I'll readily admit it seems a bit prosaic to write something like this, considering I'm hardly the first person ever to come with a "top ten" list, but so thoroughly have I enjoyed the work of writer Mark Waid and artist Chris Samnee on Marvel Comics' Daredevil title that I cannot simply let them go without doing a little more than just eking out reviews of their last few issues. No, these guys fully deserve a proper paean to their creative glory, and as inadequate as this effort may be, it's worth taking just the same:
1. Kirsten MacDuffie - Strictly speaking, MacDuffie is a creation of Waid's and Paolo Rivera's. However, Samnee has really put his own stamp on easily one the most interesting non-superhero characters, male or female, appearing in a superhero book that I have seen in a long, long time. I have to say I am fairly disappointed that she hooked up with Matt, as I think the playful sexual tension could have played out a while longer, but considering that Waid held off on it for years I guess he waited long enough. The beauty of her character is that, even if they break up, there's still a way to keep her in his life (as she is, like him, a lawyer, after all) and the playful banter could go on and on. Kirsten is hardly a sidekick, and it is so gratifying that Waid has introduced such a powerful (and empowered) female into Matt's world. Kirsten is like an intellectual Elektra, really.
2. Classic characters and Some Interesting New Ones - Stilt-Man? Check. Leap-frog? Check. Jester? Check. Bullseye? Check. Elektra? Check. The Owl? Purple Man? Check. Kingpin? Double check! The duo's thirty-odd issue run reads like a virtual who's who of Daredevil's rogues gallery and his supporting characters. Samnee admitted in an interview that he and Mark really wanted a crack at all of the classic characters,and the nice thing was how organic all of these appearances were to the stories they were telling. I was particularly impressed by how Waid was able to handle Bullseye, a character who was apparently dead at the end of the last creative team's run on the book, and while I'm obviously spoiling things a bit by revealing that he wasn't dead, it's still worth checking out what Waid and Samnee did with him. The introduction of a new character, Ikari was pretty cool, too.
3. Smiling Matt - It was stated at the very outset that Waid's run would mark a return to a more lighthearted approach to the character, but the fact that Daredevil spent so much of the arc with a smile on his face was a welcome change for a character who had spent so much of his life enduring one ordeal after another. I have two of Frank Miller's seminal stories, Born Again (with David Mazzucchelli) and Man Without Fear (with John Romita, Jr.), and most of Brian Michael Bendis' run with Alex Maleev, and I'm pretty sure I could count on one hand the times Matt has smiled in ALL of those stories. The thing is, Daredevil has endured a lot in his life, but he's got a lot to be grateful for, and quite honestly, happy about, and it's nice to read a creative run that finally reflects that.
4. Hello San Francisco - I have never been to the United States, so one American city is the same to me as another, but the vast majority of Marvel comics I have in my collection has stories that take place in New York City, so it really did make for a refreshing change of pace when Waid and Samnee relocated Matt and his supporting cast with the relaunch of the title last year.
5. Ready...Fight! - When I read Man without Fear I had an inkling of how incredible a fighter DD was, but as much as I enjoyed his work, I felt a little let down by Romita,Jr.'s depiction of this fighting skill, which either didn't look very dynamic or resorted to the cheat of having close up panels of his foot or fist in someone's face. It didn't look terribly graceful. Some years later, Alex Maleev attempted to depict DD's fighting skills and they did look impressive sometimes, but they also looked extremely static. Fast forward to Samnee's run, and lo and behold, not only did he show Daredevil showing some serious martial arts skill, but also made it look quite dynamic, possibly the best-looking choreography seen in the book since Miller's days.
6. No More Questions, Your Honor - I have said this before, but one thing I really enjoyed about this book was the impression I got that Waid went to some effort to show that Matt is as comfortable in a court room as he is leaping across the New York City skyline. I may not be licensed to practice law in the United States but I certainly recognized citations of international law and rules of evidence, and appreciated both Waid's dialogue and Samnee's depiction of the inside of a courtroom. Also, this facet of Matt's character shows that he isn't all about recklessness and gambles; Waid emphasizes that at the end of the day, Matt is one smart cookie.
7. A Little Help from My Friends - although Daredevil has never been a completely isolated character from the rest of the Marvel Universe, he has been a bit of a loner. Even though he joined the Avengers for a spell a few years ago he didn't suddenly turn into a team player. It was nice, then, to see Matt getting a regular helping hand from a more "mainstream" Avenger in Henry Pym. The story introducing the cooperation was well-written, too: Dr. Doom had introduced nanobots that negated Matt's hyper-senses. Even after that story, Pym stuck around until Matt packed up and left for SF, and was even crucial to a story in which Matt had to fake Foggy's death. Also, there were quite a few Avengers who helped Matt out in his extended battle with Bullseye.
8. Waid's Crusades - I don't usually get or expect social commentary from my comic books, and the little I get often feels a tad heavy-handed, like Mark Millar's full-on diatribe against the Patriot Act in Civil War, but Waid's preaching is a little easier to digest. He has had things to say on racially-charged killings, gay marriage and even processed food, with this last one being a running commentary given Foggy's diet. In fact, having Foggy battle cancer, which was a new twist on the Foggy-in-peril trope that many writers have leaned on over the years, was a subtle way to rail against the evils of having so many chemicals pumped into today's foodstuffs.
9. Records will Show - One aspect of this story that I also liked was how, no matter how buoyant the tone of storytelling was, there was always an acknowledgement of where the character had come from and what he had been through, which made the storytelling on the whole that much more effective by adding that element of tension. The running question throughout the run was: how long can this last? How long will it be before Matt's life spirals out of control and he hits the skids again? Waid and Samnee didn't just let these questions linger; they answered them, and I was happy to see that they were kinder to Matt than most creators since the character's creation have been. They also demonstrated for their entire tenure that to tell great stories does not always mean having to be unbelievably cruel to the lead character. Sure, Matt's adventures under Waid and Samnee certainly involved a fair share of tribulations, but nothing on the level of having his girlfriend murdered in front of him or having his apartment blown to pieces.
10. Look Ma, No Gimmicks! - For better or worse, 2013's extended Spider-Man story arc called "Superior Spider-Man," in which Doctor Octopus took over Peter Parker's body, had readers hooked; sales were better than they had ever been. I can admit that I am one of the people who was sucked in; I have every single issue of that series. The thing was, the main hook for me was finding out how and when Peter Parker would come back so one could say that, with all due to respect to Dan Slott and his rotating roster of artists, my devotion was, in part, due to a long-running gimmick. This was not the case with Waid and Samnee. Apart from DD's moving to another city, there was no radical shift of status quo to keep me coming back, so my being hooked was just a case of two creators turning in their best work, month after month (though Samnee took occasional breaks) to give the best stories of the character that I had ever read.
I am happy to note that Waid and Samnee are already at work on their next project together, but it's entirely possible that this is the last time readers will see them together on Daredevil, and if that is indeed the case I would like to give them a heartfelt thanks for making Daredevil a book I just had to pick up every month for three years!
Sunday, September 6, 2015
Friday, September 4, 2015
Every Party Ends: A Review of Daredevil #18
written by Mark Waid
illustrated by Chris Samnee
colored by Matt Wilson
lettered by Joe Caramagna
edited by Sana Amanat
Matt Murdock finds himself having to summon every ounce of skill and guile at his disposal to get his two friends, Foggy Nelson and Kirsten MacDuffie, out from under the clutches of Wilson Fisk, the deadliest foe he has ever known. Ironically enough, the key to his victory and even his very survival may be the man whose reckless actions put him at the mercy of the Kingpin in the first place, Max Coleridge, the Shroud, who has taken control over the digitally-enslaved Leland Owlsley. Coleridge has an interest in seeing Daredevil prevail as Fisk is also holding his estranged girlfriend, Julia Carpenter, hostage. The question is: will it be enough to save the day?
While it is quite sad to see the end of the tenure of this creative team on one of my very favorite comic book characters, considering how much I have savored their run, it truly gratifies me to see them end their stint in such fine style. Without giving away too much I think it's fair to say that Waid and Samnee really end this series on a high note, which is not the most common thing for this character, for whom tragedy seems to be a rather inescapable reality. Well, at the risk of sounding a little "spoilery" I think it's fair to say that Mark and Chris cut Matt some slack this time around.
I feel I must commend Waid for his pretty sneaky misdirection all throughout this rather large storyarc, which dates all the way back to the first issue of this new volume. He clearly had something big in mind for the Owl when he basically plugged him into every single digital device in the world, but it played out quite differently from the way I had thought it would. Likewise, it seemed as though Waid was setting up a status quo in which Matt would be beholden to Fisk, but again, Waid subverted expectations, but all in service of some really fantastic storytelling. Waid may have a lot of years and books under his belt, but to my mind this is his very best work, and that's really saying something considering that this is someone whose work includes the likes of Kingdom Come, and a rather definitive run on Fantastic Four a few years back with the late Mike Wieringo. I was quite happy to learn that Waid was as happy about his work on this title as fans like me were.
This issue wasn't quite the high point of his run (and truth be told I'd be hard pressed to name a single issue I like more than any of the others) but it was a great way to close out a run that will undoubtedly go down as one of the best remembered in the history of this title, even if it did feel like a few loose ends were tied a little too neatly. But one thing that Waid really seems to get about this character, arguably more than any other author since Frank Miller, is that as a man without fear, Matt can be quite reckless (after all, we're talking about someone who, in a fit of uncontrollable rage, once attacked the Kingpin only to get flattened and dumped in a river strapped into a rusted taxicab).
It's not that Matt never has a plan, because the truth is, he usually does, even in this situation when his back is against the wall, but for these plans to work there's always some element of risk that he accepts. He isn't Batman; he doesn't have all the angles figured out before everything happens, but he does read the situation remarkably well, plan for it, and adapt if things don't quite go as planned. As I observed when reviewing the first issue, Matt's strength is how he can think on the fly, and while on at least one occasion Waid has depicted Matt as a little too reckless, on the whole his characterization has really been spot on. Bendis had more than a few moments of brilliance when he handled this book over ten years ago, but Waid wrote his stories on a whole other level, though to be fair, the character Waid had to work with had a considerably richer history thanks to Bendis' stories. Mark, you will definitely be missed.
For me, though, the real find of this entire run was Chris Samnee, whose work I actually already enjoyed coming on board. The irony for me, as I may have said in a past review was that I actually thought he was a poor fit for this particular title given his forties-style artwork that clicked so well with the "period" books he worked on like The Rocketeer: Cargo of Doom and Captain America and Bucky. Not only has Samnee proven to be supremely versatile, his work has put a lot of other artists, including a few who have even worked on this book, in the shade. His fight choreography, for example, only highlights how static the fight scenes drawn by Alex Maleev (during Brian Bendis' tenure) used to look. His skill as a visual storyteller is easily on par with John Romita Jr., whose Man Without Fear limited series written by Miller remains one of my favorite stories about this character, and while he isn't the flashiest of artists in the mold of a Jim Lee or David Finch, he is, to me anyway, far more effective at making the pictures on the page jump out at me. He and the likes of David Aja, Jamie McKelvie, Sara Pichelli and David Marquez represent a new generation of artists who are just fantastically talented but whose sensibilities are finally emancipated from many of the visual tropes that have crystallized over the years, especially after the comics book boom (and crash) of the 1990s. Great comic book art is about so much more than cross-hatching and pin-up poses, and thanks to Samnee and those like him, this generation of fans can see it as clear as day.
It thrills me to know that the Waid/Samnee tandem are off to their next big Marvel book. The fact that it has yet to be announced fills me with hope that this is going to be something big. I can hardly wait!
8.5/10
illustrated by Chris Samnee
colored by Matt Wilson
lettered by Joe Caramagna
edited by Sana Amanat
Matt Murdock finds himself having to summon every ounce of skill and guile at his disposal to get his two friends, Foggy Nelson and Kirsten MacDuffie, out from under the clutches of Wilson Fisk, the deadliest foe he has ever known. Ironically enough, the key to his victory and even his very survival may be the man whose reckless actions put him at the mercy of the Kingpin in the first place, Max Coleridge, the Shroud, who has taken control over the digitally-enslaved Leland Owlsley. Coleridge has an interest in seeing Daredevil prevail as Fisk is also holding his estranged girlfriend, Julia Carpenter, hostage. The question is: will it be enough to save the day?
While it is quite sad to see the end of the tenure of this creative team on one of my very favorite comic book characters, considering how much I have savored their run, it truly gratifies me to see them end their stint in such fine style. Without giving away too much I think it's fair to say that Waid and Samnee really end this series on a high note, which is not the most common thing for this character, for whom tragedy seems to be a rather inescapable reality. Well, at the risk of sounding a little "spoilery" I think it's fair to say that Mark and Chris cut Matt some slack this time around.
I feel I must commend Waid for his pretty sneaky misdirection all throughout this rather large storyarc, which dates all the way back to the first issue of this new volume. He clearly had something big in mind for the Owl when he basically plugged him into every single digital device in the world, but it played out quite differently from the way I had thought it would. Likewise, it seemed as though Waid was setting up a status quo in which Matt would be beholden to Fisk, but again, Waid subverted expectations, but all in service of some really fantastic storytelling. Waid may have a lot of years and books under his belt, but to my mind this is his very best work, and that's really saying something considering that this is someone whose work includes the likes of Kingdom Come, and a rather definitive run on Fantastic Four a few years back with the late Mike Wieringo. I was quite happy to learn that Waid was as happy about his work on this title as fans like me were.
This issue wasn't quite the high point of his run (and truth be told I'd be hard pressed to name a single issue I like more than any of the others) but it was a great way to close out a run that will undoubtedly go down as one of the best remembered in the history of this title, even if it did feel like a few loose ends were tied a little too neatly. But one thing that Waid really seems to get about this character, arguably more than any other author since Frank Miller, is that as a man without fear, Matt can be quite reckless (after all, we're talking about someone who, in a fit of uncontrollable rage, once attacked the Kingpin only to get flattened and dumped in a river strapped into a rusted taxicab).
It's not that Matt never has a plan, because the truth is, he usually does, even in this situation when his back is against the wall, but for these plans to work there's always some element of risk that he accepts. He isn't Batman; he doesn't have all the angles figured out before everything happens, but he does read the situation remarkably well, plan for it, and adapt if things don't quite go as planned. As I observed when reviewing the first issue, Matt's strength is how he can think on the fly, and while on at least one occasion Waid has depicted Matt as a little too reckless, on the whole his characterization has really been spot on. Bendis had more than a few moments of brilliance when he handled this book over ten years ago, but Waid wrote his stories on a whole other level, though to be fair, the character Waid had to work with had a considerably richer history thanks to Bendis' stories. Mark, you will definitely be missed.
For me, though, the real find of this entire run was Chris Samnee, whose work I actually already enjoyed coming on board. The irony for me, as I may have said in a past review was that I actually thought he was a poor fit for this particular title given his forties-style artwork that clicked so well with the "period" books he worked on like The Rocketeer: Cargo of Doom and Captain America and Bucky. Not only has Samnee proven to be supremely versatile, his work has put a lot of other artists, including a few who have even worked on this book, in the shade. His fight choreography, for example, only highlights how static the fight scenes drawn by Alex Maleev (during Brian Bendis' tenure) used to look. His skill as a visual storyteller is easily on par with John Romita Jr., whose Man Without Fear limited series written by Miller remains one of my favorite stories about this character, and while he isn't the flashiest of artists in the mold of a Jim Lee or David Finch, he is, to me anyway, far more effective at making the pictures on the page jump out at me. He and the likes of David Aja, Jamie McKelvie, Sara Pichelli and David Marquez represent a new generation of artists who are just fantastically talented but whose sensibilities are finally emancipated from many of the visual tropes that have crystallized over the years, especially after the comics book boom (and crash) of the 1990s. Great comic book art is about so much more than cross-hatching and pin-up poses, and thanks to Samnee and those like him, this generation of fans can see it as clear as day.
It thrills me to know that the Waid/Samnee tandem are off to their next big Marvel book. The fact that it has yet to be announced fills me with hope that this is going to be something big. I can hardly wait!
8.5/10
The Penultimate Chapter: A Review of Daredevil #17
(w) Mark Waid
(a) Chris Samnee
(c) Matthew Wilson
The stakes have never been higher for Matt Murdock as he learns that Wilson Fisk, also known as the Kingpin of Crime, has no interest in cutting a deal to help Matt out of the mess that the actions of Max Coleridge, a.k.a. the Shroud, have made of his life; rather, Fisk simply wants to end Matt's life, and he has a capable ally in Ikari, the similarly enhanced Ninja who almost killed Matt the last time they fought. The lives of Foggy Nelson and Kirsten MacDuffie hang in the balance. Matt fights for his life and those of his friend, but there may yet be a wild card that could shift the balance. Whether for better or worse remains to be seen...
I will say this right now, and with utter conviction: there will come a time, if it has not already, when this creative team is mentioned in the same breath as the likes of Frank Miller, David Mazzucchelli, John Romita, Jr., Bill Everett, Joe Quesada and Brian Bendis, and other creators who left an indelible mark on this character. In short, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that these guys will go down in history as all-time greats. It's hard to find new superlatives for a book that I consistently lavish with praise in almost every review I write, but with one issue to go in what is certainly destined to be remembered as a "fabled" run, Waid and Samnee truly are pulling out all the stops. As DD bad guys go, they went for the biggest one of all in their last arc with the Kingpin.
What really impresses me about this issue, as it did last issue, is how Waid and Samnee managed to turn Fisk into a truly credible menace to Matt again, both through circumstance and through their masterful depiction, through dialogue and imagery, of this truly formidable character. After all, this was not the Kingpin who made Matt's life a living hell back in the days of Frank Miller. He's been broken and stripped of power, and is basically a shadow of his former self. Waid quite cannily recognizes, however, that this can actually make him even more dangerous.
The highlight of this issue is the DD-Ikari rematch, and just when one thinks that we'll be subjected to the sight of Matt fighting a climactic battle in his three-piece suit, which he's been sporting since issue #15, he does quite the bit of prestidigitation and changes costume with a simple tear-away motion, even managing to put on his mask in the same gesture.
As egregiously late as this review is, given that I've already read issue #18, which I will naturally review next, I couldn't close out my love of this run without acknowledging this issue.
These two guys really will be a hard act to follow, so for my part, I have decided to follow them to wherever it is they're going (and Samnee has already intimated that he, Mark, colorist Matt Wilson and even letterer Joe Carmagna will all work together again very soon on a top secret Marvel book)!
9/10
(a) Chris Samnee
(c) Matthew Wilson
The stakes have never been higher for Matt Murdock as he learns that Wilson Fisk, also known as the Kingpin of Crime, has no interest in cutting a deal to help Matt out of the mess that the actions of Max Coleridge, a.k.a. the Shroud, have made of his life; rather, Fisk simply wants to end Matt's life, and he has a capable ally in Ikari, the similarly enhanced Ninja who almost killed Matt the last time they fought. The lives of Foggy Nelson and Kirsten MacDuffie hang in the balance. Matt fights for his life and those of his friend, but there may yet be a wild card that could shift the balance. Whether for better or worse remains to be seen...
I will say this right now, and with utter conviction: there will come a time, if it has not already, when this creative team is mentioned in the same breath as the likes of Frank Miller, David Mazzucchelli, John Romita, Jr., Bill Everett, Joe Quesada and Brian Bendis, and other creators who left an indelible mark on this character. In short, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that these guys will go down in history as all-time greats. It's hard to find new superlatives for a book that I consistently lavish with praise in almost every review I write, but with one issue to go in what is certainly destined to be remembered as a "fabled" run, Waid and Samnee truly are pulling out all the stops. As DD bad guys go, they went for the biggest one of all in their last arc with the Kingpin.
What really impresses me about this issue, as it did last issue, is how Waid and Samnee managed to turn Fisk into a truly credible menace to Matt again, both through circumstance and through their masterful depiction, through dialogue and imagery, of this truly formidable character. After all, this was not the Kingpin who made Matt's life a living hell back in the days of Frank Miller. He's been broken and stripped of power, and is basically a shadow of his former self. Waid quite cannily recognizes, however, that this can actually make him even more dangerous.
The highlight of this issue is the DD-Ikari rematch, and just when one thinks that we'll be subjected to the sight of Matt fighting a climactic battle in his three-piece suit, which he's been sporting since issue #15, he does quite the bit of prestidigitation and changes costume with a simple tear-away motion, even managing to put on his mask in the same gesture.
As egregiously late as this review is, given that I've already read issue #18, which I will naturally review next, I couldn't close out my love of this run without acknowledging this issue.
These two guys really will be a hard act to follow, so for my part, I have decided to follow them to wherever it is they're going (and Samnee has already intimated that he, Mark, colorist Matt Wilson and even letterer Joe Carmagna will all work together again very soon on a top secret Marvel book)!
9/10
Saturday, August 29, 2015
A Legend Returns: A Review of "Spiral" (Published in The Amazing Spider Man 16.1, 17.1, 18.1, 19.1 and 20.1)
written by Gerry Conway
illustrated by Carlo Barberi
The Spider-Man character has fifty-three years of publication history and has thus been handled by many creators over the years, both writers and artists alike. Apart from co-creator Stan Lee, however, few of them have left a truly indelible mark on the character especially considering how many reboots and status quo changes he has been subjected to over the years. Gerry Conway, however, who took over writing duties from Lee sometime in the 1970s, is one of those writers who has truly left a mark on the character, and on the greater Marvel Universe in general. This is the man, after all, who wrote the story of Norman Osborn killing Gwen Stacy, and who co-created (with Ross Andru and John Romita) Frank Castle, better known as the Punisher.
Prior to late last year, Gerry had not written a Spider-Man comic book in several years. He's not exactly retired; he's still a relatively spry 63 and has been busy primarily writing television shows, as well as comic books from rival publisher DC.
His return to Spider-Man is a rather welcome one, though, especially considering that regular series writer Dan Slott seems to be slumping a bit in his form.
"Spiral" is, at its heart the story of police detective Yuri Watanabe, a character created by Slott and introduced in The Amazing Spider-Man #600 several years ago, who also moonlights as the vigilante the Wraith, and the journey she takes as her precinct finds itself engulfed in a gang war involving Tombstone, Hammerhead, Mr. Negative and erstwhile good guy turned burgeoning crime boss the Black Cat. Spider-Man, fresh off his universe-hopping "Spider-Verse" adventure, teams up with the the Wraith to address this rather serious threat, but even their combined efforts may not be enough to stop the criminal onslaught.
I remember reading a new Fantastic Four comic book written by Stan Lee about four or five years ago, and I was really take quite aback by how atrocious the dialogue was. The guy was basically stuck in the 60s. Conway, in contrast, pretty much has a bead on how people talk today, which is not to say that everyone talks like a "hipster" but simply that the dialogue shared among the characters sounds like conversations one would hear from English-speaking people these days. I suppose the fact that Conway's been writing more than a newspaper comic strip over the years has helped keep his dialogue sounding fresh and contemporary.
More importantly, though, Conway's storytelling prowess seems very much intact, even in this day of decompressed storytelling. After all, this is someone who told stories in the heyday of done-in-one stories, or those that only needed very few issues to tell something complete. More than a few of the five issues of this saga deliver pretty satisfying endings even as the greater narrative continues. Most of the storytelling, as stated, focuses on Yuri Watanabe's growing frustration with the limitations of playing by "the rules" which her job as a police officer requires. Perhaps it's Conway's background in police procedural dramas talking, but Watanabe is a lot more interesting than she was when Slott was writing her. Spider-Man is the voice of conscience here, and his own personal, tragic history makes him all the more authoritative (though of course Watanabe doesn't know any of it). Conway makes good use of the Slott-creations Wraith and Mr. Negative, and ironically, it's his own creations Tombstone and Hammerhead who get minimal face time here (though Hammerhead is pretty prominent in the second issue of the series). Outside of Wraith and Mr. Negative, the Black Cat, who remains the single most significant negative fallout from the entire "Superior Spider-Man" storyline, has the biggest role, and Conway handles it quite well. Of course, his Spidey "voice" is just as spot-on as it's always been. Welcome back, Gerry.
I wasn't too crazy about Barberi's art; he comes across too much as "Mark Brooks-lite" but his character work is serviceable and Marvel could have done a lot worse in terms of choosing artists.
I was a little peeved at this ".1" marketing strategy, which they pulled with this and with the "Learn to Crawl," the prequel miniseries Marvel launched parallel to Peter Parker's return to the webs last year, but I get it; the idea is to get more people to buy these miniseries than normally would if the series was sold as something outside the regular title. Well, it worked in my case; I have both those miniseries.
I wouldn't mind seeing Conway back on TASM for a slightly longer stint, and I'd really be happy if he came with an A-list artist next time, like Arthur Adams who did the covers of the first two issues. Oh, to dream...
8.5/10
illustrated by Carlo Barberi
The Spider-Man character has fifty-three years of publication history and has thus been handled by many creators over the years, both writers and artists alike. Apart from co-creator Stan Lee, however, few of them have left a truly indelible mark on the character especially considering how many reboots and status quo changes he has been subjected to over the years. Gerry Conway, however, who took over writing duties from Lee sometime in the 1970s, is one of those writers who has truly left a mark on the character, and on the greater Marvel Universe in general. This is the man, after all, who wrote the story of Norman Osborn killing Gwen Stacy, and who co-created (with Ross Andru and John Romita) Frank Castle, better known as the Punisher.
Prior to late last year, Gerry had not written a Spider-Man comic book in several years. He's not exactly retired; he's still a relatively spry 63 and has been busy primarily writing television shows, as well as comic books from rival publisher DC.
His return to Spider-Man is a rather welcome one, though, especially considering that regular series writer Dan Slott seems to be slumping a bit in his form.
"Spiral" is, at its heart the story of police detective Yuri Watanabe, a character created by Slott and introduced in The Amazing Spider-Man #600 several years ago, who also moonlights as the vigilante the Wraith, and the journey she takes as her precinct finds itself engulfed in a gang war involving Tombstone, Hammerhead, Mr. Negative and erstwhile good guy turned burgeoning crime boss the Black Cat. Spider-Man, fresh off his universe-hopping "Spider-Verse" adventure, teams up with the the Wraith to address this rather serious threat, but even their combined efforts may not be enough to stop the criminal onslaught.
I remember reading a new Fantastic Four comic book written by Stan Lee about four or five years ago, and I was really take quite aback by how atrocious the dialogue was. The guy was basically stuck in the 60s. Conway, in contrast, pretty much has a bead on how people talk today, which is not to say that everyone talks like a "hipster" but simply that the dialogue shared among the characters sounds like conversations one would hear from English-speaking people these days. I suppose the fact that Conway's been writing more than a newspaper comic strip over the years has helped keep his dialogue sounding fresh and contemporary.
More importantly, though, Conway's storytelling prowess seems very much intact, even in this day of decompressed storytelling. After all, this is someone who told stories in the heyday of done-in-one stories, or those that only needed very few issues to tell something complete. More than a few of the five issues of this saga deliver pretty satisfying endings even as the greater narrative continues. Most of the storytelling, as stated, focuses on Yuri Watanabe's growing frustration with the limitations of playing by "the rules" which her job as a police officer requires. Perhaps it's Conway's background in police procedural dramas talking, but Watanabe is a lot more interesting than she was when Slott was writing her. Spider-Man is the voice of conscience here, and his own personal, tragic history makes him all the more authoritative (though of course Watanabe doesn't know any of it). Conway makes good use of the Slott-creations Wraith and Mr. Negative, and ironically, it's his own creations Tombstone and Hammerhead who get minimal face time here (though Hammerhead is pretty prominent in the second issue of the series). Outside of Wraith and Mr. Negative, the Black Cat, who remains the single most significant negative fallout from the entire "Superior Spider-Man" storyline, has the biggest role, and Conway handles it quite well. Of course, his Spidey "voice" is just as spot-on as it's always been. Welcome back, Gerry.
I wasn't too crazy about Barberi's art; he comes across too much as "Mark Brooks-lite" but his character work is serviceable and Marvel could have done a lot worse in terms of choosing artists.
I was a little peeved at this ".1" marketing strategy, which they pulled with this and with the "Learn to Crawl," the prequel miniseries Marvel launched parallel to Peter Parker's return to the webs last year, but I get it; the idea is to get more people to buy these miniseries than normally would if the series was sold as something outside the regular title. Well, it worked in my case; I have both those miniseries.
I wouldn't mind seeing Conway back on TASM for a slightly longer stint, and I'd really be happy if he came with an A-list artist next time, like Arthur Adams who did the covers of the first two issues. Oh, to dream...
8.5/10
Sunday, August 23, 2015
A Review of "Seconds" (an Original Graphic Novel)
written and illustrated by Bryan Lee O' Malley
Whatever media they are presented in, original works of fiction, especially those done well, are a real treat.
Canadian comic book creator Bryan Lee O'Malley, best known for the Scott Pilgrim series of graphic novels, has come up with a story that, in today's superhero-obsessed culture, feels like a breath of fresh air, even if, like the story's main character it is a somewhat flawed work.
Katie is a twenty-nine-year-old chef for the popular restaurant Seconds, but for all of her success as an upwardly mobile young professional, she has a lot of unfulfilled dreams and frustrations. She can't seem to get her own restaurant off the ground, and her love life, apart from the occasional tryst with her sous chef Andrew, is dead on arrival, which she particularly regrets considering her failed relationship with the hunky Max.
Things change, however, when she discovers something strange in the room in which she lives in the uppermost floor of the restaurant: a mushroom, and a journal with instructions. Katie learns that this is a magic mushroom, that will, together with the journal enable her to rewrite a portion of her life that she chooses by literally writing it down in the journal, as well as her desired outcome.
Katie thinks nothing of this strange little ritual until she has what seems like the worst day of her life as Hazel one of the new waitresses at Seconds gets scalded with hot oil and a chain of events follows that takes things from bad to worse in short order. At this point, Katie wishes nothing more than for the day to be completely erased, and so she tries the mushroom and journal, with surprising effects.
Things get particularly scary when Katie finds a whole stash of mushrooms. She has a lot of mistakes she'd like to erase, but no idea of how her actions could affect the world around her.
As original concepts go, Seconds is pretty good, and Lee O' Malley is no slouch in the execution either. Watching Kate's life take all kinds of twists and turns as she rewrites mistake after mistake is incredibly engaging, and to my mind, Lee O'Malley tapped into something quite primal here. After all, absolutely everyone makes mistakes, and of those who make mistakes, many, if not most people would like nothing better than to erase those mistakes. In that Katie is the avatar for probably most people who would ever pick up this book, and Lee O'Malley plays this up to the hilt. It is utterly spellbinding to see Katie pile "rewrite" upon "rewrite," in part because I was curious as to how it would all pay off in the end.
The problem is that, as the story progresses, Lee O'Malley seems to lose a handle on where he wants the story to go, and wraps it up rather hurriedly, giving the entire affair an ending that feels somewhat perfunctory and, dare I say it,cliche. The problem is that there is an incongruousness between what Lee O'Malley attempts by opening this Pandora's box and the manner in which he resolves the entire story. It feels like a wasted opportunity when it's all done. Also, as far as the art is concerned, I am really not fond of manga knockoffs, and Lee O'Malley, whose designs for Scott Pilgrim and his world were actually pretty original and memorable, disappoints here with characters that look that they were picked out of random manga, though I will give him points for making his lead short and dumpy.
What irks me about this book is how much promise it starts out with, only to cop out in the last act. Lee O'Malley should have taken a little more time to think of where the story could have gone, because it could have been such a wonderful fable about actions and their consequences, and how as people, sometimes the best thing we can do is live with our mistakes, but Lee O'Malley takes a pretty abrupt narrative shortcut and gives us something a lot more conventional. Katie is a thoroughly selfish character, like most people are, and yet it struck me that she got through this entire book without really learning anything.
Who knows? Maybe he's being subversive with his unwieldy combination of heady premise and hackneyed ending.
This book could have been a lot better than it was.
6.6/10
Whatever media they are presented in, original works of fiction, especially those done well, are a real treat.
Canadian comic book creator Bryan Lee O'Malley, best known for the Scott Pilgrim series of graphic novels, has come up with a story that, in today's superhero-obsessed culture, feels like a breath of fresh air, even if, like the story's main character it is a somewhat flawed work.
Katie is a twenty-nine-year-old chef for the popular restaurant Seconds, but for all of her success as an upwardly mobile young professional, she has a lot of unfulfilled dreams and frustrations. She can't seem to get her own restaurant off the ground, and her love life, apart from the occasional tryst with her sous chef Andrew, is dead on arrival, which she particularly regrets considering her failed relationship with the hunky Max.
Things change, however, when she discovers something strange in the room in which she lives in the uppermost floor of the restaurant: a mushroom, and a journal with instructions. Katie learns that this is a magic mushroom, that will, together with the journal enable her to rewrite a portion of her life that she chooses by literally writing it down in the journal, as well as her desired outcome.
Katie thinks nothing of this strange little ritual until she has what seems like the worst day of her life as Hazel one of the new waitresses at Seconds gets scalded with hot oil and a chain of events follows that takes things from bad to worse in short order. At this point, Katie wishes nothing more than for the day to be completely erased, and so she tries the mushroom and journal, with surprising effects.
Things get particularly scary when Katie finds a whole stash of mushrooms. She has a lot of mistakes she'd like to erase, but no idea of how her actions could affect the world around her.
As original concepts go, Seconds is pretty good, and Lee O' Malley is no slouch in the execution either. Watching Kate's life take all kinds of twists and turns as she rewrites mistake after mistake is incredibly engaging, and to my mind, Lee O'Malley tapped into something quite primal here. After all, absolutely everyone makes mistakes, and of those who make mistakes, many, if not most people would like nothing better than to erase those mistakes. In that Katie is the avatar for probably most people who would ever pick up this book, and Lee O'Malley plays this up to the hilt. It is utterly spellbinding to see Katie pile "rewrite" upon "rewrite," in part because I was curious as to how it would all pay off in the end.
The problem is that, as the story progresses, Lee O'Malley seems to lose a handle on where he wants the story to go, and wraps it up rather hurriedly, giving the entire affair an ending that feels somewhat perfunctory and, dare I say it,cliche. The problem is that there is an incongruousness between what Lee O'Malley attempts by opening this Pandora's box and the manner in which he resolves the entire story. It feels like a wasted opportunity when it's all done. Also, as far as the art is concerned, I am really not fond of manga knockoffs, and Lee O'Malley, whose designs for Scott Pilgrim and his world were actually pretty original and memorable, disappoints here with characters that look that they were picked out of random manga, though I will give him points for making his lead short and dumpy.
What irks me about this book is how much promise it starts out with, only to cop out in the last act. Lee O'Malley should have taken a little more time to think of where the story could have gone, because it could have been such a wonderful fable about actions and their consequences, and how as people, sometimes the best thing we can do is live with our mistakes, but Lee O'Malley takes a pretty abrupt narrative shortcut and gives us something a lot more conventional. Katie is a thoroughly selfish character, like most people are, and yet it struck me that she got through this entire book without really learning anything.
Who knows? Maybe he's being subversive with his unwieldy combination of heady premise and hackneyed ending.
This book could have been a lot better than it was.
6.6/10
Sunday, July 5, 2015
Sex Criminals Vol. I and 2
written by Matt Fraction
drawn by Chip Zdarsky
Reading Sex Criminals, I was struck by how far Image has come from a bunch of ex-Marvel artists writing and drawing their thinly-veiled knockoff superhero stories.
It's basically the story of librarian Suzie and bank worker Jon who are quite unhappy with their lives, the former because her library is facing foreclosure by a bank, and the latter because he basically hates his life, but most of all, his job at the same bank that's about to foreclose on Suzie's library. Aside from their hatred of the bank, they have one other thing in common: when each of them has an orgasm, time stops moving. They hook up, and discover the fact that they share a gift, and do what any disgruntled working class heroes would do: they decide to rob the bank. The problem is, however, their actions are not without consequences, and as they soon learn, in terms of their strange gift, they are not alone.
I know it's been years since Image Comics have diversified as an alternative to the "big two" of comic books, but truth be told I still get taken aback by how startlingly original some of their new material can be. I still remember them as the publisher formed by a bunch of disgruntled Marvel creators who wanted to get rich(er) off their own highly derivative superheroes. They may be raking in the big bucks these days with The Walking Dead, but it's gratifying to see them still giving creators the chance to find their own voice without the constraints of handling someone else's intellectual property.
As original material goes, Sex Criminals is a really special book, and the good news for everyone outside the man-child set is that, despite the obvious opportunity for the creators to go off the deep end in terms of titillation considering that the word "sex" is not only in the title but an integral aspect of the story, they show remarkable restraint. Rather than depict Suzie in cheesecake fashion (though she isn't exactly the plain jane most people in real life tend to be), artist Zdarsky goes for something much more subdued, and Jon is barely attractive at all, as if to smack home the point that these people are anything but superheroes.
Zdarsky's art, however, isn't really all that stellar, and while he's a serviceable storyteller, the real star of the show here is Fraction, who has really created something special here. The comic book is funny and sad and honest, and just...works for me. Fraction's greatest achievement here is making these two characters, whose motivations are basically rather selfish (for all of their rationalizations in the contrary) utterly compelling. It's not always the easiest thing to do; Bryan Lee O'Malley, the creator of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World tried something similar in his original graphic novel Seconds (which I will review next) and basically failed.
The about it is that I, as the reader, could empathize with these people primarily because I believed that, put in the same position and given the same opportunity, I would more or less do the same thing.
My only hope for this series is that I hope that it is finite, as I don't see the conceit supporting a Walking-Dead-length epic without dipping into schlock at some point. Right now, though, ten issues in, there's still a lot Fraction and Zdarsky can do with this concept and I, for one, am looking forward to seeing what they've got.
8.5/10
drawn by Chip Zdarsky
Reading Sex Criminals, I was struck by how far Image has come from a bunch of ex-Marvel artists writing and drawing their thinly-veiled knockoff superhero stories.
It's basically the story of librarian Suzie and bank worker Jon who are quite unhappy with their lives, the former because her library is facing foreclosure by a bank, and the latter because he basically hates his life, but most of all, his job at the same bank that's about to foreclose on Suzie's library. Aside from their hatred of the bank, they have one other thing in common: when each of them has an orgasm, time stops moving. They hook up, and discover the fact that they share a gift, and do what any disgruntled working class heroes would do: they decide to rob the bank. The problem is, however, their actions are not without consequences, and as they soon learn, in terms of their strange gift, they are not alone.
I know it's been years since Image Comics have diversified as an alternative to the "big two" of comic books, but truth be told I still get taken aback by how startlingly original some of their new material can be. I still remember them as the publisher formed by a bunch of disgruntled Marvel creators who wanted to get rich(er) off their own highly derivative superheroes. They may be raking in the big bucks these days with The Walking Dead, but it's gratifying to see them still giving creators the chance to find their own voice without the constraints of handling someone else's intellectual property.
As original material goes, Sex Criminals is a really special book, and the good news for everyone outside the man-child set is that, despite the obvious opportunity for the creators to go off the deep end in terms of titillation considering that the word "sex" is not only in the title but an integral aspect of the story, they show remarkable restraint. Rather than depict Suzie in cheesecake fashion (though she isn't exactly the plain jane most people in real life tend to be), artist Zdarsky goes for something much more subdued, and Jon is barely attractive at all, as if to smack home the point that these people are anything but superheroes.
Zdarsky's art, however, isn't really all that stellar, and while he's a serviceable storyteller, the real star of the show here is Fraction, who has really created something special here. The comic book is funny and sad and honest, and just...works for me. Fraction's greatest achievement here is making these two characters, whose motivations are basically rather selfish (for all of their rationalizations in the contrary) utterly compelling. It's not always the easiest thing to do; Bryan Lee O'Malley, the creator of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World tried something similar in his original graphic novel Seconds (which I will review next) and basically failed.
The about it is that I, as the reader, could empathize with these people primarily because I believed that, put in the same position and given the same opportunity, I would more or less do the same thing.
My only hope for this series is that I hope that it is finite, as I don't see the conceit supporting a Walking-Dead-length epic without dipping into schlock at some point. Right now, though, ten issues in, there's still a lot Fraction and Zdarsky can do with this concept and I, for one, am looking forward to seeing what they've got.
8.5/10
Sunday, June 28, 2015
Deal with the Devil: A Review of Daredevil #16
written by Mark Waid
drawn by Chris Samnee
colored by Matthew Wilson
Considering the long and complicated history between Matthew Murdock, also known as the vigilante Daredevil, and crimelord Wilson Fisk, once the Kingpin of Crime, which culminated with the Kingpin going to jail over a decade ago, it's quite a narrative feat to actually bring Murdock to the point where he would ask Fisk to help him out, but that's precisely what the series' current creative team of Mark Waid and Chris Samnee have done.
Thanks to the machinations of Max Coleridge, a.k.a. the Shroud, who, in a strange twist, has control over a hyper-powered Owl, who as of issue four has now acquired the ability to hook himself up to every single electronic gadget within an unspecified range, Daredevil's attorney-client communications have been blown wide open. Even though Daredevil outed himself at the conclusion of his previous series, it turns out he had plenty to hide, including the whereabouts of Foggy Nelson. Unfortunately, even Matt's attempt at a Faustian bargain with his greatest enemy may not be enough to bail him and his friends out of this latest pickle.
As Marvel have confirmed that issue #18 will be the last one for this series, and this creative team, I'm basically just counting the days till I discontinue my collection of this title, along with most of the current lineup of titles I've been collecting. I'm actually grateful Marvel is wiping the slate clean; it gives me the chance to take a little breather from collecting for awhile.
That said, I will really miss this title and issues like this remind me why. This issue marks the first time that Waid and Samnee have truly plumbed the Miller era of Daredevil, and the issue has quite a few visual and written references to Miller's monumental "Born Again" storyline from the mid-80s, and a wonderful, if slightly disturbing dialogue free, caption free page which depicts the two of them standing in an art gallery, with presumably Fisk fantasizing about different ways in which Matt Murdock would die, all of which are depicted in different art styles by Samnee. It's an astonishing visual, and really demonstrates why Samnee is one of the best artists working today, apart from being arguably the best visual storyteller since John Romita Jr.
Incidentally, prior to this book, Marvel put out a strangely timed ".1" issue, Daredevil 15.1, which is basically an anthology featuring some pretty neat short-stories, including one by Waid and Samnee another by Marc Guggenheim and Peter Krause, and one written and drawn by Samnee, all of which are flashbacks. There was nothing in it quite as meaty or satisfying as Waid's and Samnee's regular work, but it was a pretty enjoyable read just the same.
9.5/10
(8.5/10 for issue 15.1)
drawn by Chris Samnee
colored by Matthew Wilson
Considering the long and complicated history between Matthew Murdock, also known as the vigilante Daredevil, and crimelord Wilson Fisk, once the Kingpin of Crime, which culminated with the Kingpin going to jail over a decade ago, it's quite a narrative feat to actually bring Murdock to the point where he would ask Fisk to help him out, but that's precisely what the series' current creative team of Mark Waid and Chris Samnee have done.
Thanks to the machinations of Max Coleridge, a.k.a. the Shroud, who, in a strange twist, has control over a hyper-powered Owl, who as of issue four has now acquired the ability to hook himself up to every single electronic gadget within an unspecified range, Daredevil's attorney-client communications have been blown wide open. Even though Daredevil outed himself at the conclusion of his previous series, it turns out he had plenty to hide, including the whereabouts of Foggy Nelson. Unfortunately, even Matt's attempt at a Faustian bargain with his greatest enemy may not be enough to bail him and his friends out of this latest pickle.
As Marvel have confirmed that issue #18 will be the last one for this series, and this creative team, I'm basically just counting the days till I discontinue my collection of this title, along with most of the current lineup of titles I've been collecting. I'm actually grateful Marvel is wiping the slate clean; it gives me the chance to take a little breather from collecting for awhile.
That said, I will really miss this title and issues like this remind me why. This issue marks the first time that Waid and Samnee have truly plumbed the Miller era of Daredevil, and the issue has quite a few visual and written references to Miller's monumental "Born Again" storyline from the mid-80s, and a wonderful, if slightly disturbing dialogue free, caption free page which depicts the two of them standing in an art gallery, with presumably Fisk fantasizing about different ways in which Matt Murdock would die, all of which are depicted in different art styles by Samnee. It's an astonishing visual, and really demonstrates why Samnee is one of the best artists working today, apart from being arguably the best visual storyteller since John Romita Jr.
Incidentally, prior to this book, Marvel put out a strangely timed ".1" issue, Daredevil 15.1, which is basically an anthology featuring some pretty neat short-stories, including one by Waid and Samnee another by Marc Guggenheim and Peter Krause, and one written and drawn by Samnee, all of which are flashbacks. There was nothing in it quite as meaty or satisfying as Waid's and Samnee's regular work, but it was a pretty enjoyable read just the same.
9.5/10
(8.5/10 for issue 15.1)
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