Comics Of The Weak: Chuck Dixon's Life Is Based Around When Peggy Sue Got Married, True Story

h Abe Sapian # 5
Written by Mike Mignola
Art by Jason Shawn Alexander & Dave Stewart
Published by Dark Horse Comics

And so the Drowning ends, just as it began, and as it was in the middle: convoluted, muddled, and altogether boring.  It has its fans, it has its art, and it will eventually have its decently selling trade paperback collection, and yet it will never have that thing other series in the little B.P.R.D. universe possess:  a story worth telling.  In the offices of the Factual, this comic is the veritable definition of  disappointment--it's a comic we thought we all would gather together to look forward to, and ended up only looking forward to it ending.  If this is the sort of thing that Mike Mignola feels he must put out to maintain interest in his growing franchise, than to that we say:  we're more than willing to wait a couple of months at a time to see what kind of magic weird shit the rest of the crew is doing.

Detective Comics  # 845
Written by Paul Dini
Art by Dustin Nguyen, Derek Fridolfs & John Kalisz
Published by DC Comics

Well, it's difficult not to enjoy a comic like this.  The opening sequence alone, where it's revealed that Batman, a chimpanzee who dresses like Sherlock Holmes, the Riddler, Barbara Gordon and a random police officer enjoy sitting around and solving crimes online in a internet chat room is actually pretty damn clever and more interesting to read than yet another mundane fight sequence.  After all, if there's one thing that super-hero comics have taught us, it's that you should always pat them on the head whenever they do something new.  The remainder of the issue is a facile portrayal of the consequences of random bank robberies by costumed villains--admittedly, it's not like any Batman fan would cheer to read a story about civilian grief, and Paul Dini is doing as much as he can with the short page count.  Once again though, it's a bit questionable why super-hero comics feel the need to shanghai the very real horror of a murdered wife and the resulting homicidal husband, finally capping it all off with suicide.  It would be one thing if it was in Daredevil, a crime comic disguised as theatrical spandex, but instead it's in a book that consists most often of a stunted version of Batman The Animated Series.  Imagine if you will, a cartoon that ended with brain splatter, and then imagine that said cartoon came on after Ducktales.

Nightwing # 145
Written by Peter Tomasi
Art by Rags Morales & Michael Baer
Published by DC Comics 

Only a few of the staff here have seen Thomas The Train Engine, but they've given us the understanding  that it is accurately and explicitly described as "A show where people stand around and wait for a train to go by, and the train is called Thomas."  Nightwing is pretty much a super-hero comic cut from that same cloth.  It would be the height of dishonesty to claim that, in its pages, "Nothing happens."  But it can accurately be described as "The same thing happens, over and over again, and it never fucking changes, no matter how many times the reader spikes lysergic acid into their testicles." 

Robin & Spoiler Special # 1
Written by Chuck Dixon
Art by Rafael Albuquerque, Cris Peter, Victor Ibanez
Published by DC Comics

To those who have a lurid, practically obscene fascination with Chuck Dixon's imaginatory explorations into the minds and lives of teenagers, welcome to 2008, otherwise referred to as "The year where cake is delivered weekly."  Safely put, there's no spandex scribe with less of a comprehension of a teenage mindset on the planet, and reading the dialog and adventures of a Robin & Spoiler Special is akin to a drug addict being given fifteen pounds of uncut peruvian flake.  There's just so much to deal with, not the least of which is the excitement of dealing with it for days on end--what else will Stephanie write in her diary?  Will Robin break up with the Zoanne girl?  What happened to the tennis team?  Will they keep "creeping?"  Since when do police cars rampage at empty warehouse trespassing?  Why do the intimidating tough kids at a public high school play with water guns?  Wait, water guns?  Gangs have water guns now?  Somebody stole our copy of The Greatest Generation.

Trinity # 1
Written by Kurt Busiek & Fabian Nicieza
Art by Mark Bagley, Art Thibert, Scott McDaniel, Andy Owens, Allen Passalaqua & Pete Pantazis
Published by DC Comics

The Factual Opinion rarely is able to get a universal consensus to no longer to pay attention to a comic book, hence the constant appearance of Nightwing and Batman Confidential, but the team did jump the last weekly book less than a quarter of the way in, so all Trinity has to do is last past the eleventh issue for it to win the not-as-shitty prize.  It's off to a terrible start, as it becomes the second issue in two weeks where the most powerful heroes in the DC universe have a boring brunch where they talk about the dreams.  Safely put, if you can synopsize a plot, and it's about people talking about their dreams, what you have is something no one will ever want to read, including the parents of the writer.  Every time somebody starts a sentence with "I had the weirdest dream last night," the earth itself lets out a sigh and accelerates the melting of polar ice caps.  Dreams are fucking boring, boring, boring.

The Boys # 19
Written by Garth Ennis
Art by Darick Robertson
Published by Dynamite Entertainment

There's a lot to love here.

Criminal # 3
Written by Ed Brubaker
Art by Sean Philips
Published by Icon/Marvel Comics

Whereas this is the last of three issues that Ed Brubaker refers to as "standalones," what it really serves to be is the third chapter in the painting of the murky backwaters of the crime story universe that served as the setting for the tremendously good Lawless and Coward stories in the first volume of Criminal.  Tracing quite a few of the alleys of the first two issues, this is more of the same kind of bleak, mean stuff, this time in the voice of Danica, one of those crime archetypes: she's hot!  So hot men lose their heads!  But she's got problems!  The real draw of this series is never going to be the innovation of the crime genre: it doesn't seem to be Brubakers bag to use the form for anything new, not that there is anything really wrong with that.  No, what makes this worthwhile is getting to see what Sean Phillips is going to do with his art--for that alone, Criminal is worth the time.  But if you've spent a decent amount of time with any of those authors published by the original Black Lizard imprint, and you know how to track down a Samuel Fuller flick, yes, you know these stories.  But you haven't ever seen them quite like this, and for that, Brubaker and Philips deserve the accolades they get:  no matter what Hollywood would have the public believe, solid genre work is hard to do well.  These guys may be hitting the same marks as Dashiell Hammett, but they hit them well.

DuoStar Racers # 1
By T P Louise & Ashely Wood
Published by IDW

Sort of the kind of thing that's really appealing if you like your art shit to just be cool and hip, but pretty much sort of like a narrative combination of a shitty diary entry from teenagers enamored with the idea that because they are poor, what they say matters, and the first couple of minutes of Akira without that crazy/obnoxious/sort of awesome breathing music where Japanese bikers are screaming at each other.   Ashely Wood comics:  if they aren't written by Joe Casey, then they pretty much just feel cool and look nice.  They, however, read like shit.

The Invincible Iron Man # 2
Written by Matt Fraction
Art by Frank D'Armata & Salvador Larroca
Published by Marvel Comics

Matt Fraction's Iron Man series continues its attempt to make an Iron Man script that's quirky enough to overtake the gaudy hideousness of Salvador Larroca & Frank D'Armata, an art team who's never found a panel they couldn't make more unattractive without coming to your home and cutting out your corneas:  quick analysis, Fraction fails again.  Maybe there's a script out there that can overtake the worst extremes of computerized colors and lazy background renderings, but that script will probably try to fix the Ultimates 3, the comic this most closely resembles in being ugly, toneless and completely fucking stupid.

Omega The Unknown # 9
Written by Jonathan Lethem & Karl Rusnak
Art by Farel Dalrymple & Paul Hornschemeier
Published by Marvel Comics

The plan for Omega seems to have been allowing Jonathan Lethem to do whatever he would like, than allow Farel Dalrymple to do even more of whatever he would like, to publish it to a tiny increment of sales, and wait for the trade paperback to come out so that a bunch of people desperate to read something that isn't totally boring and about some assholes boring life could praise it as the next step in the marriage of super-hero comics and art cum literature.  Still, nine issues in, and all that's been produced is something that's a valiant attempt to out-weird Steve Gerber and some great, downright fantastic work by Gary Panter. Somebody, somewhere, tell comics to stop trying to be cool.  The fact that nobody reads the Bible in Williamsburg doesn't make reading the Bible in Williamsburg indy-rock.  It just means you're an asshole.

Punisher War Journal # 20
Written by Matt Fraction & Rick Remender
Art by Howard Chaykin & Edgar Delgado
Published by Marvel Comics

Somebody should give Howard Chaykin a prize for drawing the least intimidating ninjas of all time.  While "The Hand" has never really been that fearsome of an organization to begin with, somehow Chaykin has figured out how to draw them in a technically accurate fashion that only serves to make a fight scene featuring them look almost as silly as if Punisher was trying to survive a knock-down drag out with the cast of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Douchecoat as performed by a dinner theater company.  Once again, the greatest minds of our generation took a shot at doing a Punisher comic that didn't have a Max tag on the cover, and produced something that Garth Ennis would've dealt with in a one panel monologue.  Punisher War Journal: it isn't the most unnessary comic currrently being published, but that's only because any award would give it too much credit.

Secret Invasion # 3
Written by Brian Michael Bendis
Art by Lenil Francis Yu, Mark Morales & Laura Martin
Published by Marvel Comics

This issue of the big Marvel event cross-over is pretty similar to an issue of DC's event cross-over, Infinite Crisis, specifically whatever that issue is where Superboy pulled a Scanners head explosion on that Pantha character.  While there's the requisite nods to maintaining a certain level of this-is-sort-of Battlestar Galactica, with worse acting, most of the meat of this really short but expensive comic is devoted to reading about a bunch of characters you'd know if you read Young Avengers as they die, or get fucked up in ways that look fatal.  That's pretty much it, except that it's not as gross, making it less likeable.  In a lot of ways, this is a comic that will show you what it looks like when people stop trying.

Ultimate Origins # 1
Written by Brian Michael Bendis
Art by Butch Guice & Justin Ponsor
Published by Marvel Comics

If you have a comic imprint that used to be a lot more successful, in part because it tried just to fuck around and tell riff-y type stories with no real designs on long-range continuity, and then you were trying to figure out how to increase the sales, then you might get retardedly drunk and think it's a fine idea to come up with some type of story that combines all that stuff into a "universe" that has a "fabric" and everything is "connected."  Of course, all the Ultimate plans could've been thrown out the window if they just eyeballed what's happening at DC, which is a bunch of people not reading their comics while those that do say things like "Gosh, I sort of completely hate this," and the entire reason is the exact problem mentioned above. Instead, they're grabbing the one Ultimate writer who hasn't fucked up his book yet and asked him to fix what went wrong with all the other ones.  It, of course, prominently involves Wolverine.

H.P. Lovecraft's Haunt of Horror # 1
Original Stories and Poems by H. P. Lovecraft
Adaptation, Story, Art by Richard Corben
Published by Marvel MAX

News of a new Richard Corben book doesn't come by that often, for our money, not often enough.  While this is a bit light on the excitement, it's certainly got that raw nothing-else-looks-quite-like-it quality that makes anything by the man worth looking into.  So if all Richard wants to do is jack around with old Lovecraft and insert the actual text to the stories he's adapting, well, it's far prefarable than having to see him pull a Steve Dillon and draw pictures of that old Punisher villain who's arm-gun fired biological bullets. Gross!

-Tucker Stone, 2008

Comments

[Matthew J. Brady]

Yeah, that Ashley Wood comic looked nice, but it was near-incomprehensible, wasn't it?

Maybe I'm weird, because I haven't really minded Salvador Larocca's art, while others seem to hate it. I'm kind of digging Fraction's Iron Man. Maybe I'm just subconsciously trying to lower our level of synchronicity.

I take it you're not a fan of Rare Bit Fiends? I don't really get into all the psychological bullshit about symbols and deep meaning and exploration of the dreamscape and whatnot, but I do enjoy hearing about when somebody has a batshit crazy dream. Unless it's about banging my wife or something. That would just piss me off.

[David Uzumeri]

Howard Gerber? *Really*? I can't even tell if that's a mistake or a snipe.

[Tucker Stone]

David: yikes, that is a pretty severe mistake. it's fixed now, along with the other 11 typos and mistakes I found while fixing it. Thanks, especially as I realize you find this to be an intensely distasteful site to spend any time at.

Matt: Winsor Mccay gets a pass.

[David Uzumeri]

Hey, man, it's all good; I'm sure you feel the same way about FBB. And for what it's worth, you're dead on about the Robin/Spoiler Special.

[Mory Buckman]

Omega the Unknown isn't weird for the sake of being weird. It's a metaphor for Asperger's Syndrome, and as someone with Asperger's I think it's dead-on. It looks at how we relate to the world, how the world relates to us, how we look at ourselves. The arrogant and bizarre tone is in keeping with how we actually act. I never read Gerber's version, so I don't know who snuck this metaphor in. But I'm loving the whole story, because I can relate to it.

[Tucker Stone]

Morty: Huh, really? That's interesting stuff. Is that something that you picked up from the book itself, or did Lethem and Rusnak mention that somewhere along the way?

[Mory Buckman]

It's "Mory". I've looked around the internet, and I think I'm the only person to latch onto the Asperger's connection. But it's totally obvious. A kid who is cold and methodical, a secluded guy who never talks to anyone- dispassionate people who are inherently different from everyone else, who think about the world differently and try to fit in but never belong. One is raised by robots, the other is from outer space- these are two ways of fictionalizing the neurological strangeness. Their enemy is homogeneity, the mindless members of society who try to get anything different to turn into themselves. (I am quite familiar with this breed.) The people around them admire them but can't possibly understand them. Alex at first thinks he can ignore his place in the outcast group of Omegas, and wants to be normal, but his experiences with selfish and immoral people like The Mink and the school bullies show him that he doesn't really want to be like other people, and he finds his niche where he can thrive. The Overthinker is making a character out of the way we think about ourselves in the third person, like we're detached from ourselves.

I feel like this is the story of my life, right here. Even the parts of my life which haven't happened yet. So yeah, I'm getting it from the book. But there's no way this was unintentional.

[Matthew J. Brady]

Wow, that's fucking fascinating. I've been waiting for the trade on this book, and now I CANNOT WAIT to read it.

By the way, Lethem isn't a stranger to depictions of mental illness. His novel Motherless Brooklyn has a main character with Tourette's Syndrome, and it's a fascinating look inside the head of someone with that disease as he struggles with life among "normal people". Lethem is one of my favorite authors, and I've been looking forward to reading Omega this ever since I first heard about it. Man, I hope it doesn't disappoint.

Oh, and if you want another good book along similar lines, I would also recommend The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, by Mark Haddon. It's about a kid with Asperger's who investigates the killing of a neighbor's dog and ends up discovering heartbreaking truths about his parents relationship, which he struggles to understand. It's really good.

[Matthew J. Brady]

Oh, and if you don't mind pedantic corrections, it's "Thomas the Tank Engine".

[Mory Buckman]

"Oh, and if you want another good book along similar lines, I would also recommend The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, by Mark Haddon."

I was very frustrated by that book, actually. It's possibly the most popular book about Asperger's Syndrome there is, and I didn't think the main character was anything like me. The whole thing felt false to me. So I feel like we've been misrepresented. I dunno, maybe there are different degrees of Asperger-ness. Anyway, I wouldn't hesitate for a second to say that Omega the Unknown is a better depiction.

It would be nice if one of the writers came out and said this was about Asperger's Syndrome, though. It's a bit unnerving seeing absolutely no one address the metaphor, and it makes me wonder a tiny bit if it's all in my head.

[Tucker Stone]

I don't, clearly, have much cogent information about Asberger's, but I do recall that Nick Hornby had the same response to Mark Haddon's book as well. My understanding of that book was that it wasn't Asberger's though, that it was full scale, early onset autism--which, if I understand it correctly, isn't the same as Asberger's, which i've read to be described as an autism spectrum disorder. Mory? Is that correct?

While I may be in the dark about the medical specifics, having read both Hornby's review and Haddon's book, I tend to agree that the autistic traits of his main character did seem to be used and ignored as the plot demanded.

[Tucker Stone]

Thomas the Tank Engine? Huh.

[Mory Buckman]

According to Wikipedia, the actual story of "Curious Incident" doesn't say what sort of neurology the character has, but the cover of the book calls it Asperger's Syndrome. This does mesh with my memory of the book. Still, Asperger's Syndrome is what it's associated with. It's happened that I casually mentioned my Asperger's Syndrome, only to hear "Hey, I read that book…". Then I had to explain that no, I'm really not such a nut. But enough about this.

[Tim O'Neil]

On a much less important note:

I don't think that woman in the mystery chat room is meant to be Oracle, she looks much younger than Barbara Gordon and her room looks nothing like Oracle's lair is supposed to look.

[greyman24]

Really? The Boys? Even considering the misogyny?

http://community.livejournal.com/scans_daily/5517505.html

[Tucker Stone]

Tim: Basically this one seems to be "Mistakes of the Weak."

Grey: Don't see it, sorry. But then again, I think it's a mugs game to judge satire by the same standards that mainstream fare gets judged by. Of course women get treated like shit in the Boys. Everybody gets treated like shit. It's a comic about treating people like shit.

[Dude]

I was sort of liking the fact that the girl from #1 of "Criminal" was being given a voice and the chance to tell the tale from her perspective.

But the overall "my pussy was a deadly weapon"/WHORE! just killed all my denials that the stink I was smelling wasn't there (amongst some other awkward race/class explotation issues common among geek fantasies looking for a new brand of empowerment -- 'cause, you see, we know and dwell between the mean streets and the mean life, don't you know... "in the ghetto"...)

[10FootBongz]

With respect to Thomas the Tank Engine, I think that it could better be described as a show where a bunch of anthropomorphic British Engines who know that they should be trying to be as useful as possible do things that make them less than fully useful until they reach the point in the story where the following lesson is learned: It is great to be useful.
Having spent close to a thousand dollars on Thomas toys and paraphenalia for my son, I kind of wish that he would have learned the main lesson by now and gotten off of his ass to mow the lawn. Being five years old is not an excuse for not being useful.