Number 1428: The UFO Spirit

Orson Welles, the enfant terrible of theater, radio and the movies of his day, gets the Will Eisner treatment as “Awsum Bells” in this tale from the September 28, 1947 Spirit Section. I have scanned it from the blackline-and-graytone reprint in Warren’s The Spirit #2 (1974).

The update paragraph on the last page was new for the reprint version. The scripter (credited as Eisner by the Grand Comics Database) had been paying attention to the news stories that began appearing in June, 1947 about mysterious “flying disks” buzzing around in U.S. airspace.

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Review: Ravagers Vol. 1: Kids from NOWHERE trade paperback (DC Comics)

The idea of teaming Superboy, the Titans's Beast Boy, Terra, Thunder, and Lightning, and Gen13's Caitlyn Fairchild, and pitting them against Ravager Rose Wilson, WildCATs's Warblade, and some well-known Titans villains, sounds pretty interesting (similar to Keith Giffen's DC/Wildstorm: Dreamwar). As a long-time fan of a lot of these characters, the appeal of Howard Mackie's Ravagers Vol. 1: The Kids from NOWHERE is largely in just seeing them together. Ian Churchill's 1990s inspired art isn't right for every title, but it's certainly right for this one.

But whereas I have no great complaints about the story Mackie tells here, neither do I think it coalesces necessarily (and Ravagers is cancelled after its next volume). To some extent, for better or worse, Mackie just isn't writing for a collection; also I think Mackie relies too much on the characters' familiar histories despite that these iterations are "brand new."

[Review contains spoilers]

Ravagers is largely a book about super-powered teenagers trying to escape the nefarious NOWHERE organization; also Teen Titans has been, for most of its first year, about teen heroes fighting NOWHERE. This makes it somewhat difficult to differentiate Ravagers and Teen Titans, probably especially for an audience only casually interested in a spin-off title as DC's "Young Justice" line of titles has slowly shrunk. Ostensibly, I believe Ravagers is supposed to be like Outsiders to Teen Titans's, well, Teen Titans -- the "tougher" teen title. Whether that was adequately conveyed to the audience (and whether said audience necessarily cares) is another matter entirely.

Mackie does well here with the dynamic of Caitlyn Fairchild as the voice of reason, leading a team of five other essentially traumatized teenagers, who may long for peace one moment and enter a murderous rage the next. The Ravagers are unpredictable, they are "edgy" in this sense, and watching Fairchild try to wrangle this team of damaged heroes is enjoyable. The monstrous Ridge is the book's breakout star, not in the least for his remarkable appearance (though his on-again, off-again British accent is strange); the scene where Ridge and company are at a loss at how to spend free time on Venice Beach is priceless.

The book's other two best moments are when the team goes up against long-time Titans villain (old universe) Brother Blood, and when they reach Fairchild's safe-house and meet a young Niles Caulder. Arguably this is stunt casting, favoring cameos over story (Brother Blood's relation to Beast Boy is never quite clear, and Caulder is almost unrecognizable from his Doom Patrol counterpart), these two figures help contextualize the title -- the team is kind of like the Titans, because they fight guys like Brother Blood, but they're oddities and hang out with Niles Caulder, so in a way they're the first iteration of the New 52's Doom Patrol.

Unfortunately, the premise of Ravagers is built on the idea that these characters don't really know themselves, and I think it hurts the book. Neither Beast Boy nor the reader know where he came from or how he received his powers, for example, nor does Mackie offer much insight by the end of the book, and makes it hard to get behind Beast Boy as a character aside from our historical attachment to him. That Beast Boy and Terra are together in this comic should be a big deal, but we never truly understand whether their relationship is romantic (and how romantic it is), nor how they got together or what they like about one another. There's good conflict in this book, and plenty of characters, but not much character itself.

Given that this is a collection of single issues, I can't fault it too much for the fact that Mackie treats each issue as a starting point, with Fairchild relating how dangerous the Ravagers are and the team's dire straits. It does, however, get repetitive, and slows the book's action, and it's space that could be used to flesh out the characters and isn't.

Ian Churchill's art felt nicely restrained to me in this book -- there are still plenty of open mouths and clenched teeth in his pages, but not as much, I would argue, as in books' past. I do wonder if part of this book's passing could be attributed to readers just not giving it a chance -- prejudging it as being too 1990s with Mackie and Churchill, despite that some of the '90s greater excesses (outlandish costumes, extreme villains) aren't present here. Ravagers mostly feels like it stumbles when guest artists step in, breaking the book's flow -- Tom Raney's work isn't so different than Churchill's, but it's inked too dark in the third issue; one of the three artists in the last issue uses a painterly style that clashes completely with what came before.

Writers have reputations, but in the case of Howard Mackie (and also Scott Lobdell), the New 52 was the first of their books I'd read. In Ravagers: Kids from NOWHERE, Mackie does nothing to turn me away necessarily -- it's a cogent story, if perhaps lacking a bit of "oomph." DC Comics has struggled for a while, I think, to find themselves a title like Marvel's Runaways or Young Avengers, and they still haven't found it yet. Ravagers shows the intention, but it doesn't quite reach the goal.

[Includes original and variant covers; sketches and pages by Ian Churchill and Jim Lee]

Next week ... Matt Kindt's Mind MGMT and Green Lantern: Rise of the Third Army. Don't miss it!

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Review: Transformers: Dark Prelude trade paperback (IDW Publishing)

[Review by Doug Glassman, who Tumblrs at Hell Yeah '80s Marvel!]

This trade requires a little bit of toy-collecting knowledge.

Bundling comics with toys is not a new concept; Masters of the Universe toys came with full-length comics years before the cartoon began, while both Toy Biz and Hasbro have sold Marvel toys with reprints. However, Transformers toys have traditionally been connected more to the animated series than the comics.

The few mini-comics which have come with the Transformers toys were mediocre at best and cringingly bad at worst, such as the infamous Armada “JaAm” comic. Hasbro is stepping up the toy/comic connection with the current run of Transformers: Spotlight. The first six issues of this new initiative are collected in the Transformers: Dark Prelude trade.

Thankfully, Hasbro and IDW haven’t skimped on quality for these toy pack-ins. Three stories are written by More Than Meets the Eye’s James Roberts, two are by Robots in Disguise’s John Barber, and the last is written and drawn by Nick Roche, Roberts’s Last Stand of the Wreckers collaborator. This keeps everything strictly aligned with the IDW continuity, and indeed, the Spotlights are used to fill in some narrative gaps. The artists have all worked on Transformers comics before, and the biggest addition is Steve Kurth, a well-known Marvel artist. Kurth’s presence and Phil Jimenez drawing the upcoming Dark Cybertron crossover demonstrate that IDW is getting a knack for securing some of the big names as other publishers alienate them.

Roberts and Kurth begin the trade with Spotlight: Orion Pax and featuring a very young Orion Pax -- later Optimus Prime -- before the Great War begins. Many facets of the Transformers franchise keep trying to portray Optimus as more down-to-earth, but Roberts and Barber frame him as the IDW-verse’s Superman. Both his physical feats and his leadership are legendary, as seen in this tale where he, Nightbeat, and Alpha Trion are sent to a dangerous and stormy portion of Cybertron to exchange two defectors for Ratchet. While Alpha Trion was Optimus’ primary advisor in the cartoon, he hasn’t done too much in the IDW universe, but here he gets a great portrayal as a sage who can still take part in a fight.

Three of the first four Spotlights—Orion Pax, Thundercracker, and Bumblebee—tell a loosely-connected story about the hunt for Metroplex, one of the great Titans and the possessor of a space bridge which can provide instantaneous transit through the universe. This is a continuation of story points from Robots in Disguise, and as the “Dark Prelude” trade title implies, this hunt has strong implications for “Dark Cybertron.” Thundercracker’s story takes place after Orion Pax’s but before the war as he works with a group of Metroplex hunters. Amongst these hunters, oddly enough, is the new Generation 1 version of the Beast Wars character Waspinator. Other Beast Wars characters have been incorporated into this universe since, and Waspinator lives up to his old role by getting blown up. At the end, Thundercracker establishes his persona as one of the more sane Decepticons by keeping information from his boss, the wicked Bludgeon.

The Bumblebee story takes place in the later parts of the old ongoing series as he struggles with leading the Autobots after Optimus leaves for Earth. John Barber uses this opportunity to give Bumblebee some characterization as he gets into a brutal fight with the wild Stunticons. It sets up a lot of the interplay between Bumblebee and Prowl from Robots in Disguise, even if there’s a bit too much monologuing. Sandwiched between the Thundercracker and Bumblebee issues is Spotlight: Megatron by Nick Roche. While it doesn’t add to the Metroplex plot, it does work to link how the Decepticons rose from their defeat in the ongoing and got into their current position. Roche also gives Megatron and Starscream an opportunity to sort out their differences with a dogfight now that Megatron has a new stealth bomber alt-mode (and incidentally, the third-best of the new molds).

While the previous four issues are connected more to Robots in Disguise, the final two are firmly part of the More Than Meets The Eye continuity. They take place simultaneously in a gap between issues #5 and #6, with Spotlight: Trailcutter set entirely aboard the Lost Light starship. Trailcutter used to be known as Trailbreaker, but Hasbro lost the rights to use that name for toys. This is hardly a unique experience; Hasbro lost the name “Shockwave” for years, resulting in characters named “Shockblast” until they got the name back. This is, however, one of the rare times that such a name change gets explained in the story, as Trailbreaker upgrades his name and confidence under his new life coach ... Whirl.

If you’ve read MTMTE or my reviews of it, you’ll know that Whirl is totally insane, and having him act as Trailcutter’s new mentor is one of the funniest things I’ve read all year. There’s all sorts of great funny bits, such as Trailcutter’s “forcefield face” -- the scrunched-up face he makes while using his powers -- and Rodimus’s penchant for giving away elaborate awards with his face on it. A new squad of Metroplex hunters led by Transformers Animated transplant Lockdown ties this in a bit to the other books, but it mostly gives Trailcutter an opportunity to show off. The Hoist issue, meanwhile, sees him stuck on a planet full of nightmares with a damaged crew. Hoist isn’t the most interesting of characters; the focus is more on Swerve and Sunstreaker. The best part is how it ties into Spotlight: Orion Pax and how it ends with Pax crashing into a shuttle while tied to a rocket.

I can’t call Transformers: Dark Prelude essential unless you’re reading RID and MTMTE, but Hasbro and IDW have at least assembled a quality product. The toys may technically be marketed towards adult collectors, but they’re perfectly suitable for kids, working as a response to those who only think that adults buy comics anymore.

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Number 1427: Zoro and the Devil’s Dagger

In the wake of the initial comic book boom of the late thirties-early forties, comics, at 68 pages, all in color for a dime, were in constant need of talent and characters to fill those pages. If ideas and concepts from more successful comics were borrowed, well, that’s the comic book biz. There were so many characters spread across the industry they were popping up like weeds in my lawn. I wouldn’t want to try to count them.

Anyway, as promised on Monday, here are two more stories from 1941, this time from Fawcett’s Master Comics #12. I was not familiar with these characters at all, and apparently they didn’t set the comic book world on fire. But, so what? I like them well enough to show them here. “Devil’s Dagger” is drawn by journeyman comic artist Ken Battefield (NOT “Battlefield,” which is the way I often see his name misspelled). I know next to nothing about Battefield, because there isn’t much information available online. The other story is “Zoro the Mystery Man” (not “Zorro”), drawn by the great Mac Raboy. Raboy was an excellent illustrator, who did early work on Captain Marvel Jr. He also did fine work on Green Lama. Raboy went from comic books to the Flash Gordon Sunday comic strip in 1946, which he drew until his death at the young age of 53 in 1967.

Master Comics was a pretty good anthology comic. At some point I’ll be mining this issue for more stories.

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Review: Star Wars Vol. 1: In the Shadow of Yavin trade paperback (Dark Horse Comics)

I've reviewed Star Wars books from a couple of different eras lately, but to be sure the one I've really been looking forward to is Brian Wood's Star Wars Vol. 1: In the Shadow of Yavin. This triumphant new series from Dark Horse sets itself right after the events of Episode IV: A New Hope, arguably the only time a "classic" Star Wars story can be set and still give the writer access to most of the main characters (after Empire Strikes Back, you can't use Han Solo; after Return of the Jedi, Vader is vanquished, etc.).

And indeed Wood fills this book with old favorites -- Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, Han Solo, Chewbacca, Darth Vader, Wedge Antilles, and others. This is Star Wars, with no offense intended to Dawn of the Jedi or Lost Tribe of the Sith, that I can really get behind.

Perhaps it's because of my high expectations that, though I enjoyed Shadow of Yavin (and some parts, quite a bit), in total I didn't like it as much as I thought I would. Wood does an admirable job taking characters who must inevitably reach their character marks in Empire and giving them believable conflicts within the story. At the same time, maybe because of those conflicts, I found the characters didn't seem quite as familiar to me as I expected.

[Review contains spoilers]

Certainly one of Wood's triumphs here is to make this, first and foremost, Princess Leia's story. Leia is a model for a strong female science-fiction character, though I think at times her leadership and military prowess are considered only second after the "slave Leia" incident. Wood has Leia flying X-wings and shooting Imperial soldiers at point-blank range from the beginning, and later she leads a Rebel black ops group answerable only to herself. If at times in the movies Leia seems a football punted between Luke and Han, here Wood succeeds in making her her own person.

At the same time, I could not necessarily "hear" Carrie Fisher speaking the dialogue Wood gives to Leia as well as I could hear some of the other characters. Chalk this up, if you like, to my own failure of imagination, but I think it's also because we don't hear Leia having all that many basic conversations in the movies. Arguing defiantly with Vader, yes, and growling at Han, sure, but never the copious amount of dialogue that Wood puts in Leia's mouth here. I can accept the character that Carlos D'anda draws on the page here as like Leia, and certainly I enjoyed what Wood did with the character, but she didn't ring true to my estimation of Leia herself (I'd also say that while D'anda does a superlative job with the book's art overall, I didn't think his depiction of Leia was as recognizable as some other characters, either).

I'd make the same argument about Wood's Luke Skywalker, who "acts up" at one point in this book, in a way I equally didn't recognize as being true to Luke. Wood's Han Solo, Darth Vader, Mon Mothma, and the interaction between C-3PO and R2-D2 all worked better for me.

I recognize some of these "out of character" moments, if that's what they are, as necessary for the story Wood appropriately needs to tell. There are a number of character beats that Star Wars glosses over for expediency, not the least is Leia dealing with the annihilation of her entire planet and Luke transitioning from farm boy to Rebel pilot. Wood takes up each of these threads here, and if they seem out of character, likely it's because Wood has to stretch the material to tell the stories that are logically there, but that the movies didn't offer the basis for.

The most fascinating of these "glosses" that Wood appears to tackle is that of how and when Darth Vader understood that Luke and Leia were his children and that his wife Padme hadn't died before giving birth as the Emperor had told him. Wood hasn't revealed his whole hand yet, but there's a couple of quiet scenes in which Vader mulls over the word "Skywalker," which are quite intriguing. It's possible Anakin's personality has been so subsumed by his Vader identity that he's forgotten that he himself is a Skywalker, and having heard Luke's name is now bringing it all back. I feel Vader's other storyline, in which he's shown up before the Emperor by a subordinate, has been written before, but I remain interested to see where Wood goes with Vader's realizations about his family and himself.

Trade readers are in for a particular treat with this one. Alex Ross's cover looks like a Star Wars movie poster (has Ross ever illustrated an entire Star Wars comic, anyone?), and the credits and scene-setting Star Wars-esque text page are both done in the "Star Wars yellow," such that you play the John Williams music in your head and convince yourself you're sitting in a theater. The book is not written for the trade, with numerous recaps of the current action and a few too many narration boxes for my tastes, but overall -- as is often the case with Dark Horse's Star Wars books -- this is a nicely packaged collection.

Also included is the Free Comic Book Day "Assassination of Lord Vader" story. I appreciate its inclusion (DC has been hit and miss with collecting Free Comic Book Day stories), and it's appropriate given that it was written by Wood, but the story takes place before Episode IV, and as such, the trade goes backward at the end of all the forward action. It's a fine (if minor) story, but a little disconcerting reading-wise.

Alongside Smallville Season Eleven and X-Files Season Ten, Brian Wood's new Star Wars comic is a book that feels nicely authentic for fans of the original materials. I didn't think Star Wars: In the Shadow of Yavin hit all its marks, but certainly it's a nice addition to the Star Wars canon, and I wouldn't hesitate to pick up the next volume.

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Number 1426: Firebrand and the Brick Batman

It appears that the Firebrand, who appeared on the covers of the first four issues of Quality’s Police Comics, was intended to be the star of the comic. The feature was drawn by Reed Crandall, in a style obviously inspired by Lou Fine. Crandall’s figures stiffened up in his later years, looking something like statuary rather than the fluid, action-packed poses of the Firebrand. The Firebrand’s costume looks like something between a circus performer and ballet dancer, and maybe it's the see-through tunic, or a panel on page nine of Firebrand running — which looks like Nureyev leaping — that make me think that way,

711, who is a prison trusty, apparently has his own in-and-out door, unbeknownst to the warden (who seems a little too palsy-walsy with him). It’s drawn by comics veteran George Brenner. The story features a character in a Batman cowl. I don’t know how else to describe it. It reminds me of the “bad Batman” story we showed a few months ago, which you can go to by clicking on the thumbnail:

This issue, Police Comics #5 (1941) is the first issue with Plastic Man on the cover, and he kept that spot for the rest of his time in Police.

Wednesday, two more stories from 1941, this time from Fawcett.

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Number 1425: The further adventures of Terry and the Pirates

Harvey Comics’ Terry and the Pirates #4 (1947) continues the breathless adventure saga I showed last month from Terry #3:

You can read part 1 first by clicking the cover:

Prisoners of a warlord! Pat tortured, and about to be married off against his will! Connie and Terry in drag! All just part of the fun from the grandmaster of adventure strips, Milton Caniff.

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