DC New 52 Review: Animal Man #1

I'll admit to not being very familiar with Animal Man. I've read some, but not all, of the Grant Morrison trades (of course, in this New 52 reboot, that shouldn't matter. You should be able to come in cold to any one of DC's new #1s and understand them), and while I enjoyed them, the character never stuck with me. It was Morrison's treatment of Animal Man that I found most interesting. In truth, I tend not to follow characters so much as creators. Animal Man himself has simply never been compelling enough for me to collect his title(s). He's a guy who can channel and harness the physical abilities of animals, right? OK, now tell me an interesting story about him. Make me care.

In a single issue, writer Jeff Lemire did just that.

Animal Man #1 opens with a brief "interview" between Lemire and his titular character, ostensibly as a way to introduce Animal Man's place in the DC New 52 status quo. Buddy Baker is a former Hollywood stuntman who, for the last three years DCST (DC Standard Time), has been moonlighting as the superhero, Animal Man. His bond with the animal kingdom, however, has opened his eyes to the way animals have been treated by mankind. Because of this insight, Baker has taken a step back from superheroics and instead has been focusing his energies on being an animal rights activist. He is also a family man, married for 10 years with two young children. How does a superhero juggle all these responsibilities? Work, family, superpowers. It's a great concept for someone of Lemire's talents and aesthetic to play around with.

I've read some of Lemire's Essex County Trilogy stories, as well as his post-apocalyptic Vertigo series, Sweet Tooth, which feels like an indie hipster take on the genre, not that there's anything wrong with that. Lemire, whose work is sometimes quirky and oftentimes dark and angsty, puts a unique, humanist spin on his otherwise fantastical stories, and when I read that he was going to be writing the new Animal Man series, I became curious. What would he do with a superhero character set in this newly rebooted DC Universe? (Yes, I know Lemire wrote some "Brightest Day" and "Flashpoint" stories, but I couldn't bring myself to care about any of that stuff, the lone exception being 100 Bullets co-creators' Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso's brilliant Batman: Knight of Vengeance, which I simply thought of as an old-school "Elseworlds" story. But I digress.)

The first half of Animal Man #1 is for the most part straightforward superheroing, albeit well-done superheroing. There are some nice scenes between Buddy and his family (his daughter wants a puppy and his wife wants him to return to being a superhero because "[he] just seemed happier then." Then Buddy's son rushes in and tells his father about a hostage situation at a local hospital and we're off!

Animal Man of course averts disaster at the hospital (which is a melancholy, almost poignant sequence that really illustrates why Lemire is a great fit for this book) and then things start to get ... weird. But in a good way.

Buddy returns home from the hospital and, after nabbing "the napping ability of a cat," quickly falls asleep. We're then treated to a beautifully-illustrated, mostly black-and-white dream sequence, in which Buddy is confronted by creepy, nightmarish visions of his son and daughter, and of three "bad things that dress as hunters," twisted, mutated creatures that would appear right at home in an H.R. Giger exhibit. I was already hooked on this book after the hospital scene, but the dream and the chilling last page cliffhanger are what reeled me in. The last few pages are great setup for the larger, overarching story that Lemire is telling and he has me for the long haul. As long as Lemire's writing this book, I'm reading it.

Accompanying Lemire on this journey is artist Travel Foreman, whose work has always been hit-or-miss with me. His art always either seems to be too sketchy, too heavily inked, too blotchy. His pacing is solid and the action sequences flow well, but I'm not entirely sold on him just yet. He draws animals really nicely, though, which is a definite plus in a book called Animal Man. But it's telling, I think, that the surreal black-and-white dream sequence is the best-looking part of the book.

That being said, one week into DC's New 52 initiative, Animal Man is hands down the best title so far. It has humor, heart (almost literally) and humanity, and a big dose of creepiness. It's like Vertigo invaded the DCU, and, I hasten to add, the DCU is better for it.

Review: Pigs #1

Co-written by former Marvel editor Nate Cosby and British expat (and Pittsburgh Steelers fan - w00t!) Ben McCool, Pigs is an espionage thriller about Cold Warriors who never stopped fighting the war. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, a KGB sleeper cell was tasked to the island nation. They never left. Now it's 70 years later and the original operatives are old men and women. And so the mission falls to their children. The sleeper cell has been activated, but by whom? Why now? What is their mission? And who, or what, is the mysterious "White Russian" they're searching for?

Cosby and McCool have crafted a tightly wound, ticking-time-bomb of a story perfect for fans of historical fiction and cloak-and-dagger spy stories. Draped in the shady underbelly of Cold War history and the modern climate of fear and terror America now finds itself in, Pigs looks to be an action-packed and politically subversive story. It reminds me of Andy Diggle's woefully underappreciated The Losers, and not just because of the evocative cover art by Jock. (Future issues will feature covers by Francesco Francavilla, Amanda Connor, Humberto Ramos, Ben Templesmith and Becky Cloonan.)

The interior art is handled by comic book newcomer Breno Tamura (with the superb Christopher Sotomayor on colors), whose understated style meshes perfectly with the story's dark and realistic tone. Tamura's characters are all wonderfully unique and the story transitions smoothly from one panel to the next, which is not always an easy task with such a dialogue-heavy book. It's difficult to make two people sitting in a room having a conversation visually interesting, but Tamura pulls it off with ease. His action sequences are also engaging and full of energy.

With its alt-Earth history and intricate spy games, Pigs will have you hooked even before you reach the shocking cliffhanger. The final page is just one last tease to whet your whistle for issue 2.

Pigs #1 is published by Image Comics and will be in stores on September 14. Be sure to pester your local comic shop for a copy.

Review: Echoes

With the Echoes hardcover debuting this week at San Diego Comic-Con, it seems like a good time to post my review of Josh Fialkov and Rahsan Ekedal's dark, horror-tinged thriller.

Film has long been the province for dark psychological thrillers, from Alfred Hitchcock's original classic, Psycho, to more recent fare, such as David Fincher's sublimely disturbing Se7en. And while there have been countless movies of equal or, as is more often the case, lesser quality than these, there is one realm where genuinely creepy thrillers are much less prominent: comic books.

Sure, there are horror comics full of grisly, blood-soaked death, much like the Saw and Final Destination series of movies, in which each iteration attempts to top the previous entry's imaginative killings, but these are generally death for death's sake. Murder as entertainment. Empty calories of the macabre. But far less often is there a comic book that so grips your psyche, so wreaks havoc on your sense of what's real and what's hallucination, and shakes to the core the very idea of narration that it keeps you awake at night with the lights on, unable to free yourself from the darkness you just ingested.

The bleakly addictive Echoes, masterfully crafted by writer Josh Fialkov and artist Rahsan Ekedal, is just such a comic book.

Echoes chronicles the tragic, downward spiral of Brian Cohn, husband and father-to-be, whose own father is a dying old man, a schizophrenic, who, lying in his hospital bed and wracked with Alzheimer's, seemingly confesses to being a monstrous child murderer.

Before he dies, in an apparent moment of lucidity, Brian's father desperately tells him about the box, and about the dead girls, "so many dead girls." He pleads with Brian to find the box and tells him the address, tells him the box is in the crawlspace under the house.

Understandably freaked out, Brian goes to the address his father told him. He tries to reassure himself that his father was just talking crazy, that it was the Alzheimer's or maybe his father didn't even really say any of those things. Maybe it was all in Brian's head.

You see, Brian is a diagnosed schizophrenic like his father, which immediately calls into suspicion everything we see through his eyes and hear through his ears. The conceit of an unreliable narrator has been done before, of course, but rarely has it been handled as deftly as it is here. Fialkov definitely did his homework, researching schizophrenia, its effects and its treatments in order to convey the disorder with both realism and honesty.

It must be a terrible thing, to be unable to trust the voices inside your head, to be constantly questioning the world around you, unable to differentiate between what's real and what's a chemical imbalance in your brain. Brian is constantly second-guessing himself, even when he takes his meds. He's recently been undergoing treatment in a hospital and he can't escape the fear that he'll be sent back unless he acts "normal." This is why he has to investigate his father's deathbed ramblings himself, instead of going to the police. If it turns out not to be true, that Brian simply imagined the whole thing, maybe they'll lock him away again.

What Brian finds in the crawlspace, unfortunately, is all too real.

Or is it?

That's the real beauty of Echoes. Because of Brian's disorder, it's difficult to know what's real and what he's imagining. There are moments throughout the book when you might think the whole thing is one big hallucination, that Brian is strapped to a bed in a psych ward, doped to his eyeballs. But Fialkov doesn't stoop to such a cliched, cop out plot twist.

In the crawlspace, under the house, right where his father told him it would be, Brian finds a box. And inside the box is proof that his father was telling the truth, that Brian wasn't imagining it.

And that's when Brian's life begins to fall apart.

Even during Brian's slow descent into madness, as he fights to keep the schizophrenia from overwhelming him, it doesn't come off as exploitative or cliched. Even as we start to think maybe, just maybe, Brian really is a serial kiddie killer, carrying on his demented father's work, we still feel sorry for him. To elicit sympathy for a man who may be a monster is difficult to pull off, but Fialkov manages it with ease.

Fialkov's work is heavily influenced by the noir style of storytelling, with a doomed protagonist unable to free himself from the web he finds himself caught up in, a web largely of his own making. Truly, the only thing Echoes is missing from the noir playbook is the femme fatale, the dangerous, seductive woman of mystery who lures our hero into a deadly situation. Brian is a happily married man, after all, whose caring, pregnant wife wants nothing more than for Brian to get well, take his pills and return to work so he can provide for his family.

Brian's schizophrenia, however, has other plans for him. Indeed, it is the schizophrenia that fulfills the role of femme fatale, whispering sweet nothings in Brian's ear, driving him to delve deeper into the mystery, making him question himself and, ultimately, destroying him.

Josh Fialkov's twisted tale is only half of what makes Echoes so effective. Without the haunting artwork of collaborator Rahsan Ekedal, the book wouldn't be nearly as effective.

Ekedal's art has a delicate, almost ethereal quality to it, as if Brian's world might crack and crumble to dust around him. Echoes is penciled in black and white, with a minimum of inking, more gray tones than black, which only adds to the ephemeral, ghostlike feeling that permeates the story. The uncertainty of Brian's world is beautifully rendered by Ekedal's light touch.

You can see the desperation in Brian's father's eyes as he pleads with his son to go to the house. The fear is etched on Brian's face as he clambers into the crawlspace, terrified of what he might find. And when Brian discovers a pile of old porn magazines, and thinks that they are what his father was talking about, his relief is palpable as he laughs and laughs, long and loud, sloughing off the fear like a second skin. Until the image shifts and pulls back and we see the bones piled high all around him, the dead girls his father told him about. And in an instant, Ekedal returns us to the foreboding horror we felt just a few panels earlier.

Echoes is a wonderful, must-read example of psychological horror done right, in any medium. Its slow burn of a mystery will keep you guessing 'til the very end, as you question Brian Cohn sanity right beside him, as he tries desperately to retain his already tenuous grasp on his splintering reality.

Review: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

There have been numerous adaptations of L. Frank Baum’s whimsical fantasy series of Oz books since they became part of the public domain in 1956, including books, television shows, video games and even a film version starring Kermit and the Muppets. Some of these adaptations are good, though many are not. And one of the very best is a comic book published by Marvel: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, faithfully adapted by Eric Shanower and beautifully illustrated by Skottie Young.

Unlike previous adaptations, including the beloved 1939 Judy Garland musical, Shanower’s Oz hews closely to the plot of Baum’s original novel. It begins, of course, with young Dorothy Gale and her little dog Toto being swept up and away by a tornado, house and all, from the colorless Kansas farmland and deposited in the magical world of Oz, whereupon Dorothy discovers the house has landed on and crushed the Wicked Witch of the East.

And there was much rejoicing.

What follows is the well-known adventure as the Good Witch of the North bestows upon Dorothy the magical silver shoes -- not the ruby slippers of the Garland musical; I guess sparkly red looks better on-screen -- the Wicked Witch of the East had been wearing when she died. The Good Witch of the North then sends Dorothy on her way down the yellow-brick road toward the fabled Emerald City, where, Dorothy hopes, the powerful Wizard of Oz will help her return home to her Uncle Henry and Aunt Em.

Along the way, Dorothy meets her beloved companions: the Scarecrow who only wants a brain, the Tin Woodman who wants a heart, and the Cowardly Lion who wants courage. Dorothy convinces each one that the Wizard can help them, and they agree to accompany her on her journey.

I don't remember the last time I watched the 1939 film, let alone read the original books, so I was coming into this adaptation cold, with only a few fleeting images from the movie rattling about inside my head. I had no preconceived notions about the book, save for Young's artwork, which I knew was going to be gorgeous, and I was certainly not disappointed in that assumption.

In fact, the star of Marvel’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is without a doubt Skottie Young, whose imaginative interpretations of these iconic characters are nothing short of masterful. Young has a sketchy cartoon style of artwork that perfectly captures the childlike essence of these 100-year-old characters while updating them for today’s visual medium. He takes these characters and puts his own spin on them while maintaining their charming familiarity.

Dorothy is sweet and innocent, with big, expressive eyes, while the Cowardly Lion is a big ball of cuddly fur, more kitten than king. The Wicked Witch of the West is a creepy old crone, with sickly green skin pulled tight over her boney face. (The coloring by Jean-Francois Beaulieu perfectly compliments and enhances Young's pencils.)

The collection is rounded out with images from Young's sketchbook, allowing insight into his creative process as he tries to get the characters just right for the tone of Shanower's adaptation. Young's initial Cowardly Lion looks more stately and lean, dark and brooding, like something out of The Lion King, while his early Scarecrow design looks like it escaped from a Batman comic, which, now that I think of it, I would love to see Young penciling a Batman series, if for no other reason than to see his interpretations of the villains. I imagine Young's Joker would be particularly frightful.

The story plays out as expected, with Dorothy and her new friends arriving at the Emerald City and being granted an audience with the great and powerful Oz, who promises to grant their wishes, but only if they agree to kill the Wicked Witch of the West for him.

Shanower's script is full of energy and keeps the story moving at a good clip. There's never a dull moment, just the occasional pause for breath and to enjoy more of Young's lush pencils. The Wizard of Oz remains a classic with good reason, and Marvel's adaptation is poised to become a classic in its own right, a fairy tale suited for kids and adults alike.

Originally published as an eight-issue mini-series, Marvel’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is now available in both hardcover and softcover collections. Shanower and Young followed up their delightful first collaboration by adapting Baum’s sequel, The Marvelous Land of Oz, currently available as a hardcover. Their third volume, Ozma of Oz is due to be released in Sept. 2011.

Review: Footnotes in Gaza, by Joe Sacco

Faris Barbakh lives in the town of Khan Younis in southern Gaza. In 1956, when he was 14 years old, Israeli soldiers burst into his family’s home and took away all the men, his father, older brothers, uncles. A short time later, Barbakh was sent to fetch water and on his way he “saw all the bodies. More than 100 bodies ... close to the wall, from the beginning of the wall to the end ...”

The wall Barbakh is referring to is part of Khan Younis’ Mamluk castle, built in the 14th century. The bodies are those of the town’s men, gunned down and lying in pools of one another’s intermingling blood.

This is but one of the deeply personal, first-person accounts cartoonist-reporter Joe Sacco illustrates with the deft touch of a master craftsman in his latest graphic novel, Footnotes in Gaza, the story of two long forgotten mass killings of hundreds of Palestinian refugees by the Israeli military, lost to a history rife with constant bloodshed.

On November 3, 1956, the Israeli military entered the town of Khan Younis, ostensibly searching for terrorists and guerrilla fighters. They killed 275 men. Nine days later, on November 12, Israeli soldiers went to a neighboring town, Rafah, and after herding that town’s men to the school and shepherding them through a gantlet of bats and clubs, another 111 lay dead.

Documentation of these two events is scarce, rating only a few lines in a United Nations report. Initially, Sacco himself recalled it only because of a passing reference made in Noam Chomsky’s book, The Fateful Triangle, he had read years earlier, and after the Khan Younis portion of an article he had illustrated for Harper’s Magazine in 2001 had been edited out, Sacco decided he would tell the story himself.

Sacco is unique among journalists. While he researches and reports as well as anyone, it’s his method of storytelling that stands him apart from his peers. Rather than relying solely on words on a page to tell his stories, Sacco brings his subjects to life with intricate, detailed artwork in the form of a comic book.

On one page, Sacco gives us a bird’s eye view of the bodies lining the crumbling castle wall, young Faris Barbakh walking toward them. And on the facing page, from the same angle, Sacco shows us the same wall nearly 50 years later, plastered with posters and covered in graffiti, cars parked in front of it where bodies once lay.

Sacco uses this technique often throughout Footnotes in Gaza, juxtaposing the past and the present, to literally illustrate both how much and how little the lives of these Palestinian refugees have changed.

It is a technique Sacco has used before, first with the American Book Award-winning Palestine in 1996, a collection of stories about his time in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in the early ‘90s, and then with Safe Area Gorazde, a book about the Bosnian War which won the Eisner Award for Best Graphic Novel in 2001. With these three graphic novels, Sacco has carved himself a niche as the foremost journalist/cartoonist working today.

For Footnotes in Gaza, Sacco embedded himself in the Gaza Strip for about three months between November 2002 and March 2003, living among his subjects, eating their food and earning their trust. He was constantly peppered with questions from curious Palestinian youths, who wondered why he was asking questions about incidents that happened nearly 50 years ago.

Sacco recounts a conversation with a group of teenagers with bad acne and wearing western clothing. One of the boys asks, “Why is our country like this?” referring to the almost daily demolition of Palestinian homes by the Israelis.

“Because we’re not close to God,” another responds.

When Sacco asks them what they think is the best way to resist, one boy says, “Get close to God.”

“With bombs,” another says, looking at the ground, already defeated, beaten down by the harsh life of being a refugee in his own land.

To ensure accuracy in his reporting, Sacco carries with him a tape recorder and a digital camera. He photographs his interview subjects, their homes, their families, so that he can recreate them later in pen and ink. For the flashback sequences, he visited the United Nations Relief and Works Agency archives, pouring through old photographs, and dug through Israeli Defense Forces records.

Sacco concedes in the book’s foreword that when talking with people about an event 50 years in their pasts, when many were children and young teenagers, their memories may not hold up to scrutiny. Whenever possible, Sacco sought corroboration from other sources, knowing full well one person’s account of an incident that far back in their memory may not be wholly accurate. Indeed, Faris Barbakh, the man who as a child found the bodies lining the wall of the castle, could remember only the names of eight of the 12 relatives he helped bury that day.

Some critics of Sacco’s work have accused him of having a bias toward the Palestinians, which Sacco denies. He has said in interviews that he merely thought the voices of the Palestinian people were rarely heard in mainstream media. In the end, Footnotes in Gaza is neither a condemnation of the Israeli occupation nor pro-Palestinian propaganda, but a well-researched and important book about a forgotten chapter of the horrors that have plagued the region for centuries. While everyone else focuses on the macro, Sacco hones in on the micro, the individuals who have been first-hand witnesses to countless atrocities, and he perhaps uncovers part of the root of today’s animosity between the Palestinians and the Israelis.

Sacco interviewed Hamas co-founder Abed El-Aziz El-Rantisi, who was nine years old in November 1956. El Rantisi, who was later killed by an Israeli missile, recalled the day his uncle was killed: “I still remember the wailing and tears of my father over his brother ... It left a wound in my heart that can never heal ... This sort of action can never be forgotten ... [T]hey planted hatred in our hearts.”