REVIEW: Justice League of America #223

Creators:  Gerry Conway and numerous others
Story: Gerry Conway
Art and Cover: Chuck Patton, Anthony Tollin, Dick Giordano
Colors: Gene D'Angelo
Review: Daniel Simpson

This is my first Dollar Box review so finding a comic that would fit in this category was difficult to begin with. Finding one that could hold my interest was the second task.  I have to say that although this is one of my favorite teams of all times, reading a story from 1983 was very difficult. I was three years old when this story came out, and although there are so many of my favorite DC characters in the story, it was still rough.
But I made it through.

The story was the third installment in a three part story arc, so it's like jumping to the end of a book and thinking, "it was good, but I don't understand what’s going on." Based on what I have read I don't like the story.
With that said, I have to admit this is a fairly decent story. From what I've read online about the story arc, all the heroes barely survived their initial encounter with Rex Maximus and his Ani-Men. Being the final chapter in the story, the heroes have to win the day and rescue their captured teammates: Hawkman, Hawkgirl, and Wonder Woman. 

As the story begins Zatanna has taken the form of Rex Maximus' lover, Reena, whom had betrayed him in an earlier issue. She also has a homing device in her ear, so the League can keep track of her. Conway has a very interesting story here with Rex and the Ani-men. These men have been given animal DNA, and by this part of the story, the animal side is starting to take over. Rex and his Ani-men are becoming very feral and more like the animals from which they received DNA. I also enjoy the fact that Conway writes about one of Superman's weaknesses as the Ani-men hit him with a red sun beam thus rendering him powerless. They then crucify him with the same red sun energy, keeping him powerless. Instead of leaving it to Superman to save the day, the team has to save him and the other big hitters.
"Isn't Aquaman a big hitter ", you ask. He is, but he is one of the most underrated big hitters, mainly because Superman is on the team. 

The way Conway writes this story focuses on Aquaman, Elongated Man, Firestorm, and Zatanna, whom basically defeat the Ani-men by themselves, and its not until the end that the other four (Superman, Wonder woman, Hawkman, and Hawk Girl) join the fight. I have to give it to Conway for taking four, even in their time, underrated heroes and putting them in the fore front.

The art is typical for the time, simple and elegant in my opinion, kinda cartoony but masterful in the telling of the story. Yes, some of the Ani-men look ridiculous and childish, but that is over shadowed by the story as a whole.

It's a good book. My son enjoys it, so it can't be all bad.

REVIEW: Gen13 #3

Gen13 #3:  The Magical Mystery Tour
Story:  Brandon Choi & J. Scott Campbell
Pencils:  J. Scott Campbell
Inks:  Alex Garner
Colors:  Joe Chiodo

To be completely honest, back when I bought this comic I never read it. A friend recommended the series to me and a few back issues made it into my collection. I am truly not sure whether I like this comic or not as it has equal amounts of good traits and some pretty sucky ones. For the series as a whole, they have some really attractive covers, which is a great feature for a comic book.

Since I possess very little knowledge of this series, I will have to lean on other people’s information to help me with this. The premise of the story is very typical of the super-hero fad of the 1990s. According Gamespot.com, Gen13 was Image’s attempt “to create a younger team that was ‘less angry’ and ‘less bloodthirsty’ than other superhero teams that were popular at the time.” Jim Lee and Brandon Choi aligned with the artist J. Scott Campbell to do just this.

The main reason I decided to do some research on this series is due to the fact that this issue assumes you know exactly what has happened before page one. Reading the references to parents and the relationships shown made me feel like these teenagers were siblings. Then came the teenage flirtation between each of them. At that point I felt I needed to find out what was in the back story to get a better grasp of the situation.

These teenagers are all formerly part of Project: Genesis, which was a “government internship” for gifted youths run by an organization called International Operations (I.O.). It was in actuality a cover to secretly experiment on the teens Wikipedia. Yes, I know. This sounds very cliché to me as well.

Anyway, this issue was very dull to read. Teens belly aching and arguing and traveling around the world for clues about their parents (multiple sets of parents). Still no action or suspense or feeling or . . . drive to read this issue. Fortunately the storytellers are short-winded and only give us twenty pages of actual content. The rest of the issue is ads and a Gen13 short story that was dumber than the main twenty pages.

The artwork is really split down the middle. The artistry is very Manga-like, especially in the work on the characters. Each character in this comic is very good close up. On each of the scenes showing them at a distance the quality drops significantly. This is also true of the scenery. Details just seem to disappear as things get smaller on the page. J. Scott Campbell really likes to put a lot of detail into the females of this book, especially the main character, Caitlin. On page 16 after being thrown off of a boat, she loses half of her clothes (no nudity). The funniest part of it is that she states, “For some strange reason, I always seem to lose articles of clothing whenever we get into trouble.” Sorry, honey. That is a pervert with a pencil. Seriously, I wonder if the artist is living out some teenage wish-fulfillment drawing her this way.

After reading this issue and looking up some background information, my suggestion is to leave this one bagged and enjoy the covers, which are truly the best part of the comics. Back in the 90s I had a soft spot for Image, being a Spawn fan and liking those comic creators actually having creative rights (outside of the Big 2).

REVIEW: Super-villain Team-Up #11

Story: Bill Mantlo
Art: Bob Hall
Inking: Don Perlin & Duffy Vohland
Review: Cody "Madman" Miller 

Allegedly my hand broke the sound barrier snatching this bad boy out of dollar box obscurity. Super-Villain Team-Up (S-V T-U) . . . starring none other than Victor Von Doom, PHD and Max Eisenhardt. Speed of light, I’m telling ya . . . allegedly. As fate would have it there are 16 more issues of this comic out there that I must now acquire. S-V T-U people (S-V T-U VVDPHD VS ME)…

[crickets chirping] . . .

Besides, it's a S-V T-U with Marvel's two top contenders for greatest super-villain ever “Go Team” slapping each other’s cape shrouded turd-cutters.

So, yeah, let’s see what all this business is about.

Right off the get-go we have Magneto manhandling his way through a Latverian crowd in the throes of celebration, for the monarch has declared all is well in his kingdom and there are none who would dare say otherwise!
. . . Then along came Magneto, beatin' people down, exploding your oversized Doom statue, etc. and so on. Basically Magneto has some crazy plan as per usual for world domination and he needs the Doctor's help. Instead of just walking up and ringing the door bell or making an appointment with Dr. Doom's secretary (he has to have one, right?) Magneto blazes a trail of utter destruction and crashes through a window . . .

Lo and behold it’s the exact window wherein the good doctor is playing with his action figures.
As it turns out they’re not action figures but chess pieces of pretty much every major Marvel baller. The whole page is just awesome. I'd pay him good money for that Spider-Man piece . . . and Stiltman, I hear he was a rare hard-to-find limited edition . . .

Allegedly.

Magneto crashes through the window and delivers his devious plan for world domination to Dr. Doom and the doctor literally laughs. Doom goes on to reveal his neuro-canisters whose gaseous contents have already been released into the atmosphere making every living thing his unconscious servant. He takes control of Magneto's body and toys with him a bit. Then Doom slips Magneto a roofie/neuro-gas and he passes out. Turns out Doom is bored, really bored, and frees Magneto's mind free and waits for fun to come to him.

Magneto heads straight to the Avengers for help. Of course, Doom controls the Avengers, and they have to battle it out for a few pages before things calm down. Magneto gets to pick one of the heroes for Doom to set free and he picks that vital X-Man, the Beast. The new besties are making their escape to an unknown location to do God knows what, and they must have made a wrong turn or something because they fly right past the Champion's building and are immediately swarmed by the Champions. 
Good stuff.

This book was super fun and totally worth the hard earned dollar. The artwork was really good in spots and awkward in others, but other then that I have to pat myself on the back for another awesome dolla box score.

Review: Justice League International #9

Plot/breakdowns: Keith Giffen

Script: J.M. DeMatteis

Pencils: Kevin Maguire

Review: Will Dubbeld

The Giffen/DeMatteis/Maguire run on Justice League was one of those critically lauded chunks of comic history that I’d never really been exposed to. Most of my early DC purchases were all Batman related or quarter bin/grab bag related and as a result I had to rely on Who’s Who guidebooks and Holmesian Deduction to parse together much of my DC lore.  Within the past year I cultivated a curious desire to know more about this JLI book and bought a decent sized chunk of the run from my LCS.

And promptly boxed them because they were in the way of my monthlies.

As I am wont to do.

This mostly boils down to the fact that I’ve finite time at my disposal and it’s much easier to purchase comics than it is to find the time to read them.  I’m pretty sure there’s at least one trade paperback still unread that I bought at the HCB field trip to Wizard World Chicago in 2012 or thereabouts…

So, come Tales From the Dollar Box Wednesday I was pleased to have randomly grabbed this issue for review.

Let’s share this adventure together…

First off, the art is phenomenal, from pencils to colors.  Maguire’s pencils are tight, tight, tight and everything about the book is more earnest because there wasn’t any computer rendering, digital inking, WACOM tablets or the like.  Dudes got ink on their fingers making this book, and I appreciate that.  The only stylistic gripe I’ve got is that all of the male heroes have pretty much the same lean, muscular physique without too much differentiation between body types.  Booster Gold could swap costumes with Mister Miracle and the reader wouldn’t be the wiser. Perhaps that’s why they turned Blue Beetle into a fat guy down the road, so you could tell the difference between him and Batman…

The cover depicts Rocket Red (one of them, anyway) holding Martian Manhunter aloft and exclaiming, “No man escapes the Manhunters!” while Batman and presumably Guy Gardner lie broken at his feet.  Fantastic cover, but a warning lies above the title:

Millennium: Week 1

Daaaaaaamn it. For the uninitiated, Millennium was some hackneyed multipart mega crossover event that, for me, served no purpose other than to cloud what the hell was going on in my comics. I’d grab an issue of Detective Comics and it’s proclaim, “Millennium: Week 5!!!” on the cover.  I’d respond with, “I don’t know what that means!!!”

To this day I have no clue what the Millennium event was about, other than it involved some group of wanker heroes called the Global Guardians (I think…) and the Floronic Man was involved to some degree. Apparently there was a monthly Millennium title as well, but I’ve never read it. Hell, I’ve never seen it in a back issue bin. I don’t think it actually exists, to be honest…

Hangups about 1987 crossovers aside, the book opens with our heroes en route from last issue’s adventure, and goddammit right there on page 1 it’s telling me, “WAIT! If you haven’t read Millennium #1-on sale now-run out, buy a copy and absorb every minute detail.”

I did not.

In any case, Martian Manhunter, Booster Gold, Guy Gardner, and a ship that obliquely resembles the Starship Enterprise are tooling along and within the first few pages I’m reminded of how wordy older books were.  I’m not sure if writers crammed as much dialogue and internal monologue as possible into a comic because they really had important stuff to say or because they’re paid by the word.  Either way, I’ve always referred to it as “Claremontian Exposition” and we’ve got a healthy dose in JLI. Our heroes are returning from a meeting with The Guardians (unsure if the reference is to The Guardians of Green Lantern lore or the Global Guardians.  Perhaps I should have rushed out and bought Millennium #1…) and Justice League member in good standing Rocket Red reveals himself to be a Manhunter (of Green Lantern fame…) and attempts to recruit the League to the Manhunter cause.  Due to my ignorance of our Millennium metaplot, I’ve no idea what the Manhunters goal really is, but Batman ain’t havin’ none of it, and a rumble ensues.  We go off the rails a little bit here in this fight.  By the time all is said and done, eight Justice Leaguers and one Rocket Red are duking it out whilst maintaining a 1980s level of Claremontian Exposition, making for some very busy pages and panels. 

Superhero characterizations seem to be a bit off as well as Guy Gardner isn’t his usual assholey self and Batman’s answer, as the World’s Greatest Detective, to fighting a robot killing machine is to jump on it and pummel it to the ground.

Again, perhaps Millennium #1 explains this, but in any case Batman’s plan does not work.

The group eventually crash-lands in Bialya and with the help of some other Rocket Reds (yes, there are several. A whole brigade, in fact.  The Rocket Red Brigade…), the Manhunter is defeated and some nice barbed dialogue is exchanged between Martian Manhunter and the “tyranny dictator ruler of the terrorist nation of Bialya”. His words. J’onn ain’t playin’.

I’ve always liked Bialya. It’s a made up, pissant country in the Middle East that DC uses as a cipher for Evil Overseas Bad People Country whenever they don’t want to name-drop Iran or when they need Black Adam to massacre a nation.  It’s gotten decent mileage in the Young Justice cartoon, may it rest in peace, and is a great answer to Marvel’s Latveria.

A cut-scene involves Maxwell Lord possibly getting assassinated by his personal assistant, Ms. Wootenhoffer, which made me chuckle because I remembered when Wonder Woman snapped his neck.  But then it made me sad because I remembered when Max Lord killed Blue Beetle.

But then Ms. Wootenhoffer’s name made me chuckle again.

Ms. Wootenhoffer (or W00tenhoffer, if you prefer) drops the, “no man escapes the Manhunters”, line leading me to believe this interlude is again related to the Millennium crossover, but I still haven’t rushed out to buy issue #1.

JLI #9 closes with the tyrant dictator ruler of the terrorist nation of Bialya attempting to woo the services of a (maybe) hero named Jack-O-Lantern, of whom I’ve not heard.  I know that this particular Jack-O-Lantern does not fight Spider-Man, however, and immediately grew disinterested.  Apparently so did the rest of the world, as Jack has done exactly that to affect the landscape of the DCU thus far.

Dated dialogue aside, especially when we deviate from “bwa ha ha!” into full-blown “wakka wakka!” territory, the comic is great.  It’s an amazing representative of the 1980s slice of comic book history and although jaded readers of new writing and art techniques may dislike Justice League International, I’ll be digging out the rest of the back issues and giving them a whirl.

I’m still not rushing out to buy Millennium #1.