Chronic Capsule Reviews: Crap I Read Today!

Let me kick this off by saying that I WON'T be reading Secret Avengers, even though it seems to me that Brubaker's little shadow team is by far the most intriguing of the relaunched Avengers nonsense.

If this book were $2.99, I'd be all over it. But it isn't. I've been making far too many excuses about that lately, and it needs to stop. We simply can't afford (literally!) to reward this behavior. If the trend on trades continues, I won't be buying that either, regardless of how well it gets reviewed. Suggested retail on that collected Psylocke mini? If you thought the $3.99 on the floppies was bad, wait til you get a load of the $4.99 per issue they think it's worth in trade form. No. Nononononononononno you don't.

We're watching, Marvel. And we're pissed. Lots of people sitting at the breaking point, Mr. Buckley. We can live without that Psylocke book, trust me. Hell, the fact you're pushing us toward is that we can live without any of it. That's not a bitter threat any more, that's becoming the undeniable reality of it. We're at the breaking point. Tread carefully.

War of the Supermen # 4
Nothing much for me to rave about or complain about, I guess. I hadn't been reading the Superman books prior, so this is resolving issues that don't resonate as much for me. My sense is that if you went through the whole "New Krypton" stuff, this paid off fairly well.

There's nothing here that would compel me to pick up Superman from here on. I'm thinking about doing it simply because of the Straczynski factor. I'm really enjoying Brave & The Bold (more on that later) and I've been re-reading some Rising Stars, too. JMS is pretty good. So yay for him on Superman, his dream project.

Green Lantern # 54
This title has been on the cusp of the "drop zone" lately. It isn't that I feel it's a bad title. But there's a general feeling you carry around about each of the books on your pull, and inevitably certain books stop feeling like urgent reads and you start to wonder about them. If you're smart.

Thing is, every issue of Green Lantern tends to redeem itself upon closer inspection. I mean, in this issue that Red Lantern cat threw up on a bunch of people in a subway, and how can I deny that? There's no way. Every time that cat pukes rage blood on something, I'm in love all over again. Speaking of love, Sinestro has a delicious little one-liner he fires at Hal Jordan regarding his aching loins over Carol, too.

And that's the juice for me. I don't want to say that I can't care about the whole "sword in the stone" white lantern conundrum or the search for the missing "entities"...but I don't care, so I guess I'll say it. Green Lantern stays for now. Next!

Brave & The Bold # 34
The previous issue may end up being the best comic of 2010. It's certainly # 1 in my heart right now. I guess no system is perfect, but this is such a classic example of how broken the system is, and how quality never quite seems to translate into sales. And that, folks, is what is KILLING the industry.

Because there's no "Brightest Day" banner or some event connection, the rotating cast pretty much demands that nobody buys this title. And it's awesome. Every month, it's quality story after quality story. Straczynski takes full advantage of the freedom inherent in a "what if" type framework and just runs wild with interesting crap.

This month the Legion runs into a problem - primordial black hole make Earth go bye-bye. Now THAT'S a problem! Do you see how fun this stuff gets? Lightning Lad concocts a scheme to go back in time and fix that, and he needs the Doom Patrol's help to do it. And here's where it gets really weird, folks. Straczynski sets it up in the story so that internally it makes sense to need Negative Man! Revolutionary!

Now, JMS has been teasing for months that he's going to do something funky with the title that should make it a "Top 10" selling comic. Something feels slightly awry at the end of this issue, and I think that the ramifications of saving Earth are going to open up that can of worms next issue. Something from the future or another dimension, I don't know. But I think we'll see the ace Straczynski's been holding up his sleeve next month. Yay!

Fantastic Four # 579
As usual, so much to say about this comic, and I'm not sure this little blog entry is really the place to get into all of it, but here goes.

With what went on in # 578, this is a real button-hook. Last issue ramped up the stakes to Factor 11, and then this issue behaves as though none of that Inhumans stuff ever happened. It's a "breather" issue, if you will.

First of all, I don't want to say that Neil Edward's art sucks, but it sure gives a strong inhale. Eaglesham is missed, and that's a fact. Reed gives a speech about the future at the Singularity conference, and basically tells everyone (except She-Hulk) that they're old people with no vision, and he's bowing out of the group.

It's an interesting case he makes, and (as usual) an interesting path to explore. I happen to not agree with much of what Reed believes. He sees expansion as inevitable and hopeful, touting
"one trillion human beings spanning an entire galaxy." To me, that's not a message of hope. I believe in quality, not quantity. If you really liked the galaxy, you wouldn't be spreading people as we know them about it. That's littering.

But Reed is more optimistic than I, so it makes sense in that regard. His response is interesting, daring, and quite in keeping with the "Heroic Age" of optimism. He ditches the stagnant old white dudes and sets up his own think-tank with his children, the moloid kids, Artie, and Alex Power. There's your new Future Foundation!

Hickman spends a lot of time acknowledging plot threads in scattershot form. (Nu-World, Sue as ambassador, the Wizard) There's a TON of balls in the air right now, and Hickman is basically letting you know that he knows this stuff is out there. And all of it is entertaining. All of it.

Does it feel weird to me that the Inhumans stuff just went "poof"? Yup. Was it a bad issue? By no means. This is still the must read Marvel book of the lot, hands downs.

Tales of the Dragon Guard # 3
This was the best comic I read today. The super sad part is that it concludes the series. Are there more Tales of the Dragon Guard out there? I don't know. For all I know, there are reams of this stuff in France as I type. But I'll never get to see it, because the sales figures will not have Marvel ordering more of this, I wouldn't think.

And what a shame. There's a little box in the bottom right-hand corner of the comic that says "mature content", and for once that's accurate. Dragon Guard is a hokey little hook about half-dressed virgins killing big lizards, except it dresses itself in poignant characters, and gripping drama.

Wherever these dragons set up camp, they cast of field of corruption called "The Veil". It taints the people inside of it like a disease, and to watch the progression is always a trip. I'm really going to miss this book. A lot.

- Ryan

Chronic Review: Tales of the Dragon Guard # 1

Tales of the Dragon Guard # 1
Soleil/Marvel Comics
Script: Ange
Pencils: Alberto Varanda
48 pages for $5.99

Round about episode # 130 I covered this one in the "Next Week's Books" segment, put on my deep over-the-top British voice and really let rip with the solicitation copy. OH, did we laugh at this one. But me being me, I was mildly curious to test drive a Soleil comic, and wildly curious to watch virgins get after dragons.

Let's cover some fine points before we tackle the meat of the story. Soleil comics are french. They don't really do superhero books, specializing more in fantasy and science fiction. Sort of like Crossgen, only without a fascist tyrant running the firm. "Ange" is actually a nomme de plume for the writing team of Anne and Gerard Guero. Sort of like Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning, only with more penetration. And virgins are women who have never had sex. Sort of like me.

So when you see a Soleil book, you're looking at a reprint; a comic originally published in France, now translated and re-packaged for American readers. How cultured! This particular brand has a big fat "Mature Content" slapped on the cover. Mostly because of the breasts, but it's deeper than that. More on that score later.

In this comic, the world is plagued by dragons. They're big, they're powerful, and they're so bloody evil that their very presence infects and taints the surrounding geography and population. That infected area where humans turn into monsters becomes known as "The Veil". It's not a good place to be.

The only persons immune to this effect are virgin females. Not only are virgins immune to the physical/spiritual warping of the dragons, but they do not appear on "dragon radar", either. Usually they can feel you coming a mile away. Virgins have to be standing directly in front of a dragon to be noticed. The Dragon Guard represents a collection of virgin warriors dedicated to eradicating the bastard lizards. The comic tells stories from the historic annals of this (sometimes) revered clan.

It would be very easy for this book to fall prey to its sillier tendencies and become an exercise in T & A. Ange have fun with that aspect, to be sure. There are boobies in this book, and it understands on some level that a bunch of young virgin girls kicking dragon ass is a juvenile male fantasy. It embraces that, actually.

But it never caves in to the "juvenile" part of those expectations, and it does a very good job of putting some reality into the fantasy. I'll give you an example. This particular chapter of the Dragon Guard history focuses on the knight Jaina and her squire Ellys. The pair sit and wonder over a travelling lunch break how it was ever discovered that virgin girls were immune to the Veil. Young Ellys believes that enough brave girls attempted to protect their homes that eventually it became apparent. Here's Jaina's theory:

Who's right? Are either of them correct? We don't know. The comic takes the perspective of Jaina and Ellys, so if they don't see it, we're left to guess based on the evidence. There's another mystery that comes to mind toward the end of the book that seems conspiratorial, but the reader is left to their own interpretation. There is evidence that the dragon Jaina is questing to dispatch has been around longer than the local authorities advertise. Oversight, or were they waiting for the Veil to create gems near the dragon lair and letting peasants get killed in the interim? Hmmmmm.

This is a smarter book than you'd believe if you simply got sidetracked by the nipples. People react to the Dragon Guard on a wide spectrum as well. There is some gender bigotry, but Ange don't paint anything with too broad a brush. Everything in Dragon Guard is left a little complex, like life. I wish more comics were like that.

There is real horror in the story as well. We get a glimpse of Jaina's origins, and they are brutal. Her last images of her parents are trying to survive them as they succumb to the Veil. Most of that is handled off panel, which I also appreciated. It's creepier told in the fragments that we do get to see.

Jaina and Ellys meet a family on the road that they perceive as raiders. The surviving children claim they are just uninfected peasants hoping to find some help and food. Maybe that's the case, but they were waiting in the bushes with weapons. It's tough to know how to feel about that. And that's like life, too. Jaina sends the little girl down the road with this advice: "If your little brother start to scales or claws..kill him." See what I mean? This is not a T & A book, this is what the bad girl craze should have been in the 90s.

I can't say enough good things about this book. There is one plot device regarding a decision that Ellys makes at the end that feels a little false logically, but for the story it creates drama. And I can forgive that. There is some "Cinemax After Dark" type nudity, but the comic doesn't rely on that like a crutch. Varanda's pencils are fantastic. The women are gorgeous, the Veil infected are disturbing, and the Dragon looks awe inspiring for the "boss battle" at the end. I'm not an art critic, but doesn't this unusual panel perfectly convey motion?:

Tales of the Dragon Guard contains action, sex appeal, social commentary, horror, and it builds a world that lives and breathes with its own quirky rules. I'm completely impressed with this title, I'll keep an eye out for anything available in the states by Ange, and I'm on board with Dragon Guard for as many issues as I can find.

- Ryan