Before we get to reviewing stuff, Hack/Slash returns this week, after a couple of months' absence. The comic had just begun a crossover storyline with Re-Animator (a classic black comedy horror film series starring the quirkily magnificent Jeffrey Combs - if you haven't seen at least the first one, you should), when it seems Devil's Due, or Diamond, or someone, got slapped with a lawsuit regarding the rights to use the name 'Re-Animator'. From what I've read it looks like one of those cases where, due to someone not filling out the right paperwork, some other scum got to register a company called 'Re-Animator' and then tried to cash in by suing anyone (i.e. those rightfully entitled to it) who used the name. Anyway, the two 'missing issues' of Hack/Slash that were stymied due to these bastards and their attempted extortion are now available for us to read, free, at Devil's Due's website, so go check it out. Even if you're not a regular reader, hey, free comics, what's stopping you? There's no fancy security procedures or clunky online reader software, you just tell it you're over 18, and the pages are right there - all three issues of the Re-Animator crossover story, including #15, the one that was published before the legal junk got dropped in their lap. Props to Devil's Due for putting their fans first there; good business. Issue #18, meanwhile, is reviewed below.
Secret Invasion #8 ~ Well, this is it, the conclusion of the big event Marvel's pretty much been staking everything on lately. If you haven't read it yourself, you'll be able to find spoilers on any forum about what happens, and what the follow-up 'Dark Reign' is all about, so I won't bother explaining them. Whether the finale lives up to expectations... well, kind of. I wasn't excited by what happened in a way I didn't expect to be - I never turned the page and went "Wow!" - but I was entertained, the story made sense and had some clever ideas in it, and I'm looking forward to seeing how these events will affect the various regular Marvel books I read. One thing I will say, though, is that I found the conclusion of the whole Skrulls-replacing-people idea a bit too neat - and this I'll spoil (so stop reading if you don't want to know): everyone who was replaced evidently got stuck on a Skrull spaceship, and they get rescued in the end. It just seems a bit... weird, to have characters like Jessica Drew back again, after such a big deal was made of her having been a Skrull during this event. I know it wasn't her, and that there's potential for some interesting storytelling to happen about how she and her fellow replace-ees reintegrate back into superhero society after people wearing their faces went storming about taking over the Earth, but I just feel a little strange about how neatly that all wrapped up. I guess it's more a seed to be built on in later stories than something that should have its full impact right now, so it's not such a big deal. All in all, Secret Invasion has been a pretty successful big event for Marvel - the core miniseries was a fun fast-paced action story, and I found the crossovers into other comics I read to be interesting and welcome, not intrusive. The future looks good.
Justice Society of America #21 ~ I'm trying to decide if this issue - indeed, the whole Gog storyline - is a fairly straight-forward superhero story well-told, or a really smart piece of subversive commentary. I like it either way, but if you just take it at face value, it seems like where we are now, the big showdown, is a bit straight-forward given how grand the set-up was. Justice Society spent a lot of time, after all, setting up Gog, and now it's basically just a matter of him being the bad guy and everyone throwing punches at him. It's fun to read, it's written smartly, and there's good moments for all of the characters involved, but there's also a little bit of "So, that's it?" feeling when you realise that this is as deep as the story's going to get, so far as Gog is concerned. On the other hand, it might be this brilliantly dark commentary on religion as a whole, because if someone can point to an actual difference between Gog and God, I'd be curious to know. Actually, no, Gog does do something different - he actually does heal people and do miracles, whereas current religions just exist in a perpetual "And now it's time for you to worship me" state, without bothering to do anything concrete. That's a hell of a savage attack, really, to come from a major mainstream American publisher - so perhaps I'm just reading that into the story myself (or maybe Geoff Johns thought it'd be funny to do it and not tell the editors about the subtext). Stepping back from matters weighty (I wonder if I'll get hostile emails about that), Superman punching a lightning bolt is classic, as is the dialogue following it - you just have to laugh because it's so much fun.
She-Hulk: Cosmic Collision ~ Here's an odd little thing, kind of a She-Hulk/Guardians of the Galaxy crossover, with various cosmic beings meddling in the affairs of She-Hulk and her Lady Liberators (here consisting of Thundra, Storm, Invisible Woman, Valkyrie, and Jazinda along for the ride) and also scooping up Guardians mainstays Quasar, Gamora and Mantis, with the Skrull Lyja thrown into the bargain as well. Quite a line-up. They're all embroiled in a tussle between an Elder of the Cosmos (or something) called The Collector, and a critter calling itself Enmity, which is charging about the universe targeting female heroes. Why? Turns out to be a bit arbitrary (although, having been set up, Enmity and its host's assault is tied deftly into the storylines or backstory of both primary titles), but the real meat of this one-shot is the dialogue between the heroines, which Peter David writes with his customary mastery of characterful banter, and mix of humour and weight. There's even a couple of flashes, very subtle and wry, of She-Hulk's old fourth-wall-breaking antics from the John Byrne days - not necessarily an indication that David intends to go back down that path, just a knowing nod to fans who remember those days. Whether you're a She-Hulk reader (naturally) or a Guardians of the Galaxy reader, this is worth a look, as while the plot may not be very relevant to current events, the writing is without reproach, and provides a good helping of enjoyable material for all the characters drawn into the story.
Hulk Family #1 ~ Another Hulk-related special - strange timing to have this and the She-Hulk one on the same week; it's almost like Marvel are trying to make the current Hulk material into a bit of a mini-event, with tie-ins. Strange. Anyway, what we have here are four new stories, plus one reprint - Savage She-Hulk #1. First up is a 16-page flashback to earlier pre-Planet Hulk/Civil War times, when the Hulk was hiding out in the guise of Joe Fixit - as whom he's reappeared in the current series, so this is obviously partly a memory jogger for readers - and he accidentally encountered She-Hulk, and had to convince her that he wasn't in fact the Hulk. You'd think being gigantic wouldn't help, but I guess in the Marvel world there are plenty of stupidly muscular powerhouse superhumans, so it's plausible. The story's half She-Hulk, half Fixit, both presented well enough to entertain. Next up is a story about Skaar, Hulk's son by the lovely Caiera, who's still on Sakaar fighting all manner of beasties - this shows his formative years, if you like, but since I'm not reading the Skaar series I can't really comment on this part; it's nine pages. Then we revisit the 'daughter of Hulk', Thundra's child from the Raging Thunder special (reviewed here - she still hasn't got a name of her own, but she's all grown up and leading legions of Femizons in the gender-war-torn parallel future Earth, or whatever. It's eight pages, and a bit of a weak spot in the issue, since the (admittedly left over from more eccentric times in comic writing) concept of the whole planet going into male vs female war is something that, if you're going to tell a modern story around, you need to really get to grips with and explain - the explanation would have to be pretty strange, but delivered with conviction even the most outlandish concepts can work. This story's too brief, and too simplistic even for its own length - it doesn't really try hard enough, so the concept remains silly, and it's thus difficult to take any of it, Thundrina and all, seriously. The art's a bit rough, too - the layouts and general visuals are fine, but the faces are unpolished in a lot of panels. Lastly there's an eight-page story set post-World War Hulk, tying quite neatly into the events in Incredible Hulk around that time, which has Scorpion attacking a SHIELD convoy transporting Bruce Banner to prison in order to try to learn whether he's her father or not. It's not an elaborate story, but it's well told, and the art is very good. All in all, there's more quality in this special than not, though for US$5 it's probably only worth it for devoted Hulk fans.
Jungle Girl Season 2 #2 ~ Dinosaurs, lost continent, hot gorgeous kick-ass warrior woman, stranded submarine, giant squid monster - that pretty much sums it up, and if that doesn't sound like a fun combination to you, this isn't your comic. And you have no soul. The introduction of the submarine - a research vessel that wound up in Jungle Girl Land through the usual mysterious means - and its captain adds a new flavour to the mix, with Jana and co. facing a different challenge than just the dinosaur of the day, and in fact it's quite fascinating to see Togg turning out to be kind of instinctively good with machinery. But of course there's a giant squid monster, and all manner of monster-fighting occurs - it wouldn't be an issue of Jungle Girl without Yana battling some kind of giant beastie. The end of the issue heralds yet another twist in the plot (which is kind of spoiled by the other alternate cover) - as always though, the sense of fun adventure makes the continuous twists and turns seem lively, rather than haphazard, and Batista puts in a decent job with the visuals, given that he's got a Frank Cho cover to live up to.
Hack/Slash #18 ~ Due to the whole Re-Animator legal mess (see the intro section above) we've missed a chunk of plotline, and this issue starts out doing its best to bring us up to speed, at least on the basics of recent events - probably a last-minute re-write there, for the benefit of people who hadn't read the missing issues #16 and #17. Since I wasn't near a PC to look them up at the time, I just ploughed on into this issue, and I found it very accessible regardless of the missing issues - I won't spoil what's happened (since you can just read it for yourself here), but suffice it to say that we're clearly told the one very important event that occurred, and this issue shows its effects on Cassie in a compelling, visceral way, so even if you haven't read the missing issues, you won't miss a thing of this one's impact. Cassie's turmoil is the centrepiece, and Georgia is called in, making this a very emotional issue that, you feel, really advances Cassie's journey as a character, rather than just seeking to put it back to its status quo. Meanwhile Cassie's friends Lisa and... um, her boyfriend (well, it has been a while since I read an issue) run afoul of the whole demon situation, which ties into events from the earlier Hack/Slash miniseries that I haven't read yet, but I'm on the look-out for the trade paperback of them, and Vlad gets some time to himself, which turns into a truly bizarre sequence guest-starring all manner of other characters (including a favourite of mine, Lovebunny). Whatever the effect of those two issues being unable to be published, this is about as strongly as you could expect a comic to bounce back from that sort of thing.
Supergirl: Cosmic Adventures in the 8th Grade #1 ~ This is one of DC's made-for-kids comics, so I'm not sure why I picked it up, except whimsy, and the vague idea that it'd probably be better than the actual Supergirl comic anyway. Good news, it is - and I'm not just saying that to be bitchy. For US$2.50 you get non-glossy paper and floppy cover stock, but it's 22 pages of fun comic just the same, and the writing is actually quite good. It's clean and child-friendly, but it doesn't patronise the audience, which is a mistake many kids' shows and works make, and which the best ones shine by avoiding (Kim Possible comes to mind, albeit for a slightly older audience). Kara in this is a kid, with fairly simplistic motivations and reactions, but she's written with enough wit and humour to charm the reader into accepting her, and laughing along with the occasional predictable joke rather than heaping scorn on it. The art is, perhaps, a bit too child-oriented - the cover is a perfect example of it, so you can see what I mean just from the group photo up top of the page: heavily cartoony face, 'comedy' physical proportions, that kind of thing. For most of the other figures in the comic, I think it works, but I had a bit of trouble with how cartoony Kara herself is - I think had she been a bit closer to realism, while still cartoony enough to inhabit the rest of the art as-is, it might have worked out a bit better, since the writing really does have the reach to appeal to audienced other than kids. (And I'm wondering if they might have overreacted a bit to how sexualised people accuse regular Supergirl of being - this one's almost androgynous. No big deal, just an observation.) Overall, I wouldn't say I'd go out of my way to read a comic like this, but so long as it's just sitting on the comic store shelf with everything else, I'm entertained enough to keep getting it.
Terra #3 ~ I hate to say it, but it's still not gripping me much. This issue we learn a fair amount about the new Terra (who's not yet calling herself Terra), and how she fits into the legacy of Terra characters, and some stuff about the previous ones, which... well, I didn't read those books, so I don't care. Also, didn't Geo-Force die not long ago? I thought he died. Guess it was another one of those miraculous last-minute recovery things. Anyway, we get to see Terra-not-Terra's home, a subterranean civilisation (which is pretty much what you'd have guessed from issue one), and find out that they're another one of those super-advanced mobs who live on Earth in seclusion, and keep themselves a secret from humanity because they don't want their technology to fall into the wrong hands, or... something, I don't care. Sorry, but it's been done so, so many times already, and there isn't any kind of novel twist here. Fathom is currently interesting because it's going against that cliche, and having the hidden civilisation and humanity actually run into one another, and exploring that - if you're not willing to go that extra mile, the whole thing's really just an arbitrary set-up for Terra herself, which is no more original than Marvel's old standby for inventing new superheroes, "He/she's a mutant." Amanda Conner's art is fun and lively as always, but I just don't think Gray and Palmiotti's writing is as clever as they seem to think it is - the end result is that the superior art doesn't have any storytelling foundation to be built upon, so it falls flat. The upcoming final issue will evidently have Power Girl back, so I'll get it for her, but I'm not holding my breath for anything much beyond that.
Zero-G #3 ~ This fast-moving Armageddon-on-steroids continues to forge ahead with its rapid-fire storyline, which never pauses long enough for its ideas to get even slightly stale - that's pretty much the only way to go, when you're throwing in all manner of pulp sci-fi weirdness. Having been saved from gory death at the fangs of the giant alien worm monsters, the survivors (now getting whittled down to just the crucial characters - I don't recall seeing NASA's hot midriff pilot lately, so I guess she's been eaten, poor girl) and their new alien robot acquaintances go on a marathon "What the hell's going on?" tour, with the robots providing some welcome exposition on themselves and the giant worms, and opening up an avenue to explore the mystery of the weird crystal-thingy Dr. Weaver got himself infected with that seems to have made him unpredictably telekinetic, or something. There's a lot going on. Plus there's a chase scene, more giant worms and their swarms of mini-giant worm babies, and lots of gigantic panoramas of alien structures and whatnot in the heart of the asteroid, the kind of thing you'd put in the movie's trailer to make people sit up and take notice. The art is still sleek and clean-looking, looking kind of like a CGI-laden blockbuster movie that's been simplified a bit. If you're a fan of big budget sci-fi adventures, see if you can find the back-issues of this to get up to date, or look out for the trade paperback which will hopefully turn up once all four issues are out.
New Avengers #41 ~ This is a bit of an odd tie-in to Secret Invasion, in that there's nothing really Skrulls about it, no glimpse back in Marvel history to see how the infiltration happened, or anything like that. What this is is a story about the Cage family - Luke, Jessica Drew, and their baby - and what its relevance to the big event is is just to flesh out the emotion behind the bit where Jessica realises she's left the baby with Skrull Jarvis in issue #7. Within a cute sequence of Jessica and Luke chatting while Luke awkwardly takes care of the baby, we get another flashback showing an early meeting between them, which in turn reveals some of Luke's family history - it's all very slice-of-life, with superheroics playing virtually no part in the story, just ordinary people with ordinary feelings and dramas. I wouldn't say this issue is necessary in any real way - if you can't imagine Jessica and Luke's turmoil on learning that their baby's missing presumed Skrull-napped, you've got problems of your own. But if you're a Cage/Jones fan, or just feel like reading a bit more about them to see precisely what the history behind their relationship is, this issue does a good job of showing it.
I Hate Gallant Girl #2 ~ The ride continues, with the revelation that there's more going on with Fellowship of Freedom than just a pack of idiots running a beauty contest for superheroes - but then, there'd want to be, since that's a pretty daft concept to build a story around. Tempest continues to work with Blue Whatsisname - seriously, I shouldn't have to keep looking names up half an hour after reading the book, they need to come up with something better - and things get altogether more serious, with the beauty pageant/teen angst stuff falling into the background as a minor subplot that pops up from time to time. Which is good, because that's where it belongs, and where it can comfortably dwell - and be useful - without derailing the real story. I still feel that the art is working against the book, though - the pageant concept is comedic, and the execution of the story is subverting that expectation by doing something serious and interesting, but the cartoony art seems to be saying "No, go back to thinking of it as a comedy, nothing important going on." The back cover (previewing next issue's) presents what seems to me to be a more appropriate artistic vision of things, with bold colours and clean lines that'd serve the humour of the book, but enough realism that you can imagine, when someone throws a punch, you'd believe it'd hurt, rather than expecting the victim to wind up with little chirping birds orbiting their head. I'd cautiously call this an improvement, though - the art remains a sore point (not quality, just style), but the story is showing it's not as throwaway as the first issue made it seem.
Birds of Prey #124 ~ The Platinum Flats storyline continues to plod along, and it'll give you some idea of how I'm feeling about it that 'plod along' really is the best term I can think of. The problem really is that the comic is split into two parts: Joker and Barbara, and everyone else. And while the Joker and Barbara (finally getting to the showdown we got teased with earlier, then pointlessly delayed) has weight to it, the 'everyone else' side of things... there's just nothing at stake. The villains are a bunch of nobodies - either newly invented or not important enough to rate - and it just feels like their tussle with the Birds is doing nothing more than killing time. Their MO is too over-the-top to have any real interest as a concept - they're not real criminals, they're fantasy villains - so unlike, say, the early Simone Birds story with Savant holding Black Canary hostage, there's no sense of reality to it that makes what's going on seem to matter. Sadly even the Joker/Barbara side of things is a bit of a let-down, with Babs inexplicably being rather stupid at a crucial moment. With news having come through that Birds of Prey is going to conclude, I should be feeling more upset at one of DC's biggest female-led books ceasing publication - but I'm just not really that invested in it nowadays.
