Catwoman (2002) #2

Darwyn Cooke owns this issue. It begins with an action sequence: Catwoman breaking into Gotham PD to get a look at the autopsies on the dead streetwalkers. Cooke breaks each page into a dozen or two panels, sometimes splitting a horizontal frame, more often zooming in on one particular aspect of the action. All in his “cartoony” style. There’s never better movement in comic art than the first act of Catwoman #2. It’s a masterpiece.

And he doesn’t let up the rest of the issue ambition-wise. There’s Selina and Holly’s girl talk, done in art deco—to contrast the noir—and then the finale reveal. While Selina (and the reader) have heard about what the killer’s doing to the women and then read the reports, the finale shows the immediate aftermath, complete with the cops robbing the corpse.

Cooke’s superhero noir is a genre itself. Absolutely beautiful, superior work.

Ed Brubaker’s script is mostly successful. The Selina narration’s solid (and appropriately sparse at times), but he runs into a couple hiccups. First, obviously, Selina’s characterization of Batman in her narration is one of a dick—he’d care the women were dying, but they chose that life, didn’t they? Second, when Selina does decide she’ll be the one to stop the killings, it appears to only be after the finale and seeing the latest victim. The narration comes too late in the visuals.

Otherwise, the writing’s excellent. The issue has the lengthy action open, which slows down once Selina’s broken into the morgue, then the flashback to her and Holly’s conversation after last issue, then back to the present and the latest killing. Based on the initial pacing, they could’ve gotten away without having Selina arrive at the crime scene in time. The issue’d earned its two dollars and four bits by then, but Cooke and Brubaker somehow find time (and pages) to continue.

Though had they not paced it so well, that final narration fumble might’ve been avoided. But Catwoman’s inordinately rare faults being side effects of its great successes seems on par for the book.

It’s just too good for its own good.

Catwoman (2002) #1

I’ve meant to go back and reread Brubaker’s Catwoman for literal decades now. The last time I tried, I started the post about Catwoman #1 pointing out it proves Ebert’s “no masks in noir” rule from his Batman Returns review wrong.

I’ll never be able to top that one, though it’s impossible not to think of Catwoman in those terms. With Darwyn Cooke and Mike Allred’s brisk, expressive art, Matt Hollingsworth’s lush but dark palette, Catwoman’s a visual feast. Especially once Selina gets back in “the outfit” and goes for an evening constitutional, hanging out on giant heads from a Schumacher Batman only fit to the Gothic city. It’s dark but not depressed; there are moments of such sincere joy in the comic. Not just for the reader but for Selina. She’s been struggling to get her groove back, and she’s finally got the right idea.

The comic’s got full narration from Selina, with Brubaker toggling between first and second person. When Selina’s feeling good about herself, it’s first person. When she’s tearing herself down, it’s second person. Batman ethics and morals have aged terribly, even in the last twenty years—I didn’t even realize I’m starting Catwoman again on its twentieth anniversary—so Selina feeling bad for thinking her friends—poor people, marginalized people—are actually worth it no matter what Batman says… yikes. Batman does show up, and Brubaker (and Cooke) give him the swashbuckler, Zorro feel, not the fascist Frank Miller one, which is good.

But still. Yikes. Find a better role model, Selina.

And she sort of does. She’s been seeing Leslie Thompkins for talk therapy. However, Selina’s been hiding her Catwoman side even though Batman already told Leslie, so she’s known the whole time, which seems professionally questionable. Be careful, Dr. Thompkins; it’s a slippery slope ending it faking the death of the first female Robin or whatever.

The opening has a hook—someone’s killing sex workers and terrifying them before doing so—and the soft cliffhanger gets Selina into the know. She’s been hiding out in the Narrows or whatever it’s called, most people thinking she’s dead, fallen from high society, and not wanting to return to the Jim Balent days of Catwoman. It’s an earnest, speedy character development issue. Not too much backlog, but some panels showing off Cooke’s ability to mix Catwomen of all vintages and costumes; Selina’s trying to move forward and do some good.

It’s such a great first issue. It’s nice. It’s never not tough, never not potentially rough, but it’s also so damn nice.

Scene of the Crime (1999) #4

The whole issue doesn’t rest on the action sequences, but it’d still have been nice if penciller Michael Lark had broken them out differently. There’s this very anti-climatic car chase, foot chase, car chase, shoot-out sequence, and it should have been better. Though it also doesn’t matter because it’s just the red herring ending. Scene of the Crime has like six endings. Half of them are also epilogues.

One of them has hero Jack telling his ex-girlfriend all his deep, dark secrets so she’ll give him another chance. I mean, I assume writer Ed Brubaker thought it’d be a good exposition dump scene, but it’s not. Crime is from before talking heads were a comics trope, so there’s this bewildering diner conversation scene. At one point, Lark’s angling from the adjoining booth’s napkin dispenser or something. The comic’s usually so precise in its composition, but not when it’s the big emotional pay-off.

Or it would be an emotional pay-off if Jack and the ex-girlfriend had any chemistry. Brubaker gives Jack five sidekicks in this issue. They all validate Jack, which makes functional sense in one way or another, but it’s tedious. There’s no reason for so many different people to hang around; well, not any logical reasons. A couple of times, it’s just so Brubaker can gin up drama or a reveal.

It’s an okay last issue. It’s disappointing; Brubaker’s big reveal scene’s got terrible dialogue, not to mention his attempts at going more extreme than Chinatown. There’s also some lousy characterization once the mystery’s done, real lack of continuity stuff. Okay… but disappointing.

I remember desperately wanting a sequel to this comic back when it first came out. Probably better they didn’t do one. That second issue was excellent, though.

The rest is take and leave, with way too much leave.

Scene of the Crime (1999) #3

Scene of the Crime doesn’t exactly stall out this issue, but it definitely goes into idle. Not sure why I’m doing car references, possibly because of an ill-advised speeding car sequence, which artist Michael Lark visualizes too quickly. Our hero, Jack, has just been to a hippie commune where he’s gotten in trouble, a la Philip Marlowe (or The Dude), and he and his P.I. buddy have to make a run for it. The issue’s been building to them going to the commune to question the prime suspect. When they don’t, it seems like the revelation is going to wait. Instead, Jack gets a talkative visitor to get us to a cliffhanger.

The issue’s lost the San Francisco personality. Not just with the road trip to the commune, but it’s rainy this issue of Crime and rainy Lark (with Sean Phillips inks and James Sinclair colors) overpowers the location.

Writer Ed Brubaker’s got some decent moments. The best—technically speaking—is when Jack and his aunt talk in exposition dumps to help him along to the subsequent investigation scene. It’s a neat trick, though a little obvious. The supporting cast doesn’t get much personality in this issue, not those related to the murder, not those in Jack’s personal life. His ex-girlfriend reappears, and he has a profoundly narcissistic conversation with her, something Brubaker definitely isn’t doing intentionally. Again, Scene feels very much of its time.

Right down to a jackass hipster P.I. being homophobic while wearing a fedora in 1999.

It’s been so long since I’ve last read the series I can’t possibly remember how it finishes (the end reveal tosses most of Jack’s working theory, and the reader isn’t privy to anything more). I’m convincing myself two was the peak, however. I do remember really wanting another series, something they never did, but in addition to it being a 1999 comic, a 1999 me wanted that sequel.

Even with the lackluster issue, it’s not bad (just problematic). Rainy Lark is glorious, and Brubaker’s got some of the better narration going.

Maybe it’ll end just fine. As long as there aren’t more hippie communes.

Fingers crossed.

Scene of the Crime (1999) #2

I was going to say all writer Ed Brubaker needed to do to completely tie together all the San Francisco crime eras was a grandfather in a wheelchair in a greenhouse, but Big Sleep’s L.A. Scene of the Crime is all San Francisco, all the time; Brubaker knows what he’s doing too. This issue introduces lead Jack’s old buddy Steve, who’s also a P.I. Steve once gave Jack a tour of Dashiell Hammett’s San Francisco; when Jack became a P.I., Steve followed suit and looped him. Steve gives Jack information from his fancy international detective agency.

It’s a trope going back to Hammett, if not earlier. But it’s a knowing one and well-executed. Michael Lark’s pencils (now with Sean Phillips inks, which I’d forgotten) take their meeting out of time, like private dicks who lose their pretty blonde clients to violence and get big sads about it are eternal. Great colors from James Sinclair too. Phillips’s inks add a moodiness to the issue, although some of the dreariness is due to the circumstances.

The issue opens with Jack going to a murder scene, the motel he’d just left, with his crime scene photographer uncle in tow. The uncle can get Jack information about the case, whereas Jack just pisses off the cops. At least until the detective shows up and Jack tells him all; Jack telling all is going to be a recurring theme in this issue; he doesn’t have any secrets at this point. Other than the actual client being his cop buddy’s mistress.

Or not really his buddy; his relation. Jack goes to question him, goes to question his client, her mother, the hippies from last issue. Only the hippies have left, the mistress is indisposed, her mother’s not interested in Jack’s help, and the cop buddy doesn’t know anything. Brubaker’s got the formula down—visit the various characters, find answers to questions no one’s asked, and then try to piece together how it all fits together. Classic detective novel, just set in nineties San Francisco.

Though there aren’t any computers around so it could be anytime San Francisco, though the city’s hippie history is about to play a significant part in motives and so on.

There is a super icky moment where Jack whines he can’t be a cop because he’s incapable of shooting anyone, but he means it as a bad thing; the copaganda’s strong, so it’ll be interesting to see if Brubaker does any dirty cop tropes.

The first issue was mostly engaging, occasionally too forgiving with the first person narration—Brubaker’s better this issue, with Jack plunging headfirst off the wagon—and a neat variation on a theme. This issue shows Brubaker’s got more up his sleeve than smart homage, and Lark, Phillips, and Sinclair are keeping pace. Scene of the Crime just got really good.

Scene of the Crime (1999) #1

In the twenty years since Scene of the Crime came out (and I last read it), a couple things have become more clear. First, protagonist and narrator Jack is a bit of a narcissist, and the reason he’s loveless is because he was a lousy, possessive boyfriend. The way he talks about the female characters is a lot, especially since writer Ed Brubaker is doing a Raymond Chandler twice removed. I don’t remember Chandler being shitty when describing women. But it’s also okay because Jack’s a white guy private investigator from a cop family in 1999 San Francisco, so it’s not like he’s necessarily going to be a good guy. Not all the way.

The second item relates to Raymond Chandler and San Francisco. Jack’s case involves a missing little sister and San Francisco hippies. Scene’s a Chandler-esque P.I., but it involves late nineties hippies and the children of sixties hippies. So twice removed. It’s a fascinating San Francisco gem, partially if not primarily because of the gorgeous Michael Lark architecture art. Even without landmarks, Scene feels like a San Francisco detective story, a sub-genre of its own.

And just because Brubaker doesn’t recognize his narrator’s passive misogyny doesn’t mean it’s not well-written. It gets a little long towards the end when Jack finds the sister, and they go out to a Denny’s for a meet-cute. I remember really liking that scene when I was in my early twenties, which tracks. But the stuff where Jack’s explaining his backstory, which Brubaker and Lark set against an urban travelogue—it’s great. Very efficient writing from Brubaker, who seems to be trying to adapt the detective novel genre to the comic medium. Two, maybe three-page chapters, lots of exposition, lots of corresponding art, little bit of dialogue.

It works.

The talking heads is where Scene stumbles, though every time it involves a female supporting character, including Jack’s uncle’s girlfriend. Jack’s dad was a cop, killed by heroin gangs—they blew up his car, which partially blinded young Jack—and the uncle, Knut (adorable old man), raised him. Knut’s girlfriend refuses to marry him, despite having been with him for thirty years, because reasons. It’s not Brubaker’s fault, exactly. Not sure he’d have been able to make a comic at that time without these mistakes.

Anyway.

Awesome, moody art from Lark, compelling enough, engaging enough narration from Brubaker. The case is just getting started as this one wraps up.

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.

Kill or Be Killed (2016) #19

Based on the end reveal and what it means for the series-long narration… well, Kill or Be Killed, specifically writer Ed Brubaker’s work on it, goes from disappointing, tedious, and grating to pitiable. He’s even commented on the narration device to the reader before—when this arc started—so promising it’s not something lousy and then it being something worse than lousy….

If this were a script Brubaker had written at twenty and drawered for a couple decades, it’d make so much more sense.

Anyway.

Besides the sad ending, it’s a temporarily exciting issue–Die Hard in a Mental Hospital—but mostly an annoyingly tepid one. Brubaker and artist Sean Phillips, who’ve been doing talking heads scenes for years, entirely fumble this issue’s. Intrepid police detective Lily Sharpe is visiting vigilante Dylan in his mental hospital, and they’re going to talk about right and wrong. It’s a Punisher scene, probably a Punisher scene Brubaker’s written (or at least watched on “Daredevil”), and it’s terrible. Worse, Brubaker tries to soften the reader to Dylan’s perspective with a pointless two-page rambling about climate change and how it’s not liberals versus conservatives; it’s not rich versus rich. Sorry about your colorist, Ed, but we can quickly start with liberals versus conservatives. Especially since it’s less “rich” than capitalism, but he (or Dylan) doesn’t make that observation either.

Such a waste of pages. Though the opening sequence feels like Phillips only wanted to do so much art and no more, including the issue being set during a snow storm, so Phillips doesn’t have to draw the whiteout.

Kill or Be Killed is on me; I made this decision. But, wow, I did not need to know how lost Brubaker got on this book. I also didn’t need to see Phillips’s art continue its descent on it; just bring someone else in, like, wow.

One last disappointment then done forever. Unless they actually get a movie this time.

Kill or Be Killed (2016) #18

Writer Ed Brubaker, apparently unknowingly, cracks the Kill or Be Killed conundrum this issue. How could he tell the series and have it work? Individual issues about characters. Without Dylan’s terrible narration, obviously. Got to get rid of the narration.

But this issue’s a return to detective Lily Sharpe. Unfortunately, it’s nowhere near as good as the first Lily Sharpe issue, which was a very traditional police procedural but with more personality than the series had been exhibiting. This is a very traditional police procedural with a twist with the tepid personality the book’s been showing for ages now.

Lily is investigating the death of the vigilante, who Dylan and the reader know isn’t the real killer. Unless we think Dylan somehow astral projected and created a double, which is the opening narration topic. It’s eye-widening bad. Brubaker actually gets away with the twist at the end, he actually manages to do some effective narrative dodging, but he’s starting from one of his pits on the book. Brubaker does seem to understand Dylan’s a dipshit, but he doesn’t seem to understand reading a dipshit’s narration, issue after issue, is exasperating. It never improves.

Then again, nothing ever improved on Kill or Be Killed. It stopped hemorrhaging a while ago, but it’s been a dull, steady bleed since. And artist Sean Phillips is done trying. The art this issue is… not good. The more time spent reading the comic, the worse the art will be. Phillips barely quarter-asses it. What’s less than quarter-assing? Eighth-assing? There’s some eighth-assing. Lily’s partner, who we’ve never met, looks like Robert De Niro half the time, then Sam Elliot the other half of the time. Dylan’s mom looks like a Hitchcock villain. So there’s less than eighth-assing. There’s teenie-assing. It’s so sad to see Phillips churn this out.

This issue tells the story of the imposter vigilante, then how Lily will bring it back to Dylan.

I imagine the next two issues will go wild, desperate, and disappointing places.

However, to go out on a high point… excellent pacing this issue. Brubaker knows how to write this issue, which brings it around to how to do the series better—issues focusing on the people involved with the story. There’s a more extensive cast than it seems, with varied connections, and it would’ve avoided the awful mishandling of the protagonist.

Kill or Be Killed (2016) #17

Does writer Ed Brubaker actually not see the possibilities he raises with scenes? It’s fascinating. For the second or third time, Brubaker’s started an issue completely invalidating a possibility the previous one raised. There’s an anecdote about a short story being a room in a house, a novel being a house. Maybe Gordon Lish (but probably not). Brubaker keeps staring out the window in Kill’s room without opening it. It’s restrained in all the worst ways.

However, this issue’s the best in a while.

Dylan speaking directly to the reader is… problematic, but at least Brubaker’s not prostrating himself trying to obscure the narration device. It’s a simple issue. Dylan’s going to off the rapey mental hospital orderly, who looks just like the rapey mental hospital orderly from Terminator 2. He’s got to figure out how to kill the guy and whether or not he wants to confirm the guy’s a creep.

In the background, Dylan’s thinking about the copycat vigilante in New York and his roommate going to the cops (though Dylan can’t know the roommate’s going to the cops yet, which he awkwardly comments on). In some ways, Kill or Be Killed feels like Brubaker trying to take what he’s learned from doing pulp-influenced comics for fifteen years and apply them to a more traditional comic book character.

If the series is a big creative swing from Brubaker, it doesn’t work out, which is too bad. Or it’s just a half-assed attempt at a comic in search of a movie or streaming deal, which makes more sense with the art. Artist Sean Phillips feels like he does not have time or care for Kill or Be Killed. Everyone this issue’s got big head issues; looking like Phillips taped the heads onto the bodies and didn’t take the time to get the scaling right.

Seeing as how the comic’s finally a little more sturdy thanks to Brubaker not having to as constantly deceive the reader, who knows how the series would’ve played straight.

But it’s nice for one of the issues not to be lousy. It’s been so, so long since I thought this book had even a minimal chance, and, at least now, it’s not going to finish as unpleasant as it could.

Knock on wood.