P/REVIEWS: "Killer E" Reports: March 1998

[Elayne and Ed]

EWC: Hi again, all! Elayne Wechsler-Chaput and Ed Douglas here, with
another small batch of DC previews to look over for y'all! March brings,
among other things, the following books to your stores:
GREEN LANTERN #98
LEGENDS OF THE DC UNIVERSE #4
NEVADA #1
NIGHTWING & HUNTRESS #1
THE POWER OF SHAZAM! #38

Usenet folks, please set followups for NEVADA to racdv, and the others to
radcu (although cross-posting the GREEN LANTERN review to the Legion
newsgroup is probably advisable). Meanwhile, some spoiler space please,
compadre?

ED: Oh, goody! I get to do the spoiler space! The moment where I can
show how clever I am by coming up with something completely original and
never done before in the history of the internet....

So here I go!

uh...

um...

er...

wait a sec...something should come to me soon...

um...

::whistling::

oh, rats! can't think of anything....guess we might as well get right to
the reviews....

*sigh*

GREEN LANTERN #98
"Future Shock," Part 1 of 2
Guest-starring the Legion of Super-Heroes
(Scheduled to be released March 4)

Writer: Ron Marz
Penciller: Darrel Banks
Inker: Terry Austin
Head Honcho: Kevin Dooley <DCOKD...@aol.com>

EWC: I took the liberty of giving a play-by-play of this issue to a
number of Legion fans on our weekly IRC chat. They didn't care for it
that much. Not only is the premise kinda strange (a "Green Lantern Corps"
that just happen to be worse 30th century thieves than the Sklarian
raiders, yet nobody's ever heard of them before?), but it takes a few
liberties with a couple of the Legionnaires, especially my favorite, Jenni
Ognatz aka XS, who becomes the latest in an apparent (I don't normally
read this title, but this is the impression I get from those who do) long
line of women who suddenly think Kyle Rayner's the dreamiest man ever to
grace the DCU, and practically throws herself at him. Not Jenni's style.
But as this is "Jenny," her misspelled doppelganger, perhaps it's in
character after all. <g> There are a few major lettering gaffes like this
one which I'm sure will be corrected before the book finally ships, but I
have to wonder why stuff like this isn't caught sooner. Ed, wanna run
down the basic plot?

ED: I think you pretty much summed it up already, except that you
neglected to mention what Kyle was doing in the 30th Century...and no, I
have no idea how he got there either. <G> But I have to disagree with your
assessment of Jenni though I know she's one of your favorite Legionnaires;
I've seen her act the same way around countless other heroes including
Cosmic Boy and Valor, so her crush on Kyle seemed as natural as it was
repetitive. Still, I can't say the same for some of the other characters,
and the story itself was based around yet another flat Marz plot with
little realistic character interaction. There seemed to be little logic
behind this team-up/crossover however you looked at it. OTOH, the
climactic ending seems promising for those who've despised Kyle all these
years. (BTW, I know I should know this, but who is Cary Stuart anyway?
She seems very familiar.)

EWC: Depends on the century Marz and Banks are trying to depict here. If
it's the 30th, I'd say perhaps she's a descendent of John Stuart. But
until we get to this point, doesn't this story contain the same basic plot
GL readers have seen in countless other issues under Marz's direction?
Kyle feels he's not worthy. Kyle angsts. Kyle loses the ring. Except
for the surprise appearance by Ganthet at the end, and the passing along
of the ring to a woman (which IMHO should have happened after Hal Jordan's
tenure, and which was the most intriguing thing in the issue for me),
nothing seems to be that new here. I didn't care for the way in which
Marz structures Kyle's narrative captions-- some are quite clever, like a
reference to Syd Mead (designer on TRON) which a graphic artist like Kyle
would use, but others make the reader wonder to whom Kyle's talking.
"Well, that was embarrassing too. Never mind." When the narration ceases
to serve its expository and storytelling purpose and starts implicitly
addressing a reader directly when that's not what it's designed to do,
it's failed. What did you think of the art, Ed?

ED: Not much. I'm not too impressed with the artwork shown here, though
I've seen some decent work from Banks and Austin in the past. Their
depictions of the Legionnaires were rather bland and didn't bring out the
personalities as does the art on the regular Legion books. The layouts
also seemed awkward and didn't work too well in telling the story, giving
Marz a perfect excuse to over-write.

EWC: I don't care too much for how Banks does noses, and some of his
angle choices are terribly ineffective-- when Kyle walks into Legion HQ
atop page 9 and says to himself "Man, check this place out," we should be
able to SEE the place, but all we're given is a crowd shot of the
Legionnaires, no atmosphere or grand scope at all. We fail to share
Kyle's awe. The meeting pages, and there are a lot, are static, but even
the first couple pages in space don't pace well in terms of movement, and
Austin's star field is underwhelming; in fact, I felt little depth on the
whole from his inks, the exception being the first shot of Kyle on page 6.
It's certainly not the worst comic around, but it's nothing I'd want to
pay money for.

LEGENDS OF THE DC UNIVERSE #4
"Moments," Part 1 of 2
Featuring Wonder Woman
(Scheduled to be released March 11)

Writer: William Messner-Loebs <7443...@compuserve.com>
Penciller: Mike Deodato, Jr.
Inker: Vince Russell
Letterer: John Workman, Jr.
Painted Cover Art: Steve Rude
Asst. Ed.: L.A. Williams
Head Honcho: Paul Kupperberg

ED: While I was excited about the initial concept of having various
creators taking a crack at the main DCU characters, I'm relatively
unimpressed with the creators and their output so far. This 2-part story
reunites the creative team of WONDER WOMAN from a few years back (you
remember them...the ones who caused such an uproar on the 'net with the
way they depicted Diana? the creators who made such a mess of the
character that even a creator with little knowlege of the character could
do better?). Well, they're back with a story from Diana's early days in
America involving a female armor-wearing gang and a hostage situation.
Ho-hum. I've read this one before. Loebs tries to tell this story from
the perspective of the various female characters involved, but there seems
to be little else here that might appeal to women readers beyond the
shooting and fighting. So how 'bout that Deodato art, Elayne? <G>

EWC: I girded myself for it, and while it wasn't as bad as I expected it
to be I still hate the big-hair-on-12-year-old-face look and the repeated
poses featuring Diana sticking her hip out. More than that, though, I
resented the illogic of it all. I can't see where Bill tried to depict
this tale from any viewpoint besides possibly Julia Kapatelis'. The plot
is substandard and not that well thought out. The villains have no
motivation and just look silly, and the point of Diana believing that
women can't possibly be as honorless and ruthless as men not only shows a
depth of naivete that I never felt during Perez's run but tends to be
obscured anyway by all the chicks-with-big-guns shots.

ED: These days, Deodato's artwork just isn't as exciting as it used to
be, and though the promotional material hypes Vince Russell's inks, they
don't really add very much to the sloppy layouts and pencil work that
lacks detail and backgrounds. I've always been a bit mixed on Loebs'
superhero work and in this case, there is far too much narration where the
pictures are capable of telling the story (if only barely). Most of the
narrative is pretty stiff to boot, but even so, the dialogue is even
worse. (EXAMPLE: "Damn! She's breakin' that plasma cannon like it was
paper! But with this suit, I c'n snap miss social work's spine!") I
probably would have ordered this if I hadn't read this preview, but sadly,
there's nothing of interest to me here.

EWC: Nor to me. I'm wondering what the point of the LEGENDS book is
supposed to be anyway. It's not like these characters and creators don't
get ample exposure elsewhere, and since DC reboots its history fairly
often I don't know how much of a hew and cry there is anyway for this type
of "tales from the past/long past?/no, your past" format in the first
place. So far I haven't been impressed with the title.

NEVADA: Bars and Rumours of Bars #1 (DC/Vertigo)
"Another Damn Suck-Egg Corpse"
(Scheduled to be released March 25)

Writer: Steve Gerber <SGerb...@aol.com>
Penciller: Phil Winslade
Inker: Steve Leialoha

ED: Steve Gerber is no stranger to weirdness, so when I heard that his
latest series would be published by Vertigo, I wasn't as surprised as
those who only know Gerber for his bizarre takes on superheroics for
Marvel during the 70's. (Yup, let's not forget that Gerber was doing
weird heroes and even did the "character meets his creator" thing back
when Grant Morrison was still a teen.) The story revolves around a Vegas
showgirl named Nevada, her pet ostrich, and a series of bizarre serial
killings at the hotel where she dances. There's a lot of other weirdness
which will probably become more aparrent as the series unfolds, but like
her logical precursor, Beverly Switzer (from HOWARD THE DUCK), Nevada
seems like a plausible enough character (with the exception of the
ostrich, of course <G>). But the real coup for Gerber was getting
fashionably slow artist Phil Winslade doing the art chores...

EWC: And I hope Phil can keep up the pace! It'll probably help a lot
that Steve Leialoha is inking, although I noticed Steve tends to "clean"
and streamline the pencils a lot. It's not that he necessarily erases
detail, but there were some pages we saw which were pencils alone, and I
felt they were over-rendered in a number of places. I'm really pleased
with how Steve's applied himself to them.

ED: Same here. This is an unexpected pairing that really works well.
Likewise, the writing--as is often the case with Gerber--is crisp and
clean (I only wish that I could make more of it out from the poor copy I
had to review). Unfortunately, Nevada's problems with an ex-boyfriend,
which makes up the majority of this first issue's plot, just isn't an
interesting enough way of starting off the series, and it makes it very
hard for the reader to get wrapped up in the character or her situation.
Overall, this wasn't as mind-blowing as what I would usually expect from
Gerber, but this still manages to be the best of this month's Previews
pack and I'm hopeful that when all is said and done, Gerber will be able
to do more with these ideas and prove this to be one of the more original
series of the year.

EWC: No doubt, and it's a kick to see the non-human character emit all
sorts of variations on "Waugh!" without ever using that word. <g> But
seriously, Vegas has so much potential that I'm amazed more comics aren't
set in that area. My folks live there now, and visiting them is like
stepping onto another planet; it's an even weirder mindset than southern
California, and I'm sure Steve will mine the area for all it's worth. I
look forward to each round of miniseries with great anticipation.

NIGHTWING & HUNTRESS #1
(Scheduled to be released March 18)

Writer: Devin K. Grayson <dkgr...@aol.com>
Penciller: Greg Land
Inker: Bill Sienkiewicz

EWC: Devin's ear for dialogue continues to inform her writing, which
flows and paces smoothly as we pull out from a crime scene to a subsequent
meeting and then out to an eavesdropping Nightwing. The scenes which
follow were sent to us as pencils only, so we're not sure how Huntress
gets involved in the proceedings, but Helena and Dick do meet up later in
the issue and chat and pose and presumably fight crime together and-- oh
look, page 21 and she's kissing him! Argh, Devin disease, female coworker
must always fall in love with Dick! <g> Once she gets past this tendency,
I think her stuff will be a lot stronger, but from the few pages we were
given to read I'm overall pleased with the pacing and such.

ED: Devin has really proven to be a writer who has a serious love and
respect for the characters she has written in the last year, and I was
pretty excited to see her rendition of the Huntress after that yuck-ptooey
Chuck Dixon version of the character that we panned last month. Sadly,
the lettered pages conveniently ended just before the Huntress' first
appearance, but I think there's a lot more to that kiss at the end of this
issue that can be made out by the non-lettered pages--just look at Dick's
reaction to Helena's advance. This seems like an intriguing storyline
even if it does use a few of the normal Bat-cliches.

EWC: Land's layouts are nice-- he saves the more erose panels for special
effects such as the page 2 murder and the car peeling out (and breaking
into adjoining panels) on page 10. Sienkiewicz does his usual
professional job on the inks, although they seemed a bit crude in places.
But it's pretty well rendered, and seems to be an enjoyable book.

ED: Land has certainly come a long way since his early work in the first
NIGHTWING mini-series, and his work is rating right up there with the big
boys at DC! Having Sienkiewicz ink him is an added treat and it's great to
see that Sienkiewicz is able to ink a book without overpowering the
original pencils as has been the case in the past. This looks like it
could be a true breakthrough book for both Grayson and Land.

THE POWER OF SHAZAM! #38
"The Monster Society of Evil," Part 1 of 4
(Scheduled to be released March 4)

Writer: Jerry Ordway <74103...@compuserve.com>
Penciller: Peter Krause <pgkr...@aol.com>
Inker: Dick Giordano
(Colorist: Glenn Whitmore)
Letterer: John Costanza
Asst. Ed.: Frank Berrios
Head Honcho: Mike Carlin <DCOMC...@aol.com>

EWC: Well, this one starts out breezy enough-- turns out there are still
Mr. Mind-worms after all, and they're up to no good; we learn the wizard
Shazam has not yet returned (but not who Taia is nor her relationship with
Ibis, although Billy tells us she was the Bettie Page-homage model in the
PoS graphic novel); we see how Billy's adjusting to living with the
Bromfields... and then, WHAM! things start building and suddenly, on page
10-- a nuclear explosion goes off and the Bromfields' house (with Nick and
Nora inside) is at the epicenter. And I had a sick feeling in the pit of
my stomach for the rest of the issue. I hope to God the Captains Marvel
can time-travel, because I really, really don't like the idea of their
foster parents and entire hometown being wiped away just like that. Ed,
did this hit you like a ton of bricks as well?

ED: Shades of KINGDOM COME! It was pretty hard not to think of that
ground-breaking mini-series especially after reading GOG only a few short
weeks ago, but come on...you don't actually think that the Bromfields are
dead forever, do you? Maybe I'm just used to Ordway's cheery upbeat
writing style, but I can't imagine that the Marvels will just sit back and
let this happen without turning to one of their magical friends to change
what happened. One thing that we haven't really mentioned in any of our
POWER OF SHAZAM reviews is Ordway's terrific dialogue and character
interaction--maybe it's because it's so good and seamless that it tends to
be taken for granted over the plot and art.

EWC: Not by me; it's always been one of his strongest characterization
points. But Krause and Giordano do their usual nice job on the art, and I
was pleased to see a couple of pencilled pages (which hold the lettering)
to compare with the inked ones. The scenes toward the end were especially
effective, and although I was expecting a bit more emotion shown on Mary's
face I can accept that, while Billy broke down in tears, she was very
likely in deep shock. All in all, a professional job, but prepare to have
your gut wrenched.

ED: I have to admit that I got a bit bored during the last Mr. Mind
storyline, so adding Commander Steel (man, is he diabolical when possessed
by the mindworms!) and Mister Atom to the mix helped rev this one up a bit
for me, as did the reference to the classic Captain Marvel storyline of
the same name. Personally, I can't wait to see how this one plays out,
and though I continue to delight in DC's promotion of this book, I really
want to read the next issue in comics form rather than black and white.

And that's all for this month. Looks like Elayne and I actually agreed on
almost everything this month...call Associated Press! <G> See y'all next
month!

- Ed and Elayne
The Killer E's
--
This review is copyright 1998 Elayne Wechsler-Chaput <fire...@panix.com>,
and Ed Douglas <7645...@CompuServe.COM>, who have just about given up on
ever being in the same place at the same time again, due to Ed's weekend
work schedule and Elayne's, um, hectic social life, yeah, that's it...

[Clancy]

>NIGHTWING & HUNTRESS #1

>look, page 21 and she's kissing him! Argh, Devin disease, female coworker
>must always fall in love with Dick! <g> Once she gets past this tendency,
>I think her stuff will be a lot stronger, but from the few pages we were
>given to read I'm overall pleased with the pacing and such.

some minor points:

just 'cause she's kissing him doens't mean either is in love...

I've seen previous posters decry Devin's habit of having female
characters lust after Nightwing (and for the sake of argument I'll
accept that she does, although I haven't come across it), and I don't
understand why people think it's unlikely.

In this case Nightwing and Huntress, both are single, heterosexual and
physically attractive (or is that just they way they're drawn ;-). I
don't think they'd actually fall in love, but a passing attraction I
can believe.

Clancy

[Citizen Elmo]

fire...@panix.com (Elayne and Ed) writes:
> And I had a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach for the rest of the issue.

As Mike Chary regularly points out, Captain Marvel may be a nice, whimsical
guy, but his *villains* are utter rotters and among the worst in the
history of superhero comics in pure vileness.
--
"Under Canadian Law, adult comicbook readers, having committed the sin of not
judging a medium by the products within it meant for children or teenagers,
must ring a bell as they walk, crying out 'Unclean! Unclean!' and that puts
off most people. That and the little squid they make us wear on all our
clothes warns real adults not to talk to us." --James Nicoll

elmo mor...@physics.rice.edu
http://www.bonner.rice.edu/morrow

[Tom Galloway]

In article <1998Jan1...@riph7.rice.edu> mor...@riph5.rice.edu (Citizen Elmo) writes:
>As Mike Chary regularly points out, Captain Marvel may be a nice, whimsical
>guy, but his *villains* are utter rotters and among the worst in the
>history of superhero comics in pure vileness.

Even when that nice Dr. Sivana got nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize?

tyg t...@netcom.com

[Mike Chary]

Sending this to misc as well, because I'm talking Fawcett.

Citizen Elmo <mor...@riph5.rice.edu> wrote:
>fire...@panix.com (Elayne and Ed) writes:

>> And I had a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach for the rest of the issue.
>

>As Mike Chary regularly points out, Captain Marvel may be a nice, whimsical
>guy, but his *villains* are utter rotters and among the worst in the
>history of superhero comics in pure vileness.

Not among the worst. *THE* worst. Kirby made Darksied evil, but because
he was doing Wagnerian opera, they were epically evil in context. CC Beck
and Otto Binder and Mac Raboy and the guys had The Marvel Famoly
basically be *very* whimsical. Cap was closer in personal tone to
Mickey Mouse than Bugs Bunny even. And so his personal stable of
villains and the ones he shared with Bulletman and the others were even
*worse* King Kull *hated* humans. This new show on Thursday, "Prey,"
sounds like it might have a lot in common with King Kull in conception,
here's a superior race of human who lives to conquer and kill normal
humans. Mr. Mind? All he wants is dead people. Dr. Sivana? Luthor on
crack. IBAC? SABBAC? Captain Nazi ferchrissakes? These be *MEAN*
MOFOS!!!!!!!!
--
Court Philosopher and Barbarian, DNRC http://ezinfo.ucs.indiana.edu/~fchary
"You've got some nerve calling yourself blind." - Louis DePalma
"I bought the Star Trek chess set and the Civil War chess set. Now, I
have the South fight the Klingons." -- David Spensely

[Mike Chary]

In article <tygEMp...@netcom.com>, Tom Galloway <t...@netcom.com> wrote:
>In article <1998Jan1...@riph7.rice.edu> mor...@riph5.rice.edu (Citizen Elmo) writes:

>>As Mike Chary regularly points out, Captain Marvel may be a nice, whimsical
>>guy, but his *villains* are utter rotters and among the worst in the
>>history of superhero comics in pure vileness.
>

>Even when that nice Dr. Sivana got nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize?
>

After Hank Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize, it sort of lost it's "non
evil" label.

[Tom Galloway]

In article <69ekcj$1ab$1...@jetsam.uits.indiana.edu> ma...@po.cwru.edu writes:
>In article <tygEMp...@netcom.com>, Tom Galloway <t...@netcom.com> wrote:
>>In article <1998Jan1...@riph7.rice.edu> mor...@riph5.rice.edu (Citizen Elmo) writes:
>>>As Mike Chary regularly points out, Captain Marvel may be a nice, whimsical
>>>guy, but his *villains* are utter rotters and among the worst in the
>>>history of superhero comics in pure vileness.
>>Even when that nice Dr. Sivana got nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize?
>After Hank Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize, it sort of lost it's "non
>evil" label.

True. The man signed non-aggression treaties with Dr. Doom for Pete's
sake.

tyg t...@netcom.com

[Edward Mathews]

Mike Chary (fch...@ezinfo.ucs.indiana.edu) wrote:

: In article <tygEMp...@netcom.com>, Tom Galloway <t...@netcom.com> wrote:
: >In article <1998Jan1...@riph7.rice.edu> mor...@riph5.rice.edu (Citizen Elmo) writes:
: >>As Mike Chary regularly points out, Captain Marvel may be a nice, whimsical
: >>guy, but his *villains* are utter rotters and among the worst in the
: >>history of superhero comics in pure vileness.
: >
: >Even when that nice Dr. Sivana got nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize?
: >
:
: After Hank Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize, it sort of lost it's "non
: evil" label.

*snicker* I know this is way off topic, but referring to Kissinger as
"Hank" is the single funniest thing I've read all week.

And didn't Nobel invent dynamite?

Ed (*snicker* "Hank") Mathews
*****
**-----
* ---
-

[Todd VerBeek, gwm]

>: >In article <1998Jan1...@riph7.rice.edu> mor...@riph5.rice.edu (Citizen Elmo) writes:
>: >>As Mike Chary regularly points out, Captain Marvel may be a nice, whimsical
>: >>guy, but his *villains* are utter rotters and among the worst in the
>: >>history of superhero comics in pure vileness.

>: In article <tygEMp...@netcom.com>, Tom Galloway <t...@netcom.com> wrote:
>: >Even when that nice Dr. Sivana got nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize?

>Mike Chary (fch...@ezinfo.ucs.indiana.edu) wrote:
>: After Hank Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize, it sort of lost it's "non
>: evil" label.

My pal Edward Mathews said:
>And didn't Nobel invent dynamite?

Yes, which is one of the things that motivated him to endow the Peace
Prize: regret over the violence his invention made possible.

Cheers, Todd
--
I'm an optimist: the glass is empty, but maybe =someday= it'll be half full.

[Tannhauser]

On 13 Jan 1998, Edward Mathews wrote:

> Mike Chary (fch...@ezinfo.ucs.indiana.edu) wrote:
> :
> : After Hank Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize, it sort of lost it's "non
> : evil" label.
>

> *snicker* I know this is way off topic, but referring to Kissinger as
> "Hank" is the single funniest thing I've read all week.
>

I can see it now; Hank Kissinger, the blue-furred bouncing
Beast...

[Michael Bauser]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

In article <69c7hb$1...@panix3.panix.com>,

fire...@panix.com (Elayne and Ed) wrote:

> GREEN LANTERN #98
> "Future Shock," Part 1 of 2
> Guest-starring the Legion of Super-Heroes
> (Scheduled to be released March 4)

> and the story itself was based around yet another flat Marz plot with

> little realistic character interaction. There seemed to be little logic
> behind this team-up/crossover however you looked at it.

Hypothesis: This story exists solely for some 30th century character to
authoritatively pronounce "The real Green Lantern Corps was destroyed
a 1000 years ago and never reformed", making it that much harder for
future writers to revive the GLC. Marz is just being spiteful towards
GLC fans.

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--
Michael Bauser <isla...@netbox.com>, 42° 07' 30" N by 83° 08' 30" W
Hey you! Review your favorite newsgroups in news.groups.reviews!
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