Review: Dark Horse Presents #22

Today, we see the next of Dark Horse Presents, issue #22 (you can read my review of issue #21 here) which holds some new pieces as well as the sequels of many pieces seen in #21.  It has something for everyone, from alternate history to superheroes to an interview with Shaolin Cowboy creator Geof Darrow. And, I mean, come on.  The cover has a guy riding the biggest turtle I’ve ever seen.  If that’s not worth a gander, what is?  (Turtle after the jump)

All hail the mighty tortoise!

GIANT TORTOISE, HO!  Yeah, between writing the intro and pulling the picture into the article I realized it was a tortoise technically.  If you want to learn how to tell the difference between turtles and tortoises, read the rest of the paragraph.  If I’m wasting your time, and you just want to get to the comic review, jump to the next paragraph instead.  Tortoises have big round shells, where as turtles’ shells are flatter.  Tortoises also have much more obvious knees.  Now you know.  Anyways, COMICS!

George Armstrong Custer: The Middle Years, by Howard Chaykin, is an alternate history story which proposes what might have happened if General Custer has won the Battle of Little Bighorn.  The story is written from the perspective of his wife Elizabeth and covers his travels and subsequent political career.  It’s a good length for such a story and holds a good pace.  I’m not a history person, and I probably couldn’t read a whole series just about Custer, BUT if Chaykin did a series of alternate histories with different historical figures, I would certainly read it.

Chapter 5 of Alabaster Boxcar Tales continues from the end of chapter 4, found in the previous Dark Horse Presents issue.  Dancy Flammarion is left to ponder the significance of her choices in the previous chapter and is approached by the witch intending to drive her even further into conflict.  This chapter concludes this story arc, but, in a narrative homage worthy of Scheherazade herself, the author teases that there might be more to come.

Part 3 of The Victories: Babalon Falling continues the story where it left off with much of the team trying desperately to stop the wave of destruction started by the Jackel, as one of their own is left to fight him one-on-one.  This is the end of the three part series BUT it promises a new story beginning in May, and it acts as just enough of a teaser that my interest is certainly piqued.

Chapter 3 of Journeyman answers almost none of my questions and confusions from the first two chapters, but adds so many more.  I’m fairly sure Geoffrey Thorne is playing out the suspense, and I’m totally on the edge of my seat to learn more about this mysterious “Journeyman” figure, but seeing as very little has been explained in the first three chapters I’m a little worried about the pacing.  If this were a novel or a television series or practically any other narrative medium, the suspense would work. But I’m worried that if Thorne doesn’t start explaining some things to his readers soon the suspense won’t be able to tide them over for very long.

Part 2 of Arcade Boy is another continuation from the previous Dark Horse Presents.  Alex Raje meets Hiroshi and agrees to become the Daniel Russo to his Mr. Miyagi, but of video games instead of Karate.  We meet the mysterious criminal “Game Master” and learn about the equally sinister Vega Campuses.  I said it in my last Dark Horse Presents review, but I’ll say it again: I’m loving this series already.

There is a four page interview in the middle of the comic with Geof Darrow, best known for The Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot and Hard Boiled.  The interview is what you’d expect of an interview with any well known industry figure: where he started, how he got into the business, people he worked with and projects he’s worked on.  If you’re interested, I won’t try to summarize for you: enjoy it for yourself.

Villainman is a new piece by Patrick Alexander in which a superpowered individual named Villainman either does a great job mutilating innocent people or a terrible job helping them with their problems.  One or the other.  It’s a little hard to tell.  It reads very much like a silly comic strip and breaks the fourth wall as the narrator tries to explain to the Villainman what he’s doing wrong.  It’s cute, but I’m not especially looking forward to any more from this series.

Part 2 of Tiger Lung takes us deeper into the same cave the titular character entered in the last Dark Horse Presents.  We learn more about the legend which leads him to this perilous spelunking adventure we find him on.  Personally, I still think he’s going to tumble into a new time or place, but we shall see.  Time traveling.  I think cavemen knew how.

Clark Colins, by Kel McDonald, is dumb.  It is a … I hesitate to call it a mystery, because it’s obvious and boring.  It was like the mystery in an episode of Dora the Explorer or Blues Clues.  I am generally positive about these brief comics, but I just felt that this one was a waste of my time.  Basically the theme is “History majors don’t like math” and “teenagers are suckers for a pretty face”, and there isn’t much left to tell about this story.

Villain House is back and centers around an unnamed young lady who is on a date with a guy she met on the internet.  It has the same tongue in cheek tone that the first story had back in Dark Horse Presents 21, making puns on classic heroes like Dr. Gloom, the Bulk and Steel Man.  It was fun, amusing, and everything I loved about the last one.  Still one of my favorites.  I’m glad to see that they kept continuity by mentioning the villain “the squid”, but not making him a main character again.

Lastly, we have Fish Police by Steve Moncuse, a story told entirely by the art.  Fish people, a jaunty squid companion, dinosaur-esque creatures, aliens.  It’s a little bit of everything.  It reminds me of a cartoon short, like those that Pixar has been reviving for years: a complete story with a simple plot, simple characters and a whimsical tone.  Much like Villainman, it strikes me as more of a long comic strip than a comic book comic, but it was still all together enjoyable.

Dark Horse Presents #22 doesn’t excite me as much as Dark Horse Presents #21 (though who can really compete with a Neil Gaiman philosophical poem). It has a number of solid works, and a couple duds.  For $7.99, I would say to pick it up IF you have read the continuing series and like them, but if you weren’t a fan before, the new pieces just don’t have eight bucks worth of comic-iness.

Matthew Bryant, aka Baker Street Holmes, is a writer and editor for the Red Shirt Crew.  He loves turtles, whimsy and magic, though not necessarily in that order.  You can follow him on Twitter at @BStreetHolmes or e-mail him at HMCrazySS@gmail.com.

Review: Dark Horse Presents #21

Dark Horse Presents is an anthology of comics, both one shots and new/young Dark Horse series.  I love comics, but hate having to start a series in the middle, so I really enjoyed this collection.  A few of the pieces are a part of existing series, ones started in previous editions of Dark Horse Presents, while others are brand new.  What follows is a brief overview of each.  Who knows, maybe you’ll find a new favorite.

Dark Horse Present #21 has 11 different stories covering everything from superheroes to folk rock philosophy.  Yeah, that’s right.  Folk.  Rock.  Philosophy.  Oh, yeah, and some guy named Neil Gaiman offers up some poetry.

Chapter 4 of Alabaster Boxcar Tales is based on Alabaster by Caitlin Kiernan. This series follows Dancy Flammarion, a young albino girl haunted by a spirit and driven to kill dangerous monsters.  It has a rather morbid, biblical tone to it, with the narrative frequently quoting scripture.  Fear not, those of you who prefer your comic stay off the soapbox; the lines of bible verse are used, quite effectively, to express the uncertainty that Dancy feels in a world in which she is very much alone.

Part 2 of The Victories: Babalon Falling is the second of what I understand will be a three part series by Michael Avon Oeming, co-creator of Powers.  This comic was a little confusing at first because it jumps back and forth between two seemingly unrelated stories and doesn’t make a connection, at least not in this comic.  I took a look back at part 1, and it reconciles the two stories.  Spoiler from part 1 (highlight the blank space): The flashbacks are from Jackal’s childhood attempting to explain the source of his insanity.This makes the whole story make a lot more sense.  The story seems to have a lot of the psychological and philosophical undertones in common to Batman and his villains, but it’s a classic dark hero trope executed well, so I think it’s great.

Chapter 2 of Journeyman by Geoffrey Thorne follows Dr. Haley Shore, a young genius who has been employed to open a box of unknown nature.  The chapter opens with her having narrowly escaped a feral, wolf-like beast called a frillogan and meeting a strange man “Journeyman, J. McDuffie Swift, Esq.”  He’s a charm about him, and a wonderful accent, and very unusual wardrobe.  But there’s something odd about him.  I think it’s definitely a series worth keeping an eye on.

“The Day the Saucers Came” by Neil Gaiman, supported with art by Paul Chadwick, is a beautiful poem which speaks with Gaiman’s usual gifted prose about the our own self-obsession and lack of realistic prioritization.  It’s a short poem and I really think it’s worth the read, so I will leave it at that.

“Cat’s in the Cradle” is by Shaun Manning and is a one page, truly insightful look at the song of the same name by Harry Chaplin and at the true significance of it’s lyrics.  I think Manning has really looked at it from a very different perspective, one that is much more uplifting than the most obvious interpretation.  The scratchy, sketchy style of Andrew Drilon‘s art goes almost eerily with the work in a way that is absolute brilliance.

Chapter 1 of Arcade Boy is just the beginning, but I’m pretty sure I’m already hooked.  Written by Denis Medri, the story follows an arcade savant, Hiroshi Noto, and a child (his son?), Alex Raje, in scenes spanning from 1985 to 2025, where it seems the main plot will take place.  I’m going to make two predictions here, not spoilers because I’m just guessing:  Alex will learn to fight crime using virtual reality gear developed by Noto and the main theme will be either big game companies versus indie games OR classic games versus modern gaming.  I’m totally getting a Feedback vibe on it, and lovin’ it.

Chapter 3 of Station to Station is a bit of a shift from the other works in this anthology which have more of a superhero or fantasy (or philosophical) theme to an action hero/scifi feel.  It’s by Corinna Bechko and Gabriel Hardman and has just about everything: giant amorphous beasts, dinosaurs (that people are RIDING!), explosions, ray guns, et cetera as a result of collapsing bounds between realities.  This is the conclusion (or is it?) of a very action filled story.  If you’re willing to go back to read the first two chapters, it’s definitely worth the read.

Chapter 1 of Tiger Lung by Simon Roy and Jason Wordie shows the beginning of what I think is shaping up to be an interesting adventure.  In 30,000 B.C.E., Tiger Lung enters a cave a right of passage with his tribe, but will he come out again?  And if he does, will he emerge in the same place or even the same time as when he left?  We’ll only know when we see Chapter 2, but I look forward to finding out.

Chapter 3 of X by Duane Swierczynski follows the titular character breaking into the safe room of a criminal kingpin.  With a crowbar.  Not a crowbar and bunch of other stuff.  Just a crowbar.  This guy is a badass.  But he might be in more trouble than he thought.  This comic is grim and gory and very much a classic iron age story of a half-psychotic antihero out for vengeance.  I have to say I loved the comic, but Swierczynski is one twisted dude.

Chapter 1 of Villain House was hilarious.  It begins at a medium security prison for “mediocre, midlevel mooks” where Shannon Wheeler begins a tale of two criminals, and long time associates, the Squid and Pachyderm.  They escape and antics ensue.  It’s the most cartoony of the comics presented in this anthology, but in a refreshing sort of way.  I’m not sure if I want the story to continue to follow the Squid and Pachyderm, or if I’d rather see what other semi-effective heroes Wheeler has up his sleeve, but I’m really looking forward to more from this series.

And lastly, chapter 18 of Finder: Third World by Carla Speed McNeil is a little too far in for me to go back and find all the background since McNeil has been writing the Finder series for seventeen issues.  The story takes place in a futuristic, transhumanist setting and follows a courier, Jaeger Ayers.  Now, if you’re thinking, “Wait a second, I’ve played Skyrim! He’s a mailman! Why do I want to read about a mailman?” then you need to calm down.  In a world were the country side is wide open and not everything that walks the planet is terrestrial being a courier is harder than you might think. In this issue, his employers have found out that he has a knack for moving about undetected. But will he give them his secrets, if it means his freedom?

All in all, I think the Dark Horse Presents series is a great collection for those interested in a wide variety of stories who want to get into a story before it becomes too deep to navigate.  For $7.99, this collection of 11 comics is a hundred kinds of worth it.  Honestly, I’d pay eight bucks for Neil Gaiman’s “The Day the Saucers Came”, “Cat’s in the Cradle”, Arcade Boy and Villain House alone.  Can you guess what my favorites were?

Matthew Bryant, aka Baker Street Holmes, is a writer and editor for the Red Shirt Crew.  He loves comics, especially Garfield, the X-Men, Batman and Serenity.  You can follow him on Twitter at @BStreetHolmes or e-mail him at HMCrazySS@gmail.com.