Graphic Novel Goodness
Feb. 3rd, 2004 03:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yendiGot a nice shipment of near-free stuff (thanks to gift certificates, of course) from Amazon yesterday. That included three nifty graphic novels:
Animal Man Volume 3: Deus Ex Machina: This, to me, still stands as Grant Morrison's best work (in fact, I think he peaked about ten years ago, but that's a whole other post). His revamp of Animal Man, as minor a character as they get (he was actually a member of a team called The Forgotten Heroes, which says everything you need to know), was one of the Big Five books that fed into the Vertigo line (although Grant, and his successors, Pete Milligan and Tom Veitch, were all gone by the time the line emerged). Nowadays, every writer gets a little postmodern, but back then, no one had told this serious a tale that also dealt with the nature of comics (and the problems that Crisis on Infinite Earths had caused), and certainly nothing that had been set in a mainstream comics universe (Giffen and Fleming's Ambush Bug, and later Byrne's She-Hulk, both took a humorous look at these themes, though). In a way, this is the DC answer to Duck Amuck. And hey, anything with the Inferior Five in it gets my seal of approval.
Brat Pack: Another groundbreaker, this time from Rick Veitch (famously departed from DC after attempting a Swamp Thing/Jesus Christ crossover). This is a dark and twisted poke in the eye to DC (primarily) and the concept of teen sidekicks. Pretty much everything Wertham suggested is taken and amplified beyond belief. The teens are manipulated and controlled, the adult heroes, having beaten everyone, are now merchandising themselves, and the entire world is just plain twisted. Definitely not a happy story, but a brilliant one. They kept Neil Gaiman's intro from the original 1992 printing, but there's no new material for folks who still have their original (mine's long gone).
Crisis on Multiple Earths, Vol 2: Anyone who knows me knows that I'm a sucker for many things from the Silver Age, and the JLA are one of my favorites. This book, in a way, is a bookend to the Animal Man book, with the continued crossovers between Earth 1 and Earth 2, and the development of Earth 2 folks like Black Canary and Red Tornado as Earth 1 characters. All of these team-ups are fun, if less substantial than you might expect in a contemporary story. And hey, lots of beautiful Dick Dillin art. As a bonus, there is a letter column at the end, reprinting letters about the stories in the collection from various fans who went on to become pros (including Gerry Conway, who was the original writer on JLA/Avengers, for the trivia buffs).
Yeah, I'm happy with these books. You should read 'em all, too.
Animal Man Volume 3: Deus Ex Machina: This, to me, still stands as Grant Morrison's best work (in fact, I think he peaked about ten years ago, but that's a whole other post). His revamp of Animal Man, as minor a character as they get (he was actually a member of a team called The Forgotten Heroes, which says everything you need to know), was one of the Big Five books that fed into the Vertigo line (although Grant, and his successors, Pete Milligan and Tom Veitch, were all gone by the time the line emerged). Nowadays, every writer gets a little postmodern, but back then, no one had told this serious a tale that also dealt with the nature of comics (and the problems that Crisis on Infinite Earths had caused), and certainly nothing that had been set in a mainstream comics universe (Giffen and Fleming's Ambush Bug, and later Byrne's She-Hulk, both took a humorous look at these themes, though). In a way, this is the DC answer to Duck Amuck. And hey, anything with the Inferior Five in it gets my seal of approval.
Brat Pack: Another groundbreaker, this time from Rick Veitch (famously departed from DC after attempting a Swamp Thing/Jesus Christ crossover). This is a dark and twisted poke in the eye to DC (primarily) and the concept of teen sidekicks. Pretty much everything Wertham suggested is taken and amplified beyond belief. The teens are manipulated and controlled, the adult heroes, having beaten everyone, are now merchandising themselves, and the entire world is just plain twisted. Definitely not a happy story, but a brilliant one. They kept Neil Gaiman's intro from the original 1992 printing, but there's no new material for folks who still have their original (mine's long gone).
Crisis on Multiple Earths, Vol 2: Anyone who knows me knows that I'm a sucker for many things from the Silver Age, and the JLA are one of my favorites. This book, in a way, is a bookend to the Animal Man book, with the continued crossovers between Earth 1 and Earth 2, and the development of Earth 2 folks like Black Canary and Red Tornado as Earth 1 characters. All of these team-ups are fun, if less substantial than you might expect in a contemporary story. And hey, lots of beautiful Dick Dillin art. As a bonus, there is a letter column at the end, reprinting letters about the stories in the collection from various fans who went on to become pros (including Gerry Conway, who was the original writer on JLA/Avengers, for the trivia buffs).
Yeah, I'm happy with these books. You should read 'em all, too.
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(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-03 12:05 pm (UTC)Re:
Date: 2004-02-03 12:24 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-03 12:27 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-03 12:07 pm (UTC)Re:
Date: 2004-02-03 12:24 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-03 12:07 pm (UTC)I haven't read his Animal Man, but I greatly enjoyed his stint with Doom Patrol, in which his super hero team were all deeply emotionally troubled (to the point that one had a different super power for each of her personalities) and handled the problems the mainstream super heroes couldn't face. Add to that the fact that the leader of the team was a disembodied head in a tray of ice cubes and one of the minor characters was a street who was gay and named Danny the Street.
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Date: 2004-02-03 12:22 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-03 12:10 pm (UTC)Re:
Date: 2004-02-03 12:23 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-03 12:29 pm (UTC)Re:
Date: 2004-02-03 12:37 pm (UTC)The Veitchverse
Date: 2004-02-03 07:46 pm (UTC)One day he'll finish it... if he ever stops doing mainstream work again.
The Veitchverse
Date: 2004-02-03 07:46 pm (UTC)One day he'll finish it... if he ever stops doing mainstream work again.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-04 11:12 am (UTC)