I'm still going to individually review each of the three sections of the 1986 Atari Force Special (even though the second story probably doesn't deserve its own whole post...but I'll get to that in a couple days) but before I do, it seems worth it to look back on the full twenty issues of the actual series and see how it fares as a whole. As editor Andy Helfer points out in the last issue's back matter, the entirety of Atari Force can be seen as a single, long-running story, one unified adventure with many smaller narratives told along the way. But is it any good when viewed this way? Despite the up-and-down nature of the book's quality from one chapter to the next, I would ultimately say that, yes, it is any good. Quite good, in fact, and at times even bordering on greatness.
Every member of Atari Force has a personal arc, a process of change and growth to go through. For some it is glaringly obvious. Blackjak goes from good guy to bad and back again, forced to face his greatest personal weakness (cowardice) in the process. Dart's story is inescapably intertwined with Blackjak's, first suffering through his apparent death, and then having to heal from the even more significant wound of his betrayal. Taz becomes a parent, shifting from soldier to caregiver. And, now that I think of it, shifting from a single character to a group character, since the Tazlings essentially share a mind. But it is Martin Champion who may have the clearest and most important journey. In the beginning, no one believes in his claims that the Dark Destroyer remains an imminent threat. He has no connection with his son, because he obsessively works to find the Destroyer and keep New Earth safe. By the book's end, Martin and his son have worked side by side to not only kill the Destroyer, but prove his existence to the rest of the world as well. Yet by the time New Earth might be willing to accept Martin, he no longer wants to live there, and he abandons the planet he helped discover and colonize. His priorities, reputation, and interpersonal relationships all go through major shake-ups.
Tempest's arc is mostly just the reconnection with his father, but there is also a subtler story about him learning to control his temper. When he stands trial alone, he has a wildly inappropriate and immature outburst. By the time the full team is on trial together, Tempest is able to stay calm and focused enough to be the one who saves them. Morphea's story is almost the inverse of Tempest's. She becomes more and more of a fighter as the series progresses, typically out of necessity, but, in the final trial, mostly out of convenience. She doesn't want to argue with anyone any more, so she mind-blasts Hunter and mentally controls the rest of the courtroom to let her and her teammates leave. And Pakrat just learns how to be on a team at all, beginning as a self-centered and sarcastic pain in the ass and winding up at least smart enough to keep his mouth shut and/or lend a hand when necessary. He probably changes the least, but still, he's a very different character in issue #20 than he was in #1.
Well, it's actually Babe who changes the least, I guess. Perhaps he doesn't change at all, a perpetual infant in a giant's body, always wanting to be returned to his homeworld. But he does learn to verbally communicate, and finds friendship and even a certain sense of family among his allies that isn't present at first. I can see the argument that Babe is the one cast member to remain more or less stagnant, but as the baby of the group, I think that's forgivable.
Why do I point out each of these character arcs? Because they speak to one of greatest strengths of Atari Force: how it functions as a team book. This is truly an ensemble, with everyone mattering as much as everyone else. The larger narrative told in these twenty issues would look dramatically different if any one of these characters was removed from the equation. Not every issue has a perfect balance, nor should it, but when all is said and done, the entire team has had plenty of important work to do. That isn't something you always see in a team comic, but it seems to be one of the most important goals of this title, which is admirable.
And the characters are the core of the series anyway. Yes, there are a lot of great sci-fi high concepts involved, fake super science and bizarre new worlds and lots and lots of alien species. But the central cast is so varied and rich, and established so strongly in the early issues, that they remain the most compelling aspect of this book throughout. Each of them has a distinct point of view, set of morals, physical appearance, and powerset. Again, not something every team book---or even most team books nowadays---offers its readers.
Then there is the larger story itself, the search for, battle against, and consequences of defeating the Dark Destroyer. It has a clear, solid three-act structure (which I basically outlined in that last sentence), and pushes itself steadily forward through its own internal logic and momentum. It involves the destruction of an entire universe, and centers around one of the most perfectly over-the-top cosmic villains of all time. Though I would say that the third act is the slowest and weakest, taking some unnecessary detours here and there and limping across the finish line, it's still a strong narrative on the whole. It makes sense, moves smoothly, and sticks more landings than it misses. Considering two different writers and a handful of artists are responsible for telling this tale, having it stay so consistently on track is impressive. It's the mark of a strong central premise, which Atari Force undoubtedly has.
There are some stinker issues, some glossed over bits and pieces, and even a few points of utter confusion and/or aggravation. Any series, no matter how good, is bound to have these elements in almost two years worth of stories. What they won't all have is the impeccable cast and narrative focus Atari Force brings to the table. That's why, when push comes to shove, I stand by this comicbook as a good one, certainly worth reading almost thirty years later, with loads of evergreen material for modern audiences to enjoy.
Sunday, June 23, 2013
Saturday, June 22, 2013
Atari Force Month: Issue #20 Review
And so Atari Force ends not with a bang but with a longwinded debate, the same one that's been raging underneath the rest of the events of this series all along. It is an argument about two different but connected questions: 1. Is the Dark Destroyer real? and, 2. If so, does that justify stealing Scanner One to fight him? Atari Force manages to convince everyone that yes, the Dark Destroyer was real, but whether or not that makes their crimes forgivable is never decided. Before any verdict can be reached, the team breaks out of their bonds and uses a combination of their powers to leave New Earth entirely. Which is where the series closes, with the titular heroes disappearing into the Multiverse, off to recolonize Old Earth and have who knows what kinds of other adventures. It's not a bad final note, but it's not as sweet or satisfying as I'd hoped. Mostly it makes me wish the book had continued, which I suppose is a good thing, really. You know, leave 'em wanting more and all that. But this finale is a bit of a dud throughout, making its open-ended conclusion more disappointing than it needed to be.
Mike Baron's last script is a slog from the first page, which includes three full narrative captions worth of exposition, as well as a lengthy speech from Justice Tovah listing the many charges of the trial at hand. The wordiness continues, but never gets all that interesting. Martin and Rident offer evidence as to the Dark Destroyer's existence, pointing to the ripple effect from the recently destroyed universe and the mental implant that was removed from Blackjak's brain. This is news to the court, but not for the reader, and it feels like a lot of padding, stalling for time in the opening pages in order to fill out a full issue with not that much material. The court then takes a needless recess, which also feels like filler, and all it accomplishes is giving Professor Venture and Dr. Orion a chance to expound on the information they already provided Martin last issue. Senator Jamieson has taken over New Earth and made it into a despicable, weapons-dealing business instead of the beacon of peace it was meant to be. Again, this is old hat, so almost the full first third of this issue fails to tell us anything we don't already know.
There is some momentary intrigue when one of the Tazlings busts Pakrat out of his cell and leads him to a hidden location where the rest of Taz's babies are building...something. Morphea refers to it as a "secret mission," as she prepares Kargg for something equally mysterious. So while the human characters are tangled up in the trial, Morphea and the rest of the aliens are working in the background to assist them. It is a moment of excitement and potential, but sadly, much of it is spoiled shortly after.
Returning to the trial, nothing has changed. Though the court finally admits the Dark Destroyer may be real, they don't see that fact as a viable defense for what Atari Force has done. Morphea interrupts, and after she and Hunter have some tense words and she finally mind-blasts him, she reveals her plan. According to Morphea, the Dark Destroyer lives off of the beliefs of his many mind-controlled followers, so she believes that using her mental powers and the combined memories of all those who've encountered the Destroyer, she can temporarily bring him back to life. This is the single piece of new information to come out in the trial, and though it's actually interesting, in the end even this is all just filler material, too. Morphea's gambit succeeds, and the Destroyer suddenly appears in the middle of the courtroom, spouting his usual hate-filled rhetoric and scaring everyone to death. But as soon as he goes away again, even though for the first time ever it seems as if the trial might go their way, Atari Force breaks out. It makes everything that has happened in the trial thus far largely meaningless, with even the Dark Destroyer's appearance being little more than a distraction from the real plan all along. A Tazling drops some sort of high-tech lockpick down to Tempest, who frees himself and then uses his phasing abilities to free the rest of his team. Morphea, meanwhile, mentally influences everyone in the room to prevent them from trying to recapture the fleeing Atari Force. The three pages on which this all takes place are the only ones with any action or narrative importance. What precedes them is slow-moving fluff, a drawn out trial that gets nowhere and ends up being wholly irrelevant.
And that's pretty much it. Atari Force casually strolls into the "Multiverse shuttle" Martin designed long ago and the Tazlings have now rebuilt from the parts in his lab. Security officers see them, but have no interest in stopping them, and so our heroes phase away unchallenged, and with great calm. I'm happy for them, but bored by their departure, and quite frankly I'd rather be interested and pissed. Baron seems to be going through the motions to an extent here. He had a destination in mind, and he had an obligatory trial to write before he could get there, and so he wrote it, but without much innovation or liveliness or energy whatsoever.
The art is similarly lacking, but in this case I think it has to do with what Ed Barreto was asked to draw, rather than the way he drew it. For what is primarily a bunch of angry courtroom chatter, this actually looks pretty good. Barreto varies his focus and angles often, and makes the high tension and aggravation of the many, many characters involved abundantly clear. And at the end, when drawing all of Atari Force together in a small space (except Kargg, poor dude, who evidently gets left behind) Barreto does a damn good job. Everyone is as detailed and distinct in personality as always, so even if they leave in a lackluster fashion, they still look good doing it. The problem is that the story has so little going for it, and the panels are necessarily talking heads for so much of the issue, that no matter how talented Barreto is, the art fails to impress.
Tempest phase-punching Hunter in the face when Atari Force begins their escape is an awesome panel, as is the half-page splash of the Destroyer's reemergence. These are the moments of highest drama and action, so Barreto gives them extra attention, and it pays off. It is, however, too little too late, as both of these panels come after eleven pages of drudgery.
I'm not going to get into the backup feature in much detail. It's another cutesy, mindless Hukka story, this time about him getting into a fight with a malfunctioning and outrageously dangerous robotic toy. I'm just too sick of saying how little purpose these short stories serve, and this one is especially guilty. Is it impossible to tell a Hukka-centric story with meat on its bones? It shouldn't be, just because the character is someone's pet, speaking in goofy broken English and seeing the world in simple terms. Essentially, Hukka has a child's perspective, a point of view which can and has been used to great effect in countless pieces of fiction. Why this series has decided to consistently use Hukka to tell pseudo-comedic non-stories is beyond me, but that's what we get here. So the actual ending of the series is even more disappointing and dull than the conclusion of the main narrative.
This isn't a terrible issue, necessarily, but it's a very weak ending to what has mostly been a strong series. It does too little, aims too low, and involves far too much retreading of established facts and details for the benefit of the characters instead of the readers. I wanted something bolder and more action-packed, something that reflected the nineteen issues of sci-fi epic that preceded it.
Mike Baron's last script is a slog from the first page, which includes three full narrative captions worth of exposition, as well as a lengthy speech from Justice Tovah listing the many charges of the trial at hand. The wordiness continues, but never gets all that interesting. Martin and Rident offer evidence as to the Dark Destroyer's existence, pointing to the ripple effect from the recently destroyed universe and the mental implant that was removed from Blackjak's brain. This is news to the court, but not for the reader, and it feels like a lot of padding, stalling for time in the opening pages in order to fill out a full issue with not that much material. The court then takes a needless recess, which also feels like filler, and all it accomplishes is giving Professor Venture and Dr. Orion a chance to expound on the information they already provided Martin last issue. Senator Jamieson has taken over New Earth and made it into a despicable, weapons-dealing business instead of the beacon of peace it was meant to be. Again, this is old hat, so almost the full first third of this issue fails to tell us anything we don't already know.
There is some momentary intrigue when one of the Tazlings busts Pakrat out of his cell and leads him to a hidden location where the rest of Taz's babies are building...something. Morphea refers to it as a "secret mission," as she prepares Kargg for something equally mysterious. So while the human characters are tangled up in the trial, Morphea and the rest of the aliens are working in the background to assist them. It is a moment of excitement and potential, but sadly, much of it is spoiled shortly after.
Returning to the trial, nothing has changed. Though the court finally admits the Dark Destroyer may be real, they don't see that fact as a viable defense for what Atari Force has done. Morphea interrupts, and after she and Hunter have some tense words and she finally mind-blasts him, she reveals her plan. According to Morphea, the Dark Destroyer lives off of the beliefs of his many mind-controlled followers, so she believes that using her mental powers and the combined memories of all those who've encountered the Destroyer, she can temporarily bring him back to life. This is the single piece of new information to come out in the trial, and though it's actually interesting, in the end even this is all just filler material, too. Morphea's gambit succeeds, and the Destroyer suddenly appears in the middle of the courtroom, spouting his usual hate-filled rhetoric and scaring everyone to death. But as soon as he goes away again, even though for the first time ever it seems as if the trial might go their way, Atari Force breaks out. It makes everything that has happened in the trial thus far largely meaningless, with even the Dark Destroyer's appearance being little more than a distraction from the real plan all along. A Tazling drops some sort of high-tech lockpick down to Tempest, who frees himself and then uses his phasing abilities to free the rest of his team. Morphea, meanwhile, mentally influences everyone in the room to prevent them from trying to recapture the fleeing Atari Force. The three pages on which this all takes place are the only ones with any action or narrative importance. What precedes them is slow-moving fluff, a drawn out trial that gets nowhere and ends up being wholly irrelevant.
And that's pretty much it. Atari Force casually strolls into the "Multiverse shuttle" Martin designed long ago and the Tazlings have now rebuilt from the parts in his lab. Security officers see them, but have no interest in stopping them, and so our heroes phase away unchallenged, and with great calm. I'm happy for them, but bored by their departure, and quite frankly I'd rather be interested and pissed. Baron seems to be going through the motions to an extent here. He had a destination in mind, and he had an obligatory trial to write before he could get there, and so he wrote it, but without much innovation or liveliness or energy whatsoever.
The art is similarly lacking, but in this case I think it has to do with what Ed Barreto was asked to draw, rather than the way he drew it. For what is primarily a bunch of angry courtroom chatter, this actually looks pretty good. Barreto varies his focus and angles often, and makes the high tension and aggravation of the many, many characters involved abundantly clear. And at the end, when drawing all of Atari Force together in a small space (except Kargg, poor dude, who evidently gets left behind) Barreto does a damn good job. Everyone is as detailed and distinct in personality as always, so even if they leave in a lackluster fashion, they still look good doing it. The problem is that the story has so little going for it, and the panels are necessarily talking heads for so much of the issue, that no matter how talented Barreto is, the art fails to impress.
Tempest phase-punching Hunter in the face when Atari Force begins their escape is an awesome panel, as is the half-page splash of the Destroyer's reemergence. These are the moments of highest drama and action, so Barreto gives them extra attention, and it pays off. It is, however, too little too late, as both of these panels come after eleven pages of drudgery.
I'm not going to get into the backup feature in much detail. It's another cutesy, mindless Hukka story, this time about him getting into a fight with a malfunctioning and outrageously dangerous robotic toy. I'm just too sick of saying how little purpose these short stories serve, and this one is especially guilty. Is it impossible to tell a Hukka-centric story with meat on its bones? It shouldn't be, just because the character is someone's pet, speaking in goofy broken English and seeing the world in simple terms. Essentially, Hukka has a child's perspective, a point of view which can and has been used to great effect in countless pieces of fiction. Why this series has decided to consistently use Hukka to tell pseudo-comedic non-stories is beyond me, but that's what we get here. So the actual ending of the series is even more disappointing and dull than the conclusion of the main narrative.
This isn't a terrible issue, necessarily, but it's a very weak ending to what has mostly been a strong series. It does too little, aims too low, and involves far too much retreading of established facts and details for the benefit of the characters instead of the readers. I wanted something bolder and more action-packed, something that reflected the nineteen issues of sci-fi epic that preceded it.
Friday, June 21, 2013
Atari Force Month: Issue #19 Review
Sometimes, a given issue of a series is going to necessarily have predictable events. Because comicbooks tell ongoing, serialized tales, when the time comes to wrap them up, the endings can be easy to see from a distance. If the author(s) sets up the resolution(s) logically enough, then things will progress in natural and expected ways. This doesn't have to be a negative, but often it is, because even though it's important to have the story maintain some internal consistency, we still want to be surprised as readers. I give Mike Baron serious credit, then, for the blend of the predictable and the surprising in Atari Force #19. Though the titular team's return home ends up exactly as I knew it would, the journey there looks different than I thought, and has a few brand new elements thrown in that fit perfectly despite coming out of left field.
When Atari Force decide to head straight for New Earth and evade A.T.A.R.I. station, it's obviously not going to work, so Baron doesn't draw it out or play it for tension. Security chief Hunter is informed on page three that Scanner One has been spotted, so there's no question that our heroes will be brought in. Where Baron finds an opportunity to shock the reader is the specific spot on New Earth that Martin chooses as a landing zone. Thought he believes it to be an abandoned site, it is in fact the heart of a secret weapons development program called "Warmech." So instead of landing and immediately facing the wrath of Hunter and his crew as anticipated, Atari Force must first deal with an automated, combat-ready robot. It's a small difference, but an important one, for a few reasons. Firstly, even Hunter wants to prevent the Warmech from attacking, because the project is valuable to him, and he doesn't want Atari Force to destroy it (which, of course, they do). It also gives Atari Force, and Martin in particular, a sudden disillusionment with their homeworld. The New Earth they left all those months ago wasn't building weaponry, and the change does not sit well with Martin. My expectation was that, while they'd be annoyed at being labeled criminals, Atari Force would generally be glad to have gotten home after so long away. Instead, their return is tainted from the start by the Warmech program, and the generally harder, more violent/fascistic nature of current New Earth society that it represents.
The Warmech fight also provides Kargg a chance at some small measure of redemption, which I wasn't sure he'd ever get. He could easily have remained in the background, a simple and stoic former enemy whose story was essentially already complete. Free of his former master's mental control, Kargg didn't necessarily need to prove himself to his new team in the short space remaining for this book. Changing his tune from foe to ally was enough of a character arc, and there were and still are so many other threads to tie up, I wondered if he'd ever have anything active to do again. But he nearly sacrifices his own life in order to defeat the Warmech, winning Dart and Blackjak's admiration in the process. It's a nice moment for the character and the series, the final surprise of this script before things get back on the original narrative track.
Because Hunter still does show up, and still does arrest Atari Force, just as he always had to do. However, even in that, there are some twists. Taz and Kargg cannot be arrested, logically enough, because they weren't part of the group that originally stole Scanner One. But Morphea also gets a pass, since her actions are evidently protected by "doctor/patient immunity." This is all New Earth law, which obviously I didn't know the details of ahead of time, since they are entirely made up by Baron. I appreciate that he took the time to think it through, though, and pleasantly surprised that Hunter wasn't just herding everyone into cells no questions asked. It adds a bit of depth and intelligence to his character, first of all, and more importantly it's another way in which Baron avoids being wholly predictable. It all adds up, but the final sum isn't what I thought it would be.
The issue ends with the inevitable trial's beginning, charges of treason and conspiracy and the like being brought against the members of Atari Force who could be arrested. And while the trial itself was inevitable, I admit that the verdict remains somewhat mysterious. If Martin can prove he was right all along about the Dark Destroyer, that he and his crew prevented the obliteration of the entire universe, will that even be enough? It seems possible that the deck is already so stacked against the good guys that nothing they can do will convince their accusers of their innocence. Also, with the discovery of Warmech and the many recent additions to their number from various other worlds, I'm not positive Atari Force cares to remain on New Earth anymore. Having finally reached their destination, they find it changed for the worse, so they may not be all that invested in winning their trial anyway. Where the team will be at the close of the next, final issue is anyone's guess, another point in Baron's favor here.
On the art side of the equation, there's nothing especially dazzling in Atari Force #19, but there are no noticeable mistakes or bad calls, either. Everyone in the expansive cast is full, mobile, expressive, and clear. The action hums, the emotional drama is played at just the right levels, and all in all it's a good-looking issue. Kargg's selfless attack on Warmech is likely the best work. His determination shines through, as does his immense strength, as he climbs the machine and rips it open despite having only one arm. While Baron is toying slightly with expectations in his script, Ed Barreto goes almost the opposite route. He doesn't pull out many fancy or daring artistic moves, but opts for more straightforward storytelling methods. There are a few bold layouts when called for, but mostly these pages concern themselves with getting the information out and giving each member of the cast the right amount of spotlight.
I was hoping the momentum of issue #18 would carry over into and beyond this one, and for the most part I'd say it does. And in those places where the story swerves a bit, it does so with purpose and thoughtfulness, enhancing the ongoing saga without overturning it. Though Baron and Barreto's tenure has been hit and miss on the whole, I am excited to see how they bring it all to a close.
The backup feature is wordless (well...there's nothing in English, just indecipherable, symbol-based alien language) and was written, penciled, and colored by Ed Hannigan with Bill Wray on inks and Bob Lappan, as always, handling the letters. It is the story of Taz, basically right before we meet her in the main series, losing her combat/life partner to war. Without question, it's the strongest of these seven-page closers, the only one yet that has really been about something other than telling a cute and disposable story. It has something to say, even though no one actually says anything I can understand.
Taz and her partner are already the last two members of their species standing in the story's opening panel. And by the end of the first page, it is just Taz, as an enemy ship strafes the pair and kills Taz's love. The pilot of that ship departs in order to loot the bodies, and Taz ambushes him, blowing his vessel up and causing a massive gap in the ground down which they both fall. They recover quickly, and Taz is seconds away from killing her foe when they are both attacked by an enormous underground serpent or slug of some kind. Suddenly, enemies becomes allies as they work together to evade and then slay the giant beast. Then, there is a bit of extra teamwork needed in order for them to climb back to the surface, pushing against each other's backs as they walk up opposite sides of the chasm. It almost feels like this story's lesson is one of peace over war, but as soon as they've made it topside, their alliance crumbles. Despite emphatic protests from the other alien, Taz guns him down mercilessly, and then picks up her partner's corpse and wanders into the sunset, mere minutes away from meeting Babe and joining the rest of the team in the main storyline. On the final panel, Hannigan offers the only bit of English present in the form of a tiny, third-person, barely visible moral: "Hang on to your gun." But the true meaning and strength of this backup feature is deeper than that.
It is, essentially, an examination of different kinds of violence. There is fighting for survival, and then there is war, and both get stage time here. Both lead to death, but only one also creates harmony, however temporary, and it is a significant distinction. When Taz and her enemy team up to battle the more immediate threats of the giant slug and the hole they're trapped in, the war they were participating in seconds before disappears entirely. When in survival mode, things like race and politics and vengeance evaporate, replaced by more urgent, immediate needs. In many ways, this story displays the mindless ugliness of war, the lack of reason behind it. War is violence that can only beget further violence, whereas the violence inherent in defending oneself against a predator can and does end there. Either the predator dies or the prey does, and then the story is over. But in war, everyone is both predator and prey, an endless cycle of hunting the hunters until only one side has anyone left.
War can turn friends into foes; survival does the opposite. The violence of war necessarily involves hatred and, sometimes, also joy, irrational and overwhelming emotions that cloud the senses. Survival, on the other hand, is a practical kind of violence. Both involve kill-or-be-killed circumstances, but with war, the killing is the point. The violence is the ends, rather than the means. In nature, violence either creates food or prevents its creation, but the goal is survival either way. It's not about putting down the other guy, but staying up yourself. Again, subtle but important differences that Hannigan deftly examines.
With only one issue to go before this series calls it a day (or a year-and-a-half or whatever) things are coming together quite nicely. Baron has left his cast in unenviable and unpredictable positions for the final chapter, and Hannigan finally proved that the backup features could have merit and soul. I'm anxious to dive into issue #20 now, in a way I'm not sure I've felt since Gerry Conway and José Luis García-López departed the title. Sort of too bad that my excitement would be so refreshed so close to the end, but better than having it peter out completely. Here's hoping the last chapter lives up to the potential so firmly established in this penultimate issue.
When Atari Force decide to head straight for New Earth and evade A.T.A.R.I. station, it's obviously not going to work, so Baron doesn't draw it out or play it for tension. Security chief Hunter is informed on page three that Scanner One has been spotted, so there's no question that our heroes will be brought in. Where Baron finds an opportunity to shock the reader is the specific spot on New Earth that Martin chooses as a landing zone. Thought he believes it to be an abandoned site, it is in fact the heart of a secret weapons development program called "Warmech." So instead of landing and immediately facing the wrath of Hunter and his crew as anticipated, Atari Force must first deal with an automated, combat-ready robot. It's a small difference, but an important one, for a few reasons. Firstly, even Hunter wants to prevent the Warmech from attacking, because the project is valuable to him, and he doesn't want Atari Force to destroy it (which, of course, they do). It also gives Atari Force, and Martin in particular, a sudden disillusionment with their homeworld. The New Earth they left all those months ago wasn't building weaponry, and the change does not sit well with Martin. My expectation was that, while they'd be annoyed at being labeled criminals, Atari Force would generally be glad to have gotten home after so long away. Instead, their return is tainted from the start by the Warmech program, and the generally harder, more violent/fascistic nature of current New Earth society that it represents.
The Warmech fight also provides Kargg a chance at some small measure of redemption, which I wasn't sure he'd ever get. He could easily have remained in the background, a simple and stoic former enemy whose story was essentially already complete. Free of his former master's mental control, Kargg didn't necessarily need to prove himself to his new team in the short space remaining for this book. Changing his tune from foe to ally was enough of a character arc, and there were and still are so many other threads to tie up, I wondered if he'd ever have anything active to do again. But he nearly sacrifices his own life in order to defeat the Warmech, winning Dart and Blackjak's admiration in the process. It's a nice moment for the character and the series, the final surprise of this script before things get back on the original narrative track.
Because Hunter still does show up, and still does arrest Atari Force, just as he always had to do. However, even in that, there are some twists. Taz and Kargg cannot be arrested, logically enough, because they weren't part of the group that originally stole Scanner One. But Morphea also gets a pass, since her actions are evidently protected by "doctor/patient immunity." This is all New Earth law, which obviously I didn't know the details of ahead of time, since they are entirely made up by Baron. I appreciate that he took the time to think it through, though, and pleasantly surprised that Hunter wasn't just herding everyone into cells no questions asked. It adds a bit of depth and intelligence to his character, first of all, and more importantly it's another way in which Baron avoids being wholly predictable. It all adds up, but the final sum isn't what I thought it would be.
The issue ends with the inevitable trial's beginning, charges of treason and conspiracy and the like being brought against the members of Atari Force who could be arrested. And while the trial itself was inevitable, I admit that the verdict remains somewhat mysterious. If Martin can prove he was right all along about the Dark Destroyer, that he and his crew prevented the obliteration of the entire universe, will that even be enough? It seems possible that the deck is already so stacked against the good guys that nothing they can do will convince their accusers of their innocence. Also, with the discovery of Warmech and the many recent additions to their number from various other worlds, I'm not positive Atari Force cares to remain on New Earth anymore. Having finally reached their destination, they find it changed for the worse, so they may not be all that invested in winning their trial anyway. Where the team will be at the close of the next, final issue is anyone's guess, another point in Baron's favor here.
On the art side of the equation, there's nothing especially dazzling in Atari Force #19, but there are no noticeable mistakes or bad calls, either. Everyone in the expansive cast is full, mobile, expressive, and clear. The action hums, the emotional drama is played at just the right levels, and all in all it's a good-looking issue. Kargg's selfless attack on Warmech is likely the best work. His determination shines through, as does his immense strength, as he climbs the machine and rips it open despite having only one arm. While Baron is toying slightly with expectations in his script, Ed Barreto goes almost the opposite route. He doesn't pull out many fancy or daring artistic moves, but opts for more straightforward storytelling methods. There are a few bold layouts when called for, but mostly these pages concern themselves with getting the information out and giving each member of the cast the right amount of spotlight.
I was hoping the momentum of issue #18 would carry over into and beyond this one, and for the most part I'd say it does. And in those places where the story swerves a bit, it does so with purpose and thoughtfulness, enhancing the ongoing saga without overturning it. Though Baron and Barreto's tenure has been hit and miss on the whole, I am excited to see how they bring it all to a close.
The backup feature is wordless (well...there's nothing in English, just indecipherable, symbol-based alien language) and was written, penciled, and colored by Ed Hannigan with Bill Wray on inks and Bob Lappan, as always, handling the letters. It is the story of Taz, basically right before we meet her in the main series, losing her combat/life partner to war. Without question, it's the strongest of these seven-page closers, the only one yet that has really been about something other than telling a cute and disposable story. It has something to say, even though no one actually says anything I can understand.
Taz and her partner are already the last two members of their species standing in the story's opening panel. And by the end of the first page, it is just Taz, as an enemy ship strafes the pair and kills Taz's love. The pilot of that ship departs in order to loot the bodies, and Taz ambushes him, blowing his vessel up and causing a massive gap in the ground down which they both fall. They recover quickly, and Taz is seconds away from killing her foe when they are both attacked by an enormous underground serpent or slug of some kind. Suddenly, enemies becomes allies as they work together to evade and then slay the giant beast. Then, there is a bit of extra teamwork needed in order for them to climb back to the surface, pushing against each other's backs as they walk up opposite sides of the chasm. It almost feels like this story's lesson is one of peace over war, but as soon as they've made it topside, their alliance crumbles. Despite emphatic protests from the other alien, Taz guns him down mercilessly, and then picks up her partner's corpse and wanders into the sunset, mere minutes away from meeting Babe and joining the rest of the team in the main storyline. On the final panel, Hannigan offers the only bit of English present in the form of a tiny, third-person, barely visible moral: "Hang on to your gun." But the true meaning and strength of this backup feature is deeper than that.
It is, essentially, an examination of different kinds of violence. There is fighting for survival, and then there is war, and both get stage time here. Both lead to death, but only one also creates harmony, however temporary, and it is a significant distinction. When Taz and her enemy team up to battle the more immediate threats of the giant slug and the hole they're trapped in, the war they were participating in seconds before disappears entirely. When in survival mode, things like race and politics and vengeance evaporate, replaced by more urgent, immediate needs. In many ways, this story displays the mindless ugliness of war, the lack of reason behind it. War is violence that can only beget further violence, whereas the violence inherent in defending oneself against a predator can and does end there. Either the predator dies or the prey does, and then the story is over. But in war, everyone is both predator and prey, an endless cycle of hunting the hunters until only one side has anyone left.
War can turn friends into foes; survival does the opposite. The violence of war necessarily involves hatred and, sometimes, also joy, irrational and overwhelming emotions that cloud the senses. Survival, on the other hand, is a practical kind of violence. Both involve kill-or-be-killed circumstances, but with war, the killing is the point. The violence is the ends, rather than the means. In nature, violence either creates food or prevents its creation, but the goal is survival either way. It's not about putting down the other guy, but staying up yourself. Again, subtle but important differences that Hannigan deftly examines.
With only one issue to go before this series calls it a day (or a year-and-a-half or whatever) things are coming together quite nicely. Baron has left his cast in unenviable and unpredictable positions for the final chapter, and Hannigan finally proved that the backup features could have merit and soul. I'm anxious to dive into issue #20 now, in a way I'm not sure I've felt since Gerry Conway and José Luis García-López departed the title. Sort of too bad that my excitement would be so refreshed so close to the end, but better than having it peter out completely. Here's hoping the last chapter lives up to the potential so firmly established in this penultimate issue.
Thursday, June 20, 2013
Atari Force Month: Issue #18 Review
Ok, let me get my bitching about the backup story out of the way at the top, because the rest of this issue was pretty good. But "A Boy & His Hukka" is the worst of the seven-pagers yet, for a number of reasons. Here's the synopsis: a young Tempest takes Hukka to the mall to buy a new action figure. Hukka gets left behind as the toy store closes, and is then chased by a guard dog because, you know, that is the dog's only job. Tempest comes back to save his pet, and when he sees the dog attacking, phases into the store. This so tremendously scares the dog that it seizes up and, as far as I can tell based on context clues, dies. That seems to be what the human security guard who arrives to reprimand Tempest indicates, and the dog certainly never stirs. Also the story ends with the guard saying he will call Tempest's parents because of "what you did to my dog."
So, yeah...Tempest is an irresponsible pet owner, and it causes the death of someone else's totally innocent pet. Why would I want to read about that? No lesson is taught, no good is done, and a dog dies for no reason. I don't know if Dave Manak was aiming for humor with this script, but if so he did a lackluster job of it, because there's nothing I would point to as an overt joke or gag. And it certainly isn't a story about Tempest growing up or having an informative or transformative experience, because he learns nothing and changes not at all. It feels like this story exists merely to fill space, that all Manak bothered to think of was a narrative that could, hypothetically, have occurred in his main character's past. It doesn't seem to matter if the story holds any interesting or worthwhile material, the point is just to hit a page count. And honestly, even if I am wrong, and the dog only passes out from fear rather than expiring, it's still a cruel thing to do to an animal that was merely trying to carry out the job it was trained to do. Tempest doesn't exactly get away with it, but he doesn't suffer any real consequences that we ever see, either. He gets caught, but not punished, while the dog suffers its fate right before our eyes. Do I have a soft spot for dogs? Hell yes I do, but I don't ever want to see anything die, human or dog or cat or alien or tree or ANYTHING in my fiction unless it has a specific narrative purpose. Again, this applies even if the dog survived. To traumatize a character, even an animal one, without any reason behind it, is infuriating writing. It makes this backup feature reach new depths of pointlessness.
Marshall Rogers' art, at least, looks very good. His design for young Tempest is spot on. The child's hair is shorter and more rigid than his older self, because he's not yet the rebellious spirit with the enormous chip on his shoulder he will someday be. And the scenes of the dog chasing Hukka through the toy store have a strong sense of motion to them, and a lot of nice details in terms of different kinds of toys being used in different ways throughout the sequence. It would be nice if the art more firmly provided an answer as to the dog's ultimate state, living or dead, but the actual moment of the animal falling to the ground looks fantastic. It may not be the best-looking backup story, but it's up there, yet paired with such a mindless script, it feels like a waste of Rogers' talent rather than an improvement to the feature.
But that is just the issue's final seven pages, and they tell a story that matters not at all for the ongoing saga of the main series. That story snaps back into focus after writer Mike Baron got a little jumpy last time, and though there are still some inexplicable stumbles, considerably more forward progress is made here.
At first, Baron cheats a little by having Tempest regain some low-level phasing abilities without ever explaining how that's possible. He uses them to dismantle the machine that keeps him from phasing away completely, and gets out of A.T.A.R.I. just in time, as Hunter bursts through the door already firing his weapon. This escape takes place on the title page, and it's a dazzling splash image, dizzying in the way it lays out the action. Tempest dives headfirst into his phase field (a term I may have made up...?) on one side of the page while Hunter charges in from the other. The two of them form a kind of circle of action, connected by Tempest's powers and Hunter's laser fire. From there, Tempest finds himself adrift in a disrupted Multiverse. Ed Barreto draws a couple of fascinating new universes as Tempest travels desperately from place to place, trying to find something familiar. This happens on page four, and the narrative momentum doesn't slow considerably after that point, moving steadily toward the inevitable return of Atari Force to New Earth.
While Tempest is lost, Dart tries again to connect to him mentally, and her timing couldn't be better. He is able to focus on her location through their psychic bond and, after falling through a few more great-looking other realities, he makes it back to Scanner One. There is a brief moment of rejoicing, and then it's all business again, because with Tempest's powers to guide them and concrete proof that their universe still exists, Atari Force finally have hope that they can go home. Unfortunately, their navigation system is shot, meaning someone will have to steer the ship manually.
What luck, then, that Blackjak's new eye, given to him by the Tazlings last issue, seems to grant him some sort of super-sight. Earlier, he explains it to Dart as seeing people "surrounded by auras," which she then translates to Martin as Blackjak seeing "too much." This enhanced vision, combined with Dart's earlier premonition that Blackjak would someday dock Scanner One at A.T.A.R.I. with two working eyes, seems to be enough to convince everyone that Blackjak is the right pilot for their current situation. It all seems to be adding up, and for the first time since he took over, Baron is successfully knocking down narrative dominos in what feels like a natural fashion. It wasn't clear what his stories were working toward before, but all of a sudden, as Blackjak takes the wheel, it feels like there really has been a plan all along.
Then something weird happens, where Baron almost backpedals. Or, no, that's exactly what he does. He backpedals by having Blackjak's new eye be an impairment. When he flies Scanner One into the universe hit by the Dark Destroyer's bomb---evidently one adjacent to the intended target---it is a brilliant swirl of vibrant colors. Some of Tom Ziuko's best work yet. But for Blackjak, it's blinding, and he screams in pain at the Tazlings, demanding they return his old cyborg eye. Which they do, reversing the work they'd done before, and it seems to help. Reverting to his former, supposedly lesser self, Blackjak is now prepared to fly his friends home. Why fix his eye only to break it again? Why make it seem like the new eye was proof that Blackjak was destined to bring Scanner One back to New Earth, just so it can instead almost prevent him from accomplishing that very thing? What the fuck was Baron thinking with this last minute flip-flop? I couldn't possible hazard a guess, but I also don't care as much as I'm making it seem. The point is, Atari Force is finally coming full circle, and not a moment too soon.
So there's a weird bit at the beginning with Tempest's powers, and an even weirder one at the end with Blackjak's eye, but in between is a strong and steady narrative about Atari Force coming together and finding new hope. Baretto also keeps up the good work after the opening pages. There's some unusually strong layout work on the page when Dart guides Tempest back to the ship. And Blackjak's old swagger is in full force for the first time in ages when his old eye is back in place. Tom Ziuko also has a particularly strong issue, for more than just the full-rainbow palette of the destroyed universe. There are several instances where he does a foreground character in a wash of a single hue, while the backgrounds are more fully colored. It adds depth to some of the smaller panels, and helps display emotional friction between cast members, physically separating them with the amount of color used. I'm not sure I've noticed him doing this before, but it's very effective this issue.
Nothing but trouble awaits Atari Force on New Earth, beginning with Rident inevitably trying to arrest them all as soon as they're docked. But they're still excited to get there, and based on this issue, so am I. If the momentum built up here can continue to carry the narrative with the same energy for the final two issues, this series could have a properly compelling conclusion.
So, yeah...Tempest is an irresponsible pet owner, and it causes the death of someone else's totally innocent pet. Why would I want to read about that? No lesson is taught, no good is done, and a dog dies for no reason. I don't know if Dave Manak was aiming for humor with this script, but if so he did a lackluster job of it, because there's nothing I would point to as an overt joke or gag. And it certainly isn't a story about Tempest growing up or having an informative or transformative experience, because he learns nothing and changes not at all. It feels like this story exists merely to fill space, that all Manak bothered to think of was a narrative that could, hypothetically, have occurred in his main character's past. It doesn't seem to matter if the story holds any interesting or worthwhile material, the point is just to hit a page count. And honestly, even if I am wrong, and the dog only passes out from fear rather than expiring, it's still a cruel thing to do to an animal that was merely trying to carry out the job it was trained to do. Tempest doesn't exactly get away with it, but he doesn't suffer any real consequences that we ever see, either. He gets caught, but not punished, while the dog suffers its fate right before our eyes. Do I have a soft spot for dogs? Hell yes I do, but I don't ever want to see anything die, human or dog or cat or alien or tree or ANYTHING in my fiction unless it has a specific narrative purpose. Again, this applies even if the dog survived. To traumatize a character, even an animal one, without any reason behind it, is infuriating writing. It makes this backup feature reach new depths of pointlessness.
Marshall Rogers' art, at least, looks very good. His design for young Tempest is spot on. The child's hair is shorter and more rigid than his older self, because he's not yet the rebellious spirit with the enormous chip on his shoulder he will someday be. And the scenes of the dog chasing Hukka through the toy store have a strong sense of motion to them, and a lot of nice details in terms of different kinds of toys being used in different ways throughout the sequence. It would be nice if the art more firmly provided an answer as to the dog's ultimate state, living or dead, but the actual moment of the animal falling to the ground looks fantastic. It may not be the best-looking backup story, but it's up there, yet paired with such a mindless script, it feels like a waste of Rogers' talent rather than an improvement to the feature.
But that is just the issue's final seven pages, and they tell a story that matters not at all for the ongoing saga of the main series. That story snaps back into focus after writer Mike Baron got a little jumpy last time, and though there are still some inexplicable stumbles, considerably more forward progress is made here.
At first, Baron cheats a little by having Tempest regain some low-level phasing abilities without ever explaining how that's possible. He uses them to dismantle the machine that keeps him from phasing away completely, and gets out of A.T.A.R.I. just in time, as Hunter bursts through the door already firing his weapon. This escape takes place on the title page, and it's a dazzling splash image, dizzying in the way it lays out the action. Tempest dives headfirst into his phase field (a term I may have made up...?) on one side of the page while Hunter charges in from the other. The two of them form a kind of circle of action, connected by Tempest's powers and Hunter's laser fire. From there, Tempest finds himself adrift in a disrupted Multiverse. Ed Barreto draws a couple of fascinating new universes as Tempest travels desperately from place to place, trying to find something familiar. This happens on page four, and the narrative momentum doesn't slow considerably after that point, moving steadily toward the inevitable return of Atari Force to New Earth.
While Tempest is lost, Dart tries again to connect to him mentally, and her timing couldn't be better. He is able to focus on her location through their psychic bond and, after falling through a few more great-looking other realities, he makes it back to Scanner One. There is a brief moment of rejoicing, and then it's all business again, because with Tempest's powers to guide them and concrete proof that their universe still exists, Atari Force finally have hope that they can go home. Unfortunately, their navigation system is shot, meaning someone will have to steer the ship manually.
What luck, then, that Blackjak's new eye, given to him by the Tazlings last issue, seems to grant him some sort of super-sight. Earlier, he explains it to Dart as seeing people "surrounded by auras," which she then translates to Martin as Blackjak seeing "too much." This enhanced vision, combined with Dart's earlier premonition that Blackjak would someday dock Scanner One at A.T.A.R.I. with two working eyes, seems to be enough to convince everyone that Blackjak is the right pilot for their current situation. It all seems to be adding up, and for the first time since he took over, Baron is successfully knocking down narrative dominos in what feels like a natural fashion. It wasn't clear what his stories were working toward before, but all of a sudden, as Blackjak takes the wheel, it feels like there really has been a plan all along.
Then something weird happens, where Baron almost backpedals. Or, no, that's exactly what he does. He backpedals by having Blackjak's new eye be an impairment. When he flies Scanner One into the universe hit by the Dark Destroyer's bomb---evidently one adjacent to the intended target---it is a brilliant swirl of vibrant colors. Some of Tom Ziuko's best work yet. But for Blackjak, it's blinding, and he screams in pain at the Tazlings, demanding they return his old cyborg eye. Which they do, reversing the work they'd done before, and it seems to help. Reverting to his former, supposedly lesser self, Blackjak is now prepared to fly his friends home. Why fix his eye only to break it again? Why make it seem like the new eye was proof that Blackjak was destined to bring Scanner One back to New Earth, just so it can instead almost prevent him from accomplishing that very thing? What the fuck was Baron thinking with this last minute flip-flop? I couldn't possible hazard a guess, but I also don't care as much as I'm making it seem. The point is, Atari Force is finally coming full circle, and not a moment too soon.
So there's a weird bit at the beginning with Tempest's powers, and an even weirder one at the end with Blackjak's eye, but in between is a strong and steady narrative about Atari Force coming together and finding new hope. Baretto also keeps up the good work after the opening pages. There's some unusually strong layout work on the page when Dart guides Tempest back to the ship. And Blackjak's old swagger is in full force for the first time in ages when his old eye is back in place. Tom Ziuko also has a particularly strong issue, for more than just the full-rainbow palette of the destroyed universe. There are several instances where he does a foreground character in a wash of a single hue, while the backgrounds are more fully colored. It adds depth to some of the smaller panels, and helps display emotional friction between cast members, physically separating them with the amount of color used. I'm not sure I've noticed him doing this before, but it's very effective this issue.
Nothing but trouble awaits Atari Force on New Earth, beginning with Rident inevitably trying to arrest them all as soon as they're docked. But they're still excited to get there, and based on this issue, so am I. If the momentum built up here can continue to carry the narrative with the same energy for the final two issues, this series could have a properly compelling conclusion.
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
Atari Force Month: Issue #17 Review
Mike Baron tends to write this series with such an odd, disjointed pace. This issue, more than any others, suffers from a lack of identity. What is it about? Where is it going? I understand what happens, I can see where it will likely lead, but on its own Atari Force #17 is too fragmented, and it feels as though it stops short. None of the myriad plot threads that Baron includes here get enough space to do anything of note. They are either introduced too superficially, resolved in rapid and predictable ways, or briefly visited but not developed whatsoever. Baron jumps from beat to beat with no rhyme or reason, and by the time the issue reaches its final panel, I'm not sure which bits I'm meant to care about the most.
The story opens with Blackjak being fixed by the Tazlings, while the rest of Atari Force is locked outside of the infirmary. Dart refuses to trust the Tazlings with her former love, since all they've accomplished so far is to kill a bunch of ants, so in her mind they're a violent threat. Nevermind the fact that just last issue, Morphea explained to everyone that the Tazlings are fixers by nature, Dart wants to literally break the door down. She never gets a chance, though, and the Tazlings somehow give Blackjak a new, fully functional, organic eye. They also remove the Dark Destroyer's implant from his brain, making Blackjak once again trustworthy as a good guy. Well, unless you're Martin Champion.
Under Baron's pen, Martin is more stubborn and dickish than he ever was before, and seems to grow more one-dimensional each issue. He's been turned into an overly-serious naysayer, who has little to no interest in hearing what anyone else has to say, even though Martin himself has nothing helpful or productive to contribute to any conversation. His lack of depth is nothing compared to Rident, though, who I'm starting to wish Baron had never bothered bringing back into the book. Rident's sole purpose is to remind everyone else that he has plans to arrest them. That's it. It's all he's done yet, and it's utterly obnoxious and pointless, because by now the rest of the cast just flat-out ignores his every line. What is he doing here, what is the creative motivation behind including him in the series? Thus far, there does not seem to be one.
This issue also sees Dart mentally connect to Tempest again, but their conversation doesn't provide any new information or plot advancement whatsoever. He says, just as he did last time, that he is still being held on A.T.A.R.I. station, and Dart once again repeats this to Martin, who once again doesn't really have anything he can do with that knowledge. Essentially, it's three pages of material that rehash an even shorter scene from the preceding issue, a significant chunk of wasted space in an issue that already screws the pooch when it comes to structure and pacing.
Early on, Martin says the Tazlings are depleting Scanner One's food stores at an alarming rate, but no solution is offered by anyone, and the subject is soon dropped. Will it come up again? Probably, but why bring it up here if nothing's going to be done with it? Baron already has so many balls in the air, I'm unclear as to why his strategy would be to throw up more without catching any. But that's what he does with the Tazlings' dietary habits, and then again at the end of the issue when Morphea frees Kargg from the Dark Destroyer's mental hold.
Now, the Morphea-vs.-Destroyer in Kargg's brain scene is actually the issue's strongest section, so I don't mean to complain about it too enthusiastically. But what makes it work isn't Baron's writing but Ed Barreto's art, which comes to life during that battle in a way it never quite has before. Morphea's fear, surprise, and ultimate rage at discovering that the Dark Destroyer has been mentally manipulating Kargg for all these years are all very strong. And the full scale of the Destroyer's inner monstrousness is more clearly on display than ever. We've seen Destroyer as tentacle monster before, but it's never been as horrific as this. It's a brief mental combat, but given all the detail and tension it deserves, making it the issue's biggest strength by a long shot.
Sadly, it rolls right into the too-abrupt ending, where Kargg comes onto the bridge, is met with skepticism, and then apologizes for his recent behavior. And that is it. He apologizes, end of issue. Well, technically the end of the issue is Martin responding to the apology with, "Rrright..." which is about as lackluster a cliffhanger as I've come across. So despite Barreto amping up the energy in the fight scene, the scattered script undoes all that excellent work on its final page.
And before the fight even begins, Barreto loses oodles of credit with me by having Dart change into a slinky, barely-the-right-size nightgown for absolutely no reason at all. It's for her mental connection with Tempest, and I imagine the argument would be that she needed to be relaxed or something in order to reach out to him, but come on. There's changing into something comfortable, and then there's putting on an outfit that strains to cover her breasts and buttocks, and doesn't even always entirely succeed. I'm starting to really hate Barreto for bringing an unneeded and uncharacteristic sexiness to this incredible character. And it doesn't help that Baron writes her as being far blander than she used to be. Also, she kisses Blackjak this issue after the Tazlings fix him, which makes her seem pretty weak to me, in a way that doesn't fit. The Dart of old would not be so quick to return to a romance with the man who tried to kill her, even if she had evidence that he'd been "repaired." It's reckless and sappy in a way Dart isn't, or at any rate hasn't been up to now.
More and more with this creative team, Atari Force feels like a different series, and that's a shame. It was such a good book before, and now it is mediocre at best, lacking the narrative focus and drive it had under Gerry Conway and José Luis García-López. And it has never helped that the main story is limited to sixteen pages so that a seven-page backup can be included. This issue is no exception.
Concluding the Pakrat story that started in issue #15, "Rats Like Us" sees Ferra and Pakrat join forces to set up Rident for the diamond heist that set everything in motion. Andy Helfer does a bit to correct what seemed like a mistake from the first part of the story, by having Rident say here that his and Pakrat's family is an exception to the rule of Markians being thieves. However, Helfer then makes an even bigger factual error by saying that Rident is part of A.T.A.R.I. security. No, he is not. He was hired by them for the sole purpose of retrieving the stolen Scanner One, but this backup story necessarily takes place before that happened. And even if it comes after the events of the main story, why would Rident still be in A.T.A.R.I.'s employ? Nonsense, and totally unforgivable considering Helfer is also the book's editor, and this is, basically, an editorial mistake.
Mike Chen does provide some solid artwork for the backup, at least. When Rident blasts Pakrat across the room, there is a hilarious look of surprise and pain on Pakrat's face. And later, when Rident realizes he's been set up, he looks equally funny in his expression of total defeat and bewilderment. Best of all, though, is the row of five panels showing five different cops, each from a different species with a distinct look and personality. Character design has been one of Atari Force's most consistent strengths, and it's nice to see Chen carry on that tradition, even for just one small strip of a single page.
The plot of the backup makes no sense, though, as it relies on Pakrat convincing Ferra that he knows her father better than she. His argument may be logical, but if Ferra believes her dad will be mad at her for her crimes, she must have a reason. And if, in fact, Pakrat is correct, and Ferra's dad would be proud of her thievery, then she's a strong candidate for the most idiotic and vapid character of all time. In which case, don't waste my time telling stories about her.
My disappointment grows ever larger as this book winds down. There are some good ideas and exciting moments here, but they are few and far between. Baron's scripting is slipshod, Barreto's art rises and falls depending on who he's drawing, and the backups continue to feel pointless and silly. It's not a terrible comic, but the quality has taken a noticeable dip, and there just aren't that many chances left for it to return to its former glory.
The story opens with Blackjak being fixed by the Tazlings, while the rest of Atari Force is locked outside of the infirmary. Dart refuses to trust the Tazlings with her former love, since all they've accomplished so far is to kill a bunch of ants, so in her mind they're a violent threat. Nevermind the fact that just last issue, Morphea explained to everyone that the Tazlings are fixers by nature, Dart wants to literally break the door down. She never gets a chance, though, and the Tazlings somehow give Blackjak a new, fully functional, organic eye. They also remove the Dark Destroyer's implant from his brain, making Blackjak once again trustworthy as a good guy. Well, unless you're Martin Champion.
Under Baron's pen, Martin is more stubborn and dickish than he ever was before, and seems to grow more one-dimensional each issue. He's been turned into an overly-serious naysayer, who has little to no interest in hearing what anyone else has to say, even though Martin himself has nothing helpful or productive to contribute to any conversation. His lack of depth is nothing compared to Rident, though, who I'm starting to wish Baron had never bothered bringing back into the book. Rident's sole purpose is to remind everyone else that he has plans to arrest them. That's it. It's all he's done yet, and it's utterly obnoxious and pointless, because by now the rest of the cast just flat-out ignores his every line. What is he doing here, what is the creative motivation behind including him in the series? Thus far, there does not seem to be one.
This issue also sees Dart mentally connect to Tempest again, but their conversation doesn't provide any new information or plot advancement whatsoever. He says, just as he did last time, that he is still being held on A.T.A.R.I. station, and Dart once again repeats this to Martin, who once again doesn't really have anything he can do with that knowledge. Essentially, it's three pages of material that rehash an even shorter scene from the preceding issue, a significant chunk of wasted space in an issue that already screws the pooch when it comes to structure and pacing.
Early on, Martin says the Tazlings are depleting Scanner One's food stores at an alarming rate, but no solution is offered by anyone, and the subject is soon dropped. Will it come up again? Probably, but why bring it up here if nothing's going to be done with it? Baron already has so many balls in the air, I'm unclear as to why his strategy would be to throw up more without catching any. But that's what he does with the Tazlings' dietary habits, and then again at the end of the issue when Morphea frees Kargg from the Dark Destroyer's mental hold.
Now, the Morphea-vs.-Destroyer in Kargg's brain scene is actually the issue's strongest section, so I don't mean to complain about it too enthusiastically. But what makes it work isn't Baron's writing but Ed Barreto's art, which comes to life during that battle in a way it never quite has before. Morphea's fear, surprise, and ultimate rage at discovering that the Dark Destroyer has been mentally manipulating Kargg for all these years are all very strong. And the full scale of the Destroyer's inner monstrousness is more clearly on display than ever. We've seen Destroyer as tentacle monster before, but it's never been as horrific as this. It's a brief mental combat, but given all the detail and tension it deserves, making it the issue's biggest strength by a long shot.
Sadly, it rolls right into the too-abrupt ending, where Kargg comes onto the bridge, is met with skepticism, and then apologizes for his recent behavior. And that is it. He apologizes, end of issue. Well, technically the end of the issue is Martin responding to the apology with, "Rrright..." which is about as lackluster a cliffhanger as I've come across. So despite Barreto amping up the energy in the fight scene, the scattered script undoes all that excellent work on its final page.
And before the fight even begins, Barreto loses oodles of credit with me by having Dart change into a slinky, barely-the-right-size nightgown for absolutely no reason at all. It's for her mental connection with Tempest, and I imagine the argument would be that she needed to be relaxed or something in order to reach out to him, but come on. There's changing into something comfortable, and then there's putting on an outfit that strains to cover her breasts and buttocks, and doesn't even always entirely succeed. I'm starting to really hate Barreto for bringing an unneeded and uncharacteristic sexiness to this incredible character. And it doesn't help that Baron writes her as being far blander than she used to be. Also, she kisses Blackjak this issue after the Tazlings fix him, which makes her seem pretty weak to me, in a way that doesn't fit. The Dart of old would not be so quick to return to a romance with the man who tried to kill her, even if she had evidence that he'd been "repaired." It's reckless and sappy in a way Dart isn't, or at any rate hasn't been up to now.
More and more with this creative team, Atari Force feels like a different series, and that's a shame. It was such a good book before, and now it is mediocre at best, lacking the narrative focus and drive it had under Gerry Conway and José Luis García-López. And it has never helped that the main story is limited to sixteen pages so that a seven-page backup can be included. This issue is no exception.
Concluding the Pakrat story that started in issue #15, "Rats Like Us" sees Ferra and Pakrat join forces to set up Rident for the diamond heist that set everything in motion. Andy Helfer does a bit to correct what seemed like a mistake from the first part of the story, by having Rident say here that his and Pakrat's family is an exception to the rule of Markians being thieves. However, Helfer then makes an even bigger factual error by saying that Rident is part of A.T.A.R.I. security. No, he is not. He was hired by them for the sole purpose of retrieving the stolen Scanner One, but this backup story necessarily takes place before that happened. And even if it comes after the events of the main story, why would Rident still be in A.T.A.R.I.'s employ? Nonsense, and totally unforgivable considering Helfer is also the book's editor, and this is, basically, an editorial mistake.
Mike Chen does provide some solid artwork for the backup, at least. When Rident blasts Pakrat across the room, there is a hilarious look of surprise and pain on Pakrat's face. And later, when Rident realizes he's been set up, he looks equally funny in his expression of total defeat and bewilderment. Best of all, though, is the row of five panels showing five different cops, each from a different species with a distinct look and personality. Character design has been one of Atari Force's most consistent strengths, and it's nice to see Chen carry on that tradition, even for just one small strip of a single page.
The plot of the backup makes no sense, though, as it relies on Pakrat convincing Ferra that he knows her father better than she. His argument may be logical, but if Ferra believes her dad will be mad at her for her crimes, she must have a reason. And if, in fact, Pakrat is correct, and Ferra's dad would be proud of her thievery, then she's a strong candidate for the most idiotic and vapid character of all time. In which case, don't waste my time telling stories about her.
My disappointment grows ever larger as this book winds down. There are some good ideas and exciting moments here, but they are few and far between. Baron's scripting is slipshod, Barreto's art rises and falls depending on who he's drawing, and the backups continue to feel pointless and silly. It's not a terrible comic, but the quality has taken a noticeable dip, and there just aren't that many chances left for it to return to its former glory.
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
Atari Force Month: Issue #16 Review
The stomach pains Taz first experienced back when Gerry Conway was still writing finally resolve here, and what a delightful resolution it is. Taz, it turns out, was pregnant, and she gives birth to a whole gaggle of tiny Tazlings that look equally hilarious and adorable, and show up just in time to save the day. The giant armed ants from last issue sneak aboard Scanner One at the beginning of this one, and when they attack the bridge, none of the weapons Atari Force has available do anything to them. But the Tazlings arrive en masse with an arsenal of weapons they built themselves out of the ship's parts, and eliminate the enormous bugs easily. It's a great and bizarre action scene, the high point of an issue that is considerably stronger and more focused than the last.
Mike Baron picks up right where he left off, with Babe covered in a growing swarm of ants while he tries to fix the ship's thrusters. At first it is unclear if Babe will survive, but then he has, essentially, a brief temper tantrum, which causes the ants to fall off of him immediately. So he is able to repair Scanner One, and Atari Force departs the bug-covered planet, but not before a handful of the warrior ants secretly climb aboard. While the invaders make their way through the ship's interior, Baron takes the opportunity to introduce a few new plotlines. Dart and Blackjak have a pseudo-reconciliation, opening the door for their relationship to heal for the first time since he betrayed her. And immediately afterward, Dart gets a telepathic call from Tempest, indicating that perhaps New Earth wasn't destroyed as previously believed. Neither of these are unexpected developments, but Baron does a god job with them. He doesn't drag them out, but they have the proper space to breath, much more intelligently paced than his scenes have tended to be up to now.
After Dart tells the rest of the team that she spoke with Tempest, the ant attack and Taz giving birth happen simultaneously, so that the ants-vs.-Tazlings fight makes up most of the issue's latter half. Once the bugs have been slain, Morphea explains that the Tazlings are born with language skills, technical know-how, and other abilities that they will lose and have to re-learn with age. They also, apparently, always find something to fix as a group. This is an interesting concept, that an entire litter of alien babies would emerge with a common goal and the skills to achieve it, only to give those things up as they mature. And this particular group selects Blackjak as their thing to fix, which is how the issue closes. The Tazling basically overrun Blackjak, reminiscent of the ants all over Babe at the issue's opening. It might be scary, except Morphea has already explained by this point that the Tazlings are fixers, and a couple issues back, Dart had a premonition of Blackjak with two functional eyes. So it seems like a safe bet that his eye will be repaired by the babies next time. Possibly also the tumor in his brain in which lives an evil alien personality.
Ed Hannigan comes on as penciler for this issue, with common series inker Ricardo Villagrán and new colorist Carl Gafford rounding out the artistic team. They all provide solid work, with the Tazlings in particular. They have a manic joy about them, even when they're engaged in violence. They seem glad to be alive, glad to have something to do. And they work as newborns even with their intelligence and talents, because Hannigan infuses them with such a youthful spirit. His ants look great, too, very militaristic and intimidating. They are a powerful contrast to the tiny, giddy Tazlings, making their fight dynamic and lively.
I also quite liked the three or so panels of Taz giving birth. The pain and determination on her face struck a perfect balance. I think the best contribution of Hannigan's is his Morphea, though. She's a bit longer in the face and wider in the eyes when he draws her, which fits her always-concerned and often-distressed personality. And she is a bit more emotive than usual, somehow, more nuanced in her expression even though she has such an inhuman face. Finally, I appreciate that Hannigan ignored Ed Barreto's decision to give Dart pointless cleavage last issue. Her suit is back in one piece here, which is as it should be. I suppose, technically, it is a continuity mistake, but it's one I support wholeheartedly.
Gafford doesn't miss a beat with the colors, and compared to Tom Ziuko's weaker last few issues, this is actually a step up. Not the the colors ever astound me, but Gafford has a wide-ranging palette and attention to detail that add a thick richness to the art. Subtle things like Taz's white tears showing up even against her white flesh, or the ants' different weapons firing differently colored beams. Even the cover, where Taz's uniform is dark blues while the Tazlings behind her are done in a paler shade, shows Gafford's skill and care.
There are a few tiny missteps here. Martin says that Tempest reaching out to Dart is "further evidence that New Earth exists!" but I can't recall any previous evidence of that ever being found. One of Dart's speech bubbles is connected to Blackjak, Morphea apparently already knows Taz is pregnant even though it is news to the reader, etc. These are minor flubs, but it does speak to Baron's generally looser writing style. His scripts are a little less focused on detail or character, and more interested in new plots and sci-fi concepts. That is, I suppose, a valid tactic, but in the end I think it makes his issues less balanced than Conway's typically were.
The Pakrat backup is better than its predecessor, but only marginally so. The plan seems to be to tell an ongoing Pakrat story in seven-page chunks now, which is an alright decision, but I do wish they'd used another character. With Pakrat, the only real option is a caper story, and that's what we're getting here, only it's not a very good one. Pakrat is tossed out a window of the embassy he tried to rob last issue, and gets saved by Ferra in a hovercar/spaceship/unnamed airborne vehicle. She takes him to one of her father's homes, lulls him into a false sense of security and then, as the cliffhanger, turns him over to his brother Rident. A lame ending in light of Rident recently joining the main narrative as a seemingly permanent cast member, but taken on its own it works alright. Andy Helfer seems to be having fun writing Pakrat, and Pakrat is having fun on his adventure. So is Ferra, probably doubly so. This translates into a story that's fun and easy to read, which is, I suppose, what a backup ought to be. But it's not especially compelling.
Really the highlight of this story is the action sequence, with Pakrat battling the embassy guard and then Ferra saving him and avoiding arrest. Mike Chen draws the most ferocious-looking cornered Pakrat I think the series has ever seen, and doesn't skimp on the guard's expressions either. And the in-flight high-speed chase is exciting and bombastic, ending with Ferra pulling some daredevil stunts to get away. By the time that's done, there are only two pages left, and the final one is a full-page splash of Pakrat, Ferra, and Rident, all drawn with great detail and emotion. So I guess when I say "the action" is this story's highlight, what I really mean is the art trumps the script.
All told, this is Baron's strongest issue yet, and one of the best backup stories since the title started having them. I do wish Baron could get a better handle on the cast, and bring back some of the powerful emotional storytelling that used to be present in this book. But he's got some good ideas, and he seems to be finding his footing more and more, so here's hoping things only get better in the final few chapters.
Mike Baron picks up right where he left off, with Babe covered in a growing swarm of ants while he tries to fix the ship's thrusters. At first it is unclear if Babe will survive, but then he has, essentially, a brief temper tantrum, which causes the ants to fall off of him immediately. So he is able to repair Scanner One, and Atari Force departs the bug-covered planet, but not before a handful of the warrior ants secretly climb aboard. While the invaders make their way through the ship's interior, Baron takes the opportunity to introduce a few new plotlines. Dart and Blackjak have a pseudo-reconciliation, opening the door for their relationship to heal for the first time since he betrayed her. And immediately afterward, Dart gets a telepathic call from Tempest, indicating that perhaps New Earth wasn't destroyed as previously believed. Neither of these are unexpected developments, but Baron does a god job with them. He doesn't drag them out, but they have the proper space to breath, much more intelligently paced than his scenes have tended to be up to now.
After Dart tells the rest of the team that she spoke with Tempest, the ant attack and Taz giving birth happen simultaneously, so that the ants-vs.-Tazlings fight makes up most of the issue's latter half. Once the bugs have been slain, Morphea explains that the Tazlings are born with language skills, technical know-how, and other abilities that they will lose and have to re-learn with age. They also, apparently, always find something to fix as a group. This is an interesting concept, that an entire litter of alien babies would emerge with a common goal and the skills to achieve it, only to give those things up as they mature. And this particular group selects Blackjak as their thing to fix, which is how the issue closes. The Tazling basically overrun Blackjak, reminiscent of the ants all over Babe at the issue's opening. It might be scary, except Morphea has already explained by this point that the Tazlings are fixers, and a couple issues back, Dart had a premonition of Blackjak with two functional eyes. So it seems like a safe bet that his eye will be repaired by the babies next time. Possibly also the tumor in his brain in which lives an evil alien personality.
Ed Hannigan comes on as penciler for this issue, with common series inker Ricardo Villagrán and new colorist Carl Gafford rounding out the artistic team. They all provide solid work, with the Tazlings in particular. They have a manic joy about them, even when they're engaged in violence. They seem glad to be alive, glad to have something to do. And they work as newborns even with their intelligence and talents, because Hannigan infuses them with such a youthful spirit. His ants look great, too, very militaristic and intimidating. They are a powerful contrast to the tiny, giddy Tazlings, making their fight dynamic and lively.
I also quite liked the three or so panels of Taz giving birth. The pain and determination on her face struck a perfect balance. I think the best contribution of Hannigan's is his Morphea, though. She's a bit longer in the face and wider in the eyes when he draws her, which fits her always-concerned and often-distressed personality. And she is a bit more emotive than usual, somehow, more nuanced in her expression even though she has such an inhuman face. Finally, I appreciate that Hannigan ignored Ed Barreto's decision to give Dart pointless cleavage last issue. Her suit is back in one piece here, which is as it should be. I suppose, technically, it is a continuity mistake, but it's one I support wholeheartedly.
Gafford doesn't miss a beat with the colors, and compared to Tom Ziuko's weaker last few issues, this is actually a step up. Not the the colors ever astound me, but Gafford has a wide-ranging palette and attention to detail that add a thick richness to the art. Subtle things like Taz's white tears showing up even against her white flesh, or the ants' different weapons firing differently colored beams. Even the cover, where Taz's uniform is dark blues while the Tazlings behind her are done in a paler shade, shows Gafford's skill and care.
There are a few tiny missteps here. Martin says that Tempest reaching out to Dart is "further evidence that New Earth exists!" but I can't recall any previous evidence of that ever being found. One of Dart's speech bubbles is connected to Blackjak, Morphea apparently already knows Taz is pregnant even though it is news to the reader, etc. These are minor flubs, but it does speak to Baron's generally looser writing style. His scripts are a little less focused on detail or character, and more interested in new plots and sci-fi concepts. That is, I suppose, a valid tactic, but in the end I think it makes his issues less balanced than Conway's typically were.
The Pakrat backup is better than its predecessor, but only marginally so. The plan seems to be to tell an ongoing Pakrat story in seven-page chunks now, which is an alright decision, but I do wish they'd used another character. With Pakrat, the only real option is a caper story, and that's what we're getting here, only it's not a very good one. Pakrat is tossed out a window of the embassy he tried to rob last issue, and gets saved by Ferra in a hovercar/spaceship/unnamed airborne vehicle. She takes him to one of her father's homes, lulls him into a false sense of security and then, as the cliffhanger, turns him over to his brother Rident. A lame ending in light of Rident recently joining the main narrative as a seemingly permanent cast member, but taken on its own it works alright. Andy Helfer seems to be having fun writing Pakrat, and Pakrat is having fun on his adventure. So is Ferra, probably doubly so. This translates into a story that's fun and easy to read, which is, I suppose, what a backup ought to be. But it's not especially compelling.
Really the highlight of this story is the action sequence, with Pakrat battling the embassy guard and then Ferra saving him and avoiding arrest. Mike Chen draws the most ferocious-looking cornered Pakrat I think the series has ever seen, and doesn't skimp on the guard's expressions either. And the in-flight high-speed chase is exciting and bombastic, ending with Ferra pulling some daredevil stunts to get away. By the time that's done, there are only two pages left, and the final one is a full-page splash of Pakrat, Ferra, and Rident, all drawn with great detail and emotion. So I guess when I say "the action" is this story's highlight, what I really mean is the art trumps the script.
All told, this is Baron's strongest issue yet, and one of the best backup stories since the title started having them. I do wish Baron could get a better handle on the cast, and bring back some of the powerful emotional storytelling that used to be present in this book. But he's got some good ideas, and he seems to be finding his footing more and more, so here's hoping things only get better in the final few chapters.
Atari Force Month: Issue #15 Review
OH NO! My move to Massachusetts has, predictably enough, prevented me from all the reading and writing I has hoping to do these past few days, which is why the below review did not go up yesterday. We have arrived at our destination now, and I am unemployed at the moment, so I gots some time to do some catching up. Therefore, the plan is to do this review and the next one today, getting me back on track for Atari Force Month.
This is a sloppy issue. It opens sloppily and never course corrects. Despite issue #14 ending with the team walking back to Scanner One, this time they start off standing around Kargg's fallen form, surrounded by thousands of giant insects. Rident apparently already sees these insects and knows that they are hostile, but how he could possibly have that info is beyond me. He says they ate his ship, but...how did he survive? Why weren't they already on his tail when he showed up last time? It all raises more questions than it does provide answers, and that's only the first two panels. From there, Mike Baron writes really awkward dialogue between Martin and Dart as the two of them debate strategy and ultimately decide the best bet is to run away. So everyone returns to Scanner One, with the insects close behind. This all only takes two pages, the first of which is a splash, so there is definitely a hurried feeling to the script in the beginning. And it never quite lets up.
Martin tries to convince Rident that their home universe is destroyed while, at the same time, Dart works on removing the limb of the one insect who managed to get a foot in the door of the ship. She first tries a blade that is "ten times harder than magnatun," which is a meaningless sentence. Especially since the blade is ineffective against the giant bug. So Dart says she'll try a power saw instead, and all of the other characters leave her behind to do so while they race to the bridge. There's just no time, apparently, to see if the saw works, because Baron wants Martin and Rident's debate to continue. The two men argue with one another over whether or not there is still a New Earth to return to, but even that only gets one page of attention before Dart shows back up with the severed bug claw in her hand. Her sense of victory is short-lived, though, as the insects have already covered the ship's thrusters with a strange blue goo that prevents it from taking off.
Quick cut to the room Blackjak is apparently being held in and, wait a minute, Kargg is there, too. Not just in the room, but held down by some kind of high-tech restraint. When the hell did this happen? We see Martin carry Kargg onto Scanner One when they're running from the bugs, but nobody ever takes him into this room or secures him. He is just conveniently there for no reason, another example of the issue's sloppiness. Morphea shows up to try and probe Blackjak's mind, which he agrees to, and it turns out there is still some invasive alien personality hiding in there. The indication is that it is now Kargg and not the Dark Destroyer, but that's not confirmed, and for now this thread is left to dangle. That's fine, though, and actually this scene marks the one instance where things don't seem rushed in this script.
There is a brief scene of Taz escaping sick bay and finding a quiet, dark place to hide with his ongoing stomach pains. And then there is the rapid discovery that Babe's physiology allows him to harm the attacking bugs, leading to Martin forcing Morphea to send Babe outside to try and fix the thrusters. Morphea objects strongly to having a child put in such a dangerous situation (some of the bugs who showed up most recently have rocket launchers), but Martin and Dart insist this is their only hope. Babe agrees, goes outside, and is immediately swarmed, and that is where the issue ends.
It's not mind-numbingly AWFUL, but it's bad. Baron's script bounces from point to point, never settling on anything long enough. Even the sequence at the end of realizing Babe can save them and sending him outside to try is too jumpy, and punctuated with color commentary from Rident and Pakrat that isn't funny, informative, helpful, or necessary. Nothing gets resolved because this issue is all set-up. It introduces the threat of the bugs and offers Babe as a possible solution, but then he is immediately overrun when he goes outside, so it's possible that solution is no good, after all. Not that every issue needs to include resolutions...that's not really my problem with this issue's narrative. My problem is that the lack of resolutions comes with a lack of much development, either. The heroes begin and end the issue trapped on this planet, attacked by bugs. The only progress made is learning Babe can fight the bugs, and that might not even be true.
Also, Baron doesn't write these characters as strongly as they usually are. Rident and Pakrat are alright, but Martin is much more one-note and bullheaded than before (and he was always a pretty bullheaded guy). Dart is the worst, though, as she becomes a sort of bland, exposition-only character here. She's lost some of her humor and charm somehow, which is depressing since she was always the best member of the cast. It's not as if this issue is impossible to understand, but Baron doesn't seem to be taking his time at all. He's just throwing out the plot pints as rapidly as possible, which results in a less filling story than I want.
Ed Barretto inks himself this issue, and his art is as strong as it was in the last two issues, with one huge, infuriating exception. For the first time since this series' debut, Dart is sexualized by the artwork. It's dumb, needless, and comes at the worst possible time, when her voice loses a lot of what made it so enjoyable, too. Dart cutting off the bug's arm happens off-panel, so the details are unknown, but when she shows up on the bridge, her shirt has been torn perfectly to give her generous cleavage. In that first panel, at least, the tear is visible, but after that Barreto doesn't both drawing it; the fabric that used to be there is just gone. Basically it's an excuse to redesign her costume so he can draw half-visible breasts whenever she's on panel. If that wasn't gross enough, there is a panel at the bottom of page twelve where the foreground of the image is just Dart's ass. That has never happened in this book before, and it is disgusting and serves zero narrative purpose. It's an entirely visual decision, and one that ruins any other good work Barreto does here.
Tom Ziuko's coloring is off this issue, too. There are several examples of characters being done in a wash of a single color for no explicable reason. Sometimes they're all done in the same color, usually red, and that makes it hard to tell who is even who. Just one more way in which Atari Force #15 is less put together than anything that's preceded it. A jumbled, rushed, visually aggravating mess.
The backup feature is Pakrat-focused this time, and has much of the sloppiness of the story it follows. For starters, this is the first time a backup story hasn't been complete. It ends on a cliffhanger, with Pakrat about to be arrested for a theft he didn't even commit. Written by editor (and sometimes writer) Andy Helfer, it's just as pointless a tale as any of these short stories have been, with the added disadvantage of not yet ending. Pakrat breaks into an embassy building to steal some diamonds, but another Markian thief name Ferra has beaten him to it. The indication is that the two have either a professional or personal history (if not both) but we don't learn the details here. Ferra manipulates Pakrat into causing a distraction so she can escape while he is blamed for the robbery, and that is where the story closes.
My biggest complaint is actually that Helfer has Pakrat say most members of his species are thieves and that stealing is therefore his birthright. Maybe most Markians do like to take what isn't theirs, I couldn't possibly know, but it is an established truth that Pakrat's family, specifically, are cops instead. His whole deal is that he is pushing back against his birthright, so...yeah Helfer just gets that plain wrong. Again, sloppy. Sloppy, sloppy joe.
Penciled by Mike Chen and inked by Joe Delbeato, the artwork in the backup is pretty good. As is tradition in this series, the scenes in the embassy that feature numerous alien races interacting have a jaw-droppingly impressive level of character design. Lots of really interesting details and different looks for the myriad nameless characters in the room. Sadly, like Barreto did with Dart, Chen over-sexualizes Ferra here. Not so much in her attire as the come-hither stance and look she has on constantly. It isn't helped by Helfer having her use false romance and coy charm to get away with her crimes. She is the stereotypical sex-as-a-tool criminal character, which is unimaginative at best, and misogynistic at worst.
Disappointing issue through and though, this one. Two stories that get nowhere and treat their female characters badly. If this is the direction of the new creative team, I think I may understand why there are only five issues to go.
This is a sloppy issue. It opens sloppily and never course corrects. Despite issue #14 ending with the team walking back to Scanner One, this time they start off standing around Kargg's fallen form, surrounded by thousands of giant insects. Rident apparently already sees these insects and knows that they are hostile, but how he could possibly have that info is beyond me. He says they ate his ship, but...how did he survive? Why weren't they already on his tail when he showed up last time? It all raises more questions than it does provide answers, and that's only the first two panels. From there, Mike Baron writes really awkward dialogue between Martin and Dart as the two of them debate strategy and ultimately decide the best bet is to run away. So everyone returns to Scanner One, with the insects close behind. This all only takes two pages, the first of which is a splash, so there is definitely a hurried feeling to the script in the beginning. And it never quite lets up.
Martin tries to convince Rident that their home universe is destroyed while, at the same time, Dart works on removing the limb of the one insect who managed to get a foot in the door of the ship. She first tries a blade that is "ten times harder than magnatun," which is a meaningless sentence. Especially since the blade is ineffective against the giant bug. So Dart says she'll try a power saw instead, and all of the other characters leave her behind to do so while they race to the bridge. There's just no time, apparently, to see if the saw works, because Baron wants Martin and Rident's debate to continue. The two men argue with one another over whether or not there is still a New Earth to return to, but even that only gets one page of attention before Dart shows back up with the severed bug claw in her hand. Her sense of victory is short-lived, though, as the insects have already covered the ship's thrusters with a strange blue goo that prevents it from taking off.
Quick cut to the room Blackjak is apparently being held in and, wait a minute, Kargg is there, too. Not just in the room, but held down by some kind of high-tech restraint. When the hell did this happen? We see Martin carry Kargg onto Scanner One when they're running from the bugs, but nobody ever takes him into this room or secures him. He is just conveniently there for no reason, another example of the issue's sloppiness. Morphea shows up to try and probe Blackjak's mind, which he agrees to, and it turns out there is still some invasive alien personality hiding in there. The indication is that it is now Kargg and not the Dark Destroyer, but that's not confirmed, and for now this thread is left to dangle. That's fine, though, and actually this scene marks the one instance where things don't seem rushed in this script.
There is a brief scene of Taz escaping sick bay and finding a quiet, dark place to hide with his ongoing stomach pains. And then there is the rapid discovery that Babe's physiology allows him to harm the attacking bugs, leading to Martin forcing Morphea to send Babe outside to try and fix the thrusters. Morphea objects strongly to having a child put in such a dangerous situation (some of the bugs who showed up most recently have rocket launchers), but Martin and Dart insist this is their only hope. Babe agrees, goes outside, and is immediately swarmed, and that is where the issue ends.
It's not mind-numbingly AWFUL, but it's bad. Baron's script bounces from point to point, never settling on anything long enough. Even the sequence at the end of realizing Babe can save them and sending him outside to try is too jumpy, and punctuated with color commentary from Rident and Pakrat that isn't funny, informative, helpful, or necessary. Nothing gets resolved because this issue is all set-up. It introduces the threat of the bugs and offers Babe as a possible solution, but then he is immediately overrun when he goes outside, so it's possible that solution is no good, after all. Not that every issue needs to include resolutions...that's not really my problem with this issue's narrative. My problem is that the lack of resolutions comes with a lack of much development, either. The heroes begin and end the issue trapped on this planet, attacked by bugs. The only progress made is learning Babe can fight the bugs, and that might not even be true.
Also, Baron doesn't write these characters as strongly as they usually are. Rident and Pakrat are alright, but Martin is much more one-note and bullheaded than before (and he was always a pretty bullheaded guy). Dart is the worst, though, as she becomes a sort of bland, exposition-only character here. She's lost some of her humor and charm somehow, which is depressing since she was always the best member of the cast. It's not as if this issue is impossible to understand, but Baron doesn't seem to be taking his time at all. He's just throwing out the plot pints as rapidly as possible, which results in a less filling story than I want.
Ed Barretto inks himself this issue, and his art is as strong as it was in the last two issues, with one huge, infuriating exception. For the first time since this series' debut, Dart is sexualized by the artwork. It's dumb, needless, and comes at the worst possible time, when her voice loses a lot of what made it so enjoyable, too. Dart cutting off the bug's arm happens off-panel, so the details are unknown, but when she shows up on the bridge, her shirt has been torn perfectly to give her generous cleavage. In that first panel, at least, the tear is visible, but after that Barreto doesn't both drawing it; the fabric that used to be there is just gone. Basically it's an excuse to redesign her costume so he can draw half-visible breasts whenever she's on panel. If that wasn't gross enough, there is a panel at the bottom of page twelve where the foreground of the image is just Dart's ass. That has never happened in this book before, and it is disgusting and serves zero narrative purpose. It's an entirely visual decision, and one that ruins any other good work Barreto does here.
Tom Ziuko's coloring is off this issue, too. There are several examples of characters being done in a wash of a single color for no explicable reason. Sometimes they're all done in the same color, usually red, and that makes it hard to tell who is even who. Just one more way in which Atari Force #15 is less put together than anything that's preceded it. A jumbled, rushed, visually aggravating mess.
The backup feature is Pakrat-focused this time, and has much of the sloppiness of the story it follows. For starters, this is the first time a backup story hasn't been complete. It ends on a cliffhanger, with Pakrat about to be arrested for a theft he didn't even commit. Written by editor (and sometimes writer) Andy Helfer, it's just as pointless a tale as any of these short stories have been, with the added disadvantage of not yet ending. Pakrat breaks into an embassy building to steal some diamonds, but another Markian thief name Ferra has beaten him to it. The indication is that the two have either a professional or personal history (if not both) but we don't learn the details here. Ferra manipulates Pakrat into causing a distraction so she can escape while he is blamed for the robbery, and that is where the story closes.
My biggest complaint is actually that Helfer has Pakrat say most members of his species are thieves and that stealing is therefore his birthright. Maybe most Markians do like to take what isn't theirs, I couldn't possibly know, but it is an established truth that Pakrat's family, specifically, are cops instead. His whole deal is that he is pushing back against his birthright, so...yeah Helfer just gets that plain wrong. Again, sloppy. Sloppy, sloppy joe.
Penciled by Mike Chen and inked by Joe Delbeato, the artwork in the backup is pretty good. As is tradition in this series, the scenes in the embassy that feature numerous alien races interacting have a jaw-droppingly impressive level of character design. Lots of really interesting details and different looks for the myriad nameless characters in the room. Sadly, like Barreto did with Dart, Chen over-sexualizes Ferra here. Not so much in her attire as the come-hither stance and look she has on constantly. It isn't helped by Helfer having her use false romance and coy charm to get away with her crimes. She is the stereotypical sex-as-a-tool criminal character, which is unimaginative at best, and misogynistic at worst.
Disappointing issue through and though, this one. Two stories that get nowhere and treat their female characters badly. If this is the direction of the new creative team, I think I may understand why there are only five issues to go.
Sunday, June 16, 2013
Atari Force Month: Issue #14 Review
Obviously, I went into this issue with some unavoidable bias. As I wrote repeatedly in my last couple of posts, Atari Force #13 seems like a logical stopping point to me, so #14 was bound to have a hard time winning me over. And you know what? It's actually a decent issue, but it's not nearly big or exciting enough for what it followed. Compared to any random other chapter of this series out of context, I think it holds up just fine on its own as a single issue. But held next to the issue that preceded it, this feels like too little progress in too long a time.
Mike Baron opens his first script the only way he really can, by addressing the fact that Atari Force's whole universe was wiped out. Martin Champion, in his usual way, is deeply distraught by what's happened, and moans about it until Scanner One picks up a blip of some kind of radiation. This suddenly provides a bit of hope that Atari Force will be able to find a new home somewhere in the Multiverse, or at the very least orient themselves within it. This is a fairly strong way to begin the issue, diving right into the problems created by the end of the last one. These first few pages remind readers of the new status quo and then begin to add to it sightly in order to make room for new stories. That's the exact right way to kick things off, but from there, the story doesn't get much farther.
Pakrat soon splits off from the rest of the group in order to raid the ship's hold. On his way there, he finds a beaten and tied up Taz, and is then immediately attack by Kargg, who apparently managed to get aboard Scanner One somehow without anyone noticing. Would have been nice to get an explanation as to how that's possible, but Baron offers none, and Pakrat takes off for yet another sequence of him running away from somebody. He ends up in one of the escape shuttles, hoping he can lock Kargg out of it, but the giant green monster is too strong to be kept out. So Pakrat launches the shuttle, and it takes him to a random nearby planet.
Meanwhile, Dart brings Blackjak onto the bridge, which pisses Martin off to no end. She explains that she's had another one of her visions, this time of Blackjak steering Scanner One into A.T.A.R.I. Station. This essentially means that Baron is promising to somehow bring back the recently-destroyed universe, because in spite of what she says in this issue, Dart's premonitions always come true. I would have liked to actually see her seeing what she saw, and I don't at all understand why having such a vision would require her to immediately release Blackjak, but it's a good move on Baron's part anyway, I think. If he has plans to undo the demolition of an entire reality, it's wise for him to say so up front.
At any rate, the team soon discovers the wounded Taz, and Morphea uses her mental abilities to learn that Kargg is on the ship. Then they all see that Pakrat has taken the escape shuttle, and follow him. He arrives at his arbitrary destination and, the second he steps outside, is attacked by Kargg again, already something I am tired of seeing by this point. There is a small splash of excitement when Rident shows up to save his brother's life. I was so sure he'd be gone for good now, and I'm grateful to Baron for trying to tie up that loose thread. But Rident only gets two pages here before the main issue's main narrative ends, and it's just not enough space. The story feels cut short, closing with Marin telling Rident about the anti-matter bomb and Rident refusing to believe him. It's practically the middle of their conversation, and the dialogue is long-winded so that Baron can fit all of the information on the page. It's not a bad place to press pause, I guess, but it's not the punchiest of conclusions, either. Just as Rident comes back onto the scene, the scene ends, leaving me feeling shortchanged.
And the issue as a whole makes me feel that way, too, because other than the very beginning it doesn't do enough to get the ball rolling on this new status quo. Baron doesn't make big or bold enough steps here in any direction for me to know what his vision for the title is. This issue was an opportunity to convince me there was any actual reason to keep the book running. It's not a poor issue, but it fails to accomplish that in the slightest, containing what is essentially just another random Atari Force adventure.
Ed Barreto's art is also less compelling than it was in issue #13. It doesn't feel as energetic; the layouts are more traditional and the action more contained. But he's still a very strong artist, and reminds me very much of the pencilers who preceded him on this book. All the intense detail, in the characters and settings both, is present here. Martin's despair, Pakrat's fear, and Rident's cockiness all shine brightly. And the biggest moments, like Kargg's initial attack or Rident finally taking him down with a radium bullet, do have all the thrills of last issue. Again, not terrible work, but not art that particularly entices me to continue reading the book.
There is a backup story yet again, and they are starting to grate my nerves at this point. This one takes place on Babe's homeworld of Egg, and tells a weirdly cutesy story about one of the young Eggites (maybe Babe himself in the past...?) falling off of his mother, who is a mountain, and wanting to get back to her. He stumbles upon two spaceships in the middle of a conflict, one of which has a stereotypical space ranger character on it, and the other of which is full of that guy's enemies. The evil aliens pour out of their vessel, spot the enormous young Eggite, and swarm him. But they are unable to do anything more than tickle the child, who starts to laugh and roll around on top of them, causing them to flee. The space ranger guy is grateful, so he agrees to carry the baby back to its mother with his ship.
That's it. A wholly pointless seven pages of non-story, where nobody changes and litte even happens. It's written by Dave Manak and drawn by Klaus Johnson, neither of whom do all that impressive a job. Manak tells his story very directly, and Johnson does the same with the visuals. There are no tricks, no twists, no moments of unexpected humor or breathtaking imagery or anything to make this feature memorable. It is flavorless cotton candy, and this issue would have been much better suited by giving Baron this space to get more done in his primary story.
Nothing here is godawful, and nothing astounds. It's a mid-level, enjoyable but not impressive issue of Atari Force. That's all well and good if I'm speaking in general terms, because better to have an issue like this than a truly terrible one. But because the conclusion of #13 was so powerful and significant and changed everything forever, I think what #14 needed to do was show the readers what that change really means for the future of the series. Instead, Baron writes an issue that feels the same as always. A disappointing, deflating decision.
Mike Baron opens his first script the only way he really can, by addressing the fact that Atari Force's whole universe was wiped out. Martin Champion, in his usual way, is deeply distraught by what's happened, and moans about it until Scanner One picks up a blip of some kind of radiation. This suddenly provides a bit of hope that Atari Force will be able to find a new home somewhere in the Multiverse, or at the very least orient themselves within it. This is a fairly strong way to begin the issue, diving right into the problems created by the end of the last one. These first few pages remind readers of the new status quo and then begin to add to it sightly in order to make room for new stories. That's the exact right way to kick things off, but from there, the story doesn't get much farther.
Pakrat soon splits off from the rest of the group in order to raid the ship's hold. On his way there, he finds a beaten and tied up Taz, and is then immediately attack by Kargg, who apparently managed to get aboard Scanner One somehow without anyone noticing. Would have been nice to get an explanation as to how that's possible, but Baron offers none, and Pakrat takes off for yet another sequence of him running away from somebody. He ends up in one of the escape shuttles, hoping he can lock Kargg out of it, but the giant green monster is too strong to be kept out. So Pakrat launches the shuttle, and it takes him to a random nearby planet.
Meanwhile, Dart brings Blackjak onto the bridge, which pisses Martin off to no end. She explains that she's had another one of her visions, this time of Blackjak steering Scanner One into A.T.A.R.I. Station. This essentially means that Baron is promising to somehow bring back the recently-destroyed universe, because in spite of what she says in this issue, Dart's premonitions always come true. I would have liked to actually see her seeing what she saw, and I don't at all understand why having such a vision would require her to immediately release Blackjak, but it's a good move on Baron's part anyway, I think. If he has plans to undo the demolition of an entire reality, it's wise for him to say so up front.
At any rate, the team soon discovers the wounded Taz, and Morphea uses her mental abilities to learn that Kargg is on the ship. Then they all see that Pakrat has taken the escape shuttle, and follow him. He arrives at his arbitrary destination and, the second he steps outside, is attacked by Kargg again, already something I am tired of seeing by this point. There is a small splash of excitement when Rident shows up to save his brother's life. I was so sure he'd be gone for good now, and I'm grateful to Baron for trying to tie up that loose thread. But Rident only gets two pages here before the main issue's main narrative ends, and it's just not enough space. The story feels cut short, closing with Marin telling Rident about the anti-matter bomb and Rident refusing to believe him. It's practically the middle of their conversation, and the dialogue is long-winded so that Baron can fit all of the information on the page. It's not a bad place to press pause, I guess, but it's not the punchiest of conclusions, either. Just as Rident comes back onto the scene, the scene ends, leaving me feeling shortchanged.
And the issue as a whole makes me feel that way, too, because other than the very beginning it doesn't do enough to get the ball rolling on this new status quo. Baron doesn't make big or bold enough steps here in any direction for me to know what his vision for the title is. This issue was an opportunity to convince me there was any actual reason to keep the book running. It's not a poor issue, but it fails to accomplish that in the slightest, containing what is essentially just another random Atari Force adventure.
Ed Barreto's art is also less compelling than it was in issue #13. It doesn't feel as energetic; the layouts are more traditional and the action more contained. But he's still a very strong artist, and reminds me very much of the pencilers who preceded him on this book. All the intense detail, in the characters and settings both, is present here. Martin's despair, Pakrat's fear, and Rident's cockiness all shine brightly. And the biggest moments, like Kargg's initial attack or Rident finally taking him down with a radium bullet, do have all the thrills of last issue. Again, not terrible work, but not art that particularly entices me to continue reading the book.
There is a backup story yet again, and they are starting to grate my nerves at this point. This one takes place on Babe's homeworld of Egg, and tells a weirdly cutesy story about one of the young Eggites (maybe Babe himself in the past...?) falling off of his mother, who is a mountain, and wanting to get back to her. He stumbles upon two spaceships in the middle of a conflict, one of which has a stereotypical space ranger character on it, and the other of which is full of that guy's enemies. The evil aliens pour out of their vessel, spot the enormous young Eggite, and swarm him. But they are unable to do anything more than tickle the child, who starts to laugh and roll around on top of them, causing them to flee. The space ranger guy is grateful, so he agrees to carry the baby back to its mother with his ship.
That's it. A wholly pointless seven pages of non-story, where nobody changes and litte even happens. It's written by Dave Manak and drawn by Klaus Johnson, neither of whom do all that impressive a job. Manak tells his story very directly, and Johnson does the same with the visuals. There are no tricks, no twists, no moments of unexpected humor or breathtaking imagery or anything to make this feature memorable. It is flavorless cotton candy, and this issue would have been much better suited by giving Baron this space to get more done in his primary story.
Nothing here is godawful, and nothing astounds. It's a mid-level, enjoyable but not impressive issue of Atari Force. That's all well and good if I'm speaking in general terms, because better to have an issue like this than a truly terrible one. But because the conclusion of #13 was so powerful and significant and changed everything forever, I think what #14 needed to do was show the readers what that change really means for the future of the series. Instead, Baron writes an issue that feels the same as always. A disappointing, deflating decision.
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