VINTAGE - Hunting Ground, Angel

GOLDEN, Christopher & Tom Sniegoski. Angel: Hunting Ground. 80p. DARK HORSE COMICS, August 2001. ISBN: 1569715475

Picking up where my last Vintage post on Angel left off, "Hunting Ground" is the next book is the rough sequence that Dark Horse published when it bound copies of the first monthly series. As a fun treat, there's a story here that was originally published in Dark Horse Presents #155. Meaning it wasn't in the original monthly series, so I didn't read it when it came out. Actually, re-reading the story... I'm not sure I actually ever read the Dark Horse Presents story. So it's a true vintage post, since I discovered something new from something old. Pretty much the best thing you can hope for when you are reading old trade paperbacks. So I'll break down the story in two parts; first, we get the aforementioned story I may or may not have read but definitely do not remember. We will also get the story proper, which concerns what I believe is Wesley's introduction into the comics and a fun story involving Angel being framed for murder.

VINTAGE - Earthly Possessions, Angel

GOLDEN, Christopher & Various Auth. Angel: Earthly Possessions. 80p. DARK HORSE COMICS, June 2001. ISBN: 1569715335

In the olden Dust Waltz days of Buffy Comics, Dark Horse also acquired the rights to publish comics for Buffy's spinoff series Angel. The original Angel series was entirely written by Christopher Golden. Chris is from Boston and did book signings in New Hampshire on a pretty regular basis, so I got to meet him a number of times. He wrote a Spike & Dru novel, as well as many other books and even video games for the extended Buffy universe. He got Buffy, and often found the characters' voices when he was writing them. The Angel series didn't end up lasting more than a year and a half. This is ultimately sad, since the Angel stores I'm going to review here are pretty much the best examples of how Buffy/Angel stories can work in comics. Also, I have this graphic novel autographed by him. That's pretty neat. If you don't know, Angel is Buffy's ex-boyfriend who had a bicentennial. Cursed by gypsies over a hundred years ago, he is a vampire with a human soul. After he and Buffy break up, he moves to L.A. and starts up a detective agency. He helps the helpless.

VINTAGE - Wolverine & Punisher: Revelations

As promised, it's time to talk about comic books collections you'd love to buy, but are currently out of print. I've decided to dust the ol' girls off on my bookshelf and share a little bit about them.


My primary reason for reading our first selection was the fact that Christopher Golden had a fair hand in writing it. After penning The Punisher's rebirth as a "weapons of heaven" reborn supernatural creature, the next step was obviously pairing him with Wolverine for a fun save-New York City adventure. Wolvie, who just got a brand new gal pal named Caley, is uncharacteristically happy when we begin our story. He's dressed to impress as he meets his new beau, a museum curator currently working on excavating on old forgotten subway station, for a fancy dinner. While the pair flirt on their night out, Caley is interrupted with news of a cave-in at the dig. Wolverine has his trusty motorcycle, so they both scoot off to see whats wrong.

Meanwhile, Frank Castle (the aforementioned 'The Punisher' just in case you kids didn't know) is also hanging out with his new platonic lady friend from his previous rebirth story. You don't need to read it, but it was a nice nod from Mr. Golden just in case you did. He's eventually whisked away to meet something called The Council of Thrones. Who are these kidnapping jerks, you ask? Well, they oversee all of the activities of angels from Heaven on Earth. Obviously. The Punisher was brought back to life by an angel and retains some of his supernatural mojo, so the Thrones have decided they oversee his activities, too. Castle isn't impressed by how weird they look or how powerful they seem to be, so he basically peaces out. The Thrones warn him something bad is coming...


Which brings us to Revelation. Not the biblical event, mind you, but a young girl who was awakened by the aforementioned excavation mishap. A former Morlock (you WILL be lost if you don't know the Morlocks were underground sewer-dwelling mutants, too ugly for the world above. Wolverine tries to explain this to Frank later on, but in Logan''s typical style, it's sort of hard to decipher since he's trying to sound too cool), Revy was cryogenically frozen by a Morlock scientist with a really cool name. Turns out our girl has the power to kill people with a 'death aura' - an airborne virus she can't control. She was frozen until a cure could be found, but in a separate story in X-Men related comics, all the Morlocks were killed and everyone forgot about her. Being in the big chill for so long warped her mind, so she believes the sewers are Hell and the surface above, "the light" is Heaven. Both Wolverine (mutant healing factor) and The Punisher (angel-enhanced powers) are unaffected by her powers, so the pair race to stop her before she kills most of Manhattan.

The manga-inspired art is beautiful to look at in this trade paperback, but doesn't necessarily go with the gritty story Golden and his co-writer Tom Sniegoski were originally going for. Pat Lee is drawing things almost too beautifully, too heavenly if you will, for a story that essentially takes place in the "hell" of the New York City sewers. While Wolverine insinuating about his "family" during his date (an obvious nod to how he feels about the X-Men) is cute, the very notion of a "Morlock scientist" who could design technology as sophisticated as what Lee's artwork shows is almost preposterous. The Morlocks were stealing food and wearing rags in early X-Men stories; you're telling me one designed a cryogenic freezing chamber along with "failsafe" robots capable of ramming rebars through Frank Castle? WHAT? I would imagine all of the design stuff would be a little less sophisticated, which would have made more sense with the "malfunction" that set Revelation free. I guess no one really loved the angelic-inspired Punisher; in this story, he doesn't do a whole lot in the beginning part of the story besides kind of wander around. Wolverine really shines here, and he looks pretty good. It was fun re-reading the story and I'm glad it is still part of my permanent comic collection

In Review: The Waking | Dreams of the Dead

The story follows a girl named Kara who, along with her teacher father, move to Japan. The pair have relocated to the small Japanese town of Miyazu Bay following the death of Kara's mother a few years before. Kara doesn't make many friends at first, but is instantly interested in a rebel punk girl named Sakura who seems to be an outsider herself. As Kara gets into the swing of the Japenese school year and way of life, she starts to hear whispers about a girl who was murdered just outside the school grounds several weeks before. After visiting the dead girl's shrine and seeing a cat die and then explicably return to life, Kara realizes there is something not quite normal going on. She, and several other students at the school, start having vivid nightmares about laughing girls with no faces. When the mean clique of soccer girls start dying one by one, Kara fears she's next.

This is exactly the type of title teens coming into my library are always asking me for. They want spooky, scary books. This book definitely brings the creepy, and it has a little romance between protaganist Kara and a Japanese boy named Hachiro. It's also part of a series, with the other two books coming out several months after this one. I believe that will appeal to teens as well, who often like series opposed to single titles. Recommended for ages 13+.

"Thief of Hearts" by Christopher Golden

So I finally started biting the bullet and reading "Thief of Hearts" by Christopher Golden. It's part of the Jenna Blake "Body of Evidence" series. Jenna is a college student who works as a kind of pathology assistant, basically helping people do all the Dana Scully work on dead bodies. I've only ever read "Skin Deep" before, but now own "Thief of Hearts" and "Meets the Eye" due to my Bookmooch-ing, back in the day. I got "Meets the Eye" first and realized I was reading them out of order- basically, someone really close to Jenna dies in "Thief of Hears" and it ripples through the rest of the series. Now that I'm trying to establish some series order, which is something teens coming into my library insist upon (and rightly so!) hopefully I will enjoy all the books much more. "Thief of Hearts" gets REAL good in the death scenes, which are a better read than watching the first "Scream" movie. Golden gives his victims the chance of escape, only to take it away, make them loose all hope, finally give them a chance, then kill them. REAL good, even when you know it's coming.

I'm already halfway through the book, so I'll probably post a full review on Random Buzzers and LibraryThing soon. I might stick with the series for awhile, mainly because I would like to eventually booktalk one or two of them and give an overview of a series of books when I'm doing my presentations. My only complaint is the dialogue- when Golden is writing a YA novel like this, or his Buffy work, sometimes the dialogue seems a little forced- humor is often inappropriate (the characters were making jokes in the next chapter after the major death in chapter 5, which just... didn't go with the tone). Golden should get snaps for delivering plot through the dialogue, but he's at his strongest when he's describing the truly horrific- which I would like more of in the future Jenna Blake novels, so hopefully he gets a little darker. In "Skin Deep" - he definitely does, so maybe it just took him awhile to find his rhythm. Check out the "Body of Evidence" series. It's seriously making me want to take long subway rides and read the ENTIRE time. Check them out from your local library.

Book Review: Baltimore

This is not my first foray into Mr. Golden's non-Buffy work. I've also read one of the Body of Evidence series titled Skin Deep. That was a young adult novel. Despite Mike Mignola's illustrations, which may make the title seem like it's intended for a younger audience, the first chapter lets the reader know clearly it is not. The scene opens on the battlefield, with the titular character, Henry Baltimore, leading his troops on a sneak attack against Hessian soldiers. The war itself is never really mentioned. It is only implied that this is all taking in the early 1900's. The first chapter does not go well for Baltimore, climaxing when he encounters something he initially thinks is a 'kite' (and referenced as such several times throughout the book, which I was into). After that, we don't see him really until the end of the story.

The true story really follows three friends of Baltimore; a doctor (who removed Baltimore's leg after the first chapter... yeah, I told you it wasn't good for him), a sailor he hung out with after parting ways with the doctor, and his childhood friend, who is presummably the last person Baltimore saw before disappearing. He has them all meet in a hotel bar to await his arrival. Each share stories of the last time they saw Baltimore, followed by their own personal experiences with the supernatural. Each of these stories (with the exception of one) was fascinating. The sailor speaks of his experience with some killer Marrionettes in what is revealed to be a ghost town. Maybe I'm just not scared of puppets, but the sailor's story didn't do it for me. I would have put a good succubus, or some sort of story of sexual woe... something the story lacks with a bunch of dudes. Plus, the sailor at 19 is decribed as kind of hot. You know some demon chippy would have wanted a piece of that.

The childhood friend (who is myteriously absent in decription for the early part of the book; I really thought he was going to be revealed as evil. He wasn't, and I was slightly disappointed) tells a tale of entering a city, seeing a plague-ridden ship, then noticing one of the 'kites' scurrying away. The novel slightly drags here, but this is the only other part that I wasn't truly entertained. Not only is Baltimore a good read; it's a book that has made me want to start reading true books again. Golden is a master and delving into horror and madness, and it's a thrilling ride to follow each of his characters every step of the way.