50 Girls 50 #4 – Review

By: Doug Murray & Frank Cho (writers), Axel Medellin (art), Nikos Koutsis (colors) & Thomas Mauer (letters)

The Story: The all woman crew of the Savannah have a final adventure on their trip home.

What’s Good: This comic has two big things going for it.  First, it is really pretty and features a lot of nice-looking women.  That’s all well and good.  I’d much rather look at pictures of pretty women than pictures of muscular men in skin-tight clothing, ya know?  But, pretty girls only carry a comic so far and this issue (and series) deliver on the story aspect too.

Granted, this series isn’t trying to be Watchmen, but sometimes I’d prefer to read a comic that is just trying to entertain than something that is all dark and gritty.  Each issue of this series has featured some clever little sci-fi problem that the women of the Savannah have run into as they try to get their vessel back to Earth: inter-dimensional beings, aggressive aliens, jungle planets that dissolve their spacesuits, etc.  In terms of feel and attitude, this comic reminded me a lot more of Star Trek: The Original Series than any of the later Star Treks that took themselves more seriously.

And, the art has been just grand.  While I’ve gotten familiar with Axel Medellin’s work through the pages of Elephantmen and this is earlier work for him, but he still knew how to draw pretty women (in the best Frank Cho style) so that they look curvy and fluid.  It’s just a skill that some artists have and some artists don’t….and Medellin has “it”.  One clever thing in terms of character design is how the uniforms (skin-tight, of course, because baggy clothes would just get snagged on stuff) have all these seams making them look a little like a wetsuit.  Theses seams give Medellin a way to accentuate the curves and give these women a stronger sense of energy, motion and depth than you’d normally expect.  From a coloring standpoint, I would have enjoyed less pronounced highlights, but the color palates are very pleasing to the eyes too.

Graveyard of Empires #2 – Review

By: Mark Sable (writer), Paul Azaceta (artist), Matt Wilson (colors) & Thomas Mauer (letters)

The Story: Zombies attack during the present day Afghanistan conflict.

What’s Good: In the first issue, Sable and Azaceta laid a lot of groundwork by showing us who these various Marines are as people.  Let’s just say that they weren’t all buddy-buddy.  That foundation paid off in this issue as the Marines were all trapped within their firebase as the shambling hordes descend upon them.  Now those tensions among them can start to fester as their social and military structure breaks down around their ears.

Then layered on top of this are the local Afghans.  They’d kinda like to come inside the base where it’s “safe” too.  Lots of interesting angles on that.  For sure you could point out how the Afghans were suddenly pretty happy to have Marines around when the shit hits the fan.  But, you also know that some of these folks aren’t going to have “survival of the group” at the top of their lists.

This tension illustrates one of the wonderful things about Romero-zombies for dramatic storytelling: Because they’re slow and lumbering, the humans have time to breath and relax a little bit, allowing tensions to rise up in a way that isn’t as easy with the trend towards “the infected” zombies that have come into vogue.  It’s hard to have human interest when the “zombies” run faster than you do.

The art is really nice.  Paul Azaceta doesn’t have an awkward panel in the entire issue, which is saying a lot when there are surely over 100 panels in the issue.  I also love how he knows when to have detail and when to get a little more vague with the characters as in one scene of a Marine shooting up zombies from a distance.  No need to go nuts drawing those zombies.  They’re far away, but we know what they are.  Good characters, nice acting, nice depth.  It has it all.  And the colors by Matt Wilson are really nice too.  For the most part it is a pretty drab book, but its nice to see a colorist who isn’t trying to foist primary colors on us when they wouldn’t be appropriate.

Dark Horse Presents #2 – Review

By: Paul Chadwick, Robert Love, David Walker, Michelle Davies, Diego Simone, Thomas Mauer, Neal Adams, Moose, Carla Speed McNeil, Jenn Manley Lee, Bill Mudron, Howard Chaykin, Jesus Aburto, Ken Bruzenak, Michael T. Gilbert, Patrick Alexander, Sanford Greene, Chuck Brown, Tyson Hesse, Steve Dutro, Richard Corben, Clem Robins, David Chelsea

The Story: Another round of Dark Horse’s reborn anthology series.

Review: Honestly, this issue was a real slog to get through.  Part of the problem is that there was no singular story that was just electric in this short format.  Some of them might mature into great stories, but anthologies are hard. You have to grab the reader right away!  If the issue starts with 3 stories that fail to capture the attention, the remaining part of the issue might be doomed.

Another problem with this issue was editorial.  By having most of the first half of the issue filled with stories that began in last month’s issue, we got a lot of second chapters.  All told, we got a second chapter of Concrete (Paul Chadwick), Blood (Neal Adams), Finder (Carla Speed McNeil), Marked Man (Howard Chaykin), Mr. Monster (Michael T. Gilbert), Murky World (Richard Corben) & Snow Angel (David Chelsea).  That is just waaaayyyy too many second chapters.  Second chapters don’t have as much novelty, but they also don’t finish stories, so they can be pretty boring.  And this issue was pretty drab.

The few new stories in this issue were the high points.  Robert Love and David Walker give us “Number 13” which is about a post-apocalyptic wasteland, Patrick Alexander gives us The Wraith which is a silly kinda spoof of an evil Batman and Sanford Greene and Chuck Brown trot out Rotten Apple which had an interesting twist on a zombie overrun world.  I really enjoyed all three of these new stories because they were fresh.

Editorial could have helped this issue out a bit by putting the new stories at the front to build some more excitement for the rest of the issue.  It also might be good to stagger the ongoing stories so that we don’t get a whole pile of Chapter 2’s again.

Gladstone’s School for World Conquerors #2 – Review

By: Mark Andrew Smith (writer), Armand Villavert (art), Carlos Carrasco & Andre Poulain (colors) & Thomas Mauer (letters)

The Story: Young super-villains continue their training, but the battle they are preparing for is not what it seems!

What’s Good: This comic is just all kinds of fresh.  Because of the art (both linework and colors), these 10-year-old super-villains don’t come off as brooding proto-monsters, but as rascally kids…and that makes all the difference in how this comic is perceived.  Even if they are kinda on the bad-guys side, they’re just so darn earnest and cute!  They attack their school lessons with gusto: taking down summoned sparring partners in the gym or mixing up monsters in a Hogwarts-style potions class.  And when they gather around the live TV coverage of a superhero vs. super villain battle, you’d think they were kids watching a WWE Pay Per View.

So much of this comic is just watching kids having fun and being larger than life.  Only the most black-hearted among us can fail to enjoy that!

What’s ironic about the enthusiasm for their studies that the young villains is that while the kids think they are being prepped to join the larger hero vs. villain battle… The events outside the school are not what they seem.  That will clearly be one of the central stories for the early parts of this series.

As mentioned above, the art really makes this comic.  Flat(ish) colors just kick all kinds of ass and it’s this type of coloring that makes this comic leap out at you from across the room.  And most of the colors are just bright and powerful reds, greens, yellows, etc.  Mix this together with very impish art and you’ve got a very fun book that is quite visually distinctive.

Graveyard of Empires #1 – Review

By: Mark Sable (writer), Paul Azaceta (art), Matt Wilson (colors) & Thomas Mauer (letters)

The Story: A zombie outbreak during the present day Afghan war.

What’s Good: Good zombie stories aren’t really about zombies.  Zombies are just a cool narrative device to do things like confine a bunch of people in a desperate environment and see what happens.  Who’s actually a nice guy?  Who will sacrifice others to save their own skin?  Who’s a bigot?  Who will take advantage of the situation to achieve a position of authority?  Who will abuse authority?

What’s great about this issue is that Sable and Azaceta set up the human element so well.  The zombies don’t even appear until the final pages, but before then we have a very frank look at a bunch of Marines based in present day Afghanistan.  The typical old saying about war (“long stretches of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror”) is very true in this issue.  They’re dealing with a nasty insurgency who is willing to use unwilling civilians as suicide bombers, language barriers with the local officials, local customs that they aren’t familiar with…it’s just a wholly foreign world and the creators beat that into your head.  These Marines don’t always even know who the enemy is and that causes a LOT of stress.  They also show us the boring down time: cleaning weapons, lifting weights, getting tattoos, looking at porn, wrestling, etc.

50 Girls 50 #1 – Review

By: Frank Cho & Doug Murray (writers), Axel Medellin (art), Nikos Koutsis (colors) & Thomas Mauer (letters)

The Story: The crew of an all female spaceship is lost in space.

What’s Good: Well, it’s Frank Cho and Axel Medellin, so you know there will be pretty ladies in it.  I guess there’s also the hint that it’s called 50 Girls 50…

What makes this an enjoyable title are two things.  First, it seems to be in that space opera end of the sci-fi genre that doesn’t get covered by comics all that much.  And I don’t count the Big 2 cosmic stories where so many of the central players (the Kree, Thanos, etc.) are known entities.  50 Girls 50 is all new and has that wonderful sense of discovery that is a part of any good space opera.

The basic story is that in the semi-near future, Earth learns about wormhole technology and launches a ship.  For scientific reasons that are (thankfully) left vague, wormhole travel is not compatible with Y-chromosomes, so the crew is all women.  But, what was intended to be their maiden voyage, goes wrong and the ladies are stranded in unknown space.

The other neat aspect of the story is something that you’d kinda expect with Cho and Medellin.  As a landing party sets down on a planet to investigate, suddenly you have women in space suits tromping through a jungle full of huge insects.  That would be pretty cool by itself, but surprise, there is some aspect of the planet’s atmosphere that dissolves their gear, so with each passing page, the comic becomes more cheesecake.  First, they’re in spacesuits, then the sleeves fall off, then its pants and half-shirts and by the end of the issue they’re running around the jungle in their undies.  Two things about this work nicely and keep it from being too exploitative.  One is the neat transition from a sterile spaceship environment to sweaty bodies and loincloths.  The other is that it is all done in the best cheesecake tradition with tongue firmly planted in cheek and where everything is teased, but not explicit.

Shuddertown #3 – Review

By: Nick Spencer (writer), Adam Green (art & colors) & Thomas Mauer (letters)

The Story: Hard bitten cop Issac Hernandez continues to try to solve a string of murders that seem to have been committed by people who are already dead.

What’s Good: Umm…..  I’m struggling here.  Actually, the good thing about this comic is that it gives me a chance to prove my “journalistic integrity” by saying bad things about a comic and a creator that I ordinarily really admire.  I typed up a glowing review of Nick Spencer’s Forgetless #5 just moments ago, so I feel not too bad moving on to the next portion of this review….