Yesterday I finished rereading Batman: The Long Halloween. I hadn’t read it in its entirety in probably at least five or six years. It hasn’t aged well at all. When I first discovered it, I loved it, but after giving it a semi-critical reading, it doesn’t hold up. There’s nothing really wrong with the art, though. Tim Sale carries the entire thing. His storytelling skills give the story a weightiness and verisimilitude that simply isn’t present in the text.
I now stand by P.Giddy’s long-held assessment that The Long Halloween is crap.
The writing is weak. The narrative captions are heavy-handed and teem with cliches. Totally ham-fisted. Also, it’s like Loeb thought he could make Batman’s narration all the more dramatic by constantly splitting up his sentences with ellipses or dashes. For a superhero comic that tries its damndest to be a crime noir, it fails in its plotting. The structure of the story does not play by the rules of legit mystery-telling. Loeb cheats in the story. For example, Batman is the protagonist and narrator of the book, but Loeb constantly shows us things that Batman wouldn’t know. There’s even a ridiculous scene where one of the other characters, the Roman, has a thought balloon. There’s only one thought balloon in the entire story, and it’s the Roman’s. That’s not just cheating, it’s lazy writing.
I don’t think Loeb even knows who Holiday is. The so-called “ambiguity” is just a buncha garbage because he either wrote himself into a corner or he never planned to reveal Holiday’s identity in the first place.
I’m in the middle of rereading Dark Victory again. So far, I think it’s better than The Long Halloween, but I need to finish reading the rest of it before I can collect my thoughts.
I honestly can’t remember a thing about Dark Victory except that I sold the hardcover on ebay years ago for $$$
I read Old Man Logan for the first time last week. Picked up the hardcover because who doesn’t love a good wolverine dystopian future story? Unfortunately Millar forgot about the good part of that sentence. I thought the story was really weak, highly unimaginative, a lazy pastiche of Yojimbo/Unforgiven/etc, and it was decompressed as hell. I normally cut Millar some slack on the decompression and pop culture references, but come on - xbox? That shit probably didn’t make sense when the comic was new. My biggest gripe is that I just don’t believe in the Wolverine character Millar presents. I don’t believe the inciting incident would have occured, and I don’t believe he would have turned into world’s greatest pussy because of it. The whole story was laughable, including random black drug dealer who apparently killed Magneto. The character designs were weak and everything was a horrid brown/tan. Put this story up next to Morrison’s “Here Comes Tomorrow” and you get an artistic beatdown of epic proportion on every conceivable level.
Never mind. I was wrong about Dark Victory. It’s pretty crappy as well. No complaints about the art, though - the art’s wonderful. Sale’s art is solely responsible for the most powerful moments of the entire thing, particularly the Alfred/Dick scenes and the death of the Flying Graysons at the circus. The story’s just nothing special. I think Loeb was trying to hard to emulate the hard-boiled style of Year One. He also tried too hard to throw in a gauntlet of Batman villains into the mix. (Or maybe he didn’t try nearly hard enough.) The plotting wasn’t anything remarkable. It’s tough to believe I used to love this comic.
I also reread Superman For All Seasons. That, actually, is something I think I will keep. I think it’s good. The coloring on Tim Sale’s art in that is exquisite. And as one of Loeb’s earlier works, maybe it reads a little better than everything that came after it. There’s more heart to it. Although it doesn’t necessarily say anything particularly interesting about Superman, it’s a smooth read and I don’t think it’s an affront to the character.
Halfway through rereading Spider-Man: Blue. (Figured I’d read it one more time before I completely cut it out of my life.) I really like Tim Sale’s beautiful art, but this isn’t impressive writing. The story itself is predictable and the dialogue is occasionally embarrassing. (“I like it fast.”) Also, why does Loeb have such an addiction to making his superhero protagonists run through a gauntlet of their foes? And there’s always a “mystery” in the story where Loeb always has a secret shadowy dude masterminding things. The Long Halloween, Dark Victory, Hush, Spidey: Blue, DD: Yellow, and probably more that I never bothered to pick up because his name was on it. It feels like his stories are all a variation on that theme, only without any subtext, so you only get the barest and most superficial escapist pandering.
Just bought volumes 1-11 of Ultimate Spider-Man & I’m just finished with issue 13 where Peter is talking with MJ in his room. I’m loving the series so far, makes it alot funner than reading the essentials where I don’t really like the slow pacing of it along with the dialogue. This series just zips right through with one story arc to the next. I also got myself the Anti-Venom tpb along with Irredeemable Vol.1 which I heard alot of good things about. Next order is gonna be the epic clone saga, JLI vol.1, & the 5th Sandman. =)
You are in for a real treat with Ultimate Spider-Man. The only misstep early in the run is the Ultimate Six mini (collected in vol. 7 i think?) other than that it’s all gravy. I’m still waiting for the final OHC to come out. It was solicited so should be here in the next month or two.
I’ve been reading slowly but surely and will write up some mini reviews soon. I still have a big backlog, mostly old material (masterworks, omnibuses, etc) that takes a long time to read. I’m also hoping another company will hurry up and clone the ipad and have it be compatible with adobe reader so I can finally get into all my marvel gitcorp dvds.
Also for Sano and others, Classic GI Joe vol. 8 comes out on wednesday
I’m curious if the G.I. Joe TPBs will go past Lary Hama’s last issue, #155. Because Larry Hama is going to pick up right where he left off with G.I. Joe #156 starting in July and ignore everything else. 155 1/2 we got on Free Comic Book Day. Kind of strange since the technology in the comic was up to date, with Ipods cell phones and such. There’s a Q&A in the comic and when Hama was asked about using current technology in the comic he said he doesn’t believe that G.I. Joe exists in our space time continuim anyway.
If they do TPBs past Hama’s run I’ll give it a shot but I really didn’t care for any of the comics that tried to continue the original series in the last few years. Picking up the new #156 for certain though. Hopefully they’ll release TPBs for that series too.
I have no idea what the fuck DC’s doing with WildStorm. Every other year they reboot/revamp the entire line and it seems like they can’t keep a creative team on their core books. (Or maybe their books just get canceled and then rebranded and relaunched before I know what the hell’s happened.) It’s like DC doesn’t give a damn about WildStorm, but then they do things like The Programme, new printings of SLEEEEEEEEPER!!!1 and Sparta, USA by Lapham. And now they’re doing giant TRADES, BABY of Wildcats Version 3.0? One of their all-time greatest non-creator-owned comics, which also got prematurely canceled 24 issues into a 36 issue storyline? What the hell does this mean? Just from skimming the past few months’ of solicitations, it really doesn’t seem like the current incarnation of the Wildcats has much, if anything, at all to do with Casey’s work. I know it’s too much to hope that they would somehow ask him to come back and finish his saga if this new TRADE, BABY sells well. (Which I doubt it will. Who’s the target audience for comics like this? All the Joe Casey fans already own this and I seriously doubt that the average WildStorm fan who enjoys their current direction would enjoy reading the most forward-thinking superhero team comic of the past decade.)
It’s criminal how CLAREMONT has a chance to continue his shitty X-Men run with X-Men Forever. What a fucking travesty it is that bullshit like that can get a second chance and Casey will probably never get a chance to complete Wildcats Version 3.0. We the readers got robbed.
OK so I just finished reading the 1st trade to Invincible Iron Man & all I can say is that was a good read. People kept suggesting that I read this after I saw the 1st Iron Man movie (just saw the film last week so I could watch the 2nd one lol) & I’m glad that I listened to them. I don’t know much about Iron Man besides what I just finished reading & the movies but, I’ll be sure to read the rest of the series but, I’m interested in reading more about him. Should I check out any Avengers comics or the Marvel Essentials & if so which ones?
Did you guys notice the Barnes and Noble clearance sale online? Looks like a lot of the good stuff has been snapped up already, so the remaining pickings are kinda slim. It’s mostly random manga and IDW Speed Racer collections. Still, there’s some good stuff left.
I highly, highly recommend getting Teenagers From Mars for only 1.99. One of the best indie comics of the decade, for sure. It’s kind of a coming of age/fight the power parable as well as a 250+ page love letter to the comics medium.
I also see Barry Windsor-Smith’s Weapon X for like 3 bucks… What else? I see Ultimates 2 volume 1 for $3. 30 Days of Night (various volumes), The Amazing Adventures of the Escapist (recommended!), The Pulse v.3, IDW’s Fallen Angel (by Peter David) v.1, Ultimate Galactus v.1, and some Eddie Campbell books.
Official: no hope for a 1963 TRADE, BABY. (And no hope for an official ending, either.) I guess I’m grateful that I have the issues, but that’s too bad.
I ended up going to SDCC for one day and picked up 20 trades. 10 of them were 50% off, the other 10 were 75 - 80% off. Here’s what I got:
Predator Omnibus vol. 3 - vol. 1 was the strongest but I figured why not
Ghost/Batgirl: The Resurrection Engine - didnt know this existed but I will buy anything with the CGW characters
Mystery in Space vol. 1-2 - Not really sure why I got this except I liked the other space titles around IC/52
Rann Thanagar Holy War vol. 2 - Needed this one
Superman vs. Predator - I buy all these crossover books, many are OOP
DMZ vol. 7 - I’m behind on my dmz buying
Madamxe Xanadu vol. 1 - just heard this was cancelled. hopefully my trade waiting didnt contribute
Sandman Mystery Theater vol. 8 - Guessing this will be as good as the rest
Young Liars vol. 3 - been waiting to pick this up
Cable Classic vol. 2 - me do like
Exiles Ultimate Collection vol. 2 - hopefully this is better than vol. 1
Heroes Reborn: The Return - this is the new printing with a bunch more issues included than just the 4 issue mini
X-Men: Prelude to Onslaught - Im a sucker for crappy x-books from this era
X:Men: The Shattering - see above
X:Men Legacy: Salvage - decided to switch to tpb’s for these
Wildcats 2.0 vol. 2-4 - All 3 of the Joe Casey trades, looking forward to reading this
GI Joe: Declassified - Larry Hama mini series that DDP published, supposed to be good
I also picked up some books from my regular seller prior to comic con that I’m looking forward to reading including Absolute Planetary vol. 1-2 and all of the Blackest Night GL trades.
I’ve been working through my backlog steadily so will post up some comments for what I’ve been reading soon.
Yeah, I got Predator Omnibus v. 1 as well. That was pretty good stuff. Man, Madame Xanadu’s being canceled, too? That sucks. I’ve been slow on picking up the TPBs. Hopefully Wagner will get a chance to at least give his story an ending.
Good stuff on keeping up with the Sandman Mystery Theatre volumes. I got nothing but love for that series, one of my all-time favorites. Same with Wildcats volume 2. I am excited for you to read it. I think Wildcats volume 2 is one of Casey’s greatest works ever, one of the few times when he was able to tell an uncompromised, long-form story with an ending he planned featuring corporate characters.
You ever check out Joe Casey’s run on the Devil’s Due GI Joe: America’s Elite? It’s pretty great stuff. I’ve got the first 15 issues of the run (tracking down the final 3) and just read it for the first time last week. The TRADES, BABY, are probably out of print ever since IDW got the license, but if you ever find Casey’s GI Joe stuff, check it out.
I hate coming into this thread, because it reminds me of all the shit I can’t afford.
Speaking of G.I. Joe, it’s funny that you say that. I’ve recently been trying to get into G.I. Joe: ARAH since Larry Hama’s return to the title. In doing so, I’ve found that the general consensus concerning Joe Casey’s AE run is pretty negative. Some people even go as far as refusing to acknowledge its existence. I know from previous posts that you’re a pretty big Casey fan, so I’m wondering what you have to say in his defense.
Hmm didn’t know Casey did any GI Joe. May have to check it out. It really would be cool if he could go back and finish 'CATS 3.0
Recent stuff I’ve read:
Daredevil by Frank Miller Omnibus - I’d read this before via the Visionaries trades but that was a long time ago. Good stuff all around and reminded me how much Bru and Bendis (especially Bru) ripped off from this run
Daredevil Companion Omnibus - Born Again is good for the most part and makes me hate Kevin Smith’s arc even more for Karen Page’s stupid and pointless death. Issue #219 is really good. The Man Without Fear mini I never really cared for.
Daredevil by Brubaker Omnibus vol. 1-2 - I re-read vol. 1 and read vol. 2 for the first time. All in all it isn’t as good as Bendis’s run. Bru’s first arc with Daredevil in prison is by far the best of the run, and by the end you just want Murdock to put a gun in his mouth. I feel most of the criticisms unfairly lobbed on Bendis’s run are found in Bru’s, like DD being overly passive and whiny. I also think Lark is workman-like but he doesnt have the flair Maleev has.
Classic GI Joe vol. 4-6 and Special Missions vol. 1 - These arent just great Joe comics, they are great comics from this era period. Hama’s writing is far, far above almost anything else Marvel was churning out at the time. No preponderance of thought balloons or text captions, just awesome stories that keep getting more involved and interesting. My favorite is the whole Springfield saga bit that culminated in issue #50. The stuff with the agents who look alike and take over as head of the family, and how one used to be a soldier with snake eyes, all good stuff. It’s really too bad the Yearbooks weren’t reprinted. And by too bad I mean criminal.
I’m currently working on Classic GI Joe vol. 7 and Blackest Night (five of the trades, trying to read in publication order)
