Tue Reviews

Originally run as part of the Best Shots column at Newsarama.


Justice League of America #46 
Published by DC Comics
Written by James "hey, wasn't my Starman run great" Robinson
Art by Mark "I'm not gonna blame anyone" Bagley, Rob "I don't even want to comment" Hunter, Norm "ditto" Rapmund and Ulises "aren't the Northern Lights purty" Arreola
Edited by Rex "don't blame me, I was writing a 'Second Feature' elsewhere" Ogle, Adam "don't blame me, Eddie's the boss" Schlagman & Eddie "it's totally the fault of my subordinates that this had three editors and still sucked" Berganza


I'm a sucker for the JLA/JSA crossovers, so I picked up this issue despite feeling Robinson's run thus far has been a major disappointment. While hoping that this may have been an example where he stepped his game up for a special event, I was confronted with a book where the severity of the writer's flaws were multiplied instead.

One of the major problems is Robinson's insistence on attempting multiple character narration. Switching back and forth as often and as rapidly as he does is jarring on its own, but his tendency towards maximum verbosity sets him up to fail. The brain-numbing amount of exposition used to spoon feed everything to the reader is clunky and serves to frustrate/insult the reader at every turn. The dialogue suffers for reasons beyond that, though.

Robinson writes a scene where Jesse Quick seems like she just stepped out of Gone With The Wind and leaves me expecting Hourman to step in and say, "frankly, Jesse, I don't give a damn!" Towards the end, he writes Mikaal's narration as if this Starman is trying to channel the worst William Shatner delivery into something that fits a tweet.

The art is NOT strong. Bagley looks rushed and his pages with many costumed heroes shoehorned in (read: much of the book) look terrible. He's not helped by his inkers or a colorist that decides to have the JLA & JSA discussing tactics inside the Aurora Borealis (judging by the background they created). Issues like this will no doubt lead readers to look back and say, "you know, JL Detroit wasn't so bad."

Death of Dracula #1
Published by Marvel Comics
Written by Victor Gischler
Art by Giuseppe Camuncoli, Onofrio Cattachio, Frank D'Armata
Edited by Daniel Ketcham & Axel Alonso 

There doesn't seem to be a real purpose to this book. It is heralded as the starting point for the new X-Men book debuting Thursday, but has no X-Men present or any mutants. What bits it might help set up about the vampires here is likely to be restated early and often in the actual X-Men series. I mention this not only because it can factor into how much one enjoys the read or feels satisfied in their purchase, but because this lack of point or purpose seems to be reflected in the quality of the story. The story lacks a soul and serves to put forth info about this group of characters as dispassionately as the protagonist reacts to his father's demise. It certainly doesn't bode well for what is to come from Gischler's X-Men vs vampires storyline.

Steaming Pile Part Deux

You know how, when you taste something terrible, you are sometimes driven to tell a friend "you gotta try this"? So it was with JLA #41. I convinced a friend to locate a copy and give it a read. I told him it wouldn't be pretty going in. What you see below is his running commentary, pulled from a chatroom of mutual friends.

[23:56] Frankie/OP: ok!
[23:56] Frankie/OP: here goes
[23:57] Frankie/OP: "America's Dream. Turned nightmare." starting it off classy
[23:59] Frankie/OP: "And some who did survive, MAYBE wished they HADN'T." DRAMA
[00:00] Frankie/OP: is this really Bagley? seems like he's trying too hard to channel Benes, irksome
[00:03] Frankie/OP: i wonder how Vixen can go on about how much she thinks and recalls about Prometheus
[00:03] Frankie/OP: how long*
[00:05] Frankie/OP: "Don't go! Not now!" "I must." EXTREME CLOSEUP, VIXEN'S DETERMINATION TO QUIT IS OVERWHELMING IN THIS THE SMALLEST OF PANELS
[00:05] Frankie/OP: /reading from Robinson's script
[00:07] Frankie/OP: lol
[00:07] Frankie/OP: "Help us, Wonder Girl!"
[00:07] Frankie/OP: "Its Ms. Troy, and fuck off, i don't help people anymore."
[00:07] Frankie/OP: "But the children!"
[00:08] Frankie/OP: "CHILDREND?! OH SHIIIIIIIIIIIIII"
[00:08] Frankie/OP: -d
[00:08] Frankie/OP: "So here I go. Again." ON MY OWWWWN. GOING DOWN THE ONLY ROAD I'VE EVER KNOWWWWN
[00:10] Frankie/OP: Robinson, you are a master of characterization and subtlety. i mean, the way you just TELL us how Donna's feels? GENIUS
[00:11] Frankie/OP: ok, no, really, this art is grating on me
[00:13] Frankie/OP: "The Justice League ails too, my sister." this is what people mean when they say Wonder Woman is (written as) stiff and uptight
[00:15] Frankie/OP: ok, i'm no expert on dialogue from frenchmen in the 1700's, but "a-boil with canker" ? pfffffffft
[00:17] Frankie/OP: i have absolutely no idea whats going on in this 1777 segment
[00:18] khuxford2: That's to be expected, Frankie
[00:18] khuxford2: and to be echoed for almost every scene, regardless of period
[00:19] Frankie/OP: HAHA
[00:20] Frankie/OP: i understand he's recording himself
[00:21] Frankie/OP: but why is this guy talking to himself as though Robinson is talking directly to him
[00:21] Frankie/OP: its like he's found a new form of exposition
[00:22] Frankie/OP: and who is this 90's Image reject?!
[00:22] khuxford2: That scene reads like Robinson realized how terrible his dialogue was but, rather than fix it, he decides to just have the character own up to it as if that makes it good and meta.
[00:23] Frankie/OP: exactly!
[00:23] Frankie/OP: and it just ends up so much worse
[00:24] Frankie/OP: did Damian just call Donna a harlot? HAHAHA
[00:25] Frankie/OP: now i see
[00:25] Frankie/OP: Robinson's inspiration comes from badly translated Shakespearean plays
[00:25] Frankie/OP: "Kid, yes, Drama Queen, Double yes." and Diablo Cody
[00:26] Frankie/OP: "Al Ghul's grankid" IN CASE YOU DIDN'T KNOW, GUYS
[00:29] Frankie/OP: "Judging from your appearance and the tone of your voice, I deduce... you want me in the Justice League." HOW DOES HE GET ALL THAT FROM TONE?!
[00:29] Frankie/OP: oh
[00:29] Frankie/OP: because apparently Dick's some sort of smartass
[00:29] Frankie/OP: are they fist-bumping?
[00:29] Frankie/OP: BAT-FISTBUMP
[00:30] Frankie/OP: RESPEK KNUCKLESSS!!
[00:32] Frankie/OP: so wait, does Donna convince Kimi with just... "But we NEED you."
[00:32] Frankie/OP: "You can't go."
[00:33] Frankie/OP: seriously
[00:33] Frankie/OP: did she just convince her to stay by WHINING?
[00:33] Frankie/OP: if thats how she sets up the Justice League, i don't have high hopes for this team
[00:34] Frankie/OP: oh good, Mon-El zzzzzzzzzz
[00:34] Frankie/OP: i'm sure Mon is only here because he'll need someplace to go after Superman returns to his OWN DAMN BOOK
[00:34] Frankie/OP: the one that Robinson is "writing"
[00:35] Frankie/OP: lol
[00:36] Frankie/OP: i love her argument for why Mon should be in the Justice League
[00:36] Frankie/OP: "Superman did it! Don't you wanna be like Superman?"
[00:36] khuxford2: Argument? Aren't arguments normally longer than 1.5 sentences?
[00:36] Frankie/OP: all i'm saying is, if Superman jumped off a bridge...
[00:36] Frankie/OP: lol hux
[00:36] Frankie/OP: thats my next point
[00:37] Frankie/OP: when did this become "hey! we're making a club! wanna join?" "sure!"
[00:37] khuxford2: Superman ALWAYS ate the lead-poison-cure-reversing-sammich that I made him...
[00:37] Frankie/OP: LOL
[00:38] Frankie/OP: THE RAGE BURNING WITHIN
[00:38] Frankie/OP: THE RAGE
[00:38] Frankie/OP: BURNING
[00:38] Frankie/OP: WITHIN
[00:38] Frankie/OP: i'm not sure i understand how Ollie feels O_O
[00:39] Frankie/OP: wait, its over?
[00:40] Frankie/OP: i know it continues to the next issue, but the ending to this one could have at least been a bit more...climactic?
[00:40] Frankie/OP: instead we get "OLLIE, STOP WHINING AND JOIN US."
[00:42] Frankie/OP: everyone's going about Prometheus and especially that panel with Ollie holding Roy
[00:42] Frankie/OP: but WHO KNOWS WHY OLLIE IS ANGRY
[00:43] Frankie/OP: man
[00:44] Frankie/OP: that was hard work
[00:44] Frankie/OP: trudging through that
[00:44] Frankie/OP: i'm hungry!
[00:44] Frankie/OP: also
[00:44] Frankie/OP: i don't know if its the coloring or inking or Bagley himself or all things combined, but no, this art was not serviceable
[00:45] Frankie/OP: it wasn't eye-raping, like the writing
[00:45] Frankie/OP: but its offensive
[00:45] Frankie/OP: to me
[00:45] khuxford2: Well, I blame it more on the writing. I think what he was given to work with was shit. I think the raping that the script does to you makes you pre-disposed to think of the entire package as shit. So I gave him a pass.
[00:46] Frankie/OP: SO ENDS MY LIVE-TORTUR--I MEAN BLOGGING OF JLA 41
[00:46] Frankie/OP: tune in next time for JLA 42, where i will push electric eels into my eyesockets to save myself
[00:48] Frankie/OP: no i probably won't
[00:48] Frankie/OP: however, that was fun to bash the fuck out
[00:48] Frankie/OP: of
[00:48] khuxford2: LOL
[00:49] khuxford2: I knew you'd enjoy it in a "holy fuck, I can't believe they published this shit" way
[00:49] Frankie/OP: lol pretty much

Steaming Pile of Shit #41

On Sunday, I read a comic book that single-handedly soured me on reading the rest of the books I bought that day, kept me from placing an advance order on DCBS and has me in a shit mood.

That comic book? Justice League of America #41.

I've been disappointed with a lot of what James Robinson has written without a partner over the last few years. His Atlas arc in the Superman books, the first few issues of Justice League: Cry For Justice and other bits here and there were just terrible. Filled with cliche situations, bad dialogue and exposition measured in metric tons (it's so heavy, get it? I didn't say I could write better).

Why did I give this book a shot? A friend of mine tweeted to James Robinson that he loved the issue and felt it respected so many previous versions of the JLA. My curiosity was piqued.

The result was that I wished I could take not only that issue back for a refund, but the rest of my $33+ purchase, as well.

Where does it go so wrong?

1. It directly picks up from stuff that happened in JL: Cry For Justice. As stated previously, the writing on that long-delayed, "originally supposed to be an ongoing series but shrunk down to a mini" series was horrendous. The manner of introducing the characters was cringe-inducing, particularly the need to have them all boil their situations down to a "cry for justice". It was as if it was written to be what some writer "slumming it" in comic books thought a comic book was supposed to read like. It read like the worst of 80s/90s comics. And they spend several pages doing a bad job of trying to establish the weight of what went on in that mini. It gives the book a mediocre-at-best start (and, honestly, it can't see mediocre from where it's standing). They, also, have this spin out of Blackest Night, but just barely. Even still, it is a sounder move to have this work with aftermath of the biggest selling DC project, rather than an ongoing that got downgraded to a mini and started ridiculously long after it was initially supposed to come out.
2. You have heroes quitting. No, I'm not talking about Vixen talking about leaving the JLA. That sort of thing has been done to death, but you can't necessarily knock it. If the membership is going to change, you'll need scenes like this. No, I mean Donna Troy quitting being a hero. I don't just mean deciding not to gather with other heroes to fight crime. I don't mean not going on patrols or anything like that. I mean showing up at the scene of an ongoing crime and telling the police present that she won't lift a finger to potentially save lives. Has this been done before? Possibly. Has it rang false most of the time? Yup. Does it come off as unbelievable here? You betcha.
3. In about five panels time, we have Donna Troy convinced to not only keep going as a hero, but join the Justice League and start recruiting others to be a member of the biggest super-heroing-show on Earth. Let's see...on one page we have "those people might die? fuck those people" and "I'll go convince others to help me save the Earth from evil-doers" on the next. Holy shit, that's bad.
4. In this book that couldn't manage to properly make you feel the weight of past events on the characters and had Donna Troy go from "fuck everyone else" to top JLA cheerleader so fast that my head is still spinning, we're given several pages of a poorly written flashback to 1777? If there have been a less enjoyable or useful four pages in a DC Comic book in the last 5-10 years, I haven't seen them (and I'm glad, as I can't imagine what my reaction to THAT work would be). Like so many of the problems I have with this book, I don't think I can say it better than "it reads like the worst 1980s comic book you ever read".
5. So far, the only purpose the flashback served was to introduce us to some possibly alien artifact that a scientist at the Smithsonian delivers the clunkiest exposition while examining. How clunky? The kind you haven't read outside of the worst 1980s comic book. What's worse is that it tells you that it is bad. Robinson writes the scientist as recognizing how bad the dialogue is. It is as if he realized he was writing shitty dialogue and, rather than fix it, had the character acknowledge it as if it made it cool and meta, rather than lazy and shite.
6. Donna gets her cheerleading on. She takes a half page to recruit Starfire and the other half to recruit Cyborg. One of the biggest problems I have with this book is that it makes all the wrong choices with how it chooses to spend pages on the story. I get that you have to be efficient and economical with how you dole out space in a book where you're throwing together a whole new JLA. But you have to do that smartly...and that is where this book fails.
7. Donna then recruits Dick Grayson Batman. And in the five pages used for this bit, Dick calls Damian a drama queen. I know Dick is so much more lighthearted than Bruce...but drama queen? Really? It seems a bit out of character and oddly placed. I can't explain why it should bother me so much as to rate its own spot in this list, but it does.
8. Please don't make me talk about how terrible the dialogue between Donna Troy and Dr. Light was. I don't think I could survive having to read it again.
9. Mon-El Superman gets recruited. Two pages/four panels of showing how heroic and stoic he is, followed by a monosyllabic Guardian asking him who he captured and confirming that he captured him and tied together with a bow by Dr. Light recruiting him by simply pointing out that Superman was in the JLA. Really, because we needed a splash page and a three panel page establishing Mon-El Superman so he could be recruited by saying, "you want to be like Superman? Superman was in the JLA." Pages wasted on bullshit and Robinson having the characters having to TELL everything and show nothing. He wants to spend pages on "cool visuals" for throwaway scenes, painting himself into a corner where he has to give you microwave character development and terrible, exposition-heavy dialogue.
10. I was about to say the Green Lantern/Green Arrow bit was the only part I didn't have a problem with. But then I re-read and caught the "what do I do that'll make the rage burning within go away?" line. Holy shit, this book can't even manage to handle a two page scene without having something hack fall out of a character's mouth.

I'd really like to refine my points above more. At the least, I should really come up with a paragraph or two that sums things up and makes a bit more of a constructive statement than the griping you see above. But I just can't do it. I'm trying to put this issue behind me. What I've shared here is an attempt at catharsis. I'm hoping it will set me free and I can begin reading any of the other comic books (possibly mediocre, but undoubtedly better than this one) that I bought last night. Maybe I'll revisit this next week and try to dissect the book with more care and thought. But I need to try to get away from it now.

Oh Dear God No!

Someone tell me this is a joke?

At first glance, I just thought he was returning to the art chores on Batman, working with Judd Winick.

But no: Tony Daniel, the man who made Battle For The Cowl read as even more unnecessary than I had expected, is going to be WRITING & DRAWING BATMAN starting in October.

Winick just got on the book. His previous Batman run was one of the few works from him in recent years that I can't remember anything I didn't like about it. But we're losing him to get Tony Daniel handling the writing and drawing on a book that is meant to be monthly?

Ugh!

Bagley On JLA Part Dos

OK, the finished promo cover for the start of Bagley's run on JLA has increased by eagerness to see it start, similar to thinking more about Robinson being more plugged into the major moves in the DCU has gotten me geeked for it.

Robinson/Bagley On JLA

The Source blog announced that James Robinson and Mark Bagley will be working on Justice League of America starting in August. While not my dream team, I can definitely see some great advantages in their pairing on the book.

Robinson is basically immersed in all the big events going on at DC through his collaborations with Geoff Johns on the Superman books and Blackest Night: Superman, not to mention always having the potential to put together something great.

Bagley is fast and still manages to turn out some of the better artwork out there. I wonder what his work would be like if allowed more time to breathe and grow, but I'll definitely take it as is.

It isn't a pairing that made my jaw drop the second I heard about it. But it is a pairing that my excitement for is growing as it sinks in.

Fourthman Reviews: Mighty Avengers #10 & Thunderbolts #119

By Lee Newman

The Mighty Avengers #10
Published by Marvel
Written by Brian Michael Bendis
Art by Mark Bagley

Mighty Avengers, you had such promise when you started. There was the idea of a registration Avengers team. There was the powerhouse of your line up. To start out you had BMB and Frank Cho and followed that up with Mark Bagley. Kind of like a certain President, you took that mandate and literally flushed it down the toilet. Oh, you didn’t lie to us, not really. You were just plagued by delays and boring drawn out stories that lost their dramatic impact by having the albatross of being three to four months behind the rest of the Marvel Universe behind you. As an imaginary story years down the road, you might have lived up to your promise, but alas it was not meant to be.

This is, by far, the worst issue yet. Really, nothing that is in this comic has been done and redone for forever. The promise of excitement by the funny coloring and the time displacement was lost by a first page that had nothing to do with events of the last issue and still leaves my head itchy. Then Bendis uses his new toys, thought bubbles, to paraphrase the words in the narrative boxes right next to them. Then there is the Sentry as babbling nutcase. Yeah, that got tired a couple years ago. He is the most powerful being in your universe stop coddling him, have him do something or let him get killed by the Skrulls. Please. Cliche after cliche pretty much hits us after this point. The Sentry throws Ben out a window to catch him? We have never seen that in a comic before. There is some witty banter between Doom and Stark, but it is all too little. Really the only clever part in the whole story is the use of Mastermind’s gambit to give the trio a way out of the past.

Bagley. I just don’t get the love. It must be that he is fast. Because, otherwise he seems like pretty typical 90's Marvel House art and when I use the word House art, I am never being kind. Really it is the coloring here by Ponsor that should be showcased, given the book the old school vibe that everyone seems to think is there.

This story does two things to me.. It bores me and it insults my intelligence by assuming that I have never read a comic before. Bad show guys, bad show.

Thunderbolts #119
Published by Marvel
Written by Warren Ellis
Art by Mike Deodato, Jr.

So over in Iron Fist, Brubaker and Fraction have been dragging a story that was okay into the decompressed ground. Well now Ellis, a writer that I have the utmost respect for, is doing the same.

Here’s how it all plays out...

The Thunderbolts in lock down in the mountain: genius.
Norman showing his true schizophrenic colors: brilliant.
Swordmaster pitting security guards against security guards: priceless.

However, the bimonthly schedule is playing havoc on my tiny brain. I don’t even remember who the villains are or why Doc Sampson is with Robbie. I read way too many books to be lost until half way through, wondering if I read the last issue before it all starts to make sense. It all boils down to us being on part four of a storyline that should probably be finishing up, but instead there is a nice “to be continued” at the end of the issue.

Warren is writing for the trade? Really? I am so disappointed.

Deodato does fine with what he is given, but there is not much to work with. A 30 second shoot out takes up FOUR PAGES and then has an epilogue that is a TWO PAGE SPLASH SPREAD!

It isn’t a bad book, it has just gone on too long. It’s time to put this one to rest, guys.

SCHWAPP!!! Comics Week 22.1: Mighty Avengers #8