Category: library of doom

By Grant Morrison (W) and others

Published by DC Comics. Cover price $19.99. Originally printed as DC 1,000,000 1-4, Green Lantern 1,000,000, Stannan 1,000,000, JLA 1,000,000, Resurrection Man 1,000,000, and Superman: The Man of Tomorrow 1,000,000

The Plot: The JLA of today and the JLA of the year 85,271 fight the threat of Vandal Savage and an evil sentient star, both in present day and the far future.

The Positives: The present day JLA is sent into the future near the beginning of the trade, and don’t reappear until the last quarter of the story. While this could be viewed as a negative, it gives the background players like Huntress, Steel, Big Barda, Plastic Man and the Blue Beetle, as well as the newly introduced Justice Legion A (the JLA of the future) a chance to shine in the spotlight. We’ve seen the Justice League save the world, the universe, and the whole of space and time over and over again. Seeing the B- and C-listers do it every now and again is a nice change of pace.

With all the creators working on this one story (twenty one writers, pencillers and inkers are attached), you might expect it to be a giant clusterf@#k. But with the exception of one artist who stands out (Butch Guice, whose art certainly isn’t worse, just very different), it really feels like one creative effort put forth by one creative team.

DC One Million was a massive company-wide crossover, so reading only a handful of the issues from the crossover might be a little confusing. However, throughout the trade there are recap pages that lets the reader know what happened to the characters off-panel. Thanks to these pages, the reader is never left wondering “what happened?” However…

The Negatives: One of the oldest rules is storytelling is it’s usually better to show than to tell. Telling the reader what happened is okay when you just want them to understand the story. In cases such as Prelude to Infinite Crisis, it’s what the reader is looking for. But when you buy a trade paperback, you don’t just want to understand the story, you want to read the story. Understandably, not every single issue of what was a company-wide crossover could be included in the trade. But it seems to me like DC showed when it should have told and told when it should have showed.

Part of the story featured Vandal Savage trapping the Teen Titans inside of Rocket Red suits. Turns out they were nuclear-armed suits, and Savage was planning to fire them at populated areas, but the actual launching and detonation of the first suit happened in an issue not included in the trade. In another part of the story, the Justice League is sent into the future to compete in gladiatorial games in honor of the future return of Superman. None of the issues including these (assumedly) cool battle scenes made the cut.

So what did make it into the trade? A 22-page story featuring future Starman talking to the elderly Golden Age Starman, just to establish that future Starman got his hands on a chunk of kryptonite. A full issue of Resurrection Man, a character I had forgotten exists, featuring a fight between future Resurrection Man and future Vandal Savage that was only used to set up the (completely unnecessary) one-page epilogue that saw Savage getting his just deserts. Several pages out of a Batman book that reminded the reader that Batman’s body was still in the present while his “soul” was in the future, even though that had been clearly established earlier. If part of the story needs to be re-capped, it should be that kind of stuff, not cool fight scenes and pivotal plot points.

The Grade: D. JLA One Million was too much story to fit in one $20 trade. By whittling down the story to that point, DC really doomed the story. The DC One Million mini-series was decent, but too many vital moments in the DC One Million crossover took place outside of that mini-series and this trade for it to tell a compelling story by itself.

By Craig Kyle, Chris Yost (W), and Mark Brooks (A)

Published by Marvel Comics. Cover price $10.99. Originally printed as New X-Men 20-23.

The Plot: The student body of the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning deals with the immediate impact of M-Day.

The Positives: New X-Men felt the effects of Scarlet Witch declaring “no more mutants” more than any other X-title. While the X-Men were somehow able to defy the odds and only have a handful of members lose their powers, the New X-Men weren’t so lucky. At least three featured characters were de-powered, as well as 90% of the entire student body. After M-Day, there were fewer students at Xavier’s than there were “teachers.”

This allowed the book to look at M-Day from a different perspective than all the other X-titles. Several different perspectives, in fact. There’s the newly de-powered mutant who still wants to be a hero (Prodigy). There’s the de-powered mutant who gets ignored by his still-powered friends (Tag). There are the still-powered mutants that wish they had been de-powered (Wither, Mercury). And there are the rest of the still-powered mutants that have to deal with losing a great number of their friends and classmates. Decimation was a brief boon to the quality of the X-Men books, and New X-Men may have used the event to the greatest advantage.

The Negatives: New X-Men is a formulaic book. Juts like Young Avengers, Runaways and Avengers: The Initiative, it’s about inexperienced super-powered youths being forced to work together as a team for whatever reason. While it’s obviously not a bad formula, it’s only as good as the creators can make it.

Craig Kyle and Chris Yost unfortunately chose to focus on the drama more than the action. I guess I’m probably not the target demographic, but teen romance doesn’t appeal to me that much. At least not when it’s the focus of the book. New X-Men could be a lot more entertaining if (to use a WB analogy) it was more like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and less like Dawson’s Creek.

The Grade: B-. With Childhood’s End Volume 1, New X-Men managed to gain back quite a bit of momentum after a major change in its status quo. It set up a lot of good stuff that will hopefully be played off in future storylines. The rather explosive cliffhanger ending has me hooked in for the next trade, at least.

By Mark Millar (W) and Dave Johnson (A).
Cover price $17.99. Published by DC Comics, 2003. Originally printed as Superman: Red Son #1-3.
Plot: In as little words as possible, this book raises the question, “What if Superman’s rocket crash landed in the Soviet Union instead of the United States?” There is, however, quite a bit more to it than just that. The first issue takes place in the 1950’s, the second in the 1970’s, and the final one in the year 2000. Superman is used by the Soviet government to realize the full strength of socialism, but his acts are viewed by some as totalitarian and limiting of civil liberties. The main Superman detractor is an anarchist terrorist type who goes by the name of the Batman. I bet you’ve heard of him. One of Superman’s main allies in this is Wonder Woman, who eventually gets out of the game, as it’s just too much for her to handle. Lex Luthor, meanwhile, is America’s top scientist and leader of the movement to bring Superman down. He uses such tactics as creating a Bizarro clone of Superman, as well as enlisting the aid of the Green Lantern Marine Corps, headed by Colonel Hal Jordan (or was it Major? I can’t remember, nor do I care). If you want to know more, you’ll have to buy it. The question is, should you?

Strengths: Yes. The Batman is worth the cover price alone. The way he brings the fight to Superman in the second issue is phenomenal. They make no mention of Kryptonite in this limited series, so Batman has to come up with something even more clever. What could that be? Red sun heat lamps. It’s just amazingly fun. Lex Luthor is also brilliant in his role as, well, duh, Lex Luthor. And, for once, he’s a good guy and stuff. There’s a lot of politics in this baby, and it’s all quite engaging. Sounds like fun, right? What could be wrong with it, then?

Weaknesses: Not much, really. It doesn’t really hold up as a logical Elseworld with the one change being that Superman landed on a Ukrainian farm instead of a farm in Kansas, because you’ve got characters like Jimmy Olson working as a secret agent instead of a photographer. Why would Superman landing somewhere else change Olson’s life choices? There are a couple of little quibbles like that, but, seriously, it doesn’t amount to much other than over-nitpicking. Which is stupid.

Grade: A. I know, I give high scores to most everything, but that’s because I don’t buy a lot of stuff unless I know I’m going to probably like it. The fact that this is one of my all-time favorite books also factors into my grading. Simply put, it’s a great read, and it’s a heckuva lot of fun. Do you like fun? Then you should buy this. If you don’t like fun, well, you’re just kind of weird.

By Dan Brereton (W), Hector Gomez and Sandu Florea (A)

Original graphic novel published by Dark Horse Comics. Cover price $9.95.

The Plot: Buffy and the rest of the Scooby Gang must prevent vampire queen Lilith from summoning an Old One while Giles’ niece stops by Sunnydale for a visit.

The Positives: N/A

The Negatives: The art is pretty freaking terrible. Hector Gomez has the skills of a mid-90s Marvel artist, back when everyone was trying to draw like they founded Image. Which is to say, he sucks. This comic comes from 1998, so that’s not completely unexpected, but art quality aside the art is still substandard. It might have been nice if, you know, the characters looked at all like what they did on the show. Willow and Cordelia, two polar opposites, are nearly indistinguishable (it doesn’t help that the colorist made Willow’s hair brown despite the fact that she’s a redhead). Angel is shown in a white dress shirt and jeans, even though he’s rarely worn anything besides a dark shirt and black leather pants. Gomez nailed Giles, but how hard is to accurately depict a character that’s already a caricature?

The writing’s not much better. The plot isn’t memorable at all. The supposedly all-powerful vampire queen Lilith and her evil scheme are thwarted just as easily as Amy’s mom or the Nerd Trio were. If you take the worst plot from the TV show and then make it worse, you’d have a story slightly better than the Dust Waltz. The dialogue isn’t very good, either. Dan Brereton tries to “Whedon up” the dialogue at times and fails miserably at it. That can get annoying when Joss himself does it, so you can imagine how bad it is when someone much less talented does it.

Need I go on?

The Grade: F. Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Dust Waltz is just plain bad. I’m a huge fan of Buffy, and I didn’t even like it. Not only would this be a waste of your money, it’d be a waste of your time.

By Judd Winick (W), Doud Mahnke and Paul Lee (A)

Published by DC Comics. Cover price $9.99. Originally printed as Batman 635-641.

The Plot: A new Red Hood, who has ties to the Dark Knight’s past, appears in Gotham City and runs afoul of both Batman and the Black Mask.

The Positives: Since Batman became grim and gritty after The Dark Knight Returns and Year One, it’s become difficult to tell a “fun” Batman story. There are two key elements that have to be there for it to happen, and Judd Winick seems to have nailed both of them.

The first element is putting Batman in a situation where he feels at ease. Paul Dini accomplishes that by putting Batman in the middle of an intricate mystery. In Under The Hood Volume 1, Winick accomplishes it by teaming Batman up with one of the few people he actually trusts, Nightwing. Beyond just trusting him, Nightwing reminds Batman of “the good old days,” before his enemies starting murdering his sidekicks and paralyzing his allies.

The second element is letting the villains of the story do what they do best: be crazy. Crazy in comics is fun, because when the Joker or Mad Hatter murder, maim and destroy, there aren’t any actual consequences. It gets even better when more than one of the lunatics is involved. Seeing the Batman rogues interact with each other is a joy because each of them is psychotic in their own unique way. In this story, the Black Mask’s sadistic businessman plays wonderfully off of the cool-but-not-collected Mr. Freeze. When such explosive personalities get together, sometimes it results in actual explosions.

Under The Hood is a great example of what can be done to embrace continuity in comics without being bogged down by it. The trade acknowledges the events of the day but doesn’t dwell on them. I really appreciate the subtle things like Oracle’s operation being shut down and Nightwing wearing a knee brace. Winick also includes two scenes between Batman and two members of the “Secret League,” Zatanna and the Green Arrow. Set after Identity Crisis but before Batman reveals he knows he was mind-wiped, the scenes build great tension by hinting that Batman already knows what the Secret League did to him. The best part, though, is that both encounters make complete sense in the context of the story, and aren’t shoehorned in just as a way to remind us of the mistrust Batman has for his allies

The Negatives: The Red Hood is Jason Todd (oops! SPOILER ALERT!). It would be practically impossible for anyone who reads DC Comics today to be unaware of that fact. Which means pretty much anyone that would have any desire to read this trade knows it. So the mystery of who’s behind the mask, which is a huge aspect of the story, is lost in this format. I’m sure the mystery would have been great reading the story as it came out, but in this case, waiting for the trade greatly hurts the story.

Since there are two Batman trades with the title Under The Hood, it’s not surprising that Volume 1 doesn’t reach a terribly satisfying conclusion. While there isn’t a cliffhanger ending, the story of Jason Todd’s return from the dead is by no means finished by the time you’re done with the trade.

The Grade: B. Judd Winick has a great feel for what makes Batman tick, and he’s one of the very best dialogue writers in the business. Doug Mahnke’s art works incredibly well with the story, blending the over-the-top nature of Mr. Freeze and Amazo with the more realistic side of Batman’s world. If you’re looking for a fun Batman story, Batman: Under the Hood Volume I is a great place to find one.

By Scott Kurtz

Published by Image Comics. Cover Price $14.99. Originally printed as PvP 13-18.

The Plot: The staff of a gaming magazine tackles the issues of the day, ranging from plagiarism and copyright laws to finding the true spirit of Christmas to paradoxical trips to the San Diego Comic-Con to hyper-intelligent cats trying to take over the world. Hijinks ensue.

The Positives: PvP is a celebration of geek culture. From video games to Lord of the Rings to comic conventions to D & D, this is the world that many comic book fans, myself included, live in. There’s just something about being in on a joke that not everyone would get that makes it that much funnier. And there may be no two words in the English language funnier than “roll” and “initiative.”

The Negatives: Since PvP is a daily online comic, Scott Kurtz will make use of current headlines to make a joke for that day’s strip. Some headlines hold up better than others. Marvel suing City of Heroes holds up, because it hasn’t been overplayed. This one, however, does not:

I’m not even sure that was still funny a week later.

There’s really no reason there should be typos in a book published by any reputable publisher, but there are two major errors in this trade. One strip is printed twice. It’s in two completely parts of the book, so it’s not terribly annoying. But in the introduction, half of a paragraph is reprinted directly under itself. Did no one even proofread this thing? Hell, even I proofread these posts before I put them online. Hell, even I proofread these posts before I put them online. Does it make any of the strips less funny? Of course not. But it’s certainly distracting, especially since it would have been so easy to prevent.

The Grade: C+. PvP Rides Again is a fun read, but quite frankly PvP is meant to be read on a daily basis, not in a six-month chunk. If you read PvP, you don’t read it for the storylines. You read it for the jokes, and most of the best strips are just single strip jokes. Relative to other comic strip collections it’s easily an A, but compared to other comic book collections, it just isn’t as good.