Posted on: December 10th, 2009 Comically Challenged: DC Universe Holiday Special ‘09
Okay Cats and Kittens, I just put up a Christmas tree so I’m in a damn cheerful holiday spirit. So let’s do this: DU Universe Holiday Special. Go!
I, for one, believe that ANY holiday themed comic is hard to pull off. It says something as to the talent of the writer and artist to make something pretty hokey into something readable. Not everyone can do it, as we see in this special. Sometimes though, you can get a nugget that makes you go, “Ahh, that didn’t suck.”
“Auburn, I’m not going to pay $5.99 for a collection comic that mostly sucks but may have a couple decent pages.” Well, angry reader, I don’t blame you. It’s pretty expensive but I’ve always enjoyed a good gamble. The reason I chose to review THIS particular special is that out of the 16 stories within, I enjoyed around 12. That’s huge for a holiday special. Did you read the Halloween Special that DC put out this year? It sucked.
I guess if you find blood too graphic for your kids, then you may not want to replace ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas with this comic. If you’re like me though, and don’t really care (mainly because I have no children), let the kiddies have fun with it! It’s a hell of a lot better than The Gift of the Magi, I can tell you that.
First we have Batman in Silent Knight, written by Jay Faerber, art by Peter Nguyen. Batman beats up a bad Santa and then has cookies with good Santas? This wasn’t good. No dialogue with large panel layouts. Sorry, Bats. Just not feeling it. It was a bold move to start the book off this way but maybe it helped in making every other story seem better.
Superman in Man of Snow, written by Arie Kaplan, Penciled by Nick Runge: You know, The Big Blue Boy Scout catches a lot of flack for being so wholesome but I like him. So there. All the man wants to do is eat a full tub of popcorn with his woman and his mom and he’s got a some angry snowman punching him. That sucks. It’s a golem that some Jewish kid with cystic fibrosis made. Okay, it was all a big misunderstanding. And it has a nice ending but why don’t we care that some sick kid has the power of giving his sculptures life? Sounds like a super villain thing waiting to happen. I guess by spending time with the kid, Superman is trying to nip this thing in the bud. Whatever, it was a nice story.
In The Flash Before Christmas by Amy Wolfram and art by Daniel Leister, Wally West waits until the last minute to do everything. Kind of like me! Only I can’t run to China to pick up a toy just off of the production line. [I don’t even think that’s legal, Wally…] The BEST thing about this story is that the JLA is doing a Secret Santa. That’s amazing. It’s like every job with people you don’t hate. How fun.
This one has two titles and one is obviously better than the other. The (Beast) Boy Who Hated Christmas! [Boo] OR Beast Boy & Doom Patrol in Christmas of Doom [Yay!]. Written by Sterling Gates with art by Jonboy Meyers. HIS NAME IS JONBOY! Do you have any idea how excited I am that he exists? And he’s good? So this is basically the story of how Elasti-Girl and Mento came to adopt Beast Boy in saving him from his craptastic state-appointed guardian. It’s nice, it’s like one of those “greatest gift” stories. I’m a sucker for those.
Superboy in Party Gift written by Ralph Sohl and penciled by Rodney Buchemi is confusing. Super confusing for me at least. All the villains have a party and no one thought to ask who was throwing the party. Well, turns out it’s Bizarro Superboy. Now, I hate Bizarro. I really really do. So the idea of the Bizarros is like everyday is Opposite Day, right? When you say the opposite of what you really mean? So that’s dumb but okay, I’ll play along. In this story, I think Bizarro Superboy is actually saying what he means until he leaves and says “Hello.” Now I’m not so sure. And then regular Bizarro says “That no sense make at all.” Is he dyslexic? Does that mean it does make sense? Or did he interpret Bizarro Superboy’s speech about goodwill towards men and crap to be backwords? I DON’T KNOW! God, I hate Bizarros. Could have been an amazing comic (it had Livewire in it!) but because of my frustrations with Bizarro, I didn’t like it.
Fred Van Lente writes a pretty nice story with Martian Manhunter in Reason for the Season; art by Nick Dragotta. This is one of those stories I was talking about with the blood. Honestly, the only one that you may not want to read to Junior. A Christmas tree salesman in Colorado gets gunned down and robbed and John Jones has to solve the crime. He’s remembering all the good times and good feelings he had back on Mars and he gets homesick but he finally caves in and gets into the Christmas Spirit. By eating an Oreo. I really liked the art in this one and you get to see Martian Manhunter take a car to the junk. Yeah, how many Christmas stories can you think of with that? None. That’s how many.
Andrew Pepot wrote and did the art for Angel and the Ape. I had never even heard of these characters before in my life. It’s just a one-page jobber but hey, it looks nice and you get a monkey in a Santa-suit. Good times.
Sgt. Rock in A Peace On Earth, Billy Tucci wrote it and did the art. This is by far my favorite story in the collection. It’s inspired by a true story and it’s basically just Sgt. Rock is getting booze and comes by a German. Well, it’s Christmas Eve so they share a cigarette and cognac while sharing photos of people back home and decide not to kill each other. That’s nice. The art is beautiful; basically black and white but with a little muted coloring for highlights. Rugged yet classy. Just like me. Actually, no. Not like me at all.
Enemy Ace in “Stille Nacht” by Seamus Kevin and Sean Fahey, art by Howard Chaykin. Another German Military Christmas story only this one is 6 pages and long and a little long-winded. Doesn’t matter, it’s still a nice story. Basically like the Sgt. Rock only dealing with the Germans, the French and the English. All in all, they don’t kill each other for one day. Nevermind the fact they all went against orders, for now-everything is okay. Chaykin did nice work on the snow in this one. That’s a strange thing for me to hold onto but, it really did stand out for me. It’s even distracting to the subject art, just like real snow!
B’wana Beast in The Hunt for Christmas is written by Beau Smith, art by Gary Kwaspisz. Beau, do you really get writing credit if all you did was quote a hymn? Okay, I guess you lined it up with what was happening in the wild. B’wana Beast stops a truck-load of bad guys and gives all the goods in the truck to a Christian Mission. All set to the hymn “God Moves in Mysterious Ways” by William Lowper. Not amazing but hey, it was a good idea.
Steve Horton wrote along with art by Afua Richardson in Captain Marvel in Home for Christmas. Captain Marvel and Ibac destroy a homeless shelter during a fight. They both stop fighting to build back up the shelter. It’s one page and not much can be done with that. So, story-wise-it’s a little rough but I really liked the art. Richardson is really talented. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her work before but the more I look into her, the more I want to. You know what, you go look at her stuff. Google it. Right after you’re done on GKS. Take your time.
Deadman. I like Deadman. So, Scott Kolins (whom I’ve spoke of before) wrote it and drew it. Now…I made it pretty clear last week how I feel about Kolin’s work on The Flash. I don’t particularly care for it. HOWEVER, his style (both writing and art) definitely works for Deadman in Unbearable Loss. It’s about Scarecrow’s mom and how her life has been pretty hard so she tries to kill herself. Deadman saves her and she ends up saving a homeless boy. It’s like It’s A Wonderful Life only with a dead acrobat instead of Clarence. Kind of. Oh by the way, Scott-your ghost woman looks a little goofy. You didn’t really think I was going to let you off the hook completely did you? Silly thing.
Alright, I haven’t entirely made up my mind on David Tischman’s Red Tornado in A Night Before Christmas Story. Red Tornado is in the equivalent of a Toys R Us and everybody is being a bunch of jerks. So he whips up a wind storm that pushes all the snow against the doors and somehow that’s supposed to teach everyone the meaning of Christmas. Now, I get that these stories are short and it’s hard to fit everything in to a few panels. But, I kid you not-this was the contents of a word balloon: “Maybe it’s a sign. Maybe the snow and all of us being trapped in here is supposed to make us think about the meaning of Christmas. We’ve all been running around like crazy people, trying to buy stuff. That’s not what the holiday’s about…” There’s nothing like being hit over the head with the point of the story. Maybe Tischman worked on The Matrix Trilogy? Adam Archer did a pretty stand-up job with the art. Everyone in the toy store is really gross and ugly. I’m in Toys R Us a lot. That’s pretty accurate. Wait a minute…damnit.
J. Torres and Hubert Khan Michael did Huntress in Naughty or Nice. It’s not really about Huntress at all. Just a kid that gets caught trying to shop lift from a candy store and then later stops a guy that robbed the same candy store. The art was really inconsistent going from okay to pretty rough. Michael somehow managed to make Huntress bow-legged with crazy big shoulders and no nose. He fixes her face in a later close-up, but still. The full body shot was unfortunate. The candy store’s name is Candy Kane’s. Who thinks that’s clever? I do.
Then there was Ragman in Seeing Light by Rob Levin and Brian Ching. I don’t know a thing about Ragman but the art was beautiful. Levin went the same route as Smith in the B’wana Beast short but I thought this one had a much more fluid execution. It basically lines up Ragman’s fight against these thugs with the story of Hanukkah. It’s a like a “Against all odds, keep the faith” story. I liked it. I think what differentiates this story and Smith’s is that the art wove together the Ragman story with that of the Maccabees and then a Rabbi was kind enough to eloquently explain the connection in the end.
Lastly, we have Adam Strange in Auld Lang Syne; written by Shannon Eric Denton and penciled by Nick J. Napolitano. Strange just wants to get home to be with his wife and kid on New Years Eve and everybody seems to need his help. That makes him late but it doesn’t matter because his wife and kid are just happy to see him. I ask you, do people really get their cat stuck in trees? I’ve never seen it. I’ve owned a cat and it never had a problem getting down. Why waste Adam Strange’s time on Whiskers? A bank robbery I’ll give you, and of course a rat/monkey/spider monster is going to need some super-powered thrashing. But a cat? Ugh, just go get a ladder you lazy old woman.
See there? I paid the money and I saw some characters I’ve never read before, found a new artist that I liked AND saw some Scott Kolins work I didn’t hate. I’m going to keep on buying the one-shot holiday specials because A. I’m a sap and B. I have a compulsion for buying super hero themed-Christmas items and C. It’s fun to try new writers and artists.
2 Responses to “Comically Challenged: DC Universe Holiday Special ‘09”
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Beau Smith Says:
December 10th, 2009 at 9:27 amAuburn,
Thank you very much for picking up the DC HOLIDAY SPECIAL 2009 with my B’Wana Beast Christmas story in it. I appreciate you taking the time to read and review it as well.
I’m glad you “got” what I was aiming for in the story. Having B’Wana Beast face off against Somali pirates and return medical and Christmas gifts to the village set to the hymn was a bit more than just reprinting the hymn with some random action. You caught that and I hope other readers did as well. Sometimes when doing no dialogue stories or adapting written work can be a slippery slope. As a writer I find it a challenge and truly enjoy it. I can always “make stuff up” and enjoy the freedom of not having to answer to a set structure, but in doing this story I really enjoyed making sure that full throttle action waltzed with words that had a deeper meaning.
Thanks for being honest. I enjoyed your review a lot.
Merry Christmas!
Your amigo,
Beau Smith
The Flying Fist Ranch -
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