Book Review: CHURCHILL by Paul Johnson (Viking, 2009)

Johnson, the "great explainer" of modern times and expert dissector of the pretensions of modern intellectuals, has been coasting on his reputation of late. ART: A NEW HISTORY was robust (and colorful) enough, but I wasn't particularly taken with either CREATORS or HEROES. With this engaging "quick sketch" of the life of Winston Churchill, the author is back on form. Some snarky reviews to the contrary, this is not a hagiography, though it certainly gives Churchill the benefit of the doubt more often than not. Its simple goal is to explain why Churchill must be regarded as a major historical figure, regardless of what one thinks of the man and his policies.

The book divides neatly into two sections. Part one is a more or less straightforward biography which takes us up to the point at which Churchill first became Prime Minister in 1940. Johnson avoids the cliche of saddling Churchill with all the responsibility for the failure of the Gallipoli campaign of 1915-16, instead focusing on other, rather less dramatic examples of Churchill's tendency for occasional lapses in judgment. Foremost among the latter is Churchill's bull-headed defense of King Edward VIII during the 1936 Abdication Crisis. This stand had severe consequences for Britain, as Churchill became so unpopular that his (increasingly heeded) warnings of the menace of a rearming Germany were tossed aside as a result.

Johnson then devotes the bulk of the remainder of the volume to an analysis of Churchill's record as a war leader. Johnson sees Churchill as the "indispensable man," the key to Britain's survival, and lays out the reasons why. These reasons are generally convincing, though I wish that even more was made of the salient fact that Churchill regarded both forms of 2oth century totalitarian tyranny -- Fascism and Communism -- as equally evil. While always willing to "jaw-jaw" to preserve peace whenever practicable, he did not fall into the trap of "pas d'ennemis a gauche (ou a droit)" that hinders a sense of moral clarity. One wonders how history would have been altered had Britain and the U.S. heeded Churchill's advice and met the Red Army as far to the East as possible.

The book's ending is its weakest point. Johnson skims over Churchill's second premiership (1951-54) with indecent haste and concludes with a list of "lessons Churchill teaches us today." The latter has the tone of a particularly uninspired business seminar, while it is telling that Johnson prefers to tell us what Churchill did not do during his second turn at the top. (A.N. Wilson's OUR TIMES treats the second Churchill government in a considerably harsher manner, and, given the state of the war-ravaged country and Churchill's own age and weariness, Wilson's treatment rings a bit truer to me.) Happily, in an afterword, Johnson is generous enough to recommend more in-depth treatments of Churchill and his times. If CHURCHILL encourages the reader to forge ahead to these other works, then it will have done its job.

Comics Review: WALT DISNEY'S COMICS AND STORIES #706 (Boom! Kids, April 2010)

Andrea Castellan's "Mickey Mouse and the World to Come", which wraps in this issue, is the best original material Boom! has presented to date, and "there is no second" -- at least, not yet. The Rhyming Man's scheme to refashion the world to his twisted liking through his mastery of high-tech and "the world equation" comes to grief, as we all knew it would. Before "all iss done und said," Mickey, Minnie, and Eega Beeva get their heroic licks in, and, right at the climax of the action, a Tale Spin episode suddenly breaks out as King Kontinento of Illusitania and his daughter Silvy lead the Illusitanian Royal Guard in an aerial assault on The Rhyming Man's massive turbo-prop plane. "Rhymes" even wears a Napoleon hat and epauletted jacket and brandishes a sword for the occasion, coming off like a Don Karnage with a better grasp of poetic meter (though, in fact, his rhyming shtick does disappear at several moments, with Minnie inadvertently completing one couplet in the best Bucky Bug tradition). The "retro" look of the big air battle is entirely fitting, as this entire story is the functional equivalent of a Floyd Gottfredson adventure from the fanciful Bill Walsh era. "Casty" (with help from translators David Gerstein, Jonathan Gray, and Stefan Bronzoni) is clearly the best thing Boom! has going for it right now insofar as fans of "classic" Disney comics material are concerned, and Boom! just as clearly recognizes the fact, as WDC&S #707 will bring us a new Castellan adventure. My hope is that either "Casty" gets the entire book next time or we get a non-Mouse backup of higher quality than the woebegone and forgettable "Peg-Leg Pete and the Alien Band". (I mean, we never even got to see Pete actually perform in concert. We deserved at least that minor payoff.)

One minor quibble about Castellan's story coda. King Kontinento's decision to scrap the entire "World to Come" project is entirely understandable, coming complete with a "greenish" comment about humanity needing to realize that "we are zis world's guests, not its masters!". But did it really have to be "all or nothing"? Couldn't the technology be used on a smaller scale to fix earthquake faults, calm volcanoes, bring water to parched deserts, and the like? I think that there was room for consideration, at least, of the "Open your borders some of the time!" option (cf. the Speed Racer episode "The Fire Race")... provided that security was much tighter, that is.

Comics Review: STAR COMICS ALL-STAR COLLECTION, Volume 3 (Marvel Comics, 2010)

The "black holes" in the "Star Universe" are starting to show -- and NOT simply because Dave Manak, who'd later give us those memorably misguided team-ups between Richie Rich, Wendy the Witch, and New Kids on the Block during the Montgomery Harvey era, makes his debut in this collection (he writes the feature stories in TOP DOG #8 and #9). No, this third volume sees the final fruits of the first "original" Star title to depart the premises (ROYAL ROY, which ended with issue #6 in the face of threatened legal action by Harvey over Roy's extreme similarity to Richie Rich) and the dreaded insertion of (Gulp!) t-t-team-ups into the world of Star's flagship (IMHO) character, Top Dog. PLANET TERRY continues to be of consistently good quality, and Ben Brown's fine work on WALLY THE WIZARD is nothing short of a revelation to me, but these happenings do not bode well for what we now know would be these characters' rather limited futures.

The feature story in ROYAL ROY #5, "The Royal Olympics" -- a not-even-bothering-to-use-a-fig-leaf rip-off of an early-1970s RICHIE story, "The Rich Kids' Olympics" -- is the four-color equivalent of a finger in Harvey's eye as Star prepared to shutter up shop on its "prince of a boy," but Roy's career wasn't quite over yet. In TOP DOG #7, TD reprises his earlier role as operator of the government's "Brainstrain" computer and general trouble-shooter to dope out a solution to a "Crisis in Cashelot." To make this work, writer Sid Jacobson would have us believe that tiny Cashelot and its equally minuscule neighbor, Lessavia, are such key allies of the U.S. that TD -- who (in disguise, bien sur) had once used his amazing cooking (!) skills to short-circuit a dispute between an American diplomat and a representative of what is VERY strongly hinted to be the Soviet Union -- must be called into the "secret table service" once again. This is stretching credulity to the snapping point, but, as TD flippantly explains to (supposed) master Joey Jordan, it's "close enough for government work!" The predictable but enjoyable story at least allows Royal Roy to conclude his career on a relatively dignified note. Two issues later, however, TD gets a glimpse of his future when Manak's "The Great Museum Mystery" teams him up with Heathcliff. After TD's title had "wuthered" (sorry) away, he would serve as the back-up feature in Star's HEATHCLIFF title. Warren Kremer simulates George Gately's style with remarkable verisimilitude, but the character designs of Joey and TD obviously clash with those of Heathcliff (who's in his non-TV "silent" mode here) and his master Iggy. As if these two "special guest appearances" aren't enough, the in-panel blurb for TOP DOG #10 promises "the event of the year" -- a team-up between Top Dog and Spider-Man. What's next, TD donning a battle suit and zooming through the sky as he calls out to Joey, "You complete me!"?

Though Jon D'Agostino's inking may have helped, Ben Brown unquestionably deserves most of the credit for making his issues of WALLY THE WIZARD (here, #5 and #6) so enjoyable, largely due to his scripts. #6's "The Return of Merlin" offers up a clever, iconoclastic spin on the legend of the Arthurian wizard, who happens to be Wally's master Marlin's brother. Brown's Merlin turns out to be a conniving hustler who promises to save the kingdom from a threatening volcano while secretly planning to slip away with his payment. Marlin, for his part, being a "scientific" magician, stoutly avows that the best thing that the locals can do in the face of the danger is to make tracks out of the volcano's path. Marlin gets his comeuppance in the end, thanks to some quick thinking by Wally, but even the young apprentice's plan is delightfully unexpected. #5's "Kidnapped!", in which the haughty Princess Penelope is spirited away by the evil Vastar, isn't quite as distinctive, and Brown seems confused as to whether Vastar's magical ally Erasmo's "force field" is an incorporeal vapor or a literal "dome" (complete with a hole to allow smoke to get through!), but the artwork is still first-class, though a bit stiff in places. Brown maintains WALLY creator Bob Bolling's "non-Harvey-like" layout style and does it well. Indeed, his work here is so good that I'm all the more peeved that his earlier work on RICHIE RICH was so mediocre.

PLANET TERRY #5-#6 includes Terry's most straightforwardly heroic exploit to date, in which he helps a planet's inhabitants break free of the globe-girdling web of the deadly Tarantulugs and is rewarded with a substance that helps his big green friend Omnus recover from a near-death experience. #6 ends with the introduction of a comical detective character, Elvin's uncle Sam Space. Between #5 and #6, however, there is a single blank page colored green -- an editorial gaffe that's worthy of Montgomery Harvey at its most ham-handed. The misstep stands out in particular relief because Marvel, to its credit, has taken pains to present this material in a high-quality package. The Star line may ultimately have failed, but Marvel is giving today's readers an aesthetically pleasing glimpse of it.

Book Review: DAN DeCARLO'S JETTA (IDW Publishing/Yoe Books, 2010)

The first offering in IDW/Yoe's "Good Girl Art Library" takes the form of a handsomely mounted reprinting of all three issues -- officially tagged issues #5-7, but that's due to a little publishing chicanery from an era that, amazing as it may seem to us, shied away from making a big deal of "risky" first issues -- of Standard Comics' JETTA, an early product of the luscious pen of the young and ambitious Dan DeCarlo. DeCarlo had already established himself at Timely/Marvel with such "good girl" titles as JEANNIE and MY FRIEND IRMA when Standard asked him to develop its new epic of teenage hijinks in a then-far-distant 21st century. JETTA apparently failed to click with audiences despite DeCarlo's best efforts, but the title definitely presages the creation of The Jetsons a decade later... that is, if you can imagine The Jetsons projecting cultural cliches forward from the early 1950s, rather than the early 1960s, and tagging Judy Jetson as its focal character.

DeCarlo's most distinctive and viscerally appealing work is probably the pin-up art he did for 1950s men's magazines, but the best of that material lay some years beyond JETTA's debut. He had also just begun working for Archie on the original BETTY AND VERONICA title, and what little I've seen of that work indicates that DeCarlo was sticking fairly closely to the then-regnant Archie house style (which he would ultimately uproot and smarten up considerably). JETTA is basically a contemporary ARCHIE comic with a lot of in-panel clutter added, a lot of space-related jargon inserted as "hep" patter, some extremely short skirts on most women... and, I'm sorry to say, far less distinctive characters on the stage. Jetta, her boyfriend Arky (no coincidence, there!), her rival-of-sorts Hilaria, menacing teacher Miss Gorgon, teenage gizmo-whiz... uh, Gizmo... and the rest don't really spark to life at any time, even when the unusual setting is new and interesting, as in issue #1/#5. Sometimes, the uncredited writers don't even try to disguise character swipes; Jetta's well-meaning but slightly bumbling father is a fairly brazen copy of Archie Andrews' Dad. The "dead hand of the present" seems to lie on JETTA's futuristic setting a bit more firmly than it later would on The Jetsons, as reflected in the graffiti-scrawl on characters' "Jetmobiles" -- that particular craze was already old in the 1950's, having peaked during the "Swing Era" and the WWII years. Even DeCarlo's fine artwork is undercut in several places by the use of lesser inkers. Jetta is certainly a treat for the eyes, though, and the good cheer exuded by DeCarlo's art lifts even these predictable situations a bit above the level of the mundane.

The book makes "weight" thanks to an enjoyable Introduction by Craig Yoe and a series of Jetta portraits by a variety of contemporary "good girl" artists, which run the glamour gamut from excellent to hideous (the latter of which, by contemporary standards, might actually be preferred by some). All in all, it's an interesting portrait of a talented young artist turning a less-than-stellar concept into something greater than the sum of its parts.

Comics Review: WIZARDS OF MICKEY #4 (Boom! Kids, April 2010)

Our magic-mongering heroes open this issue by recovering the stolen dragon's egg from "The Iron Sorcerers." In so doing, Mickey, Donald, and Goofy demonstrate yet again that they've got plenty of old-fashioned ingenuity to complement their improving magical skills; they defeat the menacing "Warlock Robot" by attacking the fused metal creature's psychological Achilles' heel (and, yes, there really is one). Then, it's off to Castle Blackburg (and not a Hokie Bird in sight) for a planned rematch with the Tapestry Sorcerers, aka Team Tapestry. (Waitasec -- what about the much-stressed, relentlessly-repeated ground rule that "a team is eliminated from the sorcery tournament when it loses its Diamagic"? Didn't Team Tapestry lose its Stone Diamagic to Wizards of Mickey in that earlier match? Seems to me that the writers have lost the "thread" of their carefully-constructed premise. And that's my only weaving-related joke, I promise.) Black Pete and The Beagle Brothers finally reappear, this time running a "monster-hunting" scam and intending to add the people of Blackburg to their list of "connees." Pete evinces a complete lack of interest in the ongoing tournament; in the absence of The Phantom Blot's guiding hand, could he and The Beagles be "evolving" into a medieval version of their more mundanely crooked future selves? And... could a real monster actually be following Wizards of Mickey? If the plot gets any thicker, it will congeal, but WIZARDS continues to widen its lead over the flagging HERO SQUAD insofar as consistently high quality goes.

Comics Review: DISNEY'S HERO SQUAD #4 (Boom! Kids, April 2010)

All together now, kiddies: "LET'S LEVEL MOUSETON!" Well, a superheroic subsection of it, at least. The plot of the "Ultramachine" saga finally begins to move again as the Ultraheroes agree to turn over their Ultrapods to the Sinister 7 in exchange for the captured Mickey. This involves flying the 'Pods to the 7's island hideaway, where the contractually obligated double-cross awaits. Problem is, the newly-assembled Ultramachine doesn't work. Gladstone/Cloverleaf appears to turn traitor, confessing that a secret seventh 'Pod lies in Villa Rose. Granted, Clove's been sulking ever since that bout with Pete made him look bad, but would even Gladstone stoop this low? It doesn't matter in the end, as Emil Eagle goes Gladstone "one worse" by finally dropping the pretense and boldly announcing that he's abandoning his allies and going after the seventh 'Pod (the i.d. of which comes as a rather clever surprise) with the aid of his giant robot (which looks more like a tamed Transformer than the Master Cylinder-style gizmo that Emil, Pete, and Prince Penguin used back in MICKEY MOUSE ADVENTURES #12). We get a nice payoff of the running gag about Scrooge's repeated escape attempts, and, praise be, it appears that Eega Beeva is finally going to do some legitimate battle, as he calls for the "Green Ultra-Suit" (whatever that may be) in the chapter's final panel. The Antonello Dalena artwork is just a shade above the South Park Colorforms level, though... and, after walking into a trap to rescue Mickey, why did the Ultraheroes leave him behind as they dashed back to home base?!

There's precious little to say about part two of the relentlessly mediocre "Origin of the Red Bat." Fethry doesn't even get the satisfaction of defeating The Beagle Boys legitimately; his victory over the would-be costume-party robbers (are the B-Boys really that hard up for capers?) is a stone fluke. Scrooge has the fitting reaction when Donald reveals the existence of the "masked duck": a simple "Oh." Darkwing Duck would turn up his sizable beak at the very notion of something like this being HIS origin story. Somehow, I think the upcoming DARKWING mini-series will be much more entertaining...