Jim Mahfood is a pillar in the pop-art world.  From commercial and advertising to comic books and live art, Mahfood has established himself as the newest young gun in pop-culture.  For Free Comic Book Day, Mahfood and Kristian Donaldson attended CAPE! with other artists and writers where they discussed aspects of their work, the industry and did it all without any regard for capitalization.  Mixtape Vol. 2, a collected art book, comes out in late July.

How about an introduction! who are you, and what do you do?

my name is Jim Mahfood aka Food One. i'm an artist, i write and draw comic books, i do illustration and advertising art, i show drawings and paintings in galleries around the world, i paint murals in various strange and exciting locations, and i rock live art in clubs and bars around the country. you can check out what i do at www.40ozcomics.com and www.foodoneart.blogspot.com

So, i'm a work at home freelancer, with my own set of wierd pre work rituals and procrastinations. i always wonder what other artists do to prepare for/ put off work while at their home studio. what's your work average work day look like?

i wake up around 10 or 11, drink coffee, check email, and hit the drawing table around noon with the music cranking, try and work for 3-4 hours straight, take a lunch break, go for a walk or a jog, come back home, more drawing, make phone calls, handle bizness, shower, more drawing, dinner break, more drawing, take a break, maybe read a little, watch a movie or some cartoons, crash out around 2am or usually later...

where do you live, and how does living there inform or shape your work?

i live in LA, in the heart of Hollywood. there's no place weirder. the strange characters that live here, the music, the art, the fashion, the attitude and politics, it all creeps into my work and influences it in one way or another.

You're one of the people out there who's not just doing comics, but doing illustration work, as well as showing in galleries. could you elaborate on these different aspects of your artistic life a little bit? how did you get started? how do these different disciplines compare to each other, either artistically, personally, professionally?

i've always been interested in other areas of art, not just comics. the comics stuff got me into meeting musicians and djs, i started doing flyer and album art for people, that led to live art in clubs, that led to painting and meeting gallery people, that led to advertising and illustration work. it's all taken 11 years to get to this point. i like doing different things, staying diverse, and making the art change and evolve all the time. if it doesn't evolve, it dies.

Mixtape Vol. 2

From Image Comics, due in late July.

Loved your Mix Tape art book, and really loved the  pieces you did in Swallow v. 4. how did those projects come about?

Mixtape was long overdue. i wanted a nice hardcover full color artbook that would collect all this non-comics stuff i'm doing: album covers, flyer art, animation pitch art, etc. Ash Wood is a friend and invited me to be in Swallow again. it's an honor to be in there with all those incredibly talented people. i'm a huge fan of art books, it's what i spend my money on, so any chance i can be in one or put one out, i will go for it! Mixtape #2 hits in time for San Diego Comic Con!

can you talk about the inspiration behind those gorgeous photo/illo mashup pieces featured in Swallow?

this dude named Jeff Shagawat aka Bill Shag moved into my apt. building two years agio and we became drinking buddies. he takes amazing photos (all film, no digital) and we started throwing parties and events together and i eventually just started making drawings and stuff using his photos. since then we have shown our art together in Arizona, LA, NY, and London and France. you can see his photos at www.shagawat.com.

Technique! what do you like to do? what do you like to use? when doing comics what steps do you go through to arrive at a finished page?

i pencil everything out, usually pretty loosely. most of my drawing takes place in the ink phase. i use various pens: caligraphy pens, pentel brush pen, microns...i dunno, whatever's laying around and will work. with comics, i write a script, thumbnail out the page layouts, pencil the page and then ink it. pretty traditional approach, i think...

Jim Mahfood spins at CAPE's Live Art show 2007

image by Chris Williams

You were here for CAPE and the live art show last year, what made you come back??

all my friends will be there! and everyone involved in organizing the event are totally cool, easy to get along with-type people. they make the artists feel welcome. i like that. the big cons don't have that anymore.

what are you working on right now? anything upcoming to promote?

yep. i have a new two-issue series called Kick Drum Comix coming out in either Sept or Oct. both issues are full of new short stories, all written and drawn by me, and in blazing full color! and Mixtape: Vol.2 hits in late July.

“It’s weird; being with you, I can’t tell what’s right and what’s wrong anymore.”

A return visit from the Ood, the tentacle-faced aliens from season two, and an icy run-around as the Doctor and Donna try to avoid becoming Ood food.

Plot Points – Our intrepid pair arrive on the Ood-Sphere in 4126, the planet of origin for the strange creatures who were originally seen in 2.8 “The Impossible Planet” and 2.9 “The Satan Pit.” Here we find Ood Operations, a family-owned company run by the officious Mr. Halpen (Tim McInnerney), who process and sell the Ood as servants to civilized worlds across three galaxies. But something’s amiss at Ood Operations: more of the Ood are experiencing “red eye,” going rabid, and killing their masters. It’s up to the Doctor and Donna to get to the bottom of things.

Doctor Who? – Pleased with Donna’s sense of wonder, the Doctor tells her, “I know what it’s like – the fear, the joy, the wonder… I get that. Why do you think I keep going?” The Doctor uses that Vulcan mind-meld thingy again (first seen in 2.4 “The Girl in the Fireplace”), expresses regret that he didn’t save the Ood in the previous adventure, and feels he owes them. And though he’s said it in past seasons, the Doc has apparently adopted “Oh yes!” (or, more correctly, “Oh yeshhhhh!”) as his official catchphrase.

Hey, Hey, Donna – Again, Donna is shown to be very compassionate toward the Ood, though ultimately she seems overwhelmed by this adventure and asks the Doctor to take her home (she later recants). She tells the Doctor “being with you, I can’t tell what’s right and what’s wrong anymore.” She can’t hear the Ood song without the Doctor’s help, until the Ood are freed.

This Year’s Arc – There’s another reference to the bees disappearing, and the Ood tell the Doctor “I think your song must end soon; all songs must end.” Heavy.

Too Cool – I love that old-school space rocket at the beginning (it almost looks like a Thunderbird, which may have been the intent), and the Warhol-inspired Ood art is a nice touch. The ice planet is vividly rendered through a combination of CG effects and practical locations slathered with pretty convincing fake snow and ice.

Weird Science – I’m certainly not an expert on genetics, but it seems highly unlikely that a race with as acute a weakness as an exposed brain could possibly evolve on an ice planet. I suppose it’s not impossible that the Ood frontal brain is highly resistant to cold (we’re never told this, however), but that would rather defeat Donna’s premise about it leading to their very trusting nature. And though I realize it’s just a matter of not being able to afford multiple full-body costumes, this episode makes it look like the Ood are born wearing gray jumpsuits and gloves.

Dumb Stuff – It’s a common problem – a very common problem – with NuWho, but the Earth people are nowhere as advanced as they should be given the stated year. More than two thousand years into the future, man still dresses exactly like the early 21st century, uses contemporary weapons that fire bullets, and keep their records in three ring binders fer cryin’ out loud? Given that we’re already well on the way to being a paperless society, it seems unthinkable we’ll still be using those big white laminated notebooks two millennia from now. (On the other hand, it’s easy to imagine The Simpsons will survive. D’oh!) Okay, okay, the claw chase is fun and all, but it really serves no story purpose at all, and seems like the Doctor Who equivalent of a car chase. Mr. Halpen asks how the Ood are able to use their translator balls as a weapon, but no one ever explains it. At the end, Halpen is determined to destroy the central Ood brain, but he places the explosive charges around the top of the catwalk, which has been shown to be thirty or forty feet above the giganti-brain; it’s conceivable that the explosions will do enough damage to bring debris crashing down on the brain, but why not go down and place the charges around the actual base of the brain-platform, where they’re sure to destroy the thing? And if that’s too dangerous, why not just drop the explosives down on top of the brain itself? Just because the brain “eats” the doctor doesn’t mean it’s going to be able to quickly disarm a dozen or so bombs. And why do the all guards decide to suddenly stop killing the Ood just because they start singing? At this point the Ood have been seen to kill dozens of humans, and yet the guards lay down their weapons just because of the pretty song? In the very last shot of the episode, the TARDIS dematerialization grind begins the instant the Doctor enters the ship, giving him no time to cross the thirty feet or so to the console and flip any switches.

Classic Who – The Doctor says that he’s been to this solar system before, “ages ago,” when he visited the Sense-Sphere. That’s a way-back reference to the 1964 William Hartnell story “The Sensorites” (1.7). The Ood bear some slight resemblence to the Sensorites.

Final Answer – Although it has a distinct “by the numbers” vibe to it, “Planet of the Ood” is a very enjoyable romp that particularly benefits from the directorial skills of Graeme Harper, who keeps the pace brisk enough that you don’t realize everybody’s pretty much just running around in circles (sometimes literally – see claw chase comments above). Big Business is virtually always the bad guy in Doctor Who, and this plot is pretty fundamentally similar to “Partners in Crime” (widely available commercial product is shown to be dangerous), but it’s all done with enough verve that it keeps your attention. Tim McInnerney lends a bit of class to a very one-note character, and the Ood themselves are suitably creepy. Don’t expect this one to get nominated for a Hugo, but as a crowd-pleaser, it’s pretty unannoying. And I hate to say it… but I think I’m becoming a full-fledged Donna fan.

The episode starts out with two snarky plastic surgeons walking out of the hospital, discussing their cases before separating. One gets into his car, and is suddenly snatched from behind. Hours later, he stumbles into the hospital clutching his stomach. A veteran nurse tries to help him, gently prying away his hands from his torso, only to scream as the contents of his stomach spill out before her.

The Winchesters are hot on Bela’s trail after exorcising a demon when they find out about the case. The unfortunate victim had muddy fingerprints all over him dating back hundreds of year, so more than the usual foul play is suspected. Sam suggests a zombie is at work, but this theory is put to rest when a grumpy doctor shows the two the victim’s wounds weren’t bite marks – they were from a surgeon. All of this traces back to Doc Benton (Billy Drago), an 19th century alchemical surgeon who survived for decades by switching out body parts – like the still-beating heart he just lifted from a runner. One of Benton’s hearts was removed by none other than John Winchester – but the doc just keeps on ticking.

Dean is infuriated when he realizes Sam knew it was Benton all along and didn’t tell him. He soon realizes Sam’s strategy, hoping Doc Benton’s twisted research can provide immortality to save Dean from perdition. But the two brothers are even further at odds when Bobby calls with a lead on Bela from a retired hunter named Rufus Turner. Sam wants to finish the case to find out what Benton knows, while Dean wants to find Bela and the Colt. The two brothers begrudgingly split up.

Sam finds Benton’s lair, managing to save not only a survivor but also Benton’s research. He is attacked by Benton on his way to the car, but manages to escape and even run over Benton on the way – not that it does much good. Dean, meanwhile, is off to a tough start with the generally unhelpful Rufus until he adds some scotch to the equation. Rufus tells Dean where Bela is as well as what her angle is, but also tells Dean not to get his hopes up, saying all of their kind have it coming and he is what has to look forward to if he lives past his deal – which he highly doubts he will. Dean confronts Bela, but the Colt is already gone. He then faces Bela with the death of her parents ten years ago, accusing her of killing them. (A brief flashback implies Bela’s father sexually abused her.) But Dean isn’t able to kill Bela, especially after seeing something above her door. He leaves – but not before Bela snatches his hotel receipt out of his pocket. Sam calls Dean, and is hopeful he can reproduce Benton’s formula – but not before he is captured by Benton.

The charismatic Benton fondly remembers John Winchester, and plans to operate on his son. He is just about to scoop out Sam’s eyeball when Dean enters the room, gun pointed right at Benton. All of his shots fail to affect the more-or-less undead Benton, who slams Dean against the wall and prepares go in for the kill. It’s at this time when Dean stabs him in the heart with the knife. The knife doesn’t kill Benton, but it wasn’t supposed to – but the poison coating the knife does bring him down. When Benton comes to, he offers to help the Winchesters find immortality, but Dean, having seen what immortality has made Benton as well as what survival has made Rufus, refuses. They give the still-living Benton a proper burial, while the screaming doctor pleads as the dirt falls on his metallic makeshift casket, yelling he can still save Dean.

That night, Bela enters their hotel room and shoots both beds several times – only to find blow-up dolls beneath each bed. Then she gets a call from Dean, who is already leaving town. He realizes what he saw above her door – herbal hellhound repellant – marking Bela as a fellow Faustian. Another flashback reveals Lilith was the one who made the deal to kill her parents – and Bela tells Dean she is the one who holds his contract as well as every other. Dean is frustrated, knowing Bela could have helped them, but instead, chose to work against them – and inadvertently seals her own fate. Dean says he’ll see her in Hell and hangs up. The clock strikes midnight and Bela faces the window as she hears howls in the distance getting closer and closer. The credits roll as we hear roars and growls fall on Bela.

Overall, this was a great episode, and as you can see, a lot happened. The episode shows the lengths Sam is willing to go for Dean as well as the lines Dean isn’t willing to cross for even his sake. The scene with Rufus has dingy, Hellblazer-like feel, and I can’t help but compare Doctor Benton to I Am Legend’s Robert Neville, begging to cure humanity when really he is the monster. The episodes thrusts Sam and Dean right into next week’s season finale, which the previews indicate will be a must-see confrontation for Supernatural fans!

A year and a half after it starts, “Last Son” ends.  Was it worth the wait?  Unfortunately, the answer is: not really. 

Seventy years ago, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, two high school students, created Superman for Action Comics. Shortly after that, Richard Donner and Geoff Johns released the first five parts of Last Son. Ok, it wasn’t that long ago--it just feels that way.  Truth be told, Part one of the story came out in December of 2006. Now a year and a half later, the conclusion of the story has been released.  The question is, was it worth the wait?  Unfortunately, the answer is: not really.

Once again, DC provides no recap page. This is troublesome.  Especially here where over nine months have gone by since the last installment. Admittedly, DC gets the closest they ever have to a recap through the clever use of newspaper headlines that highlight previous issues.  Still, I struggled a bit to remember who were who and what they were doing. The plot is simple: General Zod and the other phantom zone criminals have escaped and took over the world.  They have kidnapped all of the world’s heroes, which forced Superman to team up with Lex Luthor and the Superman Revenge Squad (consisting of Metallo, Parasite (isn’t he dead) and Bizarro.  I’m not sure if these events occurred on or off panel.  As expected, this rag tag team of heroes and villains face off against the invading Kryptonians in a last pitched battle for the planet.  Caught in the crossfire are Lois and Christopher Kent (Zod’s real and Superman’s adopted son), one of which may have made the ultimate sacrifice.

I really did not enjoy this book. It wasn’t the storytelling, which had fun dialog and great pacing. It wasn’t the art (although I have no idea who that woman they called “Lois” was supposed to be--she looked nothing like Lois Lane.) There were even some great glimpses into Lex Luthor’s character when he explains why he teamed up with Superman (although we have heard this before.  Finally, the flip Kryptonian/English cover was a brilliant idea. 

Despite all these good things, I had some major problems that bothered me so much that they took me out of the story. First, Superman was far to accepting of his villainous allies and their actions.  Page after page shows numerous Kryptonians being killed in different, but equally brutal, ways.  There is one constant in the DC Universe and that is: Superman does not kill.  I had trouble accepting that he would ally himself with killers, let alone allow them to kill.  I also thought Kubert’s art was not as strong as in previous issues and wondered if there was a fill in artist used to finish the story.

The other problem is more fundamental. When the heck does this story occur?  We have had fifteen issues of Action Comics and over eighteen months of Superman Comics since the beginning of “Last Son.” Things occurred in those issues that would be impossible given the events that take place in Action Comic Annual 11.  So, does that mean that the entire story took place after those issues? If that is the case, then other things would not make sense in light of those issues and Countdown.  I’m not a strict continuitist and I understand the need for some flexibility but the big stuff (i.e., whether some is alive or dead) should be respected. Figuring out with this issue fit made my head hurt. I do find it funny that in the 90s when DC had really bad continuity over all, the S books were an ideal (with triangles on each issue).  Now, DC has a tighter continuity overall, but the S books have fallen apart.  Hopefully, the new creative team will be able to maintain a tighter continuity. 

Who know, perhaps “Last Son” will read better as a trade.
Last Son Conclusion
Written by Geoff Johns and Richard Donner
Art and cover by Adam Kubert
Variant cover by Kubert
Color Artist: Edgar Delgado
Letterer: Rob Leigh

The heartwarming tale of a boy and his hamster, via the mind of Garth Ennis.

Garth Ennis HATES Superheroes. He hates them with the white-hot intensity of a thousand burning suns. It’s an interesting point of view for someone in the comic industry, particularly for someone so well-regarded. Personally, I LOVE Garth Ennis. He brought us some of the greatest issues of The Punisher and John Constantine: Hellblazer, as well as some other brilliant original series like Enemy Ace: War In Heaven and War Stories. But for my money, he also created the greatest long-running series ever, which was Preacher. When I say long-running, I mean it had more than 24 issues. But I digress, because we’re not here to praise Preacher. We’re here to praise The Boys, Ennis’ latest all-out assault on the superhero genre. He’s explored it before with the Punisher arc, “Confederacy of Dunces”, but in The Boys, we’ve got superheroes running wild all over the world, doing everything from accidentally splattering the occasional innocent bystander to rampant sexual deviance to out-and-out evil deeds like rape and murder. This is a world where the good guys have to be watched more closely than the bad guys and that’s when you call in The Boys. Now, anyone who reads The Boys knows that this is easily the most offensive comic on the shelves, for reasons that are too numerous to list here. But that’s par for the course for Ennis. When he does mature readers comics, they are definitely not for the kiddies. Bear in mind, this is a series so incendiary that DC/Wildstorm dropped it after only six issues. Then the maverick publisher Dynamite picked it up and Ennis and his artist/collaborator Darick Robertson pulled out all the stops… and all the hamsters.

Issue 18 brings about the aftermath of the hilariously offensive (or offensively hilarious) sexual tryst of Hughie and Annie (who, unbeknownst to Hughie, is actually one of the superheroic members of The Seven) and also the (hopefully) final battle between Hughie and the resurrected Blarney smurfin, whom Hughie accidentally killed in his first super-powered confrontation. But the only reason that Hughie even confronts Blarney smurfin (if you read the comic, you know how that actually translates) is because Hughie’s pet hamster Jamie formerly belonged to B.C., who kept it… well, decorum prohibits me talking about that here (but it does bring an old urban myth surrounding Richard Gere to mind). Only Ennis. But there are some other matters here as well, as to what is the secret of Mother’s Milk and his mother? Why does he have an aversion to giant snakes? What is the nature of the truce between The Boys and The Seven? Many questions are asked here, including how does one dispose of a dead body effectively?

This is the final issue of the “Good for the Soul” arc, and it’s very satisfying. We get to see Annie grow a spine when dealing with A-Train; we get to see the confession of Hughie and his feelings about killing Blarney smurfin and his eventual realization of his silly funeral pyre speech; and we get to see a hilariously disgusting Blarney smurfin in all his fecal-stained glory. Robertson’s art is spot-on as per usual. Again, this is SO not a comic for everyone. It’s been accused of being, well, everything that it is. It takes some of the best-known and loved superheroes in the world and makes fun of them at every turn. It’s filled to the brim with so much offensive language, violence, nudity and sex that it could make Robert Mapplethorpe blush. The one accusation that I take issue with is people’s claim that this is a very homophobic comic. I can see why overly-sensitive people might believe that, but this is not a comic for overly-sensitive people. This is so far from P.C. that it almost balances the scales. Garth Ennis, in his fictional world of The Boys, is an equal-opportunity hater.

Except for superheroes. He hates them most of all.

By the way, ‘smurfin’ means something else here.

The Boys #18
“Good for the Soul: Conclusion”
Written by Garth Ennis
Art by Darick Robertson
Colors by Tony Avina
Letters by Simon Bowland

What’s in a name? In THIS man’s case, it means everything!

I will say this as a preface: If nothing else, the people at Dynamite Entertainment are very courageous. They have taken some real risks as a comic company. Publishing adult-oriented comics like The Boys, and some intelligent and thoughtful reworkings of the great icons of pulp literature like The Lone Ranger and Zorro and expanding the universes of some cult/fan faves like Battlestar Galactica and Army of Darkness takes guts. And now, we have a new icon to add to the list. He’s the archetype of just about every anti-hero of the last four decades; he’s not noble unless it’s necessary, he’s not friendly but you‘d want him as your friend, he’s not kind but he can show respect, he’s cold-blooded and he’ll kill you if you get in his way, but somehow, he ends up doing the right thing. The real trouble? No one knows what to call him. He’s The Man With No Name. First brought to our popular consciousness as the unnamed protagonist of Sergio Leone’s 1964 spaghetti western classic “A Fistful of Dollars”, he appeared out of nowhere and unwittingly but inevitably brought order to a town filled with chaos. It changed the Western genre forever and it gave cinema a new star in the form of Clint Eastwood. This character appeared, under Leone’s direction, in two more films: 1965’s “For A Few Dollars More” and then in one of the greatest films of the genre, 1966’s epic “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly”. Now, he’s back with writer Christos Gage and artist Wellington Dias helming The Man With No Name #1.

For those of you who haven’t seen “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly”, this story picks up pretty much right after where that film left off. Good Clint, Bad Lee Van Cleef and Ugly Eli Wallach are searching for a hundred thousand dollars in Confederate gold, and along the way, Clint’s character blows up a Union bridge. They find the gold, and there’s a three-way duel. Van Cleef is blown away, Wallach is left stranded and No Name, or ‘Blondie’ as Wallach calls him, makes off with the gold. End of recap. At the beginning of this story, No Name, still in his trademark poncho and facial scruff, ends up in a small town where he runs afoul of some Union soldiers who are after him for the destruction of their supply bridge. Using his never-fail wits, he outsmarts them and his never-fail aim and speed, he outguns them. Naturally, the Confederates are after his hide too because of the gold. But it all comes to a head when he finds himself reliant on his guns again when both Union and Confederate soldiers seem to be after him. After the smoke clears, it turns out they weren’t. There’s a priest who, as he lays dying, begs for No Name to help others that are surrounded by more Blue and Grey ‘bandits’ at a mission in San Antonio. So, what’s a morally-impaired antihero to do?

What do you think he’ll do?

I really like the way that the Western is making a comeback in comics, especially the way that Dynamite is doing it. They did something wonderful with The Lone Ranger, but that does have the distinction of having a great writer/artist team with a superb art director in John Cassaday. This first issue is terrific in the way that it continues a tale over forty years old, and Gage does a great job re-establishing the atmosphere of the Man With No Name mythology. His dialogue is very true to the character, and when he speaks, you can practically hear the gravelly intonation of Eastwood’s voice coming off the page. The only two problems I have here are with the length and the art. This just seems like an incredibly short issue. I breezed through it and I didn’t want to. There’s a big splash page in the middle of the issue that just seemed like it was put there to make the comic more economical. I wanted it to have something that stuck with me a little bit more. Also Dias’ art is a little on the bland side. It doesn’t have a lot of grit to it. And the colors of Bruno Hang are a little too crisp. This is something that should have a little more of a bleached-out look to it. I’m more of a story-over-art kinda guy anyway, so I’ll keep my faith that The Man With No Name will do Sergio and Clint a little more justice.

Oh, and can we cool it with the Arthur Suydam incentive Zombie variant covers? Let’s have a bit of a moratorium on those. It’s getting really old.

The Man With No Name #1
“The Good, The Bad and The Uglier - Sinners and Saints: Chapter One”
Written By Christos Gage
Art by Wellington Dias
Colors by Bruno Hang
Letters by Simon Bowland

The Return of Steve Rogers is here! Well, sort of.

Remember that teaser image a while back of Captain America, painted by Alex Ross, with the word ‘Return’ on it? Remember how it caused an uproar of sorts? Well, read on and discover why that came to be.

Hey, sometimes the simplest concepts are the best ones. Taking a superhero team from the past and pulling them into the present day, or vice versa, is not reinventing the wheel. We’ve seen it done quite a few times already. The Justice League meeting The Justice Society, for example. But when you take characters that have the ability, in some cases, to meet their present-day selves… that’s pretty cool. Now, Alex Ross and Jim Krueger have had some fun with the Marvel Universe before, with Earth X, Universe X and Paradise X, but those were comics that had a greater kinship with The Dark Knight Returns in the respect of a tale of a possible future. But now, Ross and Krueger have re-teamed to bring the fabled hero team of World War II, The Invaders, to the present to meet and, most likely, do battle with the super team of The Avengers in Avengers/Invaders #1. Did I mention that this was most likely going to screw with the heads of everyone involved?

We get a great beginning and a great narrator courtesy of the youthful Bucky Barnes, circa 1943. He, alongside the rest of the Invaders, are on a mission to stop another of Hitler’s occult-y weapons (The Ark of the Covenant, The Holy Grail, The Spear of Destiny… geez, was there any trinket he wasn‘t trying to get his slimy hands on?). We get great little intros to the heroes that make up The Invaders, from Captain America to Toro. The opening fight is not a pretty one. This is war. People are killing and getting killed, including the heroes. Suddenly, a green mist appears and sucks Cap, Bucky, Sub-Mariner, Jim Hammond (the original Human Torch) and Toro into present-day Manhattan, where the Thunderbolts are chasing down Spider-Man, in one of the most fun Spidey fights I‘ve seen in a long time. The line about Radioactive Man’s finger being pulled is one of the biggest laughs that a comic has elicited from me for a while. Naturally everyone is thrown for a super-duper loop and thusly the Thunderbolts now start attacking the newly-arrived heroes, much to their eventual dismay. But what also cuts like a knife is that Spider-Man, who watches most of this conflict, is convinced that Steve Rogers is back and he’s no longer dead.  And he’s not the only one who gets that news; a certain head of SHIELD also sees it.

Another monkey in the wrench is the superheroes are not the only ones to come through this green mist. A lone army infantryman gets pulled in too, and he just isn’t ready for anything quite so fantastic.

What’s gonna kill me here is that this is a 12-issue series, so it’s going to be a whole damn year before the resolution. That being said, I am just loving this year as far as comics go. There’s so much more good stuff than bad. This week was filled with lots of comics, but this one is definitely the cake-taker. I liked Earth X, but the sequels left me a little cold. I really liked DC’s Justice as well, so I know that Ross is not only one of the greatest living comic artists, he’s also a heck of a storyteller as well, especially with his aide-de-camp Krueger on hand. I’m also really liking Steve Sadowski’s art here. It’s very solid, getting only a little sketchy at times, and it’s filled with detail. I wish two things, though. First, that Union Jack also got pulled in. I love Union Jack. I also wish, despite Sadowski’s work, that Ross himself was doing the art. That would bring the flippin’ house down.

Oh, well. At least we get his covers.

Avengers/Invaders #1
“Book One: Old Soldiers, New Wars”
Plotted by Alex Ross and Jim Krueger
Script by Jim Krueger
Pencils by Steve Sadowski
Colors by inLight Studios
Letters by Todd Klein

As Iron Man,
All jets ablaze,
He fights and smite’n
With repulsor rays!

So how do you celebrate opening a movie that makes over $100,000,000 domestically in it’s first weekend? Well, if you’re a comic publisher, the answer seems easy; you publish a second series with a new #1 issue. This time around, Iron Man gets the obligatory second title, The Invincible Iron Man, harnessing the talents of Matt Fraction and Salvador Larroca.

The book opens in an African nation where technology like cell phones with built-in camera are still new and exotic. Adimu Chiume and her friends share the thrill of a brand new phone just as three boys exit a car and blow up, taking the girls and a large chuck of the street with them. Welcome to 21st century terrorism. Meanwhile, Tony Stark is helping repair a space shuttle and trying to bed a more-than-willing supermodel before SHIELD can track him down and report the suicide bombing. Thinking that the bombing was caused by an armor like his, Stark takes it personally and wants to lead the team that tracks down the bomber’s bosses.

Fraction has an interesting take on Stark in this book-- he is a man who lives in constant fear of a great many things. Yet unlike most of us, Tony Stark has the money, ingenuity and heroism to take on his fears and overcome them. That doesn’t mean that those fears are gone; they’re just dealt with. Whether it’s taking a drink or having his technology falling into the wrong hand, Stark is a man who is constantly reminded of his own failures and fears. These are the things that he has to live with and try to overcome. Often writers will focus on one failure or another of Stark’s but Fraction tackles them all head on at once. Through the narration where Stark recounts his fears, Fraction also shows how Stark’s brain works. It’s constantly in motion and never stops. This book is full of Stark’s thoughts, continually moving and calculating what he needs to do. It’s almost dizzying how much text is in this issue. Fraction is not writing in any stripped down style here.

The problem with this issue is that after the movie successfully portrays the humor and wit of Tony Stark, Fraction’s script comes off as very dry and emotionless. Even where Fraction manages to get some humor into the book (watch out for Pepper Potts and her frugal fashion sense and keen spelling abilities,) it comes off as forced and artificial, rather than natural. It’s not that it’s bad; it’s just that it’s not as much fun as the movie that’s out right now. And that’s probably not a fair comparison to either Fraction or Larroca but let’s face it, if it wasn’t for the movie, would Marvel really be gambling on putting out another new title right now?

With that, Marvel is probably missing a big opportunity right now by not making this more like the movie. Understandably they have to tie this book into current continuity so that means that Tony Stark is the head of SHIELD, gets little time to be a millionaire playboy, to tinker around on cars and cool tech and doesn’t get to have a drink in his hand most of the time and be cleverer and glibber than most of us get to be. Tony has real responsibilities that you didn’t have to see in the movie. If someone who’s seen the movie wants to go out and get an Iron Man comic, they’ll find a #1 here that features a character that has more responsibilities and little of the joy or fun.

Invincible Iron Man #1
“The Five Nightmares Part 1: Armageddon Days”
Written by: Matt Fraction
Penciled by: Salvador Larroca
Colored by: Frank D’Armata & Stephan Peru
Lettered by: Chris Eliopoulos

Wake me up when something happens.

After the first time I read Secret Invasion #2, I put it down thinking I had nothing to say about it.

After I read Secret Invasion #2 again, I put it back down unable to figure out anything to write for a review of the book.

So I read it a third time. I am, after all, a comic reviewer. And anyway, it bugged me that I couldn’t find anything about the book to write about. It’s not that I didn’t love or hate the book; it’s just that the issue was simply there. And than I figured out, that’s what I could write about.

The first issue of Secret Invasion, while not War and Peace, was a solid and entertaining popcorn comic. It had enough twists and turns to keep me enthralled and wanting to see what Brian Bendis and Leinil Yu could pull off on the next page. Hank Pym a skrull? Jarvis a skrull? The Baxter Building imploded into space? A Skrull space ship with either the real or Skrully fake heroes on board? And what did that mean for the assembled Avengers, many of whom were facing a doppelganger of themselves coming off of that ship? For a Marvel super-hero fan, issue #1 had a lot to offer up.

Then Bendis followed up on Secret Invasion #1 with a couple of issues of New Avengers and Mighty Avengers that feature almost next to none of the Avengers. I’ll admit that those tie-in books quickly killed any excitement about this event that I had after reading the first issue. The fact that the second issue of Secret Invasion doesn’t advance the plot a lot also doesn’t help. This issue is one big battle in the Savage Land between the Avengers and the heroes (or are they Skrulls?) who cam out of the ship. New York and the rest of the world isn’t seen until the end. The focus on the battle wouldn’t have been bad if Bendis had provided some big pay off or revelation about who is and who isn’t a Skrull but the reveals in this issue are either for minor characters or quite obvious. The story barely moves forward at all this issue.

The series is now a quarter of the way over and what has really happened? The first issue established a quick pace and “anything can happen” feeling to the series. It’s too bad that Bendis had to let up on the second issue and give up page after page of hero fighting hero. Wasn’t that the same thing we saw in the last couple of Marvel crossovers?

Secret Invasion #2
>Written by: Brian Michael Bendis
Penciled by: Leinil Francis Yu
Inked by: Mark Morales
Colored by: Laura Martin
Lettered by: Chris Eliopoulos

Ashton and Cameron go to Sin City for a romantic comedy in What Happens in Vegas

What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas” is a brilliant marketing slogan.  After years of pushing family friendly ideas of slick magic shows and roller coasters, Sin City decided to get back to its much earlier and much more malicious roots.  That is the setting for the latest ‘opposites attract’ comedy What Happens in Vegas.

Ashton is Jack our slacker ‘poster boy’, a guy so incompetent he gets fired from his father’s company.  He and his best buddy (Rob Corddry) decide they need a trip to Las Vegas to shake up their world.  On the other side of the movie is Joy (Cameron Diaz), a Wall Street up and comer who is brutally dumped at her fiancé birthday party.  Her and her best gal pal decide to take that ‘sin’ plunge in Sin City.  Well, this foursome ‘cute meet’ and end up getting penthouse suites at the same hotel.  Well, one drunken morning later and our lovely dumped gal has found out that she is married to Mr. Incompetent.  As they discuss getting an annulment, he puts her quarter into the slot machine and it comes up a 3 million-dollar winner.

Now, back in NYC, both are fighting to get the money and the judge (Dennis Miller) sentences them to six months of marriage and counseling.  He is tired of people coming in to get divorces without even trying marriage.

So is the set-up for the film.

The rest of What Happens in Vegas is only a surprise if you have never seen a movie.  We know we are going to get all the male and female bonding jokes.  There is the obligatory scene of male uncleanness. Are we going to get the toilet seat up/down joke?  Wanna guess. 

They battle each other then eventually realize that by deception each could get all the money.  Eventually they find common ground and fall for each other.  Haven’t we seen all of this before?

This trifle is just the bon-bon flick that Ashton Kutcher should be making.  It is simple and winning, like his persona.  He could make these kinds of movies for years and his fan base would never complain.  Cameron Diaz has done this role about a billion times before and brings nothing truly fresh to the proceedings.  And Rob Corddry just came off as mean.

Though the writing feels very sit-com, it still works more than it doesn’t.  There are some genuine laughs, the bulk of which comes when they are plotting against each other.  Once the romance starts, the different tone hurts the overall proceedings. What Happens in Vegas is just another early summer movie, usually forgotten by the Fourth of July.