Showing posts with label graphic novel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label graphic novel. Show all posts

Sunday, October 23, 2016

The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe, Benjamin Harper, and Dennis Calero


Rating: WARTY!

This is the third of three graphic novels I got from the library recently, all three of which I was disappointed with. This one is not about super heroes, but is based on the Edgar Allan Poe short story published over a hundred seventy years ago wherein a man who, shall I say, doesn't have all his ravens in a row, takes exception to the disfigured eye of his friend, and ends up killing the guy and secreting the body under the floor of his dwelling. The novel is part of a graphic series, but I don't think i will read any more of these.

When a neighbor reports hearing a scream from the house and the police arrive to investigate, the psycho guy (who goes unnamed), invites them in, confident they will find nothing incriminating, only to incriminate himself when he believes he can hear the still-beating heart of his victim and ends up tearing up the floor with the police present to witness it.

I haven't read Poe's original, so I can't make a comparison. All I can say is that this was dissatisfying and the story was changed slightly - the body in the original was dismembered, but it is not, here. What bothered me though, was the lack of inventiveness of the illustration. It seemed to consist almost solely of close-ups of the faces of the characters, with very few more removed images, and while this artwork was not bad, it wasn't that great, either.

Admittedly some guy rambling on about how his friend's eye drives him nuts isn't really something you can make a lot of, so perhaps choosing to turn this particular short-story into a graphic novel was a bad decision. As I can testify, while it's a lot easier to tinker with someone else's story and (in my case) make a parody of it, than it is to come up with an original story, it's not impossible either. All-in-all, I was unhappy with this one, and I cannot recommend it as a worthy read.


Birds of Prey Vol 2 Your Kiss Might Kill by Duane Swierczynski, Travel Foreman


Rating: WARTY!

This is the second of two disappointing Birds of Prey graphic novels I got from the library. This volume comes much alter than the previous one, and I have to say that the artwork was all-around better, but the story just as dissatisfying and even confusing. The cover art was just as bad as in the previous volume, with black canary shown emitting her "sonic scream" (what kind of a scream wouldn't be sonic?! LOL! That there's sound is implied in the noun itself. Only paintings by Edvard Munch are silent!) and in effect looking like she's put on many pounds in doing it! Again, this is one reason why covers don't mean a heck of a lot to me, not even in graphic novels.

This story features Batgirl, Katana, Poison Ivy, and Starling (not Clarice, unfortunately). Despite Poison Ivy getting the bigger picture on the cover, this story is about Black Canary aka Dinah lance, whose life is threatened. During the course of the story the team has to transport Poison ivy to the Amazon to save her life, and that's where the creepy people attack them. No really, people made from creepers. Really.

For me the story was poor and further undermined by various characters disporting themselves in fishnet, and bustiers and bikini-underwear, so it really wasn't entertaining at all. It made me sorry I'd even considered reading about the Birds of Prey in comic books at all, and it also made me want to get back to watch the TV series again to get clean! I cannot recommend this one, either.


Birds of Prey Vol 4 Sensei & Student by Gail Simone and various artists


Rating: WARTY!

Since 1996, DC comics has published several series in the Birds of Prey category which is why it's so hard to keep track of which was published when and in what order - a failing of which comic books seem inexplicably proud. The two I read, I came across by accident at the local library. One of them actually did the courtesy of announcing that it was volume two on the cover, but volume two of which series was left to guesswork. That it also called "The New 52" offer a clue, but not much of one. The other volume, typically for comics, offered no clues at all which series the story was in, if any.

I first came to Birds of Prey via the short-lived, and slightly limp, but nonetheless enjoyable TV series which came out in 2002, but which I didn't watch until quite recently. This is why I was interested in picking up these comic books when I saw them at the library. I was drawn to the TV series by two of the cast, Dina Meyer, who I've adored ever since I saw her in the movie Johnny Mnemonic based on a William Gibson novel, and Rachel Skarsten who, as later, as Tamsin in the TV show Lost Girl provided endless entertainment for me.

The TV show featured only Oracle, Black Canary (the two founders of Birds of Prey), along with Huntress and Harley Quinn and in main roles. Black Canary wasn't part of the inception of Birds of Prey in the TV series. She came along in the first episode after the organization was up and running, evidently founded by Oracle and Huntress and already with some back story. The graphic novels did not feature Harley Quinn in any kind of leading role, but did feature the other three in main roles, along with Lady Hawk.

The first of the two graphic novels I read featured specifically Oracle, Black Canary, Huntress, Lady Shiva Cheshire, and Savant, although Oracle was largely sidelined from being imprisoned inexplicably and to little purpose either on her part or on the part of her captors who were purportedly Homeland Security or some such government agency. Homeland security never made any sense to me because, fool that I am, I'd always thought that's what the FBI was supposed to be, but I seriously underestimated the power of a bureaucracy to proliferate and perpetuate itself.

This story, from the first Gail Simone era, was very disappointing, especially from a series with a female writer. Catwoman (or someone I assumed was Catwoman) is featured prominently in the lower right quadrant of the cover yet makes no appearance (not that I noticed) in the story. A half-dressed Batgirl also occupies a quadrant of the cover, hilariously catty-cornered to Catwoman, but her appearance is also limited and un-entertaining, like she's on a leash. Huntress disports herself at one point in fishnet hose as part of her costume. Seriously? I don't believe I've ever read a graphic novel wherein the artists have less respect for women than I saw in this one, and the art wasn't even that great to make a pretense of "justifying" it.

I got the impression that the cover illustrations were nothing more than a salacious come-on, and had nothing whatsoever to do with what happens inside, which is a very good reason not to pay any attention to the cover, not even on a graphic novel. Unfortunately, a glance through the interior had made it look like it was going to be more interesting than it turned out to be. In the end all it managed to be was an exploitative montage of "hot" female super hero body parts - an open crotch here, a pair of legs or breasts there. The art was less than satisfactory and very bland, so I guess it needed the titivation aspect in order to survive. If comics want to grow beyond the shadow of superannuated adolescence with which they're oft tarred, they need to grow beyond, way beyond, this schoolboy pointing and tittering mentality when it comes to artwork.

The main story, which is what had caught my eye, was about an uneasy alliance between Huntress, Lady Shiva, and Cheshire. This part wasn't awfully bad, but these women were far too well-behaved and polite to be the real characters they were supposed to be, and in the end, this blandness killed all joy of that part of the story for me. I don't want to read about a tame Huntress, a restrained Cheshire, and a Lady Shiva who is on her best behavior. Thus for me killed the story and I cannot recommend this one unless you like looking at highly sexualized cartoon characters who seem to have little to offer beyond unnecessarily exposed body parts.


Saturday, October 15, 2016

Miraculous Origins by Thomas Astruc, Quentin, Sebastien Thibaudeau


Rating: WORTHY!

Not to be confused with Miraculous Origins by Cheryl Black!

Taken from a French TV show and transformed into an entertaining comic book, this is the origin story of Ladybug (aka Marinette Dupain-Cheng) and Cat Noir (aka Adrien Agreste), two young French teenagers who are given their powers through jewels called 'Miraculous'. The jewels are curated by little creatures called Kwami. Marinette's, called Tikki, permits her to transform into Ladybug, complete with flesh-hugging Harlequin mask à la Green Lantern.

Adrien (I'm sorry but I can't see or hear that name without hearing Rocky calling to his girlfriend) has a similar kwami, Plagg, which I find to be the cooler of the two. Plagg is reminiscent of Hiccup's dragon, Night Fury, in the How to Train Your Dragon movie. Hawk Moth is the arch villain who wishes only to steal their miraculous and in their everyday life, the villain is Chloé Bourgeois, a stereotypical spoiled-brat who is the Mayor's daughter and a rival for Adrienne's affection. The action takes place, refreshingly outside of the USA, in Paris.

Neither of the two kids, despite working together as heroes and despite the total inadequacy of their 'masks' as a disguise - the equivalent of Clark Kent's eyeglasses - knows the other is also their classmate in school, but they work beautifully together, Ladybug coolly deflecting all of Cat Noir's advances (ironically, Ladybug has eyes only for Adrien!), and the pair inevitably, after some pratfalls, defeating the villain. The two are like an inverse of Marvel's Spider-Man (here represented by Ladybug and every bit as nimble and athletic) and DC's Catwoman. The villains are puppets of Hawk Moth, transformed into evil-doers by the butterflies he employs to deliver evil super powers to them while staying in the shadows himself. He "evilizes" them and makes'em do his dirty work for him!

Out of curiosity, I watched two of the episodes on TV. They are episodic (you can watch them in any order and it makes no difference), but they're also extremely formulaic. Someone of Marinette's acquaintance (close or not so close) has bad feelings over a defeat, Hawk Moth senses this somehow, and dispatches a butterfly to convert those feelings into super-powered evil, and Ladybug and Cat Noir have to defeat them inventively. It's pretty much the same in every episode from what I've seen, and I hope the comic book version, which seems a bit more mature, stretches and takes more risks than the TV version does.

The Amazone conglomerate wants two bucks a pop for these TV episodes, but they're free on You Tube. Sometimes I think Google is hardly better than Amazon, but bless 'em for this, so I was at least able to take a brief look. The stories I watched were amusing and very cute. I always like a good time travel story, which one episode featured, but the shows are certainly not something to which I'd become addicted; then it's not aimed at me, and it is a very successful show. This comic is the origin story. It's less "cute" than the TV show and a bit more gritty, and it's just as entertaining. The art is good - very much in the 3D computer mode rather than the traditional drawing and coloring mode. The story lines are not bad and the execution works.

When I first saw the comic I thought it was about two girls, but the blond is Adrien. I also thought the characters were much younger - middle-grade rather than older teenagers - so I was rather concerned about the sexualization of Ladybug with her skin-tight suit. It's still a problem - as it is with all female super heroes - but since she's older and Cat Noir is decked-out pretty much the same, I was less concerned about it than I was when I thought she was twelve or thirteen. At least the genders are treated equally, for what that's worth! Ladybug's costume is somewhat ameliorated by the playfully black-spotted ladybug motif, so maybe it's not so bad by comic book standards. I thought the ears and tail on Cat Noir were an interesting touch, and at least Ladybug is shown to be very much her own person and the more dominant of the two.

So, all in all I recommend this as a worthy read.


Battlestar Galactica Six by JT Krul, Igor Lima, Rod Rodolfo


Rating: WORTHY!

This combines issues 1 through 5 of the individual comics and tells the story of a character from Battlestar Galactica, the rebooted TV series from 2004. I wasn't impressed by the overuse of "cover" (or cover backing or facing) illustrations - there are six of them before the story even begins. I know this is the way it's done in comic books, so they must really hate trees! This was clearly designed for a print edition with zero concessions made to the ebook format.

I really don't care about covers, not even for comic books. It's the story which is important to me and in a graphic novel, artwork that looks like it mattered to the book's creators. Other than that it can come without a cover for all I care. It sure doesn't need three such that I have to swipe through six screens before I can start reading the story! If you want to include those, fine! Put 'em in the back where I don't have to swipe through 'em to get at the story! For a futuristic story, the e-design was antiquated.

Aside form that, the book was fun and interesting. I think it could have been better told, but following the stories of several different versions of Six was entertaining and worthwhile reading from my PoV. She was one of the most intriguing characters from the TV show, and the actor who portrayed her is currently in the TV show Lucifer which happens to be a favorite of mine. Tricia Helfer is playing another great role as Lucifer's mom!

The interior artwork was very good. Some pictures felt merely functional, like they had been rather dashed-off, but others felt like they were really cared over. I particularly liked one of the full page spreads, especially an early one featuring six in a space suit heading down to the mine she worked in, with the nighttime backdrop of the planet Troy visible through a window. I also liked the action scene where the jerk of a guy tries to rape Six when she's showering, and he learns that you really don't want to mess with a Cylon, not even one who looks like she might be easy-pickings.

We get to see several stories, all of them for one reason or another ending up in the rebirth tank on some Cyclon installation. The feeling of coming home and being among friends or family is well done, and even a bit startling given the negative impression people had of the Cylons in the TV show in those early days. Overall, I recommend this as a worthy read if you're interested in the Battlestar Galactica world, and perhaps even if you're not and might want to read a bit about it.


Sunday, October 2, 2016

Wandering Koala Rides the Phantom Coach by Jeff Thomason


Rating: WORTHY!

This is a weird and wonderful comic book done in reds, blacks, grays, and white, with fairly minimal text. The artwork is engaging, and the coloring really attracts. It begins with a way overly dominant guy leading his girl out of the movie theater before the ending because he knows how it ends and he doesn't care that his girl wanted to watch it to the end.

He tries to play up the delight of finding an early bus which is largely empty as opposed to the crowded one they would have had to ride had they stayed in the theater, but the girl isn't convinced at all. The thing is that this bus is rather unusual, as they discover when the driver, who now looks like cross between Jack Skellington from Nightmare Before Christmas, and The Scarecrow from the Batman comics and movies, will not let them off the bus. Before long, ghosts start to materialize on the bus, and this normal couple now looks to be trapped in a nightmare that seems like it will hold them prisoner until Christmas, if not longer.

I enjoyed this because of the art and the weird plot. The only complaint I had was that the images did not occupy the full screen of the tablet in my Nook app. The page occupied only about three-quarters of the screen, and if you tried to enlarge it, it became a static image which you then had to close before you could swipe to the next page. Not ideal at all, and Nook app is usually a lot better than this. It's certainly a generation ahead of the crappy Amazon Kindle app, but this makes two comics now that I've had this annoying issue with. I recommend the comic, though.


True Grit Mean Business Graphic Novel


Rating: WORTHY!

Based on the Charles Portis novel which I reviewed favorably very recently, this is a promotional graphic novel put out by Paramount Studios, and is a free download from Barnes & Noble and perhaps other online sources too. Paramount released an updated version of True Grit in 2010, this time starring Jeff Bridges in place of John Wayne, Matt Damon in place f Glenn Campbell, Hailee Steinfeld in place of Kim Darby, and Barry Pepper in place of Robert Duvall. I watched both movie yesterday and while the earlier movie was slightly more humorous, the updated version (which cost as much to make as the original made in receipts!) was definitely the better movie, and adhered more closely to the novel despite being a Coen brothers vehicle.

I guess the copyright was coming to a close, and if they didn't put out a new version of it, paramount would lose the rights to it. The art by Christian Wildgoose is very well done, although being in comic book format, it ill fits the screen on my tablet and enlarging it doesn't help because then it becomes a separate image which you cannot swipe to get to the next page - you have to close the image and then swipe! Naturally the text is too small which is frequently a problem with =e-comics. Normally I like my Nook app - it's far better than the crappy Amazon Kindle app, but it too has issues. The art is black and white line drawings.

The comic is very short and tells the story recounted by Marshall Cogburn in the courtroom at the beginning of the novel, of the slaughter and robbery at the spotted-gourd ranch. It's worth a read, especially since it's free, but I would have enjoyed a longer one more - especially if it had been the whole novel.


Tuesday, September 20, 2016

The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan, Robert Vendetti, Nate Powell


Rating: WARTY!

This graphic novel is in the Percy Jackson world, but features a different main character named Jason, who wakes up on a school bus on a trip to the Grand Canyon Skywalk, which is as scary as it is awesome. Jason cannot remember who he is, although two friends, Leo and Piper (I'm sorry, but I can't take that name seriously. I just can't. I apologize to all who are named Piper, but I cannot. Honestly). Of course these kids are demigods as they soon discover, and all three are sent on a quest for a missing goddess, because gods are useless, and they're flying on a bronze dragon....

Riordan has carved out a fine empire with his take on Greek mythology, but it has singularly failed to impress me. I rather liked the first movie made from these books, The Lightning Thief, but I didn't like the second one and I didn't liked the book that gave rise to that first movie either! Nor have I liked an adult-oriented detective story of his, so I guess I'm done with this author!

My problem with this was several-fold. While Robert Vendetti's adaptation of the original was passable (and perhaps better than the original since it was shorter!), Nate Powell's art work left a lot to be desired. It felt slapdash and hasty. The biggest problem as usual, though, was the overall story. It felt choppy and staccato, and not a lot of it made sense. I don't know if this mirrors the original novel, or if this came about as part of the translation to graphic. All the evil villains had horrible faces or horrible expressions on the faces, and pointy teeth, so cheap stereotype found lucrative employment here.

Conversely, all the good guys have the looks of runway models. In fact, frequently we're taught in this book that women are only really worth anything if they're beautiful, No other quality comes close: not intelligence, not loyalty, nor diligence, industriousness, reliability, bravery, strength (mental or physical). Nope. The only thing a girl can offer is good looks, otherwise she's pretty much worthless. I resent that. Anyone who actually knows women (and it would seem that Riordan doesn't if he's judged by his writing) knows that their true beauty, just as in men, comes from the inside, not from the shallow depth of their skin.

I also didn't like that Riordan's world is pretty much whites only. Yeah, you can try arguing that it's based on ancient Greece which was a largely white world, but since Riordan abandoned Greece in favor of the USA, I think you can argue that he also abandoned excuses and he lost that high ground. I mean why base a novel rooted in Greek mythology actually in Greece when it can be based in the only country in the world worth writing about: the great US of A? The hell with the Greeks. The hell with native American mythology, let's and for no reason at all, simply migrate Greek mythology wholesale to the US! Steal the mythology, but god forbid any of the stories should ever take place outside the US.

The problem with a world like this - or any paranormal world is that you have to have some sort of intelligent framework behind it, to have it work in a coherent fashion, otherwise literally anything could happen and all smart plotting is out the window. I didn't see any framework here. The one consistent thing we learn here is how utterly useless gods are - of any stripe,. It doesn't matter if the god is Roman, Greek, Egyptian, biblical, Norse, or whatever, not a single one of these gods is worth anything! They're always begging us poor, weak, condemned, sinful, worthless humans to help them out! What's the heck is up with that? Why would any god worthy of the name need anyone's help?

So, to cut a long story short, as indeed did the the guy who adapted this, I can't recommend this graphic novel, It had no substance and really delivered no worthwhile story.


Monday, September 19, 2016

Agent Carter Operation SIN by Kathryn Immonen, Richard Ellis, Ramón Pérez


Rating: WARTY!

So I read through this entire comic book and I couldn't find a story anywhere! Weird. The image on the cover was of Hayley Atwell from the TV series Peggy Carter, but she bore no resemblance whatsoever to the blond in the story, who has no class, no presence, and no appeal. The story was lost in the wilderness of Russia in the fifties. It rambled and meandered and wandered, and went quite literally nowhere. It was nonsensical.

There was an interaction with Vanko père who is mentioned in Iron Man 2 movie, but it went nowhere, either. On top of that there was this weird bearded guy who behaved like a wild bear, and who was essentially a dick, and this pencil dick of a kid who transformed into a bear, which was a huge Whisky Tango Foxtrot moment for me. The art by Richard Ellis for the main story and Ramón Pérez for the nonsensical Captain America story at the end was only so-so. That last little story was a captastrophe and made the titular figure look like an overbearing jerk.

Kathryn Immonen's writing was sub-par. I cannot recommend this series at all. The TV series is far more realistic and entertaining, has action, humor, and smarts. None of that was evident in this comic. In my opinion, you should go watch the TV series and forget about this juvenile effort.


Friday, September 9, 2016

Light by Rob Cham


Rating: WORTHY!

This is a magnificent work of art. Rob Cham is inventive and talented and has produced a visual feast of a comic which needs no words. The story is of a young character who is fearless and adventurous, and who goes out into his literal black and white world looking for something new. Deep in a cave world he discovers it in the shape of five hard-won crystals, each a different color. Along the way he makes enemies and friends, but when he returns and unleashes his treasure, his whole world changes.

The drawings are very detailed, and superbly drawn and shaded, even when black and white. The world is imaginative and the characters, all of them non-human, are fantastical in nature and fascinating. The comic is a hundred pages or so, but seems too short. It flies by too fast even as you take your time reading it. I recommend this comic book highly.


Saturday, September 3, 2016

March Book One by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, Nate Powell


Rating: WORTHY!

It's easy to think this is water under the bridge now, but it's just as hard to believe that even as recently as the 1960's (and beyond) there was hateful segregation and discrimination based on skin color. It was there nevertheless, and this graphic novel tells the story of one man's perspective on the efforts of himself and others to overthrow it. Fortunately, he lived to tell the tale of segregated buses, segregated education, segregated drinking fountains, segregated rest-rooms and segregated lunch counters. He was there at the protests and organized many of them.

Congressman John Robert Lewis worked with Andrew Aydin who at the time of publication at least in 2013, served in Lewis's DC office handling media and telecommunications, and with Nat Powell, a graphic novelist, to recount Lewis's story of his childhood, early upbringing, his striving for an education, and finally his involvement with civil rights and with Ghandi-style peaceful protests and passive resistance. It cost these people their comfort, their dignity at times, and it brought them physical violence, but they stuck with it, their numbers grew, and they won out in the end. The sad thing is that they should never have had to fight at all, not even passively.

It's just as important now to recall what they did and what they won, when police profiling and white-cop-on-black-citizen violence seems repeatedly to flare-up in the news, as it was for these people and their white supporters to take a stand against this evil and outsmart it. That's precisely why this novel isn't water under the bridge and why it, or something lie this if you chose a different publication or medium to refresh you mind on this topic is eminently worth your time. In this particular case, the artwork is interestingly done in black and white, which only serves to highlight the divide that still exists in so many ways.


I have one interesting and amusing coincidence which happened when I opened this to read it and I think it's worth relating. The image colors were reversed when I first started reading: the white page was black and the black line drawings were white! At first I thought it was a glitch in the download, but then I realized that my iPad was set for night reading, which reverses the colors and conserves battery power. I recommend it, but when I realized what had happened, I thought, "How poetic this is!" And what a great shift in perspective this gave for my starting to read this novel. I found myself switching the back-lighting as I read, so different sections came to me in reversed colors. I recommend you try it when you read it. It never hurts to get a kick in the head and realize we're on two sides of the same coin and we either make it together or we have no currency.


Civil War Ms Marvel Vol 2 by Brian Reed


Rating: WARTY!

I picked this up thinking it was a part of the younger Ms Marvel series, but it isn't. It's part of a pompous, self-described "Marvel Event" wherein each main character in the Marvel "universe" gets a volume about their actions during the super hero civil war, as depicted in the 2016 Captain America movie. This one, unfortunately, was not about the teen Ms Marvel to whom I've really taken a shine, but about the older Ms Marvel, who is a different character, and I liked neither it nor her. There was a teen in the form of Araña, who evidently goes by other names too. These heroes are obsessed with names! LOL! Plus there was the usual problem of graphic novel creators not having the first clue how to label their product, so I got this without realizing it was volume two!

The story was spotty, being broken up into disconnected episodes rather than forming a coherent whole, and it really was not entertaining. It embodied all that I dislike about graphic novels, and almost nothing that I actually do like. It felt like the authors wanted to press-gang as many Marvel super celebs into it as they could, but it meant no-one got any decent air-time except the most boring one, and Ms Marvel came off looking like a prize jerk in her behavior. It wasn't entertaining, and although the art by de la Torre, Wieringo, and Camuncoli was good (sorry there are no first names. I don't know these artists, and the library edition I got had obliterated their names with a UPC sticker!)

Carol Danvers, aka Ms Marvel (and other names) sides with Iron Man in enforcing the Super Hero Registration Act. She teams with Wonder Man (which seems like a dumb name for a hero, to me, but then none of the names are that great when you get right down to it). Ms Marvel literally tears apart a family when she takes Spider Girl (who has several freaking names, I forget which one she was using here) into custody, literally pulling her out of the arms of her young daughter. I was already starting to dislike this version of Ms Marvel before this point, but this and the ridiculously long, drawn-out fight between the highly vindictive if not psychotic alternate universe Ms Marvel and her vendetta against Rogue was the final straw, I was "Check please, I'm done here!"

There was too much thrown in here and it offered little sense and made for a poor reading experience. I think I even saw a kitchen sink in one frame. I cannot recommend this one at all.


Young Avengers Mic-Drop at the Edge of Time and Space by Kieron Gillen, Jamie McKelvie


Rating: WARTY!

Having been thrilled with Marvel's "Ms Marvel" - the teen version, not the absurdly disjointed, brutal "Civil War" version - and having really enjoyed Marvel's Runaways, I made the mistake of thinking this success could continue. I brought home the first three volumes of the Young Avengers. Was that ever a mistake! The series is boring, ridiculous, bland, and nonsensical. Fortunately, I brought them home from the library and not from the bookstore, so I didn't waste any of my money on these. See my review of volume one in this series for some background.

This series features the bizarre "Hulkling" (Theodore Altman), the childish "Kid Loki" (Loki Laufeyson), the ridiculously named "Marvel Boy" (Noh-Varr), the absurdly named "Miss America" (America Chavez), the completely pointless "Patriot" (Elijah Bradley), the only one with a decent name, "Prodigy" (David Alleyne), the unfortunately named "Speed" (Thomas Shepherd), and the inappropriately named "Wiccan" (William Kaplan) who has nothing to do with the religion of Wicca.

Volume three was pretty much a clone of volumes one and two, which featured pointless and unentertaining traipsing through other dimensions by these supposed heroes, fighting, and eating breakfast. There was no story. This was garbage. Period. The baton was dropped. Nothing else.


Young Avengers Alternative Culture by Kieron Gillen, Jamie McKelvie


Rating: WARTY!

Having been thrilled with Marvel's "Ms Marvel" - the teen version, not the absurdly disjointed, brutal "Civil War" version - and having really enjoyed Marvel's Runaways, I made the mistake of thinking this success could continue. I brought home the first three volumes of the Young Avengers. Was that ever a mistake! The series is boring, ridiculous, bland, and nonsensical. Fortunately, I brought them home from the library and not from the bookstore, so I didn't waste any of my money on these. See my review of volume one in this series for some background.

This series features the bizarre "Hulkling" (Theodore Altman), the childish "Kid Loki" (Loki Laufeyson), the ridiculously named "Marvel Boy" (Noh-Varr), the absurdly named "Miss America" (America Chavez), the completely pointless "Patriot" (Elijah Bradley), the only one with a decent name, "Prodigy" (David Alleyne), the unfortunately named "Speed" (Thomas Shepherd), and the inappropriately named "Wiccan" (William Kaplan) who has nothing to do with the religion of Wicca.

Volume two was pretty much a clone of volume one, which featured pointless and unentertaining traipsing through other dimensions by these supposed heroes, fighting, and eating breakfast. There was no story. This was garbage. Period. No culture in evidence!


Young Avengers Style (something) Substance by Kieron Gillen, Jamie McKelvie


Rating: WARTY!

Having been thrilled with Marvel's "Ms Marvel" - the teen version, not the absurdly disjointed, brutal "Civil War" version - and having really enjoyed Marvel's Runaways, I made the mistake of thinking this success could continue. I brought home the first three volumes of the Young Avengers. Was that ever a mistake! The series is boring, ridiculous, bland, and nonsensical. Fortunately, I brought them home from the library and not from the bookstore, so I didn't waste any of my money on these.

Why graphic novel series creators are so dead-set on confusing their readers, especially ones who come late to a series, and are so insistent upon dedicatedly keeping potential readers and fans in the dark about which volume is which is an enduring mystery. Is it really so hard for the publisher or the cover artist to take the perfectly logical, helpful, and simple step of putting a number one on the front cover of volume one? Or would they much rather waste people's time and money? Is it so hard to put a short text reading "Collects Issues 1 through 5"? I guess it is, because the designers here found it far less demanding to put "Style > Substance" on this cover. What does that even mean? Style is greater than substance? It doesn't mean Style over Substance, because that's not the symbol they used! Dumb. Dumb. Dumb. The title doesn't even apply to the story within, which is more like Silage > Frustration.

The goodreads page for this makes it crystal clear how confused the publishers are. The title there is listed as Young Avengers, Vol. 1: Style > Substance (Young Avengers Vol. II #1). Seriously? Someone is very confused and I think it's the graphic novel creators/publishers! Say what you mean, mean what you say. It's that simple.

So, for the uninitiated, Young Avengers was created by Allan Heinberg and Jim Cheung to appeal to a younger audience than comic books evidently do, and features teen characters who are essentially unimaginative rip-offs of more mature and established Marvel characters from The Avengers. Some of these teens are offspring of unholy unions between mature "super heroes" although since none of the "super heroes" ever have sex (or swear! LOL!), it's quite a mystery as to how these offspring were actually conceived. It's not even possible genetically.

Our closest relative on Earth is the chimpanzee with which we share nearly all our genes, yet it's not possible to conceive offspring between humans and chimpanzees even if you could find some low-life chimp who would be willing to volunteer to have sex with an ugly and disgustingly bald human! It's sure as hell not possible to conceive with someone from a different planet. Not after millions of years of divergent and unrelated evolution. Maybe super-heroes have super-eggs or super-sperm?

Evidently the original launch of the Young Avengers was so unsuccessful that it had to be relaunched in January of 2013 by Kieron Gillen who wrote the tedious text, and Jamie McKelvie who did the average art. There's nothing of interest here. Nothing thought-provoking. Nothing engaging. The stories are disjointed and bland, even where they make any kind of sense. There is often little connection between one panel and the next let alone between one part of the story and the next. None of it made any sense or provided any entertainment.

This series features the bizarre "Hulkling" (Theodore Altman), the childish "Kid Loki" (Loki Laufeyson), the ridiculously named "Marvel Boy" (Noh-Varr), the absurdly named "Miss America" (America Chavez), the completely pointless "Patriot" (Elijah Bradley), the only one with a decent name, "Prodigy" (David Alleyne), the unfortunately named "Speed" (Thomas Shepherd), and the inappropriately named "Wiccan" (William Kaplan) who has nothing to do with the religion of Wicca.

The first volume puts the team together despite the team supposedly having been put together earlier during the Heinberg and Cheung era. We get to know nothing about the characters except what we're begrudgingly told, which is very little, so not one of them seemed like a real person to me. They have no personality. In the end, these "heroes' were only their powers, and their power seemed entirely restricted to fighting and mischief - oh, and and eating breakfast. Boring.

The only other thing which featured was that there were a couple of gay or bisexual guys, and those felt like they'd been put in there for no other reason than to ride the LGBTQIA bandwagon. They had nothing else to offer. None of these characters did. Loki was pathetic. Miss America had one trait and one trait only: violence. Not one of them had a life outside of their little clique. it was like a pathetic high-school melodrama.

So what was the story? There was no story. The entire volume was the same as the next two volumes in the series, which consist of pointless traipsing through other dimensions, fighting, and eating breakfast. There was no story. This was garbage.


Ms Marvel Last Days by G Willow Wilson, Adrian Alphona


Rating: WORTHY!

This volume exemplifies one of the things I complain about with graphic novels. It's a good story, but I got it home from the library only to discover that I'd already read it as part of a different volume. Frustrating? Yes! This is why I refuse to buy these things because you never know when you're going to wind up with one you already read as part of a compendium, or under a different cover. What's with this insane obsession with variant covers? Spend more time on improving the art in the panels, and the hell with the wastefully time-consuming extra covers! The story is also incomplete - in this volume and in the compendium. There is no conclusion. Instead of it diverging into a short story about Spider-Man, I'd rather have had the original story concluded.

The story begins with a planet appearing in the sky above Earth. This has been done in Doctor Who and other stories, and none of it makes sense. A planet that close to Earth, even in another dimension, if it's appearing through some sort of dimensional rupture, will exert a massive gravitational pull on Earth, just as earth will on it, and life on both planets would be destroyed. That this never happens in these stories is testimony only to the poor science education the writers have. It makes the story completely unrealistic.

That gripe aside, I really liked the rest of the story because it pretty much abandoned the lie-destroying planet motif and got down to more personal business, and Ms Marvel entertained, as she typically does in these issues. I've read only one volume in this series which has disappointed me, and although some of Ms Marvel's behavior, particularly towards her would-be boyfriend, is inexcusible, G Willow Wilson tells a good story and Adrian Alphonsa illustrates it perfectly.


Ms Marvel Vol 2 by G Willow Wilson


Rating: WORTHY!

Here is yet another volume in a series where I've been disappointed by only one volume so far. I'm not a fan of series, so that's quite a compliment from me! I thought I'd read the first three, but this volume pops up in between two of the other volumes I read and favorably reviewed. Is it so very hard for the creators of a graphic novel series to actually put a number on the front cover so readers can readily identify in what order they should pursue the series? Seriously? What is the big freaking deal with being so cryptic that it's impossible to know where to start a series without engaging in some real research? Graphic novel series creators are frustrating as hell! It's doubly frustrating to bring home two volumes from the library and discover that they're really the same volume, or that one volume is a compendium which incorporates the other. This is why I refuse to buy these things, because you end up with more than one copy of the same story.

That off my chest, I did enjoy this volume. The art was good, and the story engaging. Also, it filled a few holes in the earlier stories I'd read. Kamala falls for a new guy - one who shares her religion and her interests - only to rather predictably, I have to say, discover that he's working for the dark side which is employing him to recruit her. Naturally, and predictably, she refuses, but rather than return to her buddy who has stood by her side throughout, she rejects him, too, with a weak story about how she can't be involved with a guy while she's wedded to her super powers and her need to fight evil. Tired tropes assemble! That, I felt, was poorly done and made her look callous and irrational. She's already involved with this guy anyway, even if not romantically. This does explain why he's moved on in a later volume and begun dating someone else, but Kamala cannot whine about it, after the way she treated him!

That dislike dealt with, I was pleased with her in other respects, especially as she continues to grow and learn new ways to use her shape-distorting powers. All in all, and despite my distaste for her "romantic" behavior, I did like this volume and I recommend it as part of this excellent series. The story was - apart from the non-romance - as well-written as ever, and the art by Elmo Bondoc, Takeshi Miyazawa, and Adrian Alphona was the usual entertaining, colorful, and amusing standard.


Sunday, August 28, 2016

Honor Girl by Maggie Thrash


Rating: WORTHY!

This is the first of two memoirs I shall be reviewing this month. The other was The Midwife by Jennifer Worth One is a regular chapter book, the other is this one: a graphic novel in which the artwork is rudimentary. It looks like pencil and crayon, and so it looks like a young kid did it, but the thing is that it works for the story and I enjoyed it. This is evidently a memoir about a summer girls camp which Maggie attended and developed a crush on one of the older girls. The story is by parts hilarious and tragic, fun and disturbing. The disturbing part is that anyone would send their young, impressionable daughter to such a psychotic place! But she survived and lived to tell the tale, and it was a most engrossing tale. It's over 260 pages, but it flew by, and I recommend this one.


The Rocketeer The Complete Adventures by Dave Stevens


Rating: WARTY!

I had mixed feelings about this one. On the one hand the story and artwork were pretty decent: well drawn and credible adventures for the period in which it was set. But on the other hand, the "hero" Cliff Secord, aka The Rocketeer, was a complete dick - or perhaps more in keeping with the era, he was a dashed cad and an utter bounder, don't you know!

There were also issues with the plot given how advanced German rocket technology was in World War Two, the issue ought to have been the other way around - the Americans stealing it from the Nazis (which is what they did after the war was over) - not the Nazis looking to steal it from Americans who were way behind them technologically!

Cliff Secord may have been heroic in his actions regarding his rocketeering activities, but I can't get past his jealousy and his OCD behavior towards Betty who was a loyal and decent friend and partner. He treated her abominably, and he never showed any sign that he was about to change. Worse than this, Betty repeatedly came to heel no matter how she was treated. On that basis, I can't recommend this graphic novel at all.

Rooted in King of the Rocket Men from the late forties, and Commando Cody from the early fifties (separate stories about different men who happened to wear exactly the same outfit!), I could have understood this if it had actually been written in the forties or fifties, but it wasn't. It was created in the eighties, so there really is no excuse for Cliff's domineering behavior or for Betty's meek, submissive acceptance of it. I've never seen the movie that came out of this, so I can't comment on that, but I can't condone a modern comic book in which the purported hero treats women this way.

I've seen reviews which try to white-wash this comic by appealing to the fact that it was an homage to Betty Page, but this doesn't excuse the treatment of this woman nor does it excuse a semi-naked Page every few pages, which does nothing to advance the story. I've also seen reviews which suggest that if only Stevens had been allowed to perpetuate these stereotypes, he would have had a chance to mature the characters, but the fact is that he had the chance in this series and he not only failed to address it, he also failed to redress it. The person who really needed to mature here wasn't Cliff Secord, it was Dave Stevens.


Mystique Ultimate Collection by Brian K Vaughan, Jorge Lucas, Michael Ryan, Manuel Garcia


Rating: WORTHY!

Originally created by artist David Cockrum, Mystique's "real" name is Raven Darkhölme, although she has many aliases, and no one really knows squat about her actual name, or her origins or how old she is - it would seem she's at least a century which begs the question as to why she would be interested in anyone of her own apparent age unless she simply wanted to get laid by a young stud. Like Logan, otherwise known as Wolverine, her youth is preserved by her mutation. In Logan's case it's his healing ability. In Mystique's case it's through her shape-shifting, so she sure doesn't look like she's a centenarian.

Being contrary, she rejects the use of the name 'Raven' in this volume, and is going about her routine business of assassinating people who harm mutants, when she finds herself about to be terminated. At the last minute (because rescuers never can be punctual), she's rescued by Magneto, which is a surprise to her because she thought he was dead; however, it's not Magneto, it's Charles Xavier. He's merely projecting Magneto into her brain in order to win her trust and effect the rescue. Well, he fails!

The deal is that he wants jobs done which he doesn't want tied back to him or his mutants, and Mystique represents the perfect undercover agent to carry out his wishes. If she were not wanted by every nation on the planet (except one!), she would have rejected his deal out of hand, but having a lifelong interest in self-preservation, she decides to throw her lot in with him at least for the time being especially since his wishes happen to coincide with her aims for once.

She begins carrying out ops for him which are rooted in the assassination of Prudence, an X-men undercover operative. Prudence was on the trail of a viral agent which has the power to kill everyone who has been inoculated against smallpox, which includes the entire US military, along with medical professionals and a host of other people. Smallpox is a horrible disease, and this mutant version is a huge threat. Mystique takes up the baton and flies with it. She's cool, exciting, inventive, resourceful and every bit the embodiment of a strong female character that I like. Plus she can literally kick ass. Her foes are a match for her (almost!) and the plots are pretty decent. I really enjoyed these stories.

This graphic novel had some truly breath-taking art between chapters done by Mike Mayhew, and though it was superlative, it wasn't so different from the regular panel art that it made me feel cheated as some comics do. Overall this novel was very well illustrated by Jorge Lucas, Michael Ryan, and Manuel Garcia. That George Lucas sure gets around doesn't he? LOL! I've been watching a show on Netflix titled Life which is about this cop who returns to the job after twelve years of false imprisonment for a triple-murder he didn't commit, and the name of the producer is Loucas George! You can't get away from the guy!

One thing I liked about the art is that it seemed a little less "sexploitive" than comic book art all-too-often is where a female character - super or otherwise - is concerned, so I appreciated that. That and the overall quality of the art and of course the excellent stories were what made this a worthy read.