Comic Reviews: Batman: Long Halloween, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Book II

2/23/2004

A Guest Mini-review or two from Friend of Robot IronLung:




Batman: Long Halloween:

Dude, I'm into the long halloween.

Big time.

The only negative I have to say is that the Joker, in this particular vision of Batman's nemesis, sucks. All of a sudden he shows up... then he's captured. Weak. On the other hand, this version of Catwoman is, bar none, the coolest version ever created. Attitude, COSTUME, motivation, COSTUME, sense of humour, COSTUME -- all of it! she is so f-ing awesome I can't even believe it. Also, the continual reminders of bruce's motivation are integral, I think. To have him constantly evaluating whether this or that falls into his base drive is super cool, and true to the idea of who and what the Batman is, was, and ever shall be. Gordon's allright, if not a little bit of a backseat character. Dent, as simply a District Attorney, is awesome. Poison ivy is only ok.Later, the twist on Dent's metamorphosis into Two-Face was really cool, even if it did give too much credit for brains to Maroni. The Scarecrow is one of my favorite rogues -- i wanted to see more! But his presence at all was cool for me.

I think that intellectually, the selling point of the novel is the continual reminder to the reader of Batman's motivation ... 'I made a promise', etc.. The art style is really unique and I bought it completely. (that is to say, I didn't mind the typical superhero dimensions of chest:impossible, waist:impossible, inseam:impossible.) I REALLY liked the presentation of Batman as intimidator. It's even mentioned at one point ... 'My presence carries more intimidation at night' ... or something like that. But I'm talking about Bats lurking in the shadows of Dent's basement or perhaps the coolest fucking thing I've ever seen ... standing on the balcony railing at the Roman's house so he's just about 2 feet taller, but his cape goes down to ground level, adding to the illusion. FUCKING DOPE. And let's not forget the Bat knuckles. Joker caught a facefull of Bat's brass knuckles and I was fucking rolling.

Did I mention Catwoman's costume?

Batman : The Long Halloween gets a 7 of 10 Clanks. It's only missing 9 because of Gordon's minor role, and the ass-ness of Joker and Ivy.


:::



League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Book II:

Ok, so I think I've got my thoughts organized about LXG: BK.II. Bottom line is that I didn't really like it that much. Don't get me wrong, I think the art style is really, really cool. The level of detail those artists accomplish is amazing. But overall, I think this storyline was not nearly as good as the first. Start with the complete disregard/disrespect for the Jekyll/Hyde character. Here you have this amazingly complex character with this painful internal conflict which manifests itself (albeit at his will) into these two physical incarnations. But in this storyline, the Moore just throws it all away in lieu of 'damn, Hyde looks cool in a 96" dinner jacket -- let's just leave him that way for the whole story.' Weak. Big WTF to Nemo, too. The coolest adventurer ever, and he spends a hundred pages on the deck of the Nautilus, telling Hyde he's a monster.

But wait! There's more! I love 'The Island of Dr. Moreau.' Probably one of my favorite stories in the shallow pool of literature I'm qualified to talk about. But it felt like it was just crammed in there with no rhyme or reason. It's like 'The H.G. Wells Hour' all of a sudden. 'Hey guys, we've already got the Invisible Man and the Aar of the Worlds -- let's go for the hat trick!' So they stick Moreau in there with no respect for the subtleties of who HIS character is, either. You know, as I write this, I realize I sound like some hyper-character-purist, but I'm really not! I'm all for the re-imagining of an established norm, but you don't take the peanuts out of peanut butter for a different taste and still call it peanut butter! And you don't make Dr. Henry Moreau into some LEGO(tm)-maniac. He was a deliberately motiviated scientist with an exact understanding of what he was trying to do, not just some dude who liked to stick two things together. I mean, he didn't have hybrid asparagus/hamburgers, so why the fuck would he have hybrid diseases? Pissed me off. HE WHO BREAKS THE LAW GOES BACK TO THE HOUSE OF PAIN!!

Which brings me to my final bone of contention ... did we really need to see Mina's neck so badly that we were willing to watch ... ugh ... you get my point. Sex sells, I guess. but it didn't sell this story to me, I tell you that much. This was the comic equivalent of Predator 2 to me -- something super imaginative and intelligent reduced to bubblegum. Dammit. Do I have anything good to say about it? Yeah. I loved Griffin's double-cross, and his ensuing 'punishment' at the hands (and other parts) of Hyde. that was pretty cool. But outside of that, I didn't like it.

LXG Book II gets a 3 of 10 because i'm feeling generous and the art is amazing.


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