Jenna Jameson's Shadow Hunter #0 ~ Funny thing about me, once I vaguely settle on an idea, trying to disuade me - unless there's a good reason - only cements my resolve. That's how it was with Shadow Hunter - being not averse to a bit of fun and cheesecake I was happy to get the first couple of issues, but the more I heard people deride the idea of Jenna Jameson creating a comic, going on about how it'd be shallow crap based around mindless T&A, the more I was intrigued by the notion that Shadow Hunter might be good. I only know Jameson second-hand - I've met people who've met her - but (that contrary thinking again) I'm more inclined to listen to an idea a porn star has than someone saying that a porn star's idea will invariably be dumb. Other promising signs were Christina Z. being the writer - I know her work from Witchblade, and the Tigra miniseries - and Mukesh Singh's art was what really drew me to Devi (and the absence of it led to me dropping the title).
Well, I'm happy to report that I may have been right. This issue zero has the usual spread of preview pages, interviews, and random art, and all of it points toward a comic that'll be worth taking a look at. Much as I like Greg Horn's fun covers, I think they may be doing Shadow Hunter a disservice - Horn likes cheesecake, and putting his work on covers plays straight into the hands of those who believe that that's what this book will be. I don't think that's right - this is a horror story, and the interior art - while not skimping on showing us an attractive heroine - is very stylish and moody. Jameson's interview backs up the horror concept, a genre she has a long-standing interest in, borne out by the surreal, creepy idea presented in the preview pages - which, incidentally, are lavishly imaginative in the way Mukesh Singh uses colour and imagery. Gotham Chopra (editor-in-chief) and Sharad Devarajan (publisher) share an interview in which they talk a bit about working with Jenna, which is fairly standard fare, but backs up the impression given by her interview that she's a lot smarter than Shadow Hunter's sight-unseen detractors give her credit for. Christina Z.'s two-page interview scores some good points, foreshadowing what I think will be interesting elements to appear in the comic. There's a gallery of covers: Greg Horn and Greg Lands covers for #1, Horn, Daniel Brereton and J. Michael Linsner's covers for #2, and Niko Henrichon's variant #3 cover - various styles of art, all quite good, but again all pandering to some degree to the cheesecake market. Following them is a gallery of 'explorations' by Mukesh Singh, and they are lovely - they're exactly what I believe this title should have on its covers, each one beautiful and stylish and disturbing and thought-provoking.
In fact, if you're at all curious about Shadow Hunter, but put off by the cheesecake look and the idea of a porn star creating a comic book character, pick up this issue zero (or buy it - it's hella cheap), and go straight to the back pages and look through that last gallery. That'll show you something that deserves to be taken seriously, and based on this preview I believe the concept and writing can live up to the art.
Mighty Avengers #7 ~ I find I don't have much to say about this issue - the introduction of Jessica Drew is welcome (she's hot and interesting, but I didn't want to have to endure Leinil Yu's art on New Avengers to read about her), but so much of what's happening here is laying groundwork for later payoffs that it's difficult to really judge what's going on. In brief, Tony Stark decides to bring Drew onto the Mighty Avengers team as a strategy to ruffle the features of a Skrull posing as one of them, if there is one - by watching how everyone reacts to the surprise appearance of Drew, he'll get an idea of who to trust and who to watch like a hawk. All well and good, but right now, with Secret Invasion still some way off, it's just too soon to be revealing something that big, so we're left in the dark - possibly someone well-versed in Avengers lore may have spotted something definitive, but to me it's all still a mystery. I think this will probably be an issue that, down the road when the secret is revealed, we'll go back to and realise that that's what that line meant, that's why that character reacted that way - but for now, it's just dialogue with no payoff.
On the plus side, Bagley picks up the art mantle from Cho and does a great job - there's no jarring, distracting difference between this issue and the last, and it was only part-way through the issue that I remembered it wasn't Cho this time. Bagley can't quite do what Cho does, in terms of illustrative detail and supernaturally lovely women, but he comes close, and he's smart enough to pick up many of the stylistic elements used in the first six issues of Mighty and use them in his own work, preserving the look and feel we've become accustomed to. And he can evidently do this quite quickly, which is a big bonus - I'm glad Cho set the direction for Mighty, art-wise, but it'll be good to see it catch up and mesh with New Avengers and other titles tying into the whole Bendis masterplan.
Gene Simmons' Dominatrix #6 ~ I'm a little unclear on whether this title is going to continue - there's no next issue cover shown on the back pages, nor have there been more issues solicited in Previews, and much is made in the letters column of this being the conclusion of the 'first story arc'. Perhaps IDW are letting it sit until they've got sales numbers back - in which case, I hope the numbers are good, because this has been an interesting comic that deserves a shot. In this issue Dominique is facing off against the happily insane Happy Jacq once more, this time playing for keeps, and with Dom's friend Rachel stuck in the middle. Needless to say there's a fair bit of superheroic action, but it doesn't quite follow the usual script, and Dom is left with more questions and regrets. This arc has been all about Dominique's two lives, and in the end they're being driven apart - as much as Dom wants to believe she's the everyday person she is during the day (albeit with a different job to most of them), the introduction of superpowers and shadowy agents pulling her strings is forcing her to separate her professional side from her personal side.
In a way, it's the standard superhero trope of maintaining a secret identity to keep the villains and nutters away from your regular non-powered friends - but Dominatrix gives it a twist, arriving at the usual destination by way of a different path, and bearing some battle scars from that path that set it apart from generic superhero titles. I'd guess that IDW will collect these six issues into a trade paperback soon enough - if you're a fan of superheroes, but appreciate them with a twist, something out of the ordinary, this is definitely worth a look.
52 Aftermath: The Four Horsemen #6 ~ With the whole miniseries now done, I can officially say: yes, the Trinity should have been left out of it. This story was about Veronica Cale - with Dr. Caulder, his band of misfits, and the Oolong Island Mad Science Squad as supporting cast - versus the Four Horsemen. Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman did nothing of consequence - without them, this could have been a really good three- or four-issue miniseries, tightly focused on its lead characters, with a genuine sense of jeopardy since, with minor characters dropping like flies in the DC universe, there'd have been no guarantee that anyone would have made it out alive. But Superman's not going to die in a spin-off miniseries he's guest-starring in, that's a given right from the start. Wonder Woman at least had some connection to Cale, and spent some time on Oolong, but even she didn't bring much to the party, and Supes and Batman were just pointless, killing time until the final issue, where they didn't solve anything anyway.
It's a shame, because the Dr. Cale story is good - she's an interesting character, intelligent and driven, ruthless, but not without a sense of the big picture, and not mindlessly malevolent - she's too smart to just be evil when there's no profit to her in it. Her brand of mind-driven antagonism battling it out against the brute force of the Horsemen could have been a great story, but it never got to shine - the heroes took up too much time, and left Cale a subplot that never got to fully develop, even though it turned out to be the lynchpin of the whole thing.
And finally, since every other website and column on the web has mentioned it (and laid into it), I got a look at the first issue of Spider-Man's Brand New Day, and... actually, I kind of like it. Sure, OMD was clumsy, but not Superboy-Punch clumsy, and I think there's actually room for a really good, compelling long-term Peter/MJ story to be built around what's happened. Remains to be seen whether that'll happen - also, if it does, I'd rather it happened slowly, not right away - but Dan Slott's first issue actually felt pretty good to me. I liked the brief glimpse of 'Jackpot' too - a concept more or less made for fans to hate on sight, but I'm giving it time before I dismiss it.
Agree? Disagree? Want to call me a godless heathen for not declaring a curse unto the twelfth generation on anyone even tangentially connected to that Spider-Man issue? Say so:
