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Gary Frank

The Pull List: Avengers: No Surrender, Backways, Detective Comics, Maestros, Marvel 2-in-One, & more!

January 26, 2018 by krisis

The Pull List has grown a lot longer this week – 17 issues in all!

That’s due to catching up with another Marvel book (Thanos), several new indie #1s, and a few Image books I’ve read to the present in the past few weeks. Also, starting this week I’m running very short reviews of the X-Men books covered in This Week in X here, so that you can catch up on all the week’s new titles in one place!

Here’s what’s on my Pull List:

  • Abbott (2018) #1
  • Avengers (2017) #677
  • Backways (2017) #2
  • Detective Comics (1937/2016) #973
  • Dissonance (2018) #1
  • Doomsday Clock (2017) #3
  • Gasolina (2017) #5
  • Legion (2018) #1
  • Maestros (2017) #4
  • Marvel 2-in-One (2018) #2
  • Phoenix Resurrection (2018) #4
  • Raven: Daughter of Darkness (2018) #1
  • Thanos (2016) #15
  • Vinegar Teeth (2018) #1
  • Wonder Woman (2016) #39
  • X-Men: Blue (2017) #20
  • X-Men: Blue (2017) Annual 1

I hope these capsule reviews can help you decided what series you should add to your own pull list, or at least catch up with once they hit collected editions! And, remember, this feature is still new and evolving, so your comments and suggestions count a lot! [Read more…] about The Pull List: Avengers: No Surrender, Backways, Detective Comics, Maestros, Marvel 2-in-One, & more!

Filed Under: comic books, reviews Tagged With: Aftershock Comics, Anthony Fabela, Avengers, Backways, Chip Zdarsky, Cullen Bunn, Dark Horse Comics, David Curiel, David Wright, Detective Comics, Dissonance, Donny Cates, Doomsday Clock, Eleonora Carlini, Emanuela Lupacchino, Frank Martin, Gary Frank, Gasolina, Geoff Johns, Geoff Shaw, Glitch, Image Comics, James Robinson, James Tynion, Jason Merino, Jim Cheung, Justin Jordan, Legion, Maestros, Marvel 2-in-One, Marvel Comics, Matthew Rosenberg, Pepe Larraz, Peter Milligan, Phoenix Resurrection, Raven, Raven: Daughter of Darkness, Skybound Entertainment, Steve Skroce, Thanos, The Pull List, Top Cow, Venom, Vinegar Teeth, Wonder Woman, X-Men Blue

Review: Doomsday Clock #1 vs. Watchmen #1

November 24, 2017 by krisis

It is 2017, and every classic work of art or commerce is just another chance to launch a new franchise. Everything old is flogged again.

The Handmaid’s Tale is now an Emmy-winning television show that has extended its universe both before and after the story in the classic novel. The long-running Archie comics have been turned into a nonsensical thirst-trap of a TV show about sex and murder where it is every season of the year on every day to allow for a full range of fashionable costuming.

Classic franchises are groaning under the weight of being re-franchised. It’s franchising squared. Disney is determined to pump out Star Wars movies almost as frequently as they used to release Star Wars novels back in the day and Warner Brothers has rushed a Justice League into the theatres before we’ve had a chance to care about most of the individual heroes who would form it.

There’s even news that Amazon is planning to make an ongoing series out of Lord of the Rings, ignoring the extended fart sound that was made by the bloated Hobbit trilogy and the fact that they could simply serialize the original film series across two entire seasons if it was carved into TV sized chunks.

I’m trembling in anticipation for the “long awaited” adaptations of some of my favorite TV commercials and magazine ads.

(That is only halfway a joke.)

And here we are, revisiting Watchmen, one of the comic medium’s true masterpieces, because we cannot leave well enough alone.

Yes, we already had a Watchmen movie and a Before Watchmen, but they were each one-time events. This is more than an event. It’s also a mash-up with DC’s ongoing universe that we never asked for but cannot help but watch like rubberneckers delighting in a gruesome accident. (Which says nothing for the ethical concerns, addressed at length at ComicsBulletin.)

If anything can be forgiven of being a retread of past ground, shouldn’t Watchmen? After all, it was Alan Moore’s original idea to take a dead comics universe and put its characters through a meat grinder of a final story. He might have wound up using his own original characters in the end, but he’s just as culpable of re-franchising as any of these modern examples. Moore’s career is full of these examples – MiracleMan, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and even Peter Pan. He loves digging up comics corpses to reanimate as much as films studios do!

And therein lies the truth of the matter. Moore always got a pass because his work was derivative but delightful. All of these franchise sins can be forgiven if the new extension of the franchise is good. The Handmaid’s Tale won that Emmy, after all, and everyone loves an Archie with abs.

Why not revive the Watchmen? Everybody’s doing it and they’ve been doing it forever – since long before Moore did it back in 1986.

Doomsday Clock #1  & Watchmen #1 4.5 stars

Doomsday Clock #1 written by Geoff Johns, drawn by Gary Frank, and colored by Brad Andersen. Watchmen #1 written by Alan Moore, drawn by Dave Gibbons, and colored by John Higgins.

Doomsday Clock is not meant to be a slavish, panel-by-panel homage to Watchmen, but the parallels are clear.

Both issues open with similar narration. Both are largely contained in a 3×3 nine-panel grid structure, and this first issue of Doomsday Clock employs a similar rhythm of breaking the grid to Watchmen #1. Both issues end with a sudden scene change punctuated by a historic quote that is followed by illuminating back matter.

There is an additional storytelling parallel that Doomsday Clock #1 ought to have picked up from Watchmen #1. Watchmen included several scene transitions throughout the issue, though each one turned out to be an extension of Rorschach’s journey through the narrative.

The first scene change in Watchmen is the most significant. On page nine, we cut from Rorschach looking at the Comedian’s photo of the old Watchmen to that same photo hanging above Hollis Mason as he enjoys a beer with Dan Dreiberg. Their conversation reveals they are the two Nite Owls, old and new.

The scene could have existed elsewhere, but the transition immediately lends it additional context: some of the Watchmen are still alive, and some of their mantles were handed down to others.

A page later, we realize this story is still the story of Rorschach, who shows up unexpectedly in Dreiberg’s house as he returns. The implication is that Rorschach, too, was a Watchman – which also tells us that the membership has changed over time, pre-explaining the upcoming scenes with Ozymandias, Dr. Manhattan, and Silk Spectre.

For all his withering critique of society in his journal, Rorschach was once involved in protecting it. We immediately realize that, in a way, his pessimism is him bemoaning his own failures. [Read more…] about Review: Doomsday Clock #1 vs. Watchmen #1

Filed Under: comic books, reviews Tagged With: Alan Moore, Brad Anderson, Dave Gibbons, Doomsday Clock, Gary Frank, Geoff Johns, John Higgins, New 52, Rebirth, Superman, Watchmen

Comic Book Review: DC Universe Rebirth Special

January 2, 2017 by krisis

Have you ever attempted to make a new first impression on someone? Did it actually change their opinion about you?

I think it’s a near-impossible feat. First impressions are the ones that last. After that, each successive impression provides an increasingly diminished return until you’re barely changing someone’s opinion about you at all with each meeting – just reinforcing it.

How could you make a brand new first impression? It’s not enough to simply say, “Hey, look, I’m different now!” Even if your target believed you, they would still weigh your new behavior against the old you.

No, to make a new first impression you need an explosive bombast of both context and contradiction – a shy friend who slays a karaoke, or a messy coworker with an impeccable neat home. You need to convince them that their first impression was demonstrably wrong – or, at least, so incomplete or controverted as to be useless.

Every piece of fiction has the dilemma of making a first impression by introducing you to a universe you’ve never entered before.  It’s hard enough to make a good impression introducing yourself let alone an entire universe! Even if they’re successful with that first impression, sequential storytelling mediums sometimes have to re-impress you, as with the season premiere of a TV show.

Few other mediums do what comic books so often do – willingly relaunch dozens of books at the same time with new directions as a means of screaming, “LOOK! We’re really, really different now! All-new, all-different, actually.”

And, of those that have, hardly any have ever put all the onus of an entire multi-title universe on a single episode the way DC Comics did on DC Universe Rebirth last July. Read my critical take on the issue below, and then head to the DC Rebirth Guide to follow your favorite characters from here.

DC Universe Rebirth #1   Amazon Logo  

Written by Geoff Johns with line art by Gary Frank, Ethan Van Sciver, Ivan Reis with Joe Prado, and Phil Jimenez with Matt Santorelli and color art from Brad Anderson, Jason Wright, Gabriel A. Eltaeb, and Hi-Fi Colour Design

DC Universe Rebirth is exciting and inscrutable – a tantalizing glimpse of change for continuity nerds and a tangled skein of contradictory continuity for new readers.  It’s a love note dense with heartfelt apology to longtime fans that weathered all of New 52 and a Rosetta Stone for DC’s new continuity.

It is not necessarily the first comic you ought to read if you’re new to DC Comics or coming back from a lengthy lapse … unless you happen to be a major Flash fan.

The issue uses the device of Wally West trying to return to the present day from within the Speed Force, where has has been trapped since the Flashpoint event that lead to New 52. He follows several hunches on who can pull him out of the aether of time and back into reality. It’s not just about survival. West has critical information that might help to amend a timeline that has grown dark and cynical (and lost a decade of memories along the way).

Like the Ghost of The Fastest Christmas Ever, he first visits Batman (he’s the best detective!), an old guy named Johnny (he has the best chance to remember things!), and his former partner Linda (love will bind them together!), each without much success. Finally, he says hello from the other side to current flash Barry Allen (super-bros FTW!). [Read more…] about Comic Book Review: DC Universe Rebirth Special

Filed Under: comic books, reviews Tagged With: Batman, Brad Anderson, DC Comics, DC Rebirth, Ethan Van Sciver, Flash, Gabriel A. Eltaeb, Gary Frank, Hi-Fi Colour Design, Ivan Reis, Jason Wright, Joe Prado, Matt Santorelli, Phil Jimenez, The Atom, Wally West

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