Bad Acting Playhouse

Tales from the Crypt Presents Bordello of Blood (1996):  There are a certain number of laughs to be had from the second and last of the features bearing the 'Tales from the Crypt' imprimatur. 

Some come from the fact that neither protagonist Dennis Miller nor antagonist Angie Everhart can act their ways out of a paper bag. Everhart is especially terrible as Vampire Queen Lilith, so much so that Miller looks pretty good when he's acting against her. 

Chris Sarandon can act, but he's strictly here for the paycheck. That means the best performance comes from Erika Eleniak, previously best known for coming topless out of a cake in UNDER SIEGE. Oh, well. 

Despite a frame tale featuring the Crypt-keeper, this very much doesn't resemble the great TALES FROM THE CRYPT comic book of the 1950's, though it does resemble the often slapdash, sophomoric HBO series of the 1990's that it's technically a spin-off of (spun off from?). 

EC Comics'  TALES FROM THE CRYPT was one of three pre-Comics Code horror anthology comics from that company, along with THE VAULT OF HORROR and THE HAUNT OF FEAR. The more you know! Not recommended. 

Mullet Time

Superman Vs. Aliens (1996): written and pencilled by Dan Jurgens; inked by Kevin Nowlan: 20 years ago, DC and Dark Horse put out this fairly nifty battle between Superman (still in his mullet phase) and the Alien film franchise. It was a time when the Kryptonian Supergirl was still gone from DC continuity. That fact explains much of the storyline, in which Superman responds to a distress signal from a domed city in space that appears to have once been part of Krypton. It comes complete with a spunky blonde girl named Kara who's pretty much the image, in appearance and name, of the pre-1987 Supergirl.

The story is a bit heavy on the then-continuity of the Superman comics, from the mullet to the absence of Lex Luthor from the storyline. Superman can't travel unaided through space for long at this point in his career, necessitating some technology help from LexCorp. Or LuthorCorp. Whatever. 

It's solid, unspectacular, and relatively unbloody fun. There's a bit too much harping on Superman's decision not to kill anything, including hordes of acid-blooded aliens. Is this a workable moral stance for the Man of Steel under the circumstances? Well, yes, but as written it relies an awful lot on other people killing aliens, which makes the moral stance seem awfully dubious, if not completely daft. A sin of omission rather than commission is still a sin.

Inker Kevin Nowlan makes the normally straightforward pencils of writer-penciller Dan Jurgens broody, moody, and intermittently menacing. It's a great job of inking in terms of establishing a tone a penciller isn't known for -- Nowlan did something similar with his inks on the sunny Jose Luis Garcia Lopez's Dr. Strangefate during the Marvel/DC crossover around the same time. Lightly recommended.

JLA: Justice League of America: Power and Glory (2015-2016): written by Bryan Hitch with Tony Bedard; illustrated by Bryan Hitch with Tom Derenick, Scott Hanna, Daniel Henriques, Wade von Grawbadger, Alex Sinclair, and others: Maybe getting the perennially late Bryan Hitch to both write and draw a new Justice League comic book way back in 2015 wasn't such a great idea because, well, perennially late. 

It took so long for the nine issues of his initial story arc to appear that DC had already rebooted Hitch's Justice League title (now known as Justice League and not JLA: Justice League of America) when the last issue of this title came out. And by rebooted, I mean, there were as many issues of the subsequent title on the stands as there were of this title when that last issue appeared. Whew!

Hitch writes the reboot, but the art has been left to others. That's too bad because of Hitch's strengths as an artist, strengths that outweigh his strengths as a relatively new writer. Hitch's art, a career-long riff on Neal Adams and Alan Davis, made him a superstar nearly 20 years ago in the pages of ultra-violent superhero book The Authority. And he does good work here -- 'widescreen,' as they say, cosmic though sometimes crowded.

His writing seems a bit padded at times. Nine issues seems like about two issues too much here, with about 40 pages too many of running back and forth without resolving anything plot-wise. Hitch's new Justice League has shorter story arcs so far, suggesting that something may have been learned.

Power and Glory pits Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman, and the usual gang of super-powered idiots against the Kryptonian Sun-god Rao, who arrives in near-Earth space with a whole lot of super-powered followers and an offer to bring peace, health, and long life to all the citizens of Earth -- and indeed, someday, everyone in the universe. He's initially greeted as a saviour. And of course there's a catch.

Hitch throws a lot of super-science and bombastic, epic battles around the nine issues. And time travel, strange visitors with hidden agendas, and weird standing stones waiting to fulfill some plot point or another. It's good, overlong fun. One caveat: in order to finally put a capper on this story (and this JLA title), DC elected to have other people write and draw the final issue, with only the plot by Hitch. Given how long readers had waited by this time, a few more months could probably have been survived if the end result was an all-Hitch writing-and-drawing issue. Oh, well. Recommended.

Hero of the Beach!

Flex Mentallo, Man of Muscle Mystery: written by Grant Morrison; illustrated by Frank Quitely (1996; collected 2012): Near the beginning of Grant Morrison's comic-writing career at DC, he created a character named Flex Mentallo in Doom Patrol. Mentallo's origin was basically a parody of the old Charles Atlas body-building print ad. A scrawny kid gets bullied and works out; eventually he becomes Hero of the Beach.

Flex turned out to be the comic-book creation of a kid named Wally Sage. He'd escaped into the real world. His powers stemmed from his total control of his muscles: flexing them could alter reality! And above Flex Mentallo's head would appear his Hero Halo, the giant glowing words 'Hero of the Beach!'

A few years later, Morrison and soon-to-be-superhot artist Frank Quitely did a Flex Mentallo miniseries set on another Earth. Then the lawyers for Charles Atlas threw a fit, and DC agreed not to reprint the miniseries for some undetermined length of time that, finally, has ended. Flex Mentallo is back! Just in time! The Dark Age is over!

This oversized hardback reprint collection has one major flaw: it doesn't reprint the two or three Flex Mentallo issues of Doom Patrol. I have a feeling another edition of Flex Mentallo will rectify this in a few years. DC is really good at endlessly repackaging material, as anyone who's tracked their shuffling and reshuffling of Alan Moore's DC Universe work well knows.

But other than that omission, this is an awesome piece of metafictional, optimistic, hopeful superhero work. Quitely's art is gorgeous -- the depraved and the heroic and the mundane are all beautifully, sharply rendered; the layout is innovative and non-traditional when it suits the story and straightforward when it suits the story.

And confined to about 100 pages, Morrison distills many of his obsessions in relation to superhero comic books down to an almost pure form. He'd explored these obsessions earlier in his career in Animal Man and Doom Patrol. He'd explore them later in everything from The Filth to Sea Guy to JLA. But here and now, we get the pure dope -- hope that you can cope.

On an Earth without superheroes, a musician in his early 20's talks on the phone to a suicide hotline. He's taken an overdose and he's waiting to die. While he waits to die, he wants to talk about comic books and superheroes.

On an Earth with one superhero -- Flex Mentallo, escaped from fictionality! -- doomsday looms for everything and everyone. Can the Man of Muscle Mystery follow the clues, unravel the mystery, find the other superheroes, and save the world?

How do these stories relate? Read the comic book. Order the workout package. Learn the secrets of muscle mystery! Because sometimes a guy just has to get out of his room and meet some girls! Highly recommended.