FEAR ITSELF #5—Best yet from this team who’s been turning in first-rate work from the first issue, though we had to wade in a few episodes before realizing how deep in us their hooks really were. Funny, this is the exact thing that happened with me and FINAL CRISIS, those first couple of issues looked good and there were some interesting beats, but they weren’t just leveling me like I needed. This series seems to be heading in the same direction as FC, not as beholden to the serial installment as the experience as a whole. All of which to say, now that we’re rounding the turn into the home stretch, there’s plenty to love about most every page, everything’s burning bright now, every shift of perspective ratcheting up the conflict and tension that much higher, snatching up key moments from already-classic runs by Brubaker and Hickman, stomping them into the ground, and moving right on without a second thought. And enough can never be said about this art team, what magnificence. I wish the big events could all be this good. I wish they would really and truly stop after this, going to be pretty hard to top across the board after this one.
NEW AVENGERS #15—And then Bendis & Deodato drop the magnificent trick of making the damn Squirrel Girl-centric FEAR ITSELF tie-in worthy of pulling double-duty with the main title and managing to stand just as tall. Top to bottom, franchise to franchise, there is no doubt in my mind that Marvel has not been doing this well since the first seven years of production. It’s starting to freak me out, pondering what the next five years of Axel Marvel will entail. You wish he could lure over everyone from that SHOOT resurrected anthology from a few months back. That one about the toys really messed me up, man, what was going on with that last panel? We’re all toys for the bugs?!? But oh yes, Bendis. Marvel Architect Prime pulls another Tarantino, dusts off another, sorry, pet character from obscurity and injects her with just the right brew of motivation and pitch-perfect dialogue to make her shine, and us care.
THE RED WING #2—Another shot of beautiful from this team, who really only needed to not totally fumble the slick polish of the first issue. What I like about this one is that it gives me a little thrill of the new, sure there are little bits I could parse that remind me of this or that, but the blend makes me feel like I haven’t seen this anywhere before and have no idea what’s coming next. And the last page really confirms that. The pace of the next two issues is really going to be an insane thing.
CRIMINAL: THE LAST OF THE INNOCENT #3—Oh, that last page last month (or a couple of weeks ago?) was only the beginning. Of course it’s going too well for Riley, nothing in this series could ever be that easy. More than almost any other book, these guys are so good that every time I crack open the latest installment, I forget I’m reading a comic, completely fail on the first pass to marvel at the craft, how well Brubaker’s plot and dialogue line up with Phillips’s expressive lines and Staples’s masterful tones and shading, just get pulled along on the ride. Many more people should be reading this. Faerber’s Magnum essay finally broke the streak, not bad but it didn’t punch me in the face, either. Really, it’s amazing that anything ever did, after the Encylopedia Brown/Great Brain team-up.
MORNING GLORIES #11—Oh, Ike. You were always my favorite. Really intrigued by what Spencer and friends have cooking for the third arc. Half a year’s worth of -centrics was a risky move, but they’ve made them mostly compelling and it will be a cool thing to see everything slam back together and start moving forward faster.
THE UNWRITTEN #28—This Golden Age tale of creation is probably my favorite arc yet, always a good sign with yer long-form Vertigo serials. Gross’s chameleon trickery certainly reinforces my notion that I can never trust the man, or let him out of my sight for a minute.
FRANKENSTEIN AND THE CREATURES OF THE UNKNOWN #3—Huh. This one appears to just barrel right on in to Lemire’s post-FLASHPOINT pilot issue. I don’t really mind them apparently playing so loose with the continuity, just interesting to note. Was this the third art team in as many issues? I only remember Ibraim Roberson tearing it up. Wish Mahnke could have dropped in and knocked it out, but Lord knows he needed his ever-dwindling lead-time on GL.
AMERICAN VAMPIRE: SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST #3—Again, just can’t believe how good this thing looks. Nothing particularly crushing about the plot, but it takes us where we want to go and we never see the strings. Because of the pretty pretty pictures. Dave Stewart should really get his name on the cover.
****
BEST OF WEEK: DETECTIVE COMICS #881—As soon as this creative lineup was announced the last time the Batbooks had a big shakeup (which I think was just right around last Thanskgiving, careful readers), I was quick to point out to any and all godless Morrison naysayers that THIS was going to be the book for them, a return to the deductive roots and seedy back-alley fisticuffs that have held the character, the legend, together against the flux and shift of all these decades that just keep rushing by and bearing us along with them. I mean, Jock on art, right? I did not imagine what a tight gemstone of perfection that Snyder was going to craft, yes, more than ably realized by Jock, but also by Francesco Francavilla, who I’ve never encountered but who really blew me away here. There are things going on in the first half of this run that completely got by me, setups that you have to hit the payoff to fully appreciate because the first time through, they just seem like good storytelling, solid character beats for their own sake, even while they quietly shore up the walls of the bigger story that Snyder is quietly telling.
This is about fathers and sons and daughters and what they hope and dream and fear for each other, about how the way the people of Gotham respond to nightmares shapes them, sending them off toward redemption or damnation, of how not knowing for sure is sometimes the most horrible part, and most of all, how you don’t really need to share the same blood to be family. That last, surely, must be one of the most enduring morals of the Batman mythos, but its articulation here is made all the more poignant by the absence of Bruce Wayne, never on-panel for this entire run and rarely even mentioned, but his good work is evident throughout, in the way these people relate to one another, band together against darkness and even love each other, all because one rich orphan chose to embrace fear rather than surrender to it, and attracted the hearts and minds of enough like-minded spirits that they are more than capable of carrying on the mission in his absence.
I really almost got a little choked up at the end, Dick closing down shop. I’m just not ready for it to be over. Everything is working so well! Wish this team, this set-up, could have gotten a couple more years to really stretch out, no telling where it would have gone.
Man, Snyder and Morrison trading off on a book of just Dick, Damian, Gordon, and Alfred having conversations in varying combinations really does sound like one of the coolest things. We’ve only got a little longer to wait and see, but here and now, regressing Dick out of the suit really seems like a terrible, terrible mistake. It’s such a perfect fit.
No comments:
Post a Comment