A Fistful Of Graphic Novels - June 2014

  I treated myself recently to a small pile of comicbook Trade Paperbacks. So I thought I'd share a few thoughts on each plus a selection of carefully chosen scans.


Yes, I have noticed that they all seem to have women on the cover. I like female characters who can kick ass. Accept this and we can move on with our lives.

Airboy and the Airfighters - Dangerous Liasons (Moonstone 2012)

 More adventures of teenage WW2 ace Davy Nelson, his improbable fighter aircraft and his comrades-in-arms The Bald Eagle, Skywolf, The Flying Dutchman, The Black Angel and The Iron Ace. 

 Oh yeah, and Luftwaffe pin-up Valkyrie is in it too. 

Collects the "1942 - Best of enemies" one-shot, the two issues" of Airfighters" , the "Air Vixens" one-shot and the "Airfighters - Insurrection"

 I've been working my way through the 1980s Eclipse revival series and having fun, so I was really looking forward to seeing what Moonstone did with the franchise. 

  The end result can best be described as "Disappointing."  

Opener "Best of Enemies" has the best artwork but suffers from a clunky story where Airboy has to rescue a B17 crew from a Soviet prison camp. I'm fairly certain shooting up your own allies is frowned upon.

  On the other end of the scale, "Insurrection" has a story that ought to have been fun - various outlandish aviation heroes team up to stop Nazi beastliness - but displays the most appalling artwork I've seen this side of a webcomic.  

 The other short pieces fit somewhere between the two, with equally variable artwork quality. 

   

  Like Airboy, the other characters are also revivals from the 1940s and a bit on the bizarre side. Black Angel is a catsuit wearing British woman with a lightning-flinging UFO, The Flying Dutchman is a mysterious Dutch pilot who may or may not be dead and the Iron Ace is...well, you can probably work it out. 

 All of which have potential but are let down by weak material and the sort of truncuated storytelling you get when a series is cut short earlier than planned. 

I managed to get a decent Valkyrie scan out of "Dangerous Liasons" but otherwise I remain unimpressed. 

Clearly the Third Reich had the art of Dramatic Posing down pat.  

  

 Robyn Hood - Wanted(Zenoscope 2013)

 What do you do after toppling an otherword tyrant then getting revenge on the men who maimed you and left you for dead?  

 If you're reluctant heroine Robyn Locksley, you sort out a few family issues and try and stay out of the clutches of the police.

 But hen Robyn is dragged back to the Realm of Myst to face a new enemy and a few revelations about her past...

  There''s something that really bothers me about the cover art and I can't quite work out what. The anatomy just seems subtly off somehow.

  Skipping past that, I enjoyed the first Robyn Hood collection, even if it was a bit brutal in places. This time around, you get more of the same fantasy adventure with some thought put into making the standard tropes interesting.

Robyn is a lot angrier than most fantasy heroines but manages to remain somebody you'd root for, while the supporting cast are decently flashed out.

 The artwork gets the job done without obvious peaks or troughs,  although it must be noted that at no point does our blonde archer wear the outfit on the cover -  or anything close to it.

  If you like fantasy, this is worth a read.

 

Stitch this ya goat-headed tosser.

  Power Girl - Power Trip(DC 2014)

  The woman with the most headache-inducing backstory in comics history gets a plus-sized collection of her solo adventures.  

  Power Girl is rather busy these days, what with running her own company,  giant apes trying to steal Manhattan, misbehaving alien party girls and a wannabe suitor who has some peculiar ideas regarding dating.  

  On top of it all, somebody seems to have discovered her secret identity...

  This volume collects the TPBs "Power Girl", "A New Beginning" and "Aliens and Apes". Since I already own the last two, that was a bit unfortunate. Oh well.

 The first story is all about Power Girl trying to make sense of her origin story. No wonder she starts losing her mind. 

  I found myself occasionally wishing there was somebody around to explain it all to me. A nice, easy to read flow-chart would have been nice.   

 After that things get much more interesting. Kara has to juggle her civilian life with her heroics which gives plenty of opportunity for humour among the outbreaks of punchy-punchy.  When PG meets Zartrox, spacefaring lothario  the result is downright hilarious. I think it started going downhill when he called her "Busty Airborne Lass"

  I love Amanda Conner's artwork on this series, by the way.  Dynamic, colourful and oozing with charm and humour. I am impressed. Considering PG's notorious attributes, it says a lot that you come away thinking about Conner's work on the faces. 

 Enjoyed this a lot and I think you might enjoy  this too. 

Kara has an "Oops" incident 

Superman never seems to have this sort of problem.  

...And now you've pissed her off. Well done mate. Yer ass is in for a world of hurt now. 

 Warlord Of Mars: Dejah Thoris - The Boora Witch(Dynamite 2013)

   An expedition to a dangerous swampy part of Mars is apparently successful. Mission achieved, casualties minimal.

 So why is the feisty princess acting so strangely of late?

  I'm told that in the "John Carter"  books Dejah Thoris actually wears less clothing than in these comics. Is that even possible? 

 Apparently she's also pretty badass when she wants to be. I really have to sit down and read some Barsoom one of these days.  

  A series I've been rather enjoying and not entirely for the obvious reasons. Fanservice will only get a book so far, after all.

  Lots of old-school adventure to be found, with a lively heroine who can think on her feet and doesn't do the porn-y lounging about you'd expect from the covers.  

  There's two parts to this volume.

Pt1 - DT has a run in with a swamp-dwelling sorceress. 

Pt2 - She comes to the rescue of a village menaced by giant bugs.

I definitely prefer pt 1. The story is more "Thriller" than "swashbuckler" - intrigue rather than mayhem but done well. The artwork is also superior. Pt 2 switches to somebody not quite as good, which I'm hoping is only temporary. 

Possibly not for everyone's taste. But if you can live with a heroine that  dresses like she's in the world's most expensive bikini contest, you might like this. 

Somebody complimenting you on your skin is a bit creepy at the best of times.

When you're in a creepy-as-hell cave?

Not good. 

Memo to self. By a new scanner. 

That's all folks.