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From: boyajian@akov68.DEC (Jerry Boyajian)
Newsgroups: net.comics
Subject: Reviews
Message-ID: <489@decwrl.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 8-Feb-85 05:56:45 EST
Article-I.D.: decwrl.489
Posted: Fri Feb 8 05:56:45 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 8-Feb-85 15:30:13 EST
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Ratings for the comics reviewed are as according to the Mad Armenian Scale, a
shameless rip-off of the Moriarty Scale, stolen out from under the very nose of
the Napolean of Crime. Nyah-ah-ah!!
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|=>A+< A veritable Classic. One of the best of All Time. Example: THE SPIRIT |
|==>A< One of the best of the year. Ex: TEEN TITANS #39: "Who Is Donna Troy?" |
|==>B< A very good issue, one of the best of the month. Example: CEREBUS |
|==>C< A well done, entertaining issue. Satisfying. Example: JON SABLE |
|==>D< Rather boring, or a few good spots mixed with more bad ones. Ex: ROM |
|==>F< Boring AND stupid or childish. Example: MARVEL SUPERHEROES SECRET WARS |
|==>Z< Actually offensive. Example: DAZZLER --- THE MOVIE GRAPHIC NOVEL #12 |
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ATARI FORCE #17 [C]
It's been hard to believe that these last few issues have been written
by the same guy who writes NEXUS and THE BADGER. Granted, they've been good,
but not quite up to the standards set by those two now-First titles. But this
issue is finally starting to show that good ol' Baron, especially with Rident's
speech on the last page, "Let's just suppose for a minute... for the sake of
argument... that this Dark Destroyer was a real person..."
The artwork by Ed Barreto is fine (not as good as Garcia Lopez, mind,
but with the latter doing TEEN TITANS instead, I can't complain), though there
is still too much of the old T&A going on with Dart. It isn't as bad here as it
is in some other comics, but it is getting rather tiring.
If you've been skipping this comic because it's based on an Atari game
or whatever, you might want to give it a try. It's one of the better space
opera comics on the market.
BATMAN #383 [C-]
As I said in a previous review of DETECTIVE COMICS, now that Moench is
through with that near-interminable Nightslayer storyline, things are picking
up. Here we have another slightly humorous story, in which Bruce Wayne/Batman
stumbles around after a few days of little or no sleep. Not an earth-shaking
story by any means, but an enjoyable one. Having gone through days at a time
with no sleep, I could empathize with him the whole way through.
DC COMICS PRESENTS #81 [B-]
Ambush Bug strikes again! This time, he gives Superman a present of a
nice polished gem, not realizing that it's a piece of Red Kryptonite. What
the Red K does this time is to switch Superman's and the Bug's minds into the
other's body. And while Superman tries to figure out how the Bug teleports,
Bushy's off trying to save the day as Superman. And to top it off, Kobra
shows up.
A storyline like this has the potential to be the most hilarious story
to ever grace the pages of a serious comic book. It doesn't live up to that
potential. It's funny as hell, no doubt about that, but it just isn't as good
as I feel it could have been. Still worth reading. If I have any complaint
about it, it's that Fleming and Giffen made such a clown out of Kobra, who is
in this guy's opinion, one of DC's most sinister villains --- probably DC's
truest analog to Doctor Doom. Just goes to show that nothing's sacred.
DEADMAN #1 [C+]
The Deadman series that ran in STRANGE ADVENTURES (plus a couple of
stories that appeared in THE BRAVE & THE BOLD) have been considered one of
the classics of the 1960's, and with good reason. It had an intriguing premise
--- that of a man who sticks around as a ghost after his death to track down
his murderer. And secondly, it had some terrific Neal Adams artwork. It was
about time that DC got around to reprinting it in Baxter format.
So how does it hold up? Well, to be honest, the two installments in
this issue aren't all that good. I see some plot-holes now, that I didn't see
15 years ago. And, of course, only the second of these two was drawn by Adams,
and even then, it was inked by George Roussos, who doesn't complement Adams'
work as well as other inkers have done. But it's still a damn sight better
than much of the work that appears in current comics, and is worth your while
to pick up, if for nothing else than to get you ready for some of the better
stories to come.
THE SHADOW WAR OF HAWKMAN #1 [C]
This has got everything that the first issue of a mini-series should
have --- an intro to the heroes, including a recap of their origin, a conflict
with a mysterious enemy, and a nice cliffhanger of an ending. I've always been
only somehwat lukewarm to Hawkman, but here Isabella infuses him with a dynamic
character. Rich Howell's artwork isn't all that outstanding, but it's certainly
serviceable. I'll be looking forward to later installments.
SUPERMAN: THE SECRET YEARS #4 [D+]
I'm afraid that this mini-series didn't do much for me. It had its
moments, to be sure, but just not enough of them. I suppose trying to compress
four years of Superman's life into four issues had a lot to do with it; maybe
it might have been better as a 12-issue maxi-series. My biggest complaint has
been with the art. Curt Swan has never been one of my favorites, but here, he
has been incredibly inconsistent about how Clar/Superman looks. In some spots,
(pages 2-3 in this issue, for example) he looks like SuperMAN, and yet, in
other spots (eg. pages 10-11), he looks like SuperBOY. This wouldn't be a
problem if he started out the series looking like SuperBOY, and ended up as
SuperMAN, but the random way in which he seemed to change age here really
detracted from the overall effect of the book.
VIGILANTE #17 [A]
OK, I'll admit that I have somewhat of a blind spot when it comes
to Alan Moore, but it's an honest fascination with his skill as a writer, and
this comic is a textbook case of the fact [n.b. Moore is only doing a two-
issue fill-in, he hasn't taken over the book indefinitely]. First of all,
the story is intriguing --- a man who was sent to prison for abusing his
daughter has just gotten out, and is after his wife and daughter, and Vig,
of course, goes after *him*. Secondly, Moore introduces a couple of characters
who in the short span of this comic, become incredibly well-developed as
people, ones that you can feel for. the only time recently that I can think of
this happening was in SOMERSET HOLMES #4. Thirdly, Moore's language seems
completely at ease. For a Britisher who has spent very little time in the U.S.,
he's got a really good handle on the American idiom. His characters speak as
naturally as any I've seen in comics. And they speak as frankly as any I've
seen outside of an underground comic (for instance, there's a wonderful scene
in which one of the characters who is helping the kid explains to Vig that she
didn't want Chase to come to her apartment where the kid was, because she had
over 40 kilos of pot there, and Vig is squirming trying to decide whether to
ignore this fact, so that he can more quickly help the girl).
As for the art by Jim Baikie, well, the previous examples of his art
I've seen (the "Twilight World" feature in WARRIOR) didn't impress me much,
but here it does. There are some comic artists who are acclaimed for being
cinematic --- Krigstein, Steranko, Gulacy, Rogers, et al. Mostly, they had a
style in which they squeezed a rapid succession of thin panels on a page to
simulate the frame by frame advance of a film. But Baikie here shows another
way that a comic artist can be cinematic. A damn lot of the panels in this
comic look like set pieces from a film by Hitchcock --- the "camera angles"
and the layout of each scene. And this is another stunning example of a
comic in which you can understand the story from beginning to end from the
flow of the art alone.
Baikie's art complements Moore's writing even better than that of
Stephen Bissette and John Totleben in SWAMP THING. And I think that Moore's
story is better than most of the ST stories he's done so far.
Highly recommended.
JOURNEY #16 [D+]
Yes, that grade is correct. Ever since this comic started, I've been
enamored of it, and have considered it one of the best comics being done
today. However, I have not been enjoying the last few issues much. For one,
I've been having a hard time following the current story (maybe I need to
sit down and re-read the whole run in one swell foop), and especially the
characters. This latter problem is due to Messner-Loebs' not drawing many of
the characters distinctly enough, either art-wise or script-wise, so that I
have often found myself confused from issue to issue about who was who.
A specific problem with this issue is that it's supposed to be the
conclusion to the current storyline. You call this a conclusion? It's more
like he just decided to stop here, instead of wrapping things up. And what
the hell happened on the last two pages. It implies that Wolverine Mac-
Alistaire has bitten the big one. Has he?
I hope that with a fresh storyline, Messner-Loebs gets back on the
ball. It would be a damn shame for this book to degenerate.
STAR WARS #95 [C]
This comic has always had its ups and downs, mostly because the writer/artist
team changes every six months or so, gnerally the artist half. The current
team of Jo Duffy, Cynthia Martin, and Steve Leialoha is one that I hope sticks
around for a while. The story won't set the world on fire, but after an unim-
pressive debut last issue, Martin's artwork is quite striking in this one,
perhaps due to Leialoha's inks. She needs some more time to polish her drawing,
especially of the principle characters, but her panel design and layouts are
quite good, reminding me a lot of a what it might look like if Marshall Rogers
was doing Japanese animation.
Give it a look see.
********************
SHORT NOTES:
GRIMJACK #10 [C] Didja notice the reference to Dreadstar on page 6?
LOVE AND ROCKETS #10 [B-] It didn't surprise me to see various Jaime
Hernandez characters show up in 'Berto's "Heartbreak
Soup" story, but Reid Fleming???!!!??? (page 43)
--- jayembee (Jerry Boyajian, DEC, Maynard, MA)
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