Monthly Dose is a semi-regular column where I read one issue each month of long-completed series.
So wow...it's been a whole month since I've posted anything on here. There are lots of reasons for this, most of which center on the fact that m'lady and I are having a baby in November, and this means several other things are happening in our lives between now and then, like having half of our house redone, me getting a new job, etc. The result is that I have way less time for comics. I've already stepped away from writing for PopMatters (much love to them and to Shathley Q in particular for giving me the opportunity) and my 1987 And All That posts on CSBG have also slowed a bit recently (for instance, there should be a new one this Thursday, but it's going to be delayed until next week for sure). So my output has dwindled in all the spaces where I write, and this blog, with its tiny readership and with me as the sole content generator, is no exception. Blah blah blah, the point of this paragraph is mostly to say that, normally, I'd be starting to read a new third series for Monthly Dose, having finished Automatic Kafka last month, but my current living situation doesn't grant me much access to my comics collection, so it's just going to be the 2 titles for now. Hopefully next month, there'll be 3 again, and in an ideal world I will also get back on my Action Comics Weekly reviews then, too.
100 Bullets #34: Brian Azzarello's writing can be extremely clever, but sometimes it's too clever for its own good. This issue is a prime example of that, for two reasons: 1. There are way too many tortured puns in a row, and 2. There is the illusion of narrative progress when really, mostly, we get spinning wheels. The very beginning tells us that Monroe Tannenbaum is dead, which leads Megan Dietrich to provide Milo with a few more details about his current case. From there, we get a lot of Milo making plans that fall through, and then at the end he sees the word "Croatoa" on the painting that this entire arc is based on, and it seems to trigger him as we've seen it do with other Minutemen in the past. So we know that Milo is a Minuteman, though we still don't fully understand the significance of that fact. Point being, the first few pages and final page of this issue actually do push things forward, but the rest is a bunch of idly stewing in Milo's hard-boiled personality. I love him as a character, but I'd much rather follow him while he was doing something important, instead of, for example, staring down Lono for 4 pages before Lono gets up and leaves, making the entire scene feel mostly pointless. It was, at least, very dynamic visually, because Eduardo Risso is in his element doing this sort of gritty noir, and because Milo and Lono are each extremely interesting to look at in their own ways. Not a bad chapter altogether, and Milo being activated as a Minuteman by seeing the painting definitely works as a cliffhanger and makes him an even more compelling character than he already was, but I feel like some fat could definitely have been trimmed here, and Azzarello 100% needs to reign in the wordplay.
The Maximortal #4: In this issue, we learn that, in the reality of The Maximortal, the titular character was used by the U.S. government in WWII to destroy Hiroshima, not an actual atomic bomb. It's an interesting idea, placing a Superman imitation character in that role, because Superman himself certainly has a history of fighting for America, it's just that he's never done anything so extreme as this. Also, of course, in this comic, Wesley isn't in control of himself but is, instead, the captive of the military, their tool as opposed to their ally. Rick Veitch structures the scene of Hiroshima's devastation efficiently, showing us images of the plane moving in, the Japanese citizens living their everyday lives, and then, in the end, Wesley being used t blow everything up. While these are the visuals, though, we get text in the margins showing a transcript of a meeting between President Truman, two members of his team, and Dr. Uppenheimer (an Oppenheimer stand-in, duh). Uppenheimer explains to everyone else that they are not attacking Hiroshima with a bomb as believed, but with the alien child, and he also proposes further studying the child to use him in other ways down the line. Veitch adds a bit of darkness to what is already an extremely dark event in the history of the world, making the bombing of Hiroshima even more morally questionable that it already was by introducing the notion that a living thing, captured by America, was used to destroy the city. Before and after that sequence, the issue focuses on Jerry Spiegal and Joe Schumacher, creators of True-Man, the in-comic comicbook series that features a character very similar to Wesley. Spiegal and Schumacher discover that, contrary to what their publisher Sidney Wallace has told them, their comic is a tremendous success, and that they've been completely screwed out of the resulting profits. This, along with a request from the FBI to use True-Man as a tool of propaganda, moves Spiegal to quit, which in turn lands him in the army since the only thing stopping him from being drafted was Wallace wanting him to keep churning out True-Man scripts. Schumacher decides to stay on as an artist, committing himself to being Wallace's whipping boy if it means he can draw professionally. It's a tragic state of affairs all around, with Wallace as the hyper-greedy villain getting everything he wants and suffering zero consequences. Indeed, this issue may be the most depressing in the series, and certainly up to this point. It's a fairly relentless storm of horrible shit happening to innocent people at the hands of wicked men who seek only to advance their own power.
Showing posts with label The Maximortal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Maximortal. Show all posts
Monday, August 31, 2015
Friday, July 31, 2015
Monthly Dose: July 2015
Monthly Dose is a semi-regular column where I read one issue each month of long-completed series.
100 Bullets #33: Something struck me when Megan Dietrich showed up in this issue that has been running underneath this arc from the beginning: we know Milo was in an accident, but ever since this story kicked off, there's been a feeling that the accident isn't over. The crash was just the beginning, and he's been feeding off of the momentum of it even as it propels him toward whatever worse fate awaits him than a fucked-up face. I'm not saying Megan's arrival is the other shoe dropping, at least not yet or not fully, but we already know how connected and powerful she is, and we know Milo has no idea, which means he's about to get in over his head if he isn't drowning unknowingly already. Seeing Lono is the first issue was, I suppose, the first hint of dark days ahead, and Milo's determined brand of self-destructive behavior in the name of revealing hidden truths is always going to cause problems, but it was someone as high-up and precise as Megan who finally brought into focus just how screwed Milo is or will certainly be soon. It's exciting and sad, because Milo is one of the most stylized and stand-out characters, in his dialogue and appearance both, to have graced the pages of this title up to now. But he can't possibly survive going up against Megan without knowing how much wool is in front of his eyes, and he's not a careful or good enough detective to remove all of that wool before it's too late, if he ever does. The rest of what happens in this issue is largely exposition as Milo goes over the facts again, plus a small bit of him dodging a nosy but friendly and seemingly stand-up cop, but that all ends up as background chatter to the growing dread of what's in store for Milo at the end of this storyline.
Automatic Kafka #9: The final issue of this series goes full-on meta, and also unfortunately drops many threads that are never to be picked up again. Basically, based on what's here, the comic got cancelled, and so since they knew they weren't going be able to finish the way they wanted, Joe Casey and Ash Wood decided instead to insert themselves into the book so they could talk the titular hero through the end of his reality. It's an entertaining conversation, and I particularly enjoy the bit where Casey and Wood make it clear that they're doing this mostly to prevent other creators from getting their hands on Kafka in the future and misusing or mishandling him. They wanted some real finality, so they unmake him completely, send him into the oblivion of cancelled comicbook characters. It's a good way to bring closure to the title even without wrapping up the narrative, and this is a good story in which to do something like that. Sure, there were some throughlines established, like the baby bombs that the Warning was making or the Constitution of the United States becoming a porn star (which they make reference to in this final issue but don't exactly resolve). But mostly, Automatic Kafka tried to tell new, short, complete stories in every issue, so there's no sense of a master plan being undone by the cancellation. It's definitely a shame this book didn't get to last any longer, because there was some truly ambitious, hilarious stuff that came out of it, but at least Casey and Wood got to say goodbye, and no amount of truncation can undo the material they did get to produce. I revisit this book every so often and, while it's definitely flawed, it's also a very worthwhile read, especially if, like me, you find superheroes equal parts fantastic and ridiculous. Automatic Kafka celebrates both of those aspects, and Wood's controlled chaos art style complements both of them perfectly.
The Maximortal #3: This issue contains three short stories, related to one another through Wesley/True-Man but not directly connected. First, and somewhat confusingly, we see an elderly, mostly retired Sherlock Holmes take the case of the little boy who murdered an entire old west town, and it kills him. He summons with his violin both the "angel" from earlier issues who seems to have created Wesley, and El Guapo, the mystery man who somehow seems to be fighting against the angel, and who is the biggest connection between the stories in this issue. Those two beings indriectly cause Holmes to fall into his beehives, and the bees he so loved attack and kill him. It's a nicely written, haunting, beautifully disturbing bit of comics, but I'm not sure what Sherlock Holmes has to do with anything. Next we see the origin of True-Man as a comicbook character, which is quite similar to Superman's own history in the real world, and feels like the first part of a larger commentary on comic creators' rights in general. The two earnest creators of True-Man sign a contract without reading it, which is never good, and the assumption is that, in the future, they're going to get as screwed out of ownership of their creation as Siegel and Shuster and so many others like them have over the years. The person they sell the idea to, however, is Sidney Wallace, who we met last time as the wannabe stuntman who got his testicles crushed during an encounter with the real Wesley. So Wallace having dealt with a real, warped version of Superman makes him an interesting person to buy the rights to a fictional Superman knock-off, and is bound to provide some strong storytelling possibilities down the line. In the context of a series examining all the angles of Superman, this middle story is the most obviously relevant, as it switches from following a twisted take on Superman to following a twisted-but-less-so take on Superman's creators and publishers. Finally, we see Wesley get discovered in a secret bunker where the military is holding him, uncovered as part of a semi-fictionalized version of the Manhattan Project. This feels like a tale only half-told so far, with Wesley's discovery and the discovery of his heat vision are the end of this issue, but clearly only the beginning of his significance for a group of scientists trying to build the ultimate weapon. Wesley is the ultimate weapon, so this is clearly setting up for things to come. These stories are ordered chronologically, but also logically, with the strangest and most distant first, the most thematically connected coming second, and the most narratively connected and biggest cliffhanger closing things off. A well-done example structural play, and I'd say the best overall issue of the first three in the series.
100 Bullets #33: Something struck me when Megan Dietrich showed up in this issue that has been running underneath this arc from the beginning: we know Milo was in an accident, but ever since this story kicked off, there's been a feeling that the accident isn't over. The crash was just the beginning, and he's been feeding off of the momentum of it even as it propels him toward whatever worse fate awaits him than a fucked-up face. I'm not saying Megan's arrival is the other shoe dropping, at least not yet or not fully, but we already know how connected and powerful she is, and we know Milo has no idea, which means he's about to get in over his head if he isn't drowning unknowingly already. Seeing Lono is the first issue was, I suppose, the first hint of dark days ahead, and Milo's determined brand of self-destructive behavior in the name of revealing hidden truths is always going to cause problems, but it was someone as high-up and precise as Megan who finally brought into focus just how screwed Milo is or will certainly be soon. It's exciting and sad, because Milo is one of the most stylized and stand-out characters, in his dialogue and appearance both, to have graced the pages of this title up to now. But he can't possibly survive going up against Megan without knowing how much wool is in front of his eyes, and he's not a careful or good enough detective to remove all of that wool before it's too late, if he ever does. The rest of what happens in this issue is largely exposition as Milo goes over the facts again, plus a small bit of him dodging a nosy but friendly and seemingly stand-up cop, but that all ends up as background chatter to the growing dread of what's in store for Milo at the end of this storyline.
Automatic Kafka #9: The final issue of this series goes full-on meta, and also unfortunately drops many threads that are never to be picked up again. Basically, based on what's here, the comic got cancelled, and so since they knew they weren't going be able to finish the way they wanted, Joe Casey and Ash Wood decided instead to insert themselves into the book so they could talk the titular hero through the end of his reality. It's an entertaining conversation, and I particularly enjoy the bit where Casey and Wood make it clear that they're doing this mostly to prevent other creators from getting their hands on Kafka in the future and misusing or mishandling him. They wanted some real finality, so they unmake him completely, send him into the oblivion of cancelled comicbook characters. It's a good way to bring closure to the title even without wrapping up the narrative, and this is a good story in which to do something like that. Sure, there were some throughlines established, like the baby bombs that the Warning was making or the Constitution of the United States becoming a porn star (which they make reference to in this final issue but don't exactly resolve). But mostly, Automatic Kafka tried to tell new, short, complete stories in every issue, so there's no sense of a master plan being undone by the cancellation. It's definitely a shame this book didn't get to last any longer, because there was some truly ambitious, hilarious stuff that came out of it, but at least Casey and Wood got to say goodbye, and no amount of truncation can undo the material they did get to produce. I revisit this book every so often and, while it's definitely flawed, it's also a very worthwhile read, especially if, like me, you find superheroes equal parts fantastic and ridiculous. Automatic Kafka celebrates both of those aspects, and Wood's controlled chaos art style complements both of them perfectly.
The Maximortal #3: This issue contains three short stories, related to one another through Wesley/True-Man but not directly connected. First, and somewhat confusingly, we see an elderly, mostly retired Sherlock Holmes take the case of the little boy who murdered an entire old west town, and it kills him. He summons with his violin both the "angel" from earlier issues who seems to have created Wesley, and El Guapo, the mystery man who somehow seems to be fighting against the angel, and who is the biggest connection between the stories in this issue. Those two beings indriectly cause Holmes to fall into his beehives, and the bees he so loved attack and kill him. It's a nicely written, haunting, beautifully disturbing bit of comics, but I'm not sure what Sherlock Holmes has to do with anything. Next we see the origin of True-Man as a comicbook character, which is quite similar to Superman's own history in the real world, and feels like the first part of a larger commentary on comic creators' rights in general. The two earnest creators of True-Man sign a contract without reading it, which is never good, and the assumption is that, in the future, they're going to get as screwed out of ownership of their creation as Siegel and Shuster and so many others like them have over the years. The person they sell the idea to, however, is Sidney Wallace, who we met last time as the wannabe stuntman who got his testicles crushed during an encounter with the real Wesley. So Wallace having dealt with a real, warped version of Superman makes him an interesting person to buy the rights to a fictional Superman knock-off, and is bound to provide some strong storytelling possibilities down the line. In the context of a series examining all the angles of Superman, this middle story is the most obviously relevant, as it switches from following a twisted take on Superman to following a twisted-but-less-so take on Superman's creators and publishers. Finally, we see Wesley get discovered in a secret bunker where the military is holding him, uncovered as part of a semi-fictionalized version of the Manhattan Project. This feels like a tale only half-told so far, with Wesley's discovery and the discovery of his heat vision are the end of this issue, but clearly only the beginning of his significance for a group of scientists trying to build the ultimate weapon. Wesley is the ultimate weapon, so this is clearly setting up for things to come. These stories are ordered chronologically, but also logically, with the strangest and most distant first, the most thematically connected coming second, and the most narratively connected and biggest cliffhanger closing things off. A well-done example structural play, and I'd say the best overall issue of the first three in the series.
Tuesday, June 30, 2015
Monthly Dose: June 2015
Monthly Dose is a semi-regular column where I read one issue each month of long-completed series.
100 Bullets #32: Kind of a slow issue, but it works because of the lovely pulpy tension Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso are infusing into this arc. Milo is such an over-the-top hard-boiled guy that it's fun to watch him work, constantly smoking, being aggressively sexual, threatening to shoot people in the genitals if they don't tell him what he wants to know. He's hilarious, practically a caricature, his internal darkness spilling all over the page even when he's getting laid. There's not a ton of new info, but the little bit we get is super valuable. Milo figures out that Lono, who caught only a glimpse of last issue, is responsible for killing Karl Reynolds. The why of it all is still a total mystery, except that it is in some way connected to a painting Karl was trying to get his hands on. So Milo's got a solid start, a lead that led to another lead that hopefully will help him put all the pieces together. Things are progressing, however slowly, and through it all he's a fantastic character to watch, especially with the bandages all over his face. It gives him a baseline look of intimidation and meanness that helps him in his work and makes him all the more entertaining. It does feel like it's about time for something to break, though, for a major reveal instead of more tiny odds and ends. After two full issues of him as the star and narrator, I have a pretty solid handle on Milo, so now it's time to really put him through the ringer and see if he makes it out. Luckily, his last line is one of intense foreboding, so next month we ought to some some shit connect with some fans. If so, it'll come at just the right time, and might help push this arc officially into my favorite so far in this book.
Automatic Kafka #8: After playing a bit of a back-up role for a few issues in a row, Kafka himself becomes central again here, which was nice. The issue is basically spit into two halves, the first centering on Kafka's new show as well as the suicide of Diesel Quake, his drug dealer/assistant. The second half deals with Kafka confronting the Warning about the latter's various shady dealings, with a splash of the Constitution's adventures in professional pornography thrown in as well. I much prefer the opening, where we see Kafka going through the motions of his continued celebrity while reading in captions the body of Diesel's suicide note. The note provides a nice bit of insight into the psychology of a character who's been two-dimensional at best up to now, and it's a nice reminder that everyone thinks they are the good guys, even the supervillains. Diesel doesn't necessarily try to take the moral high ground or present himself as a misunderstood do-gooder, but he does point out that the $tranger$ operated in less-than-righteous ways, that Kafka in particular seemed to take a weird joy in causing his enemies pain, and that he and all of his former teammates ultimately took fairly significant falls from grace, ending up with lives that reflect their biggest flaws rather than their greatest deeds. All of that is compelling to read, and Joe Casey writes it well. He also takes away Kafka's source of nanotecheroin, meaning we get to see what it looks like when a robot suffers from withdrawal. It's not all that dramatic, but it does lead Kafka to question the Warning, though as with most people who try to challenge the Warning, things don't go very far. In the end, we see Kafka approached by some kind of magical/hallucinatory/who-knows-what caterpillar that turns into a gorgeous bright butterfly and offers to save Kafka from yet another "story arc." So things get crazy meta as we prepare to head into the final issue. The butterfly is probably my favorite single visual from Ash Wood in this series so far. It stands out starkly and fits in perfectly at once, a tough trick to pull off, but Wood does it no sweat.
The Maximortal #2: While less directly tied to Superman's history than the debut issue, this is still a pretty spot-on imagining of how a superpowered child might act and influence the world. After finally killed his adoptive father, little Wesley Winston sets to work on his "farming," meaning pulling people's heads clean off their bodies and dumping them into a silo. While there's no specific reason given for why he chooses human heads as the thing to farm, it works quite well in the context of this gleefully morbid book. Rick Veitch seems to have a lot of fun in making the decapitated bodies as cartoonishly gruesome as he can. They're not excessively gory but they are effectively unnerving. As for Wesley, he's innocently and amusingly content with his labors, even proud of himself for how efficiently he's getting his farming done. Ultimately, his activities lead the citizens of Simpltown to try and attack him, blowing up his silo full of heads while Wesley is inside. The child, of course, survives the blast, and then proceeds to throw a tantrum, as children are wont to do when you ruin their games. Only Wesley's tantrums are intensely destructive and fatal. All of this death and devastation leads to the U.S. military showing up at the very end of the issue to claim Wesley as their own, a terrifying proposition than can't lead anywhere good. Meanwhile, at the beginning and in the background of this issue, we meet El Guano, a mysterious figure who seems to have some magical insight into the world. The narration refers to him as a warrior and also as a man-of-knowledge, and we see him have a startling premonition of Wesley as a full-grown superhero, cape, spandex, and all. Exactly what El Guano's role will be in the narrative is still unclear, but he does show up at the end to fight with the "angel" who we saw give birth to Wesley last time, so it's clear El Guano plays a significant part in these proceedings. Similarly, we're introduced to Sidney Wallace, a young, brash, self-important jerk with dreams of making it big in the movies. These dreams appear to be purely financially motivated, though, as Wallace tries to steal Wesley himself once he realizes the money-making potential such a powerful creature might possess. Everyone wants a piece of Wesley, is the point, from his mother to Wallace to the government to El Guano. Their interests in Wesley and approaches to dealing with him vary, but everybody's invested. What will all of this attention mean for Wesley in the long run? That's the central question, but based on what we've seen so far, there will no doubt be more terrible things in Wesley's future.
100 Bullets #32: Kind of a slow issue, but it works because of the lovely pulpy tension Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso are infusing into this arc. Milo is such an over-the-top hard-boiled guy that it's fun to watch him work, constantly smoking, being aggressively sexual, threatening to shoot people in the genitals if they don't tell him what he wants to know. He's hilarious, practically a caricature, his internal darkness spilling all over the page even when he's getting laid. There's not a ton of new info, but the little bit we get is super valuable. Milo figures out that Lono, who caught only a glimpse of last issue, is responsible for killing Karl Reynolds. The why of it all is still a total mystery, except that it is in some way connected to a painting Karl was trying to get his hands on. So Milo's got a solid start, a lead that led to another lead that hopefully will help him put all the pieces together. Things are progressing, however slowly, and through it all he's a fantastic character to watch, especially with the bandages all over his face. It gives him a baseline look of intimidation and meanness that helps him in his work and makes him all the more entertaining. It does feel like it's about time for something to break, though, for a major reveal instead of more tiny odds and ends. After two full issues of him as the star and narrator, I have a pretty solid handle on Milo, so now it's time to really put him through the ringer and see if he makes it out. Luckily, his last line is one of intense foreboding, so next month we ought to some some shit connect with some fans. If so, it'll come at just the right time, and might help push this arc officially into my favorite so far in this book.
Automatic Kafka #8: After playing a bit of a back-up role for a few issues in a row, Kafka himself becomes central again here, which was nice. The issue is basically spit into two halves, the first centering on Kafka's new show as well as the suicide of Diesel Quake, his drug dealer/assistant. The second half deals with Kafka confronting the Warning about the latter's various shady dealings, with a splash of the Constitution's adventures in professional pornography thrown in as well. I much prefer the opening, where we see Kafka going through the motions of his continued celebrity while reading in captions the body of Diesel's suicide note. The note provides a nice bit of insight into the psychology of a character who's been two-dimensional at best up to now, and it's a nice reminder that everyone thinks they are the good guys, even the supervillains. Diesel doesn't necessarily try to take the moral high ground or present himself as a misunderstood do-gooder, but he does point out that the $tranger$ operated in less-than-righteous ways, that Kafka in particular seemed to take a weird joy in causing his enemies pain, and that he and all of his former teammates ultimately took fairly significant falls from grace, ending up with lives that reflect their biggest flaws rather than their greatest deeds. All of that is compelling to read, and Joe Casey writes it well. He also takes away Kafka's source of nanotecheroin, meaning we get to see what it looks like when a robot suffers from withdrawal. It's not all that dramatic, but it does lead Kafka to question the Warning, though as with most people who try to challenge the Warning, things don't go very far. In the end, we see Kafka approached by some kind of magical/hallucinatory/who-knows-what caterpillar that turns into a gorgeous bright butterfly and offers to save Kafka from yet another "story arc." So things get crazy meta as we prepare to head into the final issue. The butterfly is probably my favorite single visual from Ash Wood in this series so far. It stands out starkly and fits in perfectly at once, a tough trick to pull off, but Wood does it no sweat.
The Maximortal #2: While less directly tied to Superman's history than the debut issue, this is still a pretty spot-on imagining of how a superpowered child might act and influence the world. After finally killed his adoptive father, little Wesley Winston sets to work on his "farming," meaning pulling people's heads clean off their bodies and dumping them into a silo. While there's no specific reason given for why he chooses human heads as the thing to farm, it works quite well in the context of this gleefully morbid book. Rick Veitch seems to have a lot of fun in making the decapitated bodies as cartoonishly gruesome as he can. They're not excessively gory but they are effectively unnerving. As for Wesley, he's innocently and amusingly content with his labors, even proud of himself for how efficiently he's getting his farming done. Ultimately, his activities lead the citizens of Simpltown to try and attack him, blowing up his silo full of heads while Wesley is inside. The child, of course, survives the blast, and then proceeds to throw a tantrum, as children are wont to do when you ruin their games. Only Wesley's tantrums are intensely destructive and fatal. All of this death and devastation leads to the U.S. military showing up at the very end of the issue to claim Wesley as their own, a terrifying proposition than can't lead anywhere good. Meanwhile, at the beginning and in the background of this issue, we meet El Guano, a mysterious figure who seems to have some magical insight into the world. The narration refers to him as a warrior and also as a man-of-knowledge, and we see him have a startling premonition of Wesley as a full-grown superhero, cape, spandex, and all. Exactly what El Guano's role will be in the narrative is still unclear, but he does show up at the end to fight with the "angel" who we saw give birth to Wesley last time, so it's clear El Guano plays a significant part in these proceedings. Similarly, we're introduced to Sidney Wallace, a young, brash, self-important jerk with dreams of making it big in the movies. These dreams appear to be purely financially motivated, though, as Wallace tries to steal Wesley himself once he realizes the money-making potential such a powerful creature might possess. Everyone wants a piece of Wesley, is the point, from his mother to Wallace to the government to El Guano. Their interests in Wesley and approaches to dealing with him vary, but everybody's invested. What will all of this attention mean for Wesley in the long run? That's the central question, but based on what we've seen so far, there will no doubt be more terrible things in Wesley's future.
Sunday, May 31, 2015
Monthly Dose: May 2015
100 Bullets #31: Now we're talking. Kicking off a new arc, "The Counterfifth Detective," this issue is pure hard-boiled pulp noir gold. Main character Milo Garrett sounds like every classic P.I. rolled into one, and he looks tough as nails, too, with his crumpled suit, bandage-covered face, and the cigarette that's pretty much always hanging out of his mouth. Both Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso do a good job of keeping this story right in the sweet spot, not over-the-top with the clichés but still very much utilizing the tropes of the genre. Milo is both likable and a schmuck; there's drinking, murder, intrigue, and plenty of stylized, metaphor-and-similie-filled narration. It's all quite familiar, but fresh enough to pull the reader in, and the added detail of Agent Graves giving Milo one of the attaché cases that he's been handing out since this series began makes things that much more interesting. There's not a ton of narrative meat on the bones so far, because this first chapter is more about introducing Milo and getting us in his corner. In that, it's a major success, and there's enough of a story hook at the very end to bring people back for more. This is the sort of finely crafted issue that 100 Bullets was full of at first, but that's been missing for a while, so it ended up being a fabulous return to form that reignited my enthusiasm for this title.
Automatic Kafka #7: Automatic Kafka goes out to lunch with one of his old supervillain foes, Galaxia, a scientist who replaced his head with a tiny spiral galaxy. Kafka has a good deal of leftover animosity toward Galaxia, but the former bad guy is ever the gentleman, politely and intelligently talking Kafka into letting go of their shared past. They even manage to reminisce a little together, and though they don't exactly become friends, they pretty much bury the hatchet before their meal is over. It's impressive how Joe Casey manages to write their conversation so that the reader can be genuinely invested in them working things out, even though we haven't ever seen any of their previous conflicts, since they all took place in an off-panel time period. The hero-villain dynamic is so universally accessible, Casey can do something like this even in a brand new continuity and it still works. It helps that both Kafka and Galaxia have such strong voices, of course, and that they each have such fascinating looks. Even their speech bubbles are different colors, not just from one another but from everybody else, so their exchange offers something on every level, from script to art to letters. This was not the most exciting issue of Automatic Kafka, but it was one of the most thoughtful examinations of what life might be like for a retired superhero like Kafka, and it had a lot of heart and humor along the way. Also, in the end, the Warning uses Galaxia to power up a bunch of the baby bombs that have been an ongoing thread in this book, which was a nice way to conclude this, tying an otherwise isolated chapter into what's come before.
The Maximortal #1: I just wrote about this issue a couple weeks ago as part of a PopMatters column on three of my favorite debut issues. And in the early days of this blog, a did a short post on the whole of this series. But I wanted to do it for Monthly Dose because its a dense book, and every issue sort of touches on a different aspect of the Superman mythology and/or history, deconstructing that character, superheroes as an idea, and the comicbook industry as a whole. It's an ambitious, weird, well-done passion project from Rick Veitch. This first issue doesn't actually set up that much of what's to come, focusing instead of doing Veitch's version of the Superman (or True-Man, as he's called in this comic) origin story. A couple named the Winstons finds a baby boy inside a bizarre fallen meteorite, and they try to raise him as their own, but his superpowers make him well more than they can handle. The child destroys their house with his strength and heat vision, bites of his adopted father's finger, and in the end he uses the threat of further violence to get his dad to carry him away from the farm and into an unknown future. It's a much more brutal, darkly comedic take on this well-known superhero story, casting Superman as something of a menace, but only because he's too young to know or even want to use his abilities responsibly. He's just a kid throwing superpowered tantrums that his simpleton parents have no way of controlling, so he ruins their lives and takes over. The events of the story are pretty tragic, but Veitch's art and the exaggerated, caricature-like personalities of the Winstons make it work as parody, too, so we get both a funnier and a much bleaker version of Superman at once. That's the mission statement of The Maximortal, and it couldn't be clearer here.
Automatic Kafka #7: Automatic Kafka goes out to lunch with one of his old supervillain foes, Galaxia, a scientist who replaced his head with a tiny spiral galaxy. Kafka has a good deal of leftover animosity toward Galaxia, but the former bad guy is ever the gentleman, politely and intelligently talking Kafka into letting go of their shared past. They even manage to reminisce a little together, and though they don't exactly become friends, they pretty much bury the hatchet before their meal is over. It's impressive how Joe Casey manages to write their conversation so that the reader can be genuinely invested in them working things out, even though we haven't ever seen any of their previous conflicts, since they all took place in an off-panel time period. The hero-villain dynamic is so universally accessible, Casey can do something like this even in a brand new continuity and it still works. It helps that both Kafka and Galaxia have such strong voices, of course, and that they each have such fascinating looks. Even their speech bubbles are different colors, not just from one another but from everybody else, so their exchange offers something on every level, from script to art to letters. This was not the most exciting issue of Automatic Kafka, but it was one of the most thoughtful examinations of what life might be like for a retired superhero like Kafka, and it had a lot of heart and humor along the way. Also, in the end, the Warning uses Galaxia to power up a bunch of the baby bombs that have been an ongoing thread in this book, which was a nice way to conclude this, tying an otherwise isolated chapter into what's come before.
The Maximortal #1: I just wrote about this issue a couple weeks ago as part of a PopMatters column on three of my favorite debut issues. And in the early days of this blog, a did a short post on the whole of this series. But I wanted to do it for Monthly Dose because its a dense book, and every issue sort of touches on a different aspect of the Superman mythology and/or history, deconstructing that character, superheroes as an idea, and the comicbook industry as a whole. It's an ambitious, weird, well-done passion project from Rick Veitch. This first issue doesn't actually set up that much of what's to come, focusing instead of doing Veitch's version of the Superman (or True-Man, as he's called in this comic) origin story. A couple named the Winstons finds a baby boy inside a bizarre fallen meteorite, and they try to raise him as their own, but his superpowers make him well more than they can handle. The child destroys their house with his strength and heat vision, bites of his adopted father's finger, and in the end he uses the threat of further violence to get his dad to carry him away from the farm and into an unknown future. It's a much more brutal, darkly comedic take on this well-known superhero story, casting Superman as something of a menace, but only because he's too young to know or even want to use his abilities responsibly. He's just a kid throwing superpowered tantrums that his simpleton parents have no way of controlling, so he ruins their lives and takes over. The events of the story are pretty tragic, but Veitch's art and the exaggerated, caricature-like personalities of the Winstons make it work as parody, too, so we get both a funnier and a much bleaker version of Superman at once. That's the mission statement of The Maximortal, and it couldn't be clearer here.
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
Superb Heroes: The Maximortal
Superb Heroes is a
semi-regular column celebrating comics that are exemplary and/or exceptional in
their treatment of superoheroism.
Superheroes and comicbooks are obviously, inescapably linked. They helped to popularize each other, and even in this current environment of incessant new movies and TV series, we all know that comicbooks are the true stomping ground of the spandex-clad superhuman. In his seven-issue series The Maximortal, writer/artist Rick Veitch explores the concept of the superhero, the history of the comicbook industry, and the ties that bind them together in a vicious, hilarious, intelligent and original way. Breaking the usual mold, Veitch's superpowered characters are morally ambiguous, their origins and motives more complex than we're used to. Comparatively, the regular humans he focuses on fill the more traditional comicbook hero and villain roles, with their direct, simple belief systems and constant battle for power. The end result is an incredible examination on the effects that superheroes have on people, in their own worlds and in ours. They have power over us beyond their actual "powers," which Veitch simultaneously celebrates, condemns, and perverts in The Maximortal, making it a thorough and thoroughly enjoyable discussion of superheroism's importance and potential.
The titular "maximortal" is Wesley Winston, a child in mind and appearance, but possessing superhuman strength, flight, shape-changing abilities, heat vision, and physical invulnerability. At first glance, Wesley appears to be no more than a slight twist on Superman. He even crashes to Earth in a mysterious protective vessel and is discovered and adopted by a poor, rural couple. But as the series advances, Veitch pulls Wesley further and further from the Man of Steel, and in the end True-Man (Wesley's superhero moniker) is more a physical manifestation of the concept of superheroism than he is a parody of any particular character. That's a very literal statement, because we come to learn that Wesley's "origin story" is, essentially, that a fictional version of True-Man grew to be so popular, the idea so universal, that it actually became reality. The mass social belief in the character gave him life. Then in a classic time paradox, the now-living True-Man went back in time, slept with a human, gave birth to himself, and then launched himself into space so that he could someday return and be discovered. In other words, the conclusion to the series is the same as the beginning of the series, with True-Man's origin an infinite loop of self-creation. After all, not only did he birth himself, but the whole reason he becomes True-Man is that, as Wesley, he sees a True-Man comicbook and decides to take on the look and persona of the character. So True-Man parents Wesley, who then becomes True-Man.
No doubt that all seems a bit confusing, but it is to Veitch's credit that he explains it fully and carefully within The Maximortal, taking his time with each piece of the puzzle so that by the final issue we've already more or less figured out the cyclical nature of Wesley's life. Then in that final issue, Veitch spells it out for us plainly, just in case. And even without the never-ending circle that is his creation, Wesley is just as fascinating and unique a superhero, because despite his immense power he is still a child. He has a child's innocence, ignorance, and fluid morality. This leads him to murder his adopted father, and then an entire California town, not out of malice or anger but because he doesn't fully understand what he's doing. While most superheroes are informed by their childhoods, Wesley's childhood is informed by his superpowers, and so in his early years he isn't really a hero or a villain in the classic sense, but more a force of nature in human form. It is only much later, after he has been trapped and used by humanity for years, that he decides to take up the fight for good and righteousness.
This narrative of a child slowly but steadily being transformed into a hero is the main focus of The Maximortal, the strongest and most consistent through line from issue to issue. And honestly, I imagine it would be more than enough to tell a meaty, awesome story on its own. But Veitch doesn't stop there, as his bizarre tale is also populated by non-powered characters whose beliefs and personalities line up much more succinctly with what he think of as archetypal superheroes and villains. Primarily we see this dichotomy between Jerry Spiegel and Sidney Wallace. Spiegel is the writer who creates the True-Man comicbook, and while the real-world Wesley is amoral and destructive, Spiegel actually embodies all of the virtues he includes in his version of the character. Truth, justice, the rights of the common man---all of these things are near and dear to Spiegel, and he writes his stories not for any selfish dreams of fame or recognition, but because he feels the world needs a hero like True-Man to lead the charge against corruption and evil. Sid Wallace is Spiegel's publisher and, for all intents and purposes, his arch-nemesis. A power-hungry maniac who also happens to be overcompensating for crushed testicles, Wallace rips Spiegel off, stealing credit for the creation of True-Man and getting filthy rich off the royalties. The two butt heads several times, and each time sees Wallace with a little more power than he had before, and Spiegel with a little less. Plus Wallace gets to use as many dirty tricks as he likes knowing full well Spiegel will never stoop to that level, and therefore never be a threat. They represent creativity vs. capitalism, truth vs. lies, the little guy vs. the corporation, good vs. evil, and any number of other well-worn conflicts. Like the characters of countless superhero comicbooks, Spiegel and Wallace are two extremes battling against one another. The only difference is that they don't have superpowers, code names, or costumes. Though Spiegel does ultimately don a True-Man costume to confront and, he hopes, defeat Wallace once and for all.
The point of all this is that True-Man is an idea so big he can inspire genuine heroism (Spiegel) while simultaneously fueling greed (Wallace). And the point of The Maximortal as a series is, to my mind, that all superheroes, indeed superheroism in general, will naturally and necessarily influence the world in both good and bad ways. The characters themselves, the values and causes they espouse, are theoretically the best aspects of humanity, and therefore could and should promote those aspects within us as readers. But of course, there is an industry behind the telling of these fables, and so they're often used not so much to point mankind toward good, but to further the goals of a few publishing companies (namely, sales). Even if we leave the comicbook industry out of it, the much bigger threat of superpowers, as Veitch takes pains to point out, is that were they to ever truly exist in our world, they'd be far more likely used as tools of war and/or commerce than forces for justice or peace. As concepts, superheroes and the stories around them are easy to fall in love with, in The Maximortal so much so that they bring themselves to life. In practice, though, even True-Man isn't safe from man's corruption and greed. It isn't a overwhelmingly positive message, but its apt, and it argues as much in favor of superheroes as against them. No easy task, but Veitch is more than up it.
The Maximortal has so much great stuff I haven't even touched on here, but I think I've said what I wanted. Seriously, though, there's a whole story about Wesley being used as part of the A-Bomb in WWII, and another one about the actor who plays True-Man in the movie version and how the character takes over and eventually ends his life. Then, of course, there is El Guano, an even more mysterious and non-traditional superhuman character who plays a major role in Wesley's life. It's all excellent, and all totally on-message with what I've discussed above, but the overall effect is the same. Veitch holds everything we know about superheroes and the comics they live in under a bright, unblinking light. What he finds isn't always pretty, but it's always worth the look.
The Maximortal was published by King Hell Press in association with Tundra Publishing, Ltd. (#1-6) and Kitchen Sink Press, Inc. (#7) and is dated August 1992-December 1993.
Superheroes and comicbooks are obviously, inescapably linked. They helped to popularize each other, and even in this current environment of incessant new movies and TV series, we all know that comicbooks are the true stomping ground of the spandex-clad superhuman. In his seven-issue series The Maximortal, writer/artist Rick Veitch explores the concept of the superhero, the history of the comicbook industry, and the ties that bind them together in a vicious, hilarious, intelligent and original way. Breaking the usual mold, Veitch's superpowered characters are morally ambiguous, their origins and motives more complex than we're used to. Comparatively, the regular humans he focuses on fill the more traditional comicbook hero and villain roles, with their direct, simple belief systems and constant battle for power. The end result is an incredible examination on the effects that superheroes have on people, in their own worlds and in ours. They have power over us beyond their actual "powers," which Veitch simultaneously celebrates, condemns, and perverts in The Maximortal, making it a thorough and thoroughly enjoyable discussion of superheroism's importance and potential.
The titular "maximortal" is Wesley Winston, a child in mind and appearance, but possessing superhuman strength, flight, shape-changing abilities, heat vision, and physical invulnerability. At first glance, Wesley appears to be no more than a slight twist on Superman. He even crashes to Earth in a mysterious protective vessel and is discovered and adopted by a poor, rural couple. But as the series advances, Veitch pulls Wesley further and further from the Man of Steel, and in the end True-Man (Wesley's superhero moniker) is more a physical manifestation of the concept of superheroism than he is a parody of any particular character. That's a very literal statement, because we come to learn that Wesley's "origin story" is, essentially, that a fictional version of True-Man grew to be so popular, the idea so universal, that it actually became reality. The mass social belief in the character gave him life. Then in a classic time paradox, the now-living True-Man went back in time, slept with a human, gave birth to himself, and then launched himself into space so that he could someday return and be discovered. In other words, the conclusion to the series is the same as the beginning of the series, with True-Man's origin an infinite loop of self-creation. After all, not only did he birth himself, but the whole reason he becomes True-Man is that, as Wesley, he sees a True-Man comicbook and decides to take on the look and persona of the character. So True-Man parents Wesley, who then becomes True-Man.
No doubt that all seems a bit confusing, but it is to Veitch's credit that he explains it fully and carefully within The Maximortal, taking his time with each piece of the puzzle so that by the final issue we've already more or less figured out the cyclical nature of Wesley's life. Then in that final issue, Veitch spells it out for us plainly, just in case. And even without the never-ending circle that is his creation, Wesley is just as fascinating and unique a superhero, because despite his immense power he is still a child. He has a child's innocence, ignorance, and fluid morality. This leads him to murder his adopted father, and then an entire California town, not out of malice or anger but because he doesn't fully understand what he's doing. While most superheroes are informed by their childhoods, Wesley's childhood is informed by his superpowers, and so in his early years he isn't really a hero or a villain in the classic sense, but more a force of nature in human form. It is only much later, after he has been trapped and used by humanity for years, that he decides to take up the fight for good and righteousness.
This narrative of a child slowly but steadily being transformed into a hero is the main focus of The Maximortal, the strongest and most consistent through line from issue to issue. And honestly, I imagine it would be more than enough to tell a meaty, awesome story on its own. But Veitch doesn't stop there, as his bizarre tale is also populated by non-powered characters whose beliefs and personalities line up much more succinctly with what he think of as archetypal superheroes and villains. Primarily we see this dichotomy between Jerry Spiegel and Sidney Wallace. Spiegel is the writer who creates the True-Man comicbook, and while the real-world Wesley is amoral and destructive, Spiegel actually embodies all of the virtues he includes in his version of the character. Truth, justice, the rights of the common man---all of these things are near and dear to Spiegel, and he writes his stories not for any selfish dreams of fame or recognition, but because he feels the world needs a hero like True-Man to lead the charge against corruption and evil. Sid Wallace is Spiegel's publisher and, for all intents and purposes, his arch-nemesis. A power-hungry maniac who also happens to be overcompensating for crushed testicles, Wallace rips Spiegel off, stealing credit for the creation of True-Man and getting filthy rich off the royalties. The two butt heads several times, and each time sees Wallace with a little more power than he had before, and Spiegel with a little less. Plus Wallace gets to use as many dirty tricks as he likes knowing full well Spiegel will never stoop to that level, and therefore never be a threat. They represent creativity vs. capitalism, truth vs. lies, the little guy vs. the corporation, good vs. evil, and any number of other well-worn conflicts. Like the characters of countless superhero comicbooks, Spiegel and Wallace are two extremes battling against one another. The only difference is that they don't have superpowers, code names, or costumes. Though Spiegel does ultimately don a True-Man costume to confront and, he hopes, defeat Wallace once and for all.
The point of all this is that True-Man is an idea so big he can inspire genuine heroism (Spiegel) while simultaneously fueling greed (Wallace). And the point of The Maximortal as a series is, to my mind, that all superheroes, indeed superheroism in general, will naturally and necessarily influence the world in both good and bad ways. The characters themselves, the values and causes they espouse, are theoretically the best aspects of humanity, and therefore could and should promote those aspects within us as readers. But of course, there is an industry behind the telling of these fables, and so they're often used not so much to point mankind toward good, but to further the goals of a few publishing companies (namely, sales). Even if we leave the comicbook industry out of it, the much bigger threat of superpowers, as Veitch takes pains to point out, is that were they to ever truly exist in our world, they'd be far more likely used as tools of war and/or commerce than forces for justice or peace. As concepts, superheroes and the stories around them are easy to fall in love with, in The Maximortal so much so that they bring themselves to life. In practice, though, even True-Man isn't safe from man's corruption and greed. It isn't a overwhelmingly positive message, but its apt, and it argues as much in favor of superheroes as against them. No easy task, but Veitch is more than up it.
The Maximortal has so much great stuff I haven't even touched on here, but I think I've said what I wanted. Seriously, though, there's a whole story about Wesley being used as part of the A-Bomb in WWII, and another one about the actor who plays True-Man in the movie version and how the character takes over and eventually ends his life. Then, of course, there is El Guano, an even more mysterious and non-traditional superhuman character who plays a major role in Wesley's life. It's all excellent, and all totally on-message with what I've discussed above, but the overall effect is the same. Veitch holds everything we know about superheroes and the comics they live in under a bright, unblinking light. What he finds isn't always pretty, but it's always worth the look.
The Maximortal was published by King Hell Press in association with Tundra Publishing, Ltd. (#1-6) and Kitchen Sink Press, Inc. (#7) and is dated August 1992-December 1993.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)