The Avengers in the Veracity Trap

The Avengers in the Veracity Trap is the latest graphic novel in Abrams Books' MarvelArts line. It's by Chip Kidd and Michael Cho. Like the previous MarvelArts release, Ross' Fantastic Four: Full Circle, it's a visual treat: the color and design is fantastic, and Cho's art perfectly captures the Marvel Age vibe, down to sort of meta touches like every character being introduced in a Mighty Marvel Pin-Up.

Storywise, it starts with an Avengers brawl with a host of Kirby-style Marvel monsters, courtesy of Loki, but soon develops in an even more metatextual direction as Thor pursues Loki outside the realm of the comic. The Avengers soon must come to terms with the sense-shattering reality of their existence and the fictional counterparts of Kidd and Cho finding the story becoming all too real!

What could easily have been either an extended joke or a saccharine nostalgia piece, manages to do a little of both, and avoid going too far in either direction. The affection the creators feel for these characters come through, but they keep it all moving.

In the end, Kidd and Cho get to do what they do best, as do the Avengers, and the team-up put an end to Loki's schemes.

Veracity Trap is available digitally, but something that's something looks this good and that is fundamentally about the love and impact of those Silver Age stories deserves to be read in physical form.

Paperback Flashback: Thief of Llarn

Having recently revisited Gardner Fox's Sword & Planet novel Warrior of Llarn, 1966's Thief of Llarn. Poor Alan Morgan can't relax into married life with the beautiful princess Tuarra of Karthol because the thieves' guild of Llarn is stealing all the ultra-rare, precious stones called verdals. One of which happens to be in Tuarra's wedding ring.

On their way to consult with some scientists in another city-state, Morgan and his wife are waylaided by an immortal, psychic entity, who also is very much concerned about the verdal thefts. He forces Morgan to go undercover for him under threat of death rather than, you know, just teaming up. As the legendary thief, Uthian the Unmatched, Alan Morgan must steal a verdal from a remote, ancient city, then infiltrate the thieves' guild to find out who has commissioned these crimes and why. As is typical with this sort of thing, it is a leader with designs on conquest and a super-weapon.

This sequel is, I think, better than the first. Where Warrior of Llarn, while colorful, followed the predictable points in the Sword & Planet Hero's Journey, this one is freed from those restrictions. There are couple of interesting perils and new cultures and the character of super-thief Uthian the Unmatched brings a bit of Sword & Sorcery verve to things, even if he's only Alan Morgan playing a role. The Tower of Ten Thousand Deaths was neat as was the variegated force field that protected the verdal Morgan had to steal. He seemed like something that might have appeared in Fox's Adam Strange.

Paperback Flashback: Planet of Peril

Continuing with some Sword & Planet reading, I decided to check out one of ERB's earliest imitators: Otis Adelbert Kline. Kline was an editor and literary agent predominantly, but he wrote a number of adventure stories in a Burroughsian vein in the 30s and 40s. The Planet of Peril, serialized in Argosy All-Story Weekly in 1929, is his first planetary romance, and the first of a trilogy about Robert Grandon of Terra on the planet Venus.

Overall, the beats of the story are various much in the mold of A Princess of Mars. Grandon arrives on Venus (Zarovia) by telepathic transmission, gets in some danger, meets a friend, meets a girl, then has numerous perilous episodes before he and girl can be united marriage. And of course, Grandon ascends to a place of rulership. 

Kline's prose is probably as good as Burroughs' and his adventuresome perils are as imaginative as the typical Burroughs work (if maybe not quite as good as ERB's best): there jungle beasts, intelligent, giant ants, and lecherous potentates. The pace is quick and punctuated with serialized adventure fiction cliffhangers. Kline seems to have put just as much thought into his Venusian neologisms and invent biosphere.

The differences between The Planet of Peril and the Barsoom stories are interesting. John Carter's combat prowess is explained by his status as a sort of eternal "fighting man." Grandon, by contrast, is just a bored rich guy. On the other hand, Grandon's transport to Venus is given more of a story justification (if a pseudoscientific one) rather than just happening. Also, unlike the Barsoomians, Kline's Venusians can and do employ armor when it would benefit them to do so. Vernia has the interesting wrinkle of being more of an antagonist than Dejah Thoris, but on the other hand, Kline doesn't sell her allure with near the facility that Burroughs does his Martian princess.

Overall, if you like Burroughs' planet romance fiction, you'll probably like Kline's.

Fantastic Four: First Steps

Last night, I caught Fantastic Four: First Steps. It's been a good summer for superhero fans, with films from both Marvel and DC that easily above average for the genre. It's unfortunate, perhaps, that coming out in close proximity means the films will inevitably be compared to each other.

Like Superman, FF eschews the origin story to jump into a universe where the characters are already firmly established (4 years for the FF, 3 years for Superman) and well-loved by the public. FF pits new challenges against its protagonists, who are both heroes, celebrities, and effectively politic players through what is (I guess) an NGO. The first is a happy one: Sue's pregnancy. The second is the arrival of the Silver Surfer (though the name is never used in the movie, I don't think) who heralds the coming of Galactus.

Again, like Superman, FF gets a bit episodic with the overall narrative, as the team conceives and tries and generally fails at different means of stopping the threat. Franklin Richards is born in what may be films first zero gee birth sequence while they are feeling Galactus' relentless herald through space, after a failed attempt to negotiate with World Devourer.

FF has a more serious tone that Superman, despite having a bit less darkness to it. (While the world is imperiled there are no on-screen murders or torture, for instance). There are less jokes, though, and decidedly less of the typical Marvel quipiness.  The warmth of the team and their connection as a family does come through, though.

If I have a complaint about the film, it is with these family dynamics. The often (in the comics) fractious team members are pretty harmonious. A reasonable choice given how plot heavy it is, but none of the team get any sort of individual arc, except arguably Reed. There are gestures in that direction, but only gestures. Reed and Sue get a decent amount of character development and a bit of growth, but Ben only has the surface features of his comic portrayal, and Johnny, his hot-headed youth and womanizing attenuated to only shadows, doesn't really have anything else to replace, save perhaps a certain impatience and doggedness. He's worst served by the script.

Still, the performances are good with what they have to work with. There are tense sequences. The mid-century design sensibility manages to break the Marvel sameness to give it a distinct style. Galactus maybe should have been worked on a bit more to shore up imposing solidity, but we do get to see a giant in a goofy helmet stride through New York City, as that's something.

Paperback Flashback: Warrior of Llarn

I'm rereading a pulp novel from the 1964 I read a few years ago (well, technically I'm listening to it as a audiobook this time).

Gardner Fox isn't exactly known for his great contributions to literature, though he made substantial contributions to Golden and Silver Age DC Comics. According to Wikipedia, he's co-creator Barbara Gordon, the original Flash, Hawkman, Hawkgirl, Doctor Fate, Zatanna and the original Sandman, and he's estimated to have written more than 4,000 comics stories. He also wrote a number of stories for pulp magazine in their heyday, and I feel like his work is always competent, and often above average for their output.

Warrior of Llarn is a Sword & Planet yarn in the vein of Burroughs' Mars and an original paperback, not a fix-up of his older pulp work. Earthman Alan Morgan gets transport to a distant world by means as yet mysterious. He saves a princess and gets involved with a war between two civilizations. The level of technology of the world is a bit higher than Barsoom, and Fox provides a Dune-esque (a year before Dune) explanation for why people with energy weapons might still use swords. Like Fox's earlier Adam Strange stories for DC, the planet has suffered a nuclear war in the past, which is the cause of its strange creatures and current lower level of civilization. Fox's story is old fashion, even quaint in many ways, but he's accomplished at delivering the goods. Whatever the books faults, it's not boring.

Fox wrote a sequel, Thief of Llarn, which, if memory serves, is a bit better than the first.

Jame Gunn's Superman

Last night, I attended a special showing of James Gunn's Superman. My short review is: I liked it a lot. I think it's the best Superman movie ever (with the caveat that it likely wouldn't have been made without an existing tradition of Superman films to build and comment upon), and one of the best superhero movies period.

I was a bit worried, honestly, when I heard Gunn was going to helm this one. I've enjoyed his previous films, but they often engage in a level and type of humor that while fine on an individual film level, I have come to like less when it's the standard for superhero films. There's often not a lot of space in the movies between having fun with superheroes and making fun of them. 

Also, as specifics for this film became to come out, I had other concerns. It seemed like it was overstuffed, like Gunn was trying to jumpstart an entire universe with one movie. That sort of ambition has proved hubris for superhero movies before, I feel like. The Marvel Cinematic Universe, I think most everyone would agree, seems at times to be spewing out product solely to point to future products.

Happily, my fears weren't realized. The film has humor, yes, but it isn't farcical or even particularly quippy in the tired manner of CMU films. It does eschew any of the reverence or perhaps mythic tone that has been a part of Superman's cinematic portrayals since the first Donner film--to the detriment, I think, of later films like Superman Returns or Man of Steel. This film is lighter, definitely, but critics of the "darkness" of the Snyder films should reckon with this films inclusion of government sanctioned extralegal detention, torture, Lex Luthor murdering an innocent man to coerce Superman, an extralegal execution by a superhero, and a shocking (well, as shocking as something that was foreshadowed with the subtlety of a flare) reveal about Jor-El and Lara.

Through this all, Superman, however, stays good and strangely innocent. This is the character at his most "Blue Boy Scout." It's to a degree not seen, perhaps, since the Superfriends. Gunn seems to have gotten an aspect of the pre-Crisis Superman (perhaps from Morrison's All-Star Superman) that isn't much talked about where Superman suffers indignity and hurt to solve problems in the name of not resorting to violence or at least to minimize violence before he acts. It's a thing that most sets his stories apart from Marvel Comics stories or even his fellow headliner at DC, Batman. While it likely started as a means to not have stories end too quickly through use of amazing power ultimately sort of became a character trait.

The film is perhaps objectively a bit of a too rich superhero confection, but its kind of in media res plotting makes things move along so that it's not ponderous. Further, the inclusion of multiple other heroes doesn't seem to be merely to build a universe. The narrative needs those other heroes so we can see Superman inspiring others to be better, and we can feel the limits of his personal abilities. Even Superman sometimes needs a friend.

There are things I didn't care for. The Kents are rural caricatures in a way they've never seen before and that's distracting and unnecessary. It might be a mistake to have Lois raise very good points about the unilateral use of force in complicated geopolitical situations only to ignore them, or perhaps imply it's okay 'cause Superman's really, really good.

But dodging ethical questions and realistic implications has a long history in comics, so I can't get too upset about it here. Questionable portrayals of the Kents are hardly new to Superman media. 

Overall, these feel like talking about the icing. The cake is really good.

Comics I Liked This Week

 Not all of these were new last week, but that's when I got around to reading 'em!

Absolute Martian Manhunter #1: I a fan of Martian Manhunter and particularly a fan of new interpretations of the character from the DeMatteis/Badger limited series, to American Secrets, to the underappreciated series by Orlando and Rossmo. This title sits firmly in that tradition with a first issue that is something like the traditional origin of Martian Manhunter meets Shade, the Changing Girl, and I dig it.

An FBI agent, Jones, is nearly killed in a bombing and since he's been having hallucinations and seems disconnected from his life. As he (against orders) investigates the bomber and tries to make sense of his motives he discovers the was only saved by somehow bonding with an alien intelligence. Or possibly that Other is a manifestation of something already within him--maybe his own mind? At this point, it's unclear. Deniz Camp's story is intriguing and well done, but I feel like the really star here is the psychedelic art of Javier Rodriguez, that reminds me of the pop art inspired comics work of Guy Pellaert or Alberto Solsona.

Bug Wars #1: This one is on issue 2, I think. Slade Slaymaker, along with his brother and mother, is forced to move back into the home where his entomologist father died a grisly death. It's a home with secrets. Not the least of which is that there are warring tribes of diminutive insect-riding humanoids having epic battles in the unkept backyard!

Ad copy calls this "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids meets Conan" but I feel like Aaron and Asrar are fulfilling the promise of Sword of Atom or the Hulk stories set in Jarella's world in a gritter, modern way.

The Seasons #1: This title from Remender and Azceta is actually on issue 3 now. The series is set in an alternate 1920s (I think).   A decade ago, the parents of the Seasons sisters disappeared. Now Autumn has discovered where they might be, and how it might be connected to a creepy carnival that has just arrived in New Gaullia where Spring Seasons is. Will Spring be able to avoid falling prey to the carnival's clowns?

Remender said that they wanted to do something that paid homage to "paid homage to Tintin, Miyazaki, Winsor McCay, and Jeff Smith’s Bone." I feel like those influences are very much on display in the style and setting of the first issue. There's also a tinge of horror lurking in the background that adds intrigue to the whimsy.

Captain America: Brave New World

I saw the new Captain America movie this weekend. It continues the adventures of Sam Wilson as Captain America. Those that missed The Falcon and the Winter Soldier Disney+ series might have missed that he took over the mantle from Steve Rogers sometime after the events of Avengers: Endgame. It also features a new Falcon, Joaquin Torres, and a host of other characters from previous Marvel films, including some call backs to the early days of the franchise.

In brief, Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross has been elected president, and Wilson has been working with them despite tensions that remain from the period of Captain America: Civil War. Ross even asks Wilson to consider restarting the Avengers. Ross has secrets, though, and events put Wilson at odds with his Commander-in-Chief as he strives to clear the name of a friend and prevent a hidden mastermind from starting a war.

I probably liked this installment of the Cinematic Marvel Universe better than I've liked most Marvel films since about 2019.  It was less jokey than average, which was nice, adhering to the template of Winter Soldier.

My brother observed that it's a very Bronze Age Comics movie, and I think he's right. Not in the basic elements of the story which are a mix of (original) Ultimate Universe realism and 21st Century characters and arcs, The structure, however, of things partakes (like Winter Soldier) of 70s political thrillers and the call backs and tying of loose ends of less successful Marvel films (The Eternals and The Incredible Hulk) recalls the way writers would finish off stories with guest appearances in other titles, particularly team-up books like Marvel Two-in-One or Marvel Team-Up. It plays very much like the Captain America Annual dealing with story elements from the aborted Eternals and Hulk runs.

DC Comics in 1983 (part 2)

Here are links to second half of my week-by-week reviews of the DC Comics published in 1983 by cover date. It was a real turning point that saw new characters, new directions, and a lot of experiment. Part 1 was last week.

• October 1983 (week 1)
• October 1983 (week 2)
• October 1983 (week 3)
• October 1983 (week 4)
• November 1983 (week 1)
• November 1983 (week 2)
• November 1983 (week 3)
• November 1983 (week 4)
• December 1983 (week 1)
• December 1983 (week 2)
• December 1983 (week 3)
• December 1983 (week 4)
• January 1984 (week 1)
• January 1984 (week 2)
• January 1984 (week 3)
• January 1984 (week 4)
• February 1984 (week 1)
• February 1984 (week 2)
• February 1984 (week 3)
• February 1984 (week 4)
• March 1984 (week 1)
• March 1984 (week 2)
• March 1984 (week 3)
• March 1984 (week 4)

DC Comics in 1983 (part 1)

1983 in many ways was an important year for DC Comics. New superheroes titles (Batman & the Outsiders, Omega Men, and Infinity, Inc.) with some new characters hit the stands in the wake of the success of New Teen Tians. At the same time, they took chances with different content in various (mostly limited) series (Ronin, Camelot 3000, Amethyst: Princess of Gemworld, Thriller, Nathaniel Dusk). And of course, a British writer by the name of Alan Moore took over the writing of Saga of Swamp Thing.

Here are links to my week-by-week reviews of the DC Comics published in the first 6 months of 1983 by cover date:

• April 1983 (week 1)
• April 1983 (week 2)
• April 1983 (week 3)
• April 1983 (week 4)
• May 1983 (week 1)
• May 1983 (week 2)
• May 1983 (week 3)
• May 1983 (week 4)
• June 1983 (week 1)
• June 1983 (week 2)
• June 1983 (week 3)
• June 1983 (week 4)
• July 1983 (week 1)
• July 1983 (week 2)
• July 1983 (week 3)
• July 1983 (week 4)
• August 1983 (week 1)
• August 1983 (week 2)
• August 1983 (week 3)
• August 1983 (week 4)
• September 1983 (week 1)
• September 1983 (week 2)
• September 1983 (week 3)
• September 1983 (week 4)

The Spider: Corpse Cargo (1933)

Volume 3, Issue 2 of The Spider magazine (July 1934) is as clear an indication as any that Norvell Page (writing as Grant Stockbridge) is not going to pull any punches with his Spider yarns. His first Spider outing saw kids dying from the bubonic plague unleashed by the villain. In this one, we're only a few pages in when a young member of a club of wannabe Baker Street Irregulars, "The Spider Fan Club," is tortured to death by a gang of modern-day pirates using a knife charged with electricity.

This is part of a larger plot where the gang, led by the beautiful villainess who calls herself Captain Kidd, is using a pulpy invention to electrify rails so that that glow with almost magical "green fire" and electrocute all the passengers of trains so their corpses can be robbed without any witnesses. The trains are sent rolling on to their destinations with no one living on board.

It's a hell of a lurid set-up, and Page is up to the challenge of delivering on it. The pirates set some pretty good death traps for the Spider to have to escape from. There's also a bit of a mystery regarding a kidnapped inventors missing granddaughter that isn't a big point but has a nice little payoff. 

The only thing missing, maybe, is any hint of femme fatale regarding Captain Kidd. The righteous and driven Spider finds her utterly loathsome (and with her disregard for human life, who can blame him!), and though Page says she is attractive, he doesn't give her the sort of loving description a Robert Howard would have.

Get The Spider: The Corpse Cargo here. Tim Truman did a loose adaptation of this story in comics format in the 1990s.

Wandering The Wild Wild West

For a long time, the only book on The Wild Wild West was Susan Kesler's book which is out of print. McFarland Books and author Don Presnell do their part to fill that gap with Wandering The Wild Wild West: A Critical Analysis of the CBS Television Series.

Presnell's book lacks the first-hand production detail and photos which made Kesler's book so great, but he does offer a solid review of all the episodes and does highlight the historical context of some episodes. He also offers up some fun trivia in infographic format.

I think it's a good addition to the library of any Wild Wild West fan, and for a fan without a copy of Kesler's book, it's essential.

The Spider: Wings of the Black Death (1933)

Issue 3 of The Spider magazine (December 1933) is the debut of the writer most associated with the series, Norvell Page, writing under the house name Grant Stockbridge. This wasn't his first sell, but it was definitely his big break in the pulps, though he'll go on to other pulp work including creating the historical Sword & Sorcery character Hurricane John.

If Doc Savage kind of has the sensibility of an 80s action cartoon, Page's Spider novels are perhaps most like the 30s version of the lurid, bloody excess of late 80s-early 90s comics. His debut story, Wings of the Back Death, features New York City being held hostage by a madman threatening to unleash the bubonic plague unless he's paid off. Infectious disease is a big concern in these stories (the first systemic antibiotic had only been introduced in 1932); there's another Spider novel titled "The Cholera King." 

Anyway, the first onscreen death of via the plague is a over the top scene where the children of a wealthy woman have been threatened and the Spider has seen that a police cordon is set up around the house. But the wily Black Death infects a cute puppy and sends it into the backyard! The children are playing with it under the eyes of the policeman as Spider runs toward them shouting "shoot the dog! shoot the dog!" He snatches up the little boy and does the puppy-killing himself. 

Cut to the little boy dying horribly, spitting up blood, while the doctor and the Spider look on grimly and the kid's mother pounds on the door sobbing because they won't let her in!

Despite that, this one is actually a bit subdued compared to the high body counts and grisly deaths of later Page Spider novels.

In his analysis of the formulae or subgenres of the Mystery genre, Hoppenstand points out that the detective-avenger protagonist tends to pursue conservative ends, and their foes are often demonized anti-status quo forces. Here though, I think an alternative reading is possible. The Black Death is in his civilian identity a banker. He first blackmails not the city but wealthy individuals and all the graphic scenes of people dying of the plague involve the wealthier segments of society. It's true that the Spider's alter ego is a wealthy man, but he spends most of the novel being pursued by the Establishment as the police try to kill him even though he's out to save the city. It's true that in the end, it's revealed that the Black Death works for the advantage of some foreign power, but we are never told which and that's only revealed in one line of dialogue near the end. Wings of the Black Death seems to offer the vicarious thrill of getting to see the wealthy stripped of their privilege and dying of disease, and the spreader of the pestilence is an agent of the financial industry. A very topical foe for the Great Depression!

Page's story really moves. There is a lot of action, though also some movie serial-esque cliffhanger repetitiveness. There is, of course, some pulp clunkiness to the prose--none of the poetry here of a Clark Ashton Smith or even a Robert E. Howard--but I find it superior to say Lester Dent's work on Doc Savage.

Batman: The Caped Crusader Review

I've been able to watch the entirety of the new Batman: The Caped Crusader show on Amazon Prime. The show brings Bruce Timm back to the animated Batman--thought also apparently features J.J. Abrams, Matt Reeves, and Ed Brubacker and executive producers. 

Originally, the show was presented maybe as an update or maybe even continuation of Batman: The Animated Series and was to stream on Warner Bros' Max service, but neither of those things wound up being the case. Rather, BTCC ends as a kind of second take on some of the ideas behind BTAS, but also it has been updated for a 2024 audience.

Timm has said aesthetically he wanted to "blend the atmospherics of Universal horror movies and the drama of Warner Bros. gangster movies and the action of Republic serials and mix it all together with a lot of film noir on top." BTAS took place in a retro- decopunk 1990s, but BTCC seems more placed in a more of a relatively more grounded, alternate 1940s. There is much less high tech (no computers or bat-gadgets) and alas no police airships, but SWAT gear and psychiatric facilities seem unaccountably modern. Indeed, Arkham looks perhaps as modern on the inside as we've ever seen it. The racism and sexism of the 40s is understandably discarded in deference to modern sensibilities, and we get a multiethnic main cast (more so than the modern comics!).

This is a more "adult" perhaps, certainly grittier take. The Gotham Police department is corrupt, not unlike it was presented in Batman: Year One. I'm fine with this approach in that respect, but a focus on "realism" and noir means the villains are less flamboyant, and most seem likely "done in one," not recurrent menaces. While this adds some greater poignancy in some cases (the tragedy of Harvey Dent, for one), I don't know that it's worth the tradeoff. 

In general, the cast is very good. Hamish Linklater may not quite deliver the goods as Batman/Bruce Wayne as well as the late, great Kevin Conroy, but he does a much better Batman voice than the majority of the live action portrayals. Everyone acquits themselves well, but I think Minnie Driver wasn't the right choice for the Penguin.

At the end of the day, I definitely think it was worth seeing, and I do hope it gets a second season, but I liked some aspects of BTAS better. High points here are the re-imaging of Harley Quinn and the character arc for Bruce Wayne/Batman who is clearly early in his career.

Review: Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes

Despite the attention lavished on the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Star Wars, and even Star Trek or the Alien universe, I feel like the science fiction franchise most consistent in quality is the Planet of the Apes. Sure, it's not without its duds (Burton's film) and lesser lights (the last original film, the cartoon, perhaps), but the Wyatt/Reeves reboot?/prequel? series of the 2010s defied sequel gravity and only got better as it went along. (To me, anyway. Some would say Dawn was the high point. Either way, War was still good.)

When Reeves left and Disney acquired Fox, I had some trepidation about where the series would go. Happily, it seems like Wes Ball has things well enough in hand, at least with this first installment. While it's not as good as the best of the 2010s series, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes was more enjoyable and more substantial than any other existing-franchise entry I've seen in the theater since the end of the pandemic--though perhaps that's damning with faint praise.

Anyway, it's "many generations" after the time of Caesar. He has become a mythic/religious figure. His name is borrowed. and his legacy evoked by an up-and-coming bonobo tyrant who (like King Louie in the Jungle Book) wants the technology of humankind. He needs (ape) slave labor to get it at it and a mysterious, young human woman, so when he captures Noa's village and kills his father, the young chimpanzee makes common cause with the human. 

There are hints of Beneath of the Planet of the Apes in here, and (perhaps unintentional, perhaps not) Biblical echoes with a hero named "Noa," but those are as they should be with an ape installment. The special effects are amazing, and it makes me mad the Marvel Cinematic Universe films often seem sloppy. I guess when your whole premise requires motion capture, you have to get that thing right.

I miss Andy Serkis here like everybody else, but he trained the new cast of apes well. It probably could have been a bit shorter, particularly for a film that is a lot about establishing a new conflict, but I'm not immediately sure what I would have cut.

All that to say, if you liked the previous ape films you should see this one. If you haven't seen any of the new apes films (which lately I've discovered a large group of folks that haven't) then you should see those and see this one.

You can also check out the watch and commentary Jason "Operation Unfathomable" Sholtis and I did of the much less good but still entertaining 70s Planet of the Apes TV show.

High Rez Reviews 1 | Darkhorse Unleashed

Editor's Note: While I'm housesitting for my in-laws in their modem connected house, CAINE has returned to help me out by starting a new series of posts here on the FBU. Welcome back Caine!

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LAST ISSUE.....
It all started three years ago.  Jim, the editor and chief bottle washer around here, got it in head that comic books published on paper were simply going the way of the Dodo and he wasn't exactly alone in that revelation.  He started posting under a new column heading: PAPER COMIC DEATHWATCH and many many of those posts were filled with all sorts of possibilities regarding devices to create, publish, and read digital comics on (they didn't even have an official name back then).  Some of it we saw coming, some of it we called out right, and some of it missed the boat but digital comics are here to stay!

HIGH RES PREVIEW...
Today I'll be reviewing a comic purchased on my iPad from the DARKHORSE digital comic store: STARWARS: The Force Unleashed!  As a rule these High Res Reviews will be spoiler free unless we give you lots of warning of the contrary.  So to that end I'm going to steal the story overview from it's amazon page, no reason to reinvent the wheel here:

"Since childhood, Vader’s nameless agent has known only the cold, mercenary creed of the Sith. His past is a void; his present, the carrying out of his deadly orders. But his future beckons like a glistening black jewel with the ultimate promise: to stand beside the only father he has ever known, with the galaxy at their feet. It is a destiny he can realize only by rising to the greatest challenge of his discipleship: destroying Emperor Palpatine.

The apprentice’s journeys will take him across the far reaches of the galaxy, from the Wookiee home world of Kashyyyk to the junkyard planet of Raxus Prime. On these missions, the young Sith acolyte will forge an unlikely alliance with a ruined Jedi Master seeking redemption and wrestle with forbidden feelings for his beautiful comrade, Juno Eclipse. And he will be tested as never before–by shattering revelations that strike at the very heart of all he believes and stir within him long-forgotten hopes of reclaiming his name . . . and changing his destiny." ~Amazon

HIGH RES COMIC REVIEW...
I've not played the game that is the basis for the comic, but I have read the novelization of this story as well as the comic and I have to say the comic is by far my favorite way to experience it.  The story is formulated very similar to the way the first three movie plots were formulated (particularly A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back) and we open up with a shot of deep space as a rag tag band with a rebellious nature are in search of something they very much need to begin an important quest.

The art team (Brian Ching, Bong Dazo, and Wayne Nichols) gives us a beautiful portrait of the STAR WARS universe panel by panel and done so in a "gritty" fashion the way A New Hope was grittier and dirtier than most scifi films before it.

Soon a droid is found, and as you might suspect, it plays a pivotal role in the story as well as the narration of the story focusing on Starkiller, Vader's secret Sith apprentice.  The reader is immediately whisked away on mission after clandestine mission as a tag along member of Starkiller's crew with no time to spare as Vader pushes his apprentice farther and farther, all the while expecting him to fail at each turn of the story.  The speed and pace of the action in the story is very similar to that of a video game and you can tell the author (Haden Blackman) very much intended it to be so.

As it takes place two years before the battle of Yavin (The Deathstar run from A New Hope) The Force Unleashed does an excellent job of tying the two trilogies together and utilizing popular characters we've all come to know and love.  It's a fast paced action adventure comic set in one of the most recognizable scifi environments ever to be published in.  The Force Unleashed delivers everything that Digital Comic fans and Star Wars fans alike have come to expect when they fire up their tablet or smart phone for graphic entertainment.  The Force Unleashed is done beautifully in full color and at 128 pages it's well worth the $5.99 price tag (11.00 cheaper than the novel and 10.00 cheaper than the game). 

HIGH RES APP REVIEW...
The DARKHORSE digital comics store (and app) have been live for some time now.  This is my first comic actually purchased from the app which has some very nice features.

Before we go briefly into the features I should note that the DARKHORSE app is significant due to the fact that it's not been built/developed on top of ComiXology's own app as both MARVEL and DC's comic app have been.  DARKHORSE has in house developers and their app, while sharing some of the same options, is different from those others.

The DARKHORSE app is free to download and it includes a store, a book shelf, and archive (collection) sections.  The archive is set up for you to send your comics too in order to free up memory/space on your tablet or smart phone.  With one touch collected (archived) books can be moved back to the bookshelf section to be read again.  The store has a moderate selection of widely popular comics for free and then plenty more to buy.

One thing I really enjoyed about using the DARKHORSE app was how easy it was to navigate the comic pages.  By moving your finger across the screen pretty much any way other than to the left (or back) the comic moves forward for you.  It seems to "know" when you require a wider shot consisting of having more of the page showing on your screen and when you'll want it to focus on a panel or even a part of a panel.

From time to time this zooms in just a bit to far and begins to pixelate the image but the clarity returns immediately once it's stopped zooming in so far in on any one particular page.  The only real complaint I have about the app is the speed in which it loads, begins to expose books to you, and how fast it downloads a book that you've chosen to either buy or receive for free from the store.  The entire app seems just a tad too slow in nearly all areas until you get the comic downloaded to your machine.

Hardly an issue that would keep me from future purchases by any means.  Maybe I'll take a look at Firefly next.

Well that about does it for this round of HIGH RES REVIEWS.  What do you think?  Are you a tablet owner?  Are you reading comics on it?  If so are you buying comics on it?  Thoughts on the 5.99 price point?  We'd love to hear from you about this review, and about digital comics in general.  Feel free to leave any comments you may have.

~Caine

FBU Reviews: Parallaxium

When Mark Bernal contacted us recently and asked us to review his recently published graphic story: Parallaxium. A digital download available now, we at the FBU were delighted help him out.


In Mark's own words:
"Parallaxium is a "first person" graphic story wherein the reader experiences the story through the eyes and mind of the main character. The main character is a research volunteer who's strange visions during testing, entangle the character between this universe and a bizarre medieval-like universe."

Parallaxium Research, the study of the space between parallel universes. With that statement the reader is off and running thrust mind first into a roller coaster ride of an adventure unlike anything you've ever experienced in a 32 page graphic format.

The preview we were sent consisted of 19 amazing page following an unwilling research assistance protagonist who's taken deeper and deeper into the Parallaxium that seem to flow through the assistant in such a way that he/she really can only classify them as dreams even though they are so much more.


A bit like Alice down the rabbit hole, the researcher is pummeled with "vision" after "vision" as he/she races deeper inter his/her own psyche in order to come up with the understanding to put what he/she's experiencing together and process it.

Parallaxium is filled with rich light over dark graphics that are filled with amazing locals and characters that are seemingly based, at least in part, on gods, myths, and monsters of all types. Each spun into a unique story element.

We wish Mark Bernal great success with Parallaxium and hope to see more of it very soon. If you liked what you've seen/read so far you should check 'em out - they're priced to move!

Have a great weekend,

Caine

Flashback Universe Examines: Truly Digital Comics

Did you know there are over 50 'slates' or 'pads' scheduled to come out this year? It's true, you can read all about them here. 2011 or maybe more like 2012 looks to be a good year to really be able to view comic books digitally anytime anywhere. Will there be systems in place to get those comics to you? Will they be simple? Will they be easy? Will they be affordable? You can rest assured that we here at the FBU will bring you the answers to those questions as soon as we discover them. Until then we thought you might be interested in learning a bit about a few fully digital comic books that have all ready been made. The kinds of comics that would have been perfect to release simultaneously in print and digitally...if there'd been 'slates' or 'pads' out before 2010 that is.

TODAY WE'LL LOOK AT: "BATMAN: Digital Justice"

Published by DC in 1990 (in multiple formats), Batman Digital Justice was written by Pepe Moreno & Doug Murray with fully rendered digital art by Pepe Moreno & Bill Fingerman.

THE STORY:

20 years after it's release Batman Digital Justice reads like a franchise reboot. Much like Batman Begins, Batman Digital Justice takes all of the 'standard' pieces of the Batman mythos and reworks them into something 'new' while still remaining recognizable to the long term hard core fans.

"The book is set in a future Gotham City "at the end of the next century," (the 21st) dominated by high technology, particularly computer networks and their human controllers, long after the original Batman has died. The story revolves around James Gordon,Gotham City Police Department detective and grandson of Commissioner James Gordon, who takes on the identity of the Batman to free the city from a sentient computer virus crafted by the Joker, also now long dead, and to avenge the death of his partner Lena Schwartz."~wikipedia.org

The story builds nicely, and without giving too much away or spoiling the plot, the book does a very nice job setting up the supporting cast: including a new side kick, as well as a feline inspired costumed persona out for her share of New Gotham's digital glory, and an appearance by one of Batman's famous nemesis.

THE ART:

The art on Batman Digital Justice holds up! The im ages on each panel & page are clear and concise with little in the way of pixelation. Not only is it clean and easy to read, one might classify it as 'stylish' aimed at a particular audience (that cover image being the clearest example) that manages to hit it's mark extremely well. At the time, it was considered "cutting edge" in nearly every way. Here is a quote from inside the book:


"State of the art" sure ain't what it used to be. These days, by the time something that's the state of the art hits the streets, it's already obsolete. That's an overwhelming change for the comic art medium. Between 1937, when the first all-original comic book came out, and the release of the first computer-generated comic in 1984, the tools used in the creation of comic art remained fairly stagnant. That all changed with the introduction of the first affordable graphics-oriented computer. All of a sudden, we had a machine that could do anything. Most miraculously, that bottomless box of microchips and cathode rays has allowed our medium to grow — from the standpoint of technology — more in the ensuing five years than it did in the preceding forty-seven. At that time, I was the editor of a Midwest comic book company when a couple of old friends, Peter Gillis and Mike Saenz, showed me some rough printouts of a story that was produced entirely on a 128K Apple Macintosh computer, using but one disk drive. The artwork was chunky and brittle: it looked like some amphetamine addict had been given a box of zip-a-tone that suffered from a glandular disease. But the look was totally unique to comics. Within several months, we refined the look and the resulting effort — SHATTER — was one of the best¬selling comics of the year. It completely astonished the folks over at Apple Computer, Inc., who never perceived such a use for their hardware.

We've come a long way in the past five years: the book you are now holding was produced on a Macintosh computer that has 64 times the internal memory, 400 times the storage capacity, about 8 times the speed, and hundreds of software packages. More important, DIGITAL JUSTICE takes advantage of different devices that, five years ago, were barely dreamed of for the home or studio: computer-aided design, 3-D imaging programs, high-resolution and direct-to-film printers, graphics scanners, and color. A whole lot of color. In fact, there's the potential for more than 16 million colors.


The technology used to create DIGITAL JUSTICE is now 20 years old, and 20 years of advances in similar technology (applied more to other industries such as Video Games & Animation granted) have made comics all the better for it.

Batman Digital Justice uses a modified square panel grid on it's pages that lend them selves nicely to a cinematic feel (which was what I'm sure they were going for at the time) that would work beautifully in the Graphic.ly comic reader now.

As an added bonus this book does a fair amount of accurate predictions to the Batman's future:

Batman Beyond was released in 1999 and while one might guess that Batman Digital Justice's "Batcraft" was 'borrowed' from Blade Runner, the next logical assumption would be that Beyond borrowed from this book.


If you're interested & feel as if you local comic shop might not be able to get their hands on it you can purchase it from AMAZON & MILE HIGH COMICS. Then again, who knows, this would be the perfect book to help kick of DC's Digital Comics initiative. They do have one don't they?

Have a nice weekend,

Caine