boyajian@akov68.DEC (JERRY BOYAJIAN) (11/25/85)
Reviewed this time around: AQUAMAN #1 BOOSTER GOLD #1 DEATH RATTLE #1 MERLINREALM #1 THE NEW DEFENDERS #152 REESE'S PIECES #1-2 X-MEN ANNUAL #9 X-FACTOR #1 Ratings for the comics reviewed are as according to the Mad Armenian Scale, a shameless rip-off of the Moriarty Scale, stolen out from under the very nose of the Napoleon of Crime. Nyah-ah-ah!! "For a critic, it's better to have wrong standards than none at all." -- Elmer Allyn Craft ******************************************************************************** |=>A+< A veritable Classic. One of the best of All Time. Example: THE SPIRIT | |==>A< One of the best of the year. Ex: TEEN TITANS #38: "Who Is Donna Troy?" | |==>B< A very good issue, one of the best of the month. Example: CEREBUS | |==>C< A well done, entertaining issue. Satisfying. Example: JON SABLE | |==>D< Rather boring, or a few good spots mixed with more bad ones. Ex: ROM | |==>F< Boring AND stupid or childish. Example: MARVEL SUPERHEROES SECRET WARS | |==>Z< Actually offensive. Example: DAZZLER --- THE MOVIE GRAPHIC NOVEL #12 | ******************************************************************************** AQUAMAN #1 [DC, mini-series, $.75] D+ I'll confess right off that I've never been particularly fond of Aquaman as a character. And this mini-series isn't about to change my mind. The opening scenes (after the prologue, that is) with the Ocean Master was a rather nice action sequence, but after that, it sort of slowly sinks into the mire of a confused fantasy. Bringing in some fantasy legendry such as Nuada Silverhand and Thierna na Oge gives it a pretentiousness that I find irritating. I wish I could say that the art redeems it, but it doesn't. New artist Craig Hamilton has got the raw talent, and some pages show some creative design at work, but on too many others do the figures look stiff or distorted. The new costume looks nice, but a new costume does not a mini-series make. BOOSTER GOLD #1 [DC, $.75] D I'll keep my eye on the next few issues (after all, I didn't like BLUE DEVIL the first time out, either), but I don't have hope for it. There's absolutely nothing new here other than gimmicks. Booster markets and merchan- dizes himself and he's got a mysterious origin (first, we think maybe he's an alien, then we find that he's from the future, then we find that he's got a Legion flight ring). The one thing that it doesn't have is a single likeable character. Not that they're *dis*likeable, but I found myself not caring a whit for any of them. DEATH RATTLE #1 [Kitchen Sink, $2.00] C Most of the horror anthology comics --- they seem to be making quite a comeback these days, perhaps because of Stephen King bringing back a taste for horror? --- being released in the past few years have been creatively dry. The stories have for the most part been trite and hollow. It was a pleasure to come across one that is a cut above the norm. The stories in DEATH RATTLE won't give Alan Moore a run for his money, but I thought them (well, at least two out of the three) to be well-crafted horror tales. The two, by Charles Burns and Charles Dallas, weren't the frenetic, shocking stories that one usually finds in comics of this type, but quieter and more deeply disturbing, adn above all, more mature in execution. MERLINREALM #1 [Blackthorne 3-D Series #2, $2.25] D- I read this a couple of weeks ago, and looking at it now, I can't for the life of me remember a thing about it, other than my thinking that it was as dull as dishwater, not to mention confused. The fact that it is completely unmemorable would appear to support that idea. I can't imagine why Blackthorne would think that anyone would want to read this. And there is nothing at all striking about the art. The only other thing that I can recall from my reading this was that I was getting a headache from looking at it. I'm not sure whether Ray Zone (who's been doing some good 3-D separations over the past couple of years) was having an off day when he did this one or I'm getting tired of reading --- or trying to read --- a 3-D comic every other month. I wish this resurgent 3-D fad would hurry up and die. THE NEW DEFENDERS #152 [Marvel, $1.25] D This is the big last issue, and I can't say that I'm tearful. Peter Gillis was never able to drag this comic up from the depths, but I never suspected that he'd ever drag it *down* this low. It's one of the most hurried wrap-up of plotlines I've seen in a long time, and clears the way for the EX- Men to move over to X-FACTOR by expediently killing (or seemingly killing) off all of the other members of the group. I never thought much of Moondragon or Gargoyle, but Andromeda showed some promise and Valkyrie was too good a char- acter to bump off (for instance, she'd be invaluable in helping Dani Moonstar deal with being a Valkyrie). Oh well, no big loss. REESE'S PIECES #1-2 [Eclipse, micro-series, $1.75] C- This was a good week for horror comics, I guess. While this wasn't as good as DEATH RATTLE, it was still a cut above the norm for horror comics in general and the run of 2-issue "classic" horror reprint books that Eclipse has been tossing at us in particular. The stories, which appear to be from WEB OF HORROR and the Skywald horror mags PSYCHO and NIGHTMARE are hackneyed, but still have a pizzazz to them that makes them more readable. And Ralph Reese's artwork is slicker and cleaner than the other work that Eclipse has been presenting from more popular and well-known horror artists. And it also seems to take better to being colored than the other artists' work. A good, solid collection of horror stories. X-MEN ANNUAL #9 [Marvel, $1.25] C- This was delayed again and again for a total of about two months, and the story has grown in size to the point that it took up all 48 pages of the book. What has made these delays irritating was the fact that it's the second have to the superb NEW MUTANTS SPECIAL #1. Unfortunately, it wasn't worth the wait, and it should've been even longer than it ended up to be. The Arthur Adams pencils were nothing short of superb, but I thought that the inking team of Al Gordon, Mike Mignola, and Adams himself didn't bring this up to the level of the Terry Austin's inking in the NEW MUTANTS SPECIAL. The story had an unusual dichotomy. It seemed at once to be little more than a wrap-up to the story begun in ALPHA FLIGHT/X-MEN and NEW MUTANTS SPECIAL, and a rambling jumble of too many ideas. Claremont simply had too much going on to make this at all satisfactory. A definite disappointment. If it wasn't for the superb artwork and some of the characterization (Claremont still had a marvelous grasp of Loki), I might well have given it a "D". X-FACTOR #1 [Marvel, $1.25] D+ Apparently, most people hate this comic, thinking it a worthless piece of dreck. I hated it, too, but I did so because it *wasn't* a worthless piece of dreck. It's certainly nothing to praise the Lord about, but it's just good enough to not dismiss it entirely. First, the artwork: I thought Guice did quite a good job here. His layouts weren't particularly imaginitive, but his penciling, while not his best, was quite good. Those pages he inked himself turned out better than those inked by Layton or Rubenstein, but the latter two still did a commend- able job in my opinion. Second, the characterization: Unlike most others, I didn't mind the way Layton handled the Maddy-Scott-Jean business (other than the fact that it has to happen at all). And I don't think that Scott's acting out of char- acter. One, he's *always* pretty much kept his feelings to himself, and though he's climbed out of his shell to a great degree relative to the early X-Men days, he's still not what one would call and extrovert. Secondly, I think the reason he's being such an icicle with Jean is that despite the fact that he has told himself that (1) he was over Jean and (2) Maddy is not a reincarnation or whatever of Jean, he still believes deep down that Maddy *is* Jean, and that's why he married her. Now, with Jean back from the dead, he realizes that is not the case, and he's totally confused about everything. It's also quite possible that that he's not even sure that Jean really has come back from the dead, and that someone or something isn't imitating her. If there's one thing I don't like about X-FACTOR, it's the basic "X-Men meet Ghostbusters" premise. I can even hear Ray Parker's voice in my head going "Who ya gonna call? X-Factor!" The whole idea doesn't even seem like it could hold up very long without everyone and his uncle realizing that it's all a con game. Back when Phoenix bit the big one in #137, people were ranting and screaming and asking for Jim Shooter's hide and worse. Fans claimed that they'd never forgive Claremont, Byrne, and Shooter for that atrocity. As in real life, there was a great denial that a loved one departed this mortal coil, and they clamored for her return. But also as in real life, they finally excepted that she was gone, never to return. And now that she's back, everyone's back with the threats and jeers. I think that I can safely predict that in a year's time, everyone will have accepted Jean's return, and X-FACTOR will just be another Marvel comic. I could have hoped for better, but I also expected worse. --- jayembee (Jerry Boyajian, DEC, Acton-Nagog, MA) UUCP: {decvax|ihnp4|allegra|ucbvax|...} !decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-akov68!boyajian ARPA: boyajian%akov68.DEC@DECWRL.DEC.COM