30 REVIEWS IN 30 DAYS (9): THE GREEN LANTERN #6

Released on April 3rd, 2019

     I've kind of always thought of Grant Morrison as the poor man's Alan Moore. His writing is similar but never as good. Even being mentioned alongside comic book's greatest writer, though, is still lofty praise. And while most of what Morrison writes is usually hit-or-miss, often in the same issue, at least most of his stuff is interesting, unique, and different than what else is out there. The last time he wrote a big, mainstream book for the big two he had a run on Batman that lasted probably a decade. That run will probably always be remembered for introducing Damian Wayne into the Bat world. He also killed off Batman...but, c'mon, killing of superheroes isn't exactly newsworthy anymore since they always come back, usually right away. Well Grant Morrison is back writing a big name superhero book, The Green Lantern. I should admit that I've never been a big fan of the character. Either no one good has ever written it or it's just a silly book, I'm still on the fence. This book is supposed to be a murder mystery, space detective type of a book. Hal Jordan is undercover in this issue as a Blackstar, and he has to have a duel to the death with his friend, Adam Strange. Since this is a Morrison book, it's just weird and makes little sense. Morrison's undercover job is thwarted, there's something about a u-bomb going off, and Hal Jordan dies or disappears but shows up at the end in a mysterious realm. Don't ask. As for the art...Liam Sharpe is just an okay artist, his stuff is scraggly and dirty and loose. Maybe if you love Green Lantern you'd love this, but for me it's just another strange Morrison book that feels like a puzzle with no good answer. *

30 COMICS IN 30 DAYS (8): PUNISHER: SOVIET #1

Released on November 13th, 2019

     Garth Ennis has been having something like a renaissance lately. Preacher just ended after four seasons on AMC and The Boys had its first season last summer on Amazon Prime. And for whatever reason, I just found out that he wrote a DC book called Hitman in the late 90's that I didn't remember. Ennis hasn't written anything noteworthy in forever, although since he wrote Preacher he'll probably just always be famous in the comic book realm. He did write a long run on The Punisher years ago that people still rave about but I thought was way too dark, serious, and depressing (granted, the book is about a murderer). Since then Ennis has written a few Punisher mini-series here and there, and this is his latest, a typical, Punisher, blood-and-guts MAX series. The plot isn't really anything new, although I'm not sure there's much to do that's really new with the character unless you do something completely ridiculous like Remender did (he turned him into FrankenCastle...in case you forgot). Punisher: Soviet starts with Frank Castle trying to take down some organized crime goons but someone has beaten him to the punch. Finally on the last page he finds who is, technically, doing his job for him. From the cover to this issue I'm guessing that these two team up and either go to Russia or just kill some Russians. It's not even called the Soviet Union, anymore, so...what? Punisher: Russia isn't as good a title? And this isn't a story told years ago because a cell phone is used. Who knows? It's pretty much just more of the same. The one good thing about this is that Jacen Burrows is doing the art. He used to draw Crossed for Avatar Press (which I think doesn't exist anymore) and he penciled that interesting H.P. Lovecraft book that Alan Moore wrote, Neonomicon. Since then he came to Marvel but for unknown reasons he's gotten the shaft, working on lame, low-selling titles like Moon Knight and now this throwaway mini-series. I suppose he's a better artist doing realistic people, so he might not be great at kinetic, fluid action that a book like Spider-Man might need, but who really knows? Dude's a star. More than Ennis these days, anyway. *1/2

30 REVIEWS IN 30 DAYS (7): KILLADELPHIA #1

Released on November 27th, 2019

     This book got some buzz when it was released last year. On the back of the book there are favorable quotes by Brian K. Vaughan, Jordan Peele, and Chris Rock. I think the reason Chris Rock is giving this book a quote is because the writer, Rodney Barnes, used to write for Everybody Hates Chris, which was a show about Chris Rock as a kid (I think...I never watched it). Or maybe Chris Rock really loved it, who knows? Either way this book is simply another vampire book. The fresh take is that the vampires are black, inner-city folk in Philly. In one scene, the main character enters a housing project and finds a bunch of vampires hanging from the ceiling in a scene reminiscent of that great scene in Lost Boys. The plot starts with the main character's father, who was a Philly cop, dying. We learn that the father had uncovered that vampires exist and they trace all the way back to the late 1700's when John Adams brought back a case of yellow fever from the Caribbean. Except it wasn't yellow fever...it was vampirism! That's probably not a word. The big cliffhanger is that at the end we find out that the father isn't dead, he's just a (you guessed it!) vampire. While the story is kind of interesting and somewhat creepy, it's also confusing as hell because half of the book is told in flashbacks and half is happening currently and often it's hard to tell which is which. The art, by Jason Shawn Alexander, who most recently has been drawing Spawn, at least gives the book a dark, foreboding, Gothic feel. While this is just another vampire tale, at least it's trying to be a bit more realistic and serious instead of just some comic book action vehicle like Blade. But like any vampire tale, where else is there to go? Staking bloodsuckers is pretty much all there is, right? For this book to succeed, it's going to have to try a little bit harder than your usual Dracula yarn, and so far it has the possibility to be going in the right direction. **1/2

30 REVIEWS IN 30 DAYS (6): BATMAN #89

Released on February 19th, 2020

     Writer Tom King was fired from Batman and so they got James Tynion IV to write it for awhile until they name a permanent replacement (which everyone and their mother expects to be Bendis). King's run on the book was disappointing, although I read every issue of his run (which went from #1 to #85 with only three fill in issue that Joshua Williamson wrote). So far, Tynion's run on the book has been pretty average, although this particular issue got loads of press and sold out because it was the first appearance of Punchline, Joker's girlfriend. Yes, Joker apparently has a girlfriend, although you wouldn't really know that from this issue, as she only makes a brief appearance here basically in the shadows. First off, Punchline is the laziest and stupidest name ever. What...because she's with The Joker? What's next? A villain named Standup? I guess Tynion's idea is that Harley Quinn is so popular, why not just make another one in a similar vein? Eh. I guess time will tell when she's finally revealed in more substantial fashion. As for this issue, it's part 4 of "Their Dark Designs." There's a mysterious villain named The Designer who is going after Batman's rogues gallery for some reason. Last issue, Penguin got his throat slit but of course he's still alive. In this issue, Harley Quinn helps Catwoman fight off some bad guys in a cemetery. The Joker makes an appearance on the last page mentioning something about a "big game" about to start involving the Bat family (Barbara Gordon, Damian, Jason Todd, etc.). So this is pretty much just the usual Batman shit. It is fast paced at least, and it's not boring. It's a bit too convoluted, though. The art is was done by two artists, Carlo Pagulayan and Guillem March, plus an inker and colorist. I couldn't really tell, though, that two guys penciled it. While the art is pretty good, I still miss Tony Daniel, who I guess doesn't draw every issue because the book is bi-monthly. Since this run is merely a placeholder for who ever takes over after Tom King's epic, dour run, it's at least a fun little mindless romp until we're all complaining in about a year that Bendis fucking ruined everything...again. **1/2

30 REVIEWS IN 30 DAYS (5): WOLVERINE #1

Released on February 19th, 2020

     The Spider-Man comic book I reviewed yesterday actually came out yesterday. The problem was, at least here in PA, comic shops are closed because of the virus pandemic (never thought I'd be saying that in my life). One of my local comic book stores, Comic Universe, posted a picture on Instagram of the new books on the shelf on Tuesday (they were apparently allowed to sell the books on Tuesday because comic stores get their books on Tuesdays and, fuck, might as well attempt to sell 'em if you got 'em). But the owner of Comic Universe noted that no one is allowed in the store so he was still doing curb side pickups for now and that he had sent a letter to the governor asking if it was okay to stay open even if he only allowed one person inside at a time. So the comic books that came out yesterday might actually end up being worth something considering that very few people besides comic book store owners probably have them. Next week is April and it looks like there won't be any new comic books coming out in April. Technically they could just release them digitally only but that would kind of fuck over the comic book stores and people that don't buy digitally and so they're not going to do that. Will we get new comic books in May? Probably not early May, anyway, as it takes time to print them and everything. One model that the University of Pennsylvania had said that the pandemic wouldn't reach its height in Philly until mid-May. I guess this is because New York City has 20,000 cases or something absurd and eventually that'll filter down here. The virus started in China then Italy was the epicenter of contagious people and deaths and now it's the U.S. Great. What a lovely Spring! And, apparently, it's only going to get worse. So what better way then to block it out and escape into the wonderful world of comic books! Well Wolverine #1, unfortunately, is a pretty bleak, violent, downer of a book. It features a black market drug cult led by a powerful woman that can make you kill or maim yourself AND Dracula! So it has it all. I can't really remember the last Wolverine solo-series, though he's seemingly always around in various books (except for a few years ago when he was killed off then came back to life somehow) and this is probably like the twentieth #1 or something absurd. Marvel puts out so many #1's that these days that no one really gives them a second glance anymore (this book pretty much flew under the radar for whatever reason). But the X-Men in general got a huge boost last year when they brought on Jonathan Hickman to revitalize the books. This book has a somewhat famous artist, Adam Kubert, but a writer I've never heard of (Benjamin Percy). I just googled him and found at that he's written four novels. He's also currently writing X-Force and has previously written Green Arrow and Teen Titans for DC. While this first issue isn't particularly awesome or anything, it is pretty entertaining and has a few interesting plot points. The weird thing is that there are two full stories in this book (it was $7.99 by the way...and they wonder why kids don't read comic books). The first story is drawn by Kubert and is about the petals from Krakatoa (the mutant island where the X-Men now reside) being used as a drug on the black market. The one in charge of said black market is a mysterious woman known as The Pale Girl. She can make you kill yourself. And she makes Wolverine kill his friends. The second, superior story is drawn by Viktor Bogdanovic, who draws like Greg Capullo, which is a good thing. There are vampires in Paris and it just so happens that Dracula is in charge. What a shocker. Also, the villain Omega Red has been ordered by Dracula to infiltrate Krakatoa. My only question is...if there are two, completely different stories...then what the hell are they going to do in #2? Will they always have two competing tales in every issue? I could just read #2 as it's already out and on my ipad. Maybe someday, if the world doesn't end. **1/2

30 REVIEWS IN 30 DAYS (4): THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #42 (aka #843)

 

 
Released on March 25th, 2020

    When I was in Florida last month I was checking out a website for a comic book store that does a weekly highlights list of things coming out that week. I'm not sure if this comic book store just hates modern comics or if it just tells you something about the quality of modern comics...but their weekly list seems to mostly be reprints or new editions of old material. Well that week they recommended a new Spider-Man trade paperback that was reprinting some of the old, classic Stan Lee era Spider-Man books and it featured a story line about an ancient tablet. I was on vacation in Florida so I figured it'd be something to read at night so I downloaded it, read it, and loved it. For some reason I'd always remembered the old Stan Lee Spider-Man books as being pretty boring. One particular example is the fact that the infamous death of Gwen Stacey and Norman Osbourne story line didn't even happen until Stan Lee left the book (and apparently he was in France and so couldn't prevent it from happening). Meaning he was pretty much just doing safe, fun, superhero stuff. Boring, right! Well the ancient tablet story line, while pedestrian, is actually a very entertaining read. It went from The Amazing Spider-Man #68 to #75. Parker was still working at The Bugle and dating Gwen Stacey. The Lizard and The Kingpin made appearances. It was truly peak Spider-Man. The actual plot of the tablet was that it was an ancient artifact that can give people powers. Everyone wants it, and eventually a mob boss gets Curt Conners, aka The Lizard, to crack the code of it. The mob boss drinks a potion from a recipe deciphered off of the tablet and it gives him youth...he turns young and strong but the catch is it makes him younger and younger until he turns into a baby and then disappears into nothing. I think the tablet came back again somewhere because in this current run of The Amazing Spider-Man they mention Doctor Strange breaking up the tablet and banishing it to another dimension. Well it's back for whatever reason...maybe writer Nick Spencer is simply out of ideas? Spider-Man and his roommate/sidekick, Boomerang, are attempting to get the tablet back together for some reason and in this issue, #42, they have to fight the monster Grog, who is the protector of a piece of the tablet. Whew. This issue is mostly the backstory of Grog, though, which, while somewhat touching, sad, and interesting, is completely out of place in a Spider-Man book (just have Parker fight with J. Jonah Jameson, make jokes, and fight villains like The Vulture...it's not hard to plot this book). I often said that it was time for writer Dan Slott to get off this book (he wrote it for ten years), but I guess I should have been careful what I wished for. It's coming up on two years with Nick Spencer writing Amazing and so far it's been a total disappointment. He's had one new, big bad lurking in the shadows for awhile (Kindred) but that plot so far hasn't gone anywhere. The rest of the book has been all over the map and not in a good way. It's just not interesting or exciting at all. The one shining light in this mess has been artist Ryan Ottley, who used to draw Invincible. This book is bi-monthly, though, which means Ottley seems to rarely be around, although he knocked it out of the park yet again on this issue. I'm not entirely sure who's left to take over this book and make it great again. I don't think it's that hard...is it? But when we're only being entertained by Spider-Man books written by Stan Lee fifty plus years ago these days...that's a problem. *1/2

30 REVIEWS IN 30 DAYS (3): SUPERMAN'S PAL JIMMY OLSEN #3

Released on September 18th, 2019

    I did read #1 and #2, but #3 came out way back on September 18th of last year and I just got around to reading it. The whole series has been on my Ipad since then, and it is a pretty good book, though I guess not good enough to give me an incentive to read it in a timely fashion. The reason that this book was kind of a big deal when it came out was the fact that writer Matt Fraction finally returned to writing a book at one of the big two. He used to write for Marvel years ago, and he wrote just about every book they have (X-Men, Fantastic Four, Iron-Man, Thor). The best thing he ever wrote, though, was Hawkeye, which was tongue-in-cheek and comedic but also heartfelt, unique, and highly entertaining. That was the last book he did for the big two until he came back last year with this Jimmy Olsen 12 part mini-series. In his time off from the mainstream superhero world he was working mostly on Image's Sex Criminals, which continued his bizarre, absurd, tongue-in-cheek type of humor that  blossomed with Hawkeye. Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen is pretty much more of the same. It's not particularly a laugh-out-loud book, but it is supposed to be stupid-funny, also cute-funny. It's such a weird book that, when you read it, you kind of can't believe a major company like DC okayed it. It feels like a book by a writer who doesn't care if he gets fired tomorrow, if that makes sense. The basic story is that Jimmy Olsen, who's a reporter at Metropolis' Daily Planet alongside Clark Kent (in case you're reading a frigging comic book blog and don't know Superman), is trying to be killed by someone. Olsen fakes his death and heads to Gotham City to lay low and uncover the truth behind who's trying to kill him. That sounds pretty simple...but there's a lot more going on. The book is set up into short chapters with different characters. We get a story with distant relatives of Lex Luthor and Jimmy Olsen a hundred or so years ago. We also get a story with a porcupine man going to Jimmy Olsen's lawyer's office...for some reason. And there are others that I guess have something or other to do with the main plot. I probably read #1 and #2 last summer so I'm a bit lost. The art by Steve Leiber is nice and looks cartoonish, which helps set the perfect tone. The book has a lot of words and thus probably one of the few DC or Marvel books actually worth $3.99...plus it's a lot more entertaining than both Superman titles that Brian Bendis is writing (I gave up on both of them last year). So it's fairly light and fun and forgettable, just like Jimmy Olsen. **1/2

30 REVIEWS IN 30 DAYS (2): THE RESISTANCE #1

 
Released on March 18th, 2020

    I feel really bad for the new comic book company, AWA (which means Artists, Writers, and Artisans). Axel Alonso, who used to work at Marvel, started it, and they just shipped their first four books out last Wednesday when the coronavirus pandemic pretty much shut everything down (including comic book stores...Diamond, which does the shipping of comic books to comic book stores, closed their operation today indefinitely). What fucking luck to start right when the comic book industry is closing down for a few months (perhaps longer, who the fuck knows?). And it obviously wasn't easy starting a new comic book company in today's world, now you factor a virus pandemic into it. Sweet Jesus. It probably also doesn't help that their flagship title, The Resistance #1, is literally about a virus pandemic that kills off most of the world's population. Thankfully, the virus becomes dormant halfway into the first issue, otherwise I'm not sure I'd want to continue reading this book. The reason that this is their flagship title is because they got a pretty good team working on it. Artist Mike Deodato, Jr. had previously worked on a bunch of big Marvel titles, including Original Sin with Jason Aaron, Secret Avengers with Ed Brubaker, and also Dark Avengers, Thunderbolts, The Avengers, The Amazing Spider-Man, and Infinity Wars. Dude's been around and the art in this book looks decent, though not particularly spectacular or new or anything. J. Michael Staczynski is writing this. He's done some great work in the past for Marvel, like his runs on Thor and The Amazing Spider-Man, though I haven't seen anything by him in years. So the basic plot of this book is that once a virus kills off most of the Earth's population, the people that are left find that they now have super powers. Kind of feels like an Inhumans rip-off, right? Also not the most interesting plot. Who knows? Maybe it's actually going somewhere awesome. Unfortunately, with a real pandemic going on, we might never even see a #2. *

30 REVIEWS IN 30 DAYS (1): DECORUM #1

   

Released on March 11th, 2020

   So things are crazy...which is the biggest understatement in the history of the world. The last time the world was like this was probably during WW2...but even then I think the movie theaters were still open and sports carried on (we all remember A League of Their Own) and you could go out to dinner at a restaurant and schools were still open. I suppose the last time the world was amidst in a pandemic like we're having now was back in 1918 during the Spanish Flu outbreak that killed 50 million people. Considering I'm saying that life these days is akin to a time period when 50 million people died...well, that's certainly not good. And since I can't really do much of anything except go to work (most people can't even do that) I figured I'd focus a least a little bit of attention on a project of sorts. I haven't written that many comic book reviews lately and will probably be reading a lot in the next few months (I have 300 comic books on my Ipad still waiting to read) so I figured I'd do a 30 reviews in 30 days feature. Since non-essential businesses are closed in Pennsylvania and, eventually, probably every state, that means comic book stores are going to be closed. Some online have said that, since comic book stores run on razor thin margins, this could mean the end to comic book stores as we know it. This might just be a dark prophecy that won't come true, and comic books will still be on digital, but it's still scary to think about what's going to happen to the comic book business in the future. I'm guessing that most books will be postponed, some cancelled, some stores permanently closed. The future is bleak! Which brings us to Decorum #1, an Image book that came out on March 11th. It was written by Jonathan Hickman, who's one of the premiere comic book writers these days, so it's a pretty big deal. Hickman has always been hit-or-miss for me, though I loved what he did with the X-Men last year (his two, 6 issue mini-series', House of X and Powers of X, were my favorite comic books of 2019) which was his first big, mainstream work in years. He wrote Avengers and Fantastic Four years ago and his The Manhattan Projects Image book was great. So he's pretty much dabbled in it all. Decorum is pretty out there, though, a totally, baffling, futuristic mind fuck of a book. The basic premise is that there's a female assassin for hire in space. The other aspect of the book is that prehistoric societies, like, say, an island of natives that worship an idol as their God or something, are kept as sort of a zoo in parts of the universe by alien beings. I guess that's what's going on? Who the hell knows? Sure, it's only a first issue, but so far it makes very little sense. I guess I wouldn't mind it not making sense if at least it was entertaining, cool, fun, interesting, wild, engrossing...something? It's just kind of weird and eh. The art is pretty fantastic, though. Mike Huddleston did the art (color, inks, everything). Some of it is in color and some is in black and white, sometimes even in the same panel (what this means is...even if there wasn't a virus postponing everything, this book was going to be late every month with all of this detailed, convoluted artwork). And like with every Hickman book, there are a lot of design pages and pages with just text, which I loathe. I guess I'll stick with it to see if it gets any better or if the actual plot/story goes anywhere interesting...but so far this book is pretty much just an acid-dipped mess. 1/2* (out of ****)