Monsters Unleashed! by Cullen Bunn, Jay Leisten, David Baldeón, Ramón Bachs, Justin Jordan, Andrea Broccardo, et al.

Collection published: 2017
Contents originally published: 2017
Read: February 2024

Monsters Unleashed!

Monsters Unleashed!: Monster Mash

Monsters Unleashed!: Learning Curve

Writers: Cullen Bunn, Justin Jordan

Artists: Steve McNiven, Jay Leisten, Greg Land, Leinil Francis Yu, Gerry Alanguilan & Michael Jason Paz, Salvador Larroca, Adam Kubert, David Baldeón, Ramón Bachs, Andrea Broccardo, Francesco Gastón, Bachan, Alex Arizmendi, Alberto Alburquerque 

Color Artists: David Curiel, Michael Garland, Marcio Menyz, Chris Sotomayor

Letterer: Travis Lanham

 

Monsters Unleashed! was a five-issue miniseries that was then followed by a twelve-issue ongoing series, collected across three volumes. The main character is Kei Kawade, a young monster fan who during a worldwide invasion of monsters from outer space discovers he has the power to summon monsters by drawing them. He is eventually recruited by S.H.I.E.L.D. and Damage Control and becomes known as "Kid Kaiju." He is mentored by monster hunter Elsa Bloodstone, and I read this as part of my working through her key Marvel Comics appearances.

 

Good thing some of the monsters are on our side!
from Monsters Unleashed! vol. 2 #4 (script by Cullen Bunn, art by Salvador Larroca)

 

The original miniseries and the first eight issues of the ongoing are all written by Cullen Bunn and feature eleven different artists. I really did not care for any of it. The opening miniseries is in particular tedious, with umpteen different superteams (the Avengers, the Guardians of the Galaxy, &c.) fighting monsters again and again and again. Too many characters, too many artists, no interesting character work or plotting. After that, the series just focuses on the ongoing adventures of Kid Kaiju and Elsa, but I still found little to latch onto or be interested in.

 

Collection published: 2017
Contents originally published: 2017
Read: February 2024

Actually, that's not quite true. There's some okay stuff here—I particularly liked the appearance of the Mole Man, the original nemesis of the Fantastic Four, who kidnaps Kid Kaiju to get his help resurrecting his army of monsters. It's always a neat move to make an old, somewhat pathetic, villain into a figure of sympathy, and Cullen Bunn does it well here. But the big conspiracy of monsters, and the two different Fin Fang Fooms largely left me cold. Elsa is present, but contributes little, and seems pretty watered down from her characterization in Nextwave and Marvel Zombies (though I did like the bit where she becomes queen of some insect monsters). Some of the artists are pretty bad; Andrea Broccardo in particular can't seem to decide if Elsa is twelve or sixty-two years old.

One other big issue is that Kei summons five monsters into existence to be a team of his own... but while five big monsters might look okay (I don't think of the series's myriad artists ever had the knack of making me interested in monster fights), their lack of meaningful characterization (they are, after all, monsters) means you have a lot of characters that it's just not possible to actually be interested in.

 

Am I just biased in favor of fellow Mole-Men?
from Monsters Unleashed! vol. 3 #4 (script by Cullen Bunn, art by David Baldeón & Ramón Bachs)

 

Thus, I was really not looking forward to the last four issues. Whenever a series comes to an end and a new writer takes over for the last few issues, I think every comics fan knows that whatever you've been reading, it's about to get worse as a couple extra issues are cranked our regardless of quality in order to fill up a trade. In this particular case, I was dreading it even more because I knew writer Justin Jordan only from the execrable Team 7, and the book abandoned all attempt at artistic consistency, with four different artists on four issues.

 

It's my favorite food, too, Scraggs.
from Monsters Unleashed! vol. 3 #9 (script by Justin Jordan, art by Francesco Gastón)

Collection published: 2018
Contents originally published: 2017-18
Read: February 2024

But... to my surprise... with those last four issues, suddenly the series became really good! Instead of attempts at big Marvel-spanning epics, Jordan gives us four done-in-one tales, each teaming Kid Kaiju up with one of his monster team, allowing us to finally get to know them as characters—not to mention him. Suddenly the book is fun and funny, exactly the kind of thing I would have liked all along. But four issues of it were well worth it (though perhaps not worth reading the previous thirteen). We get colonies of giant bees and Cthuloid menaces worshipped by loser cultists and Transformers expys on the loose in New York City. (One issue is about the Inhumans, but I guess you can't win them all.) I was suddenly able to tell all the monsters apart from one another, and I didn't even mind that Elsa—ostensibly my whole reason for being here—was written out after issue #10. Good stuff, and I wish Justin Jordan had written the series from its beginning.

This is the fifth post in a series about Elsa Bloodstone. The next installment covers The Death of Doctor Strange and Marvel Action: Chillers. Previous installments are listed below:

1. Bloodstone & the Legion of Monsters (1975-2012)
2. Bloodstone (2001-06) 
3. Nextwave, Agents of H.A.T.E. (2006-07)
4. Marvel Zombies: Battleworld (2006-15)
   

Faster than a DC Bullet: Birds of Prey, Part XVIII: Birds of Prey, Volume 2

Back in early 2013, I read all the Birds of Prey comics that then existed; since there, more have been published, and catching up on them is my last round of catching up before I turn my eyes back to other ongoing projects.

Comic trade paperback, n.pag.
Published 2016 (contents: 1999)
Borrowed from the library
Read May 2016

Birds of Prey, Volume 2

Writer: Chuck Dixon

Pencillers: Greg Land, Dick Giordano, Pete Krause, Nelson DeCastro
Inkers: Drew Geraci, Mark Propst
Colorists: Gloria Vasquez, James Sinclair

Letterers: Albert T. DeGuzman, Tim Harkins

DC Comics has been re-collecting the original Birds of Prey comics from the beginning. They're chunkier than the old collections, which means that Volume 1 of these new collections contained all the comics previously collected in Black Canary/Oracle/Huntress: Birds of Prey and some of those in Old Friends, New Enemies, while Volume 2 contains the balance of issues from Old Friends, plus a number of issues that have never been collected before at all, so that's were I'm starting in these new collections.

Even when a slave laborer in a third-world country, Dinah looks good.
from Birds of Prey vol. 1 #3 (art by Greg Land & Drew Geraci)

Birds of Prey as originally conceived is undeniably a fun concept: Black Canary and Oracle, both characters with somewhat rocky pasts, moving on with their lives and kicking butt. During this period of the book, they've never met in person (well, not since Barbara Gordon became Oracle); Oracle's identity is a secret from Dinah, and there's also an online relationship brewing between Barbara and the mysterious "Beeb." What we end up with here are a variety of exciting, action-based stories by Chuck Dixon (undeniably an expert at exciting, action-based stories, but Birds of Prey is probably him at his best) and Greg Land and Drew Geraci (who draw attractive women without being sleazy). I already reviewed the first couple stories in this book in my review of Old Friends, New Enemies, so here I'll focus on what was new to me, though suffice it to say that I found the story where Black Canary and the Ravens both end up on vacation in Minnesota and a dinosaur comes through a time portal to be immense fun.

Faster than a DC Bullet: Project Gotham, Part VIII: Batman: The Ring, the Arrow and the Bat

Comic trade paperback, 182 pages
Published 2003 (contents: 1998-2000)
Borrowed from the library
Read November 2014

Batman: The Ring, the Arrow and the Bat

Writer: Dennis O'Neil
Pencillers: Greg Land, Sergio Cariello
Inkers: Dick Giordano, Matt Ryan
Colorists: Greg Wright, Rick Taylor
Letterers: Clem Robins, Willie Schubert

Year One, August - Year Two, February
I wish I'd known about this book when I did my big readthrough of Green Arrow tales, because it's much more Green Arrow and Green Lantern's tale than it is Batman's. This collects two stories: the first, "Peacemakers," is about the first meeting between Green Arrow and Green Lantern, while the second, "The Arrow and the Bat," unites the two with Batman.

That said, it's not very good. I feel like the later you are in Denny O'Neil's career, the worse his writing is, and this book is no exception. It's jumpy, characters don't (re)act realistically, the conspiracies are too complicated to make sense, it's bloodier than a mainstream DC superhero story ought to be, and it doesn't even get basic points of continuity right. Oliver seems to have lost his fortune already, but he hasn't even joined the Justice League yet because there is no Justice League yet. And it was O'Neil who wrote the story where Oliver lost his fortune, set well into his tenure on the League! What's the point of writing a tale to tick off a continuity box if you get the continuity wrong? None, as far as I can tell, because this is a disappointing and uninteresting book.

Next Week: Batman enrolls in D.A.R.E. in Venom!

Faster than a DC Bullet: Birds of Prey, Part II: Old Friends, New Enemies

Comic trade paperback, 223 pages
Published 2003 (contents: 1997-99)
Borrowed from the library
Read January 2013

Birds of Prey: Old Friends, New Enemies

Writer: Chuck Dixon
Pencillers: Greg Land, Dick Giordano
Inkers: Drew Geraci, Wayne Faucher
Colorist: Gloria Vasquez
Letterer: Albert T. DeGuzman

The second volume of Birds of Prey collects the series' last two one-shots ("Wolves" and "Batgirl"), and then the first six issues of the ongoing series-- so popular had been the one-shots, that DC decided they could sustain an ongoing. Old Friends, New Enemies is perhaps more consistent and settled than Black Canary/Oracle/Huntress, but also less striking and less fun: fewer highs and fewer lows.

The good news is that the stories here don't feel curtailed. In part, that's because Dixon can write every story across multiple issues if it's that complex, but even the one-shots are more curtailed, as though he's finally gotten to grips with the format. The first of those, "Wolves," runs two largely parallel stories: Dinah meets up with her ex-husband(!), while Barbara almost gets mugged, almost gets hit by a car, almost goes on a date, and almost gets mugged. The common theme between the two plots is men, who are "wolves" who devour women. I don't know that we needed to give Dinah a one-year marriage in college except to give this story some extra emotional investment, but her plot is not too great: it basically hits all the beats any TV show does when a cast member's former lover shows up "in trouble." (I think Babylon 5 did this plot every other week its first two seasons.)

The Barbara story is more interesting, though. I am pretty sure that this is the first time we've seen here outside of her headquarters (what is that place with the clock on it, anyway? no one in this book ever says? and does she live there?) in the Birds of Prey series, and she's a little angry-- but then she's having a bad day. She gets to go on a date, which is quite sweet, and gives us a facet of her we've been deprived of in the series thus far. Of course, it all goes south, and then we get to see Dinah fight off a group of robbers while in a wheelchair while in her home. It maybe pushes the bounds of credulity a little, but probably no more so than that Dinah could do all the things she does; anyone who used to be Batgirl has to be the best of the best, after all. I'm curious to see how often Birds of Prey will end up going to the wheelchair-bound-Barbara-in-danger well by the end of the series, but I liked it here; it's a big change from the stories in the first volume. Dick Giordano's art is usually good, but I've seen better from him: there's the occasional bad angle, and both male characters look creepy and plastic-faced.

"Batgirl" features Black Canary teamed up with... Batgirl!? Why does Barbara have longer hair when she's an physically-active crimefighter? How is that safe? Anyway, it's not real, as you might imagine, and the villain looks so ridiculous that you can't even blame her on the '90s; she's just terrible.

We then launch into the ongoing with a three-part story: "Long Time Gone"/"One of Those Days"/"Hounded." Like a lot of the stories in the first volume, this one feature hijinks in a Third-World country. Is that the Birds of Prey's thing? The plot (which confused me) ultimately isn't the point here, though: the extra space and assurance of future stories mean that Dixon starts working in a lot of nice little touches: Dinah's technophobia, Barbara's ex-fiancé, Robin hanging out with Oracle and helping, Barabara's Internet romance. It's things like this that keep me interested and invested; actually, I was surprised how much I liked the ex-fiancé.

(On the other hand, there's constant cutting to a subplot about the Air Force finding someone using their computer-- implied to be Oracle-- and a guy with a big head who I may have been supposed to recognize but no one ever explains who he was. Also someone has been spying on Dinah, and then you find out it was just Batman. Not cool, dude.)

"Return of the Ravens" sees Dinah randomly bump into a group of terrorists called the Ravens, who include Cheshire, who was at some point (not sure if that's before or after this) the mother of Green Arrow's ward Arsenal's child. It's faintly ridiculous-- there's a dinosaur involved-- but in the way that superhero comics can be ridiculous, and I liked the banter between the three villains. It does have the worst map of the United States that I've ever seen, though.

"Batgirl," the "Long Time Gone" trilogy, and "Return of the Ravens" are all drawn by Greg Land and Drew Geraci. This is my first experience reading a Greg Land comic, I think, though I'm well familiar with his work from his Internet infamy. This comparatively early stuff isn't as bad as what he does now, it seems. There are definitely times where the characters looked posed and cheesecakey, but there's worse out there, and it often results in very nice art.

The real shame about Old Friends, New Enemies is not the book itself, but the fact it collects issue #1-6 of the ongoing... and the next collection of Birds of Prey doesn't pick up until issue #56. That's fifty uncollected issues, and I bet something important happens in there. Boo on you, DC. Where's my Birds of Prey Omnibus?