The
Kingdom 2000 (SC TPB) 232 pgs.
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The
Kingdom 2000 (SC TPB) 232 pgs.
Written by Mark Waid. Illustrated by Ariel Olivetti, Mike
Zeck, Jerry Ordway, Brian Apthorp, Matt Haley, Frank Quitely, Mark Pajarillo,
Barry Kitson. Inks: various.
Colours/letters: various
Reprinting: Gog #1 (New Year's Evil) (1998 one-shot) and the seven part 1999 Kingdom mini-series comprised of The Kingdom #1, 2, The Kingdom: Son of the Bat, The Kingdom: Nightstar, The Kingdom: Offspring, The Kingdom: Kid Flash, The Kingdom: Planet Krypton
Rating: * * * 1/2 (out of 5)
Number of readings: 1
Published by DC Comics
In this semi-sequel to Kingdom
Come -- the critically acclaimed series that postulated the future
for DC's heroes -- young and old heroes, from both the future and the present,
team up against a menace that threatens the very nature of time and space.
Beginning years after Kingdom Come, a deranged,
superpowered individual, Gog, convinced Superman is the anti-Christ, travels
backward through time, killing Superman again and again and creating a
time paradox that could threaten reality. Eventually Gog kidnaps the newborn
baby of Superman and Wonder Woman (just shortly after Kingdom Come),
causing the middle-aged Superman, Wonder Woman and Batman to pursue him
through time (courtesy of Rip Hunter, Time Master) to 1998 where they join
their younger selves, while Hunter mutters about protecting a secret of
time-space that even his time travelling co-workers, the Linear Men, or
the god-like Quintessence (comprised of various DC demi-gods like Shazam
and Highfather) don't know.
Meanwhile, time has been so messed around with that the
reality of Kingdom Come might disappear in a puff of paradoxes.
A handful of second generation heroes, most seen in bit parts in KC, decide
they want to preserve their reality, and they get their chance...thanks,
again, to Hunter.
Got that? There'll be a test later.
The Kingdom is essentially two series. It's a time traveling
tale about Gog and the familiar heroes that ask big questions and, literally,
redefines the nature of DC Comics' reality (more on that later) told in
the Gog one-shot and the two double-sized issues of The Kingdom.
On the other hand, it's thoughtful, introspective pieces focusing on unfamiliar
characters sandwiched between the two issues of The Kingdom. Ironically,
it's the main story that's problematic, while the "filler" stories are
the pieces that really make this worthwhile.
Focusing on characters in the 2020s, Kid Flash (daughter
of the Flash), Nightstar (daughter of Nightwing -- the 1st Robin -- and
Starfire), Ibn al Xu'ffasch (son of Batman, but protege of the nefarious
Ra's Al Ghul) and Offspring (not seen in Kingdom Come, but the son
of Plastic Man) and a non-powered waitress in the 1998-era Planet Krypton
restaurant, these are nicely told tales. Faced with the imminent dissolution
of their reality, each of the 2020 heroes tries to make their last hours
productive while reflecting on their lives, with Waid showing four different
perspectives on parent-child relationships. It's a mark of his ability
that he can tackle the same idea four times and find four different ways
to do it. Each of the stories effectively juggles the dichotomy of super-powered
adventure with introspection, making them thoughtful, but not turgid. The
Planet Krypton issue focuses on a troubled waitress who discovers something
eerie at her place of employ -- it's a haunting mix of human drama and
larger-than-life fantasy. All five of these inbetween stories are worth
the read -- very well-drawn and nicely told. Although Mark Waid is considered
one of the industry's top writers, and I loved Kingdom Come, a lot
of his work has struck me as uneven, but these stories make me think he
deserves some of the accolades.
In the main story, however, the character stuff is less
well-realized. Waid has trouble juggling the plot while remembering to
keep a human face on it. As well, there's a problem with his approach to
the main heroes. Kingdom Come was about the dangers of superheroes
losing touch with their humanity, but while his Kid Flash, Offspring, etc.,
are people with powers, his Superman and company are a little too iconic,
lacking some of the sense that they are, after all, people.
The plotting is uneven (don't worry, no spoilers yet --
I'll let ya know before that happens). That's because this seems intended
less as a story that happens to impact on DC Comics' reality than that
Waid and company decided to re-shape DC's Universe (the company that seems
to redefine itself every few years, each time claiming this is the big
one, kids, no changes after this) and hastily cobbled together this to
explain it. Motivation is confusing (the Quintessence gave Gog his powers,
but their reasons seem shakey at best), the logic of how and why things
happen is iffy, and much of the story is taken up with monlogues that seem
more like lectures than dialogue. As well, the action-adventure aspect
is just uninspired fisticuffs. The art in the two main issues (by Ariel
Olivetti and Mike Zeck), though not bad, isn't as striking as in the other
stories. Zeck inparticular has an effective sense of composition, but marred
by a more cartoony style than any of the other artists.
The Kingdom lacks the epic grandeur of Kingdom Come.
That's partly due to the absence of Alex Ross' painted art (Ross either
declined to be part of the this, or wasn't invited -- either way I'm not
sure it was amicable) but also because of the writing. This is more comicbooky,
and less of a story unto itsef. Thus there's an irony. It'll be disappointing
for fans expecting Kingdom Come, but might be confusing in spots
if you haven't read that story: relationships aren't always articulated,
nor characters identified (Magog, from KC, appears in a bar...dressed just
like Gog, but nowhere is Magog identified as being someone other
than Gog).
O.K. SPOILER TIME. How does this re-shape the DCU?
By introducing Hyper Time (better known to older readers as alternate realities).
DC used to have them, like Earth 1 (Silver Age heroes) and Earth 2 (Golden
Age heroes), but supposedly it was confusing, so in 1985 DC published Crisis
on Infinite Earths which eliminated the multi-verse concept, killing
off a lot of beloved characters and ideas, and leaving a lot of fans with
their noses out of joint even as other fans welcomed it as necessary house
cleaning. Crisis wasn't quite the fix-all it was supposed to be, subsequently
followed by patch ups like Zero Hour which were meant to clean up
messes left by Crisis, and DC almost immediately introduced its "Elseworld"
line of, yup, alternate reality stories, but the official line was that
DC was now one Universe, indivisible under God. The Kingdom changes that.
Some fans have howled, complaining that Mark Waid's wrecked everything
by turning back the clock by 15 years, while other fans smiled smugly,
feeling DC has finally owed up to the fact that their "one universe" concept
was a bone-headed idea and disrespectful to generations of fans, creators,
and characters.
What the immediate fall out has been, I'm not sure. I
don't think DC's falling all over itself to release Earth 2 Justice Society
stories (in fact the earth 2 name was recently appropriated for another
reality entirely in JLA: Earth 2) or Superboy-when-Superman-was-a-teenager
stories. Quite probably, it never will. In a way, The Kingdom could be
seen, not as bringing back old characters and ideas, but as a way of giving
them a more respectful send off (such as the Golden Age Superman who appears
at the beginning and end of the series), allowing the characters to continue
to have adventures and triumphs in their own little universes, even if
we never read about them. And as a way of opening up possibilities for
DC's writers.
Still, we can hope.
The five inbetween issues are very well written and well
drawn, though the main storyline is maybe of more interest for its impact
on continuity than as a story unto itself.
Cover price: $__ CDN./$14.95 USA.
Kingdom Come
go here for a review
Lady Rawhide: It Can't Happen Here 1999 (SC TPB) 120 pgs.
Written
by Don McGregor. Pencils by Mike Mayhew. Inks by Jimmy Palmiotti.
Black & White. Letters: Michael Delepine, Kenny Lopez. Editor:
Renee Witterstaetter, others.
Reprinting the first Lady Rawhide mini-series (#1-5) from 1995-1996 (which was originally published by Topps in colour)
Rating: * * * (out of 5)
Number of readings: 1
Published by Image Comics
First introduced in the pages of Topps Comics' 1990s Zorro comics (and long before TV's "Queen of Swords"), Lady Rawhide is a masked, sword wielding heroine existing in the same period: early 19th Century Spanish-held California. This, her first solo story, has her visting San Francisco, then a tiny port town rather than the modern metropolis. She rescues a Russian sailor from a mob who thinks he's a murderer of young women, then she investigates the killings, suspecting the killer might be connected to the wealthy family with whom she is staying.
It Can't Happen Here is oddly structured, spanning a day and two nights -- a kind of modest timeframe (particularly as, when originally published as a bi-monthly mini-series, it was stretched over 9 months!). The plot is mayhap a bit slight, but still entertaining. Don McGregor brings his usual penchant for talky characters and introspective captions, spiced with odd humour, giving the thing a well-rounded feel, even if the cliched serial killer plot seems beneath his talents. To his credit, there are only a couple of murders over the course of the story, and McGregor is one of the few writers who actually takes the time to contemplate the repercussions of such violence (without seeming to be exploiting or trivializing grief).
The art by Mike Mayhew and inker Jimmy Palmiotti is attractive and pleasantly restrained, though there are a few spots where panels are confusingly arranged.
The thing starts well on a foggy night, with Lady Rawhide and her rescued sailor running from the mob for two issues -- action and atmosphere. Granted, read as single issues, there's not a lot of progression, but in a collected volume they make good chapters. As the story progresses, things occasionally bog down in over long scenes and wordy conversations that contribute to the period milieu and the characterization more than to the plot. And there's a flaw with a story that's supposed to be a mystery but doesn't introduce us to suspects until halfway through!
Perhaps the most talked about aspect of Lady Rawhide is the sexploitation angle, with some critics dismissing the character out of hand as tawdry tripe. Ironically, that's what McGregor and the gang was going for, hyping Lady Rawhide as a sexual "bad girl".
Both McGregor and his critics may be exaggerating, at least somewhat.
Sure, Lady Rawhide is dressed scandalously, but not really moreso than your average comicbook heroine (she wears less than Wonder Woman, but more than Vampirella). She's certainly no "bad girl", a designation applied to the comics sub-genre featuring underclad, buxom babes given to snarling and brutal violence. Lady Rawhide is a level-headed, likeable character, lacking a vicious streak...and her physical dimensions are rather modest when compared to other heroines.
The main "sex" aspect is in the writing, occasional use of words like "cleavage", or in the way characters comment on her appearance, asking how come her "breasts don't come popping out" of her skimpy costume -- dialogue that can be inappropriate inn some scenes, motivation-wise, and seem more like the stuff of sophomoric school boys ("wink, wink, nudge, nudge, say no more," as Monty Python would put it). But all McGregor's doing is drawing attention to the conventions of superheroines in general, rather than anything extreme about his own creation. In the entire book, there's only one scene that seems like it maybe strays a little outside of what you'd expect to see in, say, a Wonder Woman comic. And, admittedly, Lady Rawhide is depicted in a few blatant "cheesecake" poses, bending over for no discernable reason.
Don't misunderstand: there's certainly a sexy element to the book, but nothing extreme.
Hardly a ground-breaking plot, and a bit slow in spots, but it benefits from the atmosphere, the unusual (for a superhero comic) historical setting, McGregor's usual thoughtful, literary prose (when he's not indulging in snickering innuendo) and nice art. The mini-series was originally published in colour by Topps, and it's a shame Image was cheap and reprinted it in black & white, particularly given the price tag.
This led to a follow up comic by McGregor and artist Esteban Maroto that has, I believe, suffered from an erratic publishing history (and jumping from Topps to Image).
In deference to the salacious hype, I could give the book a "mature readers" caution, but more for the way the characters talk about sex than for any depiction of same. Ironically, there's a bit of gore in a scene involving some dead animals that makes me more cautious.
Ultimately a modest but appealing read. Nice ambience, moderately sexy and intelligent (when it's not being sophomoric), but a tad slow. Attractively illustrated...in more ways than one (wink, wink, nudge, nudge)
This is a review of the story as it was originally serialized in Lady Rawhide comics.
Cover price: $__CDN./ $16.95 USA.
Legends:
The Collection 1991 (SC TPB) 150
pgs.
Plot by John Ostrander. Script by Len Wein. Pencils by
John Byrne. Inks by Karl Kesel.
Colours: Tom Ziuko, Carl Gafford. Letters: Steve Haynie. Editor: Mike
Gold.
Reprinting: Legends #1-6 (1986 mini-series) plus gallery of covers from the crossover issues of other titles
Rating: * (out of 5)
Number of readings: 1
Published by DC Comics
Darkseid, DC Comics' resident super-villain's super-villain, plots to conquer earth by having one of his minions, Glorious Godfrey, stir up anti-superhero sentiment, turning humanity against their living legends.
Legends features an assemblage of respectable comic professionals working on an intriguing premise featuring a number of DC's heroes. There's a baseline of competence to the thing that can't be shrugged off.
So why does the word "awful" keep echoing in my head?
For starters, I never got the sense anyone working on this actually...cared. The behind the scenes story was that DC wanted a follow-up -- though not a direct sequel -- to the Crisis on Infinite Earths mini-series. This time, instead of changing things, they wanted to kick start things, re-introducing characters and spinning them off into new series (like new versions of the Justice League and the Suicide Squad). So a V.P. calls an editor who calls a plotter who calls a writer, an artist is hired who suggests some plot elements, then the whole thing is run by the editorial community at DC to make sure it gels with what's going on in other titles -- things are switched around, characters that were intended to be used are dropped, or their parts cut drastically (like Wonder Woman), others added. The result seems a corporate-driven, rather than creative-driven, product. Oh, I'm sure everyone was happy to collect their pay cheques.
I just don't believe they cared.
It's a loose mess, with scenes that don't really go anywhere, fights for the sake of fights, and precious little characterization, or even participation, of most of the characters.
To make matters worse, this was one of those "cross-over" sagas. Y'know, when companies realize that, even as they're losing casual readers, they can milk extra dollars from hardcore fans with mini-series that spill over into the regular titles, forcing readers to buy a lot of comics they wouldn't normally? This may've been billed as a "six part"s, but it's more like a twenty. But only the six issues are reprinted here. The basic elements of the story are contained herein, but characters utter lines that make no sense, fly off never to be seen again, or (in the most blatant example) one chapter ends with Darkseid vowing to battle Superman...and then the next issue only contains a passing reference by Superman indicating the fight had taken place in his own, self-titled comics.
The original Captain Marvel is given the most dramatically charged storyline. Darkseid causes him to believe his powers killed someone, leading his alter ego, Billy Batson, to vow never to become Captain Marvel again. Except, then the same hand-wringing scene is repeated every issue, with no real progess or embellishmnt, until Billy finally decides, oh heck, he might as well become Captain Marvel after all.
What's missing is a point.
The story has the public turning against their heroes. Various metaphors pop into mind, from racism (with the superheroes representing a presecuted minority) to comics themselves, with kids remaining true to their heroes even as the adult world rejects them. But none of those quite fit.
Instead one is left with an uncomfortable feeling that the series is really an attack on egalitarianism. The heroes are "better" than "normal" people -- not morally, but as physical paragons, literally the ubermensch -- and Godfrey's harangues harp on a need to bring equality back to the world. Godrey is a villain, the public are mindless sheep, while only the master race of superheroes deserves our undying worship and devotion. Hopefully I'm misinterpreting. After all, more likely the problem is what I initially suggest...no one knew what it was about, so it ended up this odd, unfocusd mess.
A side point: Godfrey is something of a mass brainwasher. There's been a war in the last few decades in comicdom as to whether comics should be written for a new reader (with dialogue and panels reiterating common knowledge information) or just for the fan with his insider knowledge. The hardcore fanboys are winning out, making comics increasingly incoherent for casual readers. Presumably the reader was supposed to know of Godfrey's powers of persuasion. If you didn't (as I did not) much of the story, involving the escalating anti-superhero mood, just seems implausible.
Wein's handling of the characters is uneven, which is odd since he'd written for many of these characters in the past. While Byrne's art is a little too uniform. He and Kesel are great at depicting Darkseid's planet of Apokolips, but overall, everything looks the same. But in a story mixing such disparate characters as Captain Marvel, Superman, Batman, the Phantom Stranger, Dr. Fate and others, an artist needs to evoke the different characters' milieus, and blend them seamlessly.
Ultimately, Legends was a marketing ploy more than an artistic statement. It led to various spin-off titles, some of which were successful (the new Flash comic), many which, at least in the long run, were not.
This is a review of the story as it was originally serialized in the Legends mini-series.
Cover price: $__ CDN./$9.95 USA
The Life and Death of Captain Marvel is a TPB containing material previously collected in The Life of Captain Marvel and the graphic novel The Death of Captain Marvel.
The Life of Captain Marvel 1990 (SC TPB) 240 pgs.
Story by Jim Starlin. Scripts by Starlin, Mike Friedrich,
Steve Englehart. Drawn by Jim Starlin. Inks by various.
Colours: Jim Starlin. Letters: Various. Editor: Roy Thomas.
Reprinting: Iron Man #55, Captain Marvel (the first Marvel Comics series) #25-31, Marvel Feature #12, Captain Marvel (the first Marvel Comics series) #32-34 (with covers) (1972-1974)
Rating: * * * * * (out of 5)
Number of readings: 2
Published by Marvel Comics
There may be a curse on the name Captain Marvel. The first character to bear that moniker, though hugely successful in the 1940s, has limped through the last few decades, achieving only cult status. Likewise, Marvel Comics' Captain Marvel had a bumpy career, undergoing changes in premise, costume, powers, and even personality, before being killed off. But like his predecessor, he's achieved cult-icon status. (Of course Marvel Comics has tried a couple of the other characters with the name, including the current version who is this Marvel's son).
The Life of Captain Marvel chronicles the longest, and perhaps most important, adventure of that 2nd most famous character to bear the name Captain Marvel. It collects the saga of the earth-based alien superhero, Mar-vell, and his battle with the would be universe-conquerer, the power mad Thanos, and the latter's quest to gain the all-powerful Cosmic Cube (known variously as the Thanos War, The Cosmic Cube Saga, and other such designations). It introduces us to Thanos, the demi-gods who live inside the moon of Titan, and Dax the Destroyer, and involves Iron Man, as well as The Thing and the Avengers, not to mention various villainous types. This was also at a time when Mar-vell was playing alter ego to side kick Rick Jones, the two exchanging atoms in times of trouble.
This never boring, sprawling epic is full of action and adventure, but also forays into philosophy and metaphysics as Mar-vell attains a kind of comic book enlightenment -- Cosmic Awareness -- in mid-story, instilling him with a broader world view. Captain Marvel spouting philosophy in mid-battle may seem a bit hokey, but having a hero articulate the notion that violence must always be a last resort and mustn't exceed the minimum needs of the moment, is refreshing and even thought provoking.
Mar-vell's metamorphosis gives the saga it's extra edge...you just don't expect a hero to be dragged out of his adventure in mid-story to a funky other-dimensional plane and undergo a perception altering experience -- particularly not when most readers prrobably didn't feel he needed an attitude adjustment in the first place. And most comic writers, too. Later Mar-vell scribes emphasized his Cosmically Aware powers over his Cosmically Aware philosophy.
Overall, the Life of Captain Marvel is a fun, fast-paced, occasionally mind-blowing, roller-coaster ride.
Admittedly, there are some weaknesses. This was among Starlin's earliest work, and his art would get better (even over the course of this series it improves) as would his writing. There's some corny dialogue in spots. It isn't on the same artistic/metaphysical/intellectual level as Starlin's later work on Adam Warlock (such as his great Warlock vs. Magus epic -- reviewed in my They Ain't TPBs section), but maybe that's what's kind of fun about The Life of Captain Marvel. It's an audacious mishmash that epitomizes what super-hero comics can be.
Comics being the least respected of all mediums, and super heroes the least respected of all genres, there's an uninhibitedness to the best of superhero comics; no one's paying attention, so they'll do whatever they like. The Life of Captain Marvel is a kaleidoscope of high brow and low brow, of pulpy fisticuffs and philosophical ruminations, of urban adventure and cosmic fantasy, of corny lines one moment, and echoing Macbeth the next (with a line about "no man born of woman"), of silly humour and grimaced seriousness, of high flying, cosmic adventure and the mundane domesticity of Rick Jones contemplating his music career. When you realize the woman in the hood hanging out with Thanos is literally Death, you know you're reading a super-hero comic. No other medium or genre would have the chutzpah to mix such divergent, surrealistic ingredients. It's these similar attributes that I enjoyed so much in The Avengers: The Kree-Skrull War (which makes a nice companion piece to this).
Of course, this story arc seems heavily influenced by Jack Kirby's New Gods (something with which I wasn't familiar when I first read this). Thanos is Darkseid (even resembling him physically), Mar-vell (at least before he achieves Cosmic Awareness) is the volatile Orion, Mentor is Highfather, Eros is Lightray, etc. Even some of the themes and ideas echo the New Gods series. That doesn't take away from The Life of Captain Marvel, which still has its own identity (at least, I'll have to read it again before I can be sure), but it's worth noting.
Happily, this collection retains most of the original footnotes. Often TPBs delete the footnotes that had been in the original issues. I don't know why. If anything, collections should have greater annotations for the novice reader. I suspect there may have been some editing here and there, since the page count for various issues range from 20 to 15, but I don't know. Certainly there are one or two spots where I could identify text clearly added to bridge one issue with the next.
Likewise, the credits are lumped together at the beginning, to create a greater sense of a continuous novel, but as such you find yourself trying to identify the inkers and letterers of various chapters, with much frustration.
The final issue, Captain Marvel #34, has little to do with Thanos. It introduces plot threads that go unresolved (at least in this book) but is included for the fact that it contains story material that would later be relevant to the graphic novel The Death of Captain Marvel -- a decision I can't exactly argue with.
Despite some corny dialogue here and there, and a sense that the big ideas aren't always realized to their fullest, The Life of Captain Marvel is a thoroughly engrossing, pleasingly ingratiating, read. It's an epic that makes you glad you still read comics.
These issues were also reprinted earlier in The Life of Captain Marvel mini-series
Original cover price: $17.95 CDN./$14.95 USA.
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