Four Hue Comics Revue -- Atomic Robo Volume 3: Atomic Robo and the Shadow From Beyond Time (2009)

Here's the 3rd volume in Brian "8-Bit Theatre" Clevinger's and Scott Wegener's Atomic Robo series. It was originally published as a mini-series like the other volumes and also includes some "B Stories" done by other artists just for fun.

The main plot is that there's a Lovecraftian creature from outside of our universe that intersects with it at various points in the timeline. Atomic Robo, being a robot and thus immortal, is on hand to battle it each time it appears to menace civilization. This leads to more awesome encounters with historical figures.

We open in 1926 when Tesla was still alive and Robo was still basically a naive kid and not quite as sarcastic as he would become later. He even uses antiquated slang like "Horsefeathers!" Authors Charles Fort and H.P. Lovecraft himself stop by to tell Robo of the Shadow and how they battled it with Tesla back in 1908, unwittingly causing the Tunguska Event.

Clevinger even includes an hilariously exaggerated portrayal of Lovecraft's legendary paranoid racism as he believes Robo to be some kind of "pygmy" and goes into a tirade before Fort informs him that Robo is Tesla's famous automatic man. The book is worth a purchase almost on the grounds of this alone. We also get scenes from encounters in 1957, 1971, and 2009.



The 1971 chapter is memorable for the inclusion of a fictionalized version of Carl Sagan, one of Clevinger's personal heroes according to his introduction to the book. Sagan, though highly skeptical of the Shadow's very existence, joins Robo regardless and there's some interesting conversation to be had and inventive concepts that come up. I'll leave it to you to find out about the "Zorth" axis. The "B-Stories" this time around aren't as good as others, but I did like the fake interview with Robo told as a text piece.

Scott Wegener started out good when I read volume 1 and has retained all his positive traits while also improving on his panel-to-panel transistioning, which I will admit that in his older work could occassionally be confusing. I love the little things he brings to this title, like the clothing styles Robo uses in the different eras. 1926 Robo has suspenders, 1971 Robo has a Gilligan hat, and 2009 Robo walks around in a Madman shirt.

This was by far my favorite volume of the series to date. I highly recommend picking it up. At this rate of quality Clevinger will be known for Atomic Robo moreso than 8-Bit in a few years. Kind of like Dwayne Johnson whom we used to know only as The Rock.

5/5

Four Hue Comics Revue -- Atomic Robo Volume 1: Atomic Robo and the Fightin' Scientists of Tesladyne (2007)

This is the collected edition to the first Atomic Robo mini-series. It's by Brian Clevinger (of 8-Bit Theater fame) and artist Scott Wegener. Robo himself is a sarcastic robot created by Nikola Tesla that fights foes and creatures related to mad science and the occult. His adventures have occurred throughout the ages from his creation in 1923 up to the present day, all thanks to the fact that robots don't age.

Robo's first mini doesn't really connect with one plot thread, despite a few issues devoted to fighting Baron von Helsingard, but do a good job of introducing us in the reading audience to the character and some of his supporting cast. Helsingard himself is introduced and the other mini-series after this one more or less agree that he's Robo's arch-enemy. We also see one of this comic's hallmarks of showing encounters between Robo and famous people throughout the 20th century and onwards.



This volume has a few other journeys into wackiness with giant ants and...let's just say, strange pyramids. My personal favorite was issue #4 which is a mission to Mars set in 1975. Carl Sagan convinces Robo to man NASA's Mars mission since robot's don't need food. Unfortunately for Robo, Stephen Hawking nurses a grudge against him and tricks NASA into thinking Robo has a shut down mode for the trip so they'd don't include any entertainment. So after the lengthy trip to the red planet our hero teeters on the fringes of sanity and hilarity ensues.

While this was not Scott Wegener's first professional work, it was undoubtedly his first high profile one thanks to Clevinger's internet fame. The animated series look his art has is perfect for the over-the-top things that go on in Atomic Robo's world. I also have to hand it to him for the great design on Robo himself in a time when it seems to me a lot of artists just can't seem to do iconic characters like guys like Jack Kirby or Dave Cockrum could.

Go get this book if you like humorous adventure work like Indiana Jones. I'd also describe it as a kind of like Hellboy but with more jokes and sci-fi stuff.

4/5

Four Hue Comics Revue -- Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot (1995)

Most people would be familiar with Big Guy and Rusty from their old cartoon, but they were actually a comic book first. Published by Dark Horse in 1995, Frank Miller and Geof Darrow did two issues that introduced the characters and told a crazy old time comic story at the same time. They never went beyond those intro issues, but the characters were revived for the previously mentioned cartoon that lasted some two seasons. Today, the two issue Big Guy and Rusty comic is collected in a single trade paperback. Harder to find is the "King Size Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot" collection which is in black and white with the dialogue and sound effects removed. This was done to show off the insane talent behind Geof Darrow's art. Not too many people can get down to this guy's level of detail, but more on that later.

Frank Miller has crafted this story from his love of 60's Marvel Comics, Astroboy and mech anime, and giant monster movies. It's not deep or anything like that. Like the collaboration with Darrow before this, Hard Boiled, it's mostly a vehicle to give Darrow fun stuff to draw. In any case, it's enjoyable for people that are fans of the same things Miller is a fan of. I like old 60's Marvel books so I appreciate how Miller has filled the story with alliteration, super-exaggerated dialogue, and tons of exclamation marks. You'd almost think Stan Lee himself wrote this. It also invokes stuff like national pride and the virtues you used to see in comic book heroes before everyone wanted to be Watchmen. It's all tongue-in-cheek, but I'll give Miller credit for not making it that mean kind of ironic I see in other books.



The actual plot is that the Japanese have created this monster during an experiment and it gets taken over by this dormant hive-mind that used to run the Earth. The monster goes around the city and oozes this slime that mutates people into deformed dinosaur looking monsters. Rusty is Japan's prototype defense robot who intentionally looks a lot like Astroboy. After he fails to stop the big monster the Japanese call America and they send the Big Guy. Big Guy is a battlesuit piloted by a soldier named Dwayne, full name Dwayne Hunter in the cartoon. He tears it up with the monster in widescreen city destroying style all for the amusement of us in the reading audience. If you've ever seen it, the fight from the first episode of the cartoon borrows a little from the comic, even down to some of the dialogue.

Geof Darrow's art safely falls into that category of "like nothing you've ever seen before." He draws incredibly intricate things. You'd almost have to bring out a magnifying glass to see all the tiny details. This is why it took him a number of years to get this book and Hard Boiled done. Darrow's sense of scale serves a giant monster story. You'll see massive damage, people flying around as streets and buildings are torn apart, and yet it maintains a bizarre sense of realism despite the monster being so over-the-top. Dark Horse made a good decision when they printed the collected edition on oversized pages. It really shows off Darrow's art when you'd lose a lot on normal sized pages. Reading something like this on a device like an iPhone or PSP would be futile.

If you ever see this book hanging around then at least check out its insides. It's pretty cheap besides...my copy was only $15. You might also want to check out the animated series. It features two of the voice actors from King of the Hill so it's a little strange to see them interacting on something completely different. Geof Darrow also had a hand in creature design on the show and I like the way the animators captured a bit of his detailed art style here and there on the show. Did I mention it's free to see on Hulu?

5/5

This Week in Comics -- 2/4/2010

Siege #2 (BOOK OF THE WEEK!)
Thanks the last week's highly professional overstuffed release list there's only one book to review this week, and that book is Siege #2. It also conveniently gets Book of the Week, but it was good so it may have won that on a normal week anyway.

Norman Osborn and his Dark Avengers are in the middle of invading Asgard, which is Thor's homeland, a patch of rock currently floating somewhere over Oklahoma. It does not appear as if either Osborn's forces or the Asgardians are winning when Ares discovers that Osborn lied to him to get him into battle. He turns on his former boss and winds up toe-to-toe with the Sentry. This is not good for Ares given the recent revelations that Sentry is more or less a reality warper with insane physical abilities. It gets much more violent than I feel mainstream comics should be getting, but artist Olivier Coipel gives us one incredible battle nonetheless.

We also see Captain America gather his forces and them travel to join Thor and his countrymen in the war. The last page of this issue pretty much says it all. I'm very pleased that someone convinced Quesada and especially Bendis to keep this story to four issues. Secret Invasion could have very much benefited from being shortened to this length with the majority of the tie-ins cut out. I've liked DC's crossovers better the last few years, but Siege is keeping a level of momentum that Blackest Night burnt out on (surprisingly enough) four or five issues in.
RATING: WAIT FOR THE TRADE

Four Hue Comics Revue -- Ministry of Space (2001)

Ministry of Space was a three issue limited series put out by Image starting in 2001. Artist Chris Weston drew the Filth in between the 2nd and 3rd issue so the final part didn't come out until 2004.

Writer Warren Ellis says that he came up with idea for this when he found an old Dan Dare comic in his attic. Dan Dare was more or less the British version of Flash Gordon. He was an adventure hero that existed in one of those optimistic space-centered futures as envisioned by sci-fi creators back in the 1950's. In any case, this lost optimism for the future made the world of heroes like Dan Dare seem more like an alternate reality to the present in Ellis' eyes.

The story is about an alternate history from the end of World War II where the British empire gets the German rocket scientists instead of America and forms the agency called the Ministry of Space, leading the globe in technology and the exploration and colonization of space. John Dashwood is the driving force behind the agency and has secured funding via a mysterious "black budget."

Ellis recognizes that something as fast moving and driven as the Ministry would need to be headed by an old school kind of guy, hence John Dashwood. Dashwood is a veteran, a patriot, and not afraid to fly experimental craft himself (some of the consequences of which you'll see for yourself in the book). They don't make guys like this anymore. Though recognizing this, guys of Ellis' philosophical and political persuasions often can't allow themselves to think well of people from these earlier eras so the writer gives Dashwood a nasty streak in the vein of many of his other characters.



Still this is one of Ellis' strongest works. There's none of his cookie-cutter bad girls to be found and only Dashwood seems to have his patented bad attitude. There's a subtle twist to the optimistic society thrown into this work that helps make it more interesting and you'll see it throughout but really pick up on it in the last page and when the black budget's source is revealed. It is much stronger for being downplayed. I don't agree with Ellis that society would end up this way had the values and drive of the 50's remained at the forefront of consciousness, but it's well told nonetheless.

Chris Weston's art is beautifully done over these short three chapters. You'll understand this from the first scene showing the quaint English countryside. As we progress Weston does his best job on the technology of this retro future. The ships look like the ultimate evolution of ideas started by Dan Dare artist Frank Hampson. Toward the end we get a glimpse of Martian colonization that could well be the storyboards for a Hollywood film.

Laura Martin (then Laura DePuy) is also very much deserving of some credit for the art on this project. She may be the best colorist in comics today. Her work brings out the retro vibe of the series. Read this book and you'll understand why Rocketeer creator Dave Stevens had her recolor the Rocketeer, which itself is set in the 1930's.

I recommend picking up the hardcover of this book. It's not too expensive and looks great on the bookshelf.

5/5

Game of the Year Round-Up

So a month into 2010 we've got most of the major sites and organizations' Game of the Year awards for 2009 already awarded. Here's a quick overview of what the industry/community consensus seems to be:

1. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (PS3)
Uncharted 2 got the win from 1UP, Eurogamer, Game Informer, Giant Bomb, IGN, Joystiq, Kotaku, Metacritic, X-Play, and the Spike TV VGAs. This game was by far gamingdom's favorite with 10 votes. It seemed to come completely out of nowhere this year when it garnered crazy amounts of praise upon release. It certainly deserves it as I can tell you myself this was one fine game.

2. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (X-Box 360/PS3/PC)
Surprisingly, only GameSpy and GameTrailers gave their vote to Modern Warfare 2. Before all the results came out I too thought this would be the GotY by a large margin. Did most of the major sites just want to be different this year (well, as different as they could be)? Who can say.

3. Demon's Souls (PS3), Assassin's Creed II (X-Box 360/PS3/PC), and Dragon Age: Origins (X-Box 360/PS3/PC)
Tieing it out was GameSpot's almost odd choice of Demon's Souls, GamePro's pick of Assassin's Creed II, and Gamasutra's vote for Dragon Age: Origins. I haven't played any of these, but it is nice to see some sites/magazines picking out games that weren't all AAA titles with the full hype machine behind them.

Game Review -- Dark Void (2010)

It's great to start 2010 with a game of Dark Void's quality. A lot of the pro reviewer set has typically derided this game for both being a supposed Gears of War riff and not being a complete Gears of War/Halo/Modern Warfare clone. I feel this path of reviewing is not a good one. It puts down a lot of games that just don't have the budget to look as polished as those big names. I won't lie and say Dark Void is the best looking game I've ever seen, but I will defend its excellent art direction, which to me makes up for images on the screen that don't match the resolution of Gears 2.

You are a cargo pilot named Will who flies out of Nassau. The year is 1938 and World War II's total breakout is just around the corner. Characters in the game are very mindful of this and collectively refer to Germany and its various allies as "Fascists" rather than Nazis. I don't see this as some kind of whitewash or anything...it was probably just done for simplicity's sake. Anyway, Will's ex-girlfriend Ava hires his plane and they go down in the Bermuda Triangle. They are transported to a border dimension called the Void, a land with strange physics between Earth and the homeworld of the resident evil aliens called the Watchers.



Will discovers that humans lost in the Triangle and other areas on Earth have banded together in the Void to fight the Watchers as a group called "the Survivors." He meets Nikola Tesla and gets ahold of Tesla's experimental rocket pack that was derived from Watcher technology and then the real fun of the game begins. This game's plot leans on a lot of conspiracy theory lore, from the aforementioned Bermuda Triangle to the one about lizard aliens that can assume human form. I don't often say this about game plots, but this concept is strong enough to me that I almost would have rather seen it in a comic book, movie, or novel than a game.

I found this a fine bunch of concepts to combine into classic 30's style adventure where normal people have an adventure on some exotic island or somesuch. Kind of like King Kong or even a Jules Verne book. You get that sense of wonder from that time period before satellite imaging made us feel like everything on Earth had already been discovered. This is what makes the pick of time period so appropriate. I saw a lot of pro game reviewers not get these aspects of the story, instead focusing on the individual characters which were not supposed to be the driving force of the concept. This makes these pros come off as poorly read to me.



You'll find yourself on a variety of missions ranging from prison breaks to flying cover for Survivor vehicles. Escort missions usually raise an eyebrow in the gaming community, but it thankfully never becomes a problem in this game due to the stuff you're protecting having a fairly large amount of health and effectively fighting back along with you. One section of an escort mission can get a little frustrating

On the ground the game plays much like any modern 3rd Person Shooter with a cover mechanic. You have the standard assault rifle, enemy laser gun, sniper rifle, rocket launcher/BFG, etc. You can only carry two at once. There are two specialty guns that you only really use once, but if you desire them again this game has a rather innovative feature involving a "weapons locker." This is a box lying on the primary path of a level where you can swap out whatever you're carrying for whatever you want with ammo totally refilled. Each gun and the rocket pack's own guns also can be upgraded twice for more firepower. My personal recommendation is to upgrade the assault rifle and rocket pack before anything else.



Flying with the rocket pack has two modes: hovering and flying. While hovering you fire with your guns and you can't boost up a little if you need to. The flying mode has you barreling ahead and you fire with the machine guns mounted on the rocket pack. You can break, boost, and use the analog stick to execute a lot of moves you might remember from stuff like Star Fox 64. This plays very well and smooth. You can also take over Survivor planes, which look like cool bi-planes spruced up with stolen Watcher tech. One of the funnest things to do is hijack an enemy flying saucer. The Survivor plane and UFO both control just like when you have the rocket pack so no need to worry about learning a million different flight control schemes. These vehicles have some specialty missiles to help you out so grabbing them in a tough fight can be useful.

The "vertical cover" element of combat has been tied to this game practically since it was announced. You basically take cover while looking down or up and can move between platforms with the push of a button or pop out and fire at an enemy. My personal favorite thing to do is jump over to enemies and melee them. In vertical cover mode this is a series of canned animation sequences where you knock your foe out and often hurl them to their doom. Never gets old.



One of the games main composers was Bear McCreary of Battlestar Galactica fame. I don't know how much he contributed beyond the main theme, but I will praise this game for having some exciting music during the course of your playthrough. A quick word on the visuals: Dark Void doesn't have textures as detailed as some of the blockbusters out there but it more than makes up for that in its visual style. I love the look of the Survivor city and how it's like one of those cool Mad Max or barbarian movie places made up out of basically junk. The environment can take some incredible features too such as when you fight the Collector or the Dweller. That Collector fight was almost like something out of the Odyssey.

I will admit that there are valid criticisms to level about the number of bugs in the game. On one level a battleship I had to fight didn't load right and so I had to restart the level (there's a handy option for that). The voices became a little distorted during the opening cutscene but were fine after that. The frame rate became a slide show during one normal gunfight for about 30 seconds, but after that I had no problems elsewhere in the game. You can also seemingly die randomly while doing the "hijack UFO" minigame. I'm not sure if that's a glitch or if you're dying because the UFO hit something or another UFO shot you off and you just didn't see it.



Fortunately in these modern times of consoles hooked up to the internet it's easy to patch things like this. I can't say I approve of the mindset that says it's okay to launch a mostly working game onto the marketplace just because you can patch it later. That's one of the philosophies that makes PC gaming a constant headache. I have no desire to see that become the norm on consoles.

All in all this was an excellent game. If you've got a love of those classic exploration style adventures then don't hesitate to grab this game. There's no multiplayer so your replays will likely be centered on getting achievements. Just be aware of that. To anyone on the fence I say at least give this game a shot when the price drops. It's worth that at least.

4/5

Videogame Legend Report #5

Legend: The "Justin Bailey" from the famous Metroid password is a real person.

The original Metroid, like a lot of NES games, used a password system to save game progress instead of a battery backed up save system. It has one of the most famous passwords from those days as well: typing in "JUSTIN BAILEY" allows you play as Samus without her armor with all weapons. She's in a leotard or one-piece bathing suit depending on what you think you see on the screen:



For years fans and gamers wondered who Justin Bailey was. Was he a programmer? Someone a programmer knew? Was he a kid that won some contest to get his name in the game? There was no programmer with that name (indeed, they were all Japanese) and no such contest existed either.

Another popular theory was that the password is meant to be the phrase "just in bailey," referring to what Samus is wearing. Bailey was supposedly slang for swimsuits in the UK and Australia, but this is also not true.



The website (and excellent Metroid resource) Metroid Database appears to have solved the problem with the Metroid Password Generator. There are a number of other passwords that work other than Justin Bailey, but it would seem that JB and accompanying rumors got spread around fast as it could be anyone's name in the United States. In other words we were all projecting meaning on something essentially lacking any.

The Metroid wiki also goes over Justin Bailey in their password section.

Final Answer: FALSE

And special thanks to my fellow blogger on My Life as a Galactic Pirate Lord for the new logo.

This Week in Comics -- 1/27/2010

Atom and Hawkman #46
Atom and Hawkman's old comic gets another single issue special as part of Blackest Night's "resurrected titles" gimmick. Since Hawkman's a Black Lantern zombie right now it's really more of an Atom solo story/character piece. We go into his past and his reasons for being with his murderous ex-wife Jean Loring, as well as their final battle. The headlining artist is Ryan Sook. He does a pretty good job here and his work reminds me a lot of Todd Nauck from the old Young Justice series. As I've mentioned before I think these books were commissioned at the last second and the art for most of them has been rushed. Sook's appears much cleaner than that and I suspect it is due to the assist by this issue's second credited artist.

I haven't been all that impressed with the other "resurrected" titles that DC has put out. This one ties directly into what's going on because it's written by Geoff Johns, who's also writing the main Blackest Night series. People following the event might want to pick this one up solo so they don't have to buy a trade with a bunch of other sub-par stories in it.
RATING: BUY IT

Batman and Robin #7
Grant Morrison joins the incredible Cam Stewart this month for the new storyarc in Batman and Robin. Morrison enjoys using the British counterparts to Batman and Robin, the Knight and the Squire, and brings them into the story. He's well within his rights to do so as he's developed the characters in previous comics. They'd gone unused for years beforehand. Anyway, that skeleton of Bruce Wayne that was left over during Final Crisis is brought to a Lazarus Pit (plot device that resurrects the dead) and we see someone get out. Is it Wayne? We'll find out for sure next issue. If nothing else we'll finally find out what the skeleton was all about.

There's a little logical error in the plot. Morrison puts the Dick Grayson Batman up against some Batman-styled British villains to find the Lazarus Pit, but when he gets there the Knight has already set the resurrection in motion...and was apparently hired by Grayson to do that all along. Why does Grayson go through that trouble in the first place? Batwoman also shows up for no reason and the dialogue for her and Grayson is swapped in one panel by accident. If you wait for the collected edition this will no doubt be corrected.
RATING: WAIT FOR THE TRADE

Captain America Reborn #6
And Ed Brubaker and Bryan Hitch bring Captain America Reborn to its conclusion. For those that read these by the month this is noticably late as Steve Rogers has already reappeared in several other titles at this point. I've personally never understood why anyone whined about this since the very title of the mini-series tells you that Rogers is coming back.

The entire last issue is one of those cool Hitch fight scenes with some cool moments. Brubaker can't do them like Mark Millar, but he does get fun out of Pym particles when Cap and Bucky go up against the Red Skull in the climax. We also get to see that "glimpse of the future" that Cap was talking about in other issues. It's very War of the Worlds. All in all a good issue, but at this point those not picking it up should just wait for the collected edition. Brubaker's writing style reads better that way anyway.
RATING: WAIT FOR THE TRADE

Chew #8 (BOOK OF THE WEEK!)
Unfortunately I've yet to track down a copy of issue #7 so I had to read this issue with only a summary of #7 to go by. Fortunately, while each issue in a storyarc is connected by an overall plot, each issue also works just fine individually. This book is kind of old school that way. This time John Layman and Rob Guillory show Tony Chu teaming up with the local police chief on this island nation to find the prize fighting rooster Poyo. I'm missing John Colby, but Chu alone provides a witty enough experience. It's still amazing how funny this book can be considering the premise is getting psychic info by eating people. Little bit of a surprise ending to boot. I just hope I can find issue #9 when it comes out.
RATING: BUY IT

Fantastic Four #575
A thoroughly average issue setting up a new location for Hickman to tell future stories. Dale Eaglesham is back at least and gives us the Fantastic Four looking like adventure heroes again and that retro 50's jet age technology. If the Venture Bros was drawn more realistically (relatively speaking) it would probably be done by Eaglesham. Hickman also includes one of his info heavy epilogue pages like he does in Secret Warriors, but unfortunately it is not done by him in his art style. Too bad as I really like his art and his sense of graphic design.
RATING: SKIP IT

Green Lantern #50
The reps for each Lantern Corps (plus their temporary deputies) battle it out with the Black Lantern Spectre zombie in this 50th issue. Before Johns completely breathed new life into the Green Lantern franchise nobody would have believed a new comic starring Hal Jordan of all characters would last 50 issues. Yet here we are. Johns brings it full circle and Hal Jordan must face becoming the monster Parallax again like he was right before the first issue of this comic. Doug Mahnke remains the artist on this title since Ivan Reis is doing Blackest Night. Anyone out there with even a fraction of taste recognizes this as a good thing. I don't know if this plot thread from the end of the issue will continue into Blackest Night or the next issue of Green Lantern, but it's going to be cool to see where it goes.
RATING: WAIT FOR THE TRADE

Kick-Ass #8
And here at last is the conclusion to Mark Millar and John Romita Jr's Kick-Ass. Dave and Hit Girl are two kids up against several armed mobsters. This book has maintained an incredibly realistic edge but this ending is much more like something out of Hard Boiled than real life. The epilogue involving Dave and Katie, though, that's trope subversion straight out of the real world. Millar even sets up the premise for the next volume of Kick-Ass he said he plans to write. If Romita comes back we'll be completely in business. Since this is the last issue anyone not already buying this should just wait for the collected edition. The movie is due in April of this year so the collection will likely come within a month at most.
RATING: WAIT FOR THE TRADE

Secret Warriors #12
Jonathan Hickman focuses again on the SHIELD/Hydra/Leviathan massive conspiracy and this is easily the most intriguing plot thread in his book. He does a little character work on a couple of Fury's kid trainees, but just about anyone could tell he's much more interested in the organizations and the guys running them. Leviathan is a concept that just makes sense. SHIELD came from the Western world after World War II and Hydra came from the remnants of the Nazis, therefore it only makes sense that Leviathan would arise from the communist forces around the Soviet Union. The manga inspired art of Stephan Caselli is a big part of this comic's selling point. I don't enjoy nearly as much when he's not on it. Love that coloring too.
RATING: WAIT FOR THE TRADE

Spider-man: Clone Saga #5
As I've been noticing throughout the run of this, it doesn't seem to vary that much from the original Clone Saga that ran through the Spider-man comics in the 90's for several years. We've got one issue to go and so far all the major story beats have been hit. Perhaps this means we'll get some kind of cool twist for the last chapter. Despite the bad rep the original Clone Saga got, I've always felt the final issue, a Spidey/Green Goblin fight as drawn by John Romita Jr, was one of the best Spider-man comics ever published. I hope the end of this issue doesn't mean what it looks like for Ben Reilly. His original fate is something I would have liked to change about the original story too.
RATING: FOR CLONE SAGA FANS ONLY

Superman: Secret Origin #4
Welcome to the next chapter in Geoff Johns' revised origin of Superman. The Parasite gets his modern origin this issue and his fight with Superman is the first time the hero meets Luthor in his hero identity. Luthor wants to start up a smear campaign but the Daily Planet won't follow the narrative. All this and Superman meets Jimmy for the first time. I've got to hand it to Johns for getting so much done in one issue of a modern age comic, and done well at that. Gary Frank draws Christopher Reeve on the page every time Superman appears. It's great and yet almost eerie. I hope the two of them collaborate on some more Superman stuff after this mini-series ends.
RATING: WAIT FOR THE TRADE

X-men Forever #16
Solid issue this week. Nightcrawler and Rogue go down to Mississippi and find out about their pasts from Mystique while some other subplots stew in the background. Claremont fulfills his long-standing subplot from the old days about Mystique being Nightcrawler's mother. The jury's still out on whether or not Marvel will let him go with his original strange plan that Mystique (being a shape changer) was technically Nightcrawler's father. The word "mother" used this issue by Mystique makes me think the company (and maybe Claremont too at this point) are going the less freaky route. There's a bit of a continuity hiccup toward the end, but anyone whose head still explodes over these quit reading this book awhile back. Me? I don't care, I'm enjoying this work.
RATING: BUY IT MOAR

This Week in Comics -- 1/20/2010

It sucks being out of town when all the local comic shops under-order in an overcrowded city and you show up after work only to find most everything you wanted has sold out already. What a world where I would have to be unemployed just to get to the store in time to pay real money for something. To think I insist on being honest and not pirating a lot of this overpriced stuff. So what should be like nine reviews this week becomes two.

Update: I found a shop with decent stock. Back to normal reviews.

Blackest Night: Flash #2
This one mostly focuses on Barry Allen fighting Black Lanterns after being turned into a Blue Lantern. We see a lot of his emotional reactions to all these dead people he knows suddenly come back to life to fight him. The Rogues meanwhile fight against Black Lanterns that were some of their old members. It was pretty cool seeing the old Mirror Master again, though since he's a Black Lantern it's hard to tell if he really is resentful over his successor or not. The Black Lanterns don't exactly tell a lot of truth after all.
RATING: WAIT FOR THE TRADE

Captain America #602
What can I say here? Writer Ed Brubaker's never shied away from throwing a line or two from the Democrat party line in his books, but here he practically makes a political after school special. He ridicules the Tea Parties that went on in 2009 and, despite claiming in interviews that he was being even-handed, has revealed in his actual story little understanding of what it was about. I think it's a matter of his being unable to expand his worldview or wrap his mind around anything other than stereotypes of conservatives. The protesters are against excessive government spending and policies that will result in higher taxation, yet to people in left wing partisan mode this is all filtered into the Nazi march from the Blues Brothers. This basically:



The story is about many locals in Boise joining up with the crazy impostor Captain America from the 1950's to become the new Watchdogs, portrayed as anti-government white supremacists. Bucky uses the Falcon to help him infiltrate the organization in a bar scene. This is particularly funny as it's basically the bar from South Park. You know, the one with redneck cliches that always talk about how they "don't take kindly to you types around har." Note this scene was not played for satire.

So we get yet another story that assumes white people outside major cities are auto-racists. This remains as tiresome as having a militant Russian be the bad guy in major films and videogames. But I almost don't blame Brubaker. Guys like him have their ideological blinders on and honestly can't help themselves sometimes. The book's editor is ultimately to blame for allowing a political hit piece to go through that directly insults, statistically speaking, half of the readership. He should have told Brubaker to save this kind of story for his own independent work.

These guys could definitely learn a lesson from Michael Jordan, who, when asked a political question, simply replied that he refused to answer on the grounds that "Republicans buy shoes too."
RATING: SKIP IT

Cowboy Ninja Viking #3
The over-sized format, triple personality killer fest continues. We meet a new Triplet this issue and you'll be surprised at her connection to CNV. I like how one of her personalities is the kind of foodie chef you find on the Food Network. Writer AJ Lieberman even makes fun of how those chefs make gourmet dishes out of almost random sounding ingredients. The story has been a little dense to this point and kind of hard to follow. With this issue I've finally been able to get most of the basics of the conspiracy plot and who the major players are. Maybe this series should have started with a flashback or something?

In any case, the cool art and color scheme by Riley Rossmo is something this book should be bought for if nothing else. Our color this month is green. I've got to say that I also love this series' cover designs by Dave Casey. It's cool how the issue number is spelled out in the lower right instead of just a straight up number.
RATING: BUY IT

Dark Avengers #13
Bendis gives us the true origin of the Sentry this issue and even shows us more of how powerful he really is. For note, Bendis himself didn't invent this origin. It was made by Paul Jenkins in his second Sentry mini-series from a few years back. I don't blame Bendis for devoting an issue to it in an Avengers title given that I doubt too many people read said Sentry mini-series. By issue's end the Sentry has become completely unstable and I'm not even sure Osborn can control him much longer.

At heart this issue is a character deconstruction. But ultimately what do you call the deconstruction of a Silver Age character that wasn't really a Silver Age character and actually kind of a deconstruction of one in the first place? Post-ironic maybe?
RATING: WAIT FOR THE TRADE

Dark Wolverine #82
We pick up Daken's story on the ground of the war between Norman Osborn's forces and Asgard as part of the Siege crossover. He spends a good chunk of the issue screwing with his teammates in that style we saw toward the beginning of this book becoming "Dark Wolverine." Artist Guiseppe Camuncoli gives us some compelling work on Daken at war with Asgardians. It's actually pretty violent. I love the way he draws the Wolverine mask. It's not as over-the-top as most artists draw it and a lot more like classic X-men artist Paul Smith. He also treats us to a nice Ms. Marvel panel toward the middle. Kudos.

Marvel should think about giving Camuncoli and writer Marjorie Liu some high profile work when Dark Wolverine is over. Other than Chew this comic has been the most sold out title I've seen in the last few months. If nothing else it shows they're doing something right.
RATING: WAIT FOR THE TRADE

Green Lantern Corps #44
More Green Lanterns fighting Black Lanterns. I think this has been going on straight for seven months now or so. It's starting to get like that season of Dragonball Z where Goku and Frieza somehow stretched a five minute fight across something like 25 episodes. Fortunately it looks like the creative team and/or DC are getting the point and the fight gets wrapped up this issue in a cool scene with Mogo, the living planet Green Lantern. It's still a little too much Blackest Night for me and I hate it when companies water these stories down with too many tie-ins. At this point I'd say anyone wanting to read Blackest Night should just read the regular Green Lantern title and the Blackest Night main series.
RATING: SKIP IT

Joe the Barbarian #1 (BOOK OF THE WEEK!)
If it wasn't for artist Sean Murphy this wouldn't be getting Book of the Week. It was written by the most inventive man working comics today, Grant Morrison, and yet this first issue is surprisingly derivative. The teenage main character (Joe if you haven't figured it out already) is a kid living in San Francisco whose problems read like a list of political talking points: his Dad died in Iraq, he has diabetes (healthcare), and his house is about to be foreclosed on. Any one of these could set the stage for character development but all of them together make me feel like I'm reading propaganda.

Joe likes to draw super-hero/sci-fi/fantasy stuff. If you guessed that also means he gets picked on by one dimensional school bullies then you would be correct. Ah, cliches. Toward the end of the issue we see his drawings and toys appear to come to life as he's transported to an alternate world where all these characters from comics, vidoegames, movies, etc are running away from something. Again we see something derivative as this is just South Park's Imaginationland concept. And yet it may just all be in his head.

Morrison's good at coming up with some honestly innovative and deep thinking stuff so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt, especially since this is the first chapter. Hopefully he switches this up from a South Park riff over the course of this mini-series. On a final note Sean Murphy's work is fantastic and wins this comic my book of the week award. It's so good that I may have given it to this comic even had I gotten the other books this week that I richly deserved.

Update 2: After reading the rest of this week's comics I was still right. Best art this week.
RATING: SEE WHERE IT GOES NEXT ISSUE

Starman #81
James Robinson brings Starman back for an issue as a tie-in to Blackest Night. David Knight gets brought back as a Black Lantern zombie and fights it out with the Shade and old Starman supporting characters the O'Dare police family. It's a pretty basic plot with a few character beats for long-time fans. What I expected really, but lacking in those quaint, often poetic asides I'd see in Starman of old.

For some reason neither Tony Harris nor Peter Snejbjerg come back for art and I suspect I know why. The art comes from Fernando Dagnino and Bill Sienkiewicz and is very sketchy (even for Sienkiewicz) and hard to follow in some areas, particularly in the part where Clarence O'Dare is on the phone. Was he killed or was that a flash to another scene? I think these "resurrected titles" were something of rush job commissioned by DC when they found out Blackest Night's main series was going to be late.

I can only really recommend this to Starman mega-fans...but then those guys were buying this anyway. I found the best part was the Tony Harris cover.
RATING: SKIP IT