Iron Patriot #4 – Review

By: Ales Kot (story), Garry Brown (art), Jim Charalampidis (colors)

The Story: James doesn’t need back-up; he’s got family.

The Review: Despite our villain’s (he doesn’t have a name yet; Kot merely refers to him as “The Villain”) assertion last issue that he wasn’t going to explain why he was doing any of this, I pressed on anyway. As a reader, if not a citizen, I believe I have a right to know why someone would inflict a series of senseless acts of terrorism across my fictionalized country. Frankly speaking, he better have a pretty good reason, or it’s just a shallow excuse for a story, otherwise.

At this point, it’s still impossible to tell if he has any justification for what he’s doing. Probably not, really. At best, he offers a choice overstatement (“The world only responds to force.”) as well as a few cheap cracks (“You think the men you work for are your friends? They are politicians.”) in lieu of an actual explanation of his motivations. You have to say this for the man, though: he’s got personality, even if it’s more irritating than threatening.

Iron Patriot #3 – Review

By: Ales Kot (story), Garry Brown (art), Jim Charalampidis (colors)

The Story: James must decide whether the enemy of his enemy is his friend or another enemy.

The Review: There’s no denying that the cost-benefit value of comic books aren’t terrific. When you consider that movies can cost as little as little as a dollar to watch in theaters (and even less to rent or stream) and that watching a TV show is free, shelling out three to four bucks per comic is hardly making the most of your money. I can usually look past this with most comics, but every now and then I run across an issue that makes me question my entire devotion to the medium.

Iron Patriot #3 is one of those issues. At $3.99 (plus tax), it leans towards the higher end of the pricing scale, yet there’s barely a dollar’s worth of substance in the issue. Sure, the plot does take a step forward for the entire Rhodes family, but this is still rather slim material for the money you put in. At least, it leaves me with little to talk about.

Iron Patriot #2 – Review

By: Ales Kot (story), Garry Brown (art), Jim Charalampidis (colors)

The Story: Before operating your Iron Man armor, please be sure to pay close attention to the manual.

The Review: I have a strong affection for the mortals of superhero comics, by which I mean the characters who have no extraordinary powers to speak of, and who must instead rely on training and guts to keep up with their superpowered peers. Maybe that’s why, even though Iron Patriot is a thoroughly derivative character—twice over!—I still kind of like him. How can you not? Despite his shortcomings, James still fights on out of an earnest love for his country and people. That earns him a pass in almost every scenario, though he’ll need more than that to be a viable solo star.

In that sense, it’s interesting that Kot decides to strip away the trappings of the Iron Patriot armor to expose James, the mortal, with all his limitations and vulnerabilities. From one side, Kot attacks the fact that James is not at home in the armor the way Tony Stark is, trying desperately to remember how to perform the manual eject from a terse line in the manual: “If the situation requires a solution of last resort, the pilot can manually arm the suit (see section 3-A7), set up the manual ejection protocol (see section 6-D1)…” From another side, Kot also emphasizes that out of the suit, James has none of the physical might of Steve Rogers, as he’s stricken by a heart attack from decompression sickness.

Iron Patriot #1 – Review

By: Ales Kot (story), Garry Brown (art), Jim Charalampidis (colors)

The Story: Homeland security just got the ultimate bodyguard.

The Review: I never know how to feel about minority superheroes who are basically derivatives of better known (white) icons. It’s great to see the field grow more diverse, no matter how it happens, I suppose. On the other hand, it also suggests a lack of confidence or imagination—hard to say which is worse—in creating minority characters who are completely original. The eponymous star of this book has failed that test twice.

Or maybe thrice, depending on how you look at things. As the former War Machine, James Rhodes was basically Iron Man with a different paint job and bigger guns. As Iron Patriot, he’s a clear amalgam of both Iron Man and Captain America, an attempt to channel Tony Stark’s technology with Steve Rogers’ rousing nationalism. James’ choice of guise instantly doubles the pressure for him to sell the man underneath. Without Tony’s genius or Steve’s might, what is James without the armor?

The Massive #15 – Review

By: Brian Wood (writer), Garry Brown (art), Jordie Bellaire (colors) and Jared K. Fletcher (letters)

The Story: Will Georg launch the missiles from the Russian sub?  Can Cal and Mag stop him?

Review (with SPOILERS): It’s a little depressing how this series can’t quite capitalize on its tremendous promise.  Brian Wood and his artistic collaborators have created a fantastically interesting world in The Massive.  There is so much potential in this world and Wood seems like the type of writer who is interested in telling thought-provoking tales that have a coherent theme and message, yet we keep getting issues like this one.

I actually had to retype this review a couple of times.  The first effort turned into this 2000 word screed where I was ripping apart various scenes of the comic in a blow-by-blow fashion.  I realized that nobody wants to read THAT.  So, I tried again and had the same thing happened.  Then I restarted a third time and it got a little better, but still not quite the tone I wanted…..and now we have this.

Let’s just say that there are a LOT of problems with this issue.  Mostly, it just isn’t clear what is going on.  The opening scene is really confusing.  I mean, I saw Mag get the abort signal and saw him leave the bathroom, but really didn’t understand the impact of Georg being left behind until much later in the issue.  The thing is, there was no dramatic purpose to the opening scene being vague and unclear; it’s not a mystery that “pays off” later in the issue.  It was just sloppy storytelling.  You could blame the artist a little bit since it is mostly a silent sequence and the art really isn’t very clear, but I’m not sure how he could have done better.  I think Wood just wrote a scene that was pretty tough to illustrate and then there was no subsequent communication between artist and writer to fix it.  I wonder if that’s the kind of thing that happens when you’re writing The Massive, X-Men and also wrestling with the Lucas/Disney braintrust over your Star Wars outlines?

The Massive #14 – Review

By: Brian Wood (writer), Garry Brown (art), Jordie Bellaire (colors) and Jared K. Fletcher (letters)

The Story: Callum Israel searchs for a rogue submarine in a flooded NYC.

Review (with SPOILERS): This was another pretty strong issue of The Massive.  Just as with last month, this series is so much stronger when it is exploring this intriguing post-Crash world than when it focuses on the search for The Massive (the missing titular ship).  This is a cool world and it’s entertaining to see what will happen next whereas the hunt for The Massive is dull as hell and us readers don’t care about those missing people because we’ve never met any of them.  Heck…..I’m not sure any of the main characters have even mentioned the name of a single person on The Massive.

I’m sure we haven’t seen the last of that drab storyline, but let’s enjoy this nifty tale while it is in front of us.  Basically, in this issue we see Callum Israel and his crew looking for a rogue Chechen crew-mate who has stolen a Russian nuclear submarine and may want to fire his missiles at Russia.  All of this happens against the backdrop of a Manhattan that is under 40 feet of water and with the US Navy breathing down their necks.  It’s hard not to have a cool issue when you’ve got all these nifty elements and Garry Brown draws all the ships and helicopters really, really well.

I really like how Wood is playing with an idea of what our current world could become.  There’s a huge theme to The Massive that “you reap what you sow”.  That could describe global warming and its role in The Crash or it could describe a former Chechen child-soldier who is about to launch nuclear missiles at his former Russian oppressors or it could describe guys like Callum and Mag who can’t get away from their past working for a private military contractor.  These issues aren’t always handled perfectly, but I applaud any comic that aspires to something better than “giant monsters fighting giant robots!”

The Massive #7 – Review

By: Brian Wood (writer), Garry Brown (art), Dave Stewart (colors) and Jared K. Fletcher (letters)

The Story: The crew of the Kapital docks at a post-crash society built out of old oil platforms.

A few things: 1). An interesting view of societal crash. – The one thing to love about this series is the very different view of a failed society.  It wouldn’t be accurate to call it “post-apocalypse” because there are still governments and the United Nations and all the basic trappings of society…..it’s just that everything is kinda screwed up by all the flooding and earthquakes from “the crash”.  It’s an interesting view of a world that is staggering and that has little in common with The Walking Dead, The Road, The Stand or Mad Max.  In this issue, we see our characters stop off at a new society that has been formed from a bunch of floating oil-rigs that people have lashed together in international waters.  How fascinating!  They’ve even declared themselves a sovereign nation and asked for recognition from UN.  I love the clever possibilities that Brian Wood is showing us in The Massive.

Creepy Comics #6 – Review

By: Joe R. Lansdale, Christopher A. Taylor, Alice Henderson, Dan Braun, Craig Haffnet, Archie Goodwin (writers), Nathan Fox, Jason Shawn Alexander, Kevin Ferrara, Garry Brown, Neal Adams (artists), Nate Piekos (letters) & Shawna Gore (editor)

The Story: Another issue of the reborn horror anthology from Dark Horse.

What’s Good: If you’re not getting Creepy, you’re doing comics wrong.  This issue nails the formula again by giving us 5 short-stories of horror goodness with excellent black-and-white art.

With anthologies, the overall grade is mostly related to (a) how good the “good” stories were and (b) how sucky were the “bad” stories.  The weakest of this issue’s stories (“Mine”) was still pretty cool and had great art and the high points (“Commedia Del Morte” & “Fair Exchange”) were really awesome.  Perhaps Dark Horse shouldn’t get full credit for Full Exchange by Archie Goodwin and Neal Adams since this is reprint material from the original 1960’s Creepy Magazine, but Commedia Del Morte was a real tour de force.  After reading Commedia Del Morte, you’ll see clowns as both scarier and more heroic than you ever did before.

Another thing that is precious about Creepy is that no one is trying to launch a new creator-owned series off any of these tales.  Even though I generally enjoy anthologies like Dark Horse Presents or Strange Tales from Vertigo, you know that those stories are usually pitches for ongoing series OR they are pitches that no one liked quite enough to turn into an ongoing series.  That’s never a problem with Creepy, there are just outstanding short stories with a definite ending.  Even when the concept is cool, the story has an ending.  Someone could easily turn the concept for Commedia Del Morte into a miniseries, but I strongly doubt we’ll ever see that.  Even though I enjoy continuity based superheroes as much as anyone, there is something special and powerful about these Creepy stories’ ephemeral nature.  And, these stories are basically timeless.  Go read the 60’s Creepys if you doubt me and compare how fresh they seem compared to Batman of that same era.