Letter 44 #9 – Review

By: Charles Soule (story), Alberto Jiménez Alburquerque (art), Dan Jackson (colors)

The Story: This time, it’s the First Lady who betrays her husband.

The Review: If you’re a politician—any politician—you want me as a constituent because I’m pretty compassionate as far as terrible policy decisions go. I always try to keep in mind that making decisions for other people’s lives, especially in a country as diverse as ours, is nerve-wracking work even with the best of intentions and a minimum of outside interests. It may be naïve of me, but I tend to think politicians aren’t really bad people, just more susceptible to confusion and impulse than most.

So I can’t tell whether Carroll’s general horribleness is exaggerated or true-to-life. I suspect the former. Not only does he reveal that every bad piece of policy he ever made was on purpose, he’s completely unapologetic for them. In talking about the choices that led to the country’s economic crisis, he says, “My finance people warned me that it would all collapse eventually, but that didn’t matter. As long as I got my laser guns and robots, the bubble was the next guy’s problem.”

Letter 44 #7 – Review

By: Charles Soule (story), Joëlle Jones (art), Dan Jackson (colors)

The Story: If you’re going to mine diamonds from Russia, make sure to ask the Russians first.

The Review: Among Letter 44‘s many unusual qualities, the one that sticks out the most is the fact that it started with the action well underway, the Clarke crew having already closed in on their destination. This meant that the characters had gone past the getting-to-know-you stage and were now too busy dealing with the plot to reveal much about themselves for our benefit. Even so, the series is half a year old, which means it’s time for us to know more about the people we’re working with.

This flashback issue thus couldn’t have come at a better time. Soule wisely chooses not to disperse the attention to the lives of the entire crew at once, instead focusing on Charlotte, arguably the lead of the series, and Dr. Rowan,* the crew member revealed to be MIA in #3. There’s no long-term plotwork here; given that we’re in the past, we already know what this manned space mission being offered to Charlotte and Rowan is about. This issue is pure character work, getting us to more deeply sympathize and admire the cast we’ve grown familiar with.

Letter 44 #6 – Review

By: Charles Soule (story), Alberto Jiménez Alburquerque (art), Dan Jackson (colors)

The Story: There’s never a Maury Povich audience in space when you need one!

The Review: I don’t often get what I want from a story, so any time I do is cause for celebration—on my part, at least. Right now, some imaginary confetti is in order as Letter 44 finally gives me what I’ve asked for months: a Clarke-centric issue. Not that I’m completely uninterested in what’s happening in the Stephen Blades administration, but as Stephen himself admits, even if only superficially, “The things happening down here pale in comparison to what you’re doing out there.”

True enough, but that’s not to say that what Stephen’s doing doesn’t have a huge impact on the U.S. and the world at large. I’m not talking about his political maneuvering with Carroll, in which the ex-president offers all sorts of perfectly rational reasons for his now infamous letter, disappearance, and alleged involvement with Elijah’s “stroke.” Perhaps fed up with such petty distractions, Stephen brings the hammer down hard on his predecessor with a letter of his own, in which he promises to reverse Carroll’s policy choices, rid his administration of all Carroll influences, and take a strict eye-for-an-eye policy with any future Carroll-directed attacks.*

Letter 44 #5 – Review

By: Charles Soule (story), Alberto Jiménez Alburquerque (art), Dan Jackson (colors)

The Story: Intellectual curiosity kills the scientist.

The Review: Soule is no dummy, so I can’t believe that he doesn’t have some purpose in making Letter 44’s former President Carroll as easily analogized to the real former President Bush as he has. It’s possible some of Soule’s political prejudices are coming into play here, but more clearly, Soule is using the conspiracy theories revolving around Bush as fictional fertilizer, giving life to these paranoid speculations for their pure, dramatic value.

Here, Soule goes well beyond the wildest dreams of all but the most extreme theorists, portraying Carroll as not only a bitter voice from the past administration, but an ominous presence who may have his hand in Stephen’s current presidential troubles. As I understand it, it’s not atypical for an ex-president to retain a security detail even after he leaves the White House. But how common is it for him to reside in a secret White House replica located in a southwestern canyon and replete with former SEALs and SpecOps? What does that exactly say about him?

Letter 44 #4 – Review

By: Charles Soule (story), Alberto Jiménez Alburquerque (art), Dan Jackson (colors)

The Story: Stephen makes the worst hiring decision of his presidency.

The Review: It must take a certain kind of genius to write a mystery.  After all, you’ve got to be smarter than your audience if you want to keep them baffled as to where the story is going.  This is a tall order, no doubt, perhaps too tall for a writer who is simultaneously trying to grasp the intricacies of political intrigue and sci-fi phenomena.  As intelligent and ambitious as Soule is, I’m not sure he can really deliver a conspiracy of this level—at least, not in a comic.

Comics tend to move fast, especially in monthly issues.  You’re talking about twenty to thirty pages, which in prose might offer a lot of substantial development, but which is all too easily devoured as a series of static visuals.  But few readers, or writers, for that matter, are willing to endure several months of issues just to get through the beginning of a storyline.  This might explain why, four issues in, we already have the first assassination of the Blades administration.

Letter 44 #3 – Review

By: Charles Soule (story), Alberto Jiménez Alburquerque (art), Guy Major (colors)

The Story: The presidency’s falling apart, aliens are invading, and worst of all, people are not getting enough sex.

The Review: If you were amused by the parallels between the outgoing Carroll administration in #1 and the most recent Bush administration, you’ll be tickled pink by the similarities Stephen Blades shares with Barack Obama as to the early days of their presidencies: “Bailing out the banks and giving loans to the auto companies,” when he actually intended “to have Guantanamo closed by now, and have a real plan to be out of at least one of the wars.”

Fun, though the purpose of all this isn’t quite clear.  Maybe Soule, unable to make up more credible presidential acts, just decided to poach from reality.  Maybe he wanted to make an indirect comment about Obama’s legacy, that the perception of him as a ditherer was caused by events and forces beyond his control and the public’s knowledge.  Either way, Soule is setting Stephen on the same trajectory towards disappointment that his real-world counterpart suffered.  The question is whether that course can be averted in fiction any more easily than in fact.

Letter 44 #2 – Review

By: Charles Soule (story), Alberto Jiménez Alburquerque (art), Guy Major (colors)

The Story: Everyone stay calm, and try not to die until oxygen is restored.

The Review: I don’t know what this says about my childhood, but I distinctly remember that my first exposure to aliens involved a lot of old-school TV: the Coneheads from Saturday Night Live, Spock on Star Trek, and Worf on Star Trek: The Next Generation.  Even as a kid, I found it puzzling that so many supposed aliens were basically humans with a lot of makeup on.  Now I see it as evidence of the difficulty people have in seeing beyond their own experiences.

The characters in Letter 44 all, to a certain degree, grapple with this same difficulty as they try to wrap their heads around the outer space visitors hanging out in the asteroid belt.  In explaining to Stephen why the Carroll administration took the steps that it did after the initial discovery of the foreigners, Dr. Portek offers a highly logical and straightforward analysis that’s still infected by all-too-human reasoning.  A big linchpin in his argument for defensive action is, “[i]f they wanted to learn about us, they would already be here talking to us.  Exploration and anthropology do not require constructs the size of the moon.”  But isn’t this an entirely terran framework Portek is using?  Who’s to say how an advanced species would approach its studies?

Letter 44 #1 – Review

By: Charles Soule (story), Alberto Jiménez Alburquerque (art), Guy Major (colors)

The Story: Yet another reason to dread getting snail mail.

The Review: This is not the place for me to get political, and I won’t, but I will say that I’ve never taken the president’s job for granted.  Whatever my opinions on certain policy decisions are, I always feel sorry for the man* who has to make that call.  Call me a foolish believer in the innate goodness of humanity, but I tend to think that even when the consequences seem disastrous, the intentions behind a presidential decision are for the country’s best interest.

In a similar vein, Soule presents a fictional U.S. presidency with obvious parallels to the one we all know so well.  You have newly elected Stephen Blades, running on a platform of openness and change in contrast to the departing Francis T. Carroll’s “eight years of war and economic uncertainty.”  During his time in office, Carroll apparently led the country into conflicts based on faulty information (“Your side had a field day when the WMD thing fell through.”) and developed a reputation for not being the brightest bulb in the room (holding up Carroll’s letter, Stephen’s advisor remarks, “You think it’s written in crayon?”).

The Sixth Gun #30 – Review

By: Cullen Bunn (writer), Brian Hurtt (art), Bill Crabtree (colors), Douglas E. Sherwood (letters)

The Story: The gang seeks medical/spiritual attention for Becky after she is overcome from using The Sixth Gun too much.

Review (with minor SPOILERS): I came away from this issue feeling disappointed and unfulfilled.  It’s a little difficult to capture “why” this issue comes up short, but I think it has to do with where TSG stands as a series and decompressed storytelling.  Ugh–decompression..  At 30 issues, the series is mature: we know the characters and we know the stakes; now we need to get on with the story.

The Sixth Gun #29 – Review

By: Cullen Bunn (writer), Brian Hurtt (art), Bill Crabtree (colors), Douglas E. Sherwood (letters)

The Story: The gang is back together.

Quick Review (with minor SPOILERS): This was a tidy little issue of The Sixth Gun.  For the most part, it served to mop up the leftovers of this Winter Wolves story arc.  Honestly, this hasn’t been the most enjoyable story arc, but it still had a nice ending in this issue.  After so many months, it was nice to see the entire gang gathered again but it was kinda a bummer to see the damage that events have inflicted on our heroes: Drake is weakened, Becky is pissed at Kirby, etc.  There’s also a bit of humor as 9 foot-tall mummy, Asher Cobb rummages for suitable clothing to wear on their trip back into town.

Overall, the first half of the issue just serves to recap the action of the story arc and establish the new status quo.

The Sixth Gun #28 – Review

By: Cullen Bunn (writer), Brian Hurtt (art), Bill Crabtree (colors), Douglas E. Sherwood (letters)

The Story: Becky & Drake continue their battle with the Wendigo while Gord, Kirby & Asher Cobb ride to their rescue.

Review (with SPOILERS): This hasn’t been the strongest storyline for The Sixth Gun.  It’s a simple matter of dilution because we’ve had a two-issue concept that was spread over 5-6 issues.  But, this issue provided a pretty snappy ending for the arc and made me hopeful for the future of the comic.

The Sixth Gun #26 – Review

By: Cullen Bunn (writer), Brian Hurtt (art), Bill Crabtree (colors), Douglas Sherwood (letters)

The Story: Drake and Becky deal with a Wendigo.

Quick review (with SPOILERS): I only recently picked up The Sixth Gun after a recent Comixology 99-cent sale.  Last issue (#25) was my first reading the comic monthly and while it was a good issue, it wasn’t “great”.  In that issue, the art was at it’s typical level of greatness, but the story didn’t have that snap I recalled from gorging on the first 24 issues in a week’s time.  In the back of my mind I worried a little that I might not enjoy this series as much in single issues….

Stumptown, Volume 2, #2 – Review

By: Greg Rucka (writer), Matthew Southworth (art), Rico Renzi (colors)

The Story: Dex Parrios gets closer to a lost guitar and uncovers some more serious criminal activity.

Quick Review: How fussy are you about art?  Can you get “knocked out of the story” by a few little art problems?  If so, you might want to give Stumptown a pass because this is two issues in a row where the art just isn’t getting it done.  That’s really surprising because the art on the first volume of Stumptown was so strong (solid, precise and blessed with moments of inspiration).

The Sixth Gun #25 – Review

By: Cullen Bunn (writer), Brian Hurtt (art), Bill Crabtree (colors), Douglas E. Sherwood (letters)

The Story: Becky and Drake are trapped in mystically frozen Fort.

Review: Well….that figures.  A couple of weeks ago, Comixology had a sale where all back-issues of The Sixth Gun were 99 cents.  I bought them all because a few of my comic friends loved the series and it sounded up my alley.  They were right!  It’s a great series that I should have been reading all along–“Deserving of the hype” and all that.  But just when I add The Sixth Gun to the list of titles I regularly review, it tosses a ho-hum issue at me.

Stumptown v2 #1 – Review

By: Greg Rucka (writer), Matthew Southworth (art), Rico Renzi (colors)

The Story: Dex Parios is back with a new case that’ll doubtless be a LOT more trouble than it seems.

Review: I really enjoyed the first Stumptown miniseries.  It may not have ended on quite the high that I’d hoped, but the memory of the first few issues was so strong that Volume 2 was keenly anticipated.

This issue falls into the “good, not great”.  If this was a new series from Image by some unknown creators, the hardcore fringe would be huffing and puffing about how swell this first issue was: splendid character work and a clever, hard-luck PI story.  But, when it comes from Rucka and company and has this much anticipation behind it, well…it doesn’t quite match the anticipation.  Perhaps that is unfair, but it is what it is.

The Secret History of DB Cooper #4 – Review

By: Brian Churilla (writer, artist, colors) & Ed Brisson (letters)

The Story: Agent Cooper gets closer to discovering the identity of the Soviet agent.

Quick Review: This has been a very pleasing series.  Back in issue #1, it started with such weirdness that it was hard not to love.  But…..we’ve all seen comics with wacky concepts quickly go off the rails as it becomes clear that there’s no real meat to the tale.

Secret History of DB Cooper #2 – Review

By: Brian Churilla (writer/artist), Ed Brisson (letters)

The Story: More craziness with DB Cooper: Psychic CIA Agent

Recap/Review (with minor SPOILERS): Trippy.  That’s probably the best way to describe this comic.  Now, this second issue doesn’t catch you off-guard quite the way that Issue #1 did…that issue was really something else.  Still, the crazy just keeps flowing in this issue, and we also get a fair amount of background information on the who/what/why/when/where/how of the infamous DB Cooper.

The crazy?  That happens right off the bat as we see DB locked in dreamscape combat against some horrible monster.  It’s this huge slug-thing with a gaping, toothy mouth, no eyes and two scrawny arms.  But the really awful thing about the monster visually is that it has old-lady breasts: long, saggy and with a odd fuzz of hair on them (like eyebrows that need to be plucked).  It’s a really disturbing visual and gives you a sense of, “Ugh…nasty.  I shouldn’t be looking at this.”  Yet…it’s hard to tear your eyes away as Agent Cooper, in trench coat, sunglasses and katana does battle with this horrid thingie.  Finally, he chops its head off and we cut to a scene from a Czech opera house to see some Stalinesque Communist Party big-wig have his head fall off into his date’s lap.  Whoa!  Another psychic/dreamscape assassination for Agent Cooper!

What’s weird about this scene is that it messes slightly with the mechanic we thought we learned about last issue: Agent Cooper goes into a dreamscape and psychically assassinates Soviet VIPs.  How does a Communist dude with a huge mustache psychically manifest as a slug-monster with granny boobs?  Hmmm…  Weird…

So, that’s the crazy in this issue.  But, as mentioned above, we also get a lot more background on who DB Cooper is and how he’s come to exist in this disheveled state where he’s become the top psychic assassin for the CIA.  Turns out he had his young daughter kidnapped and she was never found.  Ouch!  Then his marriage didn’t survive the stress of losing a child.  Double ouch!  And that’s turned him into this hard-boiled guy who just doesn’t give a crap anymore…except that he’s still kinda looking for his daughter and thinks he may be about to find her in the dreamscape world.

An interesting thing in this comic is that we see Cooper from different perspectives.  In the Dreamscape….we’re clearly seeing things from his point of view.  And oddly, he seems much more sane in this dreamscape where he fights massive slug-monsters with granny boobs than he does in the “real world”.  There he’s just an incredibly damaged human being who is being kinda used by the CIA.  But ironically, when we see him in the “real world”, it’s all seen from the standpoint of a neutral observer.  Crazy people never think they’re crazy, right?

The art is very effective.  It’s very blunt and direct and full of classic cartooning.  It isn’t art that you’d call “beautiful”, but it more than fulfills its storytelling mission.

Conclusion: A really good issue that dials back the crazy a little bit to give us more background on the central character.

Grade: B

– Dean Stell

Secret History of DB Cooper #1 – Review

By: Brian Churilla (writer/artist) & Ed Brisson (letters)

The Story: A possible back-story for DB Cooper.

Background: The name DB Cooper is either going to ring a bell for you or it won’t.  The “true story” upshot is that back in 1971 a man using the name DB Cooper hijacked a Boeing 727 in the Pacific Northwest claiming to have a bomb in a briefcase.  He made a ransom demand of (a) money and (b) parachutes.  The plane landed to give him these items and then took off again (as ordered by Cooper).  At some point on this second flight, Cooper went to the back of the cargo area of the 727 and apparently parachuted from the ramp on the back of the plane, never to be seen again.  Seriously, no one knows what happened to him or who DB Cooper even was.  There aren’t even many clues, but the story is fantastic enough to be fodder for all manner of “unsolved mystery” TV shows over the years.  Did Cooper die during the parachute attempt?  Did he get away?  Or was the explanation more fantastical?

Review: This was a wonderfully trippy comic from Churilla.  From a plot standpoint, it tells a possible back-story for Cooper by using a “one week earlier….” mechanic.  We are introduced to “Agent” Cooper, although we are never told WHAT or WHO he is an agent for.  And we see this Agent Cooper as he trudges through a kinda psychadelic wasteland wearing a suit (MiB-style), carrying a katana, cigarette dangling from his lips and talking to… an imaginary teddy bear???  Anyway, he looks very bad-ass in a Reservoir Dogs sort of way.  As the story moves along, we are also introduced to some dastardly Soviet government official eating his dinner and it becomes clear than somehow, Cooper’s weird trip through this wasteland is actually some kind of psychic assassination plot against the Soviet official.  At least that’s what I think is going on.  [Note: Rereading this during proof-reading and it is clear that I’m not doing the story justice.  It’s weird and wonderful.  Trust me, if you like indie comics, you’ll enjoy this.]

Basically, the story dwells in that place where you kinda know what is going on, but it is never made explicitly clear.  There are clues galore, but how the reader assembles the clues together is really kinda up the them.

Stumptown #4 – Review

By: Greg Rucka (writer), Matthew Southworth (art) and Rico Renzi & Southworth (colors)

The Story: The final chapter of the inaugural PI adventure of Dex Parios draws to a close as she tries to get to the bottom of a missing woman who has gotten entangled with the MS-13 gang.

What’s Good: This is a good solid PI/detective story and it has some very nice things that make it different from similar comics in this genre.  For one thing, it has a very realistic female lead.  Dex Parios is a great character and I hope that Rucka keeps feeding us stories about her.  What makes Dex so great are how different she is from what we’re used to seeing from female comic characters: She doesn’t have DD boobs, she isn’t wearing spandex, she isn’t promiscuous, she’s pretty but doesn’t do a thing to clean herself up, etc.  And….she’s got some pretty major issues in her life (which she pours out in the best scene of this comic book).  In fact, we all probably know someone like Dex and that makes this a unique book.

Resurrection #3 – Review

By Marc Guggenheim (writer) & David Dumeer (art)

Unfortunately, there is really nothing important happening in this issue. The story is advancing, but in baby steps. Personally, I feel this is a bad decision if you’re on your third issue and struggling to get new readers.

The story touches upon everyone we met over the last two issues. The bug that’s a prisoner of Judith McCreary escapes. Sara and Benjamin try to help the guy who got caught inside the alien spacecraft. They try to turn the power supply off, but the craft’s defense system mysteriously continues to operate. On the government side, there is an unsuccessful assassination attempt on the president by the military. And that’s it – nothing else is revealed about the bugs. This book is already hovering on mediocrity and this issue really needed a payoff.

Marc Guggenheim needs to stop driving on the slow lane. I’ll give this series the remaining two issues to pick things up. After that, I’m going to drop it if nothing improves. It’s got a great premise, it just needs better execution. If you still haven’t read issue #1, you can find it here. Hopefully, next issue will be better than this. (Grade: D+)

-Daniel Yanez

Whiteout Vol.1 TPB – Review

By Greg Rucka (writer) & Steve Lieber (illustrator & letterer)

I found out about this comic because of the movie adaptation that’s coming out with Kate Beckinsale as the lead. Why didn’t I hear anything about this great book before? This is sad! There must be lots and lots of great collections that I don’t even know exist. Why can’t publishers advertise and market their great old works more effectively? I just don’t get it.

The story is set in Antarctica. Carrie Stetko, an U.S. Marshall stationed there, is investigating a murder in one of the camps. There are five other people in the camp that have gone missing as well. She needs to complete the investigation in the next two weeks, because the base is shutting down for the winter with most of the staff will be leaving. As the days get colder, she’s forced to deal with bad weather, a population of mostly men, and a loose murderer. Her character is completely believable, with flaws and a troubled past; props to Greg Rucka for fleshing her out so well. The black and white art by Lieber perfectly fits the harsh and barren world of Antarctica.

The trade is only $13.95, cheaper than the usual, but what makes this a must buy is the great story. Oni Press has the first chapter available to read at their website. I also bought Vol.2 and I’ll be reviewing it soon. Lieber told me that there is a 3^rd volume in the works as well. Can’t wait for it! (Grade: A)

-Daniel Yanez