Sep
29
2008
In a rare moment of boredom and extravagance back in the late nineties when I was living in Poland, I bought an issue of an American magazine, despite such things being very expensive and my salary being rather low. I’d run out of things to read, I’d gone through most of the interesting part of the local English-language library’s collection, and I just wanted something new. The magazine was called Wizard, and was about my favorite medium, comic books. The only thing that I remember about the issue now was the article praising a comic book called Box Office Poison, which was created by Alex Robinson, and was about a group of ordinary people in New York. I was intrigued, especially because I’d been looking for some non-mainstream super-hero books to try, but I didn’t reckon on being able to find any issues anytime soon. It was very nice to be proven wrong: on my very next trip to Dublin, I found Box Office Poison Kolor Karnival on the new releases shelf of Sub City Comics. I bought it without even looking through it, just on the strength of the article, and I was not disappointed.
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Sep
28
2008
The Random Review is late this week, and Created to Die was late too: I seem to be running late with everything, which I blame on my first autumn cold. I was even a day late getting in to look at the new comics, which usually means some of the low-selling titles are gone. However, this week, I was in luck, as none of the good stuff had sold out.
For people in the US, new comic book day is Wednesday every week, but here in Europe, depending on the city, it may be a weekly, bi-weekly or even monthly affair. The excellent store in Dusseldorf, Nic’s Comics, gets its shipments every second week, so forgive me if some of these issues are last week’s news to you.
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Sep
27
2008
The deaths of Spider-man’s Uncle Ben and Batman’s parents are crucial to the characters’ origins. In Spider-man’s case, losing Uncle Ben because of his own mistake teaches him the lesson of responsibility that will shape the rest of his heroic career: he already had the power and the costume, but did not have direction. In Batman’s case, losing his parents is a tragedy that convinces him that his city needs a protector; the costume and training come later than the direction. These are two classic super-hero origins that involve death as a motivation, and it was only to be expected that other writers would reuse the classic concept.
However, it is difficult to match the emotional impact of the Spider-man origin and the inherent tragedy of Bruce Wayne losing both parents so young, especially when writers ignore the essence of these plot ideas. The deaths illustrate something the hero doesn’t know. Furthermore, when mishandled, deaths during character origins can weaken the whole story, making it seem like a cheap shock for shock’s sake.
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Sep
24
2008
After 20 excellent issues, series creator Peter B. Gillis left Strikeforce: Morituri, to be replaced by James D. Hudnall, who would see the story of the Morituri to its conclusion. Brent Anderson also departed, and after a couple of fill-in artists (Huw Thomas and John Calimee), Mark Bagley, now best known for his long run on Ultimate Spider-Man, took over as the regular artist. With the new creative team came a change in the status quo and the style, and by its cancellation in mid-1989, it had become a very different book.
The rest of this review contains some spoilers.
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Sep
22
2008
Larry Marder’s Tales of the Beanworld is one of my all-time favorite comic books. Defying convention and classification, this appropriately self-titled “most peculiar comic book experience” ran for 21 issues, each one sown with clues revealing a little more of a world like no other. I was thrilled to hear that the series is coming back with the Beanworld Holiday Special this December, and I’m hoping this will be the first of many new Beanworld books.
On the surface, Tales of the Beanworld is about a tribe of creatures called Beans, who try to live in harmony with their small world, which they do not realize is a damaged, fragile place. Each Bean has a role to play in the tribe, either as a hunter-gatherer or as a thinker or artist, and their way of life is simple, but not without danger. The Beanworld is also inhabited by the Hoi-Polloi, with whom the Beans have an adversarial relationship, although both sides recognize that they need each other to survive. Furthermore, the Beanworld is part of the Big•Big•Picture, in other words, the Universe or Multiverse, and for the first time in the Beans’ memories, creatures from other worlds are encroaching on theirs.
At a deeper level, this book is whatever you bring to it: an ecological fantasy, an anthropological study of tribal structure, a creation mythology, a political commentary, or the beginnings of an epic cycle. You could even argue that it is a gentler kind of super-hero comic. Continue Reading »
Sep
20
2008
It’s Saturday at Retro Review, the day when I pull and review a random issue from my back-issue collection, then decide whether to keep it or pass it on. I was surprised to find an issue of Captain America come out of the short box this evening, as it is not a title I’ve ever collected, but then I remembered picking up a stack of about 60 comics for $5 at a garage sale in San Francisco, and this was one of them. The cover, which proclaims “It had to happen! Cap battles Doc Ock!”, is by Mike Zeck, and shows Captain America fighting Doctor Octopus, who seems to have the upper hand - he has taken Cap’s shield, and has the hero on the back foot, struggling. It’s not a very heroic look for the good Captain, but the composition is dramatic, particularly the idea of him losing his shield. However, by the end of page 2, the problem with the cover becomes aparent.
(This review contains spoilers)
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Sep
19
2008
Avenging the loss of a loved one to crime is a common initial motivation for heroes in comic books. Batman was motivated by the death of his parents, who were gunned down in front of him by a mugger. The hero vowed to clean up the streets of Gotham so no other child ever had to lose his parents to crime in this way. Spider-man was motivated by the death of his Uncle Ben, who had raised him. Ben was killed by a robber who Spider-man had let escape earlier that evening. When he realized what had happened because of his inaction, he vowed to never shirk his responsibilities again. Continue Reading »
Sep
18
2008
I don’t like meaningless deaths in mainstream super-hero comic books. When characters die as cannon fodder or for shock value, or because the writer never liked them, it pulls me out of the story, weakening rather than strengthening the impact. I’m not suggesting that super-hero books should avoid death: there have been some superb stories over the years that involve heroes valliantly sacrificing themselves or villains receiving bitter punishment for their monstrous crimes, and there have been moments of great pathos in the deaths of supporting characters. I believe the death of a character should be integral to the storyline, an emotional moment that gives the reader pause, not a cheap shot to show that the writer is serious.
It particularly irritates me when the character is a minor one that was had received a lot of development at the hands of one writer, only to be unceremoniously bumped off by another. If the writer really felt the need to kill off a character, why not create their own one-off character to die? Why take someone else’s work and end it?
I realize of course that there is always the chance of resurrection if the character is popular enough, but that’s beside the point: the moment of death should still be something significant for the story to ring true. Perhaps one of the reasons why so many otherwise good writers resort to cheap deaths is because death in comics has been cheapened by the frequent resurrections.
I’ve been feeling like character death has become more frequent over the past few years, so I thought I’d take the time to go back and see if that’s true or not. Were shock killings and cheap death scenes always part of comic books, or is it a more recent phenomenon? Are the current writers and editors really more bloodthirsty, and the current readers more blasé about characters being unceremoniously killed off? Am I over-reacting? Over the next few Thursdays, I aim to find out. Also, I’ll be looking at characters that were created to die in the next few Friday posts. I’d like to hear from you about your opinions on character death, resurrection and shock tactics too.
Sep
17
2008
It must be seeing all the Secret Invasion books on the shelves that has me going through my back issue collection reading all the super-heroes-fight-alien-invaders comics, like DC’s Invasion! and Marvel’s Kree-Shiar War. Happily, that gave me an excuse to re-read Peter B. Gillis and Brent Anderson’s Strikeforce: Morituri, an excellent super-hero comic and a good science-fiction story.
Strikeforce: Morituri is more than just a super-hero book, more than just an alien invasion book. It is an analysis of what it means to be a hero and a patriot, and a story about what drives people to sacrifice themselves for the greater good. A number of things make it a book worth hunting down: Brent Anderson and Scott Williams’ excellent and expressive artwork, the rich cast of characters, the originality of the concept, and the intelligence of the writing. Continue Reading »
Sep
15
2008
I had a little time to spare today, so I popped into my local comic book store, just for a chat. I wasn’t intending to buy anything, but then I spotted it: The New Defenders #125 was lying on the counter. I assumed it was being held for someone else, and kicked myself for not having gone through the bins more carefully, as it’s one of the few issues I need to complete my run.
“You wouldn’t happen to have a second copy of that, would you?” I asked, hopefully.
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