Content On The Way!

I've been reading a bunch of stuff but haven't been posting on it due to a bit of writing burnout but I should be getting back to it soon enough. At the very least I'll have a review of Watchmen up on Wednesday.

Stay tuned as I've got a new layout in the works as well as new content.

Simon Dark Issues #1 - 5

I was very close to full blown "hobby burnout" as I was approaching 24/7 comic books. I was reading them all day and then writing for this site and needed to take some time away. So I put the books down and chilled out a little bit for a few weeks and now I'm back.

To the review!

Simon Dark is the work of Steve Niles with Scott Hampton on the art. The last time we talked about any of Niles work was with his co-writing of The Nail with Rob Zombie. I did NOT like The Nail as it just felt like half a story written to try and give some cool moments with paper thin "badass" characters.

Simon Dark, on the other hand, feels like a fully fleshed out idea. The set-up is simple. Simon Dark is, as suggested on the cover, "Gotham City's Other Protector." He is a Frankenstein type "pieced together" character who tries to protect the innocent in his neighborhood. He doesn't really know who he is to this point in the series but we are granted a few flashbacks that hint that his "father" may have not had the best of intentions when he sewed him together.

Simon steals from stores and people's homes but he leaves money and only steals food and books. He lives in the remains of a burned out church with his cat "Kitty." I felt a little odd about the character at first as on the fourth page he cuts a guy's head off. One would think that as he is set up in the following few issues as a "gentle protector" that cutting someone's head off would be a touch of a conflict. Also, placing him in the same city as "never kill" Batman would lead to some problems prior to now.

However, we eventually see a member of a creepy criminal "cult" break into Simon's home and cut Kitty's head off. When Simon finds Kitty he begs a nearby doctor to sew it back on and fix him. When she explains to Simon that you can't just sew somethings head back on and make it better he is confused as his own head was cut off and his father sewed it on and he was okay. As he comes to realize that you can not sew someone's head back on Simon understands that it means he has actually been hurting people. It's a heartbreaking few pages as you realize how simple he is, how he lost Kitty ("all he has") and how he has been hurting people without understanding what he has been doing.

It is hard to explain the conflict here as the antagonists have yet to be fully fleshed out and their motives really explained but it is clear that they are very bad men with very bad intentions.

Rating: 7/10 - Simon is one of my favorite "new characters" in either of the big two comic companies in recent years. His world is dark but much as Batman inspired Gotham...Simon has done the same. The children have made up a song about how he protects the neighborhood and the city seems to almost instinctually know that he is there to help, not to harm. As his relationships with his new friends and other characters in the city develop I can only help but think that the book will continue to improve. Niles' work is solid, the dialogue is crisp. The art is near perfect also as it is dark without feeling overly heavy. If I had any one complaint about the art it would be that a lot of the characters do kind of look the same and I've had some trouble in certain panels telling which "girl" is in the action. It is a fairly minor complain and doesn't ruin this very fun book.

Clip of the Day - Indian Superman Edition

Exiles Arc 1 - Review

There we go, the header should take care of me having to explain what exactly Exiles is. Basically it's mutants from different timelines going to alternate universes and correcting situations in hopes of correcting problems in their own universe that could cause them to die (or simply not exist). So basically each arc is a different universe where things could be slightly, or massively different than the established "norm."

I'm going to go ahead and do reviews of each arc in the comic starting with the first (covering issues 1 and 2). And, sadly as fun as the series is...the first arc is just lame. If you could pick the most obvious "alternate" universe for an X-Men story...what would the center of it be? All mutants (all superheroes for that matter) have been outlawed and jailed, Xavier is a bad guy and Magneto is the leader of the heros.

Well, there ya go. The first issue ends with the Exiles freeing Xavier from jail thinking that is their "mission" in this particular universe only to suffer a mental blast from the freed Charles who walks off saying he is going to terminate a species. The second issue opens strongly with a scene of a street filled with humans who were knocked out by a tremendous mental blast from Professor X rounds up his "X-Men" (featuring Johnny Storm, Spider-Woman, Domino, Chamber and Cain "Juggernaut" Marko) who go on a rampage. This leads to the obligatory showdown between them and the Exiles...and the battle is solidly drawn.

The problem is twofold for me here. Morph is such a low-rent Plastic Man that he is hard for me to take seriously and honestly he just annoys the piss out of me. The other problem is that the situation is such an obvious choice for the first alternate universe that it lacks some of the "what if?" punch.

In the end Magnus sacrifices himself to save the prisinors from an atom bomb. It's a solid end that takes care of the fact that Magnus seemed a little TOO powerful for this particular group. As the issue ends the female Sunfire, Mariko Yashida, is brought in becoming the newest member of the group as they blink out of this universe and into the "Trial of Pheonix."

Rating - 6/10 - The fun of the series are all the "What If?"-esque situations and this universe is just not as amazing as some of the other situations they end up in.

I'll be back soon with more Exiles and other reviews.

Cover of the Day - January 25, 2009

It's a busy day for me, I'm just posting this cover and I'll get back to reviews and so forth tomorrow. Why Green Arrow? I dunno, I've just found a recent appreciation for the character so you get this beautiful cover.

Reading a Character - The Joker

Rather than type another review I figured I'd try something new. I want to give a set of three stories you should read to get the feel of the true "soul" of a character. In honor of Heath Ledger's Oscar nomination for his role in The Dark Knight we're going to start with a look at The Joker.

Story 1 - A Death in the Family
This isn't exactly the best Joker story in terms of writing. But let's be serious here. Any story where The Joker beats Robin with a crowbar and then blows him up is going to be a landmark moment in a character's existence. Readers of the comic were allowed to call two different numbers to decide the fate of Robin (not the original Robin, this was the second Robin...Jason Todd). One number resulted in Robin's death, one resulted in him living...whichever number got the most calls would be what determined the fate of young robin.

In quite the historic comic moment by a margin of less than 100 votes the readers chose death. Jason Todd was not well liked in the role of Robin as he was a bit of a punk. But for people to call in and vote for death at that point was pretty shocking because it was fans sentencing a character to death simply for annoying them. Regardless the death was probably the best possible thing for Batman as his inability to save his sidekick became a defining moment and one that haunts Bats to this day.

Rating: 6.5/10 - Were it not for the death this is only a slightly above average story. But I don't think that a list of defining Joker stories could be complete without it.

Story 2 - The Man Who Laughs

The story of the first time Batman ever had to deal with The Joker would probably make the list but Ed Brubaker really wrote a great story to go along with trying to write about this historic showdown. There is also very solid interplay between Jim Gordon and Batman as well as having both men narrate different parts of the story.

The idea that The Joker symbolizes the changing of Gotham from basic crime to this new level isn't new but it is penned very well here. The classic line from the story is from Bruce Wayne's narration: "I never prepared for this. I planned for the killers, the muggers, the rapists. Desperate people doing desperate things. But I never imagined something like The Joker."

This is probably the closest thing to the plot of The Dark Knight film as it features Joker targeting individual people of importance while Batman tries to figure out a way to deal with a mind that he doesn't fully understand.

Rating - 8/10 - It's not a perfect story but it is very solid and gives a lot of depth to the beginning of the relationship between Batman and Joker.

Story 3 - The Killing Joke

This is, for my money, the absolute definitive Joker story. It's not any shock to know that Alan Moore wrote the definitive story for any character but this story is just amazing.

The Joker attempts to prove to Batman that even the best of the world can lose their mind by having a bad day. To prove this, the Joker shows up at the place of Jim Gordon's daughter and shoots her, leaving her paralized. Later in the story, Joker kidnaps Gordon and forces him to go through a carnival ride stripped naked looking at pictures of his daughter, just after being shot...to make it worse she is being stripped naked in the pictures. As Batman shows up to save the day Gordon tells him to do it by the book and "prove that our way works" thus proving that he was not broken by The Joker.

The relationship between Batman and The Joker is made so much more complex by the themes Moore explores here. The "one bad day" theme in particular is interesting as Joker's possible origin is the result of his having a bad day and as he puts Batman has obviously been driven just as mad as he is by one bad day somewhere in his past. Just because he does "good" since being driven mad, obviously he is psychologically broken to go out dressed as a bat fighting crime.

Rating - 10/10 - It is the best Joker story ever told and one of the greatest stories in the history of comics. Read it...read it now.

Honorable Mention - Arkham Asylum - This gets mentioned a lot but I don't think it is "important" to the Joker character. It is a great story and has beautiful art. But I just don't think it has more significance to The Joker's character than the three above stories.

Cover of the Day - January 23, 2009

I've always enjoyed The Kingpin because while he can fight, he would much rather tear down Daredevil's world without direct physical confrontation the majority of the time. No real significance to today's cover, just slick art that would make me pick up the book were I to walk past the racks.