Fell #4:
Writer: Warren Ellis
Artist: Ben Templesmith
Publisher: Image
[Book of the Week!]
Most of the online buzz around Ellis these days seems to be directed at NEXTWAVE, which is a shame since it comes at the expense of FELL, a far worthier project. We have all seen superheroes get the Ellis treatment many times before now. It usually makes for a thoroughly satisfying and ever-so-slightly wicked read but step out of the shadows a little and give an Ellis cop book a shot instead. Go on, touch it. It’s okay to touch it. It likes to be touched. It deserved to be touched, particularly since each issue tells an entirely self-contained story in just sixteen rapid-fire pages of inarguable merit ($1.99 USA, $2.40 Canada, £1.45 UK). The titular character is Detective Richard Fell, who acts much as you would expect an ‘Ellisian’ detective character to act. Fell has recently been transferred/punished for as-yet-unrevealed past transgressions in his previous post, winding up in Snowtown – a place that makes Gotham City seem like Fraggle Rock by comparison. Out of Snowtown’s populace, the only person sane, sober and/or stupid to actually want to befriend Fell is a local bartender named Mayko. The rest of the time Fell is left to his own devices, often to the chagrin of others, to combat his real enemy – Snowtown itself and its effect on the people it has, effectively, imprisoned within itself. In this particular issue a body is found floating in Snowtown’s main river, the town having spat it back up in contempt of Fell and his well-intentioned police work. Taking it as a personal insult, Fell does what he can to try and even the score. “Every time you take one, I’m going to take one back” he says to nobody in particular. This series is nothing but a winner. The rigid structure keeps Ellis focused and results in a very tight script, while Templesmith’s art offers both method and madness, with more than a few chills down the spine to boot. You can read the entire first issue online, legally, by clicking here.
Score: B
Seven Soldiers: Frankenstein #3:
“The Water”
Writer: Grant Morrison
Artist: Doug Mahnke
Colorist: John Kalisz
Publisher: DC
There’s no point in denying it any longer – I am losing interest in SEVEN SOLDIERS. The latter parts of the ‘standalone crossover’ have failed to live up to the initial giddiness of SHINING KNIGHT, the intriguing macabre of KLARION THE WITCH BOY, the humbling spectacle of ZATANNA, or the sheer head-rush of MANHATTAN GUARDIAN. MISTER MIRACLE has failed dismally (see below) while BULLETEER and FRANKENSTEIN, though still offering some decent ideas, have been permeated with an undeniable lacklustre. The second issue of FRANKENSTEIN was particularly emphatic with its letdown but thankfully has rebounded a little this time around due to a couple of very important elements – Doug Mahnke and Frankenstein’s Bride. Morrison has always been very astute when it comes to finding brilliant artists to collaborate with and Mahnke surely has to rank as one of the most gifted, up there alongside the big cheese himself in Frank Quitely. Indeed, Mahnke’s work here is reminiscent of the seminal Morrison/Quitely effort, WE3, only shot through a Geoff Darrow filter of meticulous detail and spectacular violence. Just take a look at the opening three pages. You’ll struggle to look away. His version of Missus ‘Stein is equally noteworthy – a curiously effective amalgamation of the classic Bride from the Boris Karloff film with Trinity from The Matrix and two extra arms. She works for S.H.A.D.E., a parody of S.H.I.E.L.D. that also pays homage to the Avengers (as in Emma Peel, not Tony Stark and certainly not Uma Thurman). The plot is suitably B-movie for Morrison’s ‘last action hero’ version of this classic character, involving sentient water that rebels from human interference and destroys a town. There might well be pastiche value in that story but Morrison does not take it anywhere, instead wallowing in it without offering much to keep our interest. Well, except for the pretty, pretty pictures.
Score: C
Seven Soldiers: Mister Miracle #4
“Forever Flavoured Man”
Writer: Grant Morrison
Artist: Freddie E. Williams II
Colorist: Dave McCaig
Publisher: DC
There are many things in this world of ours that have, by general consensus, been deemed ‘confusing’. The meaning of life, for one. The identity of the one true religion. On the lesser end of the spectrum, the mystery over why they continue to put raisins in packets of Revels. With so much in life capable of leaving us so bewildered and feeling ever-so-slightly diminished in our worthless, reckless existence, why oh why should we trouble ourselves with a comic book as needlessly and deliberately confusing as this one? As a big fan of Morrison’s work, as someone that happily gobbled up perplexing books like SEAGUY and MARVEL BOY, this is rather hard to say but, honestly, I haven’t the foggiest. Given recent developments at DC, the only explanation I can offer up is that Superboy Prime punched the living daylights out of this story and then stomped it into the ground, gave it a wedgie, stole its lunch money and then gave it a really bad case of the cooties. Given the fairly random, fanwank appearance of a bunch of O.M.A.C.s in one panel, that might not be very far from the truth. However, the book manages to avoid the dreaded F-rating due to some exceptionally fluid artwork – helped tremendously by McCaig’s pertinent colouring technique. Thankfully this mini-series has come to an end, leaving me, my inner Grant Morrison fanboy, and my SEVEN SOLDIERS completist streak to continue existing with one another in perfect harmony.
Score: D
Transformers: Infiltration #3:
Writer: Simon Furman
Artist: E.J. Su
Colorist: John Rauch
Publisher: IDW
If you want galaxy-spanning, robo-crunching, guns-drawn, free-for-all mechanoid carnage from your Transformers then go and check out IDW’s new BEAST WARS mini-series. If you want a subtle reintroduction of the Generation One characters that is more grounded in reality than any that came before it, whilst managing to steadily build on the intrigue and the spectacle of Giant F’N Robots turning into cars and planes and knocking lumps out of one another, then INFILTRATION is the place for you. Chances are good that you will, like me, wind up buying both anyway, neatly covering your bases. Anyway, after two-and-a-half issues of setting up the premise and introducing the characters (including new and, by Furman’s standards, fairly well-developed humans) we are… still setting things up. Really, I’m not at all sure why things could not have been trimmed so that most of this occurred in the second issue. Randomly, I am strangely pleased that Winamp has decided to play “Back in Time” by Huey Lewis & The News. Basically, Starscream is sending various Decepticons around to destroy various facilities of their ‘siege mode’ operation since the humans have the macguffin that clues the Autobots into their whereabouts. Ratchet, who picked up the humans and the macguffin, fears that the escalating Decepticon activity is leading up to something major – possibly the arrival of Megatron – and this has caused some friction in the Autobot camp. Prowl does not want to alert Optimus Prime unless there is more conclusive evidence that they can’t handle this themselves and, being Prowl, he promptly orders Ratchet to sort it out himself. Ratchet, assisted by Bumblebee, indulges the curiousity of the humans and takes them with him to investigate one of the abandoned bases – even though Prowl will be angry about the continued involvement of the humans. Ironhide, ever the grizzled veteran, goes ahead and alerts Optimus anyway. That’s basically it. This is an issue of necessary plot hoops that are jumped through in order, sustained by the odd memorable moment, such as Sunstreaker’s bemusement at the humans, the ‘holomatter’ images used in vehicle mode, and what appears to be a cameo by Bruce Campbell as a mechanic. This is also our first chance to see Su’s robot designs clearly and, thankfully, they are spectacular and yet still tell a story – a crucial aspect that was often left out in the Pat Lee/Dreamwave days. Unfortunately, it will be issue #6 before a full assessment of the IDW generation can be made.
Score: B
Cable/Deadpool vol. 4 – Bosom Buddies TPB:
Writer: Fabian Nicieza
Artist: Patrick Zircher w/ Dave Ross
Inker: M3th (UDON)
Colorist: Gotham
Publisher: Marvel
That’s the cover of issue #19 but the actual trade uses the cover to issue #21 instead. You’ll know it when you see it; it has Luke Cage and Iron Fist on it. Well, that and it says “Cable/Deadpool vol. 4 – Bosom Buddies”, which should in any event be your first clue. This fourth volume of Marvel’s merriest morsel of mutant mirth does indeed collect issue #19, and all those up to and including #24. First up is “Why, When I Was Your Age…”, a standalone story that draws our two leads closer together in that manliest of ways – a night of swapping drunken sorrows at a bar. The only hitch is that Cable is still re-growing his body having been de-aged in the third volume, so technically he is underage and Deadpool’s schizophrenic moral standards won’t let him buy a beer for a minor. Cable tells a typically cold tale about his war-torn future (and by future I think I mean past) while Deadpool reveals his father issues (and laments the false advertising factor of a town called Intercourse). Next comes the four-part “Bosom Buddies”, complete with guest appearances from the aforementioned ’70s studs, Commcast and the B.A.D. Girls (and if you had heard of them before then, well, congratulations/commiserations). It is a bit of a letdown, unfortunately, since the aim of the story – keep Cable’s power levels toned down and yet replace his telepathy with an alternate information supply – is muddled by a confusing plot and some fairly weak motivation for Cable. This allows Deadpool to make several amusing points about how baffling the Dominus Objective (our resident macguffin) is to the reader but such jokes are of less value than a clearer story would have been. We close on another one-shot, “Sticky Situations”, which seems to exist for no apparent reason other than to get Spider-Man and Deadpool to try and out-pun one another. Cue lots of fawning over Tobey Maguire’s cutey-pie eyes and the sinister lack of Deadpool underoos in stores. If you’re at all interested in reading this title then it is the sort of thing you will love, and it comes with the bonus feature of setting up the next major story arc of S.H.I.E.L.D. trying to get some form of control over Cable if at all possible. All in all, Nicieza’s CABLE/DEADPOOL is a vital part of a growing trend in Marvel Comics, i.e. the further away you get from the ‘epic’, ‘main event’, ‘headline’ books, the more satisfying a read you actually get. See also: SHE-HULK, YOUNG AVENGERS, RUNAWAYS, G.L.A., SPIDER-MAN LOVES MARY JANE and THE THING among others. The upcoming CIVIL WAR company-wide blockbuster wants to know what side we are on. Personally, I’m on the side of any book in which Deadpool stands in front of three scantily-clad beautiful women and fantasizes about rubbing suntan lotion onto Cable’s back on a tropical beach.
Score: B
