POBB February 24, 2021

Pick of the Brown Bag

February 24, 2021

by

Ray Tate 

Welcome to the Pick of the Brown Bag.  This week I look at the most recent Black Widow series from Kelly Thompson, Elena Casagrande and Jordie Bellaire.  Five issues published.  Five issues solid.  If you're looking for a quicker judgement from my reviews, a teensy version of the POBB can be found on Twitter: #PickoftheBrownBag.

For those not in the know, Natasha Romanoff alias the Black Widow began life as a typical femme fatale. She didn't even wear a costume.  

The KGB tasked her to kill Iron Man.  Failing, she recruited an asset named Hawkeye for her cause.  Two years later, Natasha reformed and became an Avenger soon after the bowman.  Natasha never looked back.  She officially defected from the Soviet Union, acquired American citizenship in Daredevil and joined SHIELD.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe retains Nat's Russian history, but pushes it forward.   Nat for example spies on Iron Man for SHIELD, not the KGB, and becomes a founder of the Avengers, along with Hawkeye.

Most recently, the Soska Sisters dealt with Natasha's post traumatic stress over being killed by a Captain America doppelgänger.  The Soskas' awesome rated R series involved child torture and murder.  Nat didn't need to hold back, and sisters and brothers she didn't.  Now, she feels even more like she's going through the motions.  She needs motivation.  She needs a change.  She needs...

Huh.  Well, that's unexpected.  Suddenly, Black Widow is an architect/civil engineer in a beautifully composed illustration by Elena Casagrande. 

 

Of course it doesn't actually happen that way.  Suddenly that is.  The premiere issue begins in Black Widow rote.

The good guys task Black Widow for a mission, and Casagrande and the Widow promptly scythe through a bunch of goons.  Though no wet-work.  A promise is a promise, after all.  A short reunion with Captain America quickly leads to this curious scene.

Okay.  Look, this isn't your first rodeo.

You're thinking, and rightfully so, virtual reality.  Nat is sporting headphones and goggles in a closet somewhere, living a false life she may actually want but can never have.

Except it's not that simple.

Natasha's life as an architect is actually unfolding in the context of Marvel reality.  Read on, MacDuff, and you'll discover she's been missing for three months.  

Normally, when a person disappears for three months, it's a cold case.  Thompson though sagely points out that Natasha likes to vanish.  Indeed, Black Widow's history is filled with gaps in which she ducks out of the superhero and spy business.  Very rarely if at all is she killed or trapped in another dimension.  Usually, she's vacationing in Europe.

Thompson is known for infusing humor into her work, and Black Widow is no different.  Make no mistake, this is a drama, but it's got Hawkeye and Bucky among the guest cast.  So, you can expect an aspect of buddy-cop comedy.

Bucky works way, better in the Marvel Cinematic Universe because first and foremost Sebastian Stan... 

...and second, he hasn't been out of Captain America's sight for all that long.  

In the comic books, a historical forty year gulf divides Bucky's purported death and the recreation of Bucky as the Winter Soldier.  Bucky's been dead for that long.  So, readers have been ingrained with Cap waking up from whenever being knocked out with his cheery shout of "Bucky! Noooooo!" for that long.  

Winter Soldier was a big deal when Ed Brubaker and Steve Epting introduced him back in 2005.  Only recently, and I believe because of the MCU, can writers now poke some fun at the Winter Soldier/Bucky dichotomy. 

In Black Widow, like the Punisher, Hawkeye doesn't take Bucky seriously as the Winter Soldier.  You get the impression that he would respect him more as Bucky Barnes, Cap's sidekick.

Hawkeye approaches Nat under the pretense of admiring her new bike purchase.  The bike a souped up black model with red piping symbolizes the Black Widow still lies beneath the surface, but she is completely oblivious to Hawkeye's identity.

It gets even weirder than Natalie, architect and civil engineer.

Now, I know what you're thinking, and you're wrong.  Virtual reality is wrong.  What you're thinking is wrong.  Thompson gives the reader problems to solve that involve real world math.  How can Natalie possibly have a child in three months if not already pregnant the last time we saw her in issue one?  

At this point you may be musing that perhaps Natalie is a clone of the Black Widow.  In the Marvel Universe it's not too far-fetched.  Through hocus-pocus Black Widow exists in a cloned body of the original the Captain America doppelgänger slew.  So perhaps Natalie isn't the Black Widow.

That would be a no then.

Throughout the three issues, Thompson drops clues to the masterminds behind the plot.  The hired help she reveals at the end of issue one, but the puppet master stays hidden until this third issue.  The involvement certainly makes sense.  I just wish that the Black Widow had a better rogue's gallery to choose from.  Fact is.  Because Widow is a spy and superhero, few of her enemies survive her.  She's not averse to ending them.  Hence, Captain America requesting her not to perform any wet-work in the debut.  One of her surviving enemies became an ally, and she also appears in the series.

The White Widow is Yelena Belova.  Devin Grayson and J.G. Jones introduced her back in the nineties in an issue of The Inhumans.  This is less curious than you think since Black Widow and the Inhumans shared Amazing Adventures.  Most however encountered Yelena in Black Widow: Itsy-Bitsy Spider, as Natasha's enemy.  An upstart who intended to take her place on behalf of the Soviet Union.

Fortunately, Yelena really didn't do any lasting damage, and her fervent faith in the U.S.S.R. crumbled with the regime change.  Richard K. Morgan and Bill Sienkiewicz reclaimed Yelena for the side of dark angels in their Black Widow mini-series: The Things They Say About Her.  This eventually led to an uneasy friendship with Natasha.  All these mini-series by the way are highly recommended.

Thompson's story is fairly original.  The closest I can come to finding a germ of her idea is in an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents.  Even that however isn't exact.  If the story doesn't float your boat, Elena Casagrande's and Jordie Bellaire's artwork will.  Despite being in domestic bliss and a young mom, Black Widow strikes numerous foes in an animated style given widescreen scope.  In issue five we also get a good showing from her allies.

 

POBB February 16, 2021

Pick of the Brown Bag

February 16, 2021

by

Ray Tate

Welcome to a new Pick of the Brown Bag.  For this posting, I look at The Good Agent and the remaining two issues of Danger Devil.  No time for even the blog? That's all right.  I'm also on Twitter: #PickoftheBrownBag.

Dan Membiela's Good Agent available at Comixology returns with a sixth issue.  In previous chapters, the Good Agent thwarted machinations of the White Mother.  The White Mother is a modern Nazi with connections to the Norse Gods, obviously not styled in the Jack Kirby model.  

She and her gang of fascists intended to literally suck out the life from the citizens of Estrido.  The current Good Agent acts as an epilogue for that story and as an introduction for a new antagonist.

Rumors of a beast stalking the city begin to proliferate. 

Unbeknownst to the Good Agent, somebody is watching the detectives.

The fellow with the cape refers to himself as the Night Cleric.  He's an admirer of Moon Knight, if one knows the history of Moon Knight that is.  Soon, the hunters and the hunted find themselves at odds and in battle.

The Night Cleric counts himself on the side of the Good Agent, but their methods conflict.  This friction at heart is philosophical, which the Agent underlines in an excellent speech.

That's only the beginning of the hero's talk.  It's inspired by a powerful statement from Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, included as an epilogue.  

Membiela's prose is bolstered by excellent draftsmanship, artistic perspective and character design, along with some knockout fights.  Furthermore, Good Agent reflects an up to date look at our society.  

The hunted's reaction for example mirrors the disillusionment of some conspiracy adherents after after being confronted by the ice water of hard facts and realizing they threw away their lives for nonsense.

The first issue of Danger Devil knocked me out.  The conclusion to what I hope only to be a first series impresses as well.  With any luck, you can order copies from your local comic book shop.  If not go to Source Point Press and click the comics button, which will shunt you to a secure shopping site.

In the premiere of Danger Devil, Danger and Kid Diabla proceeded to kick the ass of Jenny Deathwood, a lethal supernatural bounty hunter employed by the occult big bad Methalia.  Methalia's keen on leaving her spectral prison and ensuing the whole killing and subjugating humanity business.

In the process of the ass-kicking, Danger and the Kid secured an asset for their organization the Mystic Bureau.  

The actual kid Xenia is a gifted youth who unfortunately gets herself and others into trouble when she tries to exhibit her independence.  That said.  Her talent comes into play when translating an ancient text that reveals Methalia's plans and the way to stop her.  She however isn't enough.  Head honcho Sebastian Coronado believes the Bureau needs to work with Nick Logan.  Danger puts forth some mild objections.

In the end Nick requires saving.  

Danger Devil is an acrobat/martial artist.  Most of her rescues and attacks rely on physical assaults, but the creative team also add to her flavor.  

Unlike other unpowered costumed heroes, Danger uses magical artifacts to enhance her efficacy as a crimefighter.  Danger employed a teleportation potion in the premiere.  In the second issue, she pays the price.

Ouch.  The link also appears in the third issue.  Methalia's psychic attack on Danger sets a double-edged tone.  On the one hand, Methalia would like to upset our hero and force her into making mistakes.  On the other hand, why bother if you're sure your tactics will work?  Methalia fears Danger Devil like no other.

In Danger Devil, superhero is a rank.  It's a novel idea, and I like it.  The concept at once gives weight to the role and eschews the idea of amateurs belittling professionals like FBI agents or police inspectors, which happens so often in fiction.  You can buy it when somebody like Sherlock Holmes manifests, but not a pet shop owner who sleuths as a hobby.

The concept of the superhero rank allows for some good character building drama without undermining the action quotient of the superhero genre.

The blonde is Kid Diabla, Danger Devil's partner and ace pilot.  She's less like Robin and more like Kato.  As a result, she and Danger have a more even association.  Eve Austin the tech in the white coat is her girlfriend.  In the third issue, Eve takes an even greater role, although not as a costumed hero.

The gal piloting the blue ship is another of Danger Devil's rank, the Rebel Raider.  

As you can see, this idea of superhero ranking allows for some definite fluctuations in the cast's emotion levels.  Writer Tony Doug Wright introduced Danger Devil as a sort of stalwart, no-nonsense Captain America type.  He adds nuances to her character as the series progresses.  Now, in this third issue he debuts Rebel Raider, who is Danger Devil's opposite but not lesser.  

Bonus points for not actually having the two predictably mix it up.  It's much more fun and fitting, with the pilot rivalry, for Kid Diabla to be the irritated one.  Regardless of egos, Rebel Raider is a team player and important hero with the Mystic Bureau.

Danger Devil establishes a magic based universe, three intriguing super-heroes, a planet-shaking threat and a meaningful supporting cast all within three issues.  Art by Joseph Haemmerle is vivid and exciting with strong character designs and accomplished fighting sequences.

POBB February 1, 2021

Pick of the Brown Bag

February 1, 2021

by

Ray Tate

Welcome to the Pick of the Brown Bag.  My name is Ray Tate, and I review the current comic books that should be available at your local comic book store.  This issue is another delve into independent publishers: American Mythology, Aftershock and Ahoy.  If you haven't the time for the full reviews.  Check me out on Twitter: #PickoftheBrownBag.

Boy howdy!  Just look at that cover.  Molto bene.  You get a lady with a badge in a sort of proto-punk outfit with a 1930s hairdo and a long, cool coat.  Kind of a cross between an aviatrix and a police woman with Mrs. Peel attitude thrown in for good measure.  Look closer at the badge, and you'll see she belongs to the FBI.  Perfect.

Our mystery woman stands in front of a bulletin board filled with photos, one depicting a statue of Cthulhu.  If that doesn't get the blood pumping, I don't know what will.  Miskatonic is the Sucker Punch of Lovecraft-based comic books.

You may not remember Sucker Punch, since it's entirely forgettable, but I'm sure you'll remember the ad campaign.

And there were a handful more like that!  Whetting the appetite.  Introducing you to archetype female fighters.  Like Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, only with more estrogen.  Guess what? 

Turns out, one, just one Franky Cook is worth more than a hundred Sucker Punch baby dolls.

When I first saw Sucker Punch, I felt I had seen one of the worst films of all time.  Equal to Batman Forever.  As my rage cooled and the imagery faded into a sepia haze with vague girlish faces and figures, I realized that, no, Sucker Punch wasn't a truly bad movie.  Just manipulative and stupid.  

The ad campaign however was resonant.  The stories that burst into your head when you saw the images were all better than the story you got.

Miskatonic isn't truly bad.  It's just dull and predictable.  Its ad campaign, the cover of the book, is superior to the book itself.  The stories bursting in your head about the vivacious Cthulhu fighter on the cover are better than what you get. 

For example, no Amelia Earhart fervor.  

Just plain Jane Agent Miranda Keller blackmailing her way to a plum assignment.  The investigation of murder by bomb.  She meets her contact, a retired NY detective Tom Malone.

They become a sort of Woolworth Avengers In a little town called Innsmouth with a group of curious and familiar looking mutants.

I swear.  Miskatonic almost seems like a send-up of Lovecraft.  It's one thing to be a ground-breaking Corman film like The Haunted Palace, bringing Lovecraft to the screen for the very first time.  

Quite another to assume nobody reading saw that film or read the original Lovecraft work.  We honestly didn't need to see the mutants hanging around. 

The agents look over the scene of the crime, and writer Mark Sable throws in a little science for mostly no reason.

Oh, look!  Goo!  

The absence of goo at a Lovecraft crime scene would be remarkable.  More important to the story, such as it is.  There's this.

But how did Detective Malone find the framed photo?  The art isn't very telling.  One minute, he's got his hands in his pockets.  The next...Presto.

Did he find the photo among the ruins? The glass isn't cracked in the frame.  Was he carrying it in his coat pocket? Odd thing to do if true.

As the story goes on, and does it.  The agents run afoul of the Order of Dagon and witness a fish flesh fete.

This image is neither raunchy enough nor disturbing enough to be a Lovecraft orgy of Deep Ones and mutant townsfolk.  I'll never unsee the body-horror orgy in Society.  

No, no, I'll not impose the visuals.  This movie isn't made for newbies.  As for the congress of skin and scale? Old woodcuts were more explicit, and exciting.  

In the second issue, after running from the Order, our agents escape via train.  Arriving at Arkham, Massachusetts, it's as though nothing from the previous night ever happened.

C'mon.  You can do better than this.  Most of Lovecraft's protagonists end up stark raving mad after encounters with Cthulhu and his lot.  

Yes, Dagon certainly counts.  

Despite all she's seen in the universe, even the Doctor winced upon seeing the villain Zellin's method of dream-theft. 

Keller's blasé attitude is unbelievable.  Agent Keller may be made of stronger stuff, but she should be affected by the events of the piscine pumping party in some way.  Tom is at least reminded of horrific incidents in Red Hook, New York.  Miranda Keller though focuses on her contempt for Tom.  Whom I may add did absolutely nothing to deserve it.  

Oh, and for the record, the sexual innuendo between Keller and Malone, if you want to call it that, is tiresome and juvenile, not humorous nor witty.  Make it stop.

Some minor frivolity comes in the form of an unadulterated guest appearance by one of Lovecraft's greatest contributions to mad science.  Just as things might become interesting, we must enter the Dunwitch Horror.

From there, we side-swipe into lesbian subtext.  

Everybody likes lesbian subtext, am I right?  Hell, yes, they do, but I must ask was this trip via The Conformist necessary?  I don't think so.  Because Sable exploits LGBT as perversion.  

Aseneth Waite isn't in her right mind when seducing Miranda Keller.  Whatever's possessing Waite uses her body and sensuality to lure Keller into the world of Dagon.  

Keller doesn't appear to be gay.  Perhaps she has some deeply buried attraction.  Waite is a thrall of Dagon, so her orientation is immaterial.

Furthermore, Aseneth didn't kiss Keller into the mind-swap-control.  So why must she kiss her out of mind-swap-control? Seems like desperate grandstanding to me.

Miskatonic drags the reader through Lovecraft short-stories with name checks for famous Lovecraft characters via two ordinary investigators that lack the spark of that girl on the cover.

The hit indie series with a superb concept and equally impressive artwork returns.  The story is simple, and if you don't believe, me writer Tom Peyer and illustrators Jamal Igle, Roy Castro and Andy Troy explain in one page.

One of the good things about Wrong Earth is that Peyer doesn't take sides.  Both gritty Dragonfly and the more innocent Dragonfly Man have admirable qualities.  Dragonfly actually was the innocent Dragonfly Man until a crazed villain murdered his sidekick Stinger.  He's been given a second chance with the dimensional travel.

Dragonfly's more flexible morality also allowed him to accept the offer of another crazed villain's henchwench.  He didn't turn the thieving artist formerly known as Deuce into the cops.  She's bad, not evil.  She risked her freedom to save Stinger, when mortally wounded.  She risked her life to turn against Dragonfly's nemesis the One.  As a result she becomes a teammate.

One helluva teammate.  Unlike Stinger, Deuce knows Dragonfly arrived from the wrong earth.  She's also not into the straight-laced Dragonfly Man.  He likely would have demanded that she turn herself in for her past crimes.  I should point out that Dragonfly did not materialize in a television series.  Lady Dragonfly's earth is just as real as Dragonfly's earth, as are the dangers.

The villains of Dragonfly Man's earth simply have more flair.

One really wonders how exactly this earth's society evolved into such a wacky reflection.  No explanation is needed for Dragonfly's Earth-Omega.  You may think the Adam West inspired Dragonfly Man is at a disadvantage on Earth-Omega, but both incarnations of the hero are brilliant and resourceful.

The answer is at once hilarious and impressive.  Not to mention intrinsic to Dragonfly Man's insect motif.  Dragonfly Man acquired the new deadly Stinger after Dragonfly discovered him amongst the riff-raff of the One's hideout.  He wasn't in good shape, and Dragonfly rescued him.  When Dragonfly Man appeared, he took the young man under his wing.  It's been a bumpy road.

These scenes set the mood of the worlds and establish the characters, on each side of the coin.  They also introduce the gist of the new series.  Somebody is poisoning both earths.  

The initial investigation indicates maybe both heroes can go home again, but do they want to.  Dragonfly found a modicum of happiness on Earth-Alpha.  Dragonfly Man is needed on Earth-Omega.  Neither however belongs, yet perhaps there's a happy medium.

Sonya Devereux is an actress who takes on a number of roles in a series of Z grade to B movies.  In her latest film, she becomes the superhero Violet Vixen.

So, let's get this out of the way first.  This is not the most outrageously entertaining issue of Starring Sonya Devereux.  Despite always being a number one, it is a series.  You can find the reviews of all those absurd and damn funny past issues here.  I know, I know.  You know how to operate tags.  Maybe you've had a rough day.  Maybe you were digging out of two feet of snow.  Just relax and click the link.

Starring Sonya Devereux is funny, but familiarity breeds contempt.  Frankly, the superhero genre is pretty absurd to begin with.  For that reason, I'm intimately up on the whole, freedom of movement argument to excuse the depiction of female flesh. 

Violet Vixen's costume is actually pretty conservative when compared to any of the Legionnaire outfits from the nineteen sixties and seventies.

The introduction of Madame Midnight surprises with an actual credible costume.  There may also be a nice reverb of comedy in the more modest Midnight's powers being a copy of the more hedonistic Shadow Lass' abilities.

The origin stories of VV and MM also aren't that far-fetched when compared to "belted by gamma rays" or being infused with the energy of an experimental Kree engine.  Granted the science is garbage and doesn't even try to be accurate, but still.

The running gags in Sonya Devereaux however are throughout amusing.  Violet Vixen is secretly a vegetarian cook influencer, which helps her survive her alien imprisonment.

Writers Nick Livingston and Nick Capetanakis also play up the tradition of secret identity blindness.  Neither Violet Vixen nor the cameo champion Captain Attraction know each other's secret identities despite the flimsy disguises and their serious dating.

The best gags arise when the aliens return at an opportune moment.  Their funky dialect is a riot, and their cheesy look smile-inducing, indicating the money from this production just ran out.

Still better looking than anything from Prometheus.  The art by Brendon and Brian Fraim with Sarah Perryman for the important colors is top of the line.  It would be welcome in any serious comic book.  In fact they cannot help but treat the knock down, drag out fight with cinematography and editing that's enviable for any medium.

For fans of Sonya Devereux this is a must buy.  For those that want to experience the full Sonya Devereux hilarity I recommend any of the past issues. This mild superhero spoof nevertheless is consistently amusing when not being solid superhero fare.  So consider it as an auxiliary addition to the yield of your brown bag.