wktf's and Sam Wilson's reviews 8/3/06

[wktf]

Sam Wilson’s Reviews

Kind of a slow week in comics, but there is some quality. The shining star is probably DC’s Kingdom Come: Absolute Edition. A worthy treatment for one of the greatest comic series to come out of the 1990’s. Also this week is Fantastic Four #539, a “Civil War” tie-in that let’s us know where Aunt Petunia’s nephew stands on the whole thing. Since the FF and Ben Grimm in particular are so near and dear to Joe and mine’s heart, we are both going to give our thoughts on that book, which subsequently makes it my “pick of the week”. That being said, on to the reviews…

Ultimate Spider-Man issue #98
Marvel Comics
Written by: Brian Michael Bendis
Drawn by: Mark Bagley

For those of you who haven’t been keeping up with USM, a lot has been happening. First, Peter and Mary Jane have broken up, and Peter has a new girl, Kitty Pryde aka Shadowcat from the X-men. Mary Jane hasn’t really gotten over the relationship, and it turns out Kitty is more of a distraction for Peter than an actual new girlfriend. In the last couple of issues, Peter has been trying to salvage his friendship with MJ, which has really been pissing off Kitty (boy, is this the OC or Spider-Man? Anyway…). On a seemingly innocent afternoon Peter and MJ are in the mall chillin’ when the Scorpion (yes, the “ultimate Scorpion”) attacks and Peter makes a grisly discovery after kicking his but and unmasking him. The Scorpion looks exactly like him. And so began the Ultimate “Clone” storyline (oy vey)…

For the record I never read the “regular” Marvel U Spider-Man “Clone” storyline. All that Ben Riley and Scarlet Spider nonsense made my head hurt. I was less than enthusiastic that BMB and Mark Bagely were going to tackle it, but since they have, I gotta say, it’s aiight. Issue #98 has Peter banging on the window of the Baxter Building pleading for help. He’s scared ****less and has a clone of himself, and once again he has to reveal his identity to a bunch of strangers (relatively) to get his job done. All this, and Mary Jane goes missing (at the end of the issue we find out what has happened to her, and it doesn’t look good). Oh yeah, and Spider Woman. Or Spider Girl, well, some kind of Spider-hero who is female.

If you haven’t been reading Ultimate Spider-Man, there are many tps’s you can check out if you want to catch up on things, or jump on right here. Big things are happening with issue #100 on the way, and it is definitely worth it to check out the most consistent creative team in comics since Stan Lee and Jack Kirby on the “Fantastic Four” back in their glory days. So word, check it out.

Y the Last Man #46
DC/Vertigo Comics
Written by: Brian K. Vaughn
Drawn by: Goran Sdzuka

For those of you who haven’t been paying attention, Y the Last Man is this century's Preacher for DC/Vertigo. It’s epic, engrossing, and suspenseful and has a definite conclusion, but will definitely go for as long as it has to before it gets there. In a nutshell, “Y” is about Yorick brown, the last man on Earth. See, there was this huge plague, and it killed all male creatures on Earth, except for Yorick and his pet monkey, Ampersand. Yorick isn’t your average Joe though, his mom was a congresswoman, and after the plague she was the highest member of the United States government left alive so she then became the President. After the plague hit (the men died within days) Yorick carefully made his way to DC to figure things out. His mother promptly sent him on a mission to save mankind (no pressure) with Agent 355, a highly trained operative of the US Government who belongs to an agency called “the Culper Ring”. No idea what they’re about, but they’re mysterious. So Yorick makes his way cross-country with Agent 355 to a Dr. Leslie Mann in San Francisco, the Earth’s foremost expert on human cloning, only all her research gets destroyed. She has back up research in Japan, so off they go in hopes to save humanity. Along the way they have run into by Amazons, crazed right-wingers, the Israeli’s and Pirates (yes, Pirates). No one said saving the world would be easy…

Issue 48 of “Y” is a departure from the current fiasco in Japan involving Yorick, 355, Dr. Mann, a bunch of lesbian Yakuza’s, a Canadian pop-princess, a monkey and male sex-androids. Seriously. Anyway, issue 48 takes us back to Kansas where the Israelis have caught up with the Russian Cosmonaughts who were recently visited by Hero (Yorick’s sister) and Beth (Yorick’s pregnant ex-girl, not the Beth who was in Australia, I know, confusing, just stay with me). The Israelis want to know where the supposed “last man” is, and are willing to shoot people to find out. We’ve encountered the Israeli’s early in “Y”, and issue 48 gives us the original of their leader, a mysterious woman only know as “Alter”. We find out she is known as “Alter” due to a superstition, her mother had lost two sons at childbirth and to keep away the angel of death they only refer to the third child by a nickname. Alter is a character born in harshness and tragedy, but responds to it in ways that are unexpected, and I feel this is foreshadowing that Alter is not everything she seems to be (I can see her being more a force for good than evil). Anyway, you will never know until you check the book out yourself, and this is a really good jumping on point for new readers…

So enough already, pick up the book. There are tpb’s collecting all the storylines thus far. It’s a no-brainer. It’s good, well written, well drawn, and damn entertaining.

Wktf’s and Sam Wilson’s Combined Review

Fantastic Four issue #539
Marvel Comics
Written by: J Michael Straczynsi
Drawn by: Mark McKone

Reviewed jointly by Sam Wilson and wktf...

“Civil War” is the hottest crossover to rock the comics world in a long time. Faster paced and a lot less muddled than “Infinite Crisis”, and just plain good as opposed to the load of crap that was “House of M”, “Civil War” has truly divided the Marvel U, with Uncle Tom Iron Man on one side leading the pro-registration charge and Captain America on the other, championing the downtrodden and fighting for freedom. Both sides have been feverishly recruiting members, Cap heroically saving Cage from a punch of SHIELD “Cape-killers” in the last issue of “New Avengers”, and Iron Man secretly meeting with Bishop from the X-men to enlist him to help keep mutants in check. And what about the FF? Reed, for reasons that defy me, has thrown in with Tony and the rest of his government monkeys. Reed Richards, the man who can’t see past his lab is taking a stand, and a sucky one at that. Sue doesn’t really agree with him, but stands by his side. Johnny has been hospitalized after an attack that followed the Stamford incident and Ben, well Ben is the heart and should of the Marvel U and it is clear he is no one’s monkey, but he won’t leave his family behind. Then FF 539 happens, the Yancy Street gang decides to throw in with Cap and things get out of hand quickly and we soon learn that war has casualties. Ben can’t take the madness anymore so he gets pissed off and finally chooses a side, his own. Personally, I hope he moves to Wakanda and hooks up with the Black Panther and crew. Word…

This is a tough issue and certainly one of the best of all the Civil War stories to date. It mirrors last week’s Amazing Spider-Man #534 (both are scripted by JMS) which drew a lot of attention with its Ron Garvey cover of Spidey facing Cap, but one of its coolest images was the street clearing brawl between the two warring factions of former friends featuring a full page spread of The Thing bench pressing the tank containing captured non-registered heroes. Additionally, in this ASM issue, Cap leaves his battle with Spider-Man when both hear a terrific BOOM from the scene of battle. Cue this issue of Fantastic Four and we learn the complementary side to this Amazing Spider-Man issue. Not only do Spidey and Ben utter the same phrase (“Now there’s something you don’t see every day”) in parallel, in these separate issues, when they see each other but we learn the source of the BOOM. To back up, while the heroes have been fighting each other, two long-standing FF villains have taken advantage and control of the situation in ways no one understands except for Ben but, by then, it’s far too late. Why is Cap suddenly without his shield by the end of this story? You’ll have to read ASM #534 to find out. Which side does Ben finally take? Well, my reviews partner stated it clearly enough. Sadly, though, it took the life of a solid and sympathetic character we knew for far too short a time for Ben to put his foot, and that big tank, squarely down. This was enough to make both sides of the battle stop, pause and maybe reflect. Good for Ben, I say! Disgusted with the new law but still loyal to his country, he takes a different side from everyone and his sacrifice in doing so may make him the most courageous hero of all. This is my pick of the week, too.

Wktf’s Reviews

Light week for me. Had to pass on the Absolute Kingdom Come as I’m going to stick with my Graphitti Designs slip case HC, but I did pick up the Marvel Masterworks Captain America 3 sporting one of the most iconic Cap images ever, courtesy of Jim Steranko. Aside from FF, these were my only pulls this week.

The Creeper #1 of 6
DC Comics
Written by: Steve Niles
Drawn by: Justiniano

The Creeper has always been one of my favorite characters. I was first exposed to him in Brave and the Bold #80 way back in 1968, only a few months after he first premiered. Written by Bob Haney and drawn by the impossibly talented Neal Adams, The Creeper was righteously weird and unpredictable, like the Joker with whom he bore a strong similarity, and was tough and agile enough to hold his own against The Batman. Ultimately, he teamed up with Batman against the powerful Hellgramite, a villain who gave me nightmares back when I was only 8 years old. The Creeper’s never really been heavily used in the DCU and it was always a lot of fun when he’d appear every so often, even in a couple of JLU cartoon episodes.

For reasons that aren’t clear to me, DC feels compelled not only to give The Creeper his own title but also to completely reinvent his origin. No longer is Jack Ryder a hard hitting investigative reporter. He’s now a left wing liberal TV talk show shock jock. No longer is The Creeper’s strange garb a costume but now seems to be, organically, part of him. No longer has Jack been injected with hallucinogens, and shot and left in the woods and saved by a Doctor Emil Yatz. Now he’s been injected with and artificial nanocell technology by Dr. Vincent Yatz which, it turns out, saves him after he’s been shot in the head. These changes to The Creeper’s origin are incidental compared to the fact there really was no need to reinvent him and, well, that this story and the writing both feel rushed, shallow and smack of 1960s origin convenience. Seriously, these types of sudden chemical alterations were new 40 years ago but just don’t work in new origin story telling today. Finally, the art’s just sloppy. I’m not familiar with Justiniano but his renderings look like a poor man’s Deodato. And that’s really not good considering how poor Deodato’s internal art has been lately (as opposed to his covers which have been much stronger).

This issue did nothing for me. In fact, I was sorry I bought it after I read it. What a disappointment for a long-standing Creeper fan such as myself. I won’t be picking up issue #2.

Detective Comics #822
DC Comics
Written by: Paul Dini
Drawn by: Don Kramer

After finishing The Creeper I couldn’t have been happier reading Detective Comics. Paul Dini, after his great debut issue just last month, delivers another strong self-contained story. But that really shouldn’t be a surprise. Being one of the creative geniuses on Batman The Animated Series which, for the most part, is four seasons of some of the best self-contained Batman stories in any medium, not to mention the self-contained tabloid size works on DC’s biggest icons he recently created with Alex Ross, we should expect no less. And, so far, he’s delivering in spades.

After a rough night of taking down Roxy Rocket (who says comics can’t integrate with cartoons?) Batman finds not only that Bruce Wayne’s, only initially, a suspect in the murder of a woman whom he dated, but that one of his arch villains, The Riddler, who’d become more villainous thanks to the “Hush” storyline (even though a coma has robbed him of the knowledge that Batman is Bruce Wayne…was this ever explained before?), has been hired by her wealthy uncle to play detective and solve her murder. Yes, odd as it seems, The Batman actually teams up with Edward Nigma to solve this case, to the point where Nigma actually is a passenger in the Batmobile. And Eddie’s delighting in the fact that his “brilliantly analytical mind” is both keeping him one step ahead of and frustrating his former nemesis. Of course, the caveat here is “or so he thinks.” This story takes both characters into the seedier and racier parts of Gotham’s underworld. Actually, some of the bondage and S&M type scenes in one underground club are surprisingly graphic. Nigma thinks this is more his world than Batman’s, but one of the most expected turns in this book is also one of the great pleasures of reading it, to see how Batman gets the better of Nigma and solves the crime at the same time. And (this is the post-Infinite Crisis Batman, remember), Batman seems to enjoy it, too. Naturally, nothing really is at it seems and the most obvious suspects provide only clues, not answers, to the mystery’s resolution. And this is where Batman’s far keener, far more analytical mind goes places Nigma’s can’t.

Yes, there’s only one World’s Greatest Detective in this or any other comic book. And, for sure, Dini puts the “Detective” back in the title of this book. Kramer’s art is consistently strong. I’m not as familiar with his work, beyond his recent Batman stuff, but I’m enjoying the hell out of it lately. I hope he and Dini stay on this title for a long time. As long as they’re here, I’ll keep buying this book. You should, too, if you want to experience what looks like a consistently great Batman run.

[wktf]

Don’t you hate it when a really great trade is out of print? There’s Amazon’s used book store, there’s eBay, there’s the bins at the lcs or comic conventions. Finding that out-of-print book you want can be a pain but when you do find it then the inevitable smile crosses your face. What a great feeling! So to send you on your way, here are two out-of-print trades everyone should own.

Sam Wilson’s Review

New Warriors: Beginnings
Marvel Comics
Written by: Fabian Nicieza and Tom DeFalco
Drawn by: Mark Bagley and Ron Frenz

“New Warriors: Beginnings” reprints “New Warriors” #’s 1-4 and “The Mighty Thor” #’s 411 and 412. Recently the Marvel U saw the death of these characters whom I grew to love in the early ‘90’s. Night Thrasher, Namorita, dead. Speedball, powerless. Nova is around, as is Firestar and Marvel Boy, but damn. All of this happened in the current “Civil War” crossover. Anyway, the New Warriors were, well, new back in the day. They were the Young Avengers but not really. We had Night Thrasher, who was pretty much Batman with a skateboard. Okay, the skateboard was dumb but the character was cool. Namorita was the cooler and much sexier female cousin of Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner. Nova aka Rich Rider has been around the Marvel U for a while, as has Firestar. Marvel Boy aka Vance Astro is most famous for who he becomes, Major Victory of the Guardians of the Galaxy, but back in the 1990’s they were heroes who weren’t good enough for the Avengers or had nothing better to do (like Speedball), so they were brought together by Night Thrasher (he wanted to fight crime because of the loss of his parents, and he has a cool Batman like penthouse called the “Crash Pad”, and a old Chinese lady and a mercenary named “Cord” who was his mentor”, it was pretty nifty back in the day) to fight crime. Thus started an era…

The “Warriors” first popped up in Thor, and helped him deal with the Juggernaught during the “Acts of Vengeance” crossover, which had Marvel Hero’s fighting villains who weren’t their own. Punisher vs. Doc Doom, Thor vs. Juggernaught, etc. Seriously. It was lame, but that’s okay, the New Warriors stepped up to the plate, proved they could work as a team and even deal with a major supervillan, all on their own. To me, the Warriors were cool because they were young without being annoying (except for Speedball), and a real effort was made to connect them with the youth of today, kinda like Spider-Man connected with a lot of people back in the day and the New X-men did back in their day. Namorita was a sexy college student, Nova was just a working stiff, Marvel Boy was eager to prove himself and live up to his expectations and Night Thrasher was just a pissed off mofo who wanted to see that justice got served. The “New Warriors” had a great run with Mark Bagley and Fabian Nicieza, but kinda lost it at the end when characters like Rage and Darkhawk joined. Anyway, if you want to see how it all got started, and have some fun while your at it, take yourself back to a more innocent time and track down “The New Warriors: Beginnings.” It’ll definitely be worth your while.

Wktf’s Review

Captain America * War & Remembrance
Marvel Comics
Written by: Roger Stern
Drawn by: John Byrne
Inks by: Joe Rubenstein

In Modern Masters Volume 7: John Byrne, editor Jon B. Cooke asks Byrne, “Did you collaborate with Roger Stern over on Captain America because you guys were close and…maybe it turned a little bit volatile toward the end with Chris [Claremont, on X-Men]?” to which Byrne replies, “Well, Chris and I were always bouncing off each other, and Roger and I were always in the same groove. So it produced a very different dynamic. Although people will often cite my nine issues of Captain America rather than the X-Men as the pinnacle of my work.”

I certainly agree with this statement. Captain America * War & Remembrance collects Captain America # 247-255 from 1980, and these nine issues stand out as one of the greatest, albeit short, creative runs on this title ever. Ed Brubaker and Steve Epting certain give Stern and Byrne a run for their money but it’s hard to beat this absolutely wonderful trade paperback for great art, great villains, great action and, above all else, thanks to one of the best comic book writers of the 1970s and 1980s, great stories. Roger Stern is better known for his work on Amazing Spider-Man and The Avengers and John Byrne is better known for X-Men, Fantastic Four and Superman, but their collaboration on these nine issues of Captain America make for a high point in both their careers (Byrne’s pencils are beautifully inked by Joe Rubenstein, by the way) and gives us, the comic book and Captain America fans, one of the most rewarding reading experiences ever.

While the action is nearly non-stop there’s plenty of real estate given to plot and character development. For example, how many out there remember Bernie Rosenthal, Steve Rogers most important post-Sharon Carter (Sharon was believed murdered by Hydra at this time) love interest? She debuts in this series. How many of us currently are enjoying Union Jack’s revival in the current issues of Captain America and are looking forward to his new series? Yes, the current Union Jack, Joey Chapman, was introduced in this series! Remember when the New Populist Party petitioned for Cap to run for President? You guessed it. It’s in this series. We also have the definitive Captain America origin story in this volume’s final 40th Anniversary issue #255. And, you’ll also find all-out battles with Baron Strucker, Machine Smith, Dragon Man, Batroc, Mr. Hyde and Baron Blood, minion of Dracula himself and The Invaders’ foe from WWII. The eerie two-part Baron Blood story may well be the highlight of this collection as Cap travels to England to help his dear friend and fellow Invader Lord Falsworth, the original Union Jack, defeat his undead brother.

I remember first reading these stories when I was a junior in college and was delighted when I found this volume, which first came out in 1990 but has since gone out of print. Upon rereading it yet again for this review I was again rediscovered what I’d felt reading these issues the first time back in 1980. As Roger Stern says in his introduction to this volume, “But mainly, we tried to recapture all the thrills, excitement, and glory of the Lee-&-Kirby stories we’d both read a decade-and-a-half earlier.” Believe me, they do just that. Though it’s out of print, there currently are some used copies on Amazon and copies are always showing up on eBay. If you don’t own this classic trade do yourself a favor and seek it out. You won’t be sorry.

[Aarrgghh!!]

Originally Posted by wktf

[B
This issue did nothing for me. In fact, I was sorry I bought it after I read it. What a disappointment for a long-standing Creeper fan such as myself. I won’t be picking up issue #2.

Thank you for reviewing this, I'm afraid I'd feel the same way. Creeper is a great character with a great Ditko design (he designed some of the best costumes, Spider-man, Blue Beetle, Hawk and Dove and the original Captain Atom I believe). Why the change? I had this in my stack, flipped through it, it looked more horror than "Creeper" put it back and hoped for a review.

Sam, right on with "Y", great solid read. Counting down to the end....I almost love it like Preacher...almost.

[bat_collector]

Hmm, I'm not doing reviews till tomorrow. Had to handle a LOT of stuff yesterday. I also was too busy reading the Son of the Demon reprint that came out yesterday. Love it so far.


Dang about the creeper. but then again I know so little about him period.

[wktf]

Originally Posted by Aarrgghh!!

Thank you for reviewing this, I'm afraid I'd feel the same way. Creeper is a great character with a great Ditko design (he designed some of the best costumes, Spider-man, Blue Beetle, Hawk and Dove and the original Captain Atom I believe). Why the change? I had this in my stack, flipped through it, it looked more horror than "Creeper" put it back and hoped for a review.

Sam, right on with "Y", great solid read. Counting down to the end....I almost love it like Preacher...almost.

I love Ditko's design but, gotta tell you, I prefer Neal Adams' rendering of him even to Ditko's (and I love Ditko's art). Aarrgghh!! this was hugely disappointing to me but you're more than welcome for the review. Every once in a while I come across a stinker (like this or FF: Death in the Family) where if at least I can steer people away from it in the review then that makes up for the time I wasted reading it.

[RichBamf]

Sam
Ultimate Spidey:
I've got to admit although I still enjoy reading it, I think the title is becoming very stale as of late. I think the Deadpool/Krakoa story was a good concept but a very poor execution. I hope this arc continues to surprise, but I have the feeling USM could benefit from a change of storytellers.

Y: The Last Man:
How every comic fan isn't reading this is beyond me. After a bit of a lull, the Japan arc has been my least favourite so far, I'm hoping the story is going to pick up speed again. All the elements that made Y great over the past are now rushing to a head; Alter's forces, the baby, Beth, Hero. I can't wait to see where this arc is going, and it was great to see another strong origin story after Dr Mann's a few issues ago.

WKTF
Detective Comics:
I totally agree with your review, unfortunately it doesn't give me a lot to comment on (damn you Joe ), but I'll struggle through.

Dini's writing has combined the best elements of his animated series work and the newer, seedier parts of Gotham we seem to have never been privy to in the past. Personally I hope Dini stays on this title for a long, long time. He has brought back a part of Batman's world that has been missing for a while, the keen mind of Batman.

These are short crime stories that Dini has been writing in Detective comics, the only problem being that because they are self contained stories, there isn't enough room in the issue for any real twists or turns or true detective extrapolation. They're great stories, but they're a little 'A to B', a little too simple for Batman. What we need soon is a multi-issue arc that really taxes Batman, and Dini's writing.

Dini's writing of the interaction between Bat and Riddler was awesome too, I look forward to him handling a confrontation betwenn Bats and a big villain.
One last point to consider, what if Edward Nygma's mind was not riddled with psychosis, could he outsmart the Batman?

[Sam Wilson]

Rich,

yeah. deadpool was the weakest by far of all of USM's arcs, and a shame too for as strong as the previous "gang war" arc was. We'll see how the clone thing pans out.

Rich, aargh, agreed on Y, of course. Like aarrgghh, Preacher is still my baby, but Y is amazing. One of the best long running episodic comics to come down the pipeline, filling that preacher void. The randomness of the Isralei Woman's origin was pretty cool, and even a touching story.

Joe, word on FF. Screw eveyrone else, we're with the thing.

Bats. Guess you missed it this past year when joe and I reviewed "son of" and "bride of the demon". Here is the link: http://www.statueforum.com/showthrea...=demon+reviews Joe and I are just ahead of our time I guess...

[wktf]

Originally Posted by RichBamf

Sam
WKTF
Detective Comics:
I totally agree with your review, unfortunately it doesn't give me a lot to comment on (damn you Joe ), but I'll struggle through...One last point to consider, what if Edward Nygma's mind was not riddled with psychosis, could he outsmart the Batman?

Rich, love your thoughts on this book. Don't short sell yourself, my man. Your insights are solid.

Yeah, good question about The Riddler. Of course, it could also be his psychosis that drives his thinking. Like John McEnroe on the tennis court. People used to say to me that Mac was a brilliant player but if he could only control his temper. My comment was that his volatile personality, that created that temper, also made him one of the most driven and successful players in the game (plus he always seemed a little psychotic, to me ). I wonder if Nigma would have all his mental chops if he weren't as disturbed as he is...?

[thecallahan]

Can one of you spoil what happened in the latest FF to me? I didn't pick it up.

[Sam Wilson]

Originally Posted by thecallahan

Can one of you spoil what happened in the latest FF to me? I didn't pick it up.

check your PM's bro...