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Review: The Invisibles Vol. 1: Say You Want a Revolution trade paperback (Vertigo/DC Comics)

Người đăng: Unknown on Thứ Năm, 31 tháng 3, 2011

[Presenting a new series of guest reviews on Grant Morrison's The Invisibles by Zach King, who blogs about movies as The Cinema King]It's all going to end next year, which makes now as good a time as any to reevaluate Grant [...]

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Trade Perspectives: Have a Geoff Johns Omnibus, why don't you?

Người đăng: Unknown on Thứ Tư, 30 tháng 3, 2011

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Review: Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters trade paperback (DC Comics)

Người đăng: Unknown on Thứ Hai, 28 tháng 3, 2011

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Người đăng: Unknown on Chủ Nhật, 27 tháng 3, 2011

Number 919King Solomon's MinesI read H. Rider Haggard's novel, King Solomon's Mines, a year ago. For a 125-year-old novel it holds up well. I’m half that age and not holding up half as well as the book.Avon did a very good [...]

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Gotham Central: Corrigan tops New York Times Bestseller List

Người đăng: Unknown on Thứ Bảy, 26 tháng 3, 2011

Congratulations to Greg Rucka and Ed Brubaker, whose Gotham Central: Corrigan hardcover tops this week's New York Times graphic novel bestseller list.Gotham Central: Corrigan collects Gotham Central #32-40, mostly the Gotham [...]

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Người đăng: Unknown on Thứ Sáu, 25 tháng 3, 2011

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Review: The Invisibles Vol. 1: Say You Want a Revolution trade paperback (Vertigo/DC Comics)

[Presenting a new series of guest reviews on Grant Morrison's The Invisibles by Zach King, who blogs about movies as The Cinema King]

It's all going to end next year, which makes now as good a time as any to reevaluate Grant Morrison's 59-issue magnum opus (collected over seven fairly weighty trade paperback editions) The Invisibles. As for what's going to be ending, it's not the series; no, that wrapped in 2000 after six years of publication. What's going to end, The Invisibles suggests, is quite simply everything as we know it -- the world, our own consciousness, and our conception of space-time are all going to come to some sort of end on December 22, 2012.

[Invisibles purists will know that the series was published in 59 issues dispersed throughout three volumes - 25 in volume one, 22 in volume two, and 12 in volume three. For the ease of the reader, when I use volume designations in the following reviews, I'm referring to the seven collected editions, not to the three volume divisions for the original issues' publication.]

"And so we return and begin again." For those keeping score, that's Issue One, Page One, Panel One, and already we're told what the central theme of the work is. In a way, this thematic declaration hints at the episode structure which divides this first volume, Say You Want a Revolution (quoting John Lennon, whose spirit is contacted for guidance in the first issue, "Dead Beatles"), neatly in two: the introductory tale "Down and Out in Heaven and Hell" and the team's first mission in "Arcadia." This first volume accomplishes much that a first volume should: it introduces a familiar concept and character-types in ways that feel fresh. But Say You Want a Revolution is not the best Invisibles volume, flawed in ways that suggest the series had not found its feet at that time.

Meet juvenile delinquent Dane McGowan, content to be a thorn in the side of his schoolteachers by lobbing Molotov cocktails into the school library. After being sentenced to a juvenile rehabilitation clinic, Dane finds himself torn between two forces fighting over him. On one side, the apparently soulless Miss Dwyer and Mister Gelt, bespectacled advocates of conformity at all costs; on the other, the ragtag Invisibles, a countercultural answer of sorts to the JLA. The Invisibles -- led by Morrison stand-in King Mob, with homeless shaman Tom O'Bedlam, transvestite mystic Lord Fanny, Raggedy Ann doppelganger Ragged Robin, and martial arts master Boy (actually an African-American policewoman turned revolutionary) -- insist Dane is actually Jack Frost, their newest and strongest member, contender for the crucial role of "the next Buddha." After Dane/Jack's initiation, the Invisibles time-travel to recruit one more member, the Marquis de Sade, while being stalked by the faceless demon Orlando.

It's evident fairly early in this volume that Grant Morrison knows what he's doing, though much of that isn't immediately apparent until finishing the series; Ragged Robin's introduction of herself by way of an afterthought ("I'm Ragged Robin, by the way. I'm nuts."), for example, actually tells us more about her backstory than Morrison initially seems to be letting on. Recently Morrison's found a good deal of critical approval for his dexterity with long-form storytelling on his Batman titles, but it's in The Invisibles that this skill really comes to life, more so than in his previous works (also under the Vertigo banner) Animal Man and Doom Patrol. Here Morrison plants seeds that will grow over the course of the seven volumes of The Invisibles. It's clear he knows where this is all going.

It's a shame, though, that the series itself doesn't seem to know how to get where it's going. It's a bit like preparing for a long trip out of state, planning every stage of the journey but forgetting to factor in transportation. It's here where Say You Want a Revolution fails to live up to the latter volumes in the work, suffering a bit from problems with identity, both of the characters in the series and (on a meta-level) of the series itself. While "Down and Out" is quite good, appearing less derivative when you recognize that it was published in 1994, a full five years before The Matrix did practically the same story, "Arcadia" is less fulfilling because its combination of historical fiction and literary analogy ultimately paints it more like a story arc from Neil Gaiman's The Sandman than anything else (the scenes with Orlando, however, are brilliantly disturbing and grossly original, in every sense of the word "gross").

Moreover, the greatest flaw in Say You Want a Revolution is the absolute dearth of characterization present. Aside from Dane/Jack, who is given (and given quickly) one of the richest voices in comicdom, none of the characters is really given a purpose or a personality. Indeed, they seem to be grounded primarily in compelling visuals; King Mob's catchphrase "Nice and smooth" seems to describe the way readers are meant to embrace him because of the sheer cool factor his aura reverberates, while Lady Fanny's transvestism seems gimmicky and Boy appears not to have much purpose at all beyond an apparent diversity requirement. There are hints of Lord Fanny and Ragged Robin as characters with fuller purposes and abilities, but for the most part the book relies heavily on Dane and, to a lesser extent, King Mob.

On the visual side, Steve Yeowell (on "Down and Out") and Jill Thompson (on "Arcadia") are two of the better collaborators Morrison had on a series that, near the end, was plagued with artistic misfires and imperfect interpretations of Morrison's script. Yeowell, Morrison's partner on Sebastian O and Skrull Kill Krew, introduces us to the world of the Invisibles with cartoonish but clear lines and King Mob at his coolest. Thompson, meanwhile, fresh off her stint on Sandman (collected as Brief Lives), draws what I believe are the definitive versions of Lord Fanny and Ragged Robin (not surprising, considering Robin was initially modeled after Thompson) until Phil Jimenez joins the series somewhere around the third collected edition; her lines, somewhat more realistic than Yeowell's, give historical authenticity to "Arcadia" while perfectly capturing the off-kilter nature of characters like Orlando and the blind chessman.

All told, the first eight issues (particularly the first, which functions as a distilled microcosm of the entire series) are not perfect or the best that The Invisibles has to offer. But Say You Want a Revolution represents something perhaps better (after all, it's a bit early for a series to peak) -- and that's potential. This first volume displays great promise and prefigures great things to come from the series. Say You Want a Revolution is filled with fantastic moments -- the discovery of the head of John the Baptist, the raid on Harmony House, and the subway encounter with Tom O'Bedlam -- that suggest The Invisibles is a series bubbling over with ideas. At times during the series, especially in this volume, the philosophy overpowers the narrative, but it's never as extreme as Alan Moore's Promethea, in which the plot was quite literally put on hold for many issues for the comic book equivalent of a philosophy lecture. But the dominating presence of the philosophy behind The Invisibles does overshadow its characters, a flaw from which the series fortunately rebounds in subsequent volumes.

[Contains full covers and an introduction by Peter Milligan. Printed on non-glossy paper.]

That's the first of seven reviews, loyal readers. Stay tuned for my reviews of the rest of Morrison's The Invisibles -- up next, it's Apocalipstick, in which Lord Fanny and several minor characters are given origin stories and Dane/Jack finally chooses a side.

Trade Perspectives: Have a Geoff Johns Omnibus, why don't you?

It would be very easy for this to become a post along the lines of "Who does this Geoff Johns think he is getting three Omnibus editions of his work when X number of writers still languish in collected limbo," etc. Let me say at the outset then that I like Geoff Johns's DC Comics work quite a lot; moreover, the way in which this one person has very really rejuvenated comics almost entirely through enthusiasm and good work is quite remarkable, and Johns deserves the many accolades he's received.

Rather, the bottom line of this post will be more along the lines of that I entirely understand why DC Comics is now soliciting hardcover Omnibus editions of Johns's Flash, Hawkman, and Teen Titans work, but that I think these will ultimately be somewhat funny and awkward collections. Much admiration, much understanding -- but these are going to be somewhat funny and awkward collections.

Let's begin.

It is very clear to me why DC Comics will publish a Flash by Geoff Johns Omnibus series. Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E. aside, Flash and JSA are the two series where Johns first gained public notice. Half of his Flash run (about the third Flash Wally West) featured art by Scott Kolins, who continues to contribute art to Johns's new Flash series about the second Flash Barry Allen. Johns's Flash stories were a big deal at the time, including the anniversary issue Flash #200; Johns's Flash stories carried over into a number of specials and such that were not originally collected in paperback; and Johns wrote a complete Flash story from beginning to end, with a distinct and pointed ending -- the series even went on an extended hiatus when Johns left.

The same cannot be said for Johns's Teen Titans and Hawkman runs.

Don't misunderstand -- these are both really great comic book runs. Johns breathed new life into the Teen Titans franchise once considered dead for good, and the initial trade paperback, Teen Titans: A Kid's Game, remains one of my all-time favorite trade paperbacks. Johns's Hawkman, as well, was a remarkably accessible take on a character also considered unworkable, and Johns's Thanagar story that brought in the mid-1990s Hawkwoman is also a personal favorite.

But ...

Johns's Teen Titans fares very well through about issue #26 -- that includes crossovers with Outsiders and Legion of Super-Heroes, and popular artists including Mike McKone and Tom Grummett. The two fill-in issues by Gail Simone probably won't be collected; then issues #30-33 deal with Infinite Crisis. Still good-ish issues, but a lot of artists roll in and out -- Tony Daniel, Todd Nauck, and others.

Post-Infinite Crisis, Johns's Titans "One Year Later" stories are also quite good, from about #34-40. Tony Daniel became the series' regular artist, but bows out after this, and a spate of guest artists finishes Johns's final "Titans East" storyline through #46. That last issue, co-written by Adam Beechen as Johns himself leaves the title, ends on something of a cliffhanger (or at least a downer) -- it's a far cry from the strong, distinct end of Johns's Flash story.

Ditto Johns's Hawkman. This book starts strong with co-writer James Robinson and artist Rags Morales with Ethan Van Skiver and Don Kramer. The book goes strong through issue #19 and even into the great "Headhunter" three-parter #20-22. Issue #22, however, ends on an uncertain and emotional cliffhanger for Hawkman and Hawkgirl, just before the JSA: Black Reign crossover. The cliffhanger (Hawkman taking on a more violent persona) is not resolved in those issues, and Johns leaves the book right after; the single issue and collected reader never quite got any closure, and neither too would the Omnibus reader.

I should mention here that I'm one hundred percent certain there's a JSA by Geoff Johns Omnibus coming right down the pike behind these books. I'm sure as the day is long, DC wouldn't be collecting Johns's Flash, Hawkman, and Teen Titans without the intention to collect his JSA issues too (including, one hopes, the first five issues by David Goyer and James Robinson without Johns). Johns's JSA is pretty great throughout, but Johns leaves just in the middle of JSA's run up to Infinite Crisis, then Keith Champagne takes over for a bit, and then Johns pops in for one more issue before Paul Levitz takes over.

JSA is a bit more straightforward than Teen Titans and Hawkman, but all three beg the question: Does anyone really want to read only Geoff Johns's issues of a book, if reading just Johns's issues and not the ones right after or ones by fill-in writers leaves you with just half the story? Maybe one would want to see a collection of unrelated stories by one artist to examine that one artist's work, but to read three-fourths of a story just because the story is by Johns seems, again, rather awkward.

And I imagine the reader who has never read these stories before, who buys two or three hardcovers at $50-$75 each, and then comes to the end of these books only to find them ending on a sour or somewhat uneven note. These books seem like a good idea, and will probably look good on the shelf, but I fear they'll end up disappointing in the end.

If I were DC Comics (I say, self-righteously), I might not be marketing these as "by Geoff Johns" omnibuses. Sure, Johns's name could be on them as loud and large as Brad Meltzer's on Identity Crisis or Grant Morrison's on Final Crisis, and Johns might indeed be the selling point for these collections, but it would seem to me the company gets more freedom calling these just the Hawkman Omnibus and the Teen Titans Omnibus. Bill them as ~~Modern Marvels~~ the Modern Library Collection or some such. That way, at least, the reader can get the one or two extra stories that round these collections out.

I'll be interested to see DC's official solicitation for these books, how the final volumes from each series shape up, and what omnibus editions DC publishes next outside of the "Geoff Johns series." Which of these are on your definite "to buy" list?

Number 921

Weird invaders from Inferno!

This is my tenth posting of a Blackhawk story since beginning this blog. I've got a thing about the Blackhawks. Must be the uniforms. I wish I had a Blackhawk outfit in my closet. "Hey, honey, wanna play Blackhawk and duplicitous villainess tonight? I've got a long blonde wig for you to wear!"

The Grand Comics Database lists the artwork on this story as being by Bill Ward. Looks like it's Ward with another of the heavy-handed Quality inkers, who could use up a bottle of ink in eight pages. Maybe Chuck Cuidera?

"Blackhawk and the Weird Invaders from Inferno!" is from Blackhawk #47, 1951:

Review: Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters trade paperback (DC Comics)

Given the recent controversy over Apple's apparent embargo of the digital edition of Mike Grell's Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters, I thought this would be a good time for a review of that classic miniseries.

For those following along at home, Longbow Hunters is to Green Arrow what Man of Steel was to Superman and Year One was to Batman -- the first major post-Crisis on Infinite Earths appearance of Green Arrow, re-establishing his post-Crisis origin. Unlike those stories, Longbow Hunters takes place in the present, just before the Millennium crossover, but Green Arrow's origin figures prominently in the first issue.

[Contains spoilers]

And what an origin it is. It's been a while since I first read Longbow Hunters, and in that time I've read and liked a lot of other Green Arrow stories. Grell's Longbow Hunters is an Eisner Award-winning classic, don't get me wrong, and if you haven't read it, you absolutely should -- but I didn't much like Grell's origin of Green Arrow Oliver Queen. Grell would argue that Oliver wasn't much in danger when he was marooned on an island, and he did not so much defeat an entire gang of drug dealers as legend (and past continuity) had it, so much as two minor criminals tripped over themselves and Queen took the credit, dubbed accidentally "Green Arrow."

I entirely understand that this goes to Grell's dual purposes of minimizing Oliver's superhero past and also giving the impression that Oliver's real serious life starts here -- Oliver the superhero dilettante versus the Yakuza assassin Shado trained to kill from birth -- but I rather like some triumph over adversity in my superhero origins, and Grell would argue that Oliver's has none.

This is the start, however, of Grell's rather ingenious take on Green Arrow, one that I sincerely wonder if current audiences would accept. Oliver Queen is old here, just past his prime, and recognizing that his best days might have passed him by and he missed them. He very often misses the arrow-shots that he takes, and scolds himself for being slow -- there's probably not a character in the DC Universe more suited than its archer for the metaphor of being impotent.

Oliver wants to settle down and have kids -- to domesticate -- and his girlfriend Black Canary Dinah Lance does not. In one particularly effective scene, Oliver stands naked in the window wondering where Dinah is, and then goes to bed alone. Grell plays with stereotypical gender roles here, especially in a superhero comic book, in a way that I imagine many writers wouldn't be comfortable. Oliver is still masculine, and his name is still on the masthead of the comic, but his actions and desires are those that you might otherwise see from the love interest in a story, and not from the protagonist.

I don't have any additional issues of Grell's Green Arrow series that followed (wish I did -- where's that collection, DC?), but editor Mike Gold suggests in his introduction to Longbow Hunters that the story continued to explore these and similar themes. Yet, Longbow Hunters, as the name implies, is in addition about breaking down some of these peaceful and superficially superheroic impulses in Oliver Queen, and replacing them with a hunter and predator. Oliver is continually unable to make his shots, but the one he lands, of course, instantly kills the man who's been torturing Dinah. Thus having loosed the chains of straight-and-narrow superheroism, Oliver ends up as the recipient of a fortune in drug money after Shado kills the dealers. A corrupt CIA agent sizes Oliver up, wondering if the vigilante's "occupation" can still be listed as hero -- the answer is, we know, not so much as when the story started.

I've only read Justice League: Cry for Justice, and haven't yet decided if I want to pick up the widely-panned Justice League: Rise and Fall that follows the first book's events -- but I hope somewhere this latter book acknowledges the fact that Green Arrow killing the villain Prometheus is not so shocking as the rest of the Justice League (and the writers thereof) would have us believe. Oliver kills a bunch of non-super-powered street criminals in this book and -- let's face it -- he's a guy that shoots arrows. There's nothing wrong with the pacifist Green Arrow Connor Hawke approach, nor with a non-lethal boxing glove arrow once in a while, but inasmuch as I disfavor Grell's origin of Oliver Queen, I appreciate his more realistic approach to how a person with sharp objects would fight crime.

And if I might offer one more push for a Green Arrow by Mike Grell Omnibus from DC Comics, Grell's artwork is absolutely stunning here. A page will have a number of standard full color panels, and then one large shadowy black and white image that serves, especially, to drive home the emotional moments between Oliver and Dinah. There's also one page where Oliver and Shado stare each other down, and Grell's image of Oliver's deep-set, masked eyes is just phenomenal.

If not that, then I applaud DC for the big step of making Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters available as a digital download the other week, and I hope maybe more Grell Green Arrow issues are set to follow in digital form -- hopefully without Apple interference this time.

[Contains full wrap-around covers, introduction by Mike Gold. Printed on rough (not glossy) paper.]

New reviews on the way!

Number 920

Witches of Salem

The Salem witch trials are one of the more bizarre chapters in American history. My earliest American ancestor came to Massachusetts in the 1620s, and for all I know could have been caught up in the superstitious madness. I have a lifelong fascination with the Salem witches. "The Salem Terror" is a concise "true"* story published in Wanted Comics #13, 1948. It's drawn in a garish and sensational style by Maurice del Bourgo, who signed his name "del" at the bottom of the splash panel.

*As I've said before in this blog, "true" is a floating concept for stories in comic books, right alongside ads for "guaranteed" weight loss nostrums and useless cures for pimples or bed wetting.

Number 919

King Solomon's Mines

I read H. Rider Haggard's novel, King Solomon's Mines, a year ago. For a 125-year-old novel it holds up well. I’m half that age and not holding up half as well as the book.

Avon did a very good adaptation as a one-shot comic in 1951, drawn by Lee J. Ames, an artist who went from comics into much acclaim as an artist and author. He did the Draw 50 . . . series of how-to art books for young people. According to the Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide the Avon version was a movie comic, but that’s never stated on the comic. The 1950 movie, with Deborah Kerr and Stewart Granger, changes the story into a woman looking for her missing husband rather than a man searching for his missing brother. The Avon version sticks close to Haggard’s novel, without the Hollywood treatment.

Classics Illustrated did their own version of King Solomon’s Mines in 1952, illustrated by Henry C. Kiefer.

Readers familiar with The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen comic series will recognize the character, Allen Quatermain.

Gotham Central: Corrigan tops New York Times Bestseller List

Congratulations to Greg Rucka and Ed Brubaker, whose Gotham Central: Corrigan hardcover tops this week's New York Times graphic novel bestseller list.

Gotham Central: Corrigan collects Gotham Central #32-40, mostly the Gotham Central: Dead Robin paperback, with one additional previously-uncollected issue.

Constant readers know I'm a big fan of Gotham Central, even offering my own take on the themes of the series in my review of Dead Robin. I'm especially pleased that the New York Times ArtsBeat blog by George Gene Gustines quoted from my review in a post on Gotham Central: Corrigan:

The new book on our hardcover list this week, “Gotham Central: Corrigan,” at No. 1, is the fourth and final volume of the series. “Gotham Central,” written by Greg Rucka and Ed Brubaker, is an inside look at the police detectives in the major crime unit who must solve cases in a city populated by Batman, his allies and his gruesome collection of archfoes.

Their work is never easy. A review of the series at [the Collected Editions blog] put it rather succinctly: “Through the five trade paperback collections of ‘Gotham Central,’ Rucka and Brubaker give the Gotham police good reason to resent the Batman. Over about half-a-dozen major cases, Batman surpasses the Gotham police in stopping Mr. Freeze and Two-Face, and solves both the Joker’s bomb plot and the Dead Robin case.” Plus, “When Batman is unsuccessful or uninvolved, the cases usually end tragically. In ‘Gotham Central: The Quick and the Dead,’ Officer Peak has to kill his partner, the mutated Officer Kelly, when Batman can’t subdue him; in ‘Gotham Central: Dead Robin,’ Batman never appears in the ‘Corrigan 2’ storyline where Detective Crispus Allen is murdered.”

Kudos to the writers and the whole Gotham Central team; this is much-deserved.

[Greg Rucka fans might also be interested in my retrospective of Rucka's Wonder Woman run.]

Number 918

The Torture Master

It's a testament to how good an artist Russ Heath is that as many horror comics as I've read in 50 years, the splash panel for "The Torture Master" still made my stomach churn. Of course, anything about Nazi death camps or medical experiments is bound have a visceral effect.

Using Himmler gives the story even more verisimilitude. There's one kind of horror when you have vampires and werewolves, the usual horror comics fare, but Himmler and the Nazis were real. If Dracula really existed the Nazis would have scared even him.

This is from Atlas Comics' Men's Adventures #24, 1953:

videofreeandimage

Review: The Invisibles Vol. 1: Say You Want a Revolution trade paperback (Vertigo/DC Comics)

Trade Perspectives: Have a Geoff Johns Omnibus, why don't you?

Review: Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters trade paperback (DC Comics)

Gotham Central: Corrigan tops New York Times Bestseller List

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Review: The Invisibles Vol. 1: Say You Want a Revolution trade paperback (Vertigo/DC Comics)

Trade Perspectives: Have a Geoff Johns Omnibus, why don't you?

Review: Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters trade paperback (DC Comics)

Gotham Central: Corrigan tops New York Times Bestseller List