Not a fan of axe murderers, elder gods, and severe genital mutilation? Fear not! ADDTF hasn’t forgotten plain ol’ comic books!
Big Sunny D weighs in on New X-Men 147, an issue so good it almost made up for having the previous one spoiled for me (by the recently deposed dictator of Comicbookgalaxeria, Dr. Doane). I’m surprised, however, that Sunny didn’t comment on just how radical the changes wrought by #146’s “Big Reveal” have already become in the space of just one issue. Those of us who expected a “picking up where we left off”-style transition from the last panel of 146 to the first of 147 were in for an extremely rude awakening. To which I say “hell yeah.”
Franklin Harris squeezes Jess Lemon, the Pulse’s pseudonymonous reviewer and outrage-monger, over her soft-target panning of JLA/Avengers. I personally think writer Kurt Busiek took the lazy way out of putting this story together (and agree with the general consensus that the faces of the characters on the George Perez-drawn cover were all kinds of screwed up), but that’s really neither here nor there. Franklin is trying to draw the necessary distinction between the inherently outlandish formal and stylistic tropes of the superhero genre and the unforgivably bad execution of those tropes by a sadly vast majority of superhero comics creators. Lemon, he argues, is either too ignorant of the subject or too intent on getting a laugh at the expense of accuracy or insight to bother to separate the two, and therefore s/he blurs them in her demolition of JLA/A. In other words, using Starro the Conqueror isn’t any more or less silly than, say, having a guy wage a decades-long oceans-wide vendetta against a white sperm whale, and then actually having the guy find the whale and get killed by it. I guess you could argue that my “Hush” review was along the lines of what Franklin is arguing for: Believe me, few people appreciate the superhero genre more than I do, which is precisely why few people get more upset at shitty superhero comics than I do. There’s definitely stuff to complain about in JLA/A, but psychic-parasitic starfish and hand-fired laser beams probably aren’t among them–not for serious critics who don’t feel the need to earn street cred by taking potshots at genre conventions, at any rate.
On a related note, I wouldn’t be surprised to start seeing the blogosphere reach a tipping point when it comes to “Jess Lemon” in the near future. At their best, “her” reviews savage everything that needs savaging in mainstream comics and point out to an audience long past noticing that the spandex-clad emperor is actually butt nekkid. At their worst, however, they can be easy-peasy hatchet jobs that say little about the work in question or larger problems with the genre, industry, or medium, opting instead for verbal slapstick. In addition, I think there’s a growing consensus that writing these kinds of reviews under a pseudonym is a weak-kneed cop-out, particularly when (as is becoming clearer by the week) there’s not one but several writers lurking behind the Jess Lemon moniker. Hell, even messageboard posters with names like Logan_X are basically the same person every time you see their name used. This, of course, is to say nothing about the legion of reviewers, critics, bloggers and journalists who use their real name and say a lot nastier stuff than J.L., without even doing so simply for nastiness’ sake. Having one of the big mainstream news websites run bylined reviews of the sort “Jess Lemon” does would be a real kick in the ass of web-based comics criticism generally, and serve as an announcement to the publishers that the fanboy-based free ride on the Internet is pretty much over. Keeping up the Jess Lemon facade will look less and less like a fun parlor game and more and more like a great big responsibility dodge as time goes by.
Anyway, back to JLA/A: John Jalaka has a review round-up of this unexpectedly divisive book.
Forager mentions he’s got a review of Y: The Last Man in this month’s Comics Journal. The review, which is very good, points out that as entertaining as the book may seem, there’s just no there there. I think this problem is exacerbated, as is the case with many Vertigo & DC books, by the muddy green-browns and green-yellows of the coloring. Vertigo’s emphasis has never been art, and that’s fine, I guess, but I think more effort should be made to at least make it attractive and presentable, if not awe-inspiring. (Actually, the Journal review reprints some of artist Pia Guerra’s work on the book, and it’s amazing how comparatively lovely it looks in clear-line black and white.)
Speaking of colors (I love transitions!), Bill Sherman mentions Those Darn DC Earth Tones in his comics roundup of last week. He also echoes my take on Garth Ennis’s Thor: Vikings #3 and rebuts my take on Ennis’s Punisher: Born #4, both found here. (Bill, I think any wiggle room in that opening monologue is almost certainly unintentional….)
By the way, last week was another strong one for supercomics. Alias (despite its contrived would-be meta conversation, which is more than made up for by the genuinely disturbing conclusion), Astro City (best issue so far in this current miniseries), Savage Dragon (an homage to the old-school blood-and-boobs Dragon), Ultimate Spider-Man (interesting to see a certain character faring much better here than he does in the same author’s Daredevil), Ultimate Six (Jeph Loeb, take note: now that’s how you do a shocking surprise villain entry), Powers (man, Bendis is full of gruesome surprises this week, isn’t he?), New X-Men (see above), and Supreme Power (so what if it’s territory we’ve covered before? As long as it’s well-told and well draw, which this is, I’ll buy it. Gary Frank’s art is juicy and convincing, and the panel in which Hyperion rockets past the eardrum-holding troops in Iraq is like a modern-day Action Comics #1 cover). Not too shabby, O Mainstream.
But between Kavalier & Clay and David Fiore’s novel-to-be, I’m starting to wonder if prose descriptions of imaginary superheroes are better than comics depictions of “actual” superheroes themselves….