[CAPSULES] CapSOL, Dragon, Wolverine/Punisher - Everything Else Reviews
Aaron S. Veenstra
Everything Else Reviews - Misc (5/5/99), featuring:
Captain America: Sentinel of Liberty #11 (Marvel)
Savage Dragon #60 (Image)
Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace TPB (Dark Horse)
Wolverine/Punisher: Revelation #1 (Marvel)
SPOILER SPACE...
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Captain America: Sentinel of Liberty #11 (Marvel)
"Hello? Hello? Send Some New Linoleum"
Mark Waid, Walter McDaniel, Anthony Williams, Whitney McFarland, Andy
Lanning et al.
This issue epitomizes every that's been wrong *and* right about this
series. It has a good but ultimately pointless story, unreliable art and
a few questionable details.
The main story is a retelling, or so I've read, of a story from STRANGE
TALES #114. That story finds the Human Torch chasing a Cap imposter/bank
robber, while the "modern" framing sequence finds the Torch telling this
story to the real Cap. Waid makes good use of the Biased Flashback
technique, with the Torch joking around with the storytelling -- I loved
that Arctic scene -- and repeating scenes (and entire panels) when asked
by Cap. Actually, I think the technique here accomplishes quite a bit
more than the story itself.
The split art works pretty well. McDaniel and Williams are not worlds
apart stylistically and dividing art along flashback/present lines is
fairly easy to pull off. It's really a nice job all around and makes me a
little sorry this title is going away. If not for issues like the last
one and the production errors this the series began, I doubt sales would
be such a problem.
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Savage Dragon #60 (Image)
Erik Larsen et al.
The thing is, I really don't want to Dragon to become a Man In Tights. I
can go with the SOS stuff, but this snappy reparte while fighting has got
to stop.
That said, this issue brings us more of what makes SAVAGE DRAGON fun. I
loved the whole tryout scene -- I can't believe no one has killed Kill Cat
yet, let alone during this issue. The mind controlling stuff was worked
into the tryout scene masterfully; Larsen seems to become better at
juggling plots as this series goes on.
Something interesting I noticed, and it may have actually begun last
issue, was the ongoing narration panels by Dragon. To my knowledge, this
never happen during the first 58 issues, due to a consious decision by
Larsen. This change is the other part that has me wondering about Dragon
becoming a more standard superhero. So, Erik, if you're reading, don't
turn the Dragon into Badrock. Thank you.
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Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace TPB (Dark Horse)
Henry Gilroy, George Lucas, Rodolfo Damaggio, Al Williamson et al.
I bought this, but I don't plan on reading it until after I've seen the
movie. As such, I can't review it; sorry.
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Wolverine/Punisher: Revelation #1 (Marvel/Marvel Knights)
"Ladies in Waiting"
Tom Sniegoski, Christopher Golden, Pat Lee, Alvin Lee et al.
I didn't read the recent PUNISHER mini by Sniegoski and Golden; the
premise not only didn't interest me, it made me violently ill. So, you
may ask, why would I get within 20,000 leagues of this potential stinker?
Well, for one there's Pat Lee, who, a quality slip on DARKMINDS not
withstanding, I quite like. Also, there's Wolverine, who tends to put a
good spin on pointlessly supernatural stories. I figure, if any co-star
can counteract the foolishness of the PUNISHER mini, it's him.
Well, the star of this mini (so far, anyway) is the art. This is really a
full production comic, by which I mean that the color and letters have as
much to do with the look as do the pencils and inks. In fact, I think the
color may do *more* of the work than the line art. A lot of detail is
left to the color work, especially in terms of shading. Since Pat Lee is
also one of the colorists, I can only assume this was a consious decision
and not simply due to laziness during the pencil or ink stages. Either
way, the pencil work is not up the standards set early in DARKMINDS. I
have to wonder if Lee may not be reacting to some of the criticism being
levelled at him; his art has changed significantly since DARKMINDS #1.
Sure, it looked a lot like Shirow back then but that doesn't preclude its
being good.
This issue is almost entirely setup and doesn't really accomplish much.
What is very nice to see is Wolverine developing a non-X-related social
life. He meets a guide at a museum display of ancient Japanese weaponary
and they wind up going to dinner. Yes, she does seem to have something
with the plot but I'm just glad she's not someone's cloned holographic
sister's sex-changed son from a future that never happened. At least, not
yet.
Meanwhile, the transformation of the Punisher is as stupid as I'd feared.
Paging Dr. Retcon! This was just a really bad idea; the Frank Castle seen
here has no connection whatsoever to what the character used to be. He is
the 90's film update to the character's old 60's TV self. Unfortunately,
his transformation seems to be at the heart of the story; factions at odds
with those who empowered him are involved and, well, I can only hope
Wolvie guts the lot of them. The story's not bad, so I'll stick around,
but I *really* hope something disgusting happens to Castle.
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Aaron Veenstra
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