Archive for January, 2006
January 23, 2006 | Trades
DC Universe: The Stories Of Alan Moore
DC Comics
$26.99 (Paperback)
**** (out of five)
There is something both familiar and ironic about the new Alan Moore collection from DC Comics.
The familiar comes from the fact this exact same book, minus three key issues, was released two years ago, while the ironic comes from the fact that Moore isn’t exactly loving DC anymore after a falling out with company execs.
The much-lauded writer behind such key titles as Swamp Thing, Watchmen, V For Vendetta (coming soon to a theatre near you), From Hell and The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Moore is one of most imaginative creators in the history of the genre.
His greatest gift — getting under the skin of everyday things and making the warts pop out — makes this collection of all his super-heroic tales all the more engrossing.
The three issues added into this collection are probably the best — the two-part Superman: Whatever Happened To The Man Of Tomorrow? and Batman: The Killing Joke.
The first is a bittersweet bookend to the golden age Man Of Steel, written in the mid-1980s when DC was about to reboot all its characters. Packed with guest stars and milestones, this what-if story is a wonderful ending to the era when Superman was the pinnacle of perfection.
The Killing Joke, the definitive origin story for Batman’s nemesis, The Joker, remains one of the most disturbing and affecting tales in the Dark Knight’s history. It revolves around the death spiral the rivals are on and the Clown Prince Of Crime’s desire to break Gotham City Police Commissioner Jim Gordon’s spirit by crippling and humiliating his daughter.
When you throw in another dozen moody and incisive tales featuring lesser lights like Green Arrow, members of the Green Lantern Corps. and the now-deceased Vigilante into this collection, you’ve easily got a must-own book.
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January 23, 2006 | Trades
Strange Girl Vol. 1: Girl Afraid
Rick Remender, Eric Nguyen
Image Comics
$12.99 US (Paperback)
**** (out of five)
The Rapture has come and all of God’s chosen are called up to Heaven.
So what do you do if you’re left behind to face the legions of Hell?
Get a job fetching them brews.
Strange Girl follows the life of the rebellious Bethany Black and how she survives in a world gone to, well, Hell, after her family gets the halo treatment and she’s left behind.
Written with a beautiful mix of black humour and breakneck pacing by Rick Remender (Sea Of Red) and featuring some sublime and sexy art by Eric Nguyen, Girl Afraid follows Bethany’s attempts to find a way out of her day-to-day, nose to the brimstone world and, maybe, into a Heavenly reward.
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January 23, 2006 | Trades
Spawn Collection Vol. 1
Todd McFarlane
Image Comics
$19.95 (Paperback)/$59.95 (Hardcover)
**** (out of five)
I miss Todd McFarlane.
Not the overpaying-for-baseballs, action-figure-designing corporate magnate, I miss the other one: the cocky-but-could-back-it-up-with-his-art one.
Other than a brief story in last month’s Image Comics Hardcover, McFarlane is all but retired as a comic book artist. Rumour has it he feels he’s been to the mountain (his Spider-Man #1 sold 2.5 million copies in a month, while a bestselling book now does a few hundred thousand at best), and there’s nothing left for him to accomplish.
What this leaves us with is a body of work from the mid-1980s to the mid-90s where McFarlane’s flair for design and detail made him one of the most revolutionary creators in the history of the medium.
For example, Spawn Collection Vol. 1, a new reprinting of issues 1-8, 11, 12 (omitting stories by Dave Sim and Neil Gaiman, respectively).
While the stories — about a U.S. government agent who is killed and reborn as a soldier of Hell — are a little hit and miss (Todd’s strength was not as a scribe), his splashy, often-spectacular illustrations continue to set a standard few can meet.
Nostalgically re-reading Spawn is almost enough to make you forget how many copies of that Spider-Man #1 you’ve got stuck in your basement as an “investment”. Almost.
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January 23, 2006 | Trades
Image First
Image Comics
$6.99 US (Paperback)
**** (out of five)
The Walking Dead, a Sea Of Red, a Strange Girl and some naked Girls — sounds like a heck of a mix, eh?
Actually it’s a great first look at four of the hottest new (excluding the two-year-old Walking Dead) series from Image Comics.
For $7 US you get the premier issue of each title, giving you a taste of what has made them all buzz books.
Here’s the brief synopsis for each:
• The Walking Dead — Police officer Rick Grimes awakens from a coma to find he’s living in a world where the dead are still up walking around and everyone he loves is missing.
• Sea Of Red – Vampires + pirates = vampirates in this well-written and visually gratifying blending of genres.
• Strange Girl – The Rapture has come and all of God’s chosen are called up to Heaven, leaving all those who remain to the not-so-tender mercies of the legions of Hell. Strange Girl follows the life of the rebellious Bethany Black and how she survives in a world gone to, well, Hell.
• Girls – A gorgeous naked woman wandering out of the woods when he’s driving home one night seems like a dream come true for Ethan Daniels. But it soon turns out to be a nightmare for Ethan and his entire community.
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January 23, 2006 | Trades
Serenity: Those Left Behind
Joss Whedon, Brett Matthews, Will Conrad
Dark Horse Books
$9.95 US (Paperback)
**** (out of five)
I love comic books but I’ve got to admit, Those Left Behind would’ve made a heck of an episode of Firefly.
Of course it never would’ve been written if Firefly hadn’t been cancelled and creator Joss Whedon hadn’t busted his hump getting the feature-film version, Serenity, made.
Simply put, Those Left Behind is a bridge, a way of getting attentive fans from the TV show to the movie, tying up all the loose ends of one and setting the stage for the next.
The story sees Captain Malcolm Reynolds and his ragtag crew of the Firefly-class spaceship, Serenity, on another fly-by-the-seat-of-their-pants job to earn enough credits to keep the craft flying.
Written by Whedon, assisted by Brett Matthews, Those Left Behind has much the same rustic, funny feel as the TV show, with a hint of the darkness that the feature film, now available on DVD, brought forth.
Hopefully this series is simply a preview of more Serenity comics to come — with Joss on board keeping the signal going. Pretty please?
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January 23, 2006 | Comics
Hellblazer #216
Denise Mina, Leonardo Manco
Vertigo/DC Comics
$3.75/$2.75 US
**** 1/2 (out of five)
John Constantine isn’t an easy man to know, but Denise Mina can read him like a book.
The award-winning British crime novelist behind such titles as Garnethill, Deception and Field Of Blood debuts this month as the new writer of Vertigo’s flagship title, Hellblazer and she kicks it off with a classic.
Settling in for another rotten night in another rotten pub, Constantine is tracked down through a “friend” of his by a man named Chris Cole who has a problem of a dark, magical nature.
Cole tells of how a miscast spell he learned from a girl he met one night at a party has led to a string of deaths and how the pain of each of those dead is crushing him with emotions. Constantine offers Cole a way out, but is also curious as to why this “friend”, a man he’s never met would involve him.
Peppered with possibilities, with part one of Empathy Is The Enemy, Mina has set the stage for what will no doubt be another classic in the Hellblazer library.
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January 23, 2006 | Comics
Black Harvest #1, 2 (of 6)
Josh Howard
Devil’s Due Publishing
$3.25 US
**** (out of five)
Hmmm… Cute babes, blood and gore: why does all this seem familiar?
Josh Howard, creator of Dead@17, is back with Black Harvest, another book featuring a cute and bloodthirsty female lead venturing into a mystery of paranormal origin.
But there the comparisons end.
Internet reporter Daniel Webster’s life gets turned upside down when on an assignment to cover a possible UFO sighting, he discovers a half-naked teenaged girl on the middle of a dusty old Texas road with the word “repent” carved into her belly. It turns out the girl, Zaya Vahn, has been missing for three years and now Webster is being questioned by police.
Meanwhile Zaya begins to exhibit some strange behaviour, such as pyrokinetically torching a nurse at the hospital sent to and having another word “atonement” mysteriously appear carved into her back.
Black Harvest is another smart, sexy thrill-ride from Howard, who you’ve got to admire for having the courage of knowing just what he wanted to do and not being afraid to dip into a similar well to tell another great story.
Either that or you can immediately typecast him as “that cute babes, blood and gore guy”.
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January 23, 2006 | Comics
Sgt. Rock: The Prophecy #1 (of 6)
Joe Kubert
DC Comics
$4/$2.99 US
**** (out of five)
Joe Kubert back on Sgt. Rock.
Does anything more need to be said?
Kubert is one of the most important and influential comic book creators of the 20th century, but don’t think the 79-year-old is done telling great stories yet.
The Korean War veteran, whose name has become synonymous with Sgt. Rock after illustrating and occasionally writing the character’s World War II adventures for over 30 years, is back with another mission for the men of Easy Company.
The Prophecy opens with the soldiers parachuting into Lithuania, a no-man’s land between the German and Soviet armies that is constantly under fire. Their mission: collect a mysterious package and return it to U.S. forces.
But things are never that easy (pardon the pun) for this company and issue #1 ends with a rather surprised group of men when they discover just what it is they have to transport.
The Prophecy is classic Kubert and classic Sgt. Rock.
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January 23, 2006 | Comics
The Perhapanauts #1 (of 4)
Todd Dezago, Craig Rousseau
Dark Horse Comics
$2.99 US
**** (out of five)
I feel like I’ve been waiting my whole life for a super-team that includes both a super-intelligent Bigfoot and a jive-talking Chupacabras, the mythical Latin-American goat demon.
All right, maybe not, but that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy it when someone does come up with such a team.
Enter: The Perhapanauts, a highly classified paranormal SWAT team created to keep the forces of evil at bay — or at least out of your backyard.
Writer Todd Dezago and illustrator Craig Rousseau gather up a psychic, a ghost and the ever-important ‘mystery man’ with the aforementioned beasties and set them after the other things that go bump in the night in a smart, sassy and, dare I say, superb debut issue.
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January 23, 2006 | Comics
Penny Arcade 1x25¢ Edition
Dark Horse Comics
25¢ US
*** 1/2 (out of five)
It’s really easy to like Gabe and Tycho.
The stars of Penny Arcade, one of the Web’s best comic strips (now in handy book form), are foul-mouthed, video game addicted, Santa Claus threatening hooligans.
Oh, and they have the world’s greatest Snickers ad. Hands down.
Launched ahead of their impending first trade paperback collection, Attack Of The Bacon Robots, this one-shot is a great taster for what you’ll get in both the book and online at www.penny-arcade.com.
C’mon, it’s a freakin’ hoot and it’s a quarter. What else are you gonna get for a quarter nowadays?
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