POBB December 16, 2015

Pick of the Brown Bag

December 16, 2015

by 

Ray Tate

The Pick of the Brown Bag returns with reviews of We Are Robin, Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, Thor, Justice League United, Justice League and Batgirl.  

Before we begin, let me just say that.  Yes, I saw Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and it was damn good.  J.J. Abrams said that the viewer would love the new characters as much as the old ones, and he was right.  I felt more while watching this movie than any of the prequels.  It's magnificent.

As for the comic books...

Justice League may at first feel like wheel-spinning because the League now only consisting of Wonder Woman, Power Ring, Cyborg, Mister Miracle and Steve Trevor haven’t moved from the the battle-scarred site where the Anti-Monitor killed Darkseid.

The death of Darkseid called their opponents from Apokolips.  Kanto, Steppenwolf, Lashina and Kalibak.  

Wonder Woman, also the narrator, catches up the reader on the status of the other Leaguers.  They haven’t budged from their new roles as New New Gods.  This also adds to the feeling of deja vu.  However, a lot happens in this evocative Francis Manapul illustrated issue.  With Geoff Johns, he reintroduces Big Barda.

Barda and Scott pick up their interplay as if the cosmos hasn’t been rebooted several times over.  Their relationship triggers some deeply buried feelings in Steve and Diana.  Johns clarifies the Superman/Wonder Woman relationship that nobody buys.

It looks like that this idea will be going away soon.

In addition to the main contention, Metron begins to unfold his ultimate plan, but some weird things happen at the Rock of Eternity.

That’s Mary Batson, Billy’s sister, portraying a magical version of Doctor Who’s emergency programme one.

Finally, Myrina Black and her daughter Grail plot something foul for the now deceased Darkseid, but is this the smart thing to do?  I say you drop Darkseid's body on Venus and be done with it.  In any case, despite the familiarity, this issue of Justice League has a lot going for it.

Justice League United ends its run by returning Adam and Alanna Strange back to normal.  Adam metamorphosed into a nigh omniscient cosmic entity that fused with the Zeta Beam.  

Quite frankly DC sucks at facilitating such cosmic beings.  Spies and Silver Surfers just don’t work in the DCU.  I have a feeling that Jack Kirby tailored his New Gods and Galactus’ power cosmic for each comic book company.

Adam's condition allowed him to pick out bad spots and send Justice League away teams to put out the fire, few people liked this turn of events.  Myself included.  That's what the trouble alert is for.

Writer Jeff Parker recreates the origin of Alanna whom Jeff Lemire transformed into a native human.  Parker though finds a means to tie her back into the planet Rann.  Whether or not this was his intention is anybody's guess, but I lean toward a planned restoration.  Perhaps, not Adam Strange's resurrection, but definitely Alanna’s.

The main part of the story details how Adam Strange merged with the Zeta Beam in the first place, and man, oh, man is that confusing.  For one thing, the mission involves the House of Secrets.  The House was indirectly featured in Justice League Dark.  Constantine won the House of Mystery in a poker game, and it became JLD’s headquarters.  If we accept that the House of Secrets and the House of Mystery are sister structures, then the idea of the House of Secrets being some kind of extra-dimensional parasite falls short of a good explanation.

We Are Robin ties in with the Robin War, but you don't actually need to know that.  The book opens with Commissioner Gordon now Batman working with Dick Grayson.  

Writer Lee Bermejo implies a helluva lot in these scenes.  First and foremost, Gordon must have deduced Bruce Wayne and Batman were one in the same.  Probably a long time ago.  So when Batman returns maybe he’ll just not mention it.  Two, Gordon reveals why he not only accepted Batman but also Robin, a teen sidekick.  

This idea of child endangerment was first proposed in comics by Frank Miller in The Dark Knight Returns.

Sure.  Others outside of comics floated the idea around, but Miller was the first to put it into print.

Gordon's rationalization at once satisfies in context, and it also brings up a lot of history in the way children sometimes had to grow up faster in the United States.  You can see examples of maturation in movies and television programs set in the depression or during a time of war.  Children would sink their savings from a paper route into a rationed food budget or to supplement the income of sisters struggling to be surrogate parents after their fathers were drafted and their mothers passed.

Anyway, Gordon and Grayson work on behalf of the Robins.  When last we saw the We Robins, they fought a Talon.  One of the scientifically undead assassins controlled by the Court of Owls; introduced by Scott Snyder in Batman and nested in time by Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray during the Jonah Hex chronicles of All-Star Western.  

The gist of this is that the Court of Owls have always been terrorizing Gotham City, and they in fact looked to groom Dick Grayson as the ultimate of Talons.  The Court even referred to the Nth Talon as the Gray Son.  

Batman dismantled the Court of Owls…

…but this left the Talons to fend for themselves, and it seems that they got organized, got even crazier and decided to go to war against the Robins.  The ultimate purpose to choose among them the Gray Son.

Premise..meh, but Lee Bermejo uses this fuzzy basis for great effect.   The Talons really believe that Red Hood and Red Robin will stage a blood match for them, and you know what? Before the new 52, this probably would have happened.  Once again, everything in the new 52 is better.  Red Hood is the mean one, as Superman referred to him in Batman and Superman, but he’s sane and a member of the Batman Family that includes Tim Drake aka Red Robin.  So, he’s not going to kill Red Robin for the greater good.  Nope.  They’re going to totally screw the bad guys’ plans and in an energetic way.

Batgirl is ambitious, but it really needed more issues to comfortably carry out the entire story.  The main story centers on Spoiler being hunted by a Gotham Yakuza. 

The trouble with this issue is that it relies on the flashback to do too much.  Introduce a Japanese godmother.  Bring the Spoiler back into the adventures.  Give a reason for the conflict.  Explain Batgirl’s informant.

In addition to the return of Spoiler, Batgirl tackles four other plots.  

Babs and her friend Nadimah approach Burnside residents to gather data for their urban planning project.  

At the same time, Babs must deal with Frankie wanting to be her partner and gaining an implant from Batgirl's Q to combat her multiple sclerosis.

Finally, Babs also fosters her budding romance with Luke Fox, the artist formerly known as Batwing, and she's forgetting things which is near impossible given her photographic memory.  This may have something to do with a dream that's not a dream.

Ultimately, writers Brendan Fletcher and Cameron Scott juggle too many balls.  Overwhelming the reader.  The audience can't become invested in what’s going on because the writers fail to explore the plots in a meaningful way.  Unfortunate because all the ideas are good, and each should have been evolved in single spotlight issues.  In other words, introduce the Japanese Yakuza first.  Spoiler interferes in a second.  Batgirl gets wind of the hit on Spoiler.  Batgirl saves Spoiler from the Yakuza.  Batgirl kiboshes the gang in Burnside as a result of her urban planning project.  Batgirl learns about Frankie.  Batgirl connects with Luke as she remembers her “nightmares,” etcetera, etcetera.  That’s six to seven issues.

The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl is stuck in the sixties, literally.  Only her friend Nancy remembers Squirrel Girl, and a certain doctor of her acquaintance.

That of course is Dr. Victor Von Doom, a bug-shit crazy Doctor Doom from the eighties, who also knows Jubilee.

The best part of this brief affair is how Doom, a man of intense propriety refers to Jubilee by her full name: Jubilation.  I mean.  Seriously.  How can you not love that?  As the story progresses, events grow whackier.  

Punisher fans for example are going to hate themselves for not picking up Unbeatable Squirrel Girl since he has his first cameo since Battle World or Secret Wars or whatever right here.  I don’t know what’s funnier.  The Punisher’s reaction to Doom.  The Punisher referring to Doom as Doc.  The Punisher smiling as the Punisher not Frankencastle.  The Punisher accepting cosplay as normal.  The Punisher saying “My Bad.”

You’re probably saying to yourself by now that this Ryan North doesn’t know jack about the Marvel Universe.  How else could he characterize the Punisher so badly.  Guess what? Since Marvel did a soft reboot, the Punisher characterization is valid.  For all I know, the Powers That Be at Marvel are trying to humanize Punisher back to his beginnings in The Amazing Spider-Man.

North also scribes some ego-laden dialogue for Doom that’s a pleasure to read.  North balances Doom’s brilliance, with his evil and his narcissism.  The only thing Squirrel Girl fans might object to is the lack of Squirrel Girl.  Wrong.

More serious Marvel fare can be found in the latest issue of Thor.  The Thunder Goddess must deal with Cul, brother to Odin, and his Thunder Guard in a duel on Bifrost, the Rainbow Bridge.

Fortunately, the numbers change when Heimdall chooses sides.  No prize to the one who figures out which.  Heimdall transports Thor to Alfheim, home of the Light Elves, currently being slaughtered by Dark Elves, designed straight from the movie Thor: The Dark World.

While Thor rages to stop a war, our cover god Loki plies his trade in a bid to find a place at Malekith’s table of evil.  The question of course on everybody’s mind is what’s Loki playing at?

Yeah, my sentiments exactly.  After Al Ewing put in so much work to redeem Loki, it doesn’t look like Thor writer Jason Aaron is going to poison the mead.  Loki also likes the new Thor.  This looks like a classic Loki scheme to eliminate a greater evil, and I can’t imagine another character from Thor doesn’t feel the same way.

POBB December 9, 2015

Pick of the Brown Bag

December 9, 2015

by

Ray Tate

Welcome to the Pick of the Brown Bag.  In this blog I review the most entertaining and the lamest comic books of the week.  If you haven’t time to read the richness of the POBB, I also tweet itsy-bitsy gists of the reviews on twitter under: #PickoftheBrownBag.  This week I review Batman and Superman, Catwoman, The Phantom, The Radioactive Spider-Gwen, The Southern Cross and The Ultimates.

The Phantom currently parodies Tarzan, specifically The Return of Tarzan, which introduces the lost city archetype Opar.  

Remarkable art from Sal Velluto known more for his sinew than structure.

H. Rider Haggard can take a bow for creating the first otherworldly female leader.  Burroughs' La of Opar however is one of the earliest examples, otherwise.  Burroughs' women furthermore were also more liberated than those of Haggard's.  

Haggard saw his character Ayesha as an anathema to proper womanhood.  Burroughs usually left the social commentary to the inference of the reader.  He was a pulp writer and proud of it.

The Phantom found his legacy undermined by a belief in the B'wana, a Tarzan like figure who also happens to be the age old Phantom character Jimmy Wells, a figure creator Lee Falk toyed with as the possible secret identity of the Phantom.  Jimmy Wells became involved with Phantom nemesis the Baroness, former leader of the Sky Maidens.  She, Jimmy, the Phantom and Diana are out to stop the traditional Phantom enemy the Singh Brotherhood.

The Story begins in Ophir, Peter David in low parody form, where La analogue Oshara seeks to bed the Phantom.  Technically, she already bedded the Phantom, as you can see, but she intends to sex him up as well.  This is another double gag from the estimable David.

David's sense of humor is all over the comic book, and as with any form of humor, it's completely subjective.  I found the similarities between Tarzan and the Phantom-Tarzan tribute quite painful, but David succeeds when outlining the inherent problems of criminality.

Whether or not you dig the humor in The Phantom, one thing can be stated objectively.  Whether he's detailing the architecture of a lost city or building the musculature of the Ghost Who Walks, artist Sal Velluto makes this whole exercise worthwhile.  If you don't care for David's comic chops, you can always just skip the words and enjoy the rich artwork.

Pay no attention to the ballyhoo on the cover of Batman and Superman. The Red Hood does not attack Superman.  I don't even understand why DC would go with that cover.  Scott Lobdell reformed the Red Hood at the beginning of the new 52, and every writer since has gone out of her way to make the Red Hood even more heroic and acceptable to the cape and cowl community.  Think of him as DC's lighter/smarter answer to the Punisher.  So, what is in Batman and Superman.  The story begins with Commissioner Gordon remembering how it was.  He witnessed Superman and Batman fighting the same organizations of racists that the team of heroes fights today.

That's Jimmy Olsen Batman's saving.  I could see how somebody unfamiliar with comic books might be confused.  After all, Jimmy Olsen is black and cool on Supergirl.  

Not so in the comics.

In this case bow-ties are not cool.

The flashback manifests because Jim Gordon the artist currently portraying Batman lacks faith in Superman, as he stands now.

Superman feels the same way. 

Fortunately, Batman and Superman have help in the form of the Batman Family, which includes Batgirl, Jim Gordon's daughter.

Surprisingly, Jim Gordon in the new 52 still doesn't know that Batgirl is his daughter, or he unconsciously blocks what should be obvious because he cannot accept it.

The gathering of eagles seeks to thwart the plans of Vandal Savage who stole an artificial sun to power a weapon of science fiction destruction.  Think of a bigger version of the Golden Gun.

Savage's reasoning for doing this is a little fuzzy, but all you really need to know is that Superman, Batman and the Batman Family come up with a plan that consists of supercool ruses and expert timing that allows for multiple instances of daring do.  Batman and Superman aren't up to snuff in comparison to how they were, but Batman and Superman is still a remarkable read that's filled with the stuff that makes superhero fans happy.

Writer Frank Tieri takes Catwoman back to basics.  She's a jewel thief.  She was introduced as a jewel thief.

She remains a jewel thief.  

Selina Kyle orchestrates a heist against a Russian strongman.  The heist goes wrong.  The strongman lives up to his description, and the action looks great thanks to artists Inaki Miranda and Eva De La Cruz.

Selina takes her ill gotten booty--just the one--to new character Louis, a colorful fence.

He lines her up for another job, but things go really wrong at the cliffhanger.  After all the mobbed up crap foisted on the character, Catwoman reads as a Catwoman television series might unfold.  It's smooth, slick and great looking with terrific acting in roles intimately familiar.

The Radioactive Spider-Gwen is an easy to understand yet continuity filled issue filled with vignettes rather than a single story.  You might question that.  Spider-Gwen, known as Spider-Woman in the comics, is a new character.  So how can she have continuity?

The super-science manacles resulted from an encounter with Captain America and SHIELD last issue, but Spider-Gwen exists in a universe where science isn't as advanced, and few superpowers prowl.  Besides Spider-Woman isn't well-liked.

The speaker is Frank Castle, the Punisher in the more familiar universe.  An overall sphincter in this one.  He's trying to convince detectives Jean DeWolffe and Ben Grimm, no FF, of Spider-Gwen's crookedness.

This all arises from the final fate of Peter Parker.

The police and J. Jonah Jameson blame Spider-Gwen for the tragedy.  No doubt any existing superheroes would feel the same way.  Captain America wasn't her biggest fan.

So, Spider-Gwen comes to a universe where she has a super powered friend.  Jessica Drew, the very pregnant Spider-Woman.  Now, somebody unfamiliar with what's going down in the Marvel Universe, just may be wondering how Spider-Gwen achieved the meeting.  The answer is simple if you know where to look.

Gwen is part of an inter-cosmic group of Spider-themed superheroes.  They patrol the multiverse, for reasons that are dicey at best.  Of course, on Gwen, the whole Justice League suit fits perfectly fine.  

Despite the complexity, Spider-Gwen does a good job keeping it simple while being amusing.  You may not read Web-Warriors, but writer Jason Latour explains through the dialogue between Spider-Women and a slapstick bit expressing the Warriors' favored method of transport.  In other words, the exposition does something.  It characterizes, makes you smile or enriches the story.

I didn't know that Spider-Woman and Spider-Gwen were that close.  I skipped the whole Edge of the Spider-Verse saga, except for the Spider-Gwen special.  Latour though makes that friendship obvious.  It's actually more puzzling to me that Spider-Woman, that is Jessica Drew, is part of the Spider-Man Family in the first place.  When they first introduced her, the Powers that Be at Marvel did their level best to keep separate Jess from Spider-Man.  Originally, she only teamed with Spider-Man twice.  That of course changed, but the extent of her involvement includes knowledge about Gwen Stacy and her history.

Aside from these elements, Latour builds more on Gwen's universe with the introduction of an old Spidey character as a blank slate.

Thanks to the original Spider-Man movies, Harry Osborn has already been tampered with, building him up as a quasi Lex Luthor.  In Spider-Gwen, he becomes even more skilled and distinguished from his source character.  This change looks to be interesting.

The Ultimates by Al Ewing follows through with the promise to be different.  The book opens with a story-so-far recap that plays into the fictional context of the Ultimates.

So the exposition reflects politics.  Once the catch up is finished, Ewing digs right into the story.  King T'Challa prepares to confront Galactus whom the Blue Marvel and Captain Marvel tracked down last issue.

Ewing uses the teleportation effect to serve as the segue to explore the origin of Galactus.  Other writers brokered and revisited  Galactus' origin in comics.  

It's not one of the more frequent haunts, and there's a good chance you could have missed it.  The facts pertaining to the Silver Surfer, of Shalla-Bal and Zen-La on the other hand are genetically wired into newborns.

Ewing rears Galactus' origin for a reason.  He examines a discarded piece of it, one that sneakily served as the crux for Spectrum (Monica Rambeau) and America Chavez.  They were on a seemingly unconnected mission involving the enslavement of a planet.  Turns out, the Ultimates were on the same page.  Two prongs of the same fork.

Ewing's solution to the Galactus problem is brilliant, and I'm surprised that Marvel was willing to eliminate, figuratively speaking, the Galactus plot device and evolve the character so early in their soft reboot.  Perhaps, they were moved by Ewing's knowledgable manipulation of Marvel history.

Kenneth Rocafort's artwork furthermore brings a certain legitimacy to the affair.  Rocafort's illustration is so unique amongst artists that he's comparable to Kirby albeit through a different style.  Kirby co-created Galactus.  So it's fitting that an illustrator of Rocafort's caliber complete the visual narrative.

Southern Cross is an awesome mystery set aboard a massive starship.  This is a tale that could have been related in any period.  The facets comprising the gem of a detective story are ubiquitous--from the leisure of travel to the familiar roles of the cast.  Cloonan just happened to think and justly so that Southern Cross would be so much more in the comics if set against a cosmic backdrop.

The detective is Alex Braith, sister of victim Amber Braith.  The suspects were many.  The functions of the plot, despite oiled by science fiction, fair play.  Had you paid attention, you could have solved the puzzle and deduce the culprits.  Nothing outlandish affected the actual murder or the criminals.

In this last issue of volume one, Cloonan pays off her readers with the revelation of the murderer, the explanation of the motive and the overall grand picture that leaves room enough to draw the series into volume two.

At the same Cloonan and artist Andy Belanger grants more visual depth to the characters while providing Alex Braith a visceral, satisfying vengeance.  As the mystery ebbs, the tide of grotesque science fiction in the tradition of H.P. Lovecraft takes over.

The smooth handover must be commended.  Cloonan built the curtain call through a nuanced subplot of things strange occurring within the strict logic of the murder investigation.  In previous issues, that added spice to the pattern every detective must follow.    As the comic book comes to a close, the unusual trappings bloom to a startling discovery.