Author: ggaluschak68

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Superior Foes of Spider-Man Volume 1: Getting the Band Back Together

This is a review of Superior Foes of Spider-Man Vol. 1: Getting the Band Back Together. There’s a scene in this graphic novel where a kid tells Speed Demon, who used to call himself the Whizzer, that he’s stupid. Speed Demon tells the kid she might have a point, and then steals her dog.

Yes, that’s right. The Superior Foes of Spider-Man are villains. I won’t say super-villains, because there’s nothing super about them. They’re all too stupid. Boomerang, who throws boomerangs and has jets on his ankles, is stupid. Speed Demon, aka Whizzer, is stupid. Overdrive, the ultimate getaway driver, and the Beetle, the only girl in the group, are stupid. The Shocker differs from the others in that he’s really stupid.

The plot is too complex to explain. It involves the long-lost head of crime-boss Silvermane and a portrait of Dr. Doom. The plot doesn’t matter, though. The fun of this graphic novel lies in watching the characters double-and-triple cross each other. It’s a funny comic. Boomerang goes to a support group for super-villains. Speed Demon asks if objects get lighter when you move faster. Collective IQs fall fifty points when the Shocker enters a room.

This graphic novel reminds me more of a Dortmunder caper than a superhero comic. For those who don’t know, Dortmunder was the unluckiest criminal mastermind in the universe. Once he stole the same jewel five times. Recommended for people who like crime in their superhero comics.

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Human Diastrophism: A Love and Rockets Book

This is a review of Human Diastrophism: A Love and Rockets Book, the second Palomar volume written & drawn by Gilbert Hernandez. If you are new to Love & Rockets, start with Heartbreak Soup, which features the same characters and comes first chronologically. The Brothers Hernandez – Gilbert and Jaime and Mario – have been making great comics for over forty years. Personally, I like Gilbert’s material a little better than Jaime’s, but both are wonderful.

The chronicles of Palomar combine magic realism with an ensemble cast. The setting is Palomar, a village in Latin America cut off from the rest of the world. To clarify: the people of Palomar know the rest of the world exists, they just don’t have much contact with it. The plot is hard to describe, as there are a lot of them. Most of the storylines have to do with people arriving and leaving Palomar – a serial killer, a fashion designer, a woman who sets herself on fire, an aged hitman (?!?!) named Gorgo.

The Love and Rockets series features realistic body sizes and types. There is a frankness about sex, nudity, and bodily functions that might shock a few people. The characters have real problems, and don’t always make the ‘correct’ choices. Parts of this graphic novel are set around the late 1980’s, when everyone thought there’d be thermonuclear war. If you weren’t around then, you didn’t miss much; you can listen to Sting’s song Russians to catch up.

Anyway, highly recommended!  

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Crazy Desires of a Murderer

This is a review of the Crazy Desires of a Murderer, a 70’s giallo that takes place in a gloomy old castle. Yes, that title is pretty strange, but the Italian version of the title gives away the plot. I’m unsure why that’s such a big deal. If you are watching this movie, you might be more interested in the many sex scenes than deciphering the plot.

Let’s turn to that plot, shall we? The Lord of the Castle (LotC for short) is an expert in Oriental antiquities. I call him the Lord of the Castle because after looking at IMDB it’s unclear to me who played which character and what their names are. The LotC has dementia and can’t recall what he ate for breakfast. His retainers are a sexy housemaid and a sinister butler. Together, they keep watch over his son, a mute lad who practices taxidermy in his palatial basement laboratory/bedroom. Yes, the LotC hides his son away in the basement.

Anyway, the LotC also has a party-girl daughter, who does not live in the basement. She comes for a visit and brings along her asshole friends, one of whom uses her as an unwitting drug mule. During the course of their raucous partying and wild fornicating, one of the friends is murdered in bed. Her eyes – a recurring image in giallo – are plucked out of her head. This is the most gruesome scene in the movie.

The Inspector arrives, as the plot morphs from rich young Europeans partying to an exciting game of Clue! He’s as sharp as a drawer of knives, that inspector. Upon questioning a male suspect, he observes that the man had sex the night of the murder. He knows that because of the condition of the male suspect’s underpants. Besides being an Inspector, perhaps he’s also an underwear fetishist?

The characters in this movie do strange, inexplicable things. One of the male guests – the men in this movie seem waaaay older than the girls – puts the drugs he’s risked his life for into a random drawer. When he comes back later, the drugs are gone. Gosh, who would have expected that? Another male guest – or it might be the same one – rufies their hostess. Meanwhile, the maid has sex with the LotC’s son in his basement taxidermy love nest. I think he’s supposed to be a minor, but who knows? I’m bad at guessing ages.

It all boils down to this: who is the killer who wears the squeaky shoes? Now that would’ve been an awesome title! Since most of the characters of this movie are utter assholes, I wasn’t exactly wringing my hands over whodunit. If you remove the plot, you’re left with a bunch of sex scenes – some of which aren’t all that sexy – and one gruesome murder.

I wouldn’t watch this unless you are a fan of obscure giallo. On second thought, just check out The House of Laughing Windows.

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World’s Finest Silver Age Volume Two

This is a review of World’s Finest Silver Age Volume Two. You can read my review of the first volume, here. These aren’t the worst comics I’ve read by any means, which isn’t the same thing as saying they’re good. I plowed through them because I bought both volumes on sale at the same price.

If you want to see Batman, Robin & Superman team up in sci-fic inspired scenarios from the Silver Age, then this volume is for you. A few examples: Superman loses his memory and becomes the chief of a lost Indian tribe. A man with a salad colander on his head (i.e., a crackpot inventor) gains super-powers/uses an invention to torment the Dynamic Trio (there are many variations of this story). After making a million dollars, Batman becomes a big spender, buying looney inventions that don’t work. Superman makes a new friend, a bizarre little alien that goes berserk when it’s not around him. Bat-Mite and Mr. Mxyzptlk duke it out! Red kryptonite makes Superman behave strangely! Aliens of all kinds: invading earth, kidnapping Batman & Robin, asking the Dynamic Trio for help!!!

If this all sounds good, then by all means buy this volume. If it doesn’t, you’ve been warned.

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Immortal Hulk Omnibus, Part One

This is the first part of a review of the Immortal Hulk Omnibus. I believe this is the first Hulk volume I’ve reviewed. Of course, I have a history with the character. My favorite Hulks are the gentle green giant who wears purple pants and says things like ‘Hulk Smash!,’ as well as the Hulk blasted into space who lands on the planet Sakaar (Hulk the Barbarian). Of course, there’s also Scientist Hulk and Gangster Hulk (aka Joe Fixit).

This volume introduces the Devil Hulk, who only appears at night and seemingly cannot die. Bruce Banner can certainly die; he’s shot in the head at a gas station in the inaugural issue and is dead as a doornail. When night comes, he rises as the Hulk – and this Hulk is very difficult (I won’t say impossible) to kill.

Witness: the aftermath of the Hulk’s battle with The Avengers. He’s been chopped into little pieces, which are placed into jars of formaldehyde. It doesn’t matter. The Hulk breaks out of the jars and regenerates himself. It’s a great scene.

The plot involves a Green Door that leads to another place. That other place seems like it might be Hell, but OTOH it might be somewhere else. Whatever lurks behind the Green Door uses Bruce Banner’s dead father as its catspaw. Or is it Bruce’s father? Banner suffers from Dissociative Identity Disorder – forty years ago they’d call it a split personality – so maybe it’s Bruce himself.

Anyway, this omnibus features some of the best Hulk comics I’ve ever read. Writer Al Ewing is writing a great body horror comic. The Hulk has a large cast, almost all of them killed by other writers, but most of them are returning. Banner’s wife Betty is a red gargoyle thing, Rick Jones is sort of the Abomination, and Doc Samson is still Hulk’s favorite (read: only) psychotherapist. Can The Leader and General “Thunderbolt” Ross (Red Hulk) be far behind?

Highly recommended!

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Justice League of America: The Marriage of the Atom and Jean Loring

This is a review of Justice League of America: The Wedding of the Atom and Jean Loring. The JLA is a simple concept – seven of the most popular characters in the DC Universe team up – that should be a license to print money. This volume isn’t flying off anyone’s shelf, unfortunately. Most of the stories are written by Gerry Conway, who is a prolific writer. If you read superhero comics in the 1970’s and 1980’s, you’ve read him. I speak as a fan of his work when I say he’s done better work elsewhere.

The first four issues feature Jean Loring, aka the Atom’s fiancée, being abducted by aliens. This leads to her having a nervous breakdown, which is realistic. Jean randomly teleports throughout the universe, bringing natural disasters in her wake, which isn’t realistic but whatever. This storyline first appeared in the Secret Society of Super Villains, and each issue features the Atom teaming up with random heroines/heroes in his search.

After the Atom rescues his fiancée, we turn to the Justice League of America where writer Steve Englehart does a storyline featuring Star-Tsar, who may or may not be disgraced JLA mascot Snapper Carr. Snapper is like a former child celebrity gone to seed – rightly or wrongly, he blames the JLA. We also have a two-issue team-up between the JLA, the JSA (the JLA from Earth One), and the Legion of Super Heroes (far future teen heroes). If you don’t get what I’m saying, don’t worry about it. I am familiar with comics, and I had problems understanding the plot and keeping track of all the characters.

Writer Gerry Conway takes up writing duties soon afterwards, and does serviceable work. There’s no meta story to speak of, but the volume does culminate in the marriage of The Atom and Jean Loring. In between, we get a few classic JLA villains (T.O. Morrow, Doctor Destiny, etc.), Green Arrow annoying everyone, and Red Tornado – who is a robot – moping about what it means to be human. The issues are mostly a slog to read, although the writing gets better. Part of it might be the fact that the stories are 30 + pages and thus do not sync with me personally.

To me, the main point of these issues – because let’s be honest, sometimes comics are obscure for a reason – is to give us Jean Loring’s backstory for Brad Meltzer’s Identity Crisis miniseries (out in 2004!), in which she plays a role. Say what you will about Mr. Meltzer as a comic book writer, but nobody can accuse him of not doing his homework!

Recommended for JLA fans only.

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Kill, Baby, Kill

This is a review of Mario Bava’s Kill, Baby, Kill. Mr. Bava was an influential Italian director in the 1960’s and 1970’s who also directed horror classics such as Blood & Black Lace and Black Sabbath. My review of Blood & Black Lace is here. I thought I’d reviewed Black Sabbath as well, but I guess not.

I do not consider Kill, Baby, Kill to be a giallo; since it has supernatural elements, I’d call it a ghost story with gothic overtones. The movie takes place in a village in the Carpathians in 1907 (thanks, Wikipedia!). Our main character is Dr. Eswai. He’s a sharp dresser, that Dr. Eswai. Young women are dying of mysterious causes, and he has been summoned to the village to do an autopsy of the latest victim. Unfortunately, the villagers view autopsies as violating the will of God. Their solution to this knotty theological problem is to try to murder Dr. Eswai, because killing someone you disagree with is absolutely the will of God.

I should note that the more enlightened characters in this movie view the villagers as superstitious morons, but in their defense the villagers a) know exactly what’s going on; b) are right to be terrified. What’s unspoken here is the idea of divine retribution; i.e., the belief that they deserve what’s happening to them. Interestingly, there are no priests or overt religious imagery in this movie, meaning that the concept of forgiveness is absent.

Kill, Baby, Kill doesn’t have much gore, or violence, or sex – the holy trinity of horror movies. However, the visuals are striking. There’s a sequence with a spiral staircase that looks awesome. The plot is nothing special – young girl killed due to the negligence of the townspeople haunts said townspeople. The cast includes a crazed Baroness and a healer who drives coins into people’s hearts. Dr. Eswai is a certified skeptic and impeccable dresser. His co-star and potential love interest Monica doesn’t have much to do, as she’s just arrived at the village.

A nitpick: since the girl in question is a tween, and not a baby, maybe the title should read Kill, Tween, Kill! Or are we take ‘baby’ to refer to a nubile young woman? Perhaps it’s a reference to the Baroness, who has wild bed head and chews the scenery with great vigor. Anyway, Kill, Baby, Kill is available on Shudder. It’s a solid horror movie that looks great, but don’t watch if you don’t like older horror movies. By today’s standards, it’s tame.

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Moon Knight Epic Collection: Shadows of the Moon

This is a review of Moon Knight Epic Collection : Shadows of the Moon. You can read my review of the first volume, here. Moon Knight resembles Batman, down to the millionaire alter-ego and the Batarang (Moonarang?), except he dresses in white and the symptoms of his mental illness are more in-your-face.

The moon has four cycles, and Moon Knight has four personalities. I will refer to Moon Knight as Marc Spector, because he is the original. But I do like the ambivalence – mysticism or mental illness? Even though this is an early 80’s comic series, and thus about as subtle as a sledgehammer, writer Doug Moench is surprisingly coy on that topic. The bulk of the art is done by Bill Sienkiewicz, who has a distinctive style that’s not always to my personal tastes. Most of the stories are one or two-parters.

The most interesting storyline in this volume features Moon Knight archenemy the Bushmaster, who destroys the statue of moon-god Khonshu (Spector is a follower of Khonshu). It’s a psychological attack, which scores a direct hit. Spector is devastated, and the only thing that allows him to function again is the fact that Marlene (his partner) made a copy of the statue, which is what the Bushmaster destroyed. Or maybe the Bushmaster destroyed the original, and this statue is the copy? Spector doesn’t want to know.

There’s more! We meet an assassin who dresses up as an enormous rat, and counts rodents as his best (only?) friends. And then we have Morpheus, who took an experimental drug that makes him unable to dream. This drug was administered by Marlene’s heretofore unknown brother. If I didn’t know better, I’d say the creators made him up for this storyline. Morpheus’ inability to dream lets him tap into primal dark energy, as often happens, and the ability to manipulate people’s dreams.

The penultimate storyline resembles a James Bond movie, including doomsday weapons, assassins, bizarre gadgets and deathtraps. It involves the Mossad, a plot to set Manhattan afire, and a super-terrorist named Arsenal & his bikini-clad bodyguards. Arsenal is an anarchist dedicated to the destruction of all governments. He kills a friend of Spector’s, which gets Moon Knight involved. Marlene goes undercover, becomes a member of Arsenal’s guard, and gets into a no-holds brawl with his two other bodyguards. All of them wear bikinis, because reasons.

A decent series that helped pave the way to more adult-oriented superhero comics, but might be an acquired taste.

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Hitman Volume Two: 10,000 Bullets

This is a review of Hitman Volume Two: 10,000 Bullets. You can read my review of the first volume, here. There’s a scene in this volume where Natt the Hat – Tommy Monaghan’s hitman friend from Detroit – stomps on a ninja’s crotch to get information. This isn’t unusual. The hero displaying his manhood by beating the crap out of a guy who can’t fight back is a staple of action movies, especially buddy cop movies. The person getting beaten up is always a bad guy, which in action movie logic makes it okay. The problem is, what if the person doing the beating is also a bad guy?

Because Natt the Hat is a bad guy, just like Tommy Monaghan is a bad guy. This isn’t an insult. They kill people for a living, and they know the score. Garth Ennis (the writer) makes them likable. He gives Monaghan an imaginary code, i.e. don’t kill the good guys. Except Tommy is the person who determines who’s a good guy. None of that changes the fact that normal people view him with revulsion, fear, and hatred.

To wit: after getting shot, Tommy and Natt hole up in his girlfriend Wendy’s apartment. Wendy doesn’t know Tommy’s a hired killer, and is shocked when he shows up on her doorway half-dead. She lets him bleed on her couch until he’s well enough to leave, and then tells him to get out. She isn’t nice about it, either. And just like that Wendy is Tommy’s ex-girlfriend.

Natt the Hat – who serves as a sort of a Hitman Everyman – asks Tommy what he was thinking. Because he knows that a girl like Wendy is way out of Monaghan’s league. Natt knows it, the reader knows it. The only person who doesn’t is Tommy, who has an adolescent streak a mile long when it comes to women. AWWW SHUCKS LOOK AT ME I’M DATING A GURL!!!!!!!!!

Natt might not be able to read minds, but he can read people better than Tommy (who can read minds). When Tommy introduces Natt as his new best friend at Noonan’s (dive bar), his old best friend Pat gets upset. Natt sees this, but Tommy doesn’t. Tommy didn’t even mean anything bad by it – maybe. When Hacken (another hitman) punches Pat and calls him a coward, Monaghan breaks it up but later tells Natt that he thinks Hacken is right. It’s a lack of respect, which pays off big time. When Pat is later tortured for information, Tommy’s words are what keeps him from blabbing. Monaghan’s reaction to all this is to go on a killing spree, but the self-hatred isn’t hard to see.

Anyway, I liked this graphic novel a lot. Be warned: this is a very violent comic (there’s a 20+ page shootout that’s awesome), but it is comic book violence and thus not realistic. Still: if violence upsets you, you might not want to read this. There are also a few slurs that people used in the 1990’s that are (rightfully) taboo today.   

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Marvel Masterworks: The Avengers Volume Three

This is a review of Marvel Masterworks Avengers Volume Three. If you read my reviews of the first two volumes, here and here, you will see that the Avengers got off to a rocky start and found its legs only after the powers-that-be revamped the team, getting rid of the heavy hitters in favor of Captain America and three ex-criminals. The Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver are former members of Magneto’s Brotherhood of Evil, and Hawkeye has tangled with Iron Man.

These stories have a formula: the Avengers bicker. The source of the tension is almost always Hawkeye, who has a king-sized chip on his shoulder. Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch are mutants, Homo Superior, and possess wondrous powers. Captain America has his shield and the super soldier serum. Hawkeye is an ex-carny with a quiver full of trick arrows, so it’s natural that he might overcompensate.

Anyway, after bickering one of the Avengers quits or stalks off. The rest go on a mission, which goes badly until they are rejoined by the wayward Avenger. Rinse and repeat. The other thing that helps this book is that most of the stories are now two-parters, which adds a little depth.

This graphic novel doesn’t have great writing, or great art. What it does have is attitude and lots of action. My favorite storyline: the Avengers bicker. Hawkeye stalks off to hit the nightclubs and go dancing. The Avengers – alerted by guest star the Wasp – fight underwater warlord Attuma, who is a cross between the Sub-Mariner and Conan the Barbarian. Attuma wants to flood the surface world with his tidal wave machine.

The Avengers get their heads handed to them. Hawkeye returns to Avengers HQ, but can’t recall the password to access their comm-link system. Maybe he’s hungover? In case you haven’t figured it out, Hawkeye is an idiot. But it works.

In the meantime, Attuma decides to defeat the Avengers a second time, just to show how tough he is. Quicksilver gets flushed out of the torpedo bay but is rescued by a returning Hawkeye, who has managed to recall the password, and together the reunited Avengers destroy Attuma’s tidal wave machine. Etc., etc., etc.

It’s not rocket science, but it’s fun.