My CBR Shame

Another one I pretty much liked. This is what 'decompression' means I take it, stories which should take maybe two issues taking six - but the story is a good one. I appreciate the way that actually things keep getting worse and worse for Our Hero but the comic stays breezy throughout. Liked most of the characters, rooted for OH at the same time as he does stupid things, very much appreciated the fact that the titular Sentinel is in no sense a 'reformed character', liked the moment of Authentic Crush Horror as OH asks crush out despite knowing she has a boyfriend to receive mortifying "I have a boyfriend" response. I can however see why it sold zero copies - this is not an ongoing series in any sense, the premise has a neat beginning middle and end. In the Old Days it would have been solicited as a four-issue mini, probably by Louise Simonson, and done respectably.

There is ONE PANEL of this comic that's good, when a big space ship crashes onto a big alien city. One of the problems with Chris Claremont is that he would have LOVED to be George Lucas, he loves the idea that he is a widescreen space opera imagineer, but all his 'epic starfaring' stories are TOTAL BILGE because he won't generally shut his trap and let the art do the talking. And when he does, as in this one third of a page panel, it looks pretty good.

There are eighteen issues of this to come, it has very little to do with the X-Men so far except that it has the bloody Phoenix in it.

The Squadron Supreme again. The idea seems to be "OK, if DC won't do an Ultimate JLA, we will!". First issue is effectively downbeat story of 'realistic' approach to Superman's origin - bit gloomy but suspenseful. The editorial at the end is very funny indeed though in its "goodness knows how Roy Thomas came up with THESE characters!" tone. Also the tits-out costume for Power Princess raised a chuckle.

Couldn't actually finish this Roy Thomas archive-a-thon but if you do see it skip to the editorial page for a larff as Roy finally loses it and makes it plain that he writes comics purely and simply for people who know as much about comics as he does (i.e. EVERYTHING) and if you don't you can fuck off (sorry "you have no sense of history and I don't want you reading my comic" is a closer paraphrase). Evidence A in the "why the Crisis had to happen" pile.

Sort-of-good team-up comic goes completely off the rails as it becomes clear that the storyline is in place for DC to get rid of President Luthor before election year comes round. How best to do this? Through subtle yet punchy storytelling? NO NO NO. Instead let's have Luthor get hooked on Bane Venom and initiate hugely contrived anti-Superman initiative (viz - Superman is bringing a HUGE Kryptonite asteroid to Earth to kill us all, yes indeed because we know how much Superman likes that kryptonite, ahem) (OK actually maybe the population of the DCU don't know about kryptonite but it's still rub). Much glee as Luthor puts on his horrible pre-Crisis battlesuit and the Toyman creates a huge half-superman-half-batman Spaceship. These elements are meant to be proper Comics Fun i think but Jeph Loeb can't do 'fun', he can only do 'portentious' and lo the last few issues of this arc are horribly hard going.

Did your Defenders D/L include some awful pre-Silver Age painted Sub-Mariner story (which probably first saw the light of day in some post-Marvels Prestige Format w/ the acetate cover)? I'm guessing it did - skip that & just read the Pasty Walker stuff twice instead.

I'll still buy the Defenders Essentials and everything, so I figure the only utilitarian moral arguments are silent this time.

I'm almost tempted to call Gerber the Alan Moore of the title (in a Swamp Thingian sense), but even with Len Wein preceding him, I think that might be a little deceptive -- he didn't reinvent things that drastically, but he did set the standard for tone and content that everything post-Gerber is compared to, and the most frequent criticism of post-Gerber Defenders stuff usually comes down to "that's not how Gerber would have done it."

(Next download batch: FF!)

Here is what I know about Nightcrawler i) he is German, ii) he is a nice guy but he looks like a demon, iii) he likes pirates and derring-do. If I was writing a Nightcrawler comic I would probably stress iii) with ii) providing some light irony. In fact I remember reading a previous comic starring him which did just this. What I would not do is get him involved in stories about FAITH and THE OCCULT and other such COBBLERS because of him looking like a demon. And yes I know he's been written that way too at times. I think such stories are best avoided because they rarely go anywhere or say anything interesting, they turn the looks-like-a-demon thing into a bludgeon and also because only Steve Ditko ever had any idea how to plot magical fights well.

Anyway this storyline has him investigating a strange mystery involving murdered children. The murdered children are pretty gratuitous to be honest. The only clues are some cloven hoofprints and a supporting character who is so obviously the villain that you half expect Nightcrawler to be joined by Scooby Doo on this case. Clumsy stuff.

As I just mentioned on The Brown Wedge, the level of basic competence in mainstream comics today is really impressive. This has good pacing, dialogue, striking art, tells its story without too many 'what's going on here?' moments. I quite like the way Captain A's impatient soldier mentality is being played up. This almost reads like an Ultimate comic, the same emphasis on SHIELD hypercompetence and militarism and 'real world' threats and situations. Good, solid stuff.

. Shehulk (which I went out and purchased immediately, and then bought the issues that I'll no doubt buy again in TPB - the system works!)
. Zenith
. Everything Grant Morrison has ever written, in fact.
. Including Zoids
. Jark Kirby's Eternals
. Suicide Squad
. Crisis on Infinite Earths
. The Maxx
. The Demon
. Jimmy Olsen
. Zot!
. Ultimate Fantastic Four
. Miracleman (including various different bits of #25)

Who's writing/drawing Captian America, Tom?

I find it strange how short my first bout of comics fandom really was - it seemed like it lasted for ages but was barely 2 years. I got into DC with Legends, read through Millennium and was out of it by the time Invasion came around. Millennium had two points - a) tell a big cosmic DC story, b) introduce an amazing group of New! Characters! It does the first a lot better than the second (the new characters became rubbish and short-lived superteam the New Guardians). It's an unusual crossover in that the core series has very little of the main action. The tie-ins are often actually important to the plot (especially the FITEs) which must have frustrated less deep-pocketed fans (I gobbled most of it up though at the time). In the main series you get a lot of superhero interaction, ruminations on What It All Means, a bit of plot and a lot of patented Englehart hippie tosh.

I was surprised at how much I enjoyed re-reading it. The central idea - one member in each superhero supporting cast is a sleeper agent - is ace, the villains are good until they go into space and everyone has to fight a huge yellow cartoon robot. The series suffers a bit from winding towards anticlimax about 2/3 of the way through. The philosophy is a little bit Eastern and a whole lot cobblers. The art is acquired taste Joe Staton but he handles the huge cast well. The new superheroes... well, less good. But as crossovers go it deserves rehabilitation.

"OMG we're putting this out WEEKLY can you handle the excitement?"

Legends was the first DC book I ever enjoyed and as such I could remember some bits pretty much off by heart, but even so re-reading it was probably a mistake - even at the time Len Wein's narrative didn't exactly seem sophisticated and 20 years on it's really clunky, sub-Claremontian at best (eg the repeated "What is the sound of the end of the world?" riff). Ostrander's plot doesn't exactly hold up to scrutiny either: alien televangelist seduces the world into hating heroes, OK this is fine, he has mental powers, but then the focus of this gets completely lost as a FITE is needed and giant Byrne robot dogs attack. Also the continual flicking between one hero and another is very bitty.

BUT none of this matters a WHIT compared to the overall purpose of the series which is to introduce wide-eyed new readers to the hottness of DC's super-universe. Reader, I was that reader (erm) and it worked fine for me. Legends in itself is bland (though I liked the Byrne art) but its main job was to launch DC's post-Crisis universe and it does that well. DC in the late 80s is probably my favourite publisher era ever and this is where it started so hats off. How many other crossovers launch spin-off series of the caliber of JLI, Suicide Squad and the Mike Baron Flash? Three months after the end of Legends DC Comics had gone from 0% of my 'pull list'* to about 60% and I can't argue with that maths.

*(not that that phrase meant anything to me at the time)

As regards the rest, big explosions, love/hate relationship with technology ("What's that?" "A book" "Is that what they used to look like?"), and regular everyone fancies our bald hero antics. So no surprises but I wasn't really looking for some.

I'm still sorta ambivalent on the QUESTION mini that he wrote. A little too wandery and singsong poetry for the character, but the art was So Pretty.

The art was quite a beautiful thing to look at.

To me, Aquaman's not that well done. Maybe I should give it another chance. I found Guichet's art kinda confusing.

The art was sooo much more important than the script on the recent Question mini, and convinced me to overlook Veitch's sometimes heavy hand (hey look, see, we're dealing drugs in the BATHROOM! Because Superman isn't a dirty pervert. Now let's show that a few more times! It was a clever idea, but I got it the first time.). TLE's Chris Reeve Supes was quite stunning.

if only Vertigo would collect FINALS (and fix up all the dumb post-Columbine censorship)

The last ten issues or so weren't that good, because Pfeiffer chose to end the series with a big arc that wrapped all of the ones that had come before. It felt a bit rushed and out of place.

The Ultimates Vol2 1-6 is much the same as the first volume: big heroics, bad heroes, lovely art and now a spot of intrigue.

Young Avengers 1-5 isn't exactly life changing, but it reminded me of what Tom said above regarding how the basic standards of comics seem to have risen noticably in the last 20 years.

New Thunderbolts 1-4 would have been 1-9 or so, but it is unfortunately unreadable rubbish.

No Ben Raab
No Howard Mackie
No Jay Faerber
No Todd Dezago
No Brandon Choi
No Larry Hama

And only one Chuck Austen!

You might have a point there.

Oh, but it is! It probably suffers from being read right after Young Avengers. YA#1 sets up several characters, and has a great twist, and a quality JJJ appearance. It has the advantage that it's an outside look at the characters, so it's expected that they stay mysterious for a while, where New Thunderbolts #1 is anything but the first issue of a new series.

All the characters seem to coast on goodwill and interest that they've built up in a million comics that I haven't read. And the characterisation is sledge-hammer subtle. "Looks to me like Atlas likes Songbird. Yep, Atlas definitely likes Songbird. Yes, we get it. Yes, we get it. Yes, we get it. Yes, we get it. Just fuck off, will you?"

Also the timely themes (Terrorists! State responsibility for terrorists! WTC United Nations falling down!) annoy me no end. Particularly when he goes to some lengths to establish a cramped and terrifying building collapse, only to have Atlas grow to the size of the building from the inside, then burst out through one of the walls and hold the building up from the outside. Architecture: it doesn't work like that.

And the dialogue is completely rubbish, though this probably just means it's retro.

Marvel Unlimited needs you forks