Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
Thanks to all our comic guys for being patient. They had these reports ready days ago, and I've been too buried to do the right thing. Sorry, guys, and great work.
Well, the Amazing Mutant Fanboy has decided to continue on his extended leave of absence, leaving me, that Sexiest Man in Comics guy, to give you my take on the best (and worst) of the week in this week’s Premium Pulp. So for those of you who don’t like the back and forth reviews, consider yourself spared this week. For those of you who enjoy that format…well, it’s tough to accomplish said format when you don’t have a partner to bounce the reviews off of.
Anyway, I thought I’d start the review process off this week with a look at the failure that is Our World’s at War. If you’ll remember, when this “event” started off, both AMF and I were pretty enthusiastic about it. The story started off strong, with a good deal of fast paced action which got me hooked for the first two or three weeks. Of course, that’s when the crossover really lost its way.
Once Kansas was blown off the map, readers have been forced to work their way through title after title that provided little in the way of plot or cohesive storytelling. I’m not often confused by comics that I read (save the ones my six year-old niece writes and draws), but throughout this crossover, I’ve found myself scratching my head more than once.
Example: Steel dies. Steel comes back from the dead. Explanation: I’m not really sure we got a real explanation to his resurrection, besides the fact that they didn’t want to kill him off for good. This is just one example of a side plot that never fully developed in this series. Another example of things being left to the wayside was the role that the citizens of Metropolis were to play in the war. Supposedly, they were supposed to play an important part in the war against Imperix. What that roll was…well…I’m not quite certain.
Action Comics #782 was just another example of this lack of explanation. So Superman goes into the sun and comes out a morally ambiguous fighting machine? Um…yeah, next thing you’re going to tell me is that he’s able to make the earth go back in time by circling around it’s atmosphere for a while. Oh, and Jimmy Olsen’s now talking in computer code (damn, guess we should have picked up that OWAW: Harley Quinn special, right?). What little exposition there is in this comic is lost in the frantic pacing and millions of dangling sub-plots. Unfortunately, that’s been the case with this entire event, as we see our heroes go from venue to venue without ever giving readers a chance to catch their breaths.
But there’s yet another problem with this event. One of the greatest problems with the Superman books ever since their relaunch a few years ago has been the contrasting styles of the writers involved. In the case of the Bat-books, this works great, as each book has it’s own feel and the stories told rarely cross over. When they do crossover, Bob Schreck and his writers do a great job of carefully planning out which writers will write what stories and when.
The Superman books, however, have been tied to this “never-ending story” who-ha ever since Byrne got to reinvent the character in the late eighties. While this worked for a number of years under the similar styles of Byrne and Ordway, with such contrasting styles as Loeb and Schultz, the books have never really been able to master this whole “Super-soap opera” thing. My advice to the guys at DC is as follows: either dump this constant linking of the books or fill the Superman roster with writers who at least speak the same language.
Suffice to say, OWAW has been a colossal disappointment. If you want a good crossover with long lasting effects in the DCU, pick up the Crisis TPB. But enough of that rant. Let’s move on to happier topics, shall we?
You’ll remember that I’ve been quite critical of Codename: Knockout, Vertigo’s spy satire that shows more T&A than a Poison Ivy sequel. It’s not been the boobies that have turned me off to this book (as my friends can tell you that I’m a big fan of the boobies), instead it was the lack of truly strong writing amongst the visual and verbal titillation. Angel and the Ape #1, however, delivers what Codename: Knockout promises.
The story is simple enough. Angel and Sam are private dicks hired by lingerie magnate Torso von Morso to track down his prized model Bambi Dextrous. They do the usual private dick stuff, including interviewing Bambi’s co-workers and ex-lovers to try and figure out just whodunit. Of course, being involved in the lingerie business lends the story to some quite humorous word and sight gags.
What makes this book work (so far) while Codename: Knockout flounders, is hard to pinpoint. First of all, the writing of Howard Chaykin and David Tischman is quite strong, allowing the jokes to simply flow rather than waiting for the rim shot that never comes. The satire here is also top-notch, from the gags about the lingerie business to some simple points made about independent comics. Most importantly, however, is Phillip Bond’s masterful artwork. His cartoony nature helps to further emphasize the dichotomy that is Angel and the Ape’s world. On one hand, it’s a world filled with sex and (we’re assuming) violence. On the other hand, all the characters in this book seem quite innocent, even amongst the grime. This playfulness works extremely well, and I certainly hope this creative team is able to keep it up.
A creative team that has kept it up throughout their own short lived run on a book is the Morrison and Quietly on New X-Men. Issue #116, the final installment for their initial story-arc does an excellent job of wrapping up this excellent story, while giving readers a taste of what’s to come with this new feel X-Men.
Picking up from the last issue, Genosha has been destroyed with maybe two survivors from last month’s “wild Sentinel” attack. This leaves the X-Men to pick up the pieces, which they do admirably, until they’re faced with a difficult decision on what to do with the mastermind behind the attack. The end result shows Morrison taking the X-Men into a decidedly darker direction than I though he (and Marvel) would, while introducing some somewhat exciting new plot points for the X-Universe to chew on.
Now frankly, I’ve only ever been a casual fan of the X-Books. I’ve kept up with the storylines here and there, but they never really enthralled me. However, with this series and Millar’s excellent Ultimate X-Men, I’ve quickly become a fan of the Marvel mutants. This issue reaffirms something I’ve been thinking since the first issue: finally, the X-Men flagship book deserves to be #1 over JLA in sales.
Finally this week, we’ve got my pick for Pulp of the Week in Spider-Man’s Tangled Web #5. The last issue, Rucka’s piece on a doomed agent of Kingpin’s is a hard one to top, but in this case, I think Peter Milligan and Duncan Fegredo have done an excellent job of setting the bar even higher. In “Flowers For Rhino, Part One: Rhinoplasty” we get to see the world through the eyes of a pretty worthless villain, The Rhino. Let’s face it: He’s a dumb guy that’s strong. Here, however, Milligan is able to give the brute some (but not a great deal) of humanity very deftly.
While we’ve seen Rhino lament about his bulky frame and lack of intelligence before, here we get to see Rhino really express himself as a character. He’s still a common thug that will beat up pretty much anyone in his path, but even common thugs can dream and wish for second chances. This book works doubly so given the amount of care Milligan uses in trying to subvert the old comic paradigms from the opening sequence on. Megakudos go out to Fegredo as well, who offers up not only a beautiful cover, but also does a great job in keeping the pace and tone of the story visually succinct. This is certainly an excellent issue from what’s shaping up to be an excellent anthology.
Well, that’s it from my end this week. I promise to be back here next week, and I’ll see if I can’t get our friend Fanboy to join us as well.
