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Including: Devi 10, Sadhu 6, Buffy 3, Dark Xena 1, Hunter's Moon 1 and so on.
And I'm going to try, and no doubt fail, to do actual sort of capsule reviews with pretensions of shortness.
Singles:
Devi 10 -
Yeah ... capsule thing not working already. Oh, well.
Sadhu 6 - eh. This is also building to a big fight; like Devi, this one already feels like the big fight's results are somewhat preordained. Our hero has been warned and warned and warned not to do this, and yet he's charging ahead. One suspects this will not end well. That said, because of the structure of the series, we already know that our hero survives, however little he may deserve to do so. What we don't know is if he wins.
Walk-In 5 - Blah blah blah Expositioncakes. We really did need to know all they were telling us; unfortunately, there was so much exposition required that the story ground to a screeching halt. With an octopus on its head.
Gamekeeper 2 - And again, that was a surprise. Certain aspects, even allowing that this is Guy Ritchie's designated miniseries, were wrapped up much more quickly than I expected. (Although no less bloodily.) We learn what the other guys were after and why they wanted it, if not precisely who they wanted it for. We learn one of the things that motivates the Gamekeeper, and a bit more background. It's still a fascinating, interesting (if sometimes operatically gory and offputting) series, and I'm curious to see where it goes next.
(Purely a side note: the Virgin Comics site sucks. If you're putting out regular periodicals, you need to keep that thing updated.)
Xena Warrior Princess: Dark Xena 1 - In which we watch Gabrielle learn, again, to be careful what she wishes for. On the one hand, the concept is kind of fascinating -- nice to see how Joxer is alive again -- but on the other hand, because this is the third story arc (counting the annual), it's entirely lacking in tension. We already saw "Battle of the Pantheons", which was set after this one, and it was the Xena we all know and love, so clearly, Gabrielle succeeds -- no doubt after one hell of a lot of effort and pain, but she wins out. (There's also the mindbending aspect that they're essentially going to be reliving exactly the same period of time covered by the series, unless Cthulon -- no, really, Cthulon -- jumps them forward in time.)
Dynamo 5 #2 - a bit of character development and backstory for everyone, and, as before, the story gets a hard shove in unexpected directions near the end. More and more, I'm thinking that at some point, we'll discover that while Captain Dynamo was a genuine horndog, he was a horndog following his and his wife's plan. It simply defies belief that, in this day and age, he would have fathered so many children of such varied ethnic backgrounds, entirely without meaning to. Did he have super sperm that defeated birth control? In that case, he should probably have a few more children out there. In any event, this is the sort of series that I kind of want to point out to people who say that superhero comics are what they are and ne'er shall they e'er change. We got female characters who are more or less realistic, with costumes that more or less cover them up! (OK, one of them does have a moment when she's flying when you think, "She ought to be falling out of that thing and where's her nipples, anyway?" But she really does only have one frame like that.) We got minority characters who aren't tokens! (Although, that said, their backgrounds have not really been discussed; we've only very briefly seen them in their home contexts. I'm hoping for more of that to see how this works.)
Fables 61 - in which we see Flycatcher's heart continue to break, get unexpected information from Frau Totenkinder, and one monkey don't stop no show, but instead gets one started. Interesting character notes, but it does still have the feel of pieces being moved into place. Since the Adversary's end game is another three years of comic-time away, I hope things start moving along a bit more briskly.
Mr Stuffins 1 - So this is ... Well, it's ... and then there's ... It's an action hero stuffed into the body of a teddy bear, OK? There's industrial and other espionnage and this chip winds up in the head of a bear that's meant to remind us of Teddy Ruxpin, except that instead of just making him talk, the chip makes Mr Stuffins into an ass-kicking secret agent type. Who is, you know, about 18 inches tall. It's kind of an unspeakable amount of good, stupid fun. And despite the teddy bear, possibly not quite for kiddies; Mr Stuffins has got a mouth on him.
Satan's Sodomy Baby one-shot - Well ... it's exactly what it says it is. Frankly, I wouldn't have picked it up except for the kind of brilliant WARNING wrap around cover. Honestly, it's normally the sort of thing I might have fits over, what with the comedy butt-rape, but this is so very over the top that you have to be a very special sort of person to take offense. I mean, how can you hate something with deathless lines like "Quick, George, start praying for your anus!" and "Oh, holy baby Jesus! OW! Please save me from the evil seed that the vile Lucifer has deposited in my being." In case you were wondering, Jesus declines to intervene, and George brings forth into the world Satan's Extraordinarily Well-Hung Sodomy Baby. (I'm pretty sure they meant to put those extra words into the title, but they just forgot.) Wacky hijinks, ever-lengthening giant demon penises that spit fire, nipple tassels, mallets, jokes about Mr T and Eddie Murphy that I'm quite sure they won't appreciate, and mammaries ensue.
Salvador 1 - Hmm ... Well ... It's an entirely silent (no word balloons) title. The artwork is truly truly gorgeous, and necessarily moves the story; you can actually tell, fairly clearly, what's going on. The movement of the story is obvious. What's not obvious is any of the who or the why. I understood more or less exactly what had happened, but I didn't have a clue what the first panels meant, what was with the giant feathers, until I read the "coming attractions" blurb for this month's comics from Boom in the back. I honestly don't know if I just missed information, or if there's something that they're not telling you, and if the latter, I don't know if it's deliberate or accidental. And the reason that I'm not sure is...
Hunter's Moon 1 (James L. White, Boom)
And that's all for the floppies this time. Hopefully, a brief review of some graphickal novel type thingies will ensue. Someday. You know how it is.
And I'm going to try, and no doubt fail, to do actual sort of capsule reviews with pretensions of shortness.
Singles:
Devi 10 -
To quote one of Tara's last lines: "Well, that was a surprise." Honestly, I'd thought that Devi was intended as a maxi-series, rather than an ongoing title. It was clear that the storyline as it was then being presented in the first 9 issues would end in Devi saving the world (or possibly not), and once you've saved the world (or failed to do so), what else is there? And then issue 10 happened, and changed things radically. Aside from the fact that the Big Battle did, indeed, take place, nothing that happened was what you expected. The battle ended with a way forward mapped, possible conflicts outlined, and several surprises in store for some of the characters. (Feels rather Xena-like, actually.)
The primary quibble I have with the series at this point is not the story, but the art. While the backgrounds have remained insanely detailed and oddly dark, the character art has gotten less realistic and looser. It's not bad, but it would have been nice if it had started this way, rather thain having been more detailed at the start.
One thing I hope, now that the series is going to continue, is that the story will pick up what's supposed to happen in Tara's life. As far as her family and friends know -- remember? those people we saw back in issue 1? -- and as far as we've been told, Tara dropped off the face of the earth about a month ago in comics time. They have no idea where she is or what's happened to her. (You know, the one thing I'll give 52 is that you didn't have to keep in mind that between issues five and six, three weeks passed while Tara was in a coma, and from issue six through issue 10 a grand total of about a day and a half passed, and most of that in issue six.)
Yeah ... capsule thing not working already. Oh, well.
Sadhu 6 - eh. This is also building to a big fight; like Devi, this one already feels like the big fight's results are somewhat preordained. Our hero has been warned and warned and warned not to do this, and yet he's charging ahead. One suspects this will not end well. That said, because of the structure of the series, we already know that our hero survives, however little he may deserve to do so. What we don't know is if he wins.
Walk-In 5 - Blah blah blah Expositioncakes. We really did need to know all they were telling us; unfortunately, there was so much exposition required that the story ground to a screeching halt. With an octopus on its head.
Gamekeeper 2 - And again, that was a surprise. Certain aspects, even allowing that this is Guy Ritchie's designated miniseries, were wrapped up much more quickly than I expected. (Although no less bloodily.) We learn what the other guys were after and why they wanted it, if not precisely who they wanted it for. We learn one of the things that motivates the Gamekeeper, and a bit more background. It's still a fascinating, interesting (if sometimes operatically gory and offputting) series, and I'm curious to see where it goes next.
(Purely a side note: the Virgin Comics site sucks. If you're putting out regular periodicals, you need to keep that thing updated.)
Xena Warrior Princess: Dark Xena 1 - In which we watch Gabrielle learn, again, to be careful what she wishes for. On the one hand, the concept is kind of fascinating -- nice to see how Joxer is alive again -- but on the other hand, because this is the third story arc (counting the annual), it's entirely lacking in tension. We already saw "Battle of the Pantheons", which was set after this one, and it was the Xena we all know and love, so clearly, Gabrielle succeeds -- no doubt after one hell of a lot of effort and pain, but she wins out. (There's also the mindbending aspect that they're essentially going to be reliving exactly the same period of time covered by the series, unless Cthulon -- no, really, Cthulon -- jumps them forward in time.)
Dynamo 5 #2 - a bit of character development and backstory for everyone, and, as before, the story gets a hard shove in unexpected directions near the end. More and more, I'm thinking that at some point, we'll discover that while Captain Dynamo was a genuine horndog, he was a horndog following his and his wife's plan. It simply defies belief that, in this day and age, he would have fathered so many children of such varied ethnic backgrounds, entirely without meaning to. Did he have super sperm that defeated birth control? In that case, he should probably have a few more children out there. In any event, this is the sort of series that I kind of want to point out to people who say that superhero comics are what they are and ne'er shall they e'er change. We got female characters who are more or less realistic, with costumes that more or less cover them up! (OK, one of them does have a moment when she's flying when you think, "She ought to be falling out of that thing and where's her nipples, anyway?" But she really does only have one frame like that.) We got minority characters who aren't tokens! (Although, that said, their backgrounds have not really been discussed; we've only very briefly seen them in their home contexts. I'm hoping for more of that to see how this works.)
Fables 61 - in which we see Flycatcher's heart continue to break, get unexpected information from Frau Totenkinder, and one monkey don't stop no show, but instead gets one started. Interesting character notes, but it does still have the feel of pieces being moved into place. Since the Adversary's end game is another three years of comic-time away, I hope things start moving along a bit more briskly.
Mr Stuffins 1 - So this is ... Well, it's ... and then there's ... It's an action hero stuffed into the body of a teddy bear, OK? There's industrial and other espionnage and this chip winds up in the head of a bear that's meant to remind us of Teddy Ruxpin, except that instead of just making him talk, the chip makes Mr Stuffins into an ass-kicking secret agent type. Who is, you know, about 18 inches tall. It's kind of an unspeakable amount of good, stupid fun. And despite the teddy bear, possibly not quite for kiddies; Mr Stuffins has got a mouth on him.
Satan's Sodomy Baby one-shot - Well ... it's exactly what it says it is. Frankly, I wouldn't have picked it up except for the kind of brilliant WARNING wrap around cover. Honestly, it's normally the sort of thing I might have fits over, what with the comedy butt-rape, but this is so very over the top that you have to be a very special sort of person to take offense. I mean, how can you hate something with deathless lines like "Quick, George, start praying for your anus!" and "Oh, holy baby Jesus! OW! Please save me from the evil seed that the vile Lucifer has deposited in my being." In case you were wondering, Jesus declines to intervene, and George brings forth into the world Satan's Extraordinarily Well-Hung Sodomy Baby. (I'm pretty sure they meant to put those extra words into the title, but they just forgot.) Wacky hijinks, ever-lengthening giant demon penises that spit fire, nipple tassels, mallets, jokes about Mr T and Eddie Murphy that I'm quite sure they won't appreciate, and mammaries ensue.
Salvador 1 - Hmm ... Well ... It's an entirely silent (no word balloons) title. The artwork is truly truly gorgeous, and necessarily moves the story; you can actually tell, fairly clearly, what's going on. The movement of the story is obvious. What's not obvious is any of the who or the why. I understood more or less exactly what had happened, but I didn't have a clue what the first panels meant, what was with the giant feathers, until I read the "coming attractions" blurb for this month's comics from Boom in the back. I honestly don't know if I just missed information, or if there's something that they're not telling you, and if the latter, I don't know if it's deliberate or accidental. And the reason that I'm not sure is...
Hunter's Moon 1 (James L. White, Boom)
This is the sort of story that you never see with characters like these. Lincoln Greer, a Black lawyer, is planning to take his girlfriend on a hunting trip. His girlfriend, for her own business reasons, has to back out. Simultaneously, he gets a call from his ex-wife, saying that he needs to deal with his son, and she's going out of town, so this would be the perfect time. Needless to say, he's not entirely happy about all these developments. However, eventually he goes with the flow, and brings his son on the trip. His son is also profoundly displeased with events. Lincoln tries to reach out to his son, but gets rebuffed a lot, because his son rightly feels that he's been ignored by his father since his parents separated. Eventually, they sort of find a middle ground, and it looks like they're going to start making connections with each other.
And then the fun starts. Literally, just barely starts; the entire first issue is primarily about developing the relationship between Lincoln and his son, and setting up a couple of background things that you may not even realize are being set up until the end. This is a horror story, of the "evil that men do to each other" stripe. I think it may end up with some pacing problems -- 22 page chunks are not going to be kind to either character or story development in this case -- but I am curious to where it's going. This is also a story where the "coming attractions" section may have actually given away a bit too much story; it's truly unclear what happened at the end of the first chapter, but the coming attractions section tells you exactly what's happened and gives an outline of the next issue, which kind of takes away the entire, "What the hell...?" feeling that the first issue left you with. I don't know how much that compromises the story; I think we're meant to be as lost as Lincoln will be, and that's not going to happen.
In any event, it's an incredibly rare thing to see in popular media these days. A Black man, a success in business, trying in a ham-handed but sincerely meant way to repair his relationship with his son. I almost wish this wasn't happening in a human-horror context.
And that's all for the floppies this time. Hopefully, a brief review of some graphickal novel type thingies will ensue. Someday. You know how it is.
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