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Pen-Elayne
For Your Thoughts - Week of December 24-30, 1995
This week's digest: STARMAN #16 STARMAN #16 Writer: James Robinson Here's what I thought... If I were to assign a lyric to fit this issue, a la Mike Chary, I would have chosen a line from "Penny Lane," one of my favorite Beatles songs (for obvious reasons): "And though she feels as if she's in a play, she is anyway..." The "she" in this case is the new Mist - Nash, as she used to be known in "civilian" life, before she took on her new role. And that's what I felt this issue was all about - the taking on (and partial rejection) of roles. Mist is a method actor. She has chosen the role of Supervillain, of Starman's Arch Nemesis, which her father played before her, believing it's not only her legacy but her destiny. In the process, she has more than submerged any trace of the "Nash" persona. She has made it irrelevant. Nothing has relevance to her any more except the playing of the game. Jack, on the other hand, as good as he is at acting as Starman, doesn't lose himself in the role of Superhero. When we first see him battling Mist's goons, he feels more like he's watching himself act the part, rather than actually being there. What is really going on, of course, is that Jack is observing Starman - he has made an unconscious decision not to become his role. He's a work-for-hire actor. He comes in, does his job (often thinking about paying the bills - "stuff I sell, stuff I collect" - while doing so), and goes home to his real life. However, Jack is still into the idea of acting enough that the thoughts swimming in his head while pounding the bad guys are of - old televisions. And "Robert Taylor and Eddie Rickenbacker and Dian Belmont." (Loved that last inclusion.) "Famous people I admire." This actor likes the notion of fame, but still has the ability to separate himself from it. Not Mist. The big, pivotal scene this issue is the confrontation between Jack-playing-Starman and Mist-being-Mist, on her turf - a "janitor's room" that's actually a huge toy repository. A room of games. Puppets, stuffed animals, Alice in Wonderland figures, a ballerina - the last one rather significant, I thought, because in many ways Mist is performing a dance. (My alternate lyric for this issue would have been to quote the the title of Warren Zevon's album "Bad Luck Streak in Dancing School.") She's made certain moves, she's directed (see, what she really wants to do is direct) Jack to make his, and much of what's been happening is this intricate pas de deux. And, instead of killing Jack, she lets him go. Where would she be without her dance partner? The one who obviously loves her offstage, because how could they make these tremendous sparks on-stage and not have something going on? Moreoever, she has come to the conclusion that this incident has been a dress rehearsal. The real show is yet to come. Jack-the-actor-for-hire fails utterly to understand this mentality. He thinks she's nuts. But she isn't - she's just from the Lee Strassberg school. She's entirely internally consistent. He throws real life in her face time and again, and she rebuts it with The Way The Role Should Be Played. His response to Mist's "Do you know who I see us being like?" is Henry Miller and Anais Nin. Which floats so far over Mist's nonintellectual head that it's comical. Of course they're Grant and Hepburn in her mind. (Although I'd venture Jack is more a Tracy-like actor, the way he acts like an ordinary guy in his role.) What's Mist's motivation? Every actor needs a motivation, you know. Well, it has something to do with recovering a medal her father had won, and killing "one of those who defeated him [who] took that medal." (By the way, despite Mist killing almost all of "those," the medal was not recovered, making the deaths all the more meaningless in Jack's eyes.) And it also has to do with her destiny, her ultimate role, which she insists Jack shares. "You'll never be free of me, Jack." (She still calls him Jack, acknowledging he's not as fully into his role as she is into hers.) "We're one and the same, you and I. The shade of moral veneer that coats us may be different, but the wood beneath is identical. We're the children of the super-powered craziness that infests this planet. And we are destined to perpetuate it." Jack doesn't buy it, and neither should we. And it will be Jack's struggle to stay "not the same" as Mist, to remain above and beyond his "assigned role," to not accept that his destiny is to submerge the "Jack" part of him, that will save him in the end. Meanwhile, Opal recovers, and we start to understand that all the city's a stage, and all the men and women merely players. Some of them have their exits (not having back issues in front of me, I can't recall offhand who the blond woman leaving town is - I'm pretty sure the other two waiting by the railroad crossing are the goons who tried to off Mikael and Grundy last issue). Others have their entrances, like the O'Days who realize how lucky they are to be alive and how much responsibility they bear, or the O'Days who are entranced by the Shade as he tells them things to which the readers are not yet privy. But they're all players - Grundy and Mikael starred in last month's Tarantino flick. The denizens of Opal were featured in the Robert Altman slice-of-life vignettes the issue prior. Ted Knight breathes a sigh of relief, his black and white crime drama from the days of radio over and done. (I must say, taking this 5-part series as a whole, it all makes a lot more sense to me in retrospect.) And, in the end, on the last page splash, Jack remains Jack, a player outside of himself. Sometimes Robinson gets carried away with the sound of his own voice, belabors the obvious, and uses ten words where one will do, but I write that way as well so I'm hardly in a position to complain. I found most of this issue, especially the confrontation scene, brilliant. It's hard for Harris to do much with a relatively static scene, but he interweaves the toys into it very nicely, and Wright stages it all in a blood-red background, a spotlight color which doesn't vanish until Mist does, and Jack emerges in pure white again. Terrific work from all hands. This issue once again has me hooked on the title, applauding. Good show. So, what did y'all think? THE POWER OF SHAZAM! #12 Writer: Jerry Ordway (Ordway also does art on pp. 9-12) Here's what I thought... I must say, at the start, that as much as I enjoy these stories (every time I read them, the word "rollicking" comes to mind, and I can't get it out of my head), I want to make special mention of the art this time. I think Krause is getting better every issue, and his improvement on facial features is really noticeable. Good, dynamic pencils, wonderfully inked by Manley - a real pleasure to look at. Many kudos. Apparently we last left Billy and Mary confronting Blaze, Shazam's evil demon daughter. We also left the rest of our heroes with Ibis and his kewl Ibis-Stick in Shazam's realm, having helped seal up the Seven Deadly Enemies of Man. I was a little confused, as I thought it had been decided as of the end of #11 that Uncle Dudley would be returned to normalcy and Tawny Tawny would remain full-size and animated. Apparently a bit of a continuity glitch here - fairly minor, but still, if I remembered it, with my notoriously sieve-like brain, I'm sure others did. While the two Captains Marvel (I really like this) battle Blaze, Ibis assigns Captain Marvel Jr. and Bulletman to take their place to distract her while Billy and Mary conduct searches in Blaze's realm. (We know Shazam is the object of Billy's search, but Mary is as clueless as we are as to her purpose.) There, demons trap them in false dreams, which we see in parallel for a couple pages, until they realize the illusions for what they are and defeat them. Cap/Billy finds Shazam and rescues the wizard from Blaze's torments. Shazam then gives us four pages of wonderful Ordway-drawn back story regarding how he came to be in Fawcett City, how Blaze followed him, details on Ibis and the other Fawcett heroes, how time has slowed for the denizens of Fawcett, how Billy's father figures into the story, etc. - all terrifically entertaining to read, but hardly, as the wizard puts it, things Billy "must know" at this point. Shazam's demon son Satanus (brother of Blaze) then interrupts to return us to Krause's art and the story at present, as Billy/Cap gets Shazam out of the realm and to safety, as Black Adam aids Blaze in fending off Cap Jr. and Bulletman. They're suddenly joined, courtesy of the Ibis-stick, by Tawny and Dudley - fortunately, only for a couple of panels, before Cap/Billy speeds back to the rescue. He lands a couple squarely on Black Adam's jaw, having recovered more strength thanks to Shazam's powers no longer being needed to entrap the Seven Deadly Enemies (as Ibis reminds us, it was his stick done the deed - then how come his stick can't defeat these bad guys? uh, 'cause it wouldn't be as much fun to watch?) We're reminded that Adam is only helping Blaze because she promised to free his sister, Sarah Primm, from hell - then we find out where Cap/Mary went, and she and Satanus appear with Sarah's spirit, heaven-bound after all and out of Blaze's reach. "Sarah's own guilt kept her there," says Cap/Mary. "Blaze sold you a bill of goods, Adam!" Love that Mary. With Blaze still pissed and Adam ambivalent, Shazam appeals to Lumiun, one of the ancient gods who first granted him his powers, to help them defeat Blaze. The god blows him off. This is, like, so typical of ancient gods. I loved it. <g> Shazam then decides "if at first you don't succeed..." and suggests to Ibis that he (Ibis) appeal to his god Thoth (who powers the Ibis-stick, I guess) for help in cleaving the Rock of Eternity in half. Ibis sighs (great touch) and the stick obeys his command. But... doesn't this free Blaze's half-brothers, Terror, Sin, and Wickedness? (That must be some partying family 'round holiday time.) Well, yes, but then - as the heroes start pushing the top half of the Rock towards the bottom half - Shazam rushes Blaze (Shazam rushes Blaze! Kewl!) and positions her on the cleft bottom half, appealing to Adam to keep T,S,&W there as well (which Adam does). Cap/Mary rescues Shazam as Cap/Billy punches Blaze back onto the Rock, which then seals with help from the Ibis-stick and a big SHOOM!. We learn that Ibis was able to save Adam and send him "to a distant star" in the nick of time, and Cap/Billy gets out okay too. Dudley and Tawky go over old ground again on "who will remain as they were and who won't" (this is really awkward). The Wizard makes Ibis a proposition - he (Shazam) wants to wander Fawcett's streets again, "hear the sounds, feel the sensations of the city before it changes." Whatever. I'm with Cap/Billy - "Wizard, where do you think you're going to live?" Ordway doesn't tell us this. Anyway, Ibis takes the Wizard up on his offer to stand watch on the Seven Deadly Enemies and, one presumes, serve as mentor to the Marvel family. Oh, and Tawky's going to live with Dudley. Any other loose ends wrapped up? Well, yeah, but someone's gonna have to explain this one to me. Something about Sinclair Batson never having existed? What, he was like Blaze's creation or something and he went up in smoke after her defeat? But, like, he's still alive, just badly burnt. But who is he, if Billy's Uncle Ebenezer "tricked us all into believing he had a son!"? And speaking of Uncle Ebenezer, there's old Fezziwig, alive again! (sorry.) Good thing Mary squashed Mr. Mind before he could take over things. Or did she? The next issue is entitled "The Worm Turns..." hmm.... Ordway & co. also promise "one Marvel gest forced out of Fawcett and is loosed upon the DC Universe" next issue. I'm sure intrigued enough to stick around and find out which one. I had a lot of reservations about this title when it started, but I'm hooked now. I don't always know what's going on (fortunately, my husband has read enough Fawcett reprints to fill me in on things like Mr. Mind), but I'm swept away nonetheless. Lots of fun, and one book I'd definitely recommend for the younger set as well. So, what did y'all think? NEW GODS #5 Writers: Tom Peyer and Rachel Pollack Here's what I thought... I Must, and Yet I Cannot. I should by all rights drop this title. I'm not interested in this plotline at all. These aren't the New Gods I've come to love. These are a bunch of thugs. Lightray is a nasty sumbitch. Nobody but the Primitives (at least they're more sensibly drawn, and with a bit more variety, this issue) seems to have any nobility, and Lightray's bombing them back to whatever New Genesis' equivalent of the Stone Age is, with help from a crazed Metron who keeps saying "Orion" every other word. Highfather's totally schizoid, and makes what I feel is a relatively pointless journey to Arkham Asylum to understand the nature of madness. All those years twinned with Apokolips and he doesn't understand the nature of madness yet? The only being who intrigues me somewhat is Mother Herrae, and I don't remember enough about her from the old series, if ever she appeared in it, to care that much. But I'm going to keep buying it. Because the art's gotten better, and the coloring's wonderful, and... because it's the New Gods. Even though it's not the New Gods, if you get my drift. It's Kirby Fourth World. I do a lot to support books which depict Fourth World characters; I even bought the first issue of Sovereign Seven because my beloved Female Furies were in it. I can't not support this title, as much as I may disagree with its direction. I guess we all have our comics weaknesses, eh? Well, this one's mine. Meanwhile, in the last four pages (after a nice dissolve from Two-Face in Arkham to Orion's half-mad face), we see Orion battling Granny Goodness' minions on Apokolips. These were the only pages which felt right to me, and I love dear Granny, of course. (I mean, of course - it's mandatory, you know. She'll kill you if you don't.) I'm intrigued enough to see how Orion fares with learning the truth about what's taking place on Apokolips to at least want to follow that end of things. But it ain't easy. And it's nothing against the crafting (please don't kill me, Rachel <g>), which is fine. I just don't agree with the storyline, which I think is terribly out of character for the New Gods. Your mileage may vary. Next issue, through #11, Rachel goes it solo as Peyer bows out to tend to other obligations. Good luck, Madame Pollack. I'm still there, but just barely, and mostly out of a sense of loyalty. Which I cannot use as a recommendation to anyone else thinking of picking up this title. So, what did y'all think? STATIC #32 Writers: Adam Blaustein and Yves Fezzani Here's what I thought... Ramos! Ramos! Ramos! Somebody must have mentioned to me somewhere along the line that Ramos would be pencilling this issue, but I'd completely forgotten till I saw it. I love when I do that - it makes the surprise that much more special. (I'm sorry this won't be a regular assignment - but I'm reserving judgement as I don't recall ever having seen Jeff Moore's stuff.) I've become quite the Ramos fan due to his run on IMPULSE, and adored his recent segment in SAVAGE HULK. His style takes a little getting used to (by the way, I checked this issue - no big feet; hope y'all aren't too disappointed), but I find it a delight, well suited to a title like this. Adam & Yves have taken Virgil back to his wise-talking, comic-book- reading roots, as we see him confront the Serpenteens (gangbangers mutated in the Big Bang) and diss them but good. I love the wordplay here, even the parts I didn't understand. :) Back home, Virgil checks in with Frieda, and I applaud Ramos for showing her as skinny as she is. Food litters her bed, and she has a stomach ache, presumably because she's binged but not yet purged. I'm dreading the bulimia subplot - it's never a pretty subject - but at least it's finally being addressed again. While Virgil's on the phone with Frieda his Call Waiting kicks in - it's Daisy, wanting to talk about their next date. Virgil lies to her by telling her it's Felix on the other line. Why? Doesn't she know that Virgil and Frieda are (platonic) best friends? He then doubles his bad karma by clicking back to Frieda, not realizing she'd hung up on him, and continuing his description of how he whooped the bad guys. Oops, he's still talking to Daisy. Damn, Virgil, just tell her the truth already. It's easier. Meanwhile, Captain Gil investigates a couple gruesome deaths, in which the victims have bumps all over their skin and he finds a piece of honeycomb in the shape of a human skull fragment. Gruesome. Back in the classroom, Virgil and the guys play Ancient Mayan Football. "Hah! We have triumphed! Let us drink our chicha and fly four times!" I love this scene. It's the wittiest bit in the book, and it works great. Not surprisingly, it plays like a high school scene from IMPULSE, only Virgil's much brainier than Bart will ever be. Only thing is, Ramos seems to have gotten confused as to who's sitting where in the classroom, as students seem to change places at random. Minor quibble. Of course, science teacher Mr. Garcia (I love this character) would know from Ancient Mayan Football. He also knows about insects, the topic for this class. But not long for the glass, as his "ordinary bumble bees" start acting very strangely, topple their enclosure and escape, as if called away to parts unknown. Quick-thinking Virgil puts an electromagnetic tracing field on 'em (he can do that?) and maneuvers past the hall monitor by giving him a hot-foot of sorts - actually a hot beeper. He rushes to "the abandoned Gas Station of Solitude" (bwahahaha) to change into Static - my second favorite scene, as he's talking to himself all comic-booky while doing so. Yeah, like you've never done it. :) Static follows the trail left by the bees, apparently very badly. It takes him six full hours to get to the Seaport District where they've gathered. Nasty place. He tries to check in with Daisy beforehand - he's gonna be late for their date - but is distracted when he sights the bees. He follows them into an abandoned warehouse, where he encounters them in mass-consciousness form as... The Swarm. Uh oh. He lets them swarm over him (I got major creeps over this scene) and then tries to short them out all at once. This leaves him bereft of clothing (where's he gonna get another Static suit and kewl long coat?) and in considerable pain. He somehow manages to stagger home and collapse in his mother's arms, his face full of stings. And with the Swarm having developed a taste for him, and coming after him next issue ("Bees That Way Sometimes", or "Bee My Love"). Nice, solid issue, with a lot of intelligence and wit behind it. Recommended to the younger set with reservations - warn 'em about the bee scene, it's creepy. Looking forward to future issues, folks - good show! So, what did y'all think? AKIKO ON THE PLANET SMOO Written and Illustrated by Mark Crilley Here's what I thought... From the foldout cover featuring Our Hero, some strange villains and a far shot of Smoo itself (and Akiko and all her friends from Smoo on the inside) to the six "Souvenirs from Smoo" epilogue pages, I never stopped smiling. I've been eagerly awaiting the debut of this title for months, and may Mark Crilley forgive me for drooling so much over the preview he'd brought with him to Mid-Ohio in November, but it was everything I'd hoped for and more. Think... well, think Oz updated, with our hero, sixth grader Akiko, being whisked to her adventures via spaceship rather than tornado. Bip and Bop, the guys driving the ship, have come to get her at the behest of the King of Smoo, and have left a robot duplicate of her to take her geography test while she's gone. (I intended to try this for a vacation week I have coming up, but Pen-Elayne ver. 2.3 still has too many bugs.) Hey, did you know you can breathe in space? Betcha never tried. "Wow," exclaims Akiko. "Wait 'til my science teacher hears about this!" Bet you'll ace that test, kid. Anyway, in a couple hours they arrive at Smoo, a sort of smooshed-looking oblong planet, to keep Akiko's appointment with King Froptoppit. The king sends Akiko on a quest to find his missing son, accompanied by "some of my best men" - befuddled intellectiual Mr. Beeba, rank adventurer Spuckler Boach, Spuckler's spit-n-wire robot Gax, and Poog (from the planet Toog, of course). So then what happens is... Uh-uh. I'm not even going to tell you. It's adventures and stuff. It's lots of fun. It's very witty and imaginative and utterly charming. Just go buy it. Give it to your favorite little girl. Or guy. Or adult. The best comic of the month. The regular series starts in March of 1996, and I'm already upset I have to wait almost three months for it. If you can't find it in your store, Sirius Comics' address is P.O. Box 128, Stanhope, NJ 07874. The book retails for $3.95, worth much more. So, what did y'all think? HELLBLAZER #98 Writer: Paul Jenkins Here's what I thought... I'm glad Paul's going for more single-issue stories; I think Constantine is terribly suited to them. Not that the epics aren't well written, but they can get fairly intricate, and it gets harder for me to keep track of everything from month to month. Single-issue stories are a welcome breather. We open on a problem with John's downstairs neighbor, Robert Strathern (aka Straff), whose mum has just had another epileptic fit (to which Straff is likewise prone). After setting her to rights, John and Straff notice a bloodied pigeon has fallen on the outside windowsill, cause of death unknown. We get into some background on Straff and his relationship with John, who then gets scratched by somebody's housecat, Bandit, on the way back upstairs. Did Bandit kill the pigeon? Goodness knows my cats get crazy enough when they see a bird outside. Unlikely, though. We then cut to a peculiar page, done in sketchy black & white. Six panels of an animal named Max "talking," between whines. Max is apparently a dog (we see the outline of a dog in one panel), which makes sense as dogs apparently see in black and white. We don't know who Max is yet, however. Next day John encounters Straff buying rat poison - two more birds (the ones he and mum kept caged in their flat) have been killed. John thinks, "The local pet population's been going crazy lately, and now that odd, detached feeling's back again." He's picking up some vibes, but can't quite locate them yet. Then Straff says something which rings a bell: "...ever since we moved in." And John remembers former tenant Kevin Marsh, a right nasty little bastard who berated women and beat dogs to make himself feel bigger. One of the dogs was Max, whom John conjectures is still haunting the building. And we see another b&w page of Max, and we know John's right. But, how to get rid of him? Well, a regular exorcist won't do - Straff's mum has called one, and he's bolluxing everything up. (Did I use that phrase correctly, Paul? <g>) Holy water's only making things worse. So, what's gonna get rid of the dog's spirit, if not holy water? Well, one needs a scent the dog's gonna follow, basically. Hmm, wonder if there's a way to put this delicately... nah, probably not. John secures himself some Virgin Piss. Don't ask how (John does later on, and he's sorry he brought it up). He does the requisite charm circle with help from friends, and douses a slab of red meat with the stuff to lure the animal spirit in. "Good guess, apparently." Apparently? I mean, I know John's never done this before, but it's way more than a guess, I should think. He's more than proven his skill by this point. Anyway, the dog's still "stuck in a malevolent configuration, feeding off the fear in the room," and John has to will himself to calm down so Max's spirit can show its true appearance to him. Lovely dog - really gorgeous rendering by Phillips. And it's off to do the dog bites man thing. Great comeuppance, as we see a bandaged and obviously pained Kevin Marsh (with his current dog, also bandaged) in the foreground of the last panel. And now that I've given away the whole plot <g>, I'm still going to recommend you buy the book, because the writing is great, the artistic rendering is terrific, and it's spot-on Constantine as far as I'm concerned. Another solid job. So, what did y'all think? CHIAROSCURO: The Private Lives of Leonardo
da Vinci Writers: David Rawson and Pat McGreal Here's what I thought... With this issue, we move from Salai's narrative to Michelangelo (as the latter sculpts the former for the statue that would later become known as David, but is referred to as "The Giant" throughout the book - a nice touch, since of course David slew the giant) of his years with "the old monster" that he sees da Vinci to be, into the present tense. And our POV shifts slightly as well, but we still observe Salai being an arrogant bastard. Difference is, Michelangelo doesn't buy it for a moment. Salai really appears to be in love with Michelangelo, at least to the extent his own ego will allow him to be. But the sculptor's not as dense or blinded to the truth as the old maestro, and rebuffs Salai's schemes and advances but good. Salai tries to take out his anger and hurt on Michelangelo's Giant, but the sculptor stays his hand and roughly dismisses him. Brilliant, well executed scene. When Leonardo hits Florence, Salai is there waiting for him, stinking drunk and practically passed out. Why Leonardo cleans him up is still a mystery. The next scene shows the maestro entertaining townsfolk, when Michelangelo walks by to growl a few words of reproach, using knowledge gleaned from Salai (who smirks despite having been rejected). We quickly cut to Leonardo's first glance of "The Giant," for which the townsfolk all know Salai modeled. Machiavelli accepts Michelangelo's suggestion (over Leonardo's) for where the statue should be placed, adding that each of the two artists will have paintings gracing the walls inside the council chambers. Leonardo is none to happy about this enforced rivalry, this "contest of the murals." As "The Giant" is moved to its place of honor, Salai held aloft by the townspeople, the crowd cheers on Michelangelo and we cut to Leonardo having that dream-vision again - the one with the boy on the horse, drowning in the sea, chased by some sort of monster... I still haven't figured this one out. As Leonardo makes ready to begin the battle of the murals, Salai learns that Michelangelo has been called to Rome by the Pope. His heartbreak needs an outlet - fortunately, he can still hurt Leonardo, and proceeds to do so quite effectively, first humiliating him in public, then taking the knife and twisting it in private. He only ceases (and runs) when he sees Leonardo bend an iron bar preparatory to striking him. With Salai's light and lies having fled him, Leonardo is alone with his "cartoon" - and then it starts to rain, and the sketch paper peels from the walls and is ruined. Lovely and touching. I don't think Salai has been punished nearly enough, but I'd settle for a happier ending for Leonardo. Not having read up on art history since college, I can't remember whether things do turn around for him in his lifetime, but I'm counting on Rawson, McGreal, Truog & co. to satisfy readers on all fronts. So, what did y'all think? [These reviews are reprinted by permission from the rec.arts.comics Usenet newsgroups, and are copyright 1995 Elayne Wechsler-Chaput, currently shivering in an ill-heated room despite layers of clothing and fearing a distinct lack of coherence in this week's postings due to brain freeze and the possible first symptoms of pneumonia... =sniffle= habby dew year...] |
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