Adam Graham's Blog: Christians and Superheroes, page 89

Book Review: Batman Brave and the Bold: Emerald Knight

Batman: Brave and the Bold - Emerald Knight by Sholly Fisch

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This book collects Issues 13, 14, 16, 18, 19, and 21 of the Batman Brave and the Bold comic based on the popular animated series.

The book gets off to a great start in Issue 13 when Batman breaks his leg and Gotham criminals take full advantage. But then Green Arrow decides to step in as Batman, as does Shazam, Aquaman, and Plastic Man. Aquaman's particularly funny as he keeps his Blonde Mustache. Generally, just a blast of a story: A.

Issue 14 starts off with Batman and Plastic Man battling the Scarecrow but then it becomes a Huntress story. Batman thinks she's interested in romance and that's why she's acting odd on the case. However, she's got something different in mind and when Batman finds out what it is, he feels like a jerk. Regular DC Universe Batman probably wouldn't care, but that's why B&B Batman is a better person. Grade: B+

Issue 16 has Wonder Woman teaming up with Batman against Egghead with some great dialogue and some fantastic splash pages. Downside is I don't like the face drawn for Wonder Woman at all. Grade: A-

Issue 18 is the weakest in the book and it's big fault is trying to do much. The first half of the story is dedicated to Batman and Martian Manhunter battling an evil White Martian. The second has the evil White Martian trying to take over Batman's mind with Dr. Fate involved. This story could have used a few extra pages to develop well. Grade: C+

Issue 19 has Green Lantern battling the evil Cyborg Superman and sending his ring to Earth to Batman and Batman becomes a Green Lantern and even recites the Green Lantern oath. Simply awesome. Grade: A+

Issue 21 begins with Batman battling dinosaurs from outer space with the help of the Lady Blackhawks and ends with Batman fighting alongside with Green Lantern for the fate of the world against a malevolent alien named Bob. While the story could have been a little longer but still, it's quite fun. Grade:: A-

Overall thoughts: The first two collections of Brave and the Bold comics didn't live up to the fun of the cartoon series. This on the other hand did, big time. There are few great character stories, but the plots are awesomely insane with all the crazy things that can happen in the Brave and the Bold universe. There are a lot of splash pages but they are almost always necessary and well done.

My only other complaint is that the book decided to put all pictures of covers at the back while I prefer to see them before the stories. Given the issues with most comics and with the earlier books in this collection that's really not a big deal.



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Book Review: Just Imagine Stan Lee Creating the DC Universe, Book 3

Just Imagine Stan Lee Creating the DC Universe, Vol. 3 by Stan Lee

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This book collections the final four Just Imagine Stan Lee stories in which Stan Lee reimagines DC comics characters.

This book features Aquaman, Catwoman, Sandman, and Stan Lee's Crisis:


Stan Lee's Aquaman is an obsessive but not militant environmentalist with a good looking shallow girlfriend, and a hero cop brother. The brother saves the story from oblivion, but still it's not all that great. Grade: C

Stan Lee's Catwoman is a model who gets catpowers in a freak accident. She decides become a bonifide crime fighters. There are shades of Spider-man in the story with perhaps a little Batgirl. Grade: A-

Stan Lee's Sandman is an astronaut who receives powers from a mythical slumberland. An okay, but not great story with a somewhat annoying character. Grade: B-

Stan Lee's Crisis was a bit of a mess as the revelation of Crisis was everything the entire series had been leading up to. I felt like we got too much or too little in the story and perhaps both. I think we got too much as there were sprawling story lines and revelations about characters we didn't even know or care about and just too many. If they needed to be in there, then the Crisis issue needed to be longer or needed to be in two parts. The resolution's way too easy and the most important issue: who in the JLA was a traitor was too obvious. Grade: C-

The book gets 3 stars for Stan Lee who showed he could develop some great characters with his very strong Catwoman story in this book as well as the Flash, Green Lantern, and Batman in others. The love between Lee and his cohorts makes this an okay book even though its the weakest in the series.



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Book Review: With the Whole Heart

With the Whole Heart by Bud Collyer

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Biographies mention that radio's Man of Steel Bud Collyer wrote two religious books but had no details on them, so I decided to check them out and found a used copy available on Amazon. With the Whole Heart is the longer of the two books.

It's a composed of five poems around general themes. At it's heart, it's a book about being a good Christian and a good human being. It's a book about hope. Being written in 1966, some would argue the book is dated with its thoughts on communism, but I'd suggest that some of Collyer's words can hold true to the challenges Christians face in our day:

And so if each one of us truly lives
A life of love and tries with all his might
To do the things the Lord would have him do,
Then Communism will never succeed!
We'll kill the lies with everything that's true,
Knowing that God will fill our every need.

Collyer placed his faith in the decline of the Soviet Union not in American military might or the strength of Democracy, but on the strength of the truth of God and the power of God's people living out their faith.

The book is refreshing in many ways. In our culture, we primarily talk about things like faith and politics in prose only, Collyer's use of poetry lends itself to reflection and a different way of thinking about faith.

The challenge with Collyer's poetry is that occasionally his poetry uses less precise words which can be theologically challenge and a few of the rhymes are a bit of a stretch. Still, the book is worth reading for displaying the heart of a man known as a game show host and for playing the Man of Steel. I particularly enjoyed the last section, "What Do We Have to Live For?" If you can find a copy, it's a worthwhile read.



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Book Review: Green Hornet, Year One: The Sting of Justice

Green Hornet: Year One Vol 1: The Sting of Justice by Matt Wagner

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


As the "Year One" title implies, this book tells the early career of the pulp hero the Green Hornet.

The story is decent if not all that spectacular as Britt Reid goes travelling and meets up with Kato, arrives in Chicago, and decides to fight crime as the Green Hornet.

Unfortunately, the big problem with this book is that Matt Wagner takes part of the issue and dedicates it to the Green Hornet's origin and training and part of it to his early case in pursuit of some Chicago mob boss in 1938. The problem with this is that it makes the main story very slow moving. Very little is accomplished in each issue. It's particularly to follow before Britt and Cato get together as the book as you have two back stories and one main story trying to be told in a short 20+ page comic.

The interior art doesn't help. The book's best art is its splash pages of which there are quite a few. Most of them are decent, but they take a lot of space away from stories where nothing happening already. In Issue 2, we get a one page splash followed by a two page splash (which doesn't really have a great impact because of the coloring.)

The book's coloring is atrocious. Characters are shaded in all sorts of bizarre and unnatural light. I do get some shots where pre-Green Hornet Britt is shadowed in Green but most of it is gratuitous and the result is just not pleasing to look at.

One thing I will say for the book is that the covers are good and the alternate covers included at the back are great. Alex Ross' Issue 1 Alternate is fantastic and Francisco Francavilla alternate covers for Issues 2-6 are drawn like old time movie posters. It's all very nice.

I should note for parents that this book is rated for Teens and that is not a good book for young kids. It's got a lot of violence and a bit of gore, but again it's at a PG-13 level.



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Book Review: Just Imagine Stan Lee Creating the DC Universe, Vol. 2

Just Imagine Stan Lee Creating the DC Universe, Vol. 2 by Stan Lee

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Stan Lee's version of the DC universe continues to take shape in this book that collects the fifth-eighth stories in the "Just Imagine Stan Lee" story line as we imagine how Stan Lee would have created characters like the Flash, the JLA, Robin, and Shazam.

Thoughts:

The Flash-A teenage girl/comic book fan who gets her power from hummingbird DNA. I really liked this character, she was fun, good natured, and sweet, making her perhaps a less angsty version of Spider-man. Grade: A

The JLA-A boy named Adam Strange tries to rally Green Lantern to get together all the emerging new superheroes to take a group of Church of Empowerment killers the Doom Patrol. Actually a pretty decent plot, though the story takes a turn towards almost pure mysticism. In addition, the JLA now knows that Reverend Darrk is the bad guy. They know exactly where he is-inside his church in Los Angeles and they aren't getting him-why? The Secret origins that follows is a bit hoky to, so I'll give this. Grade: B+

Robin: Stan Lee's Robin was named Robin because the bird keeps showing in the same space as him (for whatever reason.) Anyway, Robin is first seen trying to kill Batman. He's an orphan and fallen under the influence of Reverend Darrk. Can Batman help in time. John Byrne does the art and I think cowrites, so the angst is definitely provided. Grade: B

Shazam: A government agent acquires the power of Shazam which has been passed down from magicians for centuries. And he takes on an evil white guy determined to destroy America by shrinking it. (No, I'm not making this up.) Lee channels some of his work from the Hulk and the result is okay with costumes skimpier than the average comic and that says something. Grade: C+

Overall, the book had not only a great Flash story and a good JLA story, but some nice testimonials from the artists about Stan Lee and I do find out how this turns out. So, thus the four-star rating and look forward to book 3.



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Thoughts on the Changes at Marcher Lord Press

New Year's Day saw a big shake up at Marcher Lord Press with the sale of the company to Agent Steve Laube:

(Phoenix, AZ) Steve Laube, president of The Steve Laube Agency, has agreed to
purchase Marcher Lord Press, the premier publisher of Science Fiction and Fantasy for the Christian market. The sale was finalized on January 1, 2014.


Laube has long been a champion of the genre, going back to his days as an acquisition editor at Bethany House Publishers. Jeff Gerke, the founder of Marcher Lord Press, said “I could not have found a better person to buy the company I started in 2008.”


The new Marcher Lord Press will be run as a separate company from Steve Laube’s
literary agency. The agency, founded in 2004, has four agents and over 150 active
authors (www.stevelaube.com) with contracts for nearly 1,000 new books. Gerke will
focus his efforts on his freelance editorial and publishing service business and his own writing.


“The plan is to continue with what Jeff started and release between 4-8 new titles in 2014,” Laube said. “I have long believed that this genre has been underserved in our industry despite its inherent ability to tell ‘Fantastic’ stories of philosophical and
theological depth.”

In addition to this, Laube decided to jettison Marcher Lord Press' Hinterlands imprint as well as Amish Vampires in Space which was not part of Hinterlands.

I guess I have several thoughts regarding this move.

First, regarding Jeff Gerke. I really think fans of Christian speculative fiction owe him a debt of thanks for the years he's put into promoting the genre and for getting the idea of Marcher Lord Press off the ground. He has been and I'm sure he will continue to be a great resource for Christian writers and in particular, writers of speculative fiction.

At Marcher Lord, he's helped launch the careers of great authors such as Jill Williamsonand John Otte and that's a credit to what MLP has done.

I've wondered occasionally as I've listened to Jeff's instruction as to when he'd get a chance to tell the stories he had to tell and it looks like that he'll get that chance in the near future. Though I suspect some of this will be non-fiction. He mentioned a pretty interesting topic at last year's Realm Makers conference which will be quite a read. Again, I can only pray God blesses him and just wish him all the best as he transitions.

I also respect the decision to sell to Mr. Laube. As important as the company was to Chrstian fiction, it was no doubt just as important to Jeff to find someone who would take it in the right direction.

Clearly, no one knows how this will go which is what makes criticizing the decision silly. Who knows? Mr. Laube could be the one who can build on the foundation of MLP and take the company to the next level.

And as author Morgan Busse pointed out this decision was bathed in prayer, which is probably a better measure of the quality of the decision than an immediate gut reaction of, "Oh no you didn't!"

Mr. Laube believes in the genre and has advocated for it at Bethany House. He has a passion for it and that's good.

As to the cancellation of the Hinterlands imprint including Vox Day's book as well as Amish Vampires in Space, I really don't like the idea of cancelling published books prematurely, but neither author is all that upset about it and both books will remain available.

Hinterlands with its use of mature content was always a bit problematic. I think it worked for Vox Day but really wasn't part of the wider future of the company.

As to Amish Vampires in Space, I feel that Laube may have made a mistake.

On one hand, I'm not a big fan of vampire fiction. On the other, the crowd at Realm Makers cheered wildly when Gerke announced the title. It sounded very quirky and fun and it wasn't part of Hinterlands. It'd gotten some national attention with a mention by Dave Barry. Removing it from the MLP catalog may be part of what's bothering people about the sale because of what they're interpreting it to mean: That the new MLP is going be very bland and overly cautious with the titles it publishes.

Really, I think the only thing for Laube to do is really get to know and establish great contacts within that community of Christian Speculative writers. His ability to do that will determine whether Marcher Lord Press will continue to inspire the support of fans of Christian Speculative Fiction.

Book Review: Mark Waid's Daredevil, Volume 6

Daredevil, Volume 6 by Mark Waid

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This book collect Issues 28-30 of Daredevil's 3rd Volume and Issues 9 and 10 of Indestructible Hulk.

The reason this book is shorter is that the current volume of Daredevil will end with #36 and so they want all six issues of the final story in the same trade.

Issues 28 and 29 collect a pretty decent story in which Matt Murdoch is asked for help by a man who tormented him with the nickname, "Daredevil" when he was a child. The guy got involved in a seemingly more benign branch of the serpent society and reluctantly Daredevil agrees to help him represent himself in a civil rights suit, but it'll take more than legal footwork to get DD and his old nemesis out of trouble in a pretty fun story that lives up to the best of this series with some great interaction between Matt and his ex-bully.

Issue 30 starts off with the (big deal) return of Kirsten McDuffie who comes to work for the firm while Matt's longtime partner Foggy Nelson is still recuperating from cancer treatments and she's decided to come work for her. I've never had any strong feelings about her prior to her exiting Matt's life several issues before and her presence doesn't help the story.

Then again, the story in Issue 30 doesn't need any help because alien turns up asking for Daredevil's help when out of nowhere comes the Silver Surfer hunting for the alien. Daredevil and Silver Surfer fight and then team up in a story that has Daredevil steering the Surfer's board in a very cool story that references an incident from back when Stan Lee was writing the series. (In Vol. 1, Issue 28) Waid knows his history and that's what's great about Marvel continuity.

The Indestructible Hulk Issues are problematic. I'm a fan of the series but having said that, it's dubious to include it. Past trades have included issues of Amazing Spider-man, Avenging Spider-man, and the Punisher but that made sense because those issues collected storylines that involved the Daredevil book. Daredevil just made guest appearances in Indestructible Hulk.

We do learn that Murdoch is Bruce Banner's attorney and that to make sure S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn't doublecross Banner, Banner calls Murdoch every week to give the all clear. Otherwise, Murdoch will go to the papers. Daredevil and the Hulk team up when S.H.I.E.L.D.'s operation takes them to Hell's kitchen. It's a good concept and it definitely has its moments with Daredevil acting as a calming influence on the Hulk and some great action scenes for the Hulk.

The story isn't without problems. For one thing, as a reader of Indestructible Hulk, I'm curious about what happened to Banner's assistants from the prior issues as these two go off in another direction. More importantly, a major Marvel baddy is reveal as behind the attempt to procure illegal weapons that S.H.I.E.L.D.'s busting and the villain's given a big reveal in Issue 9 but our heroes NEVER battle him. That doesn't make the issues bad, but they are surprisingly flawed.

Overall, I was borderline about giving this collection three stars or four but decided on three for several reasons: the biggest is that Marvel cut the page count on this book by one full issue, kept the price the same, and did nothing to make this book special enough to merit four stars.



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Book Review: What If Classic Volume 2

What If? Classic, Vol. 2 by Don Glut

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


What If? was Marvel's 1970s magazine taking a look at how many of Marvel's most notable stories and characters could have gone another direction. At this point, each issue is hosted by the Watcher as a Rod Serlingesque guide to these alternate realities.

This second collection of What If Tales has some extra fun features. Chief among them is the inclusion of Why Not? the letters page which gives key insights as to what writers were thinking and how readers reacted. The only downside is that some of the letters have to do with Issues 5 and 6 which were in the last book, but still there's some great insight.

With that said, let's get to the stories:

Issue 7: What if Someone Else Besides Spider-man Had Been Bitten by the Radioactive Spider: Three different alternate timelines where Flash Thompson, Betty Brant, and Colonel John Jameson were bitten by the radioactive spider. It's a solid story, with the John Jameson story having the most startling deviation in the timelime. It also had a great message about what it takes to be a hero. Overall, I'll give this story a B+.

Issue 8: What if the World Knew Daredevil Was Blind? and What if the Spider Had Been Bitten by a Radioactive Human: The first story, which takes up the bulk of the issue, is just stupid. It's far fetched to imagine Electro guessing that Daredevil is blind. And the way he proves it (because DD can't tell the color of Electro's uniform) is stupid because that could mean that Daredevil's color blind which is something else entirely. Even if Electro did believe Daredevil was blind, the odds of him convincing other supervillains of that is slim. It's also stupid to suggest that this would destroy his effectiveness as a crimefighter. This was just a dumb story all around. The second story is an okay and slightly amusing funny animal superhero parody, but it can raise this issue above Grade: D+.

Issue 9: What if the Avengers Had Fought Evil During the 1950s?: This was a Don Glut script based on a Roy Thomas concept and it was a good idea that would later become Agents of A.T.L.A.S. as this 1950s Avengers team was made up of characters that were published in ATLAS comics such as Venus and Marvel Boy as they fought 1950s villain The Yellow Claw. This was a decent concept marred only by the end which suggested that the Avengers couldn't make it because the 1950s were so evil and paranoid and everyone was scared of everything having to do with superheroes which is why Adventures of Superman was a ratings hit during that decade. Lame. Grade: B

Issue 10: What if Jane Foster Had Found the Hammer of Thor: The story involves Jane Foster rather than Donald Blake finding the hammer of Thor and Foster becomes Thordis. This is a fun concept with a lot of great scenes. The story's weakness is an ending that really tries to have the story end with traditional continuity come back in one change that's a little bit creepy but not too much. Grade: A-

Issue 11: What if the Original Marvel Bullpen Had Become the Fantastic Four: This story imagines Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Saul Brodsky, and Marvel Secretary Flo Steinberg getting the powers of the FF and trying to find out who caused them to get the powers. The story is actually pretty good and played fairly straight. It was written and drawn by Jack Kirby and as the letters page this was the first FF story written by Kirby and it works fairly well. Grade: A

Issue 12: What if Rick Jones Had Become the Hulk?: This story asks the question of what would have happened if Rick Jones had saved Bruce Banner from turning into the Hulk. The result is actually a solid tale. The one weakspot is that Rick gets trained by Captain America who voluntarily gave him a new Bucky costume. That's a pretty radical departure from cannon and we'd need some explanation to make it work well. Still, it's an alternate universe, so they can probably get away with it. Grade: A-

Overall, another fun and solid collection.



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Book Review: Superman: The Silver Age Newspaper Dailies Volume 1: 1959-1961

Superman: The Silver Age Newspaper Dailies Volume 1: 1959-1961 by Jerry Siegel

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This book reprints more than two years of Daily Superman Comic book strips from 1959-61.

All but one story in this book has been reprinted elsewhere in its comic book form, but this book invites us to read different cuts of these stories. Many of them were far more complete. One great example is the Ugly Superman Story where Lois' motives for falling in love with the homely wrestler and going by the nickname of the Ugly Superman are better explained and it's actually a much better story.

I've read several of these before and all that I recognized were the same or better than the comic book versions. These are stories when Superman was a lot more fun and fantastic. A few strip series used comic book tales from Superman's Girlfriend Lois Lane, so there are a few Lois Lane stories in here. (But no Jimmy Olsen based ones for some reason.)

The first story in this book, "Earth's Super Idiot" was not from the comic books and was a fun tale of Superman having to humiliate himself for galactic film makers and find some way to turn the table. "Superman's Return to Krypton" is a classic story of the Man of Steel travelling back through time to pre-Destroyed Krypton and meeting his parents and falling in love, joyful to find a woman who loves him for himself and not his powers. The story has a very poignant ending.

I also loved "The Super Servant of Crime." Another big favorite was, "Superman's Billion Dollar Debt" where an IRS man tries to collect back taxes from Superman. I give credit to Superman Creator and strip writer Jerry Siegel for having this strip published not only during tax time but directly AFTER Superman saved the word from being conquered. And it turns out that the reason the agent's going after Superman is that he hasn't reviewed tax law carefully enough. That's the IRS for you.

Of course, the silver age wasn't without its problems. There was a little repetition. Perry White put himself in mysterious disguises not once but twice in this book. The last two stories featuring Lois Lane also had issues. "The Perfect Husband" has a really stupid and "convenient" ending. And "The Mad Woman of Metropolis" seemed to go too dark for DC's Silver Age with Lois Lane typing up a suicide note. If it was supposed to funny, the comedy didn't age well.

Still, these issues are overridden by the pure awesomeness of most of this book and this is a great new story for fans of the Man of Steel.



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Book Review: Marvel Masterworks: Golden Age Marvel Comics, Vol. 4

Marvel Masterworks: Golden Age Marvel Comics, Vol. 4 by Carl Burgos

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This book picks up where Marvel Masterworks: Golden Age Marvel Comics, Vol. 3 or Golden Age Marvel Comics Omnibus, Vol. 1 left off and collects Issues 13-16 of the golden age Marvel Mystery Comics.

The line up of characters is the same throughout all four issues and with one exception, it was the same line up as had been in Marvel Mystery Comics at the end of the previous book. Here are some thoughts:

1) Human Torch: The Human Torch has a great story involving a fire cult in Issues 14 and 15 sandwiched between the Torch fighting Terrorists in Issue 13 and Nazis in a pre-war story in Issue 16. These stories hang together pretty well and there's a great deal of complexity in the fire cult story which actually had some great plot twists in it.

2) Submariner-The Submariner began inching towards the "good guy" category. He fights Nazis in every issue but Issue Issue 15. Unfortunately, in Issue 15, he goes to New York and kidnaps a man and his girlfriend with the intent of forcing her to be his bride. (So not entirely on the side of the angels yet.)

The Submariner stories are connected but that leads to an odd switch. After issue 15, he goes from trying to kidnap the girl and defeat her beau to having them both accompany him to Europe to fight Nazis. Not quite Casablanca, but an interesting shift. In reality, this was setting up the second big Namor-Torch crossover in Marvel Mystery Comics #17 but the breakneck redirection is a little awkward. Also, Namor wears a helmet that looks like its pig shaped in this book. Whenever artists get Namor into wardrobe, things get weird.

That leaves the rest of the book and once again we're left with a mix between the good, the mediocre, and the bad:

On the good side, Ka-zar the Great has a solid plot in Issues 13-15 trying to get back to civilization and rescue his lion brother Zar before meeting a recurring villain back in the Jungle in Issue 16. Terry Vance, School Boy Sleuth continues to provide lighthearted fun with some amazing adventure. My favorite has Terry giving his Dr. Watson, his pet monkey, a gun to guard the bad guys with.

A little less good was the Vision. Not to be confused with the Android of later years, the golden Age Vision was an interdimensional/supersnatural being in stories that were somewhere between Horror and Science Fiction. The stories and art were by Jack Kirby which makes them imaginative and worth reading even if they don't always make sense.

On the down side, the stories featuring the Angel are, if anything, even more boring than prior stories. The stories of Electro the Wonder Robot astonish me only to the degree that they managed to stick around so long. They were simply repetitive and uninteresting.

Bottom Line: It's a decent collection even if a lot of space is wasted. I'm looking forward to Volume 5 and the next meeting of Submariner and the Human Torch.



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