Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

DC Comics

DC New 52 Review: Resurrection Man #1

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Resurrection Man is one of the more peculiar choices for the DC New 52 relaunch.

First, there is his peculiar power. Thanks to an experiment meant to render him invincible, Resurrection Man Mitchell Shelley bounces back from each death in perfect health with a random new super power that he can only discover through trial and error. Otherwise, he’s a a relatively regular guy.

Second, he’s largely unknown. He headlined his own 1997-99 monthly series, but has only been seen or heard from a scant handful of times in the intervening decade.

Why this new resurrection? The secret ingredient of Mr. Shelley is his writers – Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning AKA DnA. After an ignoble 1988 start on the Real Ghostbusters, they worked their way up the ranks to become one of the hottest writing teams in comics. After penned years of Legion and Majestic for DC they moved on to a multi-year stint on the wildly well-received Marvel Cosmic line. Now they’re back at DC, and back at the helm of their very own hero.

How did DnA do with this peculiar pick in the New 52 lineup?

Resurrection Man #1

Written by Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning, art by Fernando Dagnino

Rating: 5 of 5 – Outstanding!

In a Line: “I’ll sleep when I’m dead. I’ll get back to you when I’ve got a schedule for that.”

#140char Review: Resurrection Man #1 does re-intro right w/perfectly-paced grim glimpse into RM’s dire, hapless life & the forces controlling it. A must-read

CK Says: Buy it!

Writers Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning (DnA) are perfection in a reunion with their hero Resurrection Man, abetted by fantastic art from Fernando Dagnino.

From the intro device of our hero slowly awakening to his new life and his new power to his gruesome death and a final scene of him slipping away from a crash, the script never lets up and maintains a vibe of lingering dread throughout.

Resurrection Man Mitch spends most of the book talking to himself and the reader, and you get the sense that his matter-of-fact internal monologue is the majority of conversation in his life. Would a hunted man who dies and dies again have a girlfriend or sidekick handy to chat with? Probably not. His narrative of fellow passengers via the metal on their bodies is a gem stolen from the mind of Magneto. The implication that he quietly re-experiences the world through each new power he awakens with says much about his solitude.

Dagnino’s art is beautiful and perfect for the tone of the script. It reminds me of Gaiman’s Sandman – reminiscent of old Sam Keith, or maybe Jae Lee. It’s the sure black fields of a self-inker, not afraid to get his pages a little dirty with darkness. Colorist Rob Leigh obliges with a set of muted, rusty colors.

The result might turn off some readers as too dark or dull, but it sets an 80s Vertigo vibe and couldn’t be any more perfect for DnA’s script. I took special thrill in small details like the burnished exterior of a plane in flight fading back into an interior scene of the plane.

The deus ex machina of each resurrection coming with both a new power and an inexplicable compulsion to take action could have seemed forced, but you’ll forget it by the time Mitch boards a plane and meets his “hot, in a Gaga kind of way” seatmate. Clearly there are forces greater than him at work and play here – literal god machines reaching their hands into his life. Is it worth stopping a villain about to kill dozens of people if they were all going to die anyway? Can it even be done?

Resurrection Man is a perfect entry into DC’s relaunched lineup of 52 books – his power to start anew from each death is a fitting metaphor for readers picking up his relaunched title with no prior knowledge of the character. DnA have a proven track record of mercilessly dissecting the lives of their heroes to produce fantastically unexpected stories, and Mitch is a rare hero who can walk away from each dissection unharmed.

A must-read comic.

DC New 52 Review: Legion Lost #1

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Clearly the theme of today is titles where I’ve got no idea about a darn thing. These are apparently superheroes from the future who get mired in the past? Despite my DC newbness I have a way of hoovering up information about random heroes, yet I don’t even vaguely recognize a single one of them on the cover.

Will this one delight as much as Frankenstein did earlier this evening? Let’s see…

Legion Lost #1

Written by Fabian Nicieza, art by Pete Woods

Rating: 2 of 5 – Uneven

In a Line: “Accessing the sensory patterns of this time period without the transuit filter — is like to see, hear, and talk while inside a pool of mud.”

#140char Review: Legion Lost #1 aren’t the only ones lost. Fast-paced issue w/a slew of chars whizzes by with little effect

CK Says: Consider it.

Legion Lost is a wobbly comic that I suspect improves greatly with any foreknowledge of the characters within or the events of Flashpoint.

The story? A team of superheroes from the future pops back into our present in a malfunctioning time traveling bubble, in pursuit of a villain carrying a contagion. They’re too late to stop him, thus their dilemma becomes how to retrieve him and retreat to chronal safety. However, there are some potentially deadly kinks in their plan.

Scripter Fabian Nicieza hits the ground running and never pauses for a second, wobbling be damned. I appreciated the non-coddling pace and the way his characters always restate the implied question of “what the hell is happening.” I came away with all of their powers and most of their names, if not their relationships with each other.

However, I wouldn’t call the experience pleasant.

Adding to the rushed tone is Pete Woods’s artwork, which looks like it tumbles out of his pen a mile a minute. I’m not sure what gives that impression. Maybe that the action doesn’t always track from panel to panel? Or maybe that the focus of his panels is always crisp and perfect, with perspectives and details bending away at the sides to thicker, heavily-inked lines.

(Also: the weirdly amalgamated logo is awful.)

I understood the book, and even enjoyed some of it, but it doesn’t seem worth returning to next month. I didn’t get the sense it was necessary to be telling a story with these largely charmless characters, and the story that was told wasn’t compelling enough to make me want to track down a seemingly difficult backstory.

Still, it seems like someone fresh from Flashpoint with some fondess for The Legion of Superheroes would be invested in the events that unfold.

DC New 42 Review: Frankenstein, Agent of S.H.A.D.E. #1

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Is there really anything to say here? The cover of this book features Frankenstein wielding a gattling gun, backed up by his four-armed bride and a Japanese school girl wielding a revolver.

My hopes, they were not high.

Frankenstein, Agent of S.H.A.D.E. #1

Written by Jeff Lemire, art by Alberto Ponticelli

Rating: 4 of 5 – Excellent

In a Line: “And so far, I must say I am worried. This place is an advertisement for mad science bound to go wrong.”

#140char Review: Frankenstein #1 makes magic happen w/outlandish plot, gruff antihero, & messy/sketchy art. Perfectly exciting debut left me howling for more

CK Says: Buy it!

Frankenstein, Agent of S.H.A.D.E. #1 is a great comic book, and I’m shocked it’s out as an ongoing under the banner of DC. It goes to show that The New 52 isn’t completely for show – some different concepts are really getting a trial run as marquee titles, and it’s up to readers to show their support.

I was cold to this book for about half the issue. A miniature base in a a bubble that requires agents to shrink down to size to enter. Disposable organic robots that dissolve after a day of use. A master who randomly swaps bodies every decade, and is currently inhabiting an Asian school girl. A special forces squadron of volunteer monsters.

It all sounds rather tiresome. Yet, somewhere in the middle of the issue it turned from an obligatory read to a page-turner.

A lot of that has to do with the constant slinging of madcap plot points from author Jeff Lemire. (Yes, that’s the same Lemire that illustrated Animal Man. He is amazing.) If oddball details had been hammered into the ground I would have found them awkward. Instead, each was treated as routine – just another minor facet of an outlandish and compelling world constructed around our titular horror. Not explaining the ridiculous reality of the book gives the reader tacit permission to just not care where Frankenstein came from or why he’s a hero. The book became immediately more enjoyable.

I’d be lying if I said it was solely my suspension of disbelief that kept me hooked until I was really hooked. Actually, that can be chalked up to art from Alberto Ponticelli. I love the deliberate messiness of his pages, things left sketchy and roughly hewn. Yet, he can also scale back to show a clean panel of faces. At points he is definitely reminiscent of Chris Bachalo’s DC work.

The plot? Some sort of hell mouth has opened in a remote town, expelling hordes of carnivorous monsters. The Bride of Frankenstein went missing trying to contain it. Now it’s up the Frankenstein and his horrific team to monster mash their way through the town to plug the hole and locate Bride. If it sounds silly… well… it sort of is, but the book never descends into humor despite a few consistently wisecracking characters and an even-funnier straight man werewolf.

Frankenstein’s DC history is short and relatively recent, and doesn’t seem to have much bearing on the proceedings here. Lemire uses SHADE’s computer to narrate through a few otherwise incomprehensible situations. For a while we’re left to think it’s talking to Frankenstein, but by the end of the book it is addressing us directly. Again, advantage Lemire, who am I now mildly obsessed with.

This isn’t a perfect issue, but it is perfectly entertaining and absolutely worth a purchase. Pick this up while you still can, and while we can still send a signal to DC that we want more of Lemire and Ponticelli’s edgy horror on the slate for many months to come!

(I’ll offer the minor caveat that I have a confirmed soft spot for horror tropes used in not-entirely-horror idioms. See also Marvel’s Tomb of Dracula, Whedon’s Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Kripke’s Supernatural, etc.)

DC New 52 Preview: On Sale 9/21

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This week brings the third wave of DC’s New 52 debut titles, all aimed to be easy to pick up for new readers but still rewarding to longtime fans.

Week two’s raft of titles was definitely less impressive on the whole than week one, despite a big block of above-average books. Week three packs heavy hitters Batman and Wonder Woman, and an underbill of beloved second-stringers like Catwoman, Blue Beetle, and Supergirl. Will this be be the week to break the better-than-average barrier with a score that tops 3.0? Or, will it do worse than week two’s four-book crop of sub-average comics?

Batman
Written by Scott Snyder with art by Greg Capullo & Jonathan Glapion

I’m a little gun-shy on this one. I thought a Snyder/Paquette Swamp Thing was a sure thing, but I wound up dissing it and drawing a personal comment from Snyder. Dare I get my hopes up here for Snyder on the more well-established Bats in his flagship, illustrated by killer artist Capullo? I daren’t identify this as my most-anticipated of the week, but let’s say I have a firm interest in the outcome.

What are the four other Bat-group titles out this week, and which of them is my most-anticipated book of the week? Keep reading to find out. [Read more…] about DC New 52 Preview: On Sale 9/21

DC New 52 Review: Green Lantern #1

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I don’t like Green Lantern.

There, now you’re really going to trust my review!

One Earth man specially selected by alien to wield the power of green light to defend the universe I can take. Hell, I even dig that multiple men have borne the ring over the years.

It’s when you add to that all the various other Green Lanterns, and the home world, and the power battery, and the other colored Lanterns – and then make that one of the central mythologies of the DC Universe – that my interest wanes.

All of those credulity-stretching elements make Green Lantern just another employee – a foot solider in a galactic brigade with the same standard issue weapon as all his comrades. Heck, sometimes other Green Lanterns can even operate in the same sector! Even when Marvel has expanded their most popular lines of comics, they’ve never trivialized an original hero concept quite as much as that.

DC went all-in on Lanterns in their reboot, not knowing at the time they set the slate that the Ryan Reynolds summer blockbuster would tank. But, flop or not, this is the obvious title that new fans would be flocking to. Is it up to the task?

Green Lantern #1

Written by Geoff Johns, art by Doug Mahnke & Christian Alamy w/Tom Nguyen

Rating: 1.5 of 5 – Weak

In a Line: “You’ve been off-planet too long, you’re beyond out-of-touch with everyday life – and people!”

#140char Review: Green Lantern #1 aimed at anyone BUT a new reader. It’s confusing. No denying Hal Jordon is magnetic to read; pity it’s >half about Sinestro

CK Says: Skip it.

This debut issue could not be any more unfriendly to a new reader or non-DC collector reading all 52 books. And, friendliness aside, it’s not very good.

I’m not entirely sure what to say about it, because it was clearly not aimed at me. The plot feels like it picks up from some prior action that remains unnamed. We follow a seemingly destitute and clueless Hal Jordan (even though I don’t think he’s the latter) as he gets evicted and botches a date, and a seemingly newly-introduced and highly moral Sinestro (even though I’m pretty sure he’s neither) as he zips around in space, seemingly planning something awesome and not at all sinister.

That’s it. You have now read Green Lantern #1.

This book lacks just about all there is to lack in the plot and script department. Some caption boxes or thought bubbles would have been kind to orient the reader, or even to add a little texture to an absurdly fast read. There is no explanation of how the ring works, anywhere. There is no mention of the fact that last week we saw Guy Gardner as Earth’s GL in the present and Hal as a member of the Justice League five years in the past. We meet a council of blue-headed dwarves who apparently act as the DMV for the apparently noble green power rings, but they are asses and kill one of their own for disagreeing with them. And what is a Star Sapphire ring?

Uneven art does the issue no favors. Sinestro is both red and pink throughout. Backgrounds of tight shots are vague and empty, as in one shot of Hal and Carol at dinner with a blank wall behind them when it’s been established that one doesn’t exist in any direction. One non-red-robed blue-headed dwarf guy appears out of nowhere (why is his robe different?) only to be zapped a panel later? We see the detailed emptiness of the apartment Hal leaps into (pictured higher than his own window) only to be confronted by a half dozen people in it a page later (when it is clearly below his window).

We get zero context of why Sinestro was imprisoned, except that he turned dictator on his own planet (which was maybe a good thing?), only to then visit his planet and see a Sinestro Corps (?) of Yellow Lanterns (?) enslaving other pink/red people (?). Sinestro easily dispatches a yellow-ringed scout, even though I’m pretty sure yellow is what the green ring is weak to.

The one thing the issue did bother to establish is that the ring chooses the wearer, and it implies that there is one ring bearer per sector. The final page cliffhanger neatly refutes both points.

While this intercutting issue may have been a thrill for fans who know the Green Lantern mythology, it’s a toss-away for new adult readers and those with a vague understanding of GL’s background. It barely makes a lick of sense, and though Hal is sympathetic the only likeable character is Carol Fenris. It is a decent issue for younger readers, with its simplistic “plot,” no bad language, and limited violence.