Dwight T. Albatross’s The Goon Noir #1-3
by Various
$2.99/each

Eric Powell’s The Goon is an insane, hilarious, and often brilliant blend of everything cool: zombies, giant robots, and 1930s tough guys. With the three-issue miniseries Dwight T. Albatross’s The Goon Noir — named for Powell’s crudely funny amigo and series “host” — the creator hands over the reigns to friends and peers (including Mr. Show vet Brian Posehn, comedian Patton Oswalt, penciler Humberto Ramos, and many, many others) and proves that the universe of The Goon is the ultimate sandbox to play in. Arvid Nelson has Goon fight a two-headed monster with a snake for a tail; Bill Morrison writes and draws a stellar Yogi Bear parody in “Hey Goon, Comics!”; John Arcudi’s Goon roast, led by the appropriately named “Spider” in “Man of the Hour” is seriously hysterical. A nice companion piece to the regular series, and a fine jumping on point for newbies, Noir is great — if ultimately, in its biggest flaw, inessential — fun.
KFR Rating: B+

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Thunderbolts #110
Writer: Warren Ellis
Artist: Mike Deodato Jr.

Norman Osborn recruits a deadly team of supervillains to hunt down unregistered superheroes.

The first half of Ellis’s first issue to feature the new, slightly Suicide Squad-ish Thunderbolts (a group that now features Venom and Bullseye among others) is disappointingly humorless and obvious, which I guess isn’t surprising considering it’s a Civil War tie-in. But there are some nice touches in the second half — a Paul Verhoeven-esque TV commercial, references to Thunderbirds — that loosen the introductory proceedings up a bit. And Deodato’s stuff is basically solid as usual…although I seem to like his art more than most people. It’s a series probably worth monitoring for a couple issues to see where Ellis takes it.

Pirates vs. Ninjas #1
Writers: Fred Perry, Robby Bevard, Wes Hartman
Artist: Craig Babiar

Harmless, jovial, nicely drawn in an anime/manga style, and predictable in that it’s more simple-minded than it should be — meaning it doesn’t delve much deeper than the basic title concept or make much of any sense.

The Goon Volume 5: Wicked Inclinations
Writer/Artist: Eric Powell

Insane and great as usual.

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Happy New Year, people! Welcome to the slightly retitled “KFR Comics Reviews Roundup,” where we try and tell you what’s good, what’s not, and what’s in-between.

Civil War #6
Writer: Mark Millar
Artist: Steve McNiven
$2.99

A few folks, both online and off, questioned why I named this one of the worst books of 2006. Allow me to offer Civil War #6 as evidence of this series’ bloated plot, unnecessary hyper-violence, and poor characterization. Here, we see the following insanity: Iron Man leads a group of government-registered supervillains (?!) to take down people who were his friends thirty seconds ago; Captain America beats the Punisher, a supporter of his cause, to a bloody pulp; Reed Richards, in psychotic Re-Animator style, operates and cuts open clones on operating tables. None of it makes much sense — not when you consider how these characters have behaved and interacted for about 50-plus years. Steve McNiven’s work is brilliant, but Civil War is an overwrought piece of fluff pretending to be something important.
KFR Rating: C-

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67-Points-of-Articulation Spidey took some time out from unclogging his web shooters to send us his thoughts on a few of last week’s comics. Enjoy, fanatical followers of FOOM!

New Universal #1
Writer: Warren Ellis
Artist: Salvador Larroca

I don’t agree with Dan that Loeb and Liefeld’s new Onslaught series was a bold move — it reeks of that musty cash-grab smell. But reintroducing Marvel’s biggest disaster of the 80s, the New Universe? Now there’s some real brass balls. Ellis’s multiple-storyline, ensemble approach to everyday people discovering they have powers is a bit tired, and it’s too bad somebody told Larroca, a solid artist, to make like Bryan Hitch because he can’t pull it off. Still, Ellis keeps things moving as always. A diverting, mildly promising start.

Justice Society of America #1
Writer: Geoff Johns
Artist: Dale Eaglesham

The JSA takes the first step in recruiting new members. The issue is somewhat fascinating in that it’s very close to being a genuine soap opera. Look, it’s melodramatic, aimed at a very specific audience, there are like 80 characters, 12 different storylines, references to obscure continuity, clunky dialogue, little to no sense of humor, and almost nothing to care about unless you’re a long-time DC fanboy — it’s cornball fiction for adults. Although there’s a serious undercurrent of sadism and erotica at work here that’s kind of interesting.

MORE AFTER THE JUMP!
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Onslaught Reborn #1
Writer: Jeph Loeb
Artist: Rob Liefeld
$2.99

You’ve got to hand it to Marvel for revisiting this. The original 1996 “Heroes Reborn” mega-event, meant to relaunch several of Marvel’s flagship titles, was reviled by fans and all resulting changes were quickly abandoned. But there’s a sense within these pages that Rob Liefeld and Jeph Loeb want to set things right with the debacle that was “Heroes Reborn” — they’ve brought back Onslaught, tying his return to events from House of M — and for that they truly deserve to be commended. The resulting story is OK; Onslaught is after Franklin Richards (son of the Fantastic Four’s Reed and Sue), and he commandeers the bodies of Human Torch and Mr. Fantastic to get to him. It’s all been done before in other comics featuring an unstoppable bad-guy, but most surprising is the dialogue — this reads like Loeb wrote it on auto-pilot. There are some fun moments, but this isn’t essential by any stretch.
KFR Rating: C+

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Greetings, true believers! When not snapping photos for the Daily Bugle, defeating psychotic alien symbiotes, or forcing MJ to wear a Gwen Stacy wig during sex games, Spidey likes to relax how? By flipping through weird and despondent Japanese comics, natch! Here are a few books he’s read lately! Enjoy, web heads! And happy Turkey Day!

Museum of Terror Vols. 1-2
By Junji Ito
$13.95

MUSEUM OF TERROR 1-2: The Lovecraft-inspired Ito might be the best pure horror creator in comics, which means this series is one of the essential releases of the year. These first two volumes collect the superb “Tomie” stories, a series of darkly humorous tales about a beautiful, manipulative Japanese girl/demon/ghost/something who can’t be killed but inspires psychotic obsession and stomach-turning violence. Excelsior!

Abandon the Old in Tokyo
By Yoshihiro Tatsumi
$19.95

ABANDON THE OLD IN TOKYO: As you can tell from the title, these dark, gritty tales of sexual and social repression among Tokyo’s lower classes are the height of hilarity! One of the best books of the year.

Who Fighter
By Seiho Takizawa
$11.95

WHO FIGHTER: Three superbly drawn weird war tales that take themselves much too seriously and don’t really go anywhere. Zzzzzz.

The Walking Man
By Jiro Taniguchi
$16.99

THE WALKING MAN: A series of Buddhist parables? A portrait of a dissolving marriage? A portrait of a dissolving society? A suggestion to slow down one’s life and pay attention to the world around you? However one interprets these quiet and plaintive tales about a man walking around suburban Japan, Taniguchi’s work contains a strange and affecting power. It’s devil horns for you, Taniguchi!

Sincerely,
Your Pal Spidey

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The Amazing Spider-Girl #1
Writer: Tom DeFalco
Artist: Ron Frenz
$2.99

A nice break from the recent trend of hyper-violence (see Civil War, Infinite Crisis, and other higher profile titles), Tom DeFalco’s The Amazing Spider-Girl is an old-school, feel-good superhero comic in the best sense. The dialogue is bouncy, the story moves fast, and even Ron Frenz’s pencils have a vintage vibe. There’s some cliche here, including the obligatory superpowered-teen-playing-sports scene — I’d argue that teenage girls are more likely to spend an evening on Myspace rather than on an outdoor basketball court — but overall, DeFalco makes Mayday (i.e. Spider-Girl, alternate reality daughter of Peter Parker and Mary Jane) a genuinely likeable character who wants to help others. And by showing us the battered face of Hobgoblin’s female prisoner, but not her actual beating, The Amazing Spider-Girl achieves a much greater sense of tension and danger than any of the gratuitously violent comics available today.
KFR Rating: B+

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I don’t know why exactly, but it’s always seemed to me like college campuses are the places companies should be focusing their marketing powers when it comes to comics. Forget about the kids - they’ll find them when they’re good and ready. College students are where the money’s at because even if they don’t have disposable income, they’ll still spend like fiends thanks to all those sweet, sweet introductory credit card deals being shoved down their throats on every trip through the student union.

Another market I’ve always thought was being sorely missed, especially when it comes to Vertigo’s horror books, is the female one. My wife reads comics, and a number of our chick friends do as well, and while their specific tastes do vary, they all seem to have an appreciation for the darker, nastier stuff. Preacher, Sandman, Hellblazer, Ennis, Moore, Gaiman - women like this stuff, and if it was made more public that they exist, I firmly believe we’d see an influx in readership. Those Stephen King books don’t sell themselves, right?

At any rate, here’s a link to a review that sort of links both of these theories of mine together. A college paper review of a Garth Ennis book written by a woman.

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