Category: Shorter Works

I was eating a supermarket baguette smothered in margarine while thinking about Green Arrow. Why does it feel like sweeps week on the local news?

More than a decade ago, I woke up on Christmas morning to a box full of Mike Grell’s Green Arrow comics courtesy of my then-POOSSLQ-now-wife. Granted, I wanted Animal Man or Swamp Thing, but it was a good gesture from someone who hoped the whole comics thing would blow over before the wedding. I fell in love (with Green Arrow- I was already in love with the gift-giver). I still have that nearly compete set. I haven’t read them in a long time, but I still think you should race out and acquire them. They shouldn’t cost much and you’ll be happier for it. I don’t remember being bored by them, but they do make my mind wander to Daredevil for some reason. Maybe both of them have always been characters on the boundaries who have allowed their writers to take a few chances. Maybe they always seemed a little less iconic than Superman and the Fantastic Four. That could be because Daredevil sounded like some lunatic on a motorcycle at the county fair. For his part, Green Arrow sounds like some lunatic on a motorcycle in the Village.

Not much has changed since then. Oliver Queen is still having affairs and hanging out in the parts of the city that haven’t seen a street cleaner in a long time, but now it feels like I’m watching television reruns.

I was as excited as the next bandwagon rider when Kevin Smith decided to bring back Green Arrow. Counter to a lot of hand wringing, I did not worry too much about how he was going to resurrect old green and pouty. In retrospect, no one else really worried either since the answer seems to be because he was not completely dead, only partly dead. It goes without saying that totally dead would have been a definite problem. In the end, Smith entertained me without insulting me. I do get annoyed when somebody thinks they only have to commit to writing a comic for a limited period of time, but, hey, that’s looking at the glass as half empty. Meltzer did his thing and it was a lovely walk down memory lane.

Then Meltzer departs and suddenly we change streets. There was the lovely little intergalactic detour with Green Lantern, apparently necessitated by their shared tint fixation. Then, we’re back in Daredevil land all over again. All we need is for Drakon to cry out “You made me miss!” And did our big boss villain have to be overweight and bald?

Let’s look at Issue 29, shall we? Phil Hester and Ande Parks continue to create the sort of pictures that make me appreciate comic books. They’ve got style. The story is called “Straight Shooter Part Four: New Wounds” (or “Cross Purposes” if feel the cover better represents the title). That would be the fourth of six parts. That would be six months for this story to unfold… at a glacial pace. In short, here’s what happens: Black Canary begins to suspect that something is up with Green Arrow (in this case, he’s fooling around with someone else); the villains meet and decide to eliminate Green Arrow; Oliver and Connor read e-mail; Oliver practices shooting arrows with his injured hands while talking with Joanna, the ‘other woman’, while Oliver Queen’s young ward eavesdrops; Oliver Queen lures ugly monsters into a fight; and we finish with the tagline “We’re just getting started.”

I have really enjoyed Judd Winick’s work on other titles, but nothing happened in this issue. Read that summary again. At best, you could say that things were getting ominous for Oliver Queen in his personal life. His professional life involved another fight very reminiscent of the last fight against the same hideous beasts. Ominous just does not carry over for thirty days. Everything that occurs in this issue feels like a placeholder. And all that does is heighten the melodrama. That might work in a self-contained story, but not in a six-month story arc. Maybe Winick is just trying to tell us too many stories at once- maybe he’s struggling with the juggling of so many characters (in which case he never should have introduced the new love interest).

Has anybody since the big name novelist actually bothered to read the first twenty or so issues? Maybe I missed something, but I thought this new Green Arrow series was going to be about something, like finding your place in the world or something/anything other than bad guys and booty. Think about comic book runs that you’ve loved over the years. Didn’t they stick to the theme? When the theme goes away, it leaves a vacuum. You can’t fill a vacuum with nasties and noogies. When the theme goes away, so do the readers. Yes, we may love the artwork. Yes, we may think it will be worth a million bucks someday. The former can get you to buy one issue. The latter is sheer idiocy.

September, 2003

Quick Rating: Looking Backward a Bit Too Much
Title: The Frost Giant’s Daughter

Aaaaaggghhhh!

Writer: Kurt Busiek
Artist: Cary Nord
Color: Dave Stewart
Letters: Richard Starkings and Comicraft
Design: Darin Fabrick
Editor: Scott Allie

And so, my enthusiasm wanes.

I remember stumbling upon a horde of Savage Sword of Conan as a pre-adolescent. They were a glorious sight- covers that hinted at violence and other secrets. The tales were in over-sized black and white, quite exotic. The comics felt more text-heavy than even your run-of-the-mill seventies Marvel comic, which was packed with words. Conan and his friends were always half-naked, which had more and more appeal in succeeding years. And it seemed as though an issue or two was always popping up in somebody’s house. Yet no one had a pile of them, like there were piles of Superman or Spiderman. The reason was that every issue felt the same. And that feeling was apathy. The individual issues may have told different stories, but the final impression was otherwise.

This could be because Conan stinks as a character. It’s a fact, folks, and it’s about time we admitted it and moved on.

This issue opens with Conan finishing a battle which leaves him as the lone survivor. A gorgeous naked woman appears before him, which is unexpected in the middle of a frozen wasteland. She lures him off his path and into a trap.

Comic books, like real books, generally rely on empathy to maintain interest. Some sort of connection must be made between the reader and a character in the tale. This was the secret that Stan Lee stumbled upon, as did the long gone pioneers who created sidekicks. The challenge faced by monthly comics is maintaining that reader/character connection across vast periods of no input. (This may be one of the secrets of adult difficulties with comics. I have found that the younger set have a miraculous ability to recall the minutest detail of a comic read one, two, or three month previous. Children don’t need trade paperbacks. Their parents do. Perhaps adult brains are overwhelmed by information during the course of a month. Maybe they’re just full.) It is impossible to empathize with Conan. He always wins. He never has any discernable thought of any real interest. He lives in a world of unimaginable violence, which he mostly causes. He never sympathizes with anyone else. If you met him, you would not like him. He would be contemptuous of you and hopefully just growl at you. He’s the Hulk without the fine points. For that matter, the Hulk is pretty tedious, too, but he does have that whole dual personality thing going on.

There is nothing to be done about Conan, though. Robert Howard deserves credit for creating a character that has lasted so long. If he had lived longer, I suspect that he would have done a bit more with him—maybe not though. He might just have moved on to another genre, as seemed to be his wont after a few years.

The art continues to be an interesting experiment with coloring the pencils directly. It reminds me a little of N.C. Wyeth, but those were book illustrations and a little static.

If you remember the old Marvel Conan with great fondness, then this is likely to be your cup of brew. You may however find that you were not as fond of the whole concept as you thought.

April, 2004

Quick Rating: Hmmmm…
Title: Out of the Darksome Hills

And Away We Go…!

Writer: Kurt Busiek
Artist: Cary Nord with Thomas Yeates
Color: Dave Stewart
Letters: Richard Starkings and Comicraft
Design: Darin Fabrick
Editor: Scott Allie

With apologies to They Might Be Giants:

Barbarian Man, Barbarian Man
Doing the things a Barbarian can
What’s he like?
It’s not important
Barbarian Man

Is he naked, or dressed in mail?
When he’s being drawn
Does he need detail?
Or does the detail slow down the tale?
Nobody knows
Barbarian Man

Usagi Man, Yojimbo Man
Usagi man hates Barbarian Man
They have a fight
Usagi wins
Usagi Man

Marvel Man, Universe Man
Size of the Marvel universe man
Ignores other publishers
Marvel Man

He owns lots of characters
Incredible Hulk and Spiderman,
Even X-Factor and Dazzler
Powerful man, Marvel Man

Reader Man, Reader Man
Hit on the head with a comic book
Won’t give anything but Marvel a look
Reader Man

Should he go to a gym and read comics less?
Is his apartment a total mess?
Who came up with Reader Man?
Degraded man, Reader Man

Usagi man, Usagi Man
Usagi man hates Reader Man
They have a fight
Usagi wins
Usagi Man

The Dark Horse Conan has finally begun after some anticipation. It has been referred to as Ultimate Conan. That may be accurate. My recollection of the old Savage Sword series is that it was jam-packed with action and overflowing with story. It was also over-sized, so that may have had something to do with it.

So, what have we here? Conan appears out of nowhere in the midst of a fight and finds himself entwined in the lives of some villagers caught up in a local war. There is jealousy and violence and all kinds of barbarian activity- although it did seem that every exhibited exceptional table manners. The story fit my expectation of a Conan story, but I will probably want something a little more in my older years. As opposed to Marvel’s Ultimate stories, I don’t foresee any revelations in the Conan tale. There is not something sitting out there of which I can’t wait to be reminded. No names trigger goose bumps, even iof Red Sonja or Kull or some other buff character appears. I sort of hope the series can sustain itself, but I’m not sure how it will. For that matter, the old stories had some amazing art, but even they may have been a bit too repetitious. I like the art better here than in the prequel. I had a few quibbles at the time about a lack of definition in some of the panels and that has been handled. If you are interested in the Conan tales, but have no experience of them, then this may be a fine introduction to the world of sword and sorcery. If you love Conan like only a young man can, then you’ve been looking forward to this for months. For Kurt Busiek fans, I have no idea what you will think. I really like Astro City, but this is not that. You may very well like this, but probably not for the reasons that you’ve liked his other work.

February, 2004