Review: Popeye #4

The fourth issue of POPEYE takes a step back from issue 3 (the best issue to date).  First, the cover.  In issue 3, a preview of the cover was published. It was by John Byrne, and when I saw it, I thought he really got Popeye perfect, in the blend of Segar and Fleischer I feel should be the standard.  But issue 4 doesn't have that cover.  The standard cover is a simple Bruce Ozella job, and the variant is a Hanna-Barbera looking Popeye by Seymour Chwast.

Roger Langridge's script, a political drama featuring King Blozo, as usual, is a blend of Segar and Sagendorf.  Once again, it is heavy on action and adventure, but light on humor.  Once again, I need to stress he needs to pick up on the humor, work in some Fleischer style laughs. The issue also has an overabundance of dialogue, taking up over half of the space in many panels.  The artwork by Vince Muscacchia is slick and fluid, and based on early Bud Sagendorf, rather than Segar.

There is a back up feature of Sappo and OG Watasnozzle by Langridge and Tom Neely that is well done and has more humor than the Popeye story.  This issue gets a C+.

Also, IDW has published a reprint of Dell's POPEYE #1 from 1948. They plan to make this an ongoing series, so we will have two Popeye comics a month, new and reprints.

The DCnU- One Year Later

Since there is no chapter of Curse Of Shazam in JUSTICE LEAGUE #12, I thought I'd take this time to evaluate the DCnU one year after it debuted.

First, there is Captain Mar... er, Shazam.  While I am so far enjoying Curse Of Shazam, perhaps more than I thought I would, I still do not see it as the "definitive" take on Captain Marvel.  Too many changes to characters and plot to make it more trendy and cinematic.  For my money, outside the Fawcett originals, the "definitive" DC version is still a toss up between E. Nelson Bridwell's work in the late 1970s, and Alex Ross' version in Justice and Power Of Hope.

Then there is Batman.  The DCnU reboot has not been good to him at all.  DC pretty much continued Batman from the old continuity without rebooting him. So, we have a very convoluted version of the character that for the most part, is the same as the post-Zero Hour continuity, except for when its not.  Make sense? For my money, perhaps the most enjoyable run on Batman was in the 1980s, written by Gerry Conway, with art rotating between Gene Colan and Don Newton.  They had a serialized soap opera vibe going with a multitude of subplots, and still brought a lot of action and adventure, and was, in effect, a direct sequel to the all too brief, widely celebrated 1977-78 stint by Steve Englehart and Marshall Rogers. The DCnU Batman is just confusing, with all his various redundant sidekicks and replacement Robins and incoherent story lines.  I have really cut back on the number of Batman titles I buy since the DCnU began.  I am contemplating cutting back even more, or perhaps for the first time in my life, just stopping all together.

And then there is Superman.  Ironically, I am really liking the DCnU take on Superman. As with Captain...er, Shazam, I don't consider it to be the "definitive" take, but I like it for what it is.  Mostly due to Grant Morrison, who has taken aspects of the character's original 1938 run, and incorporated it into a new vision. ACTION COMICS has been really solid, while SUPERMAN has been more hit and miss.  I don't know if I will stick with it once Morrison leaves, but for now, I'm enjoying the ride.

Finally, there is the Justice League. This, too has been interesting, although Geoff Johns seems to be essentially ripping off the movie version of  The Avengers, by making Steve Trevor the DC version of Nick Fury.  Green Lantern's characterization mirrors the awful performance by Ryan Reynolds in the dud Green Lantern movie. Efforts are made to turn Aquaman from a punchline to a real heavy hitter, with mixed results. With Superman being cast as more of a brooding loner, Batman ends up being more of a level headed leader, which is a detriment to the Batman character overall. In JUSTICE LEAGUE #12, Superman and Wonder Woman become a couple.  It seems obvious, but except for some brief teasers by John Byrne back in the 1980s, it never happened in mainstream continuity. We'll see how it plays out.

Overall, I have to give the DCnU a failing grade. Despite some bright spots with Captain... er, Shazam and Superman, I am still buying fewer DC comics than ever before, and generally just do not like the direction the continuity has taken (don't even get me started on how awful the re imagination of the Golden Age Earth-2 is).  Hopefully the next reboot will be soon, and will use Alex Ross' Justice as a foundation.

Trio of Monkees to tour

Some big news from Micheal Nesmith via his facebook page . "So the big news from here is that I made the most amazing gazpacho tonight . . . miracle gazpacho. A miracle because I have no idea how I did it and could never do it again. But the really big news . . . astounding . . . is that I suddenly understand that it is the red bell pepper that makes the gazpacho red . . . not the tomato . . . which is what I always thought. Amazing. Another jaw dropper was that the only cracker I had left . . . a very nice garlic and chive flat bread cracker . . . fell out of the bag it was in because I was inadvertently holding it upside down and it fell on the floor and broke into dozens of pieces. So just as I was about to eat the miracle gazpacho the only cracker I had was useless in pieces on the floor. Talk about drama . . . man it’s just so hard sometimes. But that’s all the news from here. Nothing else much to report. I see they put a car on Mars . . . that was kind of amusing of course. And Micky and Peter and I are going to do twelve concerts in November here in the States. That’s really all I’ve got. Going to bed now. I’ll post pictures of the cracker and the gazpacho tomorrow, maybe. Maybe not.”

Gazpacho aside, Micky Dolenz, Peter Tork, and Michael Nesmith will reunite as The Monkees for a short U.S. tour in November and December.  This is the first time Mike has toured with the Monkees since the "Justus" UK tour in 1997, and his first US tour with the group since 1969! This is also the first time the Micky-Mike-Peter line up has performed together since the first season episode "Alias Micky Dolenz", which Davy didn't appear in due to him visiting family in England.

Please, Rhino Entertainment, don't be asleep at the wheel for this. If Rhino does not have the sense to professionally film these concerts (like they stupidly did not for the 1997 UK tour), then please Monkees fans who will be attending these shows, get your HD microcameras ready to do what Rhino won't.

Rolling Stone posted a Q&A with Mike about his return, saying "I never really left. It is a part of my youth that is always active in my thought and part of my overall work as an artist. It stays in a special place, but like things in the past it fades in and out in relevance to activities that are current. Getting together with old friends and acquaintances can be very stimulating and fun and even inspiring to me. We did some good work together and I am always interested in the right time and the right place to reconnect and play... We are focusing around Headquarters – our first real sojourn as a band – but the setlist will include all the Monkees fans expect. There are songs of mine and Peter's that have not been performed that we will play. The three of us will play the Headquarters material as we did in the studio – but the shows backing band for the other material will be the same as the last tours – with the exception of the inclusion of my son Christian on guitar... I feel this is the start of the ending for me here – or more precisely, as Churchill had it – the end of the beginning. Now is the time."

Now may also be the time to revisit my post The Best Monkees Songs You've Never Heard.

movie review: DARK KNIGHT RISES

The Dark Knight Rises is an excellent and suspenseful Christopher Nolan action film. But is it a "Batman movie"?  Not quite.   I can see why Nolan originally wanted to title his third movie Gotham before Warner execs demanded a title to closer link it to the Heath Ledger installment.  This movie is more about various characters in Gotham City than it is about Batman.  Of the three Nolan films, I'd say Batman gets the least amount of screen time in this one, even though in Batman Begins Batman doesn't even appear until the second half of the movie (of course I am treating "Batman" and "Bruce Wayne" as separate characters in this analysis).

The film opens (after a quick but effective glimpse of a Harvey Dent memorial) with a James Bond style sequence of Bane abducting a Russian scientist from an airborne plane.  Bane is a C-list villain in the comics, and in this movie, he is adequate.  But sorely missing is the charisma of an A-list villain like the Joker, played with the charisma of an actor like Heath Ledger.  Tom Hardy plays the character in a rather cardboard cutout way.  With his anesthetic mask on constantly, and an overdubbed Darth Vader voice, any stuntman really could have played the part.  Nolan could have brought back the pro-wrestler who played Bane in Batman & Robin, and just had Hardy dub in the voice.  It wouldn't have mattered.

From there we get caught up with what Bruce Wayne has been doing since the last movie.  Now partly crippled, he has become a Howard Hughs style recluse.  Selina Kyle (never called "Catwoman" in the film), poses as a maid at a charity event at Wayne Manor, and steals Martha Wayne's pearl necklace and Bruce's fingerprints.  Bruce confronts her, and she escapes.  Anne Hathaway as Selina is good but lacks that something special that made previous Catwomen like Julie Newmar, Lee Meriwether, and Michelle Pfeiffer iconic.

We are introduced to all the other characters in the Gotham ensemble piece, like Joseph Gordon Levitt's rookie cop John Blake, veteran cop Foley played by Matthew Modine,  the Animated Series' Dagget played by Ben Mendleson, a priest who runs an orphanage played by Chris Ellis, and Miranda Tate played by Marion Cottliard, who as expected, turns out to be Ra's al Ghul's daughter Talia.

Jim Gordon gets shot in an encounter with Bane, and Blake goes to Wayne Manor to reveal to Bruce he knows he's Batman. How he figured this out is kind of murky.  I think it had something to do with him recognizing the big boil on Bruce's right eye is the same as the one Batman has under his eye makeup.  Bruce, in a ski mask, visits Gordon in the hospital, who urges him to come back as Batman.

Selina robs more people, Bane continues his master plot, and lots of other stuff goes on.  Finally, Batman returns (funny how his crippled leg is cured with a simple leg brace) to stop one of Bane's terrorist acts.  This scene is very good and well done.  Some more stuff happens, including Alfred quitting, then Batman and Bane have another fight, which ends with Bruce having his back broken and being dumped into a pit on the other side of the world. After this, the movie starts to get a little boring.  Things pick up momentarily when Bane implements his terrorist act on a football stadium.  He gives a speech that sounds eerily like a Barack Obama speech, albeit in a Darth Vader voice.  Bruce watches this all from the pit (ain't cable great).

In a nod to real life events like the Occupy movement, the inmates take over the asylum, so to speak, as Bane threatens to destroy Gotham with a nuclear bomb. Cillian Murphy as Johnathan Crane conducts a court trial against citizens, making the Scarecrow the only villain to appear in all three Nolan movies. Bruce ultimately escapes the pit (miraculously healed of all his injuries without any hospitalization... who needs medical insurance!), becomes Batman again to lead a city wide riot of cops vs Occupiers in broad daylight.  Hey, wait... Batman's not supposed to appear in daylight.  Imagine the outcry if Tim Burton would have done that.  But Nolan gets a pass it seems. Bane is defeated by Catwoman shooting him with a gun on the Batcycle.  Hey, wait... Bane's not bullet proof.  This means, the state police or army could have had a sharpshooter take Bane out at any time. Major plot hole.  Batman uses the Batcopter (which several times in the movie the point is made it does not have an auto pilot) to fly the bomb over the ocean, sacrificing his own life, after tipping Gordon off to who he really is.  A memorial is held for Bruce, and a statue is erected to Batman. Then Lucius Fox realises the Batcopter did have an autopilot after all (considering it was edited to look like Batman piloted the Batcopter until the last moment, instead of ejecting as soon as the Batcopter got over water - which would be more logical - then for Batman to escape, the Batcopter must have had an escape pod, as well as an extra large can of nuclear neutralizing Bat-spray).  Bruce winks and nods to Alfred at an outdoor cafe, and Blake is summoned to the Batcave to either become the new Batman, or to become Robin.  Its left ambiguous.

Michael Caine sits most of this film out, as he quits Bruce early in. I never bought him as Alfred. When I think of Alfred, I think of a proper British butler, not the cockney commoner Caine.  Morgan Freeman is excellent as Lucius Fox, as was Gary Oldman as Gordon.  Joseph Gordon Levitt was fine as Blake, as he seemed to be the character Nolan was really emphasising. Then there's Christian Bale. His Bruce Wayne is acceptable, but his Batman never worked for me.  Between his frog voice and Hardy's muffled voice, some of the dialogue seriously needed subtitles.  I never cared for the bat costumes in this trilogy. Bale looks very awkward as Batman.  The mask face opening is far too narrow, and serves to emphasise how narrow Bale's jaw is.  In this movie, he seems to breathe through his mouth when in costume, giving Batman a bit of a short school bus passenger look, if you know what I mean. 

Nolan takes liberties with the characters.  Bane is severely altered from the comic books, although the comic book Bane wasn't much more than a C-list villain to begin with.  The John Blake character is a composite of Dick Grayson, Paul Valley, Tim Drake and Terry McGinnis.  Talia is unrecognizable as the comic book Talia. Selina is altered a little. Batman doesn't even get the final victory over Bane.  Selina does, and then rubs it in Batman's face by telling him how his "no guns" policy doesn't work. The finale where Batman apparently sacrifices his life is too similar to Captain America: The First Avenger.  Overall, this movie falls in the middle of the Nolan trilogy.  Not as good as The Dark Knight but not nearly as excruciatingly boring as Batman Begins.

Normally I am not for reboots, but this time I welcome it. The Nolan-Bale celebration of depression Batman is over.  May it rest it peace. At best, I consider it an "Elseworlds" version of Batman. Time to move on. Bring on a new take, a more fun take that is not obsessed with uber-realism. How about reuniting Tim Burton, Michael Keaton, Jack Nicholson, and Michelle Pfeiffer for a live action adaptation of Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns?  Perhaps in the weeks ahead, I will post my own hopes for the reboot in detail.

And just in case there are some "in Nolan we trust" fanatics reading this, at the end of the day, this review is my opinion.  You have yours, I have mine.  No need to get upset over it.  Why so serious? It's just a movie.

Review: Popeye #3

The third issue of POPEYE has the strongest script of the three issues so far. Roger Langridge gets more humor in it, and tells a good story that combines aspects of Segar and Sagendorf.  Geezel tricks Wimpy into a fight where his opponent is...  well, I won't spoil it.   Popeye trains Wimpy for the fight.  Popeye ends up taking Wimpy's place in the match, and afterward, Wimpy develops a whole new relationship with his former opponent.  Ahem. 

The artwork for this issue is by Tom Neely.  Unlike last issue's Ken Wheaton, Neely does not draw in Bruce Ozella's style.  Instead Neely draws in a style reminiscent of Barbecue For Two, the pilot cartoon for the 1960 series of TV cartoons.  Neely's art is a little more polished than Ozella's, but there are panels where his art gets sloppy, as if he was getting fatigued at the end of a long day of drawing. I like that Neely, who also colored the issue, gets Popeye's hair red (a detail mostly forgotten after decades of the bald animated Popeye), but he has one major mistake:  he gave Popeye teeth.  In the Segar strips, and the pre-1940 Fleischer cartoons, Popeye has no teeth, only gums.

Overall, issue 3 is the best of the series so far, an A-.