All Star Western #1

Back to reviewing the new lineup from DC. This is their new "western" title. Except that it takes place in the East.

Title: All Star Western
Issue: 1
Date: November 2011
Publisher: DC Comics
Writer: Jimmy Palmiotti, Justin Gray
Artist: Moritat
Colorist: Gabriel Bautista
Letterer: Rob Leigh
Editor: Kate Stewart, Joey Cavalieri
Cover: Moritat

Since when is Gotham City WESTERN? It's in New Jersey! I actually think that DC missed a good opportunity to title this comic Gotham By Gaslight, a name that they own and which might bring in the steampunk crowd.

Regardless, we are indeed in Gotham City, and Jonah Hex is in town, teaming up with early forensic psychologist Amadeus Arkham to track down Jack the Ripper the Gotham Butcher.

There's a young prostitute who knows Hex and manages to pass along some useful information once he's done laying a beatdown on the locals in a barroom brawl. She's actually a likeable character (Hex and Arkham really aren't). So of course she gets killed off in the next scene. This is the old west east! People weren't likable back then! Or if they were, it meant they were DOOMED! Oh, and women who do things like work as prostitutes or stand up to the hero need to be put in their place, of course.

Other than the rather blatant refrigerator moment, the rest of this book is simply dull. The serial killer (or killers; conspiracy theories and secret societies are hinted) acts like every TV serial killer. Arkham spouts Freudian analysis, but manages to come up with no insights about either the killer or Hex (who receives the bulk of the psychobabble) that are actually interesting or surprising.

Populating the city with the ancestors of characters from the current Batman continuity is a clever touch, although the handling of Mayor Cobblepot is ham-fisted. The character basically IS the Penguin.

This was the first book I've read in the "New 52" that really felt LONG. And not in a good way. Between Arkham's incessant psychoanalysis in caption form and a succession of scenes of Hex beating people up for no reason that actually made any sense, the book just seemed to drag on an on.

Rating: 3/10

Wildstorm: Free Convention Exclusive 2009

Dipping back into the backlog for this one. No idea where I picked it up.

Title: Wildstorm: Free Convention Exclusive 2009
Date: 2009
Publisher: DC Comics
Writer: Joshua Ortega, Justin Gray, Jimmy Palmiotti, Mike Costa
Art: Liam Sharp, Darick Robertson, Matt Jacobs, Ramon K. Perez, CP Smith

Preview book from the Wildstorm brand under DC's management. Three stories.

First up is video game tie-in Gears of War. A team of rather generic (male) space marines is protecting an (female) innocent when their tank breaks down and they get mobbed by what look like alien zombies. Superior firepower wins out, at least until a Brumak shows up. At this point, the natural reaction of the lead character is to use words that are conveniently blacked out for the sake of the tender sensibilities of the readers (who apparently should be fine with watching the bloody demise of the alien zombies, but might be horribly damaged if the stumble across the word "shit" in the dialogue). The story is listed as being for mature readers, so the censorship might only occur in the free preview. The Brumak is kinda like the Rancor in Return of the Jedi, except that it has guns. We end with the monster looking menacing while it stands much closer than it probably needs to if it wants to take out the heroes. Pretty art. Generic story at best.

Second story is Prototype (apparently also a video game tie-in; I know this is costing my all of my geek cred, but I don't actually play these things). This is more of an X-Files flavored tale, with serial killers and government conspiracies. A team of commandos lands in Idaho, where the locals have apparently been killing each other like it's, well, like it's the zombie apocalypse. Or something. We know these are tough guys because they have dirty words censored out of their dialogue. This is certainly a more interesting scenario than the previous story, but very little of note actually happens in the preview.

Last up is Resistance. Also based on a video game. They even identify the platform this time as the Playstation 3. The "Chimera" (which is apparently used as a plural here, even though it's a singular word; the correct plural is Chimerae) are "bringing the fight for world domination to American shores!". Opening sequence is a dogfight between jet fighters and (what I assume to be) Chimera craft, which look suspiciously like bunches of different alien fighter craft we've seen in recent movies. The human pilot utters some censored dialogue, and receives some stock military jargon in response. He then proceeds to get shot down, bail out, land conveniently back at his base, and discover that this might not have actually been as convenient as he had at first hoped (although you're going to have to actually buy the comic to discover the actual threat; this preview ends on the unnamed pilot's reaction shot).

Maybe if you already play these games you don't need this preview book to sell you the comic. But as someone who hasn't played them, there just wasn't much of anything here to hold my interest. Cardboard cutout tough-guy military characters stuck into uninteresting recycled plots are not going to get me on board, even if some of the artwork did look good. And the blacking out of objectionable words was just an extra insult to my intelligence.

Rating: 3/10