Suicide Squad #23 – Review

By: Ales Kot (story), Rick Leonardi (pencils), Andy Owens, Derek Fridolfs, Marc Deering (inks), Brad Anderson (colors)

The Story: Two teams of crazies, but only one will make it out with pie on their face.

The Review: All too soon, we’ve come to the end of Kot’s promising run on this series.  I still don’t really understand why this had to happen, though the continuously dwindling sales probably have something to do with it.  At any rate, my mind’s made up to depart from Suicide Squad at the same time Kot does.  In just four issues, Kot has definitely established a powerful, specific voice and direction for this title, which I don’t believe anyone can emulate.

There is a very, very fine line to the tone Kot has brought to the Squad, balancing precariously on a tightrope between extreme* and excess.  Take James Jr.’s attraction with Waller, for instance.  Despite how difficult it is to believe that a sociopath like him can experience something like sentiment for anything, James’ feelings are still convincing.  Of course, choosing Waller as his object of affection is simply inspired—no other word for it—but it’s the sinister curiosity behind James’ obsession with her that seems true to his character.

Superman #712 – Review

By: Kurt Busiek (writer), Rick Leonardi (penciller), Jonathan Sibal (inker), Brad Anderson (colorist)

The Story: What’s the matter, boy?  What?  Connor’s stuck in a time-space crisis?  Let’s go!

The Review: As much love exists between a man and his dog, it has nothing on that between a dog and his boy.  As a clone with hyper-accelerated growth, Superboy had little in the way of a typical boy’s life—and that’s before he started playing the teen vigilante in Hawaii, often with two girls on either arm.  But owning a dog can’t fail to inject some responsibility into your life, so Krypto has had the effect of normalizing Connor a great deal.

Most writers have fun with Krypto as Superboy’s loyal companion, but few have really explored the depth of his affection for Connor.  I can think of no better man to do so than Busiek, whose work on Astro City proves him as one of the greatest humanizers of superheroes.  Here, he shows what makes Krypto inarguably the most appealing and lovable of super-pets (besides the fact that he’s a dog with a cape, of course).

Underneath all his powers, Superman is in spirit an overgrown Eagle Scout with your good ol’ Midwestern values, and by the same token, Krypto has the soul of a playful, devoted hound.  Busiek lets that soul shine in all of the super-canine’s behavior in this issue, making the story that much more touching.  Really, if you look past his flying around and using X-ray vision, this is at heart the tale of a dog looking for his lost boy.

Even so, Krypto’s powers allow greater understanding than most dogs, giving that much more weight to his simple range of emotions.  As he tracks Connor’s trail (during the events of Infinite Crisis), his enhanced senses give him rich details of what his owner got up to, ending amidst the ruins of Alexander Luthor’s world-destroying tower, which Connor destroyed at the cost of his life.  Krypto’s glass-shattering howl upon the discovery is a poignant allusion to Superman’s cry upon Supergirl’s death in the original Crisis on Infinite Earths, and quite heartrending.

Vigilante #1 – Review

By Marv Wolfman (writer), Rick Leonardi (artist), John Stanisci (inker), David Baron (colorist)

I wasn’t sure I would have the honor this year of reviewing a truly terrible comic, but then DC stepped up and delivered this steaming piece of crap like an awful, unwelcome Christmas present.  Hey, ’tis the season, right?

Vigilante, a character first updated in 1983 by Marv Wolfman and George Perez, is an anachronism that has spent the last twenty-five years living in the shadow of the Punisher’s glory days, and seems perfectly content to die there as well.  Not quite a hard-boiled detective, not really a superhero, and not nearly the ruthless vigilante Wolfman would have you believe him to be, the only things Vigilante seems to fully embrace is the degree to which he utterly sucks as a character, and his refusal to see how irrelevant he is in the DC universe.   How lame is it that a vigilante needs to call himself Vigilante and wear a helmet with a V-shaped visor?  I mean, is he so insecure that nobody will take him seriously as a crime-fighter that he needs to browbeat villains with the fact that, yes, he IS a vigilante!?

Wolfman is not a bad writer by any means, having helmed the enormously popular Teen Titans relaunch with Perez back in the 80s, but it’s obvious that he’s barely phoning this one in. The story provided is tiresome and simply uninteresting as it’s about a criminal power struggle between the Penguin and the Whale (seriously), the cops’ pursuit of Vigilante, and Vigilante’s pursuit of answers regarding the Mob’s connection to the Election Assassinations and a superhero gone rogue.  By the end of the issue, Vigilante proves what a hardcore vigilante he is by allowing himself to be arrested and sent to jail so that he can find his answers.  The Punisher’s done this five or six times by now, but hey who’s counting?

Rick Leonardi’s art, while traditionally reliable on superhero books, seems incredibly out of place on a story that wants to be crime fiction.  Leonardi tries to go for a dark, gritty, atmospheric look, but falls short. The one redeeming quality to this book is Walt Simonson’s dynamic cover.  If you can justify paying $3.00 for that cover, then I say go for it, otherwise please vote with your dollar, avoid this book like the plague, and let DC know you expect better than this.

Grade: F

-Tony Rakittke

DC Universe: Decisions #1 (of 4) – Review

By Bill Willingham and Judd Winick (writers), Rick Leonardi (pencils), Carl Story and Dan Green (inks), Alex Bleyaert (colors)

Within the first 10 pages, I thought this book would be a complete disaster. Superheroes and politics is something rarely mixed in the comic book field, but with the abnormally hot political climate brewing this election year, it comes as no surprise that a publisher would try to capitalize on the situation. Hell, even Erik Larsen did it with Savage Dragon (posting big sales numbers to boot).

Sadly, this book has no Barrack Obama or John McCain – not even anyone sharing the two candidates’ likenesses. Instead, this is more of a broad study on what would happen if superheroes decided to endorse politicians in general. There is a bigger plot at work here, however: someone is mind controlling those close to the candidates and turning them into suicide bombers. It’s fallen upon the Justice League to get to the bottom of this mystery while playing bodyguard to all those running for election. But when superheroes and politics collide, it’s shown just how easily influenced the American public is when Green Arrow haphazardly endorses a candidate he’s chosen to babysit.

Yes, Green Arrow is the whipping boy and the way Judd Winick and Bill Willingham write his predicament make me loathe the character. I can see someone like Guy Gardner screwing up on a scale this big (and he will next issue), but making this happen to Green Arrow does nothing but make a mockery of the character. I’m in complete agreement with Hal Jordan when he says, “Ollie, you damned fool.” Is Green Arrow so stupid that he can’t handle a trashy news journalist?

What a tool.

As much as I hate how the writers handled this situation, the themes being addressed are undeniably fascinating. Now I’m interested to see what happens when other heroes get involved in the political arena. Will Superman stay neutral? Will Batman endorse anyone? This should be interesting. (Grade: B)

– J. Montes