TF Views

Review time:

And.....now for the yearly ritual. On FCBD, I used to go out and get just about everything (or as much as I could find), then I would review it and spend the following weeks and months passing the free books along to people I knew. The only things that I would keep would be new content for books that I read and things that happened to be really good. This year, none of those things happened. I only grabbed two books and have no intention of keeping either. I am using my standard FCBD grading system, weighting for how likely a book is to bring in and keep new readers than anything else.


-Earth 2 #12:
Robinson is definitely writng this book 80s/90s style. An arc may end, but there are enough threads to lead in to the next arc. At the one year mark, I have to wonder how much this book has really gotten done. The first 12 issues or so feel like they were set over the course of a few weeks. In continuity terms, Doctor Fate's appearance implies that there was more than one pantheon of gods before Steppenwolf invaded. Fate seems able to draw on the Egyptian gods. But, it is not clear if they are alive or dead. (In the first issue, Mercury stated that the Greek pantheon was dead.) I am leaning towards "all dead". But, I am wondering if DC is going for "one set of gods for the multiverse" or not. (I honestly doubt that it much matters in the case of "Earth 2".) The core team is more or less assembled in this issue, and they have the requisite HQ (a well appointed building owned by Green Lantern).
Grade: B


-Superman (DC/FCBD):
I figured that a Johns-written "Superman" book would be a good indicator of DC's over-all plan for marketing the upcomign "Superman" movie. This issue is a reprint of a pre-"New Krypton" (never mind pre-"Flashpoint") issue of "Superman" featuring that kid that nobody cared about before "Flashpoint". Aside from being vaguely similar to the movie, there is not much to recommend this issue as an intro. It lead in to a story-line that is more or less irrelevant to current DC. The cover features the current Superman (which actually looks more like the movie character) but the internal story (of course) uses the old Superman character model. Calling this book lazy is about as nice as I am willing to be.
Grade: D

-Judge Dredd (IDW/FCBD):
Along with their current new-content "Judge Dredd" series, IDW is also reprinting old Dredd content from "2000 AD". In this case, they went with the first appearance of Judge Death and a "Walter the Wobot" story (that was pretty well unreadable). Putting aside the fact that the writing bears the stylistic stigma of the early 80s, and that Dredd's "lol parody" elements are grating, this is not a bad effort by IDw. After the legitimate (and self-contained) story content, there is a series of advertising pages pushing IDW's Dredd books. Because the content was resized from an old UK magazine, there is a significant amont of dead space at the top and bottom of every page. This is forgivable in a Free Comic Book Day book. But, I would hope that IDW's reprints are going to propertly sized and consistent with the original printing format.
Grade: B/C


Dom
-only bothered with FCBD because the store is right there on the way home...

BWprowl wrote:

JediTricks wrote:If fans had loved it, it wouldn't have been canceled so soon. I enjoyed it, but it felt like it only worked for a small subset of fans because DC intentionally was trying too hard to grow outside the comic-buying audience into the "kid merchandisable character" market, and that's what took it down. Luckily JLU picked up the lost thread and kept it alive.

'Cancelled so soon'? It lasted for three seasons and 52 episodes, not bad at all for a cartoon series like that. Heck, the network even announced they were planning a fourth season, but that got put on hold as they went straight into Justice League instead.

Nowadays it's still easy to find people who fondly recall the show. In fact, I would bet you could find more people who watched Batman Beyond when it was on than read Batman comics during the same time period.

It was really 2 and a half seasons, the last season was a short one and I think it got timeslot-jumped so it was hard to find as well. Coming off of 100 episodes of Batman TAS storytelling, Batman Beyond's 52 episodes were seen as a flop, the fans didn't rally around the series until it was already gone, and the market pooh-poohed it because it was seen as a ripoff, oh and Hasbro overmarketed it to hell and back while almost none of the toys were show-accurate. Online during its run, fans of BatBeyond were treated like dumb suckered children, there was a lot of disdain. The show could have done a lot more if it had been given a bigger push towards building rather than exploiting a shrinking audience. Oh, and the movie having to be censored, that was embarrassing.

It seems like once JLU picked up the thread, that's when audiences finally took a second look at Batman Beyond and realized what they had missed out on.

JediTricks wrote:If fans had loved it, it wouldn't have been canceled so soon.

Fans loving a show doesn't mean anything when it comes to a networks decision to cancel it. Take Young Justice or Green Lantern for examples. They were among Cartoon Network's highest rated shows and fans put a huge effort into trying to save both those shows. And those shows didn't last as long as Batman Beyond did.

Oh, and the movie having to be censored, that was embarrassing.

????

Dominic wrote:

Oh, and the movie having to be censored, that was embarrassing.

????

The original cut of Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker (fantastic flick, by the way) featured some pretty hefty violence, including characters getting shot and impaled on-screen, and a rather blunt death for the Joker shown in flashback, among other things. Then Columbine happened and there was a big backlash against violence in media, so the movie was hastily edited to cut down on the violence (in particular, the Joker's death was completely re-worked to be more...Disney-ish). Warner did eventually release an 'uncut' version of the film.

BWprowl wrote:in particular, the Joker's death was completely re-worked to be more...Disney-ish.

What was the reworked version? The only cut of the film I've seen has Tim wrestle a bit with Joker and he's pushed into a tank of water causing it to break, and then Joker slips and grabs onto some wires for support, electrocuting him to death.

Sparky Prime wrote:What was the reworked version? The only cut of the film I've seen has Tim wrestle a bit with Joker and he's pushed into a tank of water causing it to break, and then Joker slips and grabs onto some wires for support, electrocuting him to death.

That is the reworked version. In the original version (and I'm going off memory here) Joker tries to coerce Tim into shooting Batman with the bang-flag/nail gun. Tim suffers even more of a mental breakdown than he's already having, turns around and shoots Joker instead. Joker collapses, stares at the flag sticking out of his chest for a second, chokes out a "That's not funny" then just goes limp and dies.

BWprowl wrote:That is the reworked version. In the original version (and I'm going off memory here) Joker tries to coerce Tim into shooting Batman with the bang-flag/nail gun. Tim suffers even more of a mental breakdown than he's already having, turns around and shoots Joker instead. Joker collapses, stares at the flag sticking out of his chest for a second, chokes out a "That's not funny" then just goes limp and dies.

Oh. Maybe I have see that version as well, that sounds familiar. Defiantly a more befitting death for Joker.

Mega Man Gigamix #3:
This is the third and final volume of Ariga's "Gigamix" opus. As good as "Megamix" and the previous two volumes of "Gigamix" were, this one does not quite hold up. Ariga noted that (for various reaons) he went for a darker tone in "Gigamix". The problem is that, despite the darker tone, there are key plot points and story elements that come across as distinctly....fluffy. The cliched (especially for manga) themes of "hope" and "despair" are used like truncheons against the backs of reader's skulls here. And, one of the main McGuffins in the story runs on.....despair....because.....just because. Previous volumes of Ariga's Mega Man comics read smoothly, even allowing for the sometimes rough translation. This one just gets tedious, even when Ariga is not filling pages with world-building. It is not terrible, and still light years ahead of the "Battle and Chase" story in volume 1. But, it is definitely below the bar set by "Megamix" and the second volume of "Gigamix".
Grade: C


Secret Avengers #004:
As it turns out, AIM's organizational face-turn was just a dirty stinking work! (Honestly, who would have thunk?) AIM deploys an army of Iron Patriot drones to cross-brand with "Iron Man 3", erm.....I mean AIM deploys Iron Patriot drones as a massive false flag attack intended to undermine US interests. Tony Stark makes a cameo appearance that flouts the laws of physics, despite the use of a magical McGuffin. And, a SHIELD agent (whose name eludes me) actually makes a sensible decision about killing AIM's Supreme Scientist. Honestly, it reads a bit better than I am describing it here. But, it is hardly what I would call "great comics".
Grade: C


Iron Man (Rise of the Melter):
This one-shot is apparently set in context with the movie. Gage has impressed me before on other books. But, he phoned this comic in. "Iron Man and War Machine have to work together to stop the Melter". That is about it. There is nothing in the execution to make this book stand out beyond "featuring Iron Man and War Machine as seen in the new blockbuster movie". An early (maybe the first) appearance of the Melter is reprinted as a back-up. I got less than two pages in (counting the title/splash page) and gave up after reading one narration box too many. Buy this comic for a kid or if you are a completist. Skip it otherwise.
Grade: C


Team 7 #8:
Ya know? I am actually going to miss this book. No. Seriously. I could not name the characters off the top of my head. The latter half of the run was disjointed and more than a bit rushed. But, I am going to miss this book. It was a solid idea, and one not commonly addressed (particularly in a specific/dedicated book.) If superhumans emerged, larger and more advanced states would at least *try* to develop superhuman regiments and counter-measures. I get the feeling that Justin Jordan intended to do more and simply ran out of time. (The fact that this book was forced in to an apparently abandoned cross-over with several other unrelated books probably did not help him.) In the grand scheme of things it may be for the best that "Team 7" was cancelled, as this issue's resolution (complete with the obliteration of a small country) would draw attention to just how static most other cape and mask books tend to be. But, it was nice to see some of the ideas in this series addressed on page.
Grade: A/B


DC Essential Chronology and Graphic Novels:
This is an advertising catalogue, nothing more. The title (which I cannot be bothered to transcribe directly even though the book is only a few feet away from me) implies that it will be a combination of advertising material and some light story content. After flipping through it, I can safely say that this is a catalogue, nothing more. It is not even fair to say that this is an actual reading chronology, as some of the books DC is shilling for (Byrne's "Man of Steel" being the most blatant example) have been specifically struck from DC's modern setting. The only thing this is good for is a reference for those who are curious about what DC is selling at the moment.


Dom
-maybe a little generous with grades this week.

I just wanted to comment on an oddity with DC's shipping schedule this month...
Today, Green Lantern Corps #20 was released. And it's the epilogue to the Wrath of the First Lantern storyline. But the final issue of Wrath of the First Lantern story, Green Lantern #20, was supposed to be out last week and has been delayed until the 22nd. So they went ahead and released the epilogue 3 weeks before the issue ending the storyline. Why wouldn't they delay GLC until the 22nd along with GL #20 to avoid this mess?