My tweets of the last week:
DC New 52 Review: Swamp Thing #1
In the 80s DC was the edgy comic book company. Even before the launch of Vertigo, they were the publisher letting a new generation of writers use their heroes in non-traditional ways.
While Grant Morrison may be the last oddball left standing from the period, it was ushered into existence by Alan Moore. It was Moore’s hand that guided the landmark Watchman and deconstructions like Killing Joke. He made it possible for the Morrisons and Gaimans of the world to be mainstream comic authors.
While the modern day might treat Watchmen as Moore’s opus, he was already writing bizarre 70s eco-hero Swamp thing for nearly three years by then.
Both Moore’s verdant hero and Morrison’s Animal Man are seeing reinvention in the reboot. Will either hint at the success of their 80s glory years?
Swamp Thing
Written by Scott Snyder, art by Yanick Paquette
Rating: 1.5 of 5 – Weak
In a Line: “I had this Botany professor, Dr. Riis … he would always talk about how the plant world is the most misunderstood area of biology.”
140char Review: Swamp Thing #1 is utterly gorgeous in the hands of Paquette, but it’s all Swamp Talk (+ a dull lecture from Superman) & no Swamp Thing. Lame
CK Says: Skip it.
I’ll come right out and say that I completely hated this script for this issue. It’s the only one so far from the reboot that felt deliberately decompressed, aside from the wreck of Justice League.
Swamp Thing being a dark hero with roots in Alan Moore stories is meaningless when it comes to a fresh start. While Scott Snyder does plenty of explaining via pages upon pages of dialog, it never stops being expository to start being compelling. As a reader who has no idea about the character the talking didn’t really help – it was like listening to a conversation on a bus about someone I’ve never met.
Snyder inserts plenty of heavy-handed one-liners, like “buried alive” and “raised from the dead” in an attempt to make a dull B-story seem like a portent. The chatty issue was made more jarring by a weirdly out-of-context Superman acting like a camp counselor, completely at odds with both other versions we’ve seen so far in the reboot.
The saving grace is a beautiful rendering of an inert script by Yanick Paquette. If he can make dead birds and talking heads look this good, imagine what he’ll do with an issue that’s actually about Swamp Thing?
Despite a gripping into and a final panel giving a hint of what’s to come, this issue is skippable due to the interminable bore of its doughy middle.
Awake and Asleep with Taxicab Racers, and other stories
By the time I went to sleep on Thursday night I had been awake for over 24-hours, found a fellow academically-minded songwriter slash comic nerd, invited a rock band from Tennessee back to our place to sleep with us, and nearly fell off a stage due to momentary blindness.
My life, it’s strange.
I. Wide Awake
Thursday night brought E and I to Northstar Bar to play a Filmstar a show, coincidentally two years less a day after our big Blame-a-Thon bash that I helped to organize and Filmstar rocked.
In a similar state of affairs to Blame-a-Thon, I was on my way towards 24 hours of wakefulness and running nearly empty. The freak storm on Thursday early morning woke me up at 2am, and I could go back to sleep (partially because I was freaked out about my friend Kris being trapped on I-76 overnight for four hours).
Our load-in was posted for 6pm. You never really know what load-in means. It could mean, “that’s when we’ll unlock the door,” or it could mean, “be on stage and ready to soundcheck 15 minutes later.” E and I being E and I, we were freaking out that we wouldn’t arrive until 6:20pm. Filmstar being Filmstar, the other half of the band managed to beat us there. [Read more…] about Awake and Asleep with Taxicab Racers, and other stories
DC New 52 Review: Batwing #1
While most of the Bat-books in DC’s linewide relaunch are giving established characters their own ongoing, Batwing cooks up a new hero practically from scratch.
This African continent entry into Batman’s new Incorporated franchise appeared in just two issues prior to Flashpoint, which makes him a relative stranger to readers. Can DC-U veteran and original Real World cast member Winick make Batwing worthy of his own title?
Batwing #1
Written by Judd Winick, art by Ben Oliver
Rating: 2.5 of 5 – Okay
In a line: “He told me, ‘You just have to sell it.'”
#140char Review: Batwing #1 is gripping & bloody w/stunner painterly interior art, but the tale of African national intrigue only fun when Bruce is on-panel.
CK Says: Consider it.
Batwing #1 boasts some of the most remarkable art of the first week of relaunch, and for that reason alone it is worth a browse.
Ben Oliver’s figures and environments are at once ultra-realistic and slightly hazy. The effect is likely the result of an ink-wash, but it evokes the sun-baked Congo landscape where the story takes place. It is criminal that the average cover doesn’t reflect the interior artwork.
The story is something more subtle. Winick pens rookie Bat-franchisee Batwing as stoic and dedicated, but emotionally removed. What might be a faithful representation of the Democratic Republic of Congo is a unfamiliar and vicious setting. There isn’t the comfort of spandexed sidekicks and green-haired Jokers here – regular men (and even police officers) prove to be as chaotic and murderous.
While Winick’s pacing is a bit decompressed, you won’t mind thanks to the stunner visuals and a relatively layered plot.
The real question about this book is – do you want to read this story? It has the potential to be a powerful drama, but the grim reality of the real-world setting might be a turn-off. I say, hang in for the artwork and the twist on the murdered former hero that sets Batwing’s investigation into motion.
DC New 52 Review: Men of War #1
When I was a kid, I was obsessed with G.I. Joes. A lot of kids were. They were three dollars each with a seemingly infinite amount of new line-ups to collect.
Except, my obsession was slightly different – my G.I. Joes were superheroes. Each one of them had a special power, and they formed teams and went on missions just like comic book superheroes. In fact, I even kept a binder outlining all of their story exploits, including issue summaries, origins, and deaths.
(Yes, I was an intense kid.)
Since my playtime was more about building narrative than mashing pieces of plastic against each other, I wasn’t shy about playing with G.I. Joe’s straight into high school. The toys allowed me to be a sort of writer/director, visualizing plots that found their way out of my imagination and later into short stories.
All that is to say, though I loved G.I. Joes, I never particularly cared for G.I. Joe as a concept. I don’t love war stories and gun violence. That put DC’s new war anthology on shaky ground with me, unless they managed to power it up, a la my erstwhile 3 3/4″ friends.
Men of War #1
“Joseph Rock,” written by Ivan Brandon, art by Tom Derenick
“Navy Seals, Human Shields,” written by Jonathan Vankin, art by Phil Winslade
Rating: 3 of 5 – Good
In a Line: “Anyway, I got out of the Peace Corps ‘cuz it made me realize – if you want to do good, it helps to have an assault rifle.”
140char Review Men of War #1, hard-bitten war anthology w/slightest twist of super. Not my kind of comic but I can’t deny it was well-done, esp terminology
Plot & Script
The scripts of both stories are beautiful things, in their way. Word balloons are stuffed with armed forces acronyms and special ops lingo, and they help to transport you into the world these characters inhabit without much prior knowledge.
The plot of first story about Sgt. Rock is solid but strangely unfilling. We’re treated to the grimly stubborn infantryman Rock, promoted to a special ops squad thanks to countless acts of unspecified badassness. Then he heads into an unnamed region filled with unseen insurgents, witnesses an unidentifiable super-being
wreak havoc, and watches his team die an ignominious death (not really a spoiler, since we see it in the first panel)
While all the dialog is ace, I feel as though the vaguely-detailed story depends on some foreknowledge or affection for Sgt. Rock. Without that, it’s a one-and-done tale about a brave soldier being decimated by a superior force. I don’t see much point in a second issue.
I liked the Navy Seals tale much better. We get the personalities of a core cast of characters in short order as they deal with a high pressure situation. Vankin does a great job differentiating the team in limited panel time, giving each man a smattering of personality to go with his call name.
Despite not caring for army comics too much, I found myself investing in the outcome of their story. I cared if the wounded guy died, was frustrated by the impulsive actions of Tracker, and was genuinely shocked and sickened by the story’s climax.
Artwork
The problem with army books is that everyone starts looking the same.
In the Sgt. Rock story this is a major problem for me – not so much because of the pencils, but the colors. It was like military-grade sepia tone. In a series of lowly-lit situations all of the shadowed faces begins to blend together.
While I liked the line art and colors in the second story much better, the lack of differentiation was actually worse. For white army dudes in the same uniform, and you only give one of them facial hair to help us tell them apart? The dialog does a decent job, but I wouldn’t have minded a minor visual differentiation, even if it slightly shattered the perfect adherence to real-life army code.
I love the fuzzy cover with its subtle phoenix image in the blood and gunfire – I missed that detail on the small preview image.
CK Says: Consider it.
Men of War is an anthology collection that delivers 100% on the promise of its title, with an ever-so-slight superhero skew of existing in the DC Universe.
Fans of old Sgt. Fury comics and The Hurt Locker alike will probably enjoy the on-the-ground glimpse of infantry and Navy SEALS.
For superhero junkies, the outcome is more hazy. While this is well-written and full of action, it’s less Captain America and more G.I. Joe.