ELVIRA IN HORRORLAND #1 (Dynamite)
Story: David Avallone | Art: Silvia Califano | Cover: Dave Acosta | $3.99
In Elvira Meets Vincent Price, the Mistress of the Dark discovered that all movies create their own individual pocket dimension where, presumably, the movie plays on a loop. In this issue, she’s trapped in Psycho, her only escape a TV remote tucked somewhere in the Bates Motel.
Yes, it’s a MacGuffin, and both Elvira and Alfred Hitchcock don’t bother calling it anything else.
What’s Hitchcock doing in Psycho? Not a cameo: He shows up because Elvira is disrupting the production, and he wants the show to go on. This is all pretty disconcerting for the characters in the movie, but Elvira takes it all in stride as she breaks the fourth wall to joke with the reader.
The Psycho scenes are all in black and white, of course, but there is an interruption from the remake of Psycho, which is in color. And Norman Bates is Norman Bloch, a nod to Psycho-writer Robert Bloch. There are lots of movie jokes, and the next issue promises an all-Kubrick escapade.
It’s that kind of book, and I like that kind of book.
FOX AND HARE #1 (Vault)
The book follows two mercenaries who wear fox and hare masks in futuristic, high-tech city. Their contracts seem to be to rescue orphans being trafficked, rather than the regular kind of mercenary contract, and they are well-known in the city. They insert combat-program drives into their necks before engaging bad guys. Everyone appears to be Asian, and the artwork is appropriately manga-y.
We get flashbacks to when the two were close childhood friends, whose parents were taken and killed by a scientific corporation that is now in charge of the city. There is a typical upscale elitist in charge, who wants Fox and Hare for their insolence in challenging his rule.
That’s all I got out of this. But, judging by all the press releases, Vault is very proud of it. So I’ll give it another issue or two.
HARBINGER #8 (Valiant)
I freely confess that I didn’t read the first seven issues of this eight-issue miniseries, nor have I read any Valiant comic book in maybe a decade. I took a chance since it’s the last issue, and will presumably set up the Harbinger’s status quo, which will be useful information if I decide to follow the character.
I had no trouble, however, following the plot — mainly because I’d seen most of it before.
Peter Stanchek is the Harbinger, as he was when Valiant launched in the Long-Before Time, a “Psiot” with telepathic/telekinetic powers. It seems a lot of people are born Psiot, and Peter is just the most powerful. They are hated and feared by the world they seek to protect and Stanchek wants to protect them. He is aided in this by several allies, most of whom I don’t recognize and weren’t named. One of them, however, is Faith, a plus-size superhero who has had her own title and whose Psiot power manifests as flight.
If your memory stretches back far enough, the original Stanchek led a team called Renegades against the evil Harbinger corporation in the original 1992 Harbinger. This go-round a single Renegade is Peter’s dark side, physically manifested and doing bad things. Stanchek must learn to accept his dark side to end the threat, just like Captain Kirk in “The Enemy Within.” (I told you I’d seen all this before.)
As the series ends Psiots are accepted? Kinda? It’s said there will be a Psiot on every block, which must have been set up in a previous issue, or maybe it’s a metaphor. Anyway, Peter has resolved his issues. He and Faith seem to be a couple. I guess this optimistic end will be the launch point for whatever series Stanchek headlines next.
Needless to say, given my snark, I wasn’t much impressed with the plot. I know there’s nothing new under the sun, but for heaven’s sake, at least try to be a little original. The artwork wasn’t really up to par, either, so let’s hope for a step up in quality next time.
HELLBOY & BPRD: NIGHT OF THE CYCLOPS ONE-SHOT (Dark Horse)
Story: Mike Mignola, Olivier Vatine | Art/Cover: Olivier Vatine | Variant: Mike Mignola | $3.99
I’m a huge fan of all things Hellboy. First I was attracted by Mike Mignola’s art, but he set up such a flexible and interesting premise that even though he only does covers now, I’m still excited by new issues.
Hellboy is still dead, so all the current books are set in the past, when he was working for the B.P.R.D. In this one, the story begins after Hellboy has already captured a minotaur in Thessaly, Greece, in 1962. He runs across some human/fawn hybrids who lead him to a world of same. They are threatened by a cyclops, and you can guess where it goes from there.
But the story is hardly cliché. Where it is — such as Hellboy happening to be in Fawnworld when the Cyclops comes by to scourge the people — it’s essentially acknowledged, as Hellboy responds like a bemused reader.
“Each year, at the harvest period, a cyclops will rise from Othrys mount and destroy the fruits of our labor,” says the fawn queen.
“And let me guess — that’s tonight,” says Hellboy, and you can almost hear his world-weariness as Mount Othrys begins erupting. “Of course it is,” he all but sighs.
It is that blue-collar cynicism that endeared me to Hellboy. He just wants to get the job done so he can go home and have a beer and a cigar, maybe watch some TV. Yokai, ghosts, leprechauns, minotaurs — it’s all the same to him, just annoyances interrupting his afternoon. He doesn’t always say “OK, let’s get this over with,” but I hear it when he doesn’t.
Oh, and fawn-people and the cyclops aren’t all that Hellboy must deal with. There’s another level of threat, and it’s worth waiting for. And there’s poignancy at the end that hit me hard, because I didn’t expect it.
While Mignola doesn’t draw many interiors any more, he has a knack for picking artists that I really like. Such is the case here with Olivier Vatine. His (or her?) art is slick and smooth. The figures have weight, and the faces are expressive. Vatine’s colors complete the picture, bringing depth and surprising beauty to the story of a hellspawn fighting a cyclops.
I think you can tell I liked it.
PEARL III #1 (Dark Horse)
Story: Brian Michael Bendis | Art/Cover: Michael Gaydos | Variant: Peach Momoko | $3.99
Once again I have to confess to ignorance: I haven’t read Pearl I and Pearl II. I had little trouble following this issue, although I undoubtedly missed some nuance.
It’s a charming bit of violent fluff. Pearl appears to be enmeshed in the Yakuza, but spends her time clearing her territory of bad dudes while doing some minor gangster stuff to placate the bosses back in Japan. She appears to have some sort of super-powers that are foreshadowed by tattoos appearing and writhing ghost-like on her skin, but I never saw them in action. She has some minor gangster buddies for her crew, and they all hang out at a tattoo shop exchanging amusing Bendis dialogue.
I know Bendis dialogue bothers some people, but I don’t mind it in small doses, especially when it’s funny. I didn’t get a lot out of Pearl III #1, and I probably misinterpreted half of what I read. But it was pleasant enough that I’ll probably seek out more.
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