ZMD: Zombies of Mass Destruction #1 ~ There's no shortage of zombie comics, but this one has a neat twist on the idea, grown out of the seeds of Romero's 'Day of the Dead' and watered by the current political and military goings-on in the Middle East. The US, mired in too many brushfire conflicts and unwiling to commit (and lose) yet more American lives, has developed a plan to use zombies as a kind of bio-weapon, building into them a daylight-sensitive self-destruct to keep their rampages from getting out of hand. This issue mainly confines itself to setting the scene, using visuals of a zombie strike overlaid with dialogue from a political chat show to establish the zombies' MO, and the political and military reasons for their use. Inevitably (as always happens with zombies) something goes wrong - one of the zombies fails to disintegrate come daybreak, and staggers off into the desert, leaving the army panicking about its secret being revealed. When the clean-up crew goes in to discover this, we get the first real character-driven material, with a cursory introduction to the characters we'll presumably be following, in the form of several soldiers with differing but plausible opinions of their job.
The art is convincing and graphic without being gratuitous, and the writing does a good job of selling the whole zombie soldier idea as something that could occur in the real world, with all the current political realities in play, rather than the zombies' traditional stomping-ground, the post-apocalyptic world which is essentially a sci-fantasy setting, and can do as it pleases. Indeed, my one query about the concept comes about because it's presented in such a realistic, convincing manner - I wonder, with video cameras, cam-phones and wireless internet now a reality even in isolated Mid-East war-torn villages, would it really be possible to deploy a zombie force without public exposure being eventually inevitable, regardless of the self-destruct? It's a minor point though - if zombies, morality of warfare, and/or covert ops are your thing, this is worth a look.
Afterburn #4 ~ Speaking of post-apocalypse, here's one - though again, with a twist that makes it stand apart from the crowd. What we actually have here is post-half-apocalypse - a 'solar superflare' has wiped out nearly the entire population of the half of the planet facing the sun at the time (China through the Europe, I gather), leaving scattered bands of irradiated survivors, along with various mutants, monsters, and all the other fun stuff you get in post-apocalypses. Meanwhile, though, the other half of the planet is fine - and they want the spoils of the irradiated half, art and treasure and in this case - this issue being the conclusion of a four-issue miniseries - nuclear weapons, and so they send teams in to battle the mutants et al and come back with the prize. Operating in this interesting setup, the story behaves like a kind of A-Team with more sophistication - there's action and fun stunts and comedy, but also genuine characterisation beneath the fun. This issue focuses on Jake, a fast-talking tough guy and distraction-causer, who thanks to the initial flare copped a nasty dose of radiation and is living with the knowledge that he's probably not got long before a cancer starts eating him up - that kind of scenario, written into the characters, makes them more interesting than just stock action heroes in a new setting. I'm not sure I like the art style of the cover - it seems to be trying for art-styled photo-realism, and falling short as photo-realistic comic art often does, but the interior art is different, more traditional comic book work, and does the story more justice than the cover.
Sky Doll #3 ~ I spent much of the review of issues #1 and #2 gushing about how wonderful they were - well, this one is all that and better. The scope of the writing ranges from socio-political epic to intensely personal character drama, from full-on earth-shattering to quiet and reflective; the art is superb, with lavish design and colour and movement; the whole package is a thing of beauty. As with previous issues, everything is in flux - characters and situations are in a state of constant evolution, so there's no 'status quo' to get comfortable in and stagnate, and a huge amount of story and meaning is packed into the 46 pages. There's a line near the end that sums it up perfectly: "It's like flying blind. [...] It's all just one big mystery you become wrapped up in, one that forces you to question everything about yourself." And you do become wrapped up in it - the bombardment of images and ideas and storylines is perfectly weighted, always challenging but never crossing the line into being inaccessible. The creator biography page at the back of the issue reveals that a fourth issue is in the works; hopefully Marvel will publish it in English without delay, because I can barely wait.
It's worth noting, by the way, that these volumes don't work like issues of a US miniseries - each of the three Sky Doll issues so far are a complete volume, and contain their own narrative through-line, so the fact that Marvel has used the US numbering style (making this issue '3 of 3') doesn't mean that the fourth will be tacked-on, or a different storyline. Each volume/issue is more like an intense 46-page movie of its own, with the volumes fitting together like a trilogy thus far. Also, a handful of extra pages in this issue contain a preview for another upcoming Soleil title Marvel will be publishing for the English-speaking audience, named Ythaq: The Forsaken World. The six-page preview (plus a seventh page of cover art and introduction by the creators) gives a taste of a fun, exciting sci-fi tale, introducing our three main characters with the efficiency and style I'm starting to expect from Soleil comics, and quickly aiming them towards the main storyline, in which they survive a starship-wreck on a strange alien world. Ythaq will be six issues long, and available through Marvel some time in 2009 - it looks well worth keeping an eye on.
Birds of Prey #120 ~ Having caught up on all of Gail Simone's outstanding Birds of Prey stories in trade paperback format (see the February TPB-a-thon for reviews of two of them), and caught up by proxy on the more recent stories that haven't yet been published as TPBs, I decided the post-Simone material was still good enough to buy monthly. This issue comes as Oracle and co. are moving into a new town, Platinum Flats, encountering resistance from a sophisticated tech-villain set-up already ensconced there. Continuing the tradition of Birds of Prey in featuring plenty of heroines besides the primary cast, Infinity is brought on board to invisibly infiltrate the bad guys' lair and report back - and of course when they doesn't go quite as planned, Huntress and Lady Blackhawk are there to lend a hand. Meanwhile Oracle has Manhunter snooping around Black Canary's place, leading to a confrontation between the two - I'm not sure I buy Manhunter's writing here, she's got a thrill-seeker side to her, but she seems far more devil-may-care than usual here, and only later in the issue when things calm down does she come off more consistent with her behaviour in her own title. Regardless, it's entertaining stuff, but so far I'm not convinced this title still has the very strong emotional core that Simone gave it - there's a big Oracle/Black Canary scene, but it doesn't work the way I think it wants to - and that's something I hope I'll be reassured about in future issues.
Batgirl #1 ~ A relatively new character for me - I missed out on Batgirl's previous series, and haven't encountered her much in other DC reading so far. Helpfully, this issue provides a huge dollop of exposition about her history; unfortunately, it's pretty heavy-handed, coming in a big two-page sequence where everyone stands around and recites Batgirl's backstory, and even more unfortunately, it's the typically convoluted junk most comic book characters have to contend with when they look back on past events. It actually put me off, all the more so because it was utterly unnecessary - the first page of this issue tells you everything you need to know about Batgirl's past, and the rest is just stuff that the Adam Beechen evidently liked too much to just leave it where it belongs, in the issues it happened in. It undermines the issue pretty badly - I get the impression that I should feel for Cassandra (Batgirl) because of what she's been through, but because all that was just recited while she stood around blankly, rather than her emotions being shown by way of actual dialogue and narrative, I find I don't feel much of a connection to her. Add onto that the final page, which evidently thinks that it's a reveal of something - it's all very well for Batgirl to say her antagonist "looks familiar," but I don't have a blessed clue who she is or what she looks like, and nothing else in the issue tells me - and it's not a strong debut overall. Maybe if I read Batman and the Outsiders, which this evidently draws on... but then, if this title is only supposed to be bought by a sub-set of another title's readers, it's not going to get great sales figures, is it? Despite the cover trying to make it sound like an ongoing, this is a six-part miniseries; I'll probably stick with it to see if things improve now that the history lesson is out of the way.
Hyperkinetic #1 ~ Four eccentric female bounty-hunters cruise around arguing, getting into fights (with themselves and other stuff), and chasing bad guys - it's a lot of fun. The characters cover all the bases, with someone for everyone: Alicia is the sexy and confident leader, Shirley is abrasive with an itchy trigger finger, Milla is bizarre and unpredictable, and Katiya is sweet and a bit out of her depth. They make for a lot of entertaining hijinks and dialogue as they bumble their way around, on the trail of a dog-guy named Renpy, a chase involving high-warp bickering, crashing on a jungle world, fighting shape-shifting tigers, and trying to get through a busy city without losing their tempers and shooting bystanders. The art - Matteo Scalera, with Oscar Celestini providing vivid colours - is heavily stylised, sort of animation-chic, and fits well with the general craziness. So far there's not a lot of real heart beneath the mayhem, but it's a fun, diverting ride that doesn't pull punches humour-wise.
Bomb Queen V #3 ~ BQ enlists the aid of the Capewatch crew, keeping Kino hostage while Scott and Neil are dispatched back to Littleville to clue the Queen in on White Knight's power source and possible weaknesses, encountering quite an imaginative new 'niche' heroine along the way. Their side of the story is reading kind of like a combination mystery/road trip movie - there's clearly a secret at the heart of Littleville, and Jim Robinson cleverly drops just enough hints to keep readers intrigued, without showing too many cards at once. Meanwhile BQ is stuck dealing with the citizens of New Port City, who aren't happy with her perceived lack of leadership (i.e. she's not doing what they want), resulting, unsurprisingly, in a gory massacre, laced with dark hilarity as the Queen goes over-the-top hyperviolent, using children as melee weapons, bludgeoning protesters to death with her boobs, all the while delivering biting political and social commentary. Robinson's genius, as always, is that Bomb Queen does have a very valid point - she speaks harsh political and economic realities that are perfectly applicable, even sensible lessons to learn, in the real world - but she just makes her points with chaotic and horrific violence, sort of the ultimate embodiment of 'tough love', except that her aim isn't to improve anyone else's life by educating them, but just to be true to herself, and damn the consequences to others.
X-Factor #33 ~ I haven't kept up on X-Factor since the Civil War tie-ins - I got the impression of a well-written title then, but the art wasn't to my liking, the storyline was too entrenched in its own machinations for me to really jump into without back issues, and none of the cast of characters grabbed my attention that I was willing to put in the effort to get past that. This - both a Secret Invasion tie-in and the first part of an X-Factor/She-Hulk crossover - is more of the same, but better, and worse at the same time. Peter David writes good comics, no doubt about it - the dialogue in this issue is great, and the characters come across even to a newbie like me. The 'better' is that there's a storyline here which requires little in the way of prior knowledge - the basics of M-Day will suffice. The 'worse' is the art - in the Civil War tie-ins it was just a style I didn't personally like, though I could see the talent in it. This is just plain ol' bad artwork - Stroman draws faces like they're zombies, with ill-textured skin stretched haphazardly over angular features, managing to be not only thoroughly ugly, but also wildly inconsistent from page to page and angle to angle. One character (Darwin) I wasn't sure whether he was meant to look human or not, Jazinda I only recognised because of her short hair, and She-Hulk looks like she's a male corpse in drag. I just hope Stroman's not drawing the She-Hulk issues of this crossover too - in fact, I hope he stays the heck away from anything I want to read. Sorry for the negativity, but... well, it's really bad art, I can't sugar-coat it.
Mighty Avengers #16 ~ This is a milestone, of a sort - it's the first Secret Invasion tie-in that I've found wanting (notwithstanding X-Factor's crappy art). The problem is, nothing really happens that we don't already know - the real Elektra gets offed by a handful of super-Skrulls, and Skrullektra then takes over and gets herself into position to kick the whole event off. I suppose the 'reveal' that Skrullektra being discovered was part of the Skrull plan all along is interesting, but it's nothing a shrewd reader mightn't have guessed at anyway. So there's no 'wow' factor to the plot, and furthermore it's presented in a pretty dull way, with silent fight scenes that do little to distinguish themselves - playing 'spot the power' with the super-Skrulls isn't enough to sustain interest in and of itself - and when people talk, it's mostly to-the-point exposition with little to intrigue. The scene between Skrullektra ('Pagon', evidently) and the Empress was the high point, I guess, with both openly displaying their 'humanity', pardon the pun, crying for Skrullektra's inevitable death even as they both accept it as necessary - it's an interesting reminder that the Skrulls aren't just 'evil'. But overall, this issue was forgettable, and more or less filler.
Frank Frazetta's Swamp Demon ~ A straight-forward little fantasy adventure, connected (I gather from the news page at the back) to the other Frank Frazetta stories floating around, but working well enough as a stand-alone story - I don't know anything about the others, and I had no trouble enjoying this. A party of druids make their way into a bleak and dismal swamp (no, not the one from Superfriends) and encounter a party of demons infesting their favourite sacred spot, whereupon the issue becomes about making it out of the swamp alive. There's plenty of action, but it's not fighting for fighting's sake - there are genuine choices, and real character drama, behind what's going on, even with so little space for exposition and development, and the big dramatic moment of the issue plays off very well. The 'heroine' gracing the cover, a goddess named Kallista, plays a crucial role, though her appearance is limited to the climactic scene, and all in all it's a satisfying read.
Joker's Asylum - Poison Ivy ~ A fun little one-shot story. The use of the Joker as a framing device, while useful to string this series of issues together, seems a bit staged, kind of like that old 'Freddy's Nightmares' TV show. Then again, I've never really clicked with the Joker anyway (we'll see shortly if Heath Ledger bucks the trend), and this issue isn't about him anyway. The Poison Ivy story clocks in at about 20 pages, long enough for a reasonable (if straight-forward) story, with a nice guest role for Batman that (so far as I'm any judge) does him justice fairly well, and interleaves the present events with a recap of Ivy's origin, weaving everything together into a neat little finale with a cute twist, and some good dialogue from Ivy that puts the cherry on top. Guillem March is worth noting, handling the art solo - the differences in colour and texture between the Batman scenes, the killings, Ivy in the present, and Ivy in the past, are very well executed. The only flaw in the issue (and it's not the creators' fault) is that 'origin story Ivy', pre-costume, always has the obligatory handful of leaves just happening to conceal her nipples, bottom, and pubic area - it's inevitable in an American comic, but (especially having been reading Sky Doll today, with the European 'who cares?' attitude to nudity) it's a bit of a let-down; tasteful nudity would have been more powerful in Ivy's idyllic 'back to Eden' scenes. Still, can't complain overall - this is a solidly enjoyable one-shot that presents its heroine/villainess well, shows what's unique about her, and has a clear enough story to stand on its own for people like me who don't know much about Ivy already.
