By Miles Baker, Owen K. Craig, and Tom Kerr
Each week we use random.org’s random interger generator to create two random numbers. They then count down on the release list until they find out their RANDOM COMIC OF THE WEEK! No matter what the publisher, what the issue, what the arc, we will be there reviewing things with little or no context.
Tom’s Book
The Boys #10
Written by Garth Ennis
Art by Darick Robertson
Dynamite Entertainment, 2007
The problem with writing something primarily for shock value is that, by definition, it’s impossible to do it subtly. You can never read a comic and say, “the art and the storytelling were so gripping that I didn’t even noticed that I was shocked and appalled by the language and content!” When a book actually is shocking, it can heighten and deepen the storytelling. When a book is merely trying to be shocking, it cheapens everything about the issue. Such is the case with Garth Ennis’ The Boys #10.
This is the final chapter of a ten-part arc, and while I have not read up to this point and thus can’t say how well it wraps things up, I can say is that Ennis’ characterization is immediately compelling. The seemingly archetypal “tough guy” protagonists show a surprising emotional and intellectual breadth along with some pretty reprehensible qualities, while the primary antagonist comes across as both pitiable and detestable at the same time. In this, Ennis smoothly achieves something Marvel has been fumbling unsuccessfully to accomplish from House of M to Civil War to World War Hulk: a story in which it’s hard to know exactly where to stand and which side to support. Meanwhile, Darick Robertson’s art serves this book well, with its emphasis on layered framing, deep shadows and an excellent sense of motion, but is only really outstanding when it shows jaws breaking and faces puffy and blackened from having been beaten half to death.
Unfortunately, no amount of good characterization or art is enough to distract from the fact that this whole issue seems designed primarily to shock and appall, but doesn’t do it. Everything positive about the book is cheapened by the fact that with each page you can almost hear Ennis giggling and saying “this’ll REALLY piss them off”, and though I may simply be desensitized, excessive swearing, bigotry, graphic violent, and copulation with a vaginally-shaped asteroid tend to make me want to groan rather than throw the book down in outrage. I’ll gladly give kudos to this team for putting together a well-written and well-rendered book, but I’ll only be back for more if they lose the crutch of trying far too hard for shock value.
Owen’s Book
Amazing Spider-Man #544
Written by J. Michael Straczynski
Pencilled by Joe Quesada
Inked by Danny Miki
Marvel Comics, 2007
For the first time since I started doing these “Random Book of the Week” columns my book is one I was planning on buying anyways. I’ve been following the Spider-Man “Back In Black” plot with mild interest, especially due to Marvel hyping the “One More Day” storyline that follows it for at least six months now. The first issue hit this week and was…fine. I guess. Shouldn’t the first issue of a much-hyped story land with a bang? Maybe it’s because Spidey has been worrying about Aunt May being in the hospital for the last four or so issues, but another issue of that hardly seems worth the hype to me.
If you separate this issue from all the hoopla it’s actually fairly interesting. J. Michael Straczynski writes a Peter Parker I’m interested in, one who is having trouble dealing with one of the most important people in his life dying because of him. Not only that but we get to see the Spidey/Iron Man confrontation that has been dangling since Civil War. Joe Quesada draws some very appealing pages, too. The problem for me is that I’ve already spent many months reading about Peter saying, “this is all my fault” (since issue #539). There’s potential here, but Straczynski needs to kick it into high gear fast. I’m losing interest quickly.
In theory I should like everything here, but I couldn’t shake the feeling of “is this it?” when I read it. Personally, I blame the hype machine. “The most talked-about and controversial comic event of the year,” indeed. Far from it so far, nothing worth talking about here.
Miles’ Book
Nightwing #136
Written by Marv Wolfman
Pencils by Jon Bosco
Inks by Alex Silva
DC Comics, 2007
Marv Wolfman needs a 1992-2007 dictionary. With quips like, “Yeah, and Belgian waffles are flying out of my butt,” it seems like Mr. Wolfman saw half of Wayne’s World on cable and thought that it would still be current to say that anything is flying out of your ass.
I know that Wolfman basically created Nightwing and that he’s a god among comic authors, but I don’t think he knows Nightwing the character very well. Like, why is one of the smartest men in the DC Universe speaking in sentence fragments like he’s Rorschach from The Watchmen? Yeah, Rorschach was smart, but he was also completely insane.
As for the story, Dick Grayson, former boy wonder Robin and now Nightwing, is breaking into a some evil office building to fight there with some possible robots, then some confusing stuff with some other villains happens, there’s a dinner scene I’ll get to later, another fight with the possible robots, some vigilante named Vigilante shows up and then it ends. Throughout, Dick is pining over some girl he met years ago, Lui, who has never been introduced before this story arc and is now somehow involved in some plot/mystery/thing that we donÕt see a lot of in this issue. I’m not usually one to get all uppity about a retcon (rewriting past events to match a current story line), but this is just lazy storytelling. It would be so much more interesting if Wolfman would commit to the book, introduce a new love for Dick, show us why he loves her and then have her betray him. I don’t care about this new character or Dick’s feelings about her. It’s simple “show, don’t tell.”
There are some compelling plot points, but I feel there are a lot of missed opportunities here. For example, the dinner between Dick and Lui, where he’s trying to figure out how she’s playing him, mostly happens in Dick’s thought boxes. Why not show us a physiologically interesting scene where the two of them are trying get inside one another — both metaphorically and in the dirty way. Instead, again, all tell no show.
And Bosco’s faux anime pencils are doing no one any favours.
For shame, Marv Wolfman. For shame, DC.
