5/23/12

BEST OF WEEK: BATMAN INCORPORATED #1—Wasn’t this supposed to be called BATMAN: LEVIATHAN? It doesn’t matter! This is the first new Morrison Batman of 2012, the first part of the ten-issue homestretch that will bring Morrison’s madcap six-year run to its heartbreaking conclusion. Once more, we’ve got fractured chronology as the first page takes place after the rest of the issue and assumes quite a bit more gravity when reread knowing how the rest of the issue plays out. Burnham returns and is as on-fire as ever. I dearly hope that all of this lead-time means he’s going to be able to rock all ten issues without a fill-in. I tell you, these long Morrison runs start out with musical chairs in the art department, but they always seem to finish strong.

Of course, the single greatest thing about this issue is the master-stroke that drops in at the conclusion of the opening scene, which takes place in a slaughterhouse and, in a single panel, has Damian join the author and Buddy Baker in the ranks of vegetarianism while introducing Bat-Cow from TINY TITANS into mainstream continuity. Which I cannot be hyperbolic enough about. Wonderful wonderful wonderful. 

JUSTICE LEAGUE DARK #9—I bailed out on this one around #4 or #5 because Milligan wasn’t moving fast enough for my taste. Had to drop back in, though, as I’ve got serious love for Lemire and these are apparently some of his favorite characters. Glad to see Janin and Arreola still blowing it up on art. This was pretty solid. Lemire uses Constantine for more than like four pages, always a plus, and it feels like more happened in this one issue than all of the first ones that I picked up, combined. And, oh look, there’s a tesseract in this book, too, now. I’ve got a soft spot for those things.

FLASH #9—Manapul and Buccellato just keep on tearing it up, here, nothing much new to report. Nice to get a L O S T reference exactly on the second anniversary of the last episode. This series continues to be quality fun that feels pretty Silver Age, month in and month out. Love those Eisneresque titles pages.

FABLES #117—Ah, FABLES. How has it already been ten years? The quality continues. I need to figure out how many issues Buckingham has drawn. Of course, he’s had replacements, so this team isn’t taking a shot at the title for most consecutive issues ever, but they’ve got to be in contention for most of all time, with Bendis/Bagley I think in the lead for the first 110 shots of ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN.

THE UNWRITTEN #37—Ah, is that Alan Moore on the first panel of page four? You would expect him to be up in the mix over this business. Shouldn’t “confidant” end in an “e”? Or is it like an English thing not to do that? I wonder how much of a time-jump we made here. It mentions that it’s been two years since #1, but clearly there’s been a hop since the end of #35. And no Tommy to be found! Hope he doesn’t sit out the duration of this storyline. Not sure where this one is headed. Something to do with climactic arcs, no doubt!

CHEW #26—It’s testament to the amount of depth that Layman/Guillory have given their supporting cast that on first read, I didn’t even notice that the title character only appears on four pages and, for that matter, is in a coma. No, this is Toni Chu’s show and we’ve now made it all the way up to #27, which we of course already got to lay our hands on last year. You’ve got to love the composition of those two shots of Barnabas Cremini and Chow dropping middle fingers on each other, hilarious stuff. And the return of the Russian “vampyre!” There is nothing in the world like this book.

PROPHET #25—Is Roy coming back? I think Graham’s drawing #26. This Milonogiannis fellow is also great and his style’s a good fit for the series, but I do hope that Roy is not out the door. We’re cranking it up here this month, starting out with a cast of three Prophets plus friends before everything quickly escalates to a point of critical mass that comes from completely out of nowhere and should have a serious impact on the mythos, going forward. Quite a lot to handle from the fifth issue since the reboot. I’m wild for the science pulp goodness of this series.

FANTASTIC FOUR #606—This one’s got a terrific high concept. Dumping Spidey and the wonderful two-dozen-strong ensemble that have found their way into these series, we get the first adventure starring solely the title characters in probably a couple of years. They’re on an unspecified mission in some red caverns that seems to be quite urgent. It’s not hard to guess approximately where they are (in terms of, shall we say, scale), but Hickman saves the revelation of exactly who they’re saving and from what until the very end, which definitely winds up punching you in the gut. You do have to work to suspend logic a little bit, the old Superman ending poverty thing, because you know, the Fantastic Four just beat cancer. The only thing they should be doing after the last page of this issue is working to automatize and streamline the process, not just congratulating themselves for this one good save they made. Don’t go down that path, True Believers! The 616 is not founded on logic but wonder!