By Cardinal Cox
By Mike Mignola, Richard Pace, Troy Nixey, Dennis Janke, and Dave Stewart.
DC Comics
www.dccomics.com
In the icy wastes of Antarctica, 1928, the Cobblepot Expedition found something older than time itself. unfortunately, when Bruce Wayne goes to investigate, he brings this ab-human evil back to Gotham, a Gotham he hasn't visited in twenty years. This then is Batman as HP Lovecraft would have envisaged it. Gotham is recreated as a mouldering New England seaport haunted by a heritage of secrets and blasphemous rituals, and in this Elseworlds comic, so are many of DC's finest characters : Green Arrow, Etrigan the Demon, Swamp thing, Two-Face - all have an added eldritch, if not even ichory squamous un-nature. All the time, there lurks something at the edge of reality.
The art has a great feel. Batman's costume is baggy and badly fitting, the town has a depression-era quality. Mike Mignola, here scripting, is best known as an artist, drawing such work as an Arabian adventure for Solomon Kane in the mid-eighties; the Phantom Stranger in '87; and since the early-90s, Hellboy. Troy Nixey did a Bill The Clown comic in the early-90s. Dennis Janke worked on the Superman graphic novel Under A Yellow Sun.
One problem I felt was a desire to shoehorn in so many familiar characters, but I wouldn't like to choose which to leave out! I'd like to see this Elseworlds situation continued, much as the Vampire Batman has. Perhaps Catwoman, Superman (and alien to our world, after all), or the Doom Patrol could make an appearance?
Reprinted from Prism 25.2, March/April 2001
Adapted By faye Perezich
Titan Books
So : Vampire. Lots of possibility for a writer.
None of them used here.
In this collection, uninteresting characters sit around and chat, occasionally bothering to move to a different location - if only to moan at someone else. And I'm sure the fault lies not with the adaptation or the average art; my guess is that the source novel is the problem. Starting with a pig's ear, you can only make a half-decent leather wallet...
If you are an Anne Rice fan, the extras you get in this volume are a four-page essay on 26 years of the vampires and a photo of the author lying on a tiger skin. But please, someone buy the crew Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics so they can learn about pace and how to build tension!
Bother only if you are a completist.
Reprinted from Prism 25.3 May/June 2001
Various artists and writers
Titan Books
I was never a regular reader of Superman - probably ever bought a handful of issues when there was an interesting writer (eg Alan Moore) involved. But everyone will know the basic characters from either the movies, TV series, or just from breathing the air on this world - Big S is an icon.
When I opened these pages much of it was familiar territory : Daily Planet, Lex Luthor, Jimmy Olsen, etc. The first part did a good job in bringing me up to date with the backstory, and when characters were brought in who had some relevance to the guy in blue longjohns, enough information was given to fill in who they were.
If I found a problem with this collection, it was the whole thing was drawn from four different titles. Then again, if you were Superman, you'd be having more than one adventure at once.
Favourite characters that I didn't recognise were Obsession (who I guess has a history behind her) and a villain called La Encatadora (could easily become a recurring foe). Best individual sequence within the collection was For A Thousand Years... where Superman and Wonder Woman go to Valhalla to aid the Norse Gods in their war against the Giants. (Believe me, it's better than I've made it sound!) By the end of the collection, I was wondering when Lex would make use of his metaphorical lever...
In all, a good collection for both beginner and those of you who may have missed the big lunk for a few years.
Reprinted from prism 25.3, May/June 2001