Post-Mortem Amalgam: "Spider-Boy Team Up"

Expectations are a funny thing. They can influence a bias on both sides; too high an expectation and you can be left disappointed, and too low and you may be made a laughing stock on the critics circuit when you give Grown Ups 2, like, B+, "better than diving into a bath of manure and maggots fast-first, at least!" You don't want to be made a laughing stock on the critics circuit, do you?? 

At some point, though, you have to be reasonable. No-one really likes being disappointed. It might be best to lower your expectations far through to the molten core of the Earth itself, if only to have a better time when you're being dragged to watch some film your stupid friends want to see or something. It's better to be mildly surprised than to be utterly crushed. So it's important to note that my expectations of the Amalgam line were well low. Well, well low. They may have been the lowest expectations I've ever had going into a series of comics, and I've read Freddy vs Jason vs Ash. So, let this be the story of how Amalgam Comics failed to surpass even the mildest of expectation. Oh my dear Jesus Christ, help.

Review: "Godzilla: The Half-Century War"

Godzilla is larger-than-life. The stories told with the iconic Japanese kaiju range from one of the most epic tragedies ever made in 1954's Gojira, to fanciful, bombastic space operas like only the Japanese can make with Godzilla: Final Wars. Along the way he has met so many fresh faces, crushed so many towns, and - in a way - saved so many lives, that he has carved for himself a unique position in literary history: he is a hero, a monster, a victim, and a force of nature, all rolled into one. He also has radioactive breath, and he punches giant butterflies. I can dig it.

Godzilla: The Half-Century War takes a refreshingly human look at this rich destructive history. It follows the story of Ota Murakami, a Japanese Lieutenant who is stationed during Godzilla's first iconic rampage through Tokyo. Through sheer indignation and forward-thinking, he is able to lure Godzilla away from a major population zone long enough for it to evacuate. With this single act, he begins a lifelong obsession with the King of Monsters - a Half-Century War, if you will.

Review: "Red Skull: Incarnate"

I don't know if it says more about me or the character, but my favourite Marvel Universe villain is Red Skull. He's just so joyfully evil, the kind of guy you can't help but love and loathe simultaneously. And indeed, he carries himself with a gravitas afforded by his stature - he is, essentially, a mega-Nazi; an actually worse-than-Hitler villain who, despite this, is always fun to watch, whether he's shouting "you are failing" in the Captain America moviefilm, or stealing Professor X's brain to eradicate the mutant menace. 

With great anticipation, I picked up Red Skull: Incarnate. Promising to be the origins of Johann Schmidt from a lowly street urchin to the red-faced monster we all know today, it provides a startlingly historically accurate perspective on the rise of the Nazi party. I don't know, then, what I expected. I think I thought it would be as campy and fun as the concept of "Nazi with evil skull face" inherently is. Marvel, though - bless 'em - doesn't care much for that old "camp". Well, they do, but they also care a lot about making characters who are real people with feelings and motivations and who are, y'know, emotionally resonant 'n such. Yeah, so, um, Red Skull: Incarnate, thusly, is one of the most stomach-churning books I've ever read.

Review: "Spawn Origins, Volume 1"

That Todd McFarlane. He's a clever guy, eh? In this, his seminal creation, a hellspawn (named Spawn) fights a clown (named Clown). Spawn is also a premiere African-American superhero - though that is diminished somewhat due to the fact that he, as quickly as he is introduced, has all the skin burned off of his body. Outstanding.

No, no offense to Todd McFarlane. The guy's got some good ideas! Great ideas, even! It isn't exactly a timeless tale though, the one told in Spawn Origins. It's not exuberantly unique; at the same time, it's not overtly familiar. This doesn't diminish its quality any, mind. This is a quality production McFarlane's runnin' here. He's got word balloons and multi-issue arcs and he even colours between the lines.

The art style is actually... I don't know. I wouldn't call it "good," but there's definitely an appeal to the grungy, sketchy look that is Todd McFarlane's signature aesthetic. The colours are incredibly bold for what should be a dark and grimy horror-esque tale - bright, chunky onomatopoeia cuts through striking silhouettes, and the framing of the panels varies from utterly pedestrian to nigh-on avant garde. Or, just weird and bad. It can be hard to tell what plane characters reside on, or - if they are on the same plane - how tall they're meant to be. One full-page panel in particular makes Spawn look like 20-foot tall gargoyle, and Clown look like a midget reaching up to his ankles. Their eyelines don't match the conversation (both of them looking off-panel, presumably at something more interesting). The book is filled with quirky, "wrong" elements like this, that makes Todd McFarlane seem like an amateur. He's hardly an amateur, though, not even when he drew these early Spawn stories. So... guh.