Between the weekly Best Shots column on Mondays and my own weekly NYPL commentary, I find myself sharing with the readers here at Newsarama my thoughts on many of the comics I read. However, I often read a comic that I feel isn’t new enough to justify going into Best Shots (and given that I frequently discuss titles six months or more after publication, my idea of “new” is relative) or that I have not taken out of the library. So I thought I’d share with you some thoughts on comics I’ve read this year.
The Eternals vol. 1-2, by Jack Kirby. Marvel.
My first impression, honestly, was that The Eternals reminded me a lot of Kirby’s Fourth World comics. Substitute the Eternals for New Genesis’s New Gods, allow the Deviants to fill in as subpar versions for the forces of Apokolips, and insert the Celestials as a more active, but still unknowable and all-powerful, incarnation of the Source. You are essentially left with a slightly watered down version of a previous Kirby masterpiece.
But look, even a slightly pale version of the New Gods is still pretty damn fun. The book does start to run a little bit on fumes, late in vol. 2, when Ikarus spends three consecutive issues fighting a cosmic-powered Hulk robot, which is repeatedly referred to as “a Marvel character.” (It’s very entertaining that, a SHIELD reference at the beginning of the series excepted, The Eternals tends to treat the Marvel Universe as a fictional world, as if The Eternals’ world were our own.)
Kirby does good work balancing an ensemble cast, moving back and forth between the humans, the Eternals and the Deviants. We see each of the three groups working together at points, while other elements in each of the three camps work against the greater good. None of the trios are without sin, yet all show reasons for redemption. My favorite storyline followed Eternal Thena’s relationship with Deviant Kro, as well as Thena’s attempts to redeem two Deviants (Karkas and the Reject) and introduce them as constructive members of the world society. It’s in these subplots surrounding Thena that Kirby shows how human the Eternal and Deviant races truly are.
However human it might be, The Eternals is still a Jack Kirby comic, so it’s got a huge scale, plenty of great action and lots of questions about the future of humanity and our ability to overcome our petty biases to achieve greatness among the stars. In other words, it’s still tremendous comics and great fun.
Superman: The Third Kryptonian; Shadows Linger, by Kurt Busiek and various. DC.
When it comes to choosing contemporary superhero comics, I find most titles bogged down in the morass of their shared universes, which I frankly despise. Beyond that, with few exceptions, most titles simply achieve a basic level of storytelling competence, but little beyond that point. Consequently, character favoritism is a factor that plays into which superhero comics I purchase, and Superman is clear and away my favorite superhero character. I’ll pick up titles starring unknown (or previously considered lame) characters for creatively driven reasons, and I’ve often quit reading Supes’ comics when they were dreadfully bad. But if I’m just looking for storytelling competence and a little fun escapism, a solid Superman comic still fits the bill quite nicely, thank you very much.
These two collections, bringing together the finale of writer Kurt Busiek’s run as the scribe of Superman, fall into the category of “solid Superman comics,” though not as solidly as I would’ve expected. After engaging work in Up, Up and Away, Back in Action and Camelot Falls, the last few Busiek-written Superman trades have suffered from fill-in-itis and, for my tastes, a little too much nostalgia.
Elements of the stories, such as Karsta’s history, felt weighted down by the profusion of nostalgic nods and unnecessary details, giving the middle chapter of “The Third Kryptonian” a leaden pace. Superman and family’s alien picnic channeled, for my tastes, a little too much Silver Age corn, and Pa Kent’s story of Superman’s battle with the Sun-Eater was simply confusing in the context of this book. I realized, only after reading the issue’s last page, that the story was used as a fill-in in Action Comics during the ridiculous delays that plagued Last Son.
Perhaps including the issue as a bonus in the Last Son collection would’ve been a more fitting place for it? It worked for the trade edition of David Mack’s delayed Daredevil storyline Parts of a Hole.
Still, there are some positive to these two Superman books. “The Third Kryptonian” added some tragedy and turmoil to Krypton’s history, making Karsta a more believable and nuanced character. Plus, the villain, Amalak, dedicated to hunting down and slaughtering all remaining Kryptonians, made a credible threat and had a strong (and, frankly, justifiable) motivation.
The second book, Shadows Linger, was just okay. The Insect Queen and her army never felt like much of a threat, and the convenient ending that tied together Superman’s charity baseball game and Lana’s desperate need for a financial windfall at LexCorp all tied up a little too neatly. The second arc in the book was solid fun, with Superman, Paragon (the powers-thief channelling a little Kryptonian) and a trio of Daxamites all engaging in super-powered aerial combat. I appreciated the self-destructive zealotry Busiek imbued the Daxamites with, although I could’ve done without the Mon-El trapped in the Phantom Zone bits, which were played out forty years ago.
The Licensable Bear Big Book of Officially Licensed Fun, by Nat Gertler and various. About Comics.
Not a bad comic. Not a great comic, mind you, but there are some pretty solid gags in here about the omnipresence of marketing icons, plus some smartly done diatribes about intellectual property rights.
American Splendor: Our Movie Year, by Harvey Pekar and various. Ballantine.
You can tell that many of the stories in this book were printed in various other venues before they were brought together to form this book. There’s some overlap and redundancy throughout, but Pekar’s a sufficiently skillful writer to add small nuances to each version of the tale, giving each short story some added value to the greater whole.
Many of the shorts only deal tangentially with the American Splendor feature film, and most of the direct impact comes in the form of Pekar angsting over his ability to parlay the added exposure into more writing jobs so that he can supplement his pension and continue to provide for his wife and foster daughter. It’s witty stuff, and the art is mostly solid work by the usual Pekar collaborators. Dean Haspiel draws a short, Ed Piskor handles a few, and the dream team of Pekar and Crumb reunite for two very brief narratives.
Pekar takes advantage of the page space to include several one- to four-page biographies of jazz and other musical influences, including Elvis Presley(!), which some readers may or may not care for. Nevertheless, Pekar always presents the information in an engaging, conversational manner.
Pekar’s done better work, honestly, but regardless, American Splendor: Our Movie Year is good comics and most creators can’t equal even “okay” Pekar.
The Phantom Tollbooth, by Norton Juster. Knopf.
Okay, it’s not a comic book, you caught me. But I’m mentioning it for two reasons. First, it has a legitimate comic book connection: copious and lovely illustrations by the brilliant Jules Feiffer accent the prose frequently throughout this beloved and classic book. Secondly and most of all, I just read it for the first time and it’s brilliant. If you haven’t read it, I strongly urge you to do so.
If you have read it, read it again.
Listless Milo travels through the Phantom Tollbooth to the land of wit and wonder beyond, where he meets the word-obsessed King Azaz of Dictionopolis and his feuding brother, the Mathmagician, ruler of Digitopolis. Bereft of the twin princesses, Rhyme and Reason, the brothers have embraced their respective extremes and driving the Kingdom of Wisdom to disrepair. Milo, joined by Tock the Watchdog and the Humbug, sets out to rescue the princesses from the Mountains of Ignorance. To do so, he’ll have to avoid the Island of Conclusions, which you must jump to reach, and demons such as the Terrible Trivium, who distracts with trivial matters.
In one word, this book is clever. Smart, as the duke would add. Even witty, the count might say. Juster’s use of language is stupendously adept and hilarious and simply must be read to be fully appreciated. I’ve rarely had more fun or been more surprised by the simple act of reading. A true classic in every sense of the word, The Phantom Tollbooth belongs in everyone’s personal library.
February 16th, 2009 at 9:48 pm
While Eternals has a lot of similarities with Fourth World, I think there was a difference in focus. Eternals was all about a revisionist history of mythologies. One of my favorite ideas was when you see Ajak for the first time and he is literally a Mayan god come to life in three dimensions.
On the other hand, Fourth World seemed more about creating a new mythology from the ashes of the old. It opens with that whole Nietzsche-esque death of the old gods.
How did Our Movie Year compare to the stuff he’s doing for Vertigo?
February 17th, 2009 at 7:27 am
Hey, Julian, you’re definitely right about the revisionist mythologies in Eternals. I guess I was fairly indifferent to that aspect. It wasn’t explored in any real way that got me worked up. It was a revisionist mythology with the (very) loose structure of the New Gods.
I enjoyed the first Vertigo American Splendor book (and The Quitter) probably a little bit more than Our Movie Year. Partly, that’s because of the overlap in Our Movie Year, though. It’s pretty good, but it starts to feel a little wearisome at points, as you see certain elements repeat in several of the short stories. Pekar also probably included a few more jazz bios, which I like in small doses, than I would’ve preferred.
The Vertigo stuff has more of his “everyman” qualities, since most of us haven’t had movies made about our lives.;) But I still think Pekar’s a sharp writer and Our Movie Year is solid work.