Writers: Howard Wong & Jim Valentino
Illustrator: Marco Rudy
Publisher: Image/Shadowline
Price: $2.99

Plenty of superhero dramas deal with the difficulty of stepping into the spandex and strapping on the eye mask. It's tough on the family, it's tough on the self, and it's impossible to maintain any semblance of whatever a "normal" life may be. For Ethan Falls, AKA Captain Gravity, the problems don't start with being a hero; they start with seeing the bottom of a glass.

Howard Wong and Jim Valentino team up to write a book that deals with superheroics and alcoholism in a way that reads grittier and realer than what happens in Tony Stark's psyche. Ethan Falls is in a perpetual state of denial; he's got a family that he wants to please and see happy. To that end, he's trying to find a way to relieve his wife of her night job by trying to solely make all ends meet. He's desperate, and it's a depressing anxiety that got him to this point. In a flashback, it's revealed that Ethan, as Captain Gravity, was summarily rejected from his crime-fighting team. When his teammates tried to intervene and help Ethan with his addiction, denial and pride forced him to quit. What happened next was a downward spiral: increased drinking, shady associates and a life of crime. Ethan lies to his family about his "warehouse" work, code for his new life of villainy. The real job is a bank robbery, one without weapons where Ethan uses his powers of gravity control to succeed. His crew resent him, and Ethan's high-voltage mood swings dictate that he's the boss and nothing would go down with him.

By the end of this first issue, Ethan has already poured more water over his head. His kids suspect him, the cops are on the case, and another bad guy has stepped in to blackmail Ethan into more criminal work. Ethan's wife maintains her waitress job while her co-workers have their own suspicions. It's not clear now as to why Ethan's wife happens to be the most clueless of the cast, and I hope that she becomes more complex as this miniseries continues.

The concept here is familiar, but the plot offers lots of intrigue and opportunity. You won't find a keener definition of anti-hero than Ethan Falls, yet you can't help but cheer for him as evil mounts up against his efforts. He may not be an entirely bad guy; he's victim of an awful disease. It'll be intriguing to see how Wong and Valentino manage to bring this saga to a close in only two more issues. There are lots of loose ends and open opportunities.

Marco Rudy's art is fantastically moody throughout the issue. The clean black and white chiaroscuro effect manages to maintain an edgy mood and evoke a noir tone. The characters have a clean, slick look and their eyes do all the emoting. The aforementioned flashback has in black and gray "weathered" look, which adequately separates it from the narrative moment. This book is one to watch and definitely read.

RATING: 4/5

Writer: Tad Williams
Penciler: Shawn McManus
Inker: Walden Wong
Colorist: Dan Brown
Publisher: DC Comics
Price: $3.99

When it comes down undersea heroes, Marvel's Namor has a fin up on DC's Aquaman. Namor is older, for one (created in 1939; Aquaman arrived in 1941). Namor also has good anti-hero street cred, his distain for dry-land humanity being well-documented. And let's not forget Ultimate Namor, who, in his Ultimate Fantastic Four series appearances, was just about the world's most powerful, egotistical, arrogant and sex-starved mutant. He's a jerk, but a quality jerk.

Aquaman doesn't have that kind of edge. There's more happy-go-lucky mythos in the DC character's current ongoing title, a book that's gone through lots of revision and reinvention where other books get canned much earlier on in their lifespans. Aquaman is a noble hero, now embodied by Arthur Curry, who took over the Aquaman role around issue #40 (when the book was One Year Later-ed). Rather than give the title a new #1 and restart with novelist Tad Williams, the book continues the narrative set up by departed writer Kurt Busiek.

Aquaman Arthur Curry and his tenuous buddy King Shark (far and away, the best character in the book) are traveling around the sea with the Dweller of the Deep (the mutated former Aquaman), the trio waiting for a heroic opportunity to happen. While they doggy-paddle around the sea, some shadiness is going on as a villain named Narwhal (who looks a lot like Aquaman, which confused me until halfway through the issue) is being manipulated by undersea villains to go full-throttle into a battle with the good guys. The city of Atlantis has fallen, but its people are ready to defend the water-logged columns against the bad omens surely to come. By the end of the issue, Arthur Curry turns another chapter in his nascent role as undersea hero, and there are to come big battles which are teased in a none-too-subtle fashion.

But does any of this issue hold water? Not so much. Tad Williams comes on board what seems like a sinking ship, a book mired in complicated mythos and compounded plotlines-this may explain the wordy bouts of exposition and convoluted explanation. This oversized issue offers intriguing set-ups, but it would take a lot for an undersea-set book to carry more weight that what happens with the capes in the sky. DC wants to keep the stakes high with this character by tying Aquaman into every event (including the upcoming World War III event). The problem for me-who, admittedly, has never been an Aquaman reader-is that it's not too much fun and it's no place to jump on now. I love the King Shark character and his conflict between carnivorous instinct and social order. Shawn McManus and Walden Wong's artwork fits the setting perfectly (the art being the best part of the book), complete with rocky shadow and well-conceived characters. The emphasis for this title is on fun, action and adventure, and the art carries through on those goals.

But the storytelling drops the trident. So much talking, limited bouts of action-it feels like a book without an anchor. Fans may be sated, but new readers will rather wish to nap on the beach. Mario Alberti's fantastic cover maintains a far eastern-influenced style, but promises a story that doesn't really exist.

RATING: 2/5

Writers: Leah Moore & John Reppion
Artist: Stephen Segovia
Colorist: Romulo Fajardo Jr.
Publisher: Top Cow/Dynamite
Price: $3.50

The Top Cow series Witchblade has been around for more than a decade and has permeated into other media: TV, manga, novels. You just can't underestimate the comic-reading public's desire for a healthy, impossibly-curved woman who is bonded with some techno-organic weapon that barely covers her sizable assets.

The married writing team of Leah Moore (Alan's daughter) and John Reppion have arrived with a Witchblade miniseries that fills in some gaps from the proper Witchblade ongoing, which I guess makes this deleted scenes or bonus footage. But the problem with most DVD deleted scenes and bonus footage is that, while moderately interesting for fans, the stuff ended up on the cutting room floor for a specific reason: it sucked.

This issue succeeds by being much more than an interesting side-note. Sara Pezzini's stimulating murder case has strong enough legs to stand up on its own. Pezzini is introduced early on (to benefit new readers) through meeting her new case partner Alice Burns. The two of them are thrown immediately into the investigation of a fit athlete that has died with extreme shock on his face and a critical aneurysm in his brain. There is a lot of misdirection and mystery along the way, not the least of which is the Witchblade speaking (sending her messages, at least) to Pezzini and warning her on villainy that's about. She goes along with her investigation, but the Witchblade won't shut up. Phrases like "His lies will destroy us!" and "We must protect ourselves" follow Pezzini as she hunts for "the Deceiver," who may or may not be responsible for the first death or the ones that follow. Of course, Pezzini gets her chance to kick butt (with her shirt torn off, of course).

Moore and Reppion have a solid handle on the character. They reign in a lot of the Top Cow oversexed overzealousness. They take Sara Pezzini and maintain her strength, dignity and power. They also make the book accessible for new readers by introducing a new plot and adventure, while also providing enough info for the newbies. Even the look isn't too over-the-top. New artist Stephen Segovia occasionally falls victim to the Mark Silvestri and Rob Liefeld school of impossible angles (Pezzini appears to somehow run while flat against concrete) and preposterous anatomy (but that's why you read a Top Cow book). There are prerequisite locker-room scenes and carefully steamed showers and tight towels, but none of that distracts from what's a quality mystery story spackled with fantasy elements.

Moore and Reppion have a respectable bevy of work already in the portfolio (Albion) and their zombie book Raise the Dead is on the way. There's a lot of storytelling promise in them-can't help but think it's the breeding.

RATING: 3.5/5

Writer/Penciller: Rick Veitch
Inker: Gary Erskine
Coloring: Jose Villarrubia
Publisher: DC/Vertigo
Price: $2.99

So far, every preview or description I've read about Army @ Love says pretty much the exact same thing: "It's a satire." That's fine, I can appreciate good satire. The problem is, it took the better part of a week for me to put my finger on exactly what it's a satire of, because the book makes it incredibly difficult. What exactly is it satirizing? The Iraqi War? The lecherous habits for the American Army? Nope. I finally settled on calling it a satire of the U.S. Army's recruiting methods. Yeah, that's my final answer, and I'm sticking with it. There are many techniques to satire. Army @ Love employs the ever-popular, "Take something real, and make it so over the top that it makes the original concept seem stupid just by association." Army @ Love specifically targets the Army's nature of targeting kids in high school with traditional methods such as ROTC, promises of training and money for college, obnoxious Navy commercials with Godsmack, and free sport watches. Instead, the Army now has a special recruitment division called "Motivation & Morale" which lures high school kids into the Army through cheap thrills, co-ed troops, cell phone privileges, and giant orgies. The result is a bunch of young, gung-ho soldiers who don't seem at all phased by being shot at, have no remorse about killing the enemy, and think that having sex in the middle of a heated fire-fight is a completely practical thing to do. Now, the purpose of a true satire is to ultimately expose something or to make a point, and Army @ Love does neither. I was expecting this book to be along the lines of Jarhead in terms of actually exposing how unglamorous war really is. Army @ Love does just the opposite by portraying war as one giant party where everyone gets laid, and the enemy always misses. The only thing this first issue does to present a darker side to everything is to portray the leader of "Motivation & Morale" as being a little on the callous side by doing whatever it takes to get people to enlist. This also gives me hope that Veitch is going to slowly make the point that he's obviously trying to make (a point he specifically makes on the back page). It'll probably just take a few issues to get up to speed.

The art here is descent, to say the least. Veitch does a great job with detail, but I'm convinced, after reading this book, that Rick Veitch has graduated from the "Napoleon Dynamite School of Drawing Faces," because it seems like every one he draws has some proportionality flaw. Seriously, the entire time I was reading this book, it seemed like Switzer's left eye got farther and farther away from her nose, until the shocking conclusion where it actually broke free of her face and gained sentience of its own. I may have made that last part up, I don't remember.

In summary, people looking for a serious war-time satire should give this book a miss, as there's almost none to be found here. However, for all its short-comings, it's still fairly entertaining. Right now it serves as more of a goofy look at an unrealistic military, which some people might love. Use your own discretion if you're considering purchasing it. -Reviewer Tristan Hoagland has changed his body to destroy you!

RATING: 3/5

Writer/Artist: Jason Embury
Guy Who Only Did Some Portion of the Covers But Somehow Gets Top Credit on the Cover: DJ Coffman
Publisher: Platinum Studios Comics
Price: $2.99

Hero By Night is hands down the most confusing book I've ever read. I don't mean that it's hard to understand. On the contrary, it's very straightforward and easily understandable. Hell, a six-year-old could read it and understand exactly what's going on. No, it was confusing to me, as a reviewer, because my initial thought upon finishing it was, "Wow, this book is awesome, but I have no idea why!"

I mean, the story is nothing groundbreaking by any means; some washed-up guy gets his hands on a piece of crappy property, and finds the secret lair of a super-hero from the past. Nothing truly original there. Although, that's a gross oversimplification of it. The book begins by showing how the original Hero by Night perished. Turns out he may have been a bit overzealous in his duties, to the point where he openly sacrificed himself when he could have just as easily not have done so. It then jumps to the future where our protagonist, Jack King, is in a deli, enjoying a sandwich just a little too much, and chatting up the owner of the deli. He's recently be appointed by his over-demanding father to be the new supervisor for an apartment building. In the morning, his father calls him and tells him to get to work remodeling the basement. So, naturally, he starts pounding on the wall with hammers until he finds a steel door, which leads to the secret lair of the Hero by Night. There Jack spends a few hours poking around and reading his diary. Then he decides to do the obvious thing: sell it all on eBay for millions of dollars. The next morning he calls an old college friend, a girl who runs an eBay business and is clearly in love with Jack. She lists the diary the next day, and it explodes. It's all over the news, and the owner of the deli even closes the shop to watch its progress. Then, somewhere on a cliché island in the middle of the ocean, a familiar enemy returns...

While that the story may still sound only vaguely interesting, most of the charm comes from its unintentional absurdity; whether it's using a regular hammer to tear down a wall, or several people who clearly have no idea how eBay works. It's hard to do this book justice in a review, because you almost have to read it to fully understand what makes it so good. Although to be honest, I still can't put my finger on exactly what makes this book so damn good. In the end I think it's a combination of the light-hearted story, the campy (but unintentionally hilarious) dialogue, the goof-ball but lovable characters, the simple but occasionally detailed art, and the advertisement for the new "KISS 4K" series (coming this May to a discount comic bin near you) that make this book what it is. And what it is, is a charmingly simple, yet hilarious indie book that's easily one of the most promising miniseries of 2007. It's a must read for all ages.  -Reviewer Tristan Hoagland lives trapped on an orbiting space satellite with severable lovable, sarcastic robots.  Also, the robots kill people and wear their skin.

RATING: 4.5/5