#CBR8 Book 76: "Captain Marvel, vol 1: Higher, Further, Faster, More" by Kelly Sue DeConnick and David Lopez

Page count: 136 pages
Rating: 3 stars

Carol Danvers, who is apparently a hot-shot pilot and one of the Avengers, lives in the crown of the Statue of Liberty (you can do that?) with her sister and niece. When the Avengers find an escape pod from a spaceship with an alien refugee inside it, they decide that Carol be the one to return the girl to her homeworld, as well as take up a more permanent presence in space as a representative for the Avengers Initiative. As she returns the girl to her home planet, she discovers that they are in dire need of help, as much of the populace (already relocated from another planet) is sick and dying. Now the aliens are fighting another forced resettlement and Carol decides to help them.

Considering this is the first trade of a new Captain Marvel run, extremely little was done to explain who Carol Danvers is or what her powers are. At the end of the first issue, there is a brief one page explanation of how she ended up where she is (rendered as a child's drawing), but I really didn't think I learned enough to really feel like I got to know the character. She's brave, she can fly, she's apparently part alien. She likes Star Wars, she has a cat called Chewie (who may or may not be some sort of alien beastie that Rocket Raccoon really wants to murder) and she's a very good pilot. She was possibly in a relationship with Rhodey, the Iron Patriot, but decided to go off and live in space for an unspecified amount of time instead. I just don't think I was given enough to decide whether I even like this character or not.

This trade collects the first five issues of the run and I sadly found the story a bit too disjointed and confusing to entirely engage me. It starts with a dramatic action set-piece and then flashes back to several weeks previous. There is a guest appearance by the Guardians of the Galaxy (who I now care a lot more about because of the movie). I had trouble caring about what happened, even if there were quite a few quips and the art was well done throughout. I wasn't expecting a full and drawn-out origin story just because this was the first trade in an ongoing series, but a bit more back story would have been appreciated. As it is, I'm not sure I care enough about Carol Danvers as Captain Marvel to seek out further issues of this. I have enough ongoing comic books to follow as it is.

Judging a book by its cover: Fairly dynamic cover pose. Carol Danvers with a bit of a Natalie Dormer smirk pulling on gloves and looking bad-ass. I very much appreciate that unlike so many female superhero costumes, there is nothing gratuitous or exploitative about Captain Marvel's costume. It's functional and practical.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

#CBR7 Book 153: "Daredevil: Born Again" by Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli

Page count: 176 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Like so many others, I was a huge fan of the first season of the Netflix series Daredevil. I decided that the time had come to look at some source material. 

In what could easily become season three of the series, Karen Page, Matt Murdock's former legal secretary and ex-girlfriend is down on her luck in Mexico. After a failed porn career, she's now a heroin junkie and she sells Matt's secret identity as Daredevil for her next fix. The name falls into criminal mastermind Kingpin's hands and over the course of six months, he sets out to completely destroy Murdock's life. His rent and utility bills turn out not to have been paid for months, his girlfriend Glori breaks up with him because he never has time for her anymore, he's accused of criminal misconduct and faces a grand jury trial. While the diligent efforts of his best friend Foggy keep him out of prison, he loses the right to practise law. As more and more things go horribly wrong, the more Matt's paranoia plays up and his mind slowly unravels. When Glori moves in with Foggy after her apartment's been trashed (Matt doesn't know that part), he's convinced even his best friend and his girl are against him. Only when his home is blown up, does he figure out that Kingpin's behind everything. All this - the first issue, guys.

Matt vows revenge, but is in a pretty bad state. He tries to kill Kingpin and fails miserably. He ends up in the East River, left for dead, framed for even more crimes he didn't commit. Matt, however, is tough and doesn't die. There is no corpse found, and Kingpin starts to worry. Afraid for her life because she's now hunted by Kingpin's assassins and feeling dreadful about betraying Matt, Karen laboriously makes her way back to New York City. Foggy and Glori grow closer, worried about the whereabouts, sanity and safety of Matt. Reporter Ben Urich works to clear Murdock's name and is nearly scared silent by the terrible reach of the Kingpin. Once again, the crime lord overplays his hand and loses control of the situation.

There is so much plot and action packed into the seven issues collected in Born Again, so much darkness, grimness, violence and pain. Frank Miller returned for a guest run in the middle of the standard Daredevil run, took all the toys out of the metaphorical toy box and didn't so much put them back where they were when he started, as blow up the entire box and leave the toys scattered and broken all over the place. I don't envy whomever was left to follow his limited guest run. It's not exactly easy comfort reading, but it's undeniably very good and there's no wonder this is one of the definitive Daredevil stories. Frank Miller was a heck of a writer before he went completely cray cray. I really wish his frequent misogyny hadn't reared its ugly head with the treatment of Karen Page. Not really surprised, because I've read Miller comics before, but I wish the character hadn't been degraded to the degree she is. Matt's current squeeze, who dumps him at the start of the story seems to move on to Foggy real quick as well, which I'm sure Miller just feels is illustrative of the fickleness of women.

Published in the late 1980s, the art by David Mazzucchelli (who also worked with Miller on the seminal Batman: Year One), isn't entirely to my taste and the colouring especially is quite dated. Having fallen so completely for Charlie Cox' portrayal of Matt Murdock in the Netflix series, I just couldn't reconcile myself with Matt being ginger here.

I'd love to see some of this play out in the TV show's later seasons (although there would have to be some changes, considering choices they've already made). The action packed climax would be especially interesting and opens for the intriguing possibility of cross-over with the cinematic universe that would be spectacular. Alas, I doubt that bit'll ever happen.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR7 Books 147-148: "Wonder Woman: Guts" and "Wonder Woman: Iron" by Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chiang

Page count: 144 pages
Rating: 4.5 stars

Wonder Woman's friend Zola is pregnant with a child of Zeus, and has been taken by Hades into the Underworld. Diana is determined to do whatever it takes to get her back, and since Hades is none too pleased about the way Wonder Woman and her friends tricked her and Poseidon, she may have to pay a heavy and lasting price in order to secure her friend's safety. She enlists the help of the divine smith, Hephaestus, for suitable arms and in the process discovers yet another family secret. While Diana tries to escape the bonds of matrimony with the ruler of Hell, there is another power struggle for the throne of Olympus. Apollo wants his father's throne and has his sister Artemis to help him. Hera is convinced that Zeus will return to protect what is his, but may be in for a nasty surprise.

Page count: 176 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Time passes differently in the Underworld, and by the time Diana makes it to Zola, she's already nearly full term in her pregnancy. Almost immediately after birth, Diana and Zola experience a terrible betrayal, as the baby is stolen away. To locate the child, it's clear that Diana will need the aid of several of her demigod siblings. Zeus' continued disappearance and the shift in power on Olympus means the reawakenings of old forces and the birth of Zola's child could have an impact on more than our world. Orion, one of the New Gods arrives to help her in her search for the baby, but clearly has his own agenda, and it's unclear whether he wants to help or harm the child. In Wonder Woman: Iron we also get a look at Diana's early years. The god of war, Ares, wants to train her into a perfect warrior, but gives her up in disgust when she eventually refuses to finish off an opponent after a battle, showing mercy instead.

I must confess, that as I read these on the same day, the plots do blend together a bit in my mind, and I'm not entirely sure what happened in each of the trade volumes. Common for both, however, is an action-packed plot full of adventure, twists and turns. Things are very rarely as they appear on a first glance or sometimes even on a second. Everyone is ready to scheme and double cross everyone else. Cliff Chiang is an excellent artist and mostly I really like his style, in both the action scenes and the more quiet moments. One exception is his depiction of Hades, as a petulant child with a sort of melty candle head. It really doesn't work for me. It's a minor niggle, however.

A bigger niggle is the introduction of Orion in the third volume. While my husband is a huge fan of Jack Kirby's New Gods and pretty much every iteration of them, I find them incredibly annoying and the only time I've not pretty much hated all of them is when Gail Simone had Big Barda in some guest appearances in Birds of Prey. So the prospect of more of them turning up in later issues is not a happy one for me. I really liked every single issue of Guts, but in Iron, there are several story lines being introduced (not just the Orion thing) that I'm not too keen on. Azzarello's portrayal of Wonder Woman, and his general take on the gods and demigods of Greek mythology is so creative and fun that I'll keep reading for at least a while longer.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR7 Book 146: "Ms Marvel, vol 1: No Normal" by G. Willow Wilson and Adrian Alphona

Page count: 120 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Kamala Khan is a pretty ordinary geeky teenager from Jersey City, until she's suddenly given the extraordinary powers of the superhero Ms. Marvel. She's both excited and confused. Can a Muslim girl even be a superhero? She certainly feels that the outfit could be a bit less revealing. How is she going to combine the responsibilities of fighting crime, rescuing people and righting wrongs if she also has to worry about obeying her parents and keeping cerfew?

Before she's even entirely aware what she's doing, she uses her powers to save a class mate. The press catches wind of it, and soon everyone is wondering about the identity of the new Ms. Marvel. After trying to rescue her friend Bruno from a botched convenience store robbery, he discovers her new secret identity and promises to help her in any way he can. There's some hints about a sinister new villain, but as this trade only collects the first five volumes, it's mainly an origin story.

I really liked Kamala and while I've seen a lot of people claim that all the other characters are stereotypes, I'm not sure I agree. I would assume that since G. Willow Wilson herself is a Muslim, she's a bit more sensitive to the cultural stereotypes than some other authors might be. I work with teenagers from many religions, and thought most of the teen characters rang true. Stereotypes are built on generalities, but a lot of girls of Pakistani descent DO have protective parents. Their brothers are traditionally allowed a lot more freedom and it can be a tricky thing to have a foot in two cultures.

The comic is fun, but not perfect. I'm still not entirely sure how or why Kamala actually got her superpowers, that bit was a bit vague. I am assuming that the supporting cast will be fleshed out as necessary in future issues and that readers will also discover the motivations of the villain. I don't know a whole lot about the Marvel comics universe, having only really watched the films, but am unsure if this is the comic that will really make me more familiar with the whole of it. I supect it will mainly focus on Kamala's adventures in Jersey City. The series certainly seems more diverse in its representation than a lot of comics, and is clearly aimed more at a middle grade to YA audience. It's still refreshing to see a comic about a young woman that doesn't play up the physical aspect or overly sexualise her. I liked the writing and the art, and will be looking for the next volume soon.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR5 Book 91. "Wonder Woman: Blood" by Brian Azzarello, Cliff Chiang and Tony Akins

Page count: 160 pages
Rating: 4 stars

After DC pressed the big cosmic reset button AGAIN, quite a lot of their superhero titles no longer exist, and others have pretty much been rebooted from scratch. Generally uninterested in these "new" interpretations, I've been avoiding DC (the first new issue of Catwoman were especially atrocious, really beyond awful), but my husband picked up Azzarello's reboot of Wonder Woman and strongly recommended I give it a chance. I always liked the character, but figured that when even Gail Simone (whose Birds of Prey and Secret Six comics I loved) couldn't really get her right, it was unlikely that anyone would. I was wrong, though. Azzarello's take is fresh, and interesting, and Wonder Woman herself is as awesome as she should be.

A young woman shows up in Wonder Woman's bedroom, sent by Hermes. She needs protection against the supernatural assassins sent by Hera, as she carries one of Zeus' children. Wonder Woman refuses to let the girl be killed, and takes her to be protected among the Amazons, even though she herself has always been an outcast there. While on Themiscyra, Hera's sinister daughter Strife shows up, trying to cause, well...strife. Diana discovers the secret to her own origin, she was not sculpted in clay by her mother, as she always believed. The truth of her parentage is going to change everything for Wonder Woman and the other Amazons.

Diana, Princess of the Amazons, kicks all kinds of ass in these first 6 issues of the reboot. The art is great, well done without ever becoming gratuitous (which is sadly often the case in superhero comics about female characters). There's a several page scene in the first issue, where Wonder Woman is clearly naked in her bedroom, getting dressed after the unexpected arrival of Zeus' most recent baby mama, yet there are no pointless tits and ass shots and it's never played for titillation. There have apparently also been criticism that Diana is very violent in this, rather than an emissary for peace, as she's often been in the past. But Diana is an Amazon, and possibly the only superhero in the DC Universe who can rival Superman and Batman for awesomeness. She's a supernatural warrior, and it seems strange to me to complain about a story where she's allowed to act as the warrior woman she is. Highly recommended, I'm looking forward to reading more from this creative team.

#CBR5 Book 89. "Absolute All-Star Superman" by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely

Page count: 320 pages
Rating: 5 stars

I'm going to start with a confession. I didn't use to like Superman much. I thought he was a goody two-shoes, a bit wet, and just not as interesting as Batman, or as cool as Wonder Woman, the other two big superheroes of the DC Universe. My husband always told me I was wrong, and while I like the 1978 film with Christopher Reeve, I was just never convinced that he was worth my while. Grant Morrison changed my mind about that. In his twelve issue mini-series, which did rather better than Frank Millar's spectacular train-wreck All Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder (for one thing, it got completed), Morrison tells an utterly compelling story, showing why Superman is one of the ultimate superheroes, and why, while he might not be as cool and gritty as Bruce Wayne, Kal El is a much more admirable character.

Warning! There will be certain spoilers for the new film Man of Steel in this review. If you haven't seen it (do yourself a favour, and just don't - it's NOT a Superman story, and it's a long, boring and just really rather depressing film), you may want to avoid this review. You can go read All-Star Superman instead. It's amazing and captures exactly who Superman is and why he is so great.

While Man of Steel spends almost a quarter of the new film waffling around on Krypton, with flying monsters, and council members in Time Lord robes and Russell Crowe being grim, Grant Morrison sums up Superman's origin story on ONE page, with four panels. Because you're a native tribesman in the Amazon jungle, you've probably heard of Superman, and you KNOW how he came to be on Earth. His planet, Krypton was doomed - his parents sent him to Earth, where he was adopted by Jonathan and Martha Kent. That part of his story is not what makes him remarkable and heroic.

In the twelve issues of the comic, Superman is poisoned by solar radiation, thanks to a diabolical plot by Lex Luthor. He has less than a year left to live, but decides to keep this information from the general public. In the year he has left, Superman performs eleven near-impossible labors, before he leaves Earth to complete the twelfth and final one, to rebuild the sun from the inside out, saving humanity yet again.

Morrison doesn't just write a great Superman. Jimmy Olsen is given a much meatier role here than just Superman's slightly dumb sidekick (the issue devoted to him is great), and it's not difficult to see why Lois Lane is both a star reporter and the love of Superman's life. In the second issue, she is given superpowers for 24 hours as a birthday present from Superman, and it's a thing of beauty. While my husband loves every single issue, I'm not quite as fond of the Bizarro storyline, or the one with the Kryptonian villains I can take or leave, as well. But then there's the issue that deals with Superman's relationship with his adopted father, Jonathan Kent, which makes me cry every time, and the simply spectacular issue 10, which may be my favourite issue of a comic book ever written. Yes, better even than anything by Neil Gaiman or Mike Carey or Gail Simone or Alan Moore.

The various issues are gorgeously illustrated by Morrison's many time collaborator, Frank Quitely. The art is really wonderfully showcased in the over-sized Absolute hardcover edition, making the many subtle details that Quitely puts in his art, and which you often don't notice until the second, or third, or even fourth time you read through the issues. The Absolute Edition also has a number of extra features which make the reading experience even more rewarding, such as Grant Morrison's notes on the various characters, and his thoughts on each of them.

Basically, if you're already a Superman fan, you HAVE to read this comic, if you haven't already. If you're not, and you've always told yourself that he's too lame and goody goody and he's just not all that interesting, you should let Grant Morrison try to change your mind. If you can read these twelve issues, and still not see that Superman is awesome, then I cannot help you, my friend. But at least you've read something truly remarkable.

#CBR5 Book 88. "Shazam!: The Monster Society of Evil" by Jeff Smith

Page count: 240 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Orphan Billy Batson lives in an abandoned building, when his life is changed completely. An ancient wizard grants him the ancient powers of seven legendary heroes and gods, and whenever Billy utters the magic word: "Shazam!" he turns into Captain Marvel (never named as such in the comic due to licensing restrictions), an adult superhero. Yet Billy went wandering to places he shouldn't, and now there is an invasion of giant alien monsters, and scary talking animals calling themselves the Monster Society of Evil.

Can Billy Batson, his little sister Mary and their friend, the talking tiger Tawky Tawny prove that the sinister Doctor Sivana is in league with the Monster Society of Evil and up to no good? Can they remove the alien threat before the mysterious Mister Mind and the gigantic alien vessels destroy all human life on Earth?

Shazam! The Monster Society of Evil is a comic miniseries written and illustrated by Jeff Smith, probably most famous for Bone. It's a reboot of the whole Captain Marvel story, retelling Billy Batson's origin story. The art is typical for Smith, and very suitable for a comic clearly aimed at a fairly young audience. The dialogue is witty and rather clever though, so it's not in any way any less enjoyable a comic to read for adults. At only four issues, collected in a beautiful collection, this is an entertaining and fast read. Well worth checking out, if you like your superhero adventures more lighthearted and fun than dark and gritty.

#CBR5 Books 73-74: "The Umbrella Academy, Vol 1 and 2" by Gerard Way and Gabriel Ba

Total page count: 384 pages
Rating: Vol 1: Apocalypse Suite - 4 stars
Vol 2: Dallas - 4.5 stars

In the first volume we are introduced to The Umbrella Academy, a group of seven children (out of forty-seven children, born world-wide to women who'd previously not shown any signs of pregnancy), adopted by Sir Reginald Hargreaves, an eccentric millionaire inventor. The mother they ever know is a live dressmaker's dummy, and they are partially raised by a talking chimpanzee scientist called Professor Pogo. When they are ten, the children fight an erratic and escaping Eiffel Tower, later they disband and go their separate ways. Only when Sir Reginald dies, do they meet again - everyone except the seventh sibling, Viola, who was always told she was the only ordinary one in the group. Now an organisation with sinister intent contact her, revealing that she may be the most powerful one of the seven siblings.

In the second volume, some time has passed since the dramatic events in the first volume's conclusion. All the various members of the Umbrella Academy are experiencing challenges on various fronts, and are unprepared when further catastrophic events threaten, and they need to work together again. There are plots, and evil assassins, and number 5 has to use his time travelling abilities to go back in time to 1963, to prevent himself from preventing the assassination of JFK.

My husband gave me volume 1: Apocalypse Suite years and years ago for Christmas. I read through it really quickly, and upon rereading it, I discovered that I pretty much only remembered the opening bit with the runaway Eiffel Tower in any way clearly, and the rest was pretty much a delightful surprise. Also, despite having had volume 2 on my shelf for more than a year, I hadn't really got round to reading that either.

The art, by Gabriel Ba, is wonderful. It reminds me a lot of Mike Mignola's Hellboy, and that is in no way a bad thing. The storytelling is also incredibly original, strange and exciting. While I care not one jot for the music of My Chemical Romance, Gerard Way has an immense creativity, and as superhero comics go, these are more in the style of Nextwave than Superman. I preferred volume 2 to the first one, mainly because the various characters are established by this point, and the second volumes allows Way and Ba to further explore their personalities and expand on them. Both volumes are only six issues long, so they're excellent quick and entertaining reads. Perfect for the summer holidays.

CBR4 Books 40-42: "Empowered vol 1-3" by Adam Warren

Total page count: 664 pages
Rating - All three volumes - 4 stars
Date begun: April 17th, 2012
Date finished: April 22nd, 2012

The somewhat ironically named Empowered is a C-list superhero whose powers are given to her by her ultra skintight supersuit (so much so that she can't wear underwear underneath it and even has to have very careful personal grooming so that nothing shows when she's wearing it). While the suit is intact, she's strong enough to lift and throw cars and even zap people from a distance, but the suit is also ridiculously fragile, prone to ripping if she catches on a nail, thorn, tack or say, gets shot at. The more the suit tears, the faster she loses a her powers, leaving her frequently captured, bound and gagged (in ridiculously skimpy, yet conveniently strategically covering tatters) by various super villains. Her team, "The Super-homeys" rarely take her seriously, and she's most frequently used as bait. She's blond and buxum, but has terrible self-esteem issues and is convinced that her butt is too big.

The first volume is pretty much a series of short vignettes, interrupted by fairly meta chapter breaks where  "Emp" explains her origin as a bondage prone sketch Adam Warren would draw for fans at conventions, then flesh out with a back story and turn into a surprisingly sweet and very clever satire on sexy superhero comics. Over the course of the first volume, Emp (her real name isn't revealed until volume 3) meets her boyfriend, a sometime super villain henchman, and her best friend, Ninjette (who is unsurprisingly a ninja), and ends up sharing a flat with the "Caged Demonwolf", a cosmic beast entrapped in alien bondage gear who lives atop her coffee table (possibly my favourite character). In volumes 2 and 3, the stories are longer, and continue to explore the world of Empowered, the Superhomeys, the various rather ridiculous super villains they fight, and the myriad ways in which  poor Emp can be captured, humiliated, bound and gagged.

While the art is very sexy, and Emp is frequently more unclothed than not, there is never any complete nudity, the book is very good about equal opportunity cheesecake art, with Emp's boyfriend Thugboy frequently shown just as scantily clad as her. It's clearly a aimed at an adult audience, with quite a few sex scenes in especially volumes 1 and 3 and quite a lot of violence (in a very manga style) in all 3 volumes. Refreshingly, as a female comics reader, I never felt this comic is as insulting to or exploitative of women as several more mainstream superhero comics. For all it's near nudity and bondage prone heroine, the main premise of the comic is sweet. I very much agree with this article on Comics Alliance, that Empowered is a comic that gets sexy superheroes just right. I will absolutely be getting more, as soon as my budget allows it.