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Batman/Planetary: Night on Earth (Review)

Posted on July 23, 2012 by Darren

To celebrate the release of The Dark Knight Rises, July is “Batman month” here at the m0vie blog. Check back daily for comics, movies and television reviews and discussion of the Caped Crusader.

Warren Ellis gets Batman. He gets all of Batman. he gets the Caped Crusader, the Dark Knight, the Knight of Vengeance, the Bat-Man and more. He understands that the various pop culture iterations of the character, from Bob Kane’s gun-totting vigilante to Adam West’s “peace officer” to Frank Miller’s one-man army, are all just different facets of the same idea, reflected differently in various takes on the character. It’s hard to reconcile all of these different interpretations – in fact, I’d argue that Grant Morrison’s Batman run suffered for making the attempt – but Ellis does it with remarkable style, without every seeming like he’s cramming too much in or leaving too much out.

I am Batman. All of them.

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: Absolute Planetary, batman, batman: arkham city, comic books, dark knight returns, dc comics, dc universe, dick grayson, Frank Miller (comics), New York City, Planetary, planetary/batman, planetary/batman: night on earth, warren ellis | Leave a comment »

Final Crisis: Revelations (Review)

Posted on July 23, 2012 by Darren

I have to admit, I’ve always preferred DC’s approach to big comic events, as opposed to the approach at Marvel. While Marvel’s events (like Civil War or Secret Invasion) seem to exist to encroach on a writer’s comic book run (Ed Brubaker’s Captain America or Matt Fraction’s Iron Man), DC’s events tend to allow writers to tidy up loose ends. Or, to be fair, that’s what Final Crisis appeared to do. The major tie-in miniseries didn’t seem to exist to fill in gaps with the main book. Instead, they allowed the writers to resolve or move forward their own plots. For Geoff Johns, Rogues’ Revenge allowed him to segue between his first Flash run and Flash: Rebirth, while Legion of Three Worlds allowed him to sort out some outstanding Legion of Superheroes continuity.

Revelations exists to serve as a coda to Greg Rucka’s superb Gotham Central and his Question series, as well as tying in a bit to his upcoming Batwoman work. While I’m not the biggest fan of “comic book events” in general terms, I do respect that they allow writers to tell stories they might not otherwise get a chance to.

Shine a light…

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: Apokolips, batman, Crispus Allen, Dark Knight Rises, dc universe, final crisis, god, gotham central, Gotham City Police Department, greg rucka, new gods, Renee Montoya, spectre, Vandal Savage | Leave a comment »

Kurt Busiek’s and George Perez’s Avengers – Avengers/JLA (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on April 20, 2012 by Darren

April (and a little bit of May) are “Avengers month” at the m0vie blog. In anticipation of Joss Whedon’s superhero epic, we’ll have a variety of articles and reviews published looking at various aspects of “Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.”

Read our review of The Avengers here.

Avengers/JLA is about as nerdy as a comic book crossover can get. Really. It takes two teams of superheroes which were both formed to allow existing heroes to team up… and then teams those two teams up. It’s pure geek chic, after all. I have no shame in admitting that I enjoyed on a purely fanboyish level, my inner eight-year-old ecstatic at the idea of taking so many toys out of so many different boxes and bashing them together which such delightful cheer. It’s not an essential story, nor a brilliant one, nor a creative one – but it does exactly what it says on the tin. It gives us a gigantic crossover between two of the more recognisable Marvel and DC superhero teams.

The very definition of awesome...

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: Avenger, avengers, avengers jla, avengers/jla, batman, Busiek, captain america, captain america: the first avenger, crossover, dc comics, dc universe, george perez, hugo weaving, iron man, jla avengers, jla/avengers, joss whedon, justice league of america, kurt busiek, marvel, marvel comics, marvel universe, marvel/dc, Perez, retrospective, review, superman, World War Hulk | 2 Comments »

Marvel Knights: Punisher by Garth Ennis Omnibus

Posted on March 16, 2012 by Darren

To celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, this month we’re going to take a look at Northern Irish writer Garth Ennis’ run on that iconic Marvel anti-hero, The Punisher. Check back every Friday and Wednesday for a review of a particular section.

Solo act again. No Micro. No gimmicks: no fancy ammo, no battle-vans, no high-tech surveillance. Just the basics. Been gone a while. Distracted. The scum in this city need a wake-up call. And here it comes.

– Frank Castle gives us a mission statement

Looking back, it’s hard to imagine how big a mess the Punisher was in before Garth Ennis got his hands on the character. The fascination with “darker and edgier” in the nineties had given the character a huge boost, but it was quickly wasted. From a character who had supported multiple books during the “boom” years, he was reduced to one core title with a radical new direction. Imagining the Punisher as some sort of avenging angel figure hadn’t worked out, so it seemed like that character was truly struggling to keep his head above water. Then Garth Ennis arrived, writing a twelve-part maxi-series that would be the first step in a long and fruitful relationship with the character. He didn’t try to radically revamp the character, opting for a back-to-basics approach with a healthy dash of black humour, realising that there was something inherently absurdist about a gun-carrying psychopathic killing machine with a skull on his chest, sharing a universe with angels and demons and superheroes.

Welcome back, Frank...

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: batman, dc universe, ennis, Frank, Garth Ennis, marvel knights, marvel universe, punisher | 13 Comments »

Geoff Johns Hawkman Omnibus: Volume 1 (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on February 29, 2012 by Darren

I’m always glad to see a nice, big and thick DC comics omnibus. Marvel have cornered the market in putting out over-sized gigantic collections of modern and classic runs on iconic characters, and I’m disappointed that it has taken DC so long to follow suit. After all, they have any number of long runs on iconic characters by acclaimed creators deserving some nice love. Geoff Johns’ Hawkman run is perhaps the writer’s run that I was least excited about, but it’s still nice to get the majority of Geoff Johns’ character-defining and continuity-clarifying run on the character handily collected in one gigantic package.

Hawkin' his wares...

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: arts, blackest night, booster gold, Brad Meltzer, dark knight returns, dc comic, dc universe, fiction, flash, Gentleman Ghost, geoff johns, grant morrison, green arrow, green lantern, green lantern: rebirth, Greenlantern, High tech, John, justice league, Online Writing, Quantum mechanics, Secret Files & Origins, Television program, The CW Television Network | 3 Comments »

Tony Bedard’s Run on Green Lantern Corps – Revolt of the Alpha Lanterns & The Weaponer (Review)

Posted on February 8, 2012 by Darren

As with Green Lantern and Emerald Warriors before it, Tony Bedard’s run on Green Lantern Corps feels like it’s trapped between two larger events, flowing out of Blackest Night and into War of the Green Lanterns. I think Bedard suffers a lot more than Geoff Johns and Peter Tomasi from this, merely because he’s new to the franchise – he did great work on R.E.B.E.L.S., but this is first time working with the cast of characters from Green Lantern. So, while Johns and Tomasi fall comfortably into their familiar routines, Bedard seems to struggle to find his feet, while telling his own story and managing the obligatory set-up for the next large-scale event.

That's the last time Sinestro calls Kyle a second-stringer...

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: batman: arkham city, Bedard, comic books, dc universe, Ganthet, geoff johns, green lantern, green lantern corps, Guy Gardner, Hank Henshaw, john stewart, Kyle, Kyle Rayner, peter tomasi, Power ring (DC Comics), Revolt of the Alpha-Lanterns, sinestro, The Weaponer, Tony Bedard, war of the green lanterns | Leave a comment »

Absolute Crisis on Infinite Earths (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on January 25, 2012 by Darren

This January, I’m going to take a look at some of DC’s biggest “events.” This week I’ll be taking at the event that started it all, Marv Wolfman and George Pérez’s Crisis on Infinite Earths, reprinted in DC’s oversized and slipcased Absolute line.

It’s interesting to reflect on Crisis on Infinite Earths, more than a quarter of a century after the twelve-issue maxi-series was published. In the time since, it seems like the editorial purpose driving the event – the desire to “simplify” DC’s tangled and messed continuity into one single and unified history by abolishing the myriad of alternate continuities – has been somewhat undone with the return of the multiverse in 52 and Final Crisis, but this arguably allows Wolfman and Pérez’s epic to be considered on its own merit. Although the series might not be as important as it once was in explaining the sometimes bizarre way that all of DC’s published line fit together, I think you can still see a huge influence of this crossover in the stories that the authors at DC are telling, and how they approach them.

Holding out for some heroes...

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: barry allen, batman, crisis on infinite earths, dc comic, dc universe, final crisis, flash, flashpoint, geoff johns, george perez, grant morrison, Grantmorrison, green lantern: rebirth, jack kirby, joe quesada, John, kamandi, lex luthor, Marv Wolfman, marvel, power ring, seven soldiers | 2 Comments »

Brightest Day (Hardcover Vol. 1-3) (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on January 18, 2012 by Darren

This January, I’m going to take a look at some of DC’s biggest “events.” This one’s not so much an “event” as a bi-weekly miniseries, but let’s count it anyway…

Balancing the internal storylines is a tough task for any anthology, especially one running over the course of an entire year. In this respect, 52 feels like the exception rather than the rule. It’s a fairly fundamental problem with Brightest Day that not all of the plotlines are interesting (and certainly not all of the time). It’s a rather strange phenomenon: the early issues try to balance the characters somewhat evenly across the issues, and feels somewhat awkward in trying to devote an equal amount of space to stories that aren’t equally compelling; on the other hand, the second and final thirds seems more comfortable devoting large stretches of single issues to certain characters (and to have other members of the ensemble go unheard from for issues at a time), which has the bizarre effect of meaning that a cliffhanger or two isn’t picked up for two or three chapters. It’s a tough balance to get right, and I’m sad to say that Brightest Day doesn’t acquit itself particularly admirably. It’s a shame, because there are some interesting ideas here.

Everything burns...

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: blackest night, boston, brightest day, Brightest Day (DC comics), Captain Boomerang, captain cold, dc universe, flash, geoff johns, green lantern, green lantern: rebirth, Greenlantern, Martian Manhunter, maxwell lord, peter tomasi, reverse flash, The Flash: Rebirth | 2 Comments »

Alan Moore’s Run on Swamp Thing – Saga of the Swamp Thing (Books #3-4) (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on January 16, 2012 by Darren

This January, I’m going to take a look at some of DC’s biggest “events.” You can probably guess which event I’m leading into, but I don’t want to spoil it…

I have never read Swamp Thing before. This trip through these lovely (but sadly not oversized or filled with extras) hardcover editions of Alan Moore’s iconic run on the title has been my first encounter with the character. This is Moore’s longest tenure on a mainstream comic book, and the one which introduced him to the mainstream. What’s astounding here is not only how Moore manages to offer something which still stands up as something unique and challenging, but also offers a fairly exciting and well-written book on his own terms.

I have a burning desire to read more...

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: alan moore, america, american gothic, art, comic book, comic books, Comics, crisis, crisis on infinite earths, dc comics, dc universe, dcu, fiction, John Totleben, Moore, Online Writing, Stephen R. Bissette, swamp thing, United States, watchmen | 4 Comments »

Brad Meltzer’s Run on Justice League – The Lightning Saga (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on January 13, 2012 by Darren

This January, I’m going to take a look at some of DC’s biggest “events.” This week I’ll be taking a look at Brad Meltzer’s impact on the DC universe. This is a crossover with Geoff Johns’ second run on Justice Society of America.

I can’t help but feel like having Brad Meltzer write this Justice League was a huge waste of what could have been a very impressive run. After all, Meltzer is a big novelist, and turning his attention to DC was a big deal at the time. More than that, though, it seemed like a move that could have pushed the Justice League very much to the fore. Imagine a team of DC’s most iconic properties, helmed by a respected and successful author, and sold outside of comic book stores. Imagine the trade paperback possibilities – I imagine there’s potential to get a Brad Meltzer Justice League book into the hands of somebody who has never read comic books before, and that’s got to be a win. Indeed, the book seems to acknowledge that by advertising a foreword by Patton Oswalt on the front page – it screams “mainstream! mainstream!” Unfortunately, though, it’s the only aspect of this crossover that does, leaving me with only a faint taste of what might have been. It’s not that it’s bad – it’s that it could have been so much better.