Preview-Review - Atomic Robo: Dogs of War #5 ~ Robo's second series has been just as entertaining as his first, but they saved the best for last. In this issue Robo and Nazi mad scientist Skorzeny have their final showdown, in what's mostly a single-issue story - you wouldn't need to have read the previous ones - but with contiuity links to the rest of 'Dogs of War' for those who've been reading along. As always there's lots of action and excitement, loads of humour, and the WWII setting feels authentic, regardless of the super-science goings-on. Even better, though, is this issue's guest star, a kind of Scottish Rambo - you have no sense of humour if you don't recognise how awesome that idea is - whose dialogue is written with some of the best phonetic spelling of an accent I've ever encountered. In addition to the primary story there's a thematically linked backup feature, set decades later, which is... well, it's not humorous, it's not action-packed, it's just raw and painful and powerful human drama. It fits perfectly into the Atomic Robo setting (right back to series one, issue one), but it's got nothing to do with action or science-fiction or humour or adventure or war - it's just a conversation between two people, written excellently. Thanks to Red 5 Comics I got a preview of this issue - it'll be available next week (Christmas, whenever your comic store is opening then), and I can't stress how good this issue is. Even if you've never read Atomic Robo before, even if you're a bit sceptical about the robot lead character or the war setting or any of that, if you like good comics, this is an issue you'll want to have a look at.
Take a Chance #1 ~ This issue could serve as a model for how to introduce a new character to me - it's not the most amazing comic ever, but in terms of presenting what it is to the reader, it handles itself exceptionally well. It's set in a superhuman-populated world, set up in the first page - four panels, in fact, and all the necessary explanation is out of the way. Our particular heroine Chance is revealed in more detail (including some interesting quirks that set her apart from the regular crop of 'superheroes', and present those superheroes themselves in a somewhat different light to the usual Marvel and DC fare), but by the end of the issue we've been given a complete story, delving into Chance's background extensively, but not to the exclusion of the present-day action, setting up several secondary characters (including an ex-boyfriend who's written very smartly) - in short, doing everything an introductory comic should do. All in one issue, which puts to shame introductory arcs from other publishers who seem to think you can't tell a story in less than four or six issues. This one wraps up in 22 pages, and you could stop reading it there with no hanging plot threads - except you wouldn't, because the story you've read is enjoyable, and you want to come back for more not to find out how the story ends, but because it was good enough that you want to read the next one. The art isn't groundbreaking - it's got a bit of a 90s feel to it, like the more grounded, detective-oriented issues of early Witchblade - but it does its job well, letting the story tell itself and providing excitement and subtlety where needed. On the price front - with the cost of comics lately being a talked-about issue - it's US$3.99 for 22 pages of story, but a consolation is that those 22 pages are uninterrupted by ads, which does make a difference. All in all, if you're looking for a new street-level superheroine to try out, you could do a lot worse than look here.
Mighty Avengers #20 ~ This 'Secret Invasion epilogue' issue is mostly just what it says on the can, with a minor side-order of setup for Dark Avengers, with Norman Osborne and all that jazz. But mostly it's about Hank Pym, Yellowjacket - the real one, who was replaced shortly after the New Avengers started up - and along with him we get a kind of retrospective on the Avengers, starting from a flashback to Hank and Janet discussing the discovery of frozen Captain America, then jumping to the present, where Ms. Marvel fills in all the events Hank has missed out, which is every big Marvel event from House of M onwards, done rather elegantly in a series of splash pages, one per event, just images with no dialogue. It's not a bad issue, but I feel that it doesn't really bring anything to the reader - if you already love the Wasp, and have read through all those big events, this'll hit the right notes, but on its own I didn't feel any particular weight of storytelling here. Janet's funeral suffered because, let's face it, Janet hasn't done much in recent times - it was difficult to feel really moved - and the procession of big events didn't really have a great impact either, because the issue was determined to make us remember that there's still more to come - you can't have the impact of a finale if you're not finishing with 'the end'.
Soulfire: Shadow Magic #1 ~ It's an interesting experience reading this, because it doesn't spell things out for you - it's almost as if we've dropped into a story already in progress, and by watching each scene, we fill in a little more of the blank spaces until we properly understand what's going on. Happily by the end of this issue I had a firm enough grasp on the basics to feel that it was a workable approach to telling the story, but I'm wondering if it might be off-putting to someone with a bit less patience for that kind of 'drop you in the deep end' storytelling. On the bridge side the storytelling in each scene, by itself, is high quality - the characters have voices that are easy to hear and believe, and their natures come through strongly in what they say and how they look. The art is gorgeous, medieval fantasy with an ethereal edge to it, perfect for a story which is, basically, fairies engaging in bloody warfare. There's a lot of good-looking 'show' right now, but 'substance' is still a touch thin on the ground, but what's here is convincing enough that I'm sticking around to find out how it'll develop.
Manhunter #37 ~ This issue just confuses me. Not the storyline, which aside from the 'some years later' intro, setting up the story to show an older Kate, a grown-up Ramsey, and so on with the other recurring characters - once you get that, it's all pretty easy to follow. It's just the why that confuses me. Manhunter, sad to say, has been on a slow downward slide since its stellar debut - it seems every time there's a hiatus in publishing, or a twist in the DC world to be dealt with, Marc Andreyko's response is to try to renovate Kate, which has the effect of moving her further and further away from her beginnings as a courtroom lawyer turned vigilante, who also struggles with her less than exceptional personal life. That was the meat of Manhunter, what made it different - the way this issue reworks things, she's effectively a whole different kind of superhero. What remains is the soap opera that her personal life devolved into - she's got a boyfriend, her tech guy Dylan's on-again off-again dating whatsername, her son's got a boyfriend, and so on... it's lost the spark of reality that her home life started out with. Obviously the idea is to skip all the drawn-out storytelling that had been planned and just get straight to the final result, but at the beginning, Manhunter could almost have been a real-life story - now it's just another comic, and that feels like a sad way to end things.
Terra #4 ~ This issue is really strange - for the first thirteen pages the showdown between Terra and Geo-Force, protecting the subterranean civilisation, and whatsisname the diamond guy, raving around destroying stuff, plays out in a predictable and uninteresting manner. Then the remainder of the issue focuses on Terra, back up on the surface, getting to learn the ins and outs and quirks of the surface world, helped out by Power Girl, who takes a liking to her and makes it her business to see Terra started off on the right foot (albeit with a misstep at a sushi bar; it's not for everyone, it's true). That material is really interesting, reveals a lot about Terra's character - not where she came from, or who her folks are, or how she ties into the arcane and better-ignored annals of DC lore, but who she is. And, since it's character-based writing, where people are allowed to have expressions other than stoic determination, Amanda Conner's art actually has something to work with, and finally shows its true strength. I was all ready to consign Terra to the 'not worth following' bin, but these last few pages turned me around - although, I hate to say, now I'm not so much eager, as worried that her future exploits (and those of Power Girl, I fear) may be mishandled as badly as this miniseries has been. It's not that it's bad, it's just that - as has happened with other titles - Palmiotti and Gray don't really seem to know the difference between good ideas and bad ones, so their talent for the nuts and bolts of writing is often wasted on concepts that were never good enough to make the grade anyway.
Birds of Prey #125 ~ This comic begins to wrap things up ahead of the eventual final issue, with Oracle still upset over what happened in the fight between her and Joker previously. Ignore the action sequences of her and Black Canary driving a luxury car around Las Vegas while the rest of the Birds set about dismantling the villain's empire - the villain's a nobody and none of the action has any basis in character, so it's forgettable. But Oracle and Dinah are real, their characters and their relationships have genuine weight, and even though Bedard doesn't have Gail Simone's deft touch handling them, and lapses back on cliches far too often, he still manages to draw out an interesting situation to leave Barbara in. I'm not sure it's justified, given what happened earlier - it'd be rather like having Batman have a crisis of confidence because he inexplicably got beat by a thug up one night, despite having shown repeatedly that he can fight far better than that - but it is what it is, and while I'm not sure I like this direction, given the mediocre plotting that'd led up to it, at least it's something real and solid.
Avengers: The Initiative #19 ~ The Initiative's tie-in storyline to Secret Invasion wraps up here - a pretty successful tie-in, it must be said, using the idea of Skrull infiltration to tell a story that's all about the Initiative (and with New and Mighty Avengers having been off in flashback city for the duration, probably the biggest regular tie-in story the event had). The Skrull last-resort scheme to destroy the Earth is a bit shaky around the edges - you can tell it's not really part of the main Secret Invasion story - but you forgive it, because the action surrounding it is so good. Drawing on the full range of resources available, in the form of dozens of heroes scattered across a whole range of Initiative teams, this issue sometimes feels a bit more like a Greatest Hits album, with each panel switching from team to team, subplot to subplot, but it all comes together in the end. There are sacrifices - a couple of minor-but-noteworthy characters give their lives in the pursuit of their duties (including a favourite of mine, *sniffle*) - there are character-building moments - like when 3-D Man has his Skrull-detecting goggles shattered and has to come up with the goods all on his own, without gadgets to help - and there's a final twist that is almost a shocker. I say 'almost' because something about it doesn't quite click for me - the hand of the author shows a little bit too much in it, so it's not a really satisfying surprise like, say, the end of The Usual Suspects. Nevertheless, this arc wraps up very nicely, proving that Avengers: The Initiative has what it takes to tell big stories, reflecting the big events of the Marvel world, without having to use them as a crutch.
