Elektra and Wolverine: The Redeemer

Elektra and Wolverine: The Redeemer 1-3

This is an illustrated novel, not a comic book.  I know Greg Rucka was a novelist before he began writing comics, but I wasn’t impressed with the one Atticus Kodiak book I read fifteen years ago, and I wasn’t impressed with the beginning of this series either.  I found his prose functional and little more.  It did an serviceable job of describing what was going on, but did not add any color to the proceedings.  Thinking about it, it feels a lot like Wolverine - pushing on with no elegance, but successfully accomplishing its goal nonetheless.  

Which isn’t to say Rucka can’t turn a nice phrase.  I was particularly enchanted by this exchange:

“How do you move like that?” the girl asked. 

After a moment Elektra said, “Practice.” 

The girl nodded, as if the answer was both appropriate and satisfying.

Without having it described to me, I knew exactly how Elektra moved.  Color me impressed.

As I got deeper into the story, I found myself getting caught up in it, and I think it’s primarily due to the relationship between Avery and Elektra.  Giving a hardened killer a minor to protect and bond with has been done many times in the past.  It’s hardly original.  And yet, as with so many of those stories, it works yet again.  Perhaps it’s because female assassin/female protege is a rarer permutation of the formula.  After bemoaning Elektra’s lack of personality in previous stories (or dismissing attempts to bestow her with one as unbelievable), I was sold on this added dimension.  The connection between the two felt real and earned, as did Elektra’s decision to return to a life of solitude at the end (as inevitable as it was).  

Yoshitaka Amano’s art would be amazing if I didn’t hate his eyes so much.  They give his characters an alien look that is absolutely unappealing.  It works when they’re otherworldly in nature, but not so much when they’re supposed to be human.

Eyes work here.

Not so much here.

Which is a shame, because I love everything else about Amano’s art.  Even his awkwardly posed figures look good.

Works.

Works.

Okay, not so much here.

And then there’s this knowing smile on Logan, which nails the scene it’s depicting, and is unlike any other face Amano’s done.  In that it’s looks like a human’s face.

Great smile.

Regret buying? No

Would buy again? No

Would read again? Yes

Rating: Pretty good

Elektra: Glimpse and Echo, Doomsday Clock, Silver Surfer

Elektra: Glimpse and Echo 1-4

Scott Morse, randomly enough, writes and paints this four-issue mini-series.  Elektra deals with ghosts, cats, and The Hand, and Morse’s children-storybook painted style works well with the ethereal subject matters.  I wouldn’t like to see it all over the place, but it’s beautiful when applied to the proper projects.  

Again, Elektra’s actions are reactionary, dictated by outside forces and rarely proactive; A ninja tells her to meet a guy, who tells her to kill another guy.  A cat leads her to a ghost, who tells her to kill his son.  She goes along with the flow, doing what she’s told.  The only time she acts on her own is to kill the original hit contractors when she decided she didn’t like the hit.  Of course, she decides this after carrying out the assassination.  Couldn’t be bothered beforehand, I guess.  

Regret buying? No

Would buy again? No

Would read again? Yes

Rating: Fine

Doomsday Clock 3

Geoff Johns and Gary Frank continue their quest to mirror Moore/Gibbons to the best of their abilities.  They succeed pretty darn well.  Are the old black and white movies going to play the same role as Tales of the Black Freighter?

Even though the new Rorschach, Mime, and Marionette weren’t in the original Watchmen, they really read as if they come from that world, and I’m fascinated by all of them.  Mime’s schtick is enthralling, and I just want to see more of him.  Can’t wait to see him and Marionette meet the Joker.  Batman’s handling of Rorschach is completely in character and well handled.  Enjoying the heck out of this.  

Silver Surfer 13, 14

One of the local comic shops in my area is closing in a couple of days, and I picked these up on sale.  I had read them as part of the Silver Surfer trade the last time I was at Barnes and Noble, which I liked well enough, but not enough to buy trade full price.  These two issues, the last of the Slott/Allred run, were the highlights, so the opportunity to buy them at half price was too good.  

This is a time travel love story, and it’s beautifully told.  It hits the science fiction and romance elements perfectly, and the string of reveals that come at the end are hugely heartwarming, with only the slightest tinge of sadness.  I’m tempted to buy the whole run in trade, but I suspect that having read a bunch of the issues already, these are the only ones that I’d re-read.  They’ll go on the shelf, and I’ll see how I feel when I get back to them.

Elektra

Elektra 1-4, 7-13

I have a few more Elektra stories to read over the next days, but I’m wondering if Elektra is uncrackable as a protagonist.  If Bendis and Rucka can’t make her interesting, who can?  (Miller’s Elektra: Assassin utilizes her more as a force of nature than a character, if I recall correctly.  I’ll find out soon enough.)  

It would help if someone gave her a personality more than “emotionless ninja assassin.”  Bendis pays two pages of lip service to character development, but even then, Elektra doesn’t do more than acknowledge that she’s an emotionless ninja assassin.  Rucka tries a little bit harder, but goes in a direction that’s so far out of whack that I found myself wishing for the blank cipher again; I don’t buy Elektra psychologically falling apart just because she can’t find a job for a couple of months.  It goes against the mental toughness that she’s displayed time and again.  

The stories themselves were weak as well.  Bendis completely fails for one of the few times in his career.  There’s very little to recommend here; The plot with the Iraqi dictator is boilerplate anti-American rhetoric, and the existential crisis of Stanley the LMD fails to generate any sympathy because he’s such a tool.  I gave up after issue 4.

I stuck around with Rucka for a little longer, but his rape revenge story left me unsatisfied (do the do-nothing bystanders really deserve the same fate as the rapists?).  And as I said earlier, Elektra as unemployed bum is utterly ridiculous.  None of this is sticking around.       

Some comments on the art:

Chuck Austen - Man.  There were moments in the first issue that I actively liked:

Her nonchalance works for me.

But then things just fell apart:

The lettering looks like it's out of a small indie comic.

The proportions.  Even Barbie's got nothing on her.

Bill Sienkiewicz - The guy’s a legend, but come on.  This is a little embarrassing:

Greg Horn - Sigh.  Those covers.  I don’t know how to respond to an image of Elektra coming at me with duct tape, massive boobs, and an enigmatic smile.  Am I supposed to be turned on?  Is she about to kidnap me or do something kinky?  

And this one.  The straitjacket makes some kind of sense in the story, but the addition of popcorn on the cover takes it to uncharted territory for me.  

Milky Dudes?  I’m supposed to want to eat those?

Regret buying? Yes

Would buy again? No

Would read again? No

Rating: Stupid

Aaron/Bachalo Doctor Strange

Doctor Strange 1-14, Last Days of Magic 1

Lots of pictures today.  This title is just about as perfect a fit as you can find for Chris Bachalo - A chance to draw absolutely fantastical creatures with page layouts to match.  Gorgeous.

His depiction of the magic world is spectacular as well - a universe of color in an otherwise bleak existence.  

And the visual of Doctor Strange wielding weapons is awesome in its incongruity.

Jason Aaron shines just as brightly.  He’s a word painter, and the images he creates are no less vivid than Bachalo’s.  "Once your soulmeat has been blessed by Spurrgog the Hell-Breather, you will be a candle that lights the way through the winding darkness." Delicious.

His ideas are just as batshit crazy as those of someone like Jonathan Hickman, but he employs them in a way that enhances, rather than confuses, the story.  Take, for example, the panels below.  There’s no shortage of whacked out concepts, but he uses them as throwaway one-offs.  This way, the reader isn’t forced to parse everything in order to follow the plot, but can absorb as much of the insanity as they please, and move on.  

Similarly here with Zelma’s secrets, Aaron has a particular skill when it comes to creating little nuggets of verbal gold.  It’s something that he displays throughout the run.  

Books can die.  There’s something deeply sad about those words.  

Aaron also introduces the concept that Doctor Strange’s use of magic has a price.  A literally gut-wrenching price.  It adds a whole new dimension to Doctor Strange’s heroism - What used to appear as an effortless wiggling of fingers can never been treated so cavalierly again.  The consequences of his endeavors are rather horrifying, and they’re compounded by the solutions Wong and Strange come up with to alleviate the Doctor’s pain.  Both Wong’s secret disciples and the thing that becomes Mister Misery are truly dark means that barely justify the ends.

Getting to the actual Last Days of Magic arc: Aaron builds up to it slowly and effectively over the five preceding issues.  By the time the Empirikul finally show up, there’s a truly foreboding sense that the magicians of Earth are completely outclassed.  The ensuing battles bear this out, and it’s got an impressive last stand vibe to it.  The ending’s a little too easy after Aaron writes himself into a bit of a corner.  (That and the “we can’t call the Avengers because this is our problem” excuse are my two nitpicks with the arc.)  But overall, a lot of fun.

The arc after that lost me - Aaron makes the weird the main part of the story, and like with Hickman’s stories, I lost my patience with it.  Stopped buying with issue 14.  

I end with a final Aaron word poem:

Regret buying? No

Would buy again? Yes

Would read again? Yes

Rating: Good (Nice for 12-14)

Doom, Doctor Strange: The Oath

Doom 1-3

I’m struggling to remember why I bought this random Doom miniseries.  I’m guessing that I purchased it as an on-sale set when I saw the Manco credit on the cover.  He does art so rarely that I grab it when I see it.  

Chuck Dixon really is the master of the get-in-get-out action story.  Look at how he begins: A naked Doom is stranded on an alien world.  He kills a lion in single combat with his bare hands, fashions an outfit out of it, and sets out to conquer the planet in the span of six pages.  I don’t know why he’s on the mirror Earth planet.  I don’t know why it’s populated by Mad Max rejects.  And I don’t care at all.  Doom is here to kick ass, and I’m completely on board.

Under Dixon’s pen, Doom is basically Batman.  Supremely confident, implacable, and nothing stands between him and his goal.  Plus, there’s the added bonus of the best inner monologues ever.

 

The only time in the history of the world that this wasn't sour grapes and the speaker actually meant it.

Everything he thinks (and says) is another testament to his certainty that the universe is his birthright.  I appreciate that he’s also more than happy to do the work necessary to claim it.  He doesn’t expect it to appear on a silver platter.

Everything he says is a bumper sticker.

Doom doesn't think small.

The story itself takes a complete back seat to Doom’s magnificent, superior opinion of himself.  I was grateful just to have a glimpse into his worldview, and I would have stayed for more if it were available.  (The plot is actually batshit crazy, with post-apocalyptic slavers and giant sea creatures.  Judged on its own merits, it’s really not that good.  But the presence of Doom elevates it to greater heights.  In fact, Dixon’s Doom should show up in all horrible plots.  The world would be a better place for it.)

Regret buying? No

Would buy again? Yes

Would read again? Yes

Rating: Pretty good

Doctor Strange: The Oath 1-5

Things I liked:

The opening page is perfect in its stillness.  Iron Fist casually icing his knee in Night Nurse’s waiting room immediately sets the mood.  Marcos Martin is amazing as usual in this series.  

Simply charming.

Love.  That.  Cape.

The existence of a magical panacea that literally cures all disease provides Brian K Vaughan with the opportunity to raise some interesting questions - Would pharmaceutical companies really destroy such a thing to protect their interests?  Would a wonder drug cause more harm than good (overpopulation, abuse of drugs and sex with no health consequences, etc)?  Given the opportunity to synthesize the drug for the world in exchange for the life of a friend dying in front of you, which do you choose?

It’s unreasonable to expect Vaughan to tackle those issues with any depth in the span of five issues.  There’s an adventure to get on with, after all.  But it was enough for him to bring them up, and it made me think for a couple minutes, which is more than most comics achieve.  

Regret buying? No

Would buy again? Yes

Would read again? Yes

Rating: Pretty good

Daredevil

Daredevil 358-362, 380

DD 358 - I’m assuming this fill-in issue was a rush job.  It’s the only thing that accounts for the sloppy pencils and multiple inkers, which adds up to 22 pages of art that do not belong in sequence.

Thick lines.

Thin lines.

Blacks all over the place, you can't even see the lines.

And now Karen is playing the role of jealous partner.  Is there any hysterical girlfriend trait that she hasn’t been saddled with over the years?

DD 360 - Along with issue 354 from yesterday, I think these are the only two issues from the Kesel run that I’m going to keep.  It’s another fine example of agile-hero-versus- lumbering-villain.  Daredevil takes quite a beating from the Absorbing Man, and doesn’t emerge from his victory unscathed; His internal narration during the fight, as his injuries mount and exhaustion threatens to consume him, is a compelling demonstration of the will that drives him.  

Also, Matt’s reaction to Rosalind’s relationship to Foggy is pretty great.  

DD 362 - Rosalind Sharpe’s an interesting character.  She’s a by-the-book strong, independent, career woman who gets what she wants.  She’s also a self-proclaimed bitch.  I have the unsettling, completely unsubstantiated feeling that in Kesel’s mind, the two sides go hand in hand.  I can’t put my finger on why.  

It also completely undermines Sharpe’s self-reliance when Daredevil and Grippo share a wink and a handshake over how she’s so stubborn that they need to help her behind her back and throw her the occasional bone so that she thinks she’s in charge.  Blech.  

DD 380 - The last issue of Daredevil volume 1, before Kevin Smith and Joe Quesada take over on the Marvel Knights run.  DG Chichester and Lee Weeks do a one and done.  Meh.

Regret buying? No

Would buy again? No

Would read again? No (Yes for 360)

Rating: Didn’t suck (Fine for 360)

That’s all for Daredevil for now.  The Miller, Smith, Bendis, and Waid runs are on my bookshelf, so I’ll get to them many, many months from now.  Overall, the Nocenti, Chichester, and Kesel eras were all underwhelming.  A huge chunk did not survive the purge.  

Kesel Daredevil, Punisher Netflix series

Daredevil 354-357

And after every Born Again comes the return to the happy, cheerful Daredevil.  This one comes courtesy of Karl Kesel.  Later, it’s going to come with Mark Waid after the Shadowland fiasco.  (Okay, I looked into this.  After Chichester left the title, Daredevil rotated through a number of writers until Kesel started with 353.  Which I’m not that interested in getting.  So this isn’t the massive direction change that I thought it was.)  

I remember this run being much-lauded as it was being released, which is probably why I picked it up.  One of its problems is clearly on display from the start - This version of Daredevil is too similar to Spider-Man.  And we know because they team up in the very first issue, and with the way Kesel writes them, their lines could be interchangeable.  Spidey even plays straight man to DD’s punchlines, and that’s just plain wrong.  

Yes, I lolled, but that doesn’t make it right.

The other is that the stories aren’t that interesting.  Rosalind Sharpe is interesting enough, more so once we learn her secret in a couple issues, but that’s about it.  Otherwise, it’s a story about defending an innocent (in this particular case) Mr Hyde and fighting the Enforcers.  Nothing that gets the blood pumping or the head thinking.  I’m currently leaning towards dumping everything but issue 354, which genuinely made me laugh.

Cary Nord’s art is unobjectionable, and unique enough to be identifiable, but nothing to write home about.  Or any more here.  

Regret buying? No

Would buy again? No

Would read again? No

Rating: Fine

Punisher: Netflix series

I finished watching this last week.  I liked this series a lot.  Marvel continues to bat around .950 with its casting decisions, as Jon Bernthal absolutely owns the role of Frank Castle.  (The misses that really spring to mind, btw, are Finn Jones as Iron Fist and Benedict Cumberbatch as Dr Strange.  That last one really pains me to write.  I love him, but his American sucks (why not have him use his normal accent?), and I can’t see past the Sherlock.)  

Quick hits: I can watch that final bit with Billy Russo over and over.  Not the entire fight scene, just the part Frank destroys his face.  It’s my new definition for catharsis.  I don’t know the opposite of schadenfreude, but I’m definitely taking pleasure in Frank’s grim satisfaction here.  It feels so good, after everything he’s been through.

That last speech is an amazing, perfect way to end the series.

Madani is so bad at her job.  Her and Danny should team up and form the Useless Defenders.  

Daredevil: Fall From Grace, Mighty Thor, Strangers in Paradise, Mage, Champions

More new stuff from this week:

Mighty Thor 703

I’m looking forward to re-reading Jason Aaron’s run on this title.  It’s consistently entertaining, and the art by Russell Dauterman is spectacular.  (Whoa, turns out he started as a costume illustrator, and worked on the first Captain America movie!)  

In an arc titled “The Death of the Mighty Thor,” I hope that they don’t kill off Jane Foster or her alter ego.  Both are awesome.  

Champions 16

Humberto Ramos is perfect for this title.  As with Impulse and DV8 before this, he excels in drawing teenagers.  His skinny, long-limbed character style is perfectly suited for them.

I’m loving the conflict that Viv and and Vivian are going through as they struggle with the existence of both themselves and each other.

Mage: THe Hero Denied 5

I haven’t read the previous Mages in years.  Can’t wait to go over that either.  Matt Wagner is at his best when he’s drawing what he writes, and it’s no different here.  

Strangers in Paradise XXV 1

Terry Moore is back on SiP!!!  This was one of my first forays into indie comics, and I was obsessed with it for a couple of years.  It spoke to the college me.  

Moore has a new story to tell for SiP’s twenty-fifth anniversary, which I love.  Sadly, it looks like it’ll be centered around the Parker girls, which I always placed at a distant second to the pure joy of the interactions between Katchoo, Francine, and their friends.  Whatever, I’ll take what I can get and be happy about it.

Daredevil 319-325

Back to Marvel Box 3.  My collection jumps ahead two years to DG Chichester’s Fall From Grace storyline, AKA Born Again version 3.0 (after Born Again and the original Typhoid Mary storyline).  Taken on its own merits, I can’t say that it’s very good - The story is nigh-incomprehensible, and Scott McDaniel’s storytelling is often just as confusing.  Still, I’ve had these issues for a long time, and I’m strangely fond of them.

Perhaps Chichester meant for this to be some sort of epic tale, because he crams it full of moving parts.  The first issue sets up Eddie Passim, Hellspawn (the DD doppelganger from Infinity War), Garrett (last seen in Elektra: Assassin), Sara Harrington, Snakeroot (an offshoot of the Hand),  and the return of Elektra.  At least the McGuffin is clear: A telepathic virus that alters the ingester’s body based on their thoughts.  Given the panacean qualities of this plot device, pretty much everyone in the arc wants to use it to cure themselves of whatever affliction they have.

But Chichester does a poor job of tying them all together, and various threads show up and disappear seemingly at random.  Some examples:

Silver Sable shows up in issue 320 to fight with Daredevil over Eddie, then removes herself from the equation with a vague threat that’s never followed up on.

In 321, Venom and Siege both appear, because there weren’t enough people involved in this mess.

323 randomly introduces a Snakeroot traitor, and I had to go back to the previous issue to make sure I hadn’t missed a page.  Everyone refers to him as if the reader should know who he is, and it’s completely confusing.  Even worse, it’s completely useless, as he dies before the end of the issue, having done nothing but be a catalyst for a fight scene.

Meanwhile, Venom gets talked out of the arc by Matt’s powers of persuasion.  Contribution to the story?  Fight scene.

But that’s cool, because Morbius shows up in the next issue.  Siege bows out with a throwaway line…

...Only to show up again in the climactic issue.  As does Hellspawn after a 3 issue hiatus, because he’s needed to get rid of the virus after all the hoopla, and to provide a body that looks just like Matt Murdock’s.  Which lets Matt start a new life and allow Karen think he’s dead for like the third time.  (By the way, Matt and Karen finally got back together earlier in the issue after having the same “will they won’t they” conversation that they were having 25 issues ago.)

I can’t, in honesty, give this more than a Didn’t Suck.  But there’s no way this gets cut from the collection.  I have feels that are as inexplicable as the story.

Other notes:

This came out in the era of Knightfall and the death of Superman, where everyone needed to get darker and a new costume.  I actually give DD’s new outfit a thumbs up, but there’s zero chance in hell that he found a way to incorporate biomimetics into it on his own.

The Mardu color combination on his costume is really sweet.

I just like the juxtaposition of eras and scale here:

Regret buying? No

Would buy again? No

Would read again? Yes

Rating: Didn’t suck