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Pen-Elayne
For Your Thoughts - Week of January 14-20, 1996
This week's digest: FLASH #111 FLASH #111 Writer: Mark Waid Here's what I thought... There's a great philosophical question that asks whether the universe will end with a bang or a whimper. In the case of the newest Flash villain, Savitar, I suppose it could be posed as to whether his universe ends with a sonic boom or a sigh. Or even whether it ends at all. I find myself unable to devote as much of my soul to this review as I'd originally planned, having already gotten feedback (even without reading other posts on this issue) from too many others - including the writer - as to their opinions. And as some of us know, too much feedback can be a dangerous thing. It has a tendency to warp one's vision if one is not very careful or skillful, and I confess that lack of sufficient sleep has deprived me of care and skill at the moment. We pick up on Wally West chasing after Savitar, so focused that even the editorial staff forgets to tell us he's THE FLASH. Now, I might not have noticed the blatant absence of the trademark logo from its proper place between the captions of the pp. 2-3 splash but for the fact that I was sitting next to the writer this past Sunday, when he was desperately searching for a recent FLASH to copy the logo when captioning a picture of Wally someone had drawn. And it occurred to me, yeah, that logo's always there between the "I'm..." and "...fastest man alive" captions. A major, major "oops" there, guys. We read Wally's descriptions of faster-than-imagination travel, a concept I must confess still escapes me from time to time. I mean, can someone explain to me how much objective time is actually passing here? Mark gives a few clues (my favorite line: "We're running so close to lightspeed that the colors on approaching objects begin to blueshift") but I still have trouble picturing it. The way they're moving, and especially the way Wally's exerting himself, shouldn't they have pretty much gone around the world a few times already? And why is Wally straining like this? Maybe to avoid maxing out (pardon the pun) and going into the Speed Force?... Well, it's unavoidable. After all, we saw it on the cover. Sooner or later, Wally isn't going to be chasing Savitar, he'll be leading him - right into the Speed Force itself. He turns the tables and distracts Savitar from the latter's plan (to annihilate the people Wally loves) by taunting his religious beliefs. I was always warned, never discuss religion and politics, you just don't know what'll set people off. Sure enough, this gets Sav's goat, and the two of them veer off scant miles from Manchester. Whew. But not before Jenni, aka XS, sent by Aunt Iris from IMPULSE #11 with a "message from the future" for Wally, tells him (between gasps for breath - nice touch, to show how much she's straining to even keep up) he can't win - to give Savitar what he wants. And my first thought is, didn't Max Mercury say way back when that Savitar must be prevented from joining the Speed Force at all costs, 'cause he'd corrupt it or something? I mean, wasn't this deemed worse than whatever he'd do on our plane of existence? And my second thought was, we've been shown that Max knows far less about how the Speed Force works than he thinks he does. So Wally, after pushing Jenni out of harm's way (you know, that's two speedster women he's gallantly saved during this storyline with a well-timed shove - I don't know that I've ever seen him do that with, for example, Bart), turns it up a notch and drags Savitar into what he wants the most - the Speed Force. Time to start taking notes. First of all, the Speed Force seems to bear an odd relationship to time, as we'll no doubt discover in future issues. When Max first skirted the edge of the Force, he "bounced off the field and through the timestream into our era." So apparently one can retain enough control within the field's proximity not to bounce off it and tumble through time, which would explain how Max "returned" in IMPULSE #11 after his final talk with Johnny Quick. Secondly, speaking of talking, Wally says something about accelerating "far beyond the speed of sound," which I take to mean subjective sound, because I gotta figure he and Savitar broke the sound barrier on our plane long before Page 1 (hence the Page 2 mention of the sonic boom). And lastly, "I wonder if this is truly the answer. It's risky. But... I seem to hear a thousand ghosts whispering their approval." A thousand ghosts - pretty, but I might have preferred the word "angels," myself.. "A sense of fellowship... and glorious destiny. This is Heaven." It's as good a definition of Heaven as anything else I've seen. And as they go faster and faster, Wally grabs hold of Savitar's wrist and flings him forward, to a place where "we both belong." And as we see Savitar fade into infinity and oneness with all who've come before - again, I have no problem with this definition of Heaven - we hope (as does Wally, I suppose) that the bliss of this ultimate joining will overwhelm and overcome any evil intentions he once had, and prove Max wrong again... So why isn't Wally accepted? Well, he is. He notes that "it's happening to me, too... but I won't let it." And here comes the page that kind of made me cringe. I call it the Internet Response Page, because that's essentially what it is - Mark's answers to some of your questions. He does a good job of tying it into Flash history, from what little I know of Flash history, but it also establishes that, in the writer's interpretation, you don't join the Force "until you feel you've run your race." At the point of his transcendence in IMPULSE #11, Johnny Quick had felt that way - he just hadn't realized it until that moment. And I don't think we need to rehash the moment of Barry Allen's transcendence either, do we? Additionally, "So long as you don't lose sight of the things on Earth that most matter to you, it [Heaven] won't hold you." And Linda is Wally's anchor. His love for her is his beacon. On the one hand, this is a little more problematic, as you can again drag the argument of "didn't other speedsters love as much" into it. On the other hand, this is one of the main reasons I love this book so much - its intense romanticism, the idea that, for some people, love is more blissful than heaven. This kind of thing stirs my emotions - and remember, I read this book emotionally more than objectively - just about better than anything else. But it still read awkward, mainly because... I Got It. I've always gotten it. Remember how I started this review by saying too much feedback can be a dangerous thing? Well, I must be one of the few people who didn't need this explanation, and it felt terribly superfluous to me. I kept thinking back to what Jerry Lewis always used to say during the telethons: "For those who understand, no explanation is necessary; for those who don't understand, no explanation is possible." In this case it's possible, but it winds up cluttering panels and interrupting narrative flow. Granted, the dry stuff is saved by Wally's gushing about love - hell, love saves everything in my book - but I don't know that the page worked for me, 'cause I don't consider myself one of the people who required it. (Go on, rake me over the coals if you must. I got enough of this reaction to my review of IMPULSE #11. But I'm not going to apologize any more for understanding the author's intent. <g>) Back to the story on page 21, where we find the other speedsters licking their wounds and speculating on what happened. Max says he can no longer "feel his presence," which we can take to mean Savitar's ultimate joining has obliterated his individuality to the point where he won't be able to rule the Force, now that he's in complete harmony with it. But notice Max said "his." He can't feel Wally's presence any more either. Where's Wally? Wait! - is that him returning? Uh, actually, no. It's the Page 22 "surprise" - John Fox! Well, I'm sure it's a surprise to a lot of folks, but we've been promised John's appearance for awhile, and I knew Wally wasn't going to be around for a few issues, so some of us did put 2+2 together, Mark. ;) On the other hand, where is Wally? Well, I have my theories, but the writer tells me they're wrong. :) And if they don't call the next issue either "Meet John Fox" (after, I believe, Capra) or "Who Is John Fox?" (after Rand), I'll be disappointed. Lots of answers sometimes provide lots more questions. What are those things on Fox's arms? Is he the Flash of Two Suits? What the hell happened at Ronald's this month - it looks like every comic I bought was badly cropped at the top of the page! Why did Max write that damn diary in Korean??? Stay tuned - I know I will. So Savitar went with a boom and a sigh. I think the pacing on this issue was off in terms of what came before it, but I can't really complain about a speedster book that goes by too fast <g>, and I think it'll mesh better with the other segments in collected form. I will add that I thought Johnny Quick's transcendence was glossed over rather hurriedly on page 21, and might have merited at least a footnote pointing to the event which happened in IMPULSE #11 - I realize most people following this storyline are picking up both IMPULSE and FLASH, but one should never assume, and the "death" of Johnny should certainly be considered a major enough occurrence to footnote. The art is top-notch, and kudos to Tom McCraw for another fabulous job - this issue wouldn't have been nearly as good without his deft touch at the palette. So, what did y'all think? WONDER WOMAN #107 Writer/Artist: John Byrne Here's what I thought... Wow, this sure looks different than the original, full size, black and whites did! <g> Yeah, I'll confess - I saw the originals of this issue, which John happened to have with him when Johanna Draper and I visited Kupps' office during our DC tour last September. I remember looking at them going, "I have no clue as to what's going on (not having seen 105 and 106 at the time), but boy, this looks like fun!" I also remember thinking the splash on pp. 2-3 was angled a little peculiarly, but hell, that's part of the fun. This is becoming such a kicky little title, it almost always makes me smile. When we last left Morgaine le Fay, our Villain Du Jour, she had just put Etrigan in her power and sent him after Diana. Uh-oh. Diana's human friends - Helena and Cassie Sandsmark, and Mike the cop (sorry, I can never remember his last name) - are rather ill-equipped to deal with the Demon, who does things like chomp on Mike's gat (you know, his gat - I put stuff like this in my WW reviews just for That Other Sandsmark). Cassie, bless her heart, doesn't shrink from trying, and conks the Demon with a lamp. Scratch one lamp, but even Etrigan admires her ducky pluck. Diana rushes to protect Cassie and asks the Demon to take it outside. They battle (again, Byrne's attention to little background details during his scenes is extraordinary and never fails to wow me) and Wonder Woman believes she has things well wrapped up (in metal and plastic, the least polluting use of a car that comes to my mind at any rate) - but Etrigan's a tad stronger than that. He busts free and runs away, Diana hot on his tail, if he had one. (Minor point of information from my buddy Trish - why does the background sky keep changing color during this scene? Or is it just when Etrigan escapes and everything flares red? In any case, the change in sky hue between page 8 and 9 is jarring.) Meanwhile, a bit chronologically out of order, we catch up with Dr. Julian Lazarus and his family, including his estranged wife Allison and injured son Kris, who we learn has just died despite his father's efforts to save him. Allison blames Julian - so do I. So does he. How long before he fixes his resurrection machine and tries to bring Kris back? And what will go wrong when he does? As Mike the cop climbs back into consciousness and Helena looks after him, impetuous Cassie takes off after Wonder Woman and the Demon. Ya gotta love her, unless you're Helena sputtering with apoplexy at the thought of her daughter diving into danger - again. As Cassie races to the point of the demon fire, the Phantom Stranger appears with the Philosopher's Brick and bops Etrigan one. That's gotta hurt. Jason Blood re-emerges just as Cassie pulls up, and the Stranger offers to cloud her mind (well, her tongue, at least) to keep Blood's secret identity intact. Cassie's "Huh?" would appear to preclude that necessity. Back at Chez Sandsmark, the Stranger treats us to more exposition, then we cut back to Maison du Morgaine, where we see the villain has been spying on our heroes all along. Dirty pool. Oh well, Etrigan may be lost to her, but she's got other irons in the fire, or pots on the boil, or whatever. Seems she's been collecting would-be servants and holding them in liquid stasis. Warly better watch himself. She frees one such prisoner - turns out it's Arion, and I appreciate Byrne telling me, 'cause this Arion looks nothing like the last time I saw him. And I wanna know two things - how the heck is Morgaine le Fay more powerful than this Atlantean sorcerer? I don't buy it. And how could the editor allow his best creation be captured like this? :) In any case, one must now go with the flow that Arion's working for Morgaine (feh), as WW, back-to-normal Etrigan, and a shadow of the Stranger approach her manse to do battle. This issue is dedicated to the memory of Giles (1916-1995). Who's Giles? Fun stuff - best of all the character growth of Cassie - but I still don't care about this Lazarus subplot. Still, I didn't care much about the Morgaine subplot until it came to the fore. The art continues to improve, and Byrne's really doing a great job in making Diana statuesque, towering her above her human friends. I could wish he'd pay more attention to facial details, but this kind of shorthand is a hard habit to break. So, what did y'all think? SUPERBOY #25 Writer: Karl Kesel Here's what I thought... What, you thought I wouldn't like an issue guesting the Female Furies? You high or something? :) Let me amend that - I didn't care that much for the premiere issue of SOVEREIGN SEVEN, which I bought because the Furies guested there too. I don't think there are any other characters in the DCU whom I'd follow into just about every book in which they appear - not for nothing did I write that Furies overview for The Jack Kirby Collector. But, for my money, no current writer does better by them than Karl Kesel. And he doesn't disappoint here, either. The Furies are in full force, doing what they do best - terrorizing innocents in order to get what they want, which is usually One Of Their Own, and snarling and sniping at each other in the process. The innocents in question this time are Tana Moon and someone named Pinto, whom I don't know because I only follow this title on and off. In any case, she buys it at Bernadeth's hands on page 4, so I don't have time to ask who she is. The One Of Their Own in question is Knockout, and I gotta tell you I was skeptical, but Kesel makes it work. I don't think anybody else could, but I don't know why I doubted Karl for a minute. More on that below. Meanwhile outside, Tana's cameraman Gordon escapes to find Superboy, trying to study with classmates and failing miserably. Meanwhile, Sam Makoa runs for Inspector Turpin, who springs into action with his bowler and his robe <g> to amass a Special Crimes Unit... Poor Tana keeps telling the Furies everything she knows about Knockout's whereabouts, but they don't believe her. Malice Vunderbarr is about to unleash Chessure when - in swoops Supes (Boy, that is) to save Tana! If he thinks the Furies are "the ultimate Bad Girls," he hasn't been to a comics convention lately. He deposits Tana outside, but is run into, hard, by Speed Queen, whose powers have probably been immune to the grasp of Savitar over in Waid's "Dead Heat" storyline because hey, she's a god too. :) After a very rewarding butt shot of Superboy, we see him use SQ's momentum against her - nice move. Course, by the time this happens he's again surrounded by the rest of the Furies, including at least four I don't recognize so I get to make up their names again! :) And Lashina's just about to choke the truth out of the Kid when Knockout herself shows up, and punches her into Moy/Champagne territory. Bit of an abrupt art change, there. Love the two dots for eyes on the Kid. I get a chance to compare Champagne with Carani, Moy's inker on Legion - not as clean here, I think. Knockout scraps it up with the rest of the Furies (I know, I've said elsewhere that I tend to hate fight scenes, but it's the FURIES, folks! Way cool, whatever they do! And they fight more than anything else, especially amongst themselves!), and Speed Queen (quickly becoming my second favorite Furie, after Stompa, although I personally still think she ought to be called Hyperia) lands a couple hundred good blows before the combatants realize they're being lifted into the air, courtesy of... ...okay, everybody say it at once... ...Superboy's Tactile Telekinesis. Good expository panel here from the Kid, for people who've come into this title late, but don'tcha just get ill hearing about TT all the time? :) Then Bloody Mary comes on the scene - yay, she has Apokolips-issue aerodiscs! And a new power, courtesy of Granny Goodness - energy-draining eye beams! I love it when Kesel adds to the Fourth World mythos like this. This is what's so kewl about the Furies - if you do it right, you can always add on. As the Kid falls, Dubbilex rushes in to let Rex and Roxy (newly accepted at the police academy, yay!) know he's going to rush out again to help Superboy, who has been spirited to a safe (for the moment) place by Knockout to protect him from the fury of the Furies. As they hide they whisper, and Knockout tells the Kid her origin - quickly, shift to Zachary/Davis mode! Only four pages? Shame. This art is beautiful... ...and the story's great. I buy it completely. As I say, the saga of the Furies is so open it allows this sort of thing. And we're dealing with one of the better Furies storytellers here when you spot, in Knockout's flashback, Big Barda (YAY!!) in her old lieutenant's helmet. The only mistake I could find was when Barda recites to Granny, "A Fury must be tempered steel." Ah ah ah, Karl - it's Furie with an "ie," dear. :) Anyway, it's very good stuff, well worth adding to canon as far as I'm concerned, retelling Knockout's saga from her days as a trainee in the Battalion. It's even got her seeing Himon in a fever-dream - Himon! Listen, those of you who don't know anything about the Fourth World can skip all this stuff, but I ate it up. And then suddenly we're back in the present, in the realm of Calafiore and Lowe, and there's a whole lotta squintin' goin' on. The cops arrive to provide Knockout a distraction, and she and the Kid jump in. And they fight. And... ...they lose. Hey, it's the Furies! Don't make me tell you again. Thing about the Furies is, they're pretty easily duped. They're great fun to watch partly because of this. They depart, seeing the beaten bodies of their opponents - who stand there after they've left, baffled. Turns out Dubbilex was engaging in a bit of mind-play to save the two. Knockout's pissed - doesn't he understand anything about the glory of battle? I mean, rilly. At least Turpin's happy about things; he's going to form his precious Special Crimes Unit so he can run around sunny Hawai'i in his bathrobe more often. :) Dubbilex gets in the best line of the issue when describing the mind of Rex, a character I can still do without ("Reading his mind is like walking through a fetid swamp... made of rubber plants, plastic flamingos and disco lighting!") And Knockout leads her "pup" by the hand to a secluded spot, deciding to forgo Boom Tubes for a boom box, and starts to - well, I don't wanna know. After all, the Furies have come and gone. Great, great fun. The art styles were used to good effect, especially the four flashback pages of Knockout's origin. And I get to see "my" Furies again! Hoorah! A must for any Furies fan out there. So, what did y'all think? LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES #78 Co-Writer: Tom Peyer Here's what I thought... I'm still reeling over how gorgeous this cover is. Of all the interesting comic book covers that came out this week (and there were quite a few, from HULK to FLASH to SUPERBOY, that caught my eye), this is easily the most beautiful. Who did this cover? It's definitely not Moder, and it doesn't look like Moy. The shading on the characters' faces is especially exquisite. Looks like the same artist(s) will be doing the cover for #79 too, judging by the inside back cover. (Note added by Elayne Riggs in 2002: The artists in question were my now-friends Alan Davis and Mark Farmer. Funny ol' world, innit?) I wasn't that interested in the plot. Amazing, huh? I spend so much time in my previous Legion reviews talking about the dizzying array of subplots, and here's one coherent plotline that just doesn't cut it for me. It's not bad - it's crafted well and all - it just all seems kind of pointless. Was there any doubt in folks' minds that, as soon as the Fatal Five were rounded up, they'd turn on the Legion? We open on Madame Chu, who has no desire to calm her viewing public as she engages in the worst fear-mongering this side of Pat Buchanan. And it becomes increasingly obvious that she knows exactly what she's doing. "I promise you all: The Sun-Eater will not destroy one single U.P. star system." That did it - now the nonaligned worlds are flocking (or swimming, as the case may be) to join the UP for protection from a creature which may or may not exist given how involved Chu is in the manipulation of Jan Arrah's memories. Nicely done, in an evil kinda way. The Legion splits up into five groups of two to accomplish their mission, and we see some nice interplay among the Legionnaires, which is the main reason to buy this issue. Lu has little patience with Star Boy; Vi just about wrests calm, reasoned leadership from Cos (any bets on her becoming the first elected Legion leader?); Lyle calms down Gates almost bemusedly; Gim's pretty grim and doesn't seem to like being cooped up with Cham; and Spark and Imra appear skeptical, to say the least. Each team arrives at its destinations and the transfers commence. McCauley is loathe to give up Mano, and instructs Evolvo to stall. The latter devolves into ape form and is summarily defeated by Vi - and I won't even tell you how she does it. It's too precious. Vi for Legion leader, Vi for Legion leader! :) Turns out nobody's watching the watcher, as McCauley's taken it upon himself to torture Mano with rats. Okay, the guy's a mass murderer and all, but... rats? Ick. Imra and Ayla doubt their abilities to capture Validus, but come through anyway. Remember, girls, size matters. On Goldfarb's Asteroid (congratulations on the Tuckerization, David!), Gim and Cham free the evil Empress from a cell full of bodies with which she had disposed (shoulda put the rats in with her), and Lyle gets fed up with Gates (who actually appears to respect him, as much as Gates can respect anything) before we're treated to Tharok's origin story and subsequent too-easy surrender. And on the prison planet of Takron-Galtos, we find a new warden (they got Warden Kreyton for his crimes! I like to think Nara Minsork had something to do with that <g>) handing Persuader over to Star Boy and Triad, who notices Brainy still sitting there from last issue. Hi Brainy. Bye Brainy. The troops regroup, Cos asks the bad guys to trust the good guys, and the bad guys power up their weaponry and make ready to attack. I mean, how many of us just sort of shook our heads and went "DUH, guys!"? Anyway, it's an extremely silly plot, featuring some fun character development, and I just sailed along with my brain on automatic. But damn, I want to know who did that cover! Ron Boyd pouts unless I mention his inking. It was lovely, Ron. :) So, what did y'all think? MARVEL VS. DC/DC VS. MARVEL Writer: Peter David, with thanks to Ron Marz (although for what I can't
imagine) Here's what I thought... Wow. What a difference. No wonder Peter was a little peeved at second-guessers. This is probably the best work I've seen from him in months. Between this book and HULK #439, I find myself slapping my head going, "You idiot! You're taking him for granted again!" and remembering why I helped start a newsgroup for this man. I could have taken or left this title, but my husband was into the idea of Ultimate Crossover Confrontation, bless his little fanboy heart, so I knew we'd be picking it up. I was underwhelmed, to say the least, by Ron Marz' "Round One" setup featuring little more than pinup poses amidst a badly-crafted story. But I don't think Peter knows the meaning of bad crafting. And to everyone who said, "I'm getting the Peter David issues but not the Ron Marz ones," I say, good choice. We get seamless and thorough exposition. We get character development, of old and new players alike. We get a reason for everyone to be where they are. We get a reason for them to fight despite not wanting to, despite knowing - as we know - that the concept of heroes fighting each other is at its heart ridiculous and pointless. We're given a point. And we're told death is not the end goal, merely immobilization. Which is great - I don't know that I'd ever buy the concept of heroes fighting to the death, but fighting to the point of one touching down in order to buy time to figure their way out of this... that works for me. Peter holds back on the lighter touches while still giving them to us - the mandatory appearance of Pinky and the Brain (okay, Peter, give: which daughter's favorite show is this?) as a Marvel Mart turns into a WB Superstore, the idea of the Marvel and DC Scarecrows teaming up, etc. Best of all, we're given the stakes. We're given COSMIC, out the wazoo. The best cosmic this side of John Byrne, as far as I'm concerned, as all of us are suddenly made aware that there's more on heaven and Earth and everywhere else than are dreamt of in the philosophies of two rival comic book companies. And the pieces on the playing table suddenly know themselves, and each other, as we have always known them. Makes you almost wonder when we're going to suddenly become aware of the great cosmic forces manipulating us, doesn't it? ;) I won't give it away. Just read it. I can almost guarantee that, if you have no preconceptions (especially based on Round One), you won't be disappointed. The three contests (out of 11) decided this issue are all cleverly done. Peter's aware of the powers and limitations of each character, and plays them about as true to form as could be expected. I was especially curious as to the outcome of Flash facing Quicksilver, since the former is so much obviously faster than the latter - but Peter's written the latter, in X-FACTOR, so I wasn't sure how things would twist. Turns out Wally's distracted by having to save innocent bystanders, and Pietro thinks he's won - but Wally's faster than even that. The new "Thor" (yeah, right) defeats Captain America when the latter changes to Billy Batson and is downed, but Mjolnir slips out of the "god's" grasp and is found by Wonder Woman, who touches it and appears to lose half her costume in the process. But the battle that really made me smile was between Namor and Aquaman. Come on, there was never any doubt - Orin is Peter's prize project right now. This was terribly amusing through and through, and an absolute joy, harpoon and all. And he... *snicker*... he drops a whale on him! Oh, man, this was great. I kept hearing these Douglas Adams passages in my head. "Oh, what's that? Ground... I like the sound of that word, GROUND... I wonder if it will be my friend?" This is ever so much more fun than I imagined it could be. If the Amalgam books are half this good, I'm buying the full line (well, except for the Marz one, I think <g>). Throw your doubts out the door and buy this, folks. It actually lives up to the hype, and even - if that's possible - surpasses it in places. So, what did y'all think? THE INCREDIBLE HULK #439 Writer: Peter David Here's what I thought... I can't remember the last time I read first-person narrative from Peter. It's disconcerting at first, but I think it's perfectly timed here, as we watch the Hulk descend into yet another bout of madness. He's come to Freehold (which I didn't realize was at an unspecified polar location, I kept thinking it was in New Jersey) to check out the Leader's lair, looking for a way to excise the grenade fragments clouding his brain. He's hit by something, and we shift out of first-person and look in on Betty, leaving "Head"quarters amidst protest by the Headmistress, who feels betrayed. The "something" that hit Bruce is called the Ogress (she's big, strong and devolved) - followed in short order by the lair's other guardian, Hotshot (he shoots flames from his finger). Easily dispatched - take him to (what's left of) your Leader, folks. And in New York, a big pink robotic thing is spotted in a parking lot. And in Washington DC, a tourist suddenly turns zombie-like and parks himself in a White House chair. And in Brooklyn, Elayne goes "Huh?" Back in Freehold, it's Peter's Pride pulling up front by a length... sorry, raceway joke. :) In Freehold, Omnibus' assistant Jailbait attempts to converse some more with Pinky and the Brain (heh), but hides when she hears her, um, leader coming. And discovers he's behind the terrorist activities of the so-called "Alliance." And in Reno, the moment many of us have been eagerly awaiting - Rick and Marlo are offered to host their own insipid late night talk show! Peter has already solicited numerous 'net suggestions for guest appearances. The Hulk has "gained" entrance to Freehold and snarls at Omnibus to help him. Well, that'll certainly win you friends. Meanwhile, the destruction that Omni hath wrought continues unabated. The Pentagon, even with Clint Eastwood there, is clueless. (Now you know it's fiction.) Things don't look good for Bruce - and Omnibus makes him a startling proposal, loosely translated as "Relax, stay awhile." After all, there's so little for him to return to, given the apocalypse raging outside of their little safe haven. And Bruce looks through Omni's monitors, horrified. And then forgets flashes back to FUTURE IMPERFECT - which, many readers are now realizing, is not only in continuity, but more or less necessary reading to fully understand what's going on. I know, I know, it's a pain to have to buy it, but it's a really great book and well worth picking up, trust me. Bruce grabs Omnibus, guessing the truth by mistake, but he can't hold that thought, and decides to become that which he most fears, that which he figures others will most fear. His hair suddenly grows long – on him, it looks good. And Omnibus stares in horror at his face, which we don't see from our angle. No less horrified is Betty, clutching a pillow as she checks out the disasters on the telly. Suddenly, a big green guy appears on the scene. Betty's apoplectic. The bearded, long-haired creature identifies himself as -- the Maestro, and claims responsibility for all the world's ills, defying "any and all" to stop him. In Bruce's delusional state, there's no telling how long he'll last now. It might have been interesting if Peter had maintained the first-person narrative in all the scenes with Bruce, but I don't know if that would be possible given the creeping madness. This way, we're given a brief glimpse into his mind before he goes completely over the edge, and it's eerie, it's like we try to grasp onto that last bit of sanity right along with him, knowing (as he must) that it's not going to last. This whole storyline just get creepier - and more fascinating. So, what did y'all think? EXCALIBUR #95 Writer: Warren Ellis Here's what I thought... This is one of those issues to which the old cliche "It's a great jumping-on point" could easily be applied. See, unlike most of the folks in the newsgroup for which this review is written, I haven't paid attention to Marvel very much, and to the X titles at all. I came to this title because Warren Ellis was writing it, and I'd heard he did good work. I don't follow characters, I follow writers. This is the issue in which Warren acknowledges, right on down the line, another old cliche with more than a grain of truth: Every issue is someone's first. This is the most accessible EXCALIBUR I've read to date. Everything's laid out in the first three pages - to which, I hasten to add, I kept returning when I couldn't remember who was whom (as is often the case with this title). The narration gives us names and powers and even personality traits, the story so far, Warren's take on the mutants' world in general, and also serves to introduce the new permanent art team of Pacheco and Wiacek. Elegant, and very necessary. All that said, how's the story? Well, it's a deceptively simple one at its heart, but complex on the surface, because that's how much of the Marvel Universe is these days. Which is why I'm glad Ellis all but admits you can't tell the players without a scorecard. This issue's roster features characters from an alternate reality - oy. It also seems to tie in with other X events - double oy. Some of us don't want to read every X title and, even with the godsend of thorough exposition, don't appreciate the one title we do read having to be thrust, kicking and screaming, into endless tie-ins and crossovers, however implicit. But I don't blame the writer - he's doing his best. And once we're past the obligatory shoehorning, we get back to what Warren excels at, individual interaction. Kitty and Peter walking through the Muir Island installation hand in hand, discussing the events of recent issues, and -- something happens. Kurt and Piotr philosophizing about the other residents, and -- noticing that something's happened back at HQ. That something being the "alternate reality" guy, Nate Grey, attacking Moira McTaggert because he thinks she's gonna kill him, having misread her mind. I like this concept - MISreading someone's mind. This happens all the time in actual (and 'net) conversation - why not extrapolate it to telepathy? Someone's thoughts, like someone's words, may be crystal clear to the person doing the thinking (or talking), but the listener may, for whatever reason, perceive something entirely different. As I said, deceptively simple. This issue is about deception. How can you deceive someone who can read your mind? Can you at all? Who bears the brunt of misunderstanding? Nate's pissed. "I read your mind - you want me dead before I'm 21..." Well, no, you idjit - actually, we were talking about how your body wants you dead by that age, and how we might try to prevent that. But you only hear - if not what you want to, then certainly what you feel you should be hearing, with whatever emotional baggage you're toting around there. (At least that's one thing that hasn't changed since the last time I regularly read X-books - emotional baggage and angst out the wazoo. Comforting to know you can count on certain regularities...) Nate lashes out at Moira and her protectors with "psionic hammerblows" - that's gotta hurt. The dead computer boy Douglock (don't ask - like I said, I had to keep flipping back to the exposition...) attempts to get Nate's dampers back on line, but Moira takes a different tack. She suggests Nate read the mind of the original source of his misinformation - a prisoner named Spoor whose false words Nate took for granted without verifying them telepathically. He does so, and finds out the guy's a lying scumbag. (This is great stuff - that a 'path would actually take someone's word for something out of anger and frustration without checking up by using his talent, because he's so intent on having his paranoia justified...) Then Moira taunts him more, at no small risk to herself given Nate's capabilities. "You had nae reason to pick into my mind. So let's finish the job and see how stupid you really are! Read my mind, Nathan!" A fascinating concept to those of us used to viewing the idea of telepathy as de facto invasion bordering on psychic rape. That someone would bare her very soul to prevent a greater harm - it's ultimately selfless, and extremely chilling. It's also another good excuse for exposition and more X-book backstory, which I suppose never hurts. And Moira's team follows her lead. One by one they approach Nate and ask him to violate the privacy of their souls as well. He's confused; they all have to be lying, he can't be in the wrong! Notes Kurt, "It's hard to take responsibility and accept the truth for what it is, sometimes." And, to a telepath, nothing contains more truth than others' thoughts. So he takes them up on their offer, and links to each of their minds. And we're treated to an absolutely stunning page of why each of them "is here." The best exposition of all. Nate is stunned, and cowed, and on his way to being healed. He ultimately flies off, leaving a somewhat shaken Excalibur team behind to ponder his fate - and perhaps their own. Strong artistic debut, and a very welcome issue from Warren. I'm keeping this one out for a few months before filing it; it'll make a good reference tool. Solid job all 'round. So, what did y'all think? Writers: Addie Blaustein and Yves Fezzani Here's what I thought... This is one of those "yes, but on the other hand" titles for me. There are things I really like about it, and other things that appear to need some work. On the one hand, I think Adam & Yves have Virgil down to a T - his self- patter as he confronts his foe, his remorse at having to kill some of the bees attacking him (great touch), his indecision about his love life, the way he thinks things through when he finally gets a chance to... all great stuff. However, I'm not sure I agree with their interpretation of Frieda. She was shown as a bit hysterical in this issue, and there was no reason I could see to have her show up in Virgil's hospital room wearing his costume rather than having stuffed it into the voluminous trenchcoat she also sports - except to shoehorn in a pivotal panel in which Virgil notices how unnaturally thin she is (as a result of her bulimia). This whole setup therefore seems a bit contrived to me. I'm also hoping the writers don't suddenly make Frieda Virgil's love interest - one of the best things about this book since its inception is that Frieda and Virgil share this simpatico that isn't romantic. They're platonic best friends, and I think they should remain so while Virgil re-examines his feelings for Daisy (who has been almost nonexistent these past few issues, almost always a sure sign she's going to be dropped from the cast - please surprise me, A&Y, don't drop her!). Trepidations about characterization aside, the writing itself is absolutely lovely in many places. The authors have a good ear for dialogue and an excellent narrative flair. The mood of the opening scene is set well, with phrases like "sickening stillness" and "the bittersweet taste of honey and blood." Very evocative, and a good lead-in to our first glimpse this issue of The Swarm. Having Virgil's first words be a "lethal imitation of Paul Robeson" brought quite the chuckle, although I found "Dr. Kilgore" to be a bit over the top. The news reporter's query to a local cop, "Would you care to offer comment on the force's inability to protect this city from The Swarm?" was one of the best lines this issue. Virgil riding a bedpan - hysterical. But I'm not sure I buy the plotting this time out. To suddenly have this very, very vicious collective killer turn out to be - a queen bee affected by the Big Bang who's suddenly gained not only sentience but the ability to psionically manipulate her swarm into an entity that destroys for no apparent reason, and have her actually be in love with Virgil? It's a bit too much for me to buy, even after her "crush" on Virgil is explained as a manifestation of her desire for power. There are good aspects to this - the "love poem" she telepathically sends to Virgil is hilarious, and the fact that the Swarm suddenly takes on Frieda's form - Frieda's, and not Daisy's - is telling (although, as previously mentioned, I'm not sure I like what it's telling me) - but I felt the ending was a little too abrupt. For all that I wasn't sure I bought the whole love angle, I felt so sorry for the poor li'l queen bee that I wanted to see more of a resolution as far as her feelings were concerned. And then we get the setup for the next issue coming at us on the last page very abruptly, I thought, which threw the pacing off for me. Overall assessment - uneven. I think the male characters, at last Virgil and Captain Summers, are done well. I think the female characters (the queen bee, Frieda and, by implication, Daisy) are given kind of short shrift. The narrative and dialogue are great, but I think the plotting could use some shoring up. So, what did y'all think? Writer: Anina Bennett Here's what I thought... I'd like to thank Jamie for sending me this preview copy. I'd seen a couple chapters of HEARTBREAKERS in serial form in DARK HORSE PRESENTS, but found I couldn't really get into it because I lacked the background. Fortunately, Bennett gives us a very thorough Page 1 recap to bring us up to speed and set the tone for the rest of the series. So as not to spoil the narrative, however, I'll quote you from the promo page, which gives a drier version of events thus far: "Therese Sorensen is dead. Before that, she was what you might call 'too smart for her own good' - smart enough to create a genetic retrovirus that can rewrite living DNA, and smart enough to know that in the wrong hands, her retrovirus could be used as a deadly weapon. In this case, those 'wrong hands' belong to Therese's ex-employer, the Biovoc corporation. Now it's up to her only surviving clones - Queenie of the Heartbreakers and former lab assistant Vector - to carry on their dead boss' kamikaze mission by keeping the retrovirus away from Biovoc." Yep, we're in hard science fiction territory here, folks. Think "Tank Girl Meets Bladerunner." Our main protagonist, Queenie, is a bit of a loose cannon, and more than fulfill's this series' "action" (read: violence) quotient. I also found her the least interesting of the bunch, perhaps because she seems so one-note to me. She's defined more by the people around her than by any internal characterization most of the time. She's a born - okay, made - leader, but she doesn't appear too bright strategy-wise; she'd rather shoot than think herself out of a jam. But you can't blame a gal for doing her job, nor a clone for following her programming - Sorensen cloned her and the other "Betas" to be bodyguards. The reticent "Delta" Vector holds much more fascination for me. But we're meant to focus on Queenie in large measure. She gets a few too many full-figure close-up panels which sometimes work to subvert her intensity by drawing attention to her stance rather than her actions. This is furthered at times by what I call very Jurgens-like "bystander dialogue" ("Did you see her? Whatta heartbreaker!" "Ball-buster is more like it, bro!"), as well as by the name of the book itself (don't know that you'd ever see a male hero specifically called a "heartbreaker," but I suppose I could be wrong there). She is, however, drawn proportionately, although her "uniform" makes little sense - a point which, to Bennett's credit, one of the characters explicitly makes. "Well, that outfit does seem kind of, um, impractical. I suppose it could give you a tactical advantage against most men, though, and some women, too! I know I'd be too distracted by it to shoot straight! Grrrrowl!" As necessary as this observation is, it also has the effect of cognitive dissonance from the reader's viewpoint - Queenie's tough but sexy, impractical but competent, determined yet aimless. It's kind of shorthand characterization, but it's probably needed when you have a character who's defined almost exclusively by her violent actions. The bad guys at Biovoc are well established, and the whole clone plotline is played to good effect - you often can't tell the copies from the originals, and there is much ado made here and there about clone rights. The sf elements are pretty solid, although I always wonder - if this book is set in the near- or far-future, would your protagonist sport a modern-day punk haircut? Would men still wear suits? Remember, a short fifty years ago just about everyone wore hats. Go back a bit further and you get powdered wigs. It's an extremely minor point, but sf is the literature of possibilities, and I wouldn't mind seeing a little more imagination where dress and coiffure are concerned. Give 'em clown makeup. Give 'em footwear with each individual toe molded in. Put the guys in skirts! :) Something to show us it's not the 1990s in disguise. Yeah, you risk losing a bit of audience identification, but the connection should be with the characters, not with the "kewl" clothes they wear. In any case, lots of players in motion, plots and counterplots, and I look forward to the protagonists taking matters into their own hands rather than reacting to events around them. So far we have them holed up in their hideaway with an android, Femiquin-44 (I don't think the number refers to the android's bust size <g>) whose biocircuitry has been infused with the retrovirus, which has apparently started to spread. Biovoc's looking for the fugitives, who keep eluding their grasp. They've grafted "cyberlimbs" onto a clone (who thinks he's the original) to use as a weapon against them; I'm taking bets on which side he'll be on once he becomes self-aware. Good, complex stuff which can only get better if Queenie's character develops beyond stock "action hero with guns." Looking forward to seeing this in color. Recommended - look for it in April. [These reviews are reprinted, with permission, from the rec.arts.comics Usenet newsgroups, and are copyright 1996 Elayne Wechsler-Chaput, who has suddenly started receiving inquiries from various places for her writing resume. I refer all interested parties to Johanna Draper, farther along the road to pro-dom than I. After all, reviewing is easy; fiction is hard...] |
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