Comics Fondle

Score one for originality… Tales of the Unexpected #1 opens with a Sixth Sense “homage.” Or it rips it off… one or the other. It’s so lame I kept wondering if one could do “bullet-time” in a comic book, just for the full 1999 experience. Maybe get some Prince playing.

Why’s this comic called Tales of the Unexpected? The first issue ends informing we poor readers the next issue (and mysterious tale) will take place in the same building as the first tale, which kind of makes it Tales of the Unexpected in this One Building (so far, anyway).

Lapham’s narration is atrocious and his attempt to do cop-talk rings falser than an episode of “Cop Rock” (the singing parts), but Eric Battle’s art is nice. Good line detail, but he can still make the ridiculously-goateed Spectre look big and scary.

Oh, I love it–the second issue starts with ethnic slang. So cute. Misused fake contractions ( and las’ and an’). Maybe it’s supposed to be a bad ethnic comedy–kind of like the hub-cap scene in National Lampoon’s Vacation.

Wow, Jaws reference (notated, not an homage). Neat. The third issue starts stupid, but not as poorly written as the first two, maybe because–so far–the building hasn’t shown up yet to confine the issue’s action. Nope, there’s the stupid building again. Maybe Lapham just really liked Lady in the Water–that one all takes place at an apartment building, doesn’t it? Actually, the limited vision reminds me a little of John Ostrander’s Gotham Nights series, but I remember something happening in them. Lapham’s narration is a close third, so all of Tales of the Unexpected is semi-summary, except when it’s full summary. However, had it been in first (the Spectre’s alter ego narrating), it probably would have been mildly better, just because Lapham’s narration is essentially that generic Lapham narration he does (like the first issue or two of his otherwise good Batman story, City of Crime, a few years ago).

Holy crap. Lapham actually just used the “cutting to a scene as someone tells the punchline of an impossible joke.” So funny. It’s like Chekhov.

By the end of the third issue, it’s obvious no one sat down and thought this one out at all. The Spectre kills multiple people (in gruesome ways, with witnesses) every night. The second issue takes place “weeks” after the first, so there are probably around thirty unexplained, fantastic deaths–sixty if the third issue takes place a month after the second. I guess it’s idiotic in a special way, but it’s still idiotic.

“Do not preach to me, Dark Knight Detective!” This line is–presumably–written by David Lapham (excuse the passive voice). The storyteller behind Stray Bullets wrote that line. If a fifth grader wrote that line, he’d get an F.

On the other hand, Lapham’s characterization of Batman is good. In the fourth issue, just after I noticed how impossible the situation had become in any realistic sense, Lapham addressed it (ignoring the previous timeline), but I’m glad I wasn’t the only one.

If this comic book were good, there’d be two stories going on (on different layers)–first, the former police detective trying to detect while unable to investigate, to prove his avenue better than the Spectre’s vengeance; second, the effects of vengeance on the host. Lapham brings them both up at different times, but only to fill a page with word balloons.

Second holy crap–it’s Murder on the Orient Express. Wow. I’m stunned. So, so good. I mean, really… not at all a piece of unimaginable garbage on every level–except the Eric Battle artwork, which is nice–wow. Why do I keep reading it? Well, because I got these damn things for the (supposedly) lovely Dr. 13 backup and I wanted to get my money’s worth. And because the whole writing all the stupid things as I read them is kind of fun.

For instance, I find it hard to believe Gotham City is the murder capital of the world. Probably not even the United States, per capita. I mean, is Batman really doing so bad of a job it’s the murder capital of the world? Maybe someone should fire him or something.

I can’t remember if I wrote anything about the seventh issue, but maybe I didn’t because I thought I was wrong about the Orient Express thing (I wasn’t). Finishing up the series, which does nothing with those two storylines I mentioned before, I can truly say it’s an incontrovertible piece of crap. Except the art.

F

Technorati Tags: Comic Book, David Lapham, DC Comics, Eric Battle, Review, Tales of the Unexpected

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