Tank Girl: The Gifting #1 — Writer: Alan Martin; Artist: Ashley Wood
It’s a cliche because, too often, it’s true: you can’t go home again.
For those of you coming in late: Tank Girl was created by Jamie Hewlett and Alan Martin, and appeared in the British comic Deadline in the late ’80s and early ’90s. The title character, along with her boyfriend (a mutated kangaroo, although for years I thought he was a dog; go figure…) and various girlfriends and others, lived in a post-Apocalyptian Australia, ala Mad Max, and ran around shooting things and generally causing chaos.
Somehow, the feature caught cultural lightning in a bottle, and it became a hit, especially among young punk/new wave music fans. Hewlett’s art benefited from appealing character design and a clean line that contrasted with Martin’s non-sequiter stories, short on plot but long on pop-culture attitude. The strip was especially popular among girls in their teens and early 20s; Tank Girl’s take-no-prisoners, do-it-yourself personality, along with her refusal to take any crap from anyone and her willingness to shoot anyone who crossed her, made her a powerful (and empowering) icon.
Now, almost 20 years later, the lives of the series’ creators have diverged quite a bit: Hewlett has used his skill at character design to co-create The Gorillaz and become rich, while Martin has had a much more modest existence — he lived for a few years from proceeds from the Tank Girl movie, and now has revived TG as a comic from IDW, with art by Ashley Wood.
Is it any good? Unfortunately, no. Wood’s expressionist art is the opposite of Hewlett’s clear cartooning, and makes it hard to tell the characters apart, or follow the action; since Martin’s stories seldom have anything approaching an actual plot anyway, this makes everything a muddle. Worse, Wood makes all the characters too pretty, instead of scruffy — Tank Girl doesn’t even have her trademark Band-aid anymore — and what was cutting-edge attitude in the original now seems disconnected and even a little sad. New readers will wonder who these people are, and what the fuss was all about; old fans will wonder where the “real” Tank Girl and friends that they remember went.
Where did they go? They’re still out there, but to find them you have to dig out, or track down, the old comics. In the US, the Deadline strips were reprinted in two Tank Girl series from Dark Horse; they’re the original Good Stuff. Vertigo did two later TG mini-series, one with Hewlett art but no Martin (Peter Milligan did the writing), and one with Alan Grant and Philip Bond as creators; the former is considerably better than the latter, but neither has the oomph of the earlier Martin/Hewlett stories. This new series doesn’t have it, either, and only Wood fans or TG completists should bother with it.
Plague of the Living Dead #2 — Story: John Russo; Sequential Adaptation: Mike Wolfer; Pencils: Dheeraj Verma; Inks: Lalit
Has anyone noticed how thin these Avatar zombie comics are? For $2.99, you get eleven pages of story. Eleven! Granted, it’s R-rated, so there’s some gore and nudity (nipple count: sixteen, if you count 2 zombie nipples), but unless you’re a male under 15 — in which case we won’t sell you this comic anyway — it’s a complete ripoff, especially considering neither the art nor story are any great shakes. Zombie exploitation has about run (or shambled) its course, hasn’t it? Please?
Sub-Mariner #1 — Writers: Matt Cherniss and Peter Johnson; Artist: Phil Briones
The cover — classic swim-trunks Namor, by Michael Turner channelling Gil Kane — is the most appealing thing about this book, but the insides don’t deliver on its promise; it’s all talking heads (or gills), blah blah blah Initiative, blah blah surface town gets blown up, blah blah blah Tony F-word Stark. Namor doesn’t even wear the trunks, and there’s nothing to suggest the majesty of the character, or the epic sweep or otherworldly attraction of his world beneath the waves. Didn’t anyone at Marvel sit down and think about what might make this character an attractive sell to readers? If they did, it ain’t here in this book.
Superman/Batman #36 — Writers: Mark Verheiden and Marc Guggenheim; Penciller: Pat Lee; Inker: Craig Yeung
Concluding the three-part Metal Men crossover, with Braniac as the villain, and an Omac thrown in for good measure. The story’s better (i.e., easier to follow, and with more in-character bits) than the first two installments, but it’s still mostly a lot of running around and hitting, and the Pat Lee art has, if anything, gotten worse — it’s all shadowy faces and constipated, gritted-teeth grimaces. You can argue that works for Batman, but Superman? The Metal Men? Those characters should project a certain charm and lightness, shouldn’t they? Here, it’s all buried under grimness. Say what you want about Jeph Loeb, but he brought a real sense of fun to this book (Batzarro!), and it’s sorely missed.
Hack/Slash: The Series #2 — Writer: Tim Seeley; Artist: Emily Stone
Heh: the cover says “Slated to be a major motion picture from Rogue Pictures,” which is a good example of the phrase “contradiction in terms,” but the book itself actually isn’t bad. The plot involves a cheesy heavy-metal band that’s sacrificing souls to get fame and talent, and Seeley’s able to use it to get in a little social satire, introduce an appealing character or two, and set the stage for a Big Fight next issue. Not worth buying for me yet, but I’m interested enough to want to read the next installment, and the rest of you might find it worth checking out, too.
JLA Classified #39: Writer: Peter Milligan; Artist: Carlos D’Anda
The concept for this arc — Amazo has a half-human son, a college sophomore and philosophy major who’s just discovered his heritage at the age of 20, and had his powers kick in, and now is trying to decide between being a good guy or a villain — sounds intriguing, especially with Milligan as the writer. In practice, it’s just… OK; the art isn’t any better than average, and the story points (free will vs. determinism, nature vs. nurture, parental hopes vs. child’s independence) somehow seem too by-the-numbers, as though Milligan’s just checking them off a chart instead of letting them flow organically from the story. We’re only at the middle act here, so it might end up as a better read by the time it’s over, but right now it seems like just a mediocre treatment of an interesting idea.
Punisher War Journal #8 — Writer: Matt Fraction; Artist: Ariel Olivetti
This current story’s on Part Three, but it seems to have been going on forever, maybe because the plot has a bad case of flashbackitis: a few panels from the present, with Frank in peril, then a long flashback, showing us how he got there, then a few panels from the present, then back to the past, etc. It must be contagious — Bendis has been pulling it in New Avengers, too, and this week’s Sub-Mariner does it — but as a storytelling technique it’s more confusing (and annoying) than anything else, especially in a months-long arc like this one. Fraction’s at least got a sense of humor, and Olivetti’s art is sometimes interesting, especially in his faces, but the big problem is that a story that should have been two issues at most is being strung out to five or six parts, and it just can’t sustain the weight.
Phil Mateer
