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The Lion & the Eagle (2022) #2
This issue’s one part history lesson, one part ground situation establishing, one part war action. The Chindit forces are moving into position now, airdropped behind Japanese lines to wreak havoc. Writer Garth Ennis tells most of their successes in summary, outside the opening battle sequence, where artist PJ Holden reveals how glorious and gory the art will get.
Though Holden does once again get a little confused with the shifts between time periods. It’s particularly noticeable this time because almost the entire story comes through in dialogue about the latest war developments, so the issue demands attention. Even then, the time shifts are wonky.
It’s a minor complaint, however, and the only one. Otherwise, Lion & the Eagle is fantastic comics storytelling. Ennis plays around with the layering, giving the reader the backstory on the Chindit operation as a postscript once their mission changes. He’s very deliberate about the narration from protagonist Crosby and where and when things get introduced. Unlike the first issue, there’s not much in the way of character development. When Crosby’s pal, Alistair, finally gets something to do and Crosby muses on the last issue’s revelations, it’s almost the end of the issue, and these aren’t the most essential musings of the day. There’s a war on, after all.
Ennis puts a lot of effort into the supporting cast, starting with Havildar-Major Singh and his professional relationship with Crosby. Ennis spends much of the issue introducing the Gurkhas, the fearsome, joyful Nepalese soldiers. Ennis (and Crosby) get to have some fun amid the horror.
The history also seems ripe for a story, just the way things happened. Not even the Japanese forces being more formidable than initially assumed, but how happenstance can change the course of an operation and history. Ennis and Holden take their time with the comic, never rushing a conversation or briefing. It’s precise and exquisite. As expected, but still incredibly impressive.
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Werewolf by Night (1972) #17
I’m already regretting this statement, but I’m glad to have hit the Don Perlin era of Werewolf by Night. No more wondering if Mike Ploog will get an okay inker this time (because he won’t); now it’s just Perlin enthusiastically hacking it out, page after page, including a kind of good double-page spread. Despite his wanting skills, Perlin’s visibly thrilled to be drawing this book.
At least on his first issue.
There’s some really bad art, though. You could make a drinking game out of how Perlin draws faces.
Mike Friedrich’s scripting again. The action picks up immediately following the previous issue’s finish, which had the werewolf unable to save a modern-day Hunchback of Notre Dame from falling. The Paris cops—all familiar with werewolf hunting—see Wolfman Jack in the cathedral and are out to get him.
There’s more about how Topaz can’t control him anymore, but she always manages just enough to get him to morning. Despite knowing how to hunt loup-garou, the Paris coppers don’t notice shirtless, barefoot, wearing the werewolf’s pants Jack Russell walking out with Topaz. Also, they abandon Topaz to the werewolf at one point (not knowing she’s the girlfriend).
Then they get back to L.A., where all is happy with the Russell family until sister Lissa explains it’s her half birthday and she’s only got six months (six issues?) until she turns into a werewolf too.
Until the action-packed conclusion, where the werewolf fights a giant monster, the comic’s a series of editors notes referring readers to previous issues. Not just Werewolf by Night,Tomb of Dracula, and Marvel Spotlight, you’ve also got to be reading Dracula Lives. Did Marvel sell back issues in the seventies?
Two things are missing from this section of the comic, as Jack pours over ancient texts trying to uncover a secret to save Lissa while having adventures with his neighbors. Friedrich does not write Jack as a low-key racist toward his Black neighbor, which is a nice change from before. But for the month between the opening resolution and the closing battle, Jack doesn’t seem to be spending any time with his girlfriend Topaz or panicking sister Lissa.
Even for a seventies Marvel comic, it doesn’t work. Probably because Jack’s narrating.
The finish promises even more changes to the book. I’m resigned to Werewolf by Night, but not in a bad way.
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Resident Alien (2021) s02e10 – The Ghost of Bobby Smallwood
There are some fine performances this episode, but the whole thing seems strangely off, starting with the opening involving the kid who gets lost in the mines back in the thirties. It’s been a setting detail from the first season, but now we’re seeing it happen for some reason. By the time it’s relevant, the episode’s a third done, then it’s not clear why it’s more important for another third. In the meantime, there’s a lot of country music and sad regular cast members.
Except, of course, Sara Tomko, who Alan Tudyk brainwashed last episode to forget killing a bad guy to save him. He also wiped her memory of meeting estranged, given-up-for-adoption daughter Kaylayla Raine, who Tomko then stood up because she didn’t remember making plans. It ends up being an excellent episode for Tomko, as far as acting fodder, but the entire thing is a do-over of last episode.
They get away with it because it’s believable for Tudyk’s character, but… it’s not great plotting.
The script’s credited to Christian Taylor, their first credit. There’s some good stuff, and there’s some middling stuff. Good stuff is Tomko, Tudyk, hilarious deadpan nurse Diana Rang, and some of Alice Wetterlund’s romance arc. The middling stuff is Corey Reynolds getting excited to work with neighboring town’s detective Nicola Correia-Damude because they’re both from the East Coast. Last episode, Correia-Damude thought Reynolds was a loud-mouth doofus, this episode, she thinks he’s a loud-mouth from DC and full of good ideas.
Meanwhile, Elizabeth Bowen’s jealous Reynolds isn’t paying attention to her professionally again, which was a big—and seemingly resolved—story arc.
Then there’s mayor Levi Fiehler and his wife, Meredith Garretson, having marital problems. Fiehler makes the mistake of asking Reynolds for advice and taking it. Just like Wetterlund’s arc with beau Justin Rain, the episode rushes into the fire, then puts it out immediately. Big, easy-to-resolve stakes.
Wetterlund and Rain are at least cute. Fiehler and Garretson are annoying.
Cute, but annoyingly not in the episode enough are Gracelyn Awad Rinke and Judah Prehn. At first, it seems like Prehn’s going to be off-screen the whole episode because he doesn’t figure into parents Fiehler and Garretson’s lives this episode at all, but then he shows up to check in with Rinke and set up something for later.
The episode seems discombobulated. Director Kabir Akhtar doesn’t do a bad job—and does quite well with some of the performances—but he also doesn’t save the episode from the meandering script.
Or the grating country songs over all the heartache and sadness scenes, which are most of them this episode.
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Kill or Be Killed (2016) #20
Oh, my.
So, Kill or Be Killed does not have a bad ending.
Nope, not bad.
You see where I’m going?
What’s a thousand times worse than bad? Horrendous? Is horrendous enough? Kill or Be Killed has a horrendous ending. Writer Ed Brubaker does a greatest hits of lousy writing choices, including protagonist Dylan telling the reader all about narration. Oh, wait. I forgot. How did I forget.
It opens with a 9/11 missive.
How does something open with a 9/11 missive and get worse? I mean, you could read this comic and find out, but I wouldn’t recommend it. I also won’t spoil it. There are numerous spoil points in the issue, with Brubaker doing multiple 180s to keep the issue going because he doesn’t—and never did have—a story. It’s been too long since I’ve read it, and I’m not going back, but there’s a not zero chance it’s a riff on a Mark Millar-type story, specifically Wanted. Again, not worth going back.
Artist Sean Phillips sadly never reveals why he does the oddly missized heads. There are lots in the issue, but then the story goes into summary mode, and most of the art is just Phillips doing a New York City travelogue or a mob movie montage, and he’s got enthusiasm for those sequences. It’s the rest he’s checked out on.
Kill or Be Killed would be a terrible comic from any creator, but for Phillips and Brubaker? It’s the pits, and, somehow, it keeps on digging.
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Dracula Lives (1973) #10
The secret to Doug Moench on Dracula Lives is the art. Tony DeZuñiga does a great, sometimes sketchy, always emotive style for their story this issue, and it’s fantastic. The art’s moody enough to sell Moench’s more turgid exposition.
They’re on the first story, which takes place in 1809 Transylvania, though the outfits and mannerisms make me wonder if DeZuñiga thought it was 1909, and they moved it back after the art was done. The vampire living in the big scary castle on the mountain keeps killing the town’s wives and daughters, but the mayor and police chief don’t want to hear about it.
One angry husband decides he will not let Dracula have his wife and fights back, with multiple terrible consequences and an excellent cliffhanger. Such good art. So, so good. I’d been impressed with DeZuñiga’s last work on Lives, but this one’s even better. Lots of range.
The magazine continues to suffer format adjustments—less funny text pieces, a letters page—but Gary Gerani’s Dracula A.D. 1972 review fits the Lives review pattern. Gerani gives a lengthy recap of the Hammer Dracula movies, mentioning the one or two he thinks are good, then does a very brief, disappointed review of the subject sequel. It’s a lot of filler for anyone reading Lives regularly.
Then comes the next part of the Bram Stoker adaptation by Roy Thomas and Dick Giordano. Giordano excels at drawing Victorian Good Girl art but can’t manage to draw a dog close-up. It’s an outlier panel in an otherwise gorgeous entry.
The action has moved to England, where Mina is writing in a new journal all about how much she misses her fiancé, Jonathan Harker, and why doesn’t he write more. She’s staying with her newly engaged friend Lucy, who’s taken to sleepwalking. It’s standard Dracula adaptation fare, but Giordano’s enthusiastic, and the chapter’s the first to really engage with the novel’s epistolary style. First Mina’s journal, then a newspaper report about the ship crashing. It’s one of the most successful entries, even if the source novel’s prose ain’t great.
The following story is a tedious sixteen-page story from Steve Gerber, Bob Brown, and “Crusty Bunkers.” It’s not a Dracula story; it’s a Lilith, Daughter of Dracula, story. My bad for reading things out of order, but at least this way, I know I don’t want to backtrack and read Vampire Tales for Gerber’s Lilith stories. Lilith is a Marvel attempt at a sexy female vampire who lusts for male blood. It’s very awkward wish fulfillment.
Lilith’s a good guy, though, beating up Mongols who interrupt Village hippies’ acoustic sets. This story has her getting involved in the problems of her human host’s boyfriend. He’s been framed; it’s up to Lilith to save the day. Or night, as it were.
Gerber writes a lot. A lot. Some of the action is good, but the endless exposition and Lilith’s tepid characterization are big minuses. Then there’s the art. Brown clearly needs a strong inker, and even though the Bunkers were Neal Adams, Bob McLeod, Terry Austin, and Russ Heath, apparently their Voltron combination was not what the art needed. As a result, it feels amateurish at times.
Not a strong finish to an outstanding issue—the best in a while, but also the most accomplished.
Though it does remind me to read Giant-Size Chillers in-line with my Tomb of Dracula read-through.
I also forgot the two-page finale: uncredited Moench script, uncredited Win Mortimer art. It’s in the style of a fifties horror quickie but way too overwritten by Moench. They obviously should’ve gotten DeZuñiga to even him out.
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