Ranma 1/2 Volume 4

From my books retrieved from storage.

Title: Ranma 1/2
Issue: Volume 4
Date: 1995
Publisher Viz Media
Writer: Rumiko Takahashi
Artist: Rumiko Takahashi

Ranma, a local martial arts prodigy, has a bit of a curse to deal with. He changes sex whenever he gets splashed with cold water. Hot water reverses the change.

Things get even more complicated when Ranma's old frienemy, Shampoo, shows up, along with her great-grandmother, who uses a secret pressure-point technique to make Ranma intolerant of hot water, causing Ranma to be stuck in girlform. From there, Ranma sets out on a series of schemes to get the great-grandmother to reverse this latest indignity. We end with a cliffhanger involving a shark.

This was goofy fun, a bit hard to follow in places, although some of that was just from jumping into the series at volume 4. The characters are more meant to be laughed at than to be sympathized with, which left me without much of a hook to care about the story beyond the slapstick antics. This was decent in terms of mayhem, but there wasn't much in the way of substance.

Rating: 4.5/10

Star Trek: The Next Generation Annual #6

From the stack of random unread comics.

Title: Star Trek: The Next Generation Annual
Issue: 6
Date: 1995
Publisher: DC Comics
Writer: Michael Jan Friedman
Penciler: Ken Save
Inker: Sam de la Rosa
Colorist: Rick Taylor
Letterer: Chris Eliopoulos
Editor: Margaret Clark

Written by multi-time Star Trek novelist Michael Jan Friedman, this is the second part of a crossover with 1995's Star Trek (original series) Annual. The basic setup is that various key individuals have been abducted by the time-traveling Devidians as part of a plot to manipulate the timestream. Among the abduction victims are Spock and Data, along with a fun selection of fan-favorite characters from various points in Trek history.

Rescue missions led respectively by Picard and Kirk are underway, while another powerful force, the mysterious Aegis, are also involved in the altered timestream..

Friedman shows as good a grasp of the style and interactions of the Star Trek universe as one would expect, given his impressive credentials. The flavor of the story is spot-on, and there are some fun alterations to continuity for the sake of the altered timeline.

It was also fun seeing the versions of Kirk, Spock, and crew in their older incarnations from the era of the films, rather then the original TV series.

The climactic battle is hindered by a mechanism that keeps the two rescue parties slightly out of synch in time with each other, limiting communication. This is fine, but the way it's depicted visually in the comic medium just doesn't work all that well. The silent and essentially faceless Devidians don't make for very interesting villains either. There is a lot of talk about how dangerous they are as foes, but when they actually show up, they just engage in a shootout with the two rescue parties, and the battle is over quickly and anticlimactically.

The Aegis then perform a bit of deus-ex-machina, which, while not very good plot, is at least well in flavor for Star Trek, and timelines are arbitrarily restored to status quo.

This definitely captures the essence of a Star Trek story; it's just not one of the better Star Trek stories.

Rating: 5.5/10

Superman #100

From the random stack of comics, here's a milestone Superman book from 1995.

Title: Superman
Issue: 100
Date: May, 1995
Publisher: DC Comics
Writer: Dan Jurgens
Penciler: Dan Jurgens
Inker: Brett Breedng, Josef Rubinstein
Colorist: Glen Whitmore
Letterer: John Costanza
Editor: Chris Duffy, Mike Carlin
Cover: Dan Jurgens, Joe Rubinstein

I love "milestone" issues, especially involving historic characters like Superman. So this is the 100th issue of the Superman title that began following Crisis on Infinite Earths in the 1980s. It's got a holofoil cover (because it's 1995, after all; it also has a scene involving a brick-sized cell phone!), and the story is "The Death of Clark Kent".

While that would appear to be a play on the Death of Superman storyline, which also leaned heavily into gimmicky cover territory, this story plays out more like a much kinder, gentler version of Identity Crisis.

Villain Conduit, who just happens to be Clark Kent's old high school buddy Kenny Braverman, has figured out Superman's secret identity. And after a bit of teasing Clark Kent with the knowledge, Clark now knows that Kenny knows, and all of a sudden everyone in Clark Kent's life is in danger.

Or rather they would be, if it were not for the fact that Conduit seems to be utterly incompetent as a villain. The guy commands a private army equipped with military hardware, and his powers make him a match for Superman in a straight up fight, but yet he resorts to mailing people exploding champagne bottles, has his men surround Ma and Pa Kent's house and then wait to attack until Superman arrives, and can't even decide whether to spill the secret identity to a captive Jimmy Olsen.

Really, Conduit? Really?

In fact, the whole scene of Conduit blathering on and on to Olsen about "if you only knew what I knew about Clark Kent" and then not telling pretty much tells all the readers everything they need to know about this story. The status quo is in no danger here. And neither is Superman, or Clark Kent for that matter.

Just about the only redeeming bit in this issue is a reasonably well thought out scene between Superman and Lois Lane (in 1995 continuity, Clark and Lois are engaged and Lois knows Clark is Superman), in which Clark talks about the importance of his identity as Clark Kent and about the pride he takes in his news reporting and writing. More of that, please.

And less Conduit.

Rating: 3.5/10