What I Got/What You Should Get: This Time I give You Orders!

OK so here we are again, here’s what I got and Why... but with a twist!

What follows is my haul for this and last week, with shorter bits on the usuals and as an added treat for all you kids at home, I'm throwing in alternative suggestions for the lackluster or impenetrable stories. Regardez! 

American Vampire: Lord of Nightmares #2

So this series is showing us the AmVamVerse (is that a term? If not, I just coined it) version of Dracula, and although I have little or no interest in yet another retelling of the Dracula myth, this is very well done. The art is creepy and atmospheric, and the interpretation and period setting fit well with previous American Vampire stories. A very good title that will read even better in trade paperback collection, if you like this, try any collection of the main series or the equally pretty previous mini series 'Survival of the Fittest'. Or, you know any other Dracula book, film, comic, video game cartoon, TV show...

Batwoman #11

It's good but it's losing me. Pick up Batwoman: Elegy instead, it's where the reimagining of the character began in earnest, originally running in Detective Comics. Elegy has the JH Williams art recently missing on the title but has a Greg Rucka script and plotting, something the title has sorely missed of late.

The Bulletproof Coffin: Disinterred #6

We've got a lot of love for the Bulletproof Coffin here on 2Badguys, I recommend jumping in with the collected version of the first series or the third issue of this series (Tales Of The Haunted Jazz Club) as a taster. Dancer #3 A well made espionage-thriller-with-a-sci-fi-twist series. Try this if you liked the Bourne films/books, or Alias TV show.

Daredevil #15

Just when I thought I was out, they drag me back in again. Great Latveria Storyline. Or buy Daredevil: Born Again if you prefer your DD to stand more for 'Depressing Drama', than 'Derring Do'.

The Crow #1

I didn't get this in the end, decided to finish reading J O'Barr's original The Crow story instead as it's been collecting dust on my bedside cabinet for some time now. I may end up giving up and just rewatching the film like I did last time I tried though.

Eerie Comics #1

Some of the first comic books I ever read were my Dad's issues of Creepy and Eerie from the 70s. Where Creepy was a straight horror anthology, Eerie focused on Science Fiction Chillers. I'm not sure if this is reprints of old Eerie stories or a reboot or a bit of both, but it certainly looks like classic Eerie. Dark Horse has successfully resurrected Eerie's sister title Creepy, in recent years, further evidence of the industry's renewed interest in the horror genre.

Fatima: The Blood Spinners #2

To buy or not to buy, that is the question. Not to buy I think. Fork out a little extra for God and Science: The Return of the Ti Girls by the other Hernandez brother instead, you wont regret it.

Hellblazer #293 
What's the cockney equivalent of Hellbilly? Hell Sparrow? I dunno, just buy more Hellblazer.

The Massive #2

There's a lot going for this series so I'm giving it till the end of this opening three-part story at least. I probably won't go much further though. To it's credit The Massive unlike anything else on the shelves; a post-eco-disaster-apocalypse series set on a Greenpeace boat. Yeah I can't really say I've read that book before, and the premise has been set up well, but the characters aren't engaging me yet and there are odd discrepancies in the art which bug me, like that 20 odd year old looking Hipster in the captain's seat who is meant to be a 50ish hardened seaman and ex mercenary. Like the writer's previous work on Northlanders, and DMZ before it, it's good but I want better, so I'm using a harsh yardstick. Do try this out.

No Place Like Home #5

This is an odd one, sort of Wizard of Oz reimagined as a Teen Slasher flick, It's clumsily done in places and the reactions of the cast to certain events are inconsistent to say the least, but I've enjoyed this mini series. Issue five sees the final part of the first story arc, but there's more to follow apparently. A very pretty book, with a unique hook. Also, it has flying monkeys for fuck’s sake.

Punk Rock Jesus #1

The venerable (or is that venereal?) Action Ash already reviewed this, so I'll spare you my two penneth (go read his, we're not made of penneth), but suffice to say I agree. If you like this try True Faith by Garth Ennis and Warren Pleace, which reprints their story from UK comics-anthology-with-a-conscience, Crisis. Or anything written by Garth Ennis before he started working on Punisher for that matter.

Revival #1

Another week, another promising new series from Image. This series focuses on a small American town where after a particular time, townsfolk stopped being or getting dead. This ain't no zombie book though so stop the eye-rolling now, this is more of a psychological take on what would happen if people just couldn't die all of a sudden like in that Dr Who spin off series I didn't watch. But y'know, better than that. Lahverly looking cover too.

Saga #5

Just buy this, it's fucking great (see last month's quotes) the first few issues or reprints there of are still widely available, or wait for the inevitable collection due in a couple of months time. Or even just pick up the current issue, you won't have trouble catching up. A beautifully drawn and written book. An absolute class act.

The Shade #10

Basically what I said last time, engrossing story, charmingly roguish lead, beautiful art by Frazer Irving and a hell of a lot of bang for your buck. I'll be sad to see this go when it reaches it's stated end at #12. If you like this, go and read writer James Robinson's superb Starman run from the 90s, but if you're reading this you have probably read already, not that you need to have to enjoy this series, it’s all very self-contained. The bad news though is that sales for this series were piss-poor apparently so this may be the last Shade series we see for a some time.

Sunset: $1 Preview

I know piss all about this other than the art looks nice and it's a bit crime-y looking. Oh and it's cheap. Dirt cheap. This serves as a preview for a forthcoming collection and as a marketing ploy I like it. It's sort of like when you get the first chapter of a book printed in a magazine or the back of another book. Enough to get you piqued and have an idea of what you're looking at before you fork out for the full tome. Anyway this'n is by Christos Gage and Jorge Lucas, both creators with a lot of good work under their belts. Well worth your buck (or local equivalent).

The Walking Dead #100
In a word; brutal. Buy this issue if you like crying.

Wonder Woman #11

Still good, but losing the Wow Factor for me. It's actually hard to suggest something else similar instead, apart from Peter Milligan's Greek Street which wasn't actually as good as Wonder Woman is now.

Valhallahan

Hellblazer Annual

Hellblazer Annual #1

“Suicide Bridge”

Story: Peter Milligan

Art: Simon Bisley

You may not have noticed, but Hellblazer has been enjoying something of a renaissance of late, under the fearless penmanship of Peter Milligan. Milligan’s a veteran of DC’s beautifully barmy Vertigo imprint, having a pedigree of quality work there, matched only by the likes of Grant Morrison, Alan Moore or Garth Ennis, having been writing exciting ongoings, one-shots and mini-series relatively regularly since the imprint’s inception (Notable works being 'Enigma', 'Shade: The Changing Man', 'Girl', 'Face', 'Greek Street', 'Hell Eternal'). He has his misssteps, but as a reader you know a Milligan book is going to be in exciting journey wherever it takes you. I explain this to highlight what a perfect match Milligan is to Hellblazer, Vertigo's flagship of weird, following the ongoing adventures of British 'blue collar' mystic, John Constantine. Frankly it's surprising no-one made it happen before this run. Having breathed new life into the longest running (in unbroken numbering) title of the big two over the past couple of years we actually find ourselves at a point when the series even gets its own Annual for the first time in over a decade. This, dear reader, is where we come in.

This Annual is written by series writer Milligan and pencilled with signature flair, by the inimitable (though many try) Simon Bisley. Bisley's been the regular cover artist and semi-regular penciller for the series for a few years now, and has brought some of his career-best work to the title. His gaudy, tits-and-beasties fantasy edge is sanded down here to perfectly capture the spirit of the macabre life of John Constantine in these pages. To sound like a pretentious tit for a moment (or so) it’s really matured since his Lobo work but still maintains that mischievous edge and Biz's innate brutality. This is top level sequential art, as good as any of the many industry legends who've depicted John in the past, and no less than the book deserves.

It's been so long since I first picked up an issue of Hellblazer that I forgot how one can get put off by the fact that so many issues have been published you don't know where to start. This is nonsense though; as long as you go from the beginning of a storyline, Hellblazer is easy to start cold and rarely continuity laden. Apart from the occasional story all you need to know to read Hellblazer is: John does Magic, John likes women, John's a bit of a prick. The story in this Annual is a classic example, it concerns the family of an old friend of his from his childhood. Have they been in it before? I dunno. Does it matter? Nope, all the information you need is there in the pages of the book. The story actually involves a suspicious series of teen disappearances, but in a way much of this is irrelevant too, what matters is that as ever, something moody's going on, John's deep in the heart of it and innocent people are getting hurt. And as ever John's not a hero, he's just the guy who, when the world goes up shit creek, might, just might, have the only paddle, and we wouldn't have it any other way.

If like many, you are curious about Hellblazer but just don't know where to start, start here. This is what to expect, gruesome urban supernatural horror with a not entirely irredeemable rogue in the lead. If, like I was until a year or so, you’re a lapsed reader, pick this up, it'll remind you why you fell in love with John’s dirty little world in the first place. Superior, supernatural horror for the modern reader, like an episode of Eastenders written by Clive Barker. So yeah, it’s classic Hellblazer.

Valhallahan

American Vampire: The Beast In The Cave

American Vampire #19-21

"The Beast In The Cave"

Story: Scott Snyder
Art: Jordi Bernett

With issue 21 American Vampire wraps up its latest storyline, "The Beast In The Cave", notable for featuring the first appearance pencilling on this series by seasoned professional Jordi Bernett. More famous in Europe for his work on crime classic Torpedo, Bernett has been DC's go to guy for Western action for some time now, gracing the pages of Jonah Hex and All Star Western with his superior draughtsmanship. For that reason, Bernett is a superb choice for a story such as this, wherein we see a bit more of the adventures of the series' central vampire Skinner Sweet during the American Civil War. This seems like a perfect fit to me, so, it’s quite disappointing that this has turned out to be a rather uninspiring three parter.

American Vampire is a solid if unremarkable series that has earned Vertigo solid if unremarkable sales (actually jolly good sales by Vertigo standards) and a decent critical response over the last couple of years. I’ve stuck with it from the beginning, due to the fact that although it doesn’t make me wait with bated breath every issue, it is still a very good series. I particularly enjoyed the recent epic set in the Pacific Theatre of World War Two, I would even have said prior to this misstep that the series was going from strength to strength. This story unfortunately did not meet the heights of the WW2 Pacific story, or the other Western-centric blasts from Skinner’s pasts shown earlier in the run. "The Beast in the Cave" had by far more in common with the recent "Survival of the Fittest" mini series, which again squandered a great artist (in that case star in the making Sean Murphy) and again focussed too much on Snyder's newly introduced concept of giant magic vampire gods, which for my money suspends the disbelief far too far for me. Like so many vampire-centric franchises before it, Am Vam is branching out into different kinds of monsters, with limited success. One could argue that the evolution of the beasties' species is a main theme of the book, that is, the different kinds of vampire, but that’s not really why I like the series. If I’m honest I’d happily see them drop the whole vampire angle entirely and just focus on people in the period setting. But I'm an awkward so-and-so like that.

The premise of this particular story boils down to "Cowboys vs. Indians vs. Vampires in the Civil War" and when a premise that awesome is brought to you by western/crime comics legend Jordi Bernett and fan favourite writer of great expectations Scott Snyder it screams "Unmissable" but it doesn't quite hit the mark. Not a terrible story, but not a particularly satisfying reading experience either. The story starts simply, escalates quickly and ends up all over the shop. I actually thought there must have been some kind of printing error in the final issue, the story jumped from scene to scene with very little connection other than the fact that both story lines seemed to be leading up to evens the reader isn’t even allowed to witness at story’s end. Tension builds and builds and then... well stuff happens that we don't see then nothing happens that we DO see. I can see what Snyder's going for here but it just felt like a standard Jonah Hex short story dragged out into three issues.

So a rare failure from American Vampire, but it's still a strong series, and one that's well worth trying if you haven't already. Don't start here though, begin at the beginning, or try the excellent #12 with art by the inimitable (and fairly unpronounceable) Danijel Zejelj. Hopefully there'll be a return to form in the next issue, where series regular artist Rafael Albuquerque returns to kick things forward in time again to the 1950's for new storyline "Death Race". Bring it on daddy-O!

Valhallahan

X-Men: First Class

Valhallahan

Yesterday the nefarious Action Ash and I made a trip to our local picture house to see X-Men: First Class, and the verdict is that despite some terribly cheesy moments (Moira's gifts the CIA didn't give her, "Mutant and Proud") it really is a fantastic romp and a jolly good attempt to make a great X-Men movie. I'm going to give you a few thoughts on the film and a bit of a spoiler-free geek's eye view. Listen up punks!

The first X-Men film came out in 1999, and was instrumental to bringing the worldwide audience to the possibilities of superhero movies. It discarded much of the details of the books, and the colourful costumes preferring to reimagine all the details, stick ‘em all in combat leathers, and focus on the core concept of the team. Since then we've had more faithful adaptations of the 4 colour wonder of comics, like the Spider-Man films and Iron Man, and the audience's increased willingness to suspend disbelief is certainly played upon here, with a rather colourful globetrotting adventure. We even get traditional blue and yellow X-costumes and a rather spot on rendition of Magneto’s signature headgear. This doesn’t detract from the faux-real-world angst, or inventive violence of the earlier movies, and in fact reminds us why we liked them too. This is a very nice mix. As I said, there are some naff bits so be warned, the odd line here, the Bond-esque unnecessary sauciness there (your mileage may vary), but nothing that really detracts from overall enjoyment. If anything it fits together nicely. The 1960s setting is a masterstroke. As with the rest of the series don’t expect anything but the occasional scene to come directly from the source material –this is very much the filmmakers’ own creation.

In terms of fitting in with the previous movies, it amazes me that within the space of 5 films they've managed to create as many continuity discrepancies as they have in the comics, which is a nice bit of meta commentary I’m sure. I won’t delve too far into these for fear of spoilers, but suffices to say ignore X-Men: Origins: Wolverine, which is arguably a good rule of thumb to stick to anyway. One baffling choice, not a continuity problem per se, but damned silly, was to portray Moira MacTaggart as an American CIA Agent when she has already been established as a Scottish Doctor in X-Men: The Last Stand. My advice is just go with it, you won’t regret it.

The film largely focuses on the Xavier/Magneto relationship and it can be argued that this is really Magneto’s movie – he certainly gets all the moments of anti-heroic badassery. It’s possible that they even went a bit too far with Magneto as I found myself liking him a lot more than Charles, who sometimes comes off as a bit of a berk. Perhaps that says more about me than the film, but I cannot stress too much how fucking cool Magneto is in this movie. His journey across the globe hunting Nazi war criminals is an underused but established comic book fact, and leads to some of the film’s more memorable scenes.

I enjoyed Mystique's story arc in this film, I found her more likeable than Charles even, despite some seriously hokey lines (try not to cringe when she says "Mutant and Proud" I dare you) she's quite an engaging B-character. I am surprised though by how wildly she differs from her comic book character, I realise they are using her as an audience POV character, much like Rogue in the first movie, but when you compare her to the older, ruthless globetrotting assassin turned terrorist of the comics the charming young friend of Charles is quite jarring.

Interestingly, the Hellfire Club itself is very much how one would imagine it, although its membership is entirely different to the source material with the exception of Emma Frost and Sebastian Shaw. I liked Emma’s characterisation; I'm not a big fan of the modern, reformed, toothless tiger Emma that appears in books these days, so it was nice to see her as her old formidable self. Curiously, Sebastian Shaw’s character seems to be a bit of a mixture of his comic book self and that of Mr. Sinister, certainly in terms of motives and history. I won't go into it too much for fear of spoilers, but it’s very well done in my opinion. It goes without saying that movie Azazel is better than his comics because a dogshit on a baked potato with pop tart legs and the voice of a Dalek would be better than the comic book version.

I could go on, but I won't. Words don’t grow on trees you know! Go see the film, it's good.

Well, what are you waiting for?

Remembering Marvel UK: Motormouth and Kill-Power

Valhallahan

The Preamble

I've spoken before about my fondness for the old Marvel UK characters, I know they aren't the best examples of the medium of sequential art, but I have a lot of love for them nonetheless. It is a love/hate relationship though, as on the whole the concepts are a lot better than the execution, and the art is extremely hit and miss (mostly miss). I read a fair bit of their output as a child in the early 90s through the magazine Overkill, which was Marvel UK's attempt at a 2000AD-esque Science Fiction anthology, they chopped up the 22 page US versions into short chunks and printed about four stories per fortnightly issue. I think my love of some of these characters is less about actual quality storytelling and more a mixture of nostalgia and partly because it was such a brazen attempt to do these cyberpunky dystopian Sci-Fi tales, that wouldn't look out of place sitting between Judge Dredd and Strontium Dog, but set them all on the periphery of the Marvel Universe. Motormouth and Kill Power rubbing shoulders with Nick Fury and The Punisher, Death's Head II and Tuck scrapping with the X-Men, it's sort of like Tyranny Rex turning up in the Avengers or Judge Dredd in the Justice League. It shouldn't work, but every now and then it really does. So, on the whole I like the books, with caveats, but every now and then they have an outright hit, which brings me to Motormouth and Kill Power.

The Shop

I picked up the entire 12 issue US run (annoyingly sans #2 & 5) of Motormouth and Killpower (nee The Indescribable Motormouth) last week for a song from The Mighty World of Comicana II, a well stocked, dusty, decidedly old school comic book shop on Shaftsbury Avenue which sadly is not long for this world and well worth a visit before it closes its doors for good in the coming months. Seriously, go now, it's shutting down soon. The member of staff (I've only ever seen the one chap in the 15 or so years I've been going there) is friendly and the shop is full of gems from yesteryear, which for the most part are very affordable. I spent about a tenner in their 25p bin alone, before picking up this series and plugging a few of my ROM: Spaceknight gaps. Many thanks to Ian at Dead Universe Comics for promising to hook me up with the missing Motormouth & Killpower issues.

The Characters

Motormouth is Harley Davis (I see what they did there) a 90s street punk who happens upon some fancy new sneakers that imbue her with the power to jump between different dimensions, but make her the focus of attention for all manner of shady cloak and dagger types. Along the way she is introduced to Killpower, a heavily armed, grotesquely over-muscled ubermench type with an obscene amount of high tech weaponry at his disposal. The thing is, Killpower is not quite right in the head, he's the mind of a child trapped in a 170% 90s comic book shell. He's been raised by the shady agency that created him to become the perfect killer, but in actuality he's just an amiable little kid who's been raised for his moral compass to point in the wrong direction. Initially sent to kill Harley, they develop a friendship of sorts, her rankled sarcastic nature rubbing against his bizarrely skewed childlike innocence, creating a rather fun dynamic duo. The Riot Grrl and the 90s comic book anti-hero parody. Once they hook up they hop from plane to plane with all due ensuing hijinx. Fantastically named adventures they are too; "Electro Vampires in the 21st Century!", "Off to Kill A Wizard!". This series also treats us to a scene I honestly never thought I'd see, Nick Fury and The Punisher gate crashing a warehouse rave in Islington. I shit ye not!

The Rest

OK, so the art is not amazing, but it's not bad either, it's just quite of its time. Motormouth's design is great and actually not something that would look out of place in Camden nowadays, and Kill Power is such an over the top parody character that the artists can just go nuts with him with impunity. It's also interesting to see early work from people like Gary Frank, who grows up to become one of the best "acting" and facial expression artists in the business. I really would love to see someone pick up these characters again, and it was great to see some of them make cameos in Paul Cornell's Captain Britain and MI:13 not that long ago. I really feel that there’s tons of mileage in this set up. I can imagine a place for the punky hipster with the foul mouth and the dimension hopping trainers getting into all kinds of transdimentional, cross-time hijinks in today's Marvel Universe. I'm thinking Van Lente or Peter Milligan writing with someone like Stuart Immonen, or Jamie McKelvie or Mike Allred making with the pretty pictures; It could be like Exiles but more British and actually good. Let’s start a petition I say! Who's with me?

Anyone?

Oh, sod you then.



***Incidentally on my search of the web for Marvel UK info, I happened upon this blog. which is a great place for fans of the imprint.***

The Greatest Crossover Ever? No

Valhallahan

My name is Valhallahan and I’m a sucker for hype. It’s a curse many geeks share, and in some cases it leads to disappointment. This is one of those cases.

I suppose this issue did all that was needed of it, in that it set up the premise for the crossover, ready for it to sprawl out into the various mini series it encompasses, but the comic itself is pretty bad. I can’t fault the art particularly, as it is accomplished stuff and looks rather nice when the writers give them something decent to draw, but the dialogue is bloody ridiculous and the plot progression is incomprehensible. This second problem stems from the fact that this issue, although titled "Infestation #1" is actually Zombies versus CVO: Covert Vampiric Operations. For those who don’t know, let me fill you in on CVO from what I gleaned from this issue of Infestation and the two issues of CVO I once got in a grab-bag: It’s a big load of shite. More specifically, it is the story of a group of covert soldiers who happen to be -wait for it- Vampires! Yeah! Woo! Awesome! No. The team consists of two interchangeable broody tough guy types and Lady Death. Oh sorry, that’s not Lady Death, that’s the third member of the CVO team, she’s a vampire commando that used to be a supermodel! How cool is that? Not very? Oh well, I’ll continue. Interestingly, she is quite curvy and buxom for a supermodel, methinks she’s been padding out her CV. Just because the place has a stage and people are watching you, it doesn’t make it a catwalk. So the 'Glamour' model and the two angry dudes seem to work for a bunch of ghouls in suits and... you know what? I can’t be bothered.

A Pony and Trap

But what did I expect? This is, after all the set up for a story which is essentially of the kind we all used to play with our toys when we were kids. "Then Captain Kirk beams down to the planet and there’s a zombie and then the zombie bites him and then Ghostbusters shoots the zombie and then more zombies come but Snake Eyes cuts their heads off but Megatron comes down and shoots Snake Eyes because he is a zombie too and then the Enterprise crashes because Dad stepped on it by accident but it transforms into Optimus Prime and then they fight and then Leonardo Kills Mum-Ra who looks a bit like a zombie and then Happy Meal transforming Big Mac shoots Grizzlor and then John was a zombie" and in that way, I’m still hopeful for the series.

Artist's Impression of writing process

It seems that this issue has very little bearing on what will proceed it. In fact the other titles aren’t really crossing over at all, it’s more like Grant Morrison’s Seven Soldiers where all the characters face a common foe, unbeknownst to them, with Infestation serving as the book ends which tie the stories together. In fact, the types of zombie don’t even appear to be consistent judging from the previews, with Transformers opting for a Blackest Night style evil dead, while Star Trek goes the more neoclassical route. As it stands the shiteyness of this initial part, is not going to stop me from trying the others, they are all previewed in the back of this book and have completely different, franchise-appropriate creative teams, and I must say though not a fan of his super-hero work, I look forward to seeing Kyle Holtz’s Ghostbusters art.

This was disappointing start, but not a deal-breaker. I’ll be trying out the Infestation minis but skipping the next instalment of this extended CVO advert.

Survival and Land out of a possible Dawn.

V2K: Totems

Valhallahan

Totems is that rare beast, that rears its head up every once in a blue moon, the Vertigo Crossover. This book was published under Vertigo's short lived run of books celebrating the new millennium, branded 'V2K' (like Y2K, geddit?) and focuses on John Constantine's New Year's Eve bash. Being John, its got quite the guest list, and being John, it doesn't exactly go as planned. At the party we have Swamp Thing, Black Orchid, Doom Patrol's Robot Man, Shade: The Changing Man, Animal Man and Zatanna of Justice League fame. Zatanna's an interesting addition, because back when this was published they were still flirting with the idea of her being a Vertigo character, so she occasionally popped up in things like Hellblazer swearing like a person and on one occasion smoking a bit of pot. Obviously this wouldn't happen nowadays, because as a mainstream DC Universe character she should be doing wholesome things like mind raping people, vomiting blood, getting zombified and tearing out people’s hearts, snapping necks or rape-raping people, not having a normal sex life with a comparatively normal bloke using recreational drugs and swearing occasionally. That'd be sick! But that is now and this was then, so here we have the pleasure of this little exchange:

One thing I love about this story is that, having gathered this merry band together, John proceeds to puke all over himself and pass out like a true British hero. We salute ye John. Anyway with John out of the picture the rest of the motley crew of 'heroes' with the addition of some odd waiter bloke have to sort out whatever the shit is going on with the bizarre new world they are faced with. I thoroughly enjoyed this, the characters interacted believably and entertainingly and Duncan Fegredo and Richard Case really sell the madness of the tale, both in the mundane and fantastical elements on display. This story does feel dated in that it focuses on conspiracy theories, Y2K and the sense of impending dread coming with the new millennium that turned out to be total bollocks, shockingly enough, but without giving too much away, that’s kind of the point of it so it works well. One thing that really does need mentioning is how much this book screams out Vertigo. The characters, the art, the story, the dialogue, the mood, every little bit of this is 90s Vertigo, but strangely enough it also feels like a typical superhero team up too, the McGuffin could work equally well as a trad superhero annual or something, it’s a surprising dichotomy.

Get it, it’s good!

Review: Batwoman #0

Story by J.H. Williams III & W. Hayden Blackman
Art by J.H. Williams III & Amy Reeder

Valhallahan
I adored the Rucka/Williams III run on Detective, and have been looking forward to this series coming out. If anyone reading this hasn't read that, it's collected as "Elegy" and it's a fucking delight! Unfortunately Greg Rucka has Jumped Ship and this ongoing series will be written and drawn by J.H. Williams III with art assistance from Amy Reeder. This issue 0 is more of a recap/introduction to the character than the start of a new story, so it's a great jumping on point without undermining what will be the start of the series proper with issue 1. The story itself is light, just Batman checking Kate out from a distance trying to prove his (correct) theory about the identity of the mysterious new Batwoman, which is exactly what you need as a new reader. The fact that we only see Kate through the filter of Batman in this issue adds mystique and leaves something to be said when the series gets going. It really is a good intro issue.

The real star of the show here is the artwork on display by the inimitable J.H. Williams III, who incidentally is from a relative of the legendary country music pioneer Hank Williams which officially makes him royalty in my book. J.H. Williams proves time and again that he is the most versatile, innovative and design-savvy artist in the game. He really is the best there is at what he does...and what he does is very nice indeed! This strength sadly highlights the art’s one weakness which is the fill-in panels. For whatever reasons, one assumes time constraints, the majority of Kate's civilian-life panels are drawn by Reeder, who while not shit, is painfully outclassed. Just look at the panel of the disguised Bruce and compare it to any of William' images. This is a minor qualm though, because this book still stands streets ahead of almost everything else out there at the moment. Shocking that this level of quality is in a spin off title, when by all rights it should be as shit as Supergirl.

Four Batgirl: Year Ones* out of a possible Batman: Year One.

*Batgirl: Year One was actually really good.

Swap Shop MASSACRE!

Swap Shop Massacre! Two reviews for the price of one! In this feature we nominate each other a comic to read and review. The idea of this is to read something we wouldn't necessarily buy and give you lucky people our irredeemable opinions on them.
Let the Massacre begin!

The Flash #1

The Dastardly Death of the Rogues

Geoff Johns and Francis Manapul

Action Ash
My first thoughts on this comic (after the erection had died down a bit) were "This is really nice!". The artwork of Francis Manapul is unique yet it echoes the same playful charm that Scott Kolins brought to the Flash on his run of the series. Central city is a hectic place to live and you really get a feel of that through the art, the detail of the backgrounds allowing you to see the citizens going about their daily lives in the hurried manner that they're used to. Also, and most importantly for a Flash comic I suppose, Manapul's depiction of speed is great. Using the old school technique of speed lines (and plenty of them) and a few after images of the Flash really gets the job done.

The story is fun and light hearted and begins with a cool little chase that is an awesome way to start off a series. It kept my attention and has a cliffhanger that makes me more than curious about the next issue.

The only thing I want to know is, what about Wally West? Personally, I think Wally is the best Flash. He's more interesting than the goody two shoes Barry Allen and I started reading Flash comics because of him. Now Mr Allen is back from the dead, are they just gonna sideline West and hope suckers forget him? They better not *shakes fist*

All in all 5 skid marks out of 5. Super Geil!

Valhallahan
Like Ash, "My Flash" is Wally West, having been introduced to the character through the DC animated universe and through comic books that were written when I was actually alive. Unlike Ash, I’ve not really been following the Wally West’s adventures aside from the odd cameo in things that are actually good. So did this bold new/tired old direction win me over?

I didn’t like the book quite as much as my esteemed co-reviewer, for a start, my jeans remained un-tented, but I didn’t hate it. I do totally agree about the art, it has a real energy, particularly the kinetic opening chase which is masterfully conveyed. The story left me a bit cold though, it was a nice breeze through the new status quo of the old/new/old Mr Flash-Man, but I don’t really care that much, and you can’t make me, Johns!

Three (rusty) skid marks out of five