Wednesday Review 4/13/2005
A new feature on this blog, one designed to get me posting more often, but also to disseminate some of my accumulated wisdom. Reviews are not always from a political perspective. Anyway, the point of the Wednesday Review is to pick a comic or two that has come out this week and review it. That's it. New comics come out on Wednesdays, for those who didn't know.
First Review - She-Hulk: Superhuman Law TPB
This is a collection of Dan Slott's excellent series She-Hulk. This particular volume collects issues 7 - 12 of his run. Ever since Bryne's She-Hulk series in the 90s (where she addressed the reader and was very aware that she was in a comic book), the character has operated on a "meta" level where her adventures often comment on/criticize comic books. This series is no different, though here the metacommentary comes from She-Hulk working in a justice system where comic books (which, in this [the Marvel] Universe faithfully record the lives and adventures of the superheroes) can serve as legal documents.
This is quite a funny and endearing title. Dan Slott shows himself to be quite the writer, able to tell a story, weave in continuing subplots and still please the geek fanboys such as myself. The best example of this comes from the last tale collected in this book, "Some Disassembly Required." While the thrust of the tale comes from one of She-Hulk's old foes (Titania) gaining enormous power and thus finally having enough strength to kill She-Hulk.
But a secondary plot occurs when a group of comic fans must search through back issues of comics in order to find a way to save She-Hulk from this powerful enemy. At first, all they want to do is complain about how the continuity in the comics is screwed up (a common complaint of fans on internet message boards). But another character takes them to task and tells them to (instead of complain) assume that there are no continuity conflicts and instead to come up with a reason that explains away the apparent discrepancy. This guy gets a peck on the cheek from Jennifer Walters (the human alter ego of She-Hulk) and she tells him that he's "the kind of fan" she prefers.
However, most of the tale deals with a straight up action scene, with heroes coming out of the woodwork to aid She-Hulk and getting their butts kicked. Dan Slott manages to provide a tale that satisfies on many levels. The casual fan gets an often humorous, but spectacular action tale. The die-hard fan gets that as well, but also gets a gentle lesson on how to be a fan. Dan Slott seems to want to not just pander to his readers, but to improve them as well.
I hope he keeps it up.
Second Review - Man-Thing: Whatever Knows Fear TPB.
This trade paperback collects a three issue mini-series that prequels the upcoming Sci-Fi channel original movie Man-Thing. It also collects the first appearance of the Man-Thing in comics and the comic story that "inspired" the movie. [Note: The Man-Thing in the main tale, however, is NOT the same Man-Thing from the other stories appended to this collection. The Marvel universe Man-Thing is the product of science gone wrong and is loosely connected to the Captain America mythos. The one in the prequel tale seems to be a mystical force of nature.]
The writer of this series also wrote the script for the upcoming movie, so at least we can rest assured that the series will (somewhat) reflect the feel of the movie.
I have to say, I could tell that this was written by a screen writer rather than a comics writer, as much of the script (ably interpreted by Kyle Hotz) calls for "camera angles" not usually found in a comic. Early on, a conversation between two characters that could have been rendered with uninteresting talking heads is made more interesting by constant changes in perspective and the juxtaposition of differing, often jarring images.
This is not to say that this doesn't appear in comics (it does), but that it is rarer than in film, and its constant use reveals a sensibility tuned more to the screen than the comic page. It's actually quite refreshing (despite the art being effectively disquieting).
The tale in this comic, though, proceeds along fairly conventional paths. There are the standard villains: An evil company/big business that does not care about any lives lost, sacred sites ruined - or if the environment gets damaged along the way. Also, we have mule-headed local law enforcement officers who just get in the way. Meanwhile, the native peoples who inhabit the bayou are apparently noble savages who are closer to nature and purer spiritually than us benighted westerners.
All in all, the tale isn't bad and it's told with better than average skill. It held my interest and made it so I might actually check out the TV movie. I just wish the entertainment industry could find better/more original bad guys than the standard liberal boogeymans "big business" and "corrupt law enforcement."
First Review - She-Hulk: Superhuman Law TPB
This is a collection of Dan Slott's excellent series She-Hulk. This particular volume collects issues 7 - 12 of his run. Ever since Bryne's She-Hulk series in the 90s (where she addressed the reader and was very aware that she was in a comic book), the character has operated on a "meta" level where her adventures often comment on/criticize comic books. This series is no different, though here the metacommentary comes from She-Hulk working in a justice system where comic books (which, in this [the Marvel] Universe faithfully record the lives and adventures of the superheroes) can serve as legal documents.
This is quite a funny and endearing title. Dan Slott shows himself to be quite the writer, able to tell a story, weave in continuing subplots and still please the geek fanboys such as myself. The best example of this comes from the last tale collected in this book, "Some Disassembly Required." While the thrust of the tale comes from one of She-Hulk's old foes (Titania) gaining enormous power and thus finally having enough strength to kill She-Hulk.
But a secondary plot occurs when a group of comic fans must search through back issues of comics in order to find a way to save She-Hulk from this powerful enemy. At first, all they want to do is complain about how the continuity in the comics is screwed up (a common complaint of fans on internet message boards). But another character takes them to task and tells them to (instead of complain) assume that there are no continuity conflicts and instead to come up with a reason that explains away the apparent discrepancy. This guy gets a peck on the cheek from Jennifer Walters (the human alter ego of She-Hulk) and she tells him that he's "the kind of fan" she prefers.
However, most of the tale deals with a straight up action scene, with heroes coming out of the woodwork to aid She-Hulk and getting their butts kicked. Dan Slott manages to provide a tale that satisfies on many levels. The casual fan gets an often humorous, but spectacular action tale. The die-hard fan gets that as well, but also gets a gentle lesson on how to be a fan. Dan Slott seems to want to not just pander to his readers, but to improve them as well.
I hope he keeps it up.
Second Review - Man-Thing: Whatever Knows Fear TPB.
This trade paperback collects a three issue mini-series that prequels the upcoming Sci-Fi channel original movie Man-Thing. It also collects the first appearance of the Man-Thing in comics and the comic story that "inspired" the movie. [Note: The Man-Thing in the main tale, however, is NOT the same Man-Thing from the other stories appended to this collection. The Marvel universe Man-Thing is the product of science gone wrong and is loosely connected to the Captain America mythos. The one in the prequel tale seems to be a mystical force of nature.]
The writer of this series also wrote the script for the upcoming movie, so at least we can rest assured that the series will (somewhat) reflect the feel of the movie.
I have to say, I could tell that this was written by a screen writer rather than a comics writer, as much of the script (ably interpreted by Kyle Hotz) calls for "camera angles" not usually found in a comic. Early on, a conversation between two characters that could have been rendered with uninteresting talking heads is made more interesting by constant changes in perspective and the juxtaposition of differing, often jarring images.
This is not to say that this doesn't appear in comics (it does), but that it is rarer than in film, and its constant use reveals a sensibility tuned more to the screen than the comic page. It's actually quite refreshing (despite the art being effectively disquieting).
The tale in this comic, though, proceeds along fairly conventional paths. There are the standard villains: An evil company/big business that does not care about any lives lost, sacred sites ruined - or if the environment gets damaged along the way. Also, we have mule-headed local law enforcement officers who just get in the way. Meanwhile, the native peoples who inhabit the bayou are apparently noble savages who are closer to nature and purer spiritually than us benighted westerners.
All in all, the tale isn't bad and it's told with better than average skill. It held my interest and made it so I might actually check out the TV movie. I just wish the entertainment industry could find better/more original bad guys than the standard liberal boogeymans "big business" and "corrupt law enforcement."
posted by John Phelan at
6:05 PM
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