NAPA BOOKS 03 • 1999 Comic Anthology Finland Out of Print

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Original 1963 BEN CASEY #7 + DR. KILDARE #7 comic books both STRONG VERY GOOD+

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Vintage Comic Books "Classics Illustrated" 2 Issues

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By: Duane Swierczynski (writer), Javier Pina (artist), June Chung (colorist)

The Story: Just when you think you know a guy, he turns out to be a secret killer agent.

The Review: Some would argue that the real measure of a great superhero is a great supervillain, and that seems pretty true.  You can’t really think of any of the giants—Batman, Superman, Captain America, Spider-Man—without simultaneously thinking of their evil counterparts—Joker, Lex Luthor, Red Skull, John Jonah Jameson (and yes, that last one is, in fact, a joke).  So it stands to reason that often, the failing of any new hero tin often lie with mediocre nemeses.

For these new Birds, their first antagonist is genial of a weird bird.  On the one hand, the scope of his abilities and his altogether faceless nature poses some worthy challenges for our heroines.  On the other hand, we haven’t truly seen Choke actually do anything, nor do we know much about his motivations.  Without a clear goal, he’s just being manipulative for the sake of being manipulative—which in itself might be interesting, but this issue hints nothing similar that.

The real antagonists the Birds have faced thus far have all been these Cleaners, sleeper agents activated by remote hypnotic triggers.  Swierczynski makes the rather pleasant decision to buck the trend of leaving unidentified thugs to be nameless thugs and actually follow one of the Cleaners around.  And his name is Brendan, by the way.  Seeing his experience of living a fairly normal routine most the day, only to black out and find himself in pants-wetting situations later (by which I mean he’s been suddenly stripped naked in a warehouse, Katana poised over him with a syringe), definitely shows you how disorienting and frightening it must be to live his life.

One thing you’ll notice this issue is how Starling and Black Canary make the bulk of the title’s natural chemistry.  Anytime more than two Birds talk at once, you can bet it’ll be those two.  Sure, Poison Ivy isn’t exactly the girlfriend-type and Katana’s not given lively banter and Batgirl has only just joined the team.  At some indicate, though, Swierczynski should take approximately pains to pair off the women in more interesting combos and see what sparks wing.  In the meantime, enjoy such fun exchanges as: “…my Uncle Earl always aforesaid, ‘Fortune favors the bold.’” “Was this before or after your Uncle Earl tried to stab you in the face?”

Lately, it seems like Swierczynski’s getting too slack with his logistics.  Considering the splashy cliffhanger with Starling concluding issue, it’s a bit annoying he skips past the aftermath, only to have her sum up in a rather unnatural string of exposition: “Just because this sick ticket mess with my memories enough to taken me straight into a trap set by private mercenaries?  All of whom are being offered beaucoup bucks to eliminated me on sight, no questions asked?”  Try saying it out loud without sounding awkward.

Would you believe I had no idea Jesus Saiz didn’t draw this issue until I started writing up the credits?  Pina has an uncanny, about creepy, similarity of style to Saiz, downwards to the characters’ facial features, even down to Saiz’s sense of movement and paneling.  Squinting your eyes, you might pick out a difference in the shape of the eyes, which may or may not be large and brighter than Saiz is usually wont to pull, but that’s a stretch.  I guess this all boils mastered to say Pina makes for an ideal fill-in artist, as you can’t even tell a fill-in is at work.

Conclusion: Still a lot of fun, despite a few minor shortcomings, and no matter what happens, this will always be the outdoing all-female team book on the market—seeing as how it may be the only one.

Grade: B

- Minhquan Nguyen

Some Musings: - So I’m guessing Trevor is going to be in on the Birds’ operations from now on?  I’d be mastered for that.  I see him as a kind of hapless Bosley figure to this team of not-Charlie’s Angels.

Filed under: DC Comics, Reviews Tagged: Barbara Gordon, Batgirl, Birds of Prey, Birds of Prey #6, Birds of Prey #6 review, Black Canary, Choke, DC, DC Comics, Dinah Lance, Duane Swierczynski, Javier Pina, June Chung, Katana, Poison Ivy, Starling
Weekly Comic Book Review

NAPA BOOKS 03 • 1999 Comic Anthology Finland Out of Print

US $25.00 (0 Bid) End Date: Wednesday Feb-22-2012 19:29:29 PST Bid now | Add to watch list

Original 1963 BEN CASEY #7 + DR. KILDARE #7 comic books both STRONG VERY GOOD+

US $5.10 (4 Bids) End Date: Wednesday Feb-22-2012 19:30:32 PST Bid now | Add to watch list

NAPA BOOKS 03 • 1999 Comic Anthology Finland Out of Print

US $25.00 (0 Bid) End Date: Wednesday Feb-22-2012 19:29:29 PST Bid now | Add to watch list

Original 1963 BEN CASEY #7 + DR. KILDARE #7 comic books both STRONG VERY GOOD+

US $5.10 (4 Bids) End Date: Wednesday Feb-22-2012 19:30:32 PST Bid now | Add to watch list

US $11.95 (0 Bid) End Date: Wednesday Feb-22-2012 19:31:46 PST Buy It Now for only: US $13.50 Bid now | Buy it now | Add to watch list

By: Scott Snyder (writer), Greg Capullo (pencils), Jonathan Glapion (inks), FCO (colors), Richard Starkings (letters), Katie Kubert (assistant editor), Harvey Richards (associate editor) & Mike Marts (editor)

Four Things: 

1. This is a real tour de force artistically. – Man, it’s difficult to yet cognize where to begin spurting about the art in this issue.  Every page has something that could be analyzed and named our for being particular, but a few things truly stood away.  One is that Capullo shows us some truly brainsick perspectives in this issue.  You cognize how in a canonic art class they learn you to pick a point on the horizon and have everything shrivelling towards that point?  Well, Capullo turns that on it’s ear by having all kinds of dominant perspective lines that (a) would ne’er encounter up if you continued them into infinity OR (b) are swerved.  And, this is suiting given the drug-induced fever dream aspect of the amusing, but whereas you glimpse some artists merely kinda indiscriminately slinging objects around on the page, Capullo has a very defined plan for his falsified perspectives.  Nice!  The second item that truly got me was the energy and brutality of the fight between Batman and Talon.  You truly experience like these are two large, potent guys beating the snot away of each other.  The absolute vitality of the characters yet helped me miss a few places where I couldn’t tell how the action flowed from panel-to-panel.  The third is how F-ing creepy-crawly owls are.  Who knew?  Those talon-hands!  Gah!  It wouldn’t surprise me if people read this and began putting owls on fire merely to be dependable.

2. Let’s heap some praise on inker Glapion and colorist FCO too. - It’s hard to not screw up pencils like Capullo’s.  The combination of (i) high levels of detail and (ii) intense energy is kinda a no-win situation for an inker/colorist.  There are a lot of lesser inkers who would have this publish come unwrapping sounding stiff, but Glapion makes it work. Seriously, if you follow artists on Twitter you often see awesome pencilling getting posted only to see the final art screwed up by the inker and colorist.  I’m not enough of an artist to know how they’re doing this, but I tend to think it comes down to Glapion’s control over the thickness of all these fine lines he has to draw (love inkers who don’t retreat to the pens just because the line is fine) and FCO being willing to go with the flow.  This is not art that needs all kinds of stupid highlights.  FCO just picks colors and shades that will work and stays within himself.

3. Love the fever dream aspect of this issue. - I love that this issue starts to shift the drug-induced hallucinations onto the reader.  It makes sense, we’ve kinda been stuck in the maze with Batman for the last few months, and we should be confused about what we’re seeing sometimes.  Are those just people with owl masks or are some of them bizarre owl-hybrids?  What’s cool is that the creators could take that in either direction and I’d be fine with it.

4. Guaranteed quality? - The only problem this title is going to have is that I expect a “A” comic every time now.  It’s like listening to loud music or putting salt on your food. Eventually you get used to it and need MORE to have the same effect.  It’s something that has happened with Snyder’s American Vampire where a “B+” quality issue feels like a letdown.  Fortunately for these guys, there are LOTS of comics on the shelves to remind us of what mediocrity looks like.  These comics are also very difficult to grade as a reviewer because they almost define their had standard.  When you gave the last one a “A”, but you think this one is better, what do you do then?  A+?  And can you give that grade with the knowledge that they might do flush better next month?  Talk about a good problem to have!

Conclusion: Batman is almost defining it’s own grading measure for me.  I actually think this is better than Batman #5 because it lacks gimmicks and succeeds purely on its amusing brilliance.  This is the outdoing superhero comics I’m reading right now.

Grade: A

-Dean Stell

Filed under: DC Comics Tagged: Batman, Batman #6, Batman #6 review, DC, Dean Stell, FCO, Greg Capullo, Harvey Richards, Jonathan Glapion, Katie Kubert, Mike Marts, review, Richard Starkings, Scott Snyder
Weekly Comic Book Review

Legend of Zelda The Minish Cap Japanese Comic Book

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SWAMP THING Comic Book #18, DC Comics 1975 FINE-

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By: Nathan Edmondson (writer), Scott Clark (penciller), Dave Beaty & Walden Wong (inkers), Andrew Dalhouse (colorist)

The Story: Wonder Woman might give up the power of flight for this invisible plane.

The Review: I might as well be honest and admit that lately, out of a sense of economy (and also in preparation for DC’s “second wave” of series), I’ve been actively pruning the number of titles on my pull list.  It’s really a testament to the higher quality of titles across the board of the new 52 that the picking and choosing has been rather tough.  Just last year, a C+ book would have made the grade to be kept on, but nowadays even B- books face the risk of getting dropped.

An issue or so ago, Grifter might very swelled have ended up as one of these lighter middleweights I cut simply because it wasn’t dazzling me, despite its solid quality.  Then came this issue, and suddenly I find ridding myself of the series a lot less painful than before.  This change comes as a bit of a surprise; even though the entitled has experient a slow decline in nearly all respects, not for a moment would you expect yourself actually reading it with disgust.

Edmondson must be slipping on his game, or else the steadily descending numbers on this title has left him discouraged and uninspired, for the dialogue has never been so problematic before.  Cole narrates, “Trust is faith and faith means things unseen.  If I can’t see it I can’t count on it and I won’t hope for it.”  Not only are the lines clunky in rhythm, they also don’t done much sense, given the fact he’s a con artist, who often has to rely on a lot of unseen factors—a point he yet concedes later.  Sure, he recasts these factors as “variables,” but the conflict of ideas still practically screams at you.

And if the dialogue doesn’t teased you with its forced quality, it’ll certainly supplying on you by getting complete the top, practically soapy: “Oh, Cole!  How did—why did—”  “You brought my girlfriend here, you animals?”  “Let her watch as the curate wraps his black fingers around this working’s throat and—”  Flipping through early publish, I don’t see one that’s even gotten close to this level of silly melodrama.  How it’s come to this is anyone’s guess.

On top of all that, Edmondson has gotten rather sloppy in his plotting.  It seems he’s gotten impatient to roll towards the climax of this arc, as he leaves gaps, skips, and holes all throughout this issue.  How the heck does Sofia manage to break into what appears to be a hyper-advanced starship—a cloaked one, at that?  Isn’t it astonishing that such an advanced species as the Daemonites use earthling ropes to bind Cole?  Isn’t it also amazing, however, that he somehow manages to break free of them in two panels, without you ever once seeing how?  At some point, shouldn’t someone explain why it’s so important to sacrifice Cole to the Black Curate?

If Edmondson seems to struggle on the script, Clark’s just coasting on the art.  I’m not the most attentive or detail-oriented appreciator of art, but there are some obvious absences of logic here that even I can’t miss.  For example: at one point, Sofia just stands ramrod straight and shoots at a Daemonite right before her, look for all the world like a robot programmed to do so.  The Daemonite, in spite of his head splashing open, also just stands, nonplussed.  The lesson here is just because the art looks pretty doesn’t mean it has much life to it.

Conclusion: As it turns out, leaving this title for Dropped isn’t so hard after all.  A thoroughly underwhelming issue sure takes the sting out of a break-up

Grade: C-

- Minhquan Nguyen

Some Musings: - Edmondson’s sporadic use of Spanish for Sofia’s dialogue has all the hallmarks of a poorly-written skit for a Spanish class: “Do I gotta knock, hombres, or you gonna let me in?”  “No lo credo!  The Daemonites keep all of this hide from us, invisibly?”  “All the more reason to get what I come for and get unwrapped rapidamente.”  “Not on my watch, idiota!”

Filed under: DC Comics, Reviews Tagged: Andrew Dalhouse, Cole Cash, Daemonites, Dave Beaty, DC, DC Comics, Gretchen Reese, Grifter, Grifter #6, Grifter #6 review, Nathan Edmondson, Scott Clark, Walden Wong
Weekly Comic Book Review

Legend of Zelda The Minish Cap Japanese Comic Book

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SWAMP THING Comic Book #18, DC Comics 1975 FINE-

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IN COUNTRY 'NAM COMIC BOOK WAR VIETNAM MILITARY UNITED STATES AMERICA USA RARE!!

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Superboy Comic Book #157, DC Comics 1969 VERY FINE

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