Review: Teen Titans: Prime of Life trade paperback (DC Comics)

Teen Titans: Prime of Life, J. T. Krul's second and final Teen Titans collection, is well-written, readable, and respectable take on the Titans. I won't prejudge the DC New 52 Teen Titans such to say I wish Krul would have stayed on the title, but no question I wish he'd joined some years earlier. Prime of Life is not as good as Krul's first book in the series, Team Building, possibly due to the swift advent of the New 52, but it's enjoyable nonetheless.

[Review contains spoilers]

Prime of Life collects eight issues, Teen Titans #93-100, of which five are dedicated to the Titans fighting Hindu gods with new teammate Solstice, and three toward a concluding battle with Superboy-Prime and his "Legion of Doom." Krul has said himself that with the coming of the DC New 52, the "Prime" story had to be truncated; it is this that edges Team Building in front of Prime, but Krul can hardly be blamed for that. Prime lacks Team Building's sharp humor (generated mainly by Robin Damian Wayne's presence in that volume) and simply feels unbalanced; there's one too many issues focused on the Titans, Solstice, and the demon Rankor -- an enemy incidental to the Titans -- and not enough on Superboy-Prime, who targets the Titans directly.

This is not to overlook, however, that Nicola Scott's art does a dynamic job portraying the deserts, forests, and demons of Hindu myth in the first story. I thought that in Scott's initial issues of Team Building, the Titans looked wooden (see the initial fight with the Feral Boys), standing still rather than "moving on the page" as comics should do. This issue is more than solved in Prime, and at the end of the first chapter and the beginning of the second, to name two highlights, Scott's panels have significant detail and appearance of depth in the scenes.

Amidst a longer J. T. Krul Titans run, the initial Solstice tale wouldn't be a standout story. The Titans join Wonder Girl to help find her mother's colleagues, the light-powered Solstice's parents. Wonder Girl is captured by Rankor, and then Red Robin and most of the rest of the team are too, until Beast Boy and Solstice are able to rescue them. In this way, the story doesn't necessarily distinguish itself -- Rankor could as easily be Brother Blood or the Calculator, in that this is a typical kidnap-and-rescue story where any villain could play the part.

At the same time, neither is the Solstice story anything to fuss about. Krul writes intelligent Titans who may disagree but who work well together and are well-trained superheroes -- a significant accomplishment, if unfortunate, over other Titans writers of late. Krul gives every team member a little spotlight, especially Beast Boy and Kid Flash. Krul's Raven plot is perhaps the most interesting thing to come out of the Solstice storyline, the mysterious reason that Raven has such a negative reaction to Solstice's light powers. The truncated finale doesn't give Krul any room to explore that, but I don't think fans will mind Krul bringing it to a close with a Beast Boy/Raven kiss instead.

Call me a sap, but I was completely taken by the Superboy/Ravager plotline that Krul carries from the Solstice story to the conclusion of the book. A demon impersonating Ravager cozies up to Superboy; he learns of the ruse, but astoundingly, it actually spurs some feelings between the two. Ravager has been nothing but cruel to Superboy's former girlfriend Wonder Girl, and many of us have rooted for Superboy and Wonder Girl since their Young Justice days, so by rights a Superboy/Ravager relationship shouldn't work.

Superboy takes back his secret box of Kryptonite from Wonder Girl (why, we wonder, doesn't he just entrust it to Red Robin?) and later when he entrusts it to Ravager, she thinks it's because he has feelings for her. When Ravager learns instead that Superboy trusts her because she's a "heartless killer" who wouldn't hesitate to use it against him if necessary, Ravager's tears are priceless. I find the trope of "angry team member eventually grows a heart" rather tired (can't an ornery character just stay ornery?), but Krul finds such an unlikely parallel in Superboy and Ravager's villainous parentage -- and then breaks Ravager's heart so expertly -- as to make the scene complete and fulfilling as is, even if the end comes without really "concluding" it.

In his Comic Book Resources interview, Krul talks about the conclusion of Prime as "reaffirming" the Teen Titans, rather than necessarily offering the team a specific ending before the DC New 52. I don't mind that, and the book does have a nice close; however, it might have been good to see some of the original Titans appear, given their absence from the DC New 52, or even to have Krul make some change in the Titans standing with the Justice League a la the Young Justice cartoon, to really change things up given that this was "the end."

Again, however, Krul's conclusion is fine, and it's especially fun at the end of the DC Universe to see Superboy confronted with some of his "alternate selves" and old costumes; Jeff Lemire does a nice job closing out Superboy's story in Smallville Attacks, but this is good, too. I wouldn't have minded, perhaps, seeing Superboy, Kid Flash, Red Robin, and Wonder Girl all fight some of their earlier selves -- but Krul's use of some esoteric, "new classic" Titans villains like Zookeeper and Indigo is satisfying for the end, too.

In all, the Teen Titans title has had a rough time of it -- it started out at the top of the charts, but the series never quite regained its footing after Geoff Johns left, and it was only here at the end, when J. T. Krul took over, that we started to see a path back to the title's former greatness. The DC New 52 arrived before the title could get all the way there, but with Teen Titans: Prime of Life, at least the team goes out on a high note. Hail and farewell, Teen Titans (wow -- that didn't quite hit me, really, until I typed it), and viva la DC New 52.

[Includes full and variant covers, including Phil Jimenez's Teen Titans #100 cover, and pin-up pages from Titans #100 as well]

One book left to really "finish" the old DC Universe's Titans -- a review of the latest Batman crossover Gotham Will Be Judged, including some Red Robin issues, is coming up next.

More about →

Review: Avengers Academy: Permanent Record hardcover/paperback (Marvel Comics)

[Guest review by Doug Glassman]

After the Siege event, two books in the Avengers line ended: Mighty Avengers, following a quirky team led by Hank Pym to oppose the Dark Avengers, and Avengers: The Initiative, chronicling a group of heroes-in-training. When the new title designed to replace them was announced, one question emerged: “Why do we need another book about teenage Avengers?” It’s an understandable concern, as Young Avengers has recently completed its epic “Children’s Crusade” story.

However, Avengers Academy owes less to Young Avengers than to the original X-Men and the New Mutants. They’re not even officially a team until the end of this first collection, Avengers Academy: Permanent Record. Instead, the six students of the Academy are being trained by Hank Pym to be the next generation of superheroes. You can see how this book replaced its predecessors, and it takes the initial concept to new dimensions. It helps that Christos Gage was also the writer for Avengers: The Initiative, and some plotlines from that book continue through here.

One of the best moves in creating Avengers Academy was staffing it with well-established instructors but new students. Avengers: The Initiative had to work with continuity-rich characters like Thor Girl and Batwing, but the only pre-established student character here is Reptil. He was introduced last year to tie in with The Superhero Squad Show, and reading the book, one gets the feeling that Gage was forced by the editor to have Reptil in the roster. He’s a somewhat flat character, especially in comparison to his classmates. His ability to manifest parts of dinosaurs is also just strange and was clearly designed to appeal to kids first [dare we call him Beast Boy? -- ed].

The six teens are all united by Norman Osborn’s attempts to turn them into villains, and we get brief looks into their histories and how they were manipulated. Gage has each character narrate an issue, an effective way to get the information across. Veil is a shy but cheerful girl who can turn into gas and is dying from her enhanced powers. Hazmat constantly produces volatile materials and is stuck wearing a secure suit, significantly souring her attitude. The final female member is Finesse, with photo-reflexes similar to the Taskmaster . . . because she might be his daughter.

For me, the two other male characters are the most interesting. The lightning-manipulating Striker is the son of a would-be celebrity who extended her fifteen minutes of fame through him. At the end of issue #5, the issue he narrates, his mother drops a bomb which changes the tone of the series completely; it’s actually subtle enough that it took me a second read to catch it. Mettle, the huge, red character, has the most tragic origin, being a laid-back surfer dude who hit a wave and found his skin peeling off to reveal a metal skeleton. Gage makes him very relatable and sympathetic, even when things change toward the end.

Marvel knew going in that the kids weren’t going to get people to read the book, so they gave the Academy a strong faculty, albeit one with its own issues. Hank Pym, in his guise as the Wasp, is still reeling from Siege and his wife’s death, but he’s surprisingly capable of holding himself together. Having one of the original five Avengers in the book grants it legitimacy. At his side is Tigra, who has gone through hell herself thanks to an assault at the hands of the Hood and an unexpected pregnancy. Jocasta, Ultron’s “mate,” flits in and out of the book. Justice, a former New Warrior and reluctant killer, has divorced from Firestar and is doing his best to help to the kids. Also there for the kids is Speedball, who has returned from his Civil War-era Penance identity . . . at least outwardly.

The last permanent faculty member is Quicksilver in a very uncomfortable role as instructor. I say “permanent” because any Avenger can drop in to teach a class. Steve Rogers and Iron Fist do some sparring practice, while Valkyrie has “the talk” with the girls, much to the dismay of Tigra. Issues #4-5 form the “Scared Straight” crossover as discussed in my review of Thunderbolts: Cage. The two titles connect nicely, apart from some wonky continuity with the Juggernaut, and an unlikely trio gets revenge on Osborn . . . or at least they try to. The Ghost’s paranoid rambling speech is a highlight. As much as they want to make these kids into heroes, it’s clear that the faculty have to work hard to keep them from turning into the next Masters of Evil, as Moonstone predicts they might.

Along with teenage superhero angst, Avengers Academy shares something else with Teen Titans: Mike McKone. On some of his other books, I’ve felt a bit disconcerted by McKone’s tendency to draw identical faces. That doesn’t happen too often here (and certainly not to the degree that Tom Grummett or Rags Morales do it), but McKone does occasionally lapse into “dull surprise.” Some characters have their mouths hanging open far too often. McKone designed some very good costumes, and I have to think that Mettle’s uniform of a black shirt and jeans is a reference to Superboy. He unfortunately can’t make Hank Pym’s Wasp costume look any less garish, however. (He’s since changed back to Giant-Man.)

I applaud Avengers Academy: Permanent Record for doing something new, at least when it comes to the Avengers. Student superheroes have been a constant for the X-Men, and I can only imagine how this school will interact with the Jean Grey School in Wolverine and the X-Men. Christos Gage is adept at writing both teens and superheroes, and he and Mike McKone are putting together a solid tale of old and new heroes in an unsteady Marvel Universe. It’s definitely not your average teen book.

Next time . . . look upon Rob Liefeld’s works, ye mighty Avengers, and despair.

More about →

Number 1166: The All-American flying, two-fisted, butt-kicking girl

Miss America was one of the patriotic heroines of World War II, created for Marvel Mystery Comics in 1943. You can read her history here. Otto Binder is credited for her creation, as he is for these two seven-page backup stories from Marvel Mystery Comics #52 and #56, both 1944. The Grand Comics Database credits Charles Nicholas with pencils and inks.

I like Miss America, and I like the earnest attempt to create a super character for girls. Miss America is slim and svelte, looks like a teenager, but looks can be deceiving. She can fly, put a grown man out with her fists, and give the heave-ho to enemies of Uncle Sam.

I found these stories online in about 2003, and saved them. They were only 500 pixels wide. I have enlarged them to 725 pixels. If you are the person who put these online originally I'd like to hear from you, give credit where it's due.

**********

Today is the release date for Zombies, yet another book in Craig Yoe's fantastic series of comic book reprints.

This time Craig has teamed up with one of the great bloggers, Steve "Karswell" Banes of The Horrors Of It All. I've followed Steve's blog since its inception, and his knowledge of horror comics of the 1950s is unparalleled. Craig was right to get Steve to help, because in my opinion there isn't anyone more qualified.

I haven't seen the book, and yet I'm recommending it. Readers who've read my past reviews of the series know how highly I prize these books from Yoe, not just for their contents, but for their permanence. When you buy a Yoe book you are buying a guarantee of a quality product, printing, paper, binding...there is no skimping, but the books are very affordable. You can't afford to miss them, that's for sure.

Go to Amazon.com or Yoe Books to order. If you're fortunate enough to have a great comic shop locally that carries these books, please support them.

More about →

Review: Superboy: Smallville Attacks trade paperback (DC Comics)

Look, I'm still riding high on writer Jeff Lemire for his stellar debut volume of the DC New 52 Animal Man: The Hunt. And certainly it's a joy and a wonder to be holding Superboy: Smallville Attacks, a collection of eleven issues of a standalone Conner Kent series, twenty years after the character debuted and ten years since his last series ended. Certainly, if this were an ongoing series with another volume on the way, I would buy it.

I just can't quite come around to agreeing that this title deserved its "Best New Series" Eisner nomination.

Superboy: Smallville Attacks is an excellent showing for the Conner Kent character, and exactly what the character needed. It is a pitch-perfect story of supernatural weirdness in a small town -- but unfortunately, it is so on-level as to fail to really hold any surprises other than being a good platform for the title character.

[Review contains spoilers]

As in Geoff Johns's Superboy: Boy of Steel, Smallville Atacks makes reference to Superboy's fade haircut-and-jacket days. This was, again, about twenty years ago, and it's amazing how the character has evolved since then. Created whole-cloth (for the most part) by Karl Kesel and Tom Grummett, the character has continually appeared in one DC Comics title or another ever since. Superman and company have been around over seventy years, long enough that it's easy to think of them as ever-present; to see a character like Conner Kent emerge, however, and then subsequently become enough a part of the DC Comics mythology that he grows, changes, and even continues into the DC New 52 is wholly fascinating. "Whatever they touch turns to myth," indeed.

To Jeff Lemire's credit, Superboy: Smallville Attacks picks up right where Johns's story left off, with Superboy relishing his life in Smallville alongside sidekick/potential arch-nemesis Simon Valentine and love interest/genetic cousin Lori Luthor. Johns offered some basic Superman tropes to underline Superboy's Smallville life, and Lemire plays them both toward and against type -- Simon seems poised to become Superboy's Lex Luthor at every turn, but in the meantime functions as his Jimmy Olsen (Valentine's the red hair, which Jimmy and Lex shared, poses significant confusion). Lori Luthor could as easily be Superboy's Lois Lane or Lana Lang, if not for the fact she and Superboy are related, something that fits into the story's general "small town weirdness" aesthetic.

In the first pages, Lemire enters the Phantom Stranger, giving Superboy a supernatural vibe we haven't seen in the Super-titles since Peter David's Supergirl. (With the Phantom Stranger's renewed role in the DC New 52, fans might want to take note of one of his final, rather continuity-heavy appearances here.) Most of Superboy's adventures in the book are not magic-related until the conclusion, but definitely the book has a "spooky" aspect that differentiates it from the Superboy series previous. In the book's conclusion, Lemire uses the sorcerer Arion and the Viking Prince; combined with Phantom Stranger, Superboy begins to mine the less-visited corners of the DC Universe in a way, again, we don't often see from a Super-title.

What's in between that beginning and end is a mixed bag. Superboy has fairly routine battles with the Parasite and Poison Ivy, and invaders from the future. There's a race with Kid Flash, possibly the best issue of the bunch not for the race, but how Lemire sets as its background Lori's common small-town loneliness. The Return of Doomsday crossover interrupts; there's a one-off "alternate reality" issue that sets up stories that never quite play out, and then the book is into its conclusion. The superheroic conflicts are mundane largely because they're besides the point; more time is spent on Conner talking over his partnership with Simon or discussing his relationship with Lori, or pondering the darkness that the Phantom Stranger warns is inhabiting the town.

All of this adds up to a lot of talking and not much else. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind a chatty comic (see two personal Greg Rucka favs, Gotham Central and Checkmate), but Smallville Attacks is written in single-issue style; any number of chapters have Superboy thinking back over the events of previous stories or wondering about the location of the mysterious "Broken Silo" (something he's simply told toward the end of the book) without much progress being made. Even Superboy's major conversations with Simon and Lori only re-establish the status quo, though perhaps more might have been in the offing had this series not ended with the DC New 52.

Lemire offers a nice Court of the Owls-type jolt when he finally reveals the zombie city that's supposedly existed under Smallville for hundreds of years. Unfortunately, however, the city of zombified farmers are no different than your average Walking Dead clip, and while I give Lemire points for using Phantom Stranger Tannarak, he emerges as just another Ming the Merciless-eqsue sneering villain. As with Smallville Attacks's Silver Age elements -- a character names Psionic "Lad," thought balloons -- the book does what it does well, but it never surprises nor achieves much more than what appears to be on the surface.

Still, however, Lemire and artist Pier Gallo achieve what many creative teams have not -- to write a respectable, readable Superboy character; Gallo is another of those treasured artists who refrains from making the men ridiculously buff or the women gratuitously sexy, just drawing people. The list of guest appearances Superboy has made in titles where he's portrayed as a sarcastic buffoon might be second only to those lists for Guy Gardner and Kyle Rayner. The fact that Lemire writes a mature Conner Kent, one who could hold his own series, will be sufficient for most of the characters' fans.As with (Red) Robin Tim Drake, in the DC New 52 we keep Superboy but largely lose this current incarnation, and Superboy: Smallville Attacks is a wonderful send-off for the character despite what misgivings I might have about it.

[Includes full and variant covers.]

We'll complete our two-week send-off of the sidekicks of the "old DC Universe" next, with the Collected Editions review of Teen Titans: Prime of Life. And don't miss the earlier parts of this series with our reviews of Teen Titans: Team Building and Red Robin: Seven Days of Death.

More about →

Number 1165: “Lend me your comb.”*

Edd Byrnes was the hip, cool, jive-talking Kookie, Efrem Zimbalist Jr. was Stu, Roger Smith was Jeff. Crazy, man..."you meet the highbrows and the hipsters, the gangsters and the phony tipsters..." During its first run on network television 77 Sunset Strip was on my must-watch list. Now, fifty years later I'm damned if I can remember anything about it but the theme song and the main characters.

Russ Manning did a fine job on this strip from the first Gold Key issue of 77 Sunset Strip, featuring two of those characters, Kookie and Stu, and a villain. The story involves a switched briefcase and some stolen plans (and how many times have you seen that one)? Despite the clichés, Manning does a lot with the atmosphere. Setting the story in the rain gives more visual interest to a fairly straightforward story. If all you've ever seen of Manning are his Tarzan, Brothers Of the Spear or Magnus, Robot Fighter adventures, he was right at home in a contemporary urban environment, also.

Russ Manning died at the young age of 52 in 1981.

From 77 Sunset Strip #1 (Gold Key, 1962):

 *This stupid song by Byrnes and Connie Stevens was everywhere. I'm putting it onto you, and you can have it running around in your head like it is mine.

More about →

Number 1164: The phantastic Phantasmo

 E. C. (for Elmer Cecil) Stoner was an African-American pioneer of the comic book field. Already an established artist when comic books began, he fit into the earliest comic books with his solid contributions, working his entire career in comics via various comic art shops.

The Ken Quattro blog, The Comics Detective, has an excellent article and biography of Stoner. You can read it here.

"Phantasmo" was a strip drawn by Stoner. Phantasmo, secret identity of Phil Anson, was trained by Tibetan monks (like several other super-characters of the era, keeping those monks busy). He could release his astral projection, making it extremely big (size varied between panels), and despite being transparent and a projection, it could also lift heavy objects like ocean liners and subway trains.

Large Feature Comic was an early Dell series, reprinting comic strip adventures of Dick Tracy, Popeye, among others, in black line. In #18, published in 1941, it reprinted several of the early Phantasmo strips, including the origin, from The Funnies. Dell never seemed really comfortable with super heroes, and while Phantasmo was around for a couple of years, it was dropped in favor of funny animals. Dell sold millions of comic books without using traditional superheroes.

I have some opinions of Stoner's art on Phantasmo. He used a heavy ink line, all the better for reproduction in those days of quick-and-dirty comic book printing. He drew well-composed, meticulously detailed panels. (There's a jarring sequence of two panels on the top of page 11, with skinny ink lines in panel one, and a misshapen, out-of-proportion head in panel two that I'm sure isn't by Stoner.) In many panels Phantasmo and his young friend, Whizzer McGee, have somewhat goofy smiles even in times of peril. Since I'm Pappy and my mind sometimes needs lifting out of the gutter, I can't help myself. I must mention the phallic look to the cover: the character's hands on the gun barrels, his smiling face as they are going off. I'm sure no one planned that...it's just my dirty mind conjuring up things that aren't there, surely. "Sometimes a gun barrel is just a gun barrel," to paraphrase Dr. Freud. Uh...yeah, sure, Sigmund.

More about →