Up Next: More Comic Reviews And A Question For You, The Readers

It may not have escaped your attention that I've not been writing as much as usual this past month.  For that, I apologize.  It's been a busy month and with the approach of summer (busiest time of the year for a public librarian) my free time has dwindled down to nearly nothing, with all the special projects I'm working on.

You may also have noticed that I've curtailed my writing about comics of late.  This is partly due to the aforementioned lack of spare time but also due to...

a) my comic shop of choice being 30 miles away from my apartment.
b) my place of employment being 20 miles the opposite direction from my apartment.
c) my commitment to supporting my local comic shop being greater than my commitment to downloading new issues from an on-line store.
d) my desire to do more reviews of graphic novels and complete story lines rather than single comics.

Over the next few days, I'll be doing quick reviews of all the books I've picked up in the last month.  While I'm doing that, I'd like to hear from you all regarding the following questions.


1. Would you prefer for me to stick to monthly comic reviews or graphic novels/trade paperbacks?

2. If you prefer monthly comic reviews, do you mind if I don't have the reviews of that week's comics posted until the next weekend?

3. Would you be able to tolerate less frequent reviews if I were able to go into greater depth in what reviews I did write?

Looking To The Stars: Sins of the Fathers

It all happens to us comic enthusiasts. Something happens to make us angry at one comic company or another. The editor is an power-mad imbecile. The artist has the same grasp of human anatomy as your average four-year-old does of advanced physics. The writer is a tired old hack who was doing his best work twenty years ago. And before you know it, it just happens; we get burned out on comics.

Some storm out of the hobby in a blast of fury and vow to leave the funny books behind. Some embark on a crusade - however small - to protest what they perceive as a problem. But most, I find, choose to focus upon those books which they continue to enjoy after several readings. The ones that they can continue to read without having their enjoyment spoiled by whatever is going on in the comics being written today.

In my case, this comic is James Robinson and Tony Harris' Starman. And with the first in a series of Starman Omnibuses on the way in May, this seems as good a time as any for me to look back upon the first major story-arc of that classic series; Sins of the Fathers.


***


I was introduced to Starman at a critical point in my life as a comic fan. Despite having been a fan of the Superfriends cartoons and having the complete collection of Super Powers action figures, I didn't get a lot of exposure to comics until college. And even though I was quickly hooked by Ron Marz's Green Lantern (if only to find out who this new guy in the weird costume was), it wasn't until Starman that I really stopped being ashamed of the hobby.

Oh, I know better now. I know that there's a host of intellectual, artistic and informative graphic novels that go beyond the "kid stuff" that most people think of when they hear the words "comic book". I sing the praises of Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman and Brian K. Vaughan loudly to any one who asks why the library should be spending money on "Superhero Stuff" like V For Vendetta, The Sandman or Ex Machina. But back then, I hadn't been exposed to all of that fine work. All I knew was that I really enjoyed stories about people with super-powers and that as well written as Grant Morrison's Justice League was, it was all but impossible to convince most of my friends that there was something deeper behind the pictures.

That changed with Starman.

Ironically, I was introduced to Starman by one of my few fellow comic-reading friends. He wasn't a fan of it but he said I'd probably like it because "This Jack guy sounds like you." It was an apt comparison. Jack Knight, the central character of Starman, does have a lot in common with me. He is opinionated. He is sarcastic and witty. He has a tendency to mouth off without thinking. He doesn't suffer fools well. He is creative but has a lot of trouble with the actual act of creating. And he is a collector of many eclectic things. And while this common bond with who Jack is may have brought me into this series, it is who Jack becomes that kept me reading and - in a small way - shaped the man I am today.


***


The story opens with a view of Opal City. Opal, like Gotham in the Batman books, is a city with a personality all it’s own. It has modern skyscrapers in the background but the older city itself is made up of smaller, elegant Victorian and Art-Deco designs. The whole city seems as if items from different times were thrown together into a child's collage. This is fitting, because the theme of things and people from different times and the unusual conflicting with the expected reoccurs throughout the series. The whole book is truly ironic.

An excellent example of this intrinsic dramatic irony comes shortly after the first view of the city, when we see David Knight. We are told that David is Starman, a title he inherited from his father not more than a week ago and that his father had been the city’s superheroic protector since World War II. And no sooner are we introduced to this young man, posing majestically in his tights and cape as he looks down upon his city - the very epitome of superheroic splendor... he is shot by a sniper's bullet and falls to his death.

We cut to earlier that day as an argument erupts between the just slain David Knight and his younger brother Jack while they are both visiting their father, Ted Knight. The argument erupts over some items that Jack, who runs a collectibles store, wants to buy from his brother. It quickly becomes clear that David is the favored son; Jacob to Jack’s Esau, as Ted tells Jack to stop bothering David because "he serves an important role now" and "has a lot on his mind right now".

Jack mouths off, thoughtlessly insulting both his father and brother before leaving in a huff to go back to work. This is where we first get a look at Jack’s character. We learn through a brief montage that he is a collector of many things, that he has eclectic tastes and that he is very much a rebel. We also learn that he is very much an outsider in his own family and has spend most of his life just watching the life of a superhero from afar while trying to build his own life apart from his father's work and legacy.

Three hours after leaving the observatory, Jack gets a phone call from his dad, who has just learned of David’s death. Ted says he is going to identify the body and warns Jack to be careful, telling Jack that there is a spare Cosmic Rod and a Cosmic Belt (devices that gave him his powers as Starman) among some papers he asked Jack to hold for him. Thinking nothing of it, Jack continues with his work until a man comes to the store. The man shoots Jack, sets the store on fire, drops a bomb with a timer and leaves with the Cosmic Belt. Jack escapes the explosion that claims his shop, thanks to the power of flight granted by the Cosmic Rod.

In a brief interlude, we learn that the man who bombed Jack’s shop was working in concert with a woman who bombed Ted Knight’s observatory. The two criminals, Kyle and Nash respectively, are both children of The Mist: Ted Knight’s arch-enemy as Starman. In another interlude, we see "a shadowy man" eating dinner as he listens to news regarding a crime spree in Opal City. The shadowy man decides to go for a walk and see how badly his city is fairing.

When Jack gets to the hospital, he finds out that his father was injured by debris from his observatory, which was also bombed. Going to visit his father, Jack finds him being guarded by three cops, who identify themselves as the O’Dares. Jack tries to talk to Ted about what happened but Ted turns on Jack, wondering aloud how David could die and his "less-heroic son" could be spared. He accuses Jack of being a coward, afraid of the family heritage and tells Jack that he not needed there.

Jack wanders into the hallway, shocked at what his father has said. He is joined by a woman; another cop it turns out, named Hope O’Dare. Hope explains that the cops guarding his father are her brothers, and that their father, Billy O’Dare, was close friends with Ted when he was Starman. She and Jack don’t have much chance to talk (though Jack still manages to instantly annoy her with his sarcastic humor) before Jack is called back into the room to hear a phone call for Ted. It is the Mist, who tells Ted that he has taken his observatory and his sons before going on to say that he will take everything that Ted values before finally killing him and that his next goal will be the memory of his dead wife.

Apologizing for his rash words, Ted tells Jack to leave town before things get worse. Jack agrees to do so and is waiting at the train station when he hears on the news that a wing of county museum is being ransacked by The Mist’s thugs. Jack realizes the wing in question is one named for his mother, who donated the money that led to the museum being built - her memory.

With that thought, Jack spurs into action and uses his the Cosmic Rod he still has to fly to the museum and fights the thugs trashing the museum while a crowd looks on. Among the crowd is The Shadowy Man from before, who immediately realizes that the young man they see fighting the criminals is Jack Knight, not David. Jack is forced to flee when Kyle, the Mist’s son, arrives armed with the Cosmic Belt. In his escape, Jack crash-lands into the Opal River and loses the rod.

Returning to his apartment, Jack creates a costume of his own. He eventually selects three items. The first is a leather jacket, which has painted on the back a star encircled with astronomy/astrology symbols. The second is a pair of World War II anti-flare goggles, which he takes to protect his eyes from the light of the rod. Finally, he pins a toy Sheriff’s badge (a five pointed star) to the jacket and leaves his apartment by the roof.

As he flees across the rooftops, Jack fights off various thugs who were waiting for him. Among the thugs, he confronts Nash, who says that she is going to kill him because their fathers are enemies. Jack manages to convince her not to kill him, pointing out that she has no personal reason to do so. He escapes and rests for a moment in the shop of a fortune-teller named Charity. The two talk for a while and Charity leaves Jack with a prophecy of the future, telling him among other things that he cannot shake his destiny or his father's mantle, as much as he may want to.

While Jack makes his way back to the hospital, we follow The Shadowy Man for a bit longer, watching as he confronts two thugs who lagged behind at the museum to loot rather than destroy. The Shadowy Man muses aloud as to whether he should join in the looting or stop the thugs so that the masses may enjoy the art they are stealing. After being threatened with a gun by one of the thugs, The Shadowy Man brings the shadows to life and shapes them into the form of a dragon, who eats the thug. He then makes a discovery amongst the rubble that he thinks Jack Knight would want to see.

Later, The Shadowy Mans meets with The Mist and we find out that The Shadowy Man is The Shade - another super villain of DC Comics' Golden Age. The two strike a bargain that in exchange for a share of the loot from the Mist’s crime spree, The Shade will kidnap Ted Knight from his hospital bed.

Meanwhile, Jack finally reaches the hospital where Ted tells him of a warehouse where an older, larger version of his Cosmic Rod is stored. Jack leaves to fetch the rod, leaving Matt O’Dare to guard his father. Shortly after he leaves, The Shade enters and takes Ted with him, telling Matt to make a note that while The Shade could have easily killed him, he didn’t. When Jack returns with the rod (more properly a cosmic staff for its' size), he recieves a phone call from The Mist, who proposes a duel between his son and Jack for the life of Ted Knight. Jack reluctantly agrees and starts preparing for the fight.

As Jack prepares, he is joined by Matt, Hope and Mason O’Dare. Hope says that she thinks Jack is being very brave to agree to do what he’s doing but Jack shrugs off the praise and insists that despite everything he has done so far, he is still not a hero. As he says this, he recalls a forgotten memory of when he was a kid and his looking at a Viewmaster reel of his father and saying that one day, he was going to be just like his father.

Thinking about how he’s now living a life he’d wanted as a child, Jack flies off to the duel. At the same time, Nash and Kyle say farewell to each other. Nash says she’ll be so unsure of what to do if Kyle gets killed but Kyle reassures her that he’ll be okay and even promises that they can go and see a movie together like old times once the duel is done. Here we see more of the irony that permeates Starman as a series. The family of villains (whose surname we never do learn) appear to be a more normal, healthy and traditional nuclear family than the nominally heroic and very dysfunctional Knights.

As the duel in the sky goes on, The Shade appears to the O’Dares. He explains that the only reason he agreed to kidnap Ted Knight was so that he could learn the location of the Mist’s hideout, which it turns out is inside the Knight family mausoleum. The shadowy villain leads the police to the hideout and even assists in the capture of the Mist and Nash. The irony continues as we find that The Shade, in defiance of the paradigm that comic-book super-villains are completely without scruples, has a very complex personal code of honor and that a large part of it is that he does not commit crimes in "his" town nor will he allow overly destructive crimes to occur.

Jack kills Kyle in the skies over Opal, impaling him on the Cosmic Rod and cremating his body instantly. Meeting with the police and his father later, Jack gets a note from The Shade, saying that the two will talk another day and that Jack will receive two gifts. We also see Nash get taken away, swearing revenge on Jack for what he did to Kyle and her father. Her father, we discover, went mad upon the discovery of his son’s death and is now confused and senile.

Returning to Ted’s other observatory in the country, Jack and Ted discuss what they will do now. Despite still seeing superheroics as "an excuse for grown men to put their underwear on the outside of their tights", Jack agrees to act as the city’s protector on the condition that Ted start trying to find ways to use the cosmic energy he discovered for something besides weapons. We then get two brief interludes to two other heroes who called themselves Starman: one an alien imprisoned in an sideshow on Earth and the other an Earthman traped in an alien lab.

A few days later, The Shade does visit Jack, as Jack is in the middle of constructing a new custom Cosmic Rod. After a brief discussion regarding reincarnation and the possibility of Jack’s being reincarnated from a sheriff who once defended Opal 100 years ago, Shade shows Jack the two gifts he spoke of. The first is the memorial plaque from the museum, dedicated to Jack’s mother. The second is a book; a journal belonging to Shade, who is immortal. He says that he thinks that Jack will need to know the history of the city in order to defend it properly and leaves telling Jack that he does believe he is destined for great things. Later that night, in a story tying into one of the books odder subplots, Jack is visited by a man who seeks a Hawaiian shirt that supposedly has a portal to heaven painted on the back.

The final story of the trade paperback has Jack meeting his brother David in a black and white dream world. The two fight and talk, coming to terms with their lives and finally making peace with one another. The story ends with David promising to visit Jack at least once a year in this manner.


***


By the end of the story, I saw that Jack’s internal struggle with the idea of becoming a hero was similar to my struggle with becoming a comics fan. We were both concerned about being labeled as something clashing with our personal image because of something we were doing that might be considered childish. But by the end of the story, Jack begins to realize that there is a bit more to what he considered a childish dream when he kills a man in his capacity as a hero. Kind of like how I felt when I read my first issue of Preacher.

Jack found, as I did, that one can still be the same person while adopting a new aspect to your overall personality. Jack does refer to superheroics as "Self-propagating kid stuff" and an excuse for grown men to act foolish at first, but he eventually comes to accept and even love his status as a superhero. Likewise, many older readers look upon their hobby with a shame that they are doing something childish but then they decide "Damn, but I do love it."

It’s like a wise person once said, "What’s the point of being an adult if you aren’t allowed to act childish once in a while?"

I made these observations once - what seems like a lifetime ago - back when Starman was still being published on a monthly basis and I was still a writer for the late and much-missed Fanzing. In the same issue I originally reviewed this story, my editor at the time did an interview with James Robinson and asked him about my observation that Jack's acceptance of his role as a hero could be seen as a mirror of a fan's feelings about the comics industry and hobby and how the whole series itself was a plea that superheroes could be done with a sense of maturity behind them while still being fun.

Robinson said that it was a good comparison, although he was curious how - pushing that analogy to its' logical conclusion - I would analyze the end of the Starman series.

We'll get to that next week.

Looking To The Stars - 10/22/07 - Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid onEarth: A Review

Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth by Chris Ware is often compared to James Joyce’s Ulysses. Interestingly, this comparison is made by both its’ fans and detractors.

The book’s fans say that like Ulysses, it uses dense language and a stream of consciousness style of writing to challenge its’ readers. The book’s detractors say that like Ulysses, few have ever actually read it, fewer understood it, fewer still liked it and that most of the people who own a copy of the book display it on their bookshelves as a monument to how well-read they are.

This is, to my mind, an unfair comparison.

I’ve read Ulysses. I understand Ulysses. I enjoyed Ulysses. I did not enjoy Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth, though I did read and understand it. But if a Modernist literary comparison must be made, I think it would be much better to liken Jimmy Corrigan to Ethan Frome rather than Ulysses.

Now, for those of you who were fortunate enough not to have Ethan Frome inflicted upon you during Mrs. Wentworth’s 7th Hour English or your local equivalent, let me sum up briefly.

Ethan Frome is the story of a man named, oddly enough, Ethan Frome. His life, as told to an unnamed narrator over the course of the novel, is one of sadness and woe. Forced to tend to the family farm rather than to go the big city, college and a life as a scientist after his parents turn ill, he is further forced into a loveless marriage with Zeena; a distant cousin who is both a hypochondriac and an anti-intellectual. A silver lining comes into the dark cloud that is Ethan’s life in the form of Mattie; a smart, kind woman who is sent to take care of her ailing cousin Zeena.

Mattie and Ethan begin the tamest of love-affairs, with the height of their passion conveyed in a single kiss. Zenna, sensing something is up, declares her intent to send Mattie away and hire a new maid, before leaving to visit a distant doctor. Deciding that death would be preferable to life apart or the dishonor of running away to make a life together elsewhere, Mattie and Ethan make a suicide pact and decide to kill themselves while faking a sledding accident.

The plan fails as Ethan is thrown clear of the sled and is left barely able to walk while Mattie is paralyzed and struck dumb. Zenna, who thrives on Ethan’s suffering, is miraculously cured and cheered upon her return home. The novel ends with Ethan an old man who never got to follow his dreams, still trapped in a loveless marriage with a woman who lives to spite him and the woman he loves stripped of the spirit and mind that was the one beacon in his dark life.

Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth is the story of a man named, oddly enough, Jimmy Corrigan. The end-result of a one-night stand between a womanizing airport bartender and a faceless, nagging woman, Jimmy is a sad, friendless, emasculated mess who is ignored at best and insulted at worst by those around him.

The plot centers upon Jimmy as he skips off to meet his estranged father (without telling his nursing-home housed mother) over Thanksgiving weekend. This is inter-cut - without warning or links - with a flashback of the life’s story of Jimmy Corrigan’s grandfather. He too was an abused screw-up from a single-parent home, who is eventually abandoned by his father at the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago.

By the end of the novel, Jimmy is hit by a car and briefly hospitalized. Jimmy’s father – who attempts to bond with Jimmy by regaling him with tales of all the women he’s slept with - dies suddenly. And Jimmy alienates the half-sister that he thought he was beginning to form an actual friendship with by presuming too much, too quickly.

Now that we have the summaries done, you might ask why do I think that Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth is more aptly compared to Ethan Frome than Ulysses?

• Both books take their title from the name of their main character.
• Both books were written by their respective authors as an autobiographical catharsis. Chris Ware freely admits that Jimmy Corrigan is based on his own experiences with his estranged father whereas Edith Wharton was trapped in a loveless marriage with a man she despised.
• Both books are set in a bleak, cold, desolate landscape where love is not to be found; one being set in the urban sprawl of the American Midwest and the other in rural Massachusetts.
• The drama of both books would be ended instantly were the title character not such a complete coward more concerned with how others view him than his own happiness.
• Both are filled with symbolism that is, ultimately, pointless. For instance, Ware repeats the image of a damaged Superman as a metaphor for the death of Jimmy’s own dreams and his image of what his father is like as Wharton uses a broken glass pickle dish as a symbol of marriage destroyed by infidelity. Such symbolism is wasted, however, as the text of both books make such subtext redundant.
• Both books were difficult to get through, depressed the ever-loving life out of me and made me want to slit my wrists.

Sadly, Jimmy Corrigan lacks the strength of character to end unhappily. The story concludes with Jimmy working in his office on Thanksgiving and meeting a new female co-worker who offers Jimmy friendship and perhaps – just perhaps - the love that is sorely lacking in his life. This ending comes out of nowhere and stands in direct contrast to the bleak nature of the rest of the novel. It is as if Chris Ware, perhaps aware of how difficult it is to sell a thirty-dollar comic book to anyone who isn’t an Indie Comics Hipster, decided he needed a happy ending to assure the masses that this story does have a point to it other than "Jimmy Corrigan's life sucks."

The end of the book also offers an apology from Ware for how uneven the book is. He goes on to explain how it started with no ending in mind as a series of comic strips published by an Indie newspaper and how it is a personal work written to deal with his own issues and probably not fit for public consumption.

I agree completely. However, since Mr. Ware had the decency to apologize for how horrible his book is – which is more than Edith Wharton ever did - I will be nice to him. I will not go into detail criticizing his artwork and will say only that it is as bland, lifeless and inoffensive as oatmeal.

Despite this, I would still recommend that everyone read Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth (if your library has a copy, of course - don't pay for the damn thing!) for much the same reason that Mrs. Wentworth had us read Ethan Frome. Because after reading it, I realized that although I was a shy, quiet outcast who was bullied by the popular boys and ignored by the popular girls, my life could have been a whole lot worse. The sting of adolescence was lessened by the knowledge no matter how bad my life got, I could always take comfort in the fact that I wasn’t Ethan Frome. Or, at the very least, I’d never have to read Ethan Frome again for the rest of my life. So too do I now take comfort in the fact that I can return Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth to the bookstore.

Perhaps I can exchange it for a copy of Ulysses.

Looking To The Stars - American Born Chinese, A Review

One of the great ironies of life in post-World War II America is that we – a nation founded by immigrants on the ideal of being a haven for outcasts and outsiders from around the world - have become so insular and cliquish. We fought in The Great War because of the arrogant Nationalism of other nations only to become as arrogant and exclusive as “The Good Germans” of three generations past.

Of course The United States has always had a love/hate relationship with immigrants. They were welcome as cheap labor and soldiers but on-the-whole despised by the families of the original colonists for being different. Even today, while we no longer have “Irish Need Not Apply” or similar signs, immigrants are a frequent scapegoat for all manner of social ills from rising health-care costs to gang violence.

I mention this because this theme of outsiders and subtle racism in the the so-called Land Of The Free is the heart of Gene Luen Yang’s American Born Chinese. Released last year, American Born Chinese is picking up awards like seashells on the beach and having finally managed to get a copy, I can see why.

The book relates three stories, seemingly unconnected but ultimately linked. In the first, we are told a tale of The Monkey King (Sun Wukong) and how he rebelled against his role after being cast out of a celestial party because he was a monkey and did not wear shoes. A shape-changer and student of Kung Fu, he tries to reinvent himself as The Great Sage, Equal of Heaven only to find himself trapped under a mountain of rubble for his arrogance.

Yang’s artistry becomes apparent in this section, for his cartoony style of art effectively portrays the complexities of Chinese mythology in an surprisingly simple way. It is this section that delivers one of the book’s many morals – there is no shame in being yourself.

In the second tale, written in the style of an American sitcom, a boy named Danny of indeterminable Caucasian background is tormented by a visit from his Chinese cousin, Chin-Kee. Chin-Kee is every single Chinese stereotype made flesh. He is buck-toothed. He dresses in nothing but traditional Chinese garb. He speaks English with a “me so solly” accent. He carries fried cat in his lunch box. And his reaction when faced with a beautiful woman, “with bountiful Amellican bosom”, is to drool while fantasizing out-loud about binding her feet and her bearing his children.

This section is so vividly portrayed we hardly need the “HA HA HA”s that fill the bottom of every panel in which Chin-Kee does something stereotypically foreign. We can hear the canned laughter just fine in our own heads while our hearts recoil in horror at the grotesque racist parody that is Chin-Kee.

The third story, and the true heart of the book, tells the tale of Jin Wang – an American Born Chinese, i.e. the son of Chinese immigrant parents. Jin’s troubles begin when his parents move to a nameless suburb. Used to the Chinatown of San Fransisco, Jin quickly finds himself an outcast – the only Asian boy in the entire class – and an immediate victim of racism on every front. There is the hostile racism of his classmates, who order him to stay away from their dogs for fear he will make a snack out of their pets and the ignorance-born but polite racism of his teacher, who tells her students that she’s sure Jin and his family stopped doing that kind of thing when they became Americans. This after Jin's polite note that he is from San Francisco and not mainland China.

Jin’s friendless existence ends when an actual Chinese immigrant, Wei-Chen Sun, comes to his school from Taiwan. Filled with a desire to beat him up at first, Jin and Wei-Chen become best friends after bonding through a love of Transformer robots. The two go on to discover girls together, with Wei-Chen setting up Jin’s first date with dream-girl Amelia Harris.

As a white guy from Texas, I can’t truly appreciate what it is like to live in a society that treats me differently because of the color of my skin. I can imagine quite well and I can sympathize with such a character as Jin – but I can’t say that I know from direct experience what Jin is feeling like in the early parts of the book. But it is in this middle section and the scenes in which the shy Jin explains why the act of talking to a girl he likes is tantamount to suicide that nearly any man who went to an American public junior high school can relate to Jin.

I remember well the feeling that every girl was a goddess whose attentions you were beneath and how one smile could keep you feeling warm for the rest of the day and Yang perfectly captures the uncertainty of pre-teen life in this moment. He also draws a perfect parallel between the racism Jin experiences and the cliquishness that dominates adolescence when, after his first date, Jin is taken aside by a classmate and told not to ask Amelia out again because “she has to start paying attention to who she hangs out with”. Whether the statement is made because of Jin’s race or his lowly position on the social totem pole is inconsequential – the point is that despite everything, Jin does not fit in.

To say any more about this book would be to deprive you of the pleasure of reading one of the best graphic novels in recent memory. American Born Chinese is a refreshing pleasure on every level. Artistically, Thematically and Spiritually the book is a well balanced tale and a worthy addition to any graphic novel library.

Looking To The Stars - Will Eisner's New York, A Review

Confession time. Despite all my years as a comic reader and a critic of graphic literature, I had not – until recently – ever read a single story written or drawn by Will Eisner.

I’ve seen samples of his art in the history books, of course. And I’ve seen many more works inspired by him. The artist who says that Will Eisner hasn’t influenced his work is either a hack or a poor student of comic history. Because in some form or fashion, Will Eisner has been an influence on the genre to a point where separating Will Eisner from American Comics is like trying to chisel the animal remains out of a fossil.

This is one of the reasons why the highest honor in graphic literature was named in his honor while he was still alive. But another reason Eisner may have been honored thus was because in addition to being one of the undisputed masters of his craft, he was also reportedly one of the nicest men one could ever hope to meet.

There is a story that several decades back, a magazine editor attempted to find someone in the comic industry to write a hatchet-piece about Will Eisner only to find that none of his fellow writers had a bad thing to say about the man or his work. This editor was reportedly forced to write the piece himself and even he was apparently unable to find Eisner guilty of any crime other than that his work was too sentimental.

This story is recounted by Neil Gaiman in his introduction to Will Eisner’s New York - a recent hardcover edition collecting four of Will Eisner’s graphic novels that are set-in or about New York City and the first bit of Will Eisner’s work I have ever seen intact. And if being too sentimental is a crime, Will Eisner was exceedingly, happily and above all else incredibly guilty. The four stories bound in this edition are many things but above all else they are a love letter to a city that may no longer exist anymore.

In his introduction to the first novel, New York: The Big City, Eisner notes that while the scenes he shows are taken from his home town of New York, that “I also know many other big cities, and what I show is meant to be common to them all.” Indeed, some scenes are universal to big-city life everywhere, such as Walls Have Ears in which a neighbor overhears the sexual acrobatics of his next-door neighbor and then has to maintain a straight face the next morning in the elevator. This is a problem that plagues every city dweller who ever lived in a small apartment, college dormitory or other form of prison cell.

But other scenes seem to be unique to New York, such as Subways - which depicts the fleeting daydreams of a male and female passenger on a subway train. She dreams that the handsome man is a lawyer who will give her the perfect marriage. He dreams that she is a rich heiress and kinky nymphomaniac who dreams of sharing her father’s money with a common mechanic. Of course other cities have subway trains and fantasies like this occur are common enough when looking at strangers in public. And yet, something about this particular fantasy seems to scream New York.

Eisner depicts all these scenes with an odd combination of both realism and sentiment. They are realistic in that we have all know or have met people like the ones Eisner depicts and that no matter how outlandish his brief plots are, they still read true. They are sentimental in that even in the scenes which show the darker side of human nature, such as when a woman is jeered by her neighbors while pleading for help fighting a purse snatcher, there is still a sort of nostalgic longing for the days when losing a purse was the worst a woman could expect on the streets of New York.

This realism and sentimentality in the face of outlandishness lies at the core of the second story in this collection: The Building. The story of four lost souls tied to the site of a recently demolished building, this is perhaps the most traditional story of comic heroism and villainy in the collection. There are no costumed crime-fighters or cackling masterminds here but there are the quiet sorts of good and evil that are, under Eisner’s pen, every bit as epic as any battle between Superman and Lex Luthor.

Monroe Mensh is hardly a Superman. In fact, he’s not even in good enough shape to be a passable Clark Kent. And yet there is little doubt by the end of his story that he is a hero, who knows full well the truth in Edmund Burke’s statement that, ‘The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.’

Inspired by the sudden death of a young boy in a drive-by shooting – a crime he is sure he could have stopped had he not frozen up when the shooting started – Monroe quit his job to do something where he could make a living saving children. Monroe tries to become a social services case worker, despite the repeated urgings of his boss to stick to fund-raising after the mousy Monroe proves able to do little against abusive fathers and children turned to crime. And yet, Monroe does not give up trying to do good until the day he dies.

Monroe’s quiet, desperate heroism is matched by the subtle villainy of P.J. Hammond – a second-generation real-estate tycoon who resorts to dirty tricks to buy the titular Building – the very first that his father started his empire with. Ironically, in trying to create a legacy for his father by reclaiming his first conquest, he loses the empire his father gave everything to build. In the end, Hammond’s only legacy is a building named after him - built on the ruins of the building he gave all to possess.

Another figure who destroys all they value in search of something bigger is Gilda Green, a backstreets girl who loved a neighborhood poet but abandoned her love for the security in marriage to an Uptown dentist. She still maintains her friendship with Benny – a friendship that turns into an affair which shames Gilda until she finds her husband is cheating on her as well. Even then she cannot bring herself to abandon security for the freedom of Benny’s love and she finds herself, in death, haunting the street corner where she and Benny met weekly.

The ghostly quartet is rounded off by Antonio Tonatti – an street musician with the face of Edgar Allan Poe. An aspiring prodigy, Antonio’s dreams of artistry were shot down at an early age. Still, he found a joy in playing his violin that transcended the rest of his life and when an accident at his union job left him with a pension for life and all the time in the world, he began to do just that on the street outside his home. A true bard, Antonio refused all payment and played only to inspire the downtrodden (such as a depressed Monore) and enhance the moods of young lovers like Benny and Gilda.

Despite this being a ghost story in the tradition of Dickens, this is a fundamentally realistic tale as Eisner tells not only of the passing of four souls but of the passing of a building and an era. It is a story that is spiritually close to Wilder’s Our Town, but The Building is a far more hopeful work.

Not as hopeful but just as heartwarming is City People Notebook; the third of Eisner’s works collected in this edition. Similar to New York: The Big City in format, being a collection of several short sketches rather than a continuous tale, this is a much more humorous collection of stories.

Humorous, it should be noted, does not always equal lighthearted. Some of Eisner’s stories here are dark comedies, such as Space Rights. One can’t help but feel guilty for laughing at this piece - partly because of the unseen victim of one man’s activism and partly because thanks to Eisner’s magic pencils, one doesn’t see the old punch line coming until it is too late.

But even this dark comedy pales to the guilt produced by laughing at Sanctum and Mortal Combat - the opening and closing chapters of Eisner’s Invisible People. The former depicts the tragically hilarious and hilariously tragic events that befall one Pincus Pleatnik after his obituary is wrongly published and he finds that the rest of the world is at best indifferent to the news of his death. The later depicts the increasingly deadly struggle between a middle-aged librarian and the mother of the man she hopes to rope into marriage.

No such humor exists, save humor of the most bitter and ironic kind, in The Power -the middle chapter of Invisible People and for my money, the best story in the entire collection. The story of a man who finds he has an amazing gift for healing and yet absolutely no capacity for finding a place in the world where he can use it to help people as he wishes, it is one of the most stunning stories ever written for the graphic literature medium.

Having read through all of this, I am kicking myself for not trying to track down the works of Will Eisner much sooner. I’m glad that my own library picked up this work recently – otherwise I might never have had the chance to enjoy it. At any price, this collection is a priceless bargain and well worth $30 American for a stylish and durable hardcover if your library is not fortunate enough to have a copy of Will Eisner’s New York.

Looking To The Stars - Harvey Pekar's The Quitter

Typically when one hears the words “autobiographical comic”, one of two things comes to mind. One is crudely-drawn images, paired with pretentious, pseudo-intellectual dialogue, presented on a second-hand website by an undergraduate student who is attempting to become the next big thing in web comics. The other is self-congratulatory screeds by ancient masters of the genre, who haven’t done any original work worth noting in years. Truly, the genre is generally the work of has-beens and wannabes.

There is one glowing exception to this truism, however. There is one man who has managed, if not to make a living writing true-to-life autobiographical works, at least managed to gain some level of fame and respect doing it. This man is Harvey Pekar and for over thirty years his American Splendor series has made him a beloved figure among the underground comics community. Recently, Vertigo Comics began publishing Pekar’s original work and just as recently, my library was able to pick up a copy of Pekar’s autobiographical comic The Quitter

The Quitter is unique among Pekar’s work in that rather than discussing his day-to-day life, this work goes back to explore his past - the thirty some-odd years before he started writing comics, to be precise.



This is a brisk change of pace from your usual biographical comic, which usually devotes only a small amount of time to the formative years of the writer and then spends the lion’s share of time discussing how they found out about comics, how they created this character or where they got the inspiration for this, that and the other.

Only one brief page discusses Pekar’s comic collection as a boy, which is but one of many hobbies he has. And only the last few pages discuss Pekar’s friendship with the infamous underground artist Robert Crumb (Fun Fact: despite a love of comics, the two became friends because of a mutual interest in jazz), how Pekar became a reviewer of jazz music to a writer of comics and how he had a movie based on his work and is still worried about paying the bills despite now getting big offers from Vertigo Comics.

So what is The Quitter about?

A boy with a good memory who sees no reason to study when he can memorize the material so easily.

A teen who begins to develop major neuroses thanks to an emotionally absent father and a domineering mother, who chides him for getting one B when he could have gotten all A’s.

A young man who is such a perfectionist, he gives up on everything in his life rather than settle for being second-best, figuring that good enough is not good enough.

Pekar’s story goes through his early years, telling of how he quit playing sports when he couldn’t be a starter on the varsity team. How he decided to become a great street fighter, until he realized just how limited the career possibilities are for someone whose only skill is picking fights with people who rarely deserve it. How he left the Navy after a matter of weeks in shell-shock because despite his perfect memory, he couldn’t keep up with how his clothes were supposed to go into his kit bag or how he was supposed to do his own laundry. And ultimately, how despite a desire to succeed at something… anything… he settled into a life of dull routine while grasping at what few straws of glory he could manage.

All of this is lovingly illustrated by Dean Haspiel with Lee Loughridge in a style that captures the quiet despair of Pekar’s early life in the decaying neighborhoods of Cleveland. With everything colored in shades of grey and pure black and white used sparingly, the piece maintains the look of a 50’s sitcom even during the more action-packed or disturbing moments.

The whole book has wonderful art but the moment that I think best defines the piece lies in a section where Pekar describes the misery inherit in working in his parent’s mom-and-pop grocery store – a shop which nobody goes to except for older patrons who prefer a simpler storefront business or people in a hurry who just need one or two items. Pekar vividly describes how much of the job was standing around, waiting for something to happen and dealing with people he feared would turn to dust as the entire world moves around him.

In that moment, thanks to Haspiel and Loughridge’s art, everything clicks as it should in a fine comic as art and story fuse into a glorious whole. The grey tones perfectly capture the aura of decay in young Harvey’s landscape as well as the despair which is just gaining a finger-hold in his soul.

Despite this gloomy tone, The Quitter is a remarkably hopeful work. It shows a man who ironically found his calling by giving up everything and made something of himself by following his heart’s desire and eventually lucking into success of a sort. If you’ve never read a Harvey Pekar book before, this is a great one to start with

Looking to the Stars - V For Vendetta: The Novel - A Review

So the other day, I got an instant message from my friend Melissa. She asked me if I had a copy of V for Vendetta. Oddly enough, I didn’t.

Oh, I knew of the book, certainly. I’m a big fan of Alan Moore and had always intended to read the book someday. But it was on that list of classics I intended to get to as soon as I actually had some more spare time to do some serious heavy reading. This is, it might be noted, the same reason I have yet to get around to finishing up the complete works of Poe, Swift and Twain.

This lets you know my regard for Alan Moore; I group him in such distinguished company. Well, distinguished to my mind anyway. I’m not sure how he’d feel about it.

At any rate, Melissa reminded me that the film adaptation of V for Vendetta was coming out fairly soon and expressed a desire to read the book before seeing the movie. I admitted that I would like to do the same. Arrangements were made for me to pick her up a copy (seeing as how I’m all connected in the local comic shops) and I wound up picking up a copy for myself as well.

So, what did I think of this long ignored classic?

Let me put it to you this way: the day I got it, I stayed up until 3 AM taking in every panel, reading and rereading every line and just generally devouring this novel. It is that compelling. In fact, I’ll even go so far as to say that this piece is better than the more famous Alan Moore dystopian tale: Watchmen.

I will not discuss the plot in great detail. If you have seen the trailers and posters for the movie, you probably have the basic gist anyway. And if you haven’t seen those yet, my telling you the plot would rob you of much of the joy of reading this book. And make no mistake, you SHOULD read this book before you see the movie, or maybe even after.

Briefly, the story takes place in “the future” of 1997. Fascism grips the nation and the only hope for freedom in this Brave New World is the vigilante known only as “V”. We are introduced to V and V’s world through Evey Hammond; a young factory worker saved from a gruesome end at the hands the modern Gestapo.

Through Evey’s eyes, we see V as he fights against a corrupt and oppressive government. A government with total control of the media, which rules through unrestricted spying on the citizens they claim to be protecting, as well as through mass repression of racial minorities, liberals, and homosexuals.

Well, this WAS science fiction back in 1981 when Moore started writing it…

In all seriousness, Moore wrote this as a cautionary tale which unintentionally happened to mirror the rise of Margaret Thatcher and the Conservative Party in England during the mid-1980s. It now unintentionally seems to mirror the rise of Neo-Conservatism and George W. Bush in the United States in more recent times.

Like Orwell and 1984 before him, Moore has become an inadvertent prophet. Such is the magic of Moore’s writing that the story now seems to be relevant though it was never meant to be more than a bit of passing fantasy and a warning – not a reflection of times to come.

Reflections are very much a part of the story, however. Smoke and mirrors are the greatest weapons in V’s rather dramatic arsenal and very rarely is seeing worth believing. The themes of image and illusion are repeated throughout the novel along with a dozen other potential interpretations.

Moore’s plotting is at its most convoluted, but everything makes an odd kind of sense as everything slowly clicks together. I’ve heard it said that you have to be British to truly appreciate this story. I disagree, but do think that one must be very well read and traveled in order to get a lot of the more subtle references and quotes that V makes in his conversation. The Guy Fawkes references are rather obvious but I was shocked to see a rather subtle parallel between Don Quixote and V. I shall say no more than that – I have too much respect for the master magician to take you backstage before the show.

The art by David Lloyd is perfectly moody. I have heard that the intent with the style here was to emulate the film noir style (even the title fits the mold, being not too far removed from Dial M For Murder) and Lloyd succeeds beautifully here. Everything is shadowy, but elegantly so. What little white there is (such as V’s mask) seems to be rare and fleeting… in danger of being swallowed up by the darkness around it and disappearing forever. This closed-in style only serves to further emphasize the environment of oppression that is very much a part of the setting. And yet, the same art makes the shadows around V and his “Shadow Gallery” seem cozy and inviting.

All in all, this is one classic I should have read a lot sooner. It is a must read for all comics fans, whether you plan to see the movie or not. And speaking of the movie, some of you are probably wondering if I plan to review the film, or if I will sit it out in protest of how Alan Moore has, again, been slighted in regards to his creative wishes?

Rest assured – I’ll review the film next week as only a nit-picker like myself can (after I’ve had a chance to see it). What with the convention this week, I won’t have a chance to see it before the next column comes due. So join us next time – for my comments on my first Con performance as well as a review of V for Vendetta: The Movie

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

Visit our blog at: http://www.livejournal.com/users/looking2dastars/

Batman: The Man Who Laughs - A Review

Written by: Ed Brubaker
Penciled by: Doug Mahnke
Inked by: Doug Manke
Colored by: David Baron
Lettered by: Rob Leigh
Editor: ?
Publisher: DC Comics

The Man Who Laughs was a 1928 film based on a story by Victor Hugo. In it, the Lord Clancharlie’s son Gwynplaine has his face cut into a hideous permanent grin as punishment for his father’s plotting against the King.

This has precious little to do with Batman, except for one thing. The hideous look of Gwynplaine in the movie was one of Bob Kane and Jerry Robinson's inspirations in designing the original look of The Joker.

The Man Who Laughs is also the title of a new book released this week. It retells the now classic story of how a two-bit, masked criminal called The Red Hood would take a fall into a chemical vat and then grow to become Batman’s greatest enemy.

It’s fair to say that if you’re fan of Batman or The Joker, then you’ve probably already seen this story in some form or another. It is all the more impressive, then, that in telling a familiar story writer Ed Brubaker has managed to create something new and enjoyable. The tone of the book is film noir, with a heavy focus upon detective work and the lone figure in the night; elements usually associated with Batman, but not so much lately in his monthly titles. The feel is similar to Batman: Year One in that we get to see Batman off-balance and still finding his feet; a welcome change from the nigh-unstoppable maniac written by practically every other writer at DC Comics. We also get to see Jim Gordon, Captain instead of Commissioner, still fighting against the corruption above and below him as opposed to the prematurely grey elder-statesman of the Gotham City Police Department.

The art by Doug Mahnke is perfect. Everything is shadowy and inky except for The Joker himself, who almost appears to be in his own personal, permanent spotlight. One particularly effective scene occurs right at the beginning, as we enter a crime scene where The Joker apparently experimented on several unwitting subjects while perfecting his Joker Toxin. The only complaint about the artwork, and this is a personal thing, is that Joker’s hair is colored as bright nearly neon green. I always thought of it as being a darker shade, but that’s just me.

Looking To The Stars: Good Trades And Bad

It was a pretty light week for me comics-wise, me having picked up a grand total of four titles. Still, I didn’t lack for reading material. A few trades that I had been looking forward to for quite some time came out this week as well. So I did my part for the slumping American economy, clunked down twenty-some-odd wing-wangs and sat down for some fine comic reading time.

Essential Spider-Man: Volume 6

The Essentials series has proven a godsend to those of us Spidey fans who lack the material wealth to procure the original back issues from the good ol’ days when such giants as Lee, Ditko, Romita the First, Kane and Conway worked on the book. Heck, it’s a godsend for those of us who can’t afford the Marvel Masterworks set that collect 10 issues in hardback for fifty bucks a pop.

The Essentials TP series reprints some twenty-five issues of a classic Marvel title in one volume, all priced reasonably under twenty dollars. True, the artwork is uncolored but this does little to affect those of us who focus more on story than art. And even the art fan might enjoy these volumes as the lack of color makes the pencils and inking stand out all the more. The effect is not unlike that of a Film Noir thriller and while all of the Essentials series have been great treasures, Spider-Man in particular seems to enjoy this treatment the best.

I suspect the timing of this volume’s release was to coincide with the new Spider-Man movie. Thankfully, this is an appropriate move as this trade does contain some of the best Doctor Octopus stories ever, including the infamous “Doc Ock Marries Aunt May” issue. (Look for more details about that story in an upcoming column, True Believers!)

This volume contains other milestones, such as the first appearances of The Jackal, The Punisher and, of course, The Death Of Gwen Stacy. On the lighter side, we also get the first appearance of John Jameson as The Man-Wolf, the second (and last, thankfully) appearance of The Kangaroo and, as much as it pains me to recall it… The very short-lived Spider-Mobile. Either way, whether you are out for more serious tales or in the mood for something a little more kitsch, Essential Spider-Man will not disappoint.

Hellblazer: Highwater

I am a completist. I hate to leave things unfinished. I like to have things done with. This applies to my collections and when I’m in the middle of trying to complete a run on a book, there is very little outside of budgetary concerns or a book’s availability that will keep me from filling my collection.

On the other hand, I do not like Brian Azzarello’s writing. At least, I do not like the way he writes established characters. His work on 100 Bullets has been fine indeed but that is his baby. His recent Batman arc did not read like Batman. It read like a generic Hammet novel that had masks thrown onto it at the last minute. There was a bad guy called “Fatman” in it, for goodness sakes. And I have been sorely unimpressed with his work on Superman, though I must give him credit for trying a new tact with Superman that doesn’t involve him beating new trumped-up villains senseless. I just wish he’d tried a tact that had a little more action than his hovering around (he doesn’t really stand around as such) and talking to a priest about how he’s screwed up.

Still, the two opinions warred and the completist won out, after a brief team-up with longtime enemy Financial Concerns, who pointed out that getting the trades was cheaper than trying to hunt down the single issues. So now I have a copy of “Highwater”, which was the low water mark on Azzarello’s Hellblazer run as well as the final year’s worth of his run.

The biggest problem with the stories here is that John Constantine just doesn’t sound like John Constantine. I don’t know who he sounds like, but whoever it was his speech was removed of all “g”s and was peppered with the occasional British colloquialism. More, the story itself, concluding Azzarello’s on-going, three-year story, is a bit of a let down considering we are following the exploits of a man who has fought The Devil Himself on numerous occasions and won.

John faces know great supernatural threats in this story. There are no great evil hellish beings to outwit or banish. No, Azzarello instead tries to follow the example put forth by writer Jamie Delano, who said through Constantine’s mouth that humanity was, through sheer imagination, capable of greater evil than demons. So that is what we got: John Constantine fighting a whole lot of evil humans; neo-Nazis, hardened criminals, mass-murders and corrupt rich men.

The thing is, there’s very little challenge and drama in this. Strictly speaking, most of the people John faces in this book and indeed throughout Azarello’s run aren’t nearly enough of a challenge for him. This is not to say that he must fight demons in every issue but to say that John Constantine vs. a town full of dumbass neo-Nazis is not exactly a riveting spectacle. Besides, Delano did much better with the same gag in the early issues of Hellblazer and put a brand new twist on the two-headed giant gag in the bargain. Azzarello used far less humor than any other Hellblazer writer in the past and what little humor he did have was reserved for whole issues, such as the one where John recruits a hooker to help him bilk old women out of their Bingo winnings.

This is not a bad collection by any means. Even bland Hellblazer is still Hellblazer and a darn sight better than a lot of the mature titles out there. Still, I can’t help but wonder why DC felt the need to collect the complete works of this particular writer and yet will not do trades for the early Delano issues or indeed, the entirety of the Paul Jenkins run. Both of which were infinitely superior to this. I suspect it might have something to do with Jenkins having moved on to do even better work for Marvel and Top Cow (Spectacular Spider-Man and The Darkness) but it doesn’t really matter in the end. The Traders lose out and the completists are stuck paying through the nose trying to find that elusive copy of Part Four of “How To Play With Fire”.

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

Heaven's War - A Trade Paperback Review

Written by: Micha Harris
Penciled by: Michael Gaydos
Inked by: Michael Gaydos
Colored by: N/A
Lettered by: Nate Pride
Editor: Nathan Massengill
Publisher: Image Comics

The world is in the midst of a great war, the result of repercussions of a war some years before which was itself though to be the greatest battle of all time. A power-mad wizard of amoral attitude stands poised to move in and alter the course of the battle and indeed the world for his own gain. All that stands in his way is a small band of three, committed but seemingly incapable of stopping that which stands before them, as they vie for control of a magical artifact.

No, I’m not talking about Lord of the Rings. Though Tolkien is involved in this story, aside from a brief mention of “the new Hobbit” book. And like Bilbo Baggins starting with his own book, I find myself at a loss as where to begin summing up “Heaven’s War”. Still,the title itself seems as good a place to start as any.

In the midst of World War II, a group of professors and writers meet at Oxford to each lunch, share ideas and critique each others work. They are known as The Inklings and among them three members have a deep interest in the supernatural, despite their strict Christian upbringings and beliefs. These writers are Tolkien (whose works I don’t think I need list), C.S. Lewis (who is perhaps most famous for his “Narnia” books, although he was no mean satirist as well) and Charles Williams, who wrote metaphysical thrillers such as “War in Heaven”, which is paid tribute to in the title of this work.

Williams, the most obscure of these three, is the hero of the tale and the focus throughout most of the story. The story begins as he is summoned to visit Arthur Waite, who designed a tarot deck and wrote a number of books on the Freemasons. Waite warns Williams that Alister Crowley, a real-life magician and self-proclaimed “most evil man in the world”, is currently in route to retrieve a great secret hidden in the church of St. Magdalene in the French village of Rennes-le-Chateau. After surviving a magical assassination attempt, Williams tells of the story to his fellow Inklings, and the three go to France to stop Crowley.

This story is very involving, though it is unlikely that the average reader will know exactly what they are getting into with this book or of the broad history behind it. Aside from touching upon the lives of some very real and very complex men, the story also delves into some deep speculation regarding the very real mysteries of what happened to the Templar nights, the Mergovian dynasty, what the Holy Grail was and some deep metaphysical ideas regarding the very nature of how time functions. Luckily, Harris includes his own annotations at the stories end that give the briefest of all possible explanation while leaving the reader hungry for more information about the real people behind the characters of this story.

Gaydos’ art is sketchy, but not overly or annoyingly so. Every panel looks like it was taken right out of an artist’s sketchbook, but this does not make the book feel incomplete or unfinished. Indeed, it makes one feel as if you are watching the story through the very same ether as the angels and the demons who, in one flashback, fight the original war in Heaven.

Daredevil: Born Again TPB - A Review

Written by: Frank Miller
Penciled by: David Mazzucchelli.
Inked by: David Mazzucchelli
Colored by: Christie Scheele & Richmond Lewis
Lettered by: Joe Rosen
Editor: Ralph Macchio
Publisher: Marvel Comics

How many single issues have there been that completely changed a comic book?

This may sound like a loaded question, but think about it; even before today’s multi-part, maxi-series “the story that will change Captain X and Random-Man forever!” driven story-arcs, it was rare to have a major change take place in just one issue. Gwen Stacy’s death and the aftermath was a two-part story. The death of Barry Allen took several issues to build up to. And it took three issues for X-Men: Phoenix to lower the standards of what Marvel will publish to make a quick buck. Good drama, like good cooking, needs time to heat up and boil.

In fact, I can think of only two single comics in everything I have read where one issue really changed everything. The first is the Green Lantern/Green Arrow issue where Speedy is revealed to be a heroine addict. The other is the first part of this, Frank Miller’s last regular writing job on the monthly Daredevil title.

Right from the very beginning, we know something is different. We see a woman, later identified as Karen Page, who has fallen on hard times. Leaving the series to become an actress years before, Frank Miller brings her back, writing that she fell into drugs, a different kind of movie and is now so desperate for a fix that she is willing to sell away a sacred trust: the secret identity of Daredevil. This information makes its way up the ladder to Wilson Fisk (The Kingpin), who is all too happy to turn this information to his advantage and orders the deaths of Page and everyone else who passed the information up to him.

In the turn of a few short pages, Matt Murdock is beset by disaster after disaster in one morning. Newly released from a law firm and looking for a new job, he gets a Dear John tape (no letter for the blind man, of course) from his girlfriend Gloria. He also receives a subpoena regarding charges of corruption by one of the few honest cops left in New York, a letter from the bank saying he is behind on his mortgage payments and his assets have been frozen pending an IRS audit.

Things go from bad to worse as the power and phone at his apartment are turned off and Matt finds out the next day that his girlfriend is now shacked up with his best friend and lawyer in the pending corruption charges against him, Foggy Nelson. Franklin manages to save Matt from doing jail time, but is unable to keep Matt from loosing his law license. Unable to access his savings and distrustful of everyone around him, the final touch comes as Matt’s brownstone is blown up before him. In that moment, Matt has the revelation that Kingpin must be responsible for all his sudden misfortune and decides to take the fight to Fisk.

One issue. That is all it took for Matt Murdock to go from a respected lawyer looking for a job to a disgraced pariah with nothing. No money. No home. No love. No friends. And very quickly, no sanity and no hope.

Miller would further break down Matt Murdock and build up one of the most amazing stories to ever grace a spinner rack over the next six issues. He effortlessly follows multiple subplots; the Kingpin’s life as he watches Matt self-destruct, Matt’s actions as he falls further into madness, Foggy and Gloria as they get to know each other better, Ben Urich as he tries to locate Matt and Karen as she desperately tries to make her way to New York. This all builds towards an exciting climax in which Hell’s Kitchen is set ablaze, guest stars aplenty appear and old grudges are avenged.

This is all gloriously illustrated by David Mazzucchelli, who manages the thankless task of working with one of the undisputed masters of the craft and having to keep up with him. But keep up with Miller he does and does well, as do the rest of the art team who maintain a dark, noir feel to everything… even the battles in broad daylight and brightly-lit offices.

Born Again was recently reprinted as part of the Daredevil: Legends series and is a must-have for all comics fans and not just fans of The Man Without Fear. True, Miller’s gotten more attention for his work with Elektra during his original run on the series or his redefinition of the characters in his “Man Without Fear” mini-series (also available as a Legends TPB). But I’ll be damned if this isn’t the best thing he wrote with Daredevil.

Death: At Death's Door TPB - A Review

Written by: Jill Thompson
Penciled by: Jill Thompson
Inked by: Jill Thompson
Colored by: N/A
Lettered by: Jill Thompson
Editor: N/A
Publisher: Vertigo Comics

Somewhere in Texas, in a loft apartment, several days before Summer Midterms…

*RING RING*

Starman: (tiredly) Hello?

Daron: Greetings, Minion!

Starman: *sighs* Greetings, Dark Overlord…

Daron: What is wrong, Minion #38601? You seem displeased. Surely you are not irritated by the personal attentions of your editor?

Starman: Huh? Oh, no, no, no. Just that… well, I have midterms and term papers due this week, my acting troupe is having more problems with our theater and the upper management at the comic store I work at seem to have forgotten that we are not in the business of selling whatever crap the Japanese have convinced our children is cool this week.

Daron: Ah yes. This emphasis upon all things Japanese is certainly a weighty concerns for all of us.

Starman: No kidding! I mean, take most of this Manga. The plotting is barely coherent at the best of times, the art lacks even the basest understanding of proper human anatomy and intricate characterization is sacrificed for pointless sex and mindless violence.

Daron: Indeed. That is why I have such a book for you to review this week…

Starman: (gasps) Oh no! No way in HELL am I touching X-Men: Phoenix, Part Two!

Daron: Minion…

Starman: I mean, what is holding that costume on anyway? Dental floss? And did they make metal breastplates with strategic dents hammered into them or is she somehow denting the metal with her…

Daron: Minion…

Starman: And the book doesn’t even have anything to do with X-Men! Or Phoenix. Or anything but gratuitous cheesecake poses and tentacle-rape scenes….

Daron: MINION! Cease thy ranting for the moment. I did not wish for you to review THAT book. No. It was my intent that you were to peruse the new book “At Death’s Door”.

Starman: (long pause) The one based on Neil Gaiman’s “The Sandman”?

Daron: Yes.

Starman: The one with everything done by Jill Thompson, who has done more to shape the Endless than anyone but Neil Gaiman himself?

Daron: That is correct.

Starman: (longer pause) Okay. I’m not expecting much, but at least it won’t be tentacle softcore…. I hope.

*CLICK*

(One trip to the comic store and a 400 word essay on the ethics of modern librarians later)

There are few things I would rather do than read a new book set in the world of Neil Gaiman’s Endless. There are few things I would rather not do than read any Manga comic. It has been my experience that, as stated above, the vast majority of Manga is either mindless violent crap geared towards young boys or mindlessly violent crap with lots of big eyes, small mouths and girls in sailor uniforms geared toward dirty old men of all ages.

I’m sure there are a few Manga comics that this doesn’t describe but I am speaking only of my experience with the genre, general as it is. And I am sure that I am going to get “Endless” letters (ha!) from those of you who do like Manga-driven stories and artwork and that I will likely get slaughtered by some overweight girl in a pleated skirt who will hunt me down, do her Sailor Moon impression and “punish me” for my wickedness.

That said, let me say next… that I LOVED this book!

The plot of “Death’s Door” is a series of lost scenes from the original “Seasons of Mist” story, giving this whole comic the feel of the written equivalent of a director’s cut edition of a movie. Death popped in and out of “Seasons” three times and this story tells us what she was doing between her appearances in the original Gaiman story.

Previous experience with “The Sandman” is unneeded, but does add another level to the story as we get to see certain key moments of “Seasons” acted out in a different art-style. For example, Desire sprouts cat-ears as he/she becomes catty and insulting towards Dream. Speaking of which, I must marvel at Thompson’s ability to alter her usual style (which I love) into something more Mangaesque. Most artists are unable to perform such a trick and Thompson does it perfectly.

And artwork aside, this comic does blend seamlessly with Gaiman’s original vision of the series, with some of the original dry humor that made him famous. Consider for example, Desire’s rattling off a list of people, “who don’t enjoy a good party” after Delirium states that there’s nobody who doesn’t enjoy a good party. This takes the edge off some of the more slapstick humor, such as Delirium’s supersonic hyperactive movements, which may grate on the nerves of more traditional Sandman enthusiasts. There are even moments when the elements of both comics are mixed perfectly, such as a subplot involving a certain dead writer who falls in love with the dumpy and depressed Despair.

The independent comic snob in me is pleased by what he sees in this little volume. “At Death’s Door” is a worthy edition to the Sandman mythos, so all of my fellow indie comic snobs should take a look at this… even if it is a *twitch… twitch* .. Manga.

And for you Manga fans out there, this book is an excellent introduction to the world of Neil Gaiman’s “The Sandman”. The book even has an appearance list for the character of Death in the back, as well as a reading list of all “The Sandman” Trade Paperbacks. And, all Gaiman fans should take note, a summary of the stories to be told in the upcoming “Endless Nights” book is also in the back.

Green Lantern: Emerald Dawn II - A Review

Written by: Keith Giffen and Gerard Jones
Penciled by: M.D. Bright
Inked by: Romeo Tanghal
Colored by: Albert DeGuzman
Lettered by: Anthony Tollin
Editor: Andy Helfer
Publisher: DC Comics.

Most Green Lantern fans consider Emerald Dawn and Emerald Dawn II a low point in this history of the portrayal of Hal Jordan. This is because both stories were written at a time in the early 90’s when many characters were being made “darker” in order to compete with the growing number of anti-hero based books that were slowly consuming the market. This resulted in a few interesting stories (like Batman: Knightfall) but mostly resulted in angst and character flaws being hammered into characters who really did not or support such flaws. Hal was a key example of this, with Emerald Dawn turning the honest, fearless and all around nice guy into a whiny alcoholic loser who was given his ring after an accident he caused through drunk driving.

This doesn’t make Hal more relatable as a character: it makes you wonder what the hell the Guardians are thinking handing over the most powerful weapon in the universe to such a person.

Emerald Dawn II does nothing to help those thoughts, with Hal starting a jail sentence for his drunk driving and the Guardians deciding he must be trained, despite his incarceration. Call me crazy, but as keepers of order, don’t you think the Guardians would at least respect the local laws about Hal’s sentence and their own rules about interfering in local laws? But then we couldn’t have the oh so fun scenes where Hal is broken out of his cell on a nightly basis by the GL the Guardians picked to oversee his advanced training: Sinestro.

The plot balances between Hal’s training, his suspicions over his new mentor’s honesty and his meetings with his counselor, Guy Gardner. Yes, THAT Guy Gardner. PE Teacher from the mid-west is, for some reason, working as an advisor in the California prison system. Don’t ask- just smile and nod and remember that Guy is not as big a jerk as Hal in this story. No, seriously. And for all of you JLI and GL fans shaking your heads, trust me. I’m serious.

It’s a shame that the story is so bad because the artwork, while nothing special, is adequate and manages to convey the story and the action well. Sadly, this is not enough to save this miniseries. There have been worse Green Lantern stories but none of those have ever been collected in a trade paperback. If it were a fish, I’d throw it back.