Keep reading down to the bottom of the comments thread for Tom Scioli’s exhaustive run-down of Lucas and Kirby influences, if you’re into pop culture conspiracy theories.

The latest one is pretty big. Five guest stars, and almost seven minutes of on-point flows from a bottomless pit of guest stars.

Thematically, the song hits one of the most annoying notes in hip hop: self loathing over one’s own extravagance. It’s the kind of quality Lil Wayne reaches for when he wants to get poignant, in the form of: rappers repeating “fucking ridiculous” disapprovingly after cataloging their expensive nights. The beat is appropriately downtempo and tragic to almost lure you into their tragedy. The accompanying picture even manages to make a gorgeous supermodel look trashy and unappealing:

Thankfully, the flows in the song more than shore up any weaknesses it might have. From Jay-Z’s one line diatribe against critics (“Would you rather be underpaid or overrated?”) he recalls battle rap days of yore. More than that, every MC sounds hungry, like it’s a heated freestyle night when five people are competing for their voices to be heard. It’s the kind of lively, extended jam that rap doesn’t get enough of since Kanye West’s remix of Talib Kweli’s Get By. Its the kind of hungry flows that makes you think they’re more appalled by the decadence in their rap verse instead of their hotel room. And this is their penance.

This is an album that feels out of place, or at the very least, like it’s traveling. The beats bang with a composed wonk, the bass rattles in the mid to low end range that keeps hip hop heads bumping, and then an alto voice takes over the mic and passionately sings love songs.

If the aesthetic of the album seems mutually exclusive, it only gets worse when trying to describe its tone. With lush synthesizers, Will is eager to take glitch turns throughout the album. This, combined with the persistently skittering percussion and spacey vocal harmonies, sustains the album’s two most persistent tones of elation and somber, ones that it often achieves simultaneously.

Then there’s the other kind of odd part about the album. For all intents and purposes, besides the voice, it sounds mostly like the scene from which it came: contemporary LA downtempo, similar to the music that flying Lotus would make when he isn’t throwing laser squiggles over syncopated breakbeats. While other production voices are emerging from that mix, Baths remains the most distinct outsider to the scene, reveling in its rhythms but trumpeting the human voice as its most powerful instrument over the drum machine.

So yes, it is an album of melodramatic love songs, but, more often than not, it approaches love in an abstract, oblique way. Will remaining expressive with language whether lyricizing his thoughts, or sampling them from others. Just look at Maximalist, and its few choice words tossed into the mix’s negative space: “It really takes some work to radiate your essence” mirrors the commitment and travail that Will associates with love in the songs “You’re My Excuse to Travel” and “<3”. The same childish sentiment of waiting to see an ocean in “Seaside Town” (a sample from Kiki’s Delivery Service) is amplified by the simple major chords and field recordings.

More than anything, this is an album that uses language, not as the star of the album, (If you’re looking for the star qualities of the album, it’s the wonky beats and the warm chillwave production punctuated by glitches), but as more of a directing voice. The child comments during “Seaside Town” about finding natural beauty direct the song towards a much more and less anxious instrumental. The human voice comments on the music, instead of directs it, as a singer would. This relationship to the sound kind of speaks to how the music began as well. Simply put, Will was inspired by the sounds of contemporary LA after playing a show opening for Flying Lotus, and this album results from “[needing] to be able to move that many people completely on my own”, as he stated for XL8R.

While on record, Baths may seem more like a producer of dance music, seeing him live is a different matter entirely. Armed with only an ableton controller and a mic, he spends just as much time singing as he does effecting and cuing loops. More than anything, live, he comes across as a singer/DJ instead of a singer/songwriter, using the DJ effects to ground his songs of mood, but more often stealing the show by grabbing the mic, and singing with an expressivity closer to a diva than anything else.

And speaking of the expressiveness of vocals in a scene very content to keep their music mute and moody, this album has a low fidelity very different from its contemporaries. Whereas Perfume Genius might latch a listener into the performance by keeping the sounds of his feet tapping a piano’s keys into the mix, this album does not feature the clicks of Will’s drum machine or Ableton controller. No, it’s the reverberations of the bass and piano across the room that you’ll hear on this album, cramped reverb and echo illustrating the music as coming from an old speaker rattling from overuse. This is music attempting to give an impression of already having been played, of already being a memory from forgotten speakers when you still don’t know how the bridge is going to come in.

This relates quite similarly to the omnipresent tape and vinyl hiss and textures throughout Flying Lotus’ work. Whereas that artist would often compose electronic freak-outs that fooled the listener into thinking they were samples, this album tries to come across as an old favorite, which makes all its quirks, the “baby love your, aww shit” adlib at the beginning of “Lovely Bloodflow”, even a more charming treat for the second listen.

More than a memory, and more than a dance album, though, this is a love album. Besides the lyrics always longing for someone, even its music is made with such clear affection and hard work at trying to reconcile with another style. Will’s music as [post-foetus] more matches everything except the electronic beats underneath of Baths. There’s very stylistic electronic processing of organic instruments, dusty and spacey synths, and even vocal samples tossed into a moody, atmospheric mix.

With such a clear style developed that was just integrated with another style that Will chanced upon, the act of blending two disparate styles together starts to have its own thematic thrust, as quite clearly, the effect of the LA beat scene on the artist is rendered in such dramatic, clear fashion. So, the question then becomes, is this a crossover album for the LA beat scene and lo-fi indy folk? Nah. It’s still very idiosyncratic and complex. More than a public crossover of styles, it’s a private love letter, complex, composed, and affectionate.

Batman #700

(Kinda big spoilers for Mozzle’s Batman issues and Superman/Batman Annual 4, if you care about that kind of thing)

The issue itself is just such a tiny nudge, but suddenly an entire mythology sprang up behind Batman. Morrison has been talking about the run as a reinvention, or at the very least a strong streamlining, of the character. And it’s clear form these interviews, how he brings up a random Bill Finger story from 1953 or a Bob Haney and Jim Aparo comic from the late 60s, that he has a very, very deep knowledge of Batman’s history.

And with this comic, he’s slashing in the kind of details that are building as incredibly detailed a history as that. This comic has a second Two Face super-villain and another gang just spring up in Gotham, as well as a leap into a Terminator styled robotic apocalypse (that would probably get tedious if expanded to an entire comic, but as a page in this? A frickin brilliant and concise elaboration of the Batman image.

And without a doubt, this is a comic as much about Batman’s image as his past. With plenty of panels just flashing to Batman’s chest image at the end of a moment, and with the repetition of other Batman who have worn the suit (Jean Paul Valley remaining a conspicuous absence, besides the clever reappropriation of Knightfall’s typeface during RIP), Morrison is here characterizing not just Bruce Wayne Batman or Dick Grayson Batman or Damian Wayne Batman, but Batman as a whole, enduring image of a freedom fighter. There are differences in method and motivation, sure (Damian is rebelliously proving himself as a do-gooder, Bruce is compelled to save the day, Dick just wants to keep the streets safe at night, McGuinnes is pretty much a crime fighting schoolboy, and the apocalyptic Batman just likes blowing things up and cracking jokes)

Look at that mischievous smile on Robin. He’s ready to kill.

All of this sudden vision of Batman calls to question the cause behind these changes, and it’s kinda obvious with the most recent change in the mythology: Batman was replaced by Dick Grayson and Damian, the natural heir, sprang up to complicate matters.

Basically, reproduction, and all the anxieties of living up to an ideal, is either the culprit or the catalyst of this mythologizing. Batman moved from being a fixed, concrete person in this series, to being a recurring symbol throughout time, able to be taken up by various people. In the paraphrased words of Alfred from Batman and Robin #1, “think of Batman not as Bruce Wayne, but a character like Hamlet. There’s Lawrence Olivier’s Hamlet, and then there’s Sir Henry Irving’s Hamlet”.

Looking at the Return of Bruce Wayne mini-series, where he’s becoming a huge amount of different people in different time periods, and we’re starting to have a nice saga deconstructing identity as a performed role instead of a fixed trait, essentialism conflicting with constructivism on a grand scale, that may or may not be undone by this issue’s maybe machine.

It’s my personal hope that it’ll become a metaphor for continuity retcons like Superboy’s wall punch of continuity, one that will be entirely possible for Dick Grayson to use at every point in the comic, but that he’ll eventually reject for a more naturalistic way of successfully hybridizing the past into a coherent present. That’s still as nagging a question as to how much of a role Darkseid will have actually played in turning Bruce Wayne into a worldslayer at the end of The Return of Bruce Wayne #2. For that, it’s my personal hope that Bruce had overperformed his role as Batman, his devotion to the act of crime fighting instead of crime solving turning him into crime’s greatest proponent, but themes always have a way of working themselves out against expectations.

It also doesn’t hurt that these are some of the best written issues Morrison has turned in during his run. Besides the amazing three issues that began Batman and Robin that set up the new status quo marvelously (and later issues which coasted on the earlier dynamic), there have always been narrative clarity problems and a surprising lack of purpose to all the issues.

Which isn’t to that a lack of purpose is bad to a comic, but Morrison, his comics work best with a structure to invert or investigate, instead of being a fairly self contained comic, We3 being pretty much the only exception to that plan. Even Seaguy, that train of seeming non sequiturs, presented itself as part of a larger, repeating cycle of superherodom and with that simple repeat latched itself onto teh superhero archetype instead of just being an unrelated exercise in storytelling.

And now, besides having a clear motivation to all the run (which I’m guessing Batman: RIP had, but would be hard pressed to say exactly what that purpose was), there are all these really marvelous details popping up: the Mad Hatter thirsting for the brim size of Alexander the Great, the police of silver age Batman calling a bust of a lot of criminals popcrime, compared to normal crime not involving costumes:

Batman and Robin having a nice evening meal together:

Or positing a future where people’s moods are controlled by drugs, with a news caster remarking on how astounding it is that people get by on less than seven moods a day:

He even sets up some possibly unintentional intrigue with the question of who exactly is instructing Terry McGuinnes, with a much different looking instructor than the Bruce Wayne from that series (no wrinkles and sickliness to Morrison’s Beyond instructor), and especially with the fortuitous reintroduction of Batman Beyond in Superman/Batman Annual #4 (a fairly interesting setup that has Luthor slowly adding kryptonite to Metropolis’ drugs to weaken Superman’s hold over the city! And it also has some of the lamest dialogue in Superman’s very lame career, as well as giving Superman a petty epiphany at the end, which is just terrible), this is shaping up to be a pretty monumental moment and integration for the Bat franchise, a monumental crossover happening right under our noses, and without a MAJOR EVENT label slapping all the events together (there isn’t even a mention of this being related to the return of Bruce Wayne on the cover!).

Even the unrelated Batman comics are good these days. Hine’s Arkham issues of Detective Comics ad a really intriguing premise (a now psychotic Jeremiah Arkham as an inmate able to control each villain with his deep understanding of their neuroses) that cut itself too short, but still sows the seeds for a storyline later.

There’s even a preview for a Neal Adams Batman comic in the back of this frickin book. Talk about Morrison repositioning Bruce Wayne as the hairy chested Neal Adams love god, he gets to have the actual influence come back in this comic, too, besides his yesterday, today, and tomorrow glimpses! It’s almost fittingly incomplete, a black and white version focusing on Adam’s pencils than any actual plot, and even has a completely different Batman using guns and chased down by Superman by the story’s end, mirroring the complete inversion of crazy Bruce Wayne coming to destroy the twenty first century, the influences (Bruce Wayne and Neal Adams) discomfited and out of place when forced into a modern context. At least, that must have been what DC was thinking by including this preview in the comic.

These Batman comics really have the potential to be monolithic right now. Now if only we could get Morrison to write that Batman Beyond mini-series instead of Adam Beechen!

There’s even open talk of the gay subtext inherent in lots of werewolf comics, with the werewolf chided for his monthly “secret plans” as being an actual gay lover. He, of course, remarks that he wishes that were the case, and that little line quickly casts the entirety of the reading of homoeroticism into werewolf stories as wish fulfillment, a scathing, but intriguing, critique.

And The Unknown Soldier is pretty hot, too. Dealing pretty much exclusively with the theme of the stresses of performance on identity as Morrison’s Batman hints at, it gives a lot more credit to the stress. It’s almost always a communal tragedy that impels the split personality of the unknown soldier to become the mass murderer he can, making the identity switch much more urgent than the carefully studied but distant Morrison Batman comics (big post about Batman 700 up tomorrow when I can get to a scanner, by the way note: actually expect it monday morning because the library isn’t open on Sundays) studying more the consequences instead of the causes of the inevitable superhero duality, basically. I’ve only read the last two issues, so I don’t know if they all take place in African savannahs. Its minor fault is having the two issues feel a little repetitive in function and setting when it lacks a developing instead of repeating overarching plot, but hey, that’s me going by two issues.

Interestingly, the issues almost feel like M.I.A.’s writing this comic (“I don’t participate in terrorism, I fight people who fight me”, the chanteuse has said), with its incredibly sensitive portrayal of two warring communities in Africa (so, in consideration of its sensitive contexts, it just be that M.I.A. would shake her head enthusiastically while reading this comic instead of actually write it, but let’s not turn this into a hater rag of an artist I actually like).

And we’re back to Vertigo being awesome: Hellblazer has Milligan writing a Shade and Hellblazzer crossover right now, which is absolutely exciting, although not too much has happened after the first issue, so I really can’t comment on where it’s going. It’s a surprisingly good time to be a DC fan. And this all happened after an earlier two part that portrayed Sid Vicious acolytes of blind devotion, the very insult they levy against their enemies. Conspiratorial ghosts even possess his ghost to dupe “punks” into working for the man by simply letting them fulfill their violent tendencies. Punk as the expenditure of teenage energy instead of social change.

This comic sounds like it was written by Against Me, especially their latest album’s song “I was a Teenage Anarchist”, whose second line is “but the politics were too convenient” (An otherwise boring stadium rock album, in case you’re wondering). And Simon Bisley painted that comic, too, a rare appearance from that artist.

Lots of good stuff. Daytripper’s still bombass, too, in case you’re wondering.

There’s some label trouble with Big Boi’s new album, Sir Luscious Left Foot Saves The Day: Big Boi said in an interview that it was just him wanting to get all of the elements of the project in line, and, judging by the incredible range of guest stars on the album released so far, his story checks out. Just the slow and steady cultivation of a pop behemoth, an artist seen in the public eye, which is the most interesting thing about the album’s release. Compare this to the more recent example of Kanye West’s 808s and Heartbreaks being slowly leaked, just exploding from listening parties to leaked copies the days after, and it’s clear how albums are made these days: In the public eye.

With a completely transparent process, the entire process becomes part of the enjoyment: and compared to Kanye West just beginning to share too much of himself and his music on TV, Big Boi has taken the lesson of multiple leaks, in between mixing and mastering, and given a remarkably conservative album: his neo-classic confidence compared to Kanye West’s genre smashing catharsis. With a range of leaks (that may or may not make it onto the album) either sampling literally from the past (“Royal Flush” and “Shine Blockas“) or made with synthesizers and vocoders from the past (“Fo Yo Sorrows” and “Shutterbug“), the album stakes up an aesthetic of playful manipulation moreso than any other hip hop album lately: it’s no accident that it’s also one of the funnest around.

Compared to Kanye West’s sorrow or Lil Wayne’s intoxication, Big Boi’s slickness comes across as a confidence that prevents him from making mistakes. Instead of reaching out, he firmly steps into a cool of the past, and just makes elation seem effortless. Take the soul from Shine Blockas, the

His relationship to auto-tune is also pretty interesting. Instead of vividly rejecting it (like Jay-Z’s Death of Auto-tune), he rejects also the easy but shimmering computerized auto-tune of Lil Wayne and modern hip pop, and actually uses a talkbox like Peter Frampton, or slides in a chopped and screwed line in repeat. Whenever someone in love with Lil Wayne responds to your criticism of his work as relying on cheap effects with the usual “you just don’t like auto-tune because it’s different”, you can point to Big Boi’s latest albums as embracing that roboticism, but at the very least using different kinds of effects on each song.

And on the one song not involving a distinct and memorable manipulation of a human voice, George Clinton comes in on the track, singing about blowing second hand smoke aggressively to people who don’t want him to, so every song has someone trying desperately hard to being human but failing.

It’s all pretty interesting stuff: some hip hop that sums up the current state of hip hop and is completely cool with the new toys it suddenly has access to by becoming mainstreaming. “Selling out” and losing the critically conscious Andre 3000 has only made Big Boi’s productions become the technological theatrics they’ve always been striving for as he embraces funk and soul and R&B instead of new intellectual ideas with each new song.

Turns out Outkast just needed some time apart.

Detective Comics #859

There’s a lot to like in this issue, most of which (I think) is the fault of Williams III. Most of these are small details: the simple motif of the ring in the first part of the flashback. It begins the issue as the pride of the navy, every fellow sailor exclaiming its beauty in jubilant glee (no one ever said this comic was subtle), in short: Kate as the favored. To compliment the favor, Williams III has the army dress when half naked moment, eroticizing the encounter for Kate (which, as we’ve already seen, has been a source of tension before in this book).

And then, after Kate comes out to her commanding officer (a pitiable situation rendered by surprising tense and subtle dialogue from Rucka), she sets her ring back on the counter: the favor of the navy denied by her true love! (remember: never say this comic is subtle)

This may be a heavy handed usage of a symbol, but it only gains that symbolic power its representation on the page, switching from a very detailed and chunky ink line to the very, very simply portrayed visual world around it.

And then, when the ring is set down, it fades into watercolors and incomplete ink smudging for a background, the entire colors fading into gray and memory.

That scene also has another nice trick of Williams, the lighting in the scene coming from the window, drenching the interrogator in darkness and Kate in light, Kate facing a spotlight when she must make the decision, all light turning onto her. It’s the little things.

But it’s also the big things: this issue has a pretty exciting little bit definitely from Rucka, too: Instead of the boring and clichéd daughter pleasing daddy we have in this issue, we have her coming out experience. And then, right after she proclaims her gayness, we flash back to the present, of Renee fighting monsters dressed up as Batwoman. This quick juxtaposition, right after “I have never wanted to serve more than ever in my life”, shows Rucka not just having a tough as nails lesbian (which, yes, his fetish is showing), but it has a little queer theory in there as well: the superhero as the gay recourse to serve the populace! Superheroes, we always knew you were a little queer, but this just confirms it.

And, similarly big and Ruckian, we have a quirky montage. We have the narrated quote: “I Wanted to Serve… That was ALL I wanted”, and the images, well: marriage, sex, sex, alcohol, sleeping when others are studying, sex, and speed.

Lots of serving going on.

And then we have Rucka quoting All Star Batman and Robin, pretty much, Kate shouting out “I’m a Goddamn”, interrupting by Batman, suddenly appearing to complete the quote.

All that needs to be (un)said.

Dude was right. And so I’m back. I’d like to say it’s for good, but lord knows I can’t keep a blogger’s promise to save my wordpress account password, so, let’s just see where it goes. At the very least, I’m back into reading comics regularly. Could writing about them be far behind?

Batman and Robin #6

Not if they’re all like this one. Reading this in 6 issue chunks is just depressing. It started off so well:

The sound effects becoming part of the page, the cluttered design with the car just popping off the page towards the reader. Even the incompetent goons from the first issue had charm, the tuxedoed Johnny Storm, the Siamese acrobats, all had a great design and just appeared on the page without back story or motive: just menace. And it worked so well. Even the start of Philip Tan’s tenure was interesting, Jason Todd worrying about the right tone to strike for the press release, Dick Grayson going over the Batman routine (The “Art of Waiting”m he called it) with an impatient Robin, and last issue had a couple memorable lines (“This is what happens when the crime fits the punishment”, Dick comments on Flamingo eating people’s faces after the Red Hood has established death as the sole penitence of transgression) as well as some good set-up of the story to come (The Red Hood’s reckless killing as limiting Batman’s info, the cops’ main connect to Mexico killed in the slaughter).

I’m not even sure how we got from #5 to here. If the class will take out their copies of both issues, Batman and Robin lay defeated and unconscious, the Red Hood and Scarlet saying they’d take them to their hideout. But, interrupting that, The Flamingo appeared on his bike (“Death come to Gotham”). At the start of #6, however, Batman and Robin are tied up in ropes and an elaborate killing mechanism (a million calls will turn on a web cam, unmasking the duo to the world), but the Red Hood and Scarlet remain fixed in the exact same alley they were at the end of last issue, the Flamingo finally initiating his fight with the two. However the two had the time to put Batman and Robin in bondage is beyond me.

But now, we have The Flamingo, described in #4 as an “eater of faces”, a villain played for menace and visual design only, and, okay, Frank Quitely can handle a purely visual villain so well, referencing Purple Rain (Jog’s finding, not mine) while giving a decadent grin to running over a superhero:

But Philip Tan just can’t handle him. From turning his sly, too pleased grin into an outrageously large smile to beefing up his shoulders and thighs so he doesn’t look the slightest bit effeminate or slight as a superhero, he’s just a silent Lobo with a costume change, all buff and not an actual new type of threat. In a move that should surprise none, his body type matches Batman and the Red Hood. Tan doesn’t do different body types. Not in the contract.

It doesn’t help that Morrison isn’t trying, either. He arrives on the scene at the end of last issue, the “coming of death” as the last issue put it, and for the entirety of the issue he remains silent until he’s easily subdued by fists and a teenager’s biting teeth. Robin’s exclamation at the moment of victory, “I expected scary, not gay”, could stand in for a reader’s, the deliberate and stereotypical effeminacy of the Flamingo an insult to injury. Morrison has written a transgendered hero with such depth, but Death in pink clothes is nothing more than a bad punchline, played for nothing more than trivial laughs and pages of Philip Tan’s drudgery.

And, to further frustrate, the issue doesn’t even have a consistently bad art style! It starts off bland enough, thick pools of shadows and intense faces:

But, later, it looks like Jonathan Clapion (inker) got a little rushed and just sent some pages direct to Alex Sinclair (colorist, who does the best job of any at keeping the comic interesting, filling some pages with unpencilled smog, and filling backgrounds with intense textures). The effect is an almost impressionistic stab at watercolor through digital means, with an enjoyable looseness, the visuals of the page more freely expressive. Pay special attention to the leather chair and Alfred in the bottom right corner:

If only the entire comic could have been done in such a rush!

And Jason Todd’s return has been notable only for its blandness. He came back as the Red Hood a couple of years ago under Judd Winick’s control, and he was able to make his return much more dramatic, the tension between Batman and his largest mistake at least attempted to be compelling. But Morrison, full with another dynamic to exploit (Jason Todd against Dick Grayson, the failed Robin against the successful, the rebellious against the loyal!), but the only time Morrison begins to develop this dynamic, we get an insane Jason Todd emoting from the soapbox about how much better he is than Batman because he “beat his archenemy” (he didn’t, his sidekick did) and accusing Dick Grayson of killing Batman, two moments completely out of the blue played for shock value from a Lazarus-pit-deranged villain.

This issue has no denouement, no resolution outside of one side smashing the other side up so good they can’t fight back anymore, besides the tantalizingly good one page dealing with Scarlet, The Red Hood’s sidekick. But even then, as a character not given any voice before, who’s had to construct her own confidence as the page’s bear out, a foil to Dick Grayson as Batman from before, the resolution of all her hard work is the ability to take off her Dollotron face, and become someone else. All of this told in one or two page segments over the issues, culminating in her finally being able to take down The Flamingo whereas before she’d only played obedient sidekick to The Red Hood, a great moment of character development spread out over the three issues. Then Morrison shoves her off the page with a deus ex machina resolution to her problem, riding into the sunset to intrigue us readers no more. I’d like to see more of her, later, but with Bats coming back, she’ll probably pull a Seven Soldiers and disappear into the aether.

And, next issue, there’s even more status quo change with Batman coming back, all this upsetting the six issues we’ve had so far of the new Batman and Robin, cutting short any development this pair could have. The first three issues were Morrison at his best, recreating Gotham, Batman, and Robin with one fell swoop of psychedelic noir goodness, but these last three issues have been violence for no reason stopped by resolutions without reason. Maybe Stewart can pull some clarity from Morrison.

And have you guys heard about his new Vertigo mini-series? Joe the Barbarian? That thing does not look good, as a children’s story (the toys come alive!) turned into a vertigo mess, described without irony as Home Alone by way of Lord of the Rings. At least Sean Murphy, the artist, is a little interesting, able to texturize a bland manga style into something remotely resembling visual inventiveness. Eh, we’ll see. This is one of the bland Morrison moments barely worth experiencing.

It’s already been four issues, hasn’t it? It seems like just yesterday this title was bursting with promise, and now it’s trying to actualize it. It could use a check-in.

(More reviews below the jump)

The title above pretty much refers to just this comic, which has proceeded pretty much by the numbers since its first issue, which is very bad for a couple reasons. Most of the stories in the comic retain their charming form but chilling mediocrity, with Batman being the sterling strip that continues to actually move forward while still being underwhelming. Sgt. Rock and Easy Co. has progressed exactly one plot notch since the first issue, and retains its nine grid panel that looks like a blown up comic page.

Superman has progressed into becoming absolutely terrible, this issue’s main crux being Supes remembering that he felt off at one point in Metropolis. With all this foreshadowing of a coming human-krypton slugfest, or whatever, I have to wonder when we’ll see the light. And, no, packing an unseen but opened crate as a cliffhanger does not count as advancing the story. When we see what’s in there, maybe, but for right now this entire page was just exposition and a bad cliffhanger. Just terrible.

Similarly, Metal Men, while still having the saving grace of Garcia Lopez inked by Kevin Nowlan, is pearls decorating a swine. It keeps its clever sense of negative space blocking out panels (admittedly a trick I may like too much), and facial expressions are brilliant as ever. But after four strips of nothing (will we ever find out why stopping the bank robbery was a bad idea!?!), the cliffhanger is a suicide bomber against an indestructible metal team. Yawn.

Demon and Catwoman was a fine stretch that finally included the Demon.

I’ve given up on Teen Titans and Wonder Woman. For the latter, if I needed a magnifying glass to enjoy, the comic should come with one! For the former, if the comic needed massive amounts of pot, it should come with it!

The good ones (except for one) have remained good, though: Strange Adventures and Flash Comics are still top of the cream, Kamandi’s still struggling to have a little more movement and a little less prose, but all of these need little words. Deadman has actually gotten better, shifting from a Cooke crime scene to Ditko abstract spaces to Kirby’s inferno from the Demon. And it economically managed to progress the plot (into a bigger fight scene, but still), something that most of these strips seem reluctant to do. I could’ve done with a little more in Green Lantern than half a memory, but thankfully Metamorpho snapped out of its two issue daze of having only a single panel as its image. Supergirl’s still cute, fun, and light, probably the standard for for all of the strips here. The main strip deserving mention, though, is Baker’s Hawkman.

As these things normally go, I happened upon a horrible truth (scroll down) at Comic Book Resources*. Mark Chiarello mentioned in a seeming compliment that Baker turned in all fifteen of his Hawkman pages in two weeks, whereas most artists were struggling to finish theirs.

*Who, it must be mentioned, won the Eisner for best comics related periodical/journalism over Comic Comics, Tom Spurgeon, and The Comics Journal. If you look at their web site at the time of this publication, a breaking story is Marvel Comics on Sale this week.

To which I say, “Struggle, Kyle!” I defended your appropriation of a Millerism on another blog, and I stoically read through the last two strips, hoping to find your Hawkman actually be a stark raving alien terrorist! But the comic has just remained dreadfully inert. I mean, sure, the Star Trek graphics look pretty with a layer of ink and dust as detail on top of models

And your air monster is even suitably grotesque, a gaggle of tentacles that isn’t even shown fully on the page, implying such monstrosity

You even handle the tremendous space of an entire newspaper page admirably, exploding fight scenes to huge sizes and shrinking other panels down to quicker rhythms of facial expressions by the end of the page.

I know that you’re trying so hard to make the pages crackle and pop, and they do, but the main selling point of the strip, its main promise since #1, has just flagged on with no follow up. Apparently, it’s become a well drawn Hawkman beat ‘em up. Which is much worse than it should be.

All in all, a little disappointing, but it may have had to be, after spirits ran so high four weeks ago. At the very least, it’s a great way to warm up critical reflexes before tackling something bigger. A fair role to ask from a newspaper comic.

Detective Comics #855

One thing I noticed about this issue, first: Williams III likes to draw his women. Let the lascivious countdown begin: No less than four panty shots of Alice and a man bending down in front of her, crotch height, as well as constant reminders that spandex on lesbians makes their nipples stand on attention (not to mention a panel of Batwoman crawling, drugged and doggy style with ass pointing at the camera, holding onto stone for dear life), and to combine the two, there’s a frisking moment that takes place over the entire page. Alice may be crazy but she knows what superhero audience members want to read.

(I’m, uh, not going to scan these images)

Which made me imagine what a Williams III piece of erotica would look like. Probably with an elegant border wrapping around everything, and with every thrust or sensation the art explodes into a rubble of images and panel borders, a bright stained glass window behind a couple in mutual climax.

All of which brings me to commentary on the actual issue itself, never mind thirteen year old me.

This issue is even less focused on Rucka’s script than that auspicious debut. With a plot that’s little more than Batwoman fails at getting information from the cult and the Colonel failing at rescuing her, it’s safe to say that not much happens in this issue besides confirmation the Thirteen Covens are indeed the source of Kate’s woes, and a spare hallucination of a woman (or boobed person) with a bag over their head, I’m guessing to hint at a tortured past. Nipples are stiffly present but clothed.

There is (at least) one scene worthy of mention, however. The interrogation scene in 855 provides a remarkable counterpoint to the scene in 854. Earlier, delicacy led Kane to her shiny info after she played both bad cop holding a perp to the wall with her foot, and good cop with a delicate touch to his kneeling face. The sun shined for a two panels for tonal convenience. Life was good: criminals had information and weren’t crazy; Kate finds it simple and effective to use touch and feminine sensitivity when needing to pry information from a male.

When needing to perform the same function for Alice, who’s all panties and pathology, a different thing occurs: she doesn’t get anything. Her questions are even worse, asking why instead of who, and without sexuality to fall back on, Kate can only threaten and yell. The worsened superheroing may even stem from a sudden vulnerability. The frisking scene referred to earlier, dismissed it as decompressed cheesecake (the best kind!), gains new importance as panels of Kate’s eyes, their touch reversing the roles from the prior issue where Kate is the quivering victim and Alice the madwoman in control.

What really interests me is the last panel, though:

Williams III (edit 8/02/09 9:27 PM: Or Rucka) makes the two have a moment of eye contact where no dialogue occurs, a sudden loss of control for Kate as well as a sudden shift in Alice’s facial expression from frightened to computing. I can’t help but see that awkward silence, Kate staring intensely into Alice’s eyes instead of assessing the situation around her, as the moment when Kate really failed. What really seals the deal is Alice’s more personal question on the following page, “Please, would you tell me –kaff- what you call yourself?” From a cult leader that has intense interest in Batwoman (and, from its assassination of its tributaries, little self interest that may stem from anger at losing Batwoman), the probing question seems more fit over romantic candlelight than a castle. Add to the fact that they call her “Twice-Named”, and some interest in self-appellation seems downright friendly.

Rucka seems a little wise to this subtext, and, naturally, Kate’s downfall comes from Alice’s lips. Except this French kiss has a poisoned razor blade instead of a tongue, climaxing (!!!) Alice’s sexual feint.

I’ll be interested to see if this aspect ever gets developed any more past a quick way to make Batwoman vulnerable. At the very least, Rucka deserves a tiny pitter patter of kudos for embedding a psychosexual game within a straight faced superheroic book. Even if it’s just a femme fatale moment out of Eisner’s playbook transposed onto a lesbian (so fanboys win out even more by having a relatable protagonist, and a scene where boobs are totally bared), it’s at least subtle.

Predictions for next issue: Alice goes all Legend of the Seeker on us, and tortures Kate in a bizarre and unsettling story, while she invokes religious reasons why they can’t be together, and she just has to hurt her.

Froghead Hangover

Disclaimer: This review is total nepotism for my bro, William Cardini.

When we last checked in on Mr. Cardini’s work, Hyperbox, the artist was packing Kirby fauna into crosshatching pages rarely containing more than one panel. The linework was chunky and shadows were thick pools of black or warm cross hatches. Consider this, then, a spinoff to that Hypberox series in more ways than one. The comic retains its linework and characters, but instead of the ongoing narrative in that comic of mythic power and revelation on every other page, we get a quiet, quick read, and one that shows growth of the artist.

While not necessarily a bad thing, the prior comics lumped all their information on the single page, and without panels of more quiet movements, very little in the comic moved. While first stepping out of the box with Trans, a comic that was twelve page long studies in metamorphosis. Froghead Hangover is the fruit of that effort to shake up his regular style, and it’s one that comes with a strong narrative and a touch more humor across its pages, not to mention a great punch line tact won’t let me reveal.

All mentioned comics (Hyperbox 1-3, Trans, and Froghead Hangover, as well as the unmentioned Masks) are available from Mr. Cardini if you e-mail him at markphensel@gmail.com. He’s a friendly guy whose comics are $2, except for the bigger and screen printed cover Trans, which is $3. He also blogs at a distressingly increasing rate.

After Wednesday Comics’ for the most part stutter step which may or may not deserve more mention, I instead turn to the impeccable but impeachable

Captain America #601

One can, and one will, make a startling comparison to begin this review: Framing sequences in comic books resemble dialogue in porn movies. Purely utilitarian, with no function except to tell a story in the “present” to have occurred in the comic’s fictional past.

Take this comic for instance, for instance, whose framing sequence has absolutely no moment of character change occurring, or, heck, is anything except primer for a war hero’s story. Nick Fury begins huddled around a television screen watching the exploits of heroes

and Bucky walks in to unload the motherlode of diverting combat story. It’s practically Nick Fury’s fantasy come true, at this point, and he responds, ready to play.

(In order to prove how hard Nick Fury is to please, after Bucky tells the story, we see Nick Fury turn away from the computer, dead bored from Bucky’s story but still kind enough to let him think he listened to the whole thing:

End parenthetical note.).

If all of this seems weird for me to mention, it’s because the dots have not all been connected, yet. I mention the true, but seemingly meaningless comparison of the two to demonstrate Brubaker’s stellar knowledge of both unique genres and the incredible facets during their interaction. Wait for the costume change, and then it’ll make sense.

I now don the Postmodern Barney Costume. It’s still purple, but only the purple that everyone but you seems to think is really purple. And now, the latest edition of Subtext… what subtext?

The sly smile of each to other in a lonely Shield Helicarrier after hours, Nick Fury staying up late to “watch videos” all by himself, even the sentimental forgetting panels as the two young heroes become one iamge instead of two, yes, it seems that a quiet night is exactly what both want. But what if they want to be quiet to each other? Bucky turning out to be more than the experienced, innocent boy Nick Fury always thought he was. The good guys took him on, “the whole team”, even, Bucky says to demonstrate his experience. “That musta sucked”, Nick so truthfully stated, hands advancing forwards towards the nubile superhero in front of him, gun drawn ever so casually.

It is enough to make one reviewer blush. Fortunately, for the sake of one’s cheeks, Colan did not get the subtext memo, and illustrated Bucky’s butt in shadow.

*wooh*

And Gene Colan deserves more mention than the slighter rubescence of its most grateful audience. Ancient comic artists, dragged from the past to illustrate the characters of their earlier careers almost uniformly perform a ridiculous rite of auto-homage, where their classic style is resurrected, dusted off with modern coloring techniques, and presented as something remotely related aesthetically to the original.

Just look at Thor: Lost Tales of Asgard or Curt Swan’s Whatever Happened to The Man of Tomorrow (not that stylistic aging is a bad thing for that comic, but Curt Swan just did a marathon through his entire career during those comics). if you want to see how much the former masters depend on the coloring techniques of their time for their style. Or look at Miles’ Davis’ self sampling Doo-Bop to see how he fares with an inorganic drum machine behind him instead of an organically juttering and sprinting session drummer.

The sole exceptions, of course, are Frank Miller when returning to Batman because he flew over three cuckoo’s nests, and Jack Kirby on Captain America in the sixties, with the Falcon in tow during the seventies, him because he flew under three cuckoo nests and adopted a quick style to churn out more books with more vivacity instead of less with more realism.

So the question remaining for this comic are threefold: one, how will colorist interact with Colan, will Gene Colan simply turn in a moment of remembrance instead of a remarkable new work, and would that second question really be that much of a problem if he was?

The answer to all questions is uniformly positive: Dean White (credited with “color art”, a recurring theme, if spoonerism, of comics I’ve reviewed recently) colors each pool of pencil and empty paper in elegant tones, making each section of color rounded off, the entire page an apparent charcoal composition executed with inhuman control:

The second question, of him returning to his style instead of expanding it? While Colan still retains the supposed scratchiness of his more famous periods, it is a style that gains much from being dusted off. An artist more famous for what didn’t get put on the page than what did. According to his fan-sites biography, “He’s the only artist today whose work is often published directly from his pencils”, and from the man himself on various inkers he worked with: “[The drawing] started with me, and as far as I’m concerned, it ended with me. I was just hopeful that the finished product would look close to what I did.” Just looking at his sketches, it’s clear how much this aids the effortlessly flowing draftsmanship. For example, look at on of his cityscapes. He’s practically rubbing his finger on the paper, using graphite as expressive as charcoal:

And, besides the much more supportive modern inking/colorization techniques that follow Colan’s detailed pencil shadings more faithfully, Colan also continues to elaborate and stylize his page construction, turning in pages composed with an eye for clean storytelling and murky boundaries, the page as a mansion of movement instead of camera’s viewpoint:

Just looking at the page earlier discussed in levity, he has five separate panels in the comic, all spiraling downward less and less, and all conveying a sense of the third dimension. Nick leaning closer to the left page, Bucky standing outside of his panel, not to mention the off centeredness of the two television screens bumping over one another, all reveal this as no mere page in a comic: it’s a veritable diorama!

It’s enough to make the other comic on the stands today that just begs to innovate with panel usage, Wednesday Comics #2, absolutely jealous with its prudent adherence to traditional page construction. (Well, Gene Colan and J.H. Williams III, of course, who would have elaborate frames around each page in etioliated ecstasy, but the train digresses: choo choo).

Err, regardless. Colan?

Still the man.

Brubaker, too, in all his anagogical glory.