Comic Capsule Reviews

Curse Words #11 – Charles Soule is one of the few current authors who swings for the fences every time he’s at bat. I love his stuff. Contrary to almost every other comic on the market, I can’t find a whiff of his political views in his work. Nor can I find that condescending snideness with which authors infuse their stories if the reader happens to be on the opposite side of the aisle. Soule just likes to tell a satisfying story.

Curse Words is about the travails of the evil wizard Wizord. When Wizord is sent to Earth from the Hole World to conquer it, he decides that it would be a shame to lay waste to such a lush, pleasure-filled virtual paradise, complete with baseball, sumptuous food and vast reserves of money and power. He turns his back on his demon boss Sizzajee and sets himself up as a wizard for hire.

Sizzajee doesn’t take this well, and has sent several assassins after Wizord. In this issue, after defeating his former lover and latest assassin, Ruby Stitch, Wizord sends her (or what’s left of her) back to the Hole World. She ends up in a surprising place and meets a group who has no love for Sizzajee. Meanwhile, Wizord searches for his kidnapped daughter Margaret (currently in the form of a platypus—don’t ask) and is frustrated to find his seeking spells don’t work. That’s because the government has wizards of their own now, and they are preparing to go to war with Wizord.

Curse Words is full of absurd (but wonderful) twists, startling ideas and impossible things. And is his time on Earth making Wizord ...  a better person? Nah. But still, he’s starting to mellow a bit. It’s clear that soon he will have armies from Earth governments and the Hole World after his scalp (and magic beard) soon. I look forward to the coming battle.

Rating: ****½ out of 5 stars

Mage: The Hero Denied #6 – I am generally a fan of writer/artist Matt Wagner, who is one of the best Shadow writers alive. This series is the third and final part of his semi-autobiographical Mage Trilogy. I thought the first miniseries was unique and charming (back in the ‘80s!), liked the second and am really enjoying this final chapter.

Series protagonist Kevin Matchstick, the reborn Pendragon, has come a long way. He’s lost most of his hair, gotten married and had two precocious kids. He’s also honed the use of his powers, now able to imbue any object with Excalibur magic, rather than just the baseball bat of Mage I & II (which I miss). As the series opens, Kevin and his wife are out of the monster killing game and settling down to life on the West Coast. However, the monsters haven’t retired, and when Kevin accidently runs across and kills several nasty ones, the game starts anew. Only now he has a family to worry about.

In this issue, Kevin is in a race to find the legendary Fisher King before his adversary the Umbra Sprite does. Kevin obtains a potion from a local wizard to give him temporary magic sight, then goes on the trail of a Questing Beast, a being that can help him with his search. His quest takes him away from his family, not realizing his wife is in direct danger from an unexpected source.

Wagner is at his inspired best here, with art that pops off the page and characters that sing with goodness and evil. I can’t wait to see what happens next, which is a feeling every good comic should promulgate.

Rating: **** stars out of 5

Minky Woodcock, the Girl Who Handcuffed Houdini #3 – This historical fiction story by writer/artist Cynthia von Buhler is quite a treat. I’ve long admired Harry Houdini, the most famous magician who ever lived. I’ve read quite a bit about his career, especially his proclivity to expose mediums and fortunetellers as the grifters and confidence tricksters they are. In this story, von Buhler deals with the period of Houdini’s life directly before his death.

Minky Woodcock is part of a family of private detectives. Tired of answering the phones and sweeping the floors, she intercepts a call from Houdini asking for help and strikes up a friendship with the magician. She briefly becomes Houdini’s assistant and is present during the incident that causes Houdini’s death. In this issue, on his deathbed, Houdini asks Minky to do what she can to tell the world what happened, and not let the mediums claim credit for killing him. Mediums all over the world had been predicting his death for years. I suppose one year it would have to be true. To do that, she intercepts medium Margery of Boston, and disguises herself as Margery to do her next séance. Margery was an actual person, real name Mina Crandon. She was a Boston medium who had a huge bag of supernatural tricks that fooled rubes and educated folks alike. She was in a years-long war with Houdini, recounted in the excellent non-fiction book The Witch of Lime Street: Séance, Seduction, and Houdini in the Spirit World by David Jaher (see my review here). It’s a nail-biting true story.

Cynthia von Buhler is an outstanding artist and storyteller, and her woodcut-inspired color art for this comic is amazing. Filled with action, grandeur and cloak and dagger intrigue, this comic is worth your hard-earned shekels. The book does contain nudity and adult themes and is not for children.

Rating: **** stars out of five

Paper Girls #20 – I think I’m finished with Brian K. Vaughn. Vaughn can be a good writer, but he and I are moving in different circles creatively and I don’t think I’m interested anymore in what he has to say.

I really enjoyed Vaughn’s Y: The Last Man, although I thought protagonist Yorick was a milque-toasty half man. Same for Vaughn’s sci-fi opus Saga. Marko was a wimpy beta-male who let his wife Alana do all the fighting and heavy lifting. I finally gave up on the title. His We Stand on Guard miniseries was so anti-American I’m surprised Vaughn hasn’t moved to Canada with Lena Dunham. Until recently, I liked Paper Girls. This entertaining time travel tale of four teenage papergirls always piqued my interest and kept me coming back. With recent issues, the pacing has suffered, the story moves like a glacier going uphill and plot elements have gone in clichéd and uninteresting ways.

In this story, paper girls Erin, MacKenzie, KJ and Tiffany are still traveling through time and dealing with several future (and past) factions out to get them. The future versions of Tiffany and Erin are hilarious and incredibly well drawn by series artist Cliff Chiang. But the pacing is thunderously slow. The girls have been sent to the distant past where they are chased by the natives, then to the future where they are chased by the authorities, to the present where they are chased by everyone. They (and the reader) don’t know what is happening, or why, or what to do about it. Instead of taking action or controlling events in any way, the girls are just tossed about by the plot, jumping from one frying pan into another. Add to this that the book is turning out to be just another lesbian story and the result is rather grating. I can read fifty Marvel comics a month for that. Vaughn once said in an interview he didn’t want his female characters defined by their relationships with men. That’s fine, but it seems he could fix that by being a better writer. But now he has solved the problem by having his female characters defined by their relationships with women. Would it have been impossible to have these very well defined female friends turn out to be just female friends? That would be a radical concept in today’s climate, and one Brian K. Vaughn is not capable of attempting. Too bad.

Rating: *** stars out of 5

I did something I thought I would never do again ... I bought superhero comics. DC has become too PC, but Marvel has done far worse—they’ve gone full scale Social Justice Warrior. Superhero comics are no longer about fighting bad guys, doing the right thing or action and adventure—they’re now about why America is racist, why conservatives are bad and why men and women should never, under any circumstances, become romantically involved with each other. Are those things really what younger readers want to read about? After some rave reviews from folks I trust, I dipped a toe back into the pool.

Marvel Two-In-One #3 – MTIO has been such a pleasant surprise. It’s not perfect, but it is a step in the right direction. It lacks Reed and Sue Richards, but make no mistake, this is a Fantastic Four comic. With Reed and Sue missing, Ben and Johnny are planning to scour alternate universes to find them. Johnny’s powers are malfunctioning and getting weaker. Guest star Hercules leads them to the money grubbing and mercenary Dr. Koul, who examines Johnny and finds a cool secret that adds to the FF mythos. Dr. Koul is an interesting character and I hope she joins the team for further adventures. This issue ends on a delicious twist involving the Mad Thinker and his obsession with Reed Richards. The banter between the characters, especially Ben and Johnny, is priceless, and the plotting moves the story along at a brisk pace.

The only criticism I have of the book is the lack of property damage. Comics as a medium has probably moved on from seeing Ben Grimm or Hercules, two of the most powerful beings in comics, ever throw a punch or clobber anything ever again. Today’s comics are all about the talky-talk and resolving problems by holding hands and singing. This comic is entertaining, but I’d like to see the Thing lift a bus and save some bystanders, or smack Dr. Doom in the mask. Those days are regrettably gone forever. But overall this is an enjoyable comic, something I never thought I’d see again from Marvel.

Rating: ***½ stars out of 5

Batman #40 – The other superhero comic I tried was this one. Critics of all stripes are raving about Tom King’s take on Batman and I now see what they are talking about. After being written as blandly as possible by Grant Morrison years ago to being relaunched over and over with more bland and awful stories, I suspected that all the good Batman tales were told and DC just didn’t know what to do with the character. Tom King has certainly changed that thinking. His writing is funny, fresh and he sees the character and his supporting cast with new eyes.

I read the story of Batman proposing to Catwoman in Batman #24, a welcome idea that has never before been done. King has redefined the Batman/Superman relationship and made Clark, Lois, Bruce and Selina all double-dating friends, handled brilliantly. In this issue, King presents Bruce’s relationship with Wonder Woman. Stuck in an alternate dimension fighting hordes of demons attempting to conquer our world, Batman and Wonder Woman are tempted to start a romantic relationship. Time moves differently in that dimension and years go by, years that test Bruce’s commitment to Selina. But Bruce and Diana come out of the experience as stronger friends, as it should be.

I’m not sure if DC has the stones to follow through with a Bruce/Selina marriage. But under King’s guidance I’d like to see it done, with the art of current series illustrator Joelle Jones. When we die and go to heaven, we’ll all draw like Joelle Jones.

Rating: **** stars out of 5