Future Zoo - Sloth-Apes and More!

Today we have a number of fascinating new future animals to show you, all brought to you by the Hunter, dastardly villain of Adventure Comics No 358. Why, here he is now, merrily chasing down a striped critter:

The hunter's basic thesis is the same as Kraven "I appeared three years before this guy" the Hunter's: once you've hunted enough animals it gets boring, so why not switch to super-heroes? Meanwhile, that tigerram isn't doing much to disprove his point. Talk about uninspired, kitty - you sure ain't no Parakat. Heck, of the half-dozen or so tiger-like creatures that have appeared in the Legion's history I think that the tigerram is about the least impressive. It's got all of the standard tiger stuff, sure, but are those horns even functional? Did the Hunter have them glued on to make things seem more exotic?

Man, it doesn't even try to butt him. NOT APPROVED, tigerram.

Anyway, the Hunter (real name Otto Orion, billionaire financier) is so bored with hunting that he doesn't even bother taking the tigerram's improbable corpse back home with him. He just sits around at his post-hunt party, moping about the lack of challenge involved in lasering something to death at point-blank ranges. If only he'd thought to try spears instead, the rest of the issue wouldn't be so stressful for the Legion.

The Hunter's aide, Jakra, is pretty great. He's everything that  a fanatically loyal henchman should be, plus he's won his letterman's tank-top, so you know he's good at it. I get the feeling that I've brought this up at some point in the past but I don't mind repeating myself: I kind of want to live life like people do in these comics, with my initials on my shirt and my name written on my jacket and a statue of me on my lawn (and all of my friends' lawns, because I give them as gifts) and a little card in front of my seat at any table saying my name and power (super chicken wing-consumption). It seems so.... satisfying, like you'd look in the mirror every morning and see the tattoo of yourself and go "Hiya, best friend!" and then put on a shirt and read it and say "That's me!" Life would be nothing but certainties.

Back to that second panel: note the back of the hunter's vest. Mounting a whole animal head back there, tusks and all, is a bold fashion move. Plus it looks better than Kraven the Hunter's lion vest.

Orion's evil plan involves landing a fleet of ships (billionaire financier, remember?) on Earth, letting them out and then somehow capturing the Legion. If he planned it out any further he didn't say.

Note the guy in the foreground, on the left. This place either has a much more lax dress code than where I work or a much stricter one. Either way, that's well beyond business casual.

The Hunter demands the Legion's surrender without giving them a way to respond, then unleashes his animals. Flying patrol, the Legionnaires hear the following: "CLUMP! BRAAT! ARRRT! KRUMPH! CRASH! RAWRR! CRUNCH! HELP! YARR!" and of course rush to investigate. They find not a fat angry pirate but:

A lot of animals! Let's see... that  grey guy at the top is terrific, but then again I love any monster that has its own laser-stalk. In the the absence of any proper name I'm going to call it a Belligerent Raynocerous and it's JOHN APPROVED.

The giant snake... well, it's just a giant snake, but it's randomly smashing up a car. I like Robert E. Howard stories enough that giant snakes have a special place in my heart, so I dub it the Rigellian Vandalconda and JOHN APPROVED, in that order.

Leading the pack is the Sloth-Ape, which Jakra mentioned earlier. I want to say that it's about as imaginative as the Tigerram, but the fact that the "sloth" part of its name comes from giant, slashing talons rather than the kind of lethargic motion that I showcase on Sunday mornings is a big relief. Plus, the slothy haircut. JOHN APPROVED. The thing behind it, however, which I might describe as "kind of a doggish leopard, with giraffe spots" gets zero points. NOT APPROVED.

On the other hand, the thing in the foreground, the one that looks like a bull with a doggy head and tusks and horns and more horns? That's a proper alien monster - vaguely ridiculous but not something that you'd like to see coming at you across a stretch of Old Man McGillicuddy's field. Also, not completely implausible. It's called the Ravenous Puncture Cow and it's JOHN APPROVED.

The rest, the dinosaur-looking ones, Lumpy, Fasty and Grey? Far too generic for me to care.

Arg! Boooooooooooooooo! The Jovian Mastodon has two trunks, boo boo boo. It should at least have have insect eyes and nineteen legs or something. NOT APPROVED.

The Oraxian Cyclops, on the other hand, is great. It's got: chicken legs, no neck, no elbows, lumps and a completly mouth-bisected head. It's like... it's like one of my childhood dream-toys come to life! I can just picture it devouring a G.I. Joe and the turning on poor Lion-O. Mmmm. JOHN APPROVED.

This guy on the left, by the way, is what Chameleon Boy was turning into up there. The Toradian Karkon, eh? A rough-and-tumble, tentacle-slinging, fire-spewing pink lump of a monster, one that even other monsters fear. I reckon that it'd be wearing a fedora and chomping on a stogie if it had the choice and a mouth. JOHN APPROVED.

Another look at the Sloth-Ape - turns out that their only weakness is a fire hydrant to the skull. Same as me!

Meanwhile, the Venusian Tricorn Beast is pretty damned disappointing. With a name like that, the very least that I expect is for its head to resemble Paul Revere's hat. Having three horns just doesn't cut it, beastie, especially when two of them are spaced widely enough that they couldn't hit the broad side of an Air-Car at the same time. NOT APPROVED.

Giant toads are almost as good as giant snakes. Giant toads with radar eyes are roughly twice as good as giant snakes with regular eyes. The Giant Ankarian Toad clocks in at 4.5 times as good, due to its nonchalant expression. JOHN APPROVED.

Invisible Kid is way too calm about being caught by a toad-tongue. If I am ever in a similar situation I guarantee you that my thought balloon will read "Giant toad! Giant TOAD! GIANT TOOOOOOOOOOOO-OOOOOOOOOOOOOAADD!"

Meanwhile, Shrinking Violet is living up to her name and shrinking, giving the Hunter a chance to prove that he is a pretty dam good planner, as he included tiny monsters, just in case someone got small. That's a detail that most would overlook, my friends.

The Gleeful Batbee is JOHN APPROVED. It's sting is almost as deadly as its sense of humour.

The Tufted Murderpillar is also JOHN APPROVED, both for being able to keep up with the rest of the monsters and for being a deadly alien caterpillar.

And that yellow thing? That yellow thing that I'm gonna call MC Slapsalot (from Mixmaster IX, in the Nebula Funkadelic)? That thing has the best attack of any monster ever. Just squash 'em, Slapsalot! JOHN APPROVED.

The Legionnaires absolutely fail to get rid of the beasts, by the way, and retreat to a crumbled building to consider a strategy that involves not getting their asses kicked by creatures that wouldn't have made it into a Greek myth. This is when the Hunter makes his move, showing up with a Radioactive Monster that apparantly can sap Ultra Boy's strength (and is JOHN APPROVED for being proactive about adapting to potential futuristic nuclear wastelands and kind of looking like it has a flashlight strapped to its head) and a Kryptonite Beast (NOT APPROVED because it's stupid. A magic beast would be far more plausible [he said, not listening to himself make very little sense]). He offers to get rid of all of the monster in exchange for permission to hunt the Legionnaires. They, of course, say yes.

Okay, the Kryptonite Beast does have a sense of showmanship, I'll give it that. But not  one jot more. 

Anyway, the Hunter pulls this off:

and then hunts the Legion and almost wins and then dies in a weirdly honourable way. His son later comes back for revenge wielding a terrible haircut and a bad attitude.

So today's lesson is... don't hunt superheroes. Kill them with an overwhelming flood of monsters and then claim that you hunted them. It's safer.

And now I go out for supper. Good night.

Eedie Beedie Beedie...Welcome Back, Buck.

This week, Dynamite released the zero issue of their Buck Rogers relaunch, for the low low price of a quarter. In all honesty, I don’t expect a lot for that kinda money, but this wasn’t too bad at all. Granted, my knowledge of the character extends to my mostly-fuzzy memories of the Gil Gerard TV incarnation, and this book features neither Twiki or Linda Grey in a form-fitting white outfit (which is really too bad, 'cause...damn.). However, it does feature a  fairly sharp little SF adventure that, even though it’s the zero issue, is sort of the last Buck Rogers adventure—intriguing!—and a dope cover by John Cassaday. Seems that Earth in the 25th Century, which is safeguarded by the titular modern-day, time-tossed astronaut—is under assault by disgusting paramecium invaders from Ganymede, and Buck has to maybe make the Ultimate Sacrifice to repel them, while his grown-up kids (I guess?) watch helplessly from Earth. It’s written by Scott Beatty (Batgirl: Year One) and features attractive art by Carlos Rafael, but I had a few issues…namely, Buck is drawn way too young to have spawned the full-grown kids featured in this story. Or they’re drawn way too old, take your pick. Maybe there’s even more time travel shenanigans afoot that will be revealed in the ongoing series? Either way, it’s not a bad read otherwise, and given the way this issue ends, it’s an intriguing way to kick off a relaunch. Can I also say that I’m totally on board with this new design for the character, provided by Alex Ross, and, for some reason, I am head-over-heels in love with the book’s logo. I can’t put my finger on it, but it kind of rules.

What else? Amazing Spider-Man began a new arc this week, 24/7, that sees Spidey dealing with the consequences of his accidentally being gone for several months in another dimension. For instance, J. Jonah Jameson is the new mayor of New York City, so Peter Parker decides to become Spider-Man full time, the better to bedevil him. Also, a classic Spidey villain appears in a creepy new incarnation, and…I’m not gonna spoil the last page, but my eyebrows almost left the top of my head. Let’s just say it’s something that neither us nor Peter ever wanted to see in our lifetimes. Anyway, point being, Mark Waid’s Spider-Man scripts have so far shown that he has an almost supernaturally precise knowledge of what needs to  be in a good Web-head yarn—the proper mix of action, soap opera, and lots of humour. Waid’s collaborator here is Mike McKone, who draws an awesomely acrobatic Wall-crawler, and the colours by Jeromy Cox top the whole thing off nicely.

Now that One More Day is well in the past, can I just say how great it is that Amazing Spider-Man is a book I want to read again? It was always my childhood fave, especially the Marvel Tales reprints of the great Ross Andru stuff from the 70s. However, when they rolled back the clock and started doing reprints of the early years, that was fine by me as well. I sure do love me some Lee/Ditko Spidey—almost as much as I love the idea of giving your wife of many years a signed photograph of yourself:

“Hmmm, maybe she’d like some flowers, or dinner at a fancy restaurant…wait! I’ve got it!” Anyway, I got off track there, but my point is, I will always have a soft spot for Spidey done right—and this is Spidey done right.

Finally, Image released Viking #1 by Ivan Brandon and Nic Klein this week, a book that actually sold out several weeks ago. That is to say, orders were so high that every copy being printed was already spoken for by retailers. This is cool because, not only is Viking a nicely gritty new series that sees warring clans of Norsemen chopping each other to bits, but its artist, Nic Klein, used to be a longtime customer of  Cal’s (dating back to the early days of the Fredericton store!) before moving to Germany. You’ve likely seen his work on some Marvel covers recently, like New Warriors, but he announces himself in a big way with this series. This is terrific stuff, but don’t take my word for it:

Man, how is that little bear so adorable and terrifying at the same time? Ivan Brandon’s script is composed of equal parts tender family moments and horrific violence, and the format—slightly wider, with a cardstock, spot-varnished cover—is super nice for only $2.99 US.  Throw on  "Invaders" by Iron Maiden  and have a blast.
 

Never Trust Ladies Who Live Down A Well!

    Continuing last week’s Pluto tradition of me writing about stuff long after everybody else has discovered and blogged about it, I’m going to talk today about IDW’s Locke & Key. This horror/fantasy series by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez debuted last year with a six-issue miniseries, Welcome To Lovecraft, and is available in a slick hardcover volume. That first miniseries is up for this year’s Eisner award for Best Miniseries, and Joe Hill received a nod for Best Writer, so I guess this review isn’t entirely un-timely.
    Locke & Key is one of those occasional series from relative newcomers that somehow reads as though it was crafted by seasoned old professionals who know their way around every trick in the funnybook business. That’s not to say that Hill and Rodriguez are complete novices—after all, Hill is a bona-fide New York Times bestselling novelist, and Rodriguez has done a few IDW projects before this, but this series announces the both of them as comics talents to be reckoned with. I read the first issue of Welcome To Lovecraft when it was released in single issue form, and was intrigued by the capable, confident storytelling and the supernatural premise, but by the time issue two rolled around, our store was swamped with demands for the series and I sold every copy before I could get a look at it. After that, the series just kinda got away from me, but after my pal Eric (check out his amazing illustrations at http://www.ericorchard.blogspot.com/) lent me Hill’s awesome short story collection, 20th Century Ghosts (if you’ve got a hankering for some very Bradburyesque horror/fantasy, you owe it to yourself to check this out), I resolved to have another crack at Locke & Key.

    The first series, Welcome To Lovecraft, introduces readers to the Locke family as tragedy engulfs them. When guidance counselor dad Rendell is murdered by a disturbed student named Sam Lesser, the remaining family members—Ty, Kinsey, Gabe, and their mother—head to the town of Lovecraft, Massachusetts to live with uncle Duncan in the ominously-named family estate Keyhouse. Once there, plucky youngster Gabe is the first to discover the house’s mysterious properties—such as a certain door that renders your body lifeless but frees up your ghost to float around, as well as a sinister phantom named Echo who lives in a well. Turns out Echo is also in contact with psycho Sam Lesser up in the correctional facility, and she recruits him to bevil the Locke clan once more—this time, to find her a very special set of keys that Rendell may have hidden in the house years ago.   

    Often, when writers from other media try their hand at comics, there is a pretty steep learning curve. However, Hill has managed, in true Dr. Frankenstein fashion, to stitch together what he has learned from writing prose fiction with what he has loved about the comic form his whole life. The result is an engaging and readable narrative that glides effortlessly back and forth between past and present, and is filled with chilling reveals and cleverly seamless transitions. Each issue spotlights a different character, giving us their perspective on the awful events that brought them to Keyhouse and gradually revealing different facets of their personalities; for instance, we know that Ty is particularly haunted by his father’s murder, but it’s not until issue four that we learn exactly why. Gabriel Rodriguez’s highly detailed and expressive art looks like a weird hybrid between Rick Geary and Bob Fingerman, of all people. He gives all of the characters their own unique look and sets of expressions, while still managing to make the members of the Locke family look related to one another. Rodriguez also give the location of Keyhouse loads of personality, with its sinister gables and turrets and ominously-illustrated doors.
    If I have a complaint about Welcome to Lovecraft, it’s that it doesn’t really stand all that well on its own—a sequel, Head Games, is on its fourth issue as I write this, and it presumably delves more into the mystery of Keyhouse (which apparently “chose” Duncan, not Rendell, to live there—why? And how?), the connection between Rendell Locke and the gender-swapping ghost Echo (look for some well-placed foreshadowing of this in issue three), and the purpose of the key Bode fishes out of the lake at the end of issue six. That isn’t much of a complaint, though, since I enjoyed the first series enough that the lack of closure is more of an enticement than a put-off. Locke & Key: Welcome To Lovecraft is a creepy good time, a macabre mixture of supernatural horror and family drama that hints at a much more intricate and generational tapestry of terror.
 

Archie Sunday: Foot Fun!

And now two gross Archie comics on the subject of podiatary problems:

Fin.

JLA: Cry for Supergirl

 I had a really busy Wednesday and Thursday, so I was late reading my comics this week. But I did want to mention this:

From left to right: Hero! Hero! Hero! Hero! Boobs!

Aw man! Surely DC is not doing this. Not after they have worked so hard and earned my praise for the last year or two for their complete turn-around of the Supergirl charcacter. She is no longer DC's teenage blow-up doll, but instead a complex, strong hero who is far more than a pair of boobs in a halter top.

So any excitement that I had that this promo image implies that Supergirl is going to be a member of the Justice League is overshadowed by the fact that the only women on the page is an isolated pair of boobs. I hate when a woman's head is cut off in an ad or promo image, and it happens all the time. Nevermind the fact that it looks like the four male heroes in the picture are just staring at Supergirl's rack.

Boooooo, DC. Boooooooo.

Grave Consequences: The End of 100 Bullets

This week, a much-beloved, oft-delayed series came to its highly anticipated conclusion. I’m talking, of course, about Halo: Uprising…nah, just kidding. Instead of wasting time talking about a four-issue miniseries that took about two years to come out, I’m going to celebrate and eulogize a 100-issue miniseries that came out more or less regularly over the last ten years, with a few production holdups along the way (around the middle and at the end, mostly). Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso, take a much-deserved bow—you guys finally reached the end of 100 Bullets.

    This is somewhat surprising, since it looked as though the Vertigo revenge drama wouldn’t survive its first year. I gave the first issue a glance when it came out—liked the art, dug the cover, appreciated the pacing and street-smart dialogue—but there wasn’t enough there to bring me back for issue two. The concept, a semi-anthology where the mysterious Agent Graves offers consequence-free revenge to a series of hard luck cases, had promise, but…I don’t know. There just wasn’t enough meat on its metaphorical bones, so to speak. However, by the time the first collection, First Shot Last Call, arrived, with its dirt-cheap price tag—ten bucks US for five issues and a short story, not bad!—I had heard the growing buzz and decided to give 100 Bullets another try. This formula succeeded in spades, as the low price point and critical acclaim made it an irresistible draw. The title continued, racking up awards, acclaim, and increased sales, and a Vertigo sales strategy that continues to this day was born. As for me, I was in for the long haul.
    The second 100 Bullets collection, Split Second Chance, is where lots of readers who weren’t entirely swayed by the first book toppled altogether. It’s in this much longer trade that we get our first glimpses of the bigger conspiracy behind Agent Graves’ “game”--that he is not only doling out sweet, sweet revenge, but that he is recruiting new players into an older, much more dangerous game. It’s where we see that Azzarello is not only a pro at crafting multi-part stories, but killer one-shots as well (such as “Heartbreak, Sunny Side Up”, still one of the all time greats). It’s where we begin to chart the evolution of Chicago gang-banger Dizzy Cordova, heroine of the series’ introductory arc, as she is crafted into Graves’ greatest weapon, and where we meet the first of the mysterious and deadly Minutemen, like savage Lono and slick Cole Burns. Finally, it’s where we hear the first whispers about the Trust, the sinister cabal of families who control everything that’s worth controlling in America.
    I should pause here and talk about Eduardo Risso’s art. It would be impressive enough to note that the Argentinean illustrator didn’t even meet his collaborator until well into the series’ run, and in fact, had to have the scripts translated for him because he didn’t understand English—furthermore, he wasn’t even on the same continent as the writer! All of that is beside the point, when you see how brilliantly Risso brings the stories to life. Not only does he capture all the raw emotion, all of the gun-blazing action, all of the oh-so-important character subtleties, but he populates every panel with the most bizarre-looking, eye-catching background characters this side of a Dick Tracy strip to boot. It’s hard to say which angles or details are in the script and which ones Risso concocts himself, but come on—this guy gives you shots from inside a pinball game, from a canvas about to be painted on, and from behind a man’s skull as his brains are being blown out! You gotta stand up and salute that kind of vision. And he only gets better as the series goes along.

    I also have to mention Dave Johnson’s artistic contribution, providing the striking cover imagery of all 100 issues and all 13 (eventual) collected editions. Even in the early days of his more traditional painted covers, Johnson’s work had the eye-catching quality of some of the cooler movie posters from the 60s and 70s, but over time his arrangements became more daring and unconventional, all the while looking completely effortless. This is, I think, a case where the use of PhotoShop has made a great artist even better, opening up new possibilities and firing his imagination rather than simply making him lazy. Strange Adventures bossman Calum Johnston scored an amazing Agent Graves sketch for me from the man himself in Toronto a few years back, and it’s scowling down at me as I type this.

    100 Bullets is one of those series that, while obviously successful enough to continue all the way to its planned conclusion, never sold lots of copies of the single issues. That’s why that first trade was such an important component in its early success—the long-range planning Azzarello put into the book was much more evident when you read it that way. This is the kind of title, after all, where someone appears for a few panels in the background of an issue, only to become a central figure two or three trade paperbacks down the line. This is a series that rewards patience and attention to detail, which could often make the monthly comics confusing and occasionally tedious. I re-read all twelve existing trades before the final arc began, then began reading the monthlies to see it though to the end, but by about four or five issues into it, I realized I was already getting lost in the wait between issues.
    Which brings me, finally, to 100 Bullets #100. This super-sized issue features Graves’ final showdown with the remaining members of the Trust, while the remaining members of the Minutemen cause grievous bodily harm to countless bodyguards and each other. If that synopsis sounds a bit pedestrian, it’s because, as predicted…I mostly had no idea what the hell was going on. There were definitely some memorable moments, like Jack Daw vs. hulking bodyguard Crete vs. a bunch of alligators, and Cole Burns’, er, heated exchange with ice queen Megan Dietrich, but I couldn’t wrap my head around what exactly all of Graves’ Byzantine maneuvering had actually accomplished, and what it meant for the final scene (which, appropriately enough, came down to Graves and Dizzy). It sure did look great, though, but I think I’ll appreciate it a lot more when I revisit it in the final trade (due out this summer).
    Still, sometimes the ride is the point, not the destination, and 100 Bullets was a ride like no other. One of the sexiest, goriest, most intricately plotted and beautifully drawn comics I’ve ever read, populated with some of the most memorable psychopaths, femmes fatales, smooth operators, and sad sacks ever found between two covers, has come and gone, and I can’t imagine what could replace it or even want to try.

Have one on me, Graves, you've earned it. Now who the hell’s gonna sweep up all these shell casings?