Comics Reviews (long)
Jerry Boyajian
lessly, and without one single shred of remorse or guilt, stolen out from under
the very nose of the Napolean of Crime. Nyah-ah-ah!!
But wait! What if this scale were to be changed?! Modified by an unscrupulous
modifier of rating systems, whose business it is to make this type of system
palatable to the teenage, delinquent, mother-my-dog instinct!
Why, then, it would be the Mad Armenian Scale....
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|=>A+< A veritable Classic. One of the best of All Time. Example: THE SPIRIT |
|==>A< One of the best of the year. Ex: TEEN TITANS #39: "Who Is Donna Troy?" |
|==>B< A very good issue, one of the best of the month. Example: CEREBUS |
|==>C< A well done, entertaining issue. Satisfying. Example: JON SABLE |
|==>D< Rather boring, or a few good spots mixed with more bad ones. Ex: ROM |
|==>F< Boring AND stupid or childish. Example: MARVEL SUPERHEROES SECRET WARS |
|==>Z< Actually offensive. Example: DAZZLER --- THE MOVIE GRAPHIC NOVEL #12 |
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DALGODA [LAD, A DOG] (Dalgoda) C- (Grimwood's Daughter) C+
Jeff had it pegged right. It certainly was entertaining, but somehow
managed to miss the standard set by the first issue. Now, "Grimwood's Daughter",
that's something else. I'll be frank and say that this isn't my cup of tea, and
the writing is reasonably good, though not great. But the art.... Kevin Nowlan,
if he is known at all, is known mostly for his work on MOON KNIGHT, which was
nothing extraordinary. But here, he shines. His elves have a distinctly humanoid
though non-human, appearance, and display a strength and mystery. And Nowlan has
good storytelling technique, evident by the fact that the story is easily under-
standable without reading a single word, just following the art. Nowlan is a
*major* talent.
TIMESPIRITS #1 C
Very enjoyable. Steve Perry's script is nothing special, but it works
just fine. It reminds me of some of the better issues of DC's old TOMAHAWK book.
The Tom Yeates art suits the story perfectly. I prefer his art here to the work
he did for SAGA OF THE SWAMP THING way back when. The Teacher uncomfortably
reminds me somewhat of Dr. Who, but we'll see how it develops. This looks like a
very promising book. I urge you to give it a try.
AMETHYST #1 D+
After giving the maxi-series a second chance, I found that I rather en-
joyed it, despite my initial reservations. And the Annual that came out late in
the spring was surprisingly good. I wish I could say the same for this. The art,
Ric Estrada pencils and Ernie Colon inks, is not as good as Colon's solo work on
the maxi-series, but the inks here are strong enough to give Estrada's pencils,
which I normally wouldn't like at all, a polished look.
My biggest problem with this issue is that too much seems to be happen-
ing, making for a confusing script. This should work itself out after a few more
issues are done, so I will overlook it for now. If you didn't like the maxi-ser-
ies, you probably won't like this either. If you liked the former, though, you
will want to at least give this comic a good trial period.
DC COMICS PRESENTS #77 [Superman & The Forgotten Heroes] D
Let's get one thing straight from the beginning. I came into this comic
with a biased eye. The Forgotten Heroes herein are that same set of characters
that Marv Wolfman dredged up from DC's past some months back in ACTION COMICS --
those characters from the various sf/"mystery" titles of the early 60's, such as
STRANGE ADVENTURES, RIP HUNTER TIME MASTER, TALES OF THE UNEXPECTED, etc. Those
titles and characters always occupied a soft spot in my heart and in my collec-
tion. One of my colelcting interests is to acquire sets of all of those wonder-
fully skiffy comics from my youth. So, if Wolfman was able to pull this off, he
would have my undying admiration. If not....
Unfortunately, he wan't able to bring it off, which didn't surprise me
in the least, since he wasn't able to bring it off in those ACTION issues. Like
the ACTION story, the gimmick of bringing together these disparate heroes just
doesn't work. Unfortunately, it *is* just a gimmick, a nostalgic gimmick. Nos-
talgia is fine, I have nothing against it, but nostalgia for its own sake just
isn't enough, and the story here isn't strong enough to support the gimmick.
I'll read the next issue, which concludes this story, but I'm sure I won't like
it any better.
NEW GODS #6 D+
At last, we have the long-awaited conclusion to Kirby's New Gods saga of 12 or
so years ago. Was it worth the wait? No, not really, but it wasn't actively bad,
either, like a lot of Kirby's recent work. Back when, I was quite a fan of the
"Fourth World" comics, as they were called, and I was sorry that they met their
premature death. It's good to see the material reprinted, though I wish they had
done the Forever People, Mister Miracle, and Jimmy Olsen stuff, too.
As for the artwork, well, Kirby manages quite well to give it the same
look that it had 12 years ago, even though his recent work hasn't been nearly as
good as that older material. Artisticly, the seems are invisible --- you can go
from the reprint, which occupies the first third of the book, to the new story,
which fills up the rest, without really noticing the difference. What *is* not-
icible, however, is the difference in how Kirby handles his characters. His non-
involvement with them over the years has taken away his familiarity with them,
and they almost seem to act like totally different characters than they were 12
years ago.
As I said, it wasn't actively bad, but it was a great disappointment.
NEW TALENT SHOWCASE #13
"Found and Lost": D+
"Theta: Just Another Day" C
"Bob Cat: After the Ball" C+
"21st Sentry A.D.: The Beast Within" D-
Overall, this is probably the most satisfying issue of NTS yet. From the bottom
to the top: "21st Sentry A.D." has nothing to recommend itself. The story isn't
particularly well written, nor is it particularly original. And the art, while
better than some supposedly-professional art, leaves a lot to be desired. The
layouts are unimaginative, and the figures are awkward.
"Found and Lost" is an enigma. The art, by Eric Shanower, is rather
nicely done. The figures are well-drawn, and the story flows smoothly. Shanower
has a promising career ahead of him. Mindy Newell, who wrote the interesting
"Jenesis" serial for the last few issues, as well as providing dialogue for some
recent issues of the Mando LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES, writes well. Her dialogue is
far from clumsy, and her characters are well-deliniated, if a tad stereotyped.
The real stumbling block in this story is the plot; I may be obtuse, but I just
don't see the point of the whole thing. The ending leaves it all up in the air,
which may mean a sequel is planned for a future issue, but even so, the story
just seems to stop rather than end. Quite unsatisfying. If it wasn't for the
quality of the scripting and art, this would have rated a D-.
"Theta" is the surprise of the issue. It's a vignette, really, only
taking up three pages, but I found it a very satisfying three pages. Theta is
a divorced, working mother who also happens to be a superhero, and she has to
juggle all three of those jobs as best she can. Of course, given the shortness
of the story, we aren't given a whole lot of background, but this feels like
it should be just a teaser of more to come. David Marchman, the writer, is no
Byrne or Claremont, but despite some stiffness of dialogue and/or captions, he
manages to bring this story off. He seems to be bound to get better with more
practice. The real treat, though, is the artwork by Norm Breyfogle. This guy
is *good*, and I hope to see more of his work in the future. He's already good
enough to be at home doing one of DC's main titles.
"Bobcat" is a satisfying sequel to a story by the same team, Mike Tief-
enbacher and Stan Woch, that appeared in an earlier isue of NTS. Nothing earth-
shaking here, just solid writing and artwork. It's very reminiscent of POWER
PACK in that it presents us with very believable pre-teens, one of whom is the
non-super-powered-hero, Bobcat. "Bobcat" is muhc more low-key than POWER PACK,
which doesn't make it quite as satisfying for me, but this story alone makes
reading this comic worthwhile.
Jerry-Bob says check it out.
SPANNER'S GALAXY #1 & #2 D
I'm sorry to say that, contrary to others' reactions, I wasn't all that
impressed with this comic. The art is competent, though not particularly inspir-
ational. The same could be said of Nick Cuti's script. Some of the concepts are
trite, such as Spanner's childhood friend (for a brief moment, anyway) becoming
one of his chief adversaries (I'll bet anything that they end up together at the
end), and please, can anyone tell me why, in the second issue, would they make
an autopsy machine out of the supposedly hardest alloy known to man? This is the
kind of silly little details that cn ruin a story like this for me.
There are enough interesting elements here to keep me reading for the
next four issues, but I'll not exactly be looking forward to them.
********** A brief editorial **********
For some reason, the comic companies seem to have been taken by the idea of
basing comics on toys, and with notable exceptions, they just don't work. Why?
Well, my guess is that the concepts behind the toys are poor to begin with,
and any comic based on them has to be *really* good to overcome this basic
handicap. The ones that have worked usual do so because of a strong creative
team. THE MICRONAUTS works because of the rich detail that Bill Mantlo and
Mike Golden (and later artists) put into the workings of the Microverse. The
only other one that I can think of off hand that worked was a late-60's DC
comic, CAPTAIN ACTION, which had the advantage of having such people as Wally
Wood and Gil Kane working on it.
Among those toys-into-comics that try my suspension of disbelief the
most are of the Giant Robot variety. Such is my bias against them that under
ordinary circumstances, I wouldn't even give them a first glance. And so it
was with such luminaries as SHOGUN WARRIORS, THE TRANSFORMERS, and MANTECH
ROBOT WARRIORS. Unfortunately, however, two new Giant Robot comics have entered
the arena that have something about them that made me want to give them a try.
THE STARRIORS #1 D
What made me want to give this one a try is the fact that it's written
by Louise Simonson, whose work on POWER PACK is terrific. Of course, she *did*
bomb once, with this year's MARVEL TEAM-UP ANNUAL, but she wrote a good story
for AMAZING HIGH ADVENTURE, so I figure that that makes her even. Of course,
the fact that artists Mike Chen, Ian Akin, and Brian Garvey are reasonably good
didn't hurt. STARRIORS certainly isn't *bad*, but Lord, it isn't good, either.
Well, no, I shouldn't say that. It's well produced, I'll grant, and Simonson
gives it her all, but she just isn't a good enough writer to bring the basic
concept of this book out of the mire of mundanity that it starts off in.
This comic, like most toy-based comics, is obviously aimed primarily at
the children's market, and as an example of such, I'll will aver that STARRIORS
probably sets a good example for this type of book, but I don't personally find
it the least bit exciting.
ROBOTECH DEFENDERS D-
Only one thing saves this book from being a total loss, and it's the reason I
pciked it up in the first place --- the artwork by Judith (EVANGELINE) Hunt and
Murphy Anderson. But even that is "sabotaged" by poor printing, the colors tend-
ing to bleed and blur, and they are printed rather garishly (much worse than the
Baxter books are). The artwork is weak in spots, and Hunt, to her detriment,
seems bound to squeeze as much art onto each page as she possibly can, most
likely due to the fact that she has to fit the story into three issues. Hunt
otherwise does a good job, though not quite good enough to make this comic worth
buying.
********** A short note **********
THE OMEGA MEN #22 mentions that the next issue will be Doug Moench's last. The
issue after that will be by Marv Wolfman and Kevin (NEMESIS) O'Neill. After
that, who knows? I think that unless they put someone *relly* good on the book
with #25, I'll most likely stop with the Wolfman/O'Neill issue. I'm just not
enjoying this comic terribly much.
**********
That's all for now. I hope to have more reviews within the next day or two.
--- jayembee (Jerry Boyajian, DEC, Maynard, MA)
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ARPA: boyajian%akov6...@DECWRL.ARPA
er...@milo.uucp
>
> At last, we have the long-awaited conclusion to Kirby's New Gods saga of 12 or
> so years ago. Was it worth the wait? No, not really, but it wasn't actively bad,
> either, like a lot of Kirby's recent work.
I'll go a step farther, I was disappointed by the ending. I realize
that there is a graphic novel coming out, but I really did want to see all
the loose ends tied up. Orion's death (?) served no purpose. Does this mean
evil wins? Or is Orion destined to come back? (I would be very disappointed
at such a cheap trick.) Kirby really should have wrapped it all up, since
I don't think anyone is planning a comeback for the series. I do realize
there are some continuity problems with Legion of Super-Heroes, but who
cares? I would have loved a final confrontation between father and son that
meant something.
--
eric
...!seismo!umcp-cs!aplvax!milo!eric