Wednesday’s Haul 3/10/10– Sweet Tooth & Marvel: 1985

After a nice, small week, it looks like we’re back to another decent sized week for me.

• Grendel Behold The Devil HC– This was the 20th anniversary celebration of Matt Wagner’s Grendel series and the collected edition is finally out.  I remember liking how this story firmly tied Hunter Rose’s story into everything else that Wagner did with the Grendel concept after Rose’s death.

• Hellboy Vol 9 Wild Hunt TP– I think this is the Hellboy story where his supposed true origin is revealed.  Duncan Fegredo’s artwork on this series makes me barely miss Mignola’s. 

• Daytripper #4– A pleasant enough series, I guess. 

• Elephantmen #24– I really, really, really need to catch up on this series and figure out where the story is right now.  It looks like this issue is beginning a new storyline which is probably good.

• Criminal The Sinners #5– Simply, the best comic being published right now.  I don’t know what more I can say at this point.

?I’m trying to figure out what’s different now; what have we learned about Barry Allen during The Flash: Rebirth?   The answer is kind of surprising, at least to me.  We’ve learned that you can kill Barry’s mom but don’t touch Iris.  We’ve learned that it’s o.k. to Barry if the world thinks his father is a killer just as long as Barry knows the truth.  And we’ve learned that Barry’s big offensive maneuver is to shove his enemies in the back.  For those few lessons, Geoff Johns and Ethan Van Sciver wasted our time for six issues while they attempted to make us accept and care Barry Allen again.

In The Flash: Rebirth #6, the last issue of Geoff Johns and Ethan Van Sciver’s latest miniseries breathing new life back into old characters, Barry Allen races to beat his nemesis Professor Zoom back to the past where Zoom plans to kill Barry’s wife Iris.  They run and they run.  They occasionally catch glimpses of their past.  They almost throw punches but then they run a bit more.  And then the stories is over.  The Flash pulls out his big move and pushes Zoom into a giant test tube.  Oh, and there’s a parade, a Flash parade.  We can’t forget about the parade, or the JLA party.  The JLA throw a party for the Flash, with a cake and a “welcome back” banner.  And that’s it.  That’s the end of the miniseries.

When Johns and Van Sciver produced Green Lantern: Rebirth a few years ago, it was easy to understand the purpose of that book; to redeem Hal Jordan and make him a hero again.  Jordan was one of those classic characters who was really maligned during the 90s, the decade which took a hero and made him into a killer.  The character needed a symbolic as well as a literal rebirth, which is exactly what Johns and Van Sciver did for Hal Jordan.  They brought him back and they brought him back as a hero.  Tackling Barry Allen is an altogether different creature altogether; Barry didn’t need redemption.  Our last memories of him are racing around the Anti-Monitor’s machine, racing to his death even as he saved the universe.  Barry died a hero.  Without any part of Barry’s character or history needing to be tweaked and even forgotten, like Hal’s murderous rampage, there’s no drive or force behind The Flash: Rebirth.  And without a need for a tweak, there’s no exploration of Barry, any of the Flashes or the Speed Force.  Simply, there’s nothing behind The Flash: Rebirth unless you like to watch characters run and then run some more.

If you’re not going to explore the hero, then you need to make the villain a true and unique threat.  Well, Zoom is essentially the anti-Flash, right down the an opposite-colored version of Flash’s costume.  Zoom lacks any dimension or motivation other than a hatred of Barry Allen.  One of the great things that Geoff Johns did on his original run on The Flash was fleshing out Flash’s rogue gallery, reestablishing their group as a unique group among villains.  They had a code of ethics and even a swagger that you just generally didn’t see among other villains.  Zoom lacks any of their depth; he might as well be a mustache twirler who has Iris tied up on the tracks as the train fast approaches. 

It’s no major spoiler to say that, at the end of the issue, the bad guy is defeated and the heroes celebrate.  A party is thrown, cake is served and everyone’s happy.  Barry Allen is back.  Iris is safe and the world still thinks that Barry’s dad killed his mom, which just strikes me as an incredibly odd plot point to be introduced in this miniseries without providing a satisfactory ending to the murder mystery but that’s really how this whole series could be described; one give plot contrivance without any satisfactory ending or resolution.  Barry’s back but why should we care?  Sadly, this final issue gives us little reason to.

The Flash: Rebirth #6
Written by: Geoff Johns
Pencilled by: Ethan Van Sciver
Inked by: Ethan Van Sciver & Scott Hanna
Lettered by: Rob Leigh
Colored by: Brian Miller

A giant, armor wearing, warrior, white rat. Who saw that one coming?

You know it’s bad in Joe the Barbarian #2 when Captain Jean Luc Picard is giving up the battle; when he’s passing off his phaser to some boy and then hobbling off to whatever final fate awaits him. We’re talking about the captain of the Enterprise here. He’s faced Klingons and Borg without ever breaking a sweat but his latest adversary is just too much for him. He’s already lost a leg. What more can we ask of the man? But then you realize as you’re reading the book, this isn’t Picard. It’s not even actor Patrick Stewart making a surprising cameo in this story. It’s a toy, a 3″ action figure, still just as defeated, handing his tiny little toy gun over to diabetic, and possibly hallucinating, Joe.

This second issue of Grant Morrison and Sean Murphy’s miniseries continues to explore a toy world that is at war. The Picard figure, missing its lower leg, is only one of the casualties of this war. In a stunning 2-page spread, Murphy shows us all sort of childhood toys and memories under assult by the forces of King Death, a villain who so far remains unseen. You can never really forget that we’re looking at childhood toys but Murphy makes the figures so lively and expressive that they become as real as Joe is. There’s no difference between Joe’s anguish at not understanding what’s going on and the torture of some plastic toys at the bad guy’s hands. The stuffed animals, huddled together in fear, are no less real because they have stuffing in them.

Morrison and Murphy play off this uncertainty of reality and fiction; Joe’s house is no less dangerous for him than the imaginary land of his toys. Even Joe’s pet white rat Jack becomes an armored warrior in Joe’s other world, captured during the battles with Lord Death. Whether it’s a quest to bring back “the throne of light” or to get his glucose tablet, Joe is in a lot of trouble.

While covering familiar ground for him, it feels like Morrison is approaching writing Joe The Barbarian completely differently than he usually does. Like his We3, the writing this issue is stripped down and uncluttered. He leaves the reader to fill in a lot of the subtext while he concentrates on telling a strong story with his artist. Sean Murphy actually fills in a lot of that subtext and symbolism in this book. Joe the Barbarian #2 is a much simpler story, without being simplistic.

Joe the Barbarian #2

“Chapter 2: Cloud Quay to Feather Forest Falls”

Written by: Grant Morrison

Drawn by: Sean Murphy

Colored by: Dave Stewart

Lettered by: Todd Klein