Review: Satellite Sam, Vol. 1; by Matt (overworked and undersexed) Fraction & Howard (I remember the days of black and white so I don’t use colour) Chaykin

Satellite Sam, Volume 1 by Matt Fraction
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Ugh. Seriously, I see what Image did…they showed you the flashy stuff (Saga, Walking Dead, Sex Criminals) the big writers (Fraction, BKV, Aaron) and they got you to pay for that, while also unloading on you a ton of mediocre stuff and some downright turds. But…I’ll still buy the next Humble Bundle, just for the value alone of the great stuff. I’m willing to suffer the shit to get to the gooey nougat centre.

Between successful/popular Matt Fraction writing, and old dog/well-known/respected Howard Chaykin doing the art, you figure Satellite Sam would be a winner.

Well, you’d be wrong.

I’m also starting to think that Matt Fraction is becoming a little obsessed with sex in comics. Sex Criminals had humour and a balance of lightness and more serious stuff, a mixture that goes down easy. This is just the seedy sex of the depraved behind closed doors 1950s.

I never watched Mad Men, but this seems like Mad Men the comic, in a TV producing environment instead of an Ad Agency.

I also have to admit a secret…while I respect Howard Chaykin, and can tolerate his stuff, I don’t really LOVE his style of art. In black and white, it’s hard to tell some of his characters apart, and frankly, between that and the storyline, I didn’t make much effort to.

Satellite Sam is a TV show, and the star is found dead in a flophouse with tons of dildos and lingerie all over the floor. His son discovers that he’s also got boxes and boxes of photos he’s taken of all the floozies he’s fucked over the years…including the Female Co-Star of the show (who’s a born again Christian!). SCANDAL!

But this book goes for titilation over substance, and fails. Yes there’s a kind of lurid, dirty appeal to the forbidden sex acts that we all now take mostly for granted (I mean most people are going to see 50 Shades of Grey for Valentine’s Day FFS), but at the same time, it’s kind of tired.

I don’t really care much for the head of the studio trying to expand his network, or his appeals to the FCC to get a bigger audience share, or the technology of early TV. It is interesting material for a proper history/biography book for sure, but it falls nearly as flat as the Superhero Union Contract Negotiations of COWL.

The son, Michael is a raging alcoholic, yet somehow, the murder of his father seems to spur him on to discover who he really was (other than a raging horndog). There’s lots of sex here, but no connections, just the equivalent of sad handjobs from homeless hookers. (Lono’s fave!)

No one is happy, everyone has vices, and there’s always positioning for power. Yawn. It’s obvious Fraction finds the early age of TV fascinating, and in this digital edition, we also get a conversation between Fraction and Chaykin about the 50s and early TV, which is more interesting that the whole of the first Volume.

Sex, booze, broads, TV, lies, scandal, coverups, somehow this all just falls pretty flat for me as a reader. I’m not really emotionally connecting to any character, they all seem pretty useless. Then as a reason to continue the series, or prolong it at least, they throw in the angle that it wasn’t a random crime of passion, but a murder that killed Michael’s father….DAA DUHHH DAAHHH!

I’m sorry, I would have liked to enjoy this, but it just feels like it’s pandering to a teenage audience who hasn’t figured out how to use PornHub yet. This would have totally worked on me at 14, for sure, but now it just comes across as cheap and makes you feel like taking a shower.

I think that might even be the aim, so ya, we get it, the 50s were just as depraved as today, but people felt the shame of keeping things under wraps and to themselves. I guess it’s up to you to decide if that’s better than nude celebrity selfies going viral or not.

I’ll be missing the rest of this on purpose, and I think maybe if Matt Fraction is so interested, he a Howard should just have a nice long sit down chat, and put out a podcast or something…

Sadly disappointing, again, like a sad handjob…2 in 2 days…not a good start to the week…at this rate I’ll have to start reading FF.

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Review: Elephantmen 2260, Vol. 1 : Memories of the Future, by some dude on acid.

Elephantmen 2260, Vol. 1: Memories of the Future by Richard Starkings
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Not entirely sure what they were trying to accomplish here..also, I’m not sure if this series has already been going on for a while (this was issues 51-56?) so confused there.

Jack Farrell is a PI investigating a double murder or a murder suicide…he can’t tell…he’s accompanied by what we discover and assume to be the ghost of his dead girlfriend, Scarlet. Ya…

In addition, we have Flask, a gigantic Hippopotamus/Human Hybrid, one of the titular “Elephantmen”. I am guessing I’ve missed a lot, and I think Flask is actually the main character in the regular series, but this is sorta a spin off?

Anyhow, they’re both detectives, oddly matched, then they go all Lethal Weapon/48 HRS/Buddy Cop while investigating things…

Flask is attacked by a robot, controlled by a woman who’s working for badguys…
Jack is still trying to figure out what Scarlet being around means, though he’s having trouble remembering details of what happened, but it appears he might be guilty of something to do with her death…

There’s a big conspiracy uncovered, and we see that there’s a whole lab of Women being used as rent-a-wombs for the evil corporation making more Animal Human Hybrids…illegally of course.

That’s when shit gets REALLY weird, and takes on a sort of Blade Runner feel, like who’s real, who’s not, is someone dreaming, who can I trust? Not even myself? All that sorta jazz vibe…It’s hard to keep track of, but there’s a big reveal near the end, and a secondary one that just confuses me a lot.

I think the oddball pairing of detectives was mildly entertaining, and the weirdness of dream/asleep/hallucinating was kind of interesting but hard to follow, or maybe I just didn’t want to really concentrate THAT hard…

Suffice it to say, it was interesting potentially, in this future Earth, but not interesting enough to warrant a return visit or Elephantmen most likely…

Just plain odd…

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Review: C.O.W.L. Vol. 1 – Principles of Power, by Kyle Higgins

C.O.W.L. Volume 1: Principles of Power by Kyle Higgins
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This is it, the first Stinker from my Image Humble Bundle…1 star seems a bit harsh, so 1.5, which means 2 on GR.

COWL is a piece of derivative work. It’s ripping off Watchmen, and every other book written about a team/group of heroes where things aren’t what they seem, and the relationships between everyone are actually pretty shitty.

On top of that, the art looks like a bad copy of Bill Sienkiewicz (from the Elektra Assassin book by Frank Miller in the 80s). Rod Reis, is he related to Ivan Reis? Ivan has done some pretty decent work (Papa Johns’ Aquaman for one), but Rod here? Not so much. In the same page, he’ll draw the same character’s face twice, and the guy will look 30 in one panel, and 55 in the next. There’s no continuity, and with the dull colour palette used, they become quite mirky, and hard to distinguish, and at some point I stopped really trying.

I know the art is meant to evoke some sort of seedy stuff, but this felt like a Frank Miller book, and that’s NOT a compliment in this case.

It’s too dark, but feels like a poseur. The subject matter just isn’t enough to wow or really grab me…I’m beginning to think that reading all this IMAGE COMICS stuff is great, because when it’s not up to snuff, it really stands out, but if I were reading stuff that were ho-hum, then the turds wouldn’t stink as much…if that makes sense.

As for the story, COWL is the Chicago Superhero Union. (Organized Worker League) Yup, after WWII, Chicago was run rampant with organized crime, so the returning vets/supes in Chi-town decided to set up this Superhero Union so they could all get dental and 2 weeks paid holiday. At the time there was a bunch of badguys, “The Six”…but this was late 40s-into the 50s.
However, it’s now 1962, and the last link to the Six is taken down by COWL heroes…so with the contract negotiations in place, it lets the Mayor of Chicago tweak his proposal, because they don’t need COWL as much as they did when the first contract was set up.

I shit you not, there’s more than 1 page devoted to the back and forth contract negotiations, and it’s dry as fuck. I mean I get it, I understand, and it’s a mildly interesting “What If?” but not to sustain a whole series…

Of course it also doesn’t help that the main heroes of COWL we meet are a mixture of burnouts, assholes, bullies, and an objectified woman. The closest thing to a ‘good guy’ are the 2 guys without powers; one has a son who thinks he’s a loser because of it, and the other is a former spy who thinks that something fishy is going on within COWL…

Of course, there is, and it’s not too hard to figure it out, and it’s not a spoiler to reveal…(someone inside COWL is trying to prop up the remaining villains so that COWL will still be relevant and can have a better negotiating position with the city…ya.) WOW that’s a blast of exciting reading yes?)

At one point, COWL even goes on Strike…so superheroes are walking the picket line. Those that aren’t are going on vendetta missions against the remaining organized crime figures, which is OK, because they secretly have some powered individuals working for them, one of whom kicked the shit out of the COWL dude with the son…

So it’s all murky, everyone is degrees of grey, and everyone turns on everyone when you think they are actually working together. There’s too many clichés here, including the Uncle Tom #2 in command Black guy who the White boss treats like his lackey.

It was a mildly interesting proposition, but when your intro pages include a map of all the city locations and districts (why?) and the roster of main characters, it just feels like extra info thrown at you so you’ll know/care more? I mean if it’s good, won’t you be able to figure it out on your own? The writer even knew it was hard to follow who’s who at the start, so that’s why you got the handy dandy guide…

This was a misfire that started to circle the drain when it got into union contracts and negotiation techniques…it feels like a fairly boring 80s TV episode from Magnum PI or Murder She Wrote, about a union boss trying to prop up his union and having it all fall apart and be unraveled.

I’d miss this one, because it’s not really all that pleasant, or good. I tried, I really did, but it’s not half as interesting as the premise or cover made it look. I did want to know about some characters, but there were too many of them, and things spread out too much, so we didn’t get enough background or info on any of them (there is a dossier file on each at the end of the volume, if you care to know any more, and that info would have been more interesting to put into the book than strikes and labour unions…).

At the end of the day, it’s not original enough, nor is the art good enough or memorable enough to make it relevant. I don’t need happy sunshine, but I’d rather if it’s going to be dark/grim that it at least be GOOD and well written. These just feel like a bunch of stereotypes thrown together and ruined by some bad decisions. I won’t be following the rest of this series (which has only produced 4 more issues since Sept 2014).

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Review: Wonder Woman Vol. 5 – Flesh; by Brian Azzarello

Wonder Woman, Vol. 5: Flesh by Brian Azzarello
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

First Pink Taco Buddy Read…! (Kudos to Katzoo on the graphics!)

Underwhelmed.
It’s more of the same shit, different day. I guess I mistakenly thought that the end of Vol. 4 had somehow resolved one of these issues…but not so much, also everyone acts the same, and BirdfacemanBlueGuy makes a great point, that WW is totally willing to accept Hera now that she’s mortal, even though she’s done some VERY BAD SHIT, but that apparently his one betrayal which turned out to be for the greater good is totally unforgivable? BINGO.

Then there’s stupid shit about people asking Diana if she’s going to keep being so trusting of people and she says something like yes, of course, it’s in my nature to expect the best from people…umm…have you met yourself in the Justice League? Cause you AIN’T the same broad.

The art is very colourful, but goes between OK and un-tolerable at points. The Olympian Greek Mythology Garbage is getting old. VERY OLD.

On a positive note, I was happy to see Orion turn up again, which gives us one of the few interesting dudes, yet he’s woefully underused, and meant to act the douche.

Why do we have to see the same fights, and exactly what we wanted to see (Diana become the God of War, which technically she did at the end of Vol. 4) never even happens slightly until the last pages/panels.

Also, how did Apollo take over Olympus if he’s so GDMF DUMB? And why does Dionysus still look like a Lesbian version of Gambit?

I’m sorry, there’s TOO MANY SIBLINGS of Wonder Woman.

Without the last few pages of the last book, and a bit of Orion, this is a 1-star book for me. I just don’t like it and I have no idea why I keep banging my head into the wall with it? Only for the Shallows.

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X-Force Vol. 1 Dirty/Tricks by Simon Spurrier (who? exactly.)

X-Force Volume 1: Dirty/Tricks by Simon Spurrier
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Ugh. Anyone who has read Remender’s X-Force run? Do Not Read This. It’s lame. Who the fuck is Marrow? Is she on meds or some shit? Frankly I’d much rather Cable, Betsy or Fantomex. However, the art, I’m just not feeling it at all. Fantomex also just becomes a 1 dimensional dog trying to hump Betsy’s leg. He deserves far better. Cable is not at all interesting or appealing here. I only give it 2 instead of 1 because I might have missed stuff since I pretty much scanned the 2nd half of this…just not for me at all. I guess Remender spoiled me.

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Review: Miracleman Vol. 2 The Red King Syndrome; by a Pretentious Twat.

Miracleman Book 2: The Red King Syndrome by Alan Moore
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Yawn. The pretentious English twat (original writer) Alan Moore…ugh. ripoff Captain Marvel often? Also, calling it childish tripe in your book isn’t a backhanded compliment or acknowledgement of the creators, it’s just you being a right cunt.

I haven’t read the first volume. So I might not be qualified to comment, but this did pretty much nothing for me…

I just hope the geniuses of today don’t disappear up their own assholes like Moore and Miller…

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Review: Preacher Vol. 8 – a Long-Winded Bag o’Shite’s a Comin. by Garth Ennis

Preacher, Volume 8: All Hell’s a-Coming by Garth Ennis
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This is another Ennis book that has been dragged on too long…the last volume, Salvation, was great…this? Not so much…back to homophobia, vampires, and the Church…oh and stupid violence. I rate this as 2 stars because Tulip has a great backstory, and because Jesse is still ok. Cassidy has always been a dick, how is this a revelation??? Thanks for the horrible reading day Garth!!

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Review: Animal Man Vol. 3 Rotworld; The Red Kingdom – by Jeff Lemire (and Scott Snyder to a lesser extent)

Animal Man, Vol. 3: Rotworld: The Red Kingdom by Jeff Lemire
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

***Green Theme Buddy Read with the Shallows…The Green is more Swampy’s territory, but it’s part of the trifecta with the Red and the Rot, and they’re all here…so ya. Plus Swamp Thing.***

Well…that was…terrible. Dark and depressing, I won’t be surprised if Buddy Baker becomes a raging alcoholic pill popper. Rot world was a crossover on the Dark-horror edge of the DCU spectrum….Animal Man, Swamp Thing, Constantine, Black Orchid, and so forth. There’s also lots of heroes who appear and get turned into zombies by the Rot…Buddy should have learned the best way to predict the future of your wife is to look at her mother…and they are both enormo-cunts. Like somehow it’s his fault that their daughter has powers? ThE real problem is that they spend more time chewing him out than listening to him or curing that crime against follicles that is Cliff…

The talking cat makes me think of Sabrina the Teenage Witch.

Swampy is more interesting because his life partner isn’t a fucking cunt. Also, when did she start looking like a librarian? I think they ugged her up on purpose. The art is also terrible. By the end everyone is just a mess of lines and smudges and blechy colours. Not pleasant to look at, way too many thought and speech bubbles and internal monologues.

Oh and to top it all off, even in a book he doesn’t appear in, Batman saves the world and the day. Yup. Also, the Justice League manage to be useless twats as well. I did enjoy Frankenstein showing up…I like a lot that New 52 has a mandate for Frank to be in 33% of everything.

This was also just dumb. I think I went onto autopilot about halfway through the book.

I won’t be rushing to volume 4.

Disappointing for sure. I also hate super kids. What do u think is going to happen if you have kids with a superhero dude? Idiots. Also, who brings there mother in law on a road trip and doesn’t leave her in Wichita? Dummy.

Just not worth it. Lots of DCU grit. But not at all pleasant. No point other than depressing me. Yay.

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Review: Avengers: Prelude to Infinity – by that Stoner, Jonathan Hickman

Avengers, Vol. 3: Prelude to Infinity by Jonathan Hickman
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Yet another case of the library only having Vol. 3 and not even having ordered 1 or 2! Yet, I read Thor Vol 2 the other day w/o 1 and it was great! So I took the chance here…

BIG Mistake.

This is so head scratching and confusing, I have no idea who the non Avenger Avengers are, who are all these cosmic types?

Hyperion? Huh? Captain Universe??? REALLY?

Gobbledygook about new evolution, dying world, eternal versus man, blah blah blah.

Kinda like coming in after the halfway point in a Terry Gilliam movie with absolutely NO CONTEXT.

Prelude to Infinity…OK I’m guessing INFINITY is THE CROSSOVER EVENT OF 201…insert number here.

No thanks.
Based on this I also don’t plan to check out the previous vols.

To put in context, I only gave this 2 because I don’t believe it’s fair to criticize a book too much when you are missing the first 10 chapters.

However…Hickman’s East of West is positively genius compared to this, and that left my mind just scratchy and dented.

This is a big fat “NO” for me.

I’ll stick to the Illuminati Avengers book instead.

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Review: A vs. X by Brian Michael Bendis and Friends.

Avengers vs. X-Men by Brian Michael Bendis
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Underwhelming.

I am glad I didn’t hold off reading all the stuff that comes after this (pretty much all of AvsX leads into the Marvel NOW! Relaunch-y-ish-type thing. Makes a bit more sense now, but I had already pieced it together based on HOW GODDAMN OFTEN THEY TELL US THAT THE PHOENIX FORCE WENT INTO THE X-MEN IT DID!

UGH.

You know what? The story served it’s purpose. I can see how some think it’s a bit lazy to bring Scarlet Witch out of nowhere to be part of this, but I enjoyed it. Even the characters are like WTF is SHE doing here? I’m willing to see this as a cyclical karmic balancing of House of M. However, I like that the answer has to do with Hope AND Scarlet Witch, not just one of them. It’s the cooperation fostered that I think should be the telling moment of the series.

Instead, it’s how quickly can shit escalate to 11.

Cap and Cyclops are pretty much the same character. “I will take the burden of leadership. I am a great leader of people, everyone counts on me”
Except then they both shit the bed in terms of actually sitting down and TALKING about this.

Of course the fighting is very cool.
The FIRST time…
The other problem is that NONE of the characters outside of about a dozen actually factor in at all.
(Cap, Tony, Logan, Cyke, Emma, Namor, the Rasputins, and a few others).
I was pleased to see Iron Fist get an actual speaking role! With some importance! It’s a first for Danny Rand in a real event book.

However, other than the 5 X-Men who get the Phoenix force, the rest of them are just shunned to the fringes of irrelevancy.
Maybe they’re more present in other AVX books? But, other than a little bit of Storm, and a touch of Rogue, all we get is the 5 of them going all supernova.

This is a spot where I feel like they lost the chance to give Magneto a much more crucial part (even though they did in a way).

There should have been a LOT more focus on Logan and his pull between the 2, especially since both Scott AND Steve treat him like a loose cannon asshole, when in fact, he’s probably the most realistic about the whole issue.

The thing is, this book misses a LOT of opportunities to actually go into character relationships. Other than Black Panther/Storm and a little bit of Scarlet Witch/Vision, we don’t get much on the relationships here, much is just thrown out the window so the artists can do punchy mcpunchersons again.

I think with the writers here (Bendis, Aaron, Brubaker, Hickman and Fraction), they have the Top of Marvel’s heap, yet it seems like they were forced to do this one, and the different voices actually take away from the cohesion of the whole story. I would like to blame some of this on editorial staff, because otherwise it means some of my favourites actually wrote some horridly turgid shit here.

There’s just such a rich history to delve into here, and it just turns into: how many ways can Cap throw Avengers at Cyke and the Phoenix 5 until Tony Stark figures some shit out?

Oh ya, and where the F was the FF? (Other than Benny) You think Reed is going to let this all happen without involving himself or his brain? The FF is the perfect go between here, because they’ve served as Avengers, but they’re separate and they understand what changes like mutations do (ESPECIALLY BENNY!).

Oh and, I’m hoping someone will explain why Hulk doesn’t show up until the end? They make a huge deal of Cap asking him for help, and then he’s barely used at all…was this a point at which Banner was unavailable? Because otherwise, he, Pym, McCoy and Stark should have been working on some answer.

In the end, what might have been will never be known, because this milquetoast shit happened instead. Other than making Scotty into the biggest badguy since Magneto (irony of ironies, Erik was the one trying to talk him down). I am glad to see that they took the events here and used them to the best they could (Scott/Logans X-Men, Uncanny Avengers, etc.)

I just really wish they’d DONE something instead of throw every character at the books and hope things would stick. We really didn’t need Luke Cage, Daredevil, Red Hulk, and a lot of others if they weren’t doing anything. It should really have been called “The entire roster of Avengers and reserves from the last decade+ versus the Mutant Power Couple, Namor and the Ruskie Sibs.
(speaking of that, who decided that Peter would have ABSOLUTELY NO PERSONALITY WHATSOEVER???? Based on who he is/was, he should have been the first one to reject the Phoenix power. There’s some few lines about not liking Ilyana’s angry rage, but that’s about it).

OK I’m going to stop, because I realize I could go on and on raging about what went wrong here forever. That’s not the best result for a major event book like this.

Do yourself a favour and focus on the aftermath instead:

Prof X is dead at Cyclops’ hand, which opens the door to him being the badguy mutant outlaw, which actually suits him better and makes him more interesting. So in that regard, SUCCESS! Now to wait for the return.

Miss this and save the headaches.

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