Happy birthday, Buffy Anne. I can't believe you're younger than my little brother. I don't, actually.
BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER: SEASON EIGHT #40—It was pretty much compulsory to jam the first four parts immediately before jumping in with this, at long last, final finale issue of this most grueling of seasons. Jeanty has come so far, really beautiful work, here. Interesting that at the end of season 8, we almost cycle back to the initial season 1 set-up, almost like every season was a note on the major scale and we’re all the way back up to do, pronounced doe, a deer, a female deer. Huh, sorry, I suddenly have three piano students and am apparently relating everything to the black and whites at the moment. Um, this was a good end. The cover almost makes me cry, too.
(later: just read that Rebekah Isaacs is supposed to draw Season Nine, which is great terrific news, can't imagine a better fit.
THE BOYS #50—I’m such a fan of the writing in this book that I don’t want to talk about it any more, because I don’t feel qualified to. Ennis is on his own level, man. The Garth Plane.
(huh, now, suddenly, there’s an airplane roaring overhead, coming in for a landing at old AIBA)
MORNING GLORIES #6—Issues 2-4 dipped a bit in terms of self-contained thunder, but are going to read like a dream sandwiched in between the pilot and these last couple. I heard they were going to price that trade to sell, not only is it going to move like hotcakes, it’s going to be one hell of a damn read, too. Which is always preferable, but it’s nice to hit both.
And wowdamn, with just a line, Spencer pulls a trick almost worthy of the top of MAD MEN 1.03 with the remark by that old codger bartender, skipping the setting quite a ways forward in such an unassuming manner that it’s really kind of horrifying. Brilliant.
A very strong showing from the indies, this week, here at the top. And there was even an Ennis war book that was gone by the time I made it to the rack, alas. Let’s dive headfirst into mainstream superhero comics books. But, first! More Lone Star!
__By the by, I’ve been meaning to say and here’s as good a place as any. The new covenants of Wednesday Night Mass for the new year, which have not been strictly adhered to thus far but which shall be henceforth, are as follows:
1) Writing of Wednesday Night Mass shall take place only on Wednesday night, during or immediately following the reading of the new comics. Exceptions, of course, will be made for shipping delays, but little else. If anything.
2) Wednesday night ain’t over until I say it is.
3) There shall be intoxication, usually and preferably of the kind induced by Lone Star and the occasional glass of fine red wine, but possibly enhanced by one or two or, in ridiculous circumstance involving convergence of shipping, three shots of what is known in some circles as “hard liquor.”
__That is all
So, yes. Detective Comics Comics.
BRIGHTEST DAY #18—All right, the notion on the page 3 splash that we’re suddenly going to lose one of the hawks or Carol, along with the title, those two combine for quite the humorous effect.
Okay, shit, obviously this is written in real time. Just finished. What an issue. Reis is insane. What a concentrated wonderful dose of Reis. We’ve got the series title pegged as completely ironic by now, but I can’t believe how straight up Kill Superboy Tear Off Pantha’s Arm Dark Johns this was. Also, great how he just wove in the rogues and Carol, this and GL and FLASH (and I guess GL CORPS, I pretty much have myself pegged as an asshole now for not reading that this entire time) really are an unspoken event unto themselves. Leading up to an already-bannerhyped event, sure, but this is a pretty cool ramp-up, is my point. Also, now secretly hoping that the final panel of this series is old Slade skullfucking what’s left of Terra. That's pretty much where we're heading in terms of tone with this one, and after that Arsenal thing, not really sure where else to take it.
LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES #9—Yeah, man, 20 pages like this with 2 ads, that I can do. Top 3 Things I Liked About This: 3) Levitz’s retro Alan Moore transitions. I would blast the shit out of a young guy for doing this, but our man has his stripes, doesn’t he, and it gives me a nice gatherin’-round-the-campfire sort of feeling. Look, repeated dialogue in two different settings! 2) That shot at the bottom of a mid to late page when Brainiac says “Think.” Feels like the high point of the series thus far, in the moment, there. Only until 1) Brin’s “What’s WITH these crazy Durlans?” Haven’t you been waiting your whole life to holler that question out at all your friends?
SUPERIOR #4—Lois’s first exclusive and the all-too-obvious nemesis cliffhanger are strictly by-the-numbers (come to think of it, isn't this exactly how CHOSEN and the KICK-ASS movie ended?), but the notion that Millar is going to tackle the Superman-in-the-Real-World conundrum is side-splitting.
X-FACTOR #214—Darwin solo issue! Great opening bit about the internal monologue, you’ve got to love David. But, ads! I had no idea about that new Rhodey book! The Ubiquitous Mister Spencer & Kitson! Bound to be great. Also, can’t believe RUSE is really coming back. That and NEXT MEN make everything feel even more cyclical than usual all of a sudden. But, oh, X-Factor. The things this team does with what initially seems like nothing more than a wonderful better-than-most-everything-else-on-the-rack-throwaway-issue. This certainly reads like the 2,104th or however many single issue David has written. He’s kind of got the eye for structure and the craft, that one.
THOR #619—God, man. These pages. 3 and 4 alone. Ferry and Holligsworth are producing unbelievable work that I guess most people aren't checking out, because I feel like folks would be making a bigger deal about it all over the place. The first three issues were such a slow build, but we're really cooking now, Odin's justifiably pissed at both of his idiot sons, Kid Loki is fantastic, and King Balder makes a move. This thing with Odin and his crows when he's screaming at Kid Loki, did it beget whatever the hell Casanova does? Or is Fraction injecting his own potent brew into the Marvel/Norse mythos? Still working my way through Simonson's run, just hit #367, which is perfect, as that issue ends with something that happens again this time out. These old gods never really die, do they? This book is gorgeous, gorgeous. Just check out that body language in the one panel with Thor and Odin and Balder. And Hollingsworth's palette might be the best fit on a title for anything on the rack. Thinking this arc is going to take us right up until the movie, now, doesn't seem like we're on the verge of a wrap-up for Part 6.
****
BEST OF WEEK: THE INVINCIBLE IRON MAN #500—The usual suspects plus a slew of new and old friends show up to deliver what's easily the best single issue of a title starring this character since the classic #232 by Barry Windsor-Smith. Yes, Ellis & Granov killed it, and the Knaufs had a fine run, and of course these guys have been tearing it up for almost three years straight, but in terms of single-sitting meltdown experiences, you can't really get more bang for your buck than this bad boy.
We open with thinking we're going to get a strong done-in-one pushing the monthly's status quo forward just a bit while serving as some kind of symmetrical counterpoint to #7, the last time Tony teamed up with Spidey for the epilogue of a long arc, the relaunch's first. And with all the post-Civil War shenanigans that have gone down since then, particularly considering Norman was this title's Big Bad for an entire year during that time, well, that probably would have been more than enough. But, we get so much more than that. A flash-forward to 2052, two brand-new generations of Starks, the revelation that Pepper's already got Howard the Second well underway, and a continuation of last year's epic Mandarin-centric annual before a final showdown between him and Tony that ultimately supplies the title of the book and, frankly, sets up a status quo that I'd be real interested in seeing explored at a later date (no pun intended). With four different art teams for the various characters, the incumbents deliver their strongest showing of the entire series thus far. Larroca and D'Armata have come a long way since the Wednesday after Favreau/Downey first started taking names. They've left themselves with quite a high bar to hit every month. Just scenes of Tony and Peter hanging out, the light and shadow falling across those faces, top drawer work. And Fraction delivers the second script of his mainstream work* that lives up to the glorious and enormous potential of the mind behind CASANOVA amok and at play in the Marvel Universe.
Lapsed fans, don't wait for the .1 issue, this is what you need. And you can't beat the page rate, $5 for 56 glorious pages of present-day and future Tony trying, as ever, to put the high-yield megaton destructive genies that pop out of his head back in the bottle, and Marvel even throws in a 6-pg WAR MACHINE prologue to sweeten the pot, good-looking Kitson art and a solid script by The Ubiquitous Nick Spencer that suffers slightly from fractured Tarantino syndrome ** but still makes a pretty good argument to check out the latest permutation of The Adventures of Rhodey***. Your take-home #s are: for an extra dollar, you get 40 more pages than last month, and this book's better than it's ever been, and it's always been pretty good. This makes me wonder if Fraction and these other guys have an exit strategy in mind or are just teeing up for the next three years' worth of crazy. Here's hoping the latter proves to be the case.
*UNCANNY X-MEN #512 being the first
**Why give a narrative linear chronology when you can mix up the pieces like a jigsaw puzzle, just because?
***They should quit fucking around and just get Denzel next time, if we're still playing Musical Rhodeys.
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