Five In One, Or: No One Here Gets Out Alive: Fatale #11 Review

Most of the time, there’s only really two reasons that I can give people to pick up Fatale, written by Ed Brubaker with art by Sean Phillips, on an issue-by-issue basis rather than the trades. The first is that, even though up until now the stories in Fatale have been hugely decompressed, and arguably best read in one sitting as in a trade paperback reprint, buying individuals comics helps keep titles going and give you the chance to actually get a trade. But the second is the backmatter: essays by Jess Nevens- the guy who does the annotations for Alan Moore’s League of Extraordinary Gentlemen volumes – about the pulp horror stories, authors and magazines that form the influence of Fatale.

Yeah, well, forget all that shit, because neither one of them is true about Fatale #11. There is no backmatter in this issue, due to the vagaries of the holiday publishing schedule, and this issue isn’t really part of a long arc. Oh sure, the story features Josephine, the haunted femme fatale who makes men do anything she wants for some as-yet unknown reasons (although that rack probably helps, am I right, fellas? Hello? Is this thing on?), and we get to see Alfred Ravenscroft, the H. P. Lovecraft-inspired author of Elder Gods-style tales who has been a presence throughout the book until now, but for the most part, this issue is a one-and-done about how those two characters meet for the first time. And while it helps to know who these characters in order to fully enjoy the story, for once, it’s not utterly necessary. If you’ve been missing Fatale, this issue is a reasonable place to jump in for short money and get to know Josephine, her power and how she effects people, and some of the underpinnings of the greater story at large.

So if you’ve had any interest in checking out Fatale but haven’t gotten in on the ground floor, this is as good a place to give it a shot as any… but does that mean it’s any good?

Hangover: Rob’s Biggest Comic Disappointments of 2012

It is New Year’s Day, and thanks to about fifteen glasses alternating between Milwaukee’s and Lynchburg, Tennessee’s finest products last night, it feels like my brain has been taken over and occupied by Doctor Octopus. Or at least part of Doctor Octopus. Part of Doctor Octopus after a meal of bad sushi and piss-warm Chango. And to add insult to injury, I flipped on the TV this morning to be subjected to Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, which, as comic book movies go, certainly is one (man, Stringer Bell and Sailor Ripley sure have let themselves go).

Chuck on top of that steaming mess that there are no new comics until tomorrow, and nothing whatsoever apparently going on in the world of comics, and what we have is a new year that, so far, is… disappointing. And with that feeling in mind, and 2012 at our backs, it seems like as good an opportunity as any to revisit the biggest disappointments in comics and geek culture that occurred in 2012.

And given that the memory is so fresh, we might as well start with (although this list is in no particular order):

Because This Champagne Won’t Open Itself: Amanda’s Top Comic Book Picks For 2012

Happy New Year! Well, almost.

This year in comics has been pretty uneven for the Big Two. Marvel finally dragged its ass across the finish line to end the pain and suffering that was Avengers Vs. X-Men, leading to a reboot relaunch of most of its major titles under the imprint of something called Marvel Now! Whatever its actual intentions (sales!), Marvel Now!’s primary functions have to have an excuse to bring Jean Grey back as a teenager (hot!) and kill off Peter Parker (cold!). The jury is out with me on the whole concept right now. Meanwhile, DC has killed off many of its New 52 titles before they even made it to middle school (oh, O.M.A.C., we barely knew ye!). On the other hand, Scott Snyder has emerged as an architect of some vision with his “Death Of The Family” concept, which is currently impacting the Bat Family of books. I’m digging this story almost enough to forgive him for taking a break from Vertigo’s American Vampire…and Vertigo’s got enough problems right now.

So, where were the bright spots? Check out my picks, after the jump.

Dropping Balls: Rob’s Top 10 Comics of 2012

It is New Year’s Eve of the first complete year of the existence of Crisis On Infinite Midlives. We have all the comics we’re going to get in 2012, so it is time to publish my list of the best comics of the year… mostly because with no new comics, there isn’t much to review, and the biggest comics news we’re likely to get between now and Wednesday is likely to be “Frank Miller Publicly Intoxicated, Yells At ‘Hippies.’ Must Be Tuesday.”

So here’s my list; Amanda’s will appear later today. It is in no particular order, it encompasses everything from single issues to multi-issue story arcs to series that started in 2011 and ended this year. And I know what you’re thinking: “Rob,” you’re thinking, “Why don’t you organize things a little more? And use some consistent criteria for your list?” Well, because fuck you, that’s why. Look: it’s New Year’s Eve, and I intend to be recklessly intoxicated within about 90 minutes from the time I press the “publish” button.

So without further (or any) ado: here’s my list!

All About Mara – Review Of Mara #1

Ok, pop quiz hot shot: you’re a 17 year-old, wildly successful and famous celebrity athlete, you have recently taken on new sponsorship, and, at the opening volley of an exhibition game against a group of much younger girls, you manifest super powers. What do you do? What do you do?

The answer? Probably not what Mara Prince, the protagonist of writer Brian Wood’s new comics effort, Mara does. Well, not unless you, like Mara, are 17 years old and, therefore, are probably prone to making age related poor decisions. But, more on that later.

Wood’s story is set in a distant, or maybe not so distant, future. One in which athletes and their accomplishments are raised onto pedestals and worshiped with cult-like fervor. This athlete-centric culture has so permeated society that the world’s armies are now made up of soldiers who are the beneficiaries of endorsements and competitive contracts, drastically changing the nature of the near constant state of war in which the countries of this world find themselves, as soldiers fight for personal glory rather than country. In fact, this system has created “a multi-trillion dollar industry, producing perfect athletes and soldiers.” So, what happens when one of these products becomes a little too perfect?

Flags on the play, and spoilers, after the jump.

Cthuhlu Turns On The Radio: Change #1 Review

As I’m writing this, I’m watching a TiVo recording of Lucky Number Slevin I recently got off of AMC, based on a years-old recommendation of the flick by my parents. By the time they saw it and told me that they thought I would like it, it had already vacated movie theaters, and since it came out in 2006, by the time it came out on video the local Blockbuster had vacated my town, and by the time I lived in a place with HBO, HBO had already washed its hands of it. Which means that this is the first chance I’ve had to see the movie, and which further means that I should have learned by now that I should never take movie recommendations from the two people who once advised that my life would change if only I would watch Jennifer 8.

I am about 45 minutes into this movie, and I have no idea what it is about. There is Bruce Willis and Lucy Liu and Josh Hartnett and Morgan Freeman and Ben Kingsley and a bunch of other people who should have fucking known better, and Hartnett’s in a rotten sweater vest when he’s not in a towel, and there are two mob bosses and a fistful of hired goons and Willis is playing Hartnett from Sin City, but all I know is that, no matter what the writer originally intended, all I see is a story that wishes it was written by Quentin Tarantino when it grows up. From the stilted, stylized dialogue to the violence for the sake of violence to the long, talky sequences, this is a Tarantino knockoff, ten long years after the last Tarantino wanna-be was escorted off the cinema scene by shitty box office returns.

What gives it away is the dialogue. It uses big words when no normal person would. It puts simulated poetry in the mouths of people who, in the real world, would say, “I had an idear,” or perhaps refer to women without breast implants as “grenades.” These characters are not real people living in a real place; they are obvious puppets, being operated from behind the curtain by a writer in love with an old genre and enamored with the sound of their own voice. It is distracting, and it diminishes whatever effect the author might have hoped the story might have.Everything that happens in Lucky Number Slevin happens because of an unlikely, writer-invented coincidence.

A coincidence such as the fact that I read Change at the same time this movie was on.

Meandering: The Walking Dead #105 Review

We’re a bunch of issues into the Negan Is A Douchebag arc in The Walking Dead, and I still don’t have that douchebag figured out yet.

I know a few people with some experience dealing with people on the autism spectrum (I know, I know: “Gee Rob, doesn’t everyone who knows you have experience dealing with at least one guy on the autism spectrum?” Yer a real fucking comedian, you are), and I’ve heard enough descriptions of missed social cues and inappropriate responses to interpersonal stimuli and the need for rigid routine to think that maybe writer Robert Kirkman intends for Negan to be rocking that kind of diagnosis… although everything I know about autism comes from secondhand anecdotes, Rainman and when people question my motivations.

But at the same time, I know a rotten, cowardly fucking bully when I see one, an I certainly see one in Negan. A big kid in arrested development who realized somewhere along the way that, since there’s no one to put the arm on him for telling racist jokes and flushing drunks heads down the toilet, why the hell not escalate to baseball bats and hot irons?  Maybe Negan’s just the kid who wedgied you in junior high who’s stuck in a state of arrested development, taking advantage of the fact that he maybe pinkbellied his first couple of “followers” into line, and the rest followed the pack.

Or maybe Kirkman has some combination of the two in mind; a character who never had the capacity to understand that just because a littler kid didn’t hit you back didn’t mean he was your friend, who thrives in a black-and-white set of simple rules that he suddenly found himself in a position to create on his own (no matter how much sense those rules might make), and whose pre-apocalypse personal obsession was zombie movies which made him better prepared to handle the rise of the walkers while we other social outcasts who were obsessed with, say, comic books, contributed to the rise of the new world order by becoming lunch.

Or maybe I’m completely full of shit, utterly off base, and have no idea what I’m talking about. And even if I am, who gives a damn? I don’t need the DSM-5 to know batshit crazy when I see it, and Negan is crazy. Regardless of his motivations (although clearly, this is the kind of thing that’s on my mind these days), this issue serves to show that, back at the ranch, Negan is at least as dangerous as the Governor, if not more so due to his obvious lack of real care for his people. He needs to die, already… and he has Carl.

This will not end well… and frankly, after six or seven months with this prick, I’m not sure it will end at all.

Bamf: I Love Trouble #1 Review

Editor’s Note: Now watch me kids, when I twist my ring: like magic, we’re at Spoiler King!

Let’s go ahead and state the obvious up front: I Love Trouble is a superhero comic.

Sure, it’s a superhero comic where the protagonist is a bit darker and edgier than your standard Marvel or DC fare, and it’s one without capes, spandex or superpowered bad guys (yet… unless you count a protagonist who uses her powers to steal classic art a “supervillain” right out of the gate, but the story doesn’t steer in that direction), but there is no way to spin a book about a woman who suddenly develops powers, that forecasts that there are other people out there with similar powers, and that shows government interest in the woman with powers, and see anything but a superhero comic with a darker bend than many.

The Shape of Things To Come: The Legend of Luther Strode #1 Review

If The Strange Talent of Luther Strode was the origin tale of an 80s slasher film-style killing machine wrapped up in a superhero story, then it would stand to reason that the sequel would have to be the actual horror movie. This is a somewhat tricky proposition, because despite the similarities between a superhero and a slasher flick villain – on a mission, with a distinctive outfit and / or mask, and apparently indestructible – a horror movie is not a superhero story.

In a slasher film, the killer is “other,” appearing from out of nowhere and picking off the people who are the primary protagonists and the focus of the story. Further, while many if not most of the victims might, for whatever reason, “need killing” (for having sex or smoking pot or drinking underage – hey Mom! You were right! I do need killing!), there needs to be one character for whom the audience is invested and pulling for to escape, if not defeat, the unstoppable force in the shadows. And it is one hell of a proposition to try to tell a story about a superhero in a story format where you have to not only stick him in the background, but find someone you like enough to hope that she (because it’s always a “she” who winds up facing down the killer in slasher films, isn’t it?) kills your hero.

If I were Luther Strode writer Justin Jordan, I would look at these challenges, smile, cut my losses and walk away. However, in the first issue of The Legend of Luther Strode, he instead embraces the story structure of a slasher film, taking the risk of pulling focus away from Luther and putting it on his “victims,” and gives us an antagonist for Luther who, at this point anyway, I wouldn’t mind seeing maybe win.

But again, the question is: does the slasher story format work in what is ostensibly a superhero comic?

Quite A Pair: Saga #7 Review

Saga, by writer Brian K. Vaughan and artist Fiona Staples, is awesome. It is a space opera on a massive scale, spanning planets, including interstellar war, magic, technology, and strange races of aliens, from the primary warring races of ram-horned magic users and their pixie-winged opponents, to the charming triclopsed giant with man-tits and a scrotum that looks like it’s where the testicles of steroid-users go when they die, who we meet in Saga #7.

It has enough good guys, bad guys, androids and bounty hunters to populate ten Star Wars movies, with enough foul language and robot-fucking to make Disney put away its checkbook in gagging horror. And it does it with the kind of special effects budget you can only get with a pen and paper.

And yet, that is not what makes Saga awesome. It is awesome because, while this massive conflict is happening, this is not a story about those things, but one that happens during them, or perhaps in spite of them. Despite the aliens and robots and magic and technology, this is a human story, and Saga #7 is a perfect example of that. This issue contains magic and starships and the Scrotum That Ate Pittsburgh, but it is about a couple visiting their in-laws for the first time, when those in-laws don’t approve of the relationship. And as a guy who has been in situations where his girlfriend’s parents have treated him in a way ranging from aloof politeness to barely-restrained contempt, it is damn effective.

Plus, it has that splash page that I Goddamned guarantee you was shipped back to Staples with a note from Vaughan reading: “More scrote.”