Dr K came up with the idea, sent me the image scanned all nice, and I just did the gruntwork so that he could create his very own meme! Aww.
Incognito #1
As with Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillip’s Sleeper, a familiar noir trope is getting a superpowered rerub: the former supercriminal Zack Overkill, now drugged into normalcy and on parole, is struggling with his government-enforced rehabilitation and longs for the power he once possessed. As with Criminal, the plot and story are onlyhalf of the pleasure I get from reading Brubaker’s script; the construction is frequently elegant in its simplicity and the way he manages to surprise even when tinkering with the hoariest of clichés is envious. Phillips and Staples, again, serve as the perfect counterpart to Brubaker’s script, deceptively minimal, reinforcing the point that less is more: murky swaths of digital watercolor underpins Phillips’s strong composition to help tell the story better than any amount of Photoshop gradient ever could.
The Winter Men Winter Special
It’s been two damn years, people.  I’m going to have to find my back issues before I even think about reading this thing I brought home. I’m frankly a bit surprised that Wildstorm even bothered to put this out; I can’t imagine it’s sold enough to pay for its print run at this late date, but I’m sure they’d rather placate the few thousand buyers who’d whine about a collection containing a conclusion they weren’t able to buy off the stands. (In other words, expect to see an unread copy show up at Goodwill or the like during my next big purge.)
Final Crisis: Secret Files
If I’d looked beyond the very nice cover by Frank Quitely and realized that the majority of this special revolved around Len Wein giving a proper origin to Libra (who I think was used by Morrison because he was a blank slate, serving his story needs as required while giving the instigator of Final Crisis the sort of tie to the universe at large that a lot of DC fans expect,) I wouldn’t have purchased it. It’s a great deal of “What went on before” for a character that really didn’t need it. There’s also two text pieces (Grant Morrison “explains” the Anti-Life equation in a very ugly page that’s facing a page from the Crime Bible) and some sketches by J.G. Jones and Morrison.
Punisher War Zone #4
Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon could burn my home down and as long as it formed the shape of the Punisher’s skull emblem, I’d be OK with it.
1.
A disproportionate number of existing superhero comic book readers – they who use the term “civilian” to describe those who don’t hit up their local establishments on weekly basis, as if they’re in the front lines in Iraq – want their stories spoon-fed to them, leading to an equivalent percentage of superhero comic book “stories” that aren’t worth the electricity it took to email the files to Quebecor.
2.
Obvious, I know, but I figured that the reiteration of the obvious is germaine to the discussion. I was just looking at a recent Hulk comic in which the first page served as a text recap: there’s two Hulks, one’s Green, one’s red, and the red one (given the idiotic portmanteau of “Rulk”) has done something really awful. The first page of the actual comic is narration: “Oh, hey, Bruce Banner here, I’m The Hulk! There’s another Hulk! He’s red! They call him the Rulk! He did something bad.” While I am, as regular readers know, all about making sure titles are as new-user friendly as possible, losing a page of storytelling at the front of a book (that’s cut into two halves right now, mind) to a recap means that you should go straight into the action.
3.
One of David Mamet’s better pieces of advice (and the man throws out many worth paying attention to) is that you can lose the first ten minutes of any movie, as they’re generally exposition and little else. By picking up a comic book or sitting into a seat at the multiplex, the audience has already said “I trust you. Give it to me.” Thus, by having Banner reiterate the situation, Jeph Loeb (a screenwriter by trade, it should be noted) oversells his goods and creates a moment where, consciously or not, the reader sees the puppet’s strings. Banner’s bemoaning the setup that’s just been recapped is the Marvel Comics equivalent of Jackie Chan making sure we see his face when he does those crazy stunts: it places the writer/performer ahead of the story. I’m more than happy to let Jackie Chan do his thing; that’s why I’m there. I’m not reading a Hulk comic to watch Jeph Loeb write dialogue circles.
4.
One of the reasons I enjoy Grant Morrison’s work with superheroes so much is that trusts the audience to follow along and very deliberately slices out narration and expository dialogue, letting the medium tell the story and exemplifying Mamet’s tenet. This is why Morrison’s reveals and relevatory moments are so memorable. “I can see you!” and “You’re Martians, aren’t you?” stand out because they’re organic and when they hit, chunks of the rest of the story suddenly make perfect sense. Morrison’s work may occasionally suffer due to artists who can’t quite pull off his scripts (Tony Daniel on Batman being an obvious example) but it’s obvious that he respects his audience more than contemporaries like Mark Millar.
5.
Morrison also trims the fat out of his stories whenever possible: rarely is someone seen walking out of a room or driving a car unless the narrative is furthered by it, and he’s fond of cutting off either end of those scenes to move to the next piece of the script. Very rarely do people sit and talk: they’re in motion. Witness the majority of “talky” scenes in his JLA run, or All-Star Superman #6, in which the Chronovore’s attack and the explanation of its importance to Superman’s life overlap, leading to a final moment that is better for the lack of outre sentimentality.
6.
Having to read and look at the art and think isn’t what the majority of the comic book audience wants to do, however. They’ll throw up any number of excuses or complaints, saying that it’s hard to follow or that they shouldn’t have to “work” to enjoy a story with Thor in it. I’m not going to say that Morrison is not without his opaque moments – his masturbatory opus The Filth, for example – but his superhero material places only the slightest of demands on the readers and is thus reviled by many, even as those in editorial (and snot-nosed, self-important bloggers) reward him for at least trying. When so little change is permanent in superhero comics, someone with the bravura of Morrison is to be admired. There’s a reason I’ll pick up anything with his name attached to it. Even when he makes storytelling choices I disagree with, it’s plain there’s thought behind them.
This is the first time anyone’s used 9/11 in a superhero comic in a way that didn’t make me feel like I needed to wash my hands afterwards. While Vaughan and Harris tried admirably in Ex Machina, Ennis actually manages to make the actions (and inactions) of the series antagonists the point of the story using the events of seven years ago as a plot point, not a crutch to lend a comic book more gravitas than it deserves. Robertson deserves a lot of credit here for his part: he uses some fantastic action shots and facial expressions (particularly the horror, frustration, and fear seen in the eyes of a F-16 pilot in the opening pages) that sell the story on its own merits.
One of the reasons I like this book so much is that it feels like Brubaker and Phillips are running a bit of a scam on Marvel by making a series that’s so counter to the publisher’s usual hype and methodologies; it’s a dark-as-hell crime comic with backing essays and interviews. The opening salvo in the four-part “Bad Night” gives us the story of the man behind those “Frank Kafka, PI” strips that have cropped up in issues past: he was a bad man once, and he’s going to have to be one again if he wants to live. I don’t want to say it’s a perfect jumping-on point, because that’s the hoariest cliché in comics, but…
I’ll refer you to Birdie’s review of the book while saying “I told people that it was like a ‘real’ book, not some Chuck Dixon paint-by-numbers plot.”
I got the Supergirl cover, which I quite like, despite the apparent pedo tone that I missed out on.
It’s easy to be lured in by the fun visuals David Lafuente (with colorist John Rauch) is cranking out – seriously, there’s a two-page spread that rivals Williams on Promethea – but Kathryn Immonen’s script for this second issue is a nice piece of workmanship on its own, trusting the reader to connect a few dots without ever making them feel lost and coming up with at least two laugh-out-loud moments. It’s hard to not like her take on Patsy Walker: a spunky, angst-free superheroine who seems to enjoy her job is a welcome breath of fresh air.
For some reason, I left the new Army@Love in my box for Sunday, but this will certainly tide me over in the subtle-as-a-bulldozer-filled-with-dynamite war satire comics department. Baker’s a cartooning wonder, he really is. Some preview images are up on his blog.
Copies Ordered Of Secret Invasion #2: 182,390
Copies Ordered Of Final Crisis #1: 144,784
Gross Dollar Difference At The Retail Level: $37,606
Estimated Net Difference To The Publishers1 : $15,042
Marvel Q1 2008 Revenue: $45,376,000
TimeWarner Q1 2008 Revenue: $771,000,0001Estimated income after 50% retailer discount and $.10 per copy distribution. Please correct me if the distribution fee is wrong.
Please note that DC’s revenue is not available as a separate unit from the parent corporation.
