Sometimes
I read or watch things quicker than I have time – or motivation, or
perhaps even focus – to sit down and do a full blog post. Nothing
against whatever those items are. I feel a compulsion to blog
something for virtually everything, but I don't want this to turn
into a barrage of short posts. Hence periodic “Quick Hits.”
This
is a collection of various recent works for Marvel Comics done by
Alan Davis, who is one of my favorite artists. His style I would
characterize as a combination of Neal Adams and John Byrne, with a
dash of elegant smoothness of line all his own. Here we find three
annuals from 2012 – Fantastic
Four Annual
#33, Daredevil
Annual
#1, and Wolverine
Annual
#1, along with a Thor
special from a few years back, Thor:
Truth of History.
The three annuals actually form a single story arc although each can
be read on its own, and tie into one of my favorite properties
created by Davis, ClanDestine,
a half-djinn
English family/reluctant super-team. I like team books; I like
family sagas; I love England – ClanDestine
is a natural for me. In these stories we learn more about the “black
sheep” of the group, Vincent Destine, whose history and fate always
hung over the original 1990s series and a subsequent 2000s
mini-series like a pall. I'm not sure how the Thor
special fits in, although there is one minor character who also
appears in the Daredevil
Annual.
Probably it's more that it was another work by Davis that could be
thrown in to make a decent-sized collection. I'm not complaining;
anything by Davis is good with me, and this story has its own special
charm, presenting a secret history of the Sphinx as well as hilarious
miscommunications between Thor and the Warriors Three and denizens of
ancient Egypt.
I
picked this up on a whim on Free Comic Book Day, based largely on the
overwhelmingly positive reception and sales it enjoyed when it was
released the previous month. Again, it's a team
book/intergenerational family saga, so in that respect it would seem
a natural for me. Being from a second-tier publisher that I don't
get a whole lot from, it didn't really hit my radar during
solicitations/pre-ordering, and some of Mark Millar's work I find a
bit obnoxious – in fact, not too long before I actually picked this up I was
actually turned off
by the solicitation text for issue #2, coming in June: “Celebrate
the 75th
anniversary of Superman this month by buying this frankly much-more
interesting book by superstar creators Mark Millar and Frank
Quitely.” (Perhaps that's not Millar's pitch, but I have a very easy time seeing it as his.) I'm quite impressed with this first issue,
however, and will probably continue getting it if only in digital.
Valiant's
string of hits revamping their early 1990s flash-in-the-pan universe
continues with this tale of supernatural encroachment set in
appropriately atmospheric New Orleans. Here are collected the first
four issues. It's not my favorite of the new Valiant – that place
is still held by Archer
and Armstrong,
but it is solid nonetheless and I'm staying with it in trade.
Not
to be confused with the upcoming new Superman
title,
Superman Unchained
(which title I hate,
by the way). Here is about an hour-and-a-quarter animated adaptation
of Geoff Johns' and Gary Frank's story arc collected as Superman:
Brainiac
– which of course led directly into the year-long 2009-2010 New
Krypton
event. This story ends quite differently than the source, however –
Kandor is not restored to full-size on Earth, nor does Pa Kent die.
Lacking that emotional punch in the gut at the end, this movie is
good nonetheless, if only for hearing Stana Katic and Molly Quinn
(Kate Becket and Alexis Castle from Castle)
voicing Lois Lane and Supergirl. The most unexpected moment came
soon after Brainiac had shrunk Metropolis, and stood gazing down into
the now-bottled city:
Cheers! -- and Thanks for reading!
No comments:
Post a Comment