By Miles Baker, Owen K. Craig, and Tom Kerr Tom’s Book
Star Trek: Klingons — Blood Will Tell #4
Written by Scott and David Tipton
Art by David Messina
IDW, 2007
Although I haven’t been reading Star Trek: Klingons — Blood Will Tell, my enjoyment of writer Scott Tipton’s Comics 101 site has had me loosely following the goings-on of the series, and so I had some context for this read. The primary goal here seems to be looking at the major run-ins of Kirk & crew with the Klingons of the original series, told from the Klingons’ perspective. Fair enough. A re-envisioning of some classic stories to illustrate new angles and offer new ideas is always refreshing. Unfortunately, this book teeters on the brink of the two major pitfalls of this type of premise: 1) writing a tale that is hard to follow or care about without knowing the plot of the original episode; and 2) adding nothing particularly substantial to the mythos of the original episode or the greater series.
Don’t get me wrong —: I enjoyed this issue. The Tiptons include enough references to the Star Trek universe at large and Klingon culture specifically to be enjoyable for fans, without overloading it with Trek-isms to the point where it becomes inaccessible or obnoxious. Furthermore, the characters are well written, with the grimness and hardness a good Klingon character needs, but not to the point where they come off as one-dimensional or difficult to like. David Messina’s art is hardly cutting-edge, but tells the story admirably; the only caveats being a poor sense of movement that makes combat scenes clunky, and a tendency to progressively remove facial features as characters are moved into the background (first the mouth goes, then the eyes, then eyebrows, finally nose…halfway through this transition, figures look like partially-assembled Mr. Potato Heads).
The trouble is, while the read is enjoyable enough, it’s not exciting, and it doesn’t inform or deepen the original episode story much at all. Real Star Trek lovers might want to head down to their local comic store (if they’re not there already), but for everyone else, rest assured that this book is destined for the 25 cent comic bin in about five years. It’s not a bad way to spend fifteen minutes, so long as you don’t mind knowing you’ll forget about it fifteen minutes after that.
Miles’ Book
Welcome to Tranquility #9
Written by Gail Simone
Art by Niel Googe
Wildstorm Comics, 2007
Just when I thought pop culture was oversaturated with zombies (from comics to films to facebook applications), Gail Simone comes along and shows me that there is still room in my heart for the undead, especially if one of them is holding a shovel, wearing a leather jacket, and challenging cemetery full of younger zombies to fight: “Okay. Bring it on home to me, you damned amateurs.”
Simone is writing a unique mix in this ensemble book, with all sorts of comic archetypes living in a small town. It’s funny, there’s action, and there’s some interesting, looming, foreboding evil. One example of all of these things is the science nerd doctor, Rach, who casually smokes a joint in front of a police officer in the hospital to calm her nerves after a near miss with a zombie. Its pretty funny and shocking, both that action and the fact that you can show a doctor doing illicit drugs but she can’t say “Fuck” — that’s asterisked out. But props to Simone for letting that one just hang out there with no consequences.
Also, props to a very funny last page. It would take too long to explain the joke, but that laugh is easily worth $1.49 of the $2.99 purchase.
And final props go to the back up origin story about the Coyote Kid. Even though three-fourths of it is a rehash of the Saint of Killers’ origin in Preacher, it was nice to get that information on a character who’s only on one page of the main story but happens to be on the cover.
Owen’s Book
For the last few weeks Owen has been working in the small Northern Ontario town of Meaford and has not able to access a comic book store. Instead, before he left, he used random.org’s random integer generator to create some random numbers. He then counted down the shelf number, comic box, and comic until he found his RANDOM ARCHIVE COMIC OF THE WEEK!
JLA #102
Written by Chuck Austen
Art by Ron Garney
DC Comics, 2004
As an X-Men fan buying comics in the early 2000s, I’m already familiar with Chuck Austen’s work. At this point, enough nasty stuff has been said about Austen that I really wanted to like this comic so that I could say something nice about him. Unfortunately, this book will not be an Austen comic I can recommend.
This issue, part of a storyline called “The Pain of the Gods” features Flash (Wally West) crying about the fact that he couldn’t save some kids from a fire. That’s it. Fine, I suppose a good story could be made of that, but this isn’t it. Instead, we get Wally buying an armful of smoke detectors and breaking into people’s houses to install them. We get Wally angrily brandishing a battery as he tells a man it “costs a dollar and it could save your kids’ lives”. We get Wally collapsing tearfully into Wonder Woman’s arms. If it sounds like a Public Service announcement that you would get for free at some sort of safety seminar, that’s because it reads like one (I’m particularly put in mind of a Spider-Man/Ghost Rider comic I used to own that promoted wearing a helmet while biking).
As for the pencils? Well, I suppose Ron Garney does the best he can with what he’s given. I like the way he draws Flash running, and he certainly gives Wally a full range of grief-stricken emotions. I’m presuming that David Baron’s toned-down colours were an intentional choice to maximize the anguish that Wally is suffering. But when it all comes down to it, here’s the problem: I’m just not buying it. Not Wally’s breakdown, not the tears, not the muted colours, none of it.
When this comic was published, Wally West had been the Flash for 18 years, according to real-world time. Therefore, I think it’s safe to assume at LEAST a few years have passed in comic-book time since Wally became the Flash. So I find it to be a bit hard to take when it’s revealed that these are the first bodies he’s ever come across. Thus, I can’t buy any of this, it all seems silly to me. Perhaps it’s true that he’s never seen a dead body before and I’m just being cynical. Or perhaps if I read the rest of “The Pain of the Gods” storyline, then I’d find out this was all a crazy dream being woven for them by Doctor Destiny or something (but if that’s the case, a mention of it or a recap page would’ve been nice). But you know what? Either way, I don’t really feel like reading more of this storyline to find out.
