Countdown To Final Crisis #1:
I covered the failings of Countdown already in Countdown To Final Crisis is Consistently Terrible, so rather than elaborate at length in reviewing this issue I’ll simply add this: thanks god this shit is over, and that the events of this issue have already been undone by the announcement of Ray Palmer being a character in James Robinson’s new Justice League book, Donna Troy being in Judd Winick’s Titans, and Kyle Rayner being back where he belongs AT LAST in Green Lantern Corps, because the idiotic ‘team’ they form in this issue is completely undesired by any audience and will be hopefully immediately forgotten. Paul Dini’s writing shows signs of the self-awareness that’s crept into the final issues of Countdown — the protagonists are uninvited party guests who’ve overstayed their welcome, trapped in crumbling relationships built on nothing, who’ve gotten this far on a positive attitude and lots of denial — but really, this issue should have been an apology, and we didn’t get it. Ah well, at least we’ll be getting a hardcover collection of Kirby’s OMAC out of the deal. I just hope no one scarred by Countdown’s incompetent hackery associates Final Crisis with it in any way due to the mid-series title change and misses out on Morrison’s series because of it. (Last thought: why is Marvel’s character Apocalypse on the Source Wall? Ahh, why bother putting any thought into it.)
Fables #72:
While Bill Willingham’s mainstream DC work can be frustratingly inconsistent, Fables is nothing if not consistent. Nearly every issue features work by the same team, and the occasional art fill-ins are always high quality one- or two-shot stories and not randomly dropped in the middle of longer stories. As a monthly reader, it’s easy to see the book has found its real audience in collected form on the shelves of Borders and Barnes & Nobles everywhere rather than in comic shops — even Mark Buckingham’s page layouts leave conspicuous gutters on either vertical edge to allow for the tighter binding of trade paperbacks. Willingham’s Cinderella-as-a-secret-agent story here is a well-timed change of pace easing into the next major storyline heading up to the promised “everything will change no we mean it” issue #75, and I’m glad to see the book’s success hasn’t made them too trepidatious to take chances — if anything, the remarkably consistency of the book gives them a stabler ground off of which to springboard new ideas. Still looking forward to what’s to come, which is pretty good for a Vertigo series passing its sixth year.
Hulk #3:
Jeph Loeb is the only guy in 2008 who thinks it’s still high-tech and cool for a guy to command a computer by verbally addressing it as “Computer” the way Captain Kirk did in the sixties. He is also the the only guy who thinks a secret agent — nay, a HEAD secret agent, a leader of secret agents — would not have heard of forensic audio reconstruction. This issue is basically a long boring fight scene pretending to be a murder mystery, containing a few truly heinous WTF moments (robot harpies with Banner’s deceased wife’s face?) but is at least mostly well-drawn. I don’t really find Ed McGuinness’ style appropriate for this book, though — everything he draws looks bright and shiny by default, which worked well on Superman/Batman but doesn’t work as well here. Only recommended if you really like Ed’s art, because the writing is just not good.
Justice League of America #20:
Good to see Dwayne McDuffie return to scripting after the awful Salvation Run tie-in three part Alan Burnett fill-in, and the Ethan Van Sciver art provides a nice change from Ed Benes’ hyper-idealized superhumans. Also a nice surprise is that this is basically a Flash story with Wonder Woman co-starring, and a better Flash story than we’ve gotten in the Flash’s own book in awhile. After nearly two years of this series we still haven’t gotten a really compelling case for this particular grouping of the League though, and I’m waiting for that one killer JLA story in this series to make it happen. This isn’t that story, but it’s a good little one-off that at the very least Flash and Ethan Van Sciver fans would do well to pick up.
I’ve been seeing Stan Lee getting a lot of flak for his writing lately, but really, anyone who thinks Stan is truly a terrible writer just really shouldn’t be reading Marvel comics, full stop. Mostly people seem to criticize his dialogue and execution, and relegate him to the nebulous and somewhat backhandedly complimentary role of mere “idea man.” I mean, if being an “idea man” was that easy then Stan’s original concepts which defined and still dominate the Marvel Universe and its various related media such as Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, the Hulk, and Iron Man would have been long ago supplanted by newer creations. Frankly, it’s arguable that the only true A-list Marvel properties from the post-Stan era are the Punisher and Wolverine, both of who date back to the 1970s. Besides those two, there’s a long line of semi-successful and failed B- and C-list properties like Cloak and Dagger, Longshot, Gravity, Power Pack, Dazzler…this could go on for pages and pages.
While some think execution of a story is more important than the idea behind it, I disagree entirely — they’re at least equally important. And regardless of what you think about Stan’s writing, the peaks of his accomplishments — his FF run with Kirby, especially — are far better than most of the overwrought, smug irony-ridden comics that today rehash those selfsame ideas ad nauseum and ad infinitum. Embellishing an idea is a skill. Coming up with idea after idea after idea (in conjuction with Kirby, Ditko, etc. of course) for the solid period between FF#1 and Amazing Fantasy #15 goes far, far beyond that. So you gotta give it up for Stan. FACE FRONT, TRUE BELIEVERS! I’m totally a DC guy but man, Stan back in the day gave the industry a kick in the ass that probably saved it. Plus the dude’s just got character and style. I know Stan’s a corny motherfucker and I know he’s written a pile of shitty comics since that golden period, but when I see ol’ Stan I can’t help but grin like a lunatic. I’m more than willing to forgive Stan’s excesses and enjoy his sporadic current work for what it is. Stan just makes me happy.
That said, one in awhile you’ve gotta wonder sometimes what was going through Stan’s head, especially when you see something like what’s in the boxed-off, highlighted portion of Stan’s Soapbox on this Bullpen Bulletins page:
What the hell? Marvel’s biography of HITLER? Evidently this did actually come out as HITLER: HORROR AND THE HOLOCAUST. Can’t figure what the angle here was, but hey, I guess if you throw out enough ideas sooner or later you’re bound a have a few of those ideas turn out to be really really bad ones.
Also, I bet thousands of people out there would totally buy t-shirts with softball-slugging funky ’70s headband Luke Cage on the front.
I always enjoy stumbling across easter eggs, cameo appearances, and messages hidden in the artwork of comics. It’s something about the fact that it’s something the artist didn’t have to draw, that they just put in there purely for the fun of it or to let you know something about them. Alex Ross is probably one of the best-known for this, putting the Beatles into Marvels, the Monkees into Kingdom Come, etc. etc. etc., but there are thousands of easter eggs, hidden messages, and unauthorized cameo appearances scattered throughout the pages of comics of all types. Sometimes they’re obvious, sometimes they’re subtle, sometimes you wouldn’t even know they were there unless someone pointed them out to you. Some are just cool little shoutouts, some have gotten people fired. Groo The Wanderer used to have a secret message in every issue, and back when I was a kid I used to spend hours poring over my Groos trying to find them. Some were really easy to spot but I’m sure I never found a lot of them. These days I don’t really have the time to go specifically looking for hidden messages, cameos, and easter eggs, but I try to note them when I spot them, and here I present a bunch that I don’t recall seeing documented elsewhere before.
Check out this panel in Marvel’s Strikeforce Morituri #7 (June 1987) drawn by Brent Anderson & Scott Williams:
“The Horde” is an alien race in the future that Strikeforce Morituri fights, and which has apparently managed to somehow collect not only Captain America’s shield, the Silver Surfer’s board, and a miniaturized Galactus helmet but also a bunch of Green Lantern power batteries, Batman’s giant penny, and even Robby the Robot from Forbidden Planet!
What do the X-Men do on their day off? Hang out in the future at the same bar as Sun Boy from the Legion, apparently — that’s Kitty Pryde, Colossus, and a standing Professor X there chatting it up. Note this backup story from Tales of The Legion #320 was some of the first pro work of future name creators Dan Jurgens & Karl Kesel — even the letterer of this story is still working, on and off.
Shoutouts to comic creators of the past are pretty standard, especially in Batman comics where it’s always “Hey there’s a crime down on the corner of Sprang and Giordano”, but I liked this from Detective Comics #785 by Brubaker & Zircher:
Those are the full/real names of (top to bottom) Dick Dillin, Don Newton, Gene Day, and Gil Kane. I assume that would be Win Mortimer at the bottom.
From the fantastic Solo #7, Mike Allred’s love letter to classic Silver Age DC Comics: Captain Action, a licensed toy character that hasn’t been seen in the pages of DC Comics since 1968 (and that DC doesn’t have the rights to):
Unauthorized guests always seem to sneak into comic-book weddings (those crowd scenes must just be too tempting — or too boring to draw), but on this Elementals cover the unauthorized party-crashers far outnumber actual Elementals characters: among others are Cerebus, Casper, the Phantom, Space Ghost’s sidekicks, Prince Valiant, Snarf, Gumby, Doc Savage, the Lone Ranger, Superman’s lurking behind the Comico logo, and even Calvin & Hobbes snuck in.
Finally, this is a cameo of sorts but other than that I really don’t know what to say about it other than that it’s somehow sadly hilarious. From the letters page of Joe Matt’s Peepshow #10, Rivers Cuomo of Weezer:
What easter eggs, hidden messages, and cameo appearances have you found lurking in the pages of your favorite comics?
As Countdown/Countdown To Final Crisis limps into its final month, it seems as appropriate a time as any to take a look at the series, because let’s face it, if it’s sucked consistently for 48 weeks, it’s not going to suddenly get great. Oh sure, it did take a step up in quality around the time of the midpoint title change — but only one step. The problem from that point forward was that there was at least the chance an issue could be decent, so each week the reader would think well hey it’s POSSIBLE Countdown won’t be utterly cringe-inducing this week. After that midpoint shift there might be decent Pete Woods or Scott Kolins or Jamal Igle art instead of utter shit Dennis Calero or Carlos Magno art but still, once you actually read the thing oh my god it was always just stupid shit that made no sense whatsoever.
The problem wasn’t that it was weekly. I have no problem with weekly as long as it’s done well and consistently, as it was in 52, which always had at least good-to-decent art and was always well written. When I was a kid I thought Action Comics and Millennium each coming out weekly was an awesome idea until I actually bought those series, and they sucked (well, the Blackhawk strip in Action was good). I have wondered for years why Marvel didn’t just put out Amazing Spider-Man more often instead of having secondary spinoff Spidey books; now, thanks to the consistently mediocre three-times monthly Amazing I see why*. It can be done though, as 52 proved; it just wasn’t in Countdown. (I have high hopes for the upcoming Busiek/Niceiza/Bagley Trinity weekly project.)
All of the spinoffs were consistently terrible as well — except for half of one book. It’s a shame Steve Gerber’s Dr. Fate got shoved under the Countdown To Mystery banner, but it clearly had nothing to do with Countdown anyway as it involved no outside characters and Gerber admitted knowing nothing about what was going on in Countdown (granted, Steve had bigger problems at the time than keeping up on the weekly doings of Jimmy Olsen and Mary Marvel). The Countdown Presents: The Search for Ray Palmer “one-shots” were useless — DC couldn’t call it a miniseries, since that would imply some sort of narrative progression. So even though it was series of connected issues starring the same characters that came out sequentially, they’re all somehow ‘one-shots’. Yeah, fuck you too, DC. We’re not all that stupid. Countdown: Arena was just so offensively bad it made me wonder what the hell kind of promise I saw in writer Keith Champagne’s JSA fill-in issues. I haven’t even been able to convince myself to read past the first three issues of Countdown To Adventure (Forerunner…shudder). Lord Havok and the Extremists was pointless — even DC couldn’t pretend they give a shit about this series, they didn’t even care enough to bother to get the number of issues in the series right on the cover. It was a shame, too, because the concept behind it could have led to an interesting satire on the Marvel Universe — but it didn’t.
And that’s the real problem with Countdown: the concepts behind it weren’t inherently bad, and it’s easy to see how they could have led to some really cool stuff, but the execution was just awful. I honestly don’t think any of the multiverse/time-travel/whatever stuff is particularly confusing, as some people seem to think. I don’t think it’s being done at all well in Countdown, but that’s a failure of storytelling, not of the multiverse itself.
My first comic in memory was an Adventure Dollar Comics giant which started off with a straightforward Flash story (why I picked the book) and continued with Deadman, which at the time was the kind of thing they’d probably shunt off to Vertigo these days, and then rolled into an awesome JSA story with a completely comprehensible 2-page explanation of Earth 2 and why this Flash (COOL THERE’S ANOTHER FLASH?!!) wore a hat and this Green Lantern (ditto) was vulnerable to wood. I just accepted it and rolled with it and enjoyed the hell out of it, and I couldn’t have been older than 8. It wasn’t even slightly confusing and it made me excited to learn more. Wow, that Shazam guy is on yet another Earth? Cool! And there’s, like, an EVIL JLA? Awesome!
It’s not like the multiverse/time travel stuff isn’t being done well at DC right now — I’m enjoying the hell out of it in Action, Booster Gold, and Justice Society of America (and I’m glad to see DC finally getting serious about the Legion of Super Heroes in the last year or so because it’s one of their properties with the most untapped potential–I mean, it frankly could be a mass-market commercial juggernaut, since it combines elements of sci-fi, superheroes, soap opera, and fantasy. Done right, LSH could be Star Wars times X-Men times Lord Of The Rings.)
But Countdown is continuity-laden to the point of being mired and unable to rise above it, with its mediocre writers tethered to an interminable, barely-advancing plotline and without the latitude to introduce any more interesting aspects to the series.This shit CAN be a lot of fun when written properly, but it’s not INHERENTLY a lot of fun just by itself, and that’s the premise Countdown seems to have gone with.
The best thing one can say about Countdown/Countdown To Final Crisis at this point is that it’s almost over — with each issue one can look at the decreasing numbers on the cover and think “That’s not so many left, thank god — and then Final Crisis is absolutely going to rock bells.”
Perhaps the series was doomed from the first by its very name: after all, a countdown implies nothing really happening, but the promise of something interesting immediately afterwards — and that’s how it worked out.
* Although this week’s Zeb Wells-written issue was actually quite good.
So Wonder Woman has been relaunched with an ALL-NEW ALL-DIFFERENT approach about a hundred times and almost every time it ends up being basically the same old thing. One of the revamps that happened when I was a kid was when she went from the top with the eagle on the front to the one with the stylized ‘W’ symbol on the front. I never did know how they explained that in-continuity at the time, I just realized her costume was different when she showed up in JLA, but today I discovered the explanation and it couldn’t be dumber if you tried.
So Diana Prince and Steve Trevor get in a standard fight with two standard spies and Steve gets injured. Instead of flying Steve to the hospital at super-speed or something they call an ambulance for him and while Diana’s hanging around waiting for the ambulance these women just walk up to her out of the crowd. full size image
The “W” stands for “women”, you know. full size image
“Can’t decide…which top to wear…can’t decide…better ask Mom, she always says I have no taste…”
So she flies back to Paradise Island where Hercules has chained all the Amazons like he does every time he shows up. She beats him in the standard Wonder Woman fight with Hercules and then they get down to the really troubling business: which top to wear? full size image
The “W” stands for “women”, you know. And to top it off, in case you hadn’t realized it by now, the symbol is actually 2 W’s on top of one another, for Wonder Woman.
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