« Subway Reading: Breach & The Question | Main | Subway Reading: Hard Time, Nightwing, District X »
January 13, 2005
Subway Reading: Gotham Central & Stormbreaker
Gotham Central #27 - Last month I sang the praises of Jason Alexander's art in this title. This month, while I still enjoyed his use of white space, I was struck by a few too many moments of bad anatomy. It can be tricky to pick on things like that when an artist uses an expressionistic style like Alexander's. Exaggeration is to be expected, but in my opinion, awkward anatomy and inconsistent character likenesses fall outside the realm of stylistic license. This is only speculation on my part, but I wonder if this was a bit of a rush job.
Story-wise, this conclusion to a two-part story about Catwoman and a psychic detective also seemed a little rushed. I read a complaint somewhere about the cliched nature of last issue's overheard graveside confession. This issue features a few more favorite old chestnuts. The preacher with a secret sordid life, for example, as well as the heavy-handed moral lesson that the protagonist learns in the conclusion. All in all, this two-part story relied a little too heavily on TV-drama cliches for my taste. 2.5 stars.
Stormbreaker: The Saga of Beta Ray Bill #1 - Writer Mike Oeming kicks off this limited series in old-school fashion, introducing the characters and the conflicts with plenty of room left over for an extended action sequence. Imagine that! The Kordinite leaders may come off as a little too one-dimensional, but their earnest nature is part of the charm of a story like this.
The art was a mixed bag for me. The drawing was solid and well-rendered; Andrea DiVito's traditional style fit the tone perfectly. The page layouts and storytelling, however, seemed a little haphazard.
Compare this comic to Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men. While Whedon pays tribute to a previous era by dusting off old characters, costumes, and even scenes from the books of yesteryear, Oeming preserves the story structure and tone of the old stories. The former provides a surface-level smile of recognition, but the latter actually reproduces the gut-level experience of reading the books that I remember and love. 3.5 stars.
Posted by jdonelson_nyc at January 13, 2005 01:35 PM