Saturday Splash Page #213

"Top o' the Heap," in Robin #85, by Chuck Dixon (writer), Pete Woods (penciler), Jesse Delperdang (inker), Noelle Giddings and Jamison (colorists), Willie Schubert (letterer)

Robin was the first DC title I bought monthly. Starting with this very issue, in fact. I had issues from the various mini-series they used to start Tim Drake out with. Mostly the one where he has to face the Joker while Batman's out of town. I had a handful of issues from the Chuck Dixon/Tom Grummett run which started this ongoing. Mostly tie-ins to larger linewide events. Knightfall. Knightsend (Knights End?). The Zero Hour issue where Tim meets a young Dick Grayson Robin.

Also issue #4, which was my introduction to Stephanie Brown, aka Spoiler.

Chuck Dixon wrote the book for about 100 issues, often with the approach of Tim's civilian and superhero lives getting in each other's way. Crimefighting causes Tim to miss class, or leaves him unable to account for his whereabouts when his father wants to know where he was last night, if not at home. Missing a date with his school acquaintance Ariana, or trying to have a relationship with a fellow vigilante when he knows her secret identity, but won't buck Big Daddy Bats enough to share his own.

By the time I was buying the book regularly, Tim and Batsy were having more frequent falling outs, as Batman was fully into his early-2000s, Paranoid Dickhead Era. Tim was also attending a private school, which gave Dixon and penciler Pete Woods a way to introduce new plots and problems, via Tim's various classmates. It did seem to get a little much when one kid turns out to be the potential rightful ruler of some Middle Eastern country, and ends up with a demon set on him, and another turns out to potentially be the next head of Kobra, both in about a 10-issue span.

As much as I like Tom Grummett's work, I do prefer Pete Woods on Robin. His Tim was skinnier, maybe even wiry (I don't think he's tall enough to qualify as "lanky.") That seemed to fit the approach Dixon was going with for Tim, compared to the earlier Robins. Tim wasn't the athlete, certainly not the acrobat, Grayson was. He had to be more cerebral, just to stay alive. I only saw Dixon write a few issues where Tim was dealing with what I'd call a mystery, but his adventures still usually boiled down to him having to think his way through a problem, because his opponent outmatched him physically.

Might have been why I liked him. That and the bo staff, the Ninja Turtles influence still strong in me. The long pants and ditching of the pixie boots didn't hurt, either. Apparently the costume design was strong enough it keeps getting adapted for Dick Grayson in other media, like Batman: The Animated Series and the Teen Titans cartoons.

Dixon left, Jon Lewis took over as writer, as Tim moved back into Gotham proper. Some of the plots Lewis trotted out were weird, or I just didn't get what he was going for. Two kids in some traveling rural roadshow who could heal from terrible injuries, but had to stay close to each other. Batman testing Tim by having Alfred pretend to time travel with a dire warning that one of their friends turns totalitarian. That plot was undercut by Batman criticizing Tim for not dismissing the idea outright on the basis of time travel, when Tim was literally on a team with a kid from the 30th Century, and it was still in continuity that Batman was on a Justice League roster with Booster Gold, who was from the 25h Century.

Then Bill Willingham took over as writer, and the Bat-Editorial took a sledgehammer to Tim's life. Spoiler died in War Games. Tim's dad died in Identity Crisis. Willingham sent Tim to Bludhaven, and had him fight magic-using losers and a bunch of other goofy villains. Also sent Tim's step-mom along, after she had a mental collapse, but oops, she got blown up with the city by Deathstroke in Infinite Crisis. Geoff Johns kept teasing futures where Tim would become some Authoritarian Batman in his depressing Teen Titans run. Then One Year Later, and Adam Beechen, and the whole Cass Cain mess, and boy did I regret not pulling the ripcord 30 issues sooner. Better late than never, I suppose.

All told, I bought Robin for about 5 years, but only 16 issues remain in my collection.

Sunday Splash Page #335

 

"Trolls Love Basements", in Marvel Knights #2, by Chuck Dixon (writer), Ed Barreto (penciler), Klaus Janson (inker), Haberlin Studios and Dave Kemp (colorists), Richard Starkings and Troy Peteri (letterer)

Marvel's late-1990s/early-2000s Marvel Knights imprint is probably best known for Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon's 12-issue Punisher maxi-series, or the Christopher Priest/Mark Texiera Black Panther book (the longest running of the bunch.) There was also the Daredevil revival by Kevin Smith and Joe Quesada, and Inhumans, by Paul Jenkins and Jae Lee. I got back into comics a bit late for most of those, but I did arrive in time for the last few issues of Chuck Dixon and Eduardo Barreto's street-level heroes team book.

The basic set-up is that Daredevil has once again decided Frank Castle Must Be Stopped. (No mention is made of the humiliating beatdown Castle gave him in issue 3 of Ennis' mini-series.) Since he hasn't had any luck doing that solo, DD decides to enlist some other friends and allies for the job. He encounters the Black Widow during a whole thing where Ulik the Rock Troll has come to Midgard looking for a valuable artifact. Natasha had met Dagger, who's looking for Cloak, during that. Dagger has no place to go, so she becomes a bit of a younger sister to the Black Widow.

It's got to be a measure of when the book was written that Black Widow by herself isn't enough to deal with the Punisher. I feel like these days she'd be written as taking him down in her sleep.

Shang-Chi was also defending a subway car full of people from Ulik's minions, and he's not happy about some of the crime in the area, so she's in. After that, the thing almost takes on a life of its own. Moon Knight hears about it and asks to not only join, but offers to bankroll them. With a headquarters and everything. Spector is not written anywhere near as dangerous or competent as he is these days, either. He takes a lot of damage, but less in the sense of "holy crap, we can't stop this guy." More, "this guy is overmatched." Zaran the Weapons Master shows up, working for Shang-Chi's unnamed dad and pretty well takes Moon Knight apart.

Oh, and Moon Knight hired Luke Cage, back rocking the yellow shirt and tiara.

The joke of the thing is, the group barely even sees the Punisher. Frank gets wind of the idea early on and tries to use his various stoolies to feed the team info so they'll take out possible roadblocks for him. They spend a couple of issues trapped inside Cloak's world while Dagger tries to reach him (with an assist from Dr. Strange.) They have a throwdown with Tombstone (colored more pink-tinged than I've ever seen) and a group of super-powered leg-breakers he hired. Black Widow gets targeted by someone using a Nick Fury LMD. Yes, that old bit. Shang's eternal problems with his dad derail the team before it can really get going.

Barreto draws 14 of the 15 issues, the exception being issue 14. Klaus Janson inks the first 6 issues. Concluding with, of all things, a Maximum Security tie-in that's all about Frank Castle fight some giant insectile alien in a crackhouse full of mind-controlled addicts. I've often heard that Klaus Janson inked book just looks like Janson's art, regardless of the penciler. And while that's mostly been my impression, Barreto is somehow the exception. The linework is definitely heavier, and with more cross-hatching than in other comics I've read Barreto drew, but not as heavy as other Janson-inked titles, and it's not as stiff, either.

I don't know if Janson consciously pulled back, if the preponderance of shadows in the settings made him dial back to avoid the whole thing being too dark, or if it was something else. Barreto's work is in a very superhero style, most of the characters with the idealized physiques and shiny costumes. Blood or violence is shown in outline or alluded to, rather than anything explicit or gory. The setting inside Cloak's dimension is rendered as just New York city under an eternal sunset sky. It's not the sort of bizarre, twisting architecture or swirling nightmares a Ditko, Colan or Mandrake might adopt. It's street-level superheroes, the emphasis on "superheroes" rather than "street-level."

Off on a Tangent

I'm absolutely sure that is not the case.

Volume 2 of DC's Tangent Comics, collects five of the one-shots from that imprint: The Joker (by Karl Kesel, Matt Haley, Tom Simmons and Chris Eliopoulos), Nightwing (John Ostrander, Jan Duursema, Gloria Vasquez, Dave Lanphear), Secret Six (Chuck Dixon, Tom Grummett, James Sinclair, Ken Lopez), Doom Patrol (Dan Jurgens, Sean Chen, Kevin Conrad, Ray Kryssing, Jason Wright, Dave Lanphear), and The Batman (Dan Jurgens, Klaus Janson, Gregory Wright, Comicraft).

Each one is a different type of story. Secret Six is pretty much a "put the team together" story with a bunch of disparate characters happening to run into each other investigating the same thing. Doom Patrol is your classic time travel story where attempts to change the future only bring it about. Joker is a mystery from the perspective of a cop the Joker seems to have taken an interest in, although the reasons for that seem pretty weak once revealed. But I think we're supposed to take it that the Joker's trying to process some trauma in a less-than-ideal manner. Nightwing is kind of a "shadow war/wheels within wheels" story of people vying for power out of sight of everyone else. And Batman is a monster story and doomed romance thing.

The art leans to standard superhero comic style. Grummett and Chen are the artists they've always been, making sure all the visual information is there, easy to interpret and follow. Duursema's the most distinctive, but also the most '90s in look. Lots of busy little lines and questionable proportions and anatomy for the characters. But Nightwing is the least "superhero" of the books, with the backstabbing, manipulation and working in the shadows, so it makes sense to not look like the others.

I've always read that if Klaus Janson is the inker, the art just ends up looking like his. No matter the penciler, Janson's heavy inks overwhelm it and make the look his own. I've read the Wolverine issues Byrne penciler that Janson inked, and I'd tend to agree, it doesn't look much like Byrne's work. Apparently Dan Jurgens is the exception, because The Batman still looks very much like a Jurgens-drawn comic, just with thicker, messier lines than when Norm Rapamund or someone else inks him. I don't know if Janson dialed it back or what.

Since most of the stories are also the first appearance of these versions of the characters, there's a fair amount of exposition or flashbacks. Four pages spent explaining how Batman is a suit of armor controlled by a knight who was tricked into turning against King Arthur by Morgan le Fay, so Merlin condemned him to live trapped within his castle (The House of Secrets) until he atoned. Exactly how he's supposed to do that if he hasn't managed it after several centuries is not outlined, but Merlin's always kind of a shithead, so that tracks. Dude's just pissed le Fay outflanked his withered butt.

Some integrate it into the flow better than others. In Nightwing, Ostrander handles explaining the mysterious magic-using cabal by having one character pass the information along to the President in a dream. With Doom Patrol, since the characters traveled back in time to prevent the Earth exploding, Jurgens just has them explain whatever particular event they're trying to stop as they're trying to stop it.

The re-imagining of the characters and concepts works better for some than others. The Joker as a female vigilante/pest that focuses mainly on mocking or humiliating authority figures isn't bad. Actually, it feels like some of this has been co-opted into Harley Quinn over the last decade (although Harley's got a lot more 4th wall breaking.) Batman as a true dark or disgraced knight, who carries on his mission endlessly because he sees it as the only chance he's got to be free, rather than from a childhood vow to end crime, that can work. Wildcat as a codename for a young lady who transforms into a feral werecat when she speaks her trigger word (Shazam)? Not so much.

All the issues suffer from what seems like a competition between the writers to name-check as many characters or concepts as possible. In Doom Patrol, the teenage daughter of the doctor leading the attempt to change the past says her mother called her "Firehawk" when she was just a kid. It never comes up again, and the young lady demonstrates no fire or bird-themed abilities, so it really feels like just checking a box. Secret Six references a bio-weapon used against Eastern Europe the year before. Codename? Red Tornado. I didn't do an exact count, but I feel like Nightwing wins, especially once the mage "Hex", starts referencing spells called "The Emerald Eye" or "Ring of Oa."

The re-designs vary in how similar they are to their namesakes. Batman's a big red suit of armor, and instead of pointy ears, has a pair of similar-looking (but larger) spines on the shoulders. Still the same emblem, though tilted on its axis. Joker combines bits of Harley Quinn with the Joker, and the poofy-sleeved coat reminds me of some of the Royal Flush Gang.

On the other hand, Hex (real name: Vincent Lord, don't know if that's a reference to something) looks like Constantine crossed with Gambit, and has the same sort of sleazy yet self-assured air you'd expect from a fusion of those two. Plastic Man's a big, shiny, green-faced living polymer that looks kind of like a robot. The look and the name don't fit, but the name does fit his powers and composition, and it was given to him by his government handlers, so I can see them taking a direct, literal approach.

Random Back Issues #108 - Birds of Prey #37

This could be labeled "Joker: Last Laugh - Aftermath", assuming anyone was stupid enough to advertise it was connected to that event. I know it's hardly ironclad, and more likely an example of recency bias, but I remember an issue of Wizard where Last Laugh ranked as the worst event in a reader poll they ran. I hadn't read it, so the idea it could be worse than the Clone Saga (which ranked 2nd) was stunning and terrifying.

Anyway, Black Canary, Blue Beetle and Robin are trying to track down some of the last few Jokerized escaped super-criminals loose in Gotham. First up is, G-Nome who accumulates DNA of different things to copy their traits. Robin warns he's been to the zoo and aquarium since escaping The Slab, but the spiked tail thing reminds me more of a dinosaur.

I guess DC has that one island with dinosaurs, the one in the War that Time Forgot comics?

Beetle tries to tranq him, but it can't get through his tough outer shell. The Canary Cry stuns G-Nome long enough for Robin to stab him between some of the plates and that's that, although G-Nome doesn't revert to normal.

Oracle confirms most of the escapees are rounded up, and the only one left in the Gotham/Bludhaven area is, well, you see the panel directly above, right? Cue sepia-toned flashback of Barbara-Batgirl and Grayson-Robin taking him out in his only previous attempt at crime, where he was dressed as a fast-food employee with a name tag reading, "Hi! I'm Crazy How May I Serve You?" I'm wondering if that was from the Batgirl: Year One mini-series that I think Dixon and Martin did. Barbara's confident the guy will be more incompetent since being Jokerized, as the toxin 'amplifies your personality.'

Hovering in the Bug above a shopping mall, Ted's thermal scope reads someone standing over a trash barrel in the food court, people huddled on the ground around them. Smash through the skylight and find the person standing a "Weiner World" employee chained to a oil drum full of mustard gas.

Condiment King then gets all three of them with various condiments, spiced up to a 100,000 on the Scoville scale, which Wikipedia says is equal to a low-end habanero chili or Scotch bell pepper. The Carolina Reaper is at 2,000,000 units, but maybe it hadn't been created when Dixon wrote this in '02.

While Robin and Canary go into anaphylactic shock and Ted crawls to the ice cream store, Condiment King goes into his own sepia-toned flashback. He was assigned to the Arkham kitchen, where the food was 'bland, soulless, and drugged.' But then he had a conversation with Poison Ivy, and she told him all about spices and plants.

In some versions of her character, Ivy would be against people eating plants, wouldn't she? But I guess if you're using nature's gifts to kill humans, she'd give the thumbs up to that.

Ted overcomes the heat with a healthy dose of milk. Turns out all that book learning didn't fix Condiment King's glass jaw as one punch sends him to la-la land. His mustard gas bomb is set to go off, and with no time to defuse it, Ted uses the Bug to haul it out of the mall. Where it blows up over the city? I'm assuming the idea is the gas will dilute on the wind but that seems like a good way to broaden the effect over several city blocks. Maybe its overwhelmed by the smog normally hanging over Bludhaven.

C.K. gets hauled to jail and Canary heads home to wash her hair, while Tim wonders how to get BBQ sauce off Kevlar and Ted complains the Bug's gonna smell like a hotdog cart. There's a subplot about Barbara trying to get in touch with Nightwing, who is shutting people out after he beat Joker to death at the end of Last Laugh (Batman resuscitated him, because of course he did.) Bold of Dixon to assume we'll care that Nightwing is angry with himself for killing the Joker.

{2nd longbox, 105th comic. Birds of Prey #37, by Chuck Dixon (writer), Marcos Martin (penciler), Alvaro Lopez (inker), Wildstorm (colorist), Albert T. De Guzman (letterer)}

Random Back Issue #6 - Robin #89

Really surprised Alfred would let Tim have such an unhealthy snack on the flight.

This is set during Tim's time attending a private school, where naturally all his classmates ended up in some trouble. Off the top of my head, one guy was there because anger issues jeopardized his sports scholarship, one guy got in trouble for winning too much money off poker websites, and Tim's roomie turned out to be an alcoholic. Plus there was the kid who had a demon trying to kill him. No, not Etrigan.

This go-round, Danny Temple turns out to be potential heir to the throne for Kobra. Danny gets kidnapped by Servitors (which Tim says Bruce has filed under "SSSSSSSSSS"). Plus they lose their deposit on the jet skis. I wonder if the guy they rented from was the same one who made the mistake of renting a jet ski to Frank Castle that one time?

Tim gets Alfred to fly him to the Himalayas to find Danny, while insisting he's just doing recon, he'll totally call for help if he finds anything. Spoiler alert: He does not call for backup. Deadman was probably pretty offended to not get an invite. I mean, he hangs out somewhere in the Himalayas, and he's a ghost. It can't be that long of a trip for him.

There turns out to be a whole power struggle, where Danny doesn't know what the hell is going on. There's a mysterious hooded figure eagerly waiting to see if Danny really is who they think he is, who turns out to be someone Robin knows really well. Tim's also not the only person making tracks for the secret base, as it turns out the previous leader of Kobra isn't quite ready to surrender his throne to anyone.

What was of more interest to me at the time was the subplot Tim mentions in the first panel up there. Batman had one of those brief blips of insight where he decides to train Spoiler, rather than just ineffectually tell her to stop. But when he needs Tim checked up on, he sends her to the school (because of some falling out with Alfred I forget the details of), after revealing Tim's secret identity. This after telling Tim he couldn't tell Spoiler who he was under the mask for a long time (and Bats doesn't reveal his identity to her, naturally). Expert Batdickery, right there. Reveal someone's secret without asking, meddle in their relationship, and be too scared of Alfred to just handle things yourself.

I'd been buying this book regularly about 5 months at this point. Dixon has another year to go as writer before Jon Lewis takes over, but Pete Woods will remain as the primary artist until the end of Lewis' stint around issue #120. I actually prefer Woods' version of Tim to Tom Grummett's, despite being a big Grummett fan if only because Woods doesn't draw him quite as ripped. Tim's just looks like a fairly athletic teenager. Maybe he should look more muscular, but considering he was usually portrayed as nowhere near the athlete Dick Grayson is, it didn't seem too off-base.

[Longbox #9, 7th comic. Robin #89, by Chuck Dixon and Scott Beatty (writers), Pete Woods (penciler), Andrew Depoy (inker), Noelle Giddings (colorist), Willie Schubert (letterer)]

Sunday Splash Page #83

"Dinah Can Use a Sidekick, Right?" in Birds of Prey #40, by Chuck Dixon (writer), Rick Leonardi (penciler), Jesse Delperdang (inker), Wildstorm FX (colorist), Albert T. de Guzman (letterer)

I only own about a dozen issues of Birds of Prey. Nothing against the book, it's just that none of Oracle, Black Canary, or Huntress are characters that really move the needle for me. They're in that large subset of "don't got nothing against them, don't got nothin' for 'em, either" characters. Basically all the issues I do own involve other characters making guest appearances. During the Dixon run, that boils down to Power Girl, Ted Kord, or in the case of this issue, Spoiler.

This is from a stretch where one of those three seems to show up fairly regularly, but there's also a lot of event tie-ins. This issue, for example, is part of Bruce Wayne: Murderer, where, if I remember right, Cass Cain's dad killed Vesper Fairchild and made it look like Wayne did it, because. . . reasons. He was trying to get Cass back? Someone paid him to do it? I can't remember.

Oracle has Canary helping her with the investigation, without explaining why exactly she's so interested in proving Bruce Wayne's innocence (although I think it's implied Dinah figures it out). Which is one of the things that bugs me about Oracle, Dixon's version of her at least. She plays a lot of double standards. She gets to know everything about you, but you're lucky if you know anything about her. She sends you on a job, she only tells you what she thinks you need to know, regardless of how little of the full picture that is. It's amazing to me anyone puts up with that, but they do.

Beyond that, the other two threads are that Ted Kord finds out he's had a bunch of heart attacks, and then get attacked by a little robot sent by some dude who wants to take over his company, and Canary helping Spoiler by kicking Steph's dad and the Riddler out of her house. Which is admittedly pretty cool, when Canary Crys the Riddler's gun to pieces. I think this starts a brief stretch where Steph tries to get Canary to teach her the ropes, since Batman's off on his bullshit again, but it never really goes anywhere.

Rick Leonardi had taken over as penciler the issue prior to this, and I think Jesse Delperdang is a really good inker for him. The two seem to have worked together on several Batbooks around this time (Nightwing and Batgirl being two where I've seen them), and it's what I'd call Leonardi's strongest work. It avoids that common trait of his work where the lines are so faint figures and faces are almost impressionistic at times. Just a hint of facial features and your mind fills in the rest. There's none of that here, but maybe having Dixon or Kelly Puckett as the writer leaves an artist more room to work than Chris Claremont (although that wouldn't explain some of the stuff I've seen the last few years).

Sunday Splash Page #74

"Giving Batgirl a Sword is Just Unfair", in Batman and the Outsiders (vol. 2) #8, by Chuck Dixon (writer), Julian Lopez (penciler), Bit (inker), Marta Martinez (colorist), Travis Lanham (letterer)

I thought there would be more than 2 volumes of Batman and the Outsiders (3 counting the one DC's publishing at the time this post goes up), but I guess those titles were just called The Outsiders. One of them, written by Judd Winick, wrapped up in mid-2007, when Batman came strutting in and took over from Nightwing. Typical Batman shit. Leaves a thing along for years, then shows up one day and says, "this is mine," and just takes it.

Then again, I wouldn't have wanted to be part of Brad Meltzer's Justice League book either, so maybe this seemed like a good alternative.

This volume, though, went through all sorts of mess in a short time. Each of the first three issues was solicited with a different creative team (Tony Bedard and Koi Trumbull were listed for issue #1, I know that much), and the roster got mostly overhauled. Catwoman and Martian Manhunter were originally, plus that Aquaman who wasn't Arthur Curry that Kurt Busiek came up with a wrote for a while post-52.

By the time the first issue actually shipped, Chuck Dixon was on as writer, with Julian Lopez as the artist most of the time. Catwoman, J'onn, and Aquaguy vanished (although Geo-Force was still around), and here's Green Arrow and Batgirl. I have absolutely no idea what happened there, but if Cassandra hadn't been added to the book I wouldn't have bought it, so things work out sometimes.

Cass was back to something close to her character from the Puckett/Scott run on her title. Not talking much, not understanding jokes or references, not showing much concern for her well-being. But she was still recognizably Cass, which was a big improvement over the clusterfuck Johns and Beechen had pulled on her the previous two years. Take what I can get. 

Green Arrow seems to be on there to be the one who questions Batman's judgment the most (and the act like a dick towards Cass because she'd been in the League of Assassins). Bats just ignores it, Cass lets Ollie try to kill her if it'll make him feel better, so it's actually Metamorpho who butts heads with Ollie the most. Which is kind of fun. I like Metamorpho anyway. And Dixon brought in the idea from 52 of Ralph and Sue Dibny running around as ghosts. Although they didn't seem to be acting as detectives so much as playing Deadman and possessing people. Still, I think that was more than anyone else ever did with that idea.

Some of the faces Lopez draws look a little strange, and sometimes the proportions seem off (Grace has oddly small fists for how big she is at times), but the work is very expressive. Maybe the faces look odd because a person making that expression should look weird. And it works for the funnier moments. Batman recruited a scientist onto the team who remote controls an OMAC from the Batcave, and some of his actions while he's doing that, and when he meets Alfred are pretty funny. When Lopez needs to string together a sequence of panels for a fight scene, he can do that. You can tell how the action progresses from one to the next easily. There's nothing special about the page layouts or anything, it's just solid artwork for a superhero comic. It makes sure all the information you need is there, it sells the emotions and the action.

The overarching plot involved an alien parasite from beneath the Moon's surface, controlling people and trying to do. . . something. We never found out, because Dixon left the book (or was fired, I forget which) around issue 10. Supposedly because he was angry with how Batman R.I.P. was fucking with his book. Grant Morrison was waiting until the last second to send his stuff in for that story, so DC couldn't change any of it. That left everyone doing tie-ins scrambling to get their shit done on tighter deadlines. I get Morrison not wanting his work fucked with, and I doubt he told DC to make other books tie in, but come on, have some sense of the fact you're making other people's lives harder.

With Dixon off the book, and tie-ins commencing, I jumped ship. Just as well, because once the tie-ins were over, Keith Champagne took over writing and retooled the roster, dumping Cass and Green Arrow among other, and I want to say adding Killer Croc? I don't know. At some point I think Dan Didio started writing it, which is when you know the book is going to be total shit, but I was long gone by then.

What I Bought 5/8/2019 - Part 4

Onward and upward, hopefully. Today we have two different books I took a chance on. One of them is promising, the other didn't work for me.

Ghost Tree #1, by Bobby Curnow (writer), Simon Gane (artist), Ian Herring with Becka Kinzie (colorists), Chris Mowry (letterer) - You got a little something on your face. Or maybe not.

When Brandt was a kid, his grandfather made him promise to come back and visit him under a particular tree, 10 years after his grandfather died. Brandt is back in Japan, mostly to get away from a failing marriage, but he's still right on time, even if he didn't remember the promise he made. His grandfather is there, along with a lot of other ghosts. His grandfather regrets telling him to come back here, but Brandt feels comfortable. The mysterious figure on the cover is watching over all this, has some connection with a woman Brandt knew when they were kids.

The comic is peaceful, which may sound odd for being about ghosts, but the figure on the cover hasn't taken any threatening actions yet, and neither has anyone else. Brandt is running from his troubled relationship, returning to place he has fond childhood memories. Gane draws him with somewhat messy clothes, and he avoids eye contact with most people. Talking to his grandmother next to him while they both look ahead. Looking at the car window while talking to his cousin. He seems like an awkward, uncertain, weary guy.

Also, when Brandt wakes up in the middle of the night, Gane draws him with some of his hair sticking straight up, and it stays that way for the remainder of the scene. Because people's hair gets weird when they sleep, and Brandt's not thinking about it to where he'd smooth it back down. Which was a little detail I appreciated.

But when he interacts with his grandfather's ghost, he stands up straighter, he looks at him while talking, and there's a genuine smile. Not a smirk, or watery weak smile, but a real one. His grandfather told him to hold onto childhood memories because they would be the happiest, and even if he didn't remember that conversation, he seems to have taken it to heart. The question is whether he's holding onto the memories or retreating into them, and how that is going to contrast with all these spirits. I guess we'll see.

I don't think the book is even entirely finished with set-up yet, but as far as first issues go, this one did well to get my interest.

Jungle Comics #1, by Chuck Dixon (writer), Kelsey Shannon (artist), Brian Denham (letterer) - For some reason I was thinking constrictor snakes wouldn't necessarily have teeth. Don't know why I'd think that, they have to have something in their mouth to help keep a grip on the prey while they gradually swallow it.

The basic story is about one those white jungle guys that rules over a village because he's the strongest guy around. A nearby village is attacked by what turn out to be dinosaurs, and he naturally goes to meet the challenge. The catch is that Dixon writes it in a way that acknowledges some of the problematic aspects of these kinds of stories. Not exactly a parody, although there are some jokes, and not exactly a deconstruction, either.

Members of the tribe questioning why exactly they let this arrogant white dude be their king. His wife complaining she wants to visit Leopoldville, because at least there's running water there. The great hero's resolve and will not ultimately being enough to win the day. Ka'a'anga doesn't see the problems with how things are going, but he's king of the mountain, so why would he? Everyone else recognizes this is not a great system, but no one seems willing to do anything, other than grumble. Eventually the problem is resolved for them, so I'm not sure what to take from that.

There are certain parts of Shannon's art style that reminds me of Joe Kubert, probably because Kubert drew Tarzan comics for a time. Mostly in the panels where Ka'a'anga is fighting something, the musculature, some of the hatch lines and shading on the body. Like the legs and rubs in the panel above. The resemblance fades in the panels that are mocking Ka'a'anga for being an arrogant blockhead, or the other characters questioning how things are going. It's a softer look, the coloring makes the linework a bit less distinct, inks a heavier too, more shadows.

I'm not sure what I was expecting exactly. That the stories would try to address or adapt the genre to eliminate some of the problematic aspects, but otherwise play it straight. Just do a crazy jungle adventure while avoiding the stuff about a white savior that naturally is the best suit to lead the black tribes. Ka'a'anga as a friend and ally to those in need, but the M'ukundas run their own village. This does the first half, but not really the second half.