Space-Magic Overdose #1, or An Infinite Crisis of Faith

Ok, this is why I’ve avoided DC books for so long before now.

I’ve been keeping an open mind and just going with the flow when crazy, out-there characters and situations present themselves.  I’ve been reading Grant Morrison’s acclaimed run on Animal Man, which is chock full of weirdness, but the way it’s presented is actually pretty clever and enjoyable.  It’s getting to be a bit too much over in Infinite Crisis, though.

Remember, I’m listening to the Graphic Audio version, so I’ve been getting a bit more background on the characters.  One in particular is just too ridiculous for me to suspend my disbelief any further.

I’m talking about this guy:

Uncle Sam.  Yeah, the guy from the recruitment posters.  He’s a walking, talking superhero in the DCU.  And he’s not just some patriotic nut in a costume.  He actually is Uncle Sam.  He’s the personification of the American Spirit.  Even stupider: his powers are directly proportional to people’s belief in the American Way.

Excuse me while I go throw up on a Bald Eagle.

The introduction of this character actually made me groan out loud.  Here was the reason I’d tried and failed to get along with DC books before.  I can accept – shit, even enjoy – a certain amount of weirdness in my comics.  I can appreciate high-concept sci-fi and cosmic craziness, but a man can only take so much space-magic.

I keep telling myself that there’s no such thing as a bad character, only bad writers.  But come on.  Seriously?

On the other side of the divide, special mention for the best line in Infinite Crisis so far.

DC QUOTE OF THE DAY:

Crispus Allen: Does it even count as a homicide when a ghost kills a wizard?

WTF?!? Or, Adventures with the Infinite Crisis Audio Book

Yeah, you read that right.  An Infinite Crisis AUDIO book.

I stumbled on it while trawling the internets the other day, and I couldn’t not download it.  I’ve since started listening on the way to and from work and I have to say, it’s pretty damn weird, as you’d expect.

For a start, let me get this out of the way: I’ve read Infinite Crisis, and if I’m honest I didn’t get it.  I filed it away in my mind as one of those silly DC stories that was a bit too convoluted for its own good.  This was a while ago and I have to say, the audio book version is much easier to understand.

This is how it works: it seems to be a sort of novelisation of the comic, complete with character descriptions and brief little backstories on the stuff that’s happening.  Trust me, as a novice DC reader, the backstories help a LOT to pull you into the story.  As a result, the audio book probably moves a bit slower than the comic (I don’t really remember it well enough to compare accurately), but it – so far – works better for it.  Decompression like this helps to establish the characters and their motivations and it’s actually doing a pretty decent job of building up the impending catastrophe.

But this is much more than a mere audio book.  This is a ‘movie in your mind’.  That’s right.  Like a movie, this thing has actors playing all the parts (Batman sounds like he’s got laryngitis and Superboy is a whiny little bitch), it has a musical score (like something from an early ‘90s cartoon series – especially the cringe-worthy tune I can only think of as the ‘Kent Farm Hoedown’) and it has – perhaps most importantly – SOUND EFFECTS.

The sound effects are cheesy and stupid, but awesome at the same time, and they make what could have been something really boring and ridiculous into something fun and ridiculous.  Whether it’s Nightwing’s near-sexual grunt as he hoists himself onto a building or Superboy-Prime’s bitchin’ heat vision whoosh, the sound effects make this thing.

I can imagine being enthralled by this as a kid, but I’m sure I’ll get bored pretty soon once the space-magic starts seeping in…

In the meantime, I’m going to thoroughly enjoy drunken Bill Cosby turning into an OMAC and the wooden narrator’s pervy descriptions of female characters.  Comedy gold.

MarvelGuy Reads Detective Comics, or Dammit, I Love Scott Snyder!

Scott Snyder is the second coming of Stephen King.

Yes, I’m well aware that The Greatest Living Horror Writer™ is still…well…living, but he’s not produced anything that feels fresh and exciting since before he got hit by that van.  Scott Snyder on the other hand…

This guy seems to have come out of nowhere with the express purpose of blowing my tiny little mind.  I confess, I only picked up American Vampire because of Mr King’s name.  At that point I had severe vampire fatigue brought on by True Blood (great as it is), the unholy abomination that is Twilight and its various imitators; vampires were everywhere and it was hard to believe that this guy could bring something new to the table.  I hadn’t heard of Scott Snyder or Rafael Albuquerque.  But, I had faith in Stephen King (‘Salem’s Lot is one of my favourite books) and I dived in regardless.

Mind.  Officially.  Blown.

American Vampire was not only new and exciting - making vampires feel relevant and scary again - if anything, Snyder’s main series was even more gripping than King’s backup story.  The man had my attention.

Then I heard whispers about his work on Detective Comics.  I heard comparisons to The Long Halloween (one of my favourite Batman books).  Needless to say, I was there.

This review takes in the entirety of Snyder’s run on Detective - #871 to #881 – and will look at the story in its entirety.  Really, that’s the only way to look at this run.  It might be made up of several three issue arcs, but you can only realistically think about it as one long story.

First up: Dick Grayson makes an awesome Batman.  I vaguely know the story behind his replacement of Bruce Wayne, but I don’t know the specifics.  Frankly, I don’t care.  Snyder breathes life into his Batman in a way that makes it immediately apparent that this is NOT Bruce Wayne, and all the better for it.  Dick is his own man, and he wears the cowl well.  He’s got a wit and a light-heartedness about him that Bruce just doesn’t, and couldn’t have.  Where Bruce is paranoid and introspective to a fault, Dick is more open with those around him and has set himself firmly within a support system of secondary characters.  Bruce is well and truly a loner, but Dick is a social animal.  As the series Big Bad (no spoilers here) puts it, Bruce would soldier on without his loved ones around him, but would Dick?  Bruce’s crusade is deeply personal.  He is Batman because he has to be, because his scars are so deep that he has no other option but to be the Dark Knight.  Dick, on the other hand is motivated by compassion and empathy.  He fights crime because he’s a good person, and he wants to protect those around him.

Playing off of this is what makes the Big Bad in this run is so compelling, and such a perfect antithesis to Dick’s Batman.  He truly is Dick’s Joker, and it’s depressing to think that, given the September relaunch and Bruce returning to Gotham, this relationship might not be explored further.

You know what, fuck it: SPOILERS AHEAD!

It’s going to be hard to talk about this without actually talking about it.  Let me get this off my chest:

The Big Bad is James Gordon Jr – that’s right, Commish Gordon’s own flesh and blood son – and he’s a clinically diagnosed psychopath and a downright scary motherfucker.

It’s with James that Snyder’s considerable talent as a horror writer comes shining through.  I’ve been watching horror movies since I was five and I’d consider myself pretty jaded and desensitised when it comes to horror, but I have to confess, Snyder got me a couple of times during this run.  There were several ‘Holy shit’ moments that had me grinning like an idiot in a way I haven’t for years.  James in the basement of his old friend’s house.  The shower.  Not to mention the creepiest treatment of the Joker I’ve read since…The Killing Joke, I guess.

Oh, and honourable mention to the best ‘Fuck yeah’ moment of the whole thing: Batman giving Tiger Shark the Scottish equivalent of that upside down Spider-Man kiss.

James is a worthy addition to the deranged rogues gallery of Gotham City, and his master plan is the perfect mix of mad super villain theatricality and straight up menace.  There’s something just cold and unknowable about James, which makes him a truly scary villain.  It’s here that the art really shines.  James’ vacant expression could have come across as lazy pencilling, but Jock and Francavilla make it into something chilling.  James is definitely up there with my favourite villains of all time.

I’ve talked about Dick and James, but the star of the show is really Jim Gordon Sr.  Commissioner Moustache gets the best arc, as he has to deal with the re-emergence of his son and the possibility that Junior could be on the mend. You can really feel for the old guy, forcing himself to believe that his son has turned over a new leaf even though his better judgment is screaming at him not to.  Of course, Gordon’s compassion is something that James is relying on, and he uses it to his advantage.

Snyder’s other great success is in establishing Gotham itself as an important character.  The idea that the city itself is partly responsible for the evil that constantly arises there is fascinating to me, and I’m super excited to read Snyder’s Batman #1, which promises to expand on this idea.

I suppose I should balance all this gushing praise with some criticisms, but to be honest I’m hard pushed to find anything all that wrong with the run.  If I had to highlight something – on pain of death – I’d say the whole orca thing was a bit silly.  Come to think of it, that whole arc involving the bank and the Roadrunner and Tiger Shark seems a bit superfluous.  Well executed and immensely enjoyable, but a bit random.  However, my current man crush on Scott Snyder forbids me to bad mouth any of his work, so I’ll leave it at that.

Oh, and that final panel in Detective #881?  Creepy.  As.  Fuck.  Well played, Scott Snyder, well played.

FINAL SCORE: 5/5

MarvelGuy Goes Dark Side (Darkseid?), or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love DC Comics

A confession, up front: I am a Marvel guy, through and through.  I always have been and I always will be.  Even as I a kid, I just couldn’t get behind the god-like heroes of the DCU. They seemed unrealistic (and yes, I am aware that we’re talking about superheroes), un-relatable and just…silly, for the most part.  There were, of course, certain exceptions.  I’ve always had a soft spot for the Man of Steel after watching some of those old Max Fleischer cartoons when I was a kid.  I’ve always been a fan of Batman, as all self-respecting comic fans should be.  Swamp Thing was one of my favourites, too.

But it’s important to note this: my exposure to DC characters came solely from the screen.  As I’ve said, I knew Superman from the old cartoons and, to a lesser extent, Richard Donner’s movie and the New Adventures on TV; I knew Batman from Tim Burton’s movies and the awesome cartoon series on Saturday mornings; I knew Swamp Thing from Wes Craven’s dodgy movie adaptation and various sequels/spin-offs.  I didn’t pick up an actual DC comic until I was eighteen.

For me, Marvel heroes were the only ones that mattered.  Spider-Man was my first comic book love, closely followed by the X-Men.  Again, my introduction to these characters came from the small screen – in the form of those awesome ‘90s cartoon series – but this time I was invested enough to follow the characters back into the books they came from.  I gave up comics for a while, but when I eventually got back into them just before university, I emerged myself fully in the Marvel U.

Once again, the DCU held little to no interest to me.  Ironically, the first book I read when getting back into comics was Superman: Red Son.  After being blown away by Mark Millar’s commie awesomeness (I always maintained that Superman’s powers would make him a fascinating villain or anti-hero), I quickly discovered that it was hard to find a Superman book that wasn’t, well, daft.

Over the years I branched out and read Alan Moore’s legendary run on Swamp Thing and it was everything I love about the character from the schlocky movie and more.  I verified that Batman was indeed an awesome character and some of his books were superb.  But dipping my toe into books like Green Lantern and Infinite Crisis just confused me and put me off with their convoluted story lines and ridiculous characters (Mogo?  Really?).

Don’t get me wrong, Marvel has its share of convoluted stories (Clone Saga, anything involving X-Men) and ridiculous characters (Squirrel Girl and, speaking of sentient planets – Ego, the Living Planet), but they are always handled with a down-to-earth attitude and sense of fun that is distinctly Marvel.  Please remember, that at this point I’m a DC novice and this is by no means an educated, unbiased opinion.  Address your hate mail to my ass.

Anyway, I’m pretty sure I’m rambling.  Let’s boil this down to the basics: Marvel = win, DC = silliness.

Or so I thought.

I recently read – and adored – Scott Snyder’s awesome Vertigo series American Vampire, and on the back of that decided that I needed to read everything he’s putting out at the moment.  Seriously, the guy’s a legend.  He writes fantastic horror, and if there’s one thing I appreciate, it’s good horror.  Therefore when I heard about his recent run on Detective Comics my mind ran the following equation and promptly melted with excitement:

Batman(Christopher Nolan + the Long Halloween + Hush + Year One – Joel Schumacher) x Scott Motherfucking Snyder x Jock = AWESOME

I was not disappointed.

I’ll save my review for another day, but suffice to say my equation is accurate.  I found myself hooked on a DCU character like never before.  I’ve always been a Batman fan, but now I find myself slowly becoming a fanboy.

The door was opened. As had happened with Marvel, I began to branch out into other heroes in the DCU.  I’d heard good things about Animal Man, so I read that.  Secret Six.  Batgirl.  Suddenly, I found myself getting it.  These characters and stories weren’t silly, they were fun.  There’s no such thing as a bad character, only a bad writer.  Nowhere else is this more evident than in the DCU.

As the infamous DC relaunch draws nearer, I’ve found myself in the perfect position.  I know the scheme has its detractors, but speaking as a fledgling DC reader this is a fantastic opportunity for me to jump on board the characters that interest me without having to know sixty-odd years of backstory beforehand.  I’ve pre-ordered my number ones: Scott Snyder on Batman and Swamp Thing is enough to give me a permanent erection; Jeff Lemire on Animal Man is beyond intriguing; and, of course, Action Comics.  I’ve always felt that, handled right, Superman could be a fascinating character and this reboot is something I can’t pass up.

I want to post reviews as and when I get the books – the DC Relaunch from the perspective of a (relative) newcomer, but no promises.  I have a notoriously bad attention span.

Until next time, true believers!