Adam Graham's Blog: Christians and Superheroes, page 86

Book Review: The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck

The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck by Don Rosa

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Kids of my generation grew up watching Ducktales. Though it was a kid's show, the prime attraction had to be Scrooge McDuck, the most dauntless adventurer to ever appear in kid's television. Most of us kids didn't know that Scrooge had a history in comics dating 40 years prior to Duck Tales. We also had no way of knowing how huge the Duck family was in Europe. We did know that Scrooge's back story seemed to be colored with an almost impossible number of adventures.

Many of these adventures came from the pen of the late Carl Barks. Dan Rosa sets down to write adventures that connect Scrooge's story into a neat narrative, inspired by Bark's tale.

The series appeared over a two year period in the 1990s and takes Scrooge from a young poor lad in Scotland to the richest duck in the world. The book features many of Scrooge's wildest adventures and real life characters such as Teddy Roosevelt, Wyatt Earp, and the James boys show up for their cameos along with long-time Scrooge baddies, the Beagle Boys and we get a peak at the Duck family tree.

Rosa does a superb job throughout. I like how he is able to help Scrooge's character develop realistically. The changes in Scrooge from the start of the book, to win he makes his first Billion are very believable. The book also does a good job trumpeting two important messages.

The first 2/3 of the book emphasizes the importance of hard work and going for your dreams, never giving up or giving in no matter how great the pressure we face. At times, Scrooge's pursuit of self-fulfillment and his dreams are almost like something of Ayn Rand. Yet, we're reminded, greed can be very dangerous, and we make a foolish mistake when we sacrifice people for things. These two messages can be hard to have in the same book, but Rosa weaves them in seemlessly.

In the end, what Rosa has written is a marvelous tale that's truly worthy of its larger than life star. It's a great introduction into the world of Duck comics and a worthwhile read for anyone who wants to learn more about Scrooge McDuck.



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Movie Review: Thor: Dark World

In Thor: The Dark World, Thor at last returns to Earth when Jane Foster's in trouble. Thor finds she's been infected by the Aether, a powerful world destroying force that could allow the Malekith, the ruler of Dark Elves to bring all nine realms into darkness. The war takes a personal toll for Thor, who comes with a plan to defeat Malekith. However, the plan requires he defy his father and obtain Loki's help.

While Marvel films set on Earth have a similar feel to them, everything is different in Asgard. It just has a whole different fantasy feel to it and they really make it work with this great back story.

Marvel really struck the right balance with the tone. There are some serious moments in this story, and the relationships between the characters are real and interesting.

However, the movie manages to have this while not becoming too dark and brooding. Marvel movies tend to take certain things very seriously such as friendship, loyalty, and heroism without taking itself too serious. Thor is an awesome hero who is just fun to watch, particularly in the last battle against Malekith.

The one thing that bothered me is that the movie left many unresolved threads. I hope they're resolved in Thor 3 and not in Avengers 2 as Asgard and Ultron shouldn't really mix.

Overall, this was a good movie but not a great one. It's not Casablanca, Citizen Kane, or even Superman: The Movie. It won't make anyone all time lists for anything. It won't be one critics will think a lot about in 20 years, but it'll survive because it's great entertainment. Like a Charlie Chan movie or an episode of Little House on the Prairie, it knows what you want and gives it to you well.

Book Review: The Golden Age Flash Archives, Volume 2

The Golden Age Flash Archives, Vol. 2 by Gardner F. Fox

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This selection of Golden Age Flash stories collect tales featuring Jay Garrick's Flash from Flash Comics 18-24 and the All Flash Quarterly 1 and 2.

This book was just a lot of fun. The Flash doesn't have any legendary opponents in this book but the stories done with a lot of humor and style. There are protection racket gangsters who harass a restaurant and are made to eat their just desserts, there's the Flash building a brick wall around criminals harassing a group of bricklayers, and the book concludes with the Flash battling the Spider-men from Mars in Flash #24.

While Flash Comics contained multiple features, All Flash Comics was the Flash's own Quarterly magazine. Issue #1 of All Flash noted Flash's departure from the Justice Society under the rules that if a character got his own magazine he had to leave. Issue #2 is a full-fledged book length saga of revenge following a criminal's twisted path to revenge as it poisons him and puts everyone around him at risk. This story like most of the other Flash stories in this book feature a solid moral.

The book is delightful and represent a huge step forward from Volume 1, and it's too bad that there's not likely to be a Volume 3.



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Book Review: Spider-man Tangled Web

Spider-Man's Tangled Web, Vol. 1 by Garth Ennis

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This book collects the first six issues of the early 2000s Spider-man based series, though focusing mostly on secondary characters. It was an anthology series, so a mix of good and bad. This volumes leans darker, particularly in Garth Ennis' lead off story, "The Coming of the Thousand" which has Spider-man running into an old bully with a grunge who blames Spidey for ruining his life and has become well, something quite horrific.

Issue 4 is a noirish story called, "Severance Package" by Greg Rucka and it's the one least related to Spider-man as an experienced hood has failed the Kingpin for the last time and is resigned to his fate.

Issues 5 and 6 form the "Flowers for the Rhino" story in which the Rhino gets tired of his lot as Spider-man's stupidest foe and takes steps to become genius. It's a charmingly done tale that ask if intelligence can buy happiness. It's a good story though it's the weakest in the book, but it's the one that feels most like a proper Spider-man story.

The other four stories are well-written but they aren't terribly fun to read. They're certainly not what I expect from a Spidey book. They're grim and gritty. "Severence Package" could be in any superhero book. In the end, it becomes easy to see why Tangled Web failed: because it doesn't capture what Spidey readers wanted. And no matter how good the writing and art, if the book fails at the measure, it's not going to work.



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Book Review: Golden Age Flash Archives, Volume 1

The Golden Age Flash Archives, Vol. 1 by Gardner F. Fox

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


The original Flash was Jay Garrick, created by Gardener Fox for Flash Comics #1. This contains all the Flash stories that appeared in Flash Comics #1-#17 as well as covers which often feature other characters. This also includes a fine foreword by Mark Waid, who wrote post-Crisis Flash stories.

Like the more famous Silver Age version, this Flash obtained his powers in a laboratory accident and sets off to fight evil. There are several interesting things about this golden age hero. First of all was that Garrick's girlfriend is in on the secret. Indeed, there's not much of a secret for the first few stories with Joan even introducing Jay as the Flash at one point, though by the end of the book, his identity is a secret to everyone but Joan. Not keeping your girl in the dark is definitely a positive step in relationship dynamics.

The book is a little inconsistent about the Flash's speed as usual. At one time, a story says he can move at the speed of light. In another, we're told it takes the Flash 3 hours to travel to Canada. The speed of light ain't what it used to be.

This was a tough book to rate. The Flash's concept was fun and much like in the Silver Age Flash and Atom stories I've, Fox has fun fleshing out the pseudo-science behind the character's powers. I particularly like how the Golden Age Flash used his speed to make himself almost invisible.

But in the end, these Garrick Flash stories are simply a cut below the Golden Age's best. It's not on par with the Adventures of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Captain America, Sub-Mariner, or the Human Torch, but certainly better than characters like Marvel's speedster, the Whizzer. In the end, I'd probably rate this a 3.45. Good, but not great.



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Book Review: Showcase Presents Flash, Volume 1

Showcase Presents: The Flash, Vol. 1 by Robert Kanigher

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Some will identify the launch of the Fantastic Four and Spider-man with the start of Silver Age of Comics. That's not quite right. It all began with the Silver Age Flash (Barry Allen) who was introduced in Showcase #4.

This book collects the last story featuring the Golden Age Flash Jay Garrick last appearance in his 1949 Magazine (Flash #104) along with Silver Age Flash tryouts in Showcase #4, #8, #13, and #14 (1956-58) and then the new Flash continuing bi-monthly series from 105-119.

There's a lot to like about the book. Many of the best Flash villains are introduced in this book including Captain Cold, Gorilla Grodd (called only Grodd in these stories), Mirror Master, Dr. Alchemy, the Weather Wizard, the Trickster, and Captain Boomerang. The first four of these had multiple appearances, so early on there was a great sense of what the Flash's rogue's gallery would be like, and Grodd clearly stood out as more evil from the rest.

The Silver Age Flash also followed the tradition of the Golden Age version by not having book length stories. Instead, the Flash introduced back up characters. Wally West was introduced as Kid Flash in Flash #110, Ralph Dibney as the Elongated Man in Flash #112, and three dopes Winky, Blinky, and Noddy were introduced in Flash #117.

After his introduction, Kid Flash actually had five solo adventures in which Barry Allen didn't appear accept perhaps as a cameo. The early Kid Flash wore a uniform just like the adult version only smaller. The adventures are typical light kid fare.

The Elongated Man stories are fun as the Flash actually gets jealous of him. The Elongated Man adventures are team ups with the Flash and mostly light. It's worth noting that Elongated was introduced more than a year before Marvel's Mr. Fantastic.

The Winky, Blinky, and Noddy characters were without a doubt the stupidest concept re-introduced. They were originally in the Golden Age Flash Comics and really infantile characters who probably gave us a hint as to why Marvel had its early 1960s ascendancy.

However, they weren't enough to spoil this book. It introduced some great concepts and characters. The Flash's powers remain impressive as does his mighty rogues gallery stands the test of time nicely. Ironically, my favorite story in this book wasn't a story with a rogue, but "Around the World in 80 Minutes" (Showcase #13) which features the Flash circling the globe in 80 minutes for the heck of it, with the goal of making it back in time for his ever-late alter ego to make a date with the temperamental Iris West. Along the way, he has to solve several desperate problems and fend off several grateful maidens.

It's a story that represents the fun and light-heartedness of this collection. While characterization remains weak, this is groundbreaking stuff that launched a whole new age of comics and that makes it a worthwhile read.



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Book Review: The Tick: The Complete Edlund

The Tick: The Complete Edlund by Ben Edlund

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Before the Tick became a popular Saturday morning cartoon character, he was a popular Independent comic book character created by Ben Edlund. Here we get to basque in the glory of this wacky superhero parody through its initial run by its creator.

The Complete Edlund collects The Tick Issues 1-12, Pseudo Tick #13, and a bunch of bonus Edlund material.

Edlund began working on the tick when he was when he was high school with a cartoon and character profile in New England Comics news letter #14. The character profile is interesting for many reasons. First, it's reprinted with a big typo. Second, it establishes the Tick as a divorced French-speaking concert pianist while claiming to be clueless as to the characters' nationality.

Tick #1 features the Tick's escape from the city and the famous scene where the Tick is interrogated about whether he sucked blood. This was an okay issue overall, but it should be noted that it contained a lot of swearing, mostly milder stuff but a lot of it, and there was a barnyard expletive thrown in. Edlund cuts this way down in future issues, as he matured as a writer.

Issue 2 was an okay Superman parody that was just a little too obvious.

To me, Issue 3 is where the Tick truly hits hits his stride with a 3-part Ninja-fighting story parodying Frank Miller's Daredevil as he battles a ton of Ninjas to help out a woman named Oedipus who became a ninja due to her being and responding to an ad to the newspaper for ninja training. The Ninjas and the Tick all work hilariously. The Tick Universe expands with the introduction of Paul the Samurai and more importantly, Arthur.

In Issue 6, Edlund introduces the concept of Supervillains Incorporated which finds the world so full of superheroes that in order for a superhero to establish himself he has to hire a villain to fight. Hilarity ensues when the Tick meets up with the villain instead.

In Issue 7, Tick goes out to get some Pez but ends up fighting alongside a Dick Tracy-like crimefighter against the arch-criminal Chairface Chipendale in a plot that would be mostly borrowed for the cartoon series.

In Issue 8, Chairface's men are out for vengeance but are stopped by the man-eating cow as Tick and Arthur decide to go to New York to make it big as superheroes.

Issues 9 and 10 finds the Tick and Arthur on the road to New York and run into chainsaw vigilante and and a band of mad scientist hillbillies under an evil spell.

Issue 11 has the Tick arriving in New York and having to defend his Tickhood against a man named Barry who has been using the name the Tick. The two duel in the Comet Club while Author experiences the horror of a visit to the sidekick's lounge.

In Issue 12, the Tick has secured the rights to the name and gets a lot of cool stuff with it, but Barry is plotting revenge. This issue was the last that Edlund drew and it did seem to be getting a little weirder and the humor a little tired. This comic was in 1993, 9 months after the previous issue and was left unresolved.

This book allows Marc Silva to resolve the story line in Pseudo Tick #13 which merited a couple laughs and managed to close up the story line with Edlund and make it consistent with other books that had been produced since. The concept art and extras were unusual like an obscure art film.

The new edition (not by Edlund) extends a detail from Issue 1 in an amusing story.

The meat and the best part of the book are Issues 3-11 and mere synopsis doesn't do the book justice. There are some magic moments such as when the Tick coins the battle cry, "Spoon" or discovers he has pockets. It gets a little weird and sometimes too weird for my taste, but when it's not too weird, it's hilarious.





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Book Review: Spider-man/Doctor Octopus: Out of Reach

Marvel Age Spider-Man Doctor Octopus Out Of Reach Digest (Marvel Adventures Spider-Man by Colin Mitchell

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


When one of Doctor Octopus' robberies goes wrong and he fails to get into a bank vault after almost completely destroying the bank, he kidnaps Brigham Fontaine, the kid who designed the vault in hopes of gaining entrance. In an odd and disturbing way, Brigham admires Doctor Octopus and even seeks Ock out after Spidey foils Ock's plans and rescues Brigham.

There's a lot to like about most of the book. It has a lot of great battles between Spidey and Ock, though towards the end some of these seem to repeat. Spider-man is his lovable wise-cracking self. Mary Jane makes an appearance as Mrs. Peter Park. It's only to complain about him missing a birthday but hey, I'll take what I can get.

Where the book doesn't work is that Brigham's motivation remains unclear and the ending brought about by Ock didn't have sufficient preparation. Still, if you love the times when Doc Ock fought Spider-man rather than when Doc Ock was Spider-man, this is a worthwhile read.



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Book Review: Essential Marvel Two-In-One, Volume 1

Essential Marvel Two-in-One, Vol. 1 by Len Wein

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


When the Fantastic Four was born, it was thought that if any character would break away for a solo career, it'd be the young and handsome Johnny Storm. Yet, the public had other ideas, it was the human brick monster the Thing who sold the most toys and starred in three Comic book series as well as a limited edition run "Freak Show."

This book marks the start of the Thing's first series, Marvel Two-In-One, like the all ready existing Marvel Team Up series starring Spider-man, each issue featured a team up between the Thing and another Marvel character.

This book collects Marvel Feature 11-12, Marvel Two-in-one #1-#20 and #22-25, Annual #1, Marvel Team Up #47, and Fantastic Four Annual #11: nearly 600 pages of Comic book action.

The try out for the the concept was in Marvel Feature #11 and #12. For the first audition, Marvel led off with the fan favorite fan match up: The Thing and the Hulk. After a pre-requisite fight, they teamed up to fight bad guys who had manipulated them into fighting so they could wager on the fate of the world. This was followed by a team up with Iron Man in Marvel Feature #12.

With the success of these two issue, old Ben Grimm was set for success in Marvel Two in One. It would begin as a bi-monthly series and continue that way until Marvel Two in One #15, when it’d become a monthly.

There are many writers on the series. Steve Gerber wrote issues 1-9, Chris Claremont wrote issue #10, Bill Manlo scripted #11 and 12, 14-19, 22-24 as well as Marvel Two in One #47 with assists from Roy Thomas and Jim Shooter on a few issues. Thomas wrote issue #20 as well as the Annual. And #13 was written by Len Wein and Issue 25 by Marv Wolfman. A lot of cooks stirring this pot and that’s before we start to list all the artists.

In addition, comic book stories were getting shorter. Gone were the 23-page stories in early Fantastic Four magazines. Most of the stories in this book are told in 18 pages and the last few in 17. This can lead to rushed stories.

That said, the book has some pretty good stories. The best are the fist nine written by Stephen Gerber who does a good job capturing the wonderful character of the Thing including his compassion. He begins Issue #1 heading Florida to fight Man-thing for stealing his name but upon learning the poor man-turned-into beast’s story, he has a more compassionate reaction. He also takes to carrying for the overgrown alien child Wundaar as a foster parent of sorts for several issues. His compassion is further shown in comforting Valkryie who questions whether she’s in even real after the end of Issue 7. Grimm responds, “Paper dolls don’t cry. Only us real people got that problem.”

The rest of the stories manage to capture Grimm’s can do determination and indomitable courage. One of the best examples of that is the Two Part team up with Thor in #22 and #23 that has Ben Grimm battling Seth.

Some critics knock the book for having the Thing team up with D-listers, but really he has a pretty solid list of partners including: Submariner, Daredevil, Iron Man (twice), Thor (three times), Captain America (twice), Doctor Strange, and Spider-man. And not every story with a lesser known character was a bad one. My favorite stories in the book:

1) Issues 4 and 5: Captain America and the Thing travel to the time of the Guardians of the Galaxy and team up with them to fight for freedom.

2) Issues 6 and 7: A surprisingly moving story about a magic harmonica and two people haunted by a painful memory with Doctor Strange.

3) Issue 10: This Chris Claemont tale with Black Widow is wonderful. The two really wonderfully together to save the world from one of Black Widow’s old cohorts.

4) Issue 13: Team up with Power Man to fight a dangerous monster.

5) Issue 17 and Marvel Team up #47: Spidey and the Thing battle Basilisk Just a great story.

6) Issue 22 and 23: With Thor battling Seth with all humanity at stake.

7) Issue 24: Black Goliath-Never heard of this character but it was nice to run into him in an overall somewhat generic story.

8) Issue 25: A team up with Iron Fist as they’re brought into a troubled country

On the negative side, some comics I didn’t like:

1) Issue 3: A real head-scratcher. Daredevil appears in a story that seems to barely forward a continuing story going on in Daredevil and the rest of the story finishes up in Daredevil. Kind of pointless really.
2) Issue 11: Battle with Golem, a pointless story that wraps up a previous story no one cared about in the first place. Also, violated an established precedent. Ben Grimm has been shown to be a celebrity superhero yet when he boards a train to Florida, everyone switches sides of the train. Some, I could see. Everyone, not really. It seems to be an attempt to make the Thing relatable and to show solidarity with people being picked on for being different. That should be done in a way that’s not totally nonsensical.
3) Issue #18 with the Scarecrow, the continuation of yet another horror story the Thing doesn’t belong in and nobody cared about in the first place.

While it was an okay story, the biggest disappointment was the Liberty Legion Story in Annual #1 and Issue #20 by Roy Thomas. After the entire FF went back to help the Invaders in the superb Fantastic Four Annual #11, the Thing goes back to finish the job and teams up with the Liberty Legion. The story has potential, but it also highlights the challenge of the Liberty Legion: we don’t know anything about most of them so we have to spend a lot of time establishing who they are. Thus the Annual dragged on and on in an interminable story. Fewer character, at least in this story, might have made Ben Grimm’s time travelling adventures a lot more fun.

As an aside, Issue 21 is not in this collection as it teamed Ben up with Doc Savage and those rights are no longer held by Marvel. I bought this issue online for a pretty inexpensive price. The Doc Savage Issue had great art and was a fun story that true fans of Doc or the Thing should get their hands on, but it’s not really necessary to get it to understand the book.

Overall, not a perfect book, but if you want some great Bronze Age stories of the Thing filled with splash pages of him shouting, “It’s clobberin’ time,” than this is a worthwhile read.




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Book Review: Secret wars

Secret Wars by Jim Shooter

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


When I was growing up, one of the highlights of the baseball season was the Baseball all-star game. Prior to the, "This Time it Counts" campaign, the All-Star game was all about pride and it just meant getting to see your favorite players compete against each other. Everybody had to get in the game, so nobody would get more than 3 at-bats and you'd only see pitchers go for two innings tops. But it was great because the players were the best.

Secret Wars can best be enjoyed if it's viewed as an all-star game with heroes like Spider-man, Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, the Hulk, and three of the Fantastic Four, the X-men, the Wasp, and Hawkeye against villains like Dr. Doom, Doctor Octopus, the Absorbing Man, the Enchantess and Galactus. All those star,, and a lot of them get short-changed, though none worse than Kang the Conqueror.

They're all brought to Battleworld by the Beyonder with the prize of getting their desires if they destroy their enemies. The villains don't need much excuse to attack the heroes, so the battle is on. And we're set up for 300 pages of battles, and of course inter-team bickering.

Secret Wars was written in the 1980s, so there's a lot of weird 80s stuff going on. Tony Stark has decided to become a full time alcoholic and left Iron Man duties to James Rhodes. Monica Rambeau, a black New Orleans police officer is the second Captain Marvel, and Hulk is in a stage of intelligence that slowly begins to diminish throughout the story line.

Among themselves, the heroes fight race wars, and gender wars, and then there's the X-men who show why they're my least favorite superhero team as they whine, complain, and play petty posturing games rather than fighting the villains with Charles Xavier trying to subvert Storm as leader of the X-men.

The battles were fine, but overall, the heroes failed to impress. Some heroes have some great scenes such as Spider-man's battle with Titania, Wolverine almost killing the Molecule Man, and Reed Richards having a surprising meeting with Galactus. But, for the most part, the heroes didn't do much memorable. Throughout the most book, Captain America as the leader of the good guys was mostly indecisive and reactive rather than proactive.

One character saves Secret Wars and it's biggest villain: Dr. Doom. Doom had the foresight to see beyond the Beyonder's game for a far greater prize and in the first Chapter tried to prevent the War for that greater purpose. Only Doom would both the foresight and the pure unadulterated arrogance to achieve what he does in this book and truly Doom is at his audacious best in Secret Wars, and he manages to elevate the story.

In the end, the changes to come out of Secret Wars are relatively minor in the long haul. The most stupid one (Ben Grimm leaving Earth and the Fantastic Four to stay on Battleworld to be replaced by She-hulk) lasted a couple years. The best (Spider-man's black costume) wouldn't be fully developed until the issue was taken up in Amazing Spider-man.

Overall, an okay collection that's raised to a higher level by its villain.



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