Elephantmen #50 – Review

By: Richard Starkings (writer), Axel Medellin and Gabriel Bautista (art)

The Story: In this anniversary issue, Hip receives a gift from an artist.

Review: Anniversary issues are interesting because you never really know what you’ll get.  Sometimes you get a double-sized story that really dives into the regular, ongoing story of the comic.  Sometimes you get a tribute issue with lots of guest artists.  And….sometimes (as in this issue of Elephantmen) you get something that makes you look at the series in a different way.

One of the ongoing themes of Elephantmen is how different our regular (Elephantmen) characters are from the humans they spend their days with.  They’re big and strong and probably have to be careful not to injure the little humans, so they’re a little like the Incredible Hulk or Lenny from Of Mice and Men.  They’re also pointed at and stared at because they look different, so there’s a bit of the mutant-theme from the X-Men here too.  And, they’re also former soldiers from a horrible war, so they always have that haunted, “I have seen and done terrible things….” story working.

But, I never really thought about Elephantmen as an immigrant tale.  This issue takes a story where Hip is snoring away in bed one morning and a delivery comes to his apartment.  His human girlfriend (Miki) opens the package and finds a collection of artwork that is being given to Hip by an Elephantman artist and it comes with a audio note that serves as the narration boxes for the issue.  As Miki flips through the artwork, I slowly started to think of the Elephantmen differently.

Elephantmen #48 – Review

By: Richard Starkings (writer), Alex Medellin (art/colors)

The Story: Ebony, Hip & Trench are killing Tigers on the moon while racial dramas play out on Earth.

Review: Another pretty strong issue of Elephantmen.  It’s a shame that more folks don’t read it because it’s a very strong science fiction story.  Even if piecing together all the back issues would be tedious, the collected editions are supposedly really sweet.

Part of this issue deals with Ebony, Hip and Trench finishing their attack on the Chinese moonbase wherefrom sprang the Tigermen and the plague that caused all this mess in the first place.  Bad, bad Chinese scientists!  As you can imagine, the good guys win and it’s pretty fun to see the elephantmen just kicking ass.  But it isn’t just “fun” to see them smashing and impaling; it’s also important to the story.  One of the bigger themes of the series is whether these hulking creatures that have been bred for war can ever become “decent members of society”.  The series has mostly followed elephantmen like Hip and Ebony who are (mostly) successfully making the transition to “gentle giants”, so it’s easy to forget the power and the rage that bubbles under the surface of these creatures.  They all have a LOT of blood on their hands and are capable of some pretty brutal things.

Elephantmen #47 – Review

By: Richard Starkings (writer & letterer), Axel Medellin (art)

The Story: Hip, Ebony & Trench investigate a Chinese moonbase.

Quick review (with SPOILERS): This was probably the strongest issue of Elephantmen in the last year or so.  I DO love this series, but it sometimes suffers from being decompressed and not being a monthly book.  As such, you’re always at risk for losing the story.

Elephantmen #40 – Review

By: Richard Starkings (writer, letterer), Tony Parker (art), Blond (colors)

The Story: Plot thickening between some side-characters.

Quick Review: This was one of those issues that Elephantmen gives us as the series transitions between regular artists.  With regular artist Alex Medellin off to work on Hoax Hunters (although it looks like he’s not TOTALLY done with Elephantmen), it’s necessary to get some other folks to pick up the slack.  So, this issue features the arrival of Tony Parker.  Honestly, Parker’s work (as colored by Blond) looks a lot like Medellin and only someone who is looking closely would notice a big difference.  Elephantmen is ALWAYS a highly attractive comic book and this issue is no exception.

Where this issue hits a bit of a hiccup for me is with the story.  It just seems a little disconnected from the last few issues that dealt with the introduction of Yvette to the “modern-day” Elephantmen universe.  Suddenly we’re faced with a story about The Silencer, Panya and Casbah Joe.  It isn’t that this story is a mess or is poorly told; it’s more that this issue just doesn’t fit yet with the rest of the series.  If I was forced to speculate, Starkings probably collaborated with Parker on this issue not knowing precisely when it would be released, but knowing he’d need an issue in the can to fill in around Medellin’s absence.  So, this feels a little like a fill-in issue.

Previews – May 2012

Maybe we’ll start this as a new feature?  I’ll flip through Previews, tell you what I think is worthwhile and you can tell me I’m a moron.  Sound like fun?

DARK HORSE

– Axe Cop: President of the World #1 – At some point, this odd comic that is written by 8 year old Malachai Nicolle and illustrated by his brother, 31 year old Ethan, will lose it’s magic.  Someday Malachai will probably “grow up” too much or become too self-aware, but until that happens we should enjoy the ride.  Here’s a link to my review of last Spring’s Axe Cop: Bad Guy Earth #1.

– Early issues where you can hop on before it’s too late.  Fatima: The Blood Spinners #2 by Gilbert Hernandez, Mind Mgmt #3 by Matt Kindt and The Massive #2 by Brian Wood.

– Eerie Comics #1 brings back the beloved old Warren Publishing title.  It’s really hard to go wrong with a horror anthology in black and white.  Of course, don’t miss the big brother: Creepy Comics #9.

Elephantmen #38 – Review

By: Richard Starkings (writer & letters) & Axel Medellin (art)

The Story: The “Big Bad” is revealed and it’s not who I expected.

Review: Before we get into the Spoiler-filled discussion of the events in this issue (beginning in Paragraph 3), let’s take a second to give some credit to Richard Starkings who keeps this title very accessible.  Elephantmen isn’t a comic that comes out like clockwork.  Although it isn’t a horrible offender at lateness, it does have some gaps between issues.  What I appreciate is how compact and straight forward the story remains.  Starkings always has little narrative bits that help to remind the reader what is going on and this is helpful to both long-term Elephantmen readers and newbies who just want to see what this title is all about.  I love the copious footnotes to events in previous issues too.  Bravo, sir!

The art is also gorgeous again.  It’s amazing how consistently attractive Elephantmen has been during it’s publication history given the diverse collection of artists who have contributed.  There hasn’t been a poor-looking issue yet.  Axel Medellin has a very distinctive look and he defies description as a “penciler” or “inker”.  His art is very complete and unified, and it has advantages compared to a line-artist who has to hand their work over to a colorist.  Axel knows exactly how he is going to color every aspect of the page.  This shows through in little things like the light sources.  Sometimes separate inkers and colorists can “argue” about where the light sources in a panel are located (the inker has a light source in the sky, but the colorist is putting the light source in someone’s mouth…), but Axel never has this problem.  I really love his work.  And, my goodness does he draw a sexy woman.

Elephantmen #35 – Review

By: Richard Starkings (writer & lettering), Boo Cook & Axel Medellin (art), Gregory Wright, Cook & Medellin (colors)

The Story: Untold tales of the circa 2239 war in Eurasia between the Elephantmen and the human survivors of the viral apocalypse.

What’s good: There’s a lot of flexibility to add material to a back-story when the whole story is only 30-40 issues old.  Usually the term “retcon” has a dirty connotation in comics and I think we’re all sick of seeing new layers added to the origin of a character like Batman.  How many dear childhood friends did Bruce Wayne have that he’s never mentioned again in the 1000+ comics since Batman first showed up???  But, with a young story like Elephantmen, there is all kinds of white space left to be explored in the timeline that Starkings has created over the past ~5 years.  Sure, it’s a little odd that we never heard about these Chinese Tigermen before now…..but who cares since they don’t really contradict anything either.   The Tigermen are cool and add a neat new wrinkle to the struggle between Africa and Chine in post-virus Eurasia AND they and another chapter to the Yvette character.  In some ways, reading stories like this makes me jealous of folks who got to read a series like the X-Men or Avengers when those series were still fresh and there was still so much unknown about the main characters.

So, to wrap up: Chinese Tigermen are very cool and Yvette is bad-ass.

Elephantmen #34 – Review

War Toys II by: Richard Starkings (writer & letterer), Boo Cook (art), Gregory Wright, Cook & Axel Medellin (colors)

Panya back-up by: Monifa Aldridge (writer) & Axel Medellin (art & colors)

The Story: In the main story, we revisit the Elephantmen war in virus-ravaged Europe while in the back-up we learn more about the origin of Panya (Sahara’s body-double).

What’s Good: As I’ve noted in a few recent reviews, for the last few months, Richard Starkings has made a concerted effort to make Elephantmen “new reader friendly” by revisiting some of the classic themes of the series.  But, he keeps giving new wrinkles to established readers so that we don’t get bored along the way.  Cool!

So, I was reading the main story and thinking, “This is all retread material from the War Toys story.  Oh, and here is Yvette from War Toys: Yvette.  I’ve seen all this before.” I understood that we’re getting this story because it’s important that new readers know about this Elephantmen back-story and I was okay with that because the series probably needs a few new readers to keep going.  And….I was very happy looking at the great Boo Cook artwork (more on that below).  Then I turned the page and there is a person in a spacesuit (“Whoa! That’s new!”) and he/she gets into a rocket and jets to Earth (“Definitely haven’t seen this before!”).  I won’t spoil the ending, but Starkings has done it again: He managed to bring new readers up to speed while also giving the existing readers something to chew on.  I am very intrigued by this new revelation.

The Panya back-up story was also a gem because she is shaping up to be a very important player in the future stories of the Elephantmen and she’ll be more interesting with a developed background story.

From an appearance standpoint, I say it every month: Elephantmen is one of the best-looking comics on the stands.  Not only is the interior art GREAT, but the whole package just looks awesome.  Again this month, we get two stunning covers with wonderful design.  Compare this to your typical Big 2 comic where they pay some artist to produce “20 dramatic covers featuring Batman” and then they just slap them on the comics without a lot of care as to whether the cover fits the story.  Elephantmen is the opposite of that: it looks like it is produced by people who give a crap about the comic!

Elephantmen #33 – Review

By: Richard Starkings (writer) & Shaky Kane (artist)

The Story: Starkings and Kane bring us an Elephantmen-themed take on Pygmalion.

What’s Good: I had totally forgotten that Shaky Kane was providing guest art on this issue.  True, Kane’s guest-art role been teased in the backs of various Image publications for the last couple months, but it didn’t really sink in that it meant THIS issue.

But, as soon as you look at the cover, you say, “Ohhhhh…  Shaky Kane.  I like Shaky Kane.  He was the guy who did such a bang up job on The Bulletproof Coffin miniseries.  This should be an awesome take on the Elephantmen.”  And, he really delivers.  It just goes to show how cool it is to have artists with their own unique artistic style because you won’t find more dissimilar artists than those who have worked on Elephantmen: Moritat, Ladronn, Marian Churchland, Boo Clark, Axel Medellin, Shaky Kane, Chris Bachalo.  I might be leaving one out, but I think that’s all and they’ve all nailed it in their own way.  It also illustrates how painful it can be in Big 2 superhero comics when a new artist comes on and attempts to ape the style of the previous artist.  Kane is in no way trying to emulate Axel Medellin.  We get classic Kane: rumply, slightly cartoony figures, bright and bold flat colors and wonderful storytelling.

Elephantmen #32 – Review

By: Richard Starkings (writer & letters) & Axel Medellin (art & colors)

The Story: In a semi-break from the on-going Elephantmen story, Starkings and Medellin pay homage to Conan!

The Review: I put down this issue of Elephantmen after reading it and one word summed it up: Professional. The story is the kind of homage (to Conan in this case) that you’d really only see in a creator-owned property as Ebony is cast into the Conan-esque role.  It features comely wenches, brawls in taverns, wicked sorcerers and a heaping helping of sharp sword & axe action with blood spurting everywhere.  It’s a really delightful change of pace for Elephantmen given that the series is very much dystopian Sci-Fi.  I wouldn’t want every issue of Elephantmen to be set in this world, but I do love it when creator-owned series take a month to do something special.  In a way, this issue reminds me of the Captain Stoneheart issue of Elephantmen back around issue #5 or so, not so much in terms of tone or subject matter, but just for the willingness to do something off-the-wall.  It’s the kind of brave and confident storytelling that I enjoy.

Elephantmen #31 – Review

By: Richard Starkings (writer), Axel Medellin (art)

The Story: A resetting of the Elephantmen universe makes for a strong jumping on point for new readers.

What’s Good: This issue is part recap and part new story.  When you put this issue together with last month’s one-shot Man and Elephantman (which could have been #30.5), we have the first two parts (out of three) of a story arc that is bouncing around the Elephantmen universe, visiting with all the various characters to explain who they are and what they’re up to.  I think sometimes long-term readers get irritated when series do this, but this is just the necessary medicine you take with any creator-owned series in this sales environment.  Series that don’t pause to let new readers catch up simply don’t survive because the unfortunate truth is that new readers see the #31 on the cover and think, “I’ve heard good things about this comic, but I’ve missed too many issues to catch up.”

So, you folks who have been interested in Elephantmen, but haven’t jumped in before: This is your shot!  Richard Starkings is slowing the bus down right now for you to jump aboard with this Man and Elephantmen story arc.  True, you won’t understand everything, but you’ll be able to run with the story from here (and if you like it, it’s pretty easy to find the collected editions).

As alluded to above, it is pretty impressive how Starkings and Medellin are giving this recap while also establishing the next phase of the story.  No character gets a lot of attention, but in just a few pages you get what tragic characters the Elephantmen are and how impressive their close group of human companions are.

Medellin has really settled in nicely as the series regular artist (now on about his ~7th issue) and it has been impressive to watch him grow as an artist before our eyes.  In this issue he trots out about 4 unique and distinct styles that are each wonderfully suited to what he is trying to accomplish on that page.  I’m unclear if he is coloring this work himself or whether there is a dedicated colorist, but Medellin modifies his linework to fit the colors that will be used on the page: strong colors tend to have heavier lines around them whereas pages that are more muted and painterly have a more nuanced line.  Elephantmen has always featured beautiful art and Medellin is maintaining that tradition.

Elephantmen #30 – Review

By: Richard Starkings (writer), Axel Medellin (art), Gregory Wright & Medellin (colors) & Comicraft (letters)

The Story: Hip Flask finally finds some love.

What’s Good: This was the best issue of Elephantmen (for me) in a long time.  This title is at its best when it is almost a slice-of-life story that follows these tragic Elephantmen through their daily lives because they simply don’t fit in.  They are huge and hulking and stick out like a sore thumb, and this aspect of their nature is best illustrated by contrasting our protagonists Hip Flask (the hippo), Ebony Hide (the elephant) and Obadiah Horn (the rhino) with the women in the series.  Simply stated, you don’t get a full sense of how large and out of place these characters are until you see them interacting with the outstanding human female characters in the book: Sahara, Vanity & Miki.

Obviously, this is a roundabout way of saying that this issue got back to more of this “slice-of-life” story telling and away from the action that had been the calling card for this Questionable Things story arc.  And, that’s really what I really enjoy most about Elephantmen.

Of course, one huge part of that “slice-of-life” drama is the love lives of the Elephantmen, especially the more tragic hero characters of Hip and Ebony.  How are these guys ever going to find love?  Are they destined (cursed?) to just spend their lives alone?  They have women who care for them, but… well, they’re huge and hulking and probably smell funny and you could see how they’re probably not destined to be all that lucky in love.  Well, let’s just say that this issue addresses Hip’s love life in a very complete way and (as a reader) I couldn’t be happier about where Hip is at the end of this issue.

I’ve enjoyed Medellin’s art on this series, but he really took it to another level with this issue.  The first two panels (both full page splashes) really establish the tone for the book.  The first shows Hip Flask, carrying his groceries home in the rain.  He just looks every bit the crusty, rumpled and soaked detective that he is.  I love how his whiskers even give him a sort of five o’clock shadow that you’d see on Bogart in an evening scene.  And, he just looks huge as Medellin has Hip fill almost the entire page.  Then, you flip the page and there’s Miki who doesn’t look crusty or rumpled.  She’s just standing there in a transparent raincoat looking sexy as hell and just by the way the page is framed, you can tell that she’s 1/4 the size of Hip.  This is a great issue from an art standpoint.  That splash of Miki in the rain has probably the best rain effect I’ve ever seen in a comic and could almost win an Eisner for the coloring alone with the way the neon signs reflect off her raincoat.  You really need to see it.

WCBR Quick Hit Reviews – Week of Dec 29, 2010

We at WCBR all get more comics that we could possibly review in full every week.  Rather than let them go unmentioned, we run though the remainder of our pile here.

Astonishing Spider-Man & Wolverine #4 – This time hopping series continues and puts Logan and Spidey in yet another awesome situation: Logan is thrust into Spidey’s youth as his wrestling partner (i.e. after the spider bite, but before Uncle Ben’s death) whereas Spidey is sent to Logan’s youth.  Of course, Logan was a nasty feral forest monster back then.  Aaron writes both of these characters really, really well.  I’m amazed at how well he writes a humorous Spidey considering the man also writes Scalped and PunisherMax.  Kubert shows off about 3 different art styles in this book and they’re all pretty.  Oh and we also learned the identity of the big-bad.  Any old-time X-fan will be pleased.  One thing that helps this comic is that although it is supposedly not in continuity, the fact that it is a time-jumping tale makes it feel like it could be.  Grade: A-   — Dean Stell

Incognito: Bad Influences #2 – Damn do I wish that Brubaker could sell enough copies of Incognito and Criminal that he could create a couple more series of this quality level and quit screwing around with normal Marvel properties to pay the bills.  This is a really good series and you should be buying it.  The set-up for this is that Zack Overkill (a former supervillain who had his witness protection spot ruined in the first Incognito), is being sent by the good guys back into the lions den: They need him to pretend to go back to being a supervillain.  So, what we end up with here is very much a double-agent, espionage tale as you can see that Zack is sorely tempted to just go back to being bad…because being bad is fun. Meanwhile, the other supervillains trust Zack about as far as they can throw him.  Sean Phillips and Val Staples (again) provide stellar art.  Grade: B+  — Dean Stell

Echoes #1 –  We need more horror comics. If you’re looking for a promising one to pick up, you could do a lot worse than the first issue of Echoes by Joshua Hale Fialkov.  In this issue we meet a ~30-year-old man who is going through a big transition in his life: His wife is about to give birth just as his father is about to succumb to Alzheimer’s.  While sitting with his father right before he dies, his non-lucid father jabbers something about how he must search the basement of their old home because that’s where he hid the bodies of all the little girls.  Whoa!  WHAT!?!?  Chilling, huh?  Rahsan Ekedal lends very atmospheric B&W art.  The only thing holding it back from a higher grade is that they played up the young man’s stress a little much and it made parts of the comic confusing.  Pretty sure that was intentional, but I think the basic story is good enough that you don’t need to screw around.  Grade: B+ — Dean Stell

Osborn #2 – This is a very solid comic book detailing Osborn’s time in some off-the-grid prison where he is being held until someone decides what to do with him OR he rots… whichever comes first.  Of course, Osborn is not one to stay locked up and as he breaks out he brings the other weirdoes of the prison with him.  So, neat story by Kelly Sue DeConnick and great art by Emma Rios.  The only fault with this series is that I don’t see the purpose of the Norah Winter’s story.  I like Norah as a supporting character in ASM, but after two issues we haven’t seen why pages should be devoted to Norah yet.  It seems like every bit of the story featuring Norah could be told via the more interesting Osborn story thread.  Grade: B — Dean Stell

Dean’s Drive-by Reviews

My pull list is way, way too long and every week there are a few titles that don’t get the full review treatment by me or my colleagues here at WCBR, but they still deserve a mention of some sort…

Thunderbolts #150 – Sheesh! Is Jeff Parker on a can’t miss string right now, or what?  This is my pick of the week in a pretty strong week of Bat-books.  I love the bastardized team-up between Avengers and Tbolts that leads to a duel of sorts in some alternate universe with talking frogs.  And….we get to see Captain Steve smash the All New Crossbones (with heat vision)!  How great is that?!?  Kev Walker’s art is just perfect for this title too.  My only criticism is that Marvel could spare me the Wikipedia entry on the history of the Tbolts and I always hate getting these old reprints in the back of my issues.  I never even bother to read them and hate paying the extra buck.  Grade: A-

Superior #2 – Mark Millar can do feel-good story telling!  This comic is really Big with superpowers.  This issue was just a blast as we watched this kid learn how to use his new powers.  Ever wonder precisely HOW Superman goes about flying or shooting lasers from his eyes?  Well, this at least shows you what it’s like the first time you try those tricks.  Can’t wait to see what happens when the space monkey comes back!  It goes without saying that Yu’s art was very good and I love the championship belt in his costume.  Grade: B+

Elephantmen #27 – Review

By: Richard Starkings (writer), Axel Medellin (art) & Gregory Wright (colors)

The Story: Someone is interested in reactivating the Elephantmen.

What’s Good: Elephantmen is always a very pretty comic book, but it has had a bit of a revolving door on art duties for the last 12 issues or so, so it very nice that the title welcomes Axel Medellin to art duties.  Unlike a few recent artists on this series, he captures dark and dirty Ladronn/Moritat look of how this series is “supposed” to feel.  Medellin is touted as a new “regular” artist for this series and it can only be hoped that future issues look as nice as this one does.

From a story standpoint, after months of noodling around the issue, this issue reveals that the bad dudes behind the efforts to reactivate the elephantment are, in fact, former Mappo scientists.  This bodes ill for our band of protagonists and makes it appear that just as they are getting their lives in order, they may never be truly free of the bloody missions for which they were created.  Elephantmen is at its best when exploring the humanity of our half-human characters and it would appear that we will be heaping doses of that in future months.

Richard Starkings always puts out a very professionally done comic and this issue is no exception.  A good bit of advice for creators making their first comics would be to look at Elephantmen for how to succeed on the “little stuff”: nice cover, good printing, excellent lettering, footnotes referring the reader to events in earlier issues, etc.   Woody Allen said that “80% of success is just showing up” and something similar could be said about just nailing the easy stuff on a comic book that many creators and big publishers fumble the ball on.

Elephantmen #25 – Review

By: Richard Starkings (writer), art by various

The Story: In a recap of sorts, we follow the inner monologue of one of Hip and Ebony’s fellow agents at the Information Agency, as he reflects on the history of the Elephantmen.

What’s Good: I love Elephantmen, but this is the first really good “jumping on point” issue that has come out since the series started.  It gives a nice recap of the series to date, complete with lots of footnotes to previous issues if you want to know more.  Of course, you’d be better off buying the trades or tracking down the back issues, but if you refuse to do that, this issue will get you pretty well caught up before spending the last 2 pages introducing the ominous new story arc that will carry this series for the near future (which looks like a lot of fun, btw).

The other hook on this anniversary issue is that it is drawn with 25 splash pages, each by a different artist.  In some ways, this issue is a little like having an Elephantmen themed sketch-book.  Not surprisingly, my favorite page was by Ladronn who is probably most responsible for the look of the series.