nearly dies, Hal arrives to save the day, the son of Hawkman and Hawkwoman kills Luthor and everything is back to normal. It’s a hodge-podge and even uglier and messier than the rest of the book. The art is even blockier than Sin City, with the only the attempt at iconic imagery saving the visual style of the book. But it’s not pretty and extremely inconsistent – it starts out in an interesting way but gets lost in Miller’s personal fetishes and issues to grind. He does a good, tough Bruce Wayne, enough to match the hard-boiled dialogue (‘Striking terror. Best part of the job.’) but it doesn’t blend well with the superheroics and especially the classic characters. I can understand why this isn’t mentioned in the same breath as his original take on the character. God help when he gives us the Batman versus al-Qaeda …

From A Library: Agents of Atlas

Agents of Atlas #1–6 by Jeff Parker and Leonard Kirk

The spy, the spaceman, the goddess, the robot, the gorilla. Aren’t comics cool? FBI agent Jimmy Woo, Bob ‘Marvel Boy’ Grayson, the goddess Venus, M-11 the human robot, Ken Hale the Gorilla Man, brought together in 1958 to save President Eisenhower from the Chinese villain Yellow Claw. Cut to the present day, Woo is working for SHIELD, investigating the Atlas Foundation. Ken works for SHIELD’s Irregular Ops section, and rescues a comatose Woo from SHIIELD with the aid of M-11 and Marvel Boy (and his spaceship). They proceed to bring Jimmy back to life using Marvel Boy’s alien machinery but it is the younger version of him (based on the last time he physically contacted Grayson) with no memories of the past 50 years. And so the team needs to be reformed to investigate the Atlas foundation again …

Behind the haunting and funky covers by Tomm Coker, the clean soft lines of Kirk’s extremely pleasing artwork combine with the loving and funny writing of Parker. Some example dialogue between Derek Khanata, Wakandan SHIELD agent, and his boss Dum Dum Dugan: Derek – I slipped up and let a double agent infiltrate our Mojave vase … and I’m being promoted. Dugan – Welcome to America.

Woo gets the team together, which allows us to learn their origins, and collect Namora so that they can fight the Atlas Foundation assets, with the Yellow Claw appearing along the way. The final issue is the reveal (which is really cool, so I won’t spoil anything) but it turns things around by not being a big fight (of which we have had plenty throughout the rest of the story): it’s a conversation about the lineage of Genghis Khan and the Atlas Foundation. This is very different from the normal Marvel comic; as Ken says, ‘This is not how I managed all this going down.’ We even learn the origin of M-11.

This is an utterly charming book, completely out of place with current Marvel and using old Marvel history in such a fabulous way. Added to this, the hardback is a thing of beauty – the back-up material includes sketches and profiles (from a CBR news item) and the first appearances of the characters from old Marvel comics (and it is very old-school Marvel comics). Also, there is the ‘What If’ story of the 1950s Avengers (Venus, M-11, Marvel Boy, Jimmy Woo, Gorilla Man and 3-D Man – glad they didn’t use 3-D Man in this update, because he is a bit naff). Even though I’m not a great fan of the old stuff, it is still nice to see; it completes the nostalgia history of the group and shows the love that has gone into this package. Top marks all around.

From A Library – Superman: Camelot Falls (part one)

Superman #654–658 by Kurt Busiek and Carlos Pacheco

Busiek and Pacheco are a good team (see Avengers Forever or Arrowsmith), so I was keen to see what they would do with the big blue boy scout. The accepted aspect is the lovely art – if you have a first page where Lois is in skimpy knickers and a t-shirt and it doesn’t look cheesy but actually sexy (because Pacheco does classy European scantily clad women), you know you are in good hands. Everyone looks good in a Pacheco book, even the ugly people. Oh, and Lois at the end of the first issue in negligee and high heels? Droooooool. Ahem. He also does the other stuff well: Superman fighting or Clark Kent in the Daily Planet office, it’s all under control.

The first issue is a nicely packaged story – a typical Superman day, mixing journalism with crimefighting (showcasing all the strange villains in Metropolis). The second issue has a cover of the first issue from the Back In Action storyline in Action Comics, which is a cute touch. There are several nice touches, such as Superman reading science textbooks in microdots hidden in trashy novels because his memory capability has improved. Clark is off to Kazakhstan to see Dr Callie Llewellyn, an old friend, where he meets Subjekt 17, an alien who had been imprisoned there for a long time. Naturally, he and Superman fight. Subjekt 17 was a baby of an alien who crash-landed, and he was experimented on by the Russians, so he was bound to be angry. The fight is stopped by the arrival of Arion of Atlantis with a warning of the future from the past.

The next issue is the future – a destroyed Metropolis with Lois and Jimmy Olsen still alive with the help of a hero called Sirocco (who? What is it with all of these DC heroes I’ve never heard of?), Lex Luthor and Rudy, a purple-skinned alien. Arion is showing Superman the danger that lies ahead – a villain called Khyber, who makes alliances with villains to destabilize the powerful nations of the world, causing the world to erupt into war. Superman fights him but Khyber wins and throws him at the Earth from space, causing the world to shatter as if hit by an asteroid – tsunamis, earthquakes and a nuclear winter. The villains fight over the remaining places (except for Metropolis, which is defended by Lex) but they all fall to Khyber. Survivors gather at Luthor Mountain, including old man Wally West and Hal Jordan’s daughter as a Green Lantern, for The Last Battle. In which Superman comes back from the dead (who says there is any Jesus connection to the Superman mythos?) but he can’t kill Khyber – that falls to Sirocco. But the Earth still dies – all because of Superman. So Arion tells him: ‘You must let civilization fall.’ Which is a good way to end a story to ensure the reader comes back for the rest of the story – even if they don’t mention it anywhere until the end. Even though I am a sucker for dystopian futures (it comes from reading the X-Men when I was younger), this is still good comics – Busiek does a great job with all aspects of the story and Pacheco matches with superlative art.

From A Library – Superman: For Tomorrow

Volumes 1 & 2 by Brian Azzarello and Jim Lee

I try to be rational and reasoning when talking about books I read, but WTF? How can these two creators produce something as bizarre as this? Long dull chats with a priest, ‘real life’ fighting in a Middle Eastern county, people ‘vanishing’ – Azzarello seems on full pretentious mode, which is part of him I haven’t seen from reading 100 Bullets. Although even 100 Bullets has an effect on this: the story has Clark and Lois make love, with the after monologue from Lois, ‘Incredible. Just as mind-numbingly incredible as the first time.’

As I’ve mentioned before, I like Jim Lee’s art, a perfect modern-day superhero artist. His Superman is good and it gets better throughout the book, as would be expected from drawing a character continuously for a year; his Batman looks equally good when he appears, having just finished drawing him for a year as well. He does a particularly good J’onn J’onzz, making him look powerful and alive. However, his women don’t seem to come across as well, and his Lois doesn’t feel quite like Lois to me, but I’m not a big Superman reader.

From what I can gather from reading the book and trying not to fall asleep, the Vanishing is Superman’s fault, due to a machine made by his father, which transports people to a dimension of the Phantom Zone, already containing Zod. But this only becomes apparent much later in the series, perhaps even the second volume: it must have been hellish to read this in the monthly format. There is a priest in it who talks a lot with Superman who gets turned into monster by covert ops people after being diagnosed with cancer – why? There are even references to the famous Michaelangelo painting of God and Adam – to quote Superman: ‘What does it mean?’ Not recommended.

From A Library – Superman: Back In Action

By Kurt Busiek, Fabian Nicieza and Pete Woods

This trade collects the three issues of Action Comics that returned Superman to the DC universe after the events of Infinite Crisis (which I have yet to read). As such, it is a slight excuse for a trade paperback, so it is filled out with stories from DC Comics Presents that have Superman team ups, in keeping with the concept of the main story. This is a bit of a swizz, even with introductions to the back-up material from Busiek.

To the main stories: it feels a little old-fashioned, as Superman is back after a year but nobody trusts him, even when he is helping out. The villain of the piece is the Auctioneer, who is stealing various things, including super-powered individuals, and selling them off around the universe. An aside: the bidding chatter and talk among his operatives is rather annoying, so it’s a shame they keep going back to it. Of course, Superman is stolen, so he has to save the day with the aid of a rag-tag collection of DC heroes (Skyrocket [from Busiek’s Power Company], Bluejay, Livewire, Nightwing, Firestorm, the new Aquaman and Veteran – somebody I’ve never heard of and can’t find even on DC Comics website). In the process, he proves that he really is Superman, and all is right with the DC universe again.

The story is a fun if slight tale; it does what it sets out to do in a clear and efficient manner but without anything else to recommend it. Woods has a nice clean art style (slightly reminiscent of Steve McNiven, perhaps), with people who look like individuals rather than generic men and women, and a clear storytelling ability. The face he gives to Superman can occasionally look odd, but not enough to ruin the book. This might appeal to the hardcore DC fan but not me – I didn’t even read the back-up stories: God, I’m a philistine.

From A Library: Batman and The Mad Monk

Batman and The Mad Monk Issues #1–6 by Matt Wagner

(I'm exhausted after the bank holiday weekend, Iron Man and the site redesign. A short post only today)

Matt Wagner is a fantastic visual stylist; he draws a great Batman in the black and grey, a solid figure yet fluid, and the covers for this series are beautiful (which is a shame that the first interior page of each issue is a close-up of a human face that doesn’t look very good in comparison). He has also written some great stories (Mage, Grendel, Sandman Mystery Theatre). However, this tale feels fleshed out and rather thin – a man who seems to be a vampire (an actual vampire, while a thematically natural choice for Batman, doesn’t feel right in the Batman world, especially written and drawn by Wagner – the early scenes with narrative from Gordon watching Batman in action really captures the power of the idea of the Dark Knight, of a man who has made himself into the ultimate crime fighter). Mix this ‘villain’ with the continuation from the previous storyline to do with Bruce Wayne’s girlfriend and her father getting drawn into this arc, and this suffers from the accusation of ‘writing for the trade’. The action scenes are superb and superbly drawn but it doesn’t really engage. Apart from the technical excellence of Wagner’s craft, it makes you think there should be a moratorium on Year One tales.

From A Library – Wolverine: Enemy Of The State

Wolverine #20–25 by Mark Millar & John Romita Jr

Here’s the thing: I think JRJr is a great artist but I think his art can be really ugly sometimes. I know that sounds contradictory, and I can’t fully explain or produce examples – it’s just a feeling. This is one of those occasions. There is spectacular action, superbly staged and choreographed, and excellent storytelling. But I don’t like the details of the artwork. It just doesn’t look appealing. Obviously, there is something wrong with me, but there you have it.

This is blockbuster comics – things don’t necessarily make sense but you go with the flow and enjoy the ride. Wolverine has been captured by Hydra and brainwashed into a double agent sent to kill … well, everyone. Nick Fury and Elektra are on the case, and we get to watch all the fights that occur: versus Elektra, versus an entire SHIELD aircraft carrier, versus sharks (sharks?! Are people just writing stuff for Chris Sims?), versus the Fantastic Four. All this to get new superagents for Hydra so they can be killed by the Hand and revived in a brainwashed capacity. Surely there are easier ways? (Although, the Miller quote suggests there is plenty of material: ‘Official SHIELD estimate is 4,700 costumes in the US as of last summer.’)

Being the best he is at what he does, he kills lots of people – Hornet of the Slingers is killed off panel (which is a little harsh), served up to the gods of ‘this is serious; look, we’ve killed a named hero’. Throughout, all the characters talk the same, which is typical Millar tough guy dialogue – Elektra doesn’t sound the tortured soul where are accustomed to – but it’s all part of the style and you roll with it. You let him do the nice jokes, such as the conversation between Kitty Pryde and Emma Frost: Kitty – ‘Are you talking telepathically?’ Emma – ‘Sorry. Touch of laryngitis.’ Kitty – ‘Maybe you should cover up a little more.’

The bizarre aspect is with the villains behind Baron von Strucker – his third wife, Elspeth: 175 years old, fourth richest person in the world and a satanist. It’s very silly, even for a comic. Anyway, Logan goes to get Matt Murdoch (with some funny jealousy monologue about how he can’t understand how Murdoch gets all the ladies), and they fight, but it’s all a front so that Gorgon can kill Elektra (again – she has the most pitiful, turntable, revolving existence she has in the Marvel universe).

Finally, Logan fights the X-Men (because everyone else has been in the series, so they have to make an appearance) and he gets to kill Northstar before he gets beaten down by Captain America (with the line, ‘Heal this.’ – were all people in the 1940s so quippy or is it just his Captain America?). And so the this first six issues ends satisfactorily but it sets it up for the next six issues – entertaining comic books in the hands of people who know what they are doing.

Books From A Library: Neil Gaiman

Not only do I read a lot of comic books that my local library is so kind to stock for me, I also read the 'normal' stuff (you know, without pictures) as well. Apparently, they have a lot of those sort in the library too … An I reviewed Eternals yesterday, it made sense to talk about some of Neil Gaiman's books I've read recently.

Fragile Things
This is another collection of fiction pieces from Gaiman; poems, very short stories, longer pieces – the highlights are the first and last stories. The first tale is A Study In Emerald, in which the world of Sherlock Holmes meets the world of HP Lovecraft (and won the Hugo Award in 2004) in delightful combination and a lovely twist. The final story is Monarch of the Glen, a novelette about Shadow, from American Gods, featuring Mr Alice and Mr Smith from an earlier story in the collection, which is inspired by Beowulf.

Messrs Alice and Smith feature in Keepsakes and Treasures, about Mr Smith meeting Mr Alice for the first time and the Treasure of the Shahinai, and is an interesting little story that makes me look forward to the future story promised by Neil about how they part ways. There is also The Problem of Susan, which are Gaiman’s thoughts on the Narnia stories and Lewis’ attitude to one of characters, an interesting if unsatisfying diversion. Sunbird is a nice story Gaiman wrote for his daughter’s birthday about a club for people who have eaten everything except for the delicacy of the title. This is an unusual collection of the many different fictions of Gaiman, with some true gems.


Coraline
The story of a young girl, Coraline (definitely not Caroline), who enters a world on the wrong side of a door in her new home where her other parents want to keep her there forever. This other world is similar to the real world, but different, with strange counterparts to the inhabitants of the flats in the converted house in which Coraline lives happily with her real parents. However, she is too smart, determined and resourceful to let that happen. Accompanied by the unusual yet strangely appropriate images of Dave McKean, this a book for children the same age as Coraline who will see adventure in the world which might be seen as scary and know that being resourceful will win the day (and not strength).

Gaiman brings his talent for making a world seem so real through his prose and parlays into a younger reader world without losing his clarity or gift for storytelling. This is quite a gift – to be able to tell tales no matter the age of the reader, and stay free to oneself as a writer and the reader. Coraline is a thoroughly engaging heroine in a scary-exciting world.


The Day I Swapped My Dad For Two Goldfish
This is how much I enjoy the storytelling of Neil Gaiman: I read a children’s book that he wrote. And, seeing as the library had a problem when they reserved it for me (the wrong code had been stuck on the wrong book, meaning they had reserved another author’s book about teddy bears or something, and I had to go to the trouble of getting it all sorted out, in the children’s section of the library), it goes to show the strange kind of person I am.

This is a wonderful premise for a story – only a child would think of it – and the simple, clear prose and strangely appropriate art of McKean (odd, angular but slightly otherworldly, mixed with a strange realism: for example, there is a drawing of a boy thinking while sitting on an improportionally high-backed chair, with Da Vinci-style diagrams in his brain) come together to provide a thoroughly charming book.

It is funny and true and unreal all at the same time (Lines like ‘She only calls me Young Man if she’s very, very mad.’ or ‘‘‘Oh-oh,’’ said my little sister.’ had me smiling and nodding my head in agreement). As the title states, the boy has swapped his father for two goldfish; his mother forces him to get his father back, only to find he’s been swapped for other things along the way: an electric guitar, a gorilla mask, a white rabbit. Dad hasn’t noticed; he’s been reading his newspaper, which is all dads do all day, isn’t it? The only thing he does is say, ‘Children’, in the fatherly way, to the children when they are arguing. I wish I had had a book like this when I was young.

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.

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.

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?

From A Library: Civil War

Civil War issues #1 – 7 by Mark Millar and Steve McNiven

I know that I am coming to this very late – this was THE big book in the comic book corner of the internet when it came out – and I feel that I don’t even have to read it, after all the stuff I’ve seen about it and the various parodies. However, I felt I should actually read the thing for myself.

This is a BIG STORY – no subtlety, just plough through in blockbuster action movie style, with shotgun tactics and Big! Surprise! Endings! Namely, Captain America escaping SHIELD by surfing on a plane in the first issue, Spider-Man unmasking at the end of issue two, the return of Thor at the end of three, the new Thunderbolts team at the end of issue four, Punisher and the Negative Zone jail in issue five, and the big face-off moment at the end of issue six (although with the crappest last line ever from Captain America: ‘Now close your eyes, gentlemen. This might hurt.’ What the fuck does that even mean, let alone in that context? Shudder).

The real strength in this series, apart from Millar’s commitment to the over-the-top attitude all the way through, is McNiven’s art. He is perfect for this type of story. He is a top-quality superhero artist – strong, clean faces; a good handle on the costume as outfit mixed with the muscles underneath (or the pert buttocks of females – he does suffer from the modern artist problem of over-sexualisation of women, throwing in a few butt shots gratuitously into the story), which is necessary for the believability so that they don’t look like a second skin; a heroicness to the heroes; and able to stage big fights in an accessible and understandable fashion. There is a distinctness to his characters that delineates them, especially in the large group shots. It’s dynamic and yet captures the best moment in time to represent the idea of the panel – the single page of Hercules bashing Clor in the head (‘Thou art no Thor.’) is very cool. The only time I was taken out of the story due to the art was the panel of Stature’s face in issue four where she is Sarah Michelle Gellar.

Not that you’ll need reminding but the plot of the story: Speedball’s reality show New Warriors lead to Nitro blowing up Stanford and killing hundreds of civilians, which leads to legislation for registration of heroes. This causes a split in the two camps: Captain America and the more ‘street-level’ heroes against the legislation, and Iron Man, Reed Richards and Hank Pym leading the group supporting the initiative.

An aside. The X-Men are on the sidelines and don’t choose sides. This isn’t really explained – there is a lot going in the book that isn’t fully explained, as if it doesn’t have enough time to give the reader the complete information to understand everything. Also, there seems to be parts that are explained in books outside of the main series, so that it feels it needs only to use shorthand – why Peter flips from being a supporter of the legislation to being against it; the reveal of the Negative Zone as the prison; the new Thunderbolts; the status of the X-Men – which makes for an unsatisfactory read in one sitting.

The series succeeds in feeding the inner fanboy – issue three has the first big smack down, where the heroes fight each other and your inner child smiles. Millar has gone for moments rather than actual story – Goliath being killed by the cloned Thor; Spider-Man switches and is saved by the Punisher; Sue leaves Reed because he is an arsehole, but not without shagging him first – but he just about gets away with it. This isn’t a great piece of literature, it is a story about the Marvel Universe with an attempt at relevancy thrown in on which to hang the superheroes fighting each other. The double-page spread of the big face-off at the end is the stuff of a Marvel zombie dreams. Then having Namor turn up with his army (even if he doesn’t have much effect) and the fake Thor’s death, and you’ve got a lot of happy fanboys.

Well, until the end, which is so anti-climactic that you have to read it again to make sure that you’ve read it right, no matter what Joss Whedon felt about it. The big story limps home to the new status quo for the Marvel Universe. It has to be said that Tony Stark and Reed Richards do act like dicks, not like the characters we have been accustomed to for, oh, ever. The effect on the whole of the Marvel output is quite drastic, so I hope it doesn’t get ‘wished’ away by the Skrull invasion that is coming up. (I thought that mother of the dead child might be voodoo-ing Tony when she spat on him in at the funeral, and always seems to be around, but that seems a flimsy villain.) So, the story is BIG, the result is BIG, the ending is small, but the art is gorgeous. In other words, the typical Marvel comic.

From A Library: Identity Crisis

Identity Crisis #1–7 by Brad Meltzer and Rags Morales

Continuing my tradition for coming ridiculously late to important series in current mainstream superhero universes, I finally read the series that kicked off the new status in the DC universe. It was the centre of a furore among the comic book internet cognoscenti, which means that I don’t have to tell you the story. But that won’t stop me from condensing the plot to fill up this post.

Sue Dibny is found dead at the end of the first issue; the second issue uncovers the incident where Dr Light had raped her before: Atom, Hawkman, Zatana, Oliver Queen, Black Canary, Hal Jordan and Barry Flash get Zatana to alter his mind, to make him forget it and to make him less evil-minded (which is why he became a bit of a joke in the DC villain world). The third issue sees the group in the know go after Dr Light, only for him to have acquired protection in the form of Deathstroke (there are many things wrong with this story, but having Deathstroke able to plan and move quick enough to take down the Flash and the rest of the group, admittedly only for a short time, was just silly). The ensuing fight causes Dr Light to remember what happened to his mind (not quite sure how that works, but anyway), and we see that Batman was also there in his flashback. And this was not the only time – a famous old issue of the Justice League of America (issue #168, apparently) where the team swapped bodies with those of a group of super villains is referenced.

We see Jean Loring, Atom’s ex-wife, attacked but saved by the Atom. Lois gets a note telling her that they know who her husband is. The heroes go looking for answers (which causes the Firestorm die, albeit in a heroic fashion, but is it necessary?). Robin’s father is killed by Boomerang (who also dies in the attempt). Then, the autopsy on Sue reveals that she dies from a block in her brain – closer examination shows footsteps on her medulla …

So, let’s talk about the good. The first chapter dealing the love Ralph and Sue have is beautiful and beautifully done: it makes the relationship so real and deep, which makes the shock at the end of the issue so much more shocking. The story is a classic whodunit – you have the culprit appear early on as an innocent in story element that is unrelated to the main plot (in this case, the beginning of issue 2), who then is attacked to put the reader off the scent. The story is well written – Meltzer has a good handle on ALL the characters, what makes them tick, their specific dialogue, their attitudes. He is matched in the delivery by the art by Morales – nothing flashy, just a nice style with good distinguishing between characters (important for such a large cast) and solid on faces and expression. Meltzer is plainly a big fan of the DC universe because he has a good understanding of the heroes and their place – the story requires the long-standing, shared aspect of the DC universe in order to work: what keeps a superhero’s identity if they are always dealing with a lot of villains? – but it is also in this respect that the story doesn’t work.

The thing is that the huge love of the DC universe and its big, shiny, noble superheroes from the people who grew up with it means that it is not a universe for rape and murder as casual story elements. I am not one of those people who objects to the presence of these aspects of life appearing in stories and comics, but they don’t fit with four-colour spandex, especially the particularly the DC universe. The Justice League fights alien conquerors, not rapey super villains. The comic blogaxy had a very good point when it rallied against the book.

The other thing is the stupidity of the reveal of the person behind it all – sorry for the spoilers, but I’m sure you all know – but having Jean Loring as the responsible party, who was only doing it to get back her husband, is really stupid. It’s something out of a soap opera, and a bad one at that. It really detracts from the story – the seriousness of the piece has been portrayed well but this just sweeps the rug from under it all. Meltzer constructed a good story, albeit in the wrong milieu, only to have it collapse at the end.

From A Library - Wisdom: Rudiments of Wisdom

Wisdom #1–6 by Paul Cornell and Trevor Hairsine/Manuel Garcia

Paul Cornell is another one of those people who could be accused of stunt writing, if you use the cache of his writing episodes of Doctor Who, Primeval (or even Robin Hood) to pull in the punters. But Cornell has been writing genre fiction for quite some time, his name isn’t sufficiently well known, and he’s a Brit, so nobody is going to care that much.

Which is a shame because it meant that nobody paid much attention to this mini-series when it came out. Having read the trade, I’m amazed it was allowed to come out – not that it is bad, quite the opposite, but rather because it is so unashamedly British. The level of in-jokery going on is quite staggering, and you wonder how he was allowed to get away with it.

In Wisdom, Cornell takes the Peter Wisdom character created by Warren Ellis in Excalibur and puts in charge of a team working for MI-13, the British intelligence agency that deals with weird things. First in-joke: having his boss with the name of Mr Grimsdale (in reference to the boss that English comedian/actor Norman Wisdom would always have to deal with in his films). He is in charge of Tink, a fairy dissident; Captain Midlands, a British super-soldier and complaining old git; John the Skrull, part of the Skrull Beatles; and Maureen, a clairsentinent who joins the team at the start of the series (and is the link for the arc that carries the book through to the end – working on the new Doctor Who and Primeval means that Cornell is used to doing the one-off stories but with a background threat). They even have their own Q, who looks like Charles Hawtrey from the Carry On films, for your next English in-joke.

The first issue deals with fairies being vicious on British soil, which must be dealt with. The second issue has the village of Pantagruel, or rather the sleeping giant buried there millennia ago, waking up and fighting guardians before moving to near Greenland. (The in-joke of the issue being John the Skrull’s dream, which pastiches the Beatles and their films to good effect. There’s also the reference to putting a neighbouring village back in Berkshire, which is going to be lost on anyone outside of England, I would have thought.) Issue three has them dealing with the Welsh dragon (which piles on the Welsh jokes and references thick and fast, as well as including cunnilingus to get its MAX rating because there’s very little else in the series to suggest it required the ‘Explicit content’ tag) and has a guest appearance by Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu.

The last three issues deal with the story connected to Maureen that has been reference in the previous three, when a man seems to draw Jack the Rippers from alternate universes to this one – ‘Will the real Jack the Ripper please stand up?’ (with a special appearance by the Jack the Ripper of Alan Moore’s From Hell). It turns out that it is the Martians (from HG Wells) who are using him and Maureen as a gateway into this world for their invasion. And, as with all things in Wisdom’s life, things don’t end happily.

The book is rather enjoyable if a little rushed in places – the pacing in the first three issues seems helter skelter, barely giving enough information and time to understand what’s going on in the comic before coming to the end. The last three issues take a bit more time, but the way that the character of Maureen is set up for her role in the story seemed a little forced and detracted from the enjoyment.

The art on the book changes after issue two – Hairsine leaves to be replaced by Garcia, and his style doesn't work as well as Hairsine's. He had very nice character designs that worked well, and Garcia's style, while good, doesn't capture the same vibe and energy and doesn't quite suit the stories (except for the action stuff at the end, and even then his Captain Britain looks a little weird).

I know I shouldn’t compare British writers with like, but there are elements of Ellis and Grant Morrison thrown into Cornell’s style – the Wisdom–Ellis connection leads to this (with Ellis-like dialogue for the lead character), as well as an almost Authority-like attitude to plot for the sake of explodo; the Morrison connection is the throwing lots of ideas in the mix, and the John the Skrull character (for me, the star of the book) who reminds me of the Mandala character from Zenith and the Skull Kill Krew. However, for his first comic book work, it’s quite impressive, and bodes well for the new ongoing series Captain Britain and MI-13. And surely John the Skrull must play a part in the upcoming Skrull Invasion?

From A Library – The Thing: Idol of Millions

The Thing (latest series) issues #1–8 by Dan Slott and Andrea DiVito and Kieron Dwyer

What is it about the Thing that gets him is own series? I’ve never understood it – sure, he’s got pathos but remains down to earth, and he’s got the catchphrase, but what is it about him that keeps getting him his own book outside of the Fantastic Four, the whole point of which is the family dynamic. He’s rocky, he’s orange, he’s strong, and that’s about it.

This time around, Ben Grimm is written by Dan Slott, a funny man (having Ben say, ‘I’m a regular “Kevin Bacon” of the superhero set.’ is typical of his comic touch) who knows his way around the Marvel Universe. However, despite the Thing’s supposed popularity and the critical acclaim this series got, even he couldn’t keep Ben in an ongoing series.

(Btw, 'Idol of Millions': has Ben really called himself this before? Slott really hammers it home, as if to reassure us, but I've never heard it.)

Part of the problem could be the approach. In an interview, Slott admits to being self-indulgent in the first three issues (having Nighthawk, the Constrictor, Iron Man on Arcade’s island) and describes it himself as ‘was very much a fun, retro, bronze age book’, which I think hurt the book and makes it feel very dated.

The loaded adjective of ‘fun’ can be applied to these tales; they are light and fluffy but seem devoid of any purpose. The first three issues on Arcade’s island seem old-fashioned, when the whole point of the series should be about the fact that the Thing is now immensely wealthy and how this changes him. This comes into effect by issue four, with the introduction of Lockjaw, the teleporting alien bulldog of the Inhumans, and a sense of purpose to Ben’s life (Reed gets Franklin to indirectly teach Ben about the value of money) but it seems an unwise choice to not start with the stronger material in the first issue. The best part of the first three issues was the fun of seeing the Thing fighting different Hulks (Maestro, Mr Fixit, the combined version) in the guise of robots, who then go on to fight different robot versions of the Thing (original, extra-rocky, ‘helmet head’ presumably from the ‘90s).

The later issues see some fun – he teams up with Spider-Man (there are nice jokes about the stupid costume that he was wearing at the time, with the armour and the three limbs) and then takes Alicia into the past to see the original Venus de Milo (where Ben gets into a fight with Hercules as he was then, with some nice jokes about history and Alicia being an oracle) and a final issue which sees Ben having his Bar Mitzvah and having a huge poker game with nearly all the heroes in the Marvel Universe. But, as Spidey so rightly says at the end, ‘Uh … is that it?’

Artwise, Andrea DiVito is a perfect artist for the Thing; his thick, smooth lines compliment the rockiness of the craggy exterior, and he has good, expressive faces and bodies. I’m sure I can detect a hint of George Perez in his artwork, in a good way, and is completely appropriate for the tone of the stories that Slott is telling. There is good attention to detail, such as in the background of a fight scene where you can see the breaks in the concrete where Ben has trod. However, he does suffer from the problem afflicting a lot of modern superhero artists – the sexualisation of the women characters. The picture of Carlotta (a gold-digging film actress who is Ben’s girlfriend for a short time) where she is in a basque and suspenders, her massive breasts larger than her head, is completely unnecessary. Especially in the first issue. Still his sense of fun (some of the famous faces in the party in the first issue, or the Bruce Banner robot on Arcade’s island chewing on the Thing’s leg) covers for this – his covers are a delight, particularly issue 6 with Spidey. It’s a shame to see him leave, but Kieron Dwyer is no slouch when it comes to humour and action, and he is a good replacement, even if is artwork is craggier in contrast to DiVito’s.

I still don’t see why Benjamin Grimm deserves his own series, but that could be my flaw. If Slott had got round to bringing the series into the modern era that the interview suggests, the book could have become more interesting and wouldn’t have been cancelled. I guess we’ll never know. If you like your superheroes old-school, this is the book for you.

From A Library – Jack of Fables: The Nearly Great Escape

Jack of Fables #1–5 by Bill Willingham & Matthew Sturges and Tony Akins

Vertigo has always been one for capitalising on a success, so it is no big surprise that Fables, their current bestseller, gets its own spin-off in the character of