Phantom Stranger #0 - A Review

The Phantom Stranger exists purely as an enigma. By definition, he is undefined. He possesses great magical powers but no one knows the source of his power or his limits. No one calls him friend or knows of his origins or ultimate goals. He is forever cursed to be... a stranger.

The central appeal of The Phantom Stranger lies in this concept. By being nothing specific, he can be everything and anything a writer needs him to be. Need a prophetic warning delivered but don't want the all-knowing wizard solving all your problems? Bring out The Phantom Stranger, who is allowed to share knowledge but frequently forbidden to help directly. Want a straight-man for the hero questioning his resolve o to speak to? The Phantom Stranger's your man. Find yourself needing a magical cavalry to show up and tip the balance of battle at the last minute? The Phantom Stranger will be there.

At least, that is how it was before Phantom Stranger #0...

To sustain interest, a protagonist must hook either our sympathy o r our interest. The Phantom Stranger depends upon an aura of mystery to work as a character. The mystery of who he is was and what he might do at any time inspires interest. With this issue, Dan Didio gives definition and a full back-story to a character that never had any. And The Phantom Stranger suffers greatly for it.

By taking away that mystery, Dan Didio has taken away the very core of the character. This might have worked to the character's favor had Didio found a way to establish sympathy for The Phantom Stranger and reforged him into a character people could relate to. It would be completely missing the point of his being as much a stranger to the reader as the other characters in the DCU but it would, at least, be something. It is hard, however, to imagine many readers being able to sympathize with The Phantom Stranger when his background now says , n no uncertain terms, that he is the most infamous traitor in the whole of Western literature.




Yes, you read that right. The Phantom Stranger now wears a necklace of silver coins along with his famous blue cloak - the price he was paid for betraying his best friend. The name is never said but between that hint and the fact that The Phantom Stranger hung himself in shame for his betrayal of his best friend, it is safe to say that he was originally Judas Iscariot.

To say that this is theologically uncomfortable is an understatement. And all of this is before the main plot, where The Phantom Stranger - under direction from a voice that could be either a higher being or the council of wizards that judged him - is instructed to lure a cop named Jim Corrigan into a trap. Why? To bring about the birth to an angel of vengeance... a.k.a. The Spectre. And it is at this point, we move past the theologically uncomfortable and into outright blasphemy.



Why? Why is Judas being judged by a council of magicians rather than God himself? If you're going to imply The Phantom Stranger is Judas, why chicken out on him receiving orders from God himself? Why is the New Testament God creating an Old Testament angel of vengeance? Why is God actively encouraging one man's Wrath by empowering him while condemning another man for his Greed? And who is going to care enough about these questions to read another issue of this dreck? Not me, folks. Not even morbid curiosity can drive me to look at this train wreck again. Still, I must complement Brent Anderson and Scott Hanna. They make this stinker of a story look far better than it has any right to.

Phantom Stranger #0 is perhaps the closest thing I have ever seen to a perfect failure. From base concept to final execution, no portion of this book manages to be satisfying. This book succeeds only as a symbol of everything that is wrong with DC Comics in the New 52 era. You know there's something wrong seriously with a universe where Roy Harper does not have a clear background but The Phantom Stranger does.

Bad News/Good News For Batgirl Fans

Bad News: Apparently Stephanie Brown is out as Batgirl in the Smallville Season 11 comic, according to Dan Didio. (DC Comics - The New Wave Panel)

Good News: Both Gail Simone and Scott Snyder - while not having plans for Steph OR Cassandra Cain at this time - have both openly voiced their desire to reintroduce both characters to the New 52 at some point in the future. (DC Comics - The New 52 Panel)

Regarding Dan Didio, The New 52 and "No Crisis Events"

SOURCE: DC Comics Co-Publisher Dan DiDio: No 'Crisis' Events In DCnU

A lot of people have been freaking out over this point. Because it seems contradictory that all of these big events couldn't have happened. Because if Final Crisis didn't happen, then Bruce Wayne never died and there was no reason for Dick Grayson to become Batman! And if Crisis Of Infinite Earths never happened, then Barry Allen never died which means Wally West never became The Flash, which means that Grant Morrison's excellent JLA run never happened and... well, you can see the endless logic loops that this line of thinking can cause.

This is all rather silly and indicative of the general attitude most geeks have - i.e. we can't stand to be wrong about an intellectual pursuit. We hate feeling stupid and not knowing what is going on. And being thrust into a new DC Universe where everything we know is wrong is irritating. I get that, believe me. I'd be lying if I didn't say I had concerns about just how the whole of the Green Lantern saga since Hal Jordan first got the ring had been crammed into six years but I'm willing to ride it out and see where the story goes from here.

Nevertheless, I have thought of a simple, easy solution for explaining all this away. And like most confusing things, it involves Doctor Who.

Doctor Who is the longest running science-fiction show in the world, being on the cusp of its' 50th anniversary. Over the years, there have been a lot of Doctor Who comics, novels, radio plays, movies and original audiobooks in addition to the actual shows. As one can imagine, there are quite a lot of stories that contradict one-another, even when limited to a single medium. Ask a Doctor Who novels fan sometime about how Time Lords are born and get ready for much wailing and gnashing of teeth. But I digress.

There was a gap in the production of the show, with the original series ending in 1989 and a new series starting in 2005. The New Series has drawn off of The Original Series, as needed, taking what bits of the mythos it needed and moving forward from there. Some of the new series has conflicted with previous stories but the show has a grand escape-clause in The Time War - a battle which we are told warped Time and Space, causing catastrophic damage that eventually healed but left some things changed.

Well gee, that sounds an awful lot like what just happened in Flashpoint, doesn't it?

So - The New 52 books? New Series. The old DCU? Original Series. The one borrows from the other as needed and until we hear otherwise, we can't assume that anything that happened in the past happened here.

Simple. Easy. Done.

Class Dismissed.

O.M.A.C. #1 - A Review

To understand O.M.A.C. #1, you have to understand Jack Kirby.

There’s a reason Kirby was – and still is – known as “The King”. No single artist has influenced comic book artwork today more than Jack Kirby. He innovated many of the artistic tropes that we take for granted today, such as a character’s fists or feet launching out toward the reader like a printed 3-D movie. Kirby was also an excellent visual storyteller and one of the greatest idea men the industry has ever seen. If he had a flaw, it was that as great as he was with concepts, he was weak on character development. Thankfully, his concepts were strong enough that this was rarely a problem, given the stories he favored telling. You don’t need a lot of complex characterization when you’re dealing on the level of gods waging war.

The spirit of Kirby is strong in this title, which revives one of Jack Kirby’s old characters for the modern day. Dan Didio, better known for his position as DC Comics editor in chief than his work as a writer, has a lot in common with Kirby. He has a lot of big ideas and trusts those ideas to sell themselves without needing a lot of explanation. This proves to be a good choice in the case of O.M.A.C – an acronym for One Man Army Corps.

The action centers open the offices of Cadmus – a bio-medical company we are told has made tremendous strides in mapping the human genome and genetic engineering. The facility is attacked by a mysterious being who identifies itself only as OMAC. OMAC then proceeds to open up an industrial size can of whoop-ass on Cadmus security, fighting its’ way toward Cadmus’ mainframe computer and the information within. By the issue’s end, we find that OMAC is controlled by a sophisticated artificial intelligence called Brother Eye, which seemingly has the power to infect any human with the power of OMAC.

There’s not a lot of depth to this story (what do you expect from a hero, whose original incarnation answered to the name of Buddy Blank?) but there doesn’t need to be. This is old-school comic-book action, the way King Kirby used to write it. I personally prefer my heroes to have a little more depth but even I can see the appeal of this concept. As Terry Pratchett once noted, just because something is simple does not mean that it is stupid and this book is far from stupid.

Artist Keith Giffen alters his usual style a bit for this book, apparently aping Kirby’s style in terms of both layouts and finishes. This is an effective choice, with most of the pages having the standard five and six panel layouts that Kirby favored, with only one double-page spread in the whole book and only two splash pages.

While nobody can draw a monster like Jack Kirby could, Giffen does draw monsters just as well as Kirby did. He also manages some great expressions on the human characters, creating people who are distinctive and memorable despite having relatively little time on the page.

This book is a wonderful tribute to times past and the legacy of Jack Kirby. It also manages to be a great action story in its’ own right, with the art to match it. The only flaw I can see is that at no point in the story is it explained just what O.M.A.C stands for. Still, if you like your comics full of action and free of fluff, you might want to give O.M.A.C. a try.

DC Comics News From SDCC: Day One

'Flashpoint' Panel Confirms Event Will Result in DC's Relaunch Continuity.

50,000 DC Comics fans say "Well, duh..."


Sterling Gates adding a "brand new thing" to the Speed Force that he's very proud of.

SPOILER: It's a caramel center.


Wally West to show up in Kid Flash Lost #3 in an unexpected way.

SPOILER: Drunk. And naked.


Gail Simone reassured a fan that Stephanie Brown would not disappear.

SPOILER: Because technically, if you never existed, you can't have ever disappeared.


Regarding Catwoman - Judd Winick stated that in his first interview he said "sexy" about forty-five times, and it wasn't enough -- and that it was a "dirty, dirty book." Winick described her as sexy, dangerous, prone to stealing things and very, very smart.

Starman has stated that Catwoman was doomed to early cancellation about forty-five-hundred times since it was announced Judd Winick would be writing it, and it wasn't enough -- and that Winick's remarks were "very, very repetitive. Repetitive."


Lobdell said he "doesn't do dark," so this is going to be a "fun" book about a bunch of damaged characters, starring Jason Todd, Starfire and Arsenal.

Noted how incredibly easy it is to do a comparatively fun book with these characters, after what was done with them in Countdown, Titans and Cry For Justice.


On Starfire: Lobdell stated that he wants to shift Starfire away from being fully integrated into human society, and show her more alien side.

Reworked costume will help to show off EVERY side of Starfire.


Wonder Woman's costume to now feature 'retractable pants'.

At least until fan outcry suggests they aren't popular, in which case DC Comics will retract the retractable pants.


The Marvel family is on hiatus for the time being, though they will play a role in Grant Morrison's upcoming Multiversity story, in a book with art by Cameron Stewart titled 'Shazam's Thunder'.

Captain Marvel fans rejoice, for this means Judd Winick is not writing Power of Shazam again.


Because they want to return characters to younger incarnations, Arsenal is now too young to have had children, so Lian Harper no longer exists. He will also have two arms and likely won't be known for abusing heroin.

Roy Harper fans confused. Happy that Rise Of Arsenal is no longer in continuity but sad that all the good stories with Roy Harper are gone too.


Mystery woman on Justice League International cover identified as Lady Godiva.

Disappointed Donna Troy and Gypsy fans mourn. Everyone else asks, "Who the @#$% is Lady Godiva?"


Oliver Queen's new company, Q-Corps, will be “Apple-esque”, says writer J.T. Krul

We hope they mean Apple-esque in that they sell lots of cutting-edge technology to the masses and not because they make substantial financial contributions to anti-gay hate groups.


Dan Didio Says No Big Events For DC in 2012.

Joe Quesada expected to announce No Big Events for Marvel in 2012 by weekend's end.

One Good Thing And One Bad Thing About Adventure Comics #5

GOOD THING: Whatever your feelings about the metatextual exercise behind this two part story, (i.e. Superboy Prime - now a parodic strawman of People Who Complain About Comics On The Internet - goes on a rampage after finding out he is schedule to die in this comic) I think we can all appreciate the sight of Dan Didio screaming in terror. :)

BAD THING: I thought for a while that this ending was legit and that Superbody Prime really is being given all he ever wanted back as a reward by the "gods" that have played with his life for too long. And then I saw that his long-lost true love is wearing a black ring... despite not looking any more decomposed or undead than any of the other Black Lanterns. So it looks like Prime is about to get the Hope sucked out of him. Probably. For his sake - and ours, because I'm sick of Prime's whining - I hope this IS the end for him.

The Final Verdict: The heck of it is I don't know if this is skippable or not in regards to Blackest Night. I'd say go ahead and pick it up if you don't have problems with stories where the fourth wall is broken with great enthusiasm.

One Good Thing And One Bad Thing About Ambush Bug: Year None #7

GOOD THING: You know right from the start that no holds will be bared and that Giffen will be poking fun at the DCU and everyone involved in creating this book.

BAD THING: Fun as it is, you can't help but wonder just how much of this is a joke and how much of it is Giffen playing The Fool to Dan Didio's King.

Ambush Bug is one of those characters and series that is either hit or miss. Your ability to enjoy it is entirely dependent upon your ability to laugh at sacred cows being tipped over and, in the case of the scene where comic fans are depicted as barely-literate apes, your ability to laugh at yourself as well.

The world might not be able to stand it but I wish they did this as a monthly, if only because we could use more comics parodying One More Day, where Ambush Bug goes to The Demon Neron - not to have his marriage erased from history, but to get a recommendation for a good divorce lawyer. :)