Step Into The Ring – Review Of Heart #1

Blair Butler is 33 years old. In her time on this planet, she has managed to graduate from college, find some success in stand-up comedy, become head writer of a television show, and, eventually, find her way in front of the camera as the star of her own segment on G4’s Attack Of The Show called Fresh Ink. Oh, and if that’s not an already impressive list of accomplishments, this past week, Butler published her first comic book, Heart #1, with art by Kevin Mellon. She used it, she told Comic Book Resources, as an opportunity to bring together her love of comic books with her love of mixed martial arts fighting:

Most of my co-workers love the NFL, but MMA is my sporting poison. I talk about Anderson Silva and GSP [Georges St-Pierre] the way other folks talk about the Packers or the Bears, I’m like the Paul Aufiero of MMA — he’s the football-obsessed parking lot attendant in ‘Big Fan.’ And there’s sort of an interesting analogy to be made to superhero comics and mixed martial arts, if Batman or The Punisher were real, they’d likely be training MMA to get in proper crime-fighting shape. The Huntress would be subduing muggers with a rear naked choke or a spinning backfist.

Well, I’m 39. I like comic books, occasionally workout to Rachel Hunter’s Cardio Kickboxing Workout and this past Saturday I made the world safe from a bottle of Ketel One by turning it into pee.

So there. I am neither writing comic books nor subduing muggers with my terrifying spinning backfist.

Pardon me while I crack open another bottle of self-esteem. Ok, now let me tell you about the comic book.

Warning before entering the Internet octagon – soul searching, temp work and spoilers after the jump.

A Shotgun and a Wedding Dress: The Strange Talent of Luther Strode #2 Review

On Friday night, Amanda and I were having a conversation about decompressed storytelling versus old-fashioned serialized storytelling in comics. Because that’s how we roll here at the Crisis On Infinite Midlives Home Office: a little wine, a few lit candles, and deep conversations about the esoterica of comics writing… okay, actually more often it’s shotgunning Buds, arson and screeching, “This book sucks, Lobdell! And that’s why we’re burning down your house!” but we’re trying to expand our horizons.

Anyway, the agreement we came to is that the problem with decompressed “writing for the trade” is that writers are all-too-willing to make the story beats in each individual issue subtle and slowly-unfolding, to the point where in some of those issues almost nothing seems to happen. Whereas serialized storytelling understands that, yes, there may be a larger story that the individual comics issue is serving, but that the issue should be a story in and of itself, with enough of an arc and satisfying action to be worth owning on its own.

And we wholeheartedly agreed that when it comes to regular comics, we vastly prefer serialized storytelling… And further, we agreed that we should leave poor Scott Lobdell alone… at least while Rob Liefeld’s walking around a home that isn’t primarily comprised of cinders and regret.

The one exception to all rules that we agreed existed was the self-contained miniseries. In the spirit of the old “Lady, you knew I was a snake when you picked me up” parable, a miniseries almost by nature must be told in a decompressed manner, because on its face each issue is part of a larger story. It is what it is, and whether you like decompressed storytelling or not, you know what you’re getting with an issue marked, say, “2 of 6”. And then, because we were feeling generous, we gave Liefeld an exception of his own. Mostly because we found we were out of kerosene. But I’m digressing again, which is stupid because there actually is a point to all this yammering.

That point is that The Strange Talent of Luther Strode #2, despite being part of a self-contained miniseries, meets all the needs of a good serialized story, and a damn good one at that.

The Man of Tomorrow, Tomorrow: Action Comics #3 Review

EDITOR’S NOTE: Yes, it’s Superman! Strange visitor from another planet! With spoilers and ruined story notes far beyond those of mortal men!

I was initially skeptical about Grant Morrison’s take on the new early days of Superman in Action Comics – the only attractive thing about an urban hipster blogger with a mad-on for corporations and a Justin Beiber haircut is that when he’s also Superman you won’t do any time if you hit him in his John Lennon glasses with a fucking pipe.

And truthfully, the concept of a Superman who takes on slumlords and capitalists is a wonderful idea, provided it’s 1939 and nobody’s invented Brainiac yet. Even a partially-depowered Superman against, say, a CEO is like deploying a fuel-air bomb against Cookie Monster. As a power fantasy for the unemployed it might be fun, but from a storytelling standpoint, it presents the same problems as a 12 to 2 Red Sox / Brewers blowout: fun, but sure as hell not exciting. Particularly when you stop for a second and realize that you can kill your average American CEO by putting a plate of prime rib at the top of a flight of stairs.

It turns out that Morrison seems to realize this, so in just a couple of issues, we’ve transitioned from Superman as hippie anarchist to Superman as fuckup.

I Never Thought This Would Happen To Me: Red Lanterns #3 Review

EDITOR’S NOTE: This review contains spoilers. It also contains at least three euphemisms for male ejaculation, several vulgar terms for female genitalia, and more than one filthy joke. With the entirety of Red Lanterns #3 being one of those filthy jokes. You have been warned.

I’ve read three issues of DC’s Red Lanterns now, and having done so, I have one obvious question: who hurt you, Peter Milligan?

What was her name? Sit on down, crack open a beer and tell Uncle Rob aaaaallll about that cooze. Get it out of your system. And then maybe you can get back to writing a superhero book that makes some fucking sense.

Red Lanterns #3 opens with a bat chick with big knockers (You remember Bleez, right?) inverted, look of terror on her face while she chokes on thick, viscous liquid, while Atrocitus narrates:

With luck, the pain will be intense.

That’ll mean it’s working. the gelatinous liquids of Ysmault entering her brain.

Sure, Atrocitus. I call mine “Old Sparky,” but “Ysmault” works too, I guess. Seriously, Peter: where’d you salvage that narration from? Your letter to fucking Penthouse?

No Knife To The Eye – The Goon #36 Review

EDITOR’S NOTE: This review contains spoilers. Such as the fact that burlesque dancers will apparently show off their tits. This review also ruins at least one of the best jokes in the book. Such as how burlesque dancers can sometimes drive men to try to write their names on the elderly. Plus, it spoils earlier Goon stories. Like how Franky has a knife. Which I guess we spoiled with this review’s title. Ah, nuts. 

In 2009, Eric Powell announced Goon Year: a year when he upped his production schedule to once per month to tell the epic tale of The Return of Labrazio, which featured The Goon learning that he was literally doomed to unhappiness, followed by watching the love of his life die while we readers learned of a son that The Goon would never know he had.

It’s 2011. This month’s Goon features Franky wearing a fake moustache while peeing on an old woman’s head.

I love The Goon.

…Dressed Up With A Lot of Flash and Thunder: The Flash #2 Review

EDITOR’S NOTE: This review may contain spoilers. Or it may just contain my suspicion that “The Speed Force” comes in powdered form. You are warned.

Here’s the first problem I have with Francis Manapul’s and Brian Buccellato’s New 52 reboot of The Flash: it’s not Mike Baron’s and Jackson Guice’s 1987 post-Crisis reboot of The Flash. To me, that book is the definitive reboot.

It put a new guy in the costume. It completely rethought how the powerset worked – to my knowledge, Mike Baron was the first person to make the mental leap that moving at that speed would require a lot of food and sleep to maintain… something he probably extrapolated from his prodigious use of cocaine. In short: it changed everything, and in doing so, it made it fascinating.

So when I read Manapul’s and Buccellato’s Flash, I kept wishing that I was actually reading Baron’s for the first time… and not just because it would mean that I was 17 years old and 175 pounds again. But also because this book, while beautiful, is completely uneven.

Trick Or Treat – The Further Adventures Of Team Logan: Review Of Wolverine And The X-Men #1

Wolverine And The X-Men #1 by Jason Aaaron, with art by Chris Bachalo, brings us the first day of classes at the newly formed Jean Grey School For Higher Learning. Headmaster Logan and Headmistress Pryde have their work cut out for them as they try to balance first day jitters with a visit from the New York Board Of Education. But, they’ve fought the likes of Magneto and Apocalypse in the past, so this new challenge should be a piece of cake, right?

Not so much.

Turns out Wolverine and company might have been better off putting up with Cyclops and staying on Utopia after all.

Spoilers and teenage angst after the jump!

Mork Calling Orson: Spaceman #1 Review

EDITOR’S NOTE: Ground Control to Major Tom: commencing countdown, spoilers on. 

Here’s the thing about Brian Azzarello, which you already know if you’ve read 100 Bullets: he writes a great crime story. I think that’s why, no matter what he’s writing, he winds up shoehorning a crime story in there, the way Robin Williams ramfeeds schtick into every Goddamned role he ever does, or the way low-level Internet writers about comics cram uncomfortable jokes about their balls into their reviews.

And there are times when it’s a welcome addition, like the toy in the bottom of a cereal box – after all, nobody’s gonna bitch about a hard-boiled crime story stuck into in a Batman comic. Others, like when he made John Constantine a gay-trolling ex-convict in Hellblazer, it’s a less joyful little discovery, like scratching your balls and saying, “Huh… what’s that lump?”

It’s too early to tell how the crime story he’s stuck into Spaceman will come across: Cracker Jack prize? Or ball tumor?

Magic, Broken Human Beings And Sacrifices On The Altar Of Revenue – Review Of Justice League Dark #2

Something dark and malevolent is afoot in the DCU, and it’s not just the continued employment of Rob Liefield despite any evidence of an ability to utilize symmetry or feet in any of his attempts at artwork. No, I’m speaking of magical nasties that defy even the efforts of the heavy hitting Big Three to put down. In Justice League Dark, magically powered individuals have to join together to defeat an out of control, seemingly insane villain, the witch known as The Enchantress. But is she really the Big Bad that is causing reality to come undone or the victim of some other, similarly damaged, reality challenged, spelling slinging powerhouse?

Spoilery goodness after the jump!

Green Screen: The Incredible Hulk #1 Review

EDITOR’S NOTE: This review is believed to be dead, and it must let the world think that it IS dead, until it can find a way to control the raging spoilers that dwell within it.

I’m probably not the best person to review Jason Aaron’s and Marc Silvestri’s The Incredible Hulk #1, because I am not the world’s greatest Hulk fan. Sure, I read Bill Mantlo’s stuff back when I was a kid, and I watched the Bill Bixby / Lou Ferrigno show religiously, because I HAD to. In the dark, pre-cable days of the late 70’s and early 80’s, if you wanted new genre TV you had two choices: The Incredible Hulk or Struck By Lightning. Well, I guess there was also Bosom Buddies, but technically that’s a whole different kind of genre.

Part of the problem was that, for a very long time, every Hulk story was the same: Banner gets agitated, turns into Hulk. Hulk reiterates a desire to “smash”. Hulk swings tank by gun barrel. Hulk jumps somewhere into Marlboro Country. Hulk relaxes and turns back into Banner. Banner avoids death by dehydration or copperhead bite to find more purple pants just in time to repeat it all again next month.

The last time I was excited by The Hulk was during Peter David’s 1988 Ground Zero arc, when Todd McFarlane was an exciting new artist and not comics’ most notorious ball cupper (What? The man collects baseballs). Because for the first time in my memory, someone was doing something different with The Hulk. He was cunning. He was gray. He LOOKED different. The book was exciting, because it felt new.

Problem is that David opened the floodgates on creative teams making Hulk whatever they wanted to serve whatever story they wanted to tell. In twenty-five years we’ve see Hulk as genius. Hulk as emperor. Hulk as medieval gladiator. Hulk as fucking Mafia enforcer (“Ever since Hulk can remember, Hulk wanted to be gangster. If we wanted something, we just SMASH it!”)

Hulk’s been green, gray and red, and at least one or two other people have been The Hulk. It’s like a stealth Clone Saga’s been going on in Hulk titles for a quarter century. For good or ill, there is no single “The Hulk” of which to be a fan, unless your only criteria for liking a story is “a big muscular dude of color”. In which case, I’m guessing that back in the 80s you were watching Bosom Buddies rather than The Incredible Hulk, but I digress.

This is a whole lot of words to spend on an individual issue of a comic book without addressing the book itself, but the preamble feels necessary, if only to make it clear that I don’t know if I can recommend The Incredible Hulk #1, because it is yet ANOTHER vector on the original story: The Hulk and Banner as separate entities.