Comics Fondle

I discovered Bruce Jones’s 1980s works (Somerset Holmes, Silverheels, some others) just before he quit Marvel to go to DC. I still got to read his Hulk, which provided occasionally mediocre, but mostly fantastic (as evidenced in the latest film adaptation, where the Jones details are some of the best), but his DC work has been crap.

After that excellent Legends of the Dark Knight story (Darker Than Death, #207-211), the majority of his DC work has been awful. Nightwing, OMAC, Vigilante. All are astoundingly bad. Jones’s dialogue is fast and brief and terrible. His characters speak in rhetorical questions. Even his Vertigo Deadman, full of ideas and with John Watkiss’s lovely art, is plagued with those dialogue problems. It’s like a part of his brain has shut off (Jones so wonderfully turned an issue of Hulk into a conversation about poetry), as exclusive contracts at the Big Two tend to afflict.

Recently, he took over for (back to Marvel?) Greg Rucka on Checkmate and started up The War That Time Forgot, which can’t be inspired by the sales the DC Showcase of the same name, can it?

Checkmate opens in Iraq, or wherever people in the DC Universe are killed by Muslims who love American guns live. It’s a cinematic opening, but I’ve got a good memory for Robocop and I’ve actually seen Universal Soldier recently, so it’s clear form the third page, with the line “Might be just what they’re looking for” what’s going on. That line also shows they problem with Jones’s writing, which I’m sure I’ve mentioned before. Jones seems to think omitting pronouns makes dialogue sound more natural. Maybe once or twice, or if Jones were going for a tonal dialogue (like Kubrick tries a little bit in The Shining), but in comic books? It’s painful and immature… and not a problem Jones always had.

As mysterious things happen in a Venezuelan jungle, the Checkmate doctors turn Robocop… sorry… “Sharp. Adam Sharp. Used to be good-looking” into a big bald monster. There’s some lousy backstory with the guy’s family–his widowed mother and his fiancée-to-be–starting at the funeral, of course. What’s so funny is how everyone–the mother, the Checkmate doctors–make a big deal about the girlfriend being a world religions major. Like world religions majors are secret agents in training. The line, “Your life’s work is studying religions,” is something I will hold near and dear. How inspirational.

This lovely scene (Manuel Garcia breaks the comic norm–at least these days–by making Sharp’s mother real ugly) is followed by another mysterious occurrence. This time in Antarctica, where the natives are ice fishing. Apparently, in the DC Universe, there are Inuit-like folks in Antarctica too. And polar bears hanging with the penguins (call Gary Larson).

Then there’s a medical scene where something goes wrong, but it’s impossible to tell what. Monster Sharp’s spinal cord basically just steams after having something called “Number 2″ spilled on it. It’s partially Garcia’s fault, partially not… the issue doesn’t leave much room, in its two page scenes, for him to visually explain much.

But the next scene, when it’s revealed Sharp now emulates anything he fights (an unexpected side effect as Checkmate was trying to turn him into a super soldier… sorry, all-weather soldier). There’s a gratuitous bear killing scene, in which Sharp turns into a were-bear. It’s as dumb as it sounds and even with Garcia’s art, it just looks silly.

The issue ends with a giant monster (apparently the other two mysterious occurrences were monsters too) attacking Beijing, Sharp’s girlfriend having a sexy dream about him and realizing he’s alive, and Checkmate revealing Sharp under his “superhero” name, Chimera. Chimera also appears, in the full light on the last page, to have a pug nose.

The War That Time Forgot also appears to have giant monsters in it, at least if the cover is any indication, but they’re dinosaurs… not giant horned guys.

The series seems to be a throwback to the pre-Didio days of DC, when the company regularly published limited series unconnected to the major, company-wide story lines. This one reminds me of Guns of the Dragon, Tim Truman’s limited featuring a bunch of DC’s forgotten characters (Enemy Ace, Bat Lash) having high adventure. Maybe it’s because Enemy Ace shows up in War That Time Forgot.

But this series is apparently rather false advertising. Though the front cover suggests a World War I or II cast of characters, there’s a guy fighting in Vietnam and a future lady with a space ship. It appears the island draws cast members of all eras, just so long as they’re fighting in a war. Technically, it’s a cute play on the title, but, practically, I go into something with “That Time Forgot” in the title and I’m thinking Doug McClure. And this series does have certain elements of Edgar Rice Burroughs to it, particularly the jungle fortress.

Jones’s dialogue is as poor as ever, though it could just be the terrible way he starts the issue. He opens with a dogfight and proceeds to have the pilot explain, in dialogue, everything he’s thinking and doing (since, even if Al Barrionuevo zoomed in on the cockpit controls, the reader wouldn’t know what he was doing). All I could think was how thought balloons would make the whole thing serviceable, instead of stupid. There’s an acknowledgement of artifice to comic book reading… thought balloons are far more “realistic” than exposition given by a guy talking to himself.

Once the pilot gets to the island–I can’t remember his name and refuse to look it up, because he’s nothing more than one of Jones’s white guy leads, just like Checkmate–he has an encounter with Tomahawk. This encounter gets really stupid as soon as the Vietnam guy shows up, because Tomahawk and his sidekick’s treatment of white guy suggest they’ve never seen a future man before… then Jones immediately reveals they know exactly what’s going on with the island. Apparently, everyone does, so it isn’t particularly interesting.

There’s a fight scene with a rhinoceros, the revelation everyone on the island magically speaks English upon arrival, the trip to the fort and the appearance of Enemy Ace. It was around then I was really wishing for some Tim Truman, both in writing and art. The leader doesn’t like white guy. White guy notices there’s an ominous volcano (shades of Burroughs to come?). There’s an attack on the fort, then a fight with a T-Rex, then the alien lady shows up. It’s a barrel of stupid monkeys, apparently picked for their disuse in any other DC publication.

Barrionuevo’s art is slick–a little too slick for a DC book, it’s strange how their third tier titles used to be better illustrated… and what War needs is a good artist to sell the book, since the concept is idiotic. I mean, there’s which is going to lead to some dumb(er) issues down the line. The book’s got that lovely Neal Adams cover and that cover implies a class to the comic the content doesn’t provide. Jones’s plotting reminds me of a Saturday morning cartoon instead of a comic book. It’s shocking how clearly disinterested he is in telling this story.

After reading Checkmate, I figured War That Time Forgot had to be better.

I was wrong.

I wish I’d thought just to call the protagonist in the first one white guy too, but I didn’t realize Jones would be so lazy with books coming out concurrently. Hopefully it’ll get worse (Checkmate will unintentionally continue in War That Time Forgot and vice versa).

Bemoaning the state of the mainstream comic doesn’t seem like a fun idea (or a useful one) but I would like to end this post on a high note.

It’d just be way too hard.

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