Blah blah blah comics blah (12/10/07)
Blah blah blah comics blah (12/10/07)
Dec 10Why am I doing this again?
Superman Annual #13, The Brave and the Bold #8, and Johnny Hiro #2 all somehow fit together, if I stretch my brain and clap my hands and wish I was a REAL BOY. They are all examples of something that seems incredibly easy being done incredibly well, and that “something” is “smart, fun, enjoyable superhero comics.”
Of the three, Superman Annual #13 is the weakest. It suffers from a deflating lack of momentum brought about by delays, fill-ins, and the general abuse of Kurt Busiek’s gifts to create material that has padded out Superman’s sister title, Action Comics, while Geoff Johns and Real-Time Hollywood Big-Shot Richard Donner attempt to complete their first storyline with the help of one of the Kuberts, I forget which, but he’s late a lot. Were this conclusion to Busiek’s Camelot Falls storyline part of the regular Superman title, and had it run in those pages as part of an ongoing storyline with reasonable gaps between creation and release, I honestly think it would have been a better-written tale. I know it would have read better. As it stands, this is just a big fight between Superman and some slimy monsters, with a bit of self-doubting subtext sprinkled on top. The backup story, though slight, is more of a keeper, a set of pure character moments that define the members of this new “Superman family” for readers.
Johnny Hiro #2 is the least-superheroish, and the hardest for me to review, because I don’t know what to say except that it’s, oh my goodness, so very very great. Our title character works as a busboy in a restaurant, and his chef needs a lobster to serve to a prominent food reviewer, so Johnny steals one from another restaurant, which gets him chased by an unruly pack of rival busboys/ninjas, and he has a sweet girlfriend who loves him a lot. There is an energy here, a willingness to simply BE what it IS without trying too hard to be something it’s NOT, that is infectious in the extreme. It’s an action comic, it’s a relationship comic, it has unexpected fourth-wall shattering interruptions from what I assume is the writer/artist regarding different types of sea life, and it all fits together. It is happy to exist as it is, and doesn’t apologize for itself at all.
The Brave and the Bold #8 is as traditional and basic as it gets when it comes to modern superhero comics. Mark Waid and George Perez deliver the goods, and again, it looks so easy that it must be incredibly hard, when you get right down to it. The Flash “family,” the Doom Patrol, Metamorpho, and the Challengers of the Unknown all have their moments here, and they are who they are; there is conflict and superheroics, and then everything’s somewhat resolved, with a haunting hint of dissatisfaction at the end that adds an unexpected layer of depth to what was otherwise a simple romp.
Now I babble.
Some other blogger asked it, and I keep thinking about it, so I have to ask it too: Why is it so hard to make a good superhero comic? Lord knows there are plenty of examples out there from the past seventy-odd years of publishing, so why does it happen so rarely?
Is it editorial dickery? Is it lack of experience, lack of interest? Is it a matter of the marketplace seeming to dictate a style of storytelling that’s the diametrical opposite of good superhero comics?
I dunno. But Busiek and Waid know exactly how to do it, and they’re both coming up on two decades in the industry, and they’re still doing what they do to at least some measure of success, so maybe it’s worth taking a look at what they get RIGHT.
The characters act like the characters. Everyone is who they are, and moreso, they are who they were forty years ago and who they should be forty years from now.
Stories are set up, paid off, and have consequences. A bit of business in one issue will launch its own storyline; later, what has happened in that arc will affect characters in another issue down the line. There is not just a continuity of universe, but a continuity of character and story within the title itself, within each story, even within each issue. Busiek has been laying out the pieces of this Camelot Falls finale since his first issues on the title, and while the *clicks* of those elements locking into place weren’t quite as satisfying as they could have been, you still get the sense of the smaller stories impacting the larger story impacting the run as a whole. The issue begets the arc begets the title and its identity and value. This is something Bendis also does incredibly well.
New characters arrive; old characters return; all the stories feel “new.” Another big example of this type of great modern superhero comics is the Waid and Mike Wieringo run on Fantastic Four. Waid and ‘Ringo dive into the FF toybox to play with Dr. Doom, Galactus, and the Frightful Four, but none of their stories with these tropes feel like anything that’s come before; they make these characters feel interesting, vital, and new. At the same time, they introduce new elements and ideas to the franchise via tweaks (Doom’s obsession with the occult), reinventions (the Frightful Four as bizarro mirror “family” to the FF), and flat-out new characters (Reed’s computer doppelganger in the series’ first arc). Busiek’s reinvented the Prankster, created new characters like Subjekt 13, and brought in the Young Gods to play a critical role in Camelot Falls. Waid’s using the entire DC Universe as his personal playground in Brave and the Bold, yet with the Book of Destiny, he’s contributed a pretty vital storytelling element to the tapestry of the universe as well.
Everything changes; everything remains the same. The “illusion of change,” that ephemeral concept that drives superhero comics at their core, can be impossibly hard to manage. Waid and ‘Ringo pull it off without even trying on their FF, and Busiek’s delivering admirably on his Superman as well (just as he did on his Avengers run, back in the day). There is momentum and transformation for these characters throughout the run; yet by the end of it all, the toys are back on the shelf largely as they were when the creators found them. Not in a bad way, either; they’re shiny again, and they feel fresh. You remember why you loved them in the first place, and you enjoy them more than ever.
