{"id":2419,"date":"2002-06-26T21:16:25","date_gmt":"2002-06-27T02:16:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/?p=2419"},"modified":"2014-11-06T08:42:21","modified_gmt":"2014-11-06T15:42:21","slug":"comics_comics_c-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/06\/26\/comics_comics_c-2.html","title":{"rendered":"Comics, comics, comics"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yet another set of mini-reviews, segregated out for your skipping-over pleasure …<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Origin of the Species<\/u><\/b><\/p>\n

I finally finished Origin <\/i>(Marvel), the 6-part “Finally, At Long Last, Secret Origin of Wolverine.”<\/p>\n

Ho-hum. <\/p>\n

Lovely art by Andy Kubert (with “digital painting” by Richard Isanove). Paul Jenkins’ story was decent, although it got a little confusingly muddled at the end.<\/p>\n

But let’s face it — after decades of “The Man with the Secret Past,” making Origin <\/i>appropriately spectacular was just as impossible as the task Lucas faced with Star Wars, Episode I<\/i>. And Jenkins (with plotting help from Bill Jemas and Joe Quesada), while not completely flubbing it like Lucas, turns the whole thing into a bodice-ripper by way of Jack London.<\/p>\n

Ho-hum.<\/p>\n

That 10.0 slabbed editions of #1 have been selling on eBay in the four figures is sheer insanity. (Though, running across my own copy this afternoon, I quickly bag-and-boarded it.) In a decade, this will be a $15-20 comic, with value tailing off to $7-10 by #6.<\/p>\n

Three Cats<\/u><\/b><\/p>\n

By one of those coincidences that we all love, I have three cat-themed issues this week — Catwoman <\/i>#8 (DC), Tigra <\/i>#4 of 4 (Marvel), and Spiderman\/Black Cat: The Evil That Men Do <\/i>#1 of ? (Marvel).<\/p>\n

Art<\/u>:<\/p>\n

  • Catwman<\/i>‘s Rader\/Burchett have a noir anime feel to them. It’s a look that DC has been playing with in their Bat-lines, and it works. We’re not talking pin-up material here, but the figures are drawn well, you can tell one guy in a suit from another, and the action sequences flow well.\n
  • Tigra<\/i> is a Mike Deodato production, and his renditions have never looked more realistic or sexy. It helps that Tigra the Cat-woman is a frelling sexy character to begin with. The coloring by SotoColor is a bit murky, and Greer Nelson’s hair is a lot more blue that even the Beast would like.\n
  • The Black Cat is penciled by Terry Dodson, with inks and colors by Rachel Dodson. The style is clean, but the figures look slightly awkward, as if trying to do Alan Davis mixed with anime and a still-nascent understnading of how the human body moves. Felicia is dranw as cheese-cakey as one could ask for (including a let-me-fall-out-of-my-slinky-costume cover), but Spidey suffers a lot in the translation.<\/p>\n

    Story<\/u>:<\/p>\n

  • Catwoman<\/i>, as written by Ed Brubaker, is in the middle of a character-redefining arc, setting up Selena as the protector of the downtrodden against corrupt Gotham cops. Brubaker’s doing a nice job building a supporting cast, but it’s a little at the expense of what’s going on in Catwoman’s head, despite the captions. Maybe that’s a good contrast to the too-much-in-the-head of the previous writer, but Catwoman<\/i>, with a solid start, has a ways to go.\n
  • The Tigra<\/i> miniseries was written by Christina Z., and it’s been an interesting trip, as Greer tracks down her husband’s killer, which just happens to lead her into a hyper-law-and-order vigilante group made up of policemen. It’s a very personal story, a dark one, and Tigra becomes an embodiment of anger and violence both more effective and more scary than when she was hanging out with the Avengers. She ends up joining the NYPD at the end, which may suit her quite well, but probably means we won’t be seeing much of her any time soon. Though I’d love to see her pop up in Bendis’ Alias<\/i>.\n
  • Kevin Smith is writing the Spidey\/Black Cat <\/i>series, and he has a lot of fun bringing back the Black Cat character from the 80s (even though the Felicia\/Peter relationship has been timewarped to only five years ago). There’s no mention of her bad luck powers, but she’s clearly got something going for her, and she certainly brings some ill fate to Peter’s mission to track down the killer of a high school student — said killer also having done in a friend of a friend of Felicia’s. Smith’s writing is fresh, slangy, and works very nicely. I’m looking forward to the following issues, wherever he’s going with them.<\/p>\n

    Bad Pictures<\/u><\/b><\/p>\n

    Spider-Man: Quality of Life<\/i> is a fine demonstration of how really bad art (ill-formed CGI by Scott Sava) can sour the story of even a fine writer like Greg Rucka. This is one I’m really sorry it’s too late for me to cancel the last two (of four) issues.<\/p>\n

    Somebody was asleep in the editorial department over at DC. That’s the only explanation I have for the covers of Batman: Gotham Knights <\/i>#30 (by Brian Bolland) and Batgirl: Secret Files & Origins #1 (by Damion Scott), both of which have nearly the same poses of Azrael kicking the snot out of Batman and Batgirl about to kick the snot out of a masked thug.<\/p>\n

    Lots of other good stuff out this week I’d recommend, including the first Ruse <\/i>TPB, the first Marvel “The End” story, starring the Hulk (as written by Peter David and drawn by Dale Keown), Girl Genius <\/i>#6, Usagi Yojimbo<\/i>, Queen & Country <\/i>#9, and Dork Towers <\/i>#18. I look forward to them all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Yet another set of mini-reviews, segregated out for your skipping-over pleasure ……<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11,372],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media-comics","category-star-wars-media-movies"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":11891,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/01\/07\/my_family.html","url_meta":{"origin":2419,"position":0},"title":"My family","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 7-Jan-08 8:10pm","format":false,"excerpt":"In what other family could I be sitting at table on a Monday night, eating some great steak and cottage potatoes, drinking some excellent Hansen Zinfandel, and discussing amongst...","rel":"","context":"In "Comics & Comic Books"","block_context":{"text":"Comics & Comic Books","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/media-comics"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/secretwar8-spideyblack.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":24517,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2011\/12\/13\/not-quite-george-lucas-star-wars-reissue-level-of-annoyance-but-still.html","url_meta":{"origin":2419,"position":1},"title":"Not quite George Lucas Star Wars Reissue level of annoyance, but still","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 13-Dec-11 2:28pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Dagnabbit! I already have the Platinum Ultimate Absolute Edition Sandman, and now there's the Annotated Edition? Dagnabbit! And it looks so cool! DAGNABBIT! #ddtb Embedded Link The Annotated Sandman, Vol. 1 (Excerpt) by Neil Gaiman,Leslie Klinger | Tor.com An exclusive excerpt from The Annotated Sandman, Volume 1 by Neil Gaiman\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":15310,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2009\/07\/25\/bt09-a-is-for-aberration-blogathon.html","url_meta":{"origin":2419,"position":2},"title":"BT09 – A is for Aberration (#blogathon)","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 25-Jul-09 7:26am","format":false,"excerpt":"Hmmm. My iTunes installation is showing Trojan Horses? What the --? No time to work on it right now, but I may need to later on. Gotta have my tunes sooner or later. UPDATE: Hrm. It's my AV program, dammit. Fixed. Abe Sapien: The Drowning\u00a0(Dark Horse) [collects #1-5] w. Mike\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogathon"","block_context":{"text":"Blogathon","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/blogathon"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/stars4.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":7824,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2005\/08\/06\/bt05_the_blogat.html","url_meta":{"origin":2419,"position":3},"title":"BT05 – The Blogathon versus The Human Race!","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 6-Aug-05 11:54pm","format":false,"excerpt":"More comics I'm reading these days. I read a lot of comics, evidently....","rel":"","context":"In "Blogathon"","block_context":{"text":"Blogathon","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/blogathon"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":51272,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/26\/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-marvel-ultimate-universe.html","url_meta":{"origin":2419,"position":4},"title":"The Rise and Fall of the Marvel Ultimate Universe","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 26-May-15 10:50pm","format":false,"excerpt":"There are a number aesthetic points I disagree with in the article, but overall a decent history of the creation, rise, and apparently inevitable fall of the Ultimate Universe at Marvel.I'll confess I was never a huge UU fan -- I read most of the Ultimates, and some Ultimate Thor,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11596,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2007\/07\/28\/bt07_onto_the_monthlies.html","url_meta":{"origin":2419,"position":5},"title":"BT07 – Onto the monthlies!","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 28-Jul-07 11:59pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I've now finished up all of my TPBs that I had set aside for this.\u00a0 So ... onto the monthly comics.\u00a0 I've pulled all my comics for August\/September.\u00a0 The reviews...","rel":"","context":"In "Blogathon"","block_context":{"text":"Blogathon","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/blogathon"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/stars3.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2419"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2419\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46980,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2419\/revisions\/46980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}