Metropolis

I realize this is really later in the week than I intended to post it, but it couldn’t be helped. Over the past few weeks I been slowly consuming the first season of TRUE BLOOD on DVD, and slowly become addicted to it’s delightfully campy mix of sex and cheese. I’ve been dutifully recording the current season on HBO for safekeeping until I was totally caught up on the DVDs. So this past weekend I had a small TRUE BLOOD marathon as I recently decided to get an HD DVR and – Poppa had to watch him some Sookie Stackhouse fang banging with Bill (”I am Vampire!) Compton before the DVR’s got switched out and I lost the chance to catch up. So you can blame Anna Paquin’s boobies for the delay.
 
Now – on to the comics!
 
 
STORMWATCH: POST EARTH DIVISION 22 – This issue marks the first time since Wildstorm’s big “post-apocalyptic Earth” stories began, that I can honestly say I am in love with the direction of this book 100%. After manipulating Winter beyond the breaking point and losing Fuji to the destruction of his containment suit – we finally have ourselves some members of the team ripe for insubordination. And just as they begin to conspire – suicide bombers trick their way on to the ship. The political machinations, mixed with super heroics, that have made me a fan of Stormwatch all along have finally returned. FANBOY FUN!
 
DARK X-MEN 1 (of 3) - Once again I have learned the age old lesson to leaf through the entire comic book before you decide to buy it. After turning to the first page and seeing Paul Cornell and Leonard Kirk’s names, i.e. the creative team of CAPTAIN BRITAIN AND MI-13, I was sold on this one. imagine my disdain to sit down and read this issue only to discover that they merely did the first story of three that successively descend in quality and relevance. Oh sure, I guess they were relevant to the whole UTOPIA crossover (maybe), but in the end this was a major disappointment for me. EH!
 
R.E.B.E.L.S. 6 – Any fan of the Machievallian Coluan, Vril Dox, from L.E.G.I.O.N. ‘89 would be proud of the way Tony Bedard has returned the character to his manipulative roots in this book and quickly made it one of DC’s few true gems. In this issue Dox not only saves the universe from infestation by Starro, but he manipulates the motley crew aboard his ship (who all hate him) into joining his cause. Admittedly, not a whole lot actually happens beyond that, but the characterization is executed perfectly note for note, as if Alan Grant had returned to the character he and Keith Giffen made one of my favorite characters in the 1990s. He’s like the J.R. Ewing of the DC Universe – you just love to hate the guy. And all this goes without mentioning that Bedard is doing for the cosmic characters of DC, what Abnett and Lanning are doing for them over in the Marvel Universe, but on a much smaller and more manageable scale. Sci-Fi political intrigue at an epic scope. BSG’s Ron Moore would be proud. FANBOY FUN!
 
RED ROBIN 2 - I am just not liking this new direction for Tim Drake. He is acting totally out of character, and the character change feels like an editorial decision, rather than an evolutionary change brought about by necessity for the growth of a burgeoning super-hero. And Ramon Bach’s artwork isn’t quite ready for this grim and gritty style they are trying to force on him. I’m not sure if it is a decision made by him, or another editorial mandate, but the result is something akin to the artist on an ARCHIE comic trying to make Jughead look like a bad ass. It just ain’t gonna happen! EH!
 
BATMAN 688 – Here’s something you almost never see – Batman smiling. I for one would like to think his mile is because the Bat-books are officially good fun stuff again, but I know it is for the same reason that the books actually are fun again – that ain’t Bruce Wayne underneath the cowl. Judd Winnick is joined on the title by Mark Bagley for the first of a six issue run, and after just one issue I wish their stay would have been longer. Rather than hit the readers over the head with the fact that this is a new and different Batman & Robin, for the first time I felt like I we were just enjoying the new status quo, rather than setting it up. The book is about as different from Grant Morrison’s BATMAN & ROBIN as you could go while still using the same characters, but it doesn’t feel forced. So – of course DC goes and screws it up by letting the not-quite-ready-for-prime-time-player, Tony Daniel, back as regular writer and artist after Winnick and Bagley’s run ends. But concentrating on the positive….FANBOY FUN!!!
 
GREEN LANTERN 43 – If nothing else, the one thing this whole lead-in to the Blackest Night event has made Black Hand into an interesting villain for once. And here we see he was a morbid lad, and not at all like one of the Fisher brothers from SIX FEET UNDER. (Now that would have been an interesting origin.) This issue is really just one more in the long long set up for the big Blackest Night event, but far more interesting than the whole Orange Lantern storyline. GOOD STUFF.
 
WAR OF KINGS: WARRIORS 1 (of 2) – Another anthology title for the week, but this one is has two stories written by Christos Gage, so it doesn’t read quite as disjointed as anthology comics traditionally do. I enjoyed seeing a peek at the origin of the Imperial Guard’s Gladiator, as he has long been one of my favorite background character’s in the Marvel Universe. Who doesn’t like a superhero with a giant mohawk and the powers of Superman? It was also nice to finally learn that Gladiator’s weakness is disbelief in himself. Unfortunately the second feature of the book, Blastaar has Daddy issues, isn’t as interesting (at least to this reader), making the whole less successful. Gage works with what he is given, but for some reason Blastaar has never had the marquee billing of a villain like Thanos or even Ronan the Accuser. OKAY.
 
GRAVEL 12 – Gravel meets with a Rastafarian pirate (or something), and then recruits another member of the Minor Seven, who uses mayonnaise (?) to kill some drug dealers smoking fetuses. Yes. Fetuses! Oddly – this was pretty OKAY.  
 
NO HERO 6 - I felt a little like a Juan Jose Ryp drawing after reading this, in that I had to literally pick my jaw up off the floor. Every time I think Ryp couldn’t possibly unleash something as messed up and nightmarish as he did in whatever he last drew – he sends me hiding my head under the covers with some new nightmarish creation. Our protagonist finally finds out the secrets that have led him to giving up his humanity for super powers, and to say he is unhappy about what he finds out is an understatement of epic proportions. It’s like saying ROCK OF LOVE lacks a little bit of class. BUENO EXCELLENTE!!!
 
CROSSED 6 – So, continuing in the Avatar triumvirate for the week, we come to Garth Ennis and Jacen Burrows’ epic tale of survivors of a “zombie” like plague. Now – after last issue’s relatively low violence quotient i was expecting to really see some NC-17 level trauma this time out. Imagine my surprise when the issue turned out to be much more tell than show, with more character development and very few actual violent moments. To be fair – the few violent moments in the book are pretty hardcore. But…BUT…the most unsettling moment, by far, has to be when the story of two new members of the group recall their own stories post-Crossed event, and finds out the chilling secret one of them harbors. Only Ennis could have come up with a character moment as twisted as this. BUENO EXCELLENTE!!!
 
WEDNESDAY COMICS 1 (of 12) – Everybody else is talking about it so I might as well throw my hat into the ring too. I approached the format with a bit of hesitation, but I quickly began to appreciate it when I saw how each artist approached the large newspaper-like format and storytelling without any restrictions, and allowed their art to really fill the pages and make each page into a single work of art. I was particularly taken with how effective Paul Pope’s ADAM STRANGE, Neil Gaiman and Mike Allred’s METAMORPHO, Dave Gibbons and Ryan Sook’s KAMANDI, Kyle Baker’s HAWKMAN each worked as effectively as a stand-alone piece as well as one part of a larger whole. My only complaint was with the WONDER WOMAN strip, which I found to be slightly difficult to read. Now – not all the stories really work in a single page format, as far as building tension and what not, but the format is wonderful for treating comics like the works of art that they are. Like everyone else in the blogosphere – I wonder how the inevitable reprint collection will handle the size of this work and in what format. As for storage – I just slipped a backing board inside the book itself, and then slipped the whole thing into a silver (or was it golden) age bag. Whatever works for you – the discerning collector. FANBOY FUN!