Superman: Secret Identity - Oh man, what a wonderful book. This is an alternate superman story, the story of a kid named clark kent (his parents thought they were hilarious) who suddenly developed superman powers for real. The 4 issue series goes through his whole life, pretty much, and it's really fantastic. It's just a simple story, very introspective, lots of first person, but it's just so nice. At first Id idn't think I liked the art style, too photorealistic, but by the middle of the first issue it seemed absolutely perfect. I'm not sure what else to say except to repeat it's wonderful. I usually put these things in order I read them, but I put this at the top of the list because I didn't want to see it at the bottom. So good!
Planetary - This is another Warren Ellis book, like Transmet (which, in retrospect, I'm loving even more). It's a short run, 25 issues or so, about these planetary investigator types. They hunt down powerful artifacts or people or creatures kinda thing. There is a over arching plot that is all mysterious, too much so. He puts you in media res a lot and I was confused by it. I was kind of torn, I wanted to be really into it like you might get into Lost, but it ended up more like Fringe where I just didn't give a shit. It sped up at the end and got a little better, but I feel like it was discardable over all. It was a good try, but it just didn't come together for me.
The Spirit - Since the movie is coming out soon, I decided to read some of this. The Spirit was basically the first superhero/detective comic. It was created by Will Eisner (you know, the guy after whom the Eisner award is named). It is, apparently, considered the foundation of modern comics by a great many people. Unfortunately, it came out in the 40s, so it is pretty much horrible to a modern reader, or at least to me. It's very talky, too much narration, kind of the comic form of overacting. On top of that its racist, its got this character Ebony White, The Spirit's driver, who is drawn like the worst charicature you can imagine. I honestly couldn't get through more than a few 9 page issues. A guy named Darwyn Cook came along in the past few years and redid The Spirit for DC. It keeps the main elements, which I guess is an homage to the original, but doesn't make me love it. Unbelievably, they kept Ebony White, though they drew him normal. I honestly don't feel anything for this book, if it wasn't The Spirit I wouldn't care at all, once again I only made it through a few issues. Hopefully the movie does something interesting with it, but that is looking increasingly like a steaming pile of poo on a black and white stick.
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen - I never even considered reading this comic, since the movie was so dumb. But I heard from comicy type sources that it was actually good and the movie did it a disservice. The comic is by Alan Moore (Watchman, V for Vendetta, lots of other things), and its a short one, 3 quick series. The characters are a lot more interesting than the movie. Nemo especially, is a british hating bastard. Quatermain is a a doddering old pussy, though, nothing like a sean connery character, which isn't necessarily bad, just totally different. Hyde and the Invisible Man are good, also unrepentant bastards. The woman, miss murray, is unfortunately not at all interesting. They played her up in an action way in the movie, maybe that's not necessary. But all they did is hint in the book, didn't take advantage of it, boring. The plot of the first series is far more appropriate and good in tone, but a lot of that character development happens in the second, even though the martian thing is silly. The third bit is very typically alan moore, which is to say it is WAY too much information except for the most committed, and also overly sexual for mostly no reason. I only read the first section, and skimmed the rest, it's not for me. Over all the first two are certainly worth it though.
Pedro & Me - I've been wanting to read this one for a long time, and it was totally worth it. It's the story of Pedro from the Real World: San Francisco. A young gay guy with HIV who wen on the show to spread awareness, and made a pretty big impact on popular culture during that time, and died shortly after. I didn't watch the show until many years after it came out, so I don't think the impact of the story, and the realness of it, really hit me. Plus I was young enough not to pay attention to serious things as much. But I still remember liking that season better than any other, and liking Pedro. So now I read this and it's interesting and dramatic and very very sad. There's nothing to do about it, you know the ending, and you just hope he touched as many people as possible to try to prevent their choices from being his. But it's very sad, made me want to cry, but it was very sweet and very good at the same time.
Whiteout - This book was pretty good. It's sort of a murder mystery, set in Antarctica, so I had a critical eye of course (like I'm such an expert). Far as I could tell, they did a good job researching, though. The story itself is good, pretty straightforward, but entertaining. The art is black and white and it's interesting how he worked in the fact that most of the scenery is white, unlike most black and white books. I think it works very well. It's going to be a movie with Kate Beckinsale, not sure hwo I feel about that, but maybe they'll do an okay job.
Nixon's Pals - Aw, I had higher hopes for this one. It's about a parole officer for super criminals, which is very clever. This normal guy (seemingly, though he can sure take a beating) has to check in on super villians after they get out of jail. Unfortunately it didn't turn into much for me. I think maybe this kind of idea has to be a long running series so it has time to develop the character, as well as time to introduce many interesting little stories with his various parolees. As it stood, it was a one-shot with one quick overarching story that didn't let us feel like we were watching his life, and the main story wasn't all that great. It's not bad, it's just disappointing.
Animal Man - The main draw for this book, for me, was Grant Morisson breaking the 4th wall. So much so that by the final issue of Morrison's run, he (the writer) has a conversation with Animal Man. It's interesting, playing with that aspect of reality. But reading it in 2008 (it was written in the late 80s), it's not that interesting. For most of the book it's just an average super hero book, though he goes to some effort to make Animal Man much more normal than a superhero. He has a wife and kids and a day to day life, but then he tries to save animals. Animal rights is a big part of the book, pushed by Morrison's own beliefs apparently. That's good, certainly to someone of my mindset, but it's also a little simple in 2008. It's not strong enough to be a strong statement nor clever enough to be a fascinating one. So, it was an ok book, but I was mostly bored until the last few wall-breaking issues. The book went on after that with other writers, getting a little weirder, and then apparently going horror and "adult" I didn't bother to read those, the character wasn't interesting enough for me.
Strange Girl - Read only the first volume (4 issues) of this. It's a clever idea: the rapture happens, and some humans left behind on a demon-controlled earth have to survive, including the main character. She has magic and a demon friend and it, so far, is a actioney wise cracking comic. It's cool, I like the way it's drawn, it reminds me of something I can't think of. But it didn't totally catch me, and now I imagine I won't spend the money to get later volumes. Maybe if i find them cheap some day, but I won't rush out and pay 13 bucks each. It's cute though.
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