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Reviews and commentary by Tony Isabella
"America's Most Beloved Comic-Book Writer & Columnist"
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TONY'S ONLINE TIPS
for Wednesday, October 12, 2005
I do know why there's no sun up in the sky. It's because it's time for...LIGHTNING ROUND REVIEWS.
It's the stuff that dreams are made of. Keith Giffen finds an old Charlton war comic drawn by Wally Wood at a flea market. Then he and co-conspirator Mike Leib proceed to rewrite the comic into a exercise in sophomoric humor, heavy on the gay jokes. Okay, it's not the stuff that dreams are made of. It's more like a nightmare. But, I'm ashamed to admit, a pretty funny nightmare.
The comic is probably WAR AND ATTACK #1 from 1964. It could be SPECIAL WAR SERIES #3 from 1965. They could be the same comic book. Charlton numbering makes me crazy. In any case, it featured four stories by Wally Wood, one of them pencilled by Bill Molno and inked by Wood. It's not the legendary artist's finest hour, but it ain't half-bad.
WHAT WERE THEY THINKING [Boom Studios; $3.99] ain't half-bad either. Some of the rewritten captions and word balloons are laugh out loud funny. The stories look like they may have been shot from the original book, giving the art a nicely-yellowed tinge evocative of old comics. I'd give high marks to Ed Dukeshire's lettering as well. But...here it comes...what keeps me from recommending this comic book without hesitation is the lack of variety in the jokes. Two of the stories are nothing but gay jokes and I think readers of the non-bigot persuasion could justifiably take some offense at the overindulgence.
WHAT WERE THEY THINKING receives two Tonys. Some readers will love it and some will hate it.
ULTIMATES ANNUAL #1 [Marvel; $3.99] could almost be described as "a day in the life of Nick Fury," though its events do span more than a 24-hour period. Written by Mark Millar with first-rate art by Steve Dillon, the extended tale shows the first-team Ultimates in action, the next generation of government-created super-heroes, the super-hero wannabes, and sometimes frightening looks into the mind of Nick Fury. Veteran readers know I prefer the traditional interpretations of Fury, Captain America, and the others - I think they are better characters and more noble heroes - but I don't deny that these divergent versions of the characters can be intriguing or that Millar has written some mighty fine stories with them. This one earns four out of five Tonys.
ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN ANNUAL #1 [Marvel; $3.99] has Peter Parker hanging out with Kitty Pryde of the X-Men. He's feeling the pain of breaking up with Mary Jane because he feared for her safety and Kitty has recently broken off her relationship with teammate Bobby Drake. She asks Pete out, they go to the mall, they talk, and they fight a villain, albeit a really lame one. It's a cute, funny, and downright touching story by writer Brian Michael Bendis, penciller Mark Brooks, and inker Jaime Mendoza...with additional finishes by Scott Hanna. When a super-hero comic has action, compassion, and humor *and* leaves me with a warm-and-fuzzy feeling, it earns the full five out of five Tonys from me.
Patrick Atangan's TREE OF LOVE [NBM; $12.95] is the third book in his SONGS OF OUR ANCESTORS series of Asian folktales adapted to the comics medium. This story of a young man of means who falls in love with a magical flower girl is from India, where such conflicts of social status have long been part of the nation's art, history, and literature.
As with his previous volumes of SONGS, Atangan's drawings and designs evoke the land from whence the story originates. Multiple figures of his players dance across his panels in homage to Indian art. Each page's background is a different sari design, yet another way to draw the reader into the world of the young prince and the girl he loves.
TREE OF LOVE won't be to every reader's taste, but I enjoyed both the story and the style in which it was told. With my usual chant of "variety, variety, variety" as my personal comics reading credo and my standing recommendation to my readers, this book picks up four out of five Tonys.
SABRINA THE TEENAGE WITCH #70 [Archie; $2.25] does some things so right I wish I could award higher marks to the overall series. This issue's "Spell It Out" is good. It tells a complete story and a compelling one at that - Sabrina is competing in a spelling bee in our world and a spell-casting competition in the magic realm - while advancing some of the ongoing subplots. We learn why Harvey broke up with Sabrina and see one of their classmates take unfair advantage of the shy lad. We see the return of the arrogant Hansel Wulfe. We get another indication that the queen of the magic realm has some secret plan for Sabrina...with writer/artist Tania Del Rio keeping us guessing as to the queen's intent.
On the flip side, I think the manga-style art is more gimmick than effective storytelling. I think Sabrina's aunts and Salem the transformed cat look dumb and haven't been well used in the issues I've read. I do like the idea of Sabrina having a different look than those comics starring Archie and his friends, but I think that different look could be better and less imitative than the one we are getting here.
However, story still carries greater weight than art for this reviewer. On that basis, SABRINA THE TEENAGE WITCH #70 picks up a perfectly respectable three Tonys.
Fox put the show in a Friday night suicide slot. They ran the episodes out of order. They canceled the show with several unaired episodes sitting in the vaults. By all rights, I shouldn't be here reviewing JOSS WHEDON'S FIREFLY: THE COMPLETE SERIES [20th Century Fox Home Entertainment; list price: $49.98]. The "why" of such a miracle is this:
FIREFLY was one of the best TV series ever. Not just one of the best science fiction TV series ever. One of the best TV series ever. Those of us who watched it when it first aired already knew this...and the number of believers grew as the DVD set sold in vast quantities, as the show was run (in the correct order) on the Sci-Fi Channel, as big-screen sequel SERENITY was previewed across the country, and as SERENITY made its official debut to the acclaim of millions of theater-goers.
The story is simple. Man uses up Earth and goes to the stars, taking his human shortcomings with him. New Earths are created and a civil war decides who runs things. Captain Malcolm Reynolds, a soldier on the losing side, buys a ship, and seeks to make his way as far from those who run things as humanly possible. As each of the 14 episodes told us, the captain's goal was simple: get a crew, get a job, keep flying.
FIREFLY: THE COMPLETE SERIES has all 14 episodes and a whole bunch of cool special features. The writing, acting, and direction is absolutely top-notch. It's worth buying at its full list price, but you can get it for $30.98 here:
http://www.actionismyreward.com/item-B0000AQS0F.shtml
Or here:
http://www.worldfamouscomics.com/shopping/item-B0000AQS0F.shtml
FIREFLY: THE COMPLETE SERIES gets the full five Tonys and it's taking all my will power not to multiply that by each and every one of its 14 episodes.
Slowly working my way through years of unread comics, I read the pre-House of M EXCALIBUR #5-14 [Marvel; $2.99 each] this week. EXCALIBUR will be getting a post-House of M revamp, which saddens me because I thought the concept of Charles Xavier and a group of rag-tag allies trying to rebuild Genosha was a novel one. I didn't "get" all of writer Chris Claremont's characters - he does like to complicate origins and powers - but I thought it was a good series throughout its run, even if the later issues did suffer from their stories being so obviously subordinate to HOUSE OF M. The entire run of the title has been collected in three trade paperbacks (Excalibur Vol. 1: Forging The Sword, Excalibur Vol. 2: Saturday Night Fever and House of M: Excalibur - Prelude). I'm giving EXCALIBUR a solid three Tonys overall.
Still digging into the unread comics, I came across DALE EVANS WESTERN #1 [AC; $4.95] from 1999. The "Queen of the West" had her own DC Comics title in the 1950s, but the two stories reprinted in this black-and-white issue come from her later Dell Comics series. The first is drawn by Hi Mankin, the second by the legendary Russ Manning. In addition to the stories, editor Bill Black included a Dale Evans/Roy Rogers filmography, other text pages, and a heaping helping of vintage photos.
The stories are a mite quiet, but well-written and well-drawn. Roy Rogers, Evans' co-star and real-life husband, is mentioned in passing, but does not appear in these comics. Dale is the hero and it's she who brings the bad guys to justice...with a little bit of help from some male friends of hers.
So, you ask, why is Tony reviewing a six-year-old comic book here? Because, my beloved readers, you can get this issue and darn near every comic published by AC Comics over the years, by visiting the publisher's online store:
www.accomics.com
DALE EVANS WESTERN #1 earns three Tonys.
More reviews tomorrow.
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COMICS IN THE COMICS
Guest appearances by comic-book and comic-strip icons, self-referential, the occasional star turn by giant lizards from Japan, these are a few of my favorite things. When I find them, I share them with you.
Brothers Glenn and Gary McCoy speak of comics convention food in their FLYING MCCOYS panel for July 14. For a truly excellent convention experience with plenty of good food and other amenities within a short walking distance, I fervently recommend MID-OHIO-CON 2005, November 26-27, at the Hilton Columbus at Easton Town Center in Columbus, Ohio. It's a fun and friendly show, packed with cool guests from comics and other entertainment mediums, as well as some of the best dealers in the Midwest and beyond. For more on your Tipster's favorite convention, go to:
www.midohiocon.com
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TONY'S MAILBOX
I wrote about the above-shown ADVENTURE DOUBLE DOUBLE COMICS in the October 4th installment of this column. That prompted this note from reader BRENT CLEEVER:
I was knocked out by the reproduction of the Adventure Double Double Comics in your column. I believe the comics were packaged by Thorpe & Porter, UK Distributors of DC who also published magazines such as the British MAD.
I was fascinated by your explanation of the cover. I spent many years pondering the story behind it, always imagining that the Matter Eater Lad turned to metal was actually Ferro Lad without his mask. By the way, my copy of that Adventure Double Double has the first parts of the stories you mentioned.
While I couldn't possibly write as knowledgeably about British comics - American reprints and homegrown efforts - as those readers who grew up with them, I remain enchanted by them and so will keep writing about them. Thanks to my overseas pals and to eBay, I now have a few dozen issues of various British comic books waiting to be read and "reviewed" in future TOTs.
On a related note...
30TH CENTURY COMICS in Putney, London, is the exclusive vendor of items from the Alan Class Private Collection. This are Class's file copies and each comes with a Certificate of Authenticity hand-signed individually by the publisher. Class is also to scheduled to do a signing appearance in the store on Sunday, November 27, an incredible opportunity for comic-book fans and historians to meet a pivotal figure in British comics publishing. For information on the Alan Class Private Collection and the publisher's forthcoming appearance, visit 30th Century Comics at:
www.thirtiethcentury.free-online.co.uk
That's a wrap for today's column. Thanks for spending part of your day with me.
I'll be back tomorrow with more stuff.
Tony Isabella
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THE "TONY" SCALE
ZERO: Burn your money before buying any comic receiving this rating. It doesn't *necessarily* mean there's absolutely nothing of value here - though it *could* - but whatever value it might possess shrinks into insignificance before its overall awfulness.
ONE: Buy something else. Maybe I found something which wasn't completely dreadful in the item, but not enough for me to recommend it when there are better comics available. I only want what's best for you, my children.
TWO: Basic judgment call. I found some value, but not enough to recommend it. My review should give you enough info to decide if you want to take a chance on it. Are you feeling lucky today, punk? Well, are you?
THREE: This denotes something I find perfectly respectable. There are better books out there, but I wouldn't regret buying this item. Based on my review, you should be able to determine if it's of interest to you. Let the Force guide you.
FOUR: I recommend anything earning this rating. Unless you don't like the genre, subject matter, or past work of the creators, I believe you'll enjoy this item. Isn't it uncanny how I can look right into your soul that way?
FIVE: Anything getting this rating is among the best comicdom has to offer. You should buy/read this, even if the genre/subject matter doesn't appeal to you. It's for your own good. Me, I live for comics and books this good...but not in a pathetic "Comic-Book Guy" sort of way.
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