E-MAIL THE AUTHOR

Breakdowns -- Try This for Sighs

October 2, 2003

“I’ve been waiting all night for someone like you
But
You’ll have to do”

Psychedelic Furs – “Run & Run”

This week finds me finally reviewing Neil Gaiman’s new SANDMAN: ENDLESS NIGHTS, plus books you may not have heard of like NUMBERS, STYX TAXI and (ulp!) PEE SOUP, not to mention a lengthy review/history of MAN OF STEEL VOL. 2. No interviews this week, but as promised, last week’s interviewee Hannibal Tabu’s new column, The Comic Reel is up now, five days a week at Comic Book Resources. Congrats, Hannibal, but I don’t envy that kind of schedule.

Now let’s kick things off with an early look at the new Azzarello/Risso BATMAN:

BATMAN #620 by Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso. DC Comics. $2.50
In Stores October 29
The award-winning 100 BULLETS team begin their six-issue run in a couple weeks, and I was fortunate enough to read the first issue already. However, as much as I enjoy BULLETS, the salaciousness and cynicism that gives that book its bite is a bad fit for Batman. Risso’s not the problem at all; his high-contrast style is of course appropriate for the noirish Gotham, and the black-and-white preview I read only makes his Millerisms that much more evident and more pleasurable.

The problem is that Azzarello seems to think he has something to prove here on this unfamiliar superhero ground, and as he did in CAGE, he goes way over the top. The story, from what I can gather, is about Batman trying to find out who killed a gangster’s sister, and it could possibly be the gangster himself, but somehow Killer Croc is roped into it. You can tell he’s Killer Croc because of the four gold rings spelling out C-R-O-C and the leopard print shirt—huh? Thus follows several pages of Batman punching a helpless Croc to get information. I don’t object to this, as Croc doesn’t deserve kid gloves, but it does go on a bit long, making it seem almost like Batman is enjoying himself. The trail leads him to gangster Angel Lopez’ house, where Batman finds a typically vivacious Risso babe in the bedroom. It’s kind of a funny scene, as Batman is so stiff even with Catwoman, whereas here he almost flirts with the girl, or at least acknowledges she’s having some effect on him. It’s out of character but enjoyable.

So far, though, this seems to be a pretty loose detective story that doesn’t need Batman. He could be Slam Bradley or any private eye. From what I’ve seen of his work, Azzarello is much like Garth Ennis, both excellent writers of crime-related work who can’t relate to heroism as a concept. It’s still early, but Azzarello has not added anything to Batman’s character here, and with the gratuitous violence he’s taking something away. His characters can usually be reduced to base motivations, and I don’t think that’s something that’s going to work for a pure, driven crusader like Batman. Batman as a character probably has the most room for interpretation of any superhero, but this rendition—Mike Hammer in a cape—is almost unrecognizable.

SANDMAN: ENDLESS NIGHTS by Gaiman, Russell, Manara, Prado, Storey, Sienkiewicz, Fabry and Quitely. Vertigo/DC Comics. $24.95
When Neil Gaiman brought his monthly (for the most part) SANDMAN series for Vertigo to an end, it was reasonable for the reader to conclude that the story was over. Anything since is really just gravy, and if it has a few lumps here and there, well, it still makes the mashed potatoes go down easier. Of the seven stories here, none seem to have been desperate to get out of Gaiman’s head, but he does put the effort in to offer a variety of writing styles, and to match the stories with the most appropriate artist, almost all of whom are among the best to work in comics.

“Death and Venice” is, naturally, the story for Death, the member of the Endless who rivals Dream as readers’ favorite. A former soldier regrets the ending of a relationship and returns to a forgotten island off Venice where as a boy he first met Death. It is here that a nobleman and his court have found a way to live forever, and this loss of the humanizing quality of a sense of impending death has driven the man further and further into depravity. As much as he’s tried to cheat Death, when she comes for him, it’s a relief, and also a way for the soldier to move on with his own life. It’s a strong opening effort that could really have been expanded, with some twists, into a graphic novel, the better to experience Russell’s elegant line. Gaiman makes sure to work in plenty of doves in flight, graceful birds being as much a part of Russell’s oeuvre as Escher’s. And whoever’s idea it was to make the nobleman look like Russell himself was a humorous touch.

“What I’ve Tasted of Desire,” illustrated in his customarily sensual—though less explicit—style by Milo Manara, is part love story and part revenge tale, the revenge scheme unfolding with the exactitude of a fable. Desire’s part is small—she helps the heroine snare the womanizing warlord she loves—but Manara’s depiction of her, the golden-eyed androgyne, is extraordinary, resonating through the rest of the story, the girl’s desire for her man becoming a desire to avenge him. Manara is able to use watercolors and delicate pen lines that still effectively evoke the passions of lust and hatred.

Miguelanxo Prado is a writer and artist who, like Manara, is often known for stories with a strong sexual content, but he also has his whimsical side, which comes more into play in “The Heart of a Star,” an early story starring Dream and featuring the rest of the Endless as well. Even Delight is here, before she became Delirium, so it is clearly a more innocent time. Rather, it’s the beginning of our own universe, a grand party and business meeting between gods, some personifications of suns such as our own Sol, who is a nerdy kid here. Dream squires his girlfriend Killalla of the Glow around, until she falls for Sto-Oa, at first not realizing he is the star her people have worshipped since childhood. Overwhelmed, she betrays Dream, and he would not have another relationship with a mortal for some time. Gaiman appears to be enjoying himself here, alluding to DC superheroes (Oa is where the Guardians and the Green Lantern ring come from; Rao is the god of Krypton), but the story is fine without the in-jokes, essentially a primer or refresher course on the Endless, through the eyes of an innocent. Prado’s art is delicate, humorous and romantic, though his layouts are perhaps a little too conventional. It’s not exactly filler, but one of the less meaningful efforts in the book, and if readers are expecting the Dream story to be the centerpiece of the book, they will be disappointed.

“15 Portraits of Despair” is an artistic tour de force for Barron Storey, who must have toiled feverishly, day and night, when he got the assignment. There are dozens of haunting, disturbing paintings on display, so many reproduced per page that it’s a real visual onslaught. This is appropriate, because this exercise is all about manipulation, the goal more obvious here than other stories, despite the challenging qualities of the art. In these fifteen short vignettes, Gaiman and Storey want you to feel despair, just as the fifteen characters here do, through various means and scenarios. Gaiman writes in his Introduction that the original plan was for twenty-five portraits, but the reduction was wise. Though an impressive display of his writing virtuosity, the despair that visits these fifteen characters can really be boiled down to just a couple factors: loneliness and poverty. People never love you or they love you and abandon you. You love but must abandon because of a lack of money. That kind of thing. “15 Portraits” is probably the best piece due to the richness of the writing and art and the powerful mood it evokes. Some of the pieces are arguably precious, but more than the others, this is the tale to which readers will return again and again.

“Going Inside” also features multiple voices and mixed media artwork, by Bill Sienkiewicz, but is a more conventional and hopeful tale. Delirium has become caught inside a young woman’s psyche, rendering her catatonic, and it’s up to the next Dream, Daniel, and his pets/assistants Matthew the dog and Barnabas the raven to assemble a team of the mentally ill to draw Delirium out. Hmm. Writing it like that, it is a fairly ridiculous plot, or perhaps one could say it’s just crazy enough to work. Actually, the plot doesn’t work at all, but Gaiman does well with the characters and their various flavors of madness, while Sienkiewicz’ art, with a lovely fish motif reminding the reader of the birds in the Russell story, is as seemingly chaotic as ever but with greater warmth than usual.

“On the Peninsula” is a story for Destruction, as illustrated by Glenn Fabry. Delirium appears here as well, but it’s not really about either of them so much as it is about a young archaeologist named Rachel on a special dig on the peninsula of San Rafael, the artifacts discovered coming from the future. Destruction plays an interesting role here. He is never violent, but rather serves as a catalyst, bringing relationships and situations to an end. It makes sense, as Dream does not dream himself, so why should Destruction be enraged? Instead, he is Chaos, an inevitable force for change, whether good or bad. Rachel falls into Stanley the lead archaeologist’s arms not just out of lust and the shared excitement of their discovery, but as a subconscious way to give definition to their relationship, which will then bring its destruction that much faster. This anomaly in time and space cannot be allowed to continue, as it upsets the natural order, or is that natural chaos? He and Rachel oversee its destruction, and there is a bittersweet element to their parting, because of course he is not one to know love. To get too close to Destruction would leave Rachel as just one more ruin.

But despite the heady concepts involved, the story doesn’t quite catch fire. The conflict comes from government agents trying to take control of this discovery for their own purposes, and it just seems like old hat. Blacks suits and sunglasses, ho-hum. There’s not enough room here to make the Destruction concept meld with the simple plot, and thought there’s nothing objectionable about Fabry’s art, it’s just not in the same league as the others. It’s just not different enough from dozens of other good mainstream comics artists, and the lettering is also rather soulless and conventional after five stories using a multitude of idiosyncratic fonts.

The decline in quality continues into the last story, “Endless Nights,” drawn and painted by Frank Quitely. Despite being known almost entirely for superhero comics, Quitely is more than up to the task of finding a spare, elegant beauty to the cloaked Destiny walking around and holding a book for seven pages. After the sensual overload of the six previous artists, this is like a cool cloth on the forehead or a cup of tea, a calmative and a dignified farewell. Gaiman reins himself in, having Destiny walk and make minimal comments on his siblings and all those whose lives he observes begin and end, and maybe he reins himself too much, as there is no story here. But as a pictorial summing-up, it’s never less than well-composed, and on pages five and six it is startling and magnificent. And that really sums up the book as well, as attractive and well-written in parts as anything one will read this year, but also in parts underdeveloped or not terribly inspired. The level of craft and imagery is generally, however, very high, Gaiman still having an impressive range and unique voice, and he’s still able to get some superlative work from his collaborators.

STYX TAXI #1 by Steven Goldman and Jeremy Arambulo. FWDbooks. $2.50
I can’t say I loved this book, but I liked it, and admired the effort. It’s well-drawn and tries to do something different in comics, transforming the myth of Charon the ferryman on the River Styx to a taxi company for the dead, giving the passenger a couple hours to do what they want until they need to go to the Afterlife. It’s a nice conceit, and Goldman ambitiously works several small stories in for drivers Charon, Dom and Circe and their passengers. Charon routinely transports fewer souls than the others during his shift, and is having trouble finding the meaning in his job. Circe’s the most generous of heart, leading by example, while Dom gives Charon a few pointers.

Similar premises are being explored right now in more than one television series, so the premise is novel only for comics, and suffers from comparison with well-budgeted programs with good actors and the time to tell the stories of the departed fully. Goodman structures the book well, but has to cover so much ground in such a short space that what might have been genuinely moving is only quaint and pleasant. Goodman appears to have the talent, he just needs to give his next story more room to breathe -- he seems to possess the talent to make some good-hearted stories with real weight to them if he keeps working at it.

PEE SOUP #1 by Zanier, Barba, Penn, Coskun and Rey. Eros Comix. $3.50
Pssssst! Hey, whiz kids, urine luck! Eros is about to shower you with--

Sorry, I just can’t keep that going. I’ve lost the flow—there I go again.

I don’t mean to take the piss, but--

Okay, seriously, enough of the puns. I think I was sent this comic as kind of a goof, since I commented on it back when it was first solicited. Other than those few who might be curious what Christian Zanier’s been up to since RISING STARS, this is really only for those who share the fetish for “water sports.” I didn’t find it nauseating, but it’s just not erotic to me, though the art is all decent. And I liked Corey Barba’s “Yellow No. 5,” a cutely drawn (funny animal, but barely, like OMAHA THE CAT DANCER), which details a girl’s increasing urinary exhibitionism from childhood on. It’s sort of sweet. Let’s say sweet and sour—oh, stop it! But the others, by the nature of the fetish, are pretty much all about degradation on some level, which I don’t find that interesting. Publishing it as a black-and-white-and-yellow book is a nice touch, though, and I’m sure those who are into it will appreciate that.

DRAWING ON YOUR NIGHTMARES by Niles, Templesmith, Powell, Matthews and Phillips. Dark Horse Comics. $2.99
I’ve been up and down on Scott Allie’s horror line for Dark Horse--HAUNTINGS was a high-priced dud—but this little three-buck sampler is a great idea, well-executed, and just the right introduction for readers who thought the line begins and ends with HELLBOY.

Niles and Templesmith provide a nifty Cal McDonald story. McDonald is hired by the ghost of Bugsy Siegel to reunite him with the spirit of his lady love, Virginia Hill. Tight, funny, and even mildly romantic, though it must be said that Templesmith puts absolutely no effort in for verisimilitude. There’s a bit of narration from McDonald saying that the undead didn’t like Las Vegas because of all the lights—and Templesmith doesn’t draw a single light!. It’s just the same gray sludge for backgrounds. Niles gets the story over on attitude, and Templesmith draws creepy dead guys as well as ever, but he really needs to work on setting a scene.

Eric Powell’s Goon story is more about supporting character The Spider, an actual huge spider with a gambling problem. Some leg-breakers called The Mud Brothers show up at the saloon to put a hurt on Spider, but he tells them The Spider is actually The Goon, who dispatches them with little effort but is none too happy at his friend doing him dirty like this. He sets things right in a hilarious conclusion, as Mrs. Spider and the hundreds of accusatory babies on her back show up to take Dad to task. Powell continues to create some of the most exuberantly goofy, totally fun comics around.

The last tale seems to be an introduction to a new series or miniseries, written by Brett Matthews and drawn by Sean Phillips in an even grimmer, hipper style than his excellent work on SLEEPER. It’s about a vampire in Vegas (yes, all three stories are gambling-related, though there doesn’t seem to be any deeper meaning to this) who helps out a femme fatale, only to find she’s as much a monster as he is. It’s got a great, bittersweet noir vibe to it, and something about the way Phillips draws a monster in cool threads that really is frightening. All in all, this is a terrific “pumpkin-stuffer” for Halloween, though too creepy for readers under twelve.

NUMBERS by John Ira Thomas & Jeremy Smith Candle Light Press. $14.95
I debated even putting this one up, and as I didn’t finish the book, feel free to disregard my comments if you wish. But the thing is, there’s a reason I didn’t finish it.

I’m not trying to totally slam this book. This isn’t a funny negative review. Steven Grant is a bright guy and his back cover quote calls this a book that’s one of the most deserving of the title, “graphic novel,” and I’m not disagreeing. There’s a lot going on, lots of characters and plot machinations and ambitious storytelling devices. But I have to tell you that as exciting as the description of the book is—a hustler and odds expert betting his own life against a vigilante who’s been cutting a bloody swathe through the criminal underworld—the contents are almost unreadable. The first few pages are so clogged with text that it led me to believe they were a late addition, a way to better explain the background of the story but as cheaply as possible (this is a self-published book). Perhaps the creators realized how confusing the book is, but this prologue doesn’t help.

It’s not that there aren’t good things. The writer’s done decent police research, the artist has a fairly appealing style similar to Brian Michael Bendis. But the dialogue tries way too hard to be clever, becoming a real turn-off. And the art is full of little tricks that don’t work or call too much attention to themselves, a bad lightbulb glow effect that bleeds into other panels, distracting blur effects and warped fonts, and graytones used in a way that just made me think the artist didn’t know how to draw shadows himself. There’s a ton of effort here in making this a hip, stylish thriller, but unfortunately almost all of it works against the aim of telling a clear, memorable story. Some of this may be attributed to many of the pages being printed too light, made worse because of the yellowy paper chosen. Quite rare, especially for a book that’s been sent to me, but I simply had to give up halfway through. The creators seem to have the potential to come up with something that works, but this isn’t it.

THE MAN OF STEEL VOL. 2 by John Byrne, Dick Giordano, Marv Wolfman, Jerry Ordway and Terry Austin. DC Comics. $19.95
After the CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS maxiseries by Wolfman and Perez reset the DC Universe (with numerous holes and inconsistencies), John Byrne was hired to revamp the greatest superhero of all, Superman. His career to this point consisted almost entirely of work for Marvel, where he made his mark with enduring work on X-MEN, FANTASTIC FOUR and other titles, but now editorial conflicts made the Superman offer a fait accompli. Byrne tackled THE MAN OF STEEL miniseries with a full head of steam and ideas, presenting the best aspects of the character with most of the baggage and outdated concepts gone. After the miniseries was over, Byrne took on two of the three Superman titles, SUPERMAN and ACTION COMICS, the latter retooled as a book teaming Superman with other heroes from the DC Universe, a bright idea to quickly establish Superman’s reputation among, and relationships with, his peers, as well as providing a place to expose readers to characters who did not have their own titles.

But where did this leave Marv Wolfman? Wolfman had already gotten editorial approval for his new version of Lex Luthor as an evil, powerful businessman, his various companies providing him unlimited resources to attempt to destroy Superman while manipulating public opinion. It was a great idea that has had just as lasting an impact on the DCU as has Byrne’s solid take on Superman and his history. But despite Wolfman’s fame at the time for CRISIS and NEW TEEN TITANS, his work with Jerry Ordway on THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN was going to be overshadowed by Byrne’s two titles, as Byrne was then the hottest writer/artist in the industry behind Frank Miller.

This volume collects nine issues: the first three of the post-CRISIS ACTION, SUPERMAN and ADVENTURES, which is really the most sensible way to put this era back in print, especially since after one year Byrne would be writing all three books upon Wolfman’s departure, making them more tightly connected.

Things start a little oddly here in the first ACTION story, as Superman isn’t himself, his mind stuck in a paraplegic’s body as the spiteful man takes Superman’s body for a test drive. Cyborg of the Teen Titans takes a beating until the rest of the team arrives, and in anticlimactic fashion Joseph uses his powers to occupy Superman’s body as well (getting mighty crowded in here!) long enough for Superman to hobble his way to the reverse button on the mind-switching device. It’s a typical team-up story, contriving a reason for heroes to fight before figuring out how to work together, but the art by Byrne and Giordano is good, and Byrne writes the Titans capably. The next issue finds Superman providing the physical duties involved in the Phanton Stranger’s defeat of some evil spirits who have made a destructive mass out of several tons of earth and rocks. It’s another hoary cliché, in this case the damned putting the innocent on trial, and several pages are devoted to Superman fighting flying mud and rocks. It does serve to emphasize that Superman is powerless against magic, an important element in Byrne’s revision of the character that increased suspense in stories where sorcery was involved.

Wolfman explains in his Introduction to this volume that his stories in ADVENTURES were intended to be more science fiction-based (by editorial request) but personal and more realistic (by Wolfman’s intent), but the results of these first two issues are bland efforts little better than the moribund content seen before the relaunch. Superman fights some big vehicle that looks like an orange caterpillar, and finds the people inside are fanatics willing to die for their beliefs. Despite the tens of millions this contraption must have cost, it’s not until other vehicles appear that Superman figures out that whoever is funding this operation must have a lot of money. He allows the vehicles to begin to form a giant, Transformers-like walking weapon before he takes it down. As far as the subplots, former gossip columnist turned Daily Planet reporter Catherine “Cat” Grant debuts, and the normally reserved Clark Kent practically drools over her, flirting with her on her first day, during a field assignment. Wolfman makes a misstep here in trying to get this romantic triangle between Clark, Lois and Cat started too quickly, and he also goes overboard with Lex Luthor offering to cure Lois’ mother’s illness in exchange, essentially, for sex. This was, of course, a time when WATCHMEN and THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS were causing Marvel and DC to begin “darkening” their decades-old characters, but this seemed a bit much, or perhaps an okay idea handled clumsily. It’s almost as if Wolfman felt confined by having just the one book, and tried to get as many of his ideas out there as fast as he could. His Introduction also shows him to be proud of how his character, Professor Emil Hamilton, is still in use in the Superman titles today, but Hamilton’s first story finds him to be a pathetic villain. I’m somewhat interested to see just how he was rehabilitated into the harmless scientist he’s been for years.

Ordway is wildly uneven here, his work fine and richly detailed on one page and sketchy and indistinct on the next. It would seem he had some trouble with deadlines, or, like Giordano, maybe he didn’t get the best results from unnamed inking assistants. Hard to say, but for a prestigious book that would become a career highlight, it’s not the most auspicious beginning.

The three series cross over for the last storyline in the book, as Superman ends up on Apokolips with no memory. It’s a tie-in to the LEGENDS miniseries going on at that time, where the people of Earth, under the influence of Apokoliptian Glorious Godfrey, want all superheroes banned or destroyed. It’s not necessary to read that to understand this story, however, as it’s really just an expansion of that Teen Titans story. Darkseid convinces Superman that he’s his father, so Superman and Amazing Grace put down an uprising from the citizens of the Armagetto of Apokolips, killing thousands. Heroes of New Genesis Orion and Lightray investigate and Orion fights Superman before convincing him that he, not Superman, is the true scion of Darkseid. Superman and Darkseid fight, and Darkseid transports Superman back to Earth, Orion’s “Mother Box” computer wiping the champion’s mind clean of the atrocities he committed when not in his right mind. Byrne and Ordway co-plot with Wolfman on the ADVENTURES issue in this three-parter, so Wolfman has to partially relinquish control of his one book just two months into his run. This was the beginning of a trend for the Superman titles that continues to this day, though the difference now is that no writer gets more than one book and a year’s worth of stories are discussed among all writers and the editor.

The one essential title here is Byrne’s SUPERMAN, which finds him at full power, running with Wolfman’s Luthor concept, darkening old villain Metallo and making Lois Lane the sexiest and toughest she’s ever been, while never losing what makes Clark/Superman special. The second issue is as sharp a portrait of Lex Luthor as has ever been created, building suspense as he closes in on Clark Kent’s secret identity and then dismissing the finding that he is Superman, his own megalomaniacal a fatal flaw. He simply can’t accept that someone as powerful as Superman would hide his light under a bushel as a lowly reporter. While issue #1’s Metallo story is very good, especially in the moody storytelling and smart use of Superman’s powers for detective work, the Luthor story is pretty close to classic, and it’s no wonder it’s been reprinted elsewhere before now.

Though obviously not a seamless collection, the stories here nonetheless represent the early stages of an important, still entertaining run with few wrong ideas. ACTION, like the recent BATMAN run, is less about the stories than it is about seeing a hot artist draw well-known characters he hadn’t drawn before, and it works much like the Claremont/Byrne MARVEL TEAM-UP issues from the late 70s. SUPERMAN is Byrne at the peak of his enthusiasm and storytelling powers, very good work overdue for rediscovery, and ADVENTURES is mediocre work from Wolfman, who seems to feel, rightly or not, that Byrne’s presence on the other two Superman books has painted Wolfman into a creative corner.

One final note on the collection: as the only creator featured here who is still drawing a regular paycheck from DC, it’s strange that Byrne only sketches this and the new MAN OF STEEL VOL. 1 covers for Ordway to finish, and it’s also strange that Wolfman gets to write the Introduction. And what an Intro it is. Even if you don’t buy the book, read the Introduction, because it’s fascinating and cringe-inducing. We get Wolfman’s background and entry into comics, which is unimportant except that he always liked Superman the best, even as a kid. Then he goes on at length about the ideas and characterizations he brought to DC before the books were relaunched. Okay, self-serving, but where’s he going with this? Well, in a truly pathetic display, Wolfman can’t even bring himself to mention Byrne by name! While it’s true Byrne did him no favors, to say the least, at Wolfman’s trial against Marvel over Blade and other Wolfman-created characters, one would think Wolfman could be professional and focus on the Superman books accurately, at least for the purposes of an Introduction. He even goes so far as to write that Ordway took over the writing on ADVENTURES after Wolfman left it, neatly forgetting that Byrne took over and eventually gave the book completely to Ordway. But besides the risible Intro, the book is put together well, the three titles arranged in logical sequence, and with a nice bonus of some Byrne-drawn pages of Krypton, Metallo and Amazing Grace, from the WHO’S WHO IN THE DC UNIVERSE series of the 80s.

Next Week: - Another sneak preview book, this time the first issue of Judd Winick’s CAPER, with art by Farel (POP GUN WAR) Dalrymple, plus I’ll probably finish B. KRIGSTEIN VOL. 1 in time to review. Other stuff too, of course. And hopefully, another interview with a prominent comics reviewer.

Chris Allen

If you would like a book or graphic novel reviewed, please send to:

1451 River Crest Rd.
San Marcos, CA 92078

E-MAIL THE AUTHOR | ARCHIVES