Month: July 2024

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New X-Men Modern Era Epic Collection: E is for Extinction

This is a review of New X-Men Modern Era Epic Collection: E is for Extinction. I read this groundbreaking X-Men run, written by Grant Morrison with art by Frank Quitely (with fill-ins), back in 2001-2002. Mutants are thriving, humanity will be extinct in five generations, and the X-Men now wear leather outfits.

At the moment, those X-Men consist of Cyclops, Marvel Girl, Wolverine, Beast, and the White Queen. Secondary mutations are commonplace. The Beast is mutating into an enormous cat, Emma Frost (The White Queen) can make her skin hard as a diamond, and Jean Grey’s (Marvel Girl) telekinetic abilities have returned. Charles Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters is thriving. We even meet Xorn, a new X-Men who has a sun in his brain. What could go wrong?

Enter Cassandra Nova, who makes an entrance with a literal bang, commandeering a Master Mold Sentinel which destroys the mutant city of Genosha. Sixteen million mutants die, but Cassandra is just getting started. In the meantime, the U-Men arrive. The U-Men are human beings who want to be mutants, and their solution to this dilemma is to chop actual mutants into bits and graft the pieces onto their own bodies.

Grant Morrison does some amazing work here, reimagining the X-franchise. His run only lasted four years, but boy oh boy was it influential. After Morrison left, Marvel did House of M and attempted to reset the X-Men back to the 1960’s, and it has taken the franchise two decades to recover from that faux pas. A must-read for any X-Men fan.

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Saga of the Swamp Thing Book Four

This is a review of Saga of the Swamp Thing Book Four. This is the conclusion of Swamp Thing’s vision quest across the dark side of America  courtesy of John Constantine. The volume ends with the penultimate issue. Good and evil duke it out, and Swamp Thing’s in the thick of it! This issue guest stars Deadman, Dr. Fate, The Phantom Stranger, The Spectre, The Demon Etrigan, Baron Winters, Zatanna, Zatara, Sargon the Sorcerer, Cain, Abel, Dr. Occult, and maybe a few others I’ve forgotten. The Kitchen Sink doesn’t make an appearance, but that’s about it.

In the meantime, Swamp Thing’s partner Abigail Arcane is arrested as a sex offender after illicit photographs surface of the two of them making love. IMO, this is the scariest scene in the graphic novel.

I mean, there’s not much else to say about this volume. The art, mostly by John Totleben and Stephen Bissette, is wonderful. Writer Alan Moore was way ahead of his time. Honestly, I prefer his Swamp Thing run to his later works (Watchmen and Killing Joke), but that’s just me.

Highly recommended!

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Marvel Masterworks: Spider-Woman Volume One

This is a review of Marvel Masterworks: Spider-Woman Volume One. Spider-Woman came into existence because of a copyright issue. Learning that another company was about to create a character named Spider-Woman, Marvel sprang into action and beat them to the punch! The result: a one-shot issue written by Archie Goodwin that is a marvel of efficiency. Spider-Woman, evolved from a spider by the High Evolutionary and then brainwashed by the terrorist organization Hydra, is sent to kill Nick Fury (the director of SHIELD). At the issue’s end, she throws off her brainwashing.

Spider-Woman’s next appearance is in Marvel-Two-In-One, a comic series which featured characters from the Marvel Universe teaming up with The Thing (of the Fantastic Four). This five-issue storyline, in which Alicia Masters (The Thing’s girlfriend) is transformed into an enormous psychotic spider/human hybrid that wrecks London, pretty much jumps the shark on every level. Spider-Woman’s origins become further muddled when Mordred the Mystic joins the party.

Next we have the Spider-Woman series, written by Marv Wolfman and illustrated by Carmine Infantino. Mr. Wolfman is a legendary comic writer who wrote Tomb of Dracula, Crisis on Infinite Earths, and the New Teen Titans, and under his guidance Spider-Woman becomes an uneasy hodgepodge – it has horror elements, it has superhero elements, it has elements of a fetish comic.

Wait, what? Yes, it’s true. In Issue #4 we have The Hangman, a villain who could double as a Rope Daddy. Spider-Woman finds herself in a jam, let’s put it like that, which makes no sense because she has super strength. It’s a scene that goes on for a number of pages, immortalized by Mr. Infantino’s skill at drawing Japanese rope bondage. Honestly, I have no idea how this issue made it past the Comics Code Authority.

If you read enough superhero comics, you know that this is hardly the only time a female character gets tied up. Still, as the most overt example of shibari bondage in mainstream comics I’ve ever seen, it’s worth a mention. When I read the mass market paperback 40+ years ago as a kid, this scene was the only thing I recalled decades later. Frederic Wertham was right, comics really do influence young minds!

Anyway, this is a weird graphic novel. If you ignore the Marvel Two-In-One storyline, it contains some pretty good comics.

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Tales of the Batman: Gerry Conway Vol. One

This is a review of Tales of the Batman: Gerry Conway Vol. 1, which consists of comics penned by famed comic writer Gerry Conway in the late 70’s/early 80’s. Unfortunately, the most impressive thing about this volume is the price tag, so wait until Comixology has one of their periodic Bat-sales to purchase.

Anyway, this graphic novel is the proverbial mixed bag. Mr. Conway writes Batman as a detective/escape artist, which means the trope of him getting bashed in the Bat-skull and then tied up in a Bat-Death Trap persists. It’s a strange thing, perhaps a call-back to the Bat-TV show. We have storylines involving Solomon Grundy – I mean Blockbuster, a Z-grade Batman villain – and another evildoer named The Black Spider, a vigilante who kills drug dealers just like the Punisher (whom Conway co-created).

The highlight of this volume is the two-issue storyline about Alfred’s (Batman’s butler) days in the French Resistance during World War Two. This story is affecting and features a proper ending; when I read a few of the older comics in this volume, it felt like I was getting the cliffs note version of the story.

I also enjoyed the stories from The Brave and The Bold, one of the first series I cut my comics-reading teeth on. The Brave and The Bold features team-ups, and in this volume Batman joins forces with Adam Strange, Wonder Woman, Firestorm, and the Guardians of the Universe. I enjoy the art of Jim Aparo, who did many of the Brave and Bold team-ups and draws a great Batman.

It’s tough to judge Mr. Conway’s work here, as he’s mostly writing fill-ins, single issues, and one-shots, but if such things are of interest, you can trace his growth as a writer within the pages of this volume. If you are a Batman fanatic or completist, go for it, otherwise you can skip this graphic novel.

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Marvel Masterworks: Howard the Duck Volume One

This is a review of Marvel Masterworks: Howard the Duck Volume One. Howard is a walking, talking, cigar-smoking duck. He came to earth from another dimension in the pages of Man-Thing, reviewed here. The first six or so issues are send-ups of different genres – fantasy, quack-fu, gothic. This changes when Howard runs for president and loses because of a doctored photograph. He has a mental breakdown, is committed to an insane asylum in Cleveland because of a traffic incident, and ends up being possessed by Damian Hellstrom’s evil second soul. Alas, Howard’s career as Devil Duck is cut sadly short, just like this comic.

The highlight of this graphic novel is when Howard runs for President, because reasons, but the establishment doesn’t want him because he’s a duck. He loses because of a fake photograph of him in the bathtub with Beverly Switzler. Beverly is human, Howard is a duck. Neither Howard nor Beverly nor the creators of the comic itself deny that Howard and Beverly have a relationship…but the photo is fake because Beverly doesn’t like wet feathers.

Howard the Duck is satire, but it’s done well. Marvel in the 1970’s tended to be the place where messages were bludgeoned home with a hammer, but Howard the Duck isn’t overtly political. Man Thing is Steve Gerber’s (the writer’s) political strip, featuring a brain-dead monstrosity that thrashes about mindlessly and destroys things with a touch of its burning fingers. Howard the Duck is about isolation. As a duck living in a world of humans, Howard is the ultimate outsider. He has a single friend, Beverly Switzler, who has a thing for outsiders: her past two boyfriends were a security guard possessed by a cosmic turnip and a guy who commits crime dressed in a diaper. There’s also the magnificent Hell Cow and Howard’s greatest enemy, The Kidney Lady.

This is Marvel’s version of an underground comic. It’s PG-rated, and the writer is perhaps a little self-absorbed, but the journey itself is loads of fun. Recommended!