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Jason
Schachat is actually the Jason Schachat of Earth-2.
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Jason
Schachat's Occasional Breakdown
11/21/05 So,
the big Marvel crossover's over, and it didn't amount to
much except a hefty bill at the comic shop. The big DC crossover's
forcing all of us to scrape out what's left in our wallets
and isn't looking much better...
You know, maybe
it's a good thing we only have two big comic companies to
rob us blind...
So,
just barely sitcking with the theme of robbery, we can safely
say making All-Star Superman #1 sing should've
been like taking candy from a baby for the likes of Grant
Morrison and Frank Quitely. These are the guys who breathed
new life into the X-Men for probably the first time in ten
years or so, then they practically re-wrote the book on
comic mastery with last year's WE3.
So what's wrong
with Supes?
Well, the issue
starts up gloriously enough with an eight-word, single page
summary of the Man of Steel's origin, then thrusts us into
a crisis where an expedition to map the surface of the sun
is waylaid by a human bomb, courtesy of one Lex Luthor.
Superman rushes to the scene, skirting the sun's corona,
while Lois and the Daily Planet gang try to predict the
outcome and Luthor remotely prods his explosive along.
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He
sees you when you're sleeping...
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Sounds like standard
stuff, but Morrison puts a new desperation into Luthor's
quest to defeat Superman: "I'm getting older and...
...and he isn't."
As it turns out,
Lex forcing Superman so close to the sun boosts our hero's
power beyond anything seen before, but at a horrible cost;
Superman is dying.
There
are two dangers in bringing the Morrison/Quitely team to
this material: 1) Morrison fills the story with more tasty
quasi-science than any Superman book we've seen in years.
2) Quitely's art is nothing like the norm. We saw them deliver
well with these characters back in JLA: Earth 2,
so competence isn't a problem. But style...
Well,
the feel of the book is more like All-Star Batman &
Robin the Boy Wonder than anything else you've read
lately. It seems clear that, even though Morrison and Quitely
bring a nice flavor to the material, this is very much Editor
Bob Shreck's baby. It's fun and has some nice moments, but
don't expect anything like the powerful storytelling demonstrated
in WE3. The players may be All-Stars, but the game
sure isn't.
After
ret-conning the entire Green Lantern franchise in Green
Lantern: Rebirth, many have come to consider the team
of Geoff Johns and Ethan Van Sciver All-Stars in their own
right, and their reunion on Green Lantern #5
has been anticipated for some time...
..but it just
ain't working for me.
The
issue opens with an eerie plane ride where a man-sans-hand
is kidnapped-- by German-speaking gremlins who tear off
the wing of the plane!
You'd think,
with a beginning like that, this would be the best work
of fiction ever conceived.
Sadly,
we then head into a JAWS knockoff of sorts, as
Hal Jordan fights Hector Hammond's giant mutant shark monster.
Meanwhile, the gremlins reappear and free Hammond himself.
The man from the plane turns out to be Black Hand (shock,
horror), and the fight with the big shark beastie continues
and continues and continues...
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Umm...doesn't
the Lantern itself have a protective aura?
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So,
first of all, we're seeing Johns repeat his strategy from
Flash: rather than work to make the hero interesting,
define him by his rogues gallery. Only problem there is
Green Latnern's enemies kinda... suck. Sure, you got your
occassional destroyer of worlds, but Hector Hammond? What
the heck is that all about? Did the resurrection of Modok
last year in Captain America and The Falcon create
a new market for huge-headed has-beens?
Johns
also seems to be relying too much on Green Lantern's new
Achilles' Heel: the power battery. These days, it seems
like even thinking about making a giant green mallet drains
half of the ring's power. Granted, it's better than seeing
Hal threatened by bananas, Slip'n'slides, parakeets, blonde
hair or any other yellow things he comes into contact with,
but it's just as boring as seeing Superman always shying
away from Kryptonite.
However,
one thing I do appreciate about this issue is that it FINALLY
gives us the beginnings of a larger plotline. The gremlins
are running around in an obviously coordinated effort, so
SOMEONE has to be ordering them around.
That
just may get us past the " Oh no! A problem! We must
stop (insert old nemesis)!" nature of these fledgling
stories. This could be the beginning of a new chapter in
the Green Lantern saga, but the constant waiting is pushing
my patience to the limit. Not quite a recommended read,
but this could be a step in the right direction.
Page
2: Ultimate Spider-Man, Ultimate Vision, X-Men: Deadly Genesis
and Local
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