ClanDestine (2008 Series) #1

February 5, 2008

Quick Rating: Good
Rating: T+

The return of the ClanDestine!

Writer: Alan Davis
Pencils: Alan Davis
Inks: Mark Farmer
Colors: SotoColor’s J. Brown
Letters: Dave Lanphear
Editor: Tom Brevoort
Cover Art: Alan Davis & Mark Farmer
Publisher: Marvel Comics

I’m pretty sure that ClanDestine is a revival of an old Marvel UK series by Alan Davis, but I never read it, don’t know if this is a reboot or simply a relaunch, and for that matter, don’t know anything about the original. But looking at this as though it were a brand-new property, I must say, it’s pretty good.

ClanDestine is the story of the Destine family, including a pair of immortal parents and many, many mortal (but immensely powerful) offspring, forced to live their lives in secret. (Get it? Secret? Family? “Clan”Destine? It’s a pun!) Adam Destine has managed to keep him immortality a secret for centuries now, even as many of his children have attempted pursuing rather high-profile careers, especially the youngest twins, who thirst to be superheroes. Of course, as long as they’ve been around, it’s inevitable that someone, somehow, will stumble on their secret.

Even though I know the original ClanDestine precedes it, I can’t help but get a Noble Causes vibe from this title – a large cast, all family, with incredible superpowers, trying to hide a variety of secrets. I don’t mean this as a criticism, mind you, but more like a recommendation – if you like Noble Causes (and you should) you’ll likely enjoy the way this story is told, too.

Then there’s the fact that Alan Davis and Mark Farmer are doing the artwork, which means that even if the script was written by a three-fingered monkey at a typewriter, it’ll look great. This is no exception – although Adam Destine looks a little too much like Captain Britain, that’s probably just because I got so used to Davis’s interpretation of the character. The designs are good and pretty classic-looking, and the kids look like teenagers and not just short adults, a flaw of far too many artists.

This is a pretty good beginning to the miniseries.

Rating: 7/10

G.I. Joe: Infestation #2

April 17, 2011

Writer: Mike Raicht
Artwork: Giovanni Timpano
Colorist: J. Brown
Letterer: Robbie Robbins
Cover: John K. Snyder III
Editor: Andy Schmidt       
Publisher: IDW Publishing

The Baroness has captured the Joe named Psyche Out, and with him has managed to seize a bizarre piece of technology, both of which have gone with her to a deep sea Cobra base. The strange tech, though, is beginning to infect animal and technology alike, turning them into a horrible, all-consuming swarm of death… and freeing Psyche Out may be her only chance to stop it before it destroys the base – or even worse. The story here is okay. It works mostly as a reverse of a plot we’ve seen plenty of times before, where the good guys may have a villain in captivity and need their help to stop a greater threat. This time around, it’s much more about the villains, and that probably makes for a more entertaining story in the long run. I’m also surprised that this issue ends in a way that does, in fact, leave some lasting repercussions for IDW’s G.I. Joe franchise. (I suppose it shouldn’t be that surprising, since a lasting change happened over in the TransFormers section of the crossover as well.) The action is strong, the gore isn’t over the top… all in all, it’s an okay comic. It’s lacking something, though, some sort of jolt that’s needed to make it more than just okay. Entertaining, but I can’t help feeling like it could have been more.

Rating: 7/10

G.I. Joe: Infestation #1

March 27, 2011

Writer: Mike Raicht
Art: Giovanni Timpano
Colorist: J. Brown
Letterer: Chris Mowry
Cover: John K. Snyder III
Editor: Andy Schmidt
Publisher: IDW Publishing

The most bizarre crossover of the year continues. The Baroness is planning an attack on a ship full of new G.I. Joe members on the cusp of their “final exam.” When she takes one of the heroes into custody she gets an unexpected bonus – a cyber-organic arm that she brings back for study. The arm carries a nasty secret of its own, one that threatens not just Cobra, but the entire world.

While perhaps the most well-written of the three Infestation crossovers so far, this is also the one that seems to have the last direct link to the main storyline. The zombie angle seems secondary, and in fact, this could easily be a story about any number of other threats – hell, even a malignant computer virus would work just as well, the way things are presented. That may change in part two, of course, but as of part one, this almost doesn’t have to have zombies at all. On the other hand, it’s a really solid issue of G.I. Joe. The Baroness is a nasty, manipulative bad guy, and Psyche Out is well cast as the “last Joe standing” in the depths of the Cobra submarine.

Giovanni Timpano puts together a dark, dirty set of pages that works fine as a military thriller, but also will easily acclimate the horror movie aspects of the larger storyline. It’ll be interesting to see if part two brings this miniseries more in line with the overall story thread, but for the time being, it’s pretty good on its own.

Rating: 7/10

Marvel Holiday Special 2006

December 3, 2006

Quick Rating: Good
Title: A.I.M. Lang Syne and other stories
Rating: A

A look at Christmas in the Marvel Universe.

Writer: Andrew Farago, Shaenon K. Garrity, Scott Gray, Mike Carey, Jeff Christiansen
Art: Ron Lim, Roger Langridge, Mike Perkins
Colors: A. Street, J. Brown, A. Crossley
Letters: Dave Lanphear
Editor: John Barber
Cover Art: Frazer Irving
Publisher: Marvel Comics

Marvel Comics once again delves into its rich history and pulls out a handful of Holiday tales for 2006. While not quite as good as last year’s special, there are a few good stories here, and a special bonus treat – the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe entry for Santa Claus.

The book starts (and middles and ends) with “A.I.M. Lang Syne,” a perplexing story about an A.I.M. New Year’s Eve party gone wrong. This is really the only clunker in the book, which leaves you wondering why it’s even here. The story is presented in short segments, one or two pages at a time, scattered in-between the other features. And it doesn’t work. It isn’t a framing sequence for the other stories, it’s not a story that is strengthened by showing the other tales in the interim, it’s as if the editor simply decided to cut it up for no reason. And even that wouldn’t be so bad if it were a good story, but it’s pretty boring.

“How Fin Fang Foom Save Christmas” is far better. Picking up on the Fin Fang Four special from last year, Scott Gray and Roger Langridge show us a down-on-his-luck dragon wandering the streets of New York, only to stumble headlong into a new bizarre attack by the forces of Hydra. This is a funny story, well worth the read, that actually draws out some real sympathy for Fin Fang Foom, which is a sentence I never thought I would type.

“A is For Annihilus” is next. Home alone while the rest of the Fantastic Four is out Christmas shopping and making merry, Ben Grimm gets bored (which is a terminally bad thing at the Baxter Building” and winds up accidentally freeing Annihilus from the Negative Zone. The story is told in an alphabetical rhyme scheme by Mike Carey, which occasionally feels forced, but overall works for the purposes of the comic book. Mike Perkins’ artwork, with colors by A. Crossley, is quite good, and the story is given a sort of brownish wash that makes it feel like you’re reading out of an old book.

There are a few more features in the book, most notably the OHOTMU page for Santa Claus himself. Jeff Christiansen does an especially good job with this entry, blending in the historical life of St. Nicholas, myths of Father Christmas from around the world and Santa’s appearances in Marvel comics throughout the years (even appearances in the old parody comic, What The?!) to give us a nice, cohesive history for the character as he exists on Earth 616. We also get three “cut-out” ornaments celebrating Civil War, Planet Hulk and Spider-Man: Back in Black, which are nice enough except that no one would ever cut them out and, even if they did, the paper is too flimsy to really hang them from anything. The book concludes with a cover gallery of other Marvel Holiday Special editions over the years.

It’s a pretty good package, with only the A.I.M. story falling flat, and something that Marvel fans will enjoy for the holidays.

Rating: 7/10

G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero #156

July 30, 2010

Writer: Larry Hama
Art: Agustin Padilla
Colorist: J. Brown
Letterer: Robbie Robbins
Cover: Agustin Padilla & J. Brown
Editor: Andy Schmidt
Publisher: IDW Publishing

Creator Larry Hama wrote G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero for Marvel Comics for over 10 years. He created most of the characters that became staples of the 80s toy line and cartoon series, most of the characters that were recently bastardized in the live-action film, and while several writers have done fine work with the characters in the years since, Hama is the man that people seem to keep coming back to. Now he’s back, and while it would have been very easy to give him a new #1 to start his new story, IDW Publishing has decided to pick up right where he left off with issue #156 of the series that made G.I. Joe what it is today.

Although we’re picking up the numbering, that doesn’t mean some time hasn’t passed. In the years since we last saw the Joes (in this continuity, at least) the Joe team has been disbanded and discredited, and worst of all, Cobra has managed to mask itself as an independent contractor, hiring itself out to the government to help maintain order during a period of martial law.

Launching this series this way is pretty gutsy on IDW’s part. For one thing, they’re kind of going into competition with themselves. This will be the third G.I. Joe continuity the publisher is running at once (including their own continuity and that of the – shudder – movie), and while I don’t think the die-hard fans will have any trouble keeping them separate from one another, I do think that many will feel inclined to choose one or the other rather than reading all of them. Making it a bit harder is the fact that this return to the original continuity also comes with a return to form for Larry Hama. He’s cast the Joes in a situation they’ve never been in before, on the run from a “legal,” government-sanctioned enemy, which really throws things into a loop. It’s a great direction, and a chance to do something with G.I. Joe that hasn’t been done before, and that’s a very good thing.

As impressed as I was with the writing, the artwork by Agustin Padilla was a little less so. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t as sharp or clean as some of the work we’ve seen on the other G.I. Joe titles (although, it should be mentioned, it is better than some of the other titles).

I do like this book, and I’m very glad that it exists. But at $3.99, like all of IDW’s books, I think there’s a very good chance that we’re going to see one or the other G.I. Joe continuities begin to suffer as a result of there being too many.

Rating: 7/10