Uncle Scrooge #394

August 28, 2010

Title: The Curse of Flabberge Part One

Writer: Regis Maine
Translator: David Gerstein
Art: Jose Cardona Blasi
Colorist: Digikore Studios
Letterer: Jose Macasocol, Jr.
Cover: Giorgio Cavazzano & Cyrille Leriche
Editor: Aaron Sparrow & Christopher Meyer
Publisher: Boom! Kids

After the Beagle Boys foul up Scrooge’s latest treasure hunt, he rounds up Launchpad and his nephews to search for the world-famous Flabberge Egg. As treasure hunt stories go, this one starts out a little generic. It gets more interesting, though, when the introduction of a (literal) cat burglar throws in a new twist.

It’s interesting how something which, logically, shouldn’t be a big leap can really skew with your perception of a story. In the world of Ducktales, we typically see ducks and dogs as our main characters. Even in the “expanded” Disney universe, we add mice and the occasional horse and cow. The anthropomorphic cat that shows up in this issue, is a different sort of character, totally unexpected, and actually throws me a bit for a loop.

The story, overall, is good. It’s not great, though, and when you compare it to the other Disney Afternoon comic Boom! Is putting out, Darkwing Duck, it’s a little weak. The thing is, unlike Darkwing, Ducktales wasn’t exactly a totally new idea. It was basically a translation of the Carl Barks Duck universe to television. It worked, but what we have now is a derivation of a derivation. What I’d really love to see is someone take the TV show’s framework and use it to tell a totally new, totally epic storyline in the vein that Barks and Don Rosa did in the greatest Disney comics of all time.

There’s room for it, and there’s certainly a demand. Come on, Boom! Show us what you’ve got.

Rating: 7/10

City of Heroes (2005 Series) #4

August 15, 2005

Review by: Walt Kneeland & Blake M. Petit
Quick Rating: Decent; Very Good
Title: Smoke and Mirrors, part 1 of 3

Summary: The Freedom Phalanx deals with a troll invasion and then jumps into a quest to save the world from the Circle of Thorns

Writer: Troy Hickman
Pencils: Wilson Tortosa
Colors: Sonia Orback with Zach Matheny
Design: Chaz Riggs
Letters: Troy Peteri
Cover Art: Rodolfo Migliari
Publisher: Image Comics/Top Cow

Review: WALT:I have mixed feelings on this issue. On the one hand, it definitely feels like “standard superhero fare.” On another, it reminds me vaguely of an over-used story-type: heroes battle some threat, then upon reflection realize there’s more to it than they thought. Then someone warns them that if someone gets all of the ________ (pieces/parts/artifacts/milkshakes) (which are not presently all in one location) they will rule-the-world/destroy-the-world/end-all-life/become-a-god(dess)/etc.

BLAKE: I get what you’re saying here, but in a way, I think that’s part of this title’s strength. The purpose of the game is to appeal to people who like old-school superhero storytelling (it’s really the closest thing to silver age comics I’ve ever played), and I think the comic book is playing to that same demographic.

WALT:Beyond its existence and what I’ve read of it, I’m not familiar with the game that this series is based on–so I’m not familiar with the histories of these characters, nor some of the game-mechanics/nuances. However, it is amusing to see one game mechanic–the teleportation of someone about to be killed to a “sickbay” for healing–dealt with here. We get a bit of humor from the sequence with the young hero looking up to Statesman, and a more serious bit when Statesman is nabbed by the teleporter.

BLAKE:I’m relatively new to the game, I’ve only been playing for a few weeks, but I can tell you that I appreciate the book much more now that I’m familiar with it. I read the first arc because it was written by Mark Waid and was planning to get this run anyway on the strength of Hickman’s writing (his Common Grounds miniseries was brilliant). In between issues 3 and 4, I’ve gotten into the game and I love it. Hickman clearly either plays the game himself or has studied it very closely. There’s a lot of fun in seeing villains I’ve fought in areas of the city I’ve roamed, in hearing the heroes talk about things that I’m familiar with. There’s even a bit of irony with a young hero that’s wounded and teleported to the hospital, getting back just too late to join in the fight – something that anyone who’s played the game can sympathize with.

WALT:As said, having a team split up, each to attempt to acquire/access a piece of some larger whole or parts that must all be together for something to happen, in order to keep the enemy/villain(s) from doing the same for their own evil ends is nothing new, and in this case, reminds me of the original G.I. Joe cartoon. You can get some moments out of such stories, but somehow I’m just hung-up on it with this issue.

BLAKE: This wasn’t my feeling at all – quite to the contrary, it reminded me of classic Justice Society of America or Justice League of America stories, which almost always employed this device – the heroes would break up into small teams, carry out portions of a mission, and then come together at the end. I think Hickman was quite deliberately paying homage to that format, and I greatly enjoyed it.

WALT:The art doesn’t exactly blow me outta the water or anything–there was no singly-impressive panel/page that held my attention or made me stop and just soak it in. However, conversely there was nothing that made me close the issue in disgust. I’m not certain how detailed backgrounds and other such aspects are with characters in the actual game, but I did enjoy that this looks and feels entirely like a superhero comic, and not merely screen-shots from the video game.

BLAKE: I’m in agreement here – the artwork was just so-so. But the backgrounds were quite in-line with the game. It looked like the comic designer and the game designer based their work on the same environment, which I think is the best they could have shot for.

WALT:The title of this arc–Smoke and Mirrors–seems quite appropriate given the goings-on, and it will be interesting to see how the story plays out in the next couple of issues.

All in all, a good issue. In addition to points above, another negative this issue has going in is that Hickman has the inenviable position of following Mark Waid as writer on this title.

BLAKE: As big a fan as I am of Waid, I think Hickman is more than man enough to fill his shoes. I’d love to see this guy get more mainstream work, and I think he’s doing a very good job in his first issue of this arc.

WALT’S RATING: 6/10

BLAKE’S RATING: 8/10

Green Lantern (1990 Series) #176

April 24, 2004

Quick Rating: Good
Title: Homecoming? Part One

Kyle Rayner finally returns to Earth… but coming home isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

Writer: Ron Marz
Pencils: Luke Ross
Inks: Rodney Ramos
Colors: Moose Baumann
Letters: Ken Lopez
Editor: Peter Tomasi
Cover Art: Brandon Peterson
Publisher: DC Comics

After the train wreck that defined the last year or two of this title virtually anything would have to be an improvement, particularly the return of the writer that really made this title work for most of the 90s, Ron Marz. So it’s actually a little disappointing, if inevitable, that he spends most of this issue cleaning up the mess the last writer left.

Kyle Rayner after spending Lord-knows-how-long in outer space (this is in comic book time), returns home to find another man in the shower with his girlfriend, his place in the Justice League being filled without him, and basically feeling pretty superfluous. What’s worse, he doesn’t know it yet, but one of his nastiest old foes is about to get sprung from prison.

Although this is the part of the book that’s cleaning up after a highly unpleasant run, it’s also, oddly, some of the most relatable stuff. We’ve all returned somewhere after time away to find that things aren’t quite as we left – old friendships don’t connect as easy, old spots in our cliques have been filled in our absence. Marz puts Kyle through some very human, very accessible emotions.

Luke Ross does a very nice job on the artwork. The opening splash page of Alan Scott, the first GL, is a beautiful piece of work that I’d hang on the wall as a poster. He follows this up with a two-page spread of the Green Lantern Corps circa 1986 or so, then Kyle in his old costume, sort of giving us a visual history of the entire franchise and bringing us up to speed before we launch into this issue’s story. To top it off, we get a great cover by Marz’s former CrossGen colleague Brandon Peterson – there’s a nice computer spacescape there that looks really lovely and makes me long for his Chimera series.

This series has a long way to go to crawl out of the pit that it’s been in lately, but Marz takes some pretty solid strides. Hopefully next month he’ll be able to spend less time mopping up and more time telling a new story of his own. Once that happens, this ought to be a good, solid comic book again.

Rating: 7/10