Adam Graham's Blog: Christians and Superheroes, page 99

Book Review: Daredevil, Volume 4 (Mark Waid)

Daredevil, Volume 4 by Mark Waid

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


The book begins with Matt Murdoch (Daredevil) recovering from an ordeal in Latveria at the end of the previous book. This requires some skill by the master of many sizes, Hank Pym. No sooner is he back than New York than Foggy reports finding the remains of Matt's father (assumed to have been lost when the Mole Man went on a morbid scheme.)

It appears Matt's going crazy or someone's trying to drive him that way. Foggy believes Matt lied to him and dissolved their partnership.

However, Foggy ends up needing Matt's help or Daredevil's rather when he's called on to defend a poor nurse who has was accused of murdering her boss in a locked room mystery. However, when Matt's ex-wife appears in his apartment and Foggy finds she's never left the asylum, Matt's sanity is never in more question.

There is plenty to like about this collection. The relationship and tension between longtime best friend Foggy Nelson is handled very well by Waid, as it's realistic and poignant. It feels like a very real human relationship.

The mystery and build up to the solution is also well-handled and very tense, with a lot of psychological drama.

On a more mixed note, we have the solution which I won't give away, but it's kind of in-between cheesy and disgusting, with a lean towards cheesy. Though, this goes along with the Dark Silver Age feel of the series.

On a somewhat more confusing note, I have to comment on the appears of Matt's institutionalized ex-wife Milla. The book includes Matt having sent her letters that he "thinks of you every day and misses you." This is somewhat odd given his pursuit of a relationship with an assistant DA and a fling with the Black Cat. However, this may just be adding depth to his character.

Overall, a solid read and I await Vol. 5.



View all my reviews

Book Review: Showcase Presents Martian Manhunter, Volume 1

Showcase Presents: Martian Manhunter, Vol. 1 by Jack Miller

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


J'onn J'onzz, the Manhunter from Mars was a classic DC character and early Justice League member. He began his career in 1955 in a back up feature to Batman in Detective comics in a series of page features. That's why this book can easily contain the first 80 of his solo adventures.

The book begins with a story from Batman #78 called the Manhunter from Mars from 1953. The story and character don't appear to have anything to do with the Martian Manhunter, but hey Batman reprints from the 1950s are somewhat rare.

We then meet J'onn J'onzz in Detective Comics #225. He a Martian, brought to Earth through a scientist's experiment. The scientist dies as J'ohn is stranded and decides to fight crime on Earth while waiting for a way back to Mars. He assumes the identity of John Jones and becomes a police detective (about as easily as Superman became Clark Kent reporter in some early stories) and sets out on an incredible career of fighting crime.

During the Manhunter's early years, the Superhero genre was in decline, so the Martian Manhunter was much more of a super powered detective than a superhero. He had to solve the case as John Jones and present criminals for prosecution. Six page comic book stories were often very poorly written, but these unsigned stories were actually very well done, with clever mysteries and some nice plot twists. What made it fun too was that the Manhunter did most of his work invisible. While other heroes had a secret identity, his entire existence was a secret.

Of course, there was some repetition. I lost count of how many times we were told the Manhunter's weakness was fire, but other than that, the stories were great.

The rise of the Superhero genre led to a change in the series. After 4 years, a Martian criminal (despite the fact that we were told in the first story that crime didn't exist on Mars) came to Earth and shot J'onn with a ray that made it so he couldn't use his Martian powers when invisible, and in order to save the day, the Martian Manhunter revealed his existence to the world.

From there, the Martian Manhunter becomes a much more typical Silver Age superhero story. I know that many alternate stories imagine 1950s Earth being hostile to the Manhunter forcing him underground as part of the constant beefing against the 1950s, but the way the book acts in 1959, people just thought, "Oh, he's from Mars, cool."

While the latter tales we're not as good, they were probably better written than many others. The length forbid the stories from getting too silly or too off-track for the most part. Of course, they did get a little longer. The stories changed from 6 pages to 7 with Detective Comics #280 in June of 1960 and leapt to 12 pages with Detective Comics #301 in March 1962.

The last of the 12 page stories in the book seemed to present the most problems. It was about a crime college where criminal students tries to keep up their grades while using outlandishly silly crime devices to commit robberies. In this story, the chief of Police mentions the Manhunter's weakness to fire (his only weakness) when the Manhunter had tried and succeeded from keeping everyone from knowing about it. In the last story, the chief knows but criminals don't for some reason.

Still even that story was fun. Which is a good word for the whole book. Of eighty-one classic comic book stories, there were a few weak ones, but overall this is just a truly fun enjoyable book taking a look at an underrated Silver Age character.



View all my reviews

Book Review: Essential Daredevil, Volume 3

Essential Daredevil, Vol. 3 by Roy Thomas

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This third volume of Daredevil reprints sees ol' Hornhead on a variety of adventures with the last issue of the Stan Lee run, the Roy Thomas' run as writer and then the Gerry Conway run, with issues 49-74 and Iron Man 35 and 36. With the exception of a few issues where he was on vacation, Gene Colan pencils each of the stories, and that's practically worth three stars itself.

Thomas really had a great handle for the character. His writing style made Daredevil a clever crime fighter. He never quite solved the problem that vexed Daredevil in terms of the B-grade villains, but the way Thomas wrote Daredevil, I didn't care. Daredevil was a great character who didn't great villains to play off of. The plots were fun. First, there was Daredevil deciding to kill off the character Matt Murdock only to resurrect and reveal his identity to Karen Page which turns out to be a mistake. Murdock's overall cognitive dissonance is lessened as he becomes special assistant to District Attorney Foggy Nelson.

Karen wants him to quit being Daredevil but just as he's about to retire, he's drawn into a war with Crime Wave much to Karen's chagrin. She leaves New York and Murdoch's unable to help him thanks to a duel with the Gladiator that's brought about through the ineptitude and cluelessness of Foggy Nelson. Then Murdoch follows her to the West Coast.

The Karen Page story line really is one of the negatives of the Roy Thomas run. Maybe, it was her bad early impression, or the fact that she's just so obviously not the right woman for Matt/Daredevil, but the storyline is painful as Matt/DD continues pining for this relationship that was never meant to be.

Even out of the bad of the Thomas run came some good. Some of the West Coast stories were pretty good including a good old fashioned film lot murder mystery.

Story quality dropped a bit in Issue #70 as Gary Friedrich writes a ham-fisted political tale about an evil rightwing actor becoming the Tribune, a character who takes over a courtroom and dispenses summary judgment based on his views. Then Gerry Conway took over in Issue and as it was 1971 headed for the Bronze age, we increased angst with Matt Murdoch smashing a mirror because it's not something a blind person should own (although it probably just came with the apartment.) Conway's highlight was a three part cross-over with Iron Man, a creepy gang called the Zodiac, and some mystical aliens.

Overall, Conway didn't seem to have much of a grasp on Daredevil or good storytelling. The last issue in the book has a great premise as New Yorker's are struck blind and Daredevil is immune as he's all ready blind. The end result is rushed, and as you'd expect in a Daredevil story, there's not even a servicable villain in the story.

Bottom line: Great book for Stan Lee's swan song as writer of Daredevil and Roy Thomas' solid run, but Conway and guest writers are a bit of an Achilles heal.



View all my reviews

Book Review: Daredevil Volume 3 (Mark Waid)

Daredevil, Volume 3 by Mark Waid

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Volume 3 of Mark Waid's Daredevil kicks off with a three way team up between ol 'Hornhead, Spider-man, and the Punisher as the plot of the Omega Drive containing all of the info on several very dangerous crime organizations. Initially the Punisher just wants to go for the kill on Daredevil, but is drawn into an uneasy alliance with the two heroes, along with his protege.

This plan doesn't work out but how the Omega Drive issue resolves itself is still pretty clever. Indeed, this book shows a bit of Matt Murdoch's smarts more than other issues. Issue 12 is almost a complete flashback to how he saved longtime friend and partner Foggy Nelson's career when they were both in law school. This is a nice touch.

The book ends with Latveria kidnapping Daredevill for crimes against the state and they sentence him to a biological attack that eats away at his senses. Daredevil faces a tough challenge and really is fighting for his life.

Overall, Waid hits a solid Home Run as this is the best of three trades released on this series and that says something. Daredevil is heroic, tough, and smart, with thrilling action, and wonderful plots.

I give it a five stars despite the fact that I really didn't like where it stopped as it ended on a bit of a cliffhanger, and it also became distracting that there were several contrasting styles of art. Really, it's stunning that a series this good can't maintain a consistent artist. However, none of the art was bad, and the story makes up for the lack of consistency.



View all my reviews

Book Review: Essential Daredevil, Volume 2

Essential Daredevil, Vol. 2 by Stan Lee

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Ol' Hornhead returns for another 20+ Adventures. This book collects Daredevil #26-#48 as well as Special #1 and Fantastic Four #73 which provides an ending to a story arch begun in the Daredevil magazine.

Overall, I thought Daredevil took a couple steps forward both in the stories and as a character.

The art of Gene Colan is absolutely stunning throughout. Some of the full page pictures look good enough to frame and the black and white really brings that out.

Perhaps, the most controversial aspect of the book is the presence of Mike Murdoch, Matt Murdoch's invented twin brother. Many fans have panned the contrivance as "annoying". I actually kind of liked him. More to the point, I think it was a psychological twist. Being seen as a "helpless blind man" is clearly maddening to Matt Murdoch. As Mike, he can simply have fun, be himself, and not have to live with that stigma. He can be fun and fancy free. Mike Murdoch "died" officially after several issues of disuse, so I appear to be in the minority on that.

I also liked that the over-used "love triangle" between Foggy, Karen, and Matt was abandoned with just a Matt-Karen love interest/conflict being enough.

The biggest weakness with these early Daredevil stories is without a doubt, the villains. Daredevil Special #1 featured a team up of Daredevil's greatest early villains as the Emissaries of Evil. It was an obvious attempt to give Daredevil his own version of Spider-man's Sinister Six and it was just sad (particularly with the Matador making the team). However, thinks looked up considerably for Daredevil when he faced off against a couple of old Fantastic Four enemies with the Trapster in issues #35-#36, and Dr. Doom in #37-#38 leading to Fantastic Four #73 in which Daredevil would guest star along with Spider-man and Thor. True enough, it would turn into an exhibition fight, but what an exhibition. Finally in Daredevil #42, he gets a truly supervillain in the Jester. He may look like a refugee from D.C. Comics, but he packs some high powered villainous gravitas in the Daredevil universe and I hope to see the character again.

Daredevil #47 features Matt Murdoch using his legal prowess to help a blinded soldier and ex-cop who'd been falsely accused of corruption and then uses his skills as Daredevil to protect him from vengeful mob bosses. It's a heart-warming story for me, particularly with Daredevil going to Vietnam to entertain the troops. To be honest, that story moved the book from 4 stars to 4.5 and I rounded up.

It ends on a down note with Daredevil saving Foggy's life from the Stiltman but alienating him as Matt Murdoch along with Karen. It definitely left me wanting to read Volume 3. Overall, a very solid collection.




View all my reviews

Review: "Saved" Adventures of Superman #19 and 20

In Superman Adventures #19 and #20, we get the "Saved" storyline which opens with a character singing the praises of Superman and then jumps off a building with Superman saving him from falling.

The theme of people putting themselves at risk in hopes of Superman saving them is a familiar theme in this series as it was covered in Adventures of Superman #15. But this time, there's a twist. The kid's jumping because he belongs to the Church of Superman and all 900 members of the Internet "congregation" are going to jump simultaneously from all over the world expecting Superman to save them.

Superman goes "undercover" and discovers that the church began as one young girl's Superman blog who her parents turned into the church in order to exploit it for money.

The story has been discussed as a cautionary tale about the dark side of religion". The message seems to be that religion is: 1) stupid and 2) a con game.

While there are con games out there, this book doesn't give any feeling of context of being balanced.

Beyond the religious angle, this is just not a very good story either as a Superman tale or just a good comic book.

Rating: 1.5 out of 5.0

The End of the Adventures of Superman

The Adventures of Superman series is not complete, but it's done for me. I loved the first fourteen issues of this series, but the last few issues have been downhill.

The depressing Issue #15, in which a young man parks in front of a train in hopes that Superman will save him was followed by a mediocre retelling of Superman's origin story in Issues 16-18, then we had "Saved" and following "Saved," we had a story of Superman fighting two members of the Justice League controlled by Darkseid while a little Russian girl struggled with people not liking her. What those two stories had to do with each other, I still don't know.

So, I'm done. The first 14 issues of this series showed me that one thing I've thought as wrong. People do know how to write good Superman stories.

A good Superman story can be inspiring, fun, amazing, or it can be all three.

Superman on a "slow news day" matching wits with Lois for a story while quietly saving the world? (Fun)

Superman flying through space to encounter evils across the universe. (Amazing)

A Day from Lex Luthoer's diary (Fun)

Reflections of Superman's mother on her son. (Touching, Inspiring.)

Unfortunately, the last seven issues has shown that there are many writers who just don't want to do that, who may get the chance to writer Superman, but not the chance to get it.

The series was timed to coincide with the launch of the Man of Steel Movie, which I think is why we had so much good writing up front. With the moving in the background, we're getting treated to the same sort of tripe being served up in the mainstream DC universe, and if I wanted that, I'd just read the existing Superman titles.

In the end, I think DC is just too blind to the fact that there's a sizable group of people who don't like their approach to the mainstream titles. Adventures of Superman started to be a great alternative for that, but unfortunately the long-term trend is more of the same.

Book Review: Daredevil Volume 2 (Mark Waid)

Daredevil, Volume 2 by Mark Waid

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This book features Daredevil (Vol. 3) #7-#10 and 10.1, and Amazing Spider-man #677. After finishing the first Daredevil Book by Mark Waid which ended with issue 6, you'd expect the magazine to focus on the Omega Disk. A Fantastic Four badge with enough information on it to sink every crime boss in the country--and you would be wrong.

It begins off strongly with Daredevil #7, a nice Christmasy story with Matt Murdoch helping out at a school for the blind and as Daredevil struggling to lead them through a snow storm. Heart-warming tale. A-

Next up is Amazing Spider-man #677 and Daredevil #8 which is a Spider-man Cross-over (aside: Why does anyone buy individual comic books when companies plot to make you buy as many books as possible to find out what happened) that involves the Black Cat being framed for a burglary, but Spider-man knows she's innocent as he was talking to her at the time. The Spider-man issue features Spider-man thinking admirably of Daredevil for his tenacity while in the Daredevil issue, Daredevil says he doesn't like teaming with Spider-man because he talks too much. I prefer the story in the Spider-man issue, but the art in the Daredevil is better. The actual frame story is resolved, however the Black Catis offered a job, stealing the Omega Disk. The story also seems to be an excuse for hooking up Daredevil and Black Cat in a shallow encounter. Grade: B

You would expect Daredevil #9 and #10 to focus on the Omega Disk and again you would be wrong. Instead, you have Daredevil going into action when a bunch of bodies including the body of his father are stolen underground. The perpetrator is the Moleman who is in search of one particular body, the body of a woman he cared for. To be honest, this part of the story is creepy, ghoulish, and very downbeat. The Black Cat meanwhile is taking advantage of Matt's preoccupation to local the Omega Disk. This plot point has a much more clever out come. Grade: B-

You would expect Daredevil 10.1 to talk about the Omega Disk and this time you'd be right. Someone was sent after Matt while the terrorist organizations that have been seeking it have been unable to get together leading to one of the most unusual superhero actions ever. This one is the highlight of the book. It gives hopes that in the next Daredevil Trade rather than constantly showing this important disk but never Doing anything about it, that we might at last deal with this issue.

It was a decent book overall (for a modern comic) but it makes me appreciate my gold and silver age books far more.





View all my reviews

Sample Saturday: Enter the War Lord

In Powerhouse: Hard Pressed, Mitch Farrow is the prime villain , but needs a help handing hand from an unexpected source. In this scene, he gets it from an unexpected source:

Mitch whipped around.

A huge, fat guy filled the door. A hood hid the newcomer’s face, but he wore black steel body armor and a black cape over a green cardigan sweater.

Mitch mentally switched to his Pharaoh persona. “Who are you to say anything?”

“Allow me to introduce myself.” The huge jerk bowed to the waist. “I’m Varlock the Warlord. King Bel appointed me to handle you humans.”

“King Bel who?” Fournier had raised his left eyebrow. “Us humans?”

Just great. Pharaoh wrinkled his brow. Now he’d have to kill Fournier if the fool seriously tried to quit. “King Bel is Dorado Incorporated’s secret, inter-dimensional angel—in the benefactor sense. This is one of his agents.”

“Oh, I see.” Fournier stepped up beside Pharaoh, bowed, and extended his hand to Varlock. “Sir, how do you do?”

“How do I do what?”

Fournier and the Pharaoh exchanged glances, wrinkling their brows.

“Humans.” Varlock growled. “Cease and desist with the Earth-centric use of your silly human idioms. Too many to bother learning, and most will be irrelevant soon enough. King Bel sent me to address the problem code-named Powerhouse. You clearly aren’t prepared to deal with him, and it wasn’t in the Pharaoh’s job
description.”

Oh, so it took the allegedly advanced civilization eight months to figure out that a reporter-turned-CEO wasn’t the guy to take on the most powerful man on Earth? “I’ll send my regards to His Majesty for his considerations.”

“Thank you. While you are in charge of general operations, I am to lead the battle against this treasonous Powerhouse, and you are to assist me. I’ve commandeered from your safe a few thousand pieces of the worthless green paper to which your people have arbitrarily assigned monetary value. This will be filed on your budget as ‘miscellaneous.’”

Auditors would love that, not. Pharaoh swallowed. He’d have to obtain some money from the criminal enterprises to replace what was stolen from the safe. “Well, I’m glad you’re here. Eliminating superheroes isn’t my forte.”

“We’ve noticed.” Varlock sneered. “I’ve also commandeered a few of your strategy guides from your upstairs office to assist me in my planning.”

“Sure.”

“Report to me tomorrow evening at this address.” Varlock slapped a piece of paper on the desk. “At six o’clock, as you locally reckon time, you will see how I will destroy Powerhouse.”

Fournier rubbed his hands together. “I’ve got a plan for a robot!”

“We’ll consider it, nearsighted one. I must go.” Varlock twirled his long cape and rushed out of the office.

Fournier smirked like he wanted executed, ancient Egypt style. “Such a relief. I feel better about our chances of success.”

From the hall emanated the scream of a creature in pain.

Pharaoh peeked out the door and glanced around the corner. The alien warlord lay on the ground tangled in his own cape.
Oh brother.

“I’m fine,” Varlock got up and strode down the hall.

Powerhouse Hard Pressed is available in Paperback and for the Kindle, as well as an Audiobook.

Guest Post at Speculative Faith

My guest post is up at Speculative Faith.

In it I review Lee Weeks' "Angel Unaware" story arch from Daredevil: Dark Nights. Really it was a great story and it was a challenge for me to hold off on reviewing this until I was actually done with it:

Comic book stories are rarely faith-affirming. Christians are often portrayed as psychopaths, con men, or as wildly intolerant. For example, a group of Christian-like characters are portrayed as crazy fanatics jumping off a building so Superman will save them, in the recent story arc “Saved” from Adventures of Superman #19 and #20.

This is what makes Marvel’s “Angels Unaware” story arch from the anthology series Daredevil Dark Nights Issues 1-3 so stunning. It was a well-told, evocative comic book tale that powerfully portrayed/proclaimed the truth of the Gospel.

Read the whole thing.

Review: Essential Daredevil, Volume 1

Essential Daredevil, Vol. 1 by Stan Lee

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


One of my favorite episodes of Spider-man: The Animated Series featured the character Daredevil, a blind New York City Attorney with amazing physical powers through the use of his other senses.

It turns out my local library system had the Essential Daredevil, Vol. 1 containing his first twenty-five issues from the 1960s.

So below are my thoughts:

Origin: Matt Murdoch loses his sight in accident while trying to save a blind man from being hit. Due to radioactive material, he not only develops stronger senses as is typical with blind people but also extremely enhanced senses that also completely compensate for sight giving him a sort of radar vision among other things.

Murdoch's father, a boxer, is murdered for not fixing a fight. But he has urged Matt not to make his living with his fists. Matt honors his father's wishes and graduates from Law School but is unable to focus on his work until his father's brought to justice. He designs the Daredevil costume. He'd been teased by kids in school as a "Daredevil" and adopted that name. He set out to find his father's killer and took care of that in Issue #1. And thus begins a long career of crimefighting.

The Supporting Cast: Foggy Nelson, his law partner and Murdoch are in love with the same girl, their secretary Karen Page. Karen cares more for both Daredevil and Murdoch than Nelson. Foggy is a somewhat insecure and vain character, although he can be heroic in a pinch. In one arch, Spider-man sees Daredevil going into Murdoch and Nelson's office and concludes that Foggy is Daredevil because it couldn't possibly be the blind guy. Foggy than tries to subtly convince Karen he's Daredevil, putting their lives at risk.

Karen tends to be a little irritating. The art of Gene Colan art makes her look more attractive than earlier issues, but she's a little too focused on Matt's blindness. Her ability to make assumptions plus her guilelessness goes a little beyond innocent. She never truly does anything stupid, but she's no Mary Jane Watson.

Plot and Character: The book has been criticized for its B-grade villains and to an extent, it's true. The original Daredevil villains tend to be a little lame with character like the Matador and Stiltman and the Purple Man is a bit weird.

However, the stories are swashbuckling fun. The quality of villains picks up in Issue 6 when he meets the Fellowship of Fear that includes one villain who can fire a ray that induces large amount of fear-a big challenge for the Man Without Fear.

The Masked Marauder may be a bit of a generic character but he does work as a mastermind foil for Daredevil. The Gladiator and Tri-man are great physical challenges and even the Owl improves on his second appearance.

In addition to that, Daredevil meets up with Spider-man, Kazar, and the Submariner in this book. While some may dis Stan Lee's writing, I love it. He gives the stories a conversational air. I found myself chuckling at his notes several times and while most fans seem to hate the introduction of Mike Murdoch (Matt's Alleged twin brother (really Matt himself) meant to cover his secret identity), I thought it was an amusing and fun bit of 60s craziness.

No, you don't have great villains, but the book is pure Silver Age fun.

The character of Matt Murdoch is interesting. He seems to be addicted to adrenaline, which would seem to be his prime motivation for carrying on as Daredevil after his father's murderer was caught. He knows things are traps but boldly walks in wanting to see what will happen. Occasionally, The Man Without Fear acts like the Man Without Sense.

Clearly Matt feels constrained by what people expect of a blind man in terms of being helpless. In Issue 24, he declares that it feels like Matt Murdoch is the mask while Daredevil is the real person. A nice serious character conflict to go with all the fun of these books.

Overall, this is just a wonderful version of the character before Frank Miller had his way with him.

Overall, I give the collection 4 out of 5 stars.




View all my reviews