D.C. Halloween Special ’09 — Creators: Mark Bagley, Duncan Rouleau, Kelley Jones, Dustin Nguyen, Billy Tucci and many others
Some good talent here, as you can see from the (partial) credits. However, none of the stories get enough space to offer much of a payoff, and for a Halloween special there’s precious little thrills or chills. Billy Tucci probably offers the most interesting art, and the most charming story; on the other end, there’s a tale involving Wonder Woman watching The Blair Witch Project on TV that’s… well, stupid, with one of those “bwuh?” plots where nothing actually happens. You’d think Kelly Jones would be made for a Halloween special like this, but they put him on an eight-page Outsiders story, of all things, and it’s got so many characters bumping into each other (including the “return” of one that maybe 5% of the readers will recognize) that it’s disappointing too. To top it off, DC’s offering around 69 story pages for $5.99 here; compare that to last week’s Deadpool #900, which had over 100 pages for $4.99, and it’s a lot more trick than treat.
The Incredible Hulk #603 — Writer: Greg Pak; Art: Ariel Olivetti and Guiseppe Camuncoli/Cam Smith; (She-Hulk story/10 pgs.): Writer: Fred Van Lente; Penciller: Michael Ryan
Wolverine: Origins #41 — Writer: Daniel Way; Pencils: Doug Braithwaite; Inks: Bill Reinhold
Both of these books involve Bruce Banner/Skarr vs. Wolverine/Daken: so they’re tag-team matches between father-and-son combinations. Of course, both parent/child relationships are, um, more complicated then most, since the kids are more-or-less actively trying to kill the fathers. The weird thing here is that, although both books came out in the same week, they’re completely unrelated — each acts like they’re the first meetings of the character teams. Doesn’t anyone at Marvel keep track of this stuff anymore? In the ’80s, this would have been a mini-event, the same story told from two different perspectives, and that might have been fun; here, it’s just confusing. Hulk has the better story (Pak is a deeper writer than Way, who’s all surface flash), but suffers from its dueling art teams; the style changes are jarring. Too, Hulk costs a buck more, and paying that buck for ten pages of an ongoing, and mean-spirited, She-Hulk story (the “all-new” alternate-universe character, not Jennifer Walters) with no resolution is not a bargain. Pick your poison: each book has a couple of things in its favor, but also enough disadvantages to make it easy to put back on the shelves.
Cowboy Ninja Viking #1 — Writer: Al Lieberman; Art: Riley Rossmo
The main character of this book has multiple-personality disorder — sort of; he has three distinct personalities living within a “host” that’s the normal one, and they’re always present, a Greek chorus commenting on the action and occasionally taking over the wheel. The kicker is that one of those ubiquitous-but-shadowy government spy operations has gotten ahold of him, and trained each of the personalities with a different skill set: one’s a cowboy, one’s a ninja, and… oh, you see where this is going, right? Rossmo (who’s been the artist on Image’s Proof for the last few years) has an interesting style, with figure work and use of tone reminiscent of Ashley Wood; Lieberman has done some work for DC (a run of Batman: Gotham Knights, and some B-list titles like Martian Manhunter and Harley Quinn); he knows how to build a world, and seems to be trying for a Chew-like combination of humor and seriousness. This first issue is mostly set-up and explanation, but moves along well enough, and is definitely worth a look.
Chew #5 — Writer: John Layman; Art: Rob Guillory
Speaking of Chew… this ends the first arc, and it’s actually turned out pretty good; some of the more offbeat elements (I mean, other than the whole eat-the-flesh-and-absorb-the-knowledge thing) get linked together, and it’s become clear that Layman has a Clever Plan after all. I remain unsure about Guillory’s art — he has a caricatured, bare-bones style that works because it lets the story shine through, something like Michael Avon Oeming’s in Powers, and although it definitely creates its own world it just doesn’t quite click for me. Too, it’s difficult to know how seriously to take a book with lines like “Evan Pepper came to you because he was threatened by a Yakuza chicken smuggling operation,” but hey: five issues in, and this book is just getting started; that’s a sign of an effective world-builder, and a sign that it just might live up to its hype.
Archie #602 — Writer: Michael Uslan; Pencils: Stan Goldberg; Inks: Bob Smith
This is part three of the Archie-marries-Veronica arc, and concludes with Archie and Ronnie the happy parents of three-year-old twins; then Archie goes off for a walk in the woods, and takes a different path…. and now the next three issues will show us what would have happened if he’d married Betty instead. This is the Archie company’s way of offering what we fans would call an Elseworlds story, of course (although it’s been amusing to see the mainstream media’s clueless take on all this: now Archie’s marrying Betty? The cad!). The story itself is so nice, so easy-going in its depiction of the marriage (with the inevitable sitcom-cliche reaction to Ronnie’s going into labor) that it’s hard to say anything bad about it; it’s as wispy, an inoffensive, as cotton candy.
Skrull Kill Krew #5 (of 5) — Writer: Adam Felber; Pencils: Mark Robinson; Inks: Mike Getty with Mark Robertson
This series’s conclusion is better than its other issues — a mild victory, that, since the other issues were so confusing that at this point there’s only a few hardcore fans left. Still, the revelation that there are a lot of “Earth-born” Skrulls out there, who’ve tried to assimilate quietly into Earth society and now are sprinkled throughout the entertainment media, controlling it, is a clever conceit, especially coming from a Jewish comedian/writer. Robinson’s art is able to utilize some appealing faces, but generally it’s not an asset; the action sequences are confusing, and the story generally is hard to follow. Since the script itself has so much going on in it, that makes for a comic that’s a chore to get through — not an incentive for the reader to come back for more.
Phil Mateer
