COMICS: Wed. 10/20/04

Only bought three new comics this week, but they were all good.

Fantastic Four: Entertaining issue, and interesting solution to the problem at hand -- if a little too pat to be believable. Reed can switch powers from one person to another, but can't remove the powers? That's kinda dopey. But it resulted in fun comic goodness, so I forgive it. And hey: Galactus. What more can you ask of a Fantastic Four book?

Plastic Man: Funniest issue yet. I laughed out loud several times, especially at the self-referential stuff. Like when President Lex Luthor says he's waiting for the paperback of Identity Crisis to come out. Or when Woozy Winks, on seeing the vice-president, says, "Hey, it's that guy from Smallville!" (Woozy must be watching the repeats on ABC Family.) And excellent use of real Dubya quotes for the final punchline. I think this book is actually getting better each issue.

Madrox: I'm not wild about the art. But the story is interesting, as is the idea that each Madrox duplicate has a different personality, and might not be so willing to go along with the original's plans anymore. But, as regards the opening scene -- I think if I were Madrox, I'd create a duplicate before getting punched in the face.

Also, the 2nd TPB of Batman: Hush came out, and, true to my word, I refused to buy it. As should you all. Screw those greedy bastards and their double-charging ways! Collect your storylines in one book, DC, or you can stuff 'em! (I'm looking at you, too, Marvel.)

COMICS: Half a rant

I wrote a big old rant earlier today, inspired by an unnamed comic shop employee telling me today that the new hardback collection of Neil Gaiman's 1602 only contains the first four issues of the eight issue series. I was outraged! But when I went to the Marvel site to link to the book... it turns out, not so much. It actually contains all eight issues. Oops! But I'd already written this rant. And most of what I said in it is still relevant, and still pisses me off. So I present it to you now, dear reader, with all the stuff about 1602 carefully excised and/or reworded.

We join Tom's rant, already in progress:

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...I'm sick to death of the collections of mini-series or story arcs being split into two volumes, like Batman: Hush (hardback and paperback), or the upcoming New Frontier (it was six issues, but they were double-sized, so same diff). We all know they have the ability to collect 12 issues in one TPB. Crisis on Infinite Earths or Secret Wars or Watchmen are only the first I can name off the top of my head. And that's just for a decent quality reproduction; how many issues are in an Essential collection? Thirty? Same goes for hardback: I've got the Ultimate Marvel Team-Up collection, which is 16 issues plus the double-size Special, and I know there are other hardbacks collecting equal numbers of issues. So there's no possible way to defend splitting twelve issues into two collections.

Other than the very simple explanation: Marvel wants to screw you over. DC wants to screw you over. They've discovered that people are willing to pay collection prices not once, but twice, and they're gonna keep doing it as long as suckers keep paying. Instead of just expanding the page count, collecting a whole mini-series at once, and adding four or five bucks to the standard 6-issue collection price, they're gonna keep the page count down, issue multiple volumes, and effectively double the price every time. Because they can. Because we keep paying for it.

I say: to hell with them. You know, I actually bought the first Batman: Hush TPB. And all this time after the series was first published, I still don't know how it ends, because I've been avoiding everything written about it, in order to have an unspoiled experience reading the entire series all at once, after it was collected. Well, that wasn't good enough for DC. They wanted to screw me over by making me pay for the story twice (and then they didn't even give me the opportunity to pay twice -- it's been over two months since the first volume came out, and the second volume has yet to be released).

Screw me, DC? Screw YOU. I'm not buying the second volume. And I invite all of you reading this: spoil away! Leave a comment and tell me every stupid detail about this stupid story. Who is Hush? What's the deal with Jason Todd? (Despite my best efforts, I still saw some spoilers.) Ruin everything for me, so I'm not tempted even in the least to get the second volume, whenever those greedy bastards release it! I WANT SPOILERS AND I WANT 'EM NOW!!

Same goes for any other collections you plan on splitting in two. The Loeb/Lee Superman arc? Forget it. Waid's Superman: Birthright? I've been really looking forward to getting that collection. But if it's two volumes: FORGET IT.

Go to hell, DC. And you too, Marvel. I'm not going to take this shit anymore. You don't want to give me your comic collections in a fair and reasonable fashion, at a fair and reasonable price? You can keep 'em, wad 'em up in a tiny little ball, and cram 'em.

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EDIT: Ian notes in my comments that Azzarello is writing the Jim Lee Superman story, not Loeb. Shows just how interested I am in that storyline. Thanks, Ian! And Mike would like me to point out that he wasn't wrong about 1602 for very long at all, and actually did a great deal of research when I called the store to ask him if he was sure the book had 4 issues or not. (He couldn't just open the book and look, because it's wrapped in plastic.) Thanks, Mike!

COMICS: Wed. 7/21/04

Slow week for me at the comic shop. Other than the Hush TPB I wrote about yesterday, I only got three comics, which is probably a change for the better; I've been spending way too much on comics recently. Yeah, like I'm really gonna cut back.

Plastic Man: Glad Kyle Baker is back. I think I'm going to enjoy this story more than his first arc. It's lighter, goofier, funnier, more enjoyable over all. No hint of that jarring darkness Baker introduced in the early issues: who wants to read a Plastic Man story involving the gut-wrenching death of his best friend Woozy Winks? (Sure, Woozy got better, but still -- it was Plastic Man with an edge, which is so wrong in every definition of the word.) Seeing Abraham Lincoln slap Wonder Woman's ass in this new issue was definitely worth the cover price.

Ex Machina: Good, smart stuff. And, hey, here's Abraham Lincoln again! Slightly different context, though. Now that was a bit shocking, wasn't it? I enjoyed that central debate -- is it right to censor something that has the potential to provoke actual violence? -- but it felt like an extended tangent, irrelevant to the story. Are they going anywhere with this? I also enjoy that the superhero costume only appears in flashback: I'd rather see how a superpowered mayor deals in politics, than see just another costumed hero. Brian K. Vaughan is now officially one of my favorite writers, with this and Y: The Last Man. I may even have to check out what he's done with Ultimate X-Men when the TPB comes out.

It took me forever to remember the third comic I got was Daredevil. That probably doesn't say much about its entertainment value. I don't like that Ben Urich's uninformed diagnosis that Matt Murdock had a nervous breakdown has been so readily accepted as fact -- especially when, if you buy that theory, it took years for the breakdown to manifest, it lasted for more than a year, and upon Urich's diagnosis, Murdock apparently instantly cured himself by driving away his wife. And I've tolerated it for so long, but I finally reached the breaking point this issue: Alex Maleev's artwork is ugly. It's an eyesore. It makes the book a chore to read. I unequivocally hate it. If I drop this book -- and I'm getting fairly close to doing so -- it'll be 10% because of Bendis' story, which is, as always, padded to the breaking point, as well as patently ridiculous (Daredevil declares himself Kingpin and crime in Hell's Kitchen disappears -- because I guess now he's really beating up criminals, as opposed to all those other years he only kind of beat up criminals), 90% that hideous art.

COMICS: Batman: Hush

So, I finally picked up Jeph Loeb and Jim Lee's Batman: Hush -- or, at least, the first five chapters in trade paperback form. And, after that whole yearlong frenzy over the way they had revitalized Batman, and what a ripping good story, and blah de blah, I gotta say: this is what all the fuss was about?

Really?

This?

I know, I can't judge fairly, having only read five of the twelve issues that make up the story -- but here I go anyway.

First of all, let me complain about the story being published in separate volumes in the first place. What a blatant money-grubbing scam. DC couldn't fit a measly 12 issues in one TPB? If they don't release the remaining seven issues in one book, if they actually plan on splitting this into three volumes, I think I'll decide, to hell with DC, and to hell with this story.

I'm almost at "to hell with this story" as is. And people complain about Bendis padding his stories! I mean, lots of characters do lots of things, but the actual amount of story that was advanced in this collection could've been easily condensed to one, maybe two issues. But Jeph Loeb loves showboating, he loves building issues around a particular character on the cover, so that his anemic plots can be stretched out over a year. Been doing it since The Long Halloween. His ongoing series, Superman/Batman, is less gimmicky in that fashion, but even there, he loves his guest stars, and he loves taking his sweet time.

I think Loeb is vastly overrated as an author. He's better at generating attention with "events" than at the actual writing part of the job. His dialogue and his stories are often corny, awkward, heavy-handed, ridiculously flamboyant, repetitive, and humorless.

No, but tell us what you really think, Tom?

He does sucker me in with the events, though, I have to admit. Over in Batman/Superman (which one is supposed to be billed first? Do they take turns every other issue?), I loved the return of Lex Luthor's green and purple power suit. I loved the return of Supergirl (at the beginning, before it started dragging). And, though I didn't buy the single issues, I couldn't wait for Hush to be collected in a book (a softcover book, screw that hardback nonsense) so I could see what all the buzz was about.

And this is it? The mysterious villain the whole story has been built around, Batman's bandage-faced nemesis, has so far committed the diabolical acts of... cutting Batman's bat-rope, and shooting out one of his bat-tires. Ooooh, what a chilling menace he is!

Meanwhile, there's a bunch of nonsense about Killer Croc and Poison Ivy either knowingly or unknowingly working for "Hush" (that is what they wind up calling the villain, isn't it? Because, in the five issues I've read, he still hasn't been named), and flashbacks built around Bruce Wayne's childhood friend Tommy Elliot that scream "red herring" so obviously that I'm jarred out of the story each time ("Just try and kill me," says young Bruce to young Tommy; "I can always think like you," says young Tommy to young Bruce; "Lay it on a little thicker, why don't you," says I to Loeb). Plus, Batman punches Superman and makes out with Catwoman, which, frankly, is fan fiction-level wish fulfillment. "Dude, wouldn't it be sweet if Batman used kryptonite to fight Superman?? Again??? And, like, he should totally bone Catwoman, too!!! I am so gonna post that on the forums tonight!!!"

Plus I hate the sound effects. Yes, that's right, I'm nitpicking at the sound effects. A writer writes all the sound effects in a comic, doesn't he? Look at some of the ones Loeb uses: DUSCHK, HAMD, BAX, SWAG ("SWAG"?), BDOK, BERKSCH, DUSSHK (maybe that's just a misspelling of "DUSCHK"), DTUSH. Those aren't sound effects, those are bad draws in Scrabble. I mean, "HAMD"? That's the sound of brass knuckles to Huntress' skull? "HAMD"?

And everything has a sound effect. Batman's batarang has to go "ZIP" not once, not twice, but three times around Croc's mouth. A knife cutting a newspaper has to go "SLIKT" (twice). A doctor opening the door to the O.R.: "BOOM". Me reading the 8,000th sound effect in three pages: "ARRGHH!!"

Other than that, though, it was okay.

Because there's the art. The art. I'm not enough of a cynic about that whole Image crowd to deny that Jim Lee does some damn excellent artwork. (Almost, though -- my disdain for Todd McFarlane and Rob Liefeld runs pretty deep, tainting many of those around them as well.) That's a lot of lovely detail, and some great, inventive, visceral action scenes. And he sure do love drawing women's asses, don't he? Jim Lee is why I'll get the next volume of Hush.

Let me remind you, by the way, that I don't know how this storyline ends. I've intentionally avoided as much internet chat about it as possible, and despite the fact that I already found out there's some Jason Todd stuff coming up (that was nice and subtle, by the way, having bandage-face stand next to the first five letters of the sign on the "Robinson's" building in issue 3), and despite how much I've complained about the writing -- try to avoid spoilers if you comment. Thanks.