Batman: Reptilian

/ Alex Good / 8 Comments

Batman: Reptilian

I went through a range of responses while reading Reptilian. For example, at first I found myself really grooving to the art by Liam Sharp, which has a thick, painterly atmosphere to it. If that art was dark, well, that’s the Batman universe. And not just any Batman universe, but the DC Black Label Batman universe.

But then I didn’t like how the art stayed so dark, and how the thickness started to just seem muddy. There were action sequences where, even going back to examine them more closely, I honestly couldn’t tell what was going on. There were climactic moments, such as Killer Croc appearing with an external womb like Nola in The Brood, that I couldn’t see at all. I had to take cues from the text to understand what was happening. This was a shame because Sharp really imagines the characters in interesting and original ways but I felt like I was only seeing them through a glass, darkly. Batman himself is all shadow and silhouette, which I guess is apt for the character but also got tiring after a while.

I felt the same mix of good and bad with the writing. Garth Ennis is a writer known for pushing the boundaries of what I’ll call good taste. This title isn’t as crazy as some of his stuff, but then he was writing for an established DC character and they probably had him on some kind of leash. As it is, his Batman is a cold, sarcastic bastard and Killer Croc a sympathetic villain. There’s also a violent plot (though the violence is mostly witnessed in the aftermath) that involves a lot of xenosexual shenanigans. In sum, it wasn’t what I was expecting, but it was something new, which isn’t easy to pull off when we’re talking about a Batman comic. Some of the dialogue felt awkward, and given the aforementioned issues I had with the art the story became hard to follow in places. But on a second reading I did think it all made sense.

So I came away respecting it. I could see a real Batman purist taking offense, but that’s the Black Label brand. The art at least had a lot of interesting design elements, though the monster looked a bit too Giger-ish and as noted it’s all far too dark. And Ennis did come up with a story that I think even his detractors will admit is hard to forget. There aren’t many comics that give us that much.

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Holmes: The Breath of God

/ Alex Good / 20 Comments

The dictionary definition of a pastiche is a work composed in the same style (if not always the same spirit) as the original, but Guy Adams knows that this can be taken too far. “There is a habit amongst writers of new Holmes fiction,” he tells us in an Afterword to The Breath of God, “to concentrate on emulating Conan Doyle’s style. From the word go I decided not to be too slavish about this. Guess what: Conan Doyle didn’t write this, I did.”

Cocky? Sure, but Adams backs it up with a fast-paced supernatural thriller that I enjoyed all the way through. And anyone who acknowledges that Tobe Hooper’s Lifeforce is “one of the finest bad movies ever made” is OK in my book. Though I might even argue with calling Lifeforce a bad movie.

Now if you’re a true Holmesian your ears probably pricked up at my use of the word “supernatural.” The story begins with the “Psychical Doctor” John Silence visiting Holmes and telling him that evil forces are at work looking to bring about a transdimensional apocalypse called the Breath of God. Already various members of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn are meeting mysterious ends. As Holmes and Watson investigate they learn of a power struggle in the Order, with our heroes taking the side of Silence, Aleister Crowley, Thomas Carnacki, and Julian Karswell.

If you’ve read a bit in the weird fiction of the period you’ll recognize the names. Crowley was a real historical figure (“the wickedest man in the world”), while the others were fictional dabblers in the occult. Adams isn’t just borrowing from Conan Doyle but William Hope Hodgson, Algernon Blackwood, and MR James. It’s as much a collage as a pastiche, which is a route Adams would go down again in his next Holmes novel, The Army of Dr. Moreau.

But what’s going on here? Holmes, as “a man thoroughly wedded to a rational view of the world,” is intrigued by Silence’s story, but we may suspect he has some doubts. And sure enough things do get wrapped up in a rational (as well as spectacular) finale. But I thought the novel was a first-rate fantasy even without the Holmes angle. In fact, Holmes has a secondary role throughout most of the proceedings and Watson is the hero as much as he is the narrator. A Watson who can also be quite harsh on his best friend, at one point going so far as to say how much of “a contrary swine he could often be.”

It’s all very cinematic, highlighted by action scenes that have the team of occult ghostbusters battling ectoplasmic demons with magic (or “magick”) spells and artefacts. I also liked that the villains were given interesting motives, and had creative ways of doing in their enemies. There’s no denying Adams does this kind of popcorn-flavoured pulp well, and while such an approach doesn’t have The Breath of God feeling much like a canonical Holmes tale it’s still a good time.

Holmes index

The Superior Spider-Man: Goblin Nation

/ Alex Good / 13 Comments

The Superior Spider-Man: Goblin Nation

As you know from my previous reviews of a couple of the Superior Spider-Man Team-Up collections, I’m a fan of the character. In brief, he’s a version of Spider-Man where Otto Octavius has taken over Peter Parker’s body and thus the identity of Spider-Man, creating a new and improved (“superior”) webslinger. The original Peter Parker had apparently died, but in fact his consciousness is still floating around in the SSM’s head, and in this issue he finally emerges triumphant as Octavius relinquishes control back to him so that he (the real Peter Parker) can save his (Octavius’s) girlfriend.

Did you follow all that? It doesn’t really matter. The main plotline has the Green Goblin (or the Goblin King, who is Norman Osborn having had plastic surgery to look like one of his corporate underlings) and the Goblin Nation (a bunch of characters turned into goblin freaks by the goblin serum) trashing NYC. The Goblin King knows that Spider-Man is now a cosplaying Doc Ock and offers him an alliance (as junior partner) but nobody with a name like Octavius is going to agree to play second fiddle to a little green guy so they end up fighting each other. Meanwhile, Spider-Man 2099 has time-traveled back to help out and J. Jonah Jameson, the mayor of New York, has unleashed his army of robot Spider-Slayers to kill Spidey because you know Jameson just has a hate on for him.

Did you follow that? I’ll admit, I had a hard time with it. And there’s more going on, including a psychomachia in Peter Parker’s head and a battle between the corporate entities Parker Industries and Oscorp/Alchemax. I thought this struggle between the wannabe tech bros to be an angle that had more potential, but as this synopsis has already made clear there’s plenty enough going on.

Probably too much. If you’re not up on this iteration of the Spiderverse then you’re probably going to be lost with regard to all of the supporting characters. I know I was. And I wasn’t impressed with the Goblin King’s ambition to take over all the crime in New York City. Why not just focus on growing Oscorp and take over the world? What would Elon do? OK, probably try to take over NYC. But you know what I mean.

I didn’t like this one as much as I did the other Superior Spider-Man titles I’ve read, but it’s still a better-than-average comic and shouldn’t disappoint the fans who wanted to see Peter Parker come back. I just wasn’t missing him that much.

Graphicalex

Druuna: Creatura

/ Alex Good / 10 Comments

Druuna: Creatura

This comic (which I don’t have as a standalone but only as it appeared in the November 1992 Heavy Metal) is a sequel to the Morbus Gravis Druuna books, and there is a sort of continuity, at least insofar as continuity is a thing in the Druuna universe. The spaceship that was the setting for the earlier books has been overgrown by the Evil virus and now constitutes a sort of fleshy asteroid or floating tumor. Another spaceship captained by a man named Will comes across the asteroid, which seems to be communicating psychically with Will by giving him visions of Druuna. An away team lands on the asteroid, indeed enters it in a highly suggestive manner, and as they explore their surroundings reality seems to come undone and it’s not clear how much of what is happening is real and how much is a dream. Druuna’s lover Schastar, for example, appears to have melded into a cyborg creature that is part Schastar and part Lewis. Furthermore, he/it might have died eons ago but for the fact that time no longer has any meaning.

There’s a doctor (he seems to be a psychologist, primarily), who’s based on Serpieri himself, and he shows up to try to explain some of this to Will but I found his theories hard to follow. Otherwise, we’re just lost in the same world as before, consisting of a diseased superstructure built upon a cauldron of id that keeps looping out its tendrils to snag the buxom Druuna or any other nubile creature. The crew-cut Terry giving herself up to something called the Prolet project is another sexual-surrogate stand-in, like Hale in Morbus Gravis. In fact, she might be Hale. I don’t know.

Trying to make sense of all this is impossible. And this despite the fact that Creatura is a lot talkier than the Morbus Gravis comics. I’m just not sure how much of the supposed exposition was meant as a joke, how much was lost in translation, and how much was confused to begin with and then became progressively more complicated. It seems that something is being said about humanity existing in a parlous state between the poles of what I called the id (the Evil virus, carnality, violence, and lust) and a superego (the computer, robots, technology). While Druuna in all her lush voluptuousness would seem to be more closely aligned with the organic, that’s not represented as being an attractive alternative. Sex can be beautiful (especially on the beach), but more often it’s something cruel and degrading. Meanwhile, technology is more closely identified with what we might think of as civilization and a condition of order that we have to fight to preserve.

I won’t try to read anything more into it than that. Most of the pontificating done by the doctor and others strikes me as just a bunch of pretentious bafflegab. And by this point in the story I think it’s clear that there is no linear story being told. “Past, present and future mean nothing here,” Druuna is told by the robot Schastar/Lewis. And so she keeps running in place. There’s no escaping the human condition, even in space!

Graphicalex

Marple: The Case of the Caretaker

/ Alex Good / 12 Comments

An interesting frame to this one, as Miss Marple is recovering from a bout of the flu and to help her recovery her doctor gives her the manuscript of a mystery story that he’s written. Only it’s really more of a true crime story as the only thing he’s done is changed the names. It’s up to Miss Marple to solve it, which she does handily the next time he comes to visit.

It’s a throwaway of a mystery. Miss Marple twigs to what’s going on because the playboy has married a rich heiress who is not his type. That’s putting a lot of weight on a pretty flimsy “clue.” Still, the story was a quick read and I enjoyed the way it was presented. Points also for making me look up what a “dower house” is, using “acidulated” to describe a gossipy spinster, and informing me that a “catapult” is a British slingshot.

Marple index