Tuesday, January 22, 2008

The Sword #4 & Booster Gold #6

Mack Daddy will make you...



































If one was to be really, really, grossly unfair to The Sword (Image Comics, by Jonathan and Joshua Luna), one could describe it like this:

A poor crippled girl is healed by her father's secret, magic phallus
(read: Magic Sword) just as mysterious strangers slaughter her whole family; now, using the power of the phallus, she determines to avenge her family's death, by stabbing them (with a phallus).

And you can't tell me that, on some level, the Luna Brothers aren't somewhat aware of the Freudian undertones:


The next panel has a sound effect: SHNK. No, I couldn't make this up.

But really, sometimes, a cigar is just a cigar, and what The Sword actually is, is another fine character study wrapped in a fantasy/sci-fi setting- the Lunas do a good job of drawing characters whose motivations and voices you can buy into in just a few panels.

They're hardly paragons of Feminist Comics Virtue, by no means, but they do write female characters who have their own agency and aren't just eye candy for hormonal fanboys.

Why, yes, I have seen the covers for their previous series, Girls. If those turned you away from this book, give it a chance.

Daddy Mack'll make you..


































Oh, and in other news, Booster Gold (DC, words by Geoff Johns and Jeff Katz, art by Dan Jurgens and Norm Rapmund) brings its first story arc to an end. How do we feel about that, fellas?

Why yes. Yes, it is.

Booster Gold is what happens when you put out a book that is fun, funny, and yet still full of action and doesn't shy away from the drama; it is what happens when you get a creative team who so obviously love what they're doing, and let them stay the hell away from your company-wide crossover cluster-

Oh, what was that? #7 is a freaking Zero Hour tie-in?

I can't believe I'm looking forward to that. Damn you, Johns and co! Damn you to hell!

If you look at Skeet's number plate, it has the actual date of Paul's death on it. Freaky!







Aw, Booster. I can never stay mad at you.

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