How does one judge a comic event? On readability alone? On the event's impact on the company's universe? Should gimmicks factor? Villains Month was very readable in the way buzzfeed articles are readable. Occasionally, there's a really good one, but usually they're just something to focus on with your eyes. A handful of books this month were awesome, most were good-fine, a few were boring. But overall, if you're curious to read a ton of villain stories, you won't be massively disappointed. Though, it seems pretty obvious at the end of Forever Evil everything goes back to normal--I wouldn't be surprised if nothing changes in any book. Maybe it'll herald Justice League of Canada to trump J.L. America. Finally, the 3-D covers: will anyone give a shit about these when they see them in back issue bins of the future? My guess is: only ironically. The best thing I can say about these 3-D pics were that they make the book sturdier. With only 3 or 4 exceptions, most of these looked fucking dumb. They kinda moved; not really though. In a time where the average person has familiarity with 3-D rendering of 2-D images (movies; 3DS video games; TVs; etc.), this holographic, tilt-your-head-right shit just doesn't cut it. Why not just draw better covers? Frank Quitely drew in 3-D in We3; make covers like that! Maybe DC just found a box of holographic paper, or something. Gotta make money somehow, I guess?
Below, I recommend 18 books of the 56 books. That's a pretty bad ratio. However, almost every book was readable. Most were boring. Less than five comics were totally confusing. Nothing especially offended me (however, the way DC marketing demands women be represented on book covers is gross). But no one is going to be talking about these issues very much come Wednesday, Oct. 2. Let's tally the points, yes?
Week 1 garnered 47 points out of 65.
Week 2 garnered 49 points out of 65
Week 3 garnered 48 points out of 70
Week 4 garnered 45 points out of 60
The Villains' Month grand point total comes out to out of 189 points 260 points possible.
That gives Villains Month a C- in point quality, which is more or less exactly how I feel about it. The above mentioned books worth reading were good--nothing especially spectacular--but everything was pretty readable. The problem is, every book had so many expectations to meet. They had to either a) set up a story line in an upcoming series arc or tie-in mini-series or b) try and develop the Forever Evil story that's coming out way to fricking slow. I bet that book's last issue won't even sell a quarter of what the first issue sells because who's going to care about this semi-interesting, yet ineffectual, event in April 2014? Why didn't they release one a week? There must be some reason...maybe they hope Forever Evil will sell well thanks to the tie-in mini-series' that surround it (Arkham War, a Superman one, I think a third). However, if they just did release a Forever Evil each week, with a different artist drawing the book they could have had an event with more cohesion and more reason to read all the issues. I don't think the editors expected readers to want to read all the issues, but rather were hoping you'd just pick up ones that sounded neat. I feel like if the issues were all trying to see out the same great premise, what would villains do if the heroes were dead, the comics would have all been better. Like, what if these tyrants ruled everything scenarios. However, most of the books were origin stories. Even already-established New 52 villains retold their origins (Sinestro, Croc, Harley Quinn, tons more) I'm tired of origin stories, New 52! It's second year now! This is what you restarted for!
And another thing: is it even useful to quantify the qualitative judgements I gave these comics? My opinions were greatly skewed upon a) my preference or pre-familiarity to the character), or b) if I liked the writer/artist already. I tried not to grade like this, but I liked every Kindt story except one; I enjoyed Marv Wolfman and Jim Starlin's origin stories, even though they were wordy and didn't feel very New 52. I also think I goofed up by making the point values so high. With these books, there was little difference between 3s and 4s, 2s and 3s. The next time I mass review books, my scale will be
3 - Great! Really enjoyed it, highly recommend it. Lots to think about.
2 - Fine. Enjoyable enough, as popular media is designed to be. Nothing especially thought provoking.
1 - Bad book. Hard to follow or very boring. Looks stupid. Not worth reading.
0 - Laughably bad. How did they fuck it up so much? I'm angry, this is a score of anger. So, read it?
Now, if you just want to read the good ones, here's a place to start. I didn't go back and look at scores for this; I just chose the ones that stood out as good in my memory.
Batman had a lot of books each week (4) and it was the only part of the DCU that had a unified plot for the books. The lot ranges from good to average. These are my favorites most to all-most. Joker's Daughter introduced a seemingly-gimmicky new character into the New 52 in a smart and compassionate way. She's a weird teen who hurts herself and often realizes she's too powerful for even herself to control. I feel really bad for this homeless schizo. Ventriloquist further revealed the backstory of Gail Simone's reimagining of this old character. I used to think Albert Fish and his little doll were a total joke; Simone's version, however, is quite horrifying. This is exactly what I want the New 52 to do: reimagine and reinvigorate old characters (it was a semi-origin story as this character already appeared in Batgirl). Snyder's crew did well with Riddler, providing a pretty great riddle and no more origin re-hashing. Matt Kindt managed to do a really great origin story by hybridize the many Harley Quinn origin stories that have existed throughout her many media appearances (even though I think Suicide Squad did this). Mr. Freeze was a continuation on the story set up in the Batman anual last year. It also distinguished this Mr. Freeze from the one he's based on (the Animated series version) by making him much more insane. He used to love his wife, now he loves an idea of his wife that he made up because he's nuts. Man-Bat was pretty good too! He fought She-Bat. Honestly, if you just read the Batman books you'd have read the best part of this event. But that's a given since Batman's always had the best villains, right?
Superman, on the other hand, always had stupid villains in my opinion. Not that they weren't cool, but they were usually literally stupid, brutish, and strong. They still are, kind of. But Greg Pak did a great job fleshing out the world of Krypton before the explosion. We see how Zod betrayed his people, Doomsday got a hold of the negative zone, Cyborg Superman was a post-Kypton invention, and how Braniac came and blew it up and more. Also, with all these crisis happening at once, it makes sense that the utopia was able to be destroyed by a robot army (they had defenses down due to something else). If it wasn't for the rest of the books, which were all really bad (especially Branaic) this would have been a really great collection of comics. In any event, Greg Pak knows a lot of cool things about Superman.
Matt Kindt did origins for Sinestro and Solomon Grundy that were both neat. Kindt really takes a Grant Morrison approach to origins, embracing the characters' many versions and multiplicities, and finding ways so they can be many things at once. Also, best Solomon Grundy story where the nursery rhyme is integrated I've ever seen. First Born adds an interesting new villain to the Wonder Woman-verse. I'm not caught up, but it seems like this book takes a lot of influence from Sandman and Fables. Plus, the art's real neat. The Flash's Rogues are always a hoot. The Black Hand is like a black-lantern zombie of the Rot, and I hope he comes back soon. Speaking of the rot, the Arcane book talked of two characters, revealed their past in a non-originy way, and best of all, added a lot to think about to both Snyder's New 52 Swamp Thing and the Swamp Thing-verse in genera (i.e. more Green/Red/Black). And, funny kinda but the only two books I bought this month were: Creeper and Dial E for Enemy. I bought Dial E because it's the end to my favorite series. I bought Creeper because it had three styles of art and a story written by I think three people. Everything added into a weird crazy mish-mash that is so totally Creeper! He's a Japanese samurai ghost now. Isn't that neat?
On DC Villains generally: the defining characterization of DC villains is childhood trauma. This narrative is increasingly more boring to me. First, it's a lame way to win sympathy for a character. Oh, Reverse-Flash isn't responsible for turning time backward and almost ending the universe--it's his dad's fault! Cheetah didn't mean to be a blood hungry savage beast--her mom made her that way! Sheesh who cares? Everybody's got parent problems; few then put on a costume and work out their frustrations in a strange, BDSM-esque ritual with superheroes (who are also usually the product of childhood trauma). How about a villain who's truly ideologically opposed to the ruling hierarchies in society? Or, a super villain who really was profoundly wronged by the hero they choose to arch? Or a demon? I don't know! But not everybody needs to have a bad childhood. That's boring. Enough of that!
No comments:
Post a Comment