Super Graphic Novels

BIRCH'S BARK at Speech Balloons continues to discuss graphic novels, this time focussing on solo outings and super teams-ups.

Invincible
By Robert Kirkman & Cory walker (Image)

Mark Grayson is a teenager who starts exhibiting superpowers just as puberty sets in. Perhaps not too surprising when one considers that his old man goes by the name of Omni-Man.

So begins a bitter sweet adventure of a well adjusted lad learning to deal with his powers, teaming up with fellow kids in the Teen Team and fighting villains who once in a while even end up being school teachers.

Detractors might say it's about as relevant as The Cosby Show was to working class blacks in America but hey, not everyone has it bad. Of course there are those superhero lovers who pontificate that the hard edged post modern variety is the only relevant format these days, but those dudes can't see the irony of that.

What we have in this book is a feel good story that is well written in a clear manner with art that looks like John Byrne got inked by Kevin O'Neill and the results turned out surprisingly well.

Superman: Red Son
By Mark Millar, Dave Johnson, Killian Plunkett + (DC/Titan)

This is an Elseworlds tale wherein Superman crash-lands from the planet Krypton not in Smallville, USA but Russia.

As usual for an Elseworlds book all the familiar faces are gathered on the chessboard just set up in different position, eg. Lex Luthor is an indifferent snob of scientist married to Lois Lane. There's novelty value inthis to some degree.

It has moments, gives some world views that Americans are usually guarded from by their leaders and popular news services, has standard well executed art... But, and this is a mighty big but, I can't help recalling that Howard Chaykin said all this kind stuff in some squiffed way within a few issues of his old American Flagg! comic book series a decade or so back, infinitely better and in an manner that still stands up as being cutting edge were you to read it again today. Whereas, the feeling I get from Red Son is that I'm reading the Secret Alternative Life of Colossus from the X-Men.

It's a pretty wordy book for a contemporary mainstream comic book, but then it was supposedly written a while back. It is not my cup of Russian tea. Russia, and its former Soviet states was and is increasingly becoming an entirely more interesting place than the stereotype offered within this fictional work.

Superman: True Brit
By John Cleese, Kim Howard Johnson, John Byrne & Mark Farmer

I had the very special opportunity of seeing a number of these pages before they were inked and while they were rough around the edges in places there was no doubt I was looking at a craftsman doing what he does best, efficiently and without being precocious. John Byrne put all the bits and pieces were where they should be to make the damned thing work.

In fact Byrne opted for a slight cartoony feel that reminds me of those off beat adventure strips with a bit of humour that guys like Mike Western would draw in countless British anthologies much missed from back in the day. And well it should do as the book is set in Blighty with all its sunny seaside postcard joking, self-depreciation, class-consciousness campness and desire for anonymity that combines to make the people who populate this nation.

It's obviously more Johnson than Cleese but it hits some amusing home truths along the way, adds metaphors to a changing British society and, "cough", even dares to suggest the grass may be greener in America - if only because Lois Lane lives there! As a whole it is rather hit and miss but worth more of a read better than Superman: Red Son because it doesn't take itself too seriously. Even so, it is still an Elseworlds book
And it holds to many of the conventions of those types of books rather than letting rip from the mother's teat of them. Oh, it should be noted that there is a thanks to a John Hodgkins the credits, this is a typographical error and should be James Hodgkins who assisted Mark Farmer on some of the pages.

The Incredible Hulk: Return of the Monster
By Bruce Jones, John Romita Jr & Tom Palmer (Marvel/Titan)

Mr Jones stacks his Hitchcockian thriller style high in this scenario suitable for The Fugitive as the Hulk is blamed for a child's murder and becomes pubic enemy number one. As events unravel the plot gets deeper and deeper. Cool is the only word to describe this. It is so well done.

Teen Titans: Family Lost
By Geoff Johns, Mike McKone & Marlo Alquiza (DC/Titan)

Collecting Teen Titans #8-12 and an #1/2 of the recent new millennium era series. The back cover tag reads: "The Titans have never been in better hands." Well, that's not only hyperbole it's misguidedly insulting.

The Marv Wolfman and George Perez series that first appropriated the New to the series made the group book hugely successful. It brought readers totally unexpected stories with lavish art, and became a zeitgeist of the moment to counterpart Marvel's The X-Men, that in so doing not only revitalised DC across the board as a company but also made them an awful lot of money.

That historical incorrection aside, this is a damn good collection.

Some of the aforementioned Woflman/Perez created team have gathered together yet again with new kids on the block, specifically a new Wonder Girl and Kid Flash. Meanwhile, Raven's threatening a comeback but whether as enemy or friend we're unsure.

The new group have characters and old enemies like Deathstroke and a new Ravager dip in and out, while an old nemesis but in a new guise, Brother Blood, makes his pitch to wed Raven and a back-up story is revealed. The book moves briskly. It is a really good superhero adventure with a purposeful quest that's conclusion doesn't fail to deliver.

Justice League: Another Nail
By Alan Davis & Mark Farmer (DC/Titan)

Following on from the popular The Nail book wherein it was postulated what would happen in the DC universe if there were no Superman? We now have the big guy as junior partner in the JLA.

It kind of reminds me of those old stories about Superboy's training in the Legion of Superheroes and I know inker Farmer's a big fan of that stuff. It's all a race against time to prevent the late Darkseid's legacy destroying the world and beyond. It's so wrapped up in 70s concepts and derivations of storylines only an old fogey like myself could see where Alan Davis' subconscious must have gleaned some of these ideas and transformed them to work in a hell for leather more modern adventure... while younger folk can just sit back and enjoy it!

Davis's art really puts his Aparo influences through hoops to produce some really cool figures stretched out in anguish, while his Adams style is more evident in a little more panel experimentation than Davis usually cares for. Initially it's odd to see the bucksome babes Davies presents to appeal to the presumed modern reader but one becomes accustomed to it all.

Overall, it's a safe book and while there are no genuine surprises it is a superior feel good adventure in the classic manner.

Superman: Secret Identity
By Kurt Busiek & Stuart Immomen (DC/Titan)

Derived from DC Comics Presents #87 when writer Elliot S! Maggin came up with a Clark Kent for Earth Prime (the one we were supposed to live on prior to Crisis On Infinite Earths blowing it apart non-continuity freaks). Busiek takes his template; fine tunes it, adapts and adjusts, then teases a few surprises in for good measure.

The four issue mini-series that this book collects told how a Clark Kent discovered he had superpowers as a teenager and kept it a secret, for nearly all his life. It starts with an adolescent outsider dealing with his emotions and slowly chips away at that isolation as loved ones enter the picture.

What's most interesting is the only part that breaks from the traditional myth, because this Clark Kent doesn't seem particularly close to his parents.

It's slow moving, emotive occasionally if not exactly thought provoking. Sure it's just an Elseworlds/What If/Imaginary story and I think I've duly expressed my personal problems with those (good idea in principle but too often play safe and so lead to predictability). It's also a tad Marvelman like in approach albeit with the added revision of hindsight for our modern times.

Despite all this, I have to say it works. Whether it works for the young as much as it might for grouchy middle-aged warriors is another matter.

Immomen's art catches every nuance of Busiek's printed words and dances with them gracefully with understated power on the page. That it is digitally coloured from his pencils is a technical detail, the results are what count. If you find yourself restless one night stay up and read this until the sun comes up as I did, you'll feel tired but good.

The story takes some familiar routes and a couple of inevitable points develop but the journey is a good one. It doesn't strain the mind but its gets the heart pumping once in a while.