Rogues

It's been a long time since DC or Marvel produced a true crime heist story involving super villains. 2006's Secret Six miniseries might be the closest thing we've had and that was more about baddies acting righteous during a time when the heroes were acting criminal.

In Rogues, Leonard Snart's glory days as one of the Flash's arsh-enemies is long past. In his late 50s, balding, overweight and kept on a tight leash by a parole officer who deserves his own spot behind bars, the former Captain Cold is a broken man. 2 of the Rogues are dead. His sister, the Golden Glider has renounced her life of crime and became an inner city social worker. The Trickster has become a hack magician, performing to elderly crowds. Mirror Master lost his mind in a drug induced haze. Mick Rory, AKA Heatwave, still plays with fire. Only, he does it with an entrepreneurial flare, committing arson by torching buildings for a cut of the insurance check. 

Now is the time to bring the gang back together. For years, Smart has been planning a heist so outrageous, that it's literally a suicide mission. With Captain Cold's guidance, the Rogues are going to infiltrate Gorilla City and rob Gorilla Grodd's personal vault laden with tons and tons of gold. Good thing Smart has decided to recruit a couple of former members of the Suicide Squad to help in executing this insane plan!

Joshua Williamson penned this story which is nearly flawless. I don't even mind that there's zero appearance of any of the multitude of men to carry the moniker of the Flash in this book. My biggest issue is the addition of DEO agent Maggie Sawyer. She's a great player in Metropolis. But she really doesn't seem to have a place in Gorilla City. At least not here in this story.

Rogues was originally released as a 4-issue miniseries in 2022. The first 3 issues were by Italian artist Leomacs. Issue #4 marks the debut of artist Luca Finelli. The transition between the two was flawless. I didn't even realize about the shift change until I was reading the biographies at the end of the book. I don't know who's talent that speaks higher of. But I loved the artwork throughout this entire piece.

This is a Quentin Tarantino level story and that's not just because of the amount of violence. Tons of swears. Tons! And we're talking F-bombs. This might be a DC Comic title but it's a Black Label release. Definitely not for the kids. But a must for fans of the Scarlet Speedster and his gallery of Rogues.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 9 out of 10 stars.

Superman: Year One

Frank Miller, the godfather of the 'Year One' storyline, gives Superman the long overdue treatment in this deluxe sized Black Label tale. In other words - this very well could be an imaginary story. But I'd be totally fine with it being turned into canon.

The childhood story of Superman doesn't really change. His Kryptonian parents, knowing that their planet is doomed, ship baby Kal-El to Earth in hopes of becoming humanity's savior. Raised as Clark Kent by Kansas farmers, Kal-El learns the difference between right and wrong while forging a friendship with Pete Ross and a budding romance with Lana Lang.

Once Clark graduates high school, the origin changes. For the first time ever, in Act Two, we see Kent joining the Navy in hopes of learning what it means to be human while finding his place in this world as a god among men. Clark's romance with the mermaid Lori Lemaris takes an unusual twist with the Kryptonian becoming the ruler of Atlantis, after defeating her father in combat.

It appears that Frank Miller is really going to challenge the established legend of Superman by having him become a super-powered Aquaman. But that's all but forgotten in the final act; just as Clark's relationship with Lana becomes nothing more than a memory by the time he finishes basic training. When Superman meets Lois Lane in a great twist on their first appearance in the crashing helicopter trope, the very young Man of Steel just gives up his life in Atlantis, enrolls in journalism at a nameless University, and becomes an intrepid investigative reporter at the Daily Planet. 

This is not a 365 day year in the life of Superman. It's more of a series of snap shots in the first 25 or so years of life of Clark Kent. This makes for some inconsistencies in the plotting, a ton of forgotten friends and family, and an ending that didn't feel like the end. I wouldn't be surprised for a Superman: Year Two to be announced sometime in the future. Though this book is from 2019, so our chances of that might be dwindling...

As for John Romita, Jr.'s artwork, it too was inconsistent. But it's actually something that works in his favor. In my late 40s, I understand that when you have a career that involves your hands, arthritis and age are your worst enemies. Jr.Jr.'s art has really suffered over the last decade. But when he shines, he really shines here. There were several pages that I spent a long, long time marveling at his dynamic drawings. Powerful renderings. Amazing angles. Kick ass action. It helped improve my rating for this book that feels in desperate need of a director's cut edition.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 7 out of 10 stars.

The Human Target, Vol 2

Christopher Chance solves the mystery of who killed him. Posing as Lex Luthor, the Human Target ingested a slow acting poison. His fate is sealed. Chance is literally a member of the walking dead. With only 12 days left, he spends his remaining time trying to solve his murder while enjoying some fantastic scotch and time by the beach, his favorite place. But as his life comes to an end, Chance must confront his own demons.

This Tom King maxi-series from 2022-23 is very much a noir mystery with the Human Target providing the internal dialogue, heroes who are secretly villains and forbidden romance. As with just about any noir whodunnit, the solution is crystal clear while the motivations are the real enigma. For some reason, when the murderer confesses, they have no problem admitting their guilt and yet you need a thesaurus to understand what drove them to kill. 

That's okay however. I'm still a big fan of crime noir.

When I reviewed volume 1, I stated that Greg Smallwood's art looked familiar. I just couldn't put my finger on what it reminded me of. I managed to solve that mystery about a third into this book. With the sharp pencil angles and soft charcoal shading of the subjects, Smallwood's artwork reminds me of that set of Childcraft Encyclopedia books my mom ordered me sometime in the late70s. Published originally in the 1930s by W.F. Quarrie & Co, the volumes of 'the How and Why Library' I had had shiny modern covers. But the internal artwork hadn't been updated since the Kennedy administration. The artwork here gave the story the look of a more innocent time and yet there are no saints to be found.

A fantastic mystery with a great ending. It was awesome visiting some characters that I hadn't thought about in years. Thankfully, being a Black Label imprint work, this is not a canonical book. Yet I would not be surprised in the least to find out DC decided to make this story the official swan song of the Human Target.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 9 out of 10 stars.

The Human Target, Vol. 1

I like Tom King. But he's got this annoying little habit of taking those more obscure, fan favorite DC characters that I grew up reading from my dad's comic book collection and deconstructing them. Even to the point of killing off the character.

This time, Tom King decides to strip bare the character Christopher Chance, the Human Target. Trained to be a master mimic with skills in various martial arts and proficient in countless weapons, Chance becomes the target of people who have a death wish against them. All you have to do for the Human Target to take a bullet for you is to pay him his asking fee of 10% of your yearly income. So when multi-billionaire Lex Luthor approaches Chance to discover who's planning to kill him at an annual technology conference, the Human Target sees nothing but dollar signs. 

Christopher not only takes the bullet for Lex Luthor, he also drinks the hemlock. It seems that more than one person wanted to kill Luthor. An seemingly innocent cup of coffee was laced with a slow acting poison. Now with 12 days left to live, the Human Target will investigate his own murder. But it's not going to be easy because the prime suspect in the case is the entire lineup of the original Justice League International!

This maxi-series is a superhero populated version of the noir classic D.O.A.. Readers go into this work knowing that the Human Target will die by story's end. We just don't know who killed him and what was the motive. That's the mystery being solved. Christopher Chance's fate is sealed.

Thankfully, this is a Black Label story. Those stories aren't canon. Still, that doesn't mean that I'm not hoping for a happy ending here. Plus, it doesn't mean that this story might not actually happen later on in the future. A bunch of Marvel What If... stories have been made into canon and DC is no different. Several of their Elseworlds tales were made into official alternate Earths populating the multiverse. What's not to say that some future crisis that occurs in the DC universe will not someday make this story along with the rest of Tom King's Black Label works from becoming real; killing off a bunch of my favorite B-list characters for realsies? That prospect scares the DC fanatic in me!

The first half of the story has been near perfect. I did think that the chapter involving the Martian Manhunter was unnecessarily chaotic. But it's been an engrossing read and a visual delight. Generally,it doesn't feel like a legitimate Tom King story without the artwork of frequent collaborator Mitch Gerad's. However Greg Smallwood has this style that looks and feels quintessential 1950s and very early 60s corporate art. I can't quite put my finger on just what Smallwood's artwork reminds me of just yet. However, if you told me that the artist used to draw the storyboards for Don Draper's ad pitches, I would believe it.

I checked this out at the library and now I am kicking myself! for some reason, I decided to only pick up volume 1! I've gotta rush to the library and hope nobody snagged up the follow up before I did!

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 9 out of 10 stars.

Danger Street, Vol. 1

Tom King, who's an amazing writer, is known for taking some beloved B-list characters from the DC Universe and destroying our childhood notions of them. Case in point: Mister Miracle. Second case in point: Adam Strange. In Danger Street, King dips deep into DC lore with a series that was so unthinkable when it debuted, it really confused a lot of readers and was cancelled pretty darn quick.

Carmine Infantino had the brilliant idea of releasing an anthology series of only first issues. In 1975, First Issue Special released a baker's dozen of issues that introduced readers to all-new concepts such as the Dingbats of Danger Street as well as tried and true DC characters such as Metamorpho and Doctor Fate. Tom King takes all 13 of those characters and teams and creates a unique story filled with intrigue, murder, conspiracy and humor. It unlike anything you've ever encountered in the DC Universe and probably never will.

Metamorpho, Starman and Warlord are all hoping for spots in the Justice League of America. Despite their own heroic exploits over the years, it seems to this trio that they've really got to capture the attention of the League in order to score an invitation. So using the helmet of Doctor Fate and a spell, the heroes decide to summon Darkseid to Earth and subdue him for Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. Instead, what comes through the portal is a force so destructive and so terrible that when it dies, it threatens the existence of all of the known universe.

Meanwhile, reporter Jack Ryder has been hired to anchor a new 24-hour news channel owned by the boy billionaires, the Green Team. They want Ryder to blame the rise in crime and violence on a mysterious group known as the Outsiders. However, when Ryder in his Creeper form, witnesses an attack on an immigrant by anti-Outsider supporters and it's blamed on the Green Team pariahs, the anchor man will begin to investigate a conspiracy that could destroy the very foundation of the DC Universe!

You might be wondering why I would be willing to read more from Tom King despite how he destroyed some really great characters. Well, he is a good writer. Plus, the inclusion of the New Gods was something that I just couldn't overlook. Besides, this is a Black Label title, so it's not canon. If I end up hating this book I can just say it didn't happen, which is one of the things that makes the DC Black Label line so appealing. They leave the validity of these stories up to the fans as whether they are canonical or not. 

The art was good. It wasn't by Mitch Gerads, Tom King's usual artist. But it was good. By Jorge Fornes, it had the quality of a Gerads work but with nostalgic nuances to it.

There's still a second volume to read. So the jury isn't out yet. I love how all these characters from an obscure 70s anthology of which I am a fan of,  have all been tossed together in this story. I like the surprises that have awaited inside. That one scene with Darkseid; I never saw it coming in a million years and yet it was so perfect. But I am not a fan of the narrator who weaves this story like a very complicated fairy tale written in iambic pentameter or so other archaic pride. Just give me the story in modern jargon please.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 8 out of 10 stars.

Strange Adventures

Checking out two Tom King/Mitch Gerads works from the same library trip wasn't planned. It was at first a happy coincidence. Completing the Riddler: One Bad Day book was a read that while it cemented my favorite Batman rogue into a more sadistic frame of mind, was still an enjoyable read. Getting into this book, I was pumped. Tom King was going to do it again! It's going to be awesome. 

Sadly, nothing could be further from the truth.

After a terrible battle on Rann which results in the death of Adam Strange's daughter Aleea, the hero of two worlds and his wife Alanna retire to Earth. Adam has just written a bestselling memoir of the war and warns that the same empire that devastated Rann is heading to Earth. At one of the signings, a man makes a huge scene claiming to know the truth behind how Adam Strange won the war, including war crimes such as torture and the killing of innocents. At first, the media passes this off as the rantings of a crazed person seeking attention. However, when the man is found death from what looks like laser blasts, public sentiment changes and Adam Strange is fingered as the murderer. If this man did indeed know stuff and Adam Strange killed him, just what was the hero trying to hide?

Adam Strange enlists Batman to investigate both the murder and the battle on Rann. However, because of his past history in Justice League business, the Dark Knight feels that he couldn't be impartial to Strange. So he enlists Mister Terrific to head this private investigation. As Mister Terrific digs into the mystery, not only will Adam Strange's crimes come to light, so will a secret covenant that threatens to destroy two worlds!

I knew something was amiss when I noticed that the spelling of Adam and Alanna's daughter changed over the course of the first issue. Maybe it was an innocent typo. I think it might have been a Freudian slip. Regardless, that's when I knew that something in this story was total BS. Tom King does throw in a few red herrings and man, does one major metropolitan area on earth become toast. Still, for someone who grew up on the Silver Age adventures of Adam Strange, I did not like how this book ended.

Strange Adventures is a Black Label imprint release. Stories printed under this imprint are supposed to be non-canonical. However, that hasn't always been the case as a couple of Black Label stories have later been revealed to have been set in the main DC Universe. Tom King swears that this story isn't canon. I'd like to believe him. But I also don't want this story to later get retconned and become eventually true either. 

Once again, Mitch Gerads does a phenomenal job on the artwork. However, he's not the only artist on this book. Gerads illustrates what happens in the present, which is gritty and realistic. The fantastic Evan 'Doc' Shaner captures the events of the past with such an epic nod to the early days of comics of my dad's that I used to read. Shaner's work has thicker lines, is much cleaner and is literally timeless. Carmine Infantino would be so freakin' proud.

Let's be honest here: Tom King is a great writer. I'm just tired of him trying to make everything under the DC sun to reflect in the present day 2020s. King is ex-CIA. I am sure being counter-terrorism, Tom King saw a lot of terrible stuff. While having Adam Strange succumb to using any means necessary to save the people of Rann, Tom King didn't have to turn one of my favorite B-listers into Benedict Arnold! If my count is correct, Tom King has killed off Mister Miracle through suicide, basically kept Bruce Wayne and Selena Kyle from ever being man and wife, turned the Riddler into a madman more destructive than the Joker and now ruin one of the most purest hearts in all of DC Comics history. 

Awwww, crap, I just realized that Tom King penned Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow and I haven't read it yet. How'd he screw her up? I wish I knew one of Tom King's childhood icons so I could write a terrible story about it and mess up his happy childhood memories with his father... (Sorry, ranting!)

There was so much promise for this book. It seemed like it was going to be timeless fun. Instead, we get yet another post-9/11 retooling of something innocent. Sure, MASH told us that war wasn't something to glorify and in the pages of countless volumes of Strange Adventures, Adam Strange fought a lot of wars. I can accept that even good guys turn bad in the middle of great conflicts. But did Tom King have to make Adam Strange make a move so unforgivable that if this story is true, it will prevent the character from ever having a noble place in comics ever again?

Rating: 5 out of 10 stars.