Written/illustrated
by by various.
Miscellaneous (Superheroes) - PAGE 8
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Omega the Unknown Classic
"Omega the Unknown collects an obscure 1970s series, plus its "conclusion" in a couple of Defenders issues. It's being released because novelist Jonathan Lethem has persuaded Marvel to let him revive Omega for a new series. That's created its own controversy, as Omega co-creator, Steve Gerber, isn't happy about seeing what he regards as a very personal project handled by others. But you can google that to find out more.
"So what was Omega and why, decades later, does it continue to haunt? Gerber's still angry, other's want to revive it, and it may've had a passing influence on DC's 1980s maxi-series, Jemm, Son of Saturn."
Now, on to the full review
see my review here -- The posted review rates the art as A-, the story as B+, and the total as B+. But I really liked this series, and the story and total rating were both supposed to be A (out of a possible A+). FYI. As well, though my review is largely as I wrote it, the opening was slightly edited. Just for fun, here's how I wrote the beginning, and you can compare it with the beginning to the posted review -- see which works better.
100 Greatest Marvels #25-22 2001 (SC TPB) 100 pages
Written/illustrated
by by various.
Reprinting: Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #141, Amazing Spider-Man (1st series) #1, Fantastic Four (1st series) #48, Daredevil (1st series) #181.
Rating: * * (out of 5)
Number of readings: 1 (well, more, but only once as a collection)
Published by Marvel Comics
Some months previous, Marvel had solicited its readers to send in suggestions for the greatest Marvel Comics stories ever published. The result is the 100 Greatest Marvels mini-series -- misleadingly named since it will reprint, not the top 100, but the top 25 fan selected suggestions. The first four issues will be giant issues reprinting four stories each, then five regular-size issues will reprint one issue each, counting down the top five.
It's a good idea, for the most part, representing classic stories for a modern audience (and clearly inspired by DC's Millennium Edition series). And I was sort of looking forward to the result. Unfortunately, the first issue gets off to a rocky start.
100 Greatest Marvels 25-22 reprints Uncanny X-Men #141, by Chris Claremont and John Byrne, Amazing Spider-Man #1, by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, Fantastic Four #48, by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, and Daredevil #181 by Frank Miller. These are all the first series of these titles. That in itself is a surprise. Given that these were supposedly selected by modern fans, I kind of expected it to be made up of trendy but forgettable comics published in the last five or ten years. Though maybe that will be the trend as the series counts down toward #1.
I didn't end up buying this for the simple reason that I already have all four issues (or earlier reprints) in my collection. But that's not the source of my ambivalence.
These are, on the surface, worthy selections -- sort of. But here's the catch. Two of the issues, The X-Men and the Fantastic Four, end To Be Continued. What's the point of that? The Fantastic Four issue introduces the Silver Surfer and Galactus, a milestone to be sure, and the X-Men was a brooding, atmospheric one about time travel and the New Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. Both are good stories, even exceptional stories, when read in their entirety. But as unfinished stories? Maybe Marvel did this because the X-Men story is available in Essential X-Men vol 2, as well as X-Men: Days of Future Past, and the FF story in Essential Fantastic Four vol. 3, as well as Silver Surfer: The Coming of Galactus.
Call me a nutty maverick, but I don't pick up a collection like this simply so a company can sucker me into going out and buying other books just to find out how the stories end.
What on God's green earth were the editors of Marvel thinking? I somehow doubt that when fans wrote in their suggestions, they said: "Please reprint FF #48 'cause it was really cool, but not the rest of the story." No, I'm betting it was more like: "Please reprint the first appearance of the Silver Surfer" and so Marvel's literal-minded editors reprint the first appearance from #48, but not the second and third (from #49 and #50).
The Spider-Man story is entertaining enough, introducing J.J. Jameson to the mythos (though this isn't Spidey's first appearance and origin which was in Amazing Fantasy #15). Already there's some of trademark angst and "reality" that would set Spider-Man apart from similar comics as Spidey grapples with money problems. But, of course, it's a product of its time: simplistic, juvenile and Lee and Ditko were only just getting a feel for the gig, so it's not as good as what was to come.
As such, the only great story in this "greatest" collection is the double-length Daredevil. Written and drawn by Frank Miller, "The Last Hand" is a dark, brutal tale of Bullseye killing Elektra, then having a show down with DD himself. Moody-as-all-get-out, poetic, poignant, tense, told from Bullseye's P.O.V. with Miller using his patented sense of irony, of playing images and words off against each other to brilliant effect. It reminds you, after the major disappointment that was The Dark Knight Strikes Again, that once upon a time Miller really was a great storyteller. But the story's also pretty violent, so be warned. If I had compiled a list of top 10 comics stories by any publisher, I might very well have included this. So maybe this collection is worth buying just for it alone.
Of course, since Elektra was shortly resurrected, and is even starring in her own series, the story hardly qualifies as a milestone. But then, the 100 Greatest series shouldn't be about "milestones", it should be about great stories, period, even if no new character is introduced, or era shattering revelation is depicted.
Unfortunately, "great" stories don't end in the middle, as happens with the X-Men and the FF. And if the editors at Marvel can't understand that, can't understand that a story needs a beginning, middle, and end, comics in general will never be taken seriously by the mainstream media. And Marvel's "greatest" will remain an elusive dream.
Cover price: $11.50 CDN./ $7.50 USA
The Phantom: The Ghost Who Walks 2003 (SC TPB) 162 pages
Written
by Ben Raab, Ron Goulart. Illustrated by Fernando Blanco, Mike Collins.
Inks by Fernando Blanco, Art Nichols.
Colours: Ken Wolak, Dawn Groszewski, Paul Mounts. Letters: Terri Boyle,
Chuck Maly. Editor: Garett Anderson, Joe Gentile.
Reprinting: The graphic novels "The Singh Web", "The Treasure of Bangalla", "The Ghost Killer" - plus covers; author commentaries; overview of the Phantom's history by Ed Rhoades; sketchbook reproductions.
Rating: * * * (out of 5)
Number of readings: 1
Published by Moonstone Books
Created in 1936 as a newspaper comic strip, the Phantom -- nicknamed The Ghost Who Walks -- is consiidered the first costumed superhero. Mixing elements of Tarzan with conventional crimebusters, the Phantom lives in the jungles of Bangalla, but is equally at home pursuing evil doers to the big city. The character has had an erratic history in comics, with everyone from King Features to DC Comics having a go at him. He has also appeared in other mediums: paperback novels in the 1970s, and a decently budgeted motion picture starring Billy Zane in 1996. It was the -- surprisingly faithful -- motion picture that was my first true exposure to the character, and though the film was uneven, it was also a lot of fun and is well worth searching for at your local video store.
Despite all this, the Phantom remains an obscure character -- the movie bombed, the on-going newspaper strip is carried only by a few papers. Ironically, today this American creation seems to be more popular overseas, particularly in Scandinavian countries, and Australia.
Recently though, a fledgingly company, Moonstone Books, is hoping to resurrect the Phantom in the comic books, initially with a series of graphic novels, three of which have been collected in this TPB collection.
These stories aren't meant to radically re-imagine the concept. Rather these simply present the Phantom in a different format, but keep the tone of the newspaper strip and the movie -- light, even frothy adventure-suspense tales, with lots of running about and the Phantom given to light-hearted banter. It's meant to be old fashioned adventure.
And the creators mostly succeed, which is both a plus and a minus.
The three stories here are fast and unpretentious, and though there is some murder and mayhem, it's generally "clean" fun, lacking a nasty, or "gritty" edge that too many modern storytellers use as a substitute for true sophistication. The villains are generally real world sort of foes -- art thieves, gun runners. However, one story, "The Singh Web", is evocative of the mysticism of the 1996 movie in that it involves a struggle for a mystical artifact (in fact, much of the plot seems reminiscent of the film!).
There's a lot of old fashioned "pulp" flavour to the stories, with a couple of tales beginning with expeditions into the jungle, or one involving the tried-and-true sinister sanitorium. For those not as keen on mainstream super heroes, with their garish villains, fantasy/sci-fi plots, and convoluted continuities, these stories are more down to earth, and you don't really need any prior knowledge about the Phantom. Though it's worth noting that the symbols on the Phantom's rings are meant to be a skull and a stylized cross respectively -- rather than a swastika which the latter, quite unfortunately, sort of resembles!
The downside to all this can be that the stories are very light. There's little characterization, or deep emotion, or thoughtful asides, and the dialogue remains fairly workmanlike. The writers take their "all in good fun" attitude seriously. Probably the best is the final story, "The Ghost Killer", in which a little more emphasis is put on the Phantom's relationship with his wife, Diana, giving more heart to the proceedings.
It's also kind of, well, unspectacular. In a comic book, the stories should be limited only by what a writer can imagine and an artist can draw. The stories here seem budget-conscious, like episodes of a TV series, or at best, like TV movies. The action tends to be fistfights, and shoot-outs, in non-descript jungle settings, or urban milieus. I'm not saying each story needed a fight on a dirigible, or a chase through a quicksand infested swamp, but something might've been nice.
Given that some of the (very few) other Phantom stories I've read included a quest for a lost expedition, climaxing in a fight with a giant spider, or the Phantom out of his milieu on board a passenger ship hijacked by modern day pirates, or stories that took advantage of the multi-generational aspect of the character to present adventures set in the past, the stories here seem a tad...prosaic. Although there is a token nod to the fact that the Phantom mantle is passed from father to son, as "The Singh Web" is set in the 1930s, while the other stories appear more modern.
Even when a story concept started out interesting, by the time it made it to the page, it seems to have been watered down. Scripter Ben Raab, in a commentary, says that the premise for the "Ghost Killer" was to pit the Phantom against a world class assassin determined to prove the fallacy of the jungle saying that the Phantom cannot die. But in the story itself, the assassin isn't particularly smart, or powerful. Her great plan is to simply ambush the Phantom with a bunch of armed mercenaries! In the end, she seems a minor foe at best.
The art is a little disappointing, particularly when contrasted with the dramatic, painted cover of this collection by Doug Klauba. Fernando Blanco draws two stories, and his style seems to improve a bit between them, from the "Singh Web" where it's kind of cartoony and angular, to "The Ghost Killer", where he's toned it down a bit, and the work is stronger. There's also more of a cheesecake-y approach in that latter story, with the lady assassin depicted in tight shirts or dressing in a bikini for very little reason. Obviously that can be a plus, depending on your views. On the down side, Blanco is one of those modern artists who can't resist drawing in blood and spit even for what should be a gag pratfall as a bad guy runs into a tree! So much for a kinder, gentler storytelling sensibility.
Mike Collins draws the Ron Goulart-scripted "The Treasure of Bangalla", and although there's less of the cartoony exaggeration of Blanco, the work is a bit stiff and dry. I'm not really sure what the overall history of the Phantom's art chores has been, but one of the few Phantom comics I have is a 1970s Charlton issue by the late, great Don Newton, and it set a standard in my mind that Blanco and Collins fail to meet.
Comic book writer Raab scripts two of the tales, Ron Goulart just one. Goulart, a novelist and comic strip writer (the 1970s Star Hawks strip), gained some wider recognition a few years ago "helping" William Shatner to write his popular -- and very pulp-flavoured -- TekWar novels. (You can often recognize recurring Goulart-ian touches in his works, such as spelling news as Newz, which also occurred in TekWar.)
In the end, The Phantom: The Ghost Who Walks is still an enjoyable, pulpy read. Maybe not a classic, but ingratiating in its very unpretentiousness.
Cover price: $__ CDN./ $16.95 USA.
Project Superpowers 2008 (HC TPB) 190 pages
Written by Jim Krueger (story Alex Ross & Jim Krueger). Illustrated by Carlos Paul, and others.
Colours: Debora Carita. Letters: Simon Bowland.
Reprinting; Project Superpowers #0-7 (2008)
Rating: * * (out of 5)
Number of readings: 1
Published by Dynamite Comics
Alex Ross made a huge splash with his fully painted, photo-realist art on such seminal projects as Marvels and Kingdom Come. He's parleyed that into a kind of nebulous creativity where he'll be credited as a guiding vision...even as he might only draw covers and design sketches. Still, with scripter Jim Krueger, in this ambiguous capacity Ross has been involved in projects at both Marvel and DC.
And now the two have turned their efforts to crafting a new super hero universe. Well, new...and old.
Marvel and DC get a lot of mileage out of having established heroes with years of history behind them. So for relative new comics company, Dynamite, Ross and Krueger raided the pages of old Golden Age comics and grabbed up old costumed hero who've lapsed into the public domain (though copyright considerations have necessitated some changes, such as the original, 1940s hero, Daredevil, now being identified as The Death Defying 'Devil here so as not to be confused with Marvel's blind hero).
And they've put them to work in service of a grand, epic saga of global (and allegorical) ramifications. It has echoes of everything from The Watchmen to DC: The New Frontier -- heck, almost concurrent with Project Superpowers, Marvel began publishing The Twelve, a maxi-series about obscure 1940s heroes finding themselves in modern times.
Still, it's a nifty idea (hence why it's been done before). Though I haven't read any of the original adventures of the heroes depicted here, I've heard of some. So seeing characters like Daredevil (uh, I mean, 'Devil) does engender a twinge of nostalgia in me.
If only the storytelling had lived up to the ambition.
The premise is that decades ago, one of the war time super heroes, The Fighting Yank, was convinced that he could end evil in the world by resealing it in Pandora's mythical urn. But, for reasons that are a bit dodgy (a problem with much of the narrative) he believes he must capture his fellow heroes in the urn, as well. This he does.
Cut to modern times, and the now aged Fighting Yank is visited by an enigmatic American Spirit who tells him he did wrong, and locked up the people who could've helped fight evil. Reuniting with the Green Lama (one of the few heroes not sealed in the urn) he sets out to free his allies from the urn, not realizing that there are others who don't want this to happen. After breaking the urn, which results in the old heroes being scattered all over the globe, they must unite them, while also facing a showdown with an army of zombies in the middle east.
Oh, and did I mention that after first advertising this as a mini-series...then as the start of a whole Dynamite super hero universe...toward the end of the run, it was hyped as merely "chapter one" -- kind of dampening expectations of a satisfying beginning, middle and end to these 190-some pages?
The problems generally get down to confused storytelling. Perhaps working with Dynamite's more novice editorial team (assuming there was an editor at all, as none is identified in the comics' credits) the duo just didn't have anyone looking over their shoulders.
So problems range from the very urn concept itself, and who and why was responsible for duping the Fighting Yank to begin with (much blame is laid at the feat of the Fighting Yank's ghostly guardian -- his revolutionary war ancestor -- but it's not really clear if he was aware of the wrongness of the plan, either). Or, given the state of this world, why it took a visit from a spirit for the Fighting Yank to realize he hadn't eliminated evil! Even the nature of the world seems kind of vague -- there's a U.S.-backed zombie army fighting in the middle east...but who are they fighting?! Or why?! At one point it's suggested they are trying to destroy the oil wells, forcing the world to become dependent on the alternative fuel offered by the Dynamic Family mega corporation that rules much of America -- but surely that's not the "official" goal of the war.
Ross and Krueger dredge up a lot of near forgotten comic book heroes, but it's not really clear who they are or what some of their powers are. They throw in the idea that spending decades in a mystical urn has changed some of the characters and their powers. Which kind of makes you wonder, if they didn't think the character, as is, was good enough to reuse...why bring him back at all?
In fact, there's a bit of a selfish hubris at work, as Ross and Krueger seem to be laying claim to just about every character they can find -- more than they can possibly hope to use in any meaningful sense (even the zombie soldiers are meant to evoke a 1940s comic book take on Frankenstein, I think). It's as if they just wanted to horde characters so no one else could come along and try a similar project.
A number of the heroes of that era had sidekicks (either boy partners or girlfriends), so when they appear, scattered all over the globe, a lot of the heroes wonder what happened to their sidekicks...making for repetitious motivation. As well, they're all pretty similar in personality -- and generic. Krueger makes them personable enough...but not in a way that makes any of them that compelling.
Anyway, the use of these old characters, with little explanation, means we aren't really sure what the "surprises" are supposed to be. Much of America is ruled by the former heroes the Dynamic Family (in shades of Ozymandis from The Watchmen) -- but why they turned "bad", and why they are robots, is unclear (I mean, were they always robots, or is this a new twist?) Dynamite maybe should have included vintage reprints in each issue, just to help familiarize us with who these characters are.
There's a lot of vagueness to the storytelling, and inconsistency (a number of the characters allude to their time in the urn as if they were alone...then another character remarks that all they had in the urn was each other!) Or where we kind of get surprise revelations...when we didn't even realize there was a question. When the hero Samson shows up...it takes a while to realize that he wasn't one of those trapped in the urn.
The basic plot in these eight issues is pretty, well, basic. The fact that Dynamite would start hyping this as "chapter one" indicates this is basically just a set up for their own super hero universe (not only leading into the next Project Superpowers maxi-series, but various on going spin-offs featuring the Black Terror, the 'Devil, etc.) Though at least it does build to a sort of resolution -- a big battle -- so it's not like it ends on a cliffhanger, at least.
Ross became a star for his painted art, so projects with his name on them kind of bring an expectation of visual greatness. With Justice, for example, though he didn't pencil it, he did paint over the pencils of another artist. But here, Ross neither pencils nor paints. Yet there is an obvious attempt to evoke a painted look to the colours...but it's an attempt that more often just looks muddy and crude. Likewise, the pencil art itself isn't that great, the faces kind of flat (and not significantly distinguished from each other) the figures stiff, the composition nothing that great. Ironically, the pencils and colours might cancel each other out. Maybe not weighed under by the colour, the pencils would look a little more appealing. Maybe over more dynamic figures, the colours would seem more effective. But the art can join with the writing to make for some confusing and muddled sequences.
Of course, the interesting thing with these kind of projects is what's the "message"...if any? It's easy to attribute some sort of real world resonance to the series. We have a regime that seems to have imposed order/security at the expense of individual liberty, and a war in the middle east where dead soldiers are recycled as zombie troops (perhaps analogous to the way the Bush administration brought in new rules where they could send soldiers back to the fighting even after their tour of duty). And there are references to the returning heroes as being viewed as "terrorists" by the authorities. All very edgy, provocative stuff. But borrowing catch phrases from modern politics has become so common in comics...it's not clear how much real meaning they contain (the current Buffy comics also have the heroes being viewed as "terrorists" by governments).
Then the heroes issue their manifesto about how they are going to fix the world one way or another, and say: "We are Americans. And we are your friends." Suddenly the heroes are sounding suspiciously like George W. Bush themselves.
Which, in a sense, is maybe the point: create a metaphor that can be read different ways by different ideologies.
Anyway...there are some good parts. Krueger offers up some okay dialogue here and there, an occasional cute quip. The heroes, though fairly indistinguishable from each other, are for the most part personable. And his hints at a camaraderie between them adds a "human" touch. But with so many characters running about, many only have a few lines here or there, not enough to make them come alive as people we care about.
It could be argued that this is the launching pad for a whole publishing line, and the heroes (and plot elements) will be explored and developed in the various spin-offs. But -- and I've made this point before -- the way to get a reader to follow along in those spin-off series is to tell a great story right off the bat. Why would I pick up the next Project Superpowers series, or a Black Terror monthly, if this first series didn't make me interested in the characters and convince me Ross and his collaborators could tell a coherent story?
After being disappointed in this series read month-by-month, I read the whole thing again in a couple of days. Now the characters were at least more "familiar", and some of the confusing bits do make more sense (but only some). And I thought, well, maybe I'm being harsh. Maybe I should pick up the next Project Superpowers maxi-series...
But the fact remains that the characters aren't that interesting, the plotting not very coherent, and the art not very attractive. Nostalgia aside, nothing here has really convinced me Ross and Krueger can deliver.
This is a review of the series as it was serialized in the comics.
Cover price: ___
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