"Superman: Kryptonite" by Darwyn Cooke and Tim Sale

The end of my loosely-connected trilogy of essays devoted to stories featuring kryptonite in Superman comic books is long-overdue...and really awkwardly put, since why would any non-Superman comic feature a story about kryptonite if it wasn't setting up an appearance by Superman? It's one of the few things that can kill Superman, the irony that it's made from the remains of his home planet; you're killing him with a "souvenir from home".

Kryptonite can be annoying, because it allows for Superman to be in peril of garden-variety gangsters and thugs; why waste imagination coming up with formidable foes for Superman to spar with, when a purse-snatcher holding a green rock the size of a penny could knock him out?

So..you can imagine the conceit in which Cooke has the audacity to suggest that the villain of his tale could be a giant sentient, telepathic chunk of kryptonite that's been passed around over the decades to various owners like the Hope Diamond, only to reveal that it was actually a cage for a telepathic alien imprisoned like a fly in amber, after briefly becoming intangible during Krypton's explosion, then trapped inside the meteorite while phasing in, ultimately using his mental prowess to force gangster Tony Gallo to act as his proxy on behalf, ultimately reforming the psychotic capo in an uneasy puppet show...I $#!+ you not, that's part of the plot in this book.

Superman: Kryptonite is actually the classiest Superman arc I've ever read, but I don't think it caught on with readers the way people say other stories have, like "Red Son" or "Whatever Happened To The Man From Tomorrow?" - but it's good company with those tales on your bookshelf of Superman stories...if you have one. It's got a sci-fi/noir feel to it, only cheapened, in my opinion, by the appearance of the post-Crisis version of Lex Luthor - the boring 1980's business tycoon. Again, just my opinion, but I prefer the Tony Stark version of Lex Luthor that was more prominent in the Silver and Bronze Age, who occasionally appears in Modern Age comics in the last decade since Infinite Crisis. Luthor didn't appear in the original tale that introduced kryptonite and he shouldn't have appeared here, even if it's abundantly clear that the only reason he's in this is to depict a new origin for the infamous kryptonite ring that he wore...which gave him cancer due to being in nonstop close proximity to it's radiation...which resulted in him faking his death and transplanting his conciousness in a cloned body that posed as the original's "son" until the clone body deteriorated and he made a deal with DC's equivalent of the Devil - Neron - in exchange for having his restored...I  $#!+ you not, this junk actually happened in the Superman books during the 90's...a character worthy of antics deserving to be banished to the now non-existent "quarter-bins" really shouldn't be seen in a classy joint like Superman: Kryptonite.

What else could've derailed this story? It was used as a launch for a new ongoing comic book series, Superman Confidential, a counterpart to another title, Batman Confidential, which was supposed to be the successor to the venerable 1990's Batman comic Legends of The Dark Knight..

..just as a sidebar, I can't help thinking a book titled Legends of The Man of Steel would've been more interesting to have for an anthology book that was going to offer stories in a similar vein - tales set in the early years of Superman's career - but Coinfiential must've sounded "kewl" to the guys occupying the DC Comics offices at the time...

Batman Confidential lasted a few years, whereas Superman Confidential never got off the ground...this opening arc was plagued with delays (I think Tim Sale was also working on the TV series "Heroes" during this time - 2006) and DC Comics editors tried filling the schedule with mediocre fill-in stories by other writers and artists. That strategy for dealing with late books tends to piss off retailers and fans alike, because too long a wait invariably kills interest and hurts sales. It couldn't have helped that five of the six issues that serialized this story had drab covers. Issue #3 has the best cover - with the giant Kryptonite rock in the background and the "villain", Tony Gallo, in the foreground.

Another problem is that Darwyn Cooke could be his biggest critic. The introduction featured in the hardcover and paperback editions has Cooke somewhat writing apologetically, that brainstorming  ideas for a standable Superman story arc that could stand the test of myriad continuity changes and reboots was no picnic and appreciated all the help he got from working with Sale, plus the fact that this tale was a total reboot of a Golden Age tale that was executed frivolously (my observation from Cooke's summation, not necessarily his) and he was grateful to just see it done and in print, at last.

That...bellies the confidence and talent on display, here. All parties involved were up to the task and did a great job. It's one of the best Superman comics I've read. And it's even better collected as a graphic novel. I $#!+ you not.

"Dark Night: A True Batman Story" by Paul Dini and Eduardo Risso

Just when you think countless YouTube and podcast interviews gave the whole thing away, Dark Night: A True Batman Story still offers a lot of surprises. It's an excellent graphic novel, but whereas most of the reviews on the internet center around author Paul Dini's traumatic experience getting mugged that is the climax/catalyst of the book, I found what stayed with me was a lot of the rich details of other events described therein. The mugging itself is strong, brutal stuff (he almost died!), but there are other moments that have their own power:

+ You do get a sense that Paul regrets his doomed relationships with vacuous wannabe starlets. He would use his feint connection to Steven Spielberg  (Dini worked for Amblin on "Tiny Toon Adventures") as bait..and they would lead him on with their feminine wiles. Paul's adherence to the time period keeps him from elaborating on his happy marriage to actress/magician Misty Lee, but the reveals about his doomed relationships playing into his struggle with deep depression ( Emmy award statuettes never looked as creepy as they do in the scene depicted in the book ) imply that the mugging became a very sobering, karmic experience in his life, though I don't think he wants to attribute it as a good thing, just a trigger for change.

+ Paul's first collaboration with Bruce Timm was a failed revival of Beany and Cecil produced by John Kricfalusi of Ren and Stimpy fame. I found it cute that the show was a childhood favorite of his. It was the 50's Spongebob Squarepants, kind-of the precursor to Rocky and Bullwinkle in approach, though with jauntier designs...lots of Beatnik jokes.

+ The character of Ivan Ivorybill was clearly a proxy for Woody Woodpecker, which means Paul was offered a chance to work on a TV series revival for the FOX network. I recall it lasted a year, with Billy West as the voice of Woody. It was o.k., but I remember reviewers thought it was staid. It had nice animation, though. The scene Ivan in the hospital was sad. And powerful!

+ I remember that Tiny Toons videogame..and seeing photos of the bubble bath bottles with the plastic heads from the out-of-print book, Batman: Animated. It's all real stuff.

+ Batman does have a lazarus pit in the batcave! It happened in Devin Grayson & Paul Gulacy's Batman: Ra's Al Ghul mini-series from 2005. Batman built it to test if he had the only written copy of the chemical formula to create one.

+ The synopsis of the rejected idea for a Batman: The Animated Series episode where Batman would've encountered Neil Gaiman's Sandman and Death is very intriguing..and it reads like a backdoor pilot for a follow-up book that would tell the tale proper. Why not?

+ It's been pointed out elsewhere, but the depiction of Paul's therapist as a voluptuous vixen hints at his inspiration for Harley Quin's origin as the Joker's therapist. The character of Harley Quin appears briefly toward the end. I'm convinced the use of red and white in the cover design was meant to invoke Harley, since the advance copies that were used to promote the book featured a markedly different design...I don't hate the current look, but it reminds me of a Christmas card design. I prefer the one used for the advance copies.

+ The idea of having fictional characters act as avatars for the protagonist's thought processes was the main draw of the book when it was first announced, but it's not an original concept for a graphic novel. I also read a graphic novel about Agatha Christie's life that features her engaged in dialogues with her series characters. Compared to other scenes in Dark Night, this stuff was a little weak, but there is great moment where Dini seems to be challenging the idea of "Anyone can be Batman" for a moment. I do with other reviewers who have noted that Dini is the best at writing scenes featuring large groups of Batman villains and giving them equal time to shine.

+ Eduardo Risso wouldn't be my first choice for a special project like this ( I really wish this had been the last assignment done by the late Darwyn Cooke, as opposed to all those variant covers ), but Risso comes through with a career-defining effort that is fantastic. He showcases an impressive versatility, able to capture different moments with an array of illustration styles..I think people were expecting a journeyman effort and were genuinely taken aback by what Risso does here.

If you're a fan of Dini's comic book work, I would say this fits nicely on a shelf with Mad Love, Harley and Ivy: The Deluxe Edition and Tales of The Batman: Paul Dini. Oh, wait...that last one doesn't exist..yet. :)

It's Been A Pleasure: The "Batman Odyssey" Casebook

A LOT has been written and said about Batman: Odyssey, Neal Adams' 13-issue magnum opus he wrote and illustrated in 2010.  I recently found a hardcover edition of the book at a good price and decided to give it a try, in light of Adams' recent efforts to turn the tide of negative opinions on it...Well, I read it...and I have something new to say about this guilty pleasure read - something that nobody has noticed:

If you own the hardcover edition of this story, then you can remove the dust jacket...and then the book looks like "Volume 2" of Batman: The Black Casebook!

The Black Casebook is a paperback reprint of Batman comics from the 1950's that inspired Grant Morrison's nine year tenure writing for the caped crusader. Morrison wanted to reintegrate material from that decade back into current Bat-continuity, so he came up with a "Bat-X Files": accounts of the Batman's strangest cases kept locked away, much like the safety deposit box in which Doctor Watson kept notes on Sherlock Holmes' cases that were to be kept confidential.  In Batman's case, these would include encounters with space aliens, Bat-Mite, time travel, alternate identities, various identity crises,  documentations on the aftereffects of repeated exposure to laughing gas, fear toxins or Bat-smoke pellets of his own design - all the offbeat stuff.

With this in mind, Batman Odyssey  fits the criteria for labeling it as "A Batman Adventure for The Black Casebook"  or a new edition entitled: "Batman: Odyssey - An Adventure From The Black Casebook". Of course,  DC Comics still uses the Legends of The Dark Knight title/brand on Batman comics, but Odyssey is really a Casebook book. If you own both of these tomes, I suggest you put them side by side and enjoy searching for thematic links between them. The quality of the scripting on both is the same, plus every page is packed with stuff to absorb - for all that's been said about Odyssey, Adams doesn't shortchange you.

So, I hope anyone giving Neal's book a try and feeling a bit dumbfounded about what to make of it after hearing or reading recent interviews in which he suggested you see it as "a book " can rest easy if you see it the way I see it...as a Casebook!

You can rest assured...the same way Batman inexplicably decides to plop down on the floor of the Batcave and take a nap at an early point leading to the book's climax. Goodnight. :)

The Nifty 9 of 2012

It's time for a list of the Nifty 9 - reading material you can find in a better-than-o.k. comic shop that premiered this year:

(In no particular order...)

1.  Jim Henson's Tale of Sand:   I found out about this book after it won the Will Eisner Award for Best Original Graphic Novel. This GN, an adaptation of an unproduced screenplay written by Henson and Jerry Juhl, is a psychedelic romp through Monument Valley in which an average everyman tries to match wits with his better-prepared, urbane doppelganger while on a quest to "follow the map", have a cigarette, win the woman of his dreams, dodge the mad sheik's army, stay out of the director's shot, be the town hero and cross the dessert while heeding the warning:  "don't trust the map."

2. Transformers: More Than Meets The Eye #1: the quick-changing robots get the Justice League International treatment, beginning with this issue. Those of you only familiar with these characters (yes, characters) via the Michael Bay films will experience shell shock.

3. Case Closed - Volume #42: this manga series about a teen detective who turns into a kid detective and has to slowly solve the mystery of the clandestine organization behind his transformation, has been going strong for over 15 years, even if any hope for futher episodes of the anime spin-off being brought over to the USA seems unlikely. Anyway, this is the one - the volume I would recommend to someone who would be curious to try it. It's got some strong arcs and characterization, along with appearances and revelations from the semi-recurring characters that tend to pop in and out.

4. Doctor Who - Shada: this was the best read of the summer. Gareth Roberts had to rise to the challenge of cobbling together every draft, fragment and scribble of Douglas Adams aborted Doctor Who epic and reshape it into a proper full-length novel. Well, he did it. He really, really did it. My only question is: What will you do for an encore, Gareth? ... it just so happens that Tom Baker had written a script for a DW film that would have featured Vincent Price as the villain - titled Doctor Who Meets Scratchman, the film was almost put into production before the financing fell apart. When I had asked him on Twitter about it, Roberts reply was, "Good Idea." ...

5. The Secret History of D.B. Cooper: Oni published this series that offered a fanciful look into the life of that mysterious skyjacker whose fate has never been solved. The artwork is very Mike Mignola/Darwyn Cooke-ish, right down to the red gummi bear sidekick.

6. Idolized #0: From Michael Turner's Aspen MLT. The special premiere #0 issue of this comic starts off well. It's about the winner of a reality show in which super-powered wannabes compete for a rookie spot in an established team, The Powered Protectors, but there are hints that the protagonist is going to be their bad penny. BTW, this series is also notable for being the only comic book series I can remember that offered variant photo covers (in which they get a model to pose in costume as the lead character) that weren't bikini pin-ups in disguise. Vampirella, Glory, Ally Kat, The 10th Muse - all cheesecake.

7. Transformers: More Than Meets The Eye, #5: this standout issue is the conclusion to a medical mystery (yes, robots solving medical mysteries!) featuring fan-favorite Ratchet, is very entertaining, with an ending that's a laugh riot. There's a good reason the title of this chapter is not revealed until the last page...spoilers. ;)

8. Burt Ward, Boy Wonder:  the problem with small press companies is that you never know if the premiere issue is the only issue, or in this case, a sneak peek offered on Free Comic Book Day. This was supposed to be a spin-off of a popular series of their hit Misadventures of Adam West series, in which Sir Adam West gets involved in different kinds of adventures in different genres (usually nods to gigs-that-might-have-been, like playing James Bond in On Her Majesty's Secret Service or a Western film without the Three Stooges or a serious Caped Crusader and even appearing as Indiana Jones or The Mad Hatter). Here, Ward gets his own turn. First we get an update of his life right now - running a non-profit animal rescue shelter and walking two amiable pooches around the location of the batcave from the 60s Batman TV series. Then we see him chase a mysterious masked man (looking suspiciously like The Red Hood) into said cave,with the dogs tagging along. Just as John Carter wound-up whisked into Mars,  Ward and  the dogs wind up on another planet. It sounded like a fun adventure - we'll have to wait and see if and when it resumes. An ad featuring a spin-off series about Julie Newmar was also solicited, but has not appeared on stands yet.

9. League of Extraordinary Gentlemen - Century, Part 3: 2009: And this is the one to recommend to everyone - be it the folks who are curious try it or the ones who found past installments inaccessible, and not just because they'll get the references to 30 Rock, Burn Notice, Lost, Heroes, 24, Centurions, Emma Peel, Mary Poppins, Harry Potter, Children in Need, The Dark is Rising and Wizards of Waverly Place - this is the best comic book of the year. 'Nuff said. 'Nuff said.

So there you have it - a Nifty 9 bon-bons from 2012. I'll see you in 2013. :)

Moore Hot Dogs!

"Page 36/TRUMP 8 Panel 2. The Battle of Marathon (490 B.C.E) was a major victory for the Smurfs over the forces of Gargamel, and prevented him from conquering Oz and Wonderland."
- Jess Nevins, Annotations to The Black Dossier


There you have it. Solid evidence that Jess Nevins has gone mad from making sense out of Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. For the past decade, Jess has become the universal translator for every minute reference hidden in the panels and text of each installment of the series, and that reference/footnote in particular makes no sense whatsoever, yet it's on his webpage!

Anyway, I have to say I fell back in love with the League after a trial separation. When I picked up that premiere issue of the series back in the Fall of 1998, I really thought Sherlock Holmes was going to be in it. They have Mycroft in it, Professor Moriarty, Colonel Moran and a reenactment of the showdown in "The Final Problem"...there's even a couple of references to Mina Murray visiting Sherlock during his retirement, when he became a beekeeper (there are also hints that she might have found him very interesting or very dull, depending on what the postcards offered in The Black Dossier would have you believe - I suspect it's the former). Aside from these... bon-bonbonbons, I've seen little else.

There is proof that I'm not the only fan who was starving for some Sherlock-schlock - for a time, Moore had to answer over and over that Captain Nemo was NOT Sherlock Holmes in disguise. I didn't even think of that one! Anyway, something about volume 2 of the series - the second arc, which adapted H.G. Well's War of The Worlds within the context of the LOEG (or LXG, if you saw the movie with Sean Connery - Alan didn't, so be of good cheer if you didn't either) - it featured a made-up almanac that mapped-out the shape of the LOEG/LXG universe, even featuring nods to things that Alan and Kevin might never get around to, like Doctor Dolittle's post office, a young Auric Goldfinger searching for the lost city of El Dorado, The Hardy Boys, Zorro, Conan and Pogo - stuff like that. It also featured key continuity points, like introducing Orlando, Raffles and the Frankenstein monster as the royal consort to the queen of Toyland...stuff , like Mina and Allan Quatermain visiting the ruins of Dracula's castle and stuff  like Allan's rejuvenation in  Uganda. It bugged me that that was stuffed in that stuffy almanac. Obviously, they're being careful not to trip over copyright, but it made me feel as though the main arc of each mini-series was lacking...or just wasn't my cup of tea...or maybe I was just still stinging from not seeing Sherlock play a bigger role in it...or all of the above.

Of course, that's the genesis of that "Sherlock Edition" I posted a few weeks back. I had put together a reading list of pastiches - some good, some not so good, all worth a glance - offering a parallel timeline that explains his absence. I recall Roger Ebert, in his review of Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows, remarking that Holmes was too quirky to mix well with James Bond-style shenanigans, but that never stopped anyone before... proper spy/sci-fi stories with Holmes would be things like "The Lion's Mane", "The Devil's Foot" and "His Last Bow" - all written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, of course. It's tempting to imagine the LXG/LOEG Sherlock sitting in a corner, playing his violin/puffing on his pipe/shooting up coke/leering at Irene Adler photos/whatever, playing armchair sleuth while Allan, Nemo and Mina do all the legwork, because he would feel his dignity compromised by engaging directly in that sort of thing, following them discreetly in disguise as nondescript beggars, crippled limping booksellers, clergymen, old dowagers, etc... just in case they need someone to bail them out - they usually did. Or imagine an ancient octogenarian Sherlock, kept alive through some deus ex machina (royal bee jelly?) to join a new incarnation of the league in the upcoming 2011 installment - yes, the opening of the next big arc is set to take place in 2011.

So I delayed from getting the Black Dossier, a compilation/sourcebook of sorts, often mistaken as volume 3, because it does feature a new adventure as a wraparound (not unlike those Looney Tunes movies from the 1980s that mixed old and new footage), but got it anyway when the price was right. It was a discounted hardcover copy, still in it's shrinkwrap, with the variant "Mina in bed" cover. I didn't know if I would like it - it's considered the one that draws the line - the one where fans either got off the train or stayed on for the rest of the ride. I liked it. I still have problems with Moore's prose work - it's so exact in it's execution that it's not engaging to people who are not fans of the various writing styles he's approximating. But I don't hate any of it. I realize I won't be buying a copy of Fanny Hill or P.G. Wodehouse's books any time soon, but I doubt John Cleland ever imagined Fanny being chased by a giant erect penis while running inside a giant vagina (you really have to read this thing to believe it - you can understand why DC Comics was increasingly unnerved by it and eventually turned chicken), nor do I think James Bond was the nasty guy Moore believes he was, or whom Ian Fleming meant for him to be, or that Jack Kerouac meant for Dr. Sax to be the grandson of Fu Manchu and Dean Moriarty the Professor's descendant (but then again, who can tell when reading Beat "literature"?). I'm not too crazy about the Golliwog (I don't really understand a word he says), but I like Orlando and have taken a liking to Mina and Allan - Next to Batgirl and Spider-Woman, Mina Murray is in my top 5 of cool female comic book characters. That fact that we have seen her nude often is merely coincidental.

 I'm surprised he didn't add Paddington Bear into the soup. He's been around since the late 50's. The dolls/toyline, by the way, were launched by the parents of Jeremy Clarkson! I'm surprised there wasn't a Top Gear reference in the current Century:2009 (more on that below).

I was patient when it came to following Century, the recent 3-part arc that launched Moore's new publishing relationship with Top Shelf (it happens that LOEG is the only property from the ABC lineup that Moore and O'Neill owned and can take anywhere - due to the contract signed in negotiations for the LXG feature film - it's much more clear than the contract they signed for the Watchmen comic book, obviously; this is what the outcome should have been for that property). Timing is everything. It took about four years for this arc to end - my interest came back when it was announced that the final chapter would be set in 2009. So I got the first two installments a few months ago and brought part 3 last week.

I was not disappointed. The 2009 chapter is, in my opinion, the best installment of the series. You may not have read it yet and heard all the hype (that Moore and O'Neil skewer J.K Rowling) but the big shock is...they really don't. The Harry Potter books are high-profile, but part of an even larger target - the lack of originality and banality in pop culture. Watered-down remakes, revamps, adaptations, ripoffs, retreads...this one seems a bit more personal than what came before - certainly not a book you would have ever seen with the DC logo, or their front, the ABC star that was used for all of Moore's comics. I'm not going to give away a thing, here - if you're not buying any comics this year, reconsider and check this one out and only this one.  Yes, you'll still need Jess Nivens' annotations to help spot all the in-jokes and nods, but they're not as myopic or obscure as before. The thesis here is that our fiction parallels fact - the ups and downs, everything.

One last thing - upon reading this comic (and the issues before it, including The Black Dossier), one can't  help but notice that Moore and O'Neill are offering something new to mainstream comics - No, not the fact that their stories have influenced the last decade of superhero team comic books, but something that is very obvious and yet, not so obvious...weiners. Graphic depictions and usage of  the devil's trumpet. Usually, superhero comics focus on "Good Girl Art"/cheesecake/Boobs, but here in the LOEG, you'll probably see more raw sausage (in their natural casings) then in Magic Mike (according to Sara Underwood, this film about male strippers only offers a glimpse of one "dawg" - in a pump...I have no interest whatsoever in confirming this). Aside from the Gargantua and Pantagruel sex scene/chase I described above, most of the weenies are of average size - thankfully none were shown in the 3D sections offered in the Dossier -  we would've sued for damages to our eyes.

I see Joey Chestnut won the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest again this year...

No $#!+ Sherlock , Part 5 - "The Case That Was Always Open"

"The subject is hot on the trail of a pair of suspicious men in black when he is attacked from behind and administered a strange substance which physically transforms him into a first grader. When the subject confides  in the eccentric inventor Dr. Agasa, they decide to keep the subject's true identity a secret for the safety of everyone around him. Assuming the new identity of first-grader Conan Edogawa, the subject continues to assist the police force on their most baffling cases. The only problem is that most crime-solving professionals won't take a little kid's advice!"

This introduction appears at the start of any volume of Case Closed (Japanese title: Detective Conan). I suppose Robert E. Howard or Robert Jordan have a manuscript for Conan the Investigator squirreled away somewhere, so Viz Media had to make the change. The manga debuted in 1994, but the reprint in the U.S. debuted around 2004, when the Funimation-dubbed TV series debuted on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim. Due to the fact that the show regularly features children encountering gory crime scenes, it aired late into the early morning and the ratings stank. The show did gain a following in that time, as Funimation continued to release DVD's of the series (the first five seasons so far) and six of the twelve original feature-length movies. It's not clear if they plan to continue - the series is past the 300-episode mark and only the first 140 episodes have been released. The English dub is controversial in that so many of the stories feature mysteries with clues grounded in Japanese culture, particularly any stories involving coded messages. As a compromise, Funimation left the English subtitles alone, but that's a downer for me, because I tend to use captions and subtitles when I can't understand certain things that were said or if the quality of the audio is terrible. The subtitles in Case Closed do explain bits involving Japanese numbering or kanji, but they are not in-sync with the English dub, so it's like dueling translations!

Let's talk about the characters. Teenager Jimmy Kudo is like a young Ellery Queen - a brilliant amateur who encounters a mystery and manages to always find a police detective (Inspector Joseph Meguire) willing to bow down to his expertise. When he is transformed into Conan Edogawa, he becomes Encyclopedia Brown's kid brother - the smartest person in the room, but no one listens to him, so he uses a tranquilizer dart fired from his wristwatch to drug Private Eye Richard Moore and proceed to lip sync the solution using a vocorder concealed within his bow tie. This bit results in an uncharacteristically chatty Moore becoming known as "The Sleeping Sleuth" in part because he really is asleep!

Why is Jimmy/Conan tagging along with a rude,crude, abusive (Richard tends to slam his fist on Conan's head often and, notably, box his ears) alcoholic Private "Dick"? He believes that Richard's improved caseload will bring him closer to the dealings of The Black Organization , the mob syndicate/cartel/spy network (this is kept vague) whose members are all dressed in black and work under code names. the Men are named after liquors (Gin, Vodka, Rye, Bourbon) and the women are named after cocktails (Vermouth, Sherry). They all work for a mysterious boss who is yet to be identified/revealed. Their work as paid assassins involves the extensive use of poisons, one of which appears to have a rare side effect.

 Of the six agents I mentioned, Gin and Vodka are considered the main antagonists in the series - they were the ones who force-fed what they believed was a poison (compound APTX-469) to Jimmy, transforming him into Conan. Vermouth is actress Sharon Venture, a friend of Vivian Kudo (Jimmy's mother) who used a perfected variant form of the same reverse-aging serum to fake her death and pose as her "daughter" Chris Venture (that reminds me of when Lex Luthor cloned himself and posed as Alexander Luthor the 2nd in the Superman comics). Sharon knows that Conan Edogawa is Jimmy Kudo, but Conan blackmailed her into a pact where the two promise to keep each other's secret and protect each other from harm (this was in vol. 42 - on sale now!). Rye turned out to be an undercover FBI agent (Shuichi Akai) who became a friend and ally of Conan, but his cover got blown and he was seemingly killed off in a hit (it is widely believed that he is still alive, has adopted a new identity - Subaru Okiya - and, with Conan's permission, sublet Jimmy Kudo's now-vacant house).

Agent Bourbon's identity has not been revealed yet, but he has become the coolest character we-have-yet-to-see and launched a firestorm of speculation on the web.  What we know is this: he is supposedly a master sleuth and is convinced that Shuichi Akai is not dead (because only he can kill him) and has made a secret promise with Vermouth, who he is closest with in that organization. Gin calls him "Sherlock Holmes" and finds Bourbon's secretive nature annoying. Bourbon's assignment is to find the missing agent Sherry (Shiho Miyano), but his real assignment may be to find out if Akai is really dead. This appears to involve disguising as a scarred and bandaged Akai and testing the reaction of Akai's FBI cronies, who may have helped him fake his death if he is still alive. Right now, all the smart money wagering "Who is Bourbon?"  is on Tooru AmuroTooru is paying Richard to let him tag along as an apprentice. The bandaged "Scar Akai" makes his appearance whenever Tooru is nowhere in sight. Hmm...Hmm...

As for the "missing" agent Sherry...actually, she became a regular in the cast and, arguably, my favorite in the series. After Gin murdered her sister Akemi Miyano (a Black Organization agent who brainstormed a bank heist in a failed attempt to buy herself and her sister out), her younger sister Shiho Miyamo - a scientist who developed the anti-aging drug, thought she was committing suicide by taking a dose. Instead, as with Jimmy Kudo, Shiho transformed in a kid and fled. Having realized that this was what happened to the missing and presumed dead Jimmy Kudo, she arrived at his house and was welcomed by Dr. Agasa. He adopted her as a cover - with the name Ai Haibara (in the English manga, she is Anita Hailey - in the Funimation anime, she is Vi Graythorn - I suppose "Vi" stands for "Violet" ). In her dealings with others, she can be aloof and cynical - a very Wednesday Addams-type character - but she is not petty or petulant and is very personable. Most stories involving her give the series a snap, especially since Conan/Jimmy seems a bit too settled and not unnerved enough by his transformation. In fact, I usually enjoy any of the episodes/manga stories that have Conan/Jimmy teaming with other characters besides boorish Richard Moore and his drippy daughter (and Jimmy's almost-girlfriend) Rachel - Harley Hartwell (Jimmy's lookalike and friendly rival teen detective), The Junior Detective League (Conan's kid friends - George, Mitch, Amy and later, Anita/Vi) and Booker and Vivian Kudo (Jimmy's parents, who are pretty cool) or the Phantom Thief Kid (an Arsene Lupin-esque master thief and another doppelganger of Jimmy Kudo - he had his own series before creator Gosho Aoyama chose to focus on Detective Conan) .

And therein lies the weakness of the series. When you have a concept built around a false premise, there is no satisfactory payoff until the end and we would prefer it happen in the middle or right after volume 1! If Jimmy is restored, there is no Conan. If Anita/Vi is restored, Conan/Jimmy has nobody to play off. If Rachel becomes smart enough to figure out FOR SURE, or if Conan admits it face-to-face that he, Conan, IS Jimmy...well, I guess Richard would stop bashing this six-year-old on the head (seriously, it looks like that horrible act of child abuse is a beloved gag over there).If Samurai Jack finds a way back into the past, then his show is over. If LOST actually explains the island - well, it managed to choke anyway without offering a valid explanation. If Tony hooked up with Angela, then he'd really be the boss. There's no hint of the series spinning off into "Shinichi Kudo Casebook" or "The Jimmy Kudo Mysteries", though I have yet to see why not. We get endless twists and turns and new characters and questions and distractions and suffer from fatigue before coming back when it looks like some progress has been made.

 I'll opt to leave it open. I'll also let you give the series a try if you haven't read it - get Vol. 42 right now! That's a good one! I notice it's the only manga series that doesn't collect dust on the shelves for long...

Graphic Blandishment featuring Superman Issue #1

My pet theory about the origin of the words "Graphic Novel", is that the word 'Graphic' came from Will Eisner's book, Graphic Storytelling, and the word 'Novel' came from DC Comics habit of refering to issue-length comic book stories as "Full-Length Novel". Feel free to quote me on Wikipedia.

This "Full-Length Novel" jazz reminded me of how the Charlie Brown TV specials would sometimes credit animators under the words "Graphic Blandishment" instead of "Animators"/"Animation By:". An average issue of a comic book - a novel? No,no,no,no,no. We need to wrap this baby in a card stock cover and add offbeat story content before calling it novel! Now, ain't that sumptin'! Oh, and quintuple the cover price. I think I would've just settled for calling an average comic a Novel and calling it a day. "Yes Mother, I finished reading the latest Little Dot novel!"

The library had a copy of SUPERMAN: KRYPTONITE NEVERMORE! by Dennis O'Neil and Curt Swan (and, I suspect, key plot assistance by editor Julius Schwartz). It's not very good, but I didn't hate it. The best moment happens early on, when Superman takes a bite out of a chunk of green K as if it were an oversize Cap'n Crunch Berry. The book collects stories that attempted to sharply redefine Superman, but rather than modify the approach to storytelling, they opt for taking away his often overused weakness, and take away the range of his powers. None of the foes from his rogues gallery appear. Instead, the only suspense comes from an eerie doppelganger/adumbration of Superman made from sand that's more powerfull than him, but that ends in a cop-out. It wasn't Superman the whole time! It was some befuddled chap from Quarmm. And with that all sorted out, Denny bids the books adieu, and this trickly experiment becomes the stuff of online blogs and back issue fodder.

It's as though Denny didn't have it all figured out, and his afterward in the book offers no insight into each of the stories in this collection, just that the top brass at DC was hoping he would trap lightning in a bottle again, the way he had done with Batman, but not like his revamp of Wonder Woman...or Green Lentern/Green Arrow (actually, the latter two have become cult fan-favorites, they were poorly recieved at the time and come off dated - an aquired taste). I thought he fared better writing Superman team-up stories in World's Finest and DC Comics presents, where the pressure was off and he was free to just tell stories. By comparison, the stories here read like they were re-written by the editor to fit the wants and needs. It doesn't read like an O'Neil's script, except for the small scenes with Morgan Edge, Clark's then-new boss at the GBS network.

What the comics in this collection did achieve was the staus quo Julius Schwartz used for Superman comics throughout his run as editor. Morgan Edge, Clark Kent: GBS news reporter, odd one-shot villains, unusual monsters, Superman's self-doubt, Batman cameos - all that stuff figures in the comics for the next 15 years! This experiment didn't wipe away Superman's powers and weakness for long, but it did set the pace of the comics themselves. For a while, anyway.. ;) If your library has it, check it out.

Batman Deux - Comic Book Rehab Issue #1, Volume Deux

I found issue #2 of Batman. Since I did not find issue #1, I have to go along with the old idea that every issue is accesssible, even in a chapter of  a long arc (it rarely ever is, only in the sense that you observed some things that have happened).

We get a new villain, The Court of Owls...that sounds more like a Daredevil antagonist to me - he has a villain named the Owl, and he could use better villains...why not The Court Of Bats? Whatever. They've got it in for Bruce Wayne, and we get a neat sequence where Bruce Wayne (Batman) gets pushed out the window of his office building (a location which is always featured in the comics but never used in the films or tv series, possibly because of its egg-shaped peak, like a kind-of rejected design for the Daily Planet building). He survives the fall in a way that pays off the wordy (in teeny tiny print) first page.

We get a interesting action sequence involving some stolen statues aboard a helicopter with Batman following on motorcycle that I guess the writer was bored with, because he ends it abruptly, but I thought it was more entertaining then this dull CSI scene with an autopsy that was run-of-the-mill, oh, and a Nightwing cameo (in which we are reminded that he still exists in this new continuity) and a very dull character named Lincoln March, who willl join Tommy Monahan in the Batman-villains-who-introduce-themselves-in-their-civillian-guise-first category - but if I'm wrong, then hats off to Scott Snyder.

What we're left with is mostly middle and set-up. I wonder if the 1st issue had anything going on at all - was it just Batman swinging around, doing his "I am the Night" schtick before finding a dead body on the last page? We get a preview of a Batman Graphic Novel, Noel, which reads like a story I might have read before, but New-er-er or "Like New".  What does work is the art. If the script seemed leaden, the art never lets on that it is, and Greg Capullo gives Gotham a look that reminded me of old Legends Of The Dark Knight comics from the late-80's-early-90's

I remember joking that once Grant Morrison was off the Bat-books, the tone and format of the comics would go back to the 90's Batman, which had him going after street gangs, ersatz Fu-Manchu/Mola-Ram types and beefed-up thugs with gimmick names...well, it's back, and we can expect a rematch with Bane next spring.

Amazing Comic Book Rehab!

I'm Joseph Adorno. This is the commentary to my Comic Book Rehab Twitter page. If you have not seen my Twitter page yet, I reccomend you jump over to http://www.twitter.com/comicbookrehab and have a look. I'll be using this blog to explain myself often. If you're like me and jump to the commentary anyway, well, I'll be back with lots of posts shortly. Keep checking on me!