Shit I Read (April 30, 2007)
Shit I Read (April 30, 2007)
Apr 30Action Comics, Amazons Attack, Helmet of Fate: Zauriel, Wolverine, and a crusty old issue of The Joker.
Action Comics #848
There’s an interesting nugget in here, and I’m not sure if it’s already been gobbled by another story at some point, but it was new to me: The concept of a religious-based, faith-powered superhero. Given our current political climate, the allegories and implications abound, abound, and continue abounding. Abounds are abounding from their fellow abounds, there’s so much aboundment and aboundage happening.
I’m not sure if a two-issue Action Comics fill-in story is the right place to get into it, but it’s as good a place as any, I suppose. Proving once again that there is not a more capable and excellent workhorse comics writer on the planet than Fabian Nicieza. He can truly do just about ANYTHING.
Amazons Attack! #1
Why the hate, internet? WHY THE HATE?!?!?!
Is this any way to greet the FIRST MAJOR COMICS EVENT OF 2007???? Do you not nurture fond fanboy memories of War of the Gods, as I do? Is it not approaching summer, and thus time for even more big, stupid comic books than we get the rest of the year?
I will call shenanigans along with my fellow online cranks re: the sneaky strategy of “If you want the WHOLE story, buy Wonder Woman #8, which is a cheap and shameless way to get DC completists to keep buying a title that’s been unabashed crap for months–that is, when it’s even come out AT ALL!” And I found the motivation for this whole shebang to be pretty flimsy–the newly-resurrected Hippolyta suddenly gets all pissy about the manfolk taking her daughter captive, revving up from “Hey, I’m alive again” to “Hey, let’s go chop off Abe Lincoln’s head” in about ten minutes.
But it’s not like they’re not a WARRIOR RACE, people. Most DCU appearances to the contrary, they FIGHT IN WARS. That’s WHAT THEY LIKE TO DO.
So if this becomes what it seems to be evolving into–a big-ass war on American soil between our boys and the Amazons, with Batman acting as some kind of whacked-out Patton-esque field commander–then COUNT ME SO VERY IN.
Helmet of Fate: Zauriel
I didn’t quite get this. It sorta…dissolved as the pages went on. A shame, because I quite liked the other Helmet of Fate one-shots, and I will still check out Gerber’s new Dr. Fate series when it launches.
But really. The aliens, the spores, etc. went way over my head.
The Joker #6
I attended a very crappy “toy and collectibles” show at the Central Florida Fairgrounds on Saturday, for which I braved an onslaught of toothless hillbilly hicks, and found a guy with two longboxes full of not-at-all-bad late seventies and early eighties comics for a buck apiece. Along with several random issues of Batman and Detective Comics, one of the two issues of Kirby’s OMAC I need to complete the set, and pretty much every Levitz/Giffen Legion of Super-Heroes issue from their initial classic run (!!!), I bought three issues of this short-lived series focusing on the Harlequin of Hate.
In issue #6, we get Denny O’Neill probably taking advantage of the “ghetto” status of a title that didn’t have many readers and may have already been canceled to offer his elaborate tribute to Sherlock Holmes, in which the Joker is a poorly-motivated bit player at best. Minus the musty, yellowing charm of its status as a great old comic, it’d be a pretty lame story, but as a back issue, it’s pretty damn charming. Note also that the Joker himself answers the letters in his lettercolumn, which must be a first for comics–an avowed fictional mass-murderer given the chance to correspond with his readership. Well played, DC.
Wolverine #53
This run by Jeph Loeb and Simone Bianchi is really GOOD bad comics.
There’s no question that Loeb’s really reaching here, trying to connect every wolf-like character in the Marvel Universe into some kind of universal brother- and sisterhood of wolf-like peoples–“Lupine Superior,” he calls it. Which is a pretty classic bonehead move, taking interesting and diverse individuals and lumping them together randomly, basically destroying their individuality for the sake of a story. A kinda lousy and flimsy story, at that.
But it’s SO very well drawn, and the dialogue sorta effortlessly vaults over “reasonable” and into “whacked-out silly territory” (how many times does Wolverine say “WTF” anyway? About as many times as I thought it, probably), and I like that they’ve dragged in Wakanda and the Black Panther and Storm, apropos of nothing, even though they’ve gotta be getting AWFUL busy, what with supporting their own title and hanging out in space with the freakin’ FANTASTIC FOUR.
Stupid, silly, weak–but just pretty and loopy enough to be compelling. Bad, but in a good way, like Keanu in Point Blank.
