Reads
What I’ve Been Reading, part the current
So, this is the time where I plunge into the box of recently read stuff and talk about some of it. There’s not gonna be much rhyme or reason, so bear with me.
First out of the gate is Hard Time, by Steve Gerber and Brian Hurtt. I’ve commented a bit on this in the past, mostly commenting on the lack of diversity in the color palette which I’ve gotten accustomed to, but still question. Ostensibly, the Focus Line’s reason for being was to portray superpowers in a realistic manner, eschewing the costumes, but keeping the X-Ray vision so to speak.
If we’re hell-bent on showing this in a realistic world, then why are we using decidedly unrealistic and limited (becoming, finally, monotonal) palettes? Hard Time is set in a prison, so we’re already presented with a pretty static backdrop in terms of aesthetics. Why limit it even further?
But on to the content. Hard Time suffers from the monthly presentation. Flat out. If I weren’t a dedicated fan of Steve Gerber, they’d have lost me on the first issue (which was all set-up and development, barely getting us through the protagonist’s trial.) DC would have done themselves a great favor by making the first issue double-size (but then, I make that argument for just about any first issue of a comic, so DC is in good stead there. I guess.) Emphasis on character development in a decompressed presentation (and face it, nearly every comic today is decompressed; it’s simply the way writers/artists are telling stories these days) makes the 22-page format a handicap at best, and a total turn-off at worst.
Heh. I still haven’t gotten to the content. Okay, this time, I promise. Messrs Gerber and Hurtt have created a fairly grounded environment, relatively believable as these things go. Not that I’ve been in prison, so I can’t speak to the veracity of their portrayal of life in the Big House, but the pieces of the environment all fit together reasonably well and don’t seem to be too cliché-ridden. This is expected when Mr. Gerber is at the helm.
What’s also expected is a fair bit of contempt towards authority figures in general, societal administration of “justice”, and a scathing hatred of religious institutions/fanaticism. We get that, perhaps a little heavy-handedly in the first issue. What we also get is observation of social dynamics, prison being a particularly fertile ground for that sort of thing. Everyone’s in a group, a clique. Everyone but our protagonist, who gets to suffer for it. He’s neither guard nor con, Black nor Aryan (though white), boy nor man. He’s the ultimate outsider crammed into a situation where the situation dictates membership in a larger group for protection/companionship/survival.
His superpowers (which help drive the story, but are almost superfluous at this point in the game) give form to his anger and resentment at being trapped, of being threatened by those more physically powerful than himself (nearly everyone) and inability/unwillingness to join a larger group.
If DC wants to give voice to mature portrayals such as those in Hard Time, I do wish they’d acknowledge that the form must be dictated by the content, not vice versa. Hard Time is a solid read, though it’s mature setting seems to be hampered somewhat by going for an all-ages readership (I don’t see any MATURE READERS tag on the cover), and it really doesn’t deserve to fall by the wayside, as the Focus line appears to be doing overall. In a perfect world, DC would break it out of the Focus line, allow it to have more of an individual identity and present it in longer, self-contained arcs. But our world is far from perfect, isn’t it.
Next up is the reboot/consolidation of Swamp Thing. Andy Diggle, who proved that he can deliver (as The Losers proved in spades) is teamed with Enrique Breccia, and it’s a great match-up. Mr. Breccia’s art, more subdued in technique than the recent Lovecraft graphic novel, is awesome. I wish it was black and white, but the color has managed to stay out of the way and served to contribute to the story (rather than just remind you that muted colors are “adult”.)
This series really isn’t a reboot, but more a solid attempt to cut off all the loose ends of various dangling Swamp Thing storylines that are the result of passing the characters through something like five groups of creators before the series was finally ended awhile back. Not only are these lines being tied off relatively neatly, the story that’s being told now does it with panache and style (Mr. Diggle getting a couple zinger lines in every issue, most of them coming out of the mouth of John Constantine.) While not the mind-blowing expansionist trip of some of the earlier incarnations of the character, the current Swamp Thing offers solid story with twists and gorgeous art.
I wish I could say the same thing of Enginehead, which seems to go out of its way to be obtuse, dense and impenetrable. I don’t say this because I don’t like the art. I’m a fan of Ted McKeever’s, and have been since Plastic Forks was announced first from Caliber (if memory serves) then finally was launched out of Epic back in the 80s or 90s. I’ve also heard good things about Joe Kelly’s run with Superman, but never got into it. Enginehead, however, is nothing short of a total mess so far as I’m concerned. Frankly, I’m not even sure who Enginehead actually is or what he’s doing. Apparently he’s a composite of a bunch of forgotten DC characters, but who they are isn’t made apparent directly. I’m sure that if you’re obsessive about the charcters you’d know. I don’t.
The story seems to be reaching for some point that it isn’t able to grasp. I’m three issues in and going to give up on it. The last issue, featuring a relatively pointless fight with The Fluoronic Man, made as little sense as anything else that’d come before in the book. I want to like it. I want there to be something meaningful going on. I want an excuse to get more Ted McKeever art, but without some major editing or change in direction, I simply can’t justify it any longer. More and more, Enginehead seems like another project that would be better served as a self-contained OGN so that I can get it all at once (even if it’s out of sequence and jarring as a Goddard flick). I can deal with that, but I can’t deal with it when it’s doled out in little chunks every month and I’m hard pressed to remember what happened the month before and even if it meant anything. Classify under “interesting but failed experiment.”
The Monolith makes for more direct and satisfying reading. I wish it didn’t have to dress itself up as a superhero book (and I’m sure that the creators think the same thing, but one does what one must in the current market). The Monolith takes the myth of the Golem from Hebrew mythology and plants it in modern day New York (not Metropolis or Gotham, which seems weird, as it’s a DCU book and not in its own universe.) There’s plenty to like here, with characters battling back against nearly insurmountable odds and distasteful foes (who you actually want to see get pounded into ketchup). There’s also characters who actually make choices that drive their own fates and have real impact.
But then you can do that with brand new characters who don’t have franchise strings attached. Ahem.
There are times that the plotting and dialogue are a tad mundane, but the overall package is solid. Phil Winslade’s art goes a long way towards that, as he’s able to not only draw spooky atmosphere and bold action, but keep things readable and bring out characterization (both through heavy blacks/negative space and restraint where necessary.) I wish that the colors were a little less muddy and mid-rangy. There are moments where more contrast in the coloring would really punch up the impact and be able to maintain the naturalistic approach. Unfortunately, some pages get lost in dark and dark and dark and dark. Even night scenes can be given contrast and still work.
Last on the DC hit parade is Scratch, a loving story about a Batman and his werewolf. Okay, not really, but I’ve always wanted to say that. Bats plays pretty much no role in this. He’s there in the framing and serves no other purpose than to excite the Batman completists and force them to pick up the book. Like I say, you gotta do what you gotta do. Scratch is really about a teenage werewolf coming across a strange situation in Any Small Town, USA.
Sam Kieth works his magic once again. He combines recognizable elements from The Studio crowd (predominantly Jeff Jones and Bernie Wrightson) and still manages to make them his own, with his sense of exaggeration and shadow and idiosyncratic perspective. The dialogue is workmanlike, and the story a bit so as well, but when paired with expressive art like Mr. Keith’s, it becomes something else entirely. I’d have picked up the second issue even without the dire cliffhanger.
Global Frequency comes to a close with a bit of a bang, after the feared whimper of a several-month long lacuna between issues 11 and 12. Brian Wood’s cover is, as to be expected, a nice bit of design, though I nearly lost it on the shelves of new releases awhile ago. Gene Ha’s artwork is pretty wonderful, though I’m wondering how much of that is him and how much is the issue’s colorist, Art Lyon. The artwork is more painterly than the only other Gene Ha work that I’m familiar with, that being Top 10.
Once again Mr. Ellis brings us a credible threat borne out of the combination of science and politics run amok. And this time it can’t be solved with the simple application of firepower (which was one of my major critiques of the series as it stood, where problems were ultimately done away with via handguns instead of brains. Yes, I know that not all issues ended that way, and those that did were made stronger for it.) True, it ended with a Frequency Agent sacrificing themselves (as has also happened in a number of issues, so much so that it kinda lost its impact), but it also ended with a powerful and optimistic statement of individual/small group grit being able to overcome the machinations of an intangible bureaucracy instead of just rolling over and taking it. That gets points in my book.
Finally, we end with something from this week’s pull. I’d have mentioned Seaguy, but I’m going to save that for a wrapup once all three issues have made it out (unless Graeme beats me to the punch). Last is The Goon #7. The Goon meets Hellboy. Probably the only Mike Mignola-drawn Hellboy to come out this year.
I hated it.
Just kidding. It was great. Not only do we get to see Mr. Mignola’s take on The Goon in his own inimitable style, we get to see Hellboy in the hands of Eric Powell. It’s as funny or funnier than you’d expect, Hellboy playing the role of unexpected straight man to The Goon and Frankie’s lunatic, zombie-dispatching mayhem. And did I mention the pork chop smuggling ring? Good.
I won’t tell you who wins in the Goon/Hellboy face-off, but I will tell you that the only thing more terrifying than the Communist Airborne Mollusk Militia is when they floating around in giant balloons. I couldn’t make this up if I tried. Good thing that guys like Eric Powell are on the job. And oh yeah, KNIFE TO THE EYE.
Take that Wertham!