( 12/27/2006 01:07:00 PM ) Bill S.
THE FIFTEEN-MINUTE COMIC – Year's almost up, so we'd best catch up on a few mainstream books from '06 'fore they start to smell like those last pieces of turkey leftover nobody wants.- Action Comics #845 (DC): Aside from its use as a marketing tool for the ballyhooed Richard Donner cut DVD of Superman II (am I the only one who preferred Richard Lester's slapstick additions to the campy approach Donner took with Luthor and his minions?), I'm personally nonplussed by the director's publicized "involvement" in this current story arc – it's not as if the director who gave us the fence-straddling compromise that was Superman: The Movie had anything profound to add to the mythos in the first place. That noted, I wasn't bored reading the first chapter of Geoff Johns' (who I presume did the actual scriptwork) & Donner's story, which centers around yet another survivor of Krypton, this time the offspring of former Phantom Zone prisoner General Zod. It presents its initial dilemma clearly – what do Lois & Clark do with this seemingly orphaned superkid, anyway? – and if it doesn't take full advantage of the risks of bringing this naïve young thing into Metropolis (takes our hero – who's spent years trying to hide his secret identity from the world – a remarkably long time to even consider the possibility that "Christopher" might blurt his identity out to the world, f'rinstance), it does provide a decent fight scene 'twixt the Man of Steel and a Bizarro who doesn't think twice (or even once) about snapping some innocent kid's arm. Me, I prefer my Bizarros goofy (just like my slapstick), but what're you gonna do? I'm not the audience for this book . . .
- Damnation Crusade #1 (Boom!): . . . or for this 'un either, for that matter. A comic book spin-off of a popular game (Warhammer 40,000) that I've never played, Crusade (scripted by Dan Abnett & Ian Edgington, muscle-clenchingly illustrated by Lui Antonio) takes us to a future of non-stop fighting and suitably smoky, desolate landscapes. Zipping back and forth through a series of confusingly delineated conflicts ("Third Year of the Torment Crusade," "Thirteen Years after the Sanguin Liberation," et al) that may make sense to gamers, but meant bupkiss to this reader, the opening volume gives us a group of indistinguishable "heroes" fighting because – well, that's just what these guys do. If there are any particular stakes in these conflicts, we're made not privy to 'em because war's just a game and "It's always time for war!" and, aw hell, I'm getting irritated just typing about this crap. Hope Ross Richie and his company make big bucks on this title – much like Fantagraphics was once able to sustain itself with Eros Comics that I largely ignored, I'm suspecting there is a good-sized audience for this material – so Boom! can continue producing mainstream entertainments with a skosh more wit and character in 'em.
- Jeremiah Harm #5 (Boom!): Take this Boom! title, for example, which wraps up its initial five-part story arc with a showdown 'tween its surly title lead and the lunatic alien who wants to use an artifact called the Basal Shard to wipe out the entire universe. (Why? Because he thinks of himself as an artist – which automatically means that he's nuts!) If the showdown itself is a bit of a letdown (with a reeeal unbelievable last-minute rescue in it), scripter Alan Grant still continues to have fun with the characters Keith Giffen gave him, even if he makes big-mouthed nurse Emma more stereotypically strident than she needs to be. You're gonna do brutal sci-fi action, give us distinct enough figures so we'll be willing to squint through all the earth-tone coloration to see what's happening to 'em. Giffen, Grant & artist Rafael Alburqueque clearly know how to do this.
- The Spirit #1 (DC): They're all pikers compared to Will Eisner, of course, who set a standard for meshing character, wit and violence on a comics page that's rarely been matched in the history of comics pulp storytelling (perhaps Steranko at his peak? I refuse to entertain the notion of Frank Miller!) Which, I know, is the primary reason I've had so much difficulty initially getting behind Darwyn Cooke's new comic book revival of Eisner's "Spirit." Having zipped through it several times now, I'm ready to give Cooke credit for producing a snappy li'l action comic that owes more to earlier DC productions than it does Eisner. (Give artist Cooke credit for capturing Denny Colt's wryness – both in the casual way he holds his hands in his pockets and in the sidelong glances he gives his surroundings.) From the looks of things, he's even found his way around the Ebony White Conundrum – though I've gotta admit that naming your sexy teevee reporter Ginger Coffee is pretty cheeky.
Looks like that's it for '06 . . .
#
|
|
|
