12/15/10

MOUSE GUARD: THE BLACK AXE #1—Petersen takes us back forty years to a pivotal day in the life of a young Celanawe and, in so doing, completely blows away everything he accomplished in the first dozen issues of this beautiful book. Epic. Everyone’s going to want to have this one in hardcover.

X-FACTOR #212—Maybe the best issue of David’s second run. This Lupacchino character is off the charts. A high watermark in a book that’s had quite a few pencillers pass through. David is such a master craftsman, it’s a delight to see him get to play with so many of Marvel’s toys, romps like this with Thor and Hela, or zipping up to the future like they did a while back, hooking up with the Summers Rebellion and crazy Alzheimer’s von Doom, always real good times. I confess that I wasn’t 100% with regard to the opening slots I gave these to, folks, and I want you to know that it’s been a slamming week so far.

THE UNWRITTEN #20—Lizzie Hexam dresses Grant Morrison’s musings on Superman (penultimate answer) up with the beautiful term “story-true.”

GREEN LANTERN #60—Batshit. I have often commented upon it, and here is a clear mark, part one of the Third Era of Mahnke, these months and months of transition culminating in this beautiful synthesis of his first two styles, the first that hyper-detailed but really strong and bold Kirby thing he climaxed in the back end of FINAL CRISIS there, followed by the really clean, somewhat reminiscent of MESMO DELIVERY and Paul Pope, lines monthly here for the last couple of years, and it’s led to this. Certainly the most consistent and excellent issue with four inkers that I’ve read in recent memory. This title’s been a slow burn for a while, but I was just being impatient, should have trusted that Johns would crank it up when the time was right.

BRIGHTEST DAY #16—Cranking it up. Maybe the best art of the series, thus far. And, oh noes! Firestorm destroyed everything! What about Batman?!?!? I bet he had a contingency plan in place.

BATMAN & ROBIN #18—Just the fact that Cornell can right out there in the middle of the page flat out say, “Little Nemo In Slumberland,” and it’s not a terrible crime or blasphemy but simply fucking perfect tells you all you need to know about this one. Except, too: if only my boy DFW had hung out long enough for this origin story. He would have just loved it. Oh, the empty spaces.

JOHN BYRNE’S NEXT MEN (vol. 2) #1—!!!! This made my day to see it on the racks, had read in some Comic-Con news wrap-up that Byrne was finally dusting this treasure off, but had no idea it was coming out today. I actually had to take a peek inside, something I never usually do, just to make sure it wasn’t a reprint, which would have made sense, given it’s something like sixteen years since this title was last published. It’s actually kind of a hybrid, the pages are technically all new, but almost half of them, ten of twenty-two are dedicated to recapping the thirty issues of the first volume. Made me glad that I hadn’t reread the whole run to get ready, like I might have if I’d have known. The recap was kind of hilarious to read. Since I’ve been jamming through Byrne’s early 80s runs on FF and ALPHA FLIGHT, that particular style of heavily expository recap wasn’t as jarring as it might have been otherwise, but it cracked me up to think about a complete newbie who’d never read a page of Volume One showing up for this, featuring a recap of 760-odd pages crammed into 10.

But, hilarity aside, Byrne uses a fairly ingenious way to frame the recap, reminding us all that he was rocking the “everything you know is a computer simulation” trope some time before the Wachowski boys decided that they had a hell of a graphic novel or two in them, or no, wait, maybe a movie. Too, it was cool, when Jazz got to the end of #30 and then just kept on going. Wait, slow down, go real time! And then, man, he hits the gas. Wait, all that future stuff was a dream! But then Nathan and Jazz disappear, as if they woke up somewhere else! But wait, here’s Reverend Jack at some unspecified date making a discovery that basically WTF’s everything that’s come before. ?!?!? Should be a hell of a second issue. They might should have offered this one for only a buck or two to bring in new readers and acknowledge the returning fans who already know the story, but, at least with that last page, Byrne throws in enough curveballs even for us jaded old school types.

I don’t think there was a definitive Best of Week, but it was a good time, all around.