Batman Eternal #10 - A Review

Batman Eternal #10 was of such dramatically dismal quality compared to the earlier installments I'm contemplating dropping the title.  Part of this is due to the artwork of Riccardo Burchielli, whose work on Conan The Barbarian I found utterly appalling and his work here is not much better.  I will say that Burchielli does do a good job depicting the misshapen and horrific creatures that make up Professor Pyg's gang.  Unfortunately, the normal human characters look equally misshapen and horrific.

Colorist Dave McCaig doesn't help matters with a muted palette that sucks the life out of the action.  Worse yet, the palette is unevenly applied, with skin tones changing from panel to panel with no indication of any change in light or position!  At some points Catwoman looks like her animated incarnation from the later episodes of Batman: The Animated Series, where she had blueish-white skin whenever she was in costume.  Again, this might be acceptable as an artistic choice were it evenly applied... but it isn't!


The script by John Layman is equally problematic.  I already raised objections to the idea that Barbara Gordon should be portrayed as a violent hothead, even allowing for her feelings regarding her father's imprisonment coloring her judgement.  I have even greater objections to this issue, in which Bruce Wayne asks Jason Todd to keep an eye on Batgirl and make sure she doesn't do something stupid and get killed.

I am going to say that again, because I think it's rather important.  And if you can imagine this next line being read by comedian Lewis Black, so much the better.

Bruce Wayne asks Jason Todd - his ex-sidekick who has anger-management problems up the wazoo and no qualms about killing - to keep an eye on Barbara Gordon - widely regarded as the most cool and logical of Bruce's protegees - and make sure she doesn't do something stupid and get killed.

... ARE YOU F#$%ING KIDDING ME?!?!


I'll give it one more issue.  That's it.

Conan The Barbarian #24 - A Review

It would be fair to say that I haven't been enjoying the monthly Conan The Barbarian title of late. Indeed, Dark Horse Comics's adaptation of the final portions of Robert E. Howard's Queen of the Black Coast left me feeling largely bored.  That has changed with Conan The Barbarian #24.  Now I am royally cheesed that I spent money on this final story arc.


The artwork by Riccardo Burchielli has gone to hell in a hand-basket.  Whereas in previous months the pencils were competent, Burchielli's figures this month are so misshapen and over-detailed as to defy all the laws of basic aesthetics.  His hyenas look less like slathering hell-hounds and more like a watercolor of a dog where the colors ran and mixed together into a brown misshaped mess. 


Bad as the artwork is, I still find it preferable to the story.  I said several months ago that Brian Wood's scripts butchered the original Howard text like Conan himself slashing through a horde of Stygians.  I was too kind, for the term butchery implies some level of skill and precision. 

What Brian Wood has done here is hack work.  For he is a hack of the highest order.  A butcher would have cut apart Howard's original text willy-nilly.  Wood has completely missed the point of the story, removing the teeth and claws from one of Howard's most powerful and memorable heroines!  No more does Belit defy death itself to save her beloved with a spectral attack on the same beast that killed her..  Now she just appears before Conan - a vision of loveliness to inspire him, with no sword in hand nor fight in her eyes.

This comic sucks.  It holds no value save offering further proof of Brain Wood's misogyny.  Please read the original story or Roy Thomas' much better comic book adaptation.  Avoid this, whatever you do! 

Conan The Barbarian #22 - A Review

Conan The Barbarian #22 proves that any work - no matter how good - can be completely destroyed in translation by unskilled adapters.  If it weren't for the fact that this is the final arc on this book for this creative team, I'd consider dropping the title completely.  As it is, this issue inspired nothing within me save a desire to reread the old Roy Thomas Conan comics to see it retold properly.


Brian Wood does not adapt Robert E. Howard's original text - he butchers it, like Conan chopping his way through a horde of Stygians!  While the dialogue in this book does capture the basic gist of Howard's original story, much of the original passionate dialogue is gone.  For instance, Conan's famed musings on the nature of reality and how it matters little if life is an illusion so long as he is part of that illusion is cut completely.  Curiously the only text Wood leaves intact is the written descriptions of things that could be more clearly conveyed in the artwork.



Then again - considering artist Riccardo Burchielli - Wood may well have good reason to trust the text over the art.  Burchielli is not a bad artist but his sense of cinematography is odd.  Many is the conversation where we cannot see the characters talking, being instead treated to a far-shot of the ship or the surrounding environment.  When the characters do appear, they are often turned away from the reader - the better for Belit to flash her half-bared backside to the reader!