Saturday Splash Page #141

 

"Back in Black," in Spider-Man and the Black Cat #1, by Kevin Smith (writer), Terry Dodson (penciler), Rachel Dodson (inker/colorist), Richard Starkings and Comicraft (letterers)

Hoo boy, this book. A six-issue mini-series that took almost 4 years to complete. In its defense, the first three issues did come out in three consecutive months, and so did the last three issues. Just, you know, 40 months late.

In 2002, it had been over three years since the Black Cat had even shown up in a Spider-Man book (very early in the Howard Mackie/John Byrne, post-The Final Chapter, reboot) Even longer since she'd been any sort of regular presence in Spider-Man's supporting cast. So at the time, I was pretty stoked she was getting a mini-series devoted to her and Spider-Man.

And the first two issues (which are all I still own) weren't a bad start. Felicia travels to New York to look for a missing actress friend of a friend, who it turns out died of an overdose. Peter, meanwhile, is looking into the death of one of his students, also from an overdose. Both paths lead to the same actor, and eventually to the mysterious "Mr. Brownstone," a mutant with the ability to teleport small amounts of liquid (so he 'ports the drug directly into your body), who is some bigshot businessman/philanthropist.

There's still a couple of homophobic jokes that I notice more now than I did in 2002, and Smith somehow wants Spidey to both make pop culture references (dated references, but still) while apparently never having even heard of Pulp Fiction. Not, "hasn't seen it," but rather, "has no idea what it is." And while Felicia keeps insisting that as much as she might want to get back together with Peter, now that she can appreciate the guy under the mask too, she won't because he's married, she sure is climbing all over him as they swing across the city, and apparently trying to French kiss him through the mask after he saves her. The book's giving off mixed signals in all sorts of directions, is what I'm saying.

But what was the point I was trying to make? Oh right, at least the basic concept behind getting the two characters together, while having them trying to navigate their messy history at different points in their lives, isn't a bad one. Felicia's matured and sees things differently now. Peter still feels the connection, but he's also married, albeit this started during JMS' first year on Amazing Spider-Man, so Mary Jane is living on her on own on the West Coast. So he's trying to find that equilibrium of being friends with an ex he hasn't seen in a while. 

Anyway, the book goes off the rails once Spidey thinks he knows who Mr. Brownstone is based on hearing his voice over the phone and then in person (when they save the guy from an attack by a rival cartel.) Felicia charges in rather than find evidence that could actually stand up in court. She gets dosed, it looks like she's going to be sexually assaulted, and she wakes up the next morning beside the guy's corpse. Daredevil gets involved, Nightcrawler shows up to give everyone a lecture on mutant history, it turns out the guy's brother actually killed him.

Felicia then talks that guy down by either a) admitting that she became a thief after her attempt to take revenge on a frat boy who assaulted her while drunk was thwarted by him getting in a car wreck, or b) she makes that whole story up to get the guy to drop his guard because he thinks he's speaking to a kindred soul. It's not great either way you want to read it, and thankfully no one seems to have paid any attention to it as a retcon for her origin.

The Dodsons revamp her look, in that besides minimizing the white fur fringe stuff, her outfit now seems to be skintight leather or some sort of plastic, whereas it was previously given a fabric texture (even if it was still highly impractical as an outfit.) That stuck for at least a few years, although I think by Brand New Day the artists mostly shifted back to variations on the classic look, which has subsequently maintained its hold (that brief, idiotic "Queenpin" phase where she had the Kraven the Hunter-style cat face across the chest, aside.)

Sunday Splash Page #227

 

"Admitting It's the First Step. Murder is the Second," in Harley Quinn (vol. 1) #2, by Karl Kesel (writer), Terry Dodson (penciler), Rachel Dodson (inker), Alex Sinclair (colorist), Ken Lopez (letterer)

Having been a big hit in Batman: The Animated Series, Harley Quinn migrated into the Batbooks and after a half-dozen or so years, got her own ongoing series, running for 38 issues.

Whether because it didn't seem like a great idea for Harley to play second fiddle in her own book, or because they didn't want the protagonist of said book doing the kind of stuff Harley would get up to with the Joker, Karl Kesel breaks Quinn off from the clown to find her own path. Which isn't to say she's good. After a one-issue stint playing #2 to Two-Face, Harley decides to start her own gang. 

She's terrible at it. Every time they add a fifth henchperson, they die. In more than one of those situations, Harley sets the guy up to be killed or at least left behind. None of her heists succeed as Harley is more concerned with her personal obsessions. To the extent she kills her most loyal henchman because he's interfering in her matchmaking between a couple of private investigators trying to capture her. It would be easy to argue she learned well from the Joker, but Kesel goes into her past enough to let the reader see Harley's always been willing to do whatever she deemed necessary to get what she wanted. Working with the Joker just convinced her to stop masking it.

The Dodsons draw the majority of the first 19 issues, and it's pretty standard work for them. Clean linework, easy to follow action, expressive faces, the usual full-figured women. In issue 1, Ivy tries disguising herself as Harley to kill the Joker and Harley remarks she wouldn't dress like that if she had Ivy's figure. It's hard to really see much of a difference in them.

The first year ends with Harley and Ivy taking off for Metropolis. There's a stint of Harley manipulating Bizarro, only for that to get out of hand. Harley ends up in Hell for a while before getting out through some method I don't remember, but the Martian Manhunter got dragged into the mess. Craig Rousseau is drawing the book by then, his style is more animated, closer to Bruce Timm than Dodson. He draws a few pieces in the earlier issues where he's deliberately aping the Timmverse style, meant as a representation of how Harley sees all this.

The last year or so of the book is by A.J. Lieberman and Mike Huddleston, and involves Harley back in Gotham, tangled up in a whole thing with some girl that everybody wants. I think it revolved around what Harley was going to do, look out for #1 or look out for the girl stuck relying on her, as well as what being around someone like Harley for an extended period of time would do to someone. I picked up parts of it in back issues years ago - those issues are oddly pricey - but it didn't stick in the collection.

Next week, Harley gets another chance to headline her own book.

He Needs a Therapist, Not a Muse

Hmm, steampunk dubstep. Terribly awesome, or awesomely terrible?

D-P Filippi and Terry Dodson's Muse was not quite what I was expecting. I was expecting a story about a woman hired as governess to a young boy with a vivid imagination, who finds herself drawn into said imagination, either metaphorically or literally. And the story does have that.

What I wasn't counting on was Coraline, the governess, would find herself having to escape being assaulted in each of these fictional worlds. An unexpected turn, but that's what happens, repeatedly. She wakes up in the middle of the night, finds a strange room with two men who give her outfits which show off her figure (if you're familiar with the women Terry Dodson draws, Coraline may be the apex of his style) in the back of her dresser, and is sent off into some fantasy where there's always a guy trying to get her clothes off. It's like Bizarro Chronicles of Narnia or something.

Oh, and during the daytime, Vernere is always trying to get her to drink some 'special brew' of his. Not drinking it seems to grant her more control in the dreams, or lets her wake up, I'm not clear which. Either way, yikes. And one of his two servants is constantly playing Peeping Tom on Coraline.

You might wonder why Coraline doesn't hightail it the hell out of there. If not after the first time, when she might be able to write off the thing with pirates as just an odd dream, certainly by the second, when some Tarzan analogue tries to cop a feel. Or the third, where Prince Charming asks her to give the sleeping princess a kiss, only for the princess to turn into him, wide awake and trying to kiss her. (She gives him five upside the head instead, which is her entirely appropriate reaction each time to this crap.)

Coraline took the job because she's looking for someone, so she has to stay until she can find them, but Filippi doesn't reveal that until 80% of the way through. He does drop plenty of hints that Coraline is far from the first governess, and that things with her aren't going as usual.

The conclusion is kind of odd. It basically suggests that, since Vernere was orphaned at a young age, he's trying to be an adult, but without parents around, he's emulating male protagonists in adventure novels? Especially in terms of how they get women? Is it a commentary on what fiction teaches men in general, about "winning" women, or about how people who retreat into fantasies are stunted and have unrealistic notions about interpersonal relationships?

You can certainly see Vernere does his best to avoid acting as a child might. He doesn't see the point in games. When Coraline suggests they build a treehouse, he trots out a treehouse-building machine he built some time ago to do it, but then is offended at the idea he might want to actually play in the treehouse. When he tries to dance with her on his birthday and she picks him up to make it easier, he gets completely embarrassed and storms off. He has a notion, maybe because of his intelligence, that he needs to be seen as an adult, and when Coraline tries to do otherwise, he gets angry. But he's still acting like a boy, in that he's trying to impress her to get her to like him. Showing off his inventions and trying to be cool instead of showing how he can do a handstand or whatever.

Which still doesn't explain how readily everyone seems to forgive and forget his repeated attempts at dreamworld date rape. That seems like something that needs correcting, but I guess we're meant to make allowances for grief.

In the comic adaptation of The Rocketeer movie, I think there's an entire page where Peter David just lets Russ Heath draw Betty (or Jenny, I guess in the movie) pulling on nylon stockings. Just absolute male gaze. This comic is that page, but basically nonstop for 100+ pages. Coraline in outfits that show off her chest. Coraline in lingerie. Coraline in the shower. Coraline with strategically torn "sexy" outfits. On and on, whether in the waking world or the dream world. 

You'd think the servants, if they're so intent on having the old Vernere back, would try to discourage his libido during the daytime, instead of handing Coraline outfits that would seem to play to exactly that part of him, but I don't know. They also never bother to explain to Coraline what they're hoping for her to accomplish, or what's going on with Vernere, so quite how they expected her to fix things I don't know.