I didn’t do a post last week, because the blog was all wonky and I had a limited amount of time to get my monthly thing done, so here we are. Now, I find out that the blog might only be wonky for me and no one else, which makes me wonder what the bleepity bleep is going on. Why does the blog hate me? What the heck did I do it? Sigh. Let’s see if this will publish when I actually try to publish it!
Justice League: The Atom Project (“Atomic Collision”) by Ryan Parrott, John Ridley, Mike Perkins, Adriano Lucas, and Wes Abbott. $3.99, 20 pgs.
This is one of those books that will definitely benefit from being read in a trade, because the first issue is a lot of intriguing set-up but it’s still the tiniest bit inert. It also feels like it … gives us too much information already? Look, I know that the attention span of the average American is about 7 seconds these days, but it feels like Parrott and Ridley could have focused a bit more on the “Captain Atom on the run” section of the book and less on the “how we got here” section. I mean, the first four pages show us good ol’ Nathaniel Adam on the lam, while two mysterious (and probably nefarious) narrators argue about his plight. He escapes from the soldiers who are looking for him, but then, in a dramatic splash page, Ray Palmer shows up and tells him it’s time to go “home.” So dramatic! You know what’s coming, though – a flashback!
Yes, we zip back three weeks, and there’s a kid who has electrical powers that are going nuts, which is the status quo in the DCU these days – Amanda Waller took powers away, somehow, and when she was defeated, some people got others’ powers, and some people got powers they never had, and they don’t know how to handle them. Ray and Ryan Choi show up and power down the kid, then take him to the Justice League Big-Ass Satellite, where they basically imprison him. Again, so far, so good. It seems like Cap Atom is helping them because he lost his powers but he can still absorb energy, so they’re somehow transferring the energy of the prisoners to him in the hopes they can cure them and give him his powers back. Is that right? They debate the merits of what they’re doing, and then we’re back in the present, and Ray can’t get Nate to come back and the soldiers get trigger-happy, and Nate turns back into Captain Atom. Exeunt!
It’s not a bad set-up, but it feels a bit disjointed. The exciting part is Cap on the run, and it feels like it would be more interesting if we were in the dark about that for a bit longer than we are (not that we get too much information about what happened, but still). I mean, in a superhero universe, we’re kind of conditioned to think of certain ones as “good guys,” so it would be, it seems, more interesting to wonder who’s really “right” in this situation for a little while longer. When Ray shows up, that throws a spanner in the works a bit, because Ray is, naturally, a good guy. The immediate shift to a flashback where it’s clear that Ray and Ryan are imprisoning people and Nate is in the “right” drains the story of some tension, it seems to me. I think an entire first issue of Nate on the run might have been more exciting and intriguing. Especially because Parrott and Ridley throw Dr. Light into the equation when we’re on the JLB-AS, and she feels important. There’s a lot going on in this issue, in other words, and the slowing down in the middle robs it a bit of the nice momentum from the early part. But that’s just me. I like a good mystery, and “Cap Atom on the run and we don’t know if he’s a good guy or a bad guy” seems to be a nice plot to stretch a bit longer than they do. They could have saved the “we’re just imprisoning these people for their own good!” stuff for the second issue!
Perkins does his usual good work, with a few caveats. Ray and Ryan look a bit too similar to each other, so for me, at least, I had to keep stopping and trying to remember who’s who. Maybe that’s not a problem for you, because you’re much smarter than I am. When they throw the kid into his cell on the JLB-AS, they tell him it’s just a “precaution” and that they’re trying to fix him, and Perkins shows the kid in close-up, and he’s clearly crying, but he’s also smiling kind of weirdly. It freaked me right the hell out, man. Otherwise, it’s nice, solid work from Perkins. I’m not sure he’s the best superhero artist (there’s a small panel of Cap Atom running that looks off), but this seems to be more of a “Day of the Condor” thriller than a straight superhero comic (at least I hope it will be), so it’s not too big of a problem. Of course, that begs the question – are you ALL IN with a “Day of the Condor” thriller set in the DCU?!?!?
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆
One totally Airwolf panel:
Aquaman #1 (“The Rising Tide”) by Jeremy Adams, John Timms, Rex Lokus, and Dave Sharpe. $3.99, 22 pgs.
I haven’t read a lot of comics by Adams (in fact, the few he’s done for this ALL IN thing might be the only ones), but nothing I’ve read so far has convinced me that he’s anything more than a middle-of-the-road superhero writer – a neo-Jurgens, if you will. This new Aquaman is fine, but just fine. It starts off with a double-page spread (after a set-up page, because it has to be pages 2-3) of Arthur battling Cthulhu, basically (I mean, it might not be, but I guess every aquatic monster thing has to be some kind of evil octopus these days), which is fine, but then we flash back a whole danged year (to our present, as we find out), which means Adams is being pretty darned ambitious here! Anyway, Arthur now has Mera’s power of water manipulation, and he uses to be a hero, and everyone is very happy and did he lose his other powers or did he add Mera’s powers and did anyone ask Mera how she’s feeling about this? He then spends some time being king, but he’s called away to fight a Godzilla made out of water, and while he’s away, Atlantis and everyone in it disappears. Except for a pearl that Black Aquaman (Jackson Hyde) found … in another comic (to be fair, DC does provide a footnote so we can read more about the pearl). Arthur takes the pearl to the Justice League Big-Ass Satellite, where Zatanna tells him it’s old and, well, evil (basically). Arthur figures out how to open a portal with it, and through he goes!
… Leaving behind a gate shaped like an Omega. Oh dear. That can’t be good.
The reason I gave a bland plot summary is because nothing in here really has any verve. We get a rescue in the beginning to display Arthur’s heroic bona fides (we have to make sure he’s a hero, damn it!), we get yet another writer telling us that Aquaman hates the bureaucratic side of kingship (why, if Arthur hates being king so much, do writers keep making him the king?), then we get the kickstarting of the real plot. There’s a little bit of humor, a little bit of mystery, and a cliffhanger. It’s fine. It’s very paint-by-numbers, though, which is why I wonder if Adams will ever rise above the … I don’t know, Gerry Conway track he’s on right now (I was trying to think of a serviceable but unspectacular writer, but now I’m sure the Conway stans will come out of the woodwork!). The issue just zips along, everyone doing what we think they’re going to do (including everyone thinking that a strange giant pearl – that they know is strange! – is no big fucking deal, because of course they don’t), and then we reach the end. This could have literally starred any hero in the DC or Marvel Universe. Why is this an Aquaman story? That’s what bugs me about comics sometimes. Writers want to tell a particular kind of story, and they don’t particularly care which hero they slot into it. That’s fine, to a degree, but if you’re going to write Aquaman, it would be nice to read a story that seems like an actual Aquaman story instead of a generic story that happens to star Aquaman. Maybe I’m just crazy that way.
I’m not the biggest fan of Timms, but he’s better than I thought he would be on this book. I thought his style wouldn’t suit the book, and there are times when it looks a bit too … wispy, I suppose, but overall, he does a good job. His “Cthulhu” is pretty keen, and the final page is pretty cool, and the brief moments in Atlantis pop nicely. Timms uses slightly more blacks than I recall him using (although I might be misremembering!), and it “roughs” up his art just enough. I got a bit of a Trevor McCarthy vibe from his art that I hadn’t seen before in the few books I’ve read by him, which is not a bad thing (at least to me). So … yeah. The art works.
I don’t know. I guess, if DC is trying to lure in new readers with this initiative, that this is new-reader friendly in that it challenges us not at all, but I can’t imagine a new reader is going to start their DC devotion with fucking Aquaman. So Adams could be a bit bolder, unless he’s just not capable of it. Perhaps he’s not. Either way, I’m not really ready to go ALL IN with the new Aquaman. So sad!
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ½ ☆ ☆ ☆
One totally Airwolf panel:
Another week(s) in the book! I’m still not sure how long I’m doing this, as I’m not sure how many new things DC is bringing out! I know they have some more Absolute stuff planned, so we’ll see how it goes. Have a nice day, everyone!
