Go to: Destructor by Sean T. Collins and Matt Wiegle
11/01/2011
10/28/2011
Brilliant #1
Fiction that tries to answer the "what if superheroes were real" question tends to follow one of two broad approaches.* In the first, ordinary people put on costumes and try to act like superheroes despite an absence of superpowers or impossible blend of skill sets. This happens to have some currency due to the activities of Real-life Superheroes. But with all due respect to Phoenix Jones and his ilk, only the second approach piques my inner scientist. Those are the stories that speculate on the real-world possibility of metahumans. Sure it might be interesting to explore what motivates mere mortals to fight crime. But without the powers or ludicrous training, they're still basically vigilantes who cosplay. Another advantage of the latter approach is that the protagonist doesn't have to conform to the narrow requirements of the superhero genre. After all, just because someone can fly, it doesn't make her morally obligated to fight crime.
Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Bagley's creator-owned series Brilliant uses the latter. It follows a bunch of ordinary, if very smart, college students researching the possibility of developing real-world superpowers. Since Bendis and Bagley were the original creative team behind the Ultimate Spider-Man, familiar readers might expect them to bring their particular brand of teen drama into this project. They do, but unfortunately, this inaugural issue ends up showcasing the weaknesses to their Marvel-honed style.
The comic begins with a young man named Amadeus robbing a bank in broad daylight. During the heist, he exhibits a number of paranormal abilities. But just as things are about to get interesting, the scene suddenly shifts. Now another man named Albert is entering what appears to be a college dorm. He's welcomed back by the other residents, as he took the previous semester off. What follows is twenty pages of Bendis' staccato dialogue. We're treated to gems like this:
I'm OK. It's all okay.And so on and on. I get the impression that Bendis is trying hard to capture the nervous energy of the college milieu. Such cryptic shorthand might convey the casual intimacy between freinds, but it doesn't leave much room for adequate characterization. There are about half a dozen characters being introduced, including Amadeus and Albert, but they share one personality between them. Only Bagley's and Joe Rubinstein's art allows the reader to separate their individual voices. To their credit, the multi-ethnic cast is easily distinguishable. But without colorful costumes, fight scenes, and requisite poses to work from, the art only rates slightly above average. It's only towards the end when the conversation gets around to discussing the viability of creating genuine superpowers. And the scene cuts off again. There's no cliffhanger or natural chapter break.
No, really?
Really.
Did they talk to you yet?
About what?
So that's it. Two disjointed scenes with not much to latch onto. I realize it's now common practice to use the first issue as a setup for a larger story arc. But even by those standards, this is a pretty slow intro. Actually, it feels more like the prelude to the intro proper. It's a frustrating read, and not the most compelling way to hook skeptical readers.
____
* The seminal Watchmen naturally uses both.
10/26/2011
10/25/2011
10/20/2011
Action Comics #2
Superman created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster
Grant Morrison's approximation of the Superman created by Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel is stylistically incongruous with the character's other appearances in the New 52 lineup. No surprise there, since his source of inspiration was a left-wing, rabble-rousing figure who tossed suspects from great heights before Batman trademarked the move, took on war profiteers and crooked politicians alike, and resisted arrest whenever the cops showed up. Fight the Power! Morrison at least gets his rebellious appeal, imbuing his own Superman with the appropriate swagger when facing close-minded authority figures. This issue starts with him being detained by the military and tortured for information, due to the events in the previous issue. But it isn't long before he regains his bearings and starts punching through the walls of his prison, reducing his would-be captors to hapless bystanders.
This issue features the first confrontation between Superman and his arch-nemesis Lex Luthor within the New 52 universe. Unlike the rogue scientist or evil CEO of the past, this Luthor works for The Man. He's an insufferable middle manager, which means he assumes the role of head inquisitor to Superman. The reader learns a few things about the character. While he's still a brilliant scientist, he isn't quite the master manipulator, at least not yet. He also retains the speciest beliefs he's being spouting for the last twenty-plus years. In an obvious reference to the War on Terror, Luthor has no problems torturing Supes because (a) he's not human and therefore not subject to human rights, (b) he might be an agent sent to Earth for nefarious purposes, (c) how can it be torture when the alien doesn't seem to get hurt anyway? The comic's most important plot twist implies that Lex may be more intimately aware of Superman's origins than he was in past incarnations, which fuels his paranoia. But the bottom line is that Lex gets egg on his face for calling his foe "semi-intelligent".
Superman's physicality is a major selling point here. While he may not be as impervious as Luthor makes him out to be, the comic is constantly throwing him against large and heavy objects. And it looks like it hurts, a lot. His enemies are at first amazed at how much punishment he can take. And then they run for cover when he starts trashing the place. At one point Lex even assumes the same pose as the fleeing figure in the original Action Comics #1 cover. Actually, it's kind of funny to look at. But for Lex, that was one really bad day at the office.
This is an entertaining, if slight, story with some revealing character interaction from not only Superman and Luthor, but in the relationship between supporting characters Sam Lane, his daughter Lois Lane, and John Corben (the future villain Metallo). Like those early stories by Siegel and Shuster, Superman seems to be the only superhuman around, a fantasy element sticking out in a mundane world. But his fate is already sealed. It's only a matter of time before the Morrison version of the character, looking like a cosplayer that put in the least amount of work possible, will morph into the full-powered being dressed in that terrible Jim Lee ensemble that premiered in Justice League. He's only fought earthbound antagonists so far. But there are already indications in this issue that future threats will come from more fantastic milieus.
10/18/2011
10/16/2011
Triumph of Steve
Go to: Babble by
I became a full-time Macintosh user after realizing that I could make art and manipulate photos on a personal computer. I had used Macs before, but no more frequently than I had used machines running on DOS or Windows. And even after I had switched to Macs, I had a "live and let live" attitude about the whole Mac vs PC debate. I had my preferences, but I wasn't out to convert anybody. The same could be said with how I thought about Nikon vs Canon. I really didn't give a damn what SLR camera you used (The lens on the other hand was a different matter).
But I became a student of the graphic arts during the dark days of Apple, when everyone was predicting the company's demise. So I did feel a tad isolated. In the PBS documentary Triumph of the Nerds (which one instructor made his students watch), a bitter Steve Jobs in exile bemoaned the lack of taste in Microsoft's products. Just a few years later, In the Beginning was the Command Line was touting Linux and other Unix-like operating systems as the future of the desktop. The mood within campus computer labs could be summed-up by a defiant editorial cartoon tacked-up in a graphic design classroom. In it, a guy walks into a studio full of people working on Macs and demands "We need a cartoon illustrating how Macs are becoming irrelevant", or something to that effect. It was easy for some to feel misunderstood as artists and as computer users. Such was the self-indulgence of youth. When Steve returned to Apple and unveiled a Unix-like OS to run on Macs, I was only a tiny bit, cautiously, hopeful. Steve may have been brilliant, but he still retained his legendary reputation for being an overbearing egotist and a difficult boss to work with. It wouldn't have surprised me if he prematurely left the company he co-founded for a second time.
Oddly enough, that's actually what happened. Instead of a boardroom coup d'état though, it was Steve's own mortality that betrayed him, at the all-too-young age of 56. That he died from cancer is deeply saddening to me in very personal ways that I won't get into. But when I think of Steve Jobs, I find him such an improbable character. He wasn't an engineer, programmer, MBA, or artist of any note. Yet he had an impact on technology, consumerism, and popular culture like no one else. And he left a dynamic company imprinted with the best, and worst, aspects of his mercurial persona and utopian idealism. In the words of Scott McCloud , a creator who's expressed strong opinions about the marriage of technology and art: "Great design can and does change the world. Poor design can and does ruin lives." That's a line a certain aspiring student from a long time ago would have subscribed to.
10/15/2011
10/13/2011
What do Wonder Woman and Heracles have in common?
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| Wonder Woman #5 cover drawn by Cliff Chiang |
Daddy issues, apparently. And a jealous wife to contend with.
So DC announced changes to Wonder Woman's origin story that initially comes across as more radical than previous reboots. Here's my initial take on the news:
- I've said before that it's DC's prerogative to make changes to their intellectual properties, especially if it helps sell more comics. And Wonder Woman has been a character that the publisher has struggled with to make appealing to readers. If this new version sells, then it will justify the move in DC's eyes. And if it doesn't, expect to see some previously laid out plot points being exploited to retcon it away. If DC has taught its readers anything, it's that permanent change is an illusion.
- Having said that, I can't help but feel that this new origin spells out a larger compromise about the character. It's frankly a rather conventional and less interesting take. On paper, it sounds like an imitation of Marvel's approach to their mythically-based properties. Which is why I find writer Brian Azzarello's statements about returning to the family squabbling of ancient Greek mythology fairly uninspired. It's been done already. And it seems calculated to appeal to DC's core readership more than anyone else. The classic WW origin contained pretty strong proto-feminist elements mixed in with quixotic inventiveness, and a dollop of male fantasy, fermented in the heady atmosphere of World War II. It's a unique blend that has proven to be an ill fit to an increasingly grim DC Universe. While I won't go so far as to say they're a complete repudiation of a fundamental aspect of the character, the changes come across as a bit of a retrenchment, or a top-down marketing initiative.
- The "daddy's girl" description of WW, not to mention the title of the New York Post article that broke the story, was pretty groan-inducing. Still, there's something to be said about how DC has successfully gotten the press to act as their mouthpiece during the entire September relaunch. It stands in contrast to the usual grumbling voiced online.
- On an unrelated note, I'm still rockin' to Cliff Chiang's art.
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