Amused in Review

Smith Brown Jones: Alien Accountant Vol 2 #1 of 4
by John "Bean" Hastings
published by Slave Labor Graphics, b&w, $2.95
rating: Gosh-a-rooty!

Smith Brown Jones is back, and he's better than ever. Well, at least as good as ever: it's hard to improve upon the belly-laughs provided by the first series. Still, any book that makes me laugh-out-loud more than once (and does so intentionally), automatically rockets to the top of my mut-read list.
     Smith Brown Jones is an alien, as in outerspace alien, who is an accountant for the Galactic Hub. His current assignment is Earth, which is blissfully unaware of the existence of the Hub, and part of Smith Brown Jones' assignment is to keep them that way, which he furthers by adopting the guise of an Earthman (albeit a pointy-eared, green-skinned Earthman) who works as the Alien Affairs Correspondent of a tabloid newspaper. What better place to make sure that any actual contact with aliens is dismissed as a hoax or the ravings of a lunatic?
     The rest of Smith Brown Jones' job is to make sure that alien corporations bent on exploiting the Earth or its inhabitants can't get a foothold. The story of one such attempt was detailed in the first four-issue mini-series, and is now collected in the trade paperback Smith Brown Jones: Alien Accountant: Calm, Cool, and Collected.
     Actually, that title strikes to the heart of one of the more unusual things about Smith Brown Jones. Smith Brown Jones is one of the rarest of comic heroes, the hero who is basically more competent than those surrounding him. Most comic heroes are bumblers of one sort or another, or are constantly foiled by events, but Smith Brown Jones is calm, cool, and collected, and he comes out on top. Like Bugs Bunny, Smith Brown Jones is by-and-large unflappable, and more than competent enough to deal with the maroons who plague him, and--also like Bugs Bunny--he manages to come across as thoroughly sympathetic and likable despite that severe handicap.
     In the current series, SBJ needs a vacation, so he wrangles a trip to England to investigate exploding sheep. When his editor points out that as a tabloid reporter, he has no need to go on location, SBJ convinces her otherwise--I won't spoil the gag by saying how, but I will point out that the scene displays Bean's mastery of comic pacing and page layout.
     Of course, there's more to the story than mere exploding sheep, as events running in parralel among the fairy folk of England make clear to the reader. Meanwhile, events in the Hub's Galactic Accounting agency cause them to send another accountant to Earth: Smith Brown Jones' brother Jeff Chester Chuck...
     All in all, the new mini-series is off to a rollicking start, and I cannot recommend it too highly to anyone possessed of a funny-bone. The arrival of Jeff Chester Chuck on Earth is worth the price of admission in itself.

Let's take a look at the Mail-Bag, shall we?

First up is a comment from regular reader Brad Rosser:

I've just read yesterday's "Whatever happened to the Man of Tomorrow" article, and agree wholeheartedly. I don't know why DC had to try and "simplify" things with Crisis; I *enjoyed* the multiverse and I think contemporary kids would still have been able to understand things.
     Regarding your point #4, I don't believe Byrne (who I've never liked, but I didn't read much Marvel; I hated his Superman run, don't like his art much, and can't stand the present Wonder Woman comic) actually eliminated any of Superman's actual powers; he just "weakened" them all, as part of DC's mission to remake Superman into a superhero "Rambo" clone, who had to sweat and strain in his efforts and in so doing become more attractive to the children of the 80s. But he still had all his vision powers, superspeed, etc; just "downsized". A mistake, I think, and as you say - WHY therefore would he be considered as still the "world's greatest superhero"? His speed was no longer even of the same order of magnitude as the Flash; a number of heros (Captain Marvel, the Martian Manhunter (who seems to have oodles of 'extra' powers to boot), Green Lantern, etc) seemed to be at least his equal. And Byrne's stories never seemed to stress the 'nobility' of the Superman of old; just tired plots detailing the mechanics of how Superman could win a fight when his powers were so limited.
     I remember one of the Action comics where Supeman was stranded in deep space and rescued by a group of Green Lanterns; even Ch'ip, a buck-toothed beaver (or whatever animal he was!) could out-power Superman without effort!
     Downsized in powers, downsized in everything else, unfortunately.

How can I disagree with someone who corrects me so politely? I had been under the impression that Byrne did away with certain of Superman's powers altogether, but I confess I haven't read those issues since they first came out, and certainly could be misremembering.

Jane Haddam, author of the Gregor Demarkian mysteries (see the review of Not A Creature was Stirring in the back issues), had this to say:

I wandered in today just sort of looking around and avoiding work, and I wanted to thank you so much for your kind review of Not A Creature Was Stirring and of the whole Demarkian series--since I've just signed on to write two more, it's nice to know that somebody's reading them.
    I was under the impression that all the books except Act of Darkness were in print in paperback, although most of the hardcover editions are out, but I may be wrong, as I not only signed on for two more books but switched publihsers.
    At any rate, thank you again. I was a wonderful site for me to find.

Ms. Haddam is right--I had mistakenly listed Not A Creature Was Stirring as out-of-print, when it's only the hardback that was out-of-print. I've updated the bookstore link, so that clicking on it will order the paperback, which ships in two to three days.
    This note made my day, as you can well imagine.

Finally, John "Bean" Hastings, creator of the hilarious Smith, Brown, Jones: Alien Accountant wrote:

Wow, I never thought my characters would become the answer to a trivia question. I have truly made it!

P.S. Look for the new issue of Smith Brown Jones out this week from Slave Labor Graphics.

Indeed, Smith, Brown, Jones shipped, and I plan on reviewing the latest issue tomorrow.

Avengers #5 and #6
by Kurt Busiek and George Perez
Marvel Comics, color, $1.99
rating: Keen.

With the past couple of issues, Avengers finally seems to be hitting its stride. It still may be a little too steeped in Marvel's past history for a new reader, but the team's been whittled down to managable numbers, the sub-plots are been taken a couple at a time, and the main action moves forward in satisfying chunks.
     The Avengers is still pretty standard super-hero fare, relying fairly heavily on fights to move the action forward, rather than the kind of ground-breaking work that Kurt's fans have come to expect in Astro City, but there's nothing wrong with that. I confess that I don't look forward to each issue of The Avengers with quite the same anticipation that I do for Iron Man, or Captain America, but that's probably because The Avengers needed quite as much work as those other two titles in order to get back on track, but the nature of a large team book means that you can't fix everything at once. At least long-time fans can be satisfied that every character, with the possible exception of Warbird (formerly Binary, formerly Ms. Marvel), is recognizably themselves, and Warbird's been treated so inconsistently in the past that I'm not sure that I'd recognize her true nature if I saw it.
     In issues #5 and #6, the Avengers fight the Squadron Supreme (Marvel's in-joke in-house analogs of the JLA), who allege that the Avengers are imposters--I suppose because everyone knows that super-heroes never come back from the dead....Lots of characters flying about and hitting eachother.

I'm flying to Philadelphia again today, so I'll make this short and sweet.

JLA #20
by Waid and Jorgensen
DC, color, $1.95
rating: TBD

If it wasn't for the fact that I trust Mark Waid implicitly, I'd be pretty worried by the set-up in this issue. Adam Strange is one of my all-time favorite characters, and the scenario of him going mad with grief, and enslaving the Justice League smacks of the kind of "We must destroy these characters in order to save them" thinking that's been the bane of the classic DC characters for years now.
     But this is Waid, and I know that he feels the same way that I do about that sort of thing, so I'm waiting for him to pull the rabbit out of his hat....The rating for this issue depends on how big a rabbit it turns out to be, because even though I'm convinced that things aren't entirely as they seem, reading this issue was pretty uncomfortable for me.

Well, that was pretty miserable. Due to inclement weather, I just spent the entire night sitting in Terminal B of O'Hare airport. Not fun. I'll see you tomorrow.

Three to Get Deadly
by Janet Evanovich
St. Martin's Press, 321 pages, $6.50
rating: Neat-O.

This is the third outing for Janet Evanovich's plucky bounty hunter Stephanie Plum, and it's just as funny as the first two. Stephanie fell into bounty-hunting more-or-less accidentally, and she gets by more on luck, her ties to the grapevine of extended family, and more than a little help from her friends, including the vice-cop with whom she had a love-hate relationship, and the big-league bounty-hunter who's training her.
     I read this at one sitting (I had little choice--I was stuck on the taxi-way at O'Hare for four-and-a-half hours), and my major regret is that I didn't have another one handy to see me through the rest of the night.

Knights of the Dinner Table: Bundle of Trouble
by Jolly R. Blackburn
Kenzer & Co., b&w, $9.95
rating: Gosh-a-rooty!

Finally, the elusive first three issues of the gut-bustingly funny Knights of the Dinner Table have been re-released in this collection. Even in it's relatively primitive (pre-Sara) first issue, this is one of the funniest comics I've ever read. KotDT hits the follies and foibles of gamers, both role-playing and collectible card, with deadly accuracy, while still managing to be affectionate enough that gamers know it's laughing with them, not at them. Okay, okay, so it is laughing at them, but not in a mean way. Unlike, say, Evan Dorkin's Eltonville Science Fiction Society stories, there's no contempt for the subjects here; it's obvious that Blackburn is just as absorbed in gaming as B.A., Bob, Dave, Brian, and Sara are, and he assumes the readers are as well.

Akiko #25
by Mark Crilley
Sirius, b&w, $2.95
rating: Gosh-a-rooty!

Typical, that is to say nearly perfect, issue of Akiko.

Why I Hate Saturn
by Kyle Baker
Piranha Press, 199 pages, $14.95
rating: Yeesh

I like the art.
     Okay, I like more than just the art: there are also parts of this that are very funny.
     But....
     The story shifts abruptly from a realistic "slice-of-life" story about an insecure alcoholic writer with a leavening of wry commentary about social conventions (it says so right on the back cover) to a ridiculous Thelma-And-Louise chase that ends with (sorry for the spoiler, but if I don't mention this you might get sucked in the way I was--at least this way there's a chance that you'll be mentally prepared) the protagonist's sister blowing up their pursuers with a shoulder-launched rocket that she somehow managed to acquire.
     Even that I might be able to overlook, if it weren't for the fact that the protagonist, Anne, is so unlikable. Kyle Baker seems to have fallen into the mind-set that he made fun of so deftly in The Cowboy Wally Show, confusing the tormented artist with the whiny self-centered jerk. It's hard for me to be much moved by the story of the personal development of a character from an insecure self-centered jerk to a self-confident self-centered jerk.
     For my money, you'd be better off reading only the first half of this--or better yet, read The Cowboy Wally Show instead.

The Dragon and the Gnarly King
by Gordon R. Dickson
Tor, 472 pages, $6.99
rating: Neat-O

This is the latest in Gordon Dickson's tales of Jim Eckert, 20th-century grad student accidentally plunged into 14th century magic-laden England in the form of a dragon, and it's pretty much of a piece with all the others (save the first, which remains a masterpiece): an excellent adventure story in which true friends and a good heart count as much as a good head in defeating the Powers of Darkness. There's nothing Earth-shattering here, but it conveys an excellent sense of the foreignness of the medieval mind-set while not falling into the trap of dismissing its possessors as silly savages, and the characters, both heroes and villains, ring true.
     I stayed up far too late last night finishing it, not because I was in doubt as to the outcome of the heroics, but because there was a sub-plot involving the relationship between Jim and his wife Angie, who over the course of the prior adventures have become minor nobility, and their tenants which I had to see resolved before I could sleep. Now that's writing.

Lum: Feudal Furor
by Rumiko Takahashi
Viz Comics, 160 pages, $15.95
rating: Neat-O.

Lum: Feudal Furor contains one of the silliest story-arcs in the history of Lum, no small feat, that. "Lum: The Heian Version" is so off-beat that when I first read it in comic-book form, I was convinced that I had missed an issue that contained some explanation of how Lum and the gang had gotten back to Japan's Heian period ("794 to 1192, to be exact"). But, no, there's no missing issue, and no explanation, either. Mendo and Ataru are members of the Royal Guards, and Lum is the terrifying demon who has been haunting the cherry trees. "In those ancient days there were no power poles, of course......so electric lines had to be strung through the branches of cherry trees." That pretty much sums up the plus la change, plus la m麥e chose spirit of the tale.

My friend Allan Lappin writes in about Knights of the Dinner Table:

"You're an evil, nasty SOB who will someday come to a deserved bad end.
I'm ordering all the back issues, and making a note to order it regularly.I was ROFLing! So much of those two issues were familiar. I still associate with some of the people depicted in the book. It was, in a word, hilarious. Part of me wants to do a review, part of me doesn't know *how* (save to say "If you ever gamed obsessively, READ THIS COMIC!"). Thanks ever so much for introducing me to KotDT. I plan on passing the issues
around to a few of my friends. " - Allan Lappin, via CompuServe

I've yet to meet the gamer or former gamer who can resist the siren lure of Knights of the Dinner Table.  Come, join us, become one of us....don't be afraid....

Godzilla
rating: Yeesh.

How do you spend $120 million on a summer special-effects extravaganza, and still manage to make a boring movie? I don't know, but I know who to hire to get it done: writer-producer Dean Devlin, and director Roland Emmerich. Every scene without the monster (or its hatchlings) is a total snooze--as much as I was looking forward to seeing this movie back when the teaser campaign started last winter, I came close to leaving the theater several times.  You wind up hoping that one of the large cast will get eaten or stomped on, just to relieve the monotony, but no such luck.  Extras can die by the car-load, but if you've got a speaking role in this movie, you're safe as houses.   Well, an English-speaking role, anyway--if you speak Japanese or French you better watch your ass.
     I was a bit disappointed in Godzilla's new look, but unsurprised, since it's been in your face since opening day.  I was surprised at how little tension they managed to generate, even with the monster on screen. The emphasis that Devlin and Emmerich placed on keeping the monster "realistic" (for example, they dropped the nuclear breath from Godzilla's arsenal, because they couldn't figure out how to justify it) worked against them--the entire problem in fighting this Godzilla is getting a clear shot at it.  Once they do that, a few Sidewinder missiles and the creature is toast. C'mon, guys, it's not like a two-hundred foot tall land creature could possibly be realistic--haven't D&E heard of the square-cube law? No, probably not.   This is the team that had a virus loaded from a Mac Powerbook cripple an alien fleet, in what they probably thought of as a tribute to War of the Worlds.
     I doubt that my review this late in the game will cause anyone to rethink seeing this movie, but just in case, I'll leave you with this words of timeless wisdom from better monster movies than this could hope to be: "Run! It's Godzilla!"

Stinz: Series III #6
by Donna Barr
A Fine Line Press, b&w, $5.50
rating: Keen.

In this issue, we learn what happened to the centaur Stinz during the "End of the War", and why he's so reluctant to ever leave the valley in which his town nestles. For some reason, despite similarities in theme and even in character between this and Donna Barr's other major work, the Desert Peach, Stinz just doesn't do that much for me. It's still well worth reading, and it's a meaty read, too, taking quite a while to get through an issue, but I don't get the same amount of satisfaction out of this that I do out of the Desert Peach.  Perhaps it's because Desert Peach is chock-full of characters whom I like, whereas Stinz has few other than Stinz and his family, and the world of Stinz seems like a less pleasant place the more we get to know it.

The Burglar In the Library
by Lawrence Block
Signet, 358 pages, $6.99
rating: Neat-O

In pursuit of a first-edition copy of The Big Sleep that just may have a personal inscription from Raymond Chandler to Dashielle Hammett, Bernie Rhodenbarr finds himself stuck in the middle of an English cozy mystery: He and his pal Carol are snow-bound in a rustic English-style country inn with a group of eccentric guests, and a killer is knocking them off one by one. Funny as all get-out, even if there are times when I find it difficult to tell Bernie's and Carol's dialogue apart: they both have a tendency to seize on irrelevant detail or suddenly become very literal minded when it would be good for a bit of repartee. Still, when you need a man who can walk down those mean streets, but is not himself mean, even if he is a bit sticky-fingered, you can't go wrong with Bernie Rhodenbarr.

Well, I'm in the process of wrapping up my stay here in Philadelphia. At the entrance to the Liberty Place mini-mall here in Center City, the management has put a placard bearing a quote from Michealangelo: "I have never felt salvation in Nature; I love cities above all." Of course, Michealangelo never visited Philadelphia. On the other hand, in Italian cities during Michaelangelo's time it was unsafe to walk the streets at night except in armed groups, for fear of armed bravos, so maybe he would have felt at home here.
     I'd like to thank all my friends who made my stay in Philadelphia a bit more bearable, and extra special thanks to Jeff Lang and Katie Fritz for going above and beyond the call of duty, and I hope that I can return your hospitality some day.

Arithmetic of Broadway

1. Trombones + Cornets
2. Brides - Brothers
3. Lost Souls * Time you should be in bed by when you think about the game
4. Odds in Favor of Valentine on the Morning Line + Odds Against * Lengths Epitaph wins by according to The Telegraph.
5. Enough cents to live like a king - sime when right there in bed a time-study man shaves.

Answers to Arithmetic of Broadway

1. 76 Trombones + 110 Cornets = 186
2. 7 Brides - 7 Brothers = 0
3. 2 Lost Souls * You should be in bed by 10 = 20
4. 5 in favor of Valentine on the morning line + 9 Against * Epitaph wins it by a half = 7
5. 7 and a half cents - 5 a.m. when right there in bed a time-study man shaves = 2.

Nobody's Son
by Sean Stewart
Ace Fantasy, 273 pages, $5.50
rating: Gosh-a-rooty!

This was recommended to me by Jeff Lang, no slouch as a writer himself, and is easily the best fantasy novel I've read all year; it may be the best fantasy novel I've read all decade. In a way, Nobody's Son does for fairy-tale adventure what Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin novels do for maritime adventure: use a straightforward adventure story as a scaffolding on which to build a complex psychological story.
     Shielder's Mark is the young peasant hero who breaks the spell of Red Keep and earns the King's reward, only to find that "happily ever after" is the hard part, and that a lifetime's training himself to be a hero isn't the same thing as growing up.
    Highly recommended.

Mulan
Walt Disney Pictures
Mulan's voice: Ming-Na Wen
rating: Gosh-a-rooty!

One of the great delights of movie-going is when a keenly anticipated picture does not disappoint. Mulan is such a picture: everything it promises in the trailers, it delivers, and more.
Based on a Chinese folk-tale (with the poem available on the Disney Mulan website I recommend listening to Ming-Na Wen read it, even if you do have to download the latest Real Audio player--it's free, and it's worth the time), about a young girl who joins the army in her father's place, Mulan is the best Disney animated picture since Aladdin--and the only reason it doesn't quite measure up to that is that the songs just don't have the same punch. On the other hand, the score is great, the characters are great (the comic sidekick is actually funny--I laughed out loud several times), the adventure is exciting, the villain is scary, and I left the theater with a smile on my face, seriously thinking about when I would go see it again.

Iron Man #7
by Kurt Busiek & Sean Chen
Marvel, color, $1.99
rating: Neat-O

Consensus of opinion among my crowd (Hi, Russell! Hi, Jeff!) is that this is the best issue of the new series to date. Kurt Busiek's talent for characterization is finally getting a good workout, and the confrontation between Iron Man and Carol Danvers over her drinking, and his unmasking himself to her, was masterfully done.
     I'm not surprised, given the admiration that Kurt's expressed for Lawrence Block's Mathew Scudder novels, that he attempts to deal with Tony Stark's alcoholism in a realistic fashion, but I was nonetheless struck by how well he carried it off. For the first time in, well, ever, alcoholism--and the fact that he's dry, but still an alcoholic--seems to be a part of who Tony Stark is, and not a "issue-of-the-week" grafted on in some feeble attempt at relevance.  It's also, and this is the first time I'm realizing this, one of the only times I can recall a comic writer invoking a sense of smell in a description of a scene when that's not one of a character's super-powers, or for comic effect ("Eeww, what died?").
     I'm also pleased to note the return of Kurt's uncanny ability to stay one ahead of the fans, as the conversation between Carol and Tony, where she accuses Tony of pigeon-holing her as an alcoholic because that's his problem, recapitulates a conversation I had with a friend about the previous issue almost exactly.
     I don't know how I feel about the whole "Live Kree or Die" cross-over into Captain America (and then into the Avengers, I think).   Ordinarily I'm agin' it, but it's harder to complain when I buy all the books involved anyway.
     Bottom line: Iron Man hasn't been this good in years, and it only seems to be getting stronger.

Congratulations to Mark Crilley, on his marriage to Miki. Also, for those of you who haven't seen the latest Entertainment Weekly, with the "IT List" of the 100 most creative people in Entertainment, Mark and 'kiko made the list. Check it out.

Also, Jeff Lang writes in about Mulan:
"We went to see Mulan on Sunday (my Father's Day treat), and we all enjoyed it tremendously. Actually, I think Katie & I enjoyed it a smidge more than Andy, if only because there was more emphasis on character and style than action, action, action. Also, the humor bits were more oriented towards the grown-ups. Since Sunday, Katie and I turn to each other occasionally and
say, 'You are one lucky bug.' "

Iron Man: Iron Age Part One of Two
by Kurt Busiek & Patrick Zircher
Marvel, color, prestige format, $5.99
rating: Neat-O.

A tremendously nifty look at what, in Kurt Busiek's view, makes Tony Stark--and Iron Man--tick, starting from well before Tony's mishap in the jungles of Southeast Asia.   One very nice touch is that it's narrated by Pepper Potts, Tony Stark's gal Friday, and long one of my favorite supporting cast members.  The villainess is moderately goofy, but that's not the point: it's a character study, plain and simple, and from that point of view a resounding success.

Bugboy #1
by Mark Lewis
Image, b&w, 40 pages, $3.95
rating: Keen

The ultra-keen, rip-roaring space adventures of Bugboy, Juvenile Genius and Adventurer, and his not-so-trusty sidekick Joe Bear! Tongue-in-cheek retro-sf seems to be all the rage these days, but what sets Bugboy apart from the rest of the pack is a very nice clean-line art style--a sort of Winsor McCay meets Herge--and a relentlessly upbeat attitude--where even rough, tough space pirates quail at the thought of a month of nothing but brussell-sprouts, and scary moon-monsters want to play tea-party--that gives it a children's storybook feel.  I'm not sure that I want a steady diet of this, but it makes for a nice change of pace.

Thunderbolts #17
by Kurt Busiek and Mark Bagley
Marvel, color, $1.99
rating: Neat-O.

For sheer "What on Earth's going to happen next?", the first twelve issues of Thunderbolts was hard to top--so hard to top, in fact, that the series seemed to drift for the next four issues, gradually losing it's grip on my attention, until I was seriously thinking of dropping it (and this despite the fact that I consider myself something of a Kurt Busiek completist). Since the series was founded on what was essentially a gimmick (what if, in the absence of all the other heroes missing as a result of events better not gone into, a group of villains outfits themselves with new identities and poses as heroes in order to sucker the public), one always wondered whether it was possible to sustain the tension once the scheme was exposed, and until the very end of issue #16, it seemed like the answer was "No." The final panel of issue #16, with the "new" (?) Citizen V, piqued my interest slightly, just enough that I decided to give it another issue, telling myself that if this didn't seem to head anywhere I'd bite the bullet and let it go.
    Well, the story of the new Citizen V has started to unfold, and I'm hooked again.  I don't have any idea what's going to happen next, and at least as far as that subplot goes, I badly want to know.  It's always possible that it will lose momentum again, but at least for now that wonderful sense of "How can you top this?" is back, and I'm sticking around for the ride.