After I got finished reading Batman: The Long Halloween I proclaimed that it was one of the best superhero books I had read all year - it's suspenseful, entertaining, the art is wonderful, and it gives you a real sense into how Batman goes about his work as the "world's greatest detective" (even though he doesn't necessarily live up to that title in this story). Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale are a terrific writer/artist team, and they've done some other wonderful work which I haven't reviewed but really loved (I HIGHLY recommend Superman for All Seasons, which covers the early years of Superman and was apparently some of the basis for the Smallville TV show which is one of my favorites - it's engaging, good-hearted and totally easy for the casual fan to follow). Anyway, back to Batman.
Let me digress for a minute. I was never a DC guy growing up. I mean, I loved the Christopher Reeve Superman movies (the first 2 at least), I loved the terribly wonderfully cheesy Super Friends cartoon with the DC characters, but actually reading DC comics on an ongoing basis was never interesting to me. I was always (and this really applied to almost everyone I knew who read comics growing up) a Marvel guy. Superman and Batman may have been some of the most amazing, iconic characters ever created, but I think they didn't feel cool to us - not nearly as cool as Spider-Man and certainly not as cool as the X-Men. If you wanted to read something that was cool and totally awesome in the early to mid 80's, it was definitely all about the X-Men. They were misfits, they were outlaws, and they battled frickin' giant sentinel robots! Spider-Man was also a character that a young kid could relate to. First off, while he does have super powers, he's not godlike like Superman or Thor (probably why Thor never held any interest for em - he was just too powerful and in his case he was an ACTUAL Norse God!). If a character has the ability to destroy a planet or something, there's not so much you can do with them. Spider-Man, by contrast, was an incredibly human character. He fought bad guys on a relatively modest scale, he was really funny, and seemed to live a much more real life than other characters. Plus Mary Jane was hot. Anyway, all of this is a long-winded way of saying that in recent years, as I have gotten into reading more DC Comics, I have had to play a lot of catch-up. I'm getting a sense of who the players are and what the dynamics are between the various characters. DC has been a around a lot longer, and they seem to have a lot more characters just sort of hanging around. Frankly, a lot of their characters are not that interesting to me. Elongated Man? The Question? Eh, not so much (except perhaps as Question is one of the bases for Rorschach. Still, there's a whole huge universe and it's been a major undertaking trying to catch up.
Back to my review. This is a great story, and I appreciate that Batman really is a detective and is trying to solve crimes. The takeaways on this story are that the art is wonderful - hyper-realistic and occasionally excessive, but portraying the true essence of each character. The writing is terrific, and as a huge Godfather fan I appreciate that the story is chock full of references to that movie. Very clever stuff. I highly recommend.
If my takeaway from The Long Halloween is that it's a great story, then Marvels is an absolute masterpiece. Here's what makes it so special. It takes events that have occurred through the history of the Marvel universe and retells those events from the eyes of a newspaper photographer, so you see and experience what he (and other regular people) were experiencing when these events happened - like, the first appearance of Captain America (who battles the Nazis), or the notoriety of the Fantastic Four, or the appearance (and societal backlash) against mutants like the X-Men. By itself, the story is brilliant. It was exhaustively researched and coordinated by Kurt Busiek to fit perfectly within the Marvel timeline. If that was enough, it would be fantastic. But it is taken to even higher levels of greatness by the artwork of Alex Ross.
Ahh, Alex Ross. Of all the comic artists I have seen, he is far and away my favorite, because his style is so unique and different in the comic books world. He is a painter, and his artwork has the appearance of being painted. See for yourself what I mean. His work is absolutely beautiful and iconic, particularly his work on Superman (and in Kingdom Come which I should talk about some time). Anyway, I definitely have an art-crush on him. I also wish he was illustrating actual books these days. I know he is busy doing covers for different books, but I'd love to see him do a whole book again.
The artwork is amazing and so incredibly life-like, you feel almost like you're reading about real events. The whole thing is an absolute wonder, full of hidden treasures. I've spoken in previous posts about my love for Astro City, and it's clear that the team of Busiek and Ross first developed the idea of telling stories about a universe full of superheroes from doing Marvels. It's a wonderful idea, and here in Marvels they give you a sense of the wonder and danger and conflicting attitudes you might have, living in a world where people exist who can do such extraordinary things.
This one gets my super-duper extra special good highest recommendation. A real treasure.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment