Comic Review: Catwoman: When In Rome

Published: June 18th, 2013
Written by: Jeph Loeb
Art by: Tim Sale

DC Comics, 147 Pages

Review:

Being that I love the Batman comics that Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale did years ago, as well as their multiple Marvel miniseries, I’m not sure why I hadn’t picked up Catwoman: When In Rome until now.

It’s a pretty good solo story that sees Selina Kyle go off to Rome to get away from Gotham and her on again/off again relationship with Batman. Granted, he does have a very strong presence in the story, which I don’t want to spoil. However, this really shows you how the Bat has a tremendous emotional impact on Catwoman.

It should probably go without saying that I am a big fan of Tim Sale’s art. Mixing it in with a Jeph Loeb story somehow always brings the best effort out of Sale and this is no different.

Now I don’t consider this to be as good as Loeb and Sale’s Batman work but it still fits well within their version of the larger Batman universe. This is really a neat accent to their specific pocket of the mythos and honestly, I’d read anything they crafted that fit within the style and tone that they first created with The Long Halloween.

When In Rome is a much smaller and personal story than their Batman story arcs, however. And I guess that’s what I like about this, as it shows that they can tell smaller, more personally focused tales, where their Batman arcs involved lots of villains and characters.

Fans of the Catwoman character should probably love this and fans of the work of Loeb and Sale should probably love it too. It’s just a well-written and beautiful piece of work.

Rating: 7.5/10
Pairs well with: Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale’s other collaborations for DC Comics.

Comic Review: Deathblow – The Deluxe Edition

Published: March 25th, 2014
Written by: Brandon Choi
Art by: Jim Lee, Tim Sale

Image Comics, Wildstorm, DC Comics (reprinted), 292 Pages

Review:

Back when I was pretty hardcore into Image Comics, the company was still fresh, new and helmed by the coolest creators of the early ’90s. I used to buy everything I could get my hands on.

Jim Lee’s Deathblow was one of those titles and I remember first seeing the title character in the Darker Image one-shot, which was used to introduce a few characters with a darker or harder edge about them.

Deathblow really stood out, even though most people remembered that comic for bringing Sam Keith’s The Maxx into the mainstream.

There was just something super cool and brooding about this character, though. He felt like a much darker version of a Stallone or Schwarzenegger character with a bit of Punisher sprinkled in for extra flavor.

However, Deathblow’s solo series never really resonated with me like I had hoped but as I got older, I thought that it might have had a lot to do with my age at the time. So I always wanted to go back and read it to see it with fresh eyes and a few extra decades of life experience.

Unfortunately, this didn’t blow me away and I actually found it kind of boring once I got to about the midway point of this beefy collection. It just didn’t captivate me and it felt too much like a product of its time, embracing certain tropes, but not really offering up anything unique or different.

However, I have to point out that the artwork is absolutely stupendous and some of the best work I’ve seen from Jim Lee, a real legend in his field. I loved the muted colors and the high contrast and it was the cool art that at least kept me engaged where the story waned.

Looking back and also having read some of the Image Comics stuff as an adult, I think that this was really the issue with a lot of their comics. The art was always top notch and incredible but the stories were always kind of lacking. Maybe this is why Image never became another Marvel or DC, focused on superhero stories, and eventually moved well beyond that genre with things like The Walking Dead, East of West, Paper Girls, Chew and Saga.

Rating: 6/10
Pairs well with: other comics from Jim Lee’s Wildstorm universe.

Vids I Dig 263: Comic Tropes: The Themes Explored In ‘Batman: The Long Halloween’

From Comic Tropes’ YouTube description: This episode analyzes the themes found in Batman: The Long Halloween which include family, duality, and balance. The central engine of the story is a murder mystery and trying to figure out who is Holiday, a disguised killer who attacks the mob. The book works on a number of levels and subverts some expectations by using Batman as the foil, but not the protagonist. This is the definitive story about Harvey Dent, aka Two Face.

Comic Review: Vampirella Master Series – Omnibus

Published: September 20th, 2017
Written by: Kurt Busiek, Mike Carey, Warren Ellis, Jeph Loeb, Mark Millar, Alan Moore, Grant Morrison, James Robinson
Art by: Amanda Conner, Gary Frank, Joe Jusko, Louis LaChance, Mike Lilly, Mike Mayhew, Tim Sale, Mark Texeira

Dynamite Entertainment, Harris Comics, 545 Pages

Review:

I’ve kind of dug Vampirella my entire life, even if I hadn’t read many of her stories until more recently. She always looked like a cool, badass character and I’ve always enjoyed horror, especially vampire fiction.

Being that this is the 50th anniversary of the character and because I’m stoked for the new series that Christopher Priest is writing, I wanted to dive deep into Vampirella lore.

This gigantic omnibus was put out recently by Dynamite but it collects stories from the ’90s when Vampirella was being published by the now defunct Harris Comics.

What makes this collection special, is that it is a compilation of Vampirella stories from a ton of A-list creators in a time when comics were allowed to be harder, sexier, edgier and darker: all things that make Vampirella who she is.

Overall, most of this was entertaining. The only low point was the Kurt Busiek story because it was a bit slow when compared to the pacing of the others. I did like Busiek’s tale overall but it was also the largest and kind of took the wind out of the sails for me.

I wish that some of the other stories were larger or expanded on more, though. There were a lot of cool ideas tossed around and a lot of what was considered Vampirella canon was experimented on and retconned. Typically, I’m not big on retcons but with Vampirella having a rocky history, as far as being published regularly and with any sort of long lasting narrative, it doesn’t bother me. Plus, by the ’90s, a little reinvention wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.

In the end, I was glad to have finally read these stories and they’re certainly better than what was the standard in the early to mid-’90s.

I also loved most of the art.

Rating: 7.75/10
Pairs well with: other Vampirella stories, as well as comics featuring Red Sonja and Dejah Thoris.

Comic Review: Spider-Man: Blue

Published: July 27th, 2011
Written by: Jeph Loeb
Art by: Tim Sale

Marvel Comics, 137 Pages

Review:

Other than the Hulk one, I’ve really loved the color themed series of titles that Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale did for Marvel. This is the last of the four that I have read and am now reviewing.

Spider-Man: Blue was damn good. It really captured the spirit of classic Spidey and even though it had a good amount of action and superhero fun, the focal point of this story was Peter Parker’s love for Gwen Stacy but also his blossoming love for his eventual wife, Mary Jane Watson.

This throws a good array of villains at the hero and all of them serve more than a superficial purpose. Kraven the Hunter is the big bad by the end of the story and his threat and how it grows throughout the pages of this miniseries flows really well with the narrative surrounding Peter Parker’s personal life.

Loeb and Sale are just a spectacular team and their talents are on full display here. While I still prefer their Batman work, all of which are real classics in the medium, these Marvel books are some of the best works to come out of the publisher in the last decade or so.

These stories understand the characters, their motivations and the art style makes them feel like you are going back to yesteryear.

Spider-Man: Blue is a fine read and it may even hit you in the feels.

Rating: 9/10
Pairs well with: The other color themed books that Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale did for Marvel.

Documentary Review: Jack Kirby: Story Teller (2007)

Release Date: June 5th, 2007
Cast: Neal Adams, Jim Lee, Stan Lee, Jeph Loeb, John Romita Sr., Alex Ross, Tim Sale, Walter Simonson, Bruce Timm, Len Wein, Barry Windsor-Smith, Marv Wolfman

Marvel Studios, Sparkhill Production, 20th Century Fox, 64 Minutes

Review:

I’ve been watching through a lot of comic book documentaries on YouTube, lately. I came across this one that discusses the work and legacy of Jack Kirby.

I’m not sure if this was made as a special feature on a DVD, as it was produced by Marvel and 20th Century Fox. Maybe it was included on one of the Fantastic Four DVD releases a decade ago.

Anyway, if you appreciate and admire the great work of Jack Kirby, this is a really engaging documentary.

It is rather short, considering the long career of the man but it does cover a lot of ground. It also interviews a lot of other comic book greats that worked with Kirby or were inspired by him.

This feels like a quickly thrown together low budget fluff piece and if I’m being honest, Jack Kirby deserves a proper documentary or a real biopic. As much as this does talk about how much Jack did, I still don’t feel like it captures the real importance and scale of it all.

But this is still a worthwhile watch because there really isn’t anything better… yet.

Rating: 7/10
Pairs well with: other comic book industry biographical documentaries.

Comic Review: Captain America: White

Published: February 17th, 2016
Written by: Jeph Loeb
Art by: Tim Sale

Marvel Comics, 150 Pages

Review:

I’ve really been enjoying these color themed Marvel books by the dynamic duo of Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale.

What made this one really cool was that it was a Captain America story from World War II, which featured Bucky, a slew of other heroes in cameos as well as Red Skull as it’s big baddie.

While I’ve always enjoyed Sale’s art style, his use of colors and inks in this book make it feel like it’s a comic from the era it was set in. Well, at least visually. The narrative style by Loeb feels modern, even if the setting isn’t. But it all comes together quite nicely and this was a stupendous read.

The central focus of the story looks at the relationship between Cap and Bucky. Unlike the films, Bucky was the smaller, weak sidekick and not the badass that Cap looked up to. In this story, Bucky looked up to Cap and was always trying to please him like a little brother searching for approval. You really felt the emotional weight of their relationship and what they mean to one another.

The story is action packed and there are several high points. The biggest for me, though, is the final showdown that sees Cap try to save Paris and Bucky, who is held captive by Red Skull.

Hands down, this is solid work from Loeb and Sale and one of my favorite Captain America stories ever put to paper.

Rating: 9.25/10
Pairs well with: The other color themed books that Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale did for Marvel.

Comic Review: Daredevil: Yellow

Published: June 15th, 2011
Written by: Jeph Loeb
Art by: Tim Sale

Marvel Comics, 137 Pages

Review:

I wasn’t super keen on Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale’s take on the Hulk, which I read before this. However, I was really impressed with this story, as it seemed much closer to what made me love this pair and that’s the Batman story The Long Halloween.

This just felt right, looked right and hit all the notes perfectly.

First off, I love that this takes Daredevil back to his early era with the yellow suit. It works really well with this story and it made for a beautiful use of colors throughout the book.

The narrative is told in the form of Daredevil writing a series of letters to the deceased Karen Page. Each issue of the six that make up this arc are fairly self-contained, even though they are all sewn together with a common thread.

In some ways, this goes through a summarized retelling of Daredevil’s early years. In that regard, this reminds me of the fantastic X-Men: Grand Design comics.

We also get all sorts of cameos in this, as it is a story told through flashback and recollection. We get to see Daredevil meet the Fantastic Four, as well as his first meetings with The Owl, the Purple Man and Electro. Plus, it is refreshing reading a Daredevil comic that isn’t centered around the ongoing war for Hell’s Kitchen between Matt Murdock and Wilson Fisk.

If you really loved The Long Halloween, then this is definitely something that you need to check out. This is also, I would assume, very much the type of story and style that Marvel wanted out of Loeb and Sale when they brought them on to do four projects: this, Hulk: Gray, Spider-Man: Blue and Captain America: White.

Rating: 9.5/10
Pairs well with: The other color themed books that Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale did for Marvel.

Comic Review: Hulk: Gray

Published: June 15th, 2011
Written by: Jeph Loeb
Art by: Tim Sale

Marvel Comics, 137 Pages

Review:

Being a big fan of Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale’s work at DC Comics, especially on their iconic Batman stuff, I was pretty enthused about checking out their similar work for Marvel.

This is the first of their four color themed stories I read. The other three are Spider-Man: Blue, Captain America: White and Daredevil: Yellow. I’m not sure if the others also exist as re-imaginings of origin stories but I plan to read through them all shortly.

But that’s what Hulk: Gray is. It’s a Hulk origin story as told from the point-of-view of Bruce Banner to a friend, sitting in as a sort of therapist.

I’ve never been a huge Hulk fan but I think any fan of comics knows his origin story well. I really didn’t need to read another version of it just as I don’t need to ever read or see another version of Batman’s origin.

Still, I did enjoy this take on it.

But what stood out the most about this was the art by Tim Sale. Sale has a unique retro pulp type of flair with his art style and it jumps off of the page. The use of color (and lack thereof) was damn good. As simple as some of Sale’s art can be, he has a real talent for conveying emotion and I have always loved how he draws faces. He uses the Hulk’s eyes a lot in this and he says a lot with very little.

I also like that a classic version of the Iron Man armor shows up to do battle. It is a throwback to the earliest days of Marvel and seeing these two characters throw down in Sale’s art style was a real treat.

But in all honesty, this was pretty dry and it just didn’t hit the mark for me like it should have. It certainly isn’t an iconic body of work like The Long Halloween, which is still Loeb and Sale’s magnum opus, as far as I’m concerned.

However, this was still worth indulging in and it was a fairly quick read.

Rating: 6.5/10
Pairs well with: The other color themed books that Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale did for Marvel.

Comic Review: Batman: The Long Halloween

Published: 1996-1997
Written by: Jeph Loeb
Art by: Tim Sale

DC Comics, 384 Pages

Review:

This is considered to be one of the best Batman stories ever put to paper. It is certainly one of my favorites of all-time. It is followed up by Dark Victory and Haunted Knight and form a pretty cool trilogy as a whole, even if the third part is a collection of multiple stories and not a big epic like the first two parts. Also, Catwoman: When In Rome is made by the same team and takes place concurrently to these stories.

The Long Halloween is a good departure from the standard Batman stories. It is very heavy on the noir and less so on gadgetry and the more sci-fi elements. It reads like an old school classic Batman tale but is much more modern in its approach, in that it isn’t hokey and comes off really dark and serious.

The story focuses on a serial killer the press has labeled “Holiday”. The killer always strikes on a holiday and seems to be targeting high ranking family members in the Falcone crime family and their associates.

This is also an origin story for Two-Face. Even though it is a tale that has been told before, nothing really carries the weight that his origin does here.

Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale combined and made one hell of a team. This was originally published over thirteen issues from 1996 to 1997 and was released as a graphic novel in 1998. The writing is great, the art is even better. This truly is a quintessential Batman story. It’s as perfect as a Batman story can get and it even sprinkles in some of the better known villains, even though they aren’t the primary focus of the story. Seeing Scarecrow and Mad Hatter team together is pretty fun.

The Long Halloween is something that true Batman fans should have already read and should certainly own. There are very few Batman stories this good. It puts a lot of emphasis on the crime families and it has since gone on to spawn a lot of other Batman related projects like the Christopher Nolan Dark Knight trilogy of films and the Fox television show Gotham.

Rating: 9.5/10
Pairs well with: The other Loeb/Sale Batman collaborations: Dark Victory, Haunted Knight and Catwoman: When In Rome.