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Columnist Thunder Mod
Super Moderator
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Denver Area, between Asgard and Krypton
Posts: 21,364
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The Mighty Reviews 7/9/10
Sam Wilson’s Review
Shadowland #1 (of 5)
Marvel Comics
Written by: Andy Diggle
Drawn by: Billy Tan
Cover by: John Cassaday and Laura Martin
Variant cover by: Tan, Batt & Strain
Maybe a decade or so back Marvel tried to bring Daredevil back to his Frank Miller glory days by having Kevin Smith write him for 8 issues. It wasn’t bad, but it was an experiment at best and didn’t last. It wasn’t until Brian Michael Bendis took over that Daredevil finally was restored to his epic days of Miller if you will. Not cosmically epic, not crossover epic, but street level Shakespeare epic. Daredevil is the knight of the Marvel Universe and his territory is Hells Kitchen, even though he has his share of evil villains (the Hand, the Kingpin) they are street level villains and there is nothing wrong with that. Bendis brought in a great supporting case and Ed Brubaker built on it during his run (Luke Cage, Danny Rand, Dakota North, The White Tiger and of course the Hand) and then Andy Diggle took over. For those of you who have been reading the reviews for awhile, you know Diggle is the writer of my favorite book of the last 10 years, The Losers. Writing Daredevil for Marvel was a stroke of pure genius, and now he’s the architect behind Marvel’s first street-level epic crossover event, “Shadowland”. If you’ve been reading Daredevil recently, you know he’s taken over as leader of the Hand in order to better control their nefarious activities, and to make himself the ruler of Hells Kitchen. He’s taking the mobs approach to law enforcement ninja-style, and more than likely Matt Murdock is not going to walk away from this one clean. Which brings us to Shadowland…
Our story opens with the big three, Captain America, Iron Man, and Thor having a conversation with Luke Cage and Danny Rand (Power Man and Iron Fist, duh). They’ve noticed Daredevil’s Ninja tower smack dab in the middle of Hells Kitchen and worry about Matt crossing lines. He is using a Ninja clan to keep the peace, and the big three ask Danny and Luke to warn Matt if he indeed does start crossing lines they are going to come after him. Meanwhile, Bullseye breaks out of prison and wants to check out Matt’s ninja business for himself. Well, not so much that as he just wants to kill Matt and a whole bunch of other people if possible. Anyway, a line gets crossed and so the begins Shadowland…
In the best interest of keeping things spoiler-free I can’t really talk about how this issue ends, but if the ended keeps and what I just read is real this may be the baddest ass Marvel book to hit the shelves in awhile. With Wolverine, the Punisher and Elektra all slated to make appearances Shadowland may be a crossover worth buying. I’m in for the foreseeable future, that is for sure.
Wktf’s Reviews
Bram Stoker’s Death Ship #2
IDW Publishing
Written by: Gary Gerani
Drawn by: Stuart Sayger
Covers by: Cliff Nielsen
The subtitle of this comic book is “The Last Voyage of the Demeter,” and fans of Bram Stoker’s Dracula know that the Demeter is the ship that carried Dracula from Varna, Modavia to Whitby Harbor in London, England in 1897. Leaving Jonathan Harker trapped in his castle with his three undead wives, the next we see the Lord of Vampires in Stoker’s novel is when he leaped to the British shore from the wrecked Demeter in the form of a massive wolf, leaving a vessel empty of its crew but for the poor dead Captain strapped to his wheel and his diary stuffed in his jacket pocket. The diary did recount the ship and crew’s experience in the novel; however, but this comic book series brings the story of this truly hellish sea voyage to graphic life.
The second issue of this series actually came out two weeks ago, but my comics shop didn’t get it when it was published. Fortunately, my lcs owner greeted me this week with this issue in hand as I came into his shop. I opened it to, thankfully, find a darkly and richly painted continuation of the terrifying and textured story that began last issue, the story that takes us into the lives of the crew, including a rather savage man named Anatole, a minster or Constantine, a young boy and, of course, the ship’s Captain...a man whose loss of wife and child had caused him to turn away from God, but who is discovering that he just may need to regain his faith to survive this voyage. With two already dead or, rather, missing at sea and presumed murdered, the crew is caught in a violent storm with lightning bolts literally hitting the seas all around the ship. Is the storm seeking to strike or guide the ship? Already on edge, in the dark, surrounded by violence, and the air of evil filling the space on the deck, the Captain must keep his men working together if they’re to survive a menace no one, as yet, is able to identify. And, how to do this when, inexplicably, each man one at a time feels himself guided by a will that’s not his own!
This comic is a terrific read for any fans of classic horror films. In fact, I’d go so far as to say the storytelling very much feels like a film. The murky shadows, the violent storm, the slow build, mysterious movements, and the danger which now is so obviously brewing in this terribly confined space. My one complaint is the depiction of Dracula, himself. This monstrous creature is a far cry from the character described in Stoker’s novel and, for my money, the fact that vampires can look to be human only adds to their horror. This is a relatively minor complaint, though that hardly runs counter the visceral horror this book delivers. As a Dracula fan, I’m not sure I’ve seen this story pulled out from the novel and recounted in any medium, making this a pretty original take on a tale that’s been around for over 100 years. Even though I already know how this tale must end, the fun here is in the telling, with deft writing and foreboding art, more than the tale itself.
Shadowland #1 (of 5)
Marvel Comics
Written by: Andy Diggle
Drawn by: Billy Tan
Covers by: John Cassaday & Phillip Tan
It appears that hell has finally come to New York, and it’s been brought by, possibly, its most indigenous hero. Sure, there are other Marvel heroes who are inextricably tied to the city, Spider-Man and The Thing come most readily to mind. But it’s Daredevil, since the days of Frank Miller’s work, whose being seems to ebb and flow with the currents of New York. And now, after being Hell’s Kitchen’s most ardent and fervent protector, after his latest and most desperate move to control The Hand and use them as a force for good, the question on the table is whether The Hand has changed him in his attempt to change The Hand. Marvel’s teaser language says this series will create Marvel’s most dangerous villain. And, if the final page of this issue is any indication, that villain may well have been birthed right here.
Many of Marvel’s biggest players are setting up shop, waiting to see how Murdock will play his hand. As this issue opens we find Spider-Man, Moon Knight, The Punisher and no less than The Kingpin all positioned and poised in various locations around the city. And in Avengers Tower we see a foreboding meeting with Captain America, Iron Man and Thor in one camp and Luke Cage and Iron Fist in another, discussing the path Murdock’s choosing to take. These camps aren’t exactly opposing, but the big three’s counsel to Murdock’s closer friends in the Avengers’ ranks sends Luke and Danny almost literally into the fray to better understand Daredevil’s intentions. But by the time they get there a separate, parallel drama has played out and Daredevil’s most notorious and dangerous enemy has come calling for a rematch. And, in that moment the simmering and seething boil the first part of this issue exudes explodes into a cacophony of violence that seems to show, once and for all, Andy Diggle has taken Daredevil to a place well past one that Miller, Bendis and Brubaker ever brought him.
I was wondering why Tan was taken off Thor and I guess his appearance as artist here explains it. Tan’s line work used to be too thin for me, lacking any real weight or importance. But he’d improved that line work a lot on Thor and here his art, both in the intense action scenes and the slower but no less powerful talking heads dialogue scenes, really delivers. And, frankly, the Bullseye vs. the army of ninja Hand was outstanding. The fact that Bullseye just charged right into this battle where he seemed hopelessly outnumbered, and depicted with such relish in doing so by Tan, is a testament to Bullseye’s mad skills, his total insanity, or both. And Diggle’s plotting, dialogue and, above all else, his pacing in this issue is just masterfully produced…though Bullseye’s escape at the beginning seemed a bit too easily accomplished. Regardless, it’s great to see Daredevil at the center of the Marvel Universe, even if his role is dubious and his new costume is kind of lame, and this first issue absolutely delivered the goods in kicking off what looks to be one helluva series where nothing less than the soul of New York City is at stake. My pick of the week.
X-Men #1
Marvel Comics
Written by: Victor Gischler
Drawn by: Paco Medina
Covers by: Adi Granov, Olivier Coipel, John Romita, Jr., Paco Medina, Marko Djurdjevic
This story picks up where last week’s Death of Dracula one-shot (see my review from last week for my thoughts on this title, I won’t rehash them here) left off. And, frankly, why Marvel felt compelled to launch a new X-book rather than have this story move into their Uncanny or other X-titles is beyond me. I mean, marketing has been my own profession for 30 years now so, truly, I get the importance of product and brand extension and, of course, I understand the power a new #1 issue can exert on sales. But, regardless, and after much fanfare (or, at least, plenty of marketing and promotion) The Curse of the Mutants is upon us!
It’s no secret at this point that, with the death of Dracula, Dracula’s son Xerus has taken control of the world’s vampire population and is seeking both a home and dominion on Earth. And it appears that the X-Men’s Utopia Island is their target. Our story opens with Pixie and the now powerless Jubilee enjoying some time in the sun among San Francisco’s populace when a gargantuan man, dressed in a long trench coat and full head mask, disrobes only to explode in a geyser of blood across the crowd. This seeming act of terrorism get the attention of the X-Men and Cyclops in particular who, along with Wolverine, gets suspicious over the particulars of this incident and the effect Jubiliee’s exposure seems to be having on her. Based heavily on their own experience with Dracula, Cyke, Wolverine and Storm seem to feel confident they’ve diagnosed the problem even if the solution isn’t yet apparent. When Cyke sends the team of Wolverine, Pixie and Angel out to investigate the incident we get to see Wolverine do what he does best, even in the face of the undead. Is there any further proof he's simply is the best there is at what he does? Like Bullseye facing seemingly impossible odds in this week’s Shadowland, Wolverine is as unflappable in the face of the most deadly supernatural danger as he is against a common alley thug. When he reports back to Cyke with his further grisly findings, the X-Men believe themselves to be on a collision course that’s only partly right (Is the virus that’s spreading really synthetic? Do they really know who the Lord of Vampires is?). Meanwhile, the enemy’s true strategy is revealed to a degree as those exposed to the earlier explosion find themselves changing and compelled in ways that are beyond their control.
If I can remove the treatment of Dracula in last week’s one-shot from the picture (I promised I wasn’t going to rehash this here), and hope the whole vampire multi-clan concept thing isn’t Marvel just trying to cash in on the Twilight movement (this concept did surface in Marvel's Legion of Monsters a few years before Twilight made it big, so I’m going to let that one slide), and if I can get past the concept of Atlantean vampires (I guess that’s possible…but doesn’t the whole vampires’ being unable to cross running water present a problem to water based creatures?) I’ve got to say that Gischler’s spun a genuinely creepy and extraordinarily dangerous opening salvo to this new X-Men arc. Not to mention that Paco Medina’s lending his wonderful artistic talents to this title AND that vampires, after decades of lurking around and showing up only occasionally, are finally a major force in the Marvel U again. Yes, even though I’m having my own problems with how my Marvel Dracula is being treated (must...stop...trying...to...rehash this!) I’ve got to give this issue a big thumbs up for all around compelling and even slightly scary storytelling that’s got me looking forward to the next issue.
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"kinda lame"? Wktf, I disagree. DD's new costume looked great and almost set a tone by itself for the kick-off to this series. Ninja black with the scarlet DD on the chest. I never liked the red and black armor change and will take this new look for the duration of the series. It completely changes his vibe and adds weight to Matt's new, more brutal attitude. I will completely agree that Bullseye's escape was a bit silly. C'mon prison-transporter guys...the man escapes like every-time he's transferred. How 'bout when he acts out of the ordinary while in custody, you just shoot him in the head? A "street" book chock full of Marvel's urban heroes...this could be just the coolest thing and the 1st issue kicked off nicely.
:tounge: 
