Justice League of America #5 – Review

By: Geoff Johns (story), Brett Booth (pencils), Norm Rapmund (inks), Andrew Dalhouse (colors)

The Story: The JLA reveals that breaking up evil robots as an early specialty.

The Review: A long time ago, when Identity Crisis was still a controversial novelty, I remember one of the better jokes in the series involved a bunch of villains sitting around their satellite HQ and discussing the death of Donna Troy.  I believe it was Merlyn who deadpanned, “She’ll be back.”  The line reveals that comic book writers know how meaningless death in the superhero genre is, and yet the cycles of lifelessness and resurrections continue.

I’ve given up hoping that publishers will take a hardline stance on this point.  All I ask is for writers, if they’re going to use death as a narrative gimmick, then to at least use it well.  I’ll be more specific and say that they probably shouldn’t end an issue on a death if they know that we know it won’t take for longer than a single issue.  Here, Catwoman’s “death” doesn’t even last even three pages after her shooting, and we all know, before Martian Manhunter reveals himself, how that managed to come to pass.

Wonder Woman #614 – Review

By J. Michael Straczynski & Phil Hester (writers), Don Kramer & Lee Garbett (pencils), Drew Geraci, Robin Riggs & Trevor Scott (inks), Pete Pantazis (colors), Travis Lanham (letters)

The Story: Diana finally learns the secret of Nemisis, and faces one final battle with the darkness inside herself.

The Review: It’s a shame that most of Odyssey has been such a gigantic cluster–this really is a very strong issue. Unfortunately, it is dragging the weight of 13 other issues full of retcons, confused storytelling and character shifts behind it. The weight is such that even Wonder Woman herself can’t shoulder the burden, and so the storyline crawls across the finish line gasping and wheezing. What could have been a triumphant exclamation point and capstone on Diana’s 600+ issue career instead just leaves me sighing in relief. Odyssey is finally–FINALLY–over, and I couldn’t be happier. Love the DCnU reboot or hate it, it’s hard to imagine it doing much more harm to poor Diana than these 14 issues already have.

Continuity and character nightmares (which I’ve already pounded into a fine powder at this point) aside though, this issue does contain a lot of what makes Diana one of my all-time favorite superhero. The end sequence in particular is absolutely triumphant, and left me grinning and satisfied in spite of the 300+ pages of confusion that preceded it. It was more of a meta-textual farewell to the DCU Diana than it was a logical storyline conclusion, but at this point I’ll take anything I can get. And it WAS lovely–I’ll be keeping Hippolyta’s words to Diana (as well as Dian’s final words to us, the reader) close to my heart as we take the plunge into the DCnU next month. As annoying as it can be to have characters speaking lines of dialog that are pretty clear author-insertion, I appreciated Phil Hester’s message a great deal.

Superman #714 – Review

By: J. Michael Straczynski & Chris Roberson (writers), Jamal Igle (penciller), Jon Sibal & Robin Riggs (inkers), Marcelo Maiolo (colorist)

The Story: Stop eating those French fries, Superman, have some self-respect!  Don’t you know you can fly?!

The Review: Superman has been around for so long, has been written by so many different kinds of writers, and has gone through so many permutations that it gets a bit harder every year just to give him a story that avoids the formulaic, let alone one that brings something new to the table.  And while “Grounded” as a premise made an admirable attempt to try break away from familiar plotlines, it long ago lost its novelty and is now knee-deep in clichés.

It doesn’t get any more so than Lois Lane in a threatening situation and Superman coming to her rescue.  To start off an issue with this kind of thing already tells us not to expect much in the way of mind-blowing material.  And even though you have zero doubt Supes will get Lois out of this safe and sound, it’s amusing to see him accomplish the task within the first three pages.  Not surprising, though; we all know Lois is just a tool to get Superman into action, nothing more.

That said, the action we get hardly counts as the big blowout you’d expect at the end of such a long, hyped story arc.  Part of the problem lies with our villain—I’m sure she mentions her name somewhere, but I don’t care enough to really remember or look it up—who nurses, predictably enough, a misdirected, personal vendetta against our hero, and has no qualms about stating it with ridiculous explicitness: “I want you to suffer, Superman!  Like you’ve made me suffer!”

I can only imagine Roberson’s fatigue with this storyline (it does feel like it’s gone on forever, doesn’t it?) has caused him to throw the dialogue to the wind, as it all falls into embarrassingly corny territory: “I am your shadow.  I am all of the doubts and fears you’ve been afraid to face!”  Superman’s response?  “What you are is annoying!”  Terrific rejoinder, big guy.  Your time on New Krypton clearly deprived you of practice in the art of American repartee.

Zatanna #9 – Review

By: Paul Dini (writer), Cliff Chiang (artist), John Kalisz (colorist), Adam Beechen (feature writer), Jamal Igle (feature penciller), Robin Riggs (feature inker)

The Story: What better way to treat the puppet that’s going to kill you than invite him to your home?  Also, Zatanna, junior sorceress, learns braces can really get you down.

The Review: Magic is an enormously potent sowing ground for stories.  Because it can do and be pretty much anything, it’s limited only by writer’s ingenuity—and by the writer’s skill.  Too often, especially in superhero comics, it gets used as story fodder for the characters, or a deus ex machina to explain away anything the writer can’t figure out more tangibly.  Because of magic’s elastic nature, writers have to create some physics for how it works in their stories.  When they don’t, magical stories easily become unconvincing, confusing, or just plain random.

Paul Dini may be starting to apply some rules to magic in Zatanna’s world—a good thing, especially for this particular character.  No two writers have ever portrayed her powers the same way, with the possible exception of her backwards-talk, and even that doesn’t get consistent treatment.  Despite all her many appearances throughout the years, you still don’t really have a handle on her abilities, and that’s partially because in the DCU, magic is so elastically defined by all the writers who have tried to use it that there’s no sense of order to it at all.

You can see this disorder every time Zatanna uses her powers in this issue, which always leaves you with a bunch of nagging questions.  For example, with her infamous “pots” spell, does she freeze time around the person?  Are they paralyzed?  If they’re paralyzed, how come the puppet can still talk?  Is it because he’s magicked already?  Can people think in this “deppots” state?  How long do they stay that way?  What are the spell’s limitations?  Sure, you can just accept it for what it is, but you’re sure to be bothered when it pops up again and works a different way.

Punisher Kills The Marvel Universe #1 – Review

By Garth Ennis (writer) Dougie Braithwaite (pencils) Robin Riggs Sean Hardy Don Hudson Michael Halblieb Martin Griffith, John Livesay (inks) Bill Oakley (Letters) Shannon Blanchard Tom Smith (colors)

This is wonderful and ridiculous for the same reason: The Punisher kills every hero and villain in the Marvel Universe. Even as weird and unrealistic as all of this sounds, it remains a totally entertaining and satisfying read.

Punisher’s origin remains similar, with a minor change – it’s heroes who kill his family – not the mob. From there, he kills Cyclops and Jubilee only to be sprung from jail by a wealthy group of investors who were disfigured in similar hero battles. These guys want to finance The Punisher’s quest for revenge to reach their goal of a hero-less society. Since Frank Castle’s not a super powered being, Garth Ennis makes sure to note that he’s outsmarting these guys not outfighting them. Doom, Kingpin, and Wolverine all give Castle a beating before he’s able to sneak out a win. Throughout the book Daredevil tries to bring The Punisher back  to reality, before it’s too late. The flashback of young Frank saving Matt Murdock from getting beat up really adds to the poignancy of the book’s final moments.

Dougie Braithwaite’s art compliments Ennis’ writing very well. It’s a nice trip down memory lane to see the mid-1990s art again. I like the implication of Castle’s murders rather than showing brains everywhere. Nothing against brains, but sometimes the imagination is worse than anything you can be shown. It’s a technique used to great effect here. A number of the heroes have similar faces which gets distracting. Aside from a wrinkle or scar Castle, Wolverine, Cap and others look the same. That said, everything else shows a lot of good detail especially the interior backgrounds. My biggest complaint is on a few different pages. While killing, Castle sometimes gets this panicked, war-cry look on his face. It implies that he’s out of control, or uncomfortable with what he’s doing. It just seems out of place for the character.

Punisher Kills The Marvel Universe holds up pretty well. It’s so over the top it’s almost funny at times, but the core of the book is the story which remains satisfying. There are better stories out there, and it’s harder to fully appreciate since it’s just an alternate time line story, but it’s a complete story and one no true Punisher fan should miss. (Grade: B)

-Ben Berger