Tag Archives: Fred Van Lente

What’s Up?

11 Tuesday Dec 2012

Posted by in What's I&N Store?

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Last week wasn’t all that bad.  If anything, I proved to myself that I had enough willpower to pass on books I didn’t really want.  Let’s hope that had is more like have ’cause I’m gonna need it this week, too.  The plan is to stick to the plan: to embrace the bag and pass the rack.

High Five

  • Batman #15: Still waiting for the punchline.
  • Frankenstein: Agent of S.H.A.D.E. #15: Lemire’s been borrowing the big guy of late, and it’s been a welcome reunion, for sure: JLD and Animal Man have been better for it.  Kindt’s been owning him over here.
Frankenstein: Agent of S.H.A.D.E. #15

Frankenstein: Agent of S.H.A.D.E. #15

  • Archer and Armstrong #5: Last issue was really good.  Let’s hope the insinuation of the Eternal Warrior doesn’t drag it down, you know, like when Ninjak popped up in X-O and made for an awkward couple of issues.
  • Bloodshot #6: This, too, has big pages to fill.  (If you’ve been following along, you know how much I liked #5.)
  • Winter Soldier #13: Almost done.  Sad.

You know the danger: I’ll be standing at the register with some money left over, and the rack will be soooooo tantalizingly close…

What are you looking forward to this week?

Turning pages,

Scott

Back and Forth: Comics Interruptus

27 Tuesday Nov 2012

Posted by in Back and Forth

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Scott Carney: So, umm, what do you want to talk about?

Derek Mainhart: I’m glad you asked! There’s actually a couple of-

SC: Geez, man, nothing?  If you’re going to be that way, I guess I’ll talk about, I don’t know, Archer & Armstrong #4.  How’s that sound?  Good?

Archer & Armstrong #4 Cover

DM: But I-

SC: Let me tell you: I’m totally into this book.  This issue, in particular, is a cornucopia of comic book goodness.  For one, the tone is timeless: you’ve got your comedy, your tragedy, your mysteries, your revelations, and action, action, action!  I mean, #3 promised Nazi monks and that’s what Van Lente, Clayton Henry, and Matt Milla deliver in #4: psychic Nazi monks with little mustaches, which they seem to “just like”–for whatever reason.  The comedy continues as one of the monks belts Archer with a belly-busting, “You just been blitzkreiged, dummkoff!”  But the knockout blow: A Geomancer–you know you know what that is–is crushed almost to death after shouting, “The Earth is saved!”  He asks Armstrong for “one wish…”; Armstrong replies, “Uh, do I haveta?  Kinda got a lotta stuff on my plate right now.”  Flat out funny!  As luck would have it, the Geomancer’s eventual death sets the scene for the return of another Valiant heavy hitter.  Expect a home run.  Heil Van Lente!  Heil Henry!  Heil Milla!  They’re doing everything just reich.

DM: I agree about the book, but I-

SC: I think I’ll drop the Nazi puns and stick with the baseball allusions: Valiant went two-for-two for the week with the other hit coming from Bloodshot #5.  There have been some pretty remarkable–and remarkably gruesome–sequences to open books of late.  This opening sequence?  An absolute bull’s eye of a flashback.  How great is Gamma, a green-frocked hulk of a woman, who tends to children–young psiots–imprisoned at Project Rising Spirit?  Her grandmotherly countenance is counterbalanced by bulging biceps and a terrible threat to an overpowered young Melissa: “Don’t tell anyone…but I enjoy the troublesome ones.”  That sequence segues into the present seamlessly as an adult Melissa is jarred from sleep, presumably the result of this horrible memory from her youth.  The rest of the story is developed dynamically as the assault on the P.R.S. facility is supported slyly by off-color slices of a scene that reveals Kara’s role as a nanite-smuggling Trojan horse; that way, Bloodshot could circumvent all of P.R.S.’s security measures!  Brilliant!  With the final splash–a promise of a bloody showdown between Bloodshot and the killer Chainsaw crew–Duane Swiercynski, Manuel Garcia, and Arturo Lozzi prove that they’ve got something special brewing here; and to think I was an issue away from dropping this title from the ol’ pull list!

DM: I didn’t read that one, but I would like t-

SC: I am definitely an issue away from dropping Wolverine and the X-Men. With #20, it’s clear: I’ve been duped.  For one, I never should have jumped on board; I mean, it really has nothing that appeals to me: I’m not a fan of Wolverine or the irregular cast of characters; and the mutant struggle for acceptance in an intolerant world doesn’t necessarily shout silliness as a rule.  But there was always something that drew me back month after month or week after week–which, by the way, is another issue I have with this title: its being a more than monthly for no good reason, other than to take advantage of saps like me.  And this issue has finally sapped any interest I’ve had in this book, which was mostly born from the brave and bold pencils of Chris Bachalo.  For one, I’m sick of fill-in issues.  That’s what this series has felt like for a while NOW!  And this issue does nothing to buck that trend.  I mean, the artwork–by Steve Sanders–doesn’t help matters, that’s for sure:  Iara, the utterly pointless new mutant Shark Girl, is established on pages 2-4.  I don’t know who the heck the girl is on pages 6 and 7.  I know it’s supposed to be Iara, but it looks nothing like her.  I don’t know how many times I turned back a page and then forward a page just trying to get comfortable with the unexpected shift in her appearance.  It was in that worthless exercise that I decided that I was done.  But I persevered: bumped into a Beast who looked like he’d be more comfortable harassing some pigs in some fairytale housing development; happened upon a horny Silver Samurai with a girl-on-Shark Girl fetish; and found myself awash in anime.  And wouldn’t you know: there’s some noggin’ noshin’!  (It’s uncanny how many head-chomping moments there have been in comics over the last several months.  In fact, in last month’s awful Wolverine Max #1, a woman has her head torn off by a shark!  Imagine that!)  But it wasn’t enough to turn me around.  A classic example of too little too late.  And please, don’t get me started on the stupid Mudbug and the poorly put together final page, which looks like several villains have been copied and pasted on top of each other without any care for the final product.  Did I mention I didn’t like this issue?

DM: And now on to-

SC: But I did love–love, love, love–Frankenstein: Agent of S.H.A.D.E. #14.  And I’ll bet next week’s Wolverine and the X-Men that you did, too.

DM: NEEAARRGH! Saga’s Back! AND Battlefields! Zaucer of Zilk! AWESOME!!!! NYYAAAHH!!!!

SC: Dude, what is your problem?

DM: I’m…I’m sorry…just got a little excited, that’s all…what were we saying? Ah, yes. Frankenstein. Matt Kindt, Albeto Ponticelli and Wayne Faucher knocked it out of the park yet again –

SC: Enough with the baseball metaphors.

DM: They continue to serve up a winner-

SC: No tennis either.

DM: It’s great and everyone should read it! How’s that?!

SC: Whatever. I’m grabbin’ a–

DM: Anyway, what I’d really like to highlight is the return of Saga (Image). After a couple of months off, Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples bring us Chapter Seven of their free-wheeling epic. When last we saw the alien husband and wife team of Alana and Marko, their tree/spaceship had been invaded by…his parents. Marko and Alana are from separate warring alien races so, needless to say, mom and dad aren’t pleased. Beautiful setup, conflict ensues, family secrets are divulged. The blend of Romeo and Juliet, Star Wars and Meet the Parents is a pitch perfect tale for our postmodern, genre-bending, mash-up culture. Still not enough for you? Well Vaughan is kind enough to throw in a splash page, full-frontal gross-out, lovingly rendered in all its grotesquery by Ms. Staples. (I can’t un-see it! I can’t un-see it!) Welcome back.

Another highly anticipated return is Garth Ennis’ superlative Battlefields: The Green Fields Beyond #1 (Dynamite). Ennis is a supremely versatile writer who seems to enjoy working in a variety of modes, from splatter/gore (Crossed) to genre satire (The Boys). If those books are where he gets his jollies out, his Battlefields series has consistently showcased him at full maturity. Here his command of character, thematic depth and period texture (ably abetted by artist Carlos Ezquerra) are on full display. Taking place at the height of the Korean War, the story reintroduces Sgt. Stiles, last seen in WWII in The Firefly and His Majesty. Something of a hothead in previous series, he’s presented here as a soldier thoroughly chastened by his experiences. Through him, we are witness to the tragedy, absurdity and, yes, heroism of war. Ennis’ respect for history, and the men who lived it, shine through on every page. These may be fictional characters, but with his uncanny ear for dialogue and truly prodigious research, Ennis has breathed life into them. Not that there isn’t plenty of violence and foul language to go around, but because it arises in the context of war, these are not only completely earned, but utterly necessary. War comics at their best. Ennis at his best. Book of the Week.

Changing gears, we have The Zaucer of Zilk #2 (IDW) by Al Ewing and Brendan McCarthy. The conclusion to this preposterous flying circus of a comic surprises and delights on every level. If you haven’t read it yet-

SC: I haven’t. Shut it.

Turning Pages,

Scott and Derek

Back and Forth: DC Won!

19 Friday Oct 2012

Posted by in Back and Forth, Microviews

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Derek Mainhart: Well here we are closing in on Halloween, but for comics, the summer-style blockbusters from the Big Two keep on comin’. I guess I should start with the one I actually read.

Batman #13 – The Joker? Issue 13? Perfect set up for some Halloween frights. If only it were just that; but this much-hyped return of Batman’s nemesis is also the next epic crossover. Having just come off the whole Court of the Owls storyline (which was largely excellent) I must admit to feeling a little epic-fatigue. I do wish this was contained solely within Scott Snyder’s Batman instead of spread out across the whole Bat-family (not that I intend to buy all the other issues). Having said that, Snyder gets things off to a solid start. We get all the classic Joker beats in one issue: Joker assaults a police station? Check. Joker stages an elaborate, announced plan to kill a public official? Check. Joker lures Batman into an over-the-top deathtrap? Check. Having cleansed his palette, we can assume Snyder will be off and running with some new wrinkles next issue right? He certainly hints at it. He seems to be setting up a bigger, badder Joker. Harley Quinn spells it out: “He’s not the same Bats. He’s not my Mr. J. anymore…” I suppose this is tied into the whole getting-his-face ripped-off thing from Detective #1. (This begs the question: whose idea was that? Tony Daniel’s? The editors’? Or was Snyder setting this current story up a year ago?) But really, how much more twisted can the Joker get? Is Snyder suggesting that this version is somehow more monstrous than the Joker of Alan Moore’s character-defining turn in The Killing Joke? Trying to make this character more extreme seems to be just a way to fulfill the parameters of an “epic event”. Why not just give us an awesome Joker story? But, like I said, there’s much to like. The story-telling by Greg Capullo and Jonathan Glapion is excellent. Most of all, Snyder really excels at developing an underlying sense of dread through the entire book (his mastery at this was established in Severed (published by Image) which was practically an exercise in keeping your skin crawling over seven issues. The best horror book of recent memory. Get the trade for Halloween.) Speaking of which, how about that back-up? I only wish we could have read that before the events in the lead story!

I’ll let you handle the honors on this week’s other blockbuster: Uncanny Avengers #1.

Uncanny Avengers #1

Scott Carney: Oh, joy.  Your generosity knows no limits!  Must be your mutant ability.  For the record: I’m looking at Batman #13 as I would the first ten or so pages of The Great Gatsby–which means, in my mind’s monotone: “Now that that’s done with, let’s get on with the good stuff.”  Like you said: the back-up was pretty sweet–like cyanide.  Damn thing should’ve been part of the story proper.

OK.  I’ve put the “honors” you so benevolently bequeathed to me off long enough.

Now, I know you didn’t read UA #1, which is why you’ve lobbed it over to my side of the net.  But I’ll tell you all you need to know by analyzing one page: page one.  Picture this:

First panel: an eye held open a la the brainwashing scene of Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange; glowing in the iris is Cyclops as the Phoenix.  Speech bubble: an unknown spouting anti-mutant babble.

Second panel: zooming out, we  see two eyes held open a la the aforementioned a la, a trickle of blood between them, and some more babble, rousing some rabble about “evolution” and “competition”–which, interestingly enough, put me in a certain mind.

Third panel: the voice gains a scalpel-wielding hand, which is slicing into the exposed brain of the now Phoenix-free eye guy.  As unnamed character–he of the hand–blathers about the world’s having “felt the mutant boot on its neck”; and I was like, “Mr. Remender, you’re talking about AvX, aren’t you?”

Fourth panel: the voice digs itself deeper into a villainous vat of nonsense as its two hands pull part of the poor fella’s–the eye guy’s–brain out of his head.  And I was like, “Mr. Remender, you’re crafting the perfect Marvel fan, aren’t you?”

Fifth panel: the voice–now clearly Remender, in my mind, anyway–hops into a heap of “hatred[, which] protects a [comic company, like Marvel] from complacency in the face of [its more successful] rivals[, clearly DC].”  As he does, he shoves some device into the empty space in the eye guy’s head.

And that device, my friend, is Marvel NOW!

What a way to begin this glorious new initiative: with Remender’s mocking Marvel readers by making them out to be an easily-led legion of lobotomized zombies–zombies willing to buy into the reactionary ReEVOLUTION, which, apparently, isn’t much of a revolution at all.  In fact, according to Axel Alonso, Marvel’s editor-in-chief: “The only change is some subtle tweaks to some costumes.”  Indeed!

Phew.  I’m exhausted after that.  I’ll leave the rest to you!

DM: Yeah, dude.  Take a deep breath–or a nap or something.

I’ll jump into another book tying in to a crossover event is Frankenstein: Agent of Shade #13. This book also pairs well with our October fright-fest, as our favorite, tragic zipper-neck gets knee-deep in the Rot from the current Animal Man/Swamp Thing epic. Tie-ins like this are usually superfluous and best-avoided. And truly, nothing integral to the Rotworld story seems to happen in this issue. But not picking it up would mean depriving yourself of the stirrings of undead/amphibian love! Frankie riding a talking horse through post-apocalyptic Metropolis! And Matt Kindt’s freewheeling revisiting of Mary Shelley’s Modern Prometheus with Daddy issues! In terms of the larger story, this issue is indeed tangential and probably unnecessary. It is also one more thing: wildly entertaining.

Archer and Armstrong #3 may not be part of any crossover event, but with its globetrotting antics and millennia-spanning conspiracies, it sure feels like a blockbuster (and a pretty one too, as drawn by Clayton Henry and Pere Perez). But no mindless action spectacle this. The swordplay and martial arts are merely dressing for the big ideas that Fred Van Lente is playing with here (no surprise from a scribe who co-created a comic called Action Philosophers). Van Lente is an interesting, idiosyncratic writer; conversant in popcorn archetypes, he exploits them to plumb deeper thematic territory. If he has a weakness, it’s that his character’s reactions sometimes seem unearned. Archer’s about-face rejection of his lifelong indoctrination doesn’t ring true. And Armstrong’s response to the killing of a character he calls “the best woman I’ve known for ten thousand years” is simply “Bastards.”  Still, this is fascinating stuff. The rollicking action and effortless odd-couple, cop-buddy banter make a breezy read out of what is, after all, a thoroughly-researched satire about nothing less than the nature of faith.

SC: You know, that’s exactly what I was gonna say!

Turning pages,

Derek & Scott