Science Says You're Wrong if You Think That John Can Buy Comics and Write About Them in a Timely Manner

Funny thing is, I wrote this on time. I just get distracted so easily, this time by a "games jam" which involved a lot of people who  knew a lot more about programming than me making a game over the course of a night while I made little space ships. Here: as a consolation prize, one of the designs that didn't get used:

Enough of that malarky - on to the reviews!

Victorian Undead No. 1

I do so love being the target audience for something. Sherlock Holmes vs zombies with a side order of insidious automata? Yes please!

I have just now developed a theory as to why I so enjoy reading stories about Holmes encountering the fantastic. It might be due to the Victorian setting and an assumption about people of that era being a bit more credulous, but unlike the deductive brains of tales set in the here-and-now, our man Sherlock doesn’t let a little thing like something breaking the rules of science and nature as he understands them faze him in the least.

Like, say Batman, Brainiac 5 and Sherlock Holmes met an honest-to-goodness mummy. You can bet that Holmes would spend a fraction of the time that the other two did whining about things not making sense and talking about how they hate magic and claiming that it was a puppet or a hologram or a team of trained dogs. No, Holmes would maybe take a minute, maybe be a bit surprised and then figure out how mummies work. It’s why Holmes/Lovecraft mashups are so satisfying, I reckon - there’s just something about the guy that doesn’t let something as trivial as the unexplainable get in his way.

So: Victorian Undead. Looks great, reads great, looks like it's going to feature a lot of Holmes using his massive cranium to fight the undead. And did I mention the robots?

Adventure Comics No. 4

And speaking of being a target audience… This comic features a) the best damn appearance of Superboy Prime-as-fanboy ever. b) A twenty-years-later acknowledgement of the fact that White Witch and Blok are for reals in love with each other and c) a Quislet mention (because every Quislet mention brings us closer to having him actually appear in the comic again, that’s why). Plus both the White Witch and the Black Witch have those weird eye-antennae, and I’m always happy to see them put in an appearance.

The Legion stuff is no big deal, really, as I’d probably be happy to read a story about Cosmic Boy going grocery shopping as long as it was written in a halfway decent manner. The Threeboot Legion series ended on a fairly bleh note and everything featuring them since has been a BIG EVENT of some sort, so I can be very content with little tales that establish Johns’ version of the Legion. For now, at least.

As for the main story, well, it doesn’t get much better than Superboy Prime finding out about his impending maybe-death by reading Adventure Comics No. 4 and desperately trying to figure out what happens next. I haven’t been the biggest fan of the Black Lanterns’ habit of taunting people like third graders but by god is it satisfying when Alexander Luthor takes the time to really hammer home the fact that everyone hates Superboy Prime.

Outsiders No. 24

Okay, I admit it. I bought this so I could get the ring. Just call me Larfleeze, I guess. I just found myself in a position where my regular comics-buying would have netted me 6 of 8 rings and I was way too lazy to find one on eBay or trade with someone else or something like that.

Anyway, the comic. I’m pretty sure that the last issue of  Outsiders that I bought had the Nuclear Family on the cover, so I may just be a bit behind. It’s not bad. There’s the Creeper and Killer Croc with a tiny little arm, both of which are a good time. Plus I finally learned who it is that’s always wearing that Owlman getup when the Outsiders show up in crossovers, which was bugging me but not enough, evidently, to look it up.

The Flash: Rebirth No 5 (of 6)

Blech. This series has so damned infuriating. I generally like Geoff Johns, but it seems like every second issue - hell, every second page in this issue - just strikes such a false note with me. Last issue it turned out that all the whacky stuff with speedsters dying and Barry turning into the Black Flash was down to Professor Zoom being in the Speed Force generating anti-speed or something, and that is just fine. I liked the series more because of it: it’s such a classic goofy super-villain plot that plays perfectly off of the whole Reverse Flash thing, plus it ended up bringing Max Mercury back, so hooray there. But this issue? Man, I’m going to start a new paragraph because I need a

SPOILER ALERT

Reverse Flash is now responsible for every bad thing that happened in Barry Allen’s life? Reverse Flash killed Barry Allen’s mother and framed his father for the crime? I am dumbfounded by how… depressing this is. I mean, the point of this series is to redefine Barry in terms of the present day DCU, right? And the murdered mother thing has been a recurring plot point from the start, yes? So the redefinition is as a victim? A guy whose parents were killed by the most poorly-motivated, over-the-top jerk that could be blown out of proportion for the purpose? Is he going to be a dark specter of vengeance with dead parents now, rather than a decent guy who does right for the sake of it?

Underground No 3 (of 5) - I missed the second issue of this somehow but now everything is right with the world again. Plus, it’s turning out to be even better than I was expecting. I thought that it was going to be all small town crime drama, and that’s definitely an element, but the real focus of the story is just how effed up things can get inside a cave, especially when there are dumb assholes who don’t know what they’re doing in there with you. And also they’re trying to kill you.

Batman Confidential No. 37 - I think that I might have enjoyed this issue more if I hadn’t been so fond of Zinda “Lady Blackhawk” Blake in Birds of Prey, because she does not come off very well here. How shall I put this… she both looks and acts like a not-very bright porn star, and she’s so much cooler than that when done well. Plus I was looking at an ad for some Authority/WildC.A.T.S. crossover in Victorian Undead and I decided to start harshing on books where the ladies don’t wear pants more. Everyone should get to wear pants, guys.

Batman Unseen No 4 (of 5) - You guys, I think that there’s going to be an invisible Batman in the next issue. All of my dreams are coming true.

Cowboy Ninja Viking No. 2 - They’re really getting into the multiple personality aspect of the characters in this series, especially during the fight scenes between Cowboy Ninja Viking and Pirate Gladiator Oceanographer.

Invincible No. 68 - Just to confirm: this comic is still great. Dinosaurus is a terrific villain name. Though Atom Eve still doesn’t get to wear pants.

"We ain't in the takin' prisoners bidness. We in the killin' Nazis bidness. And cousin, bidness is a-boomin'."

 Oh man, do I ever love this. Some talented individual with exquisite taste in both movies and comic artists (I still don't know who it was--these turned up on movie site CHUD, after appearing on Ain't It Cool News Guru Harry Jay Knowles' Twitter feed) created five covers for an imaginary Jack Kirby series adapting Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds into comic form. Whoever made these sure knows his stuff, 'cause they're bang on, both artistically and...er, designfully? Anyway, they're amazing, and I wish like hell there were comics to go with them. Check 'em out:

Hats off, guy whose signature is too small to read! I salute you, you magnificent Basterd!

Beauty and the Block of Marble

OOooooo, what a great looking book! I'm going to try to make this cover the new mental image in my head when I hear the words "Image Comics." Usually I picture something like Haunt, and then I picture a plate of pasta primavera thrown at a wall. 'Cause that's what it looks like.

This lovely book was created by Marian Churchland, hot off her stint on Elephantmen.

Churchland tells the story of a young, out of work artist named Colette, who is commissioned to sculpt a portrait for an otherworldly man known as "Beast." She moves into his dilapidated home, and becomes transfixed with her work—slowly shaping a huge block of marble into the likeness of this mysterious figure.

While the book has a fairy-tale feel to it, and was in part inspired by Beauty and the Beast, it's not a Fables-style modern retelling. It's not a love story—or if it is—it's about the complex relationship between an artist and her work. It's about Colette's obsessions with representing Beast, not the Beast himself. In fact, she has more of an affectionate relationship with this awesome dog, Bodi, who lives in Beast's house.

This book is beautifully understated, both in the story and the art. Colette spends a lot of the story padding about Beast's old house, drinking tea, taking baths—preparing to work on the sculpture at night, when Beast will often appear. Churchland captures that waiting part of art—the procrastination, the mulling it over before beginning a frenzy of work. But the pace of the story also creates great dramatic tension, and adds to the general creepiness the permeates the book.

Churchland's art is just rad. Simple pencils that still say a lot, and really effective grey (and greenish) tones that show dark nights and murky days in an old house.

I tend to tear through a lot of comics in a week, and never give them a second thought, but Beast has really stayed with me. I keep thinking about panels that I want to look at again. I'm actually going to leave it on the nightstand and reread soon. And I seriously never do that.

Brainstormin'!

Catch a Falling Starlog

 Ah, Starlog magazine. Before the internet, where else could geeks, nerds, and dweebs of every colour and creed get together to share their opinions on whether or not a Federation Starship could take out Darth Vader’s Star Destroyer? By the way, I’m not acting superior here—I usually gave my money to Fangoria, which was even more shunned by polite society. Anyway, some time ago, a collection of SF memorabilia made its way into Strange Adventures, and scattered amongst it were some random issues of 'Log  (as I can only imagine its diehard fans call it) from the 1980s. The allure of articles about Buckaroo Banzai and The Last Starfighter was too much for me to pass up, so I rescued them from the Quarter Bin without delay. Happily, the March 1988 issue provided me with one of the funniest letters pages I’ve ever come across. The column, or, Communications, as it was known in its heyday, featured this letter sandwiched in between an angry missive from the then-President of the Friends of Nichelle Nichols and several rave reviews for The Living Daylights:

 

I think I had the action figure of this guy--Studioplantor, was that his name? This letter is pretty funny, mostly because Masters of the Universe totally tanked at the box office, and was pretty much universally (see what I did there?) derided by the few who did see it. This guy’s opinion was, shall we say, not exactly a common one. However, much funnier is this deadpan response from the editor, which shows that Starlog is not without a sense of humour:

 

Swish! For my part, I actually like and own MOTU on DVD—sure, it’s goofy as shit, but it’s got some great designs by Jean Giraud, AKA Moebius, and a cool Bill Conti score that does its level best to sound like John Williams, which I’m sure was the idea. There’s also a pretty solid argument to be made that MOTU is the closest thing we’ll ever get to a New Gods film, but that’s a blog entry for another day. Sooner than you think, probably.

 However, the real gold is within the many letters dedicated to the 1988 surprise sci-fi hit, RoboCop. Check this out:

 

Not bad, right? Wait for it…

 

Y’know, I could be mistaken here, but last time I checked, Asimov’s Laws of Robotics were FICTIONAL, as opposed to FACTUAL, Laws of Science. Does this mean that if I, say, defy the rules from Gremlins and feed my pet Mogwai after midnight, he’ll actually turn into a scaly, mischievous monster? Or that, if I do as I’ve so often dreamed and push my Flux Capacitor-enhanced Delorean up to 88 MPH, I actually will be able to generate the necessary 1.21 Jigowatts I need to travel to 1955, where I can live out my dual lifelong dream of inventing both rock & roll and the skateboard? At least this guy acknowledges that it’s a great film, despite its flagrant violation of hard science.

 (To further prove that I am as big, if not a bigger, nerd than these folks, and am in no way mentally or biologically superior, I will admit to you that I know Vader’s Star Destroyer is called the Executor. There, I said it. )

Flip the Grip, Fileboner!

It's no secret that I have a big love on for the media of the past, especially in the form of books and comics. Part of this is due to the sheer entertainment value of it all - there's usually a reason that something has managed to survive the vagaries of time and human distractability, right? - but in addition to the content of the work there's often a completely fascinating element of trying to figure out exactly what was going on in the heads of the person or persons responsible.

Here, look at this:

For a long time, every DC comic had something like this, a little half- or full-page filler like "Flash Facts" or "Metal Facts and Fancies", possibly so that they could claim some portion of their content was educational. Of them all, I prefer "Science Says You're Wrong if You Believe That..." because it's the only one that flat-out insults the reader. These things are terrific insights into what the heck people were caring about at the time that they were written, or at least what comics writers were caring about. For example, read enough stuff from the 60s and you'll see that bit about deadly gasses from the tail of a comet coming up again and again, though nowadays it's gone the way of the classic plot to kill someone with a weak heart by scaring them to death. So were people obsessed with comets or was it just a case of writers getting as much use as they could out of a stlye of disaster with a lot of dramatic appeal?

With every one of these things you learn more about the people who wrote them, whether it be through what they felt needed to be debunked or what they were wrong about or how early they were right about something that you maybe thought was such a very contemporary bit of knowledge. I wish that I could have found the one on superstitions of the world, because it's a fantastic example of the absolute rock-solid belief in Science that characterized so many of the comics of the 50s and 60s.

Which is all a very long introduction to this:

... which I found in Lois Lane No 16, from way the heck back in 1960. What's going on here? Is this a guide? Some sort of mockery (look how funny you teen types talk.)? Heck, is it even accurate? I can't believe that there's a variation on the theme of Nerd that contains the word "boner" and has fallen into disuse.

Man, can't you just feel the attempt to figure out what the heck those crazy teens are talking about? All writing down what the copy boys say to each other and then quizzing them on it in private later?

It's okay if you don't, though. I'm not here to make sure that your experience of the world is identical to mine. No, what I'm here for is to make sure that you all know about the word hip-happy.

Hip-happy means plump!