Comics Candy: November 2010

On paper at least, it sounds like a bad idea (akin to those woeful last-gasp Universal films like House of Dracula, where monster X meets/fights Monster Y), but actually the Angel vs Frankenstein II one-shot (IDW) is a very well crafted and neatly executed slice of fusion horror.

I confess, I haven’t read writer/artist John Byrne’s first pairing of Joss Whedon’s tormented vampire and Frankenstein’s monster, but thankfully that didn’t detract at all from this impressively self-contained and energetic rematch.

This time it’s Angel (rather than the evil Angelus) that runs into Baron Frankenstein’s patchwork creation, and there’s a telling parallel between the vampire-with-a-soul’s own gypsy curse and the one that follows the monster around, causing him to be haunted — to the point of distraction and madness — by the restless spirits of the assorted corpses that make up his component parts.

Involving characters, smart pacing, good action and a dab of the kind of pathos that should always, always characterize the monster make Angel vs Frankenstein II my unofficial ‘top of the ten’ for October.

And I’ve got to say, AvF had a lot of potential rivals this month. For starters, I really liked Loki #1 (Marvel), which — refreshingly — seemed to draw far more on the original Norse myths and legends and less on Marvel’s own spandex-clad creation.

Writer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa plays around with the intrinsic unreliability of the source material to create a disorientating and unsettling descent into Loki’s mind, where the line between reality and his bitter and twisted imagination constantly blurs.

Loki’s ‘memories’ prove wholly unreliable, stressing his state of mind as much as his reputation as master trickster. And behind the lies and half-truths lurks a genuine sense of menace and momentous events unfolding or already unfolded.

The sheer bottled up lack of reaction on Thor’s part is somehow more effective than if he’d come in all Hammer a’twirling. Very nice job indeed!

And there’s a whole lot to enjoy about Knight and Squire #1 (DC). (It almost made the top of the ten just because it references Benny Hill’s Ernie: the Fastest Milkman in the West single.) In fact, this ‘British Batman and Robin’ is chock full of sly references and knowing nods, some writer Paul Cornell owns up to, others (including a ‘first Thursday of the month’ tip of the hat — thanks, Paul) he doesn’t.

The intrinsic British-ness of the whole venture, right down the rhyming slang, may put some US readers off, but I genuinely enjoyed the whole lack of conformity about, well, just about everything, from characters to settings (the whole issue plays out in a pub, which is about as British as you can get) to motivations (or lack thereof).

Everything is cheerfully calm, rational and reasonable, right down to the resolution, which eschews the predictable ass-kicking violence in favour of calm arbitration. Lovely!

Much as I don’t like what they’re doing to Daredevil currently, the whole Shadowland event has spawned some nice crossovers and spin-offs, among them Shadowland: Spider-Man (Marvel), which is ultimately more of a Shang-Chi one-shot than a Spider-Man one-shot (and not to its detriment).

The ‘rival gang led by Mr. Negative versus the Hand with Spider-Man caught in the middle’ plot is every bit as by-the-numbers and yawn-inducing as my brief précis makes it sound, but what elevates and enlivens this is Shang-Chi’s inner battle against his dead father’s (Fu Manchu no less) megalomaniacal legacy, plus some very snappy one-liners throughout.

All in all, a bright and breezy two-hander, well written and drawn and done in one! Makes me kind of miss Marvel Team-up.

Wheelchair-bound heroes turn up this month like London buses, featuring in both Soldier Zero #1 (Boom) and Superior #1 (Marvel/Icon). Of the two, I enjoyed Soldier Zero more, which — while it leaves an equal-ish number of key questions unanswered — had more substance and meat on the bones for a first issue.

In Solider Zero, former marine captain Stewart Troutman (paralysed from the waist down by an Afghan roadside bomb) battles with disability, intolerance and disempowerment, while trying to pursue both a normal life as an astronomy lecturer and pretty co-worker Lily. He inherits an alien battlesuit when its original owner falls to Earth — hard — and, well, that’s about it for issue #1.

It’s a solid set-up and I admire the somewhat sauntering, getting-to-know-you pace, but overall it just would have benefited from a touch more on the original owner of the battlesuit and some hint of the greater (looming) threat.

Superior is even lighter on backstory, with its tale of young MS sufferer Simon Pooni and his elevation/transformation (via a talking monkey in a spacesuit) into all-around muscle-bound (adult) screen superhero Superior. There’s a sprinkling of quaint pixie-dust about the proceedings, as if Chris Columbus were directing a feelgood Mark Millar production but forgot to remove the four-letter-words.

As so often with Millar’s stuff, there’s lots to like, and it’s well realised and involving on a character level, but Superior doesn’t quite feel like a story yet. Maybe it’s just the talking monkey that bothered me. After that excruciating one in Jurassic Park a month or so back, I’m down on all things simian.

Honourable mention for Ratchet & Clank #2 (DC/Wildstorm), which manages to be genuinely funny and appealing and more than the sum of its computer game turned comic book parts.

A smart, clever script that strikes that deft note of appealing to all age groups at once and characters that are genuinely likeable are at the heart of this smile-inducing inter-galactic romp. Highly entertaining, and my didn’t-see-that-one-coming title of the month!

Morning Glories #3 (Image) was also very slick piece of work, with a deeply unsettling and weird undercurrent running throughout its tale of strange goings on at the sinister Morning Glory academy.

It reads like a westernised manga, and I’m sure that’s the intention, but therein lies its slight Achilles Heel. It felt somehow as if there should have been quite a bit more of it per ‘hit.’ But it does do enough to make you want to see and know more.

Of the recent spate of Gold Key character re-launches, Turok: Son of Stone #1 (Dark Horse) is the most convincing and well realized.

Whereas with Solar and Magnus Robot Fighter the initial promise didn’t quite extend to the final panel, Turok starts well, rattles along quite nicely, puts all the characters where they need to be (ie. in danger of being eaten by prehistoric carnivores or sacrificed to icy high priestesses) and finishes breathlessly with imminent peril for our hero and young Andar. Result!

So, I thought, was I actually going to get to column’s end without one duffer? Nope. Batman Odyssey #4 (DC) completely bucks this month’s sparkling trend.

I understand that getting Neal Adams back on Batman is a major coup. But somewhere in all the excitement someone forgot to include a credulous or even comprehensible story. Oh, and neglected to make any of the characters feel remotely like their characters. This feels like Batman: The Widening Gyre all over again. Sigh.