365 Comics... 201: Action Comics Weekly #614 (1988)

Under a Mike Mignola-pencilled, Ty Templeton-inked cover featuring Green Lantern are six chapters of stories either in progress or concluding.

Green Lantern, by Peter David and Tod Smith reworks Hal Jordan's origin (as well as retooling the Lantern Corps in a small way) in that Hal was not always completely without fear but that Abin Sur, afraid while meeting his end, wished the ring bearer to be without fear.  As anyone without fear would probably be a total loon it chose the best candidate with the closest criteria... then lobotomized the fear right out of him!  Seriously.

The Phantom Stranger arc by Paul Kupperberg, Tom Grindberg, and Bret Breeding: a total snoozefest.  Seriously I nodded off while reading it (not the first time the Stranger has put me to sleep).

Nightwing (and Speedy) ''First Blood" by Marv Wolfman, Chuck Patton and Tom Poston (wasn't he an actor on Newhart or something?).  Dick and Roy try to protect an ambassador from the assassin Cheshire, and dive into Roy's history with her.  On a concept level, I love the Roy /Cheshire thing, but Wolfman can be a little clunky and overt in his writing and it gets pretty bad here. It should really be a Speedy solo story as it has very little to do with Nightwing.

Superman by Roger Stern, Curt Swan and Murphy Anderson.  I gave up on this a down issues ago.  Yawn.

Catwoman by Mindy Newell, Barry Kitson and Bruce Patterson... ends abruptly and only with Selina on the first and last pages.  Was she always a kind of anti-hero?  Or was this just part of her gestation into one?

And finally, Black Canary by Sharon Wright, Randy DuBurke and Pablo Marcos... even though there's no spandex or fishnets, I'm liking this... particularly for DuBurke's art.

The letters column in ACW ask the readers to submit their favourite stories, in order, each issue and then assembles them into "The Great Action Comics Weekly Poll".  This was well pre-internet so there were obviously people... a lot of people... who would just send in their polls, hand written, stuffed in an envelope and mailed off.  It's remarkable how the net has simplified an betterred this type of process.

My own poll results for this issue:
1. Black Canary
2. Nightwing
3. Catwoman
4. Green Lantern
5. Superman
6. Phantom Stranger

Now I only need to wait 3 months, or rather, 12 issues to See how my vote fared against others.

365 Comics... 200: Richard Stark's Parker: The Hunter (2009)

Books have been adapted into comic books for generations, Classics Illustrated the most notable source of graphic adaptation from the past.  But unlike how Hollywood constantly adapts books to screen (often the same book multiple times over) comics adaptations of novels, except maybe children's classics, are far more rare and frequently even more reductive than film.  We are seeing a bit of a change in recent years, but even then it's largely books with built-in crossover appeal.. a Neil Gaiman or a Stephen King, a George RR Martin or a Philip K Dick, a Ray Bradbury or William S. Burroughs.  But we're seeing a bit of adventurousness (if only narrowly) with crime fiction getting the sequential art treatment, and Darwyn Cooke's adaptations of Richard Stark's Parker novel series are decidedly leading the way.

Next to Marvel's adaptations of L, Frank Baum's Oz books by Eric Shanower and Skottie Young, I don't think there's amother comic book adaptation of a book that's more widely praised or getting the same level of professional recognition (Cooke's latest, The Score, just won an Eisner @SDCC this weekend for best adaptation from another medium). 

I've had ample opportunity to read the first in the series --the Hunter-- oven the past few years, but rarely the desire.  A massive digital sale on the Parker series netted me the read for about $4 but even still it languished on my phone for a few months.  But once I started into it, I couldn't stop, even though I find Parker the character to border on intolerable and these kind of Long Ago crime stories are always challenging with their terrible gender politics (women aren't treated well nor represented well in Stark's criminal underworld)

Cooke's work here is efficient and smooth, playing curiously with space and shadow in green monochrome.  Either Cooke has a soft spot for the 1960's or he's got an exceptionally rich reference library for fashion, architecture and automobiles.  His text is equally stripped down, dialogue used when necessary, narration only occasionally acquired.

Though the material is cold-blooded, you can tell there is affection in this work, which is what lifts Cooke's Parker adaptation above the many Hollywood versions ("Point Blank", "Payback", "Parker")

365 Comics... 199: Beyond The Fringe #3A (2011)

The first time I read this 3-part extension (or, moreover, gap-filler) of the Fringe story, I was lost as to its meaning.  My clearly befuddled review over at Thor's Comic Column [link: http://www.chud.com/70575/thors-comic-column-1014/?textutm_source=chud&utm_medium=&utm_content=&utm_campaign=non_home_clicktracking] is proof of that.  The main problem the story had, at the time, was that it came out just as season 4 was starting.  Peter had blinked from existence and was haunting the people he loved who had forgotten him, and the big mystery was "what happened to him".  I thought this arc, written by series star Joshua Jackson, was a convoluted way of telling us fans of the show that he was lost in time (ala Captain America and Bruce Wayne in the preceding years) but what I wasn't getting was how tightly connected Jackson's script was to the Season 3 finale and less so with the season 4 premier.

My wife (!) and I are steadily trolling through Fringe this year and we just finished Season 3, watching the final episode which both my wife (!) and I had kind of forgotten most of the details of... Peter enters the machine and is thrust into the future (2026) where he'd chosen Earth 1 thus destroying Earth 2.  But in reality Walter had drawn Peter's 2011 consciousness forward in time in hopes to influence his decision making in the past.  But in order to do so Peter has to close the loop, sending the machine back in time, and Peter with it to bury the machine parts at predetermined markers  (where the markers came from and how exactly Peter bounces through time I don't know). 

Like hitting up the show proper for a second time there is much illumination in the intricacy department, the gaps its filling becoming far more evident. It's a great little companion story that perfectly bridges Seasons 3 & 4 without spoiling anything or dropping the ball in the details department.

365 Comics...198: X-Factor #259 (2013)

For years, YEARS!, Peter David has been teasing the origin of Shatterstar and/or Longshot and/or their connection to one another .  Well, with the series winding down he finally got to it and it is... well, not epic, per se, but something approximating a masterstroke.  It's David metaphorically dropping the mic and walking off stage because he just utterly crushed it.  I can see it pissing off a few Longshot fans but who are they anyway?  This is twisted, messed-up, mind-warping fun, and the kind of thing that should happen in Mojoworld all.the.time.  It's a twisted place full of twisted people that should hopefully get a spotlight book one of these years... if Morrison wont do it put Brandon Graham on it.  "Mojoworld" a comic that blends Max Headroom with Game of Thrones with, I dunno, the Newsroom let's say.  That's some warped stuff I want to read.

Anyway, I'm rambling, but this is a marvel of a stand-alone issue (don't let the #259 or "part 3 of 6" fool you, this is a standalone deal) and even if you don't know or like these characters I think this one issue is worth it for just how bizarre the ride is.  I'm surprised and terribly happy Marvel allowed this to happen. 

365 Comics...197: Arsenic Lullaby: The Big Stall (2013)

I'm not certain if this is a graphic novel, a trade paperback or an oversized floppy.  It's bigger in size than a normal comic, and its only sixty pages so its not quite graphic novel length (nor does it feature one continuous story...it's more an anthology of comedy) and I can't tell if the four pin-ups in the center of the book are supposed to imply this was originally four issues (actual or intended).  The back page features a host of names which I can only guess (well only guess or do a modicum of research online, but who has time for that? I'm writing most of these posts at bedtime with a stylus and finicky character recognition system that still doesn't cotton to my chicken scratch even after nearly 200 posts) are Kickstarter supporters, to all of whom I'd like to thank for making this latest gem from Douglas Paszkiewicz a reality.

This one's a beaut, in full colour even.  As from any Arsenic Lullaby book there's the expected "bad taste" jokes (involving the holocaust and the blind and veterans and the like) which skate by handily as comedy in not making them the target of the jokes (of course the easily offended/overly sensitive/humourless should stay away).  Paszkiewicz has long ago mastered the shock comedy art and while they may be the more memorable aspects of his work it's always his longer-form, character-driven work that I appreciate even more. there he cycles through multiple stories each of Baron Von Donut, Cthulu, and the stage magician the Great Duranti.  In the case of Baron Von Donut it all tangential, disconnected, while the Great Duranti stories  connect in a nonlinear fashion revealing ever more curious tidbits about the character and his journey.  Meanwhile the recurring Cthulu bits play out as one narrative brilliantly building in compartmentalized chunks of comedy.  The rest of the book is rounded out by a number of pop culture tinged skits (including a trio of Wizard of Oz themed ones), which I don't recall seeing so prevailently in AL in the past (but I could just be remembering the character-centric and shock sketches the most).

Paszkiewicz's art is at its most confident here, just an unprecedented level of consistency and craft (much of which he conveys in a lesson on "leading the eye" in the backmatter... a fascinating read for illustrators and comic art fans, particularly of economical or comedic storytelling.  Paszkiewicz's art in the past had felt a little rough around the edges, a little unsure, but he's grown with each subsequent effort into a distinct storyteller with a very unique style that now feels fully polished.  It's not just the C colour, every line feels assured.

Arsenic Lullaby has for years ranked with he best of the best humour comics and The Big Stall shows no sign of decline.

365 Comics...196: Hawkeye Vol. 2: Little Hits (2013)

What can I say other than Hawkeye is astounding, boundary-pushing comics with Matt Fraction and his artistic collaborators (primarily David Aja, but also Francesco Francavilla, Steve Lieber of Jesse Hamm, plus Matt Hollingsworth on colors).  Each issue in this collection (numbers 6 throug 11 of the ongoing series) is a bold storytelling exercise. 

The sixth issue is evenly split between Clint and Kate as they whether a storm hitting the East Coast (providing Fraction ample room to pit Brooklyn against Jersey, playing up the common stereotypes of each in Kate and Clint's verbal sparring, then undermining them in their actual respective stories).  The seventh issue toys with non-linear storytelling set over a six day span.  The eight brings back the femme fatale of volume one, once again wreaking havoc on Clint's life, the story interjected with romance comic covers by Annie Wu that have a story relevance while sort of acting as chapter breaks and interludes. 

The ninth issue separates itself into vignettes -- linearly forming a whole story -- that feature the women in Clint's life... the work wife, the ex-wife, the protege, and the girl... friend(?), all spiraling out from the emergence of the femme fatale in issue 9.  Issue ten is a European art film posing as an origin story for the Clown, the hit man hired to destroy Clint's life. And the final chapter in this volume is the now-infamous "Pizza Dog" issue that tells the story from the dog's perspective, interpreting language only sporadically and thinking/interpreting the world in a glyph-based reference.

Each of these issues on its own is a different level of genius which makes for entertaining, challenging and fascinating reading, but as a whole they combine to form a less than satisfying story, one that gets a lot of set up but then spins its wheels without going anywhere before revving up some more.  There needed to be some payoff of at least one of the story threads introduced by this incredible team but they seem so overwhelmed with creative freedom (and perhaps too much self-satisfaction with their own cleverness ... and it is very clever) that they forget to deliver a rewarding sense of momentum (or even movement) to the story in play.  The crafty structures the team devises to engage the reader also serves to distance them from the story as a whole as narrative consistency is sacrificed from one issue to the next.

It is, however, kind of worth it, because there isn't another book out there like this and it entertains in all sorts of ways, particularly in ways that wouldn't suit any other medium.  That said, Coen Brothers to adapt Hawkeye to the screen... make it happen Marvel.  (Peter Stormare resonates in my brain when I read the Russian tracksuit mafia "bro" speak).

365 Comics... 195: Avengers Arena #12 (2012)

Back in 365 Comics #157, I totally called it.  But I couldn't have foreseen how it would all play out, but man it was serious and cool and seriously cool.  This is one of those great "cheer for the good guy" books where they get the upper hand (pun!).

The ending to this ish is a total brainblam (as the kids these days say nowhere) and made me exclaim out loud, which amused the wife some.

Even though I only read the first 12 issues of Avengers Academy (so far) I'm quite excited for next issue's guest writer Christos Cage (who wrote Avengers Academy for over 3 years) who gets to explore the outside world's hurt for the missing super-kids.  Oh yeah, that's some old-timey comic book fun right there.

So an impeccably great time but what's with that cover that has nothing to do with the issue?