ALIAS Books 1 & 3
by Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Gaydos

This is my face when you're fucking me in the ass.

Picked up Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Gaydos' Alias Books 1&3 (because I am dumm and can't read nubbers). Alias was the first Marvel MAX book, an Ay-dults only 'line' distinguished by making The Rawhide Kid gay, bringing the Squadron Supreme back and ruining any chance of George Clooney playing Nick Fury in a movie. The best of the batch was SUPPOSED to be Alias.

Alias is definitely a return to Bendis' roots. It's essentially Jinx in the Marvel universe with Luke Cage anal sex. Power Man anal sex. Anal Sex Hero for Hire. It's really a dream for anyone who went through puberty while reading super heroes. Unfortunately, there's no Iron Fisting.

Fanboys had been in an uproar about Anal Cage back when it happened a few years ago, and I wouldn't dwell on it if A) It wasn't so funny and B) It wasn't a major 'character moment' for Jessica Jones to show us just how low she had sunk and just how far she had brought herself back by the end of the first story arc. Despite everything that happens in the first story, the big lesson is: no more Power Man pooter pounding for Ms. Jones once she learns to respect herself.

Bendis has been fascinated by hard-livin', hard-drinkin', upstorm-cussin', Mametian characters for a long time; even though, by most accounts, he doesn't drink, smoke, drug it up or live a hard, Mametian life. He supposedly loves to swear, though. His lack of experience doesn't hurt him when he's writing Daredevil (and it probably doesn't hurt his Spider-Man much), but while his main character is supposed to be a gritty private eye, promiscuous, a chain smoker, an alcoholic and whatever else the back cover copy says, she comes across as none of these things—and as easy as it would be to blame Bendis' inexperience in these matters, the fault clearly lies with the artist (except for the anal sex, the problem there stems exclusively from Bendis).

Gaydos is one of the many, many photo-reference artists working in mainstream comics today. It's an artistic choice that can ocaisionally lead to some fantastic work, but usually leaves figures looking stiff, uncomfortable and unnatural. Gaydos LIVES in the latter category and only once or twice escapes. This is mainly due to the fact that Gaydos is just a lousy artist. His linework is exceedingly ugly, his storytelling is atrocious and his over-reliance on photocopying is depressing.

The key to making photoreference work is to use it as reference. Most artists don't understand this and instead just trace the image with whatever tools they have on hand. In Gaydos' case, he uses a wedge-shaped marker he clenches between his elbows. And his studio is on some sort of house boat. At least, that's how it appears. While most of the characters shift from just plain ugly to occaisionally attractive (ugly when flirting/hot on the toilet), things really fall apart when Gaydos appears to use the same model for Luke Cage as he does for Steve Rogers (Captain America). The biggest difference seems to be that Cage is older and the rest is handled by the colorist.

Storytelling. In a narative, any narative, storytelling is the MOST IMPORTANT PART OF YOUR JOB. In comics, panel 1 should logically connect to panel 2; a mini dv camera should not have a full-size vhs tape inside it, a brownstone on one page shouldn't turn into a tenement five pages later, a character with no superpowers shouldn't be able to teleport though walls, when people talk to one anther, they usually move there mouths (not to mention their heads and hands), when they smoke, they usually move their hands towards and away from their mouths and the length of a cigarette often changes over long periods of time. In Gaydos' world, none of this is the case. The only thing that changes is how blown up a xerox gets. I'm not even sure what happened to one character who may have died on panel, just that the irises of her eyes disapeared.

Is bug-eyes talking so much that Jessica lights a new cigarette every panel?

But the failure of the book can't be placed entirely on Gaydos shoulders, Bendis has to bear the brunt of some of it. I can understand his confusion with Steve Rogers. When confronted with a bleached Jay-Z rip-off, he must have decided to throw his personality out the window. He doesn't talk like Captain America, he has no problem with government-sanctioned, non-proportional slaughter and he blows off a murdered girlfriend with everyday casualness. His asumption that everyone has an a priori knowledge of Ms. Marvel and the members of SHIELD is a little disconcerting—what do YOU remember about Agent Quatermain? His understanding of politics is baffling. Imagine a world where George W. Bush would be best friends with Reed Richards and the presumptive democratic candidate would be an openly xenophobic racist. A world where a Hollywood executive would end his die-hard alegiance to Bush and become a major terrorist threat after engineering one murder.

The murder, and the frameup it's a part of, is so overly complicated that even Jones comments that it makes no real sense. Of course, all of this gets brushed aside in favor of Jones' need to get over her willingness to let her ass get Power reamed.
The first book has a second story, that I've only started to read, about a missing Rick Jones. I'm not sure if I'll want to fill in the gaps between books one and three when I finish the second story though..

—Justin J. Fox