Demon Knights #8 – Review

By: Paul Cornell (writer), Diógenes Neves (penciller), Bernard Chang (guest artist), Oclair Albert (inker), Marcelo Maiolo (colorist)

The Story: Except for the demon choking you part, that’s a pretty romantic story, Xanadu.

The Review: Most of the great superhero teams come together by necessity; some disaster strikes, and there’s no one to face it except the heroes who happen to be nearby.  Whether they handle the problem competently or with much mishap, once the whole thing’s over and the dust clears, they have to figure out where they go from there as a group?  Can these (semi) randomly assembled characters find enough common ground to stick with each other beyond a crisis?

The Demon Knights may not be the best of buddies, to grossly understate things, but they did just go through hell together—some of them literally—and as the old maxim goes, you can’t experience such perils with others and not form some kind of bond, however tenuous.  This is the first chance we get to see how they interact without impending doom hanging over them, and how they behave at rest might surprise you.  For example, Horsewoman is of surprisingly good humor, thought that might be her multiple head injuries talking.  Overall, suspicion has been replaced with curiosity and perhaps resignation that they must endure each other for a while.

The focus of this curiosity quite naturally lands on Xanadu, who clearly has the juiciest story to tell, what with her two-timing both her human and demonic lovers.  The explanation requires a bit of telling and takes up practically the whole issue, and while it’s all very interesting, you don’t come away feeling like you’ve learned more about the inscrutable witch than before—and not just because of Etrigan’s highly outlandish side of the story (“I now pronounce you demon and wife!”).  The madam’s motives have never been clear, and though seemingly well-intentioned, she also has an ends-means streak that often undermines her trustworthiness.

Voodoo #6 – Review

By: Josh Williamson (writer), Sami Basri (artist), Jessica Kholinne (colorist)

The Story: My only advice to you, Voodoo, is talk it out before you walk it out.

The Review: It’s always intriguing when these creative shake-ups happen in comics.  Sure, the reasons why someone departs from a project can have a lot of drama (see John Rozum’s exit from Static Shock), but to me it’s more interesting to look at who’s being brought in to replace him, and why.  Maybe this is only a DC thing—though I tend to doubt it—but I’m amazed by how frequently their titles lose great writers, only to get filled in by terribly mediocre ones.

Perhaps it’s a bit too soon and too harsh to say so now, but Voodoo seems to be one of those cases.  True, it’s not like Ron Marz was a particularly visionary storyteller on this title.  And I certainly understand, given Williamson’s success on Xenoholics, why someone might have thought it’d be a good idea to bring him in to this sci-fi, alien-populated series.  But when you think of the general tone of Xenoholics, which many have described as “quirky,” “tongue-in-cheek,” or “a white trash CONTACT,” it’s clear Williamson’s sensibilities are completely at odds with the extraterrestrial thriller Marz had been going for all along.

For those of you who weren’t convinced last issue, the dialogue has indeed taken a permanent turn for the worse.  If you can, take a look at this issue’s cover (courtesy of Paulo Siqueira and Rod Reis), and pay attention to the characters’ faces.  Despite the fact Voodoo, Black Jack, and Fallon are all battle-hardened, highly experienced soldiers who take a licking and keep on ticking, they all sport the same childishly astonished expressions at the rain of rubble around them.  That same inappropriate immaturity has infected their speech.

At one point, Black Jack and Fallon’s banter reads like the preening of two middle-school boys trying to sound like high school gangsters: “Just because you’re back in armor doesn’t mean you got skills, desk jockey.”  “Oh, yeah?  Watch me go bust out our prisoner!”  If that isn’t out of character enough, Williamson also seems to forget that “Skinny” (the hybrid Daemonite from #3) is in fact a no-nonsense, practically brooding alien sergeant, choosing instead to play up his redneck appearance: “You dummy!  You can’t go running to the war council thinking they will save you.  They’re still gonna punish you!  Hahahahahaha[!]”

Grifter #6 – Review

By: Nathan Edmondson (writer), Scott Clark (penciller), Dave Beaty & Walden Wong (inkers), Andrew Dalhouse (colorist)

The Story: Wonder Woman might give up the power of flight for this invisible plane.

The Review: I might as well be honest and admit that lately, out of a sense of economy (and also in preparation for DC’s “second wave” of series), I’ve been actively pruning the number of titles on my pull list.  It’s really a testament to the higher quality of titles across the board of the new 52 that the picking and choosing has been rather tough.  Just last year, a C+ book would have made the grade to be kept on, but now even B- books face the risk of getting dropped.

An issue or so ago, Grifter might very well have ended up as one of these lighter middleweights I cut simply because it wasn’t dazzling me, despite its solid quality.  Then came this issue, and suddenly I find ridding myself of the series a lot less painful than before.  This change comes as a bit of a surprise; even though the title has experienced a slow decline in nearly all respects, not for a moment would you expect yourself actually reading it with disgust.

Edmondson must be slipping on his game, or else the steadily descending numbers on this title has left him discouraged and uninspired, for the dialogue has never been so problematic before.  Cole narrates, “Trust is faith and faith means things unseen.  If I can’t see it I can’t count on it and I won’t hope for it.”  Not only are the lines clunky in rhythm, they also don’t make much sense, given the fact he’s a con artist, who often has to rely on a lot of unseen factors—a point he even concedes later.  Sure, he recasts these factors as “variables,” but the conflict of ideas still practically screams at you.

And if the dialogue doesn’t bug you with its forced quality, it’ll certainly grate on you by getting over the top, practically soapy: “Oh, Cole!  How did—why did—”  “You brought my girlfriend here, you animals?”  “Let her watch as the curate wraps his black fingers around this man’s throat and—”  Flipping through early issues, I don’t see one that’s even gotten close to this level of silly melodrama.  How it’s come to this is anyone’s guess.

Stormwatch #6 – Review

By: Paul Cornell (writer), Miguel Sepulveda (artist), Alex Sinclair & Pete Pantazis (colorists)

The Story: Just ‘cause you’re dying in space doesn’t mean you can’t get a little flirting on!

The Review: Ahh…nothing like a bunch of creative shake-ups to get the emotions flowing, huh?  By now, DC’s first wave of cancellations, replacements, and switcheroos is old news, but I’m sure the heated and anxious talk about it will go on even after the actual changes take place.  For the most part, I think DC made wise decisions across the board about what goes and what stays and who gets on or gets off which title.

Of all these, Cornell’s departure from Stormwatch signals much uncertainty for this title’s fate.  I don’t know if his leaving was a choice he made or one made for him, but whatever the case, it doesn’t bode well.  No offense to his replacement, Paul Jenkins, but after reading his largely pedestrian material on DC Universe Presents, I don’t have much confidence he has what it takes to follow in Cornell’s distinctive footsteps.

Over the course of a half-dozen issues, Cornell has established a very specific style and tone to Stormwatch, a potent mixture of lofty, breezy, and erudite which, you might imagine, very few writers can pull off.  Then there’s the sheer brilliance of his imagination.  Suppose someone other than Cornell—Jenkins, perhaps—had launched this title.  Would he have conceived of an alien city-space station hidden in Earth’s hyperspace, or a man for whom lying is a superpower, or moons that threaten planets with outstretched claws?  I tend to doubt it.

Very few other writers could have handled the developing attraction between Apollo and Midnighter with the respect and taste it needs to be taken seriously.  Too easily do people get caught up in the sensationalism or political implications of such a relationship.  Cornell shrugs all that off, letting the spark between the two heroes smolder until it finally comes out (so to speak) at a very sensible point, though “God, you’re hot” does throw subtlety out the window.

Voodoo #5 – Review

By: Josh Williamson (writer), Sami Basri (artist), Jessica Kholinne (colorist)

The Story: Don’t be hating on me, brother—we’re all of the same people, right?

The Review: I think it’s only right that I tell you how much I hate research.  When I studied journalism in college, that was always my least favorite part of the writing process.  I’d read the news, and enjoy that, but I hated the meticulousness of having to sift through mountains of information to find the details I needed.  And now that life’s gotten so busy, I don’t even keep up with the news very well.

So it should be to no one’s surprise that I had no idea a new writer was taking over this title from Ron Marz up until I got this issue.  It hardly mattered, though; I could tell, just from reading through the first half, that something was amiss.  The thought that kept running through my head was, Man, Marz is having something of an off day, isn’t he?  So it goes without saying that the change in writing doesn’t feel like it’s for the better.

First off, Williamson is a great deal more liberal in his use of narration than Marz ever was.  Williamson fills whole panels with text, mostly exposition.  More problematically, he gives it all a whiny, plaintive tone this series never sported before now.  You can hear it wafting from Fallon’s recounting of her background: “Things were easier when I was a Black Razor.  Becoming the FBI liaison and tracking down extraterrestrial threats looked like a promotion.  Not I see it was really a punishment.  This job was my whole life.”

The dialogue has gotten more emotionally charged, too.  Marz always impressed me with his choice to make the cast as restrained in expressing their emotions as possible.  Whether you’re talking Voodoo or Agent Fallon or even Green Lantern, nearly every character on this series is a soldier or peace officer of some kind, so holding back their true feelings made a lot of sense.  I don’t know if this is Williamson’s style or if it’s the climactic nature of the issue, but it seems like everyone has decided to let all their inside stuff out: “You’re an abomination!  You must be annihilated!”  “You will not ruin…my mission!”  “Are you insane?!”  “All this power the Black Razors gave me—all that I can do—and I can’t stop a single woman half my size?!”

Grifter #5 – Review

By: Nathan Edmondson (writer), Scott Clark (penciller), Dave Beaty (inker), Andrew Dalhouse (colorist)

The Story: Don’t think of it as an abduction, Cole, but as a free trip to the stars.  Free, I say!

The Review: I must say, you have to give credit to DC for taking such major efforts to integrate their Wildstorm acquisitions into the fold and get them some attention.  True, none of them have really taken off as a pop hit, but it’s not for want of trying.  They all have very solid creative teams on board, and it’s clear editorial is working overtime to keep their plots running parallel to each other, prepping for a fairly significant crossover at some point.

But all of that will come to nothing if the stories themselves don’t sell.  While Voodoo has been a solid read throughout, Grifter has mostly hemmed and hawed and meandered until it’s lost all sense of direction.  Perhaps that’s fitting, given the roaming nature of our star, and the fact that he himself has little idea of what’s going on and few options for his next moves.  Even so, that doesn’t excuse the title for being so thin on plot at this late stage of its story arc.

Frankly, Edmondson has been downright stingy in the information he’s given us.  A lot of what we know is couched in such stubborn vagaries that even speculation is mostly futile.  After all this time, we barely know anything more about the Daemonites than we did at the start of the series.  Even the reveal about their intention to capture Cole and offer him to “the Black Curate” is so obscure, it’s hard to get all worked up about it.  In fact, it’s underwhelming to think they’ve gone through all this trouble just to obtain a human sacrifice.  Rather simple, if you ask me.