My Week In Geek

This last week for me as of geek I picked up Flashpoint 5, The Incredible Hulks 635, Justice League 1, The Amazing Spider-Man: Kraven’s Last Hunt, Absolute Batman: The Long Halloween, X-Men: Age of X, House of M, Thor: The Trials of Loki, and Season 1 of Wolverine and the X-Men.

You can see my thoughts on the first issue of the Justice League here. As for the other comics I have to say my favorite issue from last week was The Incredible Hulks 635. It’s the stunning conclusion to Greg Pak’s run with the character as well as the end of this volume. I am going to greatly miss his work with the characters, but I look forward to the new series starting in October.

So far I have only read Age of X out of the trades I picked up, which I really enjoyed. I have a tendency to love alternative history stories of well-established characters. I wont say much more on this story because I think I will end up doing a review of it later this month in a Random Trade Tuesday. The same can be said for almost all the trades I picked up this week.

As for Wolverine and the X-Men I’ve only watched the first disc and wow do I love it. It reminds me of the Anti-Mutant stuff from the 90’s X-men series mixed with a continuation of the X-Men Evolution series from the 2000’s. Really loved both those series so this combination of them is just awesome for me.

Well that was last week in geek for me, and this week looks to be just as geek heavy with more new DC first issues and more X-men stuff. See you tomorrow with my weekly comic reviews.

Random Trade Tuesday

For the first Random Trade Tuesday I am going to be talking about volume one of a story that is very near and dear to me, that story is DC: The New Frontier by Darwyn Cooke and Dave Stewart. The reason this story is so important to me is that this was one of the first stories I read in comics, well in trades, and it doesn’t hurt that it is also just an amazing superhero period piece. That is why I have order the Absolute version of it when Thwipster had it on sale.

The book starts off in 1945 with the tale of The Losers and their last mission. That mission is to go to this island and retrieve Rick Flagg’s team and a Nazi scientist, but in the end the only one who survives is Flagg. On the island the Losers have to face off against dinosaurs, this will be the Losers last stand. After this we get a little background on the history of this world, as well as a where all the Golden Age superheroes went. Darwyn Cooke has remarked that this DC: The New Frontier was inspired by the James Robinson miniseries The Golden Age in which by the end the Justice Society is called in front of congress to unmakes and work for the government or be arrested, and in the heroes decide to hang up their costumes and disappear. If you can find this story I highly recommend picking it up. After that we are at an Air Force Base in 1948 and a young Hal Jordan tracking down a pilot that flew with his dad in the war. After this we get treated to a seen of Hourman still in action followed by an article by Iris West about his death and more of this world’s history, in this it brings up an interesting look on how McCarthyism would affect a world with superheroes. As you can already tell there is quite a bit of jumping from story to story, and that’s the way the whole volume is. I quite enjoy it in how it gives you just enough on each character at a time to build on. After the Hourman section we move on to a tale of Hal Jordan in the Korean War, and how he would not kill enemy fighters but instead put himself in situation that he would bate them so his fellow fighter pilots would be able to shoot them down. Also at this time we get to meet Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen as they are covering the Korean War for the Daily Planet. After the Hal story in which he ends up having to kill a man for survival we get the introduction of the Martian Manhunter being accidently teleported to Earth. Here we get to see some amazing art of J’onn J’onzz in his Martian form; I absolutely love Darwyn Cooke’s art, especially when it comes to The Martian Manhunter. Headlines read “Wonder Woman: Winning the hearts and minds of the disenfranchised”. Cut to Superman finding bodies and fire everywhere. Superman walks into a hut to find Wonder Woman and a bunch of other women (how are holding guns) celebrating, Superman finds out what happened here and does not approve of what Wonder Woman let happen here. Darwyn Cooke has been on record as to saying he had a hard time trying to figure out how to show Wonder Woman as powerful, and so what he did was make her taller then Superman, we don’t get to see that until after she gets off the table to confront him. Back to J’onn J’onzz learning about our world through television and testing out his shape shifting abilities. We get a panel showing us the origin of the Flash. After that we get Detective John Jones working with a Private Investigator by the name of Slam Bradley, they are working on a case about a kidnapped boy. When they arrive at the church where the boy is being held by some strange cult they see the Batman there taking down members of the cult. John tries using his phasing ability to get closer to the boy to save him, but is stopped by fire. The batman we see here is the darker scarier version, pre-Robin, and thusly scares the young boy he’s trying to rescue. Batman takes down the cult leader and takes his necklace; well John takes the book that the cult was working from. It’s Fight Night in Las Vegas as heavy weight champ Ted “Wildcat” Grant goes up against the young up start Cassius Clay. Ted barely wins the fight, and at the after party we see him walk in with Selina Kyle on his arm. Captain Cold attacks the fights after party, where Iris West also just happens to be at. The Flash shows up to save the day, which leaves Ted remarking how he wished Jay Garret were there to see this new speedster. Since we’ve set this up as a world in which heroes aren’t allowed to openly operate we get a room full of heroes doing nothing but watching this one guy from Central City stopping this criminal. I can’t read The Flash in this with out hearing the voice of Neil Patrick Harris from the New Frontier animated movie. After that we get a little Hal story that kind of ties in with the origin of the Challengers of the Unknown, which is followed by a John Henry story. After that we are treated to John Jones at the movies, where he watches the Fleischer Superman cartoon, a newsreel on The Challengers of the Unknown, and followed by the main attraction Invasion From Mars, which John finds to be hilarious, but the people around him are genuinely frightened by it. When John gets home he is greeted by the shadowing figure of Batman who is there to work with John on the case of that cult. He brought him the necklace that goes with the book, and told him how he has a seventy thousand dollar sliver of space rock to take down the alien from Metropolis, but for John he only needs a penny for a book of matches if he ever needs to take him down, because if there’s one thing in life that’s a constant that is Batman doesn’t trust anyone. Then there is an award ceremony for Wonder Woman, which after we have President Eisenhower telling Wonder Woman that she needs a vacation and that she should fall into place. Hal and Faraday meet, and Hal is finally informed as to what he’s training for. It’s a mission to Mars. And we end this volume with John Jones reading from the cults book, main about a Viking prince on an island with monsters.

Now the over all story of DC: The New Frontier is probably one of my favorite stories of all time, and this volume sets so much up for the second half as well as has so many winks and nods to DC Comics continuity from the Golden Age and the Silver Age of comics that its damn near impossible to not love. I hope that you will join me back here next Tuesday for the fast passed action adventure that is DC: The New Frontier volume 2.

Not a Regular Occurrence

I was originally planning on todays post to be a review of the first X-Men movie since this month we see the release of X-Men: First Class on DVD and BluRay (actually this week even). But due to a blind date, getting ready for the beginning of a new school year, and a family visit I was unable to watch X-Men so I could review it. I hope that this non-movie review Monday doesn’t become a habit. So instead of giving you the X-Men review I will give you a hint to the posts for Tuesday and Friday.

Tuesday:

Friday:

Batman Friday: The Black Casebook

For the first Batman Friday I will be looking at the trade of Batman: The Black Casebook. These are some of the stories that inspired Batman: R.I.P. and has an introduction by Grant Morrison. This trade collects an assortment of Batman stories from the 50’s and one from the 1964, and if you have read Grant Morrison’s book Supergods you will get a taste here on how weird the post war era of Batman was. At the beginning of the trade there is a general introduction on how and why Grant Morrison ended up on Batman as well as a background on the twelve Batman stories that he chose for the trade.

The first story collected is “A Partner for Batman” which is a story of Robin confronting his greatest fear… the Batman replacing him with someone else. In the beginning of the story Batman and Robin are taking down some criminals on a boat, well doing that Robin ends up breaking his leg. For the remainder of the story Robin is stuck being on bed rest, so for the time being Batman needs a replacement sidekick and that’s where Wingman comes in. By the end of the story we see that all of Robins fretting was for not since Wingman was actually being trained by Batman to go be a Batman in Europe. Grant Morrison in his Batman and Son & Batman: The Resurrection of Ra’s al Ghul story arcs touched on this story with the replacing of Tim Drake as Robin for Damian Wayne.

The next story in the trade is “Batman—Indian Chief”. This is the story that introduces us to the characters of Man-of-the-Bats & Little Raven. Now I could go on & on about this story in comparison with the seventh issue of Batman Incorporated. These characters have evolved from their first appearance in 1954 to their most resent appearance; they went from being depicted as uncivilized versions of Batman & Robin to fully formed character dealing with the real issues that are faced by the First Nations people on reserves. Anyways in the story Batman has to take on the role of Man-of-the-Bats so Great Eagle isn’t found out to be Man-of-the-Bats by his enemy Black Elk. As I have mentioned these characters appear again in Batman Incorporated seven, but they also return in Grant Morrison’s Batman: The Black Glove story arc. Grant Morrison has done amazing work in developing these two characters, & I feel out of any of the Bat characters to come out of Gran Morrison’s run with Batman these two are in desperate need of a mini-series or even on going series.

“The Batmen of All Nations” is central to Grant Morrison’s Batman: The Black Glove with it being the story in which all the different heroes that have been inspired by Batman have come together. It’s your basic story of murder and deceit with on of the other Batmen being someone out to kill Batman. Overall its kind of a forgettable story if it was for what Grant Morrison and Paul Cornel would do with those characters fifty some years later.

Did you know that there was a Batman before Bruce Wayne was ever Batman… well that is reveled in the story of “The First Batman”, where it turns out that Thomas Wayne wore the cape and cowl before his son ever did. This story tells the tale of how Thomas & Martha Wayne were at a costume party Thomas ended up stopping the sinister plans of a gangster who would later hire Joe Chill to murder the Wayne’s. Batman tries to bring down the gangster through his normal route, but that doesn’t work for him. So after all normal methods have been proven fruitless Bruce Wayne puts on his father bat costume and goes after the criminal with great success. In the end Bruce hangs his fathers costume up in the Batcave like he would with any of his past costumes. This story plays a role in Batman: R.I.P. & Grant Morrison’s run on Batman and Robin as the outfit for the villainous Doctor Hurt.

“The Club of Heroes” is a sequel to the “Batmen of all Nation” story talked about earlier in the trade. This story reunites our international team of Batman like heroes and introduces the character of billionaire John Mayhew, a character that would return with the Club in Batman: The Black Glove as a connection to Doctor Hurt and the sinister Black Glove. The story itself isn’t much, it’s a Superman Batman team up where Batman & the Club of Heroes are trying to figure out who will be its leader, & Superman is dealing with a new hero in town by the name of Lighting Man. Turns out the leader for the Club will be chosen by the person that does the most amazing feat, and that person ends up being our Dark Knight who discovers that Lighting Man is actually Superman well suffering from Kryptonite amnesia. Who new Batman was such a great detective?

Who would be capable of ending the Batman’s career, well that is what we find out in “The Man Who Ended Batman’s Career”. Turns out its no one, but we do get a gripping psychological story of how Professor Milo plans on stopping the Batman by making him afraid of the very thing he is, so without missing a beat he becomes the character of Starman. With the help of his faithful ward Robin helps Batman get over his phobia and become the Batman again well taking down Professor Milo. These kind of stories where inspirational to Grant Morrison in his creating of Batman: R.I.P., because of the potential for psychological damage to Batman from years of mind altering attacks.

“Am I Really Batman?” is another story heavy in psychological drama for the Batman, as well as the return of dear Professor Milo who has dosed Batman with a mind-altering chemical that changed his state of mind. The chemical Milo uses causes the victim to loose all desire to live, so Robin & Alfred give Batman a reason by denouncing him as Batman & thusly giving him a caused to keep fighting. They do this for the twenty-four hour time period it would take for the chemical to wear off. Again it is another psychological drama stories that paved the way for Batman: R.I.P.

Zur-En-Arrh! If you were to pinpoint key phrases that have been important to the Batman title in the last ten years “Zur-En-Arrh” would be one of them without a doubt. The concept of the Batman of Zur-En-Arrh from Grant Morrison’s Batman: R.I.P. can be traced back to a one-shot story from February 1958 in “Batman – The Superman of Planet X”. In that story our Batman is teleported to the planet Zur-En-Arrh by its Batman. Well there our Batman finds out that he has powers similar to those of his friend Superman, and so with these new abilities he stops disasters, fights invaders and hordes of giant robots. By the end of the story he is sent back home, and is left trying to figure out if it was or wasn’t all just a dream… with a little gift from the Batman of Zur-En-Arrh, the Bat-Radia. So much of what happens in this story is brought up in Batman: R.I.P. & I love that. I think out of all the stories in this collected trade this is by far my favorite.

“Batman Meets Bat-Mite” is the first appearance of Batman’s number one fan, the fifth dimension being known as Bat-Mite. In this story Bat-Mite does all he can to make this the best Batman adventure ever by throwing all sorts of changes at him with his fifth dimensional magic. This character makes important appearances in both Batman: The Black Glove & Batman: R.I.P.

“The Rainbow Creature” & “The Batman Creature” are both stories depicting how this had drastically changed in this post war era of Batman. With the waning interest in superhero comics by the general public this were done differently then how they were in the past. Also at this time Batman & Robin were facing claims of homosexuality, which at that time was less accepted then say today. In the story of “The Rainbow Creature” we showcase the weird stories that they told in order to get away form some of the issues of the past with new & weird bad guys for Batman to fight. In this case a multi colored monster with different powers base on its colors, as apposed to random street gang crime. As for “The Batman Creature” we so both a story showcasing the new Bat-family members, Batwoman and Ace the Bat-Hound, as well as a story about the weird things that would happen to the Batman, such as in this story being turned into a Gorilla.

The two part story “Robin Dies at Dawn” is the really rocket fuel to the story of Batman: R.I.P. with it having to deal with the loneliness of Batman and the emotional toll that can take on the character. It also is the bases for the idea of the three different Batmen we seen in Batman: and Son, as well as Batman: R.I.P., through the isolation experiment, as well the doctor conducting the experiment would also be retconned into being Doctor Hurt. This story is very weird in that we are dealing with things of Batman’s imagination, criminals in gorilla suits, and Batman hallucinating things from his time in the isolation experiment. In the end Batman does save Robin and thusly saves the day.

In the end I would highly recommend this trade to anyone wanting a way to better understand Grant Morrison’s run on Batman, as well as to anyone that would want to get familiar with Batman stories of this time. I would like to mention that I wouldn’t mind if DC would do one of these for All Star Superman, since that is another Grant Morrison story based off of some of those weird Superman stories of the post war era.

Thursday Comics: Justice League

Justice League #1

Warning this review contains spoilers for the first issue of Justice League by Geoff Johns and Jim Lee

First off I want to say that only 4/7 of the characters on the cover show up at all in this first issue, and I have a problem with that since in the 80’s we could have a half a book story in Secret Origin and we would get the back story on all the characters and why they needed to come together in the first place. Anyways so yes in this issue we are privy to see Batman, Green Lantern, Vic Stone (eventually Cyborg), and the Man of Steel himself Superman. As we saw in the six-page preview two months ago the world, or just Gotham, isn’t to friendly to the whole vigilante super hero thing with the police hunting down Batman and the thing he is chasing. The beast Batman is chasing looks to me like some kind of strange robot/Parademon/Doomsday hybrid. Then out comes Green Lantern to help out old Bats, but Batman doesn’t care for how bright Green Lantern is. At this point the beast shots some sort of laser blast at the two heroes, but misses them and hits the police helicopter instead. To be the hero Green Lantern catches the crashing helicopters with bats, have to say I would preferred to have seen him use a catchers glove instead. This is where we find out that old robo-para-doomsday can shape shift, as he does so to run away. The creature escapes underground and our heroes are quick to follow. By this point we are made fully aware of how cocky and arrogant Green Lantern is, with his attitude of “I can do everything and you can do nothing because you are just a puny man dressed as a bat. Nothing makes you special.” The batman spots the creature and that’s when it sets of some ort of device, Green Lantern protects the two heroes as the creature cries out “FOR DARKSEID”. Green Lantern mistakes it as “Dark Side”. The two heroes check out the device after all the smoke and fire subside, Green Lantern scans it with his ring and guess what its unable to identify the strange thing, well Batman thinks it could be some sort of alien computer (possibly and exploding Mother Box). So since Batman and Green Lantern both agree that the device is alien they decide to be xenophobic and question the only known alien on the planet. Cut to a football game where star athlete Vic Stone scores a touchdown, but that means nothing to him since the person who he had a reserved seat for did. In the coaches office scouts offer anything they can to get Vic, but the coach wont let any of them talk with Vic till his dad is there, unfortunately for Vic daddy is a busy man. A green light construct of a fighter jet fly’s overhead, and everyone is excited to see”…one of them!” even if its not Superman. This also where we find out that Vic’s dad studies super-humans. Now if I were abetting man I would be putting money down on Vic’s life being drastically changed after this. Batman and Green Lantern land at a Lexcorp demolition zone where Superman is supposed to be according to the ring. Batman grumbles about how they should have been stealthy in their approach instead of taking “a glowing green jet”. Green Lantern has still got the cocky attitude that he can handle anything, so he locks Batman in a construct and faces off against Superman all by himself. Turn the page and Superman is knocking Green Lantern out, and with the three dialogue balloons I get an attitude of arrogance from Superman that I don’t care for, hopefully Grant Morrison can fix that. After that we get a couple of pages of concept art from the designing stage of the title.

As much as I have my problems with this issue I still enjoyed it. There’s not a lot of meat to this first issue, but it’s paving the groundwork for this new universe to take shape. I don’t think they should have reveled that the big bad was Darkseid, because now the suspense of who is behind all this is gone. One more problem I have with the Darkseid story plot was that all through SDCC we kept hearing that the New Gods were going to be Earth-51 and that we would see them in Multiversity, but here we are in Justice League getting a New God, or is it that Darkseid isn’t a New God anymore or is this “Darkseid” something completely different? The final thing I have to say is that I still feel Geoff Johns can’t write Batman anywhere near as good as we have some to expect thanks to writers like Grant Morrison and Scott Snyder, Johns still seems trapped in writing Batman as “I’m dark, brooding, and angry… FEAR ME!!!” and we all know that Batman doesn’t have to be like that anymore. Sadly the personality traits Johns gives Batman lead me to believe that he still thinks of Batman as the paranoid crazy person that dresses up as a bat and has plans to take down everyone in the universe because he can’t trust them.

The next issue is Batman vs. Superman out in store on October 19, 2011. I hope you all enjoy this first month of the reboots.

Review written by Justin Gyorfi