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Drawing Blood #6

Posted on September 24, 2024 by Walt

drawingblood_0006_with_KS_questionChapter 6

Writer: David Avallone
Artists: Ben Bishop, Kevin Eastman, Troy Little
Letterer: Tony Esposito
Colorist: Luis Antonio Delgado
Published by: Image Comics

So…Drawing Blood #6 is out.

This issue is the SECOND issue of the 4-issue "Drawing Blood vol. 2" that was funded by Kickstarter backers more than FIVE YEARS AGO.

In the 5+ years SINCE they raised over $121,000 dollars for what amounts to Drawing Blood #s 5-8, the creators have collectively posted a grand total of 15-16 Updates–several closer together, most with half-a-year-or-more gaps. By and large, they have stoutly refused to communicate with Kickstarter backers, preferring to post things to OTHER social media, expecting anyone who "cares" about the Kickstarter to BE on other social media.

And for years they’ve been making and continuing to break promises, and it’s been over 14 months since they even vaguely hinted at any sort of timeline. It’s always “soon,” but how many YEARS until “soon” becomes “scammed”?

Just going back THREE YEARS, below are some of the creators’ words from Kickstarter updates, with my ‘responses’ interspersed in blue. You’ll find the original comments from the creators on Kickstarter in the ‘Updates’ section of the project’s page corresponding to the ‘Update’ for each respective date.

David Avallone, July 21, 2021

[Shared video call between Avallone, Eastman, Bishop, saying loads of stuff that over 3 years later still hasn’t happened…and couldn’t even be bothered to summarize or write something for Kickstarter backers. Additionally, it was a short video, so no one spent much time to provide information/updates…it was like a 10-minute conference call on the go. ]

Ben Bishop, February 19, 2022 (7 months later…)

As I always mention – the very best place to see the latest on DRAWING BLOOD is our Instagram […] and our Facebook page […] – As wells as our individual Instagram accounts […] – – Whereas a single image and caption doesn’t always make for a meaty enough KS update,  I’m always posting bits and pieces of the process all the time over on IG, and also pretty decent at replying to comments. So, definitely give those accounts a follow if you want to stay more in the loop as we wrap this baby up.

It’s taking forever – we know. But we’re so close, and so confident that it’ll be worth the wait. Thanks for hanging in there.

And yet none of those pages linked to are Kickstarter itself…where backers backed this, and expect to be able to at LEAST get “monthly” “updates.” Sure, a single image/caption here or there may not warrant a whole Update and can add further TO the actual updates…abdicating Kickstarter and forcing people to go to other social media in the hopes of MAYBE finding something relevant to this particular project?

Ben Bishop, November 9, 2022 (9 months later…)

We’ve been getting lots of bumps and nudges, or pokes, whatever you want to call them – for another DRAWING BLOOD Kickstarter update, so I wanted to drop in quickly this morning and type something up for all of you patiently waiting on DRAWING BLOOD VOL.2.

Yeah, that only took NINE MONTHS of “bumps/nudges/pokes/whatever” for an Update. Even if not posted as a full-on Update, it’s actually, genuinely POSSIBLE for creators to hop on and post COMMENTS and/or REPLY TO comments without having to put together huge/long/fancy Updates.

There’s not a whole lot to update you all about – and no one likes a lame update – but I can at least come by and let you know we’re all still alive, and still working on the book. Nothing has changed. We’re still all bouncing between various jobs or conventions or everyday human stuff like doctors appointments, funerals, DMV lines, and whatever else somehow sucks the time away each day.

No one likes lame updates, sure…but at least an update IS an update. It’s the few minutes of a creator’s time amidst everything else—it should be part of those “whatever else somehow sucks the time away each day” to have even one creator out of 3+ take five minutes in ONE MONTH to post something. Creators bouncing between jobs taken in lieu of what money was already collected for (Last Ronin over Drawing Blood v. 2) is a bit shady. Everyone else has stuff going on, do they not deserve to know where their money’s going and that the creators haven’t just left them high and dry?

David Avallone, July 20, 2023 (Over 9 months later, start of SDCC 2023 just ahead of panels involving this creative team)

I hoped the overlap in the fandom would satisfy most of you that you were getting something amazing, even if it wasn’t DBV2 yet.

Some of you… weren’t satisfied and weren’t patient.

What *I* myself primarily saw and experienced in the months leading up to this Update was people requesting informatioin, updates, SOME SORT OF COMMUNICATION from someone involved in the project…but it was months of abject SILENCE.

[…]

He should have 8 inked within a month… and then we’re finally done, and ready to send it to you.

As of September 24, 2024…this statement is 14 months old. Speaks for itself.

[…]

Which leads us to the big announcement. You are the first to officially hear it, before we talk about it later today at San Diego Comic Con (and I hope some of you are in the room when we do.)

This seems to be the entire reason anyone even bothered to post an update…so that no one could stand up in a panel and ask FOR an update or ask why they haven’t communicated in 9 months…

It was pretty thrilling to get this email, even knowing the contract had been signed.
Eric Stephenson of Image loves DRAWING BLOOD, and we have signed a contract with him to publish the series, and the RAGDOLLS comics that supplement it.

And this was the first backers had anything official on this. Never even any information about them considering publishing through Image, having already published 1-4 as single issues through Kevin Eastman’s studio!

[…]

Within a week or so, we’ll announce when the first issue will drop from Image.  In keeping with industry practice, that means the first issue will be in comics shops about four months later. This will be DRAWING BLOOD #1, which you’ve all read, of course, but then we will go straight through for 12 months, with Volume Two commencing about four months in, and Volume Three four months after that.

14 months later and they still have not communicated when issues would or have drop(ped) from Image.

Never anything specific about timelines or intentions such as “We should know by December if we’ll be able to deliver by February” or some such.

[…]

rest assured: Kickstarter supporters of Volume Two will get their copy of the Volume Two trade a very long time before those issues hit stores for public consumption.

Absolute LIE. Now with #6, this is HALF OF volume 2 that is in stores, and Kickstarter supporters have NOTHING tangible. Even a PDF of #5 shared at the end of the day the day it was in shops was half-assed at best; more later.

[…]

You’ll get it first. And you’ll get some extras we’re throwing in, to thank you for your patience. We’ll make sure that you, the core fans of DRAWING BLOOD hear about everything first, and see everything first.

Again, LIES. There has been NO FURTHER communication, promotion, information, announcement(s) etc in the over 14 months since this was posted.

Kevin Eastman, May 18, 2024 (10 months later)

A LONG OVERDUE letter to all the generous fans that supported the second Drawing Blood Kickstarter campaign in 2019 – my sincere apologies.

Long overdue indeed…I had figured Eastman had essentially merely lent his NAME to the project. Finally, some responsibility being assumed, and this thing can get underway…
…right?

[…]

It is appalling quite honestly that I have not been up here to speak with you before, my name is on the campaign, much like the first one

EXACTLY like the first one

[…]

There is no one to blame except me and there are no excuses I could offer or would accept if I were you.

Ok, we’re getting toward platitudes, especially looking back more than 4 months with nothing tangible since.

[…]

I will say only this, five years to complete a project like the one you funded is disgusting – especially when it has my name on it, even more so. I can sincerely tell you on every level, over that time, the money you contributed to help create and fund this project has only been spent on this project – the funds to complete and deliver the remaining items (original art and related, already complete items, have long since be sent to the supporters) are right where they are supposed to be, and will be used to do so in the coming months.

Potentially ok, but these months later in September, methinks he doth protest too much, so to speak.

[…]

We will be sending out a backer survey shortly, we are nearing completion of all the final elements of the funded Kickstarter campaign

Nothing concrete. No specific dates. And 4+ months later, no backer survey (pretty sure one might have been sent out YEARS AGO, but I haven’t even dug back that far if my emails even DO go back that far). No word on what “nearing completion” means, or what “final elements” REMAIN.

[…]

Again, and you’ll hear it MANY, MANY more times from me in coming months – my apologies –

more generic-sounding apologies and words from something that doesn’t seem like it should have taken more than a half hour to write…averaging (at a half hour) 3 minutes per month of silence since July 2023?

Kevin Eastman, July 9, 2024 (over 7 weeks later)

By the end of next week, we’ll have the final digital PDF of issue #5 to send to you all, and if all goes as planned, we’ll have issues #6, and #7, and #8 off to you about every two weeks thereafter – so you get to see, at least in digital form, in the short term, everything you helped us bring to life – and the hard copies are coming soon.

2 months shy of the 5-year-mark from this project being funded, virtually a YEAR after being told backers would have DBv2 long before others, and it was reduced to a digital file. That many people don’t even care about or have trouble attempting to read—it is NOT a Guided View thing or any ‘smart’ digital comic, and at least for myself, viewing PDFs on a widescreen laptop is NOT conducive to a good reading experience for comics and their crazy panel layouts/structures modern artists seem to always be using.

[…]

I’ll also make sure we send around Troy’s final 40 page “RRRR Adventures” again as well – as I know some of you have gotten it and some missed it, and I want to make sure you all get to enjoy it – it’s truly beautiful.

I have seen NOTHING of this being sent around again…maybe there were private messages and/or private emails, but certainly nothing posted to the Kickstarter project page itself for general access by backers.

[…]

Looking further down the road, we’re all self-funding the final four issues of the series, issues #9, #10, #11, and #12 (which we couldn’t be doing if you hadn’t helped us with the first eight) and we are going to make sure you get digital copies of all those as our “thanks” for helping us throughout the dreadfully long process to date.

Probably because there’d be no way to do a Kickstarter again with the abysmal track record of the current project remaining UNfulfilled 5 years later and plenty of comments and concerns from people seeking updates that extremely rarely materialize.

And being published through IMAGE…aren’t ALL such comics—be it The Walking Dead, Drawing Blood, Saga, whatever—thus self-funded?!?

[…]

Okay – back to work for me – wanted to touch base with you all – and stay tuned for the backer survey details and more updates and surprises from us all in the very near future.

Ok, July 9…very near future…great.

(NOTHING on those as of September 24!)

Kevin Eastman, August 28, 2024 (another over-7-weeks later)

I know you are all feeling (very appropriately) upset about putting down your hard-earned cash to support our second Drawing Blood Kickstarter and are feeling ripped off – I apologize – it was not my intent, nor any the parties involved in this project to rip anyone off.  I couldn’t be more sincere here – and I assure you the money you have invested has been spent ONLY on the Drawing Blood project, period, and is actively making its final steps to completion.

August 28, 4pm, virtually end-of-the-day…after #5 was in stores all day for anyone, backer or otherwise.

Not sure I’d seen any further comments or such about how the money was spent, so again, methinks someone doth protest too much.

[…]

Personally, if my Uncle Quentin (one of the OG crowd funders in my history) did not loan us the $1300 to print TMNT issue #1 it would not have happened. Thanks to him it did, and thanks to many of you, our 2017 KS for Drawing Blood Volume One never would have happened, and additionally for so many more of you, the 2019 KS for Volume Two would never have happened either – I am very grateful for your support.

$1300 is a far cry from nearly $122,000 (OVER A HUNDRED *THOUSAND* dollars) that then has left backers waiting HALF A DECADE. If that $1300 loan happened in 1983 (TMNT #1 hit in 1984), 5 years later would have been…1988. Think about THAT.

[…]

Below, you have a link to issue #5, and in the next two weeks you can expect another update from me and the digital version of issue #6. 

And after all that time, and it’s just a simple link to a basic PDF file. Presumably such a file had to have existed prior, for proofing and approval and such during the printing process.

And a simple, basic LINK to a simple, basic FILE couldn’t even be provided to backers until the END of the day, basically an AFTERTHOUGHT?!?

[…]

And here we are, 8pm September 24, with issue #6 arriving in stores in a few hours (likely already there, just not for sale til Wednesday), and…

STILL.

NOTHING.

NOT. A. Freaking. Peep.

No PDF for #6. No backer survey. No timelines for expected schedules and such.

It’s not even like they’ve delayed #5 or #6 after #4, an understandable “break” between arcs/volumes, etc. SURELY they could have voluntarily INSERTED a brief hiatus in order to fulfill the Kickstarter, and see that backers got their books prior to them being released to the general public.

But here we are, halfway through vol. 2, and a whole lotta NOTHING.

drawingblood_0006_blogtrailer

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The ‘90s Revisited: Batman #476

Posted on February 15, 2024 by Walt

baman0476The Return of Scarface! Part Three: The Gig Heat!

Writer: Alan Grant
Artist: Norm Breyfogle
Colorist: Adrienne Roy
Letterer: Todd Klein
Assoc. Editor: Kelley Puckett
Editor: Dennis O’Neil
Cover Price: $1.00
Cover Date: April 1992

In this day and age (February 2024), comic covers are virtually meaningless. People even seem to collect "virgin variants" that don’t even carry the TITLE, or cardstock variants that don’t have the actual big, bombastic, noticeable logos, etc. And there are so many variants with any given issue from any given publisher that there’s no way to keep ’em all straight from one issue to another. The best one (I?) can seem to hope for is to somehow determine something is "the next issue" of a series I follow, and hope that when/if I get around to actually READING the thing that it’s worth my $5.

So let’s jump back 32-some years. Let’s look at Batman #476 (from an era when a comic might see a #1 issue in the 1940s and 50 years later still be continuing the numbering without 35 reboots, 16 universe re-shapings and umpteen mini-series any given week).

In sorting through my accumulation, this issue REALLY stuck out to me…just by the COVER. We have a view from behind as Batman actually UNMASKS in front of a stunned woman in a hospital bed–who I mistook for Barbara Gordon but is actually Vicki Vale (oops, wasn’t she blond in the ’89 Tim Burton flick?).

But there was just something to the visual that so stood out to me–I had never read this issue before–that amidst hundreds of other issues being sorted through and stuck away for filing, I HAD TO set this one aside to READ. Because of the stupid COVER IMAGE grabbing my attention, holding my attention, spurring some thoughts and wonderment, and leaving me flat-out INTERESTED in reading the issue to see how this played out, if it was exactly as the cover depicted, or something sensationalized, etc.

I had no idea from the cover that this was a Scarface/Ventriloquist issue. But apparently it’s a THIRD chapter of a story…yet the cover proclaims NOTHING of the sort. No Event banner or Event designation/trade dress. This is just "another" issue or "a next issue" that happens to continue some ongoing story. There’s not even a "recap page" or a "What Came Previously" caption to catch one up. As a reader, one is just simply thrown on into the story! Some masked gunmen burst into a hospital room, obviously intending to Do Some Harm to Ms. Vale. Batman swoops in through the window, disarms and knocks out the gunmen, then unmasks in front of the startled woman, as she realizes Bruce Wayne actually IS a hero and not some weak, bumbling fool. She proclaims her love for him after all, they kiss, and…yeahhhh, Bruce’s mind wandered while he waited in the hospital to be allowed in to see his (apparently former) flame.

Scenes shift and we check in with the Gotham City Police Commissioner, and separately a gang of goons, as some plan gets put in motion. Meanwhile, Bruce is working up the nerve to tell Vicki that he’s Batman (apparently they’d broken up and he’s interested in ‘getting her back’ and thinking Total Honesty might work). But just as he’s about to Say The Words, he sees the Bat-signal lit up over the city, and Duty calls.

Over the next few pages, we see Scarface’s plan unfurls: an apparent informant luring the police to some deal at a chemical plant between rival gangs. Batman (apparently withOUT his Batmobile) finds Sarah Essen manning the Bat-signal instead of Gordon, who has gone on ahead with police, unwilling to wait for the Batman to do their jobs for them. As the Street Demonz and the other gang start shooting, the police are at a disadvantage–especially Gordon, who has his glasses shot off, but thankfully not his head. As time goes on, it’s revealed there’s a bomb, and Scarface’s plan involves eliminating the competition and the Batman and whatever police are caught in things, leaving him to reign over crime in the city. Batman stops Essen from going into the plant after Jim, retrieving the commissioner himself…and realizes that for her love for Gordon, she could have been killed. This leads to his ultimately going back to Vicki after things are wrapped up, and NOT revealing his Big Secret…as he doesn’t want his love for her to lead to her being killed.

So this was definitely NOOOOT at all what I "expected" from the issue. The "big reveal," as I should have recalled to be typical of the time, was a cover "fake-out," where we see it happen on-page, BUT it’s "just a [day]dream sequence." Still, the cover reflected something from INSIDE the issue, which is more than I can say for most comics in 2024! Not to mention it got me to pick the issue out of hundreds to actually read; though obviously I’d already BOUGHT it some time ago for it to already be in my collection.

Visually this one has a defffffinite "early" look to me, from my earliest days being into comics. With an April cover date in 1992, I imagine this likely came out in January or February, barely off 1991, so still close enough to the ’80s to practically BE ’80s. And for me, Norm Breyfogle’s work is certainly a huge part of those early days, particularly his work on Detective Comics [including my first-ever issue in #604]. In fact, this is the same writer/art/colorist/inker team AS that issue of Detective!

On the surface level, the story didn’t really thrill me. I’m not exactly a fan of Scarface/Ventriloquist, nor am I overly familiar with the Bruce/Vicki thing except knowing it had existed enough to at least be incorporated into the ’89 film. It’s also strange to–after what seems like most of the past 20 years–have so much "Bruce" WITH the "Batman." So I’m not thrilled with the story, but I definitely appreciate seeing Bruce here…as human, as someone that CAN get nervous, as someone that IS fallible, etc. It’s a deeper portrayal than I feel I’ve seen in a long time, and reminds me how much I enjoyed Batman stuff as a kid and how little I enjoy it now.

I knew I remembered Grant/Breyfogle working together, and Grant prior to Shadow of the Bat, though I’m most recently familiar with Grant FROM Shadow of the Bat, reading Cataclysm along with the NML Podcast my friend Chris is doing. That’s also where I’m most recently familiar with Scarface and Ventriloquist…especially their inability to say "B"-words, or I might’ve been more put-off by the use of "G" for "B". The Gig Heat being the BIG Heat for this issue.

Due to reading this issue, my most recent comic shop visit included noticing that part 1 was in the previous issue, and I was shocked at a $10-$15 price on the thing! I would by NO MEANS consider this issue to be "worth" anything like that, and was able to enjoy this enough for what it is withOUT spending double-digit dollars on the thing…and it does not have enough for me to suggest or recommend anyone ELSE pay double-digit dollars. Assuming I have the previous couple chapters in my possession already, I might dig ’em out to read…but otherwise I’m gonna chalk this up to a reasonable one-shot-read.

batman_0476_blogtrailer

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Ultimate Black Panther #1 [Review]

Posted on February 12, 2024 by Walt

ultimate_blackpanther_0001Writer: Bryan Hill
Artist: Stefano Caselli
Color Artist: David Curiel
Letterer: VC’s Cory Petit
Cover Artists: Stefano Caselli & David Curiel
Design: Jay Bowen
Assistant Editor: Michelle Marchese
Editor: Wil Moss
Editor in Chief: CB Cebulski
Cover Date: April 2024
Cover Price: $5.99
Published By: Marvel Comics

It seems like a long time since I reviewed any "current issue" of a comic, let alone a Marvel comic. I’m far more keen on facsimile editions and non-"current year" stories these days than current stuff coming out from most publishers. And then this issue is riding all sorts of hype and speculation, apparently, between skyrocketing prices of even the "A" cover of Ultimate Spider-Man #1 and a distributor reportedly losing thousands of copies of this issue’s "A" cover, and of course the USUAL (modern-day) speculation crap involving constant first issues and umpteen variant covers that exceed the number of story pages for a given issue, and so on.

I bought all four issues of Ultimate Invasion last year, though when the series was announced, I’d planned to stay away from it. I vaguely recall actually READING the first couple issues, but I’m not sure I read the latter ones, as yet. Based on what I was hearing about Ultimate Spider-Man just before its premiere issue came out, I snagged that one, and waffled on Black Panther…wavering still on whether or not to "embrace" this new Ultimate Universe, even if only for nostalgia of the original. Given the hype on this issue, I elected to visit a second shop when the first was sold out, and snagged a copy, leaving behind 2 copies.

I hate that it seems so many modern comics are "about" the speculation, variants, and pretty much anything but the story inside the covers; and I’m frequently reminded that even as a young teenager I had speculated that publishers could simply polybag a bundle of blank pages behind a cover and call it a day, and probably few would even notice. So let’s dig in here on the actual story.

The issue opens on the apparent slaughter of a village, while two shadowy figures prepare to report what they’ve seen to their king. We then cut to a just-awakened T’Challa conferring with his wife Okoye after a bad dream. Reflecting on how traditions must change, T’Challa visits with his father T’Chaka, former king, who counsels that he listen to what the Vodu-Khan have to say about things. T’Challa later meets with his sister Shuri (woman-at-arms) and the spies we saw at the beginning as T’Challa learns of the attack. Though Shuri and T’Challa clash on response, T’Challa elects not to leap into war based on reports…though he intends to act in some form. Elsewhere as another attack unfolds, a new figure–Killmonger–appears on the scene to defend against the Ra/Khonshu invasion. Finally, at an annual Celebration of Life gathering in Wakanda, suicide bombers appear, and T’Chaka shoves his son off the building just before the explosion. Arriving at the ground in Black Panther mode, T’Challa–The Black Panther–declares that the enemy is Moon Knight and Wakanda is at war.

I think the best part of this issue for me is the art. I really liked it, at least in and of itself. I don’t know that it’s such that I would have flipped this open and chosen to buy it due to the art if I wasn’t already interested in buying it…but for reading it, the art fit, I liked it, and in whatever subjective way I interpret "art," it worked for me.

That said, I’m less thrilled at the overall issue (and sure, the art gets as much blame as the writing, I’m sure) feeling so "cinematic." This came off very much like the adaptation of something from a tv show, to me, more than being its own original comic. Having barely a dozen words on a 2-page spread SCREAMS "cinematic" to me, and remains a "cheat" on pagecount/story in my eyes. Even though this was an extra-sized (and extra-priced) issue, it read very much as a standard-sized one, which isn’t horrible but isn’t good, either.

Much of what I take from characterization is a combination of interpreting this as an alternate reality, and drawing on what I recall of Priest’s 1998 Black Panther series from Marvel Knights, with a certain influence from the MCU films that had T’Challa, T’Chaka, Okoye, and Shuri.

With only this single issue to go on, I’m definitely inclined to pick up the next issue and perhaps keep on with the series, assuming it’s more than a "stealth mini-series" at this point. While I understand this to be in the same Ultimate Universe as Ultimate Spider-Man, I do hope the titles stay pretty much self-contained, and with that they should be good companion books free of loooooads of other continuity things making so many modern comics unappealing to me.

I’m glad I got this issue, particularly to READ, and that I enjoyed it juuuuust enough to "justify" the price. I have a hard time recommending someone spend $6 on a single-issue of a comic, but you could definitely do WORSE than this one…though it’s not exactly all that meaty. It’s some fresh air from main Marvel continuity stuff.

ultimate_blackpanther_0001_blogtrailer

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The ’80s Revisited? – Batman #428 "Faux-simile" Edition

Posted on December 19, 2023 by Walt

batman0428fauximileA Death in the Family

Writer: Jim Starlin
Penciler: Jim Aparo
Inker: Mike DeCarlo
Letterer: John Costanza
Colorist: Adrienne Roy
Asst Editor: Dan Raspler
Editor: Denny O’Neil
Cover Art: Mike Mignola
Cover Price: $4.99

Batman arrives back at the warehouse just after it’s exploded. Searching the wreckage, he finds Sheila just before she dies. And then…Robin. But he’s ALIVE! Kid in the hospital, the rest of the issue plays out much as it originally did—Bruce returns to the US, sees to it that Sheila is buried properly, goes after the Joker, is confronted by Superman, and learns of the Joker’s new “promotion” that keeps him from touching the murderer if he wants to avoid an international incident.

Well, that was NOT what I expected. I’ll have to dig out my copy of the original issue, and/or the older TPB to check page-by-page…but I’m pretty sure the only REAL differences were text boxes and "that" panel–"He’s alive!" vs. head bowed in grief.

As I went through this faux-simile, though, it hit me as a great example of how different a story can be/go with just a few word changes…and how much we may or may not "read between the lines" or insert our own feelings, etc.

The Joker goes on about stuff having left the kid for dead…NOTHING about that had to change. But reading a few words about Jason being ALIVE lets one consider how "foolish" the Joker was to not confirm his kill, and/or build up feelings of "oh, he’s gonna be in for a shock when Batman catches up to him!" or whatever.

I think of the ’80s animated GI Joe movie where they apparently had intended to kill off Duke; but after Transformers and the actual death of Optimus Prime they backtracked a bit. As I’m recalling it offhand, there’s some dialogue about Duke pulling through, or is going to pull through, or whatever…but you still don’t see the guy on-screen again. They easily could have referenced his NOT having pulled through, but due to action there’s no time to get a funeral on-screen, or logically they just wouldn’t get TO it yet (if all the action is same-day, for example).

I’d also forgotten how many pages we had leading up to Batman FINDING Jason, and the way ads spaced things out for the pages, drawing along some drama as Batman goes through the warehouse wreckage.

I said this was NOT what I expected–I suppose I EXPECTED a lot more change to the issue and more of a visual difference…that there’d be at least several PAGES of different art to the story.

Having Jason be "in a coma" obviously tracks with his being ALIVE, and accounting for the horrific injuries from the explosion. AND accounts for him not being in #429…dead or in the hospital in a coma, he wouldn’t be physically capable of anything "on-panel" of story significance, and the point of the story is NOT hospital drama of Bruce lingering by the bed listening to machines, etc…so in "classic" "compressed" style, we’d get the focus on Batman, Superman, Joker, etc in #429 and would just have to "know" that the kid’s alive in the hospital but no longer pertinent to the story at hand (Joker as ambassador targeting the UN).

This issue has one of THE MOST iconic (to me) covers in comics; one I was very aware of long before I ever got to own a copy myself…probably from the back cover of an early TPB edition of the entire story (from a local library, back in the day). It’s by Mike Mignola…likely better known nowadays for Hellboy. I often forget that he DID do stuff for DC back then…This cover definitely works for conveying something from the issue–namely that we have a badly-injured-from-an-exploding-warehouse-Robin; and yet the blood spatter was Comics Code Authority-approved.

The interior art being Jim Aparo is fantastic, especially compared to what I think of nowadays. Aparo and John Byrne and Norm Breyfogle (and it’s waned on me over the years, Jim Lee) are probably my favorite Bat-artists. Visually this issue is up there with the heart of Knightfall, such as Batman #497 (the Batcave slugfest between Bane and Batman).

This thing was $4.99 ($7.99 cover price on the foil variant!). I’m not quite sure why the extra dollar on a standard-length issue (Batman #405 facsimile—Year One part 2—came out the same day with the same number of story pages for $3.99). But I suppose it’s technically a “new” issue for not being a 100%-straight-reprint, so they snuck the extra dollar into the price. I’ve quit buying Batman in part for the price increase…and at the least, the price increase has "kept" me away from buying the title for the current issues. Considering the importance of this issue in pre-2004 Bat-history and it commanding higher prices as a back issue, I can be a LOT more "forgiving" of the $5 price; and it’s much more palatable somehow. (Even though the ads technically become “story pages” since they’re not putting NEW ads in with stuff…seems “off” having 428 & 405 together with the difference in pricing!)

For me personally, I enjoyed this issue/experience, seeing how the issue could have been different all those years ago, getting the thoughts/examples in my face of how different "tweaks" can impact a story.

If you’re not all that familiar (or at all) with A Death in the Family and/or prefer much more recent Batman to ’80s/’90s Batman, this may not be "worth it" to you.

But if you’re like me, this is well worth the pickup.

Some comparisons:

428_01_orig

First from the original take in #428.

428_01_faux

And then here’s the “new”/alternate from the faux-simile.

428_02_orig

The infamous full-page image…

428_02_faux

But it’s smaller for the alternate take, making room for several additional panels (since the kid’s survived and that has to be explained, vs. just the grave moment)

428_02_bat_ann_25

And since they’d included it in the TPB I was referencing, here’s the page that we were given in Batman Annual #25, without the extra words.

428_03_orig

Context, conveying a lot in just a few words…

428_03_faux

A slight change of wording omits Jason, since the alternate take is that he actually survived.

428_04_orig

Original panel…

428_04_faux

Slightly re-worded without Jason.

428_05_orig

The original version, mother and son side-by-side.

428_05_faux

Alternatively, a single coffin and simply no extra reference to Jason.

428_06_orig

A poignant moment with Alfred after the funeral…

428_06_faux

Orrrr Dick checks in with Bruce in the hospital after the funeral of Jason’s mother.

And then looking into #429, we have a few panels that would take very little alteration of words to account for Jason living.

429_01

“Injured” vs. “Killed,” perhaps.

429_02

Make past tense present tense, and the Joker “did that to” rather than “murdered"?

429_03

“Hurt” instead of “murdered”…

429_04

“in a coma” instead of “dead”…

429_05

“nearly killed”…

Now, even having this alternate take…with DC releasing the 4-issue Year One issues weekly, it seems like other 4-parter classics like Death in the Family, Year Two, and so on would be ripe for facsimiles. Even The Dark Knight [Returns]. If they can do Vengeance of Bane as a “regular” (if extra-pages) facsimile instead of squarebound, why not those?

Time will tell, but such reprints would get ME buying Batman for the duration…

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The ’90s Revisited – Magic: The Gathering – The Shadow Mage #3

Posted on July 5, 2021 by Walt

[I’d ‘revisited’ this series as a whole back in August/September 2012 for a group blog that doesn’t exist anymore. And due to a personal issue with Boom Studios’ comics I refuse to buy their new Magic series. So, instead of buying THOSE new comics, and to have my content covering this series fully on my own blog (so as to not disappear when an external blog shuts down), I’m revisiting–as single issues–the ORIGINAL Magic: The Gathering comics published by Acclaim through their Armada imprint back in 1995!]

The ’90s Revisited – Magic: The Gathering

The Shadow Mage #1  |  The Shadow Mage #2  |  The Shadow Mage #3  |  The Shadow Mage #4

magicthegathering_theshadowmage_003War Child

Writer: Jeff Gomez
Penciller: Val Mayerik
Inker: Rick Bryant
Printed Color: Mark Csaszar
Letterer: Bethanne Niedz
Editor-in-Chief: Bob Layton
Cover Painting: Val Mayerik
Cover Date: September 1995
Cover Price: $2.50

After an unplanned three-month hiatus (hey, just like real comics!), I’m back to cover the THIRD issue of this mini-series. And rather than having covered the entire mini while the new Boom series was still on #1…I’m now "in line" with their series, covering the third issue of this classic Armada series while Boom‘s is around #3 or #4..

Perhaps it’s because I’ve had this issue sitting around for a few weeks waiting for me to write up this post, but the cover feels fairly "iconic" to me at this point…though I believe I’d mentioned in my post about #2 that I didn’t even remember the cover and figured it was forgettable. We see Jared in a strange pose somewhat holding up Ezer–or catching him as he falls (but in that case, Jared’s arm should be under his mentor at the man’s back, not around his chest!). Jared looks rather wild and desperate…which is appropriate if he’s facing an enemy more menacing than the Juggernaut carting up behind him!

Getting into the issue itself…we begin with an attack on Arathoxia. Juggernauts break down the city’s gates, before we shift to the Lady Verdenth speaking at Ravidel as the citizenry react to the attack…including Yorgo and his gang, who take up arms to defend "his" city. We shift to the watchtower of Tobias Kavrel, Lord of Stonehaven’s eastern plains, where the lord and his minions come under attack from a Demonic Horde…though they wish to leave the lowly paupers to their fate, Ravidel’s forces aren’t discriminating. Ravidel bids his minions have fun (think Shredder sending Tokka and Rahzar out in TMNT II)…and the scene shifts again. We find Yorgo and crew dealing with Drudge Skeletons before Jared arrives and aids them with a Disintegrate spell. (Amazing in a way that I remember/recognize these). Back in the Sultan’s palace, we learn that he wishes to have the "shadow mage" found, which will give Ravidel what he seeks. Chaos and death continue throughout the city. In House Carthalion, the man who almost caught Jared in the previous issue is found dying. He mistakes Jared for Liana; and while Yorgo and his crew cannot locate "the old woman" Jared bids them find, the man confesses to having part in the murder of the Lady Carthalion (Gwendolyn)…and "releases" Liana. From what, it isn’t immediately apparent. Jared, Yorgo, and crew continue to (try to) help others flee the carnage, while the Lady Verdenth unleashes powerful magic at Ravidel. As that battle (or "duel") continues, Liana retrieves Jared and Ezer, and Ravidel emerges victorious against Verdenth. As Jared prepares to challenge Ravidel himself, Liana intervenes…it’s not yet time. And Jared vows that he will have vengeance against Ravidel.

I’m a bit mixed on the art this time through. On the one hand, it’s not bad in itself, and some of the spells are certainly recognizable if one’s familiar with pre-Weatherlight Magic: the Gathering card art. Other than that it’s mostly "generic fantasy-ish" art…not horrible, but not wonderful. I appreciate the recognizability of characters and spells…but if I didn’t recall the cards and art from way back when, it’d be that much more generic overall. The "planar barge"–that is, the corpse of the Elder Dragon Chromium/Rhuell–is impressive and fairly striking throughout. That Ravidel addresses the corpse as if alive–and it blasts stuff with bolts from its mouth–is interesting, considering it IS, at this point, a corpse, though not obviously a zombie creature or such!

Story-wise, this is also fairly generic in its own way…and yet, we have some progression of stuff. We learn that it was the Lady Verdenth who used her Green magic to save baby Jared while he and Ezer slept in the woods before getting to ‘Thoxia. We also see more "political intrigue" and bickering with the various Houses of the city. And we see Jared’s helplessness and fury at Ravidel amidst allies helping guide him.

As "next issues" go, this one is ok, though not what I’d call "great" or anything. I’m willing to hold it in higher esteem primarily for nostalgia, as this came out in a similar time to the HarperPrism novels, and the whole of Magic: The Gathering lore was still in flux without the directed timeline it enjoys today in 2021. This continues to be a story built around card references…rather than being the story of the cards, or the story on which cards seem based themselves. Re-reading this and poring through to write this post, I re-realize how dense this is…and if my summary above seems to have gaps, I’m trying not to re-write the issue itself as I’d almost need to, with how much is crammed in. Between taking time to "cross-reference" and pick out character names and locations as well as looking at the art based on cards and the sheer density, there’s a lot more time to spend in the issue itself than most modern comics that weigh it at twice or more this issue’s $2.50 cover price…so there’s present-day "value" there, if one already owns and simply reads the issue, or acquires it for the price or less of a modern comic.

To be 3 issues in on this series with a mere single issue remaining…even by pre-2000s standards, it would seem hard to see how this could wrap up with a satisfying ending. While I don’t recall the ending…I do recall that this series was followed up by a 5-issue mini-series…which leaves me assuming that this series did not actually wrap things up in a satisfying way.

Finally…this issue originally came with a sheet of tiny punch-out creature tokens. At one point back in 1995, I had a small container that I kept them in, and actually used them playing some games of Magic. It’s possible I still have that around somewhere, though actually finding them anytime soon/specifically likely would not happen. I’m pretty sure I’d snagged a couple copies of this issue from a bargain bin in the last several years specifically for the tokens, as a novelty-bonus. (Same as I sometimes snag other ’90s comics from bargain bins solely for the polybagged-in bonus item/ephemera).

I’m eager to get to the next issue…as well as to get to more "canon lore"–or at least mid-’90s versions of such–in the Ice Age and other Magic: The Gathering issues.

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The ’90s Revisited – Magic: The Gathering – The Shadow Mage #2

Posted on April 14, 2021 by Walt

[I’d ‘revisited’ this series as a whole back in August/September 2012 for a group blog that doesn’t exist anymore. And due to a personal issue with Boom Studios’ comics I refuse to buy their new Magic series. So, instead of buying THOSE new comics, and to have my content covering this series fully on my own blog (so as to not disappear when an external blog shuts down), I’m revisiting–as single issues–the ORIGINAL Magic: The Gathering comics published by Acclaim through their Armada imprint back in 1995!]

magicthegathering_theshadowmage_002Desolate Angel

Writer: Jeff Gomez
Pencils: Val Mayerik
Ink: James Pascoe
Painted Color: Mark Csaszar
Letters: Adam Niedzwiecki
Editor-In-Chief: Bob Layton
Cover Painting: Val Mayerik
Cover Date: August 1995
Cover Price: $2.50

Well, one thing to notice straight away is that you really need to pay clooooose attention to years to know what sort of time has passed! The first issue opened on "Autumn of 1265, by the reckoning of the Sages of Minorad." That issue referenced time in relation to that–a week later, a month later, seven years later. This issue opens in "late Summer, 1280 by the reckoning of the Sages of Minorad." So it’s been nearly 15 years since the events that opened the first issue…and doing the math, we’re opening some 7-8 years after the previous issue ended! So quiiiiite a gap, there.

The young Jared Carthalion is now 14ish, having spent the last 3/4ths of a decade training to take on Ravidel. However, while Ravidel knows where and how to find Jared, knows that Jared’s got access to magic, and even declared that their final duel had begun…he apparently decided to kick back and leave Jared alone for awhile, rather than finishing his would-be opponent while he could.

So we get some verbal exposition–as Jared is pained using his magic, Ezer has had him attempt to train physically so he can put up SOME sort of fight, if not magically. A giant spider is summoned to them and attacks–Ezer immediately recognizes it as "a minion of Ravidel" because of course. This is the last straw, and NOW Jared determines to fight back, and summons a Hurloon Minotaur. In the midst of the giant spider attack, the Minotaur and Jared discuss what’s happening, share introductions (the minotaur’s name is Sings Two Ways, and he and his people were granted a boon by the elder Carthalion that they cannot repay, and thus Sings Two Ways gladly fights in defense of Jared and Ezer). Jared sees the spider apparently winning and steps in and the two slay the creature.

The spider defeated, Sings Two Ways laments he must leave…he’s been poisoned and will die unless Jared returns him to his people. Their home destroyed, Jared and Ezer are now homeless in the rain in the streets of Arathoxia. Jared spots a beautiful young woman and laments his raggedness by comparison. Before long, he and Ezer are in a hospice, the older man dying, and Jared determined to seek out some way to save him. Leaving the hospice, he’s set upon by Yorgo and his gang, and Jared summons some goblins, but is then horrified when they nearly kill the boys and laments, wondering if butchering others is what his power can do. We get a page of Arathoxian politics re: Ravidel, and then find Jared speaking with the Vizier’s wife in House Carthalion, where he has ventured for help. She references "the battle of Aster Fall" (which contextualizes the previous issue a bit) and shows him a Black Lotus, but they’re interrupted by the vizier’s return so she gives him an Alabaster Potion and sends him off. Jared steals the Black Lotus, recognizing its power, but while he tries to figure out how to use it, is greeted by that beautiful young woman–who invites Jared to Beggartown that evening.

After giving some of the potion to Ezer, Jared meets her there, where we find a whole community of thieves/beggars, including Yorgo’s group…and they’re none to happy that Liana has brought Jared into their space. But Jared offers some of the remaining potion to one of the boys hurt by the goblins earlier, though it earns him no thanks. The city’s guards descend on the group from nowhere, and Liana stops Jared from using his magic as that would bring the wrong sort of attention. As the crowd flees…Jared and Liana are suddenly confronted by none other than Ravidel himself! Jared lashes out immediately, but the more experienced planeswalker casts a spell and defeats Jared. Liana steps in–apparently she and Ravidel have some history–and drives the planeswalker off after revealing she has multiple moxes and referencing "The Treaty of the Shard." Ravidel claims a proper duel now would run counter to his plans, so leaves. Hours later, Jared and Liana pose for the page, as we see she’s second-guessed what she was going to tell Jared, as the boy realizes he’ll have to go it alone.

Well…that’s a loooong summary, and I’m sure I really glossed over some key details! There’s enough going on here to fill 3-4 issues in terms of modern comics’ pacing and such. This is a really dense story…and one that relies on the reader to have picked up on and remembered a number of subtle details! The reader also gets to fill in a lot of blanks, between the 7-year-gap between issues to imagining the details of Sings Two Ways’ relationship to Jared’s father, to the nature of House Carthalion. There’s also the curiosity of Ravidel allowing so much time to pass without expending much effort to personally confront Jared until he’s begun finding apparently-powerful allies, such as Liana! While I have some meta-textual knowledge of "The Shard," I’ll leave that to discuss more as it comes up in other Armada Magic issues, since I’m going issue-by-issue through one series at a time here.

The story continues to hold more potential than what it executes…it’s not bad, but feels too dense, too "compressed" for me after 20 years of "decompressed" storytelling in comics, and more years removed from the depths of Magic: the Gathering knowledge. Back in 1996, I was fresh into the game and fairly steeped in knowledge of the various cards and bits of lore. Taking stuff month by month, where the game had only even existed for a little under two years, it was a whole different thing back then than now, some 25 years later reading this from a muuuuch different vantage point!

The art is good, and I feel like I liked it better in this issue than the previous, though it’s the same art team! Perhaps because–while dense story-wise–this issue didn’t have to cover 7+ years, so there was more of a sense of consistency…and I’m beginning to get a better sense of characters, now that things have settled a bit, and been able to build a bit on what’s come before, which I suppose allows me to appreciate the art more, not being as overwhelmed with "everything."

This definitely looks like a fantasy comic, and continues to remind me a bit of Barry Windsor-Smith‘s art for some reason.

I was also interested to note ads in the issue…particularly for the Chronicles set. This was the set, after all, that released in August or so 1995, offering white-border "unlimited" editions of previously-limited black-border cards from the Arabian Nights, Antiquities, Legends, and The Dark expansion sets…and which led to Wizards of the Coast establishing their "Restricted List" that persists to this day.

We have the addition of Liana–apparently a planeswalker herself–to the story, and it seems obvious something bigger is afoot. There’s the general knowledge displayed by House Carthalion of the battle of Aster Fall; their possession of a Black Lotus; and Liana having history with Ravidel. At the second issue here, that suggests "the world" of Magic is about to get a whole lot bigger than Jared’s little corner of things.

As mentioned in covering the previous issue…this story is one built around the cards…rather than the cards being built around the story. The issue–as with the first (though I didn’t get into it)–has a bit of "backmatter" with words from the editor to the reader, as well as a mini-column "Seer Analysis" by Shawn F. Carnes where Carnes looks at the issue from the point of view of Magic: The Gathering the game, pointing out details such as a Hurloon Minotaur being a 2/3 creature, while a Giant Spider is 2/4, and so while the two creatures would indeed damage each other, neither would one-shot-kill the other.

Also like the first issue, this issue’s cover announces the inclusion of a genuine Magic: The Gathering card. UNlike the previous issue, though…this one has the card in a clear plastic insert/wrapper stapled into the issue itself, rather than being loose in a polybag. This certainly allows a better situation wherein one can READ the issue itself and choose whether or not to remove the card! It may be a crapshoot if you find this issue "in the wild" on whether it includes the card or not, but it’s more likely, perhaps, than if you find #1 in the wild. [Edit to add: the card this issue comes with is a 4th Edition Blue Elemental Blast]

I also have a certain amount of personal sentimentality to this issue, as I recall a visit to my grandmother and having this comic with me, as I associate this cover with that visit; it also puts me in mind of an aunt, who had tried to show interest in my comics for my sake. I know I had consciously recalled bits of the first issue, as well as this issue from its cover (and it’s great that the cover shows something from the issue itself–a Hurloon Minotaur vs. Giant Spider!). I don’t have the same conscious recollection of the covers, even, of the 3rd and 4th issue of this series, nor even the story or how things turn out…even consciously recalling having re-read this series a few years ago!

Two issues down, and we’re halfway through this entire mini-series…

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The ’90s Revisited – Magic: The Gathering – The Shadow Mage #1

Posted on April 7, 2021 by Walt

[I’d ‘revisited’ this series as a whole back in August/September 2012 for a group blog that doesn’t exist anymore. And due to a personal issue with Boom Studios‘ comics I refuse to buy the new MAGIC #1. So, instead of buying new comics, and to have the content fully on my own blog to not disappear, I’m going to re-revisit–as single issues–the ORIGINAL Magic: The Gathering comics published by Acclaim through their Armada imprint back in 1995!]

magicthegathering_theshadowmage_001The Aster Fall

Writer: Jeff Gomez
Pencils: Val Mayerik
Ink: James Pascoe
Painted Color: Mark Csaszar
Letters: Bethanne Niedz
Editor-In-Chief: Bob Layton
Cover Painting: Val Mayerik
Cover Date: July 1995
Cover Price: $2.50

To the best of my understanding, this is THE first Magic: The Gathering comic. Though its story may not chronologically be the first, it was the first-published, kicking off the Armada imprint from Acclaim, and introducing the (comics) world to MTG in the spring of 1995. The game itself had premiered in October 1993, some 18 months earlier…and with its setting as a “multiverse,” it was certainly a ripe thing to bring to comics!

The issue opens on an active battlefield. We meet Lord Carthalion, Ezer, and a Lieutenant as they witness a falling star–a bad omen. A magic-powered ship bursts onto the scene, carrying Battlemage Ravidel…the enemy of this Lord Carthalion. The two engage into a “duel” and exchange spells to weaken and harm the other…culminating in Carthalion sacrificing himself to buy time for Ezer to flee with baby Jared…last heir to the Carthalion name. In the aftermath of the battle, Ezer has been artificially aged to a wasted old man, though the baby is relatively unaffected. As Ezer laments their situation–drinking himself into a stupor–we see the baby apparently work some protective magic to save his own life against the intrusion of a (dire?) wolf. Later, city guards at Arathoxia do not believe that this frail old man is in any way who he claims to be, nor the child with him…functionally banishing them from what should have been a life of relative luxury (despite their losses) to that of lowly street-rats, scrounging for food and living off the scraps of the city.

7 years pass, and the young Jared Carthalion is an able thief, stealing food for himself and father-figure Ezer to survive (barely) on. He is bullied by others his age and in no way “included,” existing all but alone. Even after the years that have passed, Ezer tries to keep alive the flame of who Jared really is, where he’s come from, though the boy can’t even envision anything ever getting better…which enrages the old man, who strikes the boy. Meanwhile, using a scrying device, Ravidel spies on the boy and his guardian, and opts to arbitrarily send a summoned minion to kill the boy. When the berzerker bursts in on the pair, Ezer works some magic…as does Jared! The boy has “tapped!” This excites Ezer–the boy WILL be able to avenge his house! However, Ravidel revels in this as well, declaring that their FINAL duel begins.

The last time I read this series, I blew through all four issues pretty quickly, glossing over details and simply taking it in as a totally generic fantasy story with too-fast pacing, lack of characterization, and largely being Magic in little more than name-only. This time through, sticking to this single issue and looking back over stuff and taking it in as a singular thing, I enjoyed it a bit more.

Story-wise, this IS a fairly generic thing. There’s hardly room in ~21 pages to worldbuild when the entire issue encompasses a massive battle, travel, and spans more than seven years.

We’re introduced to Lord Carthalion–the patriarch/leader of the Carthalions. He seems to have some magical ability…but is a mere mortal, compared to the power of a PLANESWALKER in Ravidel. We never get a rason for this battle, for Ravidel’s assault. He’s a two-dimensional villain for the sake of being a villain, apparently. An opponent because their MUST BE “an opponent.” We also get no real sense of what a “planeswalker” is, or WHY a “planeswalker” is and so on. Meta-textually, the reader probbbbbbably knows what one is–the allure of a Magic: The Gathering comic is almost certainly to expand on the cards and game one already knows.

Now in 2021, I’m looking back on this comic from 25 years later, as a person 25 years older, and with 25 years and a number of additional comics as well as dozens of novels and quite a few short stories, and “newer resources” such as Wikipedia and a Magic: The Gathering -specific fan-wiki, and podcast resources/interviews with creators, and generally a heckuva larger understanding than 14/15-year-old Walt had. And I can “appreciate” this issue as the first bit of a much larger thing, rather than something to be taken in total isolation.

The art doesn’t overly impress me–though it’s not bad, really. It’s absolutely better than anything I could produce, but none of these characters are REALLY all that singularly-recognizable and are far from “iconic” visages. The overall visuals certainly evoke a certain mid-90s feel…perhaps due to thinking of the artist recently as I read this issue, I see hints of Barry Windsor-Smith, and overall early Valiant here…though it’s obviously other creators.

While the visuals try to evoke very specific cards and their in-game use; and a column in the back of the issue elaborates on very specific Magic: The Gathering cards represented in the action–I’m far enough removed from early MTG and these cards and any such knowledge I was steeped in as a kid reading this, so it reduces the cards’ representations to generic fantasy-ish magic effects and some random-ish action that meant little to me in the reading.

The cover gives us Lord Carthalion in full strength wielding a sword in one hand, casting a fireball (presumably) from the other; while we also get a representation of the baby facing a looming wolf in a wooded space. This is relevant to the issue–Carthalion’s duel, and Jared’s fate…so it’s not just some arbitrary, random, unfocused magic-user. This is a singular cover; to this day, I am only aware of–get this: ONE SINGLE COVER for this issue. My copy has “Direct Sales” in the barcode…hence this came from the “direct market” or “comic shops.” There may be “newsstand sales” for the issue–copies that sold through newsstands or non-comic shop locations (Bookstores like Waldenbooks or B. Dalton, or found at a grocery store or such). But the difference would be the barcode itself…NOT a different cover image!

The issue originally came polybagged with a 4th edition Fireball card–an actual, playable card from Magic: The Gathering . This was from right as Revised Edition was fading away and 4th Edition was ramping up…I don’t recall for certain but I believe this FIreball may have been the first 4th edition (or 4th edition-STYLE) card I owned for the game. Unlike many such comics at the time, despite the polybag, there’s a banner across the top of the cover itself proclaiming the inclusion of the “free” card. So minus the bag and card itself…the banner remains.

The card was not a unique card “exclusive” to the comic or anything; it wasn’t some limited edition or variant or whatnot. It was just…a card. For the game. Playable. A little piece of the game included with a comic based on the game. What a far cry from more recent Magic comics with alternate-art cards shrink-wrapped with an issue and prompting an extra-sized cover price for the inclusion of a sheet of cardboard, the card itself, and shrink-wrapping in addition to the other regular costs of producing a comic (referencing the IDW-published Magic comics from 2012 or so).

This first issue of The Shadow Mage kicks off a story set in the “world” of Magic…but it’s a case of the story referencing the cards, rather than the cards referencing a story. I’d put it as well that this is from when the entirety of Magic: The Gathering was a more vague “idea” than concrete story, and what would eventually develop was still BEING developed.

There’s not really much of anything to this issue to make it a destination-read or something to seek out…unless one specifically wants to go back to the beginning of Magic’s appearance in comics. Or snag the first appearance of Jared Carthalion, Battlemage Ravidel, the first Elder Dragon represented in a comic (Chromium Rhuell’s corpse being part of the planar barge), and so on.

That said…it’s actually not a bad read–and I certainly enjoyed it much more than I did Gerrard’s Quest #1 that I read last year!

After an apparently-failed launch of “modern” Magic comics a couple years ago by IDW, Boom Studios got the license and has just launched a new series, titled simply Magic (dropping the “: The Gathering” part) and I haven’t a clue where they’re gonna take the story. After a brief 2-book return to the world of printed novels, Wizards of the Coast went right back to digital-only to tell the story of card sets, so this new Boom series is a different return to print…and some “hype” I’ve seen suggests they’re hoping for a Mighty Morphin Power Rangers level resurgence of the property in comics. However…it’s that comparison that seems to have sparked hype on THIS original series with some crazy activity on The Shadow Mage #1 in graded condition and such with speculators apparently flocking to it in hopes that something from that issue pops up and becomes The Next Big Thing in modern Magic comics.

Me?

I’m gonna sit back and enjoy re-reading original 1990s’ Magic: The Gathering comics, and appreciate the lack of overhype, lack of variants, and (relative) lack of pure, greedy speculation.

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Alien (2021) #1 [Review]

Posted on April 5, 2021 by Walt

alien(2021)_001Writer: Phillip Kennedy Johnson
Artist: Salvador Larroca
Color Art: Guru-eFX
Letterer: VC’s Clayton Cowles
Cover: InHyuk Lee
Variants: [Too Many]
Design: Jay Bowden
Assistant Editor: Shannon Andrews Ballesteros
Editor: Jake Thomas
Published by: Marvel Comics
Cover Date: May 2021
Story Pages: 30
Info Pages/Credits Pages: 2 (double-page spread)
Cover Price: $4.99

There’s a lot to unpack here, mostly cosmetic and comparison.

They very first thing for me is that–as always–there are TOO MANY DARNED VARIAN COVERS. Do a pin-up gallery or something! Give us bonus art pages–the back cover, the inside covers, I don’t know. Knock it off with all the ****ed variants, though!

Secondly but still surfacey…what a freaking BORING logo. Basically just a spaced-out generic FONT. In my (surely vast) ignorance on the matter, I do not "get" the shift in branding to ALIEN (singular, with boring/generic font as "logo") away from the more dynamic, attention-grabbing ALIENS with the glowy effect and such. Same sorta problem I have with the novels from Titan. Maybe it differentiates a bit from Dark Horse-published stuff, but….I’m rather irked at all the crap regarding the licensing and such anyway, so this does nothing to endear this to my heart! While I know that the logo for the original 1978 film was basically just this "boring/generic font as ‘logo,’" the logo for the 1986 film was much more interesting, so in terms of using a logo from the series, it’s not like that one isn’t available (as far as I am aware, as just some dumb customer).

Thirdly and (also still surface stuff): yet another $4.99 #1. I pay $5/issue for a LOT of stuff lately, and generally without complaint (I’m looking at current-day X-BOOKS stuff in admitting that). But then, those are things I’ve been buying en masse and not sitting down to "analyze" and specifically, singularly discuss as a single-issue item in a relative vacuum. $5 gets you 5 things from Dollar Tree. You can go more upscale and get something at Five Below. But a mere 2 $5s is $10; 4 is $20, and that $20 might net you a "fine" condition back-issue (even a "key"!) decades-old that will be more memorable and appreciated than SEVERAL generic modern issues flocked by oodles of generic variant covers.

So, getting back to the cover: While on a technical level, this cover’s not bad….it’s very, very generic. It’s nothing but a pin-up image of a lone Xenomorph on a black background, with generic white text denoting several creators and the title. Nothing about ANY specific characters, or the world of the franchise, not even any sort of creepy background or something to be atmospheric beyond a lone creature coming out of the darkness with enough light glinting off of it that–the more I think on it–the more it seems there should be SOMEthing visible besides the creature.

We open on flashback/dream stuff of someone in some sort of capsule with "Alien Inside" painted on it from the outside (with spray-paint? With blood?) and come to find one Gabriel Cruz talking with his therapist–a Bishop-model synthetic. He’s retiring from his position as Security Chief on Weyland-Yutani’s Epsilon Station to go back to Earth and try to rebuild a relationship with his son. We then briefly meet a couple, conspiring on something…and find that the male is Cruz’s son, Danny. He’s feigning his part of patching things over to get ahold of his dad’s old W-Y badge. After they split, we get more insight into Cruz and his background and this dream sequence thing in a Xenomorph hive, seems to be about another son since lost. Back to Epsilon Station and the son, girlfriend, and others bust in, murdering indiscriminately, and find that they’ve breached a laboratory rather than a server farm. They find scientists still present, and before they can all be killed, a lockdown is initiated, destruction ensues, and facehugging commences. To Be Continued…

The flashback/dream stuff here is obviously present to have the Xenomorphs make an appearance in the issue for an issue that is part of a Serialized Graphic Novel that does not feature the titular creature(s) in its first quarter (sixth?). The comic IS titled ALIEN, after all, and I’m sure Marvel would hope loads of "new readers" would flock to their iteration of the title just for that word "MARVEL" on the cover and buy into the thing. This is Marvel, but this isn’t 2001 Hide-The-Hero Marvel…right? And other than these bits, this is basically just a comic about normal humans with typical-ish (albeit 200 years in the future) human technology. No superpowers, no gaudy costumes, no hopeful musical montages.

The art itself is good quality; I like the appearance; and there’s nothing "bad art" about this thing in and of itself. Between the glimpse at the Xenomorphs/nest and present-day stuff, just flipping through this it looks like an Aliens comic. (Oops. Sorry. ALIEN. Singular. Darn that "s"…)

Story-wise…I’m neither impressed nor disgusted. This in no way reads as anything new or spectacular; there’s nothing revelatory or really…anything different whatsoever from pretty much any other Alien/Aliens comic published by Dark Horse. The story is a couple hundred years in the future from us as readers; it’s set after Alien and Aliens (preserving the film canon/timeline) but otherwise is a bit nebulous and indistinct. We have some arbitrarily-chosen human protagonist, haunted by something horrible that happened in the past either to him directly or to someone close to him that involved creatures in darkness that he may or may not know what they are–while we (the reader) know (by the title on the cover, at least) exactly what they are. Yadda yadda yadda, Weyland-Yutani is evil, misguided people accidentally wind up loosing facehuggers to begin an outbreak, etc…blah blah blah.

We do have 30 story-pages (as opposed to a standard 20) so the extra 10 pages for $1 are a better value than a standard $2 per 10 pages. We also get a double-paged spread of 2 pages "infopage"/"credits pages" with dramatic placement, going for a cinematic presentation. Cold open, slight development, bam! Credits, scene cut…comics. Nothing special or original. Despite my annoyance with Almost Every First Issue Must Be An Oversized Five Dollar Thing Heaven Forbid First Issues Just Be First Issues, the TECHNICAL "value" is there, so…yeah.

While by no means a "bad issue," this lacks anything significant–to me, at least–for being a NEW #1, fro a "NEW" publisher, etc. 30 years of Dark Horse publishing Aliens comics, and then Marvel gets the license due to the Disney buyout. And a bit of a gap from DH trailing off and nothing at all for a few months. And now "the big debut" from Marvel (my phrasing, not Marketing) and the property is not even given the Star Wars RUSH/deluge of publishing (as I’m recalling from 2015, Marvel had an omnibus AND first issue of new Star Wars ongoing published the very first week of 2015 when their license went officially active, followed either that same month or immediate months after with multiple other series.) These were directly, overtly placed in a singular, known timeline, building a new/additional canon.

Alien, however, does/did not get this. No, this is a new series launched practically FOUR MONTHS into  Marvel having had the license. That Omnibus? It’s not even due til sometime later in April. And…but for the title on the cover (ALIEN singular) and the publisher logo (MARVEL)–there is really no difference…no new or exciting feel, no particular tone (whether internal or external/meta) to indicate this is any sort of a new era, nothing about new/rebuilding canon, just nothing at all that there’s anything that Marvel brings to the table that Dark Horse did not.

Except that Dark Horse never did umpteen variants on a single issue.

speculators_guide_marvels_alien_001a

By and large, this issue could certainly just be the first issue of the next Dark Horse-published mini-series. The art is good, but nothing new for the property. The story is good, but nothing new for the property. The (main, ignoring variants) cover isn’t bad, but nothing new for the property.

If you’re already a fan of the property and were regularly buying the content from Dark Horse, this should be right in line with any of that and thus no reason not to buy Marvel‘s #1. If you’re newly interested in Alien/Aliens/etc. in comics, this is just as decent a jumping-on point as any other #1 with the title on the cover. I suppose the only real difference is that where so many "firsts" were already exhausted by Dark Horse, this provides a Marvel Modern Reset to stuff, dragging a 30-year-old comics property into a New Age for New Speculation.

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Filed under: 2021 posts, 2021 Reviews, Alien (2021), MARVEL | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

X-Men Legends #1 [Review]

Posted on February 22, 2021 by Walt

xmen_legends_001The Burning Blood Part One: Shattered Crystal, Scattered Dreams

Writer: Fabian Nicieza
Penciler: Brett Booth
Inker: Adelso Corona
Colorist: Guru-EFX
Letterer: VC’s Joe Caramagna
Assistant Editor: Lauren Amaro
Editor: Mark Basso
X-Men Senior Editor: Jordan D. White
Cover Date: April 2021
Cover Price: $4.99

Possibly my earliest conscious memories of X-Men comics are the X-Cutioner’s Song event/crossover issues polybagged with a trading card…because a friend was collecting that crossover. It didn’t mean anything to me at the time, personally…though I wasn’t too far behind getting in thanks to the then-new XTAS, and Fatal Attractions event/crossover. There’s still the nostalgia for me for those ranges of issues as such. Two of the earliest issues I can remember owning for myself are Uncanny X-Men #300, and X-Men #24. I do NOT remember "Adam X" nor much of anything about a "third Summers brother" at the time despite whatever issues I was reading…anything I DID know or think surely came from trading cards and/or Wizard Magazine. When Brubaker got to tackle the definitive answer to the question of that brother in 2005’s Deadly Genesis it also didn’t mean too terribly much to me for not being all that invested in there being or who was "the third Summers brother."

Anyway…X-Men Legends #1:

We open on Erik the Red directing his minions–the Crystal Claws–to attack Providence Hospital in Anchorage, Alaska. After much destruction and death, they find the people they’re after: Philip and Deborah Summers. The scene then shifts to find Cyclops and Havok–Scott and Alex Summers–back to back opposing a different wave of these Crystal Claw folks. Once victorious, they seek out Xavier for answers, given his relationship with a certain Shi’Ar. Before they get any, the brothers are called to Alaska where they learn of their grandparents’ kidnapping and ransom. The scene changes again to some flashbacky stuff of the childhood of a character calling himself Adam. He’s meditating in a field and when confronted, gets to show off his abilities with throwing weapons by killing a snake. Cable shows up and talks before giving Adam’s location to the Summers Brothers. While Adam deals with more memories, he finds himself set upon by Hepzibah and Raza of the Starjammers. Their fight is interrupted by Cyclops and Havok, and Adam fights them as well. When the three find themselves at a questionable stalemate, a ship decloaks to reveal Corsair–father of Cyclops and Havok. While he notes the confusion on their faces, Corsair reveals that he knows more than they do, and fires his weapon at them. To Be Continued…

There’s something refreshing and yet challenging about this issue. It’s refreshing to have an issue that has so much packed into it…rather than the decompressed, semi-cinematic, un-captioned, un-narrated, dialogue-less nature of too many modern comics. It’s refreshing to have a first issue start out right into action, rather than being all setup for the next five issues or so, as a mere 1/6th of a singular story. It’s refreshing to have editor’s notes and footnotes. And it’s darned refreshing to this fan of ’90s comics and ’90s X-Men to see Cyclops, Havok, and Xavier in their early-’90s look, not to mention an adult/older Cable, and various other touches that feel very reminiscent of the ’90s. It’s a bit challenging, however, coming 26-27 years after the comics it’s meant to fit around, and though familiar with the general time-frame, I’m not steeped enough in conscious memory of 1994 continuity, "Adam X," and the finer details of that. I don’t feel like I knew Erik the Red prior to Uncanny X-Men #350 in 1998 or so, and I’ve never been a huge fan of the Shi’Ar and such. I’ve also been conditioned especially over the past 20+ years to the decompressed format of modern comics, so found it a bit jarring to have so much going on in this single issue, jumping all over the place. For a new-in-2021-comic, it feels very out of place and a bit choppy/clunky.

The art team manages to capture a ’90s feel in addition to simply depicting the consistency of a ’90s-era "house style" of the characters’ costumes and such. It’s by no means a perfect fit, as it is still a comic actually published in 2021 with seemingly contemporary art, carrying with it a modern aesthetic I can’t quite put to words. The visuals are clearly intended to evoke the colorful, dynamic, over-the-top-ish frenetic action that I, at least, tend to associate by reputation with ’90s comics. This isn’t Jim Lee art by any means, but I liked it and found it rather enjoyable, particularly in the moment as I read this issue. At the minimum, the visual style helps the issue to show us this is a ’90s-era-style story, rather than just telling us the fact.

Nicieza‘s name was a huge selling point for me–he was one of the main X-writers when I first got into the X-Men in 1993 or so. Getting a new story from him that’s meant to fit right into existing continuity and that is not further-ballooning out modern elements was extremely appealing to me. I mentioned earlier that this issue felt very out of place and choppy/clunky. That’s in the context of being a comic published in 2021, based on modern 2021 comics tropes, generalities, and conditioning over much of the past several decades to the fairly strict, rigid decompression of every 6 issues being a single story, rather than having multiple core stories and numerous plot threads woven across 6 issues. The Summers brothers’ interactions; the quick shift to Xavier for information, the convenience of plot elements falling into place within pages…it worked for me.

If this was a modern issue, I’d expect a multi-page sequence of a mysterious ship approaching a planet that turns out to be Earth followed by multiple pages of attack and double-page spread(s) of the devastation left behind and a cliffhanger of two people with the surname SUMMERS being found. Instead, that’s just several pages’ prologue. In that regard, this issue could pretty easily–by modern standards–be broken out into 3-4 issues. At 30 pages of story in a $4.99 comic…it (grudgingly) actually seems worth its price compared to most same-length/same-priced comics.

This felt like a much longer read than I expected, and I enjoyed the details and captions and such…it’s not that the reader is spoon-fed, but the reader gets to read a story–they don’t have to participate, they don’t have to nitpick and think-deeply and pick stuff apart from subtle visual clues that lack any sort of dialogue or caption reference for key parts of the story…and the only "homework" the reader would need to do–if so chosen–is follow the editor’s notes to check back to X-Men #39 (immediately prior to Legion Quest and the Age of Apocalypse) and a Captain Marvel (Genis-Vell, I presume) issue. There are no "infopages" nor "infographics" interrupting the flow of the story, and really what you see is what you get.

This is by no means a perfect issue, and it is $4.99. But it’s an issue that I was looking forward to for awhile, based primarily on the concept and the cover; and that $4.99 gets you 30 pages of story rather than merely 20ish for $3.99; an extra 50% of story for only an extra 25% of price. The cover sports the "classic" bold, blocky 3-D-ish X-MEN logo certainly associated with the ’90s comics (and then some!) with "Legends" and "#1" worked into it…much the way the ’90s Superman comics fit "Action Comics" and "The Man of Steel" in against "Superman." The cover image of the main/standard/non-variant cover (pictured above) strongly evokes the ’90s to me and lent itself strongly to my sense of nostalgia and thus interest in checking this out…as a series, and certainly as a first issue.

Given that this is a story by a prior writer, meant to fit into a point of continuity nearly half the property’s existence in the past, this certainly won’t be for "everyone," nor will it appeal to everyone. It absolutely appeals to someone like me that grew up with the ’90s X-Men and looks fondly upon that period of the property. While likely a curiosity to readers brought in by Hickman‘s House of X Powers of X, Dawn of X/Reign of X/X of Swords and such…this is absolutely non-essential to what I understand of the current books, and more a chance for older, lapsed readers to get something new. Or for newer readers to get a taste of something out of the past that is actually new.

I’m certainly not keen on a comic’s being $4.99, but I definitely feel I got my money’s worth out of this issue and am really looking forward to #2 and beyond. Honestly, a telling point should be that I so thoroughly enjoyed this issue that it prompted this review at all, marking my first review of a "current issue" in maybe a year or more!

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Filed under: 2021 posts, 2021 Reviews, MARVEL, Marvel Universe, X-Men Legends | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

TMNT: Jennika #1 [Review]

Posted on March 10, 2020 by Walt

tmnt_jennika_0001The Cure for You
Story, Art, Cover, Letters: Brahm Revel
Editor: Bobby Curnow
Cover Date: February 2020
Cover Price: $4.99

I was barely aware of Jennika as a character a year ago. In retrospect after she came to prominence about 10 months ago, I REMEMBERED the character…but in her first appearance, she was "just another character," a random face for some exposition or plot or whatever. At that time–TMNT #51–I was taking in the whole new status quo and marveling at a series firstly actually making it to #50 and secondly NOT being renumbered back to #1 to reflect the status quo shakeup and such. The "hype" and "speculation" around the issue where Jenny mutated (TMNT #95 or so) has been a frustration to me, having bought every issue of TMNT that IDW has published within the month it was released (single-issue-wise). Suddenly having "competition" just to get a "regular" issue is annoying and rather off-putting to me and detracts a fair bit from the characters and story; the "meta" imposing on the continuity and such.

That said…

This mini-series looks to be a solo focus on Jennika herself as she is adjusting to her mutant-turtle form. Though the issue carries the TMNT logo foremost and prominently, that seems basically for branding purposes, as the ONLY mutant turtle in this issue is Jennika herself–and as a mini-series and all, I’m absolutely ok with that!

We have two stories in the issue. The first/primary sees the eponymous Jennika going about her usual day in "mutant-town" when she sees someone make a break for it, leaving the area. She gives chase, concerned about a mutant putting themselves in harm’s way outside the safe zone. They soon run into the Purple Dragons and Casey Jones, giving Jennika an awkward pause, reuniting with her former would-be partner. Leaving with Vincent (the mutant rabbit she was pursuing) she’s invited to his gig, where she enjoys some nostalgia and return of the past in the indy/live music club scene. When a couple other mutants start some trouble, her ninja side kicks into gear, getting the attention of yet another mutant who she quickly recognizes as someone out of her past. History crashing into her, she is also blindsided when this mutant suggests that with her help, there might be a cure for mutants to be had. (To Be Continued…)

If you’re just checking stuff out in the TMNT books with this issue or the last several of the main title, you’ll notice that much of the action centers on this "mutant-town" full of mutants, despite much of TMNT being about four mutant turtles, their sensei/mutant rat Splinter, and a handful of other mutant allies and enemies. In the run-up to and major events of TMNT #100, events led to a mass-mutation of the populace of part of the city, and they’ve been separated off into "mutant-town," at least for present and the Mutanimals have been serving as "enforcers" keeping mutants IN, while the WORLD PROTECTION FORCE THINGY GROUP keeps mutants in from the outside. Dynamics there are unfolding as it’s a recent (end of 2019 comics) development and part of the new status quo.

The story is pretty good, and I appreciate its slice-of-life nature. It’s not specifically tied to current issues of the main title so stands alone quite well. It’s obviously rooted in the "present" of the earliest post-#100 TMNT issues time-frame of continuity, but other than basic context (above about "mutant-town") it doesn’t seem like TMNT is required reading for this, nor does this seem likely to be intrinsic to the TMNT story. This builds onto the Jennika character and likely will leave the character better fleshed-out and add depth that will be appreciable in reading the main TMNT title, while hopefully this mini will be its own whole as a story/arc.

I’m not overly keen on the art here…Revel‘s style is rather stylistic, and though I recognize the manga influence and visual shorthand for stuff (and some of it certainly comparable to the 2012 TMNT animated series) it’s not my ideal. In particular there’s a panel where Jenny is angered, and we see a comically open mouth with pointed shark’s-teeth essentially, despite the main appearance of the character being clean, even, normal-sized teeth. It works for the story, it’s not unheard of, but it’s also just not to my personal liking.

Time and Again
Story, Colors: Ronda Pattison
Art: Jodi Nishijima
Letters: Shawn Lee
Editor: Bobby Curnow

This second story is a small vignette that gives us another glimpse into Jennika’s past. We see her in prison, encountering and befriending a rat. When she and another prisoner escape, the rat flees from her. We also see her in an early moment with Splinter juxtaposed with a moment with another mutant in "mutant-town" as she Splinter reminded her of an old friend, and this new mutant reminded her of Splinter.

At only 4 pages, this story is nothing drawn-out or deep, but it conveys a lot, and is definitely a "slice of life" moment…and a good one at that.

I much prefer the art in this story to the main…probably because it’s a lot closer to the main art I’ve been used to for awhile, and without a side by side/immediate comparison, my mind says it’s reminiscent of Santolouco‘s art, which I love.

All in all, this is a relatively strong first issue. As something to draw in newer readers, it definitely could have used some notes to contextualize the setting ("mutant-town") and such. At the same time, as a $4.99 issue with most of a year’s hype around the character, one probably already has some of that context if one is choosing to buy this (with speculation stuff being centered on the TMNT issues).

If this was any other property than TMNT, the art in the main part of the issue (and the cover) would have seriously put me off. I bought this as I buy/read every single-issue TMNT-and-directly-related thing published by IDW, and read it for the same…and though the art is largely off-putting to me, I enjoyed the story and vignette, so it’s not a waste of my time or money, particularly as a mini-series.

I would encourage anyone interested in the character to at least consider the issue–flip through and glance at the art to see how it fits your personal tastes. As mentioned above, this does not seem essential to the main TMNT book nor vice-versa. If you’re an all-in reader of the ongoing TMNT saga, though, you’ll definitely want to get this.

I do look forward to the next issue–despite pricing. I continue to feel that I’d be rather content with 4-5 TMNT books if they were kept on a weekly cycle and didn’t "cluster" or double-up one week while leaving another week empty. There’s a LOT to dig into in the TMNT universe, as IDW has developed, expanded on, and generally incorporated aspects from a number of previous iterations of the TMNT property, creating the richest and deepest TMNT continuity yet. This continues that developing/expanding/building.

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Filed under: 2020 posts, 2020 Reviews, IDW Publishing, Jennika, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (IDW) | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

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