This is a review of Sandman Deluxe Edition Book Two. I read the first volume back in January. I think they might have changed the order of a few of the issues here and there, but am unsure. It’s been a long time since I read the original run.
The A-storyline begins with a meeting between Dream and his family, Dream, Death, Destiny, Desire, Despair, Delirium (known as The Endless). Desire goads Dream about the lover he banished to Hell for defying him. Dream, apparently unaware that he acted badly, notifies Lucifer that he’s coming to Hell to get his ex-lover back.
Lucifer responds by…retiring. Yes, you heard that right. Lucifer resigns as the Lord of Hell, kicks everyone out, locks Hell up, and gives Dream the key. Morpheus is now the proud owner of his own Hell, which turns out to be prime real estate. Pretty soon gods and entities from other pantheons are lining up to try to persuade the Dream Lord to give them Hell.
There are also a number of single-issue stories, featuring cats once owning the universe, an imprisoned Muse, Element Girl, a very special performance of The Tempest, Augustus Caesar, and Johanna Constantine vs. the French Inquisition. Top caliber!
This is a review of Batman: The Jiro Kuwata Batmanga Vol. 1. Did you know there used to be a Batman manga? I know because of Chip Kidd’s Bat-Manga, which chronicles a number of Batman’s Japanese adventures. This is not a review of Bat-Manga, as Mr. Kidd did not write or draw any of the stories featured in his book. The creator of the Batmanga stories is Jiro Kuwata.
Now that we’re clear on that, how’s the first volume? Pretty good! Batman – along with youthful sidekick Robin, the Batmobile, and his trusty batarang – keeps Gotham City safe from villains. Speaking of those villains…Mr. Kuwata makes the bold choice to add new figures to Batman’s rogue gallery, including Lord Death Man, Professor Gorilla, and The Human Ball!
This was the 60’s, when Batman comics were still goofy and you had a live-action TV show starring Adam West and Burt Ward. So if you are looking for hardboiled action, uh, I don’t know what to tell you. A fun, offbeat read that I liked.
The official start of Brian Michael Bendis’ run on Daredevil kicks off with the attempted assassination of the Kingpin, who is now blind. The palace coup is led by none other than Sammy Silke, a made guy from out-of-town. Silke’s dad and the Kingpin’s dad were friends, which is why Sammy is around. How an out-of-towner on the skids from his own crew ends up running a major crime syndicate (however briefly) is an interesting story. But is it a Daredevil story? Keep reading!
The Kingpin, like every girl Matt Murdock has ever slept with, knows that Murdock is Daredevil. Even though Daredevil is a crimefighter and the Kingpin is a crime lord, the two of them have come to an understanding. This is the sort of thing that happens in comic books all the time, but falls apart in the real world. What it amounts to is that the Kingpin leaves Daredevil alone, and Daredevil continues to beat the shit out the Kingpin’s men. This is a bad deal, if you are in the Kingpin’s crew.
The Kingpin’s disgraced son spreads the word, and pretty soon everyone in the Kingpin’s crew knows that Murdock is Daredevil. But they aren’t allowed to touch him. They’re pretty salty about it, so when Sammy comes along sowing the seeds of discontent, he finds a willing audience. TBH, in the real world a blind mob boss would last about thirty seven seconds.
Silke puts out a bounty on Matt Murdock, so we see assassination attempts from villains such as Nitro, Boomerang and Mr. Hyde, including a fight scene with an unnamed assassin that would normally take a single panel but goes on for pages. The fight is visually striking and looks great, but it’s also total page filler. There’s no way Daredevil is going to die at the hands of an anonymous killer.
Sammy leads the assassination attempt against the Kingpin, complete with knives. Despite not having read a book since the third grade, Silke quotes Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, which leads to a plausibility hiccup. These are mobsters, trained killers, but they don’t make sure the Kingpin is dead. The easiest way to do that is to put a bullet through his head. They should have done that, because the Kingpin isn’t dead.
Vanessa Fisk, the Kingpin’s wife, exacts vengeance by killing everyone involved in the assassination attempt, including her son. Sammy escapes by the hair of his chinny chin chin and goes running to the FBI. The Feds tell him to take a hike, unless he gives them something. Sammy gives them Daredevil’s secret identity. This is squashed by the FBI higher-ups (it helps that Murdock has a SHIELD file), but one of the agents goes to the Daily Globe. The Globe runs the story, and Matt Murdock’s life goes to Hell.
The fallout from the expose is brutal. Foggy Nelson (Murdock’s law partner) wants him to hang up the tights. Foggy doesn’t pull any punches, pointing out that so many people know Murdock is Daredevil, it’s a wonder the secret didn’t come out sooner. He also plays the old ‘two of your exes were killed by your archenemy’ card, thus implying that Murdock is indirectly responsible for their deaths.
This argument isn’t exactly true, and it’s debunked by others, but it’s powerful nonetheless. What Foggy is saying is that Murdock’s lifestyle is dangerous, which is bound to lead to fallout and civilian casualties. Soon afterwards, Mr. Hyde attacks Murdock’s brownstone and almost kills Foggy.
Murdock hangs up the tights for a few issues. It is to the writer’s credit that he doesn’t even pretend that this will be permanent. Two of Murdock’s exes, Natasha Romanova and Elektra Natchios, pay a visit. Natasha and Elektra are the same character, in that they are both stone cold killers. Natasha used to be a Soviet spy. Now she’s an American spy. She’s killed tons of people, all off-camera. This is an uncomfortable truth, like pointing out all the people the Hulk has killed (which the same writer did). Elektra is an assassin, and the ultimate crazy ex-girlfriend.
They have different solutions to Murdock’s problem. Natasha wants Matt to play dress-up and beat up some muggers, and Elektra validates everything Foggy says. The issue fades away when Matt dons the tights again, except it doesn’t. Is Matt Murdock a noble hero who’s sacrificed everything for Hell’s Kitchen? Or is he a narcissist willing to risk the lives of his loved ones because he likes playing dress-up? Or is he both? To be continued…
The third storyline in this volume is the most powerful. Hector Ayala, aka The White Tiger, interrupts a robbery in progress and ends up accused of a police officer’s murder. Luke Cage, of Hero for Hire fame, wants Matt Murdock to represent Hector. Murdock tells Cage that if he takes the case, his pending lawsuit against the Globe will make the trial a media circus as well as a referendum on superheroes. Murdock ends up taking the case anyway, because reasons. Why does he do this, especially since everything he says to Luke Cage turns out to be true?
The trial begins. Luke Cage follows the trail of the junkies who killed the cop. We learn that the robbers left town, and then the plot thread is dropped. Why? Murdock has resources we can’t imagine, including access to the superhuman community. Instead of attempting to find the real perpetrators, Matt Murdock makes the case a referendum on superheroes, even though the prosecutor trying the case TELLS Murdock that making the case a referendum on superheroes will be playing right into his hands.
Hector is found guilty and commits suicide by cop. The story is insanely depressing, all the more so because we know that Hector is innocent. It also proves that Murdock is a narcissist. Why did he take the case to begin with, and then compound the error by making the trial all about him? Because – as he himself says – he has to do things his way. He just can’t help himself.
This is a review of the first four issues of Brian Michael Bendis’ run on Daredevil, Issues #16-19. The plot: young Timmy has become disassociated from reality. He constantly relives a fight between Leap Frog and Daredevil, which makes ace (?!?) reporter Ben Urich’s nose itch. It is Urich, and not Daredevil, who is our narrator and p-o-v character for the next four issues.
Timmy’s father is Leap Frog, a supervillain who dresses like a frog and hops around. Is this dumb? You bet it’s dumb, which I’m sure is why the creative team uses him. Leap Frog is a bad daddy, to say the least. He and his wife physically abused Timmy. Now Leap Frog has disappeared. He was last seen tussling with Daredevil, and what went on between them that night seems to be what put Timmy in a comatose state.
That’s the plot, and it takes four issues to resolve. Let me start by saying that the art & writing in these issues is top-notch. I was engaged, and wanted to know what happened to Timmy. That said…look, comic books are never going to be mistaken for reality. Daredevil is a blind guy who dresses like the devil while soaring around Manhattan using a trick billy club, so we aren’t talking about reality here. We are talking about plausibility.
The plot hinges on Ben Urich finding Daredevil, who knows what happened that night. Ben Urich knows Matt Murdock is Daredevil. Murdock has told Urich about the accident that blinded him and why he became Daredevil. Urich knows a lot about Matt Murdock, but despite that, despite being a beat reporter with access to the resources of a major media company, he doesn’t have Murdock’s phone number and he doesn’t know where Murdock lives. This is implausible, to say the least, and the reason it’s so glaring is that it feels like an excuse to stretch the plot to four issues. And the plot did feel stretched.
We don’t get a lot of Daredevil in these issues, but that’s fine. If I recall correctly, I had more than enough of Daredevil by the time this run ended. Urich and his wife end up adopting young Timmy, even though Timmy’s mom is still alive (maybe she gave him up for adoption?). Timmy makes an appearance as a teenager in Daredevil: End of Days, where he’s totally messed up. Anyway, these four issues are good but too long. The character of Daredevil has a storied history, and this run certainly adds to the legend.
Marvel Masterworks: X-Men, Volume 1 is a mixed bag. Jack Kirby’s art is wonderful. The writing is okay, the caveat being that the same two storylines are repeated ad nauseum in the first ten issues. For those not in the know the X-Men are mutants, aka Homo Superior. Their genes give them miraculous powers, which is good. What’s not so good is that plain old humans, Homo Sapiens, hate and fear them. The X-Men are led by benevolent telepath Charles Xavier, who is dedicated to protecting humankind from existential threats and also evil mutants. It’s interesting that Xavier works to protect humanity rather than his own kind, a paradigm that changes later.
The evil mutants are led by Magneto, who in this volume is a Dr. Doom clone. Magneto believes that human beings are scum. He’s assembled a group of mutants, aka The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, to conquer humanity. Later, Magneto and Charles Xavier become two sides of the same coin, but here they are oil and water.
There are two storylines. In the first, Xavier discovers the existence of a new mutant. He sends his X-Men to recruit this new mutant, but the mutant always turns out to be evil. See: The Vanisher, The Blob, The Sub-Mariner, Unus the Untouchable. In the second, the X-Men fight Magneto and his band of evil mutants, as they try to a. conquer the earth; b. recruit mutants to their cause. Both Xavier and Magneto are terrible at recruiting mutants, Magneto because he’s a homicidal maniac, Xavier because he’s creepy. Would you want a teacher who could read your mind? At least with Magneto, you get to hang out in his cool lairs, asteroids and islands with big magnet skyscrapers.
Reading this volume gave me the impression that the creative team was in a state of perpetual deadline Hell. It’s not that the stories are bad, but reading the same two plots gets repetitive. One of the better issues is the introduction of Ka-Zar and the Savage Land, because it probably started life as a ten-second pitch session (Tarzan in Arthur Conan Doyle’s Lost World!) that gained legs.
Marvel Masterworks: X-Men is worth a read, because it’s Jack Kirby and also because it introduces a number of iconic characters in Marvel history, even if we don’t see a lot of these characters nowadays. These are the issues that laid the groundwork for some classic stories.
The plot of Daredevil: End of Days is simple. Years in the future Matt Murdock, aka Daredevil, is killed in a brawl with his archenemy Bullseye. Before he dies, he says ‘Mapone’ to Bullseye. Perhaps Murdock says this because of the beating he’s taken from Bullseye, or the brain damage he’s undoubtedly suffering from, or it could mean something else. Nobody cares but Daredevil, Bullseye, and beat reporter Ben Urich. This is a potential problem, because I didn’t care what Mapone means either. What made Matt Murdock lose his sanity is a lot more interesting, in a car crash sort of way.
Urich is a strange choice for a narrator. He has a compulsion to know what happened, all the while understanding that the picture he paints won’t be pretty. He’s the picture-perfect portrait of the grizzled beat reporter, so much so that a cynic might say that he’s a parody of himself, especially when he does things like standing in a downpour (because it’s always either dark or raining in Hell’s Kitchen).
Urich decides to retrace Murdock’s last years. The last time Matt was seen in public as Daredevil, he killed the Kingpin in a brawl. This is the type of thing that is frowned upon by a civilized society, and there’s also the undeniable truth that pummeling a man to death with your bare hands in public is a clear sign that you have lost it.
So begins the journey of discovery. Even though Ben Urich has no social skills, we learn things. A man dressed as Daredevil is tailing Urich. The Black Widow is dead, either in a cosmic skirmish (according to Nick Fury) or murdered in a bathtub (according to the cover of Issue #6). Urich’s adopted son, Timmy, idolizes Daredevil. Former assassin Elektra is now a soccer mom. Bullseye kills himself a few days after murdering Murdock. Daredevil’s ex-foe Gladiator makes costumes for fetish parties. Oh, and all of Matt’s ex-girlfriends have children with red hair. This was funny the first time, but after the third or fourth child with red hair, it veered into eye-rolling territory.
Urich reaches a dead-end when he visits the Punisher in prison. Old, grizzled Frank Castle gives the plot away, but Urich is either too dogged or too stupid to quit. He keeps on plugging away, scraping the bottom of Murdock’s rogue gallery, until he’s killed by the Hand. At which point we learn that the new Daredevil is Urich’s adopted son, Timmy, who was trained by none other than Murdock himself! We also learn that Mapone is the name of Matt Murdock’s and the Black Widow’s daughter. She may also be Murdock’s reincarnated teacher, Stick.
We never learn what made Matt Murdock lose it, and what he was doing all those years in hiding. We also never learn why the name Mapone makes Bullseye kill himself. I have searched teh Googles in vain, but have found no answer as of yet. EDIT: it turns out Bullseye didn’t know what Mapone meant, but the fact that Murdock got in the last word tipped him over the edge. This is according to the writer’s blog, but I am unsure if the writer is trolling, because his answer makes no sense. I think it’s fair to say that the linking of Bullseye and Mapone as a plot point doesn’t work. The other thing that confused me are the covers, which depict the deaths of Daredevil & various Daredevil cast members, some of whom were still alive when I read the book.
Overall, I enjoyed Daredevil: End of Days, even though plot-wise the book falls apart in the final issue.
When I was a kid, Marvel published a series of mass market paperbacks that featured the first six issues of their most popular titles. I bought the first three Spider-Man paperbacks along with the first volumes of the Hulk and the Fantastic Four. My favorite title was and continues to be Spider-Man, but rereading the first volume of Marvel Masterworks: Fantastic Four years later, I was surprised at how good these comics are.
The first ten issues of Jack Kirby and Stan Lee’s Fantastic Four run feature a hodgepodge of classic heroes and villains, including Alicia Masters, Doctor Doom, The Mole Man, The Puppet Master, The Sub-Mariner and the Skrulls. Each issue is a stand-alone, with no two-parters or trilogies. It feels like effort went into the creation of these stories.
Whatever the reason, this volume has juice. Maybe that’s because, like Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four are created when someone messes up. That someone is Reed Richards, who decides it’s a good idea to sneak into a military base with his fiancée and her teenage brother so that he can steal a rocket and blast off into outer space. When Ben Grimm, the ship’s pilot, points out that the rocket has no protection against cosmic rays, he’s shamed into coming along. Of course, Grimm is the guy who wins the booby prize. While the others gain cool powers, Ben transforms into a pile of orange rocks. His reaction to this development is realistic: he’s pissed off at everyone and everything, but especially his teammates.
Reading these comics gave me the impression that the members of the Fantastic Four are like a big, dysfunctional family whose members hate each other, but will stick together in a crisis. Grimm, who is dubbed The Thing by his loving teammates, gains super strength and is a danger to everybody. The only reason his teammates put up with him is because they made him.
The other members of the team aren’t quite as interesting as Ben Grimm, but they’re all flawed in interesting ways. Reed Richards, aka the Human Rubber Band, is heroic, but has a habit of making stupid decisions. Johnny Storm, who can burst into flames, is a typical 60’s-era teenager whose powers fluctuate depending on whatever the plot requires. His sister, Susan Storm, is the least interesting of the bunch. She has a weak power set (invisibility) and is too passive, but later gains the ability to project invisible force fields.
The stories are a blend of superhero action and 60’s era science fiction. The standout supporting character of the first volume is the Sub-Mariner, who appears in three of the first ten issues. Unlike Doctor Doom, who is the prototype of a moustache-twirling villain, the Sub-Mariner is more than a two-dimensional character. He’s a villain with sympathetic qualities, just like The Thing is a hero with villainous qualities. In one of the issues, he even saves the day; this after he betrays the Fantastic Four and is double-crossed by Doctor Doom.
The first volume of Marvel Masterworks: The Fantastic Four is well-worth a read, and shows why the Fantastic Four used to be Marvel’s flagship title.
The main players of the latest X-reboot are Charles Xavier, Magneto, and Moira MacTaggert. Moira, whose mutant power is reincarnation, rallies the mutant population around Charles Xavier and Magneto. Using the sentient island (?!?!) of Krakoa as their base, Xavier & company seeks sovereignty from humankind.
Shit gets real when a band of human scientists calling themselves Orchis seek to bring a Master Mold AI online, which will lead to the apocalyptic human/machine/mutant war. We see the results of that war, a hundred years from now, when the two remaining factions (mutant and machine) resort to breeding mutants as cannon fodder.
Moira, who is on her tenth (and final) life, fades from the spotlight halfway through this graphic novel. The creation of a new mutant society leads to all sorts of interesting factions: Apocalypse, the Hellfire Club, Mr. Sinister, Mystique, but the biggest wild card of all is the island of Krakoa, which in the future acts as a mutant breeding center.
This is foreshadowed when a group of X-Men die supposedly destroying the Master Mold, which is in orbit around the sun. Except they don’t die: Krakoa produces clones of the fallen heroes and Xavier has backed up their minds, so they are reborn. Thus, mutants are now immortal.
This graphic novel is as much science fiction as it is superhero comic, because Jonathan Hickman (the writer) is so good at blending the two. We learn about the Marvel Universe’s different galactic civilizations, and he even manages to make it sort of interesting.
The other interesting aspect of this book is the cult-like aspects of Xavier’s new civilization. Magneto dresses like Jim Jones, and Xavier himself – who is even more overtly messianic – wears a helmet with no eyes. The blind leading the blind. It’s an open question as to whether the X-Men are the heroes here, or if they are even meant to be.
Ah, the 1980’s. MTV, Ronald Reagan, Rocky Balboa, The Terminator, Freddy Krueger, buddy cop movies, Pee Wee Herman, Jason Voorhees, Ollie North, contras. Sting, singing Russians. I could go on but I won’t, because boy the 80’s sucked but the decade did produce some great comics. Thus, when Comixology had their annual end of the year sale, I picked up a copy of this book. I read some – not all – of the issues back in the day, and wanted a complete collection. The writer, Mike Baron, wrote a number of quality comics in the 80’s – Nexus, Badger, The Punisher – and of course The Flash.
First things first: this is a very different Flash. Barry Allen, temporarily dead, is replaced by his youthful sidekick Wally West. Wally has been depowered– he can’t break the sound barrier, has to eat two or three times the amount of a normal person, and passes out after he uses his super speed.
Wally himself is written like a 20-year old. An immensely privileged, stupid lucky 20-year old. He buys a lottery ticket and becomes a multi-millionaire. His mom moves in with him and he can’t bring himself to throw her out. His girlfriend is a decade older than him. She’s also married, and when her husband finds out he injects himself with a steroid that gives him super strength and speed and tries to kill Wally. As happens in superhero comics.
Other standout villains in this volume include Vandal Savage, a caveman who dresses like a French lord and designs a highly addictive drug that grants its users super speed. The Chunk is a human event singularity who must consume 47x his weight or implode. The people Chunk consumes are transported to an apocalyptic hellhole. Despite this, Chunk isn’t exactly Doctor Doom, and is written more as a misguided soul than a villain.
This is a nice run by Mike Baron, who only stuck around for 14 issues plus an annual. The issues move fast, pun intended, and there’s an endearing weirdness to the stories, most of which are inspired by the 1980’s – Max Headroom, drug epidemics, the Cold War, ‘roid rage. Wally himself isn’t portrayed in a very heroic light, whether he’s having an affair with a married woman, puttering around his Long Island mansion, or going to parties hosted by Mafia Dons. He’s written as materialistic and horny, a man incapable of saying no to any woman. Unsurprisingly, most of his relationships are shallow and dysfunctional. This was all part of DC’s grand experiment of giving their heroes personalities. It didn’t go on long, but it sure was interesting while it lasted.
I recommend this graphic novel. The first comic book I ever bought was an issue of The Flash, back in 1978 when Barry Allen wore the scarlet tights. I’ve read a lot of Flash since then, and I am here to say that Wally is a more interesting character than Barry Allen ever was. The powers that be might have brought Barry back, but Wally will always be my Flash.
Abandoned Places 