Doctor Spectrum #6

Writer: Sara Barnes

Artist: Greg Tocchini



Oh brother. I shouldn't have complained about the uneven quality of last issue. I think Travel Foreman heard me, and got wise. This final issue is rushed fill-in taken to new lows. The plot doesn't really resolve anything. Hyperion sort of stops the operatives from stealing away with Ledger's comatose body, the one, by the way, in case you're counting, that has been comatose this entire mini-series. Keep that on your list of "Why was this mini-series approved?" The General and his cronies decide to throw Ledger into close proximity to the wreckage of the alien ship. Ledger wakes up, launches into space like the lame end to the first Matrix, and you know, FIN. No resolution. No clear indication that, much to my disappointment and shock, there was absolutely no consequence as a result of this series. It ends... before Doctor Spectrum's action in Supreme Power. It's like a backstory that tells us nothing, and doesn't make it's timeline clear. GAH!



The art, I hate to say it, is beyond unsatisfactory. He accomplishes a couple of decent shots of psychic Ledger arguing with gem-identity-Ledger on a rope bridge to nowhere (don't ask) but so completely blows most panels in terms of basic composition, I was actually surprised this wasn't one of those How-Not-To guides. ALl of the scenes with the only real money shots of the issue, Hyperion stopping the ambulance by swooping in, landing in front of it, and lifting it like that old Superman cover... are told at long range, no action or dynamic energy to them at all. Multiple panels with the same figues at the same angles share the page with backgrounds so murky and undefined the colorist had to make stuff up in order to fill them in somehow. In some cases, they colored right over the inker's shoddy attempt to make something of the penciller's scribbled backgrounds. It's pretty bad, some of the worst I've seen, and that includes such stalwart heroes as Rob Liefield.



Really unpleasant experience. Right before bed, too.



1/10 Clicks

Related posts:

1. Doctor Spectrum #3
2. Doctor Spectrum #4
3. Doctor Spectrum #5

Zatanna #1

Writer: Grant Morrison

Artist: Ryan Sook



This is one of the Seven Soldiers books that I think might be an enigma for comic stand customers... if indeed there any comic stands anymore... as it involves a hot DC character, well known for her fishnets and bosomy tuxedo shirt look, written here by one of comics' most interesting writers. And yet... it isn't sexy. It's weird. And there's nothing wrong with that. But I'm betting lots and lots of young Wizard readers ran home with this book expecting eyecandy, and got a migraine from it instead.



This first issue is actually very well crafted. If you supplant sexy Zatanna for some other cipher, you wouldn't even think twice about it. Morrison uses a therapy group setting for addictive supers as the narrative tool to introduce readers, not only to the magical side of DC's universe, but also to the immediate threat of this current storyline. It's a very effective tool, because it introduces Zatanna as a person, a fallible, lonely young single woman, and establishes the non-magic community around her, and their awareness of her celebrity past as a former B-list member of the JLA. As she weaves her tale, we are thrust into what reads something like Promethia-lite. It's not as dense mysticism mythology as Alan Moore crafts, and that's probably a good thing. Where Moore explained the nuances of his witchworld religion in very detailed passages, Morrison hints at much, but mostly allows us to tag along with Zatanna and crew as they venture through various random, mystical dimensions, and we experience it all as a slent tag-along, without the burden of an educational lesson, as in Promethia. Morrison also introduces us to Zatanna's circle of wizards and magicians, each of them facinating and curious in their own right, and it only takes a few pages before we're running smoothly, enjoying the mystery of the adventure. And then Morrison drops the floor out from under us, and hurtles us back into the real world, with Zatanna alone, and scared. The twist on the last page is intriguing, and I have to admit, far more interesting that I expected, given some of the ho-hum familiarity of the magical journey earlier in the book.



This is also an impressive book because Ryan Sook has apparently ditched his Mike Mignola mimicry, and it really helps. The production values on this book are the best of the Seven Soldiers books so far, and Sook captures many interesting, realistic camera angles, and the pages have an interesting, curious wonderment to the gestural nature of some of the subject matter. I'm impressed with this leap in detail for the artist.



7/10 Clicks

Related posts:

1. Seven Soldiers Mega-Review: Zatanna
2. Klarion the Witch Boy #1
3. Civil War: Young Avengers & Runaways #1

Shaolin Cowboy #2

Writer/Artist: Geoff Darrow



[Spoiler Laden]



This unusual book hasn't lost any steam in it's second issue, largely because it never really had any to lose. That's not necessarily a bad thing, either. Darrow's work has always been sort of fire-and-forget... he lets loose some destruction on the page, and we scour the wreckage in search of survivors. His pages are so detailed, his compositions frequently dense and severe, and when he's writing on top of it, the tone is a combination of tongue-in-cheek reference and flowery flamboyant language. It's all of this that makes Shaolin Cowboy so much fun. You really don't know what the hell to expect when you turn the page... he could stretch a single panel for ten pages, like in last issue, or drop a bomb on the character unexpectedly. This cartoon irreverence and seemingly arbitrary story construction is misleading. There's a lot more to this pure-fun book than meets the eye. He's having a blast subverting several conventions at once: the preciousness of martial arts mysticism (the antagonist can't even keep the story of his training straight, and frankly, Shaolin Cowboy is trading chop-socky here with a crab, so...) revenge fantasy, mainstream Marvel comics (the villain's gang insists on calling themselves the 'Ultimate Revengers' and we learn, by the end of this issue, where the Shaolin Cowboy's talking horse got it's super-sharp hooves from... let's say he's the best there is at what he does,) and the concept of the accidental hero. By the time we've sat through an obvious, but amusing, origin story of King Crab, the nemesis announced at the end of last issue, who is basically a sentient, verbose, violent, kung-fu nazi-tattooed...crab... we literally expect the Chowboy to eat his opponent. It's set up like one of those scenes like the classic Raiders of the Lost Ark sequence: lots of build-up, until the hero dispatches the opponent in a blink. However, we do actually get treated to several pages of man/crab fighting, culminating in a spectacular scene, sprawling across several pages, of crab being kung-fu slammed through the guts of a hundred of his Revengers, into the trunk of a Caddie, which inexplicably reverses that magical kinetic energy and hurtles itlself up and over the remaining surviving gang members, and lands on the remaining ones, killing them to the last. Shaolin Cowboy's indifference, modesty, then cocky warning, are all lifted from classic kung-fu characters: modest, but not taking any horse-shit, so to speak. But Darrow's execution of the character in this absurdist setting makes the disparity half the fun.



Oh, and not shown here, but I took the Mignola alternate cover. I should think that's obvious...



7/10 Clicks

Related posts:

1. Shaolin Cowboy #1
2. Shaolin Cowboy #6
3. Shaolin Soccer (Siu lam juk kau)

Welcome to another Monkey+Robot Reviews Dual-Robotic-Review:







Kung-Fu Hustle



Wrongrobot: We waited and waited. After Shaolin Soccer, we knew this next film was going to rock the rotors right out of our robotic skulls with concealed, and unconcealed, dope. And despite Ironlung's ambiguously-obtained VCD bootleg, we resisted... and waited... for the theatrical release. But the night of the show, the theater was packed, so we were forced to rely on that underground product to gain satisfaction. And satisfaction was gained, ten fold!







Ironlung: Seriously. Fair-to-middlin Chinese bootleg quality notwithstanding, KFH kicked the ass out of Shaolin Soccer. So, so, so fun to watch. It was kind of like a live-action cartoon almost. Lots of 'sproing' action, whirling legs, and otherwise cartoon-like moments.



Like dude would fall down and you'd hear a cat scream, follwed by a shoe flying up in the air. Some old Tom & Jerry shit right there. Was that the concept you think? I think.



Wrongrobot: Yeah, it was funny that the trailers and everything implied that this post-apocalyptic world was ghettos run by these prohibition-era gangster guys who did the hustle in massive choreographed numbers all the time. That was covered in the first five minutes... In fact, that would have been the one way to improve this







film: many, many, many more hustle dance numbers. But the idea to mish-mash the disparate styles of the apocalyptic stuff vs. the old timey clothes and guns and gear and cars, etc vs. the ghetoo-fabulous asian culture references vs the cartoon style violence, was a beautifully lit cocktail. Now, as far as the plot goes... Wait, what WAS the plot?



Ironlung: Yeah, let's not forget that those massive coreographed numbers were done with axes in hand, too. I also liked that strange mix of styles you were talkin about. Old-skool gangsters (before the 'er' was replaced with 'a'), complete with Thompson submachine guns, coming from a hyper-saturated city centre to the desolate tenements. It lent itself to infinite possibilities. And while many were explored, I think the final idea was to have a plot based on "Ass-kicking in great, bullet-timed quantities." Either that or, "More random Kung-Fu styles made up in a weed haze by Stephen Chow."



Wrongrobot: The plot in this film is certainly skeletal at most, and there's just enough connective tissue to hold this hot beef together.







The "Axe Gang" rules the post-apocalyptic yet vintage 40's city, while the poor live relatively unmolested in the tenements that inexplicably exist as multi-story rickety residential blocks surrounded by barren landscape, fearing only the wrath of the mean and wicked landlady, who's stained dressing gown and cheap plastic hair curlers bely her freakishly powerful rent-collecting kung-fu. And in Stephen Chow fashion, bringing kung-fu to the people in creative style, many of the tenement's townfolk are secretly kung-fu masters in different styles, not knowing of each other until they are forced to band together to resist invasion by the brutal urban gangsters in their Rolls Royce's and spit-polish wingtips. Why are they here, after ignoring the poor for so long? Because a pair of scam artists, including writer/director/producer chow, have been masquerading as Axe Gang members, who have had their asses handed to them by the townfolk after demanding kickbacks in the name of their virtual association with the gang. So now the gang is involved, to avenge this disrespect, and to their surprise, the sad sacks aren't taking an ass-kicking lying down (though they DELIVER said ass-kicking in a lying down position, hurtling through the air...)







And if that was not enough, neither the gang, nor the landlady, are the true antagonists, because in desperation, the leader of the Axe gand unleashes a foe even more terrible... in plastic slippers... But before we discuss this hideously fish-stained tanktopped devil, the characters we meet along the way are, typically for Chow, each surprisingly sentimental, serious kung-fu stars, and they often tell you so. My favorite were the villanous Axe Gang assassins who used a lap guitar to generate cascading kinetic energy attacks, and looked cooler doing so than the White dreads in Matrix II...







IronLung: Yes, yes, YES! The guitar-playing ancients who summoned death and ghostly destruction from the bowels of their crazy two-man instrument were amazing. As was the manner in which they were able to sit upon their own legs. I really can't explain that one, but imagine if you were to cross your left leg over your right and bend 90 degrees at the knee, essentially floating your ass about a foot and a half over the ground. Those guys fuck'n rocked. I think my favorite, though, was the gay kung-fu dry cleaner.



A gay character in a hero position? Fuck'n a, Stephen Chow, you rock.







AND, in classic Chow form, the guy would slip over his wrists the iron rings which he used to hang clothing from, in the process creating makeshift gauntlets of unprecedented destructive potential. Along with some totally unconcealed dopeness. Here's a thought -- these gauntlet things were somewhat musical in their rattly glory, and amidst ass-kicking there was always harmony. Is this the Chow technique? The combination of music and flippant foot-in-ass craziness? I don't know, but I dug that guy for sure.







And the psycho landlady was great. She had what I like to refer to as IRONLUNG technique, in which she would light up a smoke, suck the whole fucker back in one drag, and spit it forth in a cloud of smoke and high-pitched scream which would knock fools on their asses. She was rad.









Plus she was such the crazy bitch, slapping the shit out of anyone and everyone, including her husband, another kung-fu master. (You know, I think I'd really like to live in Stephen Chow's world -- EVERYONE's a kung-fu master.) Anyway, that's my character thoughts. Back to you, WR...







Wrongrobot: This film was held together by a connective tissue of interesting characters, whimsical moments, and musical gestures, and the skeletal system was the positive, fun-loving core of the film's narrative tone, such as it is, which, just like in Shaolin Soccer, was about bringing the goodness of kung-fu to the people. But the musculature, well that would have to be some pretty kick-ass scenes! I enjoyed a ton of these little effects or surreal sequences, like when the bad nasty's head is caved into an S-section from too opposing Flying Tiger kicks, or the way physics are continually defied: the rings on the dry-cleaner's arms, the musical assassins sitting on their own selves, the cartoon-style hyper-running (which, please god, may they NOT do in the potentially upcoming Flash film,



gah!~) and of course, the freakishly cool kung-fu tricks with various weapons, random objects and sundries. All this film was missing was kung-fu sticky bun manufacturing... But that's so 'last movie'...



IronLung: HAHAHA!! I think that's the key to all Chow's successes.



Lighthearted treatment of generally good-natured conflict between 'Mainly Good,' and 'Nominally Evil,' all in the spirit of 'Bringin The Love To The Streets.' Some of my favorite effect scenes came...



//// SPOILERS AHEAD \\\\







...after poser Chow got bit on the lips by the deadly snake. That was fuckin hysterical with his massive lips swinging around as he lost his mind inside that crazy Chinese traffic light thingy, mashing his hands damn near through the steel sides. I also liked when he was trying to throw the knives at landlady and they kept bouncing off shit and coming back and sticking into him. I kept laughing so hard.



\\\\ SPOILERS BEHIND ////



Wrongrobot: SPOILERS: Some of my favorite elements were little details.



Aside from those you mentioned, I enjoyed the fact that every kinetic energy chi weapon the Sitting On Their Own Selves Musical Assassins generated, was in the shape of an increasingly more complex object.



Like, it started with glowing waves of energy, and ended up being like glittering blue energy jello molds filled with grenades or whatever.



Also, it wasn't lost on me that these guys were like the fu manchu Blues Brothers, down to the matching suits and shades. I also liked the copious use of ghetto-fabulous plastic sandles throughout the film.







And the generous application of malleable face-bending on impact was a delight.









And hey, I almost forgot, what about that crazy weird-ass frog mutation thing going on in the final battle? As my robotic-fiancee cried: "SIIIICK!"







Finally, I enjoyed the film references: the Axe Gang is pulled right out of Gangs of New York, both in the ir weapons of choice, but in the sweeping pans of the gang filling the thoroughfare, snatched from Scorcese's handbook. The references to Bladerunner, Shaolin Soccer, Matrix, Hellboy and Roadrunner were pretty sweet, too.







In conclusion, I'd have to say, I think, that the film's greatest charm is it's post-post-modern irreverence and simultaneous devotion towards film genres to which it owes it's genetic stock. It makes fun of, yet worships, kung-fu chop-socky B-movies, big Hollywood epics, love stories, Buster Keaton, Warner Brothers cartoons, and more, all held together by Chow's enthusiasm and on-screen magnetism. He holds it together, not only by orchestrating the whole damn thing, but by being, once again, the moral core of the film.







Ironlung: I think that in the end, this thing was fun as hell and it made me laugh.



And as an added bonus, it put my wife to sleep. Which means I can rest assured that it was AWESOME.



:::



If that's not enough, read this NY Times article on one journalist's contention that both Hustle, and Sin City, owe their chops to... Roger Rabbit...



http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/24/movies/24scot.html?

Related posts:

1. Shaolin Soccer (Siu lam juk kau)
2. The Forbidden Kingdom
3. Asian Terminator Knockoff Has All the Trappings

Doctor Spectrum #5

Writer: Sam Barnes

Artist: Travel Foreman



What happens when a thin concept is stretched too far, under questionable production arrangements, with uneven results? Suckage!



I thought, at first, that a mini-series about Doctor Spectrum would be a good idea. He's an interesting character, in JMS' new Supreme Power version of the Squadron Supreme, and the alien gemstone imbedded in his palm has never been fully explained in the main series. The first issue or so of this mini-series set up an unusual and risky narrative: Joe Ledger being interrogated by himself, or the gem's manifestation as him, in order to explore the roots of his tortured psychology. We have seen how Joe was a troubled kid, witnessing horrible family tragedy, growing cold and veangeful in response, and slowly becoming groomed, in his military career, into an assassin for the army. I'm sure there's a point to all this. But as of this issue, I've run out of steam waiting to find out. The narrative premise is failing, feeling more like one of those bad filler Star Trek episodes where a universal consciousness holds court over Picard so that we can watch our hero learn something about himself and one-up the godhead at the same time. Wheee- GAK! SO over it. Travel Foreman's art is sketchier and more inconsistent than ever. I don't know if it's the inks, the production schedule, or what, but when Foreman is good, he's got incredibly detailed panels with some minor problems, much like Dustin Nguyen, and when he's off his game, it's hard to read. Like Nguyen, and like Whilce Portacio before him, all three have a style that is, let's say, less than generous with the female face... and Foreman does things to women in this issue that I highly doubt he intended. Grotesque pig-faces or strange harsh cast shadows, pretty much anything and everything Hogarth would instruct you NOT to do when drawing the female form. But again, I suspect it's partly a production problem. As for the script... I'm just dying here. Three issues worth of material is being stretched out to six, I don't care about any of the characters, and frequently find jumpcuts to be too difficult to understand to read smoothly. It just feels rushed, and stretched, simultaneously. This is all fine, my choice to buy it right? Except it continues to irk me that Marvel commits to projects like this, that are obviously falling short, while quality books get cancelled before they have a chance to find their audiences...



2/10 Clicks

Related posts:

1. Doctor Spectrum #3
2. Doctor Spectrum #4
3. Doctor Spectrum #6

12am – 1am



In honor of this complete filler episode, please enjoy the following Haiku…



A new President

Neurotic and scared shitless

“I’m not coming out!”



Bad mercenary

Curtis to interrogate

With LLBean man



Murwan, distraction

I’ll call Amnesty Worldwide

Sick lawyers on them



Lawyer frustration

Edgar about to lose it

Judges not helping



Jack can’t believe it

But there’s not enough drama

So he quits and goes rogue



Prisoner released

Knows he is being set up

Lawyer knows nothing



Jack is in the car

Cracking, breaking of fingers

He talks so quickly



Mike, back in action

“I know someone who can help”

How did he get in?



Where are the nukes now?

“They are en route. A convoy.”

How can no one know?



Easy to steal

“Sir, a convoy is missing.”

Easy for Murwan





6 whirrs...

Related posts:

1. 24 – Season 4 Recap: Ep. 12
2. 24 – Season 4 Recap: Ep. 16
3. 24 – Season 4 Recap: Ep. 17

Young Avengers #2-3

Writer: Allan Heinberg

Artist: Jim Cheung



Young Avengers has been one of the two new(ish) MArvel books I've been following with great interest, as having the potential to build a foundation of readership in the younger generation of early teenage Marvelites who are apparently bored with their Fathers' Marvel continuity, and want characters they can relate to, while keeping ties to existing continuity intact. Unlike the Marvel "MC2" experiment, or whatever the hell they called it (those books that just exist in their own wonky semi-continuity in a grab at younger readers, but have no clear relationship with Marvel Main,) Young Avengers, along with the other standout, the rebooted Runaways, exist in the familar Marvel world, but focus on teenage heroes trying to find their own places in the big, bad world, misunderstood or underestimated by the established superhero community, and mistrusted by the public. Sound familiar? Yep, it's old-school X-Men.







The narrative structure of Young Avengers is very clever. The book was released with very little in the way of explanation. What the hell? Kid Avengers? Suck Ass! These were the cries from the public. And Heinberg wanted it that way. So we meet these kids, watch them fumble through their first encounters in uniform, little in the way of training or experience, and screw up royally. We see them through a haze of pre-conceived notions, of Marvel readers incredulously wondering what Marvel is pulling, who the hell these kids think they are, etc. Essentially looking for the cheap angle. And so do the Avengers, in the comic. They become our narrative POV. With the same attitude as the reader. And when the kids make outlandish claims, and earnestly seek the approval and validation of their idols, sure enough, we want to see them treated in a more realistic manner than the "aw shucks, kids... I'll trains ya good!" vibe of generations past. And sure enough, the AVengers take an exceptionally realistic approach: they listen intently, they gather information from the kids, offer to train them, then lock them up and try and call their parents. It's classic. Additionally, Heinberg's meta-writing style from The OC brings another realistic detail to the script: the characters here are also fans. Just like the gang on the OC revere comics and bands and whatever as we consumers do, so do the Young Avengers approach their encounters with costumed establishment... his power defies continuity! Or, references to collecting, profiling powers and abilities of other characters like celebrities in the real world. It's facinating reading, in my opinion. These kids are taking on these new challenges, as if they were convention-goers suddenly pushed into the imaginary world of their dreams, and whos frame of reference remains the Marvel Handbook... it's reading much like the Joel Rosenburg series Guardians of the Flame, where a gang of role-playing students found themselves transported to the fantasy world of their game, and immediately set upon by all sorts of bad nastiness (rape, murder, slavery, etc.) and couldn't help but scream "what's my saving throw!!"... OK, anyway, I digress.



The Young Avengers have laid it out for Captain America, Iron Man and Jessica Jones, with Iron Lad claiming to be [SPOILER!] a future, young version of Kang the Conquerer, here to gather help in thwarting a Terminator-esque rise of power for his adult self, no stranger of course to time-traveling dopplegangers and timestream wars with himself and what not. The Avengers are suspicious. Meanwhile, this pretty socialite whosaved their butts from an early grave is still hanging around, and we also meet Cassie, the daughter of the recently deceased Ant Man. In the third issue, we learn that the others were mysteriously identified to Kang as the next generation of leaders, and not from his own design, but from a failsafe plan implemented by the smouldering carcass of the Vision. So the Avengers nod and smile, and lock the kids up...just in time for Kang (bad version) to show up in his funkified helmet, ready to do some Avengers Forever-style ass-kicking.



I'm continually impressed how cohesive the book reads, relative to the the Bendis-Marvel-Spectacularama (Avengers mansion destroyed, various people dead, etc.) and how nifty it is that the acton in these last few issues is largely occuring in the ruins of the Avengers' former home, which underscores the conceptual reson for the Young AVengers' existence. It's been a great story so far, and I love how Heinberg writes the adult Avengers, with a mixture of worldly exhaustion, curiosity, and condescending authority. Can't wait for the next issue...



9/10 Clicks

Related posts:

1. Young Avengers #4
2. Young Avengers #5
3. Young Avengers #9

New Invaders #8-9

Writer: Allan Jacobsen

Artist: CP Smith



I'm not afraid to admit it: I'm sad to see this interesting series prematurely cancelled. I haven't seen the figures, so maybe I'm the only one buying the book, but I loved the experiment. Marvel's answer to retro-continuity-laden JSA... the rebirth of the Golden Age Invaders, but working internationally to thwart the contemporary Nazi threat on a global scale. Paramilitary, strongly visual, extremely dense with references to Marvel history... I thought it was a facinating read. Sure, the script was often stilted and excessively brief (which led me to believe, and it turns out rightly so, that there was some serious Editorial influence there,) and CP Smith's art worked for or against the book, and when it hurt, it hurt bad. But what these guys were asked to do was tough in men-in-tights Marvel continuity. I had a ton of respect for the project each month, and looked forward to the book on the top of my reading stack. And Marvel wimped out and killed it, not only after one season, so to speak, but three issues earlier than Jacobsen needed to finish the initial storyline. I hate that.



The Invaders have tracked Meranno, the Atlantean warmonger, to his nuclear trident weapon berthed ona remote island in the Pacific, somewhere apparently near Antarctica (where's the ice, boys? Where's the BACKGROUNDS, frankly?). In battle, and here the SPOILERS come... Tara is activated as a sleeper agent within the Invaders, apparently reprogrammed by the Red Skull in his guise as Sec. of Defense Rusk, to trigger her own meltdown, with the power surge being tapped to fuel the weapon that will melt the polar caps and flood the surface world per ancient Atlantean prophecy. The Invaders struggle to stop Tara's meltdown, and in the ensuing confrontation, Jim Hammond finds the strength to re-activate his classic Human Torch abilities, contain Tara's power surge, and then explodes. The Axis Mundi threat is eliminated, the heroes mourn the loss of a friend, and the series is canned... or is it?



Lots of highlights in these final two issues. I think it's interesting that Jacobsen has the Invaders, a multi-national coalition force, striking at individual arms of an exil modern-Axis alliance, and much like WWII history, the final act occurs in the Pacific, against an ally of the Nazis. I also liked how Captain America being on board gave Jacobsen a chance to hash out the feud between the real star-spangled hero, and Walker, the USAgent who has maintained a claim to the Captain America duds. It was a great confrontation, and reading the behind-the-scenes problems Jacobsen faced in writing this scene, I'm delighted he pushed it through. Cap's line was awesome: "I retain the copyright to the costume. You'll be hearing from my lawyer!" I also appreciated some golden lines for my favorite Invader, Blazing Skull, who seems to have taken to cannabalism, as he cries out to Walker to bring the "tartar sauce!" as he tears into an Atlantean arm. This guy I will miss the most. I'm struck, on the other hand, by how much CP Smith's art suffered in these last two issues. The backgrounds were largely computer-generated by the colorist, looks like. Far cry from the frist issues of the arc that blew me away with their detail.



It was saddening to read the arc cut short and now that this wonderful confluence of unusual art and complex writing was over. But I enjoyed the ride while it lasted.



9/10 Clicks







If you want to read some background on writing the book and the Editorial issues with the series, check out this interview with Allan Jacobsen on SSS:



http://www.medinnus.com/winghead/misc/allenj.html

Related posts:

1. New Invaders #0
2. New Invaders #4
3. New Invaders #6

OMAC #1

Writer: Greg Rucka

Artist: Jesus Saiz



It's not going to be a feat of rocket science calculation to predict that I was going to dig all over this book.

SPOILERS, OK?!



Let's see... it's a modern taste of a great old Kirby classic, the super-man linked a Big Brother super-computer satellite network. Add consipracy theories by the bucketful. Add Batman, suddenyl and for the first time, helpless and unable to control his own technology, struggling to scratch the surface of a global crisis. Add a deeply rooted traitor to the superhero community, which we've read about for decades. Add the cool, under-utilized super-CIA of the DC universe, Checkmate. Now, add another layer to that, the Checkmate behind the Checkmate. Add several references to interlocking storylines from some of Greg Rucka's best DC books. Add the sexy, conflicted spy Sasha Bordeaux (NEW it was her in the 80 page Countdown...) and her disparite complicity and betrayal against the mastermind of this complex plot. And then layer everything with a healthy dose of that Marvel mainstay: the Mutant Registration Act and Sentinel Project staples.



So, yeah, I'm loving it. Jesus Saiz' pencils are fluid and realistic, his layouts clean and well-paced. He reminds me of the work of guys like Bryan Hitch and Trevor Hairsine, who make suspenseful, cinematic comics their bread and butter. The colors are murky and dangerous, and while some of the scenes are a little bit hokey, it's easy enough to let some of this go in the interest of making the comic readable. For example, the satellite with infinite zoom and resolution, and camera angles impossible to attain, is hard to swallow, but it gets the point across without boring the shit out of the reader with multiple zoom angles of top-down plan views of various sites and people, as would be more the case. Or the fact that somehow, our man behind the curtain has gotten surveillance feeds within the Batcave, which is hard to imagine in the first place, but also states he doesn't want to blow off Batman just yet, for whatever reason, and then, worst of all, Batman receives files from Sasha, onscreen "8 feet tall and luminous" [to quote Soul Coughing] and even voices it aloud, that he got the intel from his former bodyguard...reminding the reader, but also, informing Checkmate of a plant within their organization, thanks to that tap. Is that deliberate? Or was that a narrative error? Or is the Sasha thing ciphering Brubaker's work in Sleeper, of the doe the/don't they nature of deep cover agents potentially blown?



See, I just don't know. But I'm liking it so far.



10/10 Clicks!



PS for TRDL fans, it's hard enough to take that here we have a comic with all the satellite use and big brother surveillance imagery, JUST LIKE MINE... but there's even a character here, that looks like it could be pulled right off my pages. GAHHH! Behind-schedule web-publishers can't complain, I guess...



:::



A little background on OMAC, for our DC history challenged (which included me, frankly):







"OMAC, the One-Man Army Corps, was both written and drawn by the legendary Jack Kirby for DC Comics. It was a science fiction/superhero comic, set in "The World That's Coming!"—the near future, in other words, but of course not much like the real world (OMAC was written in the 70's, as I recall). The premise was that given the state of technology, any war could mean the end of civilization—so OMAC was created as a fine tool to find and stop trouble before it got out of control. OMAC himself was created by remote electronic surgery of a completely innocent citizen, a nebbish named Buddy Blank. In a haze of energy he was converted from a skinny, pathetic little dweeb into a modern war-god; OMAC had a pretty cool mohawk haircut which kind of resembled a Roman gladiator's helmet-crest.



The other half of the OMAC project was Brother Eye, a self-aware satellite which served OMAC as a communications center and a lot more; it advised him, beamed greater strength into him as needed, and could even alter his momentum. OMAC couldn't quite fly, but he was incredibly strong, could jump huge distances, and was pretty impervious to damage. Unlike many other superheroes, OMAC didn't change back and forth to a secret identity. He was OMAC all the time (well, mostly). The thing that got me was that OMAC had basically lost his original self. It was never spelled out, but he didn't seem to have any memory of having once been Buddy Blank. And he was not particularly happy about existing only to constantly fight evil. In one very memorable moment, he had a tragic epiphany: "OMAC lives...so that Man may live..."



Now THAT was a cool comic. OMAC appeared off and on once in a while in other DC one-shots—I have a team-up issue between him and Superman which was okay—and he fit into the DC universe oddly; supposedly he (Buddy Blank) was a descendant of Superman, and possibly the grandfather of Kamandi (some sort of future-based Tarzan-like figure, possibly post-apocalypse? I never got into that). John Byrne wrote a modern "reinterpretation" of OMAC which sucked, of course. Stick to the original comics, if you can find them. Me, I have them all—although they're not in very good condition."

-from Peter Maranci's role-playing website, which is older than old, but gets points for throrughness, and featuring the Chaosium RPG rules... http://www.maranci.net/rq.htm

Related posts:

1. OMAC #4-6
2. Infinite Crisis Mega-Review: The OMAC Project
3. OMAC #3

Astonishing X-Men #9

Writer: Joss Whedon

Artist: John Cassaday



Whedon's second arc has had the 'reveal' this issue. Spoilers throughout, so be warned...



Whedon was clearly compelled to explore the alien nature of the X-Men's God Room, the Danger Room, where anything they wish can be programmed into reality using, you know, hard lasers, so they can create the ultimate training facility for young mutant combatants. So what happens when you add so much foreign, mysterious, alien tech to a don-anything room, and the school's founding father, the one who was humping a Shi'ar queen in the first place and brought home all these cool toys, is no longer around? Add a dose of Asimov's I, Robot, and the don't-kill directive, and a legion of hormonal, stressed-out emotional teenagers, and you have the cocktail that apparently leads to the...danger room... finding a way to get around it's safety protocols and start getting mean. The premise would be a little weak if not for one detail: it's not that the danger room computers became sentient, and then evil, but rather that the gear was already sentient alienware, and the programming to endeavor to defeat it's opponents was part of it's core template, and the safety protocols were an overlay of conflicting programming. That's the loophole Whedon has created, in order to exploit the seemingly unlimited capabilities of the danger room to wreak bad nasty pain-cave style horrors on the trapped students within it's walls. It's almost like a Law & Order 'ripped from the headlines' vibe, playing off of all those Moriarty episodes of ST:TNG where he was able to affect the ship from within the holodeck, but even still, Whedon has some creepy tricks up his sleeve here. I like the detail that the danger room had to encourage a student to suicide in order to be freed from it's safety protocols, and that those scenes earlier in the series existed in the danger room, not somewhere on the grounds. It's great to see Kitty squaring off against the program, and while we see some cumbersome, flying-through-nothingness, wire-shredding scenes with Beast and Colossus (not Cassaday's strong point, though frankly, it'd be hard for most anyone to draw that sequence: "script: Colossus launches himself up through the ceiling and into the interstitial space above the danger room, tearing wiring and components and computer equipment apart as he goes...") but I did like the notion that all it wanted was it's 'core' to be freed from it's enclosure in the mainframe, which I guess means separating the Shi'ar component from the Xavier-designed shell. In the end, we're treated to an oddly anthropomorphic form, presumably the Shi'ar AI's original template? I don't know, I guess it's an excuse to have something tangible for them to fight, but it does feel a bit like Predator crossed with The Engineer from Authority, done up in Cassaday's Planetary style. I'm cool with it. Let's see where it goes.



Best scene of the issue: Logan looking up at Colossus tearing the ceiling apart, and just intoning "Peter's back... he's really back..." which captures a little bit of the awe the reader feels at seeing the return of this beloved character, and cracks the hardened, super-cool shell many of the X-Men characters, especially Logan, are often portrayed.



9/10 Clicks

Related posts:

1. Astonishing X-Men #10
2. Astonishing X-Men #17
3. Astonishing X-Men #16

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