For the month of August, there are three books up for review: Batman #605, Brian Wood’s Couscous Express graphic novel, and The Spectre #19. As always, watch out for SPOILERS. Especially in the Batman review.
But first, some promotional information:
Some of the titles I have reviewed in the past are being solicited in Previews. This month, Alchemy Texts has a new Armageddon Patrol special, and C.A. Aabo’s Jon Pay: Private Investigator is available from BDP Comics. Next month, Little Rocket Publications is offering a complete set of Wild Stars, Michael Tierney’s sci-fi miniseries. Be sure to keep an eye out for all of them.
Batman #605, $2.95 US, published by DC Comics
Writer: Ed Brubaker; Pencils: Scott McDaniel; Inks: Andy Owens
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
This is the long-awaited wrap-up to the “Bruce Wayne: Murderer/Fugitive” story arc that’s been running through various Batman-related titles since January. I haven’t been following the overall crossover too closely, just picking up a chapter here and there. I felt the concept was a good one, as Bruce Wayne is expertly framed for the murder of his girlfriend, Vesper Fairchild. This forces him to become a fugitive from justice, abandon his civilian identity completely, and become Batman full time. Much of this turns on the long-running theme of Batman feeling that his true identity is the masked crimefighter, and that the face he presents to the world while out of costume, as millionaire Bruce Wayne, is but a disguise. This story arc brought the fission of Batman and Wayne to a head.
Unfortunately, the execution of the crossover seemed rather flawed. Much of the story revolved around Batman acting irrationally, even by his history of shaky mental health. He all-too-quickly gives up on Bruce Wayne, regarding it as nothing more than an empty role that means nothing to him any more. Batman eventually refuses to even acknowledge when his allies call him “Bruce.” He leaves his comrades wondering if he might actually have done the crime, and does nothing to clear away those suspicions. Worst of all, he leaves his former confidant, Sasha Bordeaux, to languish in jail due to her being framed as an accessory to Vesper’s murder.
Whatever the case, “Fugitive” was as much a quest by Batman for his own identity, to extricate himself from the dark solitude he has embraced, as it was the search for the true killer’s identity. Although, oddly enough, Batman finally realized that he truly is Bruce Wayne last month, in issue #604, which was not an official part of the “Fugitive” crossover. Go figure.
Batman #605 sees the Dark Knight offering apologies to and making peace with the allies he previously alienated. Brubaker does a superb job writing this sequence. Batman has always had difficulty expressing his feeling and emotions to others. Brubaker maintains that, while still showing that Batman has a genuine desire to try and repair the friendships he shattered. It’s a delicate balancing act, between stoicism and emotion, and Brubaker does the job brilliantly.
The artwork by Scott McDaniel & Andy Owens compliments Brubaker’s writing perfectly for this scene. The anguish and regret that Batman feels is vividly etched into his features, reflected in his eyes. McDaniel’s layout and pacing enhance the already-dramatic nature of Brubaker’s writing, making for a riveting, emotional scene.
The business of reconciliation out of the way, Batman sets out to capture Vesper’s true murderer and exonerate Bruce Wayne’s name. I don’t want to give away the entire issue, so I’m not going to state who the actual killer is. It turns out it is someone Batman has encountered before. However, I’m not particularly familiar with this foe, having read the Bat-books sporadically over the past few years. So it took me several pages to remember just who this person was. It really would have been a good idea for Brubaker to provide more background information here.
As for the individual who orchestrated the entire scheme, when his identity was revealed, I said to myself “Ah ha! I knew it, I knew it!” Back last autumn, when this crossover was first announced, I immediately had a guess as to the identity of the mastermind behind the framing of Bruce Wayne for murder: Lex Luthor. And I was right.
I think this was a clever move on the part of DC. The entire scenario of Lex Luthor being elected President of the United States has been woefully underused until now. Aside from the “Our Worlds At War” crossover and the revival of Suicide Squad, the President Luthor subplot has been pretty much confined to the Superman titles. Which was a waste. The man who is secretly the biggest supervillain in the DC universe becomes President, and pretty much all that’s been done with it so far is to have Luthor sit in the Oval Office going “Nyah nyah nyah” to Superman every month or so.
But with the resolution of “Fugitive,” we see this change in DC’s status quo being utilized effectively. Batman is one of the few people who knows of Luthor’s true, villainous nature. And so as Bruce Wayne he has taken every opportunity to inconvenience Luthor politically, to hinder him in his role as President and erode his credibility. In response, back during the aforementioned “Our Worlds At War” storyline, Luthor offered a not-so-veiled threat towards Wayne and his company. And now we see that threat being carried out, with Luthor having used the covert, black ops resources of the government to frame his business rival for murder.
I’m looking forward to seeing where this leads. Yes, Batman was enemies with Luthor before. However, they seldom crossed paths, with Luthor usually reserving his ire for his arch nemesis Superman. Now Batman has a very good reason to become involved in Luthor’s affairs, to want to see him taken down. Hopefully this will be followed up in the near future.
Returning to the present, despite the fact that Batman #605 was a double-sized issue, the ending was still quite rushed, with an extremely abrupt resolution to the frame-up. It almost seems like an afterthought. Presumably there will be some sort of epilogue appearing in one or more books in the coming weeks. But as far as issue #605 itself is concerned, the ending is pretty much the equivalent of someone saying “Oh, yeah, by the way, Bruce Wayne is exonerated. The end.”
Nevertheless, for the most part Batman #605 offers up a very satisfying conclusion to what has been an uneven story arc. I’m interested in seeing where the Bat-titles proceed from here, especially as far as Brubaker’s writing is concerned. He has offered up some quality work recently, both here and in Catwoman. I understand Brubaker will be departing the Batman title shortly. But hopefully he will continue to be affiliated with the character.
Couscous Express, $12.95 US, published by AiT/PlanetLar
Writer: Brian Wood; Art: Brett Weldele
Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars
Sixteen year old Olive Yassin works part time delivering food for her parents’ award-winning Middle Eastern restaurant, Couscous Express. It is not a role Olive enjoys. She would much rather be off riding her scooter around the city, or hanging out with her boyfriend Moustafa. A gun-toting, rollerblading courier, Moustafa is often involved in carrying out dangerous transactions, ferrying merchandise between various shady parties. Working with Moustafa is Special, a woman who grew up on the streets of NYC and knows them like the back of her hand.
Most people, Moustafa and Special included, think Olive is pretty spoiled, in that she doesn’t appreciate everything her parents have done for her. She takes them for granted, and resents having to help them with the restaurant. Indeed, Olive does come across as a real brat. But she soon finds herself taken down several pegs when a Turkish organized crime group attempt to extort money from the Yassin family. In danger of losing her parents, Olive finally realizes just how important they are to her. With the help of Moustafa, Special, and their gang, Olive sets out to save her parents.
Writer Brian Wood is probably best known for his Channel Zero miniseries, which he also illustrated. Channel Zero dealt with government censorship and propaganda, a look at a day-after-tomorrow America where society had become a dystopian nightmare. While Channel Zero was well done, I nevertheless felt it really did not break any new ground, storywise. Yes, Wood’s experimental art style was distinctive and bold. But the plot felt like a retread of Orwellian archetypes. It wasn’t saying anything that we didn’t already know. Rather like the Babylon 5 episode “The Illusion of Truth,” which also examined manipulation through mass media. Once the initial shock of viewing it wore off, it really didn’t seem to be saying much.
Nevertheless, Channel Zero was probably one of the better books of the late 1990s, and it gathered something of a cult following. After Wood wrapped up the book, he was recruited by Warren Ellis to script Generation X. And, when that assignment came to an end, he went to work on Couscous Express.
Here, Wood passes the role of illustrator on to newcomer Brett Weldele. While I think Weldele’s work is interesting, I nevertheless would have preferred to see Wood draw the story himself. As I mentioned before, I think Wood is a better artist than writer. His artwork helped elevate his writing on Channel Zero to a higher level, and I think Couscous Express could also have used that.
The thing about Weldele’s art is that it is inconsistent. He does a superb job with the characterization and plot development scenes that encompass the first two thirds of the graphic novel. But during extended action sequence towards the end of the book, the art becomes jumbled, at times incomprehensible.
There’s one scene where Moustafa is being chased down what I thought was an alley, but it abruptly ends in a drop. Or maybe it’s a staircase. I couldn’t tell, as Weldele work loses its detail at this point, becoming very sketchy and simplistic. When Moustafa shoots up at his pursuers from the stairway, or slope, or whatever it is he’s on, it’s unclear as to what results. Oh, obviously the bad guys get killed, but how?
Weldele also heavily lays down zip-a-tone in the last third of the book. Zip-a-tone, when used judiciously, can effectively convey gradations, textures, and shadows. For most of the book, Weldele utilizes it to good effect. But by the end, nearly everything is drowned in zip-a-tone.
The art is at its best at the very beginning and end of Couscous Express, when Weldele works in greytones. It results in a distinct, stylish look. It’s a pity Weldele did not use the technique throughout the whole of the graphic novel.
Returning to the story, I was at a loss to figure out Wood’s objective. What was he setting out to accomplish? At times, Couscous Express seems like a thoughtful character study. At other occasions, though, it is much more in the vein of a gritty action film. And other times it drifts into the territory of farcical. This last element is problematic, because I was desperately trying to figure out if I was intended to take the material seriously, or not. At one point Olive is engaged in a bit of soul-searching, reexamining her actions and beliefs. Only a few pages later, she’s toting around an absurdly large sniper rifle (which she manages to fire with pinpoint accuracy, despite never having used a gun before) and casually lobbing grenades at the bad guys. The transitions between such sequences as these are abrupt. The result is a very inconsistent, almost patchwork, story.
I wanted to like Couscous Express. But the inconsistencies I cited, both in writing and artwork, conspire to make it merely okay. In the end, it’s decent, and quite good at certain times. But as a whole, it’s a somewhat flawed effort.
Oh yes, one other thing I need to mention about Couscous Express. Now, I usually make it a rule to tray and be objective in my reviews, to not let my personal feelings affect my analysis of a work. But at this point I’m chucking all that out the window. Because there was one scene in Brian Wood’s story that left me asking “What the fuck is this shit?!?”
At one point, Olive is at a bar, waiting to meet Moustafa. A guy comes up to her, a couple of pints of beer in hand, not realizing Olive has a boyfriend. The guy asks her “Hey, can I buy you a drink?” At which point Olive grabs one of the beers, drinks it, and then brusquely responds “Thanks. See ya.” The guy, looking like a car just hit him, wanders off. A minute later, another guy come up with a beer and says to Olive, “I can’t believe a pretty girl like you is sitting here all by herself.” Standard pick-up link, y’know? I’m sure I’ve used something along those lines a time or two. So, what does Olive say to the guy? With biting sarcasm, she answers “Well, thank god a big sexy hunk like you came along to save my from myself, huh? I was beginning to get worried no one would. A pretty girl like me could get into all sorts of trouble if left unattended for more than five fucking minutes, couldn’t she?”
Yes, that’s right. Olive could have just said to both of these guys something like “No thank you, I’m waiting for my boyfriend.” But she doesn’t. No no no. Instead, Olive takes a beer from one poor guy and then gives him a rude brush-off. And to the second she becomes a complete and total bitch, acting as if it is a crime against humanity for a guy to try to pick up a girl in a bar.
I’ve met all too many women like that at bars and clubs. I’ve offered to buy drinks for women, gotten them some overpriced concoction they requested, and then been ignored immediately after handing them their glass. I’ve met women who, rather than simply telling me they aren’t interested in talking, or that they are already seeing someone else, take a haughty pleasure in tearing me down right on the spot.
This scene in the graphic novel gets even worse when Moustafa finally shows up a few seconds later. He tells the second guy “Look, I’m really tired. You wanna just get the fuck out of here? I don’t have the energy to play these games.” Okay, Moustafa is ruder than he needs to be, true. But at least he’s not being completely obnoxious. Until he then tells the guy “Leave the beer.” Yes, that’s right, Moustafa orders the poor schlub to give up his beer. Apparently the courier thinks it’s a fair penalty to enact on the guy for hitting on Olive.
Leave… the… beer? Leave the beer?!? That is just fucking wrong! You do NOT order a guy to give you his beer because he innocently made a pass at your girlfriend! Especially not in New York City, where it’s likely to cost five dollars for a God-damned pint! Some poor guy has just been verbally dismembered by your girlfriend. His self-esteem is now in tatters, and you need to take away his last remnants of dignity by demanding he give you his beer? Oh, yeah, very impressive. Kick a guy while he’s down.
Honestly, what was the point of this scene? Was it supposed to be humorous? If it was, then it failed. It failed miserably. Because all it did was fill me with an overwhelming disgust for the two protagonists.
I’m probably letting my own personal issues affect how I’m perceiving this scene. But, honestly, I don’t care. The last thing a creator should ever do is to cause his audience to feel contempt for the work. In my case, at that point in the story, that’s exactly what happened. And no amount of reasoned analysis of the plot and dialogue is going to change that for me.
I can ignore that specific scene, and tell you that the rest of Couscous Express is a decent, rather entertaining, albeit uneven, work. But as far as that one portion of the book goes, I have nothing but contempt.
The Spectre #19, $2.50 US, published by DC Comics
Writer: John Ostrander; Pencils: Norm Breyfogle; Inks: Denis Janke; Cover: P. Craig Russell
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
I haven’t been following the current revival of The Spectre, simply because I’m not one for series that have significant cosmic or mystical backgrounds. That’s why I’ve never really gotten into such characters as Dr. Fate, Dr. Strange, Adam Warlock, and, yes, the Spectre. I like to read stories that have at least a partial basis in tangible reality. And, from what I’ve seen of this current revival of the Spectre, it is very much concerned with complex issues of the afterlife and events that take place on a mind-bogglingly cosmic scale. That, and to be perfectly honest, when J.M DeMatteis tackles spiritual issues, it is usually with the subtlety of a jackhammer. Not my cup of tea, thank you very much.
I ended up getting The Spectre #19 because of its tie-in with Jack Kirby’s New Gods characters. Which, I guess, might at first seem hypocritical. But it really isn’t. Kirby’s “Fourth World” always had one foot planted firmly in reality. That helped successfully ground the series in an easily comprehensible context, and made the depiction of events on a universal scope relevant to the reader.
Additionally, issue #19 was guest-written by John Ostrander, author of the previous Spectre series. Ostrander had used elements of the New Gods to good effect in his Martian Manhunter title. Yes, there were certain minutiae that contradicted or were out of place with Kirby’s original vision. But I don’t think it was worth quibbling over. The devil is in the details, y’know. I think Ostrander’s take on the Fourth World in Martian Manhunter was one of the best post-Kirby interpretations, right up there with Walter Simonson’s incredible two years on Orion.
As a matter of course, I should explain that the current incarnation of the Spectre is Hal Jordan. Hal is, of course, the former Green Lantern who (in a poorly executed story) went mad, killed many of his teammates, and shattered the GL Corps. I’m sure everyone remembers that one! Hal eventually died while stopping the Sun from being eaten by a space monster (yes, really). After that, Hal’s spirit ended up bonding with the non-human component of God’s Wrath, the Spectre, and embarking on a mission of redeem himself for his past sins. Sounds confusing, doesn’t it? Now you know why I try to avoid mystical titles such as this one!
Long-winded explanations aside, “The Equations of Light and Darkness” brings Hal Jordan to Apokolips. He is summoned by the despair and suffering of Anomalie, one of the countless poor wretches who serve under Darkseid. Anomalie’s sensitive soul is completely unsuited to the brutal existence of Apokolips. And yet she lacks all knowledge of freedom and liberty. When transported to the pure world of New Genesis by the Spectre, she does not know how to cope with it, having only known the totalitarian slavery of Apokolips her entire life.
Complicating things further is Darkseid himself. He is unwilling to let Anomalie escape. He knows that should even one of his subjects becomes free, it will create a ray of hope in the rest. No matter how a tiny chink this would be in his armor, it would still be a challenge to the mystique of absolute power and infallibility he has build up around himself. Darkseid is ready to go to war with New Genesis, sacrifice countless lives, in order to regain one individual, to ensure that his stranglehold on the denizens of Apokolips remains absolute.
As the story title “The Equations of Light and Darkness” implies, Ostrander also deals with the concepts of “good” and “evil.” Hal Jordan abhors Darkseid, and attempts to destroy him, to cleanse the universe of his malignant presence. But the Spectre finds himself unable to do that. Something is preventing him. Hal journeys into the Source (the universal incarnation of existence, God in a manner of speaking) to find out why. And he learns that the universe requires balance. As the old saying goes, light cannot exist without darkness.
I know certain readers were left wondering if this need for cosmic balance, and the Spectre’s inability to kill Darkseid, meant that Ostrander was claiming Darkseid could not be destroyed, ever. I don't necessarily think so. What it did seem to imply is that there must always be an embodiment of "evil" in the universe. If Darkseid ever was destroyed, he would be replaced by a successor. It would be likely that this successor would be the individual who killed Darkseid, and that seizing power on Apokolips would corrupt him. This plays well with what happened to Orion in his own series, when he apparently killed Darkseid and became ruler of Apokolips. He sought to bring justice and liberty to his new kingdom, but eventually became a tyrant like his predecessor.
At one point in the issue, the new god Metron refers to "the morally corrosive nature of Apokolips" and how it would affect the Spectre. That ties in with Kirby's statement in New Gods #7 that at its very creation Apokolips' essence "was saturated with the cunning and evil which was once a sorceress," and this forever determined the planet's nature.
It seems that the Source wouldn't allow the Spectre to kill Darkseid because it knew the Spectre would be corrupted afterwards, and it didn't want that to happen. But I expect that if anyone else did manage to kill Darkseid, the Source would not intervene and revive him.
Once again, Ostrander does a good job portraying the various New Gods. He writes Darkseid as a very chilling figure. The lord of Apokolips’ fascist, Orwellian philosophy was clearly stated. In the end, Darkseid does let Anomalie go, granting her the freedom she desires. He does so not out of kindness or pity, but because he fully expects that freedom will destroy her. “She is banished into chaos and fear and despair! Here [on Apokolips] there is order and meaning! Too late will she learn that that this paradise is now lost to her forever!”
The sequence on page 21, where Anomalie is sent to Earth, was very unsettling. It accurately addresses that being free can be a tremendous struggle, that having to the ability to think for yourself also means that you are responsible for your own actions, and must make decisions for yourself. And we are left hoping that Anomalie will succeed, that Darkseid is wrong. But Ostrander wisely leaves the question unresolved. So in that respect, despite the very clichéd earlier statements about the balance between good and evil, the story was novel in that it didn't have a clear answer about freedom. We don't know what eventually happens to Anomalie. It is very much up in the air.
A lot of credit for the issue’s impact is due to the art team of Norm Breyfogle & Dennis Janke. They do a superb job illustrating Ostrander’s story. Breyfogle, as always, has some incredible, striking layouts to his pencils. As for Janke, in the past I’ve felt his inks were sometimes too heavy. His work over Jon Bogdanove on Superman: Man of Steel was somewhat variable. And I recall one time when Janke’s inks completely overwhelmed Ron Lim’s pencilwork. But Janke’s inking seems very well suited to Breyfogle’s. And the somewhat heavy inks were appropriate for a story such as this one.
There were a number of outstanding sequences in the artwork. I mentioned his work on page 21, which caused any number of emotions to tumble about in me. And his earlier scene of the Spectre facing Darkseid is highly dramatic. I especially liked page 5, showing Darkseid’s arrival, and page 9, where Hal Jordan discovers he is unable to eliminate the ruler of Apokolips.
It’s been a while since Breyfogle has had an ongoing series to draw. Even though I don’t follow The Spectre, I’m glad to see Breyfogle working regularly again. And, who knows, maybe I’ll pick up other issues in the future for more of his art.
P. Craig Russell offers up a striking, unconventional cover, rather in the tradition of Will Eisner and Jim Steranko. But I’m still trying to figure out what exactly the scrunched up figure of the Spectre at the bottom of the art is supposed to be doing.
All in all, The Spectre #19 was a good issue. Aside from the all-too simplistic addressing of the relationship between good and evil, Ostrander wrote a compelling story. Not what Jack Kirby, or Walter Simonson, would have done with the New Gods, true. But I think there is some room for different takes and interpretations of the characters, as long as they don't stray too far from the source (no pun intended).