Hawkeye (2003 Series) #5

March 13, 2004

Quick Rating: Okay
Title: For Your Sins (The High, Hard Shaft Part Five)

Hawkeye finally finds the secret that was important enough for Candy to die for.

Writer: Fabian Nicieza
Pencils: Stefano Raffaele
Inks: Scott Hanna
Colors: Ben Dimagmaliw & Brian Reber
Letters: Dave Sharpe
Editor: Tom Brevoort
Cover Art: Carlos Pacheco
Publisher: Marvel Comics

Okay, before we get into the meat of this review I’d like everyone to go back to my review of Hawkeye #4 and look at the cover. Look I’ll even give you a link by clicking here. I’ll wait.

Do you see what I see? That’s right – it’s almost the same blasted cover. The pose is identical. Sure, Pacheco is a fine artist, but I’m sick and tired of Marvel’s policy of providing us with meaningless pin-up covers that are totally irrelevant and interchangeable. You want a cover that delivers? Check out Stormwatch: Team Achilles #20.

That said, this issue isn’t tremendous either. It’s a solid issue and it moves the inaugural story arc very clearly towards a conclusion, but the “Vietnam vets going nuts” storyline is something that has been done to death. To Fabian Nicieza’s credit, he does give the characters more motivation than their actions then just painting them as crazed or evil, and the mystery we get left with on the last few pages is something I find intriguing, and that seriously boosts my estimation of this issue. Nicieza also gives Hawkeye a bit more to do in this issue, tempering his usual “charming rogue” personality with real familial concerns that casts him in a light we don’t usually get to see. As that light is still perfectly believable, I welcome the different take.

The artwork, sadly, still doesn’t deliver. Stefano Raffaele just doesn’t feel suited for this book. Even with the darker tone this story has taken, Hawkeye just isn’t a dark character. Not coincidentally, the nighttime scenes work better than the daytime scenes, but that’s not much comfort. Dimagmaliw and Reber do very good work with the coloring, but it only raises the artwork to an okay level.

Nicieza writes a perfect Hawkeye and has for several years now (due to his stint on Thunderbolts). The only problem is that this story feels like it’s gone on a bit too long. Hopefully once it wraps up, the next arc will pick up and sweep us off our feet.

Rating: 5/10

CSI: Dying in the Gutters #4

November 11, 2006

Quick Rating: Good

The Rick Johnston murder case takes a sudden turn.

Writer: Steven Grant
Art: Stephen Mooney
Colors: Ronda Pattison
Letters: Robbie Robbins
Editor: Chris Ryall
Cover Art: CBS Photo/Robert Voets
Publisher: IDW Publishing

IDW’s bizarre experiment in metafiction continues as the CSI crew’s investigation into the murder of comic book pundit Rick Johnston continues. A surprising discovery in Johnston’s personal effects sends some of the detectives in one direction, while the others continue their pursuit of their main suspect – Marvel Comics’ editor-in-chief Joe Quesada.

Reading this, just as a comic book fan, really is a lot of fun. Comic book creators – writers, artists, even editors – have a much bigger presence in the industry than ever before, and seeing the personalities we’ve gotten to know on the internet interacting in this story makes it a sweeter read. To be certain, some of the characters read more like caricatures of the actual people, but for the sake of the comic, it works pretty well.

In terms of a mystery, the twist at the end of this issue isn’t really that surprising. Even before the clues are laid out this issue, the story gives you the flavor, the idea that perhaps we’ve been barking up the wrong tree. The dialogue, fortunately, is pretty sharp and full of in-jokes that will appeal to the comic book fans in the audience (in essence, the vast majority of the audience). The b-plot, the story of a game designer who got murdered, still hasn’t tied together to the main plot, but that’s the standard CSI formula – two unrelated mysteries running concurrently – so I wouldn’t be particularly surprised if they remain separate.

Stephen Mooney’s artwork is pretty good – he has a nice, moody style that’s quite appropriate for a murder mystery. He falls prey, however, to the ever-present problem in a TV-to-comic book adaptation, where he works too hard at giving exact depictions of the actors and, as a result, gets sometimes clunky characters that don’t fit in a comic book world. The problem is magnified in this series as he not only tries to mimic the actors on the TV show, but dozens of real-life comic book professionals as well.

The CSI franchise would seem to be a comic book intended to reach out to a non-comic audience, but this one would really leave your average TV viewer perplexed. For people who watch the TV show, though, and also have their feet in the comic book world, it’s a fun read that handles the cross-pollination very well.

Rating: 7/10

JSA All-Stars (2003 Series) #7

November 2, 2003

Quick Rating: Great
Title: Fair Enough & The Strange Case of Mr. Terrific and Doctor Nil

Today’s Mr. Terrific finds a painful secret from his past. In a second feature, the brother of the original Mr. Terrific tries to live in his sibling’s shadow.

Writer: David Goyer, Geoff Johns & Michael Chabon
Pencils: Dave Ross & Michael Lark
Inks: Anibal Rodriguez & Michael Lark
Colors: John Kalisz
Letters: Ken Lopez & Michael Lark
Editor: Peter Tomasi
Cover Art: John Cassaday, Mark Lewis & David Baron
Publisher: DC Comics

JSA All-Stars has been, for the most part, a chance to dig a little into the lesser-developed members of the Justice Society. Until now, the backup features starring the original versions of the characters have been, for the most part, nice, but not a feature.

That changes in this extra-large issue featuring an expanded backup by Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Michael Chabon The main story, about today’s Mr. Terrific, is just as good as the other features have been, letting us in on secrets that I imagine will be picked up on in the regular JSA title. This time, though, it’s the backup that shines.

Chabon, who I’ve been a fan of since his novel Wonder Boys and who permanently became a favorite of mine with the prize-winning novel about the Golden Age of comics, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, takes us back to the days of Terry Sloan, the first Mr. Terrific. Chabon shows us what it is like to live in the shadow of, as Ned Sloan himself says, “the world’s most competent human.” The story reads like an old-fashioned potboiler, a detective novel with pictures. Gotham Central artist Michael Lark is the perfect choice for this story, with a style that’s not polished like a lot of today’s artists, but is gritty enough to tell this story exactly how it should be told.

I am looking forward to next month’s conclusion to this miniseries, but this issue, more than that, just whet my appetite for Chabon’s own comic book, The Escapist, coming up from Dark Horse.

Rating: 9/10