Cyberforce

Cyberforce 1-4

Cyberforce 1-7, 9-11

The original miniseries and the regular series that followed.  I’m stunned not stunned at the horrendous writing that infests these pages.  I wasn’t expecting greatness, the glasses of my memory weren’t that rose-colored.  But I didn’t remember it reading like a parody of Chris Claremont. And...there’s Chris Claremont writing issues 9 through 11, showing that he doesn’t need anyone to show him how to mock himself.  He does just fine on his own. I need to create a new rating for this. It wasn’t so bad that I wanted to stop reading. It wasn’t boring, it wasn’t hateworthy. It was so bad that calling out all the horrible problems with it became an entertaining game all by itself.  Examples from issue 11:

My god, all the narration.  So much internal narration. And even more verbal narration as all the characters explain everything that’s happening.  And the horrible quips!

What is she wearing??  Who talks to a comrade in arms at pre-kiss distance with an intimate chin lift??  What does “I can’t function in cyberspace” even mean???

Words fail me.

For the first time, Mark Silvestri’s art smacked more of Rob Liefeld than Jim Lee.  I’ve always liked him up until now, but so many little things stood out this time around that I’ve had to bump him down a few notches in my estimation.  

That's a Liefeldian number of visible teeth.

I can’t quite put my finger on it, but it’s like he does all that cross-hatching without understanding what makes it so effective.  His faces, especially, lack depth. If it weren’t for the coloring, would it really look that different from the fan art that they print in the letter column?

Can you tell the difference between Eric Silvestri and Chris Claremont monologues?

Okay, that’s pushing it a bit too far, but Silvestri's not as close to Jim Lee as I’d previously thought he was.  

From a creative standpoint, the team itself lacks any kind of originality.  It’s a common problem among most of the Image team books of that era. Impact: Colossus clone, obligatory team strong-man.  Ripclaw: Wolverine clone with sharp claws. Cyblade: Psylocke clone, down to the psychic blade. Heatwave: Cyclops clone, generic energy-blast shooting leader.  I’d call him out for having no personality (just like Cyclops), but everyone else on the team is just as bland.

Stryker doesn’t have a real analog, but his hook is that he’s got three right arms.  The reason he has no doppelganger is because that’s just about the stupidest mutant ability I’ve ever seen.  And it’s not like they’re his real arms, either - they’re cybernetic replacements for the ones that got blown off in an explosion.  If it was really such a great power, why haven’t they given everyone 2 extra arms? On the same side of their body?

That’s before you even get to the arm placement fudging.  There’s no consistency from drawing to drawing, because there’s no sense to be made out of it.  Do they share a shoulder joint?

Are they attached to his body vertically along his side?

Or does the artist just give up and not even pretend that the arm has a connection point to the body?  The laziness in character conception drives me crazy.

He sums it up so well.

So yes.  There’s a ton to pick apart, and this was fun to rant about.  So new rating.

   

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: No

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Trainwreck bad

Chrononauts, Civil War II

Chrononauts 1-4

Mark Millar churns out another movie pitch.  Two scientist bros crack the secret of time travel and proceed to break all the rules with abandon.  The butterfly effect and damage to the time-space continuum are given only the briefest of mentions, and then promptly ignored.  It’s a refreshing take on the usually strict rules that most time travellers need to follow, and allows for some glorious anachronisms.  Nothing on the order of the finest temporal mashup ever, but still tons of fun.

An instant classic in high school, an actual classic now.

This must have been an homage by Murphy.

Blissful insanity.

Which the characters completely recognize.

It’s also got a laugh out loud page-turning twist that I didn’t see coming, but often wonder about:

There are so many moments in media entertainment where the hero barely escapes death.  There’s always a part of me that wonders how the story would unfold if the bullet didn’t miss by an inch, or the hero couldn’t outrace the explosion/crumbling floor/velociraptor chasing them.  Sure, there’d be no story, but it’d be neat to see a How It Should Have Ended flash forward of how things would be different.

(Also, the best out-of-nowhere death ever:)

Getting back to the comic.  Sean Murphy has such a distinctive style, and he’s been such a good fit for everything I’ve seen him do.  I’m a fan.

The story, on the other hand, suffers from two unlikable protagonists.  Quinn and Reilly are completely unsympathetic, and while their cavalier attitudes towards the time stream are what enable such amazing imagery for us to see, they’re also what make them such douchebags.  I was rooting for them to die.

Still, I’d watch this movie.  The spectacle would be spectacular.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: Yes

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Pretty good

Civil War II 0-8

I’ve generally shied away from any event series that Marvel or DC put out.  They’re horrible at staying self-contained, requiring you to read a ton of tie-in issues in order to get the whole picture.  (See Civil War, Secret Invasion, etc.)  Civil War II had the extra strike of sounding stupid - heroes fighting over the morality of the Minority Report.  But I jumped at the opportunity to buy the trade at half price, especially with Brian Michael Bendis and David Marquez’s names on the cover.  (Discounted due to some minor damage on one of the corners.)

Totally worth it.  In hindsight, I would have bought this at full price.  Bendis has plenty of opportunities to flash his dialog-writing strengths, and he knows exactly how to use Marquez.  The fight scenes and emotions both explode off the page.

Bendis and Marquez are so good at Miles.

This fight was way more one-sided than it felt when I first read it.

The ethical debate shook out as I expected - Captain Marvel is terrified of the potential world-ending cataclysm that she’ll be unable to prevent, and desperately claws at the solution Ulysses bring her with his apparent precognitive abilities.  Tony Stark is understandably skeptical of arresting anyone for something they haven’t done yet, and fights back. As with the original Civil War, I found myself understanding the side that I felt was completely in the wrong.  Captain Marvel’s successful track record with Ulysses - stopping the Celestials, intercepting Thanos - spoke to how well the system could work.  It’s when she got into the sticker situations with Hulk and Miles Morales that things started going sideways. (I never bought into Tony’s argument that Carol caused the death of Rhodey.  Did he think that they wouldn’t have fought Thanos eventually?)

It ends up very much like the first Civil War - the person on the established, wrong (in my eyes) side finishes in a greater position of power, rewarded by a government less concerned about the individual than the big picture.  It’s a bit anti-climactic, but easy to look past considering how much fun everything before it was.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: Yes

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Good

One last time.

Authority: Scorched Earth, Authority: World's End, Bitch Planet, Black Magick

Authority: Scorched Earth

Authority was never the same after Ellis and Millar left, but I would still give it a try every once in a while.  This one-shot goes through all the right motions for most of the issue - the sun gains sentience and is about to go supernova.  Epic enough to capture the attention of the Authority, who do their best on damage control. It’s all by the numbers until they discover that the personality inhabiting the sun is their former Stormwatch teammate Winter, last seen flying Skywatch into the sun in WildCATS/Aliens.

It’s a twist I had completely forgotten, and I was pleased by the surprise.  I also didn’t expect the ending - the team imprisons Winter in the same tech that “cages the baby universe at the center of the Carrier.”  (A phrase that’s as overused in this title as “focused totality of my psychic powers” was over in Claremont’s X-Men.)  The pessimism of the ending is out of place with Authority.  It’s always been cynical, but ultimately positive in its ability to change the world for the better.  It’s not bad, just different.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: No

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Nice

Authority: World’s End 1-2

This was part of some bigger Wildstorm crossover that I didn’t care about.  It reads like a post-apocalyptic Elseworlds story, and I don’t know if it’s in canon or not.  It’s fine for that genre, but nothing more. As with Scorched Earth, the lack of any hope keeps it from matching the quality of the original Authority issues.  Also, it’s lacking the controlled insanity of Ellis or Millar’s brains.  

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: No

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Fine

Bitch Planet 1-5

A fascinating examination of feminism in a dystopian future.  My ultimate feelings towards this series will depend on how it ends - Is it going to be a depressing 1984 ending, or will the women of Bitch Planet emerge triumphant?  I don’t want to know badly enough to buy anymore trades, but if I get the chance to borrow the rest of the issues, I will.  (Joining the company of DMZ and Unwritten.)

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: No

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Nice

Black Magick 1-2

Nicola Scott is the star of this title.  Her art is flat out gorgeous. Rucka’s proven his ability to write excellent cop comics with Gotham Central, and this time around he’s combining it with Wiccan magic.  I don’t know why I stopped buying it, the first issues show a ton of promise.  I’ll have to look for more.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: Yes

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Pretty good

Batman and Superman Adventures: World's Finest, Dark Claw Adventures, Angela

Batman and Superman Adventures: World’s Finest

Another movie adaptation.  The plot is replacement level, but the interactions are pretty sweet.  Superman uses his x-ray vision to determine Batman’s identity. Easy mode.  Batman returns the favor by planting a tracker on Superman’s cape and following him back to Clark’s apartment.  

Easy mode for Batman.

Even better, Bruce starts dating Lois Lane, and things get serious between them, prompting the requisite jealousy from Clark.  It’s a fun dynamic that I haven’t seen explored in the mainstream comics.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: No

Would read again: No

Rating: Fine

Dark Claw Adventures 1

This is from the second round of Amalgam Comics.  The pairings are obvious, but that doesn’t detract from the fun - Batman/Wolverine, Robin/Jubilee, Talia/Lady Deathstrike.  A nice one-shot, but I wouldn’t have bought any more.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: No

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Fine

That’s it for the Batman Adventures box!  (It wasn’t a full box.) Let’s see how it tallied up.

Box Summary:

Time Spent Reading: 10 hours, 16 minutes

Issues Read: 83

Issues Cut: 4

Highlights (Good or better): Batgirl Adventures 1, Mad Love, Batman Adventures 20

Project Summary:

Time Spent Reading: 11 days 10 hours 28 minutes

Issues Read: 2217

Issues Cut: 283

Next up is Image Comics!  These are going to be fascinating.  I bought a lot of these, the early ones in particular, when I was in middle/high school.  My tastes have changed a lot in thirty years, and I really wonder if Spawn, Youngblood, and Cyberforce will be nearly as entertaining now as they were then.  Though I can say with relative certainty that even if they suck, I won’t be cutting them.

Angela 1-3

I would never have pegged Neil Gaiman as the writer if I didn’t see his name in the credits.  The uninspired plot: A jealous angel frames Angela for some stuff. She escapes with the help of Spawn, they fight a lot of stuff, and Angela clears her name, quitting heaven in the process.  The art’s by Greg Capullo, who I’ve always liked. But my god, the amount of cheesecake! There isn’t a butt shot that he won’t shove in the reader’s face.

So.

Many.

Buttcheeks.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: No

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Fine

Batman Adventures Annual, Batman and Robin Adventures Annual, Doomsday Clock, Action Comics, Heroes in Crisis

Doomsday Clock 7

Still a ton of set up.  Dr. Manhattan finally shows up and says cryptic things.  I still don’t know what’s going on, but as long as Gary Frank continues to draw entertaining fight scenes and Geoff Johns continue to effectively mimic Alan Moore, I’ll complain not a whit.  

Wow, I just took a look at my review of the previous issue, and things have not changed at all: “Halfway through the series and I still don’t know where it’s going.  I’m not complaining, though. Geoff John continues to focus on the characters from the Watchmen universe, and as long as he writes them this vividly, I’ll deal whatever release schedule he wants.”

It’s disturbing how nothing’s changed with the series.  And that I’m apparently incapable of coming up with original ways of reviewing things.  

Heroes in Crisis 1

If I’ve seen Clay Mann’s art in the past, I do not recall it.  I will not forget him again. His work here is beautiful. Tomeu Morey’s colors are just as important.  He makes a red streak across the midwest something special.

Tom King kicks off his 9-issue event series with a ton of murdered heroes and two suspects.  (I’ll be stunned if either one of them turns out to be the killer.) I wish the reveal of Roy Harper and Wally West’s bodies shocked me more, and that I believed they were actually dead.  The lack of either drastically reduces the drama of the whole thing. But despite that, I’m still drawn into the story. King’s got some skills, and I’m happy that there’s something by him for me to keep reading after Mister Miracle ends next month.  (I get his Batman in trade.)

There’s an emotionally cruel gutpunch midway through that highlights the huge chasm between the DC trinity and the D-listers.  King packs so much into two pages about failed dreams, lost opportunities, class separation, and ivory towers.

Action Comics 1003

Finally, things start happening and Bendis shows a little bit of why he’s one of my favorite writers.  Robinson Goode, the annoying reporter, procures Kryptonite for one of her stories. That secret’s revealed when she inadvertently incapacitates Clark Kent, who calls in Batman for help.  Batman’s conversation with Goode is vintage Bendis. Perhaps Bendis is writing the wrong main character. In any case, I hope this is a sign of better things to come from him moving forward.

Batman and Robin Adventures Annual 1

Paul Dini writes the sequel to Mask of the Phantasm.  It’s structurally very similar to the original story - Andrea returns again, rekindles the flame with Bruce again, then sadly leaves him again after they defeat the bad guy.  It’s replacement level, but it’s Mike Parobeck’s last comic work, so I’ll keep it around for that.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: No

Would read again: Yes

Rating: Fine

Batman and Robin Adventures Annual 2

Batman and Robin team up with Zatanna to fight the Hypnotist.  So very meh, made worse by the fact that it was a double-size helping of meh.

Regret buying: Yes

Would buy again: No

Would read again: No

Rating: Boring (Cutting)

Batman Adventures 1-2

Issue 1 - About as meh as the previous entry, but it’s got better art (Bruce Timm).  It’s also got some work by Klaus Janson and John Byrne, two artists whose styles really don’t work in the animated universe.  I was all set to cut this until the internets revealed that it’s worth a decent chunk of change.  Keeping it around only for that.

Issue 2 - Features Etrigan and Ra’s al Ghul, two characters that populate the bottom quadrant of my DC character ranking.  An easy cut.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: No

Would read again: No

Rating: Didn’t suck (Cutting issue 2)

Mask of the Phantasm, Subzero

Mask of the Phantasm 1

The comic adaptation of the amazing animated film.  It’s a faithful conversion of the movie, but so much of the greatness is lost in translation - the superlative voice acting, the animation, the gorgeous score by Shirley Walker.  The sadness and angst that saturates the movie manages to be touching instead of cheesy.

If there was nothing to compare it to, perhaps it I wouldn’t have found the comic so lacking.  But instead, I found myself just wanting to watch the movie instead. Which is what I’m literally doing right now as I type this.  I’m not sure if I’d call it the best Batman movie….you know, let’s find out. I haven’t done this ranking before. (Of the ones I’ve seen.)

1. Mask of the Phantasm - Wow, it really does rank first on my list.  Surprised not surprised.
2. Dark Knight - Heath Ledger.  Literally one of my favorite movie performances ever.

3. Batman Returns - Michelle Pfeiffer.

(Because more Michelle is better.)

4. Dark Knight Rises - The plot is crap but shockingly rewatchable.  Bane’s breaking of the Bat is a great scene. We got this hilarious video of Bane:

5. Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker
6. Batman Forever - Jim Carrey was surprisingly fun in this, and it has Nicole Kidman at the peak of her hotness.  

No movie clips.  That movie really was so bad.

7. Batman - The only impression I have of this movie is that it was dark and I couldn’t tell what was going on.  Nicholson’s performance hasn’t aged well.
8. Batman Begins - Never liked this one.  Christian Bale is a weak Batman, this whole thing bored me.  
9. Batman and Robin - Obviously last.

Anyway, not keeping this issue.  I’ll never want to read it while the movie exists in the world.

Regret buying: No

Would buy again: No

Would read again: No

Rating: Didn’t suck (Cutting)

Batman and Robin Adventures: Sub Zero

Another adaptation of an animated movie (direct to video).  I never watched the original, but the comics doesn’t impress me.  It reads like a double-sized regular issue, with nothing that makes it worth making into a movie.  Not keeping it.

Regret buying: Yes

Would buy again: No

Would read again: No

Rating: Boring (Cutting)