Harley Quinn #3 – Review

By: Amanda Conner & Jimmy Palmiotti (story), Chad Hardin (art), Alex Sinclair (colors)

The Story: It’s a bad day when a long-haired dwarf turns down a date with you.

The Review: I tried watching Dexter some years ago, back when it was new and getting wildly popular, despite all the controversy it generated.  I was enthralled by the first few episodes as much as anyone else, but at some point, I suddenly felt like I could no longer stomach the idea of getting entertainment out of murder.  It was less a moral reaction than a biological one; every time Dexter took out one of those microscope slides, I started getting slightly queasy.

There’s something like that going on here with Harley Quinn.  I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m getting less and less mileage out of the macabre humor of this title with every passing month.  Again, it’s not so much the immorality of Harley’s kills that disturbs me, although that does play a part.  I’m fine with her bumping off anyone who goes after her first, but brutally slaying anyone, even prison inmates, for actions they can’t help is a lot less justifiable.

Harley Quinn #2 – Review

By: Amanda Conner & Jimmy Palmiotti (story), Chad Hardin & Stephane Roux (art), Alex Sinclair (colors)

The Story: Harley makes it clear that pet control will not be part of her landlady duties.

The Review: Does anyone remember Animaniacs?  Much as I didn’t care for Yakko, Wakko, and Dot, I loved pretty much every other segment and character on that show, and one of my favorites was “Good Idea, Bad Idea,” a recurring sketch that envisioned the hapless Mr. Skull carrying out the various good ideas (“Drinking fresh milk from the carton.”) and bad ideas (“Drinking fresh milk from the cow.”).  It was a weekly lesson on the value of execution.

I bring this up because Harley Quinn can really stand to take that lesson a little more to heart.  While almost everything that happens in this issue may have started out as a good idea in Conner-Palmiotti’s head, what ends up on the page is almost invariably a bad idea.  Let’s start with an easy one: Bernie, Harley’s charbroiled beaver.  Besides just being weird for no other reason than to be weird—and maybe to get the juvenile pleasure of having Harley talk about her beaver all the time—Bernie also has confusing implications for Harley’s mental stability.  Most writers see the source of her crimes as coming from a highly skewed perspective on life, not unlike her mentor and soulmate.  Talking to Bernie places her squarely into Crazytown.

Ame-Comi Girls #1 – Review

By: Justin Gray & Jimmy Palmiotti (story), Amanda Conner (art), Tony Akins (pencils), Walden Wong (inks), Paul Mounts (colors)

The Story: Diplomacy in a metal bikini—what can be wrong with that?

The Review: I know I’m playing into stereotype here, but I actually preferred anime and manga for many years before getting back into American comics.  Like most fans, I was drawn partially by the exotic air of the material, but mostly by its extremes of imagination and emotion.  Later, I’d realize anime and manga have their gradations of low-brow and formulaic versus intelligent and inspired as any other medium, but at the time, it all seemed utterly original to me.

Originality would not be the predominant quality of this series, and in most respects, you don’t see anything in particular which really ties Ame-Comi Girls with a Japanese aesthetic, either in substance or design.  If there are certain tropes manga usually fall into (and there are plenty), this title doesn’t really use them.  Nothing in the way the story proceeds or the way characters behave really remind you of anything you ever read in a tankōbon.

CBLDF Liberty Annual 2010 – Review

By: Various including Darick Robertson, Fabio Moon, Gabriel Ba, Garth Ennis, Paul Pope, Evan Dorkin, Rob Liefeld, Gail Simone, Scott Morse, Geoff Johns, Scott Kolins, Brian Azzarello, Frank Miller, Terry Moore, Jeff Smith, Skottie Young, Jimmy Palmiotti, Amanda Conner, Ben McCool, Billy Tucci, Larry Marder and more

The Story: Comic creators collaborate on an anthology comic to raise money to protect free speech!

What’s Good: You know what’s good: free speech!  Too often the term “free speech” is only thought of as it applies to journalists, but as soon as you start eroding artists abilities to portray their art in whatever why they please because some people find it distasteful, you start to threaten some of the essential liberties that are part of what it means to be human (much less American).  There are places in the world where people cannot say and print what they please and there are people in the good old USA who occasionally give a comic shop a hard time about displaying comics with – gasp – wanton violence or – double gasp – naked people or – triple gasp – naked people doing naughty things! And by “hard time” we mean “take the comic shop to court”.  The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund is a non-profit that helps comic shops and creators defend themselves against such intrusions into free speech and every so often they put out an Annual to raise awareness and money.

Wonder Woman #600 – Review

By Gail Simone (writer), George Perez (pencils), Scott Koblish (inks), Amanda Conner (writer and artist), Paul Mounts (colors), Louise Simonson (writer), Eduardo Pansica (pencils), Bob Wiacek (ink), Geoff Johns (writer), Scott Kolins (art), Michael Atiyeh (colors), and J. Michael Straczynski (writer), Don Kramer (pencils), Michael Babinski (inks)

The Stories: Gail Simone (yay!) gives us a nice story about a team up between Diana and most of the other female DC heroes (including Kate Kane’s Batwoman—double yay!), Amanda Conner gives us a fluffy but fun vignette that has Diana helping Power Girl to solve a…relationship problem, Louise Simonson tells us about a disasters nearly averted as Wonder Woman teams up with Superman to take down Aegeus, Geoff Johns (yay again!) gives us a very nice, very classic-feeling Wonder Woman tale that ends up being a prologue to…

…the Big One. Straczynski and company attempt to reinvent everything, from Wonder Woman’s costume to her attitude to her origin, to he very timeline itself. How do they fare? Read on.

The Review: We’ll get to the elephant in the room in a moment, but let’s focus on the non-JMS stories first. They’re all good, mostly because of the caliber of creators (especially writers) they pulled in for this issue. Johns’ story was easily my favorite (full disclosure: I’m a completely unapologetic Johns fangirl, so your mileage could vary), both because of the excellent writing and the story itself (short though it was.) I just love the added meaning he endows the “wonder” of Wonder Woman with. It’s not the first time it has been done of course, but Johns works it in very quietly and elegantly, without overemphasizing it or beating us over the head. I appreciate that. All of the vignettes were worth the time I invested in reading them, honestly; even “Fuzzy Logic,” my least favorite of the group, was harmless enough. It was a bit too cute for my taste, but it really does emphasize that there’s a Wonder Woman story in this issue to suit every kind of fan.

Now, on to ”Couture Shock.” I hate to start off with a complaint when there are a lot of good things to say about this story…but ugh. Worst. Pun. Ever. Yes I know it’s a reference to the new costume, but still. No thank you. It’s just BAD. With such major changes being made to such an iconic character, I really would have appreciated a title that was a little less flippant. Maybe I’m being oversensitive, but it really feels rather disrespectful, especially given how…we’ll say “passionately,” fans tend to react to changes of this magnitude. (Just titling it plain ‘ol “Culture Shock,” while generic, would have been plenty serviceable, and preferable in my opinion.)

Power Girl #10 – Review

By: Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray (writers), Amanda Conner (artist), Paul Montes (colorist)

The Story: Terra manages to save Power Girl from the gravity well stuck to her chest. They limp away, back to PG’s apartment, where the comic dork with the pictures of Power Girl comes with his terms. He demands/ requests three things: that she accompany him to his local comic shop, that she take care of two bullies, and help him ask out a girl. The Ultra-Humanite wouldn’t interrupt a plan like that, would he?

What’s Good: Power Girl as a series is about the medium, the culture that surrounds it, its audience and its conceits. This is a book about metafiction. Put on your protective goggles before reading – because Palmiotti and Gray have scripted big sections of this book to laugh at you. I enjoyed this issue making fun of comics, including Satanna trash talking Terra for reusing superhero names (“There’s like what? Two…three…Flashes?”), Power Girl trashing on Satanna’s motivations (“She attacked me because, well, because that’s what people like her do.”), and Terra asking why villains can’t just shut up during fights. The writers have fun laughing at them (and us, because these are sacred cow conventions we’ve come to expect as readers). The fanboy crushes on fictional, chesty women is also aimed squarely at those who buy this book (or Power Girl posters, models, action figures, etc). Gray and Palmiotti also take a shot at the industry (a comic doesn’t show up on time because an artist fell behind schedule) and in the end, Terra trashes on Power Girl in the “totally clichéd hero/friend fights” where she gives Power Girl the chance to say “I know you’re stronger than this” and “this isn’t you.” There are too many more gems than can fit in this space, but leave a comment if you spot more. The art and inks are, as always, clear, clean, dynamic, and fun. The cartoony, self-aware style fits well with the type of humor the writers are building.

Power Girl #7 – Review

By Justin Gray & Jimmy Palmiotti (writers), Amanda Conner (art), Paul Mounts (colors)

The Story: The women of the Planet Valeron, ruled by Vartox the Hyper-Man, are all rendered sterile by the contraception bomb. Vartox goes off to find the perfect mate to ensure that his species continues. He picks Power Girl.

What’s Good: Do not pick up this issue if you’re looking for a Justice League feel, an Outsiders feel, or even a Batgirl feel. This issue is for people who buy Deadpool or who thought Barbarella was funny. This is a book of tongue-in-cheek irony, zaniness and cleavage with a villain who talks like his lines were swiped from a Republican serial. This exuberance works because Vartox the Hyper-Man (think part Zap Brannigan, part Austin Powers, talking about himself in the third person) has to fight Yeti pirates, who in defeat, spring a contraceptive bomb on Valeron. It works because Vartox has advisors like Groovicus Mellow (ripped right out of a 70s blaxploitation movie) and because he can order the seduction musk rifle to be prepared. It works because Vartox wears lesser clothes than Power Girl, exposing hairy legs that definitely aren’t worth the view. Gray and Palmiotti play with our expectations for a cleavage-focused series like Power Girl, and turn them against us with a hairy, speedo-wearing sleazebag.

Amanda Conner is a great cartoony artist who draws a mean sword-wielding yeti, a ridiculously unattractive Vartox, and a hard-bodied Power Girl. Her faces evoke emotion and even without dialogue, the story would have been told well. She reached back into the cheap and trashy movies of the seventies to imbue Valeron with a disco sci-fi mood with kitschy beads and huge pink throw-pillows in crystal palaces. The action scenes were clean and clear and I always knew what was going on. All in all, a great issue for Conner.

Power Girl #1 – Review

By Justin Gray & Jimmy Palmiotti (writers), Amanda Conner (artist), Paul Mounts (colorist)

Some Thoughts Before the Review: I like the Earth-2 orphans;  and although Power Girl has always had the potential to be an intriguing character, she’s become best known for only a couple of features, so I have to admit that I approached this issue with pretty low expectations.

The Story: Power Girl is setting up shop in New York, re-establishing a secret identity, setting up a company and creating the potential for a social circle.  Then, robots drop out of a vortex in the sky as a wave of fear starts driving New Yorkers psychotically bananas.  PG does her best to stop the robots, but is eventually overwhelmed and pulled into the vortex, where she finds the Ultra-Humanite.

What’s Good: I loved the interweaving of Karen Starr’s personal life and Power Girl’s struggle with the robots and the Ultra-Humanite.  It takes a skilled writer to weave themes together through action and flashback without losing any of the tension or messing up the pacing.  Gray and Palmiotti succeeded.

As for the art, it is first-rate.  It has a bit of a cartoonish feel, but without any loss of detail.  In fact, the facial expressions were great as they told a lot about the story and the characters without narration or dialogue.  All in all, some pretty impressive strengths.

What’s Not So Good: When dealing in superheroes, writers have to walk a fine line between giving the reader a sense of wonder and awe, while not drifting into the absurd.    When the Ultra-Humanite’s fear effect had people killing each other all over New York, I thought of the trigger for Marvel’s Civil War.  A bunch of deaths are no small thing, so the blasé treatment in the book left me wondering how seriously to take the story.  When the Ultra-Humanite lifted all of Manhattan into the air, I felt we’d crossed a line.

Conclusion: I think Gray and Palmiotti did a great job with this first issue.  PG was introduced into her new environment and an insane killer is sicked on her.  It will take a few issues to figure out how Gray and Palmiotti want us to take the series: whether it is meant to provide eye candy and laughs or whether they intend to cement a multi-dimensional character into the center of the DC mythos.

Grade: B-

-DS Arsenault