Amazing Spider-Man #679.1 – Review

By: Dan Slott & Chris Yost (writers), Matthew Clark (pencils), Tom Palmer (inks), Rob Schwager (colors), Joe Caramagna (letters), Ellie Pyle (assistant editor) & Stephen Wacker (editor)

The Story: Detail is provided on the mysterious occupant of Lab Six at Horizon Labs.

Four Things: 

1. Unsure what this whole .1 thing is about anymore. – I can never really tell whether .1 issues are supposed to be ideal jumping-on points OR whether they’re supposed to merely be stories that don’t require someone to have been reading the series to understand the action.  Or, maybe it’s just a way to sell another issue?  But I kinda doubt the latter since Marvel has no problems with double-shipping titles.  Anyway, you don’t need to have read much recent ASM to follow along with this story that fully reveals the nature of the occupant of Lab Six at Horizon Labs (which has been a big secret since Slott’s run began with #648).  Of course, you’ll probably still get more out of the issue if you have been following along, but that’s par for the course.  It’s hard to tell if this is a good jumping on point or not.  The story line that is teased on the final page isn’t one that has featured in Spidey promotional materials that I’ve seen, but it could be a lead in to a nice little 2-3 issue arc.  All that being said, it’s a fun enough story but hardly Earth-shattering.

2. Morbius is boring, but the reveal on the final page is kinda tantalizing. – Here’s where I have to give a SPOILER WARNING…  I’ve never been a big Michael Morbius fan.  He’s one of those characters that is straddling all over the line between serious and silly.  It seems that creators are never sure whether Morbius is a joke or not.  So, he doesn’t get a very consistent characterization in the Marvel U.  I guess seeing him revealed at the occupant of Lab Six is kinda cool only in that it makes me wonder how Max Modell (chief of Horizon) knows Morbius.  Max has been a fun new character and it seems like we’ve got some nifty stories to look forward to that better explain his past.  But, the all-star moment in this issue was seeing the new Lizard on the final page.  I’ve really enjoyed the new Lizard in both of his Marvel U appearances: when he was introduced in the Shed arc in ASM around issue #630 and when he featured in an arc of X-Men around issue #7.  He’s an interesting, mysterious and creepy character.  Of course, Chris Bachalo was drawing him both times, so I’ll be curious to see how he comes off in lesser artistic hands.

Ghost Rider #1 – Review

by Rob Williams (writer), Matthew Clark (pencils), Sean Parsons (inks), Robert Schwagner (colors), and Clayton Cowles (letters)

The Story: A new Ghost Rider rides into Dayton, Ohio to confront Sin.

What’s Good:  There are definitely some good ideas, here.   While I’m sure Blaze and Ketch enthusiasts won’t be wild about it, I love the fact that Williams and Marvel and trying to do something completely different in giving us a female Ghost Rider.  It’s a dramatic move and, honestly, who doesn’t love kick-ass female characters?  More than that, though, is the fact that from the little we know of her, this character, “Alejandra,” seems to be a kind of warrior, trained by some underground cult/sect.  It’s a total 180 from the rock star or country badass type we’ve gotten before, and there’s an unexpected proficiency and confidence on Alejandra’s part.  Frankly, this sudden shift is enough to get me to want to check out the next issue.  There’s tons of potential and I’d really like to get to know Alejandra.

Then there’s the cliffhanger, which is a really, really great one and a fantastic development.  Suffice it to say, depowered or not, Blaze will have a big part in this comic and the character who shows up on the final page is one that always brings the fun to any comic, particularly one like this.

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.

Doom Patrol #18 – Review

By: Keith Giffen (writer), Matthew Clark and Ron Randall (pencillers), John Livesay (inker), Guy Major (colorist)

The Story: Things just get ickier for the Doom Patrol as the Aristocrats demonstrate the “hobbies” they’ve gained over the last century or two.  Hint: not stamp-collecting.

The Review: One of the flaws of the Star Wars prequel/sequel trilogy is how much time it spends pontificating on intergalactic politics.  It seems a little petty for a disturbance in the force.  The same thing applies to comics.  It’s ambitious of writers to insert some socio-political texture to the superhero world, but they’re not exactly the savviest individuals where world affairs are concerned.  The result, as in the recent string of Star Wars films, is a lot of oversimplified political concepts that never really seem like good motivators for superhero fare.

That’s the stumbling block Keith Giffen ran into last issue as he devoted a good half of it developing Oolong Island’s foreign policy (and bashing on North Korea).  Thankfully, the action this issue leaps into the red-hot zone as Keith Giffen sets aside those political intricacies to focus on giving the Doom Patrol some serious brawling to do.

Fast and furious seems the best pace for these characters to work at.  Their jokes fly better, or at least they seem to.  It’s the Laugh-In effect; before you have time to decide if the punchline is funny or not, you’re already pulled along to the next bit.  The friendly friction among the characters also have more to play with when they’re punching the lights out of immortal sadists than when they stand around ranting over the multitude problems in their lives.  The Patrol don’t do soul-searching very well.  They’re better off facing freaks even worse off than they are, and gleaning perspective out of the experience.

That said, the Aristocrats aren’t the most terrific opponents.  Physically, the ‘Crats have nothing on an energy being, a shapeshifter, and a robot.  They don’t bring much to the table in terms of motivating characters either.  Giffen writes them well, with all their excessive politeness on top of their lust for pain (theirs and others’), but he doesn’t embellish their history very well, nor why exactly they serve “Beloved Leader.”  And because they seem to have few stakes in the story, the stakes for the Patrol are even less.

Doom Patrol #17 – Review

By: Keith Giffen (writer), Matthew Clark and Ron Randall (pencillers), John Livesay (inker), Guy Major (colorist)

The Story: Fresh from yet another confrontation with the Chief that has now left them leaderless, the Doom Patrol reluctantly agree to accompany their newest benefactor to a gala in North Korea that’s more like a who’s-who of crazed sadists.  Worst among the violent weirdoes are the Aristocrats, an old family of considerable poise, history, and bloodlust.

The Review: The Doom Patrol is among the last surviving relics of DC’s legacy of exploring the weird.  They truly are an oddball group, with a grab-bag of low-key superpowers and a vague agenda pitting them against the other freakazoids of the DCU.  The Doom Patrol flourishes when writers avoid remaking them into more standard superhero fare, and embrace their inherent strangeness.  Small wonder Grant Morrison worked wonders with them under his pen, and now under Keith Giffen’s, they’re slowly gaining the semblance of liveliness again.

Giffen’s offbeat style is on full-speed from the first page, a “Previously, on Doom Patrol”-type brief written in Dick and Jane syntax (“Now the Chief can fly. / Fly, Chief, fly.”).  It lacks the cleverness that sells Greg Pak’s and Fred Van Lente’s “Previously” pages over on The Incredible Hercules, but it definitely sets the irreverent tone for the rest of the issue.

The self-mockery the characters go through occasionally feel forced (“Does this outfit make my thighs look chunky?”), but what’s really winning about this series is the interaction of its slew of eccentric characters.  Cliff, Rita, and Larry have had plenty of time to develop their voices, but it’s impressive that Giffen manages to make even first-timers sound fully realized from their first appearance.  As far as I know, the Aristocrats are completely new, but from a few exchanges (helped by an extensive expository piece at the issue’s start) you really get a strong sense of how disturbed they, how aware they are of their own twistedness, and how very little they care.

Doom Patrol #1 – Review

By Keith Giffen (writer), Matthew Clark (artist), Livesay (inker), Guy Major (colorist)

So is everything old new again, or is everything new old again?  Either way, Doom Patrol is back, and nothing will ever be the same.  Or maybe everything will stay the same.  I don’t know.  I’ll admit that I’m a bit confused as to why DC chose to reactivate this title, but you need to understand that I first read Doom Patrol during Grant Morrison’s run on the title and thought he had done a stellar job telling their story and resolving it.  Then again, with all of the earth-shattering, continuity-raping big event stories DC’s been birthing over the years, maybe Morrison’s Doom Patrol continuity has been erased and rewritten and become obsolete.

In this latest iteration, Keith Giffen uses the traditional team roster, consisting of Elasti-Woman, Negative Man, Robot Man, and team leader Niles Caulder.  There were a few more in there, but they were all as disposable as the guys in Star Trek who wear the red shirts and die as soon as they touch down on that alien planet.  The issue opens with the team already in the middle of a case involving purple, leech-faced humanoids that ends too quickly before it’s ever fully explained.  The other half of the story sees the Doom Patrol returning to Oolong Island, a sovereign, tropical island nation that serves as their new headquarters.  Here amidst the palm trees, the team unwinds and we come to better understand them through the most annoying new character of 2009: Father Leslie, the team’s de facto therapist who seems to have been dumped into the story by Giffen solely for the purpose of trying to make them talk about their feelings.  The pathos that Leslie pushes on each member was incredibly irritating, and my biggest fear is that we’re only going to see more of this tool as the title progresses.

Fortunately, Matthew Clark turns in some solid art, and if there’s any reason to continue reading this, it’s to see more of what he can do.  On a final note, this is the first issue of DC’s new pricing plan that I’ve picked up, and my first impression is that this can really work.  Basically, even though this is Doom Patrol #1, you’re paying $3.99 for 20 pages of Doom Patrol (2 pages less than a typical 22 page comic retailing for $2.99) and 10 pages of a second feature story.  This issue featyred the Metal Men as the backup, which I thought was a ridiculous waste of time as I hate everything about them, but I nonetheless can appreciate that DC is at least offering me more content to justify their price, which is a hell of a lot more than I can say for Marvel.  Based on this first issue, I don’t think I’ll stick around to pick up the second, but I may come back to try the graphic novel if and when it’s released.  Buy at your own risk.

Grade:  D

-Tony Rakittke

Superman/Batman #50 – Review

Michael Green, Mike Johnson, (writers) Ed Benes, Matthew Clark, Allan Goldman, Ian Churchill, (pencils) Matt “Batt” Banning, Norm Rapmund, Marlo Alquiza, Rob Hunter,(inkers) John Rauch, (colors) Andrew Robinson, Greg DiGenti, (Krypton sequence), Rob Leigh, (letters) Ethan Van Sciver, Ed McGuinness, Dexter Vines,  Dave McCaig (covers)

This issue has The League rebuilding Smallville and fighting it out with more rogue Kryptonian tech. As great as Superman is he just can’t seem to save us from his planet’s technology. After Brianiac, The Phantom Zone, and a Kryptonian probe, what’s next? But throw in a chance meeting between Thomas Wayne and Jor El and you’ve got a great start to this new arc.

Michael Green and Mike Johnson have done an excellent job with their run on this title. It’s unclear to me if the connection between Thomas and Jor El will carry through, or if it’s just a standalone scene – I’m thinking it’ll probably be the latter – in either case it’s very effective. Personally, I found it a little annoying that Batman and Superman are barely in the issue. Still, learning the details of their fathers meeting is great. It makes me wonder what things would’ve been like if Superman had crashed in Gotham.

A highlight of the book is definitely the pencils. The team is pretty massive, but everyone does a great job. The battle scenes are chaotic, but very detailed and easy to follow. My favorite of which is the fight between Batman, Superman and the crystal projections in The Fortress of Solitude. Not only does it feature their best villains, but awesome action as well. The backgrounds on Krypton during the flashback have a lot less detail, but it still fits really well. I’ve always thought Krypton would have a very streamlined architecture. I’m a big fan of the coloring during this sequence and the use of cool blues is a great choice, definitely better than your standard black and white.

Batman and Superman are like brothers in many ways, and this story reinforces that. Having Thomas Wayne reverse engineer much of Wayne Tech from his time on Krypton is a great touch. That said, I feel my biggest complaint is that it doesn’t seem like much happened; since most of the issue is a flashback it’s hard to really feel that progression. While it remains unclear if we’ll continue to see Thomas Wayne and Jor El in this book it’s still a good read with lots of good stuff for any fan. (Grade: B-)

-Ben Berger