Psychobabble Part Three: "Ghost in the Machine"
Writer: Marc Andreyko
Artists: Javier Pina(p), Fernando Blanco(i), Jason Wright(c)
Publisher: DC
This week has been for me a bad one. I did something extremely stupid. I downloaded the trailer for Casino Royale. I gave Daniel Craig a chance, and he sucks. Craig exudes the musk of Joel Schumacher, and he will assassinate the Bond franchise. I do not believe in changing the gender or race of a character created by somebody else, but if Daniel Craig is the best non-Brosnan white guy the franchise believed able to comport the necessary gravitas to James Bond, then maybe they should have thought in broader terms. I say cast Angelina Jolie as Jane Bond or make Bond black and bring in Wesley Snipes. Both stars are classy action heroes and will do a far better job than Craig can ever hope to do. In short, we Bond aficionados owe George Lazenby a big apology.
Apart from witnessing the death of Bond, I was shocked to discover that the CW passed on Aquaman. The trailer looked uber cool. The performances looked solid as did the stunts and effects. This series would have no doubt lifted the stigma, instigated by Jerry Seinfeld, associated with Aquaman. Worst of all DC now has no reason to get rid of Conan the Atlantean. I swear South Park treated Aquaman with more respect.
The capper for the week was when I learned that DC was canceling Manhunter. I kind of expected all along that Manhunter would be cancelled. Good books don't last very long in a market that caters to fans who buy badly written and badly drawn crap. Screw you, DC.
Marc Andreyko wrote Manhunter alias Kate Spencer as an intelligent career woman and super-hero. She was a federal prosecutor who fought for the law by day, and if the law failed, she served justice by night. Kate was the toughest female super-hero the comic book reading audience has seen since the earth-two Huntress stalked the rooftops of Gotham City. Kate didn't just capture criminals who deserved to die and leave them gift-wrapped for the police. She executed them. Her lethal ways were not the only aspect that made her worthy of Huntress' mantle. Like the Huntress, Kate had a complex and appealing personality. On the outside, she was tough. On the inside, she was just as tough. She was the kind of woman who wouldn't sue some lout for copping a feel. She's the type of woman who would grab the guy's balls and yank really hard until he ran out of tears. I loved this character. Screw you, DC.
My hope is that Marc Andreyko kills Kate. That may sound strange, but after experiencing ten plus years’ worth of sexist and misogynist writing, I have concluded that Yvonne Craig was right. DC just should have killed Batgirl. I don't want to see a hack cripple Kate "to make her a better character." I don't want to see a no-talent orchestrate Sonar or Kanjar Ro into raping her. I don't want to see some over hyped jackass for some contrived nonsense shoot Kate in the head as if she were a zombie. I don't want to see Kate tortured by a third-rate villain and then left to die just to teach a lesson to some masked sphincter. I don't want to see Snotty-El escape and behead Kate in the next Big Stupid Event, and I sure as hell do not want to see Kate suffer a lingering death caused by lung cancer just because some dumbass believed it was more realistic. I want Kate to go in the way she deserves, in the way every super-hero worth anything should go. I want to see Kate die in a blaze of glory while saving lives, and I want to see her take down a major badass on the way to the grave. I want her remembered as a hero not as a plot device. Screw you, DC
The first thing you notice on Manhunter is the One Year Later logo. The Powers That Be at DC have a twisted sense of humor. I don't find DC remotely funny. Manhunter was also seen in the two-page spread at the end of Infinite Crisis--The Big Stupid Event that destroyed every last shred of optimism I held for the DCU. Anybody intrigued by her appearance in the intended heart-swelling scene of generations of heroes following in the Trinity's footsteps has got three more issues to make Kate's acquaintance. Screw you, DC.
The comic book company that cares about its reader further insults Manhunter fans by printing the remaining issues on cheap, glossy paper. The paper stock acts two-fold. It at once makes Jason Wright's colors more vivid and makes Fernando Blanco's inks look heavier and a little clunkier. Javier Pina's and Blanco's art is still uniformly excellent and supportive of Andreyko's writing. However you cannot help but notice the difference in presentation between this issue and previous issues printed on the usual comic book paper-stock. Screw you, DC
Pina's and Blanco's scenes depicting Kate in action, something we had blessed little of last issue, are especially notable. We see her suited in three panels that flow to the bottom of the page. We see her dodging tendrils and blasting the silicon powder out of her nemesis. We see her doping out the villain's weak spot. Kate's proportionate. She moves with the prowess of a cat, and the artists maintain a distinctive body language for our lady in red even in battle. Screw you, DC
Andreyko this issue is definitely back to full strength. The author rewards his readers with the crackling dialogue that was sorely missed from the previous issue. He creates natural sounding repartee between Kate and Damon, her partner in law. He times verbal jokes, and he scribes some finely tuned terse super-hero talk for the fight scenes. Screw you, DC.
In addition to the battle at center stage, Andrekyo this issue touches on a number of subjects. The pacing is a little hurried but never harried. All the characters behave as themselves, and its this behavior and interaction that forms the story not an artificially inflated plot. Screw you, DC
The author doesn't have all that much time left to tie up any dangling plot-lines, yet his treatment of those story elements in this issue exhibits more balance and more connectivity than the previous issue, where he probably learned of the axe. Andreyko amusingly shows the influence of Dr. Psycho in a scene humorously recalling the Golden Age Wonder Woman. The relationship between Chase Cameron and Dylan dovetails into Manhunter's melee. Former Manhunter Mark Shaw's continuing mental battle against his largely unknown masters intersects briefly with the Chase/Dylan subplot. Manhunter's ancestry--she's the granddaughter of the original Atom--explains the seemingly disconnected scene focusing on her son and the cameo by Dr. Mid-Nite, who made the discovery. A lot to cover in one comic book, but Andreyko juggles it all. Screw you, DC.
Saving lives, killing villains, using the gray cells, looking great in red, there's very little not to like about Kate Spencer alias the Manhunter. Screw you, DC.
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