This is Leave Your Spandex @t the Door, packed neatly every week for your enjoyment.
Still counting towards the triple digits, this is column 98, bringing you:
-Review for the MICE TEMPLAR #1 from Image Comics
-Panel of the Week voting
-Neil Gaiman writes Alan Moore
-Ultimate Kitty
-Macy’s parade Marvel Float video from a decade back
-Wedding Bells for Skott Kurtz
-King Leonidas on Who Wants to be a Millionaire?
For daily updates and even more reviews, videos and commentary, keep checking the LYS@D daily blog. and subscribe to the RSS feed.
This week in comics…
PANEL OF THE WEEK VOTING 29.08.07
Each week I’ll be posting the 3-4 most memorable panels from the week and putting them up for a public week-long vote. The winning panels gets posted on the sidebar and earns boasting privileges over lesser panels…
Vote for your favorite:
CoolWebPollPanel A:
THE ORDER #2
Panel B:
THUNDERBOLTS #116
Panel C:
ASTONISHING X-MEN #22
Panel D:
BIRDS OF PREY #107
REVIEW: MICE TEMPLAR #1
Artist/Story: Mike Avon Oeming
Writer/Story: Bryan J. L. Glass
Image Comics
Mouse Guard. Disney’s The Three Musketeers. Secret of Nimh. The Mouse Knight.
Somewhere in the collective human subconscious there is a special space that automatically responds affectionately at the sight of a mouse in armour holding a tiny sword battling cats and enemy rats. It’s not something you can control. Cartoon mice enough are cute enough, but slap a feathered cap on them, and you’ve hit the payload! No wonder Petersen’s MOUSE GUARD became such an instant cult hit, leading to sold out first editions hitting some crazy numbers among collectors!
Mouse + Sword = ‘Awwww‘ = $_$
Following the heavily researched math above, Oeming and Glass are starting off their new series with a built-in audience foundation and a natural advantage. Take in the factors: Mice, swords, the Knights Templar, Image Comics. Multiple page coverage in Previews. Oversized premiere issue. Reduced introductory price.
In detail: MICE TEMPLAR #1 introduces us to the world of Karik, a young mouse who lives in a tree village with his mom and little sister. Instead of fairytales, the young mice in this world are enamored with the myth of the Mice Templar, the legendary mice knights of yesteryear, who have long disappeared mysteriously, after a war erupted within their ranks. Now they are the stuff the legend, and children’s favorite play-pretend game. When the village is threatened, Karik discovers that there is a lot more truth to their story than what the elders tell him, and that he has an important role to play in their future.
Glass gets most of the backstory/legend of the Templar out of the way with the first 6 pages of info-dump, which daze the reader and require a lot of attention up front before even seeing the characters for the first time. From then on, the story takes a more relaxed pace and introduces us to the characters inhabiting this mouse village. A number of mysteries and questions are set up for the reader, making him eager to navigate through the issue, while constantly revealing more facts about the way this world works and slowly injecting the more mystical elements in this sword&sorcery tale.
Unlike Petersen’s Mouse Guard, Oeming‘s mice aren’t all cute and fluffy, but more akin to his human figures, with sharp stylized angles and features; they’re still thoroughly relatable and ‘likeable’ character designs, especially contrasted to the enemy rats invading near the end of the story. The action sequences are brutally realistic, contrasting with the cartoonistic style of the art. Gruesome deaths, pillaging, beheadings and dismemberments litter the page, portraying the reality of the war that erupts in the character’s once-peaceful life. The world these mice inhabit is bursting with life thanks to the imagination of Mike Oeming and with the amazing coloring it’s literally jumping out of the page. I wish more creators today would let their minds run free like this and create something amazing away from our genre’s spandex conventions.
Unfortunately, the art’s high degree of stylisation and reliance on shadows also leads to a problem in distinguishing the characters between them. The way the four main kid protagonists of the issue are introduced, en masse and as part of an even larger group, it’s hard to keep track of names, likenesses and features; I only managed to make sense of who is doing what by the second reading of the issue. With future issues focusing solely on the main character, this problem will likely subside.
Mice Templar has all the telltale signs of a great epic story. The first issue sets up the world nicely, introduces the main character, gives him a grandiose quest and creates a vast tragedy as backdrop and motivation to set him on his road to destiny. Magical elements, Gods and powerful artefacts are already creeping in the world, albeit with an offbeat flavor.
All in all, MICE TEMPLAR is a new classic-in-the-making with great potential for breakout crossover appeal. A great premise, eye candy art that appeals to the kid inside us, with all-out action and familiar fantasy trappings. All it needs is great marketing and an attractive trade collection format to reach the bookstores audience.
Grade: 8/10
SEE MORE OF MICE TEMPLAR IN THE OFFICIAL WEBSITE
AND READ 16 PAGES OF THE STORY IN THE NEWSARAMA ARTICLE
BONUS:
Intro to the characters in MICE TEMPLAR (only mild spoilers)
Karik
Our big hero! Young Karik has a bright destiny ahead of him. He’s fascinated with the legend of the Mice Templar, and loves to play the dashing action man. He has a strange tendency to get swallowed by magical fish.
Leito
Karik’s best friend. He’s older than the others in their group and has taken over the role of their protector and ‘master storyteller’, retelling the stories of the Mice Templar. He is an apprentice for the village’s blacksmith, Master Deishun.
Gabrielle
Karik’s kid sister. She is also an action aficionado, dreaming of becoming a Maeven, a battle archer. She follows Karik in his games, and infatuated with Karik’s friend Leito.
Elizabeth
Gabrielle’s best friend, she has a mad crush on Karik, but never gets to see any action as she’s stuck with the role of ‘maiden in distress’.
Deishun
Master Deishun is the mysterious village blacksmith, bearing more than a few battle scars. He shares a secret with the elders of the village, and is the secret protector of the village. He has a soft spot for Karik’s mother, Mornae, who manages to break his gruff exterior.
Mornae
Karik and Gabrielle’s mother. She is a widow, raising the young mice on her own, and working as a seamstress.
Pilot the Tall
A mysterious visitor to Deishun’s shop, bearing a gift of a talisman with a peculiar insignia. He is obviously unwelcome in the village and is quickly escorted out of the premises. He has an important role to play in future issues.
Rats
Invading pillagers, the most feared enemy of the mice villagers.
The singing trout
???
-Neil Gaiman writes Alan Moore
in the literal sense.
Courtesy of Scans Daily, a mini-comic starring Alan Moore, written by Neil Gaiman and illustrated by Mark Buckingham. Originally published in the Extraordinary Works of Alan Moore from Twomorrows Publishing.
Woah Woah, what’s new pussy-Kitty?
Now, was that so hard?
Ultimate Kitty Pryde debuted her new sexy costume last week in Ultimate Spider-man #112, courtesy of new regular artist Stuart Immonen (the genius behind NEXTWAVE, Superman Secret Identity, Shockrockets and more)
Now, Kitty has been around for… how long? 25 years give or take.
And how many good costumes has she worn? And I mean something that is not derivative of the X-Men school uniform. UncannyX-Men.net has a nice rundown of her most significant costumes for a taste.
This on the other hand, this shows promise.
Let’s do a list (we love lists!)
It’s:
sexy, with the exposed shoulders and the choker,
feminine, with the sash,
low-key, with a distinctive color scheme (it’s not the school colours for one, and not plain bland blue-black, but still indicative of shadows),
‘feline’ because of the mask design, suggesting ‘Kitty‘ or Shadowcat
classy, what with the high gloves and all, which also bear a nice little touch with the zig-zag the pattern at their end
In the end though, the sheer coolness boils down to one thing: the mask. It’s hard to come up with an original mask or headdress design these days. Think about Storm, Scarlet Witch, Mockingbird (one of the greatest designs, actually), or looking at the men: Wolverine, Cyclops, Ant-Man. ..
These are some of the most distinctive and recognizable designs in comics. They set the hero apart from the crowd and become a vital characteristic of them, much like hair or eye color. Let’s face it, as many costumes as Storm and Scarlet Witch are likely to change through the years, the artists always eventually return to the classic head-dress design, since the character feels incomplete without them.
With Kitty, I could comfortably see this as her new trademark look. A superhero look, mature/grown-up yet still playful and fun.
Ironically, I would have preferred this costume on the ‘616’ Kitty instead, who is an actual adult superhero at this point, than the teenager school-girl Ultimate Kitty, but I’m not one to gripe (sic). Adult Kitty also has the extra connection to the costume with her dancer-history, as the costume strongly reminds of the sort of dancer costumes made famous in Fame in the 80s ;)
Cap to Luke Cage: ‘Take over Power Man, I’ll be back’
The Marvel Heroes Macy’s Parade float from 1998
the real inspiration for post-Civil War NEW AVENGERS?
Got to say, that’s a sweet looking Hulk, but could they have botched Dr Doom worse? He’s wearing woolen-cotton armour!
Emma Frost and the Enchantress are the token bad *itches.
Dr Strange looks gayer than ever.
Well done!!
Wedding Bells for Skott Kurtz…
The past few weeks of daily PvP strips have been building up to this moment in today’s strip, as Brent finally proposes to Jade, wrapping up a plot set during the recent San Diego Comics Convention.
Brent had decided to propose to his long-time sweetheart Jade, but of course wanted to make a stupidly-big deal out of the proposal. So he has her abducted by StormTroopers, dressed in a Princess Leia get-up (not the slave girl one, no), while he plans to burst in the scene as Han Solo (well, as Luke at first, but that game got called off on account of incest), save the day and ask her to be his wife.
Of course everything back-fired, leading to a month-long epic. To folow the whole story start here and read towards the big Question in today’s strip.
King Leonidas on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
(Courtesy of my friend Alexis)
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
