POBB June 16, 2021

Pick of the Brown Bag

June 16, 2021

by

Ray Tate

Welcome to the latest issue of the Pick of the Brown Bag where I review the newest and the newish comic books.  If you haven't the time for the full blog, check me out on Twitter: #PickoftheBrownBag.

The latest issue of Sonya Devereaux is surprisingly good.  I don't mean that as a backhanded compliment.  I've enjoyed all of Todd Livingston's, Nick Capetanakis' and Brendan and Brian Fraim's previous issues of Starring Sonya Devereaux.  Now collected in trade for those without a local comic book shop.

The premise of Starring Sonya Devereaux is film. 

 

Sonya Devereaux is an actress who stars in Z to B Grade movies.  The comic book is the movie.  

Warrior Woman Death Team 5 is basically as the cover depicts. It's a sword and sorcery movie from the eighties or nineties but filmed with today's technology and given a better script.

If you look at Mystery Science Theater's cache of experiments, you'll find very few of this genre.  That's because the subject is already absurd to begin with.

 

Unless the movie is truly inept and/or features bad acting like that found in Ator the Flying Eagle or Deathstalker and the Warriors from Hell, it's very hard to riff one of these movies.  Most of the risible elements are built in.

Warrior Woman Death Team 5 has high production values, unlike Spider-Shark vs. Snake-Bear where professionals were searching for cryptozoology rejects in Walmart greeting vests.  

So, here, we have extras, suits of armor, suitable wardrobe, some good weaponry.  Traditionally these accoutrements have always been available.  Very few if any of these fantasy films go on the super cheap with plastic swords or aluminum foiled cardboard as one may have used for Halloween.

 

The strangest thing about Warrior Woman Death Team 5 is the casting choice of a stand-in for Larry Drake as Lord Tombstroke.

Although I can't see Larry Drake portraying a medieval-like villain, he would no doubt kill it.  Larry Drake was one helluva an actor, and one helluva an actor can pull off a lot of parts.  Even those you wouldn't envision him in.

What I'm saying is this sort of throwback to Roman Emperor Nero isn't the most unusual Big Bad I've witnessed on the cinematic battlefield. 

Even the name isn't too far-fetched given some of the whacky monickers foisted on unsuspecting audience members.  

As for the jester, one shared a pivotal scene with Henry the Eighth in The Tudors.  So the presence of a jester doesn't necessarily throw a production on the trash heap.

The women are Barbarian Queen and Xena types.

And a shout-out to colorist James Couts

As you can see, none of this really strains the disbelief necessary to suspend in a sword and sorcery scenario.  Even if perhaps a few of the amazons strain their bra sizes.

Nevertheless, big all over and proportionate.  There's frequent nudity in violent fantasy presentations.  While we get one nude scene in Sonya Devereaux--it's dictated per ancient Blockbuster rules, censored before it hits the metaphorical video store.  

This nude scene is cleverer than you think because the creative team pay homage to a classic exploitation flick.

The Arena

Unlike Pam Grier and Margaret Markov's masterpiece, our female fighters here are just fooling.  

Believe it or not there's no lesbian subtext in this latest Starring Sonya Devereaux

Sonya Devereaux is risqué at times, but nothing when compared to sword-fests like Flesh and Blood.  Rutger Hauer's Martin rapes Jennifer Jason Leigh's Agnes, but she falls in love with the villain.  It's a lot more complicated than that, but you get my point.

I've explained just how Warrior Woman Death Team 5 isn't so much a parody of sword and sorcery cinema as it is just another in a long line.  So, why should you buy it? 

Because it's damn funny, and it's not funny because it makes jokes at the expense of the plot.  With a few outliers, the narrative is bona fide fantasy fuel.  The jokes on the other hand are, out of context or in context, hilarious.  Some with a few unexpected comedic callbacks pages later.

You can compare Sonya Devereaux favorably with The Invincible Red Sonja by Jimmy Palmiotti and Amanda Conner.  Moritat, Palmiotti's erstwhile partner from All-Star Western, returns to provide powerful and distinctive artwork as well as the earthy colors.  

A wraparound explains the title of the book.  Red Sonja is indeed invincible, and this is the story of how she came to be that way.  The story unfolds mostly in flashback, with Sonja appearing on a pirate ship.

This scene exemplifies where Red Sonja an authentic sword and sorcery adventure splits from the parody.  Moritat's illustration is open for debate.  See what I did there? Conner and Palmiotti leave Sonja's relationship with Captain Rhaf to the imagination.  They portray him as a man in the vein of Robert E. Howard's fiction.  

Neither good or bad, with a peculiar moral code.  He reminds me of a debauched Sinbad, whom Dungeons and Dragons aficionados would consider Lawful Good.  Literally in some instances.

John Phillip Law The Golden Voyage of Sinbad

In turn, Sonja may have slept with Rhaf to gain passage, also to protect herself from unwanted lower rank advances.  Or let's be blunt.  Gang-raped.  Alternately she may have simply bartered her skill for the voyage.  

In either case, the Captain's word is law.  So if he told his crew not to touch Sonja, they would not.  He in fact reminds the crew of his aegis in another scene.

After an off-panel bloody encounter on the high seas, the pirates and Sonja gather their plunder and an odd find.

Except it's not so odd because Sonja Devereaux features a similar scene.

Girls in boxes are a trope that can be found in many sword and sorcery plots.  Though not just.  I suspect magicians have a hand in popularizing the motif.  Although we may blame Barbara Eden in this particular case.

Princess Zaria's fate seems assured.  Until Sonja, who is just that amount of a sister, tries a more reasonable tact.  

This scene demonstrates the difference between the cheerful send-up and the casual brutality in sword and sorcery, especially the works created by Robert E. Howard, without whom there would be no genre.  Think about it.  Before Conan the Barbarian John Carter was the most popular half-naked swordsman.  He had nothing to do with magic but science fiction.  In addition, the movie Conan the Barbarian jumpstarted imitations in the eighties.

Sonja cannot let on that she thinks raping the girl is the wrong thing to do.  Because that's not the right answer.  You cannot have such confusing lofty ideals in such a place.  She also must weigh the consequences.

Number one, she's bonded with the pirates.  She established her place on the ship.  She cannot jeopardize the whole enterprise over principle especially in the middle of the ocean.  

Number two, Sonja knows her limitations.  She doesn't believe she can take on the entire ship without being injured, perhaps acutely, in the process.  And there's a question of whether or not such battle would be worth the effort.  Sonja doesn't know Zaria.  So why should she risk her neck for her?  It's a breach of barbaric etiquette just to even consider principle.

Number three, she likes Captain Rhaf.  He's a good ally, possibly good in bed.  Regardless, he could be useful in the future as well as the present.  

Number four, protecting Zaria for the sake of the right thing exposes Sonja's weakness in the way she chided Captain Rhaf earlier.  

There is no law and order in Robert E. Howard's universe.  His heroes and heroines mete out their personal dictates which on occasion reflect humanitarian thought.

Just as Sonja's scheme seems to be working, the unexpected occurs, and we segue to a new aquatic danger.  Ably illustrated by Conner on the cover and within by Moritat.

The encounter with the sirens renews Sonja's acquaintance with Zaria.  Zaria's rescue from predicament isn't far-fetched given the explanation, and it plausibly doubles as an escape from doom for Sonja.  Although one can argue that Sonja would have survived her dilemma, albeit not enjoyed it.

Now safe in theory, Sonja accepts an offer from Princess Zaria.

The debut of Invincible Red Sonja is frothy and lustful adventure filled with bloodletting and brutality but the creative team convey these potentially objectionable elements with artistry, warmth and humor.  That could be a double-edged sword.  I didn't fear for Zaria's health at all and didn't think Captain Rhaf would actually give her to his crew.  However, the lack of threat didn't impede my enjoyment of the book.  It furthermore allowed me to sympathize more with the cast.

POBB January 1, 2021

 

....From Hell's Heart I Stab at Thee....

Pick of the Brown Bag

January 1, 2021

by

Ray Tate

Happy New Year! Welcome to a fresh era of Pick of the Brown Bag.  If you've just stumbled onto the blog, allow me to introduce myself.  My name is Raymond Tate, and I review the best and the worst of the current comic book yield.   

For this post, I look at the first issues of Commanders in Crisis, Dungeons and Dragons--The Spine of the World, The Black Cat, Red Sonja--The Price of Blood, The Union and Vampirella--The Dark Powers.  The Pick of the Brown Bag also has a Twitter presence: #PickoftheBrownBag.

Crisis on Infinite Earths is one of the most literally ground breaking stories ever conceived.  The Powers That Be at DC wiped out every parallel earth it ever introduced.  That's a lot.  Before the Crisis, wholesale destruction of alternate universes would have been unthinkable.  However, multiverse genocide became commonplace.  Each shakeup less satisfying.  Seldom anything changed afterward, especially wheel-chair bound red-heads.  Until the New 52, these disasters identified as cynical company cash-ins.

Frequent DC writer Steve Orlando and artist Davide Tinto aim to return drama to the concept with their new indie creation Commanders in Crisis.  

The premise takes a page from eighties television series The Greatest American Hero.  The Commanders are the survivors of dead mirror earths.  They're trying to protect the earth on which they now reside.  Orlando and Tinto furthermore add a neat twist to the title of the book that's revealed at the conclusion of the premiere.  This plays into the teams' common goal.

The world threats come from different quarters.  For the debut, the team must contend with time traveling thieves stealing something precious worldwide.  There's also an ongoing political threat that savvily establishes an insane idea that could very well be prescient.  Orlando and Tinto conclude the debut with a strong mystery that sets off Crisis Command's Trouble Alert.

Despite being inspired by Crisis you'll not find pastiche, parody or satire in Commanders.  So, for example, there's no Dark Owl skulking around in the night, dishing out vigilante justice while pretending to be a millionaire playboy.  Orlando and Tinto instead design well-constructed characters that resonate off the pages.  They shape interesting superheroes with cultural and aesthetic significance.

Prizefighter becomes empowered by fan interest.  Seer is the most potent creature on the planet for one minute.  Sawbones is an instinctive doctor and action hero.  Originator alters time and space by coining new appropriate words.  Leader of the team Frontier is a sharp minded tech guru.

The adult nature of Commanders also sets it apart from the Crisis and DC comics.  Nudity and sex scenes generate dramatic impact that informs a philosophical argument, granting the story greater weight.

Vampirella is not undead.  As established in her christening magazine, Vampirella is an alien from the planet Draculon.  She drinks blood, but does not burn in sunlight.  She exhibits invulnerability and super strength and doesn't fear wood.   Vampirella shape shifts but only to a certain extent, such as when she forms bat wings for flight.  She can't turn into cat, bat or wolf.

Habitual POBB readers know that I like Vampirella.  A lot.  I've referred to her as a horror version Kryptonian.  Supergirl's flipped sister.  Dan Abnett and The Powers That Be at Dynamite take the extra step.  Vampirella is a fearsome superhero.  What if she joined a superhero team?

Vampirella--The Dark Powers is just fun.  The fruition of  Ella allying with 1940s public domain heroes, their adventures oft published by Dynamite as Project Superpowers, is darkly hilarious.  

Vampirella's method of "crime" fighting is decidedly more lethal than her comrades.  

This leads to some highly amusing friction.

Notable exceptions to the rule.  The very first masked female hero in comic books, The Woman in Red, appears to like Vampirella's spunk.

Dark Powers isn't a dark book.  It's pure entertainment, comfort reading, if you will, borne from a killer Ella interacting with more innocent superheroes and fighting an interesting menace.

To be sure, you can argue that Vampirella isn't the first killer superhero to serve as contrast to an otherwise straight-up shiny league.  Wolverine, for example, but Vampirella's history just puts a unique spin on the whole banana.

Vampirella debuted in a black and white magazine from Warren aimed at adults.  She only became a comic book character twenty years later back in the nineties.  That comic book always straddled the fence between an adult and adolescent audience.  It still does.  Superheroes on the other hand always benefited from an all-ages appeal.  Some would still argue them to be mostly kids stuff.  When comic books become too dark, too violent, or the execution of these elements becomes too realistic, the books you may have been reading all your life ring false.  The Powers at Marvel Comics always meant for characters like Wolverine, the Punisher and Conan the Barbarian to still be human enough to attract kid readers.  Vampirella, from any publisher, not.  Thus, Vampirella Dark Powers is wonderfully schizophrenic.  

For a while, I really enjoyed Mark Russell's Red Sonja.  I liked his political satire and philosophical trappings seasoning a wiser, older She-Devil with a Sword.  Nevertheless, there's something to be said for just getting back to Marvel basics.

Though Robert E. Howard never intended to place Red Sonja in Conan's world, that's how Roy Thomas introduced the most familiar version of Red Sonja to the comic book reading public.  It's this Red Sonja that in addition became the star of paperbacks, film and television.  Mind you, I never said any of these projects were good.  Just that they exist.

Reliable Red Sonja writer Luke Lieberman, and bonus, superb Red Sonja artist Walter Geovani inveigle Sonja in a new adventure.  The foray takes place shortly after the events of Birth of a She-Devil.  Essentially, Sonja haps upon the Hyborian equivalent of Burning Man.

Of course, uptight conservatives hate hedonistic displays, and in the sword and sorcery genre, you don't get legislated to death.

The extreme prejudice riles Red.  Soon she kinetically explains why she's known as The She-Devil with a Sword.

Sonja being young doesn't quite realize what it means to bite off too much you can chew.  So, she's caught and sentenced to death.

Or would have been had it not been for the timely intervention by new character, Yfat.  

The lady's motives for helping Sonja may be less than altruistic, since she has assassination on her mind.

Yfat's aim suits Sonja.  Following the assassin's plan, Red soon finds herself in striking distance for her revenge.  

Simple yet satisfying I recommend Price of Blood for anybody yearning for more bloody bawdiness from the flame-haired hellion.

Stop me if you've heard this one before.  A Lawful Neutral musher ends up between two warring factions of Chardalynn brokers.  

Chardalynn is a magical gem from the Forgotten Realms of Dungeons and Dragons.  The factions kill each other, but a Lawful Good giantess of the mountains rescues the musher.

Sort of.  After bona fides are established, a monster interrupts their parlay.  Requiring more Lawful good saving.

Fortunately, our giantess gets backup in the form of a Lawful Good reptilian ranger.  Incidentally, I'm basing the alignments on the group's actions.  

Saarvin and Runa being of the same disposition escort Amos, the Musher to town where they seek a Druid, a type of Cleric.  He however has his own problems.  Fortunately, Belvyre also has backup in the form of a Lawful Good warrior, amusingly named Patience. 

She's gifted not just with an awesome visage but also a magic staff.

With so many Lawful Good characters, it's not too long before Amos thanks them for their services with a scam.

I haven't played Dungeons and Dragons since my college days, and I have with few exceptions little interest in fantasy books.  Martin Coccolo's and Katrina Mae Has' vivid and vivacious artwork in Spine of the World persuaded me to take this book home.  It would be different if the characters turned out to be just a bunch of white humans, elves, dwarves or Hobbits, but the diversity spreads to lizard people, red women with horns and black giantesses.  I expected to lose interest in the tale, and just look at the pretty, pretty pictures. However, Aimee Garcia's and A.J. Mendez's mostly Lawful Good cast seeking balm for a dying village is easy to digest, with strong dialogue and plausible situations.

A long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, Spider-Man found a lonely, alien pair of pants.  He decided to wear them and discovered one of the poorest fashion choices he ever made.  Now, there's a whole planet of alien pants in Marvel's latest Big Event, and one of those jet black extraterrestrial Levis is Knull the King in Black.  

I never heard of him either.  

This means a lot of comic book talents are diverting their attention to transforming bell bottoms.  Some comic book titles arise brand new just to stop this invasion of bug-eyed dungarees.  The Union is one such book.

The Union interested me for three reasons.  One, the team is from the United Kingdom.  

Two, it's written by Paul Grist who launched the successful indie Jack Staff, also centered around a British superhero.  Three, Union Jack.

For those that don't know Jack, Roy Thomas and Frank Robbins created the figure in The Invaders.  He was Lord Falsworth a World War I hero who battled Baron Blood, a Dracula sired vampire.  Falsworth's son stepped up to become the second Union Jack.  The third and current Union Jack is Joey Chapman, unrelated to the Falsworth line, notable for being a working class Briton, originated by Roger Stern and John Byrne.

Paul Grist writing for Union Jack is basically perfect, and he relishes the opportunity in a plot that pits Union Jack against the up and comers of The Union in a game of Capture the Flag.  

So this isn't a dreary tale of superheroes fighting it out until one falls or one reaches an understanding and joins forces.  It's just a game with superpowers, lovely bouncy dialogue and a bit of good-natured rivalry.  When the metamorphosing outfit from outer space shows up, things get serious, resulting in a surprising conclusion.

The reason why I purchased The Black Cat in The King in Black is simple.  Jed MacKay made me love the Black Cat, and he's still writing for Felicia Hardy.  I was concerned that King in Black might damper the free-wheeling Lupin III attitude, but I was happy right at the start.

Black Cat and her crew, the irascible Doctor Korpse and Bruno, conduct a heist that involves a certain Web-Slinger's discards.  It's all fun and games until the cousins of Spider-Man's evil couture come literally crashing on the scene.

MacKay and stellar artist C.F. Villa segue Black Cat from arch-thief to sometime superhero.  Soon, she's taking orders from none other than Captain America.

The book ends with the heroes caught in a web of dark denim deceit and Felicia making a riotous, free-wheeling announcement that smacks this book right out of the lot of typical King in Black tie-ins.

Faithful Black Cat readers need not worry.