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The Mummy (1959, Terence Fisher)
I’ve long held there are no good filmic Dracula adaptations. I’m now going to say there aren’t any good Mummy pictures after the Karloff one. This Hammer production was an officially licensed remake of the Universal production… only not the Karloff title, instead the inferior Universal follow-ups, The Mummy’s Hand and The Mummy’s Tomb. These… 📖
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The Unwritten (2009) #9
Holy bejeezus. I try not to give a lot away (about good stuff) on the Fondle so talking about this issue is going to be difficult. I’m a little stunned as to what Carey just did, in terms of what he’s doing with The Unwritten–he’s introduced the triumvirate into the “real” world too, mirroring the… 📖
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The Unwritten (2009) #8
Here’s why I love Carey (and The Unwritten). This issue is an interlude issue, but very different from the last interlude issue, which was about Rudyard Kipling. Instead, it’s about the corrupt warden who’s got Tom Taylor in his jail. It’s just about him and his family. Yes, it ties into the other story, but… 📖
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The Unwritten (2009) #7
A lot happens this issue–Lizzie goes to jail, it’s revealed she knows the flying cat, Tom’s cellmate is a reporter, the warden is corrupt–but nothing really compares to Tom’s conversation with the Frankenstein Monster. Carey gives it all away–at least some of all of it–in the conversation, as it becomes clear Tom is Tommy, but… 📖
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The Unwritten (2009) #6
Carey starts something new here, in Unwritten‘s second arc, which I didn’t expect before. Well, he actually introduces a couple things I didn’t expect. First, Lizzie Hexam, is working with someone in her quest to… do whatever… with Tom. Second, Tom can apparently bring characters forth from written works–this issue ends with Tom discovering Frankenstein’s… 📖
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Marvels: Eye of the Camera (2009) #6
Okay, so Busiek doesn’t pull it off, not saving the whole series, not even saving the whole issue, but when he has the chance to be a right cheap bastard and have the mutant girl be a hallucination of a dying cancer patient… he doesn’t do it. He doesn’t do the M. Night Shyamalan ending.… 📖
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Marvels: Eye of the Camera (2009) #5
If Marvels II is really all about the protagonist dying, shouldn’t they have made the issues match the Kübler-Ross model–the five stages of grief–you know, from that “Simpsons” episode with the blowfish. Just an idea. I’m not sure when this issue takes place. Sometime in the late 1980s at least. The protagonist has been dying… 📖
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Marvels: Eye of the Camera (2009) #4
Ok, so Secret Wars took place in the seventies? I mean, based on the style of the protagonist’s new boss, at least. She’s wearing clothes straight out of “Mary Tyler Moore.” It’s fine, of course, if it does take place in the seventies in Marvels, but maybe mention it, guys. Maybe mention the year. Maybe… 📖
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Marvels: Eye of the Camera (2009) #3
Does Busiek have a point this time? This entire series seems pointless. It’s Anacleto, finally, drawing superheroes–not a lot of them, but some of them–and they look good and the comic looks good overall, but Busiek isn’t doing anything here. There’s nothing… pressing about this comic book. It’s completely by the numbers. It’s so unspectacular,… 📖
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Marvels: Eye of the Camera (2009) #2
The second issue is better than the first… but it’s still got a bunch of problems. It’s more of a sequel to the original series than the first issue, which makes the first issue even more questionable, but it also… it’s a…. So, the protagonist has this book about all the heroes and it’s called… 📖
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Marvels: Eye of the Camera (2009) #1
I’m a little confused. Marvels is, itself, somewhat out of continuity–the Fantastic Four didn’t really get their start in the sixties in current Marvel continuity. So, Marvels: Eye of the Camera is–or should be–out of continuity too, right? Because Busiek wastes the entire first issue ret-conning Marvels. It’s not even clear until the last five… 📖
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Robocop (1990) #23
Yeah, it’s awful. Lewis doesn’t appear in the issue. Robocop doesn’t go to Detroit. The entire issue, for him, is set on an Aztec pyramid; something along those lines. Robocop spends most of the issue talking about what it means to be Robocop. What I find most amusing about the comic is how everything Furman… 📖
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Robocop (1990) #22
Furman can’t wrap up the comic in an issue, which is what Marvel’s Robocop has left so he’s undoubtedly going to leave some things hanging. Or he’s going to force it all into one issue, which is going to be a disaster. The series is wrapping up to be incredibly silly. When Marvel got rid… 📖
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Robocop (1990) #21
So when the series started Robocop 2 hadn’t been released and the Old Man was still a good guy. Now he’s a bad guy. But still not as bad as he was in Robocop 2. This issue ends with him manipulating Robocop into assassinating a foreign dictator. Meanwhile, Robocop’s cracking heads (but not enough to… 📖
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Robocop (1990) #20
Who is Andrew Wildman and why has he ruined my Robocop? Regardless of Sullivan relatively slipping, this guy is a joke. His faces are pure amateur. I suppose his figures are a little better. This issue is a waste of time, but kind of shouldn’t be. It’s a continuation of the previous one–Robocop’s wife and… 📖
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Robocop (1990) #19
So we finally get Lewis and Robocop about the suck face and it turns out it’s a stupid brainwashing thing? Or, worse, we don’t even find out if it’s a stupid brainwashing thing. It’s never followed up on, instead Furman has Robocop’s human mind battle his computer mind in a scene straight out of Superman… 📖
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From Paris with Love (2010, Pierre Morel)
A review Pierre Morel’s 2010 film, “From Paris with Love,” starring John Travolta, Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Kasia Smutniak. 📖
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The Rocketeer: Cliff’s New York Adventure (1988-95)
Cliff’s New York Adventure doesn’t feature any New York landmarks. No Rocketeer at the Empire State Building or Statue of Liberty. There’s a neat guest appearance by the Shadow (Stevens does a great job of dodging copyright infringement). It’s got a lot going on–there’s the resolution of the first story’s cliffhanger as Cliff confronts Betty… 📖
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Marvels (1994) #4
Marvels, quite simply, can’t live up to the potential of the first issue. The present action is about thirty years. Thirty years, four issues. It’s not going to be a solid narrative. Busiek has a couple opportunities to tie the first and fourth issue and doesn’t. It would have worked better without the same narrator… 📖
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Marvels (1994) #3
The Galactus issue. Way too many full page fight scenes here (Ross must have been getting tired) and no real story. It’s all centered around the one event, around the Fantastic Four fighting off Galactus. I’ve never read the Fantastic Four issues this one retells, so I don’t know if the lame excuses for no… 📖
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Marvels (1994) #2
I think this issue of Marvels might qualify as cheap. I mean, while the first one thrilled and exhilarated, in this one Busiek puts a young girl in harm’s way as a dramatic plot. I’m not saying the issue does hit you in the stomach and hard, I’m just saying… it’s easy. I mean, bigot… 📖
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Marvels (1994) #1
Marvels, as I argued fifteen years ago and apparently am going to continue to argue today, feels more like a DC title than a Marvel one. It’s a combination of things–there’s something about Busiek’s narrator; he’s too common to be a Marvel protagonist, he’s too ugly, too sensitive. It’s also Ross’s art. Marvel comics have… 📖
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The New Mutants (1983) #37
While I’m loathe to say anything nice about Chris Claremont, especially in an issue where he apes dialogue from Little Big Man to show how conscious he is to the plight of Native Americans regarding the John Wayne cavalry movies, he almost does a good issue here. Well, maybe not. I mean, the Beyonder’s still… 📖
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Robocop: Roulette (1993) #4
Dark Horse’s Robocop ends here. Finally. It’s not a bad issue, definitely the best in this series and probably overall (the competition isn’t particularly steep, however). It helps Jeff Butler handles some of the art chores. I don’t know who he is or what else he’s done, but he’s better than Byrd. There’s some unintentionally… 📖
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Robocop (1990) #18
Furman goes episodic here. I mean, TV episodic, maybe the five minutes before the opening titles role. It’s all about cops going crazy and whatever it is driving them crazy also effects Robocop so there’s a cliffhanger with him about to shoot a bunch of people. Sullivan inks himself here, which is an improvement over… 📖
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Red Riding: In the Year of Our Lord 1974 (2009, Julian Jarrod)
I’m not entirely sure what I was expecting from 1974 but I didn’t get it. I think I thought it was a serial killer investigation, based on a real case. Instead, it’s this melodramatic crusading reporter thing, with the serial killings taking a back seat to that emphasis. Except then the crusading reporter thing takes… 📖
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The Rocketeer (1982-85)
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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The Complete Dracula (2009) #5
With Worley returning to the art, The Complete Dracula stands as three-fifths of the best telling or retelling of Stoker’s Dracula… far better than the novel itself, even with the occasional adaptation quibbles. The book immediately returns to the multimedia presentation, the artwork again becoming a mix of painted landscapes and domestics and half-static, half-moving… 📖
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The Complete Dracula (2009) #4
In the notes for this issue, Moore and Reppion discuss the novel’s sexism. I think the less guarded description would be Stoker’s misogyny. It’s somewhat curbed here, in the adaptation, as the writers are aware of its presence, whereas Stoker would not have been. Lots happens in the issue and I could only wonder how… 📖
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The Complete Dracula (2009) #3
Unfortunately, Worley’s gone this issue (he’s credited with layouts). Verma is … Verma’s painted comic art looks like all the lame painted comic art I’ve seen before, the stuff to make me dread a painted comic. His figures are fine, his faces are awful. The texture and depth of the book is now gone. It’s… 📖
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The Complete Dracula (2009) #2
So, I guess I hadn’t realized how important Aaron Campbell’s layout contributions are to this series. There’s an example in the back of the comic and it’s clear he’s significant. The Dracula novel, with the diary entries, the letters, the clippings, is sort of a multimedia (for the late nineteenth century) piece, and this adaptation… 📖
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The Complete Dracula (2009) #1
No one told me Dracula was going to be a digitally painted comic. I usually avoid those. But I probably still would have picked this one and a good thing, because it’s not bad. As a novel, Dracula, is complete garbage. It’s such garbage, it’s almost impossible to find a good adaptation of it, illustrated,… 📖
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Secret Wars II (1985) #8
So the Beyonder got all bent out of shape because of his failed encounter with Puma… (Puma was supposed to kill him, according Puma’s tribe’s legends) and spends this entire issue moping. Oh, he gets in a fight with the X-Men–unfortunately he doesn’t kill them, which doesn’t fit, since he’s enraged and that Rachel Summers… 📖
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Robocop: Roulette (1993) #3
Byrd’s art is pretty awful, but it’s a surprisingly okay issue. Even taking all the stupidity into account, Arcudi does manage a couple all right moments here, like when Robocop goes back to the scene of his own murder. There’s also a lot of cop talk, not related to Robocop, and it passes the panels.… 📖
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Robocop (1990) #17
Egads that’s bad. I was all set to say nice things about the art, but then Candelario’s inks made that one impossible. It’s a terribly written comic book. Besides having a really stupid plot, it’s just got the most atrocious dialogue imaginable. As a sequel to Robocop 2, it’s somewhat interesting–and it does flesh out… 📖
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The Mighty (2009) #12
Someone thought this issue cut it as a close? I mean, really? For twelve issues–for thirty-six bucks–they thought this cut it? The wife’s back from the dead. No one notices? She and the husband go flying around, no one notices? What about all the other super-powered people in Alpha One’s basement? No mention of them.… 📖
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The Mighty (2009) #11
Ok, I predicted wrong. Instead of doing the pat, traditional ending, the solidly banal one out of a disaster movie, a melodrama, or a BBC show, Tomasi and Champagne instead decide to go with an idiotic all fight issue. I mean, Samnee’s art’s good here, real good, but wow, the writing is just stupid. It’s… 📖
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The Mighty (2009) #10
It’s kind of like an Elseworlds title–instead of Red Son, it could be Superman: Iron Cross or something. Alpha One’s a Nazi, just a … altruistic one. His full origin is revealed here (it’s not really Superman, but it’s close enough) and it finally slows The Mighty down. The reader finally has to pay attention–too… 📖
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The Mighty (2009) #9
Maybe it was a movie script. I can’t think a time DC did one of those before–adapting a movie script into a comic when it wasn’t an adaptation–but Marvel did it with a Dr. Strange series once. It’d really explain The Mighty‘s pacing; the series probably reads great in trade, without the breaks, just because… 📖
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The Mighty (2009) #8
Again with the terrible pacing. It almost seems like Tomasi and Champagne are happy once they’ve got one conversation an issue; everything around it is filler. And this issue is almost entirely a talking heads book (with the exception of Alpha One getting pissed off and doing something really suspicious like bury a ticking nuclear… 📖
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The Mighty (2009) #7
First, someone made a big art decision about this issue and I can’t tell who. It’s Samnee on pencils and inks and John Kalisz coloring; Kalisz has been coloring the whole series, Samnee’s been on for an issue before this one. The coloring of The Mighty is now incredibly lush and vibrant. The story’s also… 📖
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The Mighty (2009) #6
What an issue. The pacing is awful–I’m pretty sure it took me about three minutes to read–because the whole thing is just a conversation. After discovering, Alpha One is nuts or something, protagonist–the first time I’ve ever referred to him as such–Gabe hangs out with Alpha One in space for a really creepy moment. Then… 📖