Comic Review: The Chimera Brigade Book One

    Regular readers will know that I love the pulps, and a lot of pulp inspired stuff.  Movies like Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow and Raiders of the Lost Ark; comics like The Rocketeer and Hellboy; and of course adaptations of the originals, like Doc Savage, The Shadow, and the like.  I also enjoy a good referential, alternate history story, like League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.  So, The Chimera Brigade is right up my alley.   Set in an alternate 1938, where Europe was profoundly changed by the arrival of what seem to be superheroes and villains after the Great War.  Across the Continent, forces are gathering, spies are spying, and trouble is brewing.

    Though the book in no way feels like League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, that is the most obvious reference when comparing it to something else.  But instead of characters out of Victorian adventure novels, it features a different array of references (from Zamyatin’s We to Orwell’s Big Brother to Meyrink’s Golem), and a very different plot.  I like the setting a lot and am very curious where the plot is going to take the various characters that have been introduced.  The art isn’t amazing, but it’s not bad.  Though not as good, in my opinion, it often reminds me of Mignola’s work on Hellboy.

    Doing a quick bit of research, I found that this is the first of six volumes.  I’m glad that it’s a story that has been completed.  But not I’ve got to wait for it to get translated from the French and published Stateside, which sadly, might take a while.  Because it is only the first of six volumes, this serves primarily as an introduction to the world and to the players, with only hints at the overall story.  It has my attention; hopefully it can hold on to it for however long it takes to get the whole thing out.

The Chimera Brigade: Book One
Authors: Serge Lehman & Fabrice Colin
Artist: Gess
Publisher: Titan Comics
ISBN: 978-1-782-76099-3

-Matthew J. Constantine

A Fistful of Metal! (Brad's Picks)

Zack Snyder's Man of Steel has hit, and hopefully, it will leave a massive crater in my lackluster enthusiasm for Superman.  Oh sure, I enjoyed the Donner movies as a kid, and Grant Morrison & Frank Quitely's All-Star Superman has to be one of the greatest comic book series ever printed in four colors, but Big Blue has never been a character that's spoken to my fanboy heart.  It's either The Beatles or The Stones, you're either a Supes fan or a Batman guy.  I've always been the later.

However, that's not what this list is about.  Look to my Week in Dork for all things Not-A-Bird-Not-A-Plane.  This Fistful Friday centers around my favorite encounters with cinematic Heavy Metal.  Maybe not the greatest movies on the planet, but you can certainly bang your head to this list.  Rock on.

5.  Doc Savage - Man of Bronze:  This movie is shit.  No bones about it.  However, the pulp fiction source material birthed from the bored mind of Lester Dent is a treasure trove of Indiana Jones-like adventure.  The Man of Bronze and his team of scientists travel the globe battling evil Russian scientists and ravenous headhunter tribes.  He seems pretty much forgotten these days, but his tales of pseudo-science & flat-out mysticism rival the very best of The Shadow or The Phantom.  Too bad Ron Ely's Man of Bronze can't muster enough energy to break you out of a snooze.  Still, look at that poster, pretty badass huh?

4.  The Nickel Ride:  This is a gem of 70s crime cinema.  Jason Miller is Cooper, a low level kingpin who manages a string of warehouses in Los Angeles.  But then the mob looses interest in their investment and cowboy goon Bo Hopkins shows up on his doorstep.  Not really triumphed these days, The Nickel Ride is a cold, mean, anti-climactic, and eventually heartless film.  Not the type of flick to go down in history, but it's worth your time just to see everyone's favorite Exorcist go up against no one's favorite Bufurd Pusser.

3.  Silver Linings Playbook:  I haven't seen this since the movie theater, but I've been craving a rewatch lately.  Haters love to harp on its completely fantastical interpretation of mental illness and it's Gambling Wins The Day climax, but I say pull that stick outta your ass and enjoy the oddball romance skipping a beat at the center of the film.  Bradley Cooper & Jennifer Lawrence are utterly engaging.  They have no business being together and in a real world situation would probably end their relationship in bloodshed, but this is Hollywood, and in Hollywood the guy gets the girl even when he is batshit crazy with rage.  It's cute.

2.  Cross of Iron:  The man who brought us the moral ambiguity of The Wild Bunch and Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid turns his attention towards The Good War, and the result is a haunting insight into how the other half lives.  James Coburn is Steiner, a German corporal who refuses to execute a captive child which in turn brings down the wrath of his commanding officer Maximilian Schell.  There have been many films that have reveled in the "War Is Hell" pathos, but Cross of Iron is one of the most theatrical and as such it reaches deep into Greek tragedy.  This ain't Spielberg, it's Peckinpah.  'nuff said.

1.  Goldfinger:  Could there be any other choice for the top spot?  Certainly not the best James Bond film (uh, that's From Russia With Love), still Goldfinger has the most iconic moment from the franchise.  Shirley Eaton, having foolishly fallen for Sean Connery's smile, is transformed into the ultimate Bond Girl victim when the diabolical Auric Goldfinger gives her a glittery spray-on tan.  A million fanboys were birthed in that moment.

The Real Man of Steel?

--Brad

Comic Review: Superman - Red Son

    Look, I know he’s got a long history, and I know people really dig him.  But I just don’t cotton on Superman.  Like Batman, his direct ancestors are the pulp heroes of yesteryear.  Where Batman is a pretty straight lift from characters like The Shadow and The Spider, Superman’s genes include Doc Savage and John Carter (he even has Doc Savage’s ‘Fortress of Solitude’).  But while John Carter and Doc Savage were tremendously competent, and a bit larger than life, Superman went on to become a god, with basically no faults.  Is there anything more boring than a hero without faults?  Bad writing over many decades took him from very fast and very strong to a flying, invincible, laser shooting, cold breathing, deus ex machina.  Each week or month, the writers would paint themselves into a corner, then give him whatever power he needed to get out of the seemingly impossible situation, until there was nothing he couldn’t do.  Blah.  When you have a character like this existing in your universe, the best way to handle him is to make him a background element, not the focal point.  But of course, every month, there are a dozen comics put out with Superman as a central figure.  Still, as Watchmen showed with Dr. Manhattan, when used correctly a character of his type can be an excellent storytelling tool.  And that’s what Mark Millar has done with his thought experiment, Red Son.  What if Superman’s craft had deposited him in the farmlands of the Soviet Union, instead of the United States?

    This is denser than a lot of modern comics I’ve read, feeling a bit more from the Alan Moore school.  By the end of this 150 page volume, I felt like I’d read a solid story with a good beginning, middle, and end; with characters and conflicts well thought out and executed.  The same can not always be said for volumes of similar length, even those that are perfectly enjoyable.  The play on the mythology, seeing some of the same people rise in different ways, and the same archetypes rise with different faces was handled very well.  Lex Luthor is interesting for once.  The Russian Batman makes sense…maybe even more than the Gotham one.  And Wonder Woman takes an interesting turn.  The art is also quite nice.  Batman and Superman seem to attract the most retro-styled artists, those folks who want to give it a dash of 40s penciling, or 60s coloring, or what have you.  Sometimes it works, sometimes not.  This time, it works very well.  Good character design, nice coloring, good action, and interesting panel work that never makes a nuisance of itself.  It captures some of that gee-shucks comic book look, while also going for those great propaganda poster moments.

    You don’t have to be a Superman fan to enjoy this (I’m not).  So long as you have the general gist of the character (he’s an alien, landed in the heartland, became a champion of post-WWII American spirit) you should have no problem following along with this alternate world version of things, and still catch some of the more poignant moments.  The Red Son universe seems like there could be some more interesting stories to tell, but knowing how sequels and tie-ins to these things usually suck, maybe it’s best if they just leave it as a one-off.

Superman: Red Son
Author: Mark Millar
Artists: Dave Johnson, etc.
Publisher: DC Comics
ISBN: 978-1-4012-0191-3

-Matt

Book Review: Death Reign of the Vampire King

    The Spider, a Master of Men stands with the pantheon of pulp heroes that includes but is not limited to Doc Savage and The Shadow.  It is from these characters that our famous comic book heroes descended.  Like Superman?  Read Doc Savage.  He did it first.  Like Batman?  Read The Shadow or The Spider.  They were doing it years before.  They are heroes of a different time; often rich, powerful, and self-guiding.  These are not men held by the hand of fate, but men who shape the world according to their own will.  If Tom Brokaw wrote incessantly about vigilantes instead of WWII vets, this would be his ‘Greatest Generation.’

    Death Reign of the Vampire King is my second Spider novel but is apparently from four years earlier than the first one I read, Satan’s Murder Machines.  The Spider is still a well established figure in the battle against super-crime, donning his disguise and laughing while villains burn.  He’s got his trusty, lusty lady Nita and his daring Hindu sidekick Ram Singh.  And somehow a network of spies and associates everywhere he needs them to be.  And this time, he’ll draw on them all as he battles a fiendish foe who uses poisoned vampire bats to commit mass murder.

    Sadly, I don’t enjoy the Spider as much as The Shadow, to whom he bares a striking resemblance.  Generally, I don’t think Norvell Page’s writing is up to snuff, too frequently descending into almost groan inducing melodrama, not to mention plot twists that defy logic or reason.  But there’s sure some crazy creativity.  I think one problem he runs into right off is that The Spider and his alter ego Richard Wentworth aren’t distinct enough.  Sure, Wentworth is a rich playboy, but his well known hobby is fighting crime.  And everyone seems to know that he’s The Spider…except when they don’t.  Unlike The Shadow/Batman, where pretty much nobody suspects who he really is, because Lamont Cranston/Bruce Wayne is such a foppish and spoiled child of privilege, Wentworth spends much of his time helping the police as some kind of Holmesian advisor.  So when he dons the disguise, it seems almost as an afterthought or aesthetic choice.

    Alas, though I love the genre and the era, I’m not finding myself in love with the character of The Spider.  I’m not done.  I still have four more novels in my possession that I will read one of these days.  But right now, I’m in no hurry to pick one up again.

Death Reign of the Vampire King
Author: Norvell Page
Publisher: Bean
ISBN: (one of three novels collected in) 978-1-4165-5574-2

-Matt

Comic Review: Marvel Noir

Daredevil Noir
Author: Alexander Irvine
Artist: Tom Coker
Publisher: Marvel Publishing Inc.
ISBN: 9780785121541
Pages: 112

    Reminding me a bit more of pulp adventure stories than noir, this is still a moody book with some evocative art.  The murder and gangland war is all spot on, and there’s some good revenge hunting.  There’s even a nice femme fatale.  But Matt Murdock’s ultra-senses still seem more at home with The Shadow or The Phantom than with Sam Spade or Skip McCoy.

Punisher Noir
Author: Frank Tieri
Artist(s): Paul Azaceta & Antonio Fuso
Publisher: Marvel Publishing Inc.
ISBN: 9780785132769
Pages: 112

    This does some really interesting stuff in re-writing the Punisher’s origin, starting with the first world war, and bringing it up to the dawn of World War II.  Corruption and violence rule, and out of this bloody battlefield called New York, someone will rise and strike back.  Some cool and some weird twists await as the story unfolds.
    However, it is an origin story, and generally speaking, that’s just something I don’t need to read or view again.  Origin stories are played out for this reader.  I’d prefer they would just get to the meat of things.  Still, for an origin story, it’s pretty good. 
    The artwork is fine, if unmemorable. 

Luke Cage Noir
Author(s): Mike Benson & Adam Glass
Artist: Shawn Martinbrough
Publisher: Marvel Publishing Inc.
ISBN: 9780785135456
Pages: 112

    By far, the best of the Marvel Noir series that I’ve read, it also captures the spirit of noir better than any of the others.  It isn’t pulp adventure, it’s just a straight up, gritty taste of the underworld.  An ex-con for a lead, plenty of dangerous folk, murder, and  betrayal.  And it doesn’t just play with the story of Luke Cage.  More than the others, it reworks the very concept, making it much more in keeping with the genre.  This is NOT a superhero story.  As I read it, I was constantly reminded of Walter Mosley’s Easy Rawlins.
    The art looks good, but isn’t particularly special.  But this is a strong and worthy comic that crime fans should read.

    Overall, the Marvel Noir line is an interesting idea that seems a bit lost.  It’s really more Marvel Pulp.  I didn’t even bother reviewing Spider-Man Noir, as it’s hardly even a step removed from The Spider or Doc Savage, with almost no noir to it at all.  But I think the line was a cool idea, and I hope maybe it found enough of an audience to get another round sometime, maybe with some characters that fit the genre a bit better, like Nick Fury, Misty Night, Silver Sable, or some others.
    And heck, I’d love to see them keep putting out Pulp versions of their characters.  A pulpy version of Black Panther or Reed Richards could be a blast. 
    And on an art note, I kind of wish they’d gone with black &white for the Marvel Noir line.  Sure, sometimes the look was still very dark and shadowed, but black & white just looks so right.

-Matt