Wktf’s Reviews
I don’t know what it is about the first week of every month. It seems to be an exclusive DC week for me where new comics are concerned, even though I’m a Marvel geek. This week is no different. My purchases included the
Lex Luthor: Man of Steel,
Villains United, and
Batman: Dark Detective mini-series’. That was it for new comics. I did also pick up Joe Kubert’s
Tex: The Lonesome Rider trade book as well as two classic Marvel Graphic Novel HCs,
Silver Surfer and
The Shadow. And on to the reviews!
Lex Luthor: Man of Steel #3 (of 5)
DC Comics
Written by: Brian Azzarello
Drawn by: Lee Bermejo
Luthor comes to Gotham to do business with Bruce Wayne. Being the sly and perceptive villain he is, Lex both tries to hire away Alfred and recognizes a magnetism and inner passion in the playboy fop that causes him to question whether Bruce’s air-headed behavior is all an act. But Luthor’s in town to acquire the rights to Thomas Lab’s (named after Bruce’s father) breakthrough in Alzheimer research in order to apply it to some unknown other purpose. Bruce at first refuses him under the pretense that there’s no commercial gain to be made from Luthor’s plans, whatever they may be.
During the course of their dinner together the two billionaires speak in oblique terms about the real Man of Steel. Their verbal dance touches on Superman’s powers, the fear these powers inspire in Luthor, and that big blue can roam unchecked doing whatever he wants. Shockingly, during the dinner, Luthor hands a chunk of kryptonite to Bruce as a gift. The scenes shift back and forth between this dinner conversation and a pitched and angry battle between Batman and Superman over this piece of rock. Bermejo makes these battle scenes truly scary, the rage on the part of both heroes is palpable and the punishment Superman deals out to Batman left me feeling bruised. The thing that’s not really clear is why these two admittedly historically hostile allies are fighting in the first place, why Superman feels the need to take the rock by force, or why Bruce, in the end, concedes to give Luthor what he wants even though he knows it’ll be used in some way against Superman. While the art is pretty intense, the dialogue and story line proceed in a way that just doesn’t make sense to me. While the second issue in this series was a fun read, in total this run is now 1 for 3 for me.
Villains United #1 (of 6)
DC Comics
Written by: Gail Simone
Drawn by: Dale Eaglesham
I was pretty clear in one of my past reviews that I truly did not like
Countdown to Infinite Crisis. That said, two of the mini-series that have come out of it have been really good. I’m referring to
OMAC Project and this week’s
Villains United. Most of us know that Gail Simone is a terrific comics writer and here she delivers a story full of intrigue, tension and some great dialogue. I’m unfamiliar with Dale Eaglesham but his art work, while not really remarkable, is better than a lot of other artists with whom I’m more familiar.
For those who read last week’s
Superman/Batman, the Calculator, who appeared to be Luthor’s lackey in that book, is recuiting various villains of the DCU to stand in a united “society” against the Justice League to prevent the mind wiping that happened to Dr. Light from happening to anyone else. Doctor Psycho, Talia Al Ghul, Black Adam, Deathstroke and others are also recruiting the villains who agree to join and dispatching those who refuse. At the center of this effort is Lex Luthor. Among the villains who refuse to join this society, there are six (many of whom are unfamiliar to me) who form their own Secret Six organization. And there’s not a hero in sight in this issue.
This comic is smart and fun, and the plot is building like a powder keg with a slow fuse moving toward it. The eventual confrontations, whether it be villains vs. heroes, villain vs. villains, or a combination of the two, should be intense. How this and the other mini series’ play into the “Infinite Crisis” story that’s promised, on the cover, in 5 months is not clear but I’m intrigued based on this and OMAC.
The only elements that just don’t make sense to me, and these are big gaps, are Luthor and Talia. In the last chapter of the
Superman/Batman “Public Enemies” arc, Batman informs a beaten Luthor encased in his armor that Talia, whom Luthor’d put in charge of his company while he was off playing President of the United States, had depleted all his resources and sold off all his assets. Yet, here they are together as partners as if none of this had happened. And the Luthor armor, which he was sporting just last week in
Superman/Batman has been replaced with normal street clothes. And, since when has Talia been a true villain? Sure, she’s the daughter of R’as Al Ghul, but has she ever acted villainously on her own? Her involvement with this crew has me confused.
Batman: Dark Detective #1 (of 6)
DC Comics
Written by: Steve Englehart
Drawn by: Marshall Rogers
Editor Eternity Emeritus: Julie Schwartz (I liked this credit)
This comic is my pick of the week. If you’re a Batman fan and you don’t own the
Strange Apparitions trade paperback that collects the 1977-78
Detective Comics # 469-476 & 478-9 run by these two creators, the run many consider “the definitive Detective Comics Batman,” then you really should pick it up. These are great stories that include the classic “Laughing Fish,” which was adapted for the Batman Animated Series and is referenced in this comic, as well as some cool Walt Simonson Batman art. Steve Englehart and Marshall Rogers team up again for this mini series to give us something old and something new or, more specifically, to show us that what’s old is new again.
Here we have a different Batman than the one that’s taken shape since Frank Miller’s
Dark Knight Returns…different than today’s muscular, moody, dark and powerful Batman who’s also become the @@shole of the DCU. Here we have a lithe, lean, thinking man’s Batman who’s prone to reflection and introspection. We also get the beautiful Silver St. Cloud, the woman from Englehart and Rogers’ famous first run. I remember how much I liked her back when this team first introduced her. She was stunningly beautiful, sexy and very, very smart. The perfect romantic equal to The Batman. She and Bruce Wayne had fallen in love but, as happened with Bernie Rosenthal in the
Captain America comics of twenty years ago, recognized her lover under his mask, and that recognition drove her away.
In this issue we find Silver engaged to Evan Gregory, who’s running for State Governor. Bruce Wayne is invited to a fund raiser and the two former lovers meet again. Their reunion is short lived however once the party’s crashed by, no surprise thanks to this issue’s cover, the Joker. Batman verbally spars with Joker even as he’s fighting for his life, something today’s generation of Batman readers will find strange. Myself, I welcome this take on the Dark Knight Detective (not just the “Dark Knight”) as I find the lone, angry vigilante gig a little tiring, as much as I really love the character. Also in this story is Two-Face, who’s conversing with an unknown entity “off camera.” Harvey makes a couple of cameos and we’re promised we’ll see him again, as well as the Joker and the Scarecrow, in the next issue. I certainly hope this doesn’t become a “Hush” kind of run through Batman’s rogues’ gallery and that DC doesn’t sacrifice what’s starting out as some really good Batman story telling for what they perceive as another marketing opportunity for a new toy line.
Sam Wilson’s Reviews
Eh, small week this week for me. I decided to quit
Firestorm. Ever since ChrisCross left, the art hasn’t been the same.
John Sable Freelance is back, but the signed/numbered HC I ordered isn’t out yet (grrr…). Nothing else to say really,
my pick of the week this week is “Y the Last Man”, and that being said, on to the reviews.
Fallen Angel issue #20 (final issue)
DC Comics
Written by: Peter David
Drawn By: David Lopez
Fallen Angel is a book that never quite found its audience. It was definitely of the John Lynch-Twin Peaks-early X-Files-The Prisoner ilk. Yes, I’m saying it was weird. Fallen Angel takes place in Bete Noire (French for “something or someone particularly detested or avoided, a boogeyman of sorts”), a port town somewhere on the east coast of the United States (I think, they never really say). It has a cast of creepy characters with mysterious pasts that never quite get revealed. There’s Angel, our hero who is a vengeful spirit by night and a private school teacher by day, the Magistrate, Black Mariah, Shadow Boxer, and Dolf. Angel, well, we never learn who she is. She has super strength, seems to float, and is impervious to any pain she sees coming. Shadow Boxer is the Magistrate’s muscle and Black Mariah’s lover, and Black Mariah has some unearthly power of her own and is enemies with Angel. Angel does what she can to help people, well, some people anyway. She works out of Dolf’s bar, Dolf being Angel’s only (seemingly) confidant. Oh yeah, and Angel has a sexual relationship with the Magistrate, who seems to be evil incarnate (weird, I told you).
Well, yeah, the series has been cancelled. Throughout the series we are given hints as to what everyone’s past is and why they are connected, but I don’t think Peter David was even close to telling the story he wanted to. There was a short-lived grassroots campaign to save the book, but nothing happened. Ugh. I liked this series. This was the first original Peter David story I read in a long time, and with each issue, more of the story was revealed, and it was interesting enough I wanted to see where it led. Ghah. It happens. I was sad when PAD’s
Captain Marvel was cancelled also…
Anyway, the last couple of issues of “Fallen Angel” have been a real payoff for long-time PAD fans like myself, he brought back two characters he and George Perez created back in 1994, J.J. Zachs and Ernie Violens (yeah, that’s pretty lame, but whatever, snicker on your own time). Zachs and Violens was a mature readers Marvel Epic series. It lasted four issues, and introduced us to J.J. Zachs, a pin-up girl general’s daughter with a penchant for the martial arts and avenging the victims of sex crimes, and her pal, booty-photographer Ernie Violens, a Vietnam vet built like a truck with a severe love of guns and punishing bad guys, and had the hots for J.J. Anyway, a suspected child-porn ring brings Sachs and Violens to Bete Noir, and they end up meeting a friend from their original mini series and may possibly end up Bete Noir’s newest residents.
I liked Fallen Angel, and they ended it on a cliffhanger of sorts. I could see it being continued at some point, or continued in a new Sachs and Violens series. PAD had something worth checking out here, and David Lopez had a realistic style that still was dark enough to suit the denizens of Bete Noir. Oh yeah, and the last two issues feature cover art by George, that alone is worth checking out. There is a trade paperback collecting the first six issues, but there is no word of any others coming out. If you read the tpb and like it, it’s worth your while to check out the rest of the series.
John Sable, Freelance issue #1
IDW Publishing
Written by: Mike Grell
Drawn by: Mike Grell
The last time anyone saw John Sable was back in 1987, when it was being published by First Comics. Now it has a new lease on life, brought to you by IDW Publishing. My first exposure to John Sable was his short-lived TV series in the late ‘80’s, featuring a then unknown Renee Russo. Anyway, it was about this guy who wore face camo and wrote children’s books by day and fought crime at night. I thought it was pretty cool so I went and bought some back issues of the comic. Of course, his story was much more complicated (and cooler) than that.
John Sable was a Vietnam vet and Olympic pentathelete who made his way to Africa to be a big game hunter and safari guide. He had a wife and a family, and eventually became a game warden of some type. Anyway, poachers weren’t to fond of him, so they killed off his family and tried to kill him, and failed. Sable went ape sh#@ and started whacking poachers Punisher style, and eventually whacked the poachers who killed his family. He killed so many poachers though he started pissing off the gov’t (the country he was in was first Rhodesia, but then became Zimbabwe), and our hero was declared persona non grata and he decided to get the fu$# out of dodge.
So John arrives in the states and starts writing children’s books under the name B.B. Flemmish, donning a blonde wig and moustache to hid his identity. His main job though is to be John Sable, Freelance, a mercenary of sorts who helps those in need and has a lot of cool guns and gadgets.
In this new series we more or less pick up where Sable left off in 1987, he’s living in New York and doing the Mercenary/Children’s author thing. An old safari buddy of his, Jacob Inyati is now an ambassador and an assassination attempt is made on his life. He looks up Sable and enlists his help. And so it begins, John Sable in the modern era. Mike Grell’s art is classic, very Jim Apro or Jerry Ordaway. His writing is of the same era, but I like it. Sable is an interesting hero with a colorful background. A trade paperback also came out collecting the first Sable series, and a signed/numbered edition Hardcover will be available soon. Check it out. If you’re an old Sable fan, he’s back, pick it up. If you’re new, get the tpb and give the new series a try. It’s different, but worthwhile.
This week's reviews continue on
http://www.statueforum.com/showthrea...451#post181451
, but if you want to enjoy underground adult fantasy comics from one of its patron saints, you can't do better. I can only hope that reprints of his Den series are on the way.
