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Reviews and commentary by Tony Isabella
"America's Most Beloved Comic-Book Writer & Columnist"
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TONY'S ONLINE TIPS
for Tuesday, September 20, 2005
Tony Isabella will be offline until Monday, September 26. TONY'S ONLINE TIPS will return on that date. In the meantime, please enjoy the TOT Archives and the other content here at World Famous Comics.
JUSTICE #7 [Fall, 1947] was actually the first issue of what would prove to be a long-running series from Timely/Atlas/Marvel. Initially, it continued the numbering of WACKY DUCK. However, with its fourth issue, numbered as such, it dropped Wacky's numbering. It ran for 52 issues before changing its name to TALES OF JUSTICE. Under that name, the series ran from issue #53 [May, 1955] to #67 [August/September, 1967].
I get a kick out of wordy covers, which is why this one leads off today's column. The cover is pencilled by Syd Shores with the possibility that it was inked by Christopher Rule. "The Mystery of the White Death" is the only story in the issue, running 46 pages. According to the terrific ATLAS TALES [www.atlastales.com] website, Shores drew the entire first page and the last panels of the last page of the story. No other artist who worked on the tale has been identified at present, nor do we know who wrote it.
In case the cover doesn't show up on your screen as well as I would like, here's the cover copy...
BURST: In an eastern arena, murder lurked in the ring, baffling the best brains of the FBI...until a strange girl brought to a climax the case the newspapers called "The Mystery of the White Death!"
DARK-HAIRED WOMAN: He knows too much about my past! He's been bribing me too long! He must die!
CROOKED-LOOKING GUY: He's no good to me anymore! This is his last fight, and then it's curtains!
OTHER CROOKED-LOOKING GUY: He better lose this fight like I told him, or else! I've got thousands bet on his opponent!
ARROW: Can an FBI agent solve the riddle of the white death before the menace strikes down a champion prizefighter and then marks him as the next victim?
I'd sure like to learn the answer to that question, but, alas JUSTICE #7 [#1] is out of my price range. The OFFICIAL OVERSTREET COMIC BOOK PRICE GUIDE pegs a near-mint copy at $315.
I did find two lesser-condition copies on eBay. The better of the two has a "buy it now" price of $99, but the seller is open to counter offers. He identifies the copy as having a technical grade of Good-minus due to two binder holes in the comic and an apparent grade of Fine/Very Fine. Judging from the photo, that looks about right to me.
The lesser copy has a "buy it now" price of $69.99, but it's from a seller whose grading - Good/Very Good in this case - always strikes me as suspect. I'd pass on this copy and go for the copy with the binder holes. If I had any money, that is.
Let's see what else I have for you today.
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COMICS IN THE COMICS
You know the drill. I love comic strip crossovers and self-referential humor in the comics, both of which were in very ample supply as the cartoonist community and its fans celebrated the 75th anniversary of BLONDIE.
I decided against running the Blondie crossovers in TOT, save for those which tickled me above and beyond the cause of cartooning duty. Jerry Scott and Rick Kirkman's BABY BLUES strip from August 30 is a good example of this; the notion of Darryl MacPherson car-pooling with Dagwood Bumstead made me chuckle.
The BARNEY GOOGLE AND SNUFFY SMITH strip from August 29 was a crossover and an inside joke. Snuffy, wife Loweezy, and their kids pushed the original star out of the feature years ago. Even Judge Parker gets way more respect than poor old Barney. Created by Fred Lasswell, the strip is currently done by John Rose.
The Blondie crossovers that used classic Blondie and Dagwood gags always got a chuckle out of me. Johnny Hart put a prehistoric (or perhaps post-apocalyptic) spin on the "mail flying everywhere" bit in his B.C. strip for August 21.
I'll have more of these for you soon.
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CSI: NY - BLOODY MURDER
A woman is mauled to death in Central Park and the witnesses describe her attacker as a werewolf. That's the starting point for this five-issue series featuring Detective Mac Taylor and his CSI crew from TV's CSI: NY.
Writer Max Allan Collins and artists J.K. Woodward and Steven Perkins tried to sell me on CSI: NY - BLOODY MURDER #1 an #2 [IDW; $3.99 each]. Collins is one of my favorite writers and his actual scripting in these issue is fine. Woodward and Perkins - Perkins drew the flashback sequences - impressed me with their expressions, figure work, backgrounds, and storytelling. These were both good-looking comic books.
BLOODY MURDER disappointed in two areas, one key and one that is perhaps salvageable. The key is the reason I rarely watch CSI: NY. Neither Taylor nor any of his squad members are interesting or particularly likeable. That's a departure from both CSI and CSI: MIAMI, most of whose characters are both.
My other disappointment? In issue #2, the cops find out that the victim was an actress opening in an off-Broadway musical called WEREWOLVES OF SOHO. Maybe the revelation caught me on a bad day, but this strikes me as a very hokey bit. I'm not counting Collins out - he's surprised me before - but he's really going to have to "wow" me in the remaining issues.
The creative talent in display in CSI: NY - BLOODY MURDER - earns the series my willingness to see it through to the end. But the best score I can give it - thus far - is two Tonys per issue. I'm hoping that goes up.
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IDENTITY CRISIS
Considering myself a fair man, I reread IDENTITY CRISIS #1-7 [DC; #3.95] to see if I had judged it too harshly. Well, that and I wanted to be as up to speed as possible on events in the current DC Universe before the company up-ends it again.
Where a common complaint I have with DCU super-hero titles is that they seem written almost exclusively for readers who zealously read each and every one of them, IDENTITY CRISIS, on my rereading, struck me as being written for those readers who meet that criteria *and* who revel in decades-old continuity.
Writer Brad Meltzer used stories I had always considered to be forgettable in their execution and entertainment value as a basis for this series. Then he builds his combination murder mystery and universe-altering event on those journeyman-at-best stories, taking the further steps of making the DCU super-heroes less admirable and far less competent than previously...while making various villains more competent and more powerful than they've been shown to be in the past.
Certainly there are some fine character bits scattered through these issues, but those bits are diminished by the heroes behaving badly, reacting fearfully, and fighting like they hadn't been doing battle with villains for years...and by the villains showing more skill and smarts than the heroes.
On a related note...
What is it with DC's villains? Maxwell Lord practically begs Wonder Woman to kill him in the Amazon's tie-in issue to THE OMAC PROJECT. In IDENTITY CRISIS, after raping Sue Dibny, Doctor Light virtually drools as he tells the gathered heroes that he's going to escape and violate all their loved ones as well. There could be a terrific story in the concept of suicide-by-super-hero, but neither IC nor OMAC is it.
IDENTITY CRISIS succeeds as a DCU-altering event, but it does so by twisting characters almost beyond recognition. If its core concept was to show heroes acting against their established natures and making bad choices, it succeeded there, too...but only because DC and Meltzer made them do it. Their actions and rationales don't ring true. They don't overcome my disbelief.
IDENTITY CRISIS as a murder mystery doesn't really work for me either. It doesn't give the reader a fair shot at figuring out who done it before the heroes because it withholds the key clues until the heroes can figure them out. The investigation doesn't come off as the dogged tedium of a police procedural; it comes off as these heroes bumbling around until the identity of the killer is all but shoved in their faces. It doesn't leave the reader with any truly satisfying ending because, of course, it's just the first series in a company-wide crossover designed with the hope of upping the sales across the entire DCU publishing schedule. And, from an admittedly personal standpoint, I sort of wish the Elongated Man had been the one to solve the mystery and bring the killer to justice. Meltzer owed that much to poor Ralph.
Meltzer is a pretty good writer. IC artists Rags Morales and Mike Bair handled a very difficult assignment very well...with only the occasional awful expression or figure. Yet what's wrong with IDENTITY CRISIS overwhelms what's right with it.
IDENTITY CRISIS #1-7 get two Tonys each. It was and remains a bad start to the new DCU.
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TONY POLLS
It's Tuesday and that means new TONY POLLS questions will be going online sometime today. This week, I'm asking you pick your favorite second-season episode of BATMAN and to give your initial impressions of three new genre-related shows: BONES, SUPERNATURAL, and THRESHOLD. I also have the first of what will be a series of "getting to know you better" questions...because I don't love you *just* for your doubtless incredible bodies.
You can cast your votes at the usual place:
www.worldfamouscomics.com/tony/poll
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TONY'S MAILBOX
Let's start with helpful tip from ROGER GLENFIELD, who solves my problem of trying to tape three airing-at-the-same-time programs on two VCRs:
Check your local station listings. My local WB station, WPIX-NY, is rerunning SUPERNATURAL Sundays at 5 pm. Taping a third show at another time is my way around the just two VCRs problem.
You know, that's just crazy enough to work...especially since my local WB station seems to be doing the same thing. Thanks for the tip, Roger.
I also heard from HOY MURPHY:
I agree with your review of SHOJO BEAT and its various series. I think NANA is a brilliant series in a soap-opera kind of way. My daughter's favorite is GODCHILD, I think because she likes the art the best.
Thanks for continuing to review manga. It's expensive to try new titles, so I'm glad you're there to do the hard work for us. You and other mange reviewers in CBG have put me and my daughter onto a couple titles we might've otherwise overlooked.
Also, I hope you reach satisfactory conclusions to your home improvement projects. My wife and I tackled a major project when our kids were younger. It took five years to complete, working on it ourselves. But we got what we wanted, so it was worth it.
Manga reviews will continue to be part of my columns. Viz and Del Rey have been wonderful about sending me review copies; I'll be looking at some of those books in the near future.
As for the home improvement projects at Casa Isabella, you'll find nigh-daily updates on my message board:
www.comicscommunity.com/boards/tony
Two days ago, I would have expressed confidence that the work scheduled for this year would be completed by the end of the month. Then we had another day of no work being done on the house and no calls being returned by our contractor. Sigh.
On a semi-related matter...
I'm going through another rough patch right now. This isn't a pitch for TIP THE TIPSTER donations; there are folks down south who need help a heck of a lot more than I do. But I mention it to explain why I might be a little slow responding to e-mails...and in case I have to take any unplanned days off from this column in the next week or so.
I'll spare you the litany of woes, most of which I'm starting to get a handle on. It's a lot of big and small things ganging up on me, but I'm up to the challenge of dealing with them. This is just a general "don't worry" if I'm not as accessible to people as I usually am. Capisca?
Thanks for spending a part of your day with me. God willing, I'll be back with more stuff.
Tony Isabella
<< 09/19/2005 | 09/20/2005 | 09/26/2005 >>
Discuss this column with me at my Message Board. Also, read Heroes and Villains: Real and Imagined.
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THE "TONY" SCALE
ZERO: Burn your money before buying any comic receiving this rating. It doesn't *necessarily* mean there's absolutely nothing of value here - though it *could* - but whatever value it might possess shrinks into insignificance before its overall awfulness.
ONE: Buy something else. Maybe I found something which wasn't completely dreadful in the item, but not enough for me to recommend it when there are better comics available. I only want what's best for you, my children.
TWO: Basic judgment call. I found some value, but not enough to recommend it. My review should give you enough info to decide if you want to take a chance on it. Are you feeling lucky today, punk? Well, are you?
THREE: This denotes something I find perfectly respectable. There are better books out there, but I wouldn't regret buying this item. Based on my review, you should be able to determine if it's of interest to you. Let the Force guide you.
FOUR: I recommend anything earning this rating. Unless you don't like the genre, subject matter, or past work of the creators, I believe you'll enjoy this item. Isn't it uncanny how I can look right into your soul that way?
FIVE: Anything getting this rating is among the best comicdom has to offer. You should buy/read this, even if the genre/subject matter doesn't appeal to you. It's for your own good. Me, I live for comics and books this good...but not in a pathetic "Comic-Book Guy" sort of way.
Please send material you would like me to review to:
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Medina, OH 44256
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