Author: Andrew Wickliffe
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Okay, so I don’t think I was expecting more from this comic, but I wasn’t expecting writer Ed Brubaker to take care of so much old business at once. Because even if he does an at best middling job of it, there’s all that middling at once. Like a greatest hits of tepid songs. This…
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Writer Marv Wolfman arrives with a bang… or a howl. Wokka wokka. The difference is immediate. Wolfman’s got his purply exposition, but it’s purposeful. There are lots of nice echoes between lines; the style’s right for the book, which has Dracula returning to London, going out for a snack, and surprised to discover his intended…
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The feature opens with Legion leader Wildfire yelling at the “camera” about war. He’s actually yelling at the probably corrupt officials sabotaging a diplomatic conference, and Wildfire’s team is picking up the pieces after terror attacks. The last issue ended with Brainiac 5, off on another mission, saying war on Earth was imminent. They’re not…
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If someone wanted to take the time—and I’m not suggesting it—analyzing “The Staircase” ’s moving thesis about subject Michael Peterson (Colin Firth in his future Emmy-winning performance, not undeservedly) as the series progresses might be interesting. This episode’s where the show wants viewers to feel bad for ever thinking Firth could’ve killed Toni Collette, even…
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If I remembered this issue closely resembles an early Swamp Thing comic in the Wein and Wrightson era, I’d forgotten. Except Swamp Thing #4 went on sale over three months after this issue of Tomb, so that Swamp Thing resembles this issue, not the other way around. No spoilers, but it involves the guest monster…
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I’ve never heard of writer David Vern before, but I hope it’s a while before I read another of his comics. The Batman feature’s not the worst thing in the world, but it’s pretty annoying thanks to the Ernie Chan and Frank Giacola art. Also, the story’s written like a Hostess Fruit Pie advertisement, like…
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Oh, good grief. When I complained ad nauseam about Archie Goodwin’s writing, it didn’t occur to me Marvel would’ve found someone worse to do an issue. Gardner Fox scripts this issue, and, yikes, is it a bad script. While not every line of dialogue has fifty percent exposition—Frank Drake mentions Dracula’s ancestor every time he…
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Everyone gets a consequential arc this episode. Well, every one of the Boys. Chance Crawford’s dopey Aquaman is relegated to an in-world TV commercial for a Lifetime movie (equivalent) as setup for Antony Starr’s arc for the episode. It’s Starr’s birthday, which means the media empire aligns to promote him; only this year, everyone remembers…
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So, the present action of “The Staircase”—minus Colin Firth flashing back to being a kid with a shitty dad so he could grow into a shitty dad himself—starts in fall 2001 and goes to 2017. This episode begins in 2004 when Firth’s character has been in prison for six months. Meaning the trial took more…
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What an issue. Creator Beto Hernandez outdoes himself, starting the issue with a series of one-page strips, catching up with the cast. Though they’re occasionally part of longer stories; for example, the first story is about Ofelia and Doralis visiting Socorro at her genius school. The first page is them getting ready to go, establishing…
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I was so ready to cut Archie Goodwin some slack on this issue’s script. Not just at the beginning, but even halfway through when the dialogue’s at least terse, so not overly wordy. Only then Goodwin starts leaning in on the second-person narration, not for human protagonist Frank Drake. No, Goodwin does the second-person narration…
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If it weren’t for the Goran Sudžuka art, you could probably convince me I was reading a Warren Ellis Avatar comic from the early aughts. It’s a time-warped FBI procedural with a supernatural but not ghost element. I keep waiting to see when it will feel like a Garth Ennis comic, and there’s nothing. It…
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This issue has Tom Palmer inking Gene Colan, so there’s very little one can actually complain about. Just observe. Archie Goodwin’s the writer; he employs the second-person narration to lesser effect than the previous writers. His dialogue’s overwrought even for a seventies Marvel comic, and then his exposition suggests he had a thesaurus on hand.…
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“The Boys” get back at it a year after last season. Much of this episode is setting that new ground situation. Jack Quaid is working for Claudia Doumit at the Department of Meta-Human affairs or whatever, unaware she’s an evil super-powered lady; Quaid’s happily dating Erin Moriarty. She brings him along to her superhero society…
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The episode begins in the near present with Colin Firth and presumably new wife Juliette Binoche headed off to court. “Staircase” isn’t ready to tell us what Firth’s up to in 2017, so the documentarians take Binoche aside for an interview on this momentous day. Throughout the episode, her monologuing for the interview about justice,…
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This episode’s mostly about Colin Firth’s sex life. Assistant district attorney Parker Posey’s determined to expose Firth as a practicing bisexual, pursuing past partners, and so on. But it’s not just Posey’s even too bigot-y for 2001 North Carolina investigation; the episode focuses on it from Firth’s perspective too. While wife Toni Collette is stressing…
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So the person who looks the most like Rosemarie DeWitt but can’t be Rosemarie DeWitt is Sophie Turner. I then thought Maria Dizzia was Rosemarie DeWitt, but no, also not Rosemarie DeWitt. This episode of “The Staircase” has opening titles, which the first episode did not, and they’re a who’s who of actors I hadn’t…
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I don't know anything about the actual "Staircase" case. My wife offered to tell me, and I said I'll wait until after the show; the only information I did get was the parents at the center of the story—Colin Firth and Toni Collette—adopted orphaned neighbor kids, which doesn't seem to matter yet. This episode quickly…
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“The Orville”’s back, with a bewildering addition of a subtitle: “New Horizons.” First, why? Second, it’s the show’s presumed final season; adding “New” to the title suggests they’re trying to get more people watching, so again, why? Finally, this episode’s a direct sequel to events in the previous season; not the season finale either, it’s…
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Frank Bolle’s not the best inker for Mike Ploog’s pencils, but he’s far from the worst. This issue’s got some fantastic panels, even with Bolle muting the Ploog faces. Most of the art’s at least good, if not better, with only one wanting page when writer Len Wein introduces the cop who’s figured out there’s…
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There are so many things wrong with Miss Meadows, it’s hard to know where to start. There are easy pickings, like Jeff Cardoni’s music. There are complicated pickings, like the film’s suburban mama bear fascist “everywhere you look there’s a pedophile no one will take care of, check that pizza shop basement” message. There’s the…
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El Topo means “The Mole.” There’s some opening text explaining it, but it’s not until the film's second half where the title really makes sense. There are some earlier nods—the nameless protagonist (played by director Jodorowsky) starts the film telling his son to bury his childhood. Then later, Jodorowsky will magically find just what he…
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It’s another exquisite issue, thanks to Gene Colan’s pencils. He’s got Vince Colletta inking, but it doesn’t detract. Colan’s so good he even makes the last issue recap page work well, as protagonist Frank Drake (anglicized from Dracula) remembers how he got into his current predicament. This issue follows Drake from Transylvania back to England;…
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It’s an all-action issue, which works out strangely well. Dylan’s drug dealer, Rex, who has been selling him fake antipsychotics—why Dylan’s not just getting real meds, given he’s got a trust fund, is left unexplained—is used as bait by the Russians. They’re after Dylan for something he did early in the series; they got a…
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Downton Abbey, the film franchise, has some singular traits (they’re not all problems); most of them related to it being an immediate sequel to a television show, but also the television show’s viewer demographics. Thanks to those demographics, A New Era can get away with a slightly disingenuous subtitle—it’s more of a “sure, maybe, come…
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I’m sure there’s a difference between a Gene Colan comic book and a Gene Colan art portfolio but damned if they don’t seem identical. Gerry Conway scripts this issue (from a Roy Thomas plot–according to Thomas), and there’s just the right amount of moody in the text to go with the Colan art. It’s perfect…
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Writer Paul Levitz’s A, B, and C plot structuring from Legion of Super-Heroes is famously good, so I’m really hoping what he’s doing in this issue is figuring that system out. The feature story starts with one plot—Mon-El and Wildfire leading a diplomatic mission—switches over to another with Brainiac 5 and Superboy—while both teams ignore…
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I went into this issue expecting the back-up—Black Canary versus the Calculator, continuing writer Bob Rozakis’s back-up from last issue—to be better than the feature, which wraps up guest star vigilante the Black Spider’s first appearance. I was wrong. While the feature is not good at all, the back-up is even worse. The feature starts…
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Setting aside the twists and reveals, The Sixth Sense is about three character relationships. There’s child psychologist Bruce Willis and troubled youth Haley Joel Osment, there’s Osment and mom Toni Collette, there’s Willis and wife Olivia Williams. The film opens with Willis and Williams celebrating him receiving an award for his work, which she thinks…
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It’s a better issue. There’s character work, not development because it’s flashback, but now MacGregor is a white gay man FBI agent who doesn’t understand he works with a bunch of bigots and, in flashback, is worried about the 2016 election. In the present, election’s already happened. We find out the white lady partner, Shaw,…
The Stop Button 