Flashpoint: Grodd of War – Review

By: Sean Ryan (writer), Ig Guara (penciller), Ruy José (inker), Stefani Rennee (colorist)

The Story: When it comes to conquest, these gorillas don’t monkey around.

The Review: Violence, of course, has its place in fiction.  It’s an undeniable part of reality, and stories have to reflect that in some way.  But just like with anything else you write in fiction, it has to be put to some purpose, though when excessive it quickly loses its shock factor and gets simply nauseating.  This is especially the case in comics, where too often writers use violence to inject the energy or drama their stories lack.

This seems the case here, as Ryan keeps Grodd’s purposes hopelessly simplistic.  You can sort of appreciate Aquaman sinking half of Europe as a (presumably) unexpected casualty of a volatile weapon of war.  Grodd slaughters half of Africa for apparently no reason other than for attention.  He seems his most melancholy in the first page, when he laments no one knows his name despite his feats of massacre, and he later emphasizes his sole desire: “I want violence.”
Consequently Grodd comes off rather one-note throughout the whole issue, a wasted opportunity on Ryan’s part to develop the gorilla’s character.  Despite Grodd’s fame as one of the DCU’s most notorious (and weirdest) villains, you still have no idea what makes him tick.  His conquest for power and his hatred of humans are constants, but the former quality is one shared by almost every comic-book mastermind and the latter is too superficial to set him apart from the pack.

Batgirl #13 – Review

By: Bryan Q. Miller (writer), Pere Perez (artist), Guy Major (colorist), Harvey Richards (assistant editor), Michael Siglain and Sean Ryan (editors)

The Story: Trust: Batgirl swings into action on her day off to tangle with Clayface. Detective McHandsome plays the lad in distress.

What’s Good: Miller delivers classic Steph in the first few pages when he shows us how she lives at college. And where Detective Nick has been a romantic plot tease for a year, Miller finally scratches beneath his surface. It’s subtle, but the view of what’s underneath jacks up the tension by laying the groundwork for some inner conflict and some romantic obstacles that Steph will have to face later if she gets to pursue Detective McHandsome. And, as always, I love the Artgerm cover. Has this guy done interior artwork anywhere?

Secret Six #15 – Review

by John Ostrander (writer), J. Calafiore (artist), Jason Wright (colorist), Sean Ryan (editor)

The Story: Deadshot is having some problems. He’s having control issues with his homicidal tendencies. So he calls in an old confidante and has a chat. The story follows themes back and forth in time, to his formative years and to his first meeting with Batman. The only question is: Does he get his control back? Given the history of Deadshot and of the Secret Six, we really shouldn’t be sure about anything.

What’s Good: This story compels from beginning to end. Ostrander obviously knows what Deadshot is about and what his demons are. We get to look over his shoulder through this whole issue. DC has been doing a number of these stand-alone, single-character examinations lately and has been doing a good job. I liked the confidante character, who is someone we probably need to take us through Deadshot’s tortured past and see it with normal eyes. I also like the parallels he found in everything that Deadshot brought to the table.

On the art side, J. Calafiore really makes me love this book and I’m really happy that he’ll be back for issue 17 as well. Calafiore also has a good sense of how Deadshot needs to be shown on the page and the right camera angles to show bullets, blood, close ups, blood, sinister expressions, and blood. He’s not perfect, but I never got comfortable with Nicola Scott and Doug Hazlewood, so Calafiore is an improvement in my opinion. The sort of plastic feel that Scott and Hazlewood established has softened into something much warmer and more human here. The postures are more natural and the layouts tell a lot of story on their own.

What’s Not So Good: Some of Calafiore’s art is still a bit rough. The expressions he uses to show emotions are sometimes stiff. Considering how many people get shot in the head in this book, I also would have responded better to an artist able to show nerveless bodies responding to gravity. The falling corpses here shared the same stiffness I saw in the expressions.

As a stand-alone interlude, this book works, but it felt a bit detached from the series. Deadshot refers to story elements that happened almost a year ago, but he and the Secret Six are just coming off of a pretty traumatic experience with the slavers that nearly split them apart only an issue ago. This and the blunt ending, leading into nothing, make me believe that although this story is fun for the SS and Deadshot fans, the casual readers have an excuse to not get it, because it won’t have any effect on the continuity. I hope this is a minor point, but considering that Secret Six is hovering around 25,000 in circulation through Diamond (direct sales, doesn’t include subscriptions), DC maybe shouldn’t be taking too many reflective moments and should jump back into the action and the multi-book arcs.

Conclusion: This is a good, bloody character study for Deadshot fans and Secret Six Lovers, but it didn’t make itself a “must-buy”.

Grade: C

-DS Arsenault

Wonder Woman #37 – Review

by Gail Simone (writer), Bernard Chang (artist), Sean Ryan (associate editor), Elizabeth Gehrlein (editor)

The Story: Warkiller, Part 2: Diana’s early morning privacy is disturbed by Ares (whom we last saw with Diana’s axe in his head), who has come to promise her that even though he is dead, he isn’t done with her. He’s going to strike at her through her people, the Amazons. After he leaves, Diana does some heavy thinking, about the visit, and about who and what she has become and how her enemies have used her loved ones to strike at her. She chooses to head home, but every part of the greeting she gets is entirely unexpected.

What’s Good: Simone continues to hit the right notes with Diana, her strengths and her vulnerabilities. Simone makes her a kick-ass character with a lot of dimensions to her. She’s not just muscle. She’s got brains and heart too, which is what makes her different (and superior) to every other heroine in comics. (In my opinion, the only one who comes close to Diana in this respect is Claremont’s Ororo.) It also means that Diana’s solutions to problems end up being different than the ones of other heroes. Simone’s deft development of multi-dimensional characters does not end at Diana. I saw something new in Ares in this issue. Layering his resolve and his violence is a pain and regret that wasn’t there before. It is a measure of Simone’s skill that this does not diminish him, but makes him more intriguing. He’s no Magneto yet, but Simone has taken the first steps in that direction. Same goes for Alkyone and Achilles. I loved seeing the Amazon foreplay going on between them. Don’t worry. It’s nothing over the top, but the flavor is definitely more Klingon than romantic comedy.

What’s Not So Good: I know Bernard Chang’s been doing a bit of Wonder Woman art here and there, but his cartoony style feels like a step down from Lopresti, who really made Simone’s vision come alive for me. I checked out the DC website and Lopresti is listed as the artist for issue 38, so all I’ll say is that I hope he had a good vacation. I don’t think Chang is a poor artist. I just don’t think the style is right for Wonder Woman.

Conclusion: The mismatched artist really put this book off its game, despite a really great story by Simone. Still, this is the second part of a 4-issue arc, so you might not want to miss it.

Grade: C

-DS Arsenault