Art By: Annie Wu, Lee
Loughridge
Letters By:
Steve Wands
Cover Price: $2.99
Release Date: December 30, 2015
Industry Rule #4080
*Non-Spoilers and Score At
The Bottom*
This is it folks! The
music event of the century! Burnside hometown sensations Black Canary (the
band, not the character) and Bo M (the band, not the euphemism for poop) face
off in an axe-grinding battle to determine which is the least inferior
representation of punk rock in the series. I mean, here’s the inherent problem
with depicting the life and times of a touring rock band in a comic book: you
don’t hear comic books. You read them. While the magic of our imaginations
allows us to hear whatever music we like while reading, it’s never been clear
to me whether Black Canary sounds like Siouxsie and the Banshees or Ace of
Base. Maybe the music doesn’t matter, baby, as long as the comic swings—so does
the latest issue of Black Canary (the
comic book, not the rare bird) swing? Read on to find out!
Explain It!:
Last issue left Dinah
“D.D.” Lance and the attending audience members reeling as her musical nemesis
Bo Maeve revealed her ability to use the Canary Cry after hijacking an
impromptu Battle of the Bands. We, the readers, weren’t left reeling, because
we’d already seen her getting the necessary throat surgery in the previous
issue. Super-spy and ex-husband Kurt Lance figures out what we largely knew:
Amanda Waller has employed Bo Maeve’s band, Bo M, to capture the
weirdly-powered guitarist for Black Canary, Ditto. Or maybe to distract Black
Canary so Ditto can be captured. Whatever the case, clearly the secret
organization A.R.G.U.S. is hot on their tails, so they decide to scram before
shock troops or whatever descend on the venue. But first: Ditto has written
some weird graffiti on a mirror!
It’s a sound wave that,
when scanned and played with some smart phone doohickey, ends up being an audio
sample of Dinah’s on-stage patter from the tour. This is a pretty interesting
if convenient trick of Ditto’s, one that might allow us to finally hear Ditto’s
side of the story, if Heathcliff didn’t bust into the green room and announce
that the band is expected on stage to duel with Bo M—simultaneously! Is this something any music fan would want to see
or hear? Two rock bands, performing at the same time, through the same sound
system? This would sound like the most cacophony! Though this is how they used
to have DJ battles back in the 1970s, and whoever had the most robust sound
system would win the battle. The concept in this comic book, however, lacks
that sort of dynamic.
What is dynamic right here is Annie Wu’s art and Lee Loughridge’s colors.
Two bands on the same stage performing at the same time might be a stupid idea,
but Wu is able to render it using a simple red and blue palette that is really
creative. Naturally, both bands duke it out as they wage their sonic war, and
it turns out each of the members of Bo M have their own powers and tricks but
D.D. kicks their butts anyway with some assist from her band mates. The whole
show devolves into a one-on-one face off between D.D. and Bo M, both shouting
their Canary Cries at each other, which really is something you’d see in a
Steve Ditko-era Dr. Strange book: two
characters pitting invisible forces against each other. Wu represents this as
ever-converging sonic bubbles, which is not really how sound works, and Ditto
is caught in the crossfire of this assult! Kurt Lance jumps over to Ditto to
save her, and both are disintegrated into a puddle of goop for some reason—though
later, when the club has cleared out, the goop does show some movement.
Everyone hightails it out
of the venue and waiting for Black Canary is a limousine with executives from
their record label, A&B Records, ready to whisk them away to their offices
and provide some much-needed answers. Black Canary threatens them for fun, and
when they get into the office they bust into the CEO’s office to find the person
responsible for all of this weird mayhem—and it’s Kurt Lance, but somehow old
and gray-haired! And who orchestrated this whole cockamamie adventure? None
other than Ditto! Huh?
There is a lot to like in
this book, namely the art, and a lot to dislike about this book, mainly the
all-too-convenient plot devices masquerading as story that are shoved into a
few pages before and after the great battle between Black Canary and Bo M. The
ability of Ditto to communicate through written sound waves is somewhat intriguing
but comes to absolutely nothing in this story and slows things down just as the
tension is mounting. Also the idea of two Canary Cries expanding like two force
fields from their criers is, in a word, dumb. But Annie Wu and Lee Loughridge
did a great job depicting this claptrap as something visually entertaining—at
times even arresting—and despite my whining about not knowing what music I’m
expected to hear while reading this book, I did really enjoy looking at the
pages that were supposed to depict said music and action. I think this issue
provides enough back story that someone could jump on here and be as lost as
the rest of us who have been reading all along, but I’m not sure I would
recommend that you bother. So far, I’ve found most of this series to be pretty flat. Get it? Flat. That’s a musical term, right?
Bits and Pieces
Poor pacing and lame plot
contrivances make this story somewhat of a dud, but the artwork by Annie Wu and
Lee Loughridge is really creative and should be celebrated. Though I don’t hear
any music while reading this book, some of these panels surely did sing. There
is a big reveal at the end, which only opens another host of questions, and the
way the series has been unfolding thus far I don’t know if I care to know the
answers. If you can flip through this book at your local comic shop without
getting your knuckles rapped by the owner, I’d say it’s worth that much of a
peek.
6/10
I took a chance on this series and gave it the 6 issues. Now that it's over, it's time to move on to other things. This series hasn't really grabbed me.
ReplyDeleteI'm with you...it sucks because you waited so long for this issue only to be let down. The delay really threw me off and because it's been more "style over substance", I ended up not really caring even before this issue and gave it to Reggie to read because he liked it enough...but it looks like we are all in the same boat now.
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