1. "Batman" by Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso. All of a sudden, things get Azzarelloian, which is what I was trying to predict early on and got slightly disheartened as the strip progressed. It's difficult to explain the weirdness unless you see the way Risso seems to frame it. The police are coming to get Luna, who I think jumped through a window last issue and now seems to e dead. As she lies dying, Batman starts smiling at the thought of Luna having to go to jail, at which point she recognizes Batman as a man she slept with nine issues earlier. She cries out "Bruce!" before Batman silences her by kissing her on the mouth. His face covered with blood, he walks away. What a weird ending. Batman basically kisses a dying woman to silence her last revelation in front of the cops, and we assume he may now have to contend with Gordon asking why he was kissing that woman. There are so many bizarre and disturbing Batman stories, but rarely does it become apparent that Batman's own behavior is perhaps the most distressing at all; that isn't the vibe we get from Azzarello's comic as a whole, but as a sendoff it's like shooting David Lynch into a Tim Burton movie.
2. "Metamorpho, The Element Man" by Neil Gaiman and Mike Allred. In a similar way, Gaiman and Allred seem to have just gotten their bearings again as well. Our last installment piles on the amusing plot and dialogue digressions and contains the most tolerable example of meta-type meddling we have seen yet. Of course, my favorite part is watching Simon Stagg's French chefs left behind to die as the Element Crew escapes. Urania gets a good joke about private sectors, and Java sulks. Then, we get some fake "Coming Soon" moments, which show the return of Element Dog, and a fake comic that has Java and Rex Mason as Egyptian slaves. Goofy, yes, evoking the silver age, all that typical stuff, but it's nice to see Gaiman at least pretending to do what he does best, which is developing a sort of fake internal mythology that's another step removed from the fictional story itself. The last panels are a con, but a good con. As opposed to those periodic tables, which was just a waste of space.
3. "Strange Adventures" by Paul Pope. Cool-looking as always, Pope shows us that there are acceptable and even moving ways of dialing down the action. Strange gets one more chance to muse on his existential burden, wondering if he is lying to his beloved Alanna by not admitting anything about his aged archaeologist self on earth, but he decides that it's best not to bring it up. With Lord Korgo stuk on earth, there isn't much in the way of action to get through, so we get a few panels on top that fill in the rest of the story for us. The rest of the page is devoted to panels that get smaller and smaller as our eyes move down the page--panels filled with delightful new Pope inventions that we will probably never get to see in action. But that's not the point--the point is that Pope is using this opportunity to distill the character of Adam Strange, as an agent of youthful wish-fulfillment. He is us, a man who wishes to lead a more noble and romantic life than hat he can find on earth. So it ends perfectly, with the continuing "Strange Adventures" represented by a shot of Adam once again riding his zeta beam.
4. "Wonder Woman" by Ben Caldwell. Whereas this strip, though ostensibly an ending, could turn out to be the beginning of something greater. For 12 weeks, we have seen the character of Diana grow to accept the mantlehood of Wonder Woman just as Caldwell's colors have gone from muted and obscure to bright-pink and vivid. There's no big splash page to sum everything up, as one might expect might happen: Caldwell's storytelling continues to cram in as much of the plot as is necessary. WW's battle with Dr. Poison vcomes to the fore, Cheetah dies, and Etta Candy makes her return just as Wonder Woman frees a bevy of captured Amazons and seems to once again fall into a dream. Apart from a few JLA appearances, this is really the first time I've been intrigued by the character of Wonder Woman (which unfortunately isn't enough to get me to buy her regular title). Great art can seemingly make anything interesting. Three cheers for Caldwell for being the most bold artist on Wednesday Comics by far, and for those who continue to claim it is unreadable, I say try this: read it again.
5. "Hawkman" by Kyle Baker. I'm not sure what inspired Kyle Baker to end his Hawkman story by having him rescued from Dinosaur Island by the Justice League in a rather inelegant turn of events, but it seems to have come out nicer than I can describe. Maybe it's just nice to see the members of the Justice League getting along: not only being professional with each other, but actually being friendly and inviting. having Aquaman say "Catch you at the next JLA meeting, Hawkman!" may seem to be about as reverent to the character as his "Supergirl" appearances, but why not have one story where Batman and Martian Manhunter are all pretty nice to each other? And especially when Batman was such a prick to Superman back in issue 2. We also see Hawkgirl and Hawkman in a healthy and mutually affectionate relationship for the first time ever. This isn't anything that I would necessarily like to see in the regular DC universe, but as an odd ending to a series, it's kind of worth it. Baker's art, which often shrouds the League in shadow, excels most in its rendering if faces, but damn if that last shot of the dead T-Rex carcass washed up on the beach isn't a good one.
6. "Flash Comics" by Karl Kerschl and Brenden Fletcher. I've been claiming for a while that this strip was either heading toward a bunch of exposition or an overall copout, and I'm unsure whether the fact that the latter turned out to be the approach is a good thing. I still give this high marks for looking great and unconventional, particularly with Iris reading the end of the Flash's strip that makes sense, complete with a Flash-themed crossword. The rest of it is just Barry and Iris being cute together, which I guess is the sort of thing people like to see after lots of time travel and alternate universe action. Kerschl's strip has always been one of the most bold and experimental of Wednesday Comics, and its experiments have been as successful as anyone else's: or, at the very least, it works 13 out of 15 times. That is a good number for me. I'm not sure if Kerschl could sustain these sort of ideas on a run of the regular title, but that isn't what Wednesday Comics is about. It's about good artists doing weird things with established characters, so it works.
7. "Metal Men" by Dan DiDio, Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez and Kevin Nowlan. This perpetually underrated strip ends up having the highest body count in all of Wednesday Comics. Who could have pictured that? Following the rather horrible, brutal dissolving of Tin a few months back, the rest of the Metal Men follow in his stead, save Mercury, who probably survives due to the fact that he is liquid at room temperature, or something. Doc Magnus' metrosexual antagonist Dr. Pretorius finally shows himself again, and Magnus clocks him the face while Mercury, oddly nonplussed about the rest of his teammates, looks on with glee. Of course, the naysayers can say that this is cheap pathos, that Magnus can and probably will make new Metal Men, and all he ever needed was metal that exhibited certain properties, etc. That's not what this is about. Of all the stories in this volume, "Metal Men" was the one that attempted most closely to unfold in real time, to make a serial in which every strip was deliberately meant to build immediately on the last. The absurdity of having Chemo pop up aside, DiDio has paced this extremely well, and the last panel is a fitting requiem for a bunch of very odd heroes.
8. "Sgt. Rock and Easy Co." by Adam Kubert and Joe Kubert. Aah, "Sgt. Rock," you are exactly where you should be. The slow-moving adventures of Rock and Co. finally come to their end, with Joe Kubert drawing the hell out of everything and Adam Kubert ending with a storytelling no-no that I will deem acceptable because of his father's art. Unless I missed something (and it's possible, but I don't want to go through my issues again), Rock's Aunt Magda has not previously been much of a factor here, nor does it really make any sense that Rock would assume this guy was his uncle. Or, that his uncle would turn out to be a good guy in the first place. Oh well. This is a cool series with a slight script, but it's hard to do wrong with a character like Sgt. Rock, especially as during the course of this series he has been stabbed, pistol-whipped, and shot in the back at least four times. Too bad we really didn't get to see much of Easy Co. in action. Nor did we see Sarge and that lady hook up, Grand Illusion-style. I suppose that happens off-screen.
9. "Deadman" by Dave Bullock and Vinton Heuck. Since everything was more or less solved last issue, "Deadman" doesn't have anything left to do but bide some time, so it's kind of sad that this last installment doesn't really add anything new, nor does it look that great. In fact, the final power shot of Deadman rising into the air looks funny, although I can't quite place how. It's always nice to see Rama Kushna, but as Boston Brand admits, twice in one night is kind of pushing it. Early on, this was my favorite comic in all of Wednesday Comics, and I still have a fair amount of affection for it, particularly when others seem to be trashing it because it doesn't play the innovation game and it doesn't have any high-profile creator on it. Nevertheless, Deadman has been one of the coolest and most novel action-oriented strips herein, and it really made me like a character I've always had a passing affection for. Though this ending isn't much to speak of, I pronounce the rest of this strip a success.
10. "Supergirl" by Jimmy Palmiotti and Amanda Conner. I have to say it: that's really super, Supergirl. I am, of course, referring to the cutesy ending of this already cutesy series, with an artist who seems bent on making Supergirl the most cutesy-looking thing in creation. Mostly, I thought this strip was a failure, with the Dr. Mid-Nite parts holding up the best, and this last minute run-in with aliens hasn't really held up any better. Turns out the aliens are nice and harmless, and they have some conversations with Krypto and Streaky, who of course can't actually talk because they are dog and cat. Except...in a twist worthy of Rod Serling, or at least a Rod Serling who would devote the first 25 minutes of time to low comedy and cute animal poses and then get into some action, it turns out that the alien invaders were dogs and cats. So there's the end of that one. From here on out, the endings get a bit weaker.
11. "The Demon and Catwoman" by Walter Simonson and Brian Stelfreeze. Ugh, if you thought some of the innuendo in previous "Batman" strips was bad, you may want to avoid this comic, which consists of the now human Jason Blood and Catwoman talking about how they are going to have sex with each other. Seriously, that's it. It's not like this is fan-fiction level sexual tension, but it's still distressing after I noted a long time ago that Catwoman had a tendency to be portrayed as basically a whore (which, to be fair, she actually was, back when Frank Miller revamped her origin). To be honest, I wish it was Etrigan it was hitting on, although no one wants to see that in action. Like everything else, it's a good-looking script, hampered with what seems like a series of bad choices and a writer who doesn't pace things very well. Which is ridiculous, because this is Walt Simonson, who should know as well as anyone how to draw out an epic story. I will simply assume he had more important things to do.
12. "Kamandi: The Last Boy On Earth!" by Dave Gibbons and Ryan Sook. Sook's art isn't as weak (comparatively) in this installment as it has been been the last few issues, but it's too late as Gibbons keeps the turgid prose going and promises further adventures of Kamandi, who may now find out that he is not the last boy on earth. Seriously, the most exciting thing about this installment is that we get to see Kamandi as drawn by Jack Kirby, looking dynamic as always. Is it just me, or does Kamandi look disproportionately huge in that last panel? Or am I missing something? When this strip was good, it was good, but it definitely jumped the shark at some point.
13. "Superman" by John Arcudi and Lee Bermejo. The aforementioned Batman, who was acting really mean earlier, manages to lighten up enough to take out that other alien that Superman forgot about and was really scared for a second. With Lois okay, everything is back to normal. The only question, then, is what the hell this series was really supposed to be about, and whether or not this whole plot of Superman being mopey and depressed was just a really pathetic sort of joke. Maybe. Certainly, we still don't know what the aliens were doing and why they decided to mess with Superman. But we did get to see like six straight weeks of them beating on each other. I think Arcudi needs to get new priorities or lay off aliens unless they already exist.
14. "Teen Titans" by Eddie Berganza and Sean Galloway. This strip doesn't so much end as it does just plod ahead despite all the unanswered questions it doesn't bother dealing with. Blue Beetle is alive all of a sudden, or maybe it's just a fake statue or something. You might remember that it was revealed Deathstroke the Terminator was behind the whole thing, which also doesn't make any sense. And at the last minute, on the very last panel, Deathstroke's previously unseen daughter comes out of nowhere the unleash the smackdown on her father. The strip ends with the warning "Never the end!" Thankfully, in this case, that is untrue. Somebody tell Galloway that not having backgrounds can sometimes be confusing. Who is the guy with goggles? Oh well. At least it's not...
15. "Green Lantern" by Kurt Busiek and Joe Quinones. In which two self-obsessed lotharios have a beer together and indulge in levels of testosterone that are cartoonish for even a cartoon. I have no more to say about this comic, not only because I am near the end but because I feel I use the word "douchebag" to describe Hal Jordan enough anyway. If your idea of a good time is to watch this "hothead" (as Geoff Johns likes to keep reminding us) act all bro with a bro of his, you may like this.
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