Category: Reviews

Godzilla Rulers of Earth
By Chris Mowry, Matt Frank, and Jeff Zornow
592 Pages/IDW Publishing/$13.99

I grew up in the 1960s when the first Godzilla movies became part of the monster movies frequently found on television at all hours of the day or night. I recall being thrilled to be taken to see Destroy All Monsters because it was the monster team-up I always imagined.

But I never thought Godzilla lent itself to comic books, no matter who tried their hands at it, beginning with Marvel in the 1970s. So much depended on the iconic roar and the man in the suit. Company after company has tried, and it appears IDW found a winning formula with this particular series. It ran for 25 issues, the longest run for any Godzilla title, and remains fondly recalled by fans of the character. If you, like me, skipped this, you can now get a nicely priced omnibus of the complete series at the 6’ x 9” size.

The stories here pick up after the ongoing Godzilla as the kaiju begin appearing around the world. This typical problem is enhanced by the arrival of shapeshifting Cryogs, aliens bent on conquering the world. They form an alliance with the undersea Devonians, an ancient civilization new to the reader. 

This alliance appears to spell the end to humanity, with Destoroyah and Biollante dispatched to destroy Godzilla (as if). Meanwhile, the Counter-Kaiju Reaction Forces (CKR), led by Commander Steven Woods and a team of Kaiju Watchers, fronted by Lucy Casprell, represent the main humans involved in the story.

Across the first dozen issues. We watch battle after battle, as buildings are toppled, people flee in panic, and the CKR try to hold things together. Things look pretty bleak for mankind until the Devonians betray their alien partners, resulting in the CKR and Godzilla turning the tide.

Undaunted by their seeming defeat, the Cryogs unleashed the Trilopods, parasitic aliens that absorb the DNA and powers of any kaiju they bite, creating hybrid clones of Earth’s monsters. Now we have something new to worry about, but it sure gives artists Matt Frank and Jeff Zornow something fun to draw, and they make it work, issue after issue. Their humans are never quite right, but their kaiju and aliens are lovely.

Things are looking pretty bleak as one by one, the kaiju are defeated and trussed up in Los Angeles hives. This, of course, puts all the creatures in one place for the climactic battle in the final issue.

Chris Mowry paces things nicely, making certain his humans have things to do and feel even though it’s clear he, like the artists, does better with the kaiju and aliens. Mowry certainly has been steeped in the Toho lore, and there are some nice deep cuts for long-time fans.

If you want monsters, you get them all: Godzilla, Gigan, Rodan, Mothra, Zilla, Kumonga, Gorosaurus, Anguirus, Titanosaurus, Battra Hedorah, and Mechagodzilla. Even SpaceGodzilla gets some screen time.

Reading this took me back to the first battle royale with the monsters, and it felt nostalgic in a good way.

Prime Time Television all too often reduces great ideas to easily digestible concepts, often resulting in police procedurals of one sort or another. As a result, when the Vertigo Comics interpretation of Lucifer Morningstar was optioned by Fox in 2014, they quickly announced that the devil would be running a piano bar, like in the comics, but also partner with a policeman. I was initially turned off to the notion and was slow to sample Lucifer when it finally debuted in 2016.

A funny thing happened: the buzz was surprisingly good. The ratings were solid, and it kept getting renewed. Thanks to the miracle of On Demand, my wife and I were able to go back to the beginning and play catch-up.

For those who missed out on the initial run, can now find the entire 93 episodes spread across six seasons collected from Warner Archive as Lucifer: The Complete Series. Essentially, the individual seasons have been packaged together, unfortunately, with no new Special Features. So, if you already possess these, you can skip them. To the uninitiated, this is for you.

Neil Gaiman, Sam Kieth, and Mike Dringenberg created Lucifer Morningstar as supporting players in the acclaimed Sandman comic, and then Vertigo gave him his own series (2000-2006), written by novelist Mike Carey. The fallen angel was cast from Heaven to rule over Hell and was accompanied by one of Lilith’s offspring, Mazikeen, whose first act as his companion was to cut off his wings.

On the Fox version, Lucifer (Tom Ellis) has left ruling Hell out of boredom (you’d be bored too after 10 billion years) and now runs Lux, a piano bar in Los Angeles. Throughout the series, the tension between acting on one’s desires and fate versus free will is a recurring theme explored through the regular cast and the story du jour. As devils, demons, and angels spend more time on this mortal coil and interact with mankind, those interactions force them to reexamine their core beliefs.

Fascinated after an encounter with police detective Chloe Decker (Lauren German), Lucifer pulls strings to get named a consultant and becomes Decker’s partner. The slow-burning romance between the two carries us pretty much through the first five seasons until they finally become the couple we knew they would be, but unlike many such couplings, this one burns brighter when they’re together, resulting in a very satisfying conclusion. Mazikeen (Leslie-Ann Brandt) initially objects strenuously to this diversion until she leaves Lux and becomes a bounty hunter and ultimately shares Decker’s home, leading to some enchanting exchanges between the demon and Decker’s daughter Trixie (Scarlet Estevez).

With every passing season, the cast grows and becomes more varied, enriching the interactions, especially as Lucifer seeks out Dr. Linda Martin (Rachel Harris) to process his evolving emotions and as his brother angel Amenadiel (D.B. Woodside) spends more time among mortals. Add in the eternal optimist police scientist Ella Lopez (Aimee Garcia), other angles, cops, exes, and more, and the ensemble became richer. One after the other learned Lucifer’s secret, spoiling some of the mystique, but it seemed inevitable.

Ellis is just wonderful as the title character, deliciously reveling in being the devil while letting himself become vulnerable and even fall in love. The remainder of the cast is solid, with nice chemistry among them. Their work made the series tremendous fun to watch.

The series struggled in the ratings, despite positive reviews, so Fox canceled it, and the fans were loud enough to attract Netflix’s attention. They acquired it and ordered its final three seasons, which managed consistency despite the production pause during the pandemic. After meeting the angels’ mother, Charlotte (Tricia Helfer), we finally got around to meeting dad (Dennis Haysbert in the thankless role of God). This set up the final storyline as Mother and Father decided it was time to move on, and the fight for the Silvery City’s throne was on.

The discs come neatly packed in a plastic shell case and a cardboard slipcase. They are the original Blu-ray presses, with varying degrees of quality, ranging from good to very good. The 1080p, AVC-encoded BD-50s nicely reproduce the rich colors and preserve the shadows required for many of the storylines. The lossless DTS-HD MA is more consistent season to season and up to the task for comfortable home viewing.

Each season includes deleted scenes and gag reels. The first season includes four brief character profiles and the cast appearing at the 2015 San Diego Comic-Con. Season two’s discs have the 2016 Comic-Con panel and a look at the show’s move from Vancouver to Los Angeles in Reinventing Lucifer in the City of Angels (14:42).

The Shadowed Circle Compendium
Edited by Steve Donoso
180 pages/Renaissance Arts Press/$30 softcover, $50 hardcover)

There is no excuse for why this review is so late, and I owe editor Steve Donoso a major apology.

The Shadow has endured for 92 years, first as a radio voice, then in pulp magazine exploits, selling so furiously that it came out twice a month.  He has been adapted for movie serials, feature films, and comic books. His influence endures and is acknowledged as one of the key inspirations for Batman. That’s what fans generally know about the character.

One of the last true fanzines, The Shadowed Circle, carries on the tradition of exploring the character in all his permutations with unbridled joy. The Compendium takes the best of its first seven issues and sprinkles in several new pieces to make for a fine collectible. It’s not the only contemporary publication to study the Shadow mythos, as author/historian Will Murray released last summer’s Knight of Darkness: The Legend of The Shadow, the third volume of his studies.

This review is so late that Donoso is about to launch a Kickstarter campaign for the second Compendium.

So, what do we find here?  There is a foreword from Murray, followed by an introduction from former Shadow comic book writer Michael Uslan (who also has an article tracing his time as a Shadow scribe). We kick off with a fine essay from twentysomething fan Russell M. Moran, explaining how the cloaked vigilante remains relevant.

Nooks and crannies of history are explored, from the failed 1950s television pilot to the final radio broadcast on December 26, 1954. There’s also an index of all 325 magazine stories, crediting the authors all hiding behind the Maxwell Grant house name, as well as which volume of Sanctum Books’ facsimiles they were reprinted in.

One of the more imaginative pieces is Dick Myers’ posthumously published essay, written in the early 1970s—as Pyramid was reprinting selected stories under new Steranko covers—trying to figure out the economics of the Shadow’s operation from buying hats and cloaks in bulk to the cost of the automobiles and airplanes used and damaged in the cause of justice; from the stipends and salaries of his agents, and where did the money to fund the operation for decades come from.

Walter Gibson looms large over the entire volume, given his role as a radio narrator for Street & Smith’s detective stories and his ability to turn him into a captivating figure. Elements can be traced to other pulps and similar dashing tales, but there was enough of a twist and originality to make him wholly original. None of the other ghosts could add as much to the lore as Gibson, a former magician turned prolific writer, did. After all, not only did we get this crimefighting figure, but we got his network of agents, including Burbank, the first man in the chair, as detailed in Tim King’s essay.

If you’ve read some of the books, enjoyed the Alec Baldwin film, or comic stories, you might find this an enriching experience. The love and detail in each piece make for an enjoyable reading experience.

When I started writing for the Tom and Jerry syndicated newspaper strip in 1990, I was given three rules:

1. Tom could chase Jerry but not catch him.

2. No violence! Not none, not never!

3. No puns.

The first two rules contravened fifty years of animated history, spanning more than 160 anvil-dropping, tail-chopping, dynamite-explosive shorts from MGM, Gene Deitch, and Chuck Jones. The third always sort of applied to the cartoons anyway, since they were largely pantomime and didn’t rely on dialogue or wordplay, but Tom and Jerry both spoke in the syndicated strip. The reason puns weren’t allowed wasn’t that anyone thought there was anything wrong with them per se, but because the majority of newspapers that carried Tom and Jerry were located outside the United States and published in languages other than English—it was very popular in Middle Eastern countries if I’m remembering correctly—and puns, of course, don’t translate.

The irony is that the original Tom and Jerry cartoons were violent. Very violent. Animated shorts from the major movie studios of the 1930s and 1940s weren’t produced for children. They were part of the larger entertainment package moviegoers of the era were offered along with their double features, so for the price of admission, they also got short features, two-reel comedies, newsreels, coming attractions, and cartoons. That’s not to say kids didn’t enjoy Bugs Bunny for the frenetic action and slapstick, but their parents, who paid for those tickets, were laughing at the double entendres and satiric social commentary.

It was only with the coming of television and the relegation of animated shorts to the cartoon ghetto of children’s after-school and Saturday-morning time slots that anyone began to worry about the content. The repurposed theatrical shorts featuring Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Roadrunner, Woody Woodpecker, Tom & Jerry, Popeye, Mighty Mouse, and others that made it to TV were trimmed of perceived child-unfriendly bits.

Tom and Jerry wasn’t very high up on the list of must-see cartoons. At the top was Bugs and just about any of the anarchic Warner Bros. Looney Tunes and Merry Melodies shorts, and at the bottom was Mickey Mouse and just about any Disney cartoon, which I always felt were trying to teach me a lesson. And somewhere in between were the cat and the mouse.

I didn’t give cartoons much thought or watch many of them after college in the mid-1970s. Even when I started writing the Tom and Jerry newspaper strip in 1990, I didn’t really need a refresher course on the characters. The dynamic was simple enough: cat chases mouse, cat catches mouse, cat gets his ass kicked. But the strip had a different dynamic: no asses got kicked, and they spoke.

Then, in 2009, I was asked to review Tom and Jerry: The Chuck Jones Collection, the 34 shorts made between 1963 and 1967 by Jones’ Sib Tower 12 Productions for MGM. And Tom and Jerry, at least in the cartoons by Chuck Jones—the genius behind my favorite vintage Warner Bros. cartoons and The Grinch Who Stole Christmas—suddenly shot up my list.

Now, I get to go back to where this 86-year long feline vs rodent rivalry began with the Tom And Jerry: The Golden Era Anthology 1940–1958 DVD collection—which, I might add, is labeled as “intended for the Adult Collector and May Not Be Suitable for Children”—an 817 minute, or close to 14 hour collection of all 114 MGM cartoon shorts.

It could also have been called “Tom and Jerry: The William Hanna & Joseph Barbera Golden Age Era Anthology,” for one of Hollywood animation’s most productive partnerships during the period when short-form animation was a central component of the moviegoing experience. Hanna had trained as an engineer and worked his way into animation through the technical and story departments at MGM, developing a reputation for timing, structure, and efficient production. Barbera came from a more conventional artistic path, having studied art and working as a gag writer and layout artist. In the late 1930s, the large MGM animation unit was overseen by producer Fred Quimby, and its directors, writers, and animators were routinely paired and reassigned.

Their partnership began with one such routine pairing, the result of which was “Puss Gets the Boot” (1940), the prototype for all future Tom and Jerry shorts, starring a cat called “Jasper”and a nameless mouse. The short was a fine balance between Hanna’s emphasis on pacing and Barbera’s focus on visual storytelling. The story was simple: after breaking a vase while chasing the mouse, Jasper is under the threat of banishment if he does any more damage. The mouse turns the tables on his tormenter, and Jasper spends a large chunk of the cartoon’s eight and one-half minutes trying to save every dish and glass in the house from being smashed by the gleeful mouse.

That first Hanna-Barbera collaboration introduced a cat-and-mouse dynamic that proved endlessly adaptable, economical, and, most importantly, popular with audiences. MGM soon committed the team to a continuing series, all of which are included in the five-disc DVD anthology (the Blu-ray collection includes a sixth disc with featurettes and documentaries). It was during those years that Hanna and Barbera refined their production model, balancing high animation standards with tight schedules and budgets. Working with a stable group of animators, background artists, and composers—most notably Scott Bradley—the duo produced an average of six shorts a year, films designed for widescreen theatrical exhibition, with detailed backgrounds, expressive character animation, and carefully timed musical scores that carried much of the storytelling. The shorts were nominated for 13 Academy Awards for Best Short Subject: Cartoons and won seven, making them one of the most honored series in their field.

Tom And Jerry: The Golden Era Anthology gives lie to the often assumed repetitive formula nature of these cartoons. It’s true the central conflict rarely changed, but the shorts experimented with setting, period parody, and tone, moving from domestic slapstick to fairy tales, historical pastiches, and contemporary satire. The absence of dialogue emphasized the story’s pacing and rhythm, which, like the great silent comedies, proved animation’s ability to communicate across language barriers.

Academy Award-winning “The Yankee Doodle Mouse” (1943), produced during World War II, is a prime example of the adaptability of Tom and Jerry’s “formula.” Set in a basement transformed into a miniature battlefield, Tom and Jerry are opposing military forces, complete with improvised weapons and patriotic music, their violence escalating into outright demolition. Jerry rigs Tom with improvised explosives, detonating him multiple times with firecrackers and makeshift bombs. Tom is blown apart, blackened, and reduced to scattered parts before reassembling himself for the next assault, mirroring horrific battlefield imagery that would have been familiar to contemporary audiences.

In “Safety Second” (1950), the mayhem moves to a skyscraper construction site, where Jerry engineers a series of situations leading to Tom being sawed, smashed by girders, dropped from heights, and nearly chopped apart by industrial machinery. The violence is sustained and severe, using modern urban hazards as tools of dismemberment.

Even the introduction of culture couldn’t save Tom from extreme abuse. Academy Award winner “The Cat Concerto” (1947), perhaps one of the most famous of the series, places Tom at a concert piano performing Liszt while Jerry interferes from inside the instrument. While remembered for its musical sophistication, the physical comedy isn’t any less severe. Fingers are slammed, tails are crushed, and the piano itself becomes a blunt instrument. Time was no barrier to mayhem either, as in “The Two Mouseketeers” (1952), a period parody of Dumas, with Jerry and his cousin Nibbles (aka Tuffy) attack Tom with swords, cannon fire, and heavy weaponry, repeatedly stabbing, blasting, and reducing him to smoking remains, only to have him reappear for the next assault.

On the other hand, “Quiet Please!” (1945) flips the formula on its head. Built around Tom’s desperate attempt to avoid waking a sleeping bulldog, it plays with sustained tension rather than constant and frenetic motion for laughs, the humor coming from restraint, anticipation, and carefully timed bursts of violence when things inevitably go wrong.

I don’t know if Hanna and Barbera knew that “Tot Watchers” (1958) would be their final Tom and Jerry short, but it featured a rare truce between cat and mouse when they’re forced to work together, as they’d done only seven or eight times before in past shorts, to protect a wandering infant from danger while the babysitter is preoccupied on the telephone. Tom still takes a beating, but not at the hands of his usual opponent.

Tom and Jerry: The Golden Era Anthology restores these cartoons to their original context as theatrical shorts designed for adults. If the violence was excessive, at least it proved that there were an infinite number of ways a simple chase could be restructured through setting, music, pacing, and escalation. And from a contemporary vantage point shaped by Adult Swim, Rick and Morty, BoJack Horseman, and other explicitly adult animated fare, the hand-wringing that once accompanied the broadcast of unedited Tom and Jerry cartoons seems silly. Modern animation is a no-holds-barred exercise in graphic violence, nihilism, and verbal cruelty, marketed without apology to grown-up audiences. But it’s a matter of context: Hanna and Barbera’s cartoons weren’t intended as children’s programming until television repurposed them as such. But seen alongside today’s “anything goes” animation, the MGM Tom and Jerry shorts don’t seem so much transgressive as quaint.

Wake Now in the Fire
By Jarrett Dapier and AJ Dungo
464 pages/Ten Speed Graphic/$38 (hardcover) $24.99 (softcover)

For several years, I taught Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis in my high school English classes, a chance to introduce readers to the graphic novel storytelling style while helping see what people their age endure in other countries. Last year, after a few parents complained about language and sex, I was asked to remove it from the curriculum (although I could keep it in my class library).

When I introduced the story, I referenced its international awards as well as the brief 2013 ban of the book from Chicago Public Schools. So, the parallels were not lost on me. But I never knew the full story.

Former teen librarian at the Evanston and Skokie public libraries, Dapier knows his audience, and the teenagers in this fictionalized account of the true event sound authentic. As the students at Curtis Technical College Preparatory High School arrived on Monday, March 11, 2013, we see how a memo from the district began the sequence of events.

First, an English teacher has to take the books out of the classroom, and then we discover the entire district has to comply, which involves collecting and disposing of them. She bravely preserved her class set.

As word spreads, we focus on several sets of students, including those working on the school newspaper, who begin researching the event. For whatever reason, the Chicago CEO of Schools, Barbara Byrd-Bennett, refuses to respond to requests for comment. Satrapi, though, does, and mainstream media are directed to retrieve her quote from the student journalist.

Dapier does a nice job weaving the growing student discontent into their personal lives, making things complex and realistic. Apparently, the characteristics and life events were real, although characters were changed for dramatic reasons. I appreciate seeing the classroom discussions across the disciplines to make sure all voices and opinions are reflected.

As the 451 Banned Books Club plans a Persepolis read-in and others plan a walkout protest for that Friday. We watch each student wrestle with their choice of action and its consequences. This makes the book a rich reading experience as well as a breezy one.

Dungo’s artwork is relatively simple, mixing real and cartoon elements with thick ink lines, using a limited blue palette, with just red reserved for the banned book’s cover. I wish Dungo tightened the balloon shapes, which wasted a lot of space and, instead, provided more backgrounds, making much of the story seem simplistic/ I found the balloons (but not the captions, go figure) distracting throughout.

In the Note from the Author, we discover it was Dapier who used the Freedom of Information Act to retrieve the vital documents which proved Byrd-Bennett was behind the ban, despite lying about it, and this proved to be one of many instances of her misconduct, ultimately leading to her firing.

With books still under attack across the country, this book is a vital resource that shows students how to take action, have a voice, and hold adults accountable. It’s a compelling read, one I raced through and suspect you will, too.

A Brief History of a Long War: Ukraine’s Fight Against Russian Domination
By Mariam Naiem, Yulia Vus, and Ivan Kypibida
112 pages/Ten Speed Graphics/19.99

As the horrific Ukraine War continues, nearing its fourth anniversary, along comes this wonderful graphic novel.

A Brief History of a Long War: Ukraine’s Fight Against Russian Domination niftily blends a contemporary account of a young woman fleeing for shelter during yet another bomb attack from Russia. As she finds companionship among other victims of Russia’s aggression, they all share reflections of Ukraine’s contemporary situation, while flashing back to the 9^th century, when Ukraine can trace its history.

Yulia Vus & Ivan Kypibida provide detailed illustrations that show the evolution of the country and its inhabitants. With a simplified color scheme, it’s very easy to follow. They take the award-winning journalist’s words and bring them to vivid life.

While Vladimir Putin has wanted Ukraine since he wrote about it in 1997, Russia’s grip on the country dates back centuries, showing how the two are inexorably tied. Depending on your point of view, Ukraine was always a part of Russia and should remain so, while others contend its independence was undermined time and again, and the people should decide their fate.

They do not shy away from the various religious and ethnic controversies, such as the “linguicide” during the 1860s, which banned Ukrainian from being spoken by its natives or the Holodomor famine of the 1930s, which killed over 3.3 million people.

We have a frighteningly short attention span and memory, so let me remind readers that in 2004, Russia poisoned the independently-minded Viktor Yushchenko in the country’s presidential election. He recovered and won the office, only to see his rival, Viktor Yanukovych, replace him in the next election. He enriched himself while turning the country into an authoritarian state that leaned toward Putin, setting the stage for the 2014 seizure of Crimea and moving the pieces, resulting in the 2022 invasion.

Obviously, you can’t fully cover 13 centuries of complex history in 112 pages, nor can you cover all sides of the independence-versus-reabsorption issue that has confronted the Ukrainian people since the dissolution of the USSR. And yes, it isn’t very objective toward the people currently being victimized. It’s also challenging to tell this story when it lacks a definitive ending.

Still, this work provides greater context and vibrant images to help Westerners better grasp the issues at stake. As a result, this is a worthy addition to classroom libraries.