Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

krisis

Krisis has been creating Crushing Krisis since 2000, writing songs since 1996, and reading comics since 1991. He is a Customer Success and Digital Brand Strategy executive, serial organizer, parent, and feminist, among other things. Based in Philly through 2017, he now resides in Wellington, NZ.

DC New 52 Review: Voodoo #1

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Busty woman have always been a part of the draw of comics, but in the late 80s and 80s it went completely overboard.

Already attractive female characters has their breast sizes increased to the point of physical impossibility as their waists collapsed and costumes became increasingly skin-tight (or, just skin). This trend was perpetrated hugely by Image’s superstar artists, so of course when they launched their own line of books they featured a bevy of those scantily dressed females.

The problem (beyond the obvious objectification) is that when female characters are babes from the concept stage, their origin stories become intertwined with their curves. Voodoo was originally conceived as a regular girl with the super gift of seeing aliens in human bodies … who happened to be an exotic dancer. Her tight outfits, slick figure, and crazy boots were part of her identity.

When a female hero was conceived as a vapid sex symbol, does she really merit their own titles? Like anything else, it has to do with good writing. DC’s relaunch already pilfered a large part of Voodoo’s prior origin – they handed her ability to see aliens walking around in human skin to the rebooted Grifter.

Art previews of the issue revealed many scenes set in a strip club. Did scribe Ron Marz find any other aspects of Voodoo to write about, or are we getting a book about a stripper who … strips?

Voodoo #1

Written by Ron Marz, art by Sami Basri

Rating: 1.5 of 5 – Weak

In a Line: “We don’t need to be doing it from a ringside seat.”

#140char Review: Voodoo #1 wastes intriguing setup & capabilities of Sami Basri art on too many pages lingering in a strip joint. Embarrassing to read. Gross

CK Says: Skip it.

Voodoo #1 is an embarrassing waste of an interesting character concept and an artist who is clearly capable of so much more than nudie pinup pics.

The blame rests mostly on writer Ron Marz’s shoulders. Yes, we get that part-alien Voodoo is a stripper because men can’t resist her and she wants to study their behavior. That doesn’t mean we need to spend an entire issue in a strip club with panels so revealing that I was terrified of reading this comic on the bus.

I choose not to implicate artist Sam Basri too much – he’s just drawing what he’s told. There are only so many non-lascivious ways you can draw a piece of script that must have read, “Voodoo crawls forward on the stage, her bosom practically escaping her skimpy bikini top.” Although, I guess when the background of a panel has a man waving a dollar bill at the ass of a woman hanging from a stripper pole that’s mostly the artist’s prerogative – so I suppose he’s complicit.

When Basri gets a break from drawing cheesecake, his clothed figures are really super – they have the illustrated-from-life effect of the art of Buffy without looking traced from photo references.

There is a story beneath the grossness here, and it’s potentially interesting. A pair of secret agents have been tapped to keep an eye on the clearly otherworldly Voodoo, but one of them is a little impatient to get to the bottom of her mystery.

Unfortunately, the getting to the bottom takes the literal form of a pages long lapdance.

That’s the entire problem with this issue. You can set a story in a strip club without it being disgusting and exploitative. There are panels here that never needed to be seen, even with the script staying entirely intact.

I can’t call this terrible, because of Masri’s engaging artwork and the interesting core concept of Voodoo as a character. I’ll probably check back in for a second issue based solely on that and hope that Marz and Basri have cleaned up their act, but based on this introduction I don’t have a lot of hope for their take on Voodoo.

DC New 52 Review: Aquaman #1

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Aquaman is the Rodney Dangerfield of DC Comics – he doesn’t get any respect.

Mostly it’s about overlap. Aquaman has super-strength and he’s bulletproof, but so is Superman. He’s the rightful sovereign of a mythical kingdom, but so is Wonder Woman.

Where does that leave him? He swims fast and talks to fish. Or, at least, that’s the mocking media narrative that has emerged from Gen X fans who grew up having Aquaman lose every fight they staged with their Super Friends toys.

That’s not to say he hasn’t starred in some fantastic stories in the modern comics era. In fact, Aquaman’s under-the-radar status has allow authors like Peter David to completely reimagine his personality for the purpose of telling exiting, innovative stories.

Here the pen is held by DC’s major architect Geoff Johns, who reinvigorated the Green Lantern franchise but has proven a bit of a bore so far this month. Which way will he take our seaborne

Aquaman #1

Written by Geoff Johns, art by Ivan Reis & Joe Prado

Rating: 3 of 5 – Good

In a Line: “Fish don’t talk. Their brains are too primitive to carry on a conversation.”

#140char Review: Aquaman #1, our hero is mocked from all sides & decides to quit the sea. Funny, mostly saved by great art, no-telling if #2 will be any good

CK Says: Consider it.

Aquaman #1 is self-aware to a fault, giving readers the catharsis of getting all their Entourage-fueled mocking on their hero out on the page where we can all see it.

It’s an amusing approach from deconstructionist Johns, but forcing the real world’s obsession with making fun of Aquaman into a comic is a cheap trick. It’s fun while it lasts, but gives no hints as to why we should come back for actual adventuring in the next issue aside from a few pages about incredible hungry piranha people.

We’re effectively along for the ride in a day of the life of our hero, who is starting to feel the public’s lack of appreciation for him. He foils a bank heist, though the robbers try to run him over and gun him down in the process – apparently unaware that neither will work. The cops don’t understand why he showed up, since no fish were at risk. Later, he stops by a restaurant only for them to balk at him ordering fish – isn’t that like cannibalism?

The utterly pedestrian vibe of the issue has a saving grace in the attractive artwork of Ivan Reis and a bright, colorful set of colors from Ann Reis. The Reises make Aquaman out to be a golden-haired hunk, and manage to render his gold and green swimsuit as credible superhero armor (thanks in no small part to his rather fierce rendition of the trident). Regular people in a restaurant are a realistic mix of dumpy and cute, but Aquaman’s lover Mera is a knockout – their two pages together will almost make you wish this was a romance comic.

While I enjoyed this debut issue for its information dump and poking fun at our hero, it’s just another boringly “different” plot from DC workhorse Johns. While I’m sure he’ll lead this awkward plot to water and the foes within sometime soon, I wish one of the more ACTUALLY transgressive writers in the relaunch drew this straw. However, I can’t deny that Johns’s script delivers some zingers, which together with Reis’s artwork is strong enough to lift this one past average.

the story so far

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I have a history of getting in way over my head on Crushing Krisis.

I just want you to keep that in mind, as a dedicated CK reader and non-comic book fan. Because, I know that describes a lot of you, and at the moment it seems like comics have completely overtaken the blog.

It’s called a linewide relaunch by DC Comics, there are 52 issues, and in one of those piques of insanity I have about blogging I convinced myself I was going to outdo all of those professional comic book websites and review all 52 in-depth all by myself.

Please consider the past insanities CK has witnessed. I posted 25 new recordings in 24 hours not once, but three times. I’ve blogged every day for a month twice, the first time also recording a song a day. I posted seven two-song digital records in seven days. I created the only comprehensive guide to collecting X-Men on the entire internet. I wrote a book in 30 days. I listed the best 40 albums of 2011 after listening to nearly 200 contenders.

Point being, when I set my mind to doing something insane on CK, I follow through, but it rarely becomes an habit forever.

Are comics going to go away on 10/1? No. They’re a story-telling medium I’ve always loved, and I’m excited to integrate them into the mix of topics at CK. Next year I even want to find a way to release my own comic, despite my ineptitude at all forms of illustration.

Are you going to continue to endure 3-4 comic reviews a day, every day, all month, totally devouring your feed reader.

No.

Just so we’re clear.

DC New 52 Review: Batman #1

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In Marvel comics it has become an ongoing, in-universe joke that Wolverine appears in more titles each month than would seem to fit into the life of any person, super or not. You’d almost think he shares the super-power of duplication with Madrox, or at least occasionally borrows Hermoine’s time turner.

Batman shares a similar status (eight and counting this month), but his multitude of appearances typically occur in and around Gotham. It’s not much of a stretch to picture him swinging through Batwoman on his way from Detective Comics to Batman & Robin.

Super-scheduling aside, the challenge facing any over-saturated hero is differentiation – how are the appearances different, and appealing to different audiences? Wolverine has it in spades – some books with X-Men, others solo, more with Avengers. Spider-Man gave up on it, and now he’s down to one main title that comes out constantly. There’s a new issue, like, every other day.

Batman is presently supporting three solo titles (four, if you count Robin), and I honestly don’t see much point in that beyond Bat-saturation. Batsuration? I’m definitely Batsurated, and it’s only week three. Why not move to the Spider-Man model?

Batman #1

Written by Scott Snyder, art by Greg Capullo and Jonathan Glapion

Rating: 3.5 of 5 – Great

In a Line: “Are you asking me if you were convincing as a homicidal maniac?”

#140char Review: Batman #1 treads lightly between gory DC#1 & goofy B&R#1 w/a solid mystery & fuller cast. Capullo’s art is perfect. Expect more good things

CK Says: Buy it.

Batman #1 packs a fun meaningless brawl, a portentous business move, and a grim mystery into one tidy debut issue that wisely cedes the “thrill-a-minute” crown to other Batbook debuts in order to sketch a fuller picture of Bruce Wayne and his cast of characters. Scott Snyder hits all the right beats and keeps Bruce in costume for just enough pages.

I love the device Snyder uses to set the tone, with Batman distractingly narrating a relatively rote mission with an editorial about the Gotham Gazette. If it’s a little glib it can be excused for being such an effective device for setting the stage of Gotham, as well as Bruce Wayne’s intentions for it as both a philanthropist and a superhero.

Greg Capullo is absolutely perfect for Snyder’s grim Gotham with a sliver of hope. His textured work never gets too dark thanks to inker Jonathan Glapion and a subdued set of desaturated colors from FCO Plascencia. I might even prefer his monstrous, deranged Joker to the lithe asexual one in Detective.

While villains get tons of line-work and toothy grins, Batman is portrayed simply – black cowl, lantern jaw with a slash of a mouth and a tiny furrow for a chin. The rest of Capullo’s Bat family is all dashingly, boyishly handsome. His version of the cave is expansive, but still claustrophobically hemmed in by columns of rock. His brightly lit ballroom scenes aren’t as striking, but they shouldn’t be – and I got a visceral thrill from the first scene of Bruce back in costume.

It’s hard to make an always grim Batman anything but flat and predicable – the issue becomes about gadgets, villains, and violence. Snyder’s Batman has dimension and a sense of gallows humor. In Detective it was all gallows and no laughs, and in Batman & Robin the latter was all maniacal giggles all the time. Only here does the millionaire playboy turned city defender really come through in the personality of our hero. While he’s not a wise-cracking Spider-Man, that doesn’t mean he has to be a humorless soggy cape, either.

Should you buy Batman #1? I say yes. Detective Comics was more of a classic and Finch might be more of a scorcher on art this week, but Snyder and Capullo find a comforting middle ground that pays homage to all of the versions of Batman we’ve grown up with. Perhaps devout Morrison fanatics will find this too plain-jane in anticipation of the return of Batman Inc, but otherwise it’s sure to please.

DC New 52 Review: Supergirl #1

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While I love female superheroes – as evidenced by their ratings so far this month – I don’t always love the “-girl” versions of male heroes.

The practice of creating female (and teen) (and dog) versions of popular heroes is a decidedly DC habit, as Marvel never did anything of the sort with their core slate of heroes with the possible exception of She-Hulk. (Yes, you could argue more recent versions like X-23 and Rescue fill the same role, but they are separate characters with established stories – not Wolvergal and Iron Woman).

The problem with these matching woman heroes is they have to be altered with every reboot of their male counterparts. In fact, one of the major outcomes of Crisis on Infinite Earths was to remove Supergirl from continuity so Superman could truly be the last son of Krypton again.

The removal didn’t last for long. She came back as a peculiar amoeba-in-the-shape-of-a-girl courtesy of Lex Luthor, later merged with a mortal teenager, and was subsequently discarded in favor of a standoffish Kryptonian cousin – not to mention the massively popular Power Girl.

That puts us on version six of Supergirl with this debut issue. That’s a lot of girls to remember, but DC’s reboot says we can forget all the past iterations and focus on this new one.

Supergirl #1

Written by Michael Green & Mike Johnson, art by Mahmud Asrar & Dan Green.

Rating: 3 of 5 – Good

In a Line: “I know it’s a dream because there hasn’t been a blizzard on Krypton since I was barely old enough to walk.”

#140Review: Supergirl #1 has great art & provides the 1st super-strength bash of a fight this month, but skimps a bit on story

CK Says: Consider it.

Supergirl #1 is an act of delicious contrition – the first out of three dozen DC relaunch books that’s all of an origin story, an exhibition of powers, plus a knock-down, drag-out super-powered fight.

This book teases so many things that people may have wanted or even expected from a Superman relaunch. We get an opening shot of meteors descending over the midwest. We have an egg-like spaceship of Kryptonian origin. We even get a set of super-powered fisticuffs! We also get an unveiling of killer heat vision that evokes Cyclops’s lack of control over his powers.

Except, we know all of that about Clark, so what’s the fun of it? Rehashing the origins of established heroes feels rote and deliberately padded. Yet, Supergirl is a heroine who doesn’t haven a singular definition. With her, every new display of power evokes a nod of our head, “Yes, of course she can do that. Very interesting.”

Writers Michael Green and Mike Johnson do a good job of threading internal monologue through brisk, easy-to-follow action beats, playing Kara’s bewildered reactions true to someone who woke up on another planet. That only a little story elapses around the action is forgivable.

I enjoyed the art, as much for Asrar’s pencils as for the beautiful palette of colors from Dave McCaig. The pair of them seem to ramp up the Super iconography through the issue until it reaches a thrilling crescendo in the last panel. All the while, Asrar draws Supergirl as young and lithe – not an overly-muscled, overly- breasty babe. (It’s a pity he didn’t fix her awkward face on the cover, it’s nearly classic.)

McCaig’s coloring style on early pages evokes watercolor, with seemingly liquid-stained patches of light and dark. It helped to maintain the in-a-dream mood of Supergirl’s narration, which is shattered by the bright lights of the squad sent to collect her. As dawn breaks over the battlefield, McCaig shifts into a more standard set of superhero colors. It’s a genius transition that I didn’t entirely pick up on until my third read.

While I’m concerned they’ve boxed themselves in with an immediate introduction of Superman, all the positives neatly erase the slightness of the issue. If writers Green and Johnson can carry the philosophical bent of Kara’s narration as a stranger in a strange world into upcoming issues, Supergirl will be a welcome second-string Kryptonian title to Morrison’s Action Comics.