Leave it to Chance #1

From the random stack of unread comics.

Title: Leave it to Chance
Issue: 1
Date: September, 1996
Publisher: Image Comics (under their Homage brand)
Writer: James Robinson
Artist: Paul Smith
Colorist: Jeromy Cox
Letterer: Amie Grenier
Editor: Jonathan Peterson

I'm a big fan of Leave it to Chance, but this was actually my first time reading the debut issue. It did not disappoint.

Set in the city of Devil's Echo, where the supernatural exists side-by-side with modern civilization, the story introduces resident demon-slayer Lucan Falconer and his daughter Chance. Chance is eager to begin her training as the next generation of the city's long line of protectors against demonic threats, but an overprotective Lucas has some very different ideas.

This issue does a great job of introducing the main characters, as well as some background and supporting characters, plus a complex setting, and then diving right into the action. Chance is immediately likeable. The Devil's Echo setting is loaded with possibility, and several long-term plotlines are set into motion along with the immediate story of Chance's first real adventure in the city.

Lucas's sexist attitude came off as a cliche, but it was thrown out there and the story moved on quickly, putting the focus on Chance, while building toward an ongoing plot that is set up to break a lot more cliches than it will reinforce.

This was, first and foremost, a really fun start to a series with a very unique vibe.

Rating: 8/10

Marvel Free Previews: Secret Wars

Not technically a Free Comic Book Day book, this was a freebie that was widely available last summer. I'm not sure which store I picked it up in.

Title: Marvel Free Previews: Secret Wars
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Date: 2015
Writer: Jason Aaron, Felipe Smith, James Robinson, Sam Humphries, Brian Michael Bendis, Charles Soule, Dan Slott, Peter David, Skottie Young, Chris Sims, Chad Bowers, Scott Koblish, Jason Aaron, Marc Guggenheim
Artist: Chris Sprouse, Juan Gedeon, Steve Pugh, Alti Firmansyah, Mike Deodato, Leinil Yu, Adam Kubert, Greg Land, Skottie Young, Chris Sims, Chad Bowers, Scott Koblish, Mike del Mundo, Carlos Pacheco

I didn't pay much attention to last year's revival of Secret Wars. It seemed to involve a ridiculous amount of books, even by the standards of modern mainstream comics crossover "events". I did pick up this handy free preview, though.

So, from what I can tell from this, Secret Wars is basically a ten-year-or-so run of What If?, all released in the space of a few months and all connected by some vague attempt at continuity, with Doctor Doom as the main villain.

This book previews the following titles:

Thors: It's a bunch of versions of Thor functioning as Doom's police force in a story that's, well, a police procedural. Silly. Oh, and it has Beta Ray Bill. So even more silly.

Ghost Racers: Like NASCAR except all the drivers are versions of Ghost Rider. Also, Arcade is in this one. Not sure how this is supposed to be entertaining.

Age of Ultron vs. Marvel Zombies: Okay, you're just trolling us at this point, right? Tigra seems to be the lead character here. Zombie-Kingpin makes for a disturbing visual.

Star Lord and Kitty Pryde: This one was fairly entertaining. In addition to the title characters, Gambit is prominently featured, as well as an odd take on Drax.

Guardians of Knowwhere: Drax (different version than above) and Angela fight for pretty much no reason inside a (not a moon) space station made from a Celestial's head.

Civil War: No, not THAT Civil War. Although the basic theme is there. Cap and Iron Man each rule half of North America. Stark is Lawful Good; Rogers is Chaotic Good. And speaking of good, this preview was actually really good. First story in this book that I'd actually be interested in reading.

The Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows: Peter Parker is married to Mary Jane and they have a young daughter. This looked like fun. Sense of humor with heart. Presented in black-and-white for some reason that I can't fathom.

Future Imperfect: Hulk has a beard. And calls himself the Maestro now. Nothing much happens in this preview.

Giant-Size Little Marvel: A v. X: Basically a toy commercial.

X-Men '92: Okay, this was hilarious. In classic early-90s X-Book style, the X-Men head to the local mall in Westchester so that Jubilee can whup them at Lazer Tag. Third winner from this batch. Let's see how many more we get.

Weirdworld: As you might expect from the title, this was incoherent. The art was lovely, and the final page (revealing the "map" of Weirdworld) was awesome.

Squadron Sinister: Squadron Sinister kill Squadron Supreme in one of those superhero-battle-where-characters-actually-die scenarios, and none of the characters are anyone we care about. It doesn't help that the good guys and the bad guys are both rather blatant knock-offs of the Justice League. Which may be the point; I'm not up on my Squadron-Whatever history. Oh, and some random person gets their arms ripped off. Because... I'm not really sure. To remind everyone that the bad guy is a bad guy, I guess.

Mrs. Deadpool and the Howling Commandos: Okay, at least they chose to end on a high note. Deadpool mixed with 1970s Marvel monster comics is pure magic. This should have been the entire crossover. The "Secret War" could have been between the writing teams, pitting their various "What If?" scenarios against each other, and this totally would have won.

So, that makes thirteen previews. I found four of them entertaining, two for decent-quality story (Civil War, Renew Your Vows), and two for ridiculously over-the-top entertaining concepts (X-Men '92, Mrs Deadpool). I'll also half a vote each to Weirdworld and Kitty Pryde/Starlord, which at least looked like they had some potential.

The bad news is, that's still only 5 out of 13.

Which amounts to (after generously rounding up):

Rating: 4/10

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

War of the Supermen #0

Another leftover: This is from last year's FCBD, but I picked it up this past weekend.

Title: War of the Supermen
Issue: #0
Date: June 2010
Publisher: DC Comics
Writer: James Robinson, Sterling Gates
Penciler: Eddy Barrows
Inker: J. P. Mayer
Art For Second Story: Julian Lopez, Bit, Aaron Lopresti, David Finch, Joe Weems, Gary Frank, Cafu, Ethan Van Sciver, Diogenes Neves, Vincente Cifuentes, Blond
Colorist: Rod Reis
Letterer: John J. Hill
Editor: Matt Idelson, Will Moss

If (like me) you're clueless about the storyline that leads up to this "war", you should read this book in reverse order. The second story is basically a recap, told in the form of Lois Lane's notes for her story on New Krypton. Or you could just let me fill you in. New Krypton is what became of the classic bottle-city of Kandor of Silver-Age fame. The bottle-city was a Kryptonian city shrunk down to micro-scale, which the writers would find various reasons for Superman to be unable to find a way to restore to full size.

Well, someone finally realized how silly that was. Actually, what happened was that someone realized that the concept was silly, and instead of leaving it where it belonged (as a nostalgic memory along with Jimmy Olsen as Elasto-Boy), they decided that the story would be less silly if they went ahead and un-shrunk Kandor.

Nope. Still silly.

So now you've got an entire population of super-persons on an artificial planet, presumably on the other side of the sun from Earth. And they've gone and elected Christopher Reeve era villain General Zod as their supreme leader. Superman, suspecting that Zod has evil intents, has infiltrated the General's forces. But he still acts shocked when it turns out that, yes, the evil villain who was exiled to the Phantom Zone turns out to really be an evil villain. Shocking, I know.

Superman comes crashing through the wall, but everyone's got superpowers. Ursa (last seen losing her powers and then getting taken out with one punch by Margot Kidder at the end of Superman II) has a kryptonite knife. Really. A kryptonite knife. Apparently just so they can show a bit of blood, because we all know that you can't have a really good Superman story without blood.

The most annoying thing about this, really, is that Superman behaves like an idiot through this entire scene. A lot of people have gripes about the Superman character, but what I've always liked about him is that when he is written well, he thinks his way out of problems rather than slugging his way out. This is not one of those stories.

And even the attempt to replicate the "I destroyed New York twenty minutes ago" bit from the Watchmen fails to make Zod into a particularly compelling villain. He brags that Ursa is going to show Kal-El what a "precise" strike is, and she proceeds to inflict, well, only a flesh wound. He also does all of the usual villainous gloating and revealing of plans.

I liked the Lois Lane recap bit better than the opening story, but it was still only a recap. There's only so much you can do with that.

Bad concept to begin with. Badly executed.

Rating: 4.5/10