Wonder Woman: Godwatch

Wonder Woman: Rebirth: Volume 4: Godwatch (2017): written by Greg Rucka; illustrated by Bilquis Evely, Nicola Scott, and others; collects Wonder Woman: Rebirth #16, 18, 20, 22, 24, and part of Wonder Woman: Rebirth Annual 1:

Writer Rucka's second run on Wonder Woman ends in this volume, possibly due to exhaustion. Since the Rebirth relaunch, Wonder Woman has appeared twice a month. And the stories alternate every issue, switching between time periods.

Chronologically, the order of the four tpb Rebirth volumes is 2, 4, 1, and 3. But the past history stuff would spoil material in the present day, so preferred reading order is 1-4. But you may need to refresh your memory with 1 and 3 before reading 4, as 4 bridges the gap between Volume 2 (Wonder Woman: Rebirth: Year One) and the 'present-day' material in volumes 1 and 3. Got it? I'm not sure I do...

Rucka is a great Wonder Woman writer so long as one wants a Wonder Woman who skews a bit adult in terms of her 'jobs.' Yes, she's an icon of hope and a super-warrior. But she's also an ambassador to Man's World from the Amazon island of Themyscira. And a best-selling writer. And a capable administrator! Truly she is a Wonder Woman!

Various threads are tied off here, or more fully explained. A corporate nemesis Rucka created for Wonder Woman back in the early oughts, Veronica Cale, is explained more fully here, as are the origins of Cale's computerized attack dog Dr. Cyber and some back story involving Ares, Phobos, and Deimos that would have spoiled several reveals in Volume 3.

It's enjoyable stuff, though definitely not a standalone volume. Bilquis Evely takes over as full-time penciller on the even-number WW issues in this volume. Evely is not as strong a penciller as Nicola Scott, but the art is still engaging and strong in terms of composition and panel-to-panel contiuity. In all, recommended.

Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol Volume 3

Robotman talks to Crazy Jane

Doom Patrol Vol 3 (1992-93/Collected 2017): written by Grant Morrison; illustrated by Richard Case, Scott Hanna, Stan Woch, Ken Steacy, Philip Bond, and others: Grant Morrison's great run on Doom Patrol rolls to its conclusion. Credit to primary penciller Richard Case, too, for a straightforward cartooning style that made the weirdness weirder, in the tradition of Steve Ditko on Dr. Strange.

The Brotherhood of Dada is up first, taking their Magic Bus across America in order to get Mr. Nobody elected President. Then the interlocking arc of The Doom Patrol's Real Enemy and The Candlemaker finishes Morrison's run with horror, humour, and an emotional coda that still brings manly tears from my eyes. All this and The Empire of Chairs!

A bonus here is the ridiculous Doom Force Special being reprinted here, a rare one-off that I missed at the time, and every time after until now. Morrison parodies the Marvel Mutant Madness of the early 1990's, something relevant to anyone who's seen Deadpool 2 and its use of X-Force. Morrison takes the piss on Marvel's mutants, to the extent that it's a bit shocking that he would become a writer of X-Men in 2001. What are the special powers of X-Force? THEY'RE NOT MUTANTS!!!!

As weird as Morrison can be, he wears his heart on his sleeve when it comes to Cliff 'Robotman' Steele's heroic effort to save a world that, as a doctor says to Cliff, "he doesn't believe is worth saving." 

And when it comes to Crazy Jane and Cliff's quest to find her in a multiverse of awful Earths. And when it comes to Danny the Street's efforts to create a world of magic and mystery for all the outcasts and 'losers' to live, safe from the horrors of the late Bush years. Read them all and see why I say Highly Recommended.

Review of Volume 1
Review of Volume 2

Action Comics: 80 Years of Superman (2018)

Action Comics: 80 Years of Superman: The Deluxe edition (2018): edited by Paul Levitz: Not Action Comics 1000 but a companion volume. With Action Comics the first mainstream American comic book to reach 1000 issues, DC released both a special anniversary issue and this thick volume of reprints, the latter containing one never-before-published story from the Shuster studio, and a new story by editor Paul Levitz and legendary artist Neal Adams.

Created by Cleveland teenagers Jerry Siegel and Canadian ex-pat Joe Shuster (cousin of Frank Shuster of Wayne and Shuster), Superman came to life in 1932 and was then met by complete indifference from the comic strip syndicates for the next 6 years. 

Finally, what would become DC Comics bought Superman from Siegel and Shuster for less than a thousand dollars in 1938. In Action Comics 1, cover-dated June 1938, Superman ignited the superhero genre. Everything with American superheroes springs from that moment, this creation of Siegel and Shuster.

Neal Adams (him again!) led the battle in the 1970's to get more compensation for Siegel and Shuster beyond that initially paltry sum. Time Warner, DC's corporate overlord, caved to a certain extent, granting the Cleveland duo a pension. More lawsuits and settlements would follow over the years.

Here we are, 80 years later. Action Comics has reached 1000 issues, though recently it wasn't always numbered that way as DC restarted the numbering in 2012 for reasons I won't bother explaining before returning to the original numbering (folding the new numbering in as well). Detective Comics should have gotten here first, but Action Comics was a weekly for a year back in the 1980's. Thanks, Action Comics Weekly!

Paul Levitz has assembled 300+ pages of stories, essays, and covers. It's solid work -- and I don't think this type of anniversary volume is easy to assemble, as Levitz had to serve history as well as artistic achievement. Thus, this isn't The Best of Superman.

For one thing, Levitz was charged with presenting the other recurring DC heroes who first appeared in the pages of Action Comics (Vigilante, Zatara the Magician, Supergirl, Human Target). For another, the book emphasizes Firsts and Anniversaries along with major stories. That still leaves lots of material.

So pretty much all the great writers and artists are here, though some are by necessity omitted. The raw power of the first two Superman adventures by Siegel and Shuster still compels, to the extent that one wishes Superman would return to his left-wing, agit-prop roots, when stopping a domestic abuser and saving a wrongly convicted woman from the electric chair were more common moments for the Man of Steel than punching it out with some angry-ass super-villain or another.

Oddly, the book doesn't present any of the two-page Superman stories from Action Comics Weekly, I assume because they presented a serialized story in emulation of the Sunday full-page comic strips.

In any case, there's a lot here to delight both a Superman aficionado and a casual reader. The reproduction of the art is generally good, not always easy when the originals don't exist (the muddiest looking reprint comes from 1978, which is a shame because the story is a humdinger of a 40th anniversary issue). A Joe Kelly-penned, many-artist-illustrated anniversary story from the oughts is excellent. A never-before-printed story from the Shuster Studio is a rare find, as is Marv Wolfman's tale of how he rescued it from the garbage. Paul Levitz pens an original story to end the volume, illustrated by comic-book-art Titan Neal Adams.

The essays are fine, too -- none match Ray Bradbury's text piece from Superman 400, but that's a pretty high standard to meet. So all in all, a satisfying volume that I'd be happy to read at twice the length. Long may the Reign of the Superman continue! Highly recommended.

The Collected Valerian Volume 1

Valerian Volume 1 (1967-69/ Collected 2017): written by Pierre Christin; illustrated by Jean-Claude Mezieres; translated by Jerome Saincantin: Before it was a blockbuster financial bomb of a movie directed by Luc Besson, Valerian was a beloved French comic strip ('Bande Dessinee' or 'BD' for short). It began in the late 1960's and influenced Besson and many others French and otherwise.

This volume collects the first three Valerian story arcs. Thankfully, as anyone can attest who lived through the awful English translations of major European comics appearing in Heavy Metal in the 1980's, the translation here is excellent.

Writer Pierre Christin and artist Jean-Claude Mezieres start off slowly, but by the third adventure ("The Empire of a Thousand Planets"), they've really hit their stride. Valerian is a science-fiction adventure set in the far future. Agent Valerian can travel through both time and space to protect his present day, and he does, recruiting medieval peasant Laureline in the first adventure. The first two adventures involve time travel and are intermittently enjoyable.

By the third adventure, Jean-Claude Mezieres's art has progressed immensely from the awkward cartooniness of the first two adventures. Things are still cartoony, but Valerian and Laureline no longer look like Keane kids. His visuals of alien planets and space battles also take a great leap forward. The third adventure is thoroughly engaging. It would have made a great movie. Too bad Besson chose to throw a bunch of Valerian adventures into a blender and then throw the result on the screen.

Christin's writing doesn't have as far to go as the art, but he has also improved markedly by the third adventure. One can see how the strip became beloved. It may have elements of the then-contemporary and the classic science-fiction strip, from Barberella back to Alex Raymond's beautifully illustrated Flash Gordon of the 1930's, but Valerian is also its own comic strip. BD, that is. Laureline and Valerian are hyper-competent without being boring, and the third adventure involves a pretty solid 'Twist' towards the end.

I don't know that I'll revisit Valerian. But I may -- it's certainly superior by the end of this first volume to an awful lot of science-fiction comics. And the second story arc demonstrates that even French comic-strip creators love them some Jerry Lewis. Recommended.

Isle of Dogs (2018)

Isle of Dogs (2018): written by Wes Anderson, Roman Coppola, Jason Schwartzman, and Kunichi Nomura; directed by Wes Anderson; starring the voices of Bryan Cranston (Chief), Koyu Rankin (Atari), Edward Norton (Rex), Bob Balaban (King), Bill Murray (Boss), Jeff Goldblum (Duke), Kunichi Nomura (Mayor Kobayashi), Akira Takayama (Major-Domo), Greta Gerwig (Tracy Walker), Scarlett Johansson (Nutmeg), Liev Schreiber (Spots), Yoko Ono (Assistant Scientist Yoko-ono), and Tilda Swinton (Oracle):

Isle of Dogs (say the title fast) may be my favourite Wes Anderson Joint. I haven't seen The Royal Tenenbaums for about a decade, and I'd have to rewatch it to come to a final decision. 

Anyway, 20 years into a sporadically retro future, the citizens of the Japanese city of Megasaki exile all their dogs to the island they dump their garbage on because the dogs are carriers of a mysterious plague. 

A plucky boy travels to the island in search of his dog. Several plucky people in Megasaki search for a cure. Many plucky things happen. Have I mentioned it's all in stop-motion puppetry and models except for some traditionally animated visuals? 

Anderson pursues the techniques he used on Fantastic Mr. Fox to even greater aesthetic nuance and occasional hilarity. The movie looks great. The musical score by Alexander Desplat is also great. The voice work works. Really, the whole thing is great. 

Even the in-film explanations of narrative decisions are funny. The dogs all speak English (well, they speak different languages depending on the country of release; in the English-speaking world, the dogs speak English). Everyone else speaks either Japanese or English in the case of the American exchange student who helps lead the battle for dogs' rights.

When exposition is needed, a translator is around within the world of the film to translate Japanese. In Japan, do the dogs speak Japanese and the people English?

This isn't exactly a children's movie, though older children should enjoy it. There's some violence and a couple of operating room scenes. Anderson seems to have picked up a welcome level of acerbic tartness from adapting Roald Dahl for Fantastic Mr. Fox -- the movie never moves too far into the twee as some Anderson films do. Its antagonists are suitably nasty. The stakes are mortal. 

Isle of Dogs  almost makes me wish that the YouTube parody in which Wes Anderson directs an X-Men movie were at least partially true. But better he stay away from superheroes and mainstream treacle. Highly recommended.

What the Raptors Faced (2018)

So what did the Toronto Raptors, now down and doomed three games to zero to LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavs, face in even getting to the NBA Finals this year?

Well, let's look at NBA teams that have won without a superstar/'Top 67' player...

I expanded the NBA's Top 50 at 50 list because it came out more than 20 years ago or so, adding players rather than subtracting and adding to the top 50. I came up with 17 more. So the next 17 for me would be the following:


LeBron James, Steph Curry, Kevin Durant, Chris Paul, Steve Nash, Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, Ray Allen, Tim Duncan, Dirk Nowitzki, Reggie Miller, Dwyane Wade, Tony Parker, Russell Westbrook, James Harden, Jason Kidd, Dwight Howard...

Unh...

Last team to make a Finals without a Top 67 was... the Detroit Pistons in 2005. 

And the last team to win without a Top 67 was those same Pistons in 2004. 

But that team had All-Star players having career years (Ben Wallace, Richard Hamilton, and Chauncey Billups), one freak who could have been an All-Star if he felt like it (Rasheed Wallace), a great coach (Larry Brown) and a completely dysfunctional Lakers team to beat in the Finals...

Before that? 

Maybe the 1978-79 Seattle Supersonics. But they had one player better than anyone the Raps have this year (Dennis Johnson) and two really good players (Paul Silas and Gus Johnson). They also played a team that had beaten them the year before, the Bullets, which had two HoF/borderline top 67ers of its own (Wes Unseld and Elvin Hayes were on the top 50 at 50 list) but not much else.

Before that? 

Um, that's it. 

Even teams that make the Finals without a superstar are rare. 

Even the 40-42 Houston Rockets of 1980-81 who lost to Bird's Celtics, the only Finalist in NBA history with a losing record, had Top 50 Moses Malone in his prime. The Portland Trailblazers, who lost to the Bulls and the Pistons in the Finals in the early 1990's? Clyde Drexler was a Top 50 at 50. 

So yeah. Top-heavy league.

Elvis: The Searcher (2018)

Elvis Presley: The Searcher (2018): written by Alan Light; directed by Thom Zimny: 

This two-part, three-hour-plus HBO documentary is hagiographic to the point of occasional absurdity throughout. 

However, it also offers an overview of Presley's life through photos and footage and commentary from those who knew him (Priscilla Presley, assorted producers and friends) and those who admired him (most notably, Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty). 

It's worth your time if you love Elvis or if you simply don't know that much about the arc of his career. By the end, it plays like a tragedy, one that F. Scott Fitzgerald might have penned had he been around for the Elvis Era (1953-1977). Recommended.

Avengers: Infinity War (2018)

This scene may not be in movie.

Avengers: Infinity War (2018): written by everybody; directed by Joe and Anthony Russo; starring everybody: Mostly diverting, overlong superhero slug-fest struggles to balance bombast and quippiness and mostly succeeds. 

Visually and writing-wise, it's a huge step down from preceding Marvel movies that include Black Panther, Thor: Ragnarok, Ant-man, Spider-man: Homecoming, and Dr. Strange. It's a bit like eating mush made from cotton candy.

The plot thread starring Iron Man, Spider-man, and Dr. Strange is terrific. The Wakanda battle scenes make little strategic or tactical sense, and suggest that, among other things, none of the Avengers or Wakandans have ever seen Zulu. 

Or read about military battles after the invention of projectile weapons. Wait, didn't Captain America FIGHT in World War Two?

Thanos has been much-changed from his tirelessly malevolent comic-book self into a mournful giant who desperately needs a hug that he never receives. Maybe in Part Two! Lightly recommended.

The Two-Minute Rule (2006) by Robert Crais

The Two-Minute Rule (2006) by Robert Crais: On the day bank robber Max Holman gets out of jail after a ten-year sentence, his son is murdered. Holman had been estranged from his son for more than a decade. And his son was a police officer. So begins The Two-Minute Rule.

Best known for his Elvis Cole and Joe Pike detective thrillers, writer Robert Crais here builds a compelling and sympathetic character in Holman, dubbed "the Hero Bandit" by the press because he got arrested at his last robbery while performing CPR on one of the bank's customers. As his son's murder looks fishier and fishier, and while the LAPD deems it closed, Holman calls on the help of the former FBI agent who put him away, Katherine Pollard.

Crais makes the nuts-and-bolts of crime, law enforcement, and bank robberies entertaining. More importantly, Holman is his most fully developed character, at least within the pages of one novel rather than a series. Holman is believable even when the plot gets twisty and turny. So too Pollard, retired early to raise a son, left alone when her estranged husband died of a heart attack, and now bored -- and in debt -- in her unwelcome retirement.

Everything builds to the sort of climax that seems ripe for a decent Hollywood director. Crais is an expert choreographer of action sequences, and this is one of his best -- and at points funniest. Recommended.