I know I'm probably being unreasonable, judging a comic by it's first issue alone, but, for the most part, I was neither impressed, nor unimpressed. Modern comics tend to have that effect on me. Both Sgt Rock and Omac, the only two titles I had any real interest in, were alright, at best, and I can't get behind the relaunched Green Arrow or Batgirl, at all. Justice League was everything I expected a Jim Lee Justice League comic to be, and Justice League International wanted to be the Giffen/DeMatteis League. Detective Comics was a bog standard modern Batman chases the Joker around for a bit comic. And, I shit you not, both Green Lantern and Swamp Thing had exactly the same plot!
Action Comics # 1 I liked. A lot. I'm still not too sure about the whole returning Superman to his "roots" thing, we've already got Batman to take out the pimps and the slumlords, but the art by Rags Morales and a terrific runaway train sequence won me over, in the end ( took me three readings to warm up to it, though ). And I trust Grant Morrison. Ok, he's shown over the last few years that he has absolutely no understanding as to what makes a great Batman comic, but All-Star Superman was, without any doubt, the best Superman series by anyone in decades, and proved that if anyone was ever going to make Superman the world's greatest super-hero again, then Grant Morrison's your man. So good on him, for that.
& while I'm here, there's this. . .
I borrowed this off me mate's son. It's called Mystery Men, and, apparently, it came out earlier this year, but it completely passed me by. Written by David Liss and drawn by Patrick Zircher, it's a 5-issue series, set in the 'early 'thirties, telling the tale of the first outing of a group of pulp-style heroes who join together to cut a bloody path of justice across Manhattan in their search to find the murderer of a young starlet.
Zircher's art is better than I remember, and Liss' script is solid, nut-crunching pulpy goodness all over. It's a great little series, a great little reminder that Marvel still has it in them to produce exactly the kind of comics that I want to read, and I'm recommending it.
So. That's that, then. Here's some Caza.
Here's some Frank Brunner.
And here's some Paul Gulacy.
You have a great day now.
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11 comments:
Well, that's good to hear that you found something you like. I personally enjoyed Batgirl, Detective, Swampthing and OMAC, but Action wad definitely the best one going right now.
If I may make a suggestion? Try out Batman when it comes out. Scott Snyder's been killing it in his past run on Detective.
I appreciate reading your different views on the NuDCU stuff. I'm pretty much breaking down how I view the books right off of the racks, over in the Catacombs too.
A couple of people have expressed their positive thoughts on Action Comics to me, but I feel that DC has cheated a bit on both Action Comics and Justice League. Each series is set in the recent past, before the other relaunched titles. In my mind that flies in the face of what their expressed intentions were in rebooting everything in the first place.
I also really enjoyed Marvels Mystery Men mini-series, but it was marred by the out-of-left-field (and off camera)romance between Revenant and Aviatrix. That relationship had no set-up and occurred with zero social comment between the various characters over how a black man/white woman couple would have been perceived historically at that time. Did such real-life relationships happen in the 1930s? Sure!
But this was the only time that writer Liss dropped the ball in what otherwise was an excellent read. Had he given more of a structure to the pairing, it wouldn't have seen so "tacked on". I think that unlike modern television series marketed to the 18-40 age demographic, where interracial couples have become the norm, here we should have seen more context. As it is, the whole thing simply smelled of unnecessary tokenism, just for the hell of it.
They do end the mini on a note that suggests the team will be back for more, whether all the players survived or not.
tsk. spoil much, Chuck Wells?
Anyway, the presentation of the spoiler revealed above worked just fine within the series, as that's how other surprise relationships among characters were worked. The facts were just thrust upon us in a sudden, "roller-coaster's taking this turn now, go with it and get ready for the next twist" way which suits a pulp-inspired piece. There's time to deal with "social/personal" ramifications in a subsequent series, now that character intro's are out of the way.
I loved Action#1, don't care that they "cheated" compared to the rest of 52, as I don't care about 52--it's not intended for us fogies, after all--I just saw Morrison's name on the book, and subsequently found he delivered.
thanks for the Brunner!n
i enjoyed Animal Man #1 by Jeff Lemire. Finally got around to reading Morrison's amazing run from the 90s, and this shows potential. Found that Action #1 fell a bit flat from my expectations, may give it a couple more issues before I bow out though, as I agree that All-Star Superman was ,well, super.
Heh.... i colored that Gulacy Hex cover.
dude, and a damn fine job you did of it, too.
Thanks brother! Soo sad the regular Hex series is over. II loved working with guys like Bernet, Gulacy, etc...
hell, yeah, I bet!
Frankly, Joe, I was surprised that some of the books you DIDN'T pick up were the ones that would have been right up your alley: Lemire's ANIMAL MAN and FRANKENSTEIN: AGENT OF SHADE, Paul Cornell's DEMON KNIGHTS, and JH Williams' BATWOMAN.
All of which were very good.
notintheface: since I posted this, I've managed to check out Demon Knights and Animal Man ( I thought Animal Man was cool ).
haven't got around to Frankenstein yet, but I'm planning on it. &, unfortunately, as much as I love JH Williams' art, I probably won't bother with Batwoman, simply because I just plain old can't get on with anything Modern Batman-related.
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