Back to Brooklyn #5 (of 5) — Story: Garth Ennis and Jimmy Palmiotti; Writer: Garth Ennis; Art: Mihailo Vukelic
Pretty minor-league Ennis, with a tone that’s both overwrought and curiously flat; almost everyone’s irredeemable, and the only rooting interest/viewpoint character does nothing but survive to tell the tale. Would it be stereotyping to blame the Italian, Palmiotti, for the excesses of this readable but forgettable goombah tragedy?
Madame Xanadu #11 — Writer: Matt Wagner; Artist: Michael Wm. Kaluta
Kaluta interior art (wrapped around an absolutely gorgeous cover), and it’s the first of five parts, set in 1940s New York City. Given the era, and the occult-detective plot, I’m assuming that Wagner’s going for lurid pulp sensationalism here; even so, the last scene (“Come, Novia… make me forget… the ugly lecheries of men!”) made me wince — it seemed coldly calculated where it needed warmly and sensual to work. Worse, I suspect I know just where this is going, and five issues seems like a long time to get there — but, hey, Kaluta art… and that cover is almost worth the $3 by itself….
The Hood #1 (of 5) — Writer: Jeff Parker; Artist: Kyle Hotz
Parker and Hotz are a good choice to take this overexposed character back to his roots, as a scruffy minor crook who lucked onto some superpowered (or supernatural) gizmos and used them to become a player; they make him a flawed noir Everyhood, a lot more human and vulnerable than the nigh-omnipotent, standard-issue mob supervillain served up by other writers (the best scene along these lines is the cover preview for next issue, showing an out-of-his-depth-looking Hood being confronted by his fellow Cabal members — having Dr. Doom, Loki and Norman Osborne in your face would tend to force you to elevate your game a bit…). One problem is that we know not much is going to happen to the guy here, since he’s needed intact for the larger company storylines, so the menace has to be to the people around him, and we don’t know or care much about them. Meh, but if you’re checking out the various Dark Reign mini-series, this is one of the better ones.
Battle for the Cowl: Gotham Gazette: Batman Alive? — Writer: Fabian Nicieza; Artists: Dustin Nguyen, Guillem March, ChrisCross, Jamie McKelvie, Alex Konat and Mike McKenna
With the Battle for the Cowl mini-series having established the new Bat-continuity (Do you need a spoiler warning for this? Really? OK, don’t look… pssst: Batman = Dick; Robin = Damien), this one-shot establishes the current Gotham status quo, with small stories centering around third-string characters like Harvey Bullock, Leslie Thompkins, Spoiler and Vickie Vale. Just as boring as you might imagine (seriously: nothing happens), and the intro/conclusion narrative by The Veil is… well, here: “As a new knight’s shadow looms over them all, they remain skeptical — but as always, this beacon of black serves to light their long and winding journey. And so they trudge — through the debris of history and guilt and recrimination, marching to find themselves….” Eeesh.
The Last Days of Animal Man #1 (of 6) — Writer: Gerry Conway; Penciller: Chris Batista; Inker: Dave Meikis
It’s not that Grant Morrison is the only possible writer for Animal Man; it’s just that he’s the only one to ever make him work so far. Old-pro Conway does smoothly professional as well as anybody, but he can’t make Buddy much more than a generic hero in a suit, and nothing here carries any weight. Nice Bolland callback to his cover for the original Animal Man #1, though.
Spirit #28 — Writers: Michael Uslan and F. J. Desanto; Pencillers: Justiniano and Tom Derenick; Inker: Walden Wong
This week’s second Boland cover is the best thing about this comic; the inside is a typical attempt to ape Eisner, but the longer story, the too-cute attempts at airline security jokes, and the fanboy minutia involving Plaster of Paris and company drag it down. Darwyn Cook remains as the only modern creator with the design and storytelling chops to pull this title away from pastiche and make it work — and he ain’t here.
Trinity #52 (of 52) — Writers: Kurt Busiek with Fabian Nicieza; Pencillers: Mark Bagley with Mike Norton, Tom Derenick and Scott McDaniel; Inkers: Art Thibert with John Stanisci, Wayne Faucher and Andy Owens
Worth picking up just to see that Busiek and company were able to end it well — and, while there was a lot of padding in the middle, particularly on the Planet of the Convenient Aliens, it all hung together and wasn’t embarrassing, which is considerable more than could be said of Countdown. Might have to sit down and read the whole thing at once someday, although at well north of 1,000 pages it’d have to be one long, otherwise-boring day.
Phil Mateer
