Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
Christopher Allen is back with his new column, BREAKDOWNS, thanks to our friend Andrew over at Gray Haven Magazine.com. There's a lot to cover here, so I'll shut up and let him get to it:
Breakdowns #54 - Comics On Tap
We've got a big column today, folks, so I'll keep the intro brief. Below you'll find reviews of some books from last week, this week, and even one, Deadline, that's not out yet, as well as yet another look at one of CrossGeneration Comics' series, Sigil, which is currently at a good place for new readers to climb aboard, with new writer Chuck Dixon, who already seems well-suited to the task.
Blue Monday: Lovecats by Chynna Clugston-Major. Oni Press $2.95.
Blue Monday is simply one of my favorite series. I only discovered it with the second miniseries, Absolute Beginners, now available in trade paperback, but I quickly caught up and wouldn't get enough of it even if it was a daily strip. For those who don't know it, it's a teen slice-of-life comedy series starring Bleu, a sweet teen with crushes on, at various times, her teacher, and pre-institutionalized Adam Ant. Her best friend is Clover, a hard-shelled Irish transplant, and Victor and Alan are alternately her friends and the banes of her existence, due to their typically immature high school boy behavior. The previous two miniseries focused on Bleu, with some attention paid to Alan trying to draw her affections from the teacher to him. Now, Victor and Clover steal the spotlight for this one-shot, as they stumble through their own stubborn personas and external difficulties on their way to honest-to-gosh romance. It's maybe the most sentimental story yet, but why not? It's a Valentine's Day story, and I loved it. Previously, Victor and Clover were funny and appealing second bananas, but Clugston-Major seems to have always had plans to develop them, since she does such a sure-handed job of it here. The art is the usual delightfully idiosyncratic Amerimanga style she's been using, though she does get a little more opportunity to do nice work on the chilly outdoor settings. As this is a self-contained, three dollar issue, it's one of the easiest jumping-on points for new readers. You won't regret it.
Muties #1 by Karl Bollers, Salgood Sam and Peter Ferguson. Marvel Comics. $2.99
From the solicitation a couple months ago, I didn't give this book a second thought. It sounded like any other mutant story of a teenager whose powers awaken. But when I opened this up in the shop, by page two my hopes were building that just maybe we had something special here.
The first indication is the art. Salgood Sam, whose work I've not seen before, does the layouts only, and they are ordinary but effective. It's Ferguson's painted art that will knock you out, its autumnal tones (he also alternates with some unpainted penciled panels) reminiscent, to me, of a commercial artist whose name is Mark Seydel, I think. Does some illustrations for Entertainment Weekly. Ferguson likewise seems more of a commercial illustrator than a typical comics artist, but that's a good thing, because his style really stands out. I loved the pale sheen to the skin of these high schoolers, a typical pallor of the Midwesterners I grew up with.
The story is for the most part as typical as I feared-supersmart teen nerd (is he a mutant?) has a crush on a nice, cute girl who only likes him as a friend, and we're led to believe his outcast status will be elevated exponentially with the inevitable display of newfound mutant abilities. Thing is, that's not what happens, not by a long shot. In fact, Bollers clearly misdirects the reader to think they're getting the standard fare, so that he can yank the rug out from under you with a devious, masterful, and quietly horrifying twist in the last quarter of the book. It's unsettling, even depressing in its parallels with real-life events, but it guarantees I'll be back for the next issue. One of the best of the week, certainly.
Wolaver Organic Pale Ale comes from Oregon, which shouldn't be too big a shocker when you see the adjective "organic" on the label. Like many pale ales, it's crisp and well suited for drinking indoors in warm clothes, with something grilled to eat with it, like a nice piece of fish. I didn't notice any difference in flavor between this and other "non-organic" brews, but the light taste does cut out just before the esophagal finish line, leaving a slight bitter tang in the mouth.
Barry Ween 3: Monkey Tales #6 (of 6) by Judd Winick. Oni Press. $2.95.
This isn't a complete review, mind you, as I read a preview copy from Oni that excluded the last six pages. So, I don't know how it ends, but I doubt Barry dies or anything. Still, what I read was worth the price of admission (and yes, I buy the actual issues later). Sarah, after spending much of her life on this, well, planet of the apes, or apelike beings, has agreed to come back to Earth with Barry and Jeremy. I thought this agreement came with a something of a heavy heart last issue-and understandably so-but she seems to have come to terms with it by this issue, showing no regret. Likewise, Barry doesn't get much time to worry about all the years that now separate him from this girl he loves-now a woman. He's too busy trying to repel a terrifying monster and a horde of marauders. It's a funny and rousing adventure, reminiscent of Return of the Jedi but less cute and with a lot more profanity! Sidekick Jeremy has some hilarious and even heroic moments, and about the only thing that would have made this a tiny bit better would have been to have an equally developed native character, so it's not so much a "white kids come and save helpless savages" type of story. Overall, though, this is the best Ween story yet, equal in hilarity to the previous two but surpassing them in scope and character growth.
Deadline #1 by Bill Rosemann and Guy Davis. Marvel Comics. $2.99
Like Muties, Deadline is a new miniseries set in the Marvel Universe, but with a more realistic approach. In this first issue, we meet a harried and idealistic young reporter, who wants to write the big stories but has to pay her dues by first covering the "cape" beat-superheroes-first. I have two problems with this already. First, why would superhero news be such an undesirable job? Probing the secrets of the famous and powerful? Doesn't sound so bad. And why would the heroes be derogatorily labeled "capes," when capes are much more readily apparent in the DC Universe? They're not really a Marvel thing, by and large. But, I accepted the premise and moved onward, only to find one more problem. I don't consider myself overly reverent of the superheroes of my youth (admittedly, who does?), but didn't see the portrayal of Johnny "Human Torch" Storm as a manipulative, reckless jerk whose inebriated attempt at heroism causes a sizeable park fire as anything but an unnecessary diminishing of the character.
At this point, you may be thinking I'll continue to dismantle this book, flaw by flaw, but you would be wrong. These flaws/questionable bits occur early in the issue, and after that, it's pretty smooth sailing. I like the character a lot and find she rings pretty true. She's just a tough but good-hearted, resourceful young woman, nothing too special but that's because she needs to be fairly average to contrast with these larger-than-life characters. Davis has designed her well: cute but not overly so, and with contemporary clothes rather than the strange, non-reality-based attire so many lazy artists pawn off on readers. His depiction of Robbie Robertson was odd but charmingly so, and in general the Daily Bugle and the other New York settings felt well-researched and real. The plot, involving a possible judge returned from the dead to kill supervillains, is a little wonky but intriguing so far. I'll keep reading, happy that Death from Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey is working again. Just kidding.
Queen and Country #6 by Greg Rucka, Brian Hurtt and Christine Norrie. Oni Press. $2.95.
I was recently discussing with some other GrayHaven folk that as great as comics are, and as full of potential, there are just some types of stories not suited for the medium. I said this after watching a typically emotional, righteous episode of The West Wing. And yet, Rucka and Co. prove me wrong again, with the second part of this story, which deals with a journalist held as a spy by the Taliban in Afghanistan (written pre-9/11, obviously). The other story involves the lead character, Tara Chace, who is not involved with the mission and feels totally useless, sporadically engaging in fruitless therapy and unsatisfying sexual encounters. The emotional and political content here are sophisticated and gripping, and would actually have been educational to me if we all weren't so rudely introduced to the Taliban in September. Hurtt and Norrie's art is somewhat tentative and inconsistent in places, but has a good sense of mood and place. Rucka, a celebrated crime novelist, refuses to condescend to comics, bringing all his plotting skills and gift for psychologically acute dialogue to his work here. Highly recommended.
Justice League Adventures #2 by Storrie/Rousseau/Faucher and #3 by Nicieza/Delaney/Elliott. DC Comics. $1.99
Yes, #4 just came out this week, but I won't be reviewing it. You see, I picked both these issues up on a whim at the grocery store, and only partially for myself. I have a two year old son, who can now recognize and say Superman, due to my teachings. And he knows Superman's a "good guy," and friends with Batman. And when he's in my office, he frequently will ask to "see Soo-man", meaning the Greatest Superman Stories Ever Told volume on my shelf, which we'll flip through on the floor for good action shots from the likes of Curt Swan and others. So, I figured that these comics might be fun for my son to look at, and because of the connection to the Paul Dini-produced Cartoon Network series, the stories might be good enough for me, too. The Batman Adventures stuff was always good, so why not?
Sadly, though, these issues fall short. Ideally, they should be entertaining stand-alone tales fit for all ages, with lots of action, some humor, and a clear dose of morality. But the fact is, these are just rather tepid stories, with unsatisfactory amounts of action and humor, and I of course am beyond benefiting from the moral here, though I don't have a problem with the sentiment. I'm not a follower of the series, though I suppose these thin tales don't violate any continuity or anything, but it seems that JLAdv. is really just a series of fill-ins, with entirely different creative teams each issue. If the stories are all strong, that would be fine-I don't need slowly developing subplots and character growth with every comic series I follow. But #2 is an uninvolving tale of some nasty female cult seeking to bring about Chaos on the Earth because Order hasn't worked out so well. To get things started, of course, you have to…reanimate some museum dinosaur skeletons? Uh, okay. Nice design of theirs masks, and good layouts, but you gotta be stronger than this on your second issue. Sophomore slump.
Then with #3, Fabian Nicieza works far below his abilities to tell a moderately better story of a handful of Daxamites arriving on Earth to find they have superpowers (shades of Superman II). They were exiled from their world for being troublemakers/revolutionaries, and now see an opportunity to "fix" Earth with their newfound gifts. It's an antifascist message, and a conceptually sound one, but the development and action are not in the least bit interesting. I can't imagine many kids, from two to five to twelve, will find anything here to say, "Cool!" about, and really, isn't that essential in an all-ages book? There's no sense of wonder here. No feeling of how great it would be to be a superhero on a team of other superhero friends. No big shots of grinning heroes tearing robots apart. I know I'm sounding almost retarded here, but shouldn't this book be able to transport me back to childhood, or at the very least to transport a kid to another world, for twenty minutes? I get the feeling these artists (Delaney is a bit better than Rousseau) are more concerned with meeting the animation style guides than having fun drawing some of the greatest characters in comics history. And as far as characterization, it's almost nonexistent. John Stewart and Martian Manhunter are interchangeably grim and boring, and Hawkgirl differs from Wonder Woman in their speech, but neither have personality. Batman is amusingly filtered from his suspicious nature developed in the Morrison and Waid JLA, while the Flash is the cocky one, though each wisecrack is lamentably unfunny. Superman is cardboard, not even given enough "screen time" to be the lead character he should be. If your kid likes Justice League the cartoon, get him an issue of this and see if s/he wants more. If you like the cartoon, then just watch the cartoon.
Akiti Purple Haze Raspberry Wheat Beer
I'd never heard of this brewery but the market was selling single bottles of the stuff, which makes it easy to try new brews. If you've had fruit-flavored ales before, you'll agree that it's an easy way for some microbreweries to pass off the weak stuff with the fruit syrup covering up the bad taste. Or, the fruit flavor is hardly there, which annoys me. I mean, I love Guinness and some very strong, malty beers, too, but a, well, fruity beer, and be really refreshing, and if you're having one, it better taste like the fruit named on the label. Purple Haze is a perfectly acceptable, crisp wheat beer, and has a healthy helping of raspberry flavor to it. There was no aftertaste left when the raspberry slid down my gullet, which always gives away bad beers. This one ranks up with the better fruit-flavored wheats I've had, behind Sam Adams' Cherry Wheat but not by much.
The Authority #28 by Mark Millar, Arthur Adams and Tim Townsend. Wildstorm/DC Comics. $2.50
Can you say X-Files?
Setting a new land speed record for going from the groundbreaking superhero book of the new millennium to this sporadically amusing, empty entertainment, #28 finds the book still kicking up some sawdust, but dead chickens do that even when their heads have been left on the chopping block. I'll credit this issue with being a showcase not just for Adams' art, but for a commendable change in style for Adams' art. He's putting his all into this book. Can't say the same for Millar, though, who's going through the motions with the inevitable return of the team. We knew they'd be back, now at least the Midnighter and Apollo are here. And guess what? They're killing the new Authority! Well, is that the least bit surprising? Of course not. While it's fun in a Punisher kind of way, who really cares about these gratuitous, drawn-out vengeance scenarios? The new Authority were never anything more than loathsome and one-dimensional, so their grisly ends were assured. The one moment of wit here is The Surgeon's design for one god for all cultures. It's a cute joke and a great design by Adams, though the premise seems regressive and illogical. Who needs to bother with a new god when you're already The Authority, you know? And while my guess is Millar's script wouldn't have been much better unadulterated, I do have to point out that John Layman seemed to be asleep at the switch with some obviously altered dialogue. The Colonel calls the black character, The Street, a "sodding stupid bloke", and is then chastised for his racism. This is about as logical as me being called a racist anti-Semite for pointing out that Sammy Davis, Jr. left his family impoverished when he died. Clearly, something actually racist was written for the character, but Layman failed to follow through on the changes to make the rest of the dialogue sensible. In his defense, he only had this script for a year, right? Don't mean to rain completely on this parade-it's a fun book for low expectations-but this chicken seems to be coming to the realization that it's dead.
Sigil #1-21 from CrossGen Comics. $2.95 (Credits as follows)
1-5 Kesel/Lai/Lai
6 K/Steve McNiven/Jordin Ensign
7-9 Kesel/Kevin Sharpe/R. Elliott
10-11 Kesel/Eaton/Andrew Hennessy
12-14 Waid/Eaton/Hennessy
15 Waid/Pelletier/Mike Perkins
16-19 Waid/Eaton/Hennesy
20 Kesel/Barreto/Dell - Meridian
21 Dixon/Eaton/Hennessy
If you read Chris Ryall's excellent, lengthy review of Scion #1-20, you might now have guessed that a few of us received some care packages from CrossGen. Nice of them, but as I hope I don't really have to add, such a gift only guarantees a review, not necessarily a good one. Hey, what's with me and these stern beginnings today? Let me quickly say that, somewhat to my surprise, I found myself liking this book quite a bit. I won't go into the detail that Ryall did, but here's the skinny:
Samandahl Rey is a former soldier who becomes a sigilbearer when the godlike Trenin places a mark on his chest. This grants Sam extraordinary powers, including the ability to alter solid objects. With friend and ex-soldier Roiya Sintor, they find themselves at odds with the powerful Sultan Ronolo when they help his thirteenth wife Zanniati escape his clutches with evidence of him selling out the human race to eons-old enemies, the lizardlike Saurians. One of these Saurians, the Prince Tchlusarud, has held a longtime for grudge against Sam, and it gets worse through the events of the early issues.
Barbara Kesel presents an appealing canvas on which to tell her tales of high adventure science fiction, with healthy dashes of romance from the start. The mysterious character, JeMerik Meer, is easily the most interesting and unique of the cast, but she takes great pains to make Tchlusarud ("Loser") more than just a big ol' ugly villain. His endless failures and humiliations are at first a running gag, and then become pathetic enough that you start rooting for him, despite the fact that most of his goals run counter to our heroes and heroines. The Lai brothers, who found the CrossGen environment not to their liking very quickly, start things off pretty well for unseasoned artists, creating imaginative spaceships and clothing. And though they have some problems with proportions and certain angles of the head, colorist Wil Quintana is usually able to gloss over the errors with his sensitive, sympathetic work, which really brings the world to life. Steve McNiven does decent but unexceptional work on his fill-in, but I quite liked Kevin Sharpe's thick-lined style on his three issues and would like to see him again on another regular CG book. By the time Scot Eaton comes aboard as new regular penciler, Kesel has begun wrapping up her run, so let's look a bit more at where she went right and wrong.
While the changes for Roiya are clever and the developments of Meer and Loser excellently paced, the main villain, Ronolo, is your garden variety moustache twirling bad guy, sort of a business casual Ming the Merciless. He needs more dimension, and he really didn't do a whole lot so far, just giving some orders and monitoring things. There should have been more twists and surprises in his schemes. And Roiya is also not fleshed out enough. She mainly just reacts to what everyone else is doing, though she does have some good tactical ideas in some crucial moments.
Issue #11 is the bridge between Kesel and Mark Waid, as he contributes to the plotting here, helping set up the direction he wants to take the book. The connection between Sam, new nemesis Khradon, and The First is developed some more, and there's an enjoyable skirmish between Sam and some Saurians. But if this is such a long-running war, I don't see it. I don't see its devastating effects. We know the Saurians are bad, but don't really see much of it. Also, I have to say that Sam is annoyingly blustery much of the time, not that appealing, and his and Zanni's romance is telegraphed but not that convincing. Overall, though it has its problems, I enjoyed this run and saw quite a bit of potential. I should add before moving on that with Eaton's arrival, the book improved significantly. This guy needs a little bit of work, such as more consistent faces and more natural poses, and he could be a major star. It's a really fun book to look at now. Also, it was a good idea, though initially jarring, to change Sam's hair from blow-dried blond to gray templed brush cut. It's more fitting for a veteran soldier, kind of Nick Furyesque.
With the next issue, Waid begins a new chapter for the series. Kesel may have laid out most of the blocks, but Waid starts to make an actual building out of them. He's simply a stronger scribe, and every character is instantly improved. While Sam's powers are still kind of confusing and too easily accepted by him, his personality is appealingly refined to be not just the short-fused warhorse type but also with a bit of Han Solo slyness thrown in. Roiya and JeMerik's relationship takes another step, and Zanni benefits from acquiring a position of power on her home planet. She gains layers of duplicity that spell future heartache for Sam, and she just plain has a better outfit, too. Ronolo hasn't changed much, but he gets some good lines, at least, and in fact I found the wisecracks and double-entendres-classic Waid-were really welcome additions. Waid takes a few issues to set up the status quo, with the interesting development of making Sam commander of the army on Delassia, Zanni's homeworld, which doesn't go over well with a lot of people. #15, with fill-in art by Paul Pelletier, is a fine but unnecessary flashback story to Sam's soldier days, and then things pick up again with #16, as Sam is accidentally teleported away from a Saurian invasion to a primitive world with a couple who could pass for Conan and Red Sonja. And while this is all fun to read, and Eaton's large panels great to look at, there's not a lot of meat here. The issues read very fast, and not that much really happens. Just when things are getting good in the Saurian/Human war, we take this detour to this other world. Sam does meet another sigilbearer, true (the Conan double), but not much is done with it, and he has little impact on their world anyway. And Firsters Trenin and Yala, observing events in the time-honored crystal ball/Clash of the Titans way, take up too much space with their redundant sparring. #19 ends Waid's run, with the conclusion of this otherworld adventure and some sexy stalling tactics by Roiya, who's never looked better under Eaton's pencil, though one of the best shots appears to be a swipe to my eyes. I could be wrong. More importantly, while Waid certainly kept my interest for his short run, and did some good things with Sam and Loser, especially, there could have been a lot more happening. The pace needs to pick up.
#20 finds Kesel stepping back in briefly, with an awkward and pointless story starring costarring Sephie from Meridian, one of the titles she's continued writing. I found her hard to understand and not at all compelling, so the obvious goal of this issue-to get me to read her series-was not achieved.
And now we come to the third chapter, as Chuck Dixon steps aboard for the first issue in what looks to be a heavy workload of CrossGen books. As he explains at the end of the book, his directive is to heat this Human/Saurian war to the boiling point, and to take an extended look at life during wartime that comics haven't approached before, not on this scale anyway. And he's right when he says Eaton and Hennessy are the right team for the job. Dixon does an excellent job of delineating the culture of the Saurians here, and Loser being double-crossed by his mother is brilliant. Not sure why Sam has got all brown hair again, but no matter. The war is starting to get good; Ronolo is powerful but on the run, and the rest of the cast are separated and embroiled in their own dire situations. The tension has been ratcheted up effectively, increasing my interest in continuing this book, and we'll now just have to see how he develops the characters.
And that will do it for this episode. See you next time.
Christopher Allen
If you're interested in getting on a mailing list to find out when a new column or review goes up, here and at Ain't It Cool News, send me a request HERE!! And yes, I'll probably review some more beers next time. It was fun.
Thanks, Christopher. Looking forward to next week already...
"Moriarty" out.
