Tag: DC

“A story that takes the concept of the secret identity and uses it as a metaphor for our own inner selves, the part of us that most of the world doesn’t get to see, that we share with few others across a lifetime.” – Kurt Busiek’s own description from the forward. 

(Note: This was written and shared on Goodreads when I first read the comic in 2013. My opinions stand on reread and am sharing it here for the first time)

Superman was never a character that really called out to me. For “normal” superhero adventures a neigh-invulnerable man never interested me much. But the potential for more was always there, and when creators really embrace the problems someone with super powers WOULD have I find the results are quite spectacular. One such story was For All Seasons, in which Loeb and Sale examine the insecurities a normal farm boy would face when he grew up to be more than normal. For years it was easily my favorite Superman story… 

Until Busiek and Immonen produced a tale of a Clark Kent that READ those stories along with me. SI’s Clark is a boy in the real world, who’s been taunted all his life due to his parents’ unfortunate sense of humor and the decision to name him after Superman. His concerns are school, bullies and the girl he likes. Then the unthinkable happens, and Clark finds his both choices and troubles multiplied a hundredfold.

The greatest fiction gives readers something to relate to. Suspension of disbelief becomes easier if the reader cares about what’s happening. Secret Identity, in line with Busiek’s lofty goal from the above quote, shares the journey of a man with extraordinary powers, but worries and problems common to us all. It’s remarkable how genuine and real it all feels given it stars a boy who can fly. We know how Clark feels. We’ve been there in some way. The shared emotion pulls us in and makes us really care about what happens to Clark.

Stuart Immonen’s art is an incredibly vital piece of this accomplishment. The subdued color palette and softer character designs enhance the desired atmosphere of Clark’s world being our own, and the intricacies of Busiek’s nuanced layers to the story would be lost without Immonen’s excellent facial expressions and detail work to convey tone and meaning.

Secret Identity is one of the most resonant comic stories I’ve ever read, and instantly one of my favorites.

Resharing a review of a favorite comic of mine I wrote on Goodreads before this blog existed. My opinion stands so this is presented without edits/updates:

 

This trade collects issues 1-7 of Brian Q. Miller’s Batgirl series.

Batgirl starts in the shadow of the events of Batman:RIP. Bruce Wayne is dead (for the time being anyway) and the various members of the “Bat-Family” are dealing with the fallout. For Stephanie Brown, this means trying to give up wearing the bat emblem and live a normal life. This doesn’t really work for her. She ends up taking the Batgirl costume from Cassandra Cain (who is successfully leaving the bat in her past) and continuing the fight in her own way. This doesn’t necessarily thrill anyone else…

 

 

As presented here, Stephanie is a fantastic character. In over her head, but embracing it and refusing to give up because something inside just won’t let her. Her journey to make the Batgirl identity her own is well developed, comical at times, and a lot of fun to follow along with.

Stephanie is given a wonderful supporting cast, and watching their interactions with her and their relationships evolve is a real treat. Even though they are established characters from other series, one of the most impressive things about Batgirl is how well it reads on it’s own. It certainly helps if you have previous knowledge of Oracle, Damian, “Dick Grayson Batman,” etc., but Miller presents all the characters well enough that it’s not really needed.

One last compliment I’d like to give is to the artist. The art is outstanding and contains a ton of little touches that enhance the story (such as some of great panels of Stephanie next to Batman or a villain that clearly show their size advantage over her, something often glossed over in comics).

Gotham Academy is not a normal school, and even there Olive Silverlock is not a normal student. But with a like minded group of inquisitive misfits, Olive investigates secrets regarding both the school and her own past.

There’s no way around this: volume 2 of Gotham Academy was quite disappointing. After six atmospheric and fun issues in volume 1 that established a cast of quirky characters and several intriguing mysteries, the pacing just completely falls apart in this installment and the story collapses under its own weight.

The phenomenal cliffhanger from the end of volume 1 is blown off in a single issue with the featured hero acting incredibly out of character and ham-handedly isolated to interacting with just a single member of GA’s established core cast. I actually expected it to be revealed as an imaginary sequence and would have preferred that given the tone and characterization inconsistencies. So much potential wasted.

After that we properly refocus on Olive, but the tension and slow build of the first six issues are replaced with reveal after reveal with no lead up and far too little explanation. The developments are interesting, but everything from secrets about Olive’s past to relationship developments and conflicts among the cast to various secret agendas and schemes are all thrown at the reader too quickly for any real emotional impact or for anything to truly click and resonate. Even with my extensive familiarity of Batman mythos it was a chore to follow all the implications and name-drops, and someone reading GA in isolation would be totally lost.

It’s a shame because Olive and her struggles are intriguing hooks to the book, and other things ranging from the diverse personalities of the support cast to the vivd yet atmospheric art all make me want to like this more than I do. But in a single volume the comic has gone from a mysterious, foreboding adventure with touches of humor and a pace that fosters reader curiosity to crash-TV style “shock of the month” storytelling that doesn’t allow anything to fully develop and feels like a couple of years worth of plots and twists have been stuffed into six issues.

What a reversal. I still love the concept and some of the characters, and “Calamity” isn’t horrible by any means, but neither is this even remotely the same comic I started reading in “Welcome to Gotham Academy.” Don’t know if I’m up to continuing, as while I am still interested in seeing how things turn out for Olive I don’t feel I know enough detail about what happened during this volume, let alone having the framework to process the next batch of info dumps. We’ll see I guess.

This trade collects the entire Arkham Asylum: Living Hell miniseries (issues #1-6).

To call the main characters of Living Hell even “third-string” Batman villains would be generous, but Dan Slott reminds us that characters don’t have to be popular to be interesting. Across six issues he builds a compelling tale of the world’s worst nuthouse.

If you dislike supernatural elements creeping into Batman stories or require the Dark Knight himself as the focus, this won’t be for you. It’s also extremely creepy in tone and fairly graphic – I would normally expect something like this to be under the Vertigo imprint. Even with the title “Living Hell” I wasn’t expecting something this dark (especially from Slott, who is more well known for his comedic ability).

But those who can handle the elements mentioned above will find Living Hell well worth the read. Things tie together surprisingly but reasonably, horrific events tie directly to the plot and character arcs, and it was all engrossing enough that I couldn’t stop reading until I was finished.