Leave Your Spandex @t the Door: Early Bird Reviews 22.03.06

Archive

Welcome to the 7th installment of the new Leave Your Spandex @t the Door! Wednesday is Comic Book Day in the U.S., and LYS@D is here again with this week’s Early Bird Reviews, so you can catch up on what rocks and what flops this week before you head to your local LCS! I’d like to thank Travelling Man Manchester for providing me with the advance look copies for review!

This week I’ve got quite the selection: gay superheroines, gay superheroes, bondage scenes, gay sexual harassments, rape charges, s&m torture and the legionnaires, who are gay anyway”¦ Quite a sexually charged week, innit!

Catwoman #53
DC
Writer: Will Pfeiffer
Artist: David & Alvaro Lopez

Review Content: It’s one year later”¦ and there’s a Cat-girl in town! Well, a Cat-baby, anyway. Or rather, Catwoman’s baby. But she’s not Catwoman anymore. Holly is Catwoman. Or is she? And who the heck is the father? Is it Slam? Is it Batman? And just what is the latter hiding under his cape?
I’ve found Pfeiffe’s take on Catwoman to be lukewarm pre-OYL, but the new status seems to suit him very well. Maybe it’s because he’s finally admitted defeat to writing a proper Selina Kyle Catwoman and given the reigns to a younger model. The new Catwoman is indeed strongly hinted to be Selina’s sidekick/protégé Holly, but there’s no actual unmasking in the book. It’s been so obvious from the moment that first cover was released, but DC keeps shrouding their solicits in mystery. Maybe Pfeiffer is setting us up for a heck of a plot twist and we’ll find out it’s really Flamebird or Zombie Spoiler under the goggles. Right now I just can’t wrap my head around Holly donning the spandex. I still consider her the human aspect of the title along with Slam. Pfeiffer slapping spandex and armour on both of them during his run foils the human perspective and strays the book from its film noir roots (post-relaunch of course). I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt, since he’s proved himself masterful at handling ‘human’ characters who have just found themselves in a superheroic role through his career-making run on H-E-R-O.
Bonus geek-out points to the name of the new baby! I could feel Pfeiffer winking through from beneath the page! Catwoman is the most changed book OYL so far, and it’s interesting to follow how all the main characters will deal with their new roles and responsibilities”¦

Grade: C

Manhunter #20
DC
Writer: Mark Andreyko
Artist: Pina & Fernando Blanco

Review Content: It is one year later”¦ and Manhunter is a more capable super-heroine now, with an added year of experience! I wonder why she still keeps getting her ass handed to her by D-rate super-villains and needs saving by her gay knight in obsidian armour? Little has changed, despite the time jump, as this story could have just as easily been told pre-OYL. The promise of camp idol Dr Psycho on the cover isn’t realised until the very last page, so I don’t recommend holding your breath too long! When he does show though, it’s with a mighty twist/revelation that at least promises to make the following issue interesting. With keywords like: struggling mom – rookie superhero – gay sidekick – superhuman law, I’m still hoping this title will wake up one day and realise it’s potential”¦

Grade: D

Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes #16
DC
Writer: Mark Waid
Artist: Barry Kitson & Mick Gray

Review Content: Oh, twist! Supergirl and the Legion!! But how? Who? Er”¦ where? Don’t expect any startling OYL changes from the first page here. Although it’s advertised as a OYL title (or rather 1001 years later), there is no new mysterious status quo connected to the Crisis at first glance. The Legion are now a government-sanctioned operation and they deal with an incoming alien object from object. Wonder who it could be connected to! Supergirl only actually shows up in the last pages, creating a lot of valid questions amidst the crowds and revealing a nasty tidbit of spoiler information that would be cool if DC would actually go through with. I just love teasing about spoilers!
The title retains its flavour pre-retitling, with young flatly-characterised heroes making their revolution in a ridiculously over-alienated and over-secluded world. Supergirl will fit right in!

Grade: D

Daughters of the Dragon #3
Marvel
Writer: Justin Gray & Jimmy Palmiotti
Artist: Khari Evans & Jimmy Palmiotti

Review Content: Fun! Fun! Fun!
Marvel’s most tragically under-marketed book on the stands! High-octane action! Beautiful babes! Over-the-top splatter covered by word-balloons! Ultra-violence! Smart-ass quips! The envy of Tarantino! Villains chopped in half! Villains amputated! Villains crashed to death in the back seat of a moving car! Misty Knight naked in the shower with a cockroach! Colleen Wing sexually harassed by a villainess! Orka in a gay bar! A future-superstar artist in the vein of early Adam Pollina! Hyphenated words! Exclamation points! A review with no verbs!
Buy! Buy! Buy!

Grade: B

She-Hulk #6
Marvel
Writer: Dan Slott
Artist: Will Conrad

Review Content: It’s a storyline called Beaus & Eros! How cool is Dan Slott? Making bad puns a good name!

And it doesn’t even feature Hawkeye anymore! Since the relaunch She-Hulk has been home to the sort of adventures that the actual Avengers should be involved with. In this issue everyone favourite Avengers womanizer, Eros a.k.a. Starfox, returns! Eros has empathic powers, allowing him to win the adoration and affection of the people. And he does just that, by freely giving to earthwomen his gift of love and intimate knowledge of the Kama Sutra. But wait! If they cant help but fall in love with him, doesn’t that make him a serial rapist? How cool is Dan Slott? Daringly writing the stories everyone else would happily ignore for continuity’s sake (and doing a bang-up job of it)!

And wait till you see what happens when Eros decides to right a few wronged hearts in She-Hulk’s law firm, making him the walking plot twist as he single-handedly upturns every single developing romantic subplot in the title! How cool is Dan Slott? Using guest-stars as a valid (and literal, here) deus-ex-machina to advance his plot!
And you’re not reading this, why exactly?

Grade: B

X-Factor #5
DC
Writer: Peter David
Artist: Dennis Callero

Review Content: Last issue Siryn was beat to near-death and left to die in a dark alley. This issue, she wishes she had, as she wakes up bound, gagged and helpless by her would-be saviour. Peter David takes a sudden turn of mood with a self-contained psychological horror story.
Dennis Callero is a worthy (if not even more capable) successor to Ryan Sook and delivers the chilling atmosphere of David’s script to the reader. Reading this story, I gasped, averted my eyes from the page and genuinely feared for Theressa’s life. Well done!

Grade: A

X-Men #184
Marvel
Writer: Peter Milligan
Artist: Salvador Larroca

Review Content: Don’t you just miss the 90s sometimes?
Apart from the whole speculator boom, the crappy Image titles, the Liefeld clone supremacy and the glut of meaningless titles. Don’t you just miss the 90s X-Men crossovers? The X-Cutione’s Song! The Phalanx Covenant! The Age of Apocalypse! Onslaught! Operation Zero Tolerance! BIG events, well orchestrated, with every x-title having a specific and crucial role in them, with the villain actually being someone fearsome”¦

I have reached the conclusion Peter Milligan is being purposefully underwhelming in his writing as a personal statement about modern superhero comics. This summer the post-HoM (yawn) big event in the X-Men’s lives is the much-awaited return of their most powerful enemy: Apocalypse!! As seen in X-Men and Cable/Deadpool”¦ The other two main titles were apparently too busy chatting and writing Wonderwoman.

So Apocalypse shows up in his impressive floating pyramid over the x-mansion – and floats for 3 issues. In the meantime he changes half the current Milligan roster into Horsemen that seem to have jumped straight out of the pages of Naruto. In his great attack against them, he makes them hungry so they are forced to eat his addictive red junk. Thankfully for him Salem Center doesn’t have a Burger King or his plan would have tanked! The X-Men counter his attack by storming the fridge and then sending in an elite strikeforce of”¦ Rogue, Iceman and Havok! I don’t know if you realised but I’m trying to make a subtle point about this BIG event’s lack of, well, size.

Is it because of Pete Milligan’s shortcomings as a writer? Pete gave us Shade the changing man, Skin, X-Statix, Enigma and Human Target, he’s one of the most talented writers in comics. The problem is that Milligan doesn’t set out to write the advertised and hyped big shattering event in X-history. He’s writing a personal story about Apocalypse’s mellow human weaknesses and how both he and the X-Men have been rendered ineffective and pointless because of recent events in Marvel U. Instead of the megalomaniacal Apocalypse, we get a self-doubting villain who can no longer find the joy in mass human massacre. We don’t get strong heroic archetype x-men, but weak-minded bickering children who have been hit a few times too many. It’s a worthwhile story at the wrong time, on the wrong book, with the wrong characters and the wrong artist.

Salvador Larroca has been obviously struggling with the scripts, but the experience has been transformative for him, as this issue a bold new artist emerges from endless months of unfortunate experimentation in direct-from-pencils colouring! Larroca now follows the Tim Sale example and applies washes over his pencils, and the effect is finally pleasant as the characters’ appearance gains a new emotional layer and the art has texture and resonance.

For the spoiler-mongers among you, yes, the new horseman is indeed Gambit. The reasons for his defection are revealed in the backup horsemen story, and they will be most likely felt as anathema for the Cajun fans among you, but do ring true for the flawed character of Gambit that was introduced during the 90s Lobdell run and resurfaced here.

Grade: C

Aaaaand that’s a wrap for this week! I’m waiting your comments and feedback through email to Manolis@gmail.com. If you self-publish your own comics or represent an indy comics company, add me to your press release list, and I will run your news in this space every week.

Manolis Vamvounis
a.k.a. Dr. Dooplove

ah, the good old Dr Manolis, the original comics Greek. He's been at this for sometime. he was there when the Comics Nexus was founded, he even gave it its name, he even used to run it for a couple of years. he's been writing about comics, geeking out incessantly and interviewing busier people than himself for over ten years now and has no intention of stopping anytime soon.