Faster than a DC Bullet: Birds of Prey, Part III: DC Comics: The Sequential Art of Amanda Conner

Comic hardcover, 292 pages
Published 2012 (contents: 1998-2012)
Borrowed from the library
Read January 2013

DC Comics: The Sequential Art of Amanda Conner

Writers: Barbara Kesel, Chuck Dixon, Jai Nitz, Terry Moore, Patton Oswalt, Geoff Johns, Mark Waid, Justin Grey & Jimmy Palmiotti, Judd Winick, Amanda Conner
Penciller: Amanda Conner
Inkers: Jimmy Palmiotti, Amanda Conner
Letterers: Gaspar Saladino, Clem Robins, Kurt Hathaway, Albert T. De Guzman, Phil Balsman, Rob Leigh, Ken Lopez, Wes Abbott, John J. Hill
Colorists: John Kalisz, Pamela Rambo, Tom J. McCraw, Carrie Strachan, Paul Mounts, Rod Reis

Amanda Conner first came to my attention with her fabulous "Supergirl" strip in Wednesday Comics-- rarely is any comics artist able to master facial expressions so well, and even more, she used them to humorous effect. The Sequential Art of Amanda Conner collects a number of different examples of her work for DC Comics over the years, and I like her stuff enough to make it a must-read.

I'm reading it now, though, because it collects issues #47-49 of Birds of Prey (vol. 1), the only collected issues in the gap between Old Friends, New Enemies and Of Like Minds.¹ The story is "The Chaotic Code," and it features Barbara and Dinah fighting to protect a young girl with the astounding power to undo the effect of entropy on people. Of course, like all advanced medical science in a comic book world, There Are Things That Man Was Not Meant To Do, and it'll kill you if it lasts too long. Also the guy the girl is working for is evil. The interesting part is that Barbara temporarily regains use of her legs; there's a great page where she jumps out of a window after some fearsome hand-to-hand stuff, and there a couple good jokes. What's unfortunate is that the fact she is forced to go back to the way she was isn't really dealt with.

Meanwhile, Dinah gets in trouble for parking illegally, and it escalates crazily from there. This is goofy, action-driven fun, a dynamic that the post-Green-Arrow Black Canary is well-suited for, I think.  Unfortunately, she's already back in her old outfit, though at least it's drawn better here than it was in the late 1980s/early 1990s. I miss the full-body jumpsuit! She ends up throwing down with Talia al Ghul, who is working for President Luthor for some reason.

Conner is maybe the perfect artist for Birds of Prey: fun and even sexy, without ever feeling crass and exploitative. Her faces, especially for Dinah as the situation gets worse and worse, are great, and she choreographs potentially-confusing action scenes quite well. It's a shame that she only ever drew this single three-issue arc.

The book is, of course, overall an excellent showcase for her immense skills; I'll touch just briefly on the other tales here. Superman: Lois Lane #1, the not-properly-titled first story by Barbara Kesel, features Lois on her own, battling in a submarine. This is definitely the action-Lois of the 1990s (as seen in World Without a Superman, for example), and it's fun in much the same way Birds of Prey itself is.

Geoff Johns's "Power Trip" takes place on the eve of the Infinite Crisis, with the Psycho Pirate trying to confuse Power Girl about her tangled origin story. I'm not sure why, as the story takes four issues to not answer any questions. It also features the completely stupid explanation of the "cleavage window" on her costume. Some good jokes, though. Some obvious ones, too.

"Scared Straight" has the most anal rape jokes I've ever encountered in a superhero comic, and I have no idea what the hell it even is. I'm afraid finding out will just make things worse, though.  And Ame-Comi Girls featuring Wonder Woman #1 has a charming scene where the protagonist wants to know why she's dressed in a ridiculously exploitative costume and no one answers her and the thing just keeps on happening!

The best story in the book is clearly the one Amanda Conner wrote herself: "Fuzzy Logic," a charming short where Power Girl, Wonder Woman, and Batgirl fight a tentacle monster, and then Wonder Woman gives Power Girl advice about her cat.

1. There are some other collected issues in this gap, actually, but they're all in collections branded with other series titles, like Batman and Nightwing.

Faster than a DC Bullet: Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane, Part V: Sophomore Jinx

Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane: Sophomore Jinx

Writer: Terry Moore
Art: Craig Rousseau
Colors: Guillem Mari
Letters: Dave Sharpe

Comic digest, n. pag. Published 2009 (content: 2008-09).  Borrowed from the library.  Read October 2011.

From its first page, Sophomore Jinx has a different tone and voice than the previous volumes of Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane; new writer Terry Moore introduces the device of Mary Jane narrating the book. The whole thing instantly feels different. Not in a bad way... but it's not what drew me to the series to begin with. The transition isn't assisted by the myriad discontinuities between volumes. Mary Jane and company were at least sophomores before, if not juniors; now they're starting sophomore year. Flash Thompson was star quarterback; now we're told he warmed the benches all last year. Mary Jane had a job in a clothing store (among many other places); now she's never had one. All of the recurring characters have vanished. Worst of all, the series left off in November or so; now it's the following August, yet the characters' emotional lives don't seem to have changed at all.

The main plot of the book, MJ discovering that someone's made a website devoted to mocking her, is no worse than any of the goofy plots that ran under McKeever's pen, but without his fun dialogue and Miyazawa's fun art, there's nothing to sell it, and so it falls flat. Plus, five issues go by and MJ and Peter's relationship hardly changes. (Under McKeever, it'd've changed five times.) I can see why the series cut off at this point. It's all right, but it's got nowhere near the charm that it used to. The McKeever/Miyazawa run is good enough for me.