Monthly archives: June, 2008

Chris Sims at The ISB has a post on The Untold Legend of the Batman, a miniseries in which someone who knew all of Batman’s deepest, darkest secrets had set out to destroy him.

I had a small black and white copy of this book, which I think I got from a grade school book order. It came with a cassette tape, I guess in case you felt the few words that did make there way into the comic picture books were just too much to handle. I don’t know, maybe I was young enough that I was closer to the pre-literate age than I realize, but this would have most likely been the first comic book I owned.

I had been thinking about this book recently for the same reason Sims mentions — elements of “Batman R.I.P.” seem awfully reminiscent of this story, but I couldn’t remember the name of the book. Procrastination led me to browse the sites over in our links section, and I was very excited to see this write-up.

One of the things I remember most about the book was the art. Jim Aparo’s Batman was amazing. His use of blacks, particularly noticeable as I had only a black-and-white version, was stunning. I remember wearing out ball-point pens trying to recreate his art from this book.

Years later, when I actually started buying comics on a monthly basis (this is right around the time of Knightfall) I remember noticing how his work had lost much of that awesome, dramatic quality. I don’t know if this was a product of age or different inkers, but his work in “The Untold Legend of the Batman” was fantastic.

I have no idea where my copy is anymore, and I probably haven’t had my hands on it since about 1990, but the ISB treatment captures the drama and absurdity I remember about the series. I dug up this Amazon link because I’m tempted to re-order myself a copy.

As you can probably tell by my lack of posting on here lately, I haven’t had much to say about comic books. After Countdown to Final Crisis, which I dutifully reviewed all 51 issues of (more or less), I guess you could say I needed a little bit of a break. It seemed like a good plan, since I wasn’t quite ready to dump Marvel and DC; I just needed a little space. DC especially was getting a little clingy.

Well, the break isn’t quite over just yet. I bought the first issue of Final Crisis last week, and it was as if I saw DC hooking up with some random dude at a frat party. I mean, we’re just on a break! We haven’t split up yet, but boy is it getting close.

So what is a guy who writes for a comic blog to write about if he’s on a break from comics? Luckily, I’m only on a break from MY crappy comics. My roommate has still been buying the funny books, which means, after much arduous exposition, you’re in luck. Come along for the ride as I set forth reviewing my roommate’s crappy comics!

1. The Dark Tower #4 (of 5)
Oh, shit, what have I gotten myself into?

I read the first issue of the Dark Tower series because they had a lot of copies at my local comic shop, and the owner said they were moving a lot of them. I figured there must’ve been something to it, but, boy was I wrong. I guess I momentarily forgot the face of my father.

So, coming into this, the only thing I was going off was the little explanation they give on the first page of each issue. And, really, that’s about the only part that made any sense to me. It’s about some guy in an alternate dimension that’s kind of like hell, meeting with, well, that ugly sonofabitch right there in that pretty picture.

And that alternate dimension is contained within a glowing bowling ball? Did I read that right? Oh, and there’s a big fight with wolf monsters. That was kind of weird and hard to follow. Yeah, I still don’t see why people buy this. Just because you write a lot of books doesn’t mean they’re any good. Stephen King sucks.

2. Kick-Ass #3
Seriously, what was I thinking?

This is another one I dropped after the first issue. Between then and now, Kick-Ass has become a huge internet sensation, with video of him beating up some thugs getting tons of hits on YouTube. Oh my god, the internet’s so edgy!
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Secret Invasion #3 came out this week, with the much talked-about cover with Spider-Woman about to kiss Iron Man. The cover took on new meaning with the release of New Avengers #40, which revealed that Spider-Woman is a Skrull.

The issue opens with the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier floating in the ocean, and Commander Hill aptly noting that “this thing falls out of the sky every other Thursday.” At least someone’s acknowledging it. But Jarvis shows up to give her the option of surrendering to him. Hill has been beaten up pretty bad since taking the S.H.I.E.L.D. director position post Nick Fury, but I like that she’s being given the opportunity to prove herself somewhat. That hasn’t fully happened yet, but she’s written with an awareness and defiance that shows she’s not quite the stooge she was when she took the spot.

At Thunderbolts Mountain, Captain Marvel is blowing the joint up, but he can’t deliver a deathblow. Norman Osborn coolly confronts him by saying “You can’t do it, can you? And my guess is you’re not exactly who you’re dressed as.” In the Captain Marvel miniseries, Captain Marvel was revealed to be a Skrull whose mental conditioning was botched, leaving Mar-Vell’s personality intact in the Skrull body.

At Camp Hammond, the Initiative finds out they’re being led into the thick of the Super-Skrull attack on New York by order of Yellowjacket Hank Pym, who we learned was a Skrull back in Secret Invasion #1. Skrull Pym’s involvement in the Initiative is presumably just to keep tabs on as many of the super-powered people as possible. I would guess this is just an effort to lead unprepared heroes to the slaughter.
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I just read Giant Sized Astonishing X-Men #1 last night. The guy at the comic shop and I bitched about it being forever delayed, and how we already knew that a certain someone was going to bite it. Well, maybe they didn’t “bite it” per se, but they’re floating around in Limbo, or at least on a gigantic bullet.

Like much of the Whedon / Cassidy run, the storytelling had high ambitions, cinematic storytelling scopes, all the really fun stuff. Well, except stories to match the ambitions. And deadlines to keep readers caring.

Maybe I need to go back and reread their run on this supposedly “flagship” X-book, because the long gaps in between issues left me having to refresh myself going in, and the constant series of cliffhangers made those waits too ridiculous to care. They took a favorite team of mine and made it into mush.

I wanted to care. I really did. You had great characters in a fantastic science fiction story. But the story idea superseded the execution. Chalk it up to Marvel’s disease (Shared by DC at times, too) – hype the shit out of a book, then make it too consistently late to care. Secret War, Daredevil: Father, any number of other books unable to sustain themselves because the writers and artists couldn’t be bothered to respect their fans, instead dragging year long stories into years long.

Warren Ellis and Simon Bianchi’s run has a “regular” schedule on the Marvel website. But I’ve got some issues with it going in. We’ll see how it goes. Hopefully, the storytelling and execution step up to the plate, and actually bother to respect fans enough to not get sidetracked by other projects. If this is going to be Marvel’s quintessential X-book, then they should treat it as such – not some long-form vanity project, but a book able to sustain a deadline and keep fans caring about the storyline within.