comickal: recently read, strong women (black and otherwise) edition

[iainpj]

Wish I'd saved Genius for this update. Oh, well. Who knew? Included this time: Anna Mercury 2, Tales of the Starlight Drive In, Robin 174, Robin/Spoiler Special 1, Devi 20, Checkmate volume 3, Rogue Angel 4.

Also, I use the word "awesome" a lot. It's that kind of set of reviews.



Anna Mercury 2 (Ellis/Percio; Avatar)

First off, the painted cover by Felipe Massafera is bloody gorgeous.

Second, this issue is awesome like an awesome thing of awesomeness. The concept which is only barely hinted at on the last page on issue 1 is fully unpacked, by the flight director of the Constellation project for the incoming prime minister, and by extension, the reader. It looked at the end of the first issue as though Anna Mercury were a character in a computer simulation, but it turns out that she's a real person (for comic book values of "real"), doing real things. The explanation involves, among other things, superstring theory and soap bubbles and pocket universes and alternate dimensions and boomerang theory and all sorts of other mad, weird science. It even manages to drag in the freakin' Philadelphia Experiment, of all possible things. (The briefing includes the Prime Minister's memorable line, "Look, please, I was distacted by the exploding people." The PM is then assured, "We don't explode. Not any more.")

The flight controller talks to the PM through the first third of the issue, with occasional shots of Anna on her way to Mandragon Moon, or Emplacement One. There's a neat little nearly four page silent sequence of Anna making her way through a New Ataraxian military facility to find another one of her moles. And then, of course, there's the moment that makes Anna say, "Shit. Shit bugger arsehole," followed by the awesome cartoon violence. The interesting thing to see through the entire section is how much Anna clearly enjoys her job -- this is, of course, even more interesting in light of the talking heads section, where the flight controller mentions that their agents tend to go insane, that Anna Mercury is the best special agent in the world, and "the betting pool says she was quite nuts before she got here."

Anna's actual character design is an odd combination of staggeringly sensible and truly silly. She has masses of violently red hair that she allows to flow free, which it does in flagrant defiance of anything gravity could be remotely assumed to be doing, and which nobody in her situation would allow. She also has a tight black catsuit with boots that have (GASP!) flat heels, which are eminently sensible for someone doing lots of sneaking around in the dark. The lurid magenta gloves that go up to her biceps, not so much. Even so, considering what major female superhero-ish characters tend to wear? It manages to be shockingly sensible and yet still reasonably sexy. Who knew?

Highly highly recommended. Seriously, go out and buy the thing. What are you waiting for?

Tales of the Starlight Drive In (Michael San Giacomo, Tyrone McCarthy and various writers/various artists; Image)

The general idea is that Tales follows the people who run and come into the Starlight over the course of a helf-century, from 1955 through the epilogue 2008. The idea was that each story had to continue the "story" being told. Each story also had to have movies showing at the Starlight, which also somehow related to the individual story being told. Sort of like those serial mysteries, where someone does one chapter, then the entire thing gets passed to the next author to write the next chapter, and so on; the story can get up and veer in a different direction, depending on what the next writer in line decides to do. Each short story, despite continuing the thread, is also complete in itself. The 26 stories are primarily comics, with a few illustrated prose stories thrown into the mix.

There are a few recurring characters throughout the book. Adam starts the story, with his family moving into the house across the street from the Starlight in 1955. We follow him from childhood through high school and becoming the assistant manager of the Starlight, finding the woman who becomes the love of his life, until he's drafted and goes to Vietham. He comes back later, picking up sort of where he left off. We also follow, somewhat more intermittently, Peggy. She starts off as an overweight 13-year-old, desperately wanting to find friends when she's one of the new kids. The cool kids lie to her and trick her into a situation where she gets gang-raped by the rich boys; Adam (in high school with her at the time), manages to make them stop, along with help from some of the other girls who realize what's happening. Peggy winds up developing a case of bulemia -- if she'd been pretty and skinny, that would have made her more popular, and they wouldn't have done that to her, she seems to think, which is heartbreakingly sad. Oddly, there's no follow-through on this; it simply goes away. There are a couple of spots like that where it seems clear that San Giacomo didn't quite think Peggy's character development through all the way.

The third major character is June, a black woman, and honestly, she's kind of impressive, especially for her day. We first see her in "Cadiz", the 1972 story, talking to Neil, the projectionist, about the old manager who recently died. We next see her briefly in 1975 and again in 1981's chapter, "The Starlight Goes Pink" (in which an assistant manager goes behind her back and tries to show porn movies -- this rather predictably does not go well). She really starts to show her character in 1985's "Lost in America", in a battle of wills with a family camping out more or less legally in the Starlight. We don't really find out about her until the "June 1990" prose piece, where we find out exactly what she did that got her hired by the owners of the Starlight, and what she does to get fired by them, and it's generally pretty awesome all around.

One of the interesting things to see is that the character designs change as the years pass, and they age normally. Adam mostly just grows up, gets taller, and gets older. Peggy loses weight, goes away, gains a bit more and settles into herself. June gains weight, and her hair changes styles as time passes.

There are a few missteps. The worst are the two Phantom Jack stories that San Giacomo allows himself to insert. Yes, OK, it's his character and his story. Nonetheless, the idea is that the characters and stories are supposed to advance the overall thread and theme, and Phantom Jack rather noticeably fails to do that. It's pretty clear that the only reason that the stories are there is so that San Giacomo can signal the reader that the stories are still around, that they've been rescued from the depths of the Speakeasy failure. And yes, that's nice to know; it would have been nicer if the stories hadn't intruded into a place where they really didn't quite work. Another comes in the "Epilogue 2008", albeit a very small one; Adam winds up not recognizing Peggy, despite having seen her in a very memorable way in 2002. Oddly, the story is written as though he hadn't seen her then; odd because San Giacomo notes that the epilogue was a late addition, and he had time to read the entire thing before adding the epilogue. Tales was originally meant to come out through Speakeasy, but got held up by that company going under, thus allowing time for the epilogue.

Missteps aside, it's an enjoyable, worthwhile read. If you like quiet character studies -- even when one of the characters is a drive in -- then you'll like this. Highly recommended.

Helen Killer #2 (Kreisberg/Rice; Arcana): In which the question is answered about whether Helen will be able to save McKinley, and just how alternate is this history, anyway? Anne Sullivan continues to diasapprove of Helen's using the omnicle specifically, and of this mission generally. We also see Helen possibly falling for Agent Blaylock, who has perhaps the squarest and most stalwart jaw this side of Superman. She also discovers the head of the presidential assasination conspiracy and follows him through what may be the most awesome chase sequence ever. For people who like fight comix, there's a stunning sequence involving Helen, the conspirators, her staff, an impressive roundhouse kick to several faces, and swords. Helen also sees her reflection for the first time ... or rather, she sees Phantom's reflection, which isn't quite the same thing. I really love Rice's black and white art, and the surprisingly lush detail he manages to create. And I'm really looking forward to next month's issue to see how they get Helen out of the situation she's in, and into the outfit she wears on the cover of issue 3, which seems most unlike her. Highly recommended. (Helen Killer issue 1 and 2 were previously available through Wowio, but that service has been acquired and temporarily shuttered, so heaven only knows if it'll be back there; the new owners are supposedly allowing worldwide access, so I suspect that there's going to be a lot that gets removed.)


Checkmate volume 3: Fall of the Wall (Rucka/Bennett/Samnee; DC)

In which all of Amanda Waller's machinations come home to roost, and she's at last taken down by the kings, the other queen and the bishops. We start out by seeing how Sasha and Mr Terrific began their affair. We also see the reunion (yes, again) of Fire and Ice. Somewhere in the middle of that, we get the creation of Checkmate's new Castellan, who manages the Castle's physical and virtual security. It all ties together because Waller's used Fire to circumvent Checkmate in the past, because she tries to blackmail Sasha and Terrific over their affair, because she tries to compromise the new Castellan. She does get taken down, of course -- it's called "The Fall of the Wall" for a reason -- but in a way that's totally unexpected. That said, it ties into the new Suicide Squad run in a way that makes it make a bit more sense. And let's face it: not only did Waller bring this all upon herself, but it never made even the slightest sense that she was one of the queens of Checkmate, given her past. It worked, but the idea that the UN would allow her to become the head of its major organization for monitoring meta activity was ... baroque, really. Mind, "the fall" is only a fall to a certain extent; we already know that she goes over to become the formal head of Suicide Squad, which is where she belonged in the first place. Waller's the sort of character that it's a pleasure to watch in fiction, but who'd be more than a little terrifying if she were real.

The last section of the issue covers a mission undertaken by Josephine Tautin, a.k.a Mademoiselle Marie, the black queen's knight. We see the history of the title "Mademoiselle Marie", how it's considered one of the most honored codenames in French history, never mind French intelligence, and what you have to do to earn that appellation. The mission relates to Josephine's past, and the things she had to give up to become Mademoiselle Marie, and it's a really interesting character study, as well as the sort of gritty espionnage story in which Rucka excels. Overall, highly recommended.

Robin 174: "The Three" (Dison/Batista/Smith; DC)
robin/Spoiler Special #1 (Dixon/Albuquerque/Ibanez; DC)

...Yeah.

Stephanie's resurrection reads, oddly enough, as though it were an indulgence granted to Dixon, that possibly he requested it, and editorial couldn't see any reason why not. In light of what's going to be upcoming in Batman RIP, with both Bruce and Alfred being sidelined and/or disappeared, I can see the argument being made: Look, you're going to leave the kid for a prolonged period of time with Dick and Nobody Else! Nobody! You need to give him someone else in his life that he can talk to; the stories just don't work with him that isolated. And that makes a sort of sense. However, resurrecting Steph this way produces major difficulties. First, the idea that Batman wasn't sure that Stephanie was still alive is simply ludicrous. Maybe Leslie doesn't want to talk to him any more; does anybody seriously believe that he wouldn't track her, given what she's meant to him? He's not real big on paying that much attention to what someone else wants. Now, that he was certain, but chose to keep it from Tim because Steph clearly didn't want people in Gotham to know she was alive, that I would buy. That said, it's a terribly facile explanation of why there wasn't a memorial in the Batcave. The other major issue, however, is the idea that Steph let her own mother think that she was dead, that she allowed some poor girl to be buried in her place, that she allowed everyone she knows to suffer through that. She said that she wanted to get away from everything, but her identity wasn't exposed except by her "death". All she had to do to get away was go away.

Understand: I wasn't paying much attention to Batman at that point in time. I really have no opinion on "War Games" and "War Crimes". But her resurrection is for crap. Nice to have her back, I suppose, but wish it had been better handled.

The Special also has its own problems. I mostly like "Puddles", the first story, but I kind of hate Albuquerque's art for that story. It's so highly stylized that it somehow makes Tim look as though he might be twelve, with puberty lurking around some distant corner somewhere. Mind, the story does contain one of those textbook moments where you realize that everyone around superheroes is just criminally stupid about secret identities. Tim and Steph tell the girl they're about to save to hide in her room and not to look out. Strangely, despite the fact that people are trying to kill her, and as far as she knows Tim and Steph are just kids like her, that's exactly what she does. Seconds later, Robin and Spoiler appear. Robin's a a very short young man, and Spoiler's a woman. Hmm.... But honestly, the one thing that threw me is Tim's insistance on being called Tim Wayne, and not Tim Drake. For a teenager that's been newly adopted, and who loved his father, and whose father died in tragic circumstances somewhat related to his son's clandestine business ... that's just wrong. It's not right for any teenager under those (admittedly unusual) circumstances, and it really doesn't seem right for Tim in particular.

The second story, "Katavi", in which we see what inspired Steph to come back to Gotham ... ugh. I actually like Ibanez' art just fine, but the story itself, it bites the big one. The idea that Steph has to save the ignorant Africans from their ignorant and malicious witch doctor, who considers vaccinations and medicine to be interfering and evil ... well, let's just say that it makes me twitch. Hard. Mind, Steph does mostly fail at that. She does succeed in saving Leslie ... who might not have been hurt without her antics.

Now that Dixon's been fired off Robin for whatever reason, and one of the Batman editors has gone off to Marvel, it's going to be interesting to see what direction it goes. He does have the Batman RIP tie-in issues still to come, but it'll soon be all new people.

I would imagine that Robin won't make much sense as a continuing title without 174, but that's the only reason I'd suggest that anyone read it. And if there was a way to tear the Special in half, I'd say that "Puddles" is mostly worthwhile, but "Katavi" should be skipped.

Devi 20 (Mohapatra/Chandrasekhar; Virgin): in which the Iyam, Daanvi and Daaga stories are resolved through another issue long fight sequence, involving multiple arms and a gasoline tanker truck, and a startlingly literal deus ex machina (which, yes, OK, there's a goddess around, so that's kind expected on any given day, but not quite like this). The situation involving Tara and her sister is rather notably not resolved -- not that there was any space for that -- so I assume we'll be hearing more about all that in upcoming issues. Oddly, Tara/Devi doesn't actually resolve the situation herself; it's taken care of by someone else. Which works, but it's odd to have your main character be more or less sidelined when the solution comes, despite fighting throughout the issue. Anyway, Recommended as always.


Rogue Angel: Teller of Tall Tales #4 (Barbara Randall Kesel/Renae de Liz; IDW): In which Annja extricates herself and the people with her from a particularly sticky situation, with a bit of unexpected help. She then pursues the bad guys, and gets herself into an even more sticky situation, but not until there's been a bit of swordplay and an explosion and a fire or two. The art seems somehow more heavily stylized this issue than in past issues, a bit more cartoony, and it makes Annja look really peculiarly young in some frames. (There is a rather nice kick to the face, albeit not as spectacular as a Helen Killer kick.) The cartoonier sections really don't work with quite such a grim story -- a more realistic style would work better, and in places, that's exactly what we see. The art is really oddly variable this issue. It's never loose or bad, just variably realistic or cartoonic. Nonetheless, it's still a fun read. The series as a whole is quite recommended.