Ythaq: The Forbidden World #1 ~ Marvel made a good choice in teaming up with Soleil to republish their comics - Sky Doll was excellent, I've heard high praise for Universal War One (I'm waiting for a softcover trade on that one), and now this is another highly entertaining story. Briefly, Ythaq tells of three shipwreck (spaceshipwreck?) survivors: fiesty and heroic Lieutenant Granite (that's her on the cover), impressionable technician Narvath, and stuck-up passenger Callista. Having survived the disintegration of their cruise starship, the trio are stranded on Ythaq, a strange, wild world populated by a variety of human and non-human cultures. It's kind of Boy's Own Adventure meets Farscape, as the three, joined by scholarly native Tao, try to find a way to summon help from off-world, while avoiding the attention of a local warlord who's keen to have the starfarers' secrets for herself. The story is fast-paced and energetic, with a variety of deftly revealed alien societies serving as backdrops for action and hijinks - there's a real Saturday matinee serial feel to it, with our heroes moving (often fleeing) from one cliffhanger to the next, but as is the habit of these European comics, 'status quo' isn't something they choose to employ, and the story progresses through these individual escapades, with each having its own consequences and leading naturally into the next. The characters are all well developed, each with their own quirks, and ingenious little touches in dialogue and art giving them full personalities of their own, quite apart from their function as part of the larger story. Ythaq is lighter and more adventure-oriented than the trippy, socio-political Sky Doll, but don't make the mistake of thinking it's not as smart - it just uses its smarts in different ways. The 'mature content' banner refers to occasional swearing (only used when appropriate), a small amount of non-explicit nudity and sexuality, and possibly a couple of sequences involving some violence that's harsher than usual for a light adventure (though American ratings being what they are, the violence may not have counted as 'mature' on its own). In short, if you like adventure sci-fi, this is the comic for you.
Final Crisis #5 ~ Ugh, here we go again. I'm sorry, but I'm really not enjoying this very much, and honestly if DC wasn't making such a big deal about it, I'd probably just give up. The problem is that, as much as Morrison throws in big events and big concepts, there's no actual story here, just a bunch of random encounters between interchangeable superheroes - none of whom have anything approaching individual personalities, as Morrison writes them. Cause doesn't follow effect much, so it's largely just a matter of turning the page and seeing what Morrison thought would be cool next, with all the characters providing support by spouting fannish mumbo-jumbo that pretends there's logic behind what's happening. There isn't, sorry - it's just a teenager trying to be epic and avant-garde by blowing stuff up and parroting pop culture soundbytes. Ironically - given that Morrison's Seven Soldiers of Victory was the reason I looked forward to this initially - it's making me re-evaluate Seven Soldiers, and see the flaws in it; it worked, but by the looks of things because Morrison was lucky rather than good. I don't know whether I should really keep reviewing these - I don't like to be negative, but the fact is that real 'weird fiction' would eat this ill-conceived attempt at the genre for breakfast.
Final Crisis: Revelations #4 ~ ...and as Final Crisis meanders towards its inevitable reset-button conclusion, so to does this tie-in lurch on without any great sense of narrative. I think the problem here is that Greg Rucka is really good at street-level storytelling, like Gotham Central - detectives and criminals, ordinary people in conflict and under stress. And now, he's been led to the point where - with Crispus Allen having been lumped with the Spectre character (without visible benefit, thus far) and Renee Montoya getting all mixed up with the Crime Bible people - he's stuck telling a story about God and faith, not in terms of real, ordinary people with real beliefs, but with super-powered meta-characters running through the stages of some kind of morality play that's supposed to illustrate something about the nature of the divine. Vandal Savage is rampaging about, the Spectre is useless and conflicted (like always), and unfortunately this issue Mercy, who's been the point of interest so far, falls back on trite non-answers posing as metaphysics, and ceases being any use to anyone as well. Oh, and Huntress shows up, but since she turns up out of nowhere and is presumably going to vanish again once this is done, it's difficult to feel like her presence matters. It's just... nothing happens this issue, really. It's futile to pretend that a publisher like DC is going to okay a story that will actually kill God - the real God that real people believe in, not some made-up analogue - so there are no stakes here, no story. It's a real shame to see Montoya, struggling to establish a name for herself as the new Question, saddled with such an ill-fitting story.
Fathom #4 ~ Aspen and Co. bust in to a secret US military base to rescue her brother, and have a nasty little firefight on their hands as some new anti-water-people weapon gets deployed to stop them - pretty standard adventure stuff, but it's enjoyably told, and I like that Aspen gets to be a calm, rational heroine; makes sense, after all she's been through, that it takes more than a nasty soldier and a few random guards to get her feathers ruffled. Meanwhile the rest of the plot is pretty much in a holding pattern, with scenes interspersed with the Aspen action that keep our minds on the attacks on the surface, the debate among the Blue about whether revealing themselves to humanity will help or harm them, and a new big giant blob of water hanging over a populated area, Miami this time. As I said, nothing much changes, but these scenes have interesting dialogue, keeping these subplots entertaining despite there not really being enough time to advance them much, since they have to keep real-time pace with Aspen's jailbreak effort. In grand storytelling terms this issue's a bit of a neutral one - there's nothing bad in it, but nor does it do anything to lift itself above the level set by the previous ones - but the display of kick-ass heroics by Aspen is satisfying on a visceral level, and promises good things in future issues. (Incidentally, I took advantage of a weekend sale at the local comic shop to pick up the giant Fathom: The Definitive Edition trade paperback, which I imagine will fill in a lot of the vague blanks I have with this current title's background, but since it's such a big book it'll take more time to read than I've had thus far.)
Secret Six #4 ~ I'm actually starting to encounter a bit of fatigue with this comic, which surprises me - Gail Simone doesn't often do wrong by me. And honestly, I don't think she has this time either; I think what's happening is just that I'm not terribly interested in the majority of the cast, regardless of how well they're written. With Simone's deft writing, characters like Catman and Deadshot and Ragdoll are fun and interesting to read - but when I'm done reading them I'm not terribly invested in what happens to them next, nor do I find myself especially anticipating finding out once the next issue arrives. Scandal's obviously my main interest in this, but while she's got a couple of scenes this issue, it doesn't seem like she's playing a huge role in events - really, none of the Six have done much thinking and acting since things started to go wrong, they've just been lurching from near-death situation to ambush and back again, which is understandable given that every spare villain in creation's after them, but doesn't really make for compelling team dynamics. I think I may give this one more issue, and then re-evaluate whether I want to keep reading it - it's a good comic, don't get me wrong, but it may not be for me.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars #3 ~ Yup, page nineteen, what we all knew was coming: Ahsoka pretending to be a slave girl, dressed in a typically revealing outfit. She's fourteen, people, could we have skipped that cliche just this once? And the slightly scary thing is, the main element of her costume is pure black, looking like it was applied in post-production to conceal a more revealing costume; I hope that's not the case, as I can't imagine how much more revealing it would've been. Not that I mind Ahsoka as she normally is - which, let's face it, isn't especially modest - but there's a difference between a practical (if skimpy) outfit that someone chooses to wear, and one that's specifically intended to sexualise her, and I don't really think a Star Wars comic needs to be going down the latter route. The other main flaw of this issue is the 'dramatic' cliffhanger, and it's in inverted commas because it's a torturer promising he'll learn everything a captive Obi-Wan Kenobi knows. Obi-Wan Kenobi, people - the idea that he could be broken by some two-bit thug is so implausible it's actually a comedic moment to end the issue on. On the plus side, the Anakin side of things is actually quite good, and draws plausibly on Anakin's history as a slave, and how that affects his position now, as a trained and tempered Jedi having to pose as a slave-trader, and be complicit in slavery for the moment in order to achieve a greater good down the line. That's this issue's primary driving force, and I think it shows that - missteps as the above regardless - it's on fairly firm ground.
