Having this week resisted both a takeover bid from a major media conglomerate and the suggestion that we should change the site’s name to Entertainment Daily, we continue unabated with your weekly batch of capsule reviews. Under the microscope this week are Amazing Spider-Man, Booster Gold, Hulk Team-Up and Thunderbolts. Read the rest of this entry »

Well, now, this is a pleasant surprise. I’ve been following Booster Gold since it kicked off, but aside from the odd mildly entertaining issue, it hasn’t really lived up to the promise shown by its premise. Simply put, if you’ve got Booster Gold hopping around through time setting history straight, then surely the thing to do is to have him show up in as many classic and/or memorable stories as possible? It’s been done from time to time – such as a Killing Joke issue that came off as somewhat misjudged – but never really exploited to its full potential as an idea. Until now.

Because not only does this issue see Booster thrown slap-bang into the middle of the events of an old DCU comic, but it’s one that’s a bona fide classic. Regular readers will know of my affection for Marv Wolfman and George Perez’s New Teen Titans, and in particular issue #2 is actually one of the first comics that I remember ever reading. So having the events of its pages – and there’s as much story in that one issue as you’d see in a six-part arc nowadays – as the backdrop to this issue holds immediate appeal from the start – but it’s even more pleasing that it’s done in a clever and involving way.

The line that Jurgens has chosen to take with this particular excursion of Booster’s is to have the Ravager story play out almost exactly as it did in that issue – except to account for the presence of Booster and the villainous Black Beetle. So to begin with, the difference is mild, and Grant Wilson’s vendetta follows a familiar course – but as the story rolls on, it deviates further from established “history”, culminating in a surprise ending. Dialogue is either faithfully reproduced or altered to suit the changed circumstances while remaining familiar – and various scenes will strike a chord for anyone who fondly remembers the original. And yes, Jurgens even finds time to alight on a certain memorable poolside scene – although, as with Perez, there’s a slightly more innocent feel to the artwork than if someone like Ed Benes had drawn it.

Indeed, this facet actually gets to the nub of why having this comic intersect with New Teen Titans works so well. Wolfman and Perez’s work was magnificent, but it also looks quite old-fashioned nowadays – but the thing is, so is Booster Gold. In the ’90s, Jurgens may have been “cutting edge”, but neither his writing nor his art style have really moved on at all from then. Which is actually fine, so long as you like it (and I do) – but the point is, this isn’t a very “modern” comic, and its charming old-fashionedness therefore  goes hand in hand with the similar attributes of the comic that it’s essentially throwing Booster wholesale into the pages of.

Meanwhile, of course, Booster now shares his pages with a 10-page Blue Beetle strip. And it’s decent enough, really, like much of Sturges’ run on the cancelled title was – a fairly straightforward action story with solid artwork and a handful of amusing character moments. I’m not sure it’ll do much to get people buying Booster Gold purely for it (aside from those who were already fans of Jaime) – you’d probably need John Rogers back for that – but it’s just nice to see stories featuring the book’s set of characters again, and I hope DC continue to see it as a good idea.

And so The Little Series That Couldn’t finally meets its end. It’s hard to know exactly what else Blue Beetle could have done to earn some much-needed support from DC – apparently, coming up with the best new lead character the publisher has had in years, not to mention a superb and immediately-engaging supporting cast, throwing in a unique and kind of brilliant costume and power set, enjoying immediate popularity when translating the character to a new popular Batman cartoon series, being more respectful to the character’s antecedents than Dan Didio has ever been, and telling stories that start out as witty teen-tries-to-cope-with-powers comedy drama (under Giffen and Rogers) before exploding into an utterly awesome and epic alien invasion saga (under Rogers solo), simply won’t cut it if you’re not written by Geoff Johns. Alright, so the series had settled down into being “good” rather than “excellent” under Matthew Sturges, and never seemed to have quite the same visual spark without Cully Hamner or Rafael Albuquerque on art duties, but it was still generally entertaining and one of DC’s absolute best current superhero books – so cutting the series so drastically short and fobbing Jaime off into the terminally-dull Teen Titans seems like unduly harsh punishment.

As it happens, underneath a  wonderful Hamner cover (echoing his equally wonderful cover to #1) is an issue that sees the title going out with a bit of a whimper, rather than a bang. There’s a definite sense of trying to tidy up Jaime’s individual mythology and supporting cast as quickly as possible – so as to leave him little in the way of unnecessary baggage for his ongoing team-based adventues – and it’s probably this that results in the rushed and somewhat ill-thought-out sudden death of one of those secondary characters. There’s nothing like enough page time for the likes of Paco, Brenda and Traci – the people who’ve helped make the book so distinctively great – and the battle with the Kdra, despite its tragic consequences, feels too inconsequential when compared with the final issues of Rogers’ run. Visually it suffers, too, and you can’t help but wish Hamner had been able to return for the interiors as well as the cover. It feels rushed and particularly sloppy in the closing pages, while I still can’t get over how Barberi misinterprets the “horns” on the back of the costume, especially as you’ve got them being done properly on the issue’s front.

But Sturges still knows how to throw out some neat moments, and he – like Rogers – is suitably respectful of the legacy of the Blue Beetle name, so there’s plenty of spiel in Jaime’s “hero reconsidering his role” internal monologue (a standard feature of any character’s final issue) about living up to Kord and Garrett. Indeed, it’s this that leads to perhaps the best moment of the writer’s brief run – as Jaime falls through space, he ponders that “Dan Garrett in this situation would probably have done something dashing and bold that got him out of the scrape just in the nick of time. Ted Kord would have done something clever and out of left field. And he would have chuckled while he did it. But I don’t know what Dan would have done. And I don’t know what Ted would have done. I’m not them,” before coming up with a solution that combines the best of both of them. It’s a lovely moment, and demonstrative of what this character and series are… were… capable of.

It’s a crying shame that DC haven’t given this excellent title more support – I know that when something’s just not selling, it’s not selling, but I’ve never seen promotional material for it like I have for, say, Captain Britain, and simply not bothering to try and capitalise on the success of Jamie’s Brave and the Bold episode was downright baffling – and it makes me more than a little annoyed at them. I’ll be trying to keep up with Jaime’s future adventures as best as possible, and hopefully his supporting cast will still be around as well – but the unique little niche that Blue Beetle had carved out for itself will be sorely missed.

Reviews of Blue Beetle #35, Daredevil #115, Mister X: Condemned #2, Ultimate Spider-Man #130 and another of those Shameless Plugs we’ve neglected to include for a while!

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Another batch of capsule reviews from the Comics Daily team, including Blue Beetle #33, Captain America #44, Secret Invasion: Inhumans #4, Ultimate X-Men #98 and X-Force #9. Read the rest of this entry »

Something a bit different this Tuesday, since it’s been a quiet week for comics – at least, for comics worth saying anything about. While the series in question is already up to its second episode, I thought it worth taking a quick look at the pilot episode of the new DC-related animated series Batman : The Brave and the Bold…

The instinctive reaction, of course, is to say “What? Another Batman cartoon?” And coming so soon after the disappointing The Batman, it’s probably a valid one. However, targeted as it is at something of a younger market, The Brave and the Bold is arguably more distinct from the Dini/Tamm Batman series than the Begins­-inspired effort, and quite frankly it’s all the better for it. Following in the footsteps of the likes of Teen Titans Go, it’s a slick, light-hearted, extravagant slice of all-ages fun, and well worth checking out despite its apparent simplicity.

It’s strange, though, in that it takes its cues from a version of Batman that was once the most common public perception of the character, but which has been finally eroded by two different movie franchises and the aforementioned early ‘90s animated classic. It’s Silver Age, pure and simple. This is a Batman who’s known more as a “superhero” than a grim vigilante, who bats nary an eyelid at flying through wormholes with rocket-powered wings, and who actually… you know… smiles.

But while there are tropes clearly lifted from the ‘60s TV series – a wry musical sting here, a rope-tied deathtrap cliffhanger there – there’s a crucial difference in that this Batman isn’t camp in an Adam West kind of way. There’s a sense of fun, and there are jokes, but it never takes the piss (even with comedian Diedrich Bader giving a suitably bombastic lead vocal performance) – the superheroics are genuinely on the level, and a strong balance is maintained. It’s nice to see a nod, too, to one of the strongest ever examples of the fusion of comedy and non-parodic superhero stories – the villain in the throwaway pre-credits sequence, the Clock King, while he’s changed quite significantly, is drawn from Giffen and deMatteis’ seminal Justice League run.

Another masterstroke, meanwhile, is in the use of the new Blue Beetle as the first episode’s guest character (each weekly, unconnected tale features, as if you hadn’t guessed from the title, a different character teaming up with Bats). While a few obvious changes and simplifications are made, it’s generally a note-perfect rendition of one of the DCU’s best new characters of recent years (we even get an appearance by Paco!), and merely strengthens the opinion that he (a) shouldn’t have had his series cancelled, and (b) should quite probably get his own cartoon. The young, generally-unsure-of-himself but occasionally-gets-carried-away hero is a good foil for a square-jawed, all-hero Batman, and his origins and power set fit well with the outer-space theme of the episode.

Topped off by some genuinely brilliant animation – fast-paced and McCracken/Tartakovsy-esque, with some absolutely lovely flashes – it may be a little simple and straightforward, but it’s a very well-produced cartoon, and it’s clearly got its heart in the right place. It’s not going to set the world on fire, but given the generally po-faced and overly “dark” nature of most DC properties nowadays, it’s nice to see someone doing something a bit lighter.