Mr. X Goes To Washington

The first X omnibus surprised me. Though I’m not a superhero fan, I liked X’s dark tone and focus on mafia and political machinations within the corrupt city of Arcadia. In the middle the book lost focus with the inclusion of Dark Horse’s other heroes, but it got back on track at the end. I was intrigued enough to immediate start in on the second omnibus.

And that’s where the series dies. The second half of X’s adventures is awful. X’s quest to seize control of the city is pushed to the back burner as guest appearances from the rest of “Comic’s Greatest World” take control of the series. If I were collecting this as the issues were released, I would have dropped the book somewhere in the Washington DC storyline.

John Ostrander wrote a celebrated Spectre series in the nineties. It was firmly in the DC universe, subject to the same dumb crossovers and guest appearances as other superhero books. But Ostrander was always able to balance this, keeping the tone of his series firmly in place and remembering whose name was the title of the book. Steven Grant wasn’t able to do that here. In multiple issues, X is relegated to a guest appearance in his own book. And the other characters introduction were handled clumsily. I’m not sure if writer Steven Grant lost his grip or was under editorial pressure to feature other superheroes, but either way it is intrusive and destructive to X’s own book. And let’s be honest, most of the CGW superheroes were pretty dumb.

On top of the story telling slip-ups, the new regular art team of Javier Saltares and Andrew Pepoy is awful. X was plagued by changing art teams. Some good (Doug Mahnke and Jimmy Palmiotti, Chris Warner and Tim Bradstreet), some not so good. Having a standard team should have been a good thing. But the team they settled on just didn’t fit the tome of the character. Look at the cover for the first issue of X or at any of the covers Frank Miller did for the series. X’s world should be full of inky black shadows, grimy back alleys and mystery. Instead, the backgrounds are typically squeaky clean and brightly lit. And vanilla. Arcadia had no distinct personality to it.

Saltares is just not a very good artist. All of his characters are muscle-bound and stand in awkward poses, making fists at inappropriate times. He is unable to draw two average people standing in a room, talking (which is a major handicap in a series dealing with back room politics and mafia power plays). Also, his style is a grab bag of the worst of the nineties. Poor anatomy, speed-lines everywhere, pouches, pouches, pouches. It’s a mess. I imagine Dark Horse wasn’t able to attract top of the line artists for their superhero titles. But they should have tried a little harder to match the skills of the artist with the needs of the series.

The character and background of X remains a good seed for a series. Perhaps if Dark Horse wasn’t so eager to cram an entire new superhero universe down reader’s throats, X could have gone somewhere. If each title were allowed to stand on its own, with other characters only being mentioned or included as the story required it, Comics Greatest World might have gotten some legs and X might have lasted.

X has been rebooted and the new series looks promising. Let’s hope Dark Horse has learned some lessons.

X Marks the Spot?

I've started reading the old Dark Horse series X (collected in X Omnibus 1&2). I didn't read any of the Comic Greatest World titles when they were released, because I thought the idea of Dark Horse doing a superhero line was distasteful. They should be better than that! At the time that Eclipse and the other indie publishers were folding, they stood out as a success. Doing a line of publisher owned superhero titles seemed cheap. I still feel that way, but decided to give the omnibus a try because Steven Grant wrote the entire series and the Wikipedia summary sounded promising. I also appreciate that the omnibi save me the trouble of having to track down spin-off/crossover issues that continue the story (my #1 gripe about superhero comics).

The series itself is pretty good, so far (I’m about halfway through the first omnibus). X isn't really a superhero. He is a murderous vigilante attacking both corrupt city officials and Mafiosi, who’s ultimate motives remain unclear. X isn’t necessarily fighting for truth, justice and the American Way. And if he is, at least he’s not spouting off about it. Though full of over-the-top “comic bookiness”, the series is grounded by dealing with street level issues. No aliens, other dimensions or gateways to hell. Even X’s costume is realistic enough to be almost embarrassing. Seriously, you could whip up a version of it at home, pretty easily. X sometimes looks like an incredibly violent luchadore. This believability is ultimately a plus and I appreciate the series gritty and violent tone.

The weakness of the title is the universe it takes place in. Dark Horse was determined to launch a whole universe at the same time, which means that characters from other titles pop-up, sometimes uncomfortably. If Dark Horse had slowed it down, launched only X and then let the universe expand more organically, it would have lasted longer. I think that if X were started as a stand-alone showcase of what Dark Horse would like to do with a superhero universe, it would have become a very popular title. I think the yoke of Comic Greatest World right out of the gate bogged the series down and stole some of its thunder.

As it stands, X is an intriguing story, marred by the occasional disruptive ‘guest appearance’.

It's a bird! It's a plane! It sucks!

As an embarrassment from comics' glorious past, does anyone remember the Super-mobile? Man, even as a kid I knew that contraption was goofy! Aside from being an excuse to sell toys, why would Superman need a vehicle? Superman is a demigod on Earth. And the fists on the front just shout "F you! We know this is stupid!"

Bang, Bang, I am the warrior!

Last night I read the Dynamite Comics adaptation of The Warriors. I was disappointed. I think the movie lends itself well to adaptation, but the adaptation wasn't a very good one.

The writing was lackluster and didn't do a very good job of conveying who was who within the story.

But the biggest letdown was the artwork by Chris Dibari. It just was not quite ready for prime-time. The action scenes were really badly handled, which for this story is a death-knell. Then the art was handled by a different artist for the last issue, which seemed really unprofessional. When there are personnel changes in a miniseries, it just feels like the editor didn't have his shit together. The publisher couldn't have been too much under the gun to rush out their adaptation of a film from 1979. Why not take the extra time and publish a professional product?

I haven't read a lot by Dynamite and I know they have some big shots that have done work for them (Kevin Smith, Garth Ennis, Matt Wagner), but sometimes they feel like a modern day Charlton, putting out lots of fair to middlin' books and occasionally (almost accidentally) stumbling upon greatness.

Dream of following the path of the setting sun that leads to El Dorado and the Mysterious Cities of Gold.

The Mysterious Cities of Gold is a show I remember seeing bits and pieces of when it was broadcast on Nickleodeon. The series was released on DVD and I ordered it based on my nostaligia and boy I'm glad I did!

A unique show, a French-written, Japanese animated story about a young Spanish boy brought to the New World by a group of conquistadors trying to find El Dorado. It feels sort of like an Indiana Jones story set in the 1500's with mild science fiction elements.

I'm happy and surprised at how well it holds up. The Spanish are portrayed as greedy and brutal, the Inca are portrayed in a sympathetic light. Tao, who looks like he would normally be the comedy relief is actually the smartest of the group, a descendant of the lost race of Hiva. The complicated feelings Esteban has for Mendoza (who is both a father-figure and a villain) is deeper than you would normally find in a kids show. I also appreciated that the children in the show were voiced by actual children, rather than adults. And the music is to die for.

The discs have a few extras. Nothing outstanding. I wish the video had been remastered. A couple of the episodes were noticeably darker than the rest. But really, the fact that the show has been released on DVD at all is a miracle. Highly, highly recommended. They don't make kids shows like this anymore.

Too cool to live, too hip to read?

So I’ve decided to reread Kid Eternity. Both the Grant Morrison miniseries and the follow-up Vertigo series by Ann Nocenti and Sean Phillips.

The Morrison miniseries holds up pretty well. The first half of the first issue (I have a feeling it was originally intended to be a six issue miniseries, because each issue has two chapters, split exactly evenly. Did DC lack faith in the mini?) was kind of a confused jumble. Things don’t start shaping up until the second half of the first issue. But as a whole, the series comes together and is still well worth reading. And Duncan Fegredo’s art is beautiful, though sometimes a little too dark for its own good.

I have good memories of the ongoing series from when it was originally released. One of the first wave of original ongoing Vertigo titles, along with the Black Orchid series, if memory serves.

My reread was not pleasant. The art is still very good. I like Sean Phillips style, though at some points it seems rushed. But Ann Nocenti's writing… The first issue's story is interesting, though it could have served a little better as an introduction. The series was released two years after the miniseries and that mini never exactly set the world on fire. Still, the storyline was interesting. There were lots of likeable bits and characters, gossipy clergy and philosophical hobos.

But oh goodness, friends and neighbors. There was this all-pervading layer of hipness laid over the top that wasn’t just cheesy, it distracted from the book. I could practically feel Ann’s elbow in my ribs, pointing out how 'edgy' and with it the book was. The characters are so hip they become unrealistic in their actions. And they aren’t as likeable as they should be. I was rooting for Dog’s painful death within a page of his introduction.

Honestly, the series was terrible. It rambles on with no clear goal,. That doesn't have be bad. I enjoy a good day in the surreal life series, like Peter Milligan's Shade the Changing Man became. But Kid Eternity reads like Ann pulled a bunch of philosophical quotes and then used William Burroughs cut-up technique to write the comic. None of the posturing felt natural to the story that was (in theory) being told. Instead it was so intrusive, it wrecked the series. Threads are started, meander and never go anywhere. Characters just disappear (Dog was maddening, but he then vanishes without explanation). The series noodles on like this for the first eight or nine issues (what would be over half of the series run).

Somewhere around issue 10, the series finds it's feet. There is actually a coherent tale being told. There are still philosophical discussions, but they don't overwhelm. But by then, the writing was on the wall. I wonder how the series would have fared had Ann written it this way from the beginning.

The pleasure/pain of the Cenobites and the law of diminishing returns...

Cursed to spend eternity as an obsolete format

I try to avoid horror movie series, or any movie series, really. An enjoyable and original movie is milked and repeated until every last remnant of what made the original good has been drained. But a friend has challenged me to watch all the Hellraiser films since they are currently available streaming on Netflix. Since I'm a glutton for punishment, I've watched the first three. I'll watch the rest,

The first one (aka: 'the good one') is a genuine classic that I've seen numerous times and will watch again. I didn't bother watching it again for this run through.

The sequel, Hellbound, was a shadow of the first. But at least it retained some of the pretentious artiness of the first one.

But the third one, Hell on Earth was just awful, The movie was just bad. Also, Pinhead talks way too damn much and is emotional. He loses a lot of his menace. Honestly, he comes off like Freddy Kruger's brother. I don't think the people that made this one really 'got' what Clive Barker was trying to do with his movie.