November
7 'Crisis' continues ...

Infinite Crisis #2

Creators: Geoff Johns, writer; Phil Jimenez, Andy Lanning, Norm Rapmund, Marlo Alquiza and Lary Stucker, artists

DC Comics, 48 pages, color, $3.99

So? Things get a lot clearer in the second issue of the big DC event comic, and for long-time fans it gets a lot more interesting. (Spoiler warning!: Highlight the white text if you want to know what's going on). Last issue saw the return of Earth-2 Superman and Lois Lane, Alexander Luthor and Superboy. This issue concentrates heavily on the role of Power Girl, as Earth-2 Superman reveals how he and his colleagues survived the original Crisis and how they plan to make sure the dark and corrupt Earth that emerged from that Crisis is forgotten so the "right" Earth can return. This is big stuff for DC fans, and despite the cynicism that past big event series have evoked, this story delivers in presenting a conflict interesting enough and big enough to really challenge the superheroes of the DC Universe. Of course, it helps immensely to already know a lot about DC history and the Crisis on Infinite Earths series of 20 years ago. Johns does a fine job of explaining as clearly and simply as possible the multiple Earths concept, but it's still likely to be information overload to new readers. (DC has a Crisis Counseling section of its website that brings readers who missed something up to date — an advantage comics fans didn't always have.) But for those who do know their stuff, this issue is full of great little surprises as it acknowledges that there actually has been a history to the DC Universe in the years since the first Crisis. The whole book evokes the original Crisis in its style as well, with a story crammed with dozens of characters and complex pages that explain a lot of the high concepts. Jimenez does a superb job with clean, detailed art that is dense yet not cluttered. It feels an awful lot like 1985, which is either good or bad, depending on how you view the comics industry. Either way, Infinite Crisis is a good example of the kind of megafiction that superheroo comics can deliver and will connect deeply with its target audience of hard-core fans. Grade: A-

'First Round' DVD

Directors: Corey Sosner, Oliver Xavier

Cast: Corey Sosner, Eric von Sydow

Get Me Out of Jersey Productions, color, 13 min.

So? Fan films are in a lot of ways the high-tech decendants of fanzines, allowing die-hard fans with the time and the money to bring their favorite comicbooks to the screen exactly the way they want to see them. The quality of these films has increased significantly and they've become quite popular at cons and even film festivals, despite the obvious legal issues. This pic even has its own page on the IMDB. And for all the things that may be just a bit off or of less than professional quality, there are things these filmmakers often get very right. That's exactly the case with "First Round," a fan-made film that pits the Punisher against Wolverine with cameos by the Kingpin and Jigsaw. Sosner stars, co-directs and produces the pic, which began as an audition tape the actor made for last year's Punisher feature. Sosner didn't get the role, but the audition evolved into this film, which has a good comics pedigree with storyboards from artist Tommy Castillo and cover art from Darick Robertson. (There's even a cameo by Jim Salicrup, a former Marvel editor best known for handling the Spider-Man titles in the 1990s.) There's not a ton of plot (it is only 13 minutes long), but the tone is ripped straight from the comics as Sosner in a good-looking Punisher costume shoots down the evildoers and squares off against Wolverine. Sosner definitely has the right look and uncompromising attitude for the Punisher. Similarly, Von Sydow gets Wolverine right in a lot of ways, from the smoking cigar to the menacing gutteral growl and dialogue peppered with the word "bub." Their fight is surprisingly satisfying with a pretty neat old-school visual effect and a resolution borrowed from Garth Ennis's run on The Punisher that settles the fight in a funny-painful way. There's even a short animated sequence recapping the Punisher's origin with moving comic art images. The homemade nature of the film shows through in the sound work, with dialogue sometimes out of synch with the actors' lips. The visual effects are crude and some shots in the action sequences look overly staged. These are things fans likely will be willing to overlook, given the overall good effect the film achieves. Of course, no DVD would be complete without extras. "First Round" includes a "making of" short (that's shorter than the movie, but not by much) and a preview of a planned sequel called "Eye for an Eye" that will make more use of the Kingpin and Jigsaw and uses scenes shot in Times Square. The DVD is available as a promotional demo for a minimum donation of $15 (to defray future production costs) or the pic can be downloaded to your computer through Sosner's website. Grade: B-