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Holmes (Omaha Perez; AIT/Planet Lar graphic novel): A story of Sherlock Holmes, narrated by John Watson. Perfectly normal, right? Exactly what you expect a Holmes story to be ... only not quite. In this case, we discover that HOlmes is seriously into drugs and may or may not be a touch unbalanced, and Watson is a man of mighty mighty appetites, who manages to clean up the stories considerably to present the both of them in a much better light before committing the stories to print. In this case, the skull of composer Joseph Haydn is stolen from a graveyard (a true event), and somehow winds up in London. Holmes immediately fixates on Moriarty as a possible suspect in the theft. Along the way to the solution, we make stops in the British Museum (it gets broken -- again), a bar with Holmes in very very bad drag, an opium den, a brothel (Watson is not only a man of mighty appetites, he also has -- to be a bit Victorian about it -- a mighty truncheon and he likes to use it), and of course back on Baker Street, where we discover that Mrs Hudson is a very longsuffering landlady indeed. The highly stylized art works well to convey the inner insanity of the story, and it's a fun read from beginning to end. A Very Good story.
Dan Dare #5 "The lights of a perverted science" (Garth Ennis/Gary Erskine; Virgin): In which Dan Dare is just as noble as you think he is, Sub-Commander Christian begins to have a teensy bit more confidence in herself and the very good decisions she's made lately, and we see that teleporting into an unknown space can be a truly awful idea (in a scene that somehow manages to be horrifying and a little funny, all at once). Ennis does this sort of old-style space opera really well, updating it ina way that manages to let you know what the appeal was at the time and still making it work today. Excellent.
Anna Mercury #1 (Warren Ellis/Facundo Percio):
Project: Superpowers #2 (but really #3) (Alex Ross, Jim Krueger/Carlos Paul; Dynamite):
Kick-Ass #2 (Mark Millar/John Romita; Marvel Icon): In which Dave spends most of the issue recovering from the titanic beatdown he got last issue -- including being stabbed, being hit by a car, and a broken spine, resulting in a very long hospital stay, a very long rehabilitation at home, and terribly spectacular hospital bills -- and then, having recovered, he goes out and does it all again, and gets beat up again. Honestly, the character is kind of incomprehensible at this point. He spends most of the issue upset about what he's put his father through, deciding that he's never going to be that stupid again, and then he goes out and does it all over again, because he can't stop. Apparently, being a very non-super hero is an addiction. Who knew? All that said, the story is weirdly compelling -- kind of like a train wreck. You kind of want to understand why he does what he does, but at the same time, it's hard to care, because he's being such an IDIOT. I honest have no idea whether or not I'm going to pick up issue 3 at this point. It's hard to care about a human of very little brain, you know?
Buffy the Vampire Slayer #13 "Wolves at the Gate, part 2" (Drew Goddard/Georges Jeanty; Dark Horse): Honestly, this is the first issue where I thought that the plot went CLANK, as though they were moving pieces because they needed people to be in a particular place at a particular time, and they sort of had to get them there through brute force. I mean, we discover that after Anya's death, Xander needed some "man time", so he went to stay with Dracula for a while. Right. He went to stay with a person whose defining characteristic in their relationship was that he controlled Xander's mind. And apparently, the thing between Robin Wood and Faith must have ended almost immediately, since he wasn't around to help with the whole "man time" issue. Elsewhere, Willow grills Buffy's booty call about what Buffy was like in the sack which ... no. Just ... no. All this seems to be in aid of getting the slayer army to Tokyo and out of the castle, to set up ... whatever it's setting up. Jeanty's artwork is perfectly good, but the writing doesn't serve it well. Really not a great issue.
Dave Stewart's Zombie Broadway (David Harris, Christine Schenley/Devaki Neogi; Virgin):
Dan Dare #5 "The lights of a perverted science" (Garth Ennis/Gary Erskine; Virgin): In which Dan Dare is just as noble as you think he is, Sub-Commander Christian begins to have a teensy bit more confidence in herself and the very good decisions she's made lately, and we see that teleporting into an unknown space can be a truly awful idea (in a scene that somehow manages to be horrifying and a little funny, all at once). Ennis does this sort of old-style space opera really well, updating it ina way that manages to let you know what the appeal was at the time and still making it work today. Excellent.
Anna Mercury #1 (Warren Ellis/Facundo Percio):
Anna Mercury is an agent for Launchpad, whatever that is, in New Ataraxia. She wears a suit that provides an induction field that she is under strict instructions not to use on people, so of course, she does it all the time. Sheol City seems to have secceded from New Ataraxia, which has taken that very badly, testfiring "the gun" on the bridge to Sheol. Anna has to figure out a way to prevent the gun from being lifted to Pendragon Moon, or to disable it, so that it can't be used against all of Sheol City. In the meantime, it turns out... well. I can't tell you that part, or it gives away the whole game. Let's just say that the last page realigns everything that you think you've seen.
The artwork and production design are seriously gorgeous. It's sort of Twenties, Art-Deco inflected. Anna Mercury herself has the most amazing masses of red hair. Anna Mercury herself is ... she reminds me of someone, the way she acts, but I can't quite figure out who it is. She's quite assured and self-confident, very take-no-prisoners attitude, and doesn't tolerate any sort of dissension from people on her own side.
Ellis and Percio have created a very interesting and dynamic world. It's going to be interesting to see where they're going to take it. (And, honestly, I'm looking forward to the issue 2 explanation that's certain to follow, given that last page.) Excellent; highly recommended.
Project: Superpowers #2 (but really #3) (Alex Ross, Jim Krueger/Carlos Paul; Dynamite):
In which the story moves along briskly. The Black Terror joins the fight on the rooftop against Dynamic Forces, and other heroes start appearing around the world. It's a lot of fun, and gorgeous to look at. That said, the cover is seriously misleading; the Death-Defying Devil and the Flame are the latest heroes to appear, but they're not the focus of the story, with maybe five or six total pages of the whole devoted to them. Very Good; Recommended.
However, herewith a small note: This title desperately needs a new logo. A logo that actually said "Project Superpowers" might be nice. (It gets shelved under S in the store I go to, which threw me at first; shouldn't it be under P? But no, because of that near-invisible S in the middle of the cover.) A larger, more distinctive logo that doesn't get lost when you've got a background of similar colors, as with this issue, would be good. A logo that's at least as prominent as the subsidiary character logos that have been appearing on each issue would be good. For that matter, if they're going to put characters and their logo on the cover, it would be a good idea if they actually appeared in more than a quarter of the story.
Kick-Ass #2 (Mark Millar/John Romita; Marvel Icon): In which Dave spends most of the issue recovering from the titanic beatdown he got last issue -- including being stabbed, being hit by a car, and a broken spine, resulting in a very long hospital stay, a very long rehabilitation at home, and terribly spectacular hospital bills -- and then, having recovered, he goes out and does it all again, and gets beat up again. Honestly, the character is kind of incomprehensible at this point. He spends most of the issue upset about what he's put his father through, deciding that he's never going to be that stupid again, and then he goes out and does it all over again, because he can't stop. Apparently, being a very non-super hero is an addiction. Who knew? All that said, the story is weirdly compelling -- kind of like a train wreck. You kind of want to understand why he does what he does, but at the same time, it's hard to care, because he's being such an IDIOT. I honest have no idea whether or not I'm going to pick up issue 3 at this point. It's hard to care about a human of very little brain, you know?
Buffy the Vampire Slayer #13 "Wolves at the Gate, part 2" (Drew Goddard/Georges Jeanty; Dark Horse): Honestly, this is the first issue where I thought that the plot went CLANK, as though they were moving pieces because they needed people to be in a particular place at a particular time, and they sort of had to get them there through brute force. I mean, we discover that after Anya's death, Xander needed some "man time", so he went to stay with Dracula for a while. Right. He went to stay with a person whose defining characteristic in their relationship was that he controlled Xander's mind. And apparently, the thing between Robin Wood and Faith must have ended almost immediately, since he wasn't around to help with the whole "man time" issue. Elsewhere, Willow grills Buffy's booty call about what Buffy was like in the sack which ... no. Just ... no. All this seems to be in aid of getting the slayer army to Tokyo and out of the castle, to set up ... whatever it's setting up. Jeanty's artwork is perfectly good, but the writing doesn't serve it well. Really not a great issue.
Dave Stewart's Zombie Broadway (David Harris, Christine Schenley/Devaki Neogi; Virgin):
A 56-page one-shot that's very ... well, it's ... it tries to ... look, it's a hot mess, ok? But it's a fun hot mess!
Somehow, some way, New York -- and apparently only New York -- has been attacked by a zombie plague disease. People catch it through physical contact with the zombies -- usually through the odd chomp. (Strangely, these zombies seem a bit less BRAAAAIN-centric than most of their type.) New York is down to two thousand people, and the president is about to order a nuclear strike on the city to get rid of all the zombies -- and somewhat incidentally, the surviving humans -- when it's discovered that music does, indeed, soothe the savage breast. That is, zombies seem to respond to music. And the director convinces the president to let him try to save the city by putting on a musical! ... no, really, that's what happens. Think "Andy Hardy" on a really big scale, only instead of a gung-ho farm boy, Andy is a sort of jaded soldier, and Judy Garland's ingenue is ... well, an ingenue, only with less actual singing. The conservative military and other people want to just go ahead and nuke the liberal sons-of-bitches off the earth anyway, but the president thinks they should give it a chance. We have a couple of romances (sort of), the damaged military veteran who may be looking for a reason to live or a way to die, the plucky ingenue, the jaded star, the slightly corrupt director in lust with the jaded star and possibly others ... really, all the stock characters are there.
You know those B-movies that SciFi televises? Those movies that are so desperately tacky that they sometimes give the very concept of "B-movies" a bad name? This aims kind of south of that. Maybe a D-movie. (But given the co-production agreement between Virgin Comics and SciFi, I wouldn't be terribly astonshed to see this become one of their movies.) The artwork fits the story, and it's a breezy fun read. Just, you know, not a story to think too much about. OK, but fun.