Monkey Prince (2022) #3

Mp3 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 story has to do with dream girl Kaya.

Meanwhile, Shifu Pigsy will go on a demon hunt and determine the threat is even more imminent than he’d been thinking, and Marcus’s parents will have some workplace troubles. Marcus’s parents work for the Penguin, who has been possessed by the mystical villain, the Golden Horn. The Golden Horn is going to be Monkey Prince’s big bad—presumably, as Shifu Pigsy seems really worried about him.

Marcus isn’t interested in gold-plated Cobblepots, not when Kaya starts flirting with him. She’s got some questions about Monkey Prince and Marcus—like, why isn’t Marcus ever around when Monkey Prince is on the scene—and there’s also the matter of Kaya’s brother. Turns out it’s Marcus’s nemesis, The Riz, and he’s missing. Monkey Prince promises to find the missing dipshit.

At this point in the issue, writer Gene Luen Yang has completed a full enough comic book narrative gesture. He’s done character development, he’s done twists with Kaya, and there are the subplots with Pigsy and the parents. But then Monkey Prince delivers on the promise instead of kicking the can down the road for two more issues. Monkey Prince goes off to find the Riz, who’s being questioned by Boy Wonder Robin (the cover promises a Batman appearance, which thankfully doesn’t happen).

Monkey Prince and Robin have a fun, funny, and (gently) gross fight scene. Artist Bernard Chang does a good job throughout the issue, but something about the Robin fight just brings it all together. Visually, Monkey Prince is a strange combination. There’s the obvious “real-life” meets comic book, but there are also Chinese mystical beings in modernity as well as them interacting with men and boys in tights.

Good resolution, good cliffhanger. Yang’s doing a fantastic high school superhero comic here.

Oh, and the parents. I’ve been bearish on the parents, but this issue turns it around when they start Nick and Nora’ing as they contend with an even more dangerous Oswald Cobblepot.

Great stuff.

Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022, Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert)

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 various versions of them from across the multiverse. Everything takes it one step further, turning the momentum of meeting alternate versions of the same character (so alternate versions of the same performer but not the same performance) into a main story arc.

Everything employs an interesting structure—three identified parts, with the first part ending on a cliffhanger and the third part more an epilogue. But there’s a three-act structure to the parts. So the stakes are entirely different in the second part than the first, even though the overall threat is the same—the multiverse is in danger, and only Yeoh can save it.

Directors Kwan and Scheinert toggle through various styles in the film. Too many to count—while there’s an infinite number of Yeohs out there, the film only really asks the viewer to remember ten. Maybe not even ten. There’s an action movie Yeoh, there’s a family drama Yeoh, there’s an absurd romantic drama Yeoh, there’s a Wong Kar-wai movie Yeoh, and then a handful of sight gag universe Yeohs. In all these other universes, Yeoh’s somehow spectacular. There’s one thing she does better than anyone else.

But Yeoh Prime’s one thing she’s better than anyone else at is being a failure. No matter what she tries, it eventually doesn’t work out. The film’s present action in the Prime universe is about Yeoh and husband Quan in trouble with the IRS—specifically relentless auditor Jamie Lee Curtis—at the same time, Yeoh has to take in her father, James Hong. Yeoh and Quan left China as rebellious young adults and came to the United States and opened a laundromat, where they never made enough money, but also never too little they gave up on it. Also, it’s Chinese New Year. Also, Hsu, as their daughter, wants to introduce girlfriend Tallie Medel to grandpa Hong as her girlfriend, and Yeoh’s not sure it’s the right time for Hsu to be herself.

As Yeoh starts universe-hopping, she’s going to see how her life changed and how it didn’t, which exposes her to insights. What’s so wild—I mean, it’s already wild, it’s a Hong Kong cinema homage kung fu family drama absurdist comedy—but what’s also so wild is how the second part is then all about Yeoh taking agency and learning from those other lives. Everything is about the story’s protagonist taking an active role in how their story progresses.

The first part has Yeoh and Quan together most of the time, with Yeoh’s relationship with Hsu providing a lot of narrative turmoil but not affecting the action. The second part flips that situation, partnering Yeoh and Hsu most of the time, but Quan’s consequentially bound to the narrative. It’s delicate and detailed, with the directors changing aspect ratios and cameras (or at least good filters) between the various different movies Yeoh finds herself in. Because it’s always a movie, and she’s just watching her life go by.

Even as Yeoh Prime begins to realize her potential, one of her splinter arcs involves the “good guys” trying to keep her in a passive role. Or at least subordinate, even as she’s discovering she can break free from all constraint. Yeoh’s got a beautiful story arc, which she performs flawlessly. After all the big comparisons between universes in the first half, the film gets more subtle in the second. By the finale, it’s practically gentle, with almost indistinguishable–but still very distinct—differences between the universes.

The film’s a technical marvel throughout, with cinematographer Larkin Seiple and editor Paul Rogers doing superlative work (in addition to outstanding work from costumes designer Shirley Kurata and production designer Jason Kisvarday). But there’s something even more special about the finale: Seiple and Rogers are no longer trying to wow with the audiovisual but lower the intensity so the performances take center stage. It’s subtle, breathtaking work.

Phenomenal performances from Yeoh, Hsu, and Quan. Curtis is great too—ditto Hong—but they’re orbiting the stars, not doing these inconceivably gigantic character arcs. Quan gets a little less to do than Yeoh and Hsu, but his presence itself is enough to inform some of Yeoh’s arc. The scenes where she and Hsu really get to act opposite each other are mesmerizing.

Everything about Everything comes together—the shifts in pacing, the sometimes over-the-top sight gags or references, not to mention Quan. While he doesn’t get the central character relationship, he does get the peripheral one, but he also gets to do a variety of other versions of the character. There’s his sexy WKW guy, there’s the action hero, there’s the concerned dad. Yeoh and Hsu give these momentous performances, but those arcs are part of the plot. Quan gets to do these different characters, and the oomph is in his performance, not the narrative momentum.

That said, it’s obviously Yeoh’s showcase.

The film’s a significant accomplishment for cast and crew. Everything’s an exhilarating, emotionally enthralling experience.

Do a Powerbomb (2022) #7

STL250206 1 crop 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 wrestling fan and a brutal opponent. Johnson does nothing with God as a character, which is fine. He’s in the middle of the biggest possible cop-out for a story—is Do a Powerbomb supposed to be a retelling of a Greek myth, maybe—so it’s nice he doesn’t stop for another big cop-out.

Sadly, despite the best-in-class artwork—so damn good—the comic itself is beyond disappointing. Johnson managed to turn his compelling, textured narrative into something he can resolve with platitudes. And there aren’t any surprises in the issue (other than how good the art gets); Johnson forecasted the whole conclusion a few issues ago.

Johnson’s banal, tepid conclusion hurts the series overall—maybe not as badly in a single sit reading the collection versus delay between issues—but it’s still exceptionally lazy stuff.

Powerbomb can’t be a disappointment overall—not with that art, not with Johnson so boldly forecasting the book’s trip into trite starting a couple of issues ago.

I never thought, starting the book, there’d be so little to talk about when it was over.

I guess it’s technically my favorite Christian comic book, but it’s not like there are a lot of candidates.

I love that art, though–shame about the writing.

Side Effects (2022)

Side e 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 while meeting a girl who also experiences mental health crises.

What are these crises? Where do they come from?

None of your business.

Writer Ted Anderson gets to accessible through blandness. Besides the story being about a bunch of primarily queer young women, everything in the book has been watered down. Even their conversations have been watered down. Hannah’s shrink comes off as less personable than ChatGPT while still being undeniably supportive.

The “hook” of Side Effects is Hannah getting a bunch of Dial H-For-Hero superpowers, except it depends on what kind of medication she’s taking. Now the real way to do the comic would be to talk about how the medications make her feel different, maybe tie the powers into those changes—or even the adverse side effects of the actual drug. But Anderson’s not willing to go there with Hannah (or any of the other characters). Side Effects is from an indie press, but one with a very corporate approach to storytelling.

So the heart and soul have to come from artist Tara O’Connor. And O’Connor does okay. She’s better with expressions than composition, but she keeps the book moving, which helps a bunch since it’s really long and nothing really happens to Hannah. She has misadventures because of her powers (which sometimes only she can see). She even helps a fellow student in some very serious trouble (and very responsibly told), but she’s got no character. So maybe starting the book with her getting to college and cutting to her first panic attack without even introducing the supporting cast (or establishing it wasn’t happening immediately upon arrival) wasn’t the way to go.

With several asterisks—Side Effects is for teen readers (it says “Young Adult” after all) and is priced for library shelves—it’s okay. It’s average for the genre. The only thing to make it stand out is its lack of insight and passion. Of course, well-meaning corporate product is better than not-well-meaning corporate product, but it’s tough to get excited about it either way. If publishers Seismic Press (an imprint of Aftershock) really wanted to do good, couldn’t they have released a thirty-two-pager on Free Comic Book Day?

Monkey Prince (2022) #2

Monkey Prince 2 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 son), which Robin calls out, we also find out Batman doesn’t tell Commissioner Gordon things like “I went into a high school and beheaded someone.” Is the natural conclusion of fascist, abusive Bat-dad is he’s a punchline?

Maybe, but seeing how little Batman cares about anything is still bizarre. Civilians, murder victims, whatever. Basically, he’s a tool, just like the school bully in Monkey Prince. Luckily for lead Marcus, his new school’s got plenty of non-tools around, including—sort of—Robin’s alter ego, Damian Wayne. Damian’s an annoying kid on the school newspaper who interrupts his interviews to take WayneTech Watch calls from his dad and mock him.

Marcus also gets to hang out with his crush, Kaya, and it’s adorable when he gets elated at the thought he’s on her radar (only to discover she’s part of the school’s mental health club, something Bruce Wayne probably ought to be paying for city-wide). He and de facto mentor Mr. Zhu have some long talks about Monkey Princing, and then there’s some more with Marcus’s parents.

I’m guessing Prince established Marcus was adopted last issue, but I’d forgotten. It doesn’t really change anything (yet?), but Yang’s setting him up for a big moment when he discovers his adorkable parents are actually supervillain support scientists.

Yang’s still in the setup phase of the series, though I did entirely miss the Penguin has been turned into “Golden Horn Penguin.” I blame artist Bernard Chang, who does an excellent job throughout—especially with the humor—but his one introduction shot to a mutated Penguin isn’t enough. I thought the mutant was eating Penguin, not Penguin mutated and eating other people.

Anyway.

Really strong issue, can’t wait for more, exactly what a teenage superhero comic should be.

Do a Powerbomb (2022) #6

Do a Powerbomb 6 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 issue opens fine, flashing back to Cobrasun after his wife’s death, checking in with his brother-in-law, who gives him a good smack. Johnson then goes back even further to Cobrasun and the wife’s meet cute. She was scouting wrestlers and took to him, despite the way he wears his mask to hide something. In the present, Lona is injured and unconscious, so their “I’m your father, Luke” conversation is also delayed—who knows how the issue would read if Johnson didn’t constantly delay promised moments. Cobrasun’s freaking out, but then there are also their competitors from last issue duking it out.

At the end of last issue, Johnson promised a doozy of a fight between the competitors, who both have a dead child to resurrect, so there can be only one. It’s disappointing Johnson rushes through their fight, always going for perfunctory or worse (using TV footage to recap something).

Johnson does get around to one of his outstanding threads, which may or may not foreshadow the big resolution next issue.

He’s a lot more invested in the flashbacks—and rounding Cobrasun out as a character—and it would have been better just to do this issue for Cobrasun. I’m not sure. Maybe next issue will make everything okay, but… there’s cause for concern.

The more I think about the issue, the more pronounced the problems become and, consequently, the more I worry about the finale.

Maybe if the final twist weren’t the biggest eye roll of a deus ex machina possible.

Great art as always, with Johnson proving very adept at the character drama. Hence, a full flashback issue for Cobrasun’s secret origin would’ve been a better choice.

Either way, there will be lots to talk about next time. Unless Johnson just pushes it off to Powerbomb Too.

Monkey Prince (2022) #1

Mp1 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 of the variant covers. Maybe you assume Batman will be in all DC #1s?

Enough with the rhetorical questions; enough with Batman. Monkey Prince isn’t about Batman, though his initial cameo gives away some of the hook—little kid Marcus Sun wakes up one night and hears a commotion in the living room of his family’s Gotham City apartment. He stumbles out, wiping the sleep from his eyes, and sees Batman beating up on his dad. Batman leaves after making some bad parent judgments (really, how’s Jason Todd again?).

Marcus never figures it out, but it’s pretty obvious his parents are supervillains. They turn out to be science hench-people who leave town soon after, living in all the big DC cities before ending up back in Gotham when Marcus is a teenager. Unfortunately, he’s still got PTSD from interrupting that Bat-fight, which causes a panic attack at the swimming pool. He makes the mistake of bumping into one of the school bullies, who then pushes Marcus into the pool.

The school custodian takes an interest, trying to encourage Marcus to work past his trauma, something Marcus initially refuses. When he tries to do it himself, Marcus discovers he’s, well, a monkey prince.

The issue hints at a rich cultural history for the character—in addition to the teenage son of bad guys, writer Gene Luen Yang’s front and center about how Marcus’s Chinese heritage affects his daily experiences, including his bully further attacking Marcus for having a white mom. It gives Marcus some more ground situation personality, which helps since he’s mostly just having panic attacks this issue. He also meets his presumable love interest; so far, Monkey Prince feels like a new teen superhero number one. With some asterisks, sure, but Yang’s not deviating too far from the playbook.

Bernard Chang’s art ably toggles between action paces—the superhero action’s much different than the bullying—and the character drama. Chang and Yang pace it rather well.

The series is off to a fine start.

Do a Powerbomb (2022) #5

Do a Powerbomb 5 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 still doesn’t know Cobrasun’s her father; she assumes he’s helping resurrect her mom because he feels bad about killing her.

I mean, he does feel bad about killing her (during a wrestling match), but there’s so much context. And all of it surrounds the characters as they decide to have a potential fight to the death for the championship. They don’t want the traditional rules—especially since their opponents are from a universe where pro wrestling isn’t staged. They want to be able to fight anywhere in the arena, they don’t want to have to tag in, and they want to use, well, weapons. Barbed wire baseball bats, barbed wire folding chairs. Pretty much anything they can use to cause some damage.

Cobrasun has been fighting in these kind of matches for a decade (or so), but it’s Lona’s first time. She’s scared. Johnson bakes that fear into the greater context. It’s a wrestling match action issue, complete with a ring announcer and wrestling moves, but it’s not just the final match; it’s also so much more dangerous than usual. Even for Powerbomb.

The action’s a truly superb balance between the pro-wrestling theatrics, the additional danger to the wrestlers, as well as the overarching tensions of the comic itself. Johnson teases at Lona and Cobrasun’s opponents’ backstory vise-a-vie needing someone resurrected but waits until the cliffhanger to delineate. In doing so, he introduces an entirely integrated subplot with just a couple issues left.

Powerbomb’s exceptional work.

Absolution (2022) #5

Absolution 5 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, so she can’t do anything with it. She can’t even think it to herself. Otherwise, the reader would be clued in, and Milligan couldn’t do a twist.

“Twist.”

The issue also trashes the concept of the series as a procedural. When Nina does get around to the series’s last mission, Milligan shoehorns it in. He also repeats a story twist from last issue with it, which is something he just did last issue. I thought Absolution was a four-issue series stretched to five, but it’s a three stretched to four stretched to five. Milligan just decorates the story beats a little differently.

He also doesn’t give artist Mike Deodato Jr. anything interesting to draw this issue. I mean, torture stuff? A Reservoir Dogs nod? It’s definitely not finale-worthy material. Some of the point is in the anti-climatic nature of the narrative, but… Milligan and Deodato should’ve figured out a way to make it work.

Though Milligan’s narration writing is his worst on the book, I don’t think I’d have kept going if he’d had this narration in the first issue. The most disappointing thing about the bad narration is Milligan’s bored. He’s not blathering on because he’s excited about the content; he’s just trying to write the comic to a finish. It’s mawkish.

Absolution’s been a bumpy ride, but I wasn’t expecting Milligan to run out of gas with the finish line in sight. I mean, I expected the character arc he started last issue to not resolve well in this issue, but he flushes that approach and starts fresh with the bad narration instead.

It’s bewildering. However, it’s also confusing why he never established a distinct storytelling approach. Instead, he tried a bunch—one an issue—but for absolutely no reason in the end.

He had a slick, pulpy exploitation story and went trite with it.

Bummer.

Do a Powerbomb (2022) #4

Do a Powerbomb 4 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 Johnson opens the issue with a flashback establishing their opponents this issue, some real mean dudes from some destroyed dimension. They had a warrior capable of taking out Nectron, but he died, so these wrestlers need to win Nectron’s tournament to get Nectron to resurrect the warrior to slay him. Him being Nectron.

Johnson gets through that backstory briskly, punctuating the flashback with a brilliant sports training montage sequence. It’s got the cadence of a Rocky movie, except Johnson’s doing it with composition and text. Beautiful work. And he knows it because he does it again a little later for Lona and Cobrasun. They’ve decided to work together, even though she hates him because he killed her mother, and he feels very guilty about it, with him being Lona’s father and the woman he killed’s lover and all.

We even get more backstory about how they fell in love—or at least the implication of how they fell in love—as a tag team before Lona was born. Obviously. Though she doesn’t know it. And the big reveal isn’t the parentage; Johnson’s clearly keeping that one until later.

Lona and Cobrasun’s wrestling match is intense and vicious, but nothing compared to the next one, presumably the first other match they’ve seen. They’re also surprised—like I was surprised—to discover there’s another team from Earth. Johnson very quickly introduces the other team, establishes their stakes, and gets them in the ring for their match. The match actually literally interrupts Johnson establishing the stakes. Johnson’s got great instincts for when the exposition has done its job, and he should move on to action.

So it’s a self-contained action issue with major story threads weaved throughout.

It’s not the best issue of the series; Johnson doesn’t do anything jaw-dropping; it’s just an excellent, still excelling issue of Powerbomb. However, even when Johnson has a (relatively) simple issue to execute, he still bristles with energy.

Powerbomb’s electric. And next issue seems like it’s going to kick major ass.