1985 #4 (of 6) — Writer: Mark Millar; Art: Tommy Lee Edwards
Wasn’t the original idea for this series that it would be a fumetti (that is, that it would be told through actual photographs)? That might have been cool, especially if it had switched to art during sequences in the Marvel universe, in sort of a Wizard of Oz changeup. As is, Edwards isn’t quite able to handle the difference between “photorealistic” Earth and Marvel-Earth; I think the last panel here is supposed to be shocking, but the change in style isn’t extreme enough to have any impact (it’s all drawing, after all). Absent much buzz from the art, we’re left to examine the plot, and it can’t really hold up to scrutiny — it cheats by breaking the ground rules for “our” world, and bringing in a homegrown mutant, and then compounds the problem by introducing him in a clumsy flashback. This is going to need a killer last two issues to have any hope of succeeding as an effective story.
Foolkiller: White Angel #2 (of 5) — Writer: Gregg Hurwitz; Artist: Paul Azaceta
Pointless, stupid violence, with bad guys who have to be cartoonishly, simplistically evil to justify the “hero’s” bloody treatment of them. When Steve Gerber, this character’s creator, wrote about him, there was at last an intellectual attempt to examine the corrupting effects of vigilantism, but there’s no hint of that here — just knife edges and spurting arteries. Having the Punisher guest-star is a bad move, too, because it highlights how much of a cheap knockoff of him this version of the protagonist is. Oh, and the art’s the typical hard-to-follow murk that seems to be required of grungy stories like this.
Punisher #61 — Writer: Gregg Hurwitz; Artist: Laurence Campbell
… and here Hurwitz is again, as the new writer on the Punisher himself, offering a torn-from-the-headlines tale about thugs terrorizing a small Mexican border town. It’s not horrible — the art’s (marginally) clearer, and a straight-ahead “outsider comes to town and kicks ass” story makes sense for a new guy’s first arc — but as with Foolkiller there’s no subtext: it’s all absurdly-vicious bad guys, who do evil things solely to justify the good guy’s apocalyptic response. Oh, and the last line of dialogue is clunky and out of character. That rustling sound you hear is thousands of Ennis fans closing the book, replacing it on the stands, and abandoning this title.
Moon Knight #21 — Writer: Mark Benson; Layouts: Javier Saltares; Artist: Mark Texiera
Worth noting because the cover’s such a huge ripoff: it’s dominated by a looming Arthur Suydam Venom, who never appears in the book (instead, after pages of pointless talking, and a little out-of-costume punching by the title character, we get six panels of Norman Osborne deciding to send the Thunderbolts after him… next issue). If I was a 12-year-old, I’d be completely pissed — although at least I’d now have a visceral appreciation of the concept of “deceptive advertising.”
Anna Mercury #3 (of 3?) — Writer: Warren Ellis; Artwork: Facundo Percio
For a story involving alternate-Earth exploration, superspy action and exploding rockets, this is a curiously static comic — the art doesn’t sell the excitement, and it’s often hard to tell just what’s going on, while we just don’t know enough about the main character to care about her yet (and the three-page locker room transformation sequence at the end doesn’t help; we don’t get the background or setup that might have made it illuminating, instead of just mildly confusing). It’s not clear whether this is the end of the story, either, and it’s telling that, as readers, we don’t really care.
The Immortal Iron Fist: The Origin of Danny Rand #1 — (Framing Sequence): Writer: Matt Fraction; Art: Kano; (Reprint #1): Roy Thomas/Gil Kane; (Reprint #2): Len Wein/Larry Hama
Two pages of new art to introduce these reprints from Iron Fist’s first two stories, in Marvel Premiere #s 15 and 16, followed by a four-page Official Handbook-type entry. OK if you’ve never read the originals; the Kane art, obviously, offers quite a bit more pleasure than the Hama does, but there’s a cheerful, ramshackle Bronze-Ageish enthusiasm to the whole enterprise that helps to pull the reader along.
Phil Mateer
