Previews XVIII #9 ~ Okay, comic books first. DC finally gets around to publishing the Terra (p64) miniseries, which was previewed all the way back in Supergirl #13, or something. Body Bags (p136), the story of a somewhat insane father/daughter mercenary team that I found out about due to their inclusion in the Legendary Comic Book Heroes action figure line, returns with a one-shot from Image. I Hate Galaxy Girl (p161), one of the runners-up in Shadowline's superheroine contest, has got a three-issue miniseries (the contest winner, Incredible Journey, is still in the works - odd timing). Ms. Marvel Special: Storyteller (Marvel Previews p 43) follows up on the earlier Ms. Marvel Special, and has Ms. Marvel as a pirate on the cover, so that's a must-have. Contract: Solo Missions - Jessie (p194) is likewise must-have, because the Contract miniseries has been damn near flawless so far. The Fathom: The Definitive Edition trade paperback (p208) is almost 500 pages; since I liked the recent relaunch of Fathom, I'll be getting it to get caught up on Aspen's backstory. One of the Dan Rafter (Gearz) miniseries mentioned a couple of weeks ago is solicited, Waterbury (p219), a manga murder mystery; on the same page is The Blackbeard Legacy #0, a follow-up of sorts to the earlier miniseries. Farscape (p222) returns in comic form, and since it was one of the best TV shows ever - with exceptional heroines among its many fine qualities - that's worth a look. Broadsword has Tarot: Witch of the Black Rose #53 (p228) on the way, a one-shot story featuring Crypt Chick, as well as a couple of collector editions of earlier issues. And Jungle Girl (p253) returns, with a second season following its very entertaining first, which finished with a terrific cliffhanger; the cover has Jana fighting a giant reptile while her animal-skin bikini is falling off, which must've been heaven for Frank Cho, bless him.
On the action figure side of things: Ame-Comi anime-ised versions of Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy (p123) are on the way and looking good (Ame-Comi started a bit shakily, but has been improving with every release); World of Warcraft releases series four, including the sexy Succubus Demon Amberlash (p130) and the evil-looking deluxe figure Lady Vashj (p131); from the Witchblade anime come four new statues (p174), of Masane with the Witchblade deployed, in her powered-up form, and just as herself (wearing practically nothing), plus Maria to provide some villainy; Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince action figures (p408) are on the way, including Ginny Weasley; Hellboy 2 series two (p410) includes the pretty (but not especially dynamic) Princess Nuala; a new load of Star Wars: The Clone Wars figures are shown (p416) including Asajj Ventress, and I'm hoping there'll be an Ahsoka Tano in the set as well; from Tomb Raider: Underworld comes a new Lara Croft figure (p419), and you can never have too much Lara Croft; and finally the Doctor Who Sancutary Base set (p454) is reoffered - it sold out quickly last time I saw it here - including the 10th Doctor in an encounter suit, Toby, two Ood, and a to-scale (i.e. big) lift cage accessory (no girls, but I collect all the Doctor Who figures I can anyway, because it's a great show and the figures are high quality).
Atomic Robo: Dogs of War #2 ~ World War II, and the Allied invasion of Sicily is at stake, with US troops landing on the beaches while Robo is tasked with preventing the Nazi robo-tanks from being deployed to repulse them. Now that's a good storyline - even if I'd never heard of Atomic Robo before, I'd want to read that. This issue repeats the first's trick of melding pulp sci-fi robo-fighting action with authentic war scenes - the 'narration' in the opening sequence, in the form of a letter one of the soldiers writes, is an especially convincing touch (and also serves for one of the best moments in the issue, when at the end the letter comes full circle to encompass the whole issue's events in a particularly funny way). Robo himself is also presented in a credible light - his dry wit is hilarious as always, but he's also presented very plausibly as a soldier at war, and writer Clevinger manages the delicate balancing act of not allowing the humour to overshadow the life-and-death seriousness of the mission, or vice versa. Robo's portrayal is also quite interesting from the point of view of having read the complete first miniseries, which spanned his whole life up to the present - this Robo is less self-aware, not so in command of himself (he even gets a kind but firm talking-to from a general about his perspective later on, which would be difficult to reconcile if it happened to present-day Robo), and this works both in terms of his personal timeline - he's younger, after all - and in terms of the war having had a similar effect on everyone involved, forcing them into difficult situations that taxed their ability to reconcile their feelings with the necessities of what had to be done. The usual backup story goes back to the first miniseries, picking up at the end of the 'pyramid tank' adventure when Robo and his Action Scientists were confronted by a giant zombie-cyborg-mummy, and revealing what happened.
Abyss volume one ~ Abyss is by Kevin Rubio, he of TROOPS (you know, the Star Wars fan film done like C.O.P.S.), and though he's creating his own superhero world here, he's brought his grab-bag of geek references and in-jokes with him. The story concerns Eric, a young man who's inherited his late father's corporate empire - only to discover that his father had a secret identity as the Abyss, the arch-nemesis of local superhero Arrow. Dad has a typically malevolent and manipulative plan, and it's up to Eric to put a stop to it, with the help of Arrow and his sidekick Quiver, if he can convince them that he's not a villain himself. That's a very simplified summary - this is a good, satisfying, involved story that brings to mind stuff like The Incredibles, in terms of how it handles superheroes: poking fun at them, but with affection, and the kind of astute observation you can only do when you're a real fan of the genre, and know all its tricks. In addition to a mass of easter eggs hidden away in the art, the four issues in this volume are full of references to famous (or infamous) comic storylines, as well as its own brand of fast-paced humour. In addition to the four issues, there's an introduction by Rubio, and a forward by Blair Butler, who 'guest stars' as the likeness of Quiver, who's rendered rather adorably by the art team of Lucas Marangon (pencils), Nick Schley (inks) Andrew Dalhouse (colours) - their work is accessible and dynamic throughout, with a lot of humour in the expressions. (Though it's amusing to note that Marangon, doing the covers solo, uses a slightly different colour layout for Quiver which makes Quiver's hips bare skin rather than pants, leaving her doing the "Power Girl, running around in your thong crap" she mentions in her forward as something she's glad she wasn't doing as Quiver. Still, Quiver looks good either way. On an unrelated weird note, there's also a panel in the fourth issue that's been swapped with one on the next page - it's kinda confusing until you realise what's happened. Like that time I got an issue of Shanna the She-Devil: Survival of the Fittest with pages out of order, but unfortunately (unlike the original Frank Cho Shanna, and Abyss for that matter, Survival of the Fittest was still junk even in the right order.) Overall, it's kind of Incredibles meets Kevin Smith (in a Mallrats/Jay & Silent Bob kind of mood) meets Mystery Men sort of story, and very much worth a look for anyone who knows their superhero comics, and isn't above having a laugh at their eccentricities.
ZMD: Zombies of Mass Destruction #2 ~ Following issue one, which concerned itself with the macro stuff - what the US army is doing with its zombies, and what the socio-political factors driving the strategy are - this one zooms into close-up on our hero-to-be, a Gulf War (the first one) veteran called into the Pentagon and given the task of going into the hot zone and 'extracting' their 'operative' - i.e. capturing or destroying the rogue zombie before anyone gets a look at it. Colonel Drake also has another reason for being the go-to guy on this operation (besides extensive covert ops experience), which is hinted at this issue. The issue opens with Drake having a flashback (nightmare, in fact) to his Gulf War service, and what with reading this back to back with Atomic Robo: Dogs of War, the pair made an interesting comparison, with the combat sequences in ZMD seeming more like 'violence' than 'war', if you get what I mean. It's an appropriate distinction for this comic to make, since after all it's basically about soldiering being devalued, and whatever human dignity a soldier has being ignored in favour of quicker, more efficient ways of achieving the end goal of killing the other guy - it's very post-Vietnam in that regard, not a lot of heroism or morality involved. The issue finishes with a cliffhanger of sorts, which could go one of two ways - either a standard kind of thing (I don't want to give it away, so forgive me for being oblique), or, my impression, something more intriguing. We'll have to wait and see what happens. Between the first two issues, I like the spread of large-scale political commentary and character-driven storytelling, but it's strange the way they're comparmentalised - hopefully (I expect so, from what's happened so far) future issues will weave more commentary into the story of Drake's mission now that it's under way, because - aside from being a zombie story - it's the political and 'military ethics' concepts that make this comic stand out.
(One amusing element - though it won't be in the final issue - was that because this was a preview copy, the text still contained a couple of writer's notes. Lines like "...she was from [looking for a Middle East city]" are good for a chuckle.)
Secret Six #1 ~ Has Gail Simone ever written a comic that wasn't worth reading? If she has, I haven't found it. The Secret Six featured in Birds of Prey, in the story collected in the 'Dead of Winter' trade paperback, and subsequently (post-Simone) briefly while the Death of the New Gods thing was going on, when the statuesque Knockout copped it while picking a fight with Big Barda. That's all I know of them, but it's enough to get fully into this issue - events from both appearances are heavily involved, with Cat-Man's moral self-doutb a major (and blackly humorous) feature of his character, following his run-in and infatuation with Huntress, and Scandal still grievous for her lover. For me, the latter was the stand-out sequence in this issue - Simone handles Scandal with compassion, and not a little humour, yet in spite of the character's basically evil nature (the Six are villains after all), there's no doubt left that she genuinely loved Knockout, which is played out in a fascinating sequence full of pathos and charm. This combination of humanity and villainy is intriguing, far more so than any look-at-me showoff evilness that a lot of villain-based titles resort to. The plot this time around features a new (to me, and I gather new in general) antagonist known as 'Junior', who's introduced in a really creepy scene and is one nasty piece of work, and for the most part it's left to future issues to really get into it, as is the identity of the Six's new member. Still, this issue has me convinced - it's going on my standing order for the forseeable future.
Ms. Marvel Annual #1 ~ It's Annual time, which means a one-off story largely isolated from whatever's going on in the main title at the moment - pretty much like what happened in the previous Ms. Marvel Special, and the upcoming Ms. Marvel Special: Storyteller; this time, it's a team-up with Spider-Man to take on a bunch of self-building robots, and their quirky android creator(s). It's a good story at heart, but it's got a couple of small flaws. One is the art - it looks great for Spider-Man, but the angular, slightly manga-style pencils of Mark A. Robinson aren't the best match for Ms. Marvel as she's been portrayed by the various artists who've worked on her current title up to the present. The other is the initial set-up, which is that Ms. Marvel attacks Spider-Man in an attempt to arrest him for being unregistered, thus providing the obligatory hero-vs-hero battle prior to the heroes-team-up main event. It's not flat-out illogical, but it just makes her seem petty - she's the leader of the Mighty Avengers, and in her own title she's got her Lightning Storm team to lead as well, which has been making pre-emptive strikes on supervillainous threats... it just seems a bit random that she'd decide to go arrest Spider-Man at the same time. Brian Reed, Carol's regular writer, is also the writer of this issue, so there's no good explanation for the lapse in character logic - maybe he just wanted to have a Spider-Man team-up, and couldn't think of any better way to get them together. On the plus side of things, as I said the core story is solidly entertaining, Spider-Man's dialogue is the non-stop amusing deluge of witty one-liners it usually is, and once they've gotten the initial fighting out of the way, the interaction between him and Carol is far more in keeping with her current title's portrayal.
Manhunter #34 ~ I'm still feeling that this storyline is suffering a bit from pacing. It's a good story, mind you, but it switches so often away from what Kate's doing to the various other running subplots that I found it difficult to really get a sense of momentum of tension in any of the storylines - as soon as they start to build, they get shoved aside and the issue goes and looks at something else. It's a shame, because all of the segments are written well - after a couple of panels of each one, it's easy to get caught up in their individual stories, be they Raimey's robot dog and nascent powers, Dylan's troubles with former foes, or a fun Obsidian appearance (with some of the best dialogue: "Creepy. Kinda hot.") - but I really feel they'd all benefit from not being so intermingled. Added to that, the main plot twist this issue isn't really that compelling - it makes sense, but it's the kind of thing that's been done on practically every cop/investigator kind of TV show ever, so it's hard to get really involved in what's going on. I'm still enjoying this comic overall, I just feel its content could be presented in a better structure than it is.
