Chucky #1

April 22, 2007

Quick Rating: Good

Chucky’s back – and he’s after an old friend…

Writer: Brian Pulido
Art: Josh Medors
Colors: Wes Dzioba
Letters: Brian J. Crowley
Editor: Mike O’Sullivan
Cover Art: Ryan Ottley
Publisher: Devil’s Due Comics

It’s not that long ago (last summer, in fact) that Brian Pulido was writing the New Line Cinema horror comics for Avatar. Those books left me kind of disappointed – it seemed that he was just throwing the slasher movie stars at random groups of victims without really strong plots. For the first few pages of this issue, I was afraid that Chucky would be the same, but I was happily proven wrong.

After attacking (yes) a random group of victims, the murderous Charles Lee Ray – still in the plastic Good Guy doll body he uses as Chucky – finds out that one of his most hated adversaries is about to retire. Seeing an opportunity, Chucky sets out for revenge. Pulido has picked up on a plot thread left dangling from one of the movies, and he’s constructed a pretty strong story to go along with it. Sure, there’s plenty of gratuitous gore and swearing (although Devil’s Due pulls back on the sex as compared to Avatar), but at the heart Pulido has really succeeded in crafting a good story that makes sense in the context of the characters. He even recognizes the time that’s passed since the movies came out, aging the characters appropriately. This is definitely a major step up since his work on the New Line books.

Josh Medors’s artwork is pretty solid too. He’s impressive with the gore, and although he doesn’t go overboard, he manages some sexy women as well. The only real beef I have is a character (not Chucky) who looks like he has a plastic helmet instead of hair – it’s just a pet peeve of mine.

I liked this book, and I think fans of the Child’s Play series (or horror comics in general) will be perfectly satisfied with this miniseries.

Rating: 7/10

Betty and Veronica Double Digest #151

Betty and Veronica Double Digest #151 (Archie Comics)
By Melanie J. Morgan, Steven Butler, Al Milgrom and many others

The much-ballyhooed “new look” for Betty and Veronica launches this issue. Melanie Morgan and Steven Butler give Archie’s girlfriends a more “realistic” art style and a slightly more mature story, as Ronnie falls for the new “Bad Boy” in town, and Betty worries that her best friend is getting in over her head. Fans who refuse to accept any change in the classic characters won’t like it, but people who don’t mind a little experiment will find a good story that will most certainly appeal to the intended audience (i.e. young teenage girls). Only the first story is in the new style, though, with the rest of the book full of reprints and the occasional new piece in the classic Archie style, as usual. As is always the case with an Archie digest, there are so many stories that virtually any Archie fan will find a few to really enjoy (“Let it Rain” and “Dream Dilemma” being among my favorites), many that are entertaining, and a few that fall a little flat. But that’s all a matter of personal taste, and it’s still a heck of a lot of comic book for just $3.69. Creatively, I think the experiment is working pretty well so far. We’ll have to wait and see if it works from a commercial standpoint.

Rating: 7/10

Superman Secret Files 2004

June 29, 2004

Quick Rating: Necessary
Title: Suicide Watch & BiPolar Disorder

How to piece together the Superman universe.

Writers: Geoff Johns, Jeremy Johns, Greg Rucka & Mike McAvennie
Pencils: Jim Fern & Jon Bogdanove (plus several others on profile pages)
Inks: Lary Stucker & Jon Bogdanove (plus several others on profile pages)
Colors: Sno-Cone, Dave McCaig (plus others on profile pages)
Letters: K.L. Fletcher & Jared Fletcher
Editors: Eddie Berganza & Ivan Cohen
Cover Art: Ed McGuinness, Dexter Vines & Dave Stewart
Publisher: DC Comics

The best installments of DC’s “Secret Files” series are those books that fill in the blanks of a title, giving you greater understanding and appreciation of the book as a whole. The worst are completely superfluous and give you absolutely nothing to sink your teeth into. This is a first, though, this is the first time I’ve read a “Secret Files” that feels absolutely essential to understand the goings-on of the four regular Superman titles (Superman, Adventures of Superman, Action Comics and Superman/Batman).

The bulk of the work is done by Geoff Johns and Jeremy Johns in a story that wraps up the loose ends of the Lex Luthor presidency and includes a nice little throwdown with the Suicide Squad, now targeting their former boss, Amanda Waller. We are finally given an explanation as to why Pete Ross agreed to be Luthor’s vice-president in the first place in a very nice sequence that ties into the new version of Superman’s origins as detailed in Superman: Birthright (which, in turn, feels more and more like it’s trying to be a bridge to Smallville every day, especially with stories like this). The artwork, by Fern and Stucker, isn’t quite as strong. The best sequence is the flashback scene, where they’re trying so hard to make the characters look like the actors from the TV show that it’s almost painful. They do a good Tom Welling in Clark, but the rendition of Lana Lang looks terribly forced. Credit where credit is due – their Superman does look like a grown-up version of Welling in tights, but he’s almost too youthful, too blocky.

Rucka and Bogdanove serve up the second story in this book, “BiPolar Disorder,” a wonderfully silly tale that tries to reconcile the various incarnations of Mr. Mxyzptlk. I really don’t understand the venom Mxyzptlk gets in some circles of fandom – I’ve always found him to be a delightfully silly character that brings some much-needed comic relief once in a while, and I always love seeing Bogdanove’s pencils – if ever there was an underrated Superman artist, it was him. This issue doesn’t illuminate the regular titles that much, but does serve as something of a “secret files” for Mxyzptlk himself.

Then there are the profile pages – Gog, The Shack, Replikon, Lt. Lupe Teresa Leocadio-Escudero, Father Daniel Leone, Eradicator, Preus, Mr. Majestic and Supergirl (drawn by Michael Turner, for you completists out there). In short, every character that’s been introduced or revamped since the “Godfall” storyline earlier this year. These, along with the Johns story, make the book a necessity – it fills you in on everything, gives a more logical angle to Clark Kent’s demotion at the Daily Planet and even puts to rest the burning question of whether or not Superman should actually remember having fought Gog before over in Action Comics (he should, damn it).

Typically, I wouldn’t recommend a “Secret Files” unless I found it particularly enjoyable or enlightening. This is the first time I would say you need a “Secret Files” issue just to keep up, and that says a lot more about the current state of the Superman titles than it does about this issue itself.

Rating: 8/10