Mage: The Hero Discovered Collected Edition Book 1

From the books unpacked from storage.

Title: Mage: The Hero Discovered Collected Edition
Issue: Book 1
Date: October, 1998
Publisher: Image Comics
Writer: Matt Wagner
Artist: Matt Wagner
Colorist: Jeromy Cox, James Rochelle

This collected edition from Image Comics reprints the first two issues of Matt Wagner's take on Arthurian mythology which was the precursor to his classic Grendel and one of the mainstays of the independent comics boom of the 1980s.

Loner Kevin Matchstick sits down and spills his guts to a mysterious stranger on a streetcorner, and things get weird from there. Part urban fantasy with a bit of a superhero vibe (and a little bit of a Captain Marvel tribute), the story develops quickly but stays straightforward through concise use of dialogue and some solid action sequences. The coloring by Jeromy Cox and James Rochelle give the story a perfect 80s neon-noir feel.

This was fun without going in for the excessive grimdark that later 80s urban fantasies would rely on.

Rating: 8.5/10

One, Volume 1

From my school library. This appears to be the library's one and only manga volume.

Title: One
Issue: Volume 1
Date: 1998
Publisher: Tokyopop
Writer: Lee Vin
Artist: Lee Vin

This is the opening volume in a somewhat over-the-top KPop drama set in a "Celebrity High School" in Korea, a school attended by several teen pop stars.

This volume introduces quiet but brilliant title character Eumpa One, teen idol Jenny You, crossdressing rap star Jiwon Jin, boy-band leader Ha Rock, and seemingly quiet music fan Young Ju. There's also a whole supporting cast of music teachers, stage managers, and tiger-moms.

With so many characters to introduce, most of this volume is background, although a plotline involving a teacher stealing Eumpa One's compositions in the guise of assignments comes to the forefront by the end.

The characters have a lot of potential, although several of them are not initially likeable, particularly Jenny You, whose petty antics to sabotage Jiwon Jin's career set her up as possibly more of a villain than was intended. Still Jenny does have some sympathetic moments when the story shifts to her point of view.

Some of the language and discussion around gender identity feels dated, and the attempts to describe current pop music fall a bit flat. A discussion of classic punk rock that references real bands works better than most of the music-related sequences in the story.

This had some potential, and the quirkiness of the characters was intriguing enough to hold my interest.

Rating: 6/10

Tall Tails: Thieves Quest #4

From the Random Stack of Unread Comics.

Title: Tall Tails: Thieves' Quest
Issue: 4
Date: October, 1998
Publisher: Vision Comics (available at Dreamweaver Press in webcomic form)
Writer: Jose Calderon
Artist: Daphne Lage
Cover: Daphne Lage, Scotty Arsenault, Eric Blumric

I reviewed #1 here, #2 here, and #3 here.

With the two parties, the rogues and the guardsmen, united, plans are made to track two groups of enemies who left the site of the battle.

The opening of this installment brings some good character development, and advances some of the political intrigue established in the previous issues of the series. Christian (AKA Andrew), the runaway prince is the focus and he gets some good bits of dialogue that bring out more of his background and personality.

Toward the end of this issue there are some action sequences that are a bit confusing in terms of who is attacking who and what exactly is going on, but the series has previously done a good job of bringing things back into focus and juggling the large number of characters in its cast.

While not everything came off as completely clear, the action scenes were intriguing enough to raise my interest in seeing how the scenario plays out.

Rating: 5.5/10

Tall Tails: Thieves' Quest #1

From the Random Stack of Unread Comics.

Title: Tall Tails: Thieves' Quest
Issue: 1
Date: July, 1998
Publisher: Vision Comics (available at Dreamweaver Press in webcomic form)
Writer: Jose Calderon
Artist: Daphne Lage

I apparently bought five issues of this, and managed to take #2 (review here) and #3 (review here) with me to Vietnam a few years ago while #1, #4, and #5 sat in the Random Stack of Unread Comics until this past summer.

This is a furry epic fantasy, with the main characters representing a whole variety of anthropomorphic animals. The action begins as a series of crises unfold in the King of Lifdell's council chamber. There is a looming border war with the trolls, and it is soon discovered that the young prince has gone missing. A search of the city is ordered, led by the competent General Cromwell.

And the trail leads right to Cromwell's roguish cousin, E.F. Ravenwood, who has found himself in something of a mess of his own.

The opening bits were on the wordy side, and there were a lot of characters to keep track of, but once things were off and running this made for the start of a fun story.

Rating: 7/10

Leave it to Chance #8

From the random stack of unread comics. Lately, the Kiddo has decided to choose the comics for me to read and review, and this is the one he picked out for today.

Title: Leave it to Chance
Issue: 8
Date: February, 1998
Publisher: Image Comics (under their Homage brand)
Writer: James Robinson
Penciler: Paul Smith
Inker: George Freeman
Colorist: Jeromy Cox
Letterer: Amie Grenier
Editor: Jonathan Peterson

Leave it to Chance is like an updated (and more scrappy) Nancy Drew set in a magical city.

In this issue, Chance Falconer encounters the Phantom of the Mall, in a not-so-subtle play on the Phantom of the Opera story. Chance knows that her father, police detective Lucan Falconer, is losing his patience when it comes to the dangerous adventures she finds herself in, so she tries her best to leave the Phantom case to the professionals. But when one of her best friends becomes the target of the Phantom, Chance needs to take action.

Chance is always a fun character, and her interactions with her friends were great (bonus points for a Hellboy reference!). The detective story presented here is fairly straightforward, and the inconclusive ending was a bit lacking in satisfaction.

Still, Chance and her friends facing down danger was awesome enough on its own to make this a fun story.

Rating: 6.5/10

Batman #560

Back to Batman, and we're on the Road to No Man's Land.

Title: Batman
Issue: 560
Date: December, 1998
Publisher: DC Comics
Writer: Chuck DixonArtist: Jim Aparo, David Roach
Colorist: Lee Loughridge
Letterer: Todd Klein
Editor: Jordan B. Gorfinkel, Dennis O'Neil
Cover: Rodolfo Damaggio, Patrick Martin

With Aftershock finshed, this issue is part of the transition into the next giant crossover, No Man's Land.

Bruce Wayne heads to Washington DC amid a growing political movement aimed at cutting off relief funds for Gotham. He's up against better lobbying, a media feeding frenzy, and overwhelming poll numbers.

At the center of the movement to cut Gotham off is political shock jock and TV personality Nick Scratch. He's a fun new villain, with a private army of masked thugs, but also a raving fanbase at his disposal.

In light of current politics, Nick Scratch and the Road to No Man's Land felt less like poltical satire and more like political reality.

Bruce Wayne getting set to do battle in the political arena was a nice change of pace, and an interesting set of new challenges.

Dennis O'Neil's editorial in this issue also gives a nice behind-the-scenes look at the genesis of No Man's Land.

Rating: 7/10

Batman #559

Down to the last few of this run of Batman I brought from my unread comics box in the US.

Title: Batman
Issue: 559
Date: October, 1998
Publisher: DC Comics
Writer: Doug Moench
Penciller: Bob Hall
Inker: Sal Buscema
Colorist: Gregory Wright
Letterer: Todd Klein
Editor: Jordan B. Gorfinkel, Dennis O'Neil
Cover: Rodolfo Damaggio, Patrick Martin

This is the last "Aftershock" issue in the Batman title, but not the conclusion of the crossover. And besides, Aftershock was really just a chapter in the bigger saga that will be No Man's Land, starting next issue.

With a mass exodus of refugees underway, the GCPD is hard pressed to maintain any kind of order. Bullock and Montoya find themselves defending Mercy Hospital from a siege by desperate gang members seeking drugs. Batman and Robin come to their aid, but the city continues to crumble.

Bullock totally steals the show here, even getting a (awesome) romantic subplot! There are some great characters introduced for this issue as well, and even the generic thug villain gets enough personality to make him, well, slightly less generic.

The writing is really tight, with good attention to detail, and an excellent shock at the end.

Rating: 7.5/10

Batman #558

Back to Batman and Aftershock!

Title: Batman
Issue: 558
Date: September, 1998
Publisher: DC Comics
Writer: Doug Moench
Penciller: Jim Aparo
Inker: Sal Buscema
Colorist: Gregory Wright
Letterer: Todd Klein
Editor: Jordan B. Gorfinkel, Dennis O'Neil
Cover: Rodolfo Damaggio, Patrick Martin

Continuing with the Aftershock storyline, this issue serves two purposes. It functions as a big infodump on the current state of affairs of Gotham City, by way of a radio address given by DJ (and current romantic interest of Bruce Wayne) Vesper Fairchild. It also shows an emotionally fragile side of Bruce Wayne as he grapples with despair at the sight of his city seemingly dying around him, and destruction of a scale that he is ill-prepared to handle.

Given those purposes, this issue handled them remarkably well. Vesper's narration added a human side to the department-by-department recap of all of the challenges facing Gotham. Alfred, along with some flashbacks to the funeral of Bruce Wayne's parents, provide the sounding board for Bruce Wayne's current emotional crisis.

That emotional crisis did feel a bit like it came out of the blue, given last issue's fairly standard team-up story with Ballistic (reviewed here), but I must remind myself that this crossover storyline does not progress in order of individual issues of any one series, so hopefully it was set up better in some of the other Bat-titles.

There's very little in the way of action here. The Batman takes on a couple of looters in a token fight scene. But I found the discussion of the aftermath of the Gotham Earthquake, and its effects on the city, to be quite engaging.

Rating: 7/10

Batman #557

Continuing to make my way through the Batman issues of Aftershock.

Title: Batman
Issue: 557
Date: August, 1998
Publisher: DC Comics
Writer: Doug MoenchArtist: Vince Giarrano, Sal Buscema
Colorist: Gregory Wright
Letterer: Todd Klein
Editor: Jordan B. Gorfinkel, Dennis O'Neil

Ballistic looks like he walked straight out of the pages of one of those 1990s Image Comics superhero team books. He's even got the wardrobe made entirely out of belts and pouches. So many pouches!

He's being hired to go retrieve an evidence bag buried in the ruins of Gotham. Except the guys who hired him haven't done their homework. Ballistic is former GCPD (before somehow obtaining a fairly generic package of superpowers: enhanced strength, endurance, senses, invulnerability, what have you). He may not look it, but he's a good guy, and he's going to take the job, but he's also going to make sure justice is served.

Which does not sit well with the mysterious suits who hired him. In a sudden case of buyer's remorse, they try shooting him, which works about as well as it usually does on invulnerable-types. Plan B, then, is to arrange for a bunch of generic thugs to ambush ballistic in Gotham, begging the question of if the bad guys had this many thugs already in Gotham, why not use them to retrieve the bag?

It does get better once the inevitable encounter between Ballistic and the Batman occurs. They actually manage to break a lot of the hero-meets-hero clichés, and their interaction is made more interesting by the fact that Ballistic has encountered the Jean-Paul Valley version of Batman and is a bit thrown off by the reactions when, unknown to him, it's Bruce Wayne under the cowl.

The revelation of what was in the bag proves uninteresting, but I did find Ballistic's personality and his interaction with the Batman to be interesting.

Rating: 5.5/10

 

Batman #556

More from the 1990s Batman issues in the random unread comic pile.

Title: Batman
Issue: 556
Date: July, 1998
Publisher: DC Comics
Writer: Doug Moench
Penciller: Norm Breyfogle
Inker: Joe Rubinstein
Colorist: Gregory Wright
Letterer: Todd Klein
Editor: Jordan B. Gorfinkel, Dennis O'Neil

On the surface, this is an issue in which not much happens. The repair plans continue at Wayne Manor. The Batman makes short work of some bank robbers who tried to loot a bank in the aftermath of the Gotham earthquake. He goes on to rescue a man who refused to leave his structurally-unsound apartment building.

But this issue is a nice pause to assess the implications of the earthquake plot, and there is a lot of good dialogue throughout, all setting up future plot developments. The final scene between Bruce Wayne and current girlfriend Vesper is particularly well done.

This is the type of issue that helps make a large ongoing story better by giving the story a bit of breathing space.

Rating: 6.5/10

Batman #555

Continuing with the short run of 1990s Batman from my unread comics stack.

Title: Batman
Issue: 555
Date: June, 1998
Publisher: DC Comics
Writer: Doug Moench
Penciller: John Beatty
Inker: Sal Buscema
Colorist: Gregory Wright
Letterer: Todd Klein
Editor: Jordan B. Gorfinkel, Dennis O'Neil
Cover: Kelly Jones, Patrick Martin

We're now into "Aftershock", which continues so directly from "Cataclysm" that one wonders why it needed its own title at all. Gotham is in ruins from the earthquake, and Batman and Robin are attempting to rescue a group of commuters trapped in a subway car in a collapsed tunnel.

Enter... The Ratcatcher. Yeah, not exactly top-tier opposition. And unfortunately, because Ratcatcher is pretty third-string in the Rogues Gallery, the writer felt it necessary to reintroduce him to the reader by means of a clunky infodump in the form of a soliloquy given to an audience of (you guessed it) rats.

In fact, Ratcatcher talks a lot in this story, and he doesn't actually say all that much when he does.

What does work well here is that the story makes very good use of the dangers of the collapsed tunnel, with a bunch of clever threats and twists to complicate the rescue.

And it's nice to see the Batman finally get Ratcatcher to shut up.

Rating: 5/10

Batman #554

Continuing with the run of Batman that I brought here as part of my random stack of comics to read.

Title: Batman
Issue: 554
Date: May, 1998
Publisher: DC Comics
Writer: Doug Moench
Penciller: Klaus Janson
Inker: Sal Buscema
Colorist: Gregory Wright
Letterer: Todd Klein
Editor: Jordan B. Gorfinkel, Dennis O'Neil
Cover: Mark Buckingham, Kevin Nowlan, Patrick Martin

This directly follows issue #553, which I reviewed here, but it really doesn't because we are in full-on crossover mode. so this is Part 12 of Catacysm. This is inconvenient because I only have the Batman title to work with here, so I'm missing a lot of plot.

This issue introduces the Quakemaster, a mysterious villain who is claiming responsibility for the massive earthquake that hit Gotham, and threating to unleash more earthquakes if he is not paid one MILLION dollars! (Okay, actually, he asks for 100 million).

The Batman is trying to figure out if the Quakemaster's claim is for real, which seems unlikely until you remember that this IS the DC Comics Universe, and so things like people being able to cause earthquakes have a somewhat higher level of plausibility.

There is also the issue of a missing seismologist. Is she a victim of the Quakemaster or an accomplice?

This was a very detective-work oriented issue, with the action kept to a minimum. Bruce Wayne in detective mode is always fun, and there were some good contributions from Harvey Bullock and Renee Montoya as well.

Not a really eventful issue, but effective at moving the story along.

Rating: 6.5/10

Batman #553

Among the stack of random comics I brought from my storage unit in the US was a small set of Batman from the Cataclysm/No Man's Land mega storyline of the 1990s. It's far from a complete set, but here is the earliest issue in storyline order that I have. It's part 3 of Cataclysm.

Title: Batman
Issue: 553
Date: April, 1998
Publisher: DC Comics
Writer: Doug Moench
Penciller: Klaus Janson
Inker: Sal Buscema
Colorist: Gregory Wright
Letterer: Todd Klein
Editor: Jordan B. Gorfinkel, Dennis O'Neil
Cover: Mark Buckingham, Kevin Nowlan, Patrick Martin

Cataclysm Part 3. Gotham City is hit with a 7.6 earthquake, and this issue begins at the moment the quake strikes.

We see Lucius Fox at the Waynecorp Building (conveniently constructed to withstand an 8.5... unlike pretty much every other building in Gotham), and then a clever bit where Commissioner Gordon is nearly killed by the bat-signal falling through the roof.

The story then shifts focus to two parallel plots: Bruce Wayne and Alfred trying to escape from what's left of the Batcave and (stately) Wayne Manor, and Barbara Gordon taking charge of disaster relieve coordination from GCPD HQ.

Putting aside for a moment the question of where she gets the authority to do that, Barbara is her usual awesome self here, and Sergeant Bullock also gets in some good scenes.

This epic took place at a time when the Batman supporting cast was really top-notch and it was great seeing plots that had huge long-term implications for Gotham and the Batman characters. Too often, editorial direction is timid about such changes. They really went all-out when it came to wrecking Gotham is a plot that went on to span several years.

This was a nice change from the usual Batman plots, and it makes great use of all of the familiar disaster movie tropes.

Rating: 8/10

Tall Tails: Thieves' Quest #3

 Another review live from Mumbai Airport in India! And this marks the end of that stack I was working on trying to finish. Looking forward to picking up some new comics during the month I'll be in the US, and even reviewing a couple of items I found on the newsstand here in India. But for now, here's some more furry fantasy.

Title: Tall Tails: Thieves' Quest
Issue: 3
Date: 1998
Publisher: Vision Comics (available at Dreamweaver Press in webcomic form)
Writer: Jose Calderon
Artist: Daphne Lage, Matt Lunsford

The hunters become the hunted as a force of trolls attacks the soldiers who had been in pursuit of EF Ravenwood and his rogues. When the thieves turn back to assist their would-be pursuers, the two Ravenwood cousins have a tense reunion.

The interaction between the cousins was the centerpiece of this issue, and it worked really well, providing some character development and some plot advancement in the midst of all of the mayhem of the troll battle.

This issue had better focus than the previous issue.

Rating: 7/10

Tall Tails: Thieves' Quest #2

From the pile of unread comics. I seem to recall getting this one directly from the publishers at a convention some years ago. The copy I have is signed by artist Daphne Lage.

Title: Tall Tails: Thieves' Quest
Issue: 2
Date: 1998
Publisher: Vision Comics (available at Dreamweaver Press in webcomic form)
Writer: Jose Calderon
Artist: Daphne Lage, Matt Lunsford

Furry fantasy adventure story. A band of (anthropomorphic animal) thieves fight their way our of a walled city with the city's forces in pursuit.

Meanwhile, there is trouble brewing between the leaders of the kingdom and the neighboring land of trolls. The trolls are in possession of some kind of magical seal, and a troll caravan is ambushed in an attempt to obtain it.

Things escalate from there, with the band of rogues caught in the middle.

Admittedly, it's been a really long time since I read issue #1. Long enough that I don't have a review of it on this blog. That being said, the opening action scene had a lot of parts that were confusing and difficult to follow.

Once the plot involving the trolls was introduced, the pacing settled down a bit, and the resulting developments were pretty intriguing. This comic is juggling a lot of characters, and it may take a bit of time to figure it all out, but there is a lot of potential here for some good fun swashbuckling fantasy.

Rating: 6.5/10

Sequel to the Journey to the West Volume 1

Here's an English-language graphic novel that I picked up at a used book table at a holiday bazaar in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam in late 2014.

Title: Sequel to the Journey to the West
Issue: Volume 1
Date: 1998
Publisher: Asiapac Books
Writer: Tsai Chih Chung
Artist: Tsai Chih Chung
Translator: Wu Jingyu

This is an English-language graphic novel from a Taiwanese and a Singaporean publisher that I bought at a flea market in Vietnam. It's based on a classical Chinese novel with an unknown author, which is the sequel to an earlier classical Chinese novel by Ming Dynasty author Wu Cheng'en. The original Journey to the West novel is an adaptation of legends based on the historical journey of Tang Dynasty monk Xuanzang to India.

Need a scorecard yet?

Cartoonist Tsai Chih Chung is known for his humorous interpretations of classical Chinese literature. He works in four-panel vertical comic strips, and his version of Sequel to Journey to the West has a definite newspaper comic strip feel to the jokes and the pacing. The story describes the first steps in the journey of a monkey known as the Lesser Sage and a monk known as Da Dian set out to retrieve the "expository materials" needed for the people of China to gain a better understanding of Buddhism.

This first volume mostly sets the stage for the journey. The writing is playful, ranging from slapstick to wordplay to political satire and thinly-veiled (and sometimes not veiled at all) references to current events.

There were some good laughs to be had here, but some of the jokes suffer a bit in translation, and the humor is a bit uneven. Tsai Chih Chung mixes in crude bits of toilet humor along with some really clever puns and sarcasm.

This volume is mostly background to the actual quest story to follow.

Rating: 6/10

Deity #5

Title: Deity
Issue: 5
Publisher: Hyperwerks
Date: February, 1998
Writer: Karl Altstaetter, Robert Napton
Artist: Karl Altstaetter
Inker: Victor Olazaba, Karl Altstaetter
Colorist: Brian Buccellato, Derek Bellman
Letterer: Tiberius Jones
Editor: Rob Tokar

The forces of two worlds are fighting over an interdimensional junction and the battle has spilled over to Earth, where a seemingly ordinary high school girl (okay, seemingly ordinary aside from having the body of an exaggerated bikini model) is secretly the heir to the powers of alternate-dimension queen Xandra.

This started off as a bit of an over-complicated mess, but got better as it went, helped along by several engaging characters, particularly shapeshifting dragon Lucius Ego, and dorky teenager Ziggy. The secret princess character Jamie has her moments too.

The artwork is technically decent (Lucius in dragon form looks awesome), but it falls into pretty typical late-nineties Image knock-off territory with overdone anatomy, over-sexualized female characters, and ridiculous costumes that mostly don't actually cover all that much.

There is some substance underlying all of the muscles and tight clothes here, but it takes a bit of digging to realize it's there.

Rating: 6/10