Judging the New 52: I, Vampire

I, Vampire was originally one of several strips in the DC book House of Mystery. It was written by J.M DeMatteis and ran from 1981 to 1983. Never averse to regurgitating old titles for new audiences, DC elected to revive the series as part of the New 52 relaunch. The new version was written by Joshua Hale Fialkov and pencilled by Andrea Sorrentino. I hadn't heard of I, Vampire before. I hadn't read anything by Fialkov or Sorrentino that I could recall. There were 51 other comic books launching that month, and I am really, really sick to death of vampires. So I skipped it, and to be honest pretty much ignored it entirely. When it was announced that I, Vampire was ending at issue #19 I didn't even pause to think about it. Then I found a copy of the first trade paperback on sale, figured "oh what the hell" and picked it up to see what I was missing.

Based on the first six issues, I was missing one of the best comics of the New 52.

There's not a lot here that's particularly original, but what is here is tight plotting, strong characterisation and wonderfully evocative artwork. It feels like it should be a DC Vertigo title, indeed it's not far into the series when John Constantine pops up - albeit the New 52 version who says things like "bleeding 'eck" and doesn't smoke or drink as much. It also contains a nice guest appearance by Batman, which they probably should have highlighted a bit more - he tends to sell fairly well.

Random Comic: ROM Spaceknight #29

For the purposes of this blog post I shall assume that, like me, you have heard of an old Marvel comic titled ROM but had never read it and didn't really know anything about it.

So all the way back in 1976 a preschool toy manufacturer named Kenner decided to branch out into action figures by purchasing the license to a new 20th Century Fox film titled Star Wars. We all know how that gamble paid off: not only did Kenner find themselves manufacturing the most popular toys of the 1980s, they stimulated an entire mini-industry of science fiction and fantasy-themed toys, all constructed in the sole hope that they'd give their makers the kind of sales kick Kenner experienced.

Parker Bros was at this point a very successful producer of board games, but seeing an opportunity they developed their first action figure. At one point they were going to call it COBOL after the programming language, but they ultimately settled on ROM. The big sales point of this plastic robot was that it had LED lights in the eyes. So convinced were Parker Bros executives that their toy would be a hit that they didn't even bother to give it articulated legs: ROM was effectively a metallic coloured statue with glowing eyes (red, because green LEDs cost too much).

To generate a backstory for the character, Parker Bros reached out to Marvel Comics - who published a tie-in comic book centred on ROM the Spaceknight who flies around the galaxy fighting Dire Wraiths. It was written by Bill Mantlo and illustrated by a range of artists staring with Sal Buscema. The toy was a commercial failure. The tie-in comic ran for 75 issues.

Judging the New 52: Catwoman

Catwoman is such a difficult title to sustain. First of all, she's a villain, and it's quite tricky making an antagonist into a functional protagonist on a regular, ongoing basis. Secondly she is essentially constructed entirely for a male gaze: traditionally dressed in fetishwear, sexually provocative while romancing Batman in-between criminal acts that are bad enough to make her a criminal but not so bad that we might stop finding her attractive. She makes for a difficult tightrope for any writer/artist team to negotiate: sexualise her too much and she comes off as tacky and vaguely offensive, sexualise her too little and she ceases to be Catwoman.

With the New 52, Catwoman received a solo title for the first time in about three years. The team assigned to the book was writer Judd Winick and artist Guillem March. Winick has since been replaced by Ann Nocenti and March by Adriana Melo, but for now I want to focus on the first six-issue arc since that's what I've read in trade paperback.

Red Dwarf: "Dear Dave"

I have been remiss in my Red Dwarf reviews. Season 10 is done and gone, and yet I still haven't reviewed the final two episodes. Let's redress that now with a look at the season's fifth episode, "Dear Dave". Lister is increasingly depressed about his life as the last human being alive. He's going stir-crazy, sulking on couches and flirting with vending machines. When a post pod arrives, Lister discovers that an ex-girlfriend - now dead for millions of years - may have had Lister's son without his knowledge.

This is a very mixed episode, combining the sort of comedy that made Red Dwarf so good in the old days with scenes that are just painful to watch. Lister falling over a vending machine and looking like he's having sex with it would have been tedious 30 years ago. In 2012, when this episode aired, it was just dreadful. As a result this is the most uneven episode of the season so far.

Who50: "The Sea Devils"

Who50 counts down to the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who by reviewing my favourite episodes and serials over the history of the programme, counting down from #50 to #1. Today, #35: "The Sea Devils", a six-part 1972 serial written by Brian Hayles and directed by Michael E. Briant.

When the Doctor and Jo travel to an island prison to visit the incarcerated Master, the Doctor cannot resist investigating a string of vanishing ships in the area. He discovers a colony of aquatic reptiles - sea-faring cousins of the Silurians he encountered two years earlier. Can he negotiate the peace he failed to secure last time - or are the humans and the Sea Devils destined for conflict?

"The Sea Devils" is the perfect sort of sequel. It provides the elements that made "Doctor Who and the Silurians" so successful - humanoid reptiles, a struggle for peace, the Doctor caught in the middle - and adds a significant boost of action and adventure. It gives audiences what they expect from a sequel, and mixes in so much more. The result is a gripping and massively enjoyable six-episode romp that's among the best serials the Pertwee era produced.

The Dragon Chronicles: Fire and Ice (2009)

I'm not sure if you've heard of Pitof. He was originally a very successful French visual effects designer, working on The City of Lost Children, Joan of Arc, Delicatessen and Alien Resurrection. He then made the leap to directing his own films, beginning with the wonderfully stylish Vidocq (aka Dark Portals in Australia). Based on that film Warner Bros hired him to direct Catwoman, starring Halle Berry.

I always liked Roger Ebert's review of Catwoman, in which he noted "it's not enough that careers are ruined, somebody should be slapped". I always figured it was Pitof who got slapped, probably unfairly - with a script that bad no one would have managed to make anything too watchable. After all, post-Catwoman he seemed to vanish entirely from the filmmaking world.

But no! He came back with his third film, The Dragon Chronicles: Fire and Ice. It's a bit of a plummet down in stature from Catwoman, which was a massively expensive Warner Bros summer tentpole. The Dragon Chronicles is a Romanian-produced film, bankrolled in part by the Sci-Fi Channel to add to their continuing line of really quite awful monster and fantasy movies. It's apparently the most expensive Romanian film of all time, because they spent US$3,000,000 on it.

The Pull List: 27 February 2013

Two weeks ago I listed the DC and Marvel books that I thought were essential purchases for the respectable comic book reader. This week I thought I'd pick out four non-superheroic ongoing monthlies I feel are the most worth your time and business.

Saga (Image) is pretty much a no-brainer: Brian K. Vaughn and Fiona Staples are putting together an absolutely riveting and beautifully emotional book here that combines space opera with elements of romance, character drama and fantasy. If it doesn't win the Hugo Award this year, then the World Science Fiction Convention has no business giving awards to comic books.

Also from Image are Manhattan Projects and Revival. One is a twisted, darkly humorous and extraordinarily violent book about 20th century scientists running amok behind the cover of the cold war. It's written by Jonathan Hickman with distinctive art by Nick Pitarra. Revival is a self-described "rural noir" by Tim Seeley and Mike Norton that has, I think, the best chance to be the next Walking Dead. It's creepy and horrific but, like Saga, focuses on extremely well drawn characters.

A DC Vertigo book that I've been enjoying very much in trade paperback collections is Peter Gross and Mike Carey's The Unwritten. This is a natural heir to Neil Gaiman's Sandman: fantastical, lyrical and deeply inter-textual. It's clever stuff, and engaging fantasy too.

That's the four that I'm pushing: Saga, Manhattan Projects, Revival and The Unwritten. All four are available in monthly issues and in trade collections. Check them out, then let me know what you think.

Under the cut: reviews of All-Star Western, Aquaman, Batman Incorporated, Doctor Who: Prisoners of Time, The Flash, Guardians of the Galaxy, Journey into Mystery, The Massive, X-Men Legacy and Young Avengers.

Popular Posts: February 2013

For the first month since I started recording hits on The Angriest, that review of Pale Rider isn't in the top 5 posts for the month. Instead that honour goes to my review of Chicks Unravel Time, which is a good thing: a book that enjoyable deserves all the attention that it can get.

The five most popular posts in February were:

• Chicks Unravel Time (2012) (link)
• The Alternative Silurian (link)
• The anti-gay adventures of Superman (link)
• In praise of Short Round, and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (link)
• Five Films: David Morse (link)

Of course, three of those were from February. The other two most popular February posts were:

• Seven things due for a Doctor Who comeback (link)
• The Pull List: 13 February 2013 (link)