Sunday 20 September 2015

Uber #12 - Avatar Press

UBER No. 12, April 2014
Series creator Kieron Gillen openly admits at the end of this comic that penning the script for Issue Twelve of “Uber” was difficult, and came at a time, due to a family bereavement, when “writing anything was hard.” As a result it is somewhat easy to forgive parts of this dreary Stephanie ‘one-shot’, even if the tediously dull and uninteresting twenty-two page periodical provides little forward movement to the former computer games journalist’s “alternate World War Two” narrative.

Admittedly not all of the scenes within this comic book are as dialogue heavy and difficult to persevere through as the British writer’s opening, which depicts British modernist author “…Virginia Woolf , in person, speaking to us all” in a lecture at Girton, Cambridge. The revelation as to just how enormous and terrible-looking the grotesque “Heavy Battleship” Leah Cohen is proves to be a particularly fascinating, if not alarming, scene. Whilst Stephanie’s drunken realisation that she too “can be an enhanced human” should she expose herself to the catalyst will surely be more fully explored as a future dilemma; “Give it to me. I’ve killed people for less.”

Sadly however the majority of this magazine does arguably do little but demonstrate just how dishonest, dislikeable and manipulative the red-headed secret agent can be. Not only does she apparently openly lie to a battle-weary Tommy about sneaking into one of her much older sister’s college lectures, in order to simply impress upon him that she’s been “cursed with an exceptional memory”. But Stephanie is just as dishonest with her disfigured creation, Cohen, when she blatantly boasts “I was a most gifted child… I speak more languages than there are countries in Europe.” It is therefore little wonder that towards the end of this instalment her confidant, computer scientist Alan Turing, shouts at her that he “can’t abide how you lie.”

Perhaps this edition’s most disquieting aspect though is the replacement of series regular artist Caanan White for Gabriel Andrade. Gillen is equally candid about replacing the African-American penciller in his ‘Afterword’ as he was about his writer’s block, and cites that “basically due to the last couple of issues of Caanan’s epic thirteen-issue-of-comics-in-a-row running a little late” “Avatar Press” needed “to alternate artists between the major arcs.” Fortunately the Instituto dos Quadrinhos comic book illustrator brings a heavily detailed style to the proceedings, with his double-splash of the Second London Blitz aftermath, rife with mutilated Tank-Men and gory bodily entrails, proving to be especially gruesome and memorable.
The variant cover art of "UBER" No. 12 by Gabriel Andrade

10 comments:

  1. Fair comments, Simon. Not much happens, as you say, but I still enjoyed the issue. Stephanie is a complex character, but despite her obvious flaws, I'm still rooting for her. Plus, she is a leading player in the Allies' fight against Nazi tyranny, so I can allow her some slack. I've always been a sucker for strong female characters in comics. :-)

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    1. Thanks Bryan. This was a bit of a chore to read for me tbh, and bizarrely it also took me a while to get used to the new artwork, despite my belief Andrade is far more consistent than White was. This has been something of a choppy run of later imho for "Uber". But I hope now the pieces are in place for serious superhuman confrontations in the near future.

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    2. Quote : "But I hope now the pieces are in place for serious superhuman confrontations in the near future." Indeed they are. The battle between Maria (Katyusha) and Sieglinde Is well worth waiting for!

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    3. Splendid news Bryan. I'm just settling down to the "Uber" Special and then I'll be back to reading the regular series :-)

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    4. I can't remember if I told you, Simon, but the special was reprinted in volume 4 of the TPB, so I have read it.

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    5. Indeed you did Bryan, which is good news as I think, having read it, the special certainly fills in a few of the holes behind the German Battleships' motivations. We'll soon see whether you agree with all of my views on it though... ;-)

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  2. I am tempted by Uber, via tpb - with where you are up to in reading it, how highly would you recommend the book?

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    1. Hi PulpCitizen. If you can stomach the appalling language (which fortunately improves no end up to a certain point with the more recent issues) and you like buckets of gore then the first story-arc is superb and well worth a look. I've not been so impressed by this second one though as Gillen is clearly telling a far larger story (e.g. it now contains the Eastern and Pacific Theatres) so its a bit more piecemeal imho as he doesn't exclusively focus upon one particular confrontation and instead jumps every 2-3 issues. As for recommending it, well I'm in it for the full 60+ issue run that Gillen thinks his narrative will take and I know that having recommended it to Vampifan he probably loves it more than me :-)

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    2. This is true. I absolutely love this series and I only bought the TPBs because of Simon's excellent reviews. I'm ahead of Simon in reading the series (at least as far as his reviews are going) and in my opinion, the series just keeps on getting better all the time. So, I'd say the series is highly recommended. Be aware, however, there is strong adult content throughout and it's not for the squeamish, prudish or easily offended.

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    3. Cheers Bryan. You forgot to mention what a gore-hound you are though :-)

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