The only complaint i have about Kevin Smith's Cacophony is that Roy sold himself short. He soooo could have netted a hell of a lot more than $20 grand, course....that will make more sense in a bit.
Witty dialogue and senseless violence marks the beginning of Cacophony, Smith's recent venture into the Batman world and I am so happy that he let us into his twisted version of the Batman universe.
Tying the poor economics of today, Smith starts us off with a satirical joke on big business and keeps on going; delving into such topics of green merkins and why pedophiles enjoy the Sunday papers Family Circle comic. But the fun doesn't stop there kiddies.....all of that happens in the first few pages of the book.
Starting off with a potential murder, Deadshot has been hired by a bereaved parent whose kid offed himself while using the new drug on the street "Chuckles". Chuckles was discovered when Zues Maximus raided one of the Jokers hide-outs and found a random canister of The Joker's fatal laughing gas. Maximus being an entrepreneurial kinda guy thought it would be wise to cut Ecstasy with diluted Joker gas and sell it on the street. Next thing he knows he's mass producing the next designer drug. Sadly, Deadshot's current employer doesn't realize the drug is being put out by Maximus so he's sent Deadshot in to kill The Joker.
After getting the security codes to Arkham Asylum from a disgruntled security guard named Roy who was let go due to our poor economical times possibly brought on by the Bush administration, Deadshot makes his way into Arkham to bust the Joker's chaps. Sadly he's stopped short by an unknown assailant who has different plans for Joker....bust him out of jail and give him LOADS of cash. The Joker graciously accepts the cash load and makes off to take his revenge on Maximus.
Kevin Smith does a fantastic job of showing us the darker side of Gotham by including special appearances by Zasz and other insane members of the cities zanies, not to mention that Smith's version of Batman does seem to border that thin line of sanity he sometimes balances on.
Batman Cacophony was a great book that not only I could recommend to a Batman fan, but to someone new to the whole DC universe and not have worry about them being lost. Smith's dialogue helps barely used Maximus seem like a regular in the Batman world and adds enough development to each character so you don't feel like an outsider as some mini series can.
Totally dig it. Pick it up!
Friday, November 14, 2008
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Project Superpowers: Black Terror #1
I think the narrator best describes how I feel about anything Project Superpowers near the beginning of Black Terror #1," What he feels now is nothing. NOTHING," cause that is how I feel about Project Superpowers.
Let's rewind a bit. Project Super Powers is the child of Alex Ross and Jim Krueger. Since most publishing companies NEED to have a "Super Hero" universe Dynamite Entertainment brought them into to the picture to take public domain characters from Fox Comics and Crestwood Productions and sculpt them into the Super Heroes.
How do they bring these golden age heroes into the light of today, by a contrived plot device which left all of the worlds super heroes (save two, The Fighting Yank & the Green Lama) trapped in Pandora's Box after Hitler released all of it's evil out into the world.
For some reason the US Government did not like all these super heroes running around and convinced Yank to go around and collect them in the box.
Flash forward to today and The Yank is not feeling very happy about what he's done, so he travels over to visit the Green Lama in Tibet to contemplate what he's done decades ago.
Eventually all of the heroes are let out and they try to adjust to the world today.
.....and I think this sounds super cool, right? Sadly I just don't care about any of the heroes here.
I've tried, but I fell like none of the Heroes had any development, it was just like..here ya go...have some golden age super heroes that people have forgotten about but are public domain so we're gonna use them all.
So now we come to Black Terror #1. The break out star from Project Superpowers. Ummm...I didn't realize there was a break out star to this series. I had to look up who the main character was on wikipedia, I mean this story is just that forgettable to me. But here he is, he's got his own book and wow is it sub par like the rest of the series.
I've read and re-read this issue and I still cannot fathom how it came to be. The writing is cliched and the art work, well I'm suprised that Alex Ross has ANYTHING to do with the art direction.
I understand that the writing tone is in the grandiose fashion of the Golden Age and this makes sense since most of these Super Heroes walked right out of that time period, but what gets me is that even though the character of Black Terror has had his back story explained, his motivation has been defined and he's been given a proper purpose I still don't care.
Plus the one thing that I would expect to be stellar in a Alex Ross project would be the art, unfortuantely Ross paints better than he directs. While the covers in Project Superpowers have been fantastic the interior work is lacking in that fresh crispness you would associate with Ross and while I realize he's not the one doing most of the art I would expect consitancy to be kept up through out his works instead of this 90's looking crap (Supplied lovingly by Mike Lilly, known mostly for supplying sketch cards to trading card companies) that leaves you wishing they would have finished drawing the villians instead of blending parts of them into the black background.
Whatever. Right now Project Superpowers is just not the BAM POW WOW Super Hero universe that Dynamite Entertainment is looking for, which is sad cause it has potential. Hopefully it can grow into the universe it needs to be, but right now I'd say it's floundering to it's death.
Let's rewind a bit. Project Super Powers is the child of Alex Ross and Jim Krueger. Since most publishing companies NEED to have a "Super Hero" universe Dynamite Entertainment brought them into to the picture to take public domain characters from Fox Comics and Crestwood Productions and sculpt them into the Super Heroes.
How do they bring these golden age heroes into the light of today, by a contrived plot device which left all of the worlds super heroes (save two, The Fighting Yank & the Green Lama) trapped in Pandora's Box after Hitler released all of it's evil out into the world.
For some reason the US Government did not like all these super heroes running around and convinced Yank to go around and collect them in the box.
Flash forward to today and The Yank is not feeling very happy about what he's done, so he travels over to visit the Green Lama in Tibet to contemplate what he's done decades ago.
Eventually all of the heroes are let out and they try to adjust to the world today.
.....and I think this sounds super cool, right? Sadly I just don't care about any of the heroes here.
I've tried, but I fell like none of the Heroes had any development, it was just like..here ya go...have some golden age super heroes that people have forgotten about but are public domain so we're gonna use them all.
So now we come to Black Terror #1. The break out star from Project Superpowers. Ummm...I didn't realize there was a break out star to this series. I had to look up who the main character was on wikipedia, I mean this story is just that forgettable to me. But here he is, he's got his own book and wow is it sub par like the rest of the series.
I've read and re-read this issue and I still cannot fathom how it came to be. The writing is cliched and the art work, well I'm suprised that Alex Ross has ANYTHING to do with the art direction.
I understand that the writing tone is in the grandiose fashion of the Golden Age and this makes sense since most of these Super Heroes walked right out of that time period, but what gets me is that even though the character of Black Terror has had his back story explained, his motivation has been defined and he's been given a proper purpose I still don't care.
Plus the one thing that I would expect to be stellar in a Alex Ross project would be the art, unfortuantely Ross paints better than he directs. While the covers in Project Superpowers have been fantastic the interior work is lacking in that fresh crispness you would associate with Ross and while I realize he's not the one doing most of the art I would expect consitancy to be kept up through out his works instead of this 90's looking crap (Supplied lovingly by Mike Lilly, known mostly for supplying sketch cards to trading card companies) that leaves you wishing they would have finished drawing the villians instead of blending parts of them into the black background.
Whatever. Right now Project Superpowers is just not the BAM POW WOW Super Hero universe that Dynamite Entertainment is looking for, which is sad cause it has potential. Hopefully it can grow into the universe it needs to be, but right now I'd say it's floundering to it's death.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
