A Rapturous Break-Up
Young Bill Young here. Sadie’s out of town this week, so I’m helming the blog. Let’s get started…
Girl meets boy. It’s love! Girl loses boy. Girl gets on plane to the left coast. While girl is in the air, the warring factions of Earth’s superpowers have a final battle, destroying themselves and devastating civilization. Girl calls boy on her cell phone to profess love and forgiveness right before all communications go down. Girl is visited by a spectral figure called “The Word” who gives girl a powerful sword to avenge the innocents against the cruelty (cannibalism!) that is emerging in the wake of the apocalypse. Girl strikes a deal: she’ll become this avenging angel if it means she can be reunited with boy. But girl will have to do a lot of slaying to get her man back. Total kewlness.
And that’s just the first issue of Dark Horse Comics’ new series Rapture. Dark Horse calls the story the “worst break-up ever.” Ya think?
Honestly, issue two was a let down after the superb set-up, but I’m not giving up hope… yet.
Oh yeah. I forgot to mention that boy plays guitar and writes songs. Follow Rapture on MySpace and hear boy sing a song! Total kewlness.
And don’t confuse our heroine with this different Rapture. Plus, if you’re intrigued by sword-weilding females, check out the Luna Brothers’ The Sword.
Oh, Baby!
Young Bill Young here. Well, the world welcomed Leo Bruce Maddox last night at 9:45 p.m. Congrats to Sadie and family.
This special event deserves a special post—a baby post! So I go to Google and type in Baby NEAR ‘Graphic Novel” and I get a link to this cool online GN on NBC’s Heroes site. Now, this is meant to be, because Sadie is the only person I know who has continued to watch Heroes. (Hello! Jumped the Shark, anyone?)
Anyway, the online Heroes GN 130 “Baby Power” is described on the Heroes Wiki thusly:
Hiro and Ando receive a message from the mysterious REBEL to “Save Matt Parkman.” But when they arrive at the address all they find is a baby. They soon discover that the baby has a power and is, unbeknownst to Matt, Matt Parkman’s son. After saving Baby Matt from being abducted by agents, Hiro and Ando suddenly become the sole protectors of the child. They set out on a cross-country mission to unite father and son but quickly learn that traveling with young children is never easy. And then there’s the issue of diapers…
At least the story features Hiro and Ando, characters I still like.
You can celebrate the arrival of the new Mattox and satisfy your graphic novel jones all at the same time. Just download and enjoy this pdf file of Baby Power!
Huntress Year One review
I like the Year One and Origin comics because they let me get to know a character that I might not be familiar with. Since they literally start from the beginning there’s no need for prior knowledge. So Huntress Year One sounded great. I was pretty excited about the cover – an angry woman with a crossbow. But you know what they say about judging a book by its cover….*sigh*
What I found inside was a cliched mess. Little Helena Rose Bertinelli watches as her family is murdered. Of course, she is inexplicably left alive, I think we are supposed to assume it’s because she’s a little girl. But still, sloppy work assassins. Helena’s family isn’t just any Gotham family; her father was the Don of Gotham. Helena is sent to live and hide out with a family in Sicily where she dreams of revenge. Naturally.
What follows is the story of a woman bent on revenge and falling in love and losing that love and we’ve seen it all before. The artwork is flat, failing to convey any kind of emotion besides anger. Luckily, Helena is angry a lot. The dialogue is stilted, full of conversations like this:
Huntress: Everyone thinks they’re the good guy.
Batgirl: Sometimes there really are good guys.
Huntress: You settle for being good. I’m going to be the best.
There’s also the issue of feminism which, like Helena’s “take it when it works” approach to faith, is constantly brought up. Yet, it’s hard to get into girl power when all the women are caricatures. Helena’s cousin is crabby and petty and jealous. Well, of course, she is – she’s fat! You can tell Helena is “feisty” cause she is rude – I mean, speaks her mind. Batgirl is good, we know this because she’s bubbly and tries to make friends. Catwoman on the other hand is dark and edgy, just look at her cigarette.
I’m not quite sure what the point of this was. To remake the character, (who has apparently had several incantations)? To explain why in later Birds of Prey the Huntress hints at being a lesbian? Cause you know, nothing will turn you gay like the guy you love turning into a jerk over something you (sort of) did. It’s that easy ladies!!!
In conclusion: cool cover, weak delivery.
Batman R.I.P. – review
You’ll have to forgive me. I have a bad cold and I’m attempting to review Batman R.I.P. so there’s a very good chance that none of this post will make sense.
What is it about Batman that makes me so sad? The whole Dark Knight, troubled soul, citizens of Gotham – just brings me down. Not that it’s necessarily a bad thing, a lot of beautiful writing comes out of sadness. Elie Wiesel’s Night comes to mind and of course there’s England’s version of the Bat, Hamlet. But the level of sadness in Batman has really been cranked up hasn’t it?
Batman faces the Black Glove. He’s on the Glove’s trail when his “love” Jezebel Jet betrays him, whispering the code word that shatters his psyche. Luckily, he’s got a backup personality – I promise it’s much cooler than it sounds. Together with Robin and Nightwing (who aren’t much help but what can you do) the new Zur en Arrh Batman continues his efforts to destroy the Black Glove even at the cost of what’s left of Bruce Wayne’s life.
Batman R.I.P. isn’t so much about Bruce Wayne’s physical death or even his psychological death (that happened a while back) but his emotional end. I can’t decide if I think this is brilliant or cheap. I’ve heard people argue that Bruce Wayne had it coming. In fact, the book itself makes the point, in clue flashbacks from The Butler Did It, that Bruce Wayne has had numerous chances to take his pain and actually learn from it and doesn’t. But to break him with a rumor? Though it’s a pretty good one and I love the idea that maybe the Wayne’s aren’t the saints we thought – still…
There’s no beating Morrison’s feel for plot or timing. I loved the second personality even if it came with some kind of freaky little batkid. Actually, I became sort of attached to that Life with Louie looking sidekick. There’s also the sad truth that no one understands Batman except his worst enemy, who happens to be insane. That’s when you know it’s all gone horribly wrong, when the Joker speaks reasonably about what the rational thing to do is and of course everyone ignores him. It suggests that maybe the Joker is a twisted Cassandra, telling the sad fate of Gotham to power hungry villians and heroes.
I do have a few gripes though. First, Arkham Asylum – when is this place going to get some better security? I mean, really. It’s just irritating. Second, the artwork is too over the top. I’m sure Morrison and Daniel were intending it to be this way. A friend of mine told me the back story of the whole Zur en Arrh, explaining that Morrison is heavily influenced by past, campy Batman stories. So the artwork reflects that but I don’t know if it needs to. Joker looks too much like a monster, like Pennywise the Clown and the faces of Gotham citizens sit flat. Finally, I always find myself wondering stupid things like where the Joker finds purple pinstripes on such short notice? Does he have a special store that he stops by? Do they let him keep some in Arkham?
That may just be the cough syrup talking….
