GIRLS #11:
Writer: Joshua Luna
Artist: Jonathan Luna
Publisher: Image
Well, well, the plot thickens… finally. One of the most common criticisms of this book has been the slow pace, with the characters doing precious little in the last couple of issues except wondering what is going on in their town. Coincidentally, the Lunas are currently working with the right honourable Duke of Decompression, Mr. Bendis, on SPIDER-WOMAN: ORIGIN for Marvel. At least they’ll be able to learn from the master when it comes to the fine art of writing-for-the-trade. Thankfully, GIRLS has a couple of highly beneficial points working in its favour to keep readers interested in the monthly installments. Firstly, the art is eye candy of the sweetest, most sublime nature imaginable. While it can be a little difficult to keep track of what is happening during major fight scenes, particularly during this issue, this is more to do with the large supporting cast rather than the actual layouts. Facial expressions are clear and emotional, the reveals are built up to nicely, and the colouring is second-to-none (look at the use of flame and torchlight this issue). Secondly, GIRLS has a great hook – a mute naked chick turns up, spawns several clones, and they then proceed to try and shag all the men and kill all the women in sleepy ol’ Pennystown, Middle-of-Nowhere, USA. This means lots of boobies, and we all know how you lot feel about boobies. That they start eating people here only adds to the warped enjoyment of it all, as does the black-as-night comedy that makes a welcome return here thanks to an inadvertent shooting. The behaviour of the girls in the final pages does more to advance the plot than anything else in the book has done for quite some time. My patience sated, I can now happily wait for the next issue.
Score: B
INFINITE CRISIS: SECRET FILES:
Writer: Marv Wolfman
Artist: Dan Jurgens
Finishes: Jerry Ordway, Cam Smith, Art Thibert & Nelson
Publisher: DC
INNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNFINIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITE CRIIIIIIIIISSSSSIIIIIIISSSS! Yes, it is still going on (it helps if you yell out that first sentence in a Howard Finkel voice… I miss him… and Ralphus… and Jericho… and talking about wrestling in comics columns). By this point you are either committed to the whole thing, in which case you probably bought this ‘bonus’ issue, or you just really don’t care anymore, in which case your only involvement with DC probably comes from Vertigo. To those poor saps who, like me, have found themselves buying an inexplicably large number of Crisis tie-ins, preludes, crossovers, spin-offs and the like, splashing out a little bit extra for this double-sized book probably doesn’t seem like a very big deal at all. After all, it’s written by none other than Marv Wolfman, more or less the Crisis Godfather, and does more to justify the actions of DC’s very own 3 Live Kru (that’s Alexander Luthor, Superboy Prime and Kal-L, pay attention) than anything else that has been released in the past year. Of course, shunting important character development scenes off into other titles rather than integrating them into the main storyline has been one of the biggest drawbacks to Infinite Crisis, e.g. the recent Superman/Superman brawl in (funnily enough) the Superman books, the trials and tribulations of Conner Kent in TEEN TITANS, and so it goes. On that rapturous day when ABSOLUTE GIANT-SIZED LIFT-IT-WITH-A-CRANE INFINITE CRISIS HC is released, they will no doubt still struggle to contain everything. Anyway, in SECRET FILES Wolfman gives us a closer look at how the original Crisis survivors dealt with their fate. Sealed in a supposedly idyllic land outside of space and time, Kal-L watched helplessly as his wife began to die, Superboy constantly relived moments of great pleasure and pain from the life he now never had and grew increasingly frustrated as only a sexless teenage boy can, while Alexander became convinced that the post-Crisis Earth had been formed incorrectly. The collapse of the multiverse had gone less smoothly than anticipated and Alexander, fuelled by confusion over his Earth-3 heritage and rapid growth, began to take the steps of a god in order to ‘fix’ things as he saw fit. By manipulating the increasingly psychotic Superboy he was able to give us the controversial ‘continuity waves’ (see Doom Patrol and Jason Todd among others) before moving on to an even greater plan – bring back a different Earth altogether, a perfect Earth, which led us to the events of Infinite Crisis. There are some wonderful insights into the motivations of these characters in this book, some handled in a rather sinister manner – Alexander getting naked and then secreting a part of his dark essence into Superboy, for one – but all deeply effective in understanding the main event. It’s also great to see that Wolfman was able to work in the original ‘way out’ that he concocted back in 1986, with the oft-forgotten influence of pre-Crisis Darkseid on Alexander’s vision playing a part in the decisions the Ginger Mulleted One makes. It’s far from a perfect book since – much like this review – some sections are dragged out a bit too long. It does, however, contain more emotion than you are likely to find elsewhere in this Crisis.
Score: B
SEVEN SOLDIERS: BULLETEER #4:
Writer: Grant Morrison
Artist: Yanick Paquette
Inks: Serge LaPointe
Colours: Alex Sinclair
Publisher: DC
[Book of the Week!]
Manolis Vamvounis came up with the best comment on this issue…
“DUUUUUUUUDE!
I’m gay but I still realise the inherent brilliance of having two superbabes in tight spandex psycho-analyse each other in the midst of a bitchfight in the kitchen, while they’re using a fridge to smack each other around…”
I’m not sure what else needs to be said, frankly.
Score: A
TRANSFORMERS: BEAST WARS #2:
Writer: Simon Furman
Artist: Don Figuroa
Colours: Josh Burcham
Publisher: IDW
And it was all… indifferent. Really, though Figuroa has done a tremendous job with the art and Burcham has coloured it magnificently (check out that sandstorm effect on page three), I still have no idea who any of these characters are or why I’m meant to be affected by them. The only one that I do recognise only turns up on the last page as a partial corpse, which, in the way of all good Transformers stories, means that he will probably return in a new body in the next issue. I’m not overly familiar with the Beast Wars TV series but even if you are that won’t do you a great deal of good since Furman has for some reason chosen to base this story around characters that made it to toy production but not onto the show. In theory this allows him to tell a story that does not damage the existing BW continuity. In practice, it makes an already complicated set-up (Transformers from the future, action set on Earth’s past, something about transwarp, I forget) even murkier and awkward to get into. Then again, this is hardly the title to be reading if you are after plot clarity or reason. As far as the TFs go, the place to look for that is in IDW’s Generation One title, INFILTRATION (reviewed last week). By contrast, the BW title is all about the action. Viewed as a chance to see superbly drawn battle scenes of big good robots knocking the crap out of big evil robots, this works.
Score: C
