Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

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Crushing Comics includes definitive comic book guides, essays about characters and titles, collecting strategies, comic reviews, and more!

DC New 52 Review: Batgirl #1

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I mentioned in my DC preview for the week that Batgirl was my most-anticipated book. I’m sure it was for a lot of fans familiar with Alan Moore’s The Killing Joke, which is a book that brought many readers into comics in the first place.

To give away a long-since known spoiler, Joke culminates partially in Joker shooting Batgirl Barbara Gordon, paralyzing her from the waist down. Rather than becoming a disabled background character, she rose to even greater prominence as Oracle – a master of information, frequently a team leader, and truly beloved by fans.

Batgirl #1 reverses all of that, with Barbara back in the bat costume – presumably for good. How would consistently strong scripter Gail Ann Simone explain this continuity-shattering change? Could the book sustain the weight of expectations to be DC’s premiere new female superhero, especially with the sumptuously illustrated Batwoman on the schedule just a week later?

I saved the issue until I was through reading half this week’s haul, nervous it would be bad – or, even worse, just okay.

Was that the case? And, is there anything to this rumor that Batgirl #1 is selling-out around the country, and might wind up as one of the top-selling comic books of the year?

Batgirl #1

Written by Gail Ann Simone, art by Ardian Syaf & Vincente Cifuentes

Rating: 5 of 5 – Outstanding

In a Line: “…I’ve got upper arm strength like a mother at this point.”

140char Review: Batgirl #1 was okay on 1st read but on reread I realized there is nary a misstep or snag. An excellent, affecting, genuinely funny comic. A+

Plot & Script

Simone does a knockout job on this debut, juggling the re-introduction of a hero with a glimpse into her personal life as she contends with two villains. We even get a prologue! The structure of the plot tells an engaging single story that is clearly part of a larger arc.

The home invasion villains are distinctly unsettling, with their press clippings and dire threats to the captive couple, but also human with their objection to their press-provided moniker. I found myself surprised at how far Simone pushed the envelope with them given what I assumed would be a relatively cheery vibe in Batgirl.

The book may not be all cheery, but Batgirl is. Clearly still new to being a hero again, her interactions while in costume are priceless (“Sorry! Batgirl emergency!”). Her glib narration of the issue is why I think it’s still cool to use thought bubbles and narration boxes – because it lets us inside the head of a character in a way no other medium can do. She doubts her actions as she takes them, needs to go to the bathroom mid-adventure, and freezes in a moment of post-traumatic stress. These are elements of a character we cannot learn purely from art. It means something to hear it in their own words, and Simone is beautifully effective with the device.

She’s also beautifully effective with dialog from just about anyone, including Commissioner Gordon as a doting dad and a new roommate’s Hitchhiker’s joke. The only line that was a little sour was the final one, but I can forgive histrionics if it’s meant to drum up a bit of a cliffhanger.

Simone introduces an intriguing villain in The Mirror – but if all he does is deliver warranted retribution, is he much of a villain? Clearly, if Barbara is on his list there’s something more to it than that. Why does she deserve to die? Or, is it merely her escape from death that has earned her a spot?

I want to find out.

Barbara flashes back to the new continuity version of her shooting at the hands of Joker from The Killing Joke.

Artwork

The artwork here is fantastic – beautiful characters, finely detailed backgrounds, and easy-to-follow action. The art could have come off more grim, but a vivid color palette helps strike a comic book balance throughout. In fact, the coloring job is absolutely exemplary throughout the book, from the metallic gold of Batgirl’s boots to the warm pinks and reds of the Gordon home to Gotham’s oil slick of evening rain.

Syaf uses a few awesome irregular page layouts, in on instance treating panels like shards of broken glass, in another silhouetting Batgirl out of the open side of a panel. Aside from one strange perspective error on a mid-leap thigh, only once or twice does Barbara pull a slightly gawky pose. Given her self-doubt it doesn’t seem all that outlandish to think Syaf did it on purpose. Also? Her hair is utterly transfixing.

I was honestly concerned that the interiors wouldn’t stand up to close examination, as there’s no way they could have the same pulp-pinup quality as the immediately classic cover from the incomparable Adam Hughes.

As with many Bat books, the narration boxes are horrid Bright italic yellow on black with purple borders? All of that is lowering the reading comprehension of those words – and this is not just your reviewer talking, this is valid, scientific study of communications theory. There’s no reason it couldn’t be something more legible.

CK Says: Buy it!

When I first read this issue, I thought it was just “okay.”

Why? Because it is total smooth sailing. Unlike similarly outstanding Action Comics #1, this is not rife with panels you need to read and re-read, squinting for new details or oblique hints in the dialog. It’s easy-going – almost simple – with a dynamic, flawed, and sympathetic hero who is all too human.

Sometimes “easy” and “simple” are hard to identify as “amazing.” It was only on second, third, and fourth read that I realized this is the real deal. It is a pitch-perfect debut that doesn’t rely on any big shocks or gimmicks. Simone, Syaf, and Cifuentes deliver a strong issue that stands well on its own and makes owning the next one a necessity. The plot, script, and artwork are perfection.

Particularly, the narration and dialog are outstanding. When it comes to putting words in heroes mouths, few writers today do it better than Gail Ann Simone.

For readers wondering how the previously wheelchair-bound Barbara Gordon is retconned back to her feet, Simone handles it efficiently without completely sacrificing longtime fans’ attachment to Barbara as Oracle. If anything, she leverages the twenty years we’ve spent reading Barbara as disabled to make her more compellingly human.

This issue went far beyond fulfilling my hopes for the most-anticipated comic of the week. If you like the idea of a Batgirl – or, really, any young hero – who is still very much a rookie, a young woman, and a human being then buy this comic. (In fact, buy it as soon as you can – because it’s already going into a second printing, and the word of mouth will only get stronger as more people read and review it.)

DC New 52 Review: Hawk and Dove #1

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Rob Liefeld is a much-loathed comic artist who inexplicably still sells tens of thousands of books every time his meager talents grace an ongoing title.

After bumming around as a DC fill in artist in the mid-80s, Liefeld debuted on DC’s 1988 Hawk and Dove limited series before jumping ship to Marvel. He eventually landed on New Mutants, where he had a defining run in his transformation of the book into X-Force.

For all the hate Liefeld draws from any comic fan with good taste, his concept of the New Mutants growing militant and splitting from the X-Men was radical at the time, and still relevant (and referenced) (and re-used) today. That his two signature characters for Marvel – Cable and Deadpool – have each turned into consistent cash cows is a testament to his ability to tap into the collective unconscious to find something cool.

That is why DC’s assignment of him to Hawk & Dove rings so falsely. Any “because you demanded it” claim about returning him to his first beloved book is spurious and hollow. No one demanded this, and Liefeld’s bent towards muscles and hyper-violence would better suit a book in DC’s new Dark or Edge lines than a lame duck pair of heroes like these.

Of course, all those opinions were formed before reading the issue. Let’s see what it had in store for me.

Hawk & Dove #1

Written by Sterling Gates, art by Rob Liefeld

Rating: 1.5 of 5 – Weak

In a Line: “Dove, did we just lose cabin pressure!?”

140char Review: Hawk & Dove #1 borders on bad. For a DC newbie like me the C-list hero duo needs more of a compelling hook than Liefeld to keep me invested.

Plot & Script

 

The plot here is straightforward enough. An evil “science terrorist” who is “a big hit on the internet” is striking fear into the nation, starting by crashing a plane of zombies into Washington DC.

For real.

Since the DC universe heroes are all wrapped up in their own fictional worlds, none of them especially care about the destruction of their nation’s capital, so it’s left to the barely capable resident team of Hawk and Dove to deal with the threat.

That’s what I get from this entire issue: “barely capable.” We get some narration to explain the duo’s powers – the embodiments of war and peace – but they seem so marginal that they should maybe be a rescue team on ski slopes rather than saving our nation from undead threats.

Then we get to watch the cocksure Hawk, actually a mimbo college dropout, get brow-beaten by his completely sensible father. This scene is like being blugeoned with a exposition bat that has flashback nails hammered into it. It does a great job of minimizing and villifying a title character by making him a strawman for his vastly more intelligent dad. I hope the dad’s always-right-ness is a big plot point, or else the scene is downright dumb.

I think the most laugh-out-loud moment for me was a zombie getting so angry at the constantly complaining Hawk that he broke out of his glass coffin and attacked in a fit of zombie rage.

For real. Liefeld even shows his ittle zombie face, lip nearly quivering in adorable rage.

Gates takes every chance to hammer Hawk’s bromantic pining for his former Dove, a dearly departed brother. What’s handled more deftly is the neglected Dove, who goes on a flying date with her unusual beau Deadman (who?) and hints that her coming upon the powers of peace wasn’t as random as Hawk thinks.

Then she dive-bombs a car screaming “Kaaiw!”

For real.

Artwork

Credit where due, Liefeld bucks his typical trend of undefined backgrounds and wierdly tapered physiology. It’s a decent issue of art, aside from how he draws men’s costumed heads like basketballs with mouths.

That’s not to say the issue is without his typical goofs,like a random out of context shot of Dove out of costume, her inquisitive eyebrow arching on top of her bangs. She’s one of his generically romanticized women throughout, with her constantly parted lips seemingly unable to close. With her weirdly flat goggles she comes off as a lovely, feminine Spider-Man.

The final panel makes absolutely zero sense, as the way Liefeld draws the big reveal comes off as a coloring error.

CK Says: Skip it!

Hawk and Dove is like a nostalgia title without the nostalgia, the absolute nadir of what DC has to offer, and why Marvel fans sneer at DC for being trivial.

What does the book have to offer? A generic pair of unsympathetic superheroes with a bland and inexplicable mythological origin. A generic science villain, literally labeled as “science terrorist,” with a generic plot to terrorize Washington by evoking 9/11 but with zombies.

And Rob Liefeld art. All class.

If that’s enough to get you to buy a comic book, please enjoy this to the utmost, and know that our taste in comics is vastly divergent.

DC New 52 Review: Detective Comics #1

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DC has gone all-in on Batman in their line-wide relaunch, with a total of eleven Bat books. Add to that Batman in Justice League and Harley Quinn in Suicide Squad and you’ve got thirteen books of bat-adjacent characters.

That makes Batstuff fully a fourth of DC’s entire schedule of relaunch!

Of course, right now Batman is bigger business than ever before, coming off of a critical and box office smash movie and a high-selling and acclaimed comic run.

Can DC continue the magic? And, on a more personal note, can they bring me to care about a hero I’ve always been cold to?

Detective Comics #1

Script & pencils by Tony Daniel, inks by Ryan Winn

Rating: 4 of 5 – Excellent

In a line: “This is a violation of my civil rights. A man should be able to slaughter in peace.”

140char review: Detective Comics #1, a keen, brutal reintro to Batman/Joker dynamic w/several twists (not just of the knife). Easily tracks from Dark Knight

Plot & Script

If I had any fear that the opening issue of DC’s namesake book wasn’t going to live up to its “Detective” moniker, it was quickly quelled. Tony Daniels’ plot has each player running their own game while they play in others’ – the Commissioner in Batman’s, the police in Joker’s, and Joker in that of a mysterious attacker and benefactor.

The result is a book where nothing happening is something.

Yes, we get fight scenes and explosions, but they’re almost beside the point. The point is following each player as they manipulate the others to the last page, and then going back to the beginning to follow them again on re-read.

If there’s one dead part of the narrative it’s a page spent with Dr, Arkham, who is one-note in his “he’s sick” diagnosis of Joker. Maybe that’s the point? I’m admittedly not a Bat-comics fan, so I’m not sure.

What is surprisingly not one-note is the police’s pursuit of Batman. It was annoying in Justice League, but here it feels in context. I’m sure it’s not entirely a coincidence that this is where we left Batman in the last movie.

Artwork

Tony Daniel’s art makes my whole body tense.

You know how some artists over-exentuate all of a characters’ muscles? Daniel is all about skin. All the little wrinkles and crevices around a smile or a grimace.

Every shot of Joker is downright unsettling, from the first one of blood trickling out of his nose to the disturbing final panel. Daniel sketches the traditional tall, skinny-headed Joker with the lithe body of a dancer, the face of your drunken great-aunt, a vicious hook of a nose.

Batman is big, in a reinforced-armor version of his classic blue and grey. His bulk dominates panels, and makes his fight with Joker look alarmingly one-sided (it isn’t).

Panels take time to drag your eyes across. Gotham’s dilapidated buidlings inhabit the background of the story in intricate detail.

I’m typically put off by disembodied heads on comic covers as a lazy way to squeeze in another character, but … well, it works in the context of this issue in multiple ways. I’m not saying the Joker gets beheaded or anything. Just read it.

Note that the cover cynically inserts “Batman” above the Detective Comics title. Also, in my typical graphic design snobbery, I must note that Batman’s italic white on gray-with-bat-symbol narration boxes make my eyes glaze over. They take way too much effort to read.

CK Says: Buy it!

Detective Comics re-debut is a visceral thrill that forces you to linger on every panel.

For new fans, this issue tracks almost perfectly from the closing frames of Nolan’s The Dark Knight, wisely tucking away any dissonance in the Batman universe for other titles to handle. As with Dark Knight, the Joker is the star of this issue, and every panel of his pale white form is both rewarding and nauseating.

Batman himself is relatively flat here – but this isn’t a book about character revelations – it’s Detective Comics, and it lives up to that name entirely.

Given how quickly the ending will send you back to page one, I have high hopes that the remainder of the arc will include several more circuitous turns.

DC New 52 Review: Stormwatch #1

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I was a major Image Comics fan in the 90s, and not just for the hyper-kinetic art of departed Marvel artists like Jim Lee. I loved Image because it frequently broke free of typical save-the-world tropes to explore superheroes as a separate society running in parallel to every day life.

Wildstorm Productions was Jim Lee’s imprint at Image, and it was home to every one of my favorite titles and stories. In 1999 Lee allowed DC to acquire the rights to the company so he could focus less on administration and more on creating. Twelve years later, Lee is DC’s co-publisher and penciling their flagship book.

As for the Wildstorm universe, it’s very much alive in DC’s reboot with Stormwatch and solo titles for WildCATs mainstays Grifter and Voodoo –  and they’re all more integrated with DC’s continuity than ever before.

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DC Comics Stormwatch #1, released September 7, 2011.

Stormwatch #1

Written by Paul Cornell, art by Miguel Sepulveda

Rating: 3.5 of 5 – Great

In a line: “Do we look like ‘super-heroes’? They’re amateurs. We’re the professionals.”

140 char review: Stormwatch #1: Almost too many chars to keep track, but Cornell teases mysteries w/o sacrificing exposition. Love the psychedelic overlays!

Plot & Script

Paul Cornell successfully juggles a debut issue featuring a team of seven extra-powered beings, their super-powered quarry, a mysterious assailant, an extra-dimensional space station, a giant Himaylayan cornucopia, a claw in the moon, and one very giant eyeball with tentacles. Cornell manages to be amusing without resorting to all-out humor, and expository while only dropping a few utter bricks of dialog to explain the fast-paced plot.

Of three stories across four locations, it’s the team on the ground in Moscow that’s the 4-color thriller. A reticent would-be-hero does all that he can to evade a somewhat forcible recruitment by the Stormwatch away team of Jack Hawksmoor, Projectionist, and Martian Manhunter.

As for Martian Manhunter’s export to this title, his membership in JLA is mentioned offhandedly, but not explained – other than to say he’s a superhero there, but a “warrior” when he’s in Stormwatch. Does that mean he will show up in Justice League’s year one intro arc?

Artwork

I loved the unusual artwork in this issue. It’s not your typical ultra-gloss of a superhero comic.  I’m especially a fan at the unsubtle, realistic face work – particularly Projectionist mugging in false humulity while Martian Manhunter first shows his green face. Many images include psychedelic overlays – I’m not sure if they’re the work of Sepulveda or colorist Allen Passalaqua, but they’re fantastic.

There were only a few minor disappointments. I like the scope of the cover – showing the core cast, rather than a frame from the issue, but it’s unflattering. Not sure if that’s a penciling or a coloring issue, but I feel like it’s ugly compared to the interiors. A few faces look flat, possibly a coloring issue rather than art. Projectionist’s power showing us an on-panel page of YouTube was perhaps a bit too on-the nose. And, a minor quibble, but the bold blue-on-blue lettering of the presence in the moon was a turnoff. It felt more like a computer read-out than a mysterious evolutionary force.

CK Says: Buy it!

Stormwatch feels decidedly alien, and not just because of star Martian Manhunter and a station in hyperspace. The conceit of extra-dimensional heroes in suits who sneer at the the caped set feels more like Ellis’s superb Planetary than the DC I’m used to skimming.

Cornell is an oddball writer, and he didn’t have enough room to stretch out in Marvel’s great (but decidedly terrestrial) Captain Britain & MI:13. This fast-paced amalgamation of erstwhile-Wildstorm and reinvented-DC is a better fit.

Did he put too many balls in the air for a first issue? I say there’s no such thing. This is exactly what I was hoping for from Justice League – a brisk issue with more questions than answers, hints at multiple threats, and enough plot threads that I’m left pouting for a second issue right away.

DC New 52 Review: Action Comics #1

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With DC Comics re-launching its entire slate of books this month, the most-anticipated title after a vaguely-disappointing Jim Lee drawn Justice League is doubtlessly Action Comics, written by Grant Morrison.

Morrison is a hyper-praised comic author who has written everything from indie fare to X-Men. His multi-year shake-up of Batman comics has been to the comic line what Nolan has been to the movie franchise. He’s also an insufferably self-obsessed egoist and drug addict, both as confessed in Supergods, his recent autobiographical look at comic history.

Suffice to say, I run as hot and cold on Morrison as a Katy Perry song. How does his reboot of the longest-running comic title in the world go? Let’s see…

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DC Comics Action Comics #1, released September 7, 2011

Action Comics #1

Written by Grant Morrison, art by Rags Morales & Rick Bryant

Rating: 4.5 of 5 – Remarkable

In a line: “Non-native strains WILL destroy entire ecologies, given the opportunity.”

140char Review: Action Comics #1: Superman spends a vigilante night in Metropolis; Morrison/Morales show more than tell & maybe make Supes interesting again

Plot & Script

Grant Morrison is superb at debut issues, and this is no exception. He presents a constantly moving half hour in the life of Superman that unfurls in near real-time thanks to the engrossing plot of the issue forcing you to linger on each dialog balloon to absorb all of the implications therein.

The constantly intercutting narrative is effective in keeping the anticipation of spending panel time with Superman high. Even though we see him on the first page (a wise move), we then spend several pages away from him, viewing his wake of destruction and the police’s abject dread in dealing with him.

Morrison writes Superman as well-spoken but cocky (“That ain’t Superman”). His powers are kept deliberately ambiguous, though it’s made clear that he cannot fly. As he exerts himself more his dialog gets more clipped – at points becoming an animalistic collection of sniffs and grunts.

Luthor is snide and has little regard for others, but he’s somehow still likeable – as he should be – and as-drawn a dead-ringer for our author.

Superman is portrayed as growing in power as he self-polices everyone from domestic abusers to mob bosses. Is it the right thing to do to turn Superman into a vigilante when we already have Batman? Or, is the only way to start a new decade (or more!) of Superman stories to begin with him as more of an alien than Clark Kent?

We get a handful of supporting characters, sketched in well-enough for the moment. General Lane is a patriot in bed with a snake (Luther). Olsen is a trusting mop-haired kid equally beholden to his new friend Clark and ice-blooded over-achiever Lois.

There is little to nitpick. A sequence with a high-speed train perhaps intercuts too much, warranting a second read. That’s nearly the only gripe, and it’s swept away by the parallelism of Superman catching two bullets on either side of the story – with differing amounts of success.

There isn’t a right answer – just good comic books. And this was one.

Artwork

I’ve never read an issue with Morales art before, but I’m pleased with him here. He can switch from static talking heads to kinetic action in a single panel. His t-shirt wearing, work-booted Superman is delightfully fresh and surprisingly iconic.

Morales effectively toys with Superman’s age throughout the issue. In his first shadow-faced confrontation with police, the heavy lines around his chin make him look middle-aged. A page later his face is gleeful and childlike as he leaps from a balcony, and a smug teen when facing down his would-be jailers.

Meanwhile, as Clark he is half Christpher Reeves, half Harry Potter. All the while, we see the same square-jaw.

It’s the supporting characters who sag. Jimmy and Lois look a bit askew, and background characters can be a bit ragged. Also, a few panels of ambiguous art don’t aid the already-complex train sequence.

CK Says: Buy it!

Action Comics #1 is a thrilling anchor to the clearly all-new continuity of Superman. Anyone hoping for an issue of a big, blue boy scout pushing planets out of their trajectories will be disappointed by this smaller scale exploration of the ambiguities of justice and of being human.

If that sounds like a boring issue, keep in mind that it still involves being faster than a speeding bullet and leaping tall buildings in a single bound. Oh, and a wrecking ball.

No one in the issue makes the case for Superman being human – Morrison is deliberate in having every character refer to him as an animal, alien, or even a thing. However, in our brief time with the bespeckled Clark we’re left to wonder – if it thinks like a man and cares like a man, how can it be an animal? Not for nothing, but Morrison’s book was subtitled “What Masked Vigilantes, Miraculous Mutants, and a Sun God from Smallville Can Teach Us About Being Human.”

Is this issue a modern classic? Hard to say, but Superman scholar Morrison doesn’t waste a single word while Morales keeps the issue full of impact – it never feels decompressed to drag out the story.