Justice League #32 – Review

By: Geoff Johns (story), Doug Mahnke (pencils), Keith Champagne (inks), Andrew Dalhouse (colors)

The Story: Meet the Doom Patrol, superhero support group for the unsightly.

The Review: With the Metal Men, Johns showed off his unique knack for bringing old characters into modern times without losing their original appeal. At the same time, he’s not averse to updating characters with a much sharper twist. He proved that with the reintroduction of the Doom Patrol in Teen Titans, and especially with Niles Caulder’s transformation from altruistic paraplegic to emotional manipulator supreme.

Since it was Johns who made this sea-change in Caulder’s character, I suppose he felt an obligation to keep it in the new DCU. In some respects, it’s an interesting flipside to his genius. While feigning the deepest compassion for the Patrol, he simultaneously reinforces their insecurities: Robotman’s loss of body, the lethal risk of Negative Man’s negative form, Elasti-Girl’s gelatinous composition. It’d be quite ingenious if he went about it with a little more nuance.

My Greatest Adventure #7 – Review

By: Too many to list—check out the review.

The Story: Robotman is steaming!  G-Man takes out the trash!  Tanga kills puppies!

The Review: And with that, we come to the end of this grand, though ultimately unsuccessful, experiment in showcase comics.  In a more patient, less expensive decade, perhaps this kind of series would have found greater support, but now, it feels like a half-charming, half-exasperating novelty from a bygone era.  While “Garbage Man” concludes, rather optimistically, “The end for now,” I think the feature’s partners are more prudent in their use of the more final, “The end.”

Matt Kindt clearly had a lot of ideas for where to take Robotman, but the limitations of his format forces him to squeeze as many of them together as possible, making for a much less unified storyline.  He spent so much of the previous issues playing out Robotman’s inability to engage in human feeling that this sudden fixation on Cliff’s mechanical body not allowing him to harm another human comes a bit out of the blue.  Still, this conflict proves that at the very least, Cliff retains a potential for outrage and bitterness that is certainly not very robotic.  Kindt also tries once more to develop the relationship between Maddy and Cliff, but is ultimately hampered by our hero’s affected coldness towards her, and the fact that they don’t have much natural chemistry between them anyway.  Scott Kolins continues to do his best work on this feature, so long as he avoids any scenes that require genuine emotion, where he can only make some passable melodrama.  As for Mike Atiyeh, let’s hope he brings the same vibrancy to his future work as he’s done for this one all along.

By this point, I must confess I review “Garbage Man” simply because I must.  Aaron Lopresti hasn’t written a terrible story, but he has written a terribly bland one.  Everything, from the legal drama to the conception of the protagonist himself, feels like something drawn off from another, better-crafted piece of work, then cobbled together into this merely functional tale.  For the last time, we watch the cast go through the motions of interacting with each other and projecting personality, only to come off more mechanical than Robotman claims to be: “I’m not to be trusted.  Nor am I interested in your foolish bravado.”  In the end, the best thing you really got out of this feature was Lopresti’s art, Matt Ryan’s inks, and John Kalisz’s colors.

My Greatest Adventure #4 – Review

By: Too many to list—check out the review.

The Story: Robotman enters a race!  Garbage Man vs. Dinosaur!  Tanga breaks up with Za!

The Review: I don’t know why it took me this long to realize it, but it occurred to me today that one of the biggest disadvantages of a multi-feature series is how vulnerable it is to inconsistency.  With most ongoings, if you get a stinker of an issue, you can always hope the next one will make up for it, or drop it entirely if things don’t improve.  If you have a title with some features you like and others you don’t, you get mixed feelings whether you keep reading or ditch it.

If “Robotman” was a solo ongoing, I’d probably stick it out to see if it gets any better.  Early parts of the story were delightful when Matt Kindt stuck to pure, old-timey sci-fi creativity.  This chapter still has some of that to some degree, like Cliff baiting the nanite-infected island animals so he can consume their organic parts to repair himself (you have to love that Scott Kolins draws Cliff’s nano-anti-bodies as microscopic, chibi versions of himself).  But as soon as you get into more dramatic territory, your interest wanes.  Though we finally get to see the infamous racecar incident Cliff’s mentioned all this time, there’s disappointingly little conspiracy or complexity to it, being more like one of those tragic consequences of scientific risk.  Besides, it’s hard (especially for a prude like me) to feel all that sympathetic, when Cliff’s own risk-seeking behavior lands him in those circumstances in the first place.

With “Garbage Man,” this is a feature I’d have dropped a few issues back had it been its own series.  Aaron Lopresti has been splitting his time between two plotlines (G. Man’s ongoing vendetta against Titan, and his regular encounters with random monsters), which thins out both in a ten-paged chapter.  Here, he focuses mostly on the crazy happenings in the sewer, and the story’s much improved for it, but it still feels like it’s meandering, looking for the big twist to make it worthwhile.  But which twist is that supposed to be?  Certainly not G. Man’s takedown of a sewer dinosaur, nor Samantha’s penitent return to him, nor the revelation that Dr. Clive (from way back in Weird Worlds #1) might be responsible for the homeless man whose dreams bring impossible creatures to life.  At least it all looks great, albeit a tad cutesy, with Lopresti and Matt Ryan’s detailed figures and John Kalisz’s bright colors.

My Greatest Adventure #3 – Review

By: Too many to list—check out the review.

The Story: Robotman in the jungle!  Garbage Man meets Batman!  Tanga flies with whales!

The Review: Back in my creative writing days, I had a professor (shout-out to Ron Carlson) who would talk to us about the hump of fiction known as the “Big Fat Middle,” the long stretch of stuff between the beginning and the end, the dreaded second act.  Here is where the merits of a story rises to the top or hits rock bottom, where a writer has to maintain your interest as his plot builds and finds itself.  Needless to say, many otherwise fine stories fall to the Big Fat Middle.

So it goes with “Robotman.”  Matt Kindt did a good job setting up a Silver Agey version of the mechanical man, putting Cliff’s technological capabilities to creative use (less so here, as Cliff simply burns his way through the mecha-snake’s gullet).  But this installment mostly treads ground we’ve covered before—Robotman’s regenerative abilities, Maddy’s guilt (of what, we still don’t know), the mutating nanites—and there isn’t quite enough action to make up for the lack of new information.  At least Scott Kolins continues to deliver a perky, charming-looking feature, and Mike Atiyeh employs a stunning spectrum of colors for all the nanite-infected creatures in the story, from silver-red geckos to sapphire blue butterflies to neon purple-green-yellow lava monsters—yes, I did say nanite-infected lava monster.  It’s pretty neat.

Aaron Lopresti already draws Batman over on Justice League International, but now he gets to write the Dark Knight too.  For the most part, he does a fine job.  His Batman is a to-the-point, tough-talking guy, although so generic you can probably have the same dialogue come out of any cop’s mouth: “You can talk.  Good.  Stay down.  I have some questions I want answered.”  It seems his only service to the story is to act as investigator, so I don’t know if his use in this story is worth his distracting presence.  Then again, without him, you basically have a cut-and-dry business drama (“I want this trail dead and buried.  Permanently.”) and some random monster-versus-monster action.  Still, a dinosaur in the sewer can be pretty good times, and Lopresti delivers a good-looking feature, well serviced by Matt Ryan’s inks and John Kalisz’s colors.

My Greatest Adventure #2 – Review

By: Too many to list—check out the review.

The Story: Robotman gets in a tight squeeze.  Garbage Man learns the pitfalls of hailing ladies from dark alleys.  Tanga blows her stack.

The Review: For everyone who loves to read, you know a good story when it not only captures your interest, but sustains it, making you lose your sense of time and place until you finish, blinking in surprise that you are indeed still on Earth.  A multi-part feature doesn’t make itself conducive to that kind of immersive experience.  Just when you really start getting into the story, it cuts itself off, leaving you faintly annoyed at the interruption.  So it goes here.

Matt Kindt’s “Robotman” has really shaped up to be an enjoyable sample of classic sci-fi, unapologetically zany with plenty of heart.  While Cliff has a couple moments of moodiness, where he blandly notes his increasing lack of humanity, mostly he delivers a dry narration that complements the wacky storyline well: “…it’s up to me to figure out a way to kill this crazy mutated rice that’s zombified all these people…!”  Kindt makes good on this series’ title, giving Cliff out-of-box quests to sort out, like a giant, mechanized snake, but he also maintains some ongoing drama in the background; it turns out the tension between Cliff and Maddy may be more than just romantic, as Cliff states, “Since the race in Utah…I know she feels guilty.  And maybe she should.”  I must say, when Scott Kolins can go all-out cartoony, he delivers mighty fun, Silver Age-esque art, bolstered by Mike Atiyeh’s Technicolors.

It gets a little harder to talk about Aaron Lopresti’s “Garbage Man” every time it appears.  Lopresti hasn’t managed to do anything to endear the character to our hearts or get us invested in his story.  Besides an overall lack of direction to the plot (when the Reverend asks G. Man what he wants to do, the monsterfied man replies vaguely, “I don’t know.  I want my life back.”), the feature lacks a specific tone.  Superficially, it aims for serious horror, but the simplistic, obvious writing just can’t cut it, not with such soapy lines as, “Richard, I…I can’t believe it!  I’m so happy you’re alive…!”  And it seemed a mistake from the beginning to bring in Batman as a supporting character, as he’s done nothing for the story except make us question why he’s there.  By now, Lopresti’s solid art (with Matt Ryan’s inks and John Kalisz’s colors) just can’t make up for the script’s undermining failings.

My Greatest Adventure #1 – Review

By: Too many to list—check out the review.

The Story: Robotman versus zombies!  Garbage Man finds religion!  Tanga stands up for virtue!

The Review: For my thoughts about the structure of this series, check out my review of Weird Worlds #1.  While still taken with the concept of a multiple-feature series, I don’t really support DC’s execution of it, especially where they limit it to a six-issue mini.  When you do the math, six issues, each sporting three features of relatively equal length, means each feature essentially produces a cumulative two issues at the end of six months.  What is this, S.H.I.E.L.D.?

The effects of this strict, finite length rears its head in subtle ways.  Take Matt Kindt’s “Robotman.”  While he manages to barrel the plot forward in good time, taking our hero, Cliff Steele, from in control to nearly disassembled in the span of ten pages, you can’t help feeling a lot of rush went into the writing.  Some scenes get cut off before they get a chance to build, like the intimate moment between Cliff and assistant Maddy Rouge (he literally takes off  in the middle of the conversation).  A couple times, we get facts thrown in so hastily, even Kindt can’t seem to keep them straight (is it Mrs. Turing’s brother or husband that’s missing?).  But all in all, you get great, Silver Agey fun: the robotic animals, Cliff’s HQ in the “Uncanny Valley,” and Cubans controlled by nanite rice.  Kolins’ strength definitely lies in retro sci-fi; his Robotman looks advanced, but still old-school bulky, and everything else has a clean, almost comic strip liveliness, with Atiyeh bringing more vibrant colors than he’s ever brought anywhere before.

Doom Patrol #22 – Review

By: Keith Giffen (writer), Ron Randall (penciller), Art Thibert (inker), Guy Major (colorist)

The Story: The Doom Patrol takes back their base, D-Day style!

The Review: Having been ignored, maligned, and mistreated not only in the DCU, but also in the real world of comics readers, it’s fitting the Doom Patrol would use their final issue to make one last, desperate attempt to gain some self-respect.  Getting kicked out of their home and turned into house-crashers (with a reputation for terrorism) overnight stung, and they’re determined to sting back for once.

That said, other than to give them a splashy mission for their last hours in print, the reasons for them retaking Oolong Island aren’t really there.  Up until their forced departure, they spent plenty of issues bemoaning how Oolong had gone to the dogs, the crazies they had to deal with regularly, and the country’s shady political alignment.  Maybe they plan to reform the place on their own terms (and recover their heroic status in so doing), but we’ll never get to see that.

We also haven’t seen enough of how Mr. Somebody (in the body of Veronica Cale)’s handled things in their absence.  I mean, how much worse can an unscrupulous, extradimensional entity run a corrupt island of mad scientists and their illegal experiments anyway?  Even by this issue, Mr. Somebody hasn’t managed to earn the respect of Oolong’s security head yet—it doesn’t look like he’s in any danger of taking over the world any time soon, as he boasts to General Immortus.

Mostly, you get a lot of action in this title’s series finale, though only parts of it offer much excitement: Cliff diving into Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man’s head and pulling a root to short him out is pretty good times).  But by and large, the blandness of the battle reminds you what little firepower the Patrol really has.  If not for Danny the Island’s (a big promotion from his “the Street” days) interference, the Patrol probably would never have pulled this off.

Doom Patrol #21 – Review

By: Keith Giffen (writer), Matthew Clark & Ron Randall (pencillers), Art Thibert (inker), Guy Major (colorist)

The Story: Robotman reflects on the many incarnations—literally, it turns out—of the Doom Patrol.

The Review: With cancellation imminent and the last two issues to go, it’s no wonder Giffen wants to take the opportunity to wax nostalgic about the Doom Patrol’s history.  It’s very smart of him to write this retrospective in the penultimate issue rather than the final one.  The Patrol, after all, is not a team of thinkers.  For them, the most fitting way to go out is to go with a bang, which leaves this issue as the calm before the storm.

This issue also acts as a much-needed character piece on Cliff, who’s always been the most centered member and as such the one you have the least handle on.  Rita’s the self-loathing one and Larry’s the smart-alec, but as it turns out, Cliff has more internal conflict than perhaps any of us believed.  His oft-repeated phrase says everything about why he’s the Patrol’s acting leader: “What’s important here?”  Giffen cleverly uses this mantra to analyze Cliff’s loyalty to the team.

Since the Patrol got revamped by Geoff Johns after Infinite Crisis, and even more so under Giffen’s work on this ongoing, the team has steadily lost more and more of their humanity.  Rita went from your usual size-changer to a protoplasmic shapeshifter; there’s no telling what’s underneath Larry’s bandages; and now Cliff reveals he’s almost purely robot—even Cyborg has more organics than that.

Yet despite losing the things that makes them biologically human, the Patrol remains the most human of all the superhero teams because they are also the most fallible.  They have no agenda other than to try to make the best of the lot life has given them, and they suffer constantly from feelings of insecurity and inferiority, especially compared to their more beloved peers.  They’re the X-Men of the DCU—the heroes most likely to be called freaks and criminals.  As Cliff realizes, they need each other because they only have each other; no one else can really relate.

Doom Patrol #20 – Review

By: Keith Giffen (writer), Matthew Clark & Ron Randall (pencillers), Art Thibert & John Livesay (inkers), Scott Clark with Dave Beaty, Jose Luis, Scott McDaniel (guest artists), Guy Major (colorist)

The Story: Wanted—studio space for four (one miniaturized), open access to power grid, appliances included.  Must love freaks.

The Review: With Doom Patrol’s cancellation imminent, it’s worth reflecting on the series’ possibly dooming shortcomings.  Of course, it’s a niche title, with a peculiar cast of characters.  It leans more towards comedy than drama—always risky, as comic book humor tends to be very hit or miss, as D.P. frequently is.  But the title’s biggest weakness is it has always been more interested in its character interaction than actually giving those characters things to do.

This issue serves as a good example: it’s one of the strongest of the series, yet basically involves nothing more than the Patrol looking for a place to crash after getting kicked off their base.  The interest comes from how each member’s particular brand of social awkwardness rubs off on the DCU’s more mainstream characters.  The ultimate unfruitfulness of the team’s efforts serves as a good reminder of how out of place they are in their world, and with readers in general.

You just can’t get a handle on these characters.  They’re ostensibly heroes, but as Beast Boy and Congorilla astutely point out, most of the Patrol’s endeavors to this point have come across more terrorist than heroic.  They’re more a gang of losers who can’t catch a break; most of their misadventures involve them acting out of self-preservation rather than for a good cause.

Doom Patrol #19 – Review

By: Keith Giffen (writer), Matthew Clark & Ron Randall (pencillers), Art Thibert & Sean Parsons (inkers), Guy Major (colorist)

The Story: A mercenary group of ne’er-do-wells facing off a team of super-freaks on the beautiful shores of Oolong Island as a volcano explodes?  Can someone say reality show?

The Review: Given the outcast nature of the Doom Patrol, it’s no wonder team-ups are a rarity for them.  On one side, they’re pretty much outmatched in number and power by almost every other team in the DCU—even the Outsiders.  On the other side, their specific dynamic doesn’t mesh well with conventional superheroes.  The Patrol serves best when left to their own devices, and not mixed up with characters that call attention to the small scale of their doings.

The one exception may be the Secret Six, who are nearly as weird and antisocial as their Oolong opponents in this issue.  Besides creator of the Secret Six, Gail Simone, one of the few writers capable of delivering the special chemistry of the Six is probably Giffen.  He doesn’t have the subtlety of Simone, being broader and leaning more toward slapstick, but he gets in a pretty good joke here and there (upon being beset by the Science Squad, Scandal remarks, “I think we’re about to be attacked by the chess club.”).

Still, despite having few dull moments between the two teams’ battle royale, some noticeable flaws keep the story from achieving the quality it should have, given the promising premise.  Being a crossover plot, if you happen to not be a Secret Six reader (though, on that note, why wouldn’t you be—it’s only totally awesome), you’d be hard-pressed to get exactly what’s happening here.

And if you did read the first part of the story, you’ll notice how truncated that story seems in this issue.  After all, S.M.A.S.H., the Six’s current employers, basically come to annex Oolong Island as their own, then end up fleeing with their tails between their legs in the course of four pages.  It just feels like the story never gets to build up before it winds down.  There’s little hope the next issue of Secret Six will continue the story, as the Six aren’t likely to work again with people who abandon them to the mercy of their enemies.