Comics Reads: 12/19, 12/28, and 1/4

(This is a late post.)

I don’t buy all that many monthly comics (I get a much bigger bang for my buck and usually a better selection of material in collected editions), so when I do get them I space out the orders two or three weeks apart. This was I pay less shipping, and there’s also more comic booky goodness to read with every shipment.

So, here are my thoughts about the comics I read that came out on the dates listed above (new comic books come out every Wednesday, for those not in the hobby). And, yes, I employ a rating system on a scale from 0 to 10. It’s largely arbitrary.

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Birds of Prey #113 – Now that Tony Bedard’s delightful little character pieces are over, we move on to the main event: Sean McKeever takes over as regular writer. McKeever is decent enough; I’ve also been reading his Teen Titans, which—while very flawed—is undeniably full of energy, which is exactly what this book needs. It also shows he can handle a fairly large cast, also another point in his favor for BoP. As for the issue itself, I’m a little ambivalent. He wraps up a dangling subplot from Gail Simone’s run—the revelation that Tabby Brennan, the hostage in the Mexican prison arc, is actually a homicidal psychopath—and uses it to begin a new story—Misfit accidentally gets a bunch of innocent people killed due to her inexperience/stupidity. It’s a bit of a downer to begin the run with, but it’s a good enough adventure on its own, and I’m interested to see where he’s going with it. Big props to artist Nicola Scott too; she gives all of her figures such individuality, which is refreshing in a field where the only thing that usually distinguishes female characters is hairstyles. I especially love the page with all the Birds in civilian gear, because they all have different body language and are all wearing something different, and it shows she understands these characters enough to figure out their personal styles. However, she really should stick with people; the “Mechatabzilla” was a valiant effort, but big robots just aren’t her thing. 8/10

Catwoman #74 – Catwoman escapes from the bar (though I’m not sure how she resisted the drug so well), regroups, heads out to take on the Thief, and then gets interrupted by Salvation Run. This is always a fun, fast-paced read with immaculate characterization (there’s a small moment between all the action where Selina decides to repress fully her identity as a mother, and it’s heartbreaking); but I’m a little worried about the intrusion from a mini-series that has very little to do with Selina’s story. Ah well, that’s more of a problem for next issue. 8.5/10 (ASIDE: I get my cover pictures from the DC Comics website, and I should note that this image does not quite match the actual cover to this issue of Catwoman. The actual image–which is very similar–has more, er, chestage.

Detective Comics #840 – I’m so glad I gave up this book during the whole “Resurrection of Ra’s al Ghul” crossover. I can’t stand that villain, and this issue he is handily defeated in the course of nine pages, which is all I needed to see. Loved new villain the Globe, though, with his strange obsession and thematically appropriate visuals; that’s what Batman rogues are all about! 7/10

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Justice League of America #16 – Dwayne McDuffie, you want me to give up this book, don’t you? Well, fine then. No mas. This is an utterly inconsequential story that serves as nothing more than a commercial for the Tangent: Superman’s Reign mini-series. Which is pretty tacky when you consider that his opening arc ultimately ended up being a commercial for the Salvation Run mini. And it’s not even a good commercial; I still don’t understand the concept of the “Tangent” dimension or the characters that come from it or why I should want to read about them. In fact, pretty much all the characters come off as ineffectual here—especially Black Canary, which is pretty sucky when I think of all the hard work Gail Simone did to sell Dinah as one of the best martial artists in the DCU. The only character who comes off as the least bit appealing is Red Arrow, but he’s clearly the Mary Sue. Add to that Benitez’s truly awful blow-up doll art; I don’t understand how anyone on the DC editorial staff looked at that pin-up shot of the female Flash and wasn’t immediately disgusted by her essentially exposed prepubescent body with bloated boobs and lips. 3/10

Justice League Unlimited #41 – Come on. With a cover like that, how could you not read this? The Joker is jealous that Batman is going off into space on their anniversary (of when they first fought), so he and Harley Quinn attack the JLA satellite. Hawkgirl, the Crimson Avenger, Elongated Man, and Zatanna are on guard duty, but they keep getting shown up by the villains’ Riddler Factor. I liked the simple message about teamwork and not underestimating your opponent, and writer Grace Randolph has a ball with the Joker and Harley’s dialogue. Perfect for all-ages. 8.5/10

Legion of Super-Heroes #37 – So, as I understand it, Jim Shooter wrote the Legion in the 80’s, and he was one of the writers responsible for turning it into the epic space opera that it has failed to be ever since DC first relaunched the series. So his return to the characters is big news, since it means a return to the compact adventurous storytelling of old—lots of little panels, lots of dialogue, yet also lots of action. But it also faces the challenge that this Legion is not the Legion that he wrote way back when, and he’s going to have to prove that he can modernize his style and work with the characters as they are now. (Though to be frank, I’ve been able to connect with the original characters through reprints far better than I have any of the relaunched versions, and I’d just as well like it if he ignored the past twenty years of failed relaunches and wrote the characters as if they were the original characters, which may well be what he’s doing.) And this opening issue does that quite well. It spends most of its time setting up character arcs, especially Lightning Lad’s irresponsible leadership, but Shooter seamlessly intertwines the characterization with the plot, as the character’s choices really do make a difference and have serious ramifications. In other words, the Legion are the protagonists, which was something I was really missing in the Waid issues that I sampled when this series began. I’m not sure about Manapul’s art; it’s a little sketchy for the Legion. And while Nathan Eyring’s colors are generally quite nice, there’s a moment on page six where Saturn Girl is accidentally colored to look like Light Lass, and it was at moment where you really had to know it was Saturn Girl for it to make any sense. I’m cautiously optimistic about the long-run here—for one thing, I don’t know how long Shooter is planning to stay on the book—but this is absolutely solid storytelling, and a lot of fun at that. 9/10

Legion of Super-Heroes in the 31st Century #9 – Brainiac 5 finds out the truth behind his ancestry (that original Brainiac and Superman were arch-foes), so he tries to take Superman in a time bubble to pre-explosion Krypton to make it up to him. Only he miscalculates and they end up on Krypton a little early on the evolutionary cycle. I’m not a huge fan of Brainiac 5 in any incarnation (blasphemy, I know), and I find his animated version to be especially emo and annoying, so I naturally found this issue to be one of the weaker installments. But at the same time I really like the animated versions of Triplicate Girl, Bouncing Boy, and Sun Boy, and they’re the supporting cast issue, so there’s some amount of fun to be found in the background. So, not bad, just missing the spark of excitement which should be a must for an all-ages Legion story. 6.5/10

Shadowpact #20 – More comics should have the day being saved by Rex the Wonder Dog. As it happens, this issue puts the focus of the members of Shadowpact I actually like, and for once Doctor Gotham isn’t the villain, so that’s good. However, by keeping the members separated from each other for so long, it all feels a little disjointed, like this is actually a book about three different teams in unrelated stories. There’s no overall cohesion here, and the result of this is that this book reads incredibly bland and static. (Having said that, there is some good character work with the trio of Ragman, Nightshade, and Nightmaster—though with Eve being featured in Suicide Squad, I can’t imagine it will mean anything.) 7/10

Teen Titans #54 – Well, I gave it the old college try. Sean McKeever began his run on this title with the 5-part “Titans of Tomorrow” story, which began in #50 and ends here, and I decided to see if he could get me into the modern Titans. I didn’t think it would be hard. McKeever can be a fine writer (as he proved this week in Birds of Prey), and there are a few Titans that I’m actually very interested in reading about (Wonder Girl, Kid Devil, and Miss Martian, for those keeping score at home). But this was not good—pretty bad, actually. He clearly wanted to start the run with a big, epic story, something that would firmly establish his take on the individual Titans and what they stood for as a team. And he decided the best way to do this was to bring in their future grown-up versions, all grim and gritty and who gleefully use lethal force, to contrast. That’s fair enough. But that contrast was not used to any great effect, or to teach us anything new about the characters (except maybe in the case of Wonder Girl, though it amazes me how DC is willing to let this character, who could have tremendous appeal for the teenage girl demographic, be constantly portrayed in a negative manner). And when you add in the Starro-controlled Titans army and the Starro-controlled villains, you have far too many personality-less drones (and I mean that literally with the Starro attack) running around cluttering up the pages. Decent action scenes, though, I guess. 3/10

New Popish Book

(I haven’t posted in a bit, but there are computer issues I’m dealing with.  Check back in a week or so and I’ll have a longer post ready, a rundown of some recent comics I read.)

 So, I’m one of those people who love to recommend books, and I just read something great. It’s Marking the Hours: English People and Their Prayers, by Eamon Duffy of Stripping the Altars fame.  Duffy is one of the world’s foremost scholars on English religion in the late Medieval and Reformation period, and a great defender of the vibrancy of late Medieval Catholicism, which is often (and wrongly) derided as a largely shallow entity in steep decline before the Reformation.  Here he explores the interior lives of Medieval English people of all classes through an oft-ignored source: Books of Hours.  

Books of Hours, or primers, which were often kept within the same family for generations, were portable collections of psalms and pseudo-liturgical prayers (like the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Office of the Dead) for daily use, and they were nearly ubiquitous for two centuries in England.  Traditionally their proliferation has been seen as a sign of the privatization of the Englishman’s religious life, a turn away from the communal focus of Catholicism to the individualist piety of soon-to-come Protestantism.

Duffy effectively lays that stereotype to rest. He points out that the Books of Hours found their point of reference in the church liturgy (indeed, their prayers were essentially shortened forms of the prayers of religious orders); and rather than being emblems of isolated spirituality, they were focused on the shared and deeply Catholic faith of their owners.

I especially liked his examination of the “customizations” and “additions” that are so common in the surviving Books.  People would routinely write in new prayers in the margins or on blank pages, some of them so blatantly heterodox and quasi-magical that–in addition to being fun to read–they point to a severe disconnect between the elevated theology of the Catholic clergy and the folk spirituality of the everyday layman.  Which essentially supports my own theory that the Reformation was more the result of reactionary responses to widespread ignorance about Catholic theology than anything else (well, except maybe politics).  

Other points of interest were the rather poignant additions made in the Book of Hours owned by St. Thomas More (and used by him during his imprisonment) and the section on the edits and then re-edits enforced on the people’s primers during the rise of Henry VIII and then Catholic Queen Mary. I never thought of it this way, but the private prayer life of the common people was the real battleground of the Reformation.

On a personal level, though, this book was also incredibly spiritually edifying.  I recite the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin as part of my daily prayer life, and I have in the past felt… well, lost by it.  Its form is unfamiliar to me, and I’ve had a hard time trying to integrate it in a meaningful and fruitful way; the fact that no one around me (not even other Catholics) seem interested in it hasn’t helped much. But seeing how this tradition was used by previous generations of Catholics instilled in me such a sense of the proper context to view the Little Office, and in some small way has even more deepened my bond with the Communion of Saints.

 (Oh, and for all the comic fans out there, this book is good for you too.  To paraphrase Amy Sedaris, this book is so visual a monkey would love it.)

And You Think Your Life is a Soap Opera: Thoughts on the 2000 Hellcat Mini-series

Patsy Walker, a.k.a. Hellcat, is my favorite Marvel hero. She’s everything I love about Marvel condensed into a single, fabulous character: a convoluted backstory full of soapy intrigue, Stan Lee dialogue delivered with only a smidgen of self-awareness, and vague super-powers that only become more indecipherable as time goes on.

I could detail the minutia of Patsy’s fictional history, but luckily the illustrous Don Markstein has beaten me to the punch. Read this and this to bask in all the absurd glory, but suffice it to say that Patsy Walker was originally a teen romance/comedy heroine in the ’40s, sort of Marvel’s answer to Archie. Her long-running series ended in 1967, but in 1972 writer Steve Englehart brought her back as a supporting character in a horror strip. Then, once super-heroes were back en vogue, Englehart took her over to The Avengers, gave her a yellow jumpsuit (with impossible-to-define psychic powers/fighting skills), and called her Hellcat.

Hellcat has never been a major figure in the Marvel universe, spending most of her time as a supporting character in The Defenders (a third-tier team book), but she’s carved out a rather unusual niche as a semi-serious, semi-ironic super-heroine who still desperately clings to her girl-next-door image from the ’40s. This is despite the fact that she’s a two-time divorcee–the first husband abused her and then became a super-villain, the second was the “Son of Satan” and the marriage ultimately ended with her suicide.

Like most comic book characters, Patsy didn’t let a little thing like death end her fictional career.  She was accidentally resurrected by some super-heroes, and then she teamed up with them to save her hometown of Centerville (straight out of the 1940′s comedy strip) from a band of demons.

It’s at this point that the 3-issue Hellcat mini-series picks up Patsy’s story. I’ve been wanting to read this for a long time because I love the character from her 1970s adventures with the Avengers and the Defenders, and this is basically the series that established her modern status quo, such as it is (Hellcat has made virtually no significant appearances since this series). And it’s Englehart writing her again, confirming that he’s probably the only person out there who loves the character as much as I.

In these pages, Patsy is confronted by an existential crisis.  Though restored to life, she worries that everything that makes it up is artificial, created to fit a pleasant but ultimately false image. Centerville has been turned into a tourist trap by her childhood friend/rival Hedy (also from the original 1940s series), who has “perserved” the town by turning it into an idealized facsimile of Leave It to Beaver small-town America–at least on the surface. Patsy herself is on a book tour pitching a ghost-written memoir that airbrushes over the more disturbing aspects of her life story.  And she’s still trying to convince everyone that, despite being a super-hero who has recently returned from the grave, she’s “just a normal girl.” (The metafictional question of whether Patsy’s life is “real” is reinforced by how each issue’s title is based on a soap opera; “One Life to Live” is the first issue.)

This especially tragic when compared to her experience after death. As a suicide, Patsy went to Hell, where she was forced to take part in the endless torment of warfare. As horrific as that experience was, it’s also the only thing Patsy feels was really “real,” since it was the rightful punishment, viscerally felt, for the very grave (and very real) sin of suicide.

It’s a great premise, which is why I was suprised to see the story take such a conventional route after the first issue. Hellcat ends up getting sucked back into Hell, and then caught in the middle of a conflict between two demon lords. And from this point on the series is standard super-heroics, replete with lots of fight scenes, as Patsy tries to manuever her way around the political intrigue of the underworld and get back home (all the while wondering if Hell might be where she really belongs).

I guess Englehart didn’t have much room in a 3-issue mini-series to really explore the ideas that he presented in the first issue. The theme of reality-versus-artifice is a strong one–one for which Hellcat is the perfect character to use, since her history is really just a bunch of elements from different literary genres cobbled together–but I don’t feel like the series did it justice. There’s an interesting idea in that Hellcat was able to figure out the big secret because she’s intimately aware of soap opera cliches–in a sense, it is her awareness of the fictional nature of the conflict that gives her the edge–but it doesn’t do much to resolve the internal conflict she’s experiencing. She’s happy to return to her normal life in the end, but why? Is it any more real?

 (As an aside, Englehart also pulls out the gnostic idea that Hell is actually only a manifestation of one’s mind, a mere illusion, which is unfortunate because that completely undercuts Hellcat’s belief that her original death and descent into Hell really meant something.  I understand that the Marvel Universe can’t really use the Christian conception of Hell, as a spiritual state totally devoid of the presence of God, because that would firmly establish a monotheistic worldview, not to mention drag the story into theological depths where it simply doesn’t want to go.  But, purely on literary terms, the conception he did go with doesn’t help the story at all.)

There’s some smart stuff here in a subplot with Hedy and the Scarlet Witch trying to round up everyone who loves Patsy so they can hold a seance to bring her back from Hell, but it doesn’t really go anywhere. I realize the seance couldn’t actually work–Hellcat is the protagonist here, after all, so she has to be the one to save the day–but the fact that there were so many people willing to work to save her served as an interesting contradiction to Patsy’s belief that her earthly life is totally artificial.

Perhaps I’m being overly analytical. The Hellcat mini-series functions first and foremost as a fast-paced super-hero adventure, just as Hellcat herself first and foremost wants to be a fast-paced super-hero adventurer. Norm Breyfogle’s lovely art supports this reading rather well–it’s bright and colorful and necessarily energetic. It’s a shame that this series didn’t provoke more Hellcat solo stories; I really had a lot of fun with these three issues.

EDIT: I see that Paul O’Brien over at The X-Axis did short reviews of the first two issues of Hellcat when they originally came out.  He didn’t like it much at all, and he has no love for the character; but his complaints are valid, and the reviews are worth reading: here and here (scroll down on each page).