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PIPELINE COMMENTARY AND REVIEW #35
01 February 1998
by Augie De Blieck Jr.
http://www.nic.com/~augie/pipeline
Hello, gang, and welcome back to the wonderful world of comic commentary
and review. But first, a bit of "administrivia:"
I've been a bit disappointed in these columns lately, mostly for the same
reasons I started this column in the first place. This column is titled
"Pipeline Commentary and Review." And there've been mostly reviews here,
with little commentary, which is what made the idea of coming back to doing
these columns exciting to me again. It was a new mix of material
containing not just reviews, but also oddball commentary of various comic
book industry topics. I just haven't seen all that much of that material
lately.
But, I am happy to say, I now think I've solved the problem. And you can
look forward to lots more commentary mixed in with the straight reviews of
this column. How have I done this? Well, silly me finally hit upon the
idea of putting an "ideas.txt" file on my hard drive, wherein I can store
little bitty ideas and paragraphs of stuff to use as I do the reviews.
This way, I can plop in whatever comment I want to make in the middle of a
column where it fits in. Pretty spiffy, eh?
So on to the commentary and review:
Warren Ellis' 4-issue run on WOLVERINE has now come to a most satisfying
conclusion, as Marvel continue to make up for the mistakes of its past by
providing us with some of the finest storytelling in comics today. Scary,
eh? It's a simple plot, really, containing multiple flashbacks and lots of
violence, but it works well not just as a Wolverine story, but also as
something you'd expect Warren Ellis to write. It's a four-issue
action/adventure tale, really, filled with suspense and mystery and
violence and action and humor. Not only that, but the penciller is
Leinil Francis Yu, a young up-and-comer who is doing some fabulous work
here. His characters are easy to make out, with a decent sense of
proportion and storytelling and detail. WOLVERINE #119-122 should be
collected in a small TPB. It's that good and it deserves to be repackaged
for those who missed it the first time.
Just for the record: I think it's way past too late to bother with any sort
of Wolverine origin story. I think any attempt at it would be a fool's
errand. Unless something along the lines of a DC-style CRISIS occurs,
there's no singular storyline which could be crafted to include all the
disparate fragments of Wolvie's past which have come to light. It would be
ultimately useless. As much as it may offend continuity-freaks, leave it
be. Let the writers concentrate on the good stories which could be told
with the character today. In return, let the writers not take the cheap
way out by doing any story which promises to reveal more of Wolvie's
"never-before-seen" origin.
While I'm at it, I don't know if I care to know The Savage Dragon's past,
either. Erik Larsen has started to drop hints at it in recent issues. He
has no plans to tell the origin anytime in the immediate future, but he
does have an origin in mind. This is a different case from Wolverine,
though. One creator has controlled the totality of Dragon's story, and
it's a safe bet that when the origin story is finally told, there won't be
too much in the way of continuity errors glaring about, or an obvious
attempt at a patchwork job. No, this is just a case of enjoying the
character on his own merits. Why bother adding this in? I just don't
think there's a need. That being said, I sit here ready to stand
corrected. For all I know, the origin Erik Larsen may have in mind could
add levels to the character I would never have though possible and could
cause storylines to open up which would make for a better comic. I think
these are things he has to think about in considering the timing of the
release of the origin. Until then, we may sit around and wonder. Or not.
Speaking of delving into the past, DC released this week BABYLON 5: IN
VALEN'S NAME, written by the show's creator/producer/head writer J. Michael
Straczynski, with art by Michael Collins and David Roach. Story-wise,
everything fits together perfectly so far. There's no reason why it
shouldn't. It's made to fit into series continuity and is written by the
only man alive who knows the entire story. As such, the characters come
out sounding just as they should and acting in perfect character. It's a
recap and a furhter exploration into the history of Babylon 4, as
originally detailed in the episodes "Babylon Squared" and "World Without
End (parts 1 and 2)."
But the thing I find more interesting to discuss is the artwork. Licensed
books such as this can be tough to produce. Where super-heroes are
generally easy to draw since nobody knows what one actually looks like and
merely bases their drawings off the drawings of others who have come
before, in the case of Babylon 5 (or even the Star Trek titles), these are
characters whose likenesses are based on real people - actors who the
readers let into their living rooms week in and week out. We, the
reading audience, know what they look like and expect to see that look
reproduced perfectly in the comic. It is asking for an awful bloody lot.
In that vein, Collins art is sporadic. While the cyphers are usually
pretty clear as to who is who, there are still panels in which the artist
draws with near photographic clarity, creating a certain bump in the flow
for the reader. (Take the second panel on the fifth story page of
Sheridan. All of a sudden we go from well-referenced to what almost looks
like a stock photo shot.) In addition, much of the mechanical aspects,
such as the station itself and the StarFuries on the opening splash page,
look like they were traced in by the artist. You could even add a third
later of confusion on top of all of that with the use of computer-generated
textures on Epsilon 3 - the planet below - standing out on the page. While
remaining true to the design of the series, it leaves the reader with a
confused feeling.
I don't mean to pick on this comic in particular. As a loyal stalwart
Babylon 5 fan, I loved the comic. And I look forward to the next couple of
chapters. These are topics and issues I have with licensed comics as a
whole. There's got to be some middle ground between comic book characters
and characters based on likenesses in order to be successful, I think.
It's a tall order.
Believe it or not, I just wrote this whole column without referencing
"ideas.txt"
Go fig.
-Augie
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