#IReadsYou Review: DON'T BE CRUEL Volume 8

DON'T BE CRUEL, VOL. 8
SUBLIME MANGA/Libre – @SuBLimeManga

[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]

MANGAKA: Yonezou Nekota – @yonekozoh
TRANSLATION: Adrienne Beck
LETTERS: Vanessa Satone
EDITOR: Jennifer LeBlanc
ISBN: 978-1-9747-0832-1; paperback (October 2019); Rated “M” for “Mature”
188pp, B&W, $12.99 U.S., $17.99 CAN, £8.99 UK

Don't Be Cruel is a yaoi manga from popular mangaka, Yonezou Nekota.  Yaoi manga is a subset of boys' love (or BL) manga, which depicts amorous situations between male romantic leads.  Yaoi manga usually features explicit depictions of sex between those male leads.  Don't Be Cruel focuses on a playboy, Hideyuki Maya, who forces a studious classmate, Takahashi Nemugasa, into a sexual relationship.

As Don't Be Cruel, Vol. 8 opens, Maya awakens to find himself in a strange bedroom!  Oops, this is the apartment of his friend, Ruka, but nothing happened between Maya and Ruka... right?  So why does Maya later lie to Nemugasa about his whereabouts?  After Maya changes the subject, Nemugasa begins to wonder if his lover's playboy days are coming back.  When Maya agrees to help Ruka in planning a special event to promote a movie, Nemugasa becomes really suspicious and worried.  Can Nemugasa find out the truth, and what will he do when he does?

[This volume includes the bonus story, “Bath Oil is Slippery,” and an “Afterword.”]

It has been over three years since I last read the Don't Be Cruel yaoi manga.  It was in a 2-in1 edition that collected Don't Be Cruel Volumes 1 and 2 that I received from my SuBLime Manga media rep.

Don't Be Cruel Graphic Novel Volume 8 also arrived as a copy for review.  I did not have a difficult time catching up to the current status of the characters.  Nemugasa is still needy and insecure, and Maya is still handsome, a good lover, and attractive to other men and women.  I think that Don't Be Cruel is one of the longer running yaoi manga because creator Yonezou Nekota creates new problems for her star couple, even after she puts their old problems behind them.  Nemugasa and Maya's relationship makes good melodrama because Nekota treats them like a real-world couple experiencing the ups-and-downs and the ebb and flow of any relationship between two people, especially between those who happen to be lovers.

Nekota's pretty art depicts the emotional state of the characters through their emotive eyes and vivid facial expressions.  Adrienne Beck's translation captures the affection of romance, but also the edgy and sometimes combative nature of romantic relationships.  However, I have to say that I think Vanessa Satone's lettering is the most effective storytelling element in this English-language edition of Don't Be Cruel.  The lettering conveys the subtlety and the range of emotions, both in the dialogue and in the overall story.

7.5 out of 10

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

For up-to-date news and release information, please visit the SuBLime website at SubBLimeManga.com, or follow SuBLime on Twitter at @SuBLimeManga, Facebook at facebook.com/SuBLimeManga, Tumblr at http://sublimemanga.tumblr.com/, and Instagram at @sublimemanga/.


The text is copyright © 2019 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for syndication rights and fees.


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#IReadsYou Review: X-MEN #1 (2019)

X-MEN No. 1 (2019)
MARVEL COMICS – @Marvel

[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]

STORY: Jonathan Hickman
PENCILS: Leinil Francis Yu
INKS: Gerry Alanguilan
COLORS: Sunny Gho
LETTERS: VC's Clayton Cowles
EDITOR: Jordan D. White
EiC: Akria Yoshida a.k.a. “C.B. Cebulski”
COVER: Leinil Francis Yu with Sunny Gho
VARIANT COVER ARTISTS: Mark Bagley and John Dell with Israel Silva; Mark Brooks; Tom Muller; Whilce Portacio with Chris Sotomayor; Leinil Francis Yu; Chris Bachalo with Edgar Delgado; Artgerm; Marco Checchetto; Russell Dauterman
44pp, Color, $4.99 U.S. (December 2019)

Rated T+

The X-Men created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby

“Pax Krakoa”

The X-Men are a Marvel Comics superhero team and franchise created by writer-editor Stan Lee and writer-artist Jack Kirby.  In The X-Men #1 (cover dated: September 1963), readers were introduced to a professor and team-leader and his students who had unique powers and abilities because they were “mutants.”  The leader was Professor Charles Xavier a/k/a “Professor X.”  His students were Scott Summers (Cyclops), Jean Grey (Marvel Girl), Warren Worthington III (Angel), Henry “Hank” McCoy (Beast), and Bobby Drake (Iceman).

This past summer (2019), writer Jonathan Hickman revamped, rebooted, and re-imagined the X-Men comic book franchise via a pair of six-issue comic book miniseries, House of X and Powers of X (pronounced “Powers of Ten”).  October welcomed “Dawn of X,” the launch of six new X-Men titles, although all except one bore titles that have been previously used.  The new series were Excalibur, Fallen Angels, Marauders, New Mutants, X-Force, and the subject of this review, X-Men.

X-Men 2019 is written by Jonathan Hickman; drawn by Leinil Franics Yu (pencils) and the recently-deceased Gerry Alanguilan (inks); colored by Sunny Gho, and lettered by Clayton Cowles.  The series will apparently focus on Cyclops and his hand-picked team of mutant powerhouses who will stand between the mutants' sacred land (the island of Krakoa) and the threat of the human world.

X-Men #1 (Pax Krakoa) finds the X-Men engaged in a mop-up operation, destroying the last stronghold of Orchis, the organization that was attempting to build a more powerful generation of the mutant-hunting robots, the Sentinels.  Cyclops, Storm, Magneto, and Polaris find little real resistance from the minions of Orchis.  However, they do find a “posthuman” and a large group of mutant children in need of rescuing... and in need of a home.

So it's back to Krakoa, the living island and mutant nation-state.  Many are still adjusting to this new home and the new state of mutant affairs.  Meanwhile, their enemies are not going quietly into the night, nor is their evil science.

For the first two decades of its existence, the X-Men comic book series (later titled Uncanny X-Men) had an intimate feel to it.  The series basically focused on a small band of heroes and adventures who (1) had few allies and (2) fought “evil mutants” in order to protect the larger world of humanity.  Even when the team line-ups changed or when a second group of “New Mutants” entered the picture, the X-Men comics felt like an intimate affair with its tales of the mutant-us against the world.

From the mid-1980s on, Marvel Comics published an increasing number of X-Men and X-Men related ongoing series, finite series, graphic novels, and assorted one-off publications.  Then, the hit film, X-Men (2000), presented the X-Men's home and base, “Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters” (Xavier Institute for Higher Learning), as an actual school, packed with minor children who were mutants.  Marvel Comics followed suit, and suddenly Professor Charles Xavier a.k.a. Professor X's mansion went from half a dozen or so inhabitants to housing untold dozens of students, in addition to members of the X-Men who were suddenly being depicted as teachers and counselors.

So during the past two decades of X-Men comic books, the X-Men titles have stopped being superhero comic books and have become mutant soap opera, dystopian, science fiction, serial dramas.  That would not be a problem except there are too many characters, too many plots, and too many comic books.  No matter how many Spider-Man, Superman, or Batman comic books there are, those titles still focus only on Spider-Man, Superman, or Batman.  There is still an intimacy between the reader and a single character.  Too many Avengers or Justice League comic books become redundant, like an over-supply of superhero characters.  That's the problem with the X-Men... still... even after the latest spiffy, new reboot.

Jonathan Hickman's House of X and Powers of X were finite series with a purpose, a goal, and (more or less) an endgame.  Each series had a beginning, a middle, and an end – even during the moments when that was presented in a non-linear fashion.  Both of these comic books were wonderful, satisfying, complete reads.

But we seem to be back to the status quo that was not supposed to be, at least, post-Hickman revolution.  X-Men 2019 is the start of a wave of new X-Men titles, “Dawn of X,” soon to be followed by more waves.  Well, maybe Hickman will continue to surprise us and later issues of X-Men 2019 won't feel like padded story the way this X-Men #1 does.  One can hope, even a former X-Men fan like myself.  But I have a feeling that sales on the “Dawn of X” titles will have plummeted so much by the end of 2020 that Marvel Comics will already be planning the next relaunch.

5.5 out of 10

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


The text is copyright © 2019 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for reprint and  syndication rights and fees.


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#IReadsYou Review: AERO #1

AERO No. 1
MARVEL COMICS – @Marvel

[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]

STORY: Zhou Liefen; Greg Pak
ART: Keng; Pop Mhan
COLORS: Keng; Federico Blee
LETTERS: VC's Joe Caramagna
EDITOR: Mark Paniccia
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Akira Yoshida a.k.a. C.B. Cebulski
COVER: Keng
VARIANT COVER ARTISTS: Artgerm; Mirka Andolfo; John Tyler Christopher
36pp, Color, $4.99 U.S. (September 2019)

Rated “T+”

Aero created by Zhou Liefen and Keng

“Protector of the City” and “Aero & Wave: Origins & Destinies”

Last year came news that Marvel Entertainment had created two Chinese superheroes.  They made their debut in webcomics that were published online on the website, NetEase (specifically 163.com), one of China's leading Internet technology companies.

According to reports, Marvel created the two heroes, “Aero” and “Sword Master,” to attract fans in China and across East Asia.  Both heroes exist in the modern world, but their stories are also influenced by Chinese culture.  Marvel was responsible for the character design and comics story lines, but the comic book art, environments, and adventures were conceived and produced by Chinese artists.

The hero Aero, who is a young woman named Lei Ling, lives in Shanghai.  Ling is a “brilliant architect” and a “rising young elite.”  As Aero, she has the ability to harness the power of the air, a power she uses to protect her city from enemies, including supernatural ones.  She makes her U.S. debut in the new Marvel Comics title, Aero.

Aero #1 contains two stories.  The first is the original Chinese comics story, “Protector of the City.”  It is written by Zhou Liefen and drawn by artist Keng; the English adaptation is written by Greg Pak.  “Protector of the City” opens with Aero on patrol in the sky above Shanghai.  She discovers that one of the buildings she designed (as Lei Ling) is turning into a giant rock monster.  Although she manages to defeat it, this is not the last such occurrence.

The second story is “Aero & Wave: Origins & Destines” Part One.  It is an original English story written by Greg Pak; drawn by Pop Mhan; colored Federico Blee; and lettered by Joe Caramagna.  The story opens on an island in the Philippine Sea.  There, Aero finds Filipino superhero, “Wave,” a young woman named Pearl Pangan, in a state of distress.  An outsider her entire life, Pearl, fought her way to the top and is now a member of the superhero collective, “Triumph Division.”  However, she believes she has drawn her compatriots ire, so can Aero help the young hero before trouble arrives?

The few times that I have read Chinese comics (called “manhua”), I have liked them.  I like them especially when they are published in color and printed on slick paper.  [I also love to see manga (Japanese comics) and manhwa (Korean comics) in color on slick paper.]  So I like seeing Aero in full-color.  The story is not great, but it has an engaging vibe.  “Protector of the City” has an odd quality, and I think it would seem less odd to me if I could read more than the 22 pages we get in this first issue.  I am curious to read more.

“Aero & Wave: Origins & Destines” Part One is a traditional American comic book story, in rhythm and page design and in story, art, and graphical storytelling.  I must admit to being intrigued by Wave and her problems.  I look forward to more of this character.  Generally, I have liked the work of both writer Greg Pak and artist Pop Mhan, and although I am not a super-fan of either one.  Here, their professionalism and skills make good showings.

Colorist Federico Blee does really good work on “Aero & Wave: Origins & Destines.”  His coloring, especially the blue and green hues, captures the sense of how much water and related themes play a part in this story.  Joe Caramagna's traditional lettering style strikes the right tone for both stories because Caramagna's lettering is different for each story.  The lettering is more traditional and sparse for “Protector of the City” and a bit more modern and crowded for “Aero & Wave: Origins & Destines.”  So, overall, the production values of this comic book are good.

I don't think that Aero will catch on with American comic book readers, in general, but Aero #1 will catch the attention of readers open to different things.  I am interested in this, and I will recommend that readers try Aero #1 to see if it is their cup of tea.

7 out of 10

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


The text is copyright © 2019 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

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