🚀 go-pugleaf

REVIEWED IN THIS ARTICLE:

MEGATON MAN		MARVEL UNIVERSE DELUXE		JOURNEY
BATMAN: THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS				

=================================================================


Spring is here, and both the weather and some of the excellent
offerings (many from DC -- if I'd told myself that ten years ago...)
seem to have raised my spirits considerably.  And notice!  The
Moriarty comics rating scale hasn't changed!  I'm calling it
CLASSIC Comic Grades (TM)...

------------------------------------------------
"There *are* standards.  If you can't see one, you *make* one and stick to
 it come Hell or high water -- until you see a BETTER one."
						-John Gaunt

        "Well, if you can't believe what you read in a comic book, what *can*
          you believe?!" 
                                -Bullwinkle J. Moose
****************************************************************************
|==>A< One of the best of the year. Example: ZOT #8                        |
|==>B< A very good issue, one of the best of the month (usually 6/month)   |
|==>C< A well done, entertaining issue.  Satisfying.  Example: Jon Sable   |
|==>D< Boring, but with a few good points.  Example: SQUADRON SUPREME      |
|==>F< Boring AND stupid or childish.  Example: Secret Wars.               |
|==>Z< Actually offensive.  Example: Several of Haney's UNKNOWN SOLDIERs   |
****************************************************************************


MEGATON MAN #8 [C-]:

The storyline here (what little of it there is) is disolving rapidly,
and I'm not sure the bizarre humor is enough to support it alone. 
However, Simpson's art is -- especially in the backup strip BORDER
WORLDS, which I'm beginning to take a shine to.  The spaceships,
the characters and some of the outer worlds in BORDER WORLDS
are very nicely done, though some of the farcical elements of
MEGATON MAN seem to taint the characters faces.

MARVEL UNIVERSE #7 [D]:

Took a look at this -- what's so deluxe about it?  The Baxter
paper?  I admit that it is nice for catching up on characters whose
titles I don't want to read, due to lackluster story or art.  But this
deluxe bit is rather silly.

JOURNEY #25 [D+]:

Has Loebs lost interest in this book?  The art looks like it was
sketched, and the story is just dragging on and on... I enjoy new and
different art techniques (Grell's work in JON SABLE, etc.), but this
is beginning to look like someone who has too many irons in the
fire, and is taking it out of work time...

BATMAN: THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS [A-]:

I think anyone who reviews anything eventually reaches a point
where they grade things on two general features:  emotional effect
and technique.  Emotional effect is how much you enjoyed it, or
how much you liked it.  Technique is how well done the piece of
work is, comparing it to all the previous stuff you've watched or
read.   The difference between these two can be quickly
encapsulated in the difference between a "favorite" comic and a
"best" comic.  Frank Miller's work here definately rates an 'A' in
technique, and he just about rates an 'A' in emotional effect.

Cripes, I could go on for pages about this book.  The artwork --
taken on a panel-by-panel basis -- has the classic Miller/Janson
quality "you've come to expect" -- great lighting, stark
perspective, and a gritty feeling to it.  But it's when you see how
Miller takes these pictures, edits them, mixes them, and then pulls
a plot, a story, a mood and your undivided attention out of them all
that is really stuns you.  There are accomplished artists and
writers in the comics field today, and a few people who meet both
qualifications.  But after this book, and his current work on
DareDevil, I doubt there is anyone (obligatory exception of Will
Eisner -- Mea Culpa) out there today who does both with as much
feel for melding graphics and text into a narrative force.  I keep
wanting to compare it in cinematic terms -- but that is another
visual medium, with different limitations and strengths.  Others
-- Hitchcock, Kubrick, Welles -- are the people reknowned for
grabbing the reins of their particular art form and making it jump
through hoops.  Miller will be known as one of their counterparts in
the comic art form.

Examples:  The sequence with Waynes memory of his parents'
murder, interspliced with news footage -- fantastic graphics, a
palapable beat and rhythm, colors which emphasize what's going
on, culminating in the strobe-like approach of the bat towards the
window -- Black, white, grey and red.  How many times have we
seen Wayne's parents murdered in the comics?  Lots.  Tons.  Hell,
it's ingrained.  It's the same old story here, but you have to
condense it down to the bare minimum plotline to notice any
similarites to past flashbacks.  The scene with The Joker
beginning to regain his smile (has he had a lobotomy?)...  Well.  You
get the idea.

And the emotional impact is here, too.  The old Dirty Harry/Death
Wish/"God the cities have gone to Hell why doesn't somebody DO
something" feeling, which has been played to banality in books like
Vigilante, Punisher, etc., is done just right.  And when The Batman
(notice the capital letters, dammit!) comes back, he is THE
BATMAN.  Full-blown nostalgia (I loved the sequence with the
teenage girl he saved looking across the skyline until she sees the
BatSignal.  Not campy a'tall...).  He doesn't shoot or kill (unless he
has to), but he hurts.  Hurting, to him, is implicit in punishment,
and that's what he's out to do (besides preventing crime).

I also liked the touches in the newscasts and the on-the-streets
interviews; Miller has played the TV sequences just right, playing
up all the problems and ugliness in the media today with very
little amplification (watch a local TV newscast -- they are really
terrible).  Also, the "future-speak" is very nice -- phrases which
we can divine but which are not used in our slang today.  These
give you a feeling that this is another period, and not just 1980
with newer tinkertoys.

Get this book.

				 "But isn't there some
				  other way to call him?"
							 "At least a dozen."
				 "Then WHY?"
							 "To let them know,
							  Merkel, to let
							  EVERYONE know.
							 "Hit it."

                                        Moriarty, aka Jeff Meyer
ARPA: fluke!moriarty@uw-beaver.ARPA
UUCP: {uw-beaver, sun, allegra, sb6, lbl-csam}!fluke!moriarty
<*> DISCLAIMER: Do what you want with me, but leave my employers alone! <*>