New Blue Beetle and Ex Machina. Old Static, Voodoo, ps238, and Full Metal Alchemist.
Employee’s Pick
[DC] Static #1-7
Writers: Robert L. Washington III, Dwayne McDuffie (issues 1-4)
Penciler: John Paul Leon
Another Milestone book, but this one’s good. Like most people, I saw the cartoon, Static Shock, before I knew there was a comic. The former didn’t do much for me, but the latter impressed from the beginning. The first difference you notice, after the costume, is that Static’s mom isn’t dead. Both his parents are alive and well, while in the ‘toon his mother was only a memory. I much prefer the family dynamic he has here. It’s like a real family; Mom yells at you, Sis bickers with you, Dad’s always at work. And the tone is harsh, confrontational. Static’s villains are like real life bullies, full of machismo and ready to feed you your face in a most humiliating manner unless you do something to stop them. I feel genuine fear reading it, worried that Static will lose and his pride or person will be injured. Static isn’t better than them because they’re strawmen, constructed of fluff and having no real motivation of their own. He’s better because he’s smarter, because he chose heroism while they elected to become thugs. Static’s life is full of conflict, physical, emotional, ethical, so that there’s no room to grow bored by the story.
The pacing’s much better, too, than in Icon, which spent two issues to give us an incomplete origin and a fight between heroes and cops over who gets to fight the villain next issue. Static also gives us an incomplete origin, but it doesn’t feel like that. A mysterious gas is let loose accidentally on purpose, killing many and gifting the survivors with superpowers. We don’t see who unleashed the gas, but there’s plenty of time to find that out. We get the important stuff; we know what Virgil Hawkins was like before he became Static, we know how he became Static, and we know what Static can do. And he fights his first villain in issue one. There are two fights, even. First he fights the bad guy’s gang, then the bad guy himself. Issue two has the rematch, a flashback to a pre-superpowers fight between the two, and Static’s origin story, in which said bad guy figures prominently. Issue three keeps the action rolling with another fight (two, even!) with another villain, then issue four brings a major ethical problem. Static has power. Should he use that power in service of others for no gain, or should he be compensated? Holocaust, who’s more a villain than a hero but who also has something of a way with words, suggests that Static should use his power to take what he wants, and it doesn’t sound half bad. Holocaust takes it too far, though, and Static remembers what’s right.
Things slow down after McDuffie leaves, as Static spends three issues dealing with racist bomber Commando X. As before, Static triumphs with a mix of brains and power, my favorite combo. The Commando X arc brings the issue of racism to the fore, and Virgil’s race plays a role in his interactions throughout the series, but you don’t have to be black to like Static, nor to identify with him. His problems are fundamental problems that everyone has. Girl trouble, telling right from wrong in pressure situations, keeping secrets that others don’t need to know. More importantly, he’s a likeable guy. Smart, witty, and a genuinely good person. I’m jealous of his friends for knowing him. The art’s not very good, but at least it has a style all its own. The energy effects are cool, and Static’s costume doesn’t suck (unlike Icon’s).
New-Type Books
[DC] Blue Beetle Vol. 7 #26
Writer: Jai Nitz
Penciler: Mike Norton
So, Will Pfeifer’s out. He’ll do two issues of fill-ins, then Matt Sturges takes over as the new regular writer. That means 1) Pfeifer’s issues will be utterly inconsequential, 2) I’m buying them anyways, even if they’re terrible, because what I said before about supporting the book and giving the new writer a chance applies to Sturges as well. If Pfeifer gives me buyer’s remorse, though, I won’t be as forgiving of Sturges as I might have. Especially since "new regular writer" means he’s on the book indefinitely, and John Rogers coming back at all is a long shot. Sturges gives good interview; it sounds like he’ll be trying to maintain the book’s tone and high level of quality, rather than shaking things up for the sake of it. I’m committed for at least three more issues. Hopefully, both Sturges and Pfeifer’s runs will go better than Sean McKeever’s Birds of Prey stint. Sturges’ first issue is solicited and scripted, so he’s off to a better start than McKeever, whose run was delayed, delayed again, then ended almost before it began. Also, it kinda sucked.
Will one of DC’s best books flounder without the writer who made it great? Will low sales kill another good read? or will Sturges lift it to new heights of quality and sales, leading to Blue Beetle lunchboxes, Blue Beetle spin-off books, the Blue Beetle motion picture, and the Jaime Reyes School of Dentistry? We’ll see. Meantime, there’s the mostly Spanish issue, which I’m not entirely thrilled to own. It costs an extra fifty cents for the translated script in the back, without which the issue would be totally useless to me. With that, it’s still a chore to read, going back and forth between the comic pages and the script. Unless you can read Spanish, most of the bubbles might as well be blank. Actually, that would be preferable, as you could then fill in the dialogue yourself. The general idea is a good one. For the story, I mean. Jaime takes his girlfriend, Traci 13, to his family reunion.
The catch? No one on his mother’s side, the Leal family, speaks English. Traci acts as the POV character, thrust into the same confusing situation as the average reader. Except that Jaime runs off to fight Parasite on his own, leaving Traci offpanel for much of the issue. Parasite’s no help, either, as he absorbs the Posse and vis a vis some comic book magic winds up speaking entirely in Spanish as well. We have happy family scenes – a rarity in any superbook – action, good artwork, and cuteness. The only problem is the dialogue, which, according to the translation, is fairly ho hum. As a whole, this issue doesn’t quite work, not even as a foreign language issue. Traci has few lines, but hers are all in English, as well as a few from people talking to her, and none of those are translated into Spanish. Ironically, members of the Leal family wouldn’t be able to read all of this issue. It’s like a mirror image of issues where the vast majority of the dialogue is in English, aside from a few bits of untranslated Spanish. Though reading with the translation isn’t much fun, it’s less frustrating than having no way of knowing what’s being said.
[DC] Ex Machina #36
Writer: Brian K. Vaughan
Penciler: Tony Harris
Hunh. The art’s a bit off this month. There are a couple panels with women looking uglier than they should. I think. Also, my issue seems to have a printing error, as I can’t see any in-story reason for pages two and three to be blurry, almost 3D. I’ll have to see if the comic shop has another copy next time I’m up there. The writing did little to put me at ease. Kremlin’s recovered from the time traveler story arc, and so much for being contrite. He goes right back to his attempted sabotage of Mayor Hundred. Sigh. He means well, which gives me hope that he’ll realize he’s in the wrong before he goes too far, but he’s still trying to push Mitch back into heroism, mistakenly believing that The Great Machine can do more good as a dude with a jetpack than as a powerful politician. Meanwhile, Mitch is struggling to write one speech when he needs several, President Bush is coming to town as part of his reelection campaign (this story takes place in mid-2004), Mitch’s chief of staff is encouraging him to start his own presidential campaign ASAP, and a new "villain", who literally gets off on danger/thrills/spills/chills, has surfaced. I have mixed feelings about that last bit. On the one hand, sexuality = yay! On the other, it’s a bit over the top and feels at odds with the book’s tone. I dunno. It’s silly, but silly can be good.
Back Issues
[Image] Voodoo #2
Writer: Alan Moore
Pencilers: Al Rio (pages 1-20 & 24), Michael Lopez (pages 21-23)
The plot grows clearer this issue. On one side, a night club owner whose evil plan apparently involves bathing in the blood of his dancers, and his demonic ally, Carrefour. On the other, good voodoo gods who’ve employed the character Voodoo, without her knowledge, to combat the evil dudes. Voodoo is apparently oblivious still, not overly concerned about the death of the dancer whose place she took, nor showing any reaction after reading voodoo texts that all but say "Hey, you. Yes, you. Those people you know? They’re all gods. Wake up already." Or maybe she didn’t read those parts. It’s not crystal clear, but typically when a character is reading a book and you see caption boxes containing text from that book, it means they are reading or have read that, even if the captions are overlaid on panels where the character isn’t actively reading. So, yes, she has, but… no, she hasn’t? I’m starting to wonder if she has any sense. She’ll have to notice something next issue, surely.
[Dork Storm/Henchman] ps238 #15
Writer/Artist: Aaron Williams
Gotta love mid-storyline recaps. I haven’t read the start of this storyline yet, but thanks to the recap at the start of this issue I know it’s about a group of kids from the Rainmaker Program, a special program for kids with non-combat powers, being kidnapped by the original Rainmaker, who isn’t in his right mind thanks to a mind-controlling robot who wants to use the kids to build him a new body. *gasp* Powerless duo The Revenant and Tyler Marlocke, less often known as Moonshadow, track down and confront The Rainmaker and evil robot Dr. Irons. Aside from a couple editing mistakes, it’s very good. Lots of creative power use, continuity brought in from several prior issues, and exciting fight scenes. The art, while stylistic in character design, is technically superb. Williams’ style has grown on me since I first read this issue a year or two back.
Trade
[Viz] Full Metal Alchemist Vol. 1
Writer/Artist: Hiromu Arakawa
I often hear that manga are superior to their anime adaptions. Not sometimes, not most of the time, but always. Always superior. In my experience, they never are, but I try to keep an open mind. If I hadn’t kept giving manga chance after chance, I’d have never found Yotsuba, and that’d be a shame. FMA looks to be one more example of anime’s superiority, however. The manga is like a rough draft, while the anime is a more finished, refined product. The manga deserves credit for putting forth the concepts, characters, and stories in the first place. The anime is, of course, dependent upon it for its very existence. Still, it’s better, like the director’s cut of a movie. Except directors typically don’t add sound and motion to still, silent frames. Not only is the story enhanced in the transitional rewrite, there’s simply no comparison between anime and manga when it comes to Edward Elric clapping his hands together and transmuting something. It has to be seen. It has to be heard. You can’t convey that in a comic book. At best, you can mime it, and for a story as driven by sound and motion as this one, animation is a far more suitable format.
I might be biased. The main thing is the story. Edward and Alphonse Elric, two brothers, two alchemists, in a world where alchemy is a type of magic. Lead to gold? Sure. It’s illegal, but technically possible. If I knew alchemy, I could transmute this beat-up manga, with its pages falling out in clumps, into a brand new copy. It has the same component parts, I think, so it’s as simple as rearranging legos. Just don’t go trying that with people. Ed and Al did, attempting to raise their mother from the dead, and it cost them dearly. Al is now a disembodied soul attached to a hollow suit of armor, while Ed had to replace an arm and leg with prosthetic limbs. In a quest to regain their former bodies, they search for the fabled Philosopher’s Stone, said to make all alchemy possible.
They find it in the first chapter. Or rather, they find a fake, the first of many, possessed by a would be despot who wields religion like a blade. As well as this story’s told, with the origin slipped in during the two-part opener, there are little details that the anime did better. Like Ed and Al exposing the so-called priest for a fraud. In the manga, they first sneak one of his followers in and trick the doofus into confessing everything like a good little villain. Said follower, Rose, almost believes it, only to be swayed once more by the priest’s silver tongue. Then they secretly rig up a bell to a radio and trick him into confessing again, this time to everyone in town. In the anime, there’s only the one confession, making the priest look like less of an idiot and Rose less pathetic. Also, the manga has a short scene where Edward creates a huge statue to attack the priest after he’s already beaten. In the anime, the priest was still a threat at that point, and we were treated to a battle of oneupmanship between the two, where the priest animated some statues only for Ed to animate a ginormous one and pull the same "fist of an angry god" move as in the manga, this time to greater effect.
Next, it’s off to the mining town Youswell, where the brothers run into miners who hate all state alchemists (of which Edward is one) because of a certain corrupt military official who lords over their town like King John, taxing them into extreme poverty. Edward has to find a way to help the miners without their hospitality or trust. Then he happens to take a train that gets hijacked, which isn’t as much of a coincidence as it seems. Just as it wasn’t happenstance that the Elrics met up with villainous types when they were only trying to find the Philosopher’s Stone. That’s thanks to the devious machinations of one Colonel Roy Mustang, the Flame Alchemist.
The writing’s pretty good, all in all. I laughed a few times and there’s much of why I enjoyed the anime in this. But I would stop now, after one volume, if I hadn’t heard there are stories in the manga that aren’t in the anime. I’m not expecting much, but I’ll keep reading in the hope of supplementing my enjoyment of the series.
Truncation
Static – Better than the cartoon.
Blue Beetle – A chore to read.
Ex Machina – Not sure what to think.
Voodoo – Still waiting for the hero to do anything heroic.
ps238 – The exciting conclusion to a storyline I should’ve read the rest of by now.
Full Metal Alchemist – Not as good as the anime.
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