Category: 1983
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From the director of Breaking Away and one of the many fine writers of the Adam West “Batman” TV show…. Krull is just as unwatchable now as it was the last time I tried to watch it, some eleven years ago. As a kid—assuming kids are the best audience for the film—Krull never registered as…
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One could just read this issue for the art. Alcala beautifully complements Gene Colan. He sort of brings out the lusciousness, but reigns it in just enough. Colan’s never too lush; Alcala is never reductive. The story’s not bad, but Moench doesn’t quite sell Jason Todd, detective. He investigates, but without any finesse. The scenes…
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Blue Thunder is astoundingly dumb. It’s not exactly bad, as there are some fantastic effects and some of the script has shockingly sublime moments, but it’s astoundingly dumb. It starts off strong, with a decent enough first act. Daniel Stern is new to the Astro division of the LAPD and, through him, the film introduces…
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I try to be open-minded about Cavalieri and Cullins’s Green Arrow back-ups, but this one peeved me. Moench doesn’t get enough time with his Batman story–which is his fault for not pacing it out right–but come on. Who carries about Green Arrow’s lame villain? Though inker Frank Giacoia does ruin Cullins’s pencils in sometimes amusing…
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Gene Colan’s first issue on Detective (with Moench) is unexpected. There’s a dreamy, otherworldly, emotive quality to it. Harvey Bullock oozes repulsiveness; the symbolism becomes clear at the startling conclusion. Moench knows how to surprise–even if the cliffhanger isn’t exactly unexpected, its degree is a shock. The issue closes up–after Batman’s adventures with Man-Bat–the new…
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Doug Moench sure does like exposition this issue. Batman can’t stop thinking about all the problems in his life (though he manages not to detect Gordon’s heart problem). But there’s also the regular narrative exposition, which Moench overwrites. It makes me wonder if he’s gearing Detective towards a younger audience. He’s not particularly confident; he…
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Carlin’s not doing much to make Ka-Zar his own. He follows the existing template well–down to Shanna’s step-daughter being emotionally affecting from her first panel–and it feels like a good impression of Bruce Jones. Except Carlin doesn’t spend a lot of time on his protagonists’ emotions. He doesn’t keep their self-reflections going throughout the issue,…
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Mike Carlin takes over the writing reins and does a fine job. He handles Shanna’s personal crisis well, though he doesn’t stick with it as long as Jones would have. And Carlin’s Ka-Zar is a far more assured protagonist than Jones’s. It might help this issue’s Ka-Zar has been maturing the last twenty-seven issues. Another…
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Okay, this story line has gone on way too long at this point. Pasko sets up a decent finale only to reveal it’s still not over… they still need to fight the Antichrist. The story’s awkward, mostly because there’s a huge supporting cast and no reintroduction to them. I’m reading it at a fairly accelerated…
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I think this issue must have been an informal “jumping on” point. Over the first four or five pages, Pasko recaps every major event in the series in a flashback. Then he spends another five or six pages on expository dialogue. The Yeates art, along with some of the concepts, make those dull pages work.…
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John Totleben joins Yeates on the art this issue, but it’s hard to see what effect his inks have on it. The issue is almost incomprehensibly dense, with Pasko starting in the States somewhere and ending up in Dachau. Not sure how well the big reveal works—the Nazis were fueled by a powerful psychic who’s…
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I never thought, reading the issues before this one, I would see cheesecake in Pasko and Yeates’s Swamp Thing run. But this issue isn’t Yeates, it’s Jan Duursema. Duursema handles the art in varying degrees of quality. With Tom Mandrake inking, there are some very iconic Swamp Thing action moments. Duursema and Mandrake make Swamp…
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It’s a gorgeous issue. Newton and Alcala doing Batman’s rogues gallery is possibly an unsurpassable event. Maybe eight pages in, they have this incomparable Joker close-up. DC ought to reprint the issue oversized just so one can really look at it. But it’s also a really good issue. Besides Jason Todd’s endless thought balloons–not bad,…
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Well, Batman is having a freakout–over women he decides. Having to decide between Selina and Vicki (mind you, Selina hasn’t appeared since the last really good issue Conway wrote) has made Bruce lose it. It’s why he let Killer Croc go he decides. There’s a bunch of eye-rolling logic this issue and the Dan Jurgens…
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Hmm. Young Dan Jurgens. Guess it’s why Bruce looks like Clark Kent without glasses. I’m curious to see Conway’s original script–he includes expository scene after expository scene, all the fill in space–and there only good scene is incomplete. Bruce breaks it off with Vicki by acting like a thoughtless ass, but it’s never made clear…
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It’s a strange use of Curt Swan. Something about his Killer Croc just doesn’t work. The scales, the figure… he like a Gold Key Star Trek alien. Otherwise, the art is fantastic. Swan does something with Batman’s cowl I’ve never seen before and it’s just great. The story isn’t bad. It’s Batman hunting Killer Croc…
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Once again, if Bruce, Dick and Alfred weren’t stupid enough to leave the door unlocked with Vicki Vale, Jim Gordon and a bunch of strangers in Wayne Manor, they wouldn’t have to kill Jason Todd’s mom for finding out Bruce is Batman…. Oh, wait, some of that statement is incorrect. I guess they don’t decide…
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Okay, now I get why Conway’s wasting time with Dick going to the circus–it’s to introduce Jason Todd (pre-Crisis Jason Todd, who has the same origin as Dick, but blond hair). What’s funny about that story is how out of touch Batman is with the Gotham underworld–Killer Croc (who I don’t think Batman even knows…
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Batman kills Solomon Grundy at the end of this story. I wonder if it was easier for writers to do Grundy stories because he’s not human or alive so they could kill him off every time. There’s not even a real explanation of how he comes to Gotham. The issue’s okay. DeZuniga’s inks aren’t the…
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It’s a somewhat anti-climatic end to the Hugo Strange storyline Conway had been working on for… a couple years? Hugo shows up, back from the dead, with an army of androids, and Batman doesn’t bat an eye. The art is so gorgeous, it doesn’t really matter. I’m not sure if Giordano is my favorite inker…
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Starting the issue, I kept thinking Conway had already done a Batman versus the abominable snowman issue. Then I slowly came to realize it was a sequel to that issue I had already read. Maybe the Irv Novick art threw me off. Even with Marcos inking him, the art is painfully mediocre. The story’s kind…
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So does Conway ever explain why Selina has gone nuts? Nope. He resolves it all in a page–a beautifully illustrated one–where Bruce basically admits he was only taking up with Vicki (who Catwoman hospitalizes early in the issue) because Selina left him. It’s a very problematic issue because Conway does lots of it well. It’s…
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Superman III–deservedly–gets a lot of flak, but it’s actually the most faithful to the comics in a lot of ways. It plays out like a late sixties, early seventies Superman comic–“The Man Who Killed Superman,” turning out to be a bumbling, generally well-meaning guy like Richard Pryor, or “Superman Versus the Ultimate Computer.” Superman III…
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Wow, what a weak ending. The issue is mostly action, which makes it completely different than the previous three. And it’s weak action with an absurdly weak bad guy. But weak or not, Green Arrow still needs to bring in Black Canary and some CIA agent (they quickly and inexplicably disappear) because he can’t handle…
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At least in the eighties, people took the time to make the oil companies the bad guys. Now, when they’re even more clearly the bad guys, no one ever uses them. Except Syriana, I suppose, but I doubt Green Arrow’s solution will be to blow them all up. One can hope though. This issue just…
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I kept meaning to count panels per page, but I never paused and did it. I’m guessing the average page has twelve to sixteen panels. And it’s not a talking heads book. The amount of work von Eeden does here–the issue has town and country settings, not to mention some hallucinations–is incredible. Especially for a…
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I’m a Mike W. Barr fan from The Maze Agency, but none of his DC work has ever gotten me excited. The Outsiders, for example. But I’m really liking this Green Arrow series so far. First, it’s got a lot of story to it. It opens with an action sequence, does one flashback, then another…
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I’d never read the Rocketeer. Back when I first learned about it, in 1990 or 1991, it was because Comics Scene had a feature on the movie. And I loved the movie (still do) but it never translated to me reading the comics. For a time, they were hard to find, but probably not back…
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I don’t get A Christmas Story‘s continued success. I mean, I get its initial success (I grew up with it, on video, and remember my friends talking about it before I got to see it and the film living up to expectations), but it’s hard to believe people still like it. I mean, what do…
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Director Brickman’s original cut of the film only changes a couple scenes at the end, but they entirely refocus the impact of the film. Teenager Tom Cruise still runs a brothel with the help of call girl Rebecca De Mornay while his parents are out of town, still gets in trouble with Joe Pantaliano (wonderful…
The Stop Button 