Author Archives: theculture

Hit-Girl (2013)

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“Okay, if you’re going to be a little pussy about it I guess we can start on the baby floor. Jesus, Dave! It’s like training the Tiny Titans sometimes.”

Kick-Ass is back with a vengeance in this prelude story, to both the movie and the comic Kick-Ass 2, featuring Hit-Girl. The book collects the the five issue series and was created by the usual creative team of Mark Millar and John Romita Jr.

After the death of her father in the first Kick-Ass series, pint-sized vigilante Mindy McCready finds herself back living with her nervous mother and police detective step-father. This proves to be to be a fly in the ointment for Mindy who , as Hit-Girl, wants to destroy the Genovese family and their associates as revenge for her father. She also takes Kick-Ass under her wing supervising his superhero training but her most difficult task is fitting in as a 12 year old girl at school.

I loved this book. It full of humour taking a long hard look at the actions of comic book superheroes when fighting crime, who Mindy places a lot of emphasis on when training Kick-Ass, but also in a great series of sequences featuring Red Mist as he takes the Batman route and learns Eastern techniques from Himalayan monks and mystics. The ultraviolence is present too as Hit-Girl destroys the Genovese crime empire piece by piece and closer to home as her actions bring the mob to her door threatening her new found family. If you are already a fan of the Kick-Ass series then you will probably be picking this up anyway without any recommendation from me but if you haven’t read them and are a fan of Garth Ennis then you should give the books a try – start with Kick-Ass followed by this one and then Kick-Ass 2.

I have to mention that the series cover gallery also features this fabulous variant cover to issue 5 by Bill Sienkiewicz after Sienkiewicz:

Brilliant!

Fairest #8-13 (2012-13)

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“I wish they’d let me join them in death. I would have been a great ghost. Maybe I didn’t have the right hat.”

Fairest #8 cover

This spin-off series from Fables enters its second major story line, and its first without creator Bill Willingham who remains as a consultant, with South African author Lauren Beukes taking on the writing duties. The art is handled by Inaki Miranda who has previously had some one issue credits on the main Fables title. The covers were all by Adam Hughes.

The focus of this story is Rapunzel and it is set back in 2002 before the start of the escalation of the war with the Adversary and Mister Dark – so we see them in their original residence, have Snow White in power, in all but name, and some old characters that have since passed on such as Boy Blue and Jack  who has a fairly prominent role in the story. The story itself sees Rapunzel travel to Japan on the hunt for the children that she believes where stolen from her but instead she runs into an old lover from the Hidden Kingdom, a feudal Japanese Fables homeland where Rapunzel lived for a while after the loss of her children. The actions of the past  catch up with her as her lover, now a Yakuza style gang lord, seeks revenge for the role she believes that Rapunzel played in the destruction of the Hidden Kingdom.

I read the first novel from Lauren Beukes, Moxyland, a while ago and I wasn’t terribly impressed. For me there were no sympathetic characters for me to have an emotional connection with and so in the end I didn’t really care what happened to anyone in the book. And the same problem affects this story line to a certain degree. In the end the story itself was fine and the broadening of the back story of Rapunzel was good – with enough left unresolved so that it could be revisited in the future – but the emotional connection was not there for me. Part of the problem may have been setting it in the past and so it doesn’t connect with much that has happened in the main series but mainly there was no threat as we know the fate of a lot of the main Fables that appeared and so the drama was lessened. The artby Inaki Miranda was clean and cute for the most part but horrific and brutal when it needed to be. It remains to be seen if there is to be any impact of this story on the main series or upcoming story lines in Fairest but at the moment it feels like a throw away, standalone tale with no real weight as it was not written by the series creator.

Swamp Thing #37

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“I said I’d tell the people your missus works for about her sleeping arrangement. I’m a nasty piece of work, chief. Ask anybody.”

And with those words John Constantine introduces himself to Swamp Thing. While that was the  introduction of Constantine to Swamp Thing, he had actually been introduced to readers 12 pages earlier in issue 37.

Our first sight of John paints him as a rather dapper figure with his familiar trench coat draped over his shoulders and wearing a pair of white gloves with the trademark cigarette in hand. A far cry from the rumpled mage of later years.

He is seen visiting various mystics and magic practitioners of his acquaintance trying to get to the bottom of rumours of a returning destructive force but each person he speaks to has a different vision of what that force might be.

In issue 37, Constantine enlists the help of Swamp Thing by promising to tell him more about his nature. Swamp Thing is undergoing his first painfully slow regeneration and it is John that tells him how his power is greater than he imagines and how he could abandon a body in one location and travel to another location and grow a new body there.

Abby is immediately skeptical of this new influence in the Swamp Thing’s life, probably due to still recovering from her first meeting with him when he appears in the back of her car, and sees to his heart saying, “Let him go, Alec. He’s trying to lead you on …” but John has him intrigued and by the end of the issue Swamp Thing is obviously planning to rendezvous with John in Chicago.

In this comic we have seen many of the defining characteristics of John Constantine that would be played on endlessly by writers – his air of mystery, moving in mysterious circles, his manipulative nature, his bravado. In a single issue, Alan Moore created an intriguing character whose appeal would continue for a further 28 years and counting.

Nemo: Heart of Ice (2013)

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“It’s just this coat. It’s so big and heavy sometimes.”

A spin-off story from the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen books featuring Janni Dakkar as Captain Nemo. The normal creative team of writer Alan Moore and artist Kevin O’Neill are in charge again for this short adventure.

Set in 1925, the story sees Janni and her crew stealing the belongings of Queen Ayesha who is in New York as the guest of Charles Foster Kane. Back in her hideaway, Janni reflects on her life and her need to emulate and exceed the deeds of her father and so decides to travel to Antarctica to retrace her father’s steps on a quest that left his companions dead and him near to madness. Meanwhile Kane has hired three scientific adventurers to capture Janni at all costs to seek reparation for the loss and embarrassment felt by his house guest.

A more straight-forward story that the dense Century series that was completed last year, this story marks a return to the lighter storytelling of the original League of Extraordinary Gentlemen series. The shortness of the story does not give time for much context within the LOEG universe or a well defined reason for the adventure to the South Pole but it is still entertaining nonetheless. The usual elements are here with numerous figures from film and literature making an appearance as well as hallucinatory sequences and alien civilisations. Perhaps not a joining in point for readers new to the LOEG but a fun ride for those who liked the early books.

 

Fables: Cubs in Toyland (2013)

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“Only silly Dorothys arrive in a magical land and want to go home.”

The latest trade collection of the Vertigo series, Fables, takes us to volume 18 collecting issues 114 to 123 – marking 10 years of the series. The usual contributors are present again with writer Bill Willingham and artists Mark Buckingham and Steve Leialoha. There are two stories in this collection the eight issue title story and a two issue story, The Destiny Game, featuring art from guest artist Gene Ha.

The main story, Cubs in Toyland, follows on from Therese receiving the odd Christmas present of a toy boat in the last volume. The present becomes even odder when it starts to talk to her and whisks her away to a land of toys looking for a queen. But this toyland is a dark place with broken down toys who all hide a dark secret of their own and will do anything and sacrifice anyone to be restored to their former glory.

The second story, The Destiny Game, features a grown up Ambrose, one of Snow and Bigby’s cubs, relating a tale of his father and how his fate was decided by an encounter with a woman who can pass the fate of others onto different people.

Another solid entry in the Fables canon. The only problem that I have with the recent collections is that, since the defeat of Mister Dark, the wider story of the general population of Fables has been marginalised to just a handful of pages – both in this book and the previous one. The focus has instead been on Snow, Bigby and their family and while the stories are interesting and entertaining, I miss the wider canvas available when a more diverse mix of Fables are brought into the story. But like I say a minor quibble in an otherwise great series as it heads into its second decade.

The Bufkin tale that had been running through the main story is missing from this volume. Looking at the Vertigo web site pages for the single issues, it looks like #114 was the start of a back up feature that starred Bufkin and his adventures in Oz. These are not reprinted in this volume but I hope that they will be collected together along with the standalone issue #124, which was the end of that storyline, in the next trade collection.

Judge Anderson: The Psi Files Volume 3 (2013)

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“You’re willing to kill Grud knows how many of our own children to get at people you don’t even know are our enemies?”

The latest volume of collected Judge Anderson stories from 2000AD, Judge Dredd Megazine and various annuals and specials was written in the main by Alan Grant – two illustrated prose stories are provided by Peter Milligan and Andy Lanning/Dan Abnett. The majority of the art in this volume was by Steve Sampson with another longer story being illustrated by Arthur Ranson and the single issue stories being illustrated by a variety of artists including the great Ian Gibson.

The book contains 4 longish stories, a couple of shorter stories and 7 single issue stories.

Something Wicked carries on from the end of volume 2 and sees Anderson on probation with Judge Dredd after going AWOL. A series of crimes where the perps were possessed, leads Dredd and Anderson to suspect the charismatic leader of a cult who is about to leave Earth with his followers to set up a new life on another planet.

Satan, illustrated by Arthur Ranson, sees the arrival of an omnipotent being to Mega-City One. It believes itself to the Devil incarnate and seeks the destruction of Mega-City One.

Wonderwall is an Alice in Wonderland inspired story that sees Anderson probing the defensive constructs of a young girl’s mind as she tries to understand why she is catatonic and who caused her condition.

Crusade carries on the theme of the life of children within Mega-City society and, in a tale reminiscent of the Pied Piper, Anderson and the senior judges must formulate a plan to save the city’s children when they follow a series of angelic child prophets on the promise of a new life.

Grant again uses Anderson to explore the more social side of Mega- City One. The main stories deal with the lot of children in the sprawling urban decay – abandoned without any parental control to run wild and their eventual slide into crime and abuse. While I love Judge Dredd, it is the more human side of the city revealed by Anderson and her outlook that really appeals to me and this collection is a good example of that. Although the stories carry on from what has gone on before and there are some fleeting references to past events, I think an interested reader could pick this volume up and give the world of Judge Anderson a go without too much of a problem.

Fables: Werewolves of the Heartland (2012)

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“… dead gods are another thing altogether. They can be infinitely more useful.”

This long delayed original graphic novel is a spin off from the long running Vertigo series, Fables. As with the main series, it was written by Bill Willingham. The book has a number of artists – Jim Fern who did layouts, pencils and inks, Craig Hamilton who did pencils and inks; Ray Snyder and Mark Farmer who did inks.

While on a quest looking for a suitable location for a new home for Fabletown, Bigby Wolf drops in on Story City, a town secretly funded by Bluebeard. King Cole has charged Bigby to find out what is there and what Bluebeard’s interest in the town could have been. Bigby finds the town populated solely by werewolves whose origin lies in some of Bigby’s activities in the Second World War. But the arrival of Bigby acts as a catalyst for change in elements of the citizens of Story City not happy with the way things are being run.

I usually love all things Fables but this book didn’t do much for me. Although it is a standalone story it has some ties back to events in the Mean Seasons collection. However, the events in The Mean Seasons are recounted here so it would be possible for someone not familiar with the 120 odd issues of Fables to pick it up and read it. But I would not recommend it as a starting place for new readers as the story is one of the weakest that I have read in the Fables universe. It has been left open for some consequences of Bigby’s actions perhaps coming back to haunt him in the main series but unless that happens and is spectacular then this book is a big disappointment.

The book is not even rescued by the art which is pretty sketchy. The large number of contributers seem to be used at random and the art style can change from one page to the next within the same scene leaving the reader confused. The colour palette is very muted with browns and pastel colours tending to dominate helping to make it feel all very mundane. All in all, I’m afraid, I found the book to be a major let down.

JLA: Earth 2 (2000)

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“There is justice after all. A whole new world stretched out and screaming.”

This recent reprint is of a graphic novel from 2000. The book was by the Scottish creative team of writer Grant Morrison and artist Frank Quitely. The pair have worked on a number of projects together including Flex Mentallo and We3 for Vertigo, All-Star Superman and the launch of Batman and Robin for DC and New X-Men for Marvel.

Alexander Luthor uses stolen technology to cross the barrier between an anti-matter and matter dimension. He arrives on what he calls Earth 2 looking to call on the Justice League to help him bring justice to his cruel dimension. In Luthor’s dimension good is evil and the Justice League has it’s own dark reflection in the Crime Syndicate of Amerika who use their powers to subjugate the populace and profit from its misery. How much good can the JLA do in a world of evil and what about the the CSA when they get the chance to terrorize a new world?

There are two sides to Grant Morrison – the straight ahead, traditional comic book writer and the more surreal writing usually reserved for his own creations but which sometimes is seen in the superhero books that he writes, such as his run on Doom Patrol. I tend to love his more out there work more but this is a fine example of his conventional comic book writing. As he does with a lot of his work on established characters, he has taken a team from the history of the JLA and updated it for a new audience. The CSA is new to me so I am not sure how much is in the archives and how much comes from Morrison but the mirror dimension is nicely imagined and brought to life. Being a Batman fan I was most interested in the different ways life had turned out for Batman/Owlman and their families and friends. I am also a big Frank Quitely fan so the book is worth the money for his wonderful art alone.

Alabaster: Wolves #1-5 (2012)

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“First thing you learn about birds, they ain’t got no manners.”

Alabaster: Wolves #1 cover

The series was written by horror/fantasy author Caitlin R. Kiernan and is set in the world of some of her novels. Caitlin’s work is familiar to me not through her prose work but the various Sandman spin-offs she has written for Vertigo including The Sandman Presents: Bast; The Girl Who Would be Death; and The Dreaming. The art was by Steve Lieber who was artist on Whiteout on Oni Press, Underground on Image and Shooters on Vertigo.

 

Dancy Flammarion is a teenage albino girl who is God’s instrument of justice on the Earth. Accompanied by a seraph she wanders across America ridding the world of supernatural creatures in God’s name. In this series, she comes across a seemingly deserted town in the American south but which is home to werewolves and other beings. Having killed a female werewolf and lost the protection and guidance of her angelic guide, Dancy finds herself questioning her life after being rescued from a burning church by the ghost of the werewolf she killed.

 

Dancy Flammarion first appeared in the novel Threshold and features in a book of short stories called Alabaster. This book had the look and feel of a series that could have been published on Vertigo and so should have been perfect for be but was ultimately disappointing. While this series can be read on its own merit without any previous knowledge of the character, I felt that there seemed to be a lot assumed in the background of the character of of Dancy that would have meant more if I had read the prose stories. Also the story in this series does not feel like a complete tale. It feels like the middle passage of a bigger story and so suffers from the same limitations that a lot of middle books in trilogies can suffer from. While the book was not for me it might well appeal to a fan of Kiernan’s writing who is familiar with the character and I would encourage anyone in that position to give this series a try.

It’s oh so quiet

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It’s been a bit quiet around here lately – sorry about that. Extended holidays and a touch of flu have meant that I have not been reading much in the way of comics recently – currently I am enjoying the the excellent Surface Detail by Iain M. Banks.

Anyway the New Year starts tomorrow – or at least gets back to normal – with a return to work. So hopefully I will get back on track working on the backlog of titles I have accumulated from various Comixology and Dark Horse sales.

And because I love her so, here is another burst of old school Björk.