Tales
of Suspense 1994 (SC GN) 64 pages
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Tales
of Suspense 1994 (SC GN) 64 pages
Written by James Robinson. Painted by Colin MacNiel.
Letters: Richard Starkings. Editor: Marc McLaurin.
Rating: * 1/2 (out of 5)
Number of readings: 1
Published by Marvel Comics
Presumably riding the wave of critical and commercial
success that greeted Marvels -- the fully
painted mini-series re-examining Marvel lore -- Marvel produced at least
three fully painted graphic novels which took their names from 1960s anthology
comics, featuring the heroes who used to appear in them. These were Tales
to Astonish, Strange Tales, and this: Tales of Suspense...a
comic which used to feature Iron Man and Captain America in separate adventures.
Here, though, they team up at the behest of super spy Nick Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D.
to help take on a fledgling, pan-national terrorist group, D.A.N.T.E.,
that seems to be utilizing research that helped create both heroes in the
first place.
Whatever Marvel's flaws, it was undoubtedly a work of
great effort and meticulous research. By contrast, Tales of Suspense --
sub-titled "Men and Machines" -- seems as though scripter James Robinson
might have knocked it out over a weekend. To be sure, Robinson has a theme
he wants to play around with, contrasting both heroes, and throwing in
the idea that both men secretly admire the other -- Iron Man, aware that
Cap combats danger without benefit of super armour, Cap admiring Iron Man's
intellect for having designed the armour in the first place. And in the
end, there's an interesting turn about as both men must face the enemy,
in a sense, in each others' boots.
Emphasis is put on the themes, but little effort is expended
on the plot itself. It's pretty rudimentary: Iron Man and Cap are told
at the beginning that there's a new terrorist group planning to assassinate
some government big wig and, in the climax, the terrorists attempt to assassinate
a big wig. Wow! Talk about plot twists, eh? The execution is pretty prosaic,
without benefit of imaginative scenes or plot complications -- or even
non-stop action. At one point Robinson's captions refer to the plot being
"away from bright costume- clad super-villainy" as if his story is more
gritty and relevant than your average superhero comic. Except it's less
so. D.A.N.T.E. isn't even like a real terrorist group, in the sense of
a fanatical organization devoted to a particular philosophy or agenda.
Rather, they're just hired mercenaries with flying ships and super weapons
who make Dr. Doom look like a poster child for politically relevant comics.
I even found myself nitpicking over minor points -- always
a bad sign. But there were scenes that just seemed implausible, or even
illogical. I don't think we even learn what D.A.N.T.E. stands for!
Robinson's characterization is uneven, too. As noted,
he makes use of themes, of exploring both men's sense of inadequacy compared
with the other, and Cap's usual fear of being a living anachronism -- which
should be good. But as I've complained about with so many comics in the
last decade or so, describing characters isn't the same as portraying them.
For all the insight, the two men don't quite emerge as flesh and blood
people. Part of that may be my own feeling that what makes Iron Man interesting
is Tony Stark, the man inside the armour -- but Iron Man barely appears
out of costume in the entire story.
Furthermore, Robinson begins by emphasizing Cap's contrast
to then-contemporaneous, more violent heroes...but by the end, both Iron
Man and Captain American seem to be employing lethal force with nary a
qualm!
As a sidebar, reference is made to the fact that the two
heroes had been on the outs with each other lately. It doesn't relate to
the story, as the two quickly forgive any past transgressions, but neither
is it explained (presumably it related to concurrent issues of the Avengers
or something).
Obviously, one suspects the whole point of these books
(and a few others that come to mind) is the fully painted art, as if the
art will lift up a weak story. But surely the opposite impulse would be
better -- pick a great story that deserves the fully painted treatment.
But the art itself is problematic. Unlike Alex Ross, or John Estes (Tales
to Astonish) and others who've brought a prestigious painted
look to their work...artist Colin MacNiel's work basically looks like,
well, comic book art, but done in paint rather than pencil and ink. It's
neither uncannily life-like, or moodily Impressionistic (though it leans
towards that at times, particularly when figures are drawn at a distance,
looking like stick men). The colour choices are not particularly breathtaking.
And even as comic book art it's not that great. The figures can be a touch
stiff, the faces limited in their expressions.
Overall, a largely uninspired effort -- the flirtation
with character insight notwithstanding.
Cover price: $9.40 CDN./ $6.95 USA
Tales
to Astonish 1994 (SC GN) 64 pgs.
Written by Peter David. Drawn and painted by John Estes.
Letters: Richard Starkings. Editor: Marc McLaurin.
Rating: * * * (out of 5)
Number of readings: 1
Published by Marvel Comics
Sub-titled "Loki's Dream", this has Hank Pym (variously
having gone by the names of Ant-Man, Giant-Man, Goliath and Yellowjacket,
and now whose schtick is changing the size, not of himself, but of others)
his ex-wife, the Wasp, and the incredible Hulk joining forces in Norway
when a psychotic killer with a mythology fixation is granted the powers
of a god by Loki, Norse god of mischief.
Jumping on the bandwagon of the fully painted Marvels,
this was one of three fully painted graphic novels Marvel put out that
took their names from old anthology comics Marvel published in the '60s,
utilizing the characters that had appeared in said titles. The others were
Tales
of Suspense (teaming Iron Man, Captain America, and Nick Fury) and
Strange
Tales (teaming Dr. Strange, The Thing and the Human Torch).
Estes' painted art is quite striking, at times bordering
on the realism of Alex Ross (the guy who largely started the painted comics
craze), but more often not quite, being more impressionistic. Sometimes
that's a problem, with scenes being a bit confusing -- even knowing the
Wasp was supposed to be zapping people with her "stings" it's hard to realize
that in some of the pictures. Overall, though, the art is quite enjoyable.
David's one of the more respected writers in comics these
days, but I'd been more ambivalent toward him, feeling his "clever" dialogue
could border on cutesy. But here, it "sounds" well -- though there are
still awkward passages where the hand of the writer is more obvious than
the mind of the character (like a Norwegian villain quoting Monty Python).
The main problem is that the plot is just a big action
piece. For 64 pages and given a sumptuous, painted treatment, one can be
forgiven for anticipating more. Some human emotion, a more personal stake
by the heroes, some greater complexity to the story. Perhaps if David hadn't
chosen such a motiveless, one dimensional villain whose goal is to set
himself up as a god and then stage Ragnarok -- the final batte of the gods.
But why? What drives him? Answer: he's a nut. For that matter, it's unclear
why Loki gives him power in the first place. And some of the story's resonance
seems to rely on the reader having prior knowledge of Norse mythology.
Hank Pym and the Wasp are handled well -- more interesting
than, frankly, I expected them to be. The Hulk was more problematic. I
hadn't actually read a Hulk comic since his "Hulk smash puny humans!" days
years ago. Here, having him have the mind of Bruce Banner, a smart guy
in a super powerful body, just strikes me as rather...dull. The character
lacks vulnerability, not to mention pathos. Still, David's run on the Hulk
was highly regarded, so maybe it's hard to appreciate this version based
solely on this one team-up story.
Another weakness is the use of a psychotic, homicidal
villain -- there's an opening sequence (among others) which is particularly
grisly. To his credit, Estes avoids being overly graphic in the visuals,
but in the blatantly fantastical milieu of super-powered people doing super-powered
things it seems inappropriate and keeps the thing from being "all in fun".
Maybe it wouldn't bother me so much if writers like David didn't revel
in the sadism so much. An enjoyable time waster (occasional lapses into
mean-spiritedness notwithstanding), just don't expect anything more.
It borders on getting a mature readers label.
Cover price: $9.40 CDN./$6.95 USA.
The Thing: The Project Pegasus Saga 1988 (SC TPB) 126 pgs.
Written
by Mark Gruenwald & Ralph Macchio. Pencils by John Byrne, George Perez.
Inks by Joe Sinnott, Gene Day.
Colours: Bob Sharen (with Carl Gafford, Roger Slifer). Letters: John
Constanza (with Diane Albers, Irv Watanabe). Editors: Roger Stern, Jim
Shooter.
Reprinting: Marvel Two-In-One #53-58, 60 (1979)
Rating: * * 1/2 (out of 5)
Number of readings: 1
Published by Marvel Comics
Taken from the pages of Marvel Two-in-One, a comic
featuring team-ups between the Thing (a.k.a. Ben Grimm, the rock-skinned
member of the Fantastic Four) and a succession of
guest stars, the Project Pegasus Saga (originally called just The Pegasus
Project) has the Thing temporarily moonlighting on the security detail
of Pegasus, a secret government compound dedicated to studying energy applications,
as well as incarcerating various energy-based super-villains.
The Thing has taken the assignment to keep an eye on Wundarr,
a man-child he had befriended but is now at Pegasus in a catatonic state,
for which the Thing feels partially responsible. Once there, he encounters
various attempts at sabotage. He teams up with Quasar, the compound's solar-powered
security head, and Giant-Man II (formerly Black Goliath) who, in his alter
ego, happens to be a scientist at Pegasus. They end up battling quasi-heroes
Deathlok (a cyborg reprogrammed to work for the baddies) and Thundra, an
alien Amazon who's allied with the baddies for personal reasons, as well
as battling out-and-out villains like Klaw and others.
The final story (from #60) is unrelated to the Pegasus
story, and is just an amusing adventure involving Ben and the Impossible
Man (included, perhaps, because of Perez'a art -- Marvel Two-in-One
#59 was drawn by another artist).
Despite being called "Marvel Two-in-One", the Pegasus
story works out to considerably more than two characters per chapter. Thing
and Quasar appear in all the chapters, Giant-Man II in most of them, and,
if only in small parts, Thundra and Wundarr, too.
I'm not sure what the background was for this story. The
cover of the first chapter (#53) proclaimed: "At last! The saga of Project
Pegasus!", implying the fans had anticipated this for some time. And a
later letter writer refered to hearing about the storyline for months before
it was actually published. Clearly, the Pegasus Project was intended to
be a major epic.
Reading it all these years later, one can't help but wonder
if the powers-that-be had promised the saga for so long, that when it came
time to actually deliver...they didn't know what to do. Gruenwald and Macchio
deliver competent dialogue and pacing, and the opening chapter, more introspective
than later ones, certainly sets a mood. The whole conceit of setting an
entire epic (mainly) in one complex creates its own atmosphere. The art
by John Byrne on the first three issues and George Perez on the rest is
certainly good (of course), and the two men back then had sufficiently
similar styles that the transition isn't jarring (though it's too bad they
couldn't have kept the same inker to further unify the art. As it is, Sinnott
inks Byrne, Day inks Perez). And the final, Impossible Man story is cute.
But overall, it's a bit...blah. There's lots of fighting
and smashing things, but the individual issues muster only meagre plots
(a villain is released from a holding cell, the Thing and his buds re-capture
him) while the overall story arc is pretty thin for so many chapters. There
aren't really any significant twists or turns or noteworthy sub-plots --
whuch is usually the appeal of lengthy sagas. If they had told the tale
in two or three issues, it wouldn't have lost anything. For three issues
we keep cutting away to Thundra in an unrelated sub-plot, waiting to see
how it'll connect. But when it does, it does in a kind of unconvincing
way. Even the climax is weak. Benjy and the gang prevent the destruction
of Pegasus, but there are things left unresolved. The sinister organization
is revealed in the end (unbeknowst to our heroes) to be a familiar bad
guy organization that cropped up in various Marvel titles from the period...but
so what? We never even learn what the bad guys promised Thundra in exchange
for her help!
There's no great emotional or socio-political sub-text,
either. Ben's initial guilt over Wundarr's condition never comes into play
in any major sense. Wundarr, meanwhile, undergoes a transformation so popular
in comics, renaming himself the Aquarian -- but whether the character became
more successful, I'm not sure. I'd never heard of either of his names prior
to reading this. And it's a safe bet that's why he underwent the metamorphosis,
to make a 2nd string character into something more marketable.
The fact that this was collected in a TPB almost a decade
after originally being published, when so many other great stories never
were, would imply someone thought it held up (though it may be the presence
of Byrne and Perez made it appealing to the decision makers at Marvel).
And this story might've been more significant back in the '70s, when characters
like Quasar, Wundarr, Thundra and Giant-Man II were maybe more familiar
(I don't know if any of these characters are still around), and when fans
might have been intrigued to see more of Pegasus (likewise, I have no idea
if it still crops up in Marvel titles). Though even then, you get surprisingly
little embellishment about the inner workings of the compound or the characters'
psyches.
Read some 21 years later, it's a saga in name only. Not
by any means appaling -- in fact, I feel a little guilty about giving it
such a dismissive review -- but it's nothing to engender much enthusiasm
for either.
This is a review of the story serialized originally
in Marvel Two-in-One comics.,
Original cover price: __
Tom Strong
is reviewed here
The Twelve, vol. 1 2008 (HC TPB) 144 pgs.
Written by J. Michael Straczynski. Pencils by Chris Weston. Inks by Garry Leach, Chris Weston.
Colours: Chris Chuckry. Letters: Jimmy Bentacourt. Editor: Tom Brevoort.
Reprinting: The Twelve #1-6 (2008)
Rating: * * * 1/2 (out of 5)
Number of readings: 1
Mildly suggested for mature readers
Published by Marvel Comics
This collects the first half of a proposed twelve issue mini-series that has aspirations to be another The Watchmen. And it also bears some conceptual similarities to Project Superpowers which came out around the same time -- both series mine the pages of old 1940s comics for some obscure characters, then revive the heroes in the modern world.
Here, a dozen golden age super heroes are captured by Nazis at the end of WW II and locked in suspended animation capsules...then re-discovered in 2008. Adopted as lost patriots by the US government, seeing in them a symbol of an innocent, nobler age -- one more tractable to the whims of authority -- they are provided with accomodations, in hope they'll agree to act as sanctioned agents once they've gotten over their future shock. And writer Straczynski does a nice job of juggling the desire for this to be a stand alone, Watchmen-like story...while still ensconcing it in the greater Marvel universe. So this is the world of Spider-Man and The Avengers, and references are made to the Superhuman Registration Act (that was the focus of the cross title "Civil War" saga) without actually shoe horning in guest appearances that would distract from its loftier, more sophisticated ambitions. The series stands on its own but avoids the problem of how to realistically portray the public reaction to people with super powers as this is a world where super beings are already familiar.
Like The Watchmen, it's a twelve-part epic, heavy on the deconstruction, with the heroes not quite the unimpeachable paragons the government presumes them to be -- most are good people, but some are narrow-minded racists, others delusional. Like with The Watchmen, the opening chapter throws in a cryptic murder, hinting at a darker, suspense story...even as this is more a character drama with the action scenes sporadic.
And it's kind of hard to review this first volume since the story is meant to play out over twelve chapters...and the comic is on an indefinite hiatus. Not, apparently, because of poor sales...but simply because creators Straczynski and Weston have been sidetracked by other, more lucrative projects!
If you commit to a twelve part series, if you advertise it as such, sub-titling it as a "thrilling novel of tomorrow"...aren't you kind of obligated to deliver? It's kind of hard to render an opinion on this collection, when I can't really say where -- of if -- it's headed anywhere.
What's here is fairly entertaining. As mentioned, this bears more than a passing similarity to Project Superpowers...but is more effective. Granted, it's more cerebral and low-key, a drama, whereas Project Superpowers was aiming to be a super hero adventure. But though both draw upon obscure 1940s heroes (possibly even some of the same ones, as both feature a "Dynamic Man"!) The Twelve does a better job of letting you know who these people are and what their stories are. Marvel even published a couple of accompanying issues reprinting some vintage stories of the characters (though none were included in the TPB collection, I believe). And there is something neat about ressurecting now obscure Golden Age characters, even if Straczynski plays around a bit with them, acknowledging their original comic book origin stories but sometimes suggesting those aren't the real story.
Although I can run hot and cold on Straczynski, writer of comics (Spider-Man, Supreme Power, etc.) and TV (Babylon 5) and movies, this is in the better camp of his out put. Sure, it's drenched in a Watchmen-esque hubris, as Straczynski attempts to "cleverly" deconstruct the heroes and society, but he pulls it off with more subtlety than he sometimes evinces. The dialogue is more natural, the humanity of the characters more pronounced (as opposed to them being ciphers for an idea). There are some nice, compelling scenes.
The art by Chris Weston is part of that realist deconstruction. Although he still draws the heroes with rippling musculature, the figures and environments are meticulously rendered, right down to wallpaper patterns. And instead of presenting a collection of square-jawed matinee idols as they were in their original comics, he presents them as a more motley collection of "real" people, some with big noses, or jutting jaws. Although, when it comes to the -- only -- woman in the group, the Black Widow, he presents her with movie starlet looks and an improbable bust line. Indeed, most of his women are drawn glamorously -- including a woman who is a daughter of one of the original heroes but, other than a streak of grey in her hair, hardly looks like a woman in her sixties! The art can be a bit stiff at times, particularly in the occasional super hero/action scenes, but I liked it, and it suits the material.
The comics flirt with "mature readers" material, but not as fully as the R-rated Supreme Power. There are mature ideas, or a scene where their Nazi captor is shown nonchalantly fondling the unconscious Black Widow's bosom (fully clothed, of course), or another scene where she is depicted sleeping nude in a way that might be -- slightly -- more revealing than the average comic. And a few gory scenes. But in essence, Straczynski generally pulls off the trick of imbuing the thing with a "mature" tone, comparable to The Watchmen...without seeming gratuitous.
But there are problems. The opening chapter ends with a murder -- then we jump back, to watch events build to that crime. But like with The Watchmen, in which the conspiracy was really just a plot device for its exploration of its world, likewise here, you don't really get much sense of an actual mystery. It's not till chapter six (which Straczynski presumably knew would mark the end of the first collection) that a prophetic character warns something is "terribly wrong"! It doesn't advance any plot, and seems simply there to encourage readers to pick up the next volume (if it ever comes -- at the writing of this it's been six months since the last published issue, #8).
Straczynski does a decent job suggesting different personalities and motives for some, but it seems a bit as though 12 heroes is a stretch, and many only have a line or two. And though he creates characters -- he doesn't maybe develop them, basically reiterating the same scenes (Captain Wonder is melancholy at learning has wife and kids are long dead). Nor does Straczynski create much sense of relationships, friendships.
The focal character -- insofar as he narrates -- is the reporter-turned-crime fighter, the Phantom Reporter. He's sweet on the Black Widow but it's not really clear what the attraction is. Sure, she's beautiful, and as the only woman among them, one can understand his infatuation. But that doesn't really make it a relationship of any emotion, or one where, gosh, we hope he wins her in the end.
Despite these flaws, and the fact that we don't fully believe there is some grand mystery plot that is unfolding in all its Byzantine complexity, I found myself enjoying The Twelve. But the lack of a clear narrative drive is a problem, the saga more a collection of vignettes and incidents. The Twelve lacks The Watchmen's sheer density, but in its favour it's also a more human take on this sort of material.
Since I've bought these issues (and cheap, yet!), I can look at the situation as half full, to say, well, I kind of liked what was there. But to you, someone who might be wondering whether this collection is worth picking up, I'm not sure what to tell you. It's six issues that have some good scenes, and boasts a reasonable maturity, and with pretty solid, effective art. But it rambles about, not necessarily offering great, stand alone stories, yet -- at the writing of this -- with no guarantee when the conclusion will be published, or whether it will justify what went before. At the same time, because of that, it's not like the sixth issue ends on a cliffhanger, either.
So, I kind of liked it...but neither Marvel, nor Straczynski, nor Weston, can really blame anyone but themselves if most readers decide to just leave it in the store, untried. At least until the concluding issues see print.
This is a review of the story serialized originally
in the comics.
Hard cover price: $24.99 USA
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