Honeymoon Headache

If it was that easy to make Harley be quiet, everyone would try being smelly. 

Starting immediately after the end of the second season of the animated series, Harley Quinn: The Eat. Bang! Kill. Tour is Harley and Ivy celebrating their honeymoon - although they didn't really get married so much as just drove off together - by crashing in other villains' houses on short (or no) notice, while trying to outrun an increasingly deranged and pathetic Commissioner Gordon.

While writer Tee Franklin throws in plenty of public (and private) displays of affection between Harley and Ivy, things get increasingly rocky as the mini-series progresses. Ivy's having a variety of doubts, from the pain she caused her fiance Kite Man by messing around with Harley behind his back, plus some childhood trauma from her father telling her no one would ever love her. There's also the part where she realizes a relationship with Harley is never going to have much in the way of peace or tranquility.

All the guilt and self-doubt and whatnot results in her repeatedly snapping at Harley, only to get cuddly and apologetic moments later. In Ivy's defense, Harley does repeatedly do shit that's pretty rude or flat out stupid. When they decide to leave town, Harley suggests leaving her hyenas with Catwoman. Does she call Selina ahead of time to check if this is OK? Well, if you count texting as they get out of their car in front of Selina's building, then sure. Harley suggests they crash in the home of a villainess who got arrested at Ivy's wedding-that-wasn't, again without asking for permission. There's just a real lack of impulse control or consideration for anyone other than Ivy.

In Harley's defense, Ivy should have known about these tendencies long before now and possibly taken them into consideration before making major life decisions, but the heart wants what it blah blah blah.

By the back half of the mini-series, they've reached Detroit and run afoul of part of a Justice League (Vixen, and to lesser extents Cyborg and Zatanna), and some sludge-villain called Mephitic. Harley gets captured, Ivy has to try and deal with her own shit so she can rescue her girl.

Max Sarin draws 5 of the 6 issues (issue 4 is drawn by Erich Owen) with Marissa Louise as color artist throughout. Sarin gets to draw a lot more fight scenes than they did on Giant Days, and they handle Harley's acrobatic flips and bat swinging very well. And their art is perfect for the roller-coaster of emotions the characters are going through. In particular, I love how Sarin has the plant life around Ivy react to her emotional state. And with Mephitic's power being essentially stench-based, Sarin and Louise combine to give the smell a physical weight to it. The color is nausea-inducing, and the little flourishes as it jabs its way into Harley's nostrils really add to the toxicity.

I wonder why Franklin chose Mephitic as the main villain of the mini-series - unless you figure it's Gordon, or Ivy's issues - unless it was because he provides the opportunity to make all kinds of cracks about how bad he smells. 

Random Back Issues #141 - Harley Quinn #8

Gymnastics 101 with Dr. Quinzel was very popular, but also had a high drop rate. Dropped into a pit of hyenas, that is.

A three-person team's trying to catch Harley Quinn for theme park tycoon Jack Happi, and figure a fake ceremony awarding Quinn's old psychiatry professor, Dr. Markus, the 'infamous Wertham Award' is the perfect trap. Too bad Harley's watching in the rafters as they set up and Markus practices his speech, which says his work revolves around the idea people only ignore society's rules when they commit a crime, or when they're in love.

Cue flashback! Student Harley, inviting Markus to her dorm room to pitch him on that very idea to convince him to get her into the graduate program, despite her lousy grades. Markus, in a weak attempt to maintain professional decorum, recommends an independent experiment, supervised by him, of course. Harley's already got an idea: What's the worst thing a person can do and still be loved? But who would agree to be the subject?

How about her boyfriend, Guy? He barges in, frantically looking for his paper on Chaos Theory, wondering if his professor will accept losing the paper is connected to the Joker escaping. In an effort to remember, Guy grabs his own special "think drink", right as Harley hands him the paper. Setting aside the drink, he kisses her and rushes out, minus the paper, as Harley notes he'd do anything for her. 

In the present, Bo Donner and Dr. Carrie Chispazo spotted Quinn and tracked her to an equipment room. They've got her now! Or not. They get trapped between two sets of double doors, as part of some goofy attempt by Harley to create a romance between them. She's seen them arguing and thinks they're clearly into each other, indicating Harley spends too much time on early-2000s DC's equivalent to Archive of Our Own. The third guy was patrolling the exterior and is locked out, leaving Harley free to learn why Markus would help lure her out. Answer? The doc wanted to know what happened with Harley's experiment.

Flashback! Guy comes in, remarking the city should bow to the Joker's demands to pay him a smile tax so he doesn't poison the water supply. Plus, Joker smiles more than anyone, and he won't pay the tax, so they can bust him on tax evasion. Hey, the Timmverse cartoon established the Joker does not want to tangle with the IRS.

As Guy takes a swig of his drink, Harley's sitting on the couch, depressed that she ran a red light. Guy blows it off, until Harley admits she was fleeing the cops. In a car she stole after trying to blackmail Markus into letting her in the program by claiming he tried to rape her. Except Markus had a tape recorder and a gun and threatened to call the cops. She lunged for the gun - which she still has - and it went off. And Guy's off, hopefully to another state.

There's a couple of pages about how two of the guys in Harley's crew - which she calls the Quintets, though they can't keep more than 4 alive - are plotting to get her killed, but whatever. Harley's got Markus flailing on a balance beam before she finishes the story.

Flashback! Quinn finds Guy at the same gym. He killed a homeless guy, thinking it was Markus. He sticks the gun under his chin, asking her to pull the trigger. Her hands are on the gun as she pleads with him, but somebody pulled that trigger, and Markus wants to know who. Because he saw the aftermath, Harley back in her dorm room, crying and laughing about how everything's chaos, that Guy and the Joker both understood this. She recorded that initial conversation with Markus, with her asking why he wanted to meet in her dorm room, so he's got to get her an internship at Arkham so she can meet the Joker, or else. In the last panel we see of the Joker, Woods shifts his appearance towards the later, simplified Bruce Timm look, which in this series was shorthand for Harley divorcing herself from reality.

We never do find out who actually pulled the trigger.

In the process of the flashback, Harley remembers Markus poured the rest of Guy's drink down the drain, and in the present confronts him about that. Markus pulls out his pen, claiming it's loaded with Joker Venom. The last of a sample he acquired illegally, some of which he put in Guy's drink, thinking the euphoric effects would counteract the stress Quinn's test would place on him. Again, not sure why, as that's way too many variables in that experiment, but it means the whole thing is only sort of Harley's fault!

Markus smashes the pen on her head, but Quinn's immune to Joker Venom. Markus, who cut his hand in the process, is not. He's dead, Harley's gone, but Chispazo thinks she's got a bead on a way to use herself and Bo to trap Harley. Assuming the backstabbing in Quinn's gang doesn't get her first. . .

{5th longbox, 60th comic. Harley Quinn (vol. 1) #8, by Karl Kesel (writer), Pete Woods (penciler), Mark Lipka (inker), Alex Sinclair (colorist), Ken Lopez (letterer)}

Sunday Splash Page #228

 

"Harley Home Makeover", in Harley Quinn (vol. 2) #4, by Amanda Conner and Jimmy Palmiotti (writers), Stephane Roux (artist), Paul Mounts (colorist), John J. Hill (letterer)

It took over a decade, two Crises, a Countdown and a Flashpoint leading to a New 52, but Harley got herself a second chance at an ongoing series. Amanda Conner and Jimmy Palmiotti worked as the writing team, with Chad Hardin (who I'd first encountered as an artist on some of those Bloodrayne comics I bought years earlier) initially as the primary artist, though the book had frequent other artists because DC seemed to take a page from how Marvel handled Deadpool and started shipping a crapload of Harley Quinn mini-series, one-shots, annuals and whatnot on top of this book. Sometimes Hardin would draw those instead, or this title would double-ship, so there had to be guest artists.

Through the first 2 years of the New 52, Harley had been mostly an unambiguous villain, commtiting such crimes as distributing handheld gaming systems packed with explosives through Gotham, then setting them off, killing dozens or hundreds. Conner and Palmiotti backed the hell away from all that as fast as they could, setting the character more firmly in a morally grey, anti-hero space. Harley would still commit violent acts, but typically in self-defense or against people who could be said to deserve it (if not quite to the extent she dished out.)

It also, at least for the 17 issues I bought before dropping the book, felt like Conner and Palmiotti couldn't decide what they wanted Harley to be doing, as they kept introducing new settings or jobs, then seemingly dropping them to move to the next idea almost right off. She inherits a building in Coney Island, which gives her the difficulty of being a landlord and potential plotlines involving her tenants. But they also had Harley join a roller derby team, then almost immediately abandon that in favor of a roller derby-themed underground fight club, which also sometimes working as a psychiatrist at a nursing home. By the time I dropped the book, she'd even started a gang of Harleys, for reasons that escape me.

There was strong streak of absurdist, referential humor. Harley frees a bunch of animals from a testing lab, but all their waste is stinking up the joint. So one of her tenants builds a giant catapult and the first launch hits DC's offices with dog shit. She keeps a stuffed, half-burned beaver around that she hallucinates talking to her. Harley faces a string of hitmen trying to collect a huge bounty, and finds out she put the bounty on herself in her sleep. She teams up with an old Cold War cyborg super-spy (who made it into her animated series) she met at the nursing home. 

Hardin's work was a little stiff early on, but as time went by, he loosened up his linework. With the comic (sometimes darkly comic, but still comic) tone of the book, being willing to exaggerate his art better fit the book. I didn't laugh out loud much while reading it - Conner and Palmiotti's sense of humor doesn't quite work for me somehow - but there were parts here and there that worked. Mostly, I wanted the book to just settle on a status quo and run with it for more than two issues. Pick a few supporting cast members to really focus on rather than just constantly throwing more, more, more at the wall.

Sunday Splash Page #227

 

"Admitting It's the First Step. Murder is the Second," in Harley Quinn (vol. 1) #2, by Karl Kesel (writer), Terry Dodson (penciler), Rachel Dodson (inker), Alex Sinclair (colorist), Ken Lopez (letterer)

Having been a big hit in Batman: The Animated Series, Harley Quinn migrated into the Batbooks and after a half-dozen or so years, got her own ongoing series, running for 38 issues.

Whether because it didn't seem like a great idea for Harley to play second fiddle in her own book, or because they didn't want the protagonist of said book doing the kind of stuff Harley would get up to with the Joker, Karl Kesel breaks Quinn off from the clown to find her own path. Which isn't to say she's good. After a one-issue stint playing #2 to Two-Face, Harley decides to start her own gang. 

She's terrible at it. Every time they add a fifth henchperson, they die. In more than one of those situations, Harley sets the guy up to be killed or at least left behind. None of her heists succeed as Harley is more concerned with her personal obsessions. To the extent she kills her most loyal henchman because he's interfering in her matchmaking between a couple of private investigators trying to capture her. It would be easy to argue she learned well from the Joker, but Kesel goes into her past enough to let the reader see Harley's always been willing to do whatever she deemed necessary to get what she wanted. Working with the Joker just convinced her to stop masking it.

The Dodsons draw the majority of the first 19 issues, and it's pretty standard work for them. Clean linework, easy to follow action, expressive faces, the usual full-figured women. In issue 1, Ivy tries disguising herself as Harley to kill the Joker and Harley remarks she wouldn't dress like that if she had Ivy's figure. It's hard to really see much of a difference in them.

The first year ends with Harley and Ivy taking off for Metropolis. There's a stint of Harley manipulating Bizarro, only for that to get out of hand. Harley ends up in Hell for a while before getting out through some method I don't remember, but the Martian Manhunter got dragged into the mess. Craig Rousseau is drawing the book by then, his style is more animated, closer to Bruce Timm than Dodson. He draws a few pieces in the earlier issues where he's deliberately aping the Timmverse style, meant as a representation of how Harley sees all this.

The last year or so of the book is by A.J. Lieberman and Mike Huddleston, and involves Harley back in Gotham, tangled up in a whole thing with some girl that everybody wants. I think it revolved around what Harley was going to do, look out for #1 or look out for the girl stuck relying on her, as well as what being around someone like Harley for an extended period of time would do to someone. I picked up parts of it in back issues years ago - those issues are oddly pricey - but it didn't stick in the collection.

Next week, Harley gets another chance to headline her own book.

Birds of Prey

Yeah, I'm not typing out that entire title.

First things first, to get it out of the way: Ella Jay Basco does fine as this movie's version of Cassandra Cain. Which is to say, at playing a sassy teen, marginally competent* pickpocket that drives the plot.  Granted, her character bears no resemblance to anything I'd associate with the name "Cassandra Cain", and unless Kelly Puckett and Daimon Scott got some nice royalty checks for this, I'd just as soon they'd named the character something else, but that's not on Basco or her performance. She did what the movie asked her to do.

Margot Robbie's a good Harley Quinn. She seems to be having fun, certainly, which feels essential for a movie with a kind of absurd comic tone like this one. Ewan McGregor is doing. . . something. It was like a combination of Kevin Bacon in X-Men First Class and Jason Schwatzman as Gideon Graves in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. This sort of cheesy over-the-top thing where the guy is trying so hard to be "quirky" you can't tell if it's supposed to be part of the character, or it's just the actor. You definitely need the villain to be more evil than Harley (and given the crap she openly admits to doing when she was with the Joker, that's a long order), but I'm not sure you want someone out-crazying her.

Also, was I supposed to read Roman Sionis and Zsasz as lovers? Or maybe it's an unrequited thing where Zsasz is hung up on his boss, so he likes killing women to keep them away from what's "his", but I don't know.

Of the Birds, I like Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Huntress the best. She's very angry, but also extremely awkward with people in a way where you can tell she spent a lot of time around assassins and focused on killing. The whole, 'You got rage issues. I don't have rage issues!' part made me laugh. Jurnee Smollett kind of gets the short end of the stick, because she's the world-weary, sensible one. Has to play the calm exasperated center with all these complete lunatics running around her. 

You'd think that would be Rosie Perez' role as Renee Montoya, as a burnt-out cop, but she's too much of a loose cannon. She still believes in the work if not the institution of the police. Little disappointed we never saw her punch her captain. But we did get Harley shooting a bunch of cops in the face with beanbag rounds. That was good.

I didn't really like the back-and-forth nature of how the story was presented. Where the plot would advance, then screech to a halt so Harley could detail someone else's backstory. I liked it fine in the first Deadpool movie as an approach, but that movie picked better points to stop. Or maybe I just felt like the exposition was unnecessary. 

Like the one where Harley explains why she's attacking a police station looking for Cassandra. I knew why. Roman's guys caught her, and she's retrieving Cass and the diamond to get herself out of trouble. I didn't need what felt like an interminable flashback of her and Sionis interacting to connect those dots. It felt like the story had momentum, shit was happening, she was going to meet the kid and have to make a choice and then. . . it just crashes to a halt.

There were some structural issues, but it was funny in places, and I mostly didn't get impatient for it to hurry up, so count it as a win.

* She was getting caught by Gotham cops, who are presented as so stupid and incompetent I can't believe they manage to zip up their flies without getting their balls caught.

What I Bought 2/21/2020 - Part 1

Dan Didio's out as chief editor or whatever the heck he was. I guess we can all rejoice until they announce whatever person is going to replace him, who will probably be entirely unacceptable. Take your victories and pleasures where you can. In other news, here's two reviews of comics I figured I'd take a chance on.

Harley Quinn and the Birds of Prey #1, by Amanda Conner (writer/artist), Jimmy Palmiotti (writer), Paul Mounts (colorist), John J. Hill (letterer) - I was very confused by Cassandra having all Huntress' arrows until I remembered they made her a thief in the movie rather than a super-awesome martial artist.

Harley heads to Gotham because the loan shark she took out a mortgage through had her hotel burned down for failure to pay bills, and kicked the crap out of the guy who acts as landlord. Also, she kind of pissed off Ivy, so it's something to do other than sit around and feel bad about her failed relationship. People try to kill her on the train ride, but Huntress and Cass show up and help. They get to Gotham, Renee Montoya tells Harley to leave, issue ends.

This feels like some weird amalgam of the movie continuity and the comics. All the stuff about Harley and Ivy, and her henchfolk, the old cyborg spy guy, that's from the comics. But all the stuff with Renee, Cass, and Helena seems like its movie stuff. While Conner and Palmiotti take the time to explain some of the backstory for the first group, there's really nothing about the second. Like, how does Harley know Cass, what's their backstory, are she and Helena in an actual supergroup in this timeline. I haven't seen the movie - although Alex told me there's very little sign of Cass being as serious asskicker in it - I don't know what the fuck's going on.

It seems taken for granted I understand why Renee Montoya, who I assume is an honest cop, is trying to send Harley away rather than take her in for questioning about the large number of people she just killed on that train. (It was self-defense, but the police would still want to confirm that, yes?)

I didn't laugh very much, which is how it went the last time I tried Conner and Palmiotti's writing on Harley Quinn, but you can always figure things might change. There were a couple of bits - here bad luck-stricken vacation with Ivy, the bit where she keeps trying to tell the goons what the "F" in Harley F. Quinn stands for (although I thought the eventual answer overdid it.)

Conner's artwork is lively and full of cheesecake as usual. Which is fine. The emotion is there, Harley being a very expressive character, the fight scenes are good, easy to follow, sort of graphic. That's not a complaint, it seems par for the course with the character. Actually, I don't know if a guy getting his head cut off with a sign qualifies as "graphic" these days. Is the violence by itself enough, or does the presentation matter? It's not like they did a series of slow-motion panels of the head tumbling through the air, blood and gore drenching everyone in the room while his tongue falls out the back of his head. But the also didn't do that old bit of just drawing it in outline, or cutting away to show it via his shadow. Anyway, people get beat to death, pencils in the ears, arrows through the skull, that kind of thing.

The After Realm #1, by Michael Avon Oeming (writer/artist), Taki Soma (colorist), Shawn Lee (letterer) - Props to the person who built a massive skull sculpture on top of that skyscraper. Or did they carve it from the building itself?

Oona's an elf. Her people retreated beneath the surface when Loki brought about Ragnarok, although they were able to imprison him and some of his lackeys. Oona wants to return to the surface and find her friend who was left behind, but keeps screwing up her chances by being too impatient or taking shortcuts. In her despair, her mind is contacted by Loki's and he finds the way to free himself. Sometime in the future, Oona's writing all this down as she flees from a living Statue of Liberty. It's trying to incinerate her, so the ectoplasm must have been exposed to a lot of angry vibes.

I'm actually most curious about this goat of hers, Pooka. He helps her, he says because he is magically bound to protect her, and that he's not her friend. And it's his help that gets her kicked out of the Rangers (the only ones who might be allowed to go to the surface) the second time. Which is what drove her back to Loki's prison. Which is how Loki got out. And Oona doesn't know who bound him to protect her. So I'm wondering what the long game is.

Other than that, it's really just a lot of set-up. Granting that the last page could be a pretty effective cliffhanger, I wonder if it wouldn't have been more effective to leap more into Oona's present, and gradually reveal the backstory. Show the moments with the friend left behind and the elves retreating below ground, then shift to the present. You can compare and contrast however competent or do-gooding she is now (if she is a do-gooder) with what a selfish, foolish screw-up she was before. Maybe get a little further into whatever the story is actually going to be in the first issue, considering the next issue isn't out until May.

Oeming doesn't get nearly as wild with page layouts here as he did with Cave Carson has a Cybernetic Eye. Soma goes with all black backgrounds quite often, especially the further into the story they get. Like there's just an immense void around Oona. Which, if they're in a massive cavern, might make sense.

Oeming's Loki is very, treelike? His horns are branches, his coloration is that of bark, long limbs that project tendrils that look like roots. Is that a more traditional look for Loki? Plants and trees in general seem pretty prominent. Oona's friend had learned to speak with thorns. She was carving his face into a tree when she noticed one of the other Rangers-in-training going to check on Loki's prison, which is when she got the idea of trying to get in the Rangers again.

What I Bought 11/9/2018

Those comics I ordered finally showed up yesterday. They were supposedly in town Monday of last week, then somehow appeared in St. Louis on Sunday, and gradually made their way back here. We'll get to them eventually, next week, but here's two books from last week.

Harley Quinn #53, by Sam Humphries (writer), Lucas Werneck (artist), Alex Sinclair (colorist), Dave Sharpe (letterer) - Harley's not lined up with the arrow on the dial, so does she get whichever disaster the arrow points at, or the one she lands on herself? Either way, please no ear spider.

Harley is now filming dumb videos of herself to post online to make money to pay for all the damage she caused the city. This is taking a toll, since she has to be "wacky" Harley all the time to get the views that bring in the bucks. Minor Disaster is the daughter of Major Disaster, and frustrated she hasn't been able to make a cool disaster dial like her dad, opts to use what she's got to make all of Harley's videos go awry. You know, rather than deal with her overwhelming desire for her father's approval.

This is not how I envisioned this playing out. I expected it to be more comic, but it plays tragic, since Harley is trying to make this cash to repair damage she created (and presumably to avoid legal action and jail time). I guess I expected Minor Disaster to enjoy wreaking minor havoc, instead of being a frustrated, wannabe major super-criminal. More like the Prankster, or Mxy on his more playful days. It might play out in an interesting way (I figure Harley is going to try helping her tormentor through her issues at some point), but I'm not sure I care enough to stick around for that.

It's the same thing with the art, where I was expecting something more manic, maybe closer to Skottie Young, which is not Werneck's style at all. I think his works well for the quieter moments, where Harley is trying to do a video on her makeup, but keeps slipping into talking about the strain and exhaustion she's feeling, or when Minor Disaster is doubting herself. But during the scenes when Harley's trying to do her weirder videos, it could stand to be a little looser. Let the characters' expressions go more over the top. If you figure Harley is trying to play to the camera, give the people what they clamor for, she'd have to go that route. As it is, the Harley we see during the library stunt, or the aborted motorcycle jump doesn't seem all that different from how Harley typically is.

Giant Days #44, by John Allison (writer), Max Sarin (artist), Whitney Cogar (colorist), Jim Campbell (letterer) - Dang it Esther, the landlord said no nailing stuff on the walls! You're gonna lose the security deposit!

It is Valentine's time. Daisy is angry about, Esther is determined to somehow get a real relationship, and Susan is set on proving she can be romantic. Esther meets some dashing, wealthy inventor guy at an engineering talk she attends with McGraw, but breaks up with him for a bizarre reason, even by Esther's standards. Daisy has problems with an inconsiderate student on her floor, and Susan's attempts to be romantic don't exactly pan out (although charcoal is a good gift for McGraw), but that's OK.

I expected Esther's romance to last longer than half an issue. Granted, that was because I expected it to cause a lot of trouble for her and her friends, but it's interesting to watch her odd progression towards, whatever it is she's becoming. The interest in the sciences was a surprise. Susan not catching flack from McGraw for remaining mostly herself was nice. I'm still worried Esther is going to end up dating that Saffy girl, who appeared again this issue as one of the unhappy students on their floor. I keep expecting Emelia to show up again. She and Esther should still be in classes together.

Sarin has to draw a lot of characters with hearts in their eyes this month, and one girl on the first page who is sighing hearts. Seems like that might be a medical condition worth getting checked out. The panel where a heart smacks McGraw in the face made me laugh. I also love the variety of hairstyles people get, speaking as someone who still hasn't figured out drawing hair consistently. Although that one kid on Esther's floor has hair shaped like an onion.

What I Bought 12/30/2015 - Part 2

Hopefully you had a good night celebrating the new year, or not celebrating if you didn't want to. And hopefully I didn't come down with something from the party I went to.

Harley Quinn and Power Girl #6, by Justin Gray, Amanda Conner, and Jimmy Palmiotti (writers), Stephane Roux, Moritat, Elliot Fernandez, and Flaviano (artists), Paul Mounts (colorist), Marilyn Patrizio (letterer) - It's a good Star Wars homage cover, as those things go, I guess.

The sham wedding of Vartox and Power Girl does not occur, because Harley says something that somehow triggers all three of them being shunted into some weird, artificial location Vartox set up as like a fantasy world where they are married, complete with alcoholic 60s-style domestic Power Girl, and bunch of irritating kids. Much punching in all directions ensues, Peej eventually shames Vartox into just using the ring to send them home without a ceremony, and doesn't even wait to hear his dramatic monologue about the burden of his affections, and that's it.

I was trying to decide how I felt about this mini-series now that it's over, and I'm not sure. It's very much something I read in the moment, but it doesn't leave much of a lasting impression. Kind of just slides off my brain. Power Girl punching Vartox through buildings repeatedly was nice. Vartox having essentially a holodeck fantasy in a pocket dimension seems about right for him. You can almost squint and see it as his practicing to try and be a good husband in the hopes that'll happen some day, but no, it's just creepy and a bad idea all around. I'm curious about the fact they used four artists on this issue. There's no real rhyme or reason to them. It isn't one of those things where they move through several different worlds, each illustrated by someone different. I think Moritat does that page where Peej initially hits Vartox 9and the two before it), and then it shifts to Fernandez when Robo-Kara starts swinging, and I think stays with Fernandez the rest of the way. Either they handed pages off to whoever could get it done, since it's already a month late, or they just wanted to let everyone who'd been involved up to then get a little work in.

Maybe this would have worked better if it was shorter. 4 issues of, "Harley and Power Girl run into some weird thing in Vartox' world. Harley makes enthusiastic inappropriate comments while Power Girl is angry and/or exasperated," was probably enough. Cut some of the chaff with Oreth, or the Harvester of Sorrows (that scene where Harley goes nuts for 5 pages really sticks out as an unusual bit in this whole thing). I was thinking yesterday it was an extended Looney Tunes cartoon, with Harley as Bugs Bunny and Peej as Daffy. Which doesn't seem entirely right, but Harley's the one who seems able to adjust and manipulate the rules of the setting, and Power Girl's the one who is continually frustrated. Which would make Vartox Elmer Fudd? Or maybe the Abominable Snowman that was based on Lenny from of Mice and Men. "And I will hug Power Girl, and squeeze her, and call her George. . ."

Rocketeer at War #1, by Marc Guggenheim (writer), Dave Bullock (artist), Ronda Pattison (colorist), Gilberto Lazcano (letterer) - Cliff's right arm looks too small. Otherwise, it's a solid cover.

Cliff turned the rocket pack over to the government when he enlisted, and the government, in its infinite wisdom, promptly put a trained, highly skilled pilot in the infantry (but he also works as a mechanic at an airfield?). Seems sub-optimal. Cliff's fighting in North Africa, and keeping busy, first rescuing a British pilot from a burning airplane (after she'd saved by him by strafing some attacking Nazis). Yeah, Molly's an attractive lady British pilot, naturally. Then he stopped some Nazi agent from stealing a Magnatron Navigation System from an airplane, that doohickey being a key component of the rocket, that's being adapted for use in aircraft I suppose. By the end of the issue, Cliff's reunited with his rocket, because apparently no one else can use the thing without killing themselves.

I notice Guggenheim is going with Howard Hughes as the rocket's designer, rather than Doc Savage. Stevens made it Savage, but the movie used Hughes, and subsequent writers seem to vary. I think Mark Waid was firmly in the "Doc Savage" camp, based on that mini-series he and Samnee did in 2012. Guggenheim's Cliff is less stupidly jealous than Cliff usually is. I expected him to get a little more steamed when his buddies grabbed the photo Betty sent him and started hooting over it. I was a little surprised he volunteered to hand the rocket over. I would have figured him for approaching the government to let him use it to help the war somehow, and them requesting he turn it over, so then he enlists.

On the last page, when Cliff has donned the rocket pack again and takes off, Molly is standing right there next to the general, with some other soldiers looking on. This after the general described things to Cliff as 'the toppest of secrets'. Granted, the project to mass produce rocket packs is apparently a collaborative effort, because there was a Soviet lieutenant present at the test flight at the start of the issue, but it still seems not in keeping with something being top secret, to have the guy zooming around as the Rocketeer in broad daylight in front of all sorts of people.

Bullock's art seems to shift a lot over the issue. Sometimes he's using a very fine line, and some of his faces remind me of Tim Sale's work (though usually more Bruce Timm's). Other times he goes with much thicker lines. I'm not sure if Pattison's coloring plays a role in that. I'm guessing it did on the page where Cliff pulls Molly from the burning wreckage, which I thought was the best looking page in the whole issue. Just some really good work with the lighting and shadows from the flames. It almost looks like Bullock went very sparse on the number of lines, and let Pattison's colors do a lot of the work themselves. Using shading and tone to help the eye infer lines that aren't that, if that makes sense. There's a phrase for that I'm sure, but it escapes me. At times though, the art feels flat, or characters in the same panel don't feel like they're in the same panel. I can't pin it down, but something feels off to me. There needs to be more shading, the lighting being portrayed isn't right. I noticed it more near the end of the issue, like maybe Bullock had to simplify things because he was running behind.

I'm not sure if I'll buy the second issue. There was some dynamic element I was wanting from the writing and the art that didn't appear. It isn't bad, and there's elements I liked, but I'd have preferred they just skipped right to those. Maybe Cliff being in the Army proper will pay off down the line, but why not have him working as an instructor to other prospective pilots of the rocket, and then he has to go on an actual mission? Did we need the sequences of him being a regular soldier?

The Trauma Lingers

I was still thinking about the odd break Harley had in Harley Quinn and Power Girl #5. When the Harvester of Sorrow unlocked her "inner Joker", though I'm still unclear on what that meant.

When Harley was introduced in Batman: The Animated Series, and developed over the course of her experiences there, she was a tragic character. She'd fallen for a guy who didn't regard her as anything other than an occasional amusing distraction from his real interests, and she couldn't turn away from him. The longer she was around him, the more she seemed to realize that Mistah J's interests were not really her interests - even their goals with regards to crime aren't the same - but it didn't matter. Harley could go off by herself, but if she got too close to the Joker, it was like he had a gravitational pull and just drew her back in to his orbit, and his plans.

Now, that's no longer the case. I don't know how, but Harley's finally realized that relationship was a disaster for her, and seems committed to staying away from him. Some of that may simply be that the Joker's mostly been confined to Snyder/Capullo's Batman title, but there's been no indication Harley is wistful or yearning for the clown to return to her. She's not looking for him, inquiring about him, committing crimes to honor him, nothing. This is good. Even if Harley is still prone to destruction and antics, she's at least trying to direct that energy in productive ways (in her own book, at any rate).

But that doesn't mean whatever trauma she experienced with the Joker didn't happen, and that's what the comic reminded me of. Harley's tried to distance herself, tried to take her circumstance and make something for herself out of it, and she's done a good job. But that ugly past is still there, the destructive and cruel tactics and worldview the Joker would encourage, are still something she's learned, or had imprinted on her, and it may only take a sufficiently traumatic experience to bring it out.

I don't know if Conner, Gray, and Palmiotti were commenting on the fact that psychological trauma is not something that just magically goes away, as it is sometimes portrayed in fiction. That one can be doing well for months, maybe years, and then they have a bad day and it comes crashing back on them. If they were, they undercut it by the fact she came out of it a few minutes later like it was a fugue state, and didn't seem to suffer any ill effects, which doesn't seem like something that normally happens. But it did catch my attention.

What I Bought 11/10/2015 - Part 2

Related to Monday's post, a couple of days ago Amazon recommended I buy a dutch oven. Which was kind of sweet, that it assumed I can actually cook. Really it was just confusing, but at least it wasn't insulting.

Atomic Robo: The Ring of Fire #3, by Brian Clevinger (words), Scott Wegener (art), Anthony Clark (colors), Jeff Powell (letters and design) - Since I'm buying through an online thing now, I should have gotten the subscription variant cover. It was more dynamic.

Ultra has, by appropriating scientists and funds from wherever they please, gotten their giant robots up and running and combating the Biomega. They're sort of winning, though the Titans are getting trashed in the process, and thousands of people are still dying in the battles. Robo and his bunch are working with China's defense industry to build Robo a new body, and devise their own plan to save the world. The former involves a different design of Tesla's as a power source (since no one knows how he built an atomic heart for Robo that small and that efficient). The latter seems to involve supersonic nuclear torpedoes. Hopefully that's a viable plan against the Biomega version of Krakoa, the Living Island, because that's now a problem.

I understand why the Tesladyne bunch would have misgivings about working in the labs of yet another government super-secret science facility, and would be worried their work could be used to further possible nefarious schemes. Even so, I wasn't entirely comfortable with Robo's new power supply being a device which lets him siphon up to 1% of China's nuclear energy output from anywhere in the world, while neglecting to mention to the country in question they did that. Feels distinctly dishonorable. Though I have to wonder if the military has video cameras in the labs, and how the countermeasures Broughton designed can stop lip-readers. Not a problem with Robo, but Broughton is a human, speaking with a human mouth in English.

Speaking of Robo's new look, it's not bad, although his neck having a collared look will take some getting used to. And just offhand, I feel like it isn't as expressive as his old look. Wegener had a real knack for getting across emotions and reactions on a character with not much in the way of facial features. Just going by this issue, it wasn't there. Maybe because Robo tends to show emotion when things start going wrong, and they haven't yet. I wish Wegener could have gone nuts with the Titan designs, but they're being built for the military, and sticking to a standard design would make sense. He gets to have some fun with the Biomega, though, so it all balances out.

Harley Quinn and Power Girl #5, by Amanda Conner, Jimmy Palmiotti, and Justin Gray (writers), Stephane Roux (artist, pages 1-9 and 19-21), Flaviano (artist, pages 10-18), Paul Mounts (colors), Marilyn Patrizio (letters) - Vartox, it's generally considered polite to ask before introducing tentacles into the, well, I'm not sure what to call that. Hot tubbing, I guess.

The Harvester of Sorrow is a giant head that drives people mad and then feeds on the suffering. He's also so large communication is basically impossible, but his pores do serve as an easy way to get rid of Oreth. Harley decides to try getting inside to wreck things, gets captured, and ends up succeeding in her plans when the Harvester tries to feed on her sorrow, and gets a helping of the Joker, which drives it nuts. And also Harley, who rips the mustache clean off Vartox' face. Ow. Then she kind of snaps out of it in time for everyone to reach a safe distance from the explosion, and when Vartox returns, facial hair restored, he proposes to Power Girl.

I have absolutely no idea who the guy in the leather jacket and sunglasses was that Harley imagined right before charging into the Harvester. Was it Hal Jordan? The sunglasses were green. OK, the Internet tells me it's from a Bollywood film, Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, which doesn't really explain anything, but I guess makes sense considering we're talking about Harley. I should stop expecting this mini-series to make sense. Like what the inner Joker in Harley was? Something the Joker actually put in her, or just the impulses that he would encourage, but which she mostly suppresses or redirects these days. If we're working off the origin they gave her in the first new 52 Suicide Squad book, he threw her into his vat of toxins, which had to do something to her mind. And that might just be the part she remembers, but not all that happened necessarily.

Flaviano and Mounts did combine to make her look suitably scary in the pages afterwards. The laughing while crying, the almost rictus grin where the teeth are clenched. The way she pounces on Vartox, but she jutting out her lower jaw in an aggressive fashion, even as she sort of tousles his hair. It's maybe the closest I've seen Conner and Palmiotti come to touching on Harley's portrayal in other DC stuff of the last few years. She's hurting people, but not restricting it to "bad" guys or whatever, but also allies. She only has limited control. So it becomes less funny and more terrifying how unconcerned she is with what she's doing.

What I Bought 10/20/2015 - Part 1

Six books for four weeks. And four of those books came out last week. It's a slow, sad time here, but oh well, make do with what we have. Quality, not quantity, I hope.

Harley Quinn and Power Girl #4, by Amanda Conner, Justin Gray, and Jimmy Palmiotti (writers), Stephane Roux (artist, pages 10-22), Elliot Fernandez (artist, pages 1-9), Paul Mounts with Alex Sinclair (colorists, Sinclair for pages 18-20), Marilyn Patrizio (letterers) - In another second, Power Girl will open her eyes, realize she was only dreaming about (insert character of your choice), and throw up in Vartox' facial hair.

Evil Vartox appears to have Power Girl on the ropes, only to be freed of the mind control by the purring of a caticorn that decided it liked Harley because she lured out a giant, carnivorous fish for it to eat. Vartox tries to explain where he knows Power Girl from, though no one bothers to explain to him this isn't that Power Girl. Oreth Odeox arrives with his gun-toting space nuns, which accomplish nothing, though he does blast Vartox' clothes off, which is much more an impediment to the bad guy than to Vartox. All seems well, but a force called the Harvester of Sorrows is about to arrive, and that will probably be bad.

Back when Annihilation: Super-Skrull was going on '06, someone explained to me Harvester of Sorrows is a reference to a Metallica song. it was used to refer to a planet-destroying weapon there, and I assume it'll be much the same here, though probably a much sillier one, given the tone of this series. Having both Power Girl and Harley to interact with Vartox is a good plan, since Peeg tends to be disgusted with him constantly, whereas Harley just keeps egging him on. It's a bit different to have a character who pretty much encourages Vartox to be himself at all times, but if anything, she's pushing him to be more Vartoxish than normal. And he's the sort who doesn't need much pushing on that score.

This was a fairly good issue, maybe because I felt like it tried moving the story forward a little more, instead of wasting so much time on drug hallucination sequences. Not that there's much of a plot, but at paying lip service to it is nice. I still wouldn't say any of the jokes made me laugh, though some of the expressions Roux gives Vartox are pretty great. His big grin when Harley compliments his "evil" wardrobe, and his haughty look when he's lecturing Oreth while wearing no clothes in particular. Power Girl said Harley had no shame, she just as easily could have been speaking of Vartox.

Starfire #5, by Amanda Conner and Jimmy Palmiotti (writers), Emanuela Lupacchino (pencils), Ray McCarthy (inks), Hi-Fi (colors), Tom Napolitano (letters) - I notice the rest of the sea life as unsure of how they feel about what's happening as I was. Good to know.

Kori has some drinks with the killer guy, they trade toasts, she touches his hand, and someone gets a flashback of his life. Wherein we learn he was a doctor with the power to cure cancer, except it made the tumor in his head grow, which eventually made him the crazy serial killer he is now. He flees, Kori doesn't follow, and isn't sure whether she should tell the sheriff. About the serial killer. Kori, you're an immigrant, not an idiot, c'mon now. The guy her sister hired to find her is approached by the Citadel, who want Kori dead, and they captured the guy's wife and kid. The guy agrees, but only after blowing up one of the Citadel's ships, which might have had said wife and kid. O-kay. Little nuts, though I did appreciate his wife's smirk after the Citadel guys started freaking out. I guess you don't marry a dude like that unless you're prepared for that sort of thing.

Back on earth, Kori goes to her interview at the aquarium, but a lack of experience leaves her out of luck. Isn't that always the way? You need experience to get the job, but need the job to get experience. Anyway, Kori does wind up getting the job, because the bounty hunter guy shows up and kills all the other applicants. I'm JOKING! Actually, she makes out with a sad dolphin so she can speak its language and find out why it's sad. The ability to communicate with sea life gets her the job. There's a big party, the sheriff seems to have been roped into Kori and Atlee's trip to visit Atlee's home (whenever that happens), but when Kori gets home, she finds Dr. Killer waiting, having already attacked the sheriff's brother. Oh, and one of those jewels she had was an egg, and hatched into a star-thing that flew off. It spoke in musical notes, so maybe it's from the same sector as that one Green Lantern? Probably not.

So the dolphin thing. It seems weird, but I know this is because I associate kissing as primarily a romantic thing - and not something done with animals - whereas it isn't that necessarily for Kori. It has been at times - I'm pretty sure she wasn't kissing Boone in issue 1 just to learn 'more English' - but that needn't always be the case. So I wonder if this wasn't Conner and Palmiotti trying to drive that point home in a particularly direct fashion. She wanted to communicate with the dolphin, that would enable her to do so, so she did it. Still, not something I was expecting to read in a comic this week.

There are certain panels where Kori's hair looks like something Lupacchino drew separately, then cut and pasted into place. Note I'm not saying he isn't drawing it, just that there's something about it that makes it note seem to be part of the same picture. Like the hair and her face aren't interacting like they should. The panel on page 3 where she makes her toast in particular. Something about the color of the hair (which I guess would be more Hi-Fi's doing than Lupacchino's), or especially the dark line around the outside boundary of her hair compared to all the lines inside the mass of her hair, just really make it feel like it came from something else. Of course, the dark line might be McCarthy's doing, in which case I need to stop blaming Lupacchino. So someone on the art side of things is making Kori's hair look out of place.

What I Bought 8/19/2015 - Part 2

Comics Alliance had a poll up to see what were people's favorites out of Marvel's many, many events over the last decade. I naturally voted (repeatedly) for Annihilation, which is at least running second. Of course, it's second to Civil War, and the next is House of M. No accounting for taste, I guess. At least World War Hulk pulled ahead of Infinity.

Harley Quinn and Power Girl #3, by Amanda Conner and Jimmy Palmiotti (writers), Stephane Roux (artist, pgs. 1-7, 12-19), Moritat (artist, 8-11), Elliot Fernandez (artist, 20-22), Paul Mounts (colorist), John J. Hill (letterer) - I keep thinking that cover reminds me of a different one, but I can't recall which. I'm probably just thinking of all those covers with one hero unconscious and held by their cape, while another rushes to the rescue. That's not an uncommon type.

Our heroines reach their destination, and are immediately attacked by another space armada. They fend that off, then spend 4 pages on a drug trip thanks to Groovicus Mellow. About the time they come down from that, Vartox shows up, and Power Girl has to start fighting him. I'm starting to think this would have been better served as a 4-issue mini-series. I know the creative team is mostly just screwing around with this whole thing, there isn't any particular point to it, but it was a little too obvious here. Or maybe it doesn't work because all the Hunter S. Thompson stuff is lost on me. The closest I've ever gotten to his work is either those articles he wrote on ESPN's Page 2 in the early 2000s, or the X-Play episode where Sessler dresses up as him while he and Morgan Webb seek the fabled burial ground of Atari E.T. games. I'm still not sure if the bald guy with glasses who showed up as the ladies shook off the effects was supposed to be Thompson or Grant Morrison. I'm thinking Morrison, given the nice suit and lack of a hat, but hell if I know.

I may not have cared about the "montage homage", but Moritat and Paul Mounts did a good job drawing it. Moritat's draws Harley and Peej with a simplified looseness, it somehow suggests their faces could radically alter shape any moment, but they're still easily recognizable. Mellow's face doesn't do this as much, but you could at least argue that he has a higher tolerance from repeated exposure to starflower pollen. Mounts gives everything this sort of oversaturated feel, where there are these purples and greens that are all over the characters, even in the shadows. It works for them being in this haze, the grip of the drug, and so it colors everything. There's definite skill at work, I just didn't engage with it in terms of being sucked in.

Starfire #3, by Amanda Conner and Jimmy Palmiotti (writers), Emanuela Lupacchino (pencils), Ray McCarthy (inks), Hi-Fi (colors), Tom Napolitano (letters) - Nothing worse than being pursued by a giant, slobbering creature, who has your name written on its face. Everyone will just assume you bullied it, and so you deserve to get eaten.

The hurricane has passed, and the island tries to pick up pieces, and Kori starts moving into her new place, Stella and her brother's guest house. This is interrupted by a cruise liner crashing into the harbor. We had seen it pick up some poor shipwrecked guy, who is actually some sort of serial killer with mind powers. By the time Stella and Kori get on the ship, he's nowhere to be seen, and only one member of the crew is left. Since the ship is a crime scene now, Stella asks Kori to wait at a bar nearby, where every guy is interested in her, and she gets some advice from a helpful waitress. Then a monster that kind of looks like he's made of magma shows up, Kori assumes it's after her, but it's actually after the waitress, who is Power Girl's old friend Atlee (I don't know if she uses Terra as a codename).

I understand Conner and Palmiotti are playing up Starfire's lack of familiarity with Earth, but sometimes I think they take it too far. She spent time around other species while she was a prisoner. She lead them in a revolt/escape. She's had other adventures along the way. It seems strange to me she hasn't previously encountered things like sarcasm, greed, or police forces, or whatever. I'm not certain she needs to be this much a fish out of water, to the point she seemingly needs everything explained to her by everyone. Which is too bad, because the idea of Atlee getting to be the voice of experience is a nice potential switch for her, but I feel like it leaves Kori once again in the position of needing to be led by someone else. Maybe it won't turn out that way. Kori clearly knows things, she said she could build one of those weather controlling machines, so she isn't an idiot. Hopefully she'll get a chance to show off some of her knowledge and experience. I do like the fact Stella, even though she sends Kori away, asks her to stay nearby, just in case.

I did wonder how Kori was in her skirt and blouse when she met saw Stella running, but was in her costume by the time she flew Stella to the dock. She couldn't have been wearing it underneath, and it wouldn't have saved time to go back and change, then fly. On the other hand, Lupacchino did remember to draw six toes on the polydactyl cat, and the expressions on the faces of all Kori's possible suitors at the bar were well done. There are times Lupacchino's work seems kind of flat, the expressions are blank, or I can't shake the feeling a face is partially photo-referenced. When he loosens up, gets a little more exaggerated, I think it's an improvement, fits better with the tone. I mean, a bunch of guys and gals all buying drinks for Kori and being interested in her could be played as creepy, but it isn't playing it that way. It's a gag, everyone is attracted to her to the point she gets a ludicrous number of drinks. Everyone has little hearts above their heads, that one guy is sitting backwards in his chair with the classic "totally smitten" pose of resting his head on both hands (which are positioned on either side of his face), with a big smile. Even the cat is waving shyly. And that's a fairly normal tone for this book. Loosening up some might fit better, or at least carry the jokes farther.

What I Bought 7/22/2015 - Part 1

As promised, I ventured to the store and purchased comics, obtaining most of the ones I sought. They were missing a couple, but I’ll find those somewhere else and tack their reviews on later, maybe next week.

Harley Quinn and Power Girl #2, by Amanda Conner, Justin Gray, and Jimmy Palmiotti (writers), Stephane Roux (artist, pages 1-18), Elliot Fernandez (artist, pgs. 19-22), Paul Mounts (colorist, pgs. 1-18), Alex Sinclair (colorist, pgs. 19-22), John J. Hill (letterer) – Harley, you’re partially obscuring Peej’s boob window! How is she supposed to distract these guys when you do that? I guess she could just punch them without them being distracted first. Seems inefficient, though.

That’s what she spends most of the issue doing, trying to smash Oreth’s considerable army, while Harley flees from a cheerful killbot out to sew her orifices together. While Harley succeeds in transforming her foe into a cheerful pile of rabbit-shaped robot junk, Peej is overwhelmed by numbers, until a super-powered strike team of Vartox’ exes arrive to lend a hand. This team tends to bicker a lot and pointlessly shout their names, so it’s pretty much the ‘70s X-Men (albeit dressed more like the Mike Grell-drawn Legion of Super-Heroes). At least they don’t constantly describe their powers out loud. Harley shows up with a spaceship so they can rescue Vartox, who is busy being transformed into something by Oreth.

I’m guessing the chief bad guy is going to wind up have a lot of repressed urges he needs help getting in touch with. Good thing Harley’s a licensed psychiatrist. I was just joking about that, but I could see that being how this problem is handled, with liberal doses of trying to smash the problem with a hammer thrown in. Because it’s still not at all serious, from Power Girl telling Harley not to blow anything up, especially crap (and Harley didn’t blow anything up), to the XGF arguing about whether the one guy on the team should even be there, and him arguing that calling it an Ex-Girlfriend Force isn’t fair to him. Peej’s expression in that panel is great. She has her eyes shut and this sour expression, and you can tell she’s about to start hitting people if they don’t change the subject.

It does highlight a difference between pre- and post-Flashpoint DC. I think pre-Flashpoint Power Girl would have been exasperated, but she’d have rolled with the absurdity of all this, whereas this Power Girl just seems massively frustrated by everything about this world. Part of that is the old Peej had met Vartox, so she’d at least have context for some of these comments. But in general, she seemed at least a little more inclined to accept things were odd and enjoy it. Current Power Girl is a little more focused, but consequently much more easily aggravated by distractions.

Starfire #2, by Amanda Conner and Jimmy Palmiotti (writers), Emanuela Lupacchino (pencils), Ray McCarthy (inks), Hi-Fi (colors), Tom Napolitano (letters) – And on that day, Starfire learned parrots don’t like it when you try to remove their feathers to clean them.

Kori gets an introduction to severe Earth weather as the hurricane hits the island. She manages to get her landlord and her grandson to the school where everyone is hunkering down, then gets plastered with a big sign, which knocks her into some odd fellow’s bathroom, where he is hunkered down. He (and his pugs) go with her, but only because the Sun Goddess told him the Mistress of the Winds would be coming. I can’t tell if that’s going to be significant later, or if he’s just a random oddball Kori meets once. Sheriff Stella’s brother heads out in the middle of all this to try and rescue a couple in a busted boat, and they all get sunk. Fortunately the sheriff found Kori, and after a brief detour to rescue that freaking parrot again, Kori heads out and rescues them all, though it was a bit of a near thing with Gabe, who is possibly smitten with his rescuer. The storm passes, families are reunited, but Kori’s new home is destroyed. Wow, that didn’t take long, and this is why I don’t have much interest in living in coastal regions. Also, some odd thing crawled out a hole in the ground, looking for someone, and he at some poor guy with really obvious tan lines on his arms and legs. Possibly even worse than mine, which is impressive. Nice touch there by Hi-Fi, I assume.

One thing that concerned me about Conner and Palmiotti’s writing on Harley Quinn was that at times they seemed to just be throwing everything they can think of at the wall. The end result is that there are so many different things and characters around, most of them don’t really get developed. It still works to an extent there, because the title character is so scattershot herself, but I’m hoping a similar approach isn’t going to be taken here. Now that Kori isn’t going to be living at the trailer park, will we see Tina and Boone again, or is their part in the story done already? It’s too early to say for sure, and I feel pretty confident Stella and her brother will be regulars in the book, but it’s something to keep an eye on.

I’m curious how they did the rain in this issue. It’s a bunch of thin white lines, and so I don’t know if that’s something Hi-Fi did, or if Lupacchino drew all those in over the rest of the art, and it was understood not to color those in. In the places where they overlap other linework (a person’s hand for instance), you can still see that linework, but sort of faded. So maybe it’s not about not coloring those spaces in, but coloring them in with white? I don’t know, it was just something I noticed on the two-page splash on pages 2 and 3, and it got me wondering. I will say the characters don’t look like they’re inhabiting the same space as the hurricane. I feel like their clothes, and especially their hair, ought to be showing more effects from being in this storm. I’ve been drenched to the skin plenty of times in storms that are likely nowhere near as fierce as what those characters are supposed to be experiencing, and clothes sit differently on you in those situations. OK, Kori’s wearing some alien fabric, and she’s solar-powered, so maybe it’s different for her, but that doesn’t explain all the Earth folk. I mean, the poor joker who gets killed by the subterranean creature is wearing a shirt that ought to be clinging to him by the time he died, you know?

What I Bought 7/2/2015 - Part 1

Remember how I said 10 books over 4 weeks was pretty sorry? Now it’s 5 books over 3 weeks. Months with 5 Wednesdays are frequently disappointing.

Batman Beyond #2, by Dan Jurgens (writer), Bernard Chang (artist), Marcelo Maiolo (colors), Dave Sharpe (letters) – I can’t think of much to say about this cover. I feel like Batman should be trying to stop the cyborgs shooting at people rather than fleeing? Inque should maybe get her hip back out of sight, because it might ruin her element of surprise?

Max and Barbara try to keep Tim alive while cyborgs gather all the new arrivals for “processing”, which is to say Brother Eye pumps them full of drugs and scopes out everything they know, leaving them grinning, mindless husks. Lovely. Max gets caught, and before Babs and Tim can escape, Eye has their faces from Max’s memory, and his chief overseer at this place is Terry’s old foe, Inque. Tim’s first attempt to fight one of Terry’s rogues doesn’t go so well, because apparently he left his brain back in the past. If water proved to be a weakness of hers in the past, it stands to reason she’d be prepared for you to use it. Maybe he should have used Mad Stan as a warm-up? He gets captured, Barbara gets captured, and a shadowy figure on the Moon Eye is using for a host body demands they be processed.

I feel like Brother Eye must have moved the Moon closer to Earth for the picture on that first page. Both bodies seem too large for our vantage point. Either the Moon should be smaller, if we’re close to Earth, or vice versa. Maybe I’m wrong, or maybe Brother Eye really did hook the Moon up with an independent propulsion system. Darkseid has one for his world, Ego was forcibly given one, it’s all the rage with planetary-level threats. Chang and Maiolo are still using the panels with a blank red background, and the figures either in all black and white. They even stepped up usage, since there are about 15 panels in this issue like that. I still like it, it’s a very cool visual effect, the panels really grab the eye, but I worry they might be overusing it. There was a nice bit on page 8, at the bottom, where as Max is being interrogated, over three consecutive panels, the view keeps zooming in, and the colors shift from the more normal scheme in the first one, to the red-heavy style in the third, with the second in-between, heavily orange, but still with other distinct colors. I guess to symbolize her resistance being worn down, and the third panel being the point where she (and Tim and Babs by extension) are sunk, because the best lie she could manage didn’t take. I will say, I don’t understand why they tried to play Inque up as this shadowy, unseen figure for half the issue, considering she’s right there on the cover. It wasn’t exactly a surprise when she attacked Tim and Barbara. Catwoman would have been a surprise. Inque just on the cover as a ruse, to throw the reader off.

I’m still not sure this is going to be what I was looking for. The potential is there – I would have been fine with Tim gradually working his way towards a Big Bad he discovers is causing a lot of misery, just not immediately, I guess. Also a little concerned about Max now. Not really excited for Jurgens to take a weedwhacker to Terry’s old supporting cast just because Tim’s in there now, so hopefully this isn’t the start of some trend. Maybe she can bounce back from it?

Harley Quinn and Power Girl #1, by Amanda Conner, Justin Gray, and Jimmy Palmiotti (writers), Stephane Roux (artist), Paul Mounts (colorist), John J. Hill (letterer) – Harley’s hairstyle is just bizarre, even for her. It’s like a Marge Simpson split in two.

The entirety of this mini-series already took place between two panels in Harley’s ongoing series, but we hadn’t gotten to see what happened. Now we do, and the answer is, they wound up back in the pre-Flashpoint DCU, ran into some creepy Yoda-guy with a pet Hydra (I feel like these are jokes about Star Wars and Marvel both being under Disney’s umbrella now, but I could be wrong), then stumbled across one of Vartox’s headships. The ship, once it realizes one of the heroines is Power Girl, is only too eager to take them back to his homeworld, which has fallen under the boot of some uptight jerk named Oreth Odeox. Upon arriving at Valeron, they’re immediately shot down, then nearly charged with being prostitutes, until Harley “accidentally” blows the guy’s head off with something she took from not-Yoda’s weapon cache. About that time, Vartox’ chief science guy shows up, we get some discussion of how this is definitely the universe where Peej helped Vartox save his planet, then more of Oreth’s goons show up.

It’s all entirely goofy, but that’s fine. I’m not sure whether it’s Roux inking his own work, or if it’s Paul Mounts colors, but I really like Roux’s work more now than I have in the past. When I’d see it on Birds of Prey, there was always something about it that threw me off (there’s one cover with Misfit and Black Alice on it I’m thinking of in particular). Expressions were exaggerated to a comical extent, but it was trying to look realistic. The overall presentation clashed in my head. Not the case here. Harley’s expressions in particular are fairly exaggerated, as she tends to talk with her entire body, lots of hand gestures and such, but it works really well. Maybe it’s the silly tone of the book, or Harley’s character in general (though Power Girl has some excellent faces as well), but the whole thing just works.

I see why they titled this issue “Extrastellar Exploitations”, given there are more than a couple of panels that provide a pretty decent close-up on Power Girl’s rear end. They still work for conveying relevant information, but they probably didn’t have to be angled that particular way, you know? Or maybe they did, given this book. What the heck, right?

Also, I probably shouldn’t be surprised Vartox had Power Girl androids made, but I am a little bit. I thought he regarded her too highly for her assistance to his people to resort to pale imitations. Though I’m sure whenever Harley and Peej meet one, Vartox will insist it was done as a measure of respect for her.

What I Bought 4/17/2014 - Part 2

Moving on to DC, one book leftover from March, and the only one of those Convergence books I’m going to end up buying.

Harley Quinn #16, by Amanda Conner and Jimmy Palmiotti (writers), Chad Hardin (artist, pages 1-15, 20), John Timms (artist, pgs. 16-19), Alex Sinclair (colors for Hardin’s pages), Paul Mounts (colors for Timms’ pages), John J. Hill (letterer) – Harley and dynamite is not an advisable combination.

Harley is going to reduce her stress by interviewing 80 applicants to be her crew, selecting a dozen of them, finding a place for them to live, and getting it renovated and furnished. As a plan to reduce her responsibilities, this would seem to fall under “spending money to make money”. Or perhaps burning money to make money. Anyway, after the interviews, and the battle royale, she’s got her group, and their all decked out in her colors, to represent her values and honor. That’s a little terrifying, but sure, why not?

So we’ll see how this goes. Harley as a leader is not something I see ending well, and I’m more than a little suspicious of Holly, the blind, wheelchair-bound girl with an alliterative name that made the cut. Holy crap, it’s Barbara Gordon in disguise, isn’t it? Or it’s a reference to Matt Murdock, one or the other. I shouldn’t be surprised someone in the Bat-family would be keeping an eye on Harley, especially after she went on that date with Bruce Wayne.

I like the idea of the movie posters in the theater being those homage variant covers DC did a couple months ago. I saw the Batgirl/Prince one, and the “Superman and Doomsday are Bill & Ted” for certain. Might as well use them for that. Also, I loved Ivy’s sad face at the ketchup covered fries. Not sure why, maybe because it plays off Harley’s energetic attempts to get still more ketchup out of the bottle. By the next panel, Harley’s trying to use a knife to scrape it out, and looks perfectly content at that moment, while Ivy looks just slightly repulsed. I wonder if it’s because she objects to eating potatoes, or just hates seeing them in ketchup? 

The humor is still broad, and nothing made me laugh out loud, but I smiled at quite a few of the lines in there, and I appreciate the effort, anyway. The creative team is clearly just doing whatever they like, making any jokes they choose, from one about a particular apparatus a woman brought to a recent movie based on a book, to a gag about poor, mistreated letterer, John J. Hill. If they aren’t going to loosen his collar, they could at least give him a clean shirt.

Batgirl: Convergence #1, by Alisa Kwitney (writer), Rick Leonardi (penciller), Mark Pennington (inker), Steve Buccellato (colorist), Dezi Sienty and Tom Napolitano (letterers) – If there was only going to be one, you knew this was it. And it’s your fault it’s only the one Internet! You did too good a job telling me how dull and repetitive most of the other books were!

Steph gave up being Batgirl because of something that happened at the zoo shortly after Brainiac whisked away the city. Brainiac either doesn’t know, or doesn’t care, because a year later, he tags her to fight for the survival of her city against the Catman of Flashpoint. At least she has Tim and Cass with her, even if Tim spends all his time running her down, while Cass just can’t figure out what to do to help. The answer is nothing, really. Steph’s been out of costume for a year. Unless Cass can use the ole Ariashikage Mindset on Steph, nothing’s going to fix that inactivity. Especially now that Gorilla Grodd’s in the mix.

So first off, I’m not sure I buy Steph giving up being Batgirl. Considering all the crap she went through and was put through, and she kept on as Spoiler, it seems unlikely. But fine, unprecedented situation for her, being trapped inside an unbreakable dome, produces an unprecedented response. And I do like that’s she continuing to help people in her own way, which involves being fairly clever and good at understanding what motivates others. Cass can read a body, but her life experience is so different, there’s no guarantee she can understand what she sees. And Tim seems to have ventured too far down the Bat-path, where people are abstract collections of traits to be analyzed and managed. I don’t particularly like Tim here, but Steph and Cass’ interactions feel roughly on the money. Cass has never held back what she thinks when Steph pressed her on it, but she’s still cared about her. And Cassandra keeping Steph’s costume, but never bothering to wash it was perfect. I laughed.

This is. . . not Rick Leonardi’s best work. Maybe he was rushed, or maybe Pennington is just not an inker well-suited to him. I know his work looked a lot better when he was inked by Jesse Delperdang on Cass’ series. There are still good panels or pages here, but a lot of stuff seems unfinished, or overshaded in places. There’s one panel on page 2 where Tim looks really gaunt because of the shading on his cheeks. There are sequences where the shape of Steph’s face seems to shift considerably from one panel to the next, and in one panel her face consists of two dots for eyes and nothing else. Not even a hint of a mouth or nose. Leonardi's artwork was actually a strong selling point for me on this, so it's kind of a letdown. 

No idea what happened to the font there at the end.