POBB May 23, 2018

Pick of the Brown Bag

May 23, 2018

by

Ray Tate

The Pick of the Brown Bag welcomes you to another round of reviews including Batgirl, The Good Agent, Legendary Red Sonja, Mera and Scooby-Doo Team-Up.  Yep.  It’s a short one, but maybe not short enough.  If not, check out my tweets: #PickoftheBrownBag.

First, congratulations to Ireland for moving forward and accepting women as intelligent individuals capable of making their own decisions about their own individual futures.  Shame on the Republican Party and the Turnip sitting in the White House trying to prevent American women from exercising their own rights secured by Law.

Before I begin the usual reviews, I want to direct your attention to a charity product that came out this week.  Ricanstruction redirects your twenty bucks to the continuing effort to bring Puerto Rico back strong.   Every cent goes to Puerto Rico.  What makes this project a little different than others, is that DC Comics backed the whopping ad-free one-ninety plus page trade paperback by allowing their characters to team-up with the creator owned Puerto Rican super-hero on the cover.  La Borinquena, named after Puerto Rico’s territorial anthem.  And I know what you’re thinking, but you’re wrong.

Batman is here.  Superman and Supergirl soar.  Wonder Woman isn’t just on the cover.  You get Metamorpho.  Swamp Thing.  The Milestone Universe.  Green Lantern Jessica Cruz.  The Crimson Avenger, believe it or not.  

Harley Quinn.  Aquaman.  Poison Ivy.  Catwoman.  The Flash.  Big Barda.  Adam and Alanna Strange.  Batgirl.  Starfire.  All the art is quality, the majority by known professionals.  The same goes for the writing.  Each tale lasts about three to four pages.  Most of them substantial enough and a good spotlight for the heroes and La Borinquena, who apparently has a life outside of this book: www.la-borinquena.com.  So if you’ve got twenty bucks to spare, buy Ricanstruction.

If you read e-comics, stop by comixology and spend a buck on The Good Agent.  Dan Membiella’s re-entry into comics is a treatise against racism with the title hero battling Nazis who serve under the Big Bad White Mother.  

This issue demonstrates Membiella’s skill at drawing monsters and fine draftsmanship.  Membiella’s story is good with reference to Norse myth.  He’s also slowly fleshing out characters and adding to the cast.

In the late seventies, Hanna-Barbera still ran hot, and they introduced a new Scooby-Doo show that split an hour with two brand new protagonists.  Blue Falcon voiced by Gary Owens, who dramatized Spaaaaace Ghosssst, and his sidekick.  A  robot dog christened Dyno-Mutt voiced by the Frank Welker.  The Falcon was a spoof of Adam West’s Batman.  

Referred to as Dog-Wonder, Dyno-Mutt had little in common with Robin.  He was instead a unique creation and the spiritual ancestor of Inspector Gadget.  Because of the format of the show, Scooby-Doo and the Gang frequently joined forces with Blue Falcon and Dyno-Mutt.  It’s nice to see the former cohorts partnering up again.

It seems that Blue Falcon is suffering from a bout of grim-and-gritty.

This perturbs Dyno-Mutt who seeks the Gang to uncover what demon possesses his best blue buddy.  The story by Sholly Fisch mostly eschews the typical horror facade of Scooby-Doo and opts for straight up mystery that winnows the clues until a satisfying solution presents itself.  

I presume that Alex Toth did the original designs for Blue Falcon and Dyno-Mutt.  The Falcon Car is a dead giveaway.  

Regular illustrator Dario Brizuela is nowhere to be found on this issue.  I’d be kicking myself for missing the opportunity.  Able Scooby-Doo artist Walter Carzon is on hand to do justice to Toth’s artistic creations.

Hope Larson’s swan song for Batgirl turns an ordinary domestic disturbance into a potentially deadly trap for the Dynamic Dare Doll.  The story emphasizes how dangerous a science fiction world can be.  It all starts with a special gun designed by an engineer that just doesn’t take no for an answer.

The trap has been a staple of imaginative fiction since the nineteen sixties.  Larson distinguishes her take by cleverly planting multiple chestnuts that she actually used in previous Batgirl cases.  Albeit in a reduced or reinvigorated form.

Larson for example began her run of Batgirl with an old friend we never heard of encountering Babs as she took a vacation through the Asian continent.  

Believe me, I’m not spoiling anything.  Batgirl also uncovers a super gladiator fight club, where her new friend May participates.

Again, nothing’s being spoiled.  All of these reminisces combine with with a new commentary from Larson that agrees with what I’ve been saying for years.

Before Diane Nelson arrived, DC was more interested in the costume than the person.  As far as the Powers That Be were concerned, Batgirl could be anybody—including a deaf, mute illiterate.  Every pass of the suit kept Babs in the wheelchair.  This psycho-Batgirl-fan represents the next substitute.

The way in which Larson retraces her footfalls is intriguing, and that added psycho fan puts Batgirl over the top as far as I’m concerned.  Maybe you were never as bothered by DC’s sexism if not outright misogyny like I was, but even so, there’s enough cleverness in the story of its type to catch your interest. 

Watery Trump-inspired Corum Rath cannot be the King of Atlantis.  However, even the rational people of the underwater world don’t want Aquaman as their sovereign.  He's simply too progressive for the traditional isolationists.  

Aquaman never wanted to rule.  By mutual agreement, his brother Orm alias the Ocean Master became the King.  Aquaman only took the throne when Orm, duped by advisor Vulko, flooded the surface world to protect his domain.  Orm paid for his crimes during Forever Evil but reacted instinctively, nobly when saving a child’s life.  He in the end fell in love with Erin, Tommy’s mother.  

A whirlpool of political intrigue and super-hero action swirls around Atlantis.  The good people act on behalf of Mera who will be crowned Queen.  Ocean Master in a previous issue took issue with that.  

Thanks to the intervention of Erin, Tommy and Tula, Orm’s sister, he and Mera brokered a truce.  Ocean Master for the first time in his life does not want Atlantis.  He wants Erin, Tommy and a family on the dry land, but there’s a sense of duty acting as a siren call.  

Yes, Tommy.  That would be my reaction as well.

Mera hatches a scheme worthy of a Queen.  Ocean Master is on board with her plan.  She will ally with neighboring water-breathers.  Her own people.  There is just one problem.  No, make that two.

Mera and Ocean Master battle a giant octopoid.  Lan Medina, Norm Rapmund and Veronica Gardini illustrate Tula as a gorgeous bad ass.  So do they choreograph a superb fight sequence--man and woman against behemoth--with equal aplomb.

When the bubbles subside, Mera and Ocean Master stand triumphant.  Yeah. Spoiler, I suppose.  It’s not as Topo's big brother actually had a chance.  You knew that.  The protagonists press their case.  The trouble is that Mera made numerous enemies when she fell in love with Aquaman.  She was sent to assassinate him.

Oddly enough her arranged marriage husband and the leader of the Xebels is actually more ambivalent than her own kin.  He objects to Mera’s new status for numerous reasons, but she being Mera isn’t one of them.

Mera Queen of Atlantis is a kind of flip-side to what’s now happening in Aquaman.  Aquaman deals with the revolt against Rath.  It’s the nitty, gritty of the resistance.  Mera is more about the build up to what happens next.  It’s about diplomacy, the limits of duty and upsetting the status quo of royal lineage.  Though we have fights against giant octopi Mera is more cerebral with the heart being the Ocean Master, of all characters, and what he stands to lose should temptation overcome him.  If I have one beef, it's that Mera is a limited series and not an ongoing title.

Legenderry is the steampunk world created by Bill Willingham for Dynamite Comics.  In fact the build began with various heroes such as Vampirella and the Phantom trying to help a mysterious woman named Magda find her path.  This path led to Red Sonja.  Naturally, the saga budded several miniseries.  

Marc Andreyko is the writer of Legendary Red Sonja.  The first entangled Sonja with the creations of Mary Shelley and explained how she should inherit Captain Nemo’s ship.  

The second started out innocent enough.  Sonja bested gang boss Thorne in a cutthroat game of cards.  He wasn’t too happy about the outcome.  His fury led to an exciting chase through the city and ended up back on Sonja’s command.  

Once submerged, Sonja learned that they picked up a stowaway Tesla Thorne, the daughter of the gang boss seeking Sonja’s head.  Better yet, Tesla told a tale of woe.  She was a star-crossed lover of D’Nar the son of Khulan Gath.  Yes, that one.  The one that Sonja never actually met.

This corker of a scene milked for all its cheesecake worth by Andreyko, Rodney Buchemi and Adriano Augusto is a pivotal moment in the comic book.  

It distinguishes the two Sonjas.  There’s no way in hell the Hyborean Age Red Sonja would craft a ruse that made a play for Khulan Gath.  No.  Way.  In fact Sonja seldom pretends to be anything than what she is.  A highly, efficient mercenary.  

Legendary Red Sonja’s naked attempts at seduction resemble the ploys of Honey West and Modesty Blaise, good company to keep.  Furthermore, the scenario demonstrates how a civilized Red Sonja behaves.  Although the Legendary world is filled with women and progressive men, it’s still in general a sexist world.  That sexism lends belief.  Sonja thinks she can gain the edge.  She and the reader underestimate all the surprises that Andreyko has in store.

That fallibility also distances Legendary Red Sonja from her barbarian source.  Red Sonja doesn't fail.  She wins no matter the job, sometimes at great cost.  The civilized Red Sonja makes mistakes.  She recovers and learns from them, but that acceptance of mortality results in a less larger than life presentation.