Weekly Crisis Comic Book Reviews for 06/11/08

Before diving into the reviews, I have a few announcements to make.

First up is the Atomic Robo Vol 1 TPB Giveaway Contest. Today's the last day to enter, so, if you haven't already, make sure to get your entry in before the contest closes at midnight tonight. Winners will be announced on Saturday after I've culled duplicates and picked the winners.

Next on the agenda is Twitter. I have a widget on the sidebar, but it slows the loading of the sidebar to a crawl. I didn't think it was that difficult to send a simple GET command to Twitter.com for 500 characters of text. I'm going to remove the widget later and just put up a random Twitter link. If you're interested in seeing the inane chattering of a comic obsessed fan, you can follow me on Twitter by clicking here. I'm new to it, so I'm not sure exactly what people want to read on it, but I've been posting random links to articles as I read them, like the Chuck Dixon leaving DC story, and my quick thoughts on comics as I read them today.

Finally, new poll is up. I'll post a pretty graphic of the final tally for Secret Invasion #3, just like I did for the Final Crisis #1 poll, on the weekend. The current poll, as you can obviously see, asks simply what you think the Comic Book of the Week was. In simpler terms, what was the best book, in your opinion, this week? I tried to put up a broad selection of choices, but I'm sure I left off someone's favourite book or something blatantly obvious that I somehow forgot, so just click Other and make fun of me in the comments if you think of something I missed on the poll.

Pretty light load of books for me this week, but it turned out to have some really good books, what with Sky Doll, Skaar, Action Comics and GLC headlining the list of titles out this week, so hit the jump for the first wave of reviews!

ACTION COMICS #866
Written by Geoff Johns
Art by Gary Frank and Jon Sibal

I'm pretty sure Superman has the most retcons in the history comics. To be honest, I don't even know what his origin is these days. Maybe he was the last son of Krypton, maybe he wasn't. Was Krypton super advanced and peaceful and ignored Jor-El's warnings or were they a war mongering race that ended up confined to their own planet by Brainiac? Did he go to school with Lex? Was he a jock or a nerd? Did he have powers as a kid or not?

It seems like every "all new era" of Superman when a new writer comes on board heralds a new origin for Superman, Krypton or one of his major villains. Johns has changed all three since teaming up with Donner a couple of years ago and I'm still not even sure what's being retconned or whether it existed, was retconned out and is not being brought back in again and this Brainiac story is pretty much in the same boat.

Brainiac, to me, has been a machine for as long as I remember. He's had upgrades and different looks, but was always a machine. It's only been one issue, but Johns has set Brainiac up as a living being, similar to Brainiac 13, I suppose, and I believe he is trying to tell us, much like in the recent Toyman retcon, that Brainiac's previous incarnations were merely imposters and machines he controlled from affair.

We don't see much of this Brainiac and, frankly, he was only in about two or three pages, less if you don't count the flashback to Kandor being bottled up, so it's hard to gauge what Johns is trying to do here, but I'm intrigued.

But, if you came looking for only Brainiac in this issue, you came away disappointed. Johns focused most of the issue on the new Daily Planet cast, in the form of returning gossip columnist, Catherine Grant, and the new sports editor, Steve Lombard. It's a humourous scene where Clark Kent really shined. Lombard made a sexual crack about Lois and Clark immediately busts out the heat vision on Lombard's chair, sending him crashing to the floor.

And when Grant, fresh off a boob job and in a low cut shirt, tries to put some moves on the bumbling reporter, Clark shows more restraint than me by looking Grant right in the eyes and never even taking a glance at her chest as she flaunts it right in his face. She storms off in anger with a cute, "You're from another planet, Clark.", line.

That's all followed up with some nice Clark / Lois interaction before Superman goes into action for an unidentified object entering the atmosphere. Turns out it's a Brainiac robot that immediately attacks Superman. It manages to get a small cut on his forehead, which it promptly analyzes, and then shuts down after transmitting the data back to the "real" Brainiac aboard a giant floating Brainiac robot head. He's in a room filled with bottled cities and I hope this signals we'll finally get a resolution to the damn Kandor bottled city. After all these years, I'm tired of seeing that bottle and Clark make promises to try and restore them to full size.

Verdict - Must Read. It was a lot of fun reading the scene with Clark and the new members of the Daily Planet and the new Brainiac has me intrigued to the point I want to know more about how this fits in with everything we already know.


GREEN LANTERN CORPS #25
Written by Peter J. Tomasi
Art and cover by Patrick Gleason and Prentis Rollins

I'm just not sure what to think about this issue of Green Lantern Corps. It was good, but seemed to lose focus at points and the entire Black Mercy retcon came out of nowhere.

As I said, the Black Mercy's were retconned in this issue. The Mercy queen, Mother Mercy, is sentient and has existed for untold years. It pretty much is the planet and even controls its gravitational pull somehow. Instead of leaving us believing Mongul killed all the people that made up the "dead zone" around the planet, it's actually Mother Mercy's doing.

After discovering she could interface with humanoid beings and induce dreamlike states for them when she found a dying alien crashed upon the planet surface, Mother Mercy decides she will send her children throughout the stars to give peace and happyness to the sick and dying whom cannot be saved. She never intended to be used as a weapon and it was only when Mongul first came to this planet many years ago that this happened.

Seems Mother Mercy didn't want to reveal they were alive or empathic creatures, so just let Mongul take her children every once in a while, opting to stay hidden. The dead zone is due to the fact she needed food for her millions of children and she randomly "pulls" down the dead bodies to feed the Mercy's.

Yes, they spent most of the issue explaining this odd segue into the Black Mercy origins and she only attacked the Green Lanterns because they were killing her children. It looks like they are going to team up to fight Mongul next issue to stop him from genetically altering Mother's children into fear inducing monsters.

However, Mongul noticed the bodies falling to Mother Mercy's location and went to check it out. He blind sides several of the GL's at the end, sticking them with the modified fear Mercy's.

Verdict - Check It. I liked this issue, but it was one of the odder books I read this week. Not sure why they needed to create such an elaborate retcon for the Black Mercy plants instead of just having a big brawl with Mongul and the Sinestro Corps lackies he's recruited.


SKAAR: SON OF HULK #1
Written by Greg Pak
Art by Ron Garney

I'll be honest, I was expecting more from Skaar: Son of Hulk #1. Planet Hulk channeled some great Gladiator themes and, for what it was, World War Hulk was a great, mindless summer blockbuster.

However, Skaar seems to be lacking a direction or focus. It looks like it's trying to channel a Conan-like vibe, but the jumps in narrative and time just ruin any momentum the story starts to build.

For instance, we start the issue with what looks like shortly after Caeira's death. She explains the events of Planet Hulk, her relationship with Hulk, where he went and tells us Oldstrong children grow within days and does it's best to explain why Skaar grows up so fast.

We spend a few pages covering his first steps out of the lake of fire he was born into and see him witness the cruelty of man (alien? Sakaarian?) first hand as a little girl is killed by marauders right in front of him.

Pretty compelling opening pages, but what does Pak do? He jumps ahead a year. Skaar is now looking to be maybe the equivilent of a 12 year old and he's leading a wandering group of people away from the red skin barbarian tribes.

Of course, the barbarians find them instantly and kill most of the group with one of their creatures' flame breath. They finally see Skaar using his Oldstrong powers and the leader of the barbarians promptly cuts Skaar down, shattering his stone body.

We cut to a victory feast where the barbarians are planning to eat some survivors of the raid. One of the soldiers' goes to boil a captured Brood-like creature and we get glimpses of something cutting everyone to pieces. As the Barbarian leader checks on the commotion, we see him confronted by Skaar, all grown up and looking like the cover version above, weilding a giant axe of his own this time, as the people celebrate that he is alive.

I'm not sure how he's alive, why he aged to his current Hulk-like appearance over night or if it had even been that long since he "died". It seems like Pak just rushed his own story along in an attempt to make the boy grow up. He should have just left him as a wild child for a few issues before doing a time skip instead of the jerky pace of this issue.

On top of that, Ron Garney, fresh off his excellent work on Wolverine, is back to his "scratchy" style from his Amazing Spider-Man run. I don't know why he chose to do it this way as it looks terrible in comparison to his clean and beautiful work on the Get Mystique! storyarc. I was so excited seeing his name attached to the project and now I'm just disappointed.

Verdict - Check It. It has a lot of great concepts and I want to like this story, but it's just rushed along too soon and too many unexplained events, like his "death" or the change in appearance post-resurrection. Also, where's the mysterious human the solicits spoke of?


SKY DOLL #2
Written by Alessandro Barbucci & Barbara Canepa
Art by Alessandro Barbucci

It's truely difficult to discuss Sky Doll without offending someone. The book's main themes revolve around religion, sexuality and politics, three of the touchiest subjects in the world. Taking any stance, in favour, against or even neutral, will result in pissing off someone out there.

Personally, I love the book and wished more sites would delve into the deeper meanings behind the religious and spiritual story elements of the book. I could probably go on for hours about the topics covered in this book, their meanings and how I perceive them but lack any sounding board or contrasting opinion to debate it with in a public forum nor do I even consider myself an expert in the field of religion. I'm sure I've missed many of the references in this book and I've read it several times already with the old Heavy Metal British translation.

Even if you take this story at face value and ignore all the religious and sexuality explored within the book and how it parallels with our own beliefs, this is an amazing and imaginative story that is a unique experience everyone should experience at one point in their life. Barbucci's art is simply breath taking and the depth and range of imagination on display here goes beyond any other sci-fi or fantasy setting into uncharted worlds.

This issue (technically, it's Volume 2: Aqua, not an issue, but I digress) picks up where we left off in Sky Doll #1 as Noa, Roy and Jahu descend to the planet Aqua on a diplomatic journey. Unknown to Roy and Noa, Jahu is on a secret mission from Ludovica to kill the sacred fish of the people of Aqua. The fish's unique DNA allows the Aqua people to clone themselves for reproduction and it was Ludovica's plan to wipe out the competing religion's people under the guise of a peaceful diplomatic mission.

It was interesting seeing the contrasting opinions between Noa and Roy as they took the tour of the Aqua center and I'm sure everyone can sympathise with either character in regards to their views on the commercialized "cross between a beauty salon and a shrink's office", as Roy calls it, religion the Aqua people believe in.

I agreed more with Roy's point of view, seeing the religion and their views as a thinnly veiled attempt to cover up for the emptiness of their artificial methods of reproduction, but, at the same time, I can also see Noa's point of view and how she relates to the religion based on her artificial creation. I'm not sure if it's even meant to be viewed this way, but it struck me as a metaphor for artificial insemination along with the obvious human cloning debates and it made me really think about how I viewed both of those topics from the point of view of the characters in the story, something many of the different aspects of the book cause me to do.

Jahu managed to complete his mission to kill the sacred fish, which I took as a reference to the Catholic fish symbol and maybe even drawing connections between resurrection and cloning (again, maybe reading too much into it), as Noa, in another dreamlike "miracle" state, is hugging the glass of the fish tank and absorbing, for lack of a better description, the spirit of the planet. The story is building up towards something, in regards to Noa, and her connections to Agape, who was revealed to have connections with the Aqua people in this issue.

The team managed to make their escape from Aqua, but not before a large falling out between the now former friends, Jahu and Roy, over Jahu's actions and how Roy was kept in the dark. Even the usually cheerful Noa is left pondering the serious of unfortunate events in the wake of her joining up with them.

Interestingly enough, Jahu could not enter Aqua, at first, due to his inability to reach a meditative state, something both Roy and Noa managed with ease. In the end, Jahu had to resort to drugs to induce an "altered state of mind", which granted him access to complete his mission. It's another interesting parallel with religion, the perception of enlightened states and similar experiences from mind altering drugs. Just great stuff that requires second and third readings and lots of cannonfodder for interesting and thoughtful discussions.

Finally, during the course of events, the Agape faction's actions have been heating up and they even attacked Ludovica's "Pope Mobile" during one of her rare public appearances, which resulted in the killing of the Agape attacker and a civil war-like battle erupting between the two religious factions.

Verdict - Must Read. Few comics make you actually think about what you are reading well after you've finished reading or even warrant a second or third reading. Sky Doll does this and is an interesting and unique experience every time. The more effort you put into it, the more enjoyment you'll get from a book like this and it manages to tell a unique and engaging story with some of the most beautiful artwork I've seen that sparks the imagination and paints a vivid picture of these alien landscapes.

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