comicbooks

Caliber is a five issue mini-series from newcomer Radical Publishing.  The final issue hit the stands this week and I’m reasonably sure it will be collected in a trade paperback before long. 

Caliber tells the story of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, but with a new twist.  This series is not set in old England, and Arthur is not a king.  This Arthur is the son of a soldier in the old West.  An enchanted six-shooter called Caliber stands in for the mystical sword Excaliber.  Merlyn is replaced by a Native American medicine man. 

If you’re a fan of Arthurian legend, there are lots of Easter Eggs.  They live in a town called Telacoma, an anagram for Camelot (with an extra ‘a’ thrown in for good measure).   Lance and Gwen replace Lancelot and Gwenevier.  This is a new take in a completely different setting, but the homages are all in place if you care to look.

While the story is novel and compelling, I’m not convinced that Radical really has a firm grasp on the medium of sequential art.  The painted scenes are gorgeous, but some of the sequences are hard to follow, without dialogue or text.  It also suffers a degree for the lack of distinctiveness in the characters artistically. 

In the end, this was an interesting premise with a mediocre execution.  Not bad, but not among the best books on the market, either.

Relatively Spoiler-Free

In the latest issue of Final Crisis, Superman’s role was reduced to sitting by the bedside of his critically injured wife, using his heat-vision to keep her heart beating.  A mysterious woman arrived and offered the means to cure Lois if Superman would go with her…

Superman Beyond 3D opens with the same scene (well, after a quick scene of Superman being beaten to a pulp by an unknown villain who refers to Superman’s “Cosmic Armor”, which he does not appear to be wearing).

The mystery woman turns out to be a Monitor of Nil, and she claims to be taking Superman on a mission to save all of existence.  Along with our Superman, she has recruited Ultraman (a bad version of Superman from Earth–3, where evil always triumphs over good), Overman (a German-speaking Superman from Earth-10, where the Nazis won WWII), Captain Marvel (the Fawcet Comics variety from Earth-5), and The Quantum Superman (Captain Allen Adam from Earth-4.  He’s a cross between Captain Atom from Charlton Comics and his pastiche in an alternate DC reality, Captain Manhattan).

While attempting to stop an out of control reality-spanning ship, they end up in Limbo, trapped in a world where they will soon forget everything and be forgotten.  There they find a book with an infinite number of pages, all occupying the same space - every book possible contained in one volume.

This is only a two-part series, and the first issue is just barely getting us set up for the action.  Other than the strange little ‘fast forward’ at the beginning, the big bad does not make an appearance in the book.  Though anytime you’ve got Ultraman and a Vampiric Monitor (that’s right) running around, you’re set for some solid conflic.  This is what the main Final Crisis has lacked so far.  A multiverse-spanning epic featuring the greatest heroes of their worlds.

Unlike Final Crisis proper, I’m eagerly awaiting the next issue of FC: SB 3D.

Secret Invasion continues to move forward by going backward.  And yet it works so well.  This issue takes us back to the Skrull Empire, shortly after the events of Illuminati.  The story covers the Skrulls’ attempts to make themselves indectable to magic, technology, and mind reading.  This issue answers the question of how the Skrulls were able to fool everyone.  Sort of.  We don’t know what they did exactly, but we know how they figured it out.

Well-written, good artwork - I’ve only been reading Mighty Avengers since the start of Secret Invasion, but I have been consistently impressed by this book.  Secret Invasion isn’t really an 8 part story, nor do you need to read every tie-in title that Marvel shoves at you to properly enjoy it.  In reality, this is a story in 24 parts split between SI, MA, and New Avengers.   

I love Brian Michael Bendis’ writing.  If I ever have triplets, I may name them Brian, Michael, and Bendis.  (The third one kind of gets shafted on that deal.)  But today I’m going to pick apart one sniggly detail that has been bugging me since I read SI #5.

In Secret Invasion #3, Skrullingbird is able to tell Hawkeye a deeply personal secret that only he and the real Mockingbird would now.  Mock & Hawk were married in the 1980s, but it would probably be only 3 or 4 years ago in elastic comic book time, I would think. 

In New Avengers #44, we see the Skrulls playing with a Reed Richards clone and using a faux-Franklin Richards to get what they want from him.  It is common knowledge, even in the Skrull Empire, that the Reed & Sue have children.  Franklin is 8  or 10 years old now in comic age. 

So why, tell me, why would the InvisiSkrull Woman not know that Reed has children in Secret Invasion #5? 

Anybody? 

With most writers and in most comics, I would simply think that this was sloppy writing.  But this is Bendis, and this is Secret Invasion and I’m coming to expect great things from both.   

Disclaimer: I’m not a regular Batman reader.  I just jumped on board for Batman RIP.

If it weren’t for all the fuss, this would be a perfectly serviceable Batman story.  But billed as the Batman crossover event of the century with such shocking teasers as: “Who will be the new Batman?”, this is just… a barely serviceable Batman story.

It seems that a generic bad guy at some point in the past placed a post-hypnotic suggestion to turn off the Batman persona from Bruce Wayne’s mind.  OK.  Now some other generic bad guy is using that to drag Batman through some mud.  OK.  But Batman, being Batman, foresaw that someone might someday plant a post-hypnotic suggestion in his mind to turn off his Batman persona, so he implanted a second Batman persona to take over should the first one be turned off.

Seriously, that’s the plot.  I’m not making this up.  Now the new Batman personality is in control, and he is a few crayons short of a box.  He talks to an imaginary friend about the conversations he had with some inanimate objects.  His main weapon in his one man war against crime is the Bat-Radia, which is actually a broken hand-held radio.

The whole Batman RIP story to this point feels like a teaser for something cool that will eventually happen involving the Joker.  But so far… nothing.

Normally, I spend most of my reviews talking about story & maybe touch on the art at the end if it is especially good or especially bad.  But when the comic involves George Perez and huge number of characters and group shots, I’ve got to lead with: Wow!  This book is beautiful.

With that aside, it’s also a good read.  Very good, even.  Geoff Johns handles the task of laying out the Legion’s fifty year history in comics amazingly well.  This is a long book with lots of talking head moments, but somehow the story continuously moves forward.  The fantastic art doesn’t hurt a bit in that department, either.

My only complaint about this book is the leap of logic that brings in the Legions of three worlds.  I think I can safely mention this without spoiling anything since it is kind of inherent in the title of the book.  But it goes something like this:

Superman: “Superboy-Prime is a bad me from another universe.”

Brainiac 5: “Well, then, the only logical response is for us to recruit two additional Legions of Superheroes from alternate universes to fight him.”

Honestly, it isn’t much smoother than that.  It did give Perez the chance to draw two full-page spreads of the alternate Legions, which is a good thing.  I can over look that one contrived moment (even though it is the set up for the entire series) as long as the writing and art continue to be this strong. 

Frankenstein?  SHADE?  The Super-Happy-Japanese-Hero-Team?  What is going on here? 

As Final Crisis rolls on, you need an advanced degree in Grant Morrison-ology with a minor in Jack Kirby-ism just to keep up.  Morrison is a great writer, but it seems like DC has given him a little bit too much creative freedom for self-indulgence lately.  Don’t even get me started on the insensible quagmire that is Batman R.I.P.. 

But back to the Crisis at hand.  There is some really good stuff here, and some really self-referential non-sense here, too.  I like the appearance of an alternate universe Supergirl.  That feels like a Multiversal Crisis kind of a thing.  The fight between Mary Marvel and Wonder Woman was good stuff. 

But if you’re going to turn MM into a bad girl, why give her such a hideous hairdo?  Comics 101 – bad girls in revealing tight black outfits should be nice to look at, not mostly bald with weird pink ponytails.  Now that I’m on the subject of MM, I wonder if she is bad for good now, or if this will be some soon-forgotten mind control deal.  Her descent to badness was played out inconsistently in Countdown, so I just don’t know what to make of her at this point.  My vote would be to keep her bad.

One final thought – if Superman’s heat vision is the only thing keep Lois alive (don’t ask me how), then how can he leave her to run off with Weird Robe Woman to save her?  I get that Darkseid’s plan is to take the best of all the heroes out of the fight, but I sure hope he finds his way back.  In the end, the resolution to both of the previous Crisis’ came down to a Superman.  It would be a letdown if he is nowhere to be seen when the Final Crisis comes to a close.

This comic just continues to impress me. After a relatively slow issue last month, this issue ratchets up the pace. Mr. Fantastic is back in action. The rocket ship Skrulls are revealed. Clint Baton, my favorite Marvel character who isn’t the son of Odin, takes an emotional hit so hard that it just leaps from the pages straight to your heart.

About the only negative in the whole book is the continued use of thinly disguised expletives, as in “@#%#$@”. Of course, it is better than using the actual words, but they are so clearly laid out in context that your brain can’t help but fill in the appropriate curse.

But this book is so well written that I can let that go. Bendis has done amazing things with characters I normally could not care less about like Nick Fury, Maria Hill, and Agent Brand. Secret Invasion has been head and shoulders above DC’s Final Crisis, and issue five shows no signs of changing that.