Quick New Reads: Swamp Thing #4, X-Club #1

Swamp Thing #1 (Feb 2012)
Ongoing Series
DC Comics


The reintroduction of Alec Holland into the mainstream DC Universe continues on apace. I felt this issue wasn't as strong as the previous one, going by a little too quickly, but it's still an engaging story, and a series I recommend.





X-Club #1 (Feb 2012)
Limited Series
Marvel Comics


The Previews blurb for this series caught my eye, with its emphasis on SCIENCE and the like, so I decided to pick it up, even though I haven't been a big X-people reader in a long, long time. Like the Swamp Thing issue, I think this went by too quickly; there were some nice touches to it, but overall I think the characters are a shade too abrasive and the plot a titch too undefined at present. A good plot hook could draw me in even though I wasn't too keen on the characters, while compelling characters could make me come back next issue to see the actual plot develop. Unfortunately, neither really took hold, and I don't think I'll be back, at least not at cover price.

I wonder if I would've been more satisfied if I'd picked up the new Defenders series instead.

Sleepwalker #1

Sleepwalker #1 (June 1991)
Ongoing series
Marvel Comics



Many years ago, Marvel put out something called The Generic Comic (or, going by the cover, Generic Comic Book). It was a tongue-in-cheek example of paint-by-numbers superhero comics at the time, and let me tell you: if the title hadn't already been used by them then, "Generic Comic Book" would have been a great name for this first issue.

Sleepwalker #1 is a perfectly acceptable, inoffensive, unremarkable comic -- but it shouldn't be! The titular creature is a tall, gaunt, green-skinned, bug-eyed humanoid in a purple hood, who emerges into the real world and fights crime with a reality-altering medallion when our everyman protagonist Rick goes to sleep. This should be a can't-miss opportunity for mind-bending excitement, or at least weirdness. But instead we get most of the comic devoted to Rick, a Film Studies major, having mundane dreams and living his mundane life.

Rick might as well be named Peter Banner: he's got the college-student-with-cute-redhead-girlfriend life Peter Parker had, but adds to it a "I mustn't unleash the monster" side-serving once he far too quickly and easily works out that the Sleepwalker comes out when he's asleep (or concussed and unconscious, but hey.) It's bland bland band, and since creator Bob Budiansky penned almost the entire series, I can't see it getting much better.

It's disappointing to see a concept with such potential get off to such a mundane start. I've often felt that Sleepwalker, along with fellow early-90s Marvel properties Speedball and Darkhawk, got a raw deal when people dismissed it as lame. But that was before I picked this up for the first time. Now I'm hesitant to look at the others, lest I be further disillusioned.

Marvel Adventures Super Heroes #4

Marvel Adventures Super Heroes #4 (2008)
Ongoing Series
Marvel Comics



I'm in need of some extra space and extra money these days, and as I was going through my collection in search of comics to part with I stumbled across this one. I've had nothing but positive experiences reading the Marvel Adventures line of all-ages comics, and since the cover didn't ring any bells I thought maybe this one had slipped through the cracks unread.

After the first couple of pages, I realized I'd read it before, and in fact remembered it almost perfectly, but that didn't stop me from reading on to the end. Like every other Marvel Adventures comic I've read, this one is great fun and features the sort of oddball premise you're unlikely to find in a mainstream title: while standing outside a bank waiting for Iron Man to finish his banking, Spider-Man and the Hulk notice a poster advertising a country-and-western performance by super-villain Klaw. Convinced that evil is afoot, the heroic trio takes in the show, waiting for Klaw to tip his villainous hand. But he seems to have honestly turned over a new leaf, and Iron Man's over-reaction to an innocent act on Klaw's part makes the heroes look like jerks.

Is Klaw really reformed? What does the Hulk think of country music? You'll have to read the story to find out, but trust me, it's worth it. And it's not leaving my collection after all.

Highly recommended fun for the whole family.

Don't Be A Fool

Although I've never, to my recollection, read a comic with the original Foolkiller in it, I must admit that I found his story as related in the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe rather intriguing; the psychologically unbalanced moralist seems like a natural for the vigilante schtick, and it's interesting to see which vigilantes get the implicit approval of the publisher (Punisher, for instance) and which do not. Also, maybe it's just my age showing, but I think he had a pretty striking costume:



It's certainly better than the outfits of the two who followed in his footsteps:




Foolkiller also got re-envisioned for the 2099 world, and the concept was revived for a Marvel MAX series. I don't know what the character concept's status is in the 616 universe.

Avengers Two: Wonder Man and Beast

Avengers Two: Wonder Man and Beast #1-3
Limited Series
Marvel Comics



This is a mini-series that wouldn't be published today -- not because it's a lighthearted buddy comedy, but because it's loaded with footnotes.

In my youth [As seen in Stone Age Funnies #1 -- Ed], footnotes in comics were seemingly de rigueur. They were your guide to following plot developments that happened outside the comics you read, and they were a way of maintaining the feeling of a shared universe without relying on a constant stream of crossovers. While Marvel has its recap pages at the beginnings of its comics right now, these take up far more space than the footnotes ever did, and are generally more limited to recapping what's happened in the few issues previous. The footnotes, on the other hand, could refer to something that happened in a decades-old comic just as easily as it could something happening in another comic hitting the shelves that same month. Ah, those were the days...

But I digress.

Avengers Two, although starring both Wonder Man and the Beast, is really Wonder Man's story. At the time of the comic, he's just come back from the dead at the second time -- this time at the hands of his new lover, the Scarlet Witch -- and is trying to reconcile himself with all the things that have happened in his life. You see, getting a third chance at life has made him very self-conscious, bringing all of his perceived failures and shortcomings into sharp relief, and he wants to make amends.

Here's a problem, though: I'm not really sure what he intended to do. He flies out to California, sure, because that's where he was based for much of his career. And then he... sulks. Don't get me wrong, this isn't page after page of melancholy -- the Beast's presence and his chemistry with Wonder Man make sure of that. But most of Wonder Man's time is spent either reacting to outside forces (to his old agent, to a plane hi-jacking, to It! The Living Colossus) or berating himself for his past indiscretions. He does track down some old acquaintances of his own volition, but you really get the feeling that he didn't think of that until after he was already out there.

There's fun to be had in this mini, and there's a nice slobbernocker between Wonder Man and It! The Living Colossus at the climax, but it's not going to knock anyone's socks off. I picked it up for $1.50 total, and for a price that low you could do worse.

Dream Police (2005)

Dream Police
One-shot
Icon/Marvel










Here's what's wrong with comics today. Dream Police came out from Icon, the Marvel imprint for creator-owned works. The same imprint has put out Mark Millar's Nemesis and Kick-Ass, Ed Brubaker's Criminal and Incognito, and Brian Michael Bendis' Powers. And yet whlie those titles have, with their grit and grimdarkness, kept going over the years, we only got a single Dream Police one-shot back in 2005.

Written by J. Michael Straczynski with art by Mike Deodato, Dream Police deals with a Dragnet-like pair of cops on the titular police force, charged with keeping the peace in the dream-world of humanity. It's a fun glimpse into a day -- well, a night -- in the life of the two cops as they deal with crimes that are uniquely oneiric in nature, from tracking down the source of a nun's erotic dream to helping a woman whose dream of her son has gone missing.

The comic has a nice Bronze-Age-meets-Vertigo feel -- aside from the sex dream, it wouldn't have seemed out of place sharing the spinner racks with Kilraven and the Phantom Stranger. Definitely worth your dollar, if you find it.