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Người đăng: Unknown on Chủ Nhật, 31 tháng 8, 2008

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Người đăng: Unknown on Thứ Sáu, 29 tháng 8, 2008

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Review: Kingdom Come trade paperback (DC Comics)

Người đăng: Unknown on Thứ Năm, 28 tháng 8, 2008

[This review comes from Collected Editions guest-blogger Doug Glassman:]Ten years ago, while comics were dealing with the relative tail-end of the “grim-n-gritty” phase, Mark Waid and Alex Ross came out with a little book [...]

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Trade Perspectives: Who Would You Rather Have as Blue Beetle?

Người đăng: Unknown on Thứ Tư, 27 tháng 8, 2008

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Người đăng: Unknown

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Review: Batman: The Resurrection of Ra's al Ghul collected hardcover (DC Comics)

Người đăng: Unknown on Thứ Hai, 25 tháng 8, 2008

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Number 370

"Dragged to your death!"

I'm not a big Western fan, not of movies, books or comics, but I do enjoy the occasional story if it's well done. Robert Kanigher, editor, scripted this story for Alex Toth, artist, and Frank Giacoia, inker. It appeared in All-American Western #107, April-May 1949. I love Toth's dynamic, action-filled artwork. Giacoia inked it in DC's late-1940s house style, borrowed from Milton Caniff.

The Indian characters are treated the same way they were treated in movies, as stereotypes.

I like Johnny Thunder's rock 'n' roll hairstyle, anticipating the look of a decade hence. Something that bugs me is how a white horse can be called Black Lightning. And wasn't Johnny Thunder a name borrowed from another DC character of a couple years earlier? And wasn't Black Lightning the name of a superhero two or three decades later? I guess comic books were the original recyclers: plots, art, names, everything used again and again!

Number 369

Supermouse goes ape!

I was going to make a comment about Supermouse and the 800-pound gorilla...but in this story, "The Great Gorilla Plot," that gorilla looks like he weighs more than 800 pounds. A lot more.

This entry in the Supermouse series by the great cartoonist, Milt Stein, is from Supermouse #22, December 1952. To see more of the stories posted on Pappy's, click on the Supermouse link in the labels below. For more cartoon funny animals go to the great blog, Sherm Cohen's CartoonSNAP. To see Sherm's links to more Supermouse go here.

Review: Kingdom Come trade paperback (DC Comics)

[This review comes from Collected Editions guest-blogger Doug Glassman:]

Ten years ago, while comics were dealing with the relative tail-end of the “grim-n-gritty” phase, Mark Waid and Alex Ross came out with a little book called Kingdom Come. Waid was the writer on The Flash and Ross was not the superstar he is now, with his most notable success at the time being the epic Marvels. Oh, how things change. For instance, Waid is now the writer on … The Flash. Huh. But Kingdom Come has not lost any of its resonance. It combines apocalyptic themes with the rich history of the DC universe. In fact, Kingdom Come has helped enrich said history, adding characters such as Jakeem Thunder, the new Cyclone and Wildcat and turning the oddly mohawked and ponytailed Nuklon into the masked Atom Smasher. With Kingdom Come now openly influencing Justice Society of America, it’s time to take a look back at DC’s resident epic.

Let me just say that this isn’t a book that I’ve been hailing for years. In fact, I only read it for the first time a few weeks ago, partly because I needed something to read on the flight home and partly because of the JSA tie-in mentioned above. (Yes, I haven’t fully switched to trades-only. JSA is one of those books that I just have to get from month to month.) Usually I cover the art last, but Kingdom Come is almost more famous for its art than its story. Personally, I’ve never fully liked Ross’ artwork. I find it too static and too awkward for storytelling. As well, I’ve often thought that his women look a little … masculine. While I still hold to the latter claim, I was happily disproven on the former.

Though the artwork is cluttered and the expressions sometimes mask the intent of the characters, Ross’ battle scenes have a certain elegance to them and are filled with detail. I highly recommend using the annotations by Jess Nevins which identifies all characters in fight scenes and point out the really tiny details. Some of them actually change the meaning of the art. For instance, one character’s death seems to be part of a montage, but is actually part of a scene—the start of the scene is just hidden in the background. Ross’ design sense when it comes to heroes, villains and those that fall between is outstanding, and it’s easy to see why a number of his designs were adapted into the main DCU. Could Kingdom Come have worked without Ross’ artwork? Perhaps. I personally would have loved to have seen George Perez, the king of crowd scenes, take this project on. But it wouldn’t have the same epic feel.

So how’s the story? Well, it’s pretty good. There are some very apocalyptic overtones and almost too much adaptation of DC's heroes into biblical allegory. (For instance, look for three nails in Superman’s pocket during his introduction.) While there is a frame story featuring the Spectre and preacher Norman McCay, they are less narrators and more observers, giving the reader the bare essential information and taking little overt action. The book addresses a number of questions raised in Watchmen about the necessity and authority of superheroes. It leaves a lot open to reader interpretation while offering its own answers. If you have a beloved major character in the DCU that was created before, say, 1990, chances are he or she appears in this book, albeit probably in an altered form befitting this dystopian world.

The most recent version of the trade contains a few extra pages involving a meeting with Orion, who has … well, let’s say “fulfilled Jack Kirby’s Fourth World destiny.” I didn’t read the story before this was added and it would have been weaker had this sequence not been inserted. The trade also has an identification guide for the characters, sketches and an introduction by Elliot S! Maggin, who wrote the novelization of the story. There’s an Absolute Edition that covers even more ground and features much commentary, but with Jess Nevins’ annotations available, I’m not sure if the extras are needed. The regular trade is quite affordable and a must-buy for DC fans.

Kingdom Come earns its place as one of the most important works of the DC canon, despite the fact that it is an Elseworld. Its numerous new concepts reinvigorated the DCU and influenced stories that continue today. This skeptic has been won over.

[Contains introduction, covers, sketches, character information pages, identification guide, restored sequence explanation, gallery of “Kingdom Come”-related artwork. $14.95.]

Trade Perspectives: Who Would You Rather Have as Blue Beetle?

Who would you rather have as Blue Beetle, Jaime Reyes or Ted Kord?

And if you answer Jaime Reyes, doesn't that mean that ultimately DC did the right thing in killing off Ted Kord, so as to make way for a fresh interpretation of the character?

(I ask because, given Jaime's inclusion in the upcoming Brave and the Bold television show, I wonder if there's still a contingent out there with sore feelings about the death of Ted Kord, or whether Jaime's popularity has been enough to sweep that under the rug.)

Just curious.

Number 368

American Pig!

As a young G.I. in the U.S. Army I was drilled in the Code of Conduct. The Code is a set of rules we, as soldiers, were expected to obey in the event we were held as prisoners of war. After hearing about what some prisoners went through I was sure if captured and got even a whiff of torture I'd sell out my mother, not to mention my country. It never happened so it's moot, but to my understanding the Code of Conduct was initiated because of what happened to some P.O.W.'s during the Korean conflict of the early 1950s. Some men were supposedly brainwashed into making statements for the enemy. Some American soldiers who went over the hill during that war are still living in North Korea.

This particular story came out of a coverless war comic, published by Superior, a Canadian publisher who used the services of Jerry Iger's comic book production shop. It also looks like it was produced under another code, the Comics Code, because Iger pre-Comics Code stories were usually pretty violent. About the worst thing that happens here is the P.O.W. gives one soldier a karate chop that looks like it wouldn't kill a mosquito, and another a headlock.

The best thing about the story is the frontispiece to this post. I love that squirrelly-looking panel!

Review: Batman: The Resurrection of Ra's al Ghul collected hardcover (DC Comics)

Given Grant Morrison's great fresh-classic take on Batman in Batman and Son, I expected great things from the Bat-family crossover Batman: The Resurrection of Ra's al Ghul. Instead, what we have here is a fairly bland, gigantically decompressed story with a lot of punching and kicking, but not much to make it very remarkable.

I think few believed, when Greg Rucka killed off Ra's al Ghul in the riveting Batman: Death and the Maidens (if you haven't read it, run out and get a copy), that DC wouldn't bring the villain back one of these days. And given both Ra's appearance in Batman Begins and Rucka's excellent use of Ra's in Death, I've been eager to see Ra's next appearance.

But Resurrection disappointingly glosses completely over Ra's rebirth scene, and there seems to be some confusion between the various writers from the prologue to the story as to the exact science of Ra's return (and they ignore, completely Devin Grayson's brilliant set up of a Lazarus Pit in the Batcave in Batman/Ra's al Ghul: Year One). Moreover, Ra's "evil goals" are not much more than immortality, again, when something with a bit more mystery might've differentiated this story from most other Ra's al Ghul tales.

One intention of Infinite Crisis was to rid the DC Universe of the angsty Batman (at least, more angsty than normal) who betrayed and belittled his Bat-family at every turn. The result, however, is to bring us a Batman crossover that's all plot and no character development. Batman learns that Ra's has come back to life (an event that, undramatically, seems to surprise no one in the comic), Batman goes to confront Ra's, Batman and Ra's team up to fight a third enemy, and then Batman and Ra's fight one another. The internal Bat-conflict in Batman: Fugitive and Batman: War Games might've felt tired after a while, but at least it gave the crossovers a subtext beyond just fighting the villains.

There is, you might argue, a "character-based" subplot here involving Robin being tempted by Ra's to use the Lazarus Pit to resurrect his parents, Spoiler, Superboy, and others. Except, as Nightwing himself points out, Ra's offer makes no sense in terms of how the Lazarus Pit has been explained in comic book science (the bodies are too old, the Pit waters aren't portable, etc.) -- not to mention that no reader really believes Robin's going to make the obviously-wrong choice and join forces with Batman's enemy. The subplot deals with Robin's character, sure, but it's essentially two-issue-long filler that darts away from the real Batman/Ra's action in order to involve the Nightwing and Robin titles, and it makes the story unnecessarily bloated.

Finally, if I can add just one more insult to injury, Morrison's Damian character suffers greatly, writing-wise, in this story. As written by Morrison, Batman's erstwhile son walks the fine line between attention-starved child and deadly killer; as written by Keith Champagne, Fabian Nicieza and others, Damian comes off as a whiny brat, more Jar-Jar Binks than Batman's son. On the other hand, there's a bunch of instances here of Alfred playing action hero (taking on a crowd of ninjas, no less!) so I guess there's something here for everyone.

(To be fair, of sorts, Pop Matter's Shawn O'Rourke felt equally underwhelmed.)

[Contains full covers, short biographies]

Yeah, so Batman: The Resurrection of Ra's al Ghul didn't quite do it for me. Good thing there's some Justice Society right around the corner. Join us next time!

Number 367

Double Mummy Monday!

Karswell of The Horrors Of It All has been featuring Mummy Monday postings this month. Since I wish to jump into his pyramid scheme, I did an archaeological excavation at the site of Pappy's Sarcophagus of Stuff to drag out two pharaoh-to-middling mummy stories. First up, Al Camy took to the papyrus for a fine 10-pager from Forbidden Worlds #5, March-April, 1952. You may Tut-tut when you find this story so whack that the hero's girlfriend wants to tag along because she's jealous of a priestess back from the dead, fresh from her mummy wrappings! Note to hero: This girlfriend will cause you problems later. She is not very tightly wrapped herself. This is typical ACG of the 1950s, so crazy, so fun.

The second story is from Atlas Comics' Crazy #6, scanned from its reprinting in 1975's Arrgh #3.