Graphic Novel Round Up

Graphic Novel Round Up

In our local library last night we were delighted to discover a couple of shelves of graphic novels in the Sci-fi section. Many of them were titled Gundam Wing which was foreign to us. Jumping on a handy library computer, dogpile.com revealed this about Gundam Wing:

"Centuries in the future, in the year After Colony 195, Earth is surrounded by orbiting space colonies. The colonists are cruelly oppressed by the Earth Alliance, which uses huge humanoid fighting machines called "mobile suits" to control the populace. Behind this tyranny is the secret society called "Oz," which has infiltrated the Alliance military and steered it towards its repressive course.

"Now, the space colonies are ready to strike back. Five young pilots, equipped with advanced mobile suits called "Gundams," are sent to Earth to wage guerilla war against Oz and its Alliance puppets. The war to decide humanity's destiny begins..."

We found the concept to be less than riveting, so we'll read Gundam Wing some other time. Big battling robots don't do that much for us. And really, five against a whole military conspiracy seems like rather long odds.

There were many other offerings in the graphic novel section. We scanned through a couple of Sandman graphic novels (by our collaborator, Neil Gaiman. By collaborator, we mean Neil is in the Fantasy Writers Wanted—Apply Within book that we have a couple of stories in). Well, the Sandman left us somewhat puzzled. It almost looked stream-of-consciousness. Events and stories seemed to be unconnected. Maybe we're too literal. And who the heck is Sandman? We browsed away from that section, our decision to move on spurred on by the excessive violence and nudity in many of the stories.

We came to the The Watchmen, still a favorite of ours. The Watchmen really shows how good a graphic novel can be. Yes, the violence is a tad too extreme in spots. But as an adult wanting to enjoy a good story, we can easily get past that. The Watchmen features a couple of really great characters amidst its ensemble cast. These characters are, for us, impossible to forget.

Although the graphic novel's ending, "destroy New York for world peace!" was naïve, we still consider this a high point of the genre. We don't know if Queen of Thieves can be that good, but we are shooting for a Watchmen-like performance in terms of story quality. Whoops, we said Queen of Thieves! We'll tell you more on that subject in another posting. Hopefully soon.

We also went through The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen II graphic novel. It was fairly good. The art could have been so much better, but the story (Victorian era heroes banding together to fend off H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds Martians) was a great use of the characters and era.

There were a couple of really disturbing bits, featuring Mr. Hyde doing rather horrific things. This seems to be de-rigueur for graphic novels. I liked LEG II overall, but I was left with the feeling that much more could have been done with this concept. And seeing aged Allen Quartermain naked was rather disconcerting. Overall, the late and unlamented LEG movie was better than this graphic novel.

Next we read a gory Batman graphic novel. This was part II of a story, we couldn't find part I. As the story opens, Batman had been turned into a vampire, and Alfred and Commissioner Gordon have staked him through the heart. Alfred and Gordon think that bats is out of his misery, but all the stake does is render bats immobile and powerless. He's still laying there, mentally aware. An icky sort of horrific state to be in, one would think.

With Batman gone, Gotham goes straight to hell. There's no one to stop Gotham's many villains from going amuck. We suppose the Gotham ACLU has filed a lawsuit forcing the police to respect a murderous supervillian's rights. So we ask ourselves the question: where is Superman? He's just a blink of an eye away in Metropolis. You'd think supes could come down for an evening or two of crimefighting. Alas, Gotham is on its own, sinking further and further into a hell of criminal violence.

At last, Gordon and Alfred are forced to a terrible decision: you guessed it, they have to bring Batman back. And that decision is going to have serious consequences…

This graphic novel, like all the others reviewed, is heavy on the horrific violence. The vampire batman character seems to be one step or two away from being fully realized. Batman fans may not like this take on the Dark Knight.

That's the review. We anticipate going to Borders Bookstore and reading a few more Graphic Novels once we're eliminated everything in the library (except, perhaps, for Gundam Wing.) Oh, and we'll soon have more on Queen of Thieves to tell. And IF as well.