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The following story was totally cribbed from this week's Cup O' Joe at Comic Book Resources. Yeah, I'm cutting and pasting entire posts now. Roll with it. Anyway, it's a funny story, in a creepy, "I'm gonna make you squeal like a pig" kind of way.
Mark Waid:
Several years ago, I had done an over-the-phone college radio interview with a couple of guys in Vermont. Chat went fine, I remembered to mention what a genius Alex Ross is the requisite nine times, and we probably moved some trade paperbacks in the process. So once the interview was done, one of them explained that they ran a store in one of Vermont’s largish towns and asked if I’d be interested in doing an in-person signing. “Sure,” I said. At the time, I was living in Brooklyn, so it would be a short flight, and I’d never been to Vermont before. Fly up late on a Saturday morning, home on Sunday morning, see the sights, meet some fans. “Great,” I said. Set me up.”
The flight--on one of those twin-engine jobs where they discount your ticket if you bring your own helmet--was, despite the tiny cabin, spectacular. Honestly. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky at any point during the trip, and I just stared out the window at the beautiful farmland below. Landed around noon. My hosts were there to pick me up. They were a little younger than I’d figured they were going to be, but at least they were there at the gate like they’d promised they’d be and, besides, I’ve never been very good at picking up on Giant Red Flags.
So they piled me into their 1932 Hupmobile and, though we didn’t have a whole lot of time before the signing was scheduled to begin, they decided they wanted to give me a tour of the city. “Here’s the college,” they remarked as we drove past.
“Cool. Store’s probably nearby, right? Where’s the store?”
“And here’s the business district. This is the downtown area. And over here is restaurant row.”
“Nice. Very pretty. Very picturesque. So where’s the store?”
“Now, down here is the old mill. Been closed for a while, but it’s still a big tourist draw.”
“That is something. Yes, sir. So where’s the store?”
“Well, Mr. Waid...about that...”
There was no store.
Let me repeat that.
There was no store.
There. Was. No. Store. Instead, there were, in this town, two comics fans who had pooled their lawnmowing money to pay for a LaGuardia-to-Vermont plane ticket for their very-soon-not-to-be-favorite writer so they could meet him and own him for a day.
There. Was. No. Store.
I’ve seen the movie Misery. I’m ahead of you. I’ve told this story often enough that I know exactly what your response to that is. You want to know how quickly I reached from the back seat of the Hupmobile, snapped their necks, and took the first plane back to New York. That is a perfectly reasonable thing to wonder, but you have the dual benefits of hindsight and perspective. I had neither. For me that afternoon, it was just such a surreal, slow-dawn unfolding of the bizarre that the indignant neck-snapper in me was internally at war with my analytical-writer side, and I was forced to fully assess the situation rather than follow my murderous instincts. The arguments against Hulking out were compelling. First, I was completely dependent on these guys for transportation, and we were so far from the airport that finding, much less paying for, a taxicab was out of the question. Second, I already knew for a fact that there were no more flights back to New York that day. Third, this was long before I had a cellphone in my pocket at all times so, on the off-chance the cops would be able to fingerprint these guys’ necks before I could hitchhike over the state line, I had no easy way of letting my friends and family know whatever became of me. And...and, I admit, this was the single most pertinent factor...the morbidly curious part of me, the part that loves a good story, was dying to know what was going to happen next.
Here’s what happened next: Nothing.
I don’t mean, like, nothing bad. I mean, like, nothing. We drove around some more. I answered a lot of questions about what Alan Moore and Paul Levitz were really like. I signed a few of their comics, I lied about being hungry and made them change our dinner reservation from 7:30 to 5:00, I met their nineteen fanboy pals at the restaurant, I inhaled my food, and I was finally alone at the Sav-On-Inn by six.
There was no cable TV. I spent most of the next several hours watching fishing shows.
The next morning, they and all nineteen of their friends--each and every one of them holding in his trembling hands a mini-series proposal for the resurrection of some obscure DC character no one will ever, ever, ever care about--swung the Hupmobile by to grab me for breakfast before the flight home. I begged off on the meal, asked politely but firmly that they simply get me to the airport, and then, once I was there, where there were plenty of Federal marshals around to keep any of us from doing anything regretful, I politely read these guys the riot act. I explained how so very uncool this was, how it was flattering and their hearts were in the right place but how freakish this whole experience had been, and that before I would ever even consider referring any other comics pro to them, comic books would no longer exist. They got it. I saw in their sad, puppy-dog eyes that they got it. There was no question that they got it.
Six months later, another pro called me for info. He remembered that I’d been invited to Vermont and he was interested in taking a trip there if they’d fly him in. He’d tried calling ahead, but for some reason, directory assistance didn’t have any comics stores listed in the area.
Go figure.
I was so looking forward to getting this book in my hands and cracking it open that when I finally received it I went through the book like a hot knife through butter. It did not disappoint. A fun, fun book to read.
There. That's my review. The Brave and the Bold: The Lords of Luck by Mark Waid and George Perez is a very good read. Go buy yourself a copy.
What do you mean you want me to elaborate? Oh, all right.
"The Brave and the Bold" was a DC title that came out before my time and usually featured Batman and a superhero guest star teaming up to fight a common foe. In this latest incarnation, however, Mark Waid decided not to write one off stories but rather an interesting six issue tale involving murder, theft, gambling and a book that can foretell the future. It is also not an exclusively Batman book (though he is featured prominently. Hey, he's Batman). It also has Lobo trying to look up Supergirl's skirt. If that isn't enough to ring up the sales of this book, I don't know what will.
The book opens with both Green Lantern and Batman finding the same dead body in their respective workplaces at the same time. Hal stumbles upon the corpse in space just above Earth and Batman discovers it in the Batcave. The pointy eared one soon finds out that there are sixty two other identical corpses discovered all over the world and they were all found close to superhero hangouts: Atlantis, the Flash Museum, the Daily Planet. Conclusion: this self replicating guy was trying to reach as many heroes as possible and was murdered before he could fulfill his plan.
This murder mystery takes an interstellar turn when it is revealed that the dead body was an alien and his mission on Earth was actually to steal a book that chronicles the past, present and future, called The Book of Destiny. His murderers turned out to be a couple of alien gamblers from Ventura, a casino planet. So by the end of the first issue, the alien gamblers have a book that can tell the future and Batman and Green Lantern have to hunt them down before the aliens break the banks of every single casino in the universe.
Or will they? This isn't about trying to win at the blackjack table, is it?
While reading this collection, I was more interested in the interaction between the heroes (and one anti-hero) as they travel through space and time to retrieve The Book of Destiny than the actual chase for the book itself. The Batman-Green Lantern one-upmanship was amusing and Green Lantern's constant reminder to himself that Supergirl is jailbait is downright creepy (doesn't Jordan get enough booty as it is? What is he? DC's version of Captain Kirk?). It's also good to see Jaime Reyes a.k.a the new Blue Beetle hold his own with Batman against the Fatal Five, though I think the only reason Beetle is in this book is to generate some interest in his own excellent but flagging title. But that's one reason for commissioning these team-up books, right? A platform to showcase characters that aren't yet fan favourites but have the potential to be one.
And Batman versus the Legion of Superheroes? Best issue in the entire arc. He was transported forwards to the 31st century and meets up with the Legion and he still managed to run circles around them. And yes, that's versus as in "against". The Legion don't get to team up with Batman. They get their faces kicked in by him.
In the end though, with the help of The Challengers of the Unknown, alls well that ends well. If there is any complaint that I have while reading this book, it was with the Challengers of the Unknown. It was not their seemingly deus ex machina appearance towards the end of the adventure, for their identities were hinted at earlier in the story by Destiny himself. Rather, it was the manner they were brought in to help the heroes that made me go, "huh?" Here's the scene:- Batman uses the Rannian Zeta Beam to pull in the fearless quartet. Adam Strange is surprised that Batman can master the technology so quickly and admitted it took him years to figure it out himself. Batman's reply? "We don't have years."
So, uh...what? Batman is not only a great detective but a super genius who can understand and operate an alien technology within seconds? Mark Waid couldn't have Adam Strange operate the Zeta beam all by himself? That would be easier to accept. I know, I know. I'm arguing about a minor detail in a sci-fi comic book adventure and believe me when I say that I am not and I do not want to be that guy who takes umbrage on every perceived mistake in comic book minutiae. But still......"We don't have years."? Ugh.
That minor quibble aside, The Brave and the Bold: The Lords of Luck is a rollicking fun adventure featuring two of DC's favourite superheroes with some guest stars pitching in. I have never read the Supergirl series but I do know the hair-pulling and gnashing of teeth by the comics fandom in the internet on the way she was being written in her own book. But I don't see anything anything wrong with the way she is potrayed in this team-up book however. Heck, I even enjoyed her banter with Lobo and understand her wide-eyed admiration of Hal Jordan. I guess credit must be given to Mark Waid for being able to pull that off while the writers of her own series could not.
George Perez is, well, George Perez. He has not lost his touch. Correct me if I'm wrong but this series is his first pencil work in a comic book since the 1990s. I thought he had either retired or died and it was a feeling of serendipity when I heard his name was associated with a new DC project which turned out to be The Brave and the Bold.
I would say that this book is 'new reader' safe. You don't need to know a lot, or even any, of the characters' back story be it hero or villain in order to enjoy the book. In any case, there are annotations at the back pages written by Mark Waid where he gives some added information, mostly which issue of which comic the characters first appeared in. He also included a bit of trivia like the fact George Perez has no idea how blackjack is played. Seriously, George? Okay. I believe you.
Lords of Luck is a great fun adventure spanning time and space and though I feel the ending was a bit rushed, I highly recommend it.
