Ryan C. (trashfilmguru), Author at Graphic Policy

Author Archives: Ryan C. (trashfilmguru)

Review : Super Sons #1

Posted on February 19, 2017 by Ryan C. (trashfilmguru)

After originally being solicited for release back in September, one of the most-eagerly-anticipated DC Rebirth titles is finally here — Peter J. Tomasi, Jorge Jimenez and Alejandro Sanchez‘ “kid-friendly” Super Sons #1. Methinks the delay, while admittedly somewhat aggravating, makes sense — after all, Jon “Superboy” Kent and Damian “Robin” Wayne needed to be teamed up elsewhere first to establish some sort of prior relationship, and a recently-concluded two-parter over in the pages of Superman managed that task of “groundwork-laying” quite successfully indeed. With all pretext and preamble out of the way, then, now is as good a time as any to strike while the iron is hot and turn things over to the next generation of heroes who are about to embark on what promises to be a decade or more of being stuck at right around 12 years old. Sigh, if only the real world worked like comics, lemme tell ya —

Light-hearted action and adventure — a Tomasi specialty — are clearly the order of the day here, or rather, they will be, but the debut issue issue of this series is more concerned with establishing the particulars of these youngsters’ character interaction, and I can’t fault that decision in the least : Jon is the bright, perhaps naive, eternally optimistic one, while Damian is the overly-serious, “all-business,” self-appointed “leader” of the duo, and simple as that may be, it really does work — they play off each others’ strengths and foibles in equal measure, and both clearly like each other far more than either (especially Damian) is willing to admit. Jon’s powers are still developing, and are far from a consistent presence in his life, so that gives Damian the chance to play, at least in his mind, both mentor and protector, and during a snowball fight with school bullies, this actually does come in handy — during a bus ride where a disguised Damian inserts himself as driver, though, his presence is a potentially dangerous one.

It all works out in the end, though, and that’s probably going to be the usual order of business for this series — and why not? “Outreach” titles aimed at cultivating a more youthful readership are a standard fixture over at Marvel these days, but DC is just sort of starting to get in on the act; fortunately for us all, they’ve chosen a pitch-perfect creative team to begin their efforts. Tomasi writes children extremely well — something we knew already — and Jimenez has a high-energy, easy-on-the-eyes art style that conveys both character expression and action equally nicely. Nothing about Sanchez’ colors especially stands out, per se, but they’re vibrant and smartly-chosen, so they do what they need to do. The kids are in good hands, and should be placed in exciting situations (as they are in this issue’s cliffhanger, when their first “case” leads them directly into the lion’s den facing the ultimate “baddie”) that fall short of being directly life-threatening a la too many Spielberg productions to mention.This is wholesome entertainment minus any unpleasant and ethically/morally questionable undertones, which isn’t exactly the easiest thing to pull off when you’re talking about something that screams “call child protective services!” as loudly and clearly as the idea of children going into battle against super-powered villains.

All in all, I have no problem putting my cynicism — and $2.99 of my money every month (for the record, I purchased this issue) — aside to enjoy material this lovingly-crafted. Super Sons is hardly revolutionary stuff by any stretch, but that’s not its intention. It’s a comic you can read with your kids that you’ll enjoy every bit as much as they do. Not only is there “nothing wrong with that,” there’s a whole heck of a lot right with it.

Story: Peter J. Tomasi Art: Jorge Jimenez
Story: 8 Art: 7 Overall: 7.5 Recommendation: Buy

Review : God Country #1

Posted on January 15, 2017 by Ryan C. (trashfilmguru)

Some books, you just know they’re gonna be all kinds of bad-ass before they even hit the shelves.

Such was the case with God Country#1, the first of several highly-touted new releases from Image Comics to make its debut in 2017. The brainchild of writer Donny Cates and artist Geoff Shaw, preview pages for this title looked absolutely spectacular, although it was hard to tell if Shaw or colorist Jason Wordie was the real star of the show, visually speaking. And ya know what? Now that the comic itself is here, I’m still not sure who’s earned that distinction.

Let’s just call it a draw, then, and say that Wordie’s “digital-watercolor” palette and Shaw’s dynamic, high-energy pencils and inks complement each other really well and make for one hell of a good-looking book. Bleak Texas landscapes have never seemed so weirdly breathtaking, but when “shit gets cosmic,” well — that’s when all the stops are really pulled out and our intrepid artistic duo, if you’ll forgive the cliche, kicks things into another gear altogether.

Which brings us, I suppose, to the story. Essentially what we’re dealing with here is a Marvel Silver Age-style origin tale, albeit with some notable, perhaps even gimmicky, twists. Roy Quinlan has moved, along with his wife and young daughter, from Austin to the middle of fucking nowhere in order to look after his aging and Alzheimer’s-ridden father, Emmett. His family’s ready to bail on the crotchety old bastard, but just as they get in the car to beat a well-deserved exit, the sky rips open, a cosmically-powered, six-foot (if I remember correctly) sword falls into Emmett’s hands, his brain and body are magically patched up, and hey — the timing couldn’t be better because, unbeknownst to any and everyone, the sword’s supposedly-rightful owner is coming to fetch his wayward weapon. By the power of Grayskull, indeed.

Cates has made a name for himself as co-writer on The Paybacks, and I’m fully confident that he can handle things solo here, but this opening salvo is of necessity an exercise in “broad-stroke” immediate characterization, which he pulls off quite effectively. It’s nothing game-changingly special in and of itself, mind you, but the script does what it needs to do with a reasonable amount of obvious gusto and enthusiasm that’s bordering on the infectious when it needs to be and doesn’t give your attention time enough to wander from the main thrust of the proceedings, so quickly do events follow one atop the other. But, again, when you’re working with collaborators as talented as Shaw and Wordie, arguably one of the best things a writer can do is just stand back and let his or her artists do the bulk of the storytelling.

And that they do, dear reader, with enthusiasm and ambition to spare. Sure, I got a free digital preview copy of this courtesy of Image, but I was more than happy to plunk down $3.99 for a physical copy just to ogle these breathtaking images on paper rather than a screen. We’ve all seen the stereotypical “cosmic storm” in too many comics to count, and while nobody did it better than Jack Kirby (nor will anyone), this comes reasonably close to a modernized take on the trope — minus the krackle, of course, but never fear, there’s raw “intergalactic energy” happening all over the place here. Seldom does art “blow away” a grizzled veteran reader like myself, but it did here, and for that reason alone God Country #1 is worth a purchase on your part. I liked the story just fine, sure, but I absolutely loved the artwork — and so will you. By the time this issue was over, I found myself more than happy to add this title to my already-frighteningly-large pull list.

Writer : Donny Cates Artist: Geoff Shaw Colorist : Jason Wordie

Story : 7 Art : 9.5 Overall : 8 Recommendation : Buy

Review: Black #1

Posted on October 11, 2016 by Ryan C. (trashfilmguru)

I dunno — maybe I wanted to like this one a little too much.

Seriously, though, who wasn’t rooting for Black, the Kickstarter-funded indie comics project from writer/co-creator Kwanza Osajyefo, “designer”(we’ll get back to this in a minute)/co-creator Tim Smith 3 and artist Jamal Igle, which has recently found a publishing home thanks to the always-interesting Black Mask Studios?

The book is certainly topical — police brutality, BLM, poverty, and Trump-esque “fear of the other” are all front and center in this series, and that provocative-as-all-hell cover by Khary Randolph grabs you by the throat before you’ve even flipped open to page one. Yeah, I got a free digital “review” copy of this comic, but I was so determined to support it that I plunked down $3.99 for it at my LCS, regardless. Then I read the thing — cover to cover. And when I say cover to cover, I mean that I read the copyright indicia, as well. And that’s when I started to feel like I’d “been had” a bit.

Don’t get me wrong, the premise here is as cool as they come : how would the world react if super-powered humans were real — and exclusively black? I think we all know : white people would freak the fuck out and things would get pretty ugly pretty fast. For now, though, it looks like those with powers are keeping a low profile : our protagonist, Kareem, seems like a nice enough Bed-Stuy kid who gets caught up in a confrontation not of his own making with the bullies in blue that escalates pretty quickly — perhaps even unrealistically quickly, even by the sorry, trigger-happy standards set by much of contemporary American law enforcement. Still, it turns out that he’s every bit as bulletproof as Luke Cage, and when he runs from the scene, he’s saved by the timely intervention of a mysterious interloper who ushers him into the world of secret labs and “meet the others who are like you.” Apart from a couple of cringe-worthy moments that have all the subtlety of some of R. Crumb‘s racially-charged strips (waking from — or maybe it’s into, it’s kinda hard to tell — a dream featuring a grandmotherly figure singing “I’ll Fly Away,” telling a female scientist “damn — you so fine” right off the bat), Kareem is a fairly effective pair of eyes and ears for readers, but it’s more than fair to say that no one else featured in this issue really makes much of an impression one way or the other. Osajyefo’s script is an efficient, economic, style-free affair that gets you from points A to B to C with little fuss or muss, but doesn’t offer anything particularly compelling enough to make you say to yourself “dang, I’ve just gotta see where this goes.”

Much better is Igle’s black-and-white art which is, again, fairly economical and “no-frills,” but has a pleasingly “old-school” look and feel to it that is more concerned with sticking with, and successfully utilizing, sequential storytelling basics than it is offering flashy, “look at me” pyrotechnics. It’s no stretch at all, in fact, to say that Igle is the nominal “star” of this comic.

So why is he being treated like a pencil (and brush) for hire? I told you I’d read the copyright indicia on this comic, and this series is owned lock, stock, and barrel by its writer and “designer,” and while I don’t know what the work of “designing” this world entails, especially given that all the characters wear street clothes, look like ordinary folks, and live in the real world, I feel pretty comfortable saying that Igle did almost all of the heavy lifting here based, at most, on perhaps a handful of sketches Smith may have initially provided. Black is hardly unique in terms of being a “creator-owned” project where the artist gets jobbed, of course — the entire Aftershock Comics line is writer-owned and so is a depressingly large percentage of Image‘s output — but it is, significantly, the only book with a purportedly “revolutionary” political perspective to do so. My advice? Put your money where your mouth is and cut your artist in on the action, given that he’s the one who’s probably put more sheer labor hours into this thing than anyone. I prefer to see creators who want to “stick it to The Man” over those who want to “become The Man,” and that’s exactly what will happen if Black gets picked up for movies or television and Osajyefo and Smith laugh all the way to the bank while Igle is left to live off his no-doubt-meager page rate. At the risk of using perhaps the single-most inappropriate line I could possibly think of, it appears to me that the politics of this series only run skin-deep.

There’s a larger issue in play here, though, as well : racism and its various manifestations are tools used by the elite capitalist economic class to keep the rest of us “in our place.” The police, the government, and the military, among other institutions, are paid hirelings of our economic “superiors” that act as foot-soldiers in this ongoing class war. A “revolution of consciousness” or somesuch just ain’t gonna cut it if we want to get rid of racism and other forms of bigotry once and for all — it’s going to take an economic revolution, over and above anything else, and two of the three creators involved with Black either don’t understand that, or simply don’t care. Yes, of course I’d rather see any creator own a book instead of a publisher, but ideally I’d like to see all creators cut in for a stake. And Igle definitely deserves it here.

My concerns about its ownership structure aside, though, Black #1 is still, at best, a very mediocre comic. It’s got a legitimately killer premise and highly competent art, but not much else. I’m game to give it another issue or two, I suppose, but can’t really recommend it as something worth your own $3.99, dear reader. And I sincerely hope that Jamal Igle knows a good lawyer who can help him get what’s coming to him if Kwanza Osajyefo and Tim Smith 3 go on to achieve Robert Kirkman levels of success. Of course, Kirkman himself tried to screw his Walking Dead co-creators out of their share when the show hit it big, and they did have copyright ownership. But that’s another story for another time — and one that I sincerely hope isn’t repeated here.

Stor : Kwanza Osajyefo Designs: Tim Smith 3 Art: Jamal Igle
Story: 3 Art: 7 Overall: 5 Recommendation: Pass

Black Mask Studios provided Graphic Policy with a FREE copy for review

Review: Eden’s Fall #1

Posted on September 5, 2016 by Ryan C. (trashfilmguru)

Who are we kidding? Crossovers, by and large, always suck. The yearly JLA/JSA team-ups of days gone by may have been fun, but the early ’80s ushered in the era of the “mega-crossover” event with Marvel’s Secret Wars and DC’s Crisis On Infinite Earths, and while those two seminal series may have had their charms, pretty much everything that’s followed in their wake has been pure drivel. It’s well past time, in my own humble opinion, for the crossover to redeem itself.

Don’t count on it happening at the “Big Two” anytime too soon, though. Marvel’s allowing its entire line to be swallowed whole by Civil War II as we speak (mere months after doing the same with their re-tooled version of Secret Wars) and DC seems to be slowly building up to a “blockbuster” of their own that will feature their characters taking on the so-called “Watchmen Universe.” Count me as being decidedly unimpressed — and deathly uninterested — in any of that. So, if anybody’s gonna give us a crossover worth reading, it’ll have to be one of the indies.

Enter Top Cow Productions, who have a corporate “universe” of their own (published, as always, under the auspices of their partnership with Image Comics) centered around Witchblade, Cyber Force, and other franchises, but are eschewing the obvious (perhaps too obvious?) possibilities there and are instead tying together three of the ostensibly “real-world”- set series from the mind of writer Matt Hawkins — Postal, Think Tank, and The Tithe — for a mercifully brief three-part series titled Eden’s Fall that, at least if the first issue is any indication, promises to actually make good use of the characters and concepts from all three titles in order to tell a satisfying, self-contained story.

Hawkins is sharing the scripting duties on this one (which, for the record, I purchased, although an advance digital “copy” was also made available to Graphic Policy for review purposes) with frequent collaborator Bryan Edward Hill (who’s handling the writing chores on Postal solo these days — and doing a bang-up job of it), so characterization for all parties involved is as spot-on as you’d expect, and Atilio Rojo is on board to illustrate the proceedings in a no-frills, workmanlike fashion that serves the story quite well and is somewhat reminiscent of 1980s indie comics artwork (which I don’t mean as a “knock” in any way because I love that era). Toss in some competent if less-than-flashy color work from K. Michael Russell and what you have here is a book that both looks and reads quite well without being overtly stylish on any front, and I’ll take that any and every time.

Newbies to the “Hawkins-verse” needn’t worry, either — any backstory you need to know is recapped nicely on the opening “what has gone before—” page, and more detailed breakdowns of each individual series (as well as web links to sample issues of all three titles for free) are provided on the text pages at the back, so this is a very accessible “jumping-on point” for new readers.

Just what there is to jump on to, though, is something of an open question and makes me wonder what they’re hoping to gain by co-mingling these franchises in the first place. Postal — which has apparently been optioned for television by Showtime — is the only of the titles involved here that’s a going concern at the moment, with both Think Tank and The Tithe in sales-related limbo for the time being. Maybe the idea is to breathe some new life into these books and drum up enough interest to precipitate a revival of one or both of them, but a quick little three-parter seems a curious vehicle for such an endeavor. The computer “super-hacker” protagonist of Think Tank and the former FBI agents of The Tithe are both central to the proceedings here, with events in this story picking up more or less exactly where the last issue of The Tithe left off, though, so clearly they’re not playing “second-fiddle” to the Postal cast even though the story itself is set in that series’ “off the grid” haven for ex-cons of Eden, Wyoming. I guess rather than worrying about the business logistics behind this “event,” then, I might be better served to just relax and enjoy it for what it is.

Fortunately for us all, “what it is” happens to be pretty darn good. Hot on the trail of the duplicitous engineer of a series of “false flag” terrorist attacks designed to provoke a violent response against American Muslims, our aforementioned ex-G-men (and women) and their “Dark Web”-traversing buddy track him to Eden (which proves to be suspiciously easy for them to find), but other outside parties seem interested in the goings-on in the town that doesn’t exist for reasons as yet shrouded in mystery. Events move along at a nice clip, “screen time” is shared fairly equally among all parties, and a number of the more intriguing sub-plots from each of the respective series are “ported over” here in a way that won’t seem alienating to new readers. The plot construction in this issue is very solid, the mystery reasonably gripping, and the dialogue nicely expository without being overly so. Chances are pretty good, then, that even if you’re unfamiliar with any and/or all of these individual comics, you’ll find plenty to like here.

The “Hawkins-verse” has been one of the best-kept secrets in four-color funnybooks for a long time (even if we didn’t know it was an interconnected “universe” until a few months ago), and if Eden’s Fall maintains the standard of quality on display here throughout its brief run, odds are good that it’ll steer more people in the direction of Postal, at the very least (which is really hitting a nice creative stride right now) and perhaps even convince the powers-that-be that the other books deserve another arc or two, as well. That’d be a darn good thing on the whole for fans of intelligent, topical books that are relevant to — and resonant with — the world we actually live in.

Story: Bryan Edward Hill and Matt Hawkins Art: Atilio Rojo
Story: 8 Art: 7 Overall: 7.5 Recommendation: Buy

Follow-Up Review: The Dark & Bloody

Posted on July 16, 2016 by Ryan C. (trashfilmguru)

A fair number of critics that I know of choose not to follow comics creators on twitter simply because they don’t want their impression of any given writer, artist, etc. beyond the printed page to influence their opinion of said person’s work, and I can sort of see the wisdom in that — after all, if you’re obviously “twitter pals” with a certain creator, and then you write a glowing review of their latest project, you’re going to be subjected, rightly or wrongly, to speculation that you’re just doing your friend a favor by telling folks to buy their book.

And then there’s the simple fact that a fair number of creators just don’t seem to like us critics very much. Don’t get me wrong — they absolutely love us when we have good things to say about their comics, but there’s a small but vocal number of freelancers out there who really don’t take well to having their work criticized for any reason. Obviously the recent death threats directed at Captain America scribe Nick Spencer are well beyond the bounds of civilized — or even rational — discourse, but then, Spencer’s habit of actively “trolling” for negative reviews of his work and then picking said reviews to pieces on social media is incredibly thin-skinned and lame, as well.

I’d like to think, though, that the average mature, adult critic can separate the creator from his or her creation (for instance, my impression of the aforementioned Mr. Spencer as a petulant crybaby and a shill for the pro-Wall Street, anti-labor “neoliberal” wing of the Democratic Party doesn’t mean I can’t think that The Fix is an absolutely brilliant book) and that the average mature, adult creator can withstand some constructive criticism about their work. Most of the time, at any rate.

All of which brings me to Shawn Aldridge, who is as good a “textbook example” as I can provide of why, unlike some of my peers in the “review game,” I actually do continue to follow comics freelancers on twitter. When I wrote something of a middling review for the first issue of his Vertigo series The Dark & Bloody some months back, Aldridge took it in stride and tweeted me something to the effect of “hey, sorry you weren’t so crazy about the book, but if you stick it out, trust me, things get better.” We back-and-forthed a bit from there, with him telling me that the “slow burn” pacing of the first issue was quite deliberate and that he and artist extraordinaire Scott Godlweski were playing something of a “long game” with the six issues they’d been given to tell their tale, and frankly, I think that’s pretty gutsy in today’s comics marketplace, where the hyper-inflated sales of first issues have created something of a “gotta grab ’em by the throat right away while we’ve still got their attention” storytelling methodology that reeks of desperation and undercuts any chance for a methodical and well-paced build-up of events almost from the word “go.” Sufficiently impressed by the earnestness of the writer’s intentions, I made Mr. Aldridge a deal — I’d stick with his book until the end, and if I grew to like it more as it went on, I’d let folks know.

Little did I suspect, however, just how much better The Dark & Bloody was going to get.

We knew from the outset, of course, that something nasty went down with our protagonist, Iris Gentry, when he was stationed in Iraq, but there was no reason to suspect that the horrors of war had followed him home in quite as literal a way as they did, nor did we have any initial cause to link any of this with his son’s new friend — or the spate of deaths that began to swirl around their lives at the same time she entered the picture — but it all comes together both simply and masterfully as issues two through six play out, and while there’s no “reinventing the wheel”-type stuff going on here, the long tradition of horror as morality play has seldom been in hands as capable as these in its comic book iteration.

I remarked in my first review how Godlewski’s art may be even more polished and expressive here than in his sublime Image series Copperhead, but by the time things come to a shattering crescendo in issue six, there’s just no doubt — this is the best work of his career, and he’s proven that there’s no genre he can’t delineate with genuine finesse. Ably assisted by Patricia Mulvihill‘s multi-dimensional color palette, what’s been created here is one of the best-looking books of the year.

Still, it’s the story, its characters, their world, and the tragedy underpinning it all that really grew on me as events progressed in this largely-under-the-radar title, and I’m actually sort of sad that we’ve got to leave it all behind. Not that I’m clamoring for a sequel or anything, mind you — this is a hermetically-sealed, self-contained narrative that, now that it’s concluded, is better off left alone. Sure, we get an entirely-appropriate “uh-oh — is it really all over or not?” final page, but again, that’s just in keeping with the best horror traditions, and while a return visit to the Gentry household might yield another interesting story at some point in the future, it’s in no way necessary — which isn’t to say that this comic didn’t leave me wanting more; it surely did, but that simply means that I’m itching to see where its creators go from here, now that their unassuming genre masterpiece has run its course.

Hopefully, the long-delayed return of Copperhead will be the next item on Godlewski’s docket, and I’m also optimistic that this series will open some doors for Aldridge with either “The Big Two,” should he wish it, or any of the indie publishers out there. I can think of any number of pre-existing corporate properties that would benefit from his “human-scale horror” approach, but if he’s got more original characters and concepts he’d rather explore, then I’d certainly encourage him to go down that path, given that creator ownership is always a better deal in the long run. Whatever the case may be, I’ll be following the work of both of these gentlemen — whether together or separate — as I know that they’re both more than capable of taking readers down some very interesting roads.

And if you like your roads bumpy, uncomfortable, and terrifying, then I highly recommend that you pick up The Dark & Bloody when it’s inevitably released in trade in the not-too-distant future. It’s everything you could possibly want in a “one and done” horror narrative and announces the arrival of some major new talents that, if given an opportunity to flourish in the industry, surely have many more memorable tales to tell.

Story: Shawn Aldridge Artist: Scott Godlewski
Story: 8 Art: 8.5 Overall: 8.25 Recommendation: Buy

Review: Throwaways #1

Posted on July 9, 2016 by Ryan C. (trashfilmguru)

I was a big fan of the late, lamented Vertigo series Coffin Hill, so when I heard that its talented scribe, Caitlin Kittredge, would be plying her trade over at Image Comics in a new ongoing (whatever that phrase even means anymore) series that was going to be well outside her usual supernatural/horror wheelhouse, I was both intrigued and excited. The artist attached to the project, Steven Sanders, was a new name to me, but the subject matter sounded right up my alley — two twenty-somethings thrust into a web of mystery well beyond their understanding but presumably tied in with the CIA’s notorious MK-ULTRA program.

At this point, I suppose, a little bit of explanation is in order for those for whom this term is unfamiliar — in short, MK-ULTRA is real-life mind control, funded by your tax dollars. “The Company” assures us that it’s long since given up on controlling the “space between our ears” (I guess they have television and the internet for that now), but even assuming you take them at their word — which I wouldn’t —the revelations about the program that came to light during the Church Committee hearings in the late 70s were enough to make anyone aghast : sensory deprivation, force-feeding of hallucinogenic drugs, psychosurgery, neural implants — no doubt about it, in their quest to create flesh-and-blood “Manchurian Candidates,” our intelligence “community” resorted to some truly despicable shit.

Flash ahead to 2016 and homeless San Francisco “crust punk” Dean Logan and PTSD-stricken Afghanistan vet Abby Palmer are pinned behind a car by constant gunfire. Who’s after them, why, and how they got to be in this deadly pickle are questions that Kittredge and Sanders begin answering in due course, but first Dean breaks out some honest-to-Christ super-powers to deal with things in immediate fashion. And so begins Throwaways #1.

Most of the dialogue in this issue has a reasonable air of authenticity to it, and Sanders (who not only handles the pencils and inks, but the colors, as well) has a very appealingly gritty “street-level” art style helped in no small part by some creative and dynamic panel layouts, but the sad truth is that the first few pages of this comic are the best, and it’s sort of all downhill from there. Kittredge borrows the cinematic trope of alternating scenes that take place right now with those from the (very, it seems) recent past, and honestly, even though that’s been done to death, it can still be effective — it just isn’t here. There’s one nice “holy shit!” moment involving Abby’s former CO at a vets group meeting, but apart from that and some potentially interesting dynamics on display vis a vis Dean’s relationship with his obviously-long-suffering girlfriend, this comic just gets duller and duller as it goes along until things wrap with a seriously lackluster cliffhanger.

I feel kinda bad, truth be told, for not liking this book more simply because it has such strong visual appeal (Rachel Deering’s DIY-influenced lettering is also worthy of note in that regard), but even at a bargain by today’s standards price of $2.99 (and yes, before you even have to ask, I purchased my copy), Throwaways feels like a bit of a — stifle your groan here — “throwaway” read. The premise itself has enough going for it to take things in any number of interesting directions, no question about that, but Kittredge doesn’t follow any of her own material’s juicy leads, and instead has crafted an MK-ULTRA- themed comic that even a dyed-in-the-wool “conspiracy junkie” like me can’t help but find boring. I honestly never thought I’d see the day.

All that being said, I’m not quite ready to jump ship yet. I have enough long-standing confidence in the writer and newly-discovered confidence in the artist to give this series another issue or two (although to be honest, if it was a $3.99 book I’d probably cut tail and run right now), and if Maiko Kuzunishi’s covers continue the “simple but effective” aesthetic on display this time out, that’ll be another plus. So, yeah, Kittredge and Sanders are being thrown a rope from this reader/critic — but it’s a pretty short one. I hope they’ll both use it to pull themselves safely up on deck rather than hanging themselves with it.

Story: Caitlin Kittredge Art: Steven Sanders
Story: 3 Art: 7 Overall: 4.5 Recommendation: Pass – even though I just said I’m sticking with it for a bit

DC Rebirth Roundup: Week One

Posted on June 2, 2016 by Ryan C. (trashfilmguru)

Right off the bat, I have to say — this is a little more like it. As someone who can in no way, shape, or form be accused of being a “fan” of last week’s DC Universe: Rebirth 80-page introductory salvo, I’m more than pleased to see the continuity-drenched, backstory-heavy, and new-reader-alienating premise of that truly atrocious comic ditched (more or less) in favor of the simpler, scaled-back, one-shot stories that constitute the first wave of Rebirth specials. The approach on display here is, frankly, the one DC should have taken all along, in my view — and basically it’s one of “the characters you love have been here all along, we just haven’t been doing them proper justice. From now on, we will.”

Which isn’t to say that the four Rebirth comics we got this week were necessarily all that good — truth be told, most of them were thoroughly forgettable and a couple of them didn’t even rise to the level of mediocrity. But seriously, folks, this is all that was needed. All that shit about ten stolen years and Flashpoint essentially being one giant hoax and the implication that the characters from Watchmen are now going to be brought into the DCU “proper”? I’m just gonna pretend like all that didn’t happen unless and until I’m forced to acknowledge otherwise. At which point I’ll probably find myself seriously trimming my pull list. For now, though, DC seems quite content with ignoring all of that, as well, in favor of re-setting the table on all their books and just getting back to basics. I respectfully contend that it’s that very “back to basics” mindset that was all this entire Rebirth enterprise ever needed to be about.

But enough about the big picture. What of the individual books themselves? Let’s take a somewhat closer look at each :

Superman : Rebirth #1

Co-writers (actually, the credits list them as “storytellers”) Peter J. Tomasi and Patrick Gleason serve up a “let’s-bring-you-up-to-speed” yarn that not only feels the need to recap events from the “New 52” Universe, but from its predecessor, as well — which makes sense, I suppose, given that it’s the “old-school Superman” of earlier vintage that we’re going to be following from here on out. Most of the issue is an extended conversation between said Superman and “New 52”-era Lana Lang, who meet each other when they’re both out — doing a bit of grave-robbing? Yes, you read that correctly, and it sets the tone for what’s an awkward, stilted, highly disjointed story. Suffice to say, the Superman we’ve all been following for the past five years appears to be well and truly dead — and his Super-antecedent is finally convinced of that fact over the space of about two panels after denying it for the first 18 pages. Pretty lame stuff, really, but this comic had the most to do in terms of “housekeeping,” so let’s hope things get better from here on out. Penciller Doug Mahnke and inker Jaime Mendoza deliver flat, generic, thoroughly-uninspired “corporate comics” art that does nothing so much as provide the strongest possible “visual echo” of the question a lot of us have been asking, namely : “How can ‘The New 52’ really be over with if all the same people are still working on the books?”

Overall Score: 2 Recommendation: Pass

Batman: Rebirth #1

On the other side of the coin, Batman was probably in better shape coming into this thing than any other character in the DCU. Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo‘s run was loved by fans, critics, and retailers all for the same essential reason : it was good, and good stuff sells. Still, it’s “out with the old, in with the new” time, so Snyder helps to usher in new writer Tom King by purportedly “co-writing” a book with him that, to be honest, feels almost nothing like a Scott Snyder comic. Which isn’t meant as a “knock” on this issue at all, given that King finds his “voice” with Bruce Wayne and Batman immediately, and introduces us to a chilling new iteration of the Calendar Man that propels that formerly-lame villain up a good few notches in my estimation — all while dropping some intriguing hints as to an entirely new role for former We Are Robin star Duke Thomas, as well. Much like his colleague behind the word processor, incoming artist Mikel Janin is allowed to delineate the proceedings in his own style right from the word “go” with little to no visual referencing of his celebrated predecessor on offer, and the results are pretty damn spectacular. DC “brass” seems to have the right idea with the Batman title — hire the best possible creators for the job, and then get the hell out of their way and let them tell stories. Too bad that philosophy hasn’t been adopted across their entire line.

Overall Score: 8 Recommendation: Buy

Green Arrow: Rebirth #1

Like most, I was pretty “iffy” on the idea of Benjamin Percy continuing on as writer of this book given that he seems to have done his level best to drive it into the ditch during the “New 52” era, but this issue at least proves that he understands the basics of Ollie Queen’s character and, needless to say, finally getting him together with Dinah Lance a.k.a. Black Canary should make pretty much everyone happy. The two of them bust up an underground human trafficking ring in fairly short order here and maybe make the acquaintance of some new recurring villains, as well. Hardly a memorable story, but a reasonably effective one with sleek, angular, individualistic art from Otto Schmidt that looks pretty darn nice.

Overall Score: 6.5 Recommendation: Read

Green Lanterns: Rebirth #1

Can you say “Same shit, different Lanterns?” Sure you can, and so can Geoff Johns, who takes one more swing at these characters by co-writing this book along with new scribe Sam Humphries. Simon Baz was introduced as a new GL some time back and subsequently forgotten about, while Jessica Cruz was introduced as Power Ring and subsequently focused on to the point of becoming annoying. Now they’re in charge of patrolling our “sector” of space and in between all the recapping and cheap, shorthand “character development,” we’re treated to some supposed “mystery” about the Guardians themselves that fails to elicit much interest right from the outset. There’s a fight with a Manhunter, too. Whatever. Co-artists Ethan Van Sciver and Ed Benes are virtually indistinguishable from each other stylistically, so don’t ask me which one of them drew which pages here. Essentially a “New 52” comic in all but name.

Overall Score: 3.5 Recommendation: Pass

So, there you have it. Not sure if I’ll keep this up over the course of the next few weeks here or not given that a lot of these books (which, incidentally, I paid for with my own money — no “freebies” involved) were thoroughly uninspired in terms of their execution, but at least DC editorial seems to have a grasp on how to put together an accessible-enough “jumping-on point.” It’s just too bad they didn’t roll these out before last week’s “crossover event”-style book that required a couple decades’ worth of prior knowledge to even begin to decipher.

Reviews

Review : DC Universe : Rebirth #1 (Warning! Spoilers Ahead!)

Posted on May 24, 2016 by Ryan C. (trashfilmguru)

This wasn’t supposed to happen, was it?

Less than five years ago, when DC re-launched their entire line with their obviously-hastily-assembled “New 52” initiative, we were promised that “this was the big one,” that the changes it introduced were “permanent,” and that the then-new version of the corporate universe it presented was “here to stay.” At first, of course, sales were strong, but it didn’t take long for one thing to become very clear : people just weren’t crazy about this purportedly “darker,” more “mature,” and more “realistic” world their favorite characters were inhabiting. DC’s “brain” trust tried some tinkering around the edges here and there, and even went the “soft relaunch” route just last summer when they re-branded everything “DC You” and tried to impose a “lighter” tone on just about everything by means of editorial edict, but the writing was on the wall — as sales on pretty much every title apart from Batman continued to tail off, everybody knew the days of the “New 52 Universe” were numbered, and that we’d be starting all over from scratch with brand new first issues sooner rather than later.

Well, that “sooner” day has arrived with the release of DC Universe : Rebirth #1, an 80-page special (priced at only $2.99) written by Geoff Johns and illustrated by Gary Frank, Ethan Van Sciver, Ivan Reis, and Phil Jimenez (with an equally-large committee of inkers and colorists in tow) that, depending on your outlook, either manages to right the flagging ship that is the DCU or simply rearranges the deck chairs on the Titanic. Unfortunately, from this critic’s point of view, the latter seems much more likely to be the case.

Even though my headline already screams it out fairly boldly, this is the point at which my conscience compels me to reiterate one more time that there are, in fact, SPOILERS AHEAD, so if you haven’t read the book yet and don’t want a few key developments given away (I’ll be concentrating more heavily on thematic “spoilers” than on specific plot points, but still —), go no further. Are we all absolutely clear on that? Okay, good.

Let’s be brutally honest about something, then, shall we? If you want a writer who feels that addressing the obvious and superficial, surface-level deficiencies in any given character or group of characters is tantamount to fixing their “problems,” Geoff Johns is your guy. He did it with previous “Rebirth” efforts more narrowly focused on the Green Lantern Corps and the Flash, and this time he’s been tasked with doing the same for — well, everybody (never mind that he penned the Flashpoint mini-series that set this whole “New 52” mess rolling). In fact, the “suits” at Warner Brothers are so confident in his ability to get to the so-called “essence” of their four-color properties that he’s been elevated to co-head honcho (along with Jon Berg) of the so-called “DCEU” movie line, ostensibly to do some sort of “course correction” on that nascent enterprise since the roughly $900 million Zack Snyder’s Batman V Superman : Dawn Of Justice took in at the worldwide box office is absurdly considered to be a “disappointment.” On the plus side, that means that Snyder’s probably on the way out over there. On the minus side, it means that Johns is in.

But let’s concentrate on the “plus” side of the ledger again for a moment, shall we? Because there’s one other huge plus to Johns’ elevation — it means that DC Universe : Rebirth will probably be the last comic book he writes in a good, long while, and that’s very welcome news indeed because, given the evidence on display here, the guy is absolutely out of new ideas.

For all its readily-apparent faults, the “New 52” at least was a forward-thinking enterprise. It had as its primary goal bringing new readers into the fold, simplifying and streamlinig DCU continuity, and telling accessible stories. It failed at all of those things, by and large, to be sure — but at their core, those are all good ideas. Rebirth, by contrast, takes the opposite tack : its primary objective is to bring back all the old readers that have been lost over the past few years and to “re-set” the characters and their timeline back to the way things were, albeit with a few wrinkles thrown in to keep folks guessing. There’s just one major flaw in this “thinking”: where they were was such a convoluted mess that it necessitated the previous re-launch in the first place.

Still, if nostalgia is your bag, DC Universe : Rebirth #1 has it in spades. Nightwing is back in blue. Wally West is a redhead (and, crucially for a depressingly large number of people, a white dude) again. Aquaman and Mera are back together. Green Arrow and Black Canary are back together. If that’s enough to convince you that DC is back on the right track, then sit back and enjoy the ride — you’re gonna love Rebirth.

Still, if that’s not enough for you, don’t worry, there’s more : That “New 52” version of Superman that nobody ever really liked? He’s apparently dead. Pandora, the character purportedly responsible (at least on some level) for the “creation” of the “New 52 Universe”? She dies, as well — rather brutally, it must be said — in a scene clearly heavy with “metafictional” elements designed by Johns to absolve himself of any guilt over what happened as a result of Flashpoint. Heck, he even lets the Barry Allen Flash off the hook — and, by extension, wipes his own conscience completely clean — by revealing that the whole paradoxical mess he unleashed was, unbeknownst to him (and, by extension, us), the work of some “unseen hand” (as seen on the cover of this issue) who literally stole ten years from the DCU and meddled in the affairs of its heroes in order to “weaken” them and make their world easy pickings for some “outside force.” And it’s that “unseen hand” and “outside force” that proves what a creatively bankrupt enterprise this whole thing is.

At this point we’re firmly into “let’s not kid ourselves” territory, so let’s not : the reason the “New 52” failed comes down to one simple factor, my friends — overly-tight, unbending, pig-headed editorial control. The artwork on most of the books displayed a depressing uniformity of style clearly informed by mid-90s WildStorm comics (thank you, Jim Lee). The various storylines in many of the titles were obviously coming not from the creators, but from their bosses. Many of the lead characters — and almost all of the side characters — were flat-out interchangeable in terms of tone and dialogue. And the “assembly-line” approach taken on the books was such a painfully obvious exercise in micro-management that one could even flip through the pages of any given DC title and count on a fight breaking out every four pages, tensions between characters bubbling to the surface every 12 pages, a villain making a “surprise” appearance every 16 pages — you get the idea. It was some serious “by-the-numbers” stuff, quite literally.

Sure, the overall tone of the books was “darker” and “more somber” — and yes, our heroes are finally fucking smiling again in Rebirth. But guess what? They have no real reason to be, because all the powers-that-be that have been screwing up their stories for at least a decade, if not longer — Dan Didio, Eddie Berganza, Bob Harras, the aforementioned Jim Lee, and others (you know, DC’s real “Rogues’ Gallery”) — they’re all still there. And with most of the titles post-Rebirth now being slated to ship twice a month and the vast majority of them taking the same “art-by-committee” approach seen in this 80-page special, do you really think the level of direction and influence the editorial ranks has over DC’s product (and “product” is exactly what it is at this point) is going to lessen? Be serious.

Still, Johns is clearly in the midst of one bloated, confused non-apology here, and while he and his bosses have been saying all the right things in public about having “lost our way” and “failed to honor our legacy” and what have you, the underlying message of Rebirth is as painfully clear as it is preposterous — none of this is our fault. Fortunately, he does offer up a couple of scapegoats for the truly dim-witted to focus their ire on : Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons.

It’s standard fan-boy “logic” these days, of course, to blame Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns for setting DC on a “darker” path. Never mind for an instant that neither of those books are anywhere near as “dark” as they’re touted as being, or that they brought DC a level of relevance they haven’t enjoyed before or since, or that the company is still milking both of ’em for all they’re worth and then some. They “set the tone.” They “steered DC onto the wrong path.” They “took all the joy and wonder out of superhero adventures” by deconstructing them in plain sight a little too successfully.

Which is all complete and utter bullshit, of course. Yes, those seminal series were more “mature” and “somber” than what had come before, but that was only a very small part of why they were — and remain — such successful and revolutionary comics. They each had wicked senses of humor, were plainly relevant to real-world issues and concerns, and most importantly, addressed the human condition in a meaningful and substantive way , utilizing the much-maligned superhero genre as their means for doing so. But the geniuses in editorial and (perhaps even more significantly) accounting — both at the time and since — never understood that. The message they took from the runaway critical and commercial success of the two titles that could (and by all rights should) have transformed the industry was that readers wanted “more dark comics” rather than “more good comics.” Is it any wonder the heights those books achieved have never been equaled at DC since?

“So,” you rightly ask ” what the fuck has all this got to do with Rebirth“? Quite a bit, actually — the “New 52,” you see, was all Dr. Manhattan’s fault! There have been a lot of rumors flying around about Big, Blue, and Naked being “revealed” as “the creator” or even “the God,” of the DC Universe, but while Johns and his largely-competent-if-hopelessly-dull team of artists never go so far as to make that explicitly clear, he is, in fact, shown to be that “unseen hand” I was blathering on about a few paragraphs (shit, it feels like a lifetime) back, and the existential conflict that’s being set up to propel this storyline forward into and through the newly-renumbered (except for Action Comics and Detective Comics, which are reverting to their “classic” numbering) slew of comics making their way onto shelves starting next week is one of the “classic, more hopeful” DCU vs. the “grim and gritty” universe of the Watchmen.

This just sucks on so many levels. For one thing, Before Watchmen was bad enough, but even if you’re one of the legions of suckers who has fallen victim to the years-long propaganda campaign perpetrated by DC and its compliant shills in the comics “press” to falsely portray Moore as some bitter, crazy old man, pissing on he and Gibbons’ creative legacy like this is just plain mean-spirited and gratuitous. The image we’re “treated to” in this comic of Batman holding up the Comedian’s iconic, blood-stained “smiley-face” button is both depressing for the clear “hey! We still don’t get it!” signal it sends, and infuriating for the insult it adds to previously-administered injuries. “Piling on” will get you a 15-yard penalty in a football game — in today’s comics world, it will probably earn Geoff Johns unmitigated praise for “having the guts to go where no one else would before.” And people wonder why I despair sometimes.

Still, for all the bitter taste DC Universe : Rebirth left in my mouth, there were a couple of things that even I have to admit to liking about it : it was beyond nice to see Ted Kord back as the Blue Beetle. Having Dick Grayson ditch the spy game and return to super-heroing full-time is a good move. The JSA returning in its “classic” iteration is a no-brainer. And while the whole thing plays out as more a slap-dash series of “Cliff’s Notes”-style vignettes assembled for the purposes of both getting us up to speed on what we’ve been missing while we’ve been shelling out three and four bucks per issue every month for comics that take place in a universe that doesn’t even “count” anymore and to “tease” where things might be headed in subsequent months than it does an actual, cohesive narrative, some of Johns’ rapid-fire “let’s check in over here for a minute” stuff does, in fact, work.

But not nearly enough of it by any stretch of the imagination. And while a number of the creative teams on the forthcoming Rebirth titles seem reasonably promising on paper (Peter Tomasi , Patrick Gleason and Doug Mahnke on Superman; Greg Rucka, Liam Sharp, and Nicola Scott on Wonder Woman; Tom King, David Finch, and Mikel Janin on Batman; Christopher Priest and Carlo Pagulayan on Deathstroke), until I see some kind of proof that DC is loosening up their editorial control and actually allowing their creators to tell good stories, I remain beyond skeptical. If you’ve been waiting for years to see who wins a fight between Superman and Dr. Manhattan, or what happens when Blue Beetle and Night Owl team up to cleanse the streets of Hub City of evildoers, congratulations — odds are that you’re about to get your wish. For the rest of us, though, the downright pathological lack of originality on display in DC Universe : Rebirth #1 offers evidence of nothing other than the fact that five years (or less) from now, they’ll be doing the whole thing over yet again.

Story: Geoff Johns Art: Gary Frank, Ethan Van Sciver, Ivan Reis, and Phil Jimenez
Story: 2 Art: 5 Overall: 3.5 Recommendation: Pass. Please.

DC Comics provided Graphic Policy with a FREE copy for review

Review: Wonder Woman: Earth One

Posted on May 8, 2016 by Ryan C. (trashfilmguru)

So, here it is — several years (necessitated by several twists and turns in the development stages) after it was initially announced, Grant Morrison and Yanick Paquette‘s Wonder Woman: Earth One hardcover graphic novel is finally in our hands (or mine, at any rate — and maybe yours, too, but frankly I have no idea about that), and I guess the question on everyone’s minds is a pretty simple one : was it worth the wait?

Having just read the book yesterday you’d think I’d be able to provide a definitive answer to that, but the truth is I can’t (hey! What sort of a critic am I, anyway?) simply because, well — I’m not entirely sure how I feel about it yet, apart from harboring a vague sense that it marks something of a wasted opportunity .

Uncertainty isn’t an entirely atypical reaction for any Morrison-scripted work, to be sure, but usually for reasons other than those I’m about to offer here. With previous projects like The Invisibles, The Filth, The Multiversity and Animal Man (to name just a handful), it often took several reads to get a solid “handle” on the full breadth and scope of everything our favorite shaven-headed Scotsman was throwing at us from the admittedly deep well of his imagination, but what’s perhaps most disarming about this particular book is how absolutely straightforward it all is.

Really. Everything’s right there on the surface. Which isn’t to say that many well-nigh-legendary Morrison works such as All-Star Superman, WE3, or his runs on Batman and Action Comics haven’t essentially been fairly easy to get a full grasp on the first time you read them, either, but they all at least betrayed some level of ambition in terms of either telling a very traditional type of story in a new way, or getting us to look at familiar characters from a hitherto-unconsidered point of view. By contrast, Wonder Woman : Earth One seems perfectly pleased to simply tell an adequate story that tinkers with the Princess of the Amazons’ formative years around the margins a bit, and to leave it at that.

Of course, the entire enterprise may have seemed considerably more ambitious back when Morrison’s proposal was first accepted (at the expense of an earlier one from Greg Rucka that had been “green-lit” by DC editorial, helping to precipitate Rucka’s departure from the company — except now he’s back, and writing Diana again, so I guess it’s all good), but honestly — Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chiang already did the whole “she’s not really made of clay!” thing that serves as this graphic novel’s purportedly “major” departure from what has gone before, and they also pretty much hinted that the warrior-women of Paradise Island were all — well, exactly what you’d expect them to be in a society without men, the only difference here being that Morrison comes right out (no pun intended) and says it.

Oh, and the Steve Trevor of Earth One is black, if that counts as a “change” for you.

Other than that, shit — I’m not sure what to tell you. Morrison and Paquette don’t give Diana the same father that Azzarello and Chiang did (although, hey, it’s close enough), and certainly there are a few laughs to be had here as the script openly pokes fun at the S&M fetishism inherent not just in Wonder Woman’s costume but her entire backstory and gives her a plus-sized sorority sister as a “comic relief” sidekick, but on the whole it’s a fairly breezy and insubstantial read and doesn’t seem any more ambitious than the previous books in the Earth One series, which all seem quite content to give their characters’ origins a few cosmetic changes and call it a day. Maybe that’s all their editorial remit really allows for, anyway, but when the promotional blurbs for this one come complete with a quote from the author himself saying that working on it “changed everything I’m thinking about the future,” well — I can be forgiven for expecting something a bit more Earth (One)-shaking, can’t I?

Certainly Paquette’s art here is gorgeous throughout and his lush, organic style — coupled with the vibrant tones of colorist Nathan Fairbairn — gives the book a sleek, elegant, and graceful look that goes well with the quasi-lyrical, almost free-flowing nature of the script. And I enjoyed the classically-tinged dialogue that Morrison employs throughout. But I can’t help feeling that, on a purely conceptual level, a lot was left “on the table” here, as the saying goes. Wonder Woman is a character rife with deliciously intriguing contradictions (a feminist icon consistently portrayed from a “male gaze” perspective is bound to be, I suppose) and rich in philosophical and thematic possibilities — yet most of that is barely even hinted at here, much less actually explored. I suppose the inevitable sequels will do some of that, but at $22.99 (okay, I only paid about half that, but still) per volume, the next one’s going to have to get busy doing just that real quick.

Story: Grant Morrison Artist: Yanick Paquette Colorist: Nathan Fairbairn
Story: 4 Art: 8 Overall: 6 Recommendation: Read

Review: Black Panther #1

Posted on April 9, 2016 by Ryan C. (trashfilmguru)

I was excited. You were excited. Heck, we were all excited when we learned that Marvel Comics had landed one of America’s leading public intellectuals, the esteemed (and rightly so) Ta-Nehisi Coates, to write a new 12-part Black Panther series. And we were doubly excited when we found out that the legendary Brian Stelfreeze was going to draw it. Finally! After too long — way too long, in fact — King T’Challa and his fictitious nation of Wakanda were going to be portrayed with something akin to authenticity. If anyone “gets” this character, it’s gotta be Coates, right? And if anyone out there was born to draw him, it’s Stelfreeze. What could possibly go wrong?

As it turns out, the answer to that question — and I say this with a deep and profound sense of regret — is “a lot.”

Neither Coates nor Stelfeeze is responsible for Marvel’s exorbitant (particularly when it comes to first issues) cover prices these days, but the first “red flag” that this entire enterprise was going to be tethered to a pretty short leash by many readers is the $4.99 (which I paid, no “freebie” digital review “copy” here) price tag attached to a book that contains only 22 pages of story and art and eight pages of pure “filler” backmatter that repeats information one can find for free on any number of comics-related websites. From that point on, Black Panther was moved from the “this’ll probably be pretty good” category to the “this better be damn good” category. Sure, future installments will “only” be $3.99 (with an attendant reduction in editorial content), but when you add it all up, that means that this run will cost a whopping fifty eight bucks (assuming they don’t cook up a way to get an extra dollar or two for the final issue, which they probably will) to purchase in monthly “singles,” and for that we deserve some genuine substance — which, in fairness, may be coming, but is only vaguely hinted at in this breezy, lightweight, frankly inconsequential debut installment.

Am I pissed that I just shelled out five bucks for a comic that can be read in under ten minutes? You bet I am, but mainly I’m pissed because those ten minutes were nowhere near as captivating, interesting, and thought-provoking as I went in assuming they would be. To date, the best “take” on T’Challa and his high-tech “hidden” kingdom was presented in Jack Kirby’s late-’70s Black Panther series, and it’s no exaggeration to say that any random page in that far-too-short run was teeming with more ideas and imagination than we get from this entire issue. And while it’s admittedly inherently unfair to judge anyone’s work against Kirby’s, I’d settle for a new series that’s even marginally as good as what Jack gave us all those years ago, and so far this one just isn’t.

To Marvel’s credit (a phrase you don’t hear me say very often), they’ve been doing a good job of promoting this series to the “non-comics-reading” crowd, hoping that the imprimatur that’s imbued upon any new project with Coates’ name attached to it will generate some “buzz” among intellectuals, wannabe-intellectuals, academics, politically astute folks, and even just people who appreciate good writing. I’m not sure how successful that de facto “outreach” effort has been, but I’ll guarantee you this much : almost anyone setting foot in a comic shop for the first time to grab this issue won’t be back for the second. If you think the box office drop-off for Batman V. Superman between week one and week two was severe, wait until you see the dip in sales between the first and second Black Panther “floppies.”

What makes me so sure of this? For one thing, this issue is decidedly — and surprisingly — unfriendly territory for those not already steeped in detailed Marvel Universe lore. Sure, there’s a brief recap page at the start, but we don’t even see how T’Challa ends up in the weakened, semi-defeated state we find him in on page one, and from that point on the story is buried under layers of Wakandan internal politics of very recent vintage that the slap-dashed intro only vaguely alludes to. In other words, if you haven’t been following this character really closely for a really long time including really recently, you’re gonna be lost. And rather than clarify any of this mess, subsequent events in the story only muddy the waters as we find ourselves introduced to a revolutionary (or, hey, terrorist, depending on how you look at things) force from outside T’Challa’s kingdom called The People, who seem to be seeking to — heaven forbid — democratize access to, and the economic windfall that comes from, the rare mineral Vibranium that is the source of Wakanda’s wealth. It’s pretty hard not to sympathize with their plight, but in all honesty it’s even harder to come to grips with it given that Coates explains next to nothing about The People and has their quasi-“leader” speak more in wooden and sterile pronouncements than in anything resembling actual, ya know, dialogue. It all makes for a frustratingly opaque set-up that doesn’t even go so far as to make you want to find out what you don’t yet know, which is the primary responsibility of any self-respecting first issue, and seems to take nearly-great pains to avoid being too overtly political. If you’d told me before I read this issue that Coates’ take on Black Panther was going to be less politicized than Reginald Hudlin’s was in the early 2000s, I’d have laughed — but you’d have been right.

Still, maybe things are better in the parts of the story directly related to T’Challa himself, right? Wrong. Coates actually spends more time fleshing out the character of his step-mother than he does on letting us get to know what makes his actual protagonist tick, and the brief portions of the issue that are devoted to the Panther himself see us “treated” to a dull and repetitious internal monologue of the bog-standard “dark and brooding” variety that read like a lazier version of any given Scott Snyder issue of Batman, albeit with a monarchical (is that even a word?) twist. “Heavy is the head that wears the crown,” huh? I think I’ve only heard that in about a thousand other places before.

Anyway, as we make our way to the end of this opening chapter, we find that T’Challa’s recent loss of his sister is — stop me if you’ve got this one figured out already — weighing on his mind quite a bit, and that maybe he’s trying to do something about that, but it looks like whatever cockamamie plan he’s got to bring her back from dead (or something) is only coming up empty, so, hey, cue more doom and gloom. And cue my own “jumping-off point,” while you’re at it.

Fortunately for us all, Stelfreeze’s art redeems these lifeless and ill-thought-through proceedings to some degree — his style here is somewhat more angular, abstract, and undefined than we’re used to from him, but it certainly establishes a unique and effective visual language for the book, along with the well-chosen colors of Laura Martin, that can best be described as “sleek with some rough edges.” True, it looks a lot less “polished” than most of his previous efforts, but I think that’s a conscious choice on his part and is hardly indicative of a “rush job” or anything. The pictures are forced to do a lot of the heavy lifting when the script is this tepid, of course, but hey, it’s Marvel — the artist has been doing the lion’s (or panther’s) share of the storytelling work from day one at the self-branded “House of Ideas.”

Okay, I admit — it’s not going to do much for my reputation as a curmudgeon to trash this book as thoroughly as I have, so I’ll try to end things on a positive note : while I won’t be dropping any more cash on single issues of Black Panther, I hardly think that it’s beyond redemption simply because I do have a tremendous amount of faith in Coates’ ability to learn from the doing. Not all great writers are necessarily great comics writers, of course, but anybody as intelligent, and as attuned to the overall cultural and socio-political zeitgeist, as he is certainly has all the tools necessary to figure this thing out as he goes along. If I hear reports to the effect that he’s managing to do just that, then I could still be persuaded — and quite easily — to pick this up in trade when all is said and done. And if things don’t improve, well, who knows? Maybe Marvel can get Cornel West to helm T’Challa’s next revival. Now that I’d definitely ride out all the way through no matter what.

Story: Ta-Nehisi Coates Artist: Brian Stelfreeze Colorist: Laura Martin
Story: 3 Art: 7 Overall: 5 Recommendation: Pass

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