I used to have time to read my comics in a coffee shop. Now I have to read them in the bathroom. Then I write reviews of them. I wash my hands in between.
BATMAN SUPERMAN #8
I really don’t like Jae Lee. There, I said it.
I am aware that this will be an unpopular opinion. In the
last several years he has gone from being a moody novelty to, apparently, DC’s golden
boy. Like, if Gareb Shamus hadn’t imploded under the weight of horrible
business decisions he’d be in the top 3 Wizard artists of the month on a
regular basis, big. Why else would they give him a whole book featuring their
two biggest characters and let him go to town with it? Dirty, stringy haired,
gross sunset, wrapped in sheets town.
Don’t get me wrong: on the right book, he’s great. The Dark
Tower, for example. Perfect. In fact, I doubt the adaptations/ additional
volumes of that series would have kept coming for as long as they did under
another artist. He truly created and defined Mid World and the forces of John
Farson for everyone that picked up those books. I personally can’t not think of
his versions of these characters when talking or thinking about The Dark Tower
whatsoever. His style is exactly what that project and that world needed.
But I’m just gonna go on record right now as saying he has
absolutely no business going anywhere near Superman, or really DC Comics in
general. DC’s world is very clean, very orderly and makes an element of sense.
The worlds Jae Lee draws are, most definitely, not. They are dark and smoky and feature a lot of
creepily shaped stone outcroppings. Now, if he was JUST drawing the Batcave,
maybe. But THAT’S IT. He’s drawing Superman here and Power Girl here,
characters whose whole personas are based on light, and light and the Sun’s energy
seem to be an important part of the plot of this crossover (YES!!!! IT’S
ANOTHER DAMN CROSSOVER!!!) but even his skies are misty and muted and foggy and
dirty. It just doesn’t fit and it pulled me right the hell out of the story.
So basically the Huntress and Power Girl of this world are,
in fact, Superman’s cousin and Batman’s daughter from a parallel Universe
(Earth 2). This CROSSOVER is supposed to depict their first encounter with
their ‘father figures’ of this world. Batman is understandably skeptical, but
something is happening to Power Girl where she can’t control her energy, so
Superman swoops in and tries to save her, yadda, yadda, yadda.
I won’t KNOW what happens next, because lookit: on the last
page ‘To be continued in ‘World’s Finest’’ (which is the book that features
these two female characters which I ALREADY dropped in a recent culling a few
months ago. So great. Fantastic. Not only is Forever Evil spilling
unnecessarily into a bunch of titles, now we got other standalone titles
playing forced crossover games with other standalone books.
Come on, DC. This is a monthly medium but for the love of
Christ, you’re sending me running to the trade paperback section with all of
this. I don’t want to have to go all TPBs with your line, but you’re quickly
giving me no choice.
I’m developing a moral dilemma. I need to get back to
reading comics with a bunch of boobs and explosions. When does Bomb Queen come
out?
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