Good Starman, bad Starman, Catwoman, ‘Mazing Man, Swamp Thing, and a new issue of Fables.
Employee’s Pick
[DC] Catwoman Vol. 3 #52-57
Writer: Will Pfeifer
Pencilers: Pete Woods (issue 52), David Lopez (issues 53-57)
Turns out I don’t have issue fifty-one. Hope it was nothing important. Nothing compared to the gap after issue fifty-two. One Year Later, DC’s companywide time jump. I hate time jumps.
Murder, babies, retirement, legacies. The whole Zatanna thing’s been dealt with, I guess. Selina doesn’t backslide into thievery. Instead, she passes the mantle to Holly, who proceeds to make all kinds of rookie mistakes. Eh, I can’t bring myself to care about any of this. Selina struggling to fight off Angle Man and Film Freak, who have no powers, no fighting skill, and next to no weapons. A new baby who won’t be around long. It’s readable, but hardly gripping.
New-Type Books
[DC] Fables #77
Writer: Bill Willingham
Penciler: Mark Buckingham
Yay, Buckingham’s back! I know he was only gone one issue, and Fables is coming out so quickly of late, it’s only been about six weeks since the issue before last, but still, yay! Fables is so much more Fables-y with Buckingham’s inimitable style. Much as I love Mike Allred, he pretties up Bigby and Pinocchio to the point where they’re no longer recognizable. Buckingham’s designs have so much more character.
Also, it would appear Willingham suckered me with issue seventy-five. The aftermath of the war is proving somewhat messier than its resolution, and promises to get messier still. I’m worried about the characters again. Bad things could happen. They may already have; I’m starting to distrust Sinbad, the last person to see Prince Charming alive, his word the only evidence that the Prince is dead, let alone that he chose to sacrifice himself under questionable circumstances.
Back Issues
[DC] ‘Mazing Man #5
Writer: Bob Rozakis
Pencilers: Stephen DeStefano, Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez, Denys Cowan, Joe Orlando, Kurt Schaffenberger
Just one story this time, or five, depending on how you look at it. Denton gets writer’s block, so his friends take turns telling him awful stories with themselves as self-inserts, each one illustrated by a different guest artist. It’s entertaining in a satirical way. The average person really does tell stories like that, casting themself in the role of hero, fulfilling their every wish. The problem is the same problem most satire has: the stories are still awful. The only entertainment value is in laughing at how awful they are, and that’s if you can stand them enough to laugh at them. Again, the title character disappears for most of the issue, returning only to share an embellished version of his exploits in previous issues, a sad look at how a delusional but well-meaning guy views the world. Like last issue, it’s mildly entertaining if you don’t think about it, so the opposite of this next title.
[DC] Swamp Thing Vol. 2 #56
Writer: Alan Moore
Penciler: Rick Veitch
Here’s a happy coincidence. One of the few issues of Swamp Thing I own, and it’s this story James Robinson uses as a platform for his own, having Jack Knight visit a certain blue planet in Starman: A Starry Knight. This is better than the follow-up. An introspective on Swamp Thing, the plant that thinks it’s a man. Touching, creepy, illuminating. This is a character I shouldn’t like, as I shouldn’t care for Moore’s reimagining of the man turned plant as a plant turned man.
But as he has before, he makes it work. Swamp Thing is in many ways bizarre, his thought processes alien. And yet, at his core, he’s as human as you or I. He gets lonely, scared, does things he shouldn’t. Things anyone might do in his place, without being a plant creature, if they could borrow his powers without being one with the Green. Like Isaac Asimov’s all-too-human androids, the only truly strange thing about Swampy is his appearance. His powers, too, but not his self, his identity.
[DC] Starman Vol. 2 #46
Writer: James Robinson
Artist: Gene Ha
For years I counted this my favorite issue of the series. Now, perhaps it’s only one of my favorites. There are so many worthy candidates. It’s as good as I remember, though, only diminished by comparison to other greats, like a giant standing next to other giants. The art’s gorgeous; penciled, inked, and colored in sepia tones by Ha. His realistic style makes everything pop. Capes billow majestically in the wind, characters move with a purpose, punching, jumping, dodging, kicking, while the "camera" captures what it can. It’s like something out of Astro City or Marvels, though not out of place here. One of my favorite kinds of stories, where a bad guy does good. Three costumed villains were out to kill Starman back in 1954, and super-strong bank robber Jake Bennetti set out to stop them.
There’s a two-page farewell letter from Tony Harris in the back, which puts a damper on things. This was him announcing his departure from the book due to time issues. One wonders how that situation would’ve been handled today. With Ex Machina, Harris and writer Brian K. Vaughan are unable to get a new issue out every month, but they keep on at the pace they can. That’s not a mainstream superhero comic, though. If it ships late, there’s no chance of other books getting screwed up. Nothing ties into it, it’s in its own universe. Maybe Harris could’ve continued with fill-in artists here and there. Maybe not. Maybe that would’ve been worse than losing him entirely. I wish he could’ve stayed on somehow, or that a more capable replacement could be found, like Ha. Artists like Harris and Ha tend to work slow, though. Takes longer to put that much detail into your art, that much care. You’re lucky when you can get a long run from one of them without too many delays. The wait’s worth it if you ask me, but some disagree.
Trade
[DC] Starman Vol. 7: A Starry Knight
Writers: James Robinson (plot, issue 47; co-plotter, issues 48-53; script, issues 47-53), David Goyer (co-plotter, issues 48-53)
Pencilers: Steve Yeowell (issues 47-49), Peter Snejbjerg (issues 50-53)
Ah, now I remember why I stopped buying this. Memories get jumbled, you damn some issues by association with others, and you think "Pfft. Past me was so wrong about this series it’s embarrassing." It’s about ten years since I last bought an issue of Starman. I think issue #46 got me into it, then I bought the first two trades on sale, then #47-49 and a couple specials… At any rate, I lost interest then, dropped the whole series. Probably would’ve sold what I had if I could find anyone who’d give me a half-decent deal. Instead, it got buried in boxes and forgotten. I lumped the wonderful trades in with the lackluster single issues, and only kept fond memories of #46 until this year. Terrible. After rereading my trades and subsequent volumes, I became convinced that the complicated nature of the series is what lost me originally. Yes, it must have been the jump from mid-teens to late forties that threw me. I didn’t dislike them, I was merely confused and gave up prematurely rather than go back to the trades. The one-time scarcity of volume three contributed to that.
It could be that my opinion is still marred by a jump, having skipped volume six and the six issues collected therein. I never felt confused reading this, though. There are plenty of explanations, bits of exposition and recaps to catch you up. No, it’s just bad. Going from Tony Harris and Gene Ha to Yeowell and Snejbjerg doesn’t help. A jarring shift in style and dropoff in quality that makes every story less enjoyable. Yeowell draws Jack like James Dean, Snejbjerg like Bruce Campbell; those guys are great and all, but I’m trying to read about Jack Knight here, not some actor playing him. There’s also the addition of Goyer as co-plotter. I don’t know which ideas were his and which Robinson’s, but more than anything the plots stick out to me as inferior to prior volumes. Earlier storylines were always about something. They seemed carefully thought out and structured. The Mist’s crime wave, the second Mist’s crime wave, the superlative Sand and Stars, and volume four’s Infernal Devices, which was looser but so full of top notch drama that I barely paid attention to the overarching plot.
Here, Jack and Mikaal go into space in search of Will Payton, presumed dead but now believed to be alive somewhere. Once in space, they proceed to make no progress whatsoever, taking detour after detour into unrelated stories. It’s a standard tactic to use the stated aim – in this case "save Will Payton" – as a framing device for a series of adventures. That’s not what bothers me. Rather, it wouldn’t normally bother me, because the "adventures" succeeded in their part of the plan, distracting me, entertaining me, and providing plenty of tension on their own as we creep closer to what I really want to see: the resolution of the main plot. When executed well, as this tactic was in Infernal Devices, you start out wanting to answer the first question asked and end up as much or more delighted by the answers to subsequent questions. Here, I don’t much care about Will Payton, and the intervening adventures do nothing to keep me from wanting this story to wrap up already. Worst of all, at the end of the trade, they’re still in space and there’s still no sign of Payton. Six issues for an arc with no resolution? We go from stories that left me wanting more to one that promises more I don’t want.
It starts with the death of two minor characters. I’m talking so minor, we learn more about them in the captions leading up to their death than we’d seen in all prior appearances combined. I’m not sure whether these deaths are meant to evoke emotion. It kinda seems that way, but it’s, like, mathematically impossible to feel bad about someone dying under these circumstances. It’s standard toybreaking. Every character is the writer’s plaything, to do with as he wills. Some characters are precious, some are important to the story, and then there’s guys like these. Expendable toys can break. No one cares. Doesn’t mess up the writer’s plans, doesn’t unduly upset the audience. At best, to quote the Queen of Fables, "it merely sweetens the peril’s perfume." So, yeah, whatever. Couple dead dudes. They were OK. Needed more development before I could really care about them, and that was never going to happen.
Then it’s off to space. Here, again, it’s possible that I’m letting bias influence me. I don’t like space. I don’t like aliens. I have enjoyed a great deal of science fiction, however, despite these hangups. So long as there’s no time travel. What? Aww… It starts well enough, as the boys’ spaceship gets damaged by, uh… accident, and they have to land on a random planet to make repairs. Perfectly reasonable detour, and Robinson uses the "random" planet to tie two unrelated old stories together for throwback fun and the resolution of one that had apparently been left open originally. Unfortunately, this leads to the worst Talking with David I’ve yet seen, wasted on giving Mikaal a peptalk. I’ve decided I don’t like Mikaal. He’s an alien, can’t identify with that. He’s a former drug addict, can’t respect that. We learn he’s going to turn things around and become a hero again. That’s cool, and I could see the slow redemption arc working all right in the end, but right now I’m biased against him. I don’t care if he turns things around. He’s not interesting enough to root for. He’s either standing around being useless or raging with bloodlust. He has some good points, and he’s much better now than when he couldn’t speak early on, but I’d rather see pretty much anyone else from the cast than him.
Ugh, time travel. What can I say? Travel to the future, meet the Legion, predestination time paradox, prophecies, save the day so you can prevent yourself from needing to save the day, travel to the past, meet Jor-El, tell him about this cool planet called Earth, finally return to own time only to be detoured again. Now it’s Rann. Mikaal’s swiss cheese memory proves as unreliable as ever; an enemy he thought he’d killed still lives and threatens Adam Strange’s adopted home, Rann.
Here we see a peculiar sequence that sums up why this volume is a misfire. Setting aside the art and the questionable plotting, it remains rotten to the core. Strange’s daughter gets kidnapped. Yadda yadda treaty, his father-in-law, the girl’s grandpa, refuses to give into the terrorist’s demands. Strange & Co. sneer at him, insulting him before taking off to attempt a rescue before time runs out, but it’s clear from the start that Grandpa’s not totally coldhearted. He says as much. He’s being practical, and frankly, reasonable. One page later, however, he’s tearfully entreating Jack to save his granddaughter, which Jack was just setting off to do anyways. He goes out of his way to tell Jack he’s not a bad guy, as if Jack and the readers needed to have it spelled out. Later, Grandpa shows up with the cavalry to help save the day, which should have been the next we saw of him after his refusal to back down. It’s a subtle, considered reversal that is undermined by the earlier whining. He claims another character talked him into changing his mind, but if he’s going around begging strangers to like him do what he wishes he could, how much convincing does he need? There’s absolutely no reason for that second part to be in there. "I’m practical" -> "Here I am to save the day." The end.
As it is, he comes across as ruled by his emotions, and I start to question whether his reversal was feasible. He was convinced before that delaying the treaty would be disastrous, and made a good argument. He ultimately disproves himself, but is it believable? Diplomats are a prickly bunch. It’s entirely possible that one person would be pushed over the edge by this delay, that they wouldn’t care about some dude’s granddaughter and would take off, causing a domino effect or at least weakening the proposed alliance by one. And that’s one whole planet vs. one little girl. Maybe that planet ends up going to war against the others and thousands die. Sometimes, you can’t have both. You can’t save everyone and you can’t be practical and impractical at the same time. You end up being wishy-washy. Worst of all, he doesn’t change his mind until everyone has signed the treaty but him. Unless I was absent that day in Treaties 101, once the thing’s signed, it’s finished. There’s still work to do, but you aren’t going to have people backing out now. There’s no risk at that point, with the worst case scenario being that the assembled dignitaries are unmoved by his impassioned plea and he only gets to take Rannian troops to help fight the meager terrorist forces, in which case the good guys would still win one way or another. Plus, it’s not like he can’t stop for a second to sign the treaty before taking off, or else he looks like even more of a buffoon for delaying Jack earlier. It fails on every level.
Truncation
Catwoman – Blah. Whatever. Two Catwomen and a baby. Time jump. Faux drama.
Fables – After a ho-hum ending to the last storyline and a solid fill-in issue, it looks like we’re in for a good arc.
‘Mazing Man – Writer’s Block: Myth? Legend? or just a bad story.
Swamp Thing – Deep.
Starman – One of my all-time favorite comics. A wonderful story superbly told and beautifully illustrated. Would that all the Times Past tales were this good, this good-looking.
Starman Vol. 7: A Starry Knight – Disappointing. Easily the worst of the six trades I’ve read, below even the mediocre Times Past. Fun to review, though.
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