A Grand Entrance Would Not Go Amiss: Serenity: Leaves on The Wind #1 Review

If you are a geek in the 21st Century, it is almost a prerequisite to be a fan of Firefly. The only question is when and how you got involved in the show. Here at Crisis On Infinite Midlives, we either stayed in on Fridays to watch them or we set the VCR to tape them (note for the kids: back in 2000, TiVo was a toy for the rich. The rest of us had devices called “video cassette recorders,” which could record television if you set a timer, left your cable box on the correct channel, and remembered to insert the appropriate magnetic analog physical media. Next time, I will explain the concepts of “cable box” and “magnetic analog physical media.”), and not only saw the movie Serenity twice in the theaters despite being unemployed and broke at the time, but convinced my parents to go, despite the fact that they believed that “Firefly” was a form of designer synthetic amphetamine.

So I’ve been watching Firefly since the beginning, but honestly, a lot of the comics based on the show have left me a little cold. Sure, it’s always fun to hang out with the crew again for a little while, but the stories in the comics have always felt a little disconnected from the general goings-on of the main storyline. They’re flashbacks or side jobs or something like that, so while they’re fun to read, the stakes always feel a little lower because, since they’re not part of the main throughline, you kinda know that everyone’s gonna get out all right. And it ain’t a true Joss Whedon Firefly story unless anyone could wind up dead at any time.

Well, enter Serenity: Leaves on The Wind, written by Zack Whedon with art by Georges Jeanty, which, after nine years, is the “official” sequel to the movie Serenity. It takes place weeks or months after the crew broadcast proof of the Alliance’s role in creating the Reavers at the conclusion of the movie, which means that the Alliance has resigned in disgrace, the frontier worlds have been distributed all the supplies they need to become civilized, and Malcolm Reynolds and crew have been lionized as heroes, right?

Yeah, not so much.

I Want To Believe Who You’re Going To Call: The X-Files / Ghostbusters: Conspiracy #1 Review

On Wednesday I mentioned that I was as sick as an animal, and that under the influence of three types of antihistamine and some form of Polish pig virus, the new The X-Files / Ghostbusters: Conspiracy crossover sounded like just about my level of fun given my reduced cognitive capacity.

On paper, this kind of crossover is a gimme for big fun. You’ve got Scully the skeptic and Mulder the believer in the supernatural hiding in the shadows, both serious as a bowel prolapse on taco night, confronted face-to-face with big technicolor slime-spitting ghosts and four guys who treat the whole thing like an irritating plumbing problem with a wicked, ironic sense of humor about the experience. Sure, the thing could never be canon – if Mulder and Scully really met Dr. Venkman and company, they’d be able to wave 1080p scan video in Skinner’s face every time he tried to rein him in… or more likely, Smoking Man would have Peter, Ray, Winston and Egon quietly shot in the back of the head in a New York alleyway.

Well, The X-Files / Ghostbusters: Conspiracy #1 doesn’t give us that meeting. It gives us The Lone Gunmen meeting the Ghostbusters – which is a smart way to go in its own way, as it puts comic relief alongside just plain comedy – as the Gunmen investigate the guys as probably frauds and charlatans. And while the Gunmen wind up spending most of the issue as bystanders – what’s Frohike gonna do against a Class Five Full-Roaming Vapor, grump it into submission? – there’s still a reasonable amount of fun to be had in this one-and-done…

Except this issue is part of a great, IDW-wide crossover. Which means a there’s some exposition here that will only matter to you if you intend to follow the remainder of Conspiracy. And considering the next part crosses over with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, well, your mileage may vary.

Super: EGOs #1 Review

I’ve been having a hell of a time trying to figure out how to start a review of EGOs, the new creator-owned comic by Stuart Moore and Gus Storms, because it’s hard to figure out how to even describe the thing.

It has a lot of science fiction elements, with the intimation that a lot of world building of a galaxy with years of history, including wars, colonization, disasters and technology all considered… but that’s not quite it. It also has superheroes, including an old superhero team, a new one, and a few fringe players who might wind up being heroes, villains, spoilers, or even disinterested observers… but it isn’t really a superhero story. There are signs of a future dystopian kinda tale, with intimations of friction between different parts of the galaxy, spoiled worlds and a main government that might just not give a damn about any of its subjects… but that doesn’t really make the nut, either.

So clearly there’s a hell of a lot going on in EGOs #1, and it might sound like a book that’s trying hard to figure out an identity in a short 24 pages, running the risk of being a mish-mash. Like when Grant Morrison gets some of the good mescaline, or when Alan Moore tries to carry on a conversation longer than three minutes that doesn’t reference his own genius. But that’s really not the case. Instead, it’s a story about a few deeply flawed characters with questionable motivations and backstories in a universe that is filled in enough to give the whole thing a feeling of being a part of a long-running epic sci-fi space opera.

This isn’t the simplest, most forgiving read of the week, but it’s pretty damn intriguing.

Kimota! – With A Word, The Value Of Your Back Issues Tumble: Review Of Miracleman #1

This week, Marvel comics began selling reprints of Miracleman. Miracleman #1 includes the eleven page prologue story “The Invaders From The Future”, originally published in 1985, along with “A Dream Of Flying”, parts 1 and 2, which were originally published in 1982 by Warrior magazine. Miracleman creator, Mick Anglo, wrote the prologue. Alan Moore, who chose to have his name stripped from this reprint, wrote “A Dream Of Flying”. Indeed, if you look at the inside cover where the author typically is listed, it instead says “The Original Writer”. It’s like Moore has never heard of Alan Smithee.

I’ve never read any of the Miracleman books before. My only exposure to them was watching Rob one night in a drunken Ebay war to track down the fabled 15th issue, where I gather one of the good guys goes bad and does something truly heinous to the city of London and it’s received more poorly than when Superman and Zod do the same thing in Man Of Steel. However, having read much of Moore’s other work, I can see the appeal the Miracleman story must have had for him: Golden Age hero whose story he re imagines in the early 80s, when the apple cheeked Boy Scout heroes of the 50s could be more thoroughly examined for their dark undersides. It is a theme Moore has visited often since, in Watchmen and as recently as the Image Comics, originally as Awesome Comics, reboot of Supreme.

The Beginning Of The End: The Superior Spider-Man #25 Review

Editor’s Note: Ah, but my dear Spider-Woman… I so want to spoil you. And I can no longer think of a reason not to.

Now we’re getting somewhere.

I’ve been pretty vocal recently that, while I’m generally enjoying Dan Slott’s tale of Doc Ock as Spider-Man in The Superior Spider-Man, it’s felt like it’s been dragging along for a while to me. With the foregone conclusion that Peter Parker would eventually be returning as Spider-Man – a foregone conclusion that has been bourne out by recent news (spoilers at that link, by the way) – I had passed the point where I was fully engaged in seeing how Doc Ock would operate as Spider-Man and had reached the point where I wanted to see how things turned out to put Peter back into the suit. Picture it like sex: foreplay is fun and all, but as a wise man once said, eventually you gotta go into the trenches and bump uglies. So to speak.

Well, we are now on the 25th issue of The Superior Spider-Man – an impressive feat, considering the first issue was only a year ago – and now we’ve got some solid rising action moving toward a denouement of this whole Otto situation. Writers Dan Slott and Christos Gage take a solid step in this issue toward yanking the rug out from under Otto, showing cracks in his public image, suspicion from Spider-Man’s allies, and some real opposition from someone who can actually get to the bottom of this whole Ock / Spider-Man situation.

After months of foreplay, characters are finally starting to bump Editor’s Note: Rob, this metaphor is a dicey pile of shit. Move along. -Amanda

Ahem. Anyway.

Working With Vertigo: All-Star Western #26 Review

Editor’s Note: None a’ this is real. It is a twisted spoiler.

I have always had a soft spot for westerns, which is why I’ve always read Jimmy Palmiotti’s and Justin Gray’s Jonah Hex stories. Back in the pre New 52 days, Jonah Hex was a solid, straight-ahead western in the Sergio Leone vein, with real scumbag villains out on the frontier and plenty of gunfire to keep things interesting. There were no supervillains, monsters or alien invaders, and dammit, I liked it that way.

Because I always thought that the worst thing that ever happened to the character was when, back in the 80s, they took away Hex’s Colt, replaced it with a laser pistol, and had him fight space aliens or some Goddamned thing. As a guy who likes westerns, it was an abominable idea on its face, like dropping The Man With No Name onto the bridge of the U.S.S. Enterprise. It might sound like a good idea, but it’s all fun and games until poor Mr. Sulu is left confusedly looking back and forth from his fencing foil to the giant hole in his chest.

So I should be going apeshit nuts over the recent direction of All-Star Western, which has dropped Hex into the modern DC Universe. And I should be going particularly apeshit over All-Star Western #26, which gives us Jonah Hex, relentless bounty hunter and former Confederate soldier, interacting with Swamp Thing, alien plant life, The House of Mystery and a superhero just to round out the trifecta (Quadrifecta? I don’t know a lot about horse racing. I’m not allowed back at the racetrack since I asked the nice lady at the betting window for a quart of fresh glue).

I should be going apeshit. But Goddamn if this issue isn’t one hell of a lot of fun.

You Are Entering A Dimension, Not Of Sight And… Buffering…: The Twilight Zone #1 Review

I am not the world’s biggest fan of The Twilight Zone. I recognize that that is a hell of a thing to say for a self-avowed sci-fi fan on the day after SyFy’s (God, remember when it was called The SciFi Channel? And they showed science fiction programming as opposed to wrestling specials and movies about animals mixed with monsters and / or weather events?) two-day marathon of the show, but that’s just the way it is.

I understand the show’s contribution to televised science fiction and horror, but the shows tended to follow a formula: there’s someone with some kind of internal flaw, be it venial (wants more time to read) or mortal (the vanity to get surgery to be as attractive as everyone else). Something happens that seems to give them what they want, and then there’s a twist at the end that makes them pay for their sins. Except for when there are cookbooks and gremlins on the wing, but for a large part, that description covers the show’s formula. It’s a morality play in one act, and it’s a formula that’s never really hooked me in.

And writer J. Michael Straczynski also understands the formula… for the most part. In his first issue of The Twilight Zone series from Dynamite Comics, Straczynski gives us a deeply flawed “protagonist,” who has a powerful wish that is seemingly answered with a mild twist. But Straczynski forgets one part of the formula. And it might not seem like the most important part, but by ignoring it, it really took the experience down a notch for me.

Invasion of The Comic Snatchers: The Saviors #1 Review

Jack Finney’s 1955 novel The Body Snatchers has, in my lifetime, been adapted about every ten years, whether we need a new version or not.

Putting aside the original novel and the 1956 movie Invasion of The Body Snatchers, we had the Donal Sutherland shrieking version in 1978, the one with Gabrielle Anwar in the early 90s, and then the Nicole Kidman version (which was inspired casting. After all, if Nicole Kidman was taken over by an unfeeling alien spore, who could tell?) in 2007.

And on one level, why not? The idea that the people that you love aren’t who you think they are, combined with the concept that your own individuality is not only an ephemeral thing, but something that, if wiped away, other people might not even notice it was gone, is powerful. But it’s a powerful concept with diminishing returns; the novel, first and second movies are rightly considered genre classics, while the 90s version is pretty much just a decent sci-fi flick, and the latest being kinda useless, since by then it was an old story told better, and besides: Kidman shows off her whole magilla in Eyes Wide Shut.

All of which brings us to The Saviors #1, a new comic by Starman writer James Robinson and cartoonist J. Bone, which gives us what so far seems to be yet another version of Invasion of The Body Snatchers, wrapped in the unlimited special effects budget that only a comic can bring, but saddled with some real storytelling difficulties and forced characterizations that simultaneously amp the excitement visually while bogging the whole thing down in writerly bits of business and force-fed pacing.

This one’s got some problems, guys.

Something For Everyone – Review Of Grimm #8

Comic series that are adaptations of other properties can be hit or miss. One of the first comic books I remember getting as a kid was the four issue mini-series based on Raiders Of The Lost Ark. I read the shit out of those books. On the other hand, I’ve been reading the comic adaptation of Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files books and been somewhat less enraptured. Now, you can make the argument that there is about a 30 year age difference between those reading experiences. However, I think it might come down to the fact that I hadn’t seen Raiders yet when I got those comics, whereas I had read all of the Dresden books before I read the adaptations. So, while the Dresden adaptation isn’t bad per se, it just visually doesn’t match up to how I have already played those scenes out in my head when I read the stories the first time. Still a perfectly good comic book series, just I’m probably not the designated audience.^*

^*This is also the part where I somewhat shamefacedly admit to enjoying the comic adaptation of Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series, which is vampire mommy porn of the first order. Never read any of the actual novels; don’t ever intend to. However, if I had read them, I’d imagine I’d have similar dissonance issues as I do with Dresden.

Which brings me to the comic series based on the NBC TV series Grimm, published by Dynamite Comics. The television show is in its third season. How successfully does its comic fare?

Parents And Children: Justice League #25, Justice League of America #10 and Cataclysm: Ultimate Comics Spider-Man #2 Quick Hit Reviews

Editor’s Note: It’s The End Of The World As We Know It, And I Feel Spoiled.

So between spending the week helping the new cat get used to a life where the searing agony of a shot to the nuts happens to stupid humans, and dealing with the first ice and snow falls of the winter (Three times in eight days! I love New England! And I am apparently alone in this affection, since clearly God has forsaken us!), so I am well behind in reading this week’s comics. You’d be surprised how hard it is to concentrate on a simple piece of graphic literature when the cat is yowling and my co-Editor Amanda is asking if I think it would help if she plunked his sack in a snowbank.

It’s hard being a parent, even to a lower beast who shits in a box, loves the taste of network cable, and thinks a laser pointer is the best thing ever despite not being a seven-year-old boy in 1977. So I found it interesting that the first three books I peeled off my stack this evening – Justice League #25, Justice League of America #10 and Cataclysm: Ultimate Comics Spider-Man #2 – all were about, on some level, the relationships between heroes (or anti-heroes) and their parents.

And all three books range from pretty good to excellent, but while I would normally review each of them in depth, well, it is Monday, and to compose my usual type of review for each comic would take me three hours and about 1,200 words to review, meaning there is no way in hell I could get them done before the new comics drop on Wednesday. So for a change, I’ll just write a couple of paragraphs about each, in ascending order of my opinion of them.

Assuming, of course, that this cat doesn’t decide to use my leg to sharpen his claws to remind me that I should be spending my money on scratching posts rather than silly things like neutering. Or comic books.