Posts

Posted on

Irredeemable Ant-Man

Irredeemable Ant-Man 

By Robert Kirkman, Phil Hester & Ande Parks (Marvel)
ISBN 0-7851-1962-0

Although something of a one-gag story, this re-tooling of one of Marvel’s oldest, if not most successful, characters has a lot to recommend it. The art team of Phil Hester and Ande Parks are always a joy to see and the script by Robert Kirkman is sharp and snappy, but the initial premise just doesn’t sit comfortably with me.

Let me make clear, the mini-series collected here was designed to be played for laughs, as well as fitting into modern Marvel continuity. That being said, when veteran super hero Henry Pym designs a new super suit, tricked up with loads of gadgets and capable of shrinking the wearer to ant-size and gives it to super-spy organisation S.H.I.E.L.D., nobody expected it to be stolen by the security men guarding it. Of course nobody expected such a prestigious and efficient organisation to employ such a worthless, shiftless, useless slacker of an agent as Eric O’Grady.

When, after a series of improbable mishaps he acquires the suit, despite the attendant tragedy that always accompanies this sort of origin, he uses his new-found gift to spy on the women’s showers, score with chicks he rescues and generally act like a selfish ass.

With S.H.I.E.L.D., Dr. Pym and just about everybody else after his diminutive butt, O’Grady goes on the run, leaving the field clear for a sequel, but despite all the action, the great pacing, superb visuals and wonderful dialogue, its just doesn’t work. This wishy-washy also-ran just isn’t that likable or empathetic enough. I just don’t care what happens to him.

From a company that pretty much invented the modern comics anti-hero, that’s a pretty damning conclusion to come to. Hopefully any further usage will give him some depth as to augment his lack of height.

© 2006-2007 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Posted on

Gakuen Heaven

Gakuen Heaven 

By You Higuri, & Spray (Tokyopop)
ISBN: 1-59816-708-5

Now that the western world is more generally accepting of the Japanese Manga phenomenon, and there is solid commercial base to work from, publishers are generally becoming bolder in what they make available to the public.

Gakuen Heaven, subtitled ‘Boy’s Love Scramble’ is the first “Yaoi” title I’ve seen translated and although superficially very similar in appearance to other tales of school days there are significant differences the casual purchaser might want to be aware of.

Yaoi are stories created primarily for female audiences in Japan, and the genre concentrates on love, affection and relationships between beautiful young men. The difference between Yaoi and the more common “Shonen-Ai” tales of boys’ mutual affection is the degree of graphically explicit, erotic, homoerotic or sexual content. Yaoi stories, especially in the West, are for Mature Readers Only.

Kieta Itou is a high school student who suddenly and mysteriously wins a scholarship he didn’t apply for to the most exclusive Boys School in the country. Afraid and unsure, he slowly settles into his new life, but is riddled with self-doubt. All the other boys are beautiful and masters of some talent, skill or ability. How can he fit in? And why do the glorious and wonderful school glitterati spend time with someone so unworthy as himself?

This is a classic Cinderella-style school-romance, and were it not for the graphic sexual scenes that form the book’s denouement, this would be a much shorter review. But since it does deal with Gay Sex and Schoolboys, I felt it necessary to be more verbose than usual.

This is a romantic, not pornographic or sexually exploitative story, beautifully drawn, from a culture that views sex and love in a different way to the general population of Britain and America. It won’t be to everybody’s taste. It is not meant to be. If such content is liable to shock you, don’t buy it and don’t read it.

If you are more broadminded, less prone to apoplexy, and looking to see a different sort of romantic mystery – and with a happy ending – this might be a good place to start.

This book is printed in the ‘read-from-back-to-front’ manga format.

© 2004 You Higuri, & Spray. All Rights Reserved. English text © 2007 BLU

Posted on

Batman: Harley and Ivy

Batman: Harley and Ivy 

By Paul Dini & various (DC Comics)
ISBN 1-84576-575-3

DC comics are sitting on a goldmine of quality product to repackage as trade paperbacks and graphic novels, and the sooner they begin utilising it, the better it will be for the industry. They have been publishing child friendly versions of their key characters, most notably Batman, ever since the Paul Dini/Bruce Timm cartoon series first aired in the 1990s.

These adventures are consistently some of the best comics produced of the last two decades and why they aren’t permanently in print, if only as a way of attracting new young readers to the medium, has always baffled me.

One step towards correcting this problem is the subject under discussion here. Collecting the eponymous three issue miniseries, plus the one-shot Love on the Lam and a short story from much-missed Batman anthology comic Gotham Knights.

The fourteenth issue of the aforementioned anthology yielded up the brilliantly dark but amusing tale ‘The Bet’, written by Dini and illustrated by Ronnie Del Carmen. Incarcerated once more in Arkham Asylum, the Joker’s would-be paramour Harley Quinn and the irresistible, but toxic Poison Ivy indulge in a little wager to pass the time. Namely, who can kiss the most men whilst remaining in custody. This razor-sharp little tale manages to combine innocent sexiness with genuine sentiment, and still packs a killer punch-line.

Judd Winick and Joe Chiodo rather over-egg the pudding with their earnest but heavy-handed adventure ‘Love on the Lam’. Unsure of its audience, this caper sees The Joker dump Harley once again, so she teams with Ivy in an attempt to steal enough money to buy him back. Stuffed with guest-stars, and fully painted by Chiodo, this is an unwieldy piece of eye-candy, but it does serve to clear the palette for the final tale.

Dini reunites with artist Bruce Timm, ably assisted by Shane Glines, for a joyous romp as the ‘Bosom Buddies’ have a spat that wrecks half of Gotham before escaping to the Amazon jungle (or is that Rain Forest these days?) together, to take over a small country responsible for much of the region’s deforestation. Once Batman gets involved the story shifts to Hollywood and the very last word in creative commentary on Superheroes in the movie business. This is a frantic, laugh-packed hoot that manages to be daring and demure by turns. An absolute delight, and well worth the price of admission.

© 2001, 2004, 2007 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Posted on

DearS Official Comic Fanbook

DearS Official Comic Fanbook 

By various (TokyoPop)
ISBN 1-59816-493-7

Here’s a particularly Japanese aspect of comics publishing that’s just making its way into Western Culture. Many Manga properties have vociferous and energetic fan-groups and unlike the American system of suing anybody who produces art and/or stories of their favourite strips, the Japanese print the best of them in Official Fan Books (the phrase to Google is ‘Manga-Ka’ if you need more information).

This volume contains strips from fans of the series DearS as well as material from its creator, Peach-Pit, and examines, with varying degrees of discretion and decorum, some of the odder aspects of the property. The original is a boy-meets-alien-girl tale of the sort much loved in Japan. Takeya, a high school boy, does an alien girl a favour, only to have her publicly declare herself his slave, with the usual embarrassingly slapstick consequences.

The work here ranges from the very good to excellent, although the fascination with bedroom secrets, whilst expected, gets a little tiresome. Still if you like looking at semi-clad women drawn in the oddly innocent soft-core Manga manner, it is quite engaging, but strangers to the parent series might be a little confused at times.

This book is printed in the ‘read-from-back-to-front’ manga format.

© 2005 PEACH-PIT. All Rights Reserved. English text © 2006 TOKYOPOP Inc.

Posted on

Batman: Dark Victory

Batman: Dark Victory

By Jeph Loeb & Tim Sale (DC Comics)
ISBN: 1-56389-738-5 (hardcover) 1-56389-868-3 (softcover)

Oddly disappointing, predictable but visually stunning sequel to the magnificent Batman: The Long Halloween (ISBN: 1-5389-469-6) which follows the survivors of that epic as they regroup and assess their futures.

Catwoman returns to Gotham City as the survivors of the decimated Falcone crime family assess the damage caused by the death of their patriarch Carmine “The Roman”, and the revelation that his son was the serial killer who murdered members of the mob and his own relatives on each public holiday.

A despondent Batman goes about his business heartsick that his old friend Harvey Dent has becoming one of the growing army of criminal super-freaks that increasingly haunt his city, and aware that he cannot keep dividing his attention between them and the insidious gangsters that infest every corner of Gotham. Jim Gordon also worries at the events that drove a wedge between himself and his fellow crime-busters. Nobody seems sure that the bad days are over, or that the right guys are have been punished.

Now another seasonal serial killer is loose. This one is throttling cops and stringing them up. With each corpse there is a child’s bloody puzzle, a semi-complete game of “Hangman”. Are these deaths connected to the Holiday Killer? And now, when a young circus performer sees his parents murdered before his eyes, Bruce Wayne is moved to take the child into his home, and under his wing…

By stringing together so many threads, author Loeb loses a little focus here. This is not a bad story, just uncomfortably cramped and a touch undisciplined. But, quite frankly, in comparison to its predecessor, it was always going to come up short.

Despite all I’ve said this is still an above-average Bat-thriller, and Tim Sale’s moody depictions, especially of the baroque and bizarre Rogues Gallery (mandatory characters in any modern adventure of the Dark Knight) not to mention his unique take on the fledgling Robin make this a book worth reading, and re-reading.

© 1999, 2000 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Posted on

Dan Dare: Prisoners of Space

Dan Dare: Prisoners of Space 

By Frank Hampson & Desmond Walduck (Titan Books)
ISBN: 1-84576-151-0

Great Britain’s greatest hero returns in this collection of strips that originally ran in the Eagle from 28th May 1954 until 6th May 1955. When two young cadets from the “Astral Training College” have another of their slight mishaps it leads to another confrontation with an old enemy and endangers the entire Solar System.

Steve Valiant and Flamer Spry will one day be great pilots, if they don’t kill themselves first, or their tutors don’t do it for them. When an exercise goes wrong, the two boys and the crusty old civilian mechanic “Groupie” are sent hurtling up to the deep orbiting space station XQY. As if that’s not bad enough, once they get there it’s only to find that the satellite has been taken over by the monstrous Mekon, and his rebel Treens, as the first step in a plan to reconquer Venus and crush Earth.

It takes all of Dan Dare’s heroism, ingenuity and resourcefulness to once more save the day, and how he does so makes for some absolutely splendid old-fashioned entertainment.

This nigh year-long epic shows Hampson and his cohorts at the peak of their game, combining action, adventure and fantastic thrills with the traditional British fare of waggish schoolboy heroes. Charming and captivating, these stories are true treasures of English heritage.

© 2007 Dan Dare Corporation Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

Posted on

Heroes & Monsters

Unofficial Companion to the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

Heroes & Monsters
By Jess Nevins (Titan Books)
ISBN 1-84576-316-5

Although not a great fan of ‘companions’, or even annotated copies, I will concede that not every comics reader has a brain the size of a planet nor so little social intercourse that they have nothing better to do than accumulate arcane facts and trivia, and further admit that the sheer hard work poured into Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill’s wonderful steampunk masterpiece deserves to be remarked upon, if only to show all those annoying media rat-scrotes just what “added value” can mean.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen concerns the heroic intervention of some of popular literature’s most outstanding characters in an adventure that threatens the British Empire (at the turn of the 20th century) and thus, the World, and is layered with references and motifs that extends throughout that literature and culture, and into our own. If a reader doesn’t pick up on a piece of shtick it makes no difference, but when we do it makes for many all-around “gosh-wow!” moments.

Why Jess Nevins appointed himself the task of sharing all this knowledge is unknown to me, but obviously many people share his desires and drives. The book is exhaustive and meticulous, and the text has been further annotated by Moore and O’Neill. If you need more depth or want to impress your partner, this is one way of doing it.

Just remember to read the original graphic novel. This isn’t like English Lit at school: Watching the film instead of reading the book is pointless and probably rather unpleasant.

© 2003 Jess Nevins. All Rights Reserved.
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen â„¢ & © 2006 Alan Moore & Kevin O’Neill.

Posted on

Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures Vol 3

Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures Vol 3 

By Various (Dark Horse Books)
ISBN 1-84576-020-4

Spinning off from the Cartoon Network show rather than the major motion picture, this third paperback-sized volume contains four more plot-light, all-action, vignettes set in the Star Wars universe at the time of the Battles between the Republic and Count Dooku’s Separatists.

The first story here is ‘Rogues Gallery’, by Haden Blackman, with art by The Fillbach Brothers, and it’s rather good. In deepest space something is stalking Count Dooku’s evil henchmen Asajj Ventress and Durge, and there’s a creepy frisson of tension amongst all the zipping and zapping. ‘The Package’, the story of a commando raid to recover a stolen box for chancellor Palpatine, is a dark but enjoyable fable drawn by the same team, with Ryan Kaufman scripting.

‘A Stranger in Town’ is written and drawn by The Fillbach, a terrific tribute to the Magnificent Seven starring everybody’s favourite Jedi, Yoda, and the book concludes with the Brothers illustrating Tim Mucci’s taut battle thriller ‘One Battle’.

In England the cartoon episodes aired in 5 minute instalments with a polished, stripped down anime style which the comic stories seeks to emulate. Unfortunately this means that despite some very good adventure strips, these books are over almost before you even realise. Nevertheless youngsters and die-hard fans will lap this up, I’m sure. And you could read them between bus-stops. So perhaps you should.

Star Wars © 2005 Lucasfilm Ltd. & ™. All Rights Reserved.

Posted on

Mythology: The DC Comics Art of Alex Ross

Mythology: The DC Comics Art of Alex Ross 

By Chip Kidd & Geoff Spear (Titan Books)
ISBN: 1-84023-941-7

Re-issued to tie-in with the publication of Ross’s latest DC project, Justice, this superb coffee-table art-book reproduces in spectacular detail the works and working secrets of a genuine comics phenomenon.

To sweeten the pot there’s also an eight page painted strip featuring Superman and Batman, a brand new cover and thirty new pages of material. Of particular interest to budding superstars of tomorrow are the hundreds of working drawings and thumbnail sketches that illuminate the manner in which the artist approaches a story.

Designer/historian Chip Kidd and photographer Geoff Spear are responsible for yet another high-quality package that will appeal to the general public just as much as to the dedicated fan.

© 2003, 2005 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Posted on

Modesty Blaise: The Inca Trail

Modesty Blaise: The Inca Trail 

By Peter O’Donnell & Enric Badia Romero (Titan Books)
ISBN 10: 1-84576-417-X

The greatest heroine in English comics returns in another superb collection from Titan Books. First reprinting this time is ‘The Reluctant Chaperone’. As a vacationing Modesty is pressured into babysitting the teen-aged daughter of a CIA acquaintance in Malta. As if young girls aren’t trouble enough, the involvement of Mafia thugs trying to take over the island make for an explosive combination. Kidnapping is wicked, but snatching a kid with an “Aunt Modesty” proves to be suicidal for the unfortunate mobsters.

‘The Greenwood Maid’ is a somewhat more traditional escapade as Modesty and Willie do a favour for one of their old criminal gang and find themselves reliving the gory glory of Robin Hood whilst on the trail of hidden loot in a Mediaeval castle.

A deranged and dying playboy millionaire seeks a bizarre and final revenge on our heroine in ‘Those About to Die’, and all her skill and cunning are needed to rescue Willie from an ancient bloody doom, whilst ‘The Inca Trail’ tests the minds as much as the mettle of the duo as a South American revolution makes them and their juvenile charges the targets of death squads whilst holidaying in the mountains.

O’Donnell and Romero were at the top of their game during this period (1975-1976) and the continuing exploits of this unique character simply got better with every episode. In this edition, as well as an interview with the writer, are four black and white crackers no comic fan or adventure-lover can afford to miss.

© 2007 Associated Newspapers/Solo Syndication.