Frankenstein, Agent of SHADE #2

The old woman who threatens Frankenstein at the end of last issue turns out to be a batshit child supplier to demons or monsters. Perhaps the town must give up a certain number of children a year in accordance with an ancient prosperity pact. I guess the woman can just be another religious tainted psychopath who kills children because of her belief in some schizophrenic reality. Which is to say no reality at all. Maybe I should have phrased that differently. Frankenstein and the old crazy religious woman have a huge battle for the children.

Okay, the fight actually just lasts the one panel.

I wish more boss fights in video games ended like this. Too often, you end up fighting a boss that takes forever to kill. Why can't you just bust into the final room in the lower levels of the fortress's dungeon to find some old guy on a ventilator whose plans for world domination have gotten out of hand and he's been left behind. So he's lying there, struggling to breathe, tears streaming down his face not because his dream of conquest is about to be crushed by you but because his dream died years ago and he was forgotten. Or, you know, you find a crazy old woman with a cross and bitchslap her across the church in one button push.

We discover the Werewolf is the joker of the unit!

The Creature Commandos discover the monsters are coming out of a temporal rift in the lake that leads to a pocket dimension underneath our own comprised of dark matter. I think if you create an answer with three or four unbelievable things, it makes it easier to digest. While the Werewolf, Vampire, and Mummy remain on shore killing monsters, Frank and Nina from the Black Lagoon dive down into the lake. While they do this, we get Nina's backstory.

Nina lost her little girl and then her husband left, so she became married to her work at SHADE. She and SHADE then began producing babies.

Scientist Hangs About Developing Embryos?

The creatures she produced through her experimentation were failures. They were failures in the same way I was describing how Superboy failed. How he hasn't been given enough time and experience to deal with emotions.

Oh! So as we get Nina's backstory, it looks like we also get the explanation for these monsters! They're probably her babies breaking free from their tiny little monster ant farm.

Or not! That's a lot of skulls!

Okay, so maybe those monsters Nina created aren't to blame. Unless time travel comes into play. Which it still might! I won't give up my theory based on thousands upon thousands of children's skulls!

Frankenstein and Nina encounter a bunch of huge underwater sea monsters. Frank asks Nina about her combat training and she says, "I do yoga?" But she seemed to be fighting fairly decently in the first issue with her chain, so I think she's being facetious and Frank just wasn't being very perceptive earlier. Especially since she's now in the water which is her turf. If water can be described as turf, that is.

Surf-and-Turf Has A Definite Egalitarianism?

Besides killing a bunch of them, Nina and Frank steal one of their brains.

Let me guess. Stealing One's Memories By Implausible Extraction?

S.O.M.B.I.E. is an acronym for Seer Of Mental Brain Image Energy. Of course! I kept trying to use the B for Brain when coming up with my acronym but couldn't make it work. I probably would have gone for Scan instead of Seer. But maybe they want to keep it more mystical to retain the whole monster and creature commando theme they've got going. Although I think my acronym had the same idea.

Implausibly, the SOMBIE thing extracts the memories stolen from the sea monster.

I just adore this picture.

The demons began coming out of the portal after hundreds of years of planning an invasion of Earth because their world began dying. Lady Frankenstein discovered the portal, tried to close it, and was pulled through. So it looks like the Creature Commandos are already going off-world to fight a cosmic threat! And it's also a monster threat!

SHADE Halts Aliens During Evacuation?

They take their Egg Shuttle through the wormhole and discover a planet composed mostly of monsters.

They just needed a little elbow room. It's just the monster's Manifest Destiny!

Frankenstein, Agent of S.H.A.D.E. #1

Where the hell did this title come from? House of Secrets in the seventies? House of Mystery? Actually, those are my only two guesses. Maybe it came into existence over the last few years. Wherever it came from, I'm excited to read it! Just look at that cover! Frank fighting with a sword and a chain gun...at the same time! Judas Priest! And the four armed gunfighter chick? Not as cool as Octoflare, the 4th dimensional gunfighting enemy of the Galactic Hero Corps that nobody's ever heard about. But she might be 1/4 as cool! And the domino masked Japanese school girl! Or maybe she's in the Navy. It's hard to tell! The only thing I don't like about the cover is the comic is only rated Teen instead of Teen Plus. Not that I've really been able to tell the difference! Animal Man was Teen Plus and it was tamer than Batman and Robin!

The series begins in Bone Lake, Washington. See how I resisted making a boner joke? A man and his grandson are fishing. Scene set.

Never say anything like this ever even if you think you're not currently in a comic book or horror movie. Just don't tempt fate!

Great! You just know somebody is going to get bitten! And then the dog growls and wanders off into the brush! That's your second warning, Grandpa! Don't follow a growling dog into the bushes! Seriously, people! If we all just thought like Jamie Kennedy's character in the Scream movies, we'd all experience a lot less dismemberment! Because you know this old guy is going to follow the dog into the bushes. And then he's going to find a big pile of meat and blood that doesn't come when you call it. And then he's going to get killed. Although, this is just a Teen book! Maybe he'll just poop his overalls!

I knew this happened because I turned the page after posting the first picture. But we all knew something horrible like this was going to happen just I said when I warned against tempting fate!

The title of this story arc is "War of the Monsters: Monster Town, USA." I think it's going to involve monsters!

S.H.A.D.E. stands for Super Human Advanced Defense Executive. Okay, so it makes sense but I still think the Executive part is a bit awkward. How about Some Hideously Amorphous Deformed Entrepreneurs? Severely Handicapped Awkward Dick Enthusiasts? Sex Having Asexual Dandelion Eaters? I could do this all day!

But I won't.

The SHADE Headquarters (yeah, I'm dropping the punctuation. I've got a life to lead!) exists in a three inch tiny sphere floating around the city. The technology was developed by The Atom, Ray Palmer. Probably because he's one of the classic monsters: the Incredible Shrinking Man. He was a monster, right? He was mean to a cat so that makes him a monster in my book!

Shrinking Heroes Ardently Denying Everything?

Frankenstein arrives in SHADE city for the first time and meets up with his cohort, Father Time. Father Time is the young Asian lady from the cover. He randomly chooses a new body as his host every decade. I'm not sure why he would then choose to have 'Father' as part of his code name. Unless that's his first name!

Stupid Hacks Applying Disingenuous Eponyms?

Frankenstein begins quoting Milton but not on the walls in the victim's blood. Palmer says he's a Keats man so I'm guessing he's going to say "Beauty is truth, truth beauty. That's all you need to know something something something. Or whatever," at some point.

Frankenstein's first order of business is to find out what happened to his bride. Turns out the grandfather was eaten by the monsters and then the rest of the town was as well. SHADE sent Frank's bride in to take care of business but she disappeared when she was getting close to the source. She's the woman with multiple arms on the cover.

Silly Hipsters Against Downloading EPs?

Frankenstein now has six hours to retrieve his wife and stop the army of monsters! Six hours will probably take about four issues.

Frank and Father Time head to Bone Lake but before Frank can begin his mission, he has to be introduced to his new team! None of them are Abbot or Costello. But they are a bunch of monsters! Yay! Dr. Nina is a creature from the black lagoon.Warren Griffith is a werewolf. Vincent Velcoro was a pilot and now is a vampire crossbreed using a modified form of the Langstrom Serum. I remember something somewhere about a Langstrom Serum. But I don't remember which comic it was from. And the final member is Khalis the Mummified Medic! This comic book is about to rock my socks off. Wait, let me put some socks on before I finish this.

Socks Hurled Away Despite Elastic?

I think the mummy Khalis is my favorite so far. He claims to be an actual ancient mummy with powers of life and death. At least he can speak. If he couldn't speak and only went, "Unnnnnhhhhhhh," my pal, I mean, Grunion Guy's pal Super Mummy might have to sue him.

Once inside the town, The Creature Commandos kick a lot of monster butt. They make their way to a church where Khalis can feel the heartbeat of many survivors. Once they break in, they find an old woman and a crapload of children. The old woman, of course, threatens to send them all to hell. Because, you know, they're hiding from monsters and then the rescuers look like monsters! Duh!

Squirrel Hating Assholes Desiring Entropy?

Animal Man #4

While reading DC Comics, I just love to nitpick the little things. Sometimes the writers or editors are making mistakes and other times it's just me getting ahead of the story being told. But since I write these while reading the comic, everyone gets to see when I make stupid guesses at plot or when I say a character isn't acting correctly and then it's explained later. I also like to point out things I think the writer did well when I notice them. This is a bit harder to do because when a writer is telling an engaging story, I may not stop to comment on it.

I really like Animal Man so far. I like a decent amount of the 52 although I'm not sure sometimes how that comes across because it's more fun to complain about stuff.

Um, the point is, I like this bit here:

My first thought as Detective 'Rot' Krenshaw was driving Ellen down the road was "Isn't he going to go weirdo on her again?' And then the next page shows the cutaway of the trunk and the Detective in it. Last issue, the Hunters had mentioned that they can't keep the forms of the people they eat for very long and wish they'd not eaten the zookeepers all at once. So this one shot explains how this Hunter may end up keeping his form for a long while: by eating Detective Krenshaw slowly in bits and pieces.

Sure, that isn't much. But it's a nice tiny non-nitpick to balance out the nice tiny nitpicks. I do miss reading and writing about really bad comics though. Maybe I should read the next Issue of Captain Atom to get my fill!

At the end of my last write-up, I said, "Maxine is yelling, “NO!” which means she’ll probably blast this Hunter into smithereens with her Red Avatar Powers next issue." And then this happens:

See? Smithereens.

Okay, so that was an easy one to guess. I probably won't win any awards for guessing that plot development. Unless someone out there wants to give me one? Perhaps "MOST CHARISMATIC TUMBLREST AWARD!" Or "BEST BLOG NAME EVAR AWARD!" Or "WHY THE FUCK ISN'T THIS ASSHOLE READING ANY MARVEL BOOKS AWARD!"

The Rot's impression of Socrates.

Buddy and Maxine soon get a history lesson from the Totems. And they reveal themselves to be The Parliament of Limbs. Really? Why? So if The Green are Trees and The Red are Limbs, what are The Other? The Parliament of Bones is my guess. That's my guess! You get your own guess! The Hunters Three were members of the Parliament of Limbs who were seduced by the Rot. Now where have I heard that before?

The Hunters goal is to "lay claim to a living avatar" so The Rot's "influence would spread, like a dark cancer in the Life Web." Sounds like a pretty good plan! I think The Rot is some kind of metaphor for something happening within the DC offices! I wonder who the jerk is they're writing about?

After the history lesson, Buddy and Maxine get ready to leave when one of the Totems decides to go with them.

Yay! Another kitty character!

Once it leaves The Red, it can never return. But hopefully it won't die almost immediately like WWII Swamp Thing did!

Meanwhile (What happened to all the Meanwhile boxes that used to litter comics and Super Friend's cartoons? I'm bringing 'em back!), back at Ellen's mother's farm...

Now he reminds me of something from Spirited Away.

While Ellen was inside speaking with her mom, the Hunter made off into the forest with the Detective (still alive) and Cliff. Its head keeps growing and popping out of shape which means it needs to feed. So it sets Cliff down for a moment to eat the Detective's face. And his feet. And his guts. And his bones. And, well, what the hell, his clothing too. Ellen hears the Detective scream, grabs her parent's shotgun, and runs off into the woods to save Cliff. She finds him safe by a river but the Detective is half-eaten and the Hunter has turned into a crazy thing that I won't bother describing because I have a scanner.

Maxine and Buddy return to their home to find Ellen and Cliff missing. And the kitty makes me melt all over my office chair.

I wonder if DC will have a three part miniseries cross-over comic featuring Dex-Starr and Socks Ignatius!?

Who names a cat without socks Socks?! Stupid kids!

Animal Man #3

It turns out Animal Man has his own Parliament of Trees. Except they're not trees. They're Totems. Oh, and Animal Man isn't an as yet to be retired Totem the way Swamp Thing is an unretired Tree of Parliament. His daughter, Maxine, is the next Avatar of The Red. And she knows all the things I was annoyed with her knowing because she dreams about The Red all the time and visits the Totems there. Like I suggested would be the explanation for her knowing too much. Boy, comic books are easy to write!

While Buddy Baker and Maxine wander around The Red, these weirdos are hunting down Baker's family.

Not judging weirdos. I hate when I use a term like freak or weirdo to describe someone who is a freak or a weirdo and the freaks and weirdos freak out because they can only hear those words in a negative connotation. I also hate when someone with tattoos or piercings gets annoyed with me for staring. Fuck you! If you call it body art, you have to enjoy being stared at. The Mona Lisa never threatened to punch me in the mouth!

Is it okay if I reference my captions in the main body of the text? I was just going to continue by calling these guys freaks which made me think of a co-worker I had when I worked at Ellington Leather in Portland. Her name was Karen Von Klezie. She had her name legally changed to add the 'Von' because it just sounded cooler. Or more Transylvanian. I don't know. Anyway, some music awards show had been on and I mentioned that Beck had been acting freaky. And she got all huffy and told me she thought freaky people were creative and more interesting and that she just loved them. If the conversation had gone there, I also would have mentioned David Lee Roth was acting freaky but I don't think she would have stepped up to defend him. Besides, Beck was acting freaky! Like he was terrified of some being just past the point of seeing that was hovering over his right shoulder and about to chomp down on his second turntable.

Speaking of unneeded and unwarranted defenses! I was once talking with some coworkers when I ran a warehouse on the Netscape Campus and they were talking about going to the shooting range. I mentioned I'd never shot a gun and they instantly jumped all over me about how guns don't kill people and guns are safe and it's ignorant to outlaw guns. When their extreme defensy-ness wore down, I was finally able to tell them to calm down. There was no explicit judgment in my not having fired a gun. I just hadn't had the fucking experience!

I did end up paying Magic The Gathering with those guys one time. Ugh. Just the one time. Here's a tip: if you enjoy playing a game, learn the fucking rules. Granted, Magic has a lot of bullshit rules. But still. A deck with 20 lightning bolts? Fuck you.

Animal Man learns some disappointing things from the Totems. Like how even though his name is on the cover of the comic, he's not the important one. And the fact that the aliens that gave him his powers weren't really awesome and cool beings from space.

The Totems plagiarized Green Lantern!

The Totems manipulated everything so that Buddy Baker could have the power to protect his daughter who is the next Swamp Thing of The Red. But her power to raise the dead animals seemed so much like The Rot. And the Hunters of The Rot declared she was actually their daughter. But then, this:

Perhaps The Red and The Rot have more overlap than The Rot and The Green.

Animal Man has a big fight with the other two Hunters in The Red. And while I've had my share of bitching about Jim Lee's overly shiny and AT THE SAME TIME grim and cross-hatched style, here's an example of why that style is a very, very good trend in comics:

Go get 'em, Animal, um, Monkey Man? More vague combat scenes where you can't quite be sure what is happening.

I'm sure Travel Foreman's style was a large reason for putting him on Animal Man. When he gets a panel right, it feels right. The style and slightly-off kilter anatomy and faces work in certain situations. And the comic is doing well skirting the line between horror and humor. His art can work for this particular genre. But it's also, much of the time, flat and boring, like Jesus Saiz's art in Birds of Prey. Here's an example just before Detective Krenshaw gets eaten by a Hunter (oh, that was a spoiler!):

I should assign just as much blame to the colorist, Lovern Kindzierski.

The issue ends with Animal Man on his knees about to be killed by one of The Hunters. Maxine is yelling, "NO!" which means she'll probably blast this Hunter into smithereens with her Red Avatar Powers next issue. And in the comic book version of the real world, Ellen and Cliff (Buddy's son, if I haven't mentioned him before) are now being approached by the last Hunter now in the skin of Detective Krenshaw!

Animal Man #2

Last issue, Buddy wouldn't let his daughter Maxine get a dog because it might interfere with his powers. This issue, well, this issue, um...

I think he should have gotten his daughter a dog. Although how adorable is Mrs. Pickles?

A girl and her cat skeleton. Dog skeleton? Raccoon skeleton!

During all of the middle of the night chaos, Buddy ends up with red tattoos all over his body. This has never happened before so he has no idea what is going on. But Maxine does.

Oh, of course she knows! Someone has to know something or else the plot can't move along. Well, it could probably move along naturally. But since Lemire must want to speed things along, he pulls the Little Kid Who Knows Things She Shouldn't Know Trope out of his writing satchel. This is almost as bad as the Look Into The Future So We Know What To Do Next Trope. Although nothing is as bad as that nonsense. I'm looking at you, Heroes!

Although maybe she just knows some stuff from the dreams The Red is giving her, just as Buddy learned about the three Rot Hunters who are actually Maxine's father. Or fathers. However that works. Plus, Maxine can do this to the neighbor, so maybe she's in touch with something that lets her read tattoos:

Buddy decides he needs to take Maxine to this tree thing in the red place and find out what's going on. Somehow, he needs to get Maxine's powers under control or she's going to turn all of the neighbors into livestock.

Maxine's super hero costume. Cute!

Animal Man and Animal Little Girl follow the animals into The Red until they get to the sick tree. Animal Man and Animal Little Girl enter it and disappear into the next issue. Meanwhile, back at the San Diego Zoo, the hippos give birth to those three weird hunter guys Animal Man met in his dreams. Those things eat some zookeepers and steal their appearance. And then they're off to hunt down the Animal Family!

Animal Man #1

The reader is reacquainted with Buddy Baker, Animal Man, through a one page interview with him at the beginning of the issue. He's a vegan and spokesman for animal rights. He's just starred in a movie called "Tights" about a washed up superhero. And he's become a youth icon with his image emblazoned on t-shirts and posters. But mostly he's still just a family man.

When I first read about The Red in Swamp Thing, I naturally assumed they were speaking about the source of animal life just as The Green is the source for plant life. But I didn't make the connection that Animal Man would be using it in its stories! And since the two titles are basically sister books, that means Animal Man is also learning about The Rot.

Animal Man was cuckolded by a trinity of Rot Creatures!

This happens in a dream he has after a night of being Animal Man. During the hostage situation where he took on the abilities of a variety of animals, he began to bleed from his eyes. But the doctors couldn't find anything wrong with him and Buddy said he felt fantastic. So he went home and used a cat's ability to nap to fall asleep.

After dreaming about Maxine hiding from the Hunters and hurting her brother and mother, Buddy wakes up with a start to hear Ellen yelling from the backyard. He goes out to find Maxine playing with some new friends.

His daughter Maxine has tapped into The Rot the same way that William Arcane has. Well, maybe not the exact same way! At least she's going about it in a cute way.

Animal Man #1 had a nice steady set up. We get to see Buddy with his family which is important. And we get to see why he keeps going back to the Animal Man persona even though he's always been a kind of reluctant hero. He just finds it fun. But no matter what he's doing, his wife Ellen is still the thing, the person, that keeps him anchored and satisfied. The reader also gets to witness how Buddy's powers work and he even explains one of his weaknesses: if he's around one animal too much (like a pet), he loses his connection to the other animals in the Life Web.

A truly well-done first issue of Animal Man that explains everything the reader needs to know about him in a well written story. While Swamp Thing relied on some really heavy exposition, Animal Man is relying on the story and character interaction. Swamp Thing did have a longer and more confusing history to deal with, so hopefully Swamp Thing will fall into this kind of pacing now that it's gotten the majority of the back story out of the way.

Swamp Thing #4

Swamp Thing doesn't meet anyone. Hell, Alec Holland doesn't meet anyone either!

Three issues down and there has only been one real fight scene. That's a pretty novel idea: build up the character and the background instead of just showing the main characters in flashy poses while pummeling their enemies. Plus, who wants to see a normal looking guy in a construction hat get into a fist fight with a deathly ill kid in a scuba suit? Okay, okay. So do I.

Here's a little summary. Thanks, Alec!

Most of this episode consists of Alec speaking to the Parliament of Trees in his dreams. They want him to kill Abigail Arcane because she is connected to The Rot. They also want Alec to become the Swamp Thing again because they believe he's their warrior-king. But Alec still doesn't become Swamp Thing. And he doesn't kill Abigail. They just wake up and, after arguing a bit about Abigail trying to leave without him, head off to find William somewhere in the Deadlands.

I'm not really sold on the concept of The Rot. Perhaps that's just the way The Green and other organic beings see it. The Parliament of Trees says that they don't speak its actual name. So organic matter would look at what this entity does and call it The Rot. If that's all it does, then of course it would kill itself by destroying organic matter completely. That brings me to the conclusion that The Rot has other powers than the control of necrotic flesh and it must destroy and manipulate other things as well. Unless it just travels across the universe making worlds rotten.

Overall, I find Swamp Thing fairly average. At least I don't have a problem with the writing. I just think the concept is a bit off. But I can see how Snyder is setting up a long term nemesis for Swamp Thing and The Green with this Rot stuff. And it's not the first time (or the half dozenth or the hundredth) where DC has created characters that take the science out of the world and replace it with a creature or being or God that explains why it happens. Maybe everything in the DCnU has a rational explanation and a mystickal/religious/elemental/technobabbly explanation.

Anyway, that's it for the first four issues of Swamp Thing. I guess I'll be reading Issue #5 in a few weeks!