Category: 1999
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Tom Strong is the main character this issue, the third in the series, Tom Strong, and the first issue where he is that main character. Moore even does a bunch of first person narration, which gives the reader the first insight into him. The story is fairly straightforward (especially for a Tom Strong). Aztecs from…
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It’s the second issue and Moore’s confident enough he has the reader’s attention he doesn’t even bring Tom Strong in until the last five or six pages. And then it’s as something of a deus ex machina. It’s interesting how in the present action, Tom Strong is more thoughtful, when ten years before (in 1987),…
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I read Tom Strong when it came out (some of it, anyway); I didn’t remember much about this first issue until I got to the end. I sort of remembered the big smile at the end of the issue, which—at the time I first read it—I thought was a little strange. Here’s Alan Moore—the Watchmen…
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Gerber finds his way to a conclusion—an unexpected one, actually. It’s nice how limited series used to be able to build over their run. His excellent pacing has something to do with it. Gerber gets in a lot of story, especially considering he focuses on multiple characters throughout. Unfortunately, Lex is no longer amusing this…
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Al heads to Apokolips—after Lex proposes to breed him with some of his female staff—and meets up with a preteen Fury. They form a musical duo. Gerber comes up with some outlandish ideas, but he curbs them in the reality of DC continuity, which just makes the read all the better. I still haven’t really…
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Superman shows up this issue and Bright draws him so poorly I want to take back everything complimentary I said about his art on the first issue. Bright can’t draw Superman’s face–he gets the proportions of the head wrong–and he also can’t draw him flying. It’s a disastrous opening for the issue. Thank goodness there’s…
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I knew the concept—regular guy gets a Bizarro made of him—but Gerber still does manage to get some surprises out of it. When the issue opens, Al (the Bizarro) is slowly losing his faculties as he turns into a regular Bizarro. It makes him immediately sympathetic, something Gerber keeps up because the character talks to…
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Something about this issue is just very indistinct. It opens with Amara and Davis’s The Nevermen. It’s got some fabulous art—Davis is illustrating all these different pulpy heroes and villains with some sci-fi elements. It fabulous looking. The writing is awful. Amara’s plotting is confusing and his dialogue is wooden. Art’s great though. Then there’s…
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Something about this issue is just very indistinct. It opens with Amara and Davis’s The Nevermen. It’s got some fabulous art—Davis is illustrating all these different pulpy heroes and villains with some sci-fi elements. It fabulous looking. The writing is awful. Amara’s plotting is confusing and his dialogue is wooden. Art’s great though. Then there’s…
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I wanted to like Ragnok—not because Arcudi’s writing, but because Sook’s on the art. But it’s dark and indistinct. Lots and lots of black—very Mignola-lite. If Arcudi maybe had an interesting script, it would work. Unfortunately, the script seems to be going for something eccentric; Sook’s art doesn’t fit it. Maybe it’ll get better…. The…
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I was really expecting more from Edginton here. His Aliens vs. Predator starts out as a rip of Alien—bickering crew, uncharted planet—only adding in aliens once the people land (they don’t have spacesuits either). But then it turns out to be a poorly conceived “thirty years in the future” sequel to the first Aliens vs.…
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It’s a “theme” annual—characters in their youths. It opens with Wagner, Chin and Wong on Xena. The art’s a little rough, but Wagner’s writing is solid. Mignola’s Hellboy is adorable (as young Hellboy stories tend to be). It’s a cute couple pages. Sakai’s Usagi Yojimbo drags. It’s way too didactic. Sakai’s art some okay moments…
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Wow. Another generally stinky issue. Obviously, Burglar Girls is the worst. Amara’s writing here is more confusing than anything else–he’s trying to pull a trick on the reader, but doesn’t give it any tension. In fact, the only time he foreshadows, he reveals the next panel. Barberi and Velasco’s art continues to be bad. Shabrken…
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If it weren’t for Hedden and McPhillips, this one would be a complete stinker. Okay, Vortex, from Kennedy, Larson and Moncuse, isn’t atrocious. It’s a dumb superhero story about a guy from another dimension who comes to Earth and does stuff, blah blah blah. What’s crazy is Kennedy does it all in summary, so the…
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It’s Yeates and Bissette doing a Tarzan issue… how bad can it be? Not at all; it can’t be bad. The story is split into three parts–the first features Tarzan exploring the Hollow Earth and thinking about his life, before he runs into some cannibals. Well, are they cannibals if they only eat other humanoids?…
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Presents does Lovecraft homage; they do it well. The weakest is Mignola’s Dr. Gosburo Coffin (with Sook on art). It’s basically just standard Mignola (sure, there’s some Lovecraft influence, but the whole thing plays like an 1800s B.P.R.D. to some degree). Also, either Sook started out as a Mignola mimic or he’s just really good…
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It’s the all-Buffy issue and, wow, does it get bad. The first story, which I thought was going to be a low point–from Brereton, Golden, Bennett and Amash–turns out to be all right. It’s Buffy meeting the Creature from the Black Lagoon. Golden’s writing is fine, Bennett’s art is adequate. Golden plots it weird and…
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The art’s not terrible on the Aliens story—Leonardi and Wiacek do all right (they certainly get the art win for this issue)—but Schultz and Amara’s writing is atrocious. They don’t just feel the need for bad dialogue, they want lots of it too. There’s endless poorly written expository dialogue. And the story is some segue…
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It’s a strange Roachmill because it’s very confined—Hedden and McWeeney set it at a public school where Roachmill’s after the school bully. So it’s sort of an all-action story. Dark Horse seems to have included both parts in this issue (there’s a very clear break, with cliffhanger), which is nice. McWeeney’s art is still good…
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Denise Richards is not convincing as a nuclear physicist. That statement made, Apted might get her best performance ever in this film. It’s still awful. Her lack of charisma is painful; one has to wonder how Brosnan and Apted were able to put up with it, given the rest of the film’s considerable accomplishments. The…
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I’ve lost the desire to visit South Korea. I’m not sure how to describe Attack the Gas Station! I suppose it’s a crime comedy, except the audience is supposed to laugh at the victims. The film lionizes its criminals–who spend the near two hour running time assaulting children, attempting the occasional rape and generally humiliating…
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I’m very curious as to what the original plan was for Aria. Clearly, they didn’t intend it to be over in four issues. I know there are subsequent limited series, but this issue ends a huge storyline. Of course, it’s a huge storyline Holguin creates, for the most part, in the third issue. Half of…
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I suppose, given an art change–one as significant as losing Anacleto–some slack should be given. But Roy A. Martinez–who did some filler on the second issue–isn’t even in the same genre as Anacleto…. Worse, it’s pretty clear Holguin’s script was for Anacleto to illustrate, not a fill-in guy. Especially not a fill-in guy unable to…
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Less narration and more story (even if more story does mean a lot more characters) mean a better issue. What a crazy concept. Holguin should have patented it. I also need to backtrack on the fairy tale thing. These are faeries, not fairy tale characters. At least I think. I know the protagonist (the Aria…
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I’m not sure what Aria has going for it, post-Fables. The idea of making fairy tales real but only in the magic sense… it’s just surprising Holguin didn’t think maybe using real characters would work better. The selling point of Aria now, as it was back in 1999, is the art. Anacleto’s magical take on…
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I don’t know if I’d say I’ve been waiting ten years to see the director’s cut of Payback, but I guess I’ve been interested in it for ten years–it’s supposed to be the meaner version. Too bad Mel Gibson, even a good Mel Gibson, is Mel Gibson. Even when he’s being tough and mean, he’s…
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It’s so bad. It’s so bad I’m not even going to go on a super-rant about it because I think Byrne had to know it was terrible and it doesn’t seem sportsmanlike to kick him after such an absurdly bad comic book. It retells the Sandman story from Amazing, but sets it later in Spidey’s…
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Oh, wow. This issue is actually the worst. The dialogue is so unbearably bad, it doesn’t even matter Milgrom’s inks are a little better than last time. Spider-Man gets in a fight with Giant-Man and the Wasp–who Byrne portrays as being entirely narcissistic and without any heroic qualities whatsoever, but still forces the reader to…
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And there you have it… I say something nice and this issue’s my reward. This issue might be the worst. I mean, maybe not in terms of scenic writing, but certainly in terms of plotting and art. Milgrom’s inks here are atrocious. The only panel he doesn’t seem to ruin is a close-up of Johnny…
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This issue might actually be the best one of the series (so far). I mean, the Daredevil appearance at the beginning is awful–actually, wait, the whole beginning is awful. Actually, everything’s awful except the fight in Central Park against Kraven and the Chameleon. And even it has bad art–Al Milgrom is a terrible inker for…
The Stop Button 