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REVIEWS // 11.14.02 Eden's Trail • Origin • The Resistance • Tales from the Mortuary • Teenagers from Mars • True Story Swear to God EDEN'S
TRAIL #1 I've been listening to a lot of Australian rock and dance at the moment. One of my best friends lives there and is staying with me at the moment, as is his CD collection. This made me realise something about Australian music and how it differs from American and English music. It's honest, totally and completely honest. Bands like Powderfinger and Machine Gun Fellatio do the musical equivalent of opening a vein and bleeding onto the page. What you see is what you get, take it or leave it. The same goes for EDEN'S TRAIL. This is an elegant, minimalist piece of storytelling that, regardless of what it may or may not mean for creator owned work at Marvel, is interesting in it's own right. Chuck Austen has quietly been putting out some of the best character-driven action stories in print for a while now, and this is no exception. Set on a world which is equal parts old west and far future, this issue follows an attempted bar heist from the point of three separate characters. It's intelligent, very funny and savagely violent by turns, Austen changing gear effortlessly between the three elements of the story. Much
of the impact here comes from Austen's ear for dialogue. His characters
have a natural rhythm to their speech and a remarkably grounded
worldview that raises this far above the bog standard sci-fi actioner
it could have been. This is a world inhabited by lizard riders,
men with Gatling guns for hands and on the other side of things,
a sheriff who just wants a quiet drink. Austen's characters react
to incredible situations in utterly pragmatic ways and the result
is a genuinely unusual, often very funny story. Ultimately, EDEN'S TRAIL is a very fast and very entertaining read. For once, I have absolutely no idea where this is going and as a result, I can't wait for the next issue. Unusual, and well worth a look. (Alasdair Stuart ) * * * ORIGIN
Forget Wolverine for a second. And forget whether or not they should have told this story. Forget whether this explains the Weapon X piece of his origin or not. Forget all the hype. Forget the backlash to the hype. Forget wondering if you should be ashamed to have this on your bookshelf. Remember one thing, which Tom DeSanto deftly points out in his introduction. Something that all editors should take heed to. "If we can tell a good story, we should do it." Because that's what it's really all about in this business isn't it? Telling good stories. And it is a "good" story. I liked it. Overall, I give it a 7.5 out of 10. And let me preface that by saying I'm a fairly passive Wolverine fan. I do like the X-Men in concept, meaning that I think the original run by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby was fun, imaginative, and unique. I think the majority of the characters are pretty cool. But, I do not read any X-title regularly and I have never read a single Wolverine comic. Now let me go into detail, from packaging, to the good and amazing, to the parts I felt needed re-working. THE PACKAGE… I deliberately waited for the softcover trade as it provides the most value for the money at $14.95. After such a wait, would it have killed Marvel to throw in some extras? The new process is so raved about, it would have been nice to see even just a page or two of pencils prior to the coloring process. Alternate covers? A script? Sketches? An interview with Jenkins or Kubert? Something. Aside from the item noted above, I thought DeSanto's introduction was satisfactory, offering a slightly interesting, though not terribly in depth, look into some of the issues surrounding the project. To the contrary, the ending pieces by Bill Jemas and Joe Quesada are disgusting, self-congratulatory drivel that add zero value (and yes, I looked the word drivel up at www.dictionary.com to ensure it captured the essence of what I wanted to say). Had the project bombed, I doubt the tone would have been so jovial and childish. I want behind the scenes insight on pieces like this, not the Editor In Chief and President patting each other on the ass for a job they think (only in 20/20 hindsight) is so great. Ok, THE GOOD… 1) The art and colors are simply beautiful. Beyond reproach. Take a walk down the stands any week and you'll be hard pressed to find a book that looks so lush and crisp. I was particularly impressed with the backgrounds, the hidden faces in the clouds, the layered effect off in the distance, and the use of mostly earth tones with sparse bursts of vibrant color. 2) Overall, the characterization was good, with the one significant exception of the fat cook whose name escapes me at the moment. His character was so stock it hurt. But everyone else, from Grandpa Howlett down to James, to Smitty, Rose, and Dog, even the family butler and servants were all crafted sparingly and effectively within a matter of pages. I cared about these characters and wanted to identify with their struggles. 3) I liked the ending. And I never like endings, whether film or comics, this is a pet peeve of mine. The end was consistent with previously established characterization. It also solidly explained the reasoning to the mystery of the protagonist's past. As the journal of the one single recorder of events is destroyed, it perpetuates the mythos for years to come. It's actually an ending. You could forget Wolverine and read this as a completely self-contained tale that begins and ends in one book. 4) A litany of items are explained or alluded to. Wolverine's inability to recall his past as his mutant healing factor seeks to wipe it out. His fascination with caring women who just happen to be redheads. His fascination with Japanese culture and philosophy. The dichotomy in his personality, from the kindness of his father to the brutality of his powers and solitary disposition. After several hints ranging from physical appearance to Mrs. Howlett's subtle comments, the reader is left to his or her own conclusions regarding Dog growing up to be Sabretooth, as well as a possible biological connection between Dog/Sabretooth and James/Logan/Wolverine. 5) Consistency. I like how the very tragic nature of Wolverine's character was underscored by him starting as the heir to a very wealthy family and winding up essentially homeless, living outside of society in the Canadian wilderness. And for some reason, I very much liked the consistency with the way his mutant powers are revealed. As we are reminded, they typically are activated at a young age, during times of physical or emotional trauma and are initially uncontrollable. 6) Generally, I thought this was an excellent time period to set the piece in. Right at the turn of the century as the Industrial Revolution is unfolding. It has a nice rugged but frantic, Indiana Jones-ish type of rough and tumble feel that is just right, while escaping the cliché's of say "the old West" or another common setting that can be mistaken for genre. 7) I like how the butler began as the narrator and that was subtly switched to Rose's journal acting as narrator and recorder of events via their relationship. I found myself fascinated with Rose's journal, it was entertaining to read, made all the more sweet because the history it holds is ultimately destroyed. 8) The "switcheroo." I'm referring to the reader believing that Dog was destined to be Wolverine until fairly deep into the book. Though it seemed a bit forced with Dog's family name being Logan and his father bearing a striking resemblance to a fully matured Wolverine, I liked it. It reminded me of the "switcheroos" that happen in Seven, The Usual Suspects, and The Sixth Sense. The kind that make you reconsider all that have come before. 9) The covers. Number 1 is great because it starts the reader down the path of believing that Dog will ultimately be Wolverine. Number 2 is good because it foreshadows and focuses literally on mutant powers being revealed. And number 3. Number 3 is just damn beautiful. Amazing. It completely captures the tragedy of the character, this poster should be hanging on every Wolverine fan's wall. And THE BAD… 1) The covers to Numbers 4, 5, and 6. In my opinion, they're awful. Excuse me, but I don't have to be force-fed the "Wolverine has an animal side" concept with three repetitive covers. Using the higher-grade format, especially in a mini-series, to your advantage and conveying a different motif each time should be the goal. Which leads right into point two… 2) The whole "Wolverine has an animal side" concept is so overly done, it's almost a self-parody. I mean, come on! Running with the wolves juxtaposed with Rose reading passages that convey the same meaning? This is an insult to everyone's intelligence. Even if you don't know a thing about Wolverine, there is enough brutality in this book to establish the link to his animalistic impulses. I actually like the passages Rose read quite a bit, but that in addition to the visual was way "over the top." I would have liked to see something a bit more abstract. Rose reading those passages as James slept peacefully before her, as he spoke sparingly, as he did something docile, a close-up on his eyes perhaps, anything with a dramatic contrast or understated connection would have been fine. It was just too obvious. I wanted to scream, "ok, I get it already!" 3) Roger Ebert has a rule about movies telegraphing their moves. He says that some movies will insult you by telling you what they're going to do, doing it, and then explaining what they did. Origin comes dangerously close to violating this rule. The foreshadowing and dialogue choices are so thick in spots that we almost feel as if we know how the tragedy will unfold, we then watch it unfold, and then are told what a tragedy it was indeed. 4) The worst scene in my opinion is that of Grandpa Howlett apparently on his deathbed instructing a grown-up Dog to find his long lost grandson. Dog's atrocious line of <ahem>, "I will hunt them down like a DOG!" still makes me shudder. This book wants to be both smart and mysterious while that line is both stupid and obvious. A better denouement to this plot thread could have been to allow Grandpa Howlett to die with some level of spoken or unspoken remorse (ie: looking at a picture of James or wandering alone through his now empty house) and simply have the Dog character lurking about the Howlett estate. I think the reader could then draw his or her own conclusions given what is provided within Origin as well as broader comic continuity. While reading Origin, I tried to do so from 2 perspectives, one as an avid comic book reader, and the other as an industry outsider. Within comicdom, I think this is a solid work for all the reasons I have cited above. Does it compare even for a second with some of the great industry benchmarks? No. Are there better things to have on your bookshelf? Sure. But is it more entertaining, thoughtful, and artfully rendered that most of the crap out there? You bet. In order to know if this work truly transcends and can stand on its own as a literary work, we need to measure its quality and effectiveness to a comic layman. As I read it in that manner, I pretended I knew nothing about Wolverine, even that the character existed. Of course I didn't get many of the references or possible continuity links suggested, it lost some impact. Nevertheless, it still stood as an engaging and entertaining read, worthy of recognition. No shame. (Justin Giampaoli) * * * THE
RESISTANCE #1 and #2 I've always been fond of dystopias. There's something fascinating in seeing how worlds dissolve, the same impulse that makes people slow down near a car accident or follow a scandal in the paper. We're fascinated, for better or for worse, by what's worse than what we've got. Based on this alone, everyone should be reading THE RESISTANCE. It's unfortunate but true that this is the title that got lost in the backwash when it and it's sister books, GEN 13 and 21 DOWN launched. Indeed, the only thing that THE RESISTANCE really has in common with either of the other two is publishing company and creative team. Aside from that, this is something which is all too rare in the comic market, and even rarer when done well; political science fiction. The first thing that makes THE RESISTANCE stand out is it's worldview. Here, the paranoid security culture is taken to it's logical extreme, with only those who are assigned ID numbers being given the rights of a citizen. If you don't have a number then you don't have a job, health care or food. And no one cares. Taking
the standard Cyberpunk dystopia as their starting point, Palmiotti
and Gray craft a world which is uniquely bleak and uniquely amoral.
The media-savvy sensibilities of the day are parodied here in a
similar way to DK2 (Naked newscasters etc) but in a far more believable
context. This is a world which doesn't so much have a lower class
as an invisible class, a group of people who don't even feature
in the worldview of everyone else. If you're not a citizen, you're
not alive and it's this that the main characters are resisting as
much as the obligatory oppressive regime. The real icing on the cake though is this. There are no heroes and no villains her,e just people on two separate sides of a bad situation. On one side are Jones, Surge, Tommy and the rest of the rebels, people fighting against the system and defining themselve sby doing so. These people are cut from the same cloth as dozens of other groups of characters from Hogan's Heroes to Alien, Jack and Fade from GEN-X COPS. They're the anti-establishment, tragically hip group intent on bringing down The Man. These are the people, in short, who you should be cheering. However, they're actions don't make that easy. Palmiotti and Gray's script crackles with some fantastic, bickering dialogue which does an excellent job of showing how up against the wall these people are. Surge in particular has none of King Mob's rock and roll swagger, coming off as more of a drill sergeant than the leader of a revolution. Plus, the addition of Tommy in issue 2 not only ups the crowd pleasing action quota, but also emphasises what these people have to do to live. Tommy kills things and loves doing it, and in this book, he's one of the good guys. However, the dark horse of THE RESISISTANCE is on the other side of the fence. Officer Joseph Hicks would be the villain in a lesser book. He's a cop, the sort that clash with Surge's people daily and as a result he has a very different of them. To him, these are the people who will kill him and steal his ID number if given half a chance, the ones who'll stop him getting to the end of the shift alive. He's a fascinating figure for a book like this, a genuine everyman who believes passionately in the system. Whether he remains that way remains to be seen, but Hicks is a unique voice in a book of this type and one of its strongest qualities. Finally, Santacruz and Portela's art does a great job of portraying a frantic world with maximum impact. Inevitably, comparisons with TRANSMETROPOLITAN are inevitable and several of the city scenes do bear a resemblance to Darick Robertson's work. However, Santacruz and Portela seem to work closer in than Robertson, revelling in the crowd scenes and ramming characters right into the centre of the frame. This is a crowded, claustrophobic but strangely beautiful world and in the hands of this artistic team, it really comes to life. Ultimately, THE RESISTANCE isn't what you think it is. It's cleverer than most science fiction, more morally ambiguous than any other mainstream title and far more complex than it first appears to be. Smart, tough and demanding, it deserves your attention. (Alasdair Stuart) * * * TALES
FROM THE MORTUARY There's a sub genre of crime fiction that's rarely seen in comics. Jovial noir, as I cal it, is the sort of casual, body fluid heavy story that's heavy on violence and humour, low on morality and reads like a Bugs Bunny cartoon played at double speed. Done right, it's a lot of fun. Wyatt and Askham do it very right indeed. The basic idea here is simple. A demented morgue attendant leads us through a series of four stories that deal with his charges and how they got to him in that condition. It's not remotely, even a little, subtle but it's done with such tremendous flair that it's impossible not to be amused. Far and away the best story on display here is 'The Bodyshifters", the book's opener. The body in this case is a mobster who, despite having a bullet lodged inside him, choked to death on it instead of being shot by it. In recounting the story, the attendant introduces us to Lemmy and Georgie, a pair of amiably rubbish small time crooks who are lumbered with the task of moving a body. A body, I might add, that's frozen to the ground, in a public place. Like I say, it's not subtle but Wyatt has a nice eye for dialogue and this is the sort of blood soaked farce that wouldn't look out of place in PULP FICTION (Marvin's head anyone?). It's nasty and very funny stuff helped no end by Askham's angular, expressive artwork. Of the other stories, 'The Mothers" is a funny but too short introduction to Norman and Norman, identical twins in identical dresses whilst 'Underdog Tracks' is, fairly obviously, a RESERVOIR DOGS parody. Both are funny, and in the case of 'Underdog Tracks' very well illustrated but neither quite have the punch of 'Bodyshifters' or the other stand out, 'Cavity House of Horror'. This reminded me of nothing more than classic British comedy THE YOUNG ONES, mixing a main character in desperate need of cash with a particularly rubbish scam and an old lady who is quite, quite mad. It's fast paced, very nasty and extremely funny stuff, pushing the same sort of blood soaked cartoon buttons that makes 'Bodyshifters' such fun. If you're remotely squeamish don't go near this. However, if you want something fun, cheap and guaranteed to put you off kebabs for life, this is great fun. (Alasdair Stuart) * * * TEENAGERS
FROM MARS #4 It's date night! Macon and Madison go to the movies -- an old zombie flick, of course -- while younger kids are hanging out behind the all-night mart dumpster. I'm impressed by how the couple is shown with a casual attitude -- neither one of them have anything to prove, because they're comfortable with who they are -- yet there's a feeling of greater significance, since this is, after all, an early date in their relationship. The
creators are doing an amazing job with everyday action. For example,
the three panel series in which Macon buys popcorn stunned me. They
picked and executed just the right three images to sum up the entire
experience we've all shared. The characters are active, so that
we can see how they move from one moment to another, and their expressive
I wouldn't have thought characters watching a movie for a page would be that interesting. After all, it's just shots of the back of their heads. The way the movie images, film dialogue, and audience interjections combine, though, makes for a worthwhile experience, a deep creation of atmosphere that keeps the reader enthralled. The "action sequence" took me by surprise, but it ties in nicely to some of the themes first raised in issue #1. It's also cathartic and excitingly drawn. At a time when some old favorite series are disappointing me, every issue of this is even more impressive and entertaining. (Johanna Draper Carlson) * * * TRUE
STORY SWEAR TO GOD #4 In the latest chapter of this true-life romance, Tom is flying to Puerto Rico to visit Lily. It's his first time in the Tropics, and on top of the heat, he has to meet her co-workers and family. I love comics that create a good sense of another place. The food, the weather, the beach... and more than those, the attitudes and culture... give me the feeling of the next best thing to being there. Although we're still seeing Lily through his head, not getting inside hers -- it is his story, after all -- we learn more about her beliefs and attitudes. She's always seemed easy-going and accepting, but when she talks a little bit about pranic healing, we get hints as to where her calm might stem from within her. We also get to see her less than perfect, more human, as most people are when dealing with family at an important time. Mr. Beland talks, at one point, about being unable to come up with enough words, or the right words, to describe the beauty of the place. His art helps a good deal, though, and since it's all seen through the prism of his continual falling deeper in love, the enjoyment comes through. On a related note, this is the first time I've seen a comic with sections of untranslated language that didn't make me bonkers. I suspect that's because his cartooning is so clear that the attitudes and intentions come through anyway. With
so much happening this issue, it's a bit unfair of me to point out
places where I wanted more. However, he raises a few incidents that
I wish got a bit deeper exploration than he gave them. The last
couple of pages mention emotions in passing that I thought deserved
a little more exploration or self-revelation. The writer is, of
course, entitled to (Johanna
Draper Carlson)
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