Super Fun! - Super Sons #1 Review

I’ve pretty much been waiting for Super Sons to come out from the moment DC announced their Rebirth titles. I’m a sucker for Batman and Superman team ups and stories about superhero families, so getting a title about Robin and Superboy was pretty much a dream title for me. “Superman #10” teased us with the “World’s Smallest” story, and I’ve been itching to get more of this diminutive duo ever since. Well this week I finally got to read issue #1 and it does not disappoint.

The beginning actually manages to double up on one of what is quickly becoming one of my least favorite plot devices in comics. It starts with a section labeled “Prologue” then jumps to “Now” then back to “Hamilton County. 300 miles from Metropolis. Two days earlier.” Starting a comic with a bunch of time jumps is something I’ve seen used way too much lately. It feels increasingly cheap as a device to artificially increase the tension at the beginning of a comic as a way to hook readers. While I understand that it was probably used in this case to get some splashy action scenes into what would otherwise be a comic that consists mostly of exposition, knowing that doesn’t make me any less bored with the trope.

After that though, my complaints evaporate. Jorge Jimenez’s art is wonderfully kinetic and expressive. He stretches faces and exaggerates poses to create the perfect playful, energetic mood for the two young protagonists. Even relatively still scenes pack in a lot of personality. It's even, dare it be said of a non all ages title, quite cute and charming.

Tomasi’s writing is great too, even with my quibbles about pacing. He introduces the characters in a way that covers a lot of their personalities and backgrounds for newcomers without needing to resort to explaining things so those who already know the characters get bored. Jon is the sweet kid who stands up to bullies even when he can’t really stop them because he needs to hide his powers. Damian is the clever kid who skips out on his homework because it bores him and talks his friend into sneaking out to fight crime. There’s just a little bit of one-upmanship and rivalry here too that feels genuine and boyish.

I’m eagerly awaiting the next issue in this series, and not just because this one ends on a cliffhanger. Super Sons is fun. It’s a pleasant antidote to the mountains of grim seriousness that can plague superhero stories, and I want more.

Miz Opifex is a union electrician by day and a champion of feminine geekery by night. She lives in the American Rust Belt with her cat and a staggering amount of books, movies, and albums on vinyl.

Review - Wonder Woman: Her Greatest Battles

Fifteen years ago Wonder Woman: Her Greatest Battles would have been the exact sort of trade I would have found profoundly frustrating, back when I was first trying to get into superhero comics. Numbered trades that collected coherent chunks of plot were harder to come by, and the trades I could get my hands on tended to collect a selection of fan favorite issues without the surrounding context. As a newcomer to these heroes’ stories, these collections were disjointed and confusing, and not the good introduction I had hoped for. Now that I have become a more regular reader, I have begun to see the appeal in these greatest hits albums. A best of Wonder Woman sounded particularly fun.

Wonder Woman: Her Greatest Battles collects 7 issues ranging in date from 1987 to 2013. All but one are from a Wonder Woman main title, and the remainder is from Justice League. It’s a solid highlight reel of what makes Wonder Woman stand out, not just as leading lady, but as superhero who isn’t quite like any other. However there are a few missteps that weaken the overall message.

The first two stories are my favorites. “Power Play” by George Perez and “In the Forest of the Night” by John Byrne both show Wonder Woman tackling her greatest foes, Ares and Cheetah, through means other than her prowess as a warrior. My favorite aspect of Wonder Woman has never been her ability to fight, though she can lay the smack down with the best of them, but her ability to go past the fight in front of her to resolve the underlying conflict through communication, wisdom, and compassion. It’s something we see precious little of in other heroes, and that makes her stand out all the brighter. These stories show that part of her to its best advantage.

The next three stories “Stoned: Conclusion” and “Sacrifice: Part Four” by Greg Rucka and “A Murder of Crows Part Two: Throwdown” by Gail Simone all focus on a more martial aspect of Wonder Woman. She goes toe to toe with two of DC’s hardest hitters, Superman and Power Girl, and holds her own. Of the three, Gail Simone’s story made for the most enjoyable read thanks to the more light hearted tone and slight tongue and cheek reference to Wonder Woman’s occasional bondage jokes in her Golden Age adventures.

“Justice League Part Three” by Geoff Johns doesn’t fit the tone of the rest of the book. All the other stories come from a plot arc’s climax and illustrate something crucial to the characterization of Wonder Woman. This story however shows her introduction to the New 52’s Justice League. Half the story is about the creation of Cyborg, and the rest is a surface level introduction to Wonder Woman’s character. It lacks the impact of the other stories and doesn’t mesh well with the overall theme.

The final story is “God Down” by Brian Azzarello. It marks the climax of New 52’s Wonder Woman’s relationship with Ares. While I can certainly appreciate how the decision to change Wonder Woman’s relationship with one of her greatest opponents into one of a mentor, the scene at the end of this issue where her first act as the new god of war is to spare an opponent’s life brings a nice sense of closure to the book. It again comes back to the idea that her greatest strength lies in her heart and not her ability to fight.

I still think this book would frustrate someone not familiar with the character due to only showing the crisis moment in most of the stories, but it works well as a look back on some of her best fights for someone who already knows and loves the character.

Miz Opifex is a union electrician by day and a champion of feminine geekery by night. She lives in the American Rust Belt with her cat and a staggering amount of books, movies, and albums on vinyl.

Batman From the Beginning: Detective Comics #28

Welcome back to the series where I attempt the task I once thought impossible: reading Batman comics from the beginning. This time we are looking at his second appearance in Detective Comics #28.

Sadly we are still saddled with quotation marks and a hyphen “Bat-Man.” He is also still absent any sort of murdered parentage, and is instead doing this because of rich boy ennui. I also spent a good chunk of time laughing about fighting “the evil” (just the one evil, one singular evil, a specifically designated evil) before I pieced together that it was probably being used as a collective noun for evildoers. 

The plot begins with an interesting enough hook. Batman stops a jewel heist (and you know casually murders a thief in the process). He then waits around for the cops to almost catch him so that they would think that he was one of the jewel thieves. Why? Well. That's where things get weird.

Head thief dude in his super suave smoking jacket and monocle is convinced that “Bat-Man” will be too busy to hunt them down, and this was “Bat-Man’s” plan all along somehow? To distract the criminals by pretending to be a criminal so he could sneak up on the criminals? This seems logical. Really. It's not in the least overly convoluted. Also whoever told Bill Finger that nicknames have to go in quotes should be ashamed of themself. Unusual nicknames like “Bat-Man” and “Gloves” almost make sense, but “Ricky?” Ricky is just a normal diminutive. 

Here I need to take a quick break from commenting directly on the plot. So here we have “Bat-Man” wearing a nice pair of long gloves like we are all used to. This to me is the biggest mystery of this comic. This is the only frame where he has any gloves on at all in this comic. Last comic he had short purple gloves. Next couple of comics feature short blue gloves. The more aesthetically pleasing longer gloves don’t come back until issue 31. I flipped ahead to check. Why are they here? Why don’t they stay? I have such questions about this, but they are not answered, so back to the plot.

“Bat-Man” then pulls what will become a signature move, extracting a confession by threatening to drop a crook off something tall. Post confession they end up fighting anyway after what has to be the most unintentionally hilarious panel of the comic. All it needs is a "SPROING!" sound effect to match the spring-loaded jump. Also, how did Frenchy escape the quote-pox? I refuse to believe that Frenchy is the head crook’s given name, and yet his nickname is excluded from such fates as "Ricky?" Still “Bat-Man” emerges victorious and calls the cops in to bring the criminals to justice.

The comic ends with “Bat-Man” leaving Commissioner Gordon a note where he signs his name with a drawing of a bat. That is commitment to the character right there. Batman doesn’t write his name. Batman just draws a bat. Maybe this is some sort of subconscious effort to avoid “Bat-Man” because deep down he knows it looks preposterous.

I have to admit while the coloring looks a bit better this time out, but I’m still kinda turned off by the art. The posing is often clunky and the anatomy is questionable. On top of that, this time around the characterization is kinda dull. Frenchy is a stock character with no noticeable motivation for his crimes, and Batman isn’t given much to talk about other than explaining his detective-ing, so outside of one rather charming grin we are left with the awkward posing to convey any sort of emotional content. This simply isn’t the best showing for Batman. Hopefully Detective Comics #29 will have more to offer.

Miz Opifex is a union electrician by day and a champion of feminine geekery by night. She lives in the American Rust Belt with her cat and a staggering amount of books, movies, and albums on vinyl.

Batman From the Beginning: Detective Comics #27

Last week I was at the comic book store when a woman came in with an all too familiar story. She had never been in a comic book store before and she wanted to know where to start reading comics about the Joker. Folks gathered round to come up with good Joker comics to start with, and soon she was rather spoiled for choice because unsurprisingly we all had opinions. In an attempt to narrow down our suggestions, she asked for the first Joker comic. This was the point where we had to explain that Joker had been around for 76 years and she probably didn’t want to start that far back. Cue confusion and disappointment. Why must this all be so difficult?

I felt for her. Really, I did. Replace Joker with Batman and she could have been me when I was first interested in superhero comics. I had cut my teeth on manga that came in nice, organized trade paperbacks with numbers on the spine that told you where to start. At the time the most readily available superhero trades tended to come in phone book sized volumes with “Essential” in the title and a random selection of issues inside that didn’t follow complete story arcs. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out where I was supposed to start reading. Eventually I picked a trade that was an actual arc with an interesting sounding plot and used Google to fill in the rest.

Now though, superhero comics do increasingly come in trades with numbers on the spine, and to my great pleasure DC has started to release volumes of Golden Age stories. I can finally indulge my inner completionist that was galled by the thought of having to start in the middle of a series, and begin reading Batman from his first appearance in “Detective Comics #27.” With this series of reviews, I can take you, dear internet, along for the ride.

64 Pages of Action! Six of which are actually about Batman...

The first appearance of the “Bat-Man” is fairly short and resembles the character we know and love from modern tales only in very broad strokes, but the foundation is clearly there.

The story opens with Police Commissioner Gordon having a chat and a smoke with his socialite buddy Bruce Wayne. Gordon mentions being puzzled by the “Bat-Man,” then gets a phone call informing him that Lambert, the chemical king has been murdered, and invites Bruce to come along with him to the scene of the crime.

Apparently Old Lambert exists in that social sphere of people you know by name but are not at all shocked to find out that they have been murdered.

The investigation proceeds with Bruce just sort of loitering silently of to the sides of the panels looking for all the world like he might be Gordon’s assistant if this were a different sort of detective story. Lambert apparently owned one fourth of a business with Crane, Rogers, and Stryker. A serendipitous phone call from Crane reveals that Lambert received a death threat and that Crane has also gotten one. At this point Bruce acts bored and excuses himself. Next thing we know Crane is murdered by a dude in a truly ugly orange and black striped suit who also steals a piece of paper from his safe.

Ok, he has almost no neck, but damn son, those are some shapely calves.

At last our titular hero makes his first appearance. In the fight that follows there are a couple panels where the text above the panel directly narrates the content of the panel. This feels like a gross underutilization of a visual medium at best, and mildly insulting at worst. I know Batman is punching the guy, I can see him doing it. You don’t need to tell me. It’s also about here that I start losing my patience with quotation marks and a hyphen “Bat-Man.” The hyphen I’ll cede is simply a matter of being different from what I am used to, but consistently putting the character’s name in quotes feels a little exhausting after a while. One starts to imagine the narrator pausing to gesture with his fingers every time the “Bat-Man” is mentioned. Still, even burdened by awkward narration, our hero beats up the bad guys and steals back the paper. He reads it then zips off.

Rogers, one of the remaining business partners, goes to confront the final partner, Stryker. Stryker’s assistant greets Rogers, then promptly clubs him over the back of the head and sticks him under a gas chamber he uses to kill guinea pigs on account of him being a goddamn monster. Batman dashes in at the most dramatic moment to stop up the glass and break out of the dome from the inside for maximum action points. 

Hold up. Just how big were those guinea pigs?

In a completely unshocking turn of events Stryker turns out to be the evil one out of Lambert, Crane, Rogers, and Stryker. Batman confronts him over his questionable business choice of hiring assassins rather than just buying out his partners. Apparently the assassins were cheaper. Stryker goes to pull a gun, and “Bat-Man” punches him right into a vat of acid. It's a little jarring for for someone who grew up with a Batman with a rather aggressive no murdering policy. It does however set the stage for a much later use of the acid dunk as a potential origin of the Joker.

Murder by acid was kinda off, but ninjaing out of a conversation is spot on

The comic ends with the dramatic reveal that the “Bat-Man” is actually Bruce Wayne. Which pretty much every modern reader already knew, so the surprise is wasted on us. Still, with how he was set up earlier, I have to imagine that the contemporary reader had to have some clue that Bruce Wayne was going to be more than just a bored socialite that lurks behind the police commissioner.

I’m more shocked that he is changing in his bedroom and not a cave, really.

For the modern reader this story is missing a lot of iconic Batman elements. There is no cave, no gadgets, and no interestingly themed villain. The car we see Batman drive is a standard looking 30’s era coupe. It's also red with white wall tires, and a far cry from the sleek black Batmobile that feels more familiar. Also missing is the dead parents backstory. Instead it is implied that Bruce is out there fighting crime as some sort of cure for affluenza. Being rich is apparently terribly dull. What we do see in six short pages however is the beginning of a character who is both detective and action hero. He’s smart enough to piece together who the murderer is by looking at a business contract kept in a safe, and athletic enough to jump through windows and win fist fights on rooftops.

Both the writing and the art feel rather utilitarian. Neither is particularly bad, but they are lacking in any sort of flourish or refinement that might make them stand out as particularly interesting. The use of color feels particularly garish. I know that some of this is doubtless the fault of early four color printing, but I’ve seen enough contemporary work to know that not everyone at the time was quite this ham handed with the use of overly bright colors. During the final confrontation panel backgrounds switch between orange, green and pink without a lot of obvious reasoning. The whole thing feels a bit like a journeyman work, and I’m curious to see how it will progress into something more iconic.

Miz Opifex is a union electrician by day and a champion of feminine geekery by night. She lives in the American Rust Belt with her cat and a staggering amount of books, movies, and albums on vinyl.

Google-Glance #1: Overwatch

Welcome to "Google-Glance," the feature that asks people to talk at length about something of which they are but dimly aware, based on five minutes of research using only Google Images.

Today’s topic is that wacky summer hit, Overwatch. It is explained by Etienne, who hasn't played a triple-A game since Portal 2, and features artwork by Miz Opifex, whose only acquaintance with Overwatch comes from her friends' Facebook posts. Miz was tasked to base her illustrations on what Etienne described, with no access to visual content of any kind.

What is Overwatch?
It’s a video game. I know that much—I’m not going in totally blind here. I think it’s a shooter game, probably along the lines of Team Fortress, except in a colorful sci-fi universe.

The plot
I see there’s a spiky-haired lady and she’s duel-wielding pistols, so I bet she's extremely important. Also, there is a skull-faced dude in a black cloak, and that style rarely bodes well. I guess the spiky-haired lady—we’ll call her Spiky-Do—has some sort of beef with Skull-Face. There’s an angel-winged woman and she looks like she might be related to Spiky-Do, so I’m going to say that Skull-Face kidnapped Spiky-Do’s Angel Auntie. There’s also a cyborg gorilla, and a witch in a red dress, and probably a robot army.

To summarize: Spiky-Do, a trigger-happy gymnast in form-fitting armor, uses gun-fu to rescue her Angel Auntie from Skull-Face’s robot horde. She is aided in her anti-robot crusade by Chip Antsy, a cowardly cyborg gorilla, possibly a defector from Skull-Face’s army. In addition to facing terrible technological threats, Spiky-Do must contend with the evil magic of Melissandre—a fanatic priestess of the Lord of Light.

[Artist's note: I confess the main character that I am aware of existing in Overwatch is the one with the pink hair and big muscles. She caught my eye because I also have pink hair and muscles, but I'm not quite that shredded. Still: #goals. I just assumed she is Spiky-Do.]

The protagonist
Spiky-Do used to be just a regular spiky-haired gymnast from future-Earth. She would go to future-school, and learn important stuff like somersaulting and marksmanship. Of course, all of that changed when the alien Skull-Face overwhelmed future-Earth’s defences with his unstoppable legion of automata.

Spiky-Do is not one to shy away from a challenge, however: she’s proficient in the use of every kind of firearm, and should she ever run out of ammo, she could probably turn anything into an instrument of murder.  When form-fitting armor isn’t enough to get through the day, she has an extensive wardrobe—including a spiffy sniper cloak and a cozy parka.

[Artist note: About here, I realized that maybe Etienne was talking about the girl who wears yellow that got caught in the great big kerfuffle about butts in video games. Oh well, I was committed now. Plus this was fun as hell to draw.]

The main antagonist
The sinister Skull-Face started out as an intern at the Amoral Interstellar Corporation that harvests the magic of angel-winged future people. He was a real go-getter, and his no-nonsense approach to violating the fundamental rights of angels soon caught the attention of his superiors. After a vertiginous climb up the corporate ladder, Skull-Face now manages his own branch of Amoral Inc.

Skull-Face doesn’t have anything personal against Spiky-Do or future-Earth: it’s just that robots run on angel magic. Skull-Face is at least half-robot himself. And telekinetic? Yes. We’ll go with that—he’s a telekinetic alien cyborg who runs on magic.

[Artist's note: I'd like to think Unpaid Intern Skull-Face was also super good at getting everyone's coffee order from that terrible overpriced coffee house that was totally gentrifying the neighborhood.]

Okay, but what about this?

That’s Melissandre in her clubbing outfit. And when I say “clubbing,” I mean she goes to the future-Earth’s Rifle Club, where she likes to club everyone with the butt of her magic rifle.

[Artist's note: This is the sort of clothes you wear to the gun club, right?]

And this?

That's a scene from Spiky-Do’s raid on Mélissandre’s library. She is assisted by Janette the Techno-Witch, who is actually from one of those low-gravity planets where the heels she is wearing might be considered reasonable fighting attire. Spiky-Do and Jannette are BFFs.

And this?

That’s a snapshot of a secret meeting between Spiky-Do and an angel whose power has been harvested by the Amoral Corporation. They will not part on good terms, however: Spiky-Do could never condone the former angel’s vengeance-fueled guerilla.

Yes, but is it feminist?
My version sure is! It’s a classic tale of two women overcoming impossible odds in order to be together—like Frozen, only intergenerational. And with robots. A lot more robots.

I do wonder why all future women have roughly the same body type, though. That definitely stretches my suspensions of disbelief.

Etienne Domingue is not currently on fire. Ask again later.

Miz Opifex is a union electrician by day and a champion of feminine geekery by night. She lives in the American Rust Belt with her cat and a staggering amount of books, movies, and albums on vinyl.

Welcome to Night Vale's Ghost Stories is a Creepy Delight

Friday, April 8th, in Detroit was cold, wet, and just about as far removed from what one might imagine the local weather in the desert community of Night Vale to be. It was however, not a bad match for the title of the Welcome to Night Vale's latest touring live show, "Ghost Stories."

This was the second time I've gotten to see Welcome to Night Vale performed live (the first was when "The Investigators" was touring). Both times have been at the Fillmore Detroit which is an excellent venue for the show. Formerly called the State Theater, it was built in the 1920s in Detroit's heyday and is full of that rich, beautiful, and ever-so-slightly creepy atmosphere that makes for an elegant complement to the shows unsettling narrative style.

The show was opened by Carrie Elkin and Danny Schmidt, who would later perform as the weather. I wasn't familiar at all with their music before the show, but as has often happened with Welcome to Nightvale's musical performers, I think I may have ended up with a new favorite. They are a lovely singer-songwriter team who both have solo careers, but as they are a married couple, they were clearly enjoying the chance to tour and preform together. They have both previously been featured on Welcome to Nightvale's weather, but getting to hear a full set of their songs helped cement in my mind that, yes, I really did need to go check out more of their music. The songs you might be familiar with are "Echo in the Hills" and "This Too Shall Pass." Both of those songs were played at the show along with a selection of their newer music.

The show itself is based on the idea of a city-wide compulsory ghost story contest. Cecil tells his own long-form ghost story that is interrupted by regular features such as community calendar and the Children's Fun Fact Science Corner as well as other characters telling their own ghost stories. I suspect the formatting allows for side characters to join and leave the tour as their scheduling permits. In Detroit we heard from Deb the sentient patch of haze and Tamika Flynn, the 14 year old veteran of the Summer Reading Program.

The voice of Night Vale, Cecil Baldwin, is an absolute joy to watch perform. His expressive face and body language add an engaging layer to the live show experience, and at one point become part of a joke as his character remembers that the hand gesture he just made would not be visible to his "listeners." His own story begins like a classic ghost tale and slowly mutates into something far more intimate. It also follows what I consider to be Night Vale's best tradition of taking the horrifying and making it hopeful; it reminds us of our communion with one another over the ultimate commonality of death in a way that is perhaps only possible in a room full of hundreds of strangers.

Miz Opifex is a union electrician by day and a champion of feminine geekery by night. She lives in the American Rust Belt with her cat and a staggering amount of books, movies, and albums on vinyl.