boyajian@akov68.DEC (05/24/85)
Reviewed in this set: THE BADGER #7 HEX #1 TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS #6 HUGO #1 TURTLES #2 & 3 DC COMICS PRESENTS #85 THUNDERBUNNY #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!! ******************************************************************************** |=>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 | ******************************************************************************** THE BADGER #7 [First, $1.75] B Mike Baron's really in top form with this one. Clinical psychology is mixed in with the action to provide some interesting background on Badger's schizophrenic nature (much more complex, but also more understandable than that of Moon Knight). And there's some interesting goings on as regards Ham. This isn't as consistently good as NEXUS, but it's one to watch. CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS #6 [DC, maxi-series, $.75] C+ CRISIS is a strange duck. I've finally come to realize that, issue by issue, this series seems to just limp along rather noticibly. Where it really comes across as big is in the very nature of the story it's telling. It's more like a documentary than a piece of fiction --- the events that it's telling us about are fascinating, even though the actual telling of the story is a bit weak. In this issue, we see the final three Earths, -X, -S, and -4 (where the "Charlton heroes" live) brought into limbo with -1 and -2. Add to this the beginnings of the Brainiac/Luthor sub-plot and the first appearance of the new Wildcat, as well as the first appearance of Black Canary in her new outfit. This issue, as the last one or two, seems to be mostly marking time for the biggie events next issue --- such as the origins of the Monitor, the Anti-Monitor, Harbinger, and Pariah, and the death of Supergirl. I'm counting the days... DC COMICS PRESENTS #85 (Superman & Swamp Thing) [DC, $.75] B Back in those awful Good Old Days of Mort Weisenger's reign, you'd occassionally get a story something along the lines of Supes getting sick from some Kryptonian virus or the like, and spending eight pages flying around, looking for a cure, which would turn out to be something like carrot juice or grape Kool-Aid, or something like that. The trouble with those stories, as fun in their own way as they were, was that nobody, let alone Supes, really ever took the danger seriously. Alan Moore has changed all that. Here, the Big S comes down with the Big D (isease), from a Kryptonian fungus that came to Earth on a meteorite. This disease is lethal in over 90% of cases, and Superman is naturally having very bad reactions --- his powers are going off and on, he's hallucinating, etc. For the first time that I can recall reading, Superman is *scared* --- he who has been invulnerable for so long now fears for his life. Mostly, it's a tribute to Moore's skill as a writer --- this is no worse, really, than any given Kryptonite trap that Superman's found himself in, but I've never seen the character done like this. Anyways, Superman winds up in a southern swamp where he's found by the Swamp Thing. With what amounts to not much more than a laying on of hands, Swamp manages to cure him. What Swampy does isn't really a surprise to anyone who's been following his book lately, but it still seems like a rather deux ex muck-ina resolution. This flaw is far outweighed, though, by the excellent characterization. HEX #1 [DC, $.75] D+ Given that THE ROAD WARRIOR was popular, that the third Mad Max film is due in a month or so, and that Survivalist book series are blooming left and right, a book of this sort seems inevitable. What Michael Fleischer has done was to have Jonah Hex get zapped away in the last issue of JONAH HEX (#92) and transported to a post-holocaust future, where he becomes a Mad Max-type character. I question the point behind this. As I said, this type of series seems inevitable, but why couldn't they come up with a new character instead of changing Hex over from a straight western? This is an example of a book that should remain totally outside of regular DC continuity, but using Hex as the main character drags it into the continuity kicking and screaming. It already seems like the whole point of CRISIS has been violated, now that a possible future, inconsistent as far as we know with the Legion future, has made its way into the DC Universe. If this weren't bad enough, the story elements are just too damn close to THE ROAD WARRIOR. We have a group of punk-style bad guys raiding a more conservative settlement for a valuable commodity. That that commodity is water rather than gasoline, and that Hex finds himself allied with the raiders at first are very superficial differences. Certainly, there are some nice touches --- good water certainly *would* be a rare commodity in a post-holocaust world, and the acid storm bit is reasonable, but the general thrust of the series is too derivative. Furthermore, the motivations for whatshisface bring- ing Hex into the future remain unclear (obviously the point of a sub-plot). I'll watch this one for a while, but I'm not convinced yet. HUGO #1 [Fantagraphics, magazine-size, b&w, $1.50] D Always on the lookout for something new to try, I decided that it was about time I gave Milton Knight's comic, HUGO, a look-see, especially since it has been mentioned here and there in the fan press as a truly alternative comic. Well, that it certainly is. Unfortunately, it's not my style. It's a rather bizarre combination of Terrytoon funny animals and what the cable tv program guides refer to as "adult situations". While they have their moments, the stories herein just don't grab me; they aren't of a type that I'm usually fond of. If they were exceptionally well-done, I wouldn't mind, but they're not. I'd put them in the same class as NEIL THE HORSE, except that NEIL has the advantage that they'd be great to read to young kids. HUGO is a little too risque for that. I may give another issue or two (3 issues total are out so far) a try, but I'm not expecting much. TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES #2 & 3 [Mirage, large-size, b&w, $1.50] C- I really got a kick out of the first issue, which was a marvelous send-up of Miller's Daredevil/Electra and RONIN, plus a few other things. The creative team and owners, Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird, have made a smart move, though: rather than continue with the parody, they are playing this straight, much like Gerber's HOWARD THE DUCK without the humor. Think of a regular adventurer-type super-team, like say Challengers of the Unknown, and cast samurai turtles as the Challs, and this is pretty much what you end up with. On the other hand, the creators don't take themselves *too* seriously, and the stories are a touch light-hearted. Not a great comic, but quite enter- taining nonetheless. My only complaint is that the art is a bit too muddy, and it's almost impossible to tell the turtles apart --- it would be *totally* impossible if it weren't for the fact that each turtle likes to use a differ- ent weapon. THUNDERBUNNY #1 [WaRP, large-size, b&w, $1.50] D+ I'm afraid to say that I haven't followed the adventures of Thunder- bunny in any of his previous appearances (CHARLTON BULLSEYE, assorted Red Circle/Archie Adventure titles, and elsewhere). But with WaRP picking it up, I thought I'd give it a try. Not bad, but nothing particularly innovative, either, other than that it isn't the funny-animal comic that one might expect from the title and covers. Rather than being another Captain Carrot, TB is a normal human teenage boy who discovers an alien device that grants him power to become a super-being --- except that the super-being in question looks like a cross between Superman and Bugs Bunny. And the story, like TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES, is played strictly straight. It's not a book to rave about, but it's peaked my interest enough that I might want to search for the previous appearances, and continue with this run for a while. --- jayembee (Jerry Boyajian, DEC, Maynard, MA) UUCP: {decvax|ihnp4|allegra|ucbvax|...}!decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-akov68!boyajian ARPA: boyajian%akov68.DEC@DECWRL.ARPA