Busiek, Kurt
About the Author:
Kurt Busiek was born in Boston, Massachusetts, USA in 1960.
AVERAGE REVIEW SCORE:
3.3 out of 5
(3 books)
TOP PICK:
Conan: The Frost-Giant's Daughter And Other Stories
Conan: The Frost-Giant's Daughter And Other Stories
(Art by Cary Nord and Thomas Yeates)
The first volume of the Dark Horse Comics series starring Robert E. Howard's Conan the Cimmerian. Adapting some of Howard's own stories and adding new content too, this book begins with sixteen-year old Conan headed northwards in pursuit of the beguiling legends of the mystical land of Hyperborea.
It has been a long time since I read Howard's Conan stories, but Busiek managed to capture enough of the feel of them that I soon remembered what it was like to read about the barbarian hero. This is something of a double-edged sword because although there is an enduring appeal to the character, there are also aspects of his character which are a little uncomfortable in the modern age. Aside from his uncompromisingly violent nature, or perhaps more accurately an offshoot of it, is Conan's attitude towards women and the way in which this story treats them. Here almost every female form featured is a lithe half-naked beauty or, in the case of the titular Frost-Giant's Daughter, a completely naked beauty. It is in his encounter with her that Conan's least forgivable character flaw comes to the fore as, frustrated at the way she has teased and deceived him, he makes a concerted effort to 'warm her with the fire in his own blood'. Forcibly.
However, hold-overs from a less PC age of pulp fantasy aside, this is a compelling beginning to this retelling of Conan's adventures. Although the book feels like a collection of short stories, wherein Conan had his origins, Busiek also manages to tell a larger tale of Conan's first great adventure and the harsh life lessons it teaches him. In fact, the aspect of Howard's stories I had quite forgotten amid the lusty maidens and crimson gore is that Conan is actually a tragic character. His is a constantly unsettled life where nothing and, more importantly, no-one remains with him for long. Here we get that feeling of wanderlust and tragic impermanence conveyed perfectly and it adds a depth to this book that it might not otherwise have had.
4 out of 5
Superman: Camelot Falls
(Art by Carlos Pacheco and Jesus Merino)
After celebrating an important anniversary with Lois, Superman heads of Kazakhstan where he is confronted by the powerful alien entity Subjekt-17. However, the ensuing conflict begins a chain of events which could destroy the future and place the world in the hands of the villain Khyber.
Does that blurb seem a bit rambling, unfocused and hard to get a sense of what's going on in this book? If 'yes', then it's a perfect representation of the book itself. There are three separate plotlines here and they're all set-up with the sense that they're interconnected but nothing could be further from the truth. There's no real contiguous story to follow here and the events seem to just be arbitrarily dropped in one after another.
I actually quite enjoyed seeing the title character struggling to balance his work as Superman with his life as Clark Kent at the beginning of the book. Sure, that's nothing new for any superhero story, but there's a reason it's so core to the superhero narrative and it's done well here. Things rapidly go off the rails when we're taken to Kazakhstan for Superman to fight an underwhelming Doomsday knock-off and then that's abruptly stopped by an insufferably arrogant time-travelling wizard who want to show everyone a post-apocalyptic vision for reasons that are never explained.
In short, this book is a mess and the few good elements are lost in that mess.
2 out of 5
Superman: Camelot Falls - The Weight Of The World
(Art by Carlos Pacheco and Jesus Merino)
The follow-up to 'Camelot Falls' sees Superman struggling with the prophecy that by helping humanity he is making the forces of darkness stronger until one day they'll be powerful enough to destroy humanity altogether. As he weighs the the possibility of saving the world by giving up saving it, he is constantly needled by the Altantean sorcerer Arion, who believes that civilisation must fall and rebuild if it is to prevent being destroyed completely.
This book has everything the first part of this story should have had and yet didn't. Here Arion becomes a present and credible threat, an actual antagonist (albeit perhaps not an entirely villainous one) to be defeated, rather than just an arrogant presence telling everyone they're doing it wrong. There's also appropriate time and consideration given to the idea that by saving humans aliens like Superman are actually preventing the species from developing properly. Superman, appropriate to his character, gives genuine consideration to whether he's harming humanity, a dilemma underlined by the fact that when he's mind-controlled for all of two seconds, the US Government sends a highly-equipped hit-squad after him and both the JLA and JSA step in to put him down. In fact my favourite scene in the book is where Superman gives vent to his frustration that everyone is assuming he's being controlled and trying to stop him, when all he's doing is trying to track Arion down after immediately shrugging off the mind-control.
There's also a satisfying conclusion to the story in which Superman defeats Arion, using his experience and ingenuity to counter the sorcerer's advantages but also resolves his own personal ethical battle about his role in human society.
4 out of 5