Comic book reviews for the week of February 2nd in six sentences (or less)

Best of the Week

ULTIMATE THOR #4
Writer: Jonathan Hickman
Penciller: Carlos Pacheco

The story of Ultimate Thor finally catches up to where THE ULTIMATES kicked off nearly ten year ago. While Thor is finally coming to terms with his new mortal status quo his misguided brother Loki is quietly escaping from the room Odin imprisoned in for betraying Asgard. This issue primarily deals with how Thor transitioned from a fallen Norse God, to a crusading environmentalist and then finally a reluctant superhero.

Filling in perceived holes in a character’s backstory is a time honoured tradition in comic bookery. These ‘untold tales’, when done right, can help shine a new light on a character or reframe their actions in a different perspective. But unfortunately, all too often, these fill-ins are unnecessary, contradict previously established events and confuse rather than enlighten. Most continuity add ons feel like they’re forcibly grafted onto the established narrative, with no consideration given to how the new material works given the overall makeup of the character.

With this issue Jonathan Hickman has elevated this overused plot device to an art form. It’s just so fucking elegant. Hickman’s tale adds depth and nuance to Thor’s history rather than simply riding the coattails of what has been written before. He respects the aims and intentions of the writers like Mark Millar who have worked on the material before him, but doesn’t paint himself into a corner by worshipping it. There’s not a lot of continuity with U-Thor so its not as if Hickman has to worry about stepping on anybody’s toes. But Thor’s backstory was a key plot point in THE ULTIMATES 2 and a lot of what Hickman is doing here is helping to set up that story while at the same time crafting a self contained tale that is interesting and compelling in its own right.

You know, I think if I read some more of Hickman’s work I could be persuaded to check out what’s happening at Marvel. I’m impressed with the quality and care that goes into his writing. Rather than simply trying to slap a Geoff Johnsian continuity patch on an established story Hickman has gone and found a natural way to expand and expound on a relatively two dimensional character. This isn’t penciller Carlos Pacheco’s greatest work, some of the pencils seem a little rushed. There’s a splash page at the end where Thor looks downright lumpy. But I’m willing to concede that might be because of the three different inkers who had a hand in putting out this book. If you were ever a fan of the early Ultimate Universe I’d highly recommend picking up this series. You won’t be sorry you did.

BATMAN: ODYSSEY
Script and Pencils: Neal Adams

You’ve heard the term batshit insane before right? Well, they were talking about this comic when that term was invented.

Batman and a Deadman possessed Joker search Arkham Asylum for clues behind the mysterious string of events that have terrorized Gotham City.

And that’s about as much as you’ll ever really figure out about what’s going on in this series. While the continuity and structure of the art has improved in this issue the overall look feels much more rushed and messier than in previous entries. The writing is better, but only marginally so. Dialogue balloons still threaten to crowd out the art. In some scenes there are several characters talking simultaneously and it becomes difficult to follow the thread of any conversation. It’s annoying and adds nothing to the reading experience. Unless the goal was to keep taking me out of the story, then mission accomplished.

But what really drives me nuts in this book is Adams preoccupation with writing dialogue as realistically as possible. This means that characters are frequently reduced to speaking in nonsensical sentence fragments, will lurch into unnecessary asides and have an ugly tendency to narrate the scenes for readers. Just because people talk that way in real life doesn’t mean it should be transferred wholesale to comic books. Its an impediment to readers, who are forced to spend a lot of their time working out just what’s happening onscreen.

I think the best thing for this title would be a firmer presence by editorial, cutting out all the author’s entitled words and better honing the story he seems to be trying to tell.

BRIGHTEST DAY#19
Writers: Geoff Johns and Peter Tomasi
Pencillers: Ivan Reiss and Joe Prado

The time in this issue is split between the Deadman and Aquaman’s story lines. After seemingly murdering Hawkman and Hawkwoman last issue, under the control of the white power ring, Deadman demands answers for what has happened. The ring explains that the Hawks had completed the mission for which they had been resurrected in BLACKEST NIGHT and that their pure energy was needed in order to combat a dark avatar that was due to arise and threaten the world. Meanwhile Aquaman and Aqualad are en route to the Bermuda Triangle in order to stop an offshoot of the ancient Atlantean race from attacking the surface world. Which is just about when the Atlanteans decide to meet them halfway and fight it out on their terms instead.

You know, I’ve always looked at BLACKEST NIGHT and BRIGHTEST DAY as another Geoff Johns attempt to impose his ideal version of DC’s legacy characters onto the DCU. Kendra Saunders as Hawkgirl not working the way you want? Time to kill her off and resurrect Shiera Carter instead. Aquaman’s bloated continuity and constant character reboots getting a little much? Then bring back the good ol’ reliable Silver Age edition and we can try to forget 30 years of publishing history.

But honestly, after the last two issues of BRIGHTEST DAY, I can say that I don’t have the foggiest idea where they’re going with this. After wiping away the Hawks last issue and then giving a nod to one of Aquaman’s handier moments in this one I have to admit I’m a little curious to see what they’ve got in store. I thought that BLACKEST NIGHT established the version of Aquaman that Johns wanted to use and now I’m not so sure. Granted with resurrection white power ring sitting in their back pockets Johns and Tomasi can pull a dues ex machina, at any moment, to undo any character changes they’ve made in this series. But I believe that these writers are cannier than that and would give us something new before they fell back on the same old tricks.

One beef, first we had the Sinestro Corps Wars, then the War of the Supermen, now we’ve got Aquawar and soon we’re going to see the War of the Green Lanterns. It’s time for a new mini event term. Please and thank you.

P.S. The art was great in this issue, Ivan Reiss in particular had some beautiful splash pages.

NEW ULTIMATES #5
Writer: Jeph Loeb
Penciller: Frank Cho

This was (surprisingly) a really good read.

The New Ultimates struggle to take down Thor after the God of Thunder is goaded into a murderous rage by Loki’s behind the scenes machinations.

I’ll admit. I don’t have a lot of love for Jeph Loeb lately. After seeing his work on THE ULTIMATES 3 and ULTIMATIUM it was clear that he wasn’t able to grasp the basic premise behind the Ultimate Universe.

The UU is about reducing Marvel 616 characters to their core qualities and cutting them free of the shackles of continuity. It isn’t about throwing whatever ’What If...’ crap against the wall and hoping something sticks. Nor is it about twisting characters beyond the reader’s ability to recognize them.

But the Ultimate Universe is also a trap. When the line was first launched fans enjoyed seeing Ultimized\Elseworlds versions of their favourite characters. It was only natural that creators would pick up on this desire and give the fans what they want. Which is more recognizable characters, and increasingly storylines, told in a stripped down reader friendly fashion.

Unfortunately that means that writers are always attempting way to reinterpret old characters and rethink classic storylines. The end result is that the Ultimate Universe tends to fall flat on its face when it attempts to stand on its own legs, put the constant reinvention process and tell its own stories. Witness the stagnation of the ongoing ULTIMATE FANTASTIC FOUR and ULTIMATE X-MEN titles. Fans got tired of the Ultimized character of the month and neither series was able to transition into a successful ongoing without it. (ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN being an obvious exception to this rule)

In a way the Ultimate Universe is a perpetual event comic book. Because if it can’t successfully tell fresh, new ongoing stories or continually Ultimize old characters than the only way to keep reader interest is to keep constantly reupping the dramatic stakes. Which is what led Loeb down the road to ULTIMATUM the first time.

In this series his goals are much more straightforward. Tell a simple story, raise the dramatic tension, don’t fuck with everything too much and explore the depths of these still (relatively) untapped characters. Loeb treading water and gently poking around is much more interesting, and less dangerous, then when he’s trying to put his personal creative stamp on things. While he might lack Millar’s ability to hone in on the inherent uniqueness of the Ultimate Universe he can still tell a perfectly good story when he reigns in the crazy a little. Of course, it’s not hard to hit something out of the park when you’ve got Frank Cho rocking the pencils.

Comic book reviews for the week of November 24th in six sentences (or less)

Best of the Week

Walking Dead #79
Maybe this is the Best of the Week because I’m still riding the high I get from watching this series come to life on my television. Whatever the reason, it was the first thing I popped open when I got back from Ye Olde LCS and I don’t regret it for a second. In this issue the community is still putting trying to put their lives back together after a pathetically failed invasion attempt by another group of survivors. The gunplay from the run-in has attracted a herd of zombies who, unbeknownst to the group, are slowly converging on the neighbourhood. Robert Kirkman mixes up the normally mono-track story telling with a little split screen parallel plotting. It’s a nice change of pace and not normally something we see in this book. Charlie Adlard continues to kill when it comes to pencils. And that’s all she wrote.

Action Comics #895
The first of two entries for writer Paul Cornell this week. Vandal Savage has built an entire city overtop of two Black Lantern energy remnants from THE BLACKEST NIGHT in order to protect them from Lex Luthor. Of course, being Vandal Savage, he has the opportunity to do this hundreds of years before Lex is born and before he knows who he even is. This title continues to be an interesting character examination of one of DC’s premiere super-villains. The character is Lex hardly two dimensional, but after decades of stories on the man I thought there were very few takes on him that hadn’t been previously explored. I’m really enjoying Cornell’s exploration of Lex. He’s muted some of Lex’s cartoony, traditional Super-foil aspects and instead given depth and nuance to a character who is usually immune to both.

Batman and Robin #17
Say what you will about Scott McDaniel, but the guy manages to draw a dynamic, energetic story on a deadline and he makes it look good. I’m convinced that McDaniel doesn’t get the respect he deserves and too often he seems to be the go-to fill artist whenever DC needs to turn something around quickly. Paul Cornell takes the opportunity to do a little world building in the lives of Dick-bats and Robin, putting them on their first proper case unrelated to the events of RIP, FINAL CRISIS and THE RETURN OF BRUCE WAYNE. In this story Dick and Damien are tasked with solving the murder of a casual ex-girlfriend of Bruce. While tracking the killer, why seems to suffer from a very Batman villain like compulsion to leave revealing clues, they stumble across a wedding gone horribly awry. It’s a fun, light read and a good counterpoint to the perpetual Bats-event comic we’ve all been reading for the past 5 years.

Batman: Odyssey #5
Another inscrutable Neal Adams Batman story. At the behest of Deadman Batman begins to investigate sinister goings on at Arkham Asylum. And that’s the best that I can do at crafting a one sentence summary for this title.

I’m still not convinced that there weren’t pages missing from this comic. Seriously, a reader shouldn’t have to work this hard to follow the basic narrative of this story. I had to reread several section of this issue and I’m not 100% sure I know what going on. The storytelling is sloppy and unfocused. And the art, while pretty, sometimes fails to illustrate crucial aspects of what’s happening in a scene. There was one section involving a conversation between Batman and a Deadman-possessed Joker that still has me scratching my head. When your artist and your writer are the same person there’s no excuse for crafting a tale this impenetrable.

Green Arrow #6
There’s something happening in this title that I can’t recall ever happening in a modern Green Arrow story, world building. I’m not just talking about creating new characters and fleshing out someone’s stable of villains. I’m talking about simple things, like creating easily defined visual geographic landmarks, like the unoriginally named Sherwood Forest or the iconic Queen Industries office tower (which is treated by the inhabitants of Star City like its been around YEARS, but I’ve sure as shit never seen it before). Even something simple like giving a GA a typical superhero symbol, a stylized ‘G’ belt buckle in the shape of an arrowhead. It’s all superhero world building 101 and some of DC’s most prominent characters have used it to great effect, sporting landscapes that are nearly as recognizable as they are. More importantly, GA has never, if ever, had these tools in his arsenal. Green is not a trademark, it’s a colour scheme and while it may help to inform his identity visually it lacks the simplistic touchstones we as audience need when identifying the good guys.

They only problem is that seminal characters like Superman and Batman have had years to build up these trademarks. Green Arrow titles seem to get re-booted on a semi-annual basis and each new direction is perpendicular to the one that preceded it.

Ultimate Spider-man #150
With this issue Spider-man goes back to his new/old title and numbering. It’s a fairly standard anniversary style issue, complete with the requisite new direction for the character that is often touted during these kinds of milestones. Various characters ruminate on their first meeting with Spider-man and reflect on his nature and character. Peter reflects on the true nature of what it means to be a hero. It’s all pretty standard stuff, but it’s well done so I’m not going to complain. It was nice to see a couple pages from Mark Bagley in this issue, especially considering I thought he was still exclusive to DC. For the longest time Bags take on Ultimate Spidey was so synonymous with the character it was hard to imagine anyone else drawing him and I thought it was really classy of DC to let him do these pages. (If in fact he’s still exclusive)

I’m also not going to get into the changes the Ultimate Universe has been through lately. I’ve seen that analysed in greater depth and with more intelligence then I can offer. Bottom line, in recent years the bloom has definitely come off the rose. The Ultimate line used to be synonymous with fresh takes on classic Marvel characters, unencumbered by the stifling shackles of continuity. Only after ten years it’s inevitable that the Ultimate Universe’s own continuity and publishing mis-steps have robbed the imprint of a lot of its vitality. Only Spider-man seems to have bucked this trend. Given the drop off in numbers for the Ultimate titles I have to wonder how long Marvel will choose to keep this imprint going. I think, if anything, the Ultimate Universe was a victim of its own success, with its greatest ideas and triumphs co-opted by the regular Marvel 616. Either way, whatever its fate, it was an interesting undertaking and one that I think helped revitalize the Marvel U.

Comic book reviews for the week of October 6th in six sentences (or less)

Best of the week

Ultimate Thor #1
I have a confession to make. I used to be in love with Marvel’s Ultimate line. When it first hit I thought it was fun, fresh and free of stupefying continuity. Then the line grew stale, Jeph Loeb happened and it never really regained its luster. ULTIMATE THOR goes a long way towards recapturing what made the Ultimate line so great. It’s about four years too late to turn the tide, but its a great read nonetheless. This first issue covers his Thor’s early years in Asgard, the fall of Asgard at the hands of the Nazi’s and his first Ultimized appearances on earth. Except for the 3.99 price tag, I can’t think of a single thing to complain about. Read it after The Ultimates 2 and I think it should blend into Ultimate continuity quite seamlessly.

Batman: Odyssey #4
Good lord, I’ve heard of purple writing before, but the scripting in this book is so overdone its hard to read it without breaking into laughter. I found myself constantly rereading several sections in the book, trying to get a handle on what’s happening in the various scenes and a grasp some feel for the flow of the story. I’m not sure why this title doesn’t have the Elseworlds logo on it. It’s clear that nothing happening in the title is part of the DCU proper. Instead, it seems like Neal Adams got inspired by Miller’s All-Star Batmanand is trying to push the character of Batman in the most ludicrous direction possible.

Brightest Day #11
While BRIGHTEST DAY may not meet the requirements to technically be considered part of DC’s strategy to put out a weekly comic, it certainly embodies the spirit of the plan. And, after 11 issues I feel confident in saying that it easily surpasses Trinityand Countdown, while coming a hairsbreadth away from the high watermark that was 52. The art is strong and the story has powerful forward momentum that comes from its serialized nature. What’s not to like? Anyway, in this issue, Black Lantern Firestorm (aka Deathstorm) introduces shadow versions of the heroes and villains resurrected in the pages of THE BLACKEST NIGHT.

Neonomicon #2
Love him or hate him Alan Moore is a creator who continues to generate a fair amount of controversy in the insular comic book blogosphere. After reading the first issue of this title I found it helpful to spend some time knocking around online, perusing other reader’s analysis of the story. There were some interesting interpretations to be found that allowed me to look at the story on levels I hadn’t previously considered. But none of it prepared me for the visceral and disturbing imagery of the second issue. If, as Moore contends, there isn’t really anything interesting happening in comic books anymore then this is a nice little ‘up yours’ to comic readers. I’ll let you draw your own conclusions, but make no mistake, people will be offended by this book.

Superman: The Last Family of Krypton #3
Speaking of Elseworld titles, and we were, this one is a nice little throwback to years gone by when DC was afraid to throw a couple crazy ideas at the wall and see if anything would stick. It’s always nice to see Carey Bates play in the DC sandbox. Renato Arlem’s art doesn’t do much for me unfortunately. I find it flat and somewhat static. It’s not bad by any means, It’s just not my cup of tea. My biggest complaint with LAST FAMILY is that it falls prey to the trap that kills so many ‘what if’ stories. While initially these imaginary tales start off with bold new ideas on inflexible established franchises, too often they end up mirroring the current state\world of the character. Lex must always be bad, Kal must always be Superman and Clark must always end up with Lois. I’d be more interested in a renewed Elseworlds line if they took more risks with their properties and allowed creators to really push their boundaries with the characters.