Category: Comics
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According to the "About the Creators" section, the 2004 prose non-fiction book, The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors, is based on declassified documents and interviews with participants, which raises the question of whether or not Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors comic adaptation writer Doug Murray ever read the book. Or were…
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Having read Garth Ennis for so long, I can get a sense of his structure. He’s traditionally too rushed in three-issue arcs, much more comfortable with four or more. Hitman: Ace of Killers collects a six-issue arc and then two done-in-ones. The main story is a siege story, too, with the heroes getting pinned down…
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Local Heroes collects two story arcs; the first is the Local Heroes one, about metahuman hitman Tommy having to team up with Kyle Rayner Green Lantern to take on the C.I.A. The C.I.A. wants to start controlling the supes, and suddenly it's like The Boys in here. I hadn't realized writer Garth Ennis worked through…
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So when I said I was going to keep going with Hitman after reading the first volume last June, I meant it. I did not go back and reread it (though I’ve perused since finishing this second collection) and was able to mostly follow the story so Hitman can withstand a sixteen-and-a-half-month break, which is…
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If Superman ’78 weren’t written for eight-year-old fans of Superman: The Movie—ones who don’t have home video technology yet because otherwise you’d just rent the movie instead of reading this terribly written comic—I’d say this issue were the best. Even with the retconning for fan service’s sake and the pointless stunt cameos. Writer Robert Venditti,…
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Did the Michelle Pfeiffer/Tim Burton Catwoman movie never get made because she refused to wear the new outfit from Batman ’89? Or are the costume designs on the comic just going to be wanting overall. Robin seems inevitable, and I’m concerned. But the banter between Batman and Catwoman—Michael Keaton and Pfeiffer—is kind of exactly what…
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I think this issue may actually be worse than the last one. Because this time, it’s not just Robert Venditti who disappoints with the writing—and, wow, does he disappoint; it’s a terrible script. Like if he were writing Mad Magazine’s Superman II (literally, since it repeats many story beats). But also Wilfredo Torres’s art. Oh,…
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I wanted to read Manchette’s Fatale because Jacques Tardi never finished his and Jean-Patrick Manchette’s adaptation of Manchette’s novel. They only did a few pages, and I got curious about where the story was going. And while the novel’s been translated to English… well, I mean, I don’t read read anymore. Come on. So I…
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So it’s not Batman ‘89, it’s Batman ’93? As in, set after Batman Returns… is it just Sam Hamm’s Batman Forever? If so, it’s still okay. I just wasn’t expecting the returning character at the end of the issue. I also wasn’t expecting Hamm to do a deep cut to the original script—and the Craig…
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Superman ‘78 starts with a dedication page to Richard Donner, which would feel better if the comic were better. But, instead, entire sequences are just lifted from… Superman: The Movie? I mean, there are a couple continuity-building nods to Superman II (Lois Lane likes Metropolis hot dogs, not just Niagara Falls ones). However, you’d think…
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Rowlf is the story of a very good dog named Rowlf who does not play the piano but is devoted to his owner, the fair maiden Maryara. Maryana’s sort of royalty, just of an impoverished land. So her best suitor ends up being a twerp who wants to assume command and lead the land to…
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The cynic in me can’t help thinking Black Star started as a movie screenplay. Writer Eric Anthony Glover has a bunch of narrative devices to exposition dump—there aren’t just flashbacks, there are talking omnipotent computers who playback the flashbacks. Nintendo Power Gloves with screens built-in. The computer, “Guardian” not “Mother,” tells the characters where to…
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Creator Ben Towles toes (no pun) a very tight line with Four-Fisted Tales: Animals in Combat. How do you do a graphic novel about war animals in 2021? If I had to guess the target audience—like professionally, which is an odd flex for me but Animals is excellent for reluctant readers—but the target audience it’s…
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I haven’t read any of the previous DC comics sequels to their TV or movie properties—I think it’s just been TV properties, right (“Batman” and “Wonder Woman”)—but I’m certainly sympathetic to the proposition. I did, after all, read the ostensible canon IDW Star Trek: The JJ Abrams Years series for a while. But Batman ’89……
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Red Room is a revolting revelation. Intentionally. Both my alliteration and creator Ed Piskor’s infusing every page of the comic with something deeply disturbing. There’s a single character in the comic who isn’t in some way vile. Everyone else is in some way or another gross, including the preacher throwing shade about a thin funeral…
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Wait, Fear Case only runs four issues? I thought it ran five. Unfortunately, having one less issue and doing a double-decker bridge issue with the penultimate one is even worse than doing a double-decker bridge issue in the middle of a five issue series. There’s some fine art. Tyler Jenkins gets to do… well, he…
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I must’ve missed the modern technology in the first issue; Fear Case doesn’t take place in the seventies, they just drive a seventies car and artist Tyler Jenkins has a timeless (well, seventies-ish) style. The issue opens with a quick recap of the soft cliffhanger—one benefit to writer Matt Kindt’s verbose expository dialogue is quick…
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Fear Case is high concept supernatural police procedural, with some asterisks. It’s not exactly police—they’re Secret Service agents—and the supernatural aspects may end up constrained. It’s too soon to tell whether they’re going to go atomic glow, Gwyneth Paltrow’s head, or full Alan Moore’s The Courtyard in the eventual reveal (or if there will be…
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Run Like Crazy, Run Like Hell is a divinely unromantic crime thriller. It’s got all sorts of romanticized parts and pieces, but creator Jacques Tardi (adapting a Jean-Patrick Manchette) always finds a different angle to present. There are four main characters and four supporting ones, then some supporting supporting ones, but the principals are Julie,…
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It’s an all-action issue, minus the epilogue, with Swamp Thing and his ragtag army of plant people and humans fighting against the evil humans and their ringleader. The ringleader’s who I thought it’d be. Ram V knows his Swamp Thing, knows the appropriate, historical supporting cast member to bring in to guest star for effect.…
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It never occurred to me Mike Perkins would be such a great Swamp Thing artist. There are a handful of ways to really nail Swamp Thing, with Perkins doing the passive movement thing—Swamp Thing’s branches sway in the wind (and he has branches to sway). Perkins’s art is excellent overall, but his take on Swamp…
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Thank goodness it’s double-sized. Ultramega definite needs the double-size, what with creator James Harren introducing an entirely—sort of—new cast who’ll be taking over the comic from now on. The previous issue was very prologue-y, complete with the cliffhanger being set twenty years in the future. This issue’s got its own, Kirby-esque (squishy Kirby-esque) prologue, all…
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More than half the issue is recently deceased Cata (by her own hand, so presumably stuck in purgatory) swimming around the city naked taking in the sights. She can swim-fly to the top of the cathedrals, she can peek on strangers in their homes, she can even end up tracking down her best friend. The…
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The end of Mann’s World is pretty much what I’d figured it be, complete with the compressed second-to-third act transition and an elongated epilogue. The third act itself gets short-changed, but it’d just be more peculiar action, which never engages—less Nico Walter’s wanting art, more writer Victor Gischler being out of set piece ideas. Possibly…
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The art’s less bad this issue. I’m not sure there’s any improvement from Niko Walter, but there’s less he’s bad at drawing in the story this time. Less people talking. He seriously flubs one of the conversations to the point I thought I’d gotten all the characters names wrong, not just didn’t know one of…
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The art takes a dive this issue. There’s a lot less detail, but there’s also a lot of action and Niko Walker’s action art is very awkward. There’s a splash page with like four entirely different major problems. Worse, Snakebike Cortez’s coloring is pretty bad here. He’s still showing a lot of the perspective, but…
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Mann’s World has a simple start—a group of male friends on an “adventure” vacation together. Only instead of white water rafting through Alabama, they’re in the future and going to the title planet, which isn’t significant enough for environmentally exploiting so it’s just a giant resort. But for dudes who want to hunt; you can…
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No question, Garth Ennis has still got that old Punisher magic. Soviet is a change from most of Ennis’s post—Punisher MAX limited series, which have been military historical fiction with the Punisher inserted, filling out the character, peeling the onion of his tragedy. Soviet’s not about Frank. Soviet is about Frank’s Russian alter ego, one…
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Tankies is a collection I never realized I needed. I’ve read the component limited series and story arcs, which came out in Dynamite’s Battlefields series from writer Garth Ennis. The Tankies brand was in the separate mini series version, the first attempt at an anthology series, and the second attempt at the anthology series. Dynamite…
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I belong to the demographic who’s going to read BRZRKR to the song, Berserker from Clerks, cover to cover. I can’t make the brain stop doing it. Especially since it fits the content so well. The content is an action comic about a Keanu Reeves character—while Reeves co-wrote the comic (and created the property), it…
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