Hal in Charge: a Review of Green Lantern volume 4 Dark Days

 

Review:

In the early pages of this hardcover book, Hal Jordan Green Lantern is promoted to leader of the entire Green Lantern Corps. And while he brings the Corps through a serious challenge, including the destruction of Oa, there is room for growth in his leadership style and skills. His Command-and-Control style is not so out of place in a universe-spanning police force with military overtones. But there is no structure in place for leading the thousands of Corps members. He is more vanguard than general, leading a small, central team from the front lines.

Granted, the Corps is much in flux in this book. Collecting issues #21-26, including #23.1 and Annual #2, it spans the runup to the Lights Out cross-over, the three issues from this series that contribute to the cross-over, and some follow-up issues.

There is a lot to like about this book. Author Robert Venditti introduces several intriguing plot threads and interpersonal relationships to be mined. Relic is a fascinating new villain, and his quest to exterminate the ring-bearers before the source light is extinguished. Nol Anj is also a striking new Star Sapphire with a mean streak and legions of criminal followers who do truly love her. Tensions with Carol Ferris, and a dozen new recruits with scattered teasers about their back-stories round out the many little promises of future tales.

Billy Tan handles most of the art duties in these pages. I love the variety of panels and layouts he employs as he plays with the tempo of graphical storytelling made possible through his multiple techniques. He gives us a few classic Green Lantern constructs too, although most often the rings seem to simply shoot power blasts.

Somehow, the solid art and intriguing and daring plot hooks fail to gel into a strong book. Hal's need to grow up, if he is to lead, is obvious but not terribly compelling, and goes nowhere anyway in these pages. Like Booster Gold in his new leadership role in the pages of Justice League International, Hal needs a career coach or mentor. Nol Anj and her followers should clearly not have been such a large challenge, one needing the Corps leader to summon all available personnel to handle. It is just one of the leadership fails on Hal's watch in these pages, none of which seem to amount to anything.

So many strong ideas yet the overall result is disappointing.

Description:

Just as Hal Jordan, John Stewart and Guy Gardner are putting back together the Green Lantern Corps, lights across all of the different colored Corps begin to flicker. Lanterns from all over the universe begin to lose power, but unlike times' past, the reasons for the outage don't seem to be in-fighting between one another. Allying with enemies and friends alike, Hal links the answers to the mysterious alien Relic and their confrontations will leave all the corps forever changed.

GREEN LANTERN VOL. 4 begins a brand-new era for the entire emotional spectrum, from writer Robert Venditti (X-O Manowar) and artist Billy Tan (New Avengers).

Collects: GREEN LANTERN #21-26, #23.1: Relic, GREEN LANTERN ANNUAL #2

Authors:  Robert Venditti
Artists:  Billy Tan
Published By:  DC Comics
Published When:  April 29, 2014
Parental Rating: Teen
ISBN:  978-1401247447
Pages:  200 pages

Assassin Vs Spy: a Review of Cinderella: Fables Are Forever

 

Review:

Creative team Chris Roberson and Shawn McManus join forces again to bring us another Cinderella Super-Spy story from the larger Fables universe created by Bill Willingham. With another titular nod to the James Bond franchise, this book collects the full limited series of Cinderella's ongoing and historic adventures.

This time, she must find and do battle with a villain from her past - the skilled assassin Dorothy. Long after she fled both Kansas and Oz, Dorothy became one of the most successful and dangerous hired guns to ever flee the Homelands for the Mundy world.

Cindy watched Dorothy fall to her death years earlier, and this tale is sprinkled with reminisces and flashbacks to battles past. From Russia to Thailand, from Switzerland to Burkina Faso and beyond, their epic confrontations spanned the globe and involved the narrowest of escapes - from each other and from other magic-infused creatures.

But these are memories, and the present has its own dangers. Roberson's writing strikes a superb balance between past and present. Even with the occasionally heavy narration, it successfully builds to a satisfying final confrontation.

On the visual side, McManus gives us a Cinderella who is strong, soft and sexy. Despite the occasional facial flop, his images flow smoothly between the normal and the magical. The book has a Mature rating, and I am not sure why - certainly not for the art. There is no nudity, only a panel or two of tastefully handled sex, and no more than a comic book level of violence. There are lots of hot ladies in various stages of undress but no peeping past well-placed objects.

Fables creator Bill Willingham gets one of his own Cinderella tales added as a special feature at the end. The collection would be stronger without it. It's the tale of Cindy switching from spy to diplomat and ambassador to the Giants and is goofy and light. After all the fun of Fables are Forever, the silliness does not compare well. Such collections often include special features or alternate covers or glimpses into the creators and their work, but we get no such thing here, only this weaker one-off tale.

Description:        

Fabletown's favorite secret agent and bon vivant Cinderella is back on the job again in this follow up limited series to CINDERELLA: FROM FABLETOWN WITH LOVE. Someone is killing sorcerers out on the Farm, and all signs point to Cinderella's archnemesis from the old days. The only problem is, Cinderella has always believed that her nemesis has been dead for years.

Collects: Complete 6-issue limited series

Authors:  Chris Roberson, Bill Willingham
Artists:  Shawn McManus
Published By:  Vertigo 
Published When:  April 24, 2012)
Parental Rating: Mature
ISBN:  978-1401233853
Pages:  160 pages

Cinderella Bond: Review of From Fabletown with Love

 

Review:

Cinderella, in the finest British tradition of dashing super-spies, moves with ease through the crustiest layers of modern society, both Fable and Mundy. With a titular nod to one of the earliest Bond films, this book easily sells her haute-society lifestyle. Little do any of her peers in the Bill Willingham-created Fables universe know of her real purpose - to find and retrieve any illicit magical artifacts before they can fall into the wrong hands.

In this adventure, she even encounters a sexy companion, Aladdin. His turn as a gender-flipped Bond Girl serves as both collaborator and dude-in-distress in need of rescuing. Together, they must find the source of the magical objects flooding the black market and put a stop to it.

From Dubai to the North Sea and finally the Fable-world Ultima Thule, they must dodge weapons of both the magical and Mundy varieties as well as shape-shifting monsters, harem girls and a not-so-friendly fairy godmother.

Writer Chris Roberson weaves a tightly plotted and fast-paced tale, befitting the super-spy genre. The comedic banter between Cindy and "Lamp Boy" Aladdin is delightful; her reflections on her past battles and training add depth, although they do become a touch repetitive. The result is a strong female lead character with a nicely balanced blend of brains, brawn, beauty and bewitching.

The biggest flaws in Roberson's spy tale are the "meanwhile back in Fabletown" interruptions. These moments, fundamentally intended for levity, fail to serve any real purpose in the overall story, nor do they contribute anything meaningful to the growth and development of these or other characters in the Fables universe. Given how well the Cinderella and Aladdin parts are written, there is no need to pull our attention away with these distracting asides.

Shawn McManus' visuals are soft and beautiful. He mixes clean lines and panels with exaggerated facial expressions to sometimes amusing effect, especially with the shapes of mouth and nose. The pages are sexy but discrete, with no nudity or on-panel sex scenes. Since the moments of violence are also tastefully done and far from the gore found in other Fables books, the "Mature" rating on the book is excessive; Teen would certainly be enough, and some more liberal cultures would classify it PG.

I give this fun, fast-paced, clever and beautiful book four capes.

Description:

When supernatural artifacts from the Homelands begin surfacing in the modern world, it falls to Cinderella, Fabletown's best kept (and best dressed) secret agent to stop the illegal trafficking. But can Cindy foil the dark plot before Fabletown and its hidden, exiled inhabitants are exposed once and for all? And how does her long lost Fairy Godmother factor into the equation?

Whether she's soaring through clouds, deep-sea diving, or cracking jaws, Cindy travels from Manhattan to Dubai and hooks up with a handsome, familiar accomplice who may be harboring secret motives of his own. Meanwhile, trouble brews back home in Fabletown when Cindy's overworked, underappreciated assistant decides to seize control of The Glass Slipper, Cindy's exclusive shoe boutique.

Collects: the complete 6-issue limited series

Authors:  Chris Roberson
Artists:  Shawn McManus
Published By:  Vertigo 
Published When:  Aug. 10, 2010
Parental Rating: Mature
ISBN:  978-1401227500
Pages:  144 pages

Memories of One Perfect Day - Review of Batman the Dark Knight volume 3 - Mad (New 52)

 

Review:

A substantial portion of the Batman's Rogues Gallery of villains have an at-best tenuous grasp on reality. Hence the need for Arkham, an asylum for the criminally insane. Joker, Riddler, Scarecrow, Two-Face, Poison Ivy, to name a few, are less about super-powered villains, leaning more to the twisted, sadistic, psychopathic or deranged.

Gregg Hurwitz gives us a deep-dive origin backstory of another member of this group of twisted psychopaths, the Mad Hatter and his Wonderland prism through which he sees the world. A childhood marred by medical issues and experimental treatments with risky side-effects collided with heartbreak over a teenaged crush who dumped him after a seemingly perfect day together.

In this six-chapter story arc, Hatter seeks to recreate that perfect day through mind control, abductions, murderous auditions and staged rehearsals and more. It is a dark, disturbing tale, befitting the collision between a Dark Knight and an insane, diminutive Wonderland escapee. 

Hurwitz does give us occasional moments of humour scattered throughout the narrative, for example playing on the famous turn-around-and-he's-gone Bat-trope ("Nope. Still here.") but they ultimately either fall flat or are dwarfed by the sheer depth of darkness.

Overlaying the insanity and paralleling Hatter's own lost love is a love story between Bruce Wayne and a world-famous pianist. Will he share his deepest secrets with her? This love story attempts to give depth and social connection to Bruce Wayne, to pull him out of his bat-cave and dark obsessions. Unfortunately, it does not work. It blooms and advances so quickly that the reader can't help but feel that it is just a plot device and, sure enough, a tragic twist leads to a predictable Bat-rage.

The art is deliberately repulsive throughout this collection. Ethan van Sciver does most of the heavy lifting and casts the Mad Hatter's flashbacks in appropriately nostalgic sepia tones. Hatter's face is ugly, a horrific mask of hate and insanity. His henchmen, Tweedledee and Tweedledum, flit between cartoonish, roly-poly buffoons and dangerous thugs. 

Yet the chapters drawn by Szymon Kudranski are even less pleasant. The sepia is replaced by a harsh back-lighting; the panels are reminiscent of water-colour paintings but over-inked and indistinct, and it is frustratingly difficult to tell the characters from one another.

Where Kudranski's style works best is in the Annual, a standalone Hallowe'en tale in which Hatter, Penguin and Scarecrow are trapped in a house of horrors. They are convinced that Batman lurks around every corner. Can they work together enough to survive the night and escape the trap? This limited cast of very distinct characters eliminates the character-recognition issue and Kudranski's images can shine in this moody, spooky context.

The book itself, the hard-cover collection, feels like a cynical attempt to take advantage of Batman's enduring popularity. There is nothing special about the volume, no extras features or insights. Just a ho-hum book collecting a dark and twisted but ultimately ho-hum New 52 Bat-tale.

Description:

Everything hangs in the balance in the Dark Knight’s life as Bruce Wayne grapples with revealing Batman to the woman of his dreams. But just as he’s ready to give her his all, the Mad Hatter joins the ranks of one of the greatest threats Gotham has ever known. By poisoning and kidnapping its citizens, he terrorizes Gotham in an attempt to rebuild his lost hopes into a wonderland.

Can the Caped Crusader save the city-and his new love-before the Hatter shatters their world forever?

Collects: Batman: The Dark Knight #16-21, Annual #1

Authors:  Gregg Hurwitz
Artists:  Ethan Van Sciver, Szymon Kudranski
Published By:  DC Comics
Published When:  Jan. 21, 2014
Parental Rating: Teen
ISBN:  978-1401242473
Pages:  176 pages

A Twisted Sacrament - Review of We Only Find Them When They're Dead volume 1

 

Review:

The creative team of writer Al Ewing and artist Simone di Meo gives us a visually gorgeous and conceptually ground-breaking sci-fi thrill-ride. This collection brings together the first five issues of the 2020-2021 series by BOOM! Studios.

At the centre of the story is Captain Malik and his crew of four. Their livelihood is best considered as deep-space miners. Except what they mine are the corpses of giant alien gods, found drifting at the very edge of the galaxy. Beyond them is the vast, empty darkness of inter-galactic space.

But they are not alone in their mining quest. Each of the dead gods, the size of a mountain or more, is mined in a cutthroat competition between dozens of "autopsy ships" - with each one staking their claim to a divine eyeball or sector of cheek, or to the metals and fabrics making up the garb of the gods. Each of these competing ships, like Malik's, includes a quartermaster, an engineer and most crucially a surgeon to operate the giant laser "knife" for carving up the flesh of the god.

Novelty of concept is not enough, on its own, to support a compelling story. Even with the potential Judeo-Christian overtones and themes around devouring divinity, all left surprisingly untouched and unexplored in these initial chapters, the story needs more. 

So, Ewing drops human conflict, broken relationships and long-simmering interpersonal feuds into the mix. Malik's history with one of the law-enforcement escorts unfolds through at times jumpy flashbacks - an engagement between the escort and Malik's brother, a family smuggling and black-market scheme, a suspicious last-minute swap of work shifts, a horrible accident - all work to foster a personal vendetta against Malik by the law enforcer. And when Malik sets out into the void with his little ship, in search of a still-living god, she pursues him to hunt him down.

Simone di Meo's visuals are gorgeous with painted splashes of colour on black backgrounds. It gives the feel of deep-space action, while leaving lots of room for attention-directing bursts of light and flashes of colour. His innovative art matches the unique scenario of the series.

The story is not without its flaws, however. The flashbacks try to hold our hand through the jumps in time and place. Using references to the year, tucked subtly into the panels, helps a little, but is over-used and winds up fragmenting our attention and confusing more than helping.

Likewise, Simone di Meo is freed from the confines of standard panel structures and layouts. This frequently enhances the overall story; but when his free-flowing images fail to draw the reader's eye in the right sequence, a frustrating amount of extra effort lands on the part of the reader to make sense of what is happening. And the comic-standard word balloons feel jarringly out of place on top of the beauty and innovation of these pages. Given the creativity and innovation displayed in the graphic storytelling, could they have imagined a better way to communicate the characters' speech?

Overall, this beautiful and imaginative book rates 3 capes.

Description:

Captain Malik and the crew of his spaceship are in search of the only resources that matter – and can only be found by harvesting the giant corpses of alien gods that are found on the edge of human space.. and now they see an opportunity to finally break free from this system: by being the first to find a living god.

THE GODS ARE ALWAYS BEAUTIFUL... ...AND THE GODS ARE ALWAYS DEAD. Captain Malik and the crew of the spaceship the Vihaan II are in search of the only resources that matter – and can only be found by harvesting the giant corpses of alien gods that are found on the edge of human space. While other autopsy ships and explorers race to salvage the meat, minerals, and metals that sustain the human race, Malik sees an opportunity to finally break free from this system: by being the first to find a living god. But Malik’s obsession with the gods will push his crew into the darkest reaches of space, bringing them face to face with a threat unlike anything they ever imagined, unless the rogue agent on their trail can stop them first... 

Superstars Al Ewing (Immortal Hulk) and Simone Di Meo (Mighty Morphin Power Rangers) present a new sci-fi epic about the search for meaning and the hard choices we make to find it, no matter the cost to the world – or universe – around us.

Collects: We Only Find Them When They’re Dead #1-5

Authors:  Al Ewing
Artists:  Simone Di Meo
Published By:  BOOM! Studios
Published When:  May 11, 2021
Parental Rating: Teen
ISBN:  978-1684156771
Pages:  112 pages

Hungry Children! Review of Fairest: The Hidden Kingdom (a Fables story)

 

Review:

Bill Willingham's multiple award-winning Fables universe brilliantly reimagines the characters from classic fairy tales and nursery rhymes, setting them as long-time refugees settled into our real world. In this collection, Willingham provides overall guidance but hands the creative reins over to South African writer Lauren Beukes. The result is recognizable Fables Universe characters but cast in a tale that feels closer to Asian Horror films than either the urban fantasy fiction of the original series or the fairy tale land of the source material.

The result is both starkly beautiful and deeply unsettling.

Rapunzel, with her faithful companion Joel Crow and a tagalong Jack Horner, leaves Fabletown for Japan, to search for her long-lost children and put right a past she thought long buried. 

Fables she knew, loved, betrayed and lost long ago, whom she thought long dead or gone, are still there, hiding in plain sight in modern day Japan. When she arrives, some of those old friends seek to use her, others to kill her. 

Characters like Tomoko, her fox-woman former lover with a spherical and magical soul of fox-fire, and whose current loyalties are decidedly mixed. Her torture of Jack is gruesome and cruel.

Or like blue-haired Mayumi with her grotesquely disfigured face, thanks to the sword of a warlord long dead. She has emerged as a Yakuza assassin par excellence.

Rapunzel must navigate these and other past sins and wounds and shifting loyalties in the present and come to terms with what she left behind upon fleeing Japan centuries earlier.

Inaki Miranda's art is disturbingly effective at evoking the horror underlying Beukes' story. His attention to fashion detail, from ancient dress codes to the modern streets of Tokyo, adds to the fun. But he does not shy away from the violence and freaky visuals in the more terrifying sections. His use of cross-panel slashes, selective heavy inking and blue-tinting (most critically in the scenes at the well which lies at the heart of the tale) elevate and complement the narrative, helping to make sense of a complex and at times confusing story.

Bill Willingham's only writing in this collection is the backup tale at the end. It contrasts heavily with the main story in both tone and visual mood and really does not belong here. Was it only included for marketing or royalty purposes? It sticks out like the fabled sore thumb from the rest.

It is the tale of Raymond T. Fox and his date with Princess Alder, a living humanoid tree. It provides some frivolous fun and the only nudity in the whole book. The story would be fine elsewhere but here it undermines what Beukes and Miranda have created, and I must dock the overall collection a cape as a result. I would give the Rapunzel tale three and a half, but the overall collection just two and a half capes.

Description:

New York Times bestselling, award-winning creator Bill Willingham presents a new series starring the female FABLES. Balancing horror, humor and adventure in the FABLES tradition, FAIREST explores the secret histories of Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel, Cinderella, The Snow Queen, Thumbelina, Snow White, Rose Red and others.

In a stand-alone tale, Beast must hunt a beauty, but what is her relation to his past? And then, in a 6-part epic, Rapunzel lives one of the most regimented lives in Fabletown, forced to maintain her rapidly growing hair lest her storybook origins be revealed. But when word of her long-lost children surface, she races across the sea to find them--and a former lover.

Collects: Fairest #8-14

Authors:  Bill Willingham (Author), Lauren Beukes
Artists:  Inaki Miranda (Illustrator), Barry Kitson
Published By:  Vertigo 
Published When:  July 30, 2013
Parental Rating: Mature
ISBN:  978-1401240219
Pages:  128 pages

The Big Bad Wolf Nearly Bites It: Review of Fables volume 3 - Storybook Love

 

Review:

Bill Willingham's ground-breaking Fables series ran from 2004-2015. The critically acclaimed series won more than a dozen Eisner Awards. Its fantastic premise brings fairy tale characters into new relationships with one another and transposes them into modern-day communities, most notably in a New York City neighbourhood.

The opening chapter of this third volume of the original series follows Jack (of Beanstalk fame) and his adventures back in the civil war. While these Fables characters are not immortal, they are long-lived. It is a playful tale with bayou poker, a magical sack, a reprieve from the Grim Reaper and more. Opening the volume as it does, it very much sets the tone of imaginative situations, gory violence and sexuality for the chapters to come.

It is followed by a two-part tale in which a sensationalistic reporter is sniffing around for their secrets. Putting together several clues, historic photos and some modern-day paparazzi stalker skills, he correctly deduces their extremely long lives. His conclusion? Vampires! Bigby Wolf's scheme to destroy evidence and shut him up leads to a heist-film feel involving Sleeping Beauty and a little table-turning blackmail of his own.

The title tale, 'Storybook Love,' is a four-part thriller drama as Blackbeard and Goldilocks scheme to kill Snow White and Bigby Wolf. Charming them and sending them away on a remote camping adventure on the West Coast gives Goldilocks plenty of opportunity to hunt them down and kill them. But Bigby Wolf is more than a rugged and dour security head - he is the Big Bad Wolf, seventh child of the North Wind, and he turns the tables, although it is ultimately Snow White who saves the day.

Meanwhile back home, Prince Charming duels Blackbeard to the death, proving they are not immortal and one main character will die.

Mark Buckingham handles the art duties in this story arc, and he delivers tremendous work! His turn in these chapters led to becoming the primary artist of the series. Especially remarkable are his creative layouts, with plane-shaped panels while Snow White and Bigby Wolf fly back home, or the shield-shaped pages during the sword duel.

The whole collection is filled with loads of gory violence, no matter the artist, as well as some sex and nudity thrown in, earning the volume's Mature rating.

This book gives us gorgeous visuals, a brilliant premise, intense drama, major character developments, even if some of them do feel flat and uninteresting.

Description:

A new Softcover collecting the acclaimed FABLES #11-18, including the 4-part "Storybook Love." Also included are the 2-part "A Sharp Operator" and the single-issue tales "Bag o' Bones" and "Barleycorn Brides." Don't miss this amazing third collection, topped off with a stunning new wraparound cover by James Jean

Collects: Fables #11-18

Authors:  Bill Willingham (Author), Mark Buckingham (Author
Artists:  
Published By:  Vertigo 
Published When:  May 1, 2004
Parental Rating: Mature
ISBN:  978-1401202569
Pages:  192 pages

Beware Story City: a Review of Fables: Werewolves of the Heartland

 

Review:

Bigby Wolf gets a solo story in this original graphic novel by the creator of the award-winning Fables universe. Bigby, whose appearance, demeanor, powers and ferocity are reminiscent of Wolverine from Marvel's X-Men, gets to show off all of those traits in this violent book, well rated for Mature readers.

From his opening narration, Bigby sets the scene and fits this tale into the larger Fables universe and timeline. His road trip is part of a quest to find a new place for the Fables to call home after the battles with the Adversary and the Dark Man. Since Bluebeard had some connection to a place called Story City, he concluded it was worth checking out.

What he finds is a town filled with a couple thousand werewolves. Young children. Happy parents. Young adults. About the only middle-aged folks are connected to his distant past: a former World War 2 partner, Arthur Harp, and his wife Dr Sieglinde von Abensberg und Traun. 

But how could they have aged so little in sixty years? And what is the connection to a town full of werewolves?

Cue the flashback narrative, showing how an explosion splattered them with Bigby's own blood, giving them a lesser form of his own wolf powers.

Not everyone is happy, though, with the town's status quo. With several factions sniffing for more power and influence, it was already an unstable place. Mix in Bigby, whom many revere as the God of the Wolves, and the match is lit.

While the first half of the book is heavy on narration and conversation, all wolf-hell breaks loose in the second half. The result is a gory battle royale, with blood and guts, deep bites and severed limbs aplenty. Mix in loads of human and werewolf nudity, full frontal both male and female, plus some sex and seduction and this book earns that "suggested for Mature readers" caution.

Ultimately, though, the two halves - the talking-heavy start then the violence and destruction - fail to mesh. The tension inherent in the town fails to transfer onto the pages and the final conflict is a disappointing fizzle. The ultimate showdown is so one-sided, as the town of lesser werewolves never really had a "ghost of a chance" in Bigby's own words. It's loud, ferocious and bloody but ultimately forced and foregone.

A nice touch is author and Fables creator Willingham's tale of encountering the real-life Story City, Iowa. It does fill in some seemingly random bits - it turns out that the Skunk River is real, as well as the town's historical carousel. His anecdote made this reviewer smile; unfortunately, not much else in this book did.

Description:

A #1 New York Times Best Seller!

At long last! The long-awaited original FABLES: WEREWOLVES OF THE HEARTLAND graphic novel is here!   

Bigby Wolf embarks on a quest through the American Heartland to find a new location for Fabletown, a secret society of exiled fairy tale characters living among the "mundys." In his wanderings, Bigby stumbles across Story City, a small town that seems to be occupied solely by werewolves. Oddly enough, they seem to already know and revere Bigby, but at the same time they've captured and caged him.  

FABLES: WEREWOLVES OF THE HEARTLAND tells an epic tale that began well before Bigby Wolf set foot in the bucolic plains of the Midwest. It began long ago when he served in World War II and became mired in a Nazi experiment that would change nations. It's soon evident that murder in Story City is the least of their sins, and unraveling the town's many mysteries may cost Bigby, the seventh son of the North Wind, much more than his own life.  

Collects: NA - Standalone graphic novel

Authors:  Bill Willingham
Artists:  Jim Fern (Illustrator), Craig Hamilton
Published By:  Vertigo
Published When:  Oct. 8, 2013
Parental Rating: Mature
ISBN:  978-1401224806
Pages:  152 pages

Virtuous but Lethal: a review of Poison Ivy volume 1: The Virtuous Cycle

 

Review:

Writer G. Willow Wilson, in this collection of the first six issues of the Poison Ivy ongoing series (2022), leans into several of Poison Ivy's most defining character traits.

Plant-based powers? Check - although with significant limits, as something is slowly poisoning her and she cannot stop it.

Homicidal maniac? Check! At least ten people are killed in these six chapters. Some definitely deserve it more than others, like the abusive boss or the attempted rapists, versus others who just got in her way en route to fulfill her commitment to wipe out all of humanity.

Questionable sanity? Check. Especially fun is the sequence of Batman hallucinations.

Love for Harley Quinn? Check, although restricted to bittersweet flashbacks and touching letters Ivy writes as she travels across the country. This touch of humanity in our plant-powers homicidal maniac of questionable sanity also spills over int a heart for others she meets and helps, even as she prepares to wipe us all out.

Wilson, whose biggest claim to fame was the ground-breaking and Hugo Award-winning series Ms Marvel, splices all these pieces together so tightly that, by the end of the volume, it feels like a limited series, not an ongoing one. After the climactic battle with Jason Woodrue aka the Floronic Man aka the Green Man (he has lots of different names in this book), it feels very much like the story is done, with nowhere to go from here.

And indeed, it was originally envisioned that way, announced in March 2022 as a six-issue limited series. By the mid-point, DC decided to extend it to a further 6 issues, then by around issue #8 they committed to running it as an ongoing one. And as of this review, it has reached #34.

Wilson gives us a tale with themes of love and loss, nature and destruction, all overlaid throughout with dark horror motifs. In a jarring new take on the ravishing beauty with which Poison Ivy has traditionally been portrayed, Wilson also weaves in elements of body-horror at the increasing growths on that usually so striking body. Artist Marcio Takara illustrates her wearing more clothing and coverings than usual - baggy pants and yard-work clothing instead of the more typical leaf-based fabrics barely covering anything at all.

Takara also gives us artistic and horror-inspired Green Man and psychotic hallucinations, filled with monster tropes and nods. Even something as innocuous as mushrooms become, in Wilson's and Takara's hands, a horrifying and disgusting murder weapon.

While complete whole that feels unsuited to start an ongoing series, this tale is far from neat and tidy. Its carefully cultivated darkness is a powerful new direction for the beautiful and deadly Poison Ivy.

Description:

Humanity had its chance. Now it’s time for Poison Ivy. The fan-favorite Batman villain steps into the solo spotlight, in a thrilling and tragic adventure written by Ms. Marvel co-creator G. Willow Wilson!

Winner, Outstanding Comic Book - GLAAD Media Awards 2023

Pamela Isley has been a lot of things in her life. A living god, a super-villain, an activist, a scientist, and dead. In a new body that she didn’t ask for and with a renewed sense of purpose, Ivy leaves Gotham and sets out to complete her greatest work—a gift to the world that will heal the damage dealt to it...by ending humanity.

On her journey to doom humankind, a heartbroken and betrayed Poison Ivy encounters obstacles (plant assassins!) and dodges the law along the way, in a body horror-infused character-defining epic from the visionary creative team of writer G. Willow Wilson and artist Marcio Takara.

Collects: Poison Ivy #1-6

Authors:  G. Willow Wilson
Artists:  Marcio Takara, Brian Level, Emma Rios
Published By:  DC Comics
Published When:  May 14, 2024
Parental Rating: Teen
ISBN:  978-1779525031
Pages:  160 pages

Roses for Riverdale - a Review of Harley and Ivy Meet Betty and Veronica (HC)

 

Review:

Who knew Gotham and Riverdale were so close together? Our characters pop back and forth between the locations so much and so easily throughout this fun six-part limited series cross-over that, if not exactly a suburban commute, it's certainly day-trippable.

I picked up this gorgeous hardcover collected edition, a beautiful book with glossy finishes and packed with fun extras. The variant cover gallery shows the sheer delight artists like Jae Lee, Gene Ha and Dan Parent took in pairing these four ladies. And the draft sketches give great peeks into their artistic and creative processes.

This is fundamentally a concept piece - overlapping two very different worlds - and to some extent the story scarcely matters. For what it's worth: Veronica's father, Mr. Lodge the wealthy businessman, wants to turn the local swamp into a university and mall as his next grand business venture. On hearing the news, Poison Ivy determines to preserve the area's biodiversity and endangered species. So she and Harley Quinn travel to Riverdale to persuade him to change his mind. When he inevitably turns them down, Gotham's anti-hero duo decides to infiltrate the local high school scene and kidnap Veronica.

But at a teenager party, they wind up magically body-swapped, Freaky Friday style, with Betty and Veronica. Hilarious hijinks ensue as they encounter loads of other characters from both universes. Riverdalians like Reggie Mantle, Moose, Midge and Principal Weatherbee on one hand; Gothamites like Zatanna, Joker, Catwoman and even Alfred on the other.

It's an odd, occasionally indulgent romp of a collision between Gotham and Riverdale. And it works, for the most part. By pulling from the lighter, goofier side of the Harley and Ivy spectrum and pairing it with the more YA end of Archie and friends, writers Paul Dini and Marc Andreyko find enough overlap to sell this crossover. The result is much more successful and entertaining than the awful DC Meets Hanna Barbera crossovers, which fell flat in part because of the vast differences between those universes.

Artists Laura Braga and Adriana Melo match the fun tone with their bright, open images and the glossy treatment of this collection really lets them shine. And I loved the attention to detail of the fashions - de rigueur in the land of Betty and Veronica comics, in which the teens have a seemingly endless closet. But superheroes tend to wear the same thing over and over. But even Ivy and Harley get into the changes, and I count at least five different outfits on them as well.

This is a delightful meeting of two beloved comics universes and their much-adored leading ladies. With a beautiful package and loads of attention to the little details, it's a success!

Description:

The bad girls of Gotham meet the good girls of Riverdale!

Hiram Lodge (Veronica's father) wants to invest in the future by building a university with free tuition for Riverdale's residents. His site is a protected swamp on the outskirts of town, and once news of the plan reaches Gotham City, a certain eco-warrior (a.k.a. Poison Ivy) is determined to prevent the dream from becoming reality.

However, once Poison Ivy and her bestie Harley Quinn arrive, they get mixed up in the sort of hijinks that can only happen in Riverdale. At a superhero-themed costume party, the night's entertainment--Zatanna-- manages to place the personas of the Gotham City Sirens into the bodies of the town's notorious frenemies: Betty Cooper and Veronica Lodge. While Ivy (in Ronnie's body) seeks to derail Lodge's agenda from within, more than a few nefarious forces--from Jason and Cheryl Blossom to the Clown Prince of Crime himself--have their own foul plans.

This groundbreaking miniseries teams up two of fandom's best-known duos, bringing the ladies of Gotham and Riverdale together for the first time! This madcap mayhem comes courtesy of Paul Dini (Harley Quinn) and Marc Andreyko (Wonder Woman '77), with art by Laura Braga (DC Comics: Bombshells)!

Collects: Harley and Ivy Meet Betty and Veronica #1-6

Authors: Paul Dini, Marc Andreyko
Artists:  Laura Braga, Adriana Melo
Published By:  DC Comics
Published When:  Sept. 4, 2018
Parental Rating: PG
ISBN:  978-1401280338
Pages:  160 pages

Angst, Ennui and Affection - a Review of Harley Quinn: the Animated Series: the Eat. Bang! Kill. Tour

 

Review:

Twenty-five years after Harley Quinn's grand debut (in a 1992 episode of Batman: The Animated Series), eighteen years after successfully jumping media from TV series to comic books en route to becoming one of the most famous and popular anti-heroes of DC and with her own title, in 2017 Harley Quinn jumped back into animated TV series with her very own show.

Season Two's finale saw her interrupt the wedding of Poison Ivy and Kite Man. In a cross-blending promotion, DC spun off a 6-issue limited series comic run, bridging seasons two and three. Writer Tee Franklin takes our leading ladies on a Thelma-and-Louise-style romp of a road trip, but with more sex and way more violence.

Commissioner Gordon pursues them in an OCD-fueled blind rage, oblivious to the collateral damage to innocent people or his own life and sanity. Battles versus Hush, Clayface, Vixen and other members of the Justice League follow in rapid succession. Cameos by Catwoman, Nightwing and Batman add to the name recognition. Intimate scenes popping up in bedrooms, bathrooms, moving vehicles. It all adds up to a wild ride with plenty of noisy chaos.

But the furor and humour are tempered throughout by Ivy's endless introspection, confusion, perhaps even clinical depression. You'd think Harley, with her PhD in Psychology, would have more to offer than a lover's patience and commitment, as important as those things are in their relationship.

Franklin writes what she knows, weaving in many reflections of her own experience as a Black, queer, disabled, and reportedly autistic comic writer. All of those elements play a role in this jam-packed series. But importantly, those traits are never the focus, they are just the realities with which the supporting characters must deal. It adds up to a great display of diverse representation, possibly a portfolio for participating in DC's annual pride publications.

The visuals are recognizably reflecting the styles of the animated series, albeit with some small stylistic differences. Ivy's face is stretched even longer; Harley's is even rounder, and so on. But the strong similarities point to the deep reliance throughout the series on ties and connections to the TV show. The volume of references, in-jokes and events is off-putting to readers not familiar with the source material.

The result is a book that confuses on one level and fails in its marketing task on another; it may be awesome for existing viewers of the show but is unlikely to draw in new ones. It is a missed opportunity and, as a result, the story itself misses the mark. The moments of loud, kinetic chaos and of affection between our leads could have been so much more fun, but they wind up buried under the disjointed leaps, in-jokes and oppressive ennui.

Description:

Hey, do you wanna see Harley and Ivy go on a road trip and make out??? Picking up directly from the cliffhanger ending of Harley Quinn: The Animated Series, Harley and Ivy are on the run in a Thelma-and-Louise journey, it's all here!

Harley and Ivy on the road trip of the century! Following the wedding disaster of the decade, Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy end up on the run from Commissioner Gordon and the GCPD! But as fun as all that sounds, Ivy still worries over leaving Kite Man at the altar... Luckily, Harley's got the perfect scheme to shake her out of her wedding-day blues!

This incredible volume is packed to the brim containing Harley Quinn: The Animated Series: The Eat. Bang! Kill. Tour #1-6!

Collects: Harley Quinn: The Animated Series: The Eat. Bang! Kill. Tour #1-6

Authors:  Tee Franklin
Artists:  Max Sarin
Published By:  DC Comics
Published When:  Aug. 29, 2023
Parental Rating: Mature
ISBN:  978-1779520401
Pages:  144 pages

A Darkening Green: Review of Batman Arkham Poison Ivy

 

Review:

I love the Batman Arkham series of TPBs! Each book is a fascinating trip through the history and key moments of one specific member of Batman's gallery of classic villains. Sixteen books and counting have been published in the series so far.

This one follows Poison Ivy's growth and evolution, and it is a delight to see how the character grew and changed in the hands of different teams over her history.

Some things never change - her powers are based in the world's flora, she is always passionate for nature, she has a pervasive willingness to destroy manmade things and kill people in defense of nature.

But she has also been through many changes over the years. Her origin tale has been reimagined, her sanity has come and gone. And as these collected stories show, she has been portrayed in increasingly dark ways, becoming more cold, more deadly over the years.

Right from her first appearance, in Batman #181 (1966), she has been willing to use her beauty and her powers to seduce and control others. She sowed division between Batman and Robin while also seeking to knock other dastardly damsels from their perches (specifically Dragonfly, Silken Spider and Tiger Moth, who reappear in occasional later reboots).

A decade later, in a two-part tale versus Wonder Woman in World's Finest Comics, writer Jerry Conway picks up her power of control and manipulation as she imprisons a former lover in a tree and forces him to do her bidding, and he amps up her willingness to poison and kill.

Conway revisited Poison Ivy with a 1981 Batman tale (#339) of seduction, manipulation and mind-control. Can Batman overcome both her lethal vines and her powerful and intoxicating kiss?

In Secret Origins #36 (1988), Neil Gaiman of Sandman fame gave us a darker take on her origin story; he made more explicit the sexual overtones of the villain. He also worked in several clever nods to earlier stories. Alas, Mark Buckingham (later of Fables) gave the story such scratchy and unimaginative art that it ultimately failed to live up to the tale itself and the renewed origin.

The pattern of increasing darkness was now established, and Poison Ivy becomes an increasingly ruthless killer and terrorist. The two-part "Hot House" by John Francis Moore (Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #42, 43) leaned strongly into her mental imbalance and dangers that result. When Moore revisited Ivy in 1997's Batman: Poison Ivy #1, she snapped over the destruction of her island of tranquility, setting out on a bloody path of violent retribution.

By the time 2008 brought us Joker's Asylum: Poison Ivy #1 and 2010's Gotham City Sirens #8, her revenge-fueled willingness to hunt down, torture and kill her enemies in often gruesome ways was well established.

These and other stories in this volume portray this powerfully compelling character and her fascinating evolution. The writing is at times uneven, the art occasionally a disservice, but Poison Ivy herself is always striking, sexy and usually barely covered by a handful of ivy leaves.

Description:

GOTHAM'S DEADLIEST BEAUTY

Poison Ivy was once Dr. Pamela Lillian Isley, a young woman with a unique fascination with botany and toxicology. But then she was seduced and later experimented on by her mentor, Professor Jason Woodrue, also known as the super-villain Floronic Man.

Now a constant thorn in Batman's side, Poison Ivy uses the toxins in her bloodstream to make her touch fatal to whomever she chooses, giving her the ability to create pheromones that make men her slaves while she stops at nothing to ensure plant life will retake Earth.

BATMAN ARKHAM: POISON IVY collects some of the villain's greatest stories by some of the industry's greatest creators, including Robert Kanigher (THE FLASH), Gerry Conway (JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA), Neil Gaiman (THE SANDMAN), Guillem March (CATWOMAN), P. Craig Russell (WONDER WOMAN), Mark Buckingham (FABLES) and many more!

Collects: Batman #181, #339, Batman: Legends Of The Dark Knight #42-43, Batman: Poison Ivy #1, Batman: Shadow Of The Bat Annual #3, Batman Villain Secret Files #1, Detective Comics #231, Gotham City Sirens #8, Joker's Asylum: Poison Ivy #1, Secret Origins #36, The Batman Chronicles #10, World's Finest Comics #251-252

Authors:  Various
Artists:  Various
Published By:  DC Comics
Published When:  Sept. 13, 2016
Parental Rating: Teen
ISBN:  978-1401264451
Pages:  312 pages

Hybrid Murder Mystery: Review of Poison Ivy - Cycles of Life and Death

 

Review:

The exotic and real-world Sheep-Eater plant in Chile takes a longtime to bloom, flowering only once every decade or so. It is both beautiful, with its tall yellow flowers, and deadly, with its reputation of capturing and killing sheep and birds.

Poison Ivy, the beautiful and deadly Batman villain-turned-antihero, likewise took a long time to bloom. First appearing in all her evil beauty in Batman #181 (1966), she became a regular in Harley Quinn's orbit and in titles like Gotham City Sirens. But her first solo series had to wait until 2016, in the six-issue limited series collected here.

As Doctor Pam Isley, she works at the Gotham Botanical Gardens, researching hybrid blending of human and plant DNA. As Poison Ivy, she applies the research to grow two plant-human hybrid children of her own. But someone at the Botanical Gardens has their own agenda for how to apply her research.

Amy Chu cultivates a slow-moving murder mystery, with each new plot bud slowly opening up. The fastest growing elements in the tale are her two children, her 'sporelings' Rose and Hazel, who age through years of human development in a matter of weeks. The story is a beautiful, quiet tale with bursts of violence.

Clay Mann does the majority of the pencils, handling four of the six chapters, with Seth Mann doing the same on inks. They give us verdant visuals bursting with life. Ivy is stunning, tall and sexy, uninhibited and comfortable in her own skin even as she struggles with her humanity and how to relate to others.

The softness and sexiness of the two Manns' art gives way to an edgier final chapter by a team of five artists. The art of this final confrontation is filled with thorny and spiky hard edges, befitting the clash of wills and powers portrayed.

Ivy is hardly alone in this lush tale. We get a couple Harley Quinn cameos and a more sustained role for Catwoman. And the final battle brings Swamp Thing into the arrangement. 

It all adds up to a portrait of our hero as one who is intelligent, passionate about nature, but who also feels so lonely in her unique blend of human and plant. Her first solo adventure is well worth the wait and the read.

Description:

POISON IVY BLOSSOMS INTO HER FIRST SOLO ADVENTURE!

There’s animal. There’s vegetable. And there’s somewhere in between.

That’s where Dr. Pamela Isley, a.k.a. Poison Ivy, finds herself. Instead of battling the Dark Knight, she is now a researcher at the Gotham Botanical Gardens, studying the possibility of creating plant-human hybrids.

But when her fellow scientists start turning up dead, she’s both the natural leading suspect…and the only person (or plant) who can crack the case.

To solve the mystery, Poison Ivy must team up—or throw down—with her oldest friends and closest frenemies, from Harley Quinn to Catwoman to the Swamp Thing. Can she keep things under control, or will she be responsible for a deadly new harvest?

Find out in POISON IVY: CYCLE OF LIFE AND DEATH. Sprouting from the brains of the up-and-coming creative team of writer Amy Chu and artist Clay Mann, it’s a mean, green murder mystery starring one of Batman’s greatest rogues!

Collects: POISON IVY: CYCLE OF LIFE AND DEATH #1-6

Authors:  Amy Chu
Artists:  Clay Mann, Seth Mann
Published By:  DC Comics
Published When:  Sept. 13, 2016
Parental Rating: Teen
ISBN:  978-1401264512
Pages:  144 pages

Emotionally Undead - a Review of Blackest Night

 

Review:

The core story from the 2009 DC Comics mega-crossover event Blackest Night is collected into this handsome hardcover book. With loads of special features - variant cover gallery, director's commentary, loads of sketches, even a silver black-ring logo hiding under the dust jacket - it is an impressive collection.

If only the story inside lived up to the packaging.

Written by highly regarded author Geoff Johns and pencilled by Ivan Reis, Blackest Night follows a series of seismic storylines in the Green Lantern books of the day. It draws together the seven Corps with their rings of different colours and fueled by different emotions and even mines historical Green Lantern lore as far back as Alan Moore's writing of a 1986 Green Lantern Corps tale.

Nekron, the personification of death itself, has found a way to use Black Hand in a scheme to extinguish the light of life and all emotion from the universe. But first he must corrupt and capture or kill the Guardians. 

While that storyline unfolds mostly in the background, our attention is focused on the experiences of several heroes, many of whom find key deceased heroes or villains resurrected by the power of a black ring. Their emotional connection to these lost loved ones - from Ralph and Sue Dibney to Aquaman, from the JSA and Freedom Fighters to even Batman - only serves to make these reanimated corpses even more powerful.

When even the combined might of all seven corps fails to stop Nekron, they discover they can magically divide and delegate their rings for a limited time, a deus ex machina that gives the reader the opportunity to see how Lex Luthor, Mera or even Scarecrow would wield a power ring attuned to their own strongest emotion.

In the end, Johns rewrites some foundational Green Lantern and DC Comics mythology - such as the Guardians working to hide the fact that life began on Earth, not Oa - and undoes recent DC history of killing off characters by resurrecting some key ones. Although no attempt is made to explain why some but not others are so treated - Maxwell Lord rises to life again, not merely as a Black Ring zombie but fully alive again, although Ted Kord / Blue Beetle whom he killed, is not. (Look for more adventures of the alive-again Maxwell Lord in the follow-up Brightest Day / Justice League Generation Lost story)

While Johns gives us a tale worthy of the classic mega-crossovers, with globe-shaking events and universe-level threats, loads of cameos and changes to the larger comics landscape, it all ultimately falls flat. Combining all the colours of light is supposed to give white light, but here the overall impression is just muddy brown. Reader emotional connections to the characters and situations fail to materialize and it all just blurs together.

Ivan Reis and his rotation of inkers do well at rendering the walking dead and flying dead, portraying them as desiccated and half-decomposed undead monsters, loads of sharp teeth, missing bits of flesh, tentacles and tongues. It is not pretty to look at, but it does the job of evoking horror at the state of the combatants.

They also give us loads of full-page and two-page spreads, packing in as many characters and shafts of coloured light as possible. Just about every time the seven corps work as one, it gets a double-page spread.

In all, it is a reasonable addition to the historical crossover events, although the art is grotesque and unpleasant and the story fails, ironically, to find its emotional core in the midst of all those emotion-powered Lantern Corps.

Description:

Comics' hottest writer Geoff Johns (GREEN LANTERN: SINESTRO CORPS WAR, THE FLASH, ACTION COMICS, JSA) and superstar artist Ivan Reis raise the dead in this hardcover collection of the most anticipated comics event of the year!

Throughout the decades, death has plagued the DC Universe and taken the lives of heroes and villains alike. But to what end? As the War between the different colored Lantern Corps rages on, the prophecy of the Blackest Night descends and it's up to Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps to lead DC's greatest champions in a battle to save the Universe from an army of undead Black Lanterns made up of fallen Green Lanterns and DC's deceased heroes and villains.

This collection of the best-selling epic is the culmination of the events that Geoff Johns has been leading to since he relaunched the Green Lantern franchise in 2006!

Collects: BLACKEST NIGHT #0-8

Authors:  Geoff Johns
Artists:  Ivan Reis
Published By:  DC Comics
Published When:  July 13, 2010
Parental Rating: Teen
ISBN:  978-1401226930
Pages:  264 pages

Jurgens at the Wheel: a review of Booster Gold: the Complete 2007 Series Book 2

 

Review:

With 17 issues in one book, collecting #15-31 of the 2007 Booster Gold ongoing series plus Booster's appearance in The Brave and the Bold #23, this is a hefty TPB, weighing in at 750 grams. Maybe for that reason, DC Comics omitted any of the special features such collections usually include. No variant cover gallery, no draft storyboards and no interviews.

That omission is the only real complaint about this otherwise fine volume. The stories within are loads of fun, showing that the Booster Gold series of the era was one of DC's strongest titles in terms of sheer exuberance, cleverness and month to month enjoyability.

Dan Jurgens created Booster Gold in the post-Crisis mid to late 1980s. He wrote and pencilled all of the original run's issues. Here, twenty years later, he had started as penciller on the new series and character reboot. He takes over the writing duties with issue #15.

The reboot saw Booster Gold, fugitive from the future turned self-promoting, brand-savvy hero, has morphed in the hands of Geoff Johns and others, into a Time Master in training. So it is fascinating to see Jurgens reassume full creative control of Booster Gold.

Right off the bat, he tweaks and redirects a somewhat clunky two-parter by another writer into a multi-part tumble through time over an Egyptian knife (Reality Lost) with connection to Blue Beetle's scarab. This arc includes loads of nods to DC history and leads to a team-up with... himself? Isn't that a temporal paradox and Time Master no-no?

Lest we think that Jurgens will be a clumsy author with things relating to time travel, his stories in this volume how his keen awareness of such paradoxes and traps, and a staunch refusal to be bound by them. Multiple times, Jurgens bends the supposed rules about time travel tales. But, as he does so well, he has Booster Gold wrestling with these very rules and paradoxes himself. Can the past be changed? Where are the seams and folds in the time stream that can become entry points for bad actors? What does it mean to be a hero when faced with the certain death of seven million people? These and more questions ripple throughout these stories.

Separating each of the major story arcs (Reality Lost, mentioned above, followed by Day of Death, a delightful dip into early Wolfman-Perez New Teen Titans lore, then finally The Tomorrow Memory based around Cyborg Superman's destruction of Coast City) are delightful little Epilogue and one-off tales. Things like a sweet Christmas gift for Dick Grayson, at the time the new Batman struggling with the weight of the famed cowl. Or attempts to mend a broken relationship with his own sister and the realization of how hard and lonely his chosen life is.

With strong storytelling, amazing visuals straight from Jurgens' own full-page-splash wheelhouse, delightful connections and nods to past DC history and events, this is a collection of strong stories, must-reads for fans of the character of course, but also intriguing and emotional dips into near-alternative universes and beloved characters. They are not all home runs, but if the weakest is a Keith Giffen nod to 1970s sitcoms set in the 1950s (think Happy Days or Laverne and Shirley) then this is well worth the effort to pick up.

Description:

Booster Gold, as told by his co-creator Dan Jurgens! Re-live Booster’s struggle through major DC Universe events like Blackest Night and see some of his greatest team-ups as he struggles to right the wrongs of the timeline that he himself keeps messing up!

Though Booster yearns for the simple life, destiny has thrust the responsibility of time itself in his hands. As the time stream goes awry and the past unravels, he must put history back in its place before existence vanishes entirely!

Collects: Booster Gold #15-31 and The Brave and the Bold #23

Authors:  Dan Jurgens, Keith Giffen
Artists:  Dan Jurgens, Norm Rapmund
Published By:  DC Comics
Published When:  April 8, 2025
Parental Rating: Teen
ISBN:  978-1799501039
Pages:  440 pages

Of People and Puppies: a review of Booster Gold volume 5 The Tomorrow Memory

 

Review:

By this point in Booster history, Dan Jurgens, creator of Booster Gold, has hit his full creative stride and brought the character to his highest pinnacle of fame and visibility.

This TPB collects issues #26-31 of the ongoing Booster Gold (2007) series, surpassing the length of his original late-80s series which was cancelled after issue #25. Then by the end of the issues collected here, Booster would debut as team leader in the new Justice League: Generation Lost series, with a third (Time Masters: Vanishing Point) set to begin just a couple months later. That made three concurrent Booster Gold series - truly his glory days!

This flagship series continues to give us ever more compelling stories. The first two collected chapters tie into the DC Universe crossover event Blackest Night. In Booster's case he must face off against the reanimated and black ring-powered Ted Kord, aka the Blue Beetle. But his former best bud is not here for a party and a bwa-ha-ha good time, he is here to kill and maim. It leads to an emotional head-trip for our hero as he must struggle against confusion and revulsion at seeing his long-lost friend in this walking-dead state.

The visuals and concepts are occasionally gruesome. But Jurgens uses a clever framing device to great effect, with Booster Gold's self-flagellation at failing to properly eulogize Ted at Blue Beetle's funeral.

The final four chapters are the title tale The Tomorrow Memory. Booster's sister Michelle is back! She had disappeared, you may recall, to a where and when unknown upon discovering at Vanishing Point that she should have been dead already. It turns out that she jumped into the past and has wound up in Coast City just before it is destroyed by Cyborg Superman and Mongul. In the meantime, she has found a boyfriend. But she remembers enough of her history lessons to realize what is coming. If only she could convince others of the danger!

Booster is overjoyed, of course, to find her again; but he also knows what is about to happen to the seven million people and is faced with the impossibly weighty questions of what it means to be a hero versus the mission to protect the time stream.

In the end (spoiler alert) the boyfriend dies, Michelle is saved from certain death again, and a mystery man with a close tie to Rip and Booster helps out at the last minute.

The Epilogue that closes this book is a beautiful and moving cap to a fine collection. All of the frustrations and confusions and paradoxes have built up and Booster craves the emotional release of thumping some bad guys. But when an innocent bystander is hurt by his actions, he withdraws to watch - without intervening - an earth-shaping disaster. Rip Hunter comes along to help his partner, offering a small but positive change they can make. Then he watches with pride as Booster goes on to make a much bigger positive change in his broken relationship with his sister. It is a beautiful story with action, character development and touches of family, love, loneliness and duty.

The art throughout the collection is covered by some of Jurgens' trademarks. With classic heroic poses and full-page splashes, lots of good old-fashioned superhero fun but with remarkable emotional range.

Description:

After fighting Black Lantern and former Blue Beetle Ted Kord, Booster Gold finds himself lost in time, struggling to save his sister Goldstar from imminent death. However, when Booster Gold rescues his sister from the timestream - he soon realizes that the sister he saved is not the same girl he remembers.

Collects: Booster Gold #26-31

Authors:  Dan Jurgens
Artists:  Dan Jurgens, Norm Rapmund
Published By:  DC Comics
Published When:  Dec 7, 2010
Parental Rating: Teen
ISBN:  978-1401229184
Pages:  160 pages

Saving Grayson: a Review of Booster Gold volume 4: Day of Death

 

Review:

Time-travelling hero and Time-Master-in-training Booster Gold has visited loads of key moments in history, in both our IRL timeline and in that of the DC universe. When visiting great moments from comics past, artist and Booster Gold creator Dan Jurgens always takes admirable care to recreate and lovingly reinterpret those moments with a respectful nod to the vision of the original artist.

Top-of-mind examples earlier in the Booster Gold series include the classic Alan Moore graphic novel The Killing Joke's shooting of Barbara Gordon, and Maxwell Lord's killing of Ted Kord aka Blue Beetle.

Now, in this volume, Booster intervenes in the early days of the New Teen Titans, the phenomenal 1980s reboot by Marv Wolfman and George Perez. Booster's mission seems simple enough on the surface - his goal is to save young Dick Grayson from the Black Beetle's attempt to alter the future by killing him in his Robin days. He has found a ripple in the timestream, tracing to a moment of grace by Raven in New Teen Titans #2.

With his visuals lovingly echoing Perez's original work, Jurgens injects both Booster and Black Beetle into the battle that became such a formative moment in the great rivalry between the New Teen Titans and Deathstroke. The result are fantastic visuals and a terrific tribute. The mansion is recognizable, the panels share the same feel as the originals, down to the teens-having-fun poolside scene. If anything, Starfire's bikini is even skimpier here than in the original.

This time, Jurgens is also writing the tale, and it goes a couple layers deeper than the standard save-the-timestream story. Black Beetle, who is emerging as Booster's main foil, is both serving a muysetrious benefactor, and using that mystery man for his own pruposes. 

Together, they are looking for opportunities to tweak historical DC universe events that will lead to the elimination of both the Teen Titans and ultimately the Justice League. With those heroes out of the way, Trigon then conquers the world and Booster must team with early-era Raven to defeat her own father. Along the way they encounter a remnant of other heroes - Green Arrow, Zatanna among them. Black Beetle has his own agenda, however, and takes advangage of Booster's somewhat predictable and gullible reactions to get hold of a Red Scarab.

The script is a little uneven in this volume. Most solid are the chapters in the bat cave or batling alongside the Teen Titans in a recreation of the past events. The mystery man pulling the strings and developments in Black Beetle too. Sequences with Trigon and the remnant of humanity drag a bit in pacing and feel forced. And a big plot hole is the gap around how exactly Booster Gold defeated Deathstroke.

But Jurgens ultimately sticks the landing and his handling of the Epilogue deftly avoids the traps of saccharine sentimentality to give us a touching glimpse of the humanity at Booster's core. I also love the many little touches like the casual hospitality of Alfred bringing lemonade to the hard-working heroes in the bat cave.

Two other standalone tales are included in this collection. Booster's confrontation with Magog is reprinted from The Brave and the Bold #23 and brings out the strong, forceful side of Booster as he refuses to back down. His threats to stop Magog next time tie in well with the later Justice League Generation Lost series, reviewed earlier.

Keith Giffen also gives us a standalone tale, cleverly titled 1952 pickup. Booster travels back in time to 1952 where he winds up involved in a Russian and Task Force X plot. This is candy, a fun enough standalone tale that ultimately does little more than look and taste good but feels out of line with the arc of these characters. Although the nod to TV shows from the 70s and 80s that were set in the era let us end on a Happy Days, Laverne and Shirley scene.

Description:

Time-traveling hero Booster Gold investigates the death of Batman - only to run afoul of another Batman! And this one doesn't want Booster anywhere near this case. To prevent the murder of the Dark Knight, Booster will have to travel back in time, where he must first stop the mysterious Black Beetle from destroying the New Teen Titans - or will Deathstroke the Terminator get in the way? And if Booster fails, the next target on the Black Beetle's kill list is the entire Justice League of America!

Collects: The Brave and the Bold #23, Booster Gold #20-25

Authors:  by Keith Giffen, Dan Jurgens
Artists:  Dan Jurgens, Norm Rapmund, Pat Olliffe
Published By:  DC Comics
Published When:  April 13, 2010
Parental Rating: Teen
ISBN:  978-1401226435
Pages:  160 pages