Daily Breakdowns 043 - Blood and Fortune

Dominic Fortune #1-4
Writer & Artist - Howard Chaykin
Published by Marvel/MAX. $3.99 USD ea.

Trade paperback due for release 03/03/10, $19.99 USD

I was kind of up and down on this miniseries. I found it kind of embarrassing at first. I mean, how many blowjob jokes does fifty-something Chaykin have to tell before he's had enough? It felt self-conscious, like he's trying to give readers what they expect, but I'm sure most readers just wanted a good story. And that's the problem with a lot of Chaykin work, in that his shtick and his obsessions get in the way of some decent plotting and nice setpieces.

This story finds Chaykin reviving a Marvel swashbuckling character Chaykin first depicted in the '70s. Fortune is like most Chaykin characters, a rogue who operates on the side of good but outside the law and with a healthy disrespect for authority. He's at least as horny as James Bond and at least as successful at scratching that itch. And of course, his face is the same as every Chaykin male lead. And that's not the worst thing. I mean, all the Ed Brubaker/Sean Phillips male leads are basically the same guy, too. It's okay to have a type, but you're always risking diminishing returns when you don't mix it up.

Anyway, Chaykin's other obsession is Nazis, so there's some of those, as well as some sort of splinter fascist group planning to overthrow FDR's government and take over the USA. Like a Bond film, Fortune gets to travel and sleep around a bit, and clues fall at his feet until it's time to stop the bad guy's big move, in this case a coup d'etat that pretty much every character admits is clumsy and ill-conceived, though at least Chaykin gets a good, bloody action scene out of it.

At this point, Chaykin is kind of like Clint Eastwood. Not politically, just in the way they both have moments of range (many more in Eastwood's case), but always come back to try to please the old fans. Dominic Fortune is Chaykin's Gran Torino, a technically sound, flashingly affecting but predictable work which relies quite a bit on familiarity with the star for its success. The slickness of Chaykin's art as colored by Edgar Delgado takes a little getting used to, but is quickly appealing and occasionally dazzling (love the herringbone suit!) . Chaykin has had an interesting life and it seems like he might have some great, personal stories inside him. But it's unfair to criticize a work for something it doesn't aim to be, so I'll just say this was okay and forgettable.


Angel: Blood & Trenches TPB
Writer/Artist - John Byrne
Published by IDW Publishing. $17.99 USD

We all have our biases. Critics aren't objective and aren't supposed to be. But at least we should be able to identify our own biases and preferences. I want John Byrne to succeed. Whereas another critic of my age group might root more for Chaykin, or Miller, or Simonson, I want Byrne to deliver some kick-ass comics and show people he's still got it. It's been tough sledding for the decade, give or take, that I've been reviewing comics. Some pretty good stuff, some books with flashes of the old magic, and some total misses. And listen, I'm not holding my breath for a good John Byrne comic, as there's tons of other talent out there, and he's certainly got a good body of work whenever I want to dip into the past. But it sure was nice to see what he's done with this book.

It started backwards for me, as I recently read Byrne's Angel vs. Frankenstein one-shot, which I found in a back issue rack but assume it was released to coincide with this past Halloween. A fun enough story, and Byrne did a nice job with the Gothic period, but pretty light. But it did whet my appetite for more, and so I soon had this collection of the four issue miniseries.

What sets this apart from all other Byrne work of recent years is the art, which is left in pencil form, the only color being the blood in this story of Angelus fighting a relatively obscure Buffy demon during WWI. As any visitor to Byrne's message board can attest, Byrne's penciled artwork is still really sharp and lively, but it has seemed like the work he does in commissioned sketches is superior to the inked pencils of his comics. But here, Byrne's art is in nearly a pure form, and he's obviously having a ball depicting not just vampires but period uniforms, vehicles, ocean liners, lush libraries, biplanes, armaments, cottages, submarines, fortresses...He holds his own with almost anybody here.

The script itself is strong, aside from a wonky plot mover or two. Like, would a newspaper of the day actually have printed a depiction of the symbol found on the dead soldiers, which Angel needs to see in order to know the killings are vampire-related? Seems like newspapers were much less sensationalist then, but okay. Byrne does have a good handle on Angel's hunger and guilt, and the machinations of the plot keep things moving and prevent Angel from bemoaning his fate. And hey, there's a clever bit at the end involving real monster, Adolf Hitler. It's not a deep work, but it's better than most licensed "lost tales" stories have a right to be, and Byrne is clearly fired up by the creative challenge. Very good stuff, whether you're an Angel fan or not. And it's also nice to read Byrne's Afterword, where he explains the genesis of the project and how it's one of the most fun and challenging projects of his career. One hardly ever reads Byrne that enthused about one of his books anymore, so take the hint and get it. He seems to have found a comfortable home at IDW.

A copy of this book was provided for the purpose of review