Tpull's Weekly DC Comics Review – Part 2

February 15, 2010 3:37 PM | Comments:

Action Comics 886

by Greg Rucka, Eric Trautmann, and Pere Pèrez

The time has finally come to reveal the mythology of the Nightwing and the Flamebird. What ensues is a creation myth for Krypton, with Rao as the central deity. Instead of chaos erupting from nothingness, this creation story has chaos all around, and Rao as a new godling who imposes order. It’s a little off-beat, especially when they decide that Rao creates others because he is lonely. If you have never known companionship, how could you develop the concept of being lonely, when you have known no other possible state in which you can exist? That weakness aside, the rest reads well.

Chris continues to give his commentary as the prose is revealed to him, with Vohc-The-Builder creating things, and the Flamebird comes along and razes everything to the ground, such as starting fires in the forest to create the soil for the next level of growth. This cycle continues, with Flamebird prompting the Builder to go ever bigger and better. The Builder also creates a “bridge” to allow the Nightwing and the Flamebird come together.

The Builder sees their union and creates his own monument to the Flamebird, realizing that he has strong feelings for her only after seeing her liaison with Nightwing. The Flamebird comes along, and promptly turns his newest creation to ash, acting on auto-pilot, and secure in her knowledge that he will come back and make something better next anyway.

Whoops. The Builder wanted his own companion, and had invested some feelings with his latest creation. In revenge, he made a device that was powered by the Flamebird’s power, so when she came to destroy the next creation, instead it ripped the Nightwing away into the Phantom Zone. The tale ends there, so perhaps we will get a part two later that will explain how the cycle is programmed to repeat itself. The story picks up with Jax-ur revealing himself, and Thara leads Chris into a trap, led by the Flamebird aspect. It seems that the Builder is embedded in Jax-ur, who put some traps inside Chris, and he is now activating everything …to bring forth Rao himself?

Pèrez seems in high form with the art for the framing device, and the Book of Rao sections are drawn by Fernando Dagnino and Raul Fernandez to good effect. The mythology is fun, and we don’t get much o this kind of thing with DC books, so it feels refreshing. This is a good time for this, since I was beginning to feel a little drift into static-land with the plot, so this provides a little shake-up that grabs my interest.

JSA All-Stars 3

by Matthew Sturges and Freddie Williams II

This issue put me off for a couple reasons. One is that the annual came out first, but chronologically, this is the issue that brings up the notice to set the ball rolling for JSA Annual #2. The art of Freddie Williams II is just not cutting it. His mouths are too-often out of proportion to the rest of the person, and often other parts of the anatomy are grotesquely out of proportion. The one reference to Atom Smasher is handled all too briefly, and it doesn’t flow well.

The backgrounds are awful. One scene shows Tyler sitting down with his father, and it looks like there’s a roll of toilet paper hanging from the wall next to some utensils! That’s when he can be bothered to show us anything at all. We then have a practice session, with Magog being the primary instructor, and it devolves into the too-often shown argument over whether to kill the bad guys or not. They have been harping on this same note for half a year now. Granted, it fits with what we know Magog will turn into, if Kingdom Come is still a possible future, but to see it brought up every issue, and to have so much space devoted to it, is completely unnecessary.

It also provides a way for them to have the heroes fighting against each other, but all it makes you think is that all of these guys have rotten tempers, and even when they have philosophical agreements, they can’t have enough emotional control. Whether it’s Magog, Power Girl, or Wildcat, they act like the Hulk and lash out. What ever happened to being able to disagree without throwing a punch? It’s lame.

The second feature is written by Jen Van Meter, and drawn by Travis Moore. I would prefer to have Moore draw the main story; the able assist on inks by Dan Green makes for a much better visual product. The story is a little hard to believe. Icicle and Tigress run into their prey on a plane, and force the plane down. Instead of sticking with the guy, the next time we see them, Liberty Belle sees the two villains pointing at him from a distance?!? The final page has Belle super-speeding out to catch Icicle, and she leaves Tigress and some security personnel in the dust. However, the final panel shows the security right behind her, pointing all their weapons at her already. How could they possibly match her speed? If these were other security personnel, that should have shown them approaching from another angle. It was set up purely to try for a dramatic final panel, but the internal logic fails, and ruins the moment.

The Shield 6

by Eric Trautmann and Marco Rudy

It’s the final showdown, and Marco Rudy keeps up with his efforts to give us slightly unusual panel transitions and designs. It works for the type of story, and gives you something interesting to look at, slightly different from the standard comic fare. The rest of this story is fairly straightforward, with the Shield fighting the big bad guy and pulling a Tony Stark, hacking into the enemy’s programming and directing a bunch of rockets to alter course and destroy the enemy base. Shield is greeted from the rubble by members of the Great Ten, making threatening statements about an act of war, but we know nothing will come of it. It’s a shame actually, because that is a real-world example that might be good to show later on, the ramifications of his actions creating additional problems. I suspect they will just sweep it under the rug.

I tried hard to slow down and read every part of the second feature with Inferno, but I was bored the whole time. Michael Gaydos’ art seems to have suffered greatly. Inferno leaves to make room for the Fox in the second feature for the next four issues, but the poor quality so far is still making me wonder if I want to buy this issue each month. It seems like a poor way to build an audience for the Shield, by weighing him down with less-interesting secondary characters. That might prevent this title’s sales from climbing any higher.

Titans 22

by J. T. Krul and Angel Unzueta

We have lost any semblance of story. Unzueta gives us some quick meaningless fight sequences. In the old days, someone like George Perez would have made them awesome, even if they were mental images or imaginary. Instead, the quality is sub-par, as if the artist and writer both didn’t try that much, because they knew it was a throw-away scene. Compare this with the awesome Per Degaton sequence in All-star Squadron 14, with clear, bold characters, all dramatically utilized, and forming a mini-story all its own to serve as the introduction for a multi-part crossover. Then go back and look at this dream sequence again, and see how low we have sunk in many of today’s modern comics. There is so much more potential, if only the modern writers and artists would study their craft.

Phobia is still manipulating Cyborg and Starfire, but without any real reason. The woman just randomly showed up, circumventing all security protocols, and started playing around. Unzueta’s attempt at an impressive memorial sequence, showing the modern Titans commemorated as statues to depict their deaths as part of Starfire’s nightmare, is too artificial, no sense of importance. Phobia’s only statement to give us any clue whatsoever is this idea that she has nothing left in life except her enemies. Except it has been so long since she really fought the Titans, it’s a big stretch to think that she can think of nothing else to do with her life.

Inexplicably, Cyborg’s activation of his sonic powers in his dream causes them to activate in real life. Why does this make no sense? Because they already showed us Cyborg using his powers earlier, and absolutely no real-life effect followed from that. Now it does? Perhaps if there were some way to explain that this one dramatic moment caused him to do something different. Without an additional explanation, though, it breaks the existing structure and rules of the story itself. A good editor would have asked how this could happen, and insisted that it be reinforced by something more than just the fact of it happening. After all, Starfire is walking around everywhere in her nightmare, but she doesn’t move from her position on the floor no matter how upset she gets. She is not able to use her power until she actually wakes up and resists Phobia’s influence.

Wait, it gets worse. We just saw Cyborg reaffirming Wonder Girl as the leader of the Teen Titans over in their magazine. Here, we see Cyborg congratulating Gar as the leader of the teen group. It contradicts what we just read in the sister title, and the only way to make it fit is if we conclude Victor is a big jerk who keeps yanking everybody’s chain. Why these two titles don’t have the same editor, I’ll never know. They should be comparing notes to prevent amateur mistakes like this. If you’re going to insist on having an interactive shared universe, then you need to have these simple things coordinated properly, or you end up with direct contradictions that ruin both stories.

Krul is trying to set up for the transition of some of these characters to move to the JLA, but it has been foreshadowed so much, it feels like we’re dragging our heels until the people doing JLA are ready for them. At the same time, they give us covers like this one: “Together… for the last time?” But inside, there isn’t much of a sense that it is their last time. The only thing we get is Starfire moving to hug Donna, while thinking in the back of her head like a jerk, only about herself, and we’re getting the impression that it’s an onerous obligation for her to hang out as long as she has to comfort her dearest friend. One of the worst Titans stories in recent history.

the Unwritten 10

by Mike Carey and Peter Gross

Tommy steps through a door using his magical doorknob (still making me think of the Bedknobs and Broomsticks movie with Angela Lansbury), and the group ends up in the past, but a past mirage: they can see and hear, but they move through everyone and everything like the rest of the environment is a ghost of the past. Lizzie finds a way to contact her superior, Wilson (hopefully not the same beach ball from Tom Hanks’ Castaway), who warns her to get back to Tommy immediately before something bad happens. Too late.

Tommy and Savoy have already run into Nazi propagandist master, Josef Goebbels, who can detect their presence. Goebbels hints at the phenomenon of the focus effect, which allows this echo of him to become more substantial the longer Tommy focuses on him. Geobbles also recognizes Pullman’s name, claiming Pullman is his servant. Once Goebbels has a chance to examine Tommy’s map, he pulls out his pistol and shoots Tommy several times in the chest. Tommy feels it! Then Goebbels aims at his head. Blam!

Just when I was starting to wonder how long they could keep up our interest, we zig instead of zag. The previous prison story was starting to feel slow. Here, we have veered off into this echo environment, but the intrigue of it is sufficient that I don’t mind we’re not getting round to other story elements yet. The environment allows Peter Gross to impress us yet again with his skills to depict a completely different environment. The end part is also exciting, since we don’t have a good clue where this will take us next. The mystery is well and truly alive for this series, and I can’t imagine reading it in a trade format. The monthly suspense is a factor itself. I recommend you pick up this book each month.

Tpull is Travis Pullen. He started reading comics at 5 years old, and he can't seem to stop.

Action Comics 886 \n\n by Greg Rucka, Eric Trautmann, and Pere Pèrez \n\nThe time has finally come to reveal the mythology of the Nightwing and the Flamebird. What ensues is a creation myth for Krypton, with Rao as the central deity. Instead of chaos erupting from nothingness, this creation story has chaos all around, and Rao as a new godling who imposes order. It’s a little off-beat, especially when they decide that Rao creates others because he is lonely. If you have never known companionship, how could you develop the concept of being lonely, when you have known no other possible state in which you can exist? That weakness aside, the rest reads well.\n\nChris continues to give his commentary as the prose is revealed to him, with Vohc-The-Builder creating things, and the Flamebird comes along and razes everything to the ground, such as starting fires in the forest to create the soil for the next level of growth. This cycle continues, with Flamebird prompting the Builder to go ever bigger and better. The Builder also creates a “bridge” to allow the Nightwing and the Flamebird come together.\n\nThe Builder sees their union and creates his own monument to the Flamebird, realizing that he has strong feelings for her only after seeing her liaison with Nightwing. The Flamebird comes along, and promptly turns his newest creation to ash, acting on auto-pilot, and secure in her knowledge that he will come back and make something better next anyway.\n\nWhoops. The Builder wanted his own companion, and had invested some feelings with his latest creation. In revenge, he made a device that was powered by the Flamebird’s power, so when she came to destroy the next creation, instead it ripped the Nightwing away into the Phantom Zone. The tale ends there, so perhaps we will get a part two later that will explain how the cycle is programmed to repeat itself. The story picks up with Jax-ur revealing himself, and Thara leads Chris into a trap, led by the Flamebird aspect. It seems that the Builder is embedded in Jax-ur, who put some traps inside Chris, and he is now activating everything …to bring forth Rao himself?\n\nPèrez seems in high form with the art for the framing device, and the Book of Rao sections are drawn by Fernando Dagnino and Raul Fernandez to good effect. The mythology is fun, and we don’t get much o this kind of thing with DC books, so it feels refreshing. This is a good time for this, since I was beginning to feel a little drift into static-land with the plot, so this provides a little shake-up that grabs my interest.\n\n\n JSA All-Stars 3 \n\n by Matthew Sturges and Freddie Williams II \n\nThis issue put me off for a couple reasons. One is that the annual came out first, but chronologically, this is the issue that brings up the notice to set the ball rolling for JSA Annual #2. The art of Freddie Williams II is just not cutting it. His mouths are too-often out of proportion to the rest of the person, and often other parts of the anatomy are grotesquely out of proportion. The one reference to Atom Smasher is handled all too briefly, and it doesn’t flow well.\n\nThe backgrounds are awful. One scene shows Tyler sitting down with his father, and it looks like there’s a roll of toilet paper hanging from the wall next to some utensils! That’s when he can be bothered to show us anything at all. We then have a practice session, with Magog being the primary instructor, and it devolves into the too-often shown argument over whether to kill the bad guys or not. They have been harping on this same note for half a year now. Granted, it fits with what we know Magog will turn into, if Kingdom Come is still a possible future, but to see it brought up every issue, and to have so much space devoted to it, is completely unnecessary.\n\nIt also provides a way for them to have the heroes fighting against each other, but all it makes you think is that all of these guys have rotten tempers, and even when they have philosophical agreements, they can’t have enough emotional control. Whether it’s Magog, Power Girl, or Wildcat, they act like the Hulk and lash out. What ever happened to being able to disagree without throwing a punch? It’s lame.\n\nThe second feature is written by Jen Van Meter, and drawn by Travis Moore. I would prefer to have Moore draw the main story; the able assist on inks by Dan Green makes for a much better visual product. The story is a little hard to believe. Icicle and Tigress run into their prey on a plane, and force the plane down. Instead of sticking with the guy, the next time we see them, Liberty Belle sees the two villains pointing at him from a distance?!? The final page has Belle super-speeding out to catch Icicle, and she leaves Tigress and some security personnel in the dust. However, the final panel shows the security right behind her, pointing all their weapons at her already. How could they possibly match her speed? If these were other security personnel, that should have shown them approaching from another angle. It was set up purely to try for a dramatic final panel, but the internal logic fails, and ruins the moment.\n\n\n The Shield 6 \n\n by Eric Trautmann and Marco Rudy \n\nIt’s the final showdown, and Marco Rudy keeps up with his efforts to give us slightly unusual panel transitions and designs. It works for the type of story, and gives you something interesting to look at, slightly different from the standard comic fare. The rest of this story is fairly straightforward, with the Shield fighting the big bad guy and pulling a Tony Stark, hacking into the enemy’s programming and directing a bunch of rockets to alter course and destroy the enemy base. Shield is greeted from the rubble by members of the Great Ten, making threatening statements about an act of war, but we know nothing will come of it. It’s a shame actually, because that is a real-world example that might be good to show later on, the ramifications of his actions creating additional problems. I suspect they will just sweep it under the rug.\n\nI tried hard to slow down and read every part of the second feature with Inferno, but I was bored the whole time. Michael Gaydos’ art seems to have suffered greatly. Inferno leaves to make room for the Fox in the second feature for the next four issues, but the poor quality so far is still making me wonder if I want to buy this issue each month. It seems like a poor way to build an audience for the Shield, by weighing him down with less-interesting secondary characters. That might prevent this title’s sales from climbing any higher.\n\n\n Titans 22 \n\n by J. T. Krul and Angel Unzueta \n\nWe have lost any semblance of story. Unzueta gives us some quick meaningless fight sequences. In the old days, someone like George Perez would have made them awesome, even if they were mental images or imaginary. Instead, the quality is sub-par, as if the artist and writer both didn’t try that much, because they knew it was a throw-away scene. Compare this with the awesome Per Degaton sequence in All-star Squadron 14, with clear, bold characters, all dramatically utilized, and forming a mini-story all its own to serve as the introduction for a multi-part crossover. Then go back and look at this dream sequence again, and see how low we have sunk in many of today’s modern comics. There is so much more potential, if only the modern writers and artists would study their craft.\n\nPhobia is still manipulating Cyborg and Starfire, but without any real reason. The woman just randomly showed up, circumventing all security protocols, and started playing around. Unzueta’s attempt at an impressive memorial sequence, showing the modern Titans commemorated as statues to depict their deaths as part of Starfire’s nightmare, is too artificial, no sense of importance. Phobia’s only statement to give us any clue whatsoever is this idea that she has nothing left in life except her enemies. Except it has been so long since she really fought the Titans, it’s a big stretch to think that she can think of nothing else to do with her life.\n\nInexplicably, Cyborg’s activation of his sonic powers in his dream causes them to activate in real life. Why does this make no sense? Because they already showed us Cyborg using his powers earlier, and absolutely no real-life effect followed from that. Now it does? Perhaps if there were some way to explain that this one dramatic moment caused him to do something different. Without an additional explanation, though, it breaks the existing structure and rules of the story itself. A good editor would have asked how this could happen, and insisted that it be reinforced by something more than just the fact of it happening. After all, Starfire is walking around everywhere in her nightmare, but she doesn’t move from her position on the floor no matter how upset she gets. She is not able to use her power until she actually wakes up and resists Phobia’s influence.\n\nWait, it gets worse. We just saw Cyborg reaffirming Wonder Girl as the leader of the Teen Titans over in their magazine. Here, we see Cyborg congratulating Gar as the leader of the teen group. It contradicts what we just read in the sister title, and the only way to make it fit is if we conclude Victor is a big jerk who keeps yanking everybody’s chain. Why these two titles don’t have the same editor, I’ll never know. They should be comparing notes to prevent amateur mistakes like this. If you’re going to insist on having an interactive shared universe, then you need to have these simple things coordinated properly, or you end up with direct contradictions that ruin both stories.\n\nKrul is trying to set up for the transition of some of these characters to move to the JLA, but it has been foreshadowed so much, it feels like we’re dragging our heels until the people doing JLA are ready for them. At the same time, they give us covers like this one: “Together… for the last time?” But inside, there isn’t much of a sense that it is their last time. The only thing we get is Starfire moving to hug Donna, while thinking in the back of her head like a jerk, only about herself, and we’re getting the impression that it’s an onerous obligation for her to hang out as long as she has to comfort her dearest friend. One of the worst Titans stories in recent history.\n\n\n the Unwritten 10 \n\n by Mike Carey and Peter Gross \n\nTommy steps through a door using his magical doorknob (still making me think of the Bedknobs and Broomsticks movie with Angela Lansbury), and the group ends up in the past, but a past mirage: they can see and hear, but they move through everyone and everything like the rest of the environment is a ghost of the past. Lizzie finds a way to contact her superior, Wilson (hopefully not the same beach ball from Tom Hanks’ Castaway), who warns her to get back to Tommy immediately before something bad happens. Too late.\n\nTommy and Savoy have already run into Nazi propagandist master, Josef Goebbels, who can detect their presence. Goebbels hints at the phenomenon of the focus effect, which allows this echo of him to become more substantial the longer Tommy focuses on him. Geobbles also recognizes Pullman’s name, claiming Pullman is his servant. Once Goebbels has a chance to examine Tommy’s map, he pulls out his pistol and shoots Tommy several times in the chest. Tommy feels it! Then Goebbels aims at his head. Blam!\n\nJust when I was starting to wonder how long they could keep up our interest, we zig instead of zag. The previous prison story was starting to feel slow. Here, we have veered off into this echo environment, but the intrigue of it is sufficient that I don’t mind we’re not getting round to other story elements yet. The environment allows Peter Gross to impress us yet again with his skills to depict a completely different environment. The end part is also exciting, since we don’t have a good clue where this will take us next. The mystery is well and truly alive for this series, and I can’t imagine reading it in a trade format. The monthly suspense is a factor itself. I recommend you pick up this book each month.\n\n Tpull is Travis Pullen. He started reading comics at 5 years old, and he can't seem to stop.

Tpull's Weekly DC Comics Review – Part 2

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