Review: Free Country: A Tale of The Children’s Crusade

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Publisher: Vertigo (an imprint of DC Comics)

Creative Team: Neil Gaiman, Toby Litt, Alisa Kwitney, Jamie Delano, Chris Bachalo

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“I found this flier stuck to a fence, and I need a detective agency.” 

 Considering the excellent pedigree behind this book (mainly Neil Gaiman), I was incredibly excited to dig into this crossover comic, starring the children of many different Vertigo comics such as the Dead Boy Detectives and Tefe from Swamp Thing.

The basic premise behind the story is that children have been abducted and taken into somewhere named the Free Country (a part of Never Never Land), and it’s up to the Dead Boy Detectives (probably because they have the word detective in their name) to find them and bring them home.

Whilst the premise might sound interesting, unfortunately (as I seem to be saying in a lot of these reviews), it’s execution is sorely lacking. The story just isn’t that great. It’s poorly structured and as a result of this not much happens in order to propel the story forward. It’s as if the writers knew they had fragments of an interesting narrative but weren’t sure how to connect those fragments in order to create an interesting tale.

Contributing to this frustrating reading experience is the overwritten, expository dialogue crammed into text boxes. This makes it seem that there is no confidence in letting the artwork assist in conveying the plot (which is strange since Chris Bachalo’s contribution is very competent) and instead the creative team chose to assault the readers visual senses with far too many words which don’t actually seem that relevant to the plot. It also doesn’t help that nearly all of the dialogue wasn’t particularly interesting to read.

These problems result in a frustrating reading experience that becomes very difficult to recommend. I would instead direct anyone interested in anything recent by Neil Gaiman to the excellent The Sandman Overture which is about to publish its final issue.

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Grade: E

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Grading System: A (Essential Purchase), B (Recommended Purchase), C (Worth A Read), D (Poor), E (Avoid)

Review: Grayson Volume 1 – Agents of Spyral

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Publisher: DC

Creative Team: Tim Seeley, Tom King, Mikel Janin and Jeremy Cox

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“The downside of a solo act. No one around to see you do the cool stuff.” 

 During the events of Forever Evil (warning: spoilers), Nightwing was brutally beaten and unmasked as Dick Grayson by the Crime Syndicate on a televised broadcast to the world. A bomb is then wired to his heart supposedly ‘killing’ him. Batman decides to take advantage of Grayson’s legally deceased status and sends him to infiltrate a secret spy organisation called Spyral, in order to discover the identity of the enigmatic Mr. Minos.

Grayson is renamed Agent 37 and partnered with Helena Bertinelli (previously known as Huntress, now known as Matron). They are tasked with a different mission in each issue, resulting in an episodic feel to this opening arc. These assignments share a common goal: To track down what appears to be body parts known as paragon organs. These organs are implanted in certain targets and each assignment revolves around their retrieval. Frustratingly however, the purpose of these missions and the reason for the urgency of the retrieval of each new organ is never explained.

The nature of Spyral and the purpose of these retrieval missions is a continuous guessing game. It is disclosed that they are actively attempting to discover the true identities of superheroes (apparently Batman has gotten incredibly incompetent at keeping his identity a secret) but what they intend to do with this information is not divulged.

This is pretty much how the previous Nightwing comic ended.

Eventually, the moral code Grayson binds himself to begins to affect his ability to successfully complete his assignments. In particular his refusal to kill results in severe consequences. It’s a genuinely emotional moment as he realises his naivety has irrevocably changed lives for the worse, the opposite of his contributions as Nightwing.

One of the more noteworthy highlights is the return of Midnighter, a character originally intended to be a parody of Batman. Keeping a watchful eye over Spyral, he attempts to prevent them repossessing the paragon organs which results in a memorable fist fight between himself and Dick. This only accentuates the suspicions of the reader as to the motives of Grayson’s new employers.

A noticeable flaw, however, is the fourth and final issue. Rather than move the story forward and create anticipation for the succeeding volume, it halts any momentum the previous issues had built. Dick is chased shirtless by some college girls because, wait for it, they think he’s attractive. Whilst the lighter tone of this comic compared to the rest of the DC line up is appreciated, here it veers into silly territory, which is a bizarre tonal shift when compared with the rest of the story.

Grayson marks the writing debut of Tom King; formerly a C.I.A agent now turned writer. This expertise helps lend an authentic feel to the spy centric action and he writes the strongest two issues of this volume (issue 3 and Future’s End).

The art that accompanies the writing by Mikel Janin is outstanding. Not only can he draw expressive characters and beautiful scenery, he also very competently visually choreographs action scenes ranging from chases to unarmed combat. The layout of panels during throughout the comic are set up to complement the dialogue making them easy to follow. The colours by Jeremy Cox are vivid and bright, distinguishing its visual style from the rest of the DC lineup which usually goes for a dark and gritty colour pallet.

Agents of Spyral is successful in establishing a new and exciting direction for one the more popular Bat family characters. Hopefully by further peeling back the layers of the intriguing mysteries at its core, it will turn into one of DC’s best ongoing monthlies.

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Grade: B

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Grading System: A (Essential Purchase), B (Recommended Purchase), C (Worth A Read), D (Poor), E (Avoid)

Review: Arkham Manor Volume 1

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Publisher: DC

Creative Team: Gerry Duggan and Shawn Crystal

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“We’ll move the loonies to…Wayne Manor” 

The idea behind the narrative of Arkham Manor has potential. During the events of Batman Eternal Vol.2, Arkham Asylum was destroyed leaving Gotham City in dire need to relocate it. The mayor eventually decides Wayne Manor should be the new home of the city’s most criminally insane. Its concept should have delivered at the very least a competent comic book. Unfortunately, Arkham Manor commits the cardinal sin of the entertainment medium. It’s just plain boring.

To begin with I was never entirely sure why exactly the decision to relocate to Wayne Manor was agreed upon. When the central premise behind your story isn’t clearly explained it creates confusion as to its purpose. Was it truly due to the power of eminent domain (a result of the martial law enforced in Batman Eternal Vol.2)? Or was there some sort of seedy secondary motive that Gotham’s mayor was harbouring with this decision? Since this is the only volume I guess we’ll never find out. I feel I should point out that it’s an absolutely terrible idea. No sane individual would believe that moving a group of dangerous psychopaths into a notorious playboy’s mansion is a genuinely great plan. If I was the mayor I’d be concerned about my re-election prospects.

After the inmates are successfully moved into their new home, surprising absolutely no one a major problem occurs. Someone begins targeting and killing the inmates. Since Batman’s detective skills have been poorly showcased in the new 52 Detective Comics series, I was genuinely excited to see Batman get down to some good old-fashioned sleuthing. However, this book achieves something exceptional in that it turns the hunt for a serial killer into a tedious and monotonous read.

Exaggerated character features made the artwork seem blurry when read on a tablet.

Batman decides to go deep undercover with the world’s least convincing disguise (a different hairstyle and mustache and apparently you’re unrecognizable even if you are one of the world’s richest men) as Jack Shaw. Duggan writes Batman as a complete imbecile as it takes him far too long to find a serial killer operating in his own house. Having this much trouble navigating his place of residence when he’s supposed to have lived there most of his life makes him seem remarkably stupid rather than the World’s Greatest Detective.

The only time Bruce Wayne progresses with this manhunt is when he ditches the Jack Shaw persona and suits up proving that the whole undercover process was a massive waste of everyone’s time.

When the murderer is finally caught the reveal is thoroughly underwhelming as no name or motive is provided and (*SPOILERS*) the culprit seems to be a random lumberjack. Maybe this whole book was secretly a crossover with Dexter masquerading as a Batman story. It would explain a lot.

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Grade: D 

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Grading System: A (Essential Purchase), B (Recommended Purchase), C (Worth A Read), D (Poor), E (Avoid)