Thursday, July 28, 2011

7/27/11

X-MEN: SCHISM #2—This is simply nothing more nor less than the goodness delivered last issue as Quentin Quire seeks asylum, Cyclops lies to Steve Rogers’ face, the new Hellfire Club gears up for domination, and Frank Cho draws Rogue, to the delight of all. Great fun.

FF #7—So, yeah, this turned out to be a full-on (fill-in, some would have it) Inhumans two-parter, which I think was an all right way to burn a couple of issues on the biweekly schedule, here, though I’m ready to get back to Epting and the regular two dozen or so cast members. I mean, if you want to fuck around with the main cast, hide all the heroes and villains that are still pressure cooking in that one building, send Alex Power and Valeria down for a hot dog or pretzel, am I right? I can do twenty-two pages of that, no problem. Venturing out of the hypothetical, I still don’t get how Black Bolt’s voice is heard or capable of causing destruction in space. The vacuum and all. Has FIREFLY taught us nothing? Medusa was certainly about as cool as a queen could be with picking up four sister-wives out of nowhere. You know what she and Crystal have been watching on HBO. The look on Black Bolt’s face is more, I guess “realistic” maybe shouldn’t be the word choice to go with, but, yeah, the way he’s eyeballing that Dire Wraith bride is about right. Friday nights won’t be quite as much fun. It will be good to get back to the eponymous team next time. Peter Parker has joined, you know, and quips just all the time!

THE MIGHTY THOR #4—This is a really, really good-looking book. You could complain about this taking place before FEAR ITSELF, but I wasn’t really that worried that Galactus was going to devour the planet so much, anyway. Killer last line by Thor on Mars. That will keep the kids coming back, The Matt Fraction!

CAPTAIN AMERICA & BUCKY #620—I guess this is what Brubaker got to partially make up for what went down in FEAR ITSELF. It would have been cool if they had inverted the title. And much more accurate. But yeah, Samnee & Breitweiser giving us BUCKY: YEAR ONE, or anything at all, more please, always.

CRIMINAL: THE LAST OF THE INNOCENT #2—This one had a lot to live up to after the uppercut that the first issue gave me, and it delivers on every level. Serious escalation, enough to make you think that there could possibly only be one part left to this arc. And Megan Abbott continues the streak of cranking out an essay that’s at least as enjoyable as the main feature, this one beautifully reminiscing over this sort of proto-Unsolved Mysteries show hosted by Leonard Nimoy in the seventies. This title continues to be one of the most consistently rewarding on the rack.

KIRBY: GENESIS #2—All right, it’s kind of starting to freak me out when the characters turn and just start talking to me. Fourth WORLD, not wall! This isn’t Byrne’s SHE-HULK. Still, fantastic and dynamic concepts keep raining down on us at a breakneck pace, so there’s nothing to complain about. And it looks like Darkseid just showed up, or someone close enough, which has to be a good thing.

JOHN BYRNE’S NEXT MEN #8—Wait, Thomas Kirkland?!?! Has he been here this whole time and just not been name-checked? Or did it just take me this long to lock back into 2112? But next issue’s it? And the cover’s just like #30 from the last volume. This thing is going to definitely require a single-sitting pass. I sure am glad that Byrne got around to putting it out there.

BATMAN: THE DARK KNIGHT#4—Oh ho, and now this title’s output for the past three weeks matches that of the preceding six months. Never heard of Jason Fabok, but he does a pretty solid job of showing up with lines that look close enough to what Finch would have done, if we could have all waited until Thanksgiving for this issue to show up. This one doesn’t really hit me much either way. It’s not bad at all, but it’s also not, you know, a great Batman story. I suppose I’ll pick up #5 whenever it shows up in August and give #1 with Milligan a shot, but I can also see moving on. Finch isn’t still acting like he’s going to stay on this monthly, right? They’re going to have to alternate arcs with this Fabok fella, or someone.

FABLES #107—Another entertaining, immaculately crafted story that sheds light on a corner of this expansive universe that we haven’t visited in quite some time. This series has been so excellent for so long, it kind of spoils the reader. No, not that “spoils”!

AMERICAN VAMPIRE #17—Mm, not sure what else to say about this, kind of the same story with FABLES, more unremarkable quality.

DETECTIVE COMICS #880—All right, I mistakenly thought that this was the last ever issue of the first volume of this classic series, which jacked up the reading experience a bit more for me. Snyder & Jock continue to call down destruction from on high. I was a little bit uncertain about the Joker showing up here after disappearing at the end of Morrison’s second act, how it all lined up, but Snyder makes it all work well before the last page. It really wouldn’t be out of place for Starring THE GORDONS to appear under the title, the two Jims have been front and center since the first issue of this run, with Barbara darting in at will for pitch-perfect characterization. This issue, in particular, features a walk-away line from Babs that is bound to have fans of her post-Killing Joke/Oracle evolution cheering, no matter what’s happening in September. The best part, though, hands down, as ever, is the interaction between Gordon and Dick. I mean, think about it, Jim’s a solid #3 for surrogate father figure, and the way these two interact really showcases Snyder’s grasp of the relationship. Real glad to get one more of these, should be a hell of a finale. Over much too soon, really.

****
BEST OF WEEK: THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN CENTURY 1969—To actually properly review this thing would take at least another couple of reads and probably a bit of distance but after only getting flattened by it the one time, I can safely say that it blew away everything else this week. Which is only fair, I mean 72 pages by these guys up against less than a third of that from anyone else is not exactly shooting straight. I reread 1910 the previous night to get ready and was still surprised by both how much of a tonal shift this has been from the previous volume along with how little of one we got in between the first and second parts. Which, you know, there was only a gap of twelve years in between Volume Two and Three, but almost a full six decade jump here since the first chapter that came out, I guess it was November of 2009. Seems like I was home for Thanksgiving and had a baby sleeping in the other room, anyway.

But yes, this particular volume. We open with a nice bit of symmetry, Danni Nemo near the end of her life captaining the Nautilus for the better part of the 20th century. O’Neil continues to excel with packing each and every page full of so many Easter eggs that it really defies comprehension. Moore appears to have totally blown past caring about, if he ever did, the comprehension of American readers and is just tossing in every obscure English character he has ever encountered in his extremely well-read life, not to mention Brian Jones, late of the Rolling Stones (and I suppose the Monty Python lads in character as The Rutles). The team dynamic has shifted over to a pretty strange place, a triangle between Mina and Quartermain and Orlando, who involuntarily shifts back and forth between genders. Plus, Mina at least is having some serious issues with the whole immortality game as she closes in on the end of her first century. And the team is still trying to run down the fictitious version of Aleister Crowley, or at least the demon who inhabited him? I’m not 100% clear on the distinction. But everybody runs around trying to make something happen while Moore & O’Neil launch salvo after salvo of references and in-jokes. Jerry Cornelius shows up, or maybe it was Michael Moorcock, London’s first comic book store gets referenced via the title of a different Ray Bradbury story, and everyone marvels at how clever our creators really are.

SPOILER TAG

But the nonsense madness really kicks into overdrive at the Purple Orchestra concert in Hyde Park, which I’m sure is based on an actual Stones show in the same place. Just when it doesn’t seem as though the story can get any bleaker, Mina takes some acid and gets straight up raped by Voldemort, then institutionalized for at least the next eight years. That’s right. Out of nowhere, just when you think that Moore can’t get any cannier or cheekier with his obscure references, he pulls a 180 and drops in possibly the most widely known villain in popular culture at the moment. It would be the equivalent of Darth Vader showing up if this were being published in 1980. Even cooler, Moore draws a straight line from Crowley to young Tom Riddle in a way that somehow comes across as organic and not forced. The bit about having him lie that he teaches Defence Against the Dark Arts “at a school up north” is just the masterstroke, absolutely brilliant. And the King’s Cross exit in alternating panels. I think anyone on the fence about this one has to give it up for that climax, just spitting fire. But yes, clearly a very dark turn of events. It will be very interesting to see where the crew takes this for the final installment and how they leave the status quo set up for future volumes. Also, serious extra credit for the six or eight pages of text at the end, prose so elevated I got high just reading it, thrilling to the adventures of Jackboy Sixty and delighting in Moore’s ability to even cram in guys who have got to be the fathers of Richard Belzar’s ubiquitous John Munch and even fucking Rawls from THE WIRE. McNulty wept.

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