Fast Thoughts - The Week of 4/25/07

52 WEEK #51: And we get back to the high quality moment here as we enter the home stretch. A lot of good character moments here, but if I had to pick a top five...

5. "Can we keep her?" as Starfire collapses on Animal Man's porch after saving him and his family from a group of alien assassins. Because honestly, what preteen boy wouldn't want his very own amazon space princess?
4. Buddy Baker's Homecoming. The perfect mix of silly and touching, especially the line about "He's got a hair-piece, I just flew across galaxies to get to you. I don't think there's any contest."
3. The explanation for Robin's new red and black costume - to honor Superboy, as those were his colors.
2. Clark's comment on Diana's new look in her new secret identity - "I like the glasses."
1. The return of Lobo as we know (and some of us love) him, making up for a year of almost complete pacifism in the only way possible - by killing a god.


AMAZONS ATTACK #1: You know, apart from one scene we really didn't need this book with Wonder Woman #9 out this week. But given the poor quality of Jodi Picoult's run on the book so far (more on that in a moment), I prefer to think that we really don't need that book compared to this one.

Why? Because the idea of the Amazons invading Washington DC - even without a single named character to latch onto as a focal point in the narrative - is infinitely more interesting than watching Wonder Woman and Nemesis banter back and forth during an ill-conceived jailbreak only to notice "Oh wow... Amazons invading Washington DC..."

Still, Hippolyta is back so that's worth something. Especially if we can get her back into the JSA. Yes, I know that's highly unlikely given that she's just tried conquering America, even if she has been doing it at Circe's whim. I'm just saying I miss having her in the JSA.


BRAVE AND THE BOLD #3: I missed this one last week and for the first time I don't feel like I missed much as this was the weakest issue of the series so far. Maybe it's because I'm so disinterested in the new Blue Beetle, but I kept bearing through those scenes hoping for a continuation of the Supergirl storyline. Thankfully, I wasn't disappointed and we do get a quick preview of next month's promised team-up between Lobo and Kara.

By the way, Mr. Mark Waid and Mr. George Perez? If you read this, I just want you two to know something. Regarding the scene with Kara showing Lobo something that she thinks is good for credit on paying him for a ride? The one with the leather coat that completely covers her costume? And the panel where it looks like she's not wearing anything under said coat as she undoes it and we see Lobo looking shocked?

You are bad, bad men. And God bless you both for it. :)


CONNOR HAWKE DRAGONS BLOOD #6: The mini-series ends and without any further disturbing (or if you're Judd Winick, incestuous) scenes of Shado playing kissy-face with Connor but with a whole lot of last-chapter "What the-" exposition.

Seems that the whole plan to summon and kill a dragon had nothing to do with saving China and everything to do with creating a fountain of dragon blood that makes anyone who bathes in it faster, stronger and immortal. The whole thing falls apart if you think about it a bit. But this is good fun action, which is all you can really ask of a Chuck Dixon Book.


DAREDEVIL #96: Okay, this is officially the best book being published by Marvel Comics and one of the best books published anywhere right now. And I'm not just saying that because it's up for a well-deserved Eisner as is its' author. My one complaint is that I really don't want this story to be heading where I think it is heading.

Melvin Potter was a rarity in Marvel and indeed all of comics: a former bad guy who was trying to get help for his condition. Now, as someone who has had friends with mental health problems, most of whom have been more successful than not - I kinda like the idea of seeing one character in comics who beat the odds and didn't stay like Joker or Two-Face. Someone who was a sweet and basically innocent guy who had some issues, worked through them and was now redeeming his past.

Of course the writer in me knows that the drama behind taking such a character and reverting him back to his old ways is irresistible. And I'm fairly certain that Brubaker has a few twists left so that it will turn out that this isn't what it looks like. Still, I worry about the character. And that is what makes this book so great - that I enjoy the story even though the story itself has me annoyed and worried about what may happen to one of the characters.


DORK TOWER #36: Give John Kovalic credit: he does not got halfway on the drama. Which is kinda funny when you consider that this is supposed to be "a funny book". But between Igor planning a convention that promises to be a total disaster, Matt's last-minute attempt to get his comic ready to sell at said convention and Ken's relationship with Sujata falling apart after she panics when he proposes, there is enough drama here for one of those serious relationship comics.

And that, in itself, is pretty funny. Funny "makes you think", not Funny "ha-ha".

Sure, this comic has laughs a plenty. But what it does better than any other gaming-related comic anywhere is show that underneath the somewhat silly exterior of people who CosPlay, LARP or go to Renn Fests, they are still people. People who are not the least bit different than the so-called "normal" people who don't have "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" memorized and who are stunned to know there are dice made with more than six sides.


JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA #5: I loved this issue, plain and simple.

Was it the presence of Doctor Destiny? Yes.

Is it the fact that all the old-school Legion stuff is now cannon again? Yes.

Was it all the Sandman References? Yes.

Was it Batman having to fight nightmare versions of himself, plucked from the dreams of Arkham Asylum inmates? Yes.

Was it finally getting to see Sanderson "Sandy" Hawkins in a story ever since he changed costumes and started calling himself Sandman instead of Sand? Hell yes!

The one downside? That this has to get tied into the lackluster JLA issues dealing with the same plot. Geoff Johns can rock a story line this. Brad Meltzer can't.


NIGHTWING ANNUAL #2:Another one that I missed last week, this time intentionally. My thanks to all of you, who through LJ and e-mail, let me know that my query last week about "And when are they going to explain when Babs and Dick broke their engagement?!?!?"

Well, the answers are here. And I loved this story. And I think that - Marv Wolfman, be damned - we need to Marc Andreyko writing the monthly title ASAP.

You don't want to get spoiled, don't read any further.



I have to agree with Mark Poa. "Dick Grayson is a dick."

Honestly, all you people who are complaining about the Green Arrow/Black Canary engagement and how Oliver Queen is the filthiest, lying dog cheater on the planet? Read this issue and get back to me on that.

Dick Grayson hasn't been one of my favorite characters in a while, but he was in my top 5 back when Chuck Dixon was still writing the book. Still, it's a bit disturbing to me that Dick and Barbara's "first time" came six months after her accident and how it was a spur-of-the-moment thing that happened as Dick was coming to give Babs an invitation to his wedding.

I'm not saying that I can't see it happening and that something like this isn't in character for Dick. He's had spur of the moment romances before. I'm just saying that I'm still disturbed by it given the long romance between the two. Thankfully, this issue does explain just why things never quite reached that point until then as well as the Wuthering Heights-style chain of events that kept them apart as well as what point they are at now.

Incidentally, am I the only one amused that Starfire's "lounging around the house after a night of loving" clothes actually cover more than her regular costume?

Despite the infidelity all over the place, this was a very cute and surprisingly sweet issue. There's a lot of touching moments along with some laugh-out-loud comedy involving Dick having the natural reaction to being locked in close-quarters (i.e. a safe) with Batgirl and trying to disguise that fact afterwards by walking hunched over once he gets out. Can you say "doing math problems at the chalkboard"? :)

I recommend it to all of you old-school Nightwing fans who, like me, had been steering clear of the title since the dark days of Devin Grayon's run.


WONDER WOMAN #8: I had one of my local Comic Shop Guys ask me, as I was telling him about how badly Jodi Picoult's has been received and how all the fans on the web are clamoring for Gail Simone to take over sooner than Issue #13 say "She's a published novelist so she must be a good writer."

Now, I haven't ready any of Jodi Picoulet's books, admittedly. I can't say one way or another if she can write a good novel with original characters or not. I suspect, however, that she may be a writer who can do good work with original characters, but can't change their own style or internal speech-patterns when writing an established one. That's the only reason I can think of why Wonder Woman, in these last three issues, has sounded and acted like a Cybil Shepherd to Nemesis' Bruce Willis.

I think Ragnell nailed this last week when she said that the greatest part of Diana's personality is confidence. No matter where she is or what she is doing, she does not back down from her right to be there or to do what she thinks is right. She should not sound like a confused sorority girl, worrying about how popular she is, what people think of her or any of the normal things that female characters in modern literature obsess over.

And on a personal note: Wonder Woman should not ever call anyone a pervert.

Looking To The Stars: Mass O' Reviews

I got a lot of comics this past week and I’ve got a hankering to talk about them all. Since the exercise in brevity a few months ago was such a big hit, I’m trotting it out again. The rules are simple. I can use one paragraph with no more than four sentences to sum the book up completely.

Amazing Spider-Man #510

Oh My God, is the only way I can describe this issue. The good news is that it looks like Straczynski was serious about this story not involving clones. The bad news is that this could be JUST as bad if he can’t pull off the MAJOR revelation put forth in this issue. Do not reveal the stunning secret of the last page!

Final Score: 9 out of 10.

Army of Darkness: Ashes 2 Ashes #1

This book starts up right at the end of Army of Darkness (the original ending, not the alternate one), with Ash discovering that the potion that took him back to his time was off by a day. Now, with a chance to save the life of his girlfriend Linda, he is hauling Ash to the cabin from Evil Dead hoping he can get to her before the Deadites do. Cartoony as it should be in art and writing, this is a must-have for all fans of comedic horror. Hail to the King, baby!

Final Score: 8 out of 10.

Conan #6

I’ve always had a soft spot for the barbarian, no matter how goofy his adventures may have been towards the end of his Marvel Comics run or in the Conan The Adventurer Cartoon. But this new book is anything but goofy, treating Robert E. Howard’s greatest creation with a seriousness and single-mindedness worthy of Conan himself. Busiek’s writing is as top-notch as ever and Nord’s art sizzles on every page. Forget Ah-nold: the real hero is on the printed page.

Final Score: 9 out of 10.

Dork Tower #28

Slowly but surely we stumble towards resolution of the love triangle that has defined the plot of this book since its’ third year. Goth Gamer Grrl Gilly is moving to England and Matt, the ideal man for her, is miserable in his relationship with his gamer-hating girlfriend from Hell Kayleigh. To make matters worse, Igor just sent Kayleigh a copy of the comic Matt has been working on, whose heroine bears an amazing resemblance to a certain goth grrrrl. All this, and reasons why Call of Cthulhu Dark Ages is a totally different game from the modern-age Call of Cthulhu.

Final Score: 6.5 out of 10.

Fantastic Four #516

The least incarnation of the Frightful Four is defeated, as we knew any team featuring Hydro-Man as a prominent member would. And yet another one of Johnny Storm’s romances crashes and burns, no pun intended. A shame really, as The Wizard’s daughter Cole was quite an interesting character. Hopefully Mark Waid will see fit to return her in a later story.

Final Score: 7 out of 10.

Futurama #18

Time runs amok as this series based on the hit cartoon enters the second part of it’s first multi-issue storyline. Professor Farnsworth accidentally sent the entire population of Earth back to the days of the dinosaurs. The rescue effort isn’t going well, with a time vortex sending Fry to an issue of Weird War Tales, Leela to the days of Greek Mythology and Bender to a world where Robots, not witches, were the object of ire at the Salem Witch Trials. If you’re watching the endless reruns on Adult Swim and pining for the show’s cancellation, you should beam up a copy of this immediately.

Final Score: 7 out of 10.

Green Lantern #179

Ah, the cliché “two heroes fight over a misunderstanding” issue. It might seem like padding if Ron Marz didn’t write it so well. Beautifully illustrated by Luke Ross, the whole issue is filled with amazing images. In fact, I want a poster of the splash page with Kyle recharging his ring while standing on the Statue of Liberty.

Final Score: 8 out of 10.

Justice League: Another Nail #3

This book was a confusing mess, even for a guy like me who has a degree in DC Comics History. Everything DOES come together in the end of this issue, though the JLA really doesn’t DO much except stand around reacting to the works of about six other groups of people. This isn’t a book for the casual reader. It is a book for those of us who smile at the idea of Oliver Queen’s brain in the body of an Amazo Robot, using a makeshift bow to put down a giant space amoeba that is eating reality instead of saying “What the hell?”.

Final Score: 4.5 out of 10.

Small Gods #1

John Young is a cop who can see crimes before they happen but in a world where psychic powers are as heavily regulated as cars that power doesn’t really make his job any easier. Even after getting a telepath to verify and notarize his visions as real, they still have to catch the crook in the act to have any hope of putting them away. That’s the concept behind the world of Small Gods, where super powers are real and the lawyers have made everyone’s lives even more difficult. A great concept with wonderful writing and amazing photo-realistic art, this one is going on my pull list.

Final Score: 10 out of 10.

Spider-Man Unlimited #4

It seems like this title always has one really good story and one so-so or worse story. The so-so is “Love Withdrawal”, a ho-hum story of romance during a bank robbery. The good story, “The Old Ways”, centers upon a Native American doctor, who is inspired to change his life by a vision of Iktomi, the trickster spider, in the form of our favorite wall-crawler. I’m a sucker for any tale of trickster gods, but this one seems a worthy companion piece to JMS’s writings about Anansi in “Amazing Spider-Man”.

Final Score: 7 out of 10 overall, with “The Old Ways” getting 10 out of 10.

Tune in next week. Same Matt time. Same Matt website.

Dork Tower #23 - A Review

Written by: John Kovalic
Penciled by: John Kovalic
Inked by: John Kovalic
Colored by: N/A
Lettered by: John Kovalic
Editor: John Kovalic
Publisher: Dork Storm Press

The Cover? A parody of “The Matrix: Reloaded”, about two months too late to be topical.

The Plot? Character development of a character who needs no depth… and indeed, gets little depth added to her.

The end result? Not up to the usual standard, but still amusing on the whole.

For those of you who haven’t had the good fortune to discover it, John Kovalic’s “Dork Tower” is the most consistently funny comic book to deal with the subject of fandom. Gamers (of the video AND dice-rolling variety) are the most common focus, but science-fiction TV shows and even sports are addressed through the dorks and geeks making up the cast.

The book’s continuing plot for the past few months has centered around the romantic triangle between gamemaster/cartoonist Matt; Kayleigh ( his on-again/off-again girlfriend from Hell, who mocks all his hobbies) and Gilly ( a perky Goth girl who is seemingly Matt’s perfect woman).

To make a long story short, Matt and Gilly met about two minutes after Matt got back together with Kayleigh way back in Issue #13. This after months of “almost” meeting each other. Matt and Gilly fell instantly in love but the whole thing was shelved as the two tried to avoid each other after Matt said Gilly’s name instead of Kayleigh’s at the absolute worst moment. The past few issues have focused on individual characters dealing with the aftermath of the break-up and the end result is Matt is now ready to win back the woman he lost. To the dread of all his gamer friends, the woman in question is Kayleigh, and not Gilly.

This brings us to the current issue, where we find out a bit more about Kayleigh’s past after a not-to-subtle tribute to the writings of Stan Lee and a certain curmudgeon of an editor and I don’t mean our own Daron K. We find out the specifics of Kayleigh’s privileged background (daughter of an ambassador, school in Europe, etc.), how she is unsatisfied with her job as a small town newspaper writer compared to that of her doctor siblings and how she wants to make someone suffer for her miserable life. Naturally, this leads to her calling Matt and asking him out to go clubbing that night. He accepts, and as the issue closes his friends move into action and arrange to get Gilly into the same club that night.

Kovalic fumbles the ball a bit here. Kayleigh has always acted as a one-note, shallow example of everything negative in women that fanboys put up with for in exchange for a little feminine attention and has worked well in that role. It is not impossible or unwanted for her to be developed past that but all the attempts to develop Kayleigh into a three deminsional character in the early half of the issue seem a bit pointless since by the end of the comic she is back to being the evil plotting shrew out to change Matt into a non-geek or make him miserable.

Still, many of the past “character” issues have been a bit slow on plot but built up to something very funny and poignant indeed. It is my hope, and indeed my belief, that we are building to something like that with this issue and that even though this issue was a bit light on the laughs (though I can relate to the scene of Kayleigh going to the liquor cabinet to get “important journalistic supplies”), that the next issue will be something special.

Until then, I shall content myself with the tri-weekly strips Kovalic posts at http://www.dorktower.com. I advise you all to do the same as well. You have nothing to lose but your time and nothing to risk but the splitting of your sides.

Dork Tower #22: A Review

This is one of my favorite books and yet I struggled for a bit as to how to describe this book, much less review it. Thankfully, this issue saved me the trouble, as one of the back-up strips in the anthology that is Dork Tower did it for me. In a sample strip of another Indie Comic called “The 3 Geeks”, one geek tries to explain to his comic-reading brethren…

“It’s about this group of gamers… well… yeah, dorks who play games. It’s whimsical! Light-hearted! It pokes fun, in a gentle way, at the quirkiness of a particular group of hobbyists! It’s really quite clever! And it’s got other neat stuff! Lethargic Lad! Wildlife! Something called Nodwick that looks good and PS 238! And more!”

Of course the other two geeks react by asking “No superheroes? And they call this a comic book!” and noting “(The artwork) doth resemble the rudimentary renderings of the comic strip Ziggy. I do not know if I can take it seriously.”

(Take it seriously? It’s a funny book, man! You can’t take any of this seriously!)

Still, this does sum up the basic gist of the book, the anthology status of said book and the attitude I fear most comic readers will have looking at it. Well, it is their loss as this is the most kind-hearted and consistently funny of the many comics based upon poking fun of those who take their hobbies too seriously. More than that, it is also the most accessible, lacking a rigid focus upon one genre (Knights of the Dinner Table) or “if you haven’t played it, you won’t get it” in-jokes (like the atrocious PVP).

There is an on-going plot to the book, though you wouldn’t know it from this issue. Things are taking a break from the rather complicated love triangle involving Matt (the gamemaster and King Dork of our characters), his ex-girlfriend Kayleigh (the prototypical girlfriend from hell, who mocks all of Matt’s hobbies and friends) and Gilly (a perky Goth geek grrrl and Matt’s obvious soulmate).

Instead, we get a focus on Carson; the abused innocent of the group and an anthropomorphic muskrat who has as much relation to the common rodent as Snoopy does the average dog. The plot is an even mix of humor and pathos, with scenes such as how a real talking animal might react to a convention of Furries. (If you don’t know what Furries are… ask your mother.) And Carson’s speech about fitting in and feeling out of place and alone is as stirring as any you are likely to find on the comic shelf this week.

And if this weren’t enough, there are many single-page Dork Tower strips about (among other things) “The Two Towers” movie, the history of gaming and the selective perfect memory of some hobbyists. Throw in sample strips for superhero parodies “Lethargic Lad” and “PS238” (about a school for young superheroes) as well as the aforementioned “The 3 Geeks” (which focuses on comic readers rather than gamers) and fantasy humor strip “Nodwick”, and you have a great value for $2.99.

Still not convinced? You can sample most of these strips for free on-line at http://www.dorktower.com , http://www.nodwick.com , and http://www.lethargiclad.com. And if you still won’t read this book after that… well, I’ll feed you to gazebo!