Archive for March, 2006
March 27, 2006 | Comics
Planetary Brigade #1, 2
Keith Giffen, J.M. DeMatteis
Boom! Studios
$2.99 US
*** 1/2 (out of five)
Planetary Brigade is proof that if you keep setting the bar so high, eventually you won’t be able to clear it.
Created and co-written by Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis, the team behind the uproarious Formerly Known As The Justice League and most-recently Marvel’s wild and wacky Defenders, PB comes with high expectations.
This duo does smart, sassy and sometimes slapstick super-hero comics better than almost anyone. But perhaps that humour works better when readers have a greater frame of reference. Making Batman has issues jokes work is easy because we all get it. But trying similar gags while trying to bring to life an all-new super-team is not.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a good mix of action, dialogue and humour, but it’ll take more than two issues for PB to get its feet under it.
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March 27, 2006 | Comics
Hysteria: One Man Gang #1 (of 4)
Mike Hawthorne
Image Comics
$3.50/$2.99 US
*** 1/2 (out of five)
Hysteria is Looney Tunes meets Run Lola Run.
When Bruce Lopez crosses the street to save a little girl from getting flattened by a truck, he also inadvertently begins a turf war with the rival Eggs gang.
With the precocious pre-pubescent in tow, Bruce begins to run the gauntlet in an effort to see her safely home.
Hysteria is outrageous, over-the-top fun from writer/illustrator Mike Hawthorne.
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March 27, 2006 | Comics
Retro Rocket #1 (of 4)
Tony Bedard, Jason Orfalas
Image Comics
$3.50/$2.99 US
*** (out of five)
The only thing worse that growing old is growing old as a brain trapped in an obsolete giant robot.
Or something like that.
It seems the world has passed Retro Rocket by. When he was new, 30 years ago, he was the pinnacle of technology, the perfect urban soldier.
But with the years have comes newer, faster, bigger and better machines. And there’s no longer a need to be removed from your body. All this leaves Retro feeling, well, outmoded. That is, until the aliens invade.
Good old-fashioned fun adventure comic stuff from writer Tony Bedard and artist Jason Orfalas.
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March 27, 2006 | Comics
Crickets #1
Sammy Harkham
Drawn & Quarterly
$4.95/$3.95 US
** 1/2 (out of five)
Ummmm… this is just weird.
There’s a man filled with arrows who won’t die, a Gollum, a chicken and a dead baby.
OK, so it’s early, and I’ll admit I’m intrigued to see how all this adds up, but either way, Sammy Harkham has got one very bizarre new monthly book on his hands.
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March 13, 2006 | Trades
Batman: Hush Returns
DC Comics
$17.50 (Paperback)
*** (out of five)
A.J. Lieberman is a decent writer, but he’s no Jeph Loeb and he’s certainly not Alan Moore.
Lieberman draws inspiration for Hush Returns from two key stories, Loeb’s recent bestselling Hush storyline (featuring art by Jim Lee), which saw a childhood friend of Batman’s return to make his life a living hell and Moore’s 1988 classic The Killing Joke, where the Joker’s origin is first revealed.
As this latest story opens, Hush, who may or may not be the same person who tormented Batman previously, returns to Gotham City to continue his mission. But a meeting with the Clown Prince Of Crime puts the two at loggerheads and threatens to drag the city into a crime war.
Sprinkled through the story are references to the Joker’s previous life, which involves the tragic loss of his pregnant wife, and the introduction of a twist — that perhaps she was murdered.
Hush Returns is filled with clichéd, easy-way-out plot twists and turns one the DC Universe’s key villains from a psychotic maniac with a bad sense of humour to a whiny, obsessive crook. And as for any changing of Moore’s masterpiece — that’s just wrong.
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March 13, 2006 | Trades
Manhunter: Street Justice
Marc Andreyko, Jesus Saiz, Jimmy Palmiotti
DC Comics
$17.50 (Paperback)
*** ½ (out of five)
Federal prosecutor Kate Spencer is tired of losing.
Working in the DC Universe, where there are plenty of super-powered things that go bump in the night, Kate is brought in to convict them of the heinous crimes they commit. But too often the bad guys are free on a technicality or will simply bust free before long.
So what’s a dedicated public defender to do?
How about rip off an evidence locker full of super-do-dads and going villain hunting?
Writer Marc Andreyko, along with artists Jesus Saiz and Jimmy Palmiotti (with special props to outstanding cover artist Jae Lee), revive the long-standing Manhunter legacy in the DCU (is this number four or five?) with Kate taking to the streets — not just to stop these evil-doers from committing crimes — but to make sure they’ll never be able to do it again.
Street Justice moves along at a good pace and there’s a nice balance between getting to know Kate and her motivations and good ‘ol down and dirty action. Perhaps the only thing working against this series is that the protagonist isn’t very likeable. Kate is a lousy mom, clearly wasn’t a great wife, she’s self-absorbed and a little brusk. Hopefully a more pleasant side of the new Manhunter will reveal itself in future volumes.
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