Elric: Weird of the White Wolf, Elric: The Vanishing Tower, Elric: Stormbringer

Let’s see if I can get through the rest of the Elric titles today.

Elric: Weird of the White Wolf 1-5

It’s not the best sign that I needed to flip through this again just now to remember what happened.  P. Craig Russell is back, with what I believe are reprinted stories baked into a wrapper story.

Throughout all of Elric’s adventures so far, much emphasis has been placed on his endgame - to return to his capital city of Imrryr, kick Yyrkoon off of his throne, and reunite with his beloved Cymoril.  I was shocked and disappointed, then, to see all of that dispensed with in an eight-page story, completely narrated with no speech bubbles.

This had the potential to be something both epic and intimate if given the time to breathe.  So many compelling elements - Elric’s infiltration and followup invasion of the city, his questionable decision to raze Imrryr (Seriously, why did he choose to do that?), a rematch of the duel against his overzealous cousin, and his accidental slaying of Cymoril.  At the end of the day, Elric is completely alone, his native country destroyed by his own hand, his invasion force obliterated. All he has left is Stormbringer, a soul stealing weapon of Chaos. This is the most fundamental tragedy of Elric’s story, and it’s practically thrown away as an afterthought.  Poorly done.

Which isn’t to say that Russell’s art isn’t exemplary.  I just wish there was much much more of it.

There’s a followup adventure that’s also drawn by Russell, which surprisingly ends in failure.  I mean, Elric’s life is full of fail in general, but he usually succeeds in whatever short term quest he’s on.  Here, the book he’s looking for crumbles in his hands.

The last two adventures are drawn by Michael T Gilbert and George Freeman.  The stories themselves are meh, but there are some interesting art choices:

Foot worship isn't something you normally see in comics.

Very Frank Miller Sin City.

Regret buying? No

Would buy again? No

Would read again? Yes

Rating: Fine

Elric: Vanishing Tower 1-6

Jan Duursema takes over on art.  I suspect a combination of reading Elric for the fifth day in a row and no nostalgia for these last two miniseries is the reason for my waning appreciation for these stories.  Still, there are a few highlights:

Noose of Flesh?  Ew.

These horses look extremely Walt Simonson.

Simonson on Thor.

Moorcock literally came up with Pokemon twenty-four years earlier:

This is straight out of Tolkien, the awarding of specific items from a huge treasure hoard:

Regret buying? No

Would buy again? No

Would read again? Yes

Rating: Didn’t suck

Elric: Stormbringer 1-2

P. Craig Russell returns to Elric over ten years later.  His art has undoubtedly grown more polished, but there’s a restraint to it that somehow makes it less suitable for the untethered imagination of Moorcock’s stories.  The wild abandon of Russell’s earlier work makes for better Elric illustration than these pages. It’s still great to look at, but it lacks the energy of the previous incarnations.  

Elric adventures like he's doing improv.  He says yes to everything, no matter how crazy.

He looks so cool with both dark swords.

Also, his adaptation of Moorcock’s prose is less adept than Roy Thomas’ in the old series - He’s too wordy here, and reading through it is a major grind.  

So much to read!

Moorcock does not do a good job of writing women.  They’re either queens who want to sleep with Elric or damsels in distress.  The one in this story, Elric’s new wife, is both. She’s not even given the dignity of any lines.  She’s merely a prop to propel the story along.

I didn’t buy the last five issues of this.  I imagine I grew as weary of the wordiness back then as I did now.  

Regret buying? No

Would buy again? No

Would read again? Yes

Rating: Fine

And that’s the end of the box!

Box Summary:

Time spent reading: 24 hours 44 minutes

Issues read: 199

Issues cut: 10

Highlights (Good or better): Deathmatch 1-12.  Not much that stood out but very little that was worth cutting, either.  

Project Summary:

Time spent reading: 18 days, 21 hours, 19 minutes

Issues read: 3694

Issues cut: 487

Elric: Sailor on the Seas of Fate

Elric: Sailor on the Seas of Fate 1-5, 7

I should pick up the sixth issue, the gap in the run annoys me.  More bullet points!

• No P. Craig Russell on this one, Michael T. Gilbert teams up with George Freeman instead.  
• More Elric in close up profile.

• I love the concept of the Eternal Champion, and with very little effort, Moorcock makes the meeting of Elric, Corum, Erekose, and Hawkmoon feel epic in scope.  It’s instantly clear that these are four special warriors, and I can’t wait to see them in action.

Where's the movie?

• Man, does their assault on Gagak feel like a D&D module - Oozes in room 1, baboons in room 2, snakes in room 3, bugs in room 4, pool of power in the final room.  But for all its rote quality, it’s still fresh in that no one writes stories like this anymore. It comes around.

• Dude, they merge into an uber champion!  This blew my mind back then, and it’s still cool now. 

Exclamation point in case you didn't realize the epicness.

• There are so many things in the third issue that I can’t imagine visualizing.  Gilbert and Freeman do some amazing stuff here, it makes me wonder how Moorcock originally wrote it.

• The rest of the series can’t compete with the first three issues.  The story of an ages-old love triangle with a ghostly prince, reincarnated woman, and immortal emperor doesn’t have nearly the same rush of energy.  
• The torture scene’s shockingly graphic.

• This is some sweet page layout by Gilbert.  The flow is perfectly clear, going from top left to bottom right with both the panels and the central image.  Impressive.

• Bullshit that the damsel in distress rejects the powerful ugly wizard and wastes no time in accepting the warrior with the flying horse.  She knows nothing about either one, both of whom profess their love for her. Of course she goes with the hot one.

Not as good as the original series, but those first three issues are darn entertaining.

Regret buying? No

Would buy again? Yes

Would read again? Yes

Rating: Nice

New Avengers Annual, Avengers Annual, Elric of Melnibone

New Avengers Annual 1

Avengers Annual 1

Brian Michael Bendis and Gabriele Dell’Otto wrap up the Wonder Man subplot that’s been interluding through the main Avengers title.  Simon Williams flips over to the “Avengers are a net negative to the world” side of things, and decides that beating the crap out of them will somehow force them to be accountable to the world.  No idea how that makes sense.

Wonder Man, along with his team of C-list heroes who all have beef with the Avengers, win the first fight, lose the second, and that’s it.  The last couple pages suggest that he succeeded in planting seeds of doubt about the Avengers into the public consciousness, but that doesn’t seem like it was worth two annuals to accomplish.  We’ll see if Bendis decides to revisit this in future issues.

Regret buying? No

Would buy again? No

Would read again? Yes

Rating: Fine

Elric of Melnibone 1-6

Elric holds a great amount of nostalgic positive energy for me.  My middle school library had the trades for both this miniseries and the subsequent Sailor on the Seas of Fate.  I read them multiple times and have many fond memories of the psychedelic colors, batshit crazy stories, and some of the earliest depictions of sex that I can remember (all very exciting for a sheltered kid).  How would it hold up twenty-eight years later? Doing this bullet point style.

• Layouts are credited to P. Craig Russell, pencils to Michael T. Gilbert.  They shared coloring duties. The resulting art is as exquisite as my memory served.  So many panels are worthy of note, and you see plenty of them below.

• Yyrkoon (which Google spell check recognizes!!) is Starscream, plain and simple.  

Also, I dig those non-functionally long lances.

• A big deal for this late bloomer.

• Russell and Gilbert frequently use this close up profile shot.

• Drugged Cymoril was creepy then, creepy now.

• Another in the long line of memorable fictional archers.

• Sidebar to see how many I can list off the top of my head:
• Robin Hood
• Rackhir
• Green Arrow (many iterations)
• Hawkeye (Clint and Kate)
• Arwyn (From the Crossgen comic Sojourn)
• Legolas
• Susan (From Chronicles of Narnia)
• Merida (From Brave)
• Jessica Biel (From Blade: Trinity)  (Yeah, I can’t remember her character’s name.)
  Badasses one and all.

• Stormbringer.  One of the classic fictional swords.  I adore the crossguard design that Russell and Gilbert came up with.  It’s iconic and instantly recognizable. Is it the first sword with vampiric qualities?

• Elric reminds me greatly of the Conan comics I recently read - fantastical names of people and locations tossed about with seeming abandon (“I’m a warrior priest of Phum,” “It lies in the unmapped eat, beyond the Weeping Waste -- one of the oldest of the Young Kingdoms,” “I would find them in the Pulsing Caverns, which is reached through the Tunnel Under the Marsh”), absolutely no hesitation on the part of the protagonist when it comes to plunging headfirst into certain peril, crazy monsters, and glorious treasure.
  Everything reads like a middle school Dungeons & Dragons campaign, but I don’t mean that pejoratively.  There’s frenetic energy and imagination to Michael Moorcock’s stories, as adapted by Roy Thomas. Coupled with the spectacular art, and this is just as vibrant a work of fantasy as my seventh grade mind recalls.   

• More great art:

Love the elongated proportions on the characters.

Great colors on Arioch.

Reminds me of band posters from the sixties...

Love the lettering on "Mournblade."

Regret buying? No

Would buy again? Yes

Would read again? Yes

Rating: Pretty good

Batman: White Knight, Elric, Amazing Spider-Man, Moth and Whisper, Superman

New comics!  I didn’t get the new Catwoman.  I flipped through it in the store, and felt zero enthusiasm towards reading it.  Joelle Jones lured me in with her gorgeous art, but couldn’t get me to stay with the story.  

Amazing Spider-Man 6

I bought this after the iFanboy podcast selected it as their Pick of the Week.  The premise sounded fun - Boomerang, now Peter’s roommate, drags him to a supervillain trivia night, where the topic is Spider-Man.  With his secret identity unknown to all, Peter cleans house with a perfect score, earning the praise and cheers of his rogues gallery.  It certainly is amusing, and Humberto Ramos does his usual great work, but it comes in third out of the three titles I bought this week.  Certainly not Pick of the Week caliber.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: No

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Nice

Moth and Whisper 2

The second issue continues to build on the promise of the first.  Niki embarks on a infiltration mission, putting the technology of the era on display to the readers, as well as his sharp mind.  Lots of fun.

I’m also a fan of the facility with which Niki switches between male and female disguises.  He’s equally capable performing as either, and there’s something cool about that. When I thought about it some more, I realized that Niki’s gender is actually unclear to me.  The way they’re drawn reads as male to me, but there’s enough ambiguity that I could be mistaken. I like that.

Superman 4

The things that make Superman super shine through in this issue, and it’s those splashes of personality that elevate this over the previous three.  Clark’s flashback conversation with Jon is sublime. It’s a mix of so many wonderful things. Clark engages in some strong, positive parenting, clearly teaching the lessons he learned from his Pa.  It’s a sweet passing along of values across generations.

Bendis continues to build on Superman’s bromance with Batman.  He’s really leaning into it both here and in Action Comics, and it’s still the best part of his run so far.  Jon notices it too. “So, you like Batman the way you like mom?”

Elric: The Vanishing Tower 1-6

This is entirely a nostalgia buy.  I’ll talk about it more when I do my reread.  It is unapologetically old-school fantasy, and feels like a D&D campaign I would have run as a middle schooler.  It jumps from set piece to set piece, with the barest hint of connecting narrative tissue. Still, it’s fun in its outlandishness, and I dig it.  

Batman: White Knight 1-8

This was SO GOOD.  Sean Murphy knocked this one out of the park.  Things I liked:

Flipping Joker into becoming the actual hero.  Yet not. He does all the right things, and seeing him as a legit good guy is mind trippy and awesome.

Two Harleys!  A neat way of reconciling the original Dini Harley with the Margot Robbie version.  Setting Harleen up as the mastermind (and a force for good) is inspired.

Accentuating the negative aspect of Batman’s war on crime.  Focusing on the property damage, injured bystanders, and miscellaneous fallout really brings out the psycho in Batman.  Coupled with his manic anger, everything combines to create a thoroughly believable situation where he’s at odds with the GCPD, his teammates, and the entire city.

Murphy’s art.  

All the best Freeze art involves him pining in front of Nora.

So many Batmobiles, so much detail.

I may review this again on re-read, but I’m feeling pretty solid about my ratings.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: Yes

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Really good