Comics Review: October 28

Kicking off this week's reviews is Young Avengers, with the two-part story "Secret Identities" (issues 7 and 8). Heinberg proves his successful debut was no fluke; having met the Young Avengers in costume over the last six issues, we're now starting to delve into their civilian lives. Heinberg's approach remains carefully balanced: on the one hand, he's only giving us very small glimpses at who these kids really are. On the other hand, revelations come in all sizes: little things like explicit confirmation that Teddy and Billy are boyfriends, and a rather significant exposing of one Young Avenger as a complete fraud. This is precisely why "Young Avengers" has been maintaining reader interest: Heinberg knows he has a winning deck, but he's setting the cards down one at a time. Based on solicitations, it seems we'll be spending an arc delving into each character in turn. But this is no padded, decompressed sales gimmick; "Secret Identities" does, after all, manage to work in an additional subplot where the Young Avengers bust up Mr. Hyde's MGH operation (at no cost to the running character arcs). Things are happening in the present while we're looking into the recent past, and Heinberg is keeping his promise: none of these kids are what they seem to be. Eight issues in, this series has lost none of its charm or energy, and I'm still completely into it.

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"Legion of Superheroes" continues with issue 11, and again, there's not much I can say about it that didn't apply last issue. We're still building to the climax of Lemnos' attack on the United Planets; it's still an exciting read, with some very touching moments (ie: Brainiac spending the entire issue standing still, trying to calculate a way to bring the murdered Dream Girl back to life - and failing). I think this is also the very first issue to feature all the main characters in the Legion at once - there's a rather formidable roll call when the issue begins, but Waid has done his job well in prior issues, and you know just enough about every single member to make them distinctive.

There's a backup story in this issue where a Legionnaire is trying to collect scattered issues of DC comics in the rubble of Legion HQ (the idea being that these "historical artifacts" are priceless because they inspired the new heroic movement). There's a nice effect in the artwork where poses and actions seen on various covers play themselves out in a mirror effect (ie: someone points to the sky, cut to a cover of Superman doing the same thing). However, it's a bit more muddled than Waid's usual efforts: the point, at first, seems to be that Elastic Lad is desperate to preserve the past, a valid concept when their future seems so bleak. But when he's confronted with the casualties around him, and those that need his help, he tosses them away with a dismissive "It's just comics". So what is Waid saying here? That the past isn't as important as the present? But if that's the case, why are these people unknowingly acting out scenes from various comics? How can history repeat itself if it's meaningless? And if they are important, why discard them at all?

Still, a slightly off-kilter backup story doesn't compromise what continues to be an excellent saga. I look forward to the next issue.

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The Luna Brothers, Joshua and Jonathan, won me over last year with their spectacular debut miniseries, "Ultra: Seven Days". I was specifically blown away by how well they wrote believable female characters, and I certainly count "Ultra" as one of my favorite reads of 2005. So when they announced a new ongoing series at Image, I didn't hesitate. Not even at the grimace-inducing titles, "Girls" (as in, "Hi, I'd like an issue of 'Girls', please... I've got six 'Girls' in my longbox back home..." and so on).

As it turns out, "Girls" is as strong an entry as "Ultra" was, even though the two could not be more different. Whereas the latter was a bit of superheroes mixed with a bit of "Sex and the City", the former is more of a toned-down, quiet mystery. The pace is slow, but not padded; the characters are varied (though some stand out better than others); and the enigmatic Girl at the center of the story is eerie, invoking curiosity without testing the reader's patience.

In issue 6, the Lunas seem to deliver a very convincing explanation of the Girl's origin; whether it's what it appears to be remains to be seen. This revelation sends the town into a panic, but an attempted evacuation goes terribly wrong and the remaining refugees discover they have nowhere to run.

We're currently at a point in the series where plot movement has overtaken characterization for the time being; as such, when we're introduced to new players such as the female Reverend we don't get to know them very much. One flaw the Lunas are trying to overcome here is how to deal with a cast made up of an entire town's population. As I said before, some characters are distinct (protagonist Ethan, the Picketts and Sheriff Wes to name a few) while others are so obscure they're interchangeable (Cole's parents, the various women injured during the prior attack). I think one thing "Girls" could really use is a dramatis personae; all we get in the intro page is a map of Pennystown (the setting of the story), and a list of the citizens and their homes. It's very difficult to match the faces to the names.

That aside, "Girls" still succeeds at building an interesting riddle from the ground up. The first issue wasn't much more than Ethan's problems with his ex-girlfriend, and his encounter with a silent, wounded girl on the road. In six issues, we've had fatalities, hysteria, unexplained events and tangible evidence that something otherworldly is at work. I don't think the Lunas are going to lose me anytime soon. :)

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"Vegas: Play To Win" (Amazing Fantasy 13-14) was a pretty disappointing read for me. I've never been one for Karl Kesel's writing, but it had an interesting angle: moving away from the traditional urban, metropolitan trappings of the Marvel Universe, this story concerns a grifter named Vegas who comes to Texas looking to avenge his murdered sister. We quickly learn that Vegas has a vaguely-defined ability to manipulate luck, gained by the same accident that took his sister's life; bullets miraculously miss him, keys to his handcuffs just happen to turn up in his hands, etc. The catch is that Vegas siphons good luck from people around him, so any use of his power results in disaster for someone else (although who it affects, when and why, is left unclear).

Unfortunately, the lack of coherent description isn't limited to Vegas' powers. We don't learn just how his sister Jane was killed, or precisely what happened to give him these abilities. We're given a painfully brief description of how superhumans behave in this environment - no gaudy tights for this bunch - but there's no mention as to whether these people are mutants, aliens, or something else. Vegas' characterization is lacking, with no discernable qualities that could maintain the reader's interest. On top of all that, Kesel only barely scratches the surface in terms of what life in a Marvel Universe version of Texas would be like.

Realistically speaking, it was perhaps optimistic of me to expect a satisfying read out of a two-issue standalone story. But Kesel doesn't take advantage of the space he does have, to the point that he runs out of pages before the story's over. There's no conclusion at all - rather, the issue ends with Vegas reaching the mid-point in his journey following a startling revelation. And... well, that's it. There's a vague promise of a further adventure "if you liked this one" (read: "Buy this comic if you want to know how the story ends"), but I'm not holding my breath. An insufficient ending is just the icing on this bad, bad cake. Better luck next time, "Amazing Fantasy".

Addendum to "When Novelists Attack!"

This just in: Rambo creator David Morrell will be writing a Captain America project for Marvel next year. The press release is as follows:

"In his first comic book writing effort, Morrell will bring his action writing talent to Captain America, in the story of a young Marine, Corporal James Newman, who is on his tour of duty in Afghanistan. In the midst of a brutal fire fight with enemy forces, Captain America leads him out of the battle while helping him rescue his wounded comrades who are trapped by enemy fire. When the smoke clears, Newman is unsure if Captain America was really there, or a hallucination in the stress of battle."

Now that's more like it! A Captain America story that might not be a Cap story at all; rather, what the character represents, particularly in contemporary times. That's something we haven't had recently - the significance of Captain America from the perspective of an outsider. Again, Morrell is a writer I haven't had personal experience with, but based on the idea alone? This easily has the most potential in the novelist circle. Definitely something I'll be looking forward to.

When Novelists Attack!

Or "New Recruits Tell Old Stories"

Marvel has just announced the addition of two critically-acclaimed authors to their ranks: Stephen King and Eric Jerome Dickey.

They've also announced what projects these two will be working on. Prepare to be bowled over (or not). King and Jae Lee will be doing a monthly series based on King's "Dark Tower" series, while Dickey teams with District X artist David Yardin for a six-part Storm miniseries that isn't actually a Storm miniseries (more on that in a bit).

But first... Stephen King. This announcement has sent up quite a burst of controversy lately. The argument seems to break down into the following: on the pro side, snagging a writer of King's calibre and fame is certainly a coup for Marvel. It provides a level of visibility that even DC couldn't obtain with Brad Meltzer. Also, by having King's project tie in to his "magnum opus" book series, Marvel could hypothetically snag most, if not all, of King's readers (who, last I checked, numbered somewhere in the millions). Quite frankly, this is an almost-assured financial and commercial success for Marvel.

The con side, however, points out that Marvel has basically told their own audience that, Dark Tower readers aside, they've got nothing to look for here. Accessibility obviously isn't going to be a factor when you've got seven novels as the base; not to mention, a lot of King fans (myself included) tend to draw a distinction between his work in the fantasy genre and his work in the horror genre. If you haven't already been reading "Dark Tower", you're probably not the target audience.

Which, I suppose, is fair enough if you look at it solely in terms of the money. There's no question that Marvel can only gain by ditching their readers in exchange for King's. But one criticism I'm very much inclined to agree with is the larger problem, which is that Marvel and King aren't bringing anything innovative to the table. "Dark Tower" has been around for twenty-five years. New story or not, there's nothing original here. I'm not saying they should have saddled King with the X-Men or something mainstream, but one does have to wonder why go this route, as opposed to something completely original that could appeal both to King fans and to the regular audience; something along the lines of JMS' "Dream Police", which has no ties to the mainstream but also no explicit ties to past works of the writer. That's the creative ideal, because there are no pre-requisites for any reader who jumps aboard. And King is certainly capable of that.

Unfortunately, this theme of "someone new doing something old" seems to have become a theme across the board. Damon Lindelof is doing Wolverine vs. Hulk. Daniel Knauf is doing an Iron Man story where his technology is stolen and used for evil. We've seen all this before. And it doesn't stop there, as Eric Jerome Dickey's "Storm" miniseries proves.

As I mentioned before, it's not really about Storm at all. Rather: "Dickey's Storm story arc will present an epic romance, revealing the untold love story of the world's two most popular African American Super Heroes, Ororo (also known as Storm of the X-Men) and T'Challa (a.k.a. The Black Panther), the world's first African American Super Hero... As the story and romance unfold, the duo come together to fight against a mutual foe who seeks to put them in a cage and exploit them toward wicked ends." (quoted from the press release)

So it's a Black Panther/Storm love story. An "epic" love story, no less. Except that, if we put aside the recent Milligan/Hudlin crossover, Storm and Black Panther? Not exactly Cyclops and Jean Grey, or Superman and Lois Lane. If I recall correctly, they shared one story together back in Ye Olde Days, and that was about it. And personally, I always felt there was something very artificial about the basic concept of a Panther/Storm relationship, because no writer has ever convinced me they're together for any other reason than they're both African. That's certainly the vibe I get from Reginald Hudlin, who gleefully lumps together Black Panther, Blade, Storm and Luke Cage despite the fact that the only thing they have in common is skin color. It's forced, and it doesn't convince.

And the annoying thing is that the press release regarding Dickey is utterly contradictory: first it promises to be a Storm series, then we find out T'Challa shares the billing. Dickey expresses his admiration of Storm, then explains how the series is about African Prince T'Challa meeting street girl Ororo, who gets along more because she's a sneak than because of her nascent powers. Hell, at least the older story had them on equal ground (he a prince, she a "goddess").

Which brings me to the same problem as before: Dickey isn't showing us anything new. We've seen Storm/Panther. It wasn't very convincing then. And for all that Dickey might be able to wrangle some kind of love story out of it, it's unlikely he'll be able to get past that instinctive sense of artificiality, precisely because - aside from him, Hudlin and whoever wrote that first story - it's not as if that many people find the relationship believable in the first place. Again, it's a waste of talent (though I'm not personally familiar with Dickey's work, so I can't comment on whether he has any talent to waste).

I've expressed hesitation regarding this influx of non-comics writers before. Primarily because there's not much indication as to whether these new recruits can actually write comics; but also because it's becoming increasingly clear that they're not really trying to think outside the box. And maybe the reason star power isn't translating into off-the-chart sales is because however well Lindelof pulls off a Wolverine/Hulk fight, it's still a Wolverine/Hulk fight. A rose (or pile of excrement, depending on your tastes) by any other name...

Movie Review: "Elvira, Mistress of the Dark"

Or: "Putting the 'Tit' in 'Titillation'

This movie is exactly why I try very, very hard to keep an open mind as often as I can. Because if you judge "Elvira, Mistress of the Dark" by how it looks rather than what it says, you probably come away with a completely different - and much more negative - opinion of it.

Ethan practically begged me to watch this with him. Apparently it's a relic of his childhood, one of those movies you're always so nostalgic about even though you only remember a scene or two. I made him sit through "Robin Hood: Men In Tights" (he's not a Mel Brooks fan, go fig), so fair is fair. I should note here that I was only vaguely familiar with the character of Elvira before watching the film... mostly through the old PC game back when DOS ruled the world. So I didn't really know what to expect aside from the fact that it was labeled a comedy.

He was expecting me to start snarking as soon as Elvira turns up looking like this:



And I probably would have, if the movie had continued with the tone it establishes in the first minute, painting Elvira as another vapid bint with more boobs than brains. But then she starts harping on the lame movie she just hosted, and it becomes pretty difficult to muster any vitriol towards her. There's something very genuine and light-hearted in the way Cassandra Peterson plays the part, to the extent that I couldn't help but like Elvira and laugh with her.

A big part of that is, I think, the fact that while Elvira may be a few clones short of a Star Wars movie (as the saying goes), at the same time she's never a victim. She's highly and overtly sexualized, and objectified by almost every man she meets... but they can't touch her if she doesn't want them to. In that respect, her appearance is almost empowering rather than demeaning; it's a choice she makes not to draw men in, but because it's how she wants to express herself.

The plot is stock B-movie quality: Elvira is summoned to a small town in Massachusetts (called Fallwell, hah hah) to receive an inheritance from her deceased great-aunt. Unfortunately, she gets herself stranded there, and finds out the town is dominated by a "morality club" that never quite let go of their Puritan heritage. Naturally, someone like Elvira sticks out like a sore thumb. But the oppressed, repressed teens see her as a symbol of rebellion and freedom, which sends the whole town off the rails. Meanwhile, Elvira's great-uncle Vincent is trying to steal an item of magical power left in her care, and he plans to kill her once he receives it. Cue mayhem, firebreathing demons and a homage to Sigourney Weaver and Linda Hamilton. There's even a nice, upbeat ending where Elvira finally achieves her dream of performing in Las Vegas.

It turns out rather better than you'd expect; one of those movies, perhaps, that's "so bad it's good"? A charming effort... not Oscar material, but certainly a pleasant surprise.

"In Therapy"

Or: "Why I'll Never, Ever See A Shrink"

Okay, this is sort of a "nyah nyah nyah" moment, because if you're not living in Israel, chances are you're not watching "In Therapy". We're one of those countries that don't mind importing but export so rarely (though, in fairness, we very rarely have anything worth sending out there, and no, Dana International wasn't one of them).

So why am I reviewing this series? Because it's one of the few television dramas that hooked me from the pilot and, after months, has yet to lose me. It's subtle yet biting, clever yet not exclusively so, and it's mesmerizing. Forget religion, other people's problems are the opium of the masses.

"In Therapy" is about people. Lots of people. Their stories, their pain, their secrets, the lies they tell each other and themselves. The focalizer is a psychologist named Reuben Dagan, and through him we're plugged into the lives of five of his patients. The series is structured in such a way that his sessions are sort of real-time; since he only sees his patients on a weekly basis, each day of the week features an episode aligned with that specific character. It's a rather clever way of giving us multiple character subplots without getting them tangled in each other. At the same time, since Reuben is the one we follow every day, it's interesting to see how each session and each patient affects him differently. The smallest details mean something.

Being a series about therapy, each 30-minute episode contains about 29 minutes and 30 seconds of dialogue. This is obviously where the series would live or die, because it's so heavily dialogue-oriented. Fortunately the scripters are at the head of the class, gently prodding you with the Exposition Stick (as opposed to bashing your brains out, as other shows are wont to do). Verbal clues are dropped, then picked up and explored. Very true to life, and that's what makes it work.

So... his patients. My first reaction is "Ye Gods, these people make the Osbournes look like the Bradys". Except we're already six or seven sessions in, and looking back I realize just how toned down each character really was. When you first meet these people, you don't know their issues, and in some cases you're left to wonder why they're wasting their time on a couch, there's nothing wrong with them. And then they slowly, exquisitely start unraveling.

On Sundays we have Neama, a 32-year-old woman who's been in Reuben's care for a year. She's developed an obssession with him, and she's utterly convinced he feels the same way. Of course, he writes it off as transference, and really, she comes off as the Icky Slutbag in the first few episodes, talking about sex like she's getting paid for it. But it turns out she's harboring a deep trauma about her childhood that completely screwed her up, and while that's a big part of her current state of mind, something on Reuben's end may be encouraging her.

Monday nights give us Yadin, an Israeli fighter pilot. Unlike Neama, he's never been to Reuben before, which means he doesn't know anything more than we do. Yadin starts off as a pretty obnoxious character: arrogant, defensive, a real jerk. On a faulty intelligence tip, he bombed a Palestinian kindergarten, killing thirteen infants rather than the terrorist he'd targeted. This doesn't seem to bother him, since - as he tells Reuben - he did his job to the best of his ability. It's not his problem. That statement gets pretty warped when we find out Yadin's parents were Holocaust survivors. But the big thing with this guy is that, the day his military hiatus ended, he drove himself to a massive coronary and died. Clinically dead. And when he came back, everything felt different for him. Of course, he doesn't actually see any connection between this and the failed bombing. It all spirals pretty out of control for the poor guy, whose irritating air of superiority gets dismantled, bit by bit. And to top it all off, his latest breakthrough in therapy has kicked off a full-fledged sexual identity crisis (beat that, Brad Meltzer!), as the promo for tomorrow's episode seems to indicate he's slept with the doctor who saved his life. Who happens to be his best friend, but more importantly, a man. I smell overtime.

The most sympathetic patient to date is 17-year-old Ayala, who turns up on Tuesdays. Again, this is a tabula rasa character, so she's unknown both to us and to Reuben. Ayala's story is the one with the most intricate structure; she originally comes to Reuben for a professional evaluation, after she got hit by a car and the insurance company denied her claim by saying she jumped into the road. Ayala, of course, is furious at the suggestion that she attempted suicide, but she can't prove otherwise without a legal affirmation from a certified psychologist. Reuben decides to play along, thinking that if he gets her to open up (ostensibly for the evaluation) he might find out what's going on. And it's a doozy. I couldn't fit this girl's baggage onto a 747, but the thing is, it'd be impossible to care for her if she wasn't the most sympathetic cast member. The actress, Maya Maron, infuses her character with so much vulnerability that, from the moment she steps into the clinic with both arms in casts, you can't help feeling for her. Neither can Reuben, who is almost instinctively driven to help her face her demons and overcome them.

Wednesday is Couples Therapy, and these are the characters I care least about because it's a little too color-by-numbers. A thugalicious cowboy and a banker have been married for years (she cheated on her first husband with him), they had a kid, and because of complications in labor she couldn't have another. They worked at it for five years, torturous fertility treatments and such, and she finally got pregnant. Only now she doesn't want the baby anymore. Reuben deduces that who she really doesn't want is her husband. IMO, the problem here is that, unlike the rest of Reuben's patients, there aren't many surprises here. He thinks she's having an affair (she might be), she thinks he's paranoid and abusive (he probably is), and the only reason they've stayed together this long is because fighting each other gives their lives meaning. It doesn't matter if they love each other, or if she just doesn't like the idea of having her career waylaid by pregnancy; their whole relationship is founded on their differences rather than whatever they might have in common.

But Thursday is where the series really gets brilliant. At the end of the very first week, Reuben calls up an old colleague of his, seemingly on a whim. And so we meet Dr. Gila Abulafia, his mentor and supervisor back when he was a student of psychology. There's some bad blood between them due to a life-altering feud they had in that period, but when he shows up, it's almost like two colleagues getting reacquainted... until you realize they're slowly moving into actual psychological therapy. With Gila treating Reuben. I can't stress how effective this is, in that it completely deconstructs Reuben as the supposedly-flawless listener who knows the answers to everyone's problems. Gila, the superior therapist, breaks through that surface and brings out shocking, personal issues that Reuben himself is dealing with. Just like that, the veneer of calm, oracular knowledge is shattered and we see Reuben just as frail, just as problematic as anyone he's treating. It breaks down the facade in a way that makes him a human being in our eyes, but also that much more unreliable as a therapist, because how can he advise a couple in a marriage crisis when his own marriage is falling apart? His patients need to see him as the guy with all the answers, and that's how we're inclined to see him too, at first. And when we can't do that anymore, it changes everything.

If I knew how, I'd encode and subtitle every single episode of this sublime, sophisticated and enrapturing series and share it with the world. :)

Comics Review: October 23

Another short one this week: just the debut of Keith Giffen's Marvel series, "Nick Fury's Howling Commandos". This week also saw the conclusion of Ed Brubaker's "Authority: Revolution" miniseries, but I'm saving that for an upcoming retrospective on the series, from Ellis' Stormwatch to today.

So... "Nick Fury's Howling Commandos". I had hopes for this series based on its premise: SHIELD, premier spy organization of the Marvel Universe, has assembled a commando squad comprised entirely of monsters. Zombies, vampires, werewolves, mummies, it's all fair game. Their job is basically to go where SHIELD can't (or won't) send human operatives and wreak carnage. The underlying idea is that these monsters are somehow more expendable than human beings, at least where Nick Fury is concerned. It's a disturbing notion that Giffen points to, but doesn't really discuss at any length.

October has been declared "Marvel Monster Month", another one of those dreadful navel-excavating stunts where Marvel talks up some random, not-particularly-well-written projects, and then utterly abandons them a week later. They then mourn the need for premature cancellation, blamings fans who'd never even heard of said projects for low sales and lower interest.

Of course, this is a perfect demonstration of Marvel's inability to think beyond the short term: granted that assorted one-shots will probably, at the very least, recoup printing costs, but series like "Howling Commandos" bear the onus of carrying the themes once the fad (and the hype) is gone. It didn't work for Tsunami, it didn't work for the Young Guns initiative, and it didn't work for Marvel Next. So, all things considered, it's very unlikely Giffen will make it to issue 12, much less go further than that.

How does the issue itself stack up? Not very well, sadly. The story begins with this "monster squad" - comprised of new character Warwolf, Nina Price (Vampire by Night, from "Amazing Fantasy"), a clone of Frankenstein's monster (no, I don't get it either), a mummy, a zombie and a talking ape (apparently the latter three are all established Marvel characters) - infiltrating and attacking a terrorist cell. This sequence is very muddled, due in part to the artwork and in part to a lack of narrative focus which has the plot bouncing all over the place. Following their victory, the Howling Commandos are airlifted out of the region by a dragon who looks a lot like Fin Fang Foom, but apparently is not (it's also unclear whether they hitch a ride in his mouth or whether his stomach has been hollowed out).

Half an issue later, Nick Fury places Clay Quartermain in charge of the squad, and gives painfully brief descriptions of the characters. Apparently Giffen is counting on you to recognize these characters on sight; given their age, that strikes me as a touch too optimistic. And then someone called Merlin escapes from a warehouse. The end.

As introductory issues go, it doesn't quite get the job done. I came away from it utterly disinterested, and to be fair to Giffen, it's not so much that his writing is bad, it just lacks any hook. I didn't really see anything that compelled me to come back for a second issue, and I wouldn't recommend anyone else do the same.

Oh my GOD.

Or: "I Can't Believe It's Not Diana!"

I think I've found my online counterpart: http://shrewreview.blogspot.com/

Not only does she have a lot to say about comics art (which I've never really been able to evaluate to any considerable extent) as well as stories, but she reviews DC comics. On top of all that? She's bloody good at it. Observant, detailed, clearly intelligent.

I'd be in love if I swung that way. :)