The Dark Tower: Treachery

This comic series is a spin-off of Stephen King's Dark Tower series, featuring characters from the books during a time period not covered by the epic novel sequence. The story fills in gaps in the life of Roland Deschain, bringing readers more of his backstory and history.

Treachery follows The Long Road Home, which spun out from Gunslinger Born. Gunslinger Born was basically a retelling of pieces of the novel Wizard and Glass, and so brought no new material to the Dark Tower world. The following sequences, though, carry that story forward into new territory.

The end of Treachery does cover pieces of Roland's story from the books, but also adds to the narrative. Although readers of the Dark Tower books will know how the ending plays out, there's enough original material here to provide a good addition to the books.

A must-have for devoted Stephen King fans.

X-Files--The Comics

The X-Files has been absent from TV screens since 2002, but with the arrival of The X-Files, I Want to Believe in movie theaters last year, the series has been revived in comic book form.

The X-Files comic books are published by Wildstorm Comics, with the first issue having arrived in January of this year. So far, the series consists of stand-alone stories of two issues each, echoing the formula of the earlier days of the TV series. The artwork is quite good, offering familiar faces to fans. The stories aren’t bad, but could be better. The two-issue per story format limits the strength of the individual narratives, so the plots are weaker than they could be if given a 4- or 5-issue arc.

One confusing element to the comics is that they’re dated 2009 in the slug lines, and Mulder and Scully make use of modern technology that never appeared in the original series (flash drives, for example), and the Lone Gunmen make appearances in spite of their canonical deaths in Season Nine. One has to conclude that the timeline exists independently of both the series and the recent movie, as many important events from both are ignored.

While these comics could be stronger if given longer arcs, they’re still an entertaining return to the world of The X-Files.

Watchmen--Graphic Novel

The Watchmen graphic novel is largely known as a watershed moment in the development of comics. Reading it twenty years later, this impact is largely lost, since nearly every major comic on the shelves today has been influenced by the gritty, dark, amoral qualities Alan Moore brought to his complex, alternate reality world.

The strength of the storytelling, though, does hold up. And Moore's problematic treatment of women is probably emphasized by the intervening twenty years, during which time more and more folks of the female persuasion have become involved in the comics world, both as readers and creators.

Perhaps most impressive is Moore's handling of the alternating flashback storyline, and the strongest section, narratively speaking, is Dr. Manhattan's reflections while on Mars. The structure of the story wanders, going from whodunit to a much more complex approach that in the end almost ignores the idea of the murder mystery.

The most problematic part of the book, though, is the female characters. Sally Jupiter's supposed "romance" with the Comedian is offensive to many, stemming as it does from an attempted rape. And Silk Spectre has little personality, her character largely defined by her relationships with Dr. Manhattan and Nite Owl. Visually, the ending is a bit jarring, and doesn't quite mesh with the "feel" of the rest of the book.

In spite of its flaws, though, Watchmen remains deserving of its status as a classic.

The New Comic Books Are Here!

In addition to new music at the beginning of the month, I get my new comic book shipment. I get my stuff from mailordercomics.com, which has really good prices--the only disadvantage is that if you opt for once a month shipping, you're always a month behind everybody else, so there's risk of spoilers. I've run into issues with this on many ocasions, especially this month with the big plot twist from Buffy number 12. Which kind of annoyed me, but what can you do.

Anyway, I'm following quite a few comics right now. I started with just the media tie-in books, but I've branched out. So this month I got:


Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8. I've been following this since issue one, and I've been enjoying it quite a lot. Joss' first arc was great, but I think the Faith ark from Brian K. Vaughan was just as good if not better, and Drew Goddard's new sequence is definitely living up to the high standards set so far by this comic. (Dark Horse)

Angel: After the Fall. I was an even bigger fan of Angel than I was of Buffy, so I was excited when I heard Angel's story would also continue in comic book form. Something about this comic really bugs me, though, and I can't even peg down waht it is. It just seems...dour, I guess. I suppose I'd hoped for a happier scenario for Angel and the gang. I should have known better, given how Joss left the TV series hanging. There's been interesting twists, though, and I remain intrigued and wondering where things are going to go. (IDW)

Serenity: Better Days. To round out the Joss Whedon trifecta. This series has just gotten underway, and I'm enjoying the ride so far. I'll probably have more to say about it later. (Dark Horse)

Doctor Who. These are the Ten/Martha comics, on issue two. These are also fun. The first issue seemed a bit shallow, but it was a standalone. Issue two is leading into a longer story, which I hope will have more depth. Oddly, this book has considerably more typos in it than any of the others. Weird. (IDW)

The Dark Tower: The Long Road Home. Another tie-in. I'm liking this much more than Gunslinger Born, which I ended up not really reading when I discovered it was just a rewrite of a chunk of Wizard and Glass. This comic is telling a new story, though, that's not in the books, and so I'm considerably more interested. (Marvel)

Rogue Angel: Teller of Tales. I'm not familiar with the background of this book--apparently it's a comic version of a novel? Something like that. Anyway, I wasn't familiar with the story, but I saw an ad in the previews catalog and decided to give it a shot. I very much enjoyed the first issue--the premise hooked me--but the second issue left me a little flat. I think I'm just really prejudiced against flashbacks, and issue two was all flashback. (IDW)

Echo. Another one that looked interesting in the Preview catalog, mostly because of the stunning cover art from Terry Moore, also the author. Another intriguing premise with a female lead, much like Rogue Angel, but a very different kind of story. If this one continues in the vein of issue one, I'll be there. (Abstract Studio)

Knowledge is Power. This one just finished up the first story arc, and I think I might have actually gotten that issue last month, but only got around to reading it this month. I wouldn't swear to that, though. Anyway, this one's about vampires and ancient apocalyptic literature, so I'm totally there. Unfortunately, the first issue didn't hook me as strongly as the others, so now I'm not sure if I'm subscribed for issues beyond number four. Since I'm pretty into the story now after four issues, I'll have to look into that. (803 Studios)

Afterburn. Again, picked out of the Previews catalog because it looked interesting. In this story, the Eastern Hemisphere has been destroyed by a solar flare, so there are many post-apocalyptic goings-on. This one's entertaining me but not as much as some of the others. I'm hanging in there, though, and will give it at least one full arc before I decide if I want to continue. (Red 5 Comics)