Lady Mechanika #3 – Review

By: Joe Benitez (writer and artist), Peter Steigerwald (colors) & Josh Reed (letters)

The Story: Lady Mechanika investigates a gypsy circus to find more clues to her origin.

Five Things:

1. Glorious art. – This is really a wonderful looking book.  The art is very much in the Marc Silvestri by way of Michael Turner style.  There are a lot of artists who were influenced by those guys, but most of them suck when they try to draw like Michael Turner (and there’s not much worse in comic art than poor Michael Turner rip-offs!)  Not Benitez!  You could almost convince me this was some long lost Michael Turner story (what a shame to die at 37!).  The characters are elegant and detailed as hell.  Love the creative steampunk designs and we get lots of dramatic poses and interesting page layouts (many with a large, highly detailed character kinda superimposed over the top of the other panels).  The art is reason enough to buy the comic.

2. Simple story that fits the release schedule. – Well….we’re not going to get this as a monthly comic.  It’s simply not going to happen.  So, let’s give Benitez huge credit for realizing that he needs to keep the story streamlined because you can’t have a complex story when we’re waiting 4-5 months between issues.  You could sum this story up in two words: Steampunk Fathom.  That’s it.  Mysterious and beautiful woman with strange powers trying to figure out where she came from.  I can keep track of that for the inevitable delays between issues.

3. A little talky. – For a simple story, it is a LOT talky.  The opening sequence takes several pages just for Lady Mechanika to have a brief conversation with a bunch of circus folk.  It probably is how they would actually talk, but it makes for a slow reading experience.

Lady Mechanika #2 – Review

By: Joe Benitez (writer & artist), Peter Steigerwald (colors) & Josh Reed (letters)

The Story: The beautiful steampunk android Lady Mechanika continues to explore her origins while being pursued by mysterious forces.

What’s Good: This can be a pretty fast review because the highs and lows of this issue are pretty glaring. The art is the reason to buy this comic.  Joe Benitez has really got his style figured out and his linework is gorgeous.  His Mechanika is just stunningly well drawn.  The style he is using is very reminiscent of what Michael Turner used to do on Fathom, so if you liked that, you should love this.  Everything is nicely proportioned and while he takes a few liberties with anatomy, the muscle groups are all there where they should be.  He’s showing a really high level of detail on his inks too.  And, Steigerwald is doing a great job with the colors too.  This issue is a visual treat.

And, the overall story is pretty neat too.  In a way, it kinda reminds me of a steampunk Fathom– sexy heroine, mysterious origin, ominous forces after her, possible larger agendas at play…  There really isn’t enough steampunk in the world of comics, so this is a very welcome addition.
What’s not so good: Holy crap is this comic wordy!  Sometimes wordiness comes from having lots of exposition and there is some of that, but most of the verbosity comes from just plain old excessive talking.  In some ways it is a little funny because this is how characters would talk to each other in the real world, but in the context of a comic book, it is just way, way, way too much verbiage.  On some pages, the letterer did yeoman’s work to not cover up Benitez’s lovely art with all the word balloons.

Lady Mechanika #1 – Review

By: Joe Benitez (writer and artist), Peter Steigerwald (colors), John Reed (letters) & Vince Hernandez (editor)

The Story: We are introduced to Lady Mechanika, a half-human, half-mechanical woman who is trying to learn about her past.

What’s Good: This issue was really good all over.  The story mostly just lays the groundwork.  We are introduced to Mechanika: The City of Tomorrow.  Mechanika is kind of a steam-punk metropolis in Britain during the late 1800’s.  I guess the story said it was in the “British Commonwealth”, but that is picking nits.  We pick up the story by seeing a teenage girl who is half-human/half-mechanical running from some goons who work for a nefarious (and nameless) overboss.  She gets away and finds her way to Mechanika where we meet Lady Mechanika herself.  Lady Mechanika is a kind of noir-ish adventure heroine who is half-mechanical herself.  Although she goes on adventures to kill werewolves and the like, she is mostly driven to find out who made her the way she is and why.  Naturally, this will bring her into conflict with the nameless overboss, but that will be a story for a later issue.

Benitez walks the tightrope of giving us just enough information to keep the issue interesting while not telling us the whole story and he does it well.  There is a lot of mystery here and you want to learn more, not only about the Lady, but about the world she lives in.

Lady Mechanika #0 – Review

By: Joe Benitez (creator, writer & art), Peter Steigerwald (colors) & Josh Reed (letters)

The Story: In a steampunky world, a mysterious & lovely mercenary comes to the aid of a half-mechanical monster.

What’s Good: The big attraction on this title is Joe Benitez’s art.  If you see the image on the cover and like that, you’ll probably like this book because that is pretty much what you get.  Everything is just very highly detailed: the guns have all these steam-punky hoop-a-joops all over them, belts are covered with detailed pouches, shirts have intricate buckles (the better to allow bosoms to heave) and goggles have individual little screws.  As we know, even with a high level of detail on the characters, art can sometimes run amok, but Benitez also does many things with unique panel layouts and backgrounds (or lack thereof) to help tell the story.  The color palate is very muted (mostly shades of gray), but that makes Lady Mechanika’s red eyes really stand out.  More comics go for that “stark red in a field of gray” look than actually pull it off, but it works nicely here.

FanExpo 2009 Recap

Last weekend, I attended Fan Expo 2009 in Toronto, Canada, a convention featuring science fiction, comics, anime, horror, and games. I paid the most attention to the comics stream (obviously) and attended panels by five publishers and sat in on two sessions by Len Wein (creator of Wolverine, some of the New X-Men, Swamp Thing, etc). Here’s what I pulled out of it, straight to you, hot off the presses.

Aspen MLT Inc

Frank Mastromauro, Peter Steigerwald, Joe Benitez, Micah Gunnall, Mark Roslan, Alex Konat, Dave Wohl and Marcus To did the A to Z of Aspen comics. It’s hard to believe that Fathom is ten years old and finishing its third arc, and that it’s got a movie deal. Soulfire, Aspen’s other flagship book, is five years old. Aspen has lots of other great titles on the go, including Dellec, Shrugged and especially Executive Assistant Iris. Part of this year’s business strategy will be to do more trades so that fans can easily catch up on their books as new story arcs come out. Executive Assistant Iris also seems to be laying the groundwork for other executive assistant books and stories that would really round out that milieu.

Marvel Digital panel

Joe Quesada showed off the Spider-Woman and Astonishing X-Men motion comics. This was the first time I’d seen either one, and I was impressed, but not sold of the medium. I asked a question about the business model, and they’re using access to motion comics through iTunes sales as a platform to reach new audiences. Smart idea, I hope it works. My only question here is, since when did Jessica Drew get a British accent? Maybe I missed something in Secret Invasion.

DC Universe Editorial Presentation

Dan Didio and a big DC contingent talked shop for an hour and answered questions from all comers. One of the most interesting things I found about this was the focus that DC is doing on each of its eight cornerstone franchises. The franchises are obviously Batman, Superman, Green Lantern, the Flash and Wonder Woman, as well as the three team franchises: the JLA, the JSA and the Titans. One question that came up was “Where’s the love for Aquaman?” Didio diplomatically and rightly pointed out that Aquaman was never really that popular (same with Hawkman). Sure, they both have fans, but they don’t have the same draw as the flagship characters. Neither has the same sort of unambiguous, iconic image in the public’s eye that someone like Batman does. And, with a cast of characters as large as DC has, it makes sense to focus on a few flagship brands, make them really good, so that you can do more stuff with the people and characters and situations around them. I think it’s a great decision and I was pleased to hear that Wonder Woman was part of the lovin’ too.

Cup o’ Joe

Joe Quesada took us on a review of the Marvel universe, but mostly answered questions. One of the most important things for me, personally, was hearing the news about Marvel’s submission policy for people who want to write for Marvel. That was why I went to the con, and I was pleased that I was able to talk to C.B. Cebulski afterwards to get more details. In the session, I asked Joe a question about the Immortal Iron Fist, and how I thought it was a really quality book, but since it didn’t hold the readers in numbers to justify keeping it around, what could they have done differently creatively? There were also plans for Danny Rand after the current Immortal Weapons miniseries. They called it a cooling off period to build up anticipation. I hope it works. IIF was a brilliant series. Someone else asked a question about Dr. Strange, and I was glad to hear that Marvel had plans for him as well.

BOOM! Studios

BOOM! Studios really gave the impression of being dynamic and on the go. They’re hitting new markets, acquiring licenses left and right, looking at new distribution systems, and putting out quality books. Very impressive… They rightly pointed out the sales successes of Irredeemable and Unknown, and especially the artists that they were able to pull in who wanted a chance to work with Mark Waid. Everyone should be keeping an eye on BOOM!

Titans #2 – Review

By Judd Winick (writer), Joe Benitez (pencils), Victor Llamas (inks) & Edgar Delgado (colors)

Judd Winick continues to write a seemingly good first arc for the new Titans series with a very strong second issue. Judd Winick’s witty dialogue coupled with the gorgeous pencils of Joe Benitez make this a very fun issue.

The Titans attempt to reconnect with Raven in order to find out why someone is trying to kill the team. She quickly learns that Trigon is attempting to destroy the Titans – and he’s not alone. While this isn’t the most original plot device for a Titans book as it has been done about 1,000 times before, Winick doesn’t seem to be focused too much on the plot as he is more occupied with bringing the characters back to a more younger version of themselves.

The first issue seemed to go by too fast – I read it in five (or so) minutes. Granted, I read this one in about the same amount of time, but it was a much more fun read. Winick’s version of Beast Boy and Raven exhange some very snappy comments that had me smirking.

I know plenty of Titans fans were dismayed when they realized Winick was writing a new Titans comic, but I think he fits the series very well. He brings the book back down to what it was meant to be: a group of young adults full of sarcasm, speaking in a non-filtered way. A perfect example of this is Beast Boy’s comment to Cyborg, “Vic, you get blown up all the time.” Heh.

Joe Benitez, where have you been? The opening action sequence is uber-gory with the usual Benitez mayhem. However, his pride and joy has to be the full page devoted to Trigon himself. Benitez’s version is much different, showing Trigon in a much more vulnerable and weakened state. Personally, I’m a huge fan of Benitez from his work on Wraithborn and the issue of Detective Comics that he penciled. He finds an excuse to draw Batman yet again in this issue and shows that he should get a shot at a run on a Batman book.

Overall, nice continuation of the current arc. I just hope Winick doesn’t lose the plot and maintains the good balance he created in this issue. (Grade: B+)

-Robert Hyland