The Partners in Peril face the steel-clawed fury of The Catwoman

Wendy Pini | HiLobrow

Damning with faint praise. I'm not sure what "a cheese-core, Keane-eyed saga of yesteryear" is supposed to mean, but the original 20 issue run of Elfquest is among my favorite things ever. In serialized format it had great action, fantastic characters, and epic plot twists. Like Lost, only with an ending. Sure the Elves can seem girly but the Pinis brought a feminist and female sensibility to comics that even 30 years on seems radical.

The Week In Ink: May 26, 2010 | Chris's Invincible Super-Blog

How to rightwrite a review:

Return of Bruce Wayne #2: If you don’t like this comic, then you’re stupid and I probably hate you.

I'm sold.

League Returns with New Century

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen returns this month. It's 1910 and something very bad is about to happen to London involving occult forces, dark premonitions and the daughter of Captain Nemo.

If I had to guess I'd say Mina Murray will be taking on the beast himself, Aleister Crowley, and trying to stop the arrival of the Moon Child.

This stuff never gets old.

Online Preview

Old Moore's Lives of the Great Enchanters

Alan Moore on the emptiness of the super-hero archetype, the arrested development of comic fans, and how Watchmen doomed the comic book as an art form. He also adds his thoughts on The League, and the impossibility of adapting comics to the screen. Needless to say, it's a must-read.

Fantastic Four

The tomato meter is at 27%. I think I'll be better off curling up with a stack of back issues.

Update:

Another good reason to skip the film:

For Jessie Morrison, movies are a way for life. The 29-year-old University of Memphis student publishes a local movie magazine, has written screenplays, and until recently, worked as a projectionist at the Malco Ridgeway Four.

But a negative review Morrison wrote that was published last Friday on "Ain't It Cool News," a movie gossip website, has landed Morrison in hot water with both a movie studio and his employer.

"They did what they thought was best to track me down," Morrison said in an interview Thursday.

The review was about the movie "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer," which opens Friday. Owen viewed the movie at a private screening he worked as a projectionist for. He then wrote a critical review of the film, calling it the "Fantastic Four Travesty."

Movie studios are so classy.

In Praise of John Byrne

Back in the 80s when I was a complete comic book addict, John Byrne was my favorite writer and artist. Sure Frank Miller and Bill Sienkiewicz and Alan Moore were cooler and edgier, but no one did superheroes better than Byrne. His art work was clean and stylish, his panels flowed, his storytelling had great clarity, and his stories were always new twists on familiar (or at least familiar seeming) sci-fi and superhero motifs.

Although I missed out on his original X-Men run, I have almost all of his Fantastic Four comics as well as some of his Alpha Flight, She-Hulk, Hulk, Man of Steel, Action Comics, and Superman work. I have always thought that the FF were sort of dorky but his run really made the characters sing. Overall some of my favorite all time reading.

Apparently he's developed a reputation for being difficult. Whatever. I say more power to him. Anyway, I just discovered his web site and am happy to be reading some of his Byrnisms. As an added bonus he divulges the end of the criminally unfinished "Last Galactus Story" and the fact that Sabretooth was originally supposed to be Wolverine's father. Wow!

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 #3

Willow arrives in Scotland just in time to drain all the life out of our geeklove for the new comic series. She's all the worst aspects of Seasons 6&7: she's distant and weird, her powers don't make any sense, and her fight with Amy is confusing and poorly structured. The artwork in this issue does a lousy job of communicating which character is which, making things particularly difficult as Whedon writes TV-style quick cuts. All the girls look the same, and the boys are barely distinguishable from one another.

Meanwhile Buffy herself has a long tedious dream sequence that ultimately doesn't tell us much. It's Whedon doing The Sandman, but Buffy is a do-er and Morpheus was a be-er, in Dramatica speak. Nothing works. Buffy doesn't accomplish things by working them out internally, for pete's sake, she goes out and kills things. She is the Slayer! (Remember how she was supposed to be learning big secrets about the slayer's origins in the show's dream sequences? Didn't work there either).

Oh and Warren is back, still skinless, and still quite possibly the worst Buffy villain ever. This "arc" ends next month, and I'm already sort of disappointed with the way they've structured the series.

Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season 8

The first two issues of Joss Whedon's Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season 8 are already out, and so far it's been a brilliant reintroduction to the show. Picking up where the series left off, we are dropped (almost literally) back into the world of Buffy Summers and her newly formed army of vampire slayers.

They are headquartered in Scotland now. Xander has an eye-patch and pretends to be Sgt. Fury from the old Marvel comics. Dawn has big, big problems. There are lots and lots of slayers. Sunnydale is still a gigantic crater. There are crazy government scientists and military leaders hell-bent on stopping this new terrorist organization. And Amy the witch is working for them?

Cool stuff.

But where, you might ask, is everyone else? Willow? Giles? Andrew? Spike? Angel? Ah, but that would be telling, and Whedon is definitely not going to let us know everything right away.

The beauty of the story so far is that it plays just like a revived TV series might, with the same great dialog, subtle character reveals, and hints of the big bad lurking in the shadows that were the hallmarks of the original show. This time though, they have an endless special effects budget and the freedom to tell any story they want.

What I like best so far is the dialog and the actor-friendly characterizations that remind me of how much this show in particular and Whedon in general are missed on series television. You could easily see this story as a Buffy reunion mini-series or a future movie. It's just that good.

Issue #3 is out on May 2nd.

Cloak & Dagger

Pitchfork has an article today on the comic book characters Cloak & Dagger. How weird is that?

I have the original limited series from the early 1980s. It was probably a little over my head at the time, what with Dagger's revealing costume, and the quasi-religious overtones of Cloak and the villains. A little over-the-top for a news stand comic. In retrospect I remember the comic being sort of like Daredevil crossed with John Constantine. Or something. I'll have to dig it out and have another look.

How Lame Is It That Marvel Has Killed Captain America?

Very.