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With the March issue I had managed to get the pile of the trades down to two books. So I slowed my reading and focused on other things. Then my life took a series of unexpected turns. Another turned out okay but not as good as I hoped. But so it goes.
Right when I thought I'd never have to write another one of these 'Did I Get What I Paid For?' columns again, there was another local comic show within weeks of my cousin's birthday. So I ended up refilling the box. Every time I think I'm out, they suck me right back in again.
So with out further ado, let's get down to this whole messy business.
Sgt. Frog: Volume 17: I didn't think I'd ever say this about Sgt. Frog but this volume didn't seem quite right. Oh the characters behaved the way the usually did. The snow fights were really funny but after that the stories just sort of came to a slow halt. It was nowhere near as good as it had been in the past. The energy and rhythm were missing. It felt like the writer on the Japanese side of things or maybe the translators were really phoning it in. It's not that it was bad but it wasn't good either. I can't really give it a terrible review because it was not as annoying as Universe X and light years beyond X-Men: The Manga. It just did not seem like Sgt. Frog. So in essence, I'm saying that at $10.99, I did not get what I paid for.
Amerinca Splendor - Pride and Hubris: American Splendor is always top notch comics writing. The 'hero in everyone' approach the series takes can take a little getting used to but is always entertaining. Much like the precursor "American Splendor: War Stories," it does not follow the life of Harvey Pekar, but instead a peripheral person in his life. Michael Malice (as comic booky as the name sounds) is a real person. In some respects, I think I'd kind of like the guy. He's definitely a bright man. However the chapter where he gets political and starts worshiping Ayn Rand is where I lose interest, not in the story but in the person. The again, Mister Malice holds "Atlas Shrugged" and "The Fountainhead" as near and dear to him as I do "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" and "Letters from the Earth." What also is a little out of place for American Splendor is the sense of optimism. The story itself is well
written and engaging. I have to say I got my $10 worth.
The Will Eisner Reader: I went into reading this book knowing full well that it is considered one of Eisner's minor works. The types of stories he came up with while sitting on the john. Which is strange because each story was an in depth portrait of humanity at it's best and worst. The stories were tragic and funny. They read as close as a comic can come to textual and visual poetry. If these tales of life, love, death, mystery, crime, comedy and murder are the stories Eisner came up with and put away or forgot about until he needed a quick paycheck then I feel sorry for those people who actually try to do their jobs because he still put them to shame. Worse yet? It was only $4. It was definitely worth it.
The Essential Avengers Vol 4: Unlike the previous volume which struggled with a few clunkers, this volume fluctuated in quality very rapidly. The first battle between The Avengers and Squadron Sinister was a spot on homage to the Justice League that almost makes it way to parody. The Avengers working for a mob boss story was amusing in an end of the silver age sort of way. The unintentionally racist "Return of the Serpent Society" and "Red Wolf" sagas were funny though they were not meant to be. Typos and duplicate panels aside, the section where Roy Thomas handed over plotting duties to Harlan Ellison seem a little rushed, but were an otherwise amusing two parter. The mistakes reportedly can be blamed on Ellison not turning plot notes in until almost deadline. If this story were done now the book would have been delayed six months just for his needs. However what really saves this book, in spite of the deus ex machina
ending, is the inclusion of The Kree-Skrull War. Was it worth it a $7? Yeah. It's hard to beat that price for a phonebook.
Astro Boy Vol 14: No folks, I didn't read twelve volumes of Astro Boy and forget to review them. I'm having trouble find the volumes in order. Anyway- this volume was similar in a lot of ways to the previous volume I reviewed. More diving into the eternal inner child in a surreal meta-textual sort of way. I found the last story in the book to be the best and by far the most funny. It is hard to read Tezuka's Astro Boy and not just be overcome with glee in spite of yourself. Yes, it is inherently very silly. Yes, there is almost no logic behind it. It doesn't try too hard to be taken seriously. Really, how seriously can you take a story where the villains get the information they need by strong arming Osamu Tezuka? Even with the racist monkeys, I got what I paid for at $2.75.
Girl Genius Vol 7: Yes, I know I reviewed volume 8 several months ago. I am now caught up to where I should be. Yet again, the romantic/action comedy that is Girl Genius induces much laughter and builds its twisted alternate history. Again, its fault is that by issue 6 it is a hard world to get into for the uninitiated. I've been reading the book since volume 1 and each book keeps getting better and better. Gil and the Jaegers steal almost every scene they are in. Gil started out in volume 2 as comic relief but has slowly turned into as a complex a character as Agatha herself. So at $10, I got what I paid for and await book 9.
X-Men: Poptopia: Joe Casey's X-Men story presented here is a bit of an odd duck compared to its brothers of the time. I can imagine someone reading it when it first came out and thinking it was a bit of a let down. It's not that the book was bad. I've read worse. Tons worse. It was just sort of there. The B plot of the X-Men looking for the man who killed the London branch of the Morlocks was sort of been there done that. It's not like we haven't seen the Morlocks get killed at least three or four times already. I don't know why but I found it hard to invest emotionally in the A plot about Chamber. The later two chapters about the mutant brothel were interesting and would have liked to have seen more of it. At five dollars, I could take or leave and leaning more towards leaving it. Why? Because you deranged bastards get a kick out of me insulting things and don't seem to give a damn when I want to wax poetic about
what makes something good. Really- what is wrong with you? Did your mother not read to you as a child? Did your father make you drink warm Doctor Pepper till you wet yourself? How does that feel, huh? You like it when I insult tradepaperbacks and graphic novels that can't fight back but you can't stand it if I attack you. You hypocritical little smegheads! People like you make me sick- All of you. Especially you- you know what you did. Calm down Jess, let's move on to happy thoughts like...
Exiles Vol 3: When handled correctly- this book is not necessarily the meatiest book Marvel has ever produced but it makes up for it in sheer fun. From battling Hulk and Skrulls to shopping for lingerie this book has it all. It has one of the nicest uses of the really forced non-crossover event "Nuff Said" that I've seen. There is a surprising amount of character development this volume as the loose fit group of heroes begin to mesh together as a team. The issue with Sunfire and Morph at the beach is a scream. The book is worth it a $6.
There I think I have the anger under control now--
Exiles Vol 5: The premise of Exiles is that every thing that can occur does occur in some reality or another. This can be an interesting idea to toy with as a writer. For instance- what if we lived in a universe where Chuck Austen did not write a brief run on Exiles? We could have been spared a poorly conceived sequel to the much maligned Mutant X series. The execution is much worse. This being Chuck Austen" it's of the kind where they have to inject several times as they try to find a vein. Most of the Exiles come off as extremely out of character. That's okay. Everyone is out of character written by Austen. Almost all traces of the effort Judd Winnick put into characterization during his run are gone. The only one who seems like his normal self is Morph. Then again, it is easy to write an @$$hole. I'd like to quote two philosophical siblings, one of whom said: "I can ta think of the ending of this..." and the
other who said: "Funny, I can't think of anything else."
Exiles: Vol 8: Let's all just forget how bad Exiles volume 4 is, alright? With Tony Bedard in the driver's seat that gets pretty easy. The second trip to the mainline Marvel Universe turns out to be a much better story- as the Exiles enter a string of adventures that team them up with one of my favorite fighting teams, The Fantastic Four. The addition of Namora to the team adds a nice sense of paranoia to the mysterious Timebroker. The interaction with the Fantastic Four itself was fun. The Impossible Man story was incredibly silly and a good chance to put the much neglected Morph in the spotlight. The inclusion of Beak seems a little bit odd but also kind of entertaining. The Big M shows how easily one of the Exiles could have gone the villain route. This one was a huge improvement over Chuck Austen. This one is worth the six bucks.
The Essential Avengers Vol 5: Again- this volume has fluctuating quality out the yin-yang. The first third is written by Roy Thomas who struggles to regain his creative energy after the long super plotted Kree-Skrull War. The Vision and Scarlet Witch subplot basically keeps the book afloat. The issue that adapts an existing short story by Harlan Ellison is probably Thomas's best effort in this volume. Then enters Steve Englehart whose several runs on Avengers are legendary. Only the first year or so, he takes his time getting a handle on things. It is worsened by the fact that the book has many crossovers and not all of them are collected. There is a minor crossover with his run ?n Captain America but that is not collected here. A big crossover with Daredevil (and writer Steve Gerber) is collected. The big draw collected is the Avenger/Defender War which boosts the quality somewhat. However since I already own Essential
Defenders Vol 1, it doesn't earn it that much credit. Needless to say, it is probably Englehart's second run on Avengers that is more fondly remembered. Still I still think, even with the spottiness of some the issues, it was pretty much worth the $5 I paid for it.
Exiles Vol 9: This volume packs some weird stuff indeed. First- Ego the Living Planet impregnates the Earth in order to help him battle Galactus. The Exiles struggle to help the Earth decide just what side it's on. Baby Earth has temper and daddy issues, not to mention a dislike for its inhabitants. While I mentioned it before during my greatest single issue stories article, this volume also contains "The Rube Goldberg." How can you not love a story where the difference between life and death for a world is whether or not one man got his cheese Danish? There is more building of the "Is the Timebroker the teams unofficial seventh member or a temporal threat?" thread. There is also a nice little quiet visit to the villain Kulan Gath from various Marvel Team-Up and X-book issues. They are using villains in an attempt to get home and having it all go to hell was a nice twist. So yeah, easy to say I got my seven bucks worth here.
Exiles Vol 10: Once in a while an X-Men event will occur that in and of itself is boring and predictable but has tie-ins that are a lot of fun. That it was what happened with the return to the Age of Apocalypse. The primary miniseries was bad. Not "X-Men: The Manga" bad but pretty bad. This story builds on that but also takes into account all the threads from AOA that have been growing in Exiles since issue one and finally lets them play out. It forces the big Timebroker story line right to the point where you think it is going to burst and then it just kind of stops. Why? The weak point of this trade is that it collects three or four issues of Exiles and one super sized AOA version of the Handbook to the Marvel Universe. If you find these separate issues in a cheap box go ahead and buy them. The trade was not worth my six fifty. I only wish I was doing this column somewhere professionally. I'm pretty sure crap like this would count for
a tax write off.
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