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Supergirl (2005) #47
You know, I hate to rag on Jon Sibal’s inks when he’s not on an issue… but Matt Camp’s fill-in here looks a lot like Igle before the Sibal inks. It maintains some of the roundedness. It’s not all about having thin lines. Also, this issue shows off what’s wrong with editors. Here, at the… 📖
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Supergirl (2005) #46
I love not reading the other parts of this crossover, it makes my brain work a little to catch up. Rucka’s back as co-writer here (and Igle and Sibal get help from Pansica and Ferreira). Again, no idea what Rucka does and doesn’t do. Similarly, Pansica matches Igle (especially with Sibal on inks) close enough… 📖
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Supergirl (2005) #45
And now it’s in the middle of another crossover… I love it when comic book publishers are hostile to casual readers. Umm. Rucka co-writes here. Not sure what contributions he made. From what I can tell, the world now knows Sam Lane is alive and he’s a hero and the Kryptonians (Superman included?) are the… 📖
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Supergirl (2005) #44
I really don’t like Sibal’s inks on Igle. He’s way too reductive. It’s almost like he’s trying to make it look like Ian Churchill or something. This issue is part of a Superman family crossover. It seems like Sam Lane is trying to get a Kryptonian to assassinate the President. So Gates has to compete… 📖
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Supergirl (2005) #43
Kryptonian society really isn’t thought out enough. This issue is about Kara going from guild to guild (a guild is basically a career path–I’m assuming it’s all for the greater Kryptonian good, dirty socialists) and seeing what they’re like. Gates frighteningly frames it in a letter to her dead father. Because he’s using it for… 📖
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Love Potion No. 9 (1992, Dale Launer)
I wonder if there’s not a better version of Love Potion No. 9 out there somewhere. The film only runs ninety minutes and feels anorexic. Launer’s writing–even his narration for Tate Donovan–has these moments of incredible strength. It’s so strong, in fact, it and Donovan make Love Potion a fine diversion. Well, those aspects and… 📖
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Dark Horse Presents (1986) #157
The final issue of Dark Horse Presents doesn’t even note it on the cover. On either cover actually. If it weren’t for The Goon, one might say the series just trailed off. Luckily, it does have The Goon. That statement is not to suggest The Goon is fantastic. It might be only my second ever… 📖
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Dark Horse Presents (1986) #156
Well, Gray inking Sook on Witch’s Son—at least at this stage of Sook’s career—produces a far better result than Sook inking himself. It still looks very Mignola, but there’s a lot more fluidity to the characters. As for Allie’s script? It’s competent in terms of dialogue, but the content is fairly weak. Witches, demons, yada… 📖
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Dark Horse Presents (1986) #155
Another fine issue. The pleasant surprise is the Angel story finally approaches good. Golden and Sniegoski introduce a lot of humor into this installment (completing the story) and it helps a lot. Also, Horton and Lee are mostly drawing supernatural beings and they do it well. The end’s a bit weak, but it’s something to… 📖
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Dark Horse Presents Annual (1998) 2000
It’s the “all female” issue… without a single female creator working on the book. The best is in the Buffy story, when they turn rape prevention into a pun. The Buffy story is the worst–Fassbender and Pascoe’s writing is, tasteless jokes aside, awful. Their dialogue is weak as is their plotting. Richards and Pimentel’s art… 📖
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Dark Horse Presents (1986) #154
Finally… a solidly mediocre issue. Iron Reich 3000 isn’t bad. Land writes it like an infantry comic set in the future (one has to wonder about Starship Troopers influences) and Saiz and Blanco do a good job with the art. Saiz’s abilities are clear here… but he does draw all his characters like male models. It’s… 📖
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Dark Horse Presents (1986) #153
I think some of these Presents licensed properties stories might be ideal examples of why properties should never be licensed across mediums. This issue’s Angel—and Golden and Sniegoski’s script isn’t even bad—is too short and too slight, even for the concept (one of the Angel cast makes a Blair Witch movie for demons). Horton and Lee’s art could be… 📖
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Dark Horse Presents (1986) #152
Von Shelly has another fumetti this issue. While I suppose it’s a bit of an achievement to mix all the photos together, it’s godawful. Von Shelly’s writing is real bad. It’s clear he thinks his work is maybe the greatest thing ever; only a similarly minded (i.e. illiterate) reader would enjoy it. Full Throttle is… 📖
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Dark Horse Presents (1986) #151
Mignola’s Hellboy is inexplicably pointless. Hellboy’s sort of the main character, but it’s really this secret group of people out to… kill him? Study him? Mignola never specifies and it makes the ending flop. The first part is decent—it is nice how Mignola works out a three-act structure even in eight pages or whatever—but it quickly… 📖
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Dark Horse Presents (1986) #150
The issue opens with Petrie, Richards and Pimentel on Buffy. Petrie’s writing is awful (Buffy explains the story to herself through expositional dialogue) and the art is fairly weak. Even the resolution is lame. Chadwick’s Concrete is bad, but in interesting ways. Chadwick avoids the usual humanity of his stories (good or bad) and concentrates on the… 📖
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Hotel Chevalier (2007, Wes Anderson)
It’s wrong to call Hotel Chevalier Anderson’s best film. The end of the film is some of the best work he’s ever done and a lot of the writing is some of the best writing he’s ever done (alone). The dialogue in Chevalier cuts in a way similar to Hemingway (maybe the Paris setting implies… 📖
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Dark Horse Presents (1986) #149
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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Dark Horse Presents (1986) #148
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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Dark Horse Presents (1986) #147
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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Dark Horse Presents (1986) #146
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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Due Date (2010, Todd Phillips)
It would have been nice if they had credited Planes, Trains & Automobiles as the source material, since Due Date lifts the concept—high-strung guy on the road with an annoying, but secretly lovable fat guy. Due Date stays close to the pattern; the fat guy has a lot of melodramatic angst fueling his actions. It… 📖
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Dark Horse Presents Annual (1998) 1999
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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Dark Horse Presents (1986) #143
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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Dark Horse Presents (1986) #142
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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Dark Horse Presents (1986) #141
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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Lovers Jump (2010, Mark McCombe)
What’s interesting about short films—when they’re doing straight narratives—is how much they can get away with. Lovers Jump is basically the final scene in a feature. Jenny Wong’s script is nice because there’s not much expository dialogue to explain anything—it all flows naturally. And then the end is the kick and it’s great. There’s no… 📖
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Dark Horse Presents (1986) #138
Wow, the first Terminator story in Presents. I thought they’d gone through all the licenses, but no. It’s not terrible. Grant’s writing is adequate and Teran’s art has an energy to it. He’s a little confusing in action scenes (Grant’s plotting hurts there too) but he’s got some great designs. Martin and Rude’s The Moth… 📖
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Dark Horse Presents (1986) #137
So Nazis versus Predator and the best Marz can come up with is a story set in South America? Castellini’s art makes up for some of it—even though he can’t draw the Predator, the rest of it looks good. But Marz’s writing is pretty dumb. Seagle and Gaudiano have another My Vagabond Days, this time… 📖
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Unstoppable (2010, Tony Scott)
It would go a little far to say Scott’s reinvented the disaster genre with Unstoppable, but he’s certainly reinvigorated it. He borrows from the traditional standards (the Irwin Allen is heaviest in the first act, when setting up innocent people–children no less–in peril), then a little from the revisionist standards (the Die Hard approach), while… 📖
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The Invincible Iron Man (2008) #500
Fraction sets up this issue in two parts–first the present, with Tony tracking down Peter Parker to talk about some designs Tony forgot about, and second the future. In the future, Tony’s kid is fighting the Mandarin, who has taken over the world thanks to Tony’s technology. Fraction plays the future as full action. There’s… 📖
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Dark Horse Presents (1986) #136
Another endless installment of The Ark. Verheiden’s writing gets really padded here, especially with the conversations. With the long page count–sixteen pages an installment–I wonder if it was intended to be a limited series then someone at Dark Horse realized no one in his or her right mind would buy it. So instead they stuck… 📖
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Dark Horse Presents Annual (1998) 1998
The annual opens with Mignola doing a retelling of Hellboy‘s origin. I guess it’s all right. Kind of pointless, but fine. Weissman finally gets a two page Phineas Page and shows why he should have stuck to a page. Van Meter and Ross team for the first comic book appearance of Buffy. The writing is… 📖
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Dark Horse Presents (1986) #134
Warren finishes up Dirty Pair and I guess it’s good. I mean, it’s a lot of well-drawn action and the jabbering is starting to grow on me. There really isn’t a story though, just scantily clad girls in action scenes. But Warren’s art carries it. Macan’s writing is sort of better on Carson of Venus… 📖
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Dark Horse Presents (1986) #133
Starting with The Fall, Brubaker introduces some complications and revelations here. I’ve read it before, but I can’t remember how it ends. This installment implies there might be some very bad things about to happen. Brubaker handles the change in tone well and Lutes’s art is great. He does fantastic night scenes. Macan and Doherty’s… 📖
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Dark Horse Presents (1986) #132
Cooper brings Dan & Larry to a very disturbing conclusion. I mean, he really goes for it here–after backing down from going too far a few issues ago–but here, Cooper sort of leaps off the cliff and makes the installment just plain disgusting on a dozen levels. It’s great. As for Warren’s Dirty Pair story,… 📖
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Dark Horse Presents (1986) #131
Where to even start. Beto’s got a good girl future story with Girl Crazy. It’s about a lovesick robot. He takes his time establishing it (then has to hurry towards the end) and finishes the story on a good joke. It’s a very cute story, sort of not what I expected from him. Then there’s… 📖
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Supergirl (2005) #42
I love how Kara’s got a backpack for traveling between New Krypton and Earth. It’s a fantastic detail. The issue opens on a low point—the revelation Sam Lane served under Sergeant Rock—but it quickly recovers. First it’s Kara telling Lois about killing Superwoman. It’s an excellent scene, even if Lois is being a bit of… 📖