Before I get onto the reviews, allow me a little indulgence:
Daredevil #14 finally came out in January. Predictably enough, even though the issue was an appallingly six months late, the majority of online critics gave it rave reviews. I stopped reading Daredevil after issue #8 because, having waited three to four months between each and every issue of the first storyline, I didn't particularly feel like repeating the experience a second time. Now I have a review column, i.e. a forum to publicly rant and moan about such an atrocious publishing schedule. However, I can't actually do that, because I didn't read Daredevil #14, only skimmed through it in the comic shop. It's just not appropriate to review comics if you haven't read them in full (this is also why you didn't see me railing on about DC Comics' incredibly stupid "Lex Luthor becomes President" storyline). However, I just could not let the opportunity pass to make some comment about Daredevil's lateness. And so, it's fortunate that Paul O'Brien, online critic and resident of "the relatively fashionable west end of Glasgow" was kind enough to let me quote his thoughts on the issue:
"This is where critics say that despite the long delays, the wait was worth it. Well, bollocks to that. This storyline is only on part five and is now into its third calendar year. That long since crossed the line between giving the creators the time they need, and indulging creative egos - especially since replacement penciller Dave Ross's pages are pretty hard to tell apart from Quesada's. This issue was due out LAST JUNE."
Thanks, Paul. Couldn't have put it better myself. And I urge everyone to check out Paul's superb reviews at The X-Axis website. The URL is http://www.esoterica.demon.co.uk.
We now return to our regularly scheduled edition of "In My Not So Humble Opinion."
Area 52, $2.95 US, published by Image Comics
Writer: Brian Haberlin; Pencils & Inks: Clayton Henry
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Area 52 is something of a cross between John Carpenter's The Thingand Greg Rucka's Whiteout, with a bit of MASH and The X-Files tossed in. The basic premise of the series is that the United States government build an underground facility in Antarctica to store all their old projects, equipment, and discoveries that they no longer need. It's Area 51 at the bottom of the world. The difference between this series and most fictional looks at the military warehousing crashed flying saucers is that this forgoes the usual paranoia and evil conspiracies. This is more like the real world. Here, we see the government has dumped the obligatory flying saucers in the middle of nowhere and promptly forgotten all about them. The ultra-efficient, not to mention utterly contrived, evil conspiracy, has been replaced with the very real, inefficient bureaucracy that characterizes government.
Indeed, assignment to Area 52 is regarded as, at best, a dull milkrun, at worst, a punishment for royally pissing off somebody in command. It's the later that has happened to Corporal Monica Lane, the protagonist of the series. Lane exposed an influential Army general's sexual harassment of cadets, and was "rewarded" by getting shipped off to Area 52 for a five-year stint. Lane sees her career going down in flames, and this is confirmed when she arrives to find the majority of Area 52's personnel looking like Gen X slackers, spending their time on playing Playstation games on a giant television, getting drunk, smoking pot, and racing around the corridors on scooters. Lane learns that nothing has happened at Area 52 since at least the early 1960s, and that they're all just there to guard six warehouses full of junk that everybody else has pretty much forgotten even exists. Once the realization of her situation fully sinks in, Lane proceeds to do the only logical thing: she hits the bottle. Can't say I blame her. Especially since the base commander tells her "Corporal, I am your commanding officer. And I order you to have another drink and not be so uptight."
Of course, given that this is (apparently) an ongoing series, and we are repeatedly told that nothing ever happens in Area 52, it is quite foreseeable that something out of the ordinary is going to happen. And, indeed, in short order something does occur. A long-dormant crate bursts open, releasing something very nasty.
This first issue is basically the set-up, as we are introduced to the characters and settings, and the mystery of an unearthly foe is initially established. Brian Haberlin does a good job laying the groundwork. We receive a lot of background on Monica Lane. We also get a look at the rest of Area 52's personnel. Most are painted in very broad strokes, but presumably we will be learning more about them in subsequent issues. Assuming they aren't killed off, of course. A few characters do seem to be what are known "horror movie stereotypes," such as the pothead and the anal security officer, i.e. the guys who go around with the word "monster chow" all but written on their foreheads. Hopefully Haberlin will eschew genre conventions and not off all the likely suspects. It's a good sign that the creature's first victim was actually not one of those that I was expecting to get killed. In any case, Haberlin did a fine job with scripting the characters, writing some intelligent and witty dialogue.
Clayton Henry's art is definitely to my liking. Although a bit Manga-inspired, it nevertheless has a definite realism to it that suits the story. The slightly cartoony nature befits the more comical aspects of the story. But it's clear already that Henry is also able to draw serious scenes. He is adept at rendering "talking heads," something vital when introducing a large cast like this in an effective manner. Henry succeeds in drawing Monica Lane as an attractive woman without making her into a pin-up girl. He is also good at drawing corridors, storehouses, weapons, and control rooms, all things I suspect we'll be seeing a lot of in future issues. Oh, yeah, those little maintenance robots that go scuttling about the corridors emitting "Beep! Beep!" noises remind me of that horribly cute thingee that was in the Wonder Woman television show. Except these aren't as annoying!
It should be noted that the back cover has a nice summary of the series' premise. I'm one of those who would like to see more comics more away from the monthly magazine type of format to graphic novels. It was a pleasant surprise that, rather than sticking an ad on the back cover, the creators used it more along the lines of a paperback book's back cover, something to hook the potential reader's attention. And they also stuck the UPC symbol on the back cover, too. That's one less front cover with art getting covered up by a bar code.
In the end, Area 52 is a bit of fluff. But it's quality fluff. Sure, it's not breaking any new ground, but that doesn't matter in the least. It's a very entertaining read with superb artwork. It manages to be fun without being childish or having an oversimplified plot. Most importantly, it leaves me genuinely anticipating the next issue. How many comic book series can you say that about nowadays?
Faust/777: The Wrath trade paperback, $16.95 US, published by Avatar Press
Writer: David Quinn; Pencils: Timothy Vigil; Inks: Tim Tyler & Johnny B.
Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars
I've not been too enamored with most of Avatar's output. The majority of is has been overpriced X-rated horror pornography printed on cheap paper. I've purchased several issues of their Threshold anthology for Dan Parsons' "Harpy" stories. While I found Parsons' work to always be of a high quality, most everything else appearing in Threshold was unimpressive, to say the least, with excessive amounts of explicit sex and graphic violence taking the place of actual plots and characterizations. That was even the case with Warren Ellis' miniseries Strange Kisses, which I found very disappointing.
On the other hand, I understand that there is a significant cult following of the work of writer David Quinn, who has had a large amount of material published by Avatar, including recent installments of his Faust storyline. I had been considering reading Faust to see what it was like. The fact that it was now being published by Avatar didn't necessarily turn me off. I do my best not to automatically avoid any and all works released by a publisher I don't like, preferring instead to judge each project on its individual merits. So I read the trade paperback collection of the Faust/777: The Wrath miniseries.
The Wrath concerns the efforts of Joanna Tan to break her ties with and defeat a demonic figure known only as M (presumably for Mephistopheles). At stake is Joanna's soul. Joanna is investigating the activities of M's employees in a black market organ smuggling operation, when she sees the smugglers violently slain by a seemingly-unkillable gun-wielding berserker called the Wrath. The Wrath serves Kia, a supposed angel who is working against M. As for M himself, he is stuck in spirit form, and is attempting to return to the flesh with the aid of his disciple Claire. Believing that Kia and the Wrath can help in this process, M has Claire capture the duo and bring them to his estate. Joanna follows, hoping for an opportunity to finally destroy M.
This is a decent enough story with an interesting premise that is unfortunately brought down by those aforementioned excessive amounts of explicit sex and graphic violence. Especially the sex. As B-movie reviewer Joe Bob Brigs would put it, there's multiple aardvarking going on here. Of the three main female characters (Joanna, Kia, and Claire) two are sex-crazed nymphos. Kia is a twisted looking female with multiple body piercings & tattoos who goes topless throughout the entire story and who is using the Wrath as much for a sex toy as an instrument of vengeance. Claire is a sexual sadist whose primary reason for wanting M restored to the flesh is so she can screw him. And Joanna, while she doesn't do the horizontal hustle, is dressed in an outfit that would make a dominatrix blush (although, to be fair, so are approximately half the women who pop up in the X-Men books; it must be a comic book thing).
Unfortunately, the gratuitous amounts of copulation that take place distract (and detract) from the story. The process by which M restores his physical body at first involves lots of blood, but then ends up being completed by sex. The blood of one of his henchmen restores M's brain, nervous system, and eyeballs. The Wrath's blood restores the rest of M's body, except the right side of his face, which remains skeletal. So how does M finish the restoration and complete his face? He has Claire and Kia engage in lesbian sex and then orally pleasure him. Now, I'm not a prude. Far from it. But, really, this adds nothing to the story, aside from emphasizing that M is an utterly depraved bastard. But we knew that already. And why the hell does Kia aid in M's restoration? Okay, it seems that she's a rather ruthless being with ulterior motives, and this leads M to believe that she would be easy to *ahem* seduce into darkness. But, even so, she still appeared a too-willing participant in the aforementioned sexual Olympics. It just seems like Quinn or Vigil wanted to include lesbian and oral sex acts in the story, and having them used to restore M was an ostensibly way to fit them in.
It's regrettable that Quinn decided to devote so much of the story to hardcore sexual material, as there was definite potential regarding the characters for him to explore. I would have liked to have seem more about Joanna Tan's background, how both she and her mother became involved in M's activities. And what was the exact relationship between Kia and The Wrath. At times she seems to show concern for him. But is that because she actually cares for him, or because she just doesn't want to see her "slave" (as at one point she thinks of him) get damaged. Why does The Wrath stay with Kia if he wants to be rid of her? For that matter, who is The Wrath, anyway? I'm assuming his background was delved into in a previous series, but it would have been useful for Quinn to recap it here.
I definitely would have liked to see a more in-depth exploration of M's goals. He is seen working to release someone named John Jaspers, who he invested with power, from imprisonment in Hell. It is implied that M actually cares for John, perhaps regarding him as an adopted son. This is interesting, as it gives M another side to his personality, instead of just presenting him as a being of pure evil. Unfortunately, their relationship is never really delved into. We don't even learn much about who John Jaspers was, and how he ended up in M's service.
Regrettably, the end of the story is inconclusive, with little in the way of resolution. Things are left open-ended for Joanna to encounter M and Claire again in the future. The Wrath and Kia are still together, and still just as confused about their relationship as we are. It would have been nice to see more closure.
In any case, the art by Tim Vigil is definitely worth noting. In a story with so much sex and violence, Vigil fortunately draws everything very well. Hey, if Quinn is going to give us all this stuff, at least he found an artist who does a good job drawing it. Vigil puts an exquisite amount of detail into his work. His women are sexy and dangerous-looking but, at the same time, more realistic than most females in comic books. Yes, he still draws women as being unbelievably beautiful. But he has more of a grasp of anatomy, musculature, and body shapes than some artists. His women look like they could exist in real life, instead of just looking like a pair of DD breasts stuck on a twig. Vigil also succeeds in rending the horrific and the violent in sharp detail. His depiction of M at the end, transformed into full demonic form, is very striking. Clearly Vigil enjoys drawing this stuff. It leaves me wondering how much of input he had on the story, though. Perhaps he had just as much of a role in the inclusion of the amounts of sex as Quinn did. If that is the case, than Vigil should try and develop some more subtlety to his storytelling and illustration.
You may be wondering why, after all my criticisms, I gave The Wrath a 2.5 rating. Well, despite my complaints, I still did enjoy it somewhat. It reminded me of those low-budget B-movies that show up at 2:00 in the morning on Cinemax and Showtime, the ones that are so bad they're good. I rather enjoy some of those films. Watching them, you can kind of imagine the writers and directors chucking every nutty and off-the-wall idea they can think of into the film with wild abandon. It's difficult for me to explain why I can enjoy stuff like that. In the same way, I'm at a loss to explain why I found The Wrath to be an entertaining read. Well, aside from it doing a fine job of appealing to my prurient interests…
In any case, I found The Wrath unusual enough that I'd perhaps read the follow-up stories by David Quinn if they were collected in trade paperback format. It would be interesting to see what Quinn and Vigil come up with next!