|
RADAR // 2.13.03 By the SAVANT Staff ON OUR RADAR GLOBAL
FREQUENCY #4 With GLOBAL FREQUENCY, Ellis has achieved his goal of Pop Comics. He's produced several works since he first talked about his idea for Pop Comics, and while the twelve-issue nature of GLOBAL FREQUENCY would seem to disqualify it from what Pop Comics are considered to be (shorter, three-issue stories), each issue is an example in and of itself. I don't imagine there will be much need to read GLOBAL FREQUENCY in one sitting (though this sort of one-shot story is how Ellis began PLANETARY before diving into a more complex overall story, so who knows) because each story is self-contained and light on plot and heavy on action. It's a Pop Comic. This issue is as good an example as any. A cult takes hostages in a business office in Australia and the only place they've posted their demands is on their web-site, which no one reads. So it's up to two Global Frequency agents to go in and take them down. Lots of shooting, lots of quick and sharp dialogue, and of course lots of gratuitous violence. There's not much weight to this comic; it's just a fun and entertaining read. This topped #3 for being my favorite issue so far, boding well for the rest of the series. Part of the reason I enjoyed this so much was because of artist Roy A. Martinez, a name I'm not familiar with who turns in some stellar pencils, delivering just the right style for an action piece like this. His work is like a cross between the body builds and faces of Frank Quitely with the shadows and stark layout of a pre-METABARONS Travis Charest. The female character comes off as a little too hard-core sometimes ("You don't want to know what I do for a living," etc.), and the stupidity of the cult in regards to their demands stretches credibility some, but overall the story works just as well as the art. Ellis is having fun with this book and it shows. He's offered up an interesting concept, touching on the emerging ease of communication these days, draping that around stand-alone stories illustrated by a host of talented artists, both known and unknown (like Martinez) and creating some of the most entertaining comics out there today. (Wilson Moss) * * * UBERBABE
#2 The first issue of Sugarlab's UBERBABE was one of those times when I was so glad I bought something on a lark. It was smart, adventurous, and loads of fun. As a matter of fact, it's one of those comics that got better the more I looked through it. Now that the second issue has finally arrived, I can safely say these kids are going places. Any time you can get a Carpenters reference in a story taking place in WWI-era Germany, is a gay old time indeed. The "origin" of Uberbabe, the story starts when a young woman wanders into a convent, as naked and frightened as a newborn, with no memory or idea of where she's from. She is eventually placed into the care of Alois Alzheimer, noted neurologist and psychologist, and we watch the mystery of this woman unfold. Sort of. But this is one of the plusses of this issue: It's self-contained, while advancing the plot. Those of you who missed out on the last issue can safely pick this up and get your freak on with the rest of us. This comic attempts to answer questions by asking new ones. It's one of those rare gems that requires the reader to do most of the heavy lifting, which is refreshing in this over-expository medium that I like to call "my secret shame." The storytelling is simple and elegant, and told with a quiet confidence that's almost liberating. The panels are easy to follow, the art is understated and uncluttered, and the occasional splash of red in the sea of black and white makes the images pop and shimmer. Once again, the mad geniuses at sugarlab have decided to challenge our perceptions of how serial comics should be put together and presented. The last comic was a long fold-out poster, and this issue comes in a beautifully designed black dustjacket with one of the nicest pieces of comic book iconography I've seen since…Well, since the last issue. Painfully cognizant of the fact that one great image is better than six decent ones, the covers are minimalist masterpieces that consciously distance themselves from the other glossy crap shelved next to them. Also, after you buy the comic, you can go to their website download companion tracks. These people are so bad-ass they have their own soundtrack. Now, that's what I'm talking about…. (Jeff Chon) * * * THE
VICTORIAN #16 Included along with my package of a couple of requested comp books from the fine folks at Dark Horse was issue 16 of THE VICTORIAN, a slick-looking book that twists seemingly every genre possible into one complex, multi-layered story. The Victorian himself is the hero in question, a staff-bearing, stovepipe hat-wearing superhero who looks like a cross between Batman and The Monopoly Man. He's entangled in a desperately complex story involved a pair of missing submarines, a down-on-his-luck detective, a schoolgirl menaced over a photograph she unknowingly took, the president of the United States and a possible secret history of the assassination of JFK. I'm entangled in it too, and pretty desperately. THE VICTORIAN is a 25-issue finite series comprising of one massive, intricate story. Reading an issue in the middle of what is described as Act III is a bit like starting a Robert Ludlum novel on page 250-entirely baffling, but not unintriguing. There's a lot going on here, and quite a few cool mysteries at play. A vigilante decides to clean up the Dallas underworld in early November of 1963-but why? The crew of a missing submarine suddenly reappears in the middle of the reflecting pool on the Mall in Washington DC-but how? The dialogue in the book could certainly use a polish. The Cajun accents are a damn sight better than, say, Claremont's Gambit dialogue in old issues of X-MEN (which, as a buddy of mine likes to point out, was always standard Wolverine dialogue with "mon frere" substituted for "bub"), but it's a little overdone. The art by Claude St. Aubin and inker Mostafa Moussa is a little odd-some weird hybrid of Avatar books and mid-'90s Image books. The storyline is wildly inaccessible from the center, despite the best efforts of writer Len Wein and the editors to provide recaps and even a handy text page on the back of the book. But there's so much in the book, so many interesting ideas and bizarre plot threads, it's hard not to want to check out the early trades. If all the threads are tied together well in the end, THE VICTORIAN could make for excellent reading in collected form. (Bryan Miller) HOLDING PATTERN X-STATIX
#6 X-STATIX has lost a bit of the steam that it had as X-FORCE and I don't know why. The art is still great. It's still the most original X-book out there. But ever since they killed of U-Go-Girl and the book got relaunched as X-STATIX, something has been off. The book has almost shed its satire of the superhero and has instead adopted a very heavy dose of cynicism. The cynicism was present previously, of course, but without the parody as well, the stories have become darker, more melodramatic and less unique. Take the opening storyarc, which humorously disposed of the O-Force team, but also was rather somber and had an ending most cynical as the team was forced to kill a teenager who they had brought into the team because he was a murderer. Then there is the current storyarc where Guy, the leader of the team, has apparently finally lost it and become Bad Guy, a villain whom the team must fight. Whether Guy is actually Bad Guy or not seems beside the point-sure, there is the cliched aspect of the good hero going bad, but the story doesn't seem to be saying anything beyond that. There's still more to the book than that, what with the machinations of their media boss and the ever-mysterious Doop, but the main thrust of the story is lacking. The art by Allred is just as good as ever, though. The designs of characters like the winged-Sharon Ginsberg and the detail he puts into his panels works well to compliment and flesh out the story. Coloring by Laura Allred excels on characters like Venus de Milo and Lacuna's skin. There is some interesting drama going on in X-STATIX. And if this is the way it will be from now on, X-STATIX is still a book that stands head and shoulder above most other mainstream books out there. This story right now just isn't as good as X-STATIX/X-FORCE has been. The satire is definitely not gone from the book, it just seems to have taken a back seat to the story this time around. (Wilson
Moss)
Discuss this column on the SAVANT forum. |