Slump and Skrulls

Here's how this works: I finish reading something, and I tell you about it, and I try not to bore you to death. This time, reviews, of sorts, of Dr. Slump vol. 16 (Viz, 2008) and Skrull Kill Krew (Marvel, 2006).



Well, now the last time that I spoke of Akira Toriyama's Dr. Slump in these pages, I was incredulous over the shark-jumping awfulness that was Turbo, the closest thing in Japanese comics to Scrappy-Doo that I'd ever seen. Of course, the problem with Scrappy-Doo was not the introduction of a new supporting character; it was the introduction of a new main character, knocking the existing cast into a gang of second bananas. So it was with Turbo, the magic baby that could do anything, except perhaps save a gag strip that had run its course for another year.

So I was in no particular rush to continue with Slump, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that after Turbo's initial three-month domination of the comic, he was quickly sidelined in favor of more fun Arale strips, particularly a three-parter where she and Senbei are turned into flies, along with some bizarre meta-commentary in which Toriyama, along with his assistant Takashi Matsuyama, interact with their characters, answer reader questions and look at life a decade down the road for the cast. This is definitely material past its prime, but I laughed more than once, and the work suggests that maybe if you've made it this far, you may as well see it to the end. (Volume 18, apparently.) Recommended for existing readers.

(Bonus: Rumic World has a 1986 interview with Toriyama and Rumiko Takahashi available on their site. You should check that out.)



Now here's a book I've been intentionally avoiding for better than ten years. In the mid-90s, Grant Morrison was co-writing a lot of subpar material with Mark Millar, and Marvel Comics had introduced a line called "Marvel Edge" where they could publish all their EXTREME!! stories. The mid-90s were a time for lots of EXTREME!! everything, and intentionally misspelled words, and comics that could be safely avoided. But for a buck and a half at one of the Great Escapes in Nashville, I figured the collected edition was worth it. And maybe it was, just.

So the idea here is that some people have contracted an alien virus that allows them to see the shapeshifting aliens who have infiltrated our society, but the virus is terminal and they are quickly dying. Five of these people resolve to spend their last days motorcycling around killing as many aliens as possible. There are nods towards such concepts as subplots and character development, and Steve Yeowell's art is occasionally very nice, if badly colored.

Skrull Kill Krew was intended as an ongoing set in the Marvel Universe, but was culled to a five-part miniseries before its launch. The second and third issues feature the Krew getting in the middle of a fight between Captain America and Baron Strucker, and perhaps the failure of this comic can be explained best by putting it this way: five days after I read this, I remember Cap and Strucker's verbal sparring and the dynamic work Yeowell put into their fight, but I couldn't pick any one of the Krew from a police lineup, nor tell you any of their names but one. Recommended if you've got a spare buck and a half.

(Originally posted October 13, 2008 at hipsterdad's LJ.)

T & A Edition with Power Girl and Vampirella

Here's how this works: I finish reading something, and I tell you about it, and I try not to bore you to death.



I found a used copy of this and... well. When I was a little kid (little kid, y'all dirty-minders, before Bart Sears gave her the biggest breasts in mainstream comics), I really liked Power Girl, but on the strength of the episodes reprinted here, and in some recent collections of '70s Justice Society titles, heaven only knows why. She's an abrasive character and her stories (these by Paul Levitz) are incredibly overwritten, with hideously rushed art by Joe Staton.

DC Comics has revamped and revised their continuities several times, and Power Girl has always been on the shit end of these odd editorial decisions, so this bizarre book collects stories from three iterations of the character. It culminates in a four-part miniseries from a couple of years ago, when Geoff Johns and Amanda Palmer tried to finally "work out" her origin. They couldn't do this by just issuing a new editorial fiat and starting fresh, because that would make sense. Instead, it's a braincurdling mess where various characters remember all these discarded old comic stories and if you, the reader, don't, tough fucking luck, because this book won't make any sense whatsoever.

To their credit, Johns and Palmer do make the character much more fun and vibrant, and you have to laugh at her patience with every male stealing a glance at her mammoth hooters, but it really is a missed opportunity. I had a good giggle when Jimmy Olsen sneaks a peek, anyway. By far the best thing about this book, and the only reason I would recommend it, is Conner's art, which has improved remarkably in recent years, and which I would love to see more of. The only DCU book I buy these days is Legion of Super-Heroes, which currently has terrible art. Can Ms. Conner draw that, please, Mr. DiDio?




Oddly enough, Amanda Conner also drew three episodes of Vampirella sometime in the mid-90s, but I don't like the style she was using then as much, although her pages are streets ahead of the three issues that followed her. I never read Vampirella before this collection of eight episodes by Grant Morrison and Mark Millar was released a couple of years ago. A reread doesn't persuade me I should've bothered. I do not understand Vampirella at all.

It's like this... I understand why superhero comics will have Power Girls with big bosoms, and why everybody from your Mary Janes to your Storms will have shower scenes with strategically placed thought bubbles or wisps of steam to hide the nudity. It's to titilate twelve-year olds, so kids can think "oooh, if only this word balloon wasn't here, I could see a nipple!" But kids aren't supposed to buy Vampirella comics, are they? So why does a comic with such patently adult-skewing business as this resort to the same silly artistic censorship as a book only kids can buy? Who's the target audience for this? (I probably don't want the answer to that question.)

As for the writing, it's much of what you'd expect from the mid-90s Morrison/Millar team, with high-concept oddness that reads like Invisibles-Lite in places filtered through the same "I'll keep you alive in torment for decades" tough guy schmaltz that made their 2000 AD collaborations such a struggle to read. There's even a character who survived an incident in the book and, thirty years later, came back to change history, kind of like Ragged Robin. And there are Anti-Vaticans and Judas Iscariots and serial killers that exist as viruses which take over people, kind of like John Sublime from his X-Men.

So there's just enough Grant Morrison fun to make this at least low-priority for his fans, but just enough Millar to temper it, and just enough confusing art to make it look like some of Morrison's more frustrating (non-Yeowell, non-Bond, non-Quitely) comics, where you're supposed to figure out what's going on based on something a minor character in the third panel on page twelve does and the artist forgets to draw.

Incidental to the proceedings, there's a tough-talking babe in a red one-piece who gets tied up and caressed by half-naked ladies every thirty pages or so. Just don't expect any payoff. Recommended if you really want everything Morrison's written, and have already shelled out for his crummy Spawn fill-ins and Mystery Play.

(Originally posted March 28, 2008 at hipsterdad's LJ.)