Chrononauts

Chrononauts is a fun read.  It is actually one of the better titles to be conceived by Mark Millar.  The tag I would give this series would be its like Back to the Future without the ethics of Doc Brown.  This book is a little like Jumper in that the two main characters can travel throughout time and space bring things with them.  This book turns the idea of being a scientist is similar to being a rock star and everything that goes with it.  The two main characters in this story are Corbin Quinn and his best friend Danny Reilly.  Both are poised to make history by being the first time travelers but they are not just traveling through but they are going to broadcast it to the world.  However like all stories that deal with time travel something has gone wrong after Corbin went into the time stream. 

Danny is going to attempt to bring him back.  When he gets there he discoveries that Corbin has set himself up as a king in the ancient world giving technology to people that haven’t developed it traveling through time to see famous events, dating girls in different time periods, using his knowledge for personal gains.  Corbin even persuades his best friend Danny to join in on this time traveling hijinks.  But as the powers that be in the present are scrambling to send a team of soldiers back in time to take out our two traveling chrononauts before they cripple the time stream.  Eventually Corbin Quinn’s lifestyle comes close to getting him killed in a very Great Gatsby type fashion but Danny comes to his aid.  However their bad luck catches up with them and Corbin’s decisions lead to the death of Danny and his exile.  However because we are dealing with time travel here be the end Corbin sets everything right and he even fixes the mistakes of his past to make his life back in the present day even more to what he had wished it had been.  I really liked this book I wish it had been it little longer because it seems like Millar rushed through the ending compared to the way it started.

The Flash: Rebirth

 Geoff Johns was to DC Comics what Brian Michael Bendis was to Marvel Comics.  Johns’s run on Green Lantern is still one of my favorite runs on any super-hero character.  Geoff Johns found a way to make Hal Jordan the Green Lantern again and do it in a very respectful way to the material that had been written before.  Now he has done it again with The Flash: Rebirth and he even did it again recently when he course corrected the DC Universe as a whole with DC: Rebirth.  The Flash: Rebirth is a great story as it brings back the Barry Allen version of the Flash who died back in the 1980s during the event that brought DC Comics into the modern era with Crisis on Infinite Earths.

Barry Allen has returned from the dead he has come out of the speed force and he is coping with being back.  There are some great character moments between Barry and several of his supporting cast but also the rest of the Justice League.  The series really delves into the death of Barry’s mother as that is such a pivotal moment in his history but also his connection to the speed force and other speedsters.  There are several other speedsters and each of them has a unique history which is sort of summarized in this book.  The Reverse Flash and the Black Flash play a part in this story as well.  I won’t delve into how the Black Flash fits in with the story but the Reverse Flash is essential to this story that Johns has crafted.  The reveal that he has been in a blood feud with Barry even before Barry become the Flash manipulating his life even when he was a child is just chilling.  Imagine if the Joker was manipulating Batman even when Bruce Wayne’s parents were still alive or Green Goblin going to war with Peter Parker while uncle Ben is still alive.  This is such a reveal that it reshapes Barry Allen’s origin in such a way that he has probably the worst arch enemy ever.  I really look forward to reading the Flash series that spins out of this and leads into Flashpoint.

We Stand on Guard

Brian K. Vaughan is one of my favorite authors of all time since I read Y the Last Man.  We Stand on Guard is not a sprawling epic like several of his other tales.  I wouldn't put it up there with Runaways, Saga, or Y the Last Man but it is a very intriguing read.

We Stand on Guard takes place in the near future in Canada.  The United States was attacked in a similar style to Olympus has Fallen and they believe Canada is to blame.  The opening of the book is the retaliation of the U.S. to Canada and our main character Amber is just a little girl when this happened.  Amber along with her brother survive the initial attack.  The book jumps ahead 12 years Amber is an adult now and she is on her own.  Amber is trying to survive on her own and almost gets taken out by a U.S. scout when she comes across a group of Canadian freedom fighters.  One of the freedom fighters goes on a great tangent about the origin of Superman during this long occupation war the United States has inflicted on Canada.  Its a great little story and it adds some levity to this serious situation.  It is similar to a moment in Saving Private Ryan.  The freedom fighters take out a Gorilla unit but lose a man in the process this gives Amber the chance to step up and show what she is made of.  The freedom fighter's leader is captured and we are introduced to a woman known as the American who is one of the leaders of this occupying force.  

The story is told through present day events as we join the freedom fighters along with Amber and engage in a suicide mission to stop the Americans from their true purpose for occupying Canada.  But the story also shows some flashbacks about how Amber and Tommy lived on the run.  The story culminates in a suicide mission lead by Amber and the freedom fighters against the U.S. as they try to siphon off Canada's fresh water supply.  There are a lot of great character moments in this book, but as I said before this is not about the war between Canada and the United States but this is about Amber and her place in this war.  This book is not really about the war that it portrays instead it is allegorical in that it is about war in general.  It is about war for resources, refugees, terrorism, manipulating the public opinion of war, all of these are issues raised in Vaughan's work and I like that he is exploring these ideas.  This is by far one of Brian K. Vaughan's most violent books and but I wouldn't say most offensive.  Saga can be quiet offensive at times.  If you love Vaughan's work or you are a fan of Brian Wood, I would highly recommend this book for you.

Kingsway West

This book has so much potential but the execution leaves a lot to be desired in what had a strong first issue.  This book starts off with the title character Kingsway Law who is a war hero from a war that we don’t see but only hear about through dialog.  The United States is divided up into five different empires.  Kingsway used to work for the Chinese whose capital is the Golden City in northern California; but now he is done with them and he is looking to disappear.  Kingsway comes off as an Unforgiven type of cowboy who just wants to be left alone.  But when the queen of the Golden City has put a price on his head everybody is coming out to the wild looking for him.

After a gun fight with some of the queen’s guards Kingsway wakes up next to a campfire with a Mexican woman named Sonia.  The Mexicans and the Chinese have been at war in western part of the country over the mining of Red Gold.  Red Gold is a magical type of gold that can shift the balance of power to any of the empires that are vying for control of North America.

The book jumps ahead five years, Sonia and Kingsway have been living in the wild and created a life for themselves.  The wild is a beautiful place the animals that inhabit this place remind me of the book Manifest Destiny.  Their world gets turned upside down by a Chinese woman who shows up with her dragon looking for Kingsway to save her small band of rebel miners from the Golden City.  Meanwhile the engineer of the United States of New York is coming across the country looking for the mother load of Red Gold.  Strode is introduced as a winged African American scout for the engineer.  Kingsway and Ah Toy go looking for Sonia and battling the United States forces along the way at the mine they battle the Windigo what guarding the vein of Red Gold.  Strode joins the fight with the engineer and his forces not far behind.  There is a final showdown fight with all three parties where the United States of New York’s forces take out the Golden City’s guards leaving the miners and our heroes make way to the freemen’s fort in the south.  Kingway finds his wife but the ending is expected but it wasn’t executed well.

Greg Pak’s work is hit or miss with me I really like his work on Incredible Hulk over at Marvel Comics but this could have used a lot of more to expand upon.  This type of western is a grand and new concept but it wasn’t executed very the art was okay but nothing special.  Frankly I would love to see more and I would like to know more about each of the empires the world that these characters inhabit.  I also think that (SPOILER) Sonia being a ghost that Kingsway met when he was close to death and a figment of his imagination was a cop out ending or that it could have been executed better.

The Kitchen

Vertigo Comics has been going through a Renaissance of sorts and this story is part of that new push.  If you love crime noir or any type of mob movies this is a book for you.  If there is one other title I could compare this to it would be History of Violence.  The whole idea behind this book is that the wives of three Irish gangsters step up to run the business.  The three Irish hoods go to prison because they got arrested for beating the crap out of somebody.  Jimmy, Johnny and Rob go to prison but their absence has left a vacuum in Hell’s Kitchen.  Enter their wives Kath, Raven and Angie this book starts off pretty tame low level crime the wives are just collecting for their husbands while they are in prison but people keep shorting them on the payments.  This pisses off Kath to the breaking point and when she snaps she winds up putting the relative of someone in the Italian mob in a coma.  That’s not the worst of it however someone saw the whole thing go down.  But this witness doesn’t want justice he thinks that because its just a group of women that he can blackmail them.  This is where the book takes it dark turn down the road towards a life of crime.

The girl’s team joins forces with Tommy to run the Irish gang in Hell’s Kitchen.  Tommy is Jimmy’s best friend but he has just escaped a mental hospital.  The book gives very little back story to the characters throughout its tale.  We do learn that Kath and Raven are sisters but once the book takes that deeper dive into organized crime we see that Kath isn’t as in charge as we expected her to be.  Angie really changes as she becomes the enforcer for the group learning from Tommy everything that she can.  The women make deals with the Jews and the Italians over the course of the story to completely take over Hell’s Kitchen.  While their husbands have been locked up the girls reputations have surpassed their own they are released early.  What they find when they return to the streets is that the women want nothing to do with them anymore.  Raven is in deep with the Italians, Kath wants Jimmy to treat her equally as a partner and Angie has become independent.

The husbands try to take out Tommy but it doesn’t work.  One by one the husbands fall to the women as they find they don’t have the credibility on the street that they once had.  But as the girls continue to climb the higher they begin to split apart.  Raven takes control of everything Kath kind of checks herself and Angie and Tommy take off for brighter shores.  Later on Kath and Raven are talking and Raven confesses all she has done that Kath was too weak to do even killing someone she thought was going to drag Kath down over time.  This sets the two sisters to fighting and Kath is killed when she falls on a kitchen knife.  The story doesn’t end there as Raven continues to climb the ladder to success only to meet a very The Departed style end when she arrives home one night to find Tommy and Angie there.

Looking at this series as a whole I can’t say I’m impressed but I wasn’t expecting much from it anyway.  I feel this could have been longer by including lots of character development and exposition.  Probably my biggest complaint of this series was the art as a whole.  I think the colors worked really well for this story I love the whole opening scene but I have a problem with the framing and perspective of the artist’s work some of the drawings are just painful to look at.  I didn’t like History of Violence the book or the movie but if you liked either of those I am sure you will like this.

Reborn: Book One

Back in the 1990s Image Comics was the place to go for comics that were not about superheroes it was a place to go to see what comics as an art form could be stretched toward.  Mark Millar is one of those visionaries he has been crafting his own stories for some time now with several of them becoming films and even some of them surpassing the original source material.  Reborn is one of those books.  Now I’ll be up front this book may not be for everybody.  There is a lot to like in this book but there are things that I did not like as well.

First off the art is simply spectacular as Greg Capullo is here to provide the art for this series coming fresh off of his run on Batman with Scott Snyder.  The book starts off with a sniper in a public place taking out unsuspecting victims.  One of the unlucky citizens wakes up in a green field much younger in what looks like something out of Lord of the Rings.  The hero of this tale is Bonnie Black a school teacher who is very pessimistic about the afterlife as she is in a nursing home and has lost her husband, mother, father and best friend.  When she dies she awakens in this realm in the middle of a warzone.  She finds out well she’s in this new land with a new lease on life and a younger body that she is the savior of this realm.  She discovers that she has some type of powers she is reunited with her father and her childhood pet.  She is on a quest to find her husband in this realm and along the way she finds her best friend.  At the end there is a big showdown between Bonnie and the demon like villain of this realm.

What I like about this book is this high concept of an idea that Mark Millar has come up with I like most of his books because of their concepts but I don’t particularly like his execution all of the time and this was one of those times.  I really liked the first half of this book but I just felt that he didn’t stick to the landing.  I also didn’t like the reveal of who the big bad was before he died.  It didn’t sit well with me.  I also didn’t like how bitter her best friend became when she discovered that her faith and beliefs had been dashed by this new reality.  This book leave lots of room for improvement, I had hoped that this would be a one and done tale like so many of Mark Millar’s books but sadly that doesn’t seem to be the case.

Catwoman: When in Rome

This book has the same creative team but it doesn’t have the same scope as the two Batman stories because there are fewer characters.  This book aslo strikes a rather different tone which grew on me after a while but I found a little odd at first.  This book is funny because it teams up Catwoman with the Riddler and their association leads to all types of high jinx.  Selena has gone to Italy to find out if Carmine Falcone was truly her father.  Her quest leads her on several adventures and run-ins with the mafia in Rome she gets some answers and is mostly left with more questions.  She has a final showdown with the Riddler who was playing on curiosity about her past to get her to steal this very special ring.  In the end she is able to survive and get one up on the Edward but she did not find the answers she was truly seeking.

Again Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale deliver a solid story and art with this book.  Is it essential to read this to understand Batman: Dark Victory, no.  If you are a Catwoman fan or a completest of Loeb and Sale work then yes you will want to read this.  I believe this is the version of Selena that Anne Hathaway based her performance on for the Dark Knight Rises.  This title is not essential but it does open that world up just a little more.

Batman: Dark Victory

Batman: Dark Victory picks up where Batman: The Long Halloween left off.  The Holiday killer has been caught and is behind bars the Roman is dead, but our heroes are coping with the loss of Harvey Dent.  Two-Face has taken over and the last remnants of Harvey Dent are slowly being erased throughout this book.  There is a shining light in this book as it showcases how Dick Grayson became the first Boy Wonder to team up side by side with the Dark Knight.  There are new characters to make there appearances as well such as Janice Porter.  This book is sort of a mirror reflection to Batman: The Long Halloween because instead of the mob being targeted police officers are being targeted every holiday by a new killer called the Hangman and a piece of evidence is found at each scene linking Harvey Dent to each victim.  Janice Porter is the new district attorney but she is hiding something that when it is revealed is one of the greatest twist that Jeph Loeb has ever written in a Batman story because it’s not something you expect.  There is more of a shock value I think at the end of this book when it is revealed who the real Hangman killer is.

Like I mentioned earlier one of the shining lights of this book is seeing the origin of Dick Grayson how and why his parents died.  How he discovered the Bat-cave and how he became Robin.  It doesn’t take very long but it is something that felt quite fulfilling to see put to the page in this collection.  There is surprisingly little Bruce Wayne in this book compared to its predecessor.  The relationship between Bruce Wayne and Selena Kyle seems to dissolve in this book as he pushes her away in his grief over losing Dent.  But on a side not it is because of events in this book that there is a spin-off story of sorts about a journey that Catwoman goes on in between two of the chapters in this book.

If you read Batman: The Long Halloween then you mostly know what to expect with this sequel closing out some of the early adventures of the Caped Crusader.  I highly recommend it on the artwork alone as I love Tim Sale’s work but it is a very well crafted story.

Batman: The Long Halloween

Some of my favorite books to come out of either Marvel or DC Comics are the collaborations by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale.  Batman: The Long Halloween is the start of the Holiday Quartet by Jeph Loeb in the other books in this are Batman: Haunted Knight, Batman: Dark Victory and Catwoman: When in Rome.  Batman: The Long Halloween takes place after Batman: Year One.  These stories are composed more in the vein of crime noir tales than Batman stories and that is what makes them so intriguing this is the era when crime shifted from the mob to Batman’s rogue gallery that we know and love today.  This first book showcases the downfall of Carmine Falcone aka the Roman and the main kingpin of Gotham City.  This book also gives us the origin of Two-Face and the downfall of Harvey Dent.

First off before we move on to story the art work is spectacular on every page a Tim Sales drawings are amazing and the colors work so well with the setting and tone of the story.  Pretty much all of Batman’s villains appear in this book at one point or another.  I really like the character development that was put into this story as we see the building of the relationship between Batman and Jim Gordon, Gordon and Dent, Batman and Catwoman.  Again back to the art work in this book Tim Sale is masterful at framing and perspective.

The story centers on the Holiday killings in which a different member or groups of members are killed each holiday of the year and all of the victims have connections to the mob.  This is truly a different type of crime noir story because it takes so many of those tropes and it turns them on their heads.  The mafia is on the defensive the entire book instead of being on the offensive.  Batman is trying to solve the case one way while Gordon and Dent are attacking it from another angle.  This book also perfectly captures Bruce Wayne’s public life balanced with his private life something that can rarely be seen outside of Batman the Animated Series.  The fall of Harvey Dent is the perfect cliff hanger to leave this book on because for those of us who are comic fans or Batman fans in particular we already know the story or at least the broad strokes of the story.

I fully recommend this book if you are a Batman fan by any means this is a title for you.  I may be a little longer to get through but in the end you will be rewarded for sticking with it.