Crazypants tour of Arkham part 1!

Book: Batman: Joker’s Asylum

Writers: Arvid Nelson, Jason Aaron, JT Krul, Joe Harris, and David Hine

Artists: Alex Sanchez, Jason Pearson, Guillem March, Juan Doe, and Andy Clarke

Published: 2008 (DC)

Pages: 124

From my limited first-hand (first-eyes?) experience with comics, I know that I like the Batman universe. I also know that the Joker is my favorite villain and Arkham Asylum is my favorite setting because they’re both so damn gleefully creepy. Therefore, I thought this slim volume of Joker-narrated, one-off villain-led tales would be a good start as my own venture into the gi-fucking-normous continuity, the first superhero comic I have not read by trading off on my boyfriend’s assurance that it’s awesome. (Although I still love those recommendations because 1. he’s always right about them and 2. they mean I get to make him read lit fic novels that he will end up enjoying too.)

I was right! Although such choosing logic doesn’t allow for the unexpected emotional left hook I’m always looking for, I did get several expected taps to the chin from this. Each story is drawn and written by different people, so the weak morality tale of the first story (everybody fears the Joker but he’s not the monster this time! It’s YOU PEOPLE and all he’s doing is exposing your own bloodlust through reality TV!) and the Lady or the Tiger? ending of the last (the reader flips a coin to see how deeply Two-Face has affected a guy with his same burn condition!) are isolated incidents. The Penguin’s story is my favorite, drawn rounded with parallels that visually connect his past and present in an obvious psychological path without getting him monologing. Oh, except for these couple of panels where he’s talking about this girl he’s fallen in love with while his henchmen get thrown around in front of him, and then Batman drops down and says he’ll be watching him and the Penguin goes, all day-dreamy distracted, “Yes, yes, see you next week.”

But then he discovers that he can’t, in fact, overcome his past after all, and he returns to form by taking out his anger on the one thing that was starting to rebuild his humanity. It was pretty sweet.

Poison Ivy’s is basically an origin story with naked leafy ass, and the Scarecrow gets some neat deco art but a disappointingly thin connection between his talk about harnessing fear and the actual action. All enjoyable, and I believe there is a Volume II on the shelves. 

Keeping America safe (after checking with supervisors)

Book: Captain Freedom: A Superhero’s Quest for Truth, Justice, and the Celebrity He So Richly Deserves

Author: G. Xavier Robillard

Published: 2011 (HarperCollins)

Pages: 255

Everything exciting has already happened to Captain Freedom at this point in his career, but he’s not willing to accept that. He’s vain, kind of dumb, overconfident and delusional about it all. And dammit, he deserves public recognition and an official archnemesis!

So the search and clash of all this is played as satire on something nobody has ever skewered before, ever: modern celebrity culture </end sarcasm>. It hits hardest when Captain Freedom throws out asides that reveal what he thinks is perfectly normal. A lot of those are brilliant little nuggets of hilarious entitlement. The rest, the Big Picture, the part that’s probably supposed to be the book’s comedic backbone, the string of incidents that wander chronologically through his superhero life without linking together in an arc or overall theme—eh.

It wasn’t boring and it WAS funny, but it did seem aimless.     

DC's turn to save the universe

Book: The New Frontier (Absolute Edition)

Writer and illustrator: Darwyn Cooke

Colorist: Dave Stewart

Letterer: Jared K. Fletcher

Published: 2006 (DC Comics)

Pages: 405 (of story)

Bright colors, bold lines, sharply defined edges, Wonderwoman showing Superman the relativity of his strictly held values, origin stories that wind around each other and end up meeting at the Center to save the day from a giant sea monster, believable dialogue and introspection, investigative reporters who are more batshit insane about danger than the heroes they’re covering (hi, Lois Lane!)—yep, this comic collection has it all.

It better; it’s nothing less than the whole DC universe coming together. And that gets confusing sometimes, especially when you read giant chunks of it in one sitting like I did and always feel like you’re racing through the words without really studying the pictures so you force yourself to slow down like I do. The stories and voices do jump around but are easy enough to distinguish from each other, especially when the heroes start joining forces to save the world. (Don’t you love it when that happens?)

One irritating thing, though: a lot of the women have a close-up with the same expression. This one.

I’m not really complaining, because it’s adorable.  

Also—GIANT T-REX JAWS OF DEATH LEAP WITHIN THE FIRST 40 PAGES.

Aw, yeah. 

Painted to save the day

Book: The World’s Greatest Super-Heroes

Text: Paul Dini

Art: Alex Ross

Publication: 2005 (DC Comics) in collection form

Pages: not numbered

The main thing I took away from this collection is probably the least significant aspect of it: Wonder Woman is hot.

But stay with me; my appreciation stems from the gorgeous artwork that Alex Ross hand-drew and painted for these stories, which originally appeared as separate comic tabloids that tell stories of famous superheroes’ human sides. The oversized paper and the entire omnibus collected in a hefty hardback that put a dent in my stomach sucked me right into their worlds. Everything looked fantastic and dynamic and photorealistic at the same time, idealized yet in a way that seems entirely possible to achieve.

And then I read the words. Blunt, heavy-handed, overly quippy and exposition-tastic. I didn’t like them. Is going from reading a novel to reading a comic just something like going from driving a car to riding a bike—both fine modes of transportation that have to be handled with different aspects of awareness to get to the same place? It kinds of feels that way to me.

In this specific collection, Superman, Batman, and Captain Marvel all seem to be playing out personal PSAs by using their powers in very noble efforts they find doomed from the beginning but still worth pursuing. I got conflicted between thinking why don’t they just use their powers to help in ways they know will have more permanent, practical effects and wanting to give them hugs when they didn’t make as much differences as they wanted to.

I also liked the virus storyline of the Justice League American section, plus the character management that it juggled. Although two maybe-trivial questions: 1. Why is Hawkman’s wife called Hawk Girl? They seem pretty equal in all other aspects. 2. I don’t understand the Green Arrow’s concept. I mean I do—Robin Hood, basically. But why arrows?  

But Wonder Woman was pure awesome. I loved her conflict between knowing she could fix these warring countries and her shock at realizing how she came across as arrogant when she just wanted the best for humanity. And I loved how she actually learned how to deal with that, too, in a way that let her use her powers in ways that showed people her true good intentions.

All she wanted to do was save the world. And be a little taller than Superman. She kind of beasted him both ways in this collection.