POBB: April 8, 2014

Pick of the Brown Bag

April 8, 2015

by

Ray Tate

Welcome to the Pick of the Brown Bag.  Because of DC’s Convergence, which after this sentence I will be totally ignoring, I don’t have a lot of comic books to review this week, but is it quality over quantity? Read on as I examine Avengers Millennium, Howard the Duck, Legendary: Green Hornet, the first issue of The Masks sequel, Southern Cross, Spider-Woman, the final issue of the insanely entertaining Star Trek and the Planet of the Apes and Vampirella.

You know before that trailer, you know the one, I doubted Marvel would be able to pull off The Guardians of the Galaxy, but after the trailer, like everybody else online, and not, I became a fan.  That said.  I’m not a Brian Michael Bendis fan.  So I’ve been avoiding the comic book as well as the team-up title, until last week.  John Layman wrote the most recent issue of Guardians of the Galaxy Team-Up, and it was pretty entertaining. 

I can’t say that I’m a huge Duck follower.  In general.  I mean I like Daffy Duck, and Donald Duck had his moments, but the whole Carl Barks type Duckworld thing wasn’t my bag.  Howard the Duck seemed like a parody of that, but it wasn’t.  Arguably, Frank Brunner created the template for Howard the Duck in Quack magazine…

…but he hasn’t objected to Steve Gerber getting the credit.  So why should I?  Besides, Gerber made Howard the Duck the weird little waddler he was, and it’s why I rarely ever picked up an issue of Howard the Duck.  Anyway.  The Guardians’ guest appearance are the only reason I’m trying the new Howard the Duck title by writer Chris Zdarsky and illustrators Joe Quinones, Joe Rivera and Rico Renzi.

Rocket represents most of the Guardians action, but the entire team makes a destructive entrance later in the story.  The book’s frequently funny and uniformly goofy.  Exactly as I remember the scant issues of Howard the Duck I read.  So, yeah, if you’re a fan of this mallard, you’ll feel right at home.  If you dig the Guardians of the Galaxy, read on.  The art’s also very inviting.

Howard the Duck is a private eye in the series, but a more serious yet still fun look at a detective/superhero can be found in Spider-Woman.

In her previous book from the seventies, Jessica Drew was uber cool in demeanor, and that’s what we get here from writer Dennis Hopeless.  Jessica questions the Porcupine.  She ignores his jabs at her character.  She goes on the hunt for information through encounters with other likely suspects.

Her foray leads to hilarious heists that blow back in the faces of D-List villains and Spider-Woman action.  Ben Urich joins in on Spider-Woman’s investigation, and that’s only fair since he put her on the trail in the first place.

When the smoke clears on a fiendish trap, Spider-Woman weaves the perfect intrigue to find the culprits and ready the kibosh on a far-reaching scheme.  Jessica rightly deduces that the penny-ante crimes cannot be the ultimate goal.

As you can see the artwork is just stunning with marvelous cinematography  that hearkens back to the Philip Marlowe and Sam Spade era of detective film.  Even if one puts aside the clear allusions, Javier Rodriguez just makes Jess beautiful and brassy and every panel exciting.

The Southern Cross is a massive spacecraft built like the offspring of a luxury liner and a battleship.  It punches through wormholes to travel the stars and make ports of call to other planets.  Miners of the Zemi Corporation are the natural inhabitants of the leviathan, but the Captain also ferries passengers outside of corporate affairs.  Alex is one such passenger.

Alex seeks answers to her sister's death, ruled accidental, and she's not alone in her suspicions.  A true detective is also on board.  Make that was.

Becky Cloonan's mystery thickens with this new disappearance, a suicide in the past and a riveting investigation that could fit snugly into a crime story from 1930s onward.  

The dance steps by artists Andrew Belanger and Lee Louridge are new, but the gist is still the same.  Question persons of interest.  Follow the leads.  Hunt for information, and in the case of Cloonan create a cast of unusual characters and a sharp-eyed sleuth.

Oh, it’s a weekly.  All right then.  Avengers Milliennium this week sends two away teams back in time.  The teams unfortunately experience time/space turbulence that splits them into three.  

Captain America, Hawkeye and Quicksilver end up in the prehistoric past.  Iron Man, Spider-Man and Black Widow hit World War II while the Hulk and Scarlet Witch wind up in a desiccated future.  The reason why the future isn’t so bright?  Hydra.

The overarching plot still remains a mystery, but writer Mike Costa heightens the funny, straight out the gate.

Spider-Man and Hawkeye serve a dual role this issue.  In the debut they behaved like the team jackasses; I think it was John Byrne who deemed that every team needs at least one jackass to stir things up.  This issue they behave like jackasses and contribute to the plot.  Hawkeye figures out the reason why Hydra sent a mcguffin back in time.

Spider-Man meanwhile…

Spidey may be commenting on more recent journeys through time and space, but I’d like to think Costa refers to this seminal highly recommended three or four issue story spanning Marvel Team-Up.

Spider-Man learned a valuable lesson at the end of that tale.  Maybe that lesson informs his advice to Captain America.

When the team travel through time, the lion’s share of the hi-jinks happen amid the Holocene.  So that dinosaur on the cover is a total fake out.  

Maybe it’s a previously unknown mammal with mange.   In any case, the heroes tip-toe in their battle against Hydra so as not to greatly disturb the flora and fauna around them.  This added theme of not stepping on the butterflies generates some great wow moments for Captain America, and makes Avengers Millennium a must for Cap fans.

I have a great deal of love for Cullen Bunn's writing.  He gave me scenes like this....

...and this...

Unfortunately his latest, the sequel to the entertaining Masks leaves much to be desired for.  The trouble lies in Cullen Bunn's characterization of the heroes, licensed by Dynamite and legendary in pulp circles.

The story opens with the Shadow and the Green Hornet decimating the forces of skull-masked goons with terrorism on their minds.

Cullen Bunn's personae for the Green Hornet and Kato is the only facet of the story that rings true.  The Hornet and Kato work as a well-oiled team.  With gas guns, hornet stings as well as martial arts action they behave like the champions of old.  

The rest of Bunn's cast act like different heroes only wearing the forms of the Pulps.  Bunn's Shadow is especially way off the charts.  In Masks 2 Electric Boogaloo, the Shadow behaves like Spider-Man and the Punisher all in one.

The Shadow was lethal, of that you can be sure, but in this story he exhibits no subtlety.  You can argue that this confrontation with the skull flunkies of The Red Death represents the finish to the case.  In other words, the Shadow's agents already contributed to the puzzles and the overall investigation leading to this denouement, but there's still something off about it.

The Shadow was never so acrobatic.  He instead used the darkness and stillness to his advantage.   A more Shadowy move would be to let the gas seem to overcome him, laugh mirthlessly and appear to fade with the mist.  Thereby leaving his comrades dumbfounded.   The Shadow was enigmatic, doing things eerily and stealthily.  That was part of the Shadow's mystique.  You never really learned exactly who or what he was or how he came to be.  Furthermore, Bunn's Shadow keeps spouting only the aphorisms he's known for.  

I'm sorry to say that Bunn's Shadow is a parody of the complex exterminator of crime that for all intent and purpose was created by William B. Gibson.

The Shadow's not the only hero out of sorts.  The Black Terror is a dead ringer for Superman, and if you needed any proof, this scene is the clincher.

The sonic-boom handclap is a Superman move.  When the Green Lama arrives, he mimics the time traveling, planar distancing of Dr. Fate.  The Spider is the calmest I've ever seen him.  He's not maniacally killing anybody.  

Bunn’s Spider could be anybody including Aquaman from the Super-Friends to Zebra Man.   Only Lady Satan gets a pass because she's so obscure in comic book history that she may as well be a blank slate.  Bunn assumes a taint of evil.  So she's a bit more risqué than Miss Mask for example.

Bunn segues to a one-percent masquerade, and predictably, the heroes go as themselves.  That also strikes me as very odd.  The Green Hornet and Kato, yes.  The Shadow no.  The Shadow would likely attend as Lamont Cranston, in a domino mask or such.  Cranston is the Shadow's go-to guise for ritzy affairs.  Alternately, he might delegate that task to the Hornet and have him report later.

Although Bunn's Hornet is well characterized, the Green Hornet makes his best showing this week in the world of Legendary.  I missed the second issue so this will be a dual review.

In the second issue, The Hornet captured two gang lords for questioning, and the Hornet employs a special technique for rooting out the truth.

This hilarious moment leads to the Hornet and Kato searching for a Steampunk refugee from Oz.  The trouble is that the Hornet and Kato underestimate their foe.

The conclusion of the second issue leads to the Green Hornet's and Kato's thrilling escape.  Also in the third issue, our heroes meet the orchestrator of the marionette show.

No, not him.  

That's right.  It's the old tougher vigilante wants to replace the inefficient softer crimefighter game, but the Brass Hornet listens to reason.

Both the second and the third issue despite being Steampunk in the Legendary Universe conceived by Bill Williamson, feel like authentic Green Hornet adventures.  Writer Daryl Gregory and artist Brent Peeples infuse the Hornet with the energy and cut to the bone plotting to mimic the half-hour kinetics of the television series.  Gregory also imbues a strong sense of humor to the relationship of Green Hornet and Kato.  They seem even more like equals in this series, and that leads to added fun.

Star Trek and the Planet of the Apes ends on a really high note.  This is easily the best from the Tiptons, and discovery Rachael Stott should be the natural choice for future original series Star Trek material.  Her dead accurate and animated likenesses of William Shatner, James Doohan and the late great Leonard Nimoy as well as John Colicos on the Klingon side and apes Roddy McDowell, Kim Hunter and Maurice Evans made this head-scratcher of a mashup a visual feast.  Even if the story hadn't been up to snuff, no worries there, the art alone would have made Star Trek and the Planet of the Apes a must purchase.

The Klingons invaded the alternate timeline of The Planet of the Apes for no real reason except this...

...Kirk totally doped out he situation, and all through this wonderfully nutty fan fiction, there's been this underlying question of why do it.  It turns out that while the Planet of the Apes have zero impact on the world of Star Trek, it's Star Trek that brilliantly fills the blanks in The Planet of the Apes movies.

Last but not least, Nancy Collins firmly roots Vampirella in her cosmology of Biblical myth.  She reveals Vampirella's father this issue and brings back her sister Draculina, most recently seen in Vampirella Feary Tales.  However, Collins is a student of Vampirella history.  Though a throwaway character never again seen until Nancy Collins resurrected her, Draculina appeared as narrator in Vampirella's historical second adventure.  She was basically the cut-to-the-chase girl.

Collins turns Draculina into an envious antagonist, leaving Patrick Berkenkotter the leave to choreograph a sexy cat-fight...

...which you'll have to look elsewhere for because despite Vampirella and Draculina wearing straps and boots for costumes, Berkenkotter eschews prurience for an outright hateful, disturbing battle between rivals.

I'm still not overly thrilled by the Biblical allegory in Vampirella.  I prefer her as a simple little ol' alien vampire from the planet Drakulon, but Collins is so imaginative when twisting The Bible so that it exists side by side with science and evolution that I really cannot complain.

POBB: March 18, 2015

Pick of the Brown Bag

March 18, 2015

by

Ray Tate

This week in the Pick of the Brown Bag….Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, Star Trek and the Planet of the Apes, Simpsons Comics, Reyn, Princess Ugg, new Dodson project Red One, Legendary Red Sonja, new number one Invisible Republic, new Mignola book with one of the oldest characters in horror, The Frankenstein Underground, Batman/Superman and a double dose of Batgirl.

Julie's father the King intends to hold the princesses of the many lands hostage.  This may in fact be why he set up the school for princesses in the first place.  He’ll return the princesses for a price from each of the regions to enrich his domain to the point of superpower.  The King didn't count on three things.  Princess Ulga, her barbarian father and Ulga's influence on her fellow royals.

The tale begins with a duel against Malick, the King’s man.  The melee takes an unexpected course, and the twist catalyzes courage in the princesses.  They find they need no handsome prince to rescue them.  In fact somebody just may need to rescue the men-folk from them.  

Malick is no prince anyway.  Ted Naifeh introduced him as the pretty boy love interest, only to play with the conventions of the role.  He even played with the typical conventions that played on the conventions.  The result is what you see in the current issue of Princess Ugg.

When the wheel turns to ransom, Princess Ulga lives up to the promise she made to her mother.  Not only does she negotiate for peace between nations, she also progresses with the Frost Giants.  Naifeh turned them into bugbears through dialogue, but they appear much more benign when we meet them.   Lesson?

The conclusion to Princess Ulga's first story is worth every penny.  Naifeh’s unique art imbues the characters with life and emotions.  Often, the settings evoke remarkable beauty of exotic lands.  Part of this feeling can be attributed to colorist Warren Wugnich.  Princess Ugg would look a little flat without his warm, natural shades.

Legendary Red Sonja teams up with…Heh…See for yourself.

Why on earth wouldn’t you want to read this?  In addition to artist Aneke’s fantastic eye-candy, you get Marc Andreyko writing.  Marc “Manhunter” Andreyko.  So, the partnership between Red Sonja and Frankenstein’s second creature is about as feminist as you can get.  All right.  All right.  Let me, sweeten the pot.  The story also features at the cliffhanger one of the first mad geniuses in literature, but swathed in a whole new weirdness.  Trust me.  You want this.

Mike Mignola is cognizant of all the Frankenstein material that has come before him, including Agent of SHADE.  So instead of retreading all that, Mignola employs the unusual tactic of depositing the creature in Mexico.  Technically this isn't the famed figure's first displacement to Mexico.

Of course, the Mexican background of El Santo films is a given.  Mignola chose to position Frankenstein's Monster in Mexico, and he’s a smidgeon more literate.

The creature meets an old woman with the power to heal and learns of the Mexican gods.  That's certainly different enough, but Mignola escalates the bizarre upon introducing the Big Bad of the piece and his hench-things.

The Marquis is a collector of oddities.  Frankenstein's Monster certainly suits his criteria.  Ben Stenbeck illustrates the Marquis as if he were a white-haired Christopher Columbus, surrounded of course by vampire bat-nosed men.  I mean if you are going to do a villainous Christopher Columbus, bat-nosed men are a given, yes?

The Marquis' black-winged angel traps the monster in a dream-like state, and here Mignola shifts perceptions.  The supernatural phantasmagoria casts a plainer shadow in the real world and gives the reader an ample sampling of how Frankenstein Underground will work.

That of course is the opening to the newer seasons of Person of Interest.  The reason I bring it up is that Batgirl’s program, the one she lost in a previous issue, evolved into a life-form.  The trouble is that it’s nuts.

Batgirl needs to stop this crazy thing, and what I like about this issue of Batgirl is that almost everybody is wrong.  The A.I. isn’t Oracle.  The story's not Batgirl vs. Oracle.  That would be rubbish.  Batgirl wouldn’t need to fight.  Just climb some stairs.

The A.I. believes it’s the true Barbara Gordon because Babs used her brain to organize the data.  The program was meant to be a predictive algorithm, but the data set was too large for a normal computer.  So, Babs being Babs used the best computer on the planet, her brain.  It makes perfect sense when you’re bitter about being shot and paralyzed by the Joker.

This to me is the best reaction I’ve seen from Babs after being confined to a wheelchair.  This is normal.  This is how a normal person would react.  Because the Powers That Be at DC were so bent on providing a positive role model for the disabled, they missed the fact that what happened to Barbara wasn’t a good thing.  It was a wretched event that should never have been ushered into continuity proper.  I’ve said that for twenty-five years, and you’ll never convince me otherwise.

The way in which Babs defeats the creature’s machinations resonates with violence.  The fight choreography should eliminate any concerns with Batgirl becoming too cute just because Babs Tarr illustrates characters in such a darn inviting style.

Now, that's a Batgirl dance I can get behind.

Batgirl furthermore cements the bonds with her erstwhile partner Black Canary.  They do this just as any male super-hero duo would, a team-up initiating some massive saves, ending in a positive victory.

Batgirl’s other book Endgame, ties in with something or other in the Batman titles.  It’s a wordless excursion into a zombie infested world where the victims have been infected with the Joker venom, and can probably be saved by the Big Bad Batman.

I don’t know much about Endgame, and this book I think is only meant to keep Batgirl involved in family business.  It’s a pleasant, wordless time-waster where Batgirl saves lots of lives, and focuses on one in particular. 

The art by Bengal keeps up with Babs Tarr and Maris Wick, but some of the colors seem off to me.  Would Frankie, who is black really turn pink even in the reflective light of a computer?  Oh, and  please stop giving Batgirl green eyes.  They're blue, baby.  

Blue.  

Anyway.  Batgirl: Endgame is for completist Batgirl fans.  Others may just want to stick to main title.

Batman and Superman finalize their battle against the Phantom King with expected cavalry rescues and typical deviousness from Batman.  

The cousins Superman and Supergirl do the heavy lifting against their brainwashed Kryptonian family and friends.  The heroes pay back the Kryptonian criminal with a helluva headache that's quite mean-spirited and in keeping with the new 52 heroes'  willingness to actually hurt the criminals they combat.  This is why the new 52 champions are so much better than their post-Crisis counterparts.  They seemed more concerned with holding back when fighting their super-powered psychotic rogues.  As a result, the villains appeared to run rampant.

Although there's tragedy associated with the aftermath of the Phantom King's attack that will resonate with the cousins, there's also a nice little upbeat surprise at the conclusion that very few readers were expecting.  If the issue seems abrupt, keep in mind that Batman/Superman is the finish of an excellent story arc featuring the most inventive use for Kandor in history.

Red One surprised me by being more than just cheescake.

Oh, there’s some choice slices to be had in this title.  We are after all dealing with the Dodsons, but Xavier Dorison’s central character Vera Yelnikov differs from the lovely Russian spies that habitually drop at the feet of Mr. Bond so readily. 

She would drop, and visa-versa, but seduction wouldn’t be necessary.  Although Vera serves the Brezhnev regime of the late seventies, the free-spirit grew up in Khrushchev’s Russia.  Khrushchev was until Mikhail Gorbachev the most liberal of Russian political thinkers to come into power.  He instilled numerous reforms to Russian society, and that environment would nurture somebody like Vera.  

In short, Vera’s philosophy and behavior doesn’t really match what we think of as typically Russian.  It may seem to be just Xavier Dorison’s whim, but I think some real thought went into building the characterization.  In any case, Vera is warm, appealing and feminist.  So, it’s very easy to like her.

Red One also seems less like a book where a Russian agent will go to America and become charmed by the patriotism and freedoms of Uncle Sam.  Instead, Vera is at the onset worldly and takes advantage of every opportunity her travels presents her.

Her knowledge of the United States is limited, but I imagine she’ll be a quick learner as the series progresses.  I also expect she’ll take advantage of the riches that the U.S.A. offers but still remain loyal to Mother Russia.  Yuri Andropov was on par with Brezhnev.  So, I can’t see her bucking the bear even after Brezhnev’s demise.

The Russian army sends Vera to the United States to eliminate the Carpenter, a homicidal maniac bent on cleansing whatever.  He has backing, tacit or otherwise, from another group of like-minded fruitcakes.

This is where I balk.  The massive group of protesters picket the premiere of a mainstream film because of apparently swearing and sexual content.  

I grew up during the seventies.  While the religious right did in fact gather strength during this period, they weren't as well organized as these screwballs.  This is something that would happen in the mid-eighties.  In a way, the seventies were a time of enlightenment.  Roe vs. Wade became the law.  The Equal Rights Amendment failed to pass, but at least it was a battle fought.  

Adult entertainment essentially became legal, despite Deep Throat triggering all sorts of trouble early in the decade.  Censorship grew dormant.  The religious right were justifiably labeled a lunatic fringe.  They could spout whatever nonsense they wanted, and nobody cared.  

The press furthermore didn’t take them seriously and seldom gave them soapboxes.  There was nothing like Fox News in the seventies.  Walter Cronkite was the bastion of journalistic integrity and every reporter wanted to be him.  So this, kind of protest at a mainstream movie wouldn’t have happened.  In fact the police of the day probably would have viewed such a flexing of muscle as charming and refreshing since most of the protests in the seventies involved Vietnam.  

Don’t misread.  Themes of religious hatefulness should definitely be exposed in any medium.  The more the sands of time fall, the more and more whack-jobs like that cease to be harmless, and the Dodsons’ character design for the leader of the movement Jacky Core is cunning.  The insane certainty in the cause gives quite a number of religious right escapees serene demeanors that conceal bilge. 

It’s twenty years too early, and the idea that the Carpenter and this gaggle could threaten SALT talks is absurd as is the idea of a woman being President in that era.  That won’t happen until 2016.  Although, I would have preferred a different catalyst for Vera’s excursion, the story’s nevertheless entertaining and the star a real draw.  Red One is a good B Book.

Squirrel Girl gets in a tangle with Whiplash on her way to deal with Galactus.  The deranged title continues to be a slap in the sensibilities, and there’s at least three things in the book that you couldn’t imagine to want to see.  

Doreen’s obsession with squirrels borders on genius.  Very few super-heroes use their powers with such unswerving and hilarious skill.  

The A and B stories in Simpsons Comics offers laughs galore as Lisa meets a previously undisclosed relation of Bleeding Gums Murphy and Homer becomes the most wanted man amongst VIPs for all the wrong reasons.  The way in which writer Ian Boothby digs his way out of the predicaments is inspired, and the artwork by Phil Ortiz, Mike DeCarlo and Art Villanueva on-model and stunning.

Star Trek and the Planet of the Apes is still wildly entertaining.  After making nice with Taylor, Kirk and the crew of the starship…Enterprise visit Cornelius and Zira.  Trading notes however can violate the precepts of the Prime Directive if you’re not careful.

I like that the Tiptons chose Scotty to be the most open with his Scottish burr.  The loquaciousness foreshadows his “how do we know he didn’t invent it” line in Star Trek: The Voyage Home.

Before Kirk and the others can get settled, the gorilla guerrillas of General Marius attack, and this means we get to see Spock use a Vulcan nerve pinch on one of the unlucky simians.  

That’s the kind of scene that makes a Star Trek fan giddy.  Also, on a personal note, I never thought I would use the phrase gorilla guerrillas again.  I love comic books.

The theme of the book is that wonderful chant “Ape Kill Ape” that accompanied the duel between Caesar and General Aldo in Battle for the Planet of the Apes.

The Tiptons through the gist also redeem the character of General Ursus, from Beneath the Planet of the Apes.  Ursus in that film was a bone-headed gorilla whose tactical skills were less than impressive.  Here, he seems reasonable, albeit skeptical, and loyal to Ape Law

I was absolutely right about Reyn.  We’re dealing with something bigger than sword and sorcery, and the writer Kel Symons and artists Nate Stockman and Paul Little never forget what drew you to the book in the first place. 

When all is said and done, Reyn is the tender story about the title character, a Warden, killing monsters.  Yeah.  It gives you a kind of warm feeling all over.

Last but not least, the Invisible Republic opens intriguingly with a reporter on a Dystopia looking for a good story.  He finds it in a random purchase that relates the memoirs of Maia Reveron.

It’s too early to say whether or not this title has staying power, but it’s got a grabber of a middle, and I like the humanitarian motif in Maia’s actions that contrast the behavior of her cousin, who rises to power and makes the narrative worth the broadcast.