Kiss Me Deadly: The Femme Noir Review.

Femme Noir: The Dark City Diaries

Writer: Christopher Mills

Artist: Joe Staton

Inks: Horacio Ottolini, Mark Stegbauer.

Colors: Melissa Kaercher, Matt Webb, Michael Watkins

Cover Art: Joe Staton & Alfredo Lopez Jr.

Published by Ape Entertainment

There's just something about the noir mystique that keeps drawing an audience; the rain-slicked streets, the double-crossing, the messy lives often leading to messy ends. The notion of angels with dirty halos walking down the mean streets doing their best to do right in a world that doesn't much give a damn is an appealing motif that endures as a backdrop to entertaining and engaging fiction. Some of the toughest characters in modern fiction have walked those grimy avenues dealing out their rough brand of justice; Sam Spade, Phillip Marlowe, Lew Archer, Mike Hammer. Tough characters all, but I doubt they've ever dealt with the kind of trouble the city of Port Nocturne can dish out. Oh, there's the usual amount of gangsters, guns, and murder that's par for the course in settings such as these. But in this troubled city, sometimes it's best to expect the unexpected, the eldritch, and the flat-out bizarre. While the aforementioned gentlemen are doubtless capable of dealing with the mundane, in a crooked city like this sometimes you need someone with a bit more finesse. In Port Nocturne the law may be corrupt but lady justice is quite alive. And justice is blonde.

No one quite knows who she is or where she came from, but on the corrupt streets of a city that could give a damn about whether good people live or die she's the one person who'll stand up for what's right. There are theories, of course. Is she Laurel Lye, intrepid reporter? Dahlia Blue, the enchanting nightclub chanteuse? Or Vanessa DeMilo, the bereaved mafia princess? In a city reeling from crime, corruption, and the twisted results of Science Run Amok, it pays to have a woman like the mysterious 'Femme Noir' on your side.

It's rare that there's a book that can straddle that fine line between noir pastiche and old-school pulp, but Femme Noir manages with a style and aplomb that's to be envied. Writer Christopher Mills has created a world where gangsters, robot crime lords, and jungle queens from monster islands can rub shoulders without detracting from the noir sensibilities of FN's world. The initial mystery of who this female vigilante is draws the reader in, but the adventures themselves are so entertaining on their own that I really didn't concern myself with who the protagonist truly was, only that she kicked ass and took the appropriate number of names.

Artist Joe Staton's work has been something I've come to recognize over the years, and his style works very well in bringing Mills' world to life. Staton's work has a flair that lends itself well to the 1930s-50s style era of the work that is fantastic enough to allow for giant monsters and lost civilizations as well as robotic gangsters, but whose realism in moments of sudden violence works to drive the reality of the dangerous situations our heroine faces home. It's a mix that really works for this setting and makes it highly enjoyable.

The trade itself collects the entirety of the original mini-series which introduced the character, as well as a couple bonus stories and a sketchbook. The foreword by Max Allan Collins (author of Road to Perdition as well as creator of the badass mystery heroine Ms. Tree) provides an entertaining introduction. The book is well put together, with chapter breaks that feel more like the posters for an old-time adventure serial than comic book covers.

I don't want to give too much away, as reading the trade is entertaining as all get-out, but what I will say is that this is a character that deserves an ongoing title, or at least a series of trades like this one. In an industry that seems to rate it's heroines less on how badass they are and more on how little they wear, Femme Noir is a welcome breath of fresh air. She's a lady who'll kick your ass five ways from Sunday, can shoot blazing, twin-pistol death with the likes of the Shadow or the Spider, and doesn't have to dress like the Phantom Lady to battle evil.

Just don't call her a dame.

Stac

DUDE.

http://www.ironsky.net/site/

Watch the teaser. NOW.

Good God, the only thing that could make this any more amazing is if there was a division of gorilla troopers. With jetpacks.

I gotta siddown. . .

Science Fiction Fans: Your instructions for this week.

1) Go to your nearest comicbook store.

2) Purchase Dynamite Entertainment's Buck Rogers #1, written by Scott Beatty, illustrated by Carlos Rafael, with covers by either John Cassady, Alex Ross, or Matt Wagner.

3) Read said issue.

4) Experience joy.

Stac

Ps. I can't wait to get my hands on this book. Seriously, check out the preview here and you might get an inkling of my overall enthusiasm.

PPs. Oh my God, the energy meter on Deering's suit makes a 'bidibidibidibidibi' sound. Glee. . .

More on Moore: Tom Strong

I thrive off escapist literature. I can't help it. We all have our weaknesses, our foibles that take us down a peg. While part of me yearns for the acceptance of the literati, the hoi polloi who follow such sacred and wise institutions as Oprah's Book Club, or the CBC's latest opus on which Bavarian eccentric recluse author is just the darling of the 500-plus page introspective coming-of-age story drawing room crowd, you give me wirepoon guns, steam-powered pneumatic men, talking gorillas and helicopter backpacks and I am in, no questions need be asked. Be it super or science heroes, I love a thrilling tale of good versus evil that not only takes me away from the conventional reality of the everyday, but makes me feel this new vision of reality has it's own (albeit tweaked) ideas on the true strength of family and friendship.

When last we spoke I waxed lyrical and at length about Alan Moore's take on the Superman archetype in the form of Awesome Comics' Supreme. Shortly after Awesome Comics folded up its tents (nobody ever said Rob Liefeld was the greatest entrepreneur in the world) Jim Lee of Wildstorm Comics offered Alan Moore the chance to create his own line of comics about whatever he chose. With his Watchmen cache, Lee knew that anything Moore put to paper would be taken seriously by the comicbook reading elite, and Moore didn't disappoint. With Kevin O'Neill, Moore launched one of his most ambitious works to date in the form of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, a six-issue miniseries that brought the greatest heroes of 19th Century literature together in common cause in the bet Stan Lee meets Charles Dickens manner. Flush off that initial success, Moore returned to another primal archetype of serial adventure fiction, a spiritual successor to his work on Supreme, in the form of neo-pulp adventure hero Tom Strong. With the Tom Strong series, Moore created a work that at once hearkened back to the classic heroes of pulp fiction whilst simultaneously crafting a vision of family adventurers comparable to Stan Lee and Jack Kirby's Fantastic Four.

Rather than go into a lengthly diatribe about Tom Strong and his world, I'll let the inside cover flap of Tom Strong Book One do the heavy lifting for me:

'Unorthodox American scientist Sinclair Strong had a vision for his only son Tom—to raise him as the perfect human. To do so, he and his wife Susan retreated from civilization in 1899 to the peculiar, remote South Seas island of Attabar Teru. Creating an advanced high-gravity environment for the boy, with revolutionary teaching tools and a special diet, Sinclair and Susan began the bold social experiment, and Tom developed with unusual strength and intelligence. When tragedy struck the family, it was the native Ozu people who helped Tom continue his unique upbringing and prepared him for a life of invention, exploration, and adventure that came to span the 20th century.'

Tom is a mental and physical paragon, the pinnacle of human achievement. He can't lift massive weights or fly of his own power, but he is an inventor par excellence, able to out brawl a score of men with his near-superhuman strength and get around his American home Millenium City with aid of his helipack. Thanks to the age-retarding properties of the Goloka root, a plant native to the pristine jungles of Attabar Teru, Tom's relative youth and vitality have remained largely unscathed over the sum span of the 20th century, from his debut as a 'science-hero' of the 1920s to the series present-day of 1999. Considering the world-threatening challenges he tends to face he's not doing too badly for a guy pushing a century old.

It's interesting to note the similarities Tom shares with the pulp heroes of yesteryear as well as the differences that make him a product of the current day. While his origins clearly indicate a strong Doc Savage/Tarzan ancestry, the contemporary can clearly be felt in the manner in which Tom is raised. The Ozu people and their culture had a strong effect on Tom's moral upbringing, and his wife Dhalua is no swooning damsel in distress. Nor is his daughter Tesla who's a developing science heroine in her own right (though appearing to be a teenager due to the influence of Goloka she's actually well into middle age). The family unit is completed by Sinclair Strong's formerly steam powered pneumatic man (named Pneuman by a young Tom) and of course King Solomon, an intelligent ape whose brain was enhanced by Tom who tends to affect the manner of a P.G. Wodehouse character. And seriously, if you can't get a kick out of a talking gorilla speaking with the diction of Hugh Laurie in Jeeves and Wooster, I'm not really sure how I can sell you on this series. One either embraces the inherent mad genius of the concept, or you don't.

Another key difference is that Tom is no Doc Savage, at least in the sense of being infallible and beyond need of assistance. Indeed, rather than being mere sidekicks, the rest of the Strongs are heroes in their own right, bringing a postmodern Fantastic Four feel to the book.

Tom Strong is escapist adventure fiction at it's finest. Under Moore's hand and with art by his former Supreme collaborator Chris Sprouse, it told some pretty damned cool neo-pulp action stories. As with Supreme, there are a number of flashback stories detailing Tom's adventure-laden past, with art provided by such luminaries as Arthur Adams, Gary Frank, Jerry Ordway, and Dave Gibbons. Set in the sprawling vertical metropolis of Millenium City, Tom grappled with evil like the frozen foe Jack Frost, the mob boss Charley Bones, Nazi superwoman Ingrid Weiss, and of course the arch-criminal and Tom's opposite number, the notorious Paul Saveen. As the first volume of the book progresses we see a lot of guns being hung on the wall, creating a world that begs to be explored, and Moore does with a crazed enthusiasm that carries well into the first four volumes.

While a great read, Tom Strong does get a bit choppy. A sudden breakdown in the relations between Moore and Wildstorm (mainly due to the latter's being bought out by DC Comics, whose relations with the author have been strained to say the very least)caused the writer to largely abandon his ABC work, only returning to draw the whole thing to a close. Tom's adventures were chronicled by a succession of other writers, making the book a bit of an anthology. Though still entertaining, the book kind of locked into a bit of a holding pattern until Moore's return for the finale in volume six. There Tom Strong faces down the end of the world. . .and is powerless to prevent the apocalypse. How does the hero who's managed to save the day time and again withstand the unstoppable? The answer may surprise you.

While much credit is given to Alan Moore as a creator of the sublime and the seminal, there's something to be said for an artist who can simply sit down and produce an enjoyable piece of entertainment. While not the groundbreaking magnum opus of Watchmen caliber, Tom Strong is an entertaining read from start to finish, a pulp hero for the new millennium that you'd do well to check out. It's well-written, well-drawn, largely self-contained fun of a kind you don't get to see much of in the world of sprawling ginormous epic crossovers that will change the status quo forever(this time for real)! In a time when comics seem to be becoming stuffier and more congested with continuity and a need to have been a fan for a decade or more to appreciate the Big Two's current status quo, books like Tom Strong are a welcome breath of fresh air.

Stac
Strongman of America #7157.

Ps. If you'd like to get a peek at what I'm talking about, check out the entire first issue of Tom Strong offerred online by Wildstorm absolutely free! It can be found here. The entire run of Tom Strong is currently available in trade paperback from Wildstorm and can be found at finer comicbook stores everywhere(No I don't get a cut, I just like to help point out the awesome where I can).

Damn you Mike Mignola. . .

. . .you've got my number. Again:



LOBSTER JOHNSON: THE SATAN FACTORY
Thomas E. Sniegoski (W) and Gregory Manchess (Cover)
On sale July 1 b&w, 256 pages $12.95 Novel, 5 1/4" x 8"
Hellboy’s premier crime fighter in an all-new novel!
Where greed and the occult walk hand in hand, where mobsters and monsters prowl the streets, none escape the justice of Lobster Johnson!
In the years before World War II, Jonas Chapel was a respected physician, until his appetite for vice got the best of him and he found himself on the run from one of New York’s most powerful mob bosses. On the lam in Mexico, Chapel stumbles across a powerful witch and a cursed skeleton—and the power to transform men into monsters. Now, he’s back in New York, selling his creations to the highest bidder.


Oh hell yes. Well-played sir, well-played indeed.

Stac

In lieu of absolutely nothing:

Captain Gravity and the Power of the Vril may well be the best trade paperback I've read all year. I was so afraid that the book wouldn't live up to anticipation wrought by it's cool cover and--quite frankly--badass title, but I'm burning through it at a heady clip and it is sheer, zesty, pulp fun of the best 1940s style. Get a copy if you're at all into pure fun and sheer joy.

'Remember: NOBODY ESCAPES THE LAW OF GRAVITY! '

Stac

Ps. A more detailed review will be provided later. I just. . .goddamn this book is awesome!