The Stop Button
blogging by Andrew Wickliffe
Category: 2022
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Monkey Face—sorry, Monkey Prince—sort of transcends this issue. The comic’s set over forty-five minutes to an hour, but isn’t a waste of decompression. Instead, Marcus the Monkey Prince has a very full after-school calendar. He gets some more training from the custodian, Mr. Zhu, who’s actually a mystical being (Shifu Pigsy), but most of his…
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Quite appropriately, Everything Everywhere All at Once is all the things. At once. And more. The film’s a relatively simply told multiverse comic book action-comedy-family-drama-romance-horror story with time to do a traditional hero arc, then deconstruct it. The film gives stars Michelle Yeoh, Stephanie Hsu, and Ke Huy Quan constantly changing roles as we meet…
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Creator Daniel Warren Johnson’s art on this last issue of Do a Powerbomb is fantastic, some of the best action art. In the series and beyond. Johnson really ups the ante with the final wrestling match, which has newly reunited (sort of) father and daughter wrestling team Cobrasun and Lona fighting God. God’s a big…
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Side Effects feels like a series of public service announcements strung together. It doesn’t feel like mandatory public service announcements, which is something, but earnest only gets you so far. In the case of Side Effects, there’s nothing past so far. It’s a competent graphic novel about college freshman Hannah experiencing a mental health crisis…
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Wait, is Batman just supposed to be a bad dad? Did DC really not think giving him a kid through? Or does Monkey Prince writer Gene Luen Yang just get to flash his bonafides and characterize Batman as a complete dipshit? In addition to Batman attempting to gaslight and emotionally manipulate Robin (who’s now his…
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For the first time on Powerbomb, there’s cause for concern. I’m not actually concerned because I’ve got faith in creator Daniel Warren Johnson—he’s more than earned it by this point—but this issue’s at the “shit or get off the pot” moment in the series, and Johnson’s approach is to ask for five more minutes. The…
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I’m not up on modern Batman takes, but… has everyone just agreed he’s a dick? Monkey Prince starts with a Batman cameo, then brings him (and Robin) into it for the cliffhanger. In addition to him being a dick, does every new book have a Batman cameo for the sales? Though Batman’s only on one…
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Creator Daniel Warren Johnson outdoes himself with this issue of Do a Powerbomb. It’s an almost entirely action issue, with Lona and Cobrasun fighting for the championship. The winner gets to resurrect a dead person of their choice—in Lona and Cobrasun’s case, her mom and his wife (actually, it’s unclear if they were married). Lona…
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Writer Peter Milligan takes another approach with this issue’s narrative distance, back to Nina heavily narrating, but now she’s interrogating herself. As the deadline for Absolution draws near, she has to ask herself questions about who she wants to be. Or something. Milligan hints at what’s behind her character development, but he’s boxed Nina in,…
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I’ve been getting the necromancer host of the Death Lyfe inter-dimensional wrestling tournament wrong; it’s Nectron, not Necro. So not an ape named Ape situation. This issue’s relatively self-contained, despite a big reveal in the last few pages. It’s just the story of Lona and Cobrasun’s next wrestling match in the tournament. Creator Daniel Warren…
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As I finished reading this issue of Absolution, I realized—despite artist Mike Deodato Jr.’s photo-referencing—the comic hasn’t established who they’re pitching with the lead role. When the creators muse about the adaptation, who’s playing Nina? Because she’s got some character development this issue—she’s got a love interest in Ann, the street doctor who saved her…
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Powerbomb does not disappoint with its first issue at the tournament. Creator Daniel Warren Johnson starts with a bunch of emotion—last issue’s cliffhanger revealed wannabe wrestler Lona’s dad is actually Cobrasun, the wrestler who killed her mom. The opening scene fills in the backstory when Dad visits her uncle. Their quick, boozy conversation reveals the…
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Artist Mike Deodato Jr. gets a little too bored with the art this issue—it’s another fight scene at night in a skyscraper. That repetitiveness figures into the problem Absolution’s revealing about itself writ large. The concept lends itself too much to repetitive storytelling. High-tech super-assassin Nina needs to kill bad guys in a way to…
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Watching Project Wolf Hunting (sadly not a Good Will Hunting reference), I kept wondering if the human body holds as much blood as the film suggests. It’s violent to the extremis, with every mutilated corpse creating a standing river of blood. It takes the film a while—well, at least ten minutes—to start gushing blood everywhere,…
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Not to mix metaphors or cross franchises, but Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is a Herculean effort from director Coogler and his co-writer Joe Robert Cole. It’s not quite a Herculean success, but it’s a success, which is more than enough given the numerous constraints they’re dealing with. First and foremost, the unexpected, tragic, and real-life…
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Well, despite being curious about something related to the issue’s Brobdingnagian last page reveal when creator Daniel Warren Johnson set it up last issue… I can’t remember the last time I’ve been as surprised by a comic. It’s a perfectly solid narrative choice but also entirely unexpected. Johnson started Powerbomb last issue doing one comic,…
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I’m unsurprised to see writer Peter Milligan downshift Absolution’s pace this issue. The action opens on streaming assassin Nina finishing her outing from last issue and quickly becomes about establishing the actual ground situation. First issue, Milligan did the world set-up; now it’s time to lay out Nina’s “normal” life. While the action might open…
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There’s something about the comics form and wrestling. The way an artist can choreograph the fight to emphasize the danger and drama. Because of the ring, much like boxing, the attention can better focus on the action. Unlike boxing, there are flamboyant outfits and a range of moves, though Powerbomb creator Daniel Warren Johnson doesn’t…
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Despite the Blade Runner font on the cover and the future vibe, Absolution is—so far—just a future dystopia action comic. I’m hesitant even to call it sci-fi. The potential science behind the fiction is all general stuff: the protagonist, Nina, is an assassin on potential parole. Potential meaning if she gets a high enough score…
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It’s been a while since I’ve read Ginseng Roots and even longer since I’ve read the first few issues of Ginseng Roots, but I’m pretty sure when creator Craig Thompson brings up Roots’s generative problems, it’s for the first time. In issue ten of twelve, he reveals after spending months trying to turn his research…
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Wow, it’s so good. Even for “Doom Patrol,” it’s so good. It’s a very “Doom Patrol” episode, too; the team has a mission, then something happens, and they have to go on a side mission. Given guest star Mark Sheppard finally reveals there’s a narrative reason for the main cast to remain young, it’s not…
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“Doom Patrol” has been having a fine season to this point; fine enough, one hopes they’re prepared for a non-renewal, but the series hasn’t been sublime. Every so often, “Doom Patrol” has a way of being sublime, where the story’s quirkiness, the characters’ humanity, and the Kevin Kiner and Clint Mansell music is just right,…
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Pun fully intended, Callum Woodhouse continues to show why he’s “All Creatures”’s trickiest casting but also its most successful. This Christmas special is set, appropriately, at Christmas, only war’s on, and no one’s feeling like celebrating this year. Especially not with Nicholas Ralph chomping at the bit for his chance to go—after the proper season’s…
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This episode leaves the butts behind—had to—and gets going with the other big bad of the season. The season premiere had special cameo guest star Mark Sheppard explaining he and the other wizards knew the Doom Patrol would have to fight the butts this season, but they’ve also got to fight someone or something called…
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I’m hesitant to call anything “Doom Patrolling,” a la “Westworlding,” but this episode comes close. The team is recovering from their trip to the future and discovering they bring about the “Butt-pocalypse;” one of the zombie butts from last season has survived to destroy the world. April Bowlby’s all set to lead the team to…
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Last season, “Doom Patrol” had to recover from a Covid-19-induced shortened second season, then get the show into a decent spot for HBO Max to cancel them. Thankfully, HBO Max did not cancel them, and now the show gets to do, presumably, at least this fourth season. You never know with HBO Max, however. Anyway.…
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Black Adam opens with kid narration. At first, it seems like the narrator kid is Ancient Kahndaqi Jalon Christian, who’s sick and tired of living under a tyrannical king who has his people mining eternium for him. Eternium is not a “Masters of the Universe” thing; it’s more like the DC Universe version of vibranium.…
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About half of Hansan is a naval battle. The second half. The first half is a combination history lesson, period espionage and turgid war thriller, and naval warfare theory symposium. The film’s about Admiral Yi Sun-shin, who kicked the invading Japanese navy’s ass in the sixteenth century. Despite being in command, lots of folks questioned…
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Killer Fashion is a peculiar episode. It’s a peculiar season finale, but it’s also just weird. It’s more about its guest stars than a season finale ought to be, and then there’s the whole fashion angle. Lucy Lawless and Ebony Vagulans are both obsessed with the fashion world, though Lawless won’t admit it. Other than…
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Enola Holmes 2 runs a long two hours and nine minutes, but the movie actually leaves a bunch on the table. For example, antagonist David Thewlis has history with both Sherlock (Henry Cavill) and Mama Holmes (Helena Bonham Carter), seemingly separately, but the film never gets into it. Thewlis is phoning it in, gloriously biting…
The Stop Button 