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The Forecast for September 15th 2004
Welcome to The Forecast. Every Monday, Ninth Art's core team of comment writers, the Ninth Eight, will be your guides to the best, worst, weirdest and most noteworthy books on the shelves of your local comic shop. BOOK OF THE WEEK: MADROX There's nothing Marvel likes better than the cynical and shameless exploitation of the X-Men fanbase with a seemingly relentless deluge of new spin-off books and mini-series, so hot on the heels of the new X-FORCE, GAMBIT and JUBILEE titles, ahead of SABRETOOTH and NIGHTCRAWLER, and just four months after the latest line-wide relaunch, here comes MADROX. And at the risk of giving Marvel encouragement it surely doesn't need, I'm looking forward to it enormously. What distinguishes the new MADROX mini from books like MAVERICK, KITTY PRYDE: AGENT OF SHIELD, or that one where Howard the Duck and Man Thing teamed up with Artie and Leech, is that it has an established pedigree. It's Peter David returning to Jamie Madrox, Rahne Sinclair and Guido Carosella, three characters from his acclaimed run on X-FACTOR, which is fondly and rightly remembered by fans as one of the best creator runs on any x-book. What made the twenty-issue run so popular was that David was working with a cast of also-rans, so Marvel left him free to do pretty much whatever he wanted, and David imposed his identity on the book in a way that few creators had ever managed with any x-book at that time. Of course, once Marvel noticed what was going on it decided to interfere, and soon the ride was over. Now Marvel gets a chance to make amends. Peter David is king of the nerds, to be sure, but he's a great storyteller with a terrific grasp of character and a genuine (nerdy) wit, so if Marvel has given him free reign, this could be Marvel's answer to FORMERLY KNOWN AS THE JUSTICE LEAGUE. Yes, it's an unnecessary x-books mini-series starring a third-string character aimed squarely at a nostalgia market of long-time readers and written by a fanboy. It's pretty much everything that's wrong with comics today. And yet it feels so right. [Andrew Wheeler] RETURN OF THE DARK KNIGHT STRIKES BACK AGAIN: A NEW HOPE THE BATMAN is the newest cartoon take on the Dark Knight (and calling it 'THE' BATMAN gives it more mystery, less "caped crusader"), setting up its stall in time to anticipate the new BATMAN BEGINS film due out next year (although I wonder why they didn't just call the movie THE BATMAN as well and be done with it). THE BATMAN STRIKES (again, why didn't they just call it THE BATMAN?) is DC's obvious comic tie-in to the new cartoon. I don't really understand why there's a need for comics based on cartoons that are based on comics. It's already a comic. But this hasn't stopped DC, Marvel and even Image from releasing comics in the style of the cartoons they're based on (although Marvel's old X-MEN ADVENTURES and Image's WILDCATS cartoon, uh, comic directly adapted the TV show). Still, it looks pretty sharp, with a hint of the 60s (look at the logo!) but still all shadowy. The redesigns of the characters are by Jeff Masuda, who after leaving the Liefeld stable and doing some x-work, disappeared from comics only to turn up doing designs for the JACKIE CHAN ADVENTURES cartoon a few years back. His Joker looks scarily surreal, Bat's ears are stumpy, and it's good to see he's kept to the current Catwoman look. [Ben Wooller] BEST OF BRITISH British and Irish talent have held pride of place in American comics for as long as most comic-readers have been alive: Moore, Morrison, Bolland, Davis, Ellis, Ennis, Dillon... and all did much of their early work in 2000AD. Two more names to watch are writer Dan Abnett and artist Charlie Adlard, both of whom have been working in comics for the better part of a decade, and both of whom are long overdue a breakthrough. This week sees the DC/Rebellion trade of Abnett's first run on SINISTER/DEXTER, GUNSHARK VACATION. Sinister/Dexter is one of my favourite 2000AD series - about two futuristic hitmen, one vaguely Irish, one vaguely Latino. Packed with violence and humour, it's like a Quentin Tarantino film in comics form. Abnett's OFFLODE EXPERIENCE run on SINISTER/DEXTER (also to be released from DC/Rebellion) is hands-down one of the funniest comics I have ever read. The art comes from Henry Flint, another name to remember, as he's surely due to be snapped up by Marvel or DC any day. Last week, meanwhile, saw the release of WARLOCK #1 from Marvel, written by Greg Pak and with art by Charlie Adlard. I don't care what the story is; I don't care who Greg Pak is - buy this one for the art. Adlard has been a mainstay of 2000AD for years, and he's fantastically talented, as readers of his SAVAGE series can attest. He'll probably soon be named as a Marvel Young Gun, like other ten-year-plus veterans David Finch and Trev Hairsine. If you like what you see in WARLOCK, it's worth searching out the old Adlard/Casey book CODEFLESH, along with WHITE DEATH, Adlard's best work with AiT/PlanetLar. [Alex de Campi] MORRISON'S WRECK Grant Morrison's reinvention of the DOOM PATROL for DC Vertigo stands as one of pivotal moments in modern comics. You know, when comics got seriously weird. On a diet of Jan Svankmajer, chaos theory and Truddi Chase, Morrison moved the DOOM PATROL from just being an odd group of hero outsiders (a robot with a human brain, an ex-movie starlet who cold change her size, and a bandaged, possessed pilot) into a group of totally human characters, albeit weird human characters, with even weirder abilities, trying to survive in an increasingly surreal world. The genius move was keeping Cliff Steele, Robotman, the same as he ever was, making him our guide to this strange new world. As Cliff says, "All I want is the answer to one simple question before I run screaming back to the bughouse. Is this real or isn't it?" Written around the same time as ANIMAL MAN and ZENITH, DOOM PATROL provided Morrison with a bigger canvas to explore themes that he's continued to follow: gender, the perception of reality, fiction and alternative worlds, all chock full of symbolism. The original CRAWLING FROM THE WRECKAGE TPB was released in the early 90s, perhaps as an antidote to the reigning team comic of the time (it does take some subtle shots at the typical Chris Claremont-style of characterisation). There were pages excised, which foreshadowed later stories. Those pages have been replaced in the new edition, already in stores, which paves the way for the long awaited second collection, THE PAINTING THAT ATE PARIS, released later this month with a new cover by Brian Bolland. [Ben Wooller] THE SHIPPING LIST FOR SEPTEMBER 15th 2004: Shipping details come courtesy of Diamond. Visit the Diamond website for the latest information, as the list is subject to change. DARK HORSE JUL040018 FIERCE #3 (Of 4) $2.99
DC COMICS JUL040578 BATMAN GOTHAM KNIGHTS #57 $2.50
IMAGE MAR041434D WANTED #5 (Of 6) (MR) $2.99 MARVEL JUL042006 CABLE DEADPOOL #7 $2.99
OTHER PUBLISHERS JUN042895 ANIMERICA EXTRA SEPT 2004 VOL 7 #9 $4.99
The Ninth Eight are Matthew Craig, John Fellows, Kieron Gillen, Alistair Kennedy, Zack Smith, Andrew Wheeler, Ben Wooller and Bulent Yusuf. Ninth Art endorses the principle of Ideological Freeware. The author permits distribution of this article by private individuals, on condition that the author and source of the article are clearly shown, no charge is made, and the whole article is reproduced intact, including this notice. Back. |