posted
Sarky, as creator of this thread, I had more in mind reviewing the books as opposed to summarizing them. If you recount the story point-by-point, then anyone reading the post will already know everything there is to know about the story and won't have any reason to check it out themselves. Think about concentrating on your reactions to the story and art and giving enough of the plot to whet someone's appetite (or enough to show that it's worth avoiding).
Not trying to dictate how posts here should be formatted but offering my perspective. If I had an unread Sandman trade, for example, I'd actually be pretty upset to see the story spoiled beat-by-beat.
-------------------- "Suck it, depressos!"--M. Lash
From: The Underbelly of Society | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
I dug through the back issue bins and picked up Black Terror #1 because Outdoor Miner has been collecting it and he's led me in the direction of several great comics lately. It's by Dynamite Entertainment and spins out of the Project Superpowers event/storyline they have going featuring the usage of several Golden Age characters now in the public domain from companies like Nedor, Lev Gleason Publications, Standard, Centaur and I think a few others.
A little disclaimer: I have not read any Project Superpowers stories and did not intend to; so my feelings toward Black Terror are very much reflected by the fact that I'm reading a title directly tied into a larger title. I simply have read enough ensemble comics lately that aren't doing it for me and am tired of the 'large group of superheroes = cool" mentality pervasive in comics. I also feel that every comic book should stand on its own.
So from the above, you can guess what criticism I have against Black Terror, that it is too tied into Project Superpowers which kind of hurts it and I think that its a fair and accurate criticism. On the other hand, having so many other characters appear in the opening pages was exciting to see, and helped accentuate how Black Terror stands out among them. For a #1 issue, I would let it pass and hope that in future issues Black Terror is more the sole focus (though some guest stars are okay).
Alternatively, the most obvious and biggest feat was the immensely terrific interior art by Mike Lilly. Alex Ross is the spiritual guru of this whole event and does some gorgeous cover work, but I actually thought the interior work by Mike Lilly was superior to that--it was actually quite impressive! Black Terror is portrayed as very much a superhero with dynamic action sequences, but there is also a dark, moody quality to it in places. And then there is a third element, a swashbuckler feel that adds a layer of excitement and 'fun', despite the serious story. All of this could be picked up from the artwork, and I'm so impressed that its enough to get me to buy #2.
Black Terror himself is a character that is pretty groovy. He's got a long history, being a Golden Age superstar and then having a brief comeback in the 1980's. He's a bit unique, having a pirate / death motif, like a swashbuckling Punisher that is a bit more superhero than that description would you think. I currently collect no other comic books with a star like him.
The plotting and scripting was done by Jim Krueger which was 'okay'. The plot is interesting but it's really feeling like a subplot of the larger Project Superpowers plot. That's okay for right now, but I hope Black Terror eventually stands out on its own.
The scripting portion of it I felt was very over-narrated, with far too many dramatic adjectives to describe an emotion or situation. It reminded me a bit of the 1970's when that was more common, and that's not always a good thing--for every 1970's comic that was well-written there was one that wasn't.
So I'm on the fence. The plot & scripting were only okay, but the art and the character have peaked my interest. I'll likely now dig through the bins for #2 and make a decision after that.
From: If you don't want my peaches, honey... | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
The Secret History by Jean-Pierre Pécau, various artists Volume I (Archaia Press)
There was a review for this book that called it "one of those fancy-pants European comics..." - but there wasn't anything snooty about it. It's an engrossing, complex journey through history, primarily of Europe.
The Secret History follows four immortal siblings through time. They were the only survivors from an ancient village and each one was given a runestone by their dying shaman. Two tend towards the dark side and two tend towards the good, but all are master manipulators and the battles which they provoke are not only for power but against one another. The siblings (who call themselves Archons) are not so interesting character-wise; it's the games they play which hold one's attention.
The stories progress through time, from the Egyptian era (so favoured by Archaia) through the Middle Ages, up to World War I. Pécau takes real world events and retells them to show how they were influenced, if not instigated, by the four. Some poetic licence is applied to his portrayal of real historical people, which gives them a depth of character that the four Archons lack.
A number of different artists worked on the book, which was originally published as 7 individual issues. Beautiful and highly detailed artwork throughout, and the styles are not so different as to be distracting.
It's the perfect story for a secret society, wheels-within-wheels, conspiracy buff like myself.
posted
^Wow FC, that sounds *exactly* like my cup of tea! I'm doing a big TPB order sometime soon and that will certainly make the list!
From: If you don't want my peaches, honey... | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
For me Boom Studios have been on a real roll of late with quality books such as Irredeemable, Incorruptible and The Unknown stories all being quality reads. The one thing those books have in common though is they are written by Mark Waid who, his involvement in End of an Era aside , can usually be relied upon to spin a decent story.
Bearing this in mind I was interested to see how they would fare on books without Mr Waids involvement; with Codebreakers a four issue mini series by Carey Malloy and Scott Godlewski I am happy to discover that they are still very good indeed.
The story features a team of FBI Crypto-analysts who had been working on a case breaking a mob family when something goes horribly wrong and one of their members disappear. From there the story picks up as the other team members attempt to rescue their missing colleague, people are tortured, deals are made with the enemy, one member appears to know more than they let on, things get blown up, people are shot and there are big surprises revealed. All this has happened and as of now there is still one issue to go!
Some mini-series are not so much written for the trade but more written for the sequel spending the majority of the story introducing the characters and setting the scene before ending abruptly and not always satisfyingly whilst making it quite clear that the real story will be told in future volumes. Fortunately that is not he case here; I first saw the book in a seven page preview in the back of another Boom book and from that excerpt you learnt who the characters were, what they did and how they related to each other. Even better you got the impression from the dialogue that this was a group who had been together for awhile which helps the believability of their actions for the rest of the tale.
The art is crisp and clear with each person clearly distinguishable and the action depicted logically and realistically.
This is a four issue mini series and there is only one issue left to be released so it is probably worth waiting for the trade if you do give it a go but baring a huge, and on the basis of the story so far highly unlikely, massive drop in quality I would say you will be in for a fun time.
From: Dorset, England | Registered: Oct 2008
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posted
^^Sounds interesting, stew! Pleas post again after the fourth issue to let us know how the story worked as a whole and to show whether the conclusion backed your recommendation.
-------------------- "Suck it, depressos!"--M. Lash
From: The Underbelly of Society | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
I just bought Green Arrow #16-21, despite my initial embargo on all Green Arrow books in protest. Well, NEW Arrow books.
I haven't had a chance to fully read it, but I gotta say it's weird reading Catman as the fat loser he WAS and Secret Six showing him as the hard-ass mothafu@ka he is NOW.
I actually like the way Hester draws Roy, even though I've read somewhere he detests the "Navajo" look. Although I am confused as to where this sits in continuity, based on Roy's physical appearance. I.e, the soul patch he sports through it.
-------------------- I want to be hated by lies - Bring Back Lian Harper
posted
I just did a review of Villains for Hire on comicvine. Enjoy...
All I pretty much have to say is that it took all five of them to kill Ryan Choi. A teenager powered by at least six or seven gods and a genocidal sociopath who blew up a small country. But since this has to be longer I'll continue. I was never Ryan Choi's biggest fan, that is to say I didn't dislike him, but I agree with comic book resources zero out of five stars critique and them calling this a "superhero snuff film" if I got the words right. Ryan had a lot more potential that's now wasted until another contrived resurrection story takes place after all the mourning is said and done six years from now.
Deathstroke is pretty much doing the same thing he did with Titans East, by promising these people something he obviously is never going to be able to give them. Does anyone else miss the days when he wasn't a grand ubervillain? No, to call him an ubervillain would actually have him doing something big, yet if it took all five of them to kill a relatively inexperienced hero it just makes them out as losers. Cheshire continues to prove what a selfish, hypocritical little nothing she really is by a mourning the child she was willing to let die so long as she had a replacement. I fail to understand why they wrote Osiris going out as a hero in Blackest Night just to bring him back and throw him in with these losers. Tattooed Man I also feel sorry for, but I was intrigued by Cinder and I'd like to know more about her. But she was the ONLY interesting thing about this book.
I know they said that the DCU wasn't going to be a bright, happy place after Blackest Night but I didn't think that meant we'd be regressing to 1985. We can now add Ryan Choi to a list made up of Lian Harper, Tempest, Dolphin, Damage, Holly Granger, Cassandra Cain, Jason Todd, the Reboot and Threeboot Legion, Tasmanian Devil and the Global Guardians, Anima, and a lot of others out there who haven't had proper treatment. I don't want to sound like I'm whining, and if I am I'm apologizing, but to be honest I would've given this book zero as well if I could've.
I actually feel bad for the people who worked on this book, and I'm not saying this to be smug, because chances are, in the future people who get bad reviews for their books will probably be saying "well, at least it's not as bad as what Villains for Hire got."
That, and I'd actually prefer Ryan Choi as the Atom to Ray Palmer.
-------------------- I want to be hated by lies - Bring Back Lian Harper
posted
Um... so. For a while now, I've been re-reading my Sandman collections. The last couple of weeks, at least. The two I've really been paying more attention to are Dream Country and World's End. Dream Country was the first Sandman book I ever read. An old version I found in a library, I'd have preferred it if I bought the collection with the cover matching the one I borrowed, but I could only get the new cover. I summarized the first story, Calliope, now I'm going to review the last one, Facade. Then I'm going to review a story from World's End, the Golden Boy.
It's a story illustrated by Colleen Doran, in which the Sandman doesn't appear at all. But Death does. Due to this book it forever cements my ideal depiction of Death by Doran. Most of you might know her for the work she did on Element Lad. She also illustrated "Anne Rice's The Master of Rampling Gate".
This is the story of Urania Blackwell, Element Girl. Don't know who she is? No one did. She was the Lady Metamorpho, from the 1960s. Urania had allowed herself to gain powers like Metamorpho, and for a while she might've been his lover but he did not feel the same way. This story is about life after that. Urania has become a shut-in, an agoraphobic, due to her frightening appearance. She lives on a company pension and her only contact with the outside world is a man from the CIA she talks to over the phone, Mulligan. Her apartment is run down and littered with discarded faces, silicate masks she creates when she needs to pose for normal that harden and fall off. She uses them for things, things normal people use. That's all she wants. And she can't have it. She's haunted by dreams where everything is okay, and then she wakes up. She's just waiting to die, to finally be over. This story is sad, very sad, to her recollection of how she gained her powers to her disastrous attempt at having lunch with an old friend outside her apartment in which her "face" falls off in her plate of spaghetti bolognese.
Death, who just happens to be walking by, attempts to give Urania a shoulder to cry on. She listens to Urania listing the possible ways to die, and the ways they could go wrong. The bitter irony of all the people who want to live, and she wants it to end because she has no other alternatives. Death tells her that it's not as bad as makes it out to be, and even metamorphae (people like her and Rex Mason) will die eventually. When Urania figures out who her visitor really is, she's at first relieved that her suffering will end. However, Death explains that she was indeed just passing by.
"I'm not blessed OR merciful. I'm just me. I've got a job to do and I do it."
People make their own hells, their own deaths. They can view what Death does either way, a blessing or a curse. It doesn't really make a difference. And oblivion? Not an option. However, Death finally agrees to help Urania if it's what she really wants. She can't simply kill her, though. Death directs Urania to Ra, the person responsible for her powers (she received them from a meteor called the Orb of Ra). Ra, the Egyptian sun god, has kept bringing in people like Urania into existence in his never-ending battle against Apep, the Serpent who never dies, even though Death claimed Apep 3000 years ago. She tells Urania that Ra is the sun, sort of. Urania actually speaks to Ra by speaking to the sun, and asks him to take away her powers. She looks at the sun, and realizes that, it's actually a mask too, and the face behind it is so beautiful... when she turns into a statue. Facade ends with Death wishing Urania better luck next time before she answers her phone. "You want Rainie? She's gone away I'm afraid."
"Who am I? Just a friend. Sometimes. Maybe. Sorry I couldn't be of any help. Be seeing you..."
This story deals with a lot of things. It's about eventually throwing away old things instead of hanging onto them. It's a sharp contrast to the ideal world of superheroics in which gaining powers from a meteor can be a wonderful thing. Here, it's a curse, because Urania lives in the "real world" and there's no place for superpowers in the real world. Ironically, there is, because we need these superheroes to brighten our own lives, to give us hope. The sad thing is, even in our comics, the real world has invaded too many times, and now that naive idealism is slowly starting to die like it did in the 1980s. The real world has become like cancer in comics, which went into remission for a while but has returned.
I'm talking, of course, about Rise of Arsenal. I look at the two, and I see a horrible contrast. Urania Blackwell and Roy Harper share a frightening similarity. Urania has been thrust into the real world and is ostracized for it, both intentionally and unintentionally, due to her powers and appearance, and it slowly drags her down. She fears people will reject her because of her face, and her fears are found true when she attempts to go outside for the first time in a long time. When the story begins, we assume she has been dragged down to her current state over a period of years and she's just about ready to crack. This story is about longing for an end to it and it can be viewed, in some ways, as a happy ending, as Death helps Urania come to an important realization. I don't believe in suicide, and I don't think this is what this story is advocating. I guess people should draw their own conclusions on what it means.
Roy Harper, however, is now having the real world invade his life. His arm's been cut off, his marksmanship is impaired, he's impotent, and back and on drugs. And the biggest source of his problems is that his daughter has been killed. What chronologically and theoretically took years to do to Urania, it's now being done to Roy in a matter of days. His suffering has been done because of what death DID to his life, and unlike Urania, chances are he has no chance for a happy ending, because his story is just pain stacked upon pain with no silver lining. But like Urania, he is both intentionally and unintentionally ostracizing himself from others.
Both characters suffer from the real world, yet they contrast greatly in terms of what death means to them and the facades of their life. Urania wanted to strip hers away and die.
Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm making connections that don't exist.
...
I'll review the second story later.
-------------------- I want to be hated by lies - Bring Back Lian Harper
posted
Sometimes you crack me up, Kid. It's definitely not a connection I would make, but more power to you for making it. Do you dream in technicolor?
The contrast, for me, is that Gaiman used an obscure super hero to offer some insight into the human condition. The current day DC universe seems to come from a much more cynical place. It's more about trying to gain attention and sales with short term shock value. There is no real effort at insight.
I agree that Doran's work on this story gave us a signature version of Death.
-------------------- No regrets, Coyote.
From: Missouri | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
Sometimes I dream in full on, four color comic book panels. That freaks me out and makes me think I should get a life or something... I wonder what Gaiman would make of that?
-------------------- No regrets, Coyote.
From: Missouri | Registered: Oct 2003
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, can usually be relied upon to spin a decent story.
