The Cat Is Dead: Dr. Manhattan #4 Review

Editor’s Note: The spoilers… the spoilers are taking me to pieces.

The final issue of Dr. Manhattan, written by J. Michael Straczynski with art by Adam Hughes, extends what is arguably the greatest comic book story of all time, provides additional perspective on one of that classic story’s great mysteries, and it does it with bold storytelling choices, both in the writing and in the art, that play on one of Watchmen‘s original themes of symmetry.

Or, to put it in plainer terms: Dr. Manhattan #4 is fucking awful.

Straczynski uses the framework of Before Watchmen – a book that was partially sold to a seriously skeptical public as a prequel that would not attempt to modify or circumvent Alan Moore’s original Watchmen – to completely blow away one of the key ambiguities of Dr. Manhattan’s story from the original. Further, halfway through the issue, he switches point of view to that of Ozymandias to show his motivations at a key point leading into Watchmen, but not only are they motivations that really have no real bearing on how that story turns out, but they are presented using a visual gimmick that makes the story difficult to read for no reason beyond either Straczynski, or Hughes, or both, making the decision to say, “Lookit me! I’m dicking around with the established language of comic storytelling! Why? Because fuck you, that’s why!”

There are baseball analogies that could be applied to Dr. Manhattan. “Swinging for the fences” is one, although it’s not really accurate. I’m thinking more along the lines of “Running onto the field and mooning the pressbox,” because Straczynski and Hughes are playing around in areas where they shouldn’t really be in the first place, and they’re sure as hell not playing the game by any of the rules that anyone wants them to.

Plus, there’s one panel where Hughes all but rubs our faces in Doc’s dangling blue wang.

It’s really not that good, guys.

This Would Be A Good Death: Batman Incorporated #8 Review

Editor’s Note: Holy Spoilers, Batman! …yeah, that’s all I got.

And with that, our long national nightmare is over. Maybe.

For the second time in my life, Robin has been murdered, only this time I didn’t get the perverse satisfaction of dialing a 900 number to strike one of the killing blows myself. Back in the late 80s, I called to kill Jason Todd because he had become a petulant, impulsive little snot who had slowly drifted into becoming a murderer. Conversely, Damian Wayne was introduced as a petulant, impulsive snot, who was a trained assassin before he even made an appearance on the page. Damian Wayne was hateful, an entitled, imperious little prince who, if you found yourself sitting in front of him on a crowded airplane, would make you willing to gladly do time in Guantanamo for attempting to rush the cockpit and crash the plane just to make the self-important yammering just fucking stop.

In the six and a half years since Damian was introduced (not counting his appearance as an infant in Mike W. Barr’s 1987 Son of The Demon, which also included the Batman / Talia al Ghul fuck scene I used in high school to stop the abuse I took claiming Batman was gay. It didn’t work.), Grant Morrison and other writers like Scott Snyder and Peter Tomasi have been somewhat successful in rehabilitating Damian, slowly edging him away from a kid you would happily pepper spray just to see the superior light in his eyes go out, and more toward a hero with a tragic upbringing that he is trying to overcome. Which is a long road to travel for a character who was designed to initially cause intense dislike toward him, but one that must be traveled to make his death, in Batman Incorporated #8, anything but a blessed, bloodthirsty relief.

Well, that road’s over, because the kid’s dead now – for the moment, anyway; after all, this is a comic book. So the immediate question is: does Morrison make Damian’s death poignant because it is the death of a hero? Or because you realize you’re reveling in the death of a 10-year-old boy?

Spoilers Incorporated: DC, New York Post Spoil Events of Batman Incorporated #8

Editor’s Note: While I will try to avoid including any spoilers for Batman Incorporated #8 in this piece, it is a story about DC and The New York Post spoiling Batman Incorporated #8. It is a difficult task, like trying to defuse a bomb while looking at a green wire with a yellow stripe, and a yellow stripe with a green stripe.

Yesterday, my co-Editor Amanda asked me idly why there wasn’t the same kind of mainstream press coverage of the events of last week’s Batwoman #17 as there was last May when Northstar did something similar in Astonishing X-Men. She had theories about the public perceptions of lesbians versus gay men, or the widening public acceptance of gay marriage in even the last nine months, but my theory? “Dan DiDio didn’t bother to pick up the phone and call a newspaper to tell them about it. Period. Full stop. It’s not like mainstream newspaper reporters make the comic store part of their local beat, hoping for a page four feature story.”

Well, this morning, it looks like my theory was proved correct. Because DiDio, or someone at DC Editorial, has called The New York Post and spoiled the living shit out of Batman Incorporated #8.

And, while I promised not to spoil the events of the book as reported by The Post, more detailed information that could spoil the book, including the link to the original Post story, will appear after the jump.

Pulling The Pin: Justice League of America #1 Review

Editor’s Note: Gathered together from the cosmic reaches of the universe – here in this great Hall of Justice – are the most powerful forces of spoilers ever assembled.

This isn’t like The Suicide Squad.

– Steve Trevor

Actually, Justice League of America #1, written by Geoff Johns and drawn by David Finch, is a lot like Suicide Squad, in that it’s got Amanda Waller making unique and intriguing personal offers to fringe people with super powers to join a team controlled by the government to perform missions for the government’s purposes. It’s also a lot like Keith Giffen’s and J. M. DeMatteis’s early issues of their late 80’s Justice League, in that it is attempting to lay the groundwork for and justify a Justice League packed with second-stringers and also-rans. It’s also a lot like Brad Meltzer’s post-Identity Crisis run on Justice League of America, in that it’s got as many sequences of people looking at pictures of, and talking about, superheroes as it does sequences of people actually, you know, doing stuff.

Two of these similarities are good things.

Look, as an opening issue of a book trying to justify the creation of a second Justice League when there’s a perfectly good one that’s only a year and a half old, this is a perfectly acceptable story that delivers the necessary exposition required to justify the concept and to introduce characters who are either relatively new since the New 52 reboot, or who have been around in their own titles, albeit with sales numbers low enough to warrant a whole new introduction (I’m looking at you, Hawkman). And it does it with enough mysterious teases and interesting secrets to justify their willingness to join this team to keep things intriguing… with one exception. In one case, using a single word balloon, Johns shows himself to be playing with some serious fire. Fire that, if he handles it well, will thrill anyone who read comics through the 1990… and that conversely, if he screws it up, will make a fairly significant niche fanbase turn on him like he insulted their mothers, and make the attempted rehabilitation of Vibe seem like a low-risk venture.

For Great Justice – Review Of Vibe #1

Vibe #1 drops into stores today and, if you’re like many of my LCS’s core demographic, you responded with a polite, “That’s nice”, blinked nonchalantly, and then went looking for Hellblazer #300 because you are a SERIOUS PERSON, GODDAMMIT and that the LAST REAL JOHN CONSTANTINE ISSUE before DC further neuters him and…went on to some post traumatic whimpering before finally pulling yourself together to look through the spoils of this week’s stack. Turns out, once you put your wailing and gnashing of teeth over the the Constantine thing aside and read Geoff Johns and Andrew Kreisburg’s Vibe, it’s actually pretty good.

If you are like many casual, or perhaps not even so casual, comics readers, unless you were a fan of Justice League Detroit in the 80s your only real brush with Vibe was in cameos on the television show Justice League Unlimited and on Cartoon Network’s DC Nation shorts. Behold:

Yeah, you’d take that character seriously too. And, you wouldn’t be alone in your opinion. The original Vibe was killed off by J. M. DeMatteis to try and cap the end of the JLD era and George Pérez disliked Vibe so much that he refused to draw anything more than Vibe’s legs falling off a panel in the mega crossover JLA/Avengers – and Pérez knows a thing or two about teen superheroes.

So, why does this new iteration of Vibe work?

Warning – Ahead there be spoilers!

And You Sir, Are No… Comedian #5 Review

Editor’s Note: And one last review of the comics of 2/13/2013 before the comic stores open with the new books…

I had sworn to myself that I was gonna stop reviewing Comedian by writer Brian Azzarello and artist J. G. Jones, because after just two issues I knew it wasn’t working for me, and even that damnation with faint disappointment was only possible when the book wasn’t actively pissing me off.

From the beginning, Azzarello has made Comedian a story where Watchmen continuity is optional on a good day, where consistency of character with any prior depiction of Edward Blake was problematic, and where Azzarello seemed less interested in telling a story about The Comedian than he did in telling a story about shit that happened in the 1960s where The Comedian happened to be. Sure, The Comedian was an active part of the story, but it wasn’t so much about him; imagine Mad Men if Don Draper was selling anti-Kennedy ads to Donald Segretti, or if he was running a pro-segregation focus group with James Earl Ray as a member: all of Mad Men‘s elements are there, but it ain’t really a story about a conflicted advertising executive anymore, is it?

That tendency continues in Comedian #5, which, as per this book’s norm, is less a story about The Comedian than it is a story about Vietnam and My Lai, where The Comedian just happens to be. Which, again, I’ve learned to expect from this comic book, and which is something that I didn’t think needed further reviewing. However, Azzarello added one thing to this books that boiled my blood. It’s not much – just two words – but to my mind, it put a stamp on the book stating Azzarello’s intentions toward the book, and it’s a check that the series just doesn’t cash. And while there’s a possibility that I’m wrong, and that those two words might just be a simple Easter Egg to observant readers or maybe a nod to placing Comedian into a Wold Newton-style shared universe, it blew me out of the book as effectively as would have seeing Blake throwing the meat to Trudy Campbell. Or even Pete Campbell.

A Better Bullet To The Head: Suicide Squad #17 Review

Am I the only one having fun here, boys?

– Harley Quinn

That’s the first line of Suicide Squad #17, and it’s pretty much a complete review in and of itself.

This is not the smartest comic you will read this week. It is not the finest attempt at visual narrative aspiring toward classic literature that you are ever going to see. It doesn’t have the most intricate plot – hell, it doesn’t have much plot, period. And with the exception of two panels for Harley and some backstory for Yo-Yo, the closest thing this comic has to character development is the establishment that Harley’ll let you suck her toes if you kill someone for her. So if you’re looking for some kind of high-falutin’ example of comics as the entertainment of choice for the discerning sophisticate, this is not the book for you.

However, if you are looking for non-stop, balls-out violent and gory super villain action, with entertaining repartee and a few damn good jokes? Suicide Squad #17 is about the best three bucks you can spend this week.

Plans Within Plans: Batman #17 Review

In the history of Batman and The Joker, there are only a couple of iconic story endings that I can think of. There’s the end of the third issue of Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns, where Batman pursues Joker with the intent to kill him, finds himself unable to pull the trigger, and Joker takes one final shot at Batman by killing himself to frame Batman for his murder. And there’s the end of Alan Moore’s The Killing Joke, where Joker and Batman share a laugh when Batman finally understands how connected he is to Joker… and really, that’s about it. Sure, you’ve got Jim Starlin’s Death in The Family, but I really don’t remember how that actually ends; all I remember is Joker swinging the crowbar and Batman carrying Robin’s body. And yeah, there’s the Steve Englehart and Marshall Rogers Joker Fish story, but all that easily comes to mind on that one is Joker with the fish.

When it comes to endings, there aren’t a whole hell of a lot that you can really point to as classic. Most Joker stories wind up one of a couple or three ways: Batman stops Joker in the middle of whatever his plan is in the nick of time and slaps him into Arkham, Batman stops Joker in the middle of whatever his plan is in the nick of time and Joker escapes, or Batman stops Joker in the middle of whatever his plan is in the nick of time and Joker appears to die and disappear. Some combination of these endings have been popping up in Batman / Joker stories literally since the first one, and none of them are particularly memorable… particularly since there are rarely any lasting consequences to the story. That’s part of why The Dark Knight Returns and The Killing Joke stand out – as, for the most part, standalone stories, the ending is, you know, the ending. In the regular monthly comics however, it’s hard to have one of these conclusions stand out since the events of the story are never permanent; hell, the most “permanent” Joker effects have been the killing of Jason Todd and the crippling of Barbara Gordon, and both of those have since been retconned.

All of which is a long way to go to start talking about Batman #17, and the conclusion of Scott Snyder’s Death of The Family crossover. In some ways, this ending isn’t really particularly special, in the sense that the actual mechanics of it are as familiar as color superhero comics to anyone who’s been reading them for longer than a month. However, Snyder does one thing that some of the best Batman stories do: create a lasting set of consequences for Batman as a result of Joker’s actions. But Snyder also does something that normally doesn’t happen in a Batman / Joker story, and it’s something that not only confirms something that most of us who have been reading these stories for years have always suspected, but it creates a situation in the Batman / Joker dynamic that I don’t recall ever having seen before… and while it is all doomed to be reconned and forgotten, right now, it makes it one of the best conclusions to a Joker story in recent memory.

Ender’s (definitely not) Gay-m – Updated!

Back!  After only a year absence!  Thank heaven for prison overcrowding, that’s all I’m saying.  Also, Skullfish!  Call me!  What we had was magical! – Lance

UPDATE: DC responds – “As content creators we steadfastly support freedom of expression, however the personal views of individuals associated with DC Comics are just that — personal views — and not those of the company itself.”  Translation – “Card already cashed the check, so we’re damn well going to use the stuff he wrote.”

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Anyway, in their ongoing effort to make comics inclusive, DC has hired noted gay rights enthusiast Orson Scott Card to write Adventures of Superman.  Don’t get me wrong.  I’ve read a lot of Card’s work.  Ender’s Game is a sci-fi staple and deserving of a place in any classics bookshelf.  It was real eye-opening when I learned that Card is just a bit homophobic.  And by a bit, I mean extremely.  And by extremely, I mean he looks at Westboro Baptist and sneers, “Amateurs…”

Card’s a talented writer, and I don’t blame DC for trying to bring in a name.  Plenty of other books have boosted sales by hiring big name as writers.  The results are… inconsistent (I’m looking at you Bourdain), but hey, it puts eyes on pages.  And if Card is writing fiction, his personal beliefs don’t necessarily have to be relevant.

That said, Superman represents what’s best in all of us.  He fought the Klan in the 1940’s. He protects the weak from the strong.  I like to think that he wouldn’t tell Batwoman or Alan Scott to get lost because they’re sinners.

Maybe the Card is capable of writing a brilliant Superman story that lets me forget what a tool he is.  I’m not real optimistic though.  Still it will be refreshing for Superman to finally tell Jimmy Olsen to sack the hell up.

The Card-authored Adventures of Superman #1 drops online on April 29 and in print on May 29.

Blackest Night: Everyone Quits Green Lantern

DC’s been releasing their May solicits over the past few days… with one exception: they’ve been holding back their Green Lantern solicitations. Which has led to a certain amount of anticipation, at least here at the Crisis On Infinite Midlives Home Office, because some of the best crossovers and events in DC Comics over the past several years have come from Green Lantern writer Geoff Johns in those books.

So we’ve been waiting for what Johns had planned starting in May with bated breath, with images and memories of classics like The Sinestro Corps War, Blackest Night and Brightest Day dancing in our heads. What would it be? Another big crossover? Rainbow Lanterns? A new Lantern oath involving the prominent use of the word “sack”?

Turns out, not so much. It seems that Geoff John’s next big plan for Green Lantern is to, well, quit the book.

And apparently it was such a good idea that every other writer on the Green Lantern books has made the same plan. That’s right: everyone is leaving the Green Lantern books.

Um… what the hell, Geoff?