While browsing the Comic Book Resources forum, I found a new indie comic to keep an eye on, Geek-Girl. It has pages on Facebook and Myspace, and sounds like a fun venture. Also there's a great Matt Olsen pic of the titular Geek-Girl, go check it out.
And wow, look at all the comics that turned up this week. As well as those I'm reviewing, I also got the 'raunchy version' of Jungle Girl 2 #4, sporting a full view of the original issue's pencilled cover, which had a title bar put across the bottom so you couldn't see Jana's naked backside and intimate bits. It's probably not value for money (especially since the uncensored art is in the hardcover 'Apes and Babes' volume of Frank Cho's art), but what the hell. Anyway, since there are so many issues this week, the reviews will be a bit briefer than usual.
Previews #250 ~ The comics:
p72: Supergirl Annual #1 ~ I'd like to get back to Supergirl (without being disappointed again), so I may take a look at this.
p130: Fallout Toyworks #1 ~ Looks kind of like a more teenage-y Clockwork Girl, could be fun.
Marvel p12: Ms. Marvel #45 70th anniversary cover ~ Yum!
p190: Artesia Besieged #4 ~ Great to see Artesia back on schedule.
p224: Tarot: Witch of the Black Rose #58 ~ Looks like this'll be the Raven-centric issue I've been looking forward to.
p234: Athena #1 ~ Not much description provided, but worth a look.
p257: The Collected Voyages of SheBuccaneer ~ A must-have (see reviews: #1-3, #4, #5).
p296: Modern Masters: Frank Cho ~ There's no such thing as a Frank Cho art book not worth buying.
And the merchandise:
p124: JLA Classified Classic series 2: Batgirl
p125: Ame-Comi: Robin (that's the female Robin, obviously)
p126: Women of the DC Universe minibust: Hippolyta
p127: Cover Girls of the DC Universe statue: Power Girl (yes!)
p173: Best of Marvel Select: Black Cat
p229: Hack/Slash Cassie poster
p352: Battlestar Galactica Minimates mini-flyers: Starbuck's Viper
p371: Battlestar Galactica Little Frakkin' Colonial Starbuck maquette (adorable)
Empowered volume five ~ Emp's status following her kick-ass victory last volume is, well, pretty much unchanged - none of the other heroes (who're all pretty much assholes) believe she saved the day, and Major Havoc (who's even more assholish than usual) thinks she may even have been responsible for the whole mess in the first place. So it's back to business as usual for our painfully insecure heroine (although it's worth noting that she seems a bit more together than usual this volume), hanging around with Ninjette, having enormously lusty sex with Thugboy, and (a new addition) striking up a friendship with Mindf--k, the space-station-dwelling mega-telepath introduced last volume. As with every volume after the first, the focus is primarily on longer pieces - I do miss the short punchline-driven stories, I must admit, but the storytelling develops through the volume very strongly, leading to a colossal finale that's a real page-turner. Adam Warren's uninked uncoloured pencil art is superb as always, and I noted this volume that even the chaotic action scenes, which previously could become a bit impressionist and difficult to make out, are clearer than ever.
Detective Comics #854 ~ Finally, after endless delays and screw-ups and DC doing everything in their power to not help her get a good start in life, she's got her proper debut story at last: Batwoman. Greg Rucka is writing, J.H. Williams III is drawing - it's good. It's really good. Batwoman, who in 52 was involved in kicking the arse of the 'religion of crime', is on the trail of the new leader (thankfully all that Final Crisis: Relevations stuff seems to have been quietly shelved, and we're dealing with the proper religion of crime, not their dumb Spear-of-Destiny/Vandal Savage offshoot), who she's discovered, by patient detective work and kicking heads, is due to arrive in Gotham shortly; Kate's all kinds of mad at the crime cult (who tried to sacrifice her in 52, you'll recall), so she's not having that. The main story - 24 pages - is stylishly laid out, with vivid art and composition, but efficient in its delivery of plot and background, feeling like the first twenty minutes of a good movie, setting up what you need to know to get deeper into the story. The backup feature (also written by Rucka) has the Question (also thankfully back to her regular self, not Grant Morrison's daft dimension-hopping peace agent crap) picking up the case of a girl gone missing during a border run, and moves swiftly to make best use of its limited page space - eight pages isn't a lot to go on, but I think it'll make for an interesting story.
Ythaq: No Escape #3 ~ The adventure continues with the survivors of the Comet's Mist siege deposited on a remote island, where all manner of weirdness is now going on. Last issue featured the big reveal that the world of Ythaq is the setting for some kind of giant super-game, with all the characters we've been following either playing pieces, innocent bystanders, or players themselves trying to manipulate events into a winning configuration - with this issue's title being 'The Pawns Revolt' it doesn't take a genius to guess that action girl Granite and her fellow survivors are going to throw a big nasty wrench into the workings of the great game. As always the art is lavish and full of detail, and the storyline rocks along at a quick pace, with no shortage of imaginative twists and turns to keep things interesting. It's exactly the kind of high-excitement serial that classics like Indiana Jones and Star Wars are based on - if anyone makes a movie of Ythaq and does it well, it'll easily be up there with the greats; as is, it's one of the best comics available, and at US$5.99 for 48 pages, certainly the best value bar none.
Barack the Barbarian #1 ~ Yeah, I got the Red Sarah cover - I couldn't quite bring myself to order the poster, but c'mon, she looks good. Pity she's an idiot. Anyway, the good news is that this isn't just a stunt. Yes it's a fairly obvious parody, of the kind Mel Brooks used to do (Spaceballs, Robin Hood: Men in Tights and so on), but while I'm not really a follower of Conan (besides the movie) or American politics (besides watching the news), I can say that the creators have done their homework, and while the result doesn't really extend to truly biting satire, it's amusing and the jokes at the expense of the Republican baddies are mostly in a spirit of fun, rather than outright meanness. Unless you're staunch GOP and won't hear criticism of Bush et al, this is a funny and engaging bit of harmless comedy, and worth a look.
Dynamo 5 #22 ~ Like you'd expect from last month, this issue is mostly Dynamo 5 vs Brain Trust, the big guy on the cover with five brains. It's goofy, but it works, trust me. This issue's very much an intermediate one - nothing really starts and nothing really finishes, but everything gets moved along a bit, and in between scenes of Dynamo 5 trying various tactics against the big cyborg brain guy there are scenes from other running subplots, including the superpower drug, Synergy, and something the government's up to which could be fun. As always the action is fun and frantic, and Bridget looks way hot.
Ms. Marvel #40 ~ Following the cliffhanger of last issue, this one runs two stories at once - Karla and the baby jar array (or whatever it's called), and the mysterious energy women, who anyone who's been paying attention should be able to take a guess at the nature of. Not a lot really happens for either this month, but so far as filler goes it's fairly entertaining, and it moves the situation forward for both of them, hopefully to somewhere where the next issue will be able to have some fun (in the case of glow-woman, I'd say so). Like the cover reveals Deadpool's around too, with his usual genre-savvy jokes (though nothing written really cleverly, just business as usual for him), but he and his side of the plotline are yet to meet up with the others. The Karla scenes (the middle of the book) are produced by a different artist to the Deadpool/New Avengers bits, with a paintwork kind of style (like Witchblade last time I saw it) which makes for a nice change from the usual; if that's to be Karla's 'theme art' for the rest of her stay in this title, I can live with that.
Gotham City Sirens #1 ~ This is kind of like Birds of Prey's evil (or at least morally ambiguous) twin - Catwoman, Poison Ivy, and Harley Quinn team up for mutual defence in more-chaotic-than-usual Gotham. Catwoman, being the only properly sane one, is the lead character, with Ivy and Harley reacting to her lead (not necessarily in a helpful manner) - there's some action, with a comedic newbie villain trying to off the girls to make a reputation for himself, and naturally getting his arse handed to him, but the main story is Catwoman's current state of body and mind, after being nearly killed and patched up (it's recapped at the beginning, in case like me you weren't reading whatever comic that happened in) - Ivy and Harley, noticing Catwoman's not quite herself, set out to 'help' in their own particular way. Zatanna makes a cute cameo (most of it in a jacuzzi, yummy), although Ivy messes her around a bit much for my tastes - I'd like to see more of Gotham and DC's female stars pop in and out of this book, but not if Dini's always going to arbitrarily have the Sirens make fools of them on principle.
Wonder Woman #33 ~ With Genocide dealt with (though not permanently, by the looks of last issue's inconclusive ending) Diana returns to her sisters on Themiscyra, just in time for them to come under attack from a whole oceanful of sea monsters. Luckily Hippolyta's there, and as we know from her showing in the Circle arc back when Gail Simone took the reins, Wonder Woman gets her ass-kicking nature from her mother. But the monsters are just the first round - what this issue is really about is bringing the players together, Amazons and Achilles's army and Zeus and Ares and Wonder Woman all finally in the one place, so we can see what happens when all these long-running plot threads finally crash into each other. The result is appropriately epic, but not quite world-shattering, since there's just so much going on in Diana's life that it can't possibly all be addressed in one issue - we get a huge slice of development on the gods-and-Amazons side of things, but at the end of the issue the story still has elements up in the air, everything back on the mainland with Donna and Etta and Nemesis. This issue concludes the 'Rise of the Olympian' arc - fittingly, the Olympian (Zeus's male equivalent of Diana) is now firmly here - and it's been a great ride, but it's clear that Simone intends this to be the beginning of a lot more stories, not the end of any.
Farscape: D'Argo's Lament #3 ~ Much of this issue is a big flashback to D'Argo's formative days, which... well, it's not bad, but I couldn't shake the feeling that if this were a TV episode, they'd have cut it back to a couple of lines of dialogue and gotten on with the story. Or at least the scene would've been more about D'Argo telling the story than the story itself - it's just background information after all, and nothing really new, and the way the comic presents it D'Argo doesn't have any real opinion on it, the way he explains what happened, other than to deliver information. Flashback aside nothing much happens - the Luxan general arrives (with an annoying comedy sidekick), and D'Argo and Jool argue a bit and do nothing much. I really like the idea of a between-episodes story like this, since it means we get to see more of characters like D'Argo and Jool who aren't around for the post-series issues, but the storyline here is pretty sparse and slow.
Justice Society of America #28 ~ Jerry Ordway's two-parter wraps up, and while it'd be harsh to say I'm glad, I don't think these issues have been very strong. The art, as with earlier Ordway issues, is passable but lacking zest, and some of the faces (particularly the women, it seems) are pretty off-model, and have bafflingly inappropriate expressions in a few panels. The core storyline is sound - although I'd rather the subject of 'why the US used the atomic bombs' weren't treated so casually, since it's a much more involved and, unfortunately, compromised tale than this comic would lead its readers to think. The writing on a technical level is a bit haphazard too, with frequent clunky exposition dialogue ("Hey! We've been moved onto some island!" Yes thanks, we're not back in the 1960s when superheroes need to self-narrate everything that happens), and some odd choices of phrase that seem unwieldly - most notably Flash's advice to the Spectre: "Don't let the vessel control the host"; 'vessel' and 'host' are the same thing, so it makes no sense. It's not a bad issue, really, but it's not really high quality, and I'm looking forward to the new team taking over next issue.
Avengers: The Initiative #25 ~ I'm debating whether to keep buying this one. It's got its good points - I'm really pleased to see Tigra getting plenty of storyline attention (the tussle between her and Moonstone is great), and since I've been reading Initiative from the beginning I'm kind of attached to Gauntlet as well. But on the other hand, a lot of this issue is about showing Norman Osborn being as evil as possible to everyon he can find in the process of setting up his version of the Initiative, which is basically a training school for supervillains. An Initiative for heroes is interesting - training them, showing how a person becomes a hero, what they have to learn and achieve, that's a story I'm interested in (one which, sadly, this title has let itself get distracted from by overblown conspiracies almost from the start). An Initiative for villains is just a cardboard antagonist, which furthermore is reliant on Norman Osborn, whose story won't be told here - he's another book's villain, and I'm not happy seeing him so prominent here when his eventual takedown will be elsewhere. I think on reflection I'll stop here - this issue concludes the 'Disassembled' arc, so I imagine it'll be the last in one of the trade paperbacks, and if I decide I want the subsequent stories I'll be able to get them in TPB form without repeating any issues.
New Avengers #54 ~ The weakness of this title - from my specialised point of view - is that it doesn't really have any heroines in the lead; sure there are a few on the team, but it's not like early Mighty Avengers when Carol was in charge. That's a shame (again, from my point of view) because otherwise this is a great comic - plenty of action, interesting dialogue, heaps of fun to read, and clear, engaging artwork. The whole 'new Sorcerer Supreme' story reaches its conclusion here in a cool way, and I'm glad I stuck with it; I'm not so sure about the next direction, foreshadowed by Clint's actions this issue - it seems a pretty dumb decision, and not one that'll make for an engrossing forward-moving story. I may take this off my standing order and have a look through the next issue on the shelf before I buy it, just to see which direction it'll take - but that's due to lack of heroines, not due to any lack of quality in the book, so if you're not as female-focused as I am, don't take this as a criticism of the book.
Guardians of the Galaxy #15 ~ This issue is better than last one, largely because it's more self-contained - issue #14's notion of the Guardians approaching the two factions in 'War of Kings' and asking them to please stop fighting was silly, but this issue the Guardians are just trying not to be killed by the aforementioned factions now that they've ticked them off, which makes a lot more sense. It's more of less non-stop chaos though, which doesn't leave a lot of down time for witty dialogue and humour; on the up side, we do get a lot going on, with Starhawk breaking free, Adam going a bit evil-looking, and Rocket Rackoon having an interesting reaction to some news (in light of his usual 'blow stuff up' reaction to things). Phyla, it turns out, didn't have a clever plan beneath her dumb kidnapping of Crystal last issue, which is a shame - if this is what Darkness is making her be, it's pretty pointless, since nobody's going to let her be this chaotic for long. Hopefully that'll be addressed in some fashion soon; otherwise, good issue.
Tarot: Witch of the Black Rose volume seven ~ This volume collects issues #31-35; the first is a one-off story along well-trodden Tarot lines, with pesky magical beings (pixies in this case) leading Tarot on a chase, while Jon gets waylaid by all manner of seductive fairies and whatnot intent on naughtiness and has to be rescued - if you've read earlier issues you'll recognise the shape of the story in broad strokes, and it's fun as usual. The other four issues are the 'Shadow Witch' arc, a much weightier story covering a lot of ground, all revolving around an old nemesis come back to cause grief for Tarot and her loved ones. It's not just a good-vs-bad battle in four parts, but rather distinct stages of the conflict, starting with the devastating assault, then dealing with the physical and emotional consequences, and finally taking Tarot down a dark path of her own as she seeks to put an end to the danger for good. This volume is really strong Tarot, covering pretty much everything that makes the title unique.
