Pads & Panels

2010 Holiday Gift Guide – For the DC Comics Fan…

By P&P Staff

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Absolute All-Star Superman

Despite his prominent role as one of DC’s two top characters, Superman has a rather bad rap among much of the comics community. He’s generally a dull, one-dimensional character who can do very little wrong, the proverbial Boy Scout. But Grant Morrison’s All-Star Superman uses the All-Star license to its fullest, telling a fantastic 12-issue tale that reminds us naysayers why we should care about the Kal El, and that what makes him special isn’t just his powers. DC made the Absolute Edition, an oversized slipcase book with plenty of extras, available just in time for the holidays. (more…)

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Title: Dark Rain: A New Orleans Story

Publisher: Vertigo

Writer: Mat Johnson

Artist: Simon Gane

Rating:

Review by: Bill Jones

Dark Rain is a New Orleans story, in that its fictional story takes place during the Hurricane Katrina disaster. Two ex-cons who meet at a halfway house in Houston try to rob a bank in New Orleans during the disaster, while everyone else is busy trying to survive. They get crossed up with a private military group called Dark Rain, looking out for its own interests during evacuation and cleanup, run into a pregnant woman looking for help out of town and a banker determined to protect his assets even amidst the chaos. It’s an interesting story taking place during a well-known event from recent memory. It’s also filled to the brim with commentary on different types of people and what they do under duress. Problem is, it’s ham-fisted, stating its each and every thought, leaving the reader to derive very little on his own from it, with stereotypical characters. The art is engaging, though, more so because of the choice to only use color for the water. But the panel construction presents nothing new.

Pros: Interesting fictionalization of a big American event. Captivating color scheme.

Cons: Ham-fisted messages. Stereotypical characters. Strange cover art. Predictable elements.

For more info, www.dccomics.com/vertigo

Pads & Panels received a copy of the book courtesy of the publisher for review purposes.

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Title: Unknown Soldier Vol. 1: Haunted House

Publisher: Vertigo

Writer: Joshua Dysart

Artist: Alberto Ponticelli

Rating:

Review by: Thomas Braaksma

The situation in Uganda is something that hasn’t been a premiere topic of source material for graphic novels. But Joshua Dysart decides to use the reality of the geographical beauty of Uganda that is scattered with horrible scenes of child soldiers, death and destruction to set the scenes for his story Unknown Soldier: Haunted House.

Unknown Soldier is the story of Dr. Lwanga Moses and his crusade to bring Uganda from the horror that has engulfed it back to the Ugandan people. Dr. Moses ventures to Uganda from the safe landscape of America to bring aid and change to the broken country. The doctor soon finds out that a little aid and politicking is far from the only things needed to change Uganda. After fighting his own inner demons and witnessing/participating in a horrible act of violence dealing with child soldiers, he mutilates his own face to bring about the birth of the Unknown Soldier. (more…)

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Title: Greek Street

Publisher: Vertigo

Writer: Peter Milligan

Artist: Davide Gianfelice

Review by: Tom Braaksma

Greek Street is a new series from Vertigo by creative team Peter Milligan and Davide Gianfelice. It seems that the public was really craving another pointless, sexed-up (in a weird way, explained later) gangster/murder mystery series. Vertigo must have been thinking this since they gave the green light to Greek Street.

Issue #1 of Greek Street starts off a couple different stories about strippers, an orphan and his mother, and a gangster. These stories are so vague in their infancies that there is no hint at what they will accumulate, if anything worth getting into at all. When the first panel is three strippers (one with an oddly-drawn exposed breast), the reader can expect that this artist and writer are already compensating for lack of creativity. The art is sub par and comes across as generic. The artist, Davide Gianfelice just meanders his way from panel to panel, drawing unpleasant representations of people and environments. (more…)

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Title: Fables: The Dark Ages (Vol. 12)

Publisher: Vertigo

Writer: Bill Willingham

Artists: Mark Buckingham, Peter Gross, Andrew Pepoy, Michael Allred, David Hahn

Rating:

Review by: John Gustafson

Fables: The Dark Ages is a significant milestone not only for writer Bill Willingham but also Vertigo comics. The series enters its second major story development while also becoming Vertigo’s first series to pass the 75th issue mark. It is a testament to the quality of the book and the loyal readers over the years who have made Fables one of the most consistent, highest-quality books on the shelf month after month. (more…)

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Title: The Vinyl Underground Volume 2: Pretty Dead Things

Writer: Si Spencer

Artists: Simon Gane and Ryan Kelly

Publisher: Vertigo

Rating:

Review by: John Gustafson

There is a mystery involving sex slave trade, perversion, jolly old England, a physical sex drug, and the fall of London, with William Blake’s prophetic poetry mixed in for good measure. Unfortunately Scooby-Doo and his crew were unavailable, so the only “able bodies” fit for this case are The Vinyl Underground in this collection of issues #6 through 12. (more…)

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Title: Saga of The Swamp Thing: Book One

Writer: Alan Moore

Artists: Stephen Bissette, John Totleben

Publisher: Vertigo

Rating:

Review by: Bill Jones

Len Wein has the incredible honor of calling himself creator of X-Men’s most popular character, Wolverine, but it wasn’t until the writing duties were handed off to Chris Claremont that the character truly came into his own. In similar fashion, Wein also created a major character for the other camp, DC, in Swamp Thing. But it wasn’t until a feature film necessitated a revival of the character that comics’ living legend Alan Moore came along and made the monster a relevant entity. (more…)

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