“Oh, The Villainy!” TTSL Style, Take Three : “Harley Quinn” #1

Posted on September 26, 2013 by Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)

So, I’ve saved the worst for last.

Oh, sure, there are plenty more DC “Villains Month” books that we could talk about, but I counted up earlier today and between this site and Geeky Universe I’ve reviewed an even 10 of these things, and that’s enough for me. After this, I’m out.

Anyhoo, in recent weeks, in case you haven’t been following the comics industry scuttlebutt, DC has come under fire for having an open submission contest for new artists. What’s so wrong with that, you ask? Why, nothing — it’s great to find new “talent” to replace the already poorly-compensated average comic book penciller, I suppose. You don’t like drawing Justice League for 80 bucks a page, no health insurance or pension, and little to no royalties per copy sold? Fine. We’ll find some new kid to take your job who’ll work for 60 bucks a page and won’t complain. It’s the American way, right?

So what’s this got to do with Harley Quinn #1, or Detective Comics #23.2, as the official record-keepers would have it? Well, the “sample page” DC wanted their next generation of potential suck — err, freelance non-contract employees to submit was a scene depicting super-villain Harley Quinn, best known as the Joker’s on-again/off-again girlfriend, sitting naked in a bathtub and slicing her wrists open. Sex n’ suicide — again, the American way, right?

As insanely offensive at worst, tone deaf at best as the theme for this “new talent contest” was, however, it ain’t squat compared to what Harley does in this book. This whole “villains month” fiasco has already given us a mass shooting in a hospital in the pages of Desaad #1 and a workplace mass-murder/ suicide in the pages of Solomon Grundy #1, both of which would lead one to suspect that none of the suits at DC have been following the news for the past, I dunno, decade or so, but here, writer Matt Kindt (who was also responsible for the aforementioned Solomon Grundy, and who’s capable of soooooo much better, as his work on Dark Horse’s Mind Mgmt. series shows) has the psychotic villainess, in between flashback sequences to her pre-evil nutcase days as a psychiatrist at Gotham City’s infamous Arkham Asylum, engineer a senseless mass slaughter of innocent poor children by giving away booby-tapped video game systems at a local orphanage. When she flicks a switch, the Nintendos or Segas or X-Boxes or whatever all go “boom!” and the kids all get killed.

And after that, she’s recruited by Deadshot to rejoin the Suicide Squad, a team of hard-luck “anti-heroes” who work for the government. You know, the very same government that should be locking her ass away in prison for life for just having killied hundreds of children for no reason whatsoever.

Artist Neil Googe does a decent enough job illustrating this senseless and thoroughly tasteless tale of depravity, but that’s just trying to stitch a silk purse out of a sow’s ear when your subject matter is this out-and-out vile. I don’t blame him for the overall tone of the book, but shit, I honestly wouldn’t care how badly I needed to eat, I’d have refused this assignment if I were in his shoes.

But hey, who knows, right? DC’s playing pretty fast and loose with continuity these days, maybe we’ll find out this whole sorry spectacle was just a delirious fever-dream that naked Harley was having while she killed herself in her tub.

“Oh, The Villainy!” TTSL Style, Take Two : “Two Face” #1

Posted on September 25, 2013 by Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)

Not sure what to really say about Two Face #1, or as it’s known to the more officious Batman And Robin #23.1 (even though, say it with me, “Robin’s dead again these days”), apart from the fact that it probably has the neatest of the 3-D holographic covers that have adorned any of DC’s “Villains Month” books. And since that’s the only selling point this comic seems to have going for it, maybe I should just leave it at that and call it a day, right?

Nah. The folks behind this travesty don’t deserve to get off that easy.

And by “folks,” I should say that I mean specifically writer Peter J. Tomasi. The art by Guillem March on this one is actually pretty good — even really good for the first few pages, before settling into a “competent enough to get the job done” kind of groove. The story, though, is a complete and utter waste of time.

Figuring everybody already knows the origin of former Gotham City D.A. turned criminal boss/mastermind Two Face, Tomasi opts to skip the detailed backstory and just waste time for twenty pages. We see Two Face flip his infamous scarred coin a lot, threaten fellow baddie Scarecrow, settle a few old scores from his days on the right side of the law, and reminisce about some past events, and that’s it. At the end he flicks his coin once again to see whether or not he’ll raise hell now that Batman’s supposedly out of the picture (“dead,” it would seem, along with the rest of the Justice League, in the limp and predictable-to-a-fault Forever Evil mega-crossover mini-series) or chill out and watch his fellow crazies do the job for him. We don’t get to see the result of the toss, and it doesn’t really matter because, well — the rest of the book didn’t, either. Tomasi has taken a page from Seinfeld, it would seem, and given us a comic where more or less nothing actually happens.

I dunno, I’ve felt generally ripped off, snookered, and otherwise suckered by more or less every one of these “Villains Month” issues, but this one might take the cake in terms of being the most overtly pointless of the entire rancid bunch. Which is kind of shame when you stop and think about it because Two Face, as a character, is (or at least was, prior to this whole “New 52” thing) at least a somewhat interesting and compelling figure, and he probably still could be. But he’s not here. Shit, Tomasi doesn’t even put in enough effort to make him actively dull in this book, he’s just sorta — there.

But your four bucks won’t be if you’re foolish enough (as I was) to buy this rag.

“Oh, The Villainy!” TTSL Style, Take One : “Joker” #1

Posted on September 24, 2013 by Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)

Okay, first things first — for those of you (assuming there are any) who have been wondering wondering just where the hell I’ve been hiding the last couple of months, rest assured, I’ve been writing as much as ever — maybe even moreso. Just not about movies. And just not here. Which may come as a relief, I’ll bet, to some. But for those among you who just have to have an explanation —

I’m currently in the midst of two comics-related series over at http://www.geekyuniverse.com, which I’ve been — ahem! — “re-presenting” over on my own “main” site — http://trashfilmguru.wordpress.com — as well. One, entitled “Just Pay Ditko!” is an exploration of the questionable (at best) ethics of the current comic reprint craze that’s seeing the works of some of the industry’s greatest talents packaged in high-quality, expensive hardcovers — with no compensation being directed toward the artists and writers whose work is contained in these hefty tomes. As you might gather from the title, I’m paying special attention to this unfolding dilemma as it relates to Spider-Man and Doctor Strange’s real creator, visionary artist Steve Ditko, but the scope of the articles has expanded somewhat to include other creators, as well as other creator’s-rights-related issues. I can’t imagine the average Through The Shattered Lens reader would find all this terribly interesting, but for those of you who want a glimpse into comics’ sorry ethical and legal practices, you may want to hop on over to GU and take a look — right now I’m up to part 12 in the series and will probably be looking to wrap it up somewhere around part 15 or 16 in the next few weeks.

The other ongoing “concern” I’m immersed in, however, might be of at least slightly more concern to you good folks here, though, and that is my continuing evisceration of DC’s uniformly sorry and uninspired/uninspiring “Villains Month” books. For those (blissfully, I might add) not in the know about this, throughout the month of September the House That Superman (or, more accurately, Siegel and Shuster) Built is turning all their regular monthly titles over to the bad guys, and throwing flashy 3-D holographic covers on each of the issues (at an extra buck a pop) , to boot. Quite clearly this is nothing but a cheap publicity stunt to gin up sales in the short term, but then so is everything that DC and Marvel does these days. As you’d expect, this being the current “New 52” take on these characters, the results are pretty dire. But given that I’ve droned on about these books for a few weeks already over at GU and that’s I’m an equal-opportunity kind of guy who wishes to spread the miser— err, wealth — around a bit, I thought I’d save my last few entries in this series for the readers here at TTSL and give you all a little taste of what you’ve been missing if you’ve wisely chosen to ignore these comics.

And so, without any further ado, let’s take a look at Joker #1 — or, as it’s officially numbered, Batman #23.1 — shall we?

In short, despite having better art, courtesy of Andy Clarke, than most of those other “Villains Month” quick-cash-grabs, this book still pretty well sucks, and that’s entirely down to the lame script by Andy Kubert, who’s turning out to be nowhere near the writer-artist his legendary father, Joe, was.

Kubert starts off with some possible flashbacks to the Joker’s origins — never a good idea for anyone to tackle unless their name is Alan Moore — then segues into, I guess, the present day, wherein the Clown Prince Of Crime decides to expand his inner circle by liberating a gorilla from the Gotham City Zoo, naming the hapless creature Jackanapes, and raising it as his own, well, child, I guess.

Oh, sure, it’ll all end in tears, but the limp nods Kubert makes toward Grant Morrison-era Doom Patrol-style surrealism are so ham-fisted and ill-considered that it makes for a downright excruciating read even if Clarke’s pencils and inks are generally pretty pleasing to the eye. For a “special” issue, the whole thing has the feel of a good, old-fashioned “inventory” story that’s been sitting on the shelf, unpublished (for good reason) for a couple of years. It’s all over as quickly as it is predictably, which is probably its’ one saving grace (at least only five minutes of your life will be wasted on it), but at the end of the day all you really are for your $3.99 investment is, well, a little bit more broke. You already knew the Joker was crazy, you already knew that he has a habit of making irrational decisions, and you already knew he was capable of acting utterly without conscience. Giving him a pet ape doesn’t change any of that, nor does it do much to “shed new light” on his character, motivations, you name it.

I think it’s safe to assume that you get the picture here, but just in case you don’t, I’ll make it real easy — avoid at all costs.