Category: Comics
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The back-up, starring Chameleon Boy, is nine pages, only a page shorter than the feature, which resolves last issue’s shit monster story. Sort of resolves. Also, the shit monster looks leafier this issue, presumably thanks to Jack Abel’s inks (it’s like they’re fighting Oscar the Grouches). Even if the feature weren’t so slight, the back-up…
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This issue isn’t my favorite Tomb of Dracula (though I’m not keeping track), but I think it’s the most impressively written one so far. Writer Marv Wolfman does an espionage on a train thriller, just with Dracula and his supporting cast. And tying into the big Doctor Sun subplot he’s been working on for five…
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I’ve the sneaking suspicion last issue, when the evil nurse commented on Hugo Strange and Batman complementing each other’s physical and mental prowess when they should be fighting, it wasn’t writer Steve Englehart acknowledging the absurdity of the machismo; it was him making fun of the silly woman for not getting it. There’s a scene…
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I’m not sure this issue takes more than five minutes to read—there’s a lot of dialogue to pad it out—and, at this point in A Walk Through Hell, it’s fine. The shorter the read, the better. It’s a flashback issue to FBI agent McGregor’s high school years and something terrible. But the something terrible isn’t…
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Has Frank Chiaramonte gotten better at inking Mike Ploog, or am I just so happy to see Ploog pencils, I’ll take whatever I get, inking-wise. The inks cut into some of the pencil’s roundness, making people more angular—Phillip Russell in particular. But the werewolf’s still nice and Ploog-y, plus there are plenty of great page…
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Well, writer Ed Brubaker is not overcomplicating matters with a last-minute reveal. He’s just stumbling along, as usual, the comic suddenly with far less momentum as Dylan’s in a mental hospital. The slowing down makes sense—after confessing to being the vigilante and finding out there’s still a red-masked vigilante in New York (a copycat, Dylan’s…
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I just realized… with writer Jeph Loeb leaning heavily on the Protestantism for this final issue (in addition to the pastor giving a sermon, Pete Ross is getting churchy), there’s no good reason to not have some Christmas in it. Clark is back in Smallville, having run home after discovering Lex Luthor can kill people…
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I’m trying to decide if this issue is lackluster or if I’m just peeved I’ve managed to outpace Tomb of Dracula in my Dracula Lives read-through. The first story refers to future issues of Tomb, which would be spoilers if the comics weren’t fifty years old and I hadn’t read them already. Well, except this…
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Apparently, William Gibson’s Alien 3 was going to be one of those sequels where the franchise lead spends a bunch of time off-screen or unconscious; Ripley’s knocked out this issue, so Sigourney Weaver would be doing the Jamie Lee Curtis Halloween II thing in extremis. We get a couple scenes with Newt, but some more…
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It’s a much quicker read than I’d like, which is the nature of a licensed title. Even a circularly licensed one like Harley Quinn: The Animated Series. It’s following the source media’s plotting. The issue amounts to about a seven-minute segment of TV; between commercial breaks. Harley and Ivy get to Selina’s, with Gordon in…
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So while this issue has Mon-El going around declaring Shadow Lass is “his woman” and people better recognize, cultural mores of the late seventies didn’t allow writer Gerry Conway to point out the Legion is fighting a shit monster. The Legion is helping with post-Earthwar rebuilding, and something strange is going on down in the…
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It’s a horror mystery starring Dracula. Some skeleton is coming to life and terrorizing people, only he’s after specific people, not just everyone. Based on writer Marv Wolfman’s descriptions, it’s more a zombie than a skeleton, but there’s still such a thing as the Comics Code, so it’s a skeleton in the art. The text…
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So, I figured out where Steve Englehart and Marshall Rogers’s Detective Comics belongs. As a comic strip in late seventies Playboy. Seriously. Rogers’s art is detailed but plain, intricately designed but not artsy. Englehart’s exposition is childish—“comic book-ish”—and treats Batman as a fascist action figure, but it’s incredibly consistent. Lots! Of! Declarative! Statements! Plus, this…
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Umm. I feel bad for writer Garth Ennis. I feel bad he did this issue. There are desperate ways to stretch out a series, to pad an issue, to make the right count for a trade. But somehow, Ennis surpasses all of them with this unconditional waste of time issue. I feel bad for Goran…
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Don Perlin makes his first appearance in the Werewolf by Night credits, and I felt the tinge of inevitability. He’s inking Gil Kane’s pencils; about the only okay thing ends up being Wolfman Jack. Kane and Perlin’s regular people are pretty bad, Perlin’s fault, but Kane’s layouts for the action aren’t very good, not Perlin’s…
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But, wait, what if Dylan’s a ghost and he’s been dead the whole time? Okay, writer Ed Brubaker doesn’t end the issue on that reveal, but he ends it on one much more similar to it than I’d have thought. It’s definitely an intriguing cliffhanger, though Brubaker’s either going to do something interesting with it,…
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Batman ‘89 ends far better than it should, but still disappointingly. Writer Sam Hamm doesn’t go for an action-packed Batman finale, instead letting Bruce Wayne do the final showdown, which ought to emphasize Billy Dee Williams’s Harvey Dent, only doesn’t. It very strangely reduces Michael Keaton’s Bruce Wayne material as well. Hamm seems to know…
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Well, I misremembered this issue, and not for the better. I thought Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale were going to do Bizarro. And although they use some of the same characters from the Bizarro origin in Man of Steel, Lex has a very different plan to humble Superman. Lex is this issue’s narrator. It opens…
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This issue starts with the Roy Thomas and Dick Giordano adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, which I read in reprint. I’m not going to check the original novel, but I’m not sure Stoker had Jonathan Harker be a shitty racist about China (complaining about how their trains ran in 1897). Harker writes in his diary…
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William Gibson’s Alien 3 is two levels of incomprehensible to the non-Alien franchise fan. First, you’ve got to know your Aliens, then you probably should know your existing Alien³. Familiarity with Dark Horse Comics’s original Aliens series might not hurt either, so you can better appreciate when Hicks shows up on the very last page.…
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The Eat. Bang! Kill. Tour picks up right where the second season of “Harley Quinn” leaves off. Harley and Ivy are on the run after Ivy’s failed wedding, Commissioner Gordon in hot pursuit. There’s a very brief recap of the show in general and then Ivy’s not-wedding to Kite Man. It’s well-balanced exposition from Harley…
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This issue’s an object lesson in bad art and how it can ruin a story. Not the feature, which has Jack Abel inking Joe Staton, but only because it’s not a good story. Len Wein scripts, finishing last issue’s cliffhanger about the Fatal Five’s latest scheme against the Legion. Only it’s not a scheme. The…
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It only took fifteen issues (plus some Dracula Lives), but I finally get my Marvel Comics Dracula origin details. The issue’s somewhat coy about the revelations, starting with an incredibly entertaining sequence where Dracula’s journaling. A record must be kept of his thoughts and so on, as he’s Dracula. It ought to be obnoxious, but…
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There’s a lot to be said about this issue, but the “highlight” has got to be when writer Steve Englehart describes Batman as the “pensive prince of shadows.” This line comes just before Batman goes to the Batcave and yells, “I’m the goddamn Batman,” to himself as a positive self-reinforcement. I’m only slightly exaggerating; Englehart…
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It’s a very talky, very unpleasant issue. Walk Through Hell has been gross before, it’s been mean before, but this issue, writer Garth Ennis turns it up to eleven. The bad guy—who maybe thinks he’s the Anti-Christ (we don’t get there yet, which will seem like burying the lede)—recounts his life history, starting with killing…
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It took Marvel until Werewolf #11 to get Marv Wolfman writing the book. Just the credit alone is worth it, which they seem to get—the credit reads: “finally a Wolfman written by a Wolfman.” Wolfman does get to create a new villain—The Hangman; I’m pretty sure he goes on to more in Marvel. The Hangman’s…
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Despite finally giving full context for the bookend writer Ed Brubaker started in the first issue, the comic still can’t make it interesting. The bookending device is less interesting the more protagonist Dylan talks about it, and he talks a lot about it this issue. Well, he talks about the next part of the plan.…
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Writer Jeph Loeb pushes a little too hard with the soft cliffhanger setting up next issue; it’s two pages plus a panel, but it feels longer because it ties into the final action sequence. It’s Lex Luthor machinating against Superman stuff, which is inevitable but also one-note. Loeb doesn’t give Luthor any depth; he’s caricature.…
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I’m getting to be such a Mike Ploog snob. Seeing him ink his own pencils, then seeing others ink his pencils… the latter always seems to come with qualifications, asterisks, and compromises. Ploog pencils this issue’s first story, written by Marv Wolfman, with Ernie Chan inking him. Chan keeps much of the detail, even much…
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It’s half an excellent issue. The first story is a big success, an And Then There Were None type mystery set at a research hospital on Mercury. It’s the done-in-one feature. The second story’s a little shorter, but with the cliffhanger. Unfortunately, it’s also kind of bad. The writing’s not terrible, but the art falls…
The Stop Button 