Oh hey, I wrote about some comics. Wonders never cease do they? By Laming, Parker, Boyd & Bowland

Anyway, this… KINGS WATCH #1 to #5 Art by Marc Laming Written by Jeff Parker Coloured by Jordan Boyd Lettered by Simon Bowland Dynamite Comics (2014) $1.99 each on Dark Horse Digital, $3.99 each on Paper Flash Gordon created by Alex Raymond The Phantom created by Lee Falk Mandrake The Magician created by Lee Falk

By Laming, Boyd, Bowland

Kings Watch (or King’s Watch as it inside the comic) is a five issue attempt by Dynamite to blow the dust off several Kings (no apostrophe) Features characters for the largely bemused perusal of a 21st Century audience. I say largely bemused because while thanks to the joyously tatty energy of the 1980 movie everyone still remembers Flash Gordon his fellow Features have fared less well in the public imagination. Once again neglecting to check with everyone everywhere I feel fairly safe in saying that The Phantom movie of 1996 is not as fondly regarded as Flash’s outing despite the dolorous presence of Patrick McGoohan and the haunting sight of Billy Zane running around the jungle like a muscular grape. As for Mandrake the Magician and the movies I’m afraid even I haven’t a clue, darlings. Comics wise it appears The Phantom has been less dormant than I thought having recently appeared in series published by both Moonstone and Dynamite, and Flash has had a recent series with Alex Ross covers and a readership confined to one nice man in Ottawa. The only movement on the Mandrake front seems to be a newspaper strip collection due to appear before our very eyes shortly. It’s all a bit messy really isn’t it? So, I guess Kings Watch is intended to both streamline and refine these properties with an eye to maximising their potential across a range of multimedia platforms going forward. Or, you know, whatever people in ironic glasses say in rooms with white boards while sipping overpriced coffee bought in from a quaint little bodega down the street. The rest of us should just be concerned with whether these old characters are in are good comics.

By Laming, Parker, Boyd & Bowland

And they are good comics and what helps is that (some of) the characters have had a bit of a remodel for The Now they are intended to inhabit. Flash Gordon and chums require very little refurb with Parker simply, but effectively, updating Flash as a thrill seeking but focus deprived athlete par excellence; Dale remains female and the strange choice is made not to make her a regretful super assassin (“She Could Kill Any Man Alive! But She Could Never Kill The Sadness Inside!”) but rather a level headed, resourceful and strikingly unflappable human being (FFS! Who can relate to that? At least give her guns in her eyes or something!), and Zarkov as the comedy nutter gets most of the laughs via the drunken arrogance which colours his genius so vividly. Having read none of his recent outings I don’t really know how much tinkering Parker had to do but here The Phantom is a mass of scar tissue and arthritic inflammation poured into a bright purple body suit topped off by a domino mask and a zebra patterned truss. He could be a tiresome violent old man type but Parker gives him a nice line in dead pan humour which lightens him up a bit. The character Parker seems to do least to is the one who would seem to require the most tinkering to avoid obsolescence; Mandrake The Magician. Parker doesn’t reinvent him as an “edgy” young street magician or a clapped out old Vegas showman with a tragic past but instead, and remarkably, seems to leave him pretty much untouched. Yes, in King’s Watch Mandrake the Magician remains a magician from back when magicians dressed like the Kaiser was coming to dinner and it wasn’t just serial killers who sawed ladies in half. All this tickling’n’tinkering was just dandy by me because the appealing goofiness of the characters remained; it just wasn’t front and centre like it used to be, that’s all.

By Laming, Parker, Boyd & Bowland

The actual series these characters inhabit may be somewhat stately paced but each issue does contain, in varying but satisfying proportions, an action set piece or two, some engaging character work, a sure sense of progression and, just past the mid-way point, some rather unfortunate developments surprising in both their sweep and suddenness. Let’s just say London’s in it and if London’s in your American genre comic you know that things have probably gone shit side up. The good guys are on the back foot because, unusually for a bad guy, Ming actually has a pretty good plan. He’s quiet droll as well, Ming is, which I liked. Not as much as I liked the fact he wasn’t coloured bright yellow because these properties? Probably a bit of racist baggage, yeah. But Kings Watch deals well with this throughout and the ending subtly recasts things in the direction of greater inclusivity so anyone worrying about all those racist bits from the past of these strips can relax. Unless those were the bits you like, I mean UKIP supporters read comics too; besides The Daily Mail, I mean. Me, I was particularly taken with the bit near the end when everyone realises what they have to do to stop things getting worse and the attendant cost it will inflict on them. I liked this bit not because I love to wallow in other people’s misery (although I do) but because refreshingly there’s no weeping and wailing, there’s no pages of E*M*O*T*I*O*N*S like it’s the backmatter of an Image book, no, they just go and do it because, heroes. Remember those? Well this comic does. Damn straight. With the modern tendency for comics to actually avoid an ending it’s worth noting when one as good as the one here appears.

By Laming, Parker, Boyd & Bowland

Those still awake will note I’ve treated the series as a big lump rather than individually teasing out the art, the writing, the colouring and the lettering. That’s just because I didn’t have time (like Graeme & Jeff I am involved in a Secret Project; mine is Not Getting Sacked, it’s an on-going thing) and also because the fact that the end product was so enjoyable should be testament to the work of all involved. Kings Watch is solid stuff with everyone pulling their weight but no one single contributor showboating and overshadowing the others. Thankfully then there’s no real reason for me to drone on for several hundred grammatically suspect words about Parker’s steady pacing, entertaining characters, or even to single out his unobtrusive humour which seems to occur naturally from the premise, strengthening rather than undermining the drama; nor need I flail desperately about trying to explain why although I still find Laming’s art a little on the stiff side he has come on great guns since I last saw his work on American Century, and that while his art may be more efficient than astounding efficiency is nothing to cock a snook at. Apparently though I do have time to say I thought there could have been a bit more of a stylistic differentiation between the discrete elements of Mongo and Earth to ensure their interaction carried a bit more visual fizz. Hey, I even noticed the colours because some of the FX and palettes really popped on a screen and I say screen because, yes, I continue to force my face into The Future. And because I read Kings Watch in Digital the choice to present most of this series in largely widescreen panels punctuated by the odd splash page for impact worked a treat. Guided View worked fine for most of it and then a bit of manual intervention on the splashes. (Make your own jokes up on that one, knock yourself out. My treat.) Remarkably, old as I am I managed to navigate the thing without soiling myself and crying. Of course I could really do with some advice about how to get images off my tablet and into Photobucket. (I was kind of getting a bit desperate for googled images by the end of this but I think I got away with it.)That would be almost as GOOD! as Kings Watch was.

Now dispatch War Rocket Ajax and bring me some – COMICS!!!

Haven't finished reading everything yet for the week, so this is just part one... but I'll be pretty close to Old School Savage Critting, here...

ANGEL & FAITH #4: I'm kind of loving this book. I suspect that's because both the premise, as well as the motivation of the protagonists is significantly more focused than over in BUFFY SEASON 9. The art's fab, too. I honestly think this is VERY GOOD stuff. BATMAN ODYSSEY VOL 2 #2: What. The. Fuck? I didn't read #1 (and stopped reading v1 at #4, I think?), but whoa this has taken a serious turn towards the inexplicable with Caveman Batman and Robin, and dinosaur riding and man oh man Neal Adam's style is kind of inherently "serious", y'know, and completely works against what I think is meant to be a Silver Age Pastiche. Or tribute, maybe? Hard to actually tell. His Batman is zooming all around here, at one point really even sounding like a teenage girl (with an "I hate this. I hate this. I hate this." as he starts to ride a giant flying bat, followed by a big ol' "I love this!", yowsers!) I m just utterly baffled at what Adams is going for, and it is ultimately stiff and awkward and weird. So much "Work For Completionists Only", and kind of crazily AWFUL, sorry. DAREDEVIL #6: The idea of a villain with sponsorship patches, like an anti-Booster Gold, is sort of amusing, but that was a bloodier end to the fight than maybe was needed. The McGuffin of the patch was likewise interesting, but I guess I just don't see what the stakes are for DD. The art as is nice as always, but I just couldn't wrap my head around how this was a Daredevil story, and not a Spidey story. still, even with that, it's still a low GOOD. FF #12: I didn't say last week, but I thought FANTASTIC FOUR #600 was pretty terrific, but no I didn't like this. Maybe it's because in a FF book, I want to see one of a quartet of individuals specifically driving the action; or maybe it's because Bobillo's art (dunno for certain if it's a change in base-style, or the inker's work) went from sweet cartoony (like in his run of SHE HULK, man, those are great) to like harder edge euro-styled art. Like, dunno, Alex Nino, and that whole school of Philippine artists that was most prolific at Warren in the 70s? Either way, not a change I liked personally. So, yeah, while I can appreciate the intricacy of FF, this left me feeling pretty distant, so best I can must is a weak OK.

FLASH GORDON ZEITGEIST #1: Back to the top start again on this venerable property, and it is done with adequate style -- more enjoyable than the BUCK ROGERS reboot from last year, say. I'm just kind of loath to recommend any Dynamite book to people because I know if it show the slightest chance of catching on, Nickie will commission three different spin-off series, and we'll lose all of our readers for it, and have to stop ordering it. But, anyway, that's too meta! There was also an interesting choice at the end to have the rebel aliens come to Earth before ever encountering Flash, which would seem to me to be extremely likely to dramatically shear the central appeal of Flash which would be "Rugged American Individual goes to weird (and primitive, except for the spaceships) alien planets, shows them how incredible fucking awesome Rugged American Individuals are". Tell me you can't picture TEAM AMERICA's "America: Fuck Yeah!" playing behind any filmed Flash Gordon to date, right? Well, we'll see how that thread plays out, but I'm not optimistic on that. The rest of it I quite liked, though -- and that is a pretty awesome Ming, so, sure, I'll say this comic is a strong OK.

GAME OF THRONES #3: A lot of good choices in this adaptation, but the art's a little cutsie to work, I think. EH.

HAUNT #19: New Direction! Jump On Now! I thought the Kirkman/Capullo run was just too much trying to evoke a Spawny/Venomy kind of 90s feeling, but Joe Casey and Nathan Fox really change it up well here. I'm going to put the bulk of that on Fox, I think, as this looks pretty much the opposite of a Capullo comic. Solidly GOOD, though I can't say I would rush to buy another issue, necessarily.

STAR TREK ONGOING #3: Loving this, as well. Really, it's kind of a brilliant idea to adapt the old episodes with the new cast, they've got 150+ issues of material on tap, without having to generate a new story idea, yet they seem fresh because of the new dynamics among the characters. Solidly GOOD.

THUNDER AGENTS VOL 2 #1: A much better first issue than the last one -- action, AND plot movement, AND mysteries for the future AND soap opera is really the format that each issue of a super hero comic should deliver, and the first run had issues with only half or less of those in any average issue. Still, dang, in any incarnation of these characters, I'd have to say I think the appeal tended to be the artists drawing them (from Wood to Kane to Perez), and this is a writer-driven run, I think, from Nick Spencer. That's not to say that CAFU isn't fine (he [?] is), but not really in that same kind of weight class as many of the others. Ultimately, I kind of don't care about these guys outside of that art nostalgia, so you'd have to be exceptionally exceptional for me to say anything better than an OK on this. And while this is competently done, that's about it. If you have a jones for these guys, you'll probably rate this much higher than I.

THUNDERBOLTS #166: I'm going to kind of recycle the last few lines of the previous review for this -- this is competently done, but I have nothing emotionally invested in these characters, and this issue doesn't do anything to change that, so, sure, it is therefore kind of EH.

ULTIMATE COMICS ULTIMATES #4: First issue of the 4 that I liked on its own merits. I think this miscalculated on scale -- millions more dead, and this after the earlier devastation of New York... these things would dramatically change a world and how it operates, and it's exhausting as a reader to boot. THIS issue seemed a lot more personally driven, and so worked for me much better. It's a low GOOD.

UNCANNY X-MEN #2: That's all weird, and not really very X-Men-y (though, yes yes, I get "new premise" and all; whatever, I stand by that assessment), and it doesn't suck, but it sure ain't for me. OK

WOLVERINE #19: I like Funny Jason Aaron, I think, better than All Serious one. Very enjoyable, low GOOD

X-MEN LEGACY #259: I feel like I can see the sets, and someone left the script pages in the shot, and no no no no, you're supposed to emote, dear! and it's just little stick figures being moved around, and it's no different than the rest of Carey's run, mostly, and I think its unfortunately pretty AWFUL. I almost upgraded that just so we wouldn't end this session on a down note, but ugh, can't do it.

Right, more tomorrow (I think!), what did YOU think?

-B