Number 1272: Face the Face

This is the fourth and final posting of our early superheroes week. I enjoy these theme weeks and will do another one soon.

Like Batman, Mart Bailey's “Face” was introduced to readers of Big Shot Comics #1 (1940) without a proper origin story. He just appeared already in action as a do-gooder, in this case going after a grafting politician. Of all the things a criminal can do, this one fed poisoned turkey to orphan children!

The Face appeared in Big Shot through issue #62 with his fright mask, then went back to his civilian identity as Tony Trent through the end of the Big Shot run, issue #104 in 1949. He even had a couple of solo issues of The Face and two of Tony Trent. Early on his success might've been a surprise for the publisher, because the feature's name doesn't appear on the cover of the first issue.

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Review: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Vol. 1 graphic novel (Vertigo/DC Comics)

This review of volume one of Vertigo's two-volume adaptation of Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo will be unlike most others because I have not read any of the books nor seen any of the movies. The most of my experience prior to this graphic novel was a movie trailer and a couple of back-cover summaries. As such, I was able to approach the graphic novel by Denise Mina as if it were the book itself -- to consider how it functions as a story on its own, not how well or poorly it lives up to the original or other adaptations.

The first volume of Girl with the Dragon Tattoo takes a risky tack in that it ends before the two principle characters, journalist Mikael Blomkvist and hacker Lisbeth Salander, ever meet one another. Breaking books into two entities is in fashion these days -- see the final two Harry Potter movies, the final two Twilight movies, or the apparent three upcoming Hobbit movies -- but one is lead to expect a relatively complete experience from each. The first volume of Girl has a full arc, but the book's overarching mystery barely gets under way.

Volume one is essentially just an introduction to the characters, and readers -- especially those readers more used to prose than graphic novels -- may be surprised by this book's lack of forward action. If these books do well, there's precedence for Vertigo/DC Comics to combine two parts of a story into one "deluxe" or "omnibus" volume, and readers might be advised to wait for that.

Salander is by far the front-most character in this volume (hard to say how this matches with the book -- Salander is the titular "girl," but at the same time I imagine the movie wouldn't have cast Daniel Craig as Blomkvist to just stand around). Mina succeeds right away in convincing the audience both of Salander's intellect and awkwardness, in her introductory scene where Salander is brusque with a client. Artists Leonardo Manco and Andrea Mutti depict Salander growing increasingly annoyed as she struggles to understand an inference that she should investigate the Wennerstrom company further; when she finally understands, Salander's glare along with Mina's well placed "[you] could have just said that" make the character clear in just a scant few pages.

Though this is a strong moment of clarity, the book more often errs toward too much subtlety. Blomkvist comes off as an unbelievable Lothario, with women simply falling into bed with him (two panels of Blomkvist in two parts of the book waking up with two different women are so similar as to seem an unintended parody). Cecilia, whom Blomkvist meets in his investigation of the Vanger family, is meant to be awkward in the style of Salanger, but her ovature to Blomkvist arrives with too little build-up, as if Mina trusts the reader can hear a tone in the characters voices that doesn't come through. Similarly when Blomkvist fights with Cecilia toward the end of the book, it's entirely unclear that Cecilia is angry until Blomkvist says aloud, mid-scene, "You seem kind of pissed off."

Similarly, there's an entire subplot in which Salander ventures out to hack something, but her location and what she photographs and what she does with her computer aren't clear in these mostly-silent scenes. Possibly this is something Mina and Larsson reveal in the second half of the book, but for the moment they're pages that audience looks at, acknowledges, but can't feel much emotion for because we're given little context for them. Manco and Mutti don't always differentiate the characters well, either (Blomkvist and Martin Vanger look too similar, for instance), necessitating second and third reads of some pages, and the final splash page in which Salader imagines various of the characters surrounded by fire falls flat as the reader tries to discern exactly who she's thinking of.

Though this may be a too-easy accusation to make in reviewing an adaptation, in each of these examples it seems the creative team has too great an expectation that the audience has read Larsson's novels or seen the movies beforehand, such to intuit details the creative team doesn't make clear themselves.

Especially given that Girl Volume 1 feels abbreviated, pages without significant resonance come off as wasted space. This is true of the hacking scene and before it, when Mina gives too much space to Salander sneaking into a building. Early in the book, Mina uses an entire panel of a three-panel page simply for an acquaintance to call to Blomkvist from across a dock; on the next four-panel page, Mina uses one panel for the two to say hello to each another, and another just for the acquaintance to remark on running in to Blomkvist. The pacing does not remain a problem throughout, but intermittently, as in scenes within the Millenium magazine offices, conversations unfold with one character speaking one line of dialogue per panel, suggesting again room where more content could have been added.

Still, Girl reads swiftly both in its emptier and fuller moments, borne largely by the strength of the book's mystery. Manco and Mutti depict well the wide expanses of Hedeby Island where the Vangers live, and the disappearance of Harriet Vanger unfolds vividly in flashback. Here, Girl evokes Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None with the Vanger family potentially trapped on the island with Hariett's killer. The panic they're meant to have felt is palpable, especially when Blomkvist interviews the policeman Morell. Mina and Larsson succeeded in drawing me in, even if the payoff won't come until volume two.


The Vanger story reads like a sub-plot, however, to Salander's struggle first to make herself understood, and then when she's raped by and takes revenge on her state guardian Nils Bjurman. Mina and the artists use the sequential art form well here, purposefully echoing the panels of Bjurman's attack in Salander's own violence later on. (The cover of this volume by Lee Bermejo, on the other hand, seems both inappropriate and out of touch with the characters given the contents of this book). My only concern is that by making this the focus of volume one, with both a crisis and resolution, the book would seem to suggest that Salander's trouble is over -- that in brutalizing Bjurman, Salander has put his assault behind her. But these moments are too savage to be relevant in just this one volume -- to be "introductory," as much of this book is. Hopefully Mina recognizes this also, and there's sufficient emotional "flow" through the rest of the volumes, despite their rather forced episodic nature.

Ultimately, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Vol. 1 emerges as mostly just an appetizer -- not just for the prose book, as might be proper, but for itself, for its second volume and the other books in the series. Maybe this first, less-polished volume will lead to stronger editions later on; it's an interesting read but far too slight, and would not itself be enough to launch a series without the weight of the books and movies behind it.

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Review: Transformers: Robots in Disguise Volume 1 trade paperback (IDW Publishing)

[The second of Doug Glassman's special two-part "Trans-giving" Transformers reviews!]

There’s nothing simple when it comes to Transformers. For example, Robots in Disguise is not only a recent Transformers series from IDW, it's also the name of two different toy lines a decade apart. Like its companion IDW title, More Than Meets The Eye, the book’s name is derived from the franchise’s famous theme song. In the chaos at the end of IDW’s Transformers ongoing series, these two books take on an interesting concept: the war with the Decepticons is over, the Autobots have won in only the loosest sense, and it’s time for the giant robots to move on. What’s really impressive is how different the two titles are. While More Than Meets The Eye is a humor-filled action romp, Robots in Disguise is a political thriller.

John Barber is a rising star in the world of Transformers, made famous by his incredible ability to pull diverse threads together into one universe. Using nearly hundreds of stories from dozens of publications by two different publishers, he created a movie universe that actually makes sense. Compared to James Roberts, the writer of Last Stand of the Wreckers and More Than Meets The Eye, Barber is more interested in treating the characters as complex people. These are soldiers without a war, and that’s always a tense situation. It boils down to a triumvirate of Bumblebee, Starscream, and Metalhawk to lead the unified Transformers.

The first two in the triumvirate are indicative of the book’s casting. Where More Than Meets The Eye involves more obscure characters and toys raised from obscurity, Robots in Disguise stars the classic characters. The four covers for issue one bear this out, featuring the primary Autobot cast of Bumblebee, Wheeljack, Ironhide and Prowl. Bumblebee has lead the Autobots for quite some time now, and he’s still getting used to it, although he’s not as self-doubting or self-loathing as Rodimus Prime. Wheeljack is still quick on his feet, but it seems like his expertise is needed in twenty places at once in the crumbling “city.” Ironhide was recently resurrected and has taken solace in the wastes of Cybertron, which are now alive and trying to kill anyone who passes by.

Prowl immediately takes over the book by force of will. If you’ve ever watched the show or read the comic, you probably know that he’s the most serious of the Autobots. Well, now he’s actually in charge of more than twenty people, and his control issues have spiraled out of control. Opposing Prowl, and yet working with him all the same, is Starscream. With Optimus Prime and Megatron out of the picture, their two long-time second-in-commands have a very different working relationship. For instance, Starscream wins Prowl's trust in the face of a pending revolt by ... actually telling the truth. Even Starscream is shocked when this happens. They’re forced together by the rough living situation, which is not helped by a new, third "faction," the NAILS.

The NAILs -- Non-Aligned Indigenous Lifeforms -- are actually Cybertronians who never chose between the Autobots and Decepticons. This isn’t an entirely new concept for the franchise, but it’s the first time that it’s been done well, with both the Autobots and Decepticons coming off badly in comparison. In fact, NAIL is a slur used by both sides. Their leader is Metalhawk, formerly a Japanese-original character from Masterforce, and there’s something a little sinister about him. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from reading comics, it’s that no peaceful third faction is ever really peaceful. It makes me want to see what develops.

The Decepticons, who usually just get block characterizations as killers and schemers, are very well developed in Robots in Disguise. They’re stuck in a bad position: they have been given explosive identification chips which prevent them from transforming and will blow up their heads if they misbehave ... in theory [potential for a Transformers Suicide Squad? -- ed]. Whether these chips actually do their jobs is a main plot point, and it makes the Decepticons feel like an underclass. Of the Decepticons, perhaps the most pitiful is Dirge. He’s long been the franchise’s chew toy, dying horribly in most iterations, and he just barely makes it out alive here.

Perhaps the book’s greatest strength is that you don’t have to read what’s come before it. There are references to the previous ongoing series, but they’re mostly asides or explained in the text. However, some of the elements might confuse non-fans. For instance, when the Decepticons first appear, they’re led by Ratbat, one of Soundwave’s cassettes. Long-time readers will immediately accept this, as Ratbat has been a Decepticon leader since the 1980s and is actually a senator in a weak body. However, this isn’t explained until issue two, so new readers might not get why they’re following a bat. Similarly, when Arcee first appears, a new reader will think “Cool, I remember her from the movie,” but an IDW fan will think “Someone is going to die horribly,” as IDW’s Arcee is homicidally insane. Even Wheelie gets an oblique shout-out.

Both Transformers books have expansive casts, and artist Andrew Griffith covers their designs well. Some of the alternate modes are based off of action figures or video game models; this is especially apparent for Bumblebee, Starscream and Blurr. Griffith avoids the ever-present Transformers trap of “dull surprise”; although Prowl is always scowling, that’s just in-character for him. There are also some neat art Easter eggs. In a shot of the Aerialbots, for instance, Air Raid is shown with a form resembling a stealth fighter -- the form he took on in Generation 2. It can’t be a coincidence that Horri-Bull, a Headmaster, gets his head blown off.

Many comic book companies try to promote books as “a fresh new start,” and Robots in Disguise actually pulls it off. John Barber uses familiar characters in a new kind of story with lots of implications for the future. It even ends with one of the most famous Transformers phrases, but I’ll let you discover that when you read it.

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Number 1271: Eye in the sky

The introduction of the Eye, by Frank Thomas, is our third posting of four in our early superhero/costumed characters comics week. It's the earliest story, having appeared in Keen Detective Funnies Volume 2 Number 4 (whole number 16), published by Centaur in 1939.

Despite inclusion in our theme week, the Eye doesn't really count as a costumed hero, although he could be said to be super. That is, if working miracles is a super power. So what was the Eye? No one knew, because he was never explained. I assume, as do some other comic historians, that the Eye was some sort of comic book version of God. He appeared for a year, until Keen Detective ceased publishing. He appeared in two issues of his own comic, then went wherever old comic book characters, including comic book gods, go.

Thomas did features like “The Owl” and “Billy and Bonny Bee.” He was a talented cartoonist and writer. I've featured him before, the post before this being this past February: Pappy's #1105.

Tomorrow, the Face.

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Review: Green Lantern Corps Vol. 1: Fearsome hardcover/paperback (DC Comics)

Peter Tomasi's Green Lantern Corps has been a fan-favorite, taking a once-esoteric 1980s series and turning it into a high-octane space cop drama; just before Blackest Night, Tomasi and artist Patrick Gleason's Green Lantern Corps: Sins of the Star Sapphire and Emerald Eclipse were even better than Geoff Johns's main Green Lantern series.

Prior to the DC New 52 reboot, however, DC Comics moved Tomasi, with artist Fernando Pasari, to the short-lived spin-off Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors. This book was passable, better than the subsequent Green Lantern Corps stories by Tony Bedard, but despite the emotional drama and stunning space-violence (something Tomasi and Gleason did well), Warriors lacked the verve of the former Tomasi/Gleason team. It didn't help that the truncated storyline was mostly in service to Johns's next line-wide Green Lantern crossover.

In the New 52, Tomasi and Gleason now pair on Batman and Robin, the first volume of which indeed offered their trademark drama and well-used violence. But as good as it is to have Tomasi back on Corps with Green Lantern Corps: Fearsome, he and Pasarin just don't achieve the level that he and Gleason did. In part, Pasarin just does not seem the right artist for a cosmic book, and Tomasi's has too much in common with Green Lantern stories previous to feel fresh or new. DC should be implored to reunite Tomasi and Gleason on this title right away.

[Review contains spoilers]

Fearsome follows what has become an overdone formula for Green Lantern stories at this point -- a race of aliens begins attacking Green Lanterns because of former mistreatment by the Guardians of the Universe, unrevealed until now. Not only did readers just see the same with both Atrocitus and Krona, but it begins to feel like too-detailed continuity-picking. It's hard to believe anyone ever really asked why the Corpsmen used to be able to hide their lanterns in a pocket dimension and now they can't, but Tomasi builds a whole story out of it. Stronger would be something that actually explores the Green Lantern sectors or challenges their powers in interesting ways, not a story that continues to iron out the minutia of the Green Lantern mythos.

The book introduces a number of new Green Lanterns in this volume, the most interesting of which (if obviously-named) is Porter, a Lantern with innate teleporting abilities. Porter distinguishes himself immediately, ignoring a direct order and teleporting with a too-large group of Lanterns to try to aid the embattled Guy Gardner and John Stewart. Unfortunately, when Porter teleports back with an even-larger group, he promptly dies. It's too bad, because Tomasi's other new Lanterns are less notable, including a Lantern named "Sheriff" -- though to what extent she's actually a sheriff is never discussed -- and a group of hardened Lanterns called the "Mean Machine" who're never actually presented, except by reputation, as any different from the other Lanterns on the mission.

Tomasi, again, has a reputation for using violence well in his stories and not gratuitously. When the evil Keepers graphically murder a Lantern, or when Guy Gardner tortures a Keeper for information and ultimately sacrifices two members of the Sinestro Corps to stop the Keepers, the reader understands this happens in an effort to show the cost of the battles the Lanterns fight.

However, the book's emotional climax, when John Stewart kills a fellow Lantern rather than let the Lantern reveal Guardian secrets under torture, falls short. Just before the New 52 reboot, in the War of the Green Lanterns crossover, Stewart killed the planet Lantern Mogo while Mogo was mind-controlled; Mogo was often considered the "heart" of the Green Lantern Corps, and so much guilt and handwringing ensued, to the point where some Lanterns even attacked Stewart over his actions. For Stewart to kill Kirrt in just Stewart's next major adventure comes off as almost absurd (on top of that Stewart destroyed another planet and all its residents in his youth); John Stewart ought become the guy no one wants to be marooned on a mission with.

Tomasi ends the book with a meant-to-be emotional story in which Stewart returns Kirrt's body to his family and lies about Kirrt's death. The issue comes off as melodramatic, however; Stewart has to help Kirrt's brother accept Kirrt's death, when the audience already understands it and has moved on. Tomasi makes an interesting parallel between Stewart's guilt versus Gardner's blitheness over killing the Sinestro Corpsmen, but the audience has seen enough of John Stewart beating himself up. It would be better to see Stewart stand by his actions than continue to be such a woe-is-me, angst-ridden character.

Tellingly, perhaps the best part of Fearsome is the deus ex machina appearance of Stormwatch's Martian Manhunter, who tells Gardner all about the Keepers and points him toward stopping them. In Green Lantern Corps's first New 52 outing, it's surprising to see the Manhunter be the one who essentially saves the day. It equally stretches already-well-stretched believability that the Stormwatch group takes an interest in Green Lantern affairs or that Martian Manhunter has the ability to circumvent the Guardian protections of Oa (the very thing the Keepers try to do).

Still, Manhunter has an excellent New 52 design, and his unexpected presence -- over two issues -- livens up this rote story. Fans of the "old" DC Universe will also note this as the first New 52 meeting of both a considerably more serious Gardner and Manhunter, a far cry from the "bwa-ha-ha" days of Keith Giffen and J. M. DeMatteis's Justice League International. Pasarin draws the Manhunter well, suggesting Pasarin would be better off on a title with more humanoid forms like Stormwatch; Pasarin draws sufficient alien forms for some of the Lanterns, but his straight lines lack Green Lantern artist Doug Mahnke's weird distortion or Patrick Gleason's more rounded alien whimsy.

Fans of earlier Corps volumes may therefore want to look to Batman and Robin to find what they formerly enjoyed, and not to Green Lantern Corps: Fearsome. For the most part since Blackest Night, the Green Lantern franchise hasn't had that "can't miss" ethos they had before; there's a new crossover a'coming (even two, it seems), but given that War of the Green Lanterns failed to impress, it's hard to be optimistic that the best is yet to come.

[Includes original covers; no additional extras]

New reviews, coming up!

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Number 1270: The Captain America copycat

This is day two of our theme week: early costumed heroes of the comic books. We're wrapping up November with some real vintage stuff.

Compared to yesterday's posting with its elegant and excellent Joe Doolin art, we have today a tale told with artwork that is mostly amateurish. The Grand Comics Database doesn't know who did the artwork, nor do I. The character is another in a whole platoon of red, white and blue patriotic costumed heroes. He's also close to one of the most famous patriotic heroes of all, as the index at the GCD notes:

“There are noticable themes here - the patriotism, the Army private who is secretly a superhero, the kid sidekick, the chemistry-related origin, the murder attempts on Army generals — that parallel Captain America.”

Not only did Lone Warrior have a kid sidekick like Captain America's Bucky, the kid's name is Dicky. As I've mentioned before, originality was not a big priority in comic books. An editor or publisher of Banner Comics probably hollered out, “Give me someone exactly like Captain America — only different!” No publisher could have failed to notice the sales figures for that character. Unlike Captain America, though, who is still kicking ass after 71 years, Lone Warrior lasted a scant four issues. Perhaps Martin Goodman, who published Captain America Comics, noticed Lone Warrior, which is why Lone Warrior had such a short career.

From Banner Comics #3, 1941:

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Number 1269: “Nuts to you, Super-Brain!”

This posting begins another theme week, specifically costumed heroes of the early days of comics. It was brought to mind by seeing the name of old friend Raymond Miller pop up on Wikipedia. The article quoted Ray on Fiction House comics. Ray and I corresponded for a time in the sixties, when we traded some comics. Ray wrote me then that he considered the comics up to 1943 to be the best comic books. Ray, born in 1931, would have been about eleven or twelve-years-old in 1943, and, as someone once observed when asked the question, “So when was the Golden Age?” shot back the answer, “Twelve.”

There is truth in that, and I'm a good example.

First up in our theme week is Rangers of Freedom #2, a Fiction House comic from 1941. A couple of months ago in Pappy's #1248 I showed you the lead story from issue #1, which told us that a group of young boys were chosen to lead the fight against America's enemies. Now doesn't that sound like a twelve-year-old's fantasy? The Rangers of Freedom didn't last long, only seven issues. The lead feature was dumped and the comic became just Rangers Comics. Yes, the story is silly. Something that isn't silly is the beautiful artwork by Joe Doolin, another fantastic Fiction House artist.

Come back tomorrow for our second entry, a Captain America copycat, Lone Warrior.

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