Bill Mantlo

Cloak and Dagger: Lost and Found collects some early issues featuring the titular duo. The majority of the issues are from the early to mid-80s but they feel older; the writing style is incredibly stilted and expository. Each issue starts with an explanation of how the two teens came to be the vigilantes they currently are. While a brief introduction can be nice, these explanations start to feel ridiculous; by eight issues, the reader should at least be aware of who the main characters are. show more Instead, readers are given the origin story over and over again, nearly verbatim each time no matter how clunky it ends up sounding.

With names like Cloak and Dagger and a backstory involving chemical substances inducing super powers, it seems like the duo could easily be put into the plot of a stellar mystery or an intriguing scifi story; instead they are dropped into a rather mundane drug-running scenario dripping with an overly moralistic tone. A major supporting cast member is a priest and religious language pervades the text. Apparently either no one thought about or no one cared about the latent racism inherent in describing the white teen as "an angel of light" and the black teen as "a demon of darkness." In a similar vein, the book opens with the pair breaking up a ring of pimps exploiting under-aged girls; however, no one seems to see the irony in Dagger being an under-aged girl dressed in a skin-tight, upper torso revealing bodysuit who is constantly ogled at by grown men throughout the series, including by 'good guy' Peter Parker (who refers to Dagger as "a babe") and even by the priest. Meanwhile, Cloak and Dagger don't actually do a whole lot of good as superheroes, given that most of the crime they stop could easily be prevented by the police instead; more than once, they actively disrupt solid policework and cause more chaos.

The concept behind the characters (and their oft-repeated origin story) is rather interesting, but unfortunately the writing here fails spectacularly. Hopefully the recent TV series will generate renewed interest in the characters and they can have a decent reworking in comics. show less

I think I first encountered Moon Knight when he was with the West Coast Avengers. This was after his run as a solo character, first as a villain (or a tool of the villainous Committee in Werewolf By Night), then as a character who slowly built up enough of a following to rate his own book. Something about him spoke to me. At first he seemed like a Batman rip-off, but it soon became obvious that Marc Spector was his own man with his own motivations. The similarities between the Moon Knight show more and the Dark Knight were primarily cosmetic.

This Essentials volume collects the first adventures of the Moon Knight, we see him hired by the Committee to hunt down Jack Russell, his continued story as he takes down the next crime lord to cause him trouble, and his team-up with the Thing before he gets his own Marvel Preview story (high-quality, longer format, magazine-style book that was used as a testing ground for new characters, unique stories, and secondary characters that were being considered for bigger things). It rounds up with the first 10 issues of the first Moon Knight monthly series.

The Essentials collections are a great way to read some of the older issues of great Marvel comics. I highly recommend this one for fans of vigilante heroes, crime stories, or just really good storytelling in comics. show less

I don't review them on LibraryThing because they're not technically books, but I've been reading through DC's uncollected space-based superhero comics. I bought and read Invasion! because it essentially bridges the gap between The Omega Men (1983-86) and L.E.G.I.O.N. (1989-94). A number of the Omega Men are killed off to prove the situation is serious in that way I despise, while a couple of the characters who would star in L.E.G.I.O.N. are introduced.

The basic premise of Invasion! is that a show more number of alien races, led by the Dominators (primarily appearing in Legion of Super-Heroes) ally to invade the Earth. It's a neat idea, though as someone who just Omega Men, it was odd to see the Psions, the Citadel, and the Warlords of Okaara all on the same side; the Psions and the Citadel are devoted enemies, and Okaara is where most of the Omega Men trained to fight the Citadel! But it's actually realistic; these aren't races of "good" and "evil," they're just political groups whose interests usually conflict but happen to align in this particular instance.

Anyway, I bet this was really cool to read as it came out. Invasion! consists of three 80-page chapters, each of which ends with a game-changer that I'm sure played out in all the ongoings coming out in between. Collected here, though, it often feels superficial; there's no real point-of-view character except for some of the folks captured on the alien Starlag... and they're not in the main action for most of the story! You can see how this would have worked in monthly format though; the main series provides the scale-- exposition is very effectively provided by newspapers television news coverage-- while the ongoings show how these global events play out on a local scale.

Weirdly, though, even key events within the title are given short shrift. The change in allegiance of the Daxamites is a big deal, yet none of them ever display distinct personalities. As far as I can tell, none of them even have names! (Though L.E.G.I.O.N. '90 would establish one of them to be the father of future Legionnaire Lar Gand.)

The space heroes-- my whole reason for being here-- have surprisingly little to do. The Omega Men are ciphers, and don't really convince as the characters written by Roger Slifer and Todd Klein. The characters who would go on to star in L.E.G.I.O.N., on the other hand, contribute little and are easily forgotten; you could read L.E.G.I.O.N. '89 #1 without ever having read Invasion! easily. Oddly, the new characters who get the most setup are the Blasters... whose series lasted exactly one issue.

The hodgepodge of artists here doesn't help. Todd McFarlane was supposed to pencil the whole thing, but he disappears about halfway through, replaced at first by Keith Giffen and then by Bart Sears; meanwhile, an army of inkers goes to work. The art is for the most part undistinguished, sometimes confusing, sometimes very good. It could have been worse, and the big crossover kind of calls for a certain genericness of style, but I suspect that everyone involved has done better works elsewhere.

I was amused to discover the presence of old-school Justice League mascot Snapper Carr. I was even more amused to see him develop teleportation powers, as I'd only just read Final Crisis Companion, featuring a teleporting Snapper Carr. The DC universe, it connects in odd and unexpected ways sometimes.

DC Comics Space Heroes: « Previous in sequence | Next in sequence » show less

On the plus side, I enjoy a more intelligent Hulk, and its nice to see the guest stars. On the negative side, I've never been a fan of Sal Buscema's art and Bill Mantlo's scripting is so....juvenile? The dialogue is very clunky and comic booky and it drains the story arc of any power it should have.