Night Dreamer

Wednesday’s Comics Week 14

Daredevil #10.1

Point one issues exist as entry for new readers. Too bad only those who read Marvel’s PR releases are aware of such – and most of them are already their customers anyway. It’s a dumb idea: what would repel new readers faster than the knowledge that comic issues now have decimals? Take Venom, where #13 received .1, .2, .3, and .4 incarnations. And editorial staff continue to wonder why people deem their work too insular.

Daredevil does not need a new entry point, especially when their previous entry point, the relaunch, wasn’t even a year old and just came out in trades. Curious parties would be better off reading that anyway since it introduces Daredevil more effectively than this issue. I’m going to overlook the fact that it’s drawn by Khoi Pham, which means that the series’ main attraction, whether Paolo Rivera or Marcus Martin, is absent. It has bigger problems.

Daredevil #10.1 could not be less Marvel’s definition of ‘point-one’ than if it was #11 instead. The only ‘newbie-material’ here lays on the cover and the intro page summarizing Daredevil’s abilities and origin. The story spins directly from one of the ongoing threads beginning in Daredevil #6, about a hard drive that holds incriminating information. I’m finding it hard to care about a story based on this device, and I’ve been reading Daredevil since it relaunched. Just imagine how the proverbial new reader would learn to care about an unfamiliar character getting so worked up over a hard drive. It’s akin to viewing Nicolas Cage’s going berserk over a burnt doll in Wicker Man, without deriving the same ridicule.

Ultimate Comics Spider-man #9

UCSM #9 improves from previous issues by a margin, which makes me loath to write about it, because I feel obliged to reward an average-quality product with praise. It still suffers from Bendisian dialogue tics and his pacing issues: it’s hard to shake off the ‘that’s it?’ reaction that people get after reading. The art fares better, however, since David Marquez labours instead of rushing his art like Samnee and Pichelli did on #6-#8, and Justin Ponsor’s coloring manages to retain the same mood as Pichelli’s better issues (#1-#5).

It would become a mess to read in trade format with the shifting creative teams that don’t match styles. Why didn’t Marvel let David Marquez draw #6-#10 instead?

Wolverine and the X-Men #8

This stings. I had been enjoying WatXM at this point, so of course Marvel found a way to sneak in a dumb convolution to threaten my enjoyment. Every WatXM comes with a ‘PREVIOUSLY’ page that recounts the events of past issues (it’s in every Marvel comic), only in #8 there’s this bit about Beast’s girlfriend that was entirely absent in the series until now. Then the comic devoted a lot of panels on her enduring physical abuse, because that’s what comic book girlfriends are made for! Or at least that’s what it looks like, because the art is impossibly messy. Chris Bachalo returns here after being taken over by Nick Bradshaw, and his work stinks and has the unfortunate effect of making me sound fickle: dug his work in #1-#3, wasn’t sold on Bradshaw at #4, warmed to him since, and now I’m wishing him back. The entire action sequence in space is so incomprehensible that I needed to read dialogue bubbles to know what was happening.

Supreme #63

Supreme came out at the height of ‘the extreme-90s’, and was little more than Superman-with-attitude before creator Rob Liefeld hired Alan Moore to save it from commercial decline. Moore then abandoned Supreme’s continuity and instead turned him into a throwback to Silver-Age Superman. It was acclaimed like most of his work, but went unfinished, and eventually went out of print (still haven’t read those).

More than a decade later and in a move reminiscent of releasing Bob Dylan’s bootleg series, Image Comics printed Moore’s unpublished Supreme tale. It’s about a limbo universe that merges previous Supremes with the current one. Erik Larsen and Cory Hamscher drew Supreme #63. I’m not a fan, but I’m surprised by how much I like their art. It has a very Arthur Adams feel, where the male characters have enormous upper bodies and wear pointy shoes. It looks ‘very 90s’, if more cleaned up, and befits the tone of the book if for nothing more than as a callback to the era in which it flourished. Unfortunately, I’m not sure I’m comfortable with letting Larsen be the writer for #64-#65, as he will return Supreme to a more ‘heroes with attitude’ tone, even if #63’s story transitions to that well. Do we need more of those when we’re already severely lacking the ‘genuine nice guys’ in superhero stories?

I bought Supreme #63 more as a curiosity, and also because I really miss reading good Alan Moore’s comics. His recent work hasn’t been favorably received, and I wasn’t interested in Tom Strong, Promethea, or League of the Extraordinary Gentlemen, so my last Moore read was from quite way back. Swamp Thing, V for Vendetta, WildCATS, Watchmen, and DC Universe Stories were the apex of my comic-reading. I liked his writing here too, but it ultimately left me sadder to see him get screwed right over by DC, because it’s clear to me that the man has big ideas for superhero stories.

Fatale #4

The horror finally manifests! The story is weird, and I can’t even decide if that’s good or bad. I guess I’ll find out how it affects the next issue before passing a verdict on this one.

Wednesday’s Comics Week 15

Green Lantern #8

Green Lantern #8 contains Doug Mahnke’s ugliest art since the reboot. Usually with comics, you can’t take the cover into account for your judgment of what’s within, but GL #8 is the exception. Look at the image above and try to figure out how it’s possible for your rib cage to protrude to the extent Hal Jordan has.

It happens a few times in the comic; looking at them made me feel so uncomfortable I could almost feel my back breaking.

The story is progressively less interesting too. I still regard the first five issues as one of DC New 52’s most enjoyable (and underrated, given how they’re received by angry Hal Jordan fans who’d rather that he, not Sinestro, be the lead character) but Geoff Johns has turned the attention away from the Sinestro-Jordan dynamic, and made the story more about Guardians’ cosmic manipulations. I’ve never been sold with the way Johns write Guardians as one-dimensionally oppressive authoritarian figures. For a group that has essentially ran DC’s universe for million years, surely they’d be more wise and less arbitrary?

Saga #2

Saga is the kind of comic that restores my faith in the medium. Everyday, the ‘comics internet’ acts as Marvel and DC’s free marketing team, publicizing their latest gimmicks and rewarding even their mediocre efforts with loud, obnoxious, sometimes thuggish press. Out comes Saga, which Image published in relative silence: it isn’t surrounded by two-page advertisements in other Image comics; no one from the company was hyping it as ‘THE INDUTRY’S FUTURE!!!’; and the creators haven’t dominated social media by pretending to be everyone’s best friends.

It’s selling simply for its quality, a success story I wish I saw in comics more. Without knowing what it’s about, people counted on Brian K. Vaughn and Fiona Staples to offer the highest quality work, and so far both have exceeded expectations. After a long hiatus from the medium, Vaughn proves he’s still among the medium’s best writers, and Staples’ art keeps improving as she designs fantasy creatures sure to delight and scare readers equally.

If one thing has gotten worse with Saga #2, it’s the decreased page count to 22, but I guess 44-pages are too much to ask for a $3 comic. Still, Saga #2 manages to be a fulfilling read thanks to Vaughn’s skill as a storyteller. One of his best qualities is the way he gives characters moral ambiguity. He does not create absolute good or absolute evil, and it shows in #2, where the readers are provided a glimpse at the lives of its antagonists, and also shown the desperation from a protagonist in bargaining with a hired assassin.

Saucer Country #2

I said Saucer Country #1 was good a month ago without explanation, and now I regret it because Saucer Country #2 is a decline.

SC#1 was a great start for how it built intrigue. It combines politics with UFO conspiracy in a clever commentary on how not needed political beliefs can be based on insane ideas. There are hints of alien invasion, but they’re never explicitly revealed as real, so the readers are left wondering if the characters seeing them are hallucinating. One such character, the protagonist, happens to be a presidential candidate, and she’s torn on what to do about the possibility of alien rule, while pondering what it means for an immigrant to pick this battle(yeah, I don’t understand how that works. You have to be born in the US to be a presidential candidate, but I guess that’s comics for you).

That’s all good, but SC#2 suffers the same problems that plagued Demon Knights (also by Paul Cornell): it dumps too much info before allowing any of it to resonate. This isn’t helped by the characters and their dialogue: while Ryan Kelly’s art tries to differentiate them, it’s not enough to make them indistinguishable. Everyone is either someone who sees aliens, or someone who thinks they’re nuts. They all talk and think alike, giving readers very little reason to latch onto a specific character.

Winter Soldier #4

I’ve gotten to the point of not knowing what else there is to say about Winter Soldier without revealing its plot, so I’ll just keep it at ‘if you dug the previous issues, #4 retains all their good qualities”.

Wednesday’s Comics Week 16

Peanuts #4

Peanuts’ previous issues contained too much Lucy von Pelt for my tastes. She’s undeniably one of the most remarkable members of the Peanuts gang, but sometimes she gets so mean that you’d wish she’d get her comeuppance.

She sure does in this issue, even just momentarily. Peanuts #4 leads with a story about an arm wrestling competition. It stars Peppermint Patty, and that alone is a cause for celebration, because I love Patty almost as much as she loves Charlie Brown!

My comic shop lists Peanuts #4 as the final issue of kaboom!’s Peanuts (which the official site lists as miniseries). No plans of new Peanuts stories have been announced, and while I respect the decision, I still think it’s a shame the end the series this early, considering how many more characters they could’ve worked with. The new Peanuts series always succeeds in making me recall my childhood, so come on, kaboom!, make more Peanuts. I want to be a kid again!

Avengers vs X-Men #2

What was I thinking when I gave AvX#1 a fairly positive comment? After having reread AvX#1 and learning about Phoenix Force, I take back what I said: this is a one sided battle where the X-men side is clearly wrong! There’s no reason for Cyclops to take arms against the Avengers, not when he’s defending the same entity that killed his wife, destroyed planets, and generally made mutant lives miserable.

I hate mulligan moments like this, but at least one of my concerns didn’t change, and true enough AvX #2 was exactly what I feared it would be: it’s Tower Defense disguised as comics. Marvel made a big deal when they announced a tie-in devoted to the fighting (Avengers vs X-Men: Versus. What an unwieldy title!). It stands to reason that the main Avengers vs X-Men series would contain more story, and yet AvX #2 is purely about fighting too, narrated with hilariously cheesy captions like: ‘Organic diamond meets multi-million dollar armour. The most expensive punch in history.’ ‘Marital discord. With hail and lighting and hurricane-force winds.’ ‘The Lord of Atlantis versus a man from Harlem with indestructible skin. Either would sooner die than yield. Today both will bleed.’ I wouldn’t be bothered by the silliness if the previous issues weren’t so po-faced. There’s absolutely no consistency between issues. The artist and the writer constantly change without bothering to maintain a specific tone.

Speaking of the art, this is how I best sum up John Romita Jr.’s. When I showed this panel to my comic-collecting friend:

…his reaction was a dumbfounded “This is the comic Marvel hypes?”

Wolverine and the X-Men #9

Also known as: Hey guys, we interrupt our regular programming to tell a story that’s already been told in AvX#2!

Marvel, thanks a lot for letting your latest event hijack your best ongoing series.

Batman #8

I’m growing less interested in the Court of Owls storyline. Every issue since the sixth has been less about an actual story and more about fighting, and it doesn’t even follow an internal logic. How is it that Batman nearly dies fighting an Owl Man in issue #6 while pretty much dominating a large group of Owl Men at issue #8? Because he’s Batman?

Supergirl #8

I feel awful saying this given how much I dug Mahmud Asrar’s art, but all it took for Supergirl to improve was to replace its artist with someone who knows how to tell a story economically. With George Perez on board, Supergirl #8 felt more packed than all previous issues.

Wednesday’s Comics Week 17

The Flash #8

In this issue, Francis Manapul and Brian Buccelatto explain how The Speed Force works. It’s too much technobabble, but check these panels:

Glorious. The Flash still stands above every DC New 52.

The Omega Effect Crossover: Avenging Spider-man #6, The Punisher #10, Daredevil #11

In a scene from the Walk the Line, Sam Phillips asks an auditioning Johnny Cash what song he would like to be remembered by when he dies. Cash then performs Folsom Prison Blues, and it becomes his legacy.

Can I ask Greg Rucka, Mark Waid, Marco Checchetto and Matt Hollingsworth if The Omega Effect is a story they’d tell if this was the last comic they would create? If I seem to overreach, bear in mind that Marvel aggressively promoted this crossover to the point where anyone who dared raise concern about it received lashing remarks from its editor (whom I shall not name; did that on twitter, got trolled back by him). I try to understand Marvel for pushing this crossover: they want fans of Daredevil to also check out Avenging Spider-man and The Punisher. Only, it’s crude: it forces instead of recommending the other titles to readers.. Pick all of them up or risk missing a story development in Daredevil, The Punisher, or Spider-man. I’ve heard of quite a few people annoyed into quitting Daredevil because of this crossover, a blight to a series that received unanimous praise all of last year, receiving Eisner nominations to boot! Myself, I’m close to dropping it too.

So Omega Effect sucks. A crossover must surpass all previous issues from the relevant titles, yet this manages to be Daredevil’s worst issue both for its story and art. Rucka, Waid, I admire you, but Omega Effect helps neither of you! If you’re going to make a crossover about a hard drive – and really, that’s its basis? - the least you can do is be frivolous, not dead-serious as suggested by Checchetto’s ‘grimdark’ representation of all three characters, ignoring the whimsical tone of Daredevil’s relaunch. Their dynamic in its entirety involves Spider-man and Daredevil freaking out about Punisher; every five pages, they have to remind everyone that Punisher is a murderous lunatic, even if he agreed to cooperate with them on not killing anyone very early on! He makes them look like whiny tools, and no one emerges a better character from this.

To hijack an ongoing series with a story this unnecessary is an insult to all.

Shuangxi

Half of my vacation was spent here (the other half I lived in my maternal grandmother’s apartment in Sanchung City, an unremarkable place). Shuangxi directly translates to ‘two rivers’, and is a small and quiet riverside village. It’s not exactly a tourist attraction, but it is technically home, since my dad grew up here. Most of Taiwan consists of mountain ranges and river gorges, and here is a village that has both.

I love living in this place, and regard it as the best retirement home. Coming here is a great relief from the havoc of busy urban life, and makes me feel connected to nature. Trees, and mountains, and the sounds of flowing rivers: they’re everywhere. So are domesticated animals that like to befriend neighbors; there were two dogs who approached me and became my playmates.

Xinyi

Xinyi is where you’ll find Taipei 101, the world’s tallest building from 2004-2010. It’s a financial district that also houses many malls and restaurants, most of them catering to the upper class. Xinyi is Taiwan’s equivalent of Fifth Avenue, or its ‘haute couture’ capital (I hate that phrase so much). I’ll be honest, I find it to be very boring. I guess watching fireworks shoot out on every ‘rings’ of Taipei 101 makes for a spectacular sight on New Year’s Eve — you’ll know what I mean after seeing the picture below — but its only other activity is for you to look at the price from its stores and weep.

The Eslite Bookstore’s headquarters are the only place here that I could hang out for more than 30 minutes.

(picture ganked from Forumosa)

Ximending

People frequently compare Ximending to Harajuku District, but I can’t confirm this as I’ve never been to Japan. The core idea is similar, though, in that they’re both garish and intended for youths. You’ll find places for every type of youth subculture: there are tattoo stores, record stores for audiophiles, curio stores, toy stores, manga stores, cosplay stores, all kinds of fashion outlets. Everything that a teenager will buy, you’ll find here. It also houses many theaters for mainstream and independent movies alike, and it has a corner that’s bombarded with advertisements for the current blockbuster. It’s a very loud place and your reaction to it will reflect your age: adults will get headaches while teens will regard it as nirvana.

I’m older than Ximending’s crowd, but I still enjoy coming here, mostly for the stores with huge manga selections.

(from Travel and Leisure Asia)

Shihlin Night Market

Night markets can be found in nearly every city in Taiwan, but Shihlin Night Market is one of its most popular. This is about as chaotic as Ximending, but isn’t as insular, since its stores target a wider age group. There are actually two purposes for coming here: to shop for inexpensive goods, and to eat. I like it more as a food trip destination, personally, but I bought a kick-ass old-school Justice League of America shirt that I’m quite in love with.

(from wikipedia)

Lu Gang

Lu Gang is a quaint city populated with temples and specialty food stores. It’s outside of Taipei, and a bus ride here takes around 3 hours. I may have missed a few tourist attractions here as my aunts and uncles mentioned many places in Lu Gang that I haven’t heard of.

San Yi

Wooden sculptures town. Also quite far from Taipei. It’s quaint too, but in a different way to Lu Gang.

Xin Pei Tou

If you’ve ever played Hot Springs Story and wondered what real-life occupation it’s mimicking, you’ll be enlightened by coming to Xin Pei Tou. It’s one of Taiwan’s few cities that is populated with hot springs inns, and possibly its most convenient, as you can get there by subway.

National Palace Museum

When I was in New York, I spent four whole days exploring Metropolitan Museum of Arts art exhibits. I also spent an entire day at the Museum of Natural History. I quite enjoy going to museums; I find them stimulating.

National Palace Museum, or Ku Kung in Mandarin, is said to hold the world’s largest collection of Chinese artifacts. I’ve gone here a few times before, but it’s been a while, so I set half a day aside to explore ancient Chinese art and antiques. It looks quite formidable on the outside, as it is built like a grand palace with large pagodas. There are two separate buildings of similar design, and beside it is a garden of moderate size. The first building is for Chinese gallery, and the second is where historical items from other countries get consigned: during my visit, the Louvre sent paintings of Greek mythological figures there.

I was hyped, but, I dunno, I ended up not feeling it! The turning point for me was when the museum staff refused admission unless I left my camera at the counter. Which drove me insane! The Met, one of world’s largest museums, allows taking pics of their exhibits, but do it in Ku Kung and woah you’re ruining their surprise! That restriction killed my mood to ‘expand my cultural understanding of Ancient China’, and it resulted in me wandering many exhibit halls without registering anything I had seen.

Admittedly, I just simply didn’t have the curiosity for some of the exhibits. Collections of urns and porcelains completely went over my head – was I supposed to gawk at how lovely the curves of this vase are? The only gallery that I loved was the one with Chinese paintings, what Westerners more commonly refer as Sumi-e. Chinese painting is an art technique that requires precision – there’s no room for error, unlike, say, oil painting, where you can brush over your mistakes – and emphasizes expression over accuracy.

I guess Ku Kung is worth visiting once, despite my experience suggesting the contrary.

Taipei Zoo and Maokong

These two places are near each other, so people suggest experiencing both on the same day. I wish it were that easy.

My initial plan was to spend the morning at Taipei Zoo, then the afternoon at Maokong. I’ve been to Taipei Zoo before, so I figured that I’d be able to cover all areas in less than three hours. Maokong is a tourist attraction that has recently increased in popularity thanks to the newly opened gondolas you take from Taipei Zoo to its mountaintop location (gondola will undergo maintenance on May 1 to June 1, 2012, so plan accordingly). It’s a tea farm, and its other main attraction is its many teahouses.

There’s a stupidity in the idea that I’d enjoy going to teahouses by myself – they’re more suited as a lounging area where people start discussions. I had company for most of the places I went, but my trip to the zoo and here was solitary, so what happened is that I just walked around, took a few pictures, and went to a ‘Tea Promotion Center’, which is a pseudo-museum that guides you on the production of tea leaves. The problem is that I came here around 5 PM, and so most of the places that aren’t teahouses were beginning to shutter. I left this place thinking Maokong didn’t live up its hype – it’s prominently advertised in subway stations – but then when I actually went back to the subway, I took a free Taipei travel guide, and saw plenty of Maokong attractions that I missed. Bah, should’ve known better than go there unprepared/unguided.

In any case, I ended up loving Taipei Zoo so much that I spent more than five hours there. It is such a wide zoo that there are buses accommodating people too tired to trek the entire place! It manifested a fascination with animals in me that I didn’t know I had. It’s also a humbling experience: if you think you’re a good photographer, zoo animals are determined to deflate your ego. Just like they did mine.

And thus ends my Taiwan travelogue. In closing, enjoy some pics I took from the zoo.

Entries like this are reminders to myself that I joined tumblr not just to write about comics: nytdrmr is a personal blog, which means I have the liberty to post livejournal-stuff whenever.

Just like today, when I’m fresh back from Taiwan!

Here’s my background: I’m the Philippine-born son of Taiwan immigrants, and most of my 28 years have been spent in Manila. My relatives live in Taiwan, and I only get to visit them during long vacations, like this year’s Holy Week. What follows are my musings about the two weeks I spent there. I’m not sure that there’s any purpose to this; I merely love writing travelogues. If you could bear with me, I hope I prove to be entertaining enough!

Language

Taiwan is one of those countries where it sucks if you don’t speak its language; for Taiwan, it’s Mandarin. You can get by with English, and you’ll earn ‘cool points’ for it, but unless you’re engaging with only the international community, having a fulfilling conversation with a native is near impossible unless you speak Mandarin (or in some cases, Minnan, which is a minor variation of Fujian province’s vernacular).

And your Mandarin has to be good, in that you should at least speak on intermediate level. In some Chinese-speaking Asian countries like Singapore, you can get away with being a novice in Mandarin since you can plug English words if you didn’t know their Mandarin counterparts – Singapore is where your command of a language would plateau after reaching a certain level. Not so in Taiwan; no, if your Mandarin is bad, Taiwan presents infinite opportunities for you to despair about it.

I was guilty as charged! Lots of my facebook statuses during my vacation consisted of me lamenting on my awful, awful command of Mandarin. During this time, I realized the importance of a dictionary app, and I pretty much spent the entire vacation hanging onto my iPad for dear life and using KTdict C-E to translate Chinese characters.

(I’m also significantly more confident speaking Minnan than Mandarin)

Getting Around

Train, bus, subway. Get used to them. I spent so much time in each that I even came up with a list of favorite music albums for train rides (which I might post in the future).

One thing worth mentioning is that bullet trains just recently started operating in Taiwan. I was quite hyped for them back when they were planned, but having finally rode on one I’m far more ambivalent about them than I expected. The good part is that they can zip through all of Taiwan in less than 3 hours, but their ticket price is PROHIBITIVELY EXPENSIVE, and most of their stations stand in isolated places. It’s no wonder that this project suffers frequent financial drawbacks; it’s a wasted opportunity: here is a technology that should ease travel, yet no one wants to use it!

Foods

Always my favorite part of going to Taiwan, food here is bliss for fans of Chinese. They’re rooted from Szechuan, Cantonese, Hunan, Beifang, among other Chinese cuisines, with a mix of the indigenous and even some Japanese. They’re also very friendly to vegetarians, since Taiwan is predominantly Buddhist and Taoist; I benefit from this too because I am vegetarian. Everytime I come here, I set aside a night for food trips, and the best part is that most of the local specialties can be bought from street vendors at very affordable prices. For less than 2 USD, you can have a decent meal.

Below are pics of some of my favorite Chinese foods that I ate on this vacation:

Black misua. It’s a noodle dish with the sour taste of black vinegar.

Fried dumplings. If you’ve never heard of this you’ve ‘mis-lived’ your life!

Oyster omelet. This one is the vegetarian version.

Fermented tofu. It’s a love-or-hate dish because of its smell.

Aiyu Jelly. Lemon jelly, basically. It’s a very refreshing drink and is perfect on a hot day.

Every cuisine seems to have its own frozen desserts; ‘chua ping’ is Taiwan’s. It’s crushed ice with milk, and your choice(s) of fruits or toppings.

Mmm I’m getting hungry. I’m gonna have to cook noodles for dinner!

(to be continued)

…after I unpack. I just returned from a 2-week vacation.

The Flash #7

How often have you experienced a movie/videogame/book and resented the rest of its medium for not being as good? Mostly never in my case, but Manapul/Buccelatto’s The Flash resulted in me hating comics because it’s the only seventh issue of DC’s New 52 that I liked without hesitation. I should be pleased with The Flash’s improving characterization and its consistently stunning art, but all it did was remind me of how poorly the rest of DC reads. The fact that I’d even entertain ranking a Barry Allen ongoing as ‘DC’s best’ upsets me, and the distinction sounds too hyperbolic besides. How is it that DC can’t match a comic that takes little risks – except in artwork – but manages to be a good old-fashioned contemporary comic anyway? How did they lose sight of not loading their comics with objectionable contents such as fratboyish characters, ultraviolence, misogyny and gratuitous sex? All this New 52 managed is to make the rest of DC worse than their most boring superhero. I hate myself for even supporting them!

Daredevil #10

Paolo Rivera is an artist whose skill can dazzle me into picking up a comic from a character I’m not invested in. That cover above demonstrates Rivera’s creativity, and Daredevil features more of his experimentation. Combined with inker Joe Rivera and colorist Javier Rodriguez, his work on Daredevil retains the classic David Mazzuchelli sensibilities: heavy use of shadows, limited color pallette, and clean-and-streamlined inks. It’s beautiful from top to bottom.

More and more, Daredevil is taking The Flash’s distinction as the comic ‘to get for the art and not the story’. In its relaunch last year, Daredevil was the underdog success story that regained interest in the character by jettisoning his self-destructive tales in favor of a more lighthearted superheroic approach. I loved the first seven issues, but found my interest gradually slipping after that. Part of it is because the writing has settled into a comfort zone and became predictable. I think the bigger problem is that it’s being tampered by editorial mandates: there are crossovers, Daredevil will be double-shipped per month, and consequently artists will frequently change. This April will ultimately become my deciding point of if it stays or leaves my pull list.

As for #10’s specific problem, the Spider-man crossover robbed Daredevil of its dramatic weight. I don’t buy that the grave-robbery of Daredevil’s dad is urgent to him when he essentially spent a prior issue fooling around with Black Cat and Spider-man, which wouldn’t have diminished Daredevil #10s plot progression if it wasn’t in the back of my mind all the time.

It’s a beautiful comic that causes less headaches when left unread, is all I’m saying.

Avengers vs X-men #0

Avengers vs X-Men #0 serves as a prelude to Marvel’s 2012 event, which is why I’m willing to overlook some of its story problems, because “vs.” is a total misnomer. Avengers vs X-men #0 reads more like “Marvel Anthology Featuring An Avenger and An X-Woman”. Specifically, it reveals Scarlet Witch (The Avengers) and Hope’s (X-Men) current status, and foreshadows them as the event key players.

I guess it’s a decent story, but I’m indifferent to the characters and I’m not crazy about its reliance on continuity knowledge. Hope, I kind of get, because I read about her in Generation Hope and X-Men Schism, but even her whole ‘Phoenix Force’ angle confuses me, and reading about Phoenix on Wikipedia is the most taxing ordeal I’ve had the pleasure to give up on. Scarlet Witch just confuses me because I avoid all the recent Avengers comics (I gave up on them early because they’re really crappy), and her reality-altering power is the deus-exiest of all superheroes. Her involvement increases a story’s potential to make no sense or take weird directions.

If Marvel is treating Avengers vs X-Men as a draw for new readers, maybe make it more accessible! Who in the world has the time to read the tome of Phoenix this or Scarlet Witch that?

Frank Cho’s art could stand to be less stiff too, and why does he draw Hope, a teenager, like she’s a full-grown woman with the body of a Sports Illustrated model?

Avengers vs X-Men #1

You may have heard of Avengers vs X-men. It’s 2012’s comic event that has set the comic world ablaze. Along with The Avengers movie. it’s a topic that comic news sites cover to irritating extremes so that seemingly no minute details will be left unspoiled by the time of its release. If there’s one thing I admire from Marvel here, it’s that AvX’s concept is as elegant in its simplicity as it is a huge draw for people finding an entry point to comics: pit two major superhero teams with actual movie appeal, then watch their movie crowds cross to this medium. It’s an event with a high possibility of converting people to comic fandom.

We’re just two issues into AvX (okay, one for most: I was lucky enough to find a comic shop that stocked AvX1 a week ahead of everyone else) and I already see a potential problem: the art. Marvel has been insistent on releasing their titles biweekly as opposed to per month, and this practice results in comics requiring multiple art teams, which leads to a possibility for the art style to be inconsistent with its previous issue. This is especially problematic for AvX#0 and AvX#1, where John Romita, Jr. takes over Frank Cho as its illustrator. How disconcerting would it be for people to read one comic where people are shaped like Maxim models (Cho’s), then follow it with one where human faces have very prominent cheekbones and are depicted with excessive lines (JRJR’s)?

The good news is that Avengers vs X-Men #1 is good, story-wise. It hits all the right beats of a big event title: escalating drama and explosive action sequences. The primary conflict is set up so that it can either save mutantkind or destroy humankind. That’s a simple plot element that effectively creates dilemmas among readers, as we find it hard to judge whose side to support. It’s how AvX should be: there should be no clear rights and wrongs (although, personally, the X-Men point of view needs to be expanded, because I’m siding with The Avengers so far).

Unfortunately, it also creates another problem of ‘where does it go from here’. The fights arise out of X-men protecting Hope, whom The Avengers have to take by force. If Marvel isn’t careful, the whole event would read like an extended, overpriced, noninteractive Tower Defense game. Why would anyone choose that over playing Plants vs Zombies?

X-23 #20 and #21

X-23 is essentially a female clone of Wolverine, and for good reason, people were unanimously ‘bleh’ to this concept. It doesn’t help that she’s not even the only Wolverine clone; there’s also Daken Dark Wolverine. (Gee, I feel so dorky typing that.) Both X-23 and Daken were assigned to Marjorie Liu. She wrote Marvel’s NYX before, but other than that she’s a relative newcomer who crossed from urban fantasy books to superhero comics; and though Marvel never explicitly said thus, I think X-23 and Daken were two ‘free slots’ offered to her as tests of her writing talent. Both X-23 and Daken were unsuccessful enough that they were eventually cancelled, but Marvel has shown approval of Liu’s writing by letting her take over Astonishing X-Men.

Liu deserves it, because X-23 is really good.

In fact, I would rank X-23 as the best recent female superhero series, and its cancellation, while unsurprising, was disappointing, particularly because it was Marvel’s last female-led comic (This will change when they launch Captain Marvel later this year). Liu’s X-23 isn’t always top-notch – of the three regular artists (Will Conrad, Sana Takeda, and Phil Noto) only Noto can be labeled ‘brilliant’ – but there’s a consistent increase in quality per issue. This has a lot to do with character growth. X-23 is a living weapon created to serve the needs of a corrupted group; as such, she is conditioned to be violent: she even has a berserk state that turns her to an indiscriminate killing machine. Liu’s core idea is to let X-23 find her humanity, and the stories revolve around her attempting to integrate herself in society and cultivate lasting friendships.

Liu, a fan of the X-Men Animated Series, also treats X-23 as a bit of the animated cast’s reunion party. Jubilee and Gambit hadn’t been around much in recent stories, until Liu made them vital to X-23’s growth by making them her mentors. Much of X-23’s maturation can be tracked to her interactions with them, which makes them more likable and helps them regain popularity.

In issue #20, X-23 decided to join Avengers Academy. The highlight is #21, as a culmination of Liu’s X-23 script. It’s a silent comic that shows X-23 confronting her feral nature one final time before her story concludes, and is drawn spectacularly by Phil Noto.

Liu’s X-23 just gave me happy feelings throughout. Redemption is rarely seen in female superheroes, where the norm is them finding new ways to degrade themselves. Just look at Wonder Woman, Catwoman, Batgirl and Batwoman (Supergirl would match X-23 if the writer could fix the pacing). For being the exception, X-23 trumps them all.

Peanuts #3

Peanuts is deliberately on top of this week’s installment because I’m expecting to be very rant-fueled later on, and I always struggle to reorganise my thoughts into positivity after the fact.

Readers who have kept up with kaboom!’s Peanuts know the routine by now: few new stories, interspersed with strips by Charles M. Schulz. True to the cover, it contains a short episode devoted to Charlie Brown’s baseball team, which is still terrible because everyone lacks self-awareness.

Peanuts’ baseball stories are often funny, and also very sad. They manifest everything that defines Peanuts’ reputation for turning kids into fatalists or pessimists. I recall one long episode where Snoopy nearly broke Babe Ruth’s home run record, only to be ruined by Charlie Brown’s carelessness. It felt akin to watching a sports movie played in reverse, ending as the hero reaches his nadir. Schulz was not a happy man.

The tutorial is back, this time with Linus teaching you how to draw Lucy, while telling you how mean she is. I quite enjoyed this; in fact, the Peanuts cast are so colorful that they should be featured in more educational material, like they did on that 15-volume encyclopedia from decades ago.

Heart #4

Heart #4 concludes Blair Butler and Kevin Mellon’s mixed martial arts comic series. The previous issues live in the direst place of all entertainment media: the kind that just exists without provoking an emotional reaction. I neither love nor hate them; worse, my memory rejects them as soon as I close their pages.

All that said, I rather liked Heart #4, and it could even work as a standalone. The whole Fight Club but with MMA from 1-3 rang hollow, and I like that 4 focused on life after the lead MMA fighter’s first major defeat. You could probably predict its conclusion from the series’ short length (four issues!) but it was executed well and even made me ponder life – and that’s the ultimate goal of art and entertainment, right?

Props to Blair Butler for the strong ending. Kevin Mellon’s art is also solid, his loose ‘rough sketch’ linework achieves a feeling of rawness that works surprisingly well in conveying the force of impact. They’re a competent creative team, and I’d be willing to try out their future projects as long as they deal with a different subject matter.

Because really, mixed martial arts bore me.

Batman #7

After Batman survives the ‘gladiator combat’ from last issue (I read someone describe it as him going Rocky, and that made me chuckle), he returns to the Bat-cave examining the corpse of one of the many Court of Owls assassins, a.k.a. Talons.

It leads to a weird revelation on how a person becomes a Talon, and wow, that clunked. Why is it that every week I find new comic that betrays credulity with its over-reliance on suspension of disbelief? Batman #7’s case is unique from Batwoman #7 and Winter Soldier #2 because it tries to justify an outlandish plot element with ‘hard science’. You could, as it said, revive the dead by understanding electricity and conductivity. And I don’t mean people who just died, I mean the embalmed.

Ridiculous! I would’ve been more receptive to it if Scott Snyder came up with a more supernatural/magical/occult-ritual explanation instead of depending on real world logic to rationalise the impossible. It felt pulled from one of those weird pulpy New Age publications you can buy at Strand’s clearance section for $1.

Not all parts of it are bad, however. Greg Cappullo’s art remain a personal favorite from DC Comics, and he’s the only artist with ’90s Image Comic’ aesthetic that I actually dig, on the basis of beautiful composition. Even if he draws with excessive lines, he utilises negative space so as to not overwhelm readers. He also engages them by playing with multiple angles, and I especially like this page where you’re treated like a first person viewer of the story:

It’s also great to see Nightwing on a Batman comic again. He and Bats were together at the first issue for a rather superfluous scene, but here, their interaction contributes to the story. Only, it led to another scene of Batman being a jerk to his friend. Boo!

Supergirl #7

A month ago, I said something to the effect of ‘I’d only keep reading Supergirl comics if issue 7 concludes the first story arc’. Supergirl #7 fulfilled that, but I remain indecisive on whether it stays or leaves my pull list, and I’m annoyed by it. Maybe I’ll see the previews and decide from there.

I’m shocked that it even ended at all, because Supergirl fought multiple opponents here: if fighting with one opponent took entire issues (like in #2 and #4), then how much is required for four? I didn’t know it was possible for writer Michael Green to deal with it in one issue too!

I guess I liked the art, and I didn’t decry the story because it wasn’t offensively bad. Sometimes it feels like that’s already worthy of celebration anymore, what with the medium’s continual proliferation of awful stories with tone-deaf sensibilities.

Speaking of which, prepare to hear my thoughts on Wonder Woman…

Wonder Woman #7

I’ll refer to the comic as Wonder Woman and the superhero as Diana. They’re the same character, but I’m just differentiating for clarity’s sake.

I had my misgivings with the idea of Brian Azzarello writing Wonder Woman when, in an interview from CBR, he revealed his apathy to Diana and her story. I’m not very keen on seeing someone take creative control over a property they aren’t invested in, and this practice hasn’t done anything but annoy people in recent times, as evidenced by the backlash Michael Bay received for Transformers and TMNT.

Readers of my Tumblr may find this hard to believe because I bag on his work constantly, but I actually admire some of Azz’s comics, notably 100 Bullets, and his prestige as its writer is why I gave him a chance and decided to read his Wonder Woman. For me, Diana is the ideal reboot character. While she’s one of the most famous fictional women, none of her stories left a mark in public’s consciousness, despite DC’s many futile attempts to address this. I’m one of the many ignoramuses who has this notion, probably misconception, that her stories are bad, and that’s why I’ve avoided every WW comic. I know this makes me sound hypocritical after all that I wrote in the previous paragraph, but I’m not the one penning Diana’s stories. Her New 52 reincarnation was my entry point to her world, and it was DC’s best shot at proving her as the industry’s best female superhero.

It worked commercially, and it even worked for me at first. Her New 52 relaunch was well-liked, praised for its ‘sharp writing’ and ‘stunning art’, and consistently sold high numbers, perhaps the most successful she’s ever been. I joined the chorus of cheers for Azz’s take on the character, finding it refreshing and creative, and quite unlike other superhero comics. But then, something went wrong as the series progressed. At around #4 I began to sense its lack of direction, notice its bad dialogue, and find its characters identical. These were gripes I kept raising in the two times I talked about WW. I don’t understand why critics kept giving it high marks, and the worst part is that they treat legitimate complaints with the same scorn that they would trolls. It’s a comic that split readers and I, for one, thought WW fans needed to see things more clearly.

And then this uproar happened.

In WW#7, Amazonians are retconned as succubi who seduce men, kill them, then raise daughters but have their sons traded for weapons. Amazonians are basically Diana’s family, so if they’re this vile, then who do Diana, and by extension women readers, have to look up to? It’s an appalling interpretation, but I’ve long been beaten insensate by it because I recall Azz as the writer who depicted Harley Quinn as a mute stripper. Disappointing, perhaps, that he didn’t amend his troubling portrayal of women, but shocking? Nah.

Unlike CBR’s review, I can’t throw the Amazon thing under the rug and pretend the rest of the story is passable. WW has not been anything but a dumb ‘road trip’ comic that leads to discovery of Greek gods and goddesses every issue, and there is no story beyond ‘they hate each other’s guts!’. This has become so trite. In recent times, we are swamped with stories about angry and violent mythological gods and goddesses. Death can’t come to this trope sooner. There are people defending it by saying that Greek and Norse myths are darker and more depraved than their popular perception, but I don’t buy that as a reason to inject their gods and goddesses in new grim and gritty stories. The reason myth tales get passed around in generations is for their allegory, and their power to inspire noble conduct among readers who may not necessarily be old enough to perceive its objectionable content. How about a return of stories about people just being genuinely good? No one needs this rancid family drama in WW.

Which is a shame, because I adore Cliff Chiang’s illustration and Matthew Wilson’s coloring. Their art is a crowd-pleaser for its clean and expressive lines. The women are a sight to behold, sexy without being objectified in provocative poses. There’s also a lot of creative redesign of Greek mythological figures, as evident in WW#7’s introduction of Eros as a handsome pistol-wielding guy and Hephaestos as a large, ogrish blacksmith (ooh!). It’s clear that they’re among the highest-calibre artists in the industry now; so please point me to another Chiang-drawn comic that doesn’t make me hate everything about its story, because I’m done extending my patience to Wonder Woman. It’s time we part ways, Diana.

Dominique Laveau: Voodoo Child #1

I recently had a debate with someone concerning an artist we have differing opinions on, and it ended with an allegation of me being ‘too trained to see’ the flaws that I could not appreciate the good.

(Which is a mad defensive, knee jerk statement to make, and untrue too, but pft.)

Well, I’m glad to report that you don’t need to train your eye to see what’s problematic with Voodoo Child’s drawing. You just need to stare at the character’s face and see if you’ll ever attune to seeing eyes that aren’t equidistant to the nose.

No? Then don’t read Voodoo Child. The entire comic is comprised of horrificly disproportionate faces. The cover art is not drawn by the same person who did the interior pages.

I didn’t bother acknowledging the story.

Batwoman #7

Amy Reeder is leaving Batwoman after issue #8 citing creative differences. Neither Reeder nor series writer J.H. Williams III revealed more than the cursory details, yet one can infer from Reeder’s ‘exit speech’ that they obviously had a bad working relationship. Here’s a vague post JHW3 wrote on his blog around the time of Reeder’s announcement:

Some weighted stress inducing complicated botheration has slid off my very tired back. Dropping to the ground in slow-motion, but with enough impetus to hit the surface, cracking, crumbling into small dusty pieces. That I then can sweep up, carry out of the house, scatter in the garden so they can transform and grow into reinvigorated energy, without anything left of adverse emotions. Disavowed, sifted, filtered, cleansed. Releasing my mind from unnecessary tensions that should never have been there in the first place.

Potshot time: why is his prose writing better than his comic scripting?

I’m getting ahead of myself. In truth, I was not the least bit surprised about Reeder’s departure. While her art received mixed reactions, her manga-inspired style was appealing to me, but it jarred with the book’s storytelling. Beyond his illustrations, JHW3’s quirk is that he crams different scenes on single pages. Reeder doesn’t, so there’s a greater sense of interruption everytime JHW3 shifts the story’s point of view. And then it doesn’t help that JHW3 wants to tell Batwoman #7 in 7 perspectives, resulting in a very choppy read.

That’s my theory for the split, but then it falls apart because Trevor McCarthy takes over #9-#11. He’s great, but his panel layouts are similar to Reeder’s, and I don’t see how they would flow better with JHW3’s storytelling tics. I won’t find out, by the way.

I don’t want to repeat myself about what I’m disliking from Batwoman’s New 52 portrayal. She hasn’t changed, but that’s not a major part of this issue. Last week, I wrote a mini-diatribe about how incongruous elements take me out of the story (read my take on Winter Soldier). I give Bat-family books more leeway for fantastical aspects. I didn’t used to, until I realized that under this standard, I essentially would not like any Ra’s Al Ghul stories. Despite my lenience, I still have a limit. Greg Rucka’s Batwoman Elegy featured werewolves, and the first JHW3’s Batwoman arc featured ghosts. I was ok with them. I was not ok when this issue introduced a guy possessed by a meathook, like Metal Gear Solid 2’s Revolver Ocelot’s possession by a hand.

A story always loses me whenever it reminds me of Metal Gear Solid 2. I don’t hate MGS2, but man its story, what a disaster!

Two months ago I said I’d follow Batwoman to the ends of the earth, and that’s so naive of me to not foresee her story’s drastic decline. I now renege on that claim and am dropping Batwoman from my pull list. Goodbye, Kate Kane.

Ps. The new DC logo blows.

Green Lantern #7

The cover says “Can they SURVIVE the SHOCKING secret of THE INDIGO TRIBE?”. It sounded like the comic contains a revelation so hardcore that the readers may have to brace themselves or risk passing out. Maybe Indigo Tribe, a superpowered team that harnesses the power of compassion, are Pol Pot sympathizers, or maybe they extend their compassion in a very carnal manner?

Of course not. The shocker is that The Indigo Tribe is the issue’s antagonist, because the cover didn’t make it clear enough! I fainted!

Sensationalist header aside, at least Doug Mahnke is back to free readers from enduring 20 pages of amateurish art. Mahnke never gets enough credit, but he’s brilliant at making his characters act. Even with the dialogue obscured, you’d still be able to understand how his characters feel in any given panel. There are so many artists who I regard as ‘kings of stone-face’ and I cherish those who, like Mahnke, could draw nuanced expressions. It’s just too bad that his cover art composition is lacking, and he dresses women in impractical, provocative outfits, which is why people highlight his weaker areas more.

Conan the Barbarian #2

Conan the Barbarian #2 benefits from the most beautiful art and writing in recent comics. Writer Brian Wood and artist Becky Cloonan cooperated before, and Conan #2 basically revels in their excellent compatibility with Cloonan’s expressive art complementing Wood’s florid prose.

It’s also colored vividly by Dave Stewart, which helps make it a comic where every front – the writing, the art, the choreography, and the mood – is fine-tuned to near-flawlessness.

Which is great, except that it also made me super uncomfortable. Conan spends all of this issue slaying dark-skinned men (as you can see in the pic from two paragraphs back), and I found it suggestive of white supremacy.

I have many unflattering words for that trope, and the only reason I’m not speaking them and decrying the creative team is that I don’t know who is responsible for the troubling portrayal of minorities. Was that in Robert E Howard’s novel or is it added for the comics? Should an adaptation translate literally or thematically? I’m inclined to believe in thematic, but I don’t begrudge those who adhere to literal. Also, since Conan is a period piece, minorities functioning as slaves is probably historically accurate.

So I’m giving the creative team the benefit of the doubt, but that doesn’t mean I will continue to support Conan. Consider it dropped.

Saga #1

Brian K Vaughan’s much-anticipated return to comicdom starts off strong with his new series Saga. It’s a testament to BKV’s popularity that he could write comic with an unassuming name and sell it by bucketloads regardless. Copies of Saga have flown off the shelves of local comic shops near me, and that’s doubly impressive because I know the local comic community has very homogenized taste, in that they mostly favor superheroics.

Saga is space opera with a similar plot to Romeo and Juliet substituting feuding families with warring planets. Two star-crossed “inter-species” lovers bear a child, an act considered taboo from both sides of the war, and thus begins their quest to evade capture and to find an amenable living condition for their newborn.

There are many things I like about Saga. Both sci fi and fantasy live and die by world-building, but for a comic series, it usually takes a few issues for readers to become acclimatised to its setting. BKV manages this as early as first issue, which is a feat since the story is busy and populated with many characters of different alien races. He even defines the fighting styles from each warring side; where one uses technology while the other uses magic. Sure, those are sci-fi cliches, but they’re good touches nonetheless. Saga is also a comic that feels substantial, and this is reinforced by its 44 story pages (for just $3) devoid of any advertisement. It’s a pricing structure that I hope Marvel or DC follows, although I’m not really holding my breath expecting that they will.

BUT. I don’t regard Saga as a ‘perfect-10’ material, and I had issues with its artwork. Fiona Staples is a very talented artist and I dug her monster and alien designs. I could overlook how the female protagonist is “the mother formerly known as Prince”.

Sorry if this renders you unable to read Saga without thinking of Prince!

I recognize Staples’ abilities, but her backgrounds seem detached from the characters, which resulted in the art looking ‘pasted-on’ due to disparity of effort: she labored on the characters but the backgrounds felt like they were whipped up with Photoshop brushes in under 10 minutes. It’s a noticeable flaw that won’t dissuade me from buying future issues, but I hope that it gets rectified; a quick Google search reveals that Staples can do better than that.

Wolverine and the X-men #7

To get back at my issues with ads, Marvel comics can stand to use them less, or place them after the comic’s story portions. There’s a panel in Wolverine and the X-men #7 where someone says “there’s something I’d like to try”, and this is followed by three pages of ads about upcoming Avengers comics. There’s another panel that ends with a character saying ‘I’ll get the thing’, which is followed by a two-page Avengers T-shirts ad.

I once read an issue of Amazing Spider-man where Spidey coerced info out of a shady bystander. Next page, CAPTAIN AMERICA BUBBLEGUM.

Marvel, stop breaking the flow of your stories, please. You don’t need people to undermine WatXM7’s otherwise excellent story with their irritation for unintentional hilarity in ad placements.

WatXM7 wraps up the three conflicts from the previous issue. It’s a good comic, but I still hate the ads.

Saucer Country #1

I’m getting really tired, so I’ll just keep this short and save the analysis for future issues. Paul Cornell and Ryan Kelly’s new Vertigo series also starts strong. It reminded me of Y: The Last Man with greater emphasis on political plot. The story of a Mexican woman who must become the US president to save the world from alien invasion is just a crazy enough concept that it might work.

Scott Snyder approaches writing Batman by mining the neglected parts of the lore. Batman Black Mirror shows what became of James Gordon Jr, Commissioner Gordon’s son long forgotten after Batman Year One. The ongoing Batman Court of Owls tells of a secret society that has controlled Gotham City for centuries.

Batman Gates of Gotham is written with the cooperation of Scott Snyder, Kyle Higgins and Ryan Parrott, and drawn by Trevor McCarthy, with Dustin Nguyen and Derec Donovan doing fill-ins.It examines the history behind Gotham City’s landmarks; like most cities, Gotham’s past is remarked by its citizens with idealism, but its beautiful architecture belies murder and madness. Told between present time and flashbacks, GoGreveals the underlying tragedy of the creation of the city’s skyscrapers and bridges. A terrorist activity began with the bombing of three Gotham bridges, and proceeds to target various Gotham City locales. A note left by the bomber reads, “The families will fall by the Gates of Gotham”. Batman has to figure out what it means, and it leads to revelations about Bruce Wayne (Batman), Kate Kane (Batwoman), Oswald Cobblepot (Penguin) and Thomas Elliott (Hush) as descendants of Gotham’s founders. How this will affect future Batman storylines remains to be seen, but I like the idea of historical connections between Gotham’s heroes and villains.

GoG hits all the familiar mystery beats; it uncovers information at the proper pace that you’d be hooked early. A mystery is competent if it succeeds as a page-turner, reading material effective in killing idle time. However, a mystery only reaches greatness if it leaves the readers thinking about it long after they’ve finished. GoG’s mystery plot belongs to the airport-read type: entertaining during consumption, but ultimately forgettable. This isn’t helped by its unmemorable villain with a cliched “we’ve been wronged!” revenge plot. Instead, GoG serves as good overview of Gotham City and few of the extended Bat-family members.

During GoG’s initial publication as monthlies, Batman’s direction was a great departure from the current New 52 take. Back then, Wayne took to globally expanding his Batman role, while Gotham City was relegated to the care of Dick Grayson, former Robin/Nightwing promoted to another Batman. DC’s New 52 reboot invalidated the split between local and international Batmen. That’s a shame, because Grayson’s career as Batman, though short-lived, took risks. GoG is a rare Batman story told in the absence of Wayne, yet his influence is felt while GoG’s featured characters try to be his worthy successor as Gotham’s protector. As Batman, Grayson does not have Wayne’s ruthlessness and paranoia. He’s more trustworthy and dependent on other people, but this results in him becoming more sensitive and doubtful of his abilities as Batman. GoG is a DC Team Up book, as Grayson guides 3 Bat-family members Damian Wayne (Robin), Tim Drake (Red Robin), and Cassandra Cain (Black Bat). The writers have a good handle on these characters, capturing their individual voices by giving them definite traits, relationships and motives. Fans of Cass Cain will find GoG especially bittersweet, since this is her last appearance and DC has yet to incorporate her in New 52.

Trevor McCarthy leads the art team, and his illustrations resemble stained glass. His faces are depicted with a profusion of clean lines, and sometimes it’s overdone. He relies on digitized effect, using halftone dots for shading. It’s not my preference, but it looks pleasant enough to never distract me from reading. At least his style is distinctive and can’t be accused of genericness. It’s funny that I prefer the fill-in art by Dustin Nguyen over the main, but this is accountable to personal taste. Derec Donovan may want to improve.

While not belonging in New 52 may limit consumer interest in Batman Gates of Gotham, it’s worth getting as it serves as a good detour to Gotham’s less known heroes. It also includes an unrelated extra about a Muslim, Parisian, parkour-inspired Batman, who I hope to see more of.GoG may not endure as a Batman classic, but I certainly enjoyed it more than some Batman trades that frequent his top 20 lists.

Winter Soldier 3

I’m not proud whenever I write short, dismissive prose, but my brief remarks on Winter Solider #2 reflected my true feelings, even if they may need clarification. Covering my weekly haul exhausts me sometimes, but no matter, I’m starting this with an addendum to #2.

Winter Soldier #2 is comprehensible, but it does not provide enough to resonate with all but the most dedicated Marvel reader. This is made clear in the first few pages involving Bucky and Black Widow’s fight with a giant gorilla. It didn’t bug me when #1 ended with this gorilla’s sudden reveal, but #2’s gorilla with a jetpack is too much, like it’s telling an in-joke that I’m not getting. I know many comic readers dig insane, outlandish elements; not me, as I find them disconcerting when used in incongruous genres like spy fiction. Use those giant monsters in Hulk or Spider-man and I won’t complain. I felt similarly when a vampire appeared in Metal Gear Solid 2. These are stories that already have strong hooks without needing to contain random weirdness, which loses me momentarily.

I still espy gorillas a few panels in #3 but they’re not as prominent, and I guess I’ve managed to adjust. The beginning of Winter Soldier #3 actually repeats my other problem with #2: it’s too expository, and what it reveals is probably meant to blow my mind, but didn’t, because I’m a Marvel ignoramus. I can imagine fans saying ‘So there’s an attempt at Dr. Doom’s life and it’s actually a set up to control Doom’s response! Oooh!’ This reminded me of the ‘failed assassination’ of President Chen Shui-Bian that resulted in him winning the election the next day, only WS#3 happened in a setting I have no stake in. Redundantly, WS#3 spends a few panels recounting this again. At least it made me think of real world politics, so there’s that.

The good news is that WS#3 managed to pull me back, not necessarily for a huge upsurge in quality, but more for my curiosity in its impending ‘heroes must ally with a villain against a greater evil’ plot. It also feels like Tom Clancy in comic form with the real world setting reduced (I find Clancy’s patriotism discomforting). I’m not a fan of the Cold War motif but, then again, the title of the comic is already indicative of its inclusion, and to complain about it is akin to wishing King Kong did not feature gorillas. I have a gorilla fixation today.

Ed Brubaker seems to favor artists with noirish styles as everyone I’ve seen paired with him does semi-realistic, heavily-inked, and shadowy drawings. Butch Guice is another of these artists, with a bonus of his skill in staging scenes of destruction where everything, right down to the debris and glass shards, benefits from proper placement. Bettie Breitweiser and Jordie Bellaire’s colors remain consistent and I like the blue and red tinge permeating every page, as if communicating the comic’s tone as a political spy thriller.

Fatale 3

The essay at the end of Fatale #3 is about Dan J. Marlowe, an author I’ve never heard of who is apparently a cult personality. He doesn’t even have a wiki page, but his novels are beloved by Stephen King. Lovecraft and Poe’s writeups described their literary techniques and innovation, but Marlowe’s overviews his life story. After his wife’s death, he lived a colorful second life involving women, vice, and criminal associations, and would later become an amnesiac. It’s fascinating and felt very “noir”. It also makes me wonder if Fatale’s story is inspired by Marlowe’s. The main character, Hank Raines, undergoes an event that threatens to spiral his life out of control. In addition to committing adultery and frequenting bars to trade gossips with shady people, he might, like Marlowe, lose his memory. The story has also become about a heartless manipulative woman — my impression when I first heard the title – but she’s also attached to weird occult things. Fatale could be a loose interpretation of Marlowe’s life, just as Me and the Devil Blues was Robert Johnson’s with similar horror element.

Fatale 3 is the best of the series so far, and looks set to improve more as it reaches its climax. There’s a dramatic increase in the sense of urgency not felt in the previous issues, but I also find the characters easier to connect with now. I thought the past scenes were read by a guy from present time, but then this issue reveals that that’s not the case, and that the book he’s reading bears only a vague resemblance to what happened. He’s involuntarily dragged along for unfinished business left behind by his deceased godfather, Hank, and simultaneously experienced personal tragedy like the loss of his leg and the burning of his home. I felt sorry for him, and he is Fatale’s first character that drew an emotional response. Ultimately, this issue added a level of humanity missing earlier, and I’m curious to see this guy’s fate, even if I’m sure it’ll be depressing.

By this point we can declare Sean Phillips’ art, like Frank Miller’s, as the quintessential noir style, and Phillip’s work in Fatale has been consistent. His lines are cleaner and more streamlined than Guice’s, particularly on rendering faces obscured in parts by moody shadows. I have major appreciation for noir styling and Fatale’s art is sure to comfort those with similar proclivities.

Ultimate Spider-man 8

Didn’t I just cover the previous Ultimate Spider-man few days ago? I can just slap everything I said last issue on this one because what’s true then is still true now. Even replacing Samnee with Pichelli made no difference: the art still looks rushed. As for the writing, no joke, there are four panels where a bad guy says “do you?!”.

Someone teach Bendis brevity please.

(I’ll revisit the series in a future piece about Spider-man.)

Fairest 1

Take a look at the beautiful cover art by Adam Hughes,then read the solicitation below:

“Balancing horror, humor and adventure, Fairest is the new monthly series that explores the secret histories of Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel, Cinderella, The Snow Queen, Thumbelina, Rose Red and many other characters in Fables.”

Did you get the impression that Fairest will feature female characters prominently? Too bad Fairest #1 doesn’t and delivers none of its promise!

I’m doomed to follow the series since I collect Fables and its spinoffs in trade form, but everything in this issue only makes me question its necessity. Even if Fairest #2 amends #1’s shortcoming, #1 is still hilariously as much of a teaser as the cover and the solicit. Waiting the rest of the series for the trade, so I won’t talk about its succeeding issues anytime soon.