By Rob Bricken in
Comics, Daily Lists
Wednesday, Sep. 30 2009 @ 8:00AM
 |
Thirteen weeks ago, DC began a bold new experiment: Wednesday Comics. If American comics aren't your domain of nerd-dom, here's the deal -- in order to recapture some of the glory of the old serialized newspaper comic strips (specifically, when they were huge and legible), DC released a a 12-issue weekly series which contained 156 separate strips, each one getting one full page in each issue. Obviously, Wednesday Comics contained Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman stories, but also lesser known characters like Metamorpho and the Metal Men. Wednesday Comics ended last week, and shockingly, Rob actually read all of them. So he thought he's do something a little special -- make a Daily List that was also a review of the project. Because Rob is still pretty much a moron regarding U.S. comics, he called in The ISS's Matt Wilson for the heavy lifting. Here now are the best and worst stories of DC's Wednesday Comics, and what we thought of the project over all.
THE MERELY OKAY:
• The Demon and Catwoman
This strip was basically one long fight between the team of Demon/Catwoman and the Arthurian sorceress Morgaine Le Fay. There's some cool action and the flirty relationship between Selina Kyle and Jason Blood is fun, but Walt Simonson goes to the well one too many times by trying to pull off a plot twist that involves someone turning into something else. Seriously: Catwoman turns into a cat creature, Morgaine goes from old to young back to old and then turns into bees, she takes over Selina's body twice, and the Demon turns back into Jason Blood at an inopportune time. By the fourth or fifth time, all that metamorphosis just wasn't all that interesting anymore. The biggest twist was in the last strip, where Jason Blood and Catwoman kept their normal bodies intact. Frankly, the story sounds better summarized here than it ended up being, but it was certainly worth a read.
• Sgt. Rock and Easy Co.
Here's the plot of this strip, as Matt understood it: Sgt. Rock, who has been kidnapped by Nazis, meets a long-lost relative (who, incidentally, dies) while Easy Company spends a really long time trying to find him and take a break to meet some poor people. For a war comic, there is surprisingly little battle. The lone grenade, in fact, turns out to be a potato. There's some shooting, but it is pretty much contained in two of the twelve strips. It's saved from being bad since the art is by legendary Sgt. Rock artist Joe Kubert saves it from being bad, but it could've been a lot better.
• Batman
Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso did amazing work on 100 Bullets, but their work here seemed to try too hard to smush the two together and throw Batman directly into the hard-boiled noir world of their Vertigo title. Don't get us wrong, it's a pretty well-done noir story, but like other noir heroes, Batman's really just an unwitting participant in a drama that probably would have played out pretty similarly without him even getting involved. Which would be fine if he was anybody but fucking Batman, the world's greatest detective.
• Metamorpho
With excellent art by Madman's Mike Allred, Neil Gaiman's Metamopho story was really pretty decent, but surprisingly thin. Man, was there a lot of filler in there. All the stuff with Metamorpho fans of America was cute, but was it really necessary to put re-do it like three or four times to fill 12 pages? And two strips that played off a running-through-the-periodic-table concept? Again, it's not bad, but we're confident that we could and should expect more out of Gaiman, Admittedly, though, the gag that caps off the last strip almost makes up for all of it.
• Deadman
Dave Bullock's Deadman strip didn't have anything majorly wrong with it, but it didn't have anything terribly right with it, either, particularly given that the murder plot from the first strip gets explained away with a line in the last one and that Deadman, as it turns out, unwittingly kinda does more harm than good in the whole thing. Still, the parts set in a hell-like demon prison, which is where most of the strips take place, are reasonably action-packed and all have neat cliffhangers. Plus, the plot twist in the next-to-last chapter makes for a nice payoff -- it's just not enough to hang with the best.
THE WORST:
• Green Lantern
You know what isn't the tiniest bit interesting? Some guy Hal Jordan, the Green Lantern, knew and competed with during astronaut training. Or what people in a bar have to say about him. What anyone would be more interested in is Green Lantern fighting alien monsters in space. Which is why it's so unfortunate that this strip was 70% some old guy Green Lantern used to know, and 30% Green Lantern fighting alien monsters in space.
• Teen Titans
There could have been a worthwhile story tucked in these strips, with Deathstroke the Terminator impersonating lame-o villain Trident and fooling the Titans into thinking one of their crappiest villains just suddenly up and became capable. But writer Eddie Berganza decided to cloud that story in entirely unnecessary exposition -- seriously, there's like twice the number of panels there needed to be per installment -- and almost every single one of those panels contained trite moralizing about the importance of teamwork. Seriously, in case you didn't read the strip, teamwork is important, guys. Remember that!
• Superman
When the first page of Superman ran on the front page of Wednesday Comics' first installment, it looked to be an harbringer of awesomeness. Aliens crash-land, and superman beats the heck out of 'em -- beautifully painted by Lee Bermejo. Then, the next issue was Superman feeling bad about beating up the aliens. Then another week of Superman feeling bad. Then four more -- even Batman told him to take some "super-prozac" (which is terrible writing, but still proves our point). Admittedly, the plot revolves around some alien guys attacked Superman by getting inside his head and making him a navel-gazing, self-doubting loner who doesn't know his place in the world anymore. But who the hell wants to see that? The end result is still beautiful art of Supes gazing at his navel, doubting himself, doubting his place in the world and totally out of character for two full thirds of Wednesday Comics' run. Why oh why, DC, would you think that readers would want to see Superman, your flagship character, whine for eight weeks?
• Wonder Woman
While WC's Superman story was needlessly dull, at least it was readable. Neither Matt nor Rob, after reading the entire story, have the faintest clue what it was about. Maybe it's awesome, maybe it sucks, but either way, it is impenetrable. Writer/artist Ben Caldwell clearly had no idea how to do a one-page serialized strip, and forced 20-40 panels into almost every page, each with dialogue. The art -- what little you could see of it -- was nice, if very cartoony for Wonder Woman, but it didn't make a character who may or may not be Wonder Woman talking to two fairies for like 200 panels any less baffling.
The best is yet to come. Because it's on the next page.
1 | 2
23 comments
Comments
Heimdall said:
A very good summation.
It bears mentioning, though, that besides being a surprisingly good story from DiDio, Metal Men had absolutely gorgeous art. Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez + Kevin Nowlan = teh awesome.
I did notice that about halfway through there seemed to be an attempt to make Wonder Woman at least slightly more readable, but by then it was too late.
MooseBerry said:
I love the format of these comics! I only started picking them up a month ago, so it's a shame that they've already ended...
googum said:
Yeah, I've been getting my comics once a month, which kinda takes the edge off a weekly strip...
Der Wafflemeister said:
Glad to see you liked The Flash effort. Karl Kerschl writes and draws one of my favourite webcomics, [The Abominable Charles Christopher](http://www.abominable.cc/), and I reckon he did a bang-up job with his contribution to the Wednesday Comics.
Lincolparadox said:
I don't usually like Paul Pope, but his Strange Adventures story was one of the three that I looked forward to each Wednesday. I think you hit the nail on the head with your assessments of Supergirl, the Flash and Kamandi. The was no back-tracking, just 12 pages of continuous, linear story (well, kind of linear for The Flash). The Superman and Wonder Woman stories could have been told in 3-4 pages. Even the Batman story, which I liked, could have been a lot shorter.
I could see DC doing this again. Maybe to showcase talent, or announce/wrap up a metaplot, but 12 weeks of Wednesday comics next year wold be cool.
Does anone know if this format was profitable?
demoncat said:
have to admit of all the stories wonder woman was really bad the story made no sense. but loved the metal men , and super girl stories. and hope dc tries something like Wednesday comics but laarn's from the mistakes they made with this series.
ArtF said:
Hey! If whining is good enough for Spidey in his daily newspaper strip, it's good enough for Supes!
'Nuff said!
Bill said:
I gave up on the Wonder Woman and Teen Titans stories after about the fourth week. Wonder Woman, in particular, was completely impenetrable to me- what does it say about the writing when it was easier to follow the Flash's multiple time-line story than it was the more linear WW story?
Loved Kamandi and Supergirl the most.
'Stater Nuts said:
I LVOED Kamandi.
But, I thought Wonder Woman was pretty good. After week 5, they really eased up on all the panels and it became easier to read.
And, yeah, Superman and Teen Titans really sucked compared to everything else.
dacalicious said:
"Didio took the rains"? English, she is not your first language?
Steve Harrison said:
I have been out of the current comic world for so long I forgot this was even happening, and seeing the list of titles makes me a little sad I wasn't getting it, but then my horrible cynical side kicks in.
I mean, seriously, what an odd assortment to throw out there, huh? It almost seems more like something done to re-affirm copyrights of dusty titles doesn't it? And maybe even (SUPER CYNIC!) flash some concepts at Hollywood to say "hey, HEY! wouldn't THIS (Character/concept/just the damn title) make a cool movie! HUH! Come ON!"...of course as is all things in the Media Empires it's all moot now that the whole DC Entertainment/Warner FINALLY taking an active hand in using their properties news.
edgreen86 said:
I should point out that one of the gimmicks of the Metal Men in their original run, was that at the end of each issue they were almost *always* destroyed. To be rebuilt/renewed by Dr. Magnus in the beginning of the next issue.
Not that I'm a MM geek or anything.
Black Snow said:
Great review. Thank you for confirming my belief that I shouldn't buy these comics. I only dabble in DC comics so to know that none of the popular, interesting characters had good stories just confirms that I was correct in saving that $64.
Lincoln Paradox said:
Black Snow--
Comic books are an investment. If you take care of them, someday you might be able to sell off your collection for cover price +/- 75%. Or, you can have your kid go through your older comic boxes and bring up your first issue of Omaha the Cat Dancer or Cherry Poptart and ask "Dad, what the fuck?"
Don't you see? Money well spent.
Plus all 12 issues would have only cost you $47.88. $50 with tax.
Geoff said:
"I only dabble in DC comics so to know that none of the popular, interesting characters "
Just because a character's "popular" doesn't make them interesting (although that's mainly true of Marvel's popular characters than DC's, EG Gambit, Wolverine, Venom). People like you are the reason great books like Blue Beetle and Manhunter get cancelled.
But, yeah, someone really should learn that Azz can write 100 Bullets and almost nothing else. Even that Joker GN was more carried by the art than whatever the hell he was trying to write. His actual Batman arc wasn't bad, but the Superman story with Lee was godawful and this was pretty close.
John said:
Can I ask if these articles are proof-read before getting posted? The number of grammar errors made it almost unreadable! I expect a higher quality from this site than these errors:
"It's saved from being bad since the art is by legendary Sgt. Rock artist Joe Kubert saves it from being bad"
Did the author mean to repeat the phrase "saved from being bad"?
"What anyone would be more interested in is Green Lantern fighting alien monsters in space."
I know the write is trying to be "hip" be re-arranging the sentence structure, but this comes across as awkward.
"Didio took the rains on the '60s-tastic Metal Men story"
The word is "REINS", not "rains", as in "a horse's rein".
http://homepage.smc.edu/quizzes/cheney_joyce/rainreignrein.html
Baltimoron said:
Steve:
DC doesn't "flash" characters at Hollywood for optioning bids. Hollywood already owns every DC character lock, stock, and barrel.
The dearth of DC movies compared to Marvel flicks is the result of franchise mismanagement on the part of Time-Warner.
Skeeter said:
Aw dang, edgreen86 already pointed out that the Metal Men pretty much always "die" at the end of each story...
SuperDevil said:
I can give Wonder Woman a pass, because I can appriciate what they were trying to do. Ditto the Batman story.
But, Superman was just dull. That beautiful artwork was just wasted on a lame story. There are better ways to explore Superman's "alienation" from society then this.
I did like Metamorpho though.
GQ said:
I gave up on this series after about issue 7. I loved the idea of it, LOVED the format but the content just wasn't worth the money.
It was Kamandi that really grabbed me and made the whole concept worthwhile. If only the rest of the stories were half as good as it was.
You are right- Kamandi, Strange Adventures and Supergirl were the bestr. The art on Supergirl was just fantastic and I adored the cute little expressions on Streaky and Krypto.
I felt that some of the writers thought it was sufficient to write a 12 page story and send one page for printing every week. It wasn't. What they should have been doing is giving a decent chapter (or a full story) in each page. I read that Superman story and was gob-smacked at how poor it was. This should have been the stand-out, look-at-how-amazing-comics-can-be story. It should have contained every Superman-cliché story element possible and it should have been ten metric tons of fun.
Instead, Super-moping.
Nice jobs, lads.
So over-all, I'd say it was worth doing but I'd be very reluctant to buy Wednesday Comics, Volume 2.
mrgnexus said:
I agree with most of the critiques -- EXCEPT for Metal Men. Garcia Lopez's art was (as usual) amazing, but Didio's story was utter shit: corny dialogue, non-existent plot -- everything about the script was terrible and contrived.
For me, Kamandi was a real winner. It took the concept and ran with it, defining the whole of Wednesday Comics.
If they do a Volume 2, I'd like to see strips rotated in and out a bit, some shorter pieces, and maybe some one-panel strips (Sugar & Spike, anyone?). On the whole, it was a nice experiment that, with a few tweaks, could be something pretty great.
Nater Gator said:
Are these all online? I thought USA Today was doing all of them. Help?
Lane said:
Lots of poor writing in an article critical of other writers (and artists.)
"It's saved from being bad since the art is by legendary Sgt. Rock artist Joe Kubert saves it from being bad."
Cmon man, get an editor!
