The New 52 Review: FLASH #1

"Fast and Furious"

FLASH #1
DC COMICS

WRITERS: Francis Manapul and Brian Buccellato
ARTIST: Francis Manapul
COLORS: Brian Buccellato
LETTERS: Sal Cipriano
32pp, Color, $2.99 U.S.

The Flash is a comic book superhero created by writer Gardner Fox and artist Harry Lampert. Flash’s power is super-speed, which includes the ability to run, move extremely fast, and use superhuman reflexes. The original Flash (or Golden Age Flash, as the character is known) first appeared in Flash Comics #1 (cover date January 1940). He was Jay Garrick, a college student who gained his speed through the inhalation of hard water vapors.

The best known Flash, “the Silver Age Flash,” first appeared in Showcase #4 (cover date October 1956). He is police scientist Barry Allen, who gained super-speed when bathed by chemicals after a shelf of them was struck by lightning. Allen took the name of The Flash after reading a comic book featuring the Golden Age Flash, whom he’d later meet.

As Flash #1 opens, it seems as if everyone is at the Central City Technology Symposium. Barry Allen is in attendance with his colleague and close friend, Patty Spivot. When armed men crash the symposium, Barry springs into action as Flash only to discover the involvement of an old friend – an old friend with a perplexing problem.

This new Flash title stands as one of my favorite of The New 52. Once upon a time, I was a huge fan of The Flash, but I never thought that I could love it as I once did. Co-writer/artist Francis Manapul and co-writer/colorist Brian Buccellato have turned in a gem of a comic book that is at once familiar as a Flash comic book, but also reads as something new. To me, it perfectly captures what The New 52 is supposed to be about, something accessible to new readers that is true to the character and its past.

As good as they are as a writing team, Manapul and Buccellato make an even better art team. Manapul has a pretty visual style built on solid compositions and the ability to draw just about anything. He has a clean, simple style that harks back to the Silver Age, but is thoroughly modern. Buccellato creates colors that seem right out of a Walt Disney animated feature (pre-CAPS); some pages of this comic book look like watercolors. Buccellato gives the art texture and even life.

I have to have more of this Flash.

A+

September 28th
AQUAMAN #1
http://ireadsyou.blogspot.com/2011/10/aquaman-1.html
BATMAN THE DARK KNIGHT #1
http://ireadsyou.blogspot.com/2011/10/batman-dark-knight-1.html
BLACKHAWKS #1
http://ireadsyou.blogspot.com/2011/10/blackhawks-1.html
JUSTICE LEAGUE DARK #1
http://ireadsyou.blogspot.com/2011/10/justice-league-dark-1.html

Leroy Douresseaux Reviews "HABIBI" - An Original Graphic Novel by Craig Thompson

"A thousand and one..."

HABIBI
PANTHEON BOOKS

CARTOONIST: Craig Thompson
ISBN: 978-0-375-42414-4; hardcover
672pp, B&W, $35.00 U.S., $40.00 CAN

Craig Thompson is the Michigan-born, Wisconsin-bred graphic novelist who began his comics career as a graphic artist for Dark Horse Comics. However, it was his 1999 semi-autobiographical graphic novel, Good-bye, Chunky Rice, that brought him to readers’ attentions. Four years later, his 600-page, autobiographical graphic novel, Blankets, made him a sensation.

Eight years later, he returns with another 600-plus-page monster of a graphic novel, Habibi. At almost 700 pages in length, Habibi (apparently Arabic for “my beloved”) is a massive tome containing a blockbuster of a comic. It is a sprawling epic that spans time while being surprisingly contemporary in places. It addresses the modern world, but is timeless and is steeped in past times.

At alternate places in the narrative, Habibi is set deep in Arabic deserts, right in the middle of slums and mind-boggling squalor, inside lavish palaces and harems, and finally in modern industrial centers. Habibi is the story of two refugee child slaves that are bound to each other by chance, circumstance, and need, but mostly by love. There is the older one, Dodola, an Arabic girl sold as a child bride and later sold into slavery. The younger is Zam, a black child that Dodola rescues and takes as her own.

Dodola and Zam become like mother and child, but they are eventually ripped apart, when Dodola is kidnapped. She is taken to Wanatolia, where she enters the great estate of the Sultan. He is a fat, lustful man who is always looking for something new in pleasure and gratification. Past the Gates of Felicity, Dodola is carried into the Sultan’s harem, where she becomes his greatest turn-on and most aggravating lover.

Meanwhile, Zam goes on his own journey, one that involves magical desert snakes and drought. His journey takes him from the most depressing slums to a house of sly and conniving eunuchs. Dodola and Zam’s lives will always unfold together, even when they are apart, but will they ever be reunited for good?

Habibi is magical storytelling. Symbolic and metaphoric, Habibi is also a parable and a fairy tale. Craig Thompson does so much in this graphic novel, both literally and figuratively. Habibi tries to bridge the first and third worlds, and in that attempt, it addresses racism in such a bold and blunt way that this graphic novel could find a place on the African and Black interests bookshelves. Thompson also unveils the common heritage of Christianity and Islam share, which is Judaism, in a matter-of-fact way that readers will be either offended or shocked, or perhaps delightfully surprised. Thompson transforms passages from the Koran into exquisite and enchanting graphical storytelling, composed of words, pictures, and graphics that come together like a striking piece of music.

Habibi is certainly a remarkable feat, but it is so big that sometimes I found myself getting lost. It seems to be about everything, but is really a long and winding love story of which the reader must keep track over 600+ pages. Habibi shifts in time so much and offers so many dream sequences and side stories that it is easy to see where one might get lost in all that black ink.

Also, some of the story seems to shift from the Middle East to the American Midwest, which is odd. Still, I could see Habibi being the best comic book of the year simply because it is so ambitious. I look at this whirling dervish of a tale and see it as a book that attempts to capture or to depict the complexity of humanity itself. Habibi is magical in its narrative and beautiful in its breath. Craig Thompson has given those who love the comics medium a treasure.

A

--------------------------

Slam Dunk: The Feeling of Falling

I read Slam Dunk, Vol. 18

I posted a review at the Comic Book Bin.

Vampire Knight: Distant Memories

I read Vampire Knight, Vol. 13.

I posted a review at the Comic Book Bin.

The New 52 Review: BLACKHAWKS #1

"Not your grandfather's or father's Blackhawks"

BLACKHAWKS #1
DC COMICS

WRITER: Mike Costa
LAYOUTS: Graham Nolan
FINISHES: Ken Lashley
COLORS: Guy Major
LETTERS: Rob Leigh
COVERS: Ken Lashley
32pp, Color, $2.99 U.S.

The Blackhawks debuted in Military Comics #1 (cover date August 1941), published by Quality Comics. The Blackhawk Squadron, usually called the Blackhawks, were a small team of World War II-era ace pilots of varied nationalities, who were led by an American named Blackhawk (his nationality and ethnicity changed over the years).

The Blackhawks’ long-running comic book series was known as Blackhawk, both in Military Comics (eventually Modern Comics) and, later, a self-titled series. Blackhawk was created by Will Eisner, Chuck Cuidera, and Bob Powell, although Reed Crandall is the artist most associated with the series. Future Justice League of America artist, Dick Dillin, drew the series for 18 years. In 1987, Howard Chaykin of American Flagg! fame revamped the series in the three-issue, prestige format comic book, Blackhawk.

With the re-launch of DC Comics’ superhero line, “The New 52,” the Blackhawks are reborn. However, the new series apparently will have no connection to the previous incarnations and also will share the post-Flashpoint, rebooted DC Universe continuity.

Blackhawks #1 opens in Ayaguz, Kazakhstan with the Blackhawks on a rescue mission and doing a takedown of hostage takers. The operation goes well, but not without a hitch. Kunoichi has a big problem that starts out small, and the Blackhawks’ cover is blown.

If you are a fan of everything Blackhawk before Chaykin’s miniseries, you will need to accept that this new Blackhawks is exactly that – something new. Even if you accepted the changes Chaykin made, you will still have to make another leap of faith. Other than the logo, this is, for all intents and purposes, something called Blackhawks that is not the Blackhawk that debuted in 1941. That said…

This is neither really good nor deplorably bad. At least to me, Blackhawks is essentially a comic book about special ops on steroids with elements of military science fiction and superheroes mixed into the concept. Writer Mike Costa brings his script together nicely. Readers will have questions, like who are these characters; what are they about, what do they want; and who are their adversaries, among others? Still, what is in the first issue is easy to understand.

The art by Ken Lashley, from layouts by Graham Nolan, looks like a scratchy version of Trevor Von Eeden’s art on the 1980s cult series, Thriller. Lashley’s is not a pretty style, but it grew on me.

Will I try this comic book again? Yes, I’m curious, but I also hope it gets better.

B-

September 28th
AQUAMAN #1
http://ireadsyou.blogspot.com/2011/10/aquaman-1.html
BATMAN THE DARK KNIGHT #1
http://ireadsyou.blogspot.com/2011/10/batman-dark-knight-1.html
JUSTICE LEAGUE DARK #1
http://ireadsyou.blogspot.com/2011/10/justice-league-dark-1.html

The New 52 Review: JUSTICE LEAGUE DARK #1

JUSTICE LEAGUE DARK #1
DC COMICS

WRITER: Peter Milligan
ARTIST: Mikel Janin
COLORS: Ulises Arreola
LETTERS: Rob Leigh
COVER: Ryan Sook
32pp, Color, $2.99 U.S.

In the Dark Part One: "Imaginary Women"

Justice League Dark is a new Justice League comic book series that comes out of “The New 52,” the re-launch of DC Comics superhero comic book line. This series will focus on a more supernatural team than any Justice League series has previously done.

Justice League Dark #1 opens with Madame Xanadu finding “great wickedness” in the future during a tarot card reading. Meanwhile, a young woman named June Moone is literally beside herself so many times that she is on the run. Meanwhile, the Justice League, in the form of Superman, Wonder Woman, and Cyborg. take on an increasingly insane and insanely powerful Enchantress. Also, Shade the Changing Man and John Constantine are on the move.

I really wanted to like Justice League Dark because I like both the cast and series writer, Peter Milligan, but I can’t – not really or not yet. This first issue is all setup and the story hangs on stiff dialogue and stiffer exposition. The pencil art by Mikel Janin ranges from strong compositions to wooden figure drawing, with the former (thankfully) dominating. The cover by Ryan Sook is quite good, though.

I’m sure that Justice League Dark is going to be a dynamite book, but it isn’t, yet…

B-

Library Wars: Weekly New World

I read Library Wars: Love & War, Vol. 6

I posted a review at the Comic Book Bin.