I Reads You Review: STATIC SHOCK SPECIAL 1

STATIC SHOCK SPECIAL 1
DC COMICS

WRITERS: Felicia D. Henderson; Matt Wayne
PENCILS: Denys Cowan; John Paul Leon
INKS: Rodney Ramos, Prentis Rollins, and John Stanisci; John Paul Leon
COLORIST: Lee Loughridge; Noelle Giddings
LETTERS: Dave Sharpe
PIN-UPS: Keron Grant, Jamal Igle with Guy Major, Eric Battle with John Kalisz, John Rozum, and Derec Donovan
TEXT: Michael Davis, Derek T. Dingle
COVER: J.H. Williams, III
44pp, Color, $2.99 U.S.

Released to comic book shops about two weeks ago, Static Shock Special 1 (cover dated August 2011) is more than just another comic book featuring the most popular Milestone Comics character, Static. Static Shock Special (hopefully the first of many Milestone specials) is also a memorial to Dwayne McDuffie.

McDuffie, a longtime comic book writer for DC Comics and Marvel Comics (where he was also an editor), died earlier this year in February. McDuffie’s death seems like a blow to diversity in comic books – meaning more African-American characters and creators, particularly writers. It was a heartrending loss to me, as I’d always hoped to one day work with McDuffie.

McDuffie, along with artist Denys Cowan, writers Michael Davis, and Derek T. Dingle, created Milestone Media and the Dakota Universe, a comics universe that included characters like Static, Hardware, Icon, and Blood Syndicate, among others. Milestone Media also created the Milestone comics imprint, which was published through DC Comics. Despite producing some good and, in some cases, brilliant comics, Milestone found the direct sales comics market hostile to it (for various reasons). Within four years, Milestone was no longer producing comic books. You can’t keep a great thing down, and Milestone Comics lives on with the Dakota Universe characters folded into the DC Universe proper.

Death and remembrance and legacy and legend are the prominent themes and ideas in Static Shock Special 1. The opening story is by Felicia D. Henderson (story) and Denys Cowan (pencil art). The issue begins with Virgil Ovid Hawkins AKA Static, waiting by the gates of River Green State Penitentiary. Virgil’s uncle, Teshomé Gabriel Hawkins (his father’s older brother), is being freed after spending a decade in prison for several murders that he did not commit.

As Teshomé tells his nephew, “A Black man’s never free,” so Static takes on an old prison rival who wants to kill Teshomé. His name is Blinder, a “bang baby” (someone who gained superpowers during the Big Bang event that gave Virgil his powers). It’s Static to the rescue, but even his powers can’t stop a tragic turn of events.

Also, Static and the young heroine, Rocket, join Dwayne McDuffie in a defiant memorial from writer Matt Wayne and artist John Paul Leon. It’s the best two-page comic I’ve read in a long time.

Felicia D. Henderson’s Static tale captures everything that made Static unique, fun to read, and socially relevant – from the social commentary (Teshomé’s plight and fate) to Static’s matchless superhero style. Denys Cowan remains a brilliant visual stylist and skillful comics storyteller. Here, Cowan captures the Kirbyesque energy of super-powered fights, the cool but simmering defiance of the hero, and the cold-bloodied injustice of the just-ice… I mean justice system. Henderson and Cowan left me wanting more.

You may find Michael Davis and Derek T. Dingle’s text pieces informative, and they are. They suggest, however, that the best parts of the stories of Milestone Media and Dwayne McDuffie are yet to be told.

A

[This comic book contains a bonus comic insert, a tie-in with the movie Super 8. It is written by Peter Tomasi, drawn and colored by Tommy Lee Edwards, and lettered by John Workman, with a cover by Alex Ross.]

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux

Leroy Douresseaux on BATMAN BEYOND: HUSH BEYOND

BATMAN BEYOND: HUSH BEYOND

DC COMICS

WRITER: Adam Beechen

PENCILS: Ryan Benjamin
INKS: John Stanisci
COLORS: David Baron
LETTERS: Travis Lanham
COVER: Dustin Nguyen
EXTRAS ART: J.H. Williams III
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2988-7; paperback
144 Color, $14.99 U.S., $16.99 CAN

Batman Beyond was an Emmy Award-winning animated series. It began life in January of 1999 on The WB Television Network and ended in May of 2002, after three seasons and 52 episodes. Set in the year 2039, it starred a new, younger Batman, with high school student Terry McGinnis wearing a new Bat-suit. The original Dark Knight, Bruce Wayne, guided Terry from their base of operations, the Batcave.

DC Comics published a Batman Beyond comic book from 1999 to 2001. Batman Beyond returned to comic books last year. Batman Beyond: Hush Beyond is a new trade paperback from DC Comics. It collects Batman Beyond (2010) #1-6, which were written by Adam Beechen, penciled by Ryan Benjamin, and inked by John Stanisci, with covers by Dustin Nguyen.

As the story begins, someone has escaped from Cadmus Labs in Neo-Gotham, and its trifling Director Amanda Waller is trying to keep things hush-hush, in spite of protests from research scientist, Nora Elliot Reid. From the beginning, the escapee leaves a trail of bodies behind him, all of them connected to the original Batman.

In his updated, hi-tech Bat-suit (now with invisibility and jet propulsion), Terry McGinnis takes on a foe who knows everything about him, and this couldn’t have come at a worse time. Terry and his mentor/boss, Bruce Wayne, are at odds over Terry’s job performance, and Terry has been running on little or no sleep. As he tries to uncover the secrets of this killer, he seeks help from Batman’s original sidekicks, but one of them holds a grudge. Terry’s investigation also leads him into conflict with a mysterious new Catwoman, who doesn’t like The Bat the way the original did. And the streets say that someone who was supposed to be dead is back with a vengeance – Hush.

I have mixed feelings about the original Batman: Hush, written by Jeph Loeb and drawn by Jim Lee. Half of it was quite good; the other half was cold and robotic. Adam Beechen, the writer of this new Hush storyline, has written an old-fashioned potboiler/cliffhanger serial. This is a flat out, excellent read.

Sometimes, I couldn’t read this thing fast to appease my hunger to know what was on the next page. Some of the ideas here are familiar, done hundreds of times before in other Batman comic books, but here, it is the execution that makes Hush Beyond such a thrill to read. Beechen is at his best in this story when he lets Terry and Bruce get raw with each other about their opinions of each other’s job performance. Plus, there is a big red herring and twist here that will shock and confuse the reader – in a good way.

A-

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"

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I Reads You Review: MILESTONE FOREVER #1

MILESTONE FOREVER No. 1

DC COMICS

WRITER: Dwayne McDuffie

PENCILS/INKS: John Paul Leon (framing sequence)
PENCILS: Mark D. Bright
INKS: Romeo Tanghal
LETTERS: Sal Cipriano
COLORS: Snakebite
COVER: Admira
48pp, Color, $5.99

Milestone was a comics imprint published through DC Comics’ from 1993 through 1997. The brainchild of Milestone Media, a collective of African-American comic book creators, the imprint produced comic books featuring minority characters, specifically African-American characters and superheroes. The imprint published several titles including Hardware, Icon, and Blood Syndicate. One of them, Static, gave birth to an Emmy Award winning animated series, Static Shock.

Except for sporadic appearances in DC Comics series, Milestone’s characters mostly disappeared. In the summer of the 2008, Milestone Media co-founder Dwayne McDuffie announced that the Milestone characters would be merged into the DC Universe. Milestone’s universe was known as the “Dakotaverse,” named for the fictional Midwestern city, Dakota, where most of the early stories were set. Published earlier this year, Milestone Forever is the event comic book miniseries that chronicled the events leading to that merger.

Milestone Forever #1 stars the core Milestone characters, but opens with a framing sequence focusing on a character named Dharma. He initiated the “Big Bang,” the event gave characters like Static their superpowers. Now, Dharma needs those same superheroes to save the universe. Meanwhile, the Dakotaverse heroes are having their own issues. They are caught in a struggle begun by Holocaust between the old and new versions of the Blood Syndicate.

Thanks to the pencil art of Mark D. Bright, Milestone Forever #1 has a thoroughly 1980s vibe. Bright’s page design often emphasizes large panels, half-splash pages, and sometimes full splash pages – the better to capture superhero combat. The style recalls John Byrne’s art on his short run on the Hulk in the mid-80s and John Romita, Jr.’s art on Cable and Uncanny X-Men in the early 1990s. This is old school superhero comics (in a good way), but with colorist Snakebite’s fiery hues to give the art a modern touch.

I like Milestone, more now than I did in its original incarnation, but I don’t know if Dwayne McDuffie’s script offers anything new that would attract readers who ignored Milestone a decade-and-half ago. For Milestone fans, this is a nice goodbye that looks like the way it used to be.

B+

[This issue has pin-up pages, including a Hardware illustration by J.H. Williams.]

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I Reads You Review: DETECTIVE COMICS #854

Detective Comics #854
DC COMICS

WRITER: Greg Rucka
ARTISTS: J.H. Williams III, Cully Hamner (backup)
COLORS: Dave Stewart, Laura Martin (backup)
LETTERS: Todd Klein, Jared K. Fletcher (backup)
40pp, Color, $3.99

Elegy Part One, “Agitato”

The Katherine Kane Batwoman began her reign over her very own Batman title in Detective Comics #854. Written by Greg Rucka, this issue is apparently part of the “Batman: Reborn” event, which, if I remember correctly, had something to do with the original Robin (Dick Grayson who now uses the first name, Richard) becoming Batman and Damien Wayne (Batman and Talia al Ghul’s lovechild) becoming the new Robin.

Apparently because Batman and Robin were busy at the time, Gotham City’s newest caped crusader, Batwoman, took on the responsibility of fighting the 13 covens that make up something called the Religion of Crime. Yes, DC Comics is now the “House of Ideas (Not).” That aside, what is now of note about Detective Comics is that Katherine Kane is a lesbian. Rucka even writes a rather dull scene in which Katherine and her lover have a very hetero you-don’t-bring-me-flowers slash you-don’t-sing-me-love-songs-anymore moment.

Dull is the word to describe Detective Comics #854. The fights are uninspired; the character drama falls flat, and the villains are just the latest in the mostly monotonous line of colorful, DC Comics baddies. Thank heavens for the art by J.H. Williams III (pencils and inks) and Dave Stewart (colors).

Williams and Stewart shine on the pages with Batwoman in action scenes. Their inspired art and graphical storytelling present Batwoman as a wraith, depicted in painted art against a backdrop of characters and settings whose colors are all muted to some extent by gray. These scenes look so pretty that I could eat them like candy. The Williams/Stewart art team also does good work on the Kathy Kane-civilian scenes, but even they seem a bit lackluster next to the visually striking superhero scenes.

Rucka redeems himself (a little) on the backup feature, which stars The Question. The venerable character, formerly a white man, is now a Latina named Renee Montoya. In the “Pipeline” story arc, she searches for a missing young Mexican woman. This looks to be the familiar human trafficking/Mexican mafia story, but at least it is better storytelling than the main feature.

B-