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Dave's Capsules for May 2020 [message #395060] Wed, 27 May 2020 22:50
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Dave's Comicbook Capsules Et Cetera
Intermittent Picks and Pans of Comics and Related Media

Standard Disclaimers: Please set appropriate followups. Recommendation does
not factor in price. Not all books will have arrived in your area this month.
An archive can be found on my homepage, http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/Rants
As of September I will officially be an Associate Professor.

Items of Note (strongly recommended or otherwise worthy): None.

In this installment: Justice League Dark: Apokolips War BluRay, Birds of
Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn BluRay, Harley
Quinn (season 1), Adventure Finders Book 2 Volume 1 Chapter 7, Kickstarter
Free Comic Book Day 2020, Anti/Hero, Transformers the Manga 02, Barbarous vol
1-3, The Way of the Househusband vol 3, The Perry Bible Fellowship Almanack,
Jade Street Protection Services #1-4.

Current Wait List (books either Diamond didn't ship or my store failed
to order): Technically none.


"Other Media" Capsules:

Things that are comics-related but not necessarily comics (i.e.
comics-based movies like Iron Man or Hulk), or that aren't going to be
available via comic shops (like comic pack-ins with DVDs) will go in this
section when I have any to mention. They may not be as timely as comic
reviews, especially if I decide to review novels that take me a week or two
(or ten) to get around to.

Justice League Dark: Apokolips War: DC - Sigh. So. This is the last
movie in the long-running series of direct to video movies based on the "New
52" continuity. One expects a Big Deal with a large cast and the end to some
major threat. Unfortunately, what is also all too common in wrapping up a
shared universe is blowing up all the toys. After all, there won't be any
more stories in this continuity, so why not go out with a bang and kill off a
bunch of characters before everything resets? Yeah, this one does that.
With plenty of gore and body horror along the way. Slapping the "Justice
League Dark" on it is a thin excuse for levels of blood and guts that would
dance on the edge of NC-17 were it live action. All in all, it feels like
the guiding hand on the story was that of someone who was sick and tired of
superheroes and wanted to wade into a Marshal Law-style orgy of hero-killing.
It ends on such a pyrrhic "victory" that the only viable option is to tell
Flash to go screw up the timeline again because he can't possibly make things
worse. There's a few good bits along the way (mostly involving King Shark in
some way), but they're not worth wading through the rest of this dreck. Oh,
and there's an Adam Strange short, which is more of the same...including a
character getting torn in half in the foreground, with their intestines
flailing across the screen. But it's been "crap on Adam Strange" time at DC
in general lately...at least this exercise in gore and failure doesn't also
make Adam out to be a war criminal. Avoid.

Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn:
DC/WB - Rarely have I seen a non-subtitled movie that demanded such total
attention. The storytelling is deliberately scrambled, with lots of
flashbacks and "oh, right, I forgot to tell you about" scenes. Since Harley
Quinn is the narrator, this suits her to a tee. The basic premise is that
Harl breaks up with Joker for good, and suddenly all the people she'd pissed
off (but who were too scared of the Joker to touch her) are out for her
blood. In trying to cut some deals to stay alive, she stumbles into a nexus
of several other plotlines, getting tangled up with Renee Montoya (played
very well by Rosie Perez), Huntress (whose actor does a great job of
portraying as a traumatized kid who grew up so focused on vengeance that her
social skills are...lacking), Black Canary (very different from other
versions), and Cassandra Kaine (really no relation to the comics character
save the name). While it is technically the origin story for the Birds of
Prey, it's really Harley's solo movie, with supporting characters in the form
of the other women. (The extras make it clear how much this was a passion
project for Margot Robbie.) Despite ostensibly being a setup for two
different series (Birds of Prey, and a Harley & Cass vehicle), it really does
feel like a complete story in itself with no real need for sequels. The tags
at the end are more like the "where are they now?" bits at the end of Animal
House than actual sequel setup. A good movie that doesn't really require
knowing anything about other DCCU stuff (there's a couple of throwaway refs
to Suicide Squad, that's about it), with a good variety of female
protagonists. The various "making of" extras are more interesting than such
things tend to be, and are worth watching. Recommended. Cost varies by
store and format, I got the BluRay.

Harley Quinn (Series): DC - I wasn't too impressed by this series when
it started up a few months ago, meaning I wasn't going to subscribe to
DCUniverse for it, or ask anyone to help me acquire it through...other means.
But May 26-28 the first season showed on SyFy (uncensored, late night slot),
and I came in during the bar mitzvah episode, so I decided to catch the rest
of the season (and maybe see if the first two are on OnDemand). Anyway, this
starts from the same basic place as the Margot Robbie movie, with Harley
dumping Joker and striking out on her own. But rather than being in constant
danger from people who fear the Joker's retribution, the season's arc is
about trying to prove she has what it takes to be a supervillain in her own
right. And it's pretty damn uneven. I spent a lot of time trying to figure
out how to describe this take on the DCU, which verges on outright farce,
with some subtle fourth wall breaking (events described as taking place
decades ago show non-immortal heroes looking the same as they do today, a nod
to Comic Book Time), some very unsubtle ultraviolence (slightly below the
level of the JLDark movie), and a ****load of swearing. Only one word gets
bleeped, and that word is the core of a major plot point, as being beyond the
pale even for the Legion of Doom. In some ways it feels like a Mad Magazine
parody, but with the names not changed. Issues of sexism are presented with
a sledgehammer at times. Almost everyone other than Harley and Ivy is a
caricature or a flanderization (e.g. taking "Clayface is an actor" and making
that really his only character point...he's a bad, hammy, stereotypical Drama
Major sort). Probably the closest single comparison would be a cross between
Venture Bros, movie Deadpool, and the extended version of "Seven Things You
Can't Say On Television." Now, there's some funny bits and interesting
premises, as long as you're willing to accept that the writers didn't really
worry about a setting that made sense (I mean, at least the Guild of
Calamitous Intent has some fairly solid reasoning behind it...the Legion of
Doom in this is really just a stack of "what not to do" corporate training
videos). And the cussin' rapidly reaches the "only a warning that a noun is
coming" level of saturation. All in all, I don't feel like I want back the
time I spent watching it, but neither am I inclined to pay money for it.


Digital Content:

Unless I find a really compelling reason to do so (such as a lack of
regular comics), I won't be turning this into a webcomic review column.
Rather, stuff in this section will generally be full books available for
reading online or for download, usually for pay.

Adventure Finders Book 2 Volume 1 Chapter 7: Patreon.com - While it's
been talked about in the past that the "United Crowns" isn't all that united,
prior to this most of the internal conflict was tied to the Arao cult trying
to carve out more political power for itself. But this time, the protagonist
band runs across what amounts to a "regular" unit of UC soldiers that isn't
led by Arao priests...but are still unwilling to accept the superior rank
conferred upon them earlier in this volume. And who are despoiling a town
that may or may not be part of the UC. The chapter name is "An Empire
Fighting Itself: What's Right Isn't Always Lawful," and the protagonists are
almost definitely breaking some laws while fighting scum that fly the same
flag they do. Even within the group, they don't agree on where to draw the
line, though...they agree that the scummy soldiers need to be stopped, but
the vigor with which the stopping is pursued is under debate. Of course,
this may only be a prelude to the secret of the ancient ruins the town is
built around, leftovers of an ur-culture no one really understands anymore.
Ethical struggles against a backdrop of ancient mysteries. Recommended.
$1/month to read PDFs, Action Lab will eventually put this issue out in
hardcopy if you're willing to wait.

Kickstarter Free Comic Book Day 2020: Kickstarter - Free Comic Book Day
2020 has been postponed indefinitely, and most of the online participants
held off as well. But Kickstarter put out their special on May 2. Like many
FCBD books, it's an anthology of short pieces. In this case, pieces taken
from various successful Kickstarter comics, most of which were themselves
anthologies. A few of the pieces are excerpts from longer stories, and even
the ones intended as standalone pieces aren't always comprehensible...a bit
heavy on the "arty" side of things. Nothing inspired me to seek out anything
further about any of the projects or their followups.


Trades:

Trade paperbacks, collections, graphic novels, pocket manga, whatever.
If it's bigger than a "floppy" it goes here.

Anti/Hero: DC - Before I get into the complaints, I should make it clear
that I liked this. However, putting it in any version of the DC universe
felt forced...as if the script were mostly written, but got shopped around to
publishers and when DC bit the writers tacked on a few Batman-related bits.
Like, it's in East Gotham...most versions of Gotham have ocean or lake to the
east. Bruce Wayne is there as a plot device, but any generic "rich guy who
is secretly a superhero" would do, and the rest of the cast of characters is
new to this book. In short, every time the book reminded me that it was
supposed to be in a DC setting, it was jarring and felt wrong. The basic
premise is that a wannabe tweenaged superhero with actual powers is having
trouble establishing a reputation as anything other than a vandal (basic
"doesn't know her own strength" problems), while a tech genius in her class
is forced into villainy by her relatives. And then they get hit by a body
switch plot device. The actual title has the "Hero" part upside-down,
continuing the motif in the art. The overt plotline involves trying to foil
the plot of East Gotham's leading criminal mastermind, but the real plotline
is what all good body-swap stories are about: appreciating what you have, as
well as what others have to deal with. A good YA story, and the intended
audience probably won't find the Obligatory Batman to be as jarring as I did.
Recommended. $9.99/$13.50Cn

Transformers the Manga 02: Viz - Wow. This is just bad. Volume 1 at
least had plenty of over the top weirdness mixed in with the Writing Down To
The Kiddies. Despite being the same writer and artist as the first volume,
this one is almost utterly lacking in the charming weirdness. Maybe they
were phoning it in for a while, or got told to stop being so bizarre by
someone in editorial. I know that volume 3 is gonna end on some high
weirdness, but...give this one a pass unless you're a completist.
$24.99/$33.99Cn/#19.99UK

Barbarous vol 1-3: JohnnyWander.com - A Kickstarter project to get a
webcomic into hardcopy form, each 48 page volume seems more intended as
coffee table decoration than "thing to read," with blank spines, oversized
(11.5" by 9") pages, and 32 pages of reprints mixed with spacer pages and a
few pinups in back. The irregularly-published webcomic is pretty good, which
is why I backed the project, but three volumes all together are basically the
first chapter. And instead of artsy spacer pages, it'd have been nice if one
of the volumes included the short story explaining the Mysterious Landlady's
deal. While I recommend reading the webcomic, unless you like using artbooks
as a decorating option, I don't really recommend these collections. $60 all
together on Kickstarter, no prices printed on the books themselves.

The Way of the Househusband vol 3: Viz - To some extent, there's a lot
of the same stuff as in previous volumes...and as fun as it is, it's starting
to get repetitive. However, there's a little bit of overall plot advancement
as we see more of the fallout of the Househusband's final battle...apparently
a big hole was torn in the underworld by direct and indirect result of that
battle. Not everyone gave up because they were tired of the life, some had
no choice. Leading by example, the Immortal Dragon may well change the
nature of organized crime. Recommended. $12.99/$17.99/#9.99UK

The Perry Bible Fellowship Almanack: Dark Horse - Perry Bible Fellowship
is one of those ironically named webcomics (which has also been in a few
alternative newspapers). The art style varies, Gurewitch has several regular
styles (the humans are usually very simplified, but not always), plus the
occasional homage to some other style like Gorey's. This isn't a complete
collection of the webcomics, not even as of the time of the book was created,
as it's not the first collection (a section of extras in back includes a few
that he forgot to put in a previous book). It does contain every strip that
showed up in print, though. And at the risk of burying the lede here, it's
not a strip to read at work, as occasional breasts show up at varying levels
of realism. And some gore, but if you're in America that won't get you in
trouble, just the boobs. The humor is generally pretty dark, but with
limits...the section in back shows a few that he felt were too dark even for
him. In terms of production values, it's a very well made book, hardback
with good quality color pages throughout. Recommended, but beware that it's
dark and occasionally pretty offensive. $24.99/$33.99Cn


Floppies:

No, I don't have any particular disdain for the monthlies, but they
*are* floppy, yes? (And not all of them come out monthly, or on a regular
schedule in general, so I can't just call this section "Monthlies" or even
"Periodicals" as that implies a regular period.)

Jade Street Protection Services #1-4: Black Mask - A trade was
technically scheduled to come out this spring, but the pandemic may have
interrupted that. But Black Mask had all four issues still available on
their web store, and was participating in the "send 50% to your comic shop"
promotion, so I grabbed them as floppies. The original books came out in
2017, and the sales rep I emailed had no idea if there would ever be a
continuation, which is kinda a shame...because this whole arc is prelude. It
sets up the world and a lot of story hooks, but really just deals with
getting the protagonists out on their own and ready to consider the rest of
the hooks. (They don't even establish the series title in-story until an
epilogue scene at the end of #4.) The basic premise is that it's a world
much like our own, except that a tiny handful of humanity can use magic. The
protagonists are students at a school for Magical Girls, with the narrator
being a student who is on the autism spectrum. In the subgenre of "Being A
Magical Girl Sucks" stories, but in this case purely because of the social
aspects. No "your powers will slowly drive you mad" or "demons are out to
devour you and tend to succeed" stuff, just humans being crappy to each other
like in the real world. And it's implied that the unpleasant fates in store
for them are not inevitable or hardcoded into the legal structure of the
world...just a bunch of one-percenters exploiting the exploitable, like
usual. Storytelling is a bit rough in spots, but it's a promising start...
hopefully not also an ending. Recommended. (Back) cover price $3.99 each,
but since they're all a few years old you might find them for more or less.


Dave Van Domelen, "SP*RKLING FL*FF B*NNIES!" - Jade Street Protection
Services #1
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