Publishers' Picks/ Retailers' Reviews -- May, 2002

The Amazing Screw-On Head #1

This book offers trademark Mignolaisms: crumbling old castles, walking dead, creaky old Victorian architecture -- but instead of Hellboy, it offers a surreal hero who's...well, a screw-on head, actually, with an assortment of bodies, a troubleshooting job with President Lincoln, an archenemy named Emperor Zombie, and lots of tongue-in-rotting cheek Lovecraftian shenanigans. It's sometimes too out-of-left field for its own good -- it's not as compelling as the Hellboy stories, where the weird comedy is downplayed and the stakes seem higher -- but both the writing and the art are pure Mignola. What more do you need to know? Grade: B.

DC First: The Flash/Superman #1

Geoff Jones has been doing some good work over in the regular "Flash" book lately, proving that there's life after Mark Waid and reinvigorating the Central City supporting cast, and the classic Flash Rogue's Gallery. This "special" is, really, just a double-size issue of that monthly title, with a race between the Jay Garrick Flash and Superman (at the instigation of a revived Abra Cadabra) serving as the "first." Readers of the regular book will want this because it advances some of the subplots that have been perking over there, and new readers should check it out to get a taste of what they're missing; then, everyone should be happy. Grade: B.

Greetings From Hellville

Ott's nondescript, working-class protagonists and existential-dread-tinged horror are reminiscent of Robert Crumb, although his scratchboard style gives his art a much different texture, and his sensibilities are, somehow, distinctly European. Four stories for $14 is a lot, but there's value for the money here; at least one of the stories, "G.O.D.," is worth the price of admission, while two others, a twist-ending suicide tale and a voodoo-tinged revenge fantasy, are sly tributes to that old EC-style magic. As an added bonus, they're all wordless, so we don't have to worry about spotty English translations. Grade: A-.

The Hood #1

Two guys named Brian (Azzarello and Bendis) have been mining the street-level tough-guy noir vein for a while now, to good effect; fans seem to like that whole "Sopranos" vibe. Now comes this mini-series about the beginning career of a super-villian, by yet another Brian (Vaughan), and while it's not badly done, the whole emphasis on wise-guy, career-criminal lowlifes is starting to get really old, isn't it? I mean, I like those stories where all the hoods hang out in a bar, waiting to get tapped for a job by the Looter or whomever, but you can only read so many macho dialogue variations on bowel movements, sex and getting beaten up before they all start to blur. This isn't meant to be a knock on this series (which has at least one funny bit, where a member of Hydra finds out the perils of recruiting in the current post-Sept. 11, anti-terrorist atmosphere), but the whole thing would have seemed a lot fresher two or three years ago. Grade: C+.

Human Target: Final Cut

Milligan's gotten a lot of mainstream fan attention with "X-Force," but he's been around for quite a while now; his specialty has been this kind of Vertigo series, like his earlier "Extremist" and "Enigma," that gets into murky philosophical questions of identity, and the subtle dividing lines between the Other and the Self. The Human Target, who impersonates people for a living, is tailor-made for this kind of musing, and grafting it onto an LA-seamy-underbelly-of-the-City-of-Angels detective story keeps the plot moving nicely; every time things threaten to bog down into navel-gazing, you can have some hood show up with a gun to help goose the plot along. The problem with stories like this is that they're always threatening to dissolve into confusion -- and, since the ending wasn't provided in the preview, it's hard to tell if that will happen here. Milligan's already had success with the Target once, though, so let's give him the benefit of the doubt (and, maybe, peek at the comic's last page before you buy it, just to make sure...). Grade: B.

Phoenix: A Tale of the Future

Osama Tezuka is one of the seminal influences on comics in the 20th century, as much as Kirby, Eisner or Kurtzman -- and yet, most of you are saying "Who?" This is partly because he was Japanese, and so unknown to most Americans (except for "Astro Boy,") and partly because his work has often seemed too "cartoony" for super-hero tastes. Now, though, with the big influence of manga on US comics tastes over the last few years (parts of it have practically become the house style at Marvel and DC), it's a good time to explore his work. "Phoenix" is a piece of Tezuka's most ambitious project, done at the height of his power, and you've never read it before. Shouldn't you? If someone told you they had a 300-page Kirby New Gods story, done in 1972, wouldn't you want to read it? Grade: A.

Spider-Man: Blue #1

I didn't want to like this; after all, isn't this whole "Year One" stuff getting old? (Loeb and Sale did it with Batman, with Superman, with Daredevil...what's next: "Speedball: Polka-dotted?") Unfortunately, they've picked a great time in Spidey's history (the first few John Romita, Sr. issues, with the Green Goblin first revealed as Norman Osborn, and the beginnings of the Parker/Gwen Stacy relationship) and the art, as always, is dynamic and atmospheric, paying tribute to the era without copying it, and somehow retaining its modern edge while evoking the "wow"factor of those earlier issues too. The Goblin/Spidey fight near the beginning pulled me in, but it was the 1/3-pg. closeup of Gwen later, eying an oblivious Peter and smiling, that hooked me for good (you now, maybe that Speedball thing wouldn't be a bad idea after all...) Grade: B+.

We Three Kings

This is a self-contained sf story, set in a future America ruled by...well, three kings, in case it wasn't already obvious. Their history, powers and problems are worked out imaginatively, and the rebels/fascist plot is fast-paced and interesting, with clear and good-looking art.
So, why didn't I like this more? Maybe it's TOO big a story for 64 pages, and needed more space for characterization and background, to make the reader care more for these people and their world. Maybe it was the deus-ex-machina ending, with a convenient plot device popping up to save the day. Somehow, though, this just didn't click -- although I'd like to see more work from this creator. Grade: C.