CAPTAIN SWING & THE ELECTRICAL PIRATES OF CINDERY ISLAND #3—All right, the last issue of this came out so long ago that I was in New Orleans last October and made it into Crescent City Comics and saw #2 and couldn’t believe that it had come out/it had been so long, etc, then started reading it that night and realized that I had already picked it up when it came out so long before even then that I had forgotten about it. This was in October, remember. So, now, here we are. Well worth the wait. Ellis and Cacero drop the hammer on this one. As much as I enjoyed Ellis’s ASTONISHING romp, it’s quite apparent that he shines most in this element, tightly compressed minis in which he dreams up and compacts enough premise, plot and characterization that they would translate quite well to several other media (this and particularly IGNITION CITY of later. I mean, think about it. DEADWOOD is gone. What if we had an hourly IGNITION ongoing?). This and NECRONOMICON lately, man. AVATAR is putting out some quality. Still haven’t hit CROSSED but just dreading the hell out of Lapham’s upcoming CALIGULA. I mean, God.
NEW AVENGERS #10—What a wonderful world we are living in when Bendis and Chaykin throwing this down opposite Deodato pushing the present tense forward just as hard as he can is not even a big deal, just a monthly? Crushing work, again. I tell you, this title.
WEIRD WORLDS #3—I stumbled upon TIMEWARP, this old DC anthology that debuted right as ’79 kicked into ’80, a kind of Yank bimonthly approximation of 2000 AD, with Kaluta on covers and eight short stories by Levitz, Dematteis, Chaykin, Ditko, Garcia-Lopez, and a bunch of other talented guys I never heard of otherwise. This series reminds me of good old TIMEWARP. Beautiful work from all parties. But, still, Ordway on Lobo is really freaking me out. Terrific anthology.
SUPERBOY #5—This really is everything a monthly should be. It occurs to me reading this that a lot of the top Marvel books seem like they might read better in trade (thinking Brubaker CAP, Fraction’s IRON MAN and UNCANNY and—until the last couple of issues—this first THOR arc, and all Bendis’s AVENGERS stuff), I mean, the beats just seem geared for it. Whereas something like this, really all of these last three come across as more satisfying single reads. Like, I wouldn’t want to wait for the trades, because, not even counting waiting, you would only get one 60-90 minute blast of goodness, as opposed to getting the singles doled out one at a time and really getting to savor them. But this issue, we get the first Superboy/Kid Flash race, an idea so head-smackingly obvious, you can’t believe that it hasn’t happened before now. The character beats between the two pals are pitch-perfect as ever. Simon and Sunjan pretty much get the month off, and Lori’s two and a half pages don’t quite earn the space on their own but, counter to what I said at the top here, I suspect that they’ll make more sense when we see where her plot takes her. Still one of my favorite monthlies five issues in. Jamie Grant is a god.
BATMAN INCORPORATED #3—I didn’t realize that it had been like ten weeks or something since the last issue of this came out. Yanick Paquette told me that he just signed on for a very few issues (while thumbing through the originals of the squid fight that opens #2. “Does this look like monthly art to you?” “No, sir, it does not.”) and that #4 was already being drawn by someone else (this, the last week of January), so maybe we’re back onto a monthly schedule now. Still, though, I hate to see the Batbook relaunch stall out pretty much out of the gate, what with Finch still way behind on the second freaking issue, the big gap here, and BATWOMAN desolicited until further notice (I guess I should go ahead and thumb through that preview?). Not the best follow-up to finally beating Marvel in December, good people! Let’s talk about the third chapter of BATMAN INCORPORATED, though, friends. The first five pages build the tension very well, read like a completely different and new title, which really lends itself well to the international flavor of this book. And then they blow the doors off for that two-page splash on 6 and 7. Also dug the lowercase Spanish captions for Don Vargas’s origin. You don’t need to be fluent to translate “Extravagante! Irresponsable! Enigmático!” as pretty much Argentinian Bruce Wayne. And that scene with the two guys dropping the secret identity machismo, perfect. Paquette’s body language of Wayne dancing the tango puts it way over the top, though. Then we pretty much just get deathtrap set-up and out. Drowning three blind kids in sewage is a pretty messed up concept if you go far enough to imagine what those last few moments must be like from their POV. Yep, all twenty pages of this are pretty much perfect for me, as usual, don’t even mind super-talented chameleon Pere Perez blending right in on pages 16 and 17. Give that man his own entire issue already, Editorial!
****
BEST OF WEEK: BATMAN & ROBIN #21—I’m as stunned as you are that this is able to trump the latest offering from Morrison and company, but you know what, it just pulled a little bit more love out of my heart. Possibly because it is such a dead-on continuation of the premise that Morrison/Quitely first set up back in issues #1-3 of this title before moving on with the rest of the longform Morrison plot juggernaut. The chemistry between Dick and Damian is just really tough to top, every beat crafted to perfection by Tomasi. And Gleason is on fire, what a spread on pages 4 and 5! And, hey, page 2. And he even riffs on those first arc Quitely splashes on page 14. Plus, just personal fanboy preference here, like every other word of this thing isn’t, but to me the ultimate answer to the Bruce vs. Batman Who Is He Really? question can be found with a shot of dude down in the cave, costume on but cowl off on a microscope or combing databases or just thinking, doing the work, being a detective. Was so pumped to get even a couple of minutes worth of that in the first Nolan/Bale flick, and it just slammed the whole thing home even more to get two pages of that with Dick, Damian, and Alfred in the cave. To say nothing of, “News flash, Pennyworth . . .” Just too great. DC knocked it out of the park this week.
No comments:
Post a Comment