Colette Arrand

Tag: The New 52

  • The New 52: Demon Knights #1, Frankenstein – Agent of S.H.A.D.E. #1, Resurrection Man #1, Swamp Thing #1, Voodoo #1

    The New 52: Demon Knights #1, Frankenstein – Agent of S.H.A.D.E. #1, Resurrection Man #1, Swamp Thing #1, Voodoo #1

    Demon Knights #1

    Writer: Paul Cornell / Artist: Diogenes Neves

    Yes, yes, yes, yes. When I heard that DC was relaunching their whole line, that they were going to be re-contextualizing much of their stilted universe, a comic book like Demon Knights #1 was exactly what I was hoping for, not the shoehorning-in of extra characters and teams whose revitalization wasn’t tantamount to artistic or commercial success. While I highly doubt Demon Knights is the sort of comic that’ll ever crack the top 20 monthly sales charts, it is a well-written, gorgeously drawn book that grounds some of the more magical elements of the DC universe in the Dark Ages, effortlessly blending in the story of Etrigan the Demon, Madame Xanadu, the Shining Knight, and King freakin’ Arthur and the fall of Camelot in one issue.

    Etrigan is somewhat liberated from his ridiculous gimmick of rhyme, which only the best comics scribes were able to do without coming off ridiculous, as it’s revealed that he’s a demon held captive by the wizard Merlin, who watches helplessly as Camelot is overrun by an attacking horde. In his last act before disappearing, Merlin joins Etrigan to the body of Jason of Norwich, a young knight now cursed to harbor a demon inside him. After the fall of Camelot, the world plunges into the dark ages. At a tavern, Jason and Madame Xanadu meet the berserker Vandal Savage, the Shining Knight, an Amazonian (I think), and a few others before the tavern is attacked by a horde claiming to be emissaries of the queen.

    If this sounds like the set-up to a role-playing game, well, it is. Obviously, your mileage will vary, but this set-up is one that I’d probably pay $60 to play, excitedly. As the first issue in a series, it’s got everything that I’m looking for. The plot interests me. The characters, known and unknown, are a good mix of personality and gimmick. The art, which usually doesn’t matter much to me, is perfectly evocative of this slightly twisted world. Demon Knights represents the first real slam dunk of the New 52, a book that starred into the abyss of a rebooted universe and decided to roll the dice. I’m in until low sales see it cancelled (this always happens), then I’m in on the petition to bring it back.

    Frankenstein: Agent of S.H.A.D.E. #1

    Writer: Jeff Lemire / Artist: Alberto Ponticelli

    Given that I was a big fan of Grant Morrison’s Seven Soldiers project, I’m genuinely happy to see some of its elements make themselves apparent in the new DC universe. S.H.A.D.E., his T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents tribute from the Seven Soldiers: Frankenstein miniseries gets its own ongoing, and, within a few pages, it looks like its borrowed more than a few things from Mark Millar’s The Ultimates, which envisioned the Avengers as a government led and funded super-organization dedicated to stopping world-level threats. What Frankenstein: Agent of S.H.A.D.E. has on The Ultimates is characters that are genuinely interesting beyond being Captain America…but different, and the characters are so C and D list that literally anything is possible.

    That all sounds like a backhanded compliment, but it isn’t supposed to be. Father Time, the leader of S.H.A.D.E., is one of those ruthless, insane leader-types, willing to underwrite projects where scientists turn themselves into gillwomen and whole cities are shrunken to fit inside a steel sphere three inches in diameter. Frankenstein, whose origins are what you’d think, is a late-period John Wayne, regarding all this technological muck knowingly, trudging through it because he must. He’s got a lot to deal with, too. The gillwoman is the leader of a team comprised of many human/Universal monster hybrids–a werewolf, a vampire (sadly not a Dracula), and an honest-to-God mummy. They’re put together because Frankenstein’s wife (yup!) was sent to stop an invasion of Lovecraftian monsters from wrecking a small town, only to disappear.

    I really dug this issue, but it’s pretty much a mash-up of everything I love, with a brief discussion on Milton and Keats thrown in to make sure I’d sing its praises. Jeff Lemire, whose DC Comic’s work has skewed towards science fiction, riffs on its inspirations that feels more inspired than insulting, and Alberto Ponticelli’s rough-hewn pencils lend the proceedings the grit and character necessary for a comic book about the end of the world. Frankenstein: Agent of S.H.A.D.E. promises to explore some of the weirder corners of the DC Universe, but it is a weird universe, and it’s good that the big, green, undead guy exploring it is cut from the same cloth.

     

    Resurrection Man #1

    Writers: Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning / Artist: Fernando Dagnino

    When I worked at the Pack Shack, I was always under the impression that Abnett and Lanning were the Lennon/McCartney of mundane DC Comics books that I’d never in a million years crack the spines of, mostly because the Legion of Superheroes is, literally, the most confusing idea in the history of comic books, and that’s what they wrote. Unfortunately, Resurrection Man #1 does little to dispel my ill-informed beliefs, even though Abnett and Lanning are working with their own character, on a completely blank slate.

    It’s not that the idea itself is bland. In a world where the only dead walking the earth are doing so to hunt human flesh, it’s nice if there’s a guy or two who dies, comes back, and is relatively normal. Resurrection Man, being a disposable, reusable superhero, isn’t exactly normal, but coming back to life with the power of magnetism makes for more interesting dinner conversation than “BRAAAAAAAAINS!” It seems that each time Resurrection Man resurrects, he comes back with a power suitable for the task he finds himself against, making him stunningly useful for a guy who dies a lot. That being said, Resurrection Man’s been overdue for a stay in heaven/hell, so the forces of some shady gray area are after him, trying to stop him from coming back.

    This kind of cat-and-mouse can be pretty compelling, but Resurrection Man #1 just isn’t, failing in the worst way high concept ideas can fail: by being satisfied with the concept. If things were happening, if Resurrection Man was trying to stop the world from ending/his girlfriend from getting killed, his car from getting repoed, but he couldn’t because he kept dying and coming back, losing valuable time/money/sanity, then something would be happening. As it stands, he dies and comes back, ready to continue the chase. He’s the ghosts from Pac Man, if they had their own ongoing series. Even though that sounds awesome, if the result of failure is a do-over, what’s the point?

     

    Swamp Thing #1

    Writer: Scott Snyder / Artist: Yanick Paquette

    On the subject of integrating Vertigo characters back into the DC Universe, I’m for it as long as it’s done well. A character like Swamp Thing, after all, has a long history apart from your Supermen, your Batmen, and your Aquamen, so just hurtling the character from one continuity to the other all haphazardly would be a disservice both to what came before and potential new readers. Luckily, Swamp Thing #1 is gradually reintroducing its titular monster to the DC Comics fold, explaining who Swamp Thing was for the benefit of those who thought buying 52 new comics sounded like a grand idea while realizing that there’s room for Swamp Thing’s utter weirdness among DC’s heavy hitters.

    The long and short of Swamp Thing #1 is this: The world is dying, and in ways the Justice League can’t help or figure out. Dr. Alec Holland, the former Swamp Thing, knows this, but is seemingly uninterested in solving the problem. He’s down and out after his stint as the monster, convinced that plants are more violent than we give them credit for, that, for all his brilliance as a scientist, he simply doesn’t have what it takes to solve the world’s problems anymore. Meanwhile, a group of shady looking customers look for something out in the wastelands and, in the most grisly scene I’ve seen in any of the new #1s, are compelled to snap their necks and walk around with their heads on backwards.

    It’s a little gross and a little weird, and the proceedings are certainly meditative, but that’s what I expect from Swamp Thing. It’ll be interesting to see how much room DC Comics gives this title. Yanick Paquette, for instance, is a superstar artist on a book that isn’t going to sell enough copies to justify a superstar artist. How short is his leash? Who replaces him? How long does Snyder have to make his vision stick? Swamp Thing #1 gives me a lot of hope, but when the hype dies down and we’re reading issues 10, 11, and 12 of the New 52, I wonder at his ability to survive in the marketplace. I’m willing to put aside any Alan Moore comparisons until that point, so here’s hoping Swamp Thing has a long, prosperous shelf-life.

     

    Voodoo #1

    Writer: Ron Marz / Artist: Sam Basri

    I’d love to give Voodoo #1 the benefit of a doubt. After all, it’s one of a few female solo books DC has decided to launch in an effort to reach out to new readers, and, more, it’s an effort to integrate an interesting (if ripped from They Live) idea from the clutches of the 90s comics that birthed it. But Voodoo, whose solicits ask the reader if she’s hero/villain/both, is a stripper whose tattoos murder people, and that appears to be it. Taken on it’s own, it’d be a disappointing, lifelessly drawn comic with potential but for the poor execution (DC’s own Witchblade, which, surprise, Ron Marz spent time writing), but Voodoo spends so much time stripping, changing clothes, and stripping that the comic quickly devolves into self-parody, which, to be honest, was evident from the issue’s come-hither cover. Voodoo #1 isn’t a good comic book by any stretch of the imagination. Even if you’re looking for a decent cheesecake comic, there are better ones available. I’ve seen Zack Snyder movies more capable of recognizing women as something greater than a fetish object, and he’s the guy who thought Watchmen needed more rape.

  • The New 52: Batwing #1, Birds of Prey #1, Catwoman #1, Nightwing #1, and Red Hood and the Outsiders #1

    The New 52: Batwing #1, Birds of Prey #1, Catwoman #1, Nightwing #1, and Red Hood and the Outsiders #1

    Batwing #1

    Writer: Judd Winick / Artist: Ben Oliver

    There are room for superheroes in Africa, I know there has to be. While the concerns dealt with by American comic book characters–drug abuse, alcoholism, crime, choosing between Betty or Veronica–are pedestrian in comparison to those that would likely be faced by a hero operating in the Congo, there must–must–be a way of portraying that hero in a way that intelligently confronts those issues, and you’d have to imagine that a comic book capable of doing that would be a home run, finally and fairly representing a sorely underrepresented group of people. Unfortunately Batwing #1 isn’t that book. It isn’t offensive, but it has the feel of a comic conceived after skimming through a fairly long essay on the famine and war plaguing the continent. Its heart is in the right place, but, more often than not, its head is up its ass.

    Batwing, as you might’ve guessed, is the Batman of Africa, given a suit and a cave by Bruce Wayne in an effort to spread the message and ideal of Batman throughout the world. This is an interesting idea (one of many interesting ideas cooked up by Grant Morrison), but, in execution, I can’t help but cringe watching Batman show up to lecture Batwing on the finer points of crime fighting. In this issue, he admits that Batman was right when he said a bat would scare African criminals, thanks Bruce for the suit, and unnecessarily reminds him that he’s responsible for the bank of computers he works from. He then waltzes into work the next morning and finds the entire police precinct massacred by a warlord/supervillain. Of course, he blames himself. Too bad Batman wasn’t there to lend a hand.

    I’ve never been much for Judd Winick’s writing, which is too bad since he is one of the DC roster’s most prodigious writers. I guess I’ve always found that, while dealing with big issues like sexuality, identity, and race, his scripts never reach far beyond the basics, often feeling sloppy, rushed, and half baked. Batwing #1 is much the same way. Great idea, yes, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired, and the end result is a less earnest Blood Diamond clone with capes. The issue is not helped by the artwork of Ben Oliver, who I’m sure has his fans, but I’m not much for comic art that tries to be photorealistic. There’s a kind of uncanny valley effect to artwork like Oliver’s–by trying hard to emulate the looks, emotions, and real life responses of actual people, Batwing #1 is a cold, emotionless shell of a book. I don’t feel anything for the character, and, in a weird way, I almost find the photorealistic dismembered limbs and severed heads a bit disrespectful. These things have really happened in Africa, and Batwing’s set-up doesn’t seem strong enough to resolve those issues with the respect and consideration they deserve. I feel my time would have been better spent looking through a photo essay on the continent. I feel like Batman should have known better.

     

    Birds of Prey #1

    Writer: Duane Swierczynski / Artist: Jesus Saiz

    I was irked by Birds of Prey #1 immediately upon looking at the cover. I’m usually loathe to gripe about comic book fashion, having long since tired of bat-nipples and endless pouches, but the long sleeves and 90s shoulderpads with hot pants and fishnets ensemble they gave to Black Canary is the second ugliest re-envisioning of a character’s costume since the ill-fated relaunch of Wonder Woman saw Diana Prince dressed up for a night at the club. The worst, if your wondering, also goes to Birds of Prey #1, whose Poison Ivy wears a puke green body suit and limp red hair so horrible I had to check Wikipedia just to be absolutely sure it was her and not some limp-wristed imitation. Poison Ivy, for the record, is my favorite Batman villain. She’s also quite the fashion plate, so what the hell guys?

    *ahem*

    Even if I were able to look past the seemingly arbitrary and wholly unnecessary costume changes (I can’t! I won’t!), Birds of Prey #1 would only irk me again upon the realization that, in this brave new world, absolutely nothing that was great about Gail Simone’s long, incredible run on the book survived Flashpoint to make it into the new DC Universe. I’m biased, as Birds of Prey was the first book that got me into DC Comics as a young reader and comic shop employee, but it was nice that a book existed that wasn’t just about super heroics, but personal relationships and subtle nuance. The characters in Birds of Prey were smart and well-rounded, and I can’t help but be a little sad that that’s been tossed out the window in an effort to return to the tone established by Chuck Dixon’s run on the title, with the difference being that Black Canary and OracleBatgirl are not only no longer teammates, but that Barbara Gordon isn’t even on the team.

    Now were I able to set both of my issues with Birds of Prey #1 aside before I’d read the book, Duane Swierczynski’s take on the team would still be pedestrian stuff–a light, sexless take on Sucker Punch (which wasn’t exactly heavy. Or sexy.) with little ambition beyond showing hot chicks do the cool things people in action movies often do–drive cars, fight thugs, be party to explosions. Everything that happens here feels so unnecessary, so lifeless and stilted and just plain off. A lot of that probably has to do with my strong attachment to Simone’s run. A lot of it probably has to do with the fact that I find dialog like “God, it’s you…the Black Canary. Wanted for murdering a man with a punch” laughable in the way B movies are. Most of it, however, has to do with Birds of Prey #1 having the vitality of a book that’ll be cancelled within a year. It lacks a certain…vitality. I might read a few more issues to see how Poison Ivy is handled (I do bad things for the sake of keeping up on favorite characters), but, one issue in, it’ll be more out of morbid curiosity than anything else.

     

    Catwoman #1

    Writer: Judd Winick / Artist: Guillem March

    Catwoman, too, was a title instrumental in getting me into DC Comics, as the Ed Brubaker/Darwin Cooke/Cameron Stewart series did more with the noirish elements of the Batman mythos I’d grown up with in Batman: The Animated Series than any other Batman title, both in terms of Brubaker’s strong sense of Selena Kyle as a character, and Cooke and Stewart’s incredible sense of Gotham City as a place. It’s been a long time since the character or a book featuring her has been relevant to my interest, which is too bad because, in the right hands, she’s quite capable of presenting a different side of Gotham, one that Batman, Batgirl, and the Birds of Prey are incapable of exploring. I’m not sure if the Selina Kyle of Catwoman #1 is a woman capable of carrying her own book, of if my displeasure in the road Judd Winick takes is due to my biases, both for the character and against the writer.

    Selina Kyle, as written by Winick, is much the same as she was in the 90s; a woman with an ambiguous moral code and expensive taste. The things that defined her as a person when Brubaker was writing her are gone, replaced with the cat-ridden apartment and a sloppy-but-sexy demeanor that fails to do much in defining her. On the first page, when she’s cramming eight cats into a cat carrier and jumping out the window half dressed, I had to stop myself from closing the book. Sure, my Catwoman would have been prepared, in costume. Yes, my Catwoman probably would have had two cat carriers. But this is Judd Winick’s East End, and I’m just nervously shuffling down the sidewalk, eyes to the pavement.

    It’s clear from the narration that Winick’s Catwoman will be couched in Frank Millerisms. Like one of his tough talking prostitutes, Selina Kyle isn’t afraid to be groped by a dirtbag if it means that she gets what she wants, and she’s certainly not above using her body to lure her marks in. It’s lazy and unconvincing, but is a masterstroke compared to the relationship between Catwoman and Batman, which reads like some nerd’s Batman Returns fanfic, if that fanfic somehow won a contest to be drawn by a real comic book artist. I’m cool with Batman and Catwoman having sex, but, here, it seems like it’s defining Winick’s take on the character, that Batman needs to be there, not just for all the kissing and straddling DC will allow, but so that she’ll have something hanging over her head when she goes off to do something that might be morally iffy–a relationship with a man.

    All of this is annoying before the issue’s last words invite comparison between Batman/Catwoman and Watchmen‘s Nite Owl II/Silk Spectre II, who, being characters in an Alan Moore comic book about identity (and 900 other things), are much better equipped to deal with the issue. It’s not a fair comparison, but few things are. A more fair comparison: like Birds of Prey, I’m in for a few more issues, if only because I’m curious to see where, exactly, Winick is going. It helps that Guillem March draws an awesome Catwoman. It’s only right, considering that it’s her book, but she stands apart from everything surrounding her–even when the writing tries to tie her down.

     

    Nightwing #1

    Writer: Kyle Higgins / Artist: Eddy Barrows

    I guess I’ve never really understood the need for Nightwing. Yes, there’s a need for character evolution, and Dick Grayson wasn’t always going to be Robin, but it feels like Nightwing never quite stepped out of Batman’s shadow. He moved to a new town, got himself some villains, saw the town crumble and went back to Gotham, where he took up the Bat-mantle when Bruce died (funny how “evolution” means taking on someone else’s identity) and handed it back when he returned. Now back as Nightwing and back in Gotham, Nightwing #1 breaks no new ground for Dick Greyson. He’s still in Batman’s shadow, still fighting his scraps, still struggling to find his identity without Bruce.

    I suppose it’s fitting that the circus Dick once worked for is back in town, as it allows him to visit his old demons and reflect on his history, for those who are new to the character. It’s a big deal, I suppose, that he’s back in hero-choked Gotham, living in a loft in one of the city’s rough (but maybe gentrifying) sections, living in the place he’s trying to improve. There’s also a big carrot dangled at the end of the issue that there might be more to Dick than even he knows, but in this, the first issue of his own book in a new continuity, he’s taking on a nameless, faceless killer. I know that not all of these new books can be barnburners and that a book like Nightwing #1 has an established audience, but it’d be nice to see writer Kyle Higgins going beyond the character’s firmly entrenched comfort zone. Fans of Dick Greyson will probably be mollified, as this is the first time he’s had a solo book since 2009, but beyond those fans, nothing here is going to convince the masses that the character, or the book he’s in, is worth the money.

     

    Red Hood and the Outsiders #1

    Writer: Scott Lobdell / Artist: Kenneth Rocafort

    Enough bloggers have commented on the economic stupidity of taking Starfire–a character three million children, a number much larger than the thirty thousand your typical comic book would be lucky to get–from her cutsey Teen Titans leanings and hurling her headlong into the COOL and RAD world of Red Hood and the Outsiders #1, where she is not only the most powerful member of the team, not just the one with the biggest breasts, longest hair, and skimpiest costume, but also the biggest slut, so I probably don’t need to add my voice. It is a stupid decision, but then again, it was pretty stupid to publish this comic book in the first place.

  • The New 52: Green Lantern: New Guardians #1, Green Lantern #1, Green Lantern Corps #1, Red Lanterns #1

    The New 52: Green Lantern: New Guardians #1, Green Lantern #1, Green Lantern Corps #1, Red Lanterns #1

    Green Lanterns: New Guardians #1

    Writer: Tony Bedard / Artist: Tyler Kirkham

    I’ve never been much for any Green Lantern not named Guy Gardner (best jacket in comics, best hair in comics), but start me off with a gaggle of dead ones, victims all of a seemingly apocalyptic intergalactic battle, and I’m going to take notice. The new Lantern in question here is Kyle Rayner, and, if this is what the characters always been like, I don’t see what people have been complaining about since his 1994 debut. He’s a nice enough guy, and, as a comic book artist, he’s able to bend the Green Lantern power ring to more creative uses than giant boxing gloves or the current popular manifestation of supreme cosmic willpower–the giant machine gun. He saves a crane operator from certain doom by willing to life three giant, Depression-era construction workers…and is promptly criticized by some random kid for designing his own costume.

    Thankfully, Green Lanterns: New Guardians #1 isn’t as preoccupied with defending the legacy of its main character as Aquaman was, and the result is a 22 page comic that both effectively introduces its hero and hurls him into an incredibly dangerous predicament. Out in space, the power rings belonging to other cosmically-powered spacemen are disappearing, which is understandably upsetting to the factions missing their rings. They all converge on Kyle and, wouldn’t you know it, a Lantern from each corps is hot on its tail, ready to tear apart the poor bastard unlucky enough to draw their attention.

    Tony Bedard, whose Route 666 remains a favorite–if unheralded–comic of mine, is effective in cramming everything into one issue. Not only does Rayner get the ring, the other Lanterns lose theirs, the crane falls, there’s a whole lot of dead dudes on Oa, and the ring hunters drop in on Rayner at the end. That’s big stuff for a first issue, particularly considering that many of the New 52 first issues have been content to tease at a threat, meander with a character, then jump to the cliffhanger; but Green Lanterns: New Guardians #1 is as tight and controlled as a comic mid-way through its run. Tyler Kirkham’s visuals–particularly his handling of alien species and Rayner’s saving the crane–are stunning and clean, cosmic but still human. I can see a situation where I’d quickly tire of Kyle (he’s a bit sassy, and that can go overboard quickly), but I’m hooked for a couple of issues at least, if not more.

     

    Green Lantern #1

    Writer: Geoff Johns / Artist: Doug Mahnke

    In Green Lantern #1, Hal Jordan becomes the sad, divorced dad of comics, out of touch with the world around him because he’s spent so much time among the stars. His power ring abandons him and chooses Sinestro, he’s jobless, can’t make rent, is dead to a world that doesn’t realize he protected them, and is hapless when it comes to speaking to Carol Ferris, maybe the only person on Earth who understands him and what he’s been through. Of course, that doesn’t make it any better when Carol takes Hal out to a fancy restaurant, where he charmingly asks her to co-sign the lease on his car where another, better man may have asked her to marry him, but it’s kind of fun watching Jordan and Ferris get their hopes up about two things that couldn’t be more different, only to see both dreams smashed.

    This seems to be Geoff Johns’ specialty, to bring superheroes low and raise them back up. Hal Jordan, having shrugged off prior events where he killed billions of people, is an odd reclamation project, but Johns brought Jordan back into this world, and it seems he’s going to be the one to shepard him as the DC Universe moves forward. Having been around the block with a few titles written by Johns, I feel my interest in the adventures of Hal Jordan; Civilian waning even before Green Lantern #1‘s cliffhanger, which looks like the set-up for the world’s dullest, lecture-filled buddy cop movie. While giving Sinestro a place in the Green Lantern Corps is an interesting thought, Johns simply doesn’t write with the short of urgency or poise that I’m looking for. His heroes are ponderous and lost beings, looking for redemption and trying to reclaim their old glory. They’re also too well-aware that they’re better than the people around them. His villains are like that, too, but that I can shrug off. You give a guy phenomenal cosmic powers, and the best he can do is conjure a giant pair of binoculars? If I were the jobber Sinestro easily kills in this issue, I would have tried to attack him from behind, too.

     

    Green Lantern Corps #1

    Writer: Peter J. Tomasi / Artist: Fernando Pasarin

    Because it’s not enough to have both Kyle Rayner and Hal Jordan down on their luck, Green Lantern Corps #1 sees Guy Gardner apply for a job as a high school football coach and get rejected, as his being on the sideline could make the team vulnerable to extraterrestrial attack. If Hal Jordan is the divorced dad of comics, Guy Gardner is now the sad uncle–he’s wistful for normalcy, has his own goofy nickname for the men and women of the Green Lantern Corps, and still wears the (awesome) jacket that got him laid in high school. John Stewart–actually referred to as the black Green Lantern in another book, in another bit of weird meta-awareness these books probably don’t need–is similarly listless. He’s hired to design a building specifically because he’s a Green Lantern, then he finds out that the building firm wants to cut a few corners, and Stewart quits. Meanwhile, in space, several Lanterns are being hacked to death by a mysterious entity. The moral to Green Lantern Corps #1? It ain’t easy being green.

    There’s really not much more to say beyond that. Either Gardner is getting lectured to, or Stewart is doing some lecturing, and neither path is of particular interest to me. The larger, cosmic implications of Green Lantern Corps #1 will take center stage, I imagine, but of all the New 52 books I’ve read, this comics Threat/Hero Building/Threat set-up is the least compelling one yet. There are some nice touches, like when Gardner is being interrogated by the other men applying for the high school coaching job, but, maybe because I read Star Wars novels as a kid that did the same thing, the prospect of an entire planet being drained of its water–especially a planet that isn’t Earth–just doesn’t excite me, and Stewart, by using his ring to send his potential employers hurtling Earthward in a lantern-powered elevator because his standard of excellence is nothing short of impractical, strikes me as somewhat petulant. Like many of the books DC has recently launched, Green Lantern Corps #1 features some very strong art, here by Fernando Pasarin. But, like with many other books in the line-up, strong art isn’t enough to get me to plunk down $2.99, and Peter J. Tomasi’s script, like the one he did for Batman and Robin #1, does more to turn me away from a good concept than interest me in seeing what happens next. He’s reaching for quiet, character defining stuff in both comics, but both are let-downs.

     

    Red Lanterns #1

    Writer: Peter Milligan / Artist: Ed Benes

    Red Lanterns #1 is a curiosity to me, as I missed out on the crazy widening of the Green Lantern mythos’ color spectrum, and I knew who exactly zero of the characters in this book were going in. I assumed that it was going to be a villain book, since the dudes and dudettes on the cover looked pretty feral and of the teeth-gnashing variety, but the Red Lanterns are given their power and motivation by a desire for revenge. They are, in fact, so powered by vengeance that they’re mentally crippled by rage, unable to do much more than rip people apart and fight each other. But, two pages in, there’s a cute housecat who rips apart some S&M-themed aliens, so I was immediately attached to the concept, which I’d otherwise be tetherless to.

    The leader of the Red Lanterns, Atrocitus, is a kind of cosmic Conan the Barbarian. Like Conan, he’s motivated by the death of his family, is a man of phenomenal strength and rage in a universe that doesn’t understand him, a tool by which a reader is allowed to mull over the value of violence and rage in society. Atrocitus saw his whole planet wiped out by the machinations of an insane Guardian of the Universe, so there’s plenty of fuel in the tank. But, just the same, that Guardian is dead now–can one still feel rage once vengeance is claimed? Atrcitus looks into the future, sees much suffering, and determines that yes, such things are possible.

    As much as I like Atrocitus (I dig Conan and Red Sonja and other barbarians, so I suppose that makes sense), Red Lanterns has some ground to cover before it becomes something I’d gladly spend my money on. Apparently, the rage-infected humans of 28 Days Later are what inspired Geoff Johns and Ethan Van Scriver when they created the Red Lantern Corps, and that influence is certainly evident in the way the Lanterns who aren’t Atrocitus behave–they’re barely capable of speech. Not that Red Lanterns is a zombie book, but my interest in the other Red Lanterns right now is like the interest that I have in a zombie that isn’t threatening a potential meal–nil. I see that there are a few possible recruits to the Core, and perhaps the potential to increase the awareness of the other members. That would be splendid.

    I trust Peter Milligan, whose run on X-Force and the resulting X-Statix are perhaps the best commentary on the absurdity of superheroism, superhero teams, and fame I’ve read in mainstream comic books. I also like Ed Benes, whose art has matured considerably since I last saw it in Birds of Prey. I previously had him figured as a cheesecake artist, adept at drawing the ridiculously implausible curves of DC’s superheroines and little more, but beyond Bleez, Atrocitus’ second in command, there is little room for T&A. His Red Lanterns look properly demonic, ready for war.

  • The New 52: Batman #1, Batman and Robin #1, Batman: Dark Knight #1, and Detective Comics #1

    The New 52: Batman #1, Batman and Robin #1, Batman: Dark Knight #1, and Detective Comics #1

    To be honest, I sometimes worry about things like Batman. I know that in a world plagued with real problems, it is mostly ridiculous to care about the portrayal of a comic book character, but if comic books are one of the ways I choose to escape the kung-fu grip of reality, I will likely find myself worrying about my unreality. The way things were in 2006, when I stopped reading comics regularly, my unreality was in a shambles. Batman, my barometer for all things mainstream comic book, had been brought low by the events of Identity Crisis and, in DC’s mad scramble to create another Hush, he’d been pushed through some pretty lame storylines across his own books. In Detective Comics, he stopped detecting. In Batman, he did more brooding over ancient history than punching the crap out of crime. Jason Todd was coming back. Bruce Wayne was going to die or be zapped to the past or something. His mind had been erased. There were chinks in the armor. It was too much to truly care about. But nothing will attract my attention quite like promising a line-wide relaunch, so here I am, reviewing all 52 of DC’s new number ones while the company presses on, this month releasing issue #3s and, for the first time in quite awhile, actually eating into Marvel’s previously unchallenged marketshare. Once again, I find Batman to be my barometer. If the Bat books are shaky, with this much on the line, why bother? I’m racing to catch up with the DC Universe, so today, and until I’ve written about all 52 new books, I’ll be cramming my reviews together. Here are my thoughts on Batman #1, Batman and Robin #1, Batman: Dark Knight #1, and Detective Comics #1. This, too, will serve as a preview of how weekly comic book reviews will be handled in the near and glorious future when I’m not trying to get my bearings in a strange new universe.

    Batman #1

    Writer: Scott Snyder / Artist: Greg Capullo

    Were I the sort who judged a book by its cover, the sight of the Riddler with his hair buzzed to a green question mark would have turned me off of Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo’s take on Batman immediately. That’s not the Riddler I want, I would have bemoaned, little realizing that that the Riddler I want is, in all likelihood, the one of my imagination. It’s easy to project my expectations, my wants, my wishes onto a comic book, easier still to not pick one up because it seems like those things will not be satisfied in 22 pages, for three dollars, but the Riddler was hardly a factor in Batman #1, which, beyond featuring the most interesting detective narrative of the four big Bat books, also had the most compelling take on Bruce Wayne the philanthropist. I don’t know if it was editorial edict to have Bruce spend half the pages of his books standing behind a podium at a fundraiser or cocktail party, talking hopefully of one project or another, but the Bruce Wayne of Batman #1, issuing platitudes about what Gotham City is (“Gotham is hell,” “Gotham is damned,” “Gotham is Batman,” etc.) and the wisdom of his father, does more to show Batman’s sense of civic pride and obligation more than the Bruce Wayne who promises not to give birth to a cannibal, to not be afraid of the unknown. Batman here is much more capable of putting on a public face and, early, it leads to something more interesting than a confrontation with the thousandth cop to piece together the Wayne/Batman connection.

    The mystery at the center of this book, involving the grisly murder of a man with the use of old throwing knives, is also compelling, though the twist and the end of the book comes off as a little expected, and will likely wind up being some kind of framejob. Scott Snyder’s script effectively flips the switch from Bruce Wayne: Philanthropist to Batman: World’s Greatest Detective, though it probably helps that the touches defining both are familiar: Batman is always encroaching on Bruce Wayne, making him look absent minded at times, and the way the threat on Bruce Wayne’s life is handled comes straight out of the past. Though these elements lack novelty, it is good to see the character getting back to basics.

    Batman is worth returning to, perhaps the biggest reason being Greg Capullo’s art. Of the Batman family books, only J.H. Williams III’s Batwoman has a more captivating take on Gotham City, though Capullo’s is closer to what I’ve always identified as the “real” Gotham, the one of Batman: The Animated Series. He draws a dynamic Batman, at once human and cartoon, and while the Arkham Asylum slugfest that opened the book was a little bland, brief glimpses of his Two-Face, Clayface, and Mr. Freeze have me looking forward to possible future storylines involving those characters.

     

    Batman and Robin #1

    Writer: Peter J. Tomasi / Artist: Patrick Gleason

    If Batman and Robin #1 (and likely the Grant Morrison Batman and Son arc that preceded it) is anything to go by, having a superhero as a father would not be a cool experience. Matter of fact, it’d be a life fraught with mistrust, disobeyed orders, and, perhaps worst of all, constant bickering. It’s not that Batman isn’t cool, because what isn’t cool about fighting crime and driving souped up machines of death? The problem is that Damien Wayne, the fifth person to take up the mantle of Robin, is a petulant, self-important brat, and, even if that’s the way he’s supposed to be, I’m not going to cop well to a 10-year-old pointing in Batman’s face while yelling about being “light years ahead” of the other Robins.

    Maybe Damien (hopefully not named after the kid from The Omen) and his sour temperament are the result of being raised by the League of Assassins, but, as written by Peter J. Tomasi, the relationship between Batman and Robin is stock parent/teen disagreement, but over ridiculously high stakes like irradiated fuel rods. When they speak to each other, it feels a bit like Edward Furlong talking to the Terminator, if Furlong’s John Conner suddenly desired for his pet cyborg to start waxing random passers-by. I don’t know that the failings of Batman and Robin #1 are Tomasi’s–usually a solid hand–or those of the character at the heart of this book. At the center of the Batman/Robin partnership has always been Bruce’s obligation to whatever orphan was dropped on his doorstep. The thing was, those characters–even Tim Drake, by no means a victim of tragedy until Identity Crisis–had a way of humanizing Batman that socialite girlfriends and weekly dinner parties couldn’t. They needed him, and he needed them. I get the sense that Damien is relatively unchanged by the shifting circumstances of his life, that his conflict doesn’t involve learning to be a hero or learning to accept Bruce as his father, but that he’s going to constantly be whining about a perceived lack of respect. If the goal here was to create a completely unlikable Robin, mission accomplished. Eventually, I hope Batman hauls off and decks the kid for his endless backtalk. Or that I get to phone in a vote for him to be blown up in an abandoned shed.

    That being said, Patrick Gleason’s art is stunning. Scrumptious. If it were in service to a character I enjoyed, I’d buy two copies so I could hand one to strangers and tell them to see how great a Batman comic can look. The Crime Alley sequence, in particular, is A+ stuff, an elevation of material long taken for granted. Were the issue printed without dialog, there’d be something touching about a father taking his son to the last place he saw his parents, the shower of pearls in the gutter, the floating of a paper boat into the great unknown. But that Damien’s got a mouth, man. “You can’t just build a boat and hope darkness sails away with it,” he says, but it’s like Look kid, he can do whatever he wants. He’s the goddamn Batman.

     

    Batman: Dark Knight #1

    Writer (Co-Plotter): Paul Jenkins / Artist (Co-Plotter): David Finch

    The first image in Batman: Dark Knight #1 is the Gotham skyline, crowded with three blimps and a universe of spotlights. It’s likely that this is ultimately significant of nothing, but combined with the Arkham Asylum breakout (another one?), the giant reception Bruce Wayne speaks at (another one?), and that the first thing Batman does is fly his plane through Gotham, rappel down to the buildings, change into civvies and zipline across town to be on time for his speech on Fear: A Cannibal, Batman: Dark Knight feels a bit like Jenkins and Finch’s interpretation of The Greatest Batman Hits of the 90s, where everything was big, bold, and, above all else, toyetic.

    All of that plays to Finch’s strength as an artist, in particular his ability to lavish a scene in detail, but so much of it is utterly unnecessary. The board room scene, the Arkham breakout. I don’t have a problem that this has happened across so many of the new Batman #1s, but that it’s happened so much period, and that there’s pretty much nothing new under that particular rock. I imagine it’ll be important somehow–how did that weird rabbit-woman get into Arkham? who enabled the issue’s pivotal change to Two-Face? how?–but my concern in reading Batman: Dark Knight isn’t Bruce or Batman or his detective work, and not even the unfortunate and fundamental change in direction Two-Face undergoes, but why every man is over-muscled, why the attractive foreigner wore a hooker’s dress to this particular Wayne Enterprises meeting, why anybody felt the need to toy with and alter a tried and true villain; just why everything feels so dated and insecure as it tries to be all of the most badass things about Batman that having a kid or being a detective don’t allow. The Batman of Paul Jenkins and David Finch appears to be the Batman of slugfests. I grew out of that Batman ages ago.

     

    Detective Comics #1

    Writer/Artist: Tony S. Daniel

    For those of you who like your Joker grim ‘n gritty, in Detective Comics #1, he rips out the throat of a “big fan” while completely nude. In a post-Flashpoint world, it’s tough to know how familiar Batman is with the Joker (considering the turn at the end of the issue, my guess is “pretty familiar”), but he seems perplexed by the Joker’s choice to not wear clothes and, like Rorschach planning to delve further into Ozymandias’ sexuality, makes a note of it for later. When, at the end of the issue, the Joker blows up a building full of cops, he walks away from the scene declaring “Amatuers!” with a sneer, a comedian miffed that his audience isn’t in on the joke.

    Then again, the Joker’s always played to an audience of one, so it makes a certain amount of sense that he’s the only one laughing, and it makes perfect sense that he’s able to play Batman and the Gotham City Police Department like a fiddle, murdering and fighting so that he can end up back in Arkham Asylum, where he has an appointment he’d like to keep. That, along with the “amateurs” moment and Batman’s tenuous working relationship with the GCPD, including the use of the Bat Signal (despite cops firing on him) and the appearance of Harvey Bullock, are reminiscent of Batman: The Animated Series, if the seminal cartoon took on the darker aspects of the work of Frank Miller. Detective Comics #1 is incredibly gory for a main title depicting the adventures of the world’s most popular superhero, but that’s not at all a reason to discount what writer and artist Tony Daniel is doing with the old Batman/Joker tropes. As a matter of fact, I’m not sure what I think about the end of issue #1, other than that it’s a compelling, deft hook–one that’s worth giving another couple issues to, for everything to pan out.

  • The New 52: Aquaman #1

    The New 52: Aquaman #1

    I’m having a tough time figuring out exactly how to take a comic book like Aquaman #1, which may be the first comic book in the Aquaman canon (I’m sure one exists) to assume that nobody–nobody–finds anything redeemable about the character when he’s not in or near one of the seven seas. Most first issues attempt to establish the hero as a man of valor, even in the face of poverty or enormous circumstance. The X-Men, for example, protect a world that hates and fears them. Superman is the protector of his adopted world. Their hardships are nothing compared to Aquaman, who walks away from the throne of Atlantis to protect those who make fun of him simply for trying.

    It’s like Aquaman has been birthed into a world where everybody but him is aware of Challenge of the Superfriends, and his every selfless deed is met with scorn and derision. I imagine that this phase will pass as soon as he dispatches with some deep-sea baddies seen here swimming up from the bottom of the ocean, but stopping an armed robbery and carrying around a freaking trident aren’t enough to make people forget about his orange shirt or his fluency in dolphin. His Friend of the Fish persona is put to rest quickly, as Aquaman decides to dine at a local seafood restaurant after stopping the robbery.

    No doubt, Aquaman is a tough property to revamp. His problems are perhaps a microcosm of that which has vexed DC Comics in their seemingly eternal struggle to eat into some of Marvel’s market share. The 1960s and 70s did an excellent job of delegitimizing every DC character not named Clark Kent and, after the Allan Moore/Frank Miller serious superheroics renaissance birthed the ultraviolent boom/bust of the 1990s, DCs roster walled itself off from the mainstream, killing and replacing iconic characters, bringing them back, hiding behind nerdier and murkier storylines that were longer, more complex, and more intimidating than a semester-long study of Ulysses. Aquaman’s actually had a few good runs, including one where a portion of the city of San Diego was sunken into the ocean, its inhabitants suddenly able to breathe underwater. Like so many other things in DC continuity, that piece of business was swept under the rug, and Aquaman continued to be the dude who rode a seahorse in Superfriends, whose main villain had a head like a hamburger.

    HA HA, I'm a huge tool!

    It’s cool that they’re trying to turn Aquaman around, and Geoff Johns, who has rebooted nearly every DC property under the sun, is the wise choice. The problem is in Aquaman’s petulant response to the bespectacled hipster and his later explanation that fish are, in fact, too stupid to converse with. Comic book fans, like wrestling fans or Star Trek fans, are locked in an eternal battle with respectability, and heroes like Aquaman don’t get it because they talk to fish. Green Lantern, to an outsider, is ridiculous because his weakness is the color yellow. Green Lantern probably wouldn’t stop to explain to a random stranger that his weakness isn’t really yellow in a strict sense, that it takes something deeper and more cosmic than a color wheel to ruin his day, but Aquaman is not above that. He’s a nerd. It’s one thing to be a hero nobody appreciates. Being a nerd? Correcting people? You save my ass from bank robbers, give me enough gold doubloons to put my children through college but if I ask “Hey, aren’t you the guy who talks to fish?” and your answer is “No, stupid. Fish have mudbrains too primitive for me to communicate with,” I am going to resent the hell out of you.

    Ultimately, I’m hung up on a very small piece of Aquaman #1, and I think it’ll be interesting to see Aquaman do his thing despite the mockery he endures on a day-to-day basis. I suspect that Johns, whose work I’ve never been keen on, is reveling a bit in the lameness of Aquaman, or at least Aquaman’s perceived lameness, but there’s a chance that he’s wounded by the charges against his latest project, that Aquaman brandishes his trident at the snooty blogger and makes out with his hot wife on the ocean because he pictures him an aquatic badass, sees the work of his series not as establishing Aquaman in the larger universe of the DC reboot, but as lecturing readers about how wrong they were to mock the Atlantean king. If that’s the case, I give me the Aquaman of Superfriends. I’ll take seahorses over wounded egos every time.

  • The New 52: Batwoman #1

    The New 52: Batwoman #1

    In 2006, the debut of Kate Kane, the second iteration of Batwoman, was met with such praise/derision that the character managed to land in publications like USA Today and The New York Times, old media juggernauts whose pages rarely covered the world of four color cape-and-cowl superhero comics, unless a new movie featuring the X-Men or Batman was slated for release. It was a rare moment of cultural penetration for DC Comics, who so often appear inept when it comes to garnering anything resembling outsider press, but the thing about Batwoman that nobody could seem to make up their minds about was if DC Comics was presenting the adventures of a gay, Jewish superheroine without comment, in an innocent attempt to diversify a superheroine roster that trended Caucasian, ample-chested and straight, or if Kate Kane was merely a cry for attention, one that the media was, indeed, suckered by. Considering that I was largely done with comic books by the time she debuted in 52, the weekly comic book that promised to further shake-up the DC Universe in the aftermath of one of their yearly infinite crises, I was in no position to find out myself. But the character has persisted, even to the point that she ousted Batman from Detective Comics for a brief period of time and now is the focus of her own book, co-written and drawn by the indomitable J.H. Williams III.

    Assuming that you don’t know anything about Batwoman (and I don’t, so we’re in the same boat!), Batwoman #1 has an irresistible hook–a supernatural killer/kidnapper of children who is the creepiest thing to come out of Gotham in some time. The Weeping Woman, apparently an urban legend of some kind, is the vengeful spirit of a woman who drowned her children, then drowned herself. Appearing to be made of water, she occupies a room, crushing the lungs of those inside. When she leaves, taking a child with her, the room smells like the sea. Regardless of any plot thread involving the government, Batman, or Kate Kane’s personal life, this is compelling stuff–far and away the most captivating mystery of any of the new Bat-books. A lot of that is due to Williams’ art, which is not only evocative, but frequently outside the lines of typical comic book presentation. This splash page, for instance, fleshes out the Weeping Woman through some police procedural while making her the center of focus, visually, despite her absence:

    Other pages, including the title page, push towards a sort of psychedelia, an is-it-or-isn’t-it-real stream of events that navigate the murky reality of Batwoman #1‘s ghost story in ways that other mediums would struggle to reproduce, the actions and dialog converging so that the confusion of the victims feels more real than that of, say, the disbelieving girlfriend in a haunted house movie.

    The things that don’t deal with the Weeping Woman are a little confusing to a first time reader like me, as the middle of the book serves as an infodump of things I’ve missed over the past five years. Kate Kane is no longer in a relationship with Renae Montoya, whose sexuality I would have never guessed from Batman: The Animated Series. She’s training a sidekick who, apparently, was less than useful in the recent past. Her father (at least I assume that’s her father) shows up, leading to another infodump about Kate’s sister and family history, and, while it’s all rendered very nicely, the book feels weighed down with words that, this early in the game, don’t feel as important or central as the kidnappings, or even the two page splash detailing the government’s interest in bringing Batwoman down.

    However, Batwoman is an interesting character, one that I’m interested in seeing more of. It would be hard for me to ignore a monthly book by one of my favorite artists, but, buoyed by Williams and W. Hayden Blackman’s script and the sense that DC Comics has managed to create a real minority hero of consequence and purpose in five years, with a minimum of exploitation, the book speaks for itself, offering things to new and old readers alike.