Comic Review: Wyrd, Wonder Girl, and Superman

Back to the comic book store.  I love the abuse.  These were the comics I bought after going to Aggie Volleyball last week.  Actually, this trip wasn’t too bad, except for the first book to be reviewed.

Tales of the Outerverse: Imogen of the Wyrding Way

I was fooled by the cover.  I’ve been on a fantasy comic kick for a while for some reason and the cover looked evocatively interesting.  It’s not a wrap-around cover, but it’s definitely part of a larger image.  The only thing that worried me about buying it was the black woman on the cover.  Just to be blunt, that’s usually a visual dog whistle for SWJ content therein, especially in a fantasy comic. 

That’s a pretty accurate telltale in this case.  If you want a fantasy comic with a black lesbian witch with a white girlfriend (even gay couples have to be mixed race in today’s media), who’s so hopelessly competent that nothing in the story challenges her, this is your comic.  Giant trolls are no match against the intersectional feminist win button.  She goes Gandalf on them, petrifying them with light.  (Wahmen can’t do anything original.)

 

My beef here isn’t against race or sexual orientation, but rather the incessant promotion of certain themes in every form of modern storytelling down to even TV commercials (especially the TV commercials).  Who is behind this and why are they doing it?  Writer Mike Mignola can be chalked up and dismissed as just another tool of the Agenda.  (I was also disappointed by Mignola’s Conan in another review.)

 

The story is historically set in 1938 with people fleeing the Nazi regime.  (Yet another SWJ trope.  They’re always fighting Nazis.)  It’s also set in the Cthulhu mythos, but with the serial numbers filed off.  There are trolls, but apparently few people are put off by their presence.  The story is a one-shot, but there are other comics by Mignola in the same setting, probably with other characters.  The artwork is okay in a somewhat European style.  The visual storytelling is good and, thankfully, not decompressed.        

 

This did not deserve me wasting a page on reviewing, much less my money.  Am I done with fantasy comics?  I’ll blame this if I am.          

 

Wonder Girl #3

I’m going to blow your mind here, certainly after that last review.  I liked this comic.  Yes, it’s a brand new superhero comic from DC and I liked it.  It’s even a decompressed story (the bane of modern comics) and I still liked it.  I don’t know most of the characters in the story.  I don’t know what’s going on in the story, but I may be looking for the next issue and past ones.

I reviewed a Joelle Jones’ Batman comic before (7-27-21) and her work on Supergirl (9-30-18).  I didn’t like the story in either, but was extremely impressed with the artwork on both of them.  Starting with the incredibly alluring cover, the internal art of this comic is even better.  There is a startling level of expressive detail and animation in the characters.  They look real at times.  (I’m sure the black guy is probably modeled after somebody famous, but I don’t know who.)  I need Joelle as an animation character designer.  The above sequence is beautiful, but really isn’t very economical in storytelling given a limited number of pages in the comic. 

 

Check out these Disney-like animal characters.   

     

The Wonder Girl in this issue is Cassie Sandsmark.  (Donna Troy?  A shudder of continuity shock runs through me.)  She’s a bit of an airhead in this.  In all of the Teen Titans comics I’ve read with her, that would be the furthest description from her previous appearances, but at least it’s an interesting change of pace for a modern female superhero.  Artemis is also very glamorously in this.  I dig Artemis, though I question the color scheme of her outfit here.  (It looks like one of my bad color choice sketches.)  The two play off each other well. 

 

As you can see there’s some scanned photographic backgrounds behind the characters.  Frankly, when your figure-work is this good, I give you a pass on being lazy.  I do notice that Cassie and Artemis do look stylistically different than Yara and Joao above.  I don’t know if it’s an artistic choice or something else, like a different inker.

 

It’s so seldom that I buy a new comic that delights me, I’m almost speechless.  I finally looked up who Joelle Jones is and she’s pretty attractive, but I suspect we wouldn’t get along, except on the very narrow topic of art.  Doesn’t matter; I’m a fan.  Okay, the comic book industry isn’t dead yet.           

 

100-Page Superman Giant #1

DC has stopped producing these 100-pagers and that’s too bad.  I bought a few of them (Batman and Villains 10-17-19, Titans 7-1-20, From Beyond 7-30-20).  There were others that I ignored at the time and am now looking for in the back issues.  This Superman one happened to be sitting out on a shelf, along with a few copies of Betty and Veronica meet Red Sonja and Vampirella.  I picked up the later first.  Cough.  $30!  I think the issues were sporting a variant cover.  Okay, good luck selling those.  Superman was still $5 (maybe they missed re-pricing it), so I grabbed it.

 

The new Superman & Lois CW show has definitely rekindled my interest in the Man of Steel.  I’m not saying it was perfect, but it was a great show.  It did a good job of balancing the super action along with regular life of the normal characters.  Almost impossibly, it managed to stay true to the classic themes of Superman without promoting the Agenda.  Bravo!

I think this comic does the same.  It’s meant to give you the heroic ideal for Superman.  The first story is the only new one and features Superman fighting Parasite.  There’s no space wasted here in telling the story, so there’s no set up.  Apart from some amusing repartee between Clark and Lois, I thought this scene of Superman being inspirational was the best part.  Superman at his best is when he inspires others to be super.

Then there’s Superman figuring out how to defeat Parasite.  One, how are they talking on the moon?  Two, does Parasite not need to breathe?  Other than that, it’s good.  Lex Luthor does come in at the end and his segment does imply that the story is continued.

 

The other three stories are reprints.  Next up, Supergirl fights Bizzarogirl.  I have no idea what version of Supergirl this is or when she was canonical.  Jimmy Olsen manages to look cool briefly at the beginning of this story.  Lana Lang, who’s working for the Daily Planet here, has to talk a depressed Supergirl into fighting the creature.  And she gets turned into a statue by Bizzaro’s powers.  That’s a heck of a cliffhanger. 

Next, Brainiac adds the Krytonian city of Kandor to his collection in the past.  Meanwhile, Clark and Lois attend a staff meeting.  I have that much in common with Superman, but we don’t get donuts at our meetings.  This ends with Brainiac setting his sights on earth.   

 

Lastly, Superman and his Superboy and Krypto the superdog have an adventure on an island of dinosaurs.  Jonathan Kent is older in current continuity and totally gay.  We’re just waiting for him and the Tim Drake Robin to hook up so a bunch of fat, ugly, pathetic teenage girls can squeal in delight.  Knowing this sort of ruins this wholesome father/son/dog outing fighting dinosaurs.  It’s another reason I liked the new Superman TV show.  His twin boys are both firmly hetro (until that gets retconned away next season).  This story ends with them finding the last stand of The Losers that WWII commando group.  It’s a mystery to solved, but not here.

 

I liked this comic.  The art and stories were all well done.  But, all of the stories were continued, some frustratingly, which left me feeling slightly cheated.  Was there a second issue?  I’m going to have to look.