Comics Of The Weak: Mommy Kisses Deep Thinkers, Kisses Them Like A Lizard

Speak Of The Devil # 5
By Gilbert Hernandez
Published by Dark Horse Comics

This entire issue reads like a comic book based off Raymond Pettibon's drawing of Maureen Hindley and Dave Smith, or at least it does to this reader.  That's a good thing.  Although we'd agreed to just wait for the trade of Speak Of The Devil after checking out the first issue, this one ended up in the pile due to the ridiculously attractive neo-spank hepcat cover, and we're all the better for it.  Consisting of some brutal murders and mutilations, reminiscent of some early Palomar stories, Speak of the Devil is one of those comics that's yet another reason why Gilbert Hernandez is a masterful storyteller--it's a nasty piece of work though, opening with a nonchalant "She's behind that mound" directed towards a young boy about to discover the still-warm body of his mother, stabbed to death by our trio of protagonists.  The first of multiple random murders in the comic, it's a moment of throw away cruelty that isn't topped throughout the issue, a selfish remark that's left unexplained, but serves to spotlight how insular the world that these characters have created has made them.  They show no concern for their own safety, no worry that the little boy might be able to describe them later--his mother is dead, her eyes gouged out.  Why not send him over the beach to find her?  Why not ruin his vacation, his life, even more?  Even later, when Paul says "No more messing around with kids," it seems like a convenient way to end the discussion, not a real statement of intent--something made even more obvious when, after a particularly brutal (and difficult) murder of an old woman, he expresses his true feelings:  "I hope she's somebody's mother."  Although the predictability of the romantic triangle is pretty routine stuff, Speak of the Devil is far better than a minor, non-Love & Rockets series.  If this is the way Gil wants to spend his time when he and his brother aren't playing around in that universe, then comics readers are all the better for it.

Usagi Yojimbo # 110
By Stan Sakai
Published by Dark Horse Comics

Stan Sakai has been churning out well researched and relatively entertaining stories about his samurai rabbit for over twenty years now.  They always serve as reliable palate cleanser when dealing with the meandering silliness that makes up most of the comic books that line the shelves--but there's got to be quite a few people out there who wonder "Is this it?"  Is this really all Sakai has to offer?  Twenty-odd years of well researched stories about a samurai rabbit?  He's a brilliant artist, in a class by himself, that's a given--but after twenty issues or so of Usagi, who besides the fanatic can actually find themselves excited to read another one?  As time wears on with this series, it's less and less enjoyable, and more interesting mainly in it's value as a paragon of simplicity and consistency.  That doesn't really make it compelling.

Batman: Confidential # 15
Written by Tony Bedard
Art by Rags Morales, Mark Farmer & I.L.L.
Published by DC Comics

If this is to be the way it is from now on, then here you go:  that night Bruce Wayne was orphaned?  Well, across town, that same evening, a young Jim Gordon (of Commissioner fame) orphaned another little boy, this one the son of a corrupt cop.  Jim killed the kids parents in front of him, blistering that child's psyche in the same way that lil' Brucie's was.  You read something like this--something so completely uninspired and heavy-handed, coupled with drawings of an adult Gordon given the same haircut seen on 7 year old boys and 16th century monks--and you can't help but experience a little bit, or a lot, of joy when you look at the plummeting sales of DC figures for their comic books.  This is the sort of comic book that makes it hard to imagine how much longer super-hero comic book companies can survive on their mid-30's fanbase:  because there's no way in hell that any children are going to get the spandex addiction off something this stilted and thoughtless.

Legion Of Super-Heroes # 40
Written by Jim Shooter
Art by Francis Manapul, Livesay & J.D. Smith
Published by DC Comics

Francis Manapul's art on this series is pretty much the only draw to this comic, oddly enough.  It is all a bit incomprehensible why Jim Shooter exactly wanted to do this--pretty much the only fathomable reason, as it stands, is for the money, although we can't imagine that "the money" couldn't have been gotten in an easier way.  (Eliot Spitzer?) There's just nothing here.  Like last weeks Justice League, a comic where "stuff happened" and no one cared, this comic spends the entire page count where "stuff" doesn't even attempt to happen, and when it reaches the climactic cliffhanger moment of drama--it cuts away before it occurs.  The issue closes on a radio communication of the event, an off-panel murder, and then it's over.  In yet another moment of ludicrousness, the "Next in Legion of Super-Heroes" blurb uses the phrase "As if things weren't crazy enough already..."  But here's the thing:  things aren't crazy.  Not in the slightest.  For "things to be crazy" there have to be "things" happening, or at least a semblance of "things" on the horizon.  Instead, it's just a bunch of pages of Manapul experimenting with how to differentiate between a bunch of characters who, excepting the Karate Kid and Brainiac, all seem to have the same haircut.  He goes the brunette/blonde route, in case you were wondering.

Ganges # 2
By Kevin Huizenga
Published by Fantagraphics & Coconino Press

Opening with an imaginative portrayal of one of those Mortal Kombat style fighting games, this one populated by Huizenga's cartoon rendition of what looks like Larry Marder's Beanworld characters combined with a pantheon of Hindu deities, Ganges eventually settles into a pretty straight-ahead anecdotal story about main character Glenn's employment at a dot com start up in the late 90's, and the predilection of its employees for another video game, a first person shooter called Pulverize.  You can pretty much rest assured that this is the sort of comic that will be mentioned as one of the best of the year next January, and it deserves the name--Huizenga, an artist who is more welcoming and easier to embrace than an Adrian Tomine or a Joe Matt, continues to be one of the most exciting voices in any description of what people call comics.  Whether it's the touching moment of affection thrown out for a soon-to-be-fired employee, or the pointless dishonesty of the protagonist in his attempts to conceal his current addiction to late-night video game parties from his girlfriend, Huizenga is able to maturely detail something that's truthful, funny, and gorgeous to look at. Ganges # 2:  it's as good as you hoped it would be.

Transhuman # 1
Written by Jonathan Hickman
Art by JM Ringuet
Published by Image Comics

Jonathan Hickman's Nightly News was a surprising mini-series released last year that consisted of one of the most bitterly cynical takes on the news media that could only come from a huge investment of time in reading Chomsky and Herman's Manufacturing Consent--thankfully, Hickman included some pretty intriguing visuals and plenty of violence, which made those six issues a lot less didactic than they probably sound.  Where he plans to go this time is a bit of an unknown--unlike News, which carried a strong emotional voice, Transhuman has less humor, short of a two-page sequence that consists of monkeys with super-powers and the reactions of researchers hired to analyze them, and the comic carries none of the pseudo-monologuing with the reader that made News a bit easier to swallow.  The main problem with Transhuman, the one that News avoided, is probably going to be that Hickman's writing comes across a bit like every obnoxious grad student anyone's ever met--proselytizing big ideas and succeeding only in irritating everyone around them.  Someday, one hopes, people with masters degrees will hopefully realize that if the revolution were to come, they happen to be card-carrying members of the first group to fall. 

Daredevil # 106
Written by Ed Brubaker
Art by Paul Azaceta & Matt Hollingsworth
Published by Marvel Comics

If you've got the opportunity to work with a talented artist like Paul Azaceta, a guy who's doing the best work of his career on the current B.P.R.D. mini-series, and you've got the opportunity to showcase his talent on a decent selling super-hero book from Marvel, then you'd probably give him something that's really diverse and unique to do, right?  Or maybe you'll just pull a Brubaker and fire off one of those issues of Daredevil that, for some unfortunate reason, make up about 20% of the previous 400:  the stale epilogue to the tragedy issue, where Daredevil punches some people too hard and comes as close to producing tears as he can with his sightless eyes.  Its one thing to take a oft-used story trope and write something enjoyable, and it's totally another to churn out yet another issue that's reminiscent of someone explaining that Bruce Willis is a ghost really loudly while the credits roll and you struggle to find your jacket.  We get it.  Matt's sad and fucked up about his wife being crazy.  We don't need another 22 pages telling people why.  Or, at the very least, we don't need it every thirteen months.

The Mighty Avengers # 11
Written by Brian Michael Bendis
Art by Mark Bagley, Danny Miki, Allen Martinez, Marko Djurdjevic & Justin Ponsor
Published by Marvel Comics

It doesn't serve Mighty Avengers well to come out on the same day as New Avengers and Ultimate Spider-Man, books that, even at their worst, are always far more intelligent, cohesive and entertaining than anything this series has produced so far--this issue, while continuing the recent trend of not being completely terrible, just "sort of terrible" is a fine example of why:  because Mighty Avengers reads like a combination of New Avengers (with it's own internal long-range plotting) and Ultimate Spider-Man (with it's hammy attempts at "contemporary" dialog.)  The assistance of Mark Bagley doesn't serve the book either--while he's certainly a good spandex artist, his work screams the sort of immature pop youthfulness that made it such a perfect fit for Bendis' Spider-work.  Here, it only succeeds in showcasing how dull and unimagined all of these characters are.  Excepting the silliness of Dr. Doom, who hasn't been this entertaining since the 60's, this is just another attempt to give second string characters some relevance, and it's a miserable failure.

The New Avengers # 39
Written by Brian Michael Bendis
Art by David Mack & Jose Villarrubia
Published by Marvel Comics

Complaints about who David Mack swipes from are one of those things that remind this reviewer that, just because people are completely ignorant about how absolutely every visual medium is constructed, from television commercials to fashion ads to, yes, you idiot, comic books, that doesn't mean that the reviewer should tell them that they're complete fucking idiots.  But yes, if you're seriously looking at the New Avengers and calling what Mack does copyright violation, than you pretty much are a complete fucking idiot.  But hey, that's not funny.  Beyond that, it's very possible that what Bendis is doing here--with the maybe-gotcha-fooled of whether or not Echo is a Skrull, and whether she knows the truth or not--that this is one of the best pieces of writing the guy has done that wasn't connected to Ultimate Spider-Man.  Even if the comic isn't as much the subterfuge that it appears to be, it's still a clever little story, told well.  That makes it even more disappointing that the main noise being made about it comes from a bunch of loud mouth fools who have never been near an art department.

Ultimate Spider-Man # 120
Written by Brian Michael Bendis
Art by Stuart Immonen, Wade von Grawbadger & Justin Ponsor
Published by Marvel Comics
With Apologies to Francine Pascal

Beautiful and ruthless, Peter Parker is determined to be chosen queen of the fall dance at Queens Valley High.  If he can win the contest, he's sure to win Liz Allen, the most sought-after girl in school.  The only person standing in Peter's way is Magneto.  When Peter discovers the truth about Magneto's past, he knows the crown is within his grasp.  He doesn't care that Magneto is his girlfriend Mary Jane's best friend--or that revealing the secret may cost Magneto both his reputation and the girl he loves!  Only Mary Jane can save Magneto from Peter's vicious gossip--but can she stop her scheming B.F. in time?

Loveless # 23
Written by Brian Azzarello
Art by Daniel Zezelj & Lee Loughridge
Published by Vertigo/DC Comics

Reminiscent of the classic Marilyn Monroe story from early in 100 Bullets, this issue of Loveless is, no bones about it, a tour de force of self-contained storytelling.  Eked out in the brilliant art of Daniel Zezelj, an artist who, God willing, never leaves Vertigo to draw Batman & The Motherfuckingoutsiders, coupled with Azzarello's always superb dialog, Loveless # 23 makes the case for this being the other Vertigo book, besides Exterminators, that should be purchased, and read, by a hell of a lot more people.

The Authority: Prime # 6
Written by Christos Gage
Art by Darick Robertson & Tony Avina
Published by Wildstorm/DC Comics

This comic is a complete piece of shit.

-Tucker Stone, 2008

Comments

[Sharif]

TFO,
I feel very betrayed by the positive review you gave to New Avengers. You didn't really enjoy that rubbish, did you? That "you are going hit on me" line was straight out of The Mystery Method: How to Get Beautiful Women Into Bed. It felt like the kind of line Bendis practices in front of the mirror.

[TFO moderator]

The relationship stuff, no, totally agree. But I came into this one biased after reading Douglas Wouk's review at Savage Critics--while I think it's unlikely that this issue was as much the mystery he took it to be, going in with the mindset that it WAS that much of a mystery made it a pretty entertaining read. I could've done without the boning Hawkeye and the Wolverine flirtations, yep, but the basic meat, the ideas--yeah. I dug it. Sorry bout that.

[Jones, one of the Jones boys]

Tucker, all the constant negativity here must have gone to your head if you're (even mildly) disappointed with Usagi Yojimbo. What, do you hate puppies too?

[Tucker Stone]

I hate it when people drop this phrase, but here it is: I'm as surprised as you are. I've never, never, forever, never? had a problem with Usagi. Not even a mild whiff of distaste. But for whatever reason-maybe because this is the same japanese ghost story i've seen in recent let's-film-nerd-it-up evenings, or maybe because this issue was so much like some old Usagi that's stuck in my brain, I came away from this issue wanting to be the one guy who had, at some point in their writing career, said "fuck you sakai," if only so I could really amp up the hipster cred of shitting all over a genius that i'd never be fit to carry water for.

So in other words, i'm a scumbag, hate puppies and refuse to admit I used to like Ill Communication way more than Paul's Boutique. You know, a liar.

[Steve]

"Is this really all Sakai has to offer?"
How about a Hulk story in the forth-coming "Marvel Underground" anthology series?

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